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A
Hey guys, I want to talk to you about Cozy Earth. Because this February it's time to show a little extra love. Whether it's for someone special or just for yourself, think about what a long hard winter it's been. Cozy Earth makes it easy to bring comfort and care into your everyday life. From better sleep to cozy moments at home. It's sleepwear and throws are perfect to indulge in self care or give a thoughtful gift that will be loved all season long. Like the bamboo pajama set which is a classic Cozy Earth favorite. And the sleepwear upgrade you'll love slipping into night after night. Lightweight yet cozy, this effortlessly soft set helps you fall asleep faster and stay comfortable longer. Or the classic Cuddle blanket. Richly plush with a comforting weight, it delivers warmth you can feel and a softness you'll never want to give up. So look, you get a hundred night sleep trial. You try these out. If you don't love them, return them hassle free. Trust me, you won't want to. And a 10 year warranty because once you feel this level of comfort, you'll want it to last a decade. So share a little extra love this February and wrap yourself or someone you care about in comfort that truly feels special. Head to cozyearth.com and use my code COMMENTARY for up to 20% off. And if you get a post purchase survey, be sure to mention you heard about Cozy Earth right here. Celebrate everyday love with comfort that makes the little moments count. Some die of no way of knowing which way it's going. Hope for the best, expect the worst. Welcome to the Commentary magazine daily podcast. Today is Friday, February 20th, 2026. I'm John Porce, the editor of Commentary magazine. With me, as always, executive editor Abe Greenwald. Hi Abe.
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B
Hi John.
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A
Social commentary columnist Christine Rosen. Hi Christine.
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C
Hi John.
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A
And senior editor Seth Mandel. Hi Seth.
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D
Hi John.
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A
Seth is of course basking in the reflective glory of many USA gold medals in the last for those listening and not watching, waving an American flag, he is. He is taunting Eileen goo in favor of Alyssa Louis and and there's a lot of hockey there. So congratulations to Seth and all of you who have been watching the Olympics and watching the Americans surge into second place behind of course that awesome Olympic power Norway still in first place. Norway very, very.
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D
We'll get.
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A
Okay, so that's, that's one piece of good news. Less good news is that we got sort of the first. We got final numbers on 2025's economy also due for many revisions. And I talked last week about how I don't believe in these macroeconomic numbers, but like being the creatures in Plato's cave, you have to deal with the shadows that emanate from them, even if they're not real. And the numbers aren't great. Growth of about 1.4%, the growth in the whole year of 2025 is almost exactly the same as the growth in 2024. And most importantly, personal consumption, inflation, that is basically what we, what we spend on things without energy and food, personal consumption with energy and food taken out of it, almost 3% an increase. So the question is, is that because of the tariffs? Is that because just, you know, because it's not about, again, if it's not about eggs, because eggs are not included here and it's not about gas prices or anything because they're not included here. And so Trump is going to give the State of the Union on Tuesday and he, of course, is always tempted to go and be a kind of, you know, snake oil salesman and say everything is absolutely wonderful and I'm the greatest and I've brought you the greatest economy and everything is fantastic. And that's just not what the numbers are going to say. So either he's going to try to create a reality distortion field, which I don't think is politically wise, or he's going to have to say what we need to do this year is get, you know, I was, I inherited a mess, I'm working on it. I did the big beautiful bill. You're going to see some positive results of that in your tax returns, you know, as you file them. And we need to do X, Y and Z for affordability and to make American life better. But it's just not his way. Right. Like that. That's not, he tried that in a,
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B
in a primetime address a few months back, didn't it didn't, wasn't really a blip on anyone's, not only wasn't it
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A
a blip, I have literally no memory of that. Now, that's either because I have, I have, you know, you know, early senility or it really was a total and colossal. Do you guys remember a Trump primetime address on the economy? Susie Wiles, you're both nodding vaguely. Obviously I'm out of my mind. So but I mean, the fact that I don't remember it is a mark of how, how little impact it, you know, it had.
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E
So, but this is not his comfortable space. You're right to point that out, John, because he every, during that speech and then in the last few, few months off and on, on, in, in other public speeches, he's tried to talk about affordability. He's tried to talk about the economy. And when he stays on script, it's fine, but he's clearly on a script that's not him being Trump. And when he goes off script, he cannot help himself. He has to congratulate himself for something he's done. And that goes against the message that has been scripted for him, which is exactly as you say, John, to acknowledge that people feel like the economy isn't where it should be. And I think he's past the year where he can keep pointing to what came before. That starts to look like whining and not like leadership. I think the real problem is explaining the tariffs. He keeps telling people that they will just have to wait and trust. And I think the mood of the American people with regard to the economy right now is trust but verify. And he's not giving them any terms on which they can verify what he's claiming will happen down the line when they need relief. Right now.
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A
Well, there could be an oceanic event between now and the State of the Union, because today, Tuesday and Wednesday, I believe so the State of the Union is on Tuesday. But we have been told that the Supreme Court is going to be issuing decisions today. As we're recording this, it's about 20 minutes before the Supreme Court issues at 10:00am Eastern. We're right now at 9:40 Eastern. So it's even possible that during this podcast, the tariff decision could come out from the Supreme Court or next week. And that will, of course, sort of, if that happens, that will redirect the entire nature of the conversation. Either the court, in an incredibly surprising move, will somehow uphold his right to have created this tariff regime. The only reason to think that that might be the case is that the decision has, has taken so long to come out. It's something they could have, you know, had they had a 9, 0, you know, ruling on this come out with relatively fast so that there could be a restructuring. So you have to assume that it's a more complicated decision, you know, but unless they somehow affirm that he was right to do this or he has the power to do this or something like that, that is going to be the news of the year so far, except for Iran, because depending on what's found, there could be this like, unprecedented unwinding. You have to pay countries back for the tariffs that were, that were unconstitutionally put on or you have to do xy, you know, so, so there is that X factor to, well, It's a
- [08:53]
E
huge, it's a, it would put a huge break on other plans he might have had with regard to proving to voters that he knows what he's doing with the economy. Because it's about executive power and emergency, the use of emergency powers. And I mean, we've talked about this at length. It seems a clear abuse of the emergency powers to have done this vast tariff regime under this one small claim that's usually used in wartime. So but he has already been been prepping his public messaging. If he loses, which he hopefully will, I think his, this has been a massive abuse of executive power in the same way that Biden abused executive power using emergency powers during his term. But he will say, I mean, if he chooses to attack the court on this, I think that'll be a big mistake, rather than saying, well, here are some other alternatives for my tariffs and we'll have to take them to Congress or whatnot. He's, he's not again, he's not wired to do this this way. He sees winners and losers and he wants to see himself on the winning side of this argument. And he might not be.
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A
One interesting aspect of the State of the Union coming up on Tuesday is that of course, for many, many years, presidential speeches as the now forgotten economic speech that Abe mentioned demonstrated, but not just in his term, but also in Biden's term and to some extent in Obama's term after his first year or two, have not mattered. And something then happened a couple weeks ago or last week. I can't even remember when it was, but Marco Rubio gave this speech that mattered. Like it's a Matt Continetti has a really, really great piece in the Wall Street Journal free expression section this morning. Our old colleague about what it means that a secretary of state has delivered a very substantive, serious, sober address that makes a thorough and legitimate argument that connects the past to the present and to the future. And it kind of gives oxygen to the idea that giving a serious substantive speech can actually have major positive ramifications for the person who delivers it. Trump is unlikely in the extreme to somehow shift gears and deliver a major address. That's the opposite of who he is. He's an improviser. But we could be the tariffs could be reversing themselves. We could devs hit Iran by Tuesday or we could be on the verge of hitting Iran. He's given Iran what, a two week deadline. He set the clock on Iran for two weeks. I don't even know what he set the clock for because he hasn't outlined the demands that he is making that he wants the Iranians to exceed. Are you. Is that like there was no spoon?
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D
I mean, these are, these are not the, these are not the clocks you were searching for. This is, this is like, you know, he, he's just, he's, he's like fast forwarding ahead versions of what he's done in the past, which is like, you give them a deadline and he always attacks them before the deadline is up. And I feel like this was one of those that he just put less effort into, like, creating the idea that there was actually going to be a reason for that. I think he's just, like, going through the motions. I, we all know how this goes. All right, you guys have 12 days, blah, blah, blah, you know, and then on, on, you know, on the seventh day.
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A
But like in a fairy tale or in a ticking clock movie plot, it's like you will hand over, you know, you will hand the princess over. You have three days. Or, you know, or, you know, you will do X in three days. He hasn't even said, like, if I were the mullahs, not that I have any sympathy for the mullahs. And I want them all to be. I would like them all to be removed from office and go to meet their 72 virgins as soon as possible. But I, I don't know what he wants from them. He wants them to suspend nuclear enrichment. Is that really, like, that's they're going to announce their. Or to dismantle their ballistic missile program or to go to elections. I don't even know what he wants. And he, they haven't articulated it, so it's a little hard to make a demand like, you will do what we ask or you're going to get it. Apparently they've been uncooperative at the negotiating table, but I'm not sure what I assume since we're, we're. We're telegraphing every single piece of military material that is being moved into the, into the area, including apparently a secret aircraft that nobody even knew existed, that they let us know on Thursday or Friday has landed in Israel that is so secret that only 30 people even knew of its existence, but that, that they let us know is there, you know, sort of like some kind of X factor aircraft that can, you know, like, maybe send us, you know, hurtling into the future or the past or something like that. So they're telling us how they're going to swamp Iran and destroy it and kill it and blow it up and all of that, but they're not, no one's saying what it is that we want.
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B
But if, if Trump decides that he ultimately doesn't want to go in and launch this big regime change war, he does have a way, we've seen it with the Russian, Ukraine talks constantly. He does have a way of speaking as if he's gotten a win without mentioning any deliverables in negotiations. I mean, he does that all the time. He says very positive, we had some really excellent, very strong positive meetings. I think we'll see from here. And he can just, he can drag it on indefinitely without saying anything of substance about what is being discussed.
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E
Well, this is actually, it's an important point when we think about the kind of speech he might give next week too, for the State of the Union. I went back and looked at, I think 2019, one of his first term speeches, and his normal conversational approach, even off the cuff is so full of hyperbole. I mean, in, in the transcript of the speech, like we've had an economic boom likes of which has never been seen before. And I mean he does that all the time, as Abe points out. So in a way we just stop hearing it. And, and he can say it whether it's true or not. Now when he was saying it in 2019, he actually unemployment was down, particularly among African Americans, and that there were all these economic gains that he'd over, you know, his administration had overseen. And so he did have some bragging he could do at the time. Now he's got to, if he does that same approach now, it starts to seem really false and hollow because the numbers don't add up. He's losing some of those voters that actually that earlier economic boom brought into his fold and helped him win re election again. So I think the hyperbole is not helpful to him in those moments, even though I know it would be difficult for him to do anything else.
