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- [00:00]
Child
Please, Mum, don't send me away. I want to stay with you. It's only until all this is over.
- [00:06]
Steve McQueen
From Academy award winner Steve McQueen. Blitz is a masterpiece.
- [00:09]
Child
Your son did not arrive at his destination. You were meant to be looking after him. Where's my boy?
- [00:15]
Steve McQueen
Critics rave. Elliot Heffernan is perfect. Saoirse Ronan is superb.
- [00:19]
Child
I just want to go home. I'll be back when I found my boy.
- [00:22]
Steve McQueen
One of the most enormous cinematic experiences in recent history. Blitz Written and Directed by Steve McQueen. Rated PG 13. Now streaming on Apple TV.
- [00:30]
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- [01:04]
Jon Pod Horowitz
Hope for.
- [01:06]
Abe Greenwald
The best Expect the worst Some preach and pain Some die of thirst no way of knowing which way it's going.
- [01:19]
Jon Pod Horowitz
Hope for the best Expect the worst for the best welcome to the Commentary Magazine daily podcast. Today is Wednesday, December 18, 2024. I am Jon Pod Horowitz, the editor of Commentary Magazine. I have some exciting news for us that I'd like to share with you and see if you want to participate in helping us along our way here. We are very, very close to reaching 5,000 subscribers on YouTube and that is a milestone moment in the ecosystem of YouTube. Our podcast is now airs daily in video form on YouTube. And these 5,000, 10,000, 15,000. These kinds of numbers trigger the YouTube algorithm to start suggesting us to more people, to start adding us to more people's feeds, and to highlight the content that we are providing every day to people who really should be aware of us and may not yet be aware of us. So if you, if you haven't sampled us there and you don't particularly want to, totally understandable. If you want to give it a shot, see how you feel about it, just go to YouTube and go to the search window and type in Commentary Podcast. And if you like and subscribe, you can get our numbers well over 5,000. And then we will be in a, as I said, a kind of different universe of potential viewers, listeners, people that we can influence or amuse or entertain. And that would be very, very helpful to us. And a real holiday gift for the Commentary podcast. So that's YouTube search, commentary podcast and we'll be right there for you to look at us and say, you don't sound. You don't look anything like you sound. Which seems to be a thing that people keep. Keep saying, which is, I think is nice because I think they're surprised by what we look like. And I think that means that people come up with caricature, ish ideas of what we look like, and then we actually look like just normal, regular, tired people, as I am right now. So moving on from that, we have a sort of hodgepodge and potpourri of news. I want to mention one interesting thing.
- [03:49]
Abe Greenwald
You want to introduce us and I.
- [03:51]
Jon Pod Horowitz
Will need to introduce you see, because I'm tired, Matt. I said I was tired and I am tired.
- [03:56]
Abe Greenwald
Well, if they're, listen, if they're watching on YouTube, they can see us.
- [04:00]
Jon Pod Horowitz
They can see that I think I look tired. But of course, you'd have to know what I look like at root to know whether I'm off my ordinary sprightliness into a kind of tiredness. But. Executive editor Abe Greenwald. How are you?
- [04:15]
Seth Mandel
I'm well. Hi, John. The thing is, if they subscribe to YouTube and they get our numbers well above 5,000, they can then enjoy disliking us because we will no longer belong to them. We will now belong to everybody. And the inevitable resentment will follow.
- [04:35]
Jon Pod Horowitz
That's right now. Now we belong to the ages, I believe, as Charles Sumner said, it'll be like when.
- [04:42]
Matthew Continetti
When the bands stop playing clubs and start playing arenas.
- [04:45]
Jon Pod Horowitz
Exactly. And that, of course, is senior editor Seth Mandel. Hi, Seth.
- [04:49]
Matthew Continetti
Hi, John.
- [04:50]
Jon Pod Horowitz
The aforementioned Matthew Continetti, our Washington commentary columnist. Hi, Matt.
- [04:56]
Abe Greenwald
Hi, John.
- [04:56]
Jon Pod Horowitz
And our media commentary columnist, Christine Rosen. Hi, Christine.
- [05:01]
Christine Rosen
Hi, John.
- [05:02]
Jon Pod Horowitz
Okay, so the thing that I wanted to mention is that I am a. I am a. Despite everybody's feelings on these matters, I am a fan of Liz Cheney's. I consider Liz Cheney a friend. I think she has did things in the wake of January 6th that were noble, that she understood she was sacrificing her career for something she believed to be a higher principle. I think that's a very impressive thing for people to do. But. And of course, as you may, as you may have read, Donald Trump is considering some form of legal action against her or the January 6th committee. It's not clear what exactly is going on there. And I find that, you know, appalling and repulsive in many different ways. And obviously, because she was a member of Congress, the speech and debate clause of the Constitution protects almost everything she would have done with said as a member of Congress in a, in an official proceeding. And so this, this suit would be foolishness and a waste of time. However, however, the substance of what it is that she is being attacked for or, or as we, as we hear based on some leaks and some documents, involves Cassidy Hutchinson. Cassie Hutchinson was Mark Meadows's executive assistant or secretary, something like that. Sorry, there's a big clang outside my window if you, if you just heard a weird noise. And she, it was, of course, her stunning testimony that Trump tried to strangle a Secret Service agent in the, in the big car and that he had thrown his plate of French fries with ketchup against the wall and had Ms. And, and that Mark Meadows and others had said things to Cassidy Hutchinson about how Trump had lost it and stuff like that. It was very stunning testimony. I'm bringing this up only to say that what is now being questioned is the veracity of some of Cassidy Hutchinson's statements and the way in which her testimony changed from the first time she spoke to the Jan. 6 committee with a lawyer that had been supplied to her in some fashion by either by the RNC or by Trump World, and then she had changed lawyers, at which point her story altered itself or she then felt comfortable, whatever it was, saying what she believed to be the truth. I'm only bringing this up because I know contemporaneously as she was testifying, somebody, a friend of mine who was involved in the lawyering around January 6, as she was testifying, was texting me saying, I don't understand what she's doing. None of this comports with anything that we've seen or heard before, and we have no evidence that anybody else was present for any of these things that happened with Cassidy Hutchinson. I bring this up because if this goes down the road, it is her testimony. And this question, I think that the Trump people, or Trump himself, have been raising about whether or not Liz, the lawyer that she helped secure, Liz Cheney, helped secure for Cassie Hutchinson and others, that again, her testimony was different the second time than it was the first time. One was behind closed doors, one was in the public hearing, and that I at least have myself, you know, a contemporaneous response that was shocked and disbelieving about Cassie Hutchinson's testimony.
- [09:07]
Seth Mandel
Can I jump in here? I, I don't think the Trump people should bother at all. It's so backward looking. They should enjoy what Matt calls the Trump moon and move forward. I mean, I really, you know, I don't, I don't see what, I don't see the possibility of sort of further vindication, especially in this somewhat recondite point having to do with the larger picture of January 6th.
- [09:38]
Jon Pod Horowitz
I think that's a perfectly fair point. I just, because this came up in the news and because this was something I did not feel comfortable discussing at the time that Cassidy Hutchinson was testifying because the person that I was hearing from, you know, it was a private communication. But I, I am, I am myself dating the private communication. You know, I'm putting a statue of limitations on the private, on the private communication confidentiality clause in our implicit conversation. Just to say that there were questions being raised at that moment about what was going on. That doesn't mean that Liz Cheney should be pursued. It doesn't mean that Cassidy Hutchinson should be pursued. Your point may be entirely merited. But as somebody who admires Liz Cheney and thinks this is a bad idea, nonetheless, I felt obliged, knowing something that I knew at the time to maybe share it, to make sure that people understand that it may not be a completely psychotic break that is leading Trump and the Trump people down this path. It may be a wrong path, a bad path, a politically stupid path, but it's not doesn't come out of nowhere.
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Abe Greenwald
Just to provide some context, this surfaced in the news on Tuesday after the release of a report by the House Administration Oversight Subcommittee chaired by Representative Barry Loudermilk. And report goes into how January 6th may have been prevented. And then the report says, quote, based on the evidence obtained by this subcommittee, numerous federal laws were likely broken by Liz Cheney, the former vice chair of the January 6th select committee, and these violations should be investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Now, at the same time, of course, There was the DoJ, DoJ, IG report on January 6, which came out last week, which also Talked about how January 6th may have been prevented, might have been prevented, and then revealed that there were FBI informants, not agents, but informants in the crowd, in the mob that kind of, you know, took over the Capitol, ransacked the Capitol there. So there are two reports, and I think the takeaway from the House oversight sub report is that this issue is not going away. You know, on yesterday's podcast when we were discussing Trump's press conference and Trump's stated intention to sue the Des Moines Register and Gannett and pollster Ann Seltzer for her poll released the weekend before the election showing Kamala Harris up 33 in Iowa, a state that Harris lost by double digits on Election Day. I said that this was a threat, but as soon as we were done. The news was no longer, it was not a threat. Trump filed a lawsuit on Monday evening and so he is suing Selzer. And what this suggests to me, when we see a report released yesterday and then the write up by John Solomon at Just the News, it suggests to me that the House Republicans and the Trump DOJ will try to pursue these leads. So I don't think it's going away. And it's possibly one reason there's been this talk, this, I think dangerous talk in the Biden White House about preemptive pardons.
- [13:10]
Christine Rosen
Well, the question of whether someone in this case, Cassidy Hutchinson, gave false testimony to Congress isn't an idle question at all. And we should also note that she wasn't merely being handled by lawyers who were sympathetic to one side versus the other, but that she was negotiating a contract to write a tell all memoir for, I assume a fairly decent book advance. So she also had an interest in her story being reshaped, as lawyers like to say, or new memories being recalled when she was briefed by different attorneys. So, I mean, I think politically, I agree with Abe, it's not wise to, to remind the entire American public about January 6th and everything that went with it. And Trump doing so might backfire. But people giving false testimony to Congress, they're sworn in, I mean, this is not good.
- [13:59]
Jon Pod Horowitz
Right. But that's why the pursuit of Liz Cheney is so problematic, which is. Yeah, I mean, if they have evidence that somebody committed perjury under oath, obviously perjury would be under oath. You know, before the, and the, the House has every reason to pursue measures and to look to the federal government to enforce those rules preventing people from, from perjuring themselves under oath as simply as a matter of hygiene to make sure that other people don't do it. The Liz Cheney matter seems to be, or the suggestion in the Loudermilk report or the report by the committee chaired by Loudermilk that she had a role in suborning the perjury or encouraging the perjury. And again, A, that's extraordinarily difficult to prove. Like, that's not a case you would want to take. And B, she is a sitting member of Congress protected by the provisions of the speech and debate clause of the Constitution. Now, I don't think you're allowed to commit felonies as part of the speech and debate clause of the Constitution. However, it does mean that you are beh, sort of like Trump and the immunity question as resolved by the Supreme Court, your behavior as a member of Congress, there's a very expansive definition of what constitutes behavior as a member of Congress that has a constitutional protection. And playing cutesy games with what that might or might not be, including conversations in which, you know, you. You say to Cassidy Hutcherson, not please go perjure yourself, but if you have other things to say, please say them. Here's a lawyer who will help you do that. Cannot possibly be a matter that would trigger a criminal investigation of the sort that seems to be the one desired in some sense by Trump and the Trump people.
- [16:05]
Matthew Continetti
And so there's an angle of this also that we should talk about, which is after all this stuff came out, Ben Williamson, who was, who worked for Trump and for Mark Meadows as chief of staff, he wrote a long thread or a long. Now that you can write more than 280 characters. It's like an article on Twitter about his personal experience. And I think that this is, this is what tipped a lot of it off, because the people who get, the people you tend to sympathize with in these situations are people like congressional staffers who get their lives swept up in the legal process. The type that, John, you were talking about the other day, how it sort of, you know, it can take over your life and all this stuff, it may not be prepared for it. Ben Williamson said that, you know, he. His memory is this. He got a call from Cassidy and before her deposition, and she said that she was worried that Meadows and the others would think she was being disloyal. And he said something like, no one will think you're disloyal just for following a subpoena. And Mark would never ask you to do anything other than the right thing and tell the truth. And that was how he remembered his conversation with her. And at some point during the hearings, there was a message that he said, liz Cheney displayed. I don't know if that means the team or, you know, whatever. But while Cassidy was going to testify, a quote from supposedly from him that said he parentheses, Meadows told me, you have your deposition tomorrow. He knows you're loyal and you're going to do the right thing when you go in for your deposition. And so Ben goes on to say, via public news reports, I later learned this was in reference to me. It was a completely twisted, utterly nonsense retelling of the phone conversation where Cassidy had fretted to me about loyalty. She and the committee embellished parts of the exchange, made up others, and spun it into a lie that appeared like witness intimidation. And the J6 committee then presented this account as factual and leaked my name supporters to create the narrative that I was guilty. So I think the other element here is there are staffers who say that they've been in legal hot water and accused of witness intimidation and interference in the legal process based on false pretenses. And that's something I think they're also going to have to work out, because you may. You may have. There may be a drip, drip of. There may be more Ben Williamson's who come out and say, yeah, that's. That kind of happened to me, too.
- [18:53]
Jon Pod Horowitz
What was interesting about the testimony about the J6 committee, the testimony of Cassidy Hutcherson and other, was it was very dramatic and melodramatic, and it was full of incident. I don't think any of it got to the central point of the hearing and of the committee, which was, you know, Trump's state of mind. Did he want there to be a riot? Did he encourage the riot? Did he, in a sense, incept the riot and all of that. She was testifying to his supposedly deranged state of mind around that day. And it was very colorful. It's kind of beside the point, except in the sense that the January 6 committee had decided, for various reasons, that its purpose was to create a document or document the experience of that day in a way that they could hand the information off that they were gathering to the Justice Department for the purpose of Jack Smith or whoever the Justice Department was going to assign to this case to use as material for potential indictments. So it was not simply an investigation into what happened on January 6. It morphed into a fact criminal effort to do criminal fact finding on behalf of the Justice Department. And to that extent, it clearly was kind of a failure, number one. And number two, I'm sorry, Matt wants to. I just. And number two, I thought that the committee had done politically a good job in the sense that it highlighted the event, it put it made a narrative out of what happened when the crowd went from the speech down to the Capitol, what happened, the video, all of that stuff that was cut together and that it had done damage politically, it had done damage to Trump by. Even if you weren't gonna, like, throw the book at him on January 6, allowing people of goodwill to look at this and say, boy, my God, this was really horrible and unseemly, and he didn't really do anything to stop it while it was happening. And that's bad. I still think that's probably true. That then all of the other behavior, the Mar A Lago raid and the brag charges and other things, then all of it kind of came together as a. Well, they're all just going after. They're just using whatever weapons they can pull to hand to go for Trump's jugular, to keep him out of the presidency in 2024.
- [21:55]
Abe Greenwald
I wanted to say, I mean, to pick up on your thoughts. I mean, the meaning of January 6th seems to have changed over the past four years in ways that scramble the politics of it. And I was among many who thought that January 6th marked the end of the Trump phenomenon, watching it unfold on live television, and was very disturbed by it and continue to be disturbed by it. But the way in which most people, I think, interpret it now is very different. And I'm not just talking about kind of the core members of the Trump movement to ascribe various theories, to diminish it, or to say that Trump was not responsible for gathering the crowd and talking about the crowd, telling the crowd to march to the Capitol peacefully, as we were always reminded. He said that. But a larger sense, I think, among the public that it does that that day does not carry or has have as much weight on the public imagination as we thought it did at the time. And you may be onto something, John, when you say that the turn was after the midterms elections of 2022, when the lawfare against Trump began, when Jack Smith was appointed, when suddenly Trump seemed more of a target of the federal government than someone who had try to remain in office after losing an election. And so now, when we see these reports filter through, I think the public receives them very differently than they might have two years ago in the summer of 2022. And that suggests to me that there's an opening here for Trump to. To pursue his stated January 6th agenda, that is pardoning many of the people who are jailed for what happened that day, and also pursuing the committee members who did so much to not only damage Trump and the Republican party in the 2022 midterms, but also lay the predicate for Jack Smith and the Justice Department to go after Trump legally.
