The Pod-Caste System

Summary

The Commentary Magazine Podcast – “The Pod-Caste System”

Date: March 19, 2026
Host: Jon Podhoretz (Editor, Commentary Magazine)
Panelists: Abe Greenwald (Executive Editor), Seth Mandel (Senior Editor), Eliana Johnson (Editor, Washington Free Beacon)

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Overview

This episode dives into the current American political climate, centering on the ongoing war with Iran, debates around antisemitism and anti-Americanism on the right, fractures within both major U.S. political parties, media distortions, and the implications of conspiracy-driven narratives. The conversation weaves together recent events, media coverage, intra-party ideological struggles, and reflections on Jewish identity and the commentary’s role in public discourse.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Rise of Conspiracism and Antisemitism on the Right

• Abe’s Distraction & Frustration ([00:49])

  • Abe describes being “distracted from the facts of the war” by the “gnat-like swarms of negative commentary coming from the woke right,” especially as it connects to conspiracy theories and antisemitism.
  • Quote: “They’ve made it about whether or not the American right is going to be anti-American and anti-Jewish… that’s national suicide.” — Abe ([02:52])
  • Concern that both major parties could end up harboring anti-American, anti-Jewish worldviews.

• Joe Kent’s Resignation & Conspiratorial Claims ([00:49], [23:07])

  • Joe Kent resigns from the National Counterterrorism Center, blaming Israel for his late wife’s death (though her involvement was in the Syrian conflict).
  • He appears on Tucker Carlson’s podcast, advancing further conspiracy theories.

2. The Mamdani-Diwaji Controversy & Public Figures’ Accountability

• Exposé on Rama Diwaji (Mamdani’s Wife) ([05:03]–[09:57])

  • Eliana discusses her exposé on state legislator Zoram Mamdani’s wife, highlighting her explicit support of radical anti-Israel positions and connections to pro-terrorist networks.
  • Debate on whether spouses of politicians are private citizens and if their views are relevant to public discourse.
  • Quote: “She worked on his campaign. …She’s a public figure. There’s just no question about it.” — Seth ([09:41])

• Broader Implications for Democratic Politics

  • The Democratic Party’s proximity to these issues is discussed as a sign of the party being “lost” regarding Israel and anti-Jewish sentiment.
  • Quote: “What will it mean for America and for America’s relation to Jews and all of that if the Republican Party is lost?” — Jon ([06:58])

3. Trump, the ‘Woke Right,’ and Intra-Party Cleavages

• Trumpism’s Identity Crisis ([12:16]–[17:27], [35:37]–[44:53])

  • Trump’s support for the war in Iran puts him at odds with the isolationist, conspiratorial right (Tucker Carlson, Joe Kent, Megyn Kelly, etc.).
  • Quote: “The anti-war contingent on the woke right is…an outlier cult.” — Jon ([12:53])
  • Poll cited: 100% of self-identified MAGA respondents still support Trump ([12:53]).

• Isolationist Right vs. ‘Common Sense’ Trumpism ([59:27]–[62:46])

  • The panel critiques intellectuals like Christopher Caldwell for characterizing the anti-war, isolationist right as the “true” heirs of Trumpism.
  • Quote: “What Trump’s representing here…is how does America project power to defend or advance its national interests.” — Jon ([59:27])
  • Quote: “This Trump term…he described his agenda as a common sense revolution. To me, the domestic and foreign components are of a piece.” — Abe ([61:31])

4. Media Coverage & Narrative Distortion

• Failings in Mainstream Coverage ([17:27]–[20:05], [49:29]–[56:21])

  • The mainstream press is critiqued for misrepresenting figures like Joe Kent (from crackpot to brave dissenter) and overemphasizing Islamophobia while downplaying rising antisemitism on the right.
  • Quote: “How ill prepared you would be to actually understand what’s going on…from reading all of this mainstream coverage.” — Eliana ([17:33])
  • The Free Beacon’s mission to cover stories ignored by the mainstream is highlighted ([48:14]).

• Case Study: Cesar Chavez Abuses ([51:31])

  • The decades-long burying of Cesar Chavez’s abuse by the press is used as an illustration of bias by omission and misplaced journalistic emphasis.

5. The Function of Antisemitic Conspiracy in Politics

• Delegitimization of Jewish Participation ([25:47]–[34:04])

  • Accusations of “wars for Israel” and BDS tactics are not about harming Israel materially but about making American Jewish participation in civic and political life suspect.
  • Quote: “They want everybody to wonder what the Jews are up to. And that’s really what it’s about.” — Seth ([27:41])
  • Panel notes similar tactics on both the far-right and the left, converging in “horseshoe theory.”

• Antisemitism as a Recurring Toxin in Western Politics ([30:39]–[35:37])

  • Jon: “It’s never just about the Jews… Antisemitism is a constant poison stream in Western civilization and at moments of stress or crisis…it is a constant as an explanation for why things are going wrong.”
  • Abe: “It’s about using Jew hatred as a means of civic destruction.”

6. The Battle for America’s International Role

• Projection of American Power ([59:27]–[62:46])
  • The current administration’s realignment toward more active power projection is seen as a unifying theme of Trump’s leadership, contrary to the “deep state” narrative.
  • The panel positions American support for Israel as historically significant, akin to the U.K.–U.S. alliance in WWII.
  • Media is criticized for downplaying Iran’s isolation and portraying the U.S./Israel as instigators.

