Trump is Hard Up for Cash

Welcome to Beg to Differ the Bulwark weekly roundtable discussion, featuring civil conversation across the political spectrum. We range from center left to center right. I’m Mona Charen, indicated columnist and policy editor at Bulwark, and I’m joined by our regulars, Damon Linker, who writes the sub stack newsletter notes from the middle ground, William Galston of the Wall Street Journal and the Brookings institution, and Linda Chavez of the Nescannon Center. Our special guest this week is Professor Nicholas Grossman. He teaches international affairs at the University of Illinois, and he is a senior editor of Arc Digital.

Welcome one at all. Well, I’d like to begin this week with a discussion about the campaign that we’ve been seeing. And, I want to play a short clip from one of Donald Trump’s, well, the only rally that he did this week. This is from Ohio.

Please rise for the horribly and unfairly treated. January six hostages. You see the spirit from the hostages, and that’s what they are as hostages. The first day we get into office, we’re gonna save our country. We’re gonna work with the people to treat those unbelievable patriots.

Unbelievable patriots Linda. Now This was one of the more obvious outrageous things that Trump said during the rally. There were many others that he has said during the course of the week, and yet we found ourselves wrapped around the axle over the one word that he used namely bloodbath? Well, what did you think of, first of all, the way he is introducing his rallies now? By the way, obviously, That was written by none other than Donald Trump himself.

The horribly unfairly treated, I mean, anyway.

And you can’t imagine him sitting at computer and writing anything. So I guess it’s, speech to, writing his using some AI to, to turn his crazy you know, long meandering speeches in into text. Look, I think it was a horrifying spectacle. If I had every reason in the world, to vote for Donald Trump, which of course I don’t. But if I did, and I saw and heard that I would turn around and change my mind.

I mean, we are talking about a man who is elevating, convicted criminals, people who have broken criminal laws, and are serving sentences for having beaten police for having taken police weapons and used them against them for having bare spray the faces of police, leading not only to injuries, but at least in in terms of one of the officers, a present, may have led to a stroke which caused his death the next day. This was horrifying. Talk about the rule of law. I mean, it so such disrespect for our judicial system. These are people who were tried.

For the most part, some of them had plea deals, but the people who were actually in jail Most of them were tried by juries of their peers and they are serving their sentences because what they did was not just a physical assault on the US, capital. It was an assault on the constitution assault on our way of life and to elevate these people to call them patriots, is terrible. As for the bloodbath, if he doesn’t win, I mean, this notion that that was only referring to all a bloodbath in Detroit, in the auto industry, it’s gonna mean you know, that if if, Trump is not elected, we’re gonna be able to buy Toyota’s and Hond’s and, lots of other kinds of of vehicles and and pay them, pay a market price for them.

As opposed to the one hundred percent tariff that, trump proposes. Right.

Opposed to the one hundred percent tariff. I mean, he’s going to double the price of automobiles that are popular in the United States. By the way, These are automobiles that have plants in the United States. They may have some of the work done in a place like Mexico and have some been shipped into the United States, but This is this is really crazy. And there’s no question that that term bloodbath was much broader then what would occur in Detroit in the auto industry if we had Joe Biden reelected.

He’s talking about particularly since it falls right in the, you know, right after, you know, this invoking of patriots who storm the capital. He’s talking about a a hot civil war. You know, maybe it’ll only be a guerilla war, maybe it’ll only be a few thousand people. But this he’s talking about blood in the streets. This is horrifying.

It is disqualifying. I don’t know how any right thinking individual who believes in the rule of law could support this man after that speech.

Dick, some people say, well, hang on. He was clearly talking about the auto industry. He frequently is kind of incoherent in the way he strings words together. Yes. He did say, oh, it’ll be a bloodbath and that’ll be the least of it, which tends to suggest that he meant a broader outbreak of violence than just a, you know, a metaphor about the auto industry.

But because it was ambiguous, It gave the Trump explainers the opportunity to jump in and say, you see, they’re distorting what he said, they’re misrepresenting him Therefore respond to this if you will. It was unwise to focus so much fire on that one little phrase when there is a cornucopia of things that he has said and done just in one week that should alarm and horrify any right thinking person. Your view.

Right. I think the important thing is the larger context that, people tend to get maybe wrapped around a single word. And this is partially a a trick that apologists and defenders like to do of, it seemed almost like we’re standing in front of this burning forest and arguing over whether One tree’s bark is properly described as tan or brown. It’s, you know, okay. Maybe we can debate that, but it doesn’t really matter when matters is that the whole forest isn’t fire.

And Trump has stoked and encouraged political violence since he first came on the scene in twenty fifteen, with or at least on twenty first running for office with things like, encouraging people to beat up protesters, to, be violent against journalists, to promising, or if you get too rough, I’ll pay your legal bills. And that is so encouraging people to be violent. And with the, opening with that, January sixth with defending the January sixth attackers, is much more serious than the bloodbath thing alone. And when you put them in context, the whether, you know, I mean, I’ve heard, of course, bloodbath as a we’re gonna lose a lot of money, you know, the industry will be wiped out or something like that. And you know what?

Fine. So let’s be really generous and say it was totally and entirely about economics, nothing else. So what? There is so much else that is threatening violence. And the action of, offering in particular to pardon the, seditionist and the insurrectionists and the people who, were convicted of assaulting police officers and other serious felonies that, by promising to pardon them, what that is is a signal that, they should be law breaking, potentially violent on behalf of Trump, and, then he will protect them.

And it’s a similar signal that he sent with pardoning people like Roger Stone and like Paul Manafort, which is that you should break the law for me. And then what I will do is I will protect you. And, of course, from his perspective, if some of these people break the law, and then it doesn’t work out for them. Well, you know, it’s no skin off his back. Right?

It’s not like he actually cares about these people. So He has threatened this regularly, and, we had experience with January six, the first non peaceful transfer of power in modern American history, and so we have already seen him stoke political violence, and you can also add in things like, where one of his Sanchez supporters, attacked an FBI building in response to you know, tried to shoot up an FBI building and was fortunately stopped, but, in response to that was the, FBI search warrant in Mar a Lago. So it has been working to stoke political violence a lot, and, we face that as a serious threat. And any one word he says doesn’t really matter because The overall picture has been one of attacking the rule of law, attacking the constitution, literally trying to overthrow it with his coup attempt in January six, and continuing to stoke political violence afterwards.

