Platline

Summary

The Commentary Magazine Podcast: "Platline"

Date: July 9, 2026
Panelists:

• Jon Podhoretz (Host, Commentary Editor)
• Abe Greenwald (Executive Editor)
• Seth Mandel (Senior Editor)
• Matthew Continetti (AEI, Wall Street Journal, former Commentary panelist)

---

Episode Overview

Theme:
The episode analyzes the scandal-driven collapse of Graham Platner’s Democratic Senate campaign in Maine, the Democrats’ institutional response, media complicity, the nuances of party machinery versus the GOP, and the state of recent US and Middle East politics. The second half covers the US-Iran crisis, Middle East realignment (notably Israel-Lebanon), and the recent interventionist posture toward Israel by prominent Democrats like Rahm Emanuel.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Graham Platner Withdraws from Maine Senate Race

Platner’s Exit Video – Tone and Message ([00:52–04:41])

• The panel critiques Platner’s 11-minute campaign suspension video as "an angry diatribe at the system" (Matthew Continetti), targeting the Democratic establishment rather than the right.
• Platner insists the "structure of our society is against anti-Semitic movements like his own," places blame for his withdrawal solely on Democratic regulars, not Republicans or capitalism.
• Jon Podhoretz: "If the Democratic Party believed that John Wayne Gacy could beat Susan Collins...they would support John Wayne Gacy." ([04:06])
• Polling, not just scandal, was the fatal blow; the NYT/Siena poll showed Senator Susan Collins beating Platner, exacerbating Democratic concerns.

The Candidates’ Liability & Democratic Calculus ([04:41–06:15])

• Beyond the rape accusation, Platner’s pattern of dishonesty and continuous negative revelations made him a liability.
• Seth Mandel: "The understanding that he lies about everything. And therefore, when he says nothing else is going to come up, something else is going to come up."

Morality, Responsibility, and Media Complicity ([06:15–09:16])

• Continetti’s pointed commentary: "This disturbed individual truly degraded American politics... And let me just say: the mainstream Democrats who are now fleeing from him are not excepted from the moral stain. Because at every single point in this process, they defended him..." ([06:15])
• The panel highlights media (esp. NYT) attempts to suppress damaging stories until polling forced action.

---

2. Comparisons to GOP Scandals & Party Contrasts

Whataboutism vs. Comparative Failures ([09:16–12:41])

• Podhoretz: Republicans dealt with the Access Hollywood tape by calling on Trump to quit; Democrats flocked to Platner even as scandals mounted.
• Continetti: Democrats work through subterfuge and after-the-fact coordination—unlike the public splits of the GOP in 2016 and 2024—quickly coalescing when necessary (e.g., 2020, the "Kamala Summer" after Biden, 2020 with Clyburn’s endorsement, coordinated dropouts, etc.).

---

3. Democratic Party Machinery

Institutional Strength vs. Republican Disarray ([15:12–20:19])

• Podhoretz: The Democrats have organized, well-funded institutions (mainly unions, NGOs) enabling rapid coordinated shifts—"an extremely well organized party," in contrast with the GOP’s lack of unifying mechanisms.
• "The Republican Party... has no such core. There is no organized Republican behind the Democratic Party infrastructure..." ([18:41])

Recent Senate Race Trends ([20:19–24:26])

• Continetti observes the historical trend of the party that wins a state in a presidential election also taking the Senate seat—which is failing this cycle.
• Races in Texas and Georgia are unexpectedly competitive, with strong Democratic challengers like Talarico in Texas and Ossoff in Georgia.

Notable Moment

• Podhoretz (re: Ossoff): "He was circumcised on the 8th day of his life," noting how identity politics permeate party liabilities. ([24:26])

---

4. Democrat Radicalism & Media Blind Spots

Risks with Unvetted Radical Candidates ([24:39–27:02])

• The panel criticizes Democrats’ pattern of radical outsider candidates whose backgrounds are poorly vetted—sometimes even by legacy media.
• Example: Abdul El Sayed’s misleading about his medical licensing and the media’s failure to clarify distinctions.
• Mandel: Calls out the media for "not doing the work"—information emerges late, to the detriment of voter choice and party preparation.

---

5. US-Iran Confrontation & Middle East Realignment

Escalating Tensions ([30:49–37:03])

• Trump’s administration has struck Iran heavily in response to attacks in the Strait of Hormuz; potential for escalation up to taking Kharg Island.
• Continetti: "They [Iran] could blow up oil installations and really damage Iran's capacity to export oil for years...If they had held to the [ceasefire]... they could have claimed victory." ([32:08])

Iranian Calculus & Media Framing ([37:03–43:56])

• Iran’s insistence on controlling Hormuz is "revenue is subordinate to control" (Times), prioritizing leverage over short-term gain.
• Seth Mandel: "If the Palestinians in the 80s, 90s... had just followed the rules, they would have won based on how the world would see things. But they don't want to. What they want is to crush their enemies and hear the lamentations of their women." ([33:29])
• The media’s portrayal of Iran as strong and Trump as blundering is dismissed by the panel given recent IRGC setbacks.

Recent Diplomatic Shifts ([45:45–48:14])

• Continetti: Celebrates the Israel-Lebanon MoU and the weakening of Iran’s "ring of fire" via disarmament and normalization agreements.
• Israel is described as having "pacified Gaza," and historic progress is being made even as US media and Democratic leaders paint the opposite picture.

---

6. Rahm Emanuel's Speech: Democratic Party, Israel, and the Left

The Rahm Emanuel Speech ([48:14–61:06])

• Big Moment: The panel breaks down Emanuel’s speech at Tel Aviv University—a hard critique of both Netanyahu and current US-Israel relations.
• Emanuel proposes suspending military aid and sanctioning Israelis for West Bank actions—moves the panel sees as the "moderate" path toward mainstreaming what will soon be radical anti-Israel positions.
• Continetti: "He is not Graham Platner. He is not El Sayed. He is not calling for Israel's elimination. He is not a socialist. However, here's what he is calling for: suspending military aid to Israel, ending it. He is calling for sanctioning West Bank Israelis..." ([52:13])
• The panel argues the Democratic Party’s energy is with anti-Zionist radicals, not a resuscitated Third Way, and dismisses Emanuel’s attempt to claim a "mainstream" ground.

BDS, Slippery Slope & Emanuel’s Prospects ([61:06–64:04])

• Podhoretz: Predicts that sanctioning "bad" Israelis leads directly to a broader BDS mindset: "If you say it's okay to boycott some Jews, why can't you boycott all Jews?...that 5% is a cancer." ([62:49])

---

7. Israel’s Political Landscape & American Influence

End of Netanyahu? ([64:04–69:30])

• The panel is deeply skeptical that replacing Netanyahu with any plausible alternative (Bennett, Lapid) will fundamentally change Israeli security policy.
• The notion that Israel is isolated is refuted by Israel's growing ties—most dramatically with India and the Abraham Accords.
• Podhoretz: The status quo is "working fine for Israel" as it focuses on existential security rather than US Jewish or European sensibilities.

---

8. Memorable Quotes & Moments

• Continetti: "This disturbed individual truly degraded American politics...the mainstream Democrats who are now fleeing from him are not excepted from the moral stain." ([06:15])
• Podhoretz: "The Republican Party... has no such core. There is no organized Republican behind the Democratic Party infrastructure..." ([18:41])
• Mandel: "Putting all our cards on these unknowns that are now beginning to show a lot of crap." ([27:02])
• Continetti (on Iran): "What they want is survival... their understanding is that the strait is now their economic lifeline." ([34:43])
• Podhoretz (on BDS): "If you say it's okay to boycott some Jews, why can't you boycott all Jews?" ([62:49])
• Mandel: "Rahm's trying to establish a democratic mainstream on Israel by a one-man decree. Good luck." ([56:15])
• Continetti (on Emanuel): "If not for the Democratic Party’s anti-Israel and anti-Semitic turn, he would have just moved on." ([68:22])

---

Notable Segment Timestamps

• [00:52–09:16] Graham Platner’s withdrawal—political/moral analysis
• [09:16–12:41] Comparing Democratic and Republican scandal management
• [15:12–20:19] Democratic machinery vs. Republican disarray
• [24:26–27:02] Vetting of radical Democratic candidates
• [30:49–43:56] US-Iran escalation, motives, and media framing
• [45:45–51:05] Israel-Lebanon MoU, regional realignment
• [48:14–64:04] Dissecting Rahm Emanuel’s Israel speech, anti-Zionism in Dems
• [64:04–69:30] What Netanyahu’s possible fall means (or doesn’t)
• [73:11–76:55] Book recommendation: "The Hero Returns" by Richard Brookheiser

---

Recommended Readings and Closing

• Book Recommendation: "The Hero Returns: Lafayette and the Legacy of Revolution" by Richard Brookheiser ([73:11–75:12])
• Featured Commentary Article: Alan Guelzo's "A Revolution for All Humankind" on the global impact of the American Revolution ([75:12–76:55])

---

Final Notes

• The episode presents a deeply skeptical view of Democratic Party reform efforts regarding radicalism and anti-Semitism, and a correspondingly jaundiced view of media complicity and naïveté regarding Iran and the Middle East.
• The tone is pointed, critical, and often caustically witty, deploying personal stories, institutional knowledge, and historical comparisons.
• The conversation closes with a recommendation for a book about Lafayette and reflections on the American Revolution’s legacy, tying the historical to the contemporary.

Transcript

[A]

Foreign.

[B]

Expect the worst Some drinks and pain 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 is Thursday, July 9, 2026. I'm Jon Podhortz, the editor of Commentary magazine. With me, as always, executive editor Abe Greenwald. Hi, Abe.

[A]

Hi, John.

[B]

Senior editor Seth Mandel. Hi, Seth.

[C]

Hi, John.

[B]

And joining us today, AEI Poobah, columnist with the free expression vertical at the Wall Street Journal, and our former Daily panelist Matthew Continetti. Hi, Matt.

[D]

Hi, Jon.

[B]

Graham Platner withdrew from the. Well, he suspended his campaign for Senate in Maine, giving the Maine Democratic Party a chance before July 14th to replace him on the ballot through some modality they're gonna come up with in the last couple of days. And his video was very, very interesting. Anybody wanna sort of like get into the 11 minutes of his apologia de vita sua?

[D]

Well, apologia is not the word I would use to describe the content of that video. It was a kind of angry diatribe at the system. He didn't accept any of the latest accusations, of course, but he also basically said that the reason he was suspending his campaign was that the Democratic establishment had cut him off and that the structure of our society is against anti Semitic movements like his own. And that's why he was leaving the line. He's still on the ballot, he said. And that line on the ballot would be for the people of Maine to decide. And just. You're right, John. He had to drop out by the 13th. The Democrats in Maine have until the 27th, I believe, to name his replacement.

[B]

So the diatribe was very interesting because it gets to a point that you make all the time, Matt, and that Noah Rothschildman people make, which is that the far left hates liberals more than it hates conservatives. And this was his target. Wasn't the forces that be that he was targeting weren't Trump wasn't capitalism. I mean, maybe capitalism. It was Democratic regulars. It was. The party is going to cut me off. The party will. Will deny my campaign access to critical databases and it will interrupt my fundraising. They would rather. Meaning Democratic regulars in Washington would rather Susan Collins be reelected senator in Maine than have him represent Maine in the Senate, which he believes he would if he stayed in the race. But that because of this conspiracy against him, again, not by the right, but by the center to center left, that he had no choice but to leave the race. This is a very. Yeah.

[A]

Can I say something he talks about the system and the pressures and the powers in the system. To me, it sounds like his ire is aimed at establishment politics generally, which is also what you hear on, like, the podcast, right. When they talk about the uniparty, it's like the Tucker wing hates the conservative right because they're no different from the Democratic Party. And Platner's kind of saying that he's a victim of this same sort of collusive establishment that.

[B]

Well, that's exactly right. But the specificity of the mentioning that they're going to deny me, Democrats are going to deny me the tools to win because they would rather have Susan Collins win than he. And that, I am sorry, is actually not true. If the Democratic Party believed that John Wayne Gacy could beat Susan Collins, with the possibility of the Democratic Party taking the Senate, they would support John Wayne Gacy.

[D]

That's why I think the real fatal blow to Platner's candidacy was not the Politico story with the rape accusation, but it was the New York Times Siena poll a few days earlier showing Susan Collins ahead Graham Platner. And the fact that Collins was so competitive against Platner in polling, I think is what ultimately convinced Democrats once the other shoe of this rape charge dropped, to say, okay, we have to change something here. He was not as competitive as he likes to believe.

[C]

I mean, and also the same thing about the concern that the understanding was that he. The understanding that he lies about everything. And therefore, when he says nothing else is going to come up, something else is going to come up. That was also, as Matt says, I think, as much a political polling factor as anything. And in other words, it wasn't like, what else is gonna drop that's gonna make it impossible for us to back him? It's. More stuff will drop and he'll keep dropping in the polls. Therefore, he won't stabilize. In other words, he won't st at 43% and be running almost even with Susan Collins and have a shot in the last run up, you know, in the last couple weeks of the election to make an ad blitz and maybe get ahead, drive down her favorables, whatever. The idea was that those numbers are probably still going to fall.

[D]

Can I just make a few points? The first is, now that he is suspending his campaign, we do need to take a moment and just recognized that this disturbed individual truly degraded American politics for the past seven months at least. He targeted the Jews in his campaign rhetoric, so he publicized and amplified anti Semitic ideas. He had a Nazi tattoo, which he claims to have covered up and instead he had no idea of the meaning. But as a friend of mine pointed out, if you talk to someone who, who Sports Inc. They will be able to tell you the story and origin of every single tattoo on their body. And they, you don't you, you know what happened, right? The Reddit posts that surfaced showed him to be, like I say, unbalanced and anti American and again, anti Semitic. The charges even before this latest one of domestic abuse, of very unusual sexual behavior. Now this rape charge then followed up by a incredible front page headline in the Washington Post about him secretly removing prophylactics during sexual intercourse. Truly, this man introduced a sewer into American politics. And let me just say the mainstream Democrats who are now fleeing from him are not accept, not accepted from the moral stain. Because at every single point in this process, they defended him, they apologized for him. And it was only when the poll showed that he was losing to Collins and then only when this latest accuser whose story was covered up by the New York Times, broke through to Politico. That's when they say that he is morally compromised and it's time for a change. So it's not just about Graham Platner. It's about the Democratic establishment for the second time in two years trying to obscure the vulnerabilities of a candidate and then at the very last minute swapping him out. And then it's also, we need to say, about the media finally, and the New York Times in particular, John, and that is in the past six months, they have allowed a libel against the Jewish people in the state of Israel to be printed on their op ed page, which now the editor of the of the paper says he would not have run as a news story, according to the Washington Free Beacon. And now this story that they had on Platner where they consciously suppressed this rape charge and pretended that the accusations against him didn't rise to the level of me too accountability. And so this is just a whole giant blot on the Democrats and my rant has ended also.

[B]

I think we need to sort of like since everybody talks about the evils of whataboutism in this case, I am sorry, but when in 2016 the Access Hollywood tape surfaced leading and this was the presidential candidate and it was a month before the election, leading figures in the Republican Party, the number one Republican in the House of Representatives called on the Republican candidate for the presidency to quit the race. Paul Ryan said that Donald Trump should leave the race in 2016. This is one guy in Maine. And these Stories start surfacing, I don't know, five months ago, and there is a stampede toward him. Not against him, toward him. And that's why I think you're right, that the fact that Susan Collins showed what we all knew would be the case with Susan Collins, which is she's a brilliant politician who knows that state inside and out and was always going to be a tough beat, even in a state that has gone blue, that she starts showing that along with Platner's inherent problematic nature. And it's at that point where it's like, well, you know what? We still need to win Maine. He's already won the primary. We think he, you know, we're all rah, rah for him. But, you know, if the poll's showing that. His internal poll shows him down 4, which Nate Silver says means that he's actually down 8, and he's down 8 in July. Kiss it goodbye. Let's do a swaparoo. Again, this is not what about ism. People love to say that the Republicans cover for Trump, which they do, and they have, And I am not excusing that. I'm saying that at the particular moment of a sexual assault claim, at a key moment in an election for all the marbles, leading Republicans did not shy away from their obligation and responsibility to say this far but no farther. This is a stain on us. And then had to deal with the consequences when the public decided that was a weird month. Remember? Because then the Hillary reopening of emails. It was the weirdest month.

[D]

Don't like to relive it.

[B]

Yeah.

[D]

But, you know, it's funny to just look at how the. You're right. I mean, obviously 2016, there was an ongoing civil war in the Republican Party. We discussed it on the podcast last week. You know, Ted Cruz at the convention telling Republicans in the nation to vote their conscience in November and not necessarily support the Republican nominee whom he had lost to. Democrats go about this very differently, which is. It's. It's subterfuge. It's behind the scenes. These decisions just happen. They generate conspiracy theories leading to kind of Platner's interpretation. But again, we see it in 2024, Biden's disastrous debate, then the two weeks where the Democratic Party was in meltdown, then Biden's sudden announcement, then a few days, and all the party just completely gets behind Kamala Harris. And guess what? It's Kamala Summer.

[B]

Everyone's joy.

[D]

Remember the joy Explosion. Happy. Oh, the joy. And then, then you had Tim Waltz, you know, marching down the Runway waving in every direction. And gosh, we were just so happy, right? So there, there's that. Then in 2020, of course, we had Biden faltering, Bernie rising, the COVID virus arriving on our shores. And what happens? Clyburn comes in, says, no, Biden's our guy. We get South Carolina. And then very quickly, Klobuchar and Buttigieg drop out. Obama says, look, Biden's the one. He's the best shot to do Trump, to beat Trump. And that's it. And we see it in the Senate cycle this year in recent weeks, because just a few days before, Politico had this story with the latest charges against Platner, amplified by a very well produced interview with Jake Tapper. On the same day, Mallory McMurrow, the progressive candidate in Michigan, suspends her campaign, leading to a binary choice now between Al Said and Haley Stevens. Right? And so you can see how just again, behind the scenes, the Democrats, they're pretty good at this. They're kind of okay, time to give McMurray the hook. So we have a shot to defeat El Sayed, the other anti semitic socialist who's. Who's threatening our potential Senate takeover. And then just one last example of this. In Alaska, we have the Dan Sullivan doppelganger running for Senate. So we have Dan Sullivan, the incumbent Republican senator from Alaska, great senator, extremely strong on national security and energy issues. And he's being challenged by Mary Poltola, former congresswoman who was elected in 22, I believe, when Sarah Palin was actually another Republican candidate, kind of split the vote. So what happens? All of a sudden we have a new Dan Sullivan. A new Dan Sullivan is appearing on the ballot. A new Dan Sullivan, by the way, wanted to run with the actual Dan Sullivan's middle initial, even though it's not his own. And they forced him to run with his own middle initial. So now we have two Dan Sullivans with differing middle initials. And people say, well, come on, voters will be able to distinguish us. But Schumer doesn't care if most voters distinguish. All Schumer needs is enough voters to be confused and in Alaska's voting mechanism, right, to throw just enough votes away from the incumbent senator to get that seat for Mary Patola. So you have to hand it to the Democrats, in some ways, they're very savvy in this type of political skulldudgery.

[B]

Now that it's summer. I took a bag, I took all my sweaters, I put my sweaters into a vacuum bag to put them away. So that I could replace them with my summer clothing from Quints which has been stored away for these warm months. And of course, just as the days are a little more relaxed, so is the clothing that I'm wearing. And that's Quince summer clothing. Well made essentials that naturally become those everyday staples that you want to live in all summer long. Quince's 100% European linen pants and shirts are breathable, easy to throw on in the summer. Upgrade your rotation needs and they start at just 34 bucks. Tees soft enough to live all day. Lightweight cotton sweaters, exactly what you want when the summer nights cool down. Everything at quints is priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands. They work with ethical factories and cut out the middleman. So you're paying for exceptional quality, not brand markup. And I'm just telling you, people say to me, are you wearing quints? And I say yes, because I am now so associated with quints. So make your summer wardrobe easier. Go to quinte.com commentary for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada too. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E.com commentary for free shipping and 365 day returns. Quints.com commentary you know what's been happening in my house? Everyone's complaining that the sheets on their bed are slipping off. You roll around, particularly a fitted sheet pulls up. What are you going to do? It's very annoying. Maybe your pillows don't feel supportive. All these qualities that bed sheets pillows have. You got to do something to make your sleep better. That's why I upgraded my bed with Bol and branch. They make everything your bed needs signature. Organic cotton sheets, pillows, blankets, comforters. All designed to be breathable, incredibly soft and they get better over time. Most people start with the signature sheets and a lot of customers buy two sets so they can rotate them. Give it a shot. I'm telling you, it's a pretty great experience to finally have sheets that fit, pillows that are comfortable and the right weight blanket to make you feel just the right temperature. Sleep cooler this summer with Bowen Branch during their annual summer event. For a limited time, get 20% off site [e-mail] commentary with code COMMENTARY that's Bowen Branch. B O L L a n d branch.com comment commentary code commentary to take 20% off bullenbranch.com commentary code commentary exclusions apply. One of the most famous one liners in American political history came from Will Rogers. The Lariat roping humorist who was one of the most popular people in America in the 1930s who said, I am part of no organized party. I am a Democrat. What Matt is describing here is an extremely well organized party. And it makes perfect sense why the Democrats are better organized than the Republicans because they actually have institutional cores that control money, power and organizational strength. Right. Mostly we're talking about the unions, but we have all kinds of NGOs, social justice warriors, all of that, all of whom are very good at fundraising, very good at organizing, very good at getting people out to the vote, and very good at controlling the levers of intraparty power. And if they decide that something needs to change, something can change. The Republican Party, as it happens, has no such core. There is no organized Republican behind the Democratic Party infrastructure. And infrastructure. There are a lot of rich people who give Republicans money, and there are a lot of populists who support uneducated whites who support the Republican Party and all this. But if you would try somehow to get them to move in tandem and lockstep on some kind of cross quiet conspiracy to get Mallory McMurro out of the race, they'd never pull it off.