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A
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That's Q U I n c e.com commentary free shipping and 365 day returns. Quints.com commentary let's talk about Aura Frames. Aura Frames, the solution to hundreds of photos that never make it past your camera roll. I can tell you this because right now in my living room, Aura Frames are rolling photo after photo after photo after photo from my iPhone. 25 years actually of photos. 6 of them before the iPhone, but downloaded into my photo app nonetheless. And you get them. You use the app that Aura Frames supplies to move them from your photo app into the Aura Frames app and then they appear right there in your home. Or if you want to give it as a gift in a friend's home, every memory, every joy, every moment that you have ever wanted to commemorate is there. Causing conversation, causing heartwarming moments, causing moments of laughter and embarrassment. All the things you get from photos. But they can be displayed right in front of you as part of your daily pleasure. And that's why I love it so much. I gave one to my associate, Stephanie. She has it rolling in her office right now. So you get free unlimited storage. You can add as many photos and videos as you want. You can keep adding it from anywhere, anytime, right with that app. If you want to send it as a gift. Every frame comes packaged in a premium gift box with no price tag. And you download the free Aura app or you can text photos straight to the frame. Actually, I haven't done that yet, but I hear it's amazing. Name number one by Wirecutter. You can save on the perfect gift by visiting auraframes.com for a limited time. Listeners can get $35 off their best selling Carver Mat frame with code Commentary. That's a U R A frames.com promo code. Commentary. Support the show by mentioning us at checkout. Terms and conditions apply. I would just like to know what our aim is in the in the war with Iran. I mean, I say this as somebody who is very eager to see the regime in Iran finally pay for everything that it has done over the last 46, 47 years. I would still like to see them pay for the taking our hostages in 1980. That's how long a memory I have that I, I believe that they should, they should be punished for and for killing hundreds of Americans in the course of the war in Iraq. I think they are, they are considered directly responsible. The militias that they supported in Iraq and Indeed actually direct IRGC forces on the ground in Iraq, killing at least 600Americans and wounding others, and efforts to assassinate Trump and John Bolton and others, and actions on our soil to try to assassinate people and of course, everything else that they've done. So you could not have a person more supportive of the idea that it is justified to take military action to remove this regime. But we're not saying that that is the purpose of what we are doing here. And so I, as the hawk, most hawkish person, I may be not as hawkish as they, but I mean, the most hawkish person right now talking, since I'm the only one talking, I would still, I would like there to be a description of what it is that we are about here, because I don't think that we can go to war in this way without it being laid out. Am I wrong? I mean, because it's, you know, like when we went into Bosnia, when we did these things, when presidents do things without consulting Congress, the missions are relatively narrow in scope or limited. Like the Bosnia mission was about stopping the genocide, the efforts to commit genocide in the former Yugoslavia. We took out Maduro because we claimed, you know, because he was a bad actor and we had, he was under indictment in the United States and basically it was a law enforcement operation. Obviously it wasn't really, really. But, you know, we took out the Operation Midnight Hammer because that, we did that because Iran could not be allowed to be in this position of holding a nuclear, you know, sword over, potentially over Israel's head and over Saudi Arabia's head and over the Gulf's head and all of that. But I don't know what we're here for.
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E
I mean, well, if it's, if it's nuclear war, then why isn't he also talking about North Korea, which has been, its nuclear program has not ceased since, since Trump's first term. I mean, I think you're right. I'm agreeing with you because he can't, he said it's about several things and he needs to just pick one that resonates with voters. And, and if he's actually going to war, maybe he also should consult Congress, which has war making power. So if it's a war, I think he sees this as another Maduro type thing. Like, we go in, we strike we come back and that's all.
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A
It's not a real war operation, which would be fine. And maybe, maybe he can't say that and he can't say what we're going to do is essentially decapitate the regime. Our purp year is to set all this up so that we can go in with the Israelis help and basically either kill or extract the mullahs and leave the country in the hands of, you know, you know, somebody, whatever. I mean, and so you're not going to say that. So fine. That's not. Maybe, maybe I'm being unfair and you can't telegraph.
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E
But he's built doing war. I mean he's, he's making moves with the military that look war like in which case he should go to Congress and talk to, at least talk to them about what he plans to do. That's kind of in the constit.
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A
So that's the part where I asked to talk to Congress. It's only.
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E
But if he, but if he continue. If it's not just a simple operation. Look, I think we have through experience presidents have gotten away with doing a fair amount. This is not a president I would trust to be thoughtful of the limitations of his executive power. So if he wants to do more than just a simple strike operation, he can and should consult with Congress. Congress has war making power in our, in our nation.
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B
I don't know if it's going to be a simple operation or if it's going to be an extensive operation. But I've come around recently to the idea that I think he's dead set on regime change, war. And I think the tipping point for him, this is just my thinking about it, tipping point for him was during the protests, the regime was cracking down on the Iranians. He went out there, he said keep fighting, help is on the way. Then he made an announcement and said, very reliable sources, my threat has worked. The regime is not gonna kill anyone. They're not, no one's getting hanged on Friday, blah blah, blah. And then reports came out that the regime killed tens of thousands of people and he feels like a total chump. That I think was the tipping point for him. I think he had other reasons that, you know, as John has articulated here, there's too many good reasons to go into Iran. And I'm sure he was, he had been weighing all of those as well. But I think he was really shown up right after he did this, you know, incredible thing in Venezuela.
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A
I mean, I think you're probably right. And as I say Maybe that's something that you can't telegraph. So I'm being unfair. And it isn't actually that long a period of belligerence that we're talking about. Like this whole thing started on December 28, the, when the protesting began in earnest all across Iran. And the moment of his chumpishness was the 8th and 9th of January, and this is the 20th of February. So it's actually not that long a period. Jonah Goldberg sent me a piece by Vali Nasser in the Financial Times this morning because I had said yesterday I couldn't get inside the mullahs heads. And he said this is an interesting way of looking at the, the mullahs. Maybe this will help explain it to you. And the piece following along, Michael Oren's piece that I talked about yesterday in the Free Press says the mullahs look at, or looking on a longer timeline, they think that they won Operation Midnight Hammer by surviving it. They're looking, they're looking at a longer conflict. They want to extend the conflict, they want to make. They're preparing for a long war and they want to make Trump fight a long war and then maybe he won't have the stomach for it. My problem with this analysis is that they didn't know on December 28th that they were going to be plunged into this crisis. So the idea that they've been, that they, they haven't had time to prepare for a long war. It's only hasn't even been two months. They've been dealing with their internal struggles and trying to make sure that the regime doesn't topple from the inside and making the decision to fire on 30,000 people in cities across the country and then deal with these demands of Trump to negotiate or to do whatever they're supposed to do at the negotiating table. So I don't believe that the mullahs are, you know, like have a, have a long term strategy for fighting Trump right now. This, everything that's happened here has happened as a result of a series of circumstances largely triggered by the collapse of the real, the, the, the currency in, in, in Iran. And so they are, they are improvising the way Trump and Israel seem to be improvising to some.
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E
Okay. But I, I'm going to push back a tiny bit on how we, and I include myself in this, how we have been talking about this because we're talking about the mullahs fighting Trump, pushing back on Israel and Trump. It's the United States that's long been their enemy. I mean, this goes Back, you know, as you noted earlier, decades and decades and decades. We are the Great Satan. We are the enemy. We are, we are an existential threat to what they think their place in the world is. And that hasn't changed. And I think seeing it entirely through the lens of Trump from their perspective is a mistake on ours because they see the United States and all the power that we bring to bear in the world. And I think Trump likes to see these conflicts as, you know, Venezuela versus Trump and Iran versus Trump. But I don't think that's helpful for our own strategic thinking and long term, in particular, because so far I've seen from Trump, obviously he's, he is willing to use force when he feels it's necessary, but the aftermath is what we should be thinking about. He's got three more years in office. That's not a short span of time. And in Trump time, that's like dog years. It feels like 10, it'll feel like 10 more years. But then comes the a, whoever comes afterwards. And the groundwork we lay now, particularly in, in Iran and in the Middle east, is going to have ramifications. So I, I would say we should be. That's why I'm harping on. If he wants to do anything more than just a simple strike, he should go to Congress, because we all have to live with the aftermath of whatever he chooses to do. But, you know, seeing it as Trump versus these countries strikes me as exactly what Trump wants, likes, but not helpful for understanding long term what we're doing.
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A
Just, just to explain that doesn't even
- [29:43]
D
take into account his third term.
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A
But please don't joke.
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E
People are out of their minds about, like, the upcoming midterm elections being canceled. I know thoughtful people who believe that he's going to try to cancel the elections.
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A
Well, or that he's going to interfere with the elections by using federal force. But can you explain to me what you mean by him going to Congress? Do you mean that he needs to go and seek a resolution of war, or do you mean that he needs to consult with, to bring in the heads of the Armed Services Committees and the. Whatever and the, and the speaker and the Minority leader and the, and the Senate Majority Leader and the Senate Minority leader, all of that, and then sit down with them and tell them what they're going to do in the skiff, swearing them to secrecy and all of that? Is that, is that what you're talking about right now?
- [30:35]
E
He should already have done that part. The second thing, if he, if this is going to be a commitment of greater troops on the ground. If our soldiers or lives are going to be at extended risk as they were in previous Gulf wars, then I think he does have to go to Congress and actually get some sort of declaration of war if we're going to be there for a while. And I think, I mean, it can sound very cavalier when we're like, we're going to go here, we're going to go there. I mean, I have, you know, my cousin is an Army Ranger and he will probably, I mean, he has seen many, many active duty tours in high conflict zones. I don't, I don't want to be cavalier about even what a short strike might entail, but I think that the public and should demand that of any president. I'm actually not comfortable with how the stretching of executive power to send troops into conflict over the last 20, 30 years in this country. I do think Congress needs to reassert its oversight role on that in that regard. But for a strike, he should consult. But if he's, if it's going to be a longer term conflict or they, they plan for it to be a longer term conflict, I think he should seek Congress's approval in some sort of declaration of war.
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D
The thing that works against that is that Congress doesn't seem to want that authority. Right, Exactly. Well, that's, that's been exactly, you know, it's not, it's not like there's been a struggle like the president's trying to take is Congress being like, here, I don't want this hot potato. And it's like if you walked into, you know, if you walked into the, to the House building and said, who here wants to vote on war? Like, ever since the Iraq war, that's been something that they don't want to do. They don't want to be on record. And they know that, you know, sometimes, as with the authorization of the use of force after September 11th, these things can live on.
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A
Right.
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D
That, that AUMF was going on and on for, you know, what, 20 years. And, and then, you know, they were still fighting over whether they had to repeal it or renew it or whatever. Members of Congress have been very clear that they don't, they don't want their name on something that's going to be argued about for 20 years.
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E
And it's a good job. That's what I'm saying. I'm like, that's job 100%.
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D
It is their job. This is why, this is why, if you remember, Obama went to Congress about the serious strike he had decided on a strike. He sent out Susan Rice to make the argument. She gave a speech at the Council on Foreign Relations, I think it was, in which he laid out very clearly why Assad crossed the red line with chemical weapons and why we have to hit back and why the use of chemical weapons in warfare is a red line for the rest of the world. And then he said. And then he got cold feet, and he went running to Congress knowing that Congress wouldn't want to authorize a war.
