So Where Are the Great Negotiations?

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Commentary Magazine Podcast – "So Where Are the Great Negotiations?"

Release Date: April 15, 2025

In the April 15, 2025 episode of The Commentary Magazine Podcast titled "So Where Are the Great Negotiations?", host John Podhoretz engages in a robust discussion with executive editor Abe Greenwald, senior editor Seth Mandel, and social commentary columnist Christine Rosen. The episode delves into a spectrum of pressing political and legal issues, ranging from controversial immigration cases to high-stakes international negotiations and the federal government's intricate relationship with higher education institutions.

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1. Controversial El Salvadoran Immigration Case

The episode opens with a heated analysis of an El Salvadoran immigrant currently detained in an El Salvadoran prison. This case has sparked significant controversy in the United States, involving legal battles over asylum claims and the executive branch's handling of deportations.

Key Points:

• The immigrant arrived in the U.S. illegally in 2012 and sought asylum in 2019, citing a "reasonable fear" of persecution if returned to El Salvador.
• An immigration court judge, under the auspices of the Trump administration’s Department of Justice, initially granted asylum based on these fears.
• The Trump administration has since reversed this decision without a formal proceeding, arguing that the individual no longer poses a threat and facilitating his deportation back to El Salvador.

Notable Quotes:

• John Podhoretz highlights the legal ambiguity: “The Supreme Court said [...] the administration had to facilitate his return” ([00:51]).
• Seth Mandel critiques the administration's approach: “This is bad. It is not good for the rule of law” ([09:17]).

Discussion Highlights:

• The team criticizes the executive branch for undermining the judiciary by altering asylum decisions without proper legal processes.
• Christine Rosen emphasizes the hypocrisy in President Trump’s stance, noting his administration's contradictory actions: “He was elected to restore the process [...] but now [...] playing linguistic games with the courts” ([16:19]).
• Abe Greenwald echoes concerns about the erosion of procedural integrity: “It's transgress or it's violative of proper procedure [...] It's getting very ugly” ([09:58]).

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2. Foreign Policy Negotiations: Iran, Russia-Ukraine, and Gaza Hostages

The conversation transitions to three major foreign policy negotiations involving Iran, the Russia-Ukraine conflict, and the situation with hostages in Gaza.

Iran Negotiations:

• The Trump administration's approach to Iran echoes the Obama-era JCPOA but with significant deviations.
• Abe Greenwald notes a shift in language from "nuclear program" to "nuclear weapon," indicating a more stringent stance: “Now we're saying no weapon. No weapon” ([30:17]).
• Seth Mandel criticizes the administration for conceding too much by accepting terms that still allow Iran some nuclear capabilities: “They could get them to pretend to accept it, which I'm beginning to think would be just fine for him” ([35:54]).

Russia-Ukraine Conflict:

• John Podhoretz expresses frustration with President Trump's handling of the Ukraine war, particularly his blame-shifting onto Ukrainian President Zelensky: “He blamed Zelensky” ([36:20]).
• Christine Rosen questions the strategic clarity of Trump's foreign policy, emphasizing the lack of a coherent end goal: “What is the end goal here? America wins. Well, what does winning look like?” ([41:03]).

Gaza Hostages:

• The administration's negotiations regarding hostages in Gaza are fraught with tension, as highlighted by Seth Mandel: “Well, this is a real world. Welcome to the NFL” ([20:24]).
• Abe Greenwald underscores Putin’s strategic positioning, exacerbated by the U.S. administration’s intermittent support to Ukraine: “You've got the American president sitting constantly blaming Ukraine and the US for this war” ([42:26]).

Notable Quotes:

• John Podhoretz on Trump's negotiation skills: “If you said ... he’s a great negotiator, so that means he doesn’t want him out, or he’s not such a great negotiator” ([26:18]).
• Christine Rosen on the lack of strategic vision: “The end goal here [...] he talks about making the best deal, beating this guy back” ([41:03]).

Discussion Highlights:

• The panel criticizes Trump's inconsistency and personalistic approach to international negotiations, arguing it undermines coherent foreign policy.
• Concerns are raised about the long-term implications of Trump's strategies, including the potential for increased geopolitical instability and weakened alliances.

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3. Trade Tariffs and Economic Implications

The discussion shifts to the Trump administration's handling of trade tariffs, particularly those imposed on Chinese high-tech electronics.

Key Points:

• The administration employs retaliatory tariffs but inconsistently applies them, leading to market uncertainty.
• Seth Mandel warns of the corrosive effects of selective tariff implementation, which fosters rent-seeking behavior among corporations seeking personal benefits.

Notable Quotes:

• Seth Mandel on rent-seeking: “What we have is individual companies, corporations, capitalists courting him personally” ([30:26]).
• John Podhoretz on the broader economic impact: “If you impose a 10% tariff across the board, [...] but tariffs that are selectively lifted encourage corruption” ([35:54]).

Discussion Highlights:

• The panel argues that inconsistent tariffs create an unpredictable economic environment, hindering businesses from effective long-term planning.
• There is a consensus that the administration's tariff policies may facilitate corruption and undermine fair trade practices.

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4. Federal Funding and Higher Education: The Harvard Case

A significant portion of the episode is dedicated to scrutinizing the Trump administration's approach to federal funding for higher education institutions, using Harvard University as a case study.

Key Points:

• Harvard has received over $9 billion in federal funding, primarily directed towards medical and scientific research.
• The Trump administration has intensified its scrutiny of Harvard's compliance with anti-Semitism definitions, notably the IHRA (International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance) definition.
• Harvard’s commitment to these definitions has led to additional federal demands, raising concerns about overreach and the undermining of institutional autonomy.

Notable Quotes:

• Seth Mandel on Harvard’s settlements: “Harvard agreed to use the IHRA definition... which is much harsher on anti-Zionism” ([52:21]).
• Christine Rosen on the administration’s tactics: “If it does lead to universities being better about anti-Semitism on campus, that's all for the good. But this is pure brawling politics” ([55:28]).

Discussion Highlights:

• John Podhoretz criticizes the administration’s use of emergency powers to impose additional requirements on universities, arguing it erodes the rule of law: “This should be scaring everybody” ([47:15]).
• Christine Rosen acknowledges the potential benefits of increased accountability but warns against the administration’s personalistic and politically motivated approach: “He's happy to engage in corrupt favor trading if it benefits him” ([59:44]).
• Abe Greenwald emphasizes the need for transparency in how federal funds are allocated and utilized by elite institutions, questioning the tangible benefits derived from such substantial investments: “What we are getting for the money that is going out the door” ([58:39]).

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5. Nation of Laws vs. Nation of Men

A recurring theme throughout the episode is the tension between upholding the rule of law and the administration’s personalized approach to governance.

Key Points:

• The panel underscores the importance of a nation governed by laws rather than the whims of individual leaders.
• Concerns are raised about President Trump’s selective adherence to judicial rulings, particularly his focus on complying only with the Supreme Court while disregarding lower court decisions.

Notable Quotes:

• John Podhoretz on legal consistency: “We are a nation of laws, and we have a process” ([09:17]).
• Christine Rosen on the erosion of moral and ethical governance: “There is no one in his administration who is making the moral case for what he's actually doing” ([58:42]).

Discussion Highlights:

• The panel debates the long-term implications of prioritizing personal agendas over established legal frameworks, warning of potential authoritarian tendencies.
• There is a consensus that upholding the rule of law is crucial for preventing tyranny and maintaining societal stability.

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6. Conclusion and Reflections

In concluding the episode, the hosts reflect on the broader implications of the Trump administration’s actions across various domains. They express deep concern over the erosion of legal integrity, the increase in politically motivated policies, and the potential for long-term damage to American institutions and international standing.

Final Notable Quotes:

• John Podhoretz encapsulates the overarching concern: “This is not the way to make a sustainable argument over time” ([66:48]).
• Christine Rosen warns about the lasting cynicism fostered by the administration's tactics: “They are using corrupt favor trading [...] that's the cynicism that is very corrosive long term” ([63:22]).

Final Reflections:

• The hosts call for vigilance in preserving the rule of law and maintaining institutional integrity against personalistic and politically driven overreaches.
• They emphasize the importance of transparency, accountability, and adherence to legal processes in safeguarding democratic principles.

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This episode of The Commentary Magazine Podcast provides a critical examination of the Trump administration's strategies in immigration, foreign policy, trade, and higher education. Through incisive analysis and pointed commentary, the hosts underscore the challenges posed by governance that prioritizes personal agendas over established legal frameworks and ethical standards.

Transcript

[Abe Greenwald]

Hope for the best, expect the worst.

[John Podhoretz]

Some preach and pain Some die of thirst the way of knowing which way it's going Hope for the best, Expect.

[Abe Greenwald]

The worst, hope for the best.

[John Podhoretz]

Welcome to the Commentary magazine daily podcast. Today is tax day. Tuesday, April 15, 2020. I'm John Podhoritz, the editor of Commentary magazine. With me, as always, executive editor Abe Greenwald. Hi, Abe.

[Abe Greenwald]

Hi, John.

[John Podhoretz]

Senior editor Seth Mandel. Hi, Seth.

[Seth Mandel]

Hi, John.

[John Podhoretz]

And Social Commentary columnist Christine Rosen. Hi, Christine.

[Christine Rosen]

Hi, John.

[John Podhoretz]

Okay, so I don't know what to say. Everything is going haywire in all sorts of interesting and crazy ways. We're going to talk about Harvard, we're going to talk about the tariffs, we're going to talk about Iran. Just want to start quickly with the story of our El Salvadoran. The El Salvadoran prisoner currently in an El Salvadoran prison who is an illegal immigrant from El Salvador to the United States and who is now the focus of the most, the highest level controversy in the United States. And the president of El Salvador was at the White House yesterday to discuss this matter in an exceedingly high handed and fascinatingly high handed fashion with, with our president. So the El Salvadoran immigrant in question, whose name, of course, I now can't bring bring to my mind, but anyone who wants to look it up can do so. This is a very strange case because he is in the country. He was in the United States illegally. About that there is no question. He has been in the United states illegally since 2012. And he sought protection from deportation in 2019 by an immigration court on the grounds that he had a reasonable reason to fear that his life and freedom would be at risk were he to be returned to El Salvador, which is a condition allowing for some form of asylum in the United States, of unnecessarily permanent asylum. And an immigration court judge found that he had a reasonable fear. So you might think, okay, well, the third branch of government, the judiciary, found him, you know, found this. And so this is now binding. Well, it is binding, but in fact, the immigration court that we are talking about is not part of the judicial, the independent judiciary. It is in fact part of the Department of Justice. It is an arm of the executive branch of the federal government. So you could say, okay, well, federal government, Department of Justice found this in 2019, changed its mind, changed its mind. Now it says he does not have a reasonable fear of persecution or that it's not reasonable for him to remain here and he can be deported. However, no proceeding was entered into to make that argument. And in fact, as Andy McCarthy has said in a series of absolutely essential pieces on this and many other legal cases at National Review which have made him the indispensable analyst of our moment in talking about the comp, the complexities of the law, the laws that Trump is trying to challenge or get around because it had, it was in power. The first Trump administration was in power in 2019 when this judge under its aegis found this. And it did not contest the judges finding, nor did it contest any finding when it remanded him or, you know, took him and put him on the plane and sent him to El Salvador. So you could make the argument that as he is an illegal immigrant, he, it was found that there was one country and one country alone on the face of the earth to which he could not be deported, and that was El Salvador. Even though he is a citizen of El Salvador. I don't know where you deport somebody to who is not a citizen of another country of the country. That's where we'd ordinarily deport somebody to. So you have to get that country to agree to take him. But we did get El Salvador to agree to take him because it turns out we're paying El Salvador $6 million to house the 200 plus people who went on that plane to go to the El Salvador in prison. We're actually paying El Salvador to house them. And so in theory we could say, well, you know, you know that sliver of the $6 million that was supposed to pay for this guy? Well, we'll refund you. Like, you know, refund, will you keep the money? We got to take him back. The Supreme Court said in its finding that the administration had to facilitate his return to the United States. And now welcome those of us who have been celebrating Passover and had to two seders, or one, if you're Israeli, seders the other nights. Welcome to the talmudic reasoning that you get to experience during some passages of the Seder that try to explicate how it is that the rabbis thought about things. Because now we have this giant debate over what the meaning of the word facilitate is. And the Supreme Court really should know better. Like it should speak more clearly. Obviously, maybe this was a negotiation to get just to the word facilitate. But they've, they've left open this giant hole in which the administration says now saying, well, we will facilitate it. We've got a plane. That just means we have to have a plane ready to bring them home, bring them back to the United States. But we can't make these Salvadorans release them from prison. It's their prison. And he's a Salvadoran. He's a Salvadoran. We don't have rights over him. He's an illegal immigrant to the United States. They want to keep him in prison. What sovereign right do we have to challenge their sovereign relationship with their own citizen? Which is, as I say, a very talmudic way, both the word facilitate and this thing, which is, look, he's a Salvadoran. We got no, whatever you would call it, we have no extraterritorial access to him once we put him on El Salvadoran soil. That seems to be an incredibly disingenuous argument. Bukele. The president wants to be a friend of Trump's. If Trump said, hey, send him back, I'm sure he would do so. He says, no terrorists should be in jail. That's what he said to Trump. Trump said, you know what, you're so great, maybe you could build more prisons and we can actually send Americans, native born Americans to be in your prisons because they stink. And then he yelled at Caitlin Collins of CNN and said when she asked him about this, why aren't you telling me I'm so wonderful because I'm getting criminals off the streets. Why aren't you saying, isn't that great? Your network is failing. You suck, all of that. So I'm now going to just state out, state this plainly. This is not good. This is not good for the rule of law. It is not good for the good working order of the federal government to have the executive branch of the United States in the person of the President and his deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller, playing linguistic games with the courts, whose findings are, I think, pretty basic, which is he needed due process. You didn't give him any. He had actually already had some form of due process that found that he had a right not to be returned to El Salvador. Specifically, you didn't challenge it when it happened and you were, you were president then. You haven't, you didn't challenge it before you put him on the plane in error. Then the lawyer in the courtroom said it was an error that he was put on the plane. Then she was fired by the Justice Department for having said this. Okay, I'm doing this whole long summary because it's bad. And anybody who thinks it's not bad is wrong. It's bad. This is really bad. And it starts getting to this question of, are we a nation of laws or a nation of men? If we're a nation of men, then whatever Trump does is fine for the people who like Trump. But we're a nation of laws, and we have a process, and the process was followed, and something happened, and the process was not. No one entered into a process to reverse what the process had found. And here we are here, and I.

