Frogs Electing Scorpions

[music] Welcome to the commentary magazine daily podcast. Today is Friday, August 7th, 2026. I'm John Puthortz, the editor of commentary magazine with me as always executive editor Abe Greenwald-Hi Abe. Hi John. Senior editor Seth Mandel-Hi Seth. Hi John. And joining us today host of the Breaking History Podcast columnist at the Free Press Contributing Editor to commentary magazine Eli Lake, Hi Eli. Hi John. Those are coming off buses, but for both parties. In my view, one is that we got job numbers today and it turns out that we are in a period of job loss. We have lost preliminary reports, our 83,000 jobs in the month of July and May and June have been also revised downward into negative territory. So for the past three months, the United States is not creating jobs. This is losing jobs and this is just as Republicans have to go and try to get people to vote for them in November and they of course aren't in control of the House, the Senate and the presidency. So that is pretty bad for them. We have Donald Trump with every hour starting to go in almost comic figure in the way he talks about what is going on with Iran. The straight up firm moves is sort of open and the Iranians just can't take anymore so they're going to make peace with us. The deal is just things are going really great. The negotiations are solid. It's just absolutely wonderful. And the Democratic Party has decided to take the very, I think, risky step of going all in on Abdul El-Sahead, the Senator of the candidate from Michigan who is, I think, now unquestionably the highest ranking or the most anti-Semitic person ever to run for a national higher office in the United States, statewide higher office, governor, Senator, presidency, no one like him ever before. And he has a candidate of a major party and what does the major party do with the exception of one so far from when we can tell one member of Congress from Michigan, everybody is lining up behind them. Eli, you called me last night or we talked last night in a bit of a state because you as a much pepier and more optimistic and less cynical person than I still seem to hold out some kernel, tiny kernel of hope that the Senate majority leader, minority leader, excuse me, who describes himself as the most important elected Jew or the highest ranking mayor, you, but the highest ranking elected Jew in United States history, Chuck Schumer is now putting the full faith and credit of his party, his position and his standing to see to the election of Abdul El-Sahead. Believe you said to me, just to set you up, you said to me, look, he's 79 years old, chances are he doesn't even run for office again in 2028 because the DSA is going to come for him one way or the other. Doesn't that give him a free shot? Couldn't he just say I'm sorry, but this is a bridge too far. I want Democrats to win the Senate, but I in all, you know, as a person of faith and a leading figure among Americans of my faith, I cannot stand with this man, he should not be in the Senate. You said, couldn't, shouldn't he be that person? I'm like, I gave up on him 25 years ago, but I think you still, I'm touched that you still have the capacity to be shocked and disappointed in, in, in, I mean, it's not, I appreciate, it's not even shocked. I think it's the smart thing from his own legacy self-interest and well-being, which is that to oppose El-Sahead. Let me explain more. If he had opposed El-Sahead, that's what he did. He's like the rest of his party and his party's leaders. He is the cheapest of cheap dates because we should point out that it, there wasn't a deal where, all right, here's what we're going to do. You're the nominee. We're going to get behind you. We want to win, but you need to give a speech where you say Hassan Piker is not us. I denounce him and go through it. Here's, by the way, a little road map. It's the 2008 speech that Barack Obama gave about Jeremiah Wright. If you do that, then we'll be able to do it. There was no bargain. Abdul-Sahead was asked about this and he's doing a gazillion interviews and he's just like, "Hey, you know, I'm a candidate. He's a streamer. I'm focused on the voters and just dodges it." So there is no, as far as we can say, "Why did you campaign with this guy who thinks Mao Zai Tung is terrific?" Okay. There was no deal. We're all going to get behind you. The second point here is that, like, you know, Schumer does it, endorses him, you know, the national party puts out a new ad for him. That same day, Saeed gives an interview. He says, "I'm going to support Chris Van Hollen for a majority leader when I'm elected." So I mean, you've got to kick me sign on your back at this point. The people who you're appeasing will hate you whatever you do. In fact, they don't care that you're lining up behind them. You get zero credit for that. The Jews that helped elect you, that gave you money, that supported you for years, the pro-Israel community, larger than just Jews. People who care about Israel and the US Israel relationship, with even just a slight gesture of, "This is too far. I can't go there." Will, will, praise you, that will be seen as an act of political courage. And you will have at least granted, I understand. That's not your Democratic party anymore. I get it. You're not going to be popular in the Democratic Party. Guess what, Chuck Schumer? They hate you in the Democratic Party already. The Democratic Party is already a lost cause for you and the values you say you believe. So why not remain true to your conscience? And by the way, there will be people that will lift you up and that will see what you've done as an act of real courage. And maybe you won't win this cycle, but maybe you will plant the seed for what needs to happen for the Democratic Party to save its soul. And you will be remembered as somebody who has courage as opposed to Nancy Pelosi, who took APAC money for decades and was happy to do it. And as soon as the wind shift, and she's at the same age, this is her last term, just as a Congresswoman, no pressure whatsoever, she voted for the massac amendment in June, which was the amendment to cut off all arms sales to Israel. She was the one who voted with the jackals. So the end of her career, she is lying down. And I mean, I don't think there's any excuse for it, given her track record, but at least maybe she could say her constituency in her last term is San Francisco. That's what they think. Chuck, you were elected by pro-Israel Democrats. You campaigned as a pro-Israel Democrat. So for you in this moment to just kind of go on to get along and get nothing out of it and they will hate you anyway and your career is over anyway, then why not do something bold at this point? Because it is just one Senate seat. But maybe