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A
Right. So he used Congress as his escape valve. He said, I am. You cross this route, you do it. And then it's like, no, Congress has to tell me to do it. But Congress wasn't establishing the chemical weapons red line. He did. And then this, by the way, had very huge geopolitical consequences, because what did we do? We then turned to the Russians to quiet down the Syrians. And the Russians took one look at us going to them gratefully to bring them back into the Middle east, from which we had spent half a century doing whatever we could to get them the hell out of the Middle East. And then they said, hey, look, there's Crimea. Let me go. You know what, that. I don't even want Syria, but I sure want Crimea. And this guy is clearly going to let me do whatever the hell I want to do. So Putin goes into Crimea a year later, and then, you know, basically eight years after that goes into. Goes into Ukraine. Like, this is not, you know, entire. Like, these things have very serious.
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B
Of refugees because of the.
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A
Yeah. Which destabilized Europe. Like that.
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B
Like, I mean, it was huge.
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A
The consequences of Obama setting up that red line and then not crossing it. You could probably write an entire history of the 21st century in which that moment was a hinge. Like, was it go the other way?
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D
That was a butterfly flapping its wings.
- [34:50]
A
Exactly. Yeah. Go. Go the other way. And the entire history of the last 15 years or 13 years or whatever is wildly different. I don't know what it would be. I don't know that maybe it would be worse. I don't. I mean, you. You can't. You can't know that.
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E
You.
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A
All you would know was that the idea that we don't live up to our own concerns or we don't, you know, we'll. We'll sort of let you do what you want to do if you're Vladimir Putin, because we're too whatever. Like, had all of these knockoff, you know, consequences. So. All right, so Christine says he should consult Congress, and if it's a serious war. Go and get a declaration of war. Seth and Abe, where are you on this?
- [35:41]
B
I mean, you know, as often with Christine's sober and informed take on things, I completely agree. In the abstract and it'll never happen in practice.
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A
I know.
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B
Yes, yes. So. So I, I can't get exercised about it because I, It's. It's so, to me, beyond the pale of. Of how things actually work. Now, Guy,
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A
I gotta interrupt because the Supreme Court has struck down the Trump tariffs just now.
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E
Excellent.
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A
It has apparently remanded back to other courts to deal with the question of how to deal with the refund issue. But the use of the International Emergency Economic Powers act has been ruled unconstitutional. I'm. Now, I'm, I'm obviously doing this on the fly here, but this is a, this is a very big moment.
- [36:44]
E
This is why we don't live stream people. This is.
- [36:47]
A
Right. But, I mean, you know, I just. We. I don't think we cannot talk about it if the, if the news breaks my question.
- [36:56]
E
Although we have to read the decision to really talk about it.
- [36:59]
A
No, I know, but I want to see what the. I'm trying to see what the.
- [37:03]
E
See what the count is. Who voted.
- [37:04]
A
I'm looking, I'm looking. It's like. I don't know. It should be easier. It should be easier to find out. It should be easier to find this out. Where is it? Okay. Anyway, 6, 3 against Trump on tariffs, which is. Now, again, we don't know what the three means. We don't. I mean, we can presume that the three are. Are conservatives on the court, but we don't know what. What it means that they are. Okay. The Chief's lead opinion was joined by Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett. The Court has long expressed reluctance to read into ambiguous statutory texts extraordinary delegations of Congress's powers. When Congress has delegated its tariff powers, it has done so in explicit terms and subject to strict limits. The government has read IEEPA to give the President power to unilaterally impose unbounded tariffs and change them at will. I'm very disappointed by the Chief splitting the infinitive there. I'm going to say that right now shouldn't split infinitives. That view would represent a transformative expansion of the President's authority over tariff policy. There is no exception to the major questions doctrine for emergency statutes, nor does the fact that tariffs implicate foreign affairs render the doctrine in applicable. So we don't know what the minority, which apparently is Thomas Alito.
- [38:34]
E
Alito.
- [38:35]
A
And who am I missing? Kavanaugh? We don't know what they found. Maybe they. Whatever. Anyway, but so 6, 3. The tariffs are overturned. I wish it were 9, 0. For the reasons that Christine explicated, but such is life. And I have sufficient respect for the three who seem to have gone the other way to assume that what they have decided has some, you know, they will have some statutory constitutional theories that are not dismissible because they're serious people with serious ideas.
- [39:22]
E
Will be interesting to see how narrow their. How narrow their dissenting opinion is. Is shaped. So.
- [39:27]
A
Right. Exactly. Exactly. But okay, so this, of course, now is going to. Right, so now the question is, how does Trump respond? And this allows me to go into the topic I really wanted to talk about. But we're 34 minutes into this because we have two things here. TRUMP is like going to war is like planning a major war, some version of a war in Iran. Right. Trump is facing this tariffs thing. We have an economy in trouble. We have. Or not in trouble, but an economy that's not performing the way everybody would want it to perform. We have the ICE matters and the Border Patrol matters, and we have an upcoming election and all of that. And what did he do last night? He announced that he was going to release, after the wondrous success for him of releasing lots of government documents all at once, he is going to release all of the files we have on aliens. Where did this alien issue come from? Right. It came because Obama did a podcast interview with Brian Tyler Cohen and they had a lightning round at the end. And Brian Tyler Cohen said, are there aliens? And he said, well, they're not a rot. They're not at Area 51. And then Brian Roswell said, do you. You know, boxers are briefs? And didn't go any further into it. And this was taken by people as Obama essentially affirming that there were aliens. We now know the existence of life on other planets and that they maybe have been visiting us. And Trump then apparently may be angry that Obama got news on the aliens. Said Obama's done a raw, very bad thing because he's like, mishandled, classified. Okay, but was it. Was he joking, by the way, joking
- [41:25]
E
when he said that, though?