[Abe Greenwald]

You know, it's transgress or it's violative of, you know, of. Of proper procedure. And it's bumbling. Like, it's. It's. Which is a sort of real banana republic kind of combo, you know, doing everything wrong and insisting on having it your way anyway and covering. And aren't I so great? It's getting very ugly, I think. I mean, that was the sort of feeling that I got in our three days off, you know, kind of a circling the drain aspect suddenly.

[Christine Rosen]

Well, he also. It also undermines what I think was one of the more powerful messages Trump ran and won this recent election on, which is the process was absolutely upended under the Biden administration. They let anyone in they didn't vet, they didn't track them once they were in. It was anything goes at the border, and the American said no to that. And they elected Trump to restore the process, to make sure that we had a border that actually vetted people that didn't allow just anyone in that wasn't secretly flying migrants around the country to make sure that everyone at the. At the southern border wasn't. Didn't have footage of showing all these people and then kept track of them and made them appear at their later hearings, and then they went through the process. That's what he ran on. This is such a stunning example of him allowing his ego and his unwillingness to admit error and doubling down over and over again on that unwillingness and allowing someone who's clearly a little bit unhinged in Stephen Miller to run up to the microphone and just start spouting nonsense. That's not process, and that's what he was elected to do at the border. So there's that. There's also the fact that he looks a little weak, saying he can't get this guy back. He just got a Russian American ballerina back. He's constantly boasting about how when he negotiates with people who are holding Americans, I know this guy is not an American. It's a different situation. But his whole shtick is, I can talk to anyone and make a deal and get what I want. Well, so he either needs to acknowledge he doesn't want this guy back, which, as John says, is flouting what the court has said, or he should get the guy back, put him through the process, and he can ship him back again, but at least he will have done what he promised the American people he was elected to do.

[Seth Mandel]

Yeah, it's very much. It's sort of literally the. For my friends, anything. For my enemies, the law. Right. Because it's like, I can't force them to do this. There's a. There's a system in place, and it's like, well, you've returned nine people from that El Salvador prison already, so let's stop. Make it. Make it a tenth. And, you know, make it. Make the minion of people you've had returned. But, like, stop claiming you can't. You know, we're literally watching you return people from there to our soil. And then, you know, but also, I would. I would love it. First of all, I would love it if my Google News feed stopped. Stopped filling up with Maryland man headlines. Okay? I would. Personally.

[John Podhoretz]

You're. You're a Maryland man.

[Seth Mandel]

I'm a Maryland.

[John Podhoretz]

Mandela is a Maryland man. This guy is an illegal immigrant living in. Residing in Maryland. Yes, yes.

[Seth Mandel]

And it's always Maryland man or Maryland father. It's never the guy. The guy's name, you know, will be known. Garcia, if we could remember.

[John Podhoretz]

If we could remember.

[Seth Mandel]

Yeah, but. And then the other thing is that I think that there's a real serious chance that Trump is poisoning the other aspects of his immigration crackdown. Right. It's going to be harder to defend some of the visa revocations or things like that of, you know, pro Hamas students. People are going to feel less inclined to put their. Put themselves out there to defend Trump doing that, even though they know intellectually that he has the right to revoke student visas and that this is.

[John Podhoretz]

I don't think they do know that. I don't think they know that. And I think. I think as we're having this kind of earnest conversation, you know, he may be more politically right here than we are or than Andy McCarthy is, or then the sort of liberal consensus on how he's a monster who is. You know, this is the University of Heidelberg in 1937. Believers, which is to say, got this guy. He's saying he's a terrorist. They're saying, well, they're. His lawyer says, no, he's not. Okay, but that's his lawyer. So his lawyer could say whatever he wants. Then people say, well, he wasn't. Hasn't been charged with anything. And then they're saying, well, that doesn't mean he's not a terrorist. The El Salvadorans say He's a terrorist. We're saying he's a terrorist. He's part of this gang. He's a gang member. Then people said, why wasn't he charged? And the truth is, as we know, the American people largely do not care about the niceties of stuff like this. If they think he's a bad guy and he's in jail, that's fine with them. And that Trump has been thrown into the briar patch here, where he gets to say, I'm trying to protect America from this guy. And courts can say that we should facilitate it. And Bukele doesn't want to put him on the plane back. So I would put him on the plane back, but he doesn't want to. And you know why? Because he's a bad guy. And it's better that he's not here than that he's here. And so we'll dot I's and cross T's of the court is making us do. But you know what? The outcome here is good, not bad. And I don't know that he has the worst of that argument about this guy or this case. That's why sometimes horror story cases when, when liberals think that they've nailed Trump dead to rights on how the American people really feel about things like due process and all that, now they feel they don't care. Nobody cares about due process until they're the ones who get caught in the thicket. Which is one of the reasons why we have due process rules, as I said last week, which is they're unpopular for a reason, which is that the passions are served better by the, we're throwing the book at somebody. And, you know, if you don't like this, we'll throw at the book of them with that. And they're bad and they're, they're, they're harmful to you. And you. We do need to care about it because people do get crosswise of due process all the time. And they need this relatively unpopular common law tradition dating back 800 years, because it's one of the ways that tyranny is prevented from coming to power in a nation of laws.

[Christine Rosen]

Well, but this is. Yeah, but that cavalier remark he made, I think, to Seth's point, the cavalier remark he made about, oh, well, maybe I can outsource some American prisoners to you, too. The one thing we still want to export, I guess, is you, our prison population and the people who fund we.

[John Podhoretz]

Want to export a lot of stuff. We just. Yeah, I guess.

[Christine Rosen]

But that's actually where I think Seth is right to point out he could be undermining even people who support his extremely tough approach to immigration. Look, this guy broke the law by coming to this country. He did. I mean, I have no problem with him being deported. I do have a problem with the fact that the President has chosen this case to flout the Supreme Court's directive, other court's directive, and not given this guy the one thing he's allowed to do. And we do know from the past that the I'm, if I, if you send me back to my country of origin, I will be, you know, my life will be at risk. That has been abused in the process for many, many years. People are coached by NGOs and others on how to, you know, gin up claims of political repression that actually they're here as economic refugees. So I have skepticism about that too. But when the President of the United States jokes in the Oval Office that it would be great to take our prison population and illegally ship them to another country to be held, that's not funny. And the interesting thing to me is the, I'm just as full of contempt for the liberal tears about Bukola and him sitting down in the Oval Office with this guy and them saying, look at the fellow authoritarians, etc. Etc. The Biden administration sent a delegation to that guy's inauguration. It's not as if the Democrats have been, you know, consistent across the board. He was useful to them when the trouble at the border really got bad, and that's when the Democrats changed their tune on Bukola. So I think that is, there's a lot of hypocrisy on the side of the media and the Democratic Party about this guy. But it's not funny to joke about shipping American citizens to a foreign prison. That's not funny. Who likes that? I mean, there must be some group.

