Trump Fealty, Ukraine, and Crowd Size

Summary

The Commentary Magazine Podcast: "Trump Fealty, Ukraine, and Crowd Size" Summary

Release Date: February 24, 2025

Introduction

In this episode of The Commentary Magazine Podcast, hosts John Podhoretz, Abe Greenwald, Matthew Continetti, and Christine Rosen engage in a comprehensive discussion surrounding former President Donald Trump's recent statements on the Ukraine conflict, the shifting dynamics within the current administration, and the broader implications for U.S. foreign and domestic policy. The conversation delves into historical contexts, current geopolitical maneuvers, and the potential outcomes leading up to the midterm elections.

Trump’s Position on the Ukraine War

The episode opens with a critique of Trump's conflicting statements regarding the Ukraine war. Podhoretz highlights Trump's controversial remark at a press conference where he suggested, "you should never have started this war" ([03:10]), a statement seemingly at odds with his previous calls to end the conflict. This inconsistency has forced Trump’s administration officials to realign their narratives to match his outburst, leading to confusion and policy shifts.

Administration’s Stance and Policy Alignment

Matthew Continetti explains that the administration, influenced by figures like Tucker Carlson and JP vance, has adopted the stance that Ukraine provoked Russia into invading by seeking NATO membership. Continetti notes, "The root of this conflict is in the Bush administration's offering of a membership action plan to Ukraine and the Republic of Georgia in 2008" ([05:52]). This perspective, which diverges from mainstream views, suggests that Western foreign policy missteps have emboldened Russia.

Abe Greenwald adds that Trump’s handling resembles his past missteps, such as the "crowd size" narrative during his inauguration, which lacked factual support but was maintained by the administration. Greenwald compares Trump's current approach to his "Sharpie and the hurricane" analogy, illustrating Trump's tendency to double down on erroneous statements despite evident inaccuracies ([08:05]).

Historical Context and Foreign Policy Failures

Podhoretz and Continetti delve into the historical backdrop of Ukraine’s nuclear disarmament in 1993, which was intended to prevent Russian aggression. They discuss John Mearsheimer's influence on current neo-isolationist views within the administration, arguing that the U.S. promise to ensure Ukraine's security was not adequately upheld, thereby setting the stage for Russia's actions ([11:00]).

Upcoming Political Events and Geopolitical Maneuvers

The hosts discuss imminent diplomatic engagements, including French President Emmanuel Macron's visit with Trump and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer's scheduled meeting. Continetti outlines the fragmented and uncoordinated nature of U.S. foreign policy, emphasizing the lack of clear objectives in establishing a European peacekeeping force and negotiating ceasefires ([16:22]).

Internal Administration Dynamics and Elon Musk’s Influence

A significant portion of the discussion centers on the internal dynamics of the Trump administration, particularly the controversial appointment of Dan Bongino as the number two at the FBI. Greenwald critiques the administration's reliance on podcast-influenced advisors, suggesting that Trump's decisions are being swayed by populist voices rather than seasoned experts ([22:38]).

The conversation shifts to Elon Musk’s involvement with federal policies, specifically his influence over the Office of Personnel Management (OPM). Podhoretz expresses concern over Musk's chaotic behavior and its potential negative impact on governmental operations, highlighting incidents where Musk's directives led to confusion and inefficiency within federal agencies ([25:02]).

Implications for the Midterm Elections

Continetti and Podhoretz engage in a debate over the potential impact of current administration policies on the upcoming midterm elections. Continetti warns that actions like cutting Medicaid funding or altering tax policies could alienate key Republican voters who rely on federal programs ([40:10]). Podhoretz counters by suggesting that long-term economic strategies, if successful, could ultimately benefit the Republican Party despite short-term electoral challenges ([55:43]).

Conclusion

The episode concludes with a reflection on the chaotic nature of the current administration and the precarious balance between maintaining Trump’s base and addressing broader national concerns. The hosts express uncertainty about the administration’s ability to execute coherent policies and the potential ramifications for both domestic stability and international relations.

Notable Quotes

• John Podhoretz ([03:10]): "Trump said that you should never have started this war."
• Matthew Continetti ([05:52]): "The root of this conflict is in the Bush administration's offering of a membership action plan to Ukraine and the Republic of Georgia in 2008."
• Abe Greenwald ([08:05]): "Trump is perhaps the most historically illiterate president we've had since Joe Biden."
• Christine Rosen ([09:59]): "I'm more sure that he doesn't care [about Ukraine starting the war]."
• John Podhoretz ([32:18]): "The OPM email said failure to respond to this email will be tantamount to a resignation."
• Matthew Continetti ([40:10]): "There are people who have fired all these probationary employees... And contracts."
• Christine Rosen ([35:21]): "It's another pro wrestling sort of move, you know, and that's happening."

Closing Remarks

The podcast provides an in-depth analysis of the current political landscape, emphasizing the complexities and contradictions within the Trump administration's approach to foreign policy and internal governance. With historical insights and contemporary observations, the hosts offer listeners a nuanced understanding of the challenges facing the United States as it navigates through turbulent geopolitical and domestic waters.

Transcript

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[Christine Rosen]

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[John Podhoretz]

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[Christine Rosen]

Results may vary based on input.

[John Podhoretz]

Check response for accuracy.

[Christine Rosen]

Hope for the best, Expect the worst Some preach and.

[John Podhoretz]

Pain Some die of thirst no way of knowing which way it's going Hope for the best Expect the worst for the best welcome to the Commentary Magazine Daily Podcast. Today is Monday, February 24, 2025. I am John Vaught Horiz, the editor of Commentary magazine. With me, as always, Executive Editor Abe Greenwald. Hi Abe. Hi John Washington, Commentary Columnist and Director of Domestic Policy Studies at the American Enterprise Institute, Matthew Continetti. Hi Matt.

[Matthew Continetti]

Hi John.

[John Podhoretz]

And Matt's colleague at aei, our social Commentary columnist, Christine Rosen. Hi Christine.

[Abe Greenwald]

Hi John.

[John Podhoretz]

So watching clips from the Sunday shows, I did not watch the Sunday shows because I am not in fact a masochist. I saw Mike Waltz, Pete Hegseth and Steve Witkoff all having to deal with the question of being asked by anchors who started the war in Ukraine because of Donald Trump saying that you should never start the war, saying that Zelensky and all of them having to twist themselves into pretzels. Witkoff the most interesting because he is the least experienced in terms of foreign policy and seems to know the least, effectively endorsing a very, very radical view. That a view radical and very much a species of the right, the isolationist right, that Russia was goaded into the war because Ukraine wanted to be in NATO and that it was defensive. Russia, whatever was the case of Russia, somehow is defending itself against NATO. So how could you accuse it of having started the war? Which is interesting because I'm sure this is a subject that he literally hasn't given a second's thought to in his entire life until last week.

[Matthew Continetti]

Well, John, he also in one of the interviews said that he had a three hour meeting with Vladimir Putin. So yeah, I'm sure he, I'm sure he learned about the subject.

[John Podhoretz]

He got an ear from the horse's mouth, so to speak, from Kievan Rus through Novorossia to all kinds of things. Anyway, Mike Waltz saying the situation, who would you want on that wall? You want Donald Trump on that wall. You don't want any Wimpy Biden people on that wall, which was his way of deflecting it. And then Pete Hegseth saying the situation is very complicated. So it occurs to me, I wanted to posit this, that having to harmonize your view with Trump's outburst at the press conference, in which I think probably mistakenly, to be honest, he got himself twisted up in knots and said you should never have started this war. To Zelensky, which I sort of think he didn't actually mean to say. Genuinely, it doesn't comport with other things that he has said. He's only said he wanted to end the war and that there's too much death and then having to double down on it when everybody went, oh, how could you possibly say such a thing? And Zelenskyy saying he's falling prey to the world of disinform and he has now forced these officials to harmonize their views with his. This not even necessarily really being a view of his. And that this is now the second term or the second first term equivalent of the crowd size talk at the beginning of 2021. And how, yes, this was the largest crowd in the history of an inauguration. We all know that was not the case, could not possibly have been the case because of COVID among other But Sean Spicer and others were sort of compelled to live within this reality distortion bubble. But of course, this is vastly more serious and has vastly larger ramifications, including historical ramifications that we are, we are, we have the entire administration endorsing this view that as I say, could very well have been Trump kind of getting. It was 4 o'clock in the afternoon, it's late, he's been up since the board, a lot of stuff going on and maybe made a mistake. And now this has now become the major foreign policy controversy of his administration.

[Matthew Continetti]

You know, the George Costanza lie line. It's not a lie if you believe it. I think that is true in this case. More so than in the crowd sized case where obviously the photographic evidence just showed that there had been larger crowds in previous inaugurations than the one in 2017. The Trump administration, and I think Donald Trump himself, after conversations with Putin and with Tucker Carlson, has come to the view that the reason Putin invaded was that America has engaged in a flawed foreign policy toward Ukraine for decades and that the root of this conflict is in the Bush administration's offering of a membership action plan to Ukraine and the Republic of Georgia in 2008. And so all the things that we've heard from Tucker Carlson, from the technologist David Sachs, from Elon Musk over the past three years since today now marks the third anniversary of the beginning of this phase of the war. The direct invasion of Ukraine by Russia is now, it seems to me, administration policy. And that's why these folks who were on the Sunday shows didn't bring themselves to say that Russia started the war because they believe in this concept that the west basically pushed Russia into invading in 2024. I don't agree with it, but I think this is where we're getting. The administration has lined up and I think Carlson's hand shouldn't ignored here. You know, he seems to be spending a lot of time in the Gulf these days, but that doesn't preclude him from calling his friend Donald Trump. And it's certainly the case that J.D. vance has been on the record about Ukraine since the very beginning, saying he doesn't care what happened to Ukraine. He told the Munich conference that the enemy within Europe is much more important than the enemy than the threat from Russia or China. So this is where they are and we're entering a period where we really have no idea.

[Abe Greenwald]

I just think, can I just add that I think it's more like, it's less like the crowd size first term Trump than it is Sharpie and the hurricane moment Trump, where he had kind of a vague idea of something. He was wrong about it. He spouted off, but then he doubled down when criticized and so got out the Sharpie and kind of insisted, tried to will into reality something that an actual hurricane and everyone around him played along. The problem is now he's got a Sharpie out on the borders of Europe and he's drawing all these lines. And, and I was struck with a lot of the comments, both of his supporters and listening to some of what was going on at CPAC this weekend. He is perhaps the most historically illiterate president we've had since Joe Biden, who was also historically illiterate.

[John Podhoretz]

So basically since last, since, since December.

[Abe Greenwald]

Right, Right. But, but. There's a but There's a certain kind of historical literacy in that he, again, he has sort of vague moods about the past that are informed, as Matt's correct to point out, by people like Tucker Carlson, who. Who co historian. So there's sort of a double danger there in terms of his understanding not just of the current moment in foreign affairs, but of our recent and, you know, the last 50 to 100 years in Europe.

[Christine Rosen]

Okay, so can I just add my two cents here? I'm not sure that Trump believes that Ukraine started the war. I'm more sure that he doesn't care. I think he primarily wanted to end the war on his term, during his term, to say that the war had stopped as long as he was in office and that the Tucker Vance, etc. Theory of the case was at hand and could be used and had support among maga. So he's going with that.

[John Podhoretz]

Okay. If you listen to the moment when he said the, you know, you should never have started it line, I've watched it three or four times over the weekend. And, you know, he really. It was a kind of. It wasn't a slip, but it was a kind of, what you call it, like an improv, sort of like someone blathering, you know, and that's why I say it's interesting that he went this way. And now it's become administration policy to say that Ukraine started the war with Russia.

[Matthew Continetti]

We don't know who started the war. That was the line now.

[John Podhoretz]

No, but that's where it's gone because that's where over the weekend. It's like it doesn't matter who started the war, even though it's very complicated. It's very complicated, which is true. But, okay, it's not that complicated. Russia started the war. It's not complicated at all.

[Matthew Continetti]

I'm giving the history of Europe, David.