[D]

There's just one guy. It's Trump.

[B]

Yeah, there's one guy now.

[D]

He's the only person who could have that effect. And by the way, just on the Senate races before we switch topics, you know, I write about this in the Journal tomorrow on free expression. But we've had this pattern in recent cycles where the, the party that won a state in the prior presidential election has taken the Senate seat, Right? So if you win a state in 16, then in 18, your guy got the or gal got that Senate seat. And the same thing happened in 20 and 22 when just for example, you have Pennsylvania switching is the classic example. Biden WINS Pennsylvania in 20. All of a sudden my favorite U.S. senator, John Fetterman, wins it in 2022. So if that pattern held, then right now Republicans would really have the advantage in the Senate because they want all the swing states. And not only would they be well protected in places like Ohio, Alaska, they'd be on the march in places like North Carolina. I'm sorry, they'd be protected in North Carolina. They'd be on the march in Georgia and Michigan. And the one seat where they'd be vulnerable if this pattern held would be Maine. But in fact, the opposite is happening. Susan Collins looks to be the strongest Republican incumbent right now. And in all these red states, you have either running neck and neck right in the margin of error, or you have in Georgia and North Carolina, the Republicans running behind the Democrats. And then the Democrats, of course, have expanded the map to include Iowa and Texas. And I have to say, you know, I still think it's a pushing a boulder uphill for the Democrats in places like Texas and Alaska, which Trump won by 14 points each. But if Tall Reyncho does win in Texas, you know, that's kind of on President Trump.

[B]

Oh, it's totally on President Trump, number one. Number two, like Talarico, unlike Beto o', Rourke, unlike the dreams, the Texas dreams of Democratic success that have eluded them Since Ann Richards single term as governor 20 odd years ago, Talarico has real political skills. He is raising an unbelievable amount of money, oddly enough, has way more in the tank than Paxton has. And Paxton is a very rich target of opportunity, personal peccadillos, governing peccadillos and financial peccadillos, all three. And Talarico hasn't even begun to unload on him yet. And they are, that is a competitive race without the negativity starting yet. So that is not an unthinkable scenario. And Jon Ossoff turns out to have much more fluidity and a greater degree of political skill than I think people knew that he had. And he certainly sort of unexpectedly won in 2020 because of Trump's bizarre behavior demanding that Georgians stay home in the runoffs and therefore sort of won as a result of a Trump tantrum that lost Republicans the Senate. But he's clearly learned a lot and also knows how to sound not like he's a radical. So.

[D]

Yeah, I think that's the key. These viral videos for Ossoff are extremely well staged. Yeah. And so, I mean, they're just, look, I mean, it's something about a candidate. Many Democrats are already kind of salivating over Ossoff in 28. And look, if he wins reelection from a southern state, that does, I think, boost his profile. And these videos are very effective. But we gotta see him on his feet too. Remember, that's, that's AOC's problem.

[B]

He also, and he has an extreme liability for the Democratic Party coming, doesn't he? Which is that he was circumcised on the 8th day of his life.

[A]

John, can I just say something quickly about the Democrats, your point about their being more institutionally organized? It's all true. But at the same time they give this unmistakable appearance of disarray. I mean, because that's why they're scrambling again and again at the last second to do switcheroos and figure because they're not. I mean, having decided that, okay, we're gonna follow these revolutionary radical wildcards, we're gonna follow their lead. Now, I think there's like a rethink moment or the start of one because of Platinum, like, what are we doing here? The old guard kind of knows a few things that maybe we should heed now and again. And what's gonna come out about whom next? I mean, you know, yesterday, El Said was questioned about his being a doctor or not. He's not.

[D]

He never completed his residency.

[A]

Yeah, right, right.

[B]

Really? So he wasn't on the psychiatry rotation?

[C]

Well, he's not. He's not. We should say he has a doctor. He's a doctor. He's not a physician.

[B]

I mean, he was not licensed. Well, he's a doctor by degree.

[C]

He's a doctor by degree. Like, he's a doctor. Like Dr. Pepper.

[D]

No, well, no, you can't use the honorific. Yeah, he's right. He's. He's trying to pull the wool over

[B]

in more ways than one.

[C]

What he. What he was. What he was, was a bureaucrat because he responded to the question of are you a physician? By saying he graduated with a degree from this school that has physicians in the name, the School of Physicians and. And Surgeons. And so, you know, the argue with Columbia, he said, is what he told Mehdi Hassan. But then he also said, you know, I ran the. The Department of Health. He's a bureaucrat, not a physician, but he gets the New York Times doctor designation. He meets the New York Times designation as a doctor.

[A]

My only. My only point is, like, it's another data point for the Democrats to start saying, what are we doing here? Putting all our money in with these. Or putting all our cards on these unknowns that are now beginning to show

[B]

a lot of crap. To be fair, Democrats didn't. I mean, every one of these races had.

[D]

Schumer doesn't want. El Sayed.

[B]

Yeah, every one of these races had a conventional Democratic candidate, including, obviously in the House race, in The New York 10, a sitting congressman, Daniel Goldman. It's not like the Democratic Party said, I want to go radical. What happened was they go radical. The media is jazzed by the radicals, does not do the work that the Washington Free Beacon did on a lot of these guys, lets them alone, doesn't dig into them or hides the ball as they did with Ms. Rasiko in the big story about Platner in June, and does their own leftist cause no favors. Because one of the reasons you want this stuff to come out early and reporters can surface it early is to provide voters with the information. If they then say, okay, we want this guy anyway, then as Ed Koch said, the voters have spoken and now they must be punished if they still choose with all of the information at hand, but they're not being given the information. I know that starting a new business is daunting. I've started a couple myself and a lot of people quit before they even start. And I wish when I was doing this that I had Shopify to help me. Because you know what Shopify does? It helps you with design, it helps you with launch, it helps you with checkout. And what that means is you can use their templates and AI tools to get you a stunning site up and running fast. No coding needed. Tools allow anyone to open a beautiful storefront that reflects your business while also being user friendly to all potential customers. These templates are super simple to see set up. You don't need to be a designer, coder or anything in between. If you can point and click, you can set up a storefront. And Shopify checkout means more customers actually buy and returning ones can do it in a single click. So all you need is the idea. Shopify handles the rest. If you're serious about hearing your first start your free [e-mail] commentary today. You heard that right. Start your free [e-mail] commentary. That's shopify.com commentary

[E]

from the State House to the courthouse, in the emergency room and in the classroom, Americans are losing trust in their leaders. In a 2025 U.S. news and World Report survey, 85% of Americans said government leaders care more about their own power than the people they serve. 73% are disappointed in health care leaders, 72% in business and 68% in education. But there are still leaders worth believing in. I'm Eric Gertler, CEO and executive chairman of U.S. news World Report. This is the Best Leaders podcast sponsored by the Noble Reach Foundation. On this show, we'll go deeper into the stories, challenges and lessons of extraordinary leaders across across public service, business, healthcare and education. You can find the Best Leaders podcast from U.S. news World Report on YouTube, Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts.

[D]

I have a segue for you, okay, because you know who else is not helped by the media? It's other favorite audience, the Iranian government. I'm telling you, the IRGC is so drunk on the headlines, what else is

[C]

going to come out? Since the MoU about the IRGC before November.

[B]

Iran is strong.

[D]

Oh, my God.

