In the latest COMMENTARY podcast, John Podhoretz regales Noah Rothman and Abe Greenwald with tales from the floor of the Republican National Convention in Cleveland which has been overshadowed by chaos and disunity at the Democratic National Convention. A party that looked unified has been cast into crisis by the WikiLeaks release of a variety of email communications from within the DNC. But the likely source of those emails, Russian intelligence, could give Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party a way out of their mess.
This is an unofficial transcript meant for reference. Accuracy is not guaranteed.
Welcome to the commentary magazine. Podcast today is July. Twenty seventh, we are speaking to you hire top
the glorious fashion,
new building just below times Square em. You will hear throughout this podcast the dulcet sounds of the construction
currently being done on a massive hotel across the street, not to men.
The usual sirens and fire engines and police cars and the clamour of the greatest city on earth so
we are. We do this from our conference room. It's not a right,
you're studio, we don't have sound baffling. We got nothing but our voices, and I hope that you will be able to hear us over
then, just think of us as three guys with headphones on the floor of the convention's, trying to speak over the clamour,
of the delegates. I'm John Paul towards the outer commentary with me is always a green walled agent
and though Rossman hello, so gentle
We are now in we have completed day two of the dam
a convention- and I get you guys, you're broadcast in the middle of day three of the EU
lookin convention and
the Publican convention as it turns out, was handed to
ass, the weird and there were fights and TED crews got booed and it was a very
pressed floor, and all of that and yet no you have some
interesting for many despairing for others and lightning exciting members to share gal. I think at this point we can
definitely say that Donald Trump has received a pulling bouts out of the convention's, whether or not you know had the state of that bounds, the size of a kind of berries. If you look at the averages, I think it's, the last four or five of the of six pulls taken since the dimensions closed, show Donald Trump up over Hillary Clinton, some of them two of them a LOS Angeles Times, tracking Poland, the CNN or see polls show Donald Trump bursting out of his low forties floor over forty five percent at forty eight and four forty seven forty eight percent respectively and Hillary Clinton down in the low forties. So again you can look at the cross tat you can see where this bounces come from. It depends on what demos you look at. Some of them show a big burst of support from white voters without college degrees, some of them
show the gender gap exploding with men really favoring Donald Trump substantially and Hillary Clinton not getting enough support from women to make the difference. But the bottom line is, is that she has been hurt by this convention and he has most certainly been helped by.
The real question is whether she was hurt by the convention or whether the store
if this election, thus far
where the story of the post nominating the poster,
victory. The primary victory narrative
is James Commies not indictment indictment of Hilary, which I think which which came five days or six days before the opening of the republican Convention
and was a mortal blow. I think it is fair to say I'm it it it from.
Owes Hilary and her supporters in their tracks there
no defence to be issued. The way that call me framed the press conference in which he spoke was that he did not have sufficient cause to indict, but that everything that she did was right.
Less at best and damaging to national security at worst and in some sense the timing could not have been better for Trump too.
Four days in which to make news, because Hilary was crippled in her ability or her capacity to respond. I thought the Trump speech was
terrifically bad I've seen it was a bad as as a piece of shit
sure fine or as a or as an act of politicking. I think that the bounds itself suggests that that that would be, of that would be a inaccurate reading of it. I just think that he doubled down on a this topic: Portrait of America that does not job with the facts of this country and that and that veered perilously close to
what I consider Anti Americanism, thus providing the most unlikely person on earth. Michelle Obama, with a giant hole with which to drive a Mack truck through, in which she delivered a speech in which the woman who said in two thousand and eight that
Barack Obama's success may was the first time in her life that she felt proud of her country.
To say right now this is a great country to have her be the spokesman for a new patriotism
is it is a pretty serious irony, but
you take your iron Camelot, her husband still, president, so consistent well, of course, and that goes without saying, and yet it's
an interesting dynamic,
that we have here, which is that the classic republican line in times of crisis was that things were
Arable democrats had made things terrible, but that the route core of the United
states was being distorted by
add policies that could be overturned and when the bad policies were overturned. The glory of the
I states and the virtues of the United States would burst out full flower now Trump says
we're losing, and when I take power we win, but none of that
about. What an here as in the United States, its all about him
about how the country, the bad liberalism is pinning people down
it's that it's that our leaders make stupid, deals and he'll make good deals. He'll do it, we won't do it he's not. Gonna
great he's not going to cut the ropes he is going to you no sort of life.
