What's In The MOU?

Summary

The Commentary Magazine Podcast: "What's In The MOU?"

Date: June 17, 2026
Host: Jon Podhoretz, with Abe Greenwald, Seth Mandel, and Eliana Johnson

---

Episode Overview

This episode centers on the recently leaked 14-point Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the Trump administration and Iran, aimed at reopening the Strait of Hormuz, and the mounting confusion and controversy surrounding U.S. foreign policy, its implications for Israel, the Republican response, and the shifting dynamics within the Democratic Party regarding Israel and antisemitism.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Trump-Iran Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) Leak

• Bloomberg’s Leak & Confusion: The panel dissects details of the MoU, with particular attention to the claim that Iran will gain access to $300 billion, the immediate sanctions waivers allowing Iran to sell oil, and ambiguity over the nuclear issue being deferred for further negotiation (06:32).
• Turning the Conflict into "Economic Enrichment": Jon Podhoretz slams the deal as a humiliation and reversal for the U.S., characterizing it as enrichment for the Iranian regime and a self-own by Trump:

  "A war that began with the idea of eliminating Iran as a nuclear threat...has now become an economic enrichment device for the Iranian regime, a humiliation for the United States, and an amazing self own by Donald Trump..."
  (03:08, Jon Podhoretz)

• Trump’s Rationale: Trump claims the alternative was a global recession:

  "The alternative to this deal was a global recession. There are stupid people who want to see a global recession. They are just stupid people. The Strait of Hormuz would never have been opened. He started this war."
  (02:46, Trump, quoted by Jon Podhoretz)

2. Consequences and Permanent Costs

• Perverse Incentives for Iran: Eliana Johnson argues the deal lacks deterrence, fails to impose lasting costs on Iran, and essentially rewards bad behavior:

  "There is no permanent cost to Iran. For first of all, October 7th was Iran's war. OK, so we're all in this...There is no permanent cost if we are going to pay to rebuild the things that we knock down. That to me is the hardest pill in all of this to swallow."
  (11:12, Eliana Johnson)

3. Deal Mechanics, Lebanon, and Israel's Sovereignty

• Ambiguity about Access to Funds: Abe Greenwald clarifies the immediate lifting of the oil blockade and the 60-day negotiation period for further funds—but sees the nuclear issue as likely to stall (06:32, 13:04).
• Lebanon Front Entrenched in the MoU: The deal mandates Israel halt its activities in Lebanon, a demand seen as dangerous and difficult for Israeli politics to accept:

  "I actually think one of the worst aspects of this MoU is in point one, which loops the fighting in Lebanon into the US Iran deal and says that Israel will bring an immediate and permanent end to the war on all fronts, including Lebanon. And I think that that's pretty dangerous and damaging."
  (13:04, Abe Greenwald)

• Unilateral U.S. Demands on Israel:

  "...Under what set of understandings of how relationships between nations work does one party, in a sort of two party war, unilaterally decide what the sovereign nation that it is allied with must do because he wants to grease up his body and weasel out of the trap that he has gotten himself into? It's unmanly."
  (18:47, Jon Podhoretz)

• Sovereignty and Diplomatic Principles:

  "It is a basic sovereignty issue, as you say...It cannot be a full peace, a full ceasefire, whatever it is, cannot be negotiated by a third party in a deal with a fourth party. This is the statement the State Department put out. It is on their website, is on the government's website still today."
  (20:42, Eliana Johnson)

4. Foreign Policy Chaos & Republican Discord

• Trump’s Instability and the 'Tegwar' Doctrine:

  "There is no theory of the foreign policy. The foreign policy is whatever Trump says it is. This minute versus last minute...Trump is playing Teg War. Last week, it was this. This week, it's this Thursday, it's this."
  (23:29, Jon Podhoretz)

• Alienating the GOP:
  The panel discusses how Trump’s flip-flops have left both hawkish and dovish wings of the Republican party alienated, and how Senate Republicans are starting to publicly challenge him (27:49–33:04).
• Personal Reproach for Oil Prices:

  "If Vance is attacking me, which he did personally yesterday on Megyn Kelly show, for not caring, he's attacking Trump for not caring. It's Trump's fault that the oil prices went where they went."
  (37:27, Jon Podhoretz)

5. Internal Republican Power Struggles

• Director of National Intelligence Nominee Chaos:
  Brief coverage of infighting over national security positions (27:49–31:55).

6. Democratic Party Trends: Israel & Antisemitism

• Political Shifts in the Democratic Party:
  • DC’s mayoral results and new leftist figures underscore rising antisemitism and anti-Israel sentiment within Democratic circles:

    "...it looks like DC will have an anti Semitic lunatic socialist mayor...this is the way the Democratic Party is going. Antisemitism, socialism, anti capitalism, but we repeat ourselves. All these things are bound up together."
    (51:02, Abe Greenwald)

  • Predicts Israel will dominate the 2028 primary cycle, likening it to how trans issues overtook 2019 debates:

    "...there is going to be a reckoning for Israel and the Jews in the Democratic Party...a warning for this audience...we're heading into something very dark."
    (59:16, Jon Podhoretz)

  • Bernie Sanders’ support for Cori Bush against Wesley Bell is read as making Israel a litmus test (62:31).

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Jon Podhoretz on Trump’s self-own:
  (03:08) "It is as though he was predicting his own failure, foolishness, fecklessness..."
• Eliana Johnson on reconstruction fund:
  (11:12) "That to me is the hardest pill in all of this to swallow."
• Abe Greenwald on mixing in Lebanon:
  (13:04) "One of the worst aspects...is in point one, which loops the fighting in Lebanon into the US Iran deal..."
• Seth Mandel on wasted sacrifice:
  (37:40) "They're the ones who squandered American blood and treasure without a plan, without spying, without seeing through what that extraordinary investment was supposed to guarantee for us."
• Jon Podhoretz on blind trust in leaders:
  (44:59) "Put not your trust in princes, nor in the Son of man, in whom there is no help..."
• Eliana Johnson on Democratic Party direction:
  (62:31) "The one thing that you can have against Wesley Bell is that he is not critical enough of Israel..."

---

Timestamps for Important Segments

• [03:08] – Trump’s hypocrisy & self-own on Iran deal
• [06:32] – Abe Greenwald unpacks the deal mechanics and lingering confusion
• [11:12] – Eliana Johnson critiques lack of permanent consequences for Iran
• [13:04] – Lebanon front and Israel’s challenging position
• [18:47] – U.S. dictating Israeli conduct
• [23:29] – The ‘Tegwar doctrine’: policy by whim, not principle
• [31:55] – Congressional process, FISA, and constraining Trump
• [37:27] – Republican alienation and attacks over oil prices
• [51:02] – Shift to antisemitic and socialist currents in Democratic primaries
• [59:16] – Coming Democratic Party reckoning on Israel
• [62:31] – Bernie Sanders’ move and Israel as wedge issue in Democratic politics

---

Tone & Style

The conversation is sharp, irreverent, and highly critical, especially of the Trump administration’s unpredictability, the lack of strategic vision, and the potential damage to Israel and Jewish interests in the U.S. The panel uses sarcasm (“It’s unmanly”; “playing Teg War”) and refers to historical wisdom to underscore the need for principle over cult-of-personality politics.

---

Conclusion

The episode offers a bracing—at times alarmist—critique of U.S. foreign policy chaos, the abandonment of foundational principles in both parties, and the alarming rise of anti-Israel, antisemitic sentiment within the Democratic Party. The Commentary team warns of lasting consequences, both geopolitical and cultural, as the American political landscape shifts.

---

Summary prepared for listeners seeking all substantive arguments, direct attributions, and the podcast's original analytical tone. Non-content sections, ads, and sponsor messages omitted.

Transcript

[Jon Podhoretz]

You know, they say that every day your business is late to AI, you fall two days behind. But how do you keep up? The competition is only moving faster. Fortunately, there's netsuite Next. Netsuite Next is the next huge leap in how business gets done because AI is built into everything you do. It's a unified suite that brings your financials, inventory, commerce, HR and CRM into a single source of truth. Trusted by over 43,000 customers, AI agents work alongside you to solve problems, handle routine work, and anytime you have a question about anything, ask, just like you're having a conversation with a colleague. If I had the kind of business that was big enough to mandate the use of something like NetSuite Next, I would be there in a heartbeat. And for the first time ever, you can try NetSuite next for for free. If your revenues are at least in the seven figures, go to NetSuite AI commentary. Built for every industry, ready for every boardroom. NetSuite AI commentary.

[Abe Greenwald]

Some die of thirst.

[Jon Podhoretz]

No way of knowing way it's going. Hope for the best, expect the worst. Welcome to the Commentary magazine daily podcast. Today is Wednesday, June 17, 2026. I am Jon Podhoritz, the editor of Commentary magazine. With me, as always, Executive Editor Abe Greenwald. Hi, Abe.

[Seth Mandel]

Hi John.

[Jon Podhoretz]

Senior Editor Seth Mandel. Hi, Seth.

[Eliana Johnson]

Hi, John.

[Jon Podhoretz]

And Washington Free Beacon editor Eliana Johnson. Hi, Eliana.

[Abe Greenwald]

Hi, John.

[Jon Podhoretz]

So the news just keeps getting. Worse and worse, better and better. So JD Vance is on a publicity tour trying to sell the deal that he won't tell us what's in it and Trump won't tell us what's in it. But various versions have now leaked and Bloomberg claims to have the definitive leak of the 14 point memorandum of Understanding, which basically says that Iran is going to have access through various modalities to $300 billion as the price, I guess, of reopening the Strait of Hormuz. So a war that began with the idea of eliminating Iran as a nuclear threat, and I think in theory, though not stated openly, that its regime would be brought to an end, has now become an economic enrichment device for the Iranian regime, a humiliation for the United States, and an amazing self own by Donald Trump, who of course spent the year 2015 talking about what a fool Obama was to have made a deal with the Iranians that involved them getting back access to the money that was sanctioned against them and other sources of money. I want to read one tweet by Trump. Not a tweet by Trump, but something Trump said today at the meeting in Evian, which I only knew as a place because of the bottled water, but now is the home of the, of the big global meeting, quote, the alternative to this deal was a global recession. There are stupid people who want to see a global recession. They are just stupid people. The Strait of Hormuz would never have been opened. He started this war. He did. He started this war. He's the one who started this war. Any war game that would have said, okay, what's gonna happen if we start a war with Iran and they don't immediately collapse would have factored in the possibility of the closing of the Strait of Hormuz. He had to know that that was a possibility. He's the one who caused the closing of the Strait of Hormuz under these conditions. I don't know who these stupid people are. I assume that means us, but the stupid person here is him. If he didn't understand that the way to game out this war was, it was so important, it was so necessary for the future of the 21st century that Iran be dealt with in this way and that it was worth the risk. It was worth the risk of the closing of the Strait of Hormuz and the shock to the global economy by an outright war between the United States and Israel and Iran. If this is something that he just did on a Tuesday because he was being flaky, this is one of the great self owns of all time. There is nothing that he said in 2015 about the JCPOA that does not apply in 2026 to this deal that he is now making. It is as though he was predicting his own failure, foolishness, fecklessness, and I can't think of another F word to add to that.

[Eliana Johnson]

You can't?

[Jon Podhoretz]

Well, no, because it doesn't. The F word I can think of doesn't really apply in this serial, by the way.

[Eliana Johnson]

John, I just want to say that Avion is the location of that 1938 refugees conference that FDR threw together to ensure the world did not do anything about the Jews. Right. I believe it's the same place.

[Jon Podhoretz]

Really. Okay, well, you know, I think if

[Eliana Johnson]

I'm wrong, if I'm wrong, I apologize. In the water, I believe Avian France is the, the site of both of those. And I'm not sure I. You know, I would be surprised if they were different cities called Avian in France, but.

[Jon Podhoretz]

Well, I'm just gonna drink Poland Spring because it's nice, good quality American water until Graham Platner wins in Maine and then I'll stop drinking It.

