The Commentary Magazine Podcast

Today's podcast takes up elite condescension—in advice on how to use words to convince people to be more responsible pandemic citizens and on the credentialism that limits social mobility and privileges the already privileged. Give a listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today's podcast takes up the Supreme Court's ruling on religious shutdowns, the COVID spike that doesn't quite seem as horrendous as the conventional wisdom says, and the crocodile tears being shed over the Iranian nuclear scientist who was assassinated in Tehran. Give a listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today's pre-Thanksgiving podcast concludes with our heartfelt expressions of gratitude for family, friends, co-workers... and our readers and listeners. Before that, we take up new CDC guidance on quarantining and an astonishing thing Barack Obama said about Latino voters. Give a listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

With the news that Donald Trump is allowing the transition to begin, the post-election madness has pretty much come to an end. What will its long-term consequences be, if any? Give a listen. Source Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

With the news that Donald Trump is allowing the transition to begin, the post-election madness has pretty much come to an end. What will its long-term consequences be, if any? Give a listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Our podcast crew wonders at the disintegration of the Trump case and the dissolution of the Trump legal team and asks whether it is comic or tragic and what the fallout will be. And then we take up the incoming Biden foreign policy team and how woke or not-so-woke it will be. Give a listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What, our podcast asks, does it mean when the best thing you can say about the Trump fraud allegations are that the president is crazy and not that he's up to something politically? And what are the consequences going to be for teachers' unions as they attempt to prevent schoolchildren from, you know, learning? Give a listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today's podcast features some out-and-out ranting against the egregious behavior of New York's Andrew Cuomo before we go on to rant about the egregious headline writing in the New York Times and the egregious ideas of some Democratic officials regarding Israel and the Palestinians. Give a listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today's podcast takes up a promising proposal for a home "contagiousness" test that everyone can take, as described by Harvard's Michael Mina in this article in Time. Will empowering the American people in this way work? We disagree on that. And we disagree on the consequences of the continuing dispute about the election results. Give a listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Recent revelations involving Iran’s nuclear program will leave Joe Biden with some hard choices to make about America’s foreign policy toward the region. But Biden will face resistance from his party’s left flank if he is to embrace and navigate the new geopolitical reality in the Middle East. Also, the podcast hosts discuss their articles in the forthcoming post-election issue of COMMENTARY. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

2020 Election Superstar Steve Kornacki joins our podcast today to discuss the fascinating and unprecedented political situation now facing Joe Biden—with what is likely to be a Republican Senate and a teeny-tiny Democratic majority in the House. How can he govern? Also, John complains about Nate Silver. Give a listen. Source Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What is driving the political world’s fixation with the president even as he has largely ceded the spotlight to his rival? Is it Trump’s still menacing but largely banal self-affirmations on Twitter, or is Joe Biden just such an unenthusiastic prospect for the left that they are milking the final weeks of the Trump era for all they are worth? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

So the COVID surge has Andrew Cuomo banning in-home gatherings of groups larger than 10. Can he do this? Can the surge cause new lockdowns that people will follow? And what will the economic consequences be? Give a listen. Source Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

