C (2:49)

Okay. Yeah, I never like to, I don't actually revel in anyone losing a job. That's tough. But at the Cabinet level, I, I, there's a, that doesn't apply. And she was a terrible person to bring in, in the first place. I'm very glad that she left. I think the circumstances of her departure are a perfect example of why she never should have had that position in the first place. The way she testified before Congress the other day, I, interestingly, I don't think it's the sort of scandals of her and potential extramarital affair with Coral Corey Lewandowski or any of that that's going to end up being the biggest scandal of her tenure there. I think it's going to be how she was dealing with contracts. It's a lot of money flowing in and out of DHS right now. And the question of whether she was funneling it to people she knew and whether that sort of corruption was going on. There's some investigations into that right now. It's worth continuing to watch that. But yes, I think, I think the nation is in a better place with her no longer at the helm.

A (3:45)

So it's, it's an interesting moment because obviously she lost Trump's confidence when the, when the Minnesota event or the Minnesota, what would you call it, op went, went bad. But he said that, you know, he was shocked, shocked to discover that she was sleeping with her a Corey Lewandowski, which I'm sure did not actually come as news to him as he's a huge gossip. And if I knew it, he knew it. But that was the sort of the, the thing that he used as the final. Okay.

C (4:21)

I, I think it's actually the way that she Congress about the very controversial spend on ads that she was making about herself. She said that Trump wanted that. And it seems like that really rubbed him the wrong way. He didn't want to take ownership of the, those vanity ads that she'd spent hundreds of millions of dollars making.

A (4:40)

Yeah. Have you guys seen these ads? Because they run on our Local New York 1, our local news channel here all morning every morning. They've been running sometimes on the local feed of the Today show. And they are fascinating because there's never been anything like them before. I mean, it's a sort of promotional campaign to promote the existence of Kristi Noem, nominally saying go if you're an illegal alien, go and get, you know, leave self deport. You can come back in. If you don't, we'll catch you. But she like says her name three times and she's like in a jacket and she's a. And you know, it's, it's fascinating because, you know, Cabinet departments do have money often in their budgets for public service messaging. About what they do and how to, how to access their benefits or how to deal with them and stuff like that. The Ag Department, the Commerce Department, things that have front facing or consumer facing effects that we don't even see often because they're often in magazines or this or other places. But this is literally the first time that I've seen a personality ad focused on a cabinet secretary and it's been going on for a year. So again, Trump, I think watches a lot of television. Maybe he doesn't watch the ads or something like that, but again, that can't have come as a surprise to him. Or maybe it did. I don't know. Maybe I'm not, not, not being fair.

C (6:12)

Well, her department is also currently wrangling with Congress about funding and about being partially shut down. I mean, there's a lot of political stuff that she also hasn't been handling well in terms of running this agency, which is one of the biggest cabinet level agencies in the country.

D (6:30)

Can I just say, I was confused. I understood this to be a promotion because she's going to be special envoy to the Shield of the Americas. And that sounds much cooler than secretary of a, of a cabinet department.

C (6:45)

What is it? What is the shield of America?

A (6:48)

They interact with the superheroes. They are, they the super friends, you know, they are like shield. It's Nick Fury is from SHIELD and he helps run the Avengers.

D (7:00)

Yeah, it's the extended Marvel.

A (7:01)

She's gonna be working. Yes, she's gonna be working with Samuel Jackson and you know, and Captain Marvel and Captain America. It's very, very exciting, I think for her. We're all happy for her to be this special envoy.

D (7:19)

It is apparently, by the way, just a, you know, like America and Latin America thing, just, you know, for over immigration and migration and stuff like that. So they'll be, they'll be very happy to continue working. The other countries will get to continue working with Kristi Noem on immigration.

A (7:35)

You know, God, God bless them.

C (7:38)

We're sorry, South America.

A (7:39)

If we can take it, we can take it. Okay, so once again, this proves that Trump is a more pragmatic politician than we realized. And if he were even more pragmatic, he would have done this sooner. I guess this, this disastrous testimony last week was the sort of the final straw. Jamie, as our Washington commentary columnist, providing Washington commentary for the unwashed masses out in America, do you think that cabinet secretaries matter? Do they matter or are they really window dressing for a department that is running of its own steam? Robert Reich, the now sort of like notoriously populist, leftist social media figure was the moderate secretary of Commerce under Clinton. And he wrote a book called Locked in the Cabinet, and it's one of the best books ever written about Washington, because basically it's about how he did absolutely nothing.

E (8:43)

He wasn't moderate.

A (8:45)

He wasn't moderate, what, as Commerce Secretary or Labor Secretary.

E (8:50)

Robert Reich was Labor Secretary. He was very left wing, and he quit because the Clinton administration was not left wing enough for him. Any. Any left sort of protest.

A (9:00)

Yeah, okay. Okay.

B (9:01)

I think.

A (9:02)

I don't. Anyway, it doesn't matter. Obviously, this.

E (9:05)

This is the diminutive gentleman, right?

C (9:08)

Okay.

A (9:09)

He's. Yes, yes. He's. He's not. Not a tall. Not a tall person.

E (9:13)

Just want to make sure we have the right person.