[Abe Greenwald]

Okay, John, I just was going to say, and I think this is part of the confusion surrounding this agreement. I actually don't read this MoU that's now been published by Bloomberg and by CNN is giving them access to the $300 billion. I read the 300 billion is being kicked to. They may have access to that if negotiations during the 60 day period succeed, which I assume they won't. My understanding of this agreement is that we issue sanctions waivers that allow them to sell oil again in exchange, in exchange for their reopening of the Strait of Hormuz and we immediately lift our blockade. But there does seem to be a lot of confusion around this. So this reads to me like a Strait of Hormuz agreement and the nuclear issue and the rest of the money is kicked to a 60 day period that I presume will be indefinite.

[Jon Podhoretz]

I, There is certainly a certain amount of money that they're going to get almost upfront simply from the opening of the, the ending of our blockade. That's number one. And I'm not, I mean, this is all very confusing, but so forget, forget the, forget the $300 billion if we,

[Abe Greenwald]

I'm against it either way, but.

[Jon Podhoretz]

Right, but forget the $300 billion. Trump literally said we had to do this to open the Strait of Hormuz. That's what he said. And there will be a global recession if we don't do it. So it's his fault, his fault that the Strait of Hormuz was closed, his fault that the global recession was coming. So maybe he had to fix it. So maybe he should now apologize to the world for having caused this trouble for the last 60 to 90 days. Now, our friend Eli Lake and I think, Abe, I want you to reflect on this, is still saying what we did, what we did in the first six weeks here was so valuable that it remains a valuable thing that we did here in 2026. I am not there. I'll explain why in a minute. But Abe, are you. Because this is something you said a couple of weeks ago, that no matter where things went, the original attack and the kinds of things that we did and the setbacks that we caused to Iran's readiness with missilery and its breakout capacity for nuclear weapons validated whatever it is that we did,

[Seth Mandel]

those things are good. Those things were good. They remain good. They're less important now because it doesn't seem to me that we are in the long run or even in the medium term, depriving the regime of the ability to rebuild the machinery of its Regional menace again. So the what good was done in setting it back on all sorts of fronts is being mitigated by the day. And there is this new problem that has arisen that didn't exist beforehand, which is their ability to or their demonstrated experience now in choking off the Strait of Hormuz on a whim. And the completely unpredictable fallout of the fact that the US threw everything it had at Iran and couldn't break the regime and couldn't win. And the cascading, the possible potential cascading effect of that across the globe and that's effect on bad actors is completely unknowable. So as I said on an earlier episode, I don't know how to balance the books on this at this point.

[Eliana Johnson]

Well, I would say also to add to that is this reconstruction of fund. That to me is something that is almost designed to offset the gains made in the war. I know I sound like a broken record. I've been on this since October 7th and all the talk about what to do with Hamas and Hezbollah and all that. But I keep repeating the same point, which is there have to be permanent costs if you want to deter a bad actor from bad behavior again. Right. Hamas should not ever get back everything it had before October 7th. I mean, ideally it should be swept off into the dustbin of history, obviously. But the one thing I kept saying Trump was doing right was that he was not pressuring the Israelis to retreat, move back that yellow line. He was letting them take the yellow line and say when Hamas fulfills its obligations, you know, Israel can, can move out, but there has to be a permanent cost to what you've just done. There is no permanent cost to Iran. For first of all, October 7th was Iran's war. OK, so we're all in this. All this, this whole conflagration is Iran. So Iran should pay a permanent price for October 7, let alone for the things that came after it, but also the things that came after it. Also the killing of our troops in Jordan and all that stuff and closing the street. There is no permanent cost if we are going to pay to rebuild the things that we knock down. That to me is the hardest pill in all of this to swallow.

[Abe Greenwald]

I think another actually think one of the worst aspects of this MoU is in point one, which loops the fighting in Lebanon into the US Iran deal and says that Israel will bring an immediate and permanent end to the war on all fronts, including Lebanon. And I think that that's pretty dangerous and damaging. But I actually don't think that the funds for rebuilding will ever come to fruition because I don't think that they will reach a nuclear deal in the 60 days. I presume that this is it. They will resume selling oil, will issue sanctions waivers. The straight actually the biggest question I have is will they actually open the strait?

[Jon Podhoretz]

Right.

[Abe Greenwald]

And by the way, unmentioned in this MoU are tolls and will they be charging tolls and will we stand by and let them do that?

[Eliana Johnson]

Yeah, I mean, there's somebody from the administration said the other day, well, there won't be tolls, but there will be fees. Is that Trump who said that? So we really don't know what is even being demanded, right? What exactly what is?

[Abe Greenwald]

I mean, look, say a lot of things. The question is what they what do they do? So I think there are a lot of unanswered questions about this, but there's a lot we don't know.

[Jon Podhoretz]