- [24:36]
Jon Pod Horowitz
My wife and I have a disagreement.
- [24:37]
Podcast Host
When it comes to gift giving at the holidays. She likes to ask people what they might want and then provide it to them.
- [24:44]
Jon Pod Horowitz
I kind of prefer the act where.
- [24:48]
Podcast Host
You think of something that somebody might not want to think of for themselves and do it that way. It's risky because sometimes you will make a big mistake and someone will not want what you want, or they will say, oh, my God, look what you've done for me. This is something I would never have done for myself. I like that feeling. And for quality gifts at an affordable price, that little bit of luxury that people don't know they're missing. My go to is Quince. Quince lets you treat your loved ones and yourself to everyday luxury at an affordable price. Something everyone needs in their closet in my opinion. Quince's iconic Mongolian cashmere sweaters which started $50. I'm wearing one myself. If you watch our podcast on YouTube you will often see me in a Quince Mongolian cashmere sweater. Or for the ultimate year round gifts, check out their 14 karat gold jewelry, Italian leather handbags and European linen sheet sets. Whatever you're looking for, all Quint Items are priced 50 to 80% less than similar brands. How do they do that? By partnering directly with top factories and cutting out the cost of the middleman which passes the savings on to you. Quince is on the nice list. They tell me they only work with factories that use safe, ethical and responsible manufacturing practices and they use premium fabrics and finishes for that luxury feel in every piece. Look, got one free piece of Quints clothing when they decided to start advertising with us so that I could sample their wares. Since that happened, I have bought multiple Quint sweaters. I bought a couple of Quince shirts.
- [26:26]
Abe Greenwald
I bought.
- [26:26]
Podcast Host
I am a Quints fan. I am a Quint customer and so you should follow me and gift luxury this holiday season without the luxury price tag. Go to quint.com commentary for 365 day returns plus free shipping on your order. That's Q U I n c e.com commentary to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quints.com commentary.
- [26:55]
Child
Please mum, don't send me away. I want to stay with you. It's only until all this is over.
- [27:01]
Steve McQueen
From Academy award winner Steve McQueen, Blitz is a masterpiece.
- [27:05]
Child
Your son did not arrive at his destination. You were meant to be looking after him. Where's my boy?
- [27:10]
Steve McQueen
Critics rave. Elliot Heffernan is perfect. Saoirse Ronan is superb.
- [27:14]
Child
I just want to go home. I'll be back When I found my boy.
- [27:17]
Steve McQueen
One of the most enormous cinematic experiences in recent history. Blitz, written and Directed by Steve McQueen. Rated PG13, now streaming on Apple TV.
- [27:25]
Jon Pod Horowitz
Plus one other point that follows on from that is that the January 6th aftermath provided a successful blueprint for what should happen. Should there be a public riot at the Capitol or in, you know, important corridors of power, by which I mean more than 1200 people were arrested. I don't know how many people are Currently in jail. These sentences, which were all. Some of them were. There were guilty pleas, some of them went through the legal process. These sentences were all adjudicated by juries and judges. The sentences were brought down under our legal system as we envision it. And I think that in terms of the deterrent effect, whether or not they all get pardoned or they get clemency or whatever, there was a matter of public civil hygiene that happened here that will keep people from thinking that this is something that you can do without consequence. Clearly, most or many of the people in the crowd swept up in what was going on, did think that they could do what they were doing without consequence or were cosplaying or were in some kind of weird, as Emile Durkheim, the sociologist, put it, state of collective effervescence, in which they were sort of carried on by the logic of the mob that they were in, and they had their hats handed to them, and they had their lives ruined and destroyed, or at least, you know, for a time. And in that sense, the response to the actual acts on the Hill that day was salutary, in my opinion.
- [29:20]
Podcast Host
Even if you want to be one.
- [29:21]
Jon Pod Horowitz
Of these Federalist people who thinks that everybody was railroaded, which is preposterous. We watched it in real time. And I mean, we watched it in real time. We saw hundreds of people breaking into the Capitol, smashing through doors, wandering around the building. It is not the public's building. They did not have the right to do anything that they did. Maybe the sentences were very harsh, maybe they weren't. Maybe it depends on who they were. But that. That was a real thing. Then you have the step up to, Was Trump responsible for the 1200 people doing what they did at the Capitol? And that was always going to be a hard lift for several reasons. One of which is he's the president. Second of which is he did use the word go peacefully to the mob. And the third of which is that even as president, he has the right to freedom of speech, and he can stand there and say, they stole the election from me and I, you know, and we need to do something about that. He is not forbidden from expressing his views as a person because he was president. Did he behave recklessly? Did he behave irresponsibly? And then the 2024 election ends up because the Senate did not convict him, because the decision was made to leave him to heaven. The 2024 election became the adjudication of whether or not Trump should or should not be president again after January 6th. And the American People decided that it was not sufficient to prevent him from being president.