[Abe Greenwald]

Some people like it.

[Christine Rosen]

Yeah, a lot of people like it.

[Abe Greenwald]

I mean, because if you, because Trump, when he talked about it, he, he filled it out with color, right? He said, oh, he's excited.

[Christine Rosen]

Yes.

[Abe Greenwald]

I'm telling you, if you rape an 89 year old woman or whatever, his, all his examples, you know, if you. So, so I'm, I'm talking about someone who hits someone in the, in the, an old woman in the head. Right. You know, it's like he's, he's sort of coming up with these like, death wish, you know, Charles Bronson death wish, sort of like thug scenarios about how he's going to send them. And I think that's, that's he's kind of wedding an appetite there, you know, for, for revenge.

[John Podhoretz]

Right.

[Abe Greenwald]

I think something else that's happening here is that, you know, the part of the, in part of the backlash against wokeism, long standing belief in important American norms has gotten folded into like the idea of WOKE among the populists. It's like, oh, if you believe that, that's just like, you know, do. That's all WOKE nonsense that you're talking about. You know, like they make no distinction between good, good, good American ideals that preserve the good working order and, and.

[Christine Rosen]

The crazy stuff because they want those ideas. Those processes were in fact weaponized against people.

[Abe Greenwald]

That's right.

[Christine Rosen]

By the left for many, many years and Trump most notoriously. So, I mean, I, you're absolutely right and I understand their motivation. But to John's earlier point, we have due process because at some point you might be the one trapped in the Kafka like mousetrap of this system where you can, you cannot appeal, you cannot escape, you are, and you have no idea why you're there and how to get out.

[Seth Mandel]

Right. And I think that there's wokeness. Wokeness is sentimentality to them. They are, there's a, there's a large group of them that are just anti. Sentimentality. Oh, boo who. Nobody's calling you by your preferred pronouns. Oh, boo who, you didn't get due process and you sent to an El Salvador in prison. You know, that sort of, that's how they all got folded in. Like this is the real world. Welcome to the NFL. And it's this, it's the very idea of, of, of, you know, compassion and sentimentality that gets trod under.

[John Podhoretz]

Listen, I am, I am very compelled by the fact that people that, whom I know, I know would prefer to be supportive of this administration. Andy McCarthy being one. Edward Whelan, Christine's former colleague at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, a legal scholar, former Supreme Court clerk being another. I know people who would otherwise very much like to be supportive of the Trump administration's efforts, particularly on WOKE and in restraining the legal Black Lives Matter, Critical legal studies world are horrified by what they're seeing. They would prefer not to be. I think they would prefer to be able to come to an interpretation of the administration's behavior in these courtrooms that was more kindly disposed and they're not. And that is very haunting to me because when it comes down to it, you trust people whom you trust. And Annie McCarthy is somebody who has spent 30 years arguing, for example, that we allowed the legal system to become the means by which we tried to fight international terrorism and made a huge mistake that by pretending in the 1990s. And he was some, he was the person who prosecuted the Blind Sheikh who was behind the first Trade center bombing in 1993 and came to the book.

[Seth Mandel]

On that, his book that he wrote on that was what propelled him into this situation where he was a reliable commentator, a much sought after commentator on the legal specifics of all this stuff.

[John Podhoretz]

But his point was we shouldn't have been in that courtroom altogether. This is something, this is a matter for American foreign policy and military policy to handle. This is not, these are not things that should be part of the American system. Like, this is stuff that's coming from the outside. It needs to be stopped from the outside. So it's not as though he is, you know, somebody who's like, everything needs to go through the court, everything should be adjudicated by the courts. But these, this is a very, this is a different matter. And he's a sophisticated legal thinker, as is Ed. And so they are watching this with the color draining from their faces about what, about what this portends in that Andrew Jackson way, right? Which is the Supreme Court. When Andrew Jackson said, Justice Marshall, you know, says that what I did is wrong, let's see him enforce it. What does the future hold for business? You know, if you ask nine experts, you're going to get 10 answers. A bull market, a bear market, rates rising, rates falling, inflation's going up, inflation's going down. You need a crystal ball. But of course, there is no crystal ball. And that's why 41,000 businesses have future proofed their business with NetSuite by Oracle. The number one Cloud ERP, bringing accounting, financial management, inventory and HR into one fluid platform with one unified business management suite. There's one source of truth giving you the visibility and control you need to make quick decisions. With real time insights and forecasting, you're peering into the future with actionable data. When you're closing your books in days, not weeks, you're spending less time looking backwards, more time on what's next. If this were the kind of product commentary needed, we would take it in a heartbeat. Whether your company is earning millions or even hundreds of millions, millions, NetSuite helps you respond to immediate challenges and seize your biggest opportunities. And speaking of opportunity, download the CFO's Guide to AI and Machine Learning at netsuite.com commentary. The guide is free to you at netsuite.com commentary netsuite.com commentary hi everyone, it's Abe.

[Abe Greenwald]

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[John Podhoretz]

Trump has said he will obey the Supreme Court's dictates. He does not does not say he will obey lower court's dictates. Although, see, that's an interesting wrinkle in and of itself, because if the Supreme Court does not take a case that is presented to it, it is implicitly saying we accept the lower court's behavior. The lower court's conduct or ruling is binding on on on the United States and can be used as a precedent in other cases. It's not. We don't have to say yes or no to everything if we don't take a case. That means the case stands. Trump seems to be creating a predicate in which he says, the only court I'm going to listen to are the nine justices in Washington. Which, as I say, you kind of have. You are. Anyway, if you say, okay, well, you know, appeals court found X, Y or Z, I guess we have to, we have to follow that dictate. Let's talk about him as a negotiator since he was in the, as we say, he was in the Oval with, with Christine's pronouncing a buccala. I sort of thought it was Bukele. I don't know. I don't know. Whatever. I don't know. Anyway, so he's in this. And, and as I say, if you said, hey, send him back, it rhymes with you. Okay, There you go. Okay. Somehow does it, does it say that? Oh, I don't know. Maybe you. Look, maybe you sniffed it up Anyway. Okay, so he's not getting him out. So we can either presume he's a great negotiator, so that means he doesn't want him out, or he's not such a great negotiator, he doesn't want him out. So this is not the negotiating thing. Let's just talk about the negotiating that is going on. Because for a great negotiator, he stinks on ice. He's such a great negotiator that he stinks on ice. Let's talk about the three major negotiations or four major negotiations that he is involved with right now. One is on the tariffs. So how does he stink on ice? He imposes retaliatory tariffs and then suspends them on the products that arguably deserve retaliatory tariffs in order to make sure that we don't go into recession. Right. Or to try to fight against a recession that is high tech electronics coming from China, right? The iPhone, flat screens, whatever. As many people have said, what goes on here when you impose tariffs and then you pull them back one by one is you are encouraging a form of extreme corruption called rent seeking, under which what you have is individual companies, corporations, capitalists courting him personally, trying to get a benefit for themselves that others do not get. Right? So in a system of laws, if you impose, if you impose a 10% tariff across the board, at least nobody is getting a better deal than anybody else. It's, it's a, it's a flat thing everywhere. But if you say, okay, we're wearing 125% tariffs on China, except for these goods Then it's like, well, what if I came to you and did your toenails? Would you maybe drop my tariff by 20, 25% or 30%? Or if I, I don't know, gave as somebody suggested the day. Because Trump is there. There's various things are before the antitrust, antitrust or regulatory frameworks in the entertainment industry. You know, maybe if you gave Donald Trump Jr. A fishing show on your cable channel, maybe the approval of your merger would go a little better. Could be, could be a good. This is, that's an emolument. It's unconstitutional, it's impeachable, as is any kind of rent seeking that you where you could prove that rent seeking took place. So that's the tariff negotiation and then we have the three foreign policy negotiations.