[John Podhoretz]

David Goldman, formerly known as Spengler, this very brilliant, very eccentric, very odd commentator on world affairs for the last 20, 25 years, said, while it is nominally true that Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine, the story is more complicated. This is not Fort Sumter. This was not that the Ukrainians were, you know, were like, we're standing around waiting for. Waiting for the. Their antagonist to, you know, fire on Ukraine so that they could get in the war. They were spared Kyiv being in, you know, basically being overrun by Russian tanks by the mud of winter, of late winter, on the road from Russia to Kyiv, where they really didn't have much opportunity to stop the Russians. It was sort of like one of those contingent moments in all of history. I don't really want to relitigate this except to say that where Christine talks about cosplaying history, there is a bifurcated fact here. In 1993, it was the policy of the United States after the breakup of the Soviet Union that we wanted to do what we could to denuclearize the countries of the Cold War and Ukraine. On its territory were thousands of nuclear weapons. And we convinced Ukraine to disarm itself unilaterally in exchange for security guarantees that the Russians would not be permitted to take over Ukraine. Now in 1993, it looked like the Russians couldn't take over, you know, a 7 11, so how are they going to take over Ukraine? But 30 years later, in fact there was Russia resurgent having taken two bites out of Ukraine in the previous 15 years or the previous 10 years, the Donbas in Crimea. And so they were there standing there saying, you know, if we had done, if we had just not listened to you and kept our nuclear weapons, none of this would have happened. Therefore you got to hold stick to your deal. This was something you wanted from us. We didn't have any particular national interest in giving up our nuclear. This was a gesture that we wanted to be part of the community of Western nations. And so we did this for you. And now it's three years after.

[Matthew Continetti]

Well, John, hold on. Who broke that agreement? Not Donald Trump. Barack Obama did in 2014.

[John Podhoretz]

Fair enough. Well, we talked a lot about that. So I'm not saying he didn't break it and that he didn't and that. But it's. So there's a lot about Barack Obama's foreign policy that Donald Trump reversed in his first term and theoretically in this term. And this could have been one of.

[Matthew Continetti]

The things, the Biden policy of support to Ukraine.

[John Podhoretz]

Right. But I'm saying in the larger historical sense, the United States made a promise that on a very large scale for a country that had defensive weapons. Now, very complicated figure in American foreign policy thinking. John Mearsheimer, professor of government, anti Semitic, anti Israel thinker, but a very, very hardline realist for many decade and a believer, he said as understanding how the world really works, that countries, it would be wise for countries, as he said in the late 70s, early 80s to proliferate in nuclear fashion in order to protect themselves against each other. This was not a widely held view, but it was sort of like if you were going to be a realist, a hard realist, you would say, well if I were advising a second tier country, maybe they should get a nuclear weapon, it'll spare them. And he said in 1993 that Ukraine was making a mistake, might be making a mistake giving up its nuclear weapons. He is now one of the foremost expostulators of the idea that Russia feeling horrible pressure from NATO and the threat of NATO was justified in the categorical sense of defending its national interest in invading Ukraine. Because if it didn't, then Ukraine would become NATO. It's its perimeter would be surrounded by hostile countries. And therefore it was right, not in a moral sense, but in a practical sense to invade Ukraine. His thinking very influential among the neo isolationists. But if you were to follow the logic of What Mearsheimer said 30 years ago, instead of what he said about NATO lately, it was Ukraine blew it by giving up its nuclear deterrent. It did so on the understanding that the west would not allow it to be swallowed up by a resurgent Russia at some point in the future. That is what's happening. And we are Mearsheimer disciples are saluting it and celebrating it even. So these are the ironies of history when you don't cosplay history, but you kind of pay attention to it and have some memory of how it functions.

[Matthew Continetti]

Could we just talk a little bit about what's going to be happening this week? We're recording on February 24th. French President Emmanuel Macron is scheduled to visit with Donald Trump today. Later in the week, the British Prime Minister Keir Starmer will be visiting. They're doing this in order to sequence arguments to Trump to not totally abandon Ukraine, but to also support the idea of a European peacekeeping force to somehow be a buffer along whatever lines of control are agreed to. This says to me that the policy is still very much unformed. There will be apparently another meeting between the US and Russia in Saudi Arabia this week as well. But so much of is just unclear to me. So we have this, you know, mineral deal that is going on that was presented to Zelensky last week. He turned it down. Then Keith Kellogg, a special envoy, visited at the end of last week, went to Kyiv, talked to Zelenskyy. It seemed like, oh, Zelenskyy is going to sign the deal now. And that would get American buy in to support Ukraine after a ceasefire. But Zelensky still hasn't signed because he still doesn't see the security guarantees he wants. And so we have that hanging out there. We have this European peacekeeping mission that's out there, which of course the Russians say they will not agree to anything that has European troops in Ukraine. And then we have this third track, which is the negotiating track over some type of ceasefire. So where this is headed, again, we just don't know. At the same time, the war is still going on. And what's interesting about the war is that the Russian war machine has slowed down quite, quite a bit. I mean, it's just, it's this carnage that's slowly, maybe gains a few square kilometers, you know, every. Every week or something, but it's not anywhere close to actually threatening the Kiev government at this point.

[John Podhoretz]

Have you ever spotted McDonald's hot crispy fries right as they're being scooped into the carton? And time just stands still.

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[Abe Greenwald]

To call the bluff of the sort of accusation of him being a dictator by suggesting he would step down if that guaranteed NATO membership?

[Matthew Continetti]

Give me NATO. Step down. But no one's going to give him NATO, so he's not going anywhere.

[Christine Rosen]

But what strikes me about all this is that we're talking about Ukrainian concessions. I mean, if you consider the, the mineral deal concession that Zelenskyy is not willing to make European obligations, peacekeeping forces. Is there any discussion of what Russia is supposed to concede here? Has that been floated at all? It reminds me very much of the talks around Israel and Gaza and Hamas, where everyone's talking about Netanyahu has said no to X, Y and Z, while ignoring the fact that the responsibility for the war entirely is Gaza's. And there's something similar going on here as regards Putin and Russia and American pressure on Zelensky.

[John Podhoretz]

I mean, the problem here is that there are only two things to negotiate with Putin over or demand from Putin that Trump basically conceded at the outset of talking about this. Like one is withdraw, right? That's one withdraw some, withdraw all. And the other is stop the war. You stop the war unilaterally. Like there is. What other concessions are there?

[Christine Rosen]

Prisoners, prisoners, thousands of kidnapped Ukrainians.

[John Podhoretz]

Fair enough.