- [41:26]
A
What?
- [41:27]
E
Trump. I thought Trump was joking when he said that, didn't you?
- [41:30]
A
Okay, because I didn't listen. I only read. Anyway, he is now. So he announced last night.
- [41:34]
D
I just want to say there was a real. That was a really great accidental mistake where the. John, where you just. In the second round, you called Brian Tyler Cohen. Brian. Roswell.
- [41:48]
E
Little Freudian alien Freudian slip.
- [41:50]
B
I like that. Yeah.
- [41:50]
A
Alien Freud. Yes. Yes, I've been to Roswell, actually. It's cute. It's like, basically, it's like.
- [41:58]
E
Well, and there's connected. Because now aren't they investigating some disgusting sex ranch that Epstein had in New Mexico? I mean, New Mexico just needs to be.
- [42:05]
A
No, no, no, no. They're. They're. They're investigating whether there were corpses or something. I don't know. It's all. Anyway, so my point is, having had. As I say, this is really, really wonderful how, you know, raw documents that in which tens of thousands of people call in tips to the FBI saying crazy things have been released in the millions of pages here. He's. He's doing it again. So why am I bringing this up? I'm bringing this up because, like, he is a ser. He has a serious presidency that is doing incredibly serious things, and then he just goes and takes a giant bucket of mud and throws the mud onto the camera lens so that we can see nothing clearly about what is actually going on in the country. He is, look, hey, squirreling. He is bred in circusing. And I don't understand the reasons for it because.
- [43:05]
E
I can explain the reasons. I mean, this is. This is like a. This is a perfect distraction because, I mean, for. For decades people have had these conspiracy theories and this is sort of a fun one, right? It's like, it's not political. There. There's no, you know, red or blue alien. It's just aliens. And then it's us, the rest, you know, the humans. And, you know, you. You have. You have a guy at Harvard, Avi Loeb, who's been doing his interstellar space travel theories and that. If you really want to understand our culture, look at the Reddit threads and the fights between Reddit space thread and Reddit UFO threads because they're constantly battling each other. I mean, it's kind of fascinating. So it is the perfect distraction, especially after the Epstein stuff where. Where. I mean, I think it's kind of genius.
- [43:49]
B
I. I just have to say I'm certain it won't remain fun.
- [43:55]
E
No. Ape. Oh, the crushing. You're bringing it.
- [43:58]
B
Yep. Yeah. I think the last thing the country needs is another fantastical conspiratorial obsession. We've got way too many of those, and it's not going to be. It's certainly not going to stay non political. And I'm wondering how. Excuse me. How and when it will come around to the Jews.
- [44:25]
A
Okay, I'LL tell you.
- [44:28]
E
Yeah.
- [44:28]
A
Can I tell my joke about the alien? So spacecraft lands, you know, flying saucer opens the door and out comes the first alien. Five, four, you know, he's wearing a herringbone jacket and golf pants. He's got like a hat, you know, with a little fur ball on top. He's got, carrying a golf club and he's got a pinky ring. And the President is there to greet him and he says, I see you're a humanoid. And the alien says, yes. And the President says, is everyone on your planet like you? And the alien says, not the gentiles. So it will all come back to the Jews eventually. You're right. Here's why I wanted to bring this up. When I say he's throwing mud on the, on the, on the lens. Not, not that he's throwing mud because he's trying to, you know, libel or slander people. I mean, big things are happening and now another huge thing just happened with the invalidation of the tariffs. And the country needs to focus on the seriousness of Purpa. The question that Christine says, like we need the public to be engaged if we are doing serious things and the President is the ringleader of the unserious. And I just have one thing to say to everybody who thinks that there is alien life, okay, which is maybe there's alien life. I actually don't believe that to be the case. I believe that we're, we are a freak in the universe. That this conditions on the planet Earth are such that something happened here that it's very likely could happen nowhere else ever. It's a freak. And I would give that a supernatural, religious, whatever you want to gloss on it, if I were really to go into it seriously, my general opinion is that like all kinds of things, including extra sensory powers and things like that, that if there were aliens and we had found aliens, we would know. Why would people, why would it be a secret, all of this stuff? That it makes sense that there would be aliens and that the government would keep it secret or everybody would keep it secret is largely based in my view, on the plot structure of television shows like Bewitched, which is like, oh, you're a witch, but you can't tell anybody, or you're a genie, but you can't tell anybody because you'll get court martialed or you'll get arrested. It makes no sense. If we knew that we had discovered life forms on other planet or that they had visited us or whatever, that the government would be like, oh look, they're Aliens don't tell anybody. Why. Why wouldn't we. Why wouldn't you tell any. Somebody explains me the logic according to which we can't tell anybody.
- [47:40]
D
Well, because ALF became it.
- [47:43]
E
He would say it's the. It's the big lie. Because he would. He would say that the leadership would assume it would freak people out so much that we can't possibly tell them. There would be panic, there'd be disorder. You know, the entire thing would burn to the ground. So you have to lie to protect. So it'd be invoking Jim. He might not.
- [48:01]
A
Why. Why would people worry? Why would people fear?
- [48:05]
B
Right. We're clearly not under attack. Whatever the reality is.
- [48:09]
A
I mean, I just might have looked
- [48:11]
E
at us and been like, really?
