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- [00:04]
Noah Rothman
Hope for the best, expect the worst Some preach and pain Some die of.
- [00:14]
John Podhoretz
Thirst the way of knowing which way.
- [00:18]
Noah Rothman
It'S going Hope for the best, expect the worst.
- [00:25]
John Podhoretz
Welcome to the Commentary magazine daily podcast. Today is Tuesday, June 10, 2025. I am John Pothorc, editor of Commentary magazine. With me as always, executive editor Abe Greenwald. Hi, Abe.
- [00:37]
Seth Mandel
Hi, John.
- [00:38]
John Podhoretz
Senior editor Seth Mandel. Hi, Seth.
- [00:41]
Christine Rosen
Hi, John.
- [00:42]
John Podhoretz
Social commentary columnist Christine Rosen. Hi, Christine.
- [00:46]
Abe Greenwald
Hi, John.
- [00:46]
John Podhoretz
And joining us today, our old pal, Commentary podcast originator, senior editor at National Review. And I like to think of him as our left wing violence correspondent because he has been writing for Commentary and the website on the subject of, of left wing domestic violence for a decade. In article after article, our own Noah Rothman. I know.
- [01:13]
Noah Rothman
Hi, John. Geez, you really put everything in perspective there.
- [01:17]
John Podhoretz
A decade, it's been a decade.
- [01:20]
Christine Rosen
Is domestic violence what, how we want to characterize?
- [01:24]
John Podhoretz
Perhaps I meant terrorism. Terrorism is not his. International terrorism is not his subject. Domestic civil violence, how is that civil violence? I mean, on our shores.
- [01:37]
Christine Rosen
Yeah, Domestic extremists.
- [01:39]
John Podhoretz
It's terroristic, too. All right, so.
- [01:43]
Noah Rothman
Get your door from local cops.
- [01:46]
John Podhoretz
Day four of the meltdown of Los Angeles. And now the issue has turned into a very complicated political football because since the Trump administration announced that it was sending, it was, it was deploying the California National Guard over the objections of the state's governor or 2,000 members of the National Guard, it has also announced the deployment of 700 marines, which takes this to a very interesting and genuinely unprecedented place, the use of American members of the American military. There are at least two laws on the books dating back to the 19th century to prevent or to make it extraordinarily difficult for the president to do what he just did yesterday. And I guess he will be invoking them if he is challenged in court that the military is not to be used as a law enforcement, domestic law enforcement agency. And on the other hand, I think we are back in the Rorschach test world, ideological world that partisan, our partisan divisions have caused, which is that I think probably if you talk to us and most people on the center right, and correspondents, you know, congressmen, senators, all of that, from the center to the right, you would hear that they think that the Democratic Party has gone insane in not speaking out more forthrightly about the nature of the violence that is being enacted in the streets of Los Angeles against federal law enforcement officers and in an effort to make difficult, if not impossible, their assigned task. And then I think on the people from the center to the left believe that this is the Trump administration overreaching to the extent that it may be running a test drive of its authoritarian desire to suspend the competition, the competition, the Constitution and habeas corpus, and to militarize our cities and take them over and lead us into an age of thousand year darkness.
- [04:22]
Noah Rothman
Noah I mean, well, that's the worst thing about it, right, is that both parties want to project the worst image of themselves onto the American political landscape and convey to the voting public, and particular their activists at the core of their base, that they are wholly uncompromising and utterly deaf and blind to the appeals of good government types and civic activists. Because, you know, the situation now is just so dire that these are what the times demand. There is a lot of theater here, and these are small stages. There is something to be said for it was really contemptuous the degree to which we heard journalists and political observers say, you know, Los Angeles is really, really big, you know, and, and just because a couple of blocks are on fire doesn't mean the whole city's on fire. I don't know what the implication there is that their neighbors shouldn't care if their city is on fire, that riots aren't a social contagion that will expand if they're not arrested. If their expansion is not arrested, I get, I mean, it was as journalism, it's smart because we all encounter the people who watch too much cable news and think that if you go to Chicago, you will be assaulted, 100% chance. So there isn't a journalistic element to that. But that's not what they were trying to do, Right? They were trying to convey to you that you shouldn't care about these things. But at the same time, you know, we've seen reports that these deployments of National Guardsmen, for example, they're not actively engaged in riot control, not yet. They're really taking a support role, which they probably should. But the Trump administration doesn't want you to know that. They want you to think that they're completely engaged and completely 100% secure in their, in their belief that they can put these riots down with maximum force, even if they're not. They want you to think that Democrats who are running block for these protesters, and they are running block for these protesters, degree to which they presume to speak for them, make excuses for them, imply by saying, listen, you're giving them what they want, right? What they're saying there is, you could listen to reason. We're all on the same side. You're making our lives so much more difficult, guys. Just be normal, and we can all. We can all seek our shared objectives together. They're saying that these people are on our team, that these are the shock troops. You don't want to make them mad because these are the. This is the force we hold in reserve. This is our deterrent. And all of this is theatrical to a certain degree, but it's a very menacing sort of theater, and it's the sort of thing that could evolve into a real. A real dangerous condition if they really. If the. If the. The cost players here start to buy their own hype.
- [07:01]
Seth Mandel
Well, on the theatrical point, especially on the part of the politicians. So this is a question I have. So everyone's reporting. Trump has indicated that he may want to arrest Gavin Newsom if he objects to the National Guard and the Marines in California. Now, I'm trying to get the timeline right. Didn't Newsom first say, then come arrest me? Yeah, right.
- [07:34]
Christine Rosen
Right.
- [07:35]
John Podhoretz
He said it to Tom Holman, the head of ice, not to.
- [07:38]
Seth Mandel
That's his storyline. Right. And Trump was responding to it.
- [07:42]
John Podhoretz
Right, right.
- [07:44]
Seth Mandel
Yeah. So there's a lot of that, you know.
- [07:46]
John Podhoretz
Right. Okay. So on that, so there's Newsom saying, come arrest me. And then Trump says, Gavin Newsom should be arrested. Then it's like, oh, my God. Trump said, Gavin Newsom should be arrested. Then there's Kristi Noem, the head of the Department of Homeland Security, saying LA is a city of criminals. She literally went on TV last night and said, LA has gone from being a city of immigrants, which it is not, to being a city of criminals, which it is not. And she is the head of the Department of Homeland Security in which ICE is based. And so, yes, rhetoric verging on the psychotic is coming out on all sides. The statements that say, you know, we need our immigrants. When ICE's job is literally to police immigration in the United States, to divide between lawful and unlawful immigrants. I mean to say these people are unlawfully here, and we have the right and the power and the need in some cases to remove them or to detain them or to do whatever because they are in violation of American law. That part of the federal government. And remember, isn't government just the things that we all do together? Isn't that what both that Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and Kamala Harris and Joe Biden have said? Government is just the name of the things that we do together? So aren't ICE agents just part of what we do together? Apparently not. Apparently what we're supposed to do aren't.