[Matthew Continetti]

Yeah, that came up. That came up with. In an interview that Trump had with Brian Kilmeade last Friday on the radio, where Brian Kilmeade pressed Trump on whether Ukraine started the war. And of course, Ukraine did not start the war. But he also brought up the Ukrainian children who have been moved from the Russian occupied Ukraine into Russia. And he asked Trump if he could do that, if he. If he would demand that these children be returned to their homes. And Trump said, that's a toughie. But interestingly enough, he also said, you know, I just heard about that. So, again, it's clear to me that the people who are telling him what's happening on the ground clearly have a certain worldview about this conflict. And that worldview does not talk about the atrocities and war crimes that have been visited on the Ukrainian people since the Ukraine.

[Abe Greenwald]

No, it's like governance. By podcast, I mean both in the foreign policy realm and now in the domestic realm. We have Dan Bongino having just been nominated to be number two at the FBI.

[John Podhoretz]

And again, I have nothing against Pakistan appointed, because this.

[Abe Greenwald]

Appointed. Right, exactly. After. After promising Kash Patel and the. And longtime FBI folks that they would have an internal candidate since Patel was an outsider, that obviously that. That not a promise kept.

[John Podhoretz]

But I.

[Abe Greenwald]

But I am. I do. I think Matt's onto something here that I think hasn't gotten enough attention. It got a ton of attention during the election. You know, the power of podcasting to amplify Trump's message and how that contrasted with Kamala Harris's message. But in. In some sense, we miss the bigger picture, which is that he is taking his advice from people who podcast. And in many cases, that is, these are folks who are distilling not even the wisdom of people who actually know what they're talking about, but a kind of populist vibe, a sort of feeling about foreign policy that certainly won Trump the election, but now makes it very difficult to understand the complications of the region so far.

[John Podhoretz]

Be it for me to object to a president taking advice from a podcast.

[Abe Greenwald]

No, I'm not objecting to it. I'm just noting that it seems.

[John Podhoretz]

I know. No, you're right. And of course, the whole point about podcasts are broadcasters or people is that is that we are. We're not exactly men in the arena. Right.

[Abe Greenwald]

Amateurs term.

[John Podhoretz]

Right. The Teddy Roosevelt's term. Like, it is the man in the arena, the one who actually risks it all to affect the course of history. That is the person who matters. And, you know, we're standing on the sidelines, sort of reviewing the day's activities and so does Tucker, and so does Megan, so does Ben, so does Bongino, and so does Charlie Kirk, although in his other job, he's, you know, he's doing political work for the Republicans and all of that. And Trump is alighting this difference between the man in the arena and the people who just blather from the sidelines. It's a little like, you know, the whole plot of. Of Bruce Almighty, you know, which is like, there's Dan Bongino saying, ah, the FBI stinks and everything's terrible. And then, you know, and then Morgan, okay, you run the FBI. You know, like, all right, let's see how you do it. Except that, of course, we're all. The United States is going to have to live with what happens at the FBI under Cash Patel and Dan Bongino. Like, it's not just Darrow, just as the. And it's a comedy Bruce Almighty, right? It's like, what if a loudmouth gets to have omnipotence, you know?

[Matthew Continetti]

You know what's interesting, loudmouth about that? And I know we're jumping around here, but sure, there's so much going on. Why not?

[John Podhoretz]

It's a podcast. You know, we're supposed. We have, like, Elon Trump. Which Elon Trump? Elon Musk, whom I want to talk about.

[Matthew Continetti]

So something else that happened over the weekend was this kind of, I think, kind of coordinated series of social media posts where President Trump said, I love what Elon Musk and Doge are doing, but they're not aggressive enough. And then Elon Musk, you know, posted that Trump's tweet with kind of a salute saying, okay. And then later that day, this is Saturday, I believe, Office of Personnel Management kind of, you know, the HR department for the federal government sent out an email to every federal employee asking them to list five things they had done the previous week. It's kind of a typical kind of, you know, annual review type email you might get in the private sector, nonprofit sector. Tell us what you've. What you've been accomplished. And of course, the federal employees were very upset at this. But interestingly enough, the real pushback came from Trump's own administration. And as of today, Cash Patel told FBI agents not to respond. Pete Hegseth said to the Pentagon, don't respond. I saw that the State Department and Tulsi Gabbard said, don't respond to the intelligence community. So this is an interest. This is the first time I've seen some type of break happen within the administration. And, no, it's not on the foreign policy stuff that we care about, but it's on Doge. But it's worth noting itself.

[John Podhoretz]

But it's not Doge. Right, because it's opm, which is directly.

[Matthew Continetti]

OPM is now controlled by Doge.

[Abe Greenwald]

Another little, another interesting little fact that I came across this weekend is that in some of the responses to the lawsuits that have been filed against the Trump administration about some of these Doge policies, the Trump administration is emphasizing that Elon Musk doesn't actually have the power that he is seeming to wield, at least when he talks about what he's doing. They're trying to downplay actually his authority in order to, you know, obviously continue the policies that they've enacted. But it's, but, but there's a strange kind of double game going on, I also think.

[Matthew Continetti]

To insulate him, right?

[John Podhoretz]

Well, no, but very unclear.

[Matthew Continetti]

But the Doge people are government employees.

[John Podhoretz]

Right? But there's a very, very specific legal thing happening here in relation to this claim in court papers that he is not an official employee of the US Government, only a consultant, which is if he were given the nature of the work he is doing, he should be defined as a senior officer of the executive branch and therefore should be a confirmed official. And this is something that's gone on. This was the entire argument over the setup of the I, I. It's not the Consumer Product Safety whatever the board that Elizabeth Warren said created.

[Matthew Continetti]

That has now been Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

[John Podhoretz]

Right. The consumer which, which was created basically by an act of Congress in 2010, and Elizabeth Warren was going to be the head of it, and she couldn't get confirmed. Senate wasn't going to confirm her, and so they appointed somebody to run or they were going to point her as an unconfirmed official. And the law, the, the, the sort of, the ruling was this has to be a confirmed position. Things are happening here that are definable under law as actions to enforce or deal with public spending and stuff like that. Complicated point, but. So Musk has to be a consultant in order not to have his position in order not to be somebody with the authority. He can only have the authority that he seems to be wielding if he's not actually working for the government, which is a paradox, I think you would have to agree. Right. I mean, how can he fire people from the federal government when he doesn't work for the federal government? But in the private sector, there is this weird existence of the outside hitman who comes in and, like, fires people, you know, sort of like the, you know, it's like the plot of up in the Air, Walter Kern's novel in the movie with George Clooney where you hire a consultant who comes in, says to people, what did you name me? The five things you did last week? Which is a classic like McKinsey outside consultant thing. To ask people puts them on edge, very hostile, you know, basically suggests to them that what they do is not valuable unless they can themselves define what's valuable about it. And then those people come in and they fire, you know, hundreds if not thousands of people. Give them the package, explain, give them under, explain to them the separation proceedings. And then everybody in the company is somehow insulated from the need to basically cut the heads off their co workers and people that they've known for years. But you know, there are federal protections, there are protections in law, employment law, not only in the federal government but also in the states and municipalities in which federal workers live and work that make this, you can't just do it this way. I mean you could try, could see whether people will sort of like, you know, give up the ghost, but they're not going to prevail. It's pretty open on what the OPM thing a lot. Well, the OPM thing, in other words.

