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- [00:01]
James Patterson
I'm James Patterson. I write way too many books. Welcome to Hungry Dogs. The title comes from my maternal grandmother, Isabel Zelvis Morris. Nan used to always say, hungry dogs run faster, James. And I've been running fast ever since. Here's what will be coming your way soon, and this is a really terrific list. I think you'll hear from some incredible people like Stacey Abrams. Yay. BJ Novak.
- [00:27]
John Podhoretz
Yay.
- [00:28]
James Patterson
Kathy Bates, Dolly Parton. Josh Gad. And Pope Leo. Okay, maybe not Pope Leo, but who knows? Maybe he'll show up. Hungry dogs run faster. Thank you, Grandma, for turning me into a hopeless, obsessive, compulsive. Listen to Hungry Dogs with James Patterson. That'd be me on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
- [01:02]
John Podhoretz
Hope for the best, expect the worst Some drink champagne Some die of thirst no way of knowing which way it's going Hope for the best Expect the worst Hope for the best welcome to the Commentary Magazine daily podcast. Today's Tuesday, January 6, 2026. I am a horse John Pothorotz, editor of Commentary magazine. With me as always, executive editor Abe Greenwald, back from jury duty. Hi, Abe.
- [01:39]
Christine Rosen
Hi, John.
- [01:41]
John Podhoretz
Social Commentary columnist Christine Rosen. Hi, Christine.
- [01:45]
Abe Greenwald
I'm so well trained. I waited.
- [01:48]
John Podhoretz
I am not on my game today. I'm just warning everybody. I am not on my game. And I am in a hotel room in Pennsylvania, which is kind of depressing. So I'm going to try to cheer up from my depressing hotel room because I am going to get to talk to Washington Free Beacon editor Eliana Johnson. Hi, Eliana.
- [02:07]
Eliana Johnson
Hi, John.
- [02:08]
John Podhoretz
And of course, back with us after a month in Israel and no longer presenting immense Internet connectivity problems, Senior editor Seth Mandel. Hi, Seth.
- [02:22]
Seth Mandel
Shalom, John.
- [02:23]
John Podhoretz
You guys don't know what Seth put us through so that he could sample the pleasures of the Jewish state with.
- [02:31]
Seth Mandel
His I do it for the audience.
- [02:33]
John Podhoretz
But you did it for the audience and you made Abe suffer as the producer of this podcast. And I hope you will send him a fruit basket. I don't think Jake Tapper will be sending Stephen Miller a fruit basket anytime soon. If anybody watched the train wreck. That was the Stephen Miller interview with Jake Tapper last night, which ended with Jake Tapper cutting Stephen Miller off, which is a very weird thing for a major anchor of a news channel to do with the most important policy advisor in the White House, just because the policy advisor in the White House did come off like a little bit of a Michigan yelling, screaming, and saying some pretty stupid things. Nonetheless, it shows you that just three days after, like this wildly successful mission, the media or the mission itself, not necessarily the, you know, what's going to the aftermath, which is still very up in the air. They just, they want to go negative. They're desperate to go negative. So as I told you guys last night, as I was flicking around, not only was there Tapper cutting off Stephen Miller and saying things like, I don't even know what the hell you're talking about, literally Tapper said that to Stephen Miller. But I noted that when Anderson Cooper interviewed Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut and said, what about Maduro and Machado? Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut said, epstein files, Epstein files, Epstein files. Then I put on Lawrence O' Donnell at 10pm on Ms. Then and later and always and not now, and Lawrence o' Donnell says Epstein files, Epstein files, Epstein files. So the memo went out to liberals that if they ask you about Venezuela, go to the Epstein files. And Chris Murphy literally said that we are going to find out. He believes, of course, the next couple of weeks that Donald Trump was an active participant in a child sex ring. Now, aside from being, you know, libelous and Trump loving to be litigious, it is the fact, as we know, that Trump cut Epstein off in 2004 and had nothing to do with him after that, from everything that we are told. And that one of the reasons that Trump cut him off was that Epstein was poaching his young staff and trying to get control of them. So I don't, I think this is not, it's also horseshoe theory.
- [05:20]
Abe Greenwald
It's also horseshoe conspiracy theory because remember, it was the far right conspiracy theorists who believed Hillary Clinton to be involved in a child sex trafficking rape not that long ago. There's a weird sort of symmetry to it. And I do think to Stephen Miller who seems to be arguing, I watched the clip and I think Tapper did not behave well. And you're exactly right about how the media is trying to turn all of this, this successful raid into a negative story. But he's also arguing in a way that I feel Mamdani, as we discussed yesterday, is arguing for New York and socialism. He's, I guess the Trump line now seems to be real imperialism has not been tried because the Greenland effort, which we should spend some time discussing today, is, is very bizarre and, and is, does seem to be one of those Stephen Miller hobby horses that might best be tamed by others in the administration, I hope.
- [06:08]
Seth Mandel
But John, I thought I saw in him like frustration with the whole, with the capper, with Miller with, you know, in general as representative of that part of the, you know, not isolationist ish. Right, whatever they want to call themselves. Because he has to, he's being asked about democracy and elections and he's like yelling that, you know, all this, you know, you, he used neoliberal instead of neocon last night in his interview with Jake Tapper. He's all, you neoliberals just think it's, well, it's all about elections.
- [06:42]
John Podhoretz
We go over the, we go around.
- [06:43]
Seth Mandel
The world having elections and, and elections. And I think it exposes a tension within that part of the coalition that, you know, Trump came in as the, you know, the anti neocon, you know, if you will, you know, in 2016, he, he ran pretty hard at Jeb Bush about the Iraq war and all that other stuff. And now he is going around, I mean, this was regime change, right? You, you decapitate a regime, it's regime change. And I think that the people within his coalition, Vance to Vice President Vance Stephen Miller, are struggling with how to defend what Trump is doing without, you know, sounding like the people they've been complaining about for most of their adult lives.