by taking this stand, you will be protecting the Democratic Party from what I hope will be political oblivion because they've embraced anti-Americanism and socialism. But maybe with just this one small step, you can actually say at the end of your political career, you did something of real merit. So that's why we're looking at-- I don't think that's particularly bold or counts for much by way of merit. I mean, where Hassan Piker not to exist at all or have nothing to do with El Sayed, El Sayed would still be an unprecedented nightmare for the country. And I think Schumer knows this. The problem is so much bigger than getting one candidate, one nominee to denounce one streamer. To me, it's so superficial and insignificant, to be honest, that Schumer has aligned with his values to the extent that he doesn't care enough to do anything. I mean, this is where he is. I mean, you use the word "considency." That's cool. I just don't know that he has a conscience. There's no any speciality. He has a conscience. Number one, number two. As I said to you last night, what this demonstrates is that he does not, he is not a proponent of the Jewish faith. He is not a person for whom Judy is and is central to his life. He is a person who worships the Democratic Party and his interest is in the furtherance of the Democratic Party's power. And that is what he has committed. His life too. And that means that Democrats have to win the Senate race in Michigan and therefore hold that seat so that they can go at other seats and try to get a majority. And if he, as the minority leader, is in place when the Senate turns from a minority to a majority for the Democrats, that will be a crowning triumph for him. And that is what he cares about most of all. I just want to make a point about the Obama Jeremiah right speech because you want to talk about a cheap day. Democrats were a cheap date in relation to the Jeremiah right speech. Remember Obama did not disown Jeremiah right in the Jeremiah right speech. In fact, he literally said, "I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother." A woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in the world. Remember that Jeremiah right was one of the chickens come home to roost. - Yeah, but he also said, he also said the chickens come home to roost. And he also said, "God damn America." And he made it very clear that there was a difference between being critical of America's history and then only focusing on negative of Americans. And I think the line that he used was, and failing to see all that makes us great in order to say that everything we do is wrong or something like that. Now, I agree with you that it was, you know, he had some outs in there. He's like, "I can't fully disown." But the speech itself and the substance of the speech was to make a clear line. This guy whose church I attended for years in Chicago, who married me in Michelle and who baptized my kids, does not represent an ideology that I believe in. I believe that America is a good country. And that is a huge difference because Hassan Piker hates America. He fundamentally, he hates the Jews, he hates Israel, he hates America. He thinks that the people who want to kill Americans are the good guys. And that is not a crazy ideology from the perspective of like the broader American left. That's what the academic left largely thinks. But it's not what the Democrats think. And there had been a line. And that's why that speech that Obama gave 18 years ago was important because he was saying, no, we're Democrats, we don't buy this stuff. And that's, I'm just saying that that is that's drawing lines. And back to your point about he only cares about the Democratic Party, what Democratic Party, John? A party is a collection of politicians, but it's also a collection of ideals and policies and things that you fight for it, things that you believe are right. And the party that the Democrats were, you know, like big government, but still free market more or less and that they believed, you know, in a strong, you know, that the, and a strong US Israel relationship and, you know, what made, what defined the Democratic Party before is not a Democratic Party that is beholden to socialists, they're different kind of a fish. So I mean, I just throw it back at you. It's like, yeah, that's the part, you know, well, don't throw it back at me. I'm not describing, I'm not describing myself. And this is a description of Schumer. Schumer's life has been in the furtherance of the Democratic Party. And when it was convenient for him to do so, he played the Zionist Jew card when he was going to raise money with Jews when he was going to speak in front of the UJA, when he stood in rubber chicken ballrooms and said, my name is Schumer. Schumer is a version of Schumer. The word Schumer means guardian. And the Schumer, where the guardians of the gates of Jerusalem and that is the most important role that I have. He would tell Jewish audiences. That was his fundraising pitch for himself and for his party and everything else. And here he is in 2026. He just endorsed the single most anti-Semitic candidate for major office in American history. So all of that, he's the guard of the gates of Jerusalem who allowed the Romans into seconds. Did he, did he, did he change? I don't think so, because I think he is a, as the enforcer said of Dickens characters, he is a flat character that is to say, he does not have depth. He is what he is on the surface. What he is on the surface is a hunger and appetite. His appetite is for public attention and his hunger is for power and his goal is the furtherance of the vehicle that provided him with attention and provides him with power. And that is the democratic party. And he will judge it a triumph if El Sayed wins and if the Democrats take the Senate. And that is way more important to him than the empowerment of, and the legitimization of radical anti-Semitism in the person of Abdul El Sayed. That's, yeah, go ahead Seth, sorry. - No, I think, I mean, first of all, I like Eli's idea a lot, but I also like it because whatever Schumer feels his responsibility is and his obligation is, I think the Jewish community has the obligation here. We have to say things of the sort that Eli said last night and is saying this morning, we have to say you need to show a conscience, even if we don't believe he has a conscience, because we have to somehow counteract the damage that people like Chuck Schumer are doing to us, that the idea that none of this really matters to us, that when we talk about anti-Semitism it's just a partisan thing and we don't really care and we can be bought off and we can be, we can be lured with power and all that stuff. He is embodying too many of the sort of characteristics