- [09:35]
Christine Rosen
We all ICE agents, when you think about it, when it really comes down to it.
- [09:41]
John Podhoretz
Well, I mean, there is an argument to be made that, yeah, you are living next door to somebody who's here illegally, and you have the perfect right to call the authorities to say, I think my. My neighbor is here illegally. That is like calling and saying, you know, somebody is dealing drugs out of the next department, they are in violation of the law. And that's just if you, I mean, let's just make this clear, because I, as I've said for 10 years on this podcast, like I am at, I am at root as dovish as you can possibly be on immigration. But if you move into a frame in which you are, you, you have decided to take something that was once a crime, that was prosecuted or looked at glancingly because of a sort of national consensus that it didn't really matter all that much and that resources should be debt allocated to other things. Then you have a national election in which it's the main or one of the two main issues and the public votes for a different stance on illegal immigration. Like, it's time to get really, really tough about it. And the previous administration had let 6 to 7 to 8 million people in and let them through and they escaped into the country. You don't have a leg to stand on. Trump won the election. He has. The one mandate that I think we know he has is to get tough on illegal immigration. And all of these local officials are saying, no, you don't have the right to do this. Immigration is a national law enforcement obligation. Right. It could use help. It could use help from local authorities because, you know, you don't necessarily want Border Patrol agents, you know, in cities in the north, they're not on the border doing whatever it is that they're doing. So it would be nice if local law enforcement helps, but it's not necessary. They have absolute authority to do what they do, to stage a raid on a, on a warehouse where people are working to arrest them and deport them. It's their job.
- [11:59]
Abe Greenwald
But this is actually, this is where Noah's point about the theatricality of some of both sides in this conflagration is at risk of slipping into actual trouble. I don't think our head of our Department of Homeland Security should spend as much time on cable news and social media as she should be in her office doing her job. She a performative Cabinet member. We have a lot of them in this administration, and that's perfectly harmless if they're doing something that doesn't have to do with, you know, border security or homeland defense. And so I find it really annoying. I don't think it's just silly when she speaks like that. That hyperbole is dangerous. That rhetoric is not helping a situation. Trump loves it, though, and that's fine. As you said, he was elected and immigration was one of his most powerful issues. But there is on the left this tendency to think that the what's been the conventional wisdom about illegal immigration for so long, and particularly in states like California, which is that it won't be enforced, or if so, only half heartedly. They're, they're suddenly feeling provoked because the raids are happening. Local officials do not have to help federal ICE enforcers. They don't, but they cannot obstruct them from doing their job. And that's what's changed. Now. The left believes that they have a duty, a moral duty to obstruct federal officers from performing their role, and they do not. That's where I think the heart of this conflict requires level heads and different sorts of rhetoric that do get into the legal weeds a bit, because this is also a challenge of federalism, states rights, the federal government's rights. And neither the state governor in California nor, unfortunately, a lot of Biden ministry or Trump administration officials are talking about it in that way. They are posturing, as Noah said.
- [13:41]
Noah Rothman
Christine, you raise a point that clarifies something for me. So one of my big overarching theses about left wing violence and the degree to which Democrats imprudently embrace these movements because they look really like zealous. They look like they're displays of organic political zeal that can be harnessed and wielded towards their ends, and they always get burned by it. That's what happened Occupy Wall Street. It's what happened in 2020. It's probably what's happening now. Right. But we have all this evidence that indicates that this is not an organic phenomenon. You had usat, Bill Isley, who is on a California channel the other day, is saying, quote, we're seeing a very sophisticated level of organization by union groups and other groups to mobilize people to violently resist our efforts to enforce immigration law here. And then you see a truck roll up with, you know, a pallet of brand new face shields for these people that just came out of nowhere. And then you see all these organizers who managed to drive crowds to Paramount City on the spur of a moment, you know, based on a scanner traffic. And all of a sudden, everybody mobilizes into it, into a Little shock mob that demons, that accretes. That's organic. But the initial outburst is totally inorganic. It is contrived. So why would Democrats think they can generate any organic enthusiasm from the contrivance? It's a weird, it's a weird sort of situation they've talked themselves into.
- [15:08]
John Podhoretz
If you build it, they will come. That is the nature of protesting in the Internet era, because you start something, the images are broadcast through social, social media, and then text messages go out to say, come to 6th and broad, or, you know, come to 4th and main or whatever. And so it's like you take kindling, you make a teeny little fire and you show a picture of the fire. You say, hey, let's make this into a bonfire. And people show up with wood. That's new. That's a new organizing system and principle. And therefore you can take something that's inorganic and I guess you can morph it into something organic over time. And it then doesn't really matter who the shock troops are. It's like if you're, if you're making the Ten Commandments and you need 20,000 extras to, you know, to look like the, you know, the Israelites at the sea, you just sweep anybody off the streets to come in and be your extra for the day. And what we see when you have these moments is I don't think that the people who are doing this, you know, in order to block ice, particularly want to see looting in downtown la, don't want to see Apple stores broken into and all of that. That complicates their message. Like, it's like, oh, there is real law, you know, there is a real law breaking going on here. But that's what happens when you do sort of like an all hands on deck. We're having a big hootenanny, big anti government, anti everything hootenanny. Come on down, close off the 10 or the 101. And you know what? Officers are going to be so overwhelmed. Go get yourself an iPhone from the back of the, from the back of the Apple store. I mean, I'm just saying, like, this is, this is what's been going on since 2020. You have a political cause that morphs into an anarchistic cause that then morphs into just absolute frenzied disorder, which is ultimately what anarchism is. And, and, and, and antinomianism, meaning, you know, ICE is there to perform the duty that it has been chartered with, that its agents are sworn to, that it works in an administrative setting that issues orders for it to do its job. You're not allowed to stand in the way. And then the question is, who's standing the way? Is it citizens or is it like semi governmental, you have local authority standing in the way of federal authorities. What does that remind me of? What does that remind me of? Little Rock, University of Alabama, desegregation. That's what they did. That's what the states rights governors did as the country was attempting to desegregate. They said, you have no right to be here. You are interlopers. And I, George Wallace, the governor of the state of Alabama, will stand in the schoolhouse door to keep these little black children from coming through the door. Is that really what liberals and the left want to be emulating right now? Am I taking crazy pills?
- [18:53]
Seth Mandel
Well, take more because I have. I want to add to the confusion, at least on my part. So Seth wrote a post yesterday that's great about how there are, there's a lot of Palestinian flags and keffi is out there, which is its own issue. But I'm, I'm actually curious about why are they waiving Mexican and Salvadoran flags? Actually, if the point is about wanting to stay in this country, that's a very strong. Why is, why is it just a sea of foreign flags?
- [19:30]
John Podhoretz
How about too much that are, that are in front of fire? That's the other thing is these indelible images of having somebody wave a Mexican flag on a Los Angeles county street in front of a car that's been set on fire. Thus, as we've said, during the 600 days of hostages captivity, every now and then you get this image and you're like, wait a minute, is this, Jeanine, is this going on on the West Bank? Is this an anti Israel protest on the West Bank? Because you have. And then no, it's, it's in a street in the United States. They're wearing keffiyehs, they have masks on and they're waving Palestinian flags. But they're, you know, they're in Cambridge and here you have, it's like what message are you attempting to impart that you want to bring Middle Eastern terroristic chaos to the streets of America? You think Americans are going to cotton to that? You want to wave a Mexican flag as part of the. I just want to be in America to make a better life for my children.
- [20:39]
Christine Rosen
Also, I think that there's the. Not to bring everything back to blaming Harvard and the universities, but I think we should come back to blaming everything on Harvard for a second and the universities. Because what I'm seeing one of the things that they set, one of the precedents they set was that you negotiate with these people. That's the other part of the sort of importation of, you know, Middle Eastern politics or whatever for Americans. You know, like, John, you're right. This is all kind of posing. This is all kind of like cosplay in a way. But the. The. The universities said, all right, let's negotiate with them. There's a bunch of people in the Columbia, in a library at Columbia, and they're drawing swastikas and assaulting security guards and calling the security cards Jew lovers. Let's see what they want. Maybe they just want a better menu at the caf. Maybe, you know, it's like. And that naivete just sort of caught on, like its own virus and Trump. It's not that Trump or even Gavin Newsom or anybody involved in this is even thinking about negotiating with the protesters. It's that the rioters are thinking about how they've been negotiated with in the past. The organizers of this have had success over the past nearly two years of the past 20 months, getting administrations to hold off on sending law enforcement and saying, well, let's talk. Let's have a zoom call. And then they, you know, Mahmoud Khalil will pick up the phone and he'll be a negotiator on behalf of this, you know, while they're occupying a building at Columbia. The whole thing is incredibly ridiculous. But I really do think that the willingness to negotiate over the past 20 months rather than send the cops in has created a sense of entitlement to occupation in these people's heads.
- [22:37]
John Podhoretz
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- [27:54]
Abe Greenwald
But in LA there's something else going on which is back to normal for a lot of the people protesting. Not the, not the ones who are doing violent things and setting Waymo cars on fire, but the, but the people who are showing up because they actually want more liberalized immigration. They don't want any enforcement. Now their normal was that there was no enforcement for decades. And so they have friends and family members who came here illegally, settled work, had kids, you know, and so they, there is a contingent of the, of the crowd that are those people. I don't think they're generally violent. However, the thing that we're not talking about is that in L. A, the elite class are the people like the mayor, like the prosecutors in LA who, who actually have to enforce their local laws. And that's what they also haven't done for years. So it's not the problem. Isn't necessarily. And Karen Bass, I believe, did talk to some of the factions involved, like the union organizers in particular, as Noah points out, the organized left wing types. But that's not going to matter if they don't arrest. There were not as many arrests as you would think when you sort of look at the footage and coverage of these of past several days. They need to arrest the people who are breaking the law. They need to prosecute those people. And that's why I think, and this is where I am sympathetic to bringing in the National Guard. If the local law enforcement and local prosecutors are not pursuing and prosecuting these crimes, then you actually do need to bring in backup from the federal government to protect the ICE workers and the federal buildings so that the federal government can do its job of enforcement on immigration. I think most Americans believe that's necessary if they see that the Trump administration has not been great about articulating it in that way. And I think that would be helpful. I don't think they'll do it, but that's where.
- [29:32]
John Podhoretz
Right, but they haven't been doing that because of what Noah talked about.
- [29:36]
Abe Greenwald
Right, right.
- [29:37]
John Podhoretz
I just think it's a paradigmatical to say, oh, look, we've sent. You know, this is literally Westerns, right. This is. This is American Westerns. You're in a lawless town. What do you want? The cavalry. Where's the cavalry? The deus ex machina of the third act. The cavalry rides in and helps straighten things out. Or if they don't show up, then you've got John Wayne or Gary Cooper, the one gun guy with his, you know, with his tubercular doctor, helping to straighten things out, you know, because the bad, they're. They're outnumbered by the bad guys. But there's always in the air the idea that the cavalry, that is the federal government can come and save you from the lawlessness that has broken out in Tombstone or whatever the town is in High Noon or whatever. That is part of the Donald Trump world fantasy. Right. Is that he's living in a Hollywood movie, he's got the cavalry. He's sending in the cavalry. As Noah said, they're not really the cavalry, because all they're really there to do is to. Is to facilitate ICE's actions, by which, I mean, they're there to cut a path so that ICE is not attacked by. As they go into a raid, I'm.
- [30:55]
Noah Rothman
Sorry, an LAPD riot control.
- [30:57]
John Podhoretz
They're taking and LAP riots. Same, same thing. And again, we also have this bizarre division between the mayor of LA and the police chief of la. The police chief of L. A is saying, this is terrible. We're overwhelmed. And the mayor's like, this is all Trump's fault. Don't look at me. I was on vacation during the Pacific Palisades fires, and I'm on theoretical vacation here. And this is where we should talk a little bit about the madness of the Democratic Party's response here, because what are they do. Just what are they doing? Can. Can. Can something.
- [31:35]
Noah Rothman
Christine said something that I think is really resonant. I'm taking all my cues from you today, Christine, that I think Democrats really Genuinely do think that these are expressions of peak, perhaps a little excessive, but within them is the nucleus of a concerned citizenry that really wants to see some dramatic political change and doesn't know how to affect it. And their motives are genuinely good, but maybe they've been caught up in the moment, or maybe they themselves are a little confused. Nevertheless, their. Their instincts are righteous and they should be adopted. Embraced and certainly trained on our enemies because they're an effective force. But that doesn't make a ton of sense because of what they're doing.
- [32:21]
John Podhoretz
Right.
- [32:22]
Noah Rothman
If you were a genuinely concerned citizenry, you would be using the mechanisms of civil mechanisms and governmental mechanisms to voice your concerns and engage in process. Right? These people are contemptuous of process. They seem rather resentful of the structures of civil society and probably want to tear them down more than they want to participate in them. So there's this paradigmatic problem that Democrats have succumbed to in which the right is increasingly adopting, which is to confuse these anarchistic expressions for political potency that they can appropriate for themselves both. And this is making both our. All our politics increasingly worse. And as I've been writing for a decade, as you said, John, been making our politics increasingly worse. Part because the coalitions are so narrow that nobody feels like they can afford to jettison even the most unlovely member, but also because they're genuinely confused about what political activism should look like and who political activists are. They see these anarchistic elements as increasingly mainstream political activists. They're not. They don't want to participate in this political process. They're a millstone around your neck. They need to be jettisoned. All you need is the courage to look at these people and say, they are not my people. And that's what Democrats can't afford, can't. Can't bring themselves to do. They see these people as part of their coalition. That's why they're saying, you're making my life difficult. You're giving Donald Trump what he wants. We are in this together, guys. What are you doing? They have to completely reconceptualize the situation. And look at these cast of malcontents, this mob of barbarians, and say, you are not one of my people.
- [34:04]
Abe Greenwald
Well, that's where the moral relativism comes in. And you see people all the way up to Gavin Newsom not saying violence and riots are bad, just full stop. They're saying violence and riots are bad because it makes our side look bad politically.
- [34:18]
Noah Rothman
It's not what people think. No, but not helping, because whites Are bad.
- [34:25]
Christine Rosen
Not helping. That's what every tweet is. Not helping.
- [34:29]
John Podhoretz
But you're. They think they want to help, but you're conveying a message. I don't think they're conveying. I don't hear them saying riots are bad, but protest is good. I mean, I know they're saying it, but what I hear is this is all Trump's fault. That's. That's all I'm hearing. And I think that is all the country is hearing is it's Trump versus Newsom. It's Trump versus Bass. Okay? So, yeah, if you hate Trump, anything Trump does is Trump, and you hate Trump. And so Trump. And of course, Democrats bathe, you know, live in a, in a, in a, in a. Anti Trump bath. And everything that they know, everything they, you know, every bath, every bath bomb, every odor, every shampoo, everything is from.
- [35:24]
Abe Greenwald
The same new product line in our future.
- [35:26]
Christine Rosen
Okay, there we go.
- [35:27]
John Podhoretz
Okay. That's not what happens when you turn on your TV or you're on your social media and you see people dropping bricks off a overpass, smashing car, cop cars. What you see is, somebody arrest those people. They're dropping, they're dropping bricks on cop cars. They're raining things down 20ft. People in uniform are being threatened with their lives by project, by, by literal gravity with bricks being dropped, you know, off of, off a bridge, over an overpass.
- [36:08]
Christine Rosen
Like, there's a scene, there's a scene in the Wire where that, where, you know, they're at the towers. The cops are at these, at these project towers. And they, and they're like, we have. There's just a couple cops and they pull up and they're like, oh, we have them. They're just in this tall, high rise building. What are they going to do? Jump out the window of the 28th floor? Where are they going to go? And then toasters start falling from the 28th floor and practically go through the roof of the police vehicle because of the velocity. When you see that, it sounds ridiculous to be having a discussion over whether somebody needs the National Guard or whether the cops need help. Because we're watching cops huddle under an overpass because they can't come out. So normal people see that and say, somebody.
- [36:54]
John Podhoretz
I thought, when I was watching that footage, I swear to God I thought that it was. AI said, this isn't really happening. AI is really good. If you saw the, you know, I mean, it's really good. And so they. Or it's a clip from a movie or something like that, because it's so naked. And what's more, you can kind of make out the faces of the people who are dropping the brick. So they're going to get made and they're going to get, you know, arrested not only for attempted murder, but there's, there's an issue.
- [37:27]
Noah Rothman
They'll get arraigned.
- [37:30]
John Podhoretz
Well, could be a federal crime. A law enforcement officer is, is, can be, can be raised to a federal crime. So that would be taken out of the hands of the LA prosecutors.
- [37:42]
Seth Mandel
Anyway, there's an additional issue here. We're talking about seeing images and what they convey. Not everyone is seeing the same images. We're seeing those images of the bricks being launched and cars being set afire. I see them on right wing social media. I have liberal friends out in LA who send me, you know, Kumbaya style protest videos. When I turn on cnn, I don't see those. I don't see the bricks and, and the fires.
- [38:21]
John Podhoretz
Oh, I saw the bricks on cnn. They showed the footage of the bricks on cnn. I'm not denying your right.
- [38:27]
Noah Rothman
I mean, it's local officials saying everything is okay whilst they play B roll of, you know. Well, it's the structure, missiles.
- [38:34]
John Podhoretz
It's the greatest meme ever, right? Which is Frank Drebin of Police Squad, a car drives into a fireworks factory and the fireworks factory explodes. So right behind him, all the fireworks are going off and he's saying, they're saying nothing to see here. Please disperse. Is like the Fourth of July fireworks show. There is a little bit of that. But even if a little of the bricks falling on the cops comes out, even if a little. Also the mostly peaceful fires, the mostly peaceful.
- [39:09]
Abe Greenwald
But here's my question about those, about even if people see what's actually happening there. It goes to my favorite Noah phrase of all time. Permission structures. What do you think? And it's a question for you, Noah. What sort of permission structure in the average normie mind, do you think they are granting to the Trump administration to respond? Because that's where I think there's also, look, I know I'm going to get yelled. I've been getting nasty emails about saying stop bringing up the right. But you know, he's in charge, he's the boss, he's, he's setting the tone now. And if you have the firepower and the leadership to do that, you have to be, you do have to be careful. It doesn't mean that you're not right to call out people like Newsom and the horrible Karen Bass. But I'm curious Noah, what permission structure do you think the average, you know, center right, center left voter wants to see in this situation, which is getting more and more volatile?
- [40:01]
Noah Rothman
Right. Well, it's a good question. I mean, when you talk about the average center right voter, you're not thinking of. So I'm not thinking of someone who is inclined towards extraordinary measures, who spends all their day on Twitter talking themselves up into a froth over how, you know, we need to subvert the Constitution in order to save it, or that, you know, just posturing for the benefit of an audience. That's. But I think those people are overrepresented in this White House and spend, have, have the President's ear more than they, they should. So I don't think that the President is necessarily formulating policy that's reflective of the average quote, unquote, normie citizen. I think the normie Republican voter wants to see law and order established and wants to do so within the terms of engagement that are set for local law enforcement and the very distinct terms of engagement that are set for National Guards when they have to intervene in extraordinary circumstances where an emergency is declared. That's where I think the average voter is. That's, that's rule of law. I don't think that's necessarily where the Trump administration's provocateurs are. They want to make a statement. They want a big showy display to brandish their own bona fides and also to grease the skids for a lot of the stuff that I think they genuinely do want to do. They're testing the bounds of Article 2 everywhere they can. They want to reclaim as much power for Article 2 as they can, which, by the way, the founders would recognize and say, well, that makes the perfect sense. We should expect to see the branches accumulate as much power for themselves and jealously steward it. That's, that's a whole system. The whole reason why the system is breaking down right now is because one of those articles doesn't want to do that, which is very weird. That's a different discussion.
- [41:42]
John Podhoretz
That's Article 1. That's the Congress is what you do there.
- [41:45]
Noah Rothman
Yeah, but within the administration, there's Stephen Miller types, even your Pete Hag Seth types, and certainly the subordinates within the Defense Department. They want to, they want permission, a permission structure, if you will, to, to do the stuff that they talk about on cable news and to. And to be able to be fetted for it and receive laurels for it. They do need circumstances to be more amenable to that sort of situation. So they have a tendency to jump at any of these opportunities. Unfortunately, these opportunities are going to continue to present themselves. Read Michelle Goldberg in the New York Times opinion page this morning. What is she talking herself into?
- [42:24]
Abe Greenwald
No, no, he's right.
- [42:26]
Noah Rothman
There's a reading New York Times opinion.
- [42:29]
John Podhoretz
Just summarize it so I don't have to read it because I've lost enough brain cells already this morning.
- [42:34]
Noah Rothman
I mean, I don't want to do her argument injustice, but I will say.
- [42:38]
John Podhoretz
That you can do her argument justice.
- [42:41]
Noah Rothman
What she's talking herself into is another summer of love, because resistance is what any civic oriented citizen would engage in in this moment if you were to believe what she's talking herself into.
- [42:55]
John Podhoretz
Well, this is a very important thing because I talked about this yesterday, that the, the, the moment, the, the moment for passionate advocates of liberal to left wing civic order and civic action is the 1960s. And there's a great deal of nostalgia from people who weren't born then, but have studied it, have been indoctrinated in the glories of 60s direct action and all of that. And every time we have one of these moments, like you mentioned, Occupy Wall Street, Ferguson, Black Lives Matter there is about it. We're getting our 60s, this is our 60s. I'm so excited. I'm gonna be out there with 500,000 people. And you know, they're, and as, as, as the camera pulls back, you know the soundtrack will play. Come on, people now. Smile on your brother, everybody. This total crate. Just as people like us often have a kind of nostalgic reaction to the American culture of the Second World War, they have it toward the 60s. That's part of their permission structure. But permission structures are dynamic. So by which I mean they have a permission structure which says, you must go in the street. It is noble to go in the streets. It is noble to occupy your campus. It is. No, you are doing something that puts you in the, you know, you are standing on the shoulders of giants and maybe you can, you know, be enlisted as part of their number. History will enlist you as part of their number if you do what they did and you stop the horror.
- [44:41]
Abe Greenwald
I have to interrupt because a lot of the people I see on the streets of LA and on a lot of those campus protests, they're not 60s hippies or even the chill. I mean, they might be the children of 60s hippies, but they are a nihilist, you know, sort of permanent.
- [44:53]
John Podhoretz
So were the 60s hippies.
- [44:55]
Abe Greenwald
Right?
- [44:55]
John Podhoretz
That's the point. It was all nonsense.
- [44:57]
Abe Greenwald
Even know the History. I mean, they're there because. I mean, I think this is where it gets into the Omni. Cause they might be using the same techniques, but if you marry, I think it's actually the elite who are the former hippies and they have that the. Michelle Goldberg's writing about this in this, you know, sort of gauzy way and. But the shock troops are actually these. You know, some of them are antifa, but a lot of them are just these young nihilists who will protest anything, but they'll protest climate, they'll protest whatever is.
- [45:22]
John Podhoretz
But the root is protest America. The protest culture became a mass cultural phenomenon in the 1960s, largely because of the Vietnam War, some of it because of civil rights. And there is a sense of terrible loss among people who view that as the most glorious time in American history, that they want to participate in it. I'm not saying so when I say.
- [45:46]
Noah Rothman
Revisionism to that though too. And this goes back to the universities being all the problem. Where did the SDS go? Right. They went to the universities where they engaged in a revisionist history that.
- [45:56]
John Podhoretz
Well, they were started. SDS was started at the university.
- [46:00]
Christine Rosen
We're seeing. Go Back to the Harvest. We're seeing their signs. Bring the War Home is an SDS sign.
- [46:05]
John Podhoretz
Right.
- [46:06]
Christine Rosen
So holding up Gaza. Bring the War.
- [46:08]
Noah Rothman
The revisionism is that the protest movement in the late 60s, early 70s, the violent protest movement worked, right? Yeah.
- [46:16]
John Podhoretz
End of the war. It ended a war.
- [46:19]
Noah Rothman
Not in 1968.
- [46:21]
John Podhoretz
Yeah, not only didn't it end a war in 1968, the war candidate won in 19. Oh, they were both kind of war candidates. Whatever. Okay, But I want to. When. I just want to say it's a dynamic, the permission structure, because you're talking about what they want to do, and then there is what they get from the other side that provides them with the permission structure. Let me just read you. A friend of mine sent this from LA late last night. Something that was sent to her saying, hey, come join us. Actually, this was yesterday. Stand up, Fight back. It's a poster. ICE is systematically violating human rights. We will not be intimidated. We will not be silenced. Rally Monday, June 9th Grand Park Assembly 11:00am Rally 12:00pm 200 North Grand Los Angeles, CA we demand the immediate release of David Huerta and other unjustly detained individuals. Humane treatment and access to legal counsel for detainees. And end to raids that devastate communities and families. Free David Huerta. Is the. Is the hashtag Free them all? We will not be silenced. And this is the kind of thing that was sent out to, you know, nice Jewish, 60 year old people in Hancock park, that they should go out and, you know, and join in the fray, hoping that they would have exactly this nostalgia. Those crowds give Stephen Miller the jet fuel. They're saying this is all Trump's fault. Right. Newsom Bass. This is all Trump's fault. He's stirring up the pot here. Well, let's say that's true. I don't think it's true, but let's say it's true. So they are providing him with every possible justification to go at this twice as hard, not only in California, but across the country. ICE raids across the country. Any effort to interpose or interdict the ICE raids is then an act like California. That must be opposed. And maybe you can bring out the National Guard if local officials aren't going to do it. We already have here in New York. You know, Kathy Hochul has played, the governor has played a little bit of the same tune on her piccolo about, you know, about how ICE is doing bad things. Ice, again, is a agency of the federal government tasked with enforcing the laws of the United States. And elected officials in the United States are siding with people who say that it is not only legitimate, it is moral and it is necessary to interfere with the administration of their duties. And that is a golden issue for Republicans. It is gold. It is an 80% gold issue for Republicans to stand athwart that. And it means that if they play fast and loose with some of the constitutional niceties, the public is going to be on their side.
- [49:28]
Noah Rothman
I mean, even before they had a crime.
- [49:30]
John Podhoretz
Are you for dropping the bricks on cars or are you not? Are you for getting illegal immigrants out of the United States or are you not? That's a 60, 70% issue with the public. And Harry Anton yesterday pointed out that on immigration, on immigration, Trump has gone from negative 20 to nearly to nearly zero since March. Plus one, plus one.
- [50:00]
Christine Rosen
Excuse me, minus 21 to plus one when he crossed the line.
- [50:04]
John Podhoretz
23 point shift in Trump's direction on who is better to handle immigration issues.
- [50:11]
Noah Rothman
Before we had an immigration crisis, before we had a pronounced uptick in lawlessness and disorder from the right and the left, but mostly the left. Ice, Polish, ice, defund the police. These slogans were bandied about for six years. We've been talking about this for the better part of a decade. We have no evidence that these slogans, shibboleths, do anything other than radicalize the opposition to the progressive left. They're not political winners. We have data reams of data, to say nothing of anecdotal experience to justify that, to demonstrate that. And yet they're still beholden to it.
- [50:48]
Christine Rosen
It's, it's, it's, here's it, here's the.
- [50:51]
Noah Rothman
June 12th counterproductive, it's almost suicidal.
- [50:53]
Christine Rosen
The famous June 12, 2020, op ed by one of the organizers in the New York Times. And the headline is yes, we mean literally abolish the police.
- [51:05]
John Podhoretz
Yeah, right. Hey guys, it's John here and I want to talk to you about Quince. Because Quince has become such a part of my daily life that people who know me and listen to this podcast literally come over to my clothing, look at the collar behind my neck to see whether what I am wearing is in fact a Quint sweater, a Quince linen shirt, a Quince polo shirt, and more often than not, in fact it is. That is how committed I am to Quince, which I only got to know because they started advertising on the podcast. I got one free sample shirt that was so great that I started buying more and buying more sweaters and buying more shirts. And so I am very much a walking advertisement for quints. And this is a non walking advertisement for Quince, which has all the things you actually want to wear this summer, like organic cotton silk polos, European linen beach shorts, and comfortable pants that work for everything from backyard hangs to nice dinners. And the best part, and this really is the best part, everything with Quince is half the cost of similar brands. By working directly with top artisans and cutting out the middlemen, Quince gives you luxury pieces without the markups. And Quince only works with factories that use safe, ethical and responsible manufacturing practices and premium fabrics and finishes. So stick to the staples that last with elevated essentials from quince. Go to quince.com commentary for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's Q-U I N C E.com commentary to get free shipping and 365 day returns quince.com commentary hello, this is Dr.
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Abe Greenwald
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John Podhoretz
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- [53:29]
Abe Greenwald
Wherever fine podcasts can be found.
- [53:37]
Noah Rothman
But abolish ICE was a. Was a progressive 2018 thing, was early.
- [53:41]
John Podhoretz
That's right. Now, here, the point I was making about Harry, my point is that they.
- [53:44]
Christine Rosen
They went on this spin tour afterwards, that everything they said to abolish. We don't mean abolish. We're just trying to help people understand just how deep the rot runs and how much whatever.
- [53:55]
John Podhoretz
But.
- [53:55]
Christine Rosen
And, but they mean when they say.
- [53:59]
Noah Rothman
This is actually, this is. Ma' am Zoramdani's thing, right, where he.
- [54:02]
John Podhoretz
Wants to be the very liberal candidate for mayor in New York City who is now denying that he said that he wanted to defund and abolish the police.
- [54:12]
Noah Rothman
No, what he wants to do is create a department of police social workers. Because what he says is, listen, police are now doing all this social work. Whose idea was that? Yeah, that was your plan, dude.
- [54:26]
John Podhoretz
Okay, look, the Harry and thing I need to clarify what he was saying was In June of 2017, Trump was 21 points underwater in favorability on immigration. In 2025, he is plus one. So what does that tell you? The issue itself has moved like a freight train in his direction. Some of that. I don't think he's really responsible for that, except that he has held firm on his position. It is that the Democratic Party, the Biden people, all of that went insane, stopped enforcing the border. Six, seven, eight million people come in through the border. A bunch of them are now in the country with. We have no visibility on them because they're called the gotaways. And even a dove like me looks at that and says, are you crazy? Trump always said, why do we have a boy if we don't have a border, we don't have a country. Right? I. That's a. That I don't. That's a logic that I don't buy. But visas, we have visas for a reason. What is a visa? A visa is a limitation. If you didn't. If you didn't have a visa system, right? There are countries from which. Where we don't require visas from, but most we do. And the purpose of a visa is to limit your free access to all the rights and glories the United States have to offer. Some of it is. The limit is time, right? You're on a tourist visa, you can be here for a month, you're on a student visa, you can be here for a year, you're on a work visa, you can be here for whatever, but you're not here forever. And if you step 1cm over the line, you know, if you should jump a turnstile or get a speeding ticket or do anything that is violative of American law.
- [56:35]
Noah Rothman
That'S.
- [56:36]
John Podhoretz
Enforcement officials in this country have the absolute right to send you home because you do not have a right to be in the United States. So that's why someone.
- [56:46]
Noah Rothman
Illegal immigrants in this story are almost tertiary to it.
- [56:49]
John Podhoretz
Right.
- [56:50]
Noah Rothman
You're not going to see a lot of illegal immigrants at these protests, if any. They're going to keep their heads down. That is a box you don't want to be in if you're an illegal immigrant. You don't want to pick your head up and get in front of law enforcement. Certainly don't have cuffs put on you.
- [57:02]
John Podhoretz
Yeah. There's also this.
- [57:03]
Noah Rothman
That's why the Mexican flags are all over. A ruse and pretty incoherent, at least geopolitically, that this is. This is not about illegal immigration. This is about.
- [57:11]
Christine Rosen
That's why I think we should continue.
- [57:13]
Noah Rothman
The necessity of enforcing the law, the legitimacy of enforcing.
- [57:17]
Christine Rosen
That's why I think we should consider offering to trade the Americans at the protests or the illegal immigrants, offer them amnesty if we can send the Americans.
- [57:30]
John Podhoretz
But I'll give you an idea of how crazy this has become. There have been. There are two controversial cases in New York City, both supposedly high school students. We don't know anything about the second one, who was an 11th grader. We know something about the first one who was. Who was 20 years old, but is a senior in high school or a junior in High School, 20 years old. So I'm like, I don't know. How were they detained? They were detained because they came in with their families on what is called a routine check in with ice. Okay, so why are there routine check ins with ice? If you are here and you're in the system to see if they need to throw you out, you don't have a routine check in. And then it's like, no, that's not cricket. They're. They're going in, they're following the rules and they're getting detained. And they're following those partially. I think they're following rules because they're with their families. And maybe ICE or somebody discovered that they're part of a street gang or they committed a crime or something like that. ICE is not obliged to release information about them because they're not America. They don't. They don't have unlimited habeas corpus rights. Right. I mean, because they violate. It says, if you violate your terms under the visa, you can be deported. So the sob story is, this is just not cricket. They did what they were supposed to do, which is come in for the routine. And it's a route. It's supposed to be a routine check, meaning come in, we check you off, we say, did you commit any crime? You say, no, you leave. Right. And maybe they committed a crime. Maybe somebody informed them and said that they were. That they were, you know, a member of a street gang. We don't know what the details are, but it's not like they're arresting every or detaining every single person who comes in for the check. In fact, I assume they're not detaining 99% of the people who come in.
- [59:27]
Abe Greenwald
Well, this is where the absolute hypocrisy of the left drives me nuts, because suddenly they care about all the procedures. They care about whether someone. Oh, they came in, they did what they're supposed to, and they still got deported. Which, as you say, John, you're absolutely correct. ICE is allowed to deport them regardless. I mean, they. Because they are visitors here. But they had no concern for any of this for four years under Biden when we had an open border. In fact, they deliberately looked away when people tried to show them what this meant. And I think that's where that hypocrisy, I think, is where, certainly for me, that's where I'm like, if the Trump administration has to use a heavy hand here to enforce the law that has been deliberately flouted for the last four years, to say nothing of the last several decades, then so be it. I just think, look, we also, this. This Saturday are going to have this massive military parade here in dc. The imagery that might work against the Trump administration right now is that very militaristic swagger. I think it's great for the army to celebrate its birthday. I have no problem with that. But there is. You would think he would be a little more. I shouldn't say cautious, but a little more aware of what that looks like. And to Noah's earlier point, I do think that the key is who has his ear, who is telling him what he thinks he wants to hear and what he should be doing. And in that sense, his advisers might not be advising him. Well. And we should talk a little bit, maybe, about Hegseth and some of the others who are. Who are fueling this.
- [60:51]
John Podhoretz
Look, I wish this were a different world. I wish he were not president in that sense. I wish he hadn't altered the nature of our response to the federal government. I wish we weren't living in this, you know, alpha male universe in which showing yourself to be the biggest swinging whatever seems to be the be all and end all of the presidency. But it is, and it causes these responses on the other side that validate the alpha male behavior. So he says, I want to have a military parade. And they say, no, you can't have a military parade. Why are we. That's very militaristic. It's like, okay, I'm going to be on the side of the military. Whose side are you on? Haven't we been saying for 24 years, thank you for your service? Ever since 9, 11, hasn't that been the, you know, that's like the one civic tribute that we pay in the United States, Left, right, center, as we say to a military person, thank you for your service. Obviously, we're not saying that to law enforcement, since an enormous number of influential people seem to think that law enforcement in the United States is evil, even though it's a kind of domestic, you know, analogy to the military, since they're also on the front lines every day defending us against, you know, depredations. Trump's got no, you're saying, oh, it's, you know, it's a little too much. He is a little too much.
- [62:16]
Abe Greenwald
He's always, I don't, I don't mind the army celebrating its birthday. The point is that what Trump does is also because it's his birthday too. And we know this because he tried to do this in the first term. That's the part that I don't like. I'm like, let's celebrate our military relative in our military. It's that Trump wants to co opt it. He is, it's all got to go through the prism of his ego.
- [62:36]
John Podhoretz
I don't like that draws the psychosis. He is, he is this amazing, he has this amazing talent for making elites in the United States oppose a military parade or support or support attacks on law enforcement, implicitly support attacks on law enforcement officers, or say it's okay not to enforce immigration law, he's getting that from them and they're walking themselves off a plank as far as I can willingly.
- [63:08]
Christine Rosen
I mean, in 2020, the thing that Joe Biden did that was so effective, and maybe now we know why, because maybe he didn't even really understand the questions he was being asked by poor reporters, you know, in the pool. But in 20, in 20, the 2020 election, the effective thing he did was, you know, people would say, hey, Mr. Vice President, your opponent in this election says that he wanted to take six porpoises and smack you with the six porpoises one by one, holding them by the tail, you know, whatever. And Biden would just go, ah, that guy. You know, it was like Biden's version of the. There, there he goes again, there you go again. And that was actually effective because there were so many times that Biden didn't take the bait. And people really liked that because at a certain point, you know, not every show you watch on TV can be WWF wrestling.
- [64:03]
John Podhoretz
Right?
- [64:03]
Christine Rosen
I mean, it's entertaining for the hour that it is, the week, you know, per week. But there was a, they need to be able to do this now and say, geez, you know, boy, this guy and kind of roll their eyes at him more. And I really think that will make a difference. But as long as he knows he can draw them into these scenarios, he's going to do it.
- [64:27]
Noah Rothman
He's, he's not. We give him too much credit. He didn't engineer any of this stuff. He's, he's merely responding to circumstances here. I'm very receptive to arguments that Trump can overreach, that his instincts are terrible. I agree. But I struggle to imagine how he could overplay this hand and make the protesters and their supporters look sympathetic. No, it's a failure of imagination on my part, but I can, that's true.
- [64:50]
John Podhoretz
I'm not, I'm not, I'm not saying that he is a mock, that he is engineering this, you know, this is not my beloved show and, or he did not organize the resistance on, on Gorman to be bad. That's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is he has a talent for turning his enemies into the worst versions of themselves to do self destructive things and to make his life easier. That's my, that's, that, that's what I think is going on here. And I will say that there will never be another Democrat in the White House. The Democrat that is next in the White House will embrace Trump's immigration agenda. I don't know how it happens. So many interest groups are in such horrible, you know, order in relation to this and that it would be very difficult to thread that needle. But there is no way. This is like law and order stuff. There is no way that somebody who says that it's okay for people to be here illegally and it's okay to attack the officers who have been, who put their lives on the line to deport them are bad just not going to hat you can't have this idea that it's okay for lawless lawlessness is acceptable.
- [66:07]
Seth Mandel
Well, you just couldn't have. You can't have it around this issue. You can have it. We had it around racial issues, though. In 2020, lawlessness was fine.
- [66:18]
John Podhoretz
Well, I don't think it was fine. I mean, I think. Not with me, but I mean, I think the overall part of the problem here is that Trump was president in 2020 and the lawlessness happened on his watch. And he said, I'm against it, but then he didn't do anything to quell it. That was part of what you said yesterday, was that, you know, this is the do over because 2020. He talked the talk, but he didn't walk the walk.
