Seth Mandel (2:59)

Hi, John.

John Podhoretz (3:00)

And Washington Commentary columnist Matthew Continetti. Hi, Matt.

Matthew Continetti (3:04)

Hi, John. And if I may comment on your excellent read for a moment, I've been making the rounds lately I've been spending some time with some faculty at the Hamilton Center. I've been visited another university, Emory University, and what we're finding is there are so many great opportunities now to teach if you are neutral or center right. That I want to encourage people who are thinking about pursuing graduate study to do so. Because unlike, say, when I was in a similar position in college a generation ago, there are now career opportunities for people who think differently than the left wing orthodoxy on campus. And so one problem those of us who are involved in Campus Reformer face is a lack of supply. So I do ask people, you know, think about graduate school at places like Florida or elsewhere, because eventually we're going to need teachers at great places like the Hamilton Center.

John Podhoretz (4:10)

I have heard this as well. I've heard this from people who are helping to organize these places, who are helping to fund these places, that, that, that some of these places are looking for in the next five years, as many as 50 or 60 different professors and try to find 60 professors. I know this sounds crazy given the number of. There are, I don't know what, there are 2,000, 3,000 universities in the United States that finding 50 not only good, but finding 50 professors who do not subscribe to liberal orthodoxy is already difficult. So yes, suddenly it's a growth area. And as we're hearing from the panic over AI and youth in the United States, an interesting growth area because people at the sort of higher ends or intellectual ends of young America are very much up in the air about what they're going to be able to do for a living for the rest of their lives. And this sort of brings us back to a point. In the 1950s and 1960s when academia was a growth area after the GI Bill and massive state investments, both state and federal investments in education, there was a point, I remember the father of a girlfriend of mine saying that when he got a PhD at the University of Chicago in the 1960s, he had four jobs to choose from when he was out on the job market. And he and his wife with their small children like, went touring to see what they thought was the best environment for kids where their dollar could go further, all of that. Imagine that in a world of this kind of academic serfdom that young graduate students who are getting out and Maybe getting their PhDs are consigned to where they make pretty close to the minimum wage. They often don't get health care, by the way, which is really hilarious given the politics of these campuses and these universities and are sort of struggling in this bizarre almost like Russ Kolnikov and his Garrett writing articles for, you know, for radical publications like they they can't get themselves into the upper middle class or even the middle class. Exactly. Given the way education is structured in the United States and the tenure system. So this is a very interesting thing over the next 10 years, and I'm glad you mention it because it's, it's a, it's a note of intellectual optimism for our side that, you know, entering, entering the right may not be, as it was, a questionable career decision if you were 21 or 22 years old in the United States, that you were limiting your choices rather than expanding your choices. So that is some pretty interesting stuff. Other interesting stuff that I'm going to have Matt monologize on here in a second is that the House Oversight Committee, I gather, under Jamie Comer, has released a very important report that I will confess, until he mentioned it five minutes ago, I did not know exist. Which is important because it's part of the story.

Matthew Continetti (7:26)

That's right, you hadn't heard of the report because no mainstream outlet seems to be commenting on it. But that's exactly why we have places like the Washington Free Beacon, which has two excellent stories on the Comer report on Biden's auto pen presidency and pardons late in his term. What's important about this report is it's based on the testimony of Biden officials you may have heard over the past few months. Every so often, key members of Biden's team went to the House and testified under oath about the president's condition in the final year at least of his presidency, and what the findings are absolutely damning. I'm just going to read a little bit about from Chuck Ross's piece in the Washington Free Beacon today, but it goes like this. A chorus of Joe Biden insiders who publicly defended the former president against concerns about his age and physical stamina sang a more sober tune in congressional testimonies. Fourteen Biden aides were interviewed. Many of the aides, of course, you all will recall, portrayed a public image of Biden as competent in control of White House affairs, dismissing questions about his gaffes, ramblings and faulty memory as offensive or gratuitous. Biden has this in the phrase of Joe Scarborough. At one point, he he totally in command. But in private testimony, Chuck Rouse goes on, those aides admitted to internal concerns about the Biden's cognitive decline and lethargy. Others decline to discuss the issue, dismissing questions or invoking their Fifth Amendment rights. But the testimony, as we go on. You see publicly, Kevin o', Connor, Biden's doctor, publicly affirmed his fitness in multiple public statements. But in private he invoked the Fifth Amendment when asked about Biden's physical health. And the Republicans have invest recommended that the District of Columbia Medical Board investigate o'. Connor. And you know what? I think that's a good idea. Here's Jeff Zients, the chief of staff. He described Biden in early 2024 as a quote, very energized president. And then he told Axios in August 2024 after Biden had dropped out of the race for reelection, Biden would finish the job as strong as we started it and continue to make history. In private, Zients told the House that there were multiple discussions about how to reduce the number of steps Biden would take in public because they were worried about his physical capacity. And he admitted that Biden's ability to remember names also grew more difficult. Our favorite, Karine Jean Pierre, who of course used the term cheap fakes to dismiss videos that showed Biden freezing up during speeches was non responsive to House investigators. Overall. The report I'll just read from the language of the executive summary. It goes like this. As President Biden declined, his staff abused the auto pen and a lax chain of command policy to affect executive actions that lack any documentation of whether they were in fact authorized by the President. While President Biden became progressively less able to do his job when every measure should have been taken to document and if ever question proved that President Biden had made final decisions, White House staff took shortcuts and ad hoc actions to keep the President's to keep Biden afloat. The committee has found that there was in fact a cover up of the President's cognitive decline and that there's no record demonstrating President Biden himself made all the executive decisions that were attributed to him in in particular those mass pardons, if you all remember, that came out at the end of his term. There's one other angle of the story which I think is worth noting. You know, among the Biden aides who testified was Mike Donilon, a longtime member of the so called Politburo behind Biden and the there was an awkward moment as Chuck Ross documents in a another piece on the Washington Free Beacon today, when Donilon was confronted with the fact that if Biden had won re election he would have made $4 million in bonuses. And so it was of course in Donilon's interest and the other members of the Politburo in their financial interest to Keep this idea that Biden was capable of serving as president alive for as much as possible. When asked about the $4 million, Donilon stammered for 45 seconds, according to the report, before stating his fee was a guarantee with the campaign. So what we have here is a picture of one, the country being run not by the president, but by his closest aides who had been with him for decades. And it's not just that they're delegating responsibility from the president. It seems in the case of these pardons, they were actually designing the pardons and authorizing the pardons without the president's knowledge, which is a huge scandal. You know, we were just reminded last week of the importance of the presidential pardon power when Trump has been pardoning people, including the crypto tycoon who has some financial interest with the Trump family just last week. So they're abusing this power. But you also see kind of the financial incentives team Biden had to cover up his mental and physical condition. And then finally, as you say, as big as this story is, it's an even bigger story that it's not mentioned anywhere I can find other than in conservative media.