that we need to avoid and we need to disown and I think it's important just to say that. And whatever he does, we should say, you know, Chuck Schumer's an embarrassment and he should do this, he should do that and watch him not listen to us, you know fine, but it's like I was telling somebody over the weekend I had a rabbi when I was younger who understood that people didn't always do, wouldn't always take his advice when they asked him a hell of a question and they asked him, so he would say he had an answer for you. If the answer was no, this rabbi would say, don't ask me. So you'd call him up and say, oh, you know, we got this, but I know it's this and he'd say, don't ask me. Schumer may not, Schumer's not gonna take our advice but we still need to make it clear that the Jewish community has, you know, standards and those standards in this case would hold us to that and whatever he does or doesn't do from there. And also I think that he, you know, because Schumer was the one who gave speeches saying, Hashem put me in this position. That also, I think that you, when you invoke that sort of thing, you really do have to, you really do need the backlash and I think the community really needs to, you know, say, so I think these things need to be said, even if there's zero percent chance that Schumer will listen or do it, I think we need to say, and lastly, we also need to say, whatever benefit you may or may not get from it. Maybe let's say we don't believe that it'll save the Democratic Party, that you won't plant the seeds for the Democratic Party to have some resistance against, you know, this, this infection. For your own soul, for your own ability to sleep at night, you should, you know, you, Schumer should do this and in doing so, you deserve nothing. You should get nothing out, you deserve no benefit, you deserve to see no benefit from this, no political advantage whatsoever. You should just do it because for crying out loud, once in your life, you're 75 year old man who talks about Hashem, you should do something right. Or maybe we're the chief dates, maybe the Jews, the Jewish Democrats of New York that believe they had a show mayor this whole time. Maybe we're, we've been the chief dates because John is right, that it's not the first time Schumer's disappointed. Now we should say he did vote against his own party on the Obama nuclear deal, but he did so. - Yeah, but after the rules have been made, had been rigged in such a way that they only needed, they had to get, they would have had to have gotten, um, in 67, they needed 67 votes. They inverted it so that they only needed 34 votes to have it kind of go through. Or you had a free vote to vote against the JCP. And he didn't whip for it. He didn't put any pressure. He didn't whip for it exactly. Right. So, okay. But I'm just saying that maybe, maybe what, what it shows is that the people who care so much about Israel and for a long time, as we all know, the Jews in our community who cared a lot about Israel, most of them were Democrats and they gave money to Democrats. And they did as you keep the Democrats. But maybe what it shows is in fact that, um, they've been, you know, the Jewish Democrats have been deluding themselves. Can we move this away from, from Israel for a minute? Because the issue here with, I'll say it goes way beyond, but it goes way beyond Israel in terms of his trafficking in anti-Jewish stereotypes and anti-Semitic hatred that I'm perfectly willing to equalize with anti-signism. But if you're not, if you, if you don't like that argument, you got a hundred different reasons and a hundred different things that he has said in the last ten years to say that Abdul El Sayed is an enemy of the Jewish people. And that's, and so if you don't, you like Chuck Schumer and this is the challenge to the Jewish community, as was the case with Zora Mamdani, if you privilege the Democratic party and your vote as a Democrat over this question of whether or not Jews themselves have to take a measure and account of their own responsibility to protect themselves against the barbarians who are now increasingly looking like they're going to storm the gates. And if they decide that because they don't like guns and they, they, they're supportive of trans and they hate anti-abortionism and this and that and the other. All of those things, all of those temporal policy things that they disagree with Republicans on, that all of that justifies either a vote for El Sayed implicit support for El Sayed or a forbearing of criticism of the Democratic Party for its embrace of El Sayed, that they are betraying their birthright, their betraying their history, their legacy and their betraying their children and their grandchildren because the things in this country are only going to get worse and worse for Jews if this tide that is pulling in El Sayed and Adam Homoi and Daria Eliza-Chevalier and others, Minna Kieros, if this tide is not reversed and that's just the fact of it. And so the Jewish voter in the United States is facing an increasingly uncomfortable choice and this goes even to very secular Jews. That's what I'm saying, even to very secular Jews, congratulations, you're a, you're a secular Jew. But even if you're a secular Jew, maybe you want your kids to have a bar mitzvah or you know, one seven in a blue moon, you'll go to a high holiday service. So good. So let your synagogue be blown up. Let the synagogue in your neighborhood be blown up or or make it clear that you know, your kids probably can't go to somebody else's bar mitzvah because it's not safe for them to do so. There is no, this is now no longer, I mean, it's a, Jews have, there's been all sorts of evidence of the dangerous move of the Democratic Party toward anti-Semitism particularly since 2012 and Jews have largely decided to forebear and continue voting the way that they have voted for, you know, forever. And I just, we don't, we worry, I just don't, this is a moment for you. Seth saying Jewish community to stand up. But Jews like us are Jews of faith or Jews for whom, you know, Judaism is sort of central to their lives that this is not a question. The question now goes to the people whose connection to Judaism is weaker or their connection to their peoplehood is weaker than ours. They are threatened. It's time for them to understand that they are threatened. This is, this is no joke, you know, this isn't, and Jews didn't know when they were threatened in the past. Jews did not vote for Zorn Mamdani last year. 75% of Jews voted for another candidate in the race here in New York City. I assume that that number will be comparable or higher in Michigan with, with, with El Sayed in it with a much smaller population that does not really have the ability to alter the results of the election unless it's an unbelievably close and 20,000 Jewish votes going one way as opposed to the other way could, could make the difference. But it's a time of testing. And I'm, I wish this weren't the case because I have no confidence that the, the Jews of the United States are going to pass this test. Does anybody? No, they're not going to pass this test, John, because, you know, we've already seen that. And I'm not talking about voting for Republican. I mean, stay home. I know what you're saying, but I'm saying is that you can vote for El Sayed and you can't vote for a vote. You want to really uncompromble the fact that you want to really uncomfortable fact. Yeah. The top advisors right now in Gracie Mansion to Zorn Mamdani are Jewish Americans. If you look at the people who recruited Graham Flatner, this Morris Katz and the fight agency and Rebecca Katz who I grew up with in Philadelphia, they grew up as Jews. And I'm saying that it's, if you're worried about like what will become of the Jewish American identity, which is worth worrying about, I think we can all, we have to acknowledge that something has happened, you know, over the generations and that, you know, I, maybe it's the old Voltaire phrase about, you know, wooden clogs going up the stairs and silk slipper's going down. But whatever it is, the Jewish community has become so prosperous and so comfortable and so successful that we have in some ways have forgotten that, you know, the sort of whatever it is that kind of gives us that identity. And it's hard to kind of keep that. That's why I agree with, you know, Brett Stevens and his brilliant piece that was a cover for commentary a few months back that maybe the thing to invest in is Jewish education and not, you know, Holocaust education and fighting anti-Semitism and so forth and trying to be in the process. And as for a political strategy, I'm always going to be optimistic about America. And I just think that we have to make it, make people understand that again, I mean, this is cliche at this point. The stuff about singling out the right of Jews to organize themselves and participate through giving money, you know, through organizations like APEC, which was the only thing say you'd wanted to talk about in the primary because they were spending a lot of money against him. But that is, you know, obviously a direct, but, you know, we got to appeal to Americans. We got to appeal to saying, listen, this guy wants to fundamentally change what makes our country great, that he is, you know, he represents a movement of people who really despise our country. And while I think Said is the nicer version of it, doesn't say the stuff out loud the way a Hassan Piker or a Shavallie or people like that do, they are all kind of part of that same movement. And the way to do that is to appeal to our neighbors not as Jews but as Americans. I'm interested in this existential challenge because we are, you know, almost three years past October 7th. And the Jews of the United States rose to the challenge after October 7th. And then seeing to be the question is, are they settling back into a homeostatic place that they've been for the last 50 years, that they are just a sort of, you know, constituency of the liberal constituency in the United States and therefore a, you know, and therefore a reliable fundraiser and ally and member of the Democratic Party or were they changed to the degree that they might at least feel politically homeless. Let me just put it that way. I do not expect this to trans, to make Jews transform into Republicans who now support, you know, charter school. and you know, want the data centers built and support fracking and believe in deregulation. If that's not who they are, that's not who they are. But Jews have no home in the Democratic Party any longer. Democratic Party, one of the 33 people who's running. About Jews, isn't it? Huh? It's, there's a difference. Jews who will denounce Israel, Jews who will sign up for the fananist anti-colonialism garbage are welcome. And they make the anti-Semites and the anti-American haters feel good because hey, I've got all these Jews around me. I'm not answering. Yeah, they have an important role in the Democratic Party. They do in some ways. They're the beard for these guys. But yeah, no, Jews who want to be accepted as Jews who have a connection to the state of Israel, they're not welcome. They don't have a home. I'm not sure that's also just like Jews who are out of Jews and sort of with any connection honestly to Judaism. I mean, let me give you an example. There's a, you know, right before the primary, there was this piece, there was this op-ed in the forward by someone named Alana Albert who is apparently a rabbi in Detroit. And so it was just, you know, it was a progressive rabbi backing El Sayed. And in the piece, it's probably the most revolting thing written by a member of Jewish clergy in the past 100 years. But it is, this is how they think. When I cast my ballot on Tuesday and when I cast it again in November, I do so with the wisdom of Pierre-Kéa-Vot, that's the ethics of the fathers, 118 in mind. On three things does the world stand, on justice, on truth, and on peace. And then she goes on to talk about how justice, truth, peace, how El Sayed is the candidate for justice and truth and peace. And you know, when she goes to justice, she calls it judgment, who will fight for fairness, who is beholden to corporate interests and who will stand for economic equality. There is a, a, a, I don't even want to read more of it, but it's an entire article about how you can manipulate ethics of the fathers to vote for an outright antisemite because you don't want somebody who is beholden to corporate interests, right? That's what the mission is talking about. Clearly the pillars of Jewish law and the organization of Jewish life has always been about who will stand up to corporate interests, right? I mean, Moses famously about standing up to corporate interests Abraham was chosen because he stood up to corporate interests. And that's the longest Jewish tradition of all is who will stand up to corporate interests, who will protest ICE? Who will protest ICE as our forefathers protested ICE in our communities? I mean, this is, this is he, people like Abdul El Sayed and Zoran Mamdani are actually surrounded by people who hold their rabbi card, right, in their wallet and say the real Jewish tradition is about standing up to corporate interests and A-PAC. And he doesn't, you know, El Sayed is probably smart enough to know that he should have nothing but contempt for these people. And I think Zoran Mamdani and others do too. I think the, you know, the, what's there? A lot of alperts of the world. I don't know if they realize, but I think that the people there around have nothing but pure contempt for them because they're willing to sell, you know, their birthright for a, you know, a pot of stew. But, but I think that, you know, this, you can use this. This is such a great tool for the El Sayed's of the world to use. He can go around if he wants quoting ethics of the fathers and, you know, and he, and he's emboldened to do so by this, you know, the other day he went to a rally. He actually did this calmly and will say, you know, I, I, the one who separates Jews from Zionism and Jews. I don't think all Jews this. I don't think all Jews that I love the Jewish people just not 92% of them, you know, but I love the Jewish people just not nine out of every 10 Jews who, you know, who believes that Jews have a right to self-determination and this stuff. They give him a theological component of the democratic national committees platform. And that, to me, is what, you know, going back to Schumer, that's the kind of thing that Schumer has to avoid. But also, I think that these guys understand that they can put Jewish clergy and Jewish, and these, you know, the ultimate as a Jews front and center. And it is a, and it's an argument. It's not just some Jews vote for me. Okay. It's a quest list. The religious says you have to vote for me. Seth, so that's a cover. Is that a cover for Jews or is that a cover for him to, to make himself look inoffensive to non-Jews in Michigan whom he wants to vote for him, who might otherwise have troubling feelings about how he conducts himself and talks about these matters. Okay. So, Alana Albert, I don't know that Alana. Alana Albert, how many divisions Alana Albert has. But I do know that being able to say, look, everybody says that I'm an anti-Semite, but I do have some of my best supporters are Jewish, is a useful rhetorical strategy. But people in Michigan who come to know, if they don't know yet, that he did not have words to speak when somebody drove his car into a Jewish preschool with the intent of creating a mass casualty event or someone was murdered in Bloomfield Hills. But yeah, no, he had words to speak because we should be very, he did something very deceptive, which is he started off by saying it's a terrible thing. He used the phrase, my Jewish brothers and sisters, I understand this pain, but when Lebanon, there was this bombing and he didn't mention that the guy was Hezbollah, you know what I'm saying? And that hurt people, hurt people. So, what he was doing was he wanted to get credit for what any politician would say about a horrible terrorist attack. Okay. I don't want to parse, I don't want to parse his, like, you know, I bring it up only, when I say I don't want to parse his words, I mean that he said what was notable about what he said, wasn't that he said my Jewish brothers and sisters, it was notable that he said hurt people, hurt people. And that is what people heard. And that, so it's one thing if you don't care that much. And so you just want to make sure, are you ticking a box where you say, oh, I hear he's an anti-Semite and I don't like that kind of thing like we're, you know, that's kind of gross. But no, but there's this rabbi says he's fine. So I guess he's fine. This is a different question that I think we're raising here about American political leadership and the American Jewish community, whom again, I expect to turn out in great numbers against him in November or at least not to vote for him. And yes, enormous amounts of money are going to be raised in the next two months from Jews all across the country who see this as an existential threat to our people. And will he attempt to use that as a weapon, the way he did in the primary, look, they're coming after me and they're trying to silence me and this money is being spent for me that's you know, out of state and all of that. Sure. Can that money be used in a way that will help lead to his defeat? Yeah, if it's spent right and it's done well and they are you sure about that? Statewide? Well, I mean, listen, there's an argument and I'm not sure where I stand on it because it was much closer than everybody thought in terms of the polls. But there's an argument that the role that money plays because it used to, you needed money to buy ad is on television and in an era when you can get your message out virally through your social media, you don't need that money. And we have plenty of examples of campaigns that were relatively spent far less money such as Trump 2016 or Bernie Sanders primary that did very well without that kind of money. So I'm not, I mean, we might be, I'm not sure that the traditional way that you fight back with political donations works unless that-- Hold on a second. Hold on a second. Goes into something. It's a different kind of thing. A million and a half votes were cast in the Democratic primary in Michigan in 2018. In 2018, the number of votes cast statewide in the midterm election in 2018 in a Senate race in Michigan. was 4.1 or 4.2 million. So, El Sayed made the sale with 750,000 Democrats. That's 15% of the overall vote in the state of Michigan. And he's a highly controversial candidate. So, he's got to close the sale with the Hailey Stevens voters because these are the engaged voters who vote in the primary, who voted against him. And one will assume that most of them will come home and vote Democratic, but not all of them. And then there is this question of who else is in the state. And what message is they are going to hear and they are low information voters and they may not be paying very much attention. And if you just, by the way, that money doesn't need to be used on ads on television, it can be used on brilliant social media campaigns. I don't know, but part of this idea that money doesn't help anymore is based, I think, on two fallacies. One, Hailey Stevens raised him nine to one. And then she ran a campaign in which she did not take him on. She didn't take him on. She didn't say, don't vote for this anti-Semite. She didn't say he's evil. She didn't say he's an apologist for Hamas. She didn't say any of that. The very end is going to. Bear, I mean, you know, bear a little, I understand, but she did it in a soft, a lot of money and did nothing with it to secure her victory. She did nothing to take an axe to his reputation, the way he took an axe to hers. He said she's a puppet, she's a puppet, she's a puppet, she's a puppet, she's a puppet. And she's like, three Arabs might vote against me, so I better be really quiet and speak in my exaggerated mission in action so that I seem like I'm one of you. So, you know, this is a whole different ballgame. The electorate is, you know, vastly larger than the primary electorate was, and he is a target-rich opportunity and the targets were not aimed at. (drumming) Let's move on to targets. Let's move off this and move on to targets. So Donald Trump says the straight is almost is kind of open. Abe, the straight is kind of open. Are you gonna go sail through the straight? - First, I'd have to stop at the bank. Because, well, we don't know what the toll is. - Oh, mon, on my way in and Ron on the way out, or I think maybe I had the backwards. - Yeah. - Yeah, you know, what I'm actually wondering now is this finally the bad deal that he takes. - I mean, the question is whether the Iranians will allow him to take this bad deal because they're gonna reject it because they think that they can get twice as much. Good, once he's gone down this path to saying, I basically, I want this word to end next Tuesday, what won't he agree to? He's dropped sanctions. He's, you know, talking nice, standing there while Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Pakistan are signing a mutual defense treaty, which is the single most important geopolitical moment to follow in the wake of this war because they're all looking at the balance of forces in the war and saying, we better go into alliance with each other because the United States has screwed the pooch here. And we don't really have a future allied with them. And nobody believes anymore that he's gonna, nobody believes anymore that he's gonna take, take a big run. - But, I'll believe that when I see it. Saudi Arabia has a military supplied entirely by the US with tech from Israel. The idea that you could just turn around and say, all right, I'm with Turkey and Pakistan now. That's not how the world works. And the Saudis are also engaged in a kind of new, whatever you want to call it, counterinsurgency campaigning in Yemen, which are Iranian proxies. And, you know, I know it, if it lands on this particular spot, then that's bad and they make good on it. But I'm not, that's a tall order for the Saudis. The entire Saudi military as it exists, not just the military. I mean, like the Saudi is very much embedded in American systems. - They didn't have to do it. And they didn't have to do it right now. And it doesn't mean nothing. I'm not saying it means everything, but it doesn't mean nothing. And it is not something that is in the US interest for there to be a side deal. - No, I agree with you. It's not in the US interest, but I'm just, I'm just saying. - Okay, so they did it. What did they do? - They did it as a message. And the message is, okay, you know what? We're, we are up for grabs. We're up for, we're, our future is not assured in this, you know, Western framework with implicit friendliness toward Israel, since of course Turkey is not Israel's foremost enemy outside of Iran, but certainly one of them. And so I take this as a very, see it particularly if he's calling things off to, to, you know, because the Saudis ask him to and he's this and he's then, and then the Saudis are basically, you know, treating him with grave, with great disrespect by making this side deal. And what is he gonna do about that? What's a matter? - Nothing. - He lost his pugilism. He lost his, you know, don't, you know, I'm the most important person in the world and you better count out of me. I really feel like, as long as somebody wears a burnus that's okay for them to, to, to, to, to, to, - No, he loves Turkey. He spent, you, you noticed that in truth social, he makes sure, you know, Trump is not very careful about spelling and grammar in case anybody hasn't noticed. But he makes sure to spell Turkey the new way. - Turkey? - That, that everybody is suddenly, I, I was reading the, you know, a semaphore morning newsletter this morning and it's spelled Turkey, you know, with the, with the umlot over the U. And then, you know, T-U-R-K-I-Y-E. And, you know, so there's a, there's a tremendous amount of respect for, you know, this, this, this ancient country of Turkey, yeah, that Trump, you know, has, has always had, you know, a great admiration for the people of Turkey, yeah, and for the culture of Turkey, yeah, and, but also, I, I have to say that I, I figured out, by the way, when Iran is bluffing, it said today that through its new deal with Oman, it could prevent US and Israeli ships, or US and Israeli flagships, from going through the Strait of Hormuz, under the New Deal. Well, open the Strait of Hormuz, but if it wants, it'll shut down US and Israeli flagships. And I just realized, that's when you can realize, that's when you can see when Iran is bluffing, when it mentions Israel, there's no way Iran is going to, after everything, after the bananza, that it is getting from the Trump administration, there's no way Iran is going to antagonize Israel into doing something against it. They, they are afraid, they have some fear remaining of Israel and Israeli retaliation. They do not have that fear of the US. So when Iran threatens the US, they might not be bluffing. The only time they seem to be bluffing is when they are threatening Israel. And I think that's the crucial distinction here, is that there is no fear left of the Trump administration in Iran. They can, they can taunt them. It's not just the, the, what was it, the Lego video propaganda videos or whatever they were. The, it's not just the, it's, they just feel like they can say anything. And Trump is not going to, what's Trump going to say? Because he's already said everything and not meant it, right? What can you threaten in response to? I'm going to keep US ships out of the straight or her moves. You can threaten. I'm going to hit all the Iran's energy infrastructure and I'm going to bomb them into the Stone Age. But he has already threatened that three times in response to other things and not done it. I think you know, the Iranians, yeah, go ahead. I just want to say, just briefly, like, there's been a lot of talk over the years that sort of you can't beat Trump a Trump's game because no one has his, no one's working from the same idea of what a negotiation or a threat is, you know, so when Trump, someone says something in another country about Trump, he goes, the tariffs just went up and other 25%. You know, and he's sort of the only person that can do that. wall just got 10 feet high. The Iranians are sort of playing his game, you know. They're sort of toying with him, responding to every American threat with, "Now we're going to run a two-way toll." You know? And now we're not going to let the Israeli and American ships through. It's a really, it's a strange thing to observe. Like you've got to be, you know, exotically crazy as the Iranian regime to play his game. See I think two things that the United States did not learn from the war between Israel and Gaza. Reason the war between Israel and Gaza was a catastrophic defeat militarily and strategically for Hamas and did in fact contribute to the greater safety of the people of Israel in neutralizing Hamas' offensive capabilities. That was true, but of course Israel lost the world propaganda war because it didn't care, but it couldn't really take a can of this because Hamas wanted Palestinian citizens to die as part of their overall strategy. The more people, more civilian innocents were killed, the better it was for them to make their propaganda case. We I think have made the same blunder here. I not that the Israelis made a blunder, but we have made a blunder here in misunderstanding Iran. And they're going to be like no more, no more, our suffering country can no longer take this. And the Iranian leadership doesn't give a shit about the Iranian people. And what's more is perfectly happy to kill 40,000 of them or to see millions of them killed in more American raids. They don't care, they care about themselves, and they are not defensive, they do not have the same structure of, you know, we have a very great difficulty understanding this mindset. And so we go to war believing that they're just like us and they're nothing like us. Their mass murderers, they are religious fanatics and they're willing to absorb an enormous amount of pain because in the end, are they suffering that much pain aside from the decapitation stuff? I mean, are there, are there, you know, storehouses full of caviar and luxury goods and all of that? Are they still there? I'm going to assume yes for the leadership. Are there families off in London living in, living in Mayfair and their mansions? Safe and secure? Yes. Or, you know, some of them studying here? Yes. So, Trump thinks by saying, I'm going to blow you up, they're going to come to the table. Once they decided it was okay for Trump to blow them up, he lost his whip hand against them. So he threatens, he threatens, he threatens, and they don't care. Granted. Isn't it ironic, by the way, that the failure of Trump here, which is to understand that the Iranian regime, Armani acts who actually hurt, don't care about the suffering of their own people, the same kind of conceptual error that Barack Obama and they made with the Iran deal. In the other direction. But it was the same mistake. Well, we'll give them a lot of money and they'll be international investment and they'll get all these great jobs and everything like that. And look, this Rihani guy, the Iranian people, they voted for the engagement person and the moderates, we can't do anything against the moderates because of the Iranian system and everything like that. It's the same thing except with Trump, it's kind of in reverse. It's like, oh, I killed the hardliners and now they want to make a deal. Oh my God, they're crazy people. But whatever. We always fail to understand that the real way to take down this regime, which has to go, is to align ourselves with the people who are, you know, the Iranians themselves who have made it very clear that they don't want to live under them. So anyway, there we are. Some Trump faces an interesting bifurcated threat and opportunity, partially because of the war and partially because of the economy in general. So on the one hand, we have this job loss that I mentioned at the top of the show. Hundreds of thousands of jobs, we're going in the other direction, we're losing jobs instead of gaining them. And on the other hand, he fiddles around with the markets and the oil prices relatively state high, but stable and the down in the S&P are at record levels. So choose your poison, like, or not your poison, choose your own adventure. Trump's on the, I'm saving oil prices and boy, your stock portfolio is in fantastic shape. And then there's data from the American people that they are, their inflation is eating away at whatever salary gains they had. They can't buy houses because there's housing shortage. Yada da da da. And so he thinks that he is saving himself and winning by talking up the markets and that is a kind of blinding him to the fact that his failure to win this war means that he's got nothing to go to the American people list to say, look what I've done for you as president. I mean, if you're American, you want to war. You can at least go and say, there was a civil regime. It had nuclear weapons. I took it down. I took away their nuclear weapons. I've ended a 47 year tyranny at very little cost to our forces and at very little, and R&I great. Said he can't say that. What's he going to say? I did put on tariffs and the Supreme Court overturned them. I don't even know what he's going to say. I'm building a ballroom. I'm painting things gold. I don't know what he's doing. I secured the border. Right. Which turns out, by the way, this is. This turns out. Well, in polling terms, he's lost the American people on that too. So, like, Democrats are now tied with Republicans on the border. That was a 30 point margin in Republicans' favor just three years ago. Okay. This gets back to the funnel thing with Trump. His strength, you could argue, what he had that I've never seen any other politicians now, was an ability to believe through the power of positive thinking, which is kind of the Norman Vincent Peel stuff, which influenced him as a young man. He was the Norman Vincent Peel, was the pastor in his first wedding to Ivanka, Ivana Trump. And that gave him the ability after the Axis Hollywood tape to say I can still win this election. It gave him the ability to think that he could win the election, father running for president. And that ability to kind of just believe that it's going to work out and, you know, pushing out everything else gave him a kind of will that was absent from. As I said, and was any other politician at some point where I said, all right, I got a face reality. This is unsustainable and everything like that. So that's his strength. It's the strength that gave him the ability when he was being indicted all over the place in the Biden administration to continue to run for president and to think he could win. And it's the same reason why he is failing right now because he believes that he can just say I won the war. I'm sure he thinks he did win the war. He believes he can just say it and it's true. And we've reached the point where that really doesn't work except for a much smaller minority part of the electorate. And in that respect, he is, you know, it's like a great tragedy. It's like his great strength became, you know, his great weakness in some ways. And that's how I think. I also think you should not, you know, they old satchel line about if you have to tell people, you are something you aren't, you know. I just, I feel like when it comes to what can he tell the American people that he did for them? I think really what that means is what would the American people, what do they think he did for them? Right? How do they feel about their daily lives? And so he thinks that he thinks that when you say what can he tell the American people that all he has to do is literally tell the American people as Eli said, like I, they, you know, as never before, as we've done this as never before, the first time in blah, blah, blah, the way that his, you know, his predecessor, not his direct president, Obama used to use unprecedented a lot and the people around Obama used to use unprecedented a lot. He believes that he can just say that. But the truth is that what we mean when we say what would the, what can the president say he did for you, what we mean is what do people already believe has been done for them? Right? The president saying I did X for you is not what convinces people because we've seen, we saw this with the Biden administration too, when they tried saying inflation is not really a problem and all that stuff that what we see is that people feel the economy in their own lives and his advisors and people in the media who wanted him to do better were trying to tell him this. Don't tell people, don't gaslight people, right? Because you saying it if they don't feel it is in some cases maybe even worse, like maybe even detrimental because it sounds silly, but people feel in their lives. And if you looked at the war right now, that percent of the American people would feel that America is now. If it ended today, if we called it today, came out of this with some kind of benefit to any area of their lives, including American prestige, American respect, even those sorts of things that you can't really measure, but you know you feel through the daily discourse about the war. Right? I mean, if people are being honest, I don't think that there's a lot of, you know, that I don't think that percent is very high because people feel beaten down by it. People feel like this has been, you know, in some cases embarrassing, Iran calling our bluff and we coming to the negotiating table when they bluff, you know, and so that's what I think that he doesn't understand is that people people come to their own conclusions and, you know, the you, the, the, the I did this for you isn't actually what matters. It's, that has to be a confirmation of something that people already feel that you did for them. And that there just isn't much going on right now that people would say to themselves, I feel this is what he's done for. I think he knows this because the obsession in the first couple of months with the idea that what he needed was physical manifestation of the victory in Iran through securing the nuclear materials physically in the United States taking possession of the nuclear materials and having some kind of visual, you know, I don't know what, you know, like an urn, you know, or, you know, it's sort of some kind, you know, something that he could carry around and say, this is the nuclear material. Because he wanted a mark of victory where he could say they had this, I took it away from them. It's an actual, it's actual stuff and they no longer have it. So he could say I have now effectively eliminated their nuclear program. Problem is he said it last year. So he said it last year and then he had to go back in and do it again. So he said it last year. He says it now. They're like, well, didn't you say it last year and then you had to go in again. So you were did were you lying last year? Did we not do it last year? I don't really understand what happened then, but why should I believe you now? How do I know that their program is destroyed? I don't know that and I don't know how that makes me feel particularly safer. So I think he knew that there needed to be a victory, an unambiguous victory. And some point two months ago, it became clear to him, he wasn't going to get that somehow. So he would declare it. And then whatever the Iranians did to bend in his direction, he would then claim that as the win. Except then they just didn't bend. They never bent. They haven't bent. There's they have done a single thing to bend. So it's so depressing. And you know, he'll, he'll, he, you know, look, you know, he was he's a very, he's a he's a risk taker as a politician and his whole political where was a result of taking a remarkable risk that he that he succeeded out and doing it again. You know, and now the downside of the being the risk taker is that when you when you take the risk and then you actually don't follow through on securing the thing that you were risking, that's the end of it. You know, and so November is going to be a very is going to I mean, he's not on the ballot in November, but of course, what's on the ballot is the Republican mood. And I just don't think the Republican mood is going to be very good. Come November. Okay, quick recommendation. Movie opening today. I don't think in in some places, not all across the country called Tony. It is a really wonderful original and inventive biopic about Anthony Bourdain, the famous chef writer who tragically took his own life eight years ago. And it is simply tells the story of the summer when Bourdain was 19 and found himself on Cape Cod with nothing to do and stumbled into a kitchen and found his calling. And it's a it's a portrait of this obnoxious arrogant kid who isn't that likable and is a liar and a fraud and a con man and eat despite all of that somehow learns that there is a thing called hard work and there's a thing called integrity and there's a thing called taking responsibility for your own actions. And all of this happens very subtly and quietly along the way. This is a movie by a Canadian director named Matt Johnson who made what I thought was the best movie of 2023 Blackberry, which is also a story about a working business blackberry. It was about research and motion, the firm that made the blackberry. He's a he's a Canadian comedian web series producer, very obscure guy just 40 years old. This is a major piece of work and anunciation of him as a major talent. This movie is going to get a raft of Oscar nominations. It is very vivid and interesting and a portrait of this world 50 years ago on this, you know, on in Provincetown before everything was gentrified and when there was still a kind of local culture that that Bourdain finds himself stumbling into. It's a remarkable movie. I strongly recommend it. I've reviewed it in the free beacon, which you can read now. If you want more details, that's Tony starring Dominic Sessa and Antonio Banderis and what may be the Oscar winning supporting actor performance of 2026. That's what I got to say to you guys. Eli Lake, thank you so much for coming. Thank you. Beth and Abe, keep the camera burning.