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[MUSIC] >> Welcome to the commentary magazine daily podcast. Today is Friday, October 30th, 2026. I am John Podhortz, the editor of commentary magazine. Please go to our YouTube channel at commentary magazine podcast, and like and subscribe, or go to Apple and Spotify and give us a five star review, or do both, or do all three. That would be great. And when you do that, please congratulate and say nice things about my fellow panelists today, executive editor, Abe Riemwald, hi Abe. >> Hi John. >> And joining us today, two of our favorite semi-regulars of longtime commentary magazine podcast. Panelists now columnist with the free expression vertical at the Wall Street Journal, and of course, Puba at the American Enterprise Institute, Matthew Cognetti, hi Matt. >> Hi John. >> And commentary ink board member and host of the Call Me Back podcast, and the author co-author of the Genius of Israel and Startup Nation, Dan Seenor, hi Dan. >> Hey John, first of all, I notice when you introduce, every time you introduce Matt, you refer to him as the grand Puba, every time. >> I can't because it's title, but every time you introduce John Schanzer, he's always a grand Puba. >> Yeah. >> I'm the semi, as you said, I'm a semi-regular guest. I never get grand Puba. >> I will. I'm a podcaster. >> But I know your title. >> I know your title. It's like you're the host of the Call Me Back podcast. >> Yeah. >> He's the, no, Dan's the Puba of Arc Media. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Okay. >> Wow, which of course, by the way, and I will do this plug, is now has several other podcasts and with my, and my particularly beloved podcast, the name of which you, I think, have changed. >> Chosen people problems. >> Yeah. >> Chosen people. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> With, yeah, El Bartor and Kyle Esufrin, and this is a, one of the most delightful podcasts available in the English language, and everybody should listen to it. They're effervescent, thrilling, funny, interesting ones. One's a very, very, very religious Jew. One is a secular born in Israel, Israeli who has also worked in counterterrorism and security here in the United States. And they're-- >> Secular, secular television. >> Secular television. >> Yes. >> And the Orthodox Jew from Los Angeles, together having hijinks and fun, and they had Eli Lake on this week. Anyway. So it's just-- >> Right. >> And they've had me on, but months ago, and not under the Archmedia banner. This is, but in the Archmedia world of Chosen People problems, Eli Lake is this week's guest. And it's really great, and you should listen to it. And-- >> Can I make one of those? >> Sure. Can I make one other plug? >> Yeah. >> We have this new private members-only community called The Fold, which has been fascinating to me what's going on there, which you go to Archmedia.org, and you can sign up for The Fold, Register, and there's a whole fascinating conversation happening between our various contributors, Nadav, Amit, Kaya Leah, Yael, Tal Becker, I can go on. And Michal Beton, all these different--the host of the Arch news daily podcast, Debra Part Des, they're all having conversations with all of our--with members of the community who are fully engaged in conversation, and they just don't want to have these kinds of conversations on Reddit or Twitter or whatever else. They want to have it in a place that they can feel--they could be a little more candid and so forth. >> I've been very impressed with--it's been actually fun and illuminating. >> So that's The Fold, that's Chosen People Problems, that's The Poo-Bah of Archmedia. And Poo-Bah of Archmedia, let me begin with you and point out that we have final results in the Israeli elections, and we have, of course, this indeterminate result, which I just want to say after all of the mishagas of the last week, was pretty much where we thought this was going to end up. We thought there would be an indeterminate election result that would likely lead to a second election, which I think is the most probable outcome here. It's a--okay, Dan, if you're not watching, you saw Dan as shaking his head, because he thinks maybe they can build a coalition, but the process here is now. The president of Israel will ask one or two, one person to see if he can form a government when that doesn't happen, which would be my guess, then the other--then the other leading candidate will be asked to form a government, and when that doesn't happen, that will take three months, and then when that doesn't happen, a new election will be called, and that's a three-month period. So Netanyahu, if this follows the scenario that I am laying out, for three months remains as a perfectly powerful prime minister with all the powers that he has now, transitions to a caretaker prime minister in which he cannot really change or make policy that much unless there's a crisis, and then maybe a unity government--emergency government will have to form, you know, for another war breaks out or something like that, but we could basically be back here in March talking, having the same conversation that we're about to have now. I just want two points, one, the final vote total shows, and this is really important. Lee Kud got 4% more votes in 2026 than it received in 2024 in aggregate, and had the election composition been the same as it was in 2022 when BB was able to form a 64-seat, absolute majority government for the first time in seven years, they would be right back there. The surge in the Arab vote largely meant that the number of votes to get a seat went up, and the Arab parties got 19 seats together, thus blocking the possibility of the opposition in some ways, maybe establishing itself more readily and blocking Lee Kud from being able to say, we did not screw the pooch, we have exactly the same number of seats that we had in 2022, we're the dominant party, we can construct a government together. Do you agree with that analysis, Dan, or do you go somewhere else? So a few observations, I disagree with you, John, on one point, I think saying that Lee Kud is in a stronger position, electorally than it was on the one hand. I don't think they're in a stronger position, I don't think they're in a stronger position, okay. They're in the war. The Netanyahu led block, this is the worst Netanyahu led block has done since 2009, you can go all the way back to 2009, it's definitely lost share, but that said, they have over performed, and they certainly overperformed the polls and they overperformed the public polls, or at least, I mean, the exit polls, and when I say the polls, I'm including all the polls with the exception of Channel 14 and I-24. Interestingly, I-24 turns out to have been, their polls tend to have been the most accurate. I have a few, I think, a few different takes, because I don't know if John, if you're experiencing this, but I am struck by the doom and gloom and hysteria about this election that I've been experiencing in two corners. Obviously many of my friends in Israel, not chockingly in the Tel Aviv tech ecosystem world are horrified by the election, and in other parts of Israel too, so we can get into what they actually thought was going to happen and what happened and why the golf was so wide between those two. But also in the diaspora, I mean, everywhere I go, people, and the reason I think there's so much despair right now about the elections outcome in the diaspora is there was this sense that even if, like me, and I think you, John, were skeptical that a change in leadership in Israel would make a big difference in terms of the conversation over here about Israel among critics of Israel, even if you believe that the change in government wasn't going to change much. That's kind of where my head has been for a while, that maybe the temperature would come down a little bit, maybe the new leader would get a brief honeymoon, but the end of the day, the criticism of Israel is not really about any particular politician that leads Israel as polarizing a figure as nothing else who is internationally, the criticism of Israel is what they regard as the original sin of Israel, which is its creation. That was going to be, you know, the change, so sort of testing that was going to be important in my view, and so a lot of folks are disappointed that we don't get this fresh start, this reset, and it's kind of, oh my gosh, it's the same crowd, and it's BB again, Ben Veer is going to still be around and etc, so that's the sense that like, what do we do now? How do we make the case for Israel? How do we make the case for the US Israel relationship? Okay, so first of all, Ben Veer, who I'd say after Netanyahu is probably the most well-known Israeli politician in the world today, he really is polarizing, and guess what? He did pretty badly in this election. What's the latest count? John six. Six seats. So Osmeyo did got six seats in this election, so roughly 5% of the Knesset, 5% of Israel's parliament. is what this this Benfair and now if you listen to the press coverage and you listen to the NGL reports and you listen to the conversation at the UN you would think Ben veer not only is running the country but has been running the country for years and was running the war against Hamas and Hezbollah and Iran. I mean this sense that he is this outside influence. Now that's that's partly because he does have an outsized media presence and we should lay up by the way we should lay up by the way that in 2022 the last election Benfair went into coalition with Betsello Smontrich and their part their joint effort gained 14 seats they separated this time and if you add those seats together they got 12 so not only did Lee Kudfall from 32 to 27 but this supposed monstrous evil alliance that is going to destroy all of Jewry as we know it shrank by 10% so that and that is an important thing to note here in in terms of where the Israeli electorate is and how and how it has responded to Ben Gavir and and his high jinx right and and and I would say Smontrich again I don't want to ask a technical question I'm sorry yeah does that does does the number of seats allocated depend on the on the proportion of the overall vote which is to say even though those two are getting fewer seats is it possible that their raw vote was actually similar or you know you know I mean from 2022 