John Podhoretz (13:13)

We have, we have. I think there are three points that we should pursue here. One is this question of whether Biden was president in the last six months of his presidency. In a fundamental sense, was he making the decisions to move carrier groups, Talk about big decisions, Right? Move carrier groups, how things were going between Russia and Ukraine and our role in them. And then, of course, the post election questions involving the use of presidential power at the end of the term, which are often controversial, including the use of pardons, but also the drafting of executive orders that attempt to gum up the works for the next president by creating new facts on the ground. The next president then has to reverse if they haven't been done by legislation. So when Biden announced that he was not running for reelection and that Kamala Harris should be the nominee, it wasn't just a talking point when people like us said, if he can't be the nominee, he should probably resign the presidency and let her be president. That is how our system works. She's the vice. If the president becomes infirm or cannot perform his duties, there is a backup politician elected by the American people who can take on that role. And if we understood that he was resigning on the basis that he had demonstrated cognitive incapacity to continue as a candidate, he had demonstrated cognitive incapacity to continue as president, and somehow that never rose higher than a kind of debating school argument. That we would have and other podcasts would have and people would have. And I never quite understood why. But I think there's now a through line from what happened before he was shown up in the debate. Three weeks of that bizarre backdoor campaign to get him to quit with George Clooney's op ed and leaks from Obama, this, that, the other thing, and then onward. And why the press that supposedly loves a great story and loves, you know, oh, there's nothing more than, like controversies of this sort that could really. Because they were in on it. They were in on it from 23, 22, 23 onward. We know that because we were talking about his cognitive incapacities for the two years before he finally acknowledged them with the retirement from the political campaign. But, yeah, if you were Joe Scarborough, somebody was invited to the White House and you said, my God, he's 110% there. If you're Karine Jean Pierre, of course, worked for him. She's like, boy, I can't keep up with him. He's so energetic and active. And where was Peter Baker? Peter Baker, noble, wondrous young, you know, now graying old man. But when I knew him like the best young reporter in Washington back In the late 80s, 21 years old, a phenom and writing books and being this remarkable presence as a figure of gravitas but, you know, importance, like, he's the White House, the chief White House correspondent of the New York Times. He knew. I mean, if I knew, he knew. So why wasn't this a story then? Why isn't it a story now? Because it is a story about the complicity of the liberal establishment in the idea that, A, if you didn't do something, if you did do something about Biden, you might strengthen Trump. Or B, your friend from Skull and Bones is the deputy chief of staff and you see him every week at brunch and he's going to be really mad at you. We don't know what the, what the points were that created this conspiracy of silence.

Matthew Continetti (17:37)

I think Trump weighed heavily in the fact that this wasn't reported. But the other element that I think helped Biden remain in office after he withdrew from the race was Biden's insurance policy. And that was his vice president all along. People Biden, Biden knew, the people around Biden knew that trusting the presidency with Kamala Harris to Kamala Harris, even if it was for six, seven months, 107.

John Podhoretz (18:10)

Days, is that what you're saying?

Matthew Continetti (18:11)

Well, but remember, she would have been president until January 20th, 167 days. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Would have been a disaster. So. So this is how cynical Biden and his crew were, that not only were they hiding the reality, but they had their backup plan, which was who would want Kamala Harris in charge? And let's not forget, it wasn't immediately that Biden endorse Kamala Harris. It was that there was that gap of about an hour where things were a little up for grabs. Because again, that's a. That's a roll of the dice that the people who knew her best were not willing to take.

John Podhoretz (18:56)

But something else. Sorry, go ahead. Sorry. Something else occurs to me. It occurred to me, Matt, while you were reading the account in the Free Beacon. If you look back on incidents like, say, Lloyd Austin's disappearance, right? That's the kind of thing that happens, goes without consequences in an administration where the executive is already an absentee leader, right? So everything gets loosey goosey all the way down the chain. I think you can look at Biden's condition and everyone's being in on it. And as a sort of framework for why say no one was ever fired either in that administration, not just Austin, but for doing other things. Because A, the president himself was half there and B, who might talk if they were then let go. Hey, everybody. John here. I'm here to talk to you about Brooklyn Bedding. And look, the best thing I can tell you about Brooklyn Bedding is that they decided they wanted to try advertising with us. They offered us a mattress. We took it, my wife and I, for one of our kids. And so impressed were we by the mattress. By the way, one of my three kids slept on the mattress and found the mattress so comfortable that we went out and got two more for our other two kids. I don't know what better endorsement I can give you about the high end mattress experience you get from Brooklyn Bedding without the sky high price tag. Super comfortable, looks great, doesn't cost a fortune. High quality materials to last a lifetime. It's like my kids got a first class upgrade without a first class price. They handcraft every mattress in an Arizona factory. No middleman, no gimmicks, just top tier quality, honest pricing and real American craftsmanship for a better night's sleep. So go to BrooklynBedding.com and use my promo code commentary at checkout to get 30% off site wide. This offer is not available anywhere else. That's BrooklynBedding.com and promo code COMMENTARY for 30% off site wide. Support our show and let them know we sent you after checkout, that's BrooklynBetting.com promo code commentary.