[B]

Iran won the war. It's so powerful.

[D]

So, of course. And what is. What has Iran done ever since is act like a winner. And, of course, overstepped, overreach. And that led to the strikes on the three vessels earlier this week. Most significantly, I think the vessel transiting the Omani route, the Free Passage, that the US Navy has carved out kind of on the south end, south side, if you will, of the Strait of Hormuz. And Trump now has struck Iran twice in two days and says that the ceasefire is over and that the Iranians are scum. And my favorite is he goes, I just don't like these people. I don't like them. And nor should he, because they spent the Ayatollah's funeral saying they were going to kill him.

[B]

Yeah, okay, this is a very. First of all, we didn't just strike Iran. These were major attacks. 90, 90 targets were hit in the last 48 hours. 90 targets with Trump saying, we're probably gonna go and take Carg island, which, if he means. It means two things, one of which is, yeah, they could blow up oil installations and really damage Iran's capacity to export oil for years. Or there will be boots on the ground because the Iranians have gone too far, and we're going to need to take territory and hold it and take Kharg and hold it. And this is all. If they had held to the mou, by the way, if they had gone with the mou, if they had allowed the straits to open and everything had gone the way it was going, they could still have claimed victory because America unilaterally ended the war without achieving any of its aims. But that's not who they are. You know, it's not that they're manifesting victory. The victory was in the MOU that we signed. Effectively, should it go down the road. Since the MOU did not mention nuclear materials and since the MOU did not even really talk about what was going to happen with the strait after the 60 days when they could have told the Strait, as is often the case whenever people talk about the negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians or all this. Like, if the Palestinians in the 90s, the 80s, 90s, even the 2000s, if they had just followed the rules, they would have won based on how the world would see things. But they don't want to. What they want is to crush their enemies and hear the lamentations of their women. They don't want this geostrategic long term gain that everybody thinks they succeeded in doing by signing the MOU and then testing the United States at every moment. So they did. And then they finally crossed this line, which is firing in the straight. And Trump was either then going to be a humiliated loser in the eyes of everybody, including people who support him, or he was going to have to go back in and show them what was business.

[D]

I think for Iran and the IRGC running Iran, what they want is survival. They need to remain in power. And their understanding is that the strait is now their economic lifeline. If they allow the strait to return to free navigation, or if they allow the Americans under this shadow project Freedom of creating a separate channel for ships to transit, then their lifeline, their financial lifeline that is keeping the regime in place is gone. They lose all leverage. So you might say, oh, well, then why don't they just get another lifeline through the MOU process and open up the strait and give up their nukes and give up terrorizing the world? They can't do that. Because if they give up the right to enrich, if they acknowledge that they have no right to enrich, which they don't, then the regime dies too, because the regime is based on this Islamic supremacist idea that the Shiite world must have its own nuclear weapon and the revolution will lead to the Persian Empire. So they're stuck, I think. And what I have taken some solace in from recent days is that Trump kind of understands that and he let the MoU play out for about a month. It allowed him some political breathing room, allowed him some economic breathing room, allowed us to restock the spr, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, kind of get our munitions back nowhere near where they need to be, but kind of do that. But he understands, and it remains the backstop, I believe, that not only can the Iranians not be trusted and aren't interested in a deal, but secondly, you cannot allow them to control the Strait of Hormuz. That just would be a geopolitical disaster and contrary to American foreign policy. Not in the globalist era, but literally since the foundation of our country, America

[C]

and the world's foreign policy. I mean, not to, I don't mean to interrupt, but just like, can I read something from the Times today? The New York Times has this on, you know, to the point has an Iranian economist and advisor to Mohamed Galiboff who's the, you know, the parliament speaker and basically the top negotiator. Revenue is subordinate to control, is the quote. Revenue is subordinate to control. He's saying this is his response for why don't you take the sanctions relief and all that money and all those pallets of cash and go swim in your money like Scrooge McDuck? And his response is revenue is subordinate to control. Iranians want to control the flow of the money. They want, they don't want cash release now that they think they can control something that will print money for the. They're saying this straight out now. Of course, the Times story has people saying caveats. Well, of course, you know, it's a negotiating ploy and negotiations and all this other stuff. Fine, it's a negotiating position. But the MoU is clear on the straight there. There is no negotiation. There's not actually a negotiation over whether Iran gets to control the strait and, and charge tolls. The MoU says we're going to open the strait so they can call it a negotiating tactic. But what they are negotiating is something else, not the mou. That's what Trump realizes. Ok, so that, oh, so Iran is saying, okay, the MOU is done, we're going to negotiate something else. Then Trump is saying, okay, well, then we'll negotiate with you, but from a position of, you know, having just hit 80 targets inside Iran.

[B]

But I want to, I want to quote from the, I also want to quote from the lead article in the Washington Post because Matt started by saying, you know, the, the media's fave, the IRGC isn't, you know, isn't being done any favors by being told by the US Media that they're winning. This is the lead. This is a, these are words from the lead in the Washington Post this morning. The original framework was followed by the start of negotiations aimed at forging a more durable peace accord within 60 days. But less than half that time had elapsed when Trump on Wednesday said he believed the ceasefire had collapsed. Control of the Strait of Hormuz has remained a sticking point. With neither side willing to accept the other's terms and Iran continuing to attack some ships, the Strait of Hormuz's opening control remains a sticking point. The Iranians have no legal basis in any understanding since the world began that they have control of an international waterway. That's not a sticking point where America says something and they say something else. A, the MOU said the strait will be open. That's what it said. It didn't say it's a sticking point that we're going to. It could be a sticking point 60 days later when the MOU expires, but not a Sticking point now, Correct.

[C]

The MOU says we can, we can, we can negotiate the strait after 60 days of being full days of confirmed, no charge, safe passage through the strait.

[B]

That's why I'm bringing it up, because this is how the American media are framing this, as a tit for tat. Trump wants this, Iran wants that. Iran is a bad actor. Now, we started the war, so it is true that we started the war. And Iran's actions are in some sense defensive, and maybe that causes sort of innate sympathy.

[A]

But

[B]

there is no sticking point on the Strait of Hormuz. There is not a. There is not a person outside the IRGC who thinks that Iran has the right to close or open or toll the Strait of Hormuz anywhere on the planet Earth, including in countries that are willing to do business with it, like China and other places like that. They're doing so as this expression of their last card. They have their last card and they are playing it. And they are playing it. And they are playing it. I'm saying that if you understood them to be rational actors without an ideological core, they would have understood this. They would have left the strait unmolested for 60 days, collected whatever money they could collect, and then close it on day 61, at which point they would really be threatening Trump with, are you really after. After three months, you're actually gonna go back to war with us while the political season is starting?

[C]

Well, and they would. They would have some justification almost in a. In a way for, I mean, not justification for closing the strait because it's against international law to do so, but they would have some justification for that, to take that tack. Because they could say after 60 days, after we fulfill our part of the deal that says 60 days of no fee, no toll whatever, no harassment, traffic through the strait, we begin negotiating over the future of passage through the strait. They actually could. They would get a pat on the back from global media and Europe for the most part, if that's what they did. If they closed, if they opened the strait for 60 days and then they immediately closed it, the world would probably say, yeah, I mean, okay, and they would have then a leg up in the negotiations that followed. Yes, I agree. It's even more the case of what you're saying that there is a clear path to winning, to gaming the structure of the MoU for Iran, which is to get the gobs of sanctions relief and do the 60 days, then close the strait and. And be in the same position, except have more justification for your position and be much Much richer, and they're not doing that.