- [66:44]
Seth Mandel
I totally agree. But. But there's a. But there's a much broader and deeper sympathy and panic in, in American minds about race and our history. And the sympathy was with.
- [66:57]
John Podhoretz
Fair enough.
- [66:58]
Seth Mandel
Ultimately, the.
- [67:00]
John Podhoretz
Well, or there was just a cultural demand that everybody feel sympathetic. And we all saw George, we all saw the footage, George Floyd and all that.
- [67:07]
Noah Rothman
There was fear, there was intimidation, there was a culture of reciprocity. And you knew there were tangible consequences for running afoul of this moral panic. It's all gone.
- [67:19]
John Podhoretz
See that? Right. Anyway, I think the moral panic that you're talking about, Democrats are now going to experience what it's like for people to look at them and have a moral panic about them. By which I mean I. These people are crazy. They are, they are. I'm scared of them because this is going on in LA and nobody's saying stopping it. They don't. When it happened in 2020, everything in 2020 had the COVID overhang. Everything. Covid was the only subject on anybody's mind. All of this. We were interested in the law and order consequences of everything, and so is the right and all of that. But that was not what was going on. People were like, can I leave my house? Are my kids going to be on Zoom at school forever? Can I visit my. Is it okay for me to see my mother who is 70 and has diabetes, or am I going to kill her? And then all this other stuff was going on. There is no other stuff going on in the United States. This is now what's going on. The news story in the United States is L. A. Tell me another one. The tariffs right now aren't a new story. What's going on with the Iranian negotiations is not a new story. Louisiana is the new story. It is not good for the people who are not on the side of law enforcement. I'm sorry. I wish, in fact, I wish it were more interesting than that. I wish that it were more flavored than that, because it would be more interesting to talk about in some fashion, but it isn't. Abe, I believe you have a recommendation for the first time in a long time.
- [68:54]
Seth Mandel
I do. So I recommended a while ago on the podcast one of my favorite movies, which is from 1971 Australian movie called Wake in Fright, which comes from this period of really inventive, dark Australian filmmaking where it's like people fighting for their lives, you know, in the. In the outback, from either fighting nature or something supernatural. Supernatural or another evil person or whatever it is. And Wake and Fright is amazing. So someone had recommended to me that I see, excuse me, the new Nicholas Cage movie, the Surfer, based on my appreciation for Waking Pride, and he is right. The Surfer is a complete homage to that period and that type of Australian movie, and particularly To Wake and Fright. It's directed by Lorcan Finnegan and it takes place in Australia. And Nicolas Cage is Australia father of a teenage boy who's coming back to his hometown in Australia, where he wants to take his boy surfing, like he used to go surfing when he was a kid. And he's all set to purchase his childhood home there. And there's a gang of locals on the beach who, as they say, you don't live here, don't serve here. And they bully him, they bully his kid and he gets sort of stuck there, dealing with them and dealing with trying to buy this house and the situation devolves, devolves and devolves, and he sort of falls apart. And I won't tell you what happens after that, but it's exciting, it's fun, it's a. It's a very, very accurate homage to those, to the two, really, to Wake and Fright. Because Wake and Fright is. Is this all takes place over the Christmas holiday in. In Australia. And just like Wake and Fright does, which is about a schoolteacher who was leaving, going back to his hometown on a by train for over Christmas. And he gets stuck in. In this. In a town full of, like, violent gamblers, and he gets sort of roped in and, you know, loses everything there. Nicholas Cage, I, as an actor, I'm sort of indifferent to him. I mean, people say sort of love him or hate him. I find him interesting. And he takes interesting roles sometimes, but he takes so many roles that some of them are bound to be interesting. I'm not sure he was the best cast for this, but he pulls it off.
- [72:13]
Christine Rosen
I'm actually glad. I'm actually glad that you did this recommendation and you said that. Because I wouldn't have known from any of the advertising or any of the chatter about it that this was what you say, you know, this Omar homage to this, or at least that it had its roots there. Because I looked at it and saw what's happening now is Nicholas Cage is. And I like it. But, you know, what's happening is he's going to. He's now playing a surfer. He just played a butcher. He's. Tomorrow he's going to play the baker, and then the next movie is going to be the candlestick maker. And it's just Nicholas Cage being Nicolas Cage, but having every type of. Of job that a normal person has, except as Nicolas Cage. That's what it seems like. What you're describing is far more complex and far more engaging.
- [73:03]
John Podhoretz
Two questions. One, how's the Australian accent?
- [73:07]
Seth Mandel
He doesn't. He doesn't have one at all.
- [73:09]
John Podhoretz
Even though it's his hometown in Australia.
- [73:11]
Seth Mandel
Yeah, he was raised good.
- [73:13]
John Podhoretz
That's good.
- [73:14]
Seth Mandel
Was not raised there after.
- [73:15]
John Podhoretz
Okay, okay, that's good. Second of all, Seth, you're being unfair to Nicholas Cage. He does take a lot of jobs because he owes the IRS like, $200 squillion and has no. I mean literally, like, has one of those tax bills you wouldn't believe. But in the last couple of years, he's made a couple of really wonderful movies, particularly one called Pig, which is about arrest in Northern California, which was one of the. Maybe the best movie of 2023. And he gave maybe the best performance in 2023. But the company that released it did not stage an Oscar campaign for him which might have worked. And he made this. He was part of this terrible version of Dracula, this comic, Renfield, which is a sort of black comedy about, you know, with Renfield rather than Dracula as the center. And Cage is Dracula. But the. The gimmick in Renfield is that Dracula is a toxic boss, an impossible, crazy boss whom you cannot. You cannot satisfy and who terrifies you at every turn, because sometimes he's nice and then he'll go and, like, go for you, literally go for your jugular. And it is a great comic turn in an otherwise disastrous movie. So I am not a fan of Nicolas Cage, but he's having a pretty good 60s, I have to say. Not.
- [74:37]
Christine Rosen
And he played himself well.
- [74:40]
John Podhoretz
I don't think he's a. He's. He's. He's crazy.
- [74:42]
Christine Rosen
That's no, no, not in Renfield. I mean, he did.
- [74:47]
John Podhoretz
Himself with Pedro Pascal, I think.
- [74:49]
Christine Rosen
Yeah, that's right.
- [74:50]
John Podhoretz
Yeah. Where he. Where he's, like, incredible. Yeah. Man of singular talent, or some kind of an amazing feat of singular talent. Something like that. Anyway, Noah Rothman, as always, always great to have you back. And, you know, you're here. We're here. Don't be a stranger. Seth. Christina Abe. I'm John Pothor. It's Keep the candle burning.