Seth Mandel (21:33)

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John Podhoretz (22:03)

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John Podhoretz (22:24)

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John Podhoretz (22:41)

Well, that's always the case, right? You keep your friends close, your enemies closer, you keep the circle close. And if you don't have the mafia powers to, you know, like, take somebody out and leave the gun and take the cannoli, you better keep them, you know, in the House so that they don't fire out. But the question here is the people who weren't officially in the House, the liberal establishment in the United States, as represented by the media, as represented by House Democrats, Senate Democrats, all kinds of politicians in the United States, they were there. They saw when he, when he thanked dead people, when he, when he started having conversations with dead congressmen he thought were in the front row and stumbling on stage and falling down and having to take the back staircase off Air Force One because he could no longer be trusted to go down the front.

Seth Mandel (23:33)

Staircase of Air Force 2022, he had to go to bed instead of meet with the German Chancellor. Right on, on a, at a NATO gathering, Right. And you know, his Secretary of State took the meeting and, you know, they were surprised to hear that Biden had just gone to bed. Now, when that happens, there's a traveling press corps, right? I mean, those, those NATO, you know, meets are big deals. And, you know, there's a whole, there's a lot of people around that notice that the President has not showed up to a one on one dinner meeting, early evening dinner meeting, you know, with the leader of, with, with his German counterpart or something like that. I mean, the number of people. And those stories came out later. But it was like, at the time, you were also surprised that the European media didn't leak something, that people didn't say something. I mean, it was basically going on in front of the world. And then all these people in the Biden administration TR to convince us that they didn't see it, but it was happening in front of everybody.

John Podhoretz (24:37)

So that's strand number one. Strand number two involves the question of the applicability or the success in our constitutional terms of the 25th Amendment, which was passed in 1967. If you go and read the 25th Amendment, it's an incredibly complicated. There are two different processes outlined in the 25th Amendment, if I remember correctly. One is for the temporary suspension of the President's powers, and the other is for the permanent removal of the President. And you think, okay, this is very sane because of course, the President is the only person who's elected by all the people. If his aides can just figure out some way to cool him out, then we are in a banana republic or we're in some kind of like, weird pre revolutionary phase of the United States. So it's good that they created this thing where someone has to write a letter and then a majority of the cabinet has to vote on it. And then if the. And then the President can at almost at will announce in a letter that he's coming back and then it's all done, or if, at which point, if. If the Cabinet, who close to him says he cannot reassume these duties, that then I think it's 2/3 of the Senate and 2/3 of the House have to vote to agree to remove him. It's like the elaborate nature of it was intended to make sure that the presidency wasn't compromised by, you know, Cassius and Brutus trying to figure out some method of getting Caesar out of the way. But we now have, I think, pretty explicit proof that the expectations that led to the passage of the 25th Amendment, what people would be willing to see, what they overlooked in the Wilson administration, and I think in part in the Kennedy administration, given the number of medications that Kennedy was on, 12 different medications a day to deal with his back. And he was clearly addicted to several of them in ways that might have had effects on his cognitive abilities. That's why this law got passed or this constitutional amendment became part of our Constitution and it didn't work. The one time that it really should have been invoked, it didn't work. And they had two years to invoke it. There are many reasons not to invoke it. You don't want to overturn the judgment of the people. Yeah, maybe you have a crazy person in the other party who will benefit. But that's supposed to be taken care of by the fact that if you quit, your vice president takes over, your vice president's part of your administration. You have a continuity, not only continuity, not only of power, but you have a continuity of sort of ideological direction, partisan direction. You're not saying we're going to early elections. Right. Which is what happens in other countries. And the fact is that the institutional, the creation of the institution of the presidency militates against this very clear moment at which his refusal to acknowledge that he should not have run for a second term and what was going on with him did not cause half of his cabinet to say, in the interest of world peace, we got Russia at war in Ukraine, we got Israel in basically at war with Iran. Stuff is happening. He looks weak. Who knows what tests we could be put to with him in charge and with him in office. But those people around him, not only did they not want to do that to him and they didn't want to help Trump, they also wanted to have the pardon power. Who knows how many of those people who were pardoned were pardoned because they were, you know, Jeff Zients is something or other. We don't know yet.

Matthew Continetti (28:46)

Let me just read from the report here. This is again from the report. Testimony before the committee confirmed that the pardon signed on January 19, 2025, the day before Biden left office, which included pardons for members of President Biden's family. These are the preemptive pardons for his family were apparently the result of an in person meeting in the final hours of the presidency for which there is no contemporaneous documentation instead of actual documentation. The decision to grant these pardons was allegedly communicated secondhand to a Zein's aide, Rosa Poe, who then called Zeitz, who verbally authorized the use of the auto pen from his home. Zients did not even know who actually used the auto pen to apply the signature after his aide, using his email account with his permission, communicated that the auto pen was authorized for the clemency actions. Science did so without confirming with President Biden that he had in fact granted these pardons after repeatedly telling the American people he would not pardon his son Hunter, of course, who had been found guilty of crimes, let alone the five other members of the Biden family who are now preemptively pardoned. In the waning hours of his presidency. So all this was going on without any evidence that direct evidence of Biden's involvement. Now, we assume that Biden is behind it, it's his family, but it could also be some of the people who were again financially involved in the Biden family business over the course of, of many years. I think there's another point here as well, which is, you know, so this isn't being covered in the mainstream media, but even if the media ignores this stuff, the public judgment on Biden and Harris is still very poor.

Seth Mandel (30:37)

And the on Harris part is important, isn't it?

John Podhoretz (30:39)

Yeah.

Matthew Continetti (30:40)

Well, we had a, we had just.

Seth Mandel (30:41)

Thinking about what to do next.

Matthew Continetti (30:43)

Right. We had this reminder just in the past week where Biden gave a speech accepting some lifetime achievement award named after his old friend, the late Edward M. Kennedy. And Harris also gave the interview to the BBC where she left the door open to running for president in 2028. And it was almost like a Zen koan, the reaction to these two appearances. It was like if a tree falls in a forest, does it make a sound? Because no one on the Democratic side was leaping up to say, oh yes, what an incredible speech by former President Biden. How, how he's leading us into the future. And even with Harris's comments, I would say that while she still has some connection to parts of the party, it was not what you would call an enthusiastic reception. So even if the media tries to ignore what happened under Biden for four years, the after effect I think will continue for some time.

