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- [00:01]
John Podhoretz
This episode is brought to you by Lifelock. The holidays mean more travel, more shopping, more time online and more personal info in places that could expose you to identity theft. That's why LifeLock monitors millions of data points every second. If your identity is stolen, their US based restoration specialist will fix it, guaranteed or your money back. Get more holiday fun and less holiday worry with Lifelock. Save up to 40% your first year. Visit lifelock.com podcast terms apply.
- [00:45]
Noah Rothman
No way of knowing which way it's going. Hope for the best, Expect the worst. Hope for the best welcome to the Commentary Magazine daily Podcast. Today is Monday, November 11, 2024. It is Veterans Day. And of course we, like all Americans of goodwill, salute those who have served our country so nobly and with such great sacrifice and have made the world safer and Americans safer and the world freer and Americans freer. And I hope that it's a good day for veterans. The one place that veterans apparently will not be welcome is our favorite campus, Columbia University, where there is going to be a Veterans Day protest against not only the settler, colonials, colonialists, but against people who work for the Great Satan. As I'm sure Joseph Massad, the notorious Middle Eastern studies professor at Columbia, would himself in his brain and maybe perhaps through his lips, refer to the United States as he is an Iranian stooge. Another wonderful man who invited Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to the campus of Columbia in 2007, thus in part beginning the career of one Barry Weiss, who now of course is a leading figure in the conservative media or the anti liberal media or the new media that is eating the lunch of the mainstream media, as Christine Rosen details in the piece for Commentary that we will be making available to you on Wednesday. Anyway. And so let me introduce Executive editor Abe Greenwald. Hi, Abe.
- [02:42]
Christine Rosen
Hi, John.
- [02:43]
Noah Rothman
The aforementioned media commentary columnist and AEI senior fellow, Christine Rosen. Hi, Christine.
- [02:49]
Matthew Continetti
Hi, John.
- [02:49]
Noah Rothman
Christine's colleague at AEI and our Washington Commentary columnist, Matthew Conatty. Hi, Matt.
- [02:54]
Seth Mandel
Hi, John.
- [02:55]
Noah Rothman
And Commentary Senior editor Seth Mandel. Hi, Seth.
- [02:58]
Abe Greenwald
Hi, John.
- [02:59]
Noah Rothman
So we have, we have two major, three major appointments we mentioned of the incoming Trump administration. We mentioned, I think we talked about Susie Wiles, the chief of staff on Friday. Two appointments made over the weekend, it appears, though I don't think they formally accepted. One is Elise, a representative, Elise Stefanik, to be the ambassador to the UN A very flashy position that can in the right hands be a springboard to fame, fortune, notoriety, immense amounts of personal support. And she is a very, very suitable candidate for that job is because we Saw her basically defenestrate the President of Colombia, the president of Harvard and the president of Penn in her absolutely spectacular grilling of them in December, I think. Was it December of last year? Anyway, very solid choice. And then we have a border czar or an immigration czar. I'm not quite sure he's the border czar. He is the border czar, though, according to Trump's tweet about him, his name is Tom Homan and he did run the immigration ice, the immigration agency, in the first two years of the Trump administration that he will basically be in charge of everything. But as is true of all czars, he does not have a confirmable position and will somehow have to corral other agencies run by people who have independent sources of power because they will be confirmed by the Senate. Having myself once worked for the drug czar, I can tell you that the czar thing doesn't work very well because nobody wants to listen to the czar, even though the czar is supposedly the right hand of the president because they got their own agendas and their own things that they want to do.
- [05:12]
Matthew Continetti
But he did run, he did run ICE before and he has been very, I think in just his early messaging, pretty effective at saying we're going to round up anyone who illegally crossed the border who is a criminal or a national security threat. That's where we're starting. And I do think calling him a czar is in effect a kind of post election troll of Harris. So maybe it's just that.
- [05:30]
Noah Rothman
Fair enough. And I think, by the way, speaking.
- [05:33]
Abe Greenwald
Of, I think he should have made Harry Sporters are. By the way, I was very surprised.
- [05:40]
Noah Rothman
Speaking of Elise Stefanik and her views as an extremely pro Israel person, tough on immigration and pretty tough. One interesting approach would be between now and January for Trump to isolate on Muslim terrorists who have entered the United States through the border. For example, the guy who shot the orthodox shul goer in Chicago three weeks ago, who came from Mauritania, crossed somehow illegally through south of San Diego and then was let out into the general population to shoot an American on his way to synagogue while shouting Allahu Akbar. That is a very powerful example of the national security threat posed by the open border. And that is something that might be a kind of way of throwing Democrats and people who are softer on immigration, like me, on their back foot, you know.
- [06:57]
Seth Mandel
Well, I think the, what I can understand of the plan so far is that their effort to deport, while a lot of details have yet to be filled in, will concentrate on two populations, the first, criminals and terrorists. And then the second, more broader population are the migrants who have crossed over since Biden was president. So all of those populations now, you know, that are in places like New York, places like Boston, places like the border. Those will be the two, I think, priorities. And it will take a lot of effort and time. I think Homan's appointment is significant because it suggests that Trump is going to try to centralize power within the White House, which presidents often do. And so I agree, John. Oftentimes there are disagreements or clashes between White House officials and Cabinet secretaries. On the other hand, what we've seen in recent presidencies, especially recent Democratic presidencies, is that the Cabinet really has very little authority and much of policy is coming from the White House. I expect that to be the case in Trump, too, unlike actually in Trump 1, where the Cabinet secretaries had a little bit more free rein. This is a lesson, I think, that Trump has taken from his first term that he will not use in the second. I also would say, I, I mean, I, it's not much discussed right now. I expect that the travel ban will be reinstated on day one. So this, of course, affecting travel from national security risk countries, most of which are Muslim dominated countries. And that would affect legal immigration in addition to the deportation plans for illegal.
- [09:12]
Noah Rothman
This is an important point, by the way, because it's already been adjudicated. That is to say that the Supreme Court has already ruled that the president had the authority to impose the Muslim ban under the 1952 National Security Act. So it's not like he's going in fresh and that they can, you know, and that, and that he can be combated with legal challenges like there, there is an actual ruling on exactly what.
- [09:41]
Seth Mandel
You, in fact, it's deeper than that because recall that in Greg Abbott's fight over the border with the Biden administration, the Supreme Court has said that immigration is a federal matter. And so now Trump will be in charge of the federal government. And so when all those blue governors and all those blue mayors who are already trying to Trump proof their states and localities get into court fights, they're going to have Supreme Court precedent giving Trump and the federal government prioritization on matters of immigration. So he'll be helped by that. And I also think you're absolutely right about the travel ban. Recall that. Just the shock and confusion and chaos that ensued when Trump issued the travel ban in his first term. It was, it was a mess. You know, Trump advisers like Steve Bannon said that they actually wanted it to be a shock and wanted to produce chaos. But I don't think it helped Trump get off on the right foot in his first administration. But, of course, the shock has worn off. As you say, it's been litigated. This will happen, and it will happen, I think, much more smoothly than last time. Another reminder that what we're in for is going to be very different than what we experienced.
- [11:12]
Matthew Continetti
And he has the public support now on immigration.
- [11:15]
Seth Mandel
Yes, another great detail. He has public support on all of these issues.
