Episode 889: Mamdani-Flavored Patriotism

The other grand platinum shoe drops and Zoramom Domney's version of patriotism will discuss all of us more. On this edition of the editors, I'm Dr. Slarine. I'm joined, as always, by the right Honorable Charles C.W. Cook, the good neighbor, Noah Rothman, and The Sage of Authenticity Woods, Jim Garrity. You are, of course, listening to a National Year podcast or sponsors this episode are Donors Trust, Maiden and Vare. More about all of them in due course. For some reason, you're not already following us on a streaming service, by the way. You can find us everywhere from Spotify to Apple Podcasts.

If you like what you hear here, please consider giving us a glowing five-star review, wherever you listen to your podcast. If you don't like what you hear here, please forget. I said anything. So Jim Garrity, to the shock of pretty much no one, There's another shoe in the Graham Platner story once this became about women and his abusive relationships with girlfriends. One, there are a lot of rumors where stuff was going to come out. And two, it kind of makes sense a guy who's sexting on his wife, etc. That there's more where that came from.

And sure enough, we have a horrifying story from a former girlfriend who says Graham Platner showed up at her house. drunk, the door was unlocked, he was interested in having sex, she did not in any terms want to have sex, made this clear to him repeatedly, and he raped her. He said now he's considering his reconsidering his race or thinking about where it is, but this allegation is categorically untrue. Now this was dates from a couple of years ago. There's, you know, it's a, he said, she said on a certain level, although there's corroborating evidence, and certainly fits, you're not shocked by this kind of allegation against Graham Platner. What do you make of it? So, Rich, all four of us on this podcast have been doing this for a long time, right? We've seen some strange things in our careers,

rather gate. You could probably argue the entire Trump era. People insisting that, oh, Chinese lab technicians are too careful to ever make a mistake that could lead to a leap. stuff like that. Biden going senile in the Oval Office and everybody trying to deny it. But the entire saga of Graham Platner is genuinely one of the weirdest things I think I've ever seen. The term gaslighting gets thrown around a lot. But like, he's just this guy who showed up. And right out of the gate, he gets coverage from the New York Times, right? He's the harbor master of Dan Sullivan, Maine. Less than 2,000 people live there. Right. But I write out of the year, New York Times writes this big profile on him and how he could be a serious challenger to Susan Collins, who oh, by the way, is chair of this Appropriations Committee, right? And then the New Yorker, about a month later, does this huge profile on him. And then about a month later, Bon Appetit magazine does a pro, like all of a sudden there's this enormous effort to tell you, this is the best guy ever. And then just the slightest bit of investigation into this guy. Oh my God, he said it'll cut to crazy stuff. And then we found out about the Nazi tattoo. And his story is that, well,

You know, I was drunk and I was in the Balkans. And yeah, I just happened, totally coincidentally, just happened to get the symbol of the SS. And I put it over my heart. And I'm a military history buff. But I've never noticed for 18 years that this is the symbol that's, you know, in every SS picture I've ever seen in every Indiana Jay Jones movie, the Are We the Batty's sketch, the whole time.

But I would point out, Graham Platner as a guy who was, let's say, at minimum, neo-Nazi curious. in his younger years. And pretending that he never, he has no idea how this happened to him. That's kind of funny, right? Somebody who, you know, was a Nazi and is trying to, you know, fool people

into believing he was never a Nazi. There's something kind of absurd and funny about that. Graham Platner, the guy who physically assaulted and sexually assaulted his ex-girlfriends, there's nothing funny about that at all. And as somebody who has enjoyed making a lot of Nazi jokes about Graham Platner, like this story took a truly disturbing turn.

But the weird thing is is that every step of the way, You could just see evidence piling up that this guy was a creep. This guy was seriously messed up. And the weird thing is he's not some state senator. He has no long history in the state's politics. A whole bunch of Democrats, not just in the state of Maine, but nationwide, looked at this guy.

And each subsequent scandal, they became even more dug in. This is our guy. This makes him relatable. He's a normal. No, there's nothing normal about this guy. And so finally, what happened yesterday was the straw that broke the camel's back. But what's really bizarre is that what we heard from this most recent accuser, it's not all that different from what we were hearing from Lindsay Fifeield.

One's describing a violent guy who is physically assaulting. The other's describing a violent guy who is sexually assaulted. And a guy who has described having a drinking problem and getting blackout drunk saying, I am absolutely certain I never did any of these things. No, I don't believe you. The entire time, Graham Platner has had one person, it's been saying, everyone around me is lying. My former politics manager who quit my campaign,

who says I said I had a problematic tattoo months ago, she's lying. My ex-girlfriends are lying. Everybody's lying except me. Oh, by the way, here are my kick pictures. And oh, by the way, in the kick picture, he just happens to cover up the kick, by the way, is the social media app full of teenagers.

But he says nobody he ever interacted with was underage. How does he know? The whole point of the campaign was to say, oh, he's got this beautiful redemption story. He's a changed man. How do we know? How are we supposed to you? How does anybody do that? So that's what you had the likes of Michelle Goldberg in the New York Times writing this morning.

Oh, I'm sorry, I totally botched this. Or John Favreau telling his people back in April. You know, Graham Platner is a good, decent man who has struggled and grown and is always trying to do better. How the hell does he know? Democrat lined up to say, this is a good man and you can trust him and you should not believe these accusations. And then all of a sudden this morning, oh, well, never mind. I was totally wrong about that. He actually is that bad. So I've, as you get, I have been impassioned about this story from the beginning because I kind of, from the first time, I'm like, yeah, he didn't get that tattoo by coincidence. This guy was at least interested.

