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- [00:04]
John Podhoretz
Hope for the best, expect the worst Some preach and pain Some die of thirst the way of knowing which way it's going Hope for the best expect.
- [00:21]
Abe Greenwald
The worst, hope for the best.
- [00:25]
John Podhoretz
Welcome to the Commentary Magazine daily podcast. Today is Wednesday, February 19, 2025, that we are recording it late Tuesday night, February 18th. So we may have day confusion as we do when we do this. I'm John Pod Horiz, the editor of Commentary magazine. With me as always, executive editor Abe Greenwald. Hi, Abe.
- [00:46]
Abe Greenwald
Hi, John.
- [00:46]
John Podhoretz
Washington Commentary columnist Matthew Cottonetti. Hi, Matt.
- [00:49]
Matthew Continetti
Hi, John.
- [00:50]
John Podhoretz
And senior editor Seth Mandel. Hi, Seth.
- [00:52]
Seth Mandel
Hi, John.
- [00:53]
John Podhoretz
We are coming to you right after watching two or three segments of the Sean Hannity interview with Donald Trump and Elon Musk, tag teaming, bromancing with Ed McMahon interviewing them. So, Matt, your thoughts on what we watched and maybe a little summary of what we watched.
- [01:18]
Matthew Continetti
Well, thank you, John. This was a very publicized interview. The Fox marketing machine was in motion because the interview, though released Tuesday evening, February 18, was recorded last week, actually. So it's been, it's been in the can for some time. I thought a few things were notable about this interview. First, much of the beginning of the interview was taken up by Sean Hannity's attempt to get Elon Musk to basically describe his resume to the Hannity audience, which I found a little bit surprising considering Musk's fame and wealth and celebrity. I would think that he'd be well known. So that was interesting. The second thing I found interesting was I haven't seen Trump smile so much for an extended period, I think, ever. Typically Trump, you know, he might crack a smile. Just briefly. I remember famously in the town hall debate in 2020 when one of the audience members said, you know, Mr. President, I just wish you'd smile more. And he kind of chuckled and smiled, and that was a big deal. But here in this interview with Elon Musk, he's smiling all the time, except whenever Hannity would say another question for Elon. And then if you look closely, the Trump facial expression would change into kind of this, you know, just his, his eyes would lower to the ground and the kind of this, the smirk would change a little bit, as you could tell that he may be slightly annoyed at all the fame that Elon is getting. On the other hand, everything from this interview showed someone who really likes Elon Musk. And the feeling is clearly mutual. And they have a sense of a shared project and a purpose, mission. And then just finally we have three communicators, right? You have Sean Hannity, longtime Television personality. You have Elon Musk, who now owns and is probably the most active user on X, the former Twitter. And then you have Donald Trump. And I was just struck watching the interview. Trump is a genius at communicating the way that he manipulates language, the sense of humor, the sarcasm, even the moment where he's talking about Starlink and he's saying, I had never heard of this Starlink before. This is Elon Musk's satellite network. I'd never heard of it before, but then we had the horrible floods. These floods in North Carolina, Sean. These were places that had never seen water, but now they had a river. They were like rapids, Sean. They were deadly rapids. And you see how the language in Trump's mind works, right? It's like these images. But then he intensifies the image. It's not just a river now where there was nothing, there's rapids and they're dangerous. And so someone called, told me, call up Elon Musk and ask for Starlink. And I did. And it worked. It was beautiful. It was a miracle. Sean and I just kind of sit back and I know that we're going to disagree with a lot of the things that Trump says over the course of this podcast, but I'm still just kind of in awe of the way he says them and the way he is able to seize on symbols, tropes, images, to basically communicate a whole philosophy or worldview in the space of a few simple phrases.
- [05:08]
John Podhoretz
I'm glad that you summarized it this way, because I'm allergic to it and it's helpful. No, but I'm serious about this. It's helpful to hear your analysis because it reminds me, as all of Trump's action should remind all kinds of people, that I exist in a certain type of hyper articulate bubble of people who use language in a different way. You're sort of pointing out he uses it in a kind of garish purple, melodramatic, you know, enormously. What would you call, like, emphatic hyperbolic fashion and that, that has this incantatory power. Again, it doesn't, it doesn't work on me. I. My ear kind of, you know, is kind of repelled by it, but I can understand that it has this effect on tens of millions of people who are used to politicians like Obama, you would say was is the exact right reverse image, bizarro world version of this, which is like, everybody calm down. I got it all in hand. I'm the coolest person on Earth. I'm really cool, Everything's fine. And Trump is just like, this is the biggest. This was the worst. This is the hottest. That is the biggest storm ever. This guy is the smartest person ever.
- [06:35]
Matthew Continetti
He says at one point in the post of the interview he watched, he goes, I was looking for the smartest person in the world. I could have. I wanted to find someone smarter than him, smarter than Elon, but I couldn't. I couldn't, Sean. That's why we're together. Everything is the extreme right.
- [06:55]
John Podhoretz
Yeah. The inability of people to understand how Trump works or why it is that it works, if it doesn't work on you, explains in large measure the inability of liberals and people, the sort of highly educated elites in America, to take his full measure or understand his. Understand where he is or where he comes from.
- [07:16]
Matthew Continetti
That's what I got from the interview. Otherwise, I didn't get much. We seemed to, we decided to record.
- [07:21]
John Podhoretz
Right.
- [07:22]
Matthew Continetti
As they were getting into some of the nitty gritty of what Doge is doing. I mean, I guess, by the way.
- [07:27]
John Podhoretz
Because you pointed out that this was recorded last week and the dark night of the Doge soul kind of started on Friday. So I don't know when they recorded it, but like the missteps with the sort of, the mass layoffs and having to.
- [07:44]
Matthew Continetti
You mean the dark night of the Doge soul wasn't the appearance of big balls in the national discourse?