- [11:20]
Noah Rothman
And were mentioning, you know, blue state governors who are trying to, you know, Trump, proof their states. This is more like, oh, please, President Trump, don't throw me into the brier patch. I Please, please don't go to 923 west, you know, 247th street to pick up the 5P, you know, go to the hotel in the Bronx where there are, you know, 200 illegal immigrants that we are forced to house because of the New York City Constitution. Please don't come and deport them and save us hundreds of millions of dollars that we can spend on other stuff here in our city or in our state. I mean, that's the other irony here, which is that, you know, this may be a kind of moral issue for, you know, Democrats and progressives, but the people who have had to implement or live with the open border and pay for the migrants in their cities don't like the migrants in their cities because they're taking away money that they could spend on the people who actually do vote and vote for them and will maybe want to vote for them for reelection.
- [12:36]
Seth Mandel
What's the over under on days until Mayor Adams first visit to Mar a Lago. That's gonna be great.
- [12:47]
Noah Rothman
I think that's the problem.
- [12:48]
Abe Greenwald
Adams is a perfect example because they asked him about the fluoride right away.
- [12:53]
Seth Mandel
And he said he's gonna watch him. Mayor Adams is going to have the mega cap on within a few months, trust me.
- [13:01]
Noah Rothman
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
- [13:01]
Abe Greenwald
But, but the thing about, the thing about, about people, first of all, there was the busing the migrants or planing the migrants to Martha's Vineyard and places like that. Right. I think now, looking back, the thing that Ron DeSantis did as governor of Florida, I think we can sort of look at that as one of the great political stunts because it actually, I think it changed policy. I mean, that one, that move changed the way that people reacted to the issue at hand, changed the way the public talked about it, and it changed the way the public officials talked about it. They all Suddenly the migrants showed up and these public officials said, why? What do you want me to do about it? And they said, well, that's what Texas and whoever's dealing with. And now, you know, and the other thing is that on the homeless stuff, this turned, you know, last year, maybe the year before, and governors, liberal governors were begging the courts to save them from their own mistakes. And you know, they had originally advocated for all these new rights, you know, constitutional right to sleep in Penn Station or on top of Penn Station, whatever it was. And then they got a court out west to agree with them. But once the court did that, you had precedent. And it became very difficult even for mayors and governors who wanted to clean things up, to do so, because they had gotten what they asked for. And what they asked for was some sort of judicial intervention that took it out of their hands. And now they couldn't just go back and say, well, I'll just pass a law that says you can't sleep at Penn Station, you can't do that anymore. And so they need somebody who will kick things around.
- [14:44]
Noah Rothman
It's even more complicated than that. We've, we've had, we're watering down our slogan here. I know, I know, we're watering it down. And I feel bad because I'm stealing, stealing Abe's, because, you know, the results of the election last week, the most, what I would say pregnant results in terms of what America might look like going forward over the next generation were the doubling of Trump's support in blue cities and in blue states, Chicago literally double. He got like 12% in 2020, got 24% in 2024. I think we've talked about New York, New Jersey. The story of in the state of New Jersey is jaw dropping. Trump was down 16 in 2020, down 5 in 2024. This blue state model stuff that Walter Russell Mead began talking about 15 years ago. The chickens are coming home to roost. And Democratic now, they're still getting three quarters of the vote, but the trend line is unmistakable. And smart and savvy politicians who have a feeling for what is going on in their areas will understand that if the Latino vote could go from 15% to 50% in eight years, the urban vote could go from 15% to 50% IN EIGHT YEARS. And that really would be an earth shaking change in American political governance, because it's not clear where what the Democrats have in large numbers outside of the 10 major cities and suburbs of those cities in the United States. That is the core of Democratic support, remember.
- [16:37]
Matthew Continetti
But this is going to. But see, I think there's going to be a real lag between the self serving, we are on the moral high ground rhetoric of the left, which we've all endured for a long time, but which will, it looks like, is accelerating the wake of Trump's win. And I think the perfect media story that captured that, to Seth's point, about the political stunt, do you remember a year after all those migrants had been shipped to Martha's Vineyard, I think it was the New York Times said this one year later, their lives were still touched by the, you know, contact with illegal immigrants. The funny thing is, like, they had those migrants shipped out of Martha's Vineyard within 48 hours. Like they did not mess around. They're like, they are not staying. We are moving them off the island. But they have, they have this sense of themselves, this kind of gauzy unreality of like, we are on the moral high ground. That, that I think will still hear that tone. But what, what Trump's victory doesn't allow is for the policy to follow the tone any longer. But there will be a disconnect for a while, I would predict.
- [17:32]
Noah Rothman
I have to interrupt here to tell a story about limousine liberalism and the core, the core formation of limousine liberalism. My single favorite story, and it involves your colleague Nick Eberstadt, Christine's and Matt's colleague at the American Enterprise Institute, Nick Eberstadt. Maybe America's not only OG Demographer, yes, the foremost demographer studying of voter trends, and of course, the author of the most popular essay that commentary is published in my tenure, our miserable 21st century. Also an expert on North Korea. But back in the day when he was a young and very mischievous lad at Harvard University, Nick, who was kind of a slummer, would go to South Boston or near Fenway and drink and carouse and there was a party at the Harvard Lampoon House. So the Harvard Lampoon was having its party and Nick decided that he was going to bring with him, though he was not himself a member of the Lampoon staff, but he somehow was either going to sneak in or something or other. He went down to South Boston and he got himself a guy named Fenway Dick, a notorious Boston character, sort of like a wino, basically, who, you know, would, you know, shuffle around for change, you know, in the, in the, in the bars. And he decided to bring Fenway Dick with him to the Lampoon annual Lampoon party. And he brought him into the annual Lampoon party and there was a huge uproar. And 30 years, 20 years later, I was talking to Kurt Anderson, whom you may know as the founder of Spy magazine and various other things and sort of just a classic liberal, self satisfied liberal journalist in New York. And I was like, hey, you know, Nick Eberstead is a friend of mine. He told me this really funny story about a prank he pulled in, you know, when you were the editor of the Lampoon. At which point Kurt stiffened, his expression hardened, and it was as though it was as fresh that moment as it had been on the night that Nick had brought Fenway Dick to the Harvard Lampoon party. And he was like, that was really an outrageous and unseemly thing that he did. And I. That was just awful. How horrible.
- [20:29]
Seth Mandel
Terrible.
- [20:30]
Noah Rothman
How horrible. So Fenway Dick was this kind of, you know, what we used to call a wino or like a Bowery bum or something like that. We would now call him an unhoused person or a, you know, whatever. But you could be the Lampoo. You could make fun of Richard Nixon and you could make fun of Donald Trump's hands and Spy, but you couldn't make fun of the Lampoon self satisfaction. And that was the genius of what DeSantis did with Martha's Vineyard and sort of what Abbott did, though, what Abbott did by saying to people who had been released into the country, would you like to go somewhere else? You know, maybe you want to go somewhere else? And they're like, yeah, I'd like to go to Chicago. He's like, fine, here's a bus ticket, we'll send you to Chicago was make the sanctuary cities and the people who had spoken so full of, you know, puffed up by their own virtue about the inhumanity of what Trump had been doing and the inhumanity of closing the borders or arresting people just for being human or whatever nonsense they were peddling and saying, okay, you know what? Great, so let's share the burden here in America.
