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- [00:04]
A
Hope for the best, expect the worst. Some preach pain, some die of thirst the way of knowing which way it's going. Hope for the best, expect the worst. Welcome to the Commentary Magazine daily podcast Today. Today is Wednesday, March 25, 2026. I'm Jon Puthorowartz, the editor of Commentary magazine. With me, as always, executive editor Abe Greenwald. Hi, Abe.
- [00:37]
B
Hi, John.
- [00:38]
A
And Washington Free Beacon editor Eliana Johnson. Hi, Eliana.
- [00:42]
C
Hi, John.
- [00:45]
A
So more midterm news that doesn't sound good. For Republicans in Florida, a special election saw the unexpected victory of in a House, in a, in a Florida House district. Emily Gregory, Democrat in the Mar? A Lago district, upsets Trump backed GOP candidate John Maples. Okay, I'm bringing this up not to have a conversation about how the midterms are shaping up badly for Republicans, but because of a specific thing relating to Emily Gregory. That brings up a very interesting piece that was published last week in the Bulwark by Lauren Egan. And Lauren Egan proposes that what Democrats really need to do is nominate good looking people for House and Senate seats because all available evidence suggests that people like to vote for hot people. And she adduces evidence, she quotes people, she talks about things that are said on podcasts and all of that. And it's an amusing piece and there's a lot to it because of course, in one sense, when we say someone's hot, what we mean is they're alluring, they have charisma, they catch the eye. You remember them because of what they look like, which is a great plus in politics where people are coming at you that you know nothing about. But I have a slightly different take on this, which she doesn't really get into, which is that the Democratic Party's major problem, it seems to me, is that it is increasingly looking like a freak show. It supports freakish policy issues, kind of elevates weirdness, social weirdness, things that are not sort of conventional or traditional or sort of like in the mainstream of the way Americans live their lives. And that one visual way that you can counteract that problem is by having good looking people as the front who are standing in front, like the wizard of Oz. The people behind the curtain are the trans people and like, you know, Sergeant Rachel Levine and this one and that. But the people that you're seeing out in front are all kind of like sorority presidents and the football players and that sort of thing. So what do you think of this theory, Eliana?
- [03:47]
C
On the margins, of course, it helps to be attractive, but Kamala Harris is Know, relatively attractive woman and nonetheless effective messaging about the policies that she really stood for brought her down. So I think, sure, it's helpful, but it's kind of silly. Of course, everybody would choose, given the choice, everybody's going to choose the attractive candidate. And everyone knows putting having Rachel Levine be your candidate is the death knell of a candidacy. So I guess I'm a little bit, like, confused about what it is, the choice we're making.
- [04:33]
A
Okay. But I think by bringing up Kamala, you're missing the point because now I'm gonna be ageist. Like, Kamala's too old to be hot. I mean, she's an incredibly attractive person being 60 years old, but she's 60 years old. So we're talking here about people in their 30s or in their 20s or something like that who are manifestly alluring and maybe somebody you can project, I hate to put it this way, sexual fantasies onto that. You wouldn't necessarily, for a really attractive person in their 50s or 60s.
- [05:05]
C
Okay.
- [05:05]
A
Well, we. I, as a person in my 60s, I understand people are, you know, making a sexual object out of me. And you go right ahead, but I don't think I really fit this category.
- [05:15]
C
We could talk about Gavin Newsom, and I think on the whole, his whole 58.
- [05:20]
A
58 years old.
- [05:21]
C
Too old for men. I don't agree with that. I don't think for men, age is as much of an issue as it is for women. We could talk about Sarah Palin, where I think her looks were helpful, but again, not a panacea for her other issues. And we could talk about this House candidate in Tennessee whose name I'm blanking on now, who was attractive but again was just too left wing for the district. I actually think that the best candidates are somewhat more relatable. They're George W. Bush or they're Bill Clinton, where they're somewhat good looking, but they're not so good looking that they're not unrelatable to people.
- [06:02]
A
Abe, where are you on this looksism?
- [06:05]
C
Looks like charisma is more important than looks, which is Bill Clinton, George W. Bush. Barack Obama's very good looking,
- [06:17]
A
but he was young. I mean, he was legitimately. He was 42 years old when he ran for president. That's young by. That's young by any.
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C
And by the way, Trump.
- [06:27]
A
Yeah.
- [06:28]
C
You know, good looking, but he more has the charisma of a college football coach than a Hollywood star. So I think my theory holds.
- [06:38]
A
Okay.
