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- [00:04]
John Podhoretz
Hope for the best, expect the worst Some preach and pain Some die of thirst the way of knowing which way it's going Hope for the best Expect.
- [00:21]
Brett Stevens
The worst, Hope for the best.
- [00:25]
John Podhoretz
Welcome to the Commentary magazine daily podcast. Today is Thursday, April 24, 2025. I'm John Pothortz, the editor of Commentary magazine. With me, as always, executive editor Abe Greenwald. Hi, Abe.
- [00:36]
Seth Mandel
Hi, John.
- [00:37]
John Podhoretz
Senior editor Seth Mandel. Hi, Seth.
- [00:39]
Abe Greenwald
Hi, John.
- [00:40]
John Podhoretz
And joining us today, man of many titles, most importantly Commentary magazine, contributing editor, columnist for the New York Times and the editor of sapir and the host of the upcoming SAPIR debates at the the 92nd Street Y, Brett Stevens.
- [01:00]
Brett Stevens
Good to see you, John. Nice to be here.
- [01:03]
John Podhoretz
So, Brett, you have a very provocative column and very amusing column came out yesterday in the paper in the New York Times called the Face Plant Presidency. And I think as we are here on day 94 of the Trump presidency, we have seen this remarkable combination of a administration coming out of the block, like Secretariat charging ahead, getting 31 lengths ahead of every other horse in the Belmont Stakes and then tripping and rolling over, one leg breaking, then the other leg, the third leg breaking. Like he's like absolutely got the entire world in a tizzy about everything that he's doing from campus and domestically campuses, immigration, all of this. And then over the, and then once Liberation Day and Tariff Day came, I think it was as though, you know, it's like this is a landmark day in the three months of the Trump presidency where everything just seemed to turn on a dime, no matter people were saying he was a fascist, he was like an institute authoritarian regime, he was going to cancel the elections, he was going to run for eight terms and all of that. And they were terrified of him. And some people are still terrified of him. But you aver in this column that people may be thinking about this in the wrong way because there's something almost comic now about the number of self inflicted wounds that he has inflicted on himself, like all self inflicted wounds.
- [02:50]
Brett Stevens
So before we get started, I have a feeling that a number of our listeners will be more familiar with the name Secretariat than the term face plant.
- [03:02]
John Podhoretz
So we have readers and readers are older than most people.
- [03:07]
Brett Stevens
So, so some of our, some of our readers will remember Secretariat's great what, 1973 run some something like that. Ye, but faceplant, a term of art for falling on your face, popular with, you know, my kids. So just to clarify that, that, that one point, look, I think the fiasco actually the tone of the presence of this, of this sort of disastrous early start to the presidency was set by the choice of Matt Gates back in November. A wholly self inflicted political wound that was difficult to explain except in terms that were more psychological than political. Then a series of ill considered choices for cabinet posts and then a whole set of political mistakes culminating in so called Liberation Day, the Tariff day, but I think culminating mainly and especially for the purposes of commentary readers, because I think that's when people on the right who had been sort of reluctantly supportive of the President saw him as the better alternative last year, suddenly realized that this guy was going to create major harm, never mind to, you know, democracy, liberalism, the fate of the world, but to their stock portfolios. And, and I think that's when, when, when the people really began to sense that this was, as you put it, Secretariat coming out fast and, and collapsing on the course.
- [05:03]
John Podhoretz
Because you know, you point out Matt Gaetz, obviously there's RFK and there are Pam Bondi and there are all sorts of weird cabinet choices that are disturbing. And yet he comes out of the block, he moves very fast and very hard on campus anti Semitism on matters that are of deep importance not only to us but to you. Takes measures or seems to be on the, seems to be moving to take measures to use the law in the form of Title 6 of the Civil Rights act of others to confront these institutions with their horrifying refusal to protect Jewish students and to, and to treat them unequally in a bad way and all that. And so all of that looked to some of us very promising and heartening. And then there was the full throated defense of Israel's efforts against Hamas in Gaza that such a sea change from the tone that the Biden administration had taken in the final year of its existence. And yet even there, as time has proceeded, we have him playing footsie with Iran, dealing with terms on the possible Iran deal that are now being parsed Talmudically to say that they are not a repeat of the Obama Iran deal by some people who were trying to keep themselves, I think, in favor or at least in influence claiming. The latest claim is Marco Rubio telling Barry Weiss that no, Steve Witkoff wasn't talking about how Iran should be allowed to enrich, you know, should only enrich uranium to three and a half percent and that that would be fine with us, which was the specific term in the Iran deal, but that it shouldn't be allowed to import uranium at a, at a great. Which first of all, I don't understand that it's a distinction that difference in any Case. But why would Iran import uranium when it has centrifuges, can make it itself. And where do you import Iranian from? Exactly? I was unaware that there was a big export market.
- [07:33]
Brett Stevens
Oh, there is, actually, but that's another story.
- [07:35]
John Podhoretz
Well, but not a. Not a. Yeah. On the dark web. Yeah. But anyway, so.
- [07:41]
Brett Stevens
Well, I mean, you know, I actually wrote this column back in January, I think, even before, possibly before Trump's nominate. Trump. Trump's inauguration. I wrote a column that said the right may soon cut. The Israeli right may soon come to regret Donald Trump's election. And I pointed to the fact that he was as likely to cut a terrible deal with the mullahs as he was to, you know, really put their program out. Out of action. Because Trump has no principles and has no loyalties and has. Outside of tariffs, it seems. No. No really fixed ideas. And, you know, those of us who have been opponents of Trump for a long time saw this. I mean, we're opponents of him from the old, you know, Reaganite. Right. Saw this. Just as I think we saw that, you know, what is now seems to be unfolding in Ukraine was totally, you know, predictable. I took a lot of shit from certain friends of mine for my highly reluctant vote for Kamala Harris on the Hamiltonian theory that I'd rather have someone I can forthrightly oppose in the White House than a character like Trump destroying what I think of as conservatism. And I. I feel vindicated by that view.
- [09:04]
John Podhoretz
Well, I'm not going to vindicate you, and I'm not going to vindicate you in that view. But I didn't. I didn't vote for him either. As I've told people. I wrote. I wrote Tom Cotton in so I wouldn't have to vote for either, which you people may think is a dodge, but I live in New York City, so, you know, it's a throwaway vote, no matter how you slice it.
