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- [00:01]
Jon Podhoretz
This episode is brought to you by Avid Reader Press. Legendary investor Ray Dalio's new book, How Countries Go the Big Cycle, explains the mechanics behind big debt crises. Larry Summer says Dalio's brilliant, iconoclastic approach is an invaluable resource. And Hank Paulson says it provides a solution to what is the biggest and most certain threat to our prosperity. Read it to understand the greatest economic issue of our time. Available now wherever books are sold.
- [00:34]
Seth Mandel
Hope for the best, expect the worst.
- [00:41]
Jon Podhoretz
Some preach and pain Some die of.
- [00:44]
Seth Mandel
Thirst no way of knowing which way.
- [00:48]
Jon Podhoretz
It'S going Hope for the best, expect the worst. Welcome to the Commentary magazine daily podcast. It is d day, Friday, June 6, 2025. I am Jon Podhoritz, the editor of Commentary magazine. With me as always, executive editor Abe Greenwald. Hi, Abe.
- [01:09]
Christine Rosen
Hi, John.
- [01:11]
Jon Podhoretz
Senior editor Seth Mandel. Hi, Seth.
- [01:14]
Abe Greenwald
Hi, John.
- [01:15]
Jon Podhoretz
Social Commentary columnist Christine Rosen. Hi, Christine.
- [01:18]
Matthew Continetti
Hi, John.
- [01:19]
Jon Podhoretz
And Washington Commentary columnist Matthew Continetti. Hi, Matt.
- [01:22]
Seth Mandel
Hi. Hi, John.
- [01:23]
Jon Podhoretz
I mentioned D Day because of course, 81 years ago, 150,000 troops landed on the beaches of Normandy in the greatest military invasion in world history, with the most startling result of eventually bringing to an end the German domination of Europe and the end of World War II. And this extraordinarily noble moment comes 81 years. We're 81 years later and we are now consumed by rather than the existential threats to the world posed by great evil and incredibly selfless acts of heroism and sacrifice and defense of the west. We have an 80 year old lunatic and a 54 year old ketamine addict screaming at each other in social media. So this is where we have come to now. I texted you, Matt, yesterday and I said this is the end of Western civilization, right? And you said, I'm loving every minute of it. So please, please take it away.
- [02:41]
Seth Mandel
I mean, there's hasn't been a public meltdown like Elon Musk's since, I don't know, the flight attendant who pulled the emergency exit and let loose the ra, you know, the slide and they went down it on the tarmac. Do you remember that? I mean. Oh, I forgot the last one I can remember. And I have to say this is part of a pattern I've been observing since last year's president presidential campaign, where to me Donald Trump comes out as the norm, the more normal person Trump. These scandals in the second term, leaving the whole crypto thing aside for a moment, often come from people who are acting out weirder than Trump. Right. So just to follow the timeline here for a second, Elon Musk, one week ago today, as we're recording this podcast, was in the Oval Office accepting the key to the White House from the President of the United States. Both men having very kind things to say about one another. This was the end of Elon Musk's employment at the White House as a special government employee. He had reached the limit, the statutory limit. His businesses had taken quite a hit, an undeserved hit, in my view. So especially Tesla, because of his support for Donald Trump, his work for Donald Trump in creating the Doge. And he leaves. Everybody's on good terms. The next day, the administration pulled the nomination of NASA administrator, a friend of. Of Musk's named Jared Isaacman, who former astronaut, extremely capable person, also a Democrat. But Isaac man had gone through the committee while. And in between the committee vote and final vote, Musk leaves the White House. There's some grumblings on Capitol Hill and Isaacman's gone. After Isaacman's gone, Musk begins attacking the one big beautiful bill, the major Trump legislation, which will basically codify the MAGA revolution. Immigration, taxes, energy, education. There's a lot in that bill. And as I've been saying, Republicans are not doing a good enough job in talking about what's in the bill. So Musk is continuing these attacks. He's allying with Rand Paul, he's allying with Thomas Massie, America's least favorite Republicans, in saying that this bill does not cut the deficit enough. And then yesterday, while meeting with the German chancellor, a meeting which went pretty well, incidentally, Trump is asked about Elon Musk and says he doesn't know what's happened. He thinks that Musk is upset because the reconciliation bill, the Trump bill, does claw back a lot of the iras energy credits, which would affect.
- [05:46]
Jon Podhoretz
You're referring to the Inflation Reduction Act, I hate calling energy.
- [05:51]
Seth Mandel
Yes, exactly.
- [05:52]
Jon Podhoretz
The Biden bill.
- [05:53]
Seth Mandel
Right.
- [05:53]
Jon Podhoretz
That feat was essentially a green energy.
- [05:55]
Seth Mandel
It was the Green New Deal.
- [05:57]
Jon Podhoretz
It was basically a lot of supports for electric vehicles, which of course is.
- [06:03]
Seth Mandel
Which is Musk's business.
- [06:05]
Jon Podhoretz
Right.
- [06:05]
Seth Mandel
One of Musk's businesses.
- [06:07]
Jon Podhoretz
Right.
- [06:07]
Seth Mandel
So at that point, Musk melts down on Twitter X, which he owns. And we got to the point where he was retweeting calls for Donald Trump's impeachment and removal from office and replacement by J.D. vance. He accused Donald Trump of being mentioned in these Jeffrey Epstein files and said that that reason why these Epstein files haven't been released is because of. Of Donald Trump's mentioned in them. There's no evidence of this assertion. And Musk has made many, many assertions that for which there is no evidence over the course of his time on social media. Trump then responded by saying, we know the best way to cut spending would be to take away Elon's contracts from government. That Elon says, well, I'm just going to decommission the SpaceX dragon, his big rocket. He walked that back. Anyway, it's just a spectacular meltdown and I think a complete and total misjudgment by Elon Musk about what politics is the latest in a series of misjudgments about how American politics works.
- [07:19]
Christine Rosen
But doesn't it point to the much greater poor judgment of Trump to get Musk involved in the White House at all? I mean, I don't see. I mean, you maybe on the sort of tit for tat here, Musk looks worse. But this is all this spectacular, ugly, petty thing because Trump elevated this guy and deputized him. That he, this guy, he never, who never had any business being near matters of the White House and government. I mean, this is sort of like this is what you get when you bring a guy with a chainsaw and who's hopping around on stage, you know, in to do serious things for your administration.