Damon, everything I I agree with everything Nicholas has said, and yet I do think that critics made a mistake by focusing in on the bloodbath comment because it was the weakest of the arguments to make of that what Trump did was outrageous over the weekend. And therefore, it gave an unnecessary gift. To his defenders. What about you?

I agree that that is is true. There is something about the dynamic of a rabid populist like Donald Trump that requires the defenders of the rule of law and normal procedures of liberal democracy have to somehow behave even better than normal.

That’s true.

You have to demonstrate that they are not subject to the same extreme, tendencies toward undermining high principle for the sake of base self interest. Because the line of Donald Trump and other populist says Nobody has higher motives. Nobody does things for their own sake because it’s just the right thing to do. They simply use that as a cover to seal their own baser self interested motives. And I, at least, am honest enough to admit that.

The others are faking it. So if the other side

He doesn’t say he’s honest though. He never says that.

Well, I think I think certainly when he was first running. He did say things along those lines that essentially I’m I’m the one who will tell you the truth about how corrupt everyone is because I’m in there and

I’m corrupt too, and I know how it works.

I at least will admit it.

Yeah. I guess so. But since then, it’s all been about you know, I’m the martyr here and I am being persecuted on behalf of the great, unwashed. But anyway, go on. Sure.

Sure. I mean, my only point in in answering your your question of where I come down on this will be to admit that yes. He has plausible deniability. If you listen to George Wallace’s speech at Madison Square Garden before the nineteen sixty eight and you will hear Wallace doing exactly the same thing. Goding the cops in Sydney who are trying keep order in the mayhem, in the melee, of there, and then outside on the street, using everything he can metaphorically to whip the crowd into a frenzy of outrage, but in such a way that he always has plausible deniability Oh, I didn’t say that they should actually rough that guy up.

I I was, it was a metaphor. It was, it was just, it was a rally. What do you expect? And Trump does that and has done it as as, Nicholas was indicating all the way back to the beginning to the early Trump rallies. In twenty sixteen.

He continually inches up to that line. And the way to respond, is for the media and others online to have very high exacting standards for themselves. But the last thing I wanna add to this is that I also made a point of not jumping in on this online when this whole thing blew up. First, I saw all the tweets about about, oh, bloodbath and I thought, oh, this is terrible. And then I didn’t say anything about it.

Then I watched the video later and heard well. It’s or metaphorical in this context. And I just decided, you know what? I’m not gonna I’m not gonna attack the media for being irresponsible. I’m not gonna attack Trump for and citing some kind of civil war here.

This is all the BS. This is the way this is gonna play out. It’s gonna go on for eight more months. We gotta keep our powder dry and just not engage in the nonsense. We’ve been through this now for so long.

I I’m not only just exhausted by it as so many commentators say, but, there’s a way in which you know, if if you play by the rules of this game, you’re you’re somehow brought down by it. Even even if you stand on high and say the media should do better. Yeah. Okay. But that’s also what Trump wants you to say, you know.

If you enter the fray, then, you know, godspeed to you. But, I really am starting to think that, to that even giving any of this credence is just sort of missing the the forest for the trees to go back to, Nick’s early metaphor of the forest fire.

Right. Okay. So, Bill, you could comment on any of that, any of that on the on the trees. But if you if you don’t have anything other that you wanna add to that, I wanna ask you about something else.

Well, I want to endorse what Damon just said. That is my greatest fear for beg Beg to Differ. Is that we’re gonna have to do a version of this segment thirty two more times before election day. That pro yep. That prospect polls me because we know with, as John McLaughlin used to say metaphysical certainty, that Donald Trump cannot go through a day let alone a week without saying something that shocks the conscience, you know, and you know, you know, and violates morality whether Christian, aristotelian, or natural.

Right? It’s, you know, it’s just a certain as that. And, you know, and the more we dissect the outrages of the week, I mean, the the more we’re playing into his hands in a way because I don’t I don’t think we can say anything new about him. I mean, I’ll Yeah. I’ll put my outrage of the week on the table just to play the game a little bit.

You know, when he said that some airman immigrants aren’t people, And then he went on to say, well, you know, the radical left doesn’t want you to say that. Well, the declaration of independence doesn’t want you to say that for god’s sake. So okay. But see, this is what happens every time I go into one of these discussions, or I’m gonna stop and let you ask your question.

Okay. I I’ll I’ll just say one more time that I think there are genuine outrages, and then there are traps. And I think we fell into a trap this week. I’ll just leave it Right. Leave it there.

But I because I want I do wanna move on to two people this week who did the unexpected. Those two were Mike Pence, and Senator Todd Young of Indiana. Who both said that they would not endorse Trump. And that is something that, you know, as my colleague, Jonathan Last, Road, that should have been a huge story. That should have been, you know, people should have been lining up outside the doors of these men talk with them, to hear them amplify this, to talk about how historically unprecedented it is for a vice president to refuse to endorse the man he ran with and served with, etcetera.

So Bill

Yes.

What did you make of it? And do you think that it may provide some sort of encouragement to that segment of Republican Party voters who have expressed their dissatisfaction with Trump, but even voting for Nikki Haley when she had already withdrawn, and who are, you know, willing to drag themselves to the polls just to say they don’t like Trump. Is this, you know, potentially important what Pence and Young boasted?

It’s potentially important if it’s a harbinger of a full throated nonstop campaign by Republicans, you know, who occupy high office or have occupied high office particularly people who occupied high office under Trump, you know, to form a phalanx of naysayers. And Yeah. You’ll if you just say it once, you haven’t said it. You say it for one week, you haven’t said it. You know, there really needs to be an organized campaign.

I have to admit that for a long time, Todd Young has been my favorite Republican senator You know, I’ve had a lot of conversations with him. You know, he did an admin with a job on the Chips Act. When I was still with no labels, he was always in there trying to find an honorable compromise He is a good man. Well, he would have to be because he’s a marine, but he’s a good man. And, And there is not a mean bone in his body.

There’s not a destructive bone in his body. If there is a future for the Republican Party, Todd Young and people like Todd Young are that future.

Or should be. Maybe they aren’t.

Yeah. But I have to say that given the demographic shift, the profound transformation of the Republican Party under Trump. I think people who want something that isn’t Trump but something that simply doesn’t doesn’t simply harken back to Reagan e either. I think it’s gonna be a long process of reconstruction. Much longer than a single presidential cycle.

