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- [00:01]
John Podhoretz
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Seth Mandel
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John Podhoretz
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Seth Mandel
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Seth Mandel
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- [00:27]
John Podhoretz
Hope for the best Some preach and pain Some die of thirst no way of knowing which way it's going Hope for the best, expect the worst. Welcome to the Commentary Magazine daily podcast. Today is Wednesday, February 12, 2025. I'm John but Hortz, the editor of Commentary magazine. With me, as always, Executive Editor A. Greenwald. Hi, Abe.
- [00:57]
Abe Greenwald
Hi, John.
- [00:59]
John Podhoretz
Senior editor Seth Mandel. Hi, Seth.
- [01:01]
Seth Mandel
Hi, John.
- [01:02]
John Podhoretz
And Washington Commentary columnist and American Enterprise Institute Director of Domestic Policy Studies, Matthew Continetti. Hi, Matt.
- [01:09]
Matthew Continetti
Hi, John.
- [01:11]
John Podhoretz
So we are in the totally unprecedented position, as we are constantly in the unprecedented position these days, of Donald Trump being to the right of Bibi Netanyahu on, if you want to call it the right, but being more determined and uncompromising on the issue of the release of hostages from Gaza than is the Israeli prime minister and his Cabinet. Trump saying the other day that all 76 hostages had to be out by Saturday at noon or there would be hell to pay. And the Israeli Cabinet meeting and Netanyahu coming out and saying that's right, nine hostages must be released by Saturday or there will, or there will be hell to pay. Trump said 76, Netanyahu said nine. I'm very much at a loss as to understand what Netanyahu's strategy is here. It is yet an important mark that people recognize as Seth has written about extensively in the magazine in both of his, both of his iterations as, as a writer, as a writer in the early 2000 and tens, and then as he has returned since October 7th, as a very cautious, risk averse person, as a politician, not the, you know, raving lunatic madman that somehow seems to be the caricature of him and that he has gone with the most cautious and prudent possible position he could take here. That kind of splits a baby that I'm not sure anybody really wants to split. And Trump doubled down on it yesterday in this White House meeting with Elon Musk and his son on his shoulders and Stephen Miller standing over Musk's right shoulder and double down on his idea of being of America taking Gaza, which he said we wouldn't pay for but we would cherish and Clasp to our bosom.
- [03:23]
Matthew Continetti
That was, that was after his meeting with the.
- [03:25]
John Podhoretz
Oh, I'm sorry, that's right, that's right. I'm mixing.
- [03:28]
Matthew Continetti
There's a lot of meetings.
- [03:29]
John Podhoretz
A lot of meetings.
- [03:30]
Matthew Continetti
A lot happening.
- [03:31]
John Podhoretz
A lot of meetings.
- [03:32]
Matthew Continetti
Most of it is televised and also easy to confuse.
- [03:35]
John Podhoretz
We're also not going to know, it turns out a lot of what's going on because they're not going to release the logs, visitor logs from the White House they announced yesterday and a lot of people are going in and out of there. From what we hear, the Oval Office is like a day, is like an all day party. It's like the patio on Mar a Lago, only inside and not as large.
- [04:02]
Seth Mandel
That's right. We used to have, after the, after Yom Kippur, after the fast, my grandparents used to have a big break fast and you know, over 100 people would come and go throughout the night, but they had one of those houses where the room just sort of all opened up into each other. That's what the Oval Office is like. It's like not everybody shows up at once, but through the course of an evening there might be a hundred people going in and out there.
- [04:27]
John Podhoretz
Yeah, I mean, I heard last week, I heard last week about a meeting attended by a CEO of some. And he was sort of there and then like Mark Zuckerberg walked in, somebody else walked in, then somebody else walked out, then Musk came in and then Susie Wilds came in, then she came out sort of, these meetings are kind of rolling into each other. He's having conversations with three people on three different topics in the same kind of 25 square feet. So, yes, a lot was going on yesterday. And oh, that's the other thing, of course, is that he got the King of Jordan to agree to take 2,000 children from Gaza, which is interesting because he said thank you very, that's really lovely and it's a really nice gesture you're making. And he kind of took it as an opening for more. And obviously Abdullah doesn't mean it as an opening for more. He means it to be the whole enchilada that will take 2,000 kids.
- [05:29]
Abe Greenwald
Yeah. You know, I just want to say a lot of people have described that meeting as awkward. And I actually had the opposite feeling, at least in watching Trump. I was, was sort of stunned that he hadn't augmented this plan at all with Abdullah sitting right there. You know, he was full steam ahead on, on, on this giant, ambitious, unlikely plan to relocate the, the entire population of Gaza. And and build it up. I mean he was, he was not at all deterred by anything that he has heard or any of the press or anything.
- [06:09]
Matthew Continetti
Can we just point out that as of today, Wednesday, February 12, Trump's plan remains the only plan for post war gossip. It is absurd for the King of Jordan and for the Egyptians to say that the two state solution will be implemented at the end of the conflict between Israel and Hamas. Not going to happen. No one's going to do that. The idea that the Israelis and the Americans under Donald Trump would engage in this conflict with this psychopathic mass murder genocidal organization and then spend billions of dollars to rebuild the Gaza Strip so that that organization can then go back to its business of murder isn't self psychopathic. And so I'm waiting, I'm waiting for someone to say, okay, President Trump, that's an interesting idea. Moving the Gazans out and having the United States basically own the Gaza Strip, slash Riviera casino beach properties. Why don't we do this? Why doesn't Egypt take over half of the strip and then Jordan will take over the other half? Why won't the Saudis say, well you know what, we can take some Gazans in and then maybe we'll spread them around the different populations. No one says anything. So until someone comes up with another idea, I'm sticking with Trump's because clearly the two state solution is dead and diseased and there's no other alternative.
- [07:49]
John Podhoretz
That goes to Abe's point, which is Trump wasn't, it wasn't, didn't feel awkward. It only felt awkward if for some reason you were in some kind of bizarre sympathy with King Abdullah being put on the spot. I don't know why we should feel any sympathy for King Abdullah being, being put in the position of being a neighbor, part of the, you know, part of the pan Arab world and a country that is itself 70% Palestinian. Why his comfort in the Oval Office and the potential confrontation with Trump should be a matter of any moment to any American. Trump is clearly comfortable with his plan. We can discuss whether or not that is rational. I would say he's probably hearing from a lot of people. He is not sitting around watching MSNBC or reading op eds critical of this idea. He's probably got a lot of people coming in going, you know, it really is true. Massive population transfers take place in the wake of wars, took place after World War II. How many millions of Germans were moved out of, you know, the Sudetenland and various other places and returned to Germany after World War II, maybe.