- [06:38]
B
I think there's something interesting about the idea that Democrats need would benefit from not just good looking candidates because as Eliana says, that's always a. It's always going to give you a couple of points. But presentable looking, normal looking as a way of tempering the kind of tendencies that are associated with their party. It also makes me wonder if the obverse isn't a little true for Republicans. Sort of part of breaking the mold of Republicanism of the Republican Party over the last 10 years has, you know, been about this sort of like getting rid of the stodgy stodginess. And there have been some wild Republicans over over the past few years, some of them quite attractive. And I think in some sense it's the, it's kind of the mirror image dynamic at work there.
- [07:54]
A
I'm glad I got another chance to talk to you about Aura Frames. I love Aura frames. I'm looking at one right now, looking at pictures of my kids. They rotate every 30 seconds. Little film clips sometimes. I got photos on this frame from 25 years ago and from 25 minutes ago pretty much. And I'm not the only enthusiast for Aura Frames. It is featured in 495 gift guides during 2024, selected three times as one of Oprah's favorite things. Named the number one digital picture frame by Wirecutter, the Strategist, Wired and PC Mag. And it is so easy to set up. It takes about two minutes. You basically send your photos through an app right into the frame. You can organize them, you can have them do split screens. You can have them play videos up to 30 seconds. And the photos look like real prints when they, when they freeze in place. They look like you are looking at a photograph, not like you're looking at a digital picture through a frame. So it is just a wonderful product. I'm thrilled by it. Named number one by Wirecutter, Aura Frames takes the guesswork out of gifting shop now@auraframes.com Support the show by mentoring us at checkout. Terms and conditions apply. So I think this has been a six decade issue for Democrats, in other words, Republicans, even though Democrats have always been the larger party, at least until relatively recently. Like remember in the 60s and 70s and even the 80s, Americans claimed to be Democrats over Republicans by a factor of two. But Democrats had to battle the idea that they were not like everybody else. They were not like the mainstream of America. So that when Eugene McCarthy ran for president in 1968 as this kind of slightly outsider insurgent and he was trying to harness the world of the emerging counterculture, one of the things that was told to the people who wanted to help McCarthy win was that they should go clean for Gene, meaning they should shave their beards off and wear a button down shirt and maybe a tie. Like a clean for Gene person would look like what Steve Kornacki looks like now. That was the idea. Make yourself be presentable. And like a person that a 40 or 50 year old voter wouldn't go, I can't vote for that guy McCarthy. He's got these freak show hippies who are his supporters. And on and on through the 80s and 90s and onward. Take 2006. In 2006, when Rahm Emanuel was running the national Congressional campaign, whatever the Democratic version was running the House races for
- [11:04]
C
the Democrats, the DSC D whatever, it's
- [11:10]
A
the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee or DCC or something like that.
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C
Yeah.
- [11:14]
A
His goal was to get the veterans and like, you know, people who. Veterans really, but I mean people who looked like they were ordinary, normal, patriotic Americans. Not anti war protesters, not people who've been out in the streets, you know, screaming in 2003 about how we were committing an illegal war. He wanted a front, a united front that was. We Democrats are just as patriotic as Republicans. Look how many of us have served with distinction in the military. And George Bush and the Republicans are screwing this all up. They screwed up Iraq, they screwed up the response to Hurricane Katrina. And we have this crew of competent, good looking American heroes. So every time Democrats need some kind of a boost and their main issue is that they are obsessed with an issue set that can make the ordinary workaday voter go, what the hell are you talking about? I don't want boys in my daughter's bathrooms. They can bring somebody up who will, even though they'll say whatever they'll say, look like they would agree with you that you don't want boys in girls bathrooms. So that even in a case like in Texas, like with this candidate, James Tallarico, the point about Tallarico is that Republicans are now trying to desperately uncover evidence that while he looks like he's a nice Christian, you know, Texan, good person, all of that, that in fact he has freak show views and that all of that is a cover and that they're trying to puncture it. So this has been like a real issue for Democrats going on three generations. The issue with Republicans, as Abe brings up, is that the freak show aspect of Republicanism has become really much more pronounced in the last 10 years. And the percentages of these very controversial weirdos who actually get elected to office and then come to Washington and have no idea what they're doing or what they want to do legislatively but know how to make a scene.
- [13:43]
B
They're also more pronounced because of the contrast they create with what the right was before them. One would expect some something freak show adjacent perhaps, you know, to emerge from somewhere on the left. The fact that they've come at all from the right is the startling fact, I think.