- [09:23]
Seth Mandel
Can I say something about the face plan issue? This is what I find, I have to say that's still fascinating about Trump to me, which is that I feel like the face plan has not quite happened and almost never exactly happens. It's like Zeno's Paradox. Like his face gets closer and closer and closer to the ground without ever hitting it.
- [09:51]
Abe Greenwald
Somehow I'm picturing the Mission Impossible scene with Tom Cruise.
- [09:55]
John Podhoretz
Yeah, okay, look, so, yes, you are a forthright, anti. Anti Trump person, but here's why. Why I don't think it's fair to accuse you, for example, of Trump derangement syndrome, unlike Other people, which is we're talking about things that are based in policy here. And that's why the face plan thing was so resonant to me, which is that the mistakes that he is making and the errors that he is introducing into his own journey forward as somebody who for the first time in his public life was scoring in the polls over 50%. And I mean, from 2015 onward, these wounds are all self inflicted. Yeah, Democrats are in bad shape. Nobody likes them. The Democrats are polling at 25, 26, 27%. There is no lead, there is no figure to contest with him. So he's the one who is face planting, punching himself in the face. Now he gets help from judges. I mean, gets help maybe from judges who go too far or the rhetoric or, you know, did whatever, you know, Chris Van Hollen going and having a margarita with a gang member and a jail in El Salvador rather than simply talking about due process, like somehow elevating this problematic person in jail in El Salvador rather than going at the real issue, which is the lawlessness of the administration's pursuit of these, of these illegal aliens so that he gets a little help from. But he is, he hasn't dropped 8% in the polls and he's not at 40% in the Pew polls because of the Democrats. That's everything that has gone wrong is the result of his own behavior. That kind of new. I mean, not, not that presidents are.
- [11:52]
Brett Stevens
Not with him, but.
- [11:56]
John Podhoretz
Was never even this bad. I mean, the precipitousness of this. In other words, that he had the country behind him.
- [12:04]
Brett Stevens
Yeah.
- [12:04]
John Podhoretz
And that he has, he's frittering it away. I mean, not the whole country, actually.
- [12:10]
Brett Stevens
I mean, I've kind of bent over backwards to try to support him in places or compliment him in the pages of the Times. You know, I, the getting rid of DEI military and throughout the federal government was, you know, long overdue and a blessing. Getting control over the border as quickly as he has basically through essentially not only policy, but verbal threats has been achievement. I am, I am stretching myself to find areas on which to give him credit, but he is in the process of very rapidly, literally destroying the American economy. I'm in touch with people, friends of mine who run small and medium sized businesses that are heavily reliant, even if not for most of their work, for some of it on imports from other countries, not just, not just China. And these are, these are businesses that run on very, very tight margins. They're being destroyed. Bonuses are not going to be paid. You know, large numbers of Employees are going to be laid off, all for the, all in pursuit of a bonkers economic theory discredited sometime in the mid-1930s.
- [13:29]
John Podhoretz
You know, there is about yesterday. If you listen to Trump talk about the tariffs on China and how they weren't going to be that bad and it was all going to, they were going to get much lower. And he's not going to fire Jay Powell from the Fed. I mean, he wishes he'd lower interest rate. And he speaks very, speaking very calmly, you know, very much trying to sound like a reasonable person and calm the March markets and make people. But it did remind me of the famous, you know, rabbinical, the, the, the story of the, the couple that lives in the house that's too small. You know, they come to the rabbi and they're like, we have 10 children. We're in one room. I can't take it. I don't know what to do. And the rabbi says, bring in the cow. Bring the cow into the house. And the guy says, what are you talking about? I don't want the cow in the house. This is insane. I, there's 12 of us living in one room. He says, bring the cow in the house. Goes back a week later, says, now the cow's in the house and the cow is leaving patties everywhere and they're 11 now there's 10 people in a cow. And then he says, bring in the chickens. What are you talking about? Bring us in the chickens. And then, you know, a week later comes and says, our lives are just a nightmare. And then the rabbi says, so take out the cows and the chickens. And then your think of how much better your life is going to be without the cows and the chickens. Then you'll appreciate being in the house without the cows and the chickens. Like Trump is the one who brought the cows and the chickens into the house. In the US Economy, nobody was saying, you know, we really need. Now is Tara, let's, let's do it now. This is it. Not only that, but the one measure that we were taking economically and geopolitically against China, right. Which was. And that Congress had passed as a matter of law, he lawlessly suspended, which was the forced sale of TikTok, which, which was a very serious measure to take against our foe and to help ourselves and all of that. And that he with, though with no legal right to do so, announces a six month suspension in the sale of TikTok.
- [15:42]
Brett Stevens
You know, I mean, there is a kind of a George Costanza principle at work here, you know, and I almost Wish Democrats, including far left Democrats would start feverishly arguing for, you know, for a peace deal with Russia, feverishly arguing for 200% tariffs on, on our friends, you know, go for go, go for broke demand not only that Denmark hand over Greenland, but, but immediate, you know, bringing the 82nd Airborne down on nuke. And then we might have like, you know, the possibility of good policymaking.
- [16:31]
Abe Greenwald
What's funny about the half face plant stuff also is that Wall street is also bending over backwards to try to give him credit where, you know, they can find it. And if, if and when that stops happening, all of the react market reactions are going to be much worse. Right? Wall street is like, if you, if you, when he, when he takes a half step back on tariffs, Wall street like jumps. You know, you see these headlines like Wall street elated at Trump announcement on tariffs and it's like they're just dying to buy and to, you know, to move those numbers and to reward him. It's almost like, you know, it's like training someone. It's like they're trying to reward, trying to show him like you get a piece of candy every time you pull back X percent on the tariffs. But that in itself is probably hiding the true damage being done to the economy because people who don't follow it may be saying like, well, it's all reversible, right? Because if on Monday if he puts in tariffs and then on Wednesday if he says we're pulling back on the tariffs, the market bounces back. And so all of this is like playing with, with chips or with house money. It's not really as bad as it seems. And I think the wealth that gets destroyed along the way, that doesn't come back is hidden by all this bouncing around. You know, it's almost as if the market should just tell him like.
