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- [00:04]
Abe Greenwald
Hope for the best, expect the worst.
- [00:11]
John Podhoretz
Some preach and pain Some die of.
- [00:14]
Christine Rosen
Thirst the way of knowing which way.
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John Podhoretz
It'S going Hope for the best Expect.
- [00:21]
Abe Greenwald
The worst Hope for the best.
- [00:25]
John Podhoretz
Welcome to the Commentary Magazine daily podcast. Today is Friday, May 2, 2025. Although I gotta confess, we are taping this on Thursday, May 1, 2025, so there might be some day confusion here if we. If we don't identify the days properly. You will have to excuse us. I'm John Budhorts, the editor of Commentary magazine, with me, as always, executive editor A. Greenwald. Hi, Abe.
- [00:51]
Abe Greenwald
Hi, John.
- [00:52]
John Podhoretz
Social Commentary columnist Christine Rosen. Hi, Christine.
- [00:54]
Matthew Continetti
Hi, John.
- [00:55]
John Podhoretz
And Washington Commentary columnist Matthew Continenti. Hi, Matt.
- [00:59]
Christine Rosen
Hi, John.
- [01:00]
John Podhoretz
So we promised and we are delivering a mailbag episode. We called for questions from our listeners and you have responded in the hundreds. And there are just so many and there's. So many are good. And so we're going to try to get through as many of them as possible. And I'm going to start with one that deals with what we just went through right now. And here is. Although one of them involves Seth Mandel, who is not on today, David Harris asks the following. Why do the voices of Abe, Seth and Matthew all sound exactly the same? Hi, John. Hi, John. Hi, John. Are they robots? Sincerely, David C. Harris. Now, I don't think that you guys sound like robots or that you sound the same. And I trying to recall how we developed this trope of my saying hi, blank, and then you saying, hi, John back to me. And I have literally no memory of how this started. But I think, Abe, it must have been earliest days, right? Did we do it, like, right from.
- [02:08]
Abe Greenwald
The very beginning, as far back as I can remember.
- [02:12]
John Podhoretz
So that was, you know, 20. That was 2015 when we started the podcast with, with Noah and others. And so Noah Rothman.
- [02:20]
Abe Greenwald
But I have to say, I don't think we sound alike at all. Any of us sound alike.
- [02:25]
Christine Rosen
I think this is where it's good.
- [02:26]
Matthew Continetti
To be the token for people who don't know us.
- [02:31]
Christine Rosen
Our voice sometimes sounds alike. I actually differ with the reader. When my wife is listening to the podcast and I'm around and I overhear it, I think John and I sound vaguely alike. It's hard to distinguish sometimes when each of us is talking.
- [02:50]
John Podhoretz
No one, no one can ever understand their own, like, hears their own voice properly, though. It's like one of those weird things that you can't. When you hear your own voice on, on, on a recording, you can't believe that that's you because of Course, when you speak, you hear your voice through your ear as you're speaking. And so it is a very strange.
- [03:11]
Christine Rosen
I do have a recommendation for the listener though. Oh yes. Tell everyone apart. All he needs to do is go to our YouTube channel. You know, it's been a while since I made the plug. Yes, you go to the YouTube channel, find the commentary podcast. Each episode is there on video for you to watch on your high definition, top of the line smart tv. And all you need to do, you don't even need to watch it really, but just like and subscribe. Like and subscribe our videos. I'd like us to break 10,000 by.
- [03:43]
John Podhoretz
The end of this. We're at about 90%.
- [03:45]
Matthew Continetti
I'm sure we're high def ready though. This is.
- [03:47]
John Podhoretz
Hold up.
- [03:48]
Christine Rosen
Ready or not, ready or not, we're there.
- [03:50]
John Podhoretz
Someone, I will say someone complained, Christine, that your. Your background, you. You should have a AI background because your background is too. I like your background because if you can't see it, you see, Christine, you see diaphanous curtain covered in door in a white wall.
- [04:08]
Matthew Continetti
It's the router. I sit next to the router. It's the room.
- [04:12]
John Podhoretz
It. I have a bookcase behind me. Abe has this very odd painting behind him and Matt, depending on either as a bookcase or has the office wall at AI behind him. Anyway, we have 9,500 subscribers on YouTube. It would be fantastic if by the end of the weekend the people who are listening here just go to YouTube and hit subscribe Commentary magazine podcast. If we get over 10,000, that would be very exciting. And I will, I will offer my deepest thanks next week if that should happen. Okay, now here's another interesting point from Dana Lynette Silber, which I think crystallizes something that has been getting to me since October 7th and the attacks of October 7th. And she writes the following. Bring them home always seemed to me like a misguided slogan. It's an internal message that puts pressure on the Israeli government. If it was release them now, you terrorist thugs, and it was widespread starting on October 8th, it would have achieved the desired result, or at least more of a result. Is it too late? So release them now rather than bring them home. I am in complete agreement with this. I'd love to hear what you guys have to say.
- [05:31]
Christine Rosen
Yeah, I completely agree. For a while now, I've been thinking, you know, it should be let them go. Let them go. It's Hamas's responsibility. Hamas is keeping the captives underground. And bringing them home does absolutely put the onus on the Israeli government by, by the mechanism of peace negotiations. So I very much prefer let them go or release them now. It is up to Hamas ultimately. And I think there are actually a lot more supporters of Israel who feel the same way. And so just, I would just use it in your own speech. Right. Rather than try to compete with this slogan which is so powerful just in your own speech, just say release them now or let them go.
- [06:21]
Abe Greenwald
Didn't JD Vance make this point? I think like previous to the election he was talking about this and of all people, he I think had made this point. The only thing I disagree with, I don't know that it would achieve the desired result, but it would be a much saner, moral, healthier way to frame the issue.
- [06:45]
Matthew Continetti
Can I also add that if I've been struck since October 7th at how few of our celebrity industrial complex that loves to jump on any sort of, you know, social justice bandwagon and remember that campaign bring back our girls? The girls that were kidnapped who were not Americans who were not. But. But suddenly it was this global thing.