[Matthew Continetti]

The email seems to be a little bit trollish.

[John Podhoretz]

What they said was I think it.

[Abe Greenwald]

Was done to make sure. No, Musk said he did that to prove that many federal workers don't even check their email any longer.

[Christine Rosen]

Yeah, I, you know, I heard that and I had this thought which was, which made me realize is completely trollish, which is that I was thinking, you know, from Monday 8am to Friday before Shabbos, during waking hours I'm almost never not working and I ignore a lot of email. It has nothing to do with working. Email is like, oh, I'll get to that when I get to that I have actual work to, you know. So the idea that responding to email is synonymous with getting work done is, is a complete myth.

[John Podhoretz]

But what is important is that the OPM email said failure to respond to this email will be tantamount to a resignation. And that is legally. Yeah, that is not. That is a non starter. If you're going to fight you someone. Resignation is an act. Is an act, an act of choice on the part of the person.

[Matthew Continetti]

Not a negative.

[John Podhoretz]

Nor can you say, I mean you can say, I think failure to respond to this email will be viewed as grounds for termination. In other words, the email can be an order.

[Matthew Continetti]

But that's not what it was.

[John Podhoretz]

That can have a consequence, but that's not what it said. And the Doge stuff, I mean, it's weird to say this because it really. We're still only like a month and four days into this administration, like, is getting to be a mess. And, you know, I don't know, like, it's very pleasing to a lot of people. There's a lot of it that I like and that a lot of people look at and say they like. But execution matters. You know, if these guys are the best of the best, how they execute this transformation of the federal workforce is very significant. And don't think that you can't. That you can't create a resistance movement against it pretty easily.

[Abe Greenwald]

But they're not. They're actually. It's funny, we've been talking about them as, like, McKinsey consultants about, like, HR types, but in fact, they're. They're acting like sysadmin about, like, the tech admin in a big organization that kind of does a lot of stuff behind the scenes. They make you update, and you're really. Your only connection with them is when they remind you. When they fix your computer, which you're always grateful for, when they remind you to update your password once a year, something like that. But there's a lot of stuff behind the scenes, both in terms of their access to information about how you spend your day and also what they're telling, you know, the boss in terms of what you're doing throughout the day. And so in that sense, I think it's less like Musk coming in, acting as a consultant. He's. He's like king of the sysadmin, and he's sending all his little guys out there and they're going into lots. And this is where I think the privacy, the legal and privacy concerns that have been raised, and I. I think there are laws pending about that are substantial. So it's not just the style.

[John Podhoretz]

It's.

[Abe Greenwald]

That should someone who hasn't been confirmed and who is an outside consultant even have access to some of the information that he's. Him and his guys have. And I say all this having. I agree with you, John. There's a lot of waste in the federal government that it would be very nice to see done with. And in that sense, it's a real missed opportunity if he ends up kind of crashing around like a bull and not. Not and breaking all the china without really fixing the underlying government bloat.

[Christine Rosen]

But it seems. It's like the hijinks. This is what it's turning into it's this sort of trolling, gimmicky hijinks thing. And the very fact that Trump makes this announcement for Elon to go harder, is that a real.

[Matthew Continetti]

They clearly talked about it. It was like, hey, why don't you do this? And then Trump did, and it's all cutesy.

[Christine Rosen]

It's another pro wrestling sort of move, you know, and that's happening.

[Matthew Continetti]

I mean, we shouldn't discount, though, the fact that what Doge has been up to is canceling millions and millions of dollars in contracts. And that's real.

[John Podhoretz]

That is real. But I mean that. See, this is where it gets complicated, in my view, in terms of what people on the right are failing to understand. Trump won almost a majority of the popular vote. He won by a point and a half, which he hadn't in 2016. Right. And he won a very convincing election. As we've said, the entire country moved to the right. Even in places where Harris won, there were moves away from. There were two or three places where the country moved more democratic and 99% of the country move more in a rightward direction. All of that is real federal. There's the federal. But the federal budget is $4 trillion. A lot of that money goes out from the federal government through associated organizations, Health and Human Services, and the Defense Department and others in the form of grants and support for local programs and that sort of thing. And millions and millions and millions of people work under those conditions where the money flows from those contracts and while suspending them for a couple of weeks to see. Look under the hood and see what the hell is going on is one thing. And the idea people are saying that they're all being laid off immediately because. Because the federal government closed off the spigot. I don't believe that to be the case.

[Matthew Continetti]

Well, there are people who have. I mean, there's separate things. There's a spending freeze, which you're talking about. Then there's the people that they have fired. They have fired all these probationary employees. They have fired all these employees at aid. And then just finally, they're the contracts.

[John Podhoretz]

Right, but that's what I wanted to talk about, is the contracts and the grants. Okay? So I'm not talking about federal workers. I'm now talking about the part of the economy that relies on government money for private employment, or in part. And there's a lot of weird stuff going on where people are claiming they have to fire people because the spigot has been turned off or because there's been a spending freeze. And contracts have been ended. And I'm suspicious of a lot of that because the money doesn't just shut off like a spigot. And people do have money in their bank accounts to pay people, or they have. Grants aren't given. It's not like a weekly salary you get from the federal government into your business, and then you defray it to your employees. So I think a lot of trouble is being visited on these employees as part of an effort to create this mob of people who are going to say that what Trump is doing is terrible and is going to destroy healthcare, destroy our hospitals, destroy all of that. But it could work, you see, it really could work. Like you could get circumstances in which we're going to start hearing horror stories about people being taken off, you know, not enough ventilator. I don't. Whatever it is. Horror stories that are real because real things are happening. Usually what happens is somebody proposes ending a federal program, and then there are stories about how the ending of that program gonna lead to terrible outcomes. And then Congress says, well, we're not gonna end that program because of these possible terrible outcomes. Now you're actually gonna get real horror stories and real dead people. Maybe they shouldn't be.

