Today’s podcast takes up the Biden administration’s strange decision to use COVID-19 as an excuse to continue a “student loan moratorium”—and we ask what good this will serve and what the political fallout might be. Then we discuss the upcoming elections as a possible binary choice between bad Democratic policy and crazy Republican politicians. Give a listen. Source Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...
Jim Meigs, our Tech COMMENTARY columnist, joins us today to explore the motivations of Elon Musk in taking the largest single ownership stake in Twitter. Why do people hate him so much? Is it just envy? And then we talk about cyberwar. Give a listen. Source Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Today’s podcast asks whether establishment opinion is now beginning to turn slightly against Zelensky on the grounds that he really needs to have a path to surrender—even though Ukraine is winning. Also, why is the tradcon right celebrating the victory of a Hungarian politician who sides with Putin? And why is Disney diving headfirst into the culture wars? Give a listen. Source Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...
Today’s podcast takes up the failure of gerrymanders in both Democratic and Republican states, and why both parties are so committed to egregious efforts to tilt legislative maps in their own favor—notwithstanding the real possibility that they will be embarrassed and shot down when they do so. Then we talk about the latest research into the lab-leak hypothesis and the continuing cultural battles... Source Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...
Bloomberg columnist and host of the upcoming podcast, “The Reeducation,” Eli Lake joins the show today in John’s absence. We talk about the news from the front in Ukraine, Joe Biden’s releases from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, and the Democrats in genuine disarray. Source Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Yuval Levin joins today’s podcast, a very special episode in which we delve deeply into a revelatory conversation between the New York Times’s Ezra Klein and leading liberal economist Larry Summers—in which Klein reveals his horrified discomfort at the fact that many of the policies he thought were going to save America are instead driving us into an economic ditch. Give a listen. Source Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...
Today’s podcast wonders at the fact that 36 hours after Will Smith slapped Chris Rock, the world is still obsessed with the story; could it be that we are precisely because it’s frivolous? And why is Joe Biden claiming not to have said what he said about Putin and Russia—and why did he say what he said in the first place? And what about the budget? And John Eastman? And COVID? Give a listen. Source Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...
Matt Continetti joins the podcast to discuss the Oscar slap and what larger meaning it might have, before we discuss what larger meaning Joe Biden improvising a regime-change policy for Russia might have, and what meaning we should assign the texts by Clarence Thomas’s wife. Give a listen. Source Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...
Covid may not be at the forefront of most voters’ minds anymore, but has the frustration with the mitigation measures imposed on the country faded? Or will there be a reckoning in November? Also, Joe Biden’s evolving nuclear weapons policy. Source Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Today’s podcast expresses aghastness at the very idea that this week’s Supreme Court confirmation hearings were somehow more unfair than the ones in 2018 involving Brett Kavanaugh. And we worry over Ukraine. And see shoots of hope in New York City. Give a listen. Source Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...
The podcast today takes up the fascinating fact that Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson said she was not a biologist and therefore could not define what it meant to be a woman. What does this self-evidently disingenuous demurral tell us about the state of play inside the progressive-liberal-Democratic coalition? And what does watching Volodymir Zelenskyy’s TV show Servant of the People on... Source Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...
Matthew Continetti joins the podcast to discuss his COMMENTARY column, “Believe Them.” We also talk about Ketanji Brown Jackson’s first day of confirmation hearings and Eliot A. Cohen’s optimistic salvo against pessimism, Give a listen. Source Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Did Volodymyr Zelensky commit a tactical error in his address to the Israeli Knesset? Has Russia’s advance in Ukraine stalled out? And will Republicans overreach, as so many observers appear to hope they will, during Ketanji Brown Jackson’s Supreme Court confirmation hearings? Source Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Today’s incendiary podcast goes after the mainstream media’s (and social media’s) disgraceful handling of the Hunter Biden laptop story before moving on to an unexpected New York Times editorial attacking “cancel culture” and the question of transgender swimmer Lia Thomas. Give a listen. Source Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...
Today’s podcast discusses the astounding death and casualty estimates relating to the Russians in Ukraine and what they portend. Then we talk about my article in the April issue of COMMENTARY called “Neoconservatism: A Vindication.” Give a listen. Source Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...
Today’s podcast features an insta-reaction to Wlodymir Zelinskyy’s speech to Congress and what effect it will have on the already overwhelming American support for more involvement in the effort to turn back Russia’s evil. Give a listen. Source Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The news of a “stealth variant” emerging in Asia has news media on edge, but are they the only constituency left in America who is still bracing for renewed Covid restrictions? James B. Meigs joins the podcast to discuss this and more. Source Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Iran’s missile attack on U.S. positions in Iraq only highlights a problem the West has been reckoning with since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine; that is the seeming impotence of diplomatic and institutional conventions when they are confronted by bad actors willing to destroy them. Also, the return of Covid in East Asia and its ripple effects in the West. Source Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...
Newly minted COMMENTARY contributing editor Eli Lake joins the podcast to discuss his blockbuster article, “The World Has Changed and We Must Change Along With It.” What must America do now not only in relation to Russia but in relation to China as well? And we have some fiery arguments! Give a listen. Source Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...
The Biden administration’s response to the crisis in Europe goes wobbly. Between the administration trying to demonize fossil fuel producers even as they demand more production and their warnings that Russia may use chemical weapons in Ukraine without suggesting a way to deter such an unthinkable attack, can the public’s confidence in the White House’s competency survive? Source Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...
The January 6 committee’s signal that it’s going to try to criminalize the very notion that the 2020 election was stolen suggests a temptation toward overreach. Will the committee’s members squander public goodwill? Also, an update on the war in Ukraine and thoughts on Cormac McCarthy’s life and work. Source Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...
The Foundation for the Defense of Democracy’s Jonathan Schanzer joins the podcast to discuss the state of play in Ukraine and the West’s headlong rush into a new nuclear deal with Iran. Does isolating Russia have to come at the expense of efforts to isolate Iran? Source Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...
The podcast crew gets into it today over whether the American people are going to demand and force their politicians to impose a no-fly zone over Ukraine and whether that would spell disaster. And we discuss the Republican party’s move toward a more familiar kind of hawkishness. Give a listen. Source Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...
All expectations are that the Russian advance in Ukraine will only grow more brutal in the coming days and weeks. Will the West’s resolve to avoid direct engagement in the conflict weaken if we are witness to those atrocities? Also, has the January 6 Committee overstepped its bounds in a way that will only strengthen Trump? Source Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...
Andrew Roberts, the foremost Churchill biographer, joins the podcast today to discuss Ukraine and grants his imprimatur to analogies suggesting Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky is a present-day Winston. We also discuss the military strategy or lack thereof of the Russians and the surprising nature of the West’s response. Give a listen. Source Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...
Matt Continetti joins the podcast today to do a post-mortem on Joe Biden’s SOTU—featuring an Abe Greenwald rant about how cheap the speech was that you simply gotta hear. As you have to hear the rest of it. Give a listen. Source Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
With the Russians changing tactics and advancing relentlessly on population centers in Ukraine, the podcast crew wonders how the West will react when the horror begins to escalate. And why can’t the media accept the good news about COVID? And what can Biden do to make his State of the Union address a success? Give a listen. Source Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...
By all accounts, Russia’s war in Ukraine is going badly for Moscow. Vladimir Putin is now confronted with a geopolitical environment that is wholly arrayed against Western interests. That’s good for civilization, but Putin may feel he has no choice but to engage in a standoff with the West in response. Source Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices...
Today’s podcast takes up the early moments of the Ukraine war and whether things are going well or badly for Russia. We also talk about Biden’s speech, the lifting of COVID restrictions by the CDC, and the new Supreme Court nominee. Give a listen. Source Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Matthew Continetti joins the podcast to discuss the outbreak of the Russian war on Ukraine and what the next steps might be—and what it all portends for the future of American politics and the Right. Give a listen. Source Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