That's up himself personally, which is not now
is not a republican messenger. Conservative message not really an american message, but but there we have, it will get and in fact is
also reminds me that after me,
Alabama spoke things swung
I can to the anti american territory Bernie Sanders Giver
human gloom speech. Without even the benefit of saying we need to
reclaim. What was once great express it. Just came from a place of wheat. We are bad. We have been bad write, em all through the first night of the of the democratic convention. You heard these weird
themes, Michel speech, I think, was openly and and and on unashamedly problem
our killer patriotic, but even Corey Booker
there, the senator, who was
and so middle of the room,
moderate that there was there was a lot. There were a lot of people who thought he was gonna go into politics as a Republican gave us
In which he said that our founding documents were genius,
Really. The declaration of independence was a declaration of interdependence and that
Get individualism is all well and good, but it's not how we won the civil war built the built the we built the eerie canal or build the railroads, or something like that. That is a
his that its historical revisionism. You know that that is
and is replacing what may have been a comforting national myths with a differently comforting, national may have comforting to certain people and not to others. Noah. Unless I mean, as you said, that's a message that Democrats can and have gotten behind for decades. The notion that the United States is inherently flawed, that nationalism itself
the fly concept that globalism interdependency internationalism is something to aspire to and that the United States needs bundled fundamental transformation that sort the sort of thing that Democrats can get behind me always have a sort of kind of frustrates Republicans and centrist voters, but that's what makes this convention, but for Donald Trump, all the more weird because for- and we haven't spoken about this since we last got together but from my perspective on my couch watching c span that it was a really poorly managed convention just to stage managed this thematic were bizarre. They were all over the place. Nothing stuck two themes. The speakers were sort of they fell like they were there at gunpoint if they were of sort of anti trump Republicans, unless they were celebrities from the late nineteen eighties soap operas, you don't remember, which point there were really thrilled to be there.
The way this TED crews thing was managed and handled was an absolute debacle. They work. If you, you believe reports that the Trump team was whipping booze right as they got to the line that they didn't, like, which I frankly do because none of that felt organic to me and the speech was death confirmed to have been
that is an approved line by line by the team trump by trumped him for Republicans to come out of that spectacle, you know.
Did it why the outline in question was the one about voting or coding your conscience, where later life by which had led voting on which he had said prior, he had actually said the word conscience prior associations, though conscience was this trigger mechanism that activated this team of of Trump frustrated, frustrated trump supporters and then in the delegates that they were
whipped up into booze and that somehow has not managed to resort to yield
sort of an alienated republican base, they are there with Donald Trump and Ready
ok coherently. Well, here's the seem the scene
Is that how you can aren't? You can argue with success. So while it may look like what happened with, crews was a debacle you know if, in the end
got a five point bounce out of it. You got a five point bounce out of it. The canopy can hope for much more than that. Their there have been cases in which there was no bounds. Mitt Romney got no bounds now. I think that, as a bounds, if noted, bound psychologist with a degree of balance,
energy from Trump University. I think it is fair to say that one of the reasons that Trump got abounds is that his nuts
we're so horrible before the convention that he, just you know as long as he didn't. You know, kill a goat on stage during the during his acceptance speech, he was gonna, get abounds and and
that you also can't take his bounds in isolation. Going back again to James call me that you can't you can't look at the last two weeks in in the polling and in the way, the dynamic of the races shaping
and not see Hilary deeply wounded by coming and then, of course, by the wiki leaks leak of emails regarding the democratic national committees outright f.
To support her candidacy and derail Bernie Sanders is now. There are two issues there. We can discuss the question of what the EU. There are three issues right there.
The issue of who, where the emails came,
come. What that is telling us about something, really very troubling which will talk about the minute. There is be the question of the legitimacy of the Democratic National Committee
Putting its thumb on the scale in that way:
and then there is the fact that it was not good for Hillary Clinton. For there to be a scandal involving leaked emails, I mean
that is where you forts the story.
About how she had an email, server and illegitimate email server that violated national security protocols, and we now know that if the if the democratic national committees emails were, seized and and and and purloined, and then leaked the notion that her sir
were wasn't compromise? Just seem science fictional,
all the evidence points to russian intelligence.
Dirty services having been the ones to bombard
the urgency and find the back door
get em the urgency and they are right that they do go above and they
in doing this stuff for years, and we know that both the Russians and the Chinese are engaged in furious
reward Jack Goldsmith. Who was a cyber war expert points out that
but saucer the gander sauce for the goose we're doing it to all over the place like crazy, and this is what international espionage is like now, of course, we should be angry or at them we are because we are like
Brenda, maintain world order and they're just trying to destroy us, but
nonetheless
email, illegal Emil, showing illicit activities.
Helping Hillary Clinton. That is a bad plot line for her and at just just continues the bad news and its open ended. There is there's gonna, there's gonna be more Emily leaks to come, and so
is that once again she cannot. She can put a cap on these,
You know these the like, like be like me statement. It just float
out there and stays out there and there, and there are other forces conspiring to to help Trump.
As well. I mean arguably the fact that that weak hunkered down for you, know some sort of
horrible travesty every weekend that that that allows him to either say he's he's gonna, be tough on terrorism or actually gives
men, opportunity tromp, the Lord of CHAOS to say, he's the law and order. Guy he's going to he's going to gets, get serious about Abed.
Back in the police well controlled. That's where the diner
again starts to change. After this weekend, President Obama
ceases being the leader of the left or the liberals or whatever on Thursday night. When she takes, it will be her obligation now to respond to every
arrest of end to every moment, not only issue statements but to be out there to show what it is
She intends to do to respond,
these things. She has been able to pick and choose and to stand back while Obama took the lead forward and, of course, took the lead for in a way that may have that. That was not necessarily helpful to her with you know, undecided voters with this whole lino line about how every terrorist attack is complex. Lee motivated
then and isn't about what its clearly about. She can't stand on the sidelines anymore and will now see whether it is true as some of my yeah, some of my very deeply anti trump friends are now claiming that
she's. Really a hawks is far much further to the right than he is that she really intends to make too. She would intend she would, as president, would would
aggressively fight ISIS and fight terrorism, and- and you know, do things
Obama simply won't do because she
not shackled to his world, his anti
exceptional list, worldview she's got a prove that if that's, indeed what she wants to prove- and this is where we get to the issue of
was purloined emails and what they say to the thirteen million people who voted for Bernie Sanders right,
So if they say Bernie Sanders is right. The system was rigged against him from the beginning, and this was not a fair fight. It's not a fair contest, but an outrage.
Invention out the centre there as she defines or as Democrats too,
what she wants to do. You know she wants to do it, so this convention out the centre there, as as she defines errors, Democrats defy. It is much further to the left and we may think the centre as you now it's much more comparable worth. You know this
comparable, equal pay issues, and you know abortion on demand without limit, and you know
destruction of the coal industry and all sorts of things like that, none the less
ass her way of talking to the centre in some senses, foreign policy, which is a key element of what drives the Sanders voter in the belief that she is, was not the right person. It's not just that she's a Goldman Sachs sell out it's that she like, as trumpets as she is a globalist and wants to protect the current global order and damn it's funny. I'm now Mamma a monologue annual, but here, but in others there are these two people on Twitter who work for Glenn Green, while the despicable we know far left marxist
Journalists, enabler of Edward Snowden, the agent of espionage, four of the Soviet Union and all that is that the site called the intercept. The bunch will work on the intercept, and you know one of the interesting things is that they spent the last week effectively defending the Russians round like
their defending the rights like what I mean. What what what so tat we do, this to them and
That is the reason I bring this up as to say that there is a body.
Opinion in the Democratic Party and another to him by opinion that believes that the United States, the force revel in the world and Hilary could have marginalized them and treated them and then gone moved to the centre,
but if she doesn't have them firmly and if this plot line has now developed
about how she and her cats paw moron cats Pawn Florida, you know bumble Bum Lena, like Thuggish Lee,
prevented a fair race? She's gonna,
they continue to worry that they're gonna sit out or even yeah, that if there was so angry and and there is Trump spewing isolationism and pro Putin them that, maybe you know, couple million of them will vote for him. Well, and this is, I think this is an eight silver whose done some analysis today of the
credit, primary electorate and noted. I think, reasonably, that a lot of the Sanders voters are not really
Apple General election voters ever that no point have Democrats really been able to count on this unabashedly
socialist, not even vaguely anti american vote that Bernie Sanders managed to rally and that they won't really affect the outcome if they did set it up. If they were some so inclined they be doing so because of frankly, a conspiracy theory, the emails do not suggest in any fashion. The Hillary Clinton benefited from a quota will rigged system. The democratic primaries were entirely proportional, so everybody who got boats got the delegates associated with their votes, with the exception of super delegates, without whom she would have one anyway there is,
oh arguments. We made to suggest that this was rigged against yeah, because in twenty sixteen rational arguments that I stuck out really are really winning the day. I get it by now, if the. If that's what, if we're talking about
in a actor. It then were not really talking about. I think a lot of voters that you would normally count on,
I'll. Unless here you gotta reeling and Turkey have thirteen million. Voters is a lot of voters. I mean centres, got thirteen million votes, that's a lot of votes and if half of them on which has a large number of half of them, don't vote or sit out
were you know in some in some in some sort of gathering of all this vote for Trump that will be
ruinous to her. No, I don't think it's that big
They're also they're not like following the news who knows what they know who knows who went out and voted for Bernie? Who knows what a twenty year old, who is amount of college campus right now?
home is home. You know playing call of duty for really is thinking about the election I dont know plus not monopolizes, but
de the notion now. That's in that the Democrats are actively pushing that Hillary Clinton Camp
he manager is actively pushing that efforts be injury. Are you were behind this hack
that David to those are the two russian security right. These was one of the FBI and in their CIA and thereby
this hat. They laundered this information through Wikileaks. Their expressly and explicitly attempting to change did this shift of the of the electoral balanced toward Donald Trump, because they believe Donald Trump will be more beneficial to Moscow interests and they have some evidence to suggest that up to and including the fact that russian diplomats have made no been not been even coin about their support for Donald Trump, they show up at his rallies. They talk about how good he is there there very much behind and rum and now they're suggesting that this is the attempt
by Moscow to put their finger on this scale. If there are Democrats who are married to the idea of internationalism and the beauty of the putting of outsourcing american exceptionalism,
and its role in the world to Moscow, of which there were many, including the presence of the United States who, still, by the way, trying to make Moscow bring peace and happiness to Syria. If that is the notion that their pushing they managed to get a couple of Democrats too, to accept that notion, then a lot of these sensible Democrats, who would be Ex Nino, maybe predisposed to believe that will
do their partisan duty and turn against Russia will we saw little hint of that last night, Madeleine Albright, the former secretary of state, gave you know,
extremely Nu Yok speeds about Russia that give up
Bob Kagan could have written, nor you know our any o Leary practically could published in commentary. You know what she said. Look I didn't flee you now.
The child from the awful from behind the iron curtain, to let the iron curtain back into the United States of America when she turned into John Foster Dulles, but she kind of turned to John Foster Dulles there yet know any it creates,
if it puts you- know a lot of different people on the left and in new,
sort of uncomfortable position, not forget where
Mitt Romney said that Russia is our greatest gold are
our greatest Doug global enemy,
he was. He was laughed at, and Obama said this. As you know, this isn't the decision still the cold war and there's a huge contingent of people on the left, who have all alone way before this loved Wikileaks love
whistleblowers.
Loved, Edward Snowden long after they knew that he was. He was deeply involved and in in Russia, so they have to sort of.
You know they they ve got. They ve got a threat, a weird needle, well on right, Franklin for the former editor of the New republic and nodded. Not particularly impressive person has a peace and slate. This
which he describes. This is being worse than Watergate, which is a preposterous claim, but
the first five hundred words of this peace involved, the most amazing pretzel personal to pretzel twisting and which he explains the different
Between you know, you know a leak ended,
dead. I came remember that through the term like a leak, is good.
You know when intelligence destruction event is bad, like wiki leaks, did good,
Now it's doing bad, but it was so good and then you can't you can't say that and of course it
all the same route, which is that this is a now. This is a multi year. Effort to degrade
western intelligence capabilities and, to the extent that what what's happened here is that it's become.
Shall we say it was ok to surf? They decided that it was ok the surface this to help Trump, if, indeed, that is what happened.
Suggests renewed confidence in their ability to withstand usually wanna. Do these kinds of
it is somewhat in the shadows with a liability and the fact is that the reason
We know that the efforts of the jury you were probably involved in this is that they left, but they left footprints and maybe eight there
intentionally either intentionally or they didn't know. How did they yet really fully understand? How come
above all we are of tracking their footprints and which is why you don't really wanted expose that your intelligence agencies know that other intelligence hates which intelligence agency is Bind X, Y, easy remember at the time of the Sony leak when it, it was essentially leaked that the North Koreans did at there were a great many people who said you. We should not be telegraph. We should not be safe,
who was responsible for this, because, where revealing electronic sources and methods by saying that they will be able to close, they will be.
To figure out how to mask their efforts next time, because we made it clear that we saw them so anyway,
wars and really know. I mean I mean lead to two Johns point about about this. Brazenness haven't I mean there's, there's an argument that debts.
I haven't seen being made all at all that frequently since his broke, that Putin is
has been emboldened by eight years of appeasement of of research.
And of of the U S cancelling it's it's it's missile defence for the Czech Republic and Poland.
And by handing over Syria
two to the Kremlin and by
not responding boldly too
All the cyber attacks and in all the bold and hammering that involve the republican platform, had a plank supporting new, no support
the unity of our democratic Ukraine and
it was removed right preserve,
at the behest of drums campaign manager, Paul man afford who was a paid consult into the pro Putin forces in,
Ukraine we haven't, we have direct evidence of of a better
better to Russia's foreign policy in the behaviour of the republican platform, maybe not
Committee, but whatever I'm right,
they're. So we see embolden. These should be embolden teacher. He just got
something he wanted in the boat out of had taken rather problem planet, and I'm saintly comes upon eight years of having been bold, rhino of of Obama, saying
delay this to flatter me or that, after all, just randomly member what what happened? What would happen when they, when they moved into when they moved into Crimea,
what happened they moved into Crimea suffers. It's terribly can't move undergraduates. First,
vision. You know of a sovereign territory by another, since the Second World WAR
you know I mean Crimea doesn't really belong to. Ukraine really only belong to a nineteen. Fifty four star
gave it to the Ukraine so
really part of Russia that was that stuff was coming out of the Obama administration on background. The reason why that was the case, because the Obama administration needed Moscow to execute the around deal the only,
and widened, but Moscow had the leverage it
in Syria and in UK
in Europe. Elsewhere is because it was the key factor
to increase the around the outward and they're gonna.
Who's that influence in the event that the Republicans get the White House but backed here of four point: real, quick! That's that's why I think that eventually you're gonna see Democrats come round to this idea that Russia's not on their side anymore, because he's really publicly reconciling frustratingly. Reconciling with this notion that Wikileaks was really good because it was bashing Bush, another does not passing bushes bashing Democrats. You have to come around that notion. The flip side of that is that Republicans are going to become pro Putin relatively quickly because they hadn't
they're gonna be in their own partisan camp, and that, I think, is the more disturbing of those two do developments. While me, we already have the leader of the Republican Party is effectively promote in the question. Now is what happens you know November will be the tell, because I dont think that that is organic. Even too
Isolation is Republicans like there's no particular reason to side with food. Putin is a tin pot, second tempered dictator of a second rank country and, while at while isolationism, Iceland,
will help him. There's no reason for us, it so alien to the conservative movement. For any
but he has even a passing affiliation with this. The idea of being able to contain and deter russian aggression in Europe is a singular animating force of the conservative movement since the eighties, but
not just that. By the way I mean you know not to get back to honour on arm. You know on our trump bandwagon, but you know
easily the most important and most terrifying things that have been said in the last two weeks were said,
by Trump and by a couple of his discuss things now disgusting, morally compromised surrogates about NATO and about the Baltics
eight so Trump basically said on Poland at a NATO. You know I'm not gonna NATO's article five, which requires the entire alliance to defend any individual country. If it is militarily aggress against, he said he would do nothing
If a Estonia Lothar Lot, Latvia, Lithuania were were were attacked by Russia
That is the greenest height anybody has ever given
Anything we don't even begin to not can we can even begin to comprehend what that's gonna mean if Trump wins
what is this going to mean? What kind of blackmail hand does Putin have? Now, too, you know
He sits there every year we can not touch Estonia,
but he can menace Estonia and while menacing Estonia, and at least we say well, you know you shouldn't do that. He then
lack of males us with the threat of the
let of Estonia than leading us not to respond, and basically NATO collapsing in an instant if that happens now, so that
so that is actually in policy terms. The most deeply signal
think of the last two weeks, and you know the very notion that the country could elect a man who is toying with
not only the post World war to order, but the very concept of any kind of orderly structure on the planet earth is you know it's just jawdropping an entwined with it faultlessly. You know it's not it's not
if he keys arrived at these terrible ideas. After
Consideration. I'm not sure I don't know about that. I'm not really were I mean I think saying
that NATO is bad. It's one thing to say: we have these bad alliances and their these bad trade deals with Mexico. Were you know, they're are bad trade deal with China
It's another. I mean Americans like Europe. I see no evidence that Americans don't like you,
Americans, like two places in the world, they like Israel and they like Europe. If you look at these numbers, eighty percent of Americans, like England, seventy five percent Americans like Germany, they like these countries, they go to these countries, they have
colluding trumps. Bizarre get network of all right next. They have emotional ties to the idiot, logical precincts of these countries and we are sitting here. It is a very
aggressive, weird act
turn to it.
To say, I want to pull out a NATO will. Ask is just one more thing to forget weeks ago after breaks it,
people set up. Will this leaves Europe Open for Putin,
and then the response was at least at that point. No, no, don't worry, because NATO,
is what actually protect Europe from Putin
the EU and breaks it won't want. One effect is counted.
Visions and now right. That's on done his
Attention has always been to the extent that there was any sort of logic behind it. Was that we
cost benefit analysis of alliances, don't make any sense. We are putting all this
into NATO, which, by the way, is nonsense.
NATO's operating budget amounts to one tenth of one percent of U S. Defence spending annually coming covering twenty two percent of NATO's operating costs. He's talking about defence spending right, so
you're supposed to meet two percent of GDP, the equivalent thereof under an austrian NATO's under the terms of NATO's own internal agreements. Every nation is supposed to put two
Settlement Steepy into its defence and those who do not Donald Trump says should be.
Compensating us further. The luxury of the peace initiative,
buddy that we maintain as a result of our military commitments to european defence it to us
five nations that meet those commitments, our eastern,
european nations, including Estonia and Poland. So if your ideas that
I ve got some logic here. That says you know we'd. These people should be paying for the defense he's picking out exactly the people who do pay for their own defence who do meet these requirements, which suggests that has nothing to do with
then spending and meeting commitments and extorting our allies first, some support it has everything to do with Vladimir Putin's geopolitical,
objective and by the way, what is what
important to say is that this notion that we are in a we're just taking this money and spending it in order to defend you know these countries that won't spend money on their own defence. What we do
knit? Nato are bases in Europe, are positioning in Europe and all this is our forward
Base positioning outside the United States, we are very far away from the place.
On earth in which the american military might be required to prevent an an utter cataclysm,
would take did takes eight hours to fly from here to there and you need to refuel. We spend the money there as a projection of em
american power. Not it's not funny.
An aid that is being given to some feckless
You know interior Ministry that is losing. It is money that we are spending in our own defence, not to defend Estonia. Its are forward positioning
and the whole and by the way, all that money
Stick price support of exactly the kind of crony capitalist nature the trumpet
Gun every missile. Every uniform every every piece of equipment that the United States
whose is for NATO, in NATO and by NATO, is a fit in
they domestic price support of exactly the kind of crony capitalist nature that Trump himself likes. So the whole thing is repellent and frightening.
Terrifying and speaking of repelled,
I think, we're gonna close on on on the story of Representative Hank Johnson of Louisiana, as revealed by Adam Credo, of the Washington Free Beacon talking to Democrats on Monday morning and referring to Jewish set
where's as termites with their housing policy we want to bring this up is obviously it's disgusting. Anti semitic slur that comparison of Jews to insects as eight is a historical example of Anti semitic, Jus hating, rhetoric MA.
The horror was the response on the part of
The leading organization in the United States, that is tasked with the job of exposing and fighting anti Semitism. That is the anti defamation League, where whose response was a tweet.
That called on Johnson to retract, because what he said,
its offensive and unhelpful and then another tweet by its new executive director,
some Green glad a former Obama Administration official who was hired in place of
a fox men in order to extend the mandate of
APL two issues like climate change and other things that seem rather distant from the problem,
anti Semitism green,
Let's say yes, this is terrible and offensive, and then Johnson saying yes, I agree. I'm sorry I apologize, it was TAT was offensive in
in none of this was the war was the term Anti Semitism mused. Therefore,
organization tasked with fighting Anti Semitism answers, was unable to refer to a naked disgusting act,
Anti Semitism as Anti Semitism, and why? Because
Johnson is a democrat and democratic Convention and Johnson bring black. Is a former democratic official
and the organization is compromised, just as J Street, the effective Obama front in its state
about the matter. Attack the Washington Free Beacon for surfacing me matter somewhat more than an attack tank Johnson. So that was a really free
revelation than the next day of Course- Bernie Sanders supporting protesters burn the israeli flag outside the outside of the convention in
display of on helpfulness. It was, it was really. I were, I call on them to retract their flag. There burnt flag. Really I mean it.
It's really not helpful,
our own internal superintendent, yellow green. Both wrote about this for the four our website and she did a really thoughtful job. I think of
of noting that the kind of moral cowardice that has become of the anti defamation industry and how they no longer represent their own mission, and you would think at some point that there would be sort of market forces at work here. That would fill a gap because the really is a severe gap. These people no longer do the job they were I to do, which is what what also happened to the quote human rights industry write that down down goes another right. Well, I'd like to end by making recommendation, I'm pretty sure, dimension the sum the last Parkhurst I was on. But if I did, I apologise in its worth. A second mentioned. I just finished the
most remarkable book that I commend to everybody: J D, vantages, hillbilly, elegy, it's it's a combination of autobiography and social criticism that uses Vance his own life as a as it as a grand child of actual Kentucky hillbillies and the child of the child of working class. Americans will move from Kentucky to a higher to work in the work in the fact
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manage by the skin of my teeth. To get out of this, I want to explain to you how I got out of it why it is such a problem and what the forces are that that Meyer people in multi generational dependency and a sense of total helplessness. It's an extraordinary book. Next to you, Vall events, the fractured republic. It is the most I opening work about the United States and its and its internal difficulties in many years and
and go right now to Amazon and downloaded J D vans, hillbilly elegy, and with that positive news about a very depressing but also hopeful book, we will come to a close as we prepare for
Joe Biden than Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton's big speech on Thursday night, and I just
no remind everybody that when it comes to Hillary Clinton, big moments she
He doesn't have a history of rising to them so much so it will be if she pulls off a coup on Thursday night. It will be all the more interesting because it will be unexpected. I think
anybody, hold out hope or violently, or if you don't like our fear that she will
but she will love, she will have a triumph. No, I agree with you at the end
gonna be such a high pressure will not only be big Malta because she's been all but sequestered,
since since these, since the call me revelation- and this is this
her. This is a sort of you know, reemergence almost well. I actually real quick before we were supposed to clothes, but I'm gonna make you keep talking what we, I think, a lot of people who share our world view thought that she had really one good speech over the course of this whole campaign, and it was her foreign policy address right after she really became the prohibitive nominee ended Tipp took debt aim at Donald Trump and when she's taking that aim at Donald Trump on an issue like foreign policy, she struck the centre and she made herself
appear to be a very competent individual who could manage national security affairs pretty effectively? What she's probably going to do, however, is what we all suspect. Barack Obama is going to do tonight, which is too finger wag and to say this is culturally a shift in the wrong direction, and you people don't know what you're doing, and you need to stop what you're doing and listen to us. We know best. I think that's what you think of the present
going to do tonight right. Well, I think if he does that, I think the question is whether he smarter than that and whether he is abler than that, because I think it's very clear and even Bill Clinton speech last night made it clear that Hilary
needs not only to shore up her own base, which I think the numbers in some of these Paul suggest, but she needs to make a case to this group of people, which may be as large as twenty four percent who say that they don't know whom they're gonna vote
and the way to do that isn't to say Donald Trump is not us.
Because these people having yet decided that Donald Trump is not day and convincing them. That he's not that, maybe that
the way to go, but the smarter thing to do is to say I think, we're there
unfinished work there. I we didn't get it all done. There is unfinished work and we came in with this melt down and people are still suffering and
and there are large horses going on in any quality in the world mod. There is unfinished work to be done and Hillary Clinton needs to be. The is the person who can address these concerns for you. She will fight for you to make sure that your jobs pay better and that there's more of them and that there's this and that there's that, if rather
What he does. His virtue signal to the left and say: Donald Trump is morally and poor.
Slowly unacceptable because that's not who we are, and if you are tempted by him, then you are not who we are? That will,
a boomerang effect, he will not convince people. He will drive people without knowing it toward Trump. What will that's what I said
now. I could be wrong. I've been wrong before and I'll be wrong again, but, but you know if I were advising them
it would say, stay away from me that
HU. We are line because a lot
people in this country don't know yet if they are or they're not and he's not going to convince them of that the circumstances of their lives and the condition of the country and twenty. Sixteen will. What I thought was strong about Clinton's original speech that that foreign policy
speeches it was not ideological was very much a dispassionate address of what the problems are and how to solve them in a practical manner.
And most of the country is not ideological and Donald Trump is not an ideological. He says whatever he thinks is effective in the moment. So when you have Democrats up there on stage talking about this guy, like he's a vanilla, boilerplate republican and a hard hearted supply
later, he can so easily triangulate his way out of that, because he's not, he doesn't have to embrace any position for any length of time. You can just say whatever he wants to say in order to shatter that
that allusion look, he is going to endorse an increase in the minimum wage if
has an already some say has some say: hasn't
He will endorse it. You know she cannot come at him with the minimum wage he's gonna save for a minimum wage. She cannot come to him by saying
I don't care about the suffering people in this country conceal, say: I'm the only one who cares about them. I want to build a wall so that they will immigrants won't come in and take their jobs. I
trade war so that they have.
Though, that there's you know, there's domestic industrial employment so that they can work and they're not don't have everything stolen from China and I dont work for Goldman Sachs. So if they don't come up
with a series of lines,
policies that suggest that she has an answer to the problems that are making. People say that
The country is sixty seven percent or seventy percent on the wrong track. We see
in the polling, which that Trump has an opening and she's
a closed that opening. Now he will help close that opening for her it's in his nature. He doesn't have the u doesnt yet hasn't display.
The capacity to take yes for an answer and not you know and not walk and smash rake into his head judge. Curio was the perfect example of this
the outer. Nowhere goes on this racist attacks against this against them.
Latino Judge- and you know, spends three weeks in them in the you know in the tank for it. So we'll dig it do do it again. I mean
I put my money, at least in the case of of Obama, he's going
deliver something in the form of a warning. I don't think he can resist that. I think it's gonna be in the euro
you have a choice now, where I understand this pattern rising bitter clinkers. I understand the temptation to
You go the wrong way, but you will be going the wrong way and we are on the
on the precipice, other of of a great potential danger I
I even think that's the problem. It is the best. It is the idea that if you are tempted to vote for Donald Trump, you were not a good person
That is something no president should say in general. He is not. You know a priest, he is not a minister and he is not. He is he works for the american people and they judge him and he should not judge them
It's a stupid thing to say, aside from being an immoral thing to say,
She better not do with either got maybe she will either. Maybe they have data. We know. One thing that we do know is that day,
very strong data, solid data that trumps vicious mom.
Dress imitation of the: u now partly disabled New York Times reporter search, convalesce key scores off the charts for them, because everybody knows it's horrible to make fun of somebody with a physical disability. It's not funny it's disgusting and all you need to do is seek of less, can see what Trump did to see how monstrous it is, and they know that they have like. I know they have they tested at six ways from Sunday. So I dont think that they're gonna be silent about or should be silent from there
when a view about trumps, moral negatives, but the situation here is that there are two ways to look at the polls. One of them is. The poles are now gravitating to the norm in which you have you know. You have basically
either republican coalition versus the democratic coalition of goes like that. She wins anyway, because the Democrats have a classic ability to get out to get to generate the votes.
But we're in a different situation. Somebody's polls show twenty to twenty five percent undecided and that circumstance you could have a situation in which
Gary Johnson, the Libertarian gets nine percent and and Jill Stein. The Green party candidate gets three or four percent, so that's thirteen.
Percent of the electorate, and then God knows what happens there and she is gonna have to scrape for every possible vote that she can't it's my impression again, that the ideological thing doesn't work but casting him Donald Trump as a threat to social cohesion and cultural progress. I think animates the left and is something that is much harder to argue your way out of if your Donald Trump, as a result of all the things that he said regarding the ethnicity of judges, mean prohibitive and their ability to think clear,
and making fun of disabled people, I think that something that he's gonna have a difficult time arguing out of, and you can say that without saying now are you people who support him are just as big a threat to social cohesion and cultural progress? Now, of course, that's something that the democratic base
agrees with? So this is where Hilary challenges, if she thinks she has a democratic base in her pocket, then she can reach out and she doesn't have to solidify them
and virtue signal to them so that their love, her morsel of that work harder for her. If,
However, the the the facts of this convention make her on.
Steady about the about the potency of the social cohesion of the left,
message and the unity of the left. She may not be sure that she can make this move, and you know she's not that deft. So who knows,
anyway, that brings us to a close commentary magazine. Seventy one year old,
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Transcript generated on 2020-02-27.