- [09:03]
Matthew Continetti
Ask the Kuwaitis who kicked out all their Palestinians after the Gulf War. So it's just happened to the Palestinians in recent times.
- [09:12]
John Podhoretz
Right? So, so that's one thing. And then, of course, that, that then extends even more profoundly to President Sisi of Egypt, who literally, you know, basically that that refugee problem or the emptying out of Gaza could be solved literally in two days by him opening the gates, you know, and letting people through. You know, that is, that is a. That is not an irrational and unrealistic idea. Egypt is a very large country with a very large population, largest population in the Middle east could absorb this population of Gazans quite easily. And also, by the way, quite remotely.
- [09:59]
Seth Mandel
We would make sure that they absorb. That's the other thing here is that whenever Trump proposes a plan, he proposes throw drowning people in money, right? I mean, his 2020 peace plan was like, here are going to be the borders and we're going to give you $50 billion for development and stuff like that.
- [10:18]
John Podhoretz
And he's got a savings right there from usaid, just kind of move it from the USAID transgender comic books on the condoms.
- [10:26]
Seth Mandel
Egypt agreed to what Trump wants. It will be cost free for them, is my point. You know, in other words, it'll be much easier than it looks for people to comply with this plan because Trump will make it so. But I stake here is that they are, you know, Trump is hearing from people. Well, you know, it turns out that this happened and this happened and whatever, and he's not hearing, as Matt said from the other side, any sort of real engagement with it. And as I wrote last night on the blog, the. The Mahmoud Abbas just suggested that he's ready to go back to the table to discuss the Trump 2020 peace plan. Right. How receptive do we think Trump is going to be to go back to 2020? Right. The thing that Mahmoud Abbas realized is that in 2000 and then again in 2008, every time the Palestinians walked away from an offer, from a deal on the table without making a counteroffer, the subsequent offers for a while got better. Right. It was ludicrous, but they would just be like, you know, Clinton offered all this, and then Olmert came to him and said, all right, well, you can have this too.
- [11:40]
John Podhoretz
Yeah, that's Ehud Elmert, who was the prime minister of Israel for three years. And after Eric Sharon had a stroke from 2005 to roughly 2009 or 2008, anyway, he had a. Yeah. After rejecting peace, Olmert then sort of said, okay, Here's a really nice deal. Now, I want to bring something up because it is something that Trump won't read. There are two op EDS in the New York Times this morning, one by our own contributing editor and friend Brett Stevens, that says Hamas must be destroyed. Here are three practical ways in which Gaza can be ruled, including some elements of the Trump plan. Then there's Thomas Friedman. Now, in 2002. In September of 2002, Thomas Friedman, with great fanfare, wrote a column proposing a peace plan for the Middle east in the wake of 9, 11. And he said the Saudis can recover their reputations if they would lead a peace plan in which, in exchange for Israel returning to the 1967 borders and setting up capital for the Palestinians in East Jerusalem and giving the Palestinians candy, and some cotton candy and, and a balloon while the Palestinians were engaged in the second tifa, murdering hundreds of Israelis a month, that this, this was the way to go. And he then traveled to Saudi Arabia and saw the crown prince, now the infirm king, who said, I can't believe it. It's as though you read the speech that is in my desk. I have written just exactly this plan in a speech. I am thunderstruck. I can't show you the speech, but this is what I am about to propose. And supposedly he was going to propose it on, I don't know, was September 20, 2002, and two days before that, Palestinian terrorists blew up the Ben Yehuda Mall in Jerusalem, both at the top and at the bottom. It's a pedestrian mall of about four blocks on a hill. And there was this very savage, very cleverly staged terrorist attack where, you know, the ambulances show up, and then the second bomb goes off to blow up the ambulances. And then as the second bomb is going off, another bomb goes off elsewhere on the Ben Yehuda Mall. And as Wikipedia gently says, the proposal of the king was somewhat overshadowed by the terrorist event in Israel. Okay, I'm bringing this up because Thomas Friedman has a column today. This is Thomas Friedman's brilliant plan, which is that Israel should accept indefensible borders and give the Palestinians and the Saudis prizes for what was going on in the streets of Israel during the second intifada after they had essentially agreed to that peace deal, the Clinton peace deal that Seth mentions. I can say with confidence, writes Friedman, that Trump's proposal is the single most idiotic and dangerous Middle east peace initiative ever put out by an American president. Still, I'm not sure what is more frightening. Trump's Gaza proposal Which seems to change by the day, or the speed with which his aides and cabinet members nodded their approval to the idea like a collection of bobble headed dolls.
- [15:13]
Matthew Continetti
It's great.
- [15:14]
John Podhoretz
Who's. Who's the. Who's who had the idiotic peace plan again 22 years ago, 23 years ago. Who was that? Was that Trump or was that Thomas Friedman? Has Thomas Friedman done nothing?
- [15:29]
Matthew Continetti
Thomas Friedman has an idiotic peace plan right now.
- [15:31]
John Podhoretz
Yes.
- [15:32]
Matthew Continetti
Called the two state solution.
- [15:33]
John Podhoretz
Yes, that's. Yeah.
- [15:35]
Matthew Continetti
And if Kamala Harris were president right now, she'd be pursuing that and we'd have fewer. I don't know if we'd have any of the hostages who were released since January be released and Iran would still be making mischief and the Houthis would still be causing trouble. I mean, it's. So why are we listening to him?
- [15:56]
John Podhoretz
We're not. And Trump isn't. I mean, again, Trump. The interesting aspect of the White House bubble is that of course, we live in this atmosphere of constant outrage and rage at everything that Trump is doing. And Trump is meanwhile in a state of complete Tasmanian Devil frenzy. Issuing, having meetings, issuing. He's not reading. He's not, I mean, he's very conscious of what the press says about him, but he's got a 53% approval rating. People are telling him that what he's doing is fantastic. He's not paying attention to people. Not like liking Elon Musk. He says Musk is doing great. Right. The poll is not in the, the.
- [16:40]
Seth Mandel
Poll the other day had his approval rating high. Also said that like 70% of, of the public agreed with the statement that he was doing what he campaigned on. That was the key that they.
- [16:50]
John Podhoretz
Right. So all of the, all of the stuff that we are dealing with as sort of outside thinkers and watchers and critics and all of that is this conversation in which the administration is not really participating except in the largest brush, which is to say they're like, yeah, you, but empty Gaza and we're going to rebuild it. How about them apples? You know? And then Trump's like, yeah, I love this, I'm going for it. Tell me why I shouldn't. As Matt says. And no one is saying why he shouldn't. It's just like, you can't do that. And Trump would say, I suppose, well, you told me I couldn't come down the escalator and become president either.
- [17:30]
Abe Greenwald
I mean, the one.
- [17:31]
John Podhoretz
Why am I listening to you?
- [17:32]
Abe Greenwald
The question he dodges, but I think there's a good answer for it. But the question he sort of dodges, came up yesterday is, well, why do you think the Palestinians want to leave? And he does. He says, well, because we're going to. You don't understand the, the beauty and the majesty of what we're going to build for them elsewhere. And the medical care and the this and that. Yeah, but why do you think they don't want to leave? You know, that's, that's the, that's the joke.
- [18:01]
John Podhoretz
I mean, there's, there's a horrible confusion here. And we're closing our March issue. There was a remarkable piece in it by, by Elliot Abrams called Gaza shall be Forsaken, which is a line from the prophet Zephaniah. And, and he, he makes the point that Gaza is a forsaken land, period. It is of it. It is not that. It is not a Palestinian nationalist home. It is where Palestinians went in 1948 during the war of Independence. It was a place they landed as they were fleeing various places and then got stuck there. And a refugee camp was open for them. And 70, almost 80 years later, that refugee camp is still there. It is called the Gaza Strip. And we have these fourth generation refugees. It is not a national homeland for the Palestinian people. They don't want to treat it.
- [19:02]
Matthew Continetti
I think this is important because I've heard several times in the media and in conversations with liberal dodos that Gaza is, that's sovereign territory. That's Palestinian sovereign territory. And I would just like to point out. No, it's not. It was part of the Palestinian Authority. But then after the elections in 2007, Hamas stole power, murdered everyone who opposed it, and it spent the last 15 years building a terror tunnel network in order to kill as many Jews as possible. And now, despite this conflict that's been going on since October 7, 2023, they still hold hostages. They still hold Americans in those tunnels. The Palestinians in Gaza still support Hamas. And I'm supposed to come out at the other end of this conflict and say, you're right, that's sovereign territory, we should rebuild it, and then we should let the Palestinians there determine who their leaders would be. Again, that's insane.
- [20:17]
John Podhoretz
Okay, I got to talk to once again about Quince. So Quints, as you may know, is the go to for luxury essentials at affordable prices. When Quint started to advertise on our podcast, they let me get one item for free. I got a sweater that was so glorious that I have in the months since purchased seven more several shirts, and I just purchased a down puffer jacket from them. So As I talk to you about Quince, just you should know that I have become a rabid Quince fan and a enthusiastic Quints customer. Because who doesn't love the good things in life? I mean, I like a little luxury, but I have three kids in private schools in college and it doesn't mean that I can always afford luxury. And that's one of the many reasons that I love Quince, which offers a range of high quality items at prices within reach, like 100% Mongolian cashmere sweaters from 50 bucks washable silk tops and dresses, organic cotton sweaters and 14 karat gold jewelry. The best part, all Quint's Items are priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands. By partnering directly with top factories, Quince cuts out the cost of the middleman and passes the savings on to us. And Quince only works with factories that use safe, ethical and responsible manufacturing practices and premium fabrics and finishes. So give yourself the luxury you deserve with quints. Go to quints.com commentary for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's quincy.com commentary to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quints.com commentary have you ever spotted McDonald's hot crispy fries right as they're being scooped into the carton? And time just stands still. Legally, internationally, it is not sovereign, it's not territory. It is a very peculiar legal construct. Israel took it in a war. The world did not recognize Israel's sovereignty over it in the form of UN resolutions. Israel had it left it self administered to some degree and also administered it and you know, gave aid and the Egyptians gave it whatever. And then Ariel Sharon said we're done, we're done with this. This is, this is, we shouldn't have gone in. In fact, as I've mentioned before, in 1967 during the Six Day War when the fastest route to cutting off and killing the Egyptian army was for Israel to go through Gaza, there was a fight within the war cabinet about whether to do it because it meant if they were successful that Israel would then occupy Gaza. And nobody wanted to occupy Gaza because there was nothing there.
- [23:37]
Seth Mandel
We should point out also real quick, just. But what happened before that? There was no Palestinian sovereignty before that, before Israel went into Gaza before. Right, it was, there was the British Mandate of Palestine that was under British authority and then the Arab countries rejected the partition and there was a Jewish state founded and Arab countries launched a war on Israel and Egypt took some area and Jordan took control of other area. There was no point at which it had been made Palestinian, whatever it means to be Palestinian sovereignty. It never started that way.
- [24:17]
John Podhoretz
There was no Palestinian sovereignty. There was an Armistice in 1949. Armistice lines were drawn. When the armistice lines were drawn and the war ended, Egypt had control of Gaza and Jordan had control of the east bank, of the west bank, excuse me, and the east bank of the Jordan river and half of Jerusalem. And it was in 1967 that Israel took the entirety of the west bank and ended up with Gaza, which it didn't want because that was tactically what they needed to do in order to win the war as quickly and as brilliantly as they did. And then when the war was over, they said to Egypt, okay, you can have Gaza back now. And Egypt was like, we don't want Gaza. We're not taking Gaza back. Thanks very much. The three no's, no state, no negotiation, no nothing. And Gaza has been in this nether region ever since. Egypt didn't have the right to Gaza. The partition plan that you're talking about of 1947, which is the only sort of legal document granting anybody any kind of international law standing would have given the Palestinians Gaza, they didn't. They rejected it. The Arab states rejected it. It sat there for these years in this totally indeterminate state. And Israel just said, we're washing our hands of it. You deal with it. We're done. We're not. We're going to make it Juden Rhine. We're pulling all the Jews out who live there and their settlements, and we're not going to have any troops there. And good luck to you because this is too costly for us to administer. You hate us, we hate you. We don't. This settlement plan we have there is stupid. It takes too many Israeli soldiers to protect too few Jewish citizens, settlers in Gaza. That's not fair. It's not fair to the soldiers, families. We're pulling out. And this is what they've done with it. There it is now is what the Palestinians have done with their right over Gaza, which is not, as I said, is only granted sort of solely, unilaterally by an Israeli pullout from territory they occupied in a war.
- [26:29]
Matthew Continetti
I have one other one.
- [26:30]
Seth Mandel
Quickly, just the stat that people should keep in mind is that Jordan renounced its claim to the West bank in 1988.
- [26:37]
John Podhoretz
Right?
- [26:38]
Seth Mandel
So until 1988, there was a question as to whether Jordan was going to, you know, still have claim over that land. That's how recent it's been.
- [26:48]
Matthew Continetti
I have one other complaint today. This is my complaint day. My other complaint is that I'm reading in the New York Times about the meeting between the President and the king and they go into the status of the ceasefire agreement and they mention that Hamas, after the outrage at the condition of the hostages Hamas released last Saturday, decided to indefinitely pause any hostage release. And that's what set up this dynamic we spoke about at the top of the show where Trump demanded that all the hostages be released by noon Saturday. And Bibi comes out and says, I guess nine hostages. But in the COVID in the coverage in the New York Times, they follow this description of events with, you know, the really damaging information that Israel has yet to provide the Hamas with some tents that they promised. So I guess that that's the equivalent of torturing and starving human beings that you illegally kidnapped and held in prison for months. But, you know, where are my tents? The moral equivalence and complete lack of proportion in the way that people are dealing with this conflict as we reach another impasse is, you know, really getting under my skin.
- [28:25]
John Podhoretz
Yeah, I mean, the headline on the.
- [28:26]
Seth Mandel
New York Times, I can tell them where they can get tents, by the way.
- [28:30]
John Podhoretz
Yeah, there's a tent shortage because of the encampment. Coleman pop up tents. Really nice. They cost about 250 bucks. I have one, you know, I mean, we get right off the shelf. But, you know, it's hard to. Hard to.
- [28:45]
Matthew Continetti
Maybe you should have thought about the tents before you attacked Israel and started the war that had led to all the buildings being demolished.
- [28:52]
John Podhoretz
Let's rewind the clock a little bit.
- [28:55]
Matthew Continetti
And think through this a little.
- [28:56]
John Podhoretz
Let us talk about the headline on the New York Times website right now. Middle east in this section called Middle east tensions. Gaza ceasefire imperiled as Netanyahu threatens to resume quote, intense fighting, unquote. Not. Gaza ceasefire imperiled as Hamas. As Hamas suspends hostage transfer. It's because Bibi is threatening to resume intense fighting. And as we said, I said at the top of the show, Bibi is taking a relatively passive position here. He is not the one who was threatening to unleash hell. He is saying we'll have intense fighting if we don't get nine hostages back. The, the, the unleash hell for set or 76 hostages or unleash hell is Trump's rhetoric, not Israel's rhetoric. But you know, what difference does it make? Abe? You. What do I mean? Tom Friedman, you know, we, we must take him seriously because as we know, I, there's a real problem, I think, with Tom Friedman now because he's lost used to Go and talk to the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia and all that. And Abe, you noted that, you know, his, really, his greatest sources are now being denied to him by technological change.
- [30:17]
Abe Greenwald
He always, you know, he always got the feel of what was going on on the ground and among the people by talking to the cab drivers, as he never failed to mention in his columns. And then I noted, I noticed a few weeks ago that he said when he goes to, I think LA or San Francisco or something, he always takes the robot cabs now. So as Seth said, he's still talking, but, you know, to no one. Yeah, but to know which is, which is what he's doing in his column, you know.
- [30:48]
John Podhoretz
Yeah. So, you know, now we don't even have the man on the invaluable guidance of the man on the street that made Thomas Friedman's column so uniquely sensible and grounded.
- [31:04]
Abe Greenwald
The headline you talk about, about the ceasefire imperiled because of Bibi. In a sense, Bibi and Trump are on the same page in that neither one is listening to the Western press, to that source of criticism anymore. I mean, you know, Bibi stopped a while ago, you know, once, once the, once it was clear that the Biden administration was, you know, tying his one arm behind his back. And Trump's in the same camp, you know, so there. So who are they? Who are they yelling at? They're, they're, they're, they're, they're just riling up their readership.
- [31:45]
John Podhoretz
Well, you know, they're protesting and it's like a protest that I want to point out, very big. A big story night released by the Washington Post now for doing, suppress criticism. Even though I wrote this piece about how the media don't matter anymore. And you're, you're basically saying the media don't matter. And they don't in the sense that I don't think they are affecting Trump's view of how to proceed. One wit, in a way that he was very obviously Democrats. Right. It does affect Democrats, and that's important. I don't mean to belittle that at all, but a story by Paul Lamoth in the Washington Post that revealed that Pete, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth in, in Germany, among other things, doing, going out and, and sort of doing daily exercises with the troops. The first, probably the first Defense secretary ever to do such a thing.
- [32:39]
Matthew Continetti
Can I preface your.
- [32:40]
John Podhoretz
Your.
- [32:41]
Matthew Continetti
Before you tell the story, I wanted, I want to preface it just by saying how I reached the story that you can then tell. And that's because in my preparation for the show, I'm reading the newsletters and one of the newsletters is Playbook, which is now written by this British journalist who is, I don't, I'm not sure he, he's been to America before, but he's very into reminding his readers that he is British. He says, well, you know, Pete Hegseth is now going to the Munich security conference this weekend. I hope he gets a better reception than he did at the base in West Germany. And I said to myself, well, that's a little bit odd. I saw these great photos of him, you know, working out with the Green Berets in the morning, and it seemed like everybody was having a good time. What could they be talking about? So I clicked the link and I was then brought to the story that you are about to tell.
- [33:41]
John Podhoretz
So there is a. The Defense Department runs schools all over the world where there are large, large, you know, large deployments of Americans who might have their families with them. And Stuttgart, Germany is one of the places that the Defense Department has schools. And one school is called Patch, the Patch Middle School. And we are informed by Dan Lamoth that dozens of American students at a US Military installation in Germany walked out of their middle school on Tuesday as part of protests aimed at an official visit by DEF Secretary Pete Hegseth, underscoring the scope of delusionment with the Trump administration's crackdown on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. How do we know that it's about the disillusion with that? Because Lamoth interviewed the leader of the protest, a 12 year old girl and her mother, who remain anonymous for fear of retaliation by fans of Trump. Now, I then did a little work, if I could just say the story says that the Defense Department of Defense Education Activity, which is the name for the governing body of its Schools, oversees about 67,000 students worldwide. But it doesn't say how many students are at the Patch School. So I had to go and hunt down the number of students at the Patch school, which it turns out 682. So let's say dozens of students. Lamoth kindly does not tell us whether that's two dozen or three dozen, but let's assume. Or 13, let's. Okay, so I'm gonna, I'm gonna say it's 24. Okay, that's generous. Two dozen. Okay, that's. There are 682 students at the Patch Middle School in Stuttgart, Germany.
- [35:31]
Matthew Continetti
Right.
- [35:32]
John Podhoretz
Or 2%. The walkout of 12 year olds because they don't like the suspension of DEI was 2%. This is a major story.
- [35:43]
Matthew Continetti
The high school walkouts are ridiculous enough and in some cases objectively anti Semitic when they occurred during the opening stages of the war in Gaza. But if you have to trumpet a middle school walkout, you're really reaching.