[Matthew Continetti]

I would say that the horror stories we've gotten are mainly tied to usaid.

[John Podhoretz]

Right. Which is not.

[Matthew Continetti]

Which has no political constituency in the United States.

[John Podhoretz]

I agree.

[Matthew Continetti]

I agree that sometimes I'm sure if we went through line by line usaid, there'd be some things that I'd say, oh, I think that's a good thing, but that's me living in my bubble.

[John Podhoretz]

Okay, But I'm now not talking about us.

[Matthew Continetti]

I know now what you're talking about are some things that are broader than that. And I don't think we have that yet. And I think you're right to say that's the danger. But I would say here's how the Trump administration and how the right views this, which is that the groups that you're talking about, these nonprofit groups that may be affected by some of the canceled contracts, there's no cost politically because those groups are not on the right. You're not alienating your own voters. You may energize the opposition, which is half the country. And so that would have some political costs, especially when you think about down the line in the 2026, but you're not actually hurting your own voters. I was having a conversation with a colleague about some contracts that have been canceled in the education space. And I was asking my colleague, well, the people Receiving the money. I'm sure they're on the left, right? And he said they're so far to the left that your woke New York Times reading grandma would think that they're to the left. And so that type of story is not going to affect, affect public opinion. What you're talking about is if farm subsidies are cut, if VA payments are cut, if Social Security and Medicare is cut. And I think that's when Trump and the Republicans will say enough.

[John Podhoretz]

But right now they don't feel that.

[Matthew Continetti]

They don't feel any pressure.

[John Podhoretz]

Okay, so we all know that nih, the cdc, the organizations within the Department of Health and Human Services misbehaved terribly during COVID Right. We know that they were authoritarian, they were awful, they mistreated people, they tried to suppress speech, all of that. And going after them with a two by four is very emotionally satisfying. And on the other hand, NIH gives out hundreds of billions of dollars of grant money to things that everybody does actually support, even though you think you don't. Right. Certain types of cancer research, like pro, you know, all kinds of things that we, that we do R and D on, on drugs and things like that. So I'm not talking about what's happening right now. I mean, in two months you could have a world in which there is a very cleverly engineered mass set of claims being made about the Trump administration's reckless, not necessarily wrong. See, that's where it would be smart if they did this intelligently reckless, imprudent, like totalistic behavior on this spending when there's a lot of this spending that everybody likes that. If you did a poll and you said, do you think that we should be spending money to cure cancer? And 80% of people said yes. Then you would say, well, you know What? They canceled $100 billion in cancer research. I don't know.

[Matthew Continetti]

We haven't seen them do that yet.

[Christine Rosen]

Right.

[John Podhoretz]

Well, we've seen the spending freeze on the one hand and contract cancellations on the other. And again, if there's not, we don't know what they're.

[Matthew Continetti]

I'll just say that when, when I was editor of the Free Beacon, we had like a, you know, running feature about the ridiculous programs that the NIH funds.

[John Podhoretz]

Right.

[Matthew Continetti]

So that's not the cancer research. I agree with that.

[John Podhoretz]

Right.

[Matthew Continetti]

Cancer research. If you do that in an ad, it's going to harm people. But there's plenty of stuff that the NIH does that most people would worry.

[John Podhoretz]

About and say, of course that shouldn't do that. I'm not Defend the nih. I'm not defending.

[Matthew Continetti]

I want to just, just point out two things that I think should trouble the Republican Party, and they're not what they're, they're along the lines, what you're saying. The first is Medicaid. So when you think about the Trump coalition, many of its constituents rely on Medicaid. And there's an effort right now in order to block grant Medicaid as part of the Republican budget, which might be interpreted as cutting Medicaid because it would be.

[John Podhoretz]

We should explain what block granting is Medicaid. Of course, block granted. Medicaid is.

[Matthew Continetti]

Well, Medicaid is a. No, it's a dual funding. Dual funding.

[John Podhoretz]

Dual funding. In other words, when you.

[Matthew Continetti]

Medicaid is healthcare for the poor.

[John Podhoretz]

Right. Generally speaking, it's half of it comes from the federal government and then half of it comes from the states.

[Matthew Continetti]

Right. And so that's how it works for many years. Want to give, want to treat Medicaid like we treat welfare under the welfare reform of 1996, which is we just give a big pile of money to the states and say you do you deal with it what you want. We're not going to be consistently funding it. Now, some states would say, great, we don't want to spend all this money. We want to do our own thing. And that could result in cuts and that could hurt the Trump coalition, which many of its voters participate in Medicaid even are rely on it. The other thing that you know, and I'm breaking the Republican commandment of always wanting to cut taxes here by saying this, is that, that it is any tax package that goes through. And of course, that's a roll of the dice. Whether it happens or not, if the corporate tax cuts and the small business tax cuts and the upper income tax cuts are emphasized, if Democrats seize on those to the exclusion of the standard deduction, preserving the lower taxes that the 2017 tax cut bill included, that would hurt Trump, too. It's often forgotten, but one of Trump's weakest moments of his presidency was December 2017, when he signed the tax cut into law. So I think those are the potential danger spots right now. And then underlying it all, of course, is the inflation number. That's where he has to think about. But the contracts, the federal workers, I think that's less of a concern.

[John Podhoretz]

Okay, so let's just move on. Let's. I want to talk about Musk for a minute because I noticed something this weekend.

[Abe Greenwald]

The chainsaw.

[John Podhoretz]

Well, yeah, okay. So, yeah, he stood on the stage at the CPAC conference and waved around a chainsaw while he was wearing sunglasses. And. But Sunday, I think he tweeted 90 or 100 times on Sunday.

[Abe Greenwald]

Ketamine is a hell of a drug, John.

[John Podhoretz]

I mean, it seemed very, very, very manic. And I'm.

[Matthew Continetti]

You know, he couldn't form sentences at cpac. Yeah, I tried watching that interview. I couldn't. I only could get through half of it because Elon wasn't saying anything.

