The Commentary Magazine Podcast
1,407 episodes — Page 21 of 29
Is the Biden Administration…Dumb? Hear Us Out.
Today’s podcast takes in the horrible news about America’s shrinking GDP and the Biden administration’s responses to things over the past couple of weeks and asks the question we’ve been circling around for months: What if the top dogs in the White House are… stupid? Give a listen. Source Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
How Biden Blew the January 6th Opportunity
Today’s podcast takes up the new taped revelations about Republican leaders worrying over the role Republican elected officials may have played in the January 6 insurrection—and how they show the kind of chance Joe Biden had to revise the boundaries of American politics and failed to do it. Also on tap: J.D. Vance’s surge in Ohio and what it might portend. Give a listen. Source Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Musk's Big Play
Today’s podcast revels in the anti-Musk tantrums being thrown by establishmentarian liberals and leftists while pointing out that he didn’t just spend $20 billion of his own money on Twitter to promote free speech. What is he up to? And is the fact that Trump’s favored gubernatorial candidate in Georgia cratered in the latest poll a sign that the ex-president is refusing to engage with the issues... Source Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Commentary After Dark
When the sun goes down, the Commentary podcast gets loose. In today’s episode, the hosts convened after dark to talk about what Emmanuel Macron’s victory means for Western populist movements and debate the merits of Ron DeSantis’s shot across woke corporations’ bows. Source Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Biden's Confusion and McCarthy's Mendacity
Today’s podcast asks which is the bigger story: Biden unable to tell the difference between border problems and mask mandates or leading House Republican Kevin McCarthy proved to be a liar when it comes to January 6. Give a listen. Source Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
We Didn't Prepare for This Show!
Today’s podcast is totally raw. We didn’t even discuss what we were going to talk about. And yet talk we did! Give a listen. Source Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Mask Chaos, Saudi Chaos, Disney Chaos
Today’s podcast discusses the nationwide confusion over the meaning of the mask decision, the Biden administration’s mishandling of Saudi Arabia, and Ron de Santis going after Disney. Give a listen. Source Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Throw Those Extra Masks in the Garbage
Adam White, legal guru, joins the podcast today to discuss the stunning decision of a Florida district judge to end the Biden administration’s mask mandate. Were the grounds sufficient? What will the political fallout be? And why is New York City maintaining the mandate with 87 percent of its residents vaccinated? Then we talk about the administration throwing environmentalists under the bus. Source Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Debating Debates, and the Times's Anti-Semitic Barbarity
Today’s podcast discusses the decision of the RNC to pull out of the presidential-debate commission system before we rise in outrage at the disgusting pre-Passover op-ed in the disgraceful New York Times about how Judaism is supposedly a celebration of mass murder. Give a listen. Source Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Minor Annoyances and Major Backlashes
Bloomberg columnist Eli Lake joins the podcast in John Podhoretz’s absence. Today, we discuss the shift from asymmetrical warfare in Ukraine to conventional battles, the perpetual state of Covid emergency, and the many minor irritations imposed on voters by progressive activist politicians that, cumulatively, will produce a major backlash. Source Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Playing Small Ball During a Tsunami
Today’s podcast explores the fact that on this date in 2018, Donald Trump’s approval rating was 42.8 percent—and today Joe Biden’s is 40.6 percent. The Republican Party was battered in the 2018 elections, but Biden and the Democrats are still hopeful they can ward off disaster through “small ball” tactics. We examine them, and the continuing madness of the CDC’s efforts to keep masks on Americans. Source Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The Subway Shooting and What It Means
Matthew Continetti joins the podcast today to talk about the larger meaning of yesterday’s horrific subway shooting—and why the media are unlikely to make hay out of it because the key suspect doesn’t fulfill a liberal narrative. And then we discuss Matt’s seminal article, “Is There A Right Left?,” from the May issue of COMMENTARY. Give a listen. Source Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The Increasing Desperation of the Bidenites
Today’s podcast discusses the gimmicky measures a panicked Biden administration is throwing at the inflation/economic crisis and why on earth they think they’re going to help. And why on earth is Philadelphia reimposing a mask mandate? Do that city’s Democrats want to elect a Republican to the Senate in 2022—because that could be the result? Give a listen. Source Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Fauci Concedes, DeSantis Triumphs, Jeffrey Goldberg Defames
Today’s podcast takes up the latest COVID numbers and how they reveal the end of the pandemic—so much so that even Anthony Fauci is effectively saying so. Then we talk about astounding Ron De Santis fundraising, French politics, and a disgusting assault on student journalists by the editor of the Atlantic. Give a listen. Source Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The Biden Family Business
Today’s podcast takes up the revisionism in the mainstream media when it comes to the chicanery of Hunter Biden and his uncle—and asks what did his father know? And we delve deep into this week’s descent into Obama nostalgia and why such good feelings on the part of Democrats are unwise. Give a listen. Source Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Commentary in Palm Beach!