- [07:49]
John Podhoretz
Yes.
- [07:50]
Matthew Continetti
Two weeks ago, I think that might have been.
- [07:52]
John Podhoretz
Well, that was one dark. That was a dark night for.
- [07:54]
Matthew Continetti
All right, so you're the more recent one, is what you're talking about.
- [07:57]
John Podhoretz
What I mean is that, that was.
- [07:58]
Seth Mandel
A dark late afternoon.
- [08:00]
John Podhoretz
Yeah, but, but, but, you know, Doge, there have been several missteps over the last four or five days, along with a couple of court victories. This, this kind of bifurcated thing where, where, where Doge is kind of like stumbling around, doing too much, pushing too much, having to sort of retract what it's done in certain places, kind of creating hysterias where none exist. And on the other hand, the first major court decision on Doge came out today from Judge Chutkan, who was the judge who heard the Trump versus the United States case in Washington. And she said, I can't see that. The state attorneys general who have brought this, this suit against Doge, claiming that Musk doesn't have. Stand, whatever it was, what, that they, they can show any harm.
- [08:51]
Seth Mandel
They, this was the access. Right. The suit over him having access to people's private information.
- [08:57]
John Podhoretz
Right. And, and, and she said the state region will have no standing to sue because they, they're not demonstrating as a plain, as a, as a, as a plaintiff, that they are, that they are being harmed, that they have a harm that they are bringing to the court to understand. And I think we're probably going to see versions of this everywhere. Chutkan did say in her decision that, you know, she does have misgivings about an unelected official having, having so much access to things. But of course, everybody in the federal government, aside from the president, and I guess the vice president is an unelected official. I mean, if what she meant was that he's not a confirmed official, that again, is a, is in, in this realm a distinction without a difference. Except, of course, to every liberal in the country who has decided that this is, this is the Beer Hall Putsch and that, you know, he, he's Goebbels, you know, Trump is Hitler and he's Striker or he's Goebbels or he's Hess or he's, you know, one of the, one of the, you know, one of the other people in the, in the Nazi high command.
- [10:01]
Abe Greenwald
What, what struck me most about this show tonight on a, on a larger level was I thought, well, why, why, what is the purpose of this in Trump's mind? Why is this happening? And as it progressed, I thought because, because he enjoys it. I don't, I didn't see a strategic or tactical advantage that he was trying to gain by doing this. I think it was a kind of a victory lap. It was a different version of a rally. It was saying, I'm here, Elon's here, we love each other, he's a genius, I'm a great guy, I'll attest to that. He'll attest to that. And everything is great that, you know, for aside the Republicans who talk a lot about sort of state, quote, state sponsored media, that's all this was. I mean, that is all I took away from it. I don't think there was a deeper, more clever plan than that at work.
- [11:22]
Seth Mandel
Well, I, I think, I mean, I don't know if this was his Strat, his actual strategy. I don't know if this is what he was trying to do. But what I noticed was that this was a very different Elon Musk than who you meet on Twitter, which is where most people meet and communicate with Elon Musk in person. He's awkward and humble, honest. I mean, not terribly humble in what he says, but sort of how he, you know, sort of feels like, you know, at one point, Hannity Wanted to move on. And, and so Musk was like, okay, I'm, I'm just, I'm just trying to be helpful. That's what must say. I'm just trying to be helpful. But on, on Twitter, you know, when they did the firings, the, the dark night of the, of, of, of the Valentine's Day Massacre soul or whatever we're calling it, he, he immediately on Twitter, somebody tweeted an AI picture probably using grok of his, of Elon Musk as a, like a Roman soldier or Centurion or something and with the, you know, gold plated armor and the sword and said, you know, I'm Elon Musk and I'm destroying the woke, I'm killing the woke mind virus. And Elon Musk retweeted that and said, yes, I am. So like on Twitter he's I'm this like Roman guard who is he destroying the woke mind virus in the coliseum and then you see him. So it's possible that if you saw him tonight and you don't usually see him interviewed, you might have thought, all right, you know, he's actually not the sort of, you know, I don't know, I, I, I egotist that he comes across.
- [13:07]
John Podhoretz
I thought we have there the richest man in the world sitting next to the most powerful man in the world. And what I got was a sense of extreme relaxation from both of them that you, you saw him as being awkward and humble and all that. And I see that as none of you people can touch me, say whatever.
- [13:24]
Matthew Continetti
We'Re doing great things together.
- [13:26]
John Podhoretz
And on Elon, I have $75 billion.
- [13:29]
Abe Greenwald
It's exactly my point.
- [13:30]
John Podhoretz
United States.
- [13:31]
Matthew Continetti
And Elon's shirt said tech support.
- [13:35]
John Podhoretz
Yeah, right.
- [13:36]
Matthew Continetti
So once again he's reasserting that he's in the submissive role here.
- [13:43]
John Podhoretz
Right.
- [13:43]
Matthew Continetti
He's Trump's employee.
- [13:44]
Seth Mandel
And he said that starting out because.
- [13:47]
Matthew Continetti
Famous and so rich.
- [13:48]
Seth Mandel
Because Hannity did say at the beginning, he did poke him with the, you know, they're trying to upset you when they say President Elon or President Musk, you know, and Musk was like, I don't want to be president. I love this guy. He's so great.
- [14:01]
Matthew Continetti
I would say, you know, obviously we'll talk about everything that's happening in the world, but the fact that Doge is the story in Washington is something of a surprise to me. I think I may have told the story before, but since it's late, I'll just repeat it anyway and you can pretend not to have heard it. But when Doge was first being formed and it was announced that Elon Musk would pair up with Vivek Ramaswamy to launch the Department of Government Efficiency. And they would look at spending and regulations. I took the very beltway cynic attitude toward it and saying they're not going to cut spending. Everyone has tried to cut spending. We had the Grace Commission, we had Reinventing Government. We had David Stockman in the 80s, we had Simpson Bowles in the aughts, the Teens. Nothing happens and instead it's become the story in Washington D.C. and it's not necessarily because they're cutting government. I think something like it was tens of billions of dollars. They said that they found that they could, that can be saved, which is not, not much. Even if it's 400 billion, it's still nothing really compared with the monstrosity of the federal budget.