But if you go back to the first interview, he acts like he can't believe everybody's making a big deal out of this. Again, as I said to you guys, if you ended up finding out that you have a Nazi tattoo on you, how many traffic laws would you break getting to someplace to take it off? Or would you just grab a steak knife and try to cut it off your skin immediately? I'm just, I'm beat. This is one of the weirdest, most bizarre and infuriating stories I think I've ever covered. So, no, they so did it to themselves, right? Now, Jim is right about the favorable media coverage, and we should talk about how the New York Times handled this story.

But he wasn't just a media creation. main Democrats fell in love with this guy. They fell in love with this guy. And to a significant extent that created the predicate for all the other, all the excuse-making for him, right? Because if he had been a distant second to Janet Mills, no one who had to say, oh, he's a good and decent guy who's reformed. They said it because they thought he was their best and only shot to beat Susan

Susan Collins. But it's always clear this guy's a liar, a terrible guy, someone you wouldn't want to know in your personal life at all. And everyone knew or suspected there was going to be more once the initial New York Times story broke about his abusive relationships with these ex-girlfriends. You had meetings with Senate Democrats where they're asking, is there anything else? He'd have town hall meetings where people would ask him Democrats. Is there anything else? And clearly there was going to be something else, but they nominated him anyway.

Yeah, you had described at the outset of the segment, Rich, that another shoe had dropped. And I would say that another shoe didn't drop. it's the same shoe in the New York Times story from early June, I believe June 4. She's quoted by name, this accuser. The headline of that story was that some women detail quote unquote unsettling behavior with women from Graham Platner. The woman who said that her experience was unsettling was this accuser. But it wasn't, she didn't elaborate on that experience. She merely described something that was so traumatic.

that she couldn't bear to relive it. Now, to me, that sounds like something you should take very seriously. But the Democratic political class and the progressive activist class regarded it as something they could summarily dismiss because it was not explicated. Sheldon Whitehouse said he was unimpressed with the charges against Graham Platner, but specifically because the Times story maintained that Lindsay Fiffield was the only person who was going to go on record with details. And they spent quite a few paragraphs in that story describing the extent to which she was affiliated with conservative politics, that she was a political activist on the right, and that they couldn't corroborate some of her claims poking holes deliberately in the story in order to give Democrats permission, really unwarranted permission and ill-advised permission, to dismiss it. As I said, Sheldon White House, a whole lot of nothing, he said of these charges. Ro Khanna said, you know, there's no evidence of violence, even though Lindsay Fethfield described

violence, said she was manhandled, that marks were left on her, that she was locked in a closet. That seems rather physical to me. And Senator Mark Warner said, you know, this is all the Trump stuff. We don't have to worry about this anymore because, quote unquote, Trump said a new standard. Whether that low standard is what we ought to proceed with is going to be, again, in the hands of the voters, according to Mark Warner. just subordinating all their judgment to the progressive activist class and the voters who are listening to them. In Maine, Jenny Rassikot, I believe is how you pronounce her name, is Graham Platner's second accuser.

I don't think she would have come forward had the times played this straight and had the Democratic Party observed the standards that it set for itself in the Me Too era because she said she felt compelled to go public because the reaction to this story struck her as egregiously partisan. She said my part of the story was read over, and the story was Lindsay and the accusation of her being politically motivated, and she couldn't stand for it. So she came out and described a very graphic experience that constitutes, by any estimation, rape. And the reason why she's being believed is because she agonized over the extent to which she would observe either her moral commitments or her political commitments. Because she's a leftist. One of the reasons I didn't come forward sooner, she says. the huge moral conflict that I had between supporting his politics but not supporting him as a person. So what we have here is a standard in which Democrats are willing to believe women as long as they have the right politics or as long as they're sacrificing their political interests in order to expose abusers.

Look, they may kick Graham Platner out of this race, but I don't think that the damage that has been done to the Democratic brand will dissipate with his candidacy. they dug a lot of holes for themselves. Not only did they demonstrate that they don't believe all women, they believe women with progressive politics, but they also spent a lot of time smearing veterans over this guy, Ro Khanna in particular, but others were saying, listen, this is what you get when somebody comes back from war. They have PTSD.

They're going to rape you, as though this is common among veterans. They smeared working class people who are, this is what you get if you want to appeal to Americans who have dirt under their fingernails. They're going to be raped. rapists. They're going to have thinking stereotypes about black people. They're going to say that women deserve it when they're sexually assaulted. They're going to be cretons. That's what the

Democratic left thinks of these people to whom they're attempting to appeal politically. I don't see how that disappears with Graham Platner off the ballot. I don't think they should be able to walk away from this and pretend as though it never happened. They've dug a hole for themselves that it's going to be difficult for them to dig out of. Yeah, Charlie, on the original New York Times story, they hooked on to Feefield, is that how you say her name, Fifeield, being a Republican, as if this whole thing was a Republican op when it was clear that that was not what this was about. It was just, but it gave them something to say. And apparently the second accuser here had talked to the New York Times and told them

about this assault off the record, but didn't want to go on the record about it. And you would think, you know, we can't know what the New York Times journalists were doing, but you think you would have been absolutely desperate to get her. on the record. And they didn't. And they allowed this story to be manipulated by Democrats and made into a Republican op. And then Politico and CNN got the second accuser to talk. Yes.

