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- [00:01]
Abe Greenwald
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.
- [00:21]
Jon Podhoretz
Get more holiday fun and less holiday worry with Lifelock.
- [00:25]
Abe Greenwald
Save up to 40% your first year. Visit lifelock.com podcast terms apply.
- [00:45]
Jon Podhoretz
No way of knowing which way it's going. Hope for the best.
- [00:50]
Matthew Continetti
Expect the worst Hope for the best.
- [00:55]
Jon Podhoretz
Welcome to the Commentary Magazine daily podcast. Today is Wednesday, November 27, 2024. I am Jon Pott Horiz, the editor of Commentary Magazine. This will be our last podcast of the week. We hope that you have a wonderful Thanksgiving and a wonderful Black Friday for all who celebrate. And many football games and jumping into leaf piles and every other cliche I can think of relating to home football games, touch football games in which you hope your uncle doesn't dislocate his shoulder. And going to see Wicked and Gladiator 2 and enjoying all the fruits of the beginning of the Christmas season. And by we, I mean Executive Editor Abe Greenwald. Hi Abe.
- [01:46]
Matthew Continetti
Hi John.
- [01:47]
Jon Podhoretz
And Washington Commentary columnist and Director of Domestic Policy Studies at the American Enterprise Institute, Matthew Continetti. Hi Matthew.
- [01:55]
Abe Greenwald
Hi John.
- [01:57]
Jon Podhoretz
At 4:00am Middle Eastern time, which I guess is about seven or eight hours ago, as we're recording this, the ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah went into effect. You can go online and read the ceasefire agreement terms. They're actually quite short and they are. It's much easier to understand them if you read the explications of them than the nonsense language in which they're written. But essentially they say that Israel is supposed to not fire on Lebanon and forces from Lebanon are not supposed to fire on Israel. And over 60 days, Israel is to withdraw all its forces from Lebanese territory and Hezbollah is to move its forces north of the Litany river, which is 18 miles from the Israel Lebanon border. At which point in the course of this, the Lebanese army, which is a little like talking about the Washington Generals, the team that used to play the Harlem Globetrotters, the Lebanese army, famous for its many years of almost non existence, is supposed to move into this disputed area and control it and keep Hezbollah out of it and destroy any buildings that Hezbollah maybe may decide to try to construct or do whatever in cooperation with UNIFIL, which is the UN force that was created effectively to do this 18 years ago in 2006 when Israel signed a ceasefire deal to end the war with Hezbollah in 2006, UN Resolution 1701. So congratulations to everybody involved because the non existent Lebanese army, which apparently numbers 10,000, which is about 30,000 fewer than actually our members of Hezbollah and UNIFIL, which is basically an adjunct of Hezbollah, are somehow going to keep Hezbollah out of the of the area. Meanwhile, Israel will retreat beyond into within its borders. But according to everybody in Israel, according to Bibi Netanyahu in his speech last night, according to everybody who's leaking everything, should Hezbollah raise an eyebrow, Israel reserves the right to defend itself against any action. And indeed this morning, just a few Hours after that 4am ceasefire, a Jeep drove directly at the Lebanese border, Hezbollah jeep apparently, or they don't really know, causing Israel to fire warning shots over the head of the jeep and force it to turn around. So already there was a test of the ceasefire. Literally minutes after the ceasefire went into effect, Joe Biden went on the White House lawn and in true Joe Biden fashion, not only said that he was proud to do this and that this ceasefire and Israel has the right to defend itself and we're going to try to get people back in their homes, both in Lebanon and in Israel, but ended with a 3 minute peroration of absolute psychosis, according to which because this deal was struck now there'll be a deal with Hamas and everybody will stop suffering in Hamas. We'll get the hostages back and the Gazans will be stopped their suffering because too many of them have died. And then there'll be a deal with Saudi Arabia and then there will be a Palestinian state and we're going to meet with Turkey, Qatar, you know, the Martians and you know, and shield and everybody is going to come together and invent a new Middle east before Joe Biden leaves office. Thank you very much.
- [06:02]
Abe Greenwald
He's got less than two months to achieve that.
- [06:05]
Jon Podhoretz
You know what, if you will it, it is no dream, Matt, that's. He is, he is. The last Zionist move that he has made is to assert that this very modest effort that is almost certainly going to fail of a ceasefire in this one area in Lebanon is now blooming and blossoming into the Oslo accords, plus the Vietnam, the Paris Peace Accords, plus the, I don't know, Kellogg Bryan pact all together, we are going to have a new planet entirely because, you know, everybody just desires peace.