- [21:46]
Christine Rosen
So to Christine's point about the tone from such people is going to remain the same, but policy won't be following along with that tone anymore. I think the tone is when Trump begins to do these things, crackdown on the border, on the illegals that are here, on the terrorists that have gotten in, criminals, the tone, the response, it's going to be, this is the five alarm fire. I mean, this is, this is what they're going to. Absolutely. We're already hearing it. There's going to be roundups. And, you know, because this, these are big moves and they're decisive if he does them.
- [22:29]
Seth Mandel
I agree completely with Abe. And I think this is where you're going to see the resistance in action at the outset of Trump too. You know, on the economy. There's a lot of that's going to be happening in Congress with writing the next tax bill. Trump will come in and he'll start imposing some of the tariffs. But that doesn't really light a fire under the left the way that the deportation likes tariffs. Right, yeah. And what are they going to do? How dare you. Yeah, combat inflation. You know, I mean, it doesn't make much sense, but immigration being, you know, in my view, the most important issue of the last generation, it really connects with the left self understanding as believer in a. Believers in a borderless world in human rights that cannot be touched by any national.
- [23:23]
Noah Rothman
Human rights.
- [23:24]
Seth Mandel
Yeah, national, national sovereignty. And also the more left wing visions of what immigration might do to, you know, overturn the white supremacist order in the United States. All of that is so important to the imagination of the left that when this program starts, I think you will, you will see state governors and mayors, not Mayor Adams, be very, very vocal in opposition. You'll see protests in the street, too. And so this will be the huge fight, I think, at the, at the beginning.
- [23:57]
Matthew Continetti
And one thing though, and we have seen this on a few cable news, more extreme, again, more extreme left leaning people. But the dirty secret is they also want these people to mow their lawns, pick up their groceries, do all the, all the kind of menial tasks that they themselves would never allow their own children to have to do or have in many cases, never experienced themselves. And you see this in the tone of like, well, who's going to pick your crops? Who's going to, who's going to clean your house? And that, that every time someone says that, I'm like, do you hear yourself? You are telling on yourself right now.
- [24:28]
Seth Mandel
I think it betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of how the terms of the immigration debate have changed in the last four years.
- [24:35]
Matthew Continetti
Exactly.
- [24:35]
Seth Mandel
Trump's first election. Immigration, it was not, it was, you know, immigration been building for some time, but public opinion was like, well, you know, immigrants are part of our society, they're part of our economy. Yes, there's a slight problem with illegal immigration, but that doesn't really affect me. Four years later, after Biden reversed all of Trump's policies and the border essentially became open, millions of people, just millions of illegal immigrants, and that's in addition to about a million legal immigrants every year, Americans have had just a completely different reaction. And they're living in communities where social services are under strain, where schools are under great strain, where there are incidents, criminal incidents, I don't want to blow it up into something bigger than it is, but there is criminal activity. And everyday voters, including legal migrants who have been here for a long time or who just became citizens last year, they are completely outraged this situation. And so I think there will be some of this kind of bien pensant liberalism that you may see on the View. That's. Oh, yeah, exactly, Christine. I mean, who's going to do the jobs? But the popular sentiment to me has turned in a direction that will support Trump on this issue in the next six months.
- [26:06]
Noah Rothman
That's very important because again, if we're comparing this to early 2017, there's a much more complicated matter for Americans. And what Biden did was so brainless. And bizarrely, I don't like an autonomic negative response. Right. Trump did X. I'm going to do, not X. While he was part of the Obama administration that had found itself in the midst of a border crisis in 2014 and 2015 and 2016, which is where a lot of the photographs that were used deployed against Trump, meaning the kids in cages had been taken during the Obama years. So they already had evidence of their own experience with border policy that had inadvertently negative consequences that they did not want. And it's a mark of Biden's extraordinary incapacity as a politician, a political leader or somebody with a sense that the policies that he might enact would have knock on effects. And you're supposed to kind of game them out before you impose them. The largest obvious one being Afghanistan, but maybe the border even larger because they'd already seen what happened when you liberalize or when you start talking in this very sentimental way about abortion and about DACA and about the dreamers and all of that. And then suddenly people in Central America who are living in terrible circumstances with gangs running El Salvador and drug gangs running parts of Mexico, are like, it sounds like they're really nice up there. Let's go there and get the hell away from here. And then clearly, the American president wants to make us, will want to make us legal. They did that. They had to suffer the consequences of it. It probably played a role, not even on the margins, in helping Trump get elected in 2016. And then he just turns around and does it again. And so in the post mortem period, we're talking a lot about Democrats and the post mortem of Democrats, they haven't even begun to reckon with what you guys are talking about here, which is. And also Biden, if they go the way Matt and Christine are saying, they're going to enshrine the idea that Democrats are for lawlessness and open borders for a generation, while we have every piece of evidence that we need that enforcing the border is one of the two or three things that got Latinos, legal Latinos, many of them here, two or three generations, to turn toward Trump in South Texas, in Arizona.
- [29:19]
Seth Mandel
It's a wonderful thing to watch, isn't it?
- [29:22]
Noah Rothman
And I just, you know, part of.
- [29:24]
Abe Greenwald
Part of what, part of what Biden did, though, was the, was the chaos again. We, we had talked for a while about Trump was the chaos guy, and then Biden got elected as the not chaos guy. And we've had these conversations before on the podcast where we said, well, if you look around the world, it's easy for a voter to say, wait, this is the not chaos guy. The border was, was exactly the same thing. He came in, he reversed Trump stuff. But then, if you remember, he got nervous about Republicans being able to run ads in the midterms that showed Democrats as soft on the border. And so he announced that he was cutting the refugee resettlement program. And that convinced nobody. Because the refugee resettlement program is different from immigration, right? Not just in numbers, but it's a whole different system. And the refugee resettlement program, the numbers are so small that, you know, nobody, nobody, nobody's losing a job or feeling squeezed in their school because of the refugee resettlement program. And so the left went, that's just cruel. And the right went, that's not going to do anything because you're talking about, you know, a fraction of a percent of this. And so Biden had this really chaotic response where he seemed to want to give something to each side to quiet them down, but they had really nothing to do with what was going on. And so Trump came in and said, look, here's what we're going to do. And I think that there's virtue, there's virtue in just having a plan and having, like, the same plan. Like, I know it's. He sounds like a broken record. And we joke about when he gets, like, play the hits and, and play Free Bird, you know, but he has plan and a lot of the same plan.
- [31:10]
Noah Rothman
It's really not the same plan. First of all, on one hand, it's way more radical and almost undoable, right? He's not going to be able to deport 11 or 12 million people. That's not going to happen. But if the counter argument is don't deport anybody. And he deports a million, he wins.
- [31:35]
Matthew Continetti
Well, he was also not going to.
- [31:36]
Abe Greenwald
Get Mexico to pay for a wall.
- [31:39]
Noah Rothman
Right.
- [31:39]
Abe Greenwald
There's at a certain level, Trump's immigration rhetoric has always been, you see how much I care about this issue.
- [31:47]
Noah Rothman
Exactly. But it's also not the same plan.