- [07:29]
Eliana Johnson
A couple of things I think are worth noting, just to zoom out for a second, John, you mentioned Democrats not wanting or Democrats, the media, you know, we repeat ourselves. But looking at CNN and MSNBC and they're talking about Jeffrey Epstein, which is not topical, yesterday and over the weekend were very, very bad days for Democrats. First, Trump nabbed Maduro. And at the most basic level, Americans think it's cool when our military and particularly our special forces go in and grab a bad guy in the middle of the night in a daring raid and, you know, yank him out and then they see a photo of him in handcuffs and sunglasses and a schlubby looking sweatsuit, a plane and nobody's killed. That's just really cool. Like that's popular with the American people. And number two, the Democratic nominee for the Vice President of the United States resigned from a third term in office, or not resigned, but he said he would not run for a third term in office yesterday because of a massive exploding fraud in welfare programs in the state of Minnesota. And he gave a press conference yesterday that could have been covered. You know, it was a national media story. And his response was to point the finger at the media figures who have covered it and the rest of the media, by the way, you know, I saw you tangling with people on, on Twitter was to call reporters and Republicans basically perverts for covering, you know, Children's daycare scandal. And Tim Walls himself said Donald Trump and his allies in Washington, in St. Paul and online want to make our state a colder, meaner place place. And they want to poison our people against each other by attacking our neighbors, that is the people perpetrating these frauds. He did not take questions. He has not sat for an interview about this. I read the New York Times piece about this. He did not respond to requests for comment. So I'm not surprised that CNN and MSNBC are not talking about these things. They would much rather talk about Jeffrey Epstein because these things are very, very bad and embarrassing for them.
- [09:54]
Christine Rosen
It's almost as, I mean, when listening to Eliana, between the Maduro raid and Tim Waltz, it's almost as if Trump won and Kamala lost all over again.
- [10:08]
John Podhoretz
Oh, that's good. Okay, so that's a very good point. And it also brings up the other, the third thing that I don't think is good for Democrats though. It's very much isolated to the very online, but it will not be isolated to the online for long, which is the exposure of these quotes by the person that Zoran Mamdani has put in charge of housing in New York who believes that ownership of private property is white supremacy and that white people should be, it would be good if white people like herself were killed for their sins and crimes and she wants to abolish private property. So I don't think that anyone is going to know the name of Sia Weaver outside of this sort of the nest of us unfortunates who are still, you know, mired in on X and in social media. But the overall effect is the Democrats are not celebrating the astonishing feats of our military. They are running from office because of $20 billion frauds and their underlings are seeking to abolish private property. So, yeah, not a good weekend. And let's just say by the way, that the idea that the Epstein files are unambiguously good for Democrats belief by the fact that the most significant friend.
- [11:45]
Abe Greenwald
Of Epstein, it's like taking out Larry Summers and Bill Clinton.
- [11:50]
John Podhoretz
I mean, so I don't know where they think they're going with this exactly, but it's not as though it's, you.
- [12:00]
Eliana Johnson
Know.
- [12:02]
John Podhoretz
17 Republicans and you know, and a sort of, you know, a figure who is connected to the Republican Party who is, who is the villain of these files.
- [12:16]
Christine Rosen
But you know, it goes to show how good the Maduro story is that they can't even fight on that front. They've, they've, they've Got to change the topic altogether.
- [12:25]
John Podhoretz
Right.
- [12:25]
Eliana Johnson
I would note quickly to Seth's point. Seth, you mentioned like that it's difficult for Stephen Miller and others to talk about because they're against regime change and this is regime change. I actually don't think it's difficult at this point because they took out Maduro, but there has been no regime change. They're dealing with his number two. We don't know exactly what will happen, but I think it's actually quite easy for them to say we arrested somebody. You know, we arrested the guy on whom we had an arrest warrant. But you know, I heard John, your brother in law, Elliot Abrams, on my colleague Aaron McClain's podcast School of War, and he said my criticism of this is that it's not regime change.
- [13:05]
John Podhoretz
Right.
- [13:05]
Eliana Johnson
So they have the neocons out there saying, hey, you didn't do regime change. And I think it's actually quite easy for them to point to the neocons out there saying, hey, you didn't do regime change. And we're upset about that.
- [13:18]
Abe Greenwald
Well, and we do, we do know that Rubio, so Rubio briefed, was part of this brief of members of Congress yesterday. And it sounds like what he is saying, saying is a little more temperate in terms of wanting eventually to hold elections, although we can't say specifically when understanding that there is this very organized and invigorated opposition and then Machado herself going on television and basically dangling her, her actual Nobel Peace Prize in front of Donald Trump and saying, I'd love to hand this to you if you just hold an election. So there is obviously stuff going on behind the scenes that the only question mark remains Donald Trump who continues to kind of ping pong around and say all kinds of different things, which is his want. But it was reassuring to me to see that Rubio seems to be very much aware of the concern of a lot of conservatives in the coalition who might not be maga, but who would like to see if not neocon regime change, at least some sort of free and fair election in Venezuela's future.
- [14:14]
Seth Mandel
Well, they have. They have, yeah. And they have indicated, you know, yesterday they did again indicated that the, the plan is as it stands, whether it happens or the plan is to only have the number two oversee essentially a kind of transition period to elections that may not in the end happen, but that would be very similar to, you know, that would be regime change. So what they're talking about over, you know, probably a six month period or something like that is eventual regime change. But I don't know if anybody in the administration has the patience to, you know, get to that point. They might just leave it in place if it looks advantageous, contagious.
- [14:56]
John Podhoretz
I don't want to get, I honestly don't want to get academic about this, but it is not regime change, because regime change refers to the fact that you take a country that has an existing constitutionally written down, or however it has its structure of government written down and you blow that up. Right. That is not anybody's plan for Venezuela on, on either side. That's one of the reasons that they are trying to deal with the vice president and have her do continuity of authority. What they want to do is maintain the Venezuelan constitution, which was violated by Maduro and by Chavez in stealing elections four times. There's no need for regime change. You're not taking out a, you're not taking out a structurally communist government and replacing it with a new form of government. That is what a regime. A regime is the government structure of a country. What we did was we arrested the leader of another country because he is under indictment in the United States. And we brought him, essentially we sent in the SWAT team and it extracted him and brought him to the United States without any American casualties. That in that sense it is totally a law enforcement mission that will have very large foreign policy ramifications. But it's just simply wrong to describe what is going on here as regime change. Even Elliott's point, which is what he'd like, is we should say you're out and let's have the opposition which won and the duly elected person from whom the election was stolen sworn in. That, that probably is not going to happen, but they'll use the, the tools of Venezuelan democracy are still there. That's how Rodriguez won the election. We're going to.
- [16:57]
Seth Mandel
So what you're saying is it's, it's only, it's only regime. You're saying it's only regime change if it comes from the regime part of France.
- [17:09]
John Podhoretz
Right. What I'm saying is when you oust the Ba' Athist party and a 30 year dictatorship by write a new constitution for the, and write a new constitution, that is regime change. I believe, as I understand it, the Venezuelan constitution is perfectly acceptable. It's political in its own terms. So anyway, I mean, I don't want to be too academic, but I do think that there was something funny and it's worth pointing out about Stephen Miller, whom I don't really want to defend very much. He did this kind of like mad lib scramble of 20 years of thinking on the right about the problems of the world after World War II, and he was like plucking phrases and sentences out of a hat and putting them all together.
- [17:58]
Abe Greenwald
It was a crime against historiography, I just have to say. That just was a crime against history.
- [18:02]
John Podhoretz
His little summation, I mean, I should have it in front of me. I don't. But basically, it's like the imperialist powers gave up and they just walked away after they made everybody in these countries rich and they handed them all of the goods and all of the oil and all of the natural resources, and then we didn't do anything and they should have stayed and we should have this. And then are we really. Do we really want to have this conversation now? When in fact, what is he saying exactly? Is he saying that this is an imperialist invasion? Because Trump and Rubio and everybody else is not saying that it's an imperialist.
- [18:44]
Abe Greenwald
Effort here, but that this confusion about the history of gunboat diplomacy, the history of Manifest Destiny, the history of imperialism both by Europe and by the United States, which we have been an imperialist power in our past, the fact that they misunderstand it does have repercussions, both for policymaking, but also for what their own coalition understands to be true. This is why so many of us were incensed by listening to Tucker Carlson host, a pseudo historian, claiming that, you know, FDR and the Allies were the real aggressors and the terrible people in World War II. Their misunderstanding or their deliberate misrepresentation of our country's behavior in the past and does have repercussions. And I think his confusion. We shouldn't just laugh at it. We should also see it as one of the potential downsides when we think about the future of countries like Venezuela or what's going to happen with Greenland and some of the. The sort of wrecking ball strategy with allies. Because I think his misrepresentation is what he actually believes to be the case about the past. He hasn't actually understood what the history of this country properly.
- [19:53]
James Patterson
I'm James Patterson. I write way too many books. Welcome to Hungry Dogs. The title comes from my maternal grandmother, Isabel Zelvis Morris. Nan used to always say, hungry dogs run faster, James. And I've been running fast ever since. Here's what will be coming your way soon. And this is a really terrific list. I think you'll hear from some incredible people like Stacey Abrams. Yay. BJ Novak.
- [20:20]
John Podhoretz
Yay.
- [20:20]
James Patterson
Kathy Bates, Dolly Parton, Josh Gad and Pope Leo. Okay, maybe not Pope Leo, but who knows? Maybe he'll show up. Hungry Dogs run faster. Thank you, Grandma, for turning me into a hopeless, obsessive, compulsive. Listen to Hungry Dogs with James Patterson. That'd be me on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
- [20:52]
John Podhoretz
He is a young man. He's in his mid-30s. Doesn't sound to me like he's particularly well educated. And as I say, it's like he got some stuff from the Japhites, he got some stuff from Claremont. He read a couple of things in Reason. He heard that the British gave up India. He heard that Aramco allowed Saudi. That Saudi Arabia nationalized its oil fields, and he heard other stuff. And then he, as I said, sort of like either puts it in a blender, he cuts it up and puts it in the hat, and he pulls out. And the whole point is, everybody did everything wrong for the last 70 years but Trump, which is an interesting approach. I think it kind of raises the bar too high. Like, I would not advise. I know Trump wants to say we've done things no one has ever done before, and everything is the best that anyone has ever done anything before. I know that's his. That's his bailiwick. But, you know, if what you want to say is, look, we did this. We've done stuff like this before. Bush did it in Panama, we're doing it here now. It's completely within a respectable tradition. This is not war. We used the military because that's how you have to do this particular mission. Presumably, if the FBI could have done it itself, it would, but it couldn't. So we used the military, and now we're going to go on and, you know, try to fix what's broken and help that along, and everybody can now go back and, you know, have pizza and go on with your. Your lives. You know, it's like, go ahead, Abe. Sorry, I didn't.