John Podhoretz (31:56)

I had a third thing to ramp, so I brought up the media, I brought up the 25th Amendment. And now let's talk a little about the pardon power itself because that is the regnant scandal here. Christine the other day said that she is a big advocate of doing something to reform the pardon power. We don't really know what the constitutionality is of reforming the pardon power by legislation, whether or not it would have to take the form of a constitutional amendment. But we now have two successive, with little ones before two successive pardon power scandals. This question of whether or not the President actually pardoned anybody who is now officially pardoned because he did not sign the documents himself. And there's no direct. The President said use the auto pen because his arm hurts to do the pardon that he has now personally told you to take to the auto pen. The auto pen, of course, created in the 1980s because thousands of letters a year go out under the President's signature to donors and things like that, sort of like pro forma letters or thank you letters or things like that that he doesn't write and that are written by members. There was actually an office of White House Correspondence when I worked in the White House. And so, you know, so he can't sign everything, otherwise he would spend all day signing things. And obviously, if you're going to do mass pardons, like, you got this old man there. Have you ever signed 1500 different pieces of paper? Writers sometimes do this when they have a bestseller and they're going to sign 2000. Just a hilarious John Updike story about his writer Beck having to go somewhere and sign 2000 plates for a book.

Matthew Continetti (33:43)

So nice to hear the name of Henry Beck, one of my favorite characters in all of literature.

John Podhoretz (33:49)

Yeah. Anyway, but so this is obviously something.

Seth Mandel (33:52)

There's a whole Seinfeld also where Jerry gets carpal tunnel syndrome from signing royalty checks that are like 13 cents a piece.

John Podhoretz (33:59)

Right, exactly. But in this case, it's like, you know, thousands. It's like, as this backstory is about, he's sent to just not to. Off on a crazy tangent to make it more pleasant, his publisher sends him to, like, Anguilla or something like that, to a resort so that he'll be in better circumstances and be able to go take a swim and stuff like that. But that the horror of this experience of having one after another after another of these plates are then put in the books, pasted into the book so they can be sent out. It's a hilarious, you know, portrait of sort of like the miseries of literary success, let's say. Anyway, so Biden, obviously, this is why you don't do 1500 pardons on a single day. Because, like, who's. You're gonna have to sign them. No. Okay. The auto pen can sign them. And then suddenly it's like, you don't even have to have proof that the President said that the pardon was happening. So that's. That's pardon scandal number one. There were prior pardon scandals, like when out of nowhere, Bill Clinton pardons Mark Rich, the fugitive financier, toward the tail end on the last day of his presidency, by the way, casting a pretty. Pretty dark shadow over the Clinton. The end of the Clinton presidency. This was no joke. Like, people talked about it for months. His reputation never quite. I know, his weird reputation. But, you know, he had sort of left in a weird place of good feeling because the economy had been in good shape and all that. And then it was like, oh, you are the sleazebag that people were telling us you were during The Whitewater thing. And you're creepy. I'm just reminded how creepy you are. Did you do this as a favor to some woman? You did his wife Diane. His ex wife Diane. Right. So they're prior pardon scandals, and now we have the Trump pardon scandals.

Matthew Continetti (35:54)

Can I add a corollary to the Biden scandal, though?

John Podhoretz (35:57)

Yeah.

Matthew Continetti (35:58)

The preemptive pardons.

John Podhoretz (36:01)

Right.

Matthew Continetti (36:01)

That, that is a constitutional novelty.

John Podhoretz (36:04)

Second, second preemptive pardon.

Matthew Continetti (36:06)

Right.

John Podhoretz (36:07)

Who was the first preemptive pardon? Richard Nixon. Richard Nixon was preemptively pardoned. That's right, George.

Matthew Continetti (36:14)

Pardon of Nixon was, was preemptive.

John Podhoretz (36:16)

Right. And he said, I am doing this for the health of the American polis. I'm pardoning the former president so that we can turn the page, leave this chapter of, of this American nightmare behind, long national nightmare. And I am willing, essentially, he was saying, to suffer the assaults that I am going to get for the good of the country. And over time, I think people.

Seth Mandel (36:44)

He was right. And he did. Both of those things were true.

John Podhoretz (36:48)

Right.

Seth Mandel (36:48)

I mean, essentially it turned out that that really was the right, probably the right thing to do, almost certainly, because.

John Podhoretz (36:53)

Yeah, it would have been in court for years.

Seth Mandel (36:55)

And it's, it's without question that he got punished for it.

John Podhoretz (36:58)

So y, he certainly did get punished for it, but he did it because he was a patriot and because he was concerned about the, the, the future of the country. And, and, and indeed, moving on from this scandal. This is new. This is. I'm pardoning my son who did it. And because, and to be fair, let's, let's, let's talk Tahlas here. Was he concerned that an incoming Trump administration would pursue his family? Yes. Were those concerns legitimate? Oh, yeah. I mean, Trump is pursuing John Bolton. Why wouldn't he pursue Jim Biden? I mean, you know, to be, or, you know, Ashley Biden or Jill Biden or Naomi Biden. I mean, he would, he. Yeah. I mean, and if he wouldn't, there is some Michigan there at the Housing Department who would find out that somebody tried to take out a loan while claiming it was their primary residence and then try to secure an indictment on those grounds. So it's not like there wasn't logic to what he did. But was it a misuse of the pardon power? Of course. It was an insane misuse of the pardon barrier. So we now have two successive presidencies with, and you could even say the first Trump term where he was like, playing those weird pardon game, you know, fun pardoning. Oh, it's fun to pardon people and here he is doing it again. Right. He pardons George Santos for no particular reason, as far as we can tell. He pardons, you know, he pardons the Binance guy, who, by the way, had already, like, he'd served his time, he'd done his, you know, he was over with, he had done his service or whatever. So I think there might be momentum toward pardon reform. Maybe it has to happen after Trump leaves office because it will be seen. Or it could happen if Democrats take the House and the Senate and toy, although he would veto it. But you had now have enough obvious examples of what no continental member of the Continental Congress writing the Constitution could have conceived.