- [15:27]
John Podhoretz
400 billion is 1%.
- [15:29]
Matthew Continetti
Yeah.
- [15:30]
John Podhoretz
Was it 1% or 10%?
- [15:33]
Matthew Continetti
I think it's 0.1%.
- [15:35]
John Podhoretz
I mean, so the budget is $4.
- [15:37]
Matthew Continetti
Trillion of a 4 trillion dollar budget.
- [15:39]
John Podhoretz
$4 trillion.
- [15:40]
Matthew Continetti
You know, let's not try math on the spot, John. Remember last time we did math on the show you had your pad and paper before.
- [15:47]
John Podhoretz
Yeah, I know. Okay, but, but yeah, your point is it's not, it's not going to be $400 billion. It is like, I think it's like.
- [15:53]
Matthew Continetti
It'S not 40 billion. Yes. I mean, but what.
- [15:55]
John Podhoretz
It's good.
- [15:56]
Matthew Continetti
Instead it's become two things. The first thing it is is this incredible attempt to rein in the federal workforce which we've talked about before. So we, I won't elaborate on that, but it's clear that, that, that is, and that's generating a lot of controversy because the federal workforce is a subsidiary of the Democratic Party. I know that not all federal employees are Democrats, but they vote overwhelmingly for Democrats and they support the Democrats through campaign donations overwhelmingly. And the second thing it's become is a huge media story. So let's think about what we've spent the past month discussing, which is USAID again, a rounding error. Foreign aid is universally unpopular, so it's an easy target. But it's the stories that come out of it. The LGBT comic books in Ecuador or whatever. Right. The remember the Gaza condoms thing that turns out to be some actually public health program in Africa. And now we have the new story which Trump talked about again at his press conference earlier this evening, Tuesday, February 18th, and that is the 150 year olds receiving Social Security checks. This is actually again, I think Very savvy politics. Because numbers bore people. But stories in trans people.
- [17:32]
John Podhoretz
Yeah, but the problem with that is that's a lie. There's an interesting story that's going to develop out of this musk. And the people at the Doge, people misunderstood what. What they were seeing in terms of the numbers on Social Security. That was the numbers of people who had Social Security numbers. What's interesting about it is that there's a secondary effect, which isn't the checks are going out, but that some of these numbers may be in use because they have been pilfered and sold to people who need Social Security numbers. And who needs a Social Security number who doesn't already have one? People who are not American citizens or who are criminals establishing false identities. There is no. There's no other reason to have a second Social Security number when you have one of your own. Pretty much issued at birth in the.
- [18:22]
Seth Mandel
It's for emergencies.
- [18:23]
Matthew Continetti
So for a rainy day, that's still a huge story.
- [18:27]
John Podhoretz
No, but that's a huge story. But the. But the story that checks are going out to 150 year olds is apparently not true. But I'm not. I'm not saying that you're not right, that it's not savvy.
- [18:38]
Abe Greenwald
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- [19:02]
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- [19:04]
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- [20:17]
John Podhoretz
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- [22:19]
Matthew Continetti
That was the debate in 2012 between Romney and Obama. I love Big Bird.
- [22:24]
John Podhoretz
Yeah. Okay, so they were going to, they.
- [22:26]
Seth Mandel
Were, they were saying Romney was going to kill Big Bird, but Trump is actually going to kill Big Bird and probably on live television.
- [22:32]
John Podhoretz
You're going to fire hundreds of thousands of people. You've already changed the terms of the story. They can't just pluck out one horrible detail. It's a kind of tsunami effect.
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Matthew Continetti
But even more, I think no one ever thought to fire the people.
- [22:49]
John Podhoretz
Yeah, right.
- [22:50]
Matthew Continetti
It was just assumed that, oh well, you can't touch the federal workforce because they're all unionized and everything. And now they're saying these thousands upon thousands of probationary employees are let go.
- [23:03]
John Podhoretz
I'm sorry, but. Because I looked this up tonight and I sent this to you guys in our chat. From the State department historian. On March 2, 1977, President Jimmy Carter ordered a limit on the hiring of federal employees. Federal agencies were instructed to fill no more than 75% of their civilian vacancies. On February 2, during a fireside chat, Carter said, quote, soon I will put a ceiling on the number of people employed by the federal government agencies so we can bring the growth of government under control. 1977, Carter coming in, wanted to reduce the size of the federal workforce. In 1993, Al Gore was put on the reinventing government program. And what did he do in 1993? He offered buyouts to federal workers to reduce the size of the workforce. The crocodile tears that are being cried here, those are two Democratic administrations that adopted policies that are not wildly dissimilar. In other words, like letting probationary. Letting probationary employees go is a classic. I said this on yesterday's podcast. Classic. Last in, first out. Excuse me, first in. Yeah, last, last in, first out strategy where people are on probation, that means they've been hired in the last two or three months. And so therefore you're saying no, I'm sorry, you're, we're, we're, we're riffing that job. We're, we're reducing it in force so we don't need. And it's not a clean way to do this or an efficient way to do it. If you want government efficiency, but they're not interested in efficiency. They want to take a cleaver to the federal government. Right. And I think basically legally, all the hysteria, they're going to get what they want because otherwise you're going to say that the executive branch is not self governing. And that somehow it's ruled by Congress or by the courts in Congress. And I don't think the Supreme Court is going to want to have that fight with Trump.