- [31:50]
Matthew Continetti
I was just going to say economic issue here too, which I would say if the economy steadily improves, a lot of he won't have to respond in such a draconian fashion. Look, there's a huge class element here. The Democrats tried to tell the American people that what they were seeing, the impact they felt on their communities from immigration wasn't real. But you know what the Democratic Party as we now know tends it went people over earning over $100,000 went for Harris. They were not feeling the effects of that. Their kids are in private school. They live in areas where they never saw a migrant. It's middle class people who felt the impact of immigration for the first time in a very targeted way. And I think if the economy. So if you're telling the American people who feel like they're not getting ahead and that things aren't great and the country's not working, that then they have to turn resources over to people who came across the border illegally. It just doesn't fly. But if the economy improves, I think people's attitudes about illegal immigration will temper a bit. And that might weirdly help Trump not to have to see this all the way through with what he's saying now.
- [32:50]
John Podhoretz
This episode is brought to you by LifeLock. The holidays mean more travel, more shopping, more time online, and more personal info in places that could expose you to identity theft. That's why LifeLock monitors millions of data points every second. If your identity is stolen, their US based restoration specialist will fix it, guaranteed, or your money back. Give more holiday fun and less holiday worry with LifeLock, save up to 40% your first year. Visit LifeLock.com podcast terms apply.
- [33:20]
Noah Rothman
When I say the policy is going to be different, I mean that there was a big argument inside the right or inside the Trump administration. Right, which is that Trump said, I want the illegals out. They're killing Lake and Riley. They're killing the woman on the bart train in 2015. And they're murderers. They're sending us their worst people. They're drug dealers. Some of them are nice, but a lot of them are bad. And then that morphed over time because of long term ideas on the right about immigration itself legal and illegal being bad. It's economically bad, it lowers wages. We're destroying our social fabric because we're letting in people who don't really believe in America per se. And then the administration policy morphed into sort of hatred. Not hatred, but maybe like they reduced the number of legal immigrants to whom they would give visas to almost nothing under that second larger understanding. And what did Trump say at 2:30 in the morning at Mar a Lago on election night? He said we want immigrants here. So why did he say that? And I have a theory which is who is now his most influential? The person that he thinks did the most for him and whom he now trusts the most or his, like his, his new boyfriend. Right.
- [34:51]
Seth Mandel
And who has been at Mar A Lago all week?
- [34:53]
Noah Rothman
All week. That's Elon Musk. And Elon Musk, like all entrepreneurs, wants to have the benefit of H. What is it? H1H1B H1B visas that allow in people of exceptional academic.
- [35:09]
Seth Mandel
And there are other visas too that yeah.
- [35:11]
Noah Rothman
But are associated with it at Tesla, to work at SpaceX, to work in the, you know, to work in Silicon Valley. And that's an influential voice in his ear. And he didn't really have a voice saying stuff like that in the first.
- [35:28]
Seth Mandel
Well, I mean he had other voice. He had the Paul Rollins of the world. He had the John Kelly of the world. He didn't trust them, didn't like them, and now they're gone. And so one other difference is it's not just the plan that's different. It's not just the politics that difference. It's going to be the policy and the people that will be different as well. Maybe this is a segue to just touch briefly on one of the other announcements of the weekend, and that was Trump's announcement on Saturday that Mike Pompeo and Nikki Haley would not be joining the second Trump administration. This kind of became a controversial statement. The Wall Street Journal has an op editorial out this morning criticizing it. And just if I can just comment briefly on why I think this announcement was made first is I think anyone who expected Nikki Haley to get a job in the second Trump administration was maybe should check their priors a little bit because just based on the record, the fact that she opposed him in the primary, that she was the runner up in the primary, that she did speak at the convention, but she was not deployed on the trail and yet Trump won and won a major victory, said to me that Haley was not going to get a job. Pompeo is a little bit different. Pompeo was in discussion for a major cabinet position, either returning to State or manning the Defense Department. And it seems as though Trump's inner circle convinced him that Pompeo would be too hawkish and had an agenda different than Donald Trump's and the MAGA movement in a second term. And so I'm disappointed that Mike Pompeo won't be joining the administration. I thought he served Trump very capably in the first term. I don't make the calls, of course, but I can also see what may have hurt Pompeo was that he has been helping Nippon Steel try to lock down its acquisition of U.S. steel. And so this idea of Trumpian economic nationalism clashing with personality, I think could have been a difference maker in putting Pompeo to the sidelines, at least for the first few months of the second Trump administration.
- [38:09]
Christine Rosen
It's also a part of this. Pompeo gets lumped into the. And you saw a lot of this play out on X even before the announcement was made. No neocons this time around. Yeah, right. We don't want no hawks, no neocons. No, that stuff, of course, is concerning for all sorts of reasons. Among them, their definition of what a neocon is, is sort of ever expandable. It includes anyone who is not Trumpian on foreign policy. It includes a whole array of.
- [38:57]
Abe Greenwald
When he hired John Bolton, right. We had a, we had a week.
- [39:00]
Seth Mandel
Right. But again, that's not going to happen.
- [39:03]
Noah Rothman
That's not going to happen.
- [39:03]
Seth Mandel
That's long gone. And I would say one, one thing about. I agree totally. But, you know, the Stefanik pick is big. And it gets to. What you're saying about is, what does this mean neocon anymore? I mean, Elise Stefanik is a fantastic defender of Israel and the Jewish people. And she's going to be the next UN ambassador in a, in a line of American ambassadors to the UN who are defenders of Israel.
- [39:33]
Noah Rothman
Right.
- [39:33]
Seth Mandel
And the Jewish people. So neo. Okay, neocon. That leaves out Haley and Pompeo.
- [39:39]
Noah Rothman
Who has, who has the most neocon credential? Who has more neocon credentials than between Mike Pompeo and Elise Stefanik. Right. Elise Stefanik's career began working for a foreign policy initiative where abor you're going to get her. And that was started in part by Bill Kristol. Now, I'm just saying, if you're looking at resumes, Mike Pompeo, it was, you know, graduated at the top of his class at West Point, was a congressman. Was that nobody ever said in the neocon world, which is, you know, about 11 of us in a bathroom by now. If you're really getting to the, you know who's a neocon. No one ever said Mike Pump, by the way. I'm sorry, by the way, John Bolton, who wrote for commentary quite a lot. John Bolton's not a neocon. John Bolton is a Goldwater Republican.
- [40:36]
Abe Greenwald
But that was, that was my point of bringing up his name, is that we, there was, there were complaints on, you know, I remember MSNBC went on and on about the, you know, John Bolton, the neocon, this and that. And it's like this is, this is not these. They're just taking anybody who.
- [40:50]
Seth Mandel
Well, neo, neocon means supporter of the Iraq War.
- [40:55]
Abe Greenwald
Okay?
- [40:55]
Seth Mandel
That's what it means.
- [40:58]
Abe Greenwald
Represent something that they say they want, which is like we don't Bolton with a non nation building guy.
- [41:04]
Noah Rothman
No, they want that doesn't matter.
- [41:06]
Matthew Continetti
They're over complicating Trump's motives here. Trump cares about loyalty. Stefanik is loyal to him. He doesn't really care about principle and policy and ideology. And I think he cares a lot about what Don Jr. And Tucker Carlson are whispering in his ear with regard to run in 2028. And protecting JD Vance, who is their baby in the administration, is no doubt one of the, one of the reasons why Pompeo, who has his own very reasonable ambitions for higher office, might be a competitor for that.
- [41:35]
Noah Rothman
Look, there are two other things about Pompeo, one of which is he criticized Trump after the Mar A Lago raid.
- [41:41]
Matthew Continetti
That's right. That's right.