- [14:06]
A
Right. I mean, let's just take as a visual matter the distinction between let's just say AOC and Rashida Tlaib. Their politics are indistinguishable. Their radicalism is indistinguishable, their anti Semitism is indistinguishable, their vile hatred of America is indistinguishable. But Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar to some extent walk around, they're wearing hijab in public. They are making it clear that they believe themselves to be separate, a separate population in some sense or representing a separate population. And AOC looks like a hot 32 year old woman on a Netflix show about hot 32 year old women looking for love in LA or New York or something like that. Does that make her relatable? It certainly makes her more relatable than when Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib are screaming at Trump on the floor of the during the State of the Union.
- [15:15]
C
I don't think find this to be like a deep insight though that the very attractive AOC is gonna be more palatable to Americans than the hijab wearing Muslim congresswoman. Of course she will be. The thing is, and this is also, I think accounts for some of Mamdani's success is that he's, he's handsome and he's young.
- [15:47]
A
He always wears a suit.
- [15:48]
C
Yeah. And if you recall, you know, Hillary Clinton when she was running against Obama, you remember her trying to circulate those pictures of him wearing like Muslim garb, whatever was foreign garb.
- [16:01]
D
Yeah,
- [16:03]
C
of course. I just don't see this actually as being an endemic problem for Democratic politicians. Like most of them, aside from the ones we've mentioned, do look basically normal. And it's actually the aides who are a bunch of freaks and it's their young aides who are out protesting and looking like complete weirdos. And on the whole, on both the left and, and right. I haven't read the piece, so there may be nuances that I'm missing. I'm not a, I have to say, you know, I'm not an avid Bulwark reader.
- [16:37]
A
It's it's not a particularly nuanced point. It's just like, nominate, nominate hot chicks and like himbos and bimbos and you'll do better. In other words, like, all things being equal, if you have a bimbo, you'll do better.
- [16:51]
C
But I don't think, you know, In a Talarico vs. John Cornyn matchup where you have, I guess, like an okay, you know, handsome, ish young guy versus, you know, John Cornyn, like, I don't think it at all is going to be a challenge to prove to Texas voters that Talarico has views that are way far out of the mainstream. Not just in Texas, but anywhere in this country.
- [17:18]
E
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- [17:48]
F
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- [18:17]
A
throwing it out there. I'm not committed to this theory. I just wanted to start the show without talking about Iran. So I, this, this just sort of floated in my head.
- [18:27]
C
I wholeheartedly support.
- [18:28]
A
Okay, so I just thought maybe we might want to start, you know, on a sort of lighter, lighter note because I guess we are going to have to talk about Iran and the war now, because after all, that is the only thing that really matters. And I think it's fair to say that we can raise the various possibilities of what is going on at this moment and that we have no idea, we have no clue. So I'll just raise, I'll. I'll raise a couple of possibilities and then we can respond to them with the understanding that what is going on in Trump's head remains a. Remains a complete mystery and that the thing about a guy who is continually surprising is that he's continually surprising. And then you think, okay, I've learned he's continually surprising. But now, now, now he won't be. But that's all he is. He's like, he's got tricks. He pulls out tricks after tricks, beyond tricks. It's like he's like a magician who knows every magic trick that's ever been pulled. And it's like, okay, you haven't seen this one. Let me show you this card trick. So he just surprises you every day. And then everyone's like, I can't believe it. I can't believe he's done this. And it's like, stop being so surprised. But even I feel that way. So possibility number one, the 15 point plan presented to the Iranians apparently in Pakistan, supposedly, which features them agreeing to never have a nuclear program and to degrade their uranium and, and give it to the IAEA and to, and they can develop some missile capability for defense, but nothing else. And to leave the Straits of Hormuz open and all that, if they do these 12 or 13 things, then sanctions and stuff will be lifted against them. That this 13 point is either Trump trying to get himself out of a box that he's in, or it's a delaying tactic because he's getting the Expeditionary force and more Marines and the 82nd Airborne, and everyone's got to show up by Friday or Saturday and he's got to talk about something for a week while they don't have much to do. And he wants to talk down oil prices while this is going on. So these are the, so the possibilities are he's negotiating with himself to get himself out of the war, or it's all a ruse. Okay.
- [21:13]
B
I think there's an. I think there's another possibility.
- [21:16]
A
Oh, good. Okay. Yeah.
- [21:18]
B
Which is that he, he wants to publicly show Iran being unreasonable so that he can continue.
- [21:31]
C
I totally, I agree with that.
- [21:33]
B
War with maximum strength, I think.
- [21:37]
A
So is it a ruse or is it like if they were somewhere in between?