- [25:06]
Seth Mandel
Yeah, no, that's why I think. I mean, I agree with you about the legal aspect. That's why I think there's two sort of resistance modes right now. There's the, you know, Chuck Schumer and his, you know, this sort of, like, insane clown posse of, you know, of having the. Of chanting we will win at, you know, at rallies and whatever, which the bas. Underlying point is that this is a coup and it's illegitimate and, you know, that sort of thing, which is the legal argument. And then. And then you have this other argument being made by the press. They're doing to Trump what Matt is describing Trump and Musk as doing to them, which is telling the stories. Schumer is not standing up there with somebody who was fired after 25 years in the federal workforce and her husband was laid off months ago, and she's got a sick mother that she's taking care of. Whatever. He's not doing that. Politicians usually know better than the way Democrats are doing this. But the press has really been at the forefront of this, and the one way it may boomerang is the stories. It's going to be a competition of stories. And, you know, we're seeing people are not on Twitter as much as we are. I, I know that, but, you know, I see a lot of these stories that go through about, you know, this people. People saying, like, by, you know, someone's wife was pregnant, they couldn't get out. There was another, like, you couldn't get out of Congo, whatever. Like, they're going to battle with.
- [26:39]
Matthew Continetti
The response to that is welcome to the real world. Yeah, we have to live with this all the time.
- [26:45]
John Podhoretz
I was laid off. My husband.
- [26:46]
Matthew Continetti
I was been laid off five times.
- [26:48]
John Podhoretz
My father was laid off, you know, like that, and I have gout.
- [26:51]
Seth Mandel
Well, not. Not so much. So I, I mean, there's a difference. Not so much. Not so much laid off. But, you know, the story of the Foreign Service family who couldn't get, like, exfiltrated out of a con.
- [27:06]
John Podhoretz
Nobody care.
- [27:07]
Matthew Continetti
Look at what's the big meme.
- [27:09]
John Podhoretz
Translators.
- [27:10]
Matthew Continetti
Exactly. What's the big meme now? JD Vance saying, I don't care, Margaret.
- [27:15]
John Podhoretz
That is.
- [27:15]
Matthew Continetti
That is the ethos now in the United States.
- [27:18]
John Podhoretz
Right. Not that it's not pushing buttons among people and activating liberal resistance and a blowback against Trump, like keeping alive, maybe moving people beyond their depression into sort of anger and therefore purposeful political action like that could be the case. You know, there are people who are activated by weird things. Like my wife has a friend who was sort of like, the thing that got her was Trump taking over the Kennedy Center. You know, it's like that's, like that's a bridge too far. How dare he take over the Kennedy Center. She doesn't live in, she doesn't live in Washington. She doesn't go to the Kennedy Center. But for, and is, is not a Trump supporter and is a Democrat and all that. But for some reason, that was the thing that got her. And the thing about this is that there are going to be 150 different things that will get 150 different kinds of people, a lot of it in the health care field. And whether or not, you know, we're, we're reducing health care research and, and that kind of thing. And it could have a positive effect on getting the Democrats back off the mat and fighting back. But that doesn't mean that Trump is losing or that doesn't mean that Musk is losing or the Doge is losing.
- [28:30]
Abe Greenwald
Yeah, yeah. Not, not at all. I mean, I think from what I've seen, the main mode of opposing Trump and Doge and Musk cuts is to come at it with the broadest brush, to say the government is being taken over by unelected officials, by kids with backpacks who have access to records, who don't know what they're doing. And they, they don't want to get into the details here. They're not looking at the individual stories. They are looking for the broadest possible headlines to attack this. And that's going to be a problem.
- [29:15]
Matthew Continetti
I think that where I do agree with you, Seth, is if there's an event that is bad that can be traced back to a Doge cut or a Doge layoff, then that will become, I think, a political liability for the administration. But we haven't quite reached that yet. And I do think now when we read these stories in the print press about the fear and anxiety of federal employees because they might lose what they thought was lifetime employment, I don't think many people are kind of inspired to take to the barricades over that.
- [29:56]
John Podhoretz
I want to read something from Anne Applebaum in the Atlantic. Anne Applebaum, a one time contributor to Commentary, obviously, obviously a serious historian of the Soviet Union and of the Ukrainian famine and all kinds of things, who is like one of, is a, is a major resistance intellectual and this is something that she Wrote today in the Atlantic, quote, the old idea that public servants should serve all Americans and not just a small elite has been part of American culture for more than a century. Rule of law matters to many of our elected politicians as well as to their voters all across the political spectrum. There is still time to block regime change, but first, people need to understand what it is and to believe that it is happening. So she wants to block. There was a regime change. It's called an election. We live in the United States. Political leadership is conditional on the will of the voters. They changed the regime. The regime was changed from the Biden regime to the Trump regime. And in 2028, there will be a point when voters will have to choose what the next regime will be. That is the brilliance of our system, is that it allows for political change within the structure, within the currently an ongoing existing structure. They want to portray what Trump is doing and what is happening here as being wildly out of the ordinary and destructive of our system, such that what is needed is regime change. What does that mean to them? Regime change is a coup under. Under the terms that she is describing. We need regime change when we need.
- [31:40]
Matthew Continetti
To stop the regime change.
- [31:42]
John Podhoretz
Well, that's not what she's saying.
- [31:44]
Matthew Continetti
Oh, I thought she's saying that Trump and Elon are trying to change the regime.
- [31:48]
John Podhoretz
Well, hold on.
- [31:49]
Matthew Continetti
It needs to be stopped.
- [31:50]
John Podhoretz
How did I lose the quote? Well, if that's the. Then I. Then I'm really stupid and I was misreading it. I mean, in which case you're calling.
- [31:57]
Matthew Continetti
You're calling for the bureaucrats to do.
- [32:00]
John Podhoretz
There is still block regime change to block Elon and. But Trump, they did affect regime change, is my point. Trump's election was a regime change. No block.