[Christine Rosen]

We just had the exceptions. The exceptions he's making also keep the markets in tumult. It still leaves a lot of uncertainty.

[John Podhoretz]

Well, the markets did well yesterday, so. Right. So he got the market to go up 300 points yesterday. So because he announced uncertainty remains what happens. Right. Uncertainty is, uncertainty is permanent in a situation in which you could somehow get him to let your tariff off or lower your tariff. Like there's no such thing as anything that is not uncertain.

[Christine Rosen]

Yeah, but companies cannot plan their supply chain shifts based on tariffs if they don't know if they're going to get. I mean, that's the uncertain like the planning for the manufacturers, the planning for the, for the products that Americans rely on.

[John Podhoretz]

Right. So three foreign policy negotiations going on right now, one over the hostages and Gaza and possible ceasefire, Ukraine, Russia and Iran. And as far as I can tell, he is stinking on ice in all three of them and we should go through them. Eli Lake has a very good pace at the Free Press this morning in which he says if you examine what the administration and what Steve Witkoff, the chief negotiator are saying about Iran and about the deal with Iran, they are defaulting to the language of the Obama JCPOA that Trump said was the worst deal ever struck. Right. Trump said it was the worst deal in the history of deals. And what is the language? The language is Obama said you can't have a nuclear weapon for 12 years. You can have a nuclear program, we'll give you 150, we'll release $150 billion and we'll send it on pallets and on a boat in cash to you can't have a nuclear weapon. And the argument against this is the issue is not having a nuclear weapon. The issue is the nuclear program which can refine uranium to a point at which if you have warheads, you can put them on the warheads in a week, you can break out of deal, have a breakout, have a nuclear. Then you're supposed to not have a nuclear weapon, but you could make one anyway. And then it's just like on, on faith that you're not going to do it. And that's why it was a bad deal, among many other reasons why it was a bad deal. So what we are supposed to be going after is the nuclear program. We are saying to Iran, no nuclear program. You cannot have a nuclear program. Don't give us this nonsense about how you want peaceful nukes. You have a lot of cheap oil in the ground. It doesn't make sense for you to build a, you know, nuclear power plants to generate electricity. Don't give us that nonsense, no nuclear program. And we'll see what we can do to make a, make your life a little easier and, you know, release sanctions on you and all of that. And what happened this weekend is that both Witkoff and Trump stopped saying program and started saying weapon. They can't have a weapon. No weapon. And Steve Wyckoff went on TV and said, what we're looking for is to get the Iranians to agree to process uranium to 3%. The breakout is 80%. The whole, I'm not going to go into the percentages. But to go back to the Obama number in 2015, which is what level of refined uranium should be permissible and that is Trump becoming Obama and Kerry. That's what's happening right now.

[Seth Mandel]

Somebody, and that's the other language they use is they use, Steve Witkoff uses terms like need. They don't need uranium enriched pest 3.67%. They don't need. And this was part of the big problem with the Obama crew and everybody who wanted to deal with Iran because it treats Iran as a good faith actor. Well, they don't need past this point. So let's all be reasonable. But nobody in Iran cares what they. Nothing, nothing. None of this is about what an oil nation needs. Needs, you know, nuclear power for any purpose. Weapon, web, a nuclear weapon, a military purpose or civilian purpose. They actually don't need it for anything. But it's the need part that's, you know. Well, they don't, it's like in America when we debate guns and somebody said, oh, nobody needs, you know, a military style assault rifle or something like nobody needs this to hunt deer or something like that. This is what they're doing with Iran, which is a way of saying the program itself is fine and the existence of the program is fine, which is what worried everybody that would cause a nuclear arms race, a cascade in the Middle east, is that if Iran was, if Iran's program, not a weapon, but just the program was legitimized, then the idea of a nuclear program is legitimized. That is a change in the way that we have fought nuclear proliferation around the world. We have said, no, you can't have that stuff. And we've had countries dismantle their dukes. We had, you know, we, we aq. Con.

[John Podhoretz]

We. Which, hey, which.

[Seth Mandel]

Which country.

[John Podhoretz]

Which country? Which country disbanded its nukes?

[Seth Mandel]

Libya?

[John Podhoretz]

Ukraine.

[Seth Mandel]

Yes.

[Christine Rosen]

Yeah.

[John Podhoretz]

At our direction and with the idea that they would do so if we made sure that Russia didn't swallow them. Which is where we have to move in our conversation now. Right to Ukraine. Let's talk about Ukraine. So Trump was getting the war evidently started a war.

[Christine Rosen]

It evidently started a war with. I learned this from our president and his, you know, vast grasp of history.

[John Podhoretz]

Yes, yes.

[Christine Rosen]

That was an appalling thing to say for him to say.

[John Podhoretz]

Yes. So he said over the weekend after Russia bombed churchgoers going for Palm Sunday, 31 kids killed. And he said it was terrible. Oh, this is terrible. Our hearts go out. It's terrible. And then he blamed Zelensky.

[Christine Rosen]

Well, he said, that's why you don't start a war.

[John Podhoretz]

Yeah, yeah. He said, this is not my. First of all. He said, this is not my war. This is Biden's war. And all Zelensky does is come and ask us for missiles. And you don't go start a war with a country 20 times your size. First of all, it's not 20 times their size. It's a quote. It's 20. It's a quarter of Russia's size in population terms. It's not 20 times its size. Nor as the fact that Ukraine has battled Russia to this crazy draw, is it 20 times weaker than Russia, as it turns out. So even that notion is pretty staggering. But that he should default after watching an atrocity to the. Well, you brought it on yourself. You should just have let Russia swallow you up. This is where we've come. It's. We're not even 90 days into this administration. So, you know, if he'd ended the war on the first day. Okay. Ended the war on the first day. You know, thousands of Ukrainians have died since he started getting his, you know, started getting his fingers involved and Witkoff involved and whoever involved in negotiating with Putin, who has looked at the United States behavior and said, I guess what I really need to do is get really brutal really fast, as brutal as I can possibly be, because maybe, maybe he will get Zelensky to say uncle. And so I need to be in the strongest possible position to take as much as I possibly can in the deal at the time. Abe, what's your. You as a re. As a. Not, not all that distantly recent a visitor to Ukraine.