- [06:43]
Abe Greenwald
Well, so that's the Biden perspective. Obviously Biden and his administration have wanted a ceasefire in both Gaza and then Lebanon since the beginning of hostilities on October 7th. It's worth taking A moment to look at the other allied parties here and why they are interested in a ceasefire. There are reports that Netanyahu communicated the potential ceasefire to Donald Trump in one of their recent conversations. And Trump said that he had no problem with that and in fact, maybe even encouraged it. And the question is why? Well, I think it's because Trump wants to enter office with as much of a truce as possible, or at least as a reduction in violence as possible, as we were saying the other day, in particular in Lebanon, because that's the community where he made great outreach during the campaign in places like Michigan. Then there's Netanyahu. And of course, Netanyahu gave a speech outlining the deal and urging the Cabinet to support it. The deal, I would say, is not too popular in Israel. I mean, it's. People are a little bit leery about this. They wanted Hezbollah to be defeated. But what were the reasons that Bibi gave? The very interesting first reason was he reiterated that this deal makes it possible to focus Israel's energies on Iran. And he used the phrase Iran is the head of the octopus, which is associated with actually one of Netanyahu's opponents, Naftali Bennett, former Prime Minister of Israel, who has long urged Israel to focus less on Iran's proxies and more on the Iranian regime. So we have Bibi saying that that is a reason to take this agreement for 60 days. The second reason he gives is that the 60 day ceasefire will allow Israel to replenish itself. The reservists have been under great strain over a year of war. Now, John, you spoke eloquently about the challenges facing Israeli soldiers the other day on the podcast, the fighting in two theaters. This would be at least 60 days of respite in the north. And it would also allow Israel to replenish its stocks of weaponry. As we've pointed out, this ceasefire was imposed under something of blackmail because Biden said that if Israel did not agree to it, not only would Biden continue to slow walk arms shipments to Israel, but perhaps even Biden would allow the UN to pass resolutions condemning Israel as well. Nonetheless, with the ceasefire agreed to, there is some hope that weapons will be replenished. And of course, at the end of the 60 days, Trump will be in office and those weapons will be going to Israel to secure itself. And then finally, the third reason he gave was this interesting idea, which is also taken up and advocated for by the Wall Street Journal editorial page this morning, which is that the two theaters are now de linked so that Hamas invaded Israel on October 7, committed the worst atrocities against the Jews since the Holocaust. And then on the same day, Hezbollah ramped up its rocket attacks into Israel, eventually forcing the evacuation of some 60,000 Israelis living in the north. So since then, those have been two of the many fronts that the Iranians have used in order to destroy the state of Israel. But they had been linked up until now. And now, essentially, Hezbollah is taken off the stage, at least on paper, for 60 days, showing Hamas that it is isolated. And so these are the three reasons Netanyahu gave for the ceasefire. It convinced enough members of the Security Cabinet and the Knesset to approve it, but it gives us some sense of his perspective why he wants this deal in place, why he thinks it's appropriate. But at the end of the day, as you suggest, it all comes down to enforcement. It all comes down to whether Israel, not the United States, not France, certainly not the Lebanese army or unifil, Israel, is prepared to take steps to make sure that Hezbollah cannot rearm or reoccupy that buffer zone between the Litany river and the northern border.
- [11:35]
Matthew Continetti
You know, on the, on the matter of the ceasefire, allowing Israel to refocus its efforts on Hamas, if that happens, if the ceasefire holds to the degree that that can be done and Israel can pound the remnants of Hamas in Gaza, we're going to see a whole new fresh round of outrage, because that war is going to start up properly in a way that is going to ignite all the same people and more who are now filled with fantasies of the type that John was describing at the start of the show about peace breaking out throughout the region and so on.
- [12:24]
Jon Podhoretz
Let me, let me, let me read to you a little bit from the Netanyahu speech made to the Israeli people yesterday. Because there are pregnant moments in the speech, and I should say I wrote a very, very angry blog post last night. It's on our website. And I was told after I was done, and then I did some revising of it after it was done, that the injustice that I was doing, not to the Biden administration, but to sort of not the injustice to the truth, but sort to the fact pattern, is that in fact, the Israeli government did want this ceasefire, that it was not imposed on it, it was not forced on it, it was not choked down on the ground and made to do this, that it may even have been one of the animating forces behind the ceasefire proposal. But there are reasons that are given in the course of this talk that will help explain that. The first, as Matt alluded to, is why should we have a ceasefire now. BB Says the first reason is to focus on the Iranian threat. And I will not expand on that. That's all he says. So in the largest picture, Hezbollah is a. Is a proxy army, an arm of Iran, on Iran's periphery, outside Iran's borders. And there's no such thing as defeating Hezbollah ultimately, as Matt has said many times on this podcast, without defeating Iran. And in fact, engaging with Hezbollah, except for the direct fact that it is firing rockets into Israel and making the north uninhabitable, which is a big except. I mean, that is all of it, is to engage in a diversionary exercise, because Hezbollah is not the enemy. Iran's the enemy, and you're fighting on the periphery rather than fighting at the center. And Bibi is signaling that Israel's intent, as we've seen now with the various pieces of behavior in relation to Iran over the last couple of months, Israel is preparing to go at the head of the octopus to stop fighting the arms of the octopus, which were Hamas and Hezbollah. And he will not explain what he is talking about, because he can't. We don't know what capabilities they have. We know that they managed to, two months before Nasrallah went to. Went to Iran. Was Nasrallah. Right. I'm just, you know, that they. Haniyeh. Excuse me, Ismail. Haniyeh went to Iran and was.
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Abe Greenwald
Nasrallah is not going anywhere.
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Jon Podhoretz
Nasrallah is not going anywhere. I'm sorry.
- [15:13]
Matthew Continetti
Nor is Haniyeh.
- [15:15]
Jon Podhoretz
Yeah, yeah, that's right. Yeah. Haniyeh right in the ninth circle of hell. And he's staying right there.
- [15:19]
Abe Greenwald
I hope the room service was good in the apartment.
- [15:22]
Jon Podhoretz
Yes.
- [15:23]
Abe Greenwald
Before the drone hit.
- [15:25]
Jon Podhoretz
So the point here is that they had this capability to take out Haniyeh. They took out Haniyeh. What the Iranians don't know is what Israel knows and what capabilities Israel has. That's what the. One of the virtues of the pager operation is that Israel's got things up its sleeve and things that it can do that are unnerving in the extreme to its enemies, and it is signaling that it is. If the Trump administration wants to participate or simply wants to give them a green light, it is in a position to do so. So it is signaling. So Bibi is signaling to the Israeli people that they are taking this fight elsewhere, to the center. Number two, the second reason to give our force is to give our forces a breather and replenish stocks. As Matt said, and I say it openly, it is no secret that there have been big Delays in weapons and munition deliveries. These delays will be resolved soon. That's about us, that's about the United States. Israel is running out of ammunition to defend itself. There's no territorial interest in Lebanon. Israel pulled out unilaterally of Lebanon 25 years ago. It has no territorial interest in all. It would only hold territory in Lebanon to push missile fire back from the border so that people can go back and live in their homes in the north. But what he is saying is we need those bullets and things to come from the United States and somebody is slow walking them. And so we needed to make this deal to get the flow coming. Now, again, two months from now, I don't think there is going to be a problem with material flows from the United States to Israel. That would seem to be an inarguable thing. But they do have to get through the next two months and who knows what could happen in the next two months. So he's saying Biden gave us implicitly, Biden gave us no choice because the slow walking is actually harming our capabilities to continue doing what we have been doing aggressively in Lebanon. It's important for Americans to understand this, that this is. America has forced Israel's hand into a ceasefire. That's what Bibi is implicitly saying. And the third reason is to separate the fronts and isolate Hamas. Now, why is that a good thing? Because if Hamas really gets the people inside, we don't even know who's inside Hamas or who's. What the structure is or if there's a structure or anything like that. Because of course, the senior leadership, Dayf and Sinmore in particular, have been eliminated and the political bosses are now off, I guess in Turkey, or they haven't left yet, or they're leaving. They're leaving Qatar. I don't know is to say the jig is up. We've offered you $5 million a hostage. Take the deal. You got no friends left. Nobody is coming to your aid. Nobody is on your side. You're a loser. Nobody likes you. Figure out how to give us what we want and we will secure your safe passage or make sure that you don't die. And that's the best hope that the hostages have, honestly. Because Israel can't scour every single inch of territory in Gaza to find them wherever they are. There's too many people, there are too many homes, there are too many places.