- [31:03]
Christine Rosen
But that's why him. That's why I think to Abe's earlier point, there are two separate things we're talking about there, the legal consequences of beating up cops and trespassing on federal property. And on that, I completely agree with you. I know people in law enforcement who were there that day. We should never excuse the behavior of that crowd. Doesn't matter who. Regardless of setting aside the Trump issue, they were beating up law enforcement, they were forcing their way into a federal building, they were threatening members of Congress. This is bad. The political consequences, though, I think you're right. And so why not take the win if you're Trump, right? Why not just take the win and leave the rest to history? There's something motivating him, whether it's vengeance or whatnot. He's not trying to correct a record. He's not. He's trying to score a political point by using the criminal justice system in the exact same way that I think he successfully won an election, arguing that he had been the target of that same sort of behavior.
- [31:57]
Jon Pod Horowitz
So that's where this stands. We'll see where it goes. We'll also see whether Biden has offered him an interesting out in the behavior relating to the pardons and the clemencies over the last two or three weeks, which is say he keeps saying, I'm going to pardon, I'm going to pardon, I'm going to pardon. So what did Biden mostly do? What Biden mostly did was grant clemency to like 1500 people. So I can see a world in which Trump, following that model, provides clemency to the J6 rioters after all. In fact, if they're still in jail, they've been in jail for a pretty long time for a federal charge. Just simply the fact of the matter is some of them have been in jail for two years or two and a half years or something like that. And if he's like, I'm granting them clemency, pardon's a different thing. Pardoning is a very, very significant, politically ruinous, very questionable thing to do. People don't like pardons. The public doesn't like pardons. They don't like blanket pardons. Politicians, reputations like Bill Clinton's. People forget this. I think we talked about it when Biden, pardon hunter, people forget the damage that Bill Clinton did to his reputation on his way out the door with the pardons that he provided the last week that he was president. It was very significant. That he pardoned the fugitive financier Mark Rich. It embarrassed the people who had been defending him. It left them slack jawed and open mouthed and horrified. And he was kind of in the wilderness as an ex president for quite a while. People don't, don't remember this like. And so Trump is playing with fire with the idea that in order to satisfy Molly Hemingway, he should take, you know, a thousand people who were convicted in a court of law and say you're totally free and I'm cleansing you of all sin.
- [34:12]
Seth Mandel
It won't be to satisfy Molly though. It'll be, it'll be to satisfy the people that he has vowed to do this for and to their thousands and thousands of supporters out there.
- [34:26]
Jon Pod Horowitz
Right. But what he doesn't, what, what, what maybe Trump world is not reckoning with is what again, the body of opinion that said, okay, you know what, I'm going to vote for him for president January 6th. Whatever. Like Biden's a terrible president. Harris is terrible. He's going to try to f. That's good. Why stain these less ideological people who voted for you? Why begin your presidency by throwing in their faces one of the things that was something that you, that they were maybe less enamored of.
- [35:05]
Abe Greenwald
What was the phrase from the first term? Promises made, promises kept, promoting. I mean he's been saying this. He's, he told. It's true, Meet the Press.
- [35:13]
Jon Pod Horowitz
But that's why I say clemency might be. In other words, there may be a middle ground.
- [35:17]
Abe Greenwald
He always, I'm sorry, he always, to the bank, he always says case by case.
- [35:24]
Jon Pod Horowitz
Right.
- [35:24]
Abe Greenwald
And so, you know, I don't think he's going to pardon Stuart Rhodes or Q Shaman.
- [35:30]
Jon Pod Horowitz
Right. Is that Shaman or who is huge Shaman, I can't remember.
- [35:33]
Abe Greenwald
Stuart Rhodes is the Oath Keeper guy who the Oath Keeper tried for seditious conspiracy.
- [35:38]
Jon Pod Horowitz
Right. Or, or Q Shit, he's not going to pardon q shama.
- [35:41]
Abe Greenwald
Well, q3 min's out.
- [35:43]
Jon Pod Horowitz
But you could still pardon him. Sure.
- [35:45]
Abe Greenwald
I mean he'd probably pardon that guy. He's kind of become a cult figure.
- [35:50]
Jon Pod Horowitz
Okay.
- [35:51]
Abe Greenwald
You know, but I think, I think he, I think they'll look, the White House counsel will look case by case and then they'll determine, you know, clemency. Pardon, what is it? But I agree with you, John. If that's, if it does begin on day one like he's saying, people are going to say, well, hold it. It better be in concert with moves on the border and the economy, which are the reasons he won the election.
- [36:17]
Jon Pod Horowitz
I Didn't vote for you. Right. I didn't vote for you. To pardon the, the J6.
- [36:23]
Abe Greenwald
But he's always, he has always understood that he has a gut connection with his base supporters. This was the case throughout the first term. He only wanted to keep that connection with this base solid. He never really expanded into the middle of the electorate or into the independent side of the electorate. And that carried through in his, the four years of exile here. He's in an unusual situation where his coalition is so large that, you know, and so varied in different ways that he has to understand if he only satisfies one part of it, then that might lead to weakening the other sides. But I think he's gonna, I think he's gonna do this and I do think that Liz Cheney has to get ready for some type of investigation.