- [18:04]
John Podhoretz
But it's not, it's not hidden. And that I think is what's, what's important here is that, is that he is getting unmistakable signals in every conceivable direction, right? Not only he cares about polls, he's down in aggregate 7% in the polls from where he was three months ago. That is a big drop. In a country as hyper partisan and divided as ours is, that means that there is a withdrawal of affect from him by people who voted for him. That's the hardest thing to take, right?
- [18:37]
Brett Stevens
So there's no perception, there's no sense from the White House. I mean, you pointed to what the other day that he seemed pleasant and mild mannered, that he comprehends the hardship that he's causing, or rather he comprehends it and thinks it's all a price worth paying on the long march to autarky or whatever. He's, he's, he's trying to, to, you know, achieve, I mean, he's losing farmers, he's losing small business guys, you know, who voted for him enthusiastically. He's, he is, he's going to lose the core of MAGA at this rate, you know, because ultimately what, what sustained him through the Biden years was the memory of a strong US Economy in the first three and a half years of his first term. That goes. And he, I mean he will have, the Republican party will have the biggest reversal in its, in its, you know, history, at least since the 30s. And you could have, you know, an extraordinary sea change in the composition of Congress in 18 months time.
- [19:52]
John Podhoretz
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- [23:57]
Abe Greenwald
So where is Susie Wiles in all this? What is. Why is. Why isn't she directing traffic a bit better if Navarro is such a problem?
- [24:07]
John Podhoretz
She's not. Wiles is a campaign staffer. Now. Sometimes campaign staffers can move into the job of White House chief of staff and do a good job. The only thing we know about Suzy Wiles on policy, according to that, you know, like absolute blockbuster of a story about Trump forcing, you know, telling the Israelis that he's not going to help with the strike. And they, and the leak of the story itself being a way of trying, as you yourself wrote, Seth, trying to destroy the possibility of an Israeli strike on Iran, is that she was for not striking Iran. That's literally the only thing we know about her in terms of policy in these first 93 days, because nobody talks about her. So where is Susie Wiles? She's Pat Summerall's daughter who runs campaigns in Florida, and now she's the White House Chief of Staff because she seems to be a Trump whisperer. But if she's playing any role in policy, we have no idea. This is the only first indication of what she thinks in politics.
- [25:06]
Brett Stevens
In the first administration, you had a number of people in senior cabinet positions. They didn't last all that long, but they were prepared to say no to the President. I mean, there's that famous scene of Gary Cohen literally removing an order to revoke the U.S. south Korea Free Trade Agreement from the President's desk before he could, he could, you know, he could sign it. You had John Bolton steering him away from what would have been a disastrous deal with North Korea. There is no one fulfilling that role in the White House or in the, in the Cabinet because everyone came into this presidency sort of in awe of Trump and afraid of him, more afraid than they'd ever been before, because the people he selected for senior cabinet positions were absolute nobodies outside of the, the, the, the offices that Trump had anointed them with. I mean, no one had really heard of Cash Patel or Pam Bondi before they came into, into, into high office. And so there's, there's no one in the Republican Party who's prepared to say no. Or the people who are people on their way out, like Mike, like, like Senator McConnell or Lisa Murkowski. That's a real problem for Republicans. There has to be someone in the Republican Party, you know, a Howard Baker or a Barry Goldwater who can go to the President and say, shut up, stop doing this. No, you're going to destroy yourself and you're going to destroy the country and you're going to destroy your legacy. There's no one out there. I mean, I think of Marco Rubio now promoting a Ukrainian quote, unquote, peace deal, a surrender deal, which is exactly what he voted to oppose just a couple years ago. I mean, it's stunning. Although in his case, maybe not entirely.
- [27:08]
Seth Mandel
Stunning, but the only thing in a sense that gave the establishment Republicans during the first Trump presidency the sort of power to rein him in was that Trump didn't know how things worked. And so there was a. You could come to him and say no. Well, you can't do that because X, Y and Z. And he doesn't. He's not in that position anymore. So even if he had an administration that wasn't made up of yes men or people who genuinely agreed with him, why would he listen to them? He just, he's been around a billion pro free market businessmen who hate tariffs. He knows, he's heard the arguments. He thinks he's right. And unless you tell him, and even then, maybe, but unless you tell him, no, no, you literally cannot do this. This is not within your power. Why would he listen to someone who would say no to him at this point?
- [28:15]
John Podhoretz
Okay, so, you know, there is this. Jonah Goldberg wrote something very good on the, on the invocations by people like even people who are admirable and have done admirable work, even though they are rhetorically, maybe extremists like Chris Ruffo like this idea. It's kind of weird. Gramsci envy the idea that the left figured out in the 1960s that what it needed to do was undergo this long march through the institutions, take over institutions everywhere, burrow themselves in, replace themselves with people who are like them as other people leave and they take control of the culture and they take control of the universities and they take control of the what came to be known as the deep state. And that what Trump needed to do and Republicans need to do is duplicate the Gramsci be Gramscians on the right. And I think that this is a horrible misreading of this moment. Really, really talked about this much before, but one of the reasons that Trump got reelected is that the corruption of Gramsci ism became evident to people in the United States in the form of di, you know, sort of the star chambers, the over, you know, the emergency powers asserted by governors and mayors and people like the CDC suspending evictions, all of that, that people said, wait a minute, who's running this country? What is going on here? Like, I didn't elect, I didn't think that the head of a doctor could tell me, I can't evict a tenant who hasn't paid me for nine months. What the, what the hell is going on here? Somebody has gotten control of the levers of power and those, those hands on those levers of power need to be removed. And now the activists of the right are Simply attempting to duplicate that. When the American people, I believe, have been making it clear that they are onto the game of manipulating the levers of power. And the thing to do is to stop manipulating the levers of power, not to just take the levers of power over and shift them to the right. I could be wrong. They could be, they could be wiser than I am. Power is power and people always will seek to enhance their power. But I don't know, like, I think the long term argument that this stuff with no one wants to be favorably disposed toward Abrego Garcia unless you're a far leftist. But the, you know, if, if they are allowed to just throw anybody in jail without due process, that's not good for me or my 17 year old who speeds and then gets crosswise of a, you know, of a crazy suburban cop who decides he wants to throw him in jail or say, oh, you have a name with a, with an O at the end. I'm going to call ICE and they'll, they'll put you on a plane before we discover you're an American citizen. I, I don't think that's, I think that's common sense on the part, part of people. They've seen what happens when government asserts too much authority and Trump is asserting too much authority.
- [31:39]
Brett Stevens
Yeah. But right now, the, the pushback is not coming from where he needs to hear it. I mean, my writing this column in the New York Times, I can assure you, has zero influence on the thinking of the president or people in his, in his circle. I'm just a, a rhino, you know, or whatever they want to, they want to call me. It has to start coming from, you know, has to start coming from Fox News. It has to start coming from, you know, the, the folks at whatever those, you know, the Federalist or his, his usual gang of, of worshipers. But the problem there is that they're not so much a political movement in search of policy goals, they're, they're a cult that seeks to enhance the status of its leader. So, I mean, I was, I was so struck. I was so struck. I just have to say by, I don't know if you read this, this essay Politico on last. I forgot when it appeared, I think Sunday from this guy, John Ulia, who, you know, is a senior aide or was a senior aide to Hegseth, Very, very MAGA guy. I have to confess, I'd never heard of him until I read this essay. Basically painting a picture of total dysfunction in Hegseth's Pentagon and Donald Trump jr's riposte to Julio was to say, you are exiled from our movement. I think that was just an exceptionally telling statement in terms of the way in which they think of a. What is, after all, a senior position in the Pentagon. It's not about, you know, the defense of the country or something. It's, you are exiled from our movement. This, this is like the Erdogan movement taking over the, The. The. The Turkish civil service and government by degrees in, In Turkey in the early part of the century. It's not a regular political party, but.
- [33:44]
John Podhoretz
Okay, but the Erdogan. You're using the Erdogan example. So Erdogan was an exceptionally effective politician. Right. Who had actually learned how to be a populist, having governed. Right. He was the mayor of Istanbul. He knew how to. He knew how to function in the levers of power in a complicated country with a complicated history toward its own democratic institutions. And he was exceptionally nimble in using the ones that he wanted and in discarding the others and in taking over the military so it could not act as a check on him. And I think the face plant presidency column is particularly telling because Trump is incompetent like that. That is a competent version of Trump, if such a thing could be imagined. Now, maybe a competent version of Trump couldn't actually end up getting the presidency in some odd way, because that. He really would seem like too revolutionary a figure when going down the road toward the presidency, and the public would rear in horror and not say, oh, it's just all an act, and he's fun and it's funny, and, you know, he's just an insult comedian and all of that. Which is. Which is that. That game Hegseth is a perfect example of the. Of a face plant under presidency.
- [35:06]
Seth Mandel
That's a full face plant.
- [35:08]
John Podhoretz
Yeah. But, I mean, he gets this unbelievable opportunity. Yeah, right. And he. Rather than like, oh, my God, like, I'm running the Department of Defense of the United States, you know, I. This is. I have been elevated far beyond my station. I better do this with great care. And instead he's like, hey, you want to see my. You want to see my battle plan for the, For Yemen? You know, oh, my brother would really love to see my battle plan for Yemen. It's so cool. Like, that's not, you know, honey, come in here. We're talking about war, but you can see how. But a more rational person would say, I'm being entrusted with this big opportunity, responsibility. I could end up President of the United States for all I know. I don't know. Let me spend some time figuring out how to do this job instead. 18 people have been in and out of his near office. Been in, been fired, been investigated for leaks. He's leaking, he's setting up signal channels. And so Trump puts in these people who are loyal to him, and they're exactly like him, except that he has proved to be unexpectedly competent at getting elected President of the United States, if nothing else. And they are competent at nothing except being on Fox.
- [36:32]
Seth Mandel
Brett, I have a question for you about some things you said. You said earlier that you think at this rate, Trump could lose the sort of MAGA core. Right?
- [36:43]
Brett Stevens
Yeah.
- [36:44]
Seth Mandel
You also said that the.
- [36:47]
Brett Stevens
Well, he could lose people. He needs to. Let me put it this way. He could lose the MAGA penumbra.
- [36:55]
Seth Mandel
Right.
- [36:55]
Brett Stevens
He'll never lose the bag of core.
- [36:57]
Seth Mandel
Right, right. Okay. That's sort of.
- [37:00]
Brett Stevens
Yeah, that's that what I'm thinking.
- [37:02]
Seth Mandel
My question.
- [37:02]
Brett Stevens
Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, it's. I saw where this was going. I, I kicked the ball away just as you were about to score a goal. No, I mean, look, I was, I was doing something I rarely do. I was watching CNN the other day. I think it was.
- [37:19]
John Podhoretz
Jake, my condolences.
- [37:21]
Brett Stevens
Interviewing these farmers in West Virginia. I mean, you could not, you could not ask for a more stereotypical depiction of 79%, right.
- [37:33]
John Podhoretz
The vote. Trump won West Virginia by 49% or something like that.
- [37:37]
Brett Stevens
And, you know, these are farmers who are, you know, dependent on all kinds of imports for, you know, fertilizer, seed, you know, one thing or another, and they are living at the very margins of making a life for themselves. Enthusiastic Trump voters, for a variety of reasons, but talking about the destruction of their livelihood. And those are the people. I mean, I think there's always going to be a group of MAGA ites who will be with him for the long march, so to speak, because with them, it's, they're, they're dealing with a kind of ideological fixity. But, you know, then again, I mean, they also probably have 401ks and are seeing, you know, the destruction of their, of their, you know, financial life for, as John put it, for no reason, for no reason, for zero reason. There's no external disaster that can explain this pure caprice from the White House.
- [38:43]
Abe Greenwald
Well, and there's also the problem of what happens when, like, if an external crisis hits. Yeah, he's, you know, he's, he's, he's, he's troubling trouble before trouble troubles him. Right. But when your President, eventually trouble troubles you from the outside. And if that happens while he's got all this self made chaos, the whole thing's going to blow up really quickly.
- [39:07]
John Podhoretz
But we should say that he is as he has been from the beginning, including on the right. He is fortunate in his enemies because, and I don't mean you as his enemy. I'm talking about on the political stage. He is fortunate in his enemies because then he gets Chris Van Hollen having a margarita with Abrego Garcia. He gets people defending Harvard, which again, maybe the war on Harvard is stupid or maybe he'll lose it, or maybe it's incredibly vulgar or it's, you know, a violation of academic freedom. I am so not interested in any arguments in favor of why he's being unjustified in this war on Harvard that it's hard for me to. However, I do think that if you have a Democratic Party that decides that it's going to stand or fall on whether or not Harvard gets enough money from the federal government, Trump is fortunate in having that set of ideas. And the people who are going to.