A (9:14)

He wrote a very amusing book about being a member, an original book about what it's like being a member of the Cabinet, because he came locked in the Cabinet. Locked in the Cabinet. It's basically about how, as a Cabinet secretary, he did absolutely nothing related to policy whatsoever. All he did was go around and give speeches. His scheduler told him where to go. He got up in the morning, the car drove him here, then the car drove him there. He had no agency, he had no control, and nobody cared what he did. And the White House, if there was ever any major issue involving labor, the White House took the lead. And so it was sort of an amusing portrait of a fundamental truth, which is the people we think are the most powerful in Washington are often not powerful at all. And that raises interesting questions about Kristi Doem, in my estimation, because of what she was doing was largely like trying to make ads and wear cool jackets and even bad stuff like steering contracts to her friends, if that's actually something that she did. The actual line authority and things that the Department of Homeland Security were doing were clearly second or tertiary issues to her. And most of this was being run out of Stephen Miller's shop at the White House. Anyway.

E (10:33)

I think that's a fair thing to say. But, you know, this is a president who cares about optics and image more than anyone. And, you know, he was willing to stand by her for a long time, I think, even by his standards. I would have thought that the bad press in December, January with the two killings in Minneapolis, that. That at some point would have convinced Trump to ditch her, throw her over the ledge. Right. And he stuck with her. But I think he was probably presumably getting flack from his own side. I wouldn't be surprised if Tom Homan, who's the real power behind the throne, who I think has a good relationship with Trump, was maybe sending messages. You know, you got to get rid of this woman because she's just standing in the way and she's really hurting our efforts because the public opinion now on what we're doing is so strongly tilted against us in large part to the kind of, you know, circus act that she's been running really since she came into the job.

A (11:37)

Trump has announced his intention to appoint after obviously, the confirmation of the Senate Senator Mark Wayne Mullen of Oklahoma as her replacement. And I don't want to be mean, but I'll be mean. Mark Wayne Mullen is one of the least impressive politicians in the history of the United States. He's barely articulate. He seems quite dumb, to be frank. And, you know, this is a no joke department. Not only is it. Not only does it have the frontline authority for issues relating to immigration, we're in a war with Iran, and Iran has sleeper cells all over the world and has a history of causing domestic terrorist attacks in countries far afield from its borders in Argentina, in Europe and elsewhere. We need to be on heightened awareness that something like this could be happening inside the United States if we are directly engaged in hostilities toward Iran. And so you want somebody who is mint vintage first rate in that job. Not that you don't want someone first rate in every job at the cabinet level, but this is like first tier, right? The first tier after the Homeland Security Department was created in 2001, 2002, is, you know, Justice, State, defense and Homeland Security are the first tier jobs in terms of the executive branch's responsibility for, you know, protecting the safety, both domestically and abroad, of the people of the United States. And so I don't really, I'm not that impressed by this.

C (13:24)

Well, politically, though, it's savvy in the sense that he's going to. Senator Fetterman has already said he'll support his nomination. He's a senator, so he's got probably an easier ride for confirmation at a time when this department, as Jamie said, is under a lot of scrutiny and public opinion is against it. So in a sense, if Mark Wayne Mullen will simply follow Homan and Stephen Miller's orders and stay out of the limelight in a bad way, in the way that Kristi Norman was doing, he's probably a good fit for that job. If he's a figurehead and he keeps his head down and lets the other people run policy, maybe that's fine because his confirmation process will be smoother than Perhaps someone brought in from the outside.

B (14:03)

I mean, it's an interesting question, John, when you ask what power does a cabinet secretary really have? The Trump administration, this Trump administration, there's kind of this tendency at least some of the positions to treat these departments almost like laboratories now, you know, I mean, if you Health and Human Services certainly, you know, and you, you've got,

D (14:29)

you've got,

B (14:36)

I'm sorry, the turning, turning, the creating the Department of War now, you know, transforming the Defense Department. I mean, it's like they're sort of experimenting here, you know. So I'm not sure what the game is going to be going forward in this particular case, but I don't know that we can, you know, it's another Trump making, changing the rules as he goes along kind of situation.

A (15:11)

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D (17:53)

What I also think that he's, she's sort of like she in terms of cabinet power, she made herself more powerful than I think Trump expected her. Right? Because it wasn't, it wasn't really in the whatever's going on in Minnesota as much as it was that she made herself the decider of all things that cost more than $10 or whatever. And so contracts got held up, right. And appropriations got held up and requests for, I think, for storm aid got held up. I mean, there were several things that were above the dollar figure that Kristi Noem said I have to personally approve. And so there came this log jam of projects and public works and stuff. And I don't think that is at all what Trump has in mind when he puts somebody in the cabinet that things that storm aid will stop, that that they're going to be the one to decide, you know, every expensive thing that comes in. And so in a weird way, I think she, you know, even though we didn't really see it with the immigration stuff, I feel like she did take too much power for herself and it had effects that had to other Republicans around the country grumbling to Trump about it for a while.

A (19:12)

Right. One interesting aspect, then we can move on from this is that the person who will choose Mark Wayne Mullen's successor in Oklahoma, governor of Oklahoma, is Kevin Stitt. Trump hates Kevin Stitt. I mean, the, the Oklahoma, I think, is the state that returned the largest majority for Trump in the country and Both in all three, in all three elections, 2016, 2020 and 2024. But Stitt seems to get under Trump's skin. He's A little less MAGA and a little more sort of like, you know, I Federalist in the sense that, like, you know, I'm the governor. I.