I think it's quite difficult to ascribe electoral motives to the New York Times' perfidy in the way that the Times handled that piece. disgraceful though it was, probably helped keep Graham Platner in the race and put the Democrats in a more difficult position than they may otherwise have been in. If, for example, this story had been included in full, whether or not the accuser was willing to do that, I don't know. but if this had been included in full, it seems much more likely that Graham Platner would have been mortally wounded and there would have been more time to replace him.

So although I've seen some people say, well, you see this was deliberate by the times, I'm not quite sure that their actions redounded to the benefit of the Democrats. What I do think is more likely is that they were nervous of being listed by progressives and democratic socialists among the shadowy enemies who are supposedly trying to bring down Graham Platner. The argument being that the moment somebody like him pops up, then the powers that B intervene,

which is, of course, incredibly stupid and untrue. As Jim points out, I'm not entirely sure Graham Platner did pop up so much as that he was picked. But irrespective, this is not what we are to expect of military veterans or working class people, and it's not the case that anyone who shares Graham Platner's politics is summarily killed by elites. He is incredibly flawed. And I must confess to having been baffled right from. the start at the idea that the US Senate is a place where those who have done bad things

should be sent to recuperate, which is an argument that's been made implicitly and explicitly, still being made. I saw Donne in Brazil saying that Graham Platner should drop out. He needs time to heal. He does. Why is this about him? So the times not only downplayed, Lindsay Fyfield's accusations because she's a Republican, but I think did not want to be seen as being the mechanism that forced Plattena out because a lot of the people at the New York Times still weekly get accused of having destroyed Hillary Clinton's campaign by reporting on her server back in 2016. The problem here, though, is platinum.

And I am just completely astonished at how many have sacrificed their integrity and their reputations for him. Why? Why him? He's not impressive. He's not somebody who organically led or fostered a moment. movement, the election, this wouldn't justify indulgence of a rapist, of course, but the election at the point at which Graham Platner became the toast of the left was a year away. Why do the Pod Save America bros feel the need to say he's a good man?

Why did it take a woman sitting right in front of Jake Tapper and being asked, was this a rape? And saying, yes, to kick him out. I'm just baffled. I don't understand in the sense that I would endorse this or behave like this myself. But I can see the political imperatives that informed the defenses of Bill Clinton. Clinton in 1997. You have someone there who is the first Democrat to win a second term in decades. Somebody who is the only figure in Washington, D.C., who is a counterbalance against a prevailing

conservative ideology and Republican majorities in both houses. I don't think that Clinton should have stayed, but I get why people lined up behind him. The same is true of Trump. As a presidential candidate, the stakes are higher. And also, Trump, to my displeasure, has been successful in creating a following. But Graham Platner didn't. So all of this was for nothing. Well, they thought, Charlie, right?

This is a Senate seat. They have an authoritarian in the White House. They need to stop them. They need to take the Senate. And he's a vehicle for taking the Senate. No, no, but that is the argument that can be made once he's the nominee. I see this with Trump too. There's this instant flitting.

You've done it twice now. So during the primaries, you say, I don't think Trump should be the nominee. And Trump's fans say, you're a rhino, you're a cut, get out of the way, it's our party now, you're the dead consensus. Then Trump wins the nomination, and they switch to, well, we have to be. Hillary, or we have to be Kamala Harris. It's a binary choice. Okay, but it wasn't a binary choice when you called me names for preferring a different candidate. And the thing with Graham Platner is that Platna had many, many alternatives. So yeah, now, it's providing he stays in, now you could plausibly say, we need the seat. We can't have the Republicans in the majority

and all of that. But why long before the primary had even been held. Why did people go to the mats for him? Yeah, well, I think it's because he was leading in the polls almost instantly. But that was contrived, right? I mean, I don't, I think Jim is implying this. I think Jim's written about this. I think they fell in love with it. It's like the same way Trump's power at the end of the day, it's all about Republican voters. You know, that there's a element of media supports them, et cetera, et cetera, all this important. But if Republican voters fell out of love with him tomorrow, his power would be gone. I know, but Maine Democrats didn't know who Graham Platner was until Graham Platner was created

as a thing. Why did that happen? Like, at what, this is the part that I just simply don't understand. Trump came along of his own volition. Whatever you think of Trump, and I'm not a Trump guy, but Trump was not an op. Trump has been talking about becoming president for 30 years, and then he ran and through a combination of his charisma, which is real and dissatisfaction with the Republican Party, which is in part real and part nonsense, he occupied the position that he now holds. The Platna thing is bizarre. They chose him for some reason. And then they declined to vet him and they pushed back against any criticism or any argument that he was unfit right from the start. long before he was leading in the polls.

And I don't know how he was picked. It's like that arrested development thing where he's like, really? I don't think this is crazy. I think they need Democrats who do look and sound different than the average Democrats. They just shouldn't be sociopathic, violent losers like this guy. Well, maybe. It was a little bit like the, you know, all the sympathetic coverage of John Fetterman way back

before he made his turn after he got elected. It's like, here's a bit of a chicken and egg problem there. Isn't there rich? It's a bit of a chicken and egg problem there. Isn't they rich? The Democratic Party is sapping support, just shedding support from actual working class voters. So what do they got except fabricated vaccines? Yeah, and they're desperate for some way to get them back.

So Jim Garrity, X a question to you. Ro Khanna was mentioned. Where does Ro Khanna rank in your list of, the worst national Democrats in the country. Rising fast. A lot of competition,

but one of the guys, look, he has tried to position himself as the Democrat who understands Silicon Valley and the Democrat who wants to regulate Silicon Valley. He's also tried to turn himself as the voice of the progressives in the House. People pointed out, it's not just that every time an accusation came out

about Graham Platner. It's not just that he would say, oh, I totally, you know, I believe Graham Platner's denials. He went out to Maine to campaign for him. And I think that's what remains so bizarre about this that Charlie and Noah kind of talked about. Like, there are a lot of Democrats running for Senate this year, right?