like they got the same number of votes but because turnout was so high it it leads to fewer seats I'd have to look that up but that's a possibility right makes logic it makes logical yeah since I'm just curious that's true of course that's true scatter right and like like Dan said it's this massive turnout and then the of course as we've been discussing on the podcast the surprising massive turnout of the Arab sector that has kind of you know changed what you might expect in an Israeli election but it creates an interesting phenomenon there and then I'm sorry down which is there's been a lot of talk that Americans really didn't understand it's hard to understand about the thrown away vote that is people who voted for parties there were 38 parties that ran in this election 18 of them are going to be represented in the kinesa every vote cast for anybody in the other 20 parties you is it's called thrown away that is to say it's not we you know there's no grand choice voting it's not reallocated to anybody it's gone the electorate's number shrinks but that vote is not counted as part of the overall electorate although it can be turned it could have might might have been counted as part of turnout because turnout's just a raw number so in this circumstance in a weird way what the what this not what with the exception of the six or seven seats that the raw um the nominally possibly able to go into a coalition government part of the and which which was in the pre which was in the bennett lapid government and the bennett lapid right yeah right but with the exception of those votes the the the 12 seats that were received by the joint list as the more radical Arab parties function effectively as thrown away votes imagine that a radical left wing party like the democrats run by a year go on could have gotten half of those Arab Israeli voters to vote for him as opposed to them voting on mass for these Arab parties Israeli election Israeli politics would be forever changed because because he's still even though he's left wing what John saying even though you're going on his left wing he's a Zionist party right the joint list is an anti-Zionist party right so he could he could have formed a government right so in a weird way though the Arab turnout has changed the dynamic here in no way that Arab voters help themselves by voting for the joint list their their influence is nil because they're not you know they they could push Israeli politics to the left if they became kingmakers which is what raw um again the nominally Zionist Arab party or at least the party that accepts the existence of the Jewish state in some fashion or other um but but they only got half they got half the votes that the joint list got so we're talking about this Arab vote it effectively has frozen Israeli like it okay go ahead sorry yeah no I just I want to I think it's important for people listening to this podcast who taught who you know I'm sure many of them on over Shabbat dinners tonight will be having conversations with the election and how to oh my god what does the election mean and it's important I think the falling points are important to get out one that that Ben Greer is weaker today politically than he was before the election there's no doubt he will have less I'm not saying he's not you know he can't be a party to forming a government but he is he has less influence than he did a week ago his political currency has decreased and he represents right now and I do think it's important to make a distinction between him and Smoltrich and no John you lump them together and I think Smoltrich has a very very different politicians they're very different politicians right and and Smoltrich does not parade himself around the media media in ways that I think are actually kind of offensive Smoltrich doesn't the way Ben Greer does and I don't think Smoltrich causes problems for Israel and the international seeing the way Ben Greer does he does other things that I think are problematic but by and large I think Ben Greer is his own he's his own problem and he's weaker today politically than he was and if you say he represents about 5% of the Knesset you look about any Western democracy today and you say to yourself are there are there extremists on the right and the left in just about every go throughout Europe go throughout you look at the US look at anywhere you'd say yeah about 5% on the hard right and 5% on the hard left you'll find something like that and guess what it turns out Israel is no different okay that's that's what we know why I mean because of the quirks of the Israeli system and the proportional voting and the coalition building yes someone with in that 5% can have outsized influence so I don't want to I'm not I'm not but but he's that outsized influence is is is not as significant today as it was in the current government meaning what in terms of what happens in the next government first of all second of all the Shas vote the Shas, Kharei, Al-Jaworthodox vote they looks like they also got seven seats so their numbers are way down you may want to check that but they're definitely I think they lost about four seats yeah I think they want four seats and they're of course a very they bounce because they keep that party which is the oldest I know it's not the oldest but it's it's it's the most important Haredi party and not only is colored by being Haredi but also by being largely Sephardic they have leaders who are people keep getting indicted arrested like depending on the election they bounce up and down but I think they had 11 seats last month yeah they've left they had 11 and they're got they're down to seven yeah okay so seven's the magic number like they're like seven parties with seven seats right and then and then I would add that yes there's a high likelihood that we go to another election so when I was shaking my head before I'm not I'm not being totally dismissive of that point right on the one hand if you told me we're going to another election I won't be surprised if you also told me that BB Eisenkot and Bennett figured out a way to form some kind of government here I also want to be surprised right that could entirely happen that that's entirely possible here right you got to ask yourself if if you are Eisenkot who is in his mid to late 60s does he want to sit there and toil in the opposition does this why he got into politics this is why he ran for office he went from being you know the front runner for the selection for most of the selection to suddenly being just hanging around the opposition or waiting around for another election which really do does anybody think he's going to do better in the next election than he did in this election I'm not even sure he'd be the leader of the opposition opposition the next election I we can get into that in terms of where the angel is sorry to end up is that the where the pressure is coming from from Washington to form a coalition or that's what Washington would prefer whether or not they get their hands dirty with it remains to be seen there's a big here's why but that but that's why but but in terms of Washington's priorities which is figuring out continuing to move along with the board of peace in Gaza obviously doing what I think Washington wants to do or at least the administration wants to do with Iran having a functioning quote unquote national unity government would make life a lot simpler okay but let me just finish my thought and yes sorry I'm hijacking this yeah okay and then he and Dan is the poop of arc media they thank you thank you I am just the humble service if you're enough tally Bennett if you have the possibility of say becoming defense minister in a nothing yahu led national unity government and you hope going forward to try to reestablish yourself on the right and and actually possibly have a shot at leading the right in a post bb politics don't you have a better shot of doing it as defense minister in a government now then the running again I mean we get to bend it too well like where he's political but - Okay, okay, so this is where I want it. - So this is my case for. - Okay, but that's the other piece of good. - Here's the problem with your case. So a national unity government. - It could be challenging the Puba, you know? That's really, that's interesting. - I am the grand Puba of the loyal order of the Water Buffalo, which is the lodge that Fred Blinstone and Barney Rubble are in. So that's where I'm claiming. - No, if you do the math, it's not a good yet national unity government. This is, look, you can say, you know it would be great. Bennett, Eisenkot, Lapid, and Libert, - Libert, BB and Lieberman. - Okay, Lieberman. - Okay, so, but if you do Eisenkot, Bennett, Lapid, and BB together in the government, right? And then you're like, you know what, BB secretly, of course, BB wants to pass the already draft love yet. His brothers, that law would pass. He's just had to say that he, you know, and he tried to pass it. He tried to pass some version of it with a lot of exceptions that wasn't good enough for a lot of people. This is great. They'll go into government. They'll pass the difficult legislation. Maybe even they'll raise the threshold. Maybe they can go in and try to see if they can start structuring Israeli politics to move closer to a system in which 38 parties don't run every time. But if you add those three together, Lee Kud, Yashar, and what is the name? Buyachad. - Buyachad, Buyachad, yeah. - That's 61 seats. That's not 75 seats. That's not 80 seats. If you add Lieberman in, it's 67 seats. - If you go with 61 seats, which been the-- - Yeah, go ahead. - If you go with 61 seats, right? You have three parties. You have 61 seats. Two people get angry because they don't get the cabinet posts they want. And they pull out, which is how the government of Bennett and Lapid fell apart. It was a 60-seat government, or a 60-wencey government. One person said, "I'm done." And then that, you know, jury rig thing fell apart. Unity governments usually have to be way bigger in order to deal with this phenomenon of individual members deciding that they want to pull the pin out of the hand grenade and blow it up. - Hey, it's time, once again, to talk to you about Quince. I want to talk to you about the new Quince polo shirt that I got this fall. New piece, it's called the Organic Cotton Long Sleep Peak Polo. It