- [32:13]
Matthew Continetti
She wants. She wants the Congress and the bureaucrats and the judges to stop Trump from doing what he's doing. That's the blocking the regime.
- [32:24]
John Podhoretz
But. Right, but okay. I'm just saying that the term, the.
- [32:27]
Abe Greenwald
Key word is the. Is regime here. I mean, when we talk about American governance, we talk about administrations.
- [32:32]
Matthew Continetti
Yeah, but that stopped with Biden when the right started talking about the Biden regime.
- [32:37]
Abe Greenwald
Absolutely right.
- [32:38]
Matthew Continetti
Yeah. And now. And now the left is saying the Trump regime.
- [32:41]
John Podhoretz
It's late. We're sort of like, we're going. I'm going off on all direct. And we, we have. We have other stuff we should probably talk about here, which is Trump talking about Ukraine today.
- [32:57]
Matthew Continetti
Well, and the meeting.
- [32:59]
John Podhoretz
First meeting. Well, yes, the meeting in Saudi Arabia, in Rio, with Mike Waltz and Marco Rubio and Sergey Lavrov and Rubio saying, marco Rubio, the NEOCon candidate in 2015 and 2016, saying, this is so great. Donald Trump is the only person who has a solution to three years of war. We need to end it. I'm here to end it. We're going to end it. Boy, it's so creative, so exciting. And then over in Kiev is Volodymyr Zelenskyy saying, you're talking about ending the war in which I am. My country is one of the two combatants and we're not there. And that's weird. And you're not going to be able to do that without my participation. And what's more, this is so bad, I'm not gonna come. I was supposed to come tomorrow. I'm not coming because the whole thing is a setup and I'm not walking. I'm not playing your game. And then Trump angrily came out in the middle of the afternoon and went after Ukraine and Zelensky with a two by four and said some absolutely despicable things. He blamed Ukraine for beginning the war. He literally blamed Ukraine for beginning the war and said, let me just get the quote here. Complained about what Zelensky said about not being invited to the meeting today. I heard, oh well, we weren't invited. Well, you've been there for three years, you should have ended it. Three years. You should have never been there. You should have never started it. You should have made a deal. I mean, you know, I could think of all sorts of analogies like saying to somebody who is murdered, like, you shouldn't have, you know, you, you, you got in the way of his knife. How dare you. You know, you made his, you dirtied his knife by falling on it after, when he was stabbed.
- [35:21]
Seth Mandel
I once in high school, waiting outside Verloc building, saw a van hit, but not seriously injure a nine year old boy like sideswipe the boy. And since we saw it, we had waited and when the police showed up, the van driver tried to explain that the boy crossing the street walked into his van.
- [35:42]
John Podhoretz
Right. I mean, so anyway, this is the President of the United States who is saying that Ukraine started the war. He knows Ukraine didn't start the war. Why is he doing that? He's doing that because he is trying to reframe this in order to explain why it is legal, moral, justifiable and purposeful that he is taking Russia's side and is going to impose a settlement on Ukraine. And for good measure, he is going to demand, he said it's his idea to demand elections in Ukraine because it's not fair. Ukraine hasn't had elections and they should have an election. They're under martial law. They shouldn't be under martial law. They're under martial law because they're at war and they're 20% of the population in territorial Ukraine. They have reason to believe might side with the enemy. So they're under martial law. And do countries misbehave under martial law? Do governments misbehave under martial law? Yeah, we did. Everybody does. Every government has. Remember what we did? We put 125,000 Japanese citizens of the United States in internment camps. People do bad things during martial law. But Zelenskyy was brought into office in 2019. He had a five year term, which means that his five year term actually ended at the end of 2024, which was six weeks ago. They couldn't have elections like for parliament because they were in the middle of a war and they couldn't figure out how to do it. And he is now turning Zelensky into a villain, which of course he is for the maga. Right. Has been for a long time. Trump was very careful not to go at Zelensky this way for years. Remember, Zelensky was on the other side of the perfect phone call.
- [37:33]
Matthew Continetti
I'll just say he did say that he liked him personally in the midst.
- [37:40]
John Podhoretz
Of this monologue, but he said, but I liked him. I liked him personally.
- [37:45]
Matthew Continetti
I don't know why he hasn't. I'm just putting that out there.
- [37:49]
John Podhoretz
I'm not. Yeah, yeah. What's. That's really, really. I do have.
- [37:52]
Matthew Continetti
I don't think. I think what I'm seeing happening doesn't necessarily mean we're going to have a solution imposed on Ukraine. I think it may be laying the predicate for America simply turning our back on Ukraine if we get to some type of dialogue. And the US Side actually, it's mind boggling to me, actually agrees with all the Russian principles here and we can get into them in a moment, but let's just say that happens. And so the United States goes to Ukraine and says, look, this is what you have to do and if you don't do it, we're not going to support you anymore. Zelensky gives every indication and the Ukrainian people, it seems to me, give every indication of saying, well, we don't need you.
- [38:41]
John Podhoretz
Right.
- [38:42]
Matthew Continetti
And they're going to have to rely more on Europe just on the details. So part of it, it's a very interesting readout of this meeting that went on for hours between Witkoff, Rubio waltz, and then Lavrov and an aide, a guy who's basically kind of a Putin stand in there, guy who comes, goes back and reports directly to Putin. What's interesting is that the only piece of the four points that came out of this meeting related to Ukraine was the first one. They said they're going to appoint high level teams to begin negotiating over a Ukraine settlement or ceasefire. And the rest of it was about a reset in our relationship with Russia. And so once again, as you've said, five, five presidencies begin this way now.
- [39:38]
John Podhoretz
Yeah, begin with resetting the relationship with Russia.