Linda, let’s talk money. You ran for office. You know a little bit about raising money to run for office. And for, for our younger viewers and listeners, Linda ran for Senate in the state of Maryland.

What year was that? Nineteen eighty six.

Nineteen eighty six. So Donald Trump is having serious money problems. He, is has announced that he cannot secure a four hundred and fifty four million dollar bond to cover the fine in his that was assessed in his civil fraud trial. He did come up with the ninety million dollar bond for the sexual abuse case, but he’s having troubles. And it isn’t just that he has these enormous personal debts, which ought, by the way, ought to worry us because somebody who’s who’s that desperate for money seeking high office should set off alarm bells, especially this one, but he is also failing with small donors.

Apparently, the Trump team has tapped out. They’re small donors finally, and they are not showing up for him now. And of course, the large donors are worried about giving money to the RNC, which is now a wholly owned subsidiary of the Trump organization because they have no confidence the money won’t go to pay Trump’s legal bills. So if Bill Galston’s plan to amplify the comments of people like, Todd Young and and Mike Pence is to be implemented. They have the money.

Might make a difference possibly. Right? Right.

And and there are groups like Republicans against Trump that are in there trying to play their role, Mona and I know a little bit about this. I do think that money, is important. And It is an expression of support and the fact that he can’t get the robes who were sending him, you know, five dollars, ten dollars, twenty five dollars out of their Social Security checks. And then it turned out he’s spending that money not even on his own election but on paying legal bills. If they’ve decided, gee, you know, maybe I can use that money on something else, and are not giving it to him.

That indicates a weakening of support. They will still vote for him. It’s true. But it’s also true that that money does not quite have the same role that it once did I think in our politics. Because of the proliferation of ways to be able to communicate that don’t require as much money, through social media and other ways and, you know, so called earned media.

I think that it’s important, to note that You can have a lot of money and still not not win an election. And the way in which that money is used is terribly important. But it is usually not always but usually easier for Republicans to raise money. And the fact that Trump is not doing it, I think, does not bode well for him.

Nick grossman. Any thoughts about Trump’s money troubles, visa v, either the national security implications or the political implications?

One of the big things that they look for on security clearance applications is do you owe somebody money? Are you in debt? And the reason why is because, approaching people who are in debt and offering to pay their debt is, intelligence sorts cultivation one zero one. And so if the intelligence agencies in Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, you can add UAE, probably cutter, other people with money to burden. If they have not had a conversation about can we funnel him some money and buy something with it, whether it’s future access whether it’s perhaps some US secrets, you know, either some classified material that he stole and could funnel to them or just, you know, things he knows that he could tell them.

Are just buying future influence that if they have not had a serious conversation about that, they are not doing their jobs. And so I’m very confident that they have talked about that in one way or another, and with Trump in this sort of awkward position of not wanting to sell his buildings, in order to get cash because the New York real estate market is not very good and his, at the moment and his entire legal strategy is not to defend himself on the merits because he did all these crimes. You know, he very clearly did commit fraud. If anything, I’d say fraud was central to his business model throughout his entire career. And, he very clearly broke a lot of laws when it comes to the classified documents and keeping them and, a lot of laws when, trying to overthrow the constitution.

And so he has no legal defense on the merits. And the legal plan has been transparently from the beginning to just delay, run out the clock, become president, say, none of this applies to me, and Darren, but like, what are you gonna do? Make me, you know, and who’s gonna make the president, go into a courtroom or, say, pay some money or something if he doesn’t want, of course, if he has to sell a building, then getting the building back would be hard. So we have this incredibly strange circumstance of a fell in who has stoked anti American violence and risked American security being nominated by the Republican Party for president, and it’s incredibly weird, but, you know, that’s their choice. And that creates a big national security conundrum, even another one being that the Presidential nominees typically get, intelligence briefings, and it’s not, you know, as full as say the president would get, but this is the first time that we’ve had a press original nominee who is an active information security risk.

And so that creates additional dilemmas that we wouldn’t have to otherwise. But, as serious as I do think that is from a national security perspective, I take it as a relative positive that he is under financial pressure that he’s having trouble, raising money on the other end, that he is having to devote a lot of his focus into trying to just, deal with the legal troubles rather than, say, campaigning or, you know, talking about, I don’t know, trader economic immigration or things that might actually matter to, voters who are still somewhat undecided rather than say just his super fans who vicariously live through him and see it as a you know, a big psychodrama in which they’re cheering on the, comeuppance of whoever it is that they don’t like by him having victories. So I take that at least as a silver lining.

Will Saletan, Trump posted on truth social that this was so unfair. He said that the, you know, last year, he claimed that he had a half a billion dollars in cash right at at his disposal. So that’s the first part. Second, He doesn’t obviously have that amount of cash. And so now he is whining that he may have to sell one of his properties in a fire sale, which is true.

I mean, it is true, but it is very hard to, shed any tears for him about this when, if he if he didn’t do the crime, if he didn’t do the fraud, he wouldn’t find himself in this unfortunate position. Any comment?

Well, there is a god whose justice you know, grinds like the mill exceeding fine exceeding slowly. And so, And god has a sense of humor, and so should be all. Right? The guy lied about the value of his holdings now can’t borrow against the perfect. Amazing.

If I were asked to define divine justice, I really couldn’t do any better.

Yeah. Exactly. Exactly.

So that book and you know, and if shot in Florida is a sin, I’ve just committed it big time.

You know?

Let me confess. Yeah. Let me confess to all of my critics who think I’m a, you know, big, you know, you know, a big moralistic wing bag with a stick up as you know you lot. I plead guilty. And in my one and only imitation of Donald Trump this year, I feel no shame.

Alright. One last thing, Damon, that we should get in here, and that is that, again, something that we could have been focused on more than we did. Trump has let it be known that he is considering bringing Paul Manafort back to be a fundraiser and to be in charge of something or other. Now that’s great. Convicted felon, who was the step and fetch it for, a a Russian intelligence officer who is as corrupt as can be.

And, yeah. So that is gonna be one of Trump’s money men.