- [41:42]
Noah Rothman
He publicly said that what he saw there was very concerning to him. And that is just, you know, I like Pompeo. I think he did a really good job. Can't expect him to hire him after the entire world Trump world holds that the Mar A Lago raid was part of a lawfare war on Trump designed to prevent him from returning to the presidency. Now, I was very horrified by the Mar A Lago raid myself. I mean, by what they found on the Mar A Lago raid. So I'm not getting a job either. But I wouldn't expect Pompeo to get hired when in his confirmation hearing some Democrat could say, you said this about, do you trust the President with classified information? Look, what you said about him two years ago, like, that's actually a confirmation problem for Pompeo. And I'm not, I'm very trouble.
- [42:37]
Abe Greenwald
We don't have confirmation problems because they're good to recess appointments.
- [42:41]
Noah Rothman
Okay, well, we could talk about that too. It's, that's a very weird Complicated thing. Well, that's.
- [42:46]
Seth Mandel
It ties in with the Senate leadership election. Yes, we'd want to comment on that just briefly.
- [42:50]
Noah Rothman
I just want to finish. Just. But put a, Put a cherry on the top of this. So the idea is that The Carlson Don Jr. Wing wants to run a victory lap on top of the neocons because Tucker hates Bill Kristol and Tucker hates me, and Tucker hates all neocons. Tucker wants to destroy all neocons. The word neocon, in my view, no longer refers to supporters of the Iraq war, except when it could be deployed against Liz Cheney, because Liz Cheney was campaigning with Kamala Harris. It refers now to supporters of the war in Ukraine. And that's where the rubber meets the road here. That, that the, that we don't really know how far Trump is going to go in calling a halt to Ukraine's efforts to save itself from, you know, the Russian maw.
- [43:45]
Matthew Continetti
Well, he talked to Putin this weekend, so.
- [43:47]
Seth Mandel
And he talked to Zelensky.
- [43:48]
Noah Rothman
Zelensky. So we don't know what he's saying or what he's going to do. And there is a battle. The thing is, we don't know that there's anybody on the other side of this battle, but there's a battle for his soul. You know, there's like a devil and an angel on his shoulder from, from our perspective. And the angel is let Ukraine try to win. Like, stop restraining them. Let them go. And the other. And the devil, who is Tucker. We literally. We literally have a piece by Marisolaveja comparing him to Screwtape in the magazine. So I'm, I'm, I'm. I feel fair that might hurt your.
- [44:21]
Seth Mandel
Chances for a job.
- [44:23]
Noah Rothman
I'm not getting a job. All I want is maybe to be invited to the White House Hanukkah party. That didn't happen during the first term. Right now, I think I just lost my invitation in the second term.
- [44:34]
Seth Mandel
Yeah.
- [44:35]
Christine Rosen
I just want to point out here, because we're talking about people who have.
- [44:38]
Noah Rothman
Seth went. Seth went to the White House Hanukkah party.
- [44:40]
Seth Mandel
Seth, you have to dissociate yourself from commentary.
- [44:45]
Noah Rothman
Issue a critical statement, what I said.
- [44:47]
Abe Greenwald
About the Mar A Lago raid.
- [44:49]
Noah Rothman
Okay, Fair enough. Okay. Yeah.
- [44:51]
Christine Rosen
Just on this Ukraine point, I want to point out that what I think a lot of people are getting wrong is Elon Musk has a much more nuanced, complicated idea about Ukraine and Russia and is not, you know, there were all these stories recently. Musk has been speaking to Putin. Should that be allowed?
- [45:18]
Seth Mandel
Is that he was on the call with Zelensky and Trump.
- [45:21]
Christine Rosen
Oh, I know, I know, I know. But before that, Musk himself had private calls. Of course he has, has to have a relationship with the leader of Russia. He's, he's the guy building spaceships to take us up to the International Space Station. He's the one that put the Russian private ability to do that, which we were dependent upon out of business.
- [45:49]
Abe Greenwald
And Starlink.
- [45:52]
Christine Rosen
That was going to be my next point. He has provided Starlink at no cost to Ukrainians throughout this. I think he's done some other things that aren't as well known for good reasons. So let's see. Believe me, I am not. This is not me.
- [46:12]
Noah Rothman
So there's the fight inside PayPal is what you're saying, because we have Elon Musk, whose fortune originated in PayPal. And on the other hand we have David Sachs and Peter Thiel, whose fortunes derive from PayPal. And they are. David Sachs is crazy on the subject of Ukraine and I use the word crazy advisedly, like he seems to think that Ukraine is Nazi Germany. I mean, it's pretty close. And that there is a conspiracy to destroy America through support for Ukraine. And Peter Thiel's also in a, his politics on this are not entirely visible.
- [47:01]
Seth Mandel
Because, yeah, he's been a little bit quiet and he kind of sat out a lot.
- [47:05]
Noah Rothman
And the hedge fund that he helped start, Palantir, which is by the way, in terms of sort of like internationalist foreign policy, hired Mike Gallagher, the former congressman, hired Jamie Fly, former head of Radio Free Europe. Is that right? Or at the German Marshall Fund, is incredibly pro Israel. And while that, while you can be incredibly pro Israel while being anti American involvement in Ukraine, it's not like there's no correlation. It's slightly anti correlated. And so again, we don't know who's in whose ear. And we also don't know what relationship Trump has with Don Jr. And Tucker in terms of what he wants to listen to for policy. He can get his backup. Who are they? This is his kid. Like, yeah, he'll listen to his kid. He apparently listened to Barron Trump on what podcast to go on. So he's got a very, very clever 18 year old, Aiden, apparently, who is, you know, who helped him figure out what path to take in the new media game.
- [48:20]
Abe Greenwald
He's also, he's. We also know that Rubio is on his short list for Secretary of State. The mere fact that Rubio was on the short list for VP and then on the short list for Secretary of State says something about all this, right. That he, that Trump himself is not horrified by the idea of a more traditional Republican foreign policy. Mom.
- [48:42]
Noah Rothman
Yeah.
- [48:42]
Abe Greenwald
I mean, in general, about our allies and, you know, in sort of moral.
- [48:46]
Seth Mandel
Terms, and I don't know about that. I mean, he wants them. He wants the war in Ukraine to end, and he wants it to end before he becomes the president in January. So all the moves now are him trying to get there. I don't think he's going to get there. I mean, it's a complicated mess. He talked to Zelensky this week, and some of what the reporting around that call said. The Ukrainians were more reassured than they expected to be. After the call. Again, the talk with Putin is being reported. What we hear, all taken with a grain of salt, is that Trump said to Putin, don't escalate the conflict. The Kremlin denies the call even took place. And what's happened? Well, over the weekend, the two belligerents launched the huge drone swarms on each other. So the personnel, I think you're right, is that the personnel fight for Trump's soul in these national security ministries is about on whose terms does the war end?
- [49:58]
Noah Rothman
Right.
- [49:59]
Seth Mandel
The war is going to end. And so whose terms Is it more favorable to Putin, or is it at least giving Ukraine a little bit more of a fighting chance? That's the question here. And so if it's Secretary of State Vivek Ramaswamy, that's an indicator that we're going to get out of Ukraine pretty quickly. I think if it's Secretary of State Marco Rubio, well, maybe Trump says, okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna let this play out. I'm gonna, I don't want to see it as a complete loss on my watch. Right. But either way, in my view, the Trump foreign policy, it's going to be much more nationalist, it's going to be much more inclined to non intervention when circumstances allow. And it's, it's going to be much more transactional with our allies. It's going to be Europe, what have you done for me lately? Japan, South Korea, time to pay the rent. I mean, this is all stuff that we were uncomfortable with for many years, but it is going to come back and I think a little bit more, not only concretely, but more articulated by folks like Tucker or J.D. vance than ever before.