- [22:40]
Christine Rosen
I haven't seen the Stephen Miller interview, and I'm looking forward to watching it after. After we get off this. But in hearing about it, it's sort of linking up with something that I've been thinking since the Maduro raid, Maduro capture, and it's a. Since Barack Obama, what we like to call the American led world order has not seemed very American led, actually, at all. It was with George W. Bush, whether you liked what he did, whether you think he made a hash of things, whatever. It was very clearly American led. Then Obama began leaning from behind Trump Wasn't nearly as forward leaning in his first term as he is this time round. Obviously Joe Biden withdrew everywhere. You only have to withdraw one place withdrew. And then Putin took advantage of it. And then, you know, and now this time around, you have the, the, the, the bombing of the Iranian nuclear facility, you have the, the, the operation Venezuela and you have Trump trying to draw up this peace, not peace plan, whatever his, you know, boards of peace and you know, all his various, you know, ideas and some, some of it pie in the sky. But and reorganizing NATO and getting weapons to Ukraine through a new process and getting them like whatever you call this, it's, it's not neoconservative and it's not, it's not imperialism. The world very much seems American led all of a sudden. Once again, it's a different feeling. And I'll tell you this, I like it. I really, really like it. Would I prefer that it was a little more neoconish? Of course. But I'll take this over what was going on before.
- [24:48]
John Podhoretz
Can we talk a little bit? Greenland. Because look, Trump has been talking about Greenland since 2017. What does he want to do? He wants to buy it. He said to Denmark, sell me Greenland. Denmark should sell us Greenland. I'm sorry, like he wants it. They'll get a couple billion dollars. You know, Maybe they'll get $20 billion out of it. Maybe, you know, the Minnesota fraud can pay for Greenland. There are 45,000 people in Greenland. If they want to maintain their Danish citizenship instead of becoming American citizens, that's their, that's their prerogative. Maybe you shouldn't want Greenland. Maybe there's stuff in Greenland nobody's telling us about. I don't know why he wants Greenland, but again, that, that a country that the United States should seek sovereignty or dominion over a giant block of ice off our coast, you know, a couple hours off our coast, is again, fully within the bounds of American tradition.
- [26:03]
Abe Greenwald
Well, except that Denmark is a NATO ally and there's a difference between using Trump's sort of negotiating, make a deal strategy. Look, if he wants to expand our military base there and have more freedom to do military engagements there than we have now, the bluster might be a way to negotiate that. I wouldn't have a problem with that. I think a lot of Americans would have a problem with this country spending that amount of money to buy a big block of ice right now, given the state of the economy and some of the concerns about, you know, our debt. But that maybe, maybe I'm Wrong stock in Nvidia.
- [26:38]
John Podhoretz
You know, maybe he could do a stock play with all the stock that he's getting.
- [26:43]
Abe Greenwald
This is the thing. It's the belligerence and hostility approach, which we heard from Stephen Miller, whose wife posted something on social media like showing an American flag emblazoned over the entire country. Country. It's that. That's where actually the strategy and negotiation matters, because this is an ally and they would. Denmark would be within its rights if we seized any part of Greenland without any kind of actual agreement. And they might have a, they might have an argument to make if the other approach that's been floated by the Trump administration, which is to make it, to offer kind of territorial status to Greenland and let the people of Greenland decide. All of these things are fine as it, as a, as a major power to negotiate, but it's the, it's the public airing of, of sort of swagger that I think disturbs allies and should, because that's actually not necessary or appropriate in this context. I'm with Abe. Look, I'd much rather have America be leading, even if I'm not a fan of every aspect of Trump foreign policy. It's better than what we had under Biden. It's better than what we had under Obama. But there's a lot of sort of unnecessary own goals here being made by Trump administration officials with regard to belligerence towards our allies and we don't have to fund Europe's security anymore.
- [27:54]
Christine Rosen
I'm that ingest belligerence toward Canada too, by the way.
- [27:57]
Abe Greenwald
And for. Exactly. So, like, it's just unnecessary. Well, and look what. The belligerence is still something they need to do.
- [28:03]
John Podhoretz
Look, look, I mean, and his belligerence has backfired in relation to allies. Like the belligerence against Canada led to the defeat of the politician who was on his way to victory, who would have been much more congenial for American interests and for the Trump admin. And Trump's decision to, you know, like, climb into the sandbox with Pierre Trudeau was a, you know, was a lot, was a Georgia level colossal blunder. So his instincts aren't necessarily good. And, you know, as I say, the extraordinarily unimpressive historical analysis of his leading domestic policy advisor does not give one confidence in the. The fact that, you know, one seeks educated people to do things like this because they're able to see that things were tried in the past that didn't necessarily work. Now, you don't want that to paralyze you, but it can at least inform you as you go, like that doesn't stuff like it doesn't work out very well. Like you want to, you want us to get into like a six month fight with Denmark, really, when you have other stuff going on.
- [29:26]
Seth Mandel
I just want to say, by the way, I was in Denmark a few days ago and you know, I was in Copenhagen. And so it's basically like if you. A gingerbread house, but a city of gingerbread houses. And so I, you know, I didn't, I didn't get the sense that it would be that much of a fight. I don't mean to insult our, our friends over there. I just, I just want to say that it was a very happy, cheerful place. And so, but, but I think Christine's right, honestly, in the, in the way this stuff is happening. Not just whether or not it's, it's an own goal, but it's. The, the obsession is weird. I think we have to admit that the, the constant pivoting to Greenland is weird, right? Like, it's, well, you know, he's, he's, he's decapitating Venezuela and he goes, we'll talk about Greenland in 20 days. Like, in other words, Greenland is, you know, we're doing Maduro now and we're going to go, you know, decapitate Greenland, you know, next. And the fact that they keep pivoting to Greenland and keep talking about it is weird. It's not weird to want Greenland. I don't think that's weird at all. I mean, we've, he's certainly not the first US President to suggest that we should have, we should buy Greenland. I mean, that's, you know, it's not like he invented this idea, but I do think the obsession and the obsessive way he deals with it is just kind of strange and it's kind of freaking people out in, in, you know, in Denmark and elsewhere. And it's like he could cool it on that without necessarily giving up the dream, you know, every, every American's dream of owning green.