- [37:13]
Jon Pod Horowitz
I really, I mean, I'm sure she is ready for, for an investigation. As I say, I just think the, the terms that are being discussed represent an almost insuperable barrier to her actually it just ending on the walls side of a judge.
- [37:31]
Abe Greenwald
Think about the Selzer lawsuit, right? I mean they're, he's suing Gannett, the Des Moines Register and Ansels are a private pollster for violating a consumer protection act in Iowa. I mean, facially, it doesn't seem like this has any merit at all. And so the same questions and the same scrutiny should be applied to whatever the government or Trump's private attorneys do vis a vis the J6 committee and Liz Cheney and others.
- [38:03]
Jon Pod Horowitz
I mean, that's another.
- [38:04]
Matthew Continetti
There's a couple of things here to remember. One is that he's not doing that. He's not pardoning anybody. He's not making any of the pardon decisions. Right. So we, if you want to speculate, you'd have to know who's, you know, if it's going to be the White House counsel or somebody. But Trump is, is going to rubber stamps likely what the White House counsel tells him. He's not going to say no. Remember Mikey? Mikey Greenbaum? I know Mikey. He's a good guy. No, you really should. We should really pardon him or what? You know, he's not going to go through the.
- [38:35]
Jon Pod Horowitz
I don't think there was anyone named Mikey Greenbaum in that crowd, Seth. I'm sorry, that's. You got your generic. You got your generic Day six rioters.
- [38:43]
Matthew Continetti
What happens when you're from Lake with your generic names? You know, it's like he's gonna say Ploni Al Moni.
- [38:49]
Jon Pod Horowitz
Yeah, right.
- [38:49]
Matthew Continetti
Yeah, but. And the Other thing is that he is. He's not. He's a lame duck from day one. And I think that that is going to affect his decision making in some ways, too. Does he want to be seen as a successful president? Sure. Does he want J.D. vance to, unless they have a falling out, presumably be the nominee in four years and be his successor? Yes, but it's always, yes, but with Trump, the top of line is never, what is the legacy of my party? What is the legacy of what is the future look like for Republicans? And so I think the fact that he doesn't have to run for can't run, hopefully won't run for a third term, means that I think he's less affected by these discussions about what his base wants, what his voters want, what he was elected to do. I think that he came back to come back, and he's gonna do what he's gonna do because he's Donald Trump and he's gonna be less affected by anything that would normally come up in three, start coming up in three years in attack Act.
- [40:03]
Jon Pod Horowitz
The other point, I think, which adds to your point, then we can move on from this, is, as Matt said, he's in a political position. He's only been in politics for 10 years, but he's in a political position he has not been in before. He is popular. He is more popular than he is unpopular. That has never been the case. He won the popular vote. That didn't happen in 2016. It certainly didn't happen in 2020. His ratings are good. And when your ratings are good, what we would describe that in political terms is, you know what, it's sometimes really good to have good ratings or to look at because that provides you with political capital and allows you to do some risky things that you can spend your political capital down as a bet and then see if they work, then your ratings are going to go higher, your approval will go higher because you will have pulled something good off. Trump, I believe, looks at this in a different way, which is he now has something to lose that he didn't have to lose before. When he's at 44% in the approval ratings, he's not like, man, if I do this, I'm going to go down to 42% in the approval ratings. To hell with that. Who knows? Who knows where that's going to go? But if he's at 50 or 51% approval and he's never been there before and he's feeling that comfort that we saw in the press conference and other things, there may be part of his animal cunning or his sense of what it is that he wants where he says, you know, like, I don't want to change up the programming too much and I don't need this controversy. I don't need to generate this controversy at the very beginning of this term. This, this completely unprecedented term where I have other fish I want to fry and other things that I need to do. Now maybe I'm overestimating him. Maybe his vengeance cunning is higher than his man. This is great. I'm like, I'm really, I'm like at the top of the Nielsen's, you know, I don't want to go off and do a weird episode where people are like, why are you even doing that? Let's, let's watch, you know, let, let, let's see the, the right episode of the Apprentice.
- [42:24]
Abe Greenwald
There's going to be a lot going on. And so it, just as with the nominations, so much is going to be flying at us that it will be hard to concentrate on any one thing. Right. And so Trump may not even take the lead on this. He, it may be Cash Patel who decides to investigate the January 6th committee. And then in a situation Trump might not even talk about it until asked. And then he'll say, well, he's looking into it. There's Right. And of course he'll say, I was wronged. I was wronged. It's, yeah, it was a terrible commit. So I, I don't know, I'm, I think this is going to be part of the storyline in addition to all the half dozen other stories that we're already tracking becomes president, are going to become news again. Right. Right.
- [43:16]
Jon Pod Horowitz
So let's talk about some more boring governmental issues that are facing, facing us as the year comes to an end. Republican Party has enjoyed a moment of comedy and goodwill and a sense of well being since the election that appears maybe to be coming to an end with the fact that the House in particular has to make moves to keep the government funded. That's the continuing resolution process that is going on in the House. And we are back yet again as we were throughout 2023 or the beginning of 2023 with Mike Johnson, the Speaker, trying to figure out a way to keep the government open. And every Republican, not every Republican congressman, but the most sort of the, the most populist of Republican congressmen saying he's surrendering to the left and he's giving everything that the, the left wants. And this, this again, not to go like crazy on the Federalists, but this bill is a leftist abomination, said Sean Davis of the Federalists. Like the all this kind of logic and language simply about doing something where they can get this past the first over the hump of the first three months so that the government can remain open and Trump can be in a position to do instead of having an organizational catastrophe of the sort that ended up ousting Kevin McCarthy and bringing in Mike Johnson. Mike Johnson saying they're with a two or three seat majority in the House, if even that. Matt, what's your I don't believe in.