- [08:15]
Matthew Continetti
Well, and as an acceptance of the idea that the tech bros who obviously flattered Trump in this term, but who are always going to be fickle beasts in terms of politics and have their own interests above those of either the nation or the Republican Party, it is an indictment of Trump's judgment there. He was very quick to have all those guys lined up at his inauguration and, and all of their patriotic rhetoric is actually marketing for them, but he bought it. So in that sense, I do agree with Abe. It is also, I think whenever Steve Bannon is applauding something, you probably should be skeptical of it being a good thing. And Bannon is very happy right now seeing Musk out there. Obviously political factions within the White House who wanted to see him removed. And so some of this suggests pretty classic infighting and power struggles within in any administration. It's just that it played out in real time on social media in a way that really has made it the first comic relief of the second Trump term.
- [09:13]
Seth Mandel
I mean, I have to push back here. Musk knew what was in the big beautiful bill. This had been going on for months. He knew exactly what was in it.
- [09:24]
Abe Greenwald
Trump said that in one of his posts. He said, I don't mind that he's doing this. He should have done it a few Months ago.
- [09:30]
Seth Mandel
But what is Donald Trump supposed to do? Say, I'm not. I don't want you as part of my coalition. I mean, here's the world's richest man saying he wants to support this guy after he's almost killed in Butler, Pennsylvania. And Trump's supposed to say, no, I don't want you, because we might have a. We might have a blow up down the road.
- [09:49]
Christine Rosen
No, you could say, I appreciate your support. You want to talk about actually getting involved in the work of cutting, cutting down government departments, that's a different story. I think we should, we got to, you know, tap on the brakes here a little bit, you know. Okay, so you don't say, here, here are the keys to the kingdom. Go for it.
- [10:08]
Seth Mandel
Well, I mean, I don't know if you want to really change government and cut the size of the federal workforce and change the way that the government's information systems operate and maybe look for waste, why not? I mean, I, I don't think this is from example.
- [10:24]
Jon Podhoretz
Here's what, here's my problem with what you're arguing, which is that if you were to empower Mitch Daniels to run Doge, it would have been run better.
- [10:37]
Seth Mandel
I live on. I live on Planet Earth, okay. Where Mitch Daniels is not going to run Doge.
- [10:42]
Jon Podhoretz
Congratulations.
- [10:43]
Seth Mandel
Thank you.
- [10:43]
Jon Podhoretz
DOGE didn't do very well. Now, wait, let me just. Okay, we could. I just want to say that everybody knew that this relationship was going to end in series.
- [10:56]
Matthew Continetti
They're too alike. I mean, as a relationship, they're too similar.
- [10:59]
Jon Podhoretz
So maybe the story here isn't actually about policy and NASA and the conflict between these two explosive personalities and Alphas being in the same dog cage together or whatever. Maybe it is a story about social media, because what made this so staggering yesterday was the speed. It was 45 minutes from Musk's, you know, saying, this Bill is an abomination, and Trump saying, I don't know what's wrong with him, to Musk saying, yes, he should be impeached and removed. To Trump saying, I'm going to cancel all of Elon's contracts with the government. To Elon saying, he's in the Epstein files. And all of this happened in. In the time that it takes to watch an episode of Andor. I mean, it was something that could never have happened before in the course of human history. You would have had a fight like this. You've had fights like this in government forever. But of course, they roll out in a kind of. It's not like the Telephone hour song And Bye Bye Birdie or like she said that he was going out with you, but you're actually, he's actually going, he's taking her to the prom. And now you, you know, you tell him that he like that kind of teenage fight taking place on the world's, you know, in with the world's largest megaphone and the most, the richest man in the world and the most powerful man in the world going at each other's jugulars in an hour's. In the space of an hour is like, I don't know how, how civilization is gonna survive the existence of this kind of insta communication, because everything just explodes instantly.
- [12:57]
Seth Mandel
But I mean, it's a lot of, it's just kayfabe, it's just professional wrestling. And you have two figures who are, who are very well versed and adept at the type of performative politics that dominates America today. The real consequence of this is not the end of Western civilization is that Tesla's stock prices tanked again, illustrating, I think, a misjudgment. I mean, why did, why did Musk step back? One, he was, he was coming up against that limit of the special government employee. He wanted to stay, apparently, even though he, his profile had been reduced, he wanted to stay and he had alienated so many people within the administration that that did not happen. But also he went back to kind of reconnect with his businesses, which are the, you know, which are important companies. How did intervening in this bill, which, you know, siding with the Democrats to stop the bill, help his businesses and then calling for the President's impeachment help his. It doesn't make any sense.
- [14:00]
Jon Podhoretz
Right.
- [14:01]
Seth Mandel
And so this, again, I think it's a huge miscalculation on his part and a reminder that Trump is different than most businessmen who enter politics. Musk is the archetype of the businessman who enters politics, because the businessman who enters politics thinks, I'm going to go into the political system, I'm going to run the United States government like a business. I'm going to cut everybody. I'm going to say we need to cut $2 trillion from the budget and they will be done right, and I'm going to be the Prime Minister of the United States. Functionally, if Trump made a mistake, it was maybe being happy with Musk taking on that role and using that rhetoric for as long as he did. But think about the ways in which Musk has performed politically since the election. One is he wanted Howard Lutnick to be the Treasury Secretary and not Scott Bessant, does that show good political judgment to. He opposed the continuing resolution at the end of last year, again on the basis that it spent too much money, but with no alternative, and he lost that fight. Then he goes into the Wisconsin Supreme Court race. He spends a ton of money thinking that his presence and his funds will, will get this Republican over the finish line. And he was wrong. And now he's going against this bill. He retweeted one post calling for Americans to junk the tax cuts in the bill, not just the tax cuts for the rich, which we've previously debating, debated. And Congress has rejected keeping tax rates low. They've accepted keeping tax rates low for everyone. But this post was saying, get rid of all the tax cuts. Just go snap back, so to speak, to the state of play before the 2017 tax cut in order to raise more revenue for the government. That is a complete nonstarter. Musk is effectively now on the side of the Democratic Party opposing this bill with no real alternative and calling for Donald Trump's impeachment removal. That makes again, to me looks like a terrible misjudgment.
- [16:04]
Jon Podhoretz
Well, I think there you are assuming that there is calculation or judgment going here as opposed to drug. I'm not. No, not.
- [16:12]
Seth Mandel
Okay, fine. Then he's making the wrong decisions.