So the COVID surge has Andrew Cuomo banning in-home gatherings of groups larger than 10. Can he do this? Can the surge cause new lockdowns that people will follow? And what will the economic consequences be? Give a listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The podcast today examines how Joe Biden came out and calmly said he'd be president soon and didn't much care what Donald Trump was doing—and three seconds later the political world had a collective nervous breakdown over a weird series of firings and new installations at the Department of Defense. Biden wants to cool things down, but he seems to be the only one. What's going on here? Give a listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today's podcast dives deep into the hypocrisy of those who are decrying the Trump effort to claim voter fraud when they spent four years saying Russians stuffed our ballot boxes and Stacey Abrams won Georgia in 2018 when she lost by 60,000 votes. More hypocrisies abound. We go through them and get pretty riled up. Give a listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The podcast considers how we can turn the page on the Trump presidency now that Biden is president-elect—and how conservative ideas of manliness should both govern the president's behavior going forward and what his most loyal supporters should actually expect of him. Rest assured we do not let Joe Biden off the hook—despite moderate talk during his acceptance speech, he's already kowtowing to his party's left, and we show how. Give a listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The podcast crew talks about how things will function in a brave new world in which Joe Biden will be president—while at the same time the Republican Party lives to fight another day with an unexpected surge below the presidential level. Give a listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The podcast today examines the polling results that show net gains for the GOP in the House and surprising holds in Senate races suggesting the Republicans will maintain their majority next term. At the same time, Donald Trump seems to have lost at least three, and maybe as many as five, of the states he won last time—while issue-less Joe Biden won more votes than anyone ever by a large margin. We unpack the meaning of all this. Give a listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Yes, we Commentary podcasters were up all night, like you, and so we spend some time trying to speak coherently about what happened, what is happening, and why pollsters should be put in a rocketship and fired directly at the sun. Give a listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On the Election Day podcast, when it's all over but the results, we stop the punditry and look back to elections past with our friend Daniel Casse, veteran Republican campaign hand. What happened with Clint Eastwood and the empty chair? How about Chris Christie's entourage? How Bob Dole chose the seating chart on his plane? And lots more. Give a listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The COMMENTARY podcast does something a little different to celebrate Election Day eve. We went back into the archives to reexamine the last podcast ahead of Election Day 2016 and, upon review, there are a lot of eerie similarities between then and now. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A few more hours...that's all the time we've got. (As Alfred Doolittle sings in "My Fair Lady.") So we discuss the final numbers—presidential job approval—that offer a pretty solid sense of where the election might end up. And the weird Senate situation in Georgia. And the paradox of the shy Trump voter. Give a listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today's podcast begins with a huge economic number—33-plus percent growth. And yet we all agree the president is unlikely to get much credit and explain why. Also, why liberals are increasingly moving toward the view that anyone who disagrees with them is evil. Give a listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today's podcast deals with the astonishing media attitude toward the rioting in Philadelphia and the continuing refusal to cover the story being told about Hunter Biden and the Biden family by Tony Bobulinski—a story we don't even really think is on the money, but that should not be ignored. Give a listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today's podcast reels in disbelief at the liberal disingenuousness in claiming the Right has violated norms in relation to Supreme Court nominations when the norm violators are...liberals. And then we tackle the ludicrous lengths to which liberal media bias is working to defend Joe Biden even when he might need no defense. Give a listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Do the Trump campaign’s efforts to appeal to the COVID fatigued voter suggest they know something about the electorate that isn’t showing up in the polling? Or is the president just flailing about in the final days of a losing campaign? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The final debate of the 2020 presidential cycle featured a surprisingly competent Donald Trump and a listless Joe Biden. And that lopsided performance has led Biden’s tacit or overt supporters in the press to approach the subject of Biden’s mendacity gingerly and with trepidation. But that abdication will have profoundly negative consequences if Joe Biden becomes president. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Do the revelations involving Hunter Biden’s emails that purport to implicate his father in efforts to profit off foreign interests matter? The COMMENTARY podcast debates the issue and previews tonight’s final presidential debate. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The suffocating anxiety in liberal circles and the weird complacency in Trumpian circles derives from the same unconscious belief—the belief that Donald Trump possesses supernatural powers that either threaten to or will happily make him unstoppable. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Data from New York City shows without question that schools must be opened. Meanwhile, in Fairfax County, Va., the union is demanding schools remain closed until next September. Something very, very bad is going on here. Give a listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The podcast today takes up the subject of liberal panic that they are being lulled into a false sense of security by the polling suggesting a big Biden win before we discuss the American obsession with conspiracy theories and ask the question: Has it ever been thus? Have we always loved nutso ideas? Give a listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today's podcast takes up the rival Trump-Biden town halls and their overall effect and then tries to come up with a scenario under which the president wins an election almost all the polls say he is on the way to losing. Give a listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today’s podcast dives deep into the behavior of the mainstream media and tech companies in response to a New York Post story about Joe Biden’s son Hunter—about the naked and deliberate way they sought to shut down access to the story and choke the oxygen out of it before it went viral. What conceivable defense can there be for such behavior? And why did they do it? Give a listen. Source Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today's podcast takes up the ludicrous and offensive efforts to brand Amy Coney Barrett a colonizer and a homophobe, even as polls show the American people (and Democrats!) are taking to her. Also, what on earth was Nancy Pelosi doing attacking CNN's Wolf Blitzer for being a...Republican? Give a listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The podcast crew takes up the idea that American liberals have collectively hit upon their closing message for the election: The GOP is the party of the disease. The question, then, is: Will they change their tune and their approach to the virus if their team wins on November 3? Give a listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As the Senate begins the process of hearing the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, the capacity of partisan Democrats to internalize and adopt whole or partial untruths is being tested to its limits. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, the COMMENTARY crew unloads on everyone. Can Joe Biden make it all the way to Election Day without saying whether he supports or opposes his party’s threats to pack the Supreme Court? Will Donald Trump ever answer for his incitements and the atmosphere to which he’s contributed, which has recently culminated in a plot against Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The crew breaks down Wednesday night’s vice-presidential debate and talks a little poetry. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Donald Trump’s decision to announce that he was walking away from the table amid negotiations with Democrats over another tranche of COVID relief sent shockwaves through the markets and the political landscape. Did he have a plan, or, as his subsequent tweets suggest, was this a fit of pique? Also, forecasting the highlights from tonight’s vice-presidential debate. AEI scholar Matthew Continetti joins the show to discuss all this and more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The president’s diagnosis has shattered the unreality of this presidency and reminded Americans of the very real consequences that result from public policy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What has Donald Trump’s COVID diagnosis done to the national political landscape? Will the public respond with sympathy or does the event merely reinforce the belief that the president’s recklessness has contributed to the longevity of this pandemic? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How will Donald Trump’s positive COVID-19 diagnosis reshape the political landscape? No one knows. But we do have some speculative thoughts on how this could play out. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