Matthew Continetti (39:20)

No, I would be. You, you need an amendment. I do think it has to be a constitutional solution, which makes, of course.

John Podhoretz (39:26)

Very difficult or, or less difficult. Less difficult than you think, because, of course, most modern constitutional amendments are on weird side issues, you know, but also this would have pay increases and things.

Matthew Continetti (39:41)

Like that, and this would have bipartisan support.

John Podhoretz (39:43)

That's what I'm saying. Which is crucial for, because Right.

Seth Mandel (39:47)

As with Truman's, as with the amendment, you know, when Truman was in office about running for a third term, you could just make it not apply to the guy sitting in the office right now. Like, you could take care of the Trump problem by making it clear that it doesn't limit his ability to part.

Matthew Continetti (40:03)

Right.

John Podhoretz (40:03)

Which, yeah, but, but, but why are we, why, why do we think it would go in the direction of reform rather than this is now the start of a new way of doing things? No, if we don't reform it, sure. Yeah. Then the president is established in two directions. One, the president can have fun with the pardon power, which is horrifying. And two, the president can preemptively pardon anybody he wants to keep them silent or to keep them out of jail when he asks them to do bad things. I was like, no, no, I'm asking you to do bad things. Don't worry, I'll pardon you.

Matthew Continetti (40:44)

My amendment would be very simple, and that is the president. Presidential pardons are effective unless the Congress vetoes them with the 2/3 vote. Very high bar.

John Podhoretz (40:59)

That's a very high bar.

Matthew Continetti (41:01)

But I think that that's, that's kind of in line with our constitutional language. And, and that would be, I think, acceptable to both parties. But anything closer in this age is not going to get anywhere.

John Podhoretz (41:14)

I mean, whatever the language is, you can see how there are, you know, there are various things that have to happen for constitutional amendment to pass. But, you know, weird constitutional amendments have passed in the last 20, 25 years that have been sitting, one of them sitting around since for 200 years, almost got its 38th state. And then was a constitutional about, about how congressional, how you have to vote in two successive.

Matthew Continetti (41:44)

Right.

John Podhoretz (41:45)

I mean, it's weird. It's like it's the least important thing you could possibly imagine. But my point is that we now have the pardon power misused on all sides in successive administrations in ways that are discomforting, I think, to both parties, including their own, the behavior of the president of their own party. I don't think many people in the Senate or the House are thrilled that he pardoned the Binance guy or that he pardoned George Santos. That's like. Now, wait a minute. Come on now. Who wanted Jorge Santos?

Matthew Continetti (42:23)

Well, we had this interesting action in the Senate just yesterday on the Brazil tariffs where GOP voters joined with the Democrats 5248 to end the tariffs on Brazil, which, you know, unlikely to pass the House. But you see, on this issue, the trade issue was always the issue where the Senate was different from Trump and where a lot of Republicans in their, in their heart of hearts aren't really fully invested in the trade war. In fact, it's hard to find someone outside the White House complex that is fully invested in the trade war other than Robert Lighthizer, who spends his time between the D.C. area and Florida. So this would be an example. This would be a potential place where you might see some congressman say, well, it's not just the interests of the country that require reform of the pardon power. It's not just to our partisan advantage to have some limit on the power of the presidents of the other party. But it is also to the interest of our chamber, of our branch to put a limit on the executive. And in my fantasy land, where I'm living in as I speak right now, that would be, that would be enough to get this 28th amendment passed.

John Podhoretz (43:52)

We also, by the way, have the case of the, of the Senate intervening probably actually at the behest of somebody without the White House's real objection in the nomination of the mayor of Hamtramck, Michigan, to be our ambassador to gutter, who is a kind of semi Islamist for some reason. He got, he got the nod. And the Senate is clearly either he's going to have to withdraw the nomination or the Senate is going to.

Matthew Continetti (44:24)

Well, look, just there's some other examples. Paul and Grassia, the nominee for the office of Special counsel after Politico unearthed these text messages about Martin Luther King and Nazis. His, his nomination was withdrawn. E.J. antony, right. My, my favorite economist at, you know him from the Heritage foundation and Fox Business Channel. I, I, he was nominated, I was supporting his nomination for the to head the Bureau of Labor Statistics, but he just didn't get off the ground.

John Podhoretz (44:59)

I'm Mark Alper, and I want to let you know that two Way tonight, the destination for the best political news and analysis anywhere, is now available as an audio podcast. Each weekday, I'll be joined by special guests from the worlds of news, politics and the media, along with members of the two Way community for conversations like no other. It's the best way to stay informed at the end of your day or first thing in the morning every weekday. It's a show like no other because we involve the community. We hear from people from around the country, around the world. They're part of a conversation. There is no other platform like this, and I hope you will find it to be not only different than everything else, but more meaningful as you become.

Seth Mandel (45:36)

Part of a special community around the program.

John Podhoretz (45:39)

So listen and follow two Way tonight with Mark Alperin on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or any other major streaming platform. You're talking about getting off the ground stuff. So the question is, if the administration were to insist that the mayor of Hamtramck, Michigan, got his vote to be ambassador of gutter, it would still go down, is my guess.

Matthew Continetti (46:01)

Well, I mean, getting off the ground is usually communicated. The senator soon tells the White House Office of Legislative affairs, there's no votes for this person.

John Podhoretz (46:09)

Yeah. Although there are. There have been cases where people say, no, let him have a vote. We're going, we want you, we want to record if you're going to, if you're going to go against us, we want people to know it. You vote them down and then, you know, we'll express our outrage.

Matthew Continetti (46:23)

Famous case was Robert Bork, who insisted himself right. On a vote, even though he knew, and the White House knew that he wouldn't be confirmed as a Supreme Court justice. Much to America's loss.

John Podhoretz (46:37)

Very much so. So here we have.

Matthew Continetti (46:39)

Yeah.

John Podhoretz (46:39)

Given who took his place, obviously. It is so ordered. Anthony. It is so ordered. Kennedy eventually, of course, the joke there was the guy who was initially dominated to replace him or Doug Ginsburg had to withdraw because he smoked pot once.

Matthew Continetti (46:58)

I love this total diversion. But in researching my piece on the Free Press this week about Reagan and trade, I was reading Reagan's diary, which, you know, it's among my more unusual habits. But I do turn to it and I came across an entry in 1987, around the time he made this speech and also around the time he met Trump, where Reagan recorded a phone call from a cabinet member urging him to drop the nomination of Douglas Ginsburg after it was revealed that the Supreme Court nominee had admitted to marijuana consumption. And the call from the cabinet member came from Dr. William J. Bennett. And I just love that Reagan said, Bill Bennett called me urging drop Ginsburg and said it was a blast from the past. I loved it.

John Podhoretz (47:48)

That's why Bill got appointed. Drugs are a year and a half later and I was there. That was one of my jobs in government, was helping to set up the drug czar's office. And let me tell you, you don't want me in government because I was not very good at it.

Matthew Continetti (48:02)

Should we talk about the ceasefire?

John Podhoretz (48:04)

We should talk about the ceasefire. So we should talk about the language of the ceasefire. Because Hamas is obliged, in order to conclude phase one of the 275,000 point peace plan to return the bodies of the, of the hostages that they, that they still have. And Hamas is not doing so. So Hamas is in violation of the terms of the plan, which, which, which included in phase one, the ceasefire in which Israel would cease fire, would, would, would pull back to hold, to give autonomy or non Israeli presence to 43% of Gaza and hold their fire. And Hamas has been violating the ceasefire since it stopped delivering the bodies. And because they are running rear guard actions and they're, they're, they're firing on Israeli troops and soldiers killing Israeli troops. They're killing Jews yesterday. Yeah, they're killing Jews. And from some reports that we're hearing, all of which are anecdotal, the soldiers there say that things are hotter actually for them than they were before the ceasefire when the advance on Gaza City had the Israelis on the move and the Hamas on the back foot running away. So they weren't exactly engaging. Like this was really a kind of route. And so obviously when you're on the routing side of a route, you're, you're much safer than you are if you're standing still and someone can like come up behind you and, you know, shoot you in the back. So Israel.

Matthew Continetti (49:51)

What Israel?

John Podhoretz (49:52)

By the way, that was a, that was a fear of people who were against the. Of course, this plan to begin with was that, that very situation was, was, was what was going on.

Matthew Continetti (50:01)

Right.

John Podhoretz (50:01)

There were two fears, one like long term, right, which was, we're back in it again, we're releasing hundreds, if not thousands of Palestinians from Israeli Jails. This is how, this is how this all started. It's like the eternal return, you know, almost 1100 people released in 2011 when Gilad Shalit was released from custody. One of them being Yaya sinwar. You know, 12 years later, Yaya Simwar is leading. October 7th. Who's the Yaya Sinwar in the pile that just got, you know, released. Right. That's the long term one. And the short term one was if you say we can't fire our guns, they're going to know we can't fire our guns. And they're going to. They're gonna. Now obviously you're allowed to fire if you know someone is firing on you. But if they ambush you, if they come up, climb up your back, then, then you're, then you're in trouble. The language would be that Israel in Bibi Netanyahu yesterday calling for, like calling on and launching pretty serious strikes against Hamas for this game that they played yesterday where they, where they returned a body that was actually partial remains of a previously returned body. So they were holding on to partial.

Seth Mandel (51:18)

Not even, I think, not even previously returned. I believe the IDF discovered the remains themselves covered and brought them covered the body. I don't think it wasn't. Hamas hadn't returned.

Matthew Continetti (51:33)

Okay, a bearing.

John Podhoretz (51:36)

Right.

Matthew Continetti (51:36)

The remaining remains and then uncovering them as part of this cynical ploy.

John Podhoretz (51:43)

Can we just quickly explain under Jewish law, like there is this, if you're going to pursue this policy that you must get the bodies, the dead bodies back under Jewish religious law. And there is, it is, it's quite astonishing what happens here. If you are going to bury the remains in that way, you must have as complete a version of the body as you can in the coffin when you bury it. There are these Israeli, they're called Hever Kadisha, but they're also. Which is the group that watches a body before it goes into the ground. But there are these forces inside Israel when there is a terrorist bombing or something like that, who. And this is going to sound gruesome. So excuse me, who will literally go around scraping bricks to make sure that they find blood, you know, like tiny pieces of tissue, so that the complete. So that a version as complete, a version of the body can be in before interment. And this is viewed as the fulfillment of the mandate that, that the dead must be buried. And so it's a. And Hamas knows this. And so it's a particular act of desecration to withhold pieces of a dead body.

Seth Mandel (53:18)

The victim in this case, we should note that this is the third time the family had to bury him, which is to say his remains. Remains were discovered by the IDF in 2023. They brought them home and they had a ceremony and buried what they had in 2020, four more were discovered. And so you had to dig up the, the grave and add them to the grave. And that was a second one. And the fact that Hamas has knowingly been hanging on to other parts of his remains, you know, these weren't just discovered. Hamas was just holding on to these for fun. And to torture the family now means the family has had its third burial of their child.

John Podhoretz (54:01)

Right. And so you have that sort, which is a story of, you know, the, the, the joy taken in the, in the, in the torture. And then you also have, as I.

Seth Mandel (54:11)

Say, there's the Red Cross laughing on, by the way, also in the video.

John Podhoretz (54:15)

That's right. And you have the desecration quality, which is that this, this is important to Jews because it is a religious ritual for Jews and you are spitting on that. So it's a great foundation for a lasting.

Matthew Continetti (54:38)

And a soldier, A soldier was killed as well.

John Podhoretz (54:40)

Yes. And the soldier was killed.

Matthew Continetti (54:42)

Three, three IDF soldiers have been killed since the beginning of this ceasefire. But.

John Podhoretz (54:47)

Right.

Matthew Continetti (54:47)

Apparently, according to the intelligentsia, the ceasefire is binding only on Israel. The way they just, you know, as I understand it as a Neanderthal caveman pundit, a ceasefire binds both parties in a conflict, which would suggest that if one side violates a ceasefire by not obeying the language of the ceasefire, by delivering the 13 remaining bodies that are supposed to be part of the phase one hostage release, and by taking up arms to kill soldiers in the other side of the conflict, that gives the opposing side the right to enforce the ceasefire. But not, apparently, according to the International Human Rights Commission community and media, which is reporting all of this, the two, the flash, the flashpoint last week and then what happened yesterday, as is Israel.

John Podhoretz (55:53)

Put ceasefire at risk. Right. Or test Israel. It is the, it's the equivalent of Republicans pounce. It is.

Matthew Continetti (56:01)

Yeah, yeah.

John Podhoretz (56:05)

What's important also to note, I think, in terms of the use of vocabulary, and I don't know whether they invented this or whether they took it from somebody else, but I want to commend Josh Krashower and our friends at Jewish Insider, because the verb that they use to describe what Bibi was doing or the Netanyahu and the Israeli government were doing yesterday by ordering strikes on Hamas positions in response to this game, that was a. The killing of the Israeli soldier and B, the game with the remains was maintaining the ceasefire. Israel is working to maintain the ceasefire.

Matthew Continetti (56:42)

That's exactly right.

John Podhoretz (56:43)

Which I think is a really, really good verb, because that is what they are. That is, in fact, what they're trying to do is say, hama, quit it and now give us the bodies and stop firing. Quit it. Live up to the terms. And yeah, and they have to enforce it. If they're, you know, international coalition, which is actually not supposed to be monitoring this part of the phase, by the way, nothing in the first part, nothing in phase one says we need, you know, the forces of the international forces that are going to maintain the ceasefire to play a role. Yet they're being assembled as we go. And then this is referred to either as Israel's risking or Israel's breaking the ceasefire.

Matthew Continetti (57:28)

And I would just. The person who understands what is actually happening is the President of the United States, who on the other side of the planet, on his way to Korea, was asked about what happened yesterday by reporters and he said, Israel's responding to Hamas's violation. And look, Hamas can either cooperate or not. And if not, then Hamas is going to be destroyed. Trump is rock solid on this. And it, it's worthy of commendation.

John Podhoretz (58:03)

It is so worthy of commendation. Because every person who is not skeptical, let's say, of the ceasefire, but worried in the way that, you know, the way that we've been talking about here about, about what the ceasefire might portend, did it mean that Hamas is not finished off? Can. Is it an acknowledgment that Hamas can't be, can't actually be finished off, so you're going to do as much as you can all, all of that stuff. Will the Israeli government fall because the Smokchrich and Ben gvir, the sort of, the, the far right element are saying that he is not living up to, he's not living up to his efforts to extirpate and destroy Hamas, all that stuff. We are now faced with Israel having to live within the terms and worrying about the United States falling in love with its own deal. And this was part of the fear is the United States is going to say, don't do X, Y and Z because it's going to make our deal look bad. And we love our deal. No one loves this deal more than we love our deal and don't make us look bad, which is what kind of previous administrations have always said. It's like, don't do X. We like this. If Trump is the one who says Israel can go ahead and do this, it means that the sort of wit cough, anything for a deal crew, if they were in this position, is checkmated because the, because the big guy has already said they're, they're free to do what they have to do to enforce that deal. But, you know, you can make a fetish of the piece of paper, and it's not surprising that Trump doesn't make a fetish out of a piece of paper. Everything, if you're a transactional person, that the ink is not dry on this piece of paper, number one. And there's, you know, there's always a waiting period or a, you know, period where you can pull it back. But yeah, it was absolutely necessary. Even though we know the top figures. Right. Or that the top figure, if the top figure were Rubio. Rubio is exactly where, where Trump is. We don't know where Vance is. We don't know where other people.

Matthew Continetti (60:27)

Trump is the president.

John Podhoretz (60:28)

That he is the president.

Seth Mandel (60:29)

Three more years they've been trying to. The, the narrative here has been one of Israel needs to be restrained, right? Not just, you know, will it happen. And so there. Yesterday, the Washington Post published this long story about the, about apparent Israeli nervousness. Now, I'm sure that there is a level of discomfort in the Israeli military echelon about the degree to which they might be restrained. That's always going to be the case. Because if there are American troops there now, which that is unprecedented, rare, whatever you want to call it, that is, you know, that American troops being even in the vicinity is the sort of thing that stops everybody in their tracks. But at the same time, you have to, to build the case that there is a need for restraint, you have to cherry pick the facts and leave out Trump's own statements. Right? So, for example, they say in the piece, here's what they say when Hamas. So they have a paragraph saying Israelis are anxious that Trump will give Hamas a pass. Then says, when Hamas reasserted control in Gaza earlier this month by attacking rival clans, some of which acknowledge they are backed by Israel, Trump initially said the fighting didn't bother me much. Well, okay, but then what did he say? Because then he said if Hamas doesn't stop attacking, we're going to have to go in and kill them.

John Podhoretz (62:01)

Right?

Seth Mandel (62:02)

I mean, that was this, this, this is, this is the, this is the, the cherry picking that I'm talking about, right? So, you know, Trump says, quote, we will have no choice but to go in and kill them, end quote. That quote is not included in the Washington Post story. It ends after didn't bother me much. Then it says, when Hamas said it needed more time to find and return the bodies of deceased Israeli hostages, Trump said that they were under rubble and pointed out that Israel had killed 70,000 people, contradicting Israeli assertions that Hamas was deliberately withholding many of the corpses. But then what did he say? Then he said they better return the bodies, and they have 48 hours and they're only going to be treated fairly if they comply with their obligations. And if they don't, then the other countries involved in this great peace, all caps will take action, he warned. And Hamas, that night, after Trump's statement, returned three bodies. So you have to structure, you have to construct a narrative, leaving out the most recent and the most relevant information in order to portray this as it is. And I think that that, that reveals a frustration with the media world and the activist world that Trump is, you know, the guy with the finger in. In the dam sort of thing here that he calls the shots and he's the one thing standing in the way. They're used to being able to pressure an American president and all that stuff.

John Podhoretz (63:32)

And he's, you know, very interesting aspect of this, that. And then we can go to your recommendation is that meteor caught in a trap, which is the two figures in the democratic world that they loathe the most, the liberal establishment media, are Donald John Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu. And there was this glowing moment two, two and a half weeks. And by the way, this is true in Israel as well, where in Israel, they hate Netanyahu more than they've ever hated anybody who has ever lived. So there was this glowing moment when you could turn to Trump, having helped create a ceasefire and say, trump, he made Bibi do it and he forced him. He took him, he yelled at him and he scolded him. He told him not to do that thing in Doha. They took it away from him. Bibi's angry. Trump is pushing. Yay, Trump. Crushing Bibi's hopes and dreams and wishes. Right now, Bibi's like, okay, I guess I'm going to have to go fire on Hamas. I don't want to. Trump's like, no, you do it. You go in there. So they got nowhere to turn. Either. Either they can use Trump to beat Bibi as a stick over.

Matthew Continetti (64:58)

Over.

John Podhoretz (64:58)

You know, to beat Bibi over the head with a stick. Or Bibi, if they, if they. If they turn on Trump, then they got Bibi. So they got nowhere to turn. They got. They hate both major players here. And then you get left to one side, the genuine super villain of the last two years. Not even a super villain, just a villain, because I don't think he's a super villain. But, you know, like the, the Gutterys, the Eltani family, like, they're the real bad guys here, aside from, you know, obviously Iran. But Iran really did get it, you know, pretty, pretty heavily. But it's still this like, Bibi versus Trump thing. Whereas Trump turned, essentially turned to the Gutterys and maybe the Turks and said, you get Hamas to do what we want. Like, enough already. You get Hamas do what we want. And either Gutter is playing footsie with Trump and sort of winking at what Hamas is doing, or it's showing that it doesn't have the power and authority that we, that it wanted to project over being able to control Hamas's actions at least a couple weeks ago, that in fact Hamas is an independent actor. It was like basically let loose and will do whatever it wants to do. The fact that there is still a body of opinion that isn't saying, wait, you mean this is all about holding dead bodies instead of returning them to their family? That's the one sticking point to keep us from going to phase two. But of course Hamas doesn't want to go to phase two. Hamas wants anything but to go to phase two. Because what is phase two? Disarming Hamas. So of course they're going to, they're going to do whatever they can.

Matthew Continetti (66:54)

To.

John Podhoretz (66:54)

Delay phase two or to make it so that phase one is the only phase of this, of this conflict. Okay, Seth, you have a recommendation?

Seth Mandel (67:06)

Yeah, I have one of the more remarkable, I guess you'd call it a Cold War books, a Cold War spy ish novel or something that I've read recently. But the book is called the Feeling of Iron and it's by the Italian writer Jamie Alange. I'm sure I'm mispronouncing some part of that and I apologize, but, but it is, it's quite remarkable. It essentially it goes back and forth between two periods. One is there's a, a Mengele sort of figure during the Holocaust, During World War II, a German who is doing experiments with drugs on behalf of the Nazis. And he's. He, he's running and he's doing these experiments on Jewish prisoners, you know, etc. The other period of time is 40 years later. And the German had, who was, had been born in America, had been recruited by the CIA after the war, had. He had escaped and he had come and he was doing Experiments for the CIA, running against the Contras and. And two of his former. Two of the. The Jews who survived his testing. You know, lab one worked for a. A sort of, you know, Mossad ish revenge organization within Israel that the Israeli government didn't really love, but you know, whatever. And the other one worked for the kgb. And the. The two Jews converge, both getting information about where this Nazi is, this old Nazi in Latin America, in Honduras. And they are chasing him to get their revenge from 40 years ago. And all three of these characters are working for and living in different countries than they were when they originally all came together. It's not quite as complicated as it sounds.

John Podhoretz (69:20)

Sounds great.

Seth Mandel (69:21)

It's really something. It's called the Feeling of Iron.

John Podhoretz (69:25)

And the author's name again, how do you spell it?

Seth Mandel (69:28)

So it's G I, A I M E, the Italian version of Jamie Gian Whatever and Alange, which is A L, O, N, G, E. Okay, very quickly.

John Podhoretz (69:43)

Because you put me in mind of this as you were talking. One of the best movies of the last 10 years that I really. That. Because it's a. It's about also sort of pre and post Nazi regime. The. The third movie made by the director, writer, director of the best movie of the 21st century, the lives of others. Florian von Donersmark in 2018 made a movie called Never Look Away which is about an artist or the life of a young artist beginning with his childhood in 1938. Begins with the Degenerate Art show in Berlin in 1938 and then flashes forward to the 1950s when he is an East German, having ended up in. In East Berlin and going to school under communism, having grown up under Nazism. And the images, the. The art images that start coming into his head from his childhood, which he has largely forgotten. And it is a story about living under different forms of totalitarianism, what it's like to be an artist when art is being suppressed in favor of political realities and how dormant secrets can emerge out of. Out of nowhere. It is a stunning movie. You can rent it on Amazon and Apple like for three, four bucks. I'm generally not a fan of this genre. I'm not a fan of the pre P.O. you know, sort of. I find that stuff often too schematic. But. But at any moment I can. I can recommend this movie to people which was nominated for an Oscar, you know, for best Foreign film. Didn't win but. But really is a masterpiece. And it's called Never Look Away. And your. This was again, your novel is the title again. Because I'm old.

Seth Mandel (71:49)

The feeling of iron.

John Podhoretz (71:51)

The feeling of iron. Okay. The feeling of iron. Never look away. We'll be back tomorrow for a Matt and Seth. I'm John. Pod Horiz. Keep the candle burning.

Seth Mandel (72:10)

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