- [16:15]
Jon Podhoretz
Yeah, right. I mean, he's, I've been making. He is, he seems to be acting, you know, strictly on passion and impulse without, you know, it's like the sort of thing where people go, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. You know, like maybe put a two minute time limit on, you know, when you send out your tweet, write your tweet and then wait 60 seconds to see whether or not you want to hit send because, you know, you could just right there cost yourself $100 million.
- [16:47]
Matthew Continetti
Well, and this is where there are similar temperaments because Trump has behaved this way himself in the their similar temperaments. The thing that Musk lacks, which Trump obviously has something of in this second term, are people around him to do just that. Suzy Wiles, for example. Elon Musk needs a Susie while someone who's going to manage him as much as they manage, you know, what the power moves and economic decisions being made around them. And he does seem to be untethered in that way, in a way that actually it has been useful for Trump to have slightly more discipline in the White House. But then there are, you know, Stephen Miller's wife has been working for Musk. I mean, there's a lot of, there are a lot of Overlapping, you know, sort of interest, interest going on in the, in the West Wing. But it is temperament matters. I mean, I keep, I keep beating this horse, but this is actually why you understand Americans finding it very appealing for someone who argues, as you say, Matt Trump said, I'm going to run the country like a business. People think, well, businessmen are practical. There's a bottom line. Unfortunately, that's not how our system works and that we don't, they don't actually have to have a balance sheet. So I would have, this is a missed opportunity for someone, an outsider like Musk, to come in and talk about our national debt as if it is an existential central threat. Because it is. I mean, it's not D Day now, but we still face great challenges as a nation in terms of getting our fiscal house. And that used to be a Republican message, but it's not for MAGA anymore either.
- [18:07]
Seth Mandel
Well, right, but. And it would be fantastic if Elon Musk said, you know, this bill is wrong. And what, in order to make the bill cut the debt more, we need to tackle entitlements.
- [18:19]
Matthew Continetti
Exactly. Talking about that.
- [18:22]
Seth Mandel
He's not saying that. So what is he saying? What is he saying? We'll just stop it.
- [18:26]
Jon Podhoretz
Right?
- [18:26]
Seth Mandel
We'll just stop it and we'll just not achieve Donald Trump.
- [18:29]
Matthew Continetti
Yeah.
- [18:30]
Jon Podhoretz
Yes, exactly. Yeah, right. Hey, it's John 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 Hide 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 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 commentary. That's shopify.com commentary. Shopify.com commentary hey guys, it's John here and I want to talk to you about Quince. Because quince has become such a part of my daily life that people who know me listen to this podcast, literally come over to my clothing, look at the collar behind my neck to see whether what I am wearing is in fact a quint sweater, a quince lined shirt, a quince polo shirt, and more often than not, in fact it is. That is how committed I am to Quince, which I only got to know because they started advertising on the podcast. I got one free sample shirt that was so great that I started buying more and buying more sweaters and buying more shirts. And so I am very much a walking advertisement for quints. And this is a non walking advertisement for quince, which has all the things you actually want to wear this summer, like organic cotton silk polos, European linen beach shorts, and comfortable pants that work for everything from backyard hangs to nice dinners. And the best part, and this really is the best part, everything with Quince is half the cost of similar brands. By working directly with top artisans and cutting out the middlemen, Quince gives you luxury pieces without the markups. And Quince only works with factories that use safe, ethical and responsible manufacturing practices and premium fabrics and finishes. So stick to the staples that last with elevated essentials from 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 commentary to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com commentary getting to the Trump looks like the sane person and Musk is the insane person, which I think is a proper evaluation of what's happened. Like this morning, Jonathan Karl of ABC tweeted that he spoke to Trump and Trump basically said it sounds like Elon lost his mind a little bit. He wants to talk to me. I'm not sure I want to talk to him. Trump, tonally yesterday when he was speaking about this and even tweeting about this achieved a level of sang froid that I, you know, he was the Mariah Carey meme.
- [22:55]
Matthew Continetti
He's like, I don't really know her.
- [22:58]
Abe Greenwald
That's what told me that the feud was real. And not totally, because at the beginning people were like, I don't know if this is a real feud or if they're just performing or whatever. What told me the feud was real was that Trump was acting unlike the way he acts when he gets into those like, you know, as bats had kayfabe feuds. You know, he really goes all out and you never know if he really means it or not. But he, he seemed to be genuinely supporting, surprised by the turn of events. And so that's what surprised me the most, is that you could see, you could see his surprise. He really didn't understand what had set Musk off in that direction. The other, the other question that you have to ask about Elon Musk is where he goes now, because, you know, he says to Trump, you're president for three and a half more years. I'm going to be around for 40 more years and I've got tons of money and everybody should think about which side they want to come out on in this breakup. But I'm not sure that he hasn't burned a number of bridges, both within, not just the Republican Party, but within MAGA and also with the Democrats. It would make sense for the Democrats to try to court him and, and you know, bring him over and see what he can do for them. But they are in a very stubborn state right now where they are driven by their progressive wing, almost entirely. Progressive wing is the wing that will absolutely not tolerate his appearance in their ranks.
- [24:38]
Jon Podhoretz
Okay, but forget the progressive wing. The one thing that has happened here that might have longer lasting political consequences is if you are live where I live, right around New York and New Jersey. There are primaries right now, gubernatorial primary in New Jersey, mayoral primary in New York and the clearly poll tested, focus group tested message largely as a result, I think of the Wisconsin Supreme Court race that Matt mentioned is Trump and Musk. I will take on Trump and Musk. Musk and Trump. Trump and Musk. Mikey Sherrill Governor gubernatorial candidate in New Jersey Steve Fulop gubernatorial candidate New Jersey Scott Stringer mayoral candidate Every mayoral candidate in the Democratic race in New York City running commercials saying, I will take on Trump and Musk. They think this is a winning message. Musk is less popular than Trump. Musk's numbers have cratered. People in America don't like him and they're, they're trying to use their piggybacking. As Trump's own popularity has risen. According to RCP, Trump's numbers or decision desk HQ, Trump's overall approval numbers have gone up 8 points since March. 8 points.
- [26:05]
Seth Mandel
Basically break even now, right?
