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- [00:04]
John Pothor
Hope for the best, expect the worst.
- [00:11]
Eliana Johnson
Some drink champagne Some die of thirst the way of knowing which way it's going Hope for the best Expect the.
- [00:22]
John Pothor
Worst Hope for the best.
- [00:25]
Eliana Johnson
Welcome to the Commentary magazine daily podcast break brought to you today by the Hamilton School at the University of Florida. At a time when American higher education has lost its way, the Hamilton School at the University of Florida is setting a new standard, offering an elite education that's anything but elitist. Led by world class scholars, Hamilton is reviving the classical liberal arts tradition grounded in the great works of Western civilization and the founding principles of the American Republic. In small discussion based classes, students study history, philosophy, economics, literature and America's founding texts, developing the discipline, eloquence and moral confidence to lead with purpose in their careers, their communities and their lives. Learn more at hamilton.ufl.edu commentary. The Hamilton School at the University of Florida leading a revolution in higher education. Hamilton ufl edu slash Commentary. I am John Pothor. It's the editor of Commentary. And with me as always, executive editor Abe Greenwald. Hi Abe.
- [01:33]
Abe Greenwald
Hi, John.
- [01:34]
Eliana Johnson
And Washington Free Beacon editor Eliana Johnson. Hi, Eliana.
- [01:38]
John Pothor
Hi, John.
- [01:41]
Eliana Johnson
Big controversy involving the evolving story of the supposed coming peace deal between Russia Ukraine brokered by the United States. A leaked transcript of a phone call between. I don't even know. Does he have a title? Negotiator in Chief, America's Mr. Negotiator.
- [02:10]
Abe Greenwald
Steve Woodcock, envoy of some sort.
- [02:12]
Eliana Johnson
He's an envoy of negotiations for negotiating.
- [02:16]
John Pothor
He's supposed to be special envoy to the Middle East.
- [02:20]
Eliana Johnson
Now he's in, but now he's clearly.
- [02:22]
John Pothor
Just Trump's envoy to the world.
- [02:24]
Eliana Johnson
So envoy Steve Witkoff and Russian official and the transcript suggests that the transcripts there that Witkoff was coaching his Russian counterpart on how to talk to President Trump about the deal that Witkoff wished to to enshrine as the deal which first of all, a couple of questions for you guys. This phone call, do we know because I'm a little brain dead this morning, do we know when it took place?
- [03:00]
John Pothor
Yeah, it was in mid October. I want to say October 14, but.
- [03:04]
Abe Greenwald
Let me just write.
- [03:06]
Eliana Johnson
Okay, so October 14. So basically what, what this suggests is that the Witkoff side of the Trump administration told to make a deal, figured that the way to make a deal was essentially to negotiate with the Russians on a deal that was then simply going to be presented to the Ukrainians with the take it or leave it. This is what we're doing. So that there was a kind of collusion. Not that I want to use the word collusion, because we're going to get into the question of phone calls and perfect phone calls that, that are secret, but that, that they were going to sort of do this together to say to Ukraine, take it or leave it. And Witkoff was then coaching his Russian counterpart on how to talk to President Trump so that President Trump would view him with favor. Do I, is this a, a good summary of what the phone call was about?
- [04:03]
Abe Greenwald
Yeah, I think that.
- [04:04]
John Pothor
Sorry, go ahead.
- [04:05]
Abe Greenwald
No, no, no, no, go ahead.
- [04:07]
John Pothor
I'm not sure that it, I didn't, I read the transcript of the call. First of all, I was very amused by Witkoff sharing the explosive state secret of how to, you know, persuade Trump. He was like, you should flatter him. You should tell him, great job on the Israel deal. You're a man of peace. You're really great. You know, like, I don't think the Russians, you know, I don't think Putin would have ever figured that out if Witkoff had not shared this top secret intel with the Russians. So I was like pretty underwhelmed by that aspect of, of the call, I have to say, in terms of Witkoff sharing any kind of compromising information, I actually didn't read it as Wyckoff saying, let's together come up with a plan and then force it on the Ukrainians. There are other parts of the call I think are bad, but he, he said we put together a 20 point plan for Israel, Gaza and we should try to come up with a similar plan for Ukraine. I didn't read that as him saying like, let's force this on the Ukrainians. Maybe Russia interpreted it that way. But what I do think was bad was that when this call was held, it was in advance of Zelensky visiting the White House and they were trying to engineer a phone call between Putin and Trump that would go quite well before Zelenskyy visited the White House. And that visit then did go pretty poorly because Putin and Trump did speak before Zelensky visited the White House. And that's the part I think is bad about this call. What were you going to say?