- [48:13]
A
As I say, if the predicate warrant that, the line has to be that there is proof of life on other planets. But. But nobody. Nobody can know. It's the second part of that sentence that doesn't make any sense. Let me put it this way. If we had proof of the existence of God, for example, I don't know how you would have the proof of the existence of God, which is where this all comes from. This is obviously a weird paganistic gloss on Pascal's wager or something like that. If we had proof of the existence of God, why would it be kept secret? You know, why would the holy grail have been hidden in a secret conspiracy for 2,000 years at the bottom of the Louvre? You know, like, that doesn't. It doesn't follow. Logically, there would be no harm in people knowing that God existed. Nobody would think there was harm in people knowing that God existed. So the world in which we need to see the files of documents that suggest that there were these things flying in the air that we can't explain, thus creating this bizarre set of. Which is why I think Abe's right that it wouldn't be fun after a while. Because the question would be, who has not been telling us and why this.
- [49:48]
E
This is.
- [49:48]
A
And where are the Jews in all this?
- [49:50]
E
Yeah, but this is important because it. It's a. There's a deeply powerful human need to experience awe. I mean, we actually seek out things that. That. That make us feel our own smallness and humility and awe. Is this really a great expression? Some of it. We see it in the natural world, and I think our world right now lacks those moments, and so they curdle into conspiracy. So it's not just, wow, aliens, amazing. Let's figure out if that's real. It's. They must be Real, they must be hiding it from us because in our daily, the mistrust, I think it also shows a level of mistrust in society right now that's quite high, particularly of institutions. But I actually, I would like to believe there, maybe there is alien life in this vast universe that we haven't discovered yet or they haven't discovered us. And, and that's awe inspiring to me actually, this idea of all this unknown stuff that we might one day discover. But that's not what this is going to be. This is, as you say, John, a distraction for a core group of Trump type diehards who believe every institution is always running a cover up of something.
- [50:55]
B
Yeah, and I also wanted to just say on this awe question because I've thought about this a bit recently. There is a obsessive hunger for awe right now. And I think it's the result of our having become so desensitized to things that are or should be awe inspiring. I mean, just the world we live in now is so unrecognizable. You know, for the longest time people would make jokes, like I remember like Chris Rock and others talking about like by now I thought we were going to live in the Jetsons, you know, and, and, and like. But what, you know, 1950 to 1980 didn't look that different really. I mean, styles were different and things, but you know, reality wasn't different. 1980 to today, entirely different. There is so much. We're in the middle of a constant discussion about some super intelligent computers that will either make our lives a paradise or a hell or something in between or who knows? Like there is nothing. There's. We don't, we shouldn't want for awe, but it's almost the overload has made it so that we. Give me the next thing. Okay, I've seen that already.
- [52:22]
D
And also there's like. Yeah, and also it's like the, you know, the plot of the TV show House was always that Dr. House, who was so rational and logical that the reason he was that way is because he needed and believed that all people needed order in the unit, the universe, to have a specific order for things, to have reasons. And you know, that it was scary to go through life with, you know, in some sort of randomized experiment. And so, you know, the, the desire for a grand plan, whether that's, you know, we're all living in a simulation, somebody's computer program or, you know, a supreme power or whatever, the desire for something that explains why everything happens gets stronger in an era where you know, Covid sweeps through and there's suddenly there's a pandemic. You know, a few years before that there was a hundred year storm. Everybody always part of New York and what. And it's like it just people. The more that stuff happens, I think the more susceptible people are to want to know that and want to see that there's some sort of, you know, organized plan.
- [53:33]
A
Well, we have the west going through this process of extended d. I was de. Religious ification. I don't, you know, like secularization. Secular. Right. And so secularization. People need to live in wonder and in awe and need to believe that there is a. There is transcendence all around them. So if it's not going to be classic religious faith, it will be some form of paganism, nature worship. This idea that there are. We are being directed or control or there. There are more advanced beings in the sky than us, than we. Right. Which is. That's just a. It's. I wouldn't call it a perversion. It's just an extension of the religious impulse.
- [54:25]
E
Lielle's great piece a few years ago in Commentary touched on the sort of paganistic.
- [54:31]
A
Right. Theme. Right. So I think the strangest aspect of this is that people. We are. I think we're. We're not. It's not only that we have this, you know, thing about is AI going to destroy us? And all of that we have. There are little bits and pieces of things involving physics that I don't even begin to understand. I mean, to say that I don't begin to understand it is to say is to understate by a billion, like this is something I really don't genuinely understand.
- [55:06]
E
No math, John.
- [55:07]
A
No math, but no, I'm quite the opposite. But from what I read and what I gather, we are on the verge or we are on the verge in the next hundred years or something of discovering that the mechanics undergirding the universe are far stranger and weirder and less linear than we believe them to be or have believed them to be over the last sort of three, four hundred years in which, you know, we broke the code of how things work. That sort of like ended the Dark and the Middle Ages and brought the Enlightenment and brought, you know, this 250 year period in which we invented machines and we discovered how to make cars and how to make planes and how to make spaceships and how to tie everybody together with a computer and all of this, all this stuff that did not exist in 1800. Right. And here we are 225 years later and you know, again, talk about an unrecognizable world. And all of that is apparently as nothing compared to what quantum mechanics might prove, including when I said, you know, if there were the. We had the existence of God, like we would know. I mean, there is this Higgs boson, right? There is this piece of evidence that there is a. An object in, you know, in our universe that can incept matter out of nothing, that air, space, whatever goes through it and then becomes a thing of three dimensions. And people started calling it the God particle because that is the inception of life or the inception of that which does not exist into something that exists. And that's just the beginning. You know, Course, Abroad, a piece about
- [57:06]
D
abroad, his newsletter a while back about the discovery, the scientific discovery that things, that things develop differently when watched.