B (19:58)

You.

A (19:58)

You can't tell me what to do stuff. Trump has called him a rhino. So there is the slight possibility that Kevin Stitt will appoint somebody who will not be as robotic in his support of Trump as. Or her support of Trump as. As Mark Wayne Mullen has been. Not that. That still be a Republican, still be, you know, 90% supportive. But it is interesting. Like, he didn't go for somebody from a state where there is sort of a slavish executive in the state capitol who will, you know, do his bidding. Anyway. That's just a point.

C (20:39)

We should have a moment of silence for the south park guys, because she really was sort of their muse. Hilarious.

A (20:46)

And there was this fantastic meme yesterday in Game of Thrones. Lady Olenna, in Game of Thrones, played by the great Diana Rigg, just before she dies, has this scene where she says to the villain, the villainous, incestuous Jaime Lannister, that, you know, the last thing she wants before she is put to death is for the villainous Cersei to know that she, Olenna, is the person responsible for poisoning Jaime and. And Cersei's son, King Joffrey. And Diana Riggs says, tells, I want you to tell Cersei that it was me. Right? It's one of the great scenes in television, and somebody put up a meme which was, tell Kristi Noem that it was me. And it's a dog with his head out the window. Because it was her genius idea to make the point in her memoir that she was so tough that she had her own dog put down, or she put. Excuse me, she put her own dog down. And one of the weirdest, you know, moments in any political memoir ever. I talked about a good political memoir in Robert Rice Locked in the Cabinet. This. This would be maybe the other. But so tell, tell, tell. Christy, it was me. So there we are. The. The dogs fight back. The dog. The dog gets. The dog from heaven gets the last laugh. Okay? From the sublime, from the ridiculous to the more. More serious. Do you want to talk about Tucker or do you want. We want to talk about the war. Actually, they're totally connected.

C (22:38)

I was going to say they're kind of the same thing right now.

A (22:43)

So Trump this morning tweeted out, he said, I will accept nothing less than unconditional surrender from Iran. Abe, why is this a big deal?

B (22:56)

Because we've been not just US but the country has been speculating rightly about what exactly the end game might look like here because the administration has been very intentionally fuzzy about it. You know, talking about degrading their, Iran's military capabilities, taking out regime targets, and then what, you know, how they know when they're done was the big question. Because there's always going to be some remnant of a regime or a regime figure or as a, so how do

A (23:37)

you,

B (23:39)

when are you done? And are you. And so this is Trump saying, this is how we'll know when we're done.

A (23:48)

It's interesting because it actually takes, it moves us beyond this Talmudic parsing of the phrase regime change that we've all been doing, because it doesn't really matter in this sense whether there's a regime change or, or not. If the regime were able, were without being able to collapse, able to go to whatever the version of Appomattox is in this scenario, sit down with, you know, General Kane and sign the unconditional surrender papers. It could stay, it could go, it could do whatever. This will be the, this will be the sort of like the public image will be that Iran acknowledged that it had been defeated by the United States and the regime that survived. That would be a humiliated, destroyed, moral, you know, have it having had its 47 year history of saying death to America, having to bend the knee and saying we lost. So I think the regime can't survive that. So the unconditional surrender will come from whoever succeeds it, essentially agreeing to a document that ends the war that might even feature interesting goodies for the next regime in Iran as part of the, as part of the surrender. But it is a significant step in the idea that it's not going to be that we're going to say we're done here the way we did and in the go in with Kuwait and Iraq, though we did sign a paper with Saddam Hussein about, you know, what was going to go on after that. But it was not, it was not described as a surrender. It was described as we achieved our war aim, Saddam had left Kuwait, we were done. And, and this was how we were going to move forward. So if this is an evil, barbaric, monstrous war, as for Jews, as Tucker Carlson says, what does Tucker Carlson think of Trump saying that there's an unconditional surrender, particularly after Trump just said he's not maga, he's lost his way and he's stupid, which is literally what he said yesterday.

E (26:09)

Jonathan Karl Tucker said yesterday, if I'm not mistaken, I love Trump no matter what, even if he criticizes me. So he's a total cuck. I believe that's the term that they would use on that side of the aisle. You know, the attack that Tucker made yesterday, he didn't mention this, but he went on some bizarre rant against Chabad, which to some of our listeners might be unfamiliar. It's a sort of Jewish messianic outreach organization. It's a Hasidic sect of Judaism. And these are really sort of the friendliest, you know, Jews you'll meet. I mean, these are people who. Who welcome into their homes not just Jews, but anyone. I mean, I was a member of a society at Yale that was run by a Chabad family, and half the members were not Jewish. Their basic goal is to try to get Jews more involved in Judaism, but it's really about just sort of bringing the light of Judaism to the world. And they're totally charitable, totally selfless. They are spread out throughout the world. They kind of send husband and wife teams, rabbis and the rabbi's wife, to cities all over the world. They set up homes where they have Shabbat dinners on Friday nights and host speakers and basically act as sort of, you know, emissaries or just, you know, just places for, you know, Jews in need. You know, you might be in, like, Kathmandu, right, And, like, there will be a Chabad house there that can help you, you know, observe Jewish holidays. And, you know, they're sort of the last people that you would think like an anti Semitic conspiracy theorist would go to, just because they're not seeking political power. They're not, you know, they don't own media institutions or anything like that. And he went on some rant yesterday accusing them of being responsible for the war in Iran because there's some. They want to rebuild the Third Temple, and somehow the war is going to allow them to do that. It was just sinister because I really think he's.