- [06:05]
Abe Greenwald
Well, I mean, what strikes me about it and what I think is like really interesting about it is how superficial it all is. I mean, it's just all showbiz. Like Witkoff isn't there talking issues at all. He's sort of, he's almost like coaching how to appear on camera. You know this very much. He's the sort of Trump showrunner guy or something. And I think that's in part to blame for this, this endless courtship of Putin here, because it never. They sort of only get at appearances over and over and over again without actually getting anywhere on the meat of the issue. You know, I mean, Witkoff is here saying, just reiterate that you congratulate the President on this achievement, that you respect that he is a man of peace, and you're just, you're really glad to have seen it happen. I think from that, it's going to be a really good call. It's pure surface.
- [07:16]
Eliana Johnson
So the substantive issues that, that were raised subsequent to this call in the course of October and November, of course, have to do with what, what you're talking about, Abe, which is the meat, the bones of whatever the agreement is. And there were a couple of absolutely demented things in this agreement that obviously the Russians put forward, and whoever on the American side was collating the plan or was part of the discussions that then led to the Russians collating the 28 points and then giving them to us, and then someone leaking it to Barack Ravid of Axios, the stenographer of this administration, saying that it was the American plan were a couple of things that are. If Witkoff were a really good negotiator, and if he knew his stuff, he would have said, oh, come on, forget that. Like, this agreement forces the Ukrainian army to be no more than 600,000 people. I mean, what are you, what are you kidding me? Like, Ukraine is, you know, a fourth of the size and population of Russia. Russia gets to have as big an army as it wants, and Ukraine's army has to be limited in size according to an international agreement. When has an international agreement, outside of a complete military surrender to a foreign power ever dealt with how many people could be remain under arms in one of the two countries? This is not a surrender of a war. It was supposed to be like a ceasefire. This is where it ends. And, you know, then everybody's going to go on. So. So they just sort of like, let that go. That's number one. And now I've forgotten what, what, what number two is, but there's something even more ridiculous that, oh, the Donetsk, that, that basically that Ukraine was to surrender the entire region of the Donetsk, including areas that Russia had not actually taken any military control and where, in fact, Russia is bogged down. I mean, according to the Institute for the Study of War, Russia gains territory in the Donetsk at a rate, as it does it, of about 3 square feet a day. When it is pushing forward. It's not that Ukraine is pushing Russia out, pushing Russia back. Ukraine is not having a good last nine months of this war, but Russia is not in any way, shape or form, any. Anywhere near to taking over the entire Donetsk region. And this agreement was simply going to hand it to them. And if the American negotiators were negotiating in good faith as sort of like independent, honest actors trying to make sense of what people should get, where that would not have been in the document. So that speaks to the idea of we're just trying to get to a document that we can basically force the Ukrainians to sign. What do you want? Make up your wish list. And then somehow that became the basis for the final talks until the middle of last week, when this. Everything started to get really confused, right? Where suddenly the Secretary of State team is like, hold on a second, this isn't our document. Right. Rubio says that to a couple of senators in Halifax. They come out and say, phew, we've been supporting Ukraine for years. Rubio says, it's not the document. I guess we shouldn't panic. And then Rubio is forced to say, no, no, you probably should panic. It is our document, actually, obviously, having said six hours earlier that it wasn't our document, because they wouldn't have made it up that he had said it to them. And then, you know, so the. The fact is, there's a mess that involves bringing people in to close deals who don't know what the deal ought to be or don't even know. All right, it's going to be. It's going to be pain. We're going to ask the Ukrainians. It's going to be painful for the Ukrainians, but it can't all be painful for the Ukrainians. Like, why would the Ukrainians agree? And I'm, as somebody who is fully in support of the Ukrainians and fully opposed to the Russians, I'm struck by how eager the Ukrainians are saying this week, let's get to a deal. Let's do it really fast. Let's. We're. We need to do this, you know, by 3. By 3pm today, you know, we're ready. Just. I'm jumping on a plane. I'm. Zelensky will go to the Oval Office, whatever. Let's make a deal. Why are they saying this? I assume they're saying this because they know that in the end, the Russians are going to be the ones to reject the deal. And then they think Trump will get really, really mad at the Russians because he's like, what do you want from me? You know, I'M doing everything I can to put you in the best. I want this war to end, and I'm trying to put you in the best favorable position. And you're the ones who don't want it to end. So, like, the hell with you. Which he has now said for times in the course of this year, only to relent, have his heart sort of soften, as opposed to God hardening Pharaoh's heart. God softens Trump's heart toward Putin for some reason. And then he goes back and says, no, no, okay. I'm sure you really want to want a good deal, but I think the Russians want to keep fighting. Yeah. That's what.
- [12:55]
Abe Greenwald
I don't. I don't get where this comes from. Because it was only a few weeks ago that the Trump administration put. Put these really unprecedented sanctions, energy sanctions, on Russia, sanctioning the two largest oil producers in Russia, which the Biden administration hadn't done that and made this weapons deal to sell Ukraine weapons through NATO. That was supposed to be a sort of campaign to put pressure on Putin. And you got to, you know, give that a little time, let it work, let it, Let it, Let it sort of drain the Russian war machine there. But I don't. So I don't know why you just turn around and you come up with this superficial gobbledygook.
- [13:46]
Eliana Johnson
My assumption is that there are forces within the administration that want Ukraine to lose, and they are effectively negotiating on Russia's behalf for Ukraine to lose, and they want to go back to their people. You can guess who I'm talking about. His initials are J.D. vance. They want to go back to their people, meaning the sort of. The crew of people that they are representing in the administration and basically say, we said we were going to end this war. We said we were going to end this war in a day. We weren't able to end it in a day. But basically, your implicit understanding of Ukraine, you people on the isolationist right, which is that Ukraine is bad. It's. Zelensky is a dictator and he doesn't allow free speech and he's suppressing the Russian Orthodox Church, and he's mean and he's corrupt and he's bad and he's roach like, and he's smelly and he's a Jewish. Oh, wait, I didn't say he's a Jew, but when I said he was roach like, I didn't. I wanted you to understand what it was that I was rat like, excuse me. And so they want to claim a victory domestically in J.D. vance's battle, as he laid it out the other day, with the evil beltway GOP that, you know, cares more about Ukraine than it does about the housing prices and people being set on fire. So there is a, there is a very weird, provincial, internal American game being played here by people who really genuinely, honestly, as analysts of American politics, for how many Americans, one way or another, is Ukraine itself like a voting issue? 5%. In other words, like how this and how this ends up will be the signature reason someone votes one way or the other stays home. But where it's a huge issue is the online right podcast Bro Wing, where it has become this stand in for how we need to crush the bad old belt, the bad old right once and for all. Do you think I'm right or am I being. Oh, I think you're right.
- [16:16]
Abe Greenwald
But I also think it's a huge issue for Trump in the sense that he wants to be able to say he ended the war. He ended yet another war, this one, especially this one, because this is the one he said he would end on day one.
