A Jillion Little Pieces (5/28/26)

Added: 2026-05-29

[00:00:03]Welcome to the Commentary Magazine daily podcast. Today is Thursday, May 28th, 2026. I'm John Pub Hortz, the editor of Commentary Magazine. With me as always, executive editor Abe Greenwald. Hi, Abe.

[00:00:14]>> Hi, John.

[00:00:16]>> Oh, hold on.

[00:00:18]>> That was like the Brady Bunch episode with Peter's voice.

[00:00:22]>> Yeah, it was Peter.

[00:00:24]>> Yeah.

[00:00:25]>> Okay. Um, senior editor Seth Mandel. Hi, Seth. Out of puberty.

[00:00:31]>> Hi, John.

[00:00:32]>> Okay, there you go. Okay. And social commentary columnist Christine Rosen.

[00:00:37]Hi, Christine.

[00:00:38]>> Hi, John.

[00:00:40]um astonishing moment yesterday in an interview promoting her new book, Former First Lady Jill Biden revealed, if true, that watching uh the debate that ended Joe Biden's political career on June 27th of 2024, uh watching him, she uh thought, "Oh my god, he's having a stroke or he's had a stroke."

[00:01:06]Um, why is this a story?

[00:01:13]Uh, it's a story because the idea that he suddenly seemed infirm to her flies in the face of the fact that he had seemed for a long time infirm to many people. And secondly, that if she thought he was having a stroke, wouldn't she have like run on stage and said, "Oh my god, my husband is having a stroke. uh we have 45 minutes to get that shot in him so that it doesn't go into a full-blown stroke and his life is more important than continuing with this debate or after the debate was over getting him to the hospital instead of him going to a an In-N-Out burger or something like that. He went to some fast food joint and or Philly steak place or something and made a campaign appearance.

[00:02:03]um >> where on stage Jill Biden was like, "You did great. You did great." and applauded him while he walked around the stage looking confused.

[00:02:10]>> Yeah. So, what do we make of this?

[00:02:17]Uh sort of it doesn't matter, right? The public made its judgment.

[00:02:23]>> It matters.

[00:02:25]>> Go ahead. Hey, when I was wa I was watching it and I heard uh I saw her say I was shocked because and uh she was asked why and she said because I had never seen him like this and then I spoke aloud what I knew she was going to say right after that which was before that or since. So in other words, according to her story, this was a non-medical event that was a oneoff isolated evening that resembled uh her understanding of a stroke. Um without explanation, right up until that moment he was perfect and right after that he was perfect. This makes this is such a terrible story. Um, such an unconvincing story about why everything was actually just fine.

[00:03:27]>> I mean, it makes me want to revoke her medical degree, frankly. But >> there you go. That's right.

[00:03:31]>> Can I also add that it it it is there are two things she's doing. First of all, she's just lying. Straight out lying. because we know from reporting at the time that she was the force who was going around berating campaign uh staffers saying he's fine, he's fine or you didn't prepare him well enough or you know harassing them all about his his poor performance. But she's also insulting the American people with this claim and that's the part that really annoys me. And she did she was insulting the American people when she was lying through her teeth about his his cognitive ability when he was still the president. We know that she was the driving force behind encouraging him to to run for reelection which which ended in this debacle of a debate performance.

[00:04:09]But she's also trying to rewrite history here. And I know you know first lady memoirs are just and particularly in her case a cash grab and and you know don't stand the test of time in general. And I don't know who ghost wrote hers but this is insulting to the American people. We stood up there. We watched him you know in real time. Those of us on this podcast talked about it relentlessly. I think we should raise those same we've some of us have raised those same issues with abilities of our current president who's turned who's turning 80. I mean these are questions that the American people were asking the whole time and for her to sit there and you know sort of shrug and have this faux naive tay and concern about a husband who she was putting in front of the American people when he wasn't really capable of being there is ridiculous. And so and the fact that this reporter didn't press her on any of that and that now even um I think Alex Thompson and others who who uh acknowledged only after the fact what we all knew at the time even they're saying that campaign staffers are going are telling them she's lying. So what's her motivation and why should we listen to her? And you know the Biden legacy is going to be uh a challenge for them.

[00:05:12]They're having money they're having money troubles in terms of fundraising for the Biden library. uh he's he's the Democratic party would like to sort of pretend he never happened. Um and even Kla Harris has kind of turned on him. So I'm not sure where she thinks she's winning with this narrative, but as all our listeners know, never been a Jill Biden fan. Um she she has she doesn't have a great reputation in Washington for how she treats her staffers and others. So um but I had the same reaction Abe did. Actually, I felt like I was going to have a stroke listening to her try to insult the American people's intelligence.

[00:05:45]>> Can I just add one? felt like it's over.

[00:05:47]>> I just want to add one point to to Christine's um point about how insulting it is. We've seen him like that before.

[00:05:55]Um if not exactly that bad, we've seen him mix up country's leaders, countries um stumble over all sorts of questions.

[00:06:05]I mean there were some people who seemed genuinely shocked by obviously who were shocked by his performance that night.

[00:06:13]Good portion of the country was not. So the idea that this was a total aberration uh that that just happened once and never before, never since is it it adds to Christine's point about the insult.

[00:06:27]>> Yeah. And I just I watched it thinking the same thing we're thinking I was thinking during the Biden administration watching Jill, which is this is about her. This interview is about her >> and this whole thing is about her. She she understands that she is looked upon as someone who uh you know regardless of her husband's health concerns pushed on and wanted him running again and all this stuff and you know of course was part of covering up what was really happening. This isn't about defending Biden. Biden's out of office and it doesn't this whole like as John I think that was the point that John was getting at initially when he said does it even really matter this what the reason it wouldn't matter is regarding Biden regarding Joe Biden excuse me um but for Jill Biden she knows she's still alive issue and this is just I I feel like I'm watching a Jill Biden uh reputation resurrection tour of some behind and I don't understand why it even exists.

[00:07:34]>> Okay.