- [07:07]
John Podhoretz
Of bring back our Boko Haram, right?
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Matthew Continetti
Yes. So then it would even Michelle Obama was like bring back our girls. And that is a very powerful moral message because it says, you know what, we're all, we do not tolerate the kidnapping of children under any circumstances. Where is that message with regard to the children that were kidnaped by Hamas? That's what I want to know. This is a world, this is a global issue in my opinion. And that lack of, of moral clarity is very telling.
- [07:35]
John Podhoretz
We got a bunch of variations on this question from Drew Legondo and so he is representing about 15 other people who have ask pretty much the same question of us. In the age of new media in which a Joe Rogan podcast reaches far more than the nightly news and is often the only source of current events for many people that day or is their primary source of political commentary that week. What new standard should apply and how might the listening public be better educated about such standards? So this goes to this revolution as the, as the traditional media sail into the sunset and this explosion in new media, in the foreign podcasts and others and unconventional substackers and various other people like there is no professional code of conduct. Now you could say there never really was a professional code of conduct in the media, that a lot of this was a self protective device, guild protective device to say that we were objective so that we could then be not objective and then say but we're objective and so could could sort of like use our political and ideological influence that way while claiming the mantle of objectivity. So there was a lot of hypocrisy there. But it is this question that is bedeviling people, which is what happens when you put a Holocaust denier spends three hours on, you know, on Joe Rogan show or Theo von show or one of these shows that has 10, 11, 12 million listeners, many of them people who barely have ever even heard of the Holocaust to begin with. I, I have no answer myself to this question. Any of you want to attempt to suggest how some version of standards might emerge?
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Matthew Continetti
No, you can't impose retroactively standards. I think everyone should approach all of these new outlets with radical skepticism, the same radical skepticism that I think anyone of a conservative bent has approached toward the legacy media for a long time. It is disturbing. What I don't like to see is the White House platforming new media and giving new media seats to anti Semites as they, as they did this week. I'm very keen on them having, you know, non traditional media sources represented in the press pool. But I do. Every single individual needs to be radically skeptical. Skeptical particularly. Here's something that endorses your prior convictions. That's actually when you immediately need to go and start reading elsewhere to challenge it. Because unfortunately, from a fact basis, particularly about some of these historical arguments, or I should say pseudo historical arguments, it's very difficult for folks who have not done lengthy reading in the process. So yes, radical skepticism would be my advice.
- [10:34]
Christine Rosen
Go ahead.
- [10:35]
Abe Greenwald
I just want to say, you know, the irony is that I think the people who believe when they hear these cranks on these new platforms, they think they are being skeptical. They think that they believe this because they're skeptical of the official story of the old way things were done. But you know, there are very few actual skeptics when you come down to it, they just sort of believe one side. And I just want to second Christine's idea notion that you can't impose. If there ever comes an effort to impose a standard on these things, it's going to be disastrous and it's going to make things worse.
- [11:14]
Christine Rosen
So I think the answer is more content, not less. In the absence of professional standards and amidst the proliferation of media, I think it's the individual's response responsibility to state their arguments plainly and accessibly and to just engage in the debate from a position not of arrogance or condescension, but simply to say this is, this is what's happening. And it might not be as loud as the cranks but it's up to us to actually have it out there. And my second point is anti Semitism is toxic. It causes a lot of damage. It hurts Jews, but ultimately it also hurts the carrier of the virus. And I do think that the more these new media podcast bro heroes embrace it or go down that path, it actually will be self limiting. There will be a lot of harm caused along the way. But the history shows that eventually it consumes everything, including, including the hosts. And then just on young people in particular, I don't think they really believe anything. So, you know, they hear all this stuff and it's like, yeah, okay, yeah. And then they just don't really know anything either. They're just kind of moving in this sea of ideas and content and information and kind of eke out an existence the best they can. So this radical skepticism you suggest, Christine, I think is already hardwired into a lot of young people in particular. And what it means is that as awful as some of these messages are, they could just be kind of like running like water off a duck's back.
- [13:16]
John Podhoretz
Well, 30 some odd years ago, driving in the, in the west on a long vacation, sometimes driving late at night, I came across this show which was, which is a kind of originating show for all of this that people don't really understand. Art Bell's late night radio show. Now why do I say this? How. What connection? Art Bell, who had UFO people and you know, wormholes to other galaxies people. It was a, you know, sort of this crank, like the original crank nonsense, crazy pseudoscience show. And it was incredibly compelling listening. And how, why is this like Rogan and stuff like that? Because all of it had the same, these two things. One, pseudo scholasticism that the people who came on would cite documents about Roswell or whatever. They would cite documents, papers, reports, things, you know, as though they were like speaking footnotes in an academic journal while they were talking about things that were totally bananas but that they were placing in a framework of scholarly legitimacy. So that's, that's one thing to watch for. Not that I think people who are listening to us need to know, like I think we're, we're already, probably most of us who are here and listening, you know, would already come to this. But, but that the more people cite, the more people who say they are just asking questions, then cite weird footnote things that prove something, far from it being empirical evidence. It's time to put your BS detector on. It's almost like the. Because what they're willfully doing is denying common sense. So they're trying to use this framework to overcome people going, I don't think you saw an alien walking down the street. You know, it's like. No, I mean, there were three. There were 15 separate reports on the night of August 11, 1953, or something like that. So there, there is, there is.
- [15:49]
Christine Rosen
They're trying to blunt Occam's razor. Right. There is usually the simplest explanation. It's the right one. But with all this, all this material that they throw out, you. You know, on page 738 on the 18th volume of the Warren Report, there is a testimony from someone who swears he saw the second shooter on the grassy knoll. Hence, it was a conspiracy led by Lyndon Johnson.
- [16:14]
Matthew Continetti
Right.
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Christine Rosen
That when it's common sense. Well, you know, one guy, he took the shot. He's the communist.
- [16:21]
John Podhoretz
You know, he had a beef with.