- [39:41]
Matthew Continetti
What, what is the definition of insanity? It's doing the same thing and expecting a different result. And so what happens? Just to finish what happens in this meeting, Rubio comes out. It doesn't look like, he didn't look like the happiest Marco Rubio I've ever seen. I'll say that as he's coming out of this meeting and saying what was concluded. He said, well, we're discussing, you know, the need. Maybe we'll have peacekeepers there. Right. And, you know, Ukraine will have ability to defend itself. And what does the Kremlin come out and say in Russian? Oh, there's going to be no peacekeepers. There'll be no other foreigners on the Ukrainian soil. And the Ukrainians, they shouldn't have a military. So I still, I'm watching this play out and you hear Trump and you hear these guys at this meeting. I don't see how you, you get to. Yes, with, with Russia, even if you bend over backwards and if you truly do appease Russia in every element, the Ukrainians aren't going to listen, Right?
- [40:47]
Seth Mandel
Well, that's the thing. I mean, one of Russia's demands has been, and they telegraphed this has been, no, no, like real standing army for Ukraine. So, you know, obviously that's a non starter for them. But the, I suppose the thing to hope is that it's so insane a demand that even if Trump's team went in thinking, get a deal, get a deal, get a deal with Russia, even they can't stomach coming out and saying the country should not have an army anymore, something like that. I mean, it's, it's possible, but that seems to be the only hope at this point. Right? I mean, they, they there, there's no, the, there's nothing that Ukraine can demand, which is why Ukraine is not there. Right. Trump is not going to listen to Ukraine say, we want X, Y and Z. So the, the thing that Trump just The, the best he can do here, the best he's going to do here is, is maybe not say Ukraine should disband its army.
- [41:50]
John Podhoretz
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- [43:51]
Abe Greenwald
I think it's sort of worse than all this. There you go. It's worse. I think we are heading toward Trump's framing of Ukraine as, as some sort of antagonist to the US and an obstacle to the global peace that he can surely make happen. If only this meddling Zelensky got out of the way and I think I'll have a lot of support for it. People have never cared as much about this war as they should have. People that do care about very similar causes have not cared as much about this as they should have. And the dates gotten pretty late for them to start caring now.
- [44:44]
Matthew Continetti
And I just think that there are different players in this game. And you're, I think you're right about America. But you know, Europe, I mean they, they, they have the the chalice too. They can, they can do things as well. They can spend more money. They can have, they have Russian assets that are frozen. It's not just the United States here.
- [45:10]
Abe Greenwald
But, but Trump is saying Russia should be let back into the G7. Yeah, Russia is saying there should be no NATO forces anywhere.
- [45:23]
John Podhoretz
Right.
- [45:24]
Seth Mandel
I mean, and also I want to.
- [45:25]
Abe Greenwald
Say it's all entirely on the Kremlin's terms here.
- [45:29]
John Podhoretz
I want to say a good word for the American people on this for a minute. First of all, right now, Vladimir Putin in America is viewed favorably by 9% of the American people and the Ukrainians are viewed favorably by 48% of the American people. It was 72%. But in other words, we have a balance between Russia and Ukraine in the eyes of the American people who were asked about this. Not all that dissimilar to the Israel versus Hamas numbers. Five, six times the number of people say that have a favorable view of Ukraine's struggle than they support Putin. Now that's, that's Maga's mistake. Maga. Maga is 100% against. This is sort of a sign of how elite Republican opinion here in the terms of Baga is not reflecting the. Now the American people don't give that much of a.
- [46:25]
Abe Greenwald
Exactly.
- [46:26]
John Podhoretz
Excuse me. But, but they are not, they haven't turned on Ukraine.
- [46:31]
Seth Mandel
Well, can I, can I. So can I counter your good thing about the Americans with a bad thing? Because the poll numbers are, we should note the poll numbers now on the way that you, the public support for Ukraine has gone because Harry Anton on CNN said the other day from 70 to 50.
- [46:51]
John Podhoretz
But it hasn't gone from.
- [46:52]
Seth Mandel
No, no, no, no. The percentage who say the U.S. is doing too much is up sixfold from 7% to 41%. And in the GOP, it's north of 60%. The party is turning the party, not just the Trumpian inner circle. And it's, it's having an effect on everybody. Essentially what's happened is Democrats don't care enough to fight the tide on the other side. And Trump is really been able to put. Well, not Trump necessarily, but the Magdalene has been able to pull public opinion in three years.
- [47:27]
John Podhoretz
It's their fault that this, we are at this pass. It is the fault of the Biden administration that we're at this pass. It supported Ukraine, but not enough. It, it led Ukraine to a stalemate with Russia, which itself is a remarkable achievement if you sort of think about it, that this country that is a fourth the size of Russia in population terms and has way smaller army and way less experience. And all of that has fought this, you know, colossus to a standstill. But because it fought it to a standstill over three years, who knows what it could have done had we not been so niggling. And that wasn't the Republicans fault. That is on Biden, that is on Austin, that is on the Democratic leadership in the House and the Senate. That did not push the administration to be tougher and more resolute. And so here we are. And Trump wants to wash his hands of the whole thing. And he's disgusting. I think this is a disgusting turn of events. It is also bad for the United States because this is a low cost, high return policy supporting Ukraine that he is ditching. And it's pennywise. It's not even pennywise. It's penny foolish and pound foolish. And it is unspeakable that he is characterizing it and framing it in this way. But had this country taken those numbers when everybody was supportive of Ukraine and been properly supportive of Ukraine, we wouldn't be here at this stalemate point in 2025 for Trump to say, it's enough already, we're done. Too many people have been killed. Ukrainians don't think that too many people have been killed. He wants this election. Let's say Zelensky loses. You think he's going to lose to a peacenik he's not going to lose to. He's going to lose to somebody who wants to conduct a war in a different way. They don't want out. They don't want to be swallowed up by Russia.