- [21:45]
B
I mean, it's just somewhere in between. I don't think he expects, despite what he says, I don't think he expects Iran to make a actual deal that they would stick to that would be satisfactory to the U.S. i think, you know, this started with Trump. The administration figured, okay, let's have Israel take a few shots at Iran's energy sector. Then we'll say that we called it off, but that we reserve the right to unleash the dogs again if Iran doesn't cooperate. See if that gets them to a point of Even talking so that we can have this moment where they are completely unreasonable and then we can bring in the paratroopers and whatever else and, you know, take this all the way.
- [22:48]
C
Or he can say, we really wanted to sit down and talk, or we did sit down and talk. And their demands for a ceasefire include the closure of all our bases in the Gulf. They want us to pay them. You know, that will be a big thing for him. They want reparations for all of this. They want us to pay them to transit the Strait of Hormuz and they want to keep their missiles. And he can say, like, we just can't agree to this. There's no way we can agree to any of this. Okay, going.
- [23:27]
A
So let me ask you, since you two are in agreement about this, is this. Does this present an opportunity that he. People are complaining. If Christine, Ron, she would help us with this, right? This whole. No, because this is like her great bugbear, which is that he's not explained the purpose of the war, the goals and the aims.
- [23:46]
C
I agree with that too.
- [23:47]
A
Okay, so what you guys are laying out is the possibility of him doing that as the ground forces go in. In other words, he can actually go to the American people and say, we did this for this reason. We hit them and we hit them hard and they will not bend. And not only won't they bend, but when we went back to them and said, hey, here's how we can end this war jointly. I'm willing to do X, Y and Z if you're willing to do X, Y and Z. And they would not do it. And this shows how they're a threat. And the effort to hit Diego Garcia 2,000 miles further than they said they had ever had a missile go shows that they're a threat. And that the development of mid range missile, short and mid range missile capacity once the war is over shows that they will have no compunction about using it and threatening everybody and blackmailing the Straits of Hormuz and, and blackmailing their neighbors and hitting Israel. And so we have to take the regime out and we have to do this for the safety of the world. And so it actually he is providing himself with a new phase in which he can say, we are going in and we are going to end this and we're going to end it. With this terrible regime gone, we're not going to replace it. That's not our job. But we're going to end this because we hit him. We said, come to the table. I don't know what Else what. What more we can do because they can't be left in a position to threaten the Strait of Hormuz or their neighbors or whatever in a year once we bug out or something like that. So do you think that that's something that he might do? Or is the world of this when people say you need to do a better job of explaining the war to people? I kind of think he thinks I do nothing but explain the war to people. Like, I don't know what people are even talking about. I'm talking all the time, which I've said on this podcast about him and that he would take such a. This idea. He would think, I don't need to do that. I don't have to make a big national speech to the public and try to rally support because the Democrats will never support me and lalala.
- [26:18]
B
Yeah, I think that's closer to the case. Or that he'll remain cagey about his communications about the war because it serves the actual effort itself. Democrats aren't going to support it. Whoever isn't going to support it isn't going to support it. So why set him up? Why set himself up to make pronouncements that may come back to bite him? If the idea is he's going to go all the way, a victory will do him more good than anything he's gonna say between now and that victory.
- [27:06]
A
So would you consider that a missed opportunity or. He is who he is, so maybe this is just not in his wheelhouse to do.
- [27:14]
B
Well, I completely sympathize with people who say that, you know, he's communicated poorly about the war, but I myself have strangely grown completely comfortable with it. I have to.
- [27:28]
A
But you're not somebody on the fence. You're not somebody on the fence and you're not somebody who doesn't really follow what's going on and just hears, oh, my God, everything's a mess there.
- [27:38]
B
I don't think. I just don't think a Trump speech at this point is going to get someone off the fence and on his side over this,
- [27:49]
A
including independents, like, who are not. Who are low information voters who don't pay that much attention. Would they even hear the speech?
- [27:57]
B
Right.
- [27:57]
A
I mean, I mean, more. Maybe they'd hear excerpts on TikTok or they'd see little bits of it. But Elliot, I mean, that's the problem.
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B
Whereas a victory will have people who were against it, now polls will show them six months down the line saying that they were always for it.
- [28:14]
C
Right. I agree with Abe that the actions are more important than the words, and that the ultimate mover of polls is going to be the outcome. But they're not mutually exclusive. And it isn't really just one speech. You know, people need to hear things many times to be moved on something. And so ideally, his communication on this would have started before the State of the Union, in the State of the Union, where he made, you know, relatively minimal mention. But I'm also with Abe in that, like, the guy's doing the right thing. And so how, how nitpicky can we be? In an ideal world, it would be a little bit different. He'd be a more forceful communicator on this stuff more consistently. Instead, Hegseth has been really the main communicator on this war and General Kane. But it is what it is, and the most important thing is that he stays the course and sees it through. And that's ultimately going to move the polls.
- [29:25]
G
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- [29:53]
H
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- [30:22]
A
Does this mean that we have moved definitively into a world in which persuasion is no longer a key element of political action? I know this is a very broad thing to say, but 20 years ago, President of the United States gave a. 40 years ago, certainly. But say even 20 years ago, President gave a speech from the Oval Office about a major event happening in the world. Or Bush gave a speech from that square in New Orleans saying what America was going to do to help after Hurricane Katrina and 60, 70 million people or more would watch it. If you put Trump on all networks and all cable channels at once, say, on Sunday night, if something were to happen this Weekend making a speech. How many people would watch it? It's March Madness. Would they watch him or. Or would they watch the basketball game? I just don't know that we live in a world in which people are looking to be persuaded or looking to have their leaders explain to them what's going on so that they can be reassured. That's something Walter Russell Mead said yesterday in the Wall Street Journal and that Jerry Butler said, Jerry Baker, excuse me, said in the Wall Street Journal, like, he's not doing anything to. To bring the public along and to make sure that the public is supportive of this large national mission. But what if that is something that's a nostalgia for a world that no longer exists, in which that simply cannot happen either because of who he is, what the atomization of the media has done, all of that?
- [32:20]
B
Yeah, I think that's. I think there's something to that. I think people are also. They're just dug in. I mean, you know, it's like persuadability is a sign of weakness, you know, I mean, falsely, you know, it's considered like, you know, you're a dupe if you can be persuaded. You know, like, you gotta dig in all the way. Yeah. I mean, look, we see it in its most distilled form among lawmakers who have sort of ceased, for the most part, trying to come to agreement on trying to meet anywhere in the middle on a given issue.
- [33:08]
A
But, Eliana, we're talking here again, what Abe mentions is true. Like, we're dug in, but presumably there's a huge number of people in America who are not dug in, because like that video that went around yesterday that
- [33:21]
C
everybody saw, that's where I am. I think there's a huge number of people who are not dug in. And we saw it during the. We see it during presidential elections where huge numbers of voters are switching between parties. People are persuaded by messaging, and particularly on an issue that is this important to say that the White House or the president shouldn't make an effort when he believes that American national security is at stake. That's why he's doing it. And I do believe he really believes it, I think is not right. But we saw in the 2024 election just a single ad, which is, she's for they them. He's for you moved voters. And so, you know, it's not true. And there's a huge number of voters and they decide elections who are moving between parties. You could say that's not because of political messaging. It's because of facts on the Ground and stuff. But I think part of it is because of messaging. People are listening to what's going on around them and, and they're responsive to it. And so I do think that we should be hearing more of a case. And it's worth, it's worth an effort. But again, you know, I'm grateful to the President for doing this. And so I'm just, you know, it's not, I'm not going to beat him up that much for. Well, I'm not doing it.
- [34:56]
A
I'm actually, I'm actually, I'm really not. If we were, it would make no difference.
- [35:02]
C
But I do think people are open to being persuaded on it. And particularly if a case was made day in, day out, I think it would move people.
- [35:13]
A
I mean, I think the problem with his messaging and as I've said before, he has talked more about this war as the war was going on than any president in the midst of a conflict has spoken about the conflict as it has gone on. If you think about again now, I'm going back again 60 years. But you think about Johnson or you think about Nixon during the Vietnam War. They opened their mouths about what was going on. Very seldom it would give update speeches, a couple, it was their spokesman or, yeah, the briefings in Saigon or whatever. They were not the communicator. That wasn't what they were supposed to do. So like Trump talks about this every single day. I think the problem is that the message is self contradictory. He said from day one, we've already won this war, but we're still fighting it, so how can we already have won it? That is a conundrum that cannot be, basically cannot be resolved. He decided that this was going to be his line. He doesn't want to change his line, which, okay, but telling people who don't know what's going on that we need to keep fighting this war that we've already won is a Schrodinger's cat. If the war is still going, we're both, we've won the war and we haven't won the war at the same time in the same reality. And I don't think that's a resolvable problem for the people who need to be persuaded, who maybe hear him say both on the same day. So unless he hones his line or says we're making this final push to end this and make America and the world safer and stronger and better and get the nuclear stuff out of the hands of the world's worst actors and all that, but not say We've already won. Maybe that would be better. I don't know.