A (28:09)

What do you target? Can I add to this? First of all, your summary is very good. So the Chabad network, which is run by the Hasidic sect called the Lubavitch, the Chabad network sets up, as you say, literally houses all over America and the world. And the purpose is, yes, to provide a place for Jewish ingathering, not only on Shabbat, but let's say you're traveling, you have a relative who's died. One of the obligations of Jews is to say the prayer called the Mourner's Kaddish three times a day. In the first year after the passing of an immediate family member. And you have to do that with a minyan with 10 men or 10 people in order for it to count, as you might say. And so this is if you can be in New Caledonia on an island between Australia and New Zealand, and if you happen to be traveling there and there is a chabad house in New Caledonia in the middle of nowhere with a 24, 25 year old guy and his wife and, you know, three children already. And not only is this guy, who is the Chabad rabbi there. The rabbi. He has also often been trained in things like ritual slaughter of cattle to provide meat. So he becomes what's called a shochet. He's trained because you can't get kosher meat on an island in, you know, the middle of nowhere. So they're so committed to this process that they learn how to do things like ritually slaughter a cow to make the right cuts of meat so that you can eat kosher food.

D (29:58)

He has a very particular set of

A (30:00)

skills, literally a very particular set of skills. And yeah, and it is the most, as you say, Jamie, very benign. But it is. And this is where it turns out it's kind of clever. If you're like a 21st century anti Semite. It is a very loose global network. Now. They're not networked in the sense that they don't work for, you know, a central authority at 770 Eastern Parkway, the headquarters of Lubovitch. Somebody gets a task to be what's called the, you know, the, the, the emissary to one of these places. He has to raise his own money. Very much like more missionaries. Yes. To. It's a little money. Go somewhere, he's got to get some property, got to set up shop, you know, got to do all this and figure out how to pay himself a salary and how to, and how to do the job. And so it's an incredibly impressive act of community building and, and, and sort of like self agency. And these guys are under threat. Right. That was bombed in Bombay. The one that's the key about going

D (31:11)

into far flung places. Right. That's, that's the thing that jumps out at you is that Chabad goes where there are no Jews. It's I believe, also target on the backs

B (31:23)

there is a. Yeah.

A (31:25)

Well, on Bondi Beach.

E (31:27)

Yeah.

A (31:28)

Two months ago in Australia, a Lubavitch emissary was murdered by the, by the shooter. So we've, we've had, we've had at least two or three killings of these chabad rabbis in terrorists.

D (31:42)

That's the other thing about Chabad is that what they do is public. They do public menorah lightings, they do public, you know, Hanukkah parties and things like that. That's one of the reasons they get put into these situations into which they're, you know, into which they, and you know, people around them could be put in danger more easily maybe than other places. Because, you know, I remember in college when, you know, on Simchat Torah, which is where you dance around with the Torahs, you know, for part of it you can go out, you go out into the street and Chabad would take their dancing for part of it to the student center because there's a bus stop there and kids, you know, Rutgers had so many Jewish kids that it was like, you know, Jewish kids would come off a bus at the student center and the Chabad rabbi, you know, would hand somebody a yarmulke and a Torah scroll or something like that. It was just a way to get like people, you know, just into it. You would just suddenly all your people were there dancing. Hey, this was cool. I may not have remembered it was this holiday. I wasn't paying attention, whatever. But that public facing strategy is why it's so horrible for someone like Tucker to put this out there, suggest that they are up to nefarious purposes.

C (32:58)

Well, they're already. There's security on. They also have these wonderful houses on college campuses. I was teaching last summer at Princeton and we took all our meals in the Chabad house and they had to have security 247 on the campus of an elite university because of the kind of threats that the Chabad house had faced. And look, as a non Jew, I have never felt more welcome in Jewish space than at any. I've been to several Chabad houses. Just the most wonderful, welcoming, warm people. Just incredible. It was an incredible experience. And so they are already under higher level of security than any other organization that's on college campuses. And for. It's not just Tucker. Candace Owens has gone on this insane rant about tunnels being built in New Jersey and New York by Chabad houses. And I mean, she's completely lost her mind. But people believe that kind of conspiratorial thinking and it can't be disproved. It's not like unless a crazy person picks up a gun and goes to one of these locations claiming like Pizzagate guy did that he's there to. He or she is there to rescue whoever's in the tunnel so that it's so outlandish, yet so believable to the people who've already been radicalized in this way online.

A (34:06)

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D (38:16)

And it all, it all started with as Jamie said, I think it all started as Jamie said, I think with the, you know, with the, these temple patches or whatever that Tucker was fixated on, which was b. The idea. And when he put it out on, on social media, he said, you know, is this a war to destroy, to, to rebuild the third. To build the third holy temple on the ashes of Al Aqsa. That's, that's the old, that's the standard pogrom playbook. Like that's what happened in 1929 in the Hebron massacre when, you know, a 4,000 year old Jewish community was wiped out because it started with somebody wanting to put up a partial mechitza at the, at the, at the Western Wall for high holiday prayers and his theft.