[B]

So they are not thinking strategically. They are not thinking about how they can become the dominant power in the region. I mean, except in the larger picture that Matt was talking about, about being the, you know, reestablishing the Persian Empire with nuclear weaponry, which is now notional because the program is so degraded.

[D]

I think they're weaker. That's the. I think that's what we're finding from their actions. They are weaker. And by the way.

[B]

And the media is saying that they're stronger.

[D]

Well, the media, I mean, from day one of Operation Epic Fury, the media had been unrelentingly negative about, about the war effort. And look, I don't think that the Trump administration did itself any favors. Like I've said before, I think there were missed opportunities in the run up to the military operation where President Trump could have built up some reservoir of political support. I think he could have gotten an authorization for military strikes through the Republican Congress. He could have gone to the allies. Right. But that's behind us now. We know that the media has been against the war from the beginning. The media portrayed the MOU as a strategic victory from Iran. As you recall, John, from our podcasts, I thought that the MOU was worthless from day one, and I've been proven correct. And the point is, Iran is now acting, I think, acting out because it understands if it loses the Strait of Hormuz, it loses its cash flow, and it's done because it's already an economic basket case. It's been hurt by the two. Six weeks of military operations. Not even six weeks. And by the way, the ring of fire which it spent years constructing around Israel is destroyed, is imploded. Right. We have. The Houthis have been silent throughout all of this. Hamas is confined to its area of Gaza. Right. And no longer the threat of it once was.

[A]

Iraq.

[D]

Fascinating stuff happening in Iraq. The Iraqi central government over the past two weeks has been actually asserting itself against the Shiite, pro Iran militias, which is essential. And then, of course, we have the much more significant diplomatic agreement of the past month, and that is the Israel, Lebanon MOU that Secretary Rubio oversaw, where you have the recognition of Lebanon by Lebanon, of Israel. You have Lebanon's commitment to finding a way to disarm Hezbollah, and you have Hezbollah on its back heels as well, complaining against this MoU, trying to find some way of getting Iranian support. And as its tunnel network in the new buffer zone is being methodically destroyed by Israel. And then, of course, I left out one other player, which was Assad, who was kind of the linchpin of the ring of Fire in many ways. He's now gone and he's replaced by, you know, our new terrorist friend, Al Sharah.

[C]

Well, you could only call him terrorists for a few more days because a day and a half ago, Marco Rubio submitted the paperwork.

[D]

I make the worst of it then to remove them.

[C]

So it's just the process question now.

[B]

Okay, so here's the thing. Israel had this breakthrough negotiation with Lebanon While all the MoU stuff was going on in Switzerland and everybody was looking and JD Vance was saying, it's really cool because somehow I've managed to make the Iranians be reasonable. So I hope Americans are going to take some wisdom from the kinds of things that J.D. vance said that now make him look like a blithering fool as a result of what they did 30 days after his really cool. Everybody else didn't know how to talk to them, but we do. Argyl Bargle but while that was going on, there was Rubio with the Israelis and the Lebanese coming up with this breakthrough. Right? And so Israel has had a breakthrough with Lebanon. Israel has pacified Gaza. The Hamas Gazan government is undergoing some kind of a collapse reorganization. We don't even really understand what they're gonna. They're renouncing their control of the Strip in favor of some other panel.

[D]

They do it every so often. It's like an insect molting. They just shed a skin and then they kind of reassign offices. But you're right, they are in disarray.

[B]

And they're weak. Yeah, they're weak. And what no one knows is that Israel is methodically not only going through the tunnel system in Lebanon that it discovered, but it is also filling up the tunnels in Gaza, closing them off and filling them with whatever material it is they're filling so that they can never be used again. And then Rahm Emanuel, former mayor of Chicago, former ambassador to Japan, former chief of staff to Barack Obama, former congressman, former aide to Bill Clinton, son of an Israeli fighter with the Irgun in the days before independence, goes to Israel and delivers a speech about how Israel is in dire straits and everything is terrible and collapsing, and describes a world that I simply do not recognize. He describes an America that never existed, and he describes an Israel that does not exist. And this speech has gotten a lot of attention. Why? Because, of course, it's an attack on Netanyahu by an American Jew. American Jews don't like Netanyahu. The media hates Netanyahu the media don't like Israel and they're using Rahm as a battering ram against Israel. And Rahm wants to be used as such because he is still in some delusionary capacity, thinking that he has a path to winning the presidency on a kind of weird outsider frame in 2028. Here's I want to quote one thing and then have you guys for too long, said Rahm Emanuel at Tel Aviv University. American policy toward Israel operated under the assumption that the best thing Washington could do for Jerusalem was to blindly and silently stand behind your government without conditions, without demands, and without consequences. When we disagreed, that has been our mistake. Who the hell is he talking about? What American government, including this?

[C]

Well, he was. He was. Rahm Emanuel was chief of staff to Barack Obama. And everybody remembers when Barack Obama stood back, let Israel do whatever it wanted, and refused to criticize the Israelis. He knows what he's talking about. But I will just say, look, when, when, when Excerpts of this speech were released a couple days ago in my post about it, I wrote, emmanuel is testing a presidential campaign, but he sounds like someone applying for an internship at the Brookings Institution. I stand by that characterization.

[B]

I think that is a very good

[C]

none of this is this is all like he wants to be at a think tank or something. But none of this has none of what he's saying not only has no basis, has any basis in reality, but has no relevance to the current debate on I disagree.

[D]

I slightly disagree on that. I read the speech against my better instincts and I found it actually interesting, pardon the siren in the background, because I found him trying to establish the standpoint for the Democratic mainstream in the 2028 cycle while also applying to be the next secretary of state. And that. And then I thought it was interesting that the speech was amplified by a former secretary of state, one Hillary Clinton, who immediately said on X that everyone should watch or read the speech because it's extremely important. So what is Emmanuel doing in the speech? One is he says that he is not Graham Platner. He's not El Sayed. He is not calling for Israel's elimination. He is not a socialist. However, here's what he is calling for suspending military aid to Israel, ending it. Right. He is calling for sanctioning West Bank Israelis who are found to have harassed Palestinians, Israeli government officials who support or encourage such behavior. We saw this in the Biden administration. So he's calling for that resumption of that policy. And then he does this fascinating little two step. So he never quite says that the two state solution is a non starter, which of course it is, because of Palestinian rejectionism. The Palestinians do not want a state of their own living side by side with Israel. They want the whole shebang. They want the whole thing. They want to end the state of Israel. And until the Palestinians accept Israel's legitimacy, which they purportedly did in 1993 at a ceremony that Rahm Emanuel attended, but which even now, Emmanuel's Boston, which he

[B]

brought his aged father, as he pointed

[D]

out in the speech. He brought his father. I wonder what his father was thinking when Rabin shook Arafat's bloodstringed hand.

[B]

Yeah. Looking like he was.

[D]

Yeah. When Clinton forced them to shake hands. Yeah, right. In any case, okay, we're not gonna have a two state solution. Instead we're gonna have a 23 state solution where the Arab League, every member of the Arab League recognizes Israel and establishes diplomatic relations and it's mutual and we all have peace. But you know how many members of the Arab league there are? 22. I'm sorry, there are 21. Which means for a 23 state solution, you need the Palestinian state. So it goes nowhere. He never explains where the Palestinian state is going to come from.