- [26:07]
Jon Podhoretz
According to, and he was Underwater by nearly 10 points and he is now close to break even. That's not sort of what you would expect, Right? So what's happening here is that the main Democratic message, which is you can kind of get a twofer. I'll take on Trump, I'll take on Musk, I'm taking on the guy who was the president. I'm taking on the most powerful, you know, businessman in the world. And together they're trying to ruin America. I will not let them do that to my state or my city that that may be denied them now if that, if this feud continues. This is the message of 2025. It's like, it's like in 1995, 96, when the, when the Democrats weaponized Newt Gingrich, made him famous and then made him the tar baby and they used him as a stepping stone to get themselves back or at least get Clinton back into the White House. And if, if this fight continues, if this estrangement goes on, it's not the Democrats are going to court Musk, it's that they're going to lose this weapon that they think is, you know, is a kind of golden, is a golden thing for them at a time of real trouble.
- [27:26]
Seth Mandel
It's a, I mean, it's also absurd to think that the Democrats would be any better at cutting the debt and deficit. I mean, again, it's. The question is always compared to what. I mean, the Democrats don't want to do anything about Medicaid, which is a huge subject of debate here and which is growing and growing into a kind of low rent, universal, universal health care program that is a huge fiscal drain on the government and also a huge drain on the ability of able bodied working age men to enter the workforce. So what is again, this is what I've just been asking over the past several days. What is, what is just what does Musk want now? Mickey Kaus on X points out that maybe the root of it is this NASA appointment. Because when you think about what is Musk's major concern, I'm not saying he's unconcerned about the debt. He has talked about the before. He's also been very concerned about what he calls the woke mind virus. Right. That's something that again, he does not share with the Democratic Party. But what really got him excited at that inaugural speech, it was when Trump said we were going to go to Mars in the new golden age and we would make humanity a You know, extra planetary species. That Trump didn't use those words, but those. Those are Musk's words. That's like Musk's mission in life. And I think he believed that this man Isaacman was the person who could do it. And now we don't have anyone at NASA. And so I thought that was a sharp observation by, by Mickey. The other point I'd want to make is the person who could lose out big is J.D. vance. So J.D. vance, you know, is trying to get Trump's endorsement. He's the incumbent vice president. He would. He's already the front runner, according to polls, for the Republican nomination in 2028. 2028 contest. Will money will be a factor? Money isn't determinative in politics. If it were, Mike, Michael Bloomberg would be entering his, you know, whatever second term as president. But the. The fact is it does have a. Sufficient or. No, it has. It can have a marginal effect. Right? It can be. It can have a marginal effect. And if that is foreclosed for Vance, that he has to. He has to worry about that.
- [30:01]
Jon Podhoretz
Can I read a tweet that Vance put out yesterday that would take, I don't know, the entire Sanhedrin 100 years to interpret fully?
- [30:12]
Seth Mandel
Yes.
- [30:13]
Jon Podhoretz
President Trump has done more than any person in my lifetime to earn the trust of the movement he leads. I'm proud to stand beside him.
- [30:23]
Seth Mandel
Right. Which came last night.
- [30:25]
Jon Podhoretz
Yes.
- [30:25]
Seth Mandel
So hours after the implosion.
- [30:28]
Jon Podhoretz
Right. Which means he was sitting around for five hours crafting this, thinking about what to say. I'm going to read it again because you need to try to figure out what it is he's trying to get at. President Trump has done more than any person in my lifetime to earn the trust of the movement he leads. Okay. Not to earn the trust of the American people. Not to earn the trust.
- [30:51]
Matthew Continetti
And he's not that old, so his lifetime is a fairly short span in political history.
- [30:55]
Jon Podhoretz
Right. What is he trying to say here? I think what he's trying to say is. I don't know what he's trying to say. He's.
- [31:07]
Abe Greenwald
He's trying to say. He's trying to say, I have no idea where things are going to fall.
- [31:13]
Jon Podhoretz
I think he's saying.
- [31:13]
Abe Greenwald
Yes, but I have to say something.
- [31:15]
Seth Mandel
He think he. I think he's saying that the movement, or manga, exists independently of Trump. Right. Trump has earned the trust of the movement in my life. Time in that way is a subtle way of saying that he. Well, I stand with him is an unsubtle way of Saying that he's aligning himself with Trump, which, you know, is a complete. My view. But he's also laying the contact, the groundwork for there to be another leader.
- [31:45]
Matthew Continetti
Of maga when that's the question, is there actually is that movement, can it outlast Trump?
- [31:49]
Christine Rosen
It's a no brainer. I agree that he sides with Trump, but this came after Musk endorsed the tweet saying that Trump should be impeached and Vance should be president. Right. So I think, so we think it's Vance's way of saying, you know, no, no, no, I'm not, I'm not playing that game with, with Elon. Yeah.
- [32:13]
Seth Mandel
Oh, he had.
- [32:14]
Matthew Continetti
Not yet is what he was thinking.
- [32:15]
Jon Podhoretz
He could have just said that.
- [32:17]
Seth Mandel
Right.
- [32:17]
Jon Podhoretz
That's why I am, you know, I'm, I'm very grateful to you, Rabbi Jose the Galilean, for having interpreted this in this fashion. It is, he is saying Donald Trump leads a movement better than anybody leads a movement. And I'm proud to stand. Right. But I guess the movement isn't Trump. But why doesn't he just say, I'm not going to become. He's not gonna be impeached and removed. I'm not gonna become president.
- [32:50]
Seth Mandel
You don't need another party. Which is the poll that Musk has pinned to the top of his Twitter X feed now. Yeah, we need a third party.
- [32:58]
Jon Podhoretz
I mean, he could have just said.
- [33:00]
Seth Mandel
I'm with President Trump.
- [33:01]
Jon Podhoretz
Ridiculous. I'm, you know, thank you. You know, but this also didn't.
- [33:05]
Matthew Continetti
That's why, look, the Democrats only need to win a few seats to take back the house in 2026. All of this, this fracturing on the right, the, the squabbling, the infighting, it can help them. I mean, I know, John, that you're saying in New York, New Jersey, they, they've lost their chief of villain in Musk, but the truth is they're looking at 20, 26. They don't need to do that much to regain the House to cause the, the last few years of the Trump administration to just be constant investigation and constant gridlock. So, and he's already a lame duck. So I think the Democrats might do a version of what they did when, when Musk first came in like a bull in a china shop and just sit back and watch what happens. I mean, they don't have to do anything. These are sort of errors.
- [33:46]
Jon Podhoretz
The big beautiful bill features a $40,000 tax credit, or not, what do you call it? Tax deduction write off on the state and local tax deduction. Right. The SALT deduction, which used to be sort of like total, and then in the 2017 tax bill was reduced to a ceiling of $10,000. And you have at least five members of Congress, Republicans who won in 2022, who have basically said, should this not be in the bill? And they even complained that it's too small, but should it not be in the bill? I'm toast. And there are four of us in New York and there are four of us in California or something like that, and we're dead. Goodbye, House majority. Right. And it's. We have to fight against it. And you. And so Mike Johnson spent a month negotiating over it and he got the number up to 40,000. They pulled, you know, they tush. Pushed the bill across the line to get it through the House. And it's not going to survive the Senate. I do not think that the SALT deduction higher than $10,000 will survive the Senate.
- [35:01]
Seth Mandel
The Senate, certainly not at the level that pass the House.
- [35:04]
Jon Podhoretz
I think the Senate will say what we need to do is, is, is keep the tax cuts exactly as they were in 2017. That's how the country has been governed since 2017. We're just going to try to reaffirm the tax cuts. The. Now, I don't know if it's true that they can't win in 2026 without the salt deduction being better, but they say it and they think it and it could already be over. So that's the funny part here is.
- [35:30]
Seth Mandel
I think, John, just to interrupt you, I mean, there's a difference between maintaining the SALT deduction as is and increasing the duction to the deduction to the level included in the House legislation. The Senate could just again, write, write it down. Right. So instead of the $10,000, say, you know, 2020. Exactly. And that will save money by closing this tax loophole or tax expenditure or tax deduction, but it won't be exactly what was passed in the House. And then, then, of course, the battle will become convincing, the SALT caucus, that this is the best they can do. And I think that's a winnable.
- [36:06]
Jon Podhoretz
Right, right. But they're going to vote in the end, as you've said, Republicans in the House will have no. Cannot tank this bill. They cannot tank the bill when it comes back to them after the Senate. If they take the bill. Taxes go up at the taxes. Massive tax increase at the end of 2025.
- [36:29]
Seth Mandel
You don't finish the wall. This is, this is why everyone. I think the White House is getting better at it. But the Congress needs to get better at it is just saying this is what's in the bill.
- [36:39]
Jon Podhoretz
Yeah.
- [36:39]
Seth Mandel
It's not just that your taxes we're going to the Democrats voted for attack the largest tax increase in history. It's that we have all these new, we have these new HSA stuff, we have this new educational stuff. We have the border wall finished. We have more money for ice. We have changes to immigration law to make that. I mean, all of these things are in the bill. If you don't let it pass.
- [37:01]
Jon Podhoretz
Right.
- [37:01]
Seth Mandel
You get nothing.
- [37:03]
Jon Podhoretz
But I wanted to talk about the other problem of the, of the CEO coming in and saying I could run this like a business. Government spending, unlike private sector spending or private sector budgeting or anything like that, is bizarrely dynamic. By which I mean when government spends money, it has an effect on the, on the larger economy that is not true of a corporation. I mean, obviously it's better if a corporation circulates money in the market. But if the government spend, you know, gives people two bill, you know, $2 trillion in a tax cut, that has a dynamic effect on the economy. It also has an effect on, on how you score the budget of the United States because less money will be coming in. And when the Congressional Budget Office looked at the big beautiful bill because it cannot or it has no way of evaluating what the positive economic effects of the bill will be. This is a long term fight over should the CBO and other people use what's called dynamic scoring to say because we think that the keeping this bill will help the economy grow at 3% and therefore the government will take in way more money than it took in last year. And the net effect of such a bill will be to lower the deficit or lower the debt. But that's not what's going on here. So they looked at the big beautiful bill and they said it's going to cost, what is it, $2 trillion over 10 years to pass it. And that then hands both Thomas Massie and Paul whatever, even, you know, budgetary hawks who might, who might find, you know, I think are responsible people who are looking at a very important thing to say, whoa, whoa, whoa, this is really not that great. But musk comes into government, unlike Mitch Daniels or Rob Portman, these people, you say I'm fantasizing to do this without even the least understanding that you have to take account of this. If you say we're going to cut X or cut Y or cut Z. Because when it comes down to evaluating what the net effects of these cuts Are people in government can say the net effect will be to increase. You're not going to save any money. In fact, it's going to cost you money to cut the size of government because government is one of the two largest. I don't know what it is, where it is in terms of the overall effect on the economy. One of the second or third largest players in the American economy. Okay.
- [39:36]
Seth Mandel
But you know what shows kind of the limits of the CBO model of budget out projection is another study the CBO did this week which is tracking that or projecting the revenues from the Trump tariffs. Because on one hand they said the big beautiful bill, using their, their way of kind of baseline scoring would cost $2.3 trillion over 10 years or add $2.3 trillion to the deficit over 10 years. And then they turned around the next day and they said, well, you know, these Trump tariffs would add $2.8 trillion to the revenue. Which means that if you actually put those two things together, that means the Trump bill would reduce the deficit.
- [40:24]
Jon Podhoretz
Right.
- [40:24]
Seth Mandel
But, but we know that the tariffs would have dynamic effects on the economy and that you are not going to raise that revenue through the tariffs that are, that the CBO projects. Therefore, just as the tariff projections are not a baseline projection from the present, the revenue, the spending projections and revenue projections in the, in the big beautiful bill aren't a straight line projection for the President. Which means that the people should just vote on whether they like the legislation or not.
- [41:00]
Jon Podhoretz
Exactly. I'm just saying that the key thing here is when you come in from business and you know, somebody says we need to cut $100 million from our overall corporate expenses to show Wall street that we mean business about running ourselves more efficiently. You can just do that. Right.
- [41:16]
Seth Mandel
You just a process thing.
- [41:17]
Jon Podhoretz
But in government, cutting that hundred million dollars means that you're also spending $100 million less in the, you know, to employ people. Well, but they don't have to find other jobs or also there are people.
- [41:32]
Seth Mandel
Defending that hundred billion dollars. You have to bargain with them. That's what Musk has a problem with.
- [41:37]
Jon Podhoretz
Right? Yeah.
- [41:38]
Seth Mandel
Other people.
- [41:39]
Jon Podhoretz
Yeah. Right.