- [51:17]
Noah Rothman
Well, maybe, but Rubio will at least.
- [51:19]
Abe Greenwald
Be the recognizable angel that John was mentioned.
- [51:21]
Seth Mandel
Right.
- [51:21]
Noah Rothman
John before.
- [51:22]
Abe Greenwald
There's an angel.
- [51:23]
Noah Rothman
That's one of the reasons.
- [51:24]
Abe Greenwald
But you couldn't name the angel.
- [51:26]
Noah Rothman
Right? Right.
- [51:28]
Abe Greenwald
We know who the devil is. We hope there's an angel in the shoulder. So hopefully there will be an angel on that shoulder.
- [51:34]
Noah Rothman
Okay. But let's talk about different. Different. So we're talking about Ukraine and I, I'm very, you know, this is its own topic but we know apparently that he had three phone conversations over the last week with Bibi Netanyahu and Netanyahu said Trump is with us on Iran now. What does that mean? It could mean a range of things. What it means is that it's certainly the case that if Israel says to Trump we have a way to take out the nuclear sites, Trump would go, go with God. That's fantastic. You get rid of them. We don't know that Israel has a way to get rid of the nuclear sites on its own and that it really would need the United States to participate in such an effort. And that's where the devil and angel come in again. Because would Trump want on his record at the beginning of his administration that he took out the Iranian nuclear program that he spent. He pulled out of the jcpoa. He did the campaign for maximum pressure. Israel has shown that Iran is a paper tiger. Iran has yet to strike back at.
- [52:48]
Matthew Continetti
Iran's been trying to assassinate him for.
- [52:50]
Noah Rothman
Most Iran has been trying to assassinate. That may be even the most important thing. They just literally indicted three guys in now it's personal last week including a guy named Pops, which I thought was pretty interesting. You know, a Latino guy named Pops Garcia, one of the three assassin potential assassins.
- [53:11]
Seth Mandel
That's a different guy than the one that Nick Eberstedt brought to the.
- [53:14]
Noah Rothman
Yeah, that was Harvard Lamp making sure. Yeah, was. Yeah. I don't think had the wherewithal to.
- [53:20]
Seth Mandel
Be a, to be an assassin. Assassin for Iran.
- [53:24]
Noah Rothman
Exactly. But, but so that's also sort of a weird issue where you know, the appointment of Pompeo would have been a clear signal that Iran was going to be crater. Some parts of Iran were likely to be cratered perhaps with American intervention. And that's also something that we don't know. But Trump has said in no uncertain terms that he's giving Israel a green light to do what it thinks is necessary against Iran and that that is in the American national interest. And that is not necessarily something that Tucker or Donju or if you're a non interventionist you really want to go at an anti Semite. You want to go with the country with the largest milit in the Middle East. Like I, you know, really, I mean that's. That could you know that might not be wise. Right. There are 125,000, 150,000 Iranians at arms. And you know, if you're again, if you believe in the principle of non interventionism, Iran's no different from anywhere else. Like do we have a beef with our shot missiles at us? Yeah, Trump has a beef with Iran because they're trying to assassinate him. But they, I'm just saying this is another devil and angel situation. Okay, let's talk a little about the Senate and then we can, we can close up.
- [54:47]
Seth Mandel
Okay. So lots of development over the weekend as well on the upcoming race for leadership positions in the U.S. senate. There are three different. Well, there's the race for leader which is between Rick Scott, Florida, John Thune of South Dakota and John Cornyn of Texas. I think John Barrasso of Wyoming will remain in his position. And then the number three position, Dr. Barrasso to you. Yes, Dr. Senator Barrasso is confident enough in his stature that he doesn't insist on being.
- [55:29]
Matthew Continetti
From the public stage. I hope will forever bury any non medical person from being called doctor.
- [55:34]
Seth Mandel
He is a medical person.
- [55:35]
Noah Rothman
He's actually a medical.
- [55:36]
Seth Mandel
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So he's staying. And then the number three position is a contest between Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa. Axios reporting over the weekend that Cotton has locked down the vote the election for leaders. Wednesday there's one set of controversy over Senator Schumer's refusal to allow senator elects to attend and this is directed Primarily at Dave McCormick who has won the Senate seat in Pennsylvania. But Bob Casey, the incumbent Democrat refuses to concede. And now the Democratic election lawyer Mark Elias is involved. And even though it's very unlikely that this election is stolen from McCormick, he won't be allowed in the leadership debate and vote. Also Ruben Gallego, who looks like has won his Senate race to replace Kirsten Sinema in Arizona, he won't be there either. So that's one set. Then there's the question of who should be the Republican leader. And this has just become a mess. The MAGA media and the MAGA movement has decided that Rick Scott should be the leader. Now Senator Scott, I mean he is definitely anti establishment though he was the head of the nrsc, the body tasked with winning the Senate for Republicans in 2022. And that did not go so well. And he, his, you know, he has his own issues on the conservative, conservative spectrum as well. But Elon Musk is very much for Rick Scott. And then it became a kind of point of debate that whoever is the leader should do everything in their power to confirm Trump's nominees, including allowing recess appointments for Trump's picks. And within 12 hours or so, the top three contestants all came out for this plan.
- [58:00]
Noah Rothman
It's complicated. If you look at their statements.
- [58:03]
Seth Mandel
Right.
- [58:04]
Noah Rothman
With Scott, who was like, whatever you say, boss.
- [58:07]
Seth Mandel
Right.
- [58:08]
Noah Rothman
Like they said, we will do whatever is necessary.
- [58:11]
Seth Mandel
Everything is on the table.
- [58:12]
Noah Rothman
Yeah.
- [58:13]
Seth Mandel
Including recent. But of course, recess appointments are part of American practice and. Except usually they're used when the Senate blocks an appointee, which, you know, with the Republican controlled Senate probably is not going to be an issue.
- [58:32]
Matthew Continetti
This is why it's so obnoxious. I mean, there must have been a few senators who were like, who do you think you are? Even if they're on Trump's, in Trump's party, because the Congress is a co. Equal branch of government, he doesn't get to tell them what to do. I mean, he can ask, but they are co equal. And in fact, you know, as our colleague Yuval Levin would argue, they are the most Democratic branch. So him telling them, here's how you should do this about their job strikes me. I was actually annoyed with his, with his all cap statement. I thought that was unnecessary. He gets stuff behind the scenes like a grownup.
- [59:04]
Noah Rothman
Two things about that, according to Politico this morning.
- [59:07]
Abe Greenwald
Like a what?
- [59:08]
Noah Rothman
Yeah, two things. Politico this morning says that the campaign for Scott, which is the maga, has decided they want Rick Scott, who is. Does not have the most pleasing personality and says. Is quoted as saying in the Washington Post about his chances and how he's doing, whipping the vote for himself. To be honest, I don't know a lot of these guys. He said about his own colleagues in the Republican caucus in the Senate, Marvel.
- [59:39]
Matthew Continetti
Version of Florida, man, villain. Like, I mean, he.