- [57:19]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [57:20]
D
There was this observed. And that was, that was. I mean, Abe can explain.
- [57:25]
B
They're all. That was very complicated holographic mathematical models of universes. Don't ask me how that works. And I think this went on in Princeton. And they were supposed to. All the inputs were supposed to produce model model universes that were like ours, but they were completely static. There was, There was nothing in them. No energy, no anything. And then someone figured out a way again, mathematically to insert an observer. And then boom, everything sprang into existence.
- [58:07]
A
Sprung. I mean, right, so springed.
- [58:12]
B
Yeah.
- [58:13]
A
Anyway, I, I just think that in the end, what we have here is this bizarre world of people who want to believe in things unseen, as we all do, and then this world of people who have been told since they were, you know, born or in the last hundred years that there was something childish and fake and you're being conned by believing in things unseen. Right, like that. Sort of. The new atheists, you know, it's like childish. Freud said this. Freud said this in Moses monotheism or in some of his work. You know, the idea that there is this benevolent father in the sky is, you know, is a, is a, is a infantile fantasy of control that, you know, orders the universe. But it's infant. It's by definition infantile. This insanely reductionist, like, kind of.
- [59:10]
E
I would, I wouldn't say all the new atheists would put it quite that.
- [59:13]
A
No, but Freud, I'm now quoting Freud. Greater figure than the atheist. But, but, no but village atheism. Atheism has always been like, oh, come on, there's nobody. You know, this all happened at random. And don't be ridiculous. There's no, there's no person in the sky, running things and. And all of this, because then how do you explain childhood leukemia and all. All those sorts of. All those sorts of things which is explained in the. You know, explained in the book of Job, which is. You have no idea why things happen the way that things are happening here, which does, by the way, explain quantum mechanics. Things are happening. The universe is. The universe exists in a manner that is inexplicable to you, and that's not just by design. It is because your mind cannot comprehend what it is that I am and what it is. Where were you when I, you know, when I was in the whirlwind? And so that is from the dawn of faith, that has been something that people have been told that we. That it is beyond our reach. And then people then grasp for easy answers, like, oh, well, you know, we came here because somebody came down in a spaceship and made the Easter island statues. And then, you know.
- [60:27]
E
But that's where the new. The new physics is fascinating, because I think it tries to. Not. Not intentionally, but there's a weird bridge moment happening that I think you alluded to earlier, John, because, like, the Higgs field is kind of this idea of a universal force, not quite a force field, but they call it, like, you know, universe universal molasses that we all swim through. Like it's a field, it's a thing, but it's not seeable. It exists, but we can't. And always, it's very difficult to prove. So there's a way in which I think modern physics is still trying to resolve ancient puzzles, ancient questions that are deeply human. And I think it's also why, to Abe's earlier point, the AI discussion becomes very tense very quickly because it's. It's also asking those questions, but it wants to answer them with a replacement for humanity or something that's an evolution of humanity. So it's. It is a weird. John, to get back to your first point, it's a really weird moment in physics and in sort of these sorts of discussions. It's kind of exciting, too.
- [61:21]
A
It is. And so now we've thrown mud on it because now we're gonna have, you know, Tucker Carlson doing podcasts about how they've been hiding the aliens from us. And, you know, and then Megyn Kelly will do it, too, because Tucker will get engagement and, you know, and then we'll have this entire world of.
- [61:42]
E
I'm waiting for Candace's take on the aliens myself.
- [61:48]
A
There is.
- [61:49]
D
I saw him in an office at Ben Gurion.
- [61:51]
B
Yeah. There is Already in the UFO weeds. Not even in the weeds in the UFO community and, and, and adjacent communities. There's all sorts of anti Semitic stuff there. I mean, you know, when you have David Ike or David Icky, whatever his name is, you know, talking about lizard people and shapeshifters and he's talking about the Jews, you know, and this is, this, this is fodder for Tucker who says that there's clearly other beings living on the planet with us and we, I don't, I don't know why we haven't acknowledged them yet. And I mean it is, it's, it's, it's going to turn ugly very quickly.
- [62:33]
D
Yeah. When I watch, when I watch Tucker, I also think there has to be more intelligent life out there somewhere.
- [62:40]
A
Okay, I'm going to make a recommendation and then we're going to go for the weekend. I'm thrilled to make this recommendation because it's, it saves me a lot of time. It just got in the mail. A book which is available on Kindle. I'm going to show it to our, our viewers. It's called your Pro Israel Bookshelf and it's by Neville Teller who is, who has been a longtime book reviewer for the Jerusalem Post and, and the Jerusalem Report. And it is a hundred of his reviews of books about Israel. And people are constantly emailing me saying what can I, what book can I give my friend who needs to learn about Israel or what can I, my daughter says it's a genocide. What can I do? And I'm like, there's too, I don't even know how to begin to answer that question aside from get a subscription to Commentary and get them a subscription to Commentary. But so Neville Teller's book, which is a compendium of reviews of books about Israel over the last 20 or so years, is an invaluable guide to what there is out there to help explain different aspects of the Jewish state, of the conflict with the Arabs over the conflict with anti Semite, anti Semites over its role, its purpose, its future, its economy, all of that. And so I heartily recommend this to you. As I said, it's available on Kindle. I looked it up. Your Pro Israel Bookshelf by Neville Teller. T E L L E R so have a wonderful tariff free weekend. We'll be back on Monday. For Christine, Seth and Abe, I'm John Pothoric. Keep the camel burn.
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C
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