- [49:19]
Abe Greenwald
Can I just add to this? You know, there are a lot of pro Israel listeners out there and commentary readers who care in their marrow about Israel, and they should, and I'm thankful, and that's great. And they don't really care that much about what's happening in Ukraine and the mistake they're making here. I won't even get into the sort of deep moral connections. Russia is involved in a deepening axis with Iran and other countries in this fight against American allies. They are trading weaponry, intelligence. They are deepening their ties. They are trading, they are selling each other drones and other material and so on. If you think that this, that you can separate one from the other, you're wrong. You are deeply, deeply wrong. Especially at a moment where a country like Iran does not have many other places to turn to right now, except to a Russia that's eager for its drones and its other capabilities.
- [50:54]
Matthew Continetti
I would just say that it's very early in this process. And Trump says these things, but we don't know what he's going to say tomorrow. We don't know what he's going to say if these teams that they appoint can't reach an agreement with the Russians. We don't know what he'll say if the Ukrainians find a way to get to yes on this economic proposition that has apparently been floated when Scott Besant visited Ukraine. So I agree with the panel that the prognosis does not look very positive for Ukraine at the moment. And for someone who, as I say, has been following this history of attempted rapprochement with Russia over 25 years and it all fails, I don't think it's good for American policy either. But I do think we're in the early stages of this and there are going to be a lot more twists and turns and America's not the only player here.
- [52:11]
John Podhoretz
No, it's not. It doesn't mean that the war is over and it doesn't mean, I mean, what it, what it effectively means is that we are, we are seeding a war on the west. And maybe that's where America is right now. And Trump is the embodiment of that. And we are, we have a long history and we're going to exist for many, many centuries to come, I hope. And things ebb and flow. And the problem with pulling yourself off the battlefield when there are aggressors is that it means that when you come back on the battlefield, as you will inevitably do, you will do so in a worsened position and you're going to have to battle back to zero. And Trump is, you know, not Chamberlain, but he's ceding territory to an aggressor and to the aggressors on this earth.
- [53:11]
Seth Mandel
Well, he's FDR at Yalta. Right. I mean, that's the closest comparison, I suppose.
- [53:15]
John Podhoretz
Although, you know, I mean, at least Russia was fighting on the right side in World War II. But I mean, what he's doing is it's more like Chamberlain in the sense that it's sort of like, well, this is a far off land of which we know little. And what do we edit? You know, what Russia has claim? I mean, Germany had claims on the Sudetenland. A lot of Germans were living in the Sudetenland. Why was that Polish territory? It's whatever. Why is it there? They should be there. You know, it's like history rhymes. And, and again, if we pull ourselves out of this, granted, I don't think Putin is going to be wildly aggressive in future because he's got to lick his wounds and he's really been bloodied and put in a bad position. But he's not the only aggressive force on the planet.
- [54:04]
Matthew Continetti
Well, he'll probably wait until the next Democratic administration before taking another piece of Ukraine.
- [54:10]
John Podhoretz
Yeah, but he will. Right. And by the way, it's like dismissing it's we've been talking in the last week about how the Justice Department wants to, in the case of Eric Adams, dismiss the case without prejudice, meaning that they can refile it at any moment to have a whip hand over him. So Putin is essentially would be, would be withdraw, would be ending the war with Ukraine without prejudice, meaning, you know, the minute that our back is turned or the minute that Europe loses interest or something, it's just going to march right back in and try to get itself to Kyiv.
- [54:41]
Seth Mandel
And it has gotten, Russia has kept everything it's taken. In the era that we've been talking about, the five presidents that Matt mentions, that started out right, starting with Bush, started out saying they want a reset of relations. Russia took in the, you know, the end of the days of the Bush administration, you know, South Ossetia and Abkhazia and Georgia. It didn't relinquish them.
- [55:06]
John Podhoretz
No.
- [55:06]
Seth Mandel
They made them frozen conflicts. It took part of Ukraine in 2014. It didn't lose what it, you know, they didn't go back to the line. Russia has kept every inch it has taken at the end of these conflicts. If you're Russia, what lesson are you learning from that? Why would you even offer to give something up? It's just a depressing precedent.
- [55:29]
Matthew Continetti
You know, there's a real possibility that a lot of the things that national security types warned would happen in the first Trump administration will come true in the second Trump administration, eight years after these predictions. And when you look at the potential ceasefire in Ukraine leading to a Russia that can consolidate its gains there, the pressures and fishers in the transatlantic alliance, and then, you know, Taiwan. Right. And the prospect that seems to be going around Washington that Trump is interested in some type of deal with China over Taiwan and potentially a deal that doesn't include Taiwan, that with all of.
- [56:25]
John Podhoretz
These things, there are all these mixed.
- [56:26]
Matthew Continetti
Signals, because I should note that China is outraged right now at the Trump administration because the State Department removed language from the website saying that the United States does not support an independent Taiwan and replaced it with different language saying that we oppose any settlement of the, of the conflict through force. And that so all these things, because there doesn't Seem to me to be a very consistent strategy from the top. That's just kind of my impression of the first month. I think there are a lot of different people doing different things and trying to get their own piece of the pie here within the administration, pursue their own agendas. And what that will lead to, inevitably, is a lot of confusion and chaos, but not necessarily the worst possible outcome, maybe just not the optimal outcome.
- [57:35]
John Podhoretz
Look, this is a real victory for forces within the conservative movement or the Republican right or something like that that have been advancing a certain type of worldview for 20 years. And they should enjoy it. This is the President they got the president they wanted, they got the vice president they wanted. They're getting a lot of sub cabinet appointments that they want will have influential voices in foreign policy. And so what one can say, again, taking a longer perspective, is I think they're wrong. I think that they are, that what they propose will make America less safe, will, will advance the interests of our enemies and are going to be a real problem that will be self defeating. And I guess we're probably going to get some manner of testing of the viability of this worldview, according to which Putin is better than Zelensky. Putin's, for some reason that I don't understand, Putin is more admirable than Zelensky. Putin can suppress all kinds of people, throw all kinds of people in jail, assassinate them. I mean, I think that view you're.