- [41:39]
Abe Greenwald
You also, I mean, you have people, yeah. You're going to have, you also have lawsuits and you know, every single, every policy that they put out is going to get within 12 hours a nationwide injunction.
- [41:53]
Jon Podhoretz
Right.
- [41:54]
Abe Greenwald
From Judge Bobo Bobby and you know, some local, you know, district court somewhere. But you have to follow through. The thing about government is that when you cut programs that anybody has a vested interest in you. There's a certain amount of follow through. You have to fight your way to get rid of anything, to make anything permanent, any cut permanent, anything like that. And you have to be willing to really go to the mat for it. And you have to be prepared for those fights. Well, they weren't really interested in. Musk himself was not really interested in the idea that you would have to fight, that somebody could have, could hit back and then you'd have to hit back and there would be this whole, you know, dance in the ring over it. He just thought he could come in, you know, and, and slap people and then leave.
- [42:44]
Matthew Continetti
Well, and to John's earlier point about social media, the political culture, now the American populace is very habituated to short term thinking, short term solution type discussion of all these policies. So the CBO tariff numbers are projected over 10 years to reduce the deficit. 10 years, years seems like forever to most people. And we do, we've, we've become very accustomed to electing politicians who give us the rhetoric of what we want in the short term and nobody wants to do the long term thing. The reason we all fantasize about Mitch Daniels in a non sexual fashion is that he's a long term thinker. And long term thinking always has a portion that says, you know what, there might be some sacrifice. And if you compare that kind of rhetoric, that's, that's the way people talk about these things to how Trump talks about them. Trump's like, yeah, you'll feel pain, you'll have fewer dolls at Christmas. But that's all for the good. There's no, there's no strategy for the long term. And that's actually a real weakness of his communication style.
- [43:40]
Jon Podhoretz
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- [43:42]
Seth Mandel
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Jon Podhoretz
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Seth Mandel
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Jon Podhoretz
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- [43:55]
Seth Mandel
I'm told it's super easy to do@mintmobile.com.
- [43:58]
Jon Podhoretz
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- [44:41]
Seth Mandel
Well, he hasn't been using that line lately, as we've noticed.
- [44:44]
Abe Greenwald
He learned, he goes, Mitch Daniels knew to go for, for something that was deeply unpopular and everybody understood had to be, you know, he checked, he changed the Department of Motor Vehicles in his state and actually got, you know, way reduced wait times and line times by like.
- [45:04]
Matthew Continetti
And it became words or something crazy, right?
- [45:07]
Abe Greenwald
It became a model. And when I heard, early in his term, I heard Glenn Youngkin talk about reforming Virginia's Department of Motor Vehicles and stuff like that. It became, it became a model, but it also became the thing that target, the thing that everyone hates that it is a miserable experience you have. No, but it is like the, you know, it is the Brussels sprouts of, of government. Even though I don't think Brussels sprouts are bad. But you know, it has that reputation. And then if you want to do that, you know, that's, that's the smart play in order to build on that and go in other directions, then you go, all right, well he has an idea of what's making people's day to day lives miserable.
- [45:50]
Jon Podhoretz
And none of that in Doge, right? There was none of that in Doge. And I do think, Christine, you mentioned, you know, the problem is entitlements. We don't deal with entitlements. So the big beautiful bill does one thing in relation to entitlements. So of course that in Biden's term there was this massive increase in Medicaid spending, changing the caps. Medicaid is health care for the poor, raising the income level that you could access Medicaid. And the big beautiful bill brings that down some not to, doesn't cut it.
- [46:34]
Matthew Continetti
From 2021 numbers and stricter adherence to some of the requirements, work requirements.
- [46:40]
Jon Podhoretz
Work requirements and of course anti fraud stuff because verification, verification because this is one of the most defrauded programs in the history of the planet Earth, right? So some effort needs to be made to say people can't get, you know, free health if they can afford it because they're just taking money from other taxpayers. I read in the Bulwark other places, Jonathan Cohn, other healthcare experts. The classic thing that happens when people talk about even restraining the growth of something, not even cutting it, but restraining the growth of it. People, yes People will die, writes Jonathan Cohn.
- [47:25]
Seth Mandel
Millions will die.
- [47:27]
Jon Podhoretz
Millions are going to die because of a program that was put into place two years ago, which would mean that millions of people are alive now that would have been dead in 2023 had it not been for the expansion of Medicaid.
- [47:45]
Seth Mandel
Can I use this.
- [47:46]
Jon Podhoretz
Yeah.
- [47:46]
Seth Mandel
As an opportunity to attack liberals, please. Which we haven't done in 40 minutes. And so I feel the urge that the situational ethics of Trump opponents are always fascinating to watch, because the joy on the left at some of Elon Musk's tweets, the kind of the salivating over Musk's completely baseless accusation that Trump is in the Epstein files, is so abhorrent to me because these are the same people who have been raging for the past two, three years, ever since Musk brought, bought Twitter and turned it into X, that Elon Musk is platforming Nazis, that Elon Musk is saying these things about Reid Hoffman, the founder of LinkedIn. He's saying things about white genocide in South Africa. How dare he? How dare he? He's killed. He's already killed people because Doge clamped down on our foreign aid programs. And yet the second he turns on Trump, the second he starts saying that Trump needs to be impeached and removed and Trump's signature piece of legislation ought to die and that Trump is in the Epstein files, these people are like, yes, Elon Musk, give us more. Where's that, you know, where's that city where you hide all your baby mamas? You know, we want to go there now because you share with our main antagonism.
- [49:22]
Jon Podhoretz
There are many other things.
- [49:23]
Seth Mandel
I close my case. My case.
- [49:26]
Jon Podhoretz
I just want to add, but I want to add, which is that, you know, there are always these accusations that, you know, Trump. Everything is vaporware with Trump, which I agree. And he says he's going to do. Send all this. The, the. I mentioned yesterday, I think that I, you know, lost two hours of my rapidly waning life, you know, as I age. And I have fewer hours left on this, on the, you know, in this.
- [49:55]
Seth Mandel
Veil of tears spent on New York.