- [36:04]
John Podhoretz
I'm sorry. Yeah. And it is, I think, one of these moments when you're like, okay, look, it's very obvious. No one is getting a break. No one in the mainstream media is going to do anything but look for junk trash stories if they can. They don't have good ones. They're going to go for junk trash stories, character assassinating people in the Trump administration to the extent that they can. And, you know, I don't know for a fact. I am now going to state my opinion that I am sure is absolutely true, knowing having spent many decades working around newsrooms, that the reason that Mr. Lamoth knows about this story is that he knows the mother or an editor at the Washington Post knows the mother, and that the mother called to say, my daughter did a walkout. Do you think this is a good story? And he's like, oh, that's so good. Give me all the details. I'll keep you. You know, don't worry, I won't put your name in the paper. Otherwise, how would they know? 20, 24 kids walk out of a. 6, 6. No one's going to issue a press release at the base, right? No, in Stuttgart. And as Matt says, like, Hegseth had a kind of PR triumph. He had this morning. There's this amazing picture of him sort of like, fit, doing this exercise. And there are these, like, two giant bruisers.
- [37:31]
Matthew Continetti
Berets. Green Berets.
- [37:32]
John Podhoretz
Green Berets. But I mean, they look like Hulks. Jaws. Yeah, the Hulk. Like a combination of Jaws from the James Bond movies.
- [37:40]
Seth Mandel
And the Hulk looks like AI.
- [37:43]
John Podhoretz
Really? And so. And so this is like. That's pretty cool.
- [37:47]
Matthew Continetti
Like, bad day, according to Politico. Yeah, horrible day. Horrible Day because 12 kids walked out of a middle school protesting in favor of DEI in the military. By the way, this is what Trump has done. It's fascinating. His opponents are defending trans people in women's sports and bathrooms. DEI in the military, the bureaucracy, usaid. It's incredible. What is the Democratic Party standing for now that actually has, I don't know, more than 35% support among the American public? I can't think of a single thing.
- [38:28]
Abe Greenwald
Yeah, so the middle school walkout in Germany is. Germany is the state of the resistance. That's the resistance.
- [38:41]
John Podhoretz
Now, it is. It is literally the juice box. Mafia. I mean, I know juice boxes are really for younger kids, but let's face it, who doesn't like a good juice box? They're great for 12 year olds. Also, they don't spill.
- [38:55]
Matthew Continetti
It's the episcopalian bishop and 13 middle schoolers.
- [39:02]
John Podhoretz
And I mean, the funny part is of course, of course there's resistance. Of course, tens of millions, if not 100 million Americans are. Look, he has a 53% approval rating. He has a 47% disapproval rating. That's a lot of people. I just don't think that what they're disapproving is what the press wants you to think that they're disapproving of. What they're disapproving of is it looks like chaos. Again, he's like all over the map. I don't, I'm liberal, so I don't like what he's doing in general and I don't really have specifics.
- [39:31]
Matthew Continetti
And look, we just got an inflation read as we were recording this and inflation was at 3% in January, which was higher than expected. Now that's not Trump's fault or even. It's not, didn't even happen under Trump as president. He was president for 10 days in January. Right. So two thirds of the month went to Biden. But still this is a big problem for him. If inflation still continues to persist, then Americans will be disappointed. It's not really a problem for Trump. He, he won and you know, he's, he's term limited. But it's a problem for the Republicans and whoever wants to succeed Trump.
- [40:10]
John Podhoretz
Right. And remember what, what, I mean, this is the thing that people, we've said it and people really do need to keep it in mind, like they are doing a, in their own way, despite the way the media, mainstream media are covering this like a fantastic PR job. They are just flooding the zone with stories, initiatives, executive orders, successful cabinet nominations, great spectacular sort of like coups. Like the release of this teacher, Matthew Fogel, who has been six years in a Russian prison and who stood there in with Trump next to him and said, you're a hero. I'm not a hero. This man is a hero. Steve Witkoff, who did the negotiating for me, is a hero. I can't tell you what, what it has meant to me and to know that everybody in the country has been pulling for me. Which like was really true, you know, because like Biden did a fantastic bang up job of trying to get him out. Biden spent all of his capital on the, on a, on, on, on Brittney Griner, which I'm not saying, you know, shouldn't have negotiated for Brittney Griner's release, but, you know, not then insisting on, on Fogle, who, who said in the course of this press conference and should stick in Trump's mind about his positive feelings about Putin that he was subjected. He was taken to the. He spent more than 100 days in hospitals where he received hundreds of injections. He doesn't say what the injections were, but, I mean, he said that he wanted to let people know that he had been subjected to some form of medical torture by the Russian government or what he took to be medical torture by the Russian government. There was something about the use of that, that phrase, hundreds of injections that was like. It's one of the most chilling because it's new. You know, I mean, we know, we know that they threw people, the Soviets threw people in psychiatric prisons, were hearing horrible details about the torture of the, of the Gazan captives. But all of that is kind of in the realm of what we know about governments and tortures and terrorists and tortures a prisoner, a fake prisoner of Russia who is not a spy. And they, they knew at some point pretty early he wasn't a spy. And they're, they're still injecting him with whatever it is they're injecting him with. That's, you know, like a detail out of a, out of a, out of a nightmarish, you know, Kafka novel about what happens in, in prisons to innocent people. And Trump got him out. I mean, so that, that was also the news yesterday.
- [43:10]
Abe Greenwald
I mean, I think on the, the sort of most basic level, Trump's success so far is reminding people that the president can do things, you know, anything.
- [43:24]
John Podhoretz
It's a low bar, right, but it.
- [43:26]
Abe Greenwald
But that was the bar.
- [43:27]
John Podhoretz
But he's clear.
- [43:28]
Matthew Continetti
Four years of a precedent to really.
- [43:30]
Abe Greenwald
President can do anything, can take interviews, can, can come up with bold new policies that may or may not work. You know, can, can meet and, and talk extemporaneously, you know, for, for stretches of time. It's, it's, you know, and it's like the country needed to remember because we were on autopilot for, for you, the images of Biden were, you know, he was walking on the beach with his wife, and.
- [43:58]
Matthew Continetti
I sleep on the beach.
- [44:00]
John Podhoretz
Falling off his bicycle and also tripping on a cable.