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Memorable Quotes & Moments (with Timestamps)

• Abe: “They’ve made it about whether or not the American right is going to be anti-American and anti-Jewish…and that’s national suicide.” ([02:52])
• Jon: “The anti-war contingent on the woke right is…an outlier cult.” ([12:53])
• Eliana: “The idea that his wife is a private citizen is preposterous. The wives of politicians are not private citizens and their views matter.” ([09:06])
• Seth: “They want everybody to wonder what the Jews are up to. And that’s really what it’s about.” ([27:41])
• Jon: “Antisemitism is a constant poison stream in Western civilization and at moments of stress or crisis… it is a constant as an explanation for why things are going wrong.” ([30:39])
• Abe: “It’s about using Jew hatred as a means of civic destruction. These people want to bring down the present order just as their mirror images on the left want to do so.” ([34:12])
• Jon: “If you’re going to worship somebody, worship God, don’t worship a person. Politicians will invariably disappoint you…Put not your trust in princes.” ([64:34])

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Notable Segment Timestamps

• [00:49] – Joe Kent’s resignation & conspiracy theories
• [02:52] – The right’s temptation toward anti-American/anti-Jewish ideas
• [05:03] – Discussion of Zoram Mamdani, his wife, and the nature of public/private citizen
• [09:06] – The relevance of spouses’ ideological positions in politics
• [12:53] – Data on MAGA’s unwavering support for Trump; the myth of a large, influential GOP anti-war movement
• [17:33] – Mainstream media’s narrative failures
• [23:07] – Israel as a scapegoat in American political discourse
• [25:47] – The function of “wars for Israel” rhetoric and antisemitic conspiracies
• [30:39] – Antisemitism as a “constant poison stream”
• [35:37] – Intellectual corruption on the right; critique of Christopher Caldwell
• [44:53] – Alliance of far-right and far-left through antisemitism (horseshoe theory)
• [48:14] – The Free Beacon’s role and alternative media focuses
• [51:31] – The Cesar Chavez revelation as an example of buried journalistic facts
• [59:27] – Defining Trumpism: “common sense revolution,” American power projection
• [62:46] – The dangers of worshipping political figures; the lesson of “Put not your trust in princes”

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Tone & Style

The tone is intellectually rigorous, sharp, and sometimes acerbic, with strong emphases on historical perspective and moral clarity. The panelists mix somber warnings with biting wit as they analyze present dangers and past mistakes. There’s a clear sense of urgency about the American right’s direction and the centrality of combating conspiracy and antisemitism to preserve political health.

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Conclusion

This episode delivers a sweeping, often heated analysis of the American political landscape amid war, revealing deeper anxieties about antisemitism, public discourse, and the future of party politics. The conversation returns repeatedly to the personal motivations and ideological battles shaping public life, the vital necessity of principled journalism, and the enduring struggle to keep conspiracy and hatred from poisoning self-government.

Transcript

[A]

Hope for the best, expect the worst Some drink champagne Some die at first the way of knowing which way it's going. Hope for the best, Expect the worst, hope for the best. Welcome to the Commentary magazine daily podcast Today. Today is Thursday, March 19, 2026. I am Jon Podhoritz, the editor of Commentary magazine. With me, as always, executive editor Abe Greenwald. Hi, Abe.

[B]

Hi, John.

[A]

Senior editor Seth Mandel. Hi, Seth.

[C]

Hi, John.

[A]

And Washington Free Beacon editor Eliana Johnson. Hi, Eliana.

[D]

Hi, John.

[A]

Abe, last night on our text chain, you said you were feeling a little weird because you find yourself constantly distracted from the facts of the war or the details of the war or the larger picture of the war by the gnat like swarms of negative commentary coming from the woke. Right. And that, you know, there seems you're like going insane with this and yet you said you think it's important nonetheless that your attention is distracted in this way. And I just want to point out one thing and then ask you to explain it, which is Joe Kent, the person who resigned on Tuesday from the National Counterterrorism center job, saying he could no longer countenance having to support the war in Iran. And then saying that this was a war for Israel and that his first wife had died in a war manufactured by Israel, when in fact she died because she was an intelligence officer dealing with the Syrian civil war, which involved isis, Syria, Iraq and the United States, and had nothing to do with Israel. That joke had went on Tucker Carlson's podcast and started saying some knew crazy stuff that he wanted to investigate Charlie Kirk's murder. Cause he thought that somebody was involved with the unambiguous shooter, Tyler Robinson, and that he was thwarted in his effort to investigate this, obviously meaning Israel. And so what is it when you say like it's driving you crazy because you obviously want to think like these people don't matter and they're all crazy and it's ridiculous and why am I, why are they distracting my attention? But please sort of lay that out.

[B]

So, yeah, when the war was first launched, obviously my only consideration about its outcome had to do with the war itself. In what state would it leave the Iranian regime, if indeed it will leave the regime in place? What state will it leave the Middle east and what that means for American security and security of our allies and the security of the West. But the woke right contingent that you're talking about has gone so crazy that they've made it about something else that unfortunately is, I fear, as important for the future of the United States, which is to say that they've made it about whether or not the American right is going to be anti American and anti Jewish. And if it is, then as I said in another newsletter a few days ago, that's national suicide. Because we have one of the two major political sides who have already who that. Who has already elevated that aversion of that worldview. We can't have both. We can't have competing visions of national destruction. So this has sort of become a war for everything. In a weird way. It's a war for the the actual physical, geostrategic and geopolitical security of the US and its allies. But it's also a war over the right, which I think needs to be. The anti American right must find itself in the wilderness at the end of this war, just as the regime in Iran must.

[A]

I want to move to the question that you just raised, which is the Republican Party's temptation to go anti American and anti Jewish because the Democratic Party is, in your estimation, already lost is weirdly bolstered by this story that Eliana published in the Washington Free Beacon yesterday by John Levine about Zoram Mamdani's wife, Rama Diwaji Eliana for some reason we've had this thing where Rama Duaji, they've been married for less than a year. She's an illustrator. So story came out that she had illustrated this book, done illustrations for this book by someone named Sarah Abdul Awaja, who is a frank and open terrorist supporter, and that she had Susan. Susan, excuse me, I'm sorry.

[D]

And that she provided the illustration for a short story that she'd written. The short story published by an entity called Slow Factory that has long been the Free Beacon had covered Slow Factory before and Slow Factory has long been outspoken supporter of terrorism and terrorist activity.