- [59:01]
Matthew Continetti
Ascribing is a minority of the people even whose ascent you're talking about, right? I mean, the, the worldview is it's not our problem. That's the worldview. That's the worldview that's been growing for 30 years.
- [59:16]
John Podhoretz
And when they start talking about Ukraine.
- [59:18]
Matthew Continetti
A subset of them start talking about Russia as the real social conservative, right?
- [59:23]
John Podhoretz
But they say of Ukraine that Zelensky is anti religion, that he's a dictator, that he is suppressing people, that he is, that he is a, you know, he, he was, he was elected under false pretenses, that he's a crook, that, that he's a. This, that he's a. That, that he's the other thing. It's not enough to say it's not our problem. I feel really bad for what's going on for the Ukrainians and they, they have a raw deal here with Russia, but it's not our problem. That's an argument that I think would be a better argument than the one when you dig into it. Not everybody, but a lot of them, the kind of isolate it's not even isolationist, really. It is, this is a place we, it's more trouble than it's worth for us. The world's a dangerous place. A lot of ugly things happen.
- [60:10]
Seth Mandel
The argument is that Russia wants Ukraine more than we want Russia to not have Ukraine, and so we're destined to lose this standoff.
- [60:19]
John Podhoretz
Right. But that is not. But there are a lot of people whose views then pushed on a little bit turn into this. And these people that we are, that would, that Biden, the world liberals are supporting, are bad. They're bad and they're, they're, they're hostile to faith and they're globalist and they're terrible. And as I say, I think part of this is they are, they're now, I mean, they're quite in the ascendancy, but they are certainly on the march in terms of the intellectual arguments of the last, as I say, the last 25 years. And the proof of the pudding will be in the eating because I don't know whether people are gonna feel safer. Americans, in part elected Trump because they felt less safe in the world because of how Biden conducted himself fecklessly in the world and inconstantly, and Trump may be inconstant and feckless in his own way, and people are not gonna feel as safe. Just don't know. We don't know. I mean, Trump is strong and Biden was weak and strong. Strength is an important element in providing people with a sense that the foreign policy is either purposeful or is for the purpose of extending or defending American power. And Democrats have really failed at that, you know, really for almost 60 years. And it's a real problem for them. But, but there may be an opening, you know, is what I'm saying.
- [61:50]
Matthew Continetti
Right.
- [61:51]
Seth Mandel
Well, the other thing is that there's, and I don't think that this is happening. So. And I'm not saying it is, I, I don't. But the, the sort of worst case scenario, based on what Abe was saying, you know, Abe was describing very eloquently, put it to people, that you can't separate the conflicts. And there, there's a kernel of fear. It's not happening now. There's a kernel of fear sort of in the back of the mind that the connection between those conflicts can turn against Israel, you know, also, and that, that, in other words, it sort of becomes a kind of strongman, favorable front because it's Russia who is the, you know, the public face of that team, so to speak, that coalition. And it could redound against other American allies and other conflict spots and other places where we really do have a ton at stake. Where, where even the anti Zelinsky people would admit we have a lot at stake. Right. They don't say we have nothing to do with the Middle east or whatever, something like that, but they will get there if they follow this particular train from success to success.
- [63:07]
Abe Greenwald
Look, and there is a weird anti Semitic thread throughout this. The demonization of Zelensky. You need look no further than Tucker Carlson's, you know, calling him a sweaty rat like figure. And if you go anywhere on Twitter, you will see caricatures of him that look like something straight out of Nazi Germany. That plays a lot into. And I don't. Do I think this is a majority of the new right. Not necessarily, but I don't know. But people should know something. I spent two weeks in Ukraine in July. I saw an abundance of Israeli flags. I saw no Hamas flags, which I can't say about my own home city here. Okay.
- [64:08]
John Podhoretz
Yeah.
- [64:11]
Abe Greenwald
You'Re right. And this goes from Kiev to Odessa. The hotel I stayed at there was flying an Israeli flag alongside other international flags. We don't understand who our allies are anymore. It's a huge problem. And I think when you, I think you don't have to scratch that far beneath the surface of the this is none of our business argument to get to Zelensky is kind of a pushy little Jew. Yeah. And that's a big, big piece of what's going on the right. Do I think that that's what's in Trump's heart? Not necessarily.
- [64:58]
John Podhoretz
It's. I don't think it's in. I don't think that's what's in Trump's heart.
- [65:02]
Abe Greenwald
I don't, I don't, I don't think.
- [65:04]
John Podhoretz
His brain goes there right now. I just think he's mad at Zelensky because he wants to end this and get a win and Zelensky is standing in his way. So he's at 4% approval according to Trump. And like as a dictator. And he has, there's, there, there's martial law in a country that is at war. Gee, big surprise.
- [65:25]
Abe Greenwald
Right?
- [65:26]
Seth Mandel
And look, Abe is, you know, the thing that you point out, Abe.
- [65:29]
John Podhoretz
But it's imposed at peace time. That's when martial law is a problem. Not when it's imposed in wartime. When rights are restricted in every country where, there, wherever there is war, rights are restricted, speech is restricted, movement is restricted. Your freedom is taken away from you because you're drafted. All kinds of stuff like that. Like that is what it's for. Anyway, you know what? We're coming up on the, on the hour.
- [65:51]
Seth Mandel
I just want to say, I just want to say, by the way, that, that one thing on that is that if you, if you bleeped out the names than when Tucker Carlson is described talking about Zelensky and when he is talking about Benjamin Netanyahu, you wouldn't know which one he's talking.
- [66:08]
Abe Greenwald
That's right.
- [66:10]
John Podhoretz
Fair enough. Okay. Well, we will be back tomorrow for Seth, Matt and Ava and John Pavlovski.