Loading summary
Transcript217 lines
- [00:04]
John Podhoretz
Hope for the best, Expect the worst.
- [00:11]
Noah Rothman
Some preach and pain Some die of thirst the way of knowing which way it's going Hope for the best Expect.
- [00:21]
John Podhoretz
The worst Hope for the best.
- [00:25]
Noah Rothman
Welcome to the Commentary magazine daily podcast. Today is Wednesday, June 11, 2025, and this I have to report as we start, is a very special day for me because my oldest daughter turns 21 today. Happy birthday, Shayna, who will not be listening to this podcast as she is preparing to begin her camp counseloring job in the northwest woods of Wisconsin. But it's a pretty steady, staggering event in a person's life to have their oldest attain her majority, because as far as I'm concerned, she's really three months old. And people have been sending me pictures of her all morning of when she was three months old, four months old, five months old. It's very striking. She's a wonderful kid and a very smart and able and serious person, and I'm very proud of her. And it is. It's strange on the one hand to be. I'm 64 years old, so maybe this should have happened for me a long, long time ago. It will happen for both Seth and Matt at much younger in age than I am. I mean, I could be a grandfather right now, I suppose, or even a great grandfather under other circumstances. But I started having kids late and. And it is a miracle of life to see your children grow into adulthood with that weird bifurcated image in your head of. On their birthdays, particularly of the day they were born, you know, the third birthday party, the bat mitzvah, the high school graduation. This kind of living through time on the same morning. It's. It's. It's awe inspiring, and it reminds you of the wonders of being alive and the miracle that it is to be alive and to get to a moment like this. So with that sentiment, I'm hearing.
- [02:31]
Seth Mandel
I'm hearing Perry Como, Sunrise, Sunset, you know, is this the little girl I once knew?
- [02:37]
Noah Rothman
Yeah.
- [02:37]
Seth Mandel
Playing in the background.
- [02:38]
Noah Rothman
Perry Como. Perry. That's an interesting reference. That's. That's Fiddler on the Roof. Perry Como was an Italian. Was a lazy Italian crooner. This is like, Seth, this is like you have a.
- [02:50]
John Podhoretz
You have a wire cross somewhere. This is like when you were talking about the Catskills and you said the Poconos.
- [02:55]
Noah Rothman
Yeah. Like, I'm sorry, Perry Como is not the voice that I associate with Sunrise.
- [03:00]
Seth Mandel
The whole song is about.
- [03:01]
Noah Rothman
Yeah, it is about that. It's a. That. Yeah. No, that's a marriage song. Anyway, whatever. Thank you very Much. And, and when you're, when, when your oldest turn swimming that one, your oldest turns 21, you will be much younger and much less affected by the idea that time is.
- [03:20]
Matthew Continetti
Won't be much younger. I'll be. I'll be seven years younger than you are today.
- [03:24]
Noah Rothman
Okay. You know. Okay.
- [03:26]
Matthew Continetti
It's life.
- [03:29]
Noah Rothman
Anyway, so that's my story. And joining me to tell more stories of actual horrors on this planet in the last 24 hours, our executive editor, Abe Greenwald. Hi, Abe.
- [03:42]
John Podhoretz
Hi, John.
- [03:43]
Noah Rothman
The aforementioned senior editor, Seth Mandel and his. And with the chair, the president of the Perry Como Fan club. Hi, Seth.
- [03:51]
Seth Mandel
Hi, John.
- [03:52]
Noah Rothman
And the increasingly aging Washington commentary columnist, Matthew Gottnetti. Hi, Matt.
- [03:57]
Matthew Continetti
Every day. Hi, John.
- [03:59]
Noah Rothman
All right, look, I texted you guys last night, and I said, I don't want to talk about L. A. We spent days talking about L. A. Let's talk about something else. And we have to talk about L. A. I'm sorry. We have to talk about L. A, because these three things happened yesterday. Two things happened yesterday that are so in conflict with each other that it's hard to sort of see past what's going on. So Gavin Newsom, the governor of California, gave a nationwide dress, which I thought was interestingly staged because he's in front of the flag of California now. I did not. I've not really taken account of the fact, though, I've seen the flag that, you know, the flag of California features a bear climbing up a mountain, is on the. Is on the flag of California. And so as Newsom is speaking, it kind of looks like the bear is climbing up his shoulder and is about to take a chomp out of his left ear. So it was kind of distracting, like bad elementary. Michael Deaver, one of those, you know, sort of like image geniuses, would have said, I don't think we should put the flag there because you're just going to stare at the bear the whole time. But he gave this speech about basically how the moment of horror for our democracy has come. Trump is now activated, you know, essentially the shock troops of his authoritarian revolution. They're arresting seamstresses. A word I don't think I've heard in my lifetime spoken by a public official, the word seamstress. Like, what are we. Is this the triangle shirtwaist factory fire of 1911? Seamstresses. I didn't even know you were allowed to use gendered language like seamstresses. But they're arresting. Seamstresses. They're arresting.
- [05:43]
Seth Mandel
There's a. There's a French, There's a French Laundry joke in there somewhere, somewhere connected, the.
- [05:49]
Noah Rothman
Seamstress is, is repairing the tablecloth that was served to him at the French Laundry. And so this is what's happening. And Trump has come in with his essentially shock troops to, you know, undermine our democracy and destroy things, apparently because he didn't ask Newsom for permission to nationalize the National Guard or something like that. Whatever, fine. So he's saying, trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump. And meanwhile, the mayor of Los Angeles, who had said, look, there's nothing to see here, does a citywide curfew, says anyone on the streets after 8pm or something like that is going to be arrested.
- [06:33]
Matthew Continetti
Very authoritarian of her. Very authoritarian.
- [06:38]
Noah Rothman
That's. So this is my point. Get your story straight. Is this just an expression of protest against the overreach of ice, or is it a lawless spree that has to be snuffed out in its crib by things like curfews, which are kind of a radical thing to do in a large city? Like, I know we went through Covid, where basically the entire country was under.
- [07:09]
Matthew Continetti
24 hour daycare, California in particular, which is why I think Newsom and Bass have no standing here. I mean, this is the same governor as we just alluded to, who shut down his entire state, enforced draconian social distancing measures, L.A. county had a ridiculous mask ban, mask mandate rather, that we talked about during the pandemic. And yet he was sneaking off to have very exclusive dinners at this shishi restaurant, the French Laundry. Now he wants to turn around and say that by trying to enforce the rule of law, Donald Trump is threatening our democracy. It's ridiculous. I mean, you mentioned that you don't like talking about Los Angeles. I love talking about what's happening in Los Angeles. I love it because it is putting into high relief everything going on in American politics right now. The Democrats have learned Absolutely nothing from 2024. Absolutely nothing. Here we are not six months into President Trump's second term, and you have Gavin Newsom lionized by the media for defending illegal immigration, violent protesters, Right. And casting himself as the leader of the resistance to protect, quote, unquote, our democracy. All three issues were terrible for the Democrats in 2024. And here they are again, just walking in to the meat grinder.
- [08:46]
Noah Rothman
Okay, not just terrible in 2024. Remember, they were terrible in the year that the Democrats won in 2020. When are we going to hear about the closed door meeting of the House Democratic Caucus or House whatever or, you know, Democrats somewhere, as was the case after the 2020 election, which remember Biden won. Right. By 7 million votes. And Abigail Spanberger met her colleagues at the House retreat and said, you guys nearly sank us with this defund the police stuff. Stop it. Did you see what happened in southern South, South Florida? With what? With, with the, you know, three Republicans winning in Democratic districts. What are you doing to us? And that was in a year that they won. This is coming after a year in which they not only lost, but in which Republicans held the House and took back the Senate. So they are in a worse position than they were in 2020 and they're like walking off a plank. I don't.
- [10:03]
Matthew Continetti
The media is saying today as we record this podcast on June 11, that Gavin Newsom is now the leader of the opposition. Well, is that a good thing? Gavin Newsom has a middling at best job approval rating in California after presiding over economic dysfunction, outward migration, homelessness in Los Angeles and San Francisco, crime in both cities, the wildfires that devastated Los Angeles, and now this episode in Los Angeles as well. And he's supposed to be somehow the Democrats savior by the way. You know, he went on that one podcast to see suggest that maybe biological men shouldn't be playing in women's sports. And then just last week he turned around and was that podcast.
- [10:57]
Noah Rothman
Wasn't that, Was that Tucker?
- [10:59]
Matthew Continetti
It was his podcast, I think.
- [11:00]
Noah Rothman
But he did.
- [11:01]
Seth Mandel
But he was talking to Charlie Kirk, wasn't Charlie Kirk.
- [11:03]
Noah Rothman
That's right.
- [11:04]
Matthew Continetti
I'm sorry. Yeah, he did. But he said it once and then he turned around last week and is defending the trans athletes besting biological females. And I don't see how this is a winner at all.
- [11:18]
Seth Mandel
Well, there's something very similar to the, the defund the police stuff, which is that the Democratic Party as a party is in making decisions on who's going to be it's, you know, its next leader like this is Gavin Newsom deciding to be Gavin Newsom. And I was thinking when you're talking about Abigail Spanberger, the other person that came to mind was Alyssa Slotkin because the prior cycle she had been one of the most outspoken Democrats against the defund the police stuff and what was going on in Portland and the autonomous zones and all that stuff. And she had sort of gotten into it with the AOC crowd about the fact that they were making decisions to elevate an issue that was killing every Democrat in between the coast. Slotkin, remember, barely scraped by this year to win the Senate seat in.
- [12:13]
Matthew Continetti
That was right.
- [12:14]
Seth Mandel
In Michigan. Right. So she, I mean she had to scratch and claw and fight her way into that Senate seat in Michigan just for the Democrats to hold that Senate seat. I expect her and other Democrats like her to be absolutely furious about this. But not being, not directing it against, you know, the one coast, but the other coast. I think Gavin Newsom has put himself a bit in the crosshairs. It's not public yet, but it became, eventually became public with Biden. It eventually became public with AOC and the defund the police stuff. This stuff will spill out and Newsom will, will have a target on his.
- [12:56]
Matthew Continetti
I disagree.
- [12:57]
Noah Rothman
Well, here's, here's my disagreement. Okay, so three Democrats have now surfaced in the first half of 2025 as potential national figures in the. On upcoming resistance. One of them was Cory Booker with his 25 hour filibuster that I still don't know. I don't know what the subject of.
- [13:27]
Matthew Continetti
He was. He was angry.
- [13:29]
Noah Rothman
He was, he was angry. Usually you filibuster in order to stop a piece of legislation or to. He just stood there for 25 hours and talked, promoted and raised a lot of money and like people are like, he was great. And I still don't know what he was saying or what point he was trying to make. And then there's Newsom, right. Who at least now. So Booker is, that is a senator from, I don't know, the sixth largest state in the country, population wise. So he's not an unserious figure. He's not like coming out of Idaho or something. Like he's, he.
- [14:09]
Seth Mandel
Okay, he is an unserious figure.
- [14:11]
Noah Rothman
But I know, but you know what I'm saying, he's a, he's a political.
- [14:14]
Matthew Continetti
Ran for president, major American president.
- [14:17]
Noah Rothman
Right. Has an interesting backstory. Was a mayor, you know, was all.
- [14:22]
Seth Mandel
Okay, played college ball, runs a good 40.
- [14:24]
Noah Rothman
Yeah. Then there's, then there's no. Who is the governor of the largest state in the country by a pretty large factor, almost a factor of two. And so he's of course an important American politician just by dint of that fact. And then you have number three. And who is number three? He is a state assemblyman from New York named Zoran Mamdani, who is the flavor of the moment in progressive circles, has raised, it appears, close to $20 million for his mayoral campaign, which he will likely lose when the primary is up in 1920.
- [15:06]
Matthew Continetti
Knock on wood.
- [15:08]
Noah Rothman
Well, I mean, it's a complicated system and it's actually hard for him. Interestingly enough, this process of, of, of ranked choice voting means that his Capacity to sort of, like, have momentum is. Is somewhat thwarted by the fact that, you know, he can't lap Andrew Cuomo on the first ballot. That doesn't matter. It's like. But what does this tell us? So you have the governor of California who is coming out as a, as an antagonist to law enforcement, because that's what ICE is. And to some extent, that's what the American military is, at least in the eyes of the public. We can talk about whether or not it is good or bad to activate Marines to do things. I tend to think it's bad. And Trump, they shouldn't have done it. And I don't like seeing it. But it's not unprecedented, and it is a real thing. And, and the cops and the military share. They are uniformed officers in the United States. The only people, aside from, like, firemen who wear uniforms. And they are there putting their lives. And their job is domestically or abroad to put their lives on the line to protect other Americans. And Newsom is now an opponent of theirs effectively, and I would say the lapd, because the chief of the LAPD is like, we're outnumbered here. We're outgunned. This is dangerous. Put a curfew on. And then there's Mandani, who is for government nationalization of opening government grocery stores, imposing a rent freeze that he does not have the power to impose as a mayor, and opposition to the Jewish national homeland. These are the three figures who have emerged in 2025 as the vanguard of the Democratic Party going into 2028. Dear God. Yeah.
- [17:16]
Matthew Continetti
You didn't mention AOC and Bernie Sanders who were getting. But they're like crowds at the beginning of the year.
- [17:22]
Noah Rothman
Right. But I'm saying Mamdani has kind of lapped them in that category just because he's fresh.
- [17:27]
Matthew Continetti
He's fresh and he's young and he's running for, you know, articulate and he's.
- [17:31]
Noah Rothman
You know, all that stuff.
- [17:32]
Matthew Continetti
He's a terrible person, you know, and he's an anti Semite and shame on him and anyone who votes for him, by the way, the very fact that he's doing so well, as you suggest, is an indictment of the Democratic Party.
- [17:45]
Noah Rothman
Right.
- [17:45]
Matthew Continetti
And I think points to the loss of status among the Alissa Slotkins of the world and the Abigail Spam Burgers of the world.
- [17:57]
Noah Rothman
Hey, it's John here. I'm happy today to talk to you about our new advertiser, Shopify, because we have been using Shopify here at Commentary to help distribute, sell, and manage our merch for the Commentary podcast for a couple of years now and they are now here and want us to tell you about how you can use them to get right get things the way you need them to make your business work with your podcast or whatever business you may have. Because Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world and 10% of all e commerce in the US from household names like Mattel and Gymshark to brands just getting started. You can get started with your own design studio inside Shopify with hundreds of ready to use templates and Shopify helps you build a beautiful online store to match your brand style, accelerate your content creation. Shopify is packed with helpful AI tools that write product descriptions, page headlines and even enhance your product photography. You can get your word out like you have a marketing team behind you, easily create email and social media campaigns wherever your customers are scrolling or strolling. And best yet, Shopify is your commerce expert with world class expertise in everything from from managing inventory to international shipping to processing returns and beyond. If you're ready to sell, you're ready for Shopify. So turn your big business idea into Kaching. With Shopify on your side, sign up for your $1 per month trial and start selling today at shopify.com commentary that's shopify.com commentary shopify.com commentary hey guys, you know when it comes to spending, sometimes it's out of sight, out of mind. That daily coffee habit, those streaming subscriptions, they add up fast without you even noticing. Rocket Money helps you spot those patterns so you can do something about them and keep more money in your pocket. This is an app, a personal finance app that I use Rocket Money to help find and cancel my unwanted subscriptions. It helps monitor my spending and helps lower my bills so that I can grow my savings. First of all, it helps you see all of your subscriptions in one place and know exactly where your money is going. For ones you don't want anymore, Rocket Money can help you cancel them. It will even try to negotiate lower bills for you. They automatically scan your bills to find opportunities to save. Then you can ask them to negotiate for you. They'll deal with customer service so you don't have to cancel your unwanted subscriptions and reach your financial goals faster with Rocket Money. Go to RocketMoney.com Commentary today. That's Rocket Money.com Commentary RocketMoney.com Commentary.
- [21:02]
Matthew Continetti
You know we have a primary just yesterday in New Jersey where the two parties selected their gubernatorial candidates. Mickey Sherrill, who was part of that kind of national security Group of Democrats.
- [21:15]
Noah Rothman
Elected in fighter pilot.
- [21:17]
Matthew Continetti
Right. She won the Democratic primary by about 14 points. But Jack Ciatarelli, who came within a whisker of winning the governor's seat in 2021, he won the Republican nomination overwhelmingly. You know, New Jersey was a close state. It was close. It was closer than some red states.
- [21:39]
Noah Rothman
Yeah.
- [21:39]
Matthew Continetti
Six, like six points in 20 for Trump.
- [21:41]
Noah Rothman
Yeah.
- [21:42]
Matthew Continetti
I think this is a competitive election.
- [21:44]
Noah Rothman
Yeah.
- [21:44]
Matthew Continetti
I really do. I think Virginia may be out of play for the Republicans this year, for.
- [21:49]
Seth Mandel
Republicans have won occasionally. New Jersey. But the thing with Cheryl is that isn't she the, isn't she the slotkinite?
- [21:55]
Noah Rothman
Yes.
- [21:57]
Matthew Continetti
My point is if the national atmosphere is the way we're headed, with Donald Trump's approval rating rising. Right. His approval rating on immigration higher than it's ever been, according to Harry Entin of cnn. And the Democrats standing back there and defending, lawbreaking, threatening that the protests will end when ICE ceases to perform its danger job of removing illegal immigrants from the country, much less all the cultural stuff that the Democrats continue to defend. And then a figure like Mamdani AOC just stamping the Democratic Party with anti Semitism and all it involves, I think it's, I think it works hugely against the Democratic Party. I just want to say a couple.
- [22:44]
Noah Rothman
Other things, but I just want to add just a response that Cheryl, Cheryl will therefore be an extraordinary test case.
- [22:50]
Matthew Continetti
Yes.
- [22:51]
Noah Rothman
In November because she is in this state that's going a little purple. Right. Six point victory for Harris over Trump. Trump lost by 16 in 2020, lost by six in 2024. And as you say, Cittarelli got within three points in 2021, just a year after Biden's election. Over, over discussed with COVID restrictions and things that the governor was, who was elect, you know. Okay, so, so is she going from now until November to try to establish herself as a sister soldier style cat? Is she going to stand against this and say, I'm for law enforcement? As our friend Noah Rothman, our resident of New Jersey says, what if she starts talking about cutting property taxes, which is what Citarelli is going to talk about from now until November. Property taxes are too high in New Jersey. We need to cut property taxes. She's trying to run against him by saying he's a Trump, you know, he's just running.
- [23:56]
Matthew Continetti
She's just running against Trump. She the only Democrat so far, the only Democrat to say that what happened in Los Angeles is too, too much.
- [24:04]
Noah Rothman
Gee, who is that, Matt?
- [24:06]
Matthew Continetti
It's my favorite Democrat on the planet, John Fetterman. He's the only one.
- [24:10]
Noah Rothman
Yeah.
- [24:10]
Matthew Continetti
And so I don't, I don't see the mainstream Democrats, so to speak, having assist a soldier moment because they are as captured by what's happening at the base of the Democratic Party and the various institutional prerogatives driving the Democrats to the left as anybody. But I do have two comments about the intellectuals in the media. The first is the whole framing of the story in the mainstream media is Trump wants this. This, Trump. Trump wants this showdown. Trump really wants this showdown. You know who else wants it? Gavin Newsom. Okay. Sending out a fundraising email to huge Democratic lists to say that, by the way, I'm going to give this speech proclaiming myself as the leader of the resistance and saying that Trump is going to create a military dictatorship if we don't somehow reject federal authority. Authority in California yesterday. It's not one side wants this, and it's unclear that Trump really wanted this at all. When he was at Fort Bragg yesterday, he was asked about why he was sending, why he took over the California National Guard and why he sent in the Marines. And he made reference to 2020, as we've spoken about on the podcast. And he said, you know, I waited seven days for Dum Dum there in Minnesota to do it during the George Floyd riots. And what happened, Minneapolis burned to the ground. So this time I didn't wait. I sent them in now. And guess what? Los Angeles was quiet, pretty quiet last night. Combination of having the troops and also Karen Basses finally imposing the curfew, something which she might not have done had we not had this four days of argument over federal authority.
- [25:49]
Noah Rothman
Abe. Abe has argued.
- [25:50]
John Podhoretz
I just want to make a comment here about the Democrats generally. And I think what's going on is Trump keeps them good and crazy because when he is in office, they cannot help but focus on opposing him. It's not about them, it's all about him. And all he has to do is say, we're going to enforce the law. And they, so they, that's. And they tack in the other direction and say, oh, no, no, we're going to, we're going to defend flouting the law and breaking the law. And the other thing is, if they come around at all to some sort of sensible position, Trump, because he doesn't care about his own party, will embrace them anyway, which is no good for them. So he sort of, he sort of has them locked in.
- [26:44]
Noah Rothman
You. Abe, you have been writing since 2020 about this question of whether America, George Post, George Floyd, America was in a kind of culturally revolutionary state or whether there was a count, whether the counter revolution that rose against all of the changes, the cultural changes, the rules, the corporations, the $90 billion that went in charitable contributions to thing, anything tagged or labeled Black Lives Matter, all of that stuff and then, and then the counter revolt which also then wrapped in Covid and stuff like that. So revolution, counter revolution, Trump comes in, wins, thus indicating that the counter revolution turned out to be stronger than the revolution, at least as a, as a matter of the popular will. Let's say. Where do you see this now? Because I, I don't know that the people, aside from the, aside from the Soros family are going to be opening their wallets for the war against law enforcement. I can see them saying he's mean to immigrants and this is terrible. And Harvard needs to be saved and student visas need to be saved. But I don't know. A lot of that money is Angelina money. Are they really, Are the people, you know, who live in Beverly Hills behind their gates, are they really enjoying what's going on? Well, downtown LA and elsewhere in LA county, are they going to be opening their, their pockets? I'll put it to you this way.
- [28:28]
John Podhoretz
If anyone is in favor of this stuff, it is rich liberals. Liberals.
- [28:33]
Noah Rothman
Fair enough. Okay.
- [28:34]
John Podhoretz
I mean they really are. They're the only ones. It's why every minority group is tech.
- [28:40]
Noah Rothman
Right.
- [28:40]
John Podhoretz
That's why, you know, every economic strata has moved to the right. It's rich white liberals who are the only ones who believe in this stuff because it actually doesn't affect them. They're the video yesterday right outside their gates.
- [28:59]
Noah Rothman
Let's talk about that video. Right. So that's, that's a, that's in New York, I think that that video, not California. Right. The, the, the, the young. But the point is the, you know, the leftist bros. Stopping this laughing.
- [29:11]
Seth Mandel
A black woman says she has to get to work and them laughing in her face. That's, that's sort of.
- [29:16]
Noah Rothman
I'm a working class person, I got to go to my job. And you're blocking. And they're like, you don't have to work today because they don't work.
- [29:26]
Seth Mandel
Right. Must be nice.
- [29:28]
Noah Rothman
It's, it is. I mean that's a kind of one of those weird crystallizing anecdote moments that seems to, you know, synecically stand for the whole. But, but look, if we go back 20 years in 2006, after George Bush proposed his version of a liberalized immigration law and the Republican Party and talk radio and stuff like that went nuts. This was after Katrina, right? So his. After Katrina and when, when Iraq failed to settle and it was on the right, that immigration really caught, it had caught in California some in the 90s. But then he said, okay, we want to pass this some partial amnesty thing. And everybody and the vanguard of the right went nuts and said, we're done with him or he's crazy or this is terrible. And I remember at the time saying things like, there's no evidence that this works electorally for Republicans, which, which was true at the time. Republicans who ran on, on immigration restriction from San Diego to the Texas border to elsewhere were not showing results from it as a winning issue. Electorally, it was not working for them. But it's 20 years later. And you know what's working for them? Immigration. And you know where it's working. And this is of course the killer point here is it's working on the border and in California and in Florida and in New York, all places with very substantial Latino populations. And why? Because legal immigrants have turned foursquare against illegal immigrants. That's one of those numbers in this landmark Harry Anton report from yesterday, the day before yesterday, a 40 point shift among immigrants about how they feel about enforcing laws against illegal immigration. 40% to the right. So once it didn't work, now it's working. I, as an immigration dove, have to look at the nature of the political landscape and say what I once thought, which is that this country welcomes him and wants it and doesn't really note all that much of a distinction between legal and illegal immigration because it's a workforce and it's helping and blah, blah, blah is no longer not operative anymore and the public is screaming what it thinks. Trump has a 20 point advantage on this in not him personally, but the do should you have harder or you know, do you support ICE or do you not support ICE is 5738 in three different polls. And I'm looking at and saying, okay, let's. This is a political reality you have to deal with and the Democrats are ostriching. They're burying their head in the sand.
- [32:44]
Matthew Continetti
So I agree with all of that as an immigration hawk. And I also remembered my second point about the intellectuals. Last week, Francis Fukuyama resurfaced this very famous lecture by Leo Strauss delivered in 1930s Germany about German nihilism and kind of Strauss's explanation about when all ideas of transcendent value are thrown out the window, then you're just left to basically assertions of will. And it's Strauss commenting or previewing the Nazi phenomena. And Fukuyama, a very prominent political scientist, was saying that this lecture also applies to the rise of what's been called the, you know, these used to be the alt, right? Now some people call it the woke.
- [33:37]
Noah Rothman
Right.
- [33:37]
Matthew Continetti
But it's the anti Semitic right which we're seeing online in particular and among young men in particular. And it's a very alarming trend and should be opposed. But you know, there's another form of nihilism too. And it's a form of nihilism of those two jerks start stopping the working class woman in the street and saying she doesn't need to go to her job. It's the nihilism of these masked hooligans in Los Angeles burning cars, looting shops and stores, throwing cinder blocks at cops and basically causing mayhem. And it's the nihilism that's motivating the whether it's the chopped district in Seattle or whether it was the street fighting in Portland or whether it was this bizarre story that was undercovered about kind of the antifa going after the so called cop city, a police training facility outside Atlanta, or whether it's Luigi Mangione or whether it's the guy who attempted to murder the Shapiro family in their home or whether it's the pro Hamas person who gunned down two Jews outside a Jewish event in Washington D.C. i don't know. It seems like left wing nihilism is breaking out everywhere around this country. And it's been reported that what's happened in Los Angeles last weekend seems to be somewhat of a staging ground or preview of what the organized nihilistic left is planning for this coming Saturday, the no Kings protest. So if we're going to call out nihilism on the right, which we should because it's dangerous, we also need to say that what's happening at the level of resistance is just as disturbing and potentially more revolutionary than what we see on in the fever swamps online.
- [35:37]
Seth Mandel
Well, and also because the California is a large chunk of the Democrats congressional contingent just because of its size. Right. And so, you know, not, you know, Nancy Pelosi was, you know, not the floor leader anymore, but was for a very long time from out there. But it also just a lot of Democrats are from California. And so when you see this stuff come up in Congress. But the other thing I want to say is something about the funding. I agree.
- [36:03]
Noah Rothman
I think just to make your point.
- [36:06]
Matthew Continetti
Mm.
- [36:07]
Noah Rothman
12 to 13% of the members of the House are from California. I think has 52.
- [36:15]
Matthew Continetti
And how many of those districts would vanish if we did not count illegal immigrants as part of the census for congressional apportionment?
- [36:25]
Noah Rothman
I don't know the answer to that.
- [36:26]
Matthew Continetti
But is it, I mean, quite a few, I think.
- [36:28]
Seth Mandel
Right, okay, so, but, so, so the thing about the funding is this, that, you know, I think I agree in principle that even though white liberals, you know, Abe is 100% right, white liberals love this stuff. I agree in principle that they don't want to be seen funding the specific things. You're seeing, the images that we're seeing of people throwing cinder blocks at cops. But I think what people need to remember about the progressive funding machine is it's basically, it basically runs itself, it's autonomous. What happens is, you know, somebody, there are these groups at the top that, that give out the money and the money is given to organizations which then give it to organizations, which then give it to organizations. Right. It's filtered down all the way through to the, to the point where what they've done is they've created a system so that you can't point at the, the major funder and say, look what you're funding. Look, I have a paper trail. The whole system is set up to try to avoid a paper trail of that. And I'm not sure they're still the money people can even make that choice if they even wanted to at this point. I think they've set up a system to get themselves out of trouble. And that system is self reinforcing and will continue funding all this, by the way.
- [37:54]
Noah Rothman
And then, yes, you're absolutely right. And you know, that is like the classic Max Weber theory of bureaucracy as applied to this ocean of money that pours down through this ngo bureaucratic, you know, hydra headed, you know, tree with a thousand roots, but it can be interfered with. And that's part of the story of the universities, right, is that people who do actually give money directly to Penn, to Harvard, to Columbia, to others are saying, I'm not giving you money anymore. And it turns out that the coffers, it's not like they're not, you know, good responsible stewards of their husband or of their money. Like they use that money and it goes out the door as fast as it comes in and you cut the spigot off and it's not like they have a rainy day fund. So should.
- [38:57]
Seth Mandel
What I'm saying is they would have to stop giving to the funnel at the top.
- [39:01]
Noah Rothman
Right, but that's what I'm saying, that can happen. I'm not saying it's going to happen. And I think Abe is right that the, that the overarching idea that what you need to do is stop Trump before he, you know, before he creates the Third Reich will still have the power over them that it has today. But I want to go back to Mikey Sherrill and Mikey Sheryl may be in a tough race and the classic thing you do in a tough race if your party is further away from the center of gravity in your state or in your district or whatever, is to try to either seize an issue or two from the other guy and say, I believe that too, or to somehow file down the objectionable nature of your coalition to kind of like buffer it and make so it's not edgy and you can't get blamed for it Right now if New Jersey is purple, if there's all this disorder in the streets, if you have a American public that is supporting ICE 3 to 2 and all of that and you're Mikey Cheryl in a close race and you want to win the governorship, you're going to have, you may have a choice to make by September, which is you're going to have to say something to reassure the voters of New Jersey that you are not going to stop ICE from going in and arresting illegal immigrants if that's what the people of New Jersey want in aggregate. Because that's a statewide election. It's not a district that's 70% Democratic that you can just win in. And I don't know where that goes. That's why I say it's an interesting test case. Mac, you could be right, that there is no alternate argument in the Democratic Party, which is, by the way, what nihilism causes. Right? Nihilism is an anti theory thing. It is. Everything is bad. This is the most interesting aspect of what's happened to progressivism. Progressivism is supposed to be the argument that you do things in order to clear the path for a better future, which is radiant and bright as long as you get rid of the, the obstacles to it. And American progressivism and world Progressivism offers no radiant future. It says there are these obstacles that we need to clear, but they tend to be things like rent controls at this moment. So let's, or, you know, rent things that don't cause rents to freeze. So we're going to cause rent to. How is that going to help? So that's where you get things like these incredibly tentative experiments and saying here's what we need to do to tell people that will make things better. Like the abundance agenda. Like that's. We have to say something that's positive about the future. Right. Trump is saying, I want to go to Mars. And, you know, we're going to. We're going to export all this oil and whatever, and everything's going to be better, and we're going to have so much winning, you're not even going to know what winning is. And they're like, the world's going to melt and everything is terrible, and rich people take all the money, and we need to expropriate some of it just to give some of it back to you. But there's no way to change anything. And so protest is good. What kind of message is that to deliver to this country?
- [42:27]
John Podhoretz
I find the abundance agenda stuff kind of funny because it's. It is. It's the intellectual attempt to try to get on the. On the positive track here. Right?
- [42:37]
Noah Rothman
Right.
- [42:39]
John Podhoretz
But when you say, like, you know, when you tell a bunch of liberals we're going to remove some regulations to build houses and stuff, not only is it not sexy, you have, you have 9 billion liberal interest groups and organizations and legal teams that have built up over decades to keep and build on the regulations that they're. That the abundance people are talking about getting rid of. I mean, it would be a real internal battle.
- [43:13]
Noah Rothman
Hey, guys, it's John here, and I want to talk to you about Quince. Because quince has become such a part of my daily life that people who know me listen to this podcast literally come over to my clothing, look at the collar behind my neck to see whether what I am wearing is, in fact, a quint sweater, a quince linen shirt, a quince polo shirt, and more often than not, in fact, it is. That is how committed I am to Quince, which I only got to know because they started advertising on the podcast. I got one free sample shirt that was so great that I started buying more and buying more sweaters and buying more shirts. And so I am very much a walking advertisement for quints. And this is a non walking advertisement for quints, which has all the things you actually want to wear this summer, like organic cotton silk polos, European linen beach shorts, and comfortable pants that work for everything from backyard hangs to nice dinners. And the best part, and this really is the best part, everything with Quince is half the cost of similar brands. By working directly with top artisans and cutting out the middlemen, Quince gives you luxury pieces without the markups. And Quince only works with factories that use safe, ethical, and responsible manufacturing practices. And premium fabrics and finishes, so stick to the staples that last with elevated essentials. From quince. Go to quince.com commentary for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's Q-U I N C E.com commentary to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com commentary hello, this is Dr.
- [45:08]
Matthew Continetti
Rob Williams, executive director of the USC Shoah Foundation. Survivors of the Holocaust have long been.
- [45:13]
Noah Rothman
The bravest voices speaking out against anti.
- [45:15]
Matthew Continetti
Semitism and all forms of hate around the world, whether it's European anti Semitism of the 1930s and 1940s or the anti Semitism we see on our streets and campuses today.
- [45:24]
Noah Rothman
We'll explore it on the USC Shoah.
- [45:26]
Matthew Continetti
Foundation's new podcast, Searching for Never Again. We'll hear stories that are heartbreaking and stories that are inspiring every Tuesday on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever fine podcasts can be found. This Abundance Democratic movement or abundance Progressivism reminds me a lot of reform conservatism back between 2008 and 2014. And you know, I'm friends with the reformacons and colleagues with them. But at the time I wrote that, what was striking is that not a single politician was identifying as a reform conservative or really, you know, taking on that, that mantle and agenda and calling, calling it his own. The only one who came close, this is Tim Pawlenty.
- [46:18]
Seth Mandel
Erasure. I won't stand for it.
- [46:20]
Matthew Continetti
Yeah, Well, I don't one governor who likes hockey, 2012 and 2011, he was.
- [46:26]
Seth Mandel
Sort of the, he was the, he.
- [46:28]
Matthew Continetti
Was a Sam's Club conservative.
- [46:29]
Seth Mandel
He was the Sam's Club. The image of the Sam's Club.
- [46:32]
Matthew Continetti
But it's not like he was going around citing Yuval Levin and Ramesh Panuru and maybe Rubio at that time, around 2014, ahead of his 2016 campaign, was touching on some of the themes, but it didn't happen. What happened was Trump. And then kind of paradoxically, Trump ends up doing what reform conservatives wanted, which was a party that was more attuned to its working class base and also a little bit more open to government intervention, but doing it in a way that alienated all the reform conservatives.
- [47:05]
Noah Rothman
Right.
- [47:06]
Matthew Continetti
I would think that the way when I look at the abundance people right now, you know, you have Ezra Klein, he has a very prominent platform. You have his co writer Derek Thompson, another prominent platform at the Atlantic. And then who else, who else is there?
- [47:20]
Noah Rothman
Is there any Sheryl, by the way.
- [47:22]
Matthew Continetti
Is she calling herself an abundance Democrat?
- [47:24]
Noah Rothman
A little bit now? It doesn't Matter.
- [47:26]
Matthew Continetti
I look forward to it.
- [47:28]
Noah Rothman
Okay. It's a little bit, but. But it is got that yada yada quality, which is as, as, as revealed in the really brilliant review we published by Michael Warrenoff of the abundance of the book. Abundance, which is, here's what we need to do. We need to make it possible for us to build things, and that will be good. And so you have to understand we're doing a lot of things that mean that we can't build things. So here's what we need to do. Yada, yada yada, we stop that and then we build things saying, you got to get rid of this zoning regulation. You got to get rid of that. You lerp. You got to get rid of this thing that allows you to stay. The construction project. The construction project is prima facie allowed to go forward, not prima facie expected to jump over all these hurdles in order to get past at 60% of the size that you actually wanted to build it at. Right. That is. But they will not articulate.
- [48:29]
Matthew Continetti
You would have to.
- [48:30]
Noah Rothman
How you do it.
- [48:31]
Matthew Continetti
You would have to fight labor unions and environmental groups, which are the major building blocks of the Democratic Party.
- [48:38]
Seth Mandel
So, but also, they've been saying this stuff for, I mean, Matt Iglesias and Josh Barrow have been saying these things.
- [48:45]
Noah Rothman
For quite a few. Josh Barrow is not a liberal. And Matt, I understand Matt Iglesia. Right.
- [48:50]
Seth Mandel
But Josh Barrow is, you know, sitting up there interviewing Richie Torres. And it's a very interesting interview, but you can see that there's no audience for that on the left. Right. Like, I find a Josh Barrow, Richie Torres interview interesting.
- [49:09]
Noah Rothman
We love betterment.
- [49:10]
Seth Mandel
That's a good indication that nobody on the left finds that interesting at all.
- [49:16]
Noah Rothman
Right. Okay. See, this is the. I only bring this up even though it sounds like we're running far afield. We're not. Because Newsom and all these people are embracing this nihilism that, that Matt, that.
- [49:32]
Matthew Continetti
They'Re defending it or they're not. Or they're just kind of like their heads are in the sand, Right.
- [49:37]
Noah Rothman
Or they're, or they're standing unknowingly on.
- [49:40]
Matthew Continetti
A platform because they're so focused on Trump. I think that's, I mean, they're so focused by what Abe is saying, the son of Trump, that they don't recognize what's happening beneath, beneath the surface.
- [49:50]
Noah Rothman
And the thing about Trump, and this is the key to understanding this, even if you really dislike him, is, and we talked about this, it's chaos. And there's been a lot of problems with it, and it's been sloppy and everything. But he came in and he said, I mean, there's all this stuff that's broken and I'm going to try to fix it. The first, the federal government is broken, I'm going to try to fix it. Our immigration system is broken. I'm going to try to fix it. Our treatment of Jews and our campuses are broken. I'm going to do what I can to fix them. And the Democrats are saying, don't fix anything. They're not even saying, you know what, you're right, but what you're doing to Harvard is horrible. Here's the way to fix Harvard. They're like, harvard doesn't need fixing. Harvard's perfect. We have no problems with Harvard. We have no problems with the current immigration system. We have no. We, we don't like ice. We don't like enforcement. How dare you. That is not an answer.
- [50:45]
Matthew Continetti
Free Mahmoud Khalil.
- [50:47]
Noah Rothman
Right, but that's not an answer. You can't answer something with nothing now. You can. If. If the something craters and becomes a complete catastrophe, then not being associated with the something is a way you can, like, get your way through, which is Biden 2020, right. Like the COVID America was a disaster. Trump got blamed for it to some extent. And Biden sat there in the basement and just, like, stood there and benefited from the country saying, this is horrible. Like I, this is horrible. We've got to do something to change things. But it's not, you're not going to get a hand dealt to you like that again. It's just not, not going to happen. No matter how badly Trump bungles things, if they're going to say no, the agency of the federal government that is supposed to enforce our immigration laws should not be allowed to enforce our immigration laws. That is not a rational answer. And you know that.
- [51:57]
Seth Mandel
Just to put a marker down, Mickey, just to. On the Mickey Sheryl stuff, just so we know that the state of New Jersey is essentially broadened politically more by the, the teachers union, probably, than anything else in the state at the moment because of the way property taxes are set up and all that stuff. The teachers unions have been putting out guidance in New Jersey about how to protect children in the schools from ice, from ICE raids. And so that's the sort of thing that even if Cheryl is able to avoid the L. A Riots and something that's happening far away, she's not going to be able to avoid. I don't think this sort of inevitable clash that will happen in her own backyard, which is that her, her base is telling schools how to outwit ICE and how to protect illegal immigrants from ice. And the, the, the other side of that are voters who understand that they are paying through the nose in property taxes in part, not in whole, but in part because the schools have this policy of protecting everybody from the federal government, whatever. That's the sort of thing that I think they'll have to face eventually.
- [53:14]
Noah Rothman
Right. So that's what I mean by the rubber meeting the road and Democrats having no an. When Trump says, yeah, I'm going to enforce immigration law. Now, Biden and Obama, when they were trying to fight against the turn in the public against them, would say, I am too, enforcing immigration law. Look how many people we've deported. Record numbers of people deported under Biden. Record numbers of people deported under Obama. They would say out of one side of their mouth while letting everybody in across the border. Not with their mouth, but with their, with their eyes closed. Right. Because they knew that there was a liability. Now they have no responsibility for this because they're not running the federal government. And now they can say ICE is bad and that we know it's poison. Spamberger said in 2020, defund the police. Anti ICE is just to fund the police. In another gar. In another. In another costume. There's no difference.
- [54:19]
Matthew Continetti
Point to another example. You know, there was a resolution in the House of Representatives condemning the incendiary attack in Boulder, Colorado, where an illegal immigrant torched Jewish Americans. Democrats, I think 20 Democrats voted against it.
- [54:42]
Noah Rothman
So there were two resolutions. There were two resolutions. One just said, we condemn the attack in Colorado. And then there was a second resolution that said we condemn the attack in Colorado by an illegal immigrant and we need to do something about our immigration laws to make sure this doesn't happen again. And that second one.
- [54:59]
Matthew Continetti
Right.
- [55:00]
Noah Rothman
Was voted against by including my congressman. Yeah. Jerry Nadler of the Upper west side of Manhattan, which is the Upper west side of Manhattan, is 20% Jewish, and Nadler is Jewish, and he is voting against a resolution condemning illegal immigration from Kuwait and Egypt.
- [55:19]
Matthew Continetti
It's connection to anti Semitic violence.
- [55:22]
Noah Rothman
Yeah, right.
- [55:23]
Matthew Continetti
What's going on? What, I mean, honestly, when you look at this and you're like, what is going on?
- [55:28]
Noah Rothman
Yeah. But then you have to think. And then we should move on to Tulsi Gabbard. But then you have to think that what's going on here is matter of real conviction that say. I'm saying, look, they should be looking at the poll numbers. They should be looking at this, they should be looking at that. I think when you tell me this about the teachers unions in New Jersey, Seth, I'm like, why are they bothering with that? Don't they just want to, like, get more money and tenure and stuff like that? Why, why is that? Why is.
- [55:57]
Matthew Continetti
Have students. They would have no students without migration, you know what. Or illegal.
- [56:03]
Noah Rothman
Okay, fair. Okay, but. Okay, so that's one answer to that question. But how about the fact that what they are saying when they say abolish ice, what they're saying when they say you don't have the right to enforce immigration laws and laws in this country because laws are. Because according to leftist doctrine, you really only are supposed to. It's fine to, to like oppose laws and interdict yourself between laws you think are unjust. Right. That's part of the doctrine of civil resistance from the 50s onward. So they believe it that the problem here isn't that Democrats are doing this willfully and they're screwing themselves up at the polls maybe, and they're hoping that Trump will screw up and save them. It's that this is what they believe. And if this is what they believe and they're willing to kind of risk alienating the American public because of deep conviction, then A, there's something a little honorable about that and B, Republicans are going to dominate the politics of this country for an entire generation. But until these people die out, I.
- [57:16]
John Podhoretz
Don'T think it's honorable because I think there is a contingent that believes. But the Democrats that we're hearing from, that's not them. They're the ones who are scared of the contingent that believes.
- [57:28]
Noah Rothman
Right.
- [57:29]
John Podhoretz
And they're doing. And so they're not changing, they're not turning around because they're scared of the people on their own side.
- [57:38]
Matthew Continetti
A liberal will never take his own side in an argument. Yeah, right. I think that you have to distinguish between the nihilistic left that I was just discussing and then just the liberal politicians who, as Abe says, are just. Okay, we'll go with that. Then Trump is worse.
- [57:52]
Noah Rothman
Right. And this, of course, is a sign yet again of the catastrophe. That visit was visited upon this country by the decline in the authority of the political parties. Right. Of the central Democratic and national central and Republican parties, which had a moderating effect on, generally speaking, on the, you know, like cutting off the extremes and making 40 yard lines in which politicians were supposed to maneuver because otherwise they couldn't get money, they couldn't get endorsements, they couldn't, you know, they would be opposed by the official party. And it would be very difficult for them to cut through as insurgents or something like that. The complete destruction of the centrality of the parties has, of course, empowered exactly those people against the liberals who can't take their own side and therefore have no power to make an alternate argument because they're so easily, just like Republicans, so easily knocked off by their left. Okay, so let's now talk about the right or the left. Right or whatever. And this astounding video released by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard yesterday, kind of out of nowhere about the evils of the United States.
- [59:18]
Matthew Continetti
She had visited Hiroshima after, I believe, the Shangri La conference in Singapore, which she had attended as part of the U.S. delegation. And her visit there, I believe, was the peg for this three minute long, slickly produced video over her social media account decrying the use of atomic weaponry in the Second World War. And basically using the same rhetoric that the nuclear freeze movement used in the 1980s, that kind of Soviet fellow travelers used throughout the Cold War, that nuclear war is both imminent and apocalyptic and we should do everything to avoid that outcome. And I think the first reaction is to kind of raise an eyebrow. Why this video? Why now? What is she trying to say? It sounds almost exactly like what comes from the Kremlin whenever America supports Ukraine or takes another step to support Ukraine. There's also the way to read her argument that would suggest that America and Israel need to take dramatic steps, steps to stop Iran's nuclear program, thereby limiting the risk of future nuclear war by the Ayatollahs. Yet we know that Tulsi Gabbard is among the leading voices inside the administration arguing for a deal with Iran that would allow Iran to continue nuclear enrichment against the wishes and public statements of the President of the United States States. So this was, this video was a very revealing glimpse into what is happening behind the scenes in this White House on issues of national security. And I have to say, as someone who believes in peace through strength and Trump's first term foreign policy and American might in the world, I was alarmed.
- [61:33]
John Podhoretz
I just want to add, just to put a point on it, that she closed the video by saying there are warmongers who are pushing two nuclear powers to the brink of war, maybe because they have fallout shelters of their own that they can get to, but they'll leave the rest of us, you know, out in the nuclear winter. This was like nasty stuff.
- [61:58]
Matthew Continetti
It's a total misunderstanding of the prepper community. The preppers who have the nuclear fallout shelters, they are probably on her side on a lot of foreign policy questions.
- [62:08]
Noah Rothman
Can we.
- [62:09]
Seth Mandel
And you know, but you know, who has a shelter? The cabinet. Tulsi Gabbard. The president will be protected. But I want to say something about the, you mentioned the.
- [62:19]
Noah Rothman
Wait, I got to ask question. I got to ask a question first. What countries do you think she was referring to? Because I kind of assume that one of the two countries is Israel. Yeah.
- [62:32]
John Podhoretz
I thought it was Iran and Israel.
- [62:33]
Matthew Continetti
But.
- [62:33]
Noah Rothman
But Iran isn't a nuclear power.
- [62:36]
Matthew Continetti
That's my point. Is that.
- [62:37]
Noah Rothman
So we are.
- [62:38]
John Podhoretz
Yeah, but she.
- [62:39]
Noah Rothman
But Israel is.
- [62:40]
Matthew Continetti
Or it's us in Russia and it has to do with Ukraine.
- [62:44]
Noah Rothman
Okay.
- [62:45]
Matthew Continetti
But we also know she wants that she doesn't want Israel to strike Iran.
- [62:49]
Noah Rothman
It's very confusing, right? Yeah, so it's very confusing. But I think therefore, as a Rorschach test, if you're the woke. Right. You maybe hear Israel when she says there are war people with nuclear weapons. Yeah. Because Israel's shelters are really incredibly efficient. You know what they are? Stairwells. When there is a raid on Israel, my sister has to go out of her apartment and stand in her stairwell in order to avoid flying glass if a bomb explodes somewhere near her. That's. That's how sophisticated the fallout shelter system is in Israel. It's going to stand in your stairway where there's no glass. Right. Who has fall. Where are the fallout shelters? What the hell is she talking about?
- [63:38]
Seth Mandel
Well, Hamas has fallout shelters.
- [63:40]
Noah Rothman
What did she watch?
- [63:41]
Seth Mandel
Tunnels. If you, if you pay, if you, if you read up your membership to Hamas now.
- [63:46]
Noah Rothman
Yeah.
- [63:47]
Seth Mandel
You will get access to the tunnels.
- [63:50]
Noah Rothman
Did she watch like a Twilight zone episode from 1962?
- [63:55]
Matthew Continetti
What was that, ABC? 1983? The day after day after.
- [64:00]
Seth Mandel
But that's the thing. Here's. Here is what she, what I mean, here is what she watched. The footage is from a specific movie called Atomic Cover Up. This is not all of the footage, but some of the footage and it's credited throughout her video. This is Greg Mitchell, the, the writer who, you know, and documentary filmmaker made us. Now, Mitchell went, spent much of his performance, professional life seeking out these images. And atomic cover up is about the idea that America may. Not so much the idea, but there were a lot of classified images and videos of the Hiroshima attacks that were filmed by the American government, by people in the army, things like that. And he spent his life trying to get at them and eventually sort of did by accident and then got them. And this is, this is a fairly recent movie. I mean, it's only a few years old. And what it was, it, it came up again. It got a second life after Oppenheimer came out. Because this movie, Atomic Cover up, was sort of a rejoinder to the people who were, you know, you had all those reviews who were saying that this was some sort of lionization of the people who make big bombs and things like that.
- [65:18]
Noah Rothman
That. Right.
- [65:18]
Seth Mandel
We went, this is the answer to that. Okay. This is the anti Oppenheimer sort of thing. And that tells you where this is coming from. This is, look, from a sort of. Yeah, this, this is, this is, this is like the documentary film.
- [65:32]
Noah Rothman
Yeah, but you're, you're making, look, you're making an important point. But Greg Mitchell plays a different role here because as Abe would say, the point about the Tulsi Gabbard thing is that it is a left, is a far left wing trope to blame the United States for World War II. We dropped the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in order to forestall the necessity of a ground invasion. Millions of years of Japan, that would have taken hundreds of thousands of lives. And we saved American lives at the cost of Japanese lives. And you know who's happy about that? Me. You know who should be happy about that? Every single person in the United States. You know, Donald Trump about that. Yeah. And you know, what else should we have? The Japanese, because their regime was the, the, the Imperial Japanese regime was destroyed forever in the ashes of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And a new country was built on that foundation that is prosperous, though it's obviously got a declining. No, it's the second or third largest economy in the world and it is Pacific and it is not out to destroy any other country on earth. And Greg Mitchell, just to bring this full circle, Greg Mitchell's great journalistic project was the idea that Upton Sinclair, the radical journalist and author of the novel the Jungle, who ran for governor in California in 1934, would have won and ushered in a new socialist future for the United States. He's written books about this and documentaries, were it not for a cabal of rich Hollywood, you know, moguls destroying him with their evil whispering campaign. So we're now having the Donald Trump's Director of National Intelligence evoke the work of Greg Mitchell, who wanted a socialist revolution led by, by Upton Sinclair in the United States and mourns its loss speaking as part of the Trump administration. Meanwhile, at that very same moment that she releases the video, Trump is at Fort Bragg. And what does he do at Fort Bragg? He says, you're the greatest. America is the greatest. We're going to fight to keep this world safe and free. You know, Joe Biden is a wimp. Go ahead. Yeah.
- [67:56]
John Podhoretz
He says we're the only, we're the only allied country that doesn't celebrate the victory in World War II.
- [68:03]
Matthew Continetti
Right, right. Victory Day.
- [68:05]
John Podhoretz
We need to start celebrating that.
- [68:07]
Noah Rothman
Yeah, yeah. So.
- [68:10]
Matthew Continetti
So it's, it is a real problem for the administration.
- [68:14]
Noah Rothman
Yeah.
- [68:14]
Matthew Continetti
And because, remember, this is set against the debate over Iran and that we're, we're going to reach the two month limit at the start of the negotiations. There's another session of negotiations set for this weekend where the Iranians are supposed to present their counter proposal. We know that they're not going to agree to abandon enrichment. So it's decision time here. There's also the fight over Pete Hegseth and reports that apparently Hegseth is having trouble filling some of his staff positions based on opposition from the White house, in particular, J.D. vance. And so I have the feeling that it's actually Trump protecting Pete Hegseth more than anybody else here.
- [68:57]
Noah Rothman
Because that is a weird story. Because Hegseth's a point, if you follow the logic of what's being said and what we know about White House personnel. Hegseth is being denied people that he wants to appoint who are not Gabbardites.
- [69:14]
Matthew Continetti
Right.
- [69:15]
Noah Rothman
Like he wants.
- [69:15]
Matthew Continetti
They're still realists.
- [69:17]
Noah Rothman
They're realists. I'm sure they're. Yeah, but they are not. Yeah.
- [69:20]
Matthew Continetti
It's not like the Gabbard, Carlson part.
- [69:23]
Noah Rothman
Of the, of the, and the people who have been, the people who seem to have been imposed upon him are pretty radical. It's the Coke. It's the Coke.
- [69:34]
Matthew Continetti
The Coke view.
- [69:35]
Noah Rothman
So he's. We don't really understand what's going on here.
- [69:39]
Matthew Continetti
But my takeaway is actually it's Trump protecting him and Hagseth using Trump as a shield, by the way, because Hagseth was there too. I mean, this speech was incredible. Trump gave. The troops were fired up. The images were just amazing. It was quite a patriotic, nationalistic celebration. And at the same time, she's releasing this video over social media condemning the United States of America.
- [70:04]
Noah Rothman
And by the way, let's talk about the no Kings thing, right? Because they're gonna be the no Kings demonstration. And meanwhile, there's gonna be a military parade in Washington, D.C. and you're going to hear all these liberal pundits saying, oh, this is, it's like the. Not. It's like May Day. This is like, this is like Soviet Russia. We're having a military parade. How Terrible is that.
- [70:27]
Matthew Continetti
I'll read your Rand Paul quote.
- [70:29]
Noah Rothman
Oh yeah, the Rand Paul. So Rand Paul of course is not a liberal but is a, is an isolationist. Rand Paul said. Where is this? Hold on.
- [70:38]
Matthew Continetti
He said in the press conference, been.
- [70:40]
Noah Rothman
A big fan of goose stepping soldiers in big tanks and missiles rolling down the street. This is how American soldiers describes American soldiers as though they are Nazis and, and Soviet shock troops on May Day. I mean he's a shameful figure anyway, but I mean this is maybe the worst thing I think he's ever said openly. Usually he says slippery, slimy things in the shadows that he can kind of take back or deny. Goose stepping soldiers. First of all, American soldiers as they march, do not goose step. Just, just, just to make that clear, that is not, that is not the American marshal marching form. So just as a matter of course. But what's going to happen here? They're going to have this no Kings demonstration and, and the right is going to have a celebration of the American military. And all we hear is like, oh, we shouldn't have this kind of gross. I mean, so militaristic. The tanks are heavy, America.
- [71:45]
Matthew Continetti
The tanks are heavy for DC's streets.
- [71:48]
Noah Rothman
Streets. Right.
- [71:48]
Matthew Continetti
And by the way, there are a lot of potholes in D.C. streets already. So let's fix those before you complain about my.
- [71:54]
Noah Rothman
We're so. We are so militaristic here in the United States that we are at the lowest level in the number of military personnel in America that we have been since before the Second World War. That's how militaristic we are.
- [72:10]
Seth Mandel
But it's more than just the numbers. It's the mission. He's. When he says goose stepping and when Tulsi Gabbard says, you know, we did all this terrible thing and the American government has been lying to its people about how terrible is. It's the mission. The things, the people and the things that won that civilizational war are also under attack from him.
- [72:33]
Noah Rothman
That's. I think the central point is that Tulsi Gabbard is attacking the United States for saving the world and she should be stripped of her position and she should go back to Hawaii and run a health food store along Maha principles.
- [72:48]
Matthew Continetti
Aloha.
- [72:50]
Noah Rothman
We'll be back tomorrow. For Matt, Seth and Abe, I'm John Pod Horitz. Keep the candle bur.