is fantastic. It is one of the most comfortable things that I've ever owned. And right now, I'm sitting in the peak polo shirt in the loading green color with my Quince Horde Roy pants on. Now, I'm not the only person I know who is outfitted completely in Quince as my friend Steve, every time I see him says, "Hey, look, here's my Quince sweater. "Here are my Quince pants. "I'm even wearing Quince underwear. "This is a guy who started shopping with Quince "because of the commentary ads. "And here he is surrounded by Quince." High quality wardrobe staples made with premium materials, like 100% Mongolian cashmere Organic Cotton and Marino wool, styles, timeless versatile and designed to become the dependable pieces you reach for. Every day, so find your next fall favorites at Quince Download the Quince app for app exclusive offers, or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order at 365 day returns, now available in Canada and the UK too. And when Quince asks where you're heard about them, let them know it was the commentary magazine podcast. It's the best play to support the show. (upbeat music) - What we learned from when Netanyahu brought Diedon Sar into his current government, then he was the leader of the New Hope party, they get four or five seats, and then he joined four. Yeah, and he was obviously oppositional to Netanyahu. He left at Lecude, started a new party, was on the outside, and then Netanyahu brought him in during the war, after October 7th, sometime after, well, no, after October 7th, he became foreign minister in this government. And at one point, this government with New Hope in it was 68 seats. - 68 seats. So suddenly, when Ben Veer would half and puff and tell BB, I'm gonna resign over your current hostage deal, or I'm gonna resign over this, Netanyahu says, "Zai Kuzant, like I got cushioned now, I've got cushioned." So, in my vision here, if you have Bennett, and Eisenkot, and Lieberman, I'm not saying scrap everyone else. I'm saying BB argues that we need even these parties that Eisenkot and Bennett find offensive. We're gonna keep them in the coalition, and we're gonna have a big coalition. We have 68 seats, we're gonna have 70 seats, and they're gonna say, "But Ben Veer is a problem, "who always have a gun to your head." And he could say, "Guess what? "He has a gun to my head if I don't have cushion." But much like he did when he had 68 seats, he had cushioned. And so, there's only so much, they can kind of paralyze things. So, this would only work if you're not at 61. You have to figure out how to bring in some of these other parties that will make some of the current opposition figures uncomfortable, but you have to keep them in two, not in a way that they can put a gun to the head of the government, but in a way that gives the leaders of the part of the government some cushion. - Okay, my last point, and then I want everybody to talk, in 1984, the one successful unity government, I don't even know how to say it, but it was four years, it lasted four years. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - They had 87 seats. - But they also agreed to a rotational-- - They were agreed to a rotation, so we would not agree too. - Right, so, but I mean, that's a unity government. That was, in other words, the two largest parties were actually really big. They each had 40 some odd seats individually. Israeli politics has atomized and fractured in a way that so now you have this like six-legged stool, two-legged, whatever, so yeah, so if you get it, so you're saying, hey, this would be great, they could get 68-hole seats, right? Maybe that would be enough to pass incredibly controversial legislation, but A, if BB won't go into rotation, which I think is, by the way, stupid, 'cause he's 78 years old, so if they can last for four years, BB has a perfect out by saying, I'm gonna rule till I'm 80, and then I'm gonna stop, because you know what, people over the age of 80 should no longer be Prime Minister, and he can get out with honor and dignity and whatever. - Didn't it, Amit, make a sigal make the point that Herzog's term is president, I think, and then two more years to run for president. And Netanyahu would become like to end his career as president of Israel. Could I just say though, that this entire discussion just makes me appreciate the American political system. - It's a little mind of it, it is, sir. - First pass to post, winner take all, you know, we just know it, we have the three branches, and a lot of Israel's political chaos over the past half decade or so has been, as a result of, it's maybe chaos for longer, has been a result of its very unusual, unique political system, because, that of course the very polarizing argument over judicial reform was about the fact that Israel acts a written constitution, and how will Israel cope with that. So listening to this, the expert analysis from the two Pubas put me in mind of a classic Charles crowd hammer column from 1982, then I just wanna read a little bit of, it's a response to a rigged election in Albania, where the communist dictator of Albania won 90%. And. - 90? - I wouldn't know, well, it was 90, I'm sorry. - What was the 99, wasn't it 99? - No, no, 99.9, yes, the opposition won, what the opposition won is single vote, single vote. So, as in reaction to crowd hammer proposed, what he called the Tarana index, Tarana capital in Albania, the higher the vote any government wins in an election, the more tyrannous it is. So, very bad tyranny, usually gets more than 95% of the vote. Traditional autocracies in military governments, can be counted on to clock in somewhere between 80 to 95% of the vote. Well, functioning democracies produce winners who get between 50 and 80% of the vote. Yet countries like Italy, Israel, and others were driving as a life threatening activity, regularly produce winning margins of less than 50%, they can be safely classified as anarchies. That's been on my mind since the election, too. - The only, the only electoral case aside from, like a really grand coalition that does what it can, does something radical, like lift the electoral threshold to seven or eight percent. Germany's is five, by the way, for example. So, that would be the model as opposed to 3.25. But you could see, you know, basically some coalition of the liberal government party come together to sort of go at Lee Kud, you raise the election threshold to seven percent, and then Israel starts co-hearing back into being a two party state. But unless that happens, nothing is gonna change 'cause there's too many-- - And the problem is, if you're a really talented, enterprising, young-ish Israeli that has political aspirations. Right now, the way it works is the only real channel you have is to form your own. party. And what happens is these people like, like, like, like, you, you have handle, you follow this, you have handle, young guy, one of the reservists who fought for God knows how many days during the Gaza war and he started a party, very impressive guy right of center. He forms this party and that will join the party. And it's a small party. And it's sad. These are talented, incredible people. Really. I admire them both and others on their list. They didn't make the threshold. Right. And they, and actually in a normal world, like Matt is like wishing for in politics, they would have joined, you know, one of the larger parties. And they would have been a force in the Knesset. And then they could have been in the cabinet or they could be speaking on behalf of Israel to the world. I mean, these are the kinds of people you want in the system. And they're, and they're not going to be in this next Knesset. I want to make a genius of Israel's startup nation point here to flatter you, Dan, which is that Israel's politics have been a disaster for really since 19, since the 1990, the 1999 election. So that's like 27 years. And it puts me in mind of the United States. So that's quarter century puts me in mind of the United States after the Civil War. The United States had horrible politics after the Civil War from 1876 until the assassination of McKinley in 1901. Horrible politics. Parties people going in, going out, corruption scandals, people getting assassinated by disappointed office seekers, going into politics was something ever people in politics were profoundly mediocre. They stank. They didn't know what they were doing. It was embarrassing and humiliating. And that was the period in which the United States became the dominant economic force in the world because people of talent and ability and ambition did not go into politics. They went into business and they went into business and they created the modern capitalist economy. And you can kind of argue that startup nation is the result of people not going into politics. Every major figure in Israel and the first two generations of Israel who wanted to make their mark on the world were politicians, unless they were scientists, unless they were like research scientists who then won a Nobel Prize for something having to do with how the internal composition of a cell worked. Since the deregulation of the economy in some ways and changes in the 90s and early 2000s, if you're an Israeli of talent, you go into tech. You're not going to let go try to schlep and get a seat. And like it's not worthy of your time and you're going to make much more of a mark this way, aside from getting rich. You're also, you've taken your country as happened in this 25 years from being a not poor, it's stopping a poor country, but being a middle of the road, not very successful country to being the 20th richest country in the world. If the politics of Israel had been better, Israel's economic position would be worse today. That's my, that's my, I personally agree with you. Okay. Second of all, A, if you're a talent in tech, you want nothing to do with the Israeli politics. And I would say most people in Israeli politics are so, so don't understand what's happening in tech and the tech ecosystem that they want nothing to do with tech in Israel, which is partly why just about every part of Israel's economy is over regulated, over centralized and over taxed with the exception of the tech economy. That it is, it is completely under regulated. I don't think that's a good thing under taxed. And these, it's totally decentralized. The Knesset wants nothing to