- [31:11]
Abe Greenwald
Well, let me just say one thing about our Danish friends and their martial instincts. I would generally agree with you about Copenhagen, but I spent a weird summer on the island of Romo, which is part of Denmark, kind of off the coast. And they still had their World War II era, dug out concrete bunkers lining the beach house. And I asked the Danish host, I said, well, why don't you get rid of those? They're like, that's a reminder that we might have to defend our coast. I mean, there is you don't want to poke that bear too far. I'm just saying.
- [31:37]
Seth Mandel
Wolf always at the door.
- [31:38]
Abe Greenwald
Christine, why keep the bunkers?
- [31:45]
John Podhoretz
It is a ridiculous topic for us to be discussing when we've just done this deadly serious thing in, in, in Venezuela. But this is the nature of the. I'm laughing. I don't mean to giggle, because it is the most disturbing aspect of the Trump administration that it does deadly serious things and then five seconds later it talks dumb shit. You know, it's, it's, it's very frustrating if you are in the of a mind to try to speak in seriously in defense of actions that they might or might not have taken, because then they sort of go behind your back and then they do, they do something that just seems absurd and then, or, you know, brings up a topic that seems absurd or focuses on the thing that seems absurd, and then you're like, oh, please, can you just, can you give me a break? Like, just make it a little easier for me. You know, we're, we're out here, you know, in here in the red states and the media trying to argue on your behalf and, you know, just, you make it hard. Not that anyone needs to feel sorry for me or for us, but, you know, it's very unfortunate. By the way, Eliana, what did you make of the announcement that you published that piece by your dad about needing more prosecutors, and in response, the administration announced it was sending 2,000 troops to the Twin Cities? I don't think you wanted lawyers, not troops.
- [33:30]
Abe Greenwald
Right.
- [33:32]
John Podhoretz
Again, another example of. Wait a minute. Focus, focus. Can we have a little focus on the actual issue?
- [33:41]
Eliana Johnson
Yeah, look, I think even before this, what we'd seen and we talked about this, you know, maybe a month ago, was Treasury Secretary Scott Besant announced, hey, we're going to do a big investigation of all the money, the fraud money flowing from Minnesota to the coffers of Al Shabaab. And my understanding was that that investigation actually consisted of an offer of more IRS agents to the, you know, assist the investigation of the U.S. attorney's office in Minnesota. There have been similar announcements from the FBI. We're surging resources to Minnesota. The one concrete thing that the administration did do was send like these hhs, you know, officials from HHS to knock on doors. But I would say that so far, my impression is that the administration has leaned on performative social media announcements to show that they are outraged and that they care about this as opposed to concrete measures that would really allow prosecutors to tackle this. And in publishing this piece Yesterday, the goal was for people just learning about this, and there are many, because these stories are really just being brought to national attention to tell them, like, what should people who are really just being informed of this, getting angry about it, what should they be demanding from this administration? And it's like, hey, let's beef up this tiny team of five prosecutors who are trying to tackle 9 billion, what is estimated at $9 billion of fraud, well, perpetrated on the taxpayers of Minnesota.
- [35:37]
Abe Greenwald
Well, and we are spending. The Justice Department under Trump is spending money on a weaponization office to try to seek out people who were weaponizing the Justice Department under Biden. How much better use of time and resources would it be to send a group of those sorts of prosecutors to every state to root out the fraud that might have been committed and taxpayer dollars that would have been spent? I say this because it's the anniversary of January 6th, and last night there was an unex. There was an unannounced. I guess it maybe it was announced. I'm not on social media, but fireworks display. And I had text messages coming in from lots of friends going, is there like an attack going on? What's happening? Because there was fireworks at like 9pm last night. But I just think there's a better use.
- [36:17]
Eliana Johnson
Yeah. I also think it's really good politics for them in that, like, these are already federal prosecutors, Trump administration, like Justice Department prosecutors tackling these cases. But it's a small team. This U.S. attorney's office in Minnesota is responsible for prosecuting a lot of things, not just fraud. They can already take credit for these things, but they could take credit for more if they beefed up this office. And I think that's good politics for them. They have three more years to do it. You know, I'm not sure why they, why they aren't jumping at the opportunity.
- [36:53]
John Podhoretz
So where should we go from here? I think I want to talk a little about. I think it's Sia. I don't know. Cea Weaver.
- [37:05]
Eliana Johnson
I was wondering the same thing. How do you have.
- [37:07]
John Podhoretz
Oh, I know. I don't want to talk about that. I want to talk about the guy who smashed the windows at the vice president.
- [37:12]
Eliana Johnson
Oh, right, yeah.
- [37:14]
John Podhoretz
The they who smashed the windows of the vice president's mansion. Two different issues. Number one, how did he get on the property to smash the windows at the vice president's mansion? That's the worrisome that that should have happened.
- [37:26]
Abe Greenwald
It's not the VP Mansion.
- [37:28]
John Podhoretz
It's not his residence.
- [37:29]
Abe Greenwald
Yes. That he also sometimes stays at I mean, it's a residence he and his family use, but he wasn't. They weren't there.
- [37:38]
John Podhoretz
We need, you know, here's what we need. We need an ombudsman. For me, we need an ombudsman on the show, a real time ombudsman. Two minutes before we're done, the ombudsman comes on and basically points out every error that I. That I make because it's getting worse.
- [37:58]
Seth Mandel
Okay, isn't that, Isn't that part in the Interruption, or was that the. What's the other. The one that came on after Pardon the Interruption, that had the ESPN show.
- [38:05]
John Podhoretz
Yeah, well, on Red Eye, Andy Levy used to do this at three in the morning. He would. He would correct the first half hour.
- [38:12]
Seth Mandel
What's Andy.