[A]

So when this story came out, oddly to me, oddly, Mayor Mamdani came out and said, a, my wife is a private citizen, so leave her alone. That's not odd. But B, she had no idea. She didn't know. She was just, you know, she was hired for piecework like, like any, like any good Gen Z whatever.

[D]

She had nothing to do with this woman.

[A]

She had nothing to do with this woman. Never didn't know what it was and she didn't and all of this. Now, the reason I think it's odd is that then John Levine of your, of your, of your staff finds extensive posting by Ramadiwaji about supporting in which she support has exactly the same views as the as the person whose article she'd illustrated and Then, number one. Number two, that we know now also from other things, that the Mamdani family and Ms. Abdul Awaja have years of relationships and connections in common. So he just went out before a mic and lied about something that was due to come out two or three days later. And he's been pretty good, it seems to me, in the world of trying to decide, say, look, I'm not going to pretend I'm not who I am. I don't like Israel. I'm going to say that on St. Patrick's Day, I'm going to, like, talk about genocide in Israel on St. Patrick's Day, because that's really what that wonderful celebration of, you know, Irish nationalism is about. And I am who I am. And this, for some reason took this weird turn where he thought that he could get away with saying that these connections didn't exist. But I think they get to the deep point that, you know, this sort of leading figure in the future of the Democratic Party, coming out of nowhere, winning this amazing election last year when he was an unknown nine months, you know, six months before there was a vote cast and what he represents, there's still something there where he is worried that there are lines that he can't cross and that maybe he can lie his way out of. But this does connect to Abe's point, which is the Democrats are lost. What will it mean for America and for America's relation to Jews and all of that if the Republican Party is lost?

[D]

Well, a couple of things. The first of all, they're a perfect couple. And the idea that he would be married to a woman with views that are equally, if not more radical is, of course, quite easy to understand. And the idea that his wife is a private citizen is preposterous. The wives of politicians are not private citizens and their views matter the input.

[A]

And she worked on this campaign. Yeah, and he designed his logo. She was in charge of the sort

[C]

of visual presentation of the campaign artist who does public, you know, exhibitions of her art and is very famously an anti Zionist artist. She has her own, like, even aside from him, she's a public figure. There's just no question about it.

[D]

And so the whole hubbub about the illustration she did for this Slow Factory story came after a report that she had liked post celebrating October 7th from Slow Factory. And now comes John Levine's report in the Free Beacon that she had put up posts in her late teens, between the ages of 17 and 20, glorifying and celebrating Palestinian terrorists, including Layla Khaled, who was the Female hijacker of planes in 19, in 1970, you know, got cosmetic surgery so she could go back and do it a second time and, you know, talking trash about the American military. So, yes, that's who Mamdani is. That's who he's married to. And, Abe, going back to your point, you know, I was thinking when you were texting last night, that domestically it's possible that the debate playing out on the right over the war in Iran, which is, I would say turning up the volume on the conspiratorial right, may in fact have a hygienic effect. And for a long time, we've marveled, you know, since 2016, we've marveled at the fact that people are so loyal to this president. And he said, you know, I could shoot somebody on Fifth Avenue and not suffer the consequences. And in this case, loyalty to the president and what he stands for and better, as he better defines what MAGA is and what Trumpism is on foreign policy, may actually prove useful as he shows himself to be quite solid in the arena of world affairs. And where people say, this is what MAGA is, this is what we stand for. And others define themselves who once said they were maga, define themselves against it and espouse conspiracy theories and say that he prevented them, you know, from investigating things and pursuing the intelligence.

[B]

Yeah, no, I feel the same way. I mean, as things stand at the moment, I think it is quite hygienic. And it's good that Trump is in an open war of words. And not just words. I mean, you know, who knows? I mean, we'll see what happens in terms of investigations about leaks and so on. But he's in an open war of words with these people, and that's been a long time coming. And if things stay on course, I think we can hope to see sort of the divide, the split become more real.

[A]

So this is a very interesting point to point out. Harry Anton, cnn. They did a poll, they asked people who said they were MAGA what their level of support was for Donald Trump, and the number came back 100%. Just think about what that means. I don't know how many people were in the cohort or in the sample. That means that not a single person who defined themselves as MAGA does not support Trump. Literally zero. So it would be, say there were 300 people in the poll, 300 to zero. According to other polling, the Republican Party, not MAGA specifically, but the Republican Party is supportive of the war. And Trump, 85 to 90 to 15 to 10 depending on what poll you're looking at. So the anti war contingent on the woke right is without question a rump. It is a outlier cult. And reading people's trying to, trying to respond to what's going on, particularly with the Joe Kent resignation, all that. You get Megyn Kelly saying, sure, go attack Joe Kent and Tucker and me and all that and see how that works for you at the polls. Well, that's a bizarre line to take if you're Megyn Kelly, because at the polls you don't count. But in the world of opinion, opinion doesn't follow polls in the same way. John Maynard Keynes famously said that everybody who's like wandering around talking about whatever is going on in the world economy is a slave to some defunct economist. That ideas and the expression of ideas and how ideas are framed have a longer. Have, you know, have, have a longer tail than you know, whether or not you like what Trump did Tuesday or Wednesday or Thursday. And to me it seems like lines are being cast in the water. People who believe, wrongly I think that Trump won because of his isolationism or because of his, you know, whatever, they are planting their flag for the point at which, as they seem to inevitably believe the war goes sour and everything is terrible. And then they can say, essentially I said this yesterday, so I'll say it again, that they are like Barack Obama in September of 2002 saying in September of 2002, whatever George W. Bush is up to with Iraq, if we do anything, it's stupid and we should do nothing and we shouldn't engage Iraq and all of that. And then that's a thing that he planted flag on. And then when he ran for president, that's what he used as a stick to beat Hillary Clinton with until he beat her and won. Right? Is that she voted for the war. And he said the war was bad even before Bush or just right after Bush went to the UN to say we need to do something about Saddam Hussein's regime. So he saw was there first, he said it first. She's the past, I'm the future. And so this is a bet, it seems to me, on the possibility if you are somebody, that there will be a post Trump Republican Party. And guess who they're already preparing to turn on is Trump's vice president, who has been playing footsie with them, who got the job because Tucker Carlson talked Donald Trump into it and all of that. And they're already in the world of anybody who is touching Trump. If Trump is gonna be the president who wins this war in Iran is gonna be or has fought this war in Iran is gonna be compromised. And that's Vance. And we need somebody to the, I don't know if to the extreme events, not to the right. Cause I don't think this is really right or left. And so that's what's going on here politically. But they're wildly exaggerating their intellectual influence. That's, I think, the striking part.

[D]

Can I make a tangential point about the media coverage of all of this?

[A]

It's never tangential.

[D]

Okay, I'm obsessing over this because I'm taking this in yesterday and just thinking about if you are following this stuff in the mainstream media, which I saw reference in a political news Politico newsletter yesterday to the hardline apac. And I'm thinking they think Apex Hardline, you know, they should come listen to the commentary podcast. But how, how ill prepared you would be to actually understand what's going on. So when Joe Kent was confirmed, when he was nominated and when he was confirmed, all of the coverage in the New York Times and you know, was that he's a white nationalist crackpot conspiracy theorist and then he resigns in protest over the war and it's that he's a brave dissenter and they're comparing him to George Ball and you know, the line of courageous people who stepped down on principle. And then there was a long New York Times piece by Robert Draper yesterday that talked about the rise of Islamophobia on the right, when in fact what this war is actually turning up the volume on is anti Semitism on the right and the debate over how much tolerance there's going to be over anti Semitism. So the Draper piece says that the Trump administration's war against the Shia nation of Iran could exacerbate Islamophobia, which started. It didn't materialize out of nowhere. It began with the taking of 66 hostages in the embassy. And as we're talking, I'm thinking, you know, there is such an interesting story to be written about the role of the Tucker Carlson's and the Megyn Kelly's who are now quoted as like Tucker Carlson's quoted in this story. And they're becoming friendlier at Tucker personally is becoming friendlier to Islam and saying Islamophobia has no role in any of. It's exactly the opposite of what you're reading. And anyhow, all of this just struck me as how ill suited you would be to understand what's actually happening in our corners of the world. From reading all of this mainstream coverage where the debate is really over what is our relationship with Israel going to be like? How much tolerance will there be if you're anti Americanism and anti Jewish sentiment on the right? And what role will America play in the world?

[A]

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[C]

Or St Patrick's Day.

[A]

Or St Patrick's Day. Right. On the other side. But that war, manufactured by Israel is ISIS attempting to establish the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. Where Israel factors into that, you literally would have to find the brain worm in his head if he believes what he's saying we're talking about.

[D]

Sorry. The Times also did an entire piece on Kent's wife and did not mention that in his resignation letter he blamed Israel incorrectly for her death.

[A]

Right. So obviously it's a tragic death. She was serving her country. I think it's. I don't know him. I'm in no position to, like, talk about how he talks about his wife, but it's disgraceful that he would use her memory in this fashion. I don't care who he is or whether, you know, you don't own your own heroic late wife's legacy to use as a political weapon. While you might be jumping out and quitting ahead of an indictment for leaking classified information, nonetheless, Israel's pulled in. So now here in this war with Iran, Israel is not being pulled in. Israel is a partner in the war with Iran in a way that no nation has been a partner with the United States in a war, really, since Britain in World War II. And so this is a pretty significant moment for the American Israel relationship. It happens to be happening at a time when Israel's, when public opinion about Israel is in a downturn or a downswing or it's really bad. And so you would think, and I think this will be the case, that it's okay to talk about Israel and America in relation to the war on Iran. That is not like talking about how there's a war for Israel when the United States, you know, like, goes to war with Saddam Hussein to liberate Kuwait. And Pat Buchanan says this is a war for Israel, which was, you could say, was demented, but in fact, it was really evil. He knew perfectly well it wasn't a war for Israel. He was just a. He's, he's still alive, but he was just a disgusting anti Semite and wanted to tag Israel with the idea that if an American died, a Jew had the blood, you know, a Jew had. If Leroy Brown, as he said in one of his things, you know, like, died in the desert of Saudi Arabia, that it was Jewish money and malefaction that led to that death. So that's 36 years ago. So here we are.

[C]

But that's, I mean, that's the same. That is what we're dealing with here, which is the point you're approaching, is that when they say Israel, what they're doing is regulating the discussion of American politics in a way that casts doubt on the legitimacy of American Jews participation in those politics. And so it's, you know, the, the, it sounds crazy. The conspiracy theory is that Israel caused an. Israel made this war, Israel this and that. But it's really intense. You know, similarly with the BDS movement, the Boycott Divest and sanctions movement in America is not hurting Israel's bottom line. You know, there's a fight over Ben and Jerry's or whatever. It's, you know, every so often an ice cream shop may have a real PR cris on his hands, but nobody, you know, the boycott Divest sanction is not actually bringing Israel's economic standing down. Even the war didn't bring Israel. Right. It's, it's, it's, it's getting, you know, its ratings are already going up post war, you know, from credit agencies and stuff like that. What BDS does is make it really uncomfortable for Jews in America to be in any of these places, to be in universities where BDS is extremely popular, to be, you know, in any sort of those institutions. The environment, the protest groups. Right. All the left activism, you know, So I saw Noah Smith comment on Twitter last night that, you know, somebody was asking what happened to climate change? And Noah said, you know, he's on the, he's a man of the left. And he said, Palestine ate climate, you know, because it's like that's, that's the. So that's what they done, right?