- [44:03]
Seth Mandel
Trump himself was in a different place 2016 through 2020 as well. So, yeah, we didn't. This was bogged down by the Russia Stuff and, you know, totally. Everything was totally new to him. He was feeling his way around in the dark. He was hiring people. He didn't know who or what, how to navigate, you know, the dc, you know, the whole system and whatever. So in a lot of ways, this is like Trump sort of doing a do over, not even a second term, but like a kind of do over for that. We didn't really have Trump feeling this way, acting this the greatest thing, and knowing, you know, and coming in with a plan that he could put into place then, too. So it kind of has been a while since a president came in with a playbook and said, all right, first down, let's go.
- [44:50]
Abe Greenwald
And it wouldn't have looked like this had he won in 2020, right? This, this wouldn't have been the Trump presidency at all.
- [44:56]
John Podhoretz
So there were two examples of this. So you said he came in with a playbook. Biden came in with no playbook. That was part of his promise to the American people. He was going to build on, though he didn't put it this way. The successes of Operation Warp Speed and the efforts to get Covid to sort of rid the country of COVID or deal with the COVID crisis, but he did not have an agenda. And then they had this fabled meeting in the White House with Jon Meacham, you know, and the historians informing him that he had a chance to be FDR. And he was like, I've heard of FDR. Good. And then suddenly $6 trillion are going out the door, you know, creating a massive inflationary spiral or being a part of a massive inflationary spiral to no good other economic effect, including getting us out of recession and stuff like that. So Biden came in literally running as, I don't have an agenda. I'm normalcy, like, I'm just gonna manage things. And then he seized on one in March or April. Trump started in 2017 as the least experienced person ever to occupy the presidency. And he comes into this second presidency, which is a new presidency, it's not an extension of the old presidency, as the most experienced person ever to be president. If you look at this as he, he is Trump 47, not Trump 45, and he was president for four years, and then he had four years to ruminate or reflect on. Not that he's a big ruminator, ruminant or reflector on what he might have done wrong or how. How he might do things differently. And he came into office as the most experienced person ever to come into the Oval Office. That's an Amazing difference, you know, and, and particularly since it plays to his marketing strengths, he is marketing himself also as the president. And what he is doing is setting himself up in this contrast to the senescent, somnolent person who was occupying the office, at least for the two years, you know, for 2003, 2004, when the decline was really pronounced. It's not as though Biden didn't do stuff in 2001 and 2002 or his administration did. They did plenty of stuff. People didn't like it, you know, and didn't was ineffective. But they passed these three or four giant pieces of legislation and then he really did, you know, fall off a, fall off a cliff. So Trump knows how to market himself and knows how to market. That's, that's his, that's his sweet spot. And he is really, honestly, he's, I'm not a big fan of his. He's doing a brilliant job in that regard. And why should he listen? I mean, it's not as though this conversation about him is anywhere that there's a middle ground.
- [47:53]
Matthew Continetti
Another example of the hysterical reaction to what has been a pretty remarkable three weeks in office was, as you know, we had a constitutional crisis this week because the district court judges in New York and Rhode island have trying to freeze some of Trump's executive orders. And apparently this leads the legal profession to assume that Donald Trump has disobeyed the Supreme Court of the United States, which has not ruled on any of these questions that are being litigated. But in the midst of the standing for Elon Musk sitting press conference with President Trump Yesterday, someone asked Mr. President, would you obey the courts? And he said, I always obey the courts. I appeal it. And that's unfortunate because that will give people some more time to do bad stuff in the bureaucracy. But yes, I obey the courts. And thus ended the constitutional crisis of 2025. Because there's no evidence that he's actively disobeying the courts, much less the Supreme Court, which is typically, that's when people talk about a constitutional conflict or, you know, high stakes constitutional moment when Andrew Jackson says that Justice Marshall has made his decision, let him enforce it. Yeah, or, or Justice Marshall has to figure out a way to rule in Marbury v. Madison that retains his power and yet doesn't invite any real retaliation from Jefferson or I don't know when Joe Biden's idol decided, you know, these nine old men have been resisting my agenda. So I'm going to expand it and put in people that are Loyal to me so that we can authorize a second New Deal. Those are typically what you think of when you think of constitutional crises. Can I mention the judge saying to Scott Besant, the Treasury Secretary of the United States, that he can't look at an invoice.
- [50:12]
John Podhoretz
Yeah. Can I mention one thing? Because someone reminded me of this and I totally forgotten about it. You know, there was this famous secret, secret bombing of Cambodia in 1970. 1971. And the most liberal member of the Supreme Court, the most liberal justice on the Supreme Court was William O. Douglas, who was by this point senile, by the way, or is. Thought he went senile. I'm not sure if he was yet fully senile. He was another one of the kind of, you know, Edith, like, his wife was kind of running his. His very young wife was running his office. And Marshall, Marshall Douglas, excuse me, issued a proclamation that Nixon had to stop bombing Cambodia Friday night. Just like this bombing is illegal. He must stop. And then, like Monday morning, the entire Supreme Court met and said, so don't listen to him. It's okay. It's really. It's fine. So that was, that was 55 years ago. That was like, you know, it's not as though even the Supreme Court is somehow. It is not the case that the Supreme Court, individual justices can be off their meds.
- [51:29]
Matthew Continetti
You know, four weeks ago, President Biden invented a constitutional amendment.
- [51:34]
Abe Greenwald
Yeah.
- [51:34]
John Podhoretz
By tweet.
- [51:35]
Matthew Continetti
By tweet.
- [51:36]
Abe Greenwald
Here's what I love, that suddenly the Democrats are championing the judiciary. Like, didn't we go through this whole thing about how they need new ethics rules? They need. We need more justices.
- [51:47]
Matthew Continetti
We need to change the composition of.
- [51:49]
John Podhoretz
Yeah. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez said is illegitimate.
- [51:53]
Abe Greenwald
Yeah.
- [51:54]
John Podhoretz
That Biden should ignore the Supreme Court. She was on tv. She was on, I don't know, Simone Sanders show or whatever, like Lunatic Asylum show is on on Saturday mornings. You know, when they let the, you know, when they let the inmates of the asylum of Sharon to stage Marat Saad, you know, that they. She said he should ignore the Supreme Court. That was a completely legitimate. Sheldon. White. White House said the Supreme Court is a. Is a rogue court.
- [52:26]
Abe Greenwald
Right.
- [52:27]
John Podhoretz
Chuck Schumer is calling on people effectively.
- [52:31]
Abe Greenwald
Yeah.
- [52:32]
John Podhoretz
You will reap the whirlwind. I mean, the Democratic mind. Any of that.
- [52:36]
Seth Mandel
The Judicial Committee chair in the House, the Democratic Judicial Committee chair sponsored a piece of legislation to expand the court.