- [45:02]
Abe Greenwald
Reincarnation, but if I did, I would not want to come back as a Republican speaker of the House of Representatives. Make me a rock. I'd rather just be a granite stone than a Republican speaker of the House. It is such a tough job just to think about what Mike Johnson has chosen over the past couple of weeks. He went into this with the belief from the populist conservatives that the worst thing that could happen would be an omnibus bill that tied up all the spending in one big BO and just cleared the decks for the next fiscal year. They said, don't do that. We hate omnibus bills. What we want instead, they said, was a continuing resolution for six months to kick it into Trump's term so that unified Republican government could handle the spending for the rest of the current fiscal year and get ready for the next one. Mike Johnson said, okay, that's what I'm going to do. And he began the process of doing a relatively clean continuing resolution that is maintaining current spending levels and programs with an addition of hurricane disaster relief because of the two awful hurricanes that hit earlier this autumn. Well, because of math, because of the narrow margins in the House of Representatives, Johnson then got in, in, in snared or had forced to participate in a negotiation with the Democrats. And the result, I'm just going to quote here, Jake Sherman of Punchbowl News who's, you know, just an expert reporter on the House. Johnson ended up choosing a middle ground. Jake Sherman reports this morning, loading up an 84 day continuing resolution with a pile of unrelated policies. A bonanza for Democrats with very little to show for Republicans. This is Jake Sherman. Just an amazingly huge bill. Everything from health care policy to financial services policy to consumer policy. This is how business in D.C. is done. Jake Sherman says, make no mistake, but this is not how Johnson said he would legislate. And now he's. And now that you're hearing Continetti, not Jake Sherman, now he's in a position where he's facing a real revolt on the right, just to talk about some of the things that are in the cr. Yes, the hurricane relief is in there, but so is full federal payment for the Francis Scott Key Bridge in across Baltimore harbor, which became a object of derision among many House Republicans. They didn't want that. Also in here is some type of free trade agreement with Haiti. And I think a lot of Republicans are going to say, well, hold it. What? Why are we voting? Voting for this, you know, without any debate. Also included, apparently, is granting D.C. control over the football stadium in, in the city, RFK Stadium. That would allow D.C. to rebuild the stadium. I think quite funnily enough, that if they keep the name rfk, who else will be there but the future Secretary of Health and Human Services to kind of break the champagne bottle against the wall? RFK Jr. Of course.
- [48:37]
Jon Pod Horowitz
Yes.
- [48:38]
Abe Greenwald
So the more you look at this, what they're asked to be voting on, the more you see, oh, wow, there's a lot of stuff that actually Democrats wanted here. And Republicans are going to be saying, do we really want to vote for this? Elon Musk, the first buddy, he said there's no way this should pass. Now, there is one thing that's been promised, and I should say before I end this rant or description, is that there will be the Doge act that will also be voted on as part of this continuing resolution. So there is, I think, a kind of crumb, a trail of crumbs that could lead some members of the Freedom Caucus to support it, because Doge act would empower Musk and Ramaswamy. But this is going to be like everything a Republican speaker with these margins faces, a very narrow deal. And Johnson may be forced once again to suspend the rules and to carry this spending bill across the line with Democratic votes. That's, I think, a pretty precarious way for him to end this Congress. And it may be why he spent so much time strengthening that bond with Donald Trump, who does continue to support him.
- [49:55]
Seth Mandel
Yeah, it's not just the small margins that he's dealing with. It's also that Republicans still have this maximalist mindset. Republicans, I would add, to some degree other than Trump. I could sooner see Trump saying, it's no big deal. He's got to do what he's got to do. He's a good guy. We're going to get this all taken care of once I'm. Once I'm in. But, yeah, the caucus is locked into this maximalism.
- [50:27]
Matthew Continetti
Well.
- [50:27]
Christine Rosen
And he's never had a strategy for dealing with his stubborn Slash insanely conspiratorial caucus. The Marjorie Taylor Greene problem. And it is, it is notable that he's spending so much time with Trump, although every time I see a picture of him in like a skybox with Trump, he looks like the, like assistant vice principal has been sent as a chaperone when it's like Musk and Trump and all the other folks there. But he, he, part of why he won is that he didn't telegraph having a strategy for corralling the extremists in his party.
- [50:56]
Jon Pod Horowitz
Right.
- [50:56]
Christine Rosen
He kind of, he just pretends they're not there, but he's not going to be able. That pretense ends when Trump comes in and we see how much power he actually has because they are perfectly willing, the Marjorie Taylor Greene's in the Republican caucus are perfectly willing to never legislate again, to just cause problems because they're rewarded for that in the public sphere by their supporters.