[Abe Greenwald]

I think it's a combination of, of Putin thinking in the way you just described, and also thinking, well, let's act now. While the US Is also putting pressure on Ukraine and, and, and, you know, intermittently denying them intelligence and aid, he's made things so much worse. I mean, you know, it's, it's, it's gone horribly wrong. In terms of his supposed ceasefire there or peace plan, Putin's not budging. See, I think there's a slight difference with the Iran negotiations and the Russia, Ukraine negotiations from Trump's standpoint, which is that I agree on Russia, Ukraine, Trump as a deal maker, as a negotiator, stinks on ice. I think he could get what he wants, apparently, from the Iran deal if he's. When you start talking in terms that Iran could pretend to accept, you could get them to pretend to accept it, which I'm beginning to think would be just fine for him.

[John Podhoretz]

Right. Well, okay. So to be fair, in Iran, just to backtrack, he also said yesterday, I feel like they're playing. They're, they're, they're playing us. They might be playing us. They don't, they're not really serious about negotiating. And, you know, there's a lot of trouble at the end of that if they don't do what we want. And he said last week we'll stand behind the Israelis if the Israelis want to go with them, which isn't really an answer because Israel can't really be the destroyer of the Iranian nuclear program. As far as we know, the capability really does reside with the United States. So if you really wanted to do that, the United States should be the lead actor. But nonetheless, he is talking more belligerently. The belligerence in the, in the Ukraine, Russia case is all toward Zelensky, who is not the belligerent in this war.

[Christine Rosen]

But see, that's, that's.

[John Podhoretz]

Ukraine did not invade Russia. Ukraine did not invade Russia. Ukraine did not invade Russia. Russia invaded Ukraine. That's called.

[Abe Greenwald]

Yes.

[Christine Rosen]

Yeah, but this is why he does that. This is why he just factually says Whatever he, the reason he can lie to the world and say that they were the aggressor is because, and I was, I had a debate with a friend about this over the weekend. It was kind of fascinating to me. I was being persuaded, I was trying, he was trying to persuade me that again, there's this long term strategy of, you know, geopolitical shifts that Trump is under, is undertaking and we need to give him time and see how everything plays out. And I get, I actually think that's a legit. You can make that case for any president who comes in and wants to shake up his foreign policy perspective. The problem is though, American presidents used to speak of the world in such a way that the end goal was is the world a safer place and is it in particular a safer place to be an American and to do the things that American wants, Americans want to do. And Trump does not talk about that at all. He talks about making the best deal, beating this guy back. I'm smarter than him, I'm more powerful than him. They've been taking advantage of us and so we're going to knock them back, even if they're our allies. That's not the way we have come to understand the end goal. So I, I'm not. This is why I think we have a lot of doubt about whether there is any strategy here. Because what is the end goal here? America wins. Well, what does winning look like? I still don't know what winning look looks like to the Trump administration with regard to our position in the world. That's just the, that's where I am at. I don't know if perhaps I'm missing something. I very well could be.

[Abe Greenwald]

I just want to add to what you're both saying. Not only is Trump constantly blaming Zelensky, but his harping on Biden sort of causing this as well. And I have all sorts of problems, I think is well known with the Biden administration's approach to Ukraine. But this is like, you know, a double music to Putin's ears. You have the American president sitting constantly blaming Ukraine and the US for this war. It's bad, right?

[John Podhoretz]

The administration's position. And this is where we get to the nation of laws, not men. Problem is he came in on the 20th of January 2025 and it was year zero French Revolution. It's year zero. Right. What happened before is not to be taken into account. He didn't do it was in his Justice Department. Weren't his laws. Now, that's what's interesting, by the way, about The. About the El Salvador.

[Christine Rosen]

Four years he was president before, by the way.

[John Podhoretz]

Well, no, but that's what I wanted to mention is in the case of the binding ruling of the immigration court in the case of the El Salvadoran illegal immigrants, that happened during his presidency and not Biden's. So if they really were going to, like, you know, that's on him. Like, that's on. That's on his Justice Department that they didn't say, no, no, no, no, no, sorry, that's a bad ruling. We're gonna, we're gonna revisit it or do whatever it is that you do procedurally to over overtake it. Okay. But it's year zero. And so what he says when he doesn't like laws or he doesn't like findings or something like that is. Well, I didn't do that. I did. I Biden. This was, you know, there's a new sheriff in town, so I'm going to suspend all grants to this or I'm going to. I'm canceling these contracts. I'm. And you can't just cancel a contract. That's what a contract is. Legally, if the federal government has made a contract with someone, it's no different from my. I'm making contract with you, Christy. You're going to buy, you know, I'm selling you something and you give me money and then I get. Then I still have to give you what you gave me money for buying a contract, and you can take me to court for violating it. I am thrilled with many of the things that are going on in relation to the college campuses. But there the. The doge led cancellation of existing contracts that are legally binding using emergency authority is again, only justifiable if what you think is that the laws that preceded Donald Trump's coming to power on January 20, 2025, are not binding on him. Hey, everybody. Vacation season is upon us. Spring has hit New York. Got some warm weather, got some rain, but it's just making me think about the summer and the fun that I can have, fun my wife and I can have. We got a trip planned for Wisconsin in July. Other stuff we're going to do with our family later in August. And this year, I'm going to treat myself to the looks upgrades I deserve with Quince's high quality travel essentials at fair prices. And the premium luggage options and stylish tote bags they offer are perfect ways to carry all of my Quince goods. My sweaters, my polo shirts that I just got from Quint's and Those like everything else you get there, priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands. How? By partnering directly with top factories, Quince cuts out the cost to the middleman and passes the savings on to us. And Quince only works with factories that use safe, ethical and responsible manufacturing practices and premium fabrics and finishes. So for your next trip, treat yourself to the looks upgrades you deserve from quints. Go to quints.com commentary for 365 day returns plus free shipping on your order. That's Q U I n c e.com commentary to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com/complyment.

[Seth Mandel]

In some cases the USAID cancellations are for work that was done and the Trump administration went to court to stop from having to pay for work that was already done.