- [49:57]
Jon Podhoretz
New York City mayoral debate. Okay, so, you know, the surging progressive candidate in New York City is Zoran Mamdani, who is 30 something years old in the, has a, has a state assembly seat in Albany, has done nothing there. And, you know, as an anti Zionist, which is an interesting position to be in in a city that is 12% Jewish, hard to win ordinarily when you're that oppositional to a Core ethnic blocs, views, okay, whatever. Progressive whites love them. It's got 50% of the white vote. New York City, supposedly, or more so Mamdani's main issue, aside from government run grocery stores in poor neighborhoods, because I didn't know that we lived in, you know, Soviet Russia, but okay, government owned grocery stores in, in poor neighborhoods, is that he is going to freeze rents for people in rent stabilized apartments. I don't want to describe the rent rules in New York and what stable rent stabilized apart apartments are, but he is going to freeze rents. He cannot freeze rents. He has no authority, no power. There is no mayoral. There is no mayoral ability to freeze rents. There's a board that is appointed that helps evaluate what the rent, what, how much rents can be raised or not raised on an annual basis in these apartments. He cannot do it. He has been running millions of dollars of ads saying, I'm gonna freeze your rent. Where's the world of people saying you should be run out of town on a rail. You can't tell the people that you're gonna freeze their rents. What the hell are you doing? You're like straight up lying to 8 million people, you anti Zionist twerp. Like what? And so this is now the other side, which is that there is this weird thing where the post truth world that supposedly Trump has ushered in and is his fault, which I do not believe it is. I think he has benefited from it, but they're doing it just as much, if not worse. I don't think Mandani is going to succeed, but I mean, it's like in an ordinary universe, a guy who is like rising in the polls. Half of that debate would have been about just explain to me for five minutes how you're going to, how you're going to freeze rents when the mayor doesn't have the power to freeze rents. Just lay it out for me, will you? And he could say, well, I have a plan. It's on my website. No, no, no, no, no, Forget the website. People are here to hear. What, what do you have to say? How are you doing? What? What the hell are you talking about?
- [53:01]
Christine Rosen
About.
- [53:01]
Jon Podhoretz
Right, so that's the other side of the progressive thing, which is like we get to say anything. We can go out of progressivism, we can call a Green Energy act that creates gigantic boondoggles, the Inflation Reduction act, even though it's a contributor to inflation and simply a massive increase in government spending. But we'll call it whatever we want to call it, right? And by the way, just let me add as you know, I'm very critical of Trump. What a genius that everyone is now calling it the big beautiful bill. Think about it, it's been two months, it's the big beautiful bill, right? And now you go on TV and it's like Trump's big beautiful bill rather than some npr.
- [53:48]
Seth Mandel
NPR is using it.
- [53:50]
Jon Podhoretz
It's like, and without sort of irony like people would. When he said that the phone call was. Zelensky was perfect. People go, oh yeah, the perfect phone call. But he has in fact dubbed this bill, I believe, the official.
- [54:03]
Seth Mandel
Well, I think the official title of the bill in the House is the Big Beautiful Bill Act.
- [54:08]
Jon Podhoretz
Yeah, right. So it's the bbb.
- [54:10]
Abe Greenwald
We've been joking for years that somebody needs to do that, that Republicans should do that because they, they are the ones who are constantly, you know, Democrats are always able to do things like don't say gay. Say suddenly a bill becomes known as don't say gay. And when you're reading the Associated Press or some like, ostensibly, you know, wire news report on it, it's the don't say gay bill. And this always happens to Republicans. We've been saying for years, right, Just call your bill the awesome bill and see what happens, you know, whatever. And he just gets these like, nap. This is, this is very much in his wheelhouse. But I guess that was the test to see how far a big beautiful name can take it.
- [54:53]
Jon Podhoretz
Can't get you that far. But I mean, people there is. People aren't calling it the 2025 budget bill or the 2025 tax bill or the Medicaid bill. They're calling it the big beautiful bill. They're not calling it the omnibus reconciliation bill or whatever the hell you might want to call it. They're calling it the Big beautiful bill.
- [55:10]
Abe Greenwald
So, by the way, 1, 2, 6.
- [55:14]
Christine Rosen
Yeah, things like that, that kind of branding genius that he has, it gets you far with low information voters because all they hear is that it's a big beautiful bill.
- [55:26]
Jon Podhoretz
Yeah, right. No, but I mean, and as I say, like the act of sort of psychological infiltration that it creates. It's like if you're Marjorie Taylor Greene in Constant. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the, you know, crescent of, of, of. Of the House, inconstant in her affections, supporting, opposing, supporting. But now Musk is against the big beautiful bill. So now she's against the big beautiful bill.
- [55:54]
Seth Mandel
She's against a particular provision, right, which is the ban on state legislation over AI, which is contained in the House measure, which, by the way, I think Elon Musk would support. Support such a ban.
- [56:08]
Jon Podhoretz
Right.
- [56:09]
Seth Mandel
In order to increase text, big tech.
- [56:12]
Matthew Continetti
And AI from any sort of, you know, at the state level for 10 years. It's insane.
- [56:18]
Jon Podhoretz
But the reason I bring her up is only that the people who are opposing the bill on principle, people like Lowe, I mean, even though I. The bill is a monstrosity in many ways, like all these bills always are, and there's going to be stuff in it that we're going to find out later that's in there that is going to make our hair fall out, various provisions that we, you know, are going to be snuck in at the, you know, when the Senate died at the 11th hour, and it's going to have.
- [56:42]
Abe Greenwald
To pass the bill to find out what's in.
- [56:44]
Jon Podhoretz
Exactly. Right. Okay, but, but the point is, it's not like she's sophisticated enough to be able to explain why the big, beautiful bill is neither big nor beautiful. You know, you actually have to be a person with some policy chops to be able to explain principled opposition to something. And, and that's another thing that Trump has in the. As a benefit in sort of the, in the low level, the astonishingly low level of so many people in the House of Representatives, which is that even though they may in principle want to, you know, oppose the growth of government or, you know, increasing the deficit, and they need to attack entitlements and all that, they don't know anything. They don't know any about. They don't know. They know nothing about nothing. They're performers, they're local hacks, they're whatever they are. And so the framing of this really has to happen, you know, Trump framing it this way, to say, just walk around saying, it's a big, beautiful bill and I'll have your back and your voters, I'm not going to attack you as long as you say it's a big, beautiful bill. And, and, and, you know, that's a very successful political gambit, in my view. To forestall and undercut serious questions about.