[John Podhoretz]

Yeah, I mean, he is up all night. He tweets in the middle of the night. He's on this tear. He's not, you know, suddenly has a 13th child. He's not the most stable person. Now, I am on record as being an unvarnished admirer of his, as an industrialist, as an inventor, as a figure in business. I think he's remarkable. That doesn't mean that he's remarkable doing what he's doing right now. And it doesn't mean that his. That. It means that while he can do whatever he wants on Twitter, he owns Twitter, he can do whatever he wants at cpac. He's got free speech rights. He can do it. But that doesn't mean that he's gonna be a net positive for this presidency or in the job that he is doing for this presidency, whether Trump likes it or not. And there are, I think, little bits of signs that whatever good that he may have done in Trump's terms, and Trump saying, hey, get even tougher, are going to run into the problem of his personal behavior making him seem like a crazy person and that he has, like, got the government in his hands. And that is going to be very valuable. People forget how. How successful the demonization of Republican reformers has been throughout our lifetimes. People who come on and say, I'm not going to abide by all these niceties. We're going to do X, Y and Z. We're changing the way things work. And it's one thing if that's the president who has been elected to break things. Right. And he can, yeah, he can hire underlings who are also supposed to break things. But Newt Gingrich was an elected official, and he became the object. He became the means by which Bill Clinton sort of like, boomeranged himself back into relevance and into power in 1995 by overreaching and misbehaving. And he was a more credible figure as a political leader than Musk is.

[Abe Greenwald]

But this is.

[John Podhoretz]

Could be a gift to Trump's enemies if he doesn't. If he doesn't calm the hell down.

[Abe Greenwald]

But this is where, this is where the midterms will be. A very fascinating test of all of this because among all the interviews that were being done at cpac, a lot of, you know, very enthusiastic maga, Trump supporting Elon loving folks, said, we don't care about the midterms. A real leader doesn't care about their poll numbers. And that's, of course, a huge mistake because Trump won with a lot of new voters in the coalition. Not, not hardcore magas, but people who just wanted to escape what they saw as the deterioration economically and internationally of our country and just didn't trust the Biden Harris regime. If he alienates that, that's a, that's a very fickle group of voters. And we will see how they, what they feel if this, if this sort of the churn that, that Musk and, and Trump are, are initiating here actually falls out. Because the hardcore people say, you got to break eggs to make an omelet. That's what I, I mean, you hear that over and over about, about Musk's approach, and they're not going to budge. But it's those other voters that he will need in the midterm or the Republican Party will need in the midterms.

[Matthew Continetti]

Well, Trump. Go ahead, Dave.

[Christine Rosen]

Trump obviously loves Musk's Persona at the moment. I mean, this is why he's doing interviews with him. He's telling him in public to go harder.

[John Podhoretz]

Why?

[Christine Rosen]

I think Trump enjoys that Musk is absorbing the criticism that would otherwise be aimed directly at him for now. I also think that if Trump senses that Musk becomes a genuine liability, he will throw him under the bus in two seconds.

[John Podhoretz]

Right, Right.

[Matthew Continetti]

I mean, I think right now Trump and MAGA are riding high. They're still flexing their muscles. They've been in office for a month. This Trump revolution is taking place domestically and internationally. Trump's approval rating in the real clear Politics average of polls is still above water. We have to just take a step back and say, okay, how did this play out the first time? Well, the first time, Trump had four chiefs of staff, four national security advisors, and four secretaries of defense. A new one every season. And so it's just, I think, beggars belief that he will end his term with the same team as he has right now. And we just don't know what will be the events or the developments that will cause some type of shakeup. And I think that that applies to Musk as well. Remember, the original mandate for Doge is just two years. It actually ends right with the midterm elections. And already then we're kind of have a Doge type countdown. It's also, we should think Musk too might get bored at some point and might want to do something else.

[John Podhoretz]

So there are two things, Christine's point about the midterms and making a mistake saying that about the midterms. So there's one counterexample. Actually, there are two counterexamples, Reagan and Clinton. So Reagan had a terrible first midterm in 1982, lost Democrats, gained 26 seats in the House, and they had already been very much in the majority and lost a couple of seats in the Senate, having gotten the majority in the Senate. And the idea was that Reagan was playing a longer game. Right. They initiated all these. They were very painful. There was a terrible reset. The Fed was adjusting interest rates, adjusted interest rates 20 times in two years, up, down 2 points, down 50 basis points, up a basis, you know, whatever. And the idea was they were doing what they could to kill inflation. And then the tax cuts would start working while inflation was going down. And it worked. And so by the early 1984, the economy was like exploding and Reagan won 49 states. So there is a. There are grounds on which to ignore the midterms. If you have a long term plan where you're going to kill inflation and then spur economic growth with a program, and then the country will decide by 1984 whether it worked or not. That's what we don't. There's too much improvisation here. We don't know if Trump had a plan to kill inflation and then grow the economy.

[Abe Greenwald]

He hasn't been talking about the price of eggs much lately.

[John Podhoretz]

Right. And that, of course, was the only subject in America in 1981 because inflation got to, you know, I mean, interesting. Got to 18%. Inflation was incredibly high. Anyway, my point is that, like, there are good reasons to ignore the midterm. Now, it's not that Clinton ignored the midterms in 1994. It's that the midterms then provided him with a kind of opportunity to zing back. And the economy exploded also. Like he. Not really because of things that he did. I don't think, I don't think he deserves credit for it, but he did, he did take advantage. And then he, of course, won reelection. So there are historical grounds on which to say we don't need to pay attention to the midterms because we're after bigger fish, which is realignment.

[Matthew Continetti]

It's like Trotsky said of war, you might not be Interested in the midterms. But the midterms are interested in you. Because if the Democrats capture the House next year, they only have to, I think, net three or four seats to do so, if that, yeah, they'll impeach Trump. I mean, just all the investigations, everything we saw last time, the precedent will be actually 2018, because it's almost impossible, it looks like, for the Democrats to win the Senate next year. So you'd have the same thing. Trump didn't really work with the Democrats in the House, we might say, in his last two years, in his first term, and we would expect that to begin. But I do think, I know I sound, I'm like a broken record here. It's way too early.

[John Podhoretz]

No, but it's way too early. Inflation.

[Matthew Continetti]

Inflation is a combination of Trump's energy policies and then the supply side reforms on deregulation and taxes. That's how you get through the inflation. And so far we're only at the very beginning of the energy policy. So you're not gonna see results for some time.