For some reason, they fell in love with this guy. They felt so emotionally invested in this guy. And to me, it's inseparable from the Nazi tattoo. Right? And to them, it was almost like, here's this test of party loyalty. Here's this test of how far are you willing to go to try to win so you can stop that dastardly right-wing menace, Susan Collins.

And they all went in on it. I think it's some bizarre way, particularly when the whole Democratic Party is consumed by anti-Israel sentiment that sounds awfully anti-Semitic sometimes, that in some level, the Nazi tattoo was just like, oh, you think you hate Jews? Listen to this guy, right? He's got it real right there.

By the way, I'm fascinated by the number of people who are insisting. So I point out that he, you know, by the way, if he'd gotten this tattoo on his ankle or on his wrist, it still be bad. But I've always felt like there's something very symbolic about putting it over your heart. And I've just had somebody tell me, Jim, it's not really over his heart. It's two inches up and to the left. That's kind of defense as we're getting from Grand Placer. Clearly, the fact that the Nazi tattoo wasn't a deal breaker is related in some way to the parties. new fervent anti-Zionism and the new way the left views Jews rather than oppressed minorities

as oppressive settler colonialist. No, Rothman, Ro Khanna. Where's your rank? I like Jim's formulation up there and rising fast. What he exemplifies to me is a progressive tendency that excuses, justifies, rationalizes a way doing harm to others in the name. of helping humanity broadly. So he can re-victimize rape survivors. He can slander veterans. He can undermine the entire theory of justice in the United States by revealing the FBI's Epstein files,

tarring people who were never charged or even investigated with association with this guy. None of it matters, because he's going to help so many people with his progressive policies. It is a rationalization to which a lot of progressive voters commit themselves, and it is deeply flawed, morally vacuous and something that I find quite offensive. Charlie?

Well, I loathe the man, and it's the combination of two things that I disdain in our politics. The first is the belief that he has a right to the efforts of others. He talks so casually about taking others' wealth. He seems to believe somehow that the wealth is inevitably created. It wasn't the product of individual choices or decisions, but that it's just there. And that he, Ro Khanna, has been tasked with deciding how much of it to confiscate. He talks in exasperation to figure such as Elon Musk and says,

just give me 5% of your wealth. Oh, really? Just 5%. That's what? $50 billion. Just give me $50 billion. And the second element that I disdain is that he does this while being extremely wealthy himself. He talks, I think, out of guilt about a class to which he belongs. But unlike those whom he wishes to pillage, he didn't make the money. He didn't have to do any of the things. that they did. And I'm afraid that that combination reminds me far too much of England and far too

much of Europe. And I think explains why the countries of Europe are sclerotic. So I think he is a disaster. If you add in the rest, the rote progressivism, the hostility toward Israel and so forth, he's, yes, rising in my disdain. There's at some point I found him a little bit. interesting. I forget what it was. There's something he said that was pro-free speech for a Democrat that was kind of pressed by a couple years ago. But on top of everything that everyone else has said, just the Epstein stuff, the championing the idiotic release of these files and the conspiracy theorizing and the talk of the Epstein class, I find it all revolting. So with that, let's go to our first sponsor this episode, Donors Trust, 250 years ago, our founding fathers pledged their lives,

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And certainly it does violate the spirit of elements of the MOU, you know, like safe passage in the Strait of Hormuz. But the fact is the MOU does not say there shall be freedom of navigation in the straight. All of it is couched in terms of Iran delivering navigation in the strait. So they're interpreting the thing as them having control of the straight. And obviously they want to affect that and think they have the Trump administration on its back heels and can work their will here. Yeah, I don't know. Even a really lawyerly reading of the MOU probably would struggle to establish the legitimacy of firing on commercial shipping. I mean, this is a fast developing story. As far as we know right now, just a little bit before noon on Tuesday, July 7, as many as four ships, commercial ships, three confirmed, have been struck by objects. likely fired by Iran. It's not entirely established, but you know, where they're coming from

either Iranian directly or Iran cats' paws in places like Iraq, which were shooting on commercial shipping as well. But most likely from Iran, most likely from the IRGC. And some of this is pretty significant. As of 8 a.m., one of these liquid natural gas tankers that was hit, struggling with an engine fire that it couldn't put out. And the tanker itself is at risk of exploding. oil prices are inching back up on these attacks, which is also in keeping with what Iran wants. Look, what Iran wants is to test its parameters of action as much as it possibly can, and it will continue these attacks in order to expand the scope of its freedom of action. But it doesn't want the MOU to collapse because it wants to be able to export its oil.

It wants to be able to trade on the open market as it is now, which the MOU does allow. So it's going to calibrate its actions. But if it calibrates its actions like these and continues to get away with it, we run the risk of a real serious miscalculation on Iran's part. Eventually, if they kill someone, the president may have to take action whether he wants to or not, and he most certainly does not want to. I don't know why he thinks that he's going to get a clean, quiet, midterm election out of the Iranians. he won't. They are going to do this consistently. They're going to do this with increasing frequency and increasing brazenness. And they're going to, you know, test the president's resolve. And the president has demonstrated no resolve. So they're going to keep testing until they find it.

The prospect that I really fear is that the IRGC ends up blowing up a ship, killing a lot of civilians, maybe even firing on an American ship and successfully impacting it, killing American. soldiers, but they're going to keep shooting. That much is clear. The basic thing, they want shipping to come through the channel near Iranian waters rather than over in Amman's waters, right, where they have more control of it and they can, they can toll. So that's what they're out.

Though they will toll eventually. Yeah, they haven't imposed this tolling regime, but they're technically allowed to after the 60 days elapse. I mean, you could probably interpret it if you extend it than the 60 day should pertain and they shouldn't have tolls, they're going to impose tolls. And yeah, they're firing on ships that take this Omani route. And again, we have some unconfirmed reports that American naval assets are in theater escorting ships out.

So we're in the line of fire here, whether we acknowledge it or not. And I think it's probably obvious that we have significant naval assets in this part of the world. And the Iranians are going to keep shooting. And when you're shooting, you can hit something. And it's axiomatic that we're in the line of fire. and if we experience a death as a result of this, it's not just a disaster for American strategy.

It already is a compounding disaster. It's a profound humiliation for this president. And he can't undo that humiliation by just going back to war now. By the way, every day that it passes that he doesn't go back to war, it gets measurably more difficult to achieve our tactical objectives. But if he were to go back to war after these conditions, he wouldn't look like a strong man imposing his will on the region, He looked like he's responding to events buffeted by them, haphazardly, definitely not in command of his own destiny.

I don't know how he recovers his standing here after this humiliating display. Yeah, so Charlie, it's basically the same as it's always been since the original ceasefire, which had, you know, the Iranians were supposed to agree that they could look at it in very loyally manner, maybe say they didn't within the four corners of the agreement, but we were going to stop shooting and they're going to open the straight-of-form moves. they never really opened the Strait of Hormuz. And then we have this formal MOU that suggests at least implies the same thing, and they're still shooting at shipping in the Strait of Hormuz.

Now, I have said many times on this podcast that Trump, we either don't have the ability or Trump doesn't have the willingness to, don't have the ability on any reasonable terms to reopen the Strait, or Trump doesn't have the appetite for it. But we had a story in the Wall Street Journal a couple days ago. He really wanted to do this several weeks ago. And the Saudis said, no, we don't want you to because we don't want to be in the line of fire because this was, we started operation. It's called Freedom Something. I forget. No, what was our brief operation to reopen the straight? Is Operation Freedom something or other? I think it was just Project Freedom or something like that. And they fire the Iranians at Gulf States. And Trump said, oh, that's no big deal. And the Gulf States is like, what? We didn't sign up for this to get attacked with the U.S. not having our back. So you know what? You can't use our bases, which apparently makes it would.

realistically really difficult to do, but the upshot is, no use the word humiliation a lot. I mean, this is a national humiliation to have this really important international waterway that was open at the beginning of the war, and now it's still a combat zone several months in. Yeah, I think that's right. I think it underscores that this was a mistake because we weren't willing to go through with it to the extent that is. necessary, and we're still not. And all of the variables that you've described may be true, but they're ultimately excuses. Clearly, if Trump felt it necessary to declare that the Iranians had violated the MOU and that the United States was going to forcibly open the strait,

he could do that. Well, only could he do that because there's no real enforcement mechanism to stop him, but it's true. The fact that the Saudis and maybe others in the Middle East would not be happy with it may present some logistical challenges, but they're not exhaustive logistical challenges, not in the age of aircraft carriers. Trump doesn't want to. Now, he might be right in his calculation if he is thinking, politically. He might have concluded that the cost of this would be higher than the American

public wishes to bear, and that he's better off with a national embarrassment and a slightly higher set of gas prices than he would be with a restoration of hostilities. But that is a choice that is not imposed upon him in absolute terms from the outside. The American military and those who run it failed here. They either failed to anticipate that the Iranians would do this to the Strait of Hormuz, or they were too rosy in their estimations as to how long they could keep it up, or how difficult it would be for us to address. I don't believe, I've never believed,

this was all baked into the plans. And if it was all baked into the plans, then the plans weren't very good. So I'll say what I've said over and over again, which is that this is all caused by the original sin, which is a total lack of debate and public communication. You need open debate on complex matters precisely because you have various voices making various observations. You don't get that with one person, especially when that one person is ultimately in charge

of his branch, which he should be, and is surrounded by yes, men, which he shouldn't be. So I was open, open to the idea. This was good action. I was not reflexively hostile to the plan, but this has been a failure. And I find it difficult to countenance how it could be seen any other way. So, Jim, I've been paying a lot of attention to gas prices lately, at least my part of the world. A lot of them now, it's a lot of stations, it's below $4 a gallon, and that was the effect that Trump was going for and this MOU. And you can say, well, we should, that he shouldn't be so sensitive to that.

But the fact is, and this is following on to Charlie's point, the same way the Saudis didn't sign up for getting shot at with Trump not having their back. Most Americans did not sign up for $4 a gallon or $5 a gallon might have gone higher this. the summer as reserves were depleted gas for this war. They never signed up for this war. No one ever made the case to them for this war, really. Certainly President Trump didn't in a sustained way. It was not high on their priority list. So it started out an unpopular conflict and is ended, at least if you can say it's ended, an unpopular conflict.

Yeah. This is, by the way, why you traditionally, if the U.S. was going to go to war, you would make a presentation to Congress. to ask Congress for an authorization of military force. I think that, you know, like Congress saying, no, do not attack the Iranian regime. I don't think that was particularly likely. You know, sometimes the United States makes a presentation to the United Nations. Iran had just slaughtered a couple of 10,000 people, protesters in the streets. I think you look at that, the long history of Iran's Iranian regime sponsoring the world's largest state sponsor of terror.