- [59:43]
Noah Rothman
Okay, so that's number one. Number two, according to Politico, this has backfired and that what Christine is talking about, the senators are annoyed. They don't like being told what to do. It's a secret ballot. That's why lunatics from Monica Crowley to Julie Kelly to Molly Hemingway are like, the ballot must be open. We must have an open ballot. Like, who are they again? Who the hell are they to tell? It's a secret ballot so that senators can do what they want to do. It's a caucus. It's not a public writ or Right. It's like they're just choosing somebody to set the Senate schedule and help figure out what goes where in what order. And it's actually not our business. In a weird way, you could make it your business. The recess appointment thing is only troubling if there's, if it's being done in the prospect that Trump is going to make a reckless and crazy appointment and that he wants that appointment rubber stamped before anybody can go. Are you out of your mind? Like Tulsi Gabbard as Secretary of Defense, which might actually run into some headwinds. The Republican Senate does not want to not give Trump what he wants. Right.
- [61:06]
Seth Mandel
But then if it goes into recess, he can just appoint her anyway.
- [61:09]
Noah Rothman
Right.
- [61:10]
Seth Mandel
That's what I don't quite understand why this is the demand. Like I, they're either going to, somebody.
- [61:16]
Noah Rothman
Came up with this cockamamie idea, they're.
- [61:18]
Seth Mandel
Going to approve the selections or they won't. And then knowing Trump, he'll just do it whenever they're not in session.
- [61:26]
Noah Rothman
Well, what has been done before, apparently, as I understand this, is that when the party has gone out, when the Senate goes out of session, and if you want to enforce some discipline on the confirmation process, all you need to do in the course of that 10 day period when you could make recess appointments is have a pro forma roll call, have a pro forma quorum. And this is how, I don't know, people have blocked stuff. I don't really understand when it happened. Some of it happened during Obama's term, some of it happened during Trump's term that you come back into session without actually everybody having to come back to Washington or something. And then the period of time in which the recess appointment can be made constitutionally, the Senate has to be out of town for 10 days, is that it? It's something like that. So if you like go into session every ninth day, you can sort of keep that from happening. And he's like, I want to make sure you don't do that. Which I don't think they would have done anyway. But if this is some thing that he's been talked into because he wants to appoint somebody who will be looked at with horror by some senators. You know, it's not like the Senate wants to not confirm everything that Trump sends them. They do. They really, really do.
- [63:03]
Abe Greenwald
You know who is one of the all time great recess appointments? John Bolton.
- [63:08]
Noah Rothman
Bolton. John Bolton.
- [63:11]
Abe Greenwald
We watched Jon Stewart showing clips of members of Congress crying.
- [63:15]
Noah Rothman
Yeah, yeah.
- [63:16]
Seth Mandel
I mean, I think the Trump may be still thinking about the second, the parts of his administration where he was doing a lot of temporary appointments.
- [63:26]
Noah Rothman
Yeah, because the Senate, because the Senate went Democratic.
- [63:29]
Seth Mandel
No, the Senate was Republican. The whole Time, but he just liked.
- [63:35]
Noah Rothman
The Senate was Democratic after. Oh, that's right. I'm sorry. The Senate was Republican all time.
- [63:39]
Seth Mandel
Yeah. The house flipped in 18. The Senate remained Republican until 2021. Yeah. And that's. And as he said many times, he likes temporary. He likes temporary because he can fire and replace. And so part of me thinks maybe this has something to do with that. Maybe it is what you're suggesting, John, but it is kind of coming out of left field. And I think it has to do with a test of which of the potential Senate leaders will be most loyal to Trump. And what we've seen is that, yes, we, Rick Scott is there, he's saying, I'm going to do it. But Cornyn and Thune saying, we are absolutely committed to staffing your administration and confirming your nominees. Maybe a little bit not as direct an endorsement of what Trump is saying, but the bottom line, as you say, is it's a secret ballot. And the Wednesday ballot is the Wednesday ballot for the leadership. This is a secret ballot. And so we're going to get a new Republican leader in the Senate. They're not going to be Mitch McConnell and they're going to be more Trump inflected. But the question is how much. So, well, we will see. I don't know if Scott still has it. I don't think Scott has it locked down, as Politico is saying. And as you're suggesting.
- [65:10]
Noah Rothman
No, no, no, no. The opposite. It said, Scott, Scott, the Senate is. The Republicans in the Senate caucus are angry at this Trump effort to impose Scott on them. They don't like him personally and he's not going to win. That's what Politico.
- [65:27]
Abe Greenwald
Well, and interestingly thing, his, his, his rivalry with Mitch McConnell, that Trump is not really that much like. Trump doesn't hate Mitch McConnell. But a lot of the people who are backing Rick Scott are doing it because of Scott.
- [65:42]
Noah Rothman
Scott's, you know, I think Trump hates Hustle with.
- [65:45]
Abe Greenwald
You think what I think Trump hates.
- [65:47]
Seth Mandel
Yeah, I mean, Scott is an anti establishment.
- [65:50]
Abe Greenwald
He doesn't sort of, you know, intervene on the, you know, Mitch McConnell's. There's a, there's a certain group that really genuinely believes Mitch McConnell is like a leftist sleeper agent. And Rick Scott is there.
- [66:01]
Seth Mandel
Jesus God, McConnell.
- [66:02]
Abe Greenwald
I don't think Trump feels like that.
- [66:04]
Seth Mandel
O'Connell, Cornyn and Thune are establishment. Rick Scott is anti establishment. That's the only dividing line in American politics that matters. McConnell's out. So it has two establishment candidates, one anti establishment candidate. Samag is behind the anti establishment candidate. What's interesting is Holly, Missouri, Josh Hawley.
- [66:20]
Noah Rothman
Yeah.
- [66:20]
Seth Mandel
Josh Hawley coming out for Cornyn.
- [66:22]
Matthew Continetti
Oh, he can't. Oh, that's right. He came for Cornyn.
- [66:25]
Seth Mandel
So we don't really know where this is going to land because the Rubio.
- [66:29]
Noah Rothman
And Rubio and Jim Hagerty, two candidates for secretary of state came out for Scott.
- [66:34]
Seth Mandel
Scott. Because they want MAGA on their side.
- [66:36]
Noah Rothman
Right, Exactly.
- [66:38]
Abe Greenwald
So Rubio could just say it's my home state.
- [66:41]
Seth Mandel
But.
- [66:41]
Noah Rothman
Yeah, no, that it would be very odd actually. Rubio. It's Rubio. But even so like, and no one will know how Rubio votes because it's a secret.
- [66:49]
Matthew Continetti
And this is why it's a secret ballot.
- [66:51]
Noah Rothman
And this is why it's a secret ballot. I'm going to make the commentary recommends. Oh, by the. Oh, two things. I promise. Christine, even though we're going along, we want to talk about the FEMA story. We got to talk about the FEMA story that Daily Wire broke that there had been a rumor circulating in the wake of the hurricane in Florida that FEMA had been playing politics and was helping areas that were friendlier to Democrats than to Republicans.
- [67:19]
Abe Greenwald
Right.
- [67:20]
Noah Rothman
And there was disgust, absolute disgust and horror at the very suggestion of FEMA's politicization. Well, the Daily Wire found out that a FEMA supervisor somewhere in Florida named Marnie Washington said issued a memo. It's on paper. It's in an email that says don't go to a house that has a Trump sign in front of it. She was fired on FEMA acknowledged that this had happened and she was fired on Friday after a bit of a.