Today’s podcast is only our second before a live audience. Dan Senor joins us to talk about Israel’s collapsing government and the electoral prospects for the GOP in November. Give a listen. Source Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Loan Me Your Votes
Today’s podcast takes up the Biden administration’s strange decision to use COVID-19 as an excuse to continue a “student loan moratorium”—and we ask what good this will serve and what the political fallout might be. Then we discuss the upcoming elections as a possible binary choice between bad Democratic policy and crazy Republican politicians. Give a listen. Source Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
What Is Elon Musk Up To?
Jim Meigs, our Tech COMMENTARY columnist, joins us today to explore the motivations of Elon Musk in taking the largest single ownership stake in Twitter. Why do people hate him so much? Is it just envy? And then we talk about cyberwar. Give a listen. Source Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
They Can't Believe Ukraine Is Winning
Today’s podcast asks whether establishment opinion is now beginning to turn slightly against Zelensky on the grounds that he really needs to have a path to surrender—even though Ukraine is winning. Also, why is the tradcon right celebrating the victory of a Hungarian politician who sides with Putin? And why is Disney diving headfirst into the culture wars? Give a listen. Source Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Cheaters, Cheaters Everywhere
Today’s podcast takes up the failure of gerrymanders in both Democratic and Republican states, and why both parties are so committed to egregious efforts to tilt legislative maps in their own favor—notwithstanding the real possibility that they will be embarrassed and shot down when they do so. Then we talk about the latest research into the lab-leak hypothesis and the continuing cultural battles... Source Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Crisis Management, One Stunt at a Time
Bloomberg columnist and host of the upcoming podcast, “The Reeducation,” Eli Lake joins the show today in John’s absence. We talk about the news from the front in Ukraine, Joe Biden’s releases from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, and the Democrats in genuine disarray. Source Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The Liberal Economic Panic
Yuval Levin joins today’s podcast, a very special episode in which we delve deeply into a revelatory conversation between the New York Times’s Ezra Klein and leading liberal economist Larry Summers—in which Klein reveals his horrified discomfort at the fact that many of the policies he thought were going to save America are instead driving us into an economic ditch. Give a listen. Source Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Why Are We So Fascinated by the Slap?
Today’s podcast wonders at the fact that 36 hours after Will Smith slapped Chris Rock, the world is still obsessed with the story; could it be that we are precisely because it’s frivolous? And why is Joe Biden claiming not to have said what he said about Putin and Russia—and why did he say what he said in the first place? And what about the budget? And John Eastman? And COVID? Give a listen. Source Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
When There's a Will, There's a Slap
Matt Continetti joins the podcast to discuss the Oscar slap and what larger meaning it might have, before we discuss what larger meaning Joe Biden improvising a regime-change policy for Russia might have, and what meaning we should assign the texts by Clarence Thomas’s wife. Give a listen. Source Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
There Will Be a Reckoning
Covid may not be at the forefront of most voters’ minds anymore, but has the frustration with the mitigation measures imposed on the country faded? Or will there be a reckoning in November? Also, Joe Biden’s evolving nuclear weapons policy. Source Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
How Dare You Ask Ketanji Brown Jackson Any Questions!
Today’s podcast expresses aghastness at the very idea that this week’s Supreme Court confirmation hearings were somehow more unfair than the ones in 2018 involving Brett Kavanaugh. And we worry over Ukraine. And see shoots of hope in New York City. Give a listen. Source Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Servants of the People
The podcast today takes up the fascinating fact that Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson said she was not a biologist and therefore could not define what it meant to be a woman. What does this self-evidently disingenuous demurral tell us about the state of play inside the progressive-liberal-Democratic coalition? And what does watching Volodymir Zelenskyy’s TV show Servant of the People on... Source Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Believing the Bad Guys
Matthew Continetti joins the podcast to discuss his COMMENTARY column, “Believe Them.” We also talk about Ketanji Brown Jackson’s first day of confirmation hearings and Eliot A. Cohen’s optimistic salvo against pessimism, Give a listen. Source Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Whose Ox Is Gored?
Did Volodymyr Zelensky commit a tactical error in his address to the Israeli Knesset? Has Russia’s advance in Ukraine stalled out? And will Republicans overreach, as so many observers appear to hope they will, during Ketanji Brown Jackson’s Supreme Court confirmation hearings? Source Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Laptop Claptrap and Swimming While Male
Today’s incendiary podcast goes after the mainstream media’s (and social media’s) disgraceful handling of the Hunter Biden laptop story before moving on to an unexpected New York Times editorial attacking “cancel culture” and the question of transgender swimmer Lia Thomas. Give a listen. Source Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The Russian Decimation—and the Vindication of Neoconservatism
Today’s podcast discusses the astounding death and casualty estimates relating to the Russians in Ukraine and what they portend. Then we talk about my article in the April issue of COMMENTARY called “Neoconservatism: A Vindication.” Give a listen. Source Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
‘Glory to Ukraine'
Today’s podcast features an insta-reaction to Wlodymir Zelinskyy’s speech to Congress and what effect it will have on the already overwhelming American support for more involvement in the effort to turn back Russia’s evil. Give a listen. Source Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Who Is Bracing for Covid’s Return?