[00:07:35]>> Oh, can I can I add one more data point to why she might be doubling down on this line of of uh self-promotion? It's that uh the Department of Justice is set to release some of the um transcripts and interviews that that when he was still president, Joe Biden did uh where he was seen to from what we know uh got confused, was on the record, not really clearly able to to comprehend the questioning undergoing. And so I think this is also a dam a getting out in front of sort of pre potential damage control because if those are released I think that's going to be again quite damaging to his reputation because that occurred during his presidency.

[00:08:11]>> Well remember those tapes we know about those tapes because Robert her who was the special counsel looking into his handling of classified documents that he had um plloined and taken to Wilmington.

[00:08:27]uh Robert her that that was a double-edged sword because on the one hand the information came out that he had stumbled around and done all you know been been uh incoherent and it was for that reason that Robert herd did not pursue an indictment of Biden for mishandling classified information because he said prosecutorial discretion requires me to wonder what would happen if I brought him before a jury. he will seem like he is a well-meaning old man with very deep memory problems and I that a person like that I don't believe I can successfully prosecute. So those tapes saved him in a very peculiar way from even worse humiliation that one of the reasons that he is now trying to suppress them or get them back uh is that now it would only be humiliation. Now there's no possible not that it was really that of help to him in that way though it was certainly would have been very bad for him in 2024 to be indicted for mishandling classified information and we would had a race between two candidates who had mishandled classified information um or would have been indicted for uh mishandling classified information. Uh but now it's just a kind of would be the establishment of a historical record outside of the bounds of his own uh effort to get a an autobiography written that that would sort of seal forever for all historians the idea that in while he was in office, he was unfit to be in the office and that the people in that administration had violated their own oath to the constitution to protect and defend the constitution by not invoking the 25th amendment against him. Now, I have a political idea that I have just been cooking up as you guys have been talking, which is that there is somebody whom this could could possibly benefit.

[00:10:26]And some of this was in the bungled autopsy uh that the Democrats put out last week that caused everybody to have a temper tantrum. um which is Kla Harris is doing pretty well in the polling for 2028 which comes as a surprise to me. I would think Democrats would want to sort of discard her and you know put her on the ash heap of history with with Biden.

[00:10:52]That does not appear to be the case although it's too early really to tell.

[00:10:57]She gets a narrative out of this. Part of the narrative in the autopsy was that Kamla was unprepared to run for president because the Biden people had deliberately refused to prepare her for leadership, that they did not brief her properly, that they did not handle her uh give her sort of issues to study and bring her close and make it clear that, you know, she could at any moment become president and she needed to be up to speed on everything. This allows her to make that case.

[00:11:33]Jill Biden saying he had a stroke. H he was having a stroke on stage that led to that weird 3-week period where he wasn't leaving. And you know, George Clooney had to write an op-ed that would push him out of the race. This makes the case that the there was a conspiracy inside the Biden White House to protect Joe Biden at all costs that involved pushing her down. And so that when she was actually finally in the position to run the 107 days that she ran, she was unprepared and that was deliberate. That had been a deliberate choice. She could not have prepared herself because they didn't want her to be ready. Had she been ready, had she been a integral part of the administration, had other people in the administration had the experience of seeing that she was ready, maybe they would have invoked the 25th amendment.

[00:12:25]Maybe they would have, as we said at the time, said, "Wait a minute. If you're not fit to run for office now, you're probably not fit to be president now in July of 2024. You still have your finger on the nuclear button. There's still stuff going on. There's still war in Gaza. There's still Russia and Ukraine.

[00:12:48]You can barely tie your shoe. We need to get you out and have uh the duly constitutionally following in your footsteps person to sit in this office. Now, I don't know how she makes that case without sounding like a victim, but it's not ridiculous at all to say that she was put in a position where she could not succeed in November of 2024, not just because of the her own infelicities of performance or Trump's strengths, but because There had been a deliberate plot by the Biden team to make her seem less than. And remember that during the presidency, the talk about her inside the White House was unbelievably negative. Leaks, constant leaks about how unimpressive she was, how she had to be prepared, how she wasn't this, how she wasn't that, how she wasn't the other thing. And it's hard to see this and see Jill trying to rewrite the historical record and look at all this and not think that maybe the team that had decided that they were going to protect Biden so that they could remain in power. Not so that he could remain in power, but so they could be the national security adviser and the head of the domestic, you know, the the economic council and domestic affairs and this and that that they could maintain their hands on the levers of power because without him they would be out. And you know, she is there at the top of the polling and she now has a line of argumentation that would say, "I'm worth a second look."

[00:14:45]>> The problem is with this scenario, I I I like this idea. The problem is she actually is one of the worst retail politicians ever to run for president.

[00:14:53]She's so terrible at the job and she was not great as vice president in part because she was constantly in indecisive. She's exactly what you don't want um with a person whose finger is going to be on the button. She cannot make a decision. Uh she she's her reputation in Washington uh as a senator had similar problems and she never really ever faced um uh a national electorate that she had to persuade.

[00:15:18]She's a she's a blue state Democrat from California and that was a very easy ride for her. I will say that I think it would be in totally in keeping with the narrative thread about her own life story that she loves to spin as a candidate. This would fit right in because it's always someone else's fault when Kamla doesn't succeed. you know, the last the election it was because she was a woman of color and there's too much misogyny and racism, misogynoir, all these, you know, words that we heard cast about rather than the reality, which many people, you know, if you put them under some true serum or a couple of heavy cocktails in the Democratic party uh administration will tell you, it's just that she's not that good at this job and she should be better.

[00:15:55]Everything about her resume suggests she should be better than she is, but she's just not. So I for one would welcome with open arms a Kamala Kamala part two because I think it would remind everyone once again why she was so decisively um uh a loser in the last election.

[00:16:11]>> Can I can I add really quick and then I just want to add to something John said about the the people staying in power kept wanted Biden to run again because they this was how they would stay in power. I just want to add that the Democratic party is changing so fast such that these people won't be in power again even if the Democrats come back to power that riding out the the Biden world was the last chance for them to to control you know the national security council and the state department and stuff. Well, you can see though as the party is changing so rapidly that they are following the pattern of the Democratic establishment in the 1960s trying to catch up to the party as it gallops left. You have Jake Sullivan uh on with Aaron Mlan on his podcast and Jake Sullivan saying things like that Gaza was a genocide which he clearly knows it was not. He was the national security adviser and the population of Gaza increased over the two years from the beginning of the war to the end. And he certainly wasn't acting in power as though he believed that Gaza was a genocide. He was not stalwart in in in seeking Israel's victory uh over Hamas.