- [19:03]
Abe Greenwald
I know everybody thinks many of the hostages are probably underground now. Ever since the rescue, where the hostages who were rescued were in an apartment. I believe the sense is in Israel that the hostages were taken underground into the dungeon network.
- [19:22]
Matthew Continetti
I have a question here that I'm asking because I'm not sure of the answer, and I want to hear what you guys think. If you're Hamas, as John says, whatever that means anymore, and you get this news of the ceasefire, do you think, oh, no, Hezbollah is no longer with us, or do you think, oh, good, America is really beginning to force Israel's hand and to stay Israel's hand and to stop it from succeeding? That's another piece of this.
- [19:58]
Jon Podhoretz
That's a very important point, and that's why this deal is so ambiguous at best in the eyes of Israelis. I mean, what I'm hearing, and granted, I hear mostly arguments from the more hawkish side, but not necessarily. But I mean, not like, you know, lunatics and stuff like that, which is. This is bad. It's bad because it seems like Hezbollah is being rescued in some fashion or potentially being rescued, and that is bad for Israeli morale. People who live in the north. I mentioned yesterday the mayor of Kiryat Shmona saying this deal is a capitulation. The mayor of Matula, another city pretty close to the border with Lebanon, said, this deal does nothing. It resolves nothing. We're not going to be able to come home under these terms. Indeed, the deal doesn't even imagine a return to Israeli homes for at least 60 days, because that's the. This sort of implementation period. And so who knows what message you, what propagandistic message you can at least structure to give Hamas heart and to say, well, look, the asset that we have are these horribly suffering 101 people. Either either they're suffering because they're alive or they're dead and their corpses are being withheld and we don't know where they are, and let's keep them. Let's, you know, let's see what happens. You know, Allah's on our side, or, you know, there's secret wheels within wheels and somebody is going to come in and, you know, Iran's going to nuke them by January or something, you know, so that's why it's unnerving to so many people that. How do you read this? Do you read this as Israel beat Hezbollah or that Hezbollah beat Israel? I have no answer to that.
- [21:58]
Abe Greenwald
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.
- [22:18]
Jon Podhoretz
Get more holiday fun and less holiday worry.
- [22:21]
Matthew Continetti
When LifeLock save up to 40% your.
- [22:23]
Abe Greenwald
First year, visit lifelock.com podcast Terms apply I think there's another question when we talk about these organizations, Hezbollah, who exactly are we referring to? I mean, as Netanyahu observed in his speech yesterday, the upper echelons of Hezbollah have been totally destroyed. I mean, between the pager plot, between Nasrallah and Shukr and all the other high level Hezbollah folks that they have taken, that the IDF has taken out in the past few months, what are we. I think it's actually the ceasefire gives Israel an opportunity to assess who the new Hezbollah is.
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Jon Podhoretz
Right?
- [23:09]
Abe Greenwald
I mean, what, who's actually in charge here where it's not clear. And the same is with Hamas. I mean with Sinawar's death, with Dave's death, I mean, you have the folks in Qatar who are leaving or not, but the players on the ground in Gaza, who are they? We don't really know. So it's a question of one, how they interpret this event, as you suggest, Abe, but also are there differences in interpretation? I mean, there are some signs, some reporting before we recorded the podcast this morning that, well, some Hamas representatives are also interested in a ceasefire. Well, who are they? And do they actually know where the hostages are? And of course Hamas just recently rejected a ceasefire proposal. So we're kind of in this period of transition and unknowingness. But I think, I think Hamas and Hezbollah and Iran, as they calculate their next steps, are also aware that on January 20th there's a change in administration and the incoming administration is not in a place where they're going to pressure Israel to make concessions and is not in a place where they're going to delay weapons shipments to Israel. And so that might play a part in what these folks do next as well.
- [24:36]
Jon Podhoretz
We have two points on that. One is that Trump has in his head. I think he has in his head and certainly if he doesn't, people in his ambit have in their heads and the Iranians may have in their heads what happened in 1980 and early 1981, 52American hostages were held by Iran for 445 days. I believe on the day that Ronald Reagan was inaugurated, Iran released the hostages because it had no idea what Reagan was going to do with the fact that he had inherited the hostage crisis and Iran was done with the game that had been playing with Jimmy Carter because Jimmy Carter was gone. Trump told somebody that he wants to be the negotiator in chief on a hostage deal. Iran has no idea what Trump has up his sleeve or what he might want to do. And the fact of the change of administration is because of this precedent, the best hope that the hostages can be retrieved. Because in the end, Hamas is an Iranian catamite. And if Iran makes it clear that Hamas must let the hostages go, I assume Hamas will let the hostages go. That's one thing that you can look at.
- [26:08]
Matthew Continetti
Just say one thing about that, though. It's, and this is just hard for me to imagine, I have a very hard time believing that Iran or Hamas or between the two of them would let the hostages go for anything less than Hamas's ability to retain some sort of leadership power in Gaza. I, that's why I don't, I don't see them saying, okay, just let us survive elsewhere.