[A]

Greg Thunberg. But on a cafe climate, Joan of Arc. And then she became, then she became the La Pasianaria of Hamas. Like, that's, you know, that, that's where she went to show that what matters is, you know, like, hating Jews, not, not saving the planet from warming.

[C]

It's a, you know, this idea. It's a litmus test thing. And so that what happens is it's really about how it affects American Jews who want to get involved in politics. And that's what these guys are doing? I don't think that, you know, what Joe Kent wants to do is he wants to delegitimize anybody who disagrees with his newfound support for Iran or whatever. And that's mostly American Jews. But they also want to, ahead of 2028, delegitimize Jewish donors, Jewish lobby groups, Jewish political participants. They want to delegitimize Josh Piro. They want to draw a line that says you have to do this and not. And that's happening on both sides. As I mentioned, Josh Shapiro. It's a much bigger thing than just Israel. It's injecting the conspiracy mindset into the debate means they want everybody to wonder what the Jews are up to. And that's really what it's about. I mean, look, there was a story. There was a story, you know, in California. I know this is the left, but there was a story in California. The faculty union in California put on its questionnaire that asking candidates if they want an endorsement, asking candidates if they've ever received money from Jewish California, which is the umbrella group of Jewish organizations in California. Okay? Think of it as like a version of a state version of the Conference of Presidents or whatever. It's not an Israel organization. Its name is Jewish, the J, and its name stands for Jewish. And they said, did you take money from jpac, as it was called at the time, Jewish California? The oil industry or the tobacco industry or cops? So we saw that with Gavin Newsom, too. It was like, no, I don't take money from oil and I don't take money from. From tobacco industry, and I don't take money from aipac. This is an emerging categorization of Jewish political activism as specifically and literally harmful to Americans. And the way it was phrased in the California thing was harms America's working families. So this is, I think, the larger point that we're seeing here in finding a way, how does somebody crazy like Joe Kent get hurt in 2028? How did these guys who are minorities in the Republican Party, as we said, Tucker Carlson, he's not part of the hundred percent of MAGA that support Trump. How did these guys in such small minorities, how do they get heard? They try to clear the space of anybody who could oppose them and taint them. That itself is going to have very sour consequences.

[A]

I think that's a very good analysis. And I think that what's important to note here, to get a little meta, is we bring this back to the Jewish people. The Commentary is a Jewish publication that's part of its writ Its mandate, its mission. It was started in 1945 as a publication of the American Jewish Committee. It has been independent for 20 years. But as I say, we are here as a frankly openly Zionist publication that exists in part to present an intellectual defense of the Jews in America and the role that Jews have played in Western history, in Western civilization, in American life and all of that. So it's part of our mandate to talk about this stuff, particularly for us. If you're a listener of the podcast and don't quite understand or why we keep returning to this, when you have other things that bother you, this bothers us. It's part of what's supposed to bother us. But even if you. That's not in your wheelhouse, Abe. I think Abe's point that we began with is what is so salient, which is it's never just about the Jews. Why, why, why has this conversation on the right moved if it has moved? I mean, maybe it was just always there, but like underground, why is this conversation gone too perfidious Jewish role in doing horrible things from the, from the supposed involvement with Charlie Kirk's assassination, which of course makes no sense to whatever. It's because antisemitism is a constant poison stream in Western civilization and at moments of stress or crisis or trouble or peril or confusion or something like that, it is a constant as an explanation for why things are going wrong. That there is this tiny band of extremely intelligent and secretly wealthy people who are pulling the strings. And it is a ludicrously unhealthy thing to think for a healthy country, self confident, looking to go to the future. But aside from being unhealthy in that way and dangerous to us, like physically potentially dangerous to us and our children and all of that, it's a poison that enters the bloodstream and then it leads you into all kinds of. It goes into other rivulets and affects other ways of understanding how the world works, which is this conspiracy driven idea that there is a world behind the world where secret people are manipulating everybody and you as a self governing citizen are just a puppet on a string being controlled by a cabal. And that could be Jews, it could be bankers who are often Jews, it could be the health establishment and. Or it could be 10 billion other things. And it, you know, eats away at the idea that we are all self governing citizens and that we have.

[C]

It's ruinous to a self governing politics to have people believe that nothing they do matters because they're not actually self governing.

[A]

Right.

[B]

But it's purposefully ruinous. I mean, I think when, you know, when you look at the likes of Tucker Carlson, loathe to even mention his name. It's about using Jew hatred as a means of civic destruction. These people want to bring down the present order just as their mirror image, as their mirror images on the left want to do so. It's not a mistake that the dissident right is supportive of America's enemies from Iran to Russia to Venezuela under its previous state. This is about destroying the American led order from within. That's what all their rhetoric leads to. This is. And it's an attack on Trump. It has been an attack on Trump since before the war in Iran was launched. I mean, it is about going against what he has been trying to preserve or save or return to in his way.

[A]