[John Podhoretz]

Right. Okay. And you know, so the, what we are being asked to believe by MAGA people and or apologists for him is that this is a legitimate way of dealing with because we're an emergent, we're in an emergency. He can use emergency powers to do emergency things like suspend things. Now he ultimately, by the way, you know, in war we suspend habeas corpus. Abraham Lincoln suspended habeas corpus. Franklin D. Roosevelt suspended habeas corpus. Notoriously. You know, Edmund Wilson wrote a whole book about how Lincoln was the proto fascist because he suspended habeas corpus during, during the Civil War. Like this is a long standing argument. So he, he is now suspending pre existing contracts saying he doesn't want to have to pay them or shouldn't pay them. This should be scaring the, you know, I don't care how revolutionary, I don't care how radical you are. Everybody should be scared of this. This is not, this is not the way that you run a civil, you cannot run a civil society. If the person who is managing the government decides what country, what preceding binding authorities on him, he is going to, he is going to accept or not accept. And as Christine said, we already saw the deleterious consequences of this in the behavior of the Biden administration on illegal immigration. There are laws, there are rules, there are regulations, there are things. This is and they simply flouted them or they did all of their own emergency stuff during COVID and Black Lives Matter and all of that. And the nation reared in horror and weirdly enough, as I think is true, as Christine said, kind of elected Trump to stop the Biden lawlessness that Wokeism represented. And now he's introducing rather than saying okay, I'm not going to be lawless. He's like, well, he got to be lawless. I'm going to be lawless in my own way to pursue my own aims.

[Christine Rosen]

Let me make an argument for what I think the Trump administration is trying to do on campuses in particular with places like Harvard. The elite campuses, which are the big, that's the big game. They, you know, they want to bag those, those heads and put them on the wall, perhaps on Donny Jr's fishing show, which could should involve some sort of reference to Fredo out in the boat in the lake, but we'll mess. Another thing I think that he is the way that you use the regulatory state to enforce rules on campuses is, and Obama was a genius at doing this and harassing campus administrators. This is used the Office of Office for Civil Rights and the Department of Education, they go in there, they say, they send them firm letters, dear Colleague letters. They basically threaten to revoke their funding and then get them to concede. They negotiate in the way that Trump is doing with tariffs, actually. But that's a very long and slow process. It is very much gets overturned anytime a new administration comes in. And it's hard to make it stick because you can just upend it. The next time a new president comes in, what he's doing is instead saying, I'm taking your money and now you have to negotiate with me. And so he's, he's skipping over that bureaucratic step. Part of me sort of thinks it's genius. Part of me is somewhat horrified because as you say this, if this leads to contracts not being fulfilled that were negotiated before, that is going to undermine the rule of law. But it is a, this is a purely political game. This really has nothing to do with. I know they're using the COVID of the Anti Semitism Task force, but I do think they're using that as political cover. If it does lead to universities being better about anti Semitism on campus, that's all for the good. But this is pure brawling politics. And it'll be interesting to see now that Harvard has said no, while Columbia and others have negotiated whether there are legal means for these universities to take the administration to court and fight it. But I think that's what they want to do. They want, they want to bag Harvard. They want to make sure that they're not getting taxpayer money while doing all kinds of crazy stuff with their teaching. And so they just reverse the equation. So we'll see if it works.

[Seth Mandel]

Well, the Harvard, the Harvard case is a good example of, of this because Harvard settled a lawsuit with Jewish Students. A couple months ago we wrote about it and in that settlement, and this caused a ruckus on campus in that settlement, Harvard agreed to use the ira, as we call it, the International Holocaust remembrance association.

[John Podhoretz]

Ihra. But ihra, IHRA definition of antisemitism.

[Seth Mandel]

But it's the, the, it's essentially the consensus definition of antisemitism among the Jewish world.

[John Podhoretz]

And it is the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance.

[Seth Mandel]

Alliance. The A was. Alliance. The A was always the least important one. Remember, I remembered International Holocaust Remembrance. That's the point. But Harvard agreed to use this definition, to incorporate this definition into its guides in student behavioral guides, which essentially refers to harassment. So the harassment guidelines on campus at Harvard used this, will be using this as a guide. And this definition is much harsher on anti Zionism. It doesn't let anti Zionism so easily slip through. You know, it doesn't let anti Semitism slip through under the COVID of just anti Zionism. And Harvard had, there was, you know, there was an outcry at Harvard because people wrongly said, I mean, some organizations that know that, you know, fire and other organizations that ought to know better sort of freaked out and said, well, now you're going to be punished for criticizing the Israeli government when in fact the IHRA definition only says that certain criticisms of Israel can be motivated by antisemitism and can reveal anti Semitic motivations for actions that are taken. But Harvard essentially took a hit from the left, is what I'm saying, for this. Now, the Trump administration, if I were them, I would have studied that and said, and in fact, when I wrote about it and we spoke to the attorneys and, and the people involved, they said, look, we want this to be something of a prototype for the government. Also, when the Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights, Office for Civil Rights, when they reach agreements with schools, we want the settlements to look something like this, which is meaningful, some meaningful action that Jewish students are asking specifically for. The demands that the Trump administration has made of Harvard go farther than the demands they have made of Columbia. Now, Colombia had agreed to the demands, but then had started monkeying around and saying, you know, doing the, you know, say, talking.

[John Podhoretz]

We're not going to enforce them. Yeah, yeah.

[Seth Mandel]

It's saying to their, their faculty, don't worry, don't worry. So, so the Trump administration said, I think reasonably said, well, you know, we need to establish whether you're actually going to follow them or not before you get the funding back. But in Harvard's case, they went into a, an intellectual diversity issue and Want to sort of dive.

[John Podhoretz]

We should explain this. So the target, the way that you go with the funding is Title 6, right. That is Title 6 of the Civil Rights act, which is separate discrimination enforcement separately. And the idea was Jewish students were being harassed, being treated unequally. Federal funds can be denied totally for violations of the Civil Rights Act. So Harvard, do your duty and do right. And then Alan Garber, the interim president of Harvard, said, we did, we made this deal. We made this. We, we're great, we're wonderful. We agreed to the IHRA definition. We are no longer going to allow Jewish students to be treated this way. And then the Trump administration upped the ante and said, well, we're not entirely satisfied that you are doing anything and we're going to continue to enforce or we're going to block your money if you don't do X, Y and Z. That actually aren't. I mean, they're connected subtly but not directly.

[Christine Rosen]

Right. Like acknowledging admissions data about admissions, oversight of certain programs on campus, academic programs on campus, etc.

[John Podhoretz]

Right. And then, and then, interestingly enough, everyone needs to be tested for being a plagiarist, which I, which I enjoy. I enjoy a good play. I enjoy the Christine Gay scam. I'm not sure how that quite fits in here. But in other words, what they did in negotiating with Harvard is Harvard's like, okay, we'll try to negotiate with you. And then they're like, oh, yeah, here are 302 more demands.

[Seth Mandel]

This is like, they put, they put, they let Columbia walk through the body scanner and they're giving Harvard a strip search. That's what, that's okay, Sort of unnecessary body cavity search.

[John Podhoretz]

Right, right. I'm not going to defend Harvard in any way, shape or form. But again, what they've done is say you're cut off. And then there's. There are these, again, binding contracts in the form of grants which are signed legal things that the, that, that, that the administrative prior administrations had agreed to. That again, you're using an emergency power rather than suing Harvard. Like, they're not saying we're suing you to cancel these contracts because you are violating Title 6. They're saying we're doing it first. We're asking questions. You sue us and we'll answer the questions in court. That's not the right way to do it. I'm not going to defend Harvard, but. And I'm going to also bring up this other thing that is horrifying me beyond belief. If the amount of money that is flowing from the federal government to Harvard is in excess of $9 billion. What on earth is going on? Numbers are being thrown at us about how much money the federal government is pumping into these higher education institutions whose endowments are massive.