- [52:46]
John Podhoretz
Right. I don't have a problem with that kind of. Honestly, I don't have a problem with that kind of runaway rhetoric. This is the world we live in. That is, that was a kind of conventional position among Democrats, just as when courts do things that conservatives think are outrageous, as was the case, let's say, with the Casey decision in 1992, was it that, that that was the real effort to have the court overthrow Roe v. Wade, and the court refused to do so. And people that I have great respect for and had great respect for at the time were so disheartened that they believed that this decision rendered the American polity illegitimate. There was a huge symposium in First Things magazine in 1995, 1996, about the legitimacy of the American regime because it, it had enshrined this constitutional right to abortion. This effort had been made to make this argument that abortion was murder and was not and that Roe was a constitutional atrocity and it had failed. And that was what people were waiting for to assure them if they were people who believed that abortion was, you know, the new slavery and, you know, the, that, that, that the sweet reason would win out. And it didn't. And so that was a serious argument. And like people, people quit First Things because they didn't want to have this. I, I, this is all fine with me. They're the ones who are saying that you're not allowed to say that. The court that, that, you know, maybe we shouldn't if you're JD Vance, maybe we shouldn't abide by court's decisions if they're illegitimate. Now, he shouldn't have said that. Trump shows he shouldn't have said it since Trump is the one who had to clean up J.D. vance's mess here. That's not the way this is supposed to work. Right. Trump is not the one who was supposed to, like, you know, he, it's sort of an unforced error to say, well, we don't really have to abide by courts if they say things we don't like. Dumb. A dumb move. Vance has not been dumb. We can talk a little bit about Vance in a minute. But, you know, as I say, they're the ones who are creating the standard according which it's okay for them to say the courts are illegitimate. It's just not okay for people, you know, on the other side to say that. I say everyone's allowed to say whatever they want. You know, you're allowed to say what that's part of what it means to have a political and ideological argument in the United States.
- [55:17]
Seth Mandel
They're allowed to agrees with you, John. I think, and then this is why I brought up the 70% number, because there's 70% said, yeah, he campaigned on this. We expected him to do this. He campaigned on this. Then he won an election fair and square, and now he's doing it. And 53% approve of what he's doing. There's a gap between those who think what he's doing is legitimate and who. Those who approve of the actual policies. The 70% is a legitimacy vote. That is an overwhelming majority who say, yeah, he's. What he's doing is legit. I don't necessarily like it, but that's what he needs, and that's what's stifling the Democrats is not just that a lot of the policies, some of the policies are popular. I mean, we saw the returns on the polls, on, you know, mass deportation and some of the things that he ran on. But the general perception among the public is that he said, if you elect me, I'm going to do this. Then he won an election fair and square. Now he's doing it. And the legitimacy argument is completely evading the Democrats in a way it didn't last.
- [56:29]
John Podhoretz
Right.
- [56:30]
Matthew Continetti
I just. One more comment about constitutional crisis, since I wasn't on the show yesterday. Constitutional crisis is the new protect our democracy. And we went through four years of Biden and the Democrats saying that Trump was a threat to democracy. We have to protect democracy. And then when we got the exit poll in the 2024 election and we saw who did better on the issue of democracy, it was Trump. So I just caution the left to not go over their skis here with constitutional crisis. Before you know it, people are going to start saying, well, what, you know, Trump is protecting the Constitution. Or maybe they're going to focus on what these district court judges. I mean, there was a big issue with nationwide injunctions from district court judges in the first Trump term, and then Biden had to face it during his term. If anyone had a little bit of dispassion or detachment here, they would recognize that a judge in New York, a district district court judge in New York in the middle of the night in an ex parte decision, which means he didn't even hear the government's argument to say that, no, the only people with access to the treasury system should be the permanent bureaucrats who no one is elected.
- [57:52]
John Podhoretz
That's.
- [57:52]
Matthew Continetti
I mean, that's insane. That's a total overextension and abuse of the judicial power.
- [57:57]
John Podhoretz
Look, I'm glad you said that they're getting out over their skis, because this is what I mean when I say everybody should be able to say whatever it is they want to say. That's, that's the world. The world in which we have gotten to the point where the idea is you shouldn't say that is a legitimate way to conduct a political argument. Is, you know, is, is one that we, we just lived through to our incredible detriment. Let people say that Trump is Hitler. I'll give you an example, because Trump is gifted with his enemies. His enemies. He drives people so crazy that he drives them to destroy themselves. That's why your caution is right to them. Like, keep your powder dry. Don't go crazy. You've got four years of this fighting. If you go to Hitler in two weeks, if you go to the Reichstag, fire, and it's 1932, and he, I don't know who Hindenburg is in this scenario, you know, because Trump is Hindenburg and Hitler apparently both combined. You know, if you go to this, where are you going in April? Where are you going? When there actually might be a moment at which Trump is really tempted to defy the will of the Supreme Court or something. You've already said he did it already. So. And then, you know, you have stuff like this amazing thing that appeared in the American Prospect, By Robert Kutner, February 10, 2025. What Trump could learn from Hitler on NIH funding subhead. Even the Fuhrer knew to support German science and not war. This is an article trying to destroy America's great research universities. Now, Robert Kutner is famously known, co founder of, of the American Prospect, and unfortunately for people at Brandeis University, a professor at Brandeis University was known during his days at, as a columnist for the LA Times as Crazy Bob. So, I mean, you know, Crazy Bob has apparently resurfaced in this. But what I'm saying is good. Congratulations, Donald Trump. Your enemies are helping you. They don't even know that they're helping you. And we know they should.
- [60:30]
Matthew Continetti
So I'm still trying. I'm sorry, you got me distracted by Bob here. You're saying that, what, he thinks that Trump shouldn't cut the NIH because Hitler was for government funded research? That's his argument.
- [60:45]
Abe Greenwald
Yeah.
- [60:45]
John Podhoretz
You know, Mengele, you know, that was, he was very supportive of twin experimentation programs.
- [60:54]
Matthew Continetti
Wow.
- [60:55]
John Podhoretz
Yeah, I know, but I, but I mean, this is why, this is why the left has spent the last 10 or 15 years on campuses, in elites, all of that working to silence the opinions of people with whom they disagree rather than engaging. And they are losing the power of engagement that we, I have to say, never had the right had the opportunity to escape because. Because of the monoculture that we, that we are not really a part of and that we try to fight, you know, and they are, they are at sixes and sevens. I mean, the Atlantic sounds, they sound like lunatics. Can Trump hire a guy to go look at the books at usaid? Of course he can. Is it bad that the guy is like one of the most brilliant businessmen the world has ever seen? Yeah, it's terrible. That's awful. What a terrible. You know, we really need is some professor at Brandeis who thinks that Hitler had a real good idea there with the German, you know, universities.