- [16:23]
Christine Rosen
The President of the United States who tried to overthrow Castro. Yeah, I totally agree with you, John.
- [16:30]
Abe Greenwald
You know what's so interesting about that, John, just want to say that, is that Art Bell, the focus or the emphasis of the show was not political though.
- [16:39]
John Podhoretz
No, it was the opposite.
- [16:41]
Abe Greenwald
Time travel and aliens and telekinesis and.
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John Podhoretz
Whatever else for cover ups. Except that it was all being covered.
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Abe Greenwald
Yeah, there was. Yeah, yeah.
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John Podhoretz
Government knew and was covering it up.
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Abe Greenwald
That lot of CIA stuff.
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John Podhoretz
Yeah, yeah.
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Abe Greenwald
And, but, and what's interesting to me though is that Rogan kind of started that way.
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Christine Rosen
Yeah.
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Abe Greenwald
And more cultural as politics became a juicier cultural topic. It's sort of the politics got, you know, sort of all mixed into it. And now you have this unholy a lot, you know, melding of wacko sci fi essentially with historical analysis and, and.
- [17:28]
John Podhoretz
Political talk and then some pseudo religious stuff like Tucker Carlson claims that he was attacked by a Dem, claims he was literally attacked by a demon. So that's also something you would have heard on Art Bell.
- [17:41]
Abe Greenwald
Oh, yeah.
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John Podhoretz
35 years ago, that Tucker, that young, the young Tucker that I knew would have. Would have laughed at, made fun of. And yet here, here we are with Tucker being attacked by. By demons. Hey, it's John here. And you guys know how much I love Quince. You know that I wear Quint sweaters. I got a Quint's winter jacket. And now here it is, it's time for summer. And I have picked up a few new pieces from Quint's. First things I reach for in my closet or in my dresser. Lightweight, comfortable, and always on point. The ones I just got are polo shirts, you know, button down short sleeve, incredibly comfortable organic cotton silk. They got European linen beach shorts. They got comfortable pants that work for everything from backyard hangs to nice dinners for the summer. And the best part? As ever, everything with quints is priced 50 to 80% less than what you'd find at similar brands. By working directly with top artisans and cutting out the middleman, Quince gives you luxury pieces without the crazy markups. And Quince only works with factories that use safe, ethical and responsible manufacturing practices and premium fabrics and finishes. So elevate your closet with quince. Go to quince.com commentary for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's Q-U-I-N C E.com to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quint.com commentary hey, it's Sean here. I'm happy today to talk to you about our new advertiser Shopify, because we have been using Shopify here at Commentary to help distribute, sell and manage our merch for the Commentary podcast for a couple of years now. And they are now here and want us to tell you about how you can use them to get right get things the way you need them to make your business work with your podcast or whatever business you may have. Because Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world and 10% of all e commerce in the US from household names like Mattel and Gymshark to brands just getting started. You can get started with your own design studio inside Shopify. With hundreds of ready to use templates, Shopify helps you build a beautiful online store to match your brand style, accelerate your content creation. Shopify is packed with helpful AI tools that write product descriptions, page headlines and even enhance your product photography. You can get your word out like you have a marketing team behind you, easily create email and social media campaigns wherever your customers are scrolling or strolling. And best yet, Shopify is your commerce expert with world class expertise in everything from managing inventory to international shipping to processing returns and beyond. If you're ready to sell, you're ready for Shopify. So turn your big business idea into kaching. With Shopify on your side. Sign up for your $1 per month trial and start selling today at shopify.com sell commentary. That's shopify.com commentary shopify.com/complyment Let me move on to this is a very deep there's only we can answer this, but Michael Schaefer of Omaha, Nebraska asks says much of the political commentary cast blame, rightfully so on politicians for our country's problems, be they fiscal, foreign policy or even cultural. But what role or how much responsibility does the electorate have for the current dysfunctional political climate we find ourselves in?
- [21:35]
Christine Rosen
Total responsibility.
- [21:37]
John Podhoretz
Yeah, I was going to say in.
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Matthew Continetti
A democracy, of course it's our fault, it's the people.
- [21:41]
Christine Rosen
Total responsibility.
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John Podhoretz
Total responsibility. And of course the very fact that all politicians seek as their first order of business to absolve voters of any responsibility.
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Christine Rosen
Of course. Well, I mean, classic example of this. I was speaking earlier this week about entitlement, right? And especially in the sense of, you know, entitlement having to do with your identity or you know, status as an immigrant or other protected class. But of course there's also the entitlement. Entitlement, right. I mean for much of the 20th century when we said the word entitlement we meant the claims that the individual had on government. Right. And the government promising an individual something typically support for retirement or health care. And so where have we arrived? We've arrived. We have this massive multitrillion dollar debt. We have huge trillion dollar deficits. We have interest on our debt now costing more than our annual defense budget. And what's the one thing that both parties agree we cannot touch? Well, it's the drivers of that debt. It's our health. It's primarily our health care spending, primarily Medicare, our government health insurance for the retired and to a lesser extent our Social Security program, our income support for retired. And so yes, so why don't they touch that? Because they know that they're going to be punished for it at the polls. So that is the voters. That's our sense of entitlement. We don't want to give up what we have and unfortunately that's leading us into a very dangerous place as a great power.
- [23:33]
Matthew Continetti
I would also add to that that this is why the concern of old school conservatives traditionalists for decades has been the culture has been the inculcation of virtue and good principles of citizenship and responsibility, rights, not as much an emphasis on rights as on responsibilities. And I think that speaks to Matt's point about a public that feels entitled to a great many things but not responsible for many things. And that's where I think the conservative cultural message has been intermittently successful, but at this particular moment overtaken by more enthusiasm for populism. And I, and I do feel like that civic minded virtue inculcation remains the great work of conservatives.
- [24:17]
John Podhoretz
Well, that is my, I think where we come down on this and you know, again, 40, 40 years of this in my life for 40 plus years in my life with the degradation and decline of America's educational system because the, you mentioned, you know, civics, but I mean, the fact that American kids are not taught American history, that they're not taught about the constitutional order, that they are not compelled to do things that kids of previous generations are compelled to do, like memorize the Declaration of Independence or memorize the Gettysburg Address, both of which are short enough to be memorized, and then to sort of at least have, you know, a month to study the Constitution at some point in high school so that they understand that they're three branches of government, that there's this system of laws and checks and balances and all of that. And that this was all replaced by trendier ideas about how to teach because this is not reaching people and all of that. And just it's in some ways an extraordinarily simple answer to an extraordinarily complex problem, which is let people know what it means to be an American and how our system works, and maybe they will take greater responsibility for their roles as citizens. If they don't know what they're supposed to do, then it's a little hard to blame them for not doing it well if they are not instructed in the fundaments of what it means to be a self governing citizen of a republic.
- [25:58]
Christine Rosen
And, you know, the kind of, the incentive side of this has been revealed in just this week, I came across reports that because of the Trump administration's freeze on research grants to research universities, a very contested policy, private philanthropy stepping up private philanthropy is now coming to these researchers and saying, hey, you know what will take, we'll take part of the burden here. Well, that's exactly what conservatives have been arguing for since the New Deal. The idea if the government takes on more responsibility, you think that it's lessening your, your burdens, but when in fact, it is just displacing the cost and in fact eroding the civic culture of individualism and private initiative that has made this country great. And so we're seeing it happen in a very controversial way. And it's just, I don't want to say that, you know, immediately the big foundations are stepping in and saying, hey, we'll take care of this if the Trump administration's freezing it in order to get changes at the universities. But it was just a very clear example of how once government actually decides to work against the entitlement mentality, people do step up and take responsibility.
- [27:24]
John Podhoretz
Look, when federal government was very small and, and there were maybe two institutions in The United States that were created by the federal government, outside of government. Right. Like the Post Office, the Library of Congress. Yeah, right. The National Archives and the Post. Okay, so there were no. There was no Smithsonian. There were no. I mean, there was no national museums. There were no national nothing. Right. And so in the course of the late 19th century, when America got very rich, all these institutions were created all across the country, cultural institutions, hospitals, all these mediating institutions created often by very rich people who were looking to burnish their reputations and not look like villains who were stealing everybody else's money. So they tried to provide things for their cities and towns of edifying, of an edifying and elevating nature, which is how every museum in the United States was built, you know, until the sort of early or to mid 20th century. How every hospital was created, how every thing that made civic life in America rich happened, happened because government didn't do it, and government started to do it. And a lot of those impulses, weirdly enough, started to sink in certain ways. And now we have these massive philanthropies. And what are they doing? They're doing politics right there because the government is doing biomedical research there. Now, some of them do mine, but. Right. The Gates foundation does malaria and has done some really wonderful work in a lot of places. So I don't want to. I don't want to, like, over, you know, sort of like, be unfair about this, but the fact is that they've been liberated from this civic task or this idea that what they really wanted was if they lived in some small city. It's like, my city is just as good as New York. You want me to prove it? I'm going to, right here in Kansas City, build the best museum in America. Or in Boston, Isabella Stewart Gardner would put up the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum or Phillips in Washington or whatever. This was all a real thing in America, and there's less and less of it. And, yeah, if the Trump administration compels this philanthropic Ilemosynary sector of our economy to put money behind real things instead of nonsense, politicized things that the grandchildren of the rich guy, you know, with the nose ring and the tattoos, wants them to spend the money on, that would be better for America than otherwise. Okay, so following along that question, by the way, Aaron Kofsky asks it very simply, what is going to happen when America's entitlement programs go bankrupt? Now, that is not an answerable question, but. And it's very big. I'm just going to throw out one thing which is we're on a collision course with one of the solutions to our entitlement spending problems and the policy of the present moment, which is we have an aging population, we're below replacement rate and our, in our birth, in our birth rate, all of that. And we're going to need people to do work as people retire. And yet we are, we have moved in a very significantly anti immigration direction in the United States where people are suspicious of immigration. Don't like it, don't like. Although I think the public kind of likes legal immigration, it clearly is very hostile to illegal immigration, understandably. But you know, the solution to the entitlement problem in part will be to import a workforce that will do the work, earn the money, pay the salaries and pay into, pay the 14% into Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security to keep it going if we don't replace the Americans that we have here already. So I don't know whether what we'll see is a kind of weird shift over time in an understanding which people won't even know is happening that immigration is really a pretty great thing and we really need those immigrants, hard working immigrants to come here and do work and help us build this country for the 22nd century.
- [32:05]
Christine Rosen
I, I don't think that will happen. I think the, I don't think the robots will, will fill that, that role.
- [32:12]
John Podhoretz
And so you think the robots will fill that hole?
- [32:15]
Christine Rosen
Yeah, in terms of labor, I think that's coming down the pike pretty quickly. And I think the politics of immigration aren't going to lead to any mass legal migration anytime soon.
- [32:30]
John Podhoretz
I didn't say anytime soon.
- [32:31]
Christine Rosen
No, I know that. I don't think, I know that. I know that there are certainly certain classes of immigrants that we should prioritize. I think medical professionals in particular and are going to be something that we going to need home health care workers. Right. Especially with our aging population.
- [32:48]
John Podhoretz
But I'm just saying.
- [32:49]
Christine Rosen
But in terms of the actual workforce. Yeah, it's the, we're going to wake up a decade from now and I really do think the robots will be everywhere. But wait, but that doesn't solve entitlements.
- [33:00]
Matthew Continetti
I'll be living that kind of mountain.
- [33:01]
John Podhoretz
That was the question though. The question is yes, so I'm going to say into the tax system, right. To pay for Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
- [33:09]
Christine Rosen
No one. And so we're headed toward a huge financial crisis but the only people who.
- [33:15]
John Podhoretz
Are going to pay for it are us then.
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Christine Rosen
Well, it's going to happen like there's a Whole history of financial crises. Sweden went through one in 1998. Huge clawbacks, huge consolidation. Actually broke the kind of socialist mentality that had governed Sweden for a long time. I thought we saw a glimpse of it a couple of weeks ago after Liberation Day, when you had the situation where the dollar was sliding, the stock market was sliding, and the price of bonds was sliding, that driving yields up. That's, that's what spooked Treasury Secretary Scott Besant enough to actually try to find a moment in the President's schedule when he wouldn't be surrounded by his two pro tariffs guys and say to him, look, if we persist in this policy, we're going to have a financial event, an event where the debt gets so out of control that we really cannot pay it anymore. And so we avoided that. And, but we avoided it for now. And if we don't get the spending either under control or we don't unleash the American economic potential that is right under our feet, and that is with our population, and that is with our entrepreneurial spirit, we're going to face it again, and it's not going to be pretty.
- [34:36]
Abe Greenwald
I have the answer.
- [34:38]
John Podhoretz
Go ahead, have the answer. Oh, good.
- [34:40]
Abe Greenwald
We pay the robots, we take it out of their salary, and then we destroy them so they never have to be on the receiving end of it.
- [34:50]
Matthew Continetti
Okay, I'm on board with this. The A plan.
- [34:52]
John Podhoretz
Yes. Okay, well, let me, let me, then let me, let me move on to Charles Keckler of Northeastern University, who brings up something that is robot related. Okay. So he says, I have the intuition that the major policy debate of the2030s is going to be focused on AI and organized broadly around the question of leaning into full AI deployment or leaning backward to go slow and restrict its scope. His question is, since we are going to have two parties still in this country, which party will be on which side of this debate come 2032 and 2036? Both sides now highlight their populist worker first components, but are also heavily reliant on tech money. Moreover, there's general agreement. We need the productivity gains if we are to stop falling further in our debt hole, as we were just discussing. And we need to maintain techno economic superiority over the Chinese. So will one party be anti AI and one party be pro AI or will there be a new national consensus that develops around AI?
- [35:58]
Christine Rosen
Well, we have a pro AI party and an anti AI party now. I mean, one of the first acts of the Biden of the Trump administration was to revoke the Biden administration's regulations on AI. And of all people, Vice President Vance gave a speech talking to a European audience about the importance of AI in the coming decades and how he thinks that he can keep this populist tech coalition together. Of course he has his eye on the presidency in 2028 as well. So I think we already have difference in the two parties, even though all the composition of the coalition that the listener describes is accurate and it's going to be a question of regulation and we have a party that is more pro regulation and a party that isn't.
- [36:51]
Matthew Continetti
I would add though that it does depend on what sector of society is being targeted with the AI. So if you're talking about national defense and military application, I think there actually should be, I hope, agreement among people on both sides of the aisle about when autonomous weapon use is safe, what the risks and benefits and rewards of that are. Similarly with regard to using some of this AI and I don't know, experimenting on children in classrooms, which a lot of these companies are very eager to do with tutor bots, making all kinds of promises, but not really delivering on questions about privacy, surveillance, some of the things that I think parents will be concerned about in a very tech saturated world where ed tech has had a very mixed success rate for children and also where what, what this will mean for certain kinds of skilled blue collar work. You know, are we going to outsource all that? Because that's the tension in the tech coalition on the right now with the Vance types in the. And the very pro AI tech types, which is some of these will replace, some of these applications will replace human jobs. So what are the human skills that can't be outsourced to AI or that we choose not to outsource to AI? And on that I'm not sure. I do think Matt's right. The Democrats answer is always let's just regulate the heck out of it. But I think there's a fair amount of suspicion on the part of the public still about those questions that there's an opportunity for one of the parties to really engage those ethical questions that so far have been ignored over questions of just regulation and safety to take.
- [38:24]
John Podhoretz
A more spiritual frame. I'm not sure that the techno optimism reflected by the pro AI and I would even say in a weird amalgam pro crypto world that is increasingly dominating the kind of hipster Republican tech sector, I think they're going to come crashing headlong into the deep questions that are raised about AI and humanity and the singularity and the question of what consciousness is, and what it means to be a human being and what it means to have these simulacra of consciousness in the version of, of, of AIs and all of that. And I. And the Republican Party is the party of people of faith and the Democratic Party is the party of radical secularism. And radical secularism fits much, much more comfortably with AI as a, if you're thinking about this civilizationally than, than a party that is a party made up of people of faith. I don't quite know how this plays out. But, but AI is a discomforting phenomenon for people. It will be increasingly a discomforting phenomenon for people of faith, in part because the techno optimists are going to be telling us that there is not much difference between us and AIs because we don't have souls and they don't have souls. And so we're, we're computing machines and they're computing machines. And you know what? They're better computing machines than we are maybe. And so what will it mean to be human any longer? I don't think that people of faith and the leaders, who, theologians and religious leaders are, let's say, are going to take this lying down.
- [40:22]
Christine Rosen
Yeah, I mean, I completely agree with that and with what Christine said. I just happen to think that you can both believe in a God and in the kind of innate exceptional nature of human consciousness and want a self driving car or enjoy the drone delivery which is going to be coming or when the. I mean, if you go online and you go on YouTube and you look at these videos of the humanoid robots that are being created right now in 2025, it is very hard for me to say that in a decade from now they're not going to be popping up everywhere. And I think that can happen. It will raise a whole new suite of questions about philosophy and religion pertaining to the robots who will be driven by AI. But I think you can still see that there's enormous potential there. While holding on to. Yeah, one of us. Unique and special.
- [41:20]
Matthew Continetti
One of the more compelling videos about some of these new humanoid robots actually inadvertently raised just that at the end of it, it shows this humanoid robot doing all these things for the family. And it's, you know, it's in the kitchen, it's in the bedroom reading stories, doing all this stuff. And at the very end, the family sits down to a meal prepared by the robot and the robot goes in another room alone and just sits by itself and it pans out. And the human instinct is, well, that's so mean. After all, the hard why isn't at the table. And then you catch yourself and you realize that's exactly. These are the issues that will be raised because remember, we have people who, you know, people for the Ethical Treatment of Animals will be happy to shift their rights, talk to robots. And then the question of rights and treatment and all of this, I mean, it's, it's fascinating. Also terrifying. But I think Matt's right that, that we, I hope we can all strike a balance. I'm not sure it'll align politically in some of the ways we might predict, though.