I want to use an example of the intellectual corruption or the kind of disease here in a person that I am very sad and sorry. Someone I've had many disagreements over the years, have worked with, have known for 40 years, was an editor of, have published in Commentary, a person that I have great intellectual respect for or did Christopher Caldwell. Christopher Caldwell worked at the Weekly Standard with me. He is a person of great intellectual scope, of literary highbrow, writes brilliantly about poetry and literature, has written a couple of very profound books about American history, about the changes in Europe's civilization and others, but very much lined up with the Claremont Review and others as sort of a voice, as an expositor, explainer and representative of the possibility that Trumpism, beginning in 2016, represented a new force in American politics. And Chris does have very serious isolationist tendencies. He has written a piece for the Spectator in Britain, and I'm going to read from it because I think it indicates a degree of intellectual rot that has affected even somebody as sophisticated as he is. And here's what he writes. Trump has escaped other predicaments of his own making, but there is something different about this one, meaning the war in Iran. The attack on Iran is so wildly inconsistent with the wishes of his own base, so diametrically opposed to their reading of the National Interest, that it is likely to mark the end of Trumpism as a project. Those with a claim to speak for Trumpism, Joe Rogan, Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly, have reacted to to the invasion with incredulity. I want to stop here. I'm going to read a little more. Chris is a highbrow intellectual. His claim is that Trump's intellectual movement has now been revealed as irreparably damaged and stained by Joe Rogan, a comedian who did mixed martial arts wrestling, Tucker Carlson, with whom he worked at the Weekly Standard, who is now a lunatic podcaster, and Megyn Kelly, who is a lunatic podcaster. He's not talking about even people that I don't have much respect for, like Michael Anton or Orbanism or Rod Drear or people like that. He is saying that the people who speak for Trumpism are three lunatic podcasters. That is not an intellectual movement. That is not an ism. They are entertainers, political entertainers. And so he moves, goes on to say, quote, trump may entertain himself with the presidency for the next three years, but the mutual respect between him and his movement has been ruptured and the revolution is essentially over. Trumpism was a movement of democratic restoration. At the center of it was the idea of the deep state. His revolution is essentially over. He's got 100% support from the very people that Chris says here are abandoning him. Based on the podcasting audiences of Joe Rogan, Tucker Carlson, and Megan Kelly, Trump's revolution began with this war. That may be the big secret here, which is why they are going crazy. What Trumpism is going to be in the future is that he's the guy who fought the war against Iran. It's not going to be that he drew a hurricane line on a map of the hurricane. It's not going to be that he, you know, got rid of moderate Republicans and primaried them. It's not going to be January 6th, though maybe some of it should be January 6th. It's not going to be. There's no Trumpism policy that he did in his first term or that he's done this term that is anywhere near as central to his legacy as this war will be. And if this war works, the Trump revolution began on February 28, not on in June 2015 when he came down the escalator and they're out of it. And he. If he mar. If his mar. If Chris's idea of marshaling, the idea that his revolution is over is that he's lost Tucker, Megan and Joe Rogan, that is a very low level for somebody like Chris Caldwell to sink to that. He is now grasping for straws with his anti war view by saying that these podcasters are the intellectual vanguard of the American future. They may be the populist vanguard of something. And maybe again, if the war goes badly, they will be, you know, a cesspool from which you. That can sort of start overtaking, you know, like seeping into American politics and taking it over. But that is not the choice that Trump has made. And so far in three weeks, he's got 100% support from people who voted for him and 90% support from the Republican Party. What is Chris talking about?

[C]

And also it's an example, I think, of the point that Abe was making. Not to put words in Abe's mouth, but you know, when he, he says in the essay, you know, he has joined Israel in a campaign of aerial assassination and bombardment against Iran, this time of an almost incredible violence, and has wound up trapped. American air power proved sufficient to kill Iran's 86 year old leader and dozens of schoolgirls, flatten residential apartment blocks and blow up much of the country's navy, but not to neutralize Iran's missiles which have been able to rain destruction on America's bases and Tel Aviv's neighborhood. There is an element of this, you know, this is how America behaves at war, that, you know, it's not just get pulled into something by Israel. America is bombing schoolchildren.

[A]

But you've got to stop there because his description of what Iran has done in response to the United States is a lie. Tel Aviv destruction has not been rained down on Tel Aviv, nor has any major site in the Middle east belonging to the United States been hit with any effectiveness in three weeks. This, he is, he is, and he's too smart not to know that he is writing bullshit propaganda about how the Iranian response has been injurious and destructive to the United States. You want to talk about, we could talk about the Strait of Hormuz and whether or not damage is being done to the world economy because of Iran's threat to the Straits of Hormuz. But the idea that Iran's counter assault has been effective. They've hit some buildings in Dubai, they've hit some, you know, they've been raining down drones on the UAE that are getting shot down and a couple of buildings on US military sites have been hit and Tel Aviv is completely intact.

[C]

Didn't you see on the Internet that they killed Bibi?

[A]

Oh, well, that's, well, okay, fair enough. They killed Bibi and they destroyed Tel Aviv. And you know, so this war is, I mean, that's why I say there is some intellectual rot here. But from people whom I genuinely and I hate when people say, oh, you know, you should be better, you know, but like, this is very disillusioning about that somebody like Chris Caldwell could end up as corrupted as this intellectually, that he may say he doesn't like this war. It's Bad, it's going to have bad consequences and we will be sorry for it. But to mimic and spew out bizarre counter propaganda that is literally emanating from Iran's propaganda machine, whatever it is, or from the people who are essentially fronting for Iran. That's why Abe, I want to get back to your point here. There's really serious reason why we need to pay attention to this and to believe that its defeat is as central, not as central to the American future, but like is central to the American future. Just as winning the war. Once you are America and you start a war, America should win the war that it starts. That should be axiomatic.

[B]

Yeah, I mean what Seth was reading there is identical to what the anti American left says whenever the US goes to war, about killing children, about how ineffective it is. So that's my point. This is a movement that is anti American and doesn't. Has never been on board with Trump's agenda. Insofar as Trump's agenda is to restore effective American power projection in terms of his agenda brought. They are against that. That makes them, they are the equivalent of the left. And you know, I wouldn't be surprised. Should this war continue, God willing to be as effective as it's been and should it end with an American and Israeli victory, I wouldn't be surprised if these figures overtly simply join the left. What at this point is the difference? I mean I can't think of anything economically they're not.

[A]

And on Israel, and on Israel and then we get back to Israel. Yeah, they are. So Ruma Duaji, what is the distinction between Ruma Duwadi's view of Israel and Tucker Carlson's view of Israel? Ruduachi is on the far left. Her husband's basically he's a democratic socialist, which means he's like close to being a communist. I assume she is too. Tucker, Christian, nationalist, whatever you want to call. I don't even know how to characterize him, but here comes the horseshoe and the horseshoe is the Jew. They come together in hatred of the Jewish hatred of the Jewish state.