I think you would have a pretty good case to say we've had enough. of this regime, it's caused too much chaos, too much trouble, too many death and destruction to their, to the region. You know, might have gotten some other countries to sign on board. We'll see. Now, you lose some element of surprise when you do that, but you don't find yourself in this sort of situation down the road. Now, speaking of roads, yes, gas prices are down, probably down, you know, probably the mass month or so. The problem is that the gas prices are still considerably higher than they were last summer and considerably higher than they were in the beginning of the year. You know, I think the president really was hoping that the memorandum of understanding,

or considering the number of different interpretations, we could call it the memorandum of misunderstanding, that this was going to calm everything down and that he could move on to other issues that he, you know, he'd gotten bored with the war, and it had become a pain, it had become a political liability, and he was going to talk about things that he wanted to talk about, the World Cup, and, you know, the reflecting pool and all these other great things, the greatest Fourth of July show anybody's ever seen. And to a certain extent, Iran fell out of the news cycle, certainly the way it had been earlier.

But I don't think you can count on the Iranian regime, not trying to elbow its way into the American news cycle on a regular basis between now and the midterms and probably beyond. They feel like they've got Trump over a barrelhead here. They think he's acting like he does. And so I don't think these are going to be the last attacks we're going to see on oil tankers. And, you know, there are a lot of things in this world that don't want to see blow up.

I think a liquid natural gas carrier is a pretty high on that list. That could be, you know, pretty bad. So, look, you know, the president got himself into this mess. He's going to have to figure out a way to get himself out of it. And just, you know, declaring that we have peace with Iran is not likely to happen because we all know the nature of this regime. So, Noah, as always, we reserve a little time here at the end of these discussions. if you want to respond to the pessimistic takes you've heard? Well, I don't think there's anything to be optimistic about.

As I've said repeatedly on this podcast, I just don't think we have the proper historical vantage to be able to judge this campaign, and we won't for some time, which isn't to say it'll take five years, 10 years. I think probably within a year, we can probably contextualize what the Operation Fury, Epic Fury, and Midnight Hammer achieved

in relation to what was lost in the peace and the MOU. But I think quite clearly that the peace and the MOU have been disastrous failures, whereas I would contend that the tactical objectives we achieved in Midnight Hammer and Epic Fury have not yet proven to be. So I think the enduring achievement, as I said many times before, is destroying a lot of their stuff and their nuclear capacity. But you wouldn't have done it this way, this time around. Midnight Hammer, yes, but you would have gone back to the drawing board on. Iowa Reserve judgment is the degree to which, for example, the key industries that were destroyed in that campaign have fractured some of the IRC's economic stranglehold, whereas some IRGC factions maintain their capacity to generate revenues and reward their constituencies.

And that internal tension is the sort of thing that can metastasize in ways that we can't necessarily predict and in ways that could be advantageous to the West. So, Charlie, X question, do you hypothetical raised by Jim and his response in his remarks in this segment. If Trump had gone to Congress, he would have gotten an authorization in February to go to war with Iran. Yes or no? No. Jim Garrity? Yes. No, Rockman. Yes. No. I think he definitely wouldn't have. I think if he had gotten it and held it in his back pocket at the beginning of his term, he could have gotten it through Congress, but not this past February with that. Let's go to our second sponsor, Maid in. If you're considering

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invest in made-in cookware. Once you try it, you'll be pro-made-in. To Sarah Shuddy is pro-maid-in. I'm pro-maid-in. I have a pro-made-in pan that I love. You just pick it up. You can tell this is a finely wrought piece. It cooks very evenly and very, very importantly. It is easy to clean. For full details, visit made-in cookware.com. That's M-A-D-I-N-Cookware.com. Please check it out. the holiday. We had, or on July 4th, I guess, I don't know when it was exactly, maybe the day before. Zohran Mamdani gives a speech, New York City behind George Washington's desk. He's sitting on the wrong side of George Washington's desk. He was inaugurated, of course, George Washington in New York City. And it gives a speech that I actually, there's been a lot of dumping on this justifiably.

But I do think it was a sophisticated and thoughtful explication of a DSA version of patriotism or anti-patriotism, if you will. I think when people go back and want to understand this era and the ideological currents, they should read this speech. That said, it's kind of a progressive version of patriotism, which is that all change. What's good in America is about all about the change. change and better achieving our highest ideals, except there was nothing good about America in the speech. It wasn't like, you know, we're always been great, but we're getting better and let's get better still. No, there's really nothing great about America. And his version of patriotism depends really on confiscating wealth and achieving open borders. That's when America will achieve

its true, true highest state. What did you make of it? Yeah, it's a little bit like saying, I really like your house. If we tore it down, the lot would play host to a new one. I think there's a couple of problems with this speech. One is substantive. The other is philosophical.

I'll start with the philosophical. I do not like the mode of, I put this in quote marks patriotism that holds that America is a good country insofar as it has potential. I understand that there are some great American speeches that have taken that approach. The problem is that it's 2026. And so pointing back entirely fairly to Frederick Douglas, or even to Martin Luther King or James Baldwin, is folly. Frederick Douglas, a man I greatly admire, was correctly identifying the chasm between America's founding ideals. the principles that it professed and practice, practice being slavery.