A (39:11)

Yeah, you can't use the term mechitza without telling people gender separation as a way of separating genders at, you know, at a prayer service. So yeah, so that's the Hebron massacre. We have, by the way, the tunneling thing not to get too deep into this. What they do is they take this tiny kernel of truth and create a monstrous, false conspiracy. So eager are certain types of Chabad students in Brooklyn to study inside the Lubavitch headquarters at 770 Eastern Parkway. And so. And there's a certain sect, and they're messianic. And I have many theological problems with Chabad and Lubavitch, by the way, which I'm not going to go into here. But, you know, this is not uncontroversial in Judaism. And if you look up, if you want to read about that, you can read David Berger's articles and commentary by going to Google, typing in commentary, and David Berger, and you can read about what problems there might be with this. But these guys were being prevented from studying inside the 770 sanctuary. And this is in the middle of an active neighborhood in Brooklyn, in Crown Heights. And somebody figured out that they could, like, break through a basement wall and get into 770 and then access the books. And, like, in the middle of the night, they would, like, crawl through this hole just so they could do Talmud study. And then basically, the, you know, the head of the head of the. You know, the people there were like, you can't do this and put up a war. They brought in the cops and said it was trespassing, which it was. But imagine the comedy. They're trying to break in to a synagogue to study. That's the tunnel. They're not tunneling in order to get into the National Archives to steal the Constitution, which has a map on the back of it showing where the hidden treasure of the Incas is, or whatever the plot was of National Treasure as

D (41:23)

the blueprints of the Third Temple. This is all like an Indiana Jones. Yes. I mean, it's just funny to point out that some people build tunnels to kidnap innocents and, you know, run a terrorist city. And some people build tunnels to sneak into a library to read a book.

A (41:42)

Right. So Tucker's. So Trump has now sent this message to Tucker, which is, stop. Stop saying bad things about me in this war. I'm gonna call you stupid. I'm gonna say, you've lost your way. I'm gonna say, you're not maga. I'm the Pope. I can excommunicate you. Watch out, buddy. And Tucker's first thing, as Jamie said, was to say, I love Trump. And we just. I just think this war is. I disagree with this war, but I love Trump in every way. But of course, three years ago, when the Dominion. When all of the Discovery and the Dominion trial Over Fox and Dominion and everything came out. There were all these, you know, there were Tuck, there were Tucker texts or, you know, DMs, saying things like, I hate Trump. I hate Trump more than I've hated anybody in my life. And Trump knows that, too. So Tucker's love of Trump is entirely conditional and his courtship of Trump is entirely situational. And Trump may have had enough.

C (42:55)

Okay, but he, if he'd ha. I wish he had said what you said. He said. He didn't say, tucker, stop. He said, Tucker can say whatever he wants. I am maga. That's different than saying, tucker, stop being a raging, conspiratorial, anti Semite. So he didn't actually tell him to stop.

A (43:08)

He's like, oh, whatever.

C (43:09)

He's not.

E (43:10)

He was crazy. Didn't he say he was crazy, too?

C (43:12)

Yeah, he's like, he can do whatever. It's true. I'm just saying, like, I think it's important to clarify that he didn't actually, actually tell Tucker to stop saying that he was wrong. He just said, I am maga. And, and, and it is a, it's a serious rebuke in their relationship, but it's certainly not as, as much of a rebuke as he could have given had he chosen.

D (43:32)

It's also, by the way, very personal because his, Trump's daughter and son in law are supporters of Chabad. They visit Chabad. They, you know, they have a lot of friendships in Chabad. And, and this has been brought up before by the other side of the aisle to attack Trump for the Russia stuff. Right? I mean, during the Russia, during the, you know, the, the Russiagate stuff, there was this big politico story that was the, that was the, the, the worst of it about how Chabad were the links between Trump and Putin. And it was because they know, they had read the dossier, the Steele dossier, which had a whole bunch of nonsense in it, and they connected dots that weren't, didn't exist and all sorts of stuff. But, you know, but the reason to do it was because Jared and, and Jared and Ivanka are seen as, as close to Chabad and whatever the movement. And so to me, the Tucker stuff also feels like it can get really personal really fast. And I don't know if that's going to change Trump's response, but we know that Tucker and his group, they don't like Jared Kushner's involvement in the administration. They don't like his work in the Middle East. They're very bothered by this and this to me, is a shot at. Maybe not Ivanka. Maybe it's really just meant as a shot at Jared. But that's her husband, and that's the president's son.