You know, all I can say is that this is the the glimmer of sunshine that I find in that story, which is The number of people who can serve in these key roles for Donald Trump is really small. True. He can’t find anybody, but Paul Manafort, who was already known as completely corrupt. The first time And that was before he got sucked up into the the Mueller investigation and everything else and had to be pardoned by Trump. I mean, this is a guy who is he’s like the bottom of the barrel, that still kicking around looking to make a little dough, you know, in in these kinds of roles is is really astonishing.

So we’ve got him, we got Roger Stone, there’s Steve Bannon’s hanging out. It’s like it’s like the greatest hits of of, you know, scumbag of the year award. And and these are the people who are gonna be hanging around the White House again if he actually manages to win. So Alright. Sure.

Yeah. Bring Paul Manafort back. You know, bring even more legal scrutiny down on yourself and your pain and everything else. If that’s the best you can do, Don, go right ahead. I’m I’m eager to watch how it all I’m folds here.

Yeah. But, you know, the one thing that is serious about Manafort is is his ties to Russia and to Putin and the fact that you know, there’s a reason why even on the relatively short list of corrupt lackeys who would be helping trump at the highest levels. You know, Manafort’s a guy who has the right connections for someone like Trump and he’s probably very eager to have him back in the hold for that reason.

Precisely. Yeah. Let’s just remember that, Manafort was working for the Kremlin linked leader of Ukraine previous to Zelensky, a guy who got thrown out by the Ukrainians exactly because he was, Putin’s lacky. So, great. So that’s just wonderful.

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We thank them for sponsoring this podcast. Alright. Let’s turn now to, what is happening with Israel and Gaza. We had the, majority leader Senator Schumer give a speech about Israel’s leadership. And it was a very, careful speech, I would say, but he did recommend that Israelis’s, vote for new leadership.

So, obviously, that’s been very controversial. We have also seen Netanyahu address the Republicans in a closed door session, Republican senators, but not Democratic senators. And, arguably Nick Grossman, this repeats a bad pattern with Netanyahu where he has been willing to kind of play US politics very aggressively and try to, try to make it you know, Republicans are for Israel and Democrats are not, which, is is a dangerous thing. It seems to me for an Israeli leader to do considering that He does have many friends on the Democratic side of the island. He needs friends on the Democratic side.

What what do you think?

So I think that’s right. And that, Netanyahu in particular made a very serious strategic mistake about, at this point, about, I think, eleven, twelve years ago, when he, accepted an, Republican, so it was a congressional Republican invitation, that went around the White House to basically go and address Congress and, say why US foreign policy was bad.

This was when Obama was president.

When Obama was president, right, it was over the Iran deal. And, certainly, you know, makes sense for, Israel and its leadership to have opinions about any sort of, you know, certainly something as high profile as, Ronnie nuclear program and US diplomacy with Iran, of him expressing that, would have been fine. Going around the going around the White House explicitly and giving a partisan speech to Congress was something I remember thinking time that this was just a really bad, unnecessary error in that Israel security has, for this point, decades, been supported both in terms of, things diplomatically internationally like, say, vetoes of anti Israel resolutions at the United Nations, and with, military cooperation, with, direct aid, all those things, has largely been a bipartisan thing inside the United States, and netanyahu’s not the only factor that has made it increasingly more partisan, but he has contributed to that significantly. And for things like not only had expressed his opinion kind of directly participated within a US political frame, not just commenting from afar, but he also had, stakes, you know, so much of his, his prime ministership on his ability to provide security, and that with, you know, October seventh failed as egregiously as, probably any leaders failed at any, at any point, especially any leader in Israel’s history.

Especially given that they had warnings from Egyptian Intelligence and disregarded them and instead stayed focused on things in the West Bank as opposed to worrying about Gaza. And then the conduct of the war that, has, does not seem to have a clear plan after has had loose rules of engagement that have resulted in more humanitarian suffering, more civilian death than, would be necessary even in looking at as, as the war effort itself being justified by October seventh and Hamas’s attacks. So all of this combined, I thought that Schumer’s speech was quite good and that, he is right in that the Netanyahu specifically and his far right coalition has been, bad for Israel and is continuing to be bad and makes it a lot harder for the United States do continue supporting them, including by Netanyahu’s efforts to play partisan politics in the US, and that with especially looking at younger generations being more negative about Israel, that and more critical, of it, that over time, this is getting worse and worse for them. And, in many ways, he doesn’t really have anybody but himself to blame. So the, or, at least he has many contributions that he could have avoided, and that the idea of saying a country that is actively providing you with billions of dollars in military aid can’t comment on your domestic politics when you have been commenting on our domestic politics is just on top of everything else obnoxious, and, he’s wrong.

Yeah.

Linda, there are reasons that distributing humanitarian aid has been challenging. One of the problems is that Israeli soldiers are afraid of putting their own lives at risk in distributing aid. They’re afraid of being kidnapped if they are, you know, unguarded and and in charge of distributing aid. On the other hand, Netanyahu has to realize that images of starving Palestinians that are filling the screens of people all over the world are unsustainable in terms of Israel’s global reputation. And I I feel that he has not risen to the occasion.

You know, one of the things that he could do, for example, instead of saying Instead of, you know, barking at people for, for, you know, interfering in in their domestic affairs, he could have put out a call for international assistance in providing humanitarian aid. Right? He could have said, look, our soldiers, for understandable reasons and good reasons don’t wanna be, you know, in the line of fire here, but, you know, we would welcome Saudiis, UAE, whatever, you know, other people to come Indians, whoever, to come and help set up eight centers. What What do you think?

I think that, what is going on in Gaza now is heart rending. There are children who cannot you know, get enough food, who were being killed, in military operations. I don’t question that Israel has the right to go in and root out Hamas. And as I’ve said many times on this show, it could end tomorrow. If a mosque would simply, declare that they are, you know, gonna give up, and they’re not doing and release the hostage and release the hostage.

And they use civilians as a human shield and they have always used civilians. There was one raid, I believe, into El Sheaf of a, hospital, in, northern Gaza where again, a top Hamas official, was in fact there and, Israel ordered to get him went in and and he was killed. But, you know, that aside. I do think that it would be helpful if Biden was able to persuade Netanyahu to try to send up a set up some third party that would help in the distribution of aid. But I can also understand why Netanyahu might be suspicious, the Saudis and others, going in, and, you know, what that would do in terms of the future.