With the polls seeming to be moving away from the president, it’s time to prepare for the prospect of a Biden presidency and a Democratic Congress. What will that look like? What will Biden do and what won’t he be able to do? And how will Republicans respond to their loss? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The COMMENTARY crew breaks down the unholy spectacle to which we were all privy during Tuesday night’s first presidential debate. Strap in. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The revelations about how little Donald Trump paid in income taxes may be a central issue in tonight’s debate, but that could overshadow other issues that are more beneficial to Joe Biden and his party. What do the candidates need to do to “win” the first presidential debate? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The gang convenes on a Sunday morning for a very special episode of the COMMENTARY podcast, and it’s all about Donald Trump’s nominee for the Supreme Court seat last held by the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Amy Coney Barrett. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Donald Trump’s apparent decision to make people apprehensive about whether he will vacate his office should he lose the election has lent credence to some otherwise insane theories about how the election will play out. Also, the looming threat of a second lockdown and the psychology of COVID malaise. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Does Donald Trump have a plan when he does absurd things like refuse to entertain the prospect of a peaceful transition of power if he was to lose the election? Of course, he doesn’t. But that doesn’t make it any less contemptuous. Also, the indictment of a Kentucky police officer in connection with the death of Breonna Taylor, cosmic injustice, and our culture’s inability to handle moral ambiguity. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What is the Biden campaign’s pathway to victory? The campaign is sending plenty of signals about what demographics it needs to win, but Biden’s party and its preferred preconceptions have become an obstacle in that pursuit. Also, the looming backlash against the cultural dominance of Critical Race Theory. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices