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- [00:01]
Sponsor Announcer
This episode is brought to you by Lifelock. The holidays mean more travel, more shopping, more time online and more personal info in places that could expose you to identity theft. That's why Lifelock monitors millions of data points every second. If your identity is stolen, their US based restoration specialist will fix it, guaranteed or your money back. Get more holiday fun and less holiday worry with Lifelock. Save up to 40% your first year. Visit lifelock.com podcast terms apply. This episode is brought to you by Netflix. From the co director of Shrek and the visionary behind Toy Story comes Spellbound, a magical new animated adventure starring Rachel Zegler, John Lithgow, Jennifer Lewis, Nathan Lane and Titus Burgess. With Javier Bardem and Nicole Kidman. When a powerful spell turns her parents into monsters, Princess Elian must journey into the wild to reverse the curse before it's too late. Watch spell Spellbound only on Netflix November 22nd.
- [01:02]
Abe Greenwald
Hope for the best, Expect the worst.
- [01:09]
John Podhoretz
Some preaching pain, some diapers no way of knowing which way it's going. Hope for the best.
- [01:18]
Christine Rosen
Expect the worst Hope for the best.
- [01:23]
John Podhoretz
Welcome to the Commentary Magazine daily podcast. Today is Wednesday, November 20, 2024. I'm John Putt Hortz, the editor of Commentary magazine. With me, as always, Executive Editor Abe Greenwald. Hi, Abe.
- [01:34]
Christine Rosen
Hi, John.
- [01:35]
John Podhoretz
Media Commentary columnist Christine Rosen. Hi, Christine.
- [01:38]
Matthew Continetti
Hi, John.
- [01:39]
John Podhoretz
And Washington Commentary columnist Matthew Continetti. Hi, Matt.
- [01:43]
Abe Greenwald
Hi, John.
- [01:44]
John Podhoretz
A friend of ours texted me yesterday after the announcement that Dr. Mehmet Oz, who is, despite his notoriety as a sort of TV doctor who pedals quackery, actually a distinguished surgeon, was head of surgery at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital, the most prestigious hospital in New York City, to run the agency within the Department of Health and Human Services that administers Medicare and Medicaid, said to me, if the first Trump administration was Trump and everybody in the White House acting or everybody in the White House acting like they were on the Apprentice, trying not to get fired by Trump. This Cabinet is shaping up to be the celebrity apprentice that we have Oz from Oprah, we have Sean Duffy from the Real World and Road Rules. We have now Linda McMahon of wrestling. Now she was in fact the Cabinet secretary, or she was the head of the Small Business Administration in the first Trump administration as a serious business person, but not really somebody who has any much of an affiliation with education. Pete Hegseth from Fox, I guess there are probably a couple of others we can think of. Elon Musk is sort of like is like the person you would want to cast on the Celebrity Apprentice above all other people on the planet Earth. If you could. So it's a funny observation.
- [03:28]
Abe Greenwald
The Celebrity Apprentice had very good ratings.
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John Podhoretz
It did. And it, you know, but it was also, the funny part was, of course, the celebrities on the Celebrity Apprentice were often people on their way down.
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Abe Greenwald
Well, I heard, I have heard someone make this comparison between Trump 2 and the celebrity Apprentice as well. And my first reaction was the only person who's missing is Joan Rivers. May her memory be a blessing.
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John Podhoretz
May her memory be for a blessing.
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Abe Greenwald
If, could you believe it if she were in the next Trump cabinet? I mean, I don't know if I could.
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John Podhoretz
I would make her ambassador of the U.N. yeah, but I love the least Stefanik. But that's, that's, that, that is the job for which she was heading in her life as a, as a comedian. Yes.
- [04:25]
Matthew Continetti
Can I suggest that we. Look, I try, I've been trying to find some silver linings here. And, you know, you could argue that, I mean, Dr. Oz is indeed, as you say, an accomplished surgeon. He also ran a sort of business empire. The, the whole Oz universe is rather vast and includes some of his family members. And, you know, so maybe he has some management experience there. Again, like I said, silver lining. But I, but I was thinking last night, you know, we've been, I think, appropriately critical of several of Donald Trump's choices. But from one perspective, the argument that someone should have government managerial experience to run some of these agencies is in fact precisely why he's choosing people from the outside. Because some of these agencies have been running to the ground with people who are supposedly accomplished bureaucrats. And I have some sympathy for the argument that now I do not. Gates is the person I would set aside in this scenario. But a lot of these other folks, including Linda McMahon coming in for education, are people who might bring some outsider perspective. And if, depending on who the hires are just beneath them, they're enforcers, in other words, which every head of an agency needs, they could really shake things up in a positive way. There were a lot of discussions when Betsy DeVos was named in Trump's first term as Education Secretary. Oh, she's not experienced. She's just a rich donor. What is she? Why would he choose her? And she ended up making some very serious, important long term changes, particularly to Title 9 and undoing a huge amount of damage that the Obama administration had done in education. I'm hopeful that Linda McMahon, who is a very strong proponent of school choice, will perhaps do similar things at education. I don't know about Oz. I mean, Medicare, Medicaid is in a huge Financial message. I will be watching to see who he might appoint to actually run things. But we should be. Too cynical, I think, about some of that.
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John Podhoretz
No, I don't want to be. Actually. I don't want to be cynical. That's why I mentioned that he's a distinguished surgeon. He will have no trouble being confirmed. There would be literally no reason not to confirm him. Why on earth he would want this job?
- [06:28]
Christine Rosen
That was my first thought.
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John Podhoretz
This is an administrative job. You're administering a gigantic amount of money, all of which is directed to be spent through congressional fiat. Really? With regulations obviously be written. That's Number one. Number two, I don't think Dr. Oz knows that he is going to be living in Baltimore. That agency is located in Baltimore.
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Abe Greenwald
Be living in Baltimore.
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John Podhoretz
He's not going to go to work.
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Abe Greenwald
He'll go to work on occasion in Baltimore.
- [07:03]
John Podhoretz
So you're saying he'll be. He'll fly in and out. I think.
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Abe Greenwald
I think Christine is honest.
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John Podhoretz
You're saying the person who runs. Yeah, he'll be around.
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Abe Greenwald
He'll stop by.
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John Podhoretz
Isn't actually going to be that. This is a new definition of he will be working.
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Abe Greenwald
How often do you think Pete Buttigieg is in the office? Other than that one time he had the camera crew follow him, bike to work on the first.
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John Podhoretz
Are we. Are we. Are we using him as an example?
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Abe Greenwald
I'm just saying, I. These jobs, you know, these jobs are communications jobs. I think that's my takeaway from what Christine is saying is. And I think that that's what is informing a lot of Trump's selections here. He understands these Cabinet posts fundamentally to be communications jobs. And so he's looking for people who are good on tv, who can speak fluently, and who are loyal to him. Those have always been the criteria for all these picks. And so Oz, he will be a spokesman for the administration's health policy. Interestingly enough, there's some reporting that on the campaign trail, when he ran unsuccessfully for the Senate two years ago from Pennsylvania, he spoke a lot about the need to improve Medicare Advantage and improve choice and competition within the Medicare system. So if that's something that he brings to this position, it could be quite influential and important from a conservative healthcare perspective. But I think fundamentally, Trump is going to be basically running policy through the White House and these cabinets, as all.
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John Podhoretz
Presidencies have done now pretty much since the second Bush.
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Abe Greenwald
And you think about the Biden Cabinet. I mean, toothless, right? I mean, maybe Blinken and Austin have had some influence, but the truth is Jake Sullivan has been the most important foreign policy player and he's inside the White House. So Oz is going to be there mainly as a spokesman for the administration's policy. I think Lyndon McMahon to remember she was thinking of running for Senate for many years from Connecticut. She's been active in Republican politics and conservative.
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John Podhoretz
I think she did run.
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Abe Greenwald
Yes, maybe.
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John Podhoretz
I think she ran one.
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Abe Greenwald
Yes. Yeah, yeah. She's been active in Republican politics, conservative philanthropy as Christine said. She's a big advocate of school choice. I think she could actually have quite a bit of impact in that job. What's interesting is these two choices less the Oz choice but the McMahon choice and the choice of Howard Lutnick, the co chair of the transition to be the commerce Secretary still means that the key economic posts have not been assigned. And I think that will be the story heading into the weekend is will Trump pick a Treasury secretary, a CEA chair, an NEC chair in the next four or so days.
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John Podhoretz
So our friend Mark Halperin who has been eerily correct about what is going on in the cabinet selections. Good on you Mark. It's really been kind of impressive to see great reporter says that there is going to be a superstar pick at Treasury. I don't quite know what that means because there are names being floated like Mark Rowan who is co founder of one of the major hedge funds of the last 30 years. Also a hero to some of us because he was one of the people who really started the donor a war against the Ivies with his withdrawal of his gigantic illuminary giving to Penn. So I love the guy but he's one name. There are other names that have been floated. The giving of the job of Commerce to Lutnick seems to have been a way of clearing the way for somebody else. Other naming floated is Kevin Warsh who is some I think known to sort of a policy, a wonky policy guy was connected to the Hoover Institution has been been on the Fed. But maybe not star like these are either. Either they haven't decided they want to do it yet or maybe they're not quite the superstars. I think Rowan's pretty much a superstar if you, if you know finance. But maybe they're not what he wants and we don't know what he wants. But if Mark is right that what's in his head is he needs a big person to be treasury, maybe he hasn't quite found him yet. Or the deep problem that his main economic policy that he wishes to enact is one that almost nobody involved in economics believes is A good idea. Lutnick would have happily been a pro tariff guy if that's what Trump wanted. It's very hard to get people who know economics, macroeconomics, who are involved in the global economy to think that using tariffs as a tool to raise money for the government and to enact policies, protectionist policies is a good idea. So how you squeeze those two together is clearly I think the hardest lift of the administration's promises during the campaign.
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Matthew Continetti
Well, and it's most important issue for Americans still inflation, cost of goods. I mean these things will particularly cost of goods, many goods will rise if the tariff policy that Trump has claimed he wants to pursue will. Although didn't he, he hedged a little bit the other day when asked about tariffs. He's like, well, they're like they're a weapon. They're something we use as a threat. I mean, the question is whether he can find someone who would sort of mimic that in terms of communicating that message, but actually enacting it would destroy a decent economist career, I would think, long term because it's going to make. This is just not a good idea.
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John Podhoretz
What's interesting is that his, what would seem to be on the, on its face, his most controversial or unworkable policy, which is the mass deportation of illegal immigrants. Mr. Homan, the head of that effort, borders are, is putting meat on the bones of that relatively skeletal policy. He is already now explaining that this talk of using the military to be involved in the deportation effort is not the military with guns ablazing, going into the streets. It is that the military has backroom abilities that ICE does not, that ICE does not possess, that enormous numbers of ICE agents have been basically made into desk bound bureaucrats trying to basically do the paperwork on the incredible influx over the last four years and can't be there to be on the line in enforcement officials. And that if we can use the Pentagon to do the paperwork, really that this will free up the border agents to do the work or to do what they need to do to go into places where migrants are collecting and find them and detain them. That's a, I think that's, that's a serious thing because I think all of us have looked at this and said, well this isn't going to happen. And obviously I think it isn't going to happen that 11 or 15 million people are going to be deported. But could a million people be deported?
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Christine Rosen
Right.
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John Podhoretz
And a million people is a lot more people than have ever been deported. And it will be the, it will be the preventative measure that will help stop the influx. You know, the thing about why it's.
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Christine Rosen
Important, the thing about the interregnum period when it comes to Trump especially, is that we're back to the seriously, literally framing. We don't know which policy is which yet. Sometimes we won't know even once he takes office. I think the deportation policy is literal. It may not be absolute, it may not be comprehensive, John, as you say. But I think there's going to be a literal attempt to do what he's talking about. Tariffs, I am not so sure.
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John Podhoretz
I think that's right. But I'm just saying that you can see where the seriousness comes in, that the true hope in any policy of getting hard line on illegal immigration is the self deportation policy, that it's not worth it to spend your life in America being pursued or feeling like you're being pursued, particularly if you just crossed. And so if there's a big show of force that the problem will help resolve itself.
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Abe Greenwald
I think it's already working. We already have reports.
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Matthew Continetti
Yes.
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Abe Greenwald
That's to say that the Trump's tough language is already disincentivizing people from taking the journey. And in fact, what the cartels and human smugglers are saying to people south of the border is that you better go now. Because if you don't go now, if.
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John Podhoretz
You don't make two months, yeah, then.
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Abe Greenwald
He'Ll be in trouble.
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John Podhoretz
It's a good way. It's like Black Friday, though. It's like, get in now, do your Christmas shopping.
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Abe Greenwald
I think the smugglers are discounting their fee.
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Matthew Continetti
No. And that's the difference. There's another aspect they're probably raising. There's another aspect of this for Trump, which is that it's not just a victory to say, look, I did what I said I was going to do when I was running for reelection. It is a victory against every obnoxious blue state mayor who claims to be a sanctuary city, who actively blocks ice's ability to pick up criminals who've been arrested who are in the country illegally. And we have multiple stories of many jurisdictions in blue states doing this, where they are thwarting ICE's legal enforcement to pick up people who were then released onto the street, some of whom recommit crimes. That story is actually a political domestic win when he can say, look, we are able to do our jobs now, we are going in, we are getting these people, these liberal prosecutors who are letting criminals go will no longer win. I know this is a small percentage, but it was certainly on the minds of voters who actually are quite supportive of the idea of deporting a lot of people who came over to this country illegally under the Biden administration.
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John Podhoretz
And the point is that the bar for Trump here is unbelievably low because he doesn't have a more moderate position on this being argued by his political foes. They're arguing, or even if they're arguing, a maximalist position against him. So again, if he deports 100,000 people very publicly, that will be. They're not going to say, oh, well, that was pretty wimpy. Like, you know, if I were here, I'd be deporting a million people. You don't even, you know, you're not serious about it. He's. There's no pushback whatsoever on the efficacy question.
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Matthew Continetti
They have signs on.
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John Podhoretz
He only has to do a little bit.
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Matthew Continetti
Yeah, they have signs that say no human is illegal on their lawn right now. So anything he does will be criticized. So why not do at scale what he can, which indeed is what the American people want.
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John Podhoretz
Right? So, and this gets to something else I wanted to talk about. You probably guys haven't had a chance to read this, but Thomas Edsel, often one of the most interesting columnists in America when he, when he is, chooses not to simply write resistance porn in his own way, but today has written the opposite of resistance pornography. It is a piece called Democrats Can Become the Party of Insurgency Again. So when I saw the headline, I was like, oh, God, here we go. But it is actually about how impossible it will be for Democrats to moderate their positions. It's about this argument going on inside the party with Seth Moulton talking about transgenderism and whether he wants his kids, his daughters, to be playing against biological boys in sports and things like that. And what can happen here to improve the Democratic Party's fortunes with the messages that were sent by this election. And he pretty much concludes that it can't, that there is no means or structure by which the party can moderate because its most passionate advocates, most passionate people within the party, have not changed their views one whit. And it is much more important to them to be, to have fealty to their ideological priors and to things they believe deeply, which is what we should actually find impressive because they're not hacks then to change views in order to win elections. And he, he quotes this incredible thing, the chairman of the Texas Democratic Party, Gilberto Hirojosa, who said on a Texas public radio station the following on November 6th, you can support transgender rights up and down all the categories where the issue comes up, or you can understand that there are certain things that we just go too far on that a big bulk of our population does not support. If you're going to ignore the political consequences of these kind of things and you're asking to lose these elections in the manner that we did. That's what he said on November 6. And by the end of the day, he resigned as chairman of the Texas Democratic Party. Yeah, I think it's apologized and resigned.
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Abe Greenwald
It's important to remember that, you know, Bill Clinton didn't pop out of Jimmy Carter's head when Ronald Reagan was elected president in 1980.
- [21:44]
John Podhoretz
Right.
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Abe Greenwald
I mean, in fact, Clinton lost the his after his first term as governor of Arkansas. He lost in 1980 and he had to come back. And it took a decade to set up the infrastructure through the Democratic Leadership Council to promote politicians like Clinton, like Al Gore and others who said that the Democrats had gone too far left and needed to moderate their stances on capitalism, on affirmative action, on crime, on welfare, before they could have an opportunity of governing again. So will it take that long this time? I don't know. We're in the still in the 49% nation there is what we call the thermostatic reaction to politics. The House majority for Republicans may like may be one of the narrowest majorities ever. And so it won't be too big of a lift for Democrats to take the House of Representatives next year if Trump sinks in popularity over the course of his first two years in office. So the Democrats have a lot of rethinking to do. But I'm not, I think Edsel is onto something that the actual structures through which you would perform that thinking or you would identify new politicians have not been set up. And one example of this is, you know, there's a fight now for head of the dnc. And I have to say all of the candidates are extremely unimpressive and not very original. And one late entry is the Michigan state senator who became famous for her progressive social views and then was given a spot at the convention. And so if that's the way the Democrats are going to go, by elevating this younger woman who has extreme progressive views on social issues like abortion, like lgbt, especially drink the tea rights, I don't think that's going to do them any favors when the next presidential election comes around.
- [23:57]
Sponsor Announcer
This episode is brought to you by Lifelock. The holidays mean more travel, more shopping, more time online, and more personal info in places that could expose you to identity theft. That's why LifeLock monitors millions of data points every second. If your identity is stolen, their US based restoration specialist will fix it, guaranteed or your money back. Get more holiday fun and less holiday worry with Lifelock. Save up to 40% your first year. Visit lifelock.com podcast terms apply I just.
- [24:26]
Christine Rosen
Want to say on the trans issue in particular, I think that is actually destined to change. There's an inexorable shift in the way it's being talked about in terms of studies and research.
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Abe Greenwald
Think about what's happening right now in the House of Representatives. We have the first transgender congress person. And there's a move now from the Republicans to say that this new congressperson needs to use the bathrooms of his biological sex.
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Christine Rosen
Right.
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Abe Greenwald
And it's hugely controversial. And I was reading in one of these newsletters, I think it was the USA Today newsletter, where the reporter said, well, the Republican congresswoman, women, Nancy Mason, Marjorie Taylor Greene are behind this move with I think the support of the conference. They don't think this transgender woman is a woman. Yeah, yeah.
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Christine Rosen
I mean, yeah. You know, yes, people like Nancy Mace are going to. I think they're going to go about it the wrong way for a while, to be honest. I obviously agree with you and them in principle. And the rest of it, I mean, the sort of larger body of knowledge and common sense around this, I think is going to take a different shape. You're going to have official medical bodies retracting their former positions. You already do. You see it in foreign countries. The whistleblower reports, the detransition accounts are no longer going to be buried the way they were. The studies aren't going to be cherry picked and phony baloney the way they were. I just see that unraveling.
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John Podhoretz
I don't disagree with you. I just think it's going to take longer than you do. I think, I think, I think it's going to take long is that Seth Moulton comes up and says, I don't want my daughters playing against biological boys in sports. And he could be Liz Cheney out of office in 2026. I mean, there will now likely be a primary challenge to him from his left. I don't really know what the ideological composition of his district is or how that would work, but that's not something that you want. And they have the same. There is the potential in Edsel's piece. What goes somewhat unspoken, but it's close, is the vanguard of the Democratic Party. This is something I write about in my article for Commentary's December issue. Vanguard of the Democratic Party is likely to move left, not to the right. And then the question is whether reality or ideology dominates. Reality would be that this has been an experiment over the last 10 to 15 years, particularly with people under the age of 18, that is a disaster and needs to be ended. And that nobody ever thought that what surgeons and doctors should do is remove body parts from people's bodies to make them feel better about themselves, or to think that that's what's going to make them feel better about themselves. But that's going to take a while. And that's the dlc. While and that we're likely to see more of that rather than less. And what will the proof of the pudding is in the eating. What made the DLC happen wasn't just that Democrats were arguing unworkable things about foreign policy and economic policy, but that the Reagan administration scored remarkable and extraordinary gains in American prestige and economic strength, in economic growth and a turnaround in the national mood. That's where. That's the necessary adjunct to getting where you want to go, Abe. Or where we would all like to see the Democratic Party go so that American politics can find a new equilibrium in some fashion. But it does depend on the Trump administration succeeding and not failing. Because even now.
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Matthew Continetti
Sorry, I'm not sure it does depend on that, actually. Because I think this is a somewhat different, more existential challenge for people on the left, not just the Democratic Party, which is that they have to. They are unable and unwilling to let go of the idea that their embrace of transgender rights in particular is anything other than tolerance, when in fact, the trans rights movement has an extremely powerful authoritarian tendency. It's why you're not supposed to say you're male or female. You're supposed to say cisgender. It's why they're trying to put this language into the bureaucratic guts of the federal government, so that they can win on things like bathroom issues. I agree with Abe about Nancy Mace. She's doing this performative stunt that is unhelpful to a larger and more important discussion we should be having about appropriate use of women only spaces. And I'm annoyed with her for that. However, I do think that the moral grandstanding is that they that the left does and that the Democratic Party has become a perfect example of. It's going to be hard to give up because these are very wealthy, very highly educated people and they truly believe that they are on the right side of history. They use that phrase all the time. Do you want to be on the wrong side of history on transgender issues, like people who oppose civil rights. Did they genuinely believe it? And I don't know that that is going to be something that even political defeat will take away from the hardcore members of the Democratic elite because they don't. They actually get something out of losing in the same way that the right wing under Trump losing lots of elections got to. It's a sense of superiority.
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Abe Greenwald
Can I just bring in a more concrete example? There's some reporting out today about the Kamala campaign's reaction to the Trump Kamala is for they them perfect example. President Trump is for you ad. And the data was clear that this ad was having a huge effect on voters perceptions of Kamala Harris. Not only that she was extreme in her support for taxpayer funded gender reassignment surgeries of criminal illegal aliens in prison, but that it came across also that she was kind of dishonest and dissembling when she wouldn't give specific answers to questions, when she would like say, well my, I have different views on even an issue like fracking, but my values haven't changed. So it was clear early on that this ad was having a major impact. And there was, according to the reporting, a discussion inside the Kamala Harris campaign about how to deal with it. Do you rebut the ad? Do you say that it's different ad or, or she has a different position, or do you just try to ignore it and change the topic? Well, they chose the latter. And the reason they chose the latter was no doubt for the same reason that Seth Moulton, the congressman from Massachusetts, is in so much trouble for raising the issue of biological men and women's sports. There is an ingrained deference to the radical left within the Democratic Party that is going to take a long time to rid itself of.
- [32:04]
John Podhoretz
I want to defend Nancy Mace, not words that I usually would use or Nancy Mace and the performative thing that's going on here. Because look at it from another angle. So Tim or Sarah McBride, depending on how you want to refer to people, can choose their own name. So say Sarah McBride once is elected. And it is the view of the Republican Party pretty much en masse that.
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Abe Greenwald
The.
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John Podhoretz
Transgendering or degenderizing of bathrooms was kind of the original sin. This was the beginning of this as a political issue. If you remember in North Carolina when they started saying choose the bathroom that you want to go to, that was 15 years ago. I can't even remember when that was.
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Abe Greenwald
About ten years ago.
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John Podhoretz
Okay, so Republican Party supports people who have these views. That. That is not something. Women should not be forced to be in a bat in bathrooms with men. Except in the. Except in the Capitol.
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Abe Greenwald
It makes no sense.
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John Podhoretz
Except in the Capitol. In the capitol. She was elected. She gets to go to what? She gets to go to a bathroom. She can go into the. Into the women's bathro. And that's fine. Locker room. And the locker room. So. Okay, that's all I'm saying. Like, I don't know. It was. It's an interesting challenge.
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Christine Rosen
I totally agree with you, though. Don't do it in an ugly way. That's all. And I think doing it in ugly way is part of her brand. It's, it's, it's. It's the. It's the part that she wants out there more than the actual issue.
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John Podhoretz
Okay. I just don't know how to do it.
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Abe Greenwald
I don't know any other way to do it.
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John Podhoretz
I mean, I mean, I understand you're saying, like, going up to the bathroom.
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Matthew Continetti
With a sign that says, I'm sorry. First of all, she's a survivor of sexual assault. She can say, look, here's the situation. I do not. She can take the language of the left. She can say, I don't feel safe in a restroom where an intact male is allowed to come into this private space or into a locker room and be in my presence. I do not feel safe. And she can say that. And then she can say, here's what I propose. And to Abe's point, she could say, you know, if this is a necessity, then we need to have a discussion about having a gender neutral space that can be used by people who do not who identify as one thing, but are born male by. Identify as female to protect the privacy and the safety of women. And that is how you do it. And it doesn't. She is very performative. I'm much more on Abe's side of this argument. There is a way to do this. It's actually effective and long term. And look, well, that costs money. Is it a pain? Yes. But this is what a lot of private businesses in the United States have been trying to figure out and manage and pay for for a long time now. So she would actually have. She would be speaking to people who understand this logistical challenge while also having a matter of principle that she's, you know, and it helps.
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Christine Rosen
It helps the conservative side of the cause to do it that way, because then it doesn't automatically make opposition to men in women's bathrooms associated with a kind of ugliness.
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John Podhoretz
I mean, okay, Okay, I wish I could agree with you that there's a sophisticated and elegant way to handle this, that respect. She doesn't respect. Sarah McBride. Republicans do not respect.
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Matthew Continetti
She doesn't have to respect her. But this is a logistical challenge, and it's one a lot of American businesses have been facing for years. There's a way to handle the logistical challenge.
- [35:33]
John Podhoretz
They choose to face it well, they've chosen. American businesses have chosen. Has chosen by election. They have elected to try to conform with this new claim on them.
- [35:49]
Matthew Continetti
Don't want to get sued. And I think that's why they throw up a gender neutral, you know, all sexes bathroom or whatever.
- [35:55]
John Podhoretz
I think they think they. They think they're going to get praise for it and they're going to win awards from liberal organizations for being, you know, for being wonderfully tolerant, as you would say. Nancy Mace just tweeted about half an hour ago, she said, your mental illness will not be my new normal. Now, maybe it's ugly to call transgenderism a mental, you know, a mental illness, but as a, as a matter of political messaging, that is a better message than your message. I'm sorry, I wish you were it. Okay. I really don't you think that the people who. Especially transgenderism. Now remember what she's doing here isn't limiting it to teenagers? Right? That. That's been the teenage. The fact that people are advocating surgeries, you know, irreversible surgeries and things like that for kids is the issue that wedged this into the commonsensical conversation. But it's not where. It's not. It's not the. All of it. It really isn't. Because the prison stuff and all of that involves adults. Look, I'm not. Now don't want to go like crazy at this in cultural terms, but there is a movie that is now shortlisted for like the Oscars. It's called Emilia Perez. It's on Netflix. You can watch it. It's by a French director. It's set in Mexico and it's. And basically the theme, it's a musical. So it's weird. It's a sort of opera. And the theme of it is, what if El Chapo wanted to have a transgender surgery? I'm not kidding. There is this tattooed gangster with a beard and everything like that. And there's this lawyer and he brings. Calls in, lawyer brings her in like she's going to get assassinated. And then he says, I need you to help me become a woman. You have to go and find me a doctor somewhere far away from Mexico. And then you're going to move all my money into separate accounts. You tell my wife that I'm dead. You tell my kids that I'm dead because I need to live my truth and my reality as a woman. And then Emilia Perez, and then this El Chapo guy becomes Emilia Perez, and he come, and then he decides that he was bad, it was really bad, all the things that he did. And then he starts an ngo. I am detailing to you a plot of.
- [38:19]
Matthew Continetti
Someone asked.
- [38:20]
Abe Greenwald
You deserve an Academy Award for watching the movie. I can't believe you've got that far.
- [38:25]
John Podhoretz
Hold on. So she starts an NGO to help all of the wives and children of the men that he killed when he was El Chapo until he himself is murdered by his angry ex wife. So the reason I bring this up is to say that this preposterous, overheated, hysterical movie that glamorizes and turns into a saint, a drug cartel mass murderer, solely because that drug cartel mass murderer has the bravery and the courage to admit that he's actually a woman and needs to have this surgery. That's where the culture is. It's not about parts. No, but I'm saying elite culture. That's where the.
- [39:22]
Christine Rosen
That's really the culture is.
- [39:23]
John Podhoretz
But I. Look, so I'm just saying it's more of a war than saying, but. No, no, no, but kids in sports and all this. But I think it's more of a war.
- [39:33]
Christine Rosen
The tweet you bring up is a perfect example to my mind, because I am. I take a much harder line on this than you'd think. From what I'm arguing, I think transgenderism is mental illness in most cases. How do you treat someone with mental illness or any illness? With compassion. There's no other situation where you would say to someone, you wouldn't say to a schizophrenic, your mental illness is not going to infect my life. Or something along those lines. If you believe it's a mental illness, then you act with some compassion, some degree of compassion.
- [40:09]
Abe Greenwald
You say that to schizophrenics who are violently mentally ill. You do say that if you have a mental illness that's impacting others, then you do have to. Have to draw lines. I mean, this is a difficult situation. It's never happened before in the history of this republic. We have never had a transgender congressperson before. And so it's going to be a nasty fight because you have to deal with this and have to figure out how to deal with it. And sure, Nancy Mace and mtg, they're the performative ones that you say. But Christine, what you were articulating sounds to me not much different from what Speaker Johnson was saying when he came out of the conference meeting. I mean, he was saying that we're going to handle this, but we have to do so in a way that respects the views of the American people. And you just to come out of this election and with the House of Representatives changing its bylaws to accommodate the sector of elite culture that was just repudiated seems to me topsy Turvy.
- [41:23]
John Podhoretz
Right? I don't think that's what Chrissy, I assume that's not what you're what you're.
- [41:27]
Matthew Continetti
Saying women's bathrooms at all.
- [41:31]
John Podhoretz
And by the way, Speaker Johnson said a man is a man and a woman is a woman.
- [41:35]
Abe Greenwald
And then he said, we'll take, we'll figure this out.
- [41:37]
John Podhoretz
We'll figure it out. Okay, let's pull back from this and let me just talk to you about this wonderful book, Life and Liberty the Making of an American Originalist by Randy Barnett. I've talked to you about it every week for the last month. A friend of the Commentary podcast has a remarkable life story. Growing up as a Jewish kid in Calumet City, Illinois, around Polish Catholic people becoming enamored of Barry Goldwater and then learning in law school that when he wanted to be a constitutional, when he was fascinated by the history of the Constitution, that the courts of the 60s and 70s had been structuring themselves to basically remove the Constitution as the guiding principle of all legal interpretation, he said the hell with it and decided to go off and become a prosecutor in Cook county, fighting crime and corruption. But over the course of the subsequent 50 years, the ideas that he believed in and that he came to espouse and that he came to advance ideas known as originalism, that he would play a major role in advancing them, in helping turn the tide of opinion within the legal profession, within the constitutional law profession, confession, and within the courts themselves. So that, for example, he ended up being the person who devised the legal argument against Obamacare. He's been in the thick of the fight to restore a law's Constitution. George Will called A Life for Liberty a nourishing three deck club sandwich, elegantly blending autobiography, a guide to today's arguments surrounding Jewish prudential originalism, and a participant story of how some recent constitutional history was made. Delicious. A Life and Liberty is an inspiring book for anyone who loves the Constitution and as we come into the holiday season, would make a wonderful gift to any student who aspires to make a difference. It's available wherever books are sold. So talk about a fight that's going on in relation to Ukraine, because the fight is going on apparently now appears that the seawall has been breached and the water is flowing over, flowing over the dam that the Biden administration attempted to create between American aid and aggressive Ukrainian efforts to attack Russia inside Russian territory as a means of creating at least facts on the ground that would give them a hand or even an upper hand in bringing the war to a close in manners favorable to Ukraine. From the beginning of this war, we've been telling you on this podcast that the Biden administration has been providing the aid that's necessary. But handcuffing offensive Ukrainian efforts. And over the last two weeks, detail after detail, the Biden administration is attempting to muddy its own record or a desperate last effort to help Ukraine before Trump comes in, whatever. But they let them have the attack ems they are now providing all kinds of. They're dropping all kinds of restrictions that were in place. And what fascinates me is that the response of the anti Ukraine right is to talk like the nuclear freeze left did in the early 1980s and say everything that this administration is doing is going to bring about World War Three. I've never seen the citation of World War three more often than I did when they were airing the day after on ABC or when the idea of employment their nomenclature.
- [45:42]
Abe Greenwald
Because as any reader of Commentary knows, World War 4 is the war against radical Islamic terrorism, which means that the next world war would be World War five.
- [45:54]
John Podhoretz
Right. We won World War three. According to my father, in World War I was the Cold War, which was the Cold War. So we won. Yeah. So we need World War five. But it doesn't have to get our numbers straight here. Yeah, well, Donald Trump Jr. And Walter Kern and others, they want to say World War three is coming simply because Ukraine will now have the ability to use conventional weaponry of a high order to, as I say, do something to take Russian or hold Russian territory so that they have something to come to the negotiating table with. And it blows my mind that the isolationism inherent in the anti Ukraine world has now simply deployed an argument that was nauseating 40 years ago about the United States using escalating to de escalate, which is what we were doing in the Cold. The entire theory of the Cold War was we need to get tough with the Russians to bring them down. And so that there is no World War three. They're now saying Russia is now Talking like nukes are on the table because we're talking about Ukraine, Russia's really going to change the nuclear policy.
- [47:07]
Abe Greenwald
And recently, yes. So to just go through what's happening here, I have to say, as someone who does support American aid to Ukraine and its defense against Russian aggression, these moves are mind boggling. Biden again is doing too little, too late, waiting until after the election. This issue of loosening the restrictions on the weapons we have provided Ukraine, such as the ATACMs, to fire longer range fires into Russian territory has been on the table for years and especially for six months. Ukrainians have said, look, we're in a bad position here. If you allow us to loosen the restrictions, we might be able to slow the Russian advance. Biden waited until now and during all that time, what happened? Putin started saber rattling, more talking about nuclear doctrine, doctrinal changes. The North Koreans came into the mix and now Biden says, oh, well, I'm loosening it because the North Koreans are there. Well, you know what, if he had done this for not four two years ago, if you had said at the beginning two years ago, we're giving you the Patriots now, we're giving you the Abrams now, we're giving you the F16s now, and we're letting you fire the weapons we give you into the territory so that you can defend your country against the Russians. Maybe we wouldn't be in this terrible position where Russia is advancing, where there are now at least 10,000 North Korean soldiers in Russia. They were prepared to go into the Kursk stale, the part of Russia that Ukraine invaded in its surprise move earlier this year. And Putin is about to launch this retaliation for this move which has forced our embassy to close in Kiev once again, another American embassy closing. So I have to say, as someone who supports this in principle, I think it's a completely wackadoodle way to go about it. I will say, however, that another move that was just decided again far too late to allow the Ukrainians to use anti personnel mines, that I think is a point of leverage that can help stop the Russian advance and create the conditions under which whatever settlement is eventually reached, if it is ever reached, would allow Ukraine to maintain most of its territory. But the general approach to me has been extremely disappointing to wait until this lame duck to make it about once again. It's all his policies have always been filtered through the lens of domestic politics. And even toward the end, he wants to make it as though Democrats and Biden are pro Ukraine. And that Trump guy, he doesn't want what's best for Ukraine or the world.
- [49:52]
Christine Rosen
There's that. I also think there's some recognition on the. I'm guessing some recognition on the administration's part that, oh, wow, we've kind of messed Ukraine up here. We've, we've, we've got them into a bad place. Okay, now let's do what we can. I think it's dawned on.