- [38:13]
John Podhoretz
I don't know. Apparently. Apparently was not a great career move, you know, for future employment, but. So he's trans. So this is another bizarre crime, violent crime, politicized crime that has been committed by somebody who identifies as trans. Is this the fifth, the sixth, the seventh? That's the least violent in the sense that, you know, no one was injured as opposed to, you know, the. The boyfriend of the trans person who, you know, shot, assassinated Charlie Kirk, and the trans person who shot up the school in Nashville. And, I mean, I can't even. I can't even, you know, call to mind the three or four other cases. And you want to say to me, okay, it's not fair to tar an entire category of people with the same brush, but I'm going to tar a category of people with the same brush. A lot of us really do look at this and think that what we see here in trans, in, in the sort of. In the focus on trans, which there seems to be a lot of evidence, is in rapid decline that people are. That kids are less and less and less and less, teenagers are less and less and less, announcing that they are identifying as trans, but that it is a form of mental illness and that people, people, people with mental illness have obviously higher rates of, you know, crossing the line, the boundary between what is real and what is fantasy and paranoid schizophrenia and actions like that. And so you can tell me that I'm gonna look at. I'm being, you know, evil and making them feel unsafe. Because I'm saying this, but I'm thinking it. Well, John.
- [40:29]
Christine Rosen
That I think is. I agree that it is a form of mental illness, but there's also a component here that makes me very heartbroken for the trans person, which is that they have also been, in some cases Medically or surgically or both. Mutilated. And they may have gone into all of this at a young age, perfectly healthy, not without a mental illness, and may have sort of gone down the counseling, schooling, therapizing conveyor belt and gotten sort of put through this trans machine, come out the other end and ended up, as I would, as anyone would, mentally ill and furious. So there is that part of it.
- [41:32]
Abe Greenwald
There's the question as well, which we don't have an answer to because it's difficult to do research on this subject because of its highly politicized nature, what enormously high doses of hormones do to people's brains who might also have some sort of underlying depression. Even if it's a mild depression, if you dose a, in this case, I guess it's a woman with high amounts of testosterone and other male hormones. What does that do to their psyche? Those are the sorts of things we should be studying if we're going to treat this as a, as a medicalized procedure rather than simply an individual choice. One little footnote to the story about the Vice President's attacker, potential attacker. Just the other day the Secret Service announced a heavy recruitment effort in the lead up to the 2028 elections. They need more officers, they need to train those people. There is a very clear concern on the part of the service which as we know has had many scandals and a lot missteps in the recent, I would say the past 10 years. We need people who are willing to take those jobs and they need to be well trained. And that entire bureau does need a complete overhaul if we're going to have a safe election for 2028. There are obviously unfortunately a lot of crazy people out there who would like to do harm to our elected officials. And that's a nonpartisan issue that I think I hope Congress will really fund well and that recruitment effort I hope does, will bear some fruit and that the leadership of that organization, not just the top but all the way through the ranks, gets a cleans house in a bit because we do need to have that safety guaranteed for our elected officials.
- [43:08]
Eliana Johnson
Can I just make a comment on the media coverage of this? I read the articles about this in NBC News, the Associated Press, ABC News, etc. These articles didn't tell me anything about this individual being trans. I read that a 26 year old man named William broke in, tried to break into J.D. vance's home and the only place that I could find that this man William had recently changed his name to Julia or was the son of some Democratic donor were in random accounts on X and then in the New York Post. And I do think it speaks to the media. There is an enormous reluctance in the mainstream media to report on this topic, to ask experts about this topic and to grapple at all with this topic. And it leaves the public actually ill informed about what is happening. Even as we see, John, you traced a through line in some extremely high profile crimes. But I'm not actually sure how informed the public is about this because I tried to read about it and came.
- [44:32]
Abe Greenwald
Up wanting one of the few outlet, the Telegraph in the UK Actually the headline said True Democrat Donor. I was like, yeah, yeah, British paper was really the only honest headline for this story which is telling well.
- [44:48]
Seth Mandel
And I want to comment on one other part of this to add to what Eliana says about the media coverage is media coverage of the idea in the pat over the past few years that, that criticizing, you know, the what, what Abe called the trans machine that sucks these kids in and spits them out, that criticizing the trans machine is what is going to lead these people to take their own lives and that it is a, it is a threat to trans people's lives. And I think that, you know, without trying to blame the media for all these crimes, I don't think we can avoid mentioning the fact that if you were put through this machine, it came through the way Abe said the other side understandably a bit messed up from everything. And then the media, you turned on the media and they were saying that this is all going, this is all in, in, in. This is, this is going to bring about a trans holocaust. You know, you might pick up a gun, you might be more likely to do some violence to someone or something or somebody's house or set something on fire or whatever. I just think that there's a level of almost incitement to that they get in these, these kids brains and tell them you're going to be rounded up on cattle cars. When people say that they should ban sex changes for minors. And then some of them, a very, very, very small percentage as in any cohort, but some of them take extreme action. And I just think it's really irresponsible and it's been really irresponsible for the media to talk about things in that sense.
- [46:34]
Christine Rosen
Seth is so right. You know what, because what are the, what do they say, the mainstream media? They say the Trump administration says you don't exist. That's the line which is obvious provocative manipulation of the idea that there are only two sexes.
- [46:58]
John Podhoretz
Two genders.
- [46:58]
Abe Greenwald
And it is Very important to note that they use the kids. The T shirts you see all the elected officials wearing is defend trans kids, Protect trans kids. And that is where the departure the US has made from a lot of European countries, from a lot of other places that have said and what I think many adult Americans would say, if you're an adult, you want to do this, fine. You have the right to do these things. You might not have the right to invade women only spaces in every single state, in every single jurisdiction, but you do have this choice because you're an adult. It is very different when we're talking about children. And that's where I think you see the deeply rooted ideological argument they're making that expresses itself in just the way Seth the Nape just described.