[C]

And so yeah, Ro Khanna attacked you recently and in, in his doing so chose to attack you for calling Pat Buchanan an anti Semite. So Ro Khanna, a real man of the left. I mean not, you know, a left left, a leftist leftist who's running for president in 28, probably choosing. You never brought up Pat Buchanan. He was like, well I don't trust you cuz you called Pat Buchanan an anti Semite. I'm not sure if There's a better example of what you're saying of this horseshoe than Ro Khanna, 2028, leftist darling, defend publicly defending Pat Buchanan. That's the horseshoe.

[A]

Right. So we have an intellectual battle as well, you know, that we're fighting as part of the war effort, maybe we could say, and Eliana is fighting it journalistically with the effort to expose what needs to be exposed about the people who are conducting themselves in this fashion. So where does the Free Beacon go from here this week? Eliana?

[D]

Our mission has always been to report the stories that the legacy media isn't chasing after. And you know, I think I call it white space, where their focus right now is on telling the American people how high energy prices are and how poorly we're doing in the war against Iran. And our focus is on reporting on the who Zoram Mamdani's wife really is. And there's another wonderful story by Ira Stoll on the New York Times had a piece yesterday about the widening economic gap that prevents poor kids from accessing, you know, excellent schools in New York. And we have another exclusive story on the fact that charter schools comprise 59 of the top 100 public schools by math and English test scores. So, you know, our goal and mission has always been to uncover and report the stories that the rest of the press is not paying attention to tell you about.

[A]

And here what we have, I think is my, my problem or my central insight, I think about media bias, having worked in the mainstream media and out for more than four decades, is that bias takes a lot of force. Some of it is, you know, like actual made up stuff or, you know, like claiming things are scandals that aren't scandals and downplaying scandals that are real. And we of course have this amazing buried fact, half century buried fact that Cesar Chavez, who was considered a nearby saint when I was a kid, leader of the United Farm Workers, leader of boycotts against grapes and lettuce, owing to the supposedly unjust and horrible treatment of particularly migrant farm workers in California. It is impossible to explain if you are not my age or older and I'm about to be 65, what a glorified figure Cesar Chavez was in American life. He was sort of like close to Mother Teresa in his self sacrificing effort to represent the most downtrodden workforce in the world and find some way to make sure that their lives were better and that the only real way to do this was to create economic hardship for the people who employed them in the form of boycotts. He was a huge Cultural landmark figure also because he was, as we used to say, he was a Chicano. And that's not a term in use anymore, but he was like, he was America's foremost Chicano. And there are, I think, hundreds of public schools named after him. And you know, he is a. California

[C]

has, California has Cesar Chavez Day, which Gavin Newsom just announced. They will be having a special session in the legislature to debate the possibility of maybe changing that name.

[A]

I think we all know because the New York Times revealed yesterday or the day before yesterday after a four or five year investigation, that Cesar Chavez repeatedly raped young girls. And one of those young girls, now

[D]

they tell us, John.

[A]

Well, one of those young girls, amazingly enough, is a figure herself in the world of glorified, the glories of the farm workers world and Latina feminism and all of that. Dolores Huerta, who, you know, is herself a legendary progressive figure and turns out he raped her. I believe she says that they may have had, she may have given birth to his children.

[C]

And well, she, she, she married his brothers eventually.

[A]

Right. I mean, right. I, I the details which the kids came from. But yeah, so, but in any case, he was a serial rapist of young girls. And this was buried for decades and decades because the people like Lor Swerton, others, did not want to stain their movement with the evil doing of his, you know, of their, of the, of the figurehead of their plaster saint, who it turns out, was their plaster saint. Like, he was not a real saint. He was actually a demon. And I bring this up only to say the New York Times is, I think, very proudly walking around saying, oh, we took four years. We convinced them to finally come out and tell the truth. And so we're a wonderful and glorified paper. But you know what? According to what I'm reading, people Knew in the 1970s that he was doing this and they didn't report it then because it would have been too dangerous for them to do so because it would have been like reporting on the criminal activities of, you know, of Mother Teresa or something like that. So I only bring this up to say that, you know, part of my view on how media bias works is, is questions of emphasis. Meaning is the issue of the Strait of Hormuz and the dangers posed to international shipping an important story in this war? The answer is absolutely yes. And anybody who says we shouldn't be covering it is, I don't know who that would be. But like, because, you know, it makes us look bad or it makes America look bad is foolish or wrong. Headed or propagandistic or something like that. The question is, what is the emphasis? Is the emphasis that Iran is left so desperate that it has nothing left in its arsenal to fight this war but to threaten international shipping with its drones? Where do you place the emphasis? Is it stray of Hormuz was just happy and everything was wonderful, and American Israel came along and started bombing Iran, and Iran had no choice but to take aim at international shipping. You can't blame them, really. Like, it's their only play. And so, you know, now it's all Trump's fault and he better figure out how to make this happen that we can have international shipping because, ooh, Trump sucks. Or Iran's on its last legs and it's trying to destroy the world economy. Maybe everybody should come in on the war and cry and like, do deal the fatal blow before it gets oil prices to $200 a gallon in Europe. That's why the Europeans should come in and help the ships get through the, get through the Strait. Or why the Japanese and South Koreans and the Chinese should be participating in this? Because this, why do you want this teetering nation that's evil anyway to be firing off its last desperate bullets at this one site that they seem to have some ability to shoot at because they, we have disabled their ability to respond in any way effectively, despite Christopher Caldwell saying the Tel Aviv has been destroyed in airstrikes from Iran.