- [40:17]
Brett Stevens
Essentially advocate the Democrats are eventually going to get their act together. It's not going to become the AOC Party.
- [40:27]
John Podhoretz
Why not? Trump Republicans became the Trump Party. Why can't it become the AOC party?
- [40:33]
Brett Stevens
Well, you're right, maybe it will. But I, something, something makes me, makes me doubt that. I think there is enough of a kind of an abiding intelligence among Democratic leading leaning voters that if they go in that route, they're guaranteeing themselves a J.D. vance presidency, followed by a Donald Trump Jr presidency, followed by, you know, the Lara Trump whatever. And, and they don't want that. And I think what, actually, what Trump is doing is creating a really good lane for people like Seth Moulton or other centrist Democrats to say, all I'm offering America is a return to normal. All I'm offering is a return to the America that you remember where there was due process, rule of law, and you could expect that tomorrow would look pretty much the same as it, as it did yesterday.
- [41:27]
John Podhoretz
All presidencies, all, all successful candidates for president do that. Right? If you actually think about it, Trump, oddly enough, was offering in 2024 a return to normalcy. Like, I'm not senile. We have a senile president and a intellectually challenged vice president who was flipped in with no oversight, a kind of, you know, internal coup to put her in. This is not normal. You know what else is not normal is like sending seven prosecutors after one person so that, that Person can't run the party, elect me. I'm more normal than they are. Now he looks abnormal. Biden said the same thing in 2020. I'm a restore, I'm a return to normalcy. You're saying the Democrats don't want to be the AOC party. Was the Biden presidency all that different from what an AOC presidency would be, particularly in 2024 in relation to Israel and Gaza? I'm not talking about 20. I'm not talking about the end of 23 through, you know, October through December 23rd, when the Biden administration was supporting.
- [42:32]
Brett Stevens
I don't know what AOC have, have, have sent, sent, you know, arms to Ukraine. I mean, we all agree about how incompetently the Biden administration handled it, but she have done it. I mean, no, I could say that.
- [42:45]
John Podhoretz
Because that's a, that's also a generational thing within the, the Democratic Party. Why don't we move to Ukraine? Because this is, I think, a very telling. There is something very vague about the way the administration is talking about how it's now, its efforts, its overtures haven't been successful and it's going to wipe its hands of its peace arrangement. Right. This is, again, like the tariffs. Nobody asked him to negotiate a peace between Russia and Ukraine. Putin didn't ask him. Zelensky didn't ask him. He asserted that he could end the war on day one as part of his campaign strategy in 24. But nobody who has actually got, you know, blood in the. On the ground said, please come in and settle this for us. And he went in and he did, doing whatever the hell it is that he's doing. And now he's mad that he's not getting listened to. So I don't even. Except for the fact that we're obviously not going to be sending Ukraine any more arms, which I guess is fundamentally a way of determining what the outcome of the war will be. Ukraine's not going to end up. It's not going to stop fighting, and Russia is not going to stop droning and hitting Kyiv and stuff like that. So where is his.
- [44:10]
Brett Stevens
Who.
- [44:10]
John Podhoretz
Who is he appealing to here? No one asked him to do this.
- [44:15]
Brett Stevens
Yeah, that's a good question. Who is he appealing to? Who, who, who is. Who among his actual core supporters really care one way or the other? So if they don't care.
- [44:29]
John Podhoretz
Supporters who want Russia to win. Right. I mean, we know that there are.
- [44:32]
Brett Stevens
Yeah, there's a Tucker Carlson wing, but I don't think that that is most Republicans.
- [44:40]
John Podhoretz
Right.
- [44:41]
Abe Greenwald
And Also, he could accomplish what he's accomplishing by ignoring it from the beginning. Right. The terms of the deal that he's offering Ukraine are essentially the terms that Putin is offering. Right. I keep what I took. And you know, the only thing that stands out is that Trump isn't asking Ukraine to limit its, the rebuilding of its armed forces and not putting a ceiling on its self defense. That was the only other demand that Putin made. But you would get here if Trump never got involved at all, right? I mean, this is basically just him sort of riding the momentum of things as they stand now, like calling time out, like, all right, here's where the lines are. Everybody stop here. But if he weren't involved at all, you would be in the same exact place.
- [45:27]
John Podhoretz
See, I think it's worse than that because I think Putin looks at this, looks at the order of battle and things and says, you know, maybe six months ago I would have been happy to come to the table with Zelensky and say, we just stop now. I'm going to keep what I have. You keep what you have. If Zelensky would have agreed because Ukraine, you know, has lost heart in the war, he's losing too many people. That could end with Trump there. What incentive does Putin have to stop the war? Ukraine's not going to get the, is not going to get more American arms. He's going to start feeling, he feels confident enough to start hitting Kiev as he did yesterday with drones and like maybe he can get 50% of Ukraine before he decides he's eaten enough of this sovereign country. And Trump will be responsible for that. Trump is the person who will have led him to believe that he has a free hand on this.
- [46:31]
Seth Mandel
Who is Trump appealing to? Question. If Trump had actually made a peace deal, if he had ended the war, he'd be appealing to everyone. The fact that he's failed completely is why he's. It appeals to no one. I think it was doomed to fail. But this came up during the campaign when Trump was asked about Russia and do you support this side? And you know, Trump is, I just want it to end. Too many people dying. And that must have polled well for him or something, if he cared. And that was the idea.
- [47:12]
John Podhoretz
But obviously a story that the late George Schultz told me in his 90s at the, when he was at the Hoover Institution and I sat in his office for an hour and a half and he told me this story about when he was Secretary of Labor in the Nixon administration, which I'd never heard and which I think he wrote about, but as really not a well known story. There was some kind of a major labor action in New Orleans, maybe at a port, I don't remember what, but it was damaging and injurious to the American economy, as understood, particularly in the middle of the Vietnam War and with all sorts of other troubles. And the idea was that Schultz was going to go and negotiate an end to this late, you know, going to resolve it. And then when he was done, Nixon would fly down and be present for the peace between the union and whoever it was the union was striking. I'm sorry that I don't remember the specific details. And Shultz was there and they were on the verge of making a deal and the deal was struck and he called the White House and said, get ready for the President to get on Air Force One to come down and we'll have this big victory. And as they were, President was like at Andrews about to take off. And the labor leader said, oh, wait a minute. I'm the, you know, point 27 in this arrangement is bad and I'm unhappy about it and I don't really know how I feel about this. And Schultz called and said, don't let the plaintiff go back to the White House. The deal is not. We haven't. The deal is not done. President needs to be nowhere near this. He should only come near this when we finally get the term set and something's happened at the 11th hour and he should not be landing in New Orleans. And, you know, nobody KNEW it was 1969, so there was no Twitter, so no one knew. Oh, the President's gone to Andrews like it wasn't a secret. And I'm sure there was a pool with him, but it was something that they could have, they could have contained without anybody knowing about it. And Schultz said, because you don't involve the President until all the eyes are dotted and the T's are crossed and then he swoops in and takes the credit. That's the best way for this to be done. And otherwise it harms the institution of the presidency. It affects his power, his ability to make other deals later. And that this was the first lesson he learned as an important public official. And he was one of the great public officials of our age. And Trump is the first and last negotiator here. So he has no, whether he sends Witkoff or Rubio or whoever, he's got no insulation from the failures. Every failure of this administration is his failure. As far as I can tell.
- [50:16]
Brett Stevens
It's very well observed. Yep.
- [50:20]
John Podhoretz
So that's disheartening. And let me ask you, since you brought up Erdogan and you've written about this and talked about this, that while this is all happening, things are happening in Europe that are, you know, as though they're four years behind us and four years ahead of us, in the sense that you have these populist parties that are making, you know, very, very strong showings that are basically saying that the European liberal consensus of the last 50 years must be shattered if these countries are, are to be saved from themselves. How seriously do you take this? And do you, how much of it do you think is justifiable, that the populism is actually in a different way from the United States? Justifiable in the sense that the political system in these countries really did not take account of how the public was feeling about how the elites were insisting on mass migration and various other things.
- [51:33]
Brett Stevens
I mean, look, I mean, the revolt against the elites is entirely justifiable. The, unfortunately, the people who are doing the revolting are, are often revolting. And so that's, that's the nub of the problem, which is that you don't have a kind of a compelling, intellectually coherent and politically popular reaction to the way in which elite politics were conducted in Europe in the past 30 plus years, with, I would say, Angela Merkel as the emblem of that style of kind of brainless, consensual politics that is the proximate cause for the rise of the AfD in Germany. A very, a very, very disturbing set of people that those of us who care about liberty should be nowhere close to, or, you know, other, other far right parties in Europe now, not all of them are quite the same. I should, I should, I hasten to point out, and when a group like France's, you know, rally used to be the National Front, now it's the national Rally. I think when they do make an effort to dispose of their anti Semitic record, we should, we should welcome it, not, not treat it with, with. I mean, we should, we should trust but verify, I should say, but we should not treat it with disdain. So not all of these parties are, are quite the same. I don't think that the right in Holland is quite the same as Geert Wilder's is not the AfD. But some of these characters are not only fascistic, but in the traditional sense. But many of them are very sympathetic to Putin. And one of my great worries is that once Putin kind of rolls up the American right, as he has with Trump, he's going to similarly Take advantage of, of, of what happens in Europe. A lot is going to depend on whether Friedrich Mertz has a successful leadership chance in Germany. But he's, he's hamstrung by the fact that coalition politics in Germany mean that even when you have a right wing prime or right of Senate prime minister, he has to make deals with leftist coalition partners that are going to damage economic growth. So Europe is really, with the interesting exception of Italy, by the way, really leaderless and, and rudderless In a period where I think the continent is, is maybe for all intents and purposes, lost. I see no good futures for Europe. And I just came back from Paris two days ago.
- [54:47]
John Podhoretz
Can I tell a quick story about Italy? Because I was in Italy at sort of Christmas time and met people in the Jewish community in Rome. Very interesting political community, actually very small, 35,000 Jews in Rome.
- [55:06]
Brett Stevens
The oldest Jewish. Oldest Jewish community in the world. Really?
- [55:10]
John Podhoretz
Yeah. Like the woman that I'm about to tell the anecdote about, her mother is American, moved to Italy. Her father is in a family that has been in Rome for 2200 years, literally since, you know, since the days of the, of the Hasmone, you know, since the Maccabees, basically. They came across the Mediterranean, settled in, in Rome and have been there almost uninterruptedly. So this is a pretty interesting, you know, sort of like world. And, and they are, as Jews are everywhere. They are relatively liberal. They need a liberal society. It's liberals who were friendly to Jews and obviously fascists who were not, and people on the far right who were not. And, and so they have a, they have a muscle memory about this. And they were terrified of the coming of Giorgio Maloney, the current Prime Minister of Italy. She's a populist nationalist. Everything in the press said she was this, you know, hard right wing figure and all that. And they were terrified of her coming. And then she gets into office and to their absolute astonishment is incredibly friendly toward Israel, which they did not expect and they did not know and they did not appreciate that the, that there would be a connection between her rhetoric about the problem of unrestrained immigration into Italy and the threat to Israel from the Muslim world. And that she would see this connection. And therefore, as I think is also true of the rally, that there's been an evolution in consciousness about Jews to some extent among some of these people. Not that they should be trusted, but that this was a lesson for very intellectual Italian Jews, that the world is changing in a place in which the sole issue that is of concern to them. Literally, the sole issue that's considered concerned to them, which is the treatment of Jews, people who live, you know, in proximity to the ghetto from which they only emerged 200 years ago. You know, things are changing. And so this, I thought this was a very interesting experience because Maloney is different. And Trump is about to go see Maloney, right? Next week or something?
- [57:52]
Brett Stevens
No. Well, they just saw each other.