[00:17:28]Let's just say that. But the moral necessity of acting against a genocidal state was nowhere in his deck of cards if he believed that Israel was genocidal. But he's only saying it as the as a lot of people are because he is trying to, as Bill Clinton would say, maintain his viability within the system. if he can just s say the right things and the reassuring things and say sound like them when if they win in 2028 and they come into power they're going to be uniquely ills suited the sort of the DSA types or whatever people who are DSA friendly to knowing how to run things and uh the idea that oh look he's a steady hand he knows how to do it and he's willing to tow the line and be somebody who is Now on our side uh you're going to see a lot of that. You are going to see a lot of that economically and you're going to see a lot of that in terms of foreign policy if they really get purchased. Kamla therefore becomes the establishment candidate.

[00:18:38]There are two potential establishment candidates in this race uh for Democrat in 2028 as far as I can tell. assuming that Josh Shapiro won't run, which I do because I think it would be crazy for him to run as a Jew in an anti in a in an increasingly anti-semitic party.

[00:18:54]Maybe he'll try it. I don't know. But the establishment candidates are going to be Kamala and Pete Buddha Judge. And in other words, they're from the last administration and they are not from the burn it all down, you know, America's diseased camp. They're from whatever establishment camp you could say that hasn't gone the way of Mamdani and and AOC.

[00:19:23]And there's that lane is real. I mean, that's, you know, the DSA hasn't taken over the Democratic party yet. All we know is it's taken over some of the nominating processes in some of the states. And remember that every state gets, you know, there are states that aren't where the 10 metropolitan areas are that make up the bulk of Democratic voters that have gone very very very blue and are going DSA like, you know, but Nebraska has will will have Democratic voters that have to send people to the polls in Oklahoma and, you know, Wyoming and I don't know where else. and they >> South Carolina, which if they are the first primary for the Democrats, that that was the big thing last time and that's still Clyburn, like that's still a huge political lever to pull.

[00:20:11]>> That's why they're fighting so hard for Maine because Maine is not a traditional DSA place and they see a huge opportunity. That's why they're fighting so hard for it.

[00:20:20]>> Yeah. So, right. So, that's an important point. I'm just saying the voters, Democratic voters who come out in primaries, remember the joke about this is that is that the conservative voters in the Democratic primaries appear to be black where the sort of the the the the what do you what do you white people crazy vote was very substantial in against Bernie both for Hillary and for Biden.

[00:20:46]Uh you people are crazy. you're like, you want to you want to make boys girls and you you know I I don't know what the hell you guys are talking about. Um and so Kamla is there for those voters.

[00:21:00]Buddha Judge, I don't know if he's there for those voters cuz he's gay, but I'm just saying like there's a weird world in which all we're focusing on is the party moving to the left.

[00:21:11]We're talking about Jill Biden's book here, which would seem to have no role in anything relating to 2028. But Kla Harris's bid for the presidency is a real thing. Uh, and she's going to need all the help she can get. And if part of the help is, man, she didn't get a chance. like she was basically handed uh handed this thing with a 100 days to go, having spent three and a half years being pushed down by this scenile old white man and his vicious, monstrous aids who were hiding his uh infirmity, you know. I mean, it's not really a positive argument, but it is some >> not an argument for leadership, that's for sure. Because if she didn't notice and didn't do something about it at the time, it doesn't doesn't uh suggest her her ability to uh deal with a complicated internal administration problem would be high. if you want.

[00:22:12]>> Also true. Another since we're talking a little bit 2028, another thing is that the polling is now increasingly showing.

[00:22:18]We now have like the fourth poll in a row that shows that JD Vance and Marco Rubio asked who you would prefer in 2028 of Republican voters are now tied.

[00:22:30]Whereas a year ago, Vance was at 56 or 60% and Rubio was at 18 or 19%.

[00:22:37]Yesterday's poll by a reputable pollster has them at 35 each. Um, this rise of Rubio is very interesting. Uh, would you wouldn't you wouldn't guess it. You wouldn't expect it that we talked about before. I don't know. Half of it for all we know is the meme.

[00:22:56]People are now very fond of Rubio because of the he has every job meme.

[00:23:01]I'm not joking.

[00:23:01]>> Is it his birthday today? I think I read somewhere today. I want to see him in a birthday hat in the meme. Yeah, but I mean like that >> every day that >> every day is Rubio's birthday.

[00:23:10]>> That cultural moment becoming uh an icon of some sort uh you know coming from this idea that Trump basically says the most competent person in my administration is Marco Rubio. I can give him I can put anything under his eegis and I will at least know that it's not going to go you know flying off into disaster land.

[00:23:34]uh combined with what a great joke it is him sitting in that chair just being recostd uh advance >> that's why the meme is so powerful for his popularity because the basis of it is that I'm President Trump and I when I need something done I give it to Marco Rubio to do it that is that is that is a the type of thing that can smooth over with a base that would normally be suspicious of somebody who was for you know comprehensive immigration reform and at the forefront of a couple actual policy fights that the base, you know, really didn't like.

[00:24:09]>> Well, he looks long-suffering, not cruel. And that's actually that that's a distinction with the difference if you're going up against someone like JD Vance, whose meme who's whose own use of social media has has often leaned more towards cruel than than longsuffering, >> right? It's like, you know, usually you see presidents have like the meme is presidents as their as their you watch their hair grower and they look, you know, the aging difference from when they started. For Trump, Trump looks the same, but it's the people who work for him like what they looked like when the term started versus what they look like when >> I think that's true. And I just think he, you know, Rubio is now fun. And there the word fun does not attach to JD Vance. Nothing fun about JD Vance.