But I do want to respond back to what Nicholas said and that is I think Schumer was wrong to give the speech that he gave. And you know, the fact that Netanyahu has behaved badly in the past is not an excuse for Schumer to do it. I think it’s very dangerous when particularly when an ally of ours is at war to go out and to give a speech essentially calling for that person to be ousted, which is, you know, he didn’t say that precisely. He wanted elections after hostility ceased but the idea was that it would replace the current government. That’s not something you do and I I think it was unfortunate.

I think what it does is it makes the split between Democrats and Republicans on support for Israel, brought into greater relief. And I think Bill could say a lot more about this than I can. But polling shows that that Israel is losing support more rapidly among Democrats and independents. There were There’ve been several polls, more recently. Now, you know, that’s also because the Democratic Party has a left element that is going to be hostile to Israel.

But I think it was a mistake. I think now, Netanyahu is going to be divided to invited to, give a speech to a joint session, of Congress Schumer has already said that he would not oppose that. That’s the kind of thing you do for allies, and let him make his case not in a partisan way, but before the public and and don’t us get involved in telling when Israelis’s, should or should not remove democratically elected. I mean, we can do that as pundits. I’d like to see BB gone tomorrow, but that’s a very different, thing than, the top Democrat, in the Senate, saying it.

Okay.

Nick, you wanted to respond briefly?

Yes. Thanks. So, I agree with that as a, the normal way to do things, that, you know, so I I think you’re right and that what but, Schumer doing it was a sign of how, incredibly frustrating, the normal way of doing things has been. How much the, current Israeli government has thwarted various, American efforts, in the process. And I I don’t mean things of you know, telling them, for example, to, I don’t know, just give up and leave Hamas in charge.

You know, nothing like that. The Biden administration certainly hasn’t done that. But taking it as, for example, rejecting or, not going along with America’s, a push to try to have a plan for what gonna come after. And, you know, especially we can tell you the United States, look, we went through this whole thing with Iraq. You really, really need a plan for after you remove people from, power if you’re trying to then, you know, so in this case, they dislodge hamas from power in the way that the US might move you to the Taliban or or Saddam Hussein from power.

That you need this plan afterwards, and, you need to in terms of long term security, be able to all this diplomatic effort the US is putting on behalf to try to get detente between Israel and Saudi Arabia. You have to give them something. You gotta be able to at least show them that you’re kind of moving in a direction to try perhaps in the future. For a palestinians. They just a little, and they won’t do that.

And, things like blocking aids, we’re seeing this, certainty of the US doing a, you know, almost, like, Berlin Airlift style humanitarian aid delivery to a place that is not controlled by an enemy, surrounded by an enemy, like the Soviet Union, but controlled by one of America’s close international partners. And that what Schumer’s speech reflected. So, I mean, I would, almost always, I would have agreed with that, but that reflected this, you know, just being fed up kind of frustration of, trying that normal way of doing business over and over again, and it not yielding success. And that in particular, Israel should take very seriously that Chuck Schumer of all people, that a, you know, staunch supporter of Israel of somebody who, that, you know, so a prominent Jewish American of somebody who is, openly about it of you know, where even in all the inflection, all things, like, I’m, I’m Jewish. I grew up in New York.

I, you know, appreciate. It’s like very much in New York. Too. And I get, you know, I, like, feel represented in that way, whether I agree with him or not, but, in Congress. And so he is exactly the sort of diaspora you that would be, in general, supportive and has been supportive of Israel so much.

And for him of all people, to, stop doing the normal way of business that he so fed up with it that he would say this should be assigned to Israel that, they may not really be open eyed about how much they’re alienating people, even people that really want to support them like Schumer does.

Will Saletan, you had a column, about this, all of this this week. And so reprise if you would the points you made there, but then also respond if you would on the matter of getting humanitarian aid to Gaza.

Well, let me start with humanitarian aid to Gaza. There is an organization whose job it is to do just that. I understand Israel’s problems with the the United Nations, you know, refugee agency. Yo Netanyahu has succeeded in poisoning the minds of Congress to such an extent that it’s my standing that the budget is going to forbid any US money from going through Anra. But I am deeply skeptical that the UAE, the Saudis, the Americans, anyone else, are going to come in and be seen to be doing the bidding of the United States or Israel or pulling their chestnuts out of fire.

I mean, Nick, they have a more informed view on the issue, but I I just think that’s castles in the air. And at the end of the day, to associate myself with some preview previous remarks, Israel cannot be seen to be presiding over the starving of children. I’m sorry. Right? There’s some things that just go beyond geopolitics.

And You know, I’m as staunch as Schumer, but at the end of the day, not only is that just the wrong thing to do. But if you’re if you’re trying to convince the rest of the world, you know, that you’re not playing on the same field, that’s a pretty good way to do it. So I suspect that the solution will not be Jerry built. It will not be some, you know, pickup team from the Middle East. I think the organization that already exists is going to have to be a vital part of the solution.

That means a lot of people are gonna have to climb down off a lot of high trees. With regard to Schumer’s speech, I mean, I pointed out in my piece that he has two audiences. He understands one of those audiences, the American Jewish audience, and the Democratic party to affair thee well. But when it comes to Israel, he stuck in the past. He somehow thinks that Netanyahu’s policies in Gaza are unacceptably to the right of Israeli public opinion.

I have reluctantly come to the conclusion that I know more about Israeli public opinion than tumor or staff people do because I can tell you they don’t want netanyahu to stay in office. But they do not object to what he’s doing in Gaza, not any of it. Right? And eighty five percent of the Israeli people at least the Jews, the Jewish is really is want the IDF to go into Raffa and finish the job. It’s as simple as that.

And remarkably, and I say this with no pride in my own people, about two thirds of Israelis are indifferent to the question of whether humanitarian aid gets delivered to Gaza. But these are these are facts about where Jewish Israelis have been driven as a result of the attack of October seventh, which which I think was a shattering experience psychologically. We’re not just talking about geopolitics here. We’re talking about a traumatized people that was convinced first by the left in the last two decades of the twentieth century and then by the right in the first two decades of the twenty first century that either the left or the right had a formula for the security of Jewish people in Israel. And it turns out that both of those formula We’re wrong.

People don’t know where to turn now, but the first thing they want is a baseline of security that they believe can only be achieved through the destruction of Hamas, not every last member of Hamas, but certainly the destruction of Hamas is a possible governing force in Gaza. And so Schumer’s speech, I can report with absolute certainty has fallen on completely deaf ears among the Israeli people, let alone the Netanyahu government.