A (45:03)

Okay, Seth, I'm really glad that you brought up Russia, because, Jamie, I want to read something to you and then have a. You know, wars change things, and we've now committed ourselves to this war in which we seek unconditional surrender from another country. Right. And two things have happened in the last week. Number one, Ukraine, which we clearly. Which the administration clearly does not feel much sympathy for, has now offered its help in drone warfare to whatever country needs it. Meaning if UAE and Qatar and other places in the Middle east need some help shooting down Iranian, you know, incoming Iranian fire with drones. Ukraine's, you know, which has spent four years developing this amazing drone capacity and technology, which Abe actually saw on a trip to Ukraine. They're. They're at the ready. So they have essentially said, we're in on this fight with you if you want us. And then there is this passage from the Washington Post this morning, quote, russia is providing Iran with targeting information to attack American forces in the Middle east, the first indication that another major US Adversary is participating, even indirectly, in the war, according to three officials familiar with the intelligence. Since the war began Saturday, Russia has passed around the locations of US Military assets, including warships and aircraft, said the three officials. It does seem like it's a pretty comprehensive effort. Now, if Russia is helping Iran target Americans and Ukraine is helping countries involved in the war effort to shoot down to, you know, is in. On the war with Israel and. And the United States and the other Gulf countries, What possible effect might this have on. On this Trump administration effort to, you know, solve the war between Russia and Ukraine in a way that seems determined to be somewhat favorable to the Russians. Will this turn Trump on Russia, finally? This is big. I'm sorry. This is not like every day.

E (47:19)

If it's true, and I don't know how, if that claim has been verified or confirmed, and I wouldn't necessarily believe it. I mean, the Russians, you know, if you recall, I think it was during the first Trump administration when the US military killed about 200 Wagner mercenaries in Syria. There was no response from Russia whatsoever. Now, those weren't technically Russian soldiers. They were private military contractors. But, you know, I in general think that Russia is somewhat of a paper tiger and that we kind of build them up as being more powerful than they really are. And so I wouldn't necessarily believe at face value that they are doing what that report suggests, that they are actually getting that involved on the Iranian side because that is a really serious escalation.

A (48:09)

Okay, but let's, let's assume if it

E (48:11)

is true, if it is true, you know, Trump, he's able, look, the way he deals with Tucker, right. Tucker's basically calling him a stooge of the Jews and he's been doing this for a long time. And Trump is unable, for whatever reason to come out and condemn him in the same way. The Russians can be assisting the Iranians and Trump will be able to completely bifurcate that and treat them as totally separate issues. So I think that the President often has difficulties making these connections and understanding, well, you know, I'm trying to do this in Ukraine. Sorry, I'm trying to accomplish this goal in Iran. The Russians are trying to spoil that and foil that. So maybe I should, you know, be tougher on Russia in Ukraine because they're really not on the side of what I'm trying to do here in the world. It just, it becomes too much for him. And I don't think that he sees the world that way.

A (49:09)

Abe, do you agree?

B (49:12)

I think, I think Jamie's characterization is very possible. This is the, you know, this is. With Trump, you just don't know. You, you don't know. I mean, I tend to agree with Jamie here because there's not been a lack of evidence that Putin and Russia are very bad actors on our enemy's side consistently up till this point. And it hasn't, it hasn't affected Trump's thinking in the way one would think that it should. So, you know, it's another day. I agree it's an escalation, but this has always been to some extent who Russia. I mean, Russia tries to spoil, you know, Americans. America pursuing its interests around the globe has been doing that forever.

C (50:12)

There is this moment in the Russia, Ukraine conflict, though, where Trump's discussion of it shifted into deal making talk. So I wonder, I like this idea of Jamie's where, like with Russia, he's, that's a deal. He's making a deal there. So that's separate from the war he's making in Iran. And I, in terms of the language he uses even and how that shifts over time because he's in the middle of. They're negotiating, right? They're going to make a deal, they're going to end the war. That's a different mindset than we are ourselves making war on Iran. I don't know. I like this, I like this theory.

A (50:42)

Look, I'M not. I. We are at war with Iran. Russia is siding with Iran and helping them target Americans. If this story is true, that bears no relation to. We're not involved in this. This is between Russia and Ukraine. Yada. Russia needs to be, Russia will need to be punished.

C (51:08)

I'm just thinking about. Trump sees it. Yeah.

A (51:10)

I'm saying Trump will think Russia needs to be punished. You think Russia can go fire, Russia can go participate in the targeting of American craft in, you know, in, in, in the, in the waters off Iran and get away with it scot free? You think that's the, that's Trump's mindset is, you know, this is just what the Russians are like? No, this is like you steal.

C (51:36)

We're in the middle of trying to make a deal to end that war, and we're not gonna, you know, we're gonna keep trying to make that deal, so let's not disrupt the deal making. That's if I'm trying to read his mind, which is always a dude.

A (51:49)

Okay, I, I just think that you have two different things, one of which is he wants to mediate between Iran, between Russia and Ukraine, and claim that he ended a war. That's number one. Number two, there are two combatants in that war, and one of them is helping us defeat the Iranians, and the other is trying to kill Americans who are under his command. I don't think that's a hard call even for somebody who wants to participate in making a deal. One is a mediating role, which I think we all agree is morally compromised and we shouldn't be doing that. And that he's wrong because the Ukraine is in the right and Russia is in the wrong. But put that all to one side, like, this is one of these you're with us or you're with the terrorists moment. For him, this is his war.

C (52:38)

But it would require complete reversal of their, of this administration's policy toward Ukraine. I mean, if he, if, if he does that.