- [37:29]
C
Right. I think that. Sorry. Go ahead, Ivan.
- [37:32]
B
I was just gonna say he's already kind of tried. I mean, at one point he did say he will only accept unconditional surrender and that.
- [37:43]
A
But even that's confusing. Cause according to him, we already won, so what does it matter what they say?
- [37:49]
B
Well, but then he confused it too. I mean, he said, well, I'll know what that is when I see it.
- [37:55]
A
Like pornography, right? Like Potter Stewart's definition of pornography. I know it when I see it, but I can't define it. But, Eliana, you were gonna say.
- [38:07]
C
I agree with you, John. And I think it would be useful for him to say, we've inflicted an enormous amount of damage both on their ability to project and threaten. To project force and threaten the region as our ally has inflicted a tremendous amount of damage on their apparatus of internal repression. But we cannot back away while they hold a gun to the world's head and to the world economy. Picking and choosing who transits the Strait of Hormuz and not allowing American or British or whoever's tankers to transit the Strait. That is an unacceptable condition and we will not allow it. And I think people would support that. We're not going to allow terrorist thugs to control this waterway, period.
- [39:04]
A
Yeah, so. But in the end, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. If we win this war the way I think we will, I mean, I certainly hope so, because I think the consequences now of an inconclusive ending
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D
would
- [39:20]
A
be catastrophic for him, for the Republican Party, for the United States national security interests, for the understanding of what it means to project power, and for regional stability in the Middle East. So I think the cost of a kind of unilateral declaration that hostilities are over and that we won something that we clearly haven't won would be wildly unacceptable. And that he. I suspect he knows that. But I also know that he does have an ability to create a reality distortion field for himself in which he'll say, I won without winning. Sort of like 2020. Ultimately, the big question about 2020 is, does he really believe he won the election in 2020, or was this just his play that then became something that he could never. He could never move off of because that would be too damaging politically for him. And in the long term, it did not harm him and probably did help him marginally cohere the Republican Party a second time or a third time around him. So I think it is possible he can talk himself into the idea that the Iranians have capitulated to him when they haven't. And Iran does have a history of being able to convince people of things that they have no reason that the people have no reason to believe. I do seem to have that power sometimes.
- [41:00]
B
I think the biggest catastrophe about ending this inconclusively would be that while we will have destroyed so many of Iran's military capabilities, you know, decimated the regime, all the obvious successes we've had,
- [41:25]
A
they
- [41:25]
B
would in years rebuild and rebuild and rebuild. And the thing is, after witnessing how the country has responded to this, we will never come this close again to seeing it through. So if we don't see it through this time, that's it.
- [41:50]
A
I mean, absolutely. I mean, first of all, it would not be for us to do the lawn mowing, right? I mean, and that's what the Israelis called mowing the lawn with Hamas and Gaza, which of course ended up being a disastrous effort given what happened on October 7. But if somebody is going to need to patrol and make sure that Iran, after the war, after surrender, whatever, isn't reconstituting itself, it will be the Israelis or some kind of weird, never before seen joint Israeli, Saudi, I mean, who knows? Like some. We're not going to do that. That's not our, that's clearly not going to be our role. We will have expended our blood and treasure on this mission. So he might as well finish it and finish it good because that's the only way out for him here, is to have a real victory, not an illusory victory. Long term. The world will say America took out. And I think the victory really is the collapse of the regime. It doesn't have to happen as a result of the conclusion of the war. It means that the regime, we get the nuclear materials, the straits are opened and the regime is completely disempowered. And then what happens inside Iran happens after the bombs cease falling. I mean, the Israelis and Admiral Cooper both said in the last week, it's not time yet for people to come out. It's like not safe. Like we're still picking targets and hitting important facilities and things like that. So the demand that the regime fall to a popular revolution in the middle of a actual ongoing bombing campaign, that's disingenuous nonsense being peddled by people who want to say that the war is a bad idea to begin with. Right.
- [44:08]
C
Cooper's interview with Iran International was quite interesting. He's really capable, by the way.
- [44:17]
A
He is the Schwarzkopf of this war. He is the commanding general of the leader of CENTCOM and the commander of this war, Admiral Cooper.
- [44:28]
C
He's a really capable spokesman and he noted that Iran, like Hamas, is firing missiles and drones from inside populated areas within the country. And also just as they're targeting civilians outside the region. And as a result, it is not safe for civilians to come out at many, many times, just as you're saying, John. So it's not crazy that civilians aren't coming out to try and overthrow people because we and Israel need to target the places from which they're firing these missiles and drones in these civilian areas. And he specifically made that point in this interview.