- [47:41]
John Podhoretz
I've been reading because I was in Spain last week. I've been reading Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell, which is his account of fighting in the Spanish Civil War. And it put to mind a quote that was particularly beloved of my father. In fact, I think he is the person who resurfaced it from a an Orwell essay at some point in the 70s when the. When his Orwell's complete essay, Complete Letters and Essays came out in this amazing four volume compendium. And everybody this was the moment that sort of enshrined Orwell in many ways, aside from writing 1984 and Animal Farm as the greatest essayist of the 20 English language essayist of the 20th century. And the quote is, and it may not even, may even be from Keep the Aspidistras Flying in one of his novels, I can't remember. But it's the fact to which we have got to cling as to a life belt is that it is possible to be a normal, decent person and yet to be fully alive. Why do I cite this in this case? Because the bias toward the idea that the. That the unusual, that the transgressive, that the people who break from traditional forms of behavior, traditional ways of living, traditional understandings of what it means to be human are more praiseworthy and more among elites and are more attractive, more alluring, more to be copied, more to be sort of viewed as courageous or noble or something like that. And that what this does is that it takes the ordinary person and it degrades the idea that living what we would call a conventional life according to the rules and dictates that have governed bourgeois relationships for and family styles forever, that those are retrogressive and bad and not worthy of praise and not anything that should be celebrated and they don't need to be, they didn't need to be celebrated when they were the simply going concern of 90% and more than 90% of the people who lived pretty much the same kind of lives as everybody else. And the effect of this attitude that the normal, decent people are not fully alive is, has been for 50 years a very serious disruption in the way we understand how society is supposed to be constituted. And it's wrong and it has knock on consequences for the people who are allowing themselves because of this bizarre idea to be mutilated and because of the kind of mill that Abe talks about that helps convince people that something that they want that might be something incredibly destructive to them is in fact better for them, good for them, serious for them. You know, my dear friend, I've saved my, my dear friend. The peerless psychoanalyst and, and psychiatrist Paul McHugh had said when he canceled the gender change program at Johns Hopkins when he became head of psychiatry. He said, there is no question that people who believe themselves to be in the wrong body are experiencing great pain. Treat the pain, do not confirm the delusion that is causing the pain. That is immoral, that is, that is anti human. And it is the opposite of compassion. It is the opposite of care. Because what you are doing is saying, oh, you want to version of, oh, you want to cut your arm off? Sure, I'll cut your arm off.
- [52:14]
Eliana Johnson
Well, no, he, John, I think he wrote a great essay in the Journal. I think it was him that said, when, when people have eating disorders, we don't tell them, oh, you really are fat, you really do need to lose weight. Or when alcoholics, you know, say they need to drink 12 drinks a day, we don't tell them, you're right, you do. That's a good thing. And he pointed out that the way that we've approached transgenderism is an outlier compared to the way that we treat these other things.
- [52:46]
John Podhoretz
Right. Well, except for body positivity, but apparently that's, that's now too. Yeah, that's now over.
- [52:53]
Eliana Johnson
Doctors have come forward to say that the way that we have approached that is medically insane.
- [53:01]
John Podhoretz
Right.
- [53:01]
Eliana Johnson
It's insane to tell people who are overweight that that's okay and it poses no risk to their health. It's crazy.
- [53:08]
John Podhoretz
Right? And there is now a treatment, the first really successful treatment that we have seen, that we've seen on the planet Earth for people who have incredible difficulties dealing with weight issues. And, and, and you can see a.
- [53:23]
Seth Mandel
Very interesting phenomenon happening, which is where every so often you see a headline like. Like Lizzo's fans criticize her for her, you know, bikini shot, bikini selfie, showing off all the weight she's lost, Right? Because there was this moment where people like Lizzo were held up as, you know, truly and fully healthy, and therefore, you know, people should be like them. And so, you know, it was. It was seen. It happened also with Adele Lost a ton. The singer Adele lost a ton of weight. And it was controversial because people liked the idea that she was not Britney Spears and she was the girl next door, but had this big voice and whatever. People's, you know, people's perceptions of who she was and what she represented were supposed to be static, and that meant that there was nothing about her that should change. And then you saw, you know, these. And you saw people treat the act of losing weight as, you know, as. As a kind of, you know, Lizzo.
- [54:23]
Abe Greenwald
Lizzo's being criticized correctly, I think, because she's a hypocrite, because she embraced the body positivity stuff. She reveled in it.
- [54:28]
Christine Rosen
She.
- [54:29]
Abe Greenwald
She actually would attack people who would say, well, that's actually unhealthy. She had dancers in her tours who evidently she's been accused of harassing. But that's another issue. She. She totally embraced that cultural moment, and then she went and lost when is now doing her bikini selfie. So I'm glad that she's healthier. I agree that it's. It's a healthier lifestyle for her, but it's the hypocrisy she's being called out on. Whereas I think the treatment of people like Adele was just shameful. That was just unfair.
- [54:55]
John Podhoretz
Look, people come in all shapes and sizes. I'm in no position to criticize anybody for being overweight. And I do think that one of the weirdnesses of this whole movement is this notion that we don't come in all shapes and sizes and that everyone is going to end up skinny, which I suppose is okay. I mean, you know, at some point they're going to put. They're going to put GLP ones in the water. Like they put fluoride in the water, and everyone will be skinny and something will be lost there. I don't quite know why that. You know, it's a. It's a. It's an oddity.
- [55:33]
Abe Greenwald
But actually muscle tone for most people, that seems to be the thing.
- [55:35]
John Podhoretz
Fair enough.
- [55:36]
Abe Greenwald
People forget that they need muscle.
- [55:38]
John Podhoretz
Yeah, well, belt. It's our black belt athlete here, you know, humble bragging there about her muscle tone.