- [42:11]
John Podhoretz
Moving from the deep to the, to the simpler, Stuart Cohen brings up something that is of deep importance to me and I'm going to take the other side of it from him. He says, I'm a connoisseur of Jewish delicacies, especially kishka. Kishka is also known as stuffederma. That is, it is a form of derma, of course, is the, I'm sorry to put it this way, the lining of an animal's stomach and, and you fill it with stuffing. It's a kind of stuffing, like turkey stuffing. My grandmother made it at all our holiday gatherings. It was my favorite dish. Why hasn't kishke rightfully been taken up by food lovers in America alongside the lox and bagel or chicken soup as a to die for Jewish delicacy? And the answer is because it is disgusting. That is the answer. Kishka is disgusting.
- [43:04]
Abe Greenwald
That is not the answer.
- [43:06]
John Podhoretz
Okay. You like kishkas?
- [43:08]
Abe Greenwald
I do. The answer is that no organ meat delicacy becomes widely popular.
- [43:17]
John Podhoretz
Well, I don't know. Beef Wellington has chicken liver, right?
- [43:22]
Matthew Continetti
Very Americans.
- [43:23]
John Podhoretz
People used to eat a lot of liver, a lot of liver, very liver.
- [43:27]
Christine Rosen
Used to be big.
- [43:28]
John Podhoretz
It used to be big. Well, now you can't have foie gras in California. Right. It's now illegal in California. Right.
- [43:37]
Christine Rosen
Commies are out of.
- [43:38]
Matthew Continetti
It's more like haggis, where it's like a particular sort of thing that you want in small doses, maybe twice a year.
- [43:45]
John Podhoretz
Yeah. Now there is, by the way, because my sister in law made it at Passover. There is vegetarian kishka. You can, you can have. It's kind of. Anyway, I don't like it.
- [43:55]
Christine Rosen
What about knishes? I've seen fewer of those when I go out.
- [43:58]
John Podhoretz
It's amazing actually. The knish should be. The knish I love, I love them. Should be very popular. You get different kinds. You get your potato, potato knish. You got your spinach knish. It's Essentially a kind of.
- [44:07]
Abe Greenwald
Do you like the flaky or the crusty?
- [44:10]
John Podhoretz
I'm, I'm a, I'm a crustier guy.
- [44:14]
Christine Rosen
I'm crustier.
- [44:15]
John Podhoretz
But yeah, the knish may be the next cupcake, you know. You know, every now.
- [44:21]
Christine Rosen
I mean, isn't it just kind of this slow diminution of Yiddish culture? Right.
- [44:26]
John Podhoretz
Of Yiddishism.
- [44:27]
Christine Rosen
I mean, that's the sad thing about it.
- [44:28]
John Podhoretz
Well, the knish is also like Russian. I mean, there's like Russians ate knishes and, well, pierogies. Right.
- [44:35]
Christine Rosen
If you go into Polish communities, pierogies are still big, but.
- [44:38]
John Podhoretz
Yeah, but, but anyway, I, I, I, Abe and I are in a deep disagreement. I think kishka is disgusting. And so I'm.
- [44:44]
Christine Rosen
Well, so one more. So how do we feel about gefilte fish?
- [44:48]
John Podhoretz
I love gefilte fish, but I understand many people are grossed out.
- [44:53]
Matthew Continetti
It's the shirts, the gelatin, you know, when it comes out of the jar. Maybe it's because I mainly had it out of the jar. Let's. It comes out.
- [45:00]
John Podhoretz
Look, what is, what is Gefelda fish? I'm now going to explain to you.
- [45:04]
Matthew Continetti
What Velveeta of fish. Right. It's all the chopped up bits.
- [45:07]
John Podhoretz
It is fish with sugar in it. That's what it is. It's sugary fish. Yeah, it's the only way when you.
- [45:15]
Christine Rosen
Put it that way, John sounds like it tastes good.
- [45:18]
John Podhoretz
Well, that's what I'm trying to. That's what it is. It's sweet fish. You put a little horseradish on it to take the excessive sweetness away. I understand. I like it, but I really understand that it is gross as hell to a lot of people.
- [45:34]
Christine Rosen
We, for our seder, I love it, we substituted a kind of similar recipe. I should say my wife substituted a similar involving salmon. And it was much more pleasant to my palate, I have to say, than the gefilte fish of other seders.
- [45:53]
John Podhoretz
Okay, again, lighter, lighter in form. Brian Cohan. And this is going to be questions about Washington and New York for the, for the four of us. If someone was visiting your city, what off the beaten path spot would you recommend they visit instead of, or in addition to the Statue of Liberty, the Smithsonian, et cetera? I'm a Los Angeles native, Brian Cohan says and always recommend people visit the Bradbury Building, which is in downtown la, with its beautiful interior architecture, which most people will recognize from Blade Runner. It's where Sanderson's office is and Blade Runner or. And it is an amazing. It's an 1889 building. And the Bradbury Building is one of the most beautiful places in America. So where in New York or Washington off the beaten path, would you. Would you recommend.
- [46:41]
Matthew Continetti
Okay, I have. I have a couple Washington ones, although with the caveat that these are generally nice weather. So spring, early fall, maybe summer, if it's not too muggy, rent a. Rent a kayak or a canoe at either Thompson Boathouse. Or there's another place, you know, a little north of Georgetown, and you can kayak along the Potomac. It's a kind of calm stretch of the Potomac. And go under the Key Bridge. It's really. You can go down by the Kennedy center and up and around in a loop. It's great. It's inexpensive. The National Arboretum, which is up in sort of northeast section of town, has a wonderful bonsai museum. Really extraordinary collection of bonsai. So that's worth seeing. And in my own hood, go to the Dumbarton Gardens, which are open in the spring and summer. And for a sort of decent, not super expensive entry fee, you can just wander these beautifully designed gardens. It's kind of a magical little place in the heart of Washington.