[C]

Well, isn't the fact that they have the ability to disrupt in this way, isn't that fact enough to get the world to say, well, we should do something about that? Well, I don't know whether you. That means we go to Carg island and take Carg island, whatever, whatever it is you think we should do. The world should be saying, you know, we have to find a way around this. We can't be held hostage by Iran. Now that we know that Iran can do this, it is that much more important to ensure that they don't have the ability to do this.

[A]

But that's the policy thing. That's why I'm talking about the media stress. So is the stress that Iran is behaving in a way in the Strait of Hormuz that is so injurious to the health of the world economy that it must be stopped, or is it Trump and Israel have really screwed this up big time and they didn't have a plan and now they're there, now they're doing this. And so let's talk about, let's not talk about Iran. And what means the world can use to prevent, to sort of like end this threat to oil shipping. It is, let's talk about how stupid this war is because we're at this point or something like that. Like, that's why I say the bias involves. Could tell the story in 15 different ways. They're all telling it in one way, which is Trump screwed up and A, hasn't screwed up yet. And B, like, yeah. So as you said yesterday, Seth, if Iran could always close the Straits of Hormuz at will, then Iran always had the deterrence to prevent its regime from like changing or not pursuing nuclear weapons or anything like that. So, in fact, you're doing the world a favor by figuring out a way in which you can kill off this regime so that Iranians in the future will not attempt to do this and have policy control, have effective control over world oil shipping. You know, how is that Trump's fault? He's actually weird sense. This is an attempt to cure this overarching problem that Iran has always been

[B]

able to hold the world hostage.

[A]

They want to hold the world hostage. This is their last play is trying to hold the world hostage here. And so we should all stop them from holding the world hostage, not just America and Israel. But okay, so America and Israel will probably have to do it.

[C]

Well, and what's interesting is that we saw this debate within the administration too, right, with Vance about the Houthis, when the idea was when the debate was going on whether we, the US should strike the Houthis. That was when that signal chat leaked, the famous Jeffrey Goldberg signal chat with administration national security insiders and advisors. And that part of the debate was, does it matter enough to what happens to these shipping lanes for us to get involved militarily? And Vance's position in the discussions was no. And that's something to keep in mind now as well as, you know, as this is all happening too, that this has been an argument ongoing between these two factions within the administration and within the right for a while.

[A]

Right. Abe, finally you said so Chris Caldwell says that Trumpism was about domestic restoration and the war against the deep state. You say that what Trump's representing here is a thing that is a through line from the beginning of the first term till now, which is how does America project power to defend or advance its national interests? In the first term was all economic and relating to trade. And a lot in the first year of the Trump second term was about trade and tariffs. The first was like threatening, you know, China and trying to get them to do things, you know, like unilaterally to satisfy us and calm things down and make trade a little more equal. By his lights, right? But whatever that is, that's power projection for the purpose of the pursuit of the national interest. In this term, he has moved inexorably toward military means of projection of power in the national interest. Not only the 12 day war ending in Midnight Hammer, but the war in the Caribbean and the Atlantic Ocean relating to Venezuela shipping and the drug stuff and all of that. And then of course the extraction of Maduro from Venezuela. A lot of weird talk, kind of very militaristic talk, relating to the idea that we could take Cuba. Not take it like seize it, but like take it so that the regime falls there. So it's not about the deep state. It's not about what Chris Caldwell and Sohra Bamari and everybody fantasize, which is we're going to cope inside our own borders and we're going to conduct this like war against progressivism, which I'm all for, by the way.

[B]

Like, I think particularly this Trump term. He came in and described his agenda as a common sense revolution. To me, the domestic and foreign components are of a piece. It's common sense that we have borders enforce them. It's common sense that we have officers of the law and laws enforce them if we are. It's common sense not to waste incredible amounts of taxpayer dollars on absurd

[C]

left

[B]

wing identity studies in far off lands. Get rid of those. It is common sense that we have the world's strongest, most capable military. We should use it to ensure that the world is a more friendly place for America and American interests. It is all to me in that sense, it is of peace. Now we talk about the tariffs, which I think he's just off on. He thinks that's common sense, but that's what he thinks. So that is what I think this term is about.

[A]

To me, what you just said there means that we're taking him seriously and literally and they're not taking him seriously. Cuz he's making clear over time what he's about and they don't like it, so they're pretending that it's not what he's about. Or now their eyes are open because you can't unsee a bomb dropping and they're like, well, he's bad, he's done, he's lost us. He'll fool around for another three years and then somebody like Megan Tucker, Nick Fuentes, Joe Kent, Adolf Hitler will come in and save us. When he, you know, when Trump couldn't

[B]

I want to make one more point about this. The sudden Trump disillusion among his, among these people. The problem is they fell in love with him, you see, and you're not supposed to fall in love with politicians and political leaders. You're supposed to, you know, assess them warily on the job they do and respond. When you invest everything, your reason for being, and you turn them into saviors, you are going to be disappointed. They are not having a mind meld or a heart meld with you. They don't exist to redeem the country in exactly the way you see, you think it needs redeeming. So they're all very silly in some sense, too. I mean, because they've sort of fallen for this cult and it's falling apart.

[A]

You're just citing Psalm 146, you know, put not your trust in princes, nor in the Son of man in whom there is no help. This is the ultimate political wisdom, which is, if you're going to worship somebody, worship God, don't worship a person. Politicians will invariably disappoint you. Obama disappointed the left. Bush disappointed a lot of people. Reagan disappointed people in his last term. Trump is now disappointing the most. You know, his, like his, his deepest worshipers in the intellectual class. Put not your trust in princes. This is idolatry. And you know, idolatry always leads you to terrible, terrible places. That is the insight of Judaism, by the way, which is, be the change

[C]

you want to see in the world.

[A]

You be the change you are.

[C]

The ones you've been waiting for.

[A]

No, but yeah, exactly like you are. We're a self governing citizenry. Yes, he works for us, we don't work for him. We'll be back tomorrow. For Seth, Abe and Eliana, I'm John Pod Horiz. Keep the candle burning.