[C]

But that's the thing. My question is always who is he talking to? Right. I, I understand what you're saying that he's setting out, you know, this is third way, you know, Democratic Party talking. What I'm not, what I don't understand is who is who he thinks is listening to third way democratic party talking in the year 2026. Because it's not just the Palestinians who have rejected the two state solution. The of all the energy on the left in the Democratic Party, all the energy. I'm not saying every single person who is a registered Democrat agrees with this, but all of the momentum is in. We don't want to, we don't, we don't want two states. We want 48. Right. The chant that you hear on at 10 to FADA protests on college campuses, the discuss the debate now is over Israel's very legitimacy. Right. Abdul El Sayed has been asked three times recently if he will recognize Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state. He doesn't like the question. He complains about the question and he says, well, nobody says do the Palestinians have a right to exist? Or something like that. Mamdani did the same thing. We're, we're too far past the point of a two state solution in the Democratic Party. It's possible you could get back there in the future, because I don't know what the future holds. And I would never say it's impossible. But right now, the sticking by Graham Platner through almost everything, including a Nazi tattoo, the overwhelming support for Mamdani El Sayed surging in the polls after, you know, he, he, after he campaigns with Hasan Piker, et cetera, et cetera, all these Adam Hammawi in New Jersey, the, all the support that they're getting from Democratic voters says no one is listening to a conversation about a two state.

[A]

I'm with Seth here. I mean, because to me, Rahm's trying to establish a democratic mainstream on Israel by a one man decree. Good luck. I mean, that is not at all the way this is gonna work.

[B]

Let me just say this, that it's a noble thing to try to establish a new framework for Middle Eastern peace if you want to write one down. A lot of people have done it. People write books about it. They apply to the Brookings Institution for grants to do it. He is describing, aside from everything else, he's describing a world that doesn't exist. It is, let there be a 21 state Arab League that recognizes Israel. Well, you know what? Israel got three or four Arab states or states that would be in the Arab League to recognize it before October 7th in the Abraham Accords. So Bibi's already gone a little bit down the road here. This speech is an assault on him, unmitigated assault on him. He's actually fulfilled part of the mandate that Rahm Emanuel sets out in this decree that the future lies in a Palestinian state that is supported and undergirded by Arab countries that will provide it with security and stability and all of that. Yeah, it was supposed to happen in 1949 and they didn't do it then and they're not gonna do it now.

[D]

And just two other points on that. He mentions the jcpoa, the Obama nuclear deal, and he talks, oh, Trump ruined everything by getting out of the deal because we had inspectors there at the time. Well, we also know now, which he does not say, that the Iranians never fully disclosed their nuclear program. They never allowed the IAEA inspectors into some of the secret nuclear facilities. We know from experience that they were lying about their missile ranges and production. And of course, the JCPOA by now would have sunsetted and allowing the Iranian nuclear infrastructure to remain in existence and thus ramp up at the flip of a switch while providing all this extra cash that the Iranians were funding terrorism with. At the end of the day, just as you said Bibi and Trump have made headway through the Abraham Accords, through the Lebanon MoU, in broadening Israel's contacts with the Arab world without self destructively recognizing a Palestinian state. The Iranian nuclear program is under rubble. The centrifuges are not spinning. It's destroyed. They destroyed it. And he never mentions Midnight Hammer in the entire speech. It's fascinating. He doesn't like this war, but he never mentions Midnight Hammer. And the other thing I want to say about the speech, our friend Michael Granoff wrote an excellent substack on it. And he points out he was in the audience. He was in the audience. He was there. And he points out these two sentences. Emmanuel. This is Emmanuel. Your scientists, Israeli scientists, face exclusion from international conferences and research networks. Your artists and academics are shut out of exhibits and meetings. And as Michael says, Rahm, you are describing in italics discriminatory boycotts by anti Zionists. And I will have to say blaming the Jews for their own victimization is anti Semitic. You can't just randomly say, oh, you're responsible for these anti Semitic exclusions of Jews in international fora. That's not what's happening here. And I think Michael Granoff is right to point that out and to really get exercised by that piece of Emmanuel's rhetoric.

[B]

I also want to talk about a slippery slope. I know people hate the slippery slope, but there is a slippery slope here. Rahm Emanuel, who claims to have spent his life defending Israel, which if Israel had to rely on Rahm Emanuel as its defender, as Bill Clinton's and Barack Obama's and whatever, Israel would be in the sea already. So thanks a lot to you, Rahm Emanuel, for your help in trashing Israel and your help in, I'm sure telling Obama that he was right to abstain in 2017 at the UN on the vote. That was the first time the United

[D]

States ever, ever bowed in 35 years. 35 years after Osiric was 81. We've abstained.

[B]

Yeah, right. Okay, so that I've totally lost my thread. Hold on.

[D]

You were thanking Rahm Emanuel for all of his service to the state of Israel.

[B]

So he slippery slopeish when he says, and I'm for sanctioning bad Israelis on the West Bank. Okay, this is how BDS starts. People don't remember this from 20 years ago, but the first movement was. And this was Peter Beinart's when he was still a Zionist. I am a Zionist. But you know what? If you want to not do business with companies that are producing things on the west bank, that's legitimate because the occupation of the west bank and Israel does not occupy the. Israel is. Israel is only the occupying power of the west bank because nobody else has control over it. That's a legal entity except for the Palestinian Authority. But if you want to do that, that's fine. But cross the Green line, which is the 67 or 48 border, you can't do that. That's illegitimate. That's boycotting Israel. And that would be anti Semitic. And you know what happens to people that make that argument to begin with? They keep going. They keep going. And then if you say it's okay to boycott some Jews, why can't you boycott all Jews? Like, who's. What's your green. What's your.

[C]

You become the Peter Beinart who apologized for giving a speech in Tel Aviv.

[B]

Right, exactly. Like that's a 15 year journey. And I'm not saying that that will happen to Rahm Emanuel. I'm saying that when you give an inch on an antisemitic policy and say, I'll accept 5% of what you're saying, but 95%, I don't. That 5% is a cancer. A single cancer cell in a body is enough to kill you because that cell metastasizes and it grows faster than other cells and it takes over parts of the body and then if you're really unlucky, it breaks off and it migrates to other parts of the body and then you are metastasized with multiple sites of the cancer. And by giving this speech, he is basically starting himself down a road as a moderate liberal Zionist who doesn't like Bibi Netanyahu and doesn't like the behavior of people on the west bank and all of that. Assuming that he's in earnest, I'd like to see where he is in 2032.

[D]

Just one final thing about the anti BB angle. And of course, the Clintons, the Obamas, the Bidens, Emmanuel have been fighting against Bibi since he was elected in 1996. So it's been 30 years before that. Well, even when he was at the UN and he was.

[B]

Clinton sent his consultants in 1995. Yeah.

[D]

To stop the election. Right.

[B]

From winning. Beating.

[D]

So for over 30 years they've been fighting Netanyahu. But you have to ask yourself if next year, if Bennett is the prime minister, would Israel's policies change? Its national security policy now? Certainly the coalition that exists now with Ben GVIR and Smotrich, that would not be in power, maybe Bennett would do more to crack down on these Youth, the hilltop youth in Judea and Samaria, but toward Lebanon, toward Iran, toward Hamas. No. And then just final point on the

[C]

isolation, just on that, by the way, he was prime minister, there was a governing coalition made up of Yair Lapid, Naftali, Bennett, and including an Islamist party. And I don't remember the suspension of BDS activity during that time.