You know, when I go out and people who are listeners to the podcast see me on the street, they're always asking me, is that quince is what you're wearing Quince. And the answer is yes, it's usually quince. And why I keep coming back to Quince is because they focus on high quality essentials that feel and look amazing. Think breathable linen and soft organic cotton. Particularly fabulous for summer. Well made basics, but without the luxury markup. It's that rare balance where everything feels elevated but still effortless. Quint's European linen pants and shirts, perfect warm weather upgrade to add to your rotation starting at just $34. Their tees are soft and easy to wear and their lightweight cotton sweaters are perfect for cooler summer nights. Elevate your summer wardrobe. Go to quints.com commentary for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns now available in Canada too. That's quy nce.com commentary for free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com commentary. My daughter graduated from college this weekend and interestingly, several of the conversations I had with the parents of other graduating seniors was was it really true what I've said about Brooklyn Bedding on the Commentary podcast that these are the most comfortable mattresses that you've ever experienced? And I said, well, you don't have to take my word for it. And I pointed to yet another parent who was there, whose daughter is a friend of my daughter's who came to our house and slept on a Brooklyn Bedding mattress and told her parents that it was the most comfortable mattress that she has ever slept on. So I don't know what more I can say other than to give you the advice of going to BrooklynBetting.com and using my promo code commentary at checkout to get 30% off site wide. This offer is not available anywhere else. That's BrooklynBetting.com and promo code COMMENTARY for 30% off site wide. Support our show and let them know we sent you after checkout. I'm talking about an entire parent body all excited about Brooklyn betting and you can be one of those people, too. BrooklynBetting.com promo code commentary. Look, there's also a very, very complicated factor here, and I don't know how to game it out. This agreement, point one, includes Lebanon, includes the idea of immediate cessation of all hostilities, quote, including Lebanon. I don't think Bibi Netanyahu can agree to this. So I don't know what that means. And when I say I don't think he can agree to this. Drones are now being flown into northern Israel from, from Lebanon. Hezbollah drones. They still have the rockets. There are half a million people in direct range, half a million in direct range of a lot of that short range rocketry that's buried in the 20 miles or so south of the Latani river on the Israeli border. There's an election coming up in Israel. The level of support for Israeli action against Hezbollah in Lebanon is somewhere around 90%. The idea that Bibi can just go to the Israeli people and say we have to stop because the Americans insist that we stop, which is what's happened in two previous Lebanese incursions and the Israelis did stop, particularly in 2006, because condi rice said stop. Now. This is a different set of circumstances. It's a different set of political. Israel is a different country, it's a much stronger country. And it has to re establish what Seth is talking about, that we're losing against Iran or that Abe was talking about, which is deterrence. It has to reestablish deterrence against Hezbollah. It has to say, anytime you fire at us, we're blowing a lot of you up. Maybe stop. That's what you gotta do. Trump may turn on Israel. Trump has already given an indication that he told Bibi, stop blowing up apartment buildings in Lebanon. You're doing too much damage and you're being too mean to Lebanon. So we could have a situation in which Bibi cannot and is not a signatory to this memorandum of understanding and for a time wasn't even being allowed to see the text of the memorandum of understanding. He cannot agree to it. So he will be blamed and the Israel will be blamed for the fact that the deal somehow fell to pieces. So that's another betrayal as far as I can see. Not that Trump needs to be friendly to Israel. I mean, I wish he were. I wish all American presidents were friendly to Israel. He doesn't have to be Bibi's friend. He doesn't have to be this. But we went to war with Israel. Israel was a partner in this war. He is not. Under what set of understandings of how relationships between nations work does one party, in a sort of two party war, unilaterally decide what the sovereign nation that it is allied with must do because he wants to grease up his body and weasel out of the trap that he has gotten himself into? It's unmanly.

[Eliana Johnson]

Right. It is a basic sovereignty issue, as you say. And also it is, as I pointed out the other day in a post, it runs contrary to the terminology of the Trump administration's statement of, you know, purpose or principles, whatever you want to call it, on the U.S. on the U.S. israel, Lebanese historic meeting in Washington where the Israeli ambassadors and the, the Israeli envoy and the Lebanese envoy met face to face and facilitated by the US and the State Department put out this statement that said, here are the things that we expect of everybody and one of them was a peace agreement between Israel and Lebanon has to be negotiated between Israel and Lebanon. It cannot be a full peace, a full ceasefire, whatever it is, cannot be negotiated by a third party in a deal with a fourth party. This is the statement the State Department put out. It is on their website, is on the government's website still today. So the administration understands that it has to, it cannot pretend that Israel, that Israel is a vassal state because that undermines the whole process of diplomacy. Right? You can't, you can't bring everybody, if, if the US has total control over Israel, you get nothing from the Arabs, you get nothing from the Iranians. That seemed to be a point that Trump and the administration understood, which is that it's not about daylight. It's about if you, if you, if you just put Israel, if they think Israel is just on your, your leash, you won't get anything from them because they'll just talk to you. They won't deal with Israel. And the whole purpose of the framework that was constructed by the Abraham Accords was the opposite. Now you will talk to Israel. Now you will deal with Israel. Now you will all be in the same room and you will shake hands and you will stop being big stupid babies about the Jews and everybody will grow up and put on their big boy pants and get in the same room and work this stuff out. That was the new framework. That's the model for the new Middle East. And so the administration understood that each time it seemed to do something that might undermine that principle, it had to say, specifically, when we are not undermining that principle, it had to restate it. And so this is something that goes against. It's not just. I mean, it's a sovereignty issue for Israel, but it's for the administration. It's the sort of thing that undermines the entire theory of its foreign policy from the beginning.

[Jon Podhoretz]

Well, there is no theory of the foreign policy. The foreign policy is whatever Trump says it is. This minute versus last minute, Trump and JD Vance on his publicity tour are attacking the Trump invasion stance from last week. The stuff that he is saying and the anger that he is displaying about what's going on, the rhetoric that he is now using, it is as though he is time traveling to last week or two weeks ago and saying to himself, you're an idiot. Shut up. We got to get this done with. What the hell is the matter with you? I'm the boss. Not us, not me, not the hawks, whatever. He was the hawk. He was the leading hawk. This is his war. It's sort of beyond belief. So there is no foreign policy, if policy means establishing a kind of framework in which people know at 4 o' clock in the afternoon all around the world where the United States stands and that it's the same thing that the United States stood for at 8 o' clock in the morning, eight hours earlier, and at midnight, eight hours later. That's what foreign policy is. It's like, this is what the United States believes, or this is how we're going to conduct ourselves. So you arrange yourself accordingly. If he just changes. You know, there's a book called Bang the Drum Slowly, a novel, really, about the New York Mets and a pitcher and a catcher, and the catcher's very stupid, and he then gets a fatal illness and the pitcher has to defend him and protect him. And one of the ways you discover that he's stupid is that he screws up a game that the team plays when it goes on the road to hotels and cons people into playing cards with them in the lobby and then steals their money. And the game is called tegwar. And they're like, let's hear, let's play tegwar, and we're gonna play tegwar. And tegwar stands for the exciting game without any rules, because they just make up the rules as the game goes along. And then everyone is so excited to be playing with the New York Mets that they. They go along with it, and then they have their hats handed to them, and the dumb catcher can't get this right, and he keeps complaining that the rules don't make any sense, and he ruins the game of Tegwar. Trump is playing Teg War. Last week, it was this. This week, it's this Thursday, it's this. This morning. He says, I could bomb them next week. Israel is our friend. Israel's our enemy. Israel's our, you know, Bibi's our ally. Bibi's crazy. He has no judgment. We're the best friends of Israel that we've ever had. This is chaos. We already knew that he was an agent of chaos. But you're citing what the administration itself has not only agreed to, but signed and did and put out papers on and all of that, and nothing holds Trump to anything. Eliana. There is this weird thing that happened also this morning with a very complicated piece of maneuvering last week involving the general upset at the idea that this lunatic housing official, Bill Pulte, was going to become the acting head of the Office of National Intelligence, the Director of National Intelligence. Republicans were angry, Democrats were angry. Democrats were holding up. We're going to, you know, held up the reauthorization of the FISA court system in order to express their discontent. And there was an effort to solve this problem by appointing a new acting head of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. That came literally structurally too late. Trump did it on a Friday, and the House had already left on Thursday, so they couldn't appeal. Blah, blah, blah, blah. And then this morning, he's like, you know what? The hell with it.