- [57:55]
John Podhoretz
Right. But he's going to Italy. That's true for the public on this trip. And so much so, by the way, that the person I spoke to is an American citizen, and her mother's an American citizen. She's not, but her mother's an American citizen. And so her mother had a vote in the 2024 election, and she and her siblings were beating on her mother's head to vote for Trump because their idea was, look at the way Harris and Biden are behaving toward Israel. And we've learned our lesson with Maloney, that Maloney is a friend. And Trump at least talks friendly and like the mother. Agreed. Who hated Trump and didn't want to vote for Trump and hadn't voted for him in 16 or 20. Agreed she wouldn't vote for Harris, but she probably couldn't vote for Trump, but that she wouldn't vote for Harris. And they deemed that an interesting victory. That was my. That was my European conversion experience. Conversion experience in, In Rome at the end of, at the end of 2024. We, we. We should, we shouldn't end here without talking a little about. About Israel. You were, as. When I first met you, you were the. Well, actually wasn't when I first met you, but you were the editor of the Jerusalem Post, you know, at the age of 12. And, and, and all that. And still sometime around you, sometime around.
- [59:19]
Brett Stevens
The same age, you became Jeopardy.
- [59:21]
John Podhoretz
Champion. Yeah. Well, there you go. So I was listening to our friend Dan Sooner's podcast, and Ari Shavit is on. Interesting. I haven't heard from Ari Shavit for a long time. If you don't know who he is, you'll. Whatever. Anyway, so Ari Shivi is trying to give a fair, dispassionate summary of the politics and says some very interesting things. He says for the right. For the left, Bibi is like Nixon trying to order the security services to spy on his enemies. And for the right, Ronan Barr, the head of the Shin Bet, whom Bibi is trying to fire is J. Edgar Hoover and is using his power to enhance his own power and the authority of the Shin Bet and Trampling over everybody's civil liberties and should be stopped. And I thought that was a sort of pretty interesting analogy. Analogy and interesting dispassionate way looking at things. And then, you know, goes in 20 minutes in, he's like, but Bibi is basically Erdogan or he's, what he's trying to do is be a French monarch. It's the latest Moi. That's how I really feel. And I was thinking like, even for people who have the ability to suss out the interesting dynamics in Israeli politics, this Bibi standing there blotting out the sun for, for everybody and making it impossible for there to be a rational conversation about things like executive power, executive authority, and what's going on with this war. Where are you on all this?
- [61:06]
Brett Stevens
Well, on the specific question of Barr versus Bibi, with Bibi, I mean, the idea that the secret, essentially the secret service in Israel should be above elected officials and accountable only to a sympathetic Supreme Court joined in its disdain for the elected Prime Minister I think is bonkers. And I think it's a real problem in Israel, which is that the people who claim to speak in the name of democracy have anti democratic instincts because they, they believe that they are entitled essentially to, to hold the real levers of power. And I say this as a guy who's written one column after another wishing, you know, for Bibi not to be the Prime Minister, I would vastly prefer Naftali Bennett. But on at least two issues, this, this one and the question of the prosecution of the war in Gaza, I find myself kind of relieved that Bibi is, is the Prime Minister. The, the, the. To me, the more interesting story in Israel was the speech that Bibi gave, I guess a week ago or so when he said that this idea that we're going to tell Hamas that we're withdrawing and get our hostages back and then say, oh, just kidding, we're going back in, is, is a fantasy and he's been absolutely right on this. On the matter of, of cutting off the Philadelphia corridor, now continuing to put military pressure on Hamas, the idea that Israel would have sacrificed as many soldiers as it has since October 7th in Gaza so that Hamas can then rearm in three years as opposed to two, is an insane theory. And now finally, by the way, the other story that has my attention is Mahmoud Abbas, a despicable figure on so many counts, but nonetheless, interestingly, Mahmoud Abbas finally publicly insisting that Hamas surrender the hostages and get out of the business of ruling Gaza, which is, you know, obviously something that he should have said on October 8. But it's an interesting political signal about the effect that a hard line in Gaza is finally having, not only militarily against Hamas, but politically among Palestinians to start the process of a revolt against their kind of rule.
- [63:42]
John Podhoretz
One thing that occurs to me, you mentioned Abbas, who I think is 84 years old. Everybody that we've been talking about here in terms. Terms of.
- [63:49]
Brett Stevens
I think he's. I think he is 88.
- [63:52]
John Podhoretz
It was 89. Okay, so Trump is 78. Biden obviously was 82 last year. Putin is in his 70s, Bibi 76. We are having all these conversations about these leaders who, who their enemies say, come on, Putin's already there, but their enemies say want to institute dictatorships and, like, be in power. You know, Ari Servit saying that Bibi is, let us say, moi. And Trump wants to, you know, like, be a dictator, but to never leave office and all this. They're all so old. Like, is this really their consuming. I mean, there's something weird. I mean, think about sort of the dictators of our. Of. Of. Of the 20th century. Like, they were young when they came into power, and they had. Think that if they could just hold on to power, they could be in power for 50 years. And some of them, Some of them were, you know, I mean, but I'm, you know, how old was Hitler? How old was Mussolini? How old was Stalin? How old was. I mean, Stalin was in power for 30 years. You know, Putin's already been in power for 25 years and is old. There's something weird about this conversation because time is not on their side in terms of their own mortality. And maybe everybody is like, we just default to this idea that everybody want autocracy and suspension of democracy and liberties. I just think Trump wants to garner as much money and power as he can for a while and then back off. That's my. I don't. I don't think he particularly wants to run the world. He would like to get his meme coin, you know, to $20 billion or something.
- [65:48]
Brett Stevens
You know, with these guys, it's always like some version of Tennyson's Ulysses. You know, I cannot rest from travel. I will drink life to the leaves. You know, you always think, oh, when I'm 75, I'm going to start caring about my grandchildren and work about. Work on my legacy and, you know, kind of tie up all the loose ends of life. But my observation of people like, you know, Rupert Murdoch, for example, you know, marrying for the 17th time at the age of 95 or something, is that these guys never want to get out of the game. There's always another day to live. And so I don't know what Trump wants. I don't think he knows what he wants. He wants to rule the world and then the galaxy and then become immortal. And fortunately, nature has other ideas.
- [66:54]
John Podhoretz
I really do think that the key thing that happened this week in relation to Trump was this idea that he was going to have this special dinner for the people who invested in his Bitcoin.
- [67:05]
Brett Stevens
Yeah.
- [67:05]
John Podhoretz
Because that. I think if you really want to know where Democrats have blown it for the last eight years, he is doing the emoluments now. This is all happening now in front of our very eyes. The actual impeachable and convictable behavior of using the presidency as a corruption institution to enrich yourself and your family. And that argument has been made almost impossible by the prop. By the persecutions, by the. By the way he was being pursued by Democrats over the last eight years. So that now it's like Chicken Little and, And they might have him dead to rights, including with some Republicans. Not that they. They need 67 Republicans to convict him in the Senate. They need 67 to convict him in the Senate, obviously. And that's a very hard lift. But, you know, it's all happening, like.