- [67:55]
Matthew Continetti
Delay, I might add, at first, like we will deal with this sternly. And then the pressure I think built enough and the head of FEMA was summoned to come appear before Congress and then she was fired.
- [68:05]
Noah Rothman
Well, it's no joke, by the way, because I mean she could be liable for potentially. It's not just that this is a criminal act to interfere with the distribution of federal emergency aid is not like a civil, is not a political. Oh, you just shouldn't do that. Like there, there may be criminal sanction there. Well, anyway, the Daily Wire.
- [68:29]
Matthew Continetti
But imagine a Trump FEMA agent, oh my God, saying if you have a Black Lives Matter sign in your yard, we will not give you aid. Imagine that story.
- [68:38]
Christine Rosen
That's what the story is also one of the great sort of political upendings of attempt, you know, to characterize something on the part of the government because Democrats had no problem talking about how desantis was politicizing aid and help wouldn't take Kamala Harris phone call. You know, why is he playing politics at a time of emergency? And then here you go. And it fits a pattern that we've seen over.
- [69:13]
Noah Rothman
Well, it's part, it's also, it is part of why you can't, why every three days or two days there's a story that will demonstrate that you can't trust the media's reporting on anything. The Desantis thing, not only about Kamala not being nice to Kamala, back in 2021, 60 Minutes did this absolutely outrageous story, untrue story about how Desantis was preventing the distribution of the COVID vaccine to public supermarkets in areas where Democrats voted.
- [69:46]
Matthew Continetti
And meanwhile, in my wasn't literally distributing it by race, they were breaking federal law and distributing the vaccine by race.
- [69:53]
Noah Rothman
Right. That was a 60 minute story. This is, this was a, this story that started getting floated. We only read about because of the denunciations of the story like that in the mainstream media. The story was surfaced to denounce the misinformation and conspiracy theorizing that was supposedly going on in Florida. And they are just going to, these people are just going to feed this beast and they are committing harakiri every, I mean, or, you know, they are killing themselves with the misinformation that they are spreading. And for example, just to again, like put everything together, the recess appointment stuff is politically problematic in my view. And I'm upset if it's going to be that Trump is trying to do something to get somebody in that I don't like. Okay, the recess appointment is in the Constitution. You can't tell me that he's a fascist for attempting to use a constitutional instrument, even if it's not exactly the way the founders intended. Because the founders did not appreciate or understand what the modern, you know, the structure of modern government and stuff like that.
- [71:10]
Matthew Continetti
So think in all caps, like Trump.
- [71:12]
Noah Rothman
He is not, he is not a pen and a phone writing legislation from the White House like Obama did or like he did actually a little bit. Or like, or like Biden did. Like, this is the use of a constitutional instrument. Maybe it's an end around. Maybe it's a gimmick. Whatever it is, it's still within the American political tradition. And already, again, I'm sorry, you can't accuse him of misusing it. First of all, it hasn't happened yet. And second of all, if he uses it, it'll be constitutional. So, you know, the hell with you people. I'm Sorry. Like accuse him of something that he's guilty of. There's plenty of things he's been guilty of. And you keep accusing him of things he's not guilty of. And you keep defending guilty actions by Democrats and the media and people who work for Democratic administrations and Democratic politicians all over the. All you do is excuse them. And then it turns out that the excuse that they did it. So you're crazy. Like you want to. You want to make the Daily Wire more important than the New York Times? Go just do it. Amazingly enough, NBC News, there was a.
- [72:31]
Seth Mandel
News report they did do it.
- [72:33]
Noah Rothman
Yeah. This is the year Daily Wire story. Somebody named Mina Suhart or something like that. She stole the Daily Wise story in order to trash it.
- [72:42]
Matthew Continetti
Right. Not linking it, by the way.
- [72:44]
Noah Rothman
Not linking to it. Yeah. And then she deleted her account because people like me that you're plagiarizing missed a step.
- [72:55]
Matthew Continetti
She had an absolute epic meltdown. Toddler like meltdown on social media. When gently asked why didn't you link the story? And didn't you.
- [73:02]
Noah Rothman
Yeah. By Brent. Sure. Right. Brent sure was like, you didn't link to the story. And she's like, oh, who are you? Really? Yeah.
- [73:16]
Abe Greenwald
She said the woman has not been identified.
- [73:18]
Noah Rothman
Oh, yeah. And her name was Marnie Washington. Yeah, Marnie Washington. Who has that? It's Marnie. And then there's a apostrophe and then a second eye. So not only was her name. Was her name mentioned, but the peculiarity of her name was actually quite, quite notable with the Hawaiian kind of second eye with the apostrophe. So. And we haven't even talked about antisemitism. We'll do that tomorrow. Let me make a quick recommends. There were amazing thing happened yesterday at the Dallas Cowboys game, which is that for Veterans Day they put up on the scoreboard great veterans who had played for the Cowboys in the past. Among them, like their great original quarterback, Roger Staubach, who was I think was in the navy. And the coach, the great unpleasant but amazing stern coach, Tom Landry. Except that the jumbotron spelled Landry's name. Laundrie L, A U N D R Y. And this put me in mind. And so heads are going to roll. Jerry Johnson, the owner of the Cowboys is not going to like that.
- [74:35]
Seth Mandel
Jones.
- [74:36]
Noah Rothman
Excuse me, Jerry Jones. I'm sorry, will not like that. But it put me in mind of a fantastic movie in which the actor G.D. spradlin plays Tom Landry in All But Name. G.D. spradlin is the guy who plays the senator from Nevada in The Godfather Part 2 who ends up giving the paying for the casino renewal because there's a dead hooker that is in his bet arranged by Michael Corleone. G.D. spradlin plays Tom Landry in a movie called North Dallas 40, which is about the Dallas Cowboys lightly fictionalized by a former quarterback. The novel that it was based on by former Dallas Cowboys something or other. Now I'm blocking on his name. Peter Gentleman was his name. And this is one of the great sports movies. Nick. Nick Nolte plays a wide receiver and Mac Davis, the country singer plays Don Meredith. The Great. The quarterback who ended up on on Monday Night Football is the color guy. And it's all about Nolte being basically broken by playing playing the sport. Like the opening scene of the movie is Nolte trying to get out of bed after a game and how his bones are creaking and he's 35 years old and his bones are broken and his knees don't work and everything and he's like swallowing pills and he's doing all this just to get out of bed and remembering that he dropped a pass as this is happening, that in the game the previous night he had dropped a pass and he knows that his coach, they're going to watch the game films and it's just going to just the coach is just going to rip his arms off for dropping the pass. Anyway, it's a wonderful, serious kind of like tough minded sports movie about football and craziness and.
- [76:43]
Seth Mandel
What's the title again?
- [76:45]
Noah Rothman
North Dallas 40.
- [76:46]
Seth Mandel
Oh, North Dallas 40. Yeah.
- [76:47]
Noah Rothman
North Dallas. Dallas 40. The novel's great too, by the way, by Peter Gentlemen and who also wrote a really great another one called the Franchise. Another novel about football called the Franchise. But North Dallas 40 with Nick Nolte and G.D. spradlin playing Tom Laundrie.
- [77:06]
Seth Mandel
Tom Laundrie.
- [77:08]
Noah Rothman
So with that we will be back tomorrow for Abe, Seth, Christine and Madam John. Bob Hort's Keep the Candle Burning.