do with the tech economy. They, they're, they're confused by it. They don't understand it. They don't understand the people who are in it and they just stay away from it, which is been a gift to that, that part of the economy and why it has flourished. And the rest of the economy is like the Bulgarian economy. Yeah. Right. So, so this is, this is, so this is important. But the other point I would make to illustrate exactly what you're saying. So I live in two worlds when it comes to Israel. Okay. There's my, my immersion in Israeli politics. And then there's my version immersion in the, in the tech scene. So I have, just to give you an example, okay. I have these two WhatsApp groups. Okay. One of WhatsApp group with Nadav, Nadav Ayel and Amit Segel. And we're constantly all day, da, da, da, da, da, bantering about this. That, da, da, da, da. And it's mostly fun to just watch the two of them arguing on, on WhatsApp. And it's great. But it's like everything that happens in that thread is about the latest development in Israeli politics. Okay. And then I have another thread with Yonatan Adiri and yet L Levy Whistner, who are two people in the tech ecosystem, more or less. I mean, Yonatan's also sort of involved in politics. But mostly there, and they hosted a podcast for us and they were revamping right now on ARC Media called What's Your Number, which is about the tech scene in Israel. Barely talk about politics on that. It's all about tech on, on October 27th. A message comes through on our thread with Yonatan and, yeah, all from Yonatan. Huge news. He writes. Now on October 27th, if you get a text from Israel, huge news, you think it's going to be, you know, massive turnout in, you know, Haifa, you know, at the polling station. Yeah, right. Huge news. Intel has just acquired classic, classic is the name of, you know, this Israeli startup. So Intel for $2.6 billion. This is announced. Of course, it gets no attention. Right. Because everyone's talking about the election, right? Intel acquires an Israeli startup for $2.6 billion in aggregate, the company, which is not that old. I mean, it just fears old had only raised about $200 million. So it's already been sold to, it's been the process of selling to Intel for 10 times the amount of capital that had raised. It is in the, it is in the quantum software space. It is, it is going to become central to Intel in its quantum computing sector. It's going to become now part of like the quantum stack. It puts, not only in Israeli startup and the quantum stack for a major player, which is Intel, but, but in the, in the kind of quantum, it puts Israel in the quantum stack. In other words, I want again, really technical, but it puts, we're going to talk about one thing I understand today. Okay. Sorry, sorry. I'll get there one second. It's going to put Israel is like indispensable in the quantum computing space. Let me just say that. And even more importantly, geopolitically, even more importantly, we're all, we're having all these conversations, right? About how Israel is isolated. It's terrible. And the UN is worse. And here come the, and the, you know, the Democrats are going to cut, are going to, you know, arms embargo. And this and that and the other thing. And Israel's tech sector is getting so integrated into the way the entire world, the, into the basic architecture of the world economy in the 21st century that this will not be possible. It will not, let me take this further before we lose before we lose, before we lose Abe here. Okay. No, I'm enjoying this. Okay. So, so the, the comp that the comparison that Yonatan and Yale were making in this, in this WhatsApp thread was Nvidia, which we all would agree that is, is one of the most important companies in the world in the AI revolution we're living through. Okay. The, the, the under reported story about Nvidia is, it already had been and even during the post October 7th war is continually doubling and tripling and quadrupling down on Israel, right? They have, they have, they're just keep, I mean, you can see it. If you follow these really business press, every other week it seems, there's another story about more, more leases they've taken out in Tel Aviv and more, there's, now they're taking out 40 floors in a new high, in a, in a new sky, they're the consequences, they're hiring and hiring and hiring. So, so the CTO, the chief technology officer of Nvidia. Okay. So, like one of the three most important positions in this global AI monolith in Nvidia, the CTO is Israeli and lives in Israel and he does his job out of Israel. Why? Cause he used to be the CEO of a company called Melanox, which Nvidia acquired. He was the CEO of Melanox, Nvidia bought Melanox, not only did they integrate Melanox into, into Nvidia, but that they made the CEO, the CTO and he runs the company, he runs this, his whole part of the company out of Israel. So now Israel is indispensable to Nvidia, which is indispensable to the AI revolution. And what Jonathan and, yeah, oh, the point they're making to me is the same things about to happen in quantum. And why is it about to happen in quantum? Because Intel just made this massive bet on this Israeli startup that they're on the process of integrating it. And the four of us, or at least the three of you, and I wouldn't have but for this thread that I, from the other day, would not have even thought about it or focused on it. Cause we're all obsessed with the, the, you know, this, this, you know, antiquated Israeli political system. And also because the only thing more complicated than Israeli politics is quantum computing, but, sorry, but, but, but, you know, in, in large measure, it, it does get to my favorite analogy to politics, which is, entertainment, like, entertainment criticism, by which I mean, everybody in, we're in a democracy has the right to their opinion and to vote, right? Everybody, that's what it means to live in a democratic system. You have a, a secret ballot, you can go vote. Your opinion counts as much as anybody else's, no matter how stupid it is. And this is similarly true about, say, a movie, you go to movie, you don't have to think what the New York Times critic think. You can like it, you can hate it, that's what it means if you're a consumer of entertainment and culture. In the world of politics, everyone gets a ticket, there's no barrier for entry. And so everybody, you can go into Kaplan Square after losing an election, fair and square. The new government has 64 seats. It wants to pass judicial reform. It didn't run on it enough to really claim that this was the mandate that it got from the voters after in 2022, but nonetheless, it wants to pass this legislation and it got into power. And so in a, in conventional terms, it probably should have gotten its way. But this is politics. So of course you can go and have 250,000 people go into the streets every Saturday night and create a sort of national crisis over what would ordinarily be policy. Because there's no barrier to entry in politics. And that's what happens in elections. Everybody votes. Suddenly, there was a kind of mandate for what it is that everybody thinks. But when it comes to, you know, the question of whether you live in a society where the economy functions well or doesn't function well, policy is incredibly important because you can regulate businesses out of existence and that sort of thing or screw them up. But we have a world in which what is most important about what's happened in Israel has happened outside of the electoral sector. The thing that has changed revolutionized Israel and will save Israel from itself is the fact that it is a technologically innovative and flat as you basically say in your books like and has a social structure that allows for innovation in a way that few countries have ever allowed for innovation because of its radical egalitarianism, actually, not only electrically, but sort of everywhere. The joke that used to be in my world was that when you went to Israel and you hailed a taxi, I remember I was with my old friend David Barillon who was at Jerusalem Post and a pianist and a writer. And we held a taxi. And BB Netanyahu's first communications director when he was elected Prime Minister 90s. Exactly. Anyway, we get into the, we hail a taxi and the taxi comes and I get into and he's actually putting me into the taxi because I was at the Jerusalem Post headquarters and he was staying. And the taxi comes and I open the back door and I get into the back seat and he laughs at me because in Israel, you're supposed to sit in the front seat, you're supposed to sit next to the driver because who are you? What are you, some kind of rich, what are you, some kind of, you know, mogul in a limo? You're supposed to sit in the front seat and then talk to the driver the whole way. And I'm an American. So I got in the back seat of a cab because of course in America, no taxi driver in 1991 wanted you to get into it because you could shoot him among other things. So that's like a tiny picture of what Israel, what Israel is like as the tech sector grew, which is that the cab driver is no different from you. And you're not supposed to have errors over the cab driver. He's a small businessman by the way, owns his taxis, but you're paying him, you know, he's probably a middle class guy. Anyway, I only bring this up to say that that we're talking about diselections, very important and all of that, and maybe Israel has benefited from the disaster that is its political sector because, you know, a person as talented as Tom Cotton or as talented as Josh Shapiro or something like that in Israel, or John, which is never going to politics. Right. Right. I'm not wasting my time, I just want to connect the downside of the political situation to the United States. And that is, you know, after our midterm, President Trump is going to have to make some call on what to do with Iran. And we know that Prime Minister Netanyahu also wants to make a call on Iran, may have made a call that was stopped by, overruled by either part of the National Security Council in Israel or maybe overruled by Trump here, you know. And so we have to ask which scenario will help improve the West's IE, the United States and Israel's position vis-a-vis Iran, and will the political chaos or kind of unsettled moment in Israel actually hamper decision-making? And you know, lately I've been wondering whether even the objectives of Jerusalem and Washington are necessarily aligned on any military action. I don't know what my sense is, Trump typically wants a more limited action than perhaps I think Netanyahu, in my view, rightly is desiring, which is something much that takes really the fight to the central pillars of the Iranian regime. So that, I think, is a downside of the political moment right now in Israel and of the political system at large, is it's hard to make these types of decisions if you don't have a coalition or in place or a unified government or just a definitive rule on who is the Prime Minister. Although to be fair, BB is the Prime Minister. I mean, I imagine this being the period after, you know, between November 2000 and January 2001, a lame duck, right, but lame duck, but nonetheless, Bill Clinton, you know, got very close to helping get a policy in state created before he left office, and it was Yostar Arifat's decision, second decision, to refuse the terms of the contours of the policy in state that then led to the second in Tafada. But it's not like Clinton went out of business and, you know, once the election was over. And BB is Prime Minister and there is, I would say, despite a really stupid thing that Gadi Eisenkot said in his speech on Tuesday night, like threatening the military, saying that BB was now no longer legitimate because he stupidly believed the early press that said that he was going to do better and his coalition was going to do better than BB's coalition, which, you know, you shouldn't, like, don't count your chickens, right? That don't, don't obey an order that BB gives you because he's not legitimate anymore. Well, first of all, that's ridiculous. Second of all. That was a crazy statement. It was a great, it was a really weird, it actually made me sad because I'm so admire Eisenkot. And then that statement was like what, yeah, I, I was really taking it back. Well, as my sister said, you could tell that you, he was reading it off a teleprompter and who knows if he even had read it before he started reading it. That's one of the weird parts of it. But my point here is, is that, you know, I don't think that there's a much daylight inside Israel, if there is a, if there is a chance at delivering a, you know, serious blow to the Iranian regime, I don't know who in the Israeli, who among Eisenkot, Lapid, Bennett, and BB, like, where, where would they diverge? There's more daylight. There's more daylight here. I mean, be good. Yeah, and that's just, and that's just trying to initiate talks. Yeah. Well, I think the daylight's not necessarily in the political echelon, it's, it's with the national security counts, it's with that, it's, it's a mirror that, yeah, the chief is to have, he's the one who doesn't want, right, to, to, to at least attack before. He didn't want to do it immediately. Before the election, but I, I think, I think I, supposedly, they're reasonably aligned. I'm told, yeah, maybe Dan, you know, better than us, but I mean, I'm told they're reasonably aligned in policy terms. I think it was an issue. I mean, it's a terrible thing to do it before the election. Right. Right. Okay. So, maybe let's move on from this incredibly cheerful. You don't want to stick with quantum computing? I do. I do, because maybe you can explain it, you can explain it to me. Actually, quantum computing already predicted this conversation, I gather. So, um, maybe you understand more about quantum computing than the three of us do. So you're, you're just, you're just, I like quantum mechanics. I don't know, I don't, I don't understand any computing. How about that? Okay. Well, quantum mechanics is the undergirding of quantum computing. So if you understand that, you understand more than I do. But, um, Matt, you have a really, uh, really in common today in, uh, in, in the Wall Street Journal, which, uh, you know, introduces, uh, the moment of, of the Tuesday election as, uh, the most important thing about this election is, uh, in terms, civilizational terms, is not whether the Democrats take the Senator Donor, take the House or where Trump is or who would what, but what it's going to tell us about the acceptability of anti-semitism and what happens to civilizations that start finding anti-semitism, uh, either, uh, discussible, acceptable or like, on the, on the national agenda. Thank you, John. Yeah, my column is about the, um, basically the three thresholds that, uh, uh, a society crosses, uh, that allows anti-semitism to corrupt it and, uh, uh, uh, I was reminded after the Michigan grocery libel, as Eli Lake calls it, the banana libel ad, of a speech, a very moving speech that Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, the late Jewish thinker, one time chief Rabbi of the United Kingdom, gave in 2018 to the House of Lords, and specifically the following lines. He said in the speech, anti-Semitism or any hate becomes dangerous when three things happen. First, when it moves from the fringes of politics to a mainstream party in its leadership. Second, when the party sees that it's popularity with the general public is not harmed thereby. And three, when those who stand up and protest or vilified and abused for doing so. All, this is 2018, and he concluded sadly, all three factors exist in Britain now. And so I was thinking about how that applies to the United States. Clearly, we have crossed that first threshold when anti-Semitism moves to the fringes of politics to a mainstream party and its leadership. If not, if not the leadership of the Democratic Party, per se, and that's hard to determine who the leader is, it's certainly the leadership of a significant faction and rising faction of the Democratic Party, and that is the Democratic Socialists of America. And I think that election day will answer the question or give a long hint as to what the answer to the question is of the second threshold when the party sees that it's popularity with the general public is not harmed thereby. And specifically thinking about the Michigan Senate race because with Abdul-Alsaid, you have a candidate who first responds to a terrorist attack on a Jewish preschool was to say hurt people, hurt people. And you have a candidate who would not answer the question of which nation is a greater threat to the United States, Israel or the Islamic Republic of Iran. And you have a candidate who refuses to give clear answers to questions about his numerous ties, familial, professional, associational to the Muslim Brotherhood, which is the parent organization of Hamas, the terrorist group that attacked Israel on October 7th. Candidate who won't say clearly that Israel has the right to exist as a Jewish state. And when you consider a candidacy like that and a candidate, by the way, who has not publicly denounced the Michigan Grocery ad, which as I'm sure our audience knows, suggests that Jews are sending taxpayer money and making life more costly for Americans to finance their quote-unquote genocide against the Palestinians. It's a not-see ad, essentially. He has not taken a public stand against this ad. All we've had is his campaign to say that only Abdul-Speaks for his campaign, which, OK, great, thanks. It's a distancing. It wasn't a denunciation. It did, yeah, exactly. It's a distancing-- It's like a partial distance. It's like it's a quantum distance. He's in two places at once there. So this is the test. If he pays no price-- Shrouding your existence? Yeah, exactly. If he pays no price for this in wins and Michigan, we're 2/3 of the way to where Britain was in 2018. And that would just be a disaster for the United States of America. I apologize, because I haven't read your column in its entirety yet. But you don't think we're at the other-- the third one, the third standard has kicked in. Still think you vilify those who protest against it? I think that happens. But I don't think it's quite as bad as where you have-- in England, of course, in the United Kingdom. If you denounce anti-Semitism or attack, Muslim Brotherhood has affiliated individuals or groups. You can be punished legally for it. And we're not quite there. I still think you have cops in London telling people where and keep hope that they have to move along and not stand and watch. And so I'm a protest because they're going to make trouble just simply being present as a visibly Jewish person. So I think because of the First Amendment, because of our culture of freedom in the United States, we're not at the third. But I think that we will get closer to it if the political parties find that anti-Semitism is cost-free. And they could find that out in five days. So we'll say this though. If you protest the anti-Semitism on display here, in the case of, say, a bull else I had, you are accused of Islamophobia, bad faith, and told things like he has denounced the ad when he hasn't. Right, but importantly, that is something that works on some people and doesn't work on others. The question is whether we live in a society where the people it works on, the people that it doesn't work on are either themselves become intimidated and marginalized. And marginalized. Or, yeah, so that's the-- Now, what-- Can I just respond? Yeah, yeah, so I'd say a couple things. So I would take it a step farther and I think that I haven't read the piece, but it sounds very important. We should distribute it far and wide. The point I was in Michigan a couple of weeks ago when I gave a speech at Temple Israel on the seven-month-- about the seven-month anniversary of this attack, of this terrorist attack at Temple Israel, which is what I'll say it said, quote-unquote, where he rationalized the attack, hurt people, hurt people. And the point I tried to make is that once these blood libels, the way they work, it's not just the attack against the Jew, or in this case, attack against the Jewish state, is that the attack is always followed by a second step, which is-- I mean, the charge against the Jew, or the charge against the Jewish state. It's always followed by the expansion of who's responsible. So now the Jews are complacent. So in every one of these attacks, all this violence we've seen against the Jewish community in the diaspora over the last three years, whether it was the arsonist who burned down Josh Shapiro-- tried to burn down Josh Shapiro's house in April of 2025 on the first night of Passover-- whether it was the attack against at the Capitol, the Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C., which was just a few weeks after that, after the attack against a governor at Shapiro's home, in which two Jews were done down, whether it was the attack in Boulder, Colorado, in which that 82-year-old woman was killed from her wounds from a Molotov cocktail attack. Every one of these-- you can go out, you can literally just look at the list of every one of these. They always cite Israel's policies, as genocidal, you know, and then, and then, therefore, all of you Jews are complacent. - Sorry, all of you Jews are complicit-- - Listen, it's the complicity, not complicit, sorry. - All of you Jews are complicit. It's the-- so it goes from the individual charge to complicity, and that's what's so dangerous about what you're describing, Matt, is once this stuff is normalized, then it's the sort of collective responsibility in the collective punishment that is used by those who engage in this violence. And by the way, I try to make this point, it's reasonable. If you normalize the idea that Israel is a genocidal state, if that becomes mainstreamed, then how does one walk by a Jewish day school or a Jewish community center or a synagogue in the United States and see an Israeli flag and not say, "Wait, that's a flag of genocidal flag." How do you-- in this congregation, they turn towards Jerusalem to pray. That is genocidal. They say a prayer for the state of Israel, for a genocidal state. In other words, you are-- all these people are complicit in genocide. Once you conclude that your fellow citizens are complicit in a genocide, anything is possible. And that is what scares the hell out of me about what you're describing in terms of what's going on. It's this normalization and what to borrow a term that's often used on this podcast, the permission structure that is given to people once that normalization and mainstreaming is done. So two things. One, it's clear that at least from whatever data we can deduce because it seems to be largely friendly, the data, maybe overly friendly toward Abdul Al Sayyad, just as all the Senate polling seems to be friendly toward the Democrats, even taking it as friendly that he hasn't closed the sale. I mean, if he has closed the sale, he's probably already closed the sale and the polling is underestimating his strength. But the numbers suggest that it's still very-- it's on a 1.2% margin, I think, in the real clear politics average. He's under 50. And so he hasn't closed the sale yet. And so that is something to be hoped for. And then there is this, I think, very interesting detail from the Republican pollster or the pollster, Scott Clement, who really is finding that Republican voters ordinary are not answering the phone. They are not answering the phone in Kansas, for example, where there's been a surge for the Democratic candidate in a state that Republicans didn't even think was on the map. More than 30% of the people called to Democrats answered the phone. Among independents, it was 12%. Among Republicans, less than 10. And in Michigan, interestingly enough, Republicans seem to be, excuse me, Republicans were 12. Republicans are answering the phone more in Michigan, and that may account for the fact that Abdul Al Sayyad isn't closing the sale. But if you look at this, no one's answering the phone. Republicans, 10% of Republicans will talk to pollsters, meaning the pollsters are having to guess how many Republicans are actually going to vote based on incredibly small and limited data. I don't want to lie. It's the truth for like the New York Times, Sienna Polling, I mean, is it across the board? Well, this is from the post poll, and they admit it. They say, look, we just couldn't talk to anyone. But we know the New York, yeah. But we know from early, you imagine other pollsters have the same problem that's what we've been hearing. Early earlier in the summer, the times did a poll of like six Senate seats or something like that, or maybe eight house, they did one of those things where they pulled various districts and then aggregated it together. So they had 8,000 respondents in the poll. But it was across six states or something like that. And they, they had made 250,000 calls to get 8,000 respondents. That is not the way you get a representative sample. In any world that I ever studied or understand, I understand this less than I understand quantum mechanics. How on them compete? I think it's important. I overheard, you know, long time Republican strategist Alex Castellano's son Brett Bares program this week. And he was raising the same issue, John, even before this Washington Post story, he was said he had been talking to pollsters in Iowa who were telling him that they were finding it extremely difficult to find Republicans to participate in the poll. And so, and we know that happened in 2024 because it drove and so the question to me is we for a decade now, we've been living with the shy, Trump voter phenomenon. And Trump and Republicans with the exception of 2022 have done better than the final polls because of this phenomenon. And the question in 2026 is why are the Trump voters shy? Are they shy? Because they hate pollsters. They're too busy to answer the phone. They're like everybody in America where you don't, where you see a number you don't recognize, you don't pick up, you, you try to block the call so you're not bothered. Or they shy because, you know what, they're unhappy and they're not actually planning to vote for the Republican candidates. And that, we just don't know the answer to that question. We will not know the answer to that question despite all the constant gibber jabber on, on X about early vote or whatever. We won't know the answer to that question until until Tuesday night. I have a guess. Yeah, I bet they don't have to do with I think with why liberal voters or democratic voters are more likely to respond. Which I think they, they are much more bought into the idea that polling and the establishment generally is legitimate and that this is part of the process. And they're getting their voice heard and they want to make it known that they wanted that, that the resistance is real, that the fight is real. And Trump voters say, well, my opinion is not going to count with these people anyway. They'll bury it or, you know, they'll, they'll lie about it. They'll lie about it. Yeah, they won't count me. And that's just a guess one. Yeah. And again, I really don't want to encourage. I'm not, I'm not offering hope. But there is some, there is, there is emotionally a reason Dan Sardz podcast by pointing out that there is this kind of grief despair among people who had this idea that this election in Israel was going to end the Netanyahu era and, you know, deliver a crushing blow. And they were, they were given reason to think this by, there were, I don't know, seven polls going on in Israel. It's very hard to poll a country like that anyway. And so they were, they believed that things were going their way and they believed on election day that things were going their way because that was what the exit polling, whatever that meant was supposedly showing. And in my experience here and there, there is a, there are a collective effervescence grips liberals who are, of course, undergirded by the way the press frames things both there and here for the most part with the exception of Fox News or, you know, channel 14 in Israel or something like that. And, and they, so they, they both, there's some data that supports their contentions. And then there's an atmosphere created by the way things are reported that leads them to believe that they are going to see the results that they are hoping for. And they think that Democrats are expecting this election to be like the midterm election 20 years ago, 2006, where you have the Democrats take over the Congress, both, that's crazy, both the wrong Congress. Yeah. And it sets up, it sets us up for a realigning election in two years later, 2008. But, are we more likely to have a midterm like 2022 or 2018, where the Democrats do very well in the House, but they fail to capture the Senate. And even though, yes, two years later, the Democrats did gain control of the White House and of the Senate, the politics hadn't, it wasn't as definitive a judgment against the current politics as it was in 2006. Trump, of course, is now president, right? And yeah. So that's the question is what, what, um, which election will it most resemble? Yeah, but if you look at 2006 or even look at 2018, Trump's first, first term midterm, in both those elections, there were a lot more seats in the House held by Republicans that the Democrat had won as president. There was much, the playing field was much different. You just don't have that now. The, these, these, you know, so the Democrats are competing for seats. There's far fewer seats that are obvious. Right. But the polls, the polls, the ratings, agencies, and the, or election forecasters, and the media are portraying what will happen on Tuesday as a realigning election. Right. It will be a realigning election. If they sweep, if the Democrats sweep the races in the Midwest and the South, yeah. And they take all the Hispanic votes away from Trump in places where Trump had done very well, that is a new political era. That's what they're expecting. Right. And what I'm saying is they could, they could be disappointed, just as Republicans were disappointed in 2020. Now to be fair, to be fair, Nate Silver says in his estimation, Democrats want to believe the polls, but they don't really, because it's been too many Lucy in the footballs. And we're seeing it yet again in South Carol. I don't know what's going to happen in South Carolina. It's a weird thing, right? Lindsey Graham's sister is running and I, you know, she doesn't seem as bad a candidate as I would have expected, but she's running and, you know, it's 48, 46 or something like that. And they are, and I can't remember which year, I guess it was 2020. There was this wild exuberant fantasy that Jamie Harrison, who became head of the Democratic National Committee later, was going to beat Lindsey Graham, who won by 10. Right. And of course, there was the famous main circumstances in the last election. Never leaves in a ball. Behind by nine. Right. And one by nine. So, but Democrats throw money, because they're so rich, Democrats throw money into these races. And then of course, the ultimate is Talleriko in Texas, where there I think $200 million has gone into that race. They're trying, they're spending money and Mississippi right now. Guys, can I just tell you this story? Listening to you guys reminds me of, this is a very amusing to me. And I feel like now I can talk about it because he's passed away. A couple of years soon after the 2012 presidential election, I was at the Munich Security Conference, which is, you know, at the time when McCain and Lindsey Graham and Joe Lieberman used to lead the delegation to the Munich and so I was part of the delegation. And we were out one night at some bar in Munich. And Lindsey was there and Senator Kerry was there. And as before, Kerry was Secretary of State. And we were hanging out in Dada. And Lindsey was trying to describe to Kerry how politically conservative the South Carolina electorate is, because Kerry just couldn't like comprehend how right wing this, this jet, the general electorate is. And, and, and I'll never forget this, Lindsey, who was always, as you guys all know, so quick-witted. He said, you need to understand 70s, I think I think he said 77. percent of South Carolinians rely on Fox News. They watch Fox News, 77% hit some stat. I don't know where he got it from, maybe his own polling or something. And Carrie says earnestly, and what are the, what about the rest? What about what are the rest watch? And he said they don't have TVs anyway. So, so, so the point is I just think that yes, the idea that the Democrats are going to win South Carolina is is plausible, okay? But it could, but it could happen, but it probably won't, but they're sitting there and they can't help, but think it's true. I know. I know because they live in such a bubble. They live in such a bubble. Can I bring this conversation back to what, when I come to the commentary podcast, I come for one reason, and one reason only, and I'm upset that we've diverted from the Michigan Senate race. And now we're talking about all these other states. Can I bring the conversation back to the only conversation commentary delivers on on a consistent basis, which is the Michigan Senate race? If you are a Democrat, if you are a Jewish Democrat from Metro Detroit, from Oakland County, or you know, who has apprehension about voting for Abdul Al-Sahed, you may not vote for Mike Rogers, but you know, there's a chance you just won't vote in the Senate race. If you are a African-American living in Detroit, who has some concern and clearly we're seeing all sorts of signs that they have, that Al-Sahed campaign has, has in Detroit. And you get calls, so you're a Democrat. You guys are saying the Democrats don't have a problem talking to pollsters, but Republicans do. If you are a Democrat in either of those communities that gets a call from a pollster and asked if you have concerns about what I might get it might that's a shy voter. In other words, I think those voters are the ones who are going to be reluctant to cooperate with actually voters. Yes, yeah, shy Roger. Exactly. That might be the new thing. But my point is they're Democrats though. They're Democrats. No, that's why that's why Al-Sahed, Al-Sahed is not acting like a guy who's winning the election. And there is a term for that. And there was a panic, by the way, can I just say there's this panic over the last 24 hours to get James Clyburn to Detroit on Sunday. So James Clyburn, who who's interestingly supported Hillary Stevens in the South Carolina, who's famous for having helped deliver the South. So he represents everybody who doesn't have a TV is what you're saying. So he delivered in the Democratic primary to in 2020 to Biden and he and it's so the narrative goes. And he supported Haley Stevens in the Democratic primary in Michigan. And now he's coming now just announced he's coming to Detroit on Sunday panic. Send in James Clyburn to Detroit. Now if you are a Democrat in Michigan, who is self-confident about your victory on Tuesday, are you really suddenly scrambling the jets to get James Clyburn to go to black churches on the Sunday before the election? I got to believe they're looking at their overnight tracking in the closing days before the election and saying Houston we have a problem. And so I think Al-Sahed is going to lose. There is a term. Oh, sorry. I just want to say, I think it's brilliant because, um, first of all, they don't want to heaven forbid they are thought of as Islamophobic. You know, so they exactly why would you. Yeah, they're there's a term for this. There, there was literally a political, not political science, pop political term for this, which is the Bradley effect. Right. Right. Tom, Tom Bradley was supposed to win the governorship of California mayor, mayor of LA. Mayor of LA. Well, he was the mayor of LA, wasn't he? Wait, anyway, I don't, whatever is the case, he was running either for, I think for a higher office, he was running for governor senator because I think he was mayor and he, whatever. And, um, and he was winning in the polls and then he lost and they called this the Bradley effect and the idea was because he was black that people were lying to pollsters about voting for him because they did not want to be look like they were racist. And it is perfectly plausible that there is now an else I had effect with, with democratic voters who don't want to vote for an Islamist. I'm sorry. I mean, that's just, they're not allowed to say it and they're not supposed to think it and there's something and they don't, there's something they don't like about them, but they won't even say it to themselves. And that could really be happening. On the other hand, we could all just be, you know, inhaling our own fumes and letting our hope drive our, you know, we just have this statement, as we're having this conversation, just popped on Haley Stevens's ex account. Haley Stevens, of course, lost the primary very narrowly to El Syed in August. And, um, she has a statement that she is expecting El Syed to condemn the Michigan, the grocery libel, as well as his friend, who he now describes simply as a streamer in California, Hassan Piker, the radical who was a campaign surrogate for the campaign surrogate who campaigned with El Syed on the eve of the primary. Um, and of course, among other things says that America deserved 9/11. Haley Stevens just now saying that on the expectation that he will denounce these things, uh, she will vote, uh, she will appear with him and, uh, representative Clyburn, uh, in a campaign event on Sunday. So this is very important, um, because Stevens has become like a proxy for whether or not El Syed can, because we forget that over a million people voted in that Michigan primary and El Syed, one by what just north of 10,000, yeah, 10,000 plus, yeah, less, yeah, like even less. Less than a point. Less than a point. Yeah. So he needs to unify apropos, what we were just talking about a moment ago, he needs to unify the, the democratic voters, the electorate heading into the general election, or he's got no shot. And Haley Stevens is like, uh, the test case of whether or not he's doing an proxy. And even here she is saying, I'm not appearing with you and Clyburn, her close friend, who she, in this statement, she, she celebrates Clyburn and, and basically praises, you know, says, he's a civil rights hero. And he, yeah, he's a mentor. And, and yet she won't, she's, she is, basically setting the conditions, she will only appear with them if he is, he, you know, in no, uncertain terms, condemns the anti-Semitic lie of this ad. Now, this is very important because it boxes in El Syed because El Syed cannot condemn this ad without also condemning everything he's been saying throughout this campaign, because his Seth wrote in that terrific piece in on the, on the commentary site. Um, every met, if you don't like the message in that, in the banana, at grocery store ad, you don't like that you need to understand that it's been the core theme of El Syed's campaign that he has said in his own words. So for him now to campaign this ad, it's to him to condemn the core theme of his entire campaign. This will be very interesting. She, I think she's boxing him in here. I mean, it's an amazing statement. Let me just quickly read from it and then, then Matt has a recommendation and we should go. Um, the ad did not invent its argument. She writes, it dramatized one, Dr. El Syed has made in his own words throughout this campaign that Israel is the reason Michigan cannot afford school's health care and child care. The standard year is simple. If those words are wrong when a political action committee supporting his campaign says them, they're equally wrong when Abdul says them and Abdul has said them from the start. I therefore expect him to apologize for those statements as well. So she's not only boxing him in. The thread is that the news story on Sunday is going to be she refused to show up overshadowing the Clyburn appearance. She says here, she said she's only going because Clyburn invited her not because El Syed invited her. Actually, she and El Syed have not spoken in weeks. Right. So Clyburn said come with me and she's saying here's my terms. He's got to apologize. He's not only is to apologize for the ad. He has to overhaul his overall campaign message. So he is boxed in because either he does that and then the whole the four days is, well, what does he think? Does he think this or does he think that every every event he does now the press is going to be running him with microphones asking to respond to a statement or she's not going to show up. So this is a very interesting, you know, like late, late development. Now I'm sure the early vote is, you know, there's 60% of the vote in or something like that already. So it's not going to have that effect. It's not going to affect that much. Also, also, we should add that last night was released. So Nancy Pelosi did this podcast with Donnie Deutsch and she also went pretty hard attacking Abdul El Syed for his positions on Israel and the stuff he said. And not just him, right? But you know Nancy Pelosi is a lot of phobic though. She's she's I mean, she brought in Troy Jackson, I think, I mean, she actually said it about more than more than one candidate, I believe. Anyway, it's an interesting. So so despair is not quite the right. But I mean, you know, hold, hold your fire. Remember our theme song. Yes, before you guys do your recommendation, can I just want to put a under like underlined mats, mat, the piece that you have up again. We share. I don't know if you guys linked to pieces and show notes and stuff, but it should definitely be done. And the other reason I that you set a Jonathan sacks, I just want to spend 30 seconds on this. That speech that you wrote about, Matt, that sacks gave the context is important because it was when Jeremy Corbin led the Democratic Party. I'm sorry, led the labor party, led the labor party in the UK, right? Right. Right. And and he was like the the precursor to mom Donnie and I I'll say yeah in terms of what he was doing to liberal politics in at least in the UK and making it like creating normalizing anti-Semitism in the labor party. And Jeremy Corbyn for, you know, he was leader of the labor party from 2015 to 2020. He ran for prime minister twice, 2017 and 2019. Now, historically, the chief rabbi of the UK would never get involved with politics, including Jonathan Sachs. Trust me, there were many efforts. I was like a small, a bit player in some efforts to try to get Sachs because he was such a giant in the UK, not just in the Jewish community, but even like in the whole civic space in the UK. Sachs was this big figure. There were years and years of efforts to get Sachs to weigh in more politics and he refused to. He did not think it was appropriate for him to get involved. And when he gave this speech that Matt that you write about, it was such a big moment because Sachs was saying, basically saying, I don't I don't get involved with the, you know, weighing in partisan politics. And yet this is this moment is different. And I I got to say, with I'll say it on the ballot, it is a Jonathan Sachs moment. I'm very glad I've thrilled, you know, that you that he's the right guy to invoke because it is that kind of a moment where even people who would never think about weighing in in the moment who are leaders in the Jewish community or leader, that this is like a Jonathan Sachs 2019 moment in terms of, sorry, you got a you got a break glass and say something. All right. Well put Jim Matt's nodding and he's agreed. Well, he's nodding an agreement with his own point. Yes. I don't know what more I'd be saying. Yeah. Anyway, yes. So we don't have show notes, but yes, it's free expression of Wall Street Journal. Matt's Matt's Matt's column today. Matt, your recommendation. Yes, John, thank you. You know, I'm in a glum mood, not just because of the rise of anti-semitism in the United States, but also because one of my favorite people on earth died yesterday. Sir Patrick Stewart, his death was announced at age 86. I had not actually thought he was quite that old. Yes, today. And it's, I think anyone who's a fan of Star Trek, of course, who's the most famous for playing the role of Captain Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek, the next generation. But for young people in particular, people who were young when that show was on the air, such as myself, Patrick Stewart introduced me and I know other people to a much larger world beyond just sci-fi. And that was the world of Shakespeare, the world of great acting. He did a famous one-man show of Christmas Carol on Broadway, which I bought the CD and listened to on repeat. And then, of course, he went on. We'll start in another very successful franchise, the X-Men series, but continued to perform on stage, actually spoke, actually performed the sonnets, Shakespeare's sonnets during COVID. You can see those on YouTube. Wrote an excellent memoir, which I believe I recommended at the time of its release, making it so. Making it so recommended. The other making it book that can be recommended, by the way. Yes, exactly. Making it one more word, one more word, exactly. And it gets into his life, which I won't dilate on here, but he grew up in the North of England and in extremely poor circumstances and in a very turbulent home. His father was a domestic abuser of his mother. But I will recommend one thing. And I really racked my brain coming up with this. But if you have Paramount Plus or some access to see Star Trek, the next generation, don't need to get into streaming. And you don't need to be a sci-fi fan. But I recommend you look up an episode of that show, which first aired in 1992, 32 years ago. From season five, this is episode 25. Imagine that they made more than 25 episodes of an hour-long dramatic series for seven years. Season five, episode 25 of Star Trek, the next generation is an episode called the Inner Light. And in this episode, Captain Picard, played by Patrick Stewart, is basically struck into unconsciousness by some alien probe very mysteriously. And he wakes up to find that he is living a totally different life as a scientist on the strange world. And at first, he rebels against this. He has no idea why he's there. He doesn't, he wants to go back to his ship. But over the course of the 45 minutes of the drama, he essentially lives this other life on this other planet. And it happens to be a planet that is dying because of its star. And he goes through all stages. I mean, he's middle-aged when he begins, but he eventually goes to old age with grandchildren before he returns back to the Enterprise. And it's just an incredible display of acting talent. And you take to, there's pathos and there's drama and romance all in just 40 minutes. And again, you don't really need to like sci-fi because it's very human and dramatic. But if you want a way to appreciate a Sir Patrick Stewart, that's the episode. I recommend the inner light. So I've seen him. I saw him on stage many times and he was unarguably one of the great stage actors of his lifetime. And this poor kid from the north of England who unexpectedly ended up in an acting school. What he didn't know what what an earth he was going to do is kind of going to be a journalist. He was like a teenage reporter. He tells this story in the book, which is genuinely a good book. There are three or four really good showbiz's memoirs of which this is one, Emeline Williams, the Welsh actor who wrote a book called The Corners Green. That is another very close example of this. And it's sort of how he ended up, then he ends up on tour with Vivian League going through, you know, for two-year tour and becomes very close to her. This great, very fragile actress. But what I was most struck by by Star Trek is they cast him and it's like as he's there in these seasons, the people who run the show realize they have one of the great actors in the world in their midst. And they just gave him acting challenge after acting challenge. There was the 1984 episode where he essentially is tortured by the other great Shakespearean actor David Warner and is tortured into saying to the version of 2+2=5 the way Winston is in 1984. There is this beautiful episode he did with Famke Jensen who ended up in X-Men with him where she is this creature, this gorgeous creature who comes from a place where she's supposed to imprint on her husband and he they are escorting her to go somewhere where she will imprint on her husband and therefore be the perfect mate and and her husband is disgusting. He's on the ship with them and he and she have this romance and it is enchanting and he is enchanting as he is falling in love with her and she is falling in love with him. Again, like totally out of character for a science fiction show famously bad acting in the world of science fiction. And so this one moment, almost unexpectedly it's like they got lighting in a bottle and was like let's just let Patrick cook and otherwise the show is very mediocre in my opinion. If the show did not center on him it was terrible and he was just magnificent and he was magnificent in movies and he was hilarious and L.A. story as the major D.I. could do comedy. A fact that I just learned. He started in a 2013 Israeli crime comedy called hunting elephants. Oh, good lord. And I can't speak to him. Well, you can see I just got of the film. The algorithm gave me an appearance he made when the film in Israel was announced and he he speaks in this clip that you can also find online of how much he loved Israel and he talked about his first trip there. So what is there? This is just a remarkable person and extremely humane person. I think that's the thing that the humane like a humane values or what the humanities and everything it's kind of connected to him. And so anyway, just enjoy some Patrick's story over the weekend. Absolutely. Anyway, Dan Sienor, thank you so much for joining us, Matt. Thank you for joining us. Grant Puba, Dan Sienor, of the of the Archimedia world. Matt, Grant Puba at A.I. Abe, Grant Puba of the Abe Green World Newsletter. And as I said, I am the Grant Puba of the loyal order of the water buffalo with Bretton and Barney Rubble. And we will be back. Shabbat Shalom everyone. Shabbat Shalom and keep the candle burning. I'm James Patterson. I write way too many books. Welcome to Hungry Dogs. The title comes from my maternal grandmother Isabelle Zalvis-Maris. Dan used to always say, "Hungry Dogs run faster James, and I've been running fast ever since. Here's what will be coming your way soon, and this is a really terrific list, I think." You'll hear from some incredible people like Stacey Abrams. Yay! BJ Novak! Yay! Kathy Bates, Dolly Parton, Josh Gad, and Pope Leo. Okay, maybe not Pope Leo. But who knows, maybe he'll show up. Hungry Dogs run faster. Thank you, grandma, for turning me into a hopeless, obsessive compulsive. Listen to Hungry Dogs with James Patterson. That'd be me, on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Hey, this is Jeremy Stern. And I'm Walter Russell Mead. We're the hosts of What Really Matters. Each week, Jeremy picks three stories from the news in one evergreen topic from history. And Walter helps us understand the news, decide what matters and what doesn't, and enjoy following the story of America and the world more than you do now. We cover politics, foreign policy, history, literature, technology, and everything else you need to understand where we are, how we got here, and why it matters for you. Please subscribe to What Really Matters with Walter Russell Mead on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.