- [58:06]
Seth Mandel
The nature of the Republican majority in Congress meant that you had to make the bill too big to fail, so you had to have one bill rather than two. That was a fight we had earlier this year between Mike Johnson and several senators. And Mike Johnson, the Speaker of the House, won that fight because he basically convinced the Senate that the only way this could get through the House would be if you made the bill so big and contains so many things that not you, everybody would have an incentive to stick with it, even if they were angry at other parts of the bill. Right. And that's what worked. Now we have to go through the Senate. The challenge there is that the fiscal hawks, of course, Rand Paul, but also Ron Johnson of Wisconsin don't think it goes far enough. And so you have to figure out how you can increase the spending cuts to get it through the Senate knowing that you'll probably lose some moderates. I mean, you'll probably lose Murkowski, you'll probably lose Collins. That's two. That takes you down to 51. You can lose one more Senate Republican. Is that going to be a Senate Republican who thinks that these changes to Medicaid are too brutal? It sounds like actually Trump made a lot of headway with Josh Hawley, who is the person who had been defending Medicaid as is up to now. So maybe it means that you might lose Johnson, Ron Johnson, if he says, at the end of the day, it still doesn't go far enough, that takes you to 50 and you can't lose anybody else. So the nature of the bill, the fact that it is too big to fail, I think will get you to 50 votes plus JD Vance in the Senate. And then we'll go back to the House. At that point, I think that Trump will be able to pull it off the, the finish line. My point is it's not just marketing. It's a, it's a reflection of what it takes to get Trump, Trump's revolution codified into legislation through a very narrow Republican majority in Congress.
- [60:21]
Jon Podhoretz
So there are, Jane, you know, the two faces of Trump to one is this steep learning curve from Trump won. So Paul Ryan, when he was speaker of the House said to Trump, here's what we should do in order to get rid of Obamacare, which you said was your main campaign goal. Pass a bill to end Obamacare with a two year end limit. So it's got to be gone by the end of next year. And we will figure out how to preserve the things that need to be preserved that were part of Obamacare. And Trump, who didn't understand what he was doing, said no, we need to repeal and replace at the same moment. And when finally they cobbled together something like that, John McCain killed it. Now we have this. As Matt, you said, this is sort of in reverse, but it's, but it shows a greater degree of sophistication. You have to have one bill, you have to have one bill to make it too big to fail. As you said, I don't think that that perspective would have been something that Trump would have been able to grasp in 2017 in the same way. Right? He wouldn't.
- [61:42]
Seth Mandel
And it's something that Musk does not grasp now. That's the difference.
- [61:46]
Jon Podhoretz
Right? And that is why. That is why it never works to bring in these outside guys with no experience in government to work the innards of government. It could be or could be Trump and come in and never have had governmental experience, which I don't think was that great either. But Musk is going around, you know, everyone said like a bull in a china shop, he's smashing this and he's doing that and he's doing that. He doesn't understand what he's doing because there are programs that are, you know, you can't just simply cut off because of, you know, like, people are in the middle of getting their malaria shots and after they need a second shot and you're cutting them off and then they're not going to get the second whatever. You can't do it because government is too complicated. And Musk wouldn't hire somebody who had never been, you know, hadn't learned astrophysics to design a rocket. Right. He wouldn't run his business this way. He wouldn't have contempt for the workings of his own business that he showed going around the government like he knew what the hell he was doing. And so Trump is better now, and even though he's playing all these games and all this better now at understanding that there are complexities here that he failed to grasp the first time around. But there's still. MAGA is still there, very much in the mix inside his government. And the story of Jared Isaacman, which they can tell, I think, pretty effectively by saying, you know, honestly, he did get through the Senate, but, you know, maybe it's not that great for our number one, you know, sort of like government efficiency person who is also the number one contractor, private contractor to NASA, which is about to use Space X to fire its, to do its work for it. Maybe they shouldn't be that close. Might not be the best good government thing to have Jared Isaacman as basically Musk's puppet, you know, being moved around a chessboard for the benefit of Space X. Even though I love Space X. Right. That's not. They're not even saying that.
- [64:06]
Matthew Continetti
No, they're saying he gave to Democrats and with his money, and we don't like that. So, I mean, it was purely about who. And that's. Now they can be.
- [64:13]
Jon Podhoretz
Yeah, but now they can say. But of course, that's not why they opposed. Turns out that, you know, there's this one, one guy vetting White House personnel named Sergio Gore, whom. Who. Who got into, like, got into it with Musk. And Musk, again, with this weird lack of judgment, maybe because, as he says, he's on the spectrum and can't read social cues. Didn't understand, you know, you don't want to go around and sort of piss off everybody because they also have tools to use against you. Again, other people in government know that.
- [64:50]
Seth Mandel
Musk fought with Rubio. Right. And that actually led to an elevation of Rubio.
- [64:55]
Jon Podhoretz
Right.
- [64:56]
Seth Mandel
He fought with Besant.
- [64:57]
Jon Podhoretz
Yeah.
- [64:58]
Seth Mandel
That led to an elevation of Besant.
- [65:00]
Jon Podhoretz
Yeah.
- [65:00]
Seth Mandel
And then he wanted to go to the Pentagon and get a special briefing, a classified briefing on China. And someone leaked that to the Wall Street Journal. And Trump, in response, can't. He said, you're not going to get this special classified briefing. He ended up getting a different sort of briefing on China. So he was pushing all along in a way that. That may have been similar to the way he runs his companies. But there's only one president at a time. There's only one president at a time. So even if you want to be the CEO of the US Government, there's only one, and that happens to be Donald Trump.
- [65:40]
Jon Podhoretz
I'm going to make a quick recommendation for the weekend. I don't want to sound pretentious, but. But I happen to be reading about the English Civil war of the 17th century. And at the recommendation of a friend of mine, I've been reading a book called God's England's Fire by Michael Burdick, A history of this unbelievably complicated and endlessly fascinating period. Sectarian. You know, the birth of modern politics in many ways in our time comes from the fight between the sovereign and the Parliament. You know, in the person of Oliver Cromwell, maybe the first modern dictator. In the person of Oliver Cromwell. And a time of almost unprecedented Civil War viciousness. Maybe our civil war got worse simply because the weaponry got more deadly over time, but it's really an extraordinary book, an extraordinary history of this astounding period. So that's God's fury, England's fire, and I recommend it heartily. You can get it on Amazon and. And wherever you get your fine books. So have a wonderful weekend, everybody. We'll be back on Monday. For Abe, Christine, Seth, and Matt, the full house for this unprecedented day of Narishkite, I'm John Pod Horiz. Keep the candle Bur.