- [47:39]
Christine Rosen
Yeah, I was about to mention Dumbarton Oaks myself. I guess the other one, I'd say in D.C. is visiting. Visit Einstein.
- [47:46]
John Podhoretz
Ah, yeah. That's the National Academy of Science.
- [47:49]
Christine Rosen
Yeah. The Einstein statue.
- [47:51]
John Podhoretz
Outdoor statue, which has weird sound effect qualities. Yeah.
- [47:55]
Christine Rosen
Not far from the Mall. So you can, if you're touring them.
- [47:57]
John Podhoretz
Right near the Vietnam, actually behind the. Behind the.
- [48:01]
Christine Rosen
What's near the Federal Reserve. So it's. If you just. If you're seeing Mr. Lincoln, as of course everyone should, you then kind of go north toward the State Department and you'll come across Einstein. And it's just great to have your photo taken with him.
- [48:14]
John Podhoretz
It's a.
- [48:15]
Christine Rosen
It's an amazing statue.
- [48:16]
John Podhoretz
I have one recommendation in D.C. but it's out by Dulles Airport. It is the Smithsonian's hangar space.
- [48:28]
Matthew Continetti
Melvin Hazy.
- [48:29]
John Podhoretz
Large aircraft.
- [48:31]
Matthew Continetti
Yeah. Udar Hazy. Yeah.
- [48:33]
John Podhoretz
Edgar Hazy. Is that what it's called, the other.
- [48:35]
Christine Rosen
Air and Space Museum?
- [48:35]
John Podhoretz
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [48:36]
Christine Rosen
The Ugarhes.
- [48:37]
John Podhoretz
So basically it is where aircraft are kept that, you know, there are a couple of aircraft inside the Smithsonian, you know. But of course, Smithsonian is a relatively small building and that is one fantastic collection of things, particularly if you have a little boy in tow.
- [48:57]
Christine Rosen
Including a space shuttle.
- [48:58]
Matthew Continetti
Yes. And you can go nearby is one of those indoor skydiving places. So I. We used to hit. When my boys were little, we'd go to that and Then we'd go do indoor skydiving, which is super fun.
- [49:07]
John Podhoretz
So I think it's in. It's in Chantilly, Virginia, I believe, which is about half an hour from downtown Washington, if you're there as a tourist. So it may seem schleppy to do, but it is. That is a pretty great thing. And by the way, there's a version of it, not. It's not a version of it at all. But outside of New York, a little further outside of Manhattan, near Hofstra University, near the Long Island Coliseum, there is something called the History of Aviation Museum that is almost unattended. And little known fact is that Long island, aside from Kitty Hawk. Right. Which is where the Wright brothers took off from Long island, was the place where aviation was created in the United States. And it's where, you know, where Lindbergh took off from and Roosevelt Field, various other places. And so much of early aviation in the United States and in the world was done on Long Island. And they tell the history of aviation at this really wonderful museum. The development of, of most aviation was sort of like kit, kit craft, amateurs, people building planes from scratch and trying to fly them themselves, developing. And then, of course, World War I came along. And then it was determined that this needed to become an industry, and an industry was built up out of it. That's the Museum of Aviation, the History of Aviation Museum in Garden City, Long Island. Again, about an hour outside of New York City. Abe, do you have anything?
- [50:46]
Abe Greenwald
No. This is actually the question I was dreading most.
- [50:50]
John Podhoretz
Really?
- [50:51]
Abe Greenwald
Yeah. Because I don't. In New York, like most New Yorkers, I stick to about a four block radius. That's my beaten path. It's got everything I need. Occasionally I'll venture out of it, but. Yeah. But also, so much has disappeared.
- [51:12]
Christine Rosen
Well, can I say something in New York then, please?
- [51:15]
John Podhoretz
Yeah.
- [51:15]
Christine Rosen
Our sophisticated audience probably is already aware of it, but if you have the time and you're willing to take the bus trip, go to the Cloisters and. And see the wonderful Museum of Medieval Art up in Upper Manhattan.
- [51:31]
John Podhoretz
Yeah, yeah. The Cloisters is a medieval art museum. It's part of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It's built to look like, you know, monastery or something that was built in the, in the 1930s. And it does have the Bayou, has some Bayou tapestry and other remarkable pieces of pieces.
- [51:51]
Abe Greenwald
That's a good recommendation. And by the way, also check out the neighborhood because that, it's. It's.
- [51:55]
John Podhoretz
Yeah. Washington Heights.
- [51:56]
Abe Greenwald
It's kind of a secret to people outside of the city.
- [51:59]
John Podhoretz
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Okay, so I think we'll do one more and then we will thank everybody and we'll, we'll, we'll keep doing this because this, this seems to be fun. And now I'm gonna do, we're gonna do something self reflexive here. James Buchan, the novelist. Not the novelist because probably the novelist of course was a, I think it's John Buchan, but the novel. The novelist who wrote the third. Yeah. Yes. Had a bit of an anti Semitism problem.
- [52:32]
Christine Rosen
Yes.
- [52:32]
John Podhoretz
He wasn't. Yes he did. But anyway, here's, here is the question is asked by over time, how do you avoid falling into the trap of audience capture? It seems like many conservative voices have drifted into extremes over time, possibly due to chasing audience approval. You all seem to have maintained your intellectual integrity. Thank you very much. It's very good. Resisting both MAGA pressures and the reflexive anti Trump stance of outlets like the Bulwark. How do you strike that balance?
- [53:03]
Christine Rosen
Yeah, that's a great question. The answer is I don't pay attention to what readers say. Sorry.
- [53:15]
Matthew Continetti
See I was going to go as.