- [51:17]
Abe Greenwald
Well, I do think though, when Trump is in office as the head of a unified Republican government, a lot of the complaining will be kind of diminished because the Republicans don't want to go against Trump. There's no sign right now of, say, the revolt of the small government conservatives that happened after Hurricane Katrina and President Bush's address to the nation where he called for a huge recovery and assistance bill for New Orleans. And the small government conservatives led by Representative Mike Pence really began a revolt that was a sign of the end of the George W. Bush presidency in its final two years. We're not there yet. So what I, I think what is going on in Johnson's head is let's just get over the finish line. I heard him at the press conference yesterday and he said we're just gonna do this and then we're gonna have unified control and we'll all be happy again.
- [52:14]
Christine Rosen
That only works if he has Trump behaving like a disciplined partner in legislating. And Trump has never been a disciplined partner in anything.
- [52:22]
Abe Greenwald
And I, right now, it's interesting, right? Right now Trump has said he supports Mike Johnson. And as of 9:21am, as we're recording this podcast on December 18th, I have not seen any comment from Trump on the spending bill. Now it is interesting that Elon Musk is going after it, but what does that mean? At the end of the day, really, the only voice that counts in my view, is Trump's.
- [52:46]
Jon Pod Horowitz
So, Matt Con Nettie, you are up today with a commentary recommends.
- [52:50]
Abe Greenwald
Yes, thank you, John. We haven't been doing many recommends lately because we're doing our bonus shows for the holiday break. But Attention holiday shoppers. I did want to recommend a book for people who are out there buying last minute Christmas and Hanukkah gifts. The book is called the Mercy of gods by James S.A. corey. James S.A. cory is a nom de plume, a pseudonym of two science fiction authors. One is a man named. Let me see who they are. By the name of Daniel Abraham and the other is Ty Frank. Together under the name James S.A. corey they created the sci fi series the Expanse which became a very popular television program in addition to a long running series of novels. I have not actually read any of the Expanse, but on a lark I picked up the Mercy of Gods, which is the first book in their new series called the Captives War. And I have to say it's the best piece of science fiction I've read in a very long time. As, as viewers or listeners to the podcast know, I am a sci fi guy, but I tend to really like the classic science fiction, especially new wave science fiction from the 1960s and early 70s. But the mercy of Gods is the story of an alien invasion of a future Earth like planet. So humans have appeared many thousands of years ago on this planet called Anjin and they've developed in its ecosystem. They have no idea where they came from or how they got there, but they have this civilization on this planet and then one day the carrots arrive and the Carex are this extremely advanced species that basically conquer other species and integrate them as slaves into their empire. And that's what they do to the humans in the Captives War. I don't want to give any more spoilers because I read this book which is about 400 pages in two days. I was so riveted by it. But I think it's a great start to new science fiction series. And so if you like this type of literature, I highly recommend it. If you know a young person. I was recently asked by a young person what sci fi they should read. I would give them the Mercy of Gods. They will not be disappointed.
- [55:20]
Jon Pod Horowitz
People really, really love the TV series the Sci Fi, which I think is now on Netflix. The series the Expanse based on their their first books. And Jonah Goldberg, for example, is a huge fan of the Expanse and I found it very difficult to watch myself. I just wanted to throw this out that there's this world of science fiction television where you set things hundreds of years or thousands of years in the future. And because they don't really have the money to show you what these worlds are really like, they don't have sort of like Marvel level budgets. They're always like on a ship or they're in a. The planet is underground. And so they're like. They're basically on a set. And you can see that it's a set because they're always inside a marketplace or something like that. And I find those shows unbelievably claustrophobic.
- [56:15]
Abe Greenwald
Yeah. And I'm pretty sure in the Expanse there are no aliens. If I'm right, the idea of the.
- [56:19]
Jon Pod Horowitz
No, it's a civil war among humans who have gone to colonize.
- [56:23]
Abe Greenwald
Right.
- [56:23]
Jon Pod Horowitz
So there's several war between Mars and Earth, I believe, if I remember right.
- [56:27]
Abe Greenwald
At least in the first couple.
- [56:28]
Jon Pod Horowitz
But yeah, yeah.
- [56:29]
Abe Greenwald
So. So in this series, though, there are a lot of aliens.
- [56:32]
Jon Pod Horowitz
Right.
- [56:33]
Abe Greenwald
If you like that, you're gonna. You're gonna be like me and you're just good. It's gonna be like candy.
- [56:38]
Jon Pod Horowitz
Right. But if you don't. If you actually aren't claustrophobic, aren't 10 toward claustrophobia in settings like the Expanse TV show. Many people who really love this kind of TV think it's like one of the best things over the last 10 years. Also may be worth, you know, giving a. Giving a sample shot to. So again, how do you spell the last name of the author of the. Of the joined author, the joint author.
- [57:09]
Abe Greenwald
James S.A. so those are his middle initials. Corey C O R E Y. James S A, Corey.
- [57:17]
Jon Pod Horowitz
And the title again?
- [57:18]
Abe Greenwald
The mercy of God.
- [57:19]
Jon Pod Horowitz
The mercy of Gods. Okay, well, we did.
- [57:21]
Matthew Continetti
It's actually two authors in raincoat, trench.
- [57:24]
Jon Pod Horowitz
Coat, one standing on one other's shoulders, and they're like 8ft tall. All right, well, we will be back tomorrow. For Abe, Seth, Matt and Christine, I'm John Pot Horitz. Keep the candle bur.