[00:24:55]>> I think there's something else about Rubio, aside from the fact that he um always with very few exceptions has conducted himself very impressively in in key moments um throughout this administration. But there's something else and Vance can't do this. Rubio manages to sort of translate Trump speak. He gets the um aggression of of sort of Trumpism that people are into, but he translates it into sort of more respectable, articulate um uh uh established political language. Um and that sort of um he sort of bridges like you know fire breathing MAGA and um pre-Trump conservatives who have come on board. um he he continues to sort of make the case that Trump is okay uh for and and and and is even um a necessary part of uh the larger conservative project. You know, the moment that really struck me about Rubio versus Fireb Breathing MAGA, even though he's in the administration, and I was watching this press conference with my son, my 19-year-old son, is when Rubio spoke Spanish at a press conference and was answering questions in Spanish and in English and just, you know, because he's bilingual. And um and then this strutting peacock Pete Hegsth comes on stage and like I speak American.

[00:26:35]thinking he'd like gotten one on Marco Rubio and Rubio was just like like okay he who was the adult on that stage at that moment. It was Marco Rubio and my 19-year-old son who who just said he's like why is he mocking a guy who's obviously like smarter than him. I mean he just it struck him instantly that Rubio was behaving as you would want someone to behave in a moment and also is cool that he's bilingual and Hex look like a child. And that to me is a dynamic that, you know, Rubio could weaponize that and sort of, you know, get into these wars with other people in the administration. He doesn't do that.

[00:27:10]He behaves like an adult. And that, I think, will become more and more important to all of all of those of us who feel politically homeless in this country and who are looking for a a change of tone, not just a change of of leadership, uh, when it comes to what the future of the Republican party and conservatism looks like. So >> he has a moment that he can point to that brings all these points together, which was the Munich speech where he gave this profound speech about being Americans being the sons of Europe and will remain the sons of Europe, but articulated the grievances that the Trump administration and a lot of the American right has with the direction that Europe is taking, whether it's on free speech whether it's on the Middle East and in general defense and security affairs, there are real gripes and frustrations.

[00:28:04]And Rubio was able to present that in a more productive manner than anybody I've ever seen because it's so difficult to tow that line. And you did not leave that speech thinking that Marco Rubio hates Europe and doesn't want to work with Europe. You also did not leave that speech thinking Marco Rubio thinks Europe is the best and we should be like Europe. Somehow the highwire act he pulled off and so he can point to that as a kind of you know we can say it's not just the meme we sort of watched what would it look like if Marco Rubio put into form this persona that he carries around and he has done it that one time. Uh and so that is presumably some kind of roadmap for for you know what he would look like.

[00:28:56]>> Look, everybody uh has we've spent the last decade trying to figure out what the Trump secret sauce is. Is it uh the aggression uh and the sort of introduction of you know like World Wrestling Federation rules into American politics? Was that change or seemingly authentic change? What is his secret sauce? Is that why candidates under him and even in the Democratic party uh you know have gone profane and insulting and gone to sort of total ad hominemum character assassination because that's what he does or is that something that only he really does well because it's sooie generous or is it that he represented real differences not in policy but in what you might call sort of general ideological tendency which is like Washington is garbage. The way politics works is garbage. I'm just going to do it my own way and you know try to get things out of the way of business and you know the Iranians have always sucked and I'm going to bomb them and all of that. And that's policy sort of not as we would understand it. It's not laid out in you know papers and you know high high fallutin speeches and things like that.

[00:30:20]So Rubio is the one who would be the carrier of the Trump represents a new beginning in American politics in a policy direction in this nationalist populist uh we we don't have alliances anymore in the in the way people understood alliances because we're so much more powerful than our allies and they do so little to help us or do anything to help manage the world that we're just going to walk. We're going to do what we have to do on our own. And we would like it if they would join us. But if they're not going to join us, you know, the hell with them and other other such, you know, various ways of looking at the world like no, the consensus that we need to do everything to protect our oil supply is not the way we're going to go.

[00:31:15]So he could be what kind of Pence was trying to be in the first term, which is like the human face or the or the sort of the serious face of of Trumpism.

[00:31:30]Uh and Vance, that's not Vance. Vance is, you know, uh I don't know what you Vance is not also is not an insult comedian either, but Vance is more like I don't even know how to describe it, but he's not that. And so this question of where the Republican party goes after, that'll be a real fight between the two of them. And there is going to be a candidate to their right, both of their rights, that we haven't quite figured out. It could be Tom Massie. It could be could be anybody who comes out of anywhere since Graeme Platner came out of anywhere. But I mean, it could be somebody who really does come up and say uh, you know, basically sort of runs almost un unashamedly, unabashedly racist or unabashedly, you know, white. You know, this is >> I don't even I don't even think it's someone who has to run uh, you know, in a in a racist uh tone or anything like that. it given what Trump has not done in this second term with regard to speaking to people's economic concerns.

[00:32:34]It just has to be a more economically populist message because that's actually that's going to decide the midterm election. It it will likely continue to be the top issue on voters minds in the next presidential election. And and that's the one thing about Rubio I'm not sure like how's he going to talk about the economy? How's he going to is he going to talk like the senator that he was because that's not going to necessarily fly with a lot of the MAGA base to be fair. How is he? But but he but this is like Trump has completely fallen down on the job. I mean he said the other day like I don't even care about the midterms. I don't care about the economy. I you he and that's that that's not great because he's supposed to be able to do lots of things at once.

[00:33:08]That's the job of the presidency. And so that dismissiveness whether he means I'm not going to talk about that today still comes across as callous. at the same time that he's, you know, showing pictures of ballrooms and, you know, all the all the stuff he does care about for him for his own uh interests and arches and all this whatnot. So, I think that that's going to have to be the message of whoever's running in 2028 on the Republican ticket is like how do we fix is it is it going to be a pro tariff candidate because that there are all these questions about the economy that I'm not sure the Republican candidates going to have an easy time. To be fair to Rubio, his 2016 campaign >> was very much centered on economic issues. Nobody cared. He was stop with pushing everybody into four-year liberal arts colleges. What we need to do is create a world in which it is more than acceptable, indeed commendable, to go do training, vocational training. We need to spend more on community colleges, vocational training, get people into actual work and and help them give them a path to a real job. And you know, in the world of uh creeping AI, that message could be very resonant that you know the the jobs that will not be taken by AI are jobs that people have to do with their hands. And that has been something that the political class in the United States has had scorn for, has spent, you know, three, four generations pushing everybody into thought work or pushing the idea that America is best when America is, you know, basically has graduate degrees or, you know, gets a that's gets a, you know, some kind of liberal arts degree or something like that. and we're better than you guys who just are, you know, plumbers and and things like that. It's that that's a real thing. It's not a joke like uh and and you know, I don't know.