[Abe Greenwald]

So. So Republicans had arranged in order to prevent Bill Pulte from ever serving, even in an acting capacity, as the head of the Office of Director of National Intelligence. They were going. They were making enormous efforts to expedite the nomination of Jay Clayton, the U.S. attorney, current U.S. attorney in the Southern District of New York. And he was set for a hearing this morning. And then they were gonna waive the debate rules and ask for unanimous consent to get a vote on the Senate floor. And Trump then, early this morning, said, no, I want the Senate to first confirm my new nominee for the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. Clayton's replacement, Jamie McDonald, an attorney at Sullivan and Cromwell, before Clayton's confirmation, which means Bill Pulte will inevitably for a time served as acting dni. And Clayton will not have a hearing today. And he's also continuing to demand that the reauthorization of Section 702 of FISA pass along with the SAFE Act. That's the actual. That demands voters show all sorts of, you know, photo ID before they vote, which doesn't have just John Thune just said on Fox News last night, simply doesn't have the votes in the Senate to pass. And so linking those two together is just a no go. So now where we stand is no Clayton nomination today and no fisa.

[Jon Podhoretz]

Well, Tom, breaking news. And I think by the time you'll hear this, maybe this will change. Tom Cotton, who chairs the committee, has just tweeted out Jay Clayton is a pending nominee before the Intelligence Committee. We will proceed with his hearing as scheduled unless the President directs him not to appear. I think that means formally or withdraws his nomination. So I think for the first time, you are seeing the Senate say, what the hell are you doing? What the hell are you doing?

[Eliana Johnson]

We are.

[Jon Podhoretz]

You are not supposed to behave this way toward us. What the hell are you doing?

[Abe Greenwald]

Yeah, Trump seemed to be doing basically everything possible to put himself at odds with Republicans in the Senate. And so this seems to be a test, you know, the Senate testing the President how far he wants to go. Another thing they could do to test the President. And I think the Wall Street Journal floated this idea today, although I'm not, I can't guarantee that's where I saw it is, you know, they can pass. They can reauthorize section 702 of FISA and simply send it to his desk and dare the President to veto it. And if he wants to do that, any national security incident that happens would be on his, you know, on his watch, on his conscience. And I think abit asked yesterday. Well, doesn't it continue? Anyway, I actually looked that up. Cause I myself was confused about it. That is technically true. The concern is that without congressional reauthorization, the phone companies whose cooperation on whose cooperation is dependent, won't comply with it. There are some difficulties. And so I think the congressional reauthorization is actually important. It throws up some legal hurdles for the, for the telecommunications companies.

[Jon Podhoretz]

I think the point here is that is that he is breaking free of all restraint or self discipline, conducting this war, pursuing this war and winning this war required self discipline on Trump's part. It required him to have a stiffer spine. J.D. vance attacked me yesterday.

[Abe Greenwald]

Well, Jon, one other thing, it relates to exactly what you're Saying is the decision to go to war alienated a part of his base, you know, part of his supporters. And the decision to end the war in this particular way is upsetting a different faction. And so the President's in a precarious position. And while he's doing that, he's also doing these other things that are alienating and angering the people he needs in the Senate ahead of the midterms.

[Jon Podhoretz]

Okay, but you're talking about fat. Let's just put it this way. He went to war and demanded that the Republican Party support him full bore. Line up behind him. Democrats are unpatriotic, they're bad Democrats. They're, you know, they don't care about, you know, we're winning and all of that. Then he flips, he turns tail because he is bound by nothing. But they've already. Well, because he's worried themselves on the line for him.

[Abe Greenwald]

What, he flips because he's worried about oil prices?

[Jon Podhoretz]

No, I grant you, but what I'm saying is he's having compelled his party to fall in line behind him. They're now on the record as having they just had the rug pulled out from under them. Not just one faction of hawks who were happy like us, surprised that he had made this move on the 47 year enemy of the United States and finally was going to put an end to its death to America evil. The entire Republican Party was supposed to be supportive of this effort, and now he's ending it unilaterally, leaving them holding the bag, having supported an unpopular policy that 40% of Americans or fewer supported. You know, I grant you that, you know, he is somebody who doesn't care about who, you know, he doesn't care about screwing his own people. But I mean, this is a whole other level here. Like when I say he needed a stiffer spine, what I mean by that is if a war is worth fighting, then you have to suffer some of the consequences of the war. Which wars are not cost free.

[Eliana Johnson]

Trump said that himself, remember in that press conference?

[Jon Podhoretz]

He did. And J.D. vance yesterday went on Megyn Kelly's show and said people like us don't care about how hard oil prices are hitting ordinary Americans. Well, the hell with you. Who doesn't care? What do you mean we don't care? We, we, we damn well do care. And we're paying it to like, I'm, I went, I fill my tank. I filled my tank at 499 a week and a half ago. You know, I have an 18 gallon tank in my car. You Know what? What are you talking about?

[Eliana Johnson]

Yeah, I just want to say that we have, we. We have to have a car big enough for six youngish children. And so if he thinks that I enjoy seeing a triple digit thrown up on the priceline when I fill my gas tank.

[Jon Podhoretz]

No, what he means is that ordinary Americans are suffering from this war. And it's terrible that people who support the war say that is a necessary compliment to the war. If you're gonna support it, is understanding. And not, by the way, not giving him a hard. Not giving Trump a hard time on higher oil prices. In fact, quite the opposite. We keep saying that Trump's support for natural gas and, you know, deregulation of natural gas has made it possible for this conflict not to have caused a global recession because oil prices didn't go to $200 a barrel, which they might have 15 years ago had we done this before fracking became fully operational. So that's why I say, to hell with you guys. We were there saying, okay, you gotta suffer. America's gonna suffer some from this war because it's so important. And who was the person who told us that it was that important? Trump. I mean, I agreed with him to begin with. I agree that it's important and it's worth the sacrifice, but so did he.

[Seth Mandel]

Yeah.

[Jon Podhoretz]

So if Vance is attacking me, which he did personally yesterday on Megyn Kelly show, for not caring, he's attacking Trump for not caring. It's Trump's fault that the oil prices went where they went.

[Seth Mandel]

Not only that, they're the ones that made ordinary Americans suffer higher prices for four months for this. I mean, if we were gonna let Iran win, no one had to pay any price. To say nothing of the fact that we lost 15American service members for this. I mean, they're the ones who squandered American blood and treasure without a plan, without spying, without seeing through what that extraordinary investment was supposed to guarantee for us.

[Eliana Johnson]

An important point, because they could have. The key thing is they could have had this deal literally any second of any day of any month, right? This deal is so, so friendly to Iran that there's even a, you know, a reconstruction fund that the Arab states that Iran. Iran's not going to have to rebuild what it blew up in, you know, the United Arab Emirates, but the United Arab Emirates is going to have to rebuild what we blew up in Iran. Right? This deal could have been had at any moment. And Abe's point is key. Why? What happened to let this just sit and drag out and bleed out only to agree to a better deal that was then for Iran than was even on the table a month or two ago.

[Seth Mandel]

You know the joke about, like the cynical guy who's divorced and he says, you know, look, don't get married. Just find the person you hate the most in the world and give them half your money.

[Jon Podhoretz]

It's like the house. Yeah, yeah.

[Seth Mandel]

We didn't have to go to war to do this. You know, in February, Trump, Obama did

[Jon Podhoretz]

it without going to war.

[Seth Mandel]

We could have called for the price of a phone call. We could have said, okay, you know, keep doing what you're doing. Plus, you may want to consider taking control of the Strait of Hormuz. I mean, that's. We, you know, we didn't have to go through any of this.

[Jon Podhoretz]

Yeah. And Israel is forbidden to defend itself against attack from the north. That's the other. That's the other great part. Another thing that was said last week. Marco Rubio said last week the Secretary of State of the United States said any nation that does not defend itself against incoming rocketry would be stupid. It would be stupid not to defend itself or to counterattack if it were attacked by rockets. He would. That's not just some guy, you know, that's us calling into a talk show. That is the Secretary of State who said properly and correctly that a sovereign nation attacked from outside its borders needs must defend itself if it is not to continue to come under attack. And Trump just cut him off at the knees, too. A friend of ours, whom I won't name because he's in the administration, texted me the following interesting observation about Rubio, about Vance. I'm sorry, here's what he said. It's interesting how quickly JD Being frontman for the deal became JD Leading the isolationist putsch against traditional Republican foreign policy. The messaging switched to strawmans about neocons and forever wars awfully quick. Yeah. He starts Monday trying to save the deal, and then Tuesday he goes on Megyn Kelly and says, you know, all the neocons care about is forever wars and making sure that Americans suffer from high gas prices. So something also is going on here in the fight for the soul of the Republican Party, which is, I guess the first six weeks of the war were the Rubio party and now the eight weeks of the ceasefire leading to this deal are the Vance party and there is Trump. This kind of bizarre two headed hydra. One face before the summer and now the new face this summer, and who's what what counts. And Vance trying essentially to get himself back in the good graces of the people who said things about Trump over the last month or two, Tucker and Megan and people like that, that I would be under the impression Trump would want them to. He would want to sic the FBI on them for saying such terrible things about him, the way he sics the FBI on people that he doesn't like.

[Abe Greenwald]

I remember, John, when I, somebody on this podcast said, this is going to be the definitive break between Trump and Tucker Carlson, I said, they'll be back. They'll come back around. There's no definitive break.

[Eliana Johnson]

Well, and also the way that they, the way that they phrase this stuff is also so interesting because, you know, people like Megyn Kelly will say, well, I guess, you know, Trump's new friends, not such great friends. They don't love him as much as he thought they loved him. And it just tells you that this is how certain people see politics. We're not, we didn't. We're not Trump's significant other here. We're not in some kind of romantic relationship with the president. We didn't, we didn't vow our everlasting, undying love. We didn't recite lines from the Princess Bride to him. We just said, hey, that thing you're doing, that's good. Make you know it would be, do it this way, do it that, whatever, but good job. You need to take out their nuclear program. Somebody needed to do it, et cetera. What we're commenting on is policy. And what we're, what they're accusing us of is being honest, is being principled. What they're saying is we can't be trusted to blindly love and adore a politician, no matter what he says or done, does. Instead, you have to be careful of the commentary guys, because they will tell you what they actually think, and they are, They're. They will adhere to their principles rather than blindly follow some politician in what is essentially a cult of personality. The way she describes. And I just think that's an interesting way to try to insult us, this idea that you can't trust us because we're honest.

[Jon Podhoretz]