- [26:41]
Jon Podhoretz
This would essentially be Iran cutting Hamas loose. Right, that, that. My point is that Iran would say, okay, you're done. You know, you had a good run there. You ran Gaza for 18. You took the hostages. Yeah. You slaughtered some Israelis. You did, you did, you did great. By, we're done. You know, you're of, no, you're of no use to us anymore. In fact, you're a net negative because we have a new global situation. We're going to have to deal with where Israel is dealing with America, which is now far friendlier to it or far more interested in using, believes in the possible use of military power to retard Iran's other ambitions, including its oil exports and its nuclear ambitions. And we've been backing you to help us against this. And so now we're not backing you anymore. And we'll also kill you if you don't give up the hostages. So you're done. So that's the answer if this scenario that I'm laying out in which Iran somehow plays a role in getting the hostages out. Now, having said that, the release of the hostages, we have to understand, will be an epochal moment in the Middle east in this sense, which is that assuming that enough of them come out alive, their accounts, and we've had bits and pieces of this from the hostages who have been released. I mean, their accounts of what they have gone through are going to change American attitudes about, particularly if the Americans come out about any idea that there is any way to live or make some kind of a rail politic, entente with the people who did this to them. These are going to be survivor testimonies. And again, there are five Americans who are still there. And it took two beheadings of Americans in 2013 by ISIS to turn American public opinion toward the idea. 63% opposed further military action in the Middle east before. Before the beheadings of the two journalists and 63% were for the destruction of ISIS afterwards. The release of hostages could give Israel a freer hand, could put pressure on Trump to allow Israel to do what it needs to have done, or, in fact, encourage Trump's own belief that Iran has to be taken out or taken down in some fashion. So there's a lot of moving pieces here, but the hostages are very dangerous to the axis of evil in the Middle East. I mean, what they will have to say if they are saved. One last point. I've been hearing all day, all day yesterday. It's more than 13 months since the warp started. This is, you know, by four times the longest war that Israel has ever fought. It's a small country, right? It's 9 million people. Hundreds of thousands of people have been at arms in Gaza and in Lebanon. And there have been ups. There have been downs. There have been. The last three or four months have featured these technological acts of technological wizardry, the actual taking out of Hamas, of Hezbollah, all over the place. Sort of Israel acting like getting back on its front foot and defending itself and taking the fight to the bad guys and all of that. But the adrenaline, that surge that that helped create is running out. And the Israelis are exhausted, and they are oddly disheartened, I think, because even though it's clear that they won in Gaza, the fact that the hostages are still there means that there is no victory. That will not feel like a victory until there is a resolution of the state and condition of the hostages. And now we have this kind of, you know what? We got to stop for 60 days, and then we're going to start up again. And you get this, like, I don't know if I have it in me anymore. Like, my understanding of what my life is, how to live a normal life, how not to be running into shelters three times a week when sirens hit and all of that. It's. It's like the entire country has ptsd. And. And, you know, when you're running on adrenaline, you don't really necessarily have much time to take stock. And the taking stock period is not going to be psychologically. I mean, it is a way of, like, making sure that people get some sleep and they're not necessarily, you know, in combat uniforms and carrying their guns with them and sleeping in tents or in bases or something like that, but they're back in their beds at home. But, you know, this is grueling, rough, horrible stuff that is happening and has happened to them. And so, you know, this will not, from what I can tell, it will not feel like a respite to anybody because people who are hawkish are disappointed that the war is being paused. And people who are dovish give Netanyahu no credit for anything and want him destroyed and want him ousted and want him convicted of crimes and want him, you know, hung from, you know, the top of the Azraeli Tower and Tel Aviv, and they will. They will give him and the government no credit for any of this. So there's not like there's a constituency for this ceasefire as well.
- [32:54]
Matthew Continetti
And the country as a whole has a full understanding that when you have an enemy as a neighbor who's claiming that it's operating under the terms of a ceasefire, you are in no way guaranteed that they are operating under the terms of a ceasefire and that your security is guaranteed for any. For one more second.
- [33:13]
Jon Podhoretz
Yeah, yeah. Nobody trusts them. Nobody. Nobody should believe them. And as I say, the comedy of the proposal, if you read it, is the. No, no, it's fine. The Lebanese army is going to. Is going to move south of the Litany River. Don't you cross that Lebanese army. Because, you know, it's been so efficient in making sure that a third of Lebanon isn't occupied by a foreign powers, you know, external arm that's been.
- [33:39]
Abe Greenwald
Yeah, as we've said, it's basically the ceasefire that was imposed on Israel in 2006 after about six weeks of war. It's the same thing. Oh, this is going to be the buffer zone, this new UN force, and the Lebanese army will secure it. After that 2006 war, which many people at the time thought had been almost a strategic defeat for Israel, it came to light that, in fact, Israel had really damaged Hezbollah's infrastructure and had really delayed its ability to inflict violence on the state of Israel and its people. Compare that with this ceasefire. I mean, now there's no question that Hezbollah has been dealt a grievous blow. Now you can find people in the streets of Beirut who are passing out posters of Nasrallah, as an NPR correspondent pointed out this morning. But at the end of the day, I don't think.
- [34:43]
Jon Podhoretz
Boy, I really, I really, I really got you right there on npr. Now.
- [34:47]
Abe Greenwald
You are now Daily John.
- [34:49]
Jon Podhoretz
Yeah, yeah, it's like.
- [34:51]
Abe Greenwald
Yeah, yeah, it's. It gets me going, you know, it's who needs caffeine? Yeah, you have the NPR Morning Edition.
- [35:00]
Jon Podhoretz
All you need to do is hear Layla F's voice and that adrenaline rush starts going.
- [35:05]
Abe Greenwald
It's like, yeah, go, I'm ready to record this podcast.
- [35:11]
Jon Podhoretz
So.
- [35:12]
Abe Greenwald
But at the end of the day, Nasrallah is gone, the top people are gone. They penetrated as Hezbollah. Those pagers blew up. And so I do think that there's an argument to be made that going into this 60 day period, which, you know, who knows whether it'll last and it probably won't, Israel is in a better place than it was when it went into the last ceasefire with Hezbollah.
- [35:39]
Jon Podhoretz
Oh, unquestionably. But I would compare this now and make a totally ludicrous comparison with the American political problem with inflation, which is to say there is the fact that inflation started going down, right, and that Biden wanted to claim credit for inflation going down and economists said inflation went down and all of this. The question is, what does every Israeli feel in his heart about how much safer and more secure Israel is now? If for two months there is not a rocket fired and there are no sirens and people aren't running into shelters and Hezbollah rockets aren't hitting the north of Israel and things aren't flying at Tel Aviv, sort of icbm, like maybe the Israeli public mood, the absence of that anxiety will improve the Israeli public mood. But as of now, at this moment, as it is struck, the triumph that you're describing over the degradation of Hezbollah doesn't feel like a military victory. That's the problem. Like, I don't think that Israelis feel especially more secure. And until people return to their homes in the north, which will be the thing that means that they are now secure, I don't know that that mood is going to change very much. So there's what Bibi and the government have to deal with, which is, what are they actually? What are their aims and what have they achieved? They may have achieved 90% of everything they think they can achieve without really going in and taking Hezbollah out, you know, house by house and person by person. And so therefore, the delaying of this or the slowing down or whatever is, is worth the risk because they're now, they're just going to be bombing empty shells of houses or something like that. But that doesn't necessarily get to the national mood, which is living just with the reality. As I say, like maybe, maybe the absence of the threat, the daily threat will start easing people up. You know, you get the sense from the, if you talk to people in Israel and stuff like that, that, you know, this has become a kind of noise, you know, background noise, like, yeah, there's a siren, okay, I'm gonna go in the shelter or, you know, or, or literally get out of my car and lie down in the street until the siren goes away. And that. It's a background noise. They're used to it, you know, they can't get scared every single time and all of that. But then again, making a preposterous analogy, it's like living in America during the crime wave, like the 30 year crime wave. You get used to the fact that you live in high crime and you could get mugged at any moment or something bad could happen. You can't live in a state of high alert. Your body can't help, can't live like that. But it's always there. It's always this little buzz in the back of your head. There's no way to escape it. You're, you're menaced, you're living menaced. And until that menace, you know that the menace has gone away. When the menace goes away in your head, you know, it doesn't, it's not. You can't be told that you're now safe. You can't be told that you're now.
- [39:10]
Matthew Continetti
You know, that you're well, especially after October 7th. Because part of the issue was that the menace, at least of Hamas had seemed to have gone away in some Israelis heads.
- [39:23]
Jon Podhoretz
Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so let me just want to tell you for final time as we approach the holidays, holiday giving time. If you are an intellectually minded person, with intellectually minded family members who are interested in the history of the last 50 years, the changes in America over the last 50 years, and the ways in which the courts of the United States have interfered with the proper practice of the implementation of law and the respect for the Constitution. I really do want to commend to you Randy Barnett's riveting book A Life for Liberty, the Making of an American Originalist. Randy Barnett, Georgetown Law Professor, Friend of the Commentary Podcast it's an intellectual and personal autobiography when he was growing up in Polish Catholic Halumet City, Illinois, a 12 year old Jewish kid. He was the Jewish kid in a school who debated on behalf of Barry Goldwater, the only one in his entire high school, junior high school. But when he learned in law school how the Supreme Court had been gutting every limit on government power, he became disillusioned about his goal and aim of strengthening and celebrating the Constitution. So instead he moved on to become prosecutor in Cook County, Illinois, where we could obviously use him today or people like him today. But little did he imagine that 50 years after a majority of the Supreme Court would now identify as originalists, or his role in bringing about the intellectual sea change that led to having originalists take center stage in the way in which conservatives and Republicans view the proper role of the courts and the Supreme Court. From arguing in the Supreme Court to developing the theory of originalism to devising the constitutional challenge to Obamacare, Randy Barnett has been in the thick of the fight to restore a lost Constitution. That's why Geor has called A Life for Liberty a nourishing three deck club sandwich, elegantly blending autobiography, a guide to today's arguments surrounding jurisprudential originalism, and a participant story at how some recent constitutional history was made. Delicious. A Life for Liberty is an inspiring book for anyone who loves the Constitution, and it would make a great gift to any student who aspires to make a difference and anybody in America who wants to know what happened in this country over the past 50 years. It's available wherever books are sold. 30 seconds that changed the World released by the Democratic Party Twitter account the Democrats on TikTok and Twitter last night, a woman named Kamala Harris, you may have heard of her. I don't know if you're going to hear much much from her again, particularly after the 30 seconds to change the World released a video telling people not to give up on their dreams, their power. Don't give up your power and never let anybody tell you that you should give up your power. No power should be given up when power is to be had.
- [42:56]
Abe Greenwald
Simply describing what she said doesn't really do the video justice because it's more.
- [43:03]
Jon Podhoretz
It's a performance.
- [43:04]
Abe Greenwald
Yeah, it's not just the banality of the words, it's the way in which the words are delivered on the video that our audience should definitely take a minute or less to watch.
- [43:15]
Jon Podhoretz
Yes. Well, so we're not going to run it here because you know, we don't have, we don't know how to drop in the audio, audio. And you have to look, you have to see it as only some people are watching on YouTube. She's drunk on her ass, people. I mean if she's not, then she's, then she's like having a stroke or either having deprived. Maybe that's another I, I am sorry but this I and 50,000 other people on Twitter easily in the first 15 minutes of watching this 30 second video said oh my God, she's Drunk. And they released the video of her saying this thing, slurring her words, talking nonsense. Argo Bargle.
- [44:06]
Abe Greenwald
And the gestures.
- [44:08]
Jon Podhoretz
And the gestures and the leaning forward into the camera.
- [44:11]
Abe Greenwald
And she's almost a little bit more expansive, you know?
- [44:15]
Jon Podhoretz
Yeah, she's almost like swaying, like Otis, the drunk in the jail cell in the Andy Griffith Show.
- [44:23]
Abe Greenwald
But while sitting.
- [44:24]
Jon Podhoretz
While sitting. She's swaying in a chair. Okay. Am I being unfair? I think I'm not being unfair because so many people last night instantly had exactly the same reaction that I'm not.
- [44:42]
Matthew Continetti
Being unfair to say she certainly looks like she's hammered. Do we know if she's hammered? Of course we don't.