Martin Luther King, when he referred to the promissory note, was operating within a framework that included Jim Crow. Zohran Mamdani has no meaningful objection, other perhaps than that some people who would like to be middle class in New York aren't. And he personally should have no complaints about America. As a wealthy Ugandan who shortly after he decided to get involved in politics was elected mayor of New York City. That's my philosophical problem.

It's my philosophical problem with progressivism in June. general. It is rhetorically suited to a different time. It is the equivalent of discussing our gripes with Canada in the language of World War II. The substantive problem is that Zohran Mamdani seems to believe that what is great about America is that it fosters change. that as he put it, nothing is fixed. But this is a far too simplistic view of the United States and its virtues. The American system does indeed permit change, dynamism, even progress. Properly understood.

But it does that because of what is fixed. A simple analogy would be with, say, free speech. The American marketplace of ideas is much more robust than everywhere else because of the First Amendment. People can say whatever they want, what they say will change over time. They can express themselves in extreme ways. But they can only do that if the underlying principle within the First Amendment stays intact. And so it is with everything else that is great about America. Most notably, its free market and its entrepreneurial spirit.

Yes, it is truly great that the American market moves, that we have creative destruction, that the top 50 companies from 1960 are no longer the top 50 companies. companies in 2026. But that only works. That's only possible if you keep the fixed postulates of low taxes, of property rights, of a regulatory environment that encourages permissionless innovation. And those are the things that the Zohran Mamdani's of the world want to take away. And ironically enough, when you take those things away, you actually get sclerosis. You get, get an economy and a nation that is set in Aspeg. So he doesn't appreciate the moving parts in America that he should.

And he wants to turn the things that can't be turned into moving parts, into moving parts. It's classic socialist thinking. We can see its effects. We don't have to talk purely of the Soviet Union and Cuba. but just look at London, look at Paris, look at Berlin, and compare them to America. So, no, I didn't like this speech. I don't like that way of arguing. And I think the substantive claims that were made would impoverish us.

So Jim Garrity, another problem with this speech is just the way he betrays the other side. Supposedly, we all love America because we get to oppress people. That's what's so great about America. Yeah, so you see this pretty commonly on the left, maybe not as explicitly as Zohran Mamdani did it. I think it was Al Franken who said years ago that like conservatives love the country like a child loves a parent, right? They see it as just the best ever and it takes care of them. They see no flaws. Whereas, you know, Democrats love the country like a spouse.

They love the country in spite of its flaws. And I've always wondered, how does it feel to be Mrs. Franken in circumstances? like that, where you feel a need to emphasize the flaws of your partner in the last time. One of the things I thought was striking about this was people had joked, oh, Trump's going to give this big long speech on the 4th of July. Who are the Democrats giving to give the rebuttal? Like it was the state of the union or something. And Mobbami kind of effectively did give a rebuttal to the, we are the greatest speech that

Trump was going to give later that night. And I think, like, so first of all, like you almost have to. admire the audacity to select himself to say, you know what, a whole bunch of people are not going to be on board with Donald Trump's proud chest thumping. We are the greatest tone. A lot of people are frustrated with their country. A lot of people are disappointed with their country. And I will speak on behalf of the Democrats. You appointed himself to give the counter state of the union in effect. Yeah. And we're talking about it, right? Like, you know, theoretically, anybody else in the I think it's the most successful such speech in a very long time, actually.

Yeah, that he is, it was interesting that, like, he saw an opportunity and seized it. And it's an interesting question. Is Zohran Mamdani the true leader of the Democratic Party right now? Probably not. You're probably, oh, Chuck Schumer or, you know, somebody. But I kind of get this feeling that, like, he is the one with the energy. He is the one with the momentum and dynamism and excitement. that he's the guy, because if Michael Bennett, who just lost the primary out in Colorado,

if he gave the same, a comparable speech, nobody would have listened. Right. Yeah, someone at the nation praising Zohran Mamdani's speech pointed out, I think both Obama and George W gave kind of video addresses. No one paying any attention to them. They're all the same thing. And at least this is fresh and interesting. Pernicious from our perspective in reality, I'd say, but at least fresh and interesting.

Jim, before we get to know, did you see any of Trump's speech? Just bits of actually, ironically, my younger son chose to stay up. We had local fireworks that went on fine, enjoyed it, and I was probably in bed by 10.30. So I missed it. And my other one went into town and actually got to see it from Georgetown and was saying there were some moments where it felt like daylight if it was so bright and so. So like the family was well represented, but I went to bed early. His speech was a combination of the ridiculous, you know, ridiculous boasting and insults to the other side. And these really moving, you know, it was like, again, it was like a state of the union.

He wasn't recognizing people from the balcony, but had these old vets, you know, from Vietnam, Korea. I think a Pearl Harbor survivor was 107 wheeled out and saluting these old, old historic flags. That aspect of it was just awesome. But no, I imagine you weren't a fan of Zohran Mamdani speech out of it. Oh, I was not a fan. I'm forever surprised by the extent to which the American left liberals, generally, seemed to be genuinely enlivened by this dottering liberal tradition of articulating pessimism about the country and alleging that it constitutes patriotism, indeed the highest form of patriotism

in their estimation. What Zohran Mamdani did throughout this speech was pretend that he was speaking from the perspective of immigrants, which he is. But attributing the anxieties, that have overtaken the professional left to them. And the professional left, the base of the Democratic Socialist movement is younger, well-educated, affluent white voters who are native-born. The non-native-born Americans express far more faith in American institutions, far more unalloyed patriotism than most Native Americans, native-born Americans, to say nothing of the American left.