When I go to certain kinds of wisdom about politics, I go back to the oldest wisdom in politics that I know of, which are the Psalms, Psalm 146. Put not your trust in princes, nor in the Son of man, in whom there is no help. His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth, and that very day his thoughts perish. Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the Lord, his God. In other words, like you're not supposed to feel about politicians that they. One must find them blindly. This is the fundament of Western civilization. You do not put your trusted princes. You do not believe in the temporality of man. You must connect yourself to more enduring matters, the most enduring matter obviously, being faith or belief in the Almighty and the rules that he, that he puts down. And I'm saying not only are we like, holding to principle, but, you know, there was a world in which. What he did when he came into office was conduct himself in, with the exception of Ukraine. He started conducting himself in a new way in relation to foreign policy and in relation to matters involving the disruptions of the United States. After October 7th, he was not the same leader that he was in his first term. He did different things, he went different ways. He allowed Israel to finish what it thought it was trying to finish in Gaza. He joined in Operation Midnight Hammer to take out after the 12 day war. He was conducting himself in a new way that deserved support from people who believe the things that we believe in. And so we didn't change. He changed. We spoke positively about the changes that he made. And for people like Vance and others, I'm sure this was a bitter pill to swallow because they thought, as we keep hearing, as we kept hearing from the restrainers, they thought that Trump had been elected to never get into a forever war, or to never go to war, or to never do this or to never do that. And, boy, that's sort of what Tucker said. That's what Nick Fuentes said, all of that. And certainly not to do this for the Jews, don't do it for the Jews, Israel or the Jews or whatever they wanted to say, whatever word they wanted to impute evil to here. He's not the same person he was when he started the war on February 28th. This is not the same guy who was saying, you don't care about oil gas prices and you're an idiot because you don't think the Strait of Hormuz needs to be open. Of course we think the Strait of Hormuz needs to be open. You know the best way to open it? Beat Iran in the war so that it'll never do it again, so it'll never happen again, so that nobody will ever attempt to close a waterway passage on the planet again. That's the logic of where he was when he started the war. Not that you negotiate some deal in which you're like, if you're a nice boy, you're going to get $300 billion that you don't deserve and have literally no reason to have to help pay for what we took out. That's an insane policy. Here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to blow up your house and then I'm going to rebuild your house. As long as you're nice for a significant period of time, or not even significant. Two months. Two months and you'll start getting money. And by the way, apparently even that, from what we were reading yesterday, may be illegal. He does not have the power to unilaterally remove sanctions on Iran.

[Abe Greenwald]

Well, I actually thought about this overnight. I think the way that they're going to get around that he doesn't have the power to remove sanctions on Iran in a nuclear deal. And I think that the way the administration will get around that is they will issue sanctions waivers in this deal for the Strait of Hormuz, which is fine, since that is not a nuclear deal. And that's that I don't ever think there will be a nuclear deal. So, you know, that's how I think that this cat will be skinned. And you're right, since I was the one who sent that around yesterday.

[Jon Podhoretz]

Yeah.

[Abe Greenwald]

They need congressional approval to lift sanctions in any nuclear deal. And I think the argument will be this is not a nuclear deal. We're negotiating that over 60 days. I don't think it'll ever happen. Do you want to talk quickly about the primary?

[Eliana Johnson]

And he did say, by the way, he did say. He did say, by the way that he'd be happy to send it to Congress for approval. He likes you. He, he said, I never thought about it, but now that you bring it up, sure. I like that idea.

[Jon Podhoretz]

So. Oh, yeah, they're really going to want to vote for that. That's another big favor that he's doing to Republicans who are trying to hold on to the House and Senate is make them vote for this capitulation. That's a really noble act on his part since he refused to go to them to get permission to fight the war in the first place. Okay. Yes. Let's talk about last night in Georgia

[Abe Greenwald]

and in D.C. so in Georgia, the Republican Senate primary to take on the incumbent Democratic Senator John Ossoff, who's a pretty strong candidate for Democrats, was a face off between the Trump endorsed Congressman Jon Ossoff and the Brian Kemp endorsed. He's the governor of Georgia, very popular former Dallas Cowboys football coach Derek Dooley and Trump. Trump's candidate Mike Collins prevailed in that race. However, in the gubernatorial primary, Trump's candidate, a guy named Bert Jones was defeated. Same thing that happened in Iowa where Trump's candidate Feenstra lost to this guy Zach Glon. And he was defeated by a self funder who spent $100 million just in the primary, Rick Jackson. Which makes this race a little bit more interesting because Jackson, who will face Keisha Lance Bottoms, the highly unpopular former Atlanta mayor who's now the Democrats gubernatorial nominee down there, is going to spend a ton of money for Republicans in the state of Georgia and it may make that race a little more competitive. Though I'm actually pretty bullish on on Ossoff's chances. He's a strong candidate attracting a lot of attention. But anyways, now Republicans have a lot of money in dc. It looks like DC will have an anti Semitic lunatic socialist mayor. The city is very much getting what it deserves. Her name is Janice Lewis George and she defeated the relatively more moderate Kenyon McDuffie. Janice Lewis George made news when she pledged in a DSA candidate questionnaire to reject the Zionist lobby and said she would, quote, not attend events focused on obfuscating the realities of occupation or promoting Zionists and apartheid. And that is what won her the local DSA chapter Democratic Socialists of America endorsement. So that's DC's new mayor since there's no two party system in DC. And it is another bit of data, there's Janice Lewis George, Abdul El Sayed Hamaui in New Jersey, Zoram Mamdani in New York, that this is the way the Democratic Party is going. Antisemitism, socialism, anti capitalism, but we repeat ourselves. All these things are bound up together

[Jon Podhoretz]

when this midterm is over. Right? November 2026. The midterm is over. The presidential race immediately begins. 2028 presidential race and there has never been anything more wide open than the Democratic nomination for president in 2028. In my lifetime, there isn't even anybody who counts as a front runner. Some people say Newsom. I don't buy it. There is no.

[Abe Greenwald]

You should also spend a moment when you're done on the Newsom investigation.

[Jon Podhoretz]

Okay, we could do that too. Maybe that's another reason to say that Newsom can't possibly be a frontrunner. There is an FBI investigation as a result of whistleblowing in Sacramento. Not from Kash Patel and the evil Trump Justice Department, but local in the State Capitol. Questions about the tax.

[Abe Greenwald]

Yeah. So Newsom tried to get ahead of all of this by putting out a video saying he was the latest target of the Trump doj. And the Sacramento Bee put out a story Saying that in fact the investigations into Newsom originated from whistleblower complaints submitted to the U.S. attorney's office in Sacramento. They did not come out of the DOJ in Washington D.C. and they relate to the taxes, finances, nonprofits of the first partner, which is what Newsom's wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom calls herself. And that they began at the same time as an FBI probe into Newsom's former chief of staff, Dana Williamson. And she has now pled guilty to various offenses. She shut down a state sexual harassment probe against Activision and she had before joining the Newsom administration, served as a consultant for Activision. I believe we don't know that this investigation relates to nonprofits that Jennifer Siebel Newsom runs. They are these woke gender nonprofits.

[Jon Podhoretz]

And it's called the Representation Project.