Damon, it is it is deeply, deeply tragic. I I agree a hundred percent with what Bill just said about the views within Israel, they are completely, traumatized, as a nation. And there is support for finishing the job. They also don’t get, in their news. This is a common problem all over the world.

They don’t get the level of news about what’s actually happening on the ground to Palestinians and Gaza that we’re getting. It’s downplayed a little bit there. But here’s the thing. This is a real failure of leadership by netanyahu, I would submit because leaders, good leaders don’t just you know, like pavlov’s dogs do what makes, you know, what, what public opinion demands. I mean, George w Bush.

I know I’m gonna cite somebody who I know is not your favorite, Damon, but this aspect of his leadership, I think you would agree was good. Which is, you know, after nine eleven, when there was bloodlust in this country against Muslims, George w Bush did the right thing as a leader in deflecting that and emphasizing that our fight was not with the Muslim world. It’s not with individual Muslims, and he went to a mosque, and he said, you know, Islam is a religion of peace, which a lot of people thought was maybe not quite right. No. But anyway, you get my point.

He did the right thing as a as a leader. And Netanyahu, it seems to me, is not. He is first of all, he’s Only in power because of these radical right wing people that he has brought in, Ben Gavir, and Motrich who say horrible things about basically driving the Palestinians out of Gaza altogether. They don’t talk about mass murder, but they do talk about, you know, ethnic cleansing, you know, or driving them out. I mean, it’s just horrifying, and Netanyahu has not been willing to, to go against them because that would mean losing power.

And if he loses power, he goes to jail. So, I mean, the whole thing is just a huge Well, I won’t use a bad word, but, what a mess?

Yeah. I don’t exactly hear a question.

I know.

Alex I’ll I’ll respond, thematically

Okay, Luis.

Wise to to the vibe.

Israelis have a word for this. It’s Balagon.

Balagon.

Yeah. Well, look, let me let me actually back up a little bit to to the conversation everyone has been having just so I can weigh in a little bit on this humor speech, and I’ll tie it to Netanyahu and what he’s doing. My take is is actually maybe the most cynical of the takes here as as my takes sometimes are. I think Schumer’s speech was entirely about base maintenance for the Democratic Party in this country. So much so that given Schumer’s very long track record of staunch support for Israel and close ties to Israeli government officials and so forth.

This is decades of relationships here. I would be shocked if he had not given a call to Benjamin Netanyahu before his speech and warned him about it and said, look, this is I am covering bases here for my party Biden is supporting you as much as he can manage. It’s hurting us as we head into reelection with the left wing of our party. Were in danger in certain states like Michigan because of it because of the Muslim population there that is not on our side. And I have to do a little lifting here to try to hit back and how can he do it.

He can do it by hitting Netanyahu. Now, I I I am one hundred and twenty five percent with Bill. On Israeli public opinion. I defer to him on public opinion on almost everything, but I know for a fact myself by studying it that that is where Israeli public opinion is, and I find it inconceivable that Schumer himself does not know that. He knows that every plausible successor to Netanyahu agrees one hundred percent with Netanyahu’s policy in Gaza.

And that it will make no difference. It therefore is completely non sequitur to pause it that he thinks if first of all, that if he says mean things about Netanyahu, that that will actually contribute to him leaving power? No. He he’s a smart guy and he understands dynamics that actually it’s possible it’s gonna get the Israeli voters backs up and they’re gonna actually maybe rally around him a little bit. And that therefore could help Netanyahu a little for a week or something.

And he also understands that that like saying that we need to get rid of Netanyahu to kind of make the war go a little nicer. He knows that that also isn’t accurate. And so I, then, I, therefore, conclude that I think this was purely about. Let me throw some some crumbs toward the left as much as I Chuck Schumer, staunch is real supporter, can do, and that’s say some some critical things about Nanyahoo. So now, but back to Nanyahoo himself, and Nick is saying we have little chat going here as as, we do the show.

And Nick points out that, you know, BB would prefer Trump and the Republicans So, you know, that’s that’s fine. Sure. He he would like that for reasons that don’t entirely make sense to me. I mean, I I get it, but you know, Trump is so erratic. So, Andy, Trump would throw Israel under the boss if he could get a big fat loan from Vladimir Putin or for any number of other reasons.

So, but yes, ideologically speaking. He’s he’s with the Republicans. He wants the Republicans in power to be his allies in Washington, even though the Democrat Joe Biden has done more than any president ever has to help. But you know, in the end, as others have said, Nenya who wants to hold on to power because if he loses power, he’s likely gonna go to jail. His career is over.

He’ll lose in a in a probably a very big landslide. And it’ll be an ignominious end to a very long storied career. And Israeli politics. And as I think Bill has pointed out in some of our little chats here, it is also the case that He would, that if if that were to happen, you know, to avoid that happening, it just so happens that it perfectly aligns. With what Israeli public opinion wants to happen, which is for the war to continue.

And he’s in power and prosecuting it. So for now, for still for these past five months and for a little while longer it seems we move forward. And he remains in power. Stays out of jail and keeps fighting the war, pretty much every Israeli wants to be waged.

Okay. Thank you for that. I would just point out that the, Israeli army from what I understand has learned a lot about how to fight Hamas. In the last five months and, how to reduce the number of civilian casualties. So the assault on Raffa, when it comes may not be quite as devastating as what we saw in the north.

On the other hand, that doesn’t mitigate the problem of you know, widespread food insecurity and even starvation in some instances. So, alright. Well, thank We will, move on now to our final, segment. But first, let’s hear a word from miracle made. Did you know that your temperature at night can have one of the greatest impacts on your sleep quality?

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We now come to our highlight or low light of the week. And we will start with Will Saletan.

Well, first of all, I I think we need to think bigger beg to differ. I think we need a beg to differ discount card that covers more than sheets, just a, you know, suggestion to your back office. But Moving right along. This will shock my closest friends particularly But I actually have what I think may be some good news in the offing. And that is for the first time in six months, I am beginning to see the glimmering of a deal that could deliver aid to Ukraine.

And I think strange to say the deal is rooted in a suggestion that Donald Trump made. He basically said no to a grant, you know, grant of outright money to Ukraine, but he’s on board with apparently alone. And he sort of shrugged and said, well, if Ukraine doesn’t make it, I guess we won’t get our money back. But If that’s good enough for Trump, that’s good enough for me. You know, and if they wanna wrap it in the, you know, in the gauzy label of lend lease from World War II, that’s fine with me too.

Right? And I am beginning to detect science that it’s that idea is gaining momentum in the house of percentatives. They don’t think that they will incur Trump’s wrath if they vote for a loan. I mean, Lindsey Graham, on the Senate side has already made it very clean. Clear that the loan would be a zero interest loan.

And as he put it eminently forgivable, and so it’s a grant that dare not speak its name. I don’t care. Just want the Ukrainians to get the weapons. So, you know, I’ve been a voice of bloom. I didn’t think there was a way forward, but, But if Donald Trump has given the the republican party a way forward, who am I to resist?

Thank you. Linda Chavez,

Well, Bill just made my week. That’s

great news.

I have a little bit of good news followed by, some bad news, for our audience. The good news is that in the, agreement to essentially fund the government, the spending bill that would fund the government, keep us, out of having to shut down. There was an agreement to increase the number of special immigrant visas available to Afghan. Now, these are visas that are given to people who actually help the United States in the war in Afghanistan. And, there are only twelve thousand included, the advocates who are pushing for this one to twenty thousand, but they did get twelve and it’s lease a step in the right direction.

So that’s a little bit of good news, that I wanted to share. But the bigger story is the bad news, at the Texas border. And I’m not talking about, people flooding into the United States. I’m talking about the state of Texas, which is challenging the federal government for, its role in governing immigration policy. There was a bill passed called SB four, which basically made Texas capable of not only arresting, undocumented people in, in, of the state, but essentially being able to deport them even ignoring, other immigration court proceedings that might be going on.

A, federal judge at the lower level, decided that he was going to put, that on hold and while it is being appealed, it went to the Supreme Court for the Supreme Court to weigh in. Rather than following a hundred and fifty years of precedent on this issue, which gives the federal government the role in immigration not states individually. They decided to kid get back down to the appeals court. That case, was heard this week. We don’t know how it’s going to turn out.

But you know, we’ve been down this path before and that that eighteen seventy five case that I referred back to was the state of California which tried to keep Chinese from coming into, the state of California at that point. This was before the Chinese exclusion act and the Supreme Court in eighteen seventy five was unequivocal, and mentioned the fact that if you had individuals States making this decision on their own, that you could essentially end up provoking wars, certainly disrupting foreign policy. I’d like to see what Texas would think if California suddenly decided that it was going to not just be a sanctuary, but, essentially tried to overrule. Federal law and, grant, you know, the right to stay in California, to citizens. This is a disaster it’s got to be settled and it has to be settled following the hundred and fifty year precedent of, chai lung versus Freeman.

Thank you. Nicholas Grossman.

So, just really briefly, I just about, what what Bill said, and then I’ll give you mine, but which is that I very much share, his sentiment on the importance of supporting Ukraine. And I think the, fact that the US has been so delayed, in this is both a, strategic and moral failure, and one that is, easy to avoid that we’re doing to our ourselves. And it is consequential. So I would absolutely love if, Abe could get through. I am unfortunately more skeptical about, say, this specific loan agreement.

It sounds to me more like, you know, it’s too cute. It’s, the sort of thing that Lindsey Graham did multiple times during the Trump presidency in which Graham would advocate, you know, NASH security or maybe some sort of old school Reaganite foreign policy. Trump would be opposed. Graham would come up with some gimmick and tell everybody, hey, I think I found a way to pitch it to Trump. And people would get maybe a little optimistic for a day or two, and then, you know, Trump might say something share okay and then, you know, not do it or, not buy it.

So I hope that I’m wrong in that, Trump and, in general, Maga’s fundamental attitude towards Ukraine war is that they would like to see Russia succeed. And that the rest of it is basically irrelevant. They’re just coming up with ways to rationalize that one way or the other. But I hope on this that I am wrong, and you were right. And my, highlight for the week is to talk about the possible, TikTok ban or I guess, forced, forced divestment to, that, the house just passed.

And, I’m someone who, I’m, I’m torn about this. I wasn’t totally sure about what I thought, about where one is it goes against my, maybe more kind of libertarian free speech free enterprise, instinct that this is not sort of thing government should do and is opening up a can of worms. On the other hand, there is a kind of national security instinct on These, social networks are powerful even if we don’t totally understand them and that, having such a powerful tool in the hands of a rival government. And of course, the company that owns TikTok answers to the Chinese government is all major Chinese companies do. And that that is concerning.

But I think I was persuaded most by, an article, and I’ll I’ll give the link to everybody, but an article, in a block called Tector, by the writer, Mike Masnick. And, if you don’t know him, he’s a prolific tech writer, and he’s probably most famous in, internet world. For coining the term, the streisand effect. Oh. About when, you know, people try to, in particular, barbara streisand, but, try to get some material taken down.

And as a result, attract much more attention to it and get a lot of people to see it. But he put up, an argument that said, so there are essentially two arguments, kind of accusations against TikTok. One is that it is a, data mining operation, and that China can potentially gain something from that, and one is the potential to push out propaganda. And on the data mining one, he makes a very convincing argument that this is basically irrelevant that if we actually cared about any of these data issues, then we would do general data privacy laws, that China can access information from people through all sorts of shady data brokers that they can get, you know, tons of information online about Americans. They don’t really need TikTok for that.

And, previously, Chinese hackers have gotten into, presume they’re pretty short, you know, meaning, you can never totally accuse them but the US has totally proof, say where it came from, but the US is accused of getting into the, office of personal management, which means that They got their hands on like twenty million social security numbers. I’d like to mention things like security clearance applications, and that’s a lot of potential blackmail material. All this other stuff. So in terms of data mining, they do tons of that. And so do, you know, every other social media, so do Facebook and Google and the rest of them, and that that alone, so it would not be a good reason they’re not taking it seriously.

And on the propaganda one, think makes a a pretty good argument that, also it is, limited in this particular ability that it’s not really something that we understand that they can do it via other channels, just as one example, if we’ve seen, Russian intelligence do a bunch of influence operations and propaganda via networks that they don’t own. And that overall, I think kind of persuaded me that this is, the bill that they did pass would not address any of the issues, really, that it claims to address, and would open up a can of worms that, has all sorts of implications for the first amendment and free enterprise going toward. So, I was pretty convinced that at least the way they’re doing it here is not a bad idea. Although I have to admit that national security part of my brain still says if What ends up happening is a bunch of Americans owned TikTok? Yeah, that’s not so bad.

Although then, I saw that one of the people putting together a packaged try, to buy it, the team to try to buy it is Steve Mnuchin, the former Trump secretary, secretary of the treasury, and if you ask me if there was, if if we assume say that TikTok is a powerful, potentially influence operation propaganda Bulwark. If the Chinese government has that and is, you know, kind of influencing, especially influencing the youth, or if, couple of, like, are right. Rich guys have that and are using that to influence the youth in the public? I don’t know if that’s necessarily better. Both of those seem bad.

Well, we already do have a far right influencer controlling Twitter. X. So, so we know what that’s like. Yeah. I I the national security thing though, I it does disturb me about, about the Chinese ownership of TikTok.

They already my understanding is they’ve already used it to elevate, for example, pro Palestinian messaging on their on their site and downplaying Israel’s side of the story. They suppress things about Tiananmen and about, you know, religious liberty in China, things like that. And you can easily imagine that if they, one fine day, decide that they’re gonna invade Taiwan, They would also be blasting out on TikTok all kinds of justifications for it. And some huge percentage of Americans under the age of thirty five get a lot of their news from TikTok So we may have to put up with Elon Musk because he’s an American citizen, but we don’t have to put up with, you know, but with a foreign ownership by a hostile government of of TikTok. That’s the pushback, I would say.

So, okay. Damon Lincoln.

I just can’t resist, before I get to my highlighter low light, putting in my two cents to say that, I think this is a no brainer than the whole TikTok thing. Like on national security grounds, there is absolutely no way. That we should be permitting the Chinese government to have a direct propaganda line into the pockets of a hundred million Americans. I mean, that it is it is it is crazy to to even really tie ourselves in knots about it. I really do think it’s clear and obvious that this cannot.

This can’t be. And I I’ll take a hundred Steve Mnuchin to Steve Mnuchin, ownership of, social media companies over, the Chinese Communist Party, especially as Mona says, if they decide they’re gonna take Taiwan and then, you know, we have them manipulating public opinion within our country that will affect how we respond. It’s, intolerable. That’s my view at least. But I was never much of a libertarian.

So my highlighter low light, I don’t know whether it’s a highlighter low light. I guess I will say it’s a high light because, anytime you, discover beautiful writing that moves you and touches you deep down inside, that’s a highlight, This is an essay that, the author David From, who is probably known to all of our listeners. He’s been on the podcast as a guest many times. Many of us here. I’m not myself so much, but I think many of the people on the podcast consider him a close personal friend.

If you haven’t heard his thirty two year old daughter Miranda died suddenly, unexpectedly in mid February. And, he has now published, an an essay in the Atlantic about it titled Miranda’s Last Gift The gift is an adorable little dog, and you have to read the essay to find out how how and why this dog is the gift. And, the dogs a role in the really just wrenching story. Miranda’s death and how David and his wife Danielle Crittenden have been responding to it and coping with the unspeakable grief of her loss. So Again, for the sake of great writing and, humanistic empathy.

I very strongly recommend this essay. I hope everyone reads it. With a block, a box of tissues nearby.

Thank you, Damon. Yeah, David and Danielle are dear friends of mine, and I watch miranda grow up. And, it’s just been wrenching. So highly recommends the essay Well, it’s in the essay, but just so people understand that she, had a brain tumor five years ago and survived the surgery but there were consequences of removing her pituitary gland that in the end, caused her to succumb to a to an illness. So, really devastating.

Alright. I would like to draw attention to a, pull of, a happiness measure, every year. You know, they publish these studies asking Which country is the happiest? And every year, it’s either Finland or Denmark or one of the Baltic nations and, and this year, again, it was Finland. But what was notable was that the United States has dropped out of the top twenty.

And this fall, was precipitated by the fact that young people in the United States are getting less and less satisfied with their lives. And, it is something that bears paying attention to, I think. I mean, it’s easy to make fun of surveys. And maybe, you know, it’s important not to take any one survey as gospel, but we also have a lot of other evidence that people are feeling more and more lonely that, young people, for example, are spending less time hanging out with their friends. High school students are spending much less time hanging out with their friends than they used to twenty or thirty years ago.

They’re spending a lot more time with, screens, on social media, which is not a good substitute, and in some cases actually makes things much worse. And then I wanna make one other point about young people and mental health. This is a huge subject, but and I don’t mean for this at all to be, you know, dispositive But it is worth mentioning that one thing that keeps coming up when you read about young people and and their worries is climate change. And it’s right and good to be concerned about the climate. It is a huge problem that humanity has to cope with.

But there is a catastrophism that has taken hold among a lot of young people who will tell pollsters that they don’t think they should even get married and start families because their kids will not be able to survive in the overheated world that they think is right around the corner. And, you know, even the most, you know, fervent climate activists recognize that this is an exaggeration of, the danger that is faced. And so it is important to get a little bit more of a reality check on that. You know, it is a huge problem. We’ve solved huge problems in the past, but in any event, it isn’t, it isn’t an exist crisis.

It isn’t the it doesn’t mean that the human race is going to be extinct in thirty years, which apparently is a widespread view and is depressing young people. So I hope that there will be a little bit of a correction on that and that kids will also, you know, get off their screens and start shooting baskets or hanging out more.

You know, I’m glad you brought the happiness survey up because it’s a very credible piece of social science that’s being that’s been going on for quite some times, we can actually see trends. What jumped out out at me about that survey is that the elderly in America rank as tenth in the world on this happiness scale.

Mhmm. Mhmm. Mhmm.

Young adults under the age of thirty are sixty second. Right? And you might think that if you’re old, you’re more likely, your spouse may have died, you know, you’re you you’re supposed to be more isolated and lonely. If you’re young, you’re healthy, the world is spread out before you. The belief’s just the opposite.

We really ought to think about this.

Absolutely. Yeah. Okay. Thanks for that. And, I want to thank our guests Nick Grossman, thank you so much for joining us again.

And I wanna thank our regular panel, as well as our producer Jim Swift and our Sound Engineer Jonathan Last, and then, of course, our wonderful listeners and viewers on YouTube. Bagged to differ will return next week as every week.