- [44:49]
Jon Podhoretz
Well, I don't have a Breathalyze. I couldn't Breathalyzer. And. But the truth is. But we're over. And here's the thing. Walk us straight.
- [44:57]
Abe Greenwald
We don't know. When was this video recorded? Was it recorded during the past two weeks when she's been in Hawaii? And if so, was there, like, a route? You know, had she just come off the beach, you know, and she had a few ties? Too many. It's like, let's talk about the campaign. Or is it something that she recorded when she just came back from vacation just the other day and immediately put it maybe jet lag or she had a Mai Tai on Air Force Two on her on her way home.
- [45:27]
Matthew Continetti
Okay, but my point is that she has sounded like this more than a few times. She looked like this more than a few times. But here's the thing. There have been leaks about her behavior towards staff, about their dissatisfaction with her, about more than dissatisfaction, the resentment of her. No one's out there aside from analyzing her performances. Are people saying, boy, oh, boy, does she knock him back?
- [45:58]
Jon Podhoretz
Not yet.
- [45:59]
Matthew Continetti
Right.
- [46:00]
Jon Podhoretz
That's that. That could be the last thing that you say about her.
- [46:04]
Abe Greenwald
Well, talk about that staff for a second, because I think the timing of this video is very noteworthy, because 24 hours before the video was released, not even 24 hours. Playbook from Politico had a long piece on Kamala's future and how Harris is telling her aides to keep all of her options open. And yes, Kamala Harris might run for governor of California in 2026, but she's also thinking about making another run for the presidential nomination in 2028. And maybe those two goals conflict. The world is Kamala Harris's oyster. And then this video appears out of nowhere after, I guess, a call that she had had with some supporters with. With supporters yesterday. And it's clear if you watch that video, you're reminded why she probably doesn't have a political future. In fact, and this is my wife's suggestion, so I want to credit her for this. The best course for Kamala Harris would be to have her own daytime talk show. What Kamala Harris needs to do is.
- [47:13]
Jon Podhoretz
Then she would have to answer a question. Or could you only ask?
- [47:15]
Abe Greenwald
She'd be the host. You just have to ask the question. She'd be the new Drew Barrymore or Kelly Clarkson, and she could have all of the new age types, all of the celebrities that gave concerts for her on the trail.
- [47:28]
Matthew Continetti
I totally disagree.
- [47:30]
Abe Greenwald
Really?
- [47:31]
Matthew Continetti
She's the new Dean Martin. She has drinks with them.
- [47:35]
Abe Greenwald
You could combine the two.
- [47:37]
Matthew Continetti
They sit around the bar.
- [47:39]
Jon Podhoretz
Yeah, Everybody Loves Somebody sometime. Now, remember, Dean Martin wasn't actually drinking. That's the difference. Martin had apple juice in that glass. He was acting drunk. He was acting like a drunk. He wouldn't drink. Okay, but it's not just that. That story came out about her future. Jenna Malley Dillon, her campaign manager, went on Pod Save America. Yes. And I want to read what she told the Pod Save America guys who have not been kind in the wake of the Harris campaign. Toward the Harris campaign, by the way, amazingly, out of nowhere, the Pod Save America guys are like, you know, we probably shouldn't have run on all that progressive stuff. Oh, really? Might have helped your party if you had said that for the last four years and helped them, like, not be crazy. But, you know, you're a bunch of losers anyway, so, you know, lousy speech writers and kind of obnoxious people on Twitter. And congratulations on having a successful podcast. Why anybody would want to listen to you, I don't know. But let's just say you have now achieved this in their set, the Save America set.
- [48:54]
Abe Greenwald
That where they hosted the Harris campaign officials. It's incredible.
- [48:58]
Jon Podhoretz
Yes, it is incredible. They made a lot of money, and I applaud the capitalist system, as they should. Not that I've ever heard that. Just as I hadn't heard them say that maybe dwelling on transgender issues might be a net negative for the Democratic Party in 2024. Didn't hear a word of that. Didn't hear a word of them saying any of that. But. Okay, good. You know, come on in. The water's fine. If. If you've achieved sanity in the wake of the election. I guess that's better than being insane forever. Nonetheless, here is what Jenn O'Malley Dillon said to the Pod Save America people. The public perception that Harris had actively Avoided media appearances is inaccurate. Says the news report that I'm quote, real people heard in some way that we were not going to have interviews, which was both not true and also so counter to any kind of a standard that was put on Trump that I think that was a problem. Being up against a narrative that we weren't doing anything or that we were afraid to have interviews is completely bullied, blank. And also like took hold a little bit. And we just, it gave us another thing we had to fight back for that Trump never had to worry about. So, so wrong.
- [50:13]
Matthew Continetti
They were so interested in doing interviews that they were willing to pay the interviewers.
- [50:20]
Jon Podhoretz
She was so willing to do interviews that she didn't do any interview.
- [50:23]
Abe Greenwald
Waited a month.
- [50:24]
Jon Podhoretz
And meanwhile, Trump was doing three hour interviews with former drug addicts, asking them about what it was like to be a drug, what is it like to take cocaine, what does it mean to be a drug addict or sitting with Joe Rogan or doing whatever it was that Trump was doing. They are now claiming, I mean, this is gaslighting on an epic scale. Everybody in America knows that she refused to give any interviews until she sat down with Dana Bash. Right? Was Dana Bash the first? And then right when people were like, you know, it was like when the Thriller video premiered on mtv, when you guys were. When Matt was barely even born. And it was like 1983 and it was at 2, 5 o'clock in the afternoon. Toddler. I was working at Time magazine at the time. And everybody stopped working, turned on MTV to watch the Thriller video. That's, that's, that was, it was like an epic moment in America. It was an event. And that was the, that was Kamala finally giving an interview, which she was late for and which she spoke for exactly 22 minutes. And then when she went on Brett Baer the following week or something like that, she spoke again for 22 minutes.
- [51:40]
Abe Greenwald
It was, it was a month later.