The news of a “stealth variant” emerging in Asia has news media on edge, but are they the only constituency left in America who is still bracing for renewed Covid restrictions? James B. Meigs joins the podcast to discuss this and more. Source Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The New World Under Assault from the Old
Iran’s missile attack on U.S. positions in Iraq only highlights a problem the West has been reckoning with since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine; that is the seeming impotence of diplomatic and institutional conventions when they are confronted by bad actors willing to destroy them. Also, the return of Covid in East Asia and its ripple effects in the West. Source Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
What to Do Now That The World Has Changed
Newly minted COMMENTARY contributing editor Eli Lake joins the podcast to discuss his blockbuster article, “The World Has Changed and We Must Change Along With It.” What must America do now not only in relation to Russia but in relation to China as well? And we have some fiery arguments! Give a listen. Source Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Casually Pondering the Unthinkable
The Biden administration’s response to the crisis in Europe goes wobbly. Between the administration trying to demonize fossil fuel producers even as they demand more production and their warnings that Russia may use chemical weapons in Ukraine without suggesting a way to deter such an unthinkable attack, can the public’s confidence in the White House’s competency survive? Source Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Is the January 6 Committee Blowing It?
The January 6 committee’s signal that it’s going to try to criminalize the very notion that the 2020 election was stolen suggests a temptation toward overreach. Will the committee’s members squander public goodwill? Also, an update on the war in Ukraine and thoughts on Cormac McCarthy’s life and work. Source Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Does Saving Europe Require Sacrificing the Middle East?
The Foundation for the Defense of Democracy’s Jonathan Schanzer joins the podcast to discuss the state of play in Ukraine and the West’s headlong rush into a new nuclear deal with Iran. Does isolating Russia have to come at the expense of efforts to isolate Iran? Source Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
I Believe I Can No-Fly
The podcast crew gets into it today over whether the American people are going to demand and force their politicians to impose a no-fly zone over Ukraine and whether that would spell disaster. And we discuss the Republican party’s move toward a more familiar kind of hawkishness. Give a listen. Source Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Doing the Enemy’s Work for Them
All expectations are that the Russian advance in Ukraine will only grow more brutal in the coming days and weeks. Will the West’s resolve to avoid direct engagement in the conflict weaken if we are witness to those atrocities? Also, has the January 6 Committee overstepped its bounds in a way that will only strengthen Trump? Source Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Is It OK to Compare Zelenskyy to Churchill?
Andrew Roberts, the foremost Churchill biographer, joins the podcast today to discuss Ukraine and grants his imprimatur to analogies suggesting Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky is a present-day Winston. We also discuss the military strategy or lack thereof of the Russians and the surprising nature of the West’s response. Give a listen. Source Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The State of Biden's Union Is Lousy
Matt Continetti joins the podcast today to do a post-mortem on Joe Biden’s SOTU—featuring an Abe Greenwald rant about how cheap the speech was that you simply gotta hear. As you have to hear the rest of it. Give a listen. Source Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Preparing For the Worst
With the Russians changing tactics and advancing relentlessly on population centers in Ukraine, the podcast crew wonders how the West will react when the horror begins to escalate. And why can’t the media accept the good news about COVID? And what can Biden do to make his State of the Union address a success? Give a listen. Source Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Should We Be Triumphant or Terrified?
By all accounts, Russia’s war in Ukraine is going badly for Moscow. Vladimir Putin is now confronted with a geopolitical environment that is wholly arrayed against Western interests. That’s good for civilization, but Putin may feel he has no choice but to engage in a standoff with the West in response. Source Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The Fog of War
Today’s podcast takes up the early moments of the Ukraine war and whether things are going well or badly for Russia. We also talk about Biden’s speech, the lifting of COVID restrictions by the CDC, and the new Supreme Court nominee. Give a listen. Source Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
It Begins
Matthew Continetti joins the podcast to discuss the outbreak of the Russian war on Ukraine and what the next steps might be—and what it all portends for the future of American politics and the Right. Give a listen. Source Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
You'll Miss Pax Americana Now That It's Gone
Bret Stephens joins the podcast today to discuss the latest on Ukraine and Biden, and later, we finally take on the “nat-cons.” Give a listen. Source Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The Dawn of a Darker Era
After weeks of waiting, Russia is making its move on Ukraine. Will the Western response meet the measure of the moment? Bloomberg columnist Eli Lake joins the podcast to discuss this and a report alleging that the CDC is withholding relevant Covid data because they’re afraid of what you might do with that information. Source Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Invasion Weekend?
The COMMENTARY podcast welcomes tech columnist James B. Meigs back to the show as Russian troops converge on Ukraine ahead of what looks like a pivotal weekend. Will Russia invade, or will it allow the exercises that have served as a pretext for mobilization to end quietly? Also, the return of “herd immunity” as a Covid off-ramp and Jim’s astute article in the March issue on “Good NASA vs Bad NASA. Source Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The Double Standard, Again and Again
So we’re supposed to be concerned about Donald Trump and his accountants but we’re supposed to dismiss special prosecutor John Durham and his findings—this, anyway, is what the mainstream media are telling us. The podcast takes up this gaslighting as well as the gaslighting by the CDC when it comes to masking. Give a listen. Source Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices