Loading summary
Transcript109 lines
- [00:00]
A
Hey, it's John. I want to talk to you about Shopify. A lot of people talk to me about starting podcasts. This podcast is 10 years old. It's in a different place from a lot of podcasts because we're obviously part of a nonprofit institution and it's not a way that we are seeking to earn our livelihoods. But a lot of people look at this and say this is something I can really do to create a business and run the business and do it in a really comfortable, practical and serious way. Gotta wear a lot of different hats when you start your own business. Can be very intimidating. But one of the things that I know from a lot of people is that if your to do list is growing and growing and growing and that list starts to overrun your life, you need a tool that not only helps you out, but simplifies everything that can be a game changer for millions of businesses. That tool is Shopify, the commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world and 10% of all e commerce in the US from household names to brands. Just getting started. You get started with your own design studio. With hundreds of ready to use templates, Shopify helps you build a beautiful online store to match your brand style. You can accelerate your content creation because it's packed with helpful AI tools that write product descriptions, page headlines, and even enhance your product photography. You get the 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 managing inventory to international shipping to processing returns and beyond. If you're ready to sell, you're ready for Shopify. 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. Go to shopify.com commentary that's shopify.com commentary Hope for the.
- [02:23]
B
Expect the wor some.
- [02:25]
A
Preacher pain some die of thirst no way of knowing this way it's going.
- [02:32]
B
Hope for the best expect the worst.
- [02:38]
A
Welcome to the Commentary Magazine daily podcast. Today is Monday, October 20th, 2025. I'm John Bud Horitz, the editor of Commentary magazine. With me, as always, senior editor Seth Mandel. Hi Seth.
- [02:51]
B
Hi John.
- [02:52]
A
And social commentary columnist Christine Rosen. Hi Christine.
- [02:55]
C
Hi John.
- [02:56]
A
Well, it was a night of revelry for the Commentary staff last night, which may explain quite yet have the explanation for the very uncharacteristic absence of Abe Greenwald this morning. We had our 15th annual commentary roast last night here in New York City. A great time was had by all. We will have another one next year. When I tell you about the details of that and what you can do to come, you can remember that I said to you on October 20th that it was one of the great evenings of my life. It was a pretty flawless night. 450 people enjoyed themselves, laughed, celebrated very, very high spirited celebration of the conclusion or the partial conclusion of the war in Gaza and I don't know what else. And then booze was flowing freely and people were very happy and like that. So I was the emcee and so I can't really sort of tell you what it was, what it was like to not be the mc but Seth could.
- [04:16]
B
The political scientist, the Jewish political scientist Daniel Elazar many, many years ago said something to the effect of, he wrote that something like Commentary magazine is the barometer of Jewish self esteem in America. So if you, if you still hold to that, which I do. There was a lot of self esteem last night. The set there was, it was a, it was a much more obviously a more joyous atmosphere. We've been through a lot the past two years, but it was very clearly, you know, a feeling of, shared by everybody. It was, you know, it's not. This feeling of victory is not some sort of manufactured thing. It really is, you know, the Jewish community has a, you know, has gotten a boost. There's, you know, a spring in its step and I think last night reflected that we all needed it.
- [05:09]
A
So we should talk, we should use this as an opportunity to move into the question of what happened yesterday, Sunday morning, when the Israelis began to launch some pretty serious airstrikes and kinetic military action in response to the continued violations of this, of the deal, which I'm not even prepared to call a ceasefire. Over the course of the last week, the most obvious being the failure to return the remaining bodies of the hostages who were murdered. But there were a couple of ambush attempts made on and one successful ambush attempt made on Israeli soldiers in violation of the deal. And Israel decided that it could no longer simply impotently complain that the deal was not being held to that they had to take action. So they struck back. They hit some major targets and Khan Yunus and others and announced there would be the Rajah border crossing would be closed and that they would cease all aid trucks into Gaza until Hamas assured them that there would be no more attacks. And after the first volleys, they announced a lifting of their suspension of their terms of the ceasefire and what we were told was American pressure to step back, don't re engage, give this a chance. So we also had last night, though I did not get a chance to see it. I only read the news accounts because I was at the roast. The Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner interview with Leslie Stahl on the now Barry Weiss run. 60 Minutes booked the two of them and 60 Minutes, his press team, was making sure that we understood that the main news to be taken away from this was that Trump and Wyckoff and Jared believed that Bibi Netanyahu had gone too far in hitting the Hamas site in Doha on September 9. I think it was something that we have been saying since and almost every serious analyst has said was probably the final straw that broke the back of Qatar's support for Hamas and brought everybody to the table on the grounds that it was time for this to end. Because Israel was making it clear that it was not seeing that anybody had any safe haven. Therefore, people have been referring to that as the most successful, unsuccessful attack in military history. And we were led to believe, no, Trump was actually angry about it. It wasn't a plot. He was upset, they whip cough, felt betrayed and so on. And there was a lot of aha, Aha, you see? Aha. And now we have again, America seeming to go against Israel's interests by saying, stop firing on Hamas yesterday. You guys think that's actually what's. You think that. You think, A, that Witkoff and Jared were on the level, and B, that Israel wanted to re. Engage fully with Hamas six days after the ceasefire. So you're shaking your heads so we can see them shaking their heads. I was, I have to answer my own question.
- [08:47]
C
My, my early.
- [08:49]
A
I know we.
- [08:51]
B
I saw Christine unmute her mic, so I didn't jump on her.
- [08:56]
C
I was just, I was going to say that I also didn't yet watch the 60 Minutes interview, but. But one thing that seems notable about how Israel responded is that it was swift and certain. And I think they are going to have to keep doing that. Whenever Hamas is. Hamas is testing. It's like a toddler testing a parent to see if the limit is really going to remain in place. And it must, because this is very different than previous conflicts where, you know, the IDF would not engage at this level. It was also, by the way, it took me some digging in different news stories to get the actual chain of events of what just happened, which is that Hamas attacked first and Israel responded. The headlines are still idf, you know, firing again in Gaza. Or aid cut off. It's like, yes, but that comes as a result of the actions of Hamas. I don't doubt at all that Trump wants this wrapped up with a tidy bow and no one to ever fight again. But that's not how these sorts of conflicts work. But I do think keeping. It strikes me that what they're trying to do right now in the near term is just any little skirmish like that, just deal with it in a targeted way and then move on. And we now have the return of, of didn't I believe there were two more hostages returned, the bodies returned to Israel? And that's also that that shows that. How many does that leave that they still need to return? Sorry, I don't.
- [10:14]
A
Somewhere in the realm of 25.
- [10:17]
C
But I do think that also shows that a lot of what they were claiming about Hamas's claims about their inability to locate these bodies were always specious. So that that's movement in the right direction. And I, as for Trump, I do think whatever he's saying in public and whatever Witkoff and Jared are saying in public, in private, I hope he's continuing to support the continued suppression of anything Hamas tries to do and to keep this deal moving forward.
- [10:44]
B
Yeah, I have a hard time believing that Trump is unhappy with anything regarding Gaza right now. I mean, not that he could be unhappy with Hamas, you know, and the ceasefire, you know, getting tested and stuff. But I mean, I have a hard time believing that he, you know, that he's stewing over something Israel said or did. I mean, the polls yesterday was it yesterday the poll came out that had 93% of Republicans approved of, of Trump's handling of Gaza. You know, so it's like the 80.
- [11:24]
A
But I think it was 93% approve of his handling of foreign policy generally.
- [11:27]
B
But it was foreign policy, something like that. But it was like, you know, we, we've been saying for a while that the, the Tucker wing is, while it is obviously important and influential in its own way, it was not a reflection specifically of wider right of center opinion on this particular conflict that the Tucker folks were trying to move opinion, but they didn't have it with them and they haven't been moving it all that well in general. I think if Trump is sitting there looking at the reports and the polls and stuff like that, people are saying, hey, he did a good job and he's probably, you know, pretty happy with it.
- [12:05]
A
Okay, I have the numbers. These are from Emerson, which is a, which is a gold star pollster. So this is nationally following the Gaza ceasefire deal 47% of voters approve of Trump's handling of the war between Israel and Hamas, while 34% disapprove. Public opinion has flipped since the Emerson 100 Day Poll when 30% approved and 46% approved. Republicans generally approve of Trump's handling of the war between Israel and Hamas at 80% to 7%, while Democrats disapprove 57% to 19%. The shift in overall approval comes from independents who approve 43 to 38. In April, that number was literally reversed. It was 43 disapproved, 40, 25% approve. So why is this important? It's obviously important because nothing, nothing breeds success like success. The ceasefire appears to be, or the deal appears to be a success, as occasioned as the images of the released hostages indicate, and as the fact that the images out of Gaza are of Palestinians killing Palestinians and murdering Hamas murdering other Palestinians. So Israel celebrates, Hamas kills the American people. Look, the American people approve overwhelming support, as you say, and against the isolationist wing of the party. And the Democratic number is, I think, actually probably pretty high for Trump compared to other numbers because we'll talk about the no Kings rally in a second. But I mean, that he actually has only 57% disapproving of a policy that he is pursuing strikes me as being, you know, for him that's like Christmas on Sun every Sunday. I mean that, you know, and the independent number flipping literally from negative to positive. I would have predicted this considering the.
- [14:02]
B
Growth of self identified Republicans and the importance therefore of independents, because if the electorate is shifting in any direction, independents are leaning right in the direction that the electorate is shifting. The poll is as good as he could possibly hope for and the polls.
- [14:23]
A
With Democrats is as good as he could hope for, as I say, which is to say that, you know, I mean, they hate him by margins of 3/4 and this is one case in which they hate him only by a margin of 57 to 17. So, so all in all, you know, the successful execution of a policy to bring a close to hostilities in a way that is that, that does conform with our beliefs about Israel's security and its needs, as opposed to Zoram Mamdani's views of Israel's security scenes, which is that it should be swallowed up by a great leviathan in the ocean and not actually escape from the depths of the whale, that is a pretty significant fact and may, given that this is the most important thing happening in the world right now, I mean, over the course, could say Ukraine's more important, but I mean, I'm just saying as a sort of superstar issue, it did cast the fact that this deal happened, did cast some kind of a PR shadow or, or something over what was obviously a pretty spectacular national turnout for the no Kings rally on Saturday, which is the 2025 version of the Women's March Pussy hat rally of the, of the inauguration weekend in 2017. I don't believe any of the numbers I see, but I think it's fine if Trump is getting hoisted by his own petard fake numbers for rallies, which is how he began his first administration. But they are saying 7 million people participated nationwide, which would be about double the, the Women's March numbers, supposedly. Although the Women's March was actually concentrated.
- [16:13]
C
It was very much. I was going to say the Women's March numbers were high for a DC event, but I mean looking at the guy looked, I saw some of them in D.C. and some of the photos and media coverage in other places. And it, it really two things struck me. One is that it should have been called no Kings, almost all Boomers, because the crowd was kind of older, it wasn't young, you know, unlike the Women's March.
- [16:36]
A
Whereas PBS pledge drive is what it is.
- [16:38]
C
Exactly. No, but the other thing though that.
- [16:40]
A
Struck James Taylor concert on the PBS pledge drive. It was a lot of people, you know, in granny glasses and you know, like alpaca sweaters and sort of like.
- [16:51]
C
I mean it was, it was a particular vibe. It was not violent.
- [16:54]
A
Conway wearing an antifa.
- [16:56]
C
Yes, that he was antifa. But there was. The other thing about it was that there were a lot of self described progressives and Democrats dressed up like our founders and all kinds of slogans from the founding we. Which I found as a conservative kind of ironic because when the Tea Party folks did that not that long ago, they were, you know, considered fascist for doing so. And so it's a funny reversal that folks on the left are rediscovering some of the principles of the founding in their no Kings rally. I'm saying again, I'm saying this with heavy dose of irony and sarcasm, but it was, look, it was calm as peaceful. The last time they did this, there was someone killed. And it does seem to have been a calmer event. Does it mean anything? I'm not sure because I think they timed it to focus on the shutdown, the government shutdown and to hopefully draw negative attention towards the Republicans in Congress. And the fact that now, I guess this week our nuclear arsenal, the people who watch our nuclear arsenal are going to be furloughed and there's been air traffic control issues. And, you know, Congress needs to get its act together and do that. But the Democrats I heard speak Schumer and others were very, almost seem frustrated that Trump had had this recent diplomatic victory because it did draw away from some of the things they were trying to bring attention to. But it was, it was annoying. It, it blocked up all the streets. But it seems to have, you know, and I'm sure they all enjoyed themselves, but it didn't have the same sort of energy that I think the one that they did last year seemed to have for people.
- [18:20]
A
Okay, so, so here's a couple of quotes from participants, ecstatic participants of the, of the event. Representative Sarah Elfreth, whom I have not heard of before today, was an excellent reminder of what our community is capable of. But what does that mean exactly? That you can, people can come out into the streets and stand around in a crowd. That's what you're, if that's what you're, That's a very low bar. That's an extremely low bar for proving what your community is capable of.
- [18:56]
B
The no pollen protest, you know, seasonal allergies are not going to stop us, I mean, from going outside.
- [19:04]
A
That's a very good point. So I think, as Christy is pointing out, if it were to have a material effect on the politics of the shutdown, in which the public really turns on the Republicans and says shut the government down, that would be one thing. If in three weeks or whatever it is, the elections in New Jersey and Virginia show that the damage that seems to be being done both to the gubernatorial candidate, New Jersey, Mikey Sherrill, and the gubernatorial and attorney general candidates in Democratic candidates in Virginia, Abigail Spamberger and Jay Jones, owing to Jay Jones's wishing death on, on a Republican politician, which has really been a unexpectedly major, major event. If those turn out to be toothless, the threats turn out to be toothless. Or, or that this rally then reminds Democrats that they really need to turn out, you know, in the first week of November or finish their early voting or do whatever in order to stop what would be a pretty serious mood destabilizer for them losing these elections that they should win. I mean, I think the gubernatorial race in, in Virginia is a, is a, is a very big ask. Or that's a very, that's a very tough one to get over the mountain of. But it's now even thinkable. Losing the attorney general's race there now seems probably like a very likely thing.
- [20:42]
C
And can I can I just do one.
- [20:44]
A
Yeah.
- [20:45]
C
Can I say one follow up about that race in particular because we talked the other week about the Young Republican, you know, the lot of them in New York, the Young Republicans group chat. I mean I brought it up, let's say, and the follow up, there's an important follow up to both of those. And I did contrast it with, with the response to this AG candidate Jones. The New York Republican Party has shut down the Young Republicans and said, you're all done and we're going to build it from the ground up without people who behave this, they punish the people who did that. They basically are like, this is not what our organization is about. That's the correct response for that kind of behavior. Democrats are still backing this guy, this guy who threatened political violence and shrugging and saying, well, he said he was sorry. Not, not. He didn't really. And that's a real contrast to me, I think in terms of how each party is self disciplining in this new political environment where even a remark from five, 10 years ago or something on a, on a private group chat gets revealed. So I'm very, I think it's pretty disappointing that not a single, I don't think there's been a single Democrat except for who is. There were one or two who sort of said, oh, that's terrible. But you know, he's not, he's still the candidate. Why is he still a candidate? Because the Democrats actually don't take that sort of threat seriously.
- [21:59]
A
Okay, guys, I'm excited because it is fall and it is time for me to talk again about my favorite clothing, quince sweaters. Quints has the kind of fall staples you'll actually want to wear on repeat, like 100% Mongolian cashmere from just 60 bucks. Classic fit denim and real leather and wool outerwear that looks sharp and holds up. You know, I wear a lot of quince sweaters. If you watch us on YouTube, you're going to see quince sweaters all winter. But I got my eye on their suede trucker jacket. It's perfect for layering and just looks really casual. But put together by partnering directly with ethical factories and top artisans, Quince cuts out the middlemen to deliver premium quality at half the cost of similar brands. So layer up this fall with pieces that feel as good as they look. Go to quints.com commentary for free shipping on your order. And 365 day returns now available in Canada too. That's Q U I n c e.com Commentary Free shipping and 365 day returns quints.com Commentary this is a real good story about Bronx and his dad Ryan.
- [23:16]
C
Real United Airlines customers.
- [23:18]
B
We were returning home and one of.
- [23:19]
A
The flight attendants asked Bronx if he wanted to see the flight deck and meet Captain Andrew.
- [23:24]
C
I got to sit in the driver's seat.
- [23:25]
A
I grew up in an aviation family and seeing Bronx kind of reminded me.
- [23:29]
B
Of myself when I was that age.
- [23:31]
C
That's Andrew, a real United pilot.
- [23:33]
A
These small interactions can shape a kid's future. It felt like I was the captain. Allowing my son to see the flight deck will stick with us forever. That's how good leads the way.
- [23:44]
B
Well, and in Maine, they also, you know, Graham Platner had some similar. I don't want to say that he, you know, wasn't the exact same. He wasn't threatening to put bolts in anybody. But he, you know, it did come about that he has, you know, a past of, of, you know, somewhat violent rhetoric and, and, you know, Janet Mills got in the race. And, you know, the feeling in Maine was that, well, you know, even if we have to throw in somebody who, who is not who we wouldn't have gone in thinking is our strongest candidate, we should, you know, at least give people an alternative to that. That's, that's not happening in the Virginia.
- [24:19]
A
So the Platner story is interesting in this sense, which is that, which is that, that their conventional political hygiene was adopted in relation to this insurgent. Exciting. Looked like, looks like a, you know, Andrew Jackson, postmodern Andrew Jackson Democrat. He's a oysterman and he, it's a beard and he, you know, he's got a lumberman shirt and everything like that. So he's like Federman and like that guy in Wisconsin who ran. So authentic. Of course, it turns out apparently that his grandfather is the architect who built the aid building in Washington or something like that. So once again we have another Fetterman as a man of the people who went to Harvard and was being basically supported by his parents for 20 years. And this guy is some kind of faux oysterman in Maine or like a kind of artisanal oysterman or, you know, like an npr has the show on NPR like car talk about being an oysterman or something like that with very radical stuff. And so the main Democrat probably looked at this guy being their, their version of Mamdani or something like that against, in a very tough race against Susan Collins next year. The main senator who is constantly being underestimated every time she comes to the polls. Last time, six years ago, there was the idea in 2020 there was that this very attractive candidate against her was going to kill her and like, was up by nine points in the last poll and then she won by nine points. She's a very. This idea that she's vulnerable is maybe true, but like, you got to run a perfect race against Collins and he. And then the main Democratic Party sort of is responsible, I think, for doing what it's doing to Graham Platner, especially with the sitting governor having decided to enter the race. So A, you have the candidate selection and B, you have the drop, the dropping of the oppo against him so that he goes away before she sails and coasts into the nomination.
- [26:38]
C
But the but is. Let me, let me ask you a question about that, about the oppo, because I, I feel like in this recent election cycle and Mamdani is a perfect example of this, it doesn't work anymore for the left because Mamdani was just pictured chumming and palling around with a possible co conspirator of the World Trade center bombing. And nobody seems, everybody kind of shrugs. And he's not the only radical.
- [26:59]
A
That's the problem. See, what they're doing, what the main Democrats are doing is they're taking care of it before the voters choose. And New York was just a series of disaster, rolling disasters. It had a sitting Democratic mayor who therefore should have been the obvious nominee. He gets indicted for corruption, he then gets pardoned by Trump. By the time he's a indicted for correction and then pardoned by Trump, he becomes an impossibility to, you know, to choose as the Democratic nominee. He drops out of his own party's race, decides he's running as an independent, and then everything goes haywire. Perfect circumstances for an insurgent candidate to rise because there was no surgeons, there was no, there was no conventional candidate running as the leading person in the race. And so when everybody was surfacing stuff about Mamdani, there was no one to take advantage of it because no opposition of his rivals were, were as left wing as he was, particularly on, on these matters. But that's obviously not the case in Maine, right? In May, you have the sitting governor running and then one, you know, sort of squad type, squad plus Fetterman type, running as the, you know, attractive. We're not going to have the hacks decide who's gonna go for us. So then you just make it clear that he's a disgusting lunatic and then Mainers can go, nah, I don't want him. And look, I voted for Janet Mills before. I'll Vote for her again against Susan Collins and then you sort of have a normal procedure going on that, that the New York City Democrats evaded. The success of the squad kept being that they kept, they, they, they, they snuck up on people unawares, right? That was AOC's victory over Joe Crowley. And the Democratic primary in 2018 was. He didn't even know she was running. He was paying no attention. He was in the House leadership. He didn't care. He didn't visit the district. It was only 15, you know, literally 25,000 votes were cast in the district of, you know, 500,000 voters. And she won by 5,000 votes.
- [29:20]
C
Even, even that even the narrative about her was itself a construction and an unreality. That the net, the very self aggrandizing documentary that Netflix made about her and some other candidates who ran that year was all about how there was an organized machine putting, look, actively searching for the best. I mean, it's kind of like casting a role in a movie, finding the best people to sort of lead that insurgency. But it was tailored. You didn't actually have to do anything but look the part. And there's, there's this real sense that on the left there are more and more of those candidates that just have to look the part. Whether it's the Fetterman, you know, AOC hybrid or whether, I mean, I don't know what mom Donnie looks like, except a whole lot of trouble for this wonderful city of New York. But it is a. There's a strange look. Pardon?
- [30:05]
A
He looks young.
- [30:07]
C
He does look young. And he looks, he looks young, exciting.
- [30:10]
A
Looks like a nice, he looks like a relatively nice young man. He's always in a suit with a tie, you know, and, and he's got a close crop beard and you know, he looks like Lin Manuel Miranda. With a keffiyeh. With an invisible keffiyeh. That's what he, that's what he looks like. So he's a very much a New.
- [30:27]
C
York City, but he has the same machine behind him. I'm so. I just, I would just say the narrative that voters are often sold on these young, exciting, you know, breath of fresh air candidates is, is all itself a fiction. And it is. That's the part where I think you're absolutely right that in this New York race there just hasn't been enough time to sort of show his actual path and why he is the one who's out in front. It is, it is opportunism. But there's also a movement behind him and that movement doesn't get enough scrutiny, particularly in the New York Times.
- [30:56]
A
Yeah, it's not just a. The logical movement. It's a financial movement like. And this is the point also about no Kings and some of these other things is the amount of money that is pouring into resistance coffers is. Is very, very significant. I have no problem with that. This is America. And you have the right to assembly and you have the right to raise, you know, you have the right to free speech, so you can raise money to support your right to assembly and all of that. That's all. And I think that's all a proxy for telling us how politics is going. If Democrats can raise $100 million and get 7 million people out into the street as a gesture of their strength and just because they don't have control of either of the houses of our Parliament or of the White House that they are not, you would be foolish not to reckon with them and their organizing capacity and power. But that's the question I have about no Kings, which is, oh, look what we're capable of. Well, okay, did you register a million vote? I mean, it's a little late for 2025 and not that many places have races, but like, did you register a million new voters? Were there tables? Were you getting. Were you collecting email addresses and getting information on people so that you can, you know, pump the propaganda to them for a year so you get them?
- [32:19]
C
Well, look, John, they had that. They had that wonderful video from the icon of democracy herself, Kamala Harris, who never won a delegate and was forced down the Democratic to the top of the ticket at the last minute, talking about how important it is not to have any democracy. Democracy. I mean, the irony was of course seen by everyone on our side of the aisle, but there was. I don't think it. I think there was a real. We're doing this for. It was a sort of quasi therapeutic moment that no Kings rally. Now I will say the child. And I think Trump would have done better just ignore it. Instead he, like, put out a bunch of dumb AI Slop, which is. Seems to be their new thing, which I obviously I don't like. I don't like it because I'm not a huge fan of AI Slop. But it also just seems like, why just don't acknowledge it, like, let them.
- [33:04]
A
Do their thing all week. Seem to be worried about it because there was a lot of anti no Kings talk and this idea that you could reframe it, you know, which is a classic weird backroom pollster recommendation from people who like Test language. They say, oh, we've been at the focus groups and we test tested the language. Call it the Hate America rally. It's the Hate America rally. Well, okay, you know what? America rally, first of all, it's ridiculous. It's not a Hate America rally. The Hate America rallies were the ones on college campuses and stuff like that. This was not a Hate America rally. And if you overdo it, if you overst, you kind of degrade yourself. The thing to do is to say, gee, this is really nice. They're all getting together for a picnic. Congratulations. I hope you all have really some, you know, you have your delicious vegan burgers and, you know, tofu hot dogs, and we real men will be watching college football on Saturday while you're out, you know, gallivanting in the park or something like that. Like, that would be a way of handling it, which to dismiss its import. If you say they're having a Hate America rally and we are the ones who love America, you're elevating it to the status of something like very, very.
- [34:22]
C
Putting a picture of yourself and your vice president wearing crowns. Ha ha, so funny. I just like.
- [34:26]
B
Yeah, I mean, I also think that. But that's the. And it's ironic because I think that's the lesson that Democrats probably are least likely to learn from this. But I think that's, you know, the question of what. What are we capable of? What did we do?
- [34:41]
A
Is.
- [34:42]
B
The rally, to me was essentially the rally or March version of the. Of polling generic Democrat on the ballot. It was like, if you, you know, it didn't. The more definition it had and the, you know, and the more, you know, spice it had, the less likely it was to get 7 million people. And I think that it was. It's very much like, you know, people will say, well, if you put generic Democrat on the ballot, you know, those numbers shift. But if you keep sending, you know, Mamdani type candidates nationally and not just, you know, in New York City, we're not, you know, and it, you know, it was the same thing with people, you know, after the last couple rounds of, you know, of elections, you had moderates, Midwestern Democrats complaining that, you know, AOC and the others were, you know, from. From New York, setting the. The vibe of the party. And, you know, we don't, you know, the people who I represent don't actually want to, you know, fire all cops and only send social workers. But, you know, that this was not a nationwide. The no Kings rally seemed to me like, you know, it was like the, the sort of like Alyssa Slotkin version of the Women's March, which is like the AOC version of that. You know, it was like, we're not threatening. We're actually like, look out there. Look, There's. They're not breaking windows. There's like someone's grandma, you know, like, this is who we. This is, this is, you know, don't be, Don't. Do not fear the organizing of the left. And I think that the, any, any sort of larger point that makes it less generic, probably.
- [36:21]
A
I mean, it's better, it's even better than that. That's not something I would expect to be saying here. But in, in, in, in, in this case, which is, I'm saying, okay, what are the practical benefits going to be of having had this day? But thematically, it is true that Democrats and some liberals and some conservatives are alarmed at the, what appear to be very possibly extra constitutional measures and the use of executive plenary power and the possibility that the Trump that, that the punishment of enemies using the tools of, you know, using executive tools that are not designed to provide presidents and their, you know, camp followers and their own administrations with, with weapons to hurt other people with. That's not what they're for. And even things like, you know, the deployment of federal forces in cities and that, which none of which is, that is not new. Nor is the use of, to punish enemies, as we know from, you know, sort of selective IRS audits and things like that that we know happen in almost every event, certainly happened in the Obama administration and have happened most notoriously in the Nixon administration, but that people will use the power that they have to hand as long as they can, sort of like make it somewhat invisible. The difference with Trump is that he doesn't make it invisible. He wants people to know that he's doing it as an intimidation tactic. But that, of course, raises all kinds of questions about how people are supposed to respond to it. That's a real thing. The theme is a real thing, that Trump is not conforming to our norms of what we expect. A democratically elected president who was not elected with a huge mandate for anything, right? He won by three points. He won by 100 electoral votes. He didn't win 200. You know, he wasn't a year in which he won 49 states and 500 electoral votes and 60% of the electorate, and yet he is conducting himself almost as though he did. And so the idea of responding to that by saying, yo, yo, yo, yo, slow your roll, because the American people aren't going to stand for this. This is your first warning. Again, I don't think that there's anything object. Not only do I not think there's anything objectional about it, it seems to me to be a proper response to political controversies when your president is himself openly courting controversies and wants there to be controversies. But you should do it. Well, if you're gonna do it. I thought the Women's March was actually a very brilliant piece of counter programming to the rise of Trump. And was the bulk what did it.
- [39:20]
B
Was also actual counter programming. Literally, literally counter broke. You know, he's going to do the inauguration. We're going to be in the streets, we're going to have a bigger crowd. He's going to be left lying about the size of his crowd because we, you know that it was literal counter program.
- [39:35]
A
Right. And. But it also started pushing the boulder down the hill to the Democratic triumph in the midterms in 2018 and all the victories in the special elections in 2017 and everything that ultimately, if you add Covid in and everything like that, basically made sure that his. He was gonna get knocked out at the end of his first term like that that began on that day of January 20th.
- [40:02]
C
And this is what I think the midterm elections will give us some more information about the voter, obviously the voter's mindset, because it strikes me that something neither side is talking about that remains of great concern to voters is the state of the economy. There's a huge amount of uncertainty, if you're just the average American about how things are going. The impact of the tariffs that are continuing to pile on, that's going to cost. I was just reading an article about how much it's going to raise homebuilding prices. Because a lot of the cabinets in the wood, the kinds of things that are. That we import now are going to have these huge tariffs, even more tariffs on them. So these things are not being engaged, you know that they're talking at the level of like he's pretending to be. He's trying to be a king. We don't have any kings. That's all well and good, but I will be very curious to see the economic message coming out of this White House in the. And that's what Vance has been actually sent out to talk about a little bit. And it's not. I don't know what that message is beyond tariffs are great, trust me. Because there are some signals that. That are of concern in the economy in terms of jobs. I mean, the employment numbers in particular. But just Growth, all of the impact of sort of the AI super investment in AI, which is kind of bolstering a lot of these numbers. So I think that's something he's going to have to engage in. He's not so far been great on the economy in terms of conveying his message.
- [41:21]
A
Well, I think he's conveying his message. I don't. Well, it's just all tariffs right now. The Democrats are very ginger about what he knows. And again, with that sort of lizard cunning. What he knows is that it's not simply enough to say tariffs are bad.
- [41:38]
C
Right.
- [41:39]
A
And Democrats are worried about saying tariffs are bad. First of all, there are all kinds of tariffs. Everybody likes some tariff, right? Everybody, you know, it's like one of those things, pick your tariff. Well, then Trump's giving a lot of.
- [41:53]
C
Carve outs to groups that don't like tariffs.
- [41:56]
A
Exactly. Okay, so everybody likes some tariffs, everybody doesn't like other tariffs. And they don't want to say this tariff regime is violating, you know, everything that we've learned about how to manage a giant economy from the 1920s onward.
- [42:13]
C
That this might also be for constitutional use of presidential power and declaring.
- [42:17]
A
Right. But they, they're not going there with the tariffs. The opposition instead, and this is a very interesting choice. And maybe they know something, I don't know, but they're going with. He's sending in his goons into perfectly safe cities to, you know, arrest, you know, like, kidnap children.
- [42:44]
C
Going with fear, literally.
- [42:46]
A
The what fear?
- [42:48]
C
They're using fear as a motivation.
- [42:50]
A
But they're also you literally using the tools of law enforcement to kidnap children, to goon squad people in the streets of Chicago, to, you know, invaders Portland. And the problem with this rhetoric is that the people who are gooning and kidnapping and invading are all Americans. They are Americans in uniform who are serving their country and are following orders and are being legitimately deployed under the rules of the National Guard by Trump and by some governors and all that. And why is that happening? It's happening because that's one of the reasons we have a National Guard. We don't have a National Guard like a secondary army that you can deploy and then send into a war zone when you run out of reserves. The National Guard is largely intended to deal with insurrections inside the. We deployed National Guard in 1992 at the height of the Los Angeles riots after the Rodney King incident. The National Guard is deployed in, you know, cities where there are floods and things like that to maintain order and do all kinds of things. And ice is an is a law enforcement agency that is supposed to be on the lookout for people who are in this country illegally and have no illicit reason to be there. And, and, and so if, if you're going to weaponize the legitimate use of executive power in the form of deploying the National Guard and using the, using a law enforcement agency of the federal government whose mission is popular. Right.
- [44:40]
C
But whose rhetoric is questionable, I would say the ins, the way that Trump uses the word, you know, insurrection all the time, he, that's actually being, that's going to be legally hashed out before the courts and how, and that those cases are ongoing. That's where I think he does give an opportunity to the left to say Portland's not invaded. And what he actually should do is just what you, he should just say, look, if you attack our federal ICE agents who are going about their business, if you threaten them, you're going to get arrested and you're going to get in trouble for that and don't do that. But that's a separate thing from sending the National Guard in saying, you know, Chicago's in a state of insurrection because they can't manage their own law enforcement. And that does get people uncomfortable. Gets me uncomfortable. And whether or not those deployments of National Guard are legal is still an outstanding question. So I think Trump did this a lot in his first term too. He, his rhetoric is so over the top, but his behavior isn't always over the top. But, but he doesn't make the distinction. And in fact, it's much more so in this second term than the first because he has the, you know, the confidence of having won reelection.
- [45:43]
A
Limu Emu. And Doug, here we have the Limu.
- [45:48]
B
Emu in its natural habitat, helping customize their car insurance and save hundreds with Liberty Mutual.
- [45:57]
C
Fascinating.
- [45:58]
B
It's accompanied by his natural ally, Doug Limu. Is that guy with the binoculars watching us.
- [46:04]
A
Cut the camera.
- [46:05]
B
They see us. Only pay for what you need@libertymutual.com Liberty Liberty Liberty Liberty Savings Very underwritten by Liberty Mutual Insurance Company Affiliates.
- [46:13]
A
Excludes Massachusetts.
- [46:14]
B
This episode is brought to you by LifeLock. It's Cybersecurity Awareness Month and LifeLock has tips to protect your identity. Use strong passwords, set up multi factor authentication, report phishing and update the software on your devices. And for comprehensive identity protection, let LifeLock alert you to suspicious uses of your personal information. Lifelock also fixes identity theft, guaranteed or your money back. Stay smart, safe and protected with a 30 day free trial at lifelock.com podcasts terms apply and also. But the other reason that it makes people so uncomfortable is because it pits Americans against each other in a sort of clear enemy within, easy to see way.
- [46:56]
C
Right.
- [46:57]
B
I mean, Governor Kevin Stitt, who is the governor of Oklahoma, he's a Republican, you know, obviously it's, you know, he's no, you know, rhino or whatever. I thought he had the perfect response to the National Guard thing, which is that, you know, he told. He said to the New York Times, Oklahomans would lose their mind if Pritzker in Illinois sent troops down to Oklahoma during the Biden administration. That was in response to Texas sending troops to Illinois. Right. During the Trump administration. So he was like, you can easily reverse this and see, like, people would. And he's right. They would lose their minds. We had, I mean, during the Obama administration, we had all sorts of like, they're building FEMA camps.
- [47:39]
C
The black helicopters. Yes, the black helicopter storyline, like, the FEMA camp stuff.
- [47:43]
B
I mean, there. There really. There really was a sense of like, is he mobilizing federal law enforcement against. But this is like, I'm gonna send Texans to go mess with Illinoisans. And, you know, Kevin Sitz response was perfect. Which is like, that's kind of the literal. Pitting American against each other, putting American states like, you state, you go invade that state or whatever, you know, and everybody is naturally uncomfortable with that kind of thing because it' so visceral and so obvious what's going on.
- [48:12]
A
Yeah. Also the people. Look, I am. We all live in areas where there have been crime spikes and with, you know, where I'm in New York, you guys are in and around D.C. like, these are the places that people think of when they think of places that are out of control. New York's not really out of control. There was a huge spike over the last three years in crazy crime and the crime committed by crazy people who are, you know, like, pushing people on subway platforms and stuff like that. Erratic, unpredictable, you know, targeting anybody could happen to you at any time. It's not like huge crime wave, but extraordinarily unnerving. And then in D.C. you have all the. And. And a justice system here and in D.C. where the judiciary and some of the laws that have been changed let people off for committing violent offenses against people and carjackings and things like that. So we live here, we live in and among it. And. And so. But if you live in Kevin Stitts, Oklahoma, and you watch Fox News, you would think that New York was Beirut, you know, in the, you know, in the 1980s and it isn't. We need help. And I'm terrified of what's going to happen in a momdani mayoralty to the crime rate and what he's going to do to the police department. But all of that is worth political rhetorical adjudication because the Trump people are like, this country is in an emergency. We need to do all this stuff to save a country from the emergency that it's in. And you know, that is not an accurate depiction of the condition of the United States. And that creating that emotion, the kind of Stephen Miller turning it up to 11 thing is making. Not only is it not an accurate depiction of the country as it stands, it has a weird anti American quality to it. Like, we are not this country, we are not this. We're not Clockwork Orange.
- [50:38]
C
This. But this is, this is, this is actually one of the things too, that for all the people who love the Stephen Miller rhetoric and love what Trump's doing and say more of this, more of this, they should look, they should read a few books of presidential history. In the 20th century, you know, the imperial presidency was the concern and a lot of the concern was how we would use our power overseas and an executive that, that went beyond the bounds of what Americans wanted to do, but in the 21st century. And I think Biden was a perfect example of this as well. It's the danger of the permanent emergency President, because all of the powers that are opened up in a state of emergency to the executive can be made permanent. And that idea of permanent emergency is what I see a lot of the rhetoric that comes out of this White House trying to encourage and in front of the courts, they are having a lot of defeat with that rhetoric because the courts are looking at the law and going, yeah, this does not look like an emergency. Even Trump appointed judges have said that. But going forward, all of those powers will be there for the next Democratic administration. And that's the part that I'm like, please be a little more forward looking and think about our system in that way. Yes, I know we can't talk about norms anymore, Fine. But just think about the power that will reside in that office if he, if he's successful with some of these things. And to Seth's point, I think it's a great story about the Oklahoma governor. How would you like President Mamdani or President AOC doing this and talking about this and putting out posts about this when the shoes on the other foot, Mikey.
- [52:02]
B
Cheryl, he's not putting more cops on the street.
- [52:05]
C
No.
- [52:06]
B
Sending Texas.
- [52:08]
A
Yeah. Right. So Mikey Sherrill, who is the gubernatorial candidate of the Democratic Party in, in New Jersey and is in trouble, like that is a state. She was, she was up by 15 points. It's now tied Republicans under poll in these races. So you can almost presume that Jack Cittarelli, who is her rival, may be a little ahead. She's in a lot of trouble. But her and Mikey Sheryl was a fighter pilot. And so she does a lot of these commercials are her and you know, in a helicopter, you know, like, you know, you know, like that, like trying to be, you know, make it clear that she was a fighter pilot. And then she says from day one, I am going to declare an emergency on energy prices. So I'm bringing this up only to say that the language of emergency is not unique to the Republican Party or to Trump. No, it's, you can see the power of it is. She's like, I'm not just going to stand here and let these energy prices. I'm declaring an emergency.
- [53:13]
C
Well, Biden talked about the climate emergency all the time and then did all kinds of stuff. He wasn't really allowed Constitution.
- [53:19]
A
And then of course, let us not forget the COVID emergency, which was, you know, the most intrusive moment of government in the United States in modern times. And to what extent was any of that even remotely helpful?
- [53:33]
C
Okay, but this is where I think the stuff you, the stuff we were talking about earlier, the fear, the fear based rhetoric and the fear based storyline that the Democrats are trying to create now fits in exactly with the emergency. It's like this bad. It's like watching a bad ping pong game or something. One fuels the other. Because if things are really this bad, if it, you know, if you're, if you have to be fearful that your federal government's going to come in and, you know, arrest American citizens and disappear, you then actually, you feel like you're in a state of emergency and you will turn to the candidate who says, I've got this, like, I'm going to be strong. I'm going to fight this tyrant. And the problem is that we're just going to be going back and forth every four years between different forms of supposed tyranny. And that isn't how our system was meant to work. It was meant to have some kind of leavening influence. Maybe that will be the independent voters in the electorate who are growing. But so far I don't see a lot of signs of temperance on either side with this.
- [54:25]
A
I just want to go back to the ceasefire in Gaza, Because I started raising a question that we didn't answer, which was what Israel wanted out of what happened yesterday, by which I mean launched these strikes and apparently hit some tunnels in Khan Yunis and some places that it had left unmolested because it did not know whether or not there were hostages there or what was there. And they took out some Hamas terrorists, as they call them. I don't know whether they're just ordinary fighters or they're leaders or whatever. They specifically said we took out these five Hamas terrorists as a response to the killing of five Israeli soldiers. I don't know that they wouldn't have wanted to stop operations. One of the ways you measure whether or not your countermeasures against the ceasefire deal are working is they do what you. Then you go in with, with greater force, more powerful force, the Israelis against whatever Hamas's action was, and then you stop to see how they respond. Were they shocked? Did they. Are they. Are they scared? Are they running away? Do they want to re. Engage? Is this giving you more leverage to get them to get more bodies out so that this can really come to an end from Israel's perspective in that sense? And can you start moving on without all that much resistance to the task of disarming Gaza, if not specifically disarming Hamas? And one of the ways in which Gaza will be disarmed, even though it's not an arm per se, is the destruction of the tunnel system. So I don't know that America prevailing upon the Netanyahu government to stop its kinetic actions yesterday was something that the Israeli government did not welcome, simply as a tactical matter. You know, you go in, you say, ho, ho, ho. And then it's like, now what? Now what do you want? Because it's not like the administration said, you can't go back, or, you know, that's it.
- [56:52]
C
It's politically useful for Trump to say that, too, even if they approve of what Israel did.
- [56:57]
A
Yeah, I mean, that. Yeah. So I don't know. I mean, and that's one of the reasons I say I'm not. I don't think that Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff are lying when they say that, you know, they thought that Bibi had gone too far or something like that. They may be, they may not be. We don't know who's talking to whom, where. But the idea that the American government would look at the strike on Doha and say, okay, that's enough, might have been a way of saying, okay, that's enough. We just got enough to make the final push to end the war. Like, don't do any more. I know you didn't tell us, but we can make use of this. Or maybe they did tell them and this is the line that they've decided to take, because this is what they told everybody in the Middle East. I, I don't know. And there's no reason to trust that that war is defended, as Churchill said, by a bodyguard of lies. And so you, you don't know what people mean when they say this is what happened behind the scenes in Doha between us and the Israelis and Hamas and Gutter. Like, you just have no reason to. They are not morally obliged to tell us the truth about that. They really are.
- [58:16]
B
They want the peace to hold. You know, it's not crazy to say that, right? I mean, you would. They want the piece to hold. But also, the comments that Witkoff and Kushner are making are not really out of character at all. Because, you know, when Jared Kushner in the first administration, when he got involved, he was, you know, he, the first thing he tried to do was give Palestinians that path to prosperity type of deal, right? And, you know, Kushner is, is, is, you know, friendly with and admiring of, you know, the kinds of technocratic American educated Palestinians like Salam Fayyad who, you know, were stymied in bringing about reforms in the Palestinian Authority. But, you know, were everybody who, who knew him believed that he did want actual reform to take place and that sort of thing. And so when, when Jared and Witkoff, when they say, you know, now it's time to turn some attention to the Palestinians, we have to make their lives better, that's not like some U turn. That's, you know, they've been trying. And that, that was, you know, the Abraham Accords were like, the Palestinians complain about the Abraham Accords. Jared was like, I came to you first. You know, you were the first people. I offered, you know, a kind of trade, make daily life better for you type of deal. And we, you know, we kept shopping it around. It's like, so we have takers for people who want their lives to be made. You didn't. But he, you know, he has been from the beginning. Not at all. The, the, the complaint that he, that they've ignored the Palestinians and the Palestinian cause has never been true.
- [59:55]
A
Look, this is a protein, right? This was the second Bush administration's approach in the middle, which is the thing to do to get the, to get, to move forward out of this sort of quag morass of inability to move forward into the future is make daily life better for the Palestinians. Yes. Oh, and then there's this prime minister, Salam Fayyad. He really does believe in the two state solution. He really does believe in reaching some kind of concord with Israel. The Bush people loved him, everybody loved him. Everything was wonderful. He polls at around 2%, so it's he everybody. But Palestinians whose lives he wishes to improve don't seem to want their lives to improve because they're too busy wanting to destroy Israel and kill as many Jews as possible if they can get their hands on them. And yeah, so Jared fell down that same rabbit hole, which is okay if you're not going to go for statehood first because that's, that's a non starter for the Israelis. Go for material improvements in the Palestinian social polity and see if when they get a taste of what it's like to be a normal country with a more normal economy, they'll just want more and more of it. But of course, as we all know, faith, ideology and ideas really trump that stuff. It really doesn't work. It never works. It hasn't worked in China, where, you know, a taste of a taste of having a really growing economy hasn't exactly moderated the Chinese regime. It appears quite the opposite since there was just a gigantic purge of the Chinese Communist Party. I assume in order to keep Xi in power forever. You know, you can't feed people. You can, there are some, I mean East Asia, a lot of these countries did go on a path from authoritarianism to more democratic institutions. But if you have a murderous totalitarian ideology, as the Palestinians do, as the Chinese do, all of that, you take whatever money you can get or what techniques will help you while using those techniques to bolster what you actually want to do.
- [62:19]
C
Both of those regimes also have something that I think too often Americans forget. Even though we're a very forward looking country and a forward looking people, is the long game that both, both Hamas and China are playing. They're playing like 100 year epic civilizational game and we're like playing Trivial Pursuit sometimes. And we need to understand that the short term wins that we see as wins might actually strategically long term not be wins. And those sorts of conversations, Americans have always been bad at having those long term strategy conversations. This administration in particular is bad at it with regard, I think, to China. But those sorts of understanding of the other. I recommended a book a few weeks ago that looks at China, you start to really see that when you read deeply into what the cultural support of a nation and their sense of nationalism, their sense of purpose. And then the terrorists, obviously, a different sense of purpose, but one that is very difficult to negotiate with.
- [63:15]
A
Right. Okay, well, you guys. You guys have got to get back.
- [63:18]
C
I know, but can I say out of this. But wait. I have to say one thing, because I didn't get to give my impressions earlier of the roast. Two things. So many of our wonderful listeners came up who came to the roast, many for the first time, because they believed you, John. I think properly, just to thank us for our daily conversations. And it was wonderful to meet all of you. And also everyone was. He's not here to receive the praise, but everyone's praising Abe's newsletter. I had a lot of people come up and say, ah, love the newsletter, love the podcast. It's my daily listen, my daily read. So I just. It was real. I always love meeting our listeners. And there were so many wonderful ones there last night. So next time more people should come if you haven't come. It was a really. And it was unbelievably efficiently timed. We were out of there at like. You ran a good show, John, in terms of timing. So it was great.
- [64:05]
A
Thank you very much.
- [64:06]
C
People would have stayed longer, I think. As Seth and I were talking, I.
- [64:08]
A
Proud myself, as I said at the end of the roast, the entire from. From. From when the lights dim to when I said good night, it was an hour and nine minutes, which for a. Which for a charity dinner for a nonprofit institution is unheard of record. Yeah, it's like, you know, Roger Bannister's mile or Shohei Ohtani's game on Thursday. Just, you know, that doesn't happen. So it was. I was. I was. I was thrilled to. To have overseen such a breakneck event and people could get home, as I said, not quite in time. But I did get home in time to watch the final episode of Task on hbo, which is one of the best TV series I've ever seen. If you haven't seen it, you can go to HBO Max. It's seven episodes, seven hours. It's over and done, beginning to end. Really a remarkable show, even though it stars the filth, disgusting Mark Ruffalo who should be thrown into a lava volcano. I don't know if that means that I get out of the. I get out of the Republican group chat thing if I'm wishing death on Mark Ruffalo. I'm not really wishing death on Mark Ruffalo because I don't have the capacity to injure him. But, you know, I do If I'm going to praise something Mark Ruffalo is, then I do have to make the point that. That. That he is lower than an amoeba, but. But a pretty good actor anyway. But that's Task with an astounding performance by Tom Pelfrey. You can go watch Task. I give you permission. If you are a Zionist like me and can't abide the thought of giving Mark Buffalo business, he's already been paid. He doesn't get residuals because it's on hbo, so it's a sunk cost. You don't have to worry. You're not paying for him and you can watch it. Okay. We'll be back tomorrow. For Seth and Christine, I'm John Pothoric. Keep the candle burning. What are your holiday traditions? Putting up a minimum of six trees. Decorating every room with a different theme. Whatever it is, here's one way to make those traditions extra special. Start the season with Etsy. On Etsy, you'll discover original pieces from small shops. Shops to help you celebrate your way. Shop Etsy for holiday decor that makes you feel seen. Special starts on Etsy. Tap the banner to shop now.