A (52:45)

I'm not saying that he would go into and then help Ukraine, though that would of course be, you know, this is a, if I were designing a fantasy, that would be my fantasy that we would say, oh, the hell with Russia, now we're going to help Ukraine win the war because they're so disgusting. But I do think that Russia, if this story is true, and there are three sources telling the Washington Post, obviously we'll need more, you know, meat on the bones of that. But if this story is true, Trump, it's not like Trump to just say, you know, that's just that, that rascally old Putin, you know, it's like, oh, he's not afraid of me. He's not afraid to. He's not, he doesn't think that I'm going to look at him trying to prevent, preclude or prevent me from securing my aim in Iran and threatening Americans under my command. He's got another thing coming because he is a paper tiger, as you would put it, Jamie. Like, part of this is he's got a relatively free shot at Russia. It's bogged down, it's not getting anywhere. You know, it's lost a million men, it's weaker than it looks, all of that. So I don't know, I just think

D (53:57)

this is a loss in Syria also.

A (53:59)

I just think it's bears watching because wars do shift alliances. Like this is a major event. This is a world, this is a world historical event. This war with Iran. It's not just like, you know, it's not like the Maduro thing, it's not like the Soleimani thing. It's not even like Obama's war against isis. We are directly engaged in flattening the military and the regime of a 90 million strong country with a huge oil reserve.

D (54:32)

You bringing up Soleimani is actually instructive because remember, Trump was even reportedly upset at Bibi over the lack of direct Israeli involvement in the actual mission to take out Soleimani. Remember, he would, there was a period of time where he would complain, you know, that the Americans did it and you know, the Israelis should have been there too, or whatever, something like that, that Bibi, you know, chickened out. That, and that's a, that's an incredibly minor thing. That was a successful thing. That was a one off, you know, targeted assassination. So I think that's an example of the fact that Trump does not forget when somebody disappoints him in the middle of a war, gets in his way, you know, something like this. But again, Iran, Trump has made it clear that Iran, this is his big. Just like Obama had his second term project be lifting Iran up. Trump's second term project is putting them right back down in the ground. But it is his second term. It has become his, you know, we called it Obamacare's Obama's foreign policy version of Obamacare. And this is what that is for Trump too. And that affects it as well because he's, he's built his whole second term now around this issue. It's so important to him. He better going to be extra thin,

A (55:46)

better by the way. Right. He better because we got these job numbers today and they're terrible. According to the Labor Department, we've lost not we lost 92,000 jobs or America. The there was a retraction in the job market of 92,000 in January, February and a revision downward of the December and January numbers, suggesting that this is now a three month. It's not just that we have a sort of joblessness problem, but we are actually jobs are being shedded. And so the hopes that he's going to be able to march through the year talking about the triumphant economy are the clouds are getting darker, not lighter for that. So his what he's got going for him is whether or not he can have a triumph in this war for 2026. Like, you know, he's got, he's very few.

D (56:45)

He's gonna need an old, the old Roman triumph. When you say try, he's gonna need like Khamenei's son in a parade, you know, pulled along.

A (56:53)

Exactly.

C (56:54)

The other, the other part of those numbers that's worth thinking about in terms of the upcoming midterms and in 2028 for whoever is going to be his heir apparent in MAGA world is that the manufacturing numbers have remained terrible. And this was what he has been claiming is going to be the research. This is why we have tariffs. This is why we're doing this. Those manufacturing numbers have been flat and they did not improve in this round either. Manufacturing jobs.

A (57:17)

Right, Jamie. So getting back to Tucker and everything and the direction that in the early going your monthly column for Commentary seems to be heading in. I think what's interesting about the Tucker fight and the piece that you have in the current issue, which everyone can go read read@comMENTARY.org particularly if you are a subscriber about your own Kazoni, the Nat, the head, the, the Talmudic

B (57:50)

of

A (57:50)

the, of the of the NAT cons. And now the piece upcoming on on Steve Bannon is that MAGA intellectuals are separate, trying to figure out a way in which they can separate themselves from Trump. And he's not the thing about Tucker is the thing he said about Tucker is he's not going to let them like he's not going to say he says Tucker can think what he wants, but he's not maga. Right. And I was thinking about this in relation to both Nixon and Reagan and the and the intellectuals of the right because there was much more of a division between the intellectual world of conservatism and the politician conservative politicians back then in the 70s and 80s and there is now where people really are kind of like semi participants in the, in the, in the political movements and the partisan movements. That was not really true of New York intellectuals certainly and stuff like that. And so like the, the, the neocons were not reliable friends of Reagan. Like my father wrote a big piece for the New York Times Magazine attacking Reagan on being too detentis toward the Soviet Union. And of course when Nixon went and did the salt treaty with the, with the Russians and, and when Ford wouldn't allow Alexander Solzhenitsyn to come to the White House, not just the neocons who were new on the right, but William F. Buckley, National Review all this were like very full of rage at the administration and also wage and price controls and a lot of the liberal social stuff that Nixon did. So there was a division and the intellectuals had a free hand to do whatever it was that they were doing because their connection to the politicians was not important in what it was in their own self identification or what people wanted from them. But Yoram, Steve Bannon, Tucker, all these other people claim to be, you know, like, you know, the, the interpreters and voices of Trump's political philosophy and that, I don't know how that that's going to be sustainable if they're going to remain anti war.