- [45:13]
A
I want to move on to one of my favorite segment things, which is to have Eliana highlight one of the fantastic pieces of reporting in the Free Beacon that we should highlight so you can know about them. Because they're so crazy and the world needs to know about them is Aaron Sabarium's latest magnum opus about UCLA and a professor, not an activist in residence at ucla. Elliot, you didn't know I was going to ask you to do this, so.
- [45:48]
C
No, no, but I'm happy to talk about it. So this actually follows on a larger story that we did probably a year ago or 18 months months ago about UCLA Medical School conducting a mandatory lecture for first year medical students by an activist in residence, actually a position at UCLA, during which the UCLA's activist in residence demanded that the students who were there, they had to attend, pray to quote Mama Earth and chant Free, Free Palestine and a host of other absurdities, including medically. The curriculum for this mandatory course that extended beyond this lecture contained a host of medically questionable advice, including about fatphobia and all of this other stuff. So as a result of this story, the Goldwater Institute, conservative nonprofit out of Arizona filed an open records request demanding all records related to UCLA's activist in residence program and the use of the terms Israel, Zionist, Palestine, et cetera. Ucla. They've now filed a lawsuit over it because UCLA is stonewalling this records request. And that is what this story is about. UCLA Medical School, by the way, is also facing a lawsuit as a result of our report reporting over its admissions. California before the Supreme Court outlawed affirmative action. California as a state outlawed affirmative action. But our reporting showed that they that UCLA Medical School was ignoring these laws using racial preferences and admissions, and they are now facing law school over that. The class, by the Way, in which the activist in residence gave this lecture, this talk is titled Structural Racism and Health Equity. Readings for the course included an essay by a fat liberationist who claims that obesity is a slur used to exact violence on fat people. To give you a taste of what medical school students are learning at one of the country's top medical schools. School that there's David Geffen's name, by the way.
- [48:24]
A
I think it's very important that people go to the free beacon itself, freebeacon.com just to look at a photograph of the woman.
- [48:33]
C
This is who the bulwark thinks Democrats should not run for office. By the way, as someone who looks like this woman.
- [48:39]
A
Yeah. I mean, you got to see what she's wearing. I won't even describe it. She looks like a. She's a 13 year old on a 1980s PBS show doing a rap like Fresh Prince in the Fresh Prince of Bel Air. And that alone is worth the price of admission. It's a great story. Go to the Free Beacon and read it. Okay, exciting new thing we're gonna do a commentary on.
- [49:11]
C
Can I just say one other thing? I thought you were gonna ask me about another one of our stories today, which is about the left win Senate candidate in Michigan Senate race based on Abdul El Sayed, who looks normal, but, you know, he's on the stump bragging. I mean, I won't get into the details of it. Folks can read it, but he's on the stump talking to United Auto Workers, bragging about an incident in which he set up a table and chairs in the middle of a lane of traffic. So this is what is appealing to voters in a Democratic primary.
- [49:48]
A
Yeah, Free him.
- [49:50]
C
Exactly.
- [49:51]
A
Free him. Free him. Yes. That's a great story, too. Okay, we're going to do Commentary recommends. And to help me with the commentary recommends, I am now introducing our. Now our producer, the producer of the Commentary magazine daily podcast, Commentary's new chief technical officer, Technology officer, I should say, Noam Bloom, whom you've heard on the podcast before. Hi, Noam.
- [50:23]
D
Hi, John. It's good to be here again.
- [50:25]
A
So, Noam and I want to talk to you people about a movie that you have to go see. That movie is Project Hail Mary, which opened on Friday starring Ryan Gosling. I didn't know that Starring Ryan Gosling was a tongue twister, but apparently it is. No, I'm an enthusiast of science fiction. I'm less of an enthusiast about science fiction, but I am an enthusiast about good, involving, emotionally resonant, powerful, original, and really triumphantly successful movies. All of which I think Project Hail Mary, those adjectives apply to Project Hail Mary. So no Project Hail Mary is based on a novel by Andy Weir who wrote the Martian, which was also made into a pretty fun movie 10 years ago with Matt Damon about a guy stranded on Mars and how the world rallies to help figure out how to bring them home. This is a much more elaborate, much more. The stakes of this are literally the entire universe, basically.
- [51:45]
D
Yeah. It's also a more sci, science fictiony, a little more out there than the Martian was.
- [51:51]
A
Right. And yeah, I remember this really is about an. Saving an astronaut stranded in space. This is about 6. Saving not only the Earth, but most of the star systems in the universe from a. From a virus, essentially.
- [52:07]
D
A star eating virus.