[Christine Rosen]

Massive. They basically.

[John Podhoretz]

Those are their private endowments. Right. Harvard has a $52 billion endowment. The federal government has been pumping untaxed endowment. Right, but I'm not even talking about that. American taxpayers are funding giant educational institutions at a level, when you put it all together, that I don't think anybody even had the remotest foggiest clue been going on. Well, the argument $9 billion in federal money.

[Christine Rosen]

Okay, yes, I'm playing devil's advocate on today's episode, but I think the argument is that much, much of that is very expensive capital investment in medical and scientific research that happens on these campuses that combine private and public money in a way that the, if you were just trying to do this via federal government labs and federal government scientists, you would not have the same powerhouse of, of product.

[John Podhoretz]

First of all, that may be, that may be true. I don't know. I haven't seen any reporting to suggest that there have been one. Wondrous breakthroughs in research at Harvard that have created data. Like, I mean, that's one thing. It's like $9 billion is going to Harvard. What are we getting for that $9 billion? They're saying they're doing necessary research. Right. Really? Okay, you know what I need from Harvard now is a report on their, on, on the research that they have done using federal money that have changed, materially changed and benefited the lives of America.

[Christine Rosen]

They should have been.

[John Podhoretz]

I don't know that you're required to.

[Christine Rosen]

Report if you accept federal grant money as an institution. So they should be there, should that.

[John Podhoretz]

But this is a total administration. Right, but this is where rent seeking and self dealing take place in the federal government. All over the place already we're talking about rent seeking with Trump personally. But this whole world, this, there is this education, industrial government complex that is taking taxpayer money and sending it out the door to these very rich, very wealthy institutions. And I'd like to know, and I think this may be the interesting result of what is going on here. It is time for us to know what we are getting for the money that is going out the door. When I am horrified by the number 9 billion going to Harvard. I mean, I don't know what, what is, you know, somebody who, you know, you know, J.D. vance's mother's neighbor in Ohio. What is it? What does that person think like $9.

[Abe Greenwald]

Billion when you say none of us had the foggiest idea about this. It's not like it was a secret. No, it was. You know, we just, it's only the horrible behavior of these administrations and these campuses that made us even, that brought the number to light, you know, but it was there the whole time.

[John Podhoretz]

But this is where you're exactly right.

[Christine Rosen]

Can I just add to that, is that this is actually where, you know, in the progressive era, you did have these crusaders who went up against, you know, both private businesses that were creating harmful products or using child labor, all these other things. And they're, you know, they also attacked corruption in government. I mean, some of their schemes were very bad, but many of them led to long term improvements in how we ran our government and how businesses ran as well. So these, what's interesting to me about Trump is that it's always still kind of pitched as personal terms. He's the populist impulse to demand exactly what you're demanding. John, how are you spending taxpayers money? Where is this money going? That impulse for sunlight is very good. I think it's healthy. I think this country was long overdue for it. In that sense, I agree with you that much of what he's doing in attacking these elite institutions will be valuable. But he's not doing it because he really cares about corruption. Because as we just discussed earlier, he's happy to engage in corrupt favor trading if it benefits him. And that's where I think that that is what worries me long term about how rising generations will look at this particular cultural and political moment. That's the cynicism that I think is very corrosive long term. And there is no one in his administration who is making the moral case for what he's actually doing because he doesn't really care about the moral or ethical case.

[John Podhoretz]

He cares about when it comes to making the moral case. He goes personal, which is where we get back to the nation of man and not laws, which is, he says they're very mean to me. They don't talk nicely to me. CBS is doing mean stories about my administration. Their license should be revoked or their merger.

[Seth Mandel]

Before we move on from the education, though, can I just say one, one more thing on the $9 billion, what it reveals is that the universities, their primary mission is not education. These are not educational institutions. These are institutions that have classes and there's a certain amount of money that goes to teaching the students. Right. But the lion's share of that is going to, you know, These other programs and experiments and labs and all sorts of. And again, that stuff may be doing good work. I'm not anti, you know, lab work. I'm just saying like the school, is it a school? Is that what Harvard is? Is Columbia a school? Is it about educating kids? Because now a lot of people are saying, well, what the Trump administration is doing is they're just trying to destroy liberal education, liberal higher education in America. But are they, do we have like, what show point to me, the education part of the mission of any of these institutions.

[John Podhoretz]

Because by the way, that's, that's very important and gets to Christine's point about the sunlight. Because what is allocated to what, right? What we think of in our fantasy is that kids go to college and they get an education. And therefore colleges are about educating 18 to 22 year olds and bringing them into the sort of the, you know, the elites essentially, or some version of, you know, to work, to work in satisfying jobs that, you know, aren't just about working with your hands and all of that. When you read this stuff and you hear it, you start thinking, well, Maybe that's like 7 or 8% of what they're actually spending at these schools and that it's kind of like in reverse. What happened when people started getting all freaked out about athletics at schools? When you were suddenly like, how much is the coach of the football team being paid here at LSU? $5 million a year at a public university is being paid $5 million a year to coach a football team. What does football have to do with the, with the job of educating young people? I mean, it's fun. It's fun for kids to have a team to root for. But $5 million is being paid to the coach of Notre Dame or LSU.

[Seth Mandel]

Or Duke or whatever to put on the hat. This is even worse than that because at least with football you can make a market or a capitalist argument.

[John Podhoretz]

Right?

[Seth Mandel]

Because the schools get paid for television rights to their games and all sorts of other stuff. Makes some revenue share. But they can bring in revenue if they have the team that everyone wants. Apparently so can the labs on Saturday afternoon. But that is like. But the labs are bringing in government, like, it's all government money. You know, they're not VC to pay them. Right. Okay, they're not. In other words, they're not earning.

[John Podhoretz]

Right.

[Seth Mandel]

And this is not a normal transaction. They're just being handed taxpayer money. Gobs and gobs, Right.

[John Podhoretz]

Anyway, I think this is a. We're, we're at an interesting moment here, but yet Every time an elevated argument can be made, Trump can be counted on to turn it into a solipsistic Leopold, the Mad King, the Sun King thing, where it's all about him personally. And I guess MAGA likes that. And congratulations to all of them. But that is not the way to make a sustainable argument over time or even to make sure that the majority of the Supreme Court that you say you're going to listen to isn't watching and reading and going, oh, my God, this guy's really slipping through the cracks here of our constitutional order. And we are gonna have to do what we can to restrain his craziness, because that is what is starting to peek through.

[Christine Rosen]

He's casting shadow docket right now for the court. I mean, it's gonna continue to grow.

[John Podhoretz]

Okay, that was an excellent pun, and we're going to end on that. You got to end on a good pun. So we'll be back tomorrow. For Abe, Christine and Seth, I'm John Pod Horror. It's Keep the Candle Burning.