[John Podhoretz]

No, I'm saying, I'm literally saying that, that Trump and the Republicans could be saved. You're saying they'll be in trouble because of the behavior of the Democrats in the House. I'm saying that the Republican Party as a whole, if Trump's long term economic policies bear fruit, but it takes until the third and fourth years for them to bear fruit. Republicans will benefit. That, that's what history tells us. You can't avoid the truth of that. So there is something to be said for the play the long game. Don't worry about the mid, you know, don't be, oh, we're going to lose the midterms. But I, I, I, he's a lame duck.

[Abe Greenwald]

He's playing a different sort of long game. He's saying the Republicans, the Republicans, okay.

[John Podhoretz]

The entire Republican Party will benefit from. They went with Trump. Trump turned the economy around and the Democrats said everything they did was wrong. So that's actually something that they can take to the bank if they will. I think that the thing with Musk in the end is that he is the richest man in the world and an incredibly inventive industrialist and he is like enjoying, I don't know how to put it. It's like in the world of popular culture, a person like him who was like a Bond villain level, you know, like in control of everything behind the scenes thing would be way more arrogant, way calmer, way more, you know, he's like on a manic high. It's we, you know, like, he's already. What. What does he need? He needs to get into Twitter fights with Neil Ferguson or. Or, like, you know, he's like, accusing nobodies with 200 followers of being liars on Twitter and, you know, and cursing them out and that sort of thing. Like, really? Doesn't he have bigger fish? You know, go catch a rocket with another rocket. Like, I don't understand. It's not a good sign about his behavior as a public official that it jazzes him so much. Like, it's like, there's no focus. He doesn't have sort of like a calm, deliberate approach here, which is like, I know what I'm doing. I'm better at this than anybody else. He's just flying off the handle. And I do think that that means that Trump, you know, if things start to leech over to Trump. Yeah. Trump will say, you did great. Thanks for. He'll say what he said to Chris Christie at that. When Chris Christie endorsed him and then was, like, standing on platforms with him and then he said, ah, go. Go home. The plane's waiting for you. Go home.

[Christine Rosen]

Give him a nickname. He'll give Elon a nickname. A negative one.

[Matthew Continetti]

Trump hasn't really broken out anything new names lately.

[John Podhoretz]

Yeah, the nickname thing seems to be kind of over.

[Matthew Continetti]

Yeah, for now.

[John Podhoretz]

Yeah. Yeah. I'm sure it'll come back. Like. Like a. Like a. Like a.

[Matthew Continetti]

He's doing. He's moved from the nicknames to the dance. That's kind of the progression of MAGA so far. It's like you need nicknames when you're kicking down, but now that you're on top, you're. You're. You're. You're dancing.

[John Podhoretz]

Fair enough. Okay. I am going to make a recommendation. We haven't made one in a couple of days, and it's a surprise to me because I really didn't think well of the first two seasons of this show, but Amazon, I think, on Thursday released the first either two or three episodes of the third season of Reacher. This is the adaptation of the Lee child novels about the sort of the Lone Ranger of our time. A former MP Special Forces guy who sort of travels America alone without a bank account or money or anything like that, and kind of finds himself in the middle of problems that only he can solve with his giant.

[Abe Greenwald]

I was gonna say him and his pecs. That can solve it.

[John Podhoretz]

Yeah, exactly. Anyway. Anyway, the second season of the show was terrible. It made a terrible mistake because it focused on Reacher as part of a team, which is not what Reacher is. And so it was Reacher and his team. And it was really bad this season, which is based on a Reacher novel called Perdition and Persuader. Persuader, sorry.

[Matthew Continetti]

Which is possibly my favorite of the novels.

[John Podhoretz]

Right. Anyway, it is really good. Fantastic supporting performances won by Anthony Michael hall, famously the geek in Sixteen Candles, who is now, you know, a buff 6 foot 1 inch guy who goes and gets arrested for beating people up in his condo in Orange County. So he's not the guy you think of when you think of Anthony Michael hall as a teenager, but he's sort of playing this weird rug merchant who seems looks like he's the Big Bad, but he isn't really. There's a big Bad behind him. And Reacher is working with these cops in Maine, one of whom is played by an absolutely fantastic actress named Sheila Cassidy. And. And it's really violent and really tough. And Reacher is back to being really tough and hard ass. And it's well written and well acted and well conceived. And so it's actually. Not only is it a return to form, I mean it's better than the first season also, which also made the mistake of being about Reacher and his family ties and his late brother about whom he seemed to have no emotional feeling whatsoever. When the whole thing starts with his brother getting. Getting killed and he goes to figure out what happened to his brother who doesn't seem to matter to him one way or the other. Anyway, so Reacher Season 3 on Amazon. Anybody else watch any of it yet?

[Matthew Continetti]

No.

[John Podhoretz]

Okay. Anyway, but I love the book for.

[Matthew Continetti]

Sweater is a really good leech.

[Christine Rosen]

I love that you didn't like the first full two seasons and watched.

[Matthew Continetti]

In because I didn't care for the first two seasons either.

[John Podhoretz]

It's weird I did this.

[Abe Greenwald]

He persists, Abe.

[John Podhoretz]

He persists also. Well, because I like the books, so. Books are amazing. Which they made seven or eight seasons out of, which was unbelievably boring. It was the most boring top show I have ever seen.

[Matthew Continetti]

It's a slow burn.

[John Podhoretz]

It was sort of like let's go go get a hot dog. And then they spend 10 minutes at a hot dog stand and nothing happens. Like I, you know, you're saying there's.

[Matthew Continetti]

Action in this season of Reacher.

[John Podhoretz]

There's action. And. And it is. And it is got that Reacher, you know, thing which is the world is a really dangerous place and bad people do really bad things and are terrifying at what they do and sometimes you need, you know, sort of avenging angel to come into your town and make things right. Which is the. Which is the theme of the books and of this third season of Reacher. So, yes, I'm recommending the third season and disrecommending the first two seasons. And this guy, Alan Richson, who plays Reacher, you know, it's so comic because, of course, Tom Cruise made two movies as Reacher, and he's, you know, 52 and weighs 11 pounds. And it was always like, what on earth were you people thinking? And Richson has rebalanced this appropriately. Anyway, we'll be back tomorrow. For Matt, Christina, and Abe, I'm John Pod Horad's Keep the candle bur.