E (60:13)

Well, I mean, there's always been this conflict or sort of inability to reconcile their beliefs with what Trump has very publicly said over the years. I mean, he's been opposed to an Iranian nuclear weapon for decades. I mean, someone was posting a video of him being interviewed by Barbara Walters, I think in 1982 or 80 or 81, very, you know, not long after the hostage crisis. And he's talking about, you know, we have to go in there and get rid of the Ayatollah. So this is not, I think this has always been a sort of tension there. And there have been these moments in the first administration and now where he's done these very bold foreign policy moves, killing Soleimani, on and on and on, or Venezuela continuing to fund Ukraine. And there's been this kind of cognitive dissonance among many of these kind of MAGA intellectuals. I mean, intellectuals first of all, is not really the word I would choose to describe these people. That's really being unfair to intellectuals. But I know what you mean. And they've never really, I think, wanted to sort of own up to the fact of this reality. And so what they do is that's where these anti Semitic conspiracy theories come in because Tucker's such A coward. He can't come out and say what he really thinks about Trump, which is that, you know, as we've seen from these texts that came out in the Dominion case, he's a moron, he hates him, blah, blah, blah. It has to be, oh, you know, Trump is being manipulated by these Jews. It's sort of like that old expression during the czar, right, In Russia where, you know, if only the czar knew how terrible the potato famine was in like, you know, the middle of nowhere here in Russia, he would come out and do something about it as opposed to like, well, maybe the czar does know and doesn't care about you little peasants. And that's kind of what this is all about. And I think that, that, I think that's kind of what's going on here. And they're also, this is a big kind of post Trump fight that we're seeing. Really. I mean, he's going to be leaving the stage soon and they want to, to sink their claws into the party. J.D. vance. Right. They want to kind of shape the future here. And I think they understand that going after Trump personally is not a good, it's just not a good strategy. So they kind of argue around him as if he doesn't even exist.

B (62:30)

But I mean, what's interesting is that they are pushing for something different now. I mean, they are trying to shape the right in a post Trump image and they have ideas about what that means, that conflict with Trump. And what's, I'm, what I'm really interested in watching is how does Vance ride this out? Where is he? He's Trump's vice president, but he's part of their whole

D (63:05)

little club.

B (63:06)

So, you know, what is he going to be doing, doing interviews with Tucker going forward? I don't think so.

D (63:18)

The best thing he can do is right now, the best possible thing for Vance would be for Tucker to really annoy Trump and have Trump basically banish him from maga, as he's like, sort of hinted as doing, like make if he, if, if Trump can pro, if Tucker can provoke Trump to make the choice for Vance, Vance can just sit back and just inherit the situation in which Tucker is outcast. I think that's what he's hope it

A (63:48)

might even be what he's sure that's not what he's hoping because I, I, there's no way that's what he's hoping. Tucker's son works in his comm shop. Like, this is, no, this is a very close relationship and I think he thinks that Tucker and people like Tucker are his accelerant in 2028, something that Rubio, for example, doesn't have. He doesn't have, like, a phalanx of support. He would just be the kind of, like, regular establishment candidate. And Vance wants to somehow run as an outsider while being the vice president, which will be quite a feat. But I do think that the central problem here is if the. If the MAGA intellectual types remain anti war and isolationists and all this, when Trump has now revealed himself as a unilateralist warmonger who is totally comfortable intervening, when it's him intervening, he'll go pluck out a guy from Venezuela, he'll go flatten Iran. Who knows what else he'll be willing to do. You know, he wants to take Greenland. There's all this rumbling about Cuba falling before he ends his term. Like, he is not what they thought he was and that what we worried he was. He is not Lindbergh, he is not Coughlin. He is not America first as an isolationist. He's America first as a. I'm gonna. As a Jackson. Like, I'm gonna go kill a lot of people, and I'm not sentimental about it. If I have to do it, I'll do it. And they're still locked in the. These interventions are terrible. It's really bad and it doesn't work and it's stupid. And Trump's like, it's stupid when I don't do it, but when I do it, it's brilliant and you better. This is why I think this thing with Tucker is not over. And you're right, Christine, that he didn't say stop, But I think the messages stop because if Tucker keeps going, next week he'll tell people to boycott Tucker's show or something like that. If Tucker doesn't stop buzzing around his head saying this war is evil. He doesn't want people going around saying the war is evil. He's got enough Democrats going around saying the war is evil. That's what I. I mean, that's. I'm not. I don't read his mind. I just think that's, like, axiomatic. He's fighting a war. He thinks if you don't support the war, you're a traitor. Tucker's a traitor. Is he going to just sit there and let him be a traitor if he keeps going on being a traitor to what Trump is trying to do? When does he ever let things alone, really, when he feels personally dissed? I just don't. Which is also why I think that the Russia is playing with fire if it's doing what that story is says it's doing. Okay, Everybody's got to read Jamie's Washington commentary column, the chutzpah of Yoram Hazoni. Wait for his next on Steve Bannon, which is even more delicious. I have a correction to make about yesterday's recommendation of the movie Sovereign. I said it was on Netflix. It is, in fact, on Hulu and Disney plus. So I apologize. You can also buy it on Amazon or Apple TV for 3.99 or 4.99 or something like that if you don't have either of those services. So I misspoke and I apologize. And that's that's our show. So, Jamie, thank you for joining us. And for Abe, Christine, Seth and me, I'm John Podworth. Keep the candle burning.