- [51:42]
Jon Podhoretz
Okay, so, so Kamala's thinking of running for governor of California. Kamala's thinking of running for president. Kamala needs to figure out what to do with her incredible mailing list. What a great mailing list she had. Kamala Harris. They're walking around claiming that one of the reasons why she needs to be taken seriously is that she raised a billion and a half dollars in losing. In losing. She lost with a billion and a half dollars. Trump spent a fourth of what she spent. I'll tell you what, she's $388 million. She spent a billion five. Trump beat her by two points. What political future does she have using.
- [52:23]
Abe Greenwald
What is she using her mailing list for soliciting donations now because the campaign.
- [52:29]
Jon Podhoretz
Is in debt, right?
- [52:32]
Abe Greenwald
Yeah. So at one point in the Pod Save America interview, I'm told one of the campaign operatives says, in response to, you know, the criticism that they never did anything to rebut the Kamala is for they them, Donald Trump is for you ad. This campaign operative says, well, you weren't paying attention to the ads we were running in the swing states. They lost every swing state, but they lost. There were seven swing states. They lost them all.
- [53:05]
Jon Podhoretz
So whatever they were doing in this.
- [53:07]
Abe Greenwald
Week'S data did not work.
- [53:09]
Jon Podhoretz
Right. Meanwhile, someone has now done the study, and I can't remember who it is, and I don't remember precisely what the study, how the study, how the, how the valence of the study works. But if you look at every. If you look at every state and the vote in every state and in almost every congressional district, every part of the United States, from sea to shining sea to American, from American Samoa to the tip of Montauk, where the lighthouse is the easternmost part of the United States, every single place shift to the right. Every single place, some by half a point, some by 22 points. Every county, every. In other words, Trump did better everywhere. And in no place in the United States did Harris cut into Republican dominance. There was like Harris didn't do better anywhere that Republicans run than Biden did. And everywhere Trump did better than he did against Biden.
- [54:20]
Abe Greenwald
And I have to say, I mean, this is what you're pointing out is why Megyn Kelly responded to the stories that Harris might run for President in 2028 with an enthusiastic yes, you go. Because she clearly has a problem with the voters. But think about Harris as the Democratic nominee in 2028 against J.D. vance. That's a very different campaign than Harris against Trump. Donald Trump is the most polarizing figure in American politics in my lifetime, and he had high negatives. And so you would imagine in that sort of scenario, Harris would be well placed to make some inroads, and she failed. Now, look, four years is a long time, but what we know about JD Vance is other than that initial rollout where he suffered, he has now turned his approval ratings around. He is viewed favorably by the American public. He's young. His debate performance showed him to be very skilled as a campaigner. A Vance Harris race. I mean, Republicans would be champing at the bit for that.
- [55:34]
Matthew Continetti
I think. She goes away despite this little burst of enthusiasm. Enthusiast.
- [55:43]
Abe Greenwald
Oh, you lose Everywhere.
- [55:45]
Jon Podhoretz
Here's what happens to her. Here's what happens to her. She goes on five or six corporate boards. She writes a book that some will give her $5 million for in publishing. She does a podcast. Maybe she, you know, maybe she becomes the president of the Atlantic Council or the Tides foundation or some ludicrous, you know, thing like that. And that's who she is. And she doesn't even get a speaking slot in 2028 at the Democratic Convention.
- [56:26]
Abe Greenwald
Really? Wow.
- [56:27]
Jon Podhoretz
I listen. Well, we don't know, but things are going to start coming out about her. I mean, I'm just saying this is the tip of the iceberg.
- [56:37]
Abe Greenwald
Well, you know what? I think there's something to that. Because if you think about the extraordinary changes in the Republican Party over the last decade, right. The Republican Party that won in 2024 is a completely different animal than the Republican Party of 2012. And in fact, many of the speakers at the Republican convention in 2012 were nowhere to be seen in the convention in 2024.
- [57:03]
Jon Podhoretz
George W. Bush, the last presidential nominee.
- [57:09]
Abe Greenwald
The last two term Republican president George W. Bush, has not appeared in person at a convention for his party in 20 years. And so maybe the Democrats need to have a thorough rethinking, right? Just as the Republicans had for this new political era. And maybe in the course of that thorough rethinking, and I'm not saying that they're going to go Bernie Sander, Nista, because I think that is, that's a flawed road, too. But maybe at the end of a total demolition and rebuild, which is what Donald Trump performed for the gop, you would have a convention where Harris wouldn't appear, where the Clintons wouldn't appear. Right. I just think looking at that party, it is so top down, so structured, it's the old Republican Party. It'd be very hard to do something like that in four years. But maybe we're in for some big surprises. We've already gone through a lot of them.
- [58:07]
Jon Podhoretz
I mean, look, we, we obviously are more, we are ideologically simpatico with a lot of the people whom Trump has, you know, has cashiered. Right. So that's. But I mean, you're gonna say the.
- [58:18]
Abe Greenwald
Ones that he nominated.
- [58:20]
Jon Podhoretz
No, but I'm saying, you know, but we like the people had the Republican party over the 40 years from Reagan onward, become barnacled with people who almost made it, but didn't, people who had followings but really didn't contribute that much. You know, I mean, you can name 15 of them off the top of your head in the formula.
- [58:46]
Abe Greenwald
The formula were stale.
- [58:48]
Jon Podhoretz
Right.
- [58:49]
Abe Greenwald
That's what Ross out the slum wrote in the weekly standard in 2005.
- [58:53]
Jon Podhoretz
Right. Yeah, yeah. Right. So my point here is, you're right, that what they need to do is they're encrusted. And if they're going to renovate themselves, you actually have to renovate yourself. You don't just. You don't build new rooms onto the house.
- [59:08]
Abe Greenwald
No.
- [59:09]
Jon Podhoretz
You're going to have to either tear down the house or reorganize it or, you know, take walls down or the Tea Party.
- [59:17]
Abe Greenwald
So this is what's interesting. So the Tea Party was the beginning.
- [59:20]
Jon Podhoretz
Right.
- [59:20]
Abe Greenwald
That was the beginning of the renovation of the jp and then it got folded into maga. So that's a grassroots thing. And so you have to ask yourself, well, where does the grassroots movement come from within the Democratic Party? Because the Democratic grassroots are, you know, loony left, so that's not going to help very much. But then the other big base in the Democratic Party are these affluent white seniors who, you know, they are totally content, they have great lives and they're not really up for a grassroots rebellion. I wonder if the African American vote, black voters who are still attached to the Democratic Party, whether they might actually be the constituency that has grassroots movement.
- [60:04]
Jon Podhoretz
For normalcy, for identity politics.
- [60:07]
Abe Greenwald
Post identity.
- [60:08]
Jon Podhoretz
Normal African Americans.
- [60:10]
Abe Greenwald
Absolutely right.
- [60:12]
Jon Podhoretz
Want to be represented by black interest groups.
- [60:17]
Abe Greenwald
No, we're just, we. They're the party of civil rights. But they're also not going to indulge every trans activist or every anti Israel activist or even anti anti climate change activist. Right there. It's, it's like we're, we're for civil rights, as the Democratic Party has been since 1964, but we're also for normal America.
- [60:38]
Matthew Continetti
Yeah, I mean, it's a really interesting prospect. But the thing is, they're moving. Right?
- [60:44]
Abe Greenwald
Well, right.
- [60:46]
Jon Podhoretz
You're saying. No, I'm saying. I see. Where I disagree with you, Matt, is that I think the loony left is where, where they're going to go. That's where typically, that's where the party's.
- [60:57]
Abe Greenwald
Part on the side. And that's a big problem for them. That's what I mean. Like Vance, now, you know, we have this Emerson Poll out just this morning to stop here, but Emerson Poll out this morning has Donald Trump's approval at 54%. I mean, this is, we have to just. By the way, that's the sea change in public attitudes toward Donald Trump. And there are many people in Washington who have not done that. And they need to, they need to kind of check their priors when they look at poll numbers like this. And then the other takeaway was shady. Vance leads the 2028 field by overwhelmingly by more than by 30 points. It double digits ahead of everybody else.
- [61:34]
Jon Podhoretz
Right.
- [61:35]
Abe Greenwald
So it's whoever the Democrats put up, they're going to have to think about what J.D. vance is and what he represents.
- [61:42]
Jon Podhoretz
And all of this depends on Vance's future, depends obviously on Trump having a successful presidency and how, what whether Democrats take the measure of the fact that if his presidency shows successes, they course correct to take account of that or whether they spend four years saying as the Democrats did under Reagan, losing 49 states as a result. No. The things that you are seeing and feeling again getting to the national feeling, the things you are seeing and feeling that your economic circumstances are improving, that the world is more secure under Reagan, that the Russians seem to be stymied a little bit in their adventurism and that we are standing firm against European leftists and communists in deploying missilery and weaponry, that it's going to make us more safe and taxation policy is working and all of that. And then the Democrats stand there for four years saying no, it's not, no, it's not happening. We're less safe, we're poorer, everything is bad. This country is in terrible shape. We're going to have to raise taxes and all that end up arguing against the reality of a successful. They will be, they will take themselves from this relative parody into catastrophic territory. But again, this is the big if, which is can Trump batten down the hatches and do things that will be viewed by the American people as successes and make them feel better? And that we just, honestly we, we don't know. We just, we don't know. I mean I think, I think they're going to feel better than they would have under, you know, under Ms. You know, doers bottle looking to the bottom of her doers bottle as she tells people never to take away her power. But you know, that's a low bar. Matt, you have a recommendation and then we'll, we'll, we'll say goodbye.
- [63:36]
Abe Greenwald
I do have a recommendation, John. You know, I've been looking for things to watch with my son. He's going to turn 11 in the spring. He loves comedy. And so I was kind of racking my brain and I was saying, well, when I was his age, what did I find? Very funny. And so we have revisited the first time for me in 30 some years, Mystery Science Theater 3000. And for those of you who don't know Mystery Science Theater 3000, it was the kind of low budget show started in Minnesota, I believe, by a comedian named Joel Hodgson about an astronaut stuck in space with two robot companions who is forced to watch the worst movies ever made. And they respond to these terrible movies by making wisecracks and smart alecky comments about the goings on in the movies. And so the show is long running. The original host, Joel Hodson, was then replaced by a comedian named Mike Nelson. Yes. And so we've been watching the show. We've seen now two movies. One, this Island Earth. And then last night we watched the giant spider invasion with Mike Nelson. And I'm dying once again. When I watch these movies, what strikes me is, as my son puts it, he says to me, I don't even know what they're saying, but it's really funny. And so he's cracking up too, because there's a lot of cultural. I mean, I've had to Google some of the cultural references they make. I mean, and it is kind of like the best Simpsons episodes. I mean, the jokes come so quickly. Try to focus. If you're. If you decide to look up MST3K this long weekend for Amazon prime subscribers, it's free. You can search for it and so you can find old episodes for free. Do focus on the Joel and Mike eras. Those are probably the best ones, but you're in for a treat. I had a headache. I was laughing so much watching them make fun of the giant spider invasion, which is truly one of the worst movies I've ever watched in my life.
- [65:59]
Jon Podhoretz
What a fantastic recommendation. There is nothing funnier they the movie. And there are bits in between the movie where the robots and the hosts are inventing little machines and stuff like that based on what they're watching in the movies, which are also adorable. And the thing about it is it is perfectly pristine for a tenor. There is nothing. It is clean. It is. Yeah. And it's a way of. It's sort of like the airplane movies. The joke is the tropes of bad filmmaking or even the tropes of so that. So that. What's being made fun of are the things that you watch in movies and go, how did. Why did they film it that way? And they zero in. Anyway, it's. Yeah, it's fantastic. What a great recommendation. And by the way, a lot of them are also on YouTube.
- [67:00]
Abe Greenwald
Oh, really?
- [67:01]
Jon Podhoretz
But you're right, there were later seen. They rebooted it, I think on many times. And there's different measure stay in the early 90s. Seasons one through four, I think are the ones that you want to look for. So Mystery Science Theater 3000 is our recommendation. Wonderful. Thanksgiving. We'll be back on Monday for Abe and Madam John Pot Hortz. Keep the candle burning.