[00:35:06]>> Yeah, I've got Look, I'm running an experiment in real time because I've got a kid in college and a kid pursuing a trade and so and they're the same age.

[00:35:12]So, it'll be really interesting and and that the contempt is real. The contempt is real mainly among knowledge class inside the beltway.

[00:35:19]>> Yeah. I mean, you know, there is no conversation. It's sort of like the conversation people say that people have about Jews behind our backs or that uh you know African-Americans believe happen among white people behind their backs. That the idea that somebody is as you say pursuing a trade if they're from an upper middle class family is viewed with horror. I would say very pretty close to horror like what do you mean you're not going to cut? It's like saying you're not actually it's sort of like saying you're not getting vaccinated. What do you mean you're not going to college? What do you mean you're not sending you What kind of parent are you if you don't send your kid to college? We went to college. Our parents went to college. You have to go to college. And then we all know and I have two I have a kid graduating next week from college and I have a kid who's going into her second year in college.

[00:36:08]And we know that it's the juice is not worth the squeeze financially, economically. I mean, I am, you know, my my my older daughter managed to get herself a very good education uh at at the college that she went to. Um, but she had to do it. The school wasn't really of that much help in getting there. And we know that for most people this is really not the experience that they're having. But that social sanction about being a person who does real things with your hands um is very significant and and does represent a real opportunity politically in a populist America to say you guys are all like walking into a dead end.

[00:37:00]Everything that you do a machine is going to do. Everything that I do no machine can do.

[00:37:06]So, I don't know. I It's the interesting set of problems, but Rubio is actually reasonably well positioned for that.

[00:37:16]Although, Vance is too obviously coming from his background and and his life story and his mythologized life story in his own book. I mean that's a >> although weirdly when he talks about it because it's so biographical autobiographical I often miss the kind of broader uh I'm sure he has it but but he he talks at the sort of 30,000 foot level of like let's bring factories and manufacturing back to back to the US. I think talking specifically about where will young people whose jobs have been uh disappeared by AI or whatever economic forces are at work where will they work? How will they work? What will they do? What kind of um different career and life paths can we put ahead of them? And and how can we throw the weight of the American economy behind encouraging the jobs that the future will need, not just the ones that we assume are going to be uh every generation's within every generation's reach. He I mean his his life story is is incredible, but I don't I've really never heard him talk specifically about the kinds of policies at at the base level for for youth today. the the questions that every look a lot of my friends who have college recent college graduates those kids have moved back home and they cannot get a job really smart talented young people and they cannot find real work. I I I think this gets at the the heart of the contrast between Vance and Rubio dispositionally what what people sort of get read from them. Um when John you were saying you know Vance is I don't know what Vance is you know as opposed to Rubio. I think the the thing about Rubio here is that he has managed to successfully synthesize who sort of Trump's agenda and who he is and what he believes and how he conducts himself um into a whole package. Whereas with Vance, you see there's these sort of the there's Trumpism and there's Vance and they sort of sit un uneasily um next to each other because Vance is at once sort of too adoring of Trump and known to be frustrated with certain aspects of the agenda. Um, and it makes for a mix that really frustrates communication.

[00:39:41]>> Well, Rubio is also Gen X, so obviously I have complete skin in the game of wanting to see him be a president. What?

[00:39:49]Look, Rubio, here's the interesting real contrast and and the next couple of months is going to give us a sense of how successful this message might or might not be. Rubio is an American dream candidate and Vance is an the American dream has died candidate. Rubio is my, you know, my mother was a maid, my father was a cook, they came here, I built a life. Look at me. I'm the story that everyone can have. I am I am the embodiment of the American dream. I want it for you.

[00:40:21]advances.

[00:40:23]I'm from a family that crumbled in the United States because of social conditions inside the United States. My grandmother was a nurse. My mother was an addict. You know, I I lived a life of of of of chaos. Uh I was only put on the straight and narrow by going into the military and then, you know, getting myself straight to college and then going to law school. Um but uh that my path is not duplicable necessarily. The American dream has died. We need to somehow reignite it. But it's really not anybody's fault that they're failing because of all the social conditions that have brought this about, you know, de-industrialization and the importation of drugs and and social immorality and all of that. So Vance is the negative, Rubio is the positive, and we're about to go through this 250th anniversary. And it doesn't feel like we're doing anything taking it really seriously or the country doesn't seem to be like revving up to an exciting celebration of that the way that it unexpectedly felt 50 years ago when I was, you know, 15 years old and we had the bsentennial. Uh, and that was a very big cultural moment particularly right after Vietnam heart changed the heart of America a little bit or was like we're we're not done yet. We're not dead yet. We're the greatest.

[00:41:58]Don't let anybody fool you. And it wasn't you know Reagan was there was still a Carter term to go before Reagan came in. But the stirrings of what Reagan was were very much present in the bicesentennial. So if if America has an unexpected surge of pride in its own history and what it can be and where we are cuz after all where are we? We have we have we have the world's largest economy by a factor of two and in terms of its productivity by a factor of five.

[00:42:30]We're the most powerful nation in the world. We have an extraordinarily high per capita income. all of the things we always focus on the terrible and there is so much more that you know the famous veil of ignorance trick that you know John RWS proposed which is you know if you're if you're a baby up in heaven and you get to pick where you're going to be born uh on earth and you have full understanding of everywhere that exists on earth and you see America where there's fentanyl and there's this and there's that and there's you know immorality and you know homelessness and and yay is coming and all of that. Is there any other country in the world that you would prefer to be born into?

[00:43:16]And I I don't I think that answer is very clear. And so that's the question of whether or not a candidate can build from that base or whether people cuz the Democrats certainly are are going to run against America which is what Trump did and he did it at a very specific bo moment for a very specific reason in a very specific way. And remember, he eaked out a victory and then he lost, you know, I mean, it's not like that message was universally accepted and swallowed and became the message of America.

[00:43:49]>> Well, that and this this is important because I think even with all of the indicators you've just listed, which are true and certainly I think each of us on this podcast would would choose to be born here. I mean, you win the you win life's lottery if you are born an American and and but each generation has to be reminded of that. And I think what we've had for during the Trump era, even when he was out of office, is a is a pretty relentlessly negative portrait both from the left and the right about what this country is and where it stood.

[00:44:18]From the left, obviously with all the woke stuff, we're racist, we're horrible. You know, we were founded in blood, blah blah blah. Um, and I do mean blah blah blah because what the the the 1619 project and its ilk and along with sort of woke ideology really was corrosive to a sense of national identity for a lot of young people who were force-fed it um at crucial moments of their historical education. But on the right, there's not been as much of a positive message. So I think that's where I mean Vance is more likely to continue along the MAGA negative, you know, make America great again because we're not great now. That's a negative message. And Rubio does have an opportunity to not just talk as like I'm I'm a person who came here and lived the American dream and so can you. But I think what this country is really hungering for right now is someone who can also say and I have the skill set to fix the things that aren't working. List the things that aren't working.

[00:45:08]Acknowledge why people feel like even though they love this country, why are our roads crumbling and and this doesn't work and nothing works here. Someone who actually has those two skills to inspire but also to fix. That's actually what I feel the country needs. And if that I don't think I don't think that can come from the left, but I do think it can come from the right. It has in the past.

[00:45:26]That's what Reagan did. That's what like he did it focusing more on national defense obviously and the buildup of military. We need that now too. So that's the fixing part of it because starting from co where we >> fixing part of it for Reagan was the tax cut.

[00:45:40]>> Yes. And the tax cut. So like I mean the fixing I want to hear someone give me a message that says we love this country and we want to make it be the best it can be and here's how we're going to do that. Well, we got to >> and you're right that it's not going to come from the left. Like the de the whoever wins the Democratic nomination is not going this is, you know, as I've said before, this is like the delayed Trump 2016 year for Democrats, the suppressed >> Bernie Sanders campaign during Hillary, the the the move to get behind Joe Biden to stop Bernie in 2020, etc. This is the year it has to burst out of its chains.

[00:46:15]There's just no there's going to be no stopping it. So there's not going to be the positive. That's another reason for the uh you know what John says that he doesn't expect Josh Shapiro to run. What the other part of that aside from his Jewishness is that Josh Shapiro is is a a politician in a different mold and that mold is also not going to be so it's it's it's really going to be on the Republicans or nothing. And when you're running to hold the White House, that works as a that fits. I'm saying it doesn't necessarily work, but it fits.

[00:46:50]It makes sense to run as we're not dead and buried yet because if you run as we're dead and buried, it was you who buried us, right?

[00:46:59]>> Buried us, right? Look, >> so I I I do think you're not you're not going to get that from the left and you can get that from the right. But I also think that they they have to there's a trap here which is Christine, you focus on the on the fix things and I think of the Saturday Night Live the Keenan Thompson Saturday Night Live weekend update character who just goes fix it, >> you know, fix it. That's the solution I want to do. Fix it. Yeah. But that's really really important because there is a danger in going too positive. And I say this as a posit, you know, I'm an optimistic person. And I'm not I'm not a negative person, but I there is I recognize in the electorate on both sides. There is a danger in being lured into what will sound like just pure Reagan nostalgia. That that is something that a lot of the right doesn't want to hear right now.

[00:47:52]>> But listen, >> you have to balance >> these races are these races are between, you know, it's a binary choice eventually. And so a lot of what happens is who reacts to what the other people are saying. And you're right that the Democrats are going to burst out like Trump. And and part of the problem is that the Democrats have not been in a position because they were in the House and a lot they didn't have, you know, they no one was passing legislation and COVID came up in the middle and all of that and Democrats did various socialist things, but it w but it was sort of like under the guise of emergency powers to save the country from the pandemic.

[00:48:34]Zoran Mdani is doing us a favor. Zoran Mdani, now mayor of New York, is now starting to propose and announce and implement a series of policies that will are the vanguard for the Democratic party. and he did so yesterday, the day before yesterday in announcing a housing policy that involves, and I am not using uh a a uh I'm not being hyperbolic here, expropriation of property that landlords that are somehow determined to have to be bad and uh and unsuitable and unfair and bad are going to have their property seized from them and run by the city.

[00:49:26]Uh meanwhile, the city o has a housing authority called Nicha which owns hundreds of thousands of apartments that are in dreadful shape.

[00:49:40]And part of the policy is to fix up the NICHA housing.

[00:49:45]$15 billion or something supposedly dedicated to NICHA housing. According to most estimates, to actually bring Nicha housing up to code will cost close to $90 billion. This is public housing that was built in the 1950s and 1960s. These giant housing projects.

[00:50:05]He's not interested in that. I mean, he's going to do it and you know, NICHA should be better. He wants to establish the precept that housing is so important that it cannot be left to the private market. And not only that, but he and his administration will be the judges of whether people in the private market are uh are allowed to own the private property that they have bought.

[00:50:34]And uh that is real socialism that has that has not been tried and I it's been tried with eminent domain, but that's not really socialism, right? eminent domain is a is a different thing.

[00:50:48]>> No. And a lot of thosea every almost every one of those cases gets litigated and and they often lose the state often loses that. Yeah.

[00:50:55]>> Right. But we but and and you're going to see in this and various other things uh the the super the famous city-run supermarket that you've probably all heard of and this question of whether or not the supermarket is is going to be run in a way that is injurious to the interests of small business owners who live in the neighborhood of the supermarket because it will get favorable rates favorable this it'll be they'll try to they'll try to underpric the bodeas which are small familyowned owned businesses and there could be a real populist uprising against this socialist move by Mandani which will show a way forward for Republicans in 2028 if DSA style or DSA like candidates start running which is not only to say oh you want to live in New York where if you're if you're somebody who spends your life struggling to get the money together to buy your house so you can then live uh in the top floor and rent out the bottom floor. And you you'll never know whether a city inspector is going to come by and say, "I don't like the way that bathroom looks. We're going to start initiating uh you know, proceedings to take your house from you."

[00:52:14]You could have tens of thousands of people in the streets protesting this.

[00:52:19]tens of thousands of small businessmen protesting in the streets against the >> uh but but I mean I like that idea but the truth is if you're a small business owner you don't have the time to go out and protest. You either suck it up and pay the fine or you go out of business.

[00:52:32]I mean I think where I think >> you don't know that that's not true.

[00:52:35]That is I'm sorry. But I but I think where where a candidate where candidates where the Republican party can really be effective here is not just pointing to mom Donnie um because I think a lot of voters particularly Republican voters like whatever you live in New York you put up with New York you know that's your choice but to point to any blue state local governance because those in in almost any city no matter how large or how small if you put a radical Democratic mayor in charge things go south quickly not just with crime with housing with the price. I mean, we have so many examples over the last 10 years.

[00:53:08]And we have current examples um for a lot of these blue state mayors. Blue state governance creates um consistent problems. Democratic socialist uh policies don't work. And I think that's where connecting those dots, it's why I I mean I have high hopes for the fraud uh task force that Vance wants to do, but I don't think it's going to come to much. Um because you actually do need on board uh AGs who are in blue states to prosecute the fraud where it's happening. more likely and they're not going to do that. But that like connecting the dots about if you put someone with these ideas in charge, this is what happens and point to New York and but point to Seattle and point to, you know, all the all the places where stuff has gone south. I point to my own city of DC sometimes with with the potential candidates for mayor. That is a problem. And I think for crime in particular, that's where a lot of people get off. But right now, you've got Tish in New York. she goes, I think you're going to have a lot more people worried about M Donnie as as a political leader.

[00:54:06]>> Okay. I mean, >> also the the threat the thorough to M Donnie is that even if the protesters don't show up, the plan that he's proposing is the type of plan that and Christine I think you're talk you're b you're talking about this is initiates a cycle. The problem with blue state governance is that it's it's they initiate spirals. They they feed on themselves. So Madani is going to go after landlords and make it so that now you need to have all your now you have to spend all your money not on repairs but on legal bills or building a a legal fund or something like that and then that the spiral that happens here is that nothing the the the dilapidation only gets worse and the city comes after you.

[00:54:51]>> Yeah.

[00:54:51]>> Right. This is a different spiral because all the stuff that you're talking about, Christine, has constituencies behind it. That is to say, screw up the schools. You got teachers unions there wanting to suck up the money that should be spent on other things. You have uh bad housing reg you have bad regulation that all helps the building trades that all helps you know unions there too. You have shock troops.

[00:55:21]Mani is moving on parts of our economy and the way that we live that do not have organized support behind them except the activist class being trained by by the NGO money and those people cannot stand very readily against somebody who says I make $75 $5,000 a year running a bodega where I work 16 hours a day and you are opening a a store, the mayor of New York is opening a store that's going to run me out of business. Who's on the other side of that argument except you know except a you know somebody who an editor of dissent or you know or or democracy Michael Tamasky's magazine or something like that. There is no except for intellectuals, there is no uh there are no shock troops for let's expropriate people's homes.

[00:56:38]And that is a populist issue. And in New York, the reason I disagree with you on the question of whether or not you can make, you know, you can sort of have a revolt like this is there was one. It was a long time ago, but it was called the hard hat revolt was against John Lindseay uh in his his mayoralty.

[00:57:00]It g it gave rise to the kind of neoconization of New York which happened with Ed Cotch and then with Rudy Giuliani over two decades and it was this you liberals are driving us into crime, bad schooling and you know those of us who can't leave and a million people left New York from 1970 to 1980 are going to have to stay here and fight it out. You're busing our kids to bad schools. you are. We're coming out with baseball bats and we're going to stand on the street so our kids don't have to get on this bus and be busted from our neighborhood into a bad neighborhood.

[00:57:34]That was a real thing that really happened in the United States in living memory in my lifetime and it can happen again. But it's not the blue state governance mo because the blue state governance model has this force behind it. uh the basically the kind of public sector union force which is the heart and basis of how those mayors remain mayors and how those city council and and how they can implement these policies or not or not defend against crime. So I'm saying it's a g it's a it's horrible. I'm sorry to live here, but you know, it'll be a gift in part because it'll be it's going to it's probably all going to come to nothing and it's going to all, you know, crash and burn before it's ever implemented.

[00:58:23]But it means there'll be something for the Republican to run against as you say. You're saying blue state governance. I'm saying Mandani himself or the worst aspects of it or something like that.

[00:58:35]>> Well, like the trucker protest in Canada. that that was actually a more organically developed protest against the kind of government overreach that that uh uh the people actually doing the jobs finally stopped doing them to say no this no more.

[00:58:49]>> Exactly. Exactly. Uh we haven't talked about the fact that the ceasefire uh in in in you know in the Middle East is not holding although we're still referring to it as a ceasefire. We have ballistic missiles being fired at Kuwait. We have America America dropping bombs on Iran.

[00:59:07]We have exchanges, you know, dogf fight exchanges over the, you know, above the Straits of Hormuz. So, I don't know when we're going to stop talking about the ceasefire. Uh, Sentcom called the shooting of the missile quid a severe violation of the ceasefire.

[00:59:28]So, uh, I just want to finish on this question. Have I mentioned my reverse Hamlet theory?

[00:59:34]Okay, I'm going to give you my reverse Hamlet theory about Trump and Hamlet. So Hamlet, most, you know, best known work of literature, you know, in the world.

[00:59:43]Hamlet's a story about somebody who is given a task at the beginning of the of the play, right? Avenge your father's murder.

[00:59:52]And it is a play about how he resists and resists and he's full of self-doubt and he wants to commit suicide and he can't bring himself to do it and he gets distracted and you know he starts getting interested in the theater troop that's come in and all of this and he is not doing it from act one to act three and then by act four it he really does start thinking okay I really have to make my plan on how to on how to on how to deal with my uncle and then by Act five, he is an avenging angel and and and make sure that his uncle, his father, is avenged even though he dies in the process.

[01:00:30]Trump is reverse Hamlet. Trump started the war in act five. Trump bombed Iran in act five and we're going backward in time. He has become more irresolute, more confused about what to do, more unsure of himself, more uh while understanding that the thing that he has to do, he hasn't changed his mind. Iran can never get a nuclear weapon. Iran can't have offensive capabilities and we need to win. but he's getting more self-involved about how hard this is. And so, you know, usually this goes the other way, like we build a drum beat up to when we actually finally make the move and we started with the move and here we are. And the question is, can we can he reverse field here somewhere in the middle of act two and start moving forward again back to act five? That's my reverse Hamlet theory. What do you guys think?

[01:01:40]>> That's assuming this story has a plot to begin with. So that's where I I guess I depart from. I'm not sure we ever had a plot, but >> Right. I I like the idea that they that this it will make ceasefire a dirty word because all we heard for three years was ceasefire. Now we're just asking for a ceasefire. Now we're going to get Trump is making it so we get to a point where he says we got a ceasefire brewing and the anti-war CROWD SAYS NO NOT A CEASEFIRE.

[01:02:06]my um I I I come up at I hit a dead end here because I cannot imagine either Trump being willing to go back and do what's necessary militarily to finish this job. I think it becomes harder with every passing day for him to do that. I also don't see him taking a nonsensical fake peace deal. So when I say I I really I have no idea how this ends. I I I I am absolutely at a loss. I think they're going to force the it's going to be the economic sanctions message for a little while longer like they're we're going to continue to the pretense of negotiations and ceasefires and mean because I think Bent is going to give a give a press conference today or is is about at some point and I think they're going to really double down on the economic uh warfare and hope that that might solve that problem. But I'm more in on your campaign with this.

[01:03:11]>> Yeah, they're sanctioning the authority that the IRGC created to toll nontoll the straight of horm. And so that is, you know, yeah, it goes into the economic sphere. But I think Trump is he's basically trapped by reality, right? which is which is kind of weirdly reassuring because the reason he's waffling is because he doesn't love open-ended war. But he can't, as you say, he can't bring himself to sign a stupid deal. And he knows that the only deal on offer right now is a stupid deal, right? And so he's even fighting within his own administration. There's there's leaks and trial balloons coming up behind him to try to get the public discussing something that may not even exist, but just to sort of move him, just to try to show him that people want peace, blah blah blah. But he can't bring himself to do it. This was a thing that we complained about rightfully so much during the Biden administration was that they would talk about when they talked about Israel and Gaza, they would talk about a war that was in the past. They would talk about they talked about Rafa for example for so long and we you we joke about uh Kamala saying I've studied the maps there's no way nowhere for them to go and whatever but everybody kept up saying you can't go into Rafa after Israel had evacuated Rafa of nearly a million civilians and so you had this like these not just Biden and Harris but the world leaders even louder saying no we said you can't go into Rafa that was the whole deal you can't go into Rafa, you'll kill everybody. It's and we're looking at a depopulated Rafa, >> right?

[01:04:52]>> And going, what war you? So, this is this is the thing that Trump the trap that Trump has not fallen into yet, you know, knock on wood, which is that he's not just getting tired and looking for a way out. That he's he's not talking about the war that was. there's new threats that come up during the war and he is trying at least I think to uh move along with it to recognize that we all right we didn't have this problem before but now we have this problem so we need a solution to it whereas in the past the instinct would be to find a solution to the war the way it was at the beginning and pretend that none of the developments that would change that have happened >> fair enough but my fear is that um we're just as we have a reverse Hamlet, we're going to have a reverse Gulf of Tonkan or a reverse Fort Sumpter. Which is to say, cuz I'm not going to go with the Gulf of Tonkan. did this on purpose, which is to say that we're sitting there in a kind of stalemate and then something terrible happens to Americans, that the Iranians get off a missile that somehow hits an aircraft carrier or hits a base and and and actually does very severe damage and hundreds of Americans are killed. At which point either we have to then re-en say, "Okay, you're now now now now you're done for." which I think would be Trump's, you know, impulse. Although, he wouldn't necessarily have the American people behind him because they'd say, "Well, this is your fault. You started this war. Here we are. You're just sitting there and you you left them as sitting ducks." Um, or Lebanon 83 where we pull out after we're attacked, you know, which was one of the most disastrous moments in American foreign policy history because it created Hezbollah. It was the moment at which the idea that America could be kept out of the Middle East uh and you know scared out scared away uh you know was was basically established um and allowed the creation of new terrorist forces uh to um to kind of like uh grow and fester. Um, and so that's why I hope we're not waiting around and just sitting there because uh that's not that is not a healthy proposition for an ongoing kinetic battle where you know that the the glory the the gold for Iran would be a direct hit on an American asset that killed a lot of Americans, which maybe they would be able to do if we stand in place long enough and they figure out a way to elude our, you know, our anti-missile defenses or something.

[01:07:43]>> And they also can read the same polls we do, which is that the LA most recent one from what we 10 days ago. 64% of the country does not support this military action. That's that's a pretty significant much more support among Republicans than Democrats obviously, but the average about 64%. So those numbers, you know, those matter in terms of >> long-term um stability of of this effort, >> which is, by the way, remember, not officially a war.

[01:08:09]>> Yeah. I just want to make one final defense defense of Trump here, something you mentioned at the beginning of the show, Christine, which is when he said yesterday at the cabinet meeting, I don't care about the midterms.

[01:08:21]That's good. The president of the United States should not be making decisions about the fundamental issues of national security based on the the uh the electoral needs of his party. He is supposed to be above party. He is supposed to be the fighting for the entire country. This war he began, he needs to win it for the country. And while I actually think that if he won it, it would be the best thing for the midterm and that he should be very aggressive in trying to win it now because that would actually be better for him in the midterms than than this slow use of sanctions and choking off the Iranian money and all of that.

[01:08:59]Nonetheless, he's in his own, you know, inarticulate way what he is saying is what I'm doing here is more important than any individual result that might occur in November of 2026. This is a matter for America and its future and its history and that's what presidents should think in in in my view. All right, we'll leave it there. So for Abe, Seth and Christine, I'm John Poritz. Keep the candle burning.