- [16:32]
Eliana Johnson
Look, I'm in agreement with you, but Trump, if we are to take Trump's life before he was president as an example of something, Trump is somebody who walks away from deals when he decides they stink. Like, you know, he, as a builder, is famous for exiting negotiations, for not getting to the, you know, not not getting to the point at which he gets the site to build the building because he, he's unwilling to go too far to get it or whatever. As a negotiator, he knows to walk away from negotiations. His defense of Wycoff last night was what Witkoff was doing is a standard issue thing you do in negotiations, which is like, here's what you do. Say you're wonderful. Say he Witkoff saying to the Russians, just tell Trump you're wonderful. It's not that Trump's then saying, that's okay to, like, try to, you know, fill my head full of cotton candy. It's like, that's what you do in negotiations. It's like, well, how am I going to get the prince principal TS it's like, flatter him, flatter him. He doesn't care. But it is. It is. Trump wants to be able to say he ended this, but he also doesn't want Putin to be laughing at him behind his back. And I think there is some weird part of him that thinks that Putin is keep. There are these moments when he wakes up and he's like, Putin's trying to put one over on Me, nobody puts one. Not that this, this tin pot dictator in this second rate country is not going to put one over on me. And then the other, the devil on his shoulder is like he's amazing. Look, he's been running that country for 25 years. He's a real winner. Like he's a winner. Is Zelensky a winner? I don't give. They're not winning really. And I want to be on the winning side, not on the losing side. Which can get us to the qu. Your point about Mamdani last week. Right. Which is the. Why was he so nice? Because Mamdani won.
- [18:21]
John Pothor
And I say that John, sure, Trump doesn't like to be had people snickering about him behind his back. But this is his second term. He has an eye to history. Presidents in their second term do more foreign policy typically.
- [18:41]
Eliana Johnson
Right.
- [18:41]
John Pothor
But in terms of having an eye to history, I think he is aware what does it look like if he brokers a peace deal and I think he's, he knows that Donetsk, the Don boss, that's not the ball game for Putin. Putin wants all of Ukraine. And if he brokers a peace deal and goes around crowing about it and three weeks later or three months later, you know, or two years later, Putin makes another move, he looks like a fool. And it's not just put Putin who's snickering behind his back, but it's all of you know, it's everybody.
- [19:25]
Eliana Johnson
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- [23:21]
John Pothor
No, I think you're right. And I suspect that it's going to be the Russians who don't respond to this because we went from the 28 point peace plan that appears to have been cooked up by WYTKOFF in cahoots with the Russians to Rubio going to Geneva, I believe, and meeting with the Ukrainians and whittling it down to the 19 points that were more sensible and more in line with, you know, what those of us here have been talking about extracting, you know, the caps on the Ukrainian military and so on and so forth. And the Thanksgiving deadline, by the way, that the president has announced, has now, is now no longer operative and he says it'll get done when it gets done. And it's now. The Russians we haven't heard from, right? Where are they?
- [24:20]
Eliana Johnson
Look, it's a very, very, very interesting set of circumstances. And the American discovery over the past nine months or the Trump discovery over the past nine months that in the end negotiating with bad faith actors like Hamas and I'm sorry, but Russia, I'm sorry only because I don't think the administration has come to the conclusion that Russia is a bad faith actor. But it could, if things go the way I suspect they may go, is like, it's not worth it. You know, it's not worth it. Do we have an option where we can bomb them or let somebody else bomb them? Because that's better. Because we keep going. We're Lucy in the football. We keep having these conversations and we get to something and then Hamas says no and we talk to the gutteries and then Hamas says no and Hamas says no. And it's like, you know, Hamas doesn't have the right to say, say no, just go, just go kill all of, all of Hamas or something like that's, you know, I've had enough. So we're just going to go and say it's enough. You know, if you want our friendship gutter in Egypt and Turkey, if you want us to like, look, look upon you with favor, we'll, you know, then do what, do what we want here. Because you obviously have no end game in mind that's going to make anybody satisfied. And you're just somehow serving the interests of this completely loser group that has not gotten anything it wanted out of this two year war. It's not there with Russia. I think part of the problem is that sensibly, Trump, looking at it from the outside, doesn't understand what Putin is doing. And it's a little hard to understand what Putin is doing, to be honest. I mean, now it's like he made the mistake of going in. So he's going to try to save face by making the best possible deal he can. But it's still, we're in A weird place where it's a little hard to understand why he did this to himself, why Putin did this to himself, why he lost, why he agreed to, why he decided to do this in a war that has cost a million and a half Russian casualties.
- [26:29]
John Pothor
Well, you know, if you rewind to four years ago or how however long it's been, he didn't anticipate it was going to go like this. I mean, Biden administration was saying, zelensky, let's send you a plane and airlift you out. Just surrender now. I mean, that's how Putin thought it was going to go. And, you know, the American intelligence agencies were saying, Ukraine can't put up a fight fight. So I just don't think this is the way Putin anticipated it would go.
- [26:59]
Eliana Johnson
No, I mean, I think part of the problem here is the famous rule. Sorry, Abe, go ahead.
- [27:06]
Abe Greenwald
I think part of the problem here is that Trump has no long term strategic thinking. He doesn't. And he's dealing with parties that are consumed with the long term. Hamas and Putin alike. I mean, Putin's operating from an understanding of Russian history that goes back centuries, and that's what he's dealing with. Trump wants to just say he made peace, a superficial peace, over the course of his term. That's it. And that disconnect is so problematic to getting at actual peace, actual issues, really, defending our allies and deterring our enemies.
- [28:03]
Eliana Johnson
Right. But I'd say if you're Trump, you look at the fight and you're like, why wouldn't Putin want to end this? No one's explained to you about this sort of development over the course of the Putin regime, of the idea of Novo Rossia, that he was going to reunite the ancient, you know, Russian, you know, heart of. In Kiev with the, you know, with, with the greater Russia, and that they were going to return. You know, there's this whole world of the Russian Putin intellectual elite inventing this counter history over centuries. That is the pretext for this, for this war that effectively began in 2014 and that has, you know, gone on this way. So he doesn't know any of it. So we're like, what are you doing? Like, what are you losing all these men for? They're, you know, thousands of people are dying every day. Stop. Stop, you idiot. What are you nuts? Like, stop doing it. And so he, yeah, he doesn't get that this is or doesn't care, that this is a kind of development, a kind of, kind of, would you call it like almost ideologized conceptual sickness in the Russian political soul that has been made flesh by this pointless conflict. Like, if he takes over Ukraine in the end, after all this, if they fight for seven years and he gets all. What does he get? Yeah, he's getting the breadbasket of Europe. So what? Like, what does he get? He gets some idea that has been become a kind of, you know, as I say, kind of sickness in his brain and in his, in his following, where it's not just like, I'm not a thug. I'm the new Peter the Great. I'm the new. I'm the new uniter of, you know, world historical figure for, you know, in my great country, where I will be restoring it to its greatness. Trump's like, stop. Steal the money. Take him. Build another palace. I'll make your house look like my, my oval office. You're 75 years old. Like, you have cancer. Like, have fun. You know, he can't grab your horse is shirtless. Yeah, exactly. I mean, it's. Let's, let's, let's move on to. Let's move on to the other would be the other KGB agent in the Scenari scenario here, or would be KB KGB agent Zoran Mahmoudani. So, a couple of things going on. Number one, the Department of Justice is looking at and pursuing the question of, of, of charges against the Park East Synagogue protesters. That's something to watch over the next couple of weeks because there are. There's now more and more footage that suggests that rather than protesting on the streets, which you could also block on the entrances, on the rule, the Entrances act that was passed largely to secure access to abortion clinics, but that people were, in fact physically being prevented from entering the synagogue. There are two or three little pieces of YouTube footage suggesting it. Jessica Tisch, the police commissioner who has been, who's staying on under Mamdani, apologized at the synagogue over the weekend for the NYPD's failure to let the congregants feel safe and to ensure access. Mamdani himself has said nothing. I mean, the only thing we really know that he said was his spokesman saying that there was a violation of international law going on inside the building. And he is now assembling his transition team. So while he is keeping the police commissioner, who is a Broken windows, tough on crime police commissioner, he is appointed as head of some kind of a public safety transition team, a guy named Alex Vitaly, who is the author, who is a, who is a defund the police activist, among other things, and various other people joining the transition team who are, you know, like worship celebrated October 7th and all of that. So though Trump did the kind of like, oh, I'm the Skipper and you're Gilligan, little buddy. Don't worry, you can call me a fascist. You're so cute with your little beard. The, you know, the, the little, the, you know, the little communist is showing signs that he is not moderating in wake of his victory and that there is going to be some kind of very early collision between the police commissioner that he has decided to keep on and the, and the people in his administration to whom he is close, who will want, who will want her to be, you know, the minute that there is a problem, they will want to come in on the side of the protesters and not on the side of the police. Police.
- [33:23]
John Pothor
His transition team is quite literally appalling and a rogues gallery of the, some of the worst people in the country. Vitali, however you say his last name, Alex Vitale, who's a member of his committee on Community Safety. He wrote a book called that's a pretty chilling.
- [33:53]
Eliana Johnson
That's very close to the Jacobins, by the way.
- [33:55]
John Pothor
Yeah, exactly.
- [33:57]
Eliana Johnson
Robespierre was the head of the Committee of Public Safety.
- [34:00]
John Pothor
And, well, if you listen to the way the guy talks, his book is called the End of Policing. And he's called to abolish basically everything, including police, prisons, border patrol, ice, the DEA and borders. And he calls police violence workers and the enemy of the working class. So, so that's who he is. And the other members of his various, you know, transition committees are Tameka Mallory, who was too anti Semitic for the Women's March. And she got shoved out and has now landed on her feet as a member of the Mamdani transition. And she was shoved out of the Women's March because she is an admirer of Louis Farrakhan and the Al Qaeda lawyer Ramsey Qassem, who also represented the Columbia University student Mahmoud Khalil, who the Trump administration sought to deport. And like Mamdani, his radical anti Israel activism goes back to his days as a student at Columbia University, where he protested the dining hall serving an Israeli wrap and said it needed to be renamed because it was oppressive to Muslim students. And the somebody named Lumumba Bandele, a self described child of the Black liberation movement who has led campaigns to free Black Liberation army members convicted of killing cops. And then our friend, the transgender rabbi Abby Stein, who was tossed out of the transgender rabbit Rabbi, we should say in quotes, who was tossed out of the Biden administration pride event for disrupting it with pro Palestine chants and who led an interfaith dialogue with the Iranian president. Again, interfaith dialogue in quotes. So I don't know if you could find a, literally a worse group of people in the United States.
- [36:28]
Eliana Johnson
States.
- [36:29]
Abe Greenwald
Look, I think Mamdani is going to attempt to hit the ground running on every radical front, particularly his anti Israel obsession. I don't think there's any question. I think to the extent that he's sort of thrown those expecting him to moderate this one big bone in Jessica Tischen, he thinks he's covered for everything else.
- [36:58]
John Pothor
Although he's gonna like working with Alex Vital.
- [37:01]
Abe Greenwald
I don't know how she can.
- [37:03]
Eliana Johnson
I mean, you know, that's the question, right?
- [37:05]
Abe Greenwald
Yeah.
- [37:06]
Eliana Johnson
So the other thing that's going on with him and makes this politically interesting is the agenda that Trump said. He and I share a lot of, you know, we agree on a lot of things, meaning we gotta do something about affordability. That's a. Apparently what they agree on. But the action items that Mamdani has, most of them depend on or Albany has to play a role in affecting them, and he has. Where he may follow Trump is this question of whether or not Kathy Hochul, the governor, who has a race ahead of her in 2026, largely, it appears, against Elise Stefanik, although Bruce Blakeman, who is a. Who is a longtime Republican activist that is the county executive of, I think Westchester, I can't remember which county he's an executive of, also may run. And she. The last thing she needs to do going into, you know, 2026 is raise taxes and, you know, like regulate things and do this and do that. Remember, she got half the state is New York City and half the state is not New York City, and questions whether Mamdani is feeling his oats, is going to basically threaten her, push her into a corner. So this is a Trump pattern, which is that, Mom, Donnie, you're saying he's gonna hit the ground running, trying to get his agenda forward, including the anti Israel stuff. But the agenda that he wants to push forward is gonna require him to go to war with other Democrats, which is what Trump did in 2017, if you remember his political combat even after he won the presidency, was, I need to kick this, get this party in line. So I am going to crush Jeff Flake, senator from Arizona. I'm going to crush Bob Corker, senator from Tennessee. I'm going to make it clear that if you come, I'm going to send my, you know, MAGA people out to eat you alive. Now, does Mamdani have That power. He didn't win the presidency of the United States. He won a mayoralty in New York, which, again, is only half of the state. Hochul runs the whole state, but clearly he's a vanguard figure in the party. And that's. That's the other. That's the other side of this, is he wants her to raise taxes to pay for the stuff that he wants. And he wants things that if she allows to happen in New York City, the. The rest of the state is going to go bananas. Like, why does New York City get free buses? I'm here in Utica. I'm riding a city bus. I'm in Buffalo. I'm riding a city. But why? Why? Why are people in New York getting free busing, free city buses? Which is going to be a good question. Why? Why, after all, if you're living in the same state as people, why does New York get special benefits? That's always a problem being the governor of this state. So it's going to be interesting to watch, because he. The only way he's going to get his agenda item through is if Hochul is more scared of him making her life a misery and running a candidate like Cynthia Nixon, supporting Cynthia Nixon to run for governor against her and beating her in a primary, then she is afraid of the voters of New York State who will, you know, punish her for doing the things that Mamdani wants her to do.
- [40:57]
Abe Greenwald
What she won't do is take a stand. I mean, that's what we've seen, right? So she's. So she's sort of, you know, in this vice between, you know, Stefanik and Mamdani, and she is going to try to maneuver and apologize her way through this maze. And she will look terrible. I mean, as she. Oh, well, always does in all these situations. She comes out looking so feckless, because she is every time.
- [41:30]
Eliana Johnson
I mean, the one thing to say about her is that, you know, every piece of political data that we're getting so far is that this is not going to be a favorable environment for Republicans in 2026 and the 2025 elections in Virginia and New Jersey suggest that even when there might be viable candidates against, you know, dull, boring Democrats who aren't that impressive, that the headwind, you know, that the trade winds may blow them in anyway, that Hochul is going to be running in a favorable environment to herself as long as she can prevent Mamdani from somehow upending her primary chances.
- [42:15]
John Pothor
Abe, it's funny when you said she won't take a stand because What I was thinking was the appropriate response to, you know, hey, why do they have free buses in New York and we don't have the free buses up here in Utica is go down and ride those free buses and see how much you like them compared to the buses that you pay for. Because I'm sure the experience will be suboptimal. Just, it's the same as the people who say, hey, Canadians have free health care. You know, we don't have it here in the States. And, you know, the appropriate response to those people is, hey, go get a doctor's appointment in Canada. Go try to get into a neurologist or a psychiatrist, whoever you need to see in Canada. But of course, Hochul would never say that.
- [43:07]
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- [44:08]
Eliana Johnson
Right. Well, I mean, it's. As I say, you know, the joke.
- [44:13]
Abe Greenwald
I just have to say about this. Half of New Yorkers already skip bus fare.
- [44:19]
Eliana Johnson
Yeah, yeah, but. But where Eliana's right is that, yeah, the bus is very easily. It's very easy to skip the bus fare on a New York City bus. However, if you make the buses free, and they were free during COVID like during the worst of COVID for about a year, buses were free because, you know, the drivers needed to be, you know, isolated in a, you know, soundproof, you know, with an isolation box and never have to deal with anybody. But you turn the buses into traveling homeless shelters, which is what the subways are. And of course, a bus is much smaller. Like, there are ways. Subway car, subway train is 10 cars long. If I. If a. If a smelly, disgusting homeless guy is lying in a car and you can't literally be anywhere around him, you can jump out of the car and get into the next car to avoid him. If Such a person gets worse. Or a psychic schizophrenic gets on your bus, you are trapped on that bus. It's not that big unless it's a crosstown bus and there are two. It's like a bendy bus with two side. With two things. It's not that big. You have a long way to go on a bus usually. And who knows what that. So if, if all the buses turn into homes for the homeless, then the opposite is going to happen. It's like it's not going to be a better set of circumstances for people who have to ride the bus. It's going to be a nightmare for people who have no choice but to ride the bus without. Without any barrier to entry. And those people can jump off a bus and then get on the next one and come, go back and forth and all of that. So it's an interesting broken windows problem. Like you're literally saying, break the windows. And you know what? Keep breaking them. Oh, look, here's another window break that. We want you to break it. Break it. And then you know what else? You could also come on the bus and mug somebody who's going to stop you. A slight barrier to entry, it turns out is actually does have a deterrent effect on people. And you end even that barrier to entry, which as Abe says is a sort of scofflaw rate of like 40 to 50% on paying bus fares because you can sneak in the back door. You know, it's a lot of. It's a lot of trouble.
- [46:45]
Abe Greenwald
Yeah.
- [46:46]
Eliana Johnson
Speaking of cops and impressive cops and interesting things, I want to make a recommends here, which is a documentary on Netflix called the Perfect Neighbor, which I believe was begun. The purpose of the documentary was to be an ideological attack on Florida's stand your ground laws. It tells the story of a woman in Ocala, Florida, who, white woman, moves into a largely black neighborhood and is a Karen. In fact, they call her the Karen. Kids on the box say like it's the Karen again. She does nothing but complain about the kids playing in the street. She calls the cops on them, she curses them out. She's like 50, mid-50s alone, manufacturing, and she's white and the neighborhood white and the kid and the neighborhood. The neighbors are black. And it looks like a pretty idyllic neighborhood actually in some ways where the kids, like Lenore Skanazi would recommend roam free. And they go and they play around and there's a. There's a house next door to the Karen's house that is unoccupied and the kids go and play football on the lawn next to her house. It's not her lawn, she's a, it's a rental. She rents, everybody rents in the neighborhood and she doesn't like it, she doesn't think they should play there. She calls the cops on them. And eventually this horrific thing happens which is a couple of kids from across the street come over, she decides to have a fit. She throws roller skate at one of the kids heads. The kid's mother comes over to her door in a rage, starts banging on the door and saying, come out, let's talk. And the Karen shoots her through the door with a rifle and kills her. And as I say, when the documentarian who made the movie, who is the sister in law of the victim's best friend came to document the story, her purpose was to make sure to, to say this is what's wrong with Florida stand your ground law. But in fact the stand your ground law was never invoked. The woman was arrested three days after the shooting, after the cops investigated it. She was convicted and is serving a 25 year sentence. So the purpose of the documentary was not met, even though they tried to sort of shoehorn it in at the end. What is amazing about it is that it is mostly made through Freedom of Information act requests of the body cams of the police in Ocala and how they dealt with for the year before the shooting, the constant calls that they had to go pay and the people in the neighborhood coming to talk to the cops and the cops talking to them and talking to the kids and talking to the Karen and the cops are amazing. They are amazing. They are calm, they are contained, they are controlled. They do not lose their temper with anybody. They are trying to keep the peace. They understand that this, there is a crazy person in this house. They understand they don't have any grounds on which to do anything about the crazy person in the house. And they understand that the kids are being harassed by this woman in the house. And they sort of try to guide the kids and say, you know what? Just, you know what? The smart thing to do is just stay away from her house today. Go back on your side. Like don't, you know, like just for the better part of wisdom. And it's so impressive because all we ever hear about small town cops is that they stink and they're blah and they shoot you and they, and they, you know, they break in your door and all of this. And these and what we have here is a documented case over the space of at least a year of this police department in Ocala, Florida, whose personnel and who, the detectives who actually interview her and finally get material ready to, for the state prosecutor to indict are just impeccable. And it enrages me to think of the way in which the reputations of America's police forces have been dragged through the mud by the Mamdanis and the Alex Vitales and all of these people who act like these people who put their lives on the line and have made their calling their life calling, protecting the communities they live in are not celebrated, but are, but are trashed. And I don't, as I say, I don't think the filmmaker, that was her intention. Her intention was to trash Florida's laws and maybe to find. And then she got all this footage and she had to use it because that's how she tells the story. And it tells a completely different story from the one that she wanted to tell. It's riveting, it's remarkable. It's called the Perfect Neighbor, it's on Netflix and that's my recommendation. So I hope everybody has a wonderful Thanksgiving, that we are going to have a special show on Friday. So there will be. We're not doing one tomorrow on Thanksgiving, but there will be a show on Friday that people will be able to listen to and watch during, during the weekend. But please have a wonderful Thanksgiving and if you don't listen to that show, have a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend. And we'll be back on Friday and on Monday. And so for Eliana and Abe, I'm John Pothor. It's keep the candle burning.
- [53:11]
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