- [50:11]
Matthew Continetti
We have a few.
- [50:12]
Abe Greenwald
Yes.
- [50:14]
Christine Rosen
How bad their policy has been.
- [50:17]
John Podhoretz
I wish that that were the case. I mean, I think it's not just that it's filtered through the lens of domestic politics. I think that what happened with Israel. Very parallel situations. Right. With Israel, we support Israel, but we don't support them in the right way. And then the domestic politics rears its head in Michigan and the administration gets incredibly unclear about what its aims are, what its goals are, what it's going to allow, what it doesn't want, puts pressure on Israel to slow down, do things differently, all of that. But in this case, I just think we see a worldview that it will be very valuable for Americans to study and consider, including both Democrats and Republicans, which is, if you're going to support people who are the victims of wars of aggression or terrorist moves against them or something like that, if you're going to support them and you are the world's greatest superpower, you support them in a way that provides them a path to victory against their foes and not into World War I trench warfare in which each side takes massive amounts of casualties and no real change is affected in the situation on the ground. We consigned, in our own way, Russia and Ukraine to the kind of war that we had hoped would no longer exist.
- [51:54]
Abe Greenwald
But there is one difference, which is that Israel has had remarkable achievements despite the Biden administration, and Ukraine is in a worse position because of the Biden administration. Biden administration, people think that they're helping Ukraine and Ukraine is worse off. Whereas with Israel, Biden has been doing everything he can to put pressure on Israel to stop, and Israel has been doing better in achieving its objectives in the long.
- [52:22]
John Podhoretz
But I mean, the Ukraine story is more complicated than that because, of course, Ukraine did have this kind of dazzling. They made this dazzling move, right, which is that they took Russian territory. They went into Russia and took Russian territory. And that could have been the thing where the Biden administration said, aha, so we're watching this war. Facts on the ground are changing. The Ukrainians have a new strategy that might bear fruit in terms of bringing this war to the kind of conclusion that we would want, in the long term, let's help them continue with this so that they can fire deeper into Russian territory, keep the Russians away from Kursk and maybe advance further forward. And they didn't do anything.
- [53:06]
Abe Greenwald
Look, I know that we've talked about this before. Ukraine has a problem and it doesn't have enough men, Right? And so that's the fundamental problem facing Ukraine. That's why they need to compensate that. Well, some of the fires, some of the weapon systems can help give them a technological edge, which the Ukrainians have also done very well in terms of their drone capabilities. The new asymmetric abilities that, you know, have basically sank the Russian Black Sea Fleet allowed Ukraine to maintain, you know, a fighting chance in this war. The way I agree with Hoover Institution scholar Stephen Kakin, the way that this ends is to make Putin feel the pressure, right? Putin doesn't care about Russians. He doesn't care about Russians. He cares about him. So how do you make Putin feel the pressure? Well, the way. The one way you could do that is by crippling the Russian energy industry. And that has not been a policy followed with any seriousness by this administration. And so they've been against it. Why? Because, again, domestic politics, and we have to do this green energy transition junk. So it's the Biden, Robert Gates, his words about Biden, every single foreign policy instinct he has had in his career has been wrong, continues to prove true. Now, with two months left, we're recording this on November 20th, we have two months left of him as the President of the United States. And that's a long time in world historical political terms.
- [54:42]
John Podhoretz
Oh, and they're doing just great, by the way, in the Middle east right now with Amos Hochstein going back to.
- [54:50]
Abe Greenwald
Whatever I heard you hear these guys say, that ceasefire, it's so close, you know, you're getting nowhere.
- [54:58]
John Podhoretz
I mean, it kind of makes you wonder what their internal conversations are like, because it's like, can you really be this stupid? I don't, actually. I mean that, like, I don't mean to, like, sound like I do on Twitter sometimes, but, I mean, can you really be. When you're having conversations among yourselves in private, do you sound this way with each other?
- [55:22]
Matthew Continetti
They're the classic joke, though, when you hear them, especially when they go to. Among fellow foreign policy people and like, you know, intellectual conferences, they are all about the theory. It doesn't. And then when something goes terribly wrong in practice, they're like, well, what's happened in practice? Our theory is completely airtight. And every way they discuss this. And even sometimes when they try to communicate to the public, I just get. That's the only joke that keeps coming up. That's how they talk about foreign policy.
- [55:50]
John Podhoretz
That's like that great line in When Harry Met Sally, when Bruno Kirby says to Billy Crystal, I know what's going on in your marriage and that kind of thing. That's a symptom. That's a symptom. And then Billy Crystal says, yeah, well, that symptom is screwing my wife. Like, that's like, it's like. Thanks very much for the abstract theorizing. Something actually practical is going on. Like as you're negotiating the ceasefire, you know, rockets are being aimed directly at Tel Aviv and the debris is causing the deaths of five people in the middle of a city. And no country can allow that. And Israel is not going to have a ceasefire with Hezbollah unless Hezbollah ceases fire. And at the minute that it stops ceasing fire, Israel is going to go back into diea and drop 2,000 pound bombs on it again to make sure that Hezbollah dies a thousand deaths. We gotta go. Time. Time is time is upon us. We will not have a recommendation today. Try to come up with one tomorrow. So for Matt, Abe and Christina, John Packwortz, keep the camera burning.