[D]

And then just finally on the myth of Israel's isolation. This is something that's now coming from everywhere, including the Vice President of the United States, the current Vice President of the United States. And I just have to remind them that beforeliterally, I think the week before Operation Epic Fury and Operation Roaring lion, the head of government of the world's most populous country, which is also a democracy, visited Israel and address the Knesset in what could only be the most loving tones about the connections between India and Israel and the hope for an India Israeli alliance long into the future, which you cannot pretend that Israel is isolated when it has the most powerful country in the world on its side, the United States of America and the most populous democracy in the world. And instead, Emmanuel says, well, you got Somaliland. What a jerk.

[B]

But can I say something here? I just gotta make this point. India, an incredibly anti Israel country for the first 65, 70 years of its existence. A nexus of anti Semitic theory, anti Israel, Third World ism. We published articles about this by Sanandume and others about how hostile India was to Israel back in, like, the late 2000s, early 2010s. This is an epochal change that Modi has inaugurated here. And it's not only the most populous country in the world, it is one of the most economically important countries in the world. It's not just populous and poor. It is an exporter. It is a, you know, growing, exploding country. And it has shifted its views. And you know why? A lot of it has to do with 2015, just like everybody else. When Obama ascended to the Iranian nuclear bomb, thinking started shifting radically in India. Why? Because it's facing Pakistan. Pakistan's in an alliance with Iran. They're gonna go against Iran. So anyway, this is part of the game. I'm sorry, but that's okay.

[A]

John, you mentioned the possible path that Manuel would take if he's in earnest going forward, heading sort of Beinart word. I don't think he's in earnest is the thing. I think he is a career political operator. And I think in some ways that makes this worse because it's an indication of the surrender to the dominance of those who are in earnest.

[D]

I think that's a great point. There's no reason he would be making this speech if not for the Democratic Party's anti Israel and anti Semitic term. Otherwise he would have just moved on. He's given other speeches. He's been focusing on education. He's been focusing on social media. Clearly, because of his experience as ambassador, he knows the Pacific Rim very well. But because he understands the political dynamic in his party and because he does have ambitions for higher, you know, for cabinet office, in my view, he felt that necessary to give this speech and outline what he believes to be the reasonable anti, you know, Israel critic approach for the next Democratic president. Not Hamau. Mr. Hamaoui is not going to be supporting Mr. Emanuel anytime soon, but Gavin Newsom, Kamala Harris, Buttigieg, Cory Booker, they're the ones who might say, oh, you know what? I like what Rahm said there. I'm going to start incorporating that into my material.

[B]

Fair enough. Look, the other thing to say about the Israeli election and the fact that he is attempting to play some role in sending a message about what America thinks to Israeli voters, maybe if they'll listen to him, about how dangerous it is to go with Bibi again, given how isolating Bibi is in the world and how much Americans don't like him. And look, here is this major American figure who doesn't like him if Bibi loses the election. If Bibi loses the election, literally no policy. You sort of said this, but I mean toward Iran, toward Lebanon, toward the west bank and toward Gaza will change. And what's gonna change? Draft law. Everything that is going on in Israel that might knock Bibi over has to do with domestic concerns about whether or not everybody in the country should be serving in the military. It's not we're turning our swords into plowshares. It's we're giving these people who refuse to take swords. We're gonna put swords in their hands and say, our sons have swords. Your sons better have swords, because this isn't ending anytime soon. And that is not a recipe for some kind of new peace initiative. And American Jews who fantasize, by the way, that the end of Bibi will mean some kind of a moderation of policy on the west bank, are delusional in the extreme. Because the status quo, as it happens, aside from these momentary spasms of really bad behavior on the part of hoodlums and hooligans, the status quo is working fine for Israel as it has to turn to its actual external security concerns and pacify them so that its position as the 22nd richest country in the world can be solidified. It can start really fracking and it can start really doing all this stuff that will make it easy for it to get to 100 years and 200 years and 300 years in existence. And it's not going to be to satisfy somebody at Temple Beth Shalom in Bum Squatch, Ohio who really doesn't like Bibi because they tell him they shouldn't like him. They're not getting what they want. There's not going to be Seeds of Peace meetings in Yerushul so that everybody should, you know, should, should get, get come together in a, in a beautiful understanding of our, of our differences, but also our commonalities. This is where Israel is until, as Matt says, until there is some kind of a revolution in consciousness inside the Palestinian soul that says, we've had enough. We got this wrong. We spent 80 years doing this wrong. We want to live a different life. Matt, you have a recommendation?

[C]

Before really quick, before Matt does his recommendation, I just want to add one point that's been missing from this conversation really quickly. Why Rahm Emanuel? Another reason to be skeptical of Rahm Emanuel in the Democratic primaries. What is Rahm Emanuel's middle name?

[B]

I don't know.

[C]

Israel. If you thought Barack Hussein Obama was going to be, was going to hold him back, wait until someone named Rahm Israel Emanuel is called by his full name and every debate stage.

[D]

There you go. Thank you very much for my recommendation today. I'd like to, you know, in honor of America's 250th birthday, which we continue to celebrate, at least in the Continetti household, I'd like to recommend a new book by my friend Richard Brookheiser. And that is the Hero Returns Lafayette and the Legacy of Revolution for almost gosh quarter century now. More Richard Brookheiser. Rick to his friends, has been filling America's bookshelves with these delightful short biographies of America's founders, other major figures in American history, such as Abraham Lincoln, books about the Founding, what the founders would do, or in 2020, a great book on freedom throughout American history. This latest book, which is from Yale University Press and under 250 pages long, you can read it in a weekend, is about the Marquis de Lafayette, who you all recall as the hip hop artist from the musical Hamilton.

[B]

Very fast, speaks very fast.

[D]

He spoke very quickly and specifically concerns a return visit he made to the United States in 1824. And it's just a wonderful evocation of the period. So it's post revolutionary America, kind of antebellum America, pre Jacksonian America, kind of right around that time when he's visiting, it's before the death of Jefferson and Adams in 1825. And so you get, you learn about Lafayette, you learn about the Revolution, but you also learn kind of what America looked and felt like at that very kind of interesting moment in its early history. And I've enjoyed the book very much, and I think you will too. The Hero Returns. Lafayette and the Legacy of Revolution by Richard Brookheiser.

[B]

And I can't let that stand alone without mentioning the magnificent article that we have in our July August issue by Alan Guelzo, which is called A revolution for all humankind, which will tell a story that very few people know, but that Lafayette is essentially one of the originating figures in which is that the American Revolution was not simply a revolution here, political revolution here, but a revolution in consciousness across the globe because it introduced ideas that had been dormant in civilizational terms for 1700 years. Basically the idea of government by the people, the idea of a government, you know, that is rooted in rights as opposed to land. And Guelzo goes through the places, different places on earth, South America, Europe, where the fire that was set blazing on July 4th, the sort of the torches were lit systematically almost across the planet, giving people giving birth to 19th century liberalism and giving birth to the idea in these countries that they too had the right to assert their primacy as citizens, as self governing people. And as I say, Lafayette was maybe the first European to be a full participant in that notion and bring it home with him when he returned in 1782.

[D]

Sadly, it did not go as planned.

[B]

It went wrong there, which is also. Yeah.

[D]

Which is a part of a lesson in history. But we still celebrate and remember Lafayette.

[B]

Yes, thank you for that recommendation. Thanks for coming on. We'll be back tomorrow. For Seth and Abe, I'm John Pow Horitz. Keep the candle burning.