[Abe Greenwald]

Literally it's called the Representation Project. And it was founded to finance, you know, crazy documentary films to promote feminism. And California has something called a behested payments system which you must register. If you are a politician and you request or ask that a company donates or contributes to a non profit, you must register that with the system. And records show that Gavin Newsom behested payments to his wife's non profits from various entities and then took action out of the governor's office for these payments. One was an Indian tribe, but there may be others. And these are companies or entities doing business with the states. There are a lot of these allegations that have been swirling around the Newsoms for years. There's a general lack of national mainstream media interest in this. And I believe that the investigation into the Newsoms will force this stuff, you know, into the headlines. I think it's a problem for them. Jennifer Siebel Newsom is running a ton of of these nonprofit groups and the nonprofit groups are giving to for profit groups that she runs and she's drawing money from them. I think it's going to be a problem for Newsom and remember.

[Jon Podhoretz]

So you have a problem if the mainstream media doesn't highlight it. But that's. Let's go back to the Democratic nomination.

[Abe Greenwald]

Newsom foes will highlight it.

[Jon Podhoretz]

He's already rich, will take an ax to to him any way that they need to. And particularly because he is not from the DSA and because she's very rich. Jennifer Siebel Newsom comes from, you know, her father was a giant, like it's a very wealthy family. So she is not only doing this, but it's gonna be one of those easy populist. Not only is she conning maybe conning the taxpayer, but she's also like a rich kid who's getting all this support and screwing the taxpayer. So that double time means there appears

[Abe Greenwald]

to be these quid pro quos going on where they're asking organizations to contribute money to her nonprofits in exchange for the governor taking official action.

[Jon Podhoretz]

Right. So it's bad. But in any case, it is injurious to his standing if he is the front runner, which again, I don't even think you can call him the front runner. So there is going to be this wide open field, wide open. I don't remember. I mean, maybe 92. But even then, Mario Cuomo was the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination. He just decided not to run. There is nobody. And so you're going to get 20 people jumping into this race again. And the race is going to center on Israel. 2027 will be on the subject of Israel and support for Israel. What trans was in 2019 in the Democratic primaries? Trans and single payer health care or that, you know, special 2% that people over whatever number were supposed to pay extra to health care. The Bernie Sanders proposal or whatever that was. We are going to have a Democratic Party that argues that is going to try to appeal to its moneyed grassroots base by going at the Jews, mark my words. And that starts, and if we have this candidate in D.C. d.C. Is obviously not a representative. It's a city, 86 or 88% Democratic. So it's not a representative place. But of course, in the Democratic primary, it's 100% Democratic. If this is what it means to be a Democrat in 2026, which is what the polling is telling us, there is going to be a reckoning for Israel and the Jews in the Democratic Party and then a reckoning for the Jews in the United States. And whether or not they look at this Democratic Party as it starts running and trying to appeal, make money, appeal and go ahead to see who wins in 2028. Is this a Corbyn moment? Are we getting to a Corbyn moment where the Jews of the United States say, oh my God, this party hates us. Now maybe they can yesterday lying to themselves and saying that it's that they hate Israel and Israel, you know, Bibi's bad, all of that, but maybe not. Like when you get this kind of competition to get to everybody's left, stuff is gonna start coming out of people's mouths in the middle of these debates that they didn't necessarily want to say. That is gonna be bone chilling and blood Curdling. And this is just a warning for this audience and for, for other, you know, that we're heading into something very dark.

[Eliana Johnson]

And a piece of evidence into what you're saying, John, is that yesterday, I believe it was yesterday, Bernie Sanders made a big show of endorsing Cori Bush. So what is Bernie's real problem with Wesley Bell, a progressive prosecutor who holds the seat now, the St. Louis area Missouri seat by believe it's the 1st district who came to prominence through the, you know, through the Missouri race riots and all that stuff. Wesley Bell has no trouble with his bona fides on the left. So what is Bernie Sanders. Why does Bernie Sanders pick someone who lost to Wesley Bell last time to come back and try to defeat a sitting Democratic congressman and incumbent? Why is Bernie backing the challenger? Because Israel, because he's going to make it about Israel. Because he wants Cori Bush to win and he wants to show that Israel was the issue. It doesn't matter what Wesley Bell, by the way, Wesley Bell was really an up and coming, considered an up and coming star in Democratic Party. He actually, they initially wanted him to run for Senate and he was going to do that. He was seen as a statewide level candidate, Wesley Bell. And then the Democratic Party said, you should probably just go beat Corey Bush instead because she's just a monstrous headache for this party and we're not going to get anything done and the St. Louis area is too important. So it's kind of like a Senate seat because of St. Louis. So do that instead. And he did and he did and he went and he won the election, all that stuff. Wesley Bell was like the guy that they, you could slot in when you needed somebody. They considered him solid. He's young, all this stuff. The one thing that you can have against Wesley Bell is that he is not critical enough of Israel. It's not that he's not critical of Israel, but he doesn't do the genocide dance and all that other stuff. And backing Cori Bush is a way to try to revive, to undo recent history. They want to erase the consequences for, for crazy antisemitic candidates who lost their primaries for being obsessed with Israel. And they want to show that the way to win now is to be overly obsessed with Israel, that that principle has flipped.

[Jon Podhoretz]

Okay, I want to make a quick recommendation to very much lighten the mood here. And it's a recommendation that will really not be for everybody because what you need to like is really violent action movies. Okay? There was a movie, it came out on Friday. It's called the Furious. It is a martial arts movie. Imagine Sound of Freedom combined with Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Fists of Fury. It's about a ring of kidnappers or kidnapping children and sex trafficking them and a father and a journalist who get together to try to break this ring up. But basically it's two hours of martial arts fighting in a city that just says somewhere in Southeast Asia. Some of it's in Chinese, some of it's in dubbed English, some of it's in Tagalog, some of it's in Thai. But it has about 45 minutes of the damnedest martial arts fighting I have ever seen. It is incredibly exciting and insanely violent. So it's a must see if you can put up with that. It's just visceral entertainment of the most visceral sort. So that's the Furious. It's in theaters and it's just, it's dazzling. So give that a shot. If all the provisos that I have offered do not deter you, we will be back tomorrow. For Seth Eliana and Abe, I'm John Podhoritz. Keep the candle burning

[Abe Greenwald]

Sa.