- [55:46]
Seth Mandel
But if they put GLP1 in the water, then they're gonna have to invent an osteoporosis cure that they then put into the.
- [55:52]
John Podhoretz
Right, exactly. Well, everything's just gonna go into the water or we're gonna get one pill with everything in it and we'll all.
- [55:57]
Abe Greenwald
Now we're gonna be accused of being big pharma, you know, shills.
- [56:00]
John Podhoretz
Fair enough. Okay. I'm just saying, like, I, you know, obviously people shouldn't be abusive toward overweight people and people should not be abusive towards people who believe that they are trans. It's the opposite of that. This is a, this is a question of, this is a question of not only how you, how you should treat people who are expressing mental illness, but also how you should. The fact is that we, as, as Eliana points out, we refuse to speak honestly about them and, and, and the kinds of things that happen that seem to be happening in greater numbers than should otherwise. And in defense of ordinary people, I would like to make my second recommendation in a row of a movie, and this one I really, really, really would like you to go to the movie theater and see because it would be great if it were a hit. It's a wonderful, remarkable, quiet film called Song Sung Blue with Hugh Jackman and Kate Jackson. And it is about. It is the real life story fictionalized to some extent, although everyone's names are real of this. These two working class Milwaukee, divorced in their 40s who come together. She likes to sing Patsy Cline stuff, he likes to sing ZZ Top and various other things. And they come together to form a Neil diamond cover band essentially, and they called themselves Thunder and Lighting. This is a true story and it is a portrait of them coming together, finding love in middle age, various trials and tribulations that they go through. It is a heartfelt, very accurate, I think, depiction of lower middle class and working class American life. That is the opposite of condescending. It is the opposite of. It shows them doing things that you might nominally think are ridiculous. Dressing up in ridiculous sequin outfits and going around and performing and Thai restaurants, second ranked Thai restaurants, just simply to be able to perform. But it is a beautiful movie about ordinary people and the kinds of things that they do that might constitute a form of heroism. Being good to their kids when they don't have to be or, you know, when, when they might otherwise not be staying sober when everything tells them not to be, and going through health crises that are, you know, and accidents that are unfair and unjust. The performance in this movie by Kate Hudson, who is an actress that has done. Who has done nothing for me in the 25 years that she has been sort of in the public eye. Didn't like her romantic comedies. I didn't think much of her in Almost Famous. This may be one of the best performances I've ever seen playing this hairdresser who wants to be a singer. And her accent, her Milwaukee accent is flawless. The range of emotion she has to express are extraordinary. And she has a really beautiful singing voice. And anyway song Sung Blue. Go see it. Just trust me on this. Go see it. Don't not see it. Don't wait till it goes on streaming. This is worth your going to a theater to see.
- [59:51]
Seth Mandel
Kate Hudson had a sort of resurgence from weirdly from Glass Onion. Right. She was in which was not. Not a great movie in itself. It didn't really come together. But her performance in it was. Was so good that it caught people's attention and she then she had, you know, I think a Netflix series or something after that.
- [60:09]
John Podhoretz
Yeah.
- [60:09]
Seth Mandel
And then this. But she's, you know, having a sort of resurgence. I have a quick question about the. The song Sung Blue. There was a piece in the New York Times that called into question the lack of notice about Neil Diamond's Jewish backstory and what that meant to the specific type of Persona he developed into as a singer in a piece about song Sung Blue.
- [60:40]
John Podhoretz
Yeah.
- [60:41]
Seth Mandel
Is that. I mean is like was that true? Like was there something missing there or.
- [60:47]
John Podhoretz
That piece is one of the most ridiculous articles that has ever been published in any publication ever. And I am always on the lookout for efforts to soft pedal Jewish content. But if you think the author of Sweet Caroline and Cherry Baby and you know, various and. And Suleiman and various and you know, Living in America coming whatever that. If you think yes, he went to Erasmus Hall High School with Barbra Streisand. He's from the Bronx, from Brooklyn. And you know, and as a Jewish guy who was in the Jazz Singer it is one of the least important things about Neil diamond and the effort that that piece went to to try to say that I am I said is a reference to the phrase hineni in the Bible. Among the more ridiculous claims in the history of mankind.
- [61:47]
Abe Greenwald
I would rather read it essay about his hair. I mean it would have been more the cultural impact of his hair.
- [61:53]
John Podhoretz
It's not Leonard Cohen, he's not Bob Dylan, he's an outer borough guy.
- [61:59]
Abe Greenwald
But a lot of people songs by memory because if you grew up in the 70s and 80s it was the only. It was playing constantly on mainstream radio. My mom had all the eight tracks and we heard a lot of Neil diamond on those van rides. Oh, boy.
- [62:11]
John Podhoretz
Yeah.
- [62:12]
Christine Rosen
Well, there was also.
- [62:14]
Seth Mandel
Saving Silverman was also a surprisingly decent movie. And so there maybe there is something about Neil diamond cover band movies. Right? There's like a weird thing about real time in fandom that is very entertaining.
- [62:29]
John Podhoretz
We have a sub genre right here, Saving Silverman and Songs on Blue. Songs on Blue is a hundred times better than Saving Silverman. Just. Just to. Just to make it clear, you know, in a different year, Kate Hudson would win an Oscar. In a different year, it would be nominated for best picture. I don't think either of those things is going to happen. But.
- [62:49]
Abe Greenwald
But here we are.
- [62:51]
John Podhoretz
So Song sung blue. We'll be back tomorrow. Won't be. I guess we won't be a full house tomorrow. It's exciting. We have a full house here. It's. It's a. It's all the regulars. So for Christine and Eliana and Seth and Abe, I'm John Pot. Horace. Keep the candle burning.
- [63:16]
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- [63:43]
Eliana Johnson
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