- [62:08]
Seth Mandel
Well, you know, but that's all connected because the Musk, Elon Musk, because he owns Twitter and because he participates in the discourse on Twitter. Every 30 seconds or so he. What you have here, the combination is you have like a bully pulpit unseen. I don't know when, because yesterday Musk is in the Oval Office taking questions, you know, and then he'll go on.
- [62:35]
Matthew Continetti
Twitter and he'll be just an observation about that though, taking questions in the Oval Office. I think it was very important that Musk was standing and Trump was at the desk.
- [62:47]
John Podhoretz
Yeah.
- [62:47]
Matthew Continetti
Because I think for someone who thinks in images like President Trump, he wanted the image of him at the President's desk and Musk having to stand with the other aides, even though he has such a megaphone and such an important.
- [63:04]
John Podhoretz
Role, it seems, with his son right on his shoulder.
- [63:09]
Matthew Continetti
I'm not sure President Trump wanted the son in the Oval Office.
- [63:12]
John Podhoretz
Right. And I don't.
- [63:13]
Matthew Continetti
I've seen some pictures of him where his look on his face and Stephen.
- [63:16]
John Podhoretz
Miller, who as I said standing was standing over Musk's shoulder, did not look happy. And the thing about Musk is, you know, this is very much a work in progress and it's very instructive to me Musk's role on Twitter right now and what he's doing and SpaceX and everything else. Because if you ever needed evidence that Twitter is bad for the soul and the spirit, it is Musk on Twitter. Musk is a 53 year old man who is potentially building a world historical legacy and he's going on there. He's changing his name to H A R R Y B O L S so that people will have to say that on television.
- [64:11]
Matthew Continetti
Remember, he's spending most of his days now with 20, 20 year olds.
- [64:14]
John Podhoretz
Well, that's even a sense of humor is running up joke that's like, you know, that's like the Yalu river by IP Freely. You know, that's, you know, that's the level of joke that is. And he. His. His dope. This evidence of the dopamine problem created by Twitter is right there in front of you in Musk's inability to stay off Twitter like his. I know he. It's probably not an inability. He thinks it's a superpower, whatever, but you can see that he can't help himself. And it's not just that he tweets things. It's that he's like responding to tweets and saying, this is terrible and that person's crazy. And he's like attacking Sam Altman, the head of Open, calling him a swindler and stuff like that. And it's like, you know, boy, do you have bigger fish to fry? You know, I. I don't really know why, you know what? But he can't. He. It's too fun for him. Which, of course, is the great secret of social media that people never talk about. Oh, it's so bad. It's fun. That's the crisis of social media is that it's a. It's a. It's a form of very easily accessed fun that can, you know, sort of take over your brain. And so, and it's interesting because J.D. vance, aforementioned in. In Europe, made this very interesting speech about AI in which he took a welcome. Idiolo made a welcome ideological shift in broad measure as far as I'm concerned, but maybe in exactly the wrong direction, which is he said, we are not going to quat. Not only are we not going to quash AI with regulations the way Europe is, we are going to be the world leaders in AI. This is going to be a revolutionary, transformative, industrial economic engine for our time. We need to be sure that the Chinese don't run things. And the way Europe is doing this is terrible. We need innovation. We need transformation. We need to lead. If only he believed this about other aspects of the economy instead of becoming a postulant of and an expositor of this. This American compass. I can't remember the terms they use here, but the idea that social good means that you should interfere in the workings of the free market to direct the economy toward more moral goals. And apparently AI is the one major force that he is willing to be somewhat libertarian about. Abe, how do you feel? How do you feel about that?
- [66:57]
Abe Greenwald
Well, I mean, I. Look, I have a whole slew of misgivings about AI that I mentioned in my daily newsletter yesterday, but I actually think he's Right.
- [67:07]
Seth Mandel
Because you should subscribe to, which you can and should subscribe to@comMENTARY.org can you subscribe?
- [67:12]
Abe Greenwald
Yes, thank you. But I, I think he's right because it's here and we have to come out ahead, namely we have to beat the Chinese here. My misgivings about AI would, are exemplary. Would be exemplified by a Chinese AI, you know, monolith, you know, if they, if they, if they came out ahead of everything. So.
- [67:37]
John Podhoretz
Yeah, look, I agree with you there. I just think it's a, it's, it's a, it's an interesting irony that, that this untested technology that raises all these moral qualms and dilemmas and also raises all kinds of questions about future employment in the tens of millions. Things that can be replaced by this, by this machine which, and if they can be, then they, then they need to be because they will be one way or the other if the technology is there. And it just means if we do it slow. Europe is the point of his speech is that Europe may be consigning itself to a century of, you know, sort of Japanese sclerosis with its inability to move quickly, which is what happened with Japan's industrial policy, its top down economy in the 90s as everybody else got much more fleet footed and was able to transition to free markets and moving people around and having a more dynamic economic system. It's just that it's interesting to hear it come out of, out of his mouth. And we published a very good piece about this, about the Chinese AI threat by Arthur Herrmann last year that I commend to people, just Google Commentary Magazine, Arthur Herrmann and AI and you'll find the piece very easily, and that's really the case he makes is that we have no choice because the Chinese will be totally unethical.
- [69:08]
Abe Greenwald
But I mean, also I think in.
- [69:09]
John Podhoretz
Their use of AI and we at least are constrained by the invisible hand.
- [69:13]
Abe Greenwald
But I also think Vance had to come out with this position because Trump had already sort of convened this big AI push. You know, this, right?
- [69:24]
John Podhoretz
Oh no, I'm not saying just he, he just, they decided to, he decided to make it the subject of his first major speech on a foreign trip abroad. Which is an interesting by the way, fact that he, that he is abroad this week and because he kind of is kind of needed, like he's probably not needed, but there are confirmations going on and they're probably fine. But you know, I'm not sure it's the most salient thing for him to be out if he wants Tulsi Gabbard to get, get confirmed. It looks like she'll be confirmed. So maybe I'm being silly but, but it is kind of a weird week like not to. There was an interesting somebody who worked on Kamala Harris's staff was interviewed about this and said you know her, her travel in that first two was incredibly curtailed because you know they had a 50, they had a 50, 50 Congress Senate and so she really had to be near she couldn't go anywhere because who knew when she would be needed to go on the floor and cast a tie breaking vote. So you know poor Kama couldn't, couldn't be in Ghana like Karen Bass during a, you know, during a fire or something. Okay, well I don't have a recommend. Anybody have a recommendation? Nah. All right, we'll be back tomorrow. So for Matt Seth and Abram John pot words keep the candle bur.