- [52:08]
A
Yes.
- [52:09]
D
And I mean, so I read this novel in 2021 and I think in the space of one or two chapters, I already knew that this was gonna be a movie and that it was gonna be successful. It's extremely. It's a movie that anybody can enjoy. But unlike some other projects that you see now that are des having mass appeal, this isn't a project that was set out to have mass appeal. I don't think that Andy Weir sat down and said I'm going to write a book that anybody can enjoy. It's just that it is a story that anyone can enjoy. And there's a term that people are now using for this and some other movies, a hope corps is the term that is emerging for this. The Martian, also interstellar is called a hope corps movie. And despite the fact that the subject matter of this stories is kind of bleak, like you said, the end of not just Earth but many other star systems, it is a very hopeful and optimistic movie. And I think the main takeaways from it are positive friendship, altruism, bravery. And I think that's why it's. It's a movie that, you know, a 12 year old and an 80 year old could sort of equally enjoy.
- [53:18]
A
Right. So very quickly, not to, not to like spoil anything, but a movie that begins with a man played by Ryan Gosling waking up on a spacecraft, having no idea who he is or how he got there or what is going on or what to do, and also discovering that the other people on the spacecraft are dead. And the movie, throughout the two and a half hours, you discover the backstory that got him to where he is and you see how he progresses on the spacecraft into fulfilling the mission that he ended up in space to perform, which is figuring out why this one star system isn't suffering from the disease that our sun and others are, where basically the sun is being blotted out. And that in 30 years on Earth, the world will basically end because the sun will be compromised and we will go through a giant ice age. So it's 30 years. The world comes together to try to figure out how to do it. And he then is on the spacecraft. And then it turns out in the triumph of the movie that somebody else has been sent from somewhere else to do exactly the same thing. And that this very alienated, lonely, quite sad guy on Earth who has no friends and no family and everything like that, unexpectedly finds himself in space, having to work with somebody else in space who also needs to work with him so that they can solve this problem together. I don't even want. I don't want to talk about somebody else. Yeah, yeah.
- [55:22]
D
The promotional material for the movie, I think, is a little more explicit. The book keeps a lot of this stuff secret, and it's also. I think it's also technically a wonderful movie. Greg Fraser, the director of photography, potentially the best DP working in Hollywood right now. They said they didn't use any green screen. It has a lot of very impressive sets, and it's just a. It's just a joy. It's, it's. It's what movies are supposed to be. Yeah, it looks great. It makes you feel good and. Yeah, it is. I'm a very strong recommendation.
- [55:55]
A
Yeah. And Ryan Gosling does something that very few people have been able to pull off in the course of cinematic history. A little like Tom Hanks in Castaway, or there's a movie with Robert Redford called All is Lost. I mean, he is. Until the arrival of somebody else, he is. And little flashbacks, he is all you see.
- [56:20]
D
Until the volleyball shows up.
- [56:23]
A
Exactly. So this movie depends on your being able to tolerate being in the constant company of a single actor who has to convey all these emotions. Not turn you off, not annoy you, amuse you, make you root for him, put him on your side. It is a quietly triumphant performance. Like, it's. This is really hard to do, what Gosling does here. And it sort of launches him into another. Into another level of sort of stardom, I think, because this is like. It's kind of a performance for the ages. It's like something that people are going to watch on whatever TNT is in the future. Every kid is going to watch it. Everybody, you know, every person. And, you know, 30 years from now, it's going to be one of those performances like, I don't know, Indiana Jones or Dorothy and the wizard of Oz or something like that that people will remember. So that's project, Hail Mary. Everyone's going to see it, so you should go see it, too. Even if you say you don't like science fiction, even if you don't like Ryan Gosling, and even if you think that you don't like, you know, and most importantly, just for our audience, there's nothing liberal about it, nothing conservative about it either, particularly unless you believe that, you know, fixing problems is inherently conservative. But I am. It is a politics free zone. And that itself is, of course, an enormous blessing, I would say. So, Noam, thanks for popping on and thanks for your help. You've made our lives immensely easier as our new producer.
- [58:15]
D
My pleasure. You know, Noah Rothman was on recently and got a lot of props for establishing this podcast. But there was another person behind the scenes when the commentary podcast launched, which was me helping you guys buy things, teaching Noah how to edit the podcast on Audacity. So it feels a little bit like coming full circle to be here now.
- [58:36]
A
There you go. That is absolutely true. Okay, well, we will be back tomorrow. So for Eliana and Abe, I'm John Povoritz. Keep the candle burning.
- [58:49]
D
Sa.