- [53:16]
John Podhoretz
Long as the check.
- [53:18]
Christine Rosen
I figure I'm doing my job. So. Someone actually recently told me that the commenters on my new columns aren't very positive. And they asked me, don't you read them? And I said no, I don't read any comments. She's like, why? I don't like being told negative feedback.
- [53:40]
John Podhoretz
I don't see.
- [53:43]
Christine Rosen
I think a lot of people get into audience capture because they get the negative feedback and they're like, oh, I'm doing, you know, I'm doing something wrong. I got to, I got to make sure that to, to make sure I get the better reaction. And yes, fortunately 20 some years now I've just, see, I just pay no attention.
- [54:03]
Matthew Continetti
No, no. I think it's something more high flown though. I think we're all natural contrarians but about slightly different things. So when we, when we're all arguing so some of us will dig down on, you know, come at me with your robots. I will fight for humanity. Matt's like, it might be nice to have a self driving car. And on different issues we have contrarian streaks which I think leads to an overall. And because we're a group effort here versus just a singular like Candace Owens type nut job personality, we, that's a check and balance that I think helps. But I, but that would be my, my kind of answer to that question.
- [54:38]
John Podhoretz
Yeah.
- [54:39]
Abe Greenwald
For my part I feel absolutely no pressure to go with the flow to sort of mold my position to Abe.
- [54:49]
Matthew Continetti
Is a classic Gen Xer. That's why.
- [54:51]
Christine Rosen
I don't know.
- [54:51]
Abe Greenwald
Yeah, it just doesn't. I don't. I don't. I don't feel like we're kind of in the wrong business. If what you're looking to do is, you know, like get the hot product, you know, out on the market. It's like kind of sometimes you go to a store and they, when they would they try to sell you something, item of clothing or something, they say, well, these are selling really well, as if that's like an inducement for you to buy it. And I always think, what do I care do I like it or not?
- [55:24]
John Podhoretz
We've all been through the experience, Matt and I in particular, and Christine, we've all been through the experience of the closing of the Weekly Standard, which I started, which Christine was working at, which Matt worked at for what? 12 years. 8.
- [55:40]
Christine Rosen
8 years.
- [55:41]
John Podhoretz
8 years. So the standard was shut down in 2018, I think in large measure because of the question that was raised here about whether or not the audience. But audiences can be different things. Like there's the general audience that's like the Tucker Carlson is getting some form of feedback, as is Candace Owens, as are people like that, that the extremism that they are peddling is something that is pleasing to the ear of the people who are listening to them, and that the number is generating numbers that are frank. It's very troubling to me to know that. But there are two different. There's a kind of mass audience and we're not really playing for a mass audience. And then there's the audience of. There's the game of the problem of the audience of one or the audience of 12 or the audience of 15. So the audience of one, in the case of the Standard, was its owner, Philip Anschutz, or the company that owned the Standard, which got tired of its position, which was anti Trump and they didn't like it, and the corporate pressures against it, and they basically shut it down rather than let it continue. National Review, other publications on the right that were not. That did not simply just jump on the bandwagon had real difficulties and problems with their audience. We did not here at Commentary have that problem. I don't. Can't really define for you why. Part of it is that we never promised that we were a voice of Republicanism. We couldn't. We're a non profit, which the Standard wasn't, which National Review was not. We're a non profit. We can't advocate for candidates. We can't speak for parties. We couldn't ever sell ourselves in our promotional literature as being the voice of the, of the Republican Party. Right. So we, we never, We. We didn't develop an audience that was looking for that. And of course, Commentary has a separate mission, which is. It is an intellectual Jewish monthly publication on the right, which is a very obviously, kind of like an unusual thing, both for the right and for Judy, for. For Jewish audiences and all of that. And then we rely on the generosity of our donors, and our donors seem to feel most of them. We lost some, but got others and seem to feel that this position that we were in, where we were essentially calling balls and strikes, let's say, or we were not jumping off the right and turning left because Trump was so disturbing to us. We remain where we were. And we were simply going to say, this was good, that was bad, this was right, that was wrong. And. And it turned out that there was an audience for that. It's a smaller audience than Tucker's audience. And it's a. And it's a different thing than having the audience of one that the standard, you know, ran into a buzz saw and was. And was murdered as a result. But it turns out that there is a. There is a respectable. There respectable number of people who want to hear from us. And I think Jonah Goldberg puts it best in this sense, which is he said, like, all, all people like us have when we're coming to you is you're knowing that we're trying to tell you the truth as we see it best. Like, I. I don't have anything much else to offer except maybe you like the sound of my voice or, you know, I'm. My friends of mine have sometimes said that their kids fall asleep in the car listening to me talk. Them very. They're babies. So that's. That's very nice to know that I have. I can soothe them in that fashion, but that's all we have is if we're interesting, if we're clever and all of that, but basically that, you know, that we're not. Like, I'm not sitting. Calculating what I'm saying to hit your ear. Like, I'm just calling it as I see it. And what else do you have if this is what you do? That's what Jonas said. It's like, well, if he doesn't just tell the truth as he understands it, what is it that he's marketing to people? And it is a very interesting question because, of course, there are people who are commodities. If you're particularly a TV person or you are trying to sell a substack or something like that, if it is your livelihood, then you have to market it in that way. And this is a different set of circumstances, I think. So thank you everybody for the questions. I'm sorry for the many, many people we did not get to. We are going to try to do this on a regular basis. You can keep sending us questions to podcastometary.org we'll try to get to them when we can. It's very heartening to hear from you and to hear once again to see, not to flatter you guys the way that Tucker flatters his audiences and all that, but the literacy, the high level of the questions that were sent, the, the, the engagement with really sophisticated problems and ideas confronting America and the world. It's heartening to know that we have this community of listeners and readers who are willing to go down this road with us. So we thank you for that and we will be back. Hope you have a wonderful weekend. For Matt, Abe and Christina, I'm John Pot. Horace, keep the candle burning.
- [61:17]
Abe Greenwald
It.