- [68:07]
Abe Greenwald
Also to how many members of Congress understand what the meme coin thing is? That flavor that works in his favor.
- [68:14]
John Podhoretz
But it's not just the meme coin. I mean, it's really have to gutter and all of these. This is all happening like.
- [68:22]
Abe Greenwald
Well, that's why Witkoff was hired, because he dealt with Cutter.
- [68:25]
John Podhoretz
Right.
- [68:26]
Abe Greenwald
I mean, that was even. That was even what got him the job in the first place. It's. It's all out sort of in the open. I like this. The deal this guy made with the Qataris on real estate in Manhattan. So he's going to come work for.
- [68:37]
John Podhoretz
Me, but then he's not going to hold the Qatari's feet to the fire because he still wants their money. And then who gets a taste of that money? I mean, again, even having these conversations, these are things I would never say about. I would never say about any president ever. I'm not like, you know, the American spectator with Clinton or anything like that. But like, Wyckoff makes some deal with gutter. Why isn't he cutting Donald Jr. In on it? Like, who. That's who they are.
- [69:04]
Brett Stevens
Yeah.
- [69:05]
John Podhoretz
So I don't know. I keep wondering whether, if there is a kind of implosion in the face if the, if the face plant leads to an implosion, which is a horrible mixed metaphor.
- [69:18]
Abe Greenwald
Well, that might be the answer to the question before about who is he appealing to, which is that no one or himself, because he's not running for office again. And if you can't figure out what the who the policies are aimed at, but you can see how he can benefit from being in office, then I think maybe the question answers itself.
- [69:38]
John Podhoretz
And Maybe in picking J.D. vance, he did exactly what Kamala Harris. What? Biden didn't pick Kamala Harris, which is like, oh, impeach me want him. I know a lot of people on the right are enjoying J.D. vance, but I don't, you know, they can enjoy J.D. vance. He's a very, very frightening figure to me anyway. More frightening in many ways than Trump.
- [70:09]
Brett Stevens
A sinister, purely opportunistic and shallow character.
- [70:20]
John Podhoretz
But skilled, very skilled. Yeah, skilled. I mean, you know, he's had a rise like no, nobody else pretty much in American life ever, I would say, from a nobody to a best selling author, to a hedge fund guy, to a senator to a vice president in nine years.
- [70:42]
Brett Stevens
Yep.
- [70:43]
John Podhoretz
Ten years ago he was writing under a pseudonym for David Frum's website. Just keep that in mind. Anyway, so, Brett Stevens, thank you so much.
- [70:58]
Brett Stevens
It's always a pleasure.
- [70:59]
John Podhoretz
John joining us.
- [71:00]
Brett Stevens
Looking good.
- [71:01]
John Podhoretz
Yeah, you're looking good. Like I say, Abe, and you guys are. If you're watching on YouTube, you can see that you could do a. Brett, a beard off. Beard off.
- [71:13]
Brett Stevens
Yeah.
- [71:13]
John Podhoretz
Very attractive, scruffy, you know, that kind.
- [71:16]
Seth Mandel
Of scruffy Seth all together.
- [71:20]
John Podhoretz
But Seth has the. Seth has the. Well, Seth, you trimmed your beard about. If you had seen Seth six months ago, right? He really was getting, he was getting into a combination of the Lubavitcher Rebbe and like Grizzly Adams. Like that's. It was the perfect.
- [71:39]
Abe Greenwald
My, it was my, my Lithuanian forebears were, you know, I was, I was summoning them. Yeah, it was covet. It was covet. And then like. All right, time to. Time to be human again.
- [71:51]
John Podhoretz
Exactly. Okay.
- [71:52]
Abe Greenwald
Covid lulled us into this.
- [71:53]
Brett Stevens
Well, my own Lithuanian forebears continue to summon me and will do so for some time.
- [71:59]
John Podhoretz
Okay, so everybody, you know, if you, if you want interesting reading on important issues of Jewish life, go to. Is it Sapir Quarterly.com? it's SapirJournal.org SuperiorJournal.org and you can get it for free, by the way. You can, you can read this magazine for free online or get it. It'd be beautifully physically present in your hands. Some very, very wonderful stuff in there. And I don't say that. I say that advisedly because of course, you're like, you're like. You're on my turf here. Yeah.
- [72:38]
Brett Stevens
We're complimentary. We're not competitors.
- [72:41]
John Podhoretz
Fair enough. Because you are. Yeah. Okay. So Brett Stevens appeared New York Times Superior debates go to 92nd Street Y. Or superior to. To go see the. Is Donald Trump good for the Jews with Jason Greenblatt and Rahm Emanuel in May. Is it May.
- [72:58]
Brett Stevens
May 15th.
- [72:59]
John Podhoretz
May 15th. Okay. Two days after the State of the World jewelry address at the 92nd Street. By. By Dan Senor, by the way. A lot of Jewish action at the 92nd street bar and only.
- [73:10]
Brett Stevens
Only 10 days after Cinco de Mayo. I mean, there's.
- [73:13]
John Podhoretz
Well, that's your. That's that these are the two sides of Brett's.
- [73:16]
Brett Stevens
Yeah.
- [73:17]
John Podhoretz
Character. Because as you may know, as people do not know, Brett grew up in Mexico City and is therefore. Have you. Have you. Had you broke. Have you broken matzah with Claudia Sheinbaum? That's. That's what I want to know.
- [73:30]
Brett Stevens
No, I. She's not my kind of matzo breaker.
- [73:35]
John Podhoretz
She's not much of a matzo breaker. I think she's not much of a Mazda. Not a big fan of Israel either. But it is funny that Mexico does have a Jewish president. That is. That is the. That was not on my bingo card.
- [73:47]
Brett Stevens
No, that.
- [73:48]
John Podhoretz
Well, you know, in the course of my life, I will say.
- [73:51]
Brett Stevens
There you go.
- [73:52]
John Podhoretz
Yeah. Okay. So be well. Thanks. And for Seth and Abe, I'm John Pod. Horace. Keep the candle burning.