Further, what Zohran Mamdani was doing throughout the speech was described. a country that does not exist. It was just truly bizarre. The degree to which he was saying, he was describing American history is one thing, but describing the country in which we live as though it was defined in his estimation by a phenomenon in which children,

quote, children go to sleep hungry while the world's first trillionaire hungers for more, where monopolies dominate every industry and oligarchs by our elections, where massed agents terrorize our streets, where negligence has become a business model where our elections are sold to the highest bidder. What is he talking about?

I literally laughed out loud during that portion. The idea that hungering for more is not like a fundamental American trait. Indeed, it is. I mean, he ascribes ambition. He sees rapacity and ambition. But there's just no evidence to suggest that there's a monopolistic

or oligarchic elite dominating every or any industry. There's no connection between childhood rates of poverty, which have declined markedly from their 20th century highs to the paper value of SpaceX, money doesn't factor into our elections to the extent that he thinks it does. Otherwise, Andrew Cuomo would be sitting in his seat. And Mike Bloomberg would be in the presidency. And Tom Steyer would be on his way to the governorship of California.

The ugliest illusion in his speech was where he praised, you know, where they attempt to channel the American working class for whom they presumed to speak having no connection to any of them. where he praised the work that was done by the callous dirt-streaked hands of the American working class, particularly migrant workers. And our failure, which he contrasted with, our country's failure, having, quote, allowed so much of that wealth to be held in the hands of the soft hands of a precious view. I don't know who those tender money counting hands are, Mr. Hooper, but we can assume that we know who he's talking about, what classes of people he's talking about. This is the uplifting speech that he chose to deliver on the 4th of July. It was delusional.

So what do you think of it as a matter of writing? Is it overdone, eloquent, even though pernicious? There were a handful of turns of phrase that I found, I don't even want to say poignant, but at least interesting rhetorically. But they're overshadowed by the malice behind this speech, the delusions that fueled it. and the total lack of self-awareness that was displayed by both the speech writers and Zohran Mamdani. Midway through the speech, he says, at every moment in our past, those who have led through exclusion and isolation have tried to win power. I'm sorry, those who have led through exclusion and isolation have tried to win power and enrich themselves by turning us against one another. Division is the oldest trick in politics and the cheapest.

He's doing precisely that. He spent the entire speech saying that immigrants cannot rise above their station, because of the structural obstacles in their way, whereas the American story, as he tacitly acknowledged, is one in which immigrants routinely do rise above those obstacles. Yeah, the guy with the soft hands who hungers from war is an immigrant, right? Right, whoever that guy is. So let's do it on Secuador.

X a question, although something that's been a lot in the news, Charlie Cook, rate so far your World Cup experience, I know it's ultimately an incomplete, but your World Cup experience so far from zero to five, zero, terrible or nullity, five, fantastic. Oh, I think it's a five. I think it's been absolutely fantastic. I was sad to see the US go out last night, my kids too,

but I think the tournament has been objectively good. I think that the hosting, especially in the United States, has been exceptional. And then there's all these side stories such as Freddie and other visitors who are loving America and whom I see myself. So I'm at a five. And you're okay with the revoked red card? I'm okay with the revoked red card. The rules exist and they were used.

There's nothing wrong with anyone asking for a review. And if FIFA wants to grant it, then they can. Yeah, we talk about this offline. I'm not a soccer guy, obviously. but it just seems accidentally stepping on someone's heel in the course of competing for control of the ball. I don't get how that's a red card. So Justice seems to clearly have been done one way or the other.

In that case, Jim Garrity, zero to five. Rich, I want to begin by noticing, usually you ask us to rate things from one to ten. I'm assuming because soccer is such a low-scoring game, this only goes to one to five. I'm going to put it at a four. I have really enjoyed it. It's been one of the best years for T-E.

Team USA. I think it's great. I've been able to, you know, I was down with my folks and watching with my family. It's been great. The only reason it's not a five is Team USA went up against Belgium and it was, no, like if we lost two to one, okay, it happens. They're a better team. They're ranked number eight in the world. We're ranked number 16. That's kind of what you'd expect. Two ugly goals on sloppy mistakes, kind of leave a sour taste in the mouth, but otherwise it's been a great year for Team USA soccer. So I'm generally pretty happy. Just wish they hadn't lost last night so badly. No, Rothman.

Well, yeah, aside from last night's excruciating experience, the Belgian game, which took place last night. It's, I've got to say four, I suppose. I've had these games on in the background. I don't particularly care per soccer, but it's interesting to have in the background and kind of peek over and see where the action is at. And I like international competitions, so I am kind of falling for that. And I'm a, you know, slavish patriot. So I will definitely root for the United States in any competition, foreign or domestic. However, I'd probably side with Charlie and think that the cultural phenomenon around it

is what gets me to the four. The games themselves have been forgettable from my perspective. But the descent of Europe onto North America, particularly in the United States, and seeing through fresh eyes, that which we take for granted, has been really positive experience for me. So I'd go with a two. I just don't like soccer enough. I know millions and millions of people disagree with me. Aesthetically, I don't like it. I don't like the look of the field. I don't like the flow of the game. I don't like all the diving and pretending you just got shot and you'd have to be carted off in an ambulance. And then after riding around in the ground for five minutes, you spring up and play another,

you know, 60 minutes of soccer. So I just don't like it. I don't really enjoy it. I did get sucked into the Cape Verde France game, which is kind of fun. That's really the only game I've watched that wasn't a USA game, and I didn't even watch, I was following on my phone, the first half of the USA game yesterday, and stopped watching pretty soon in the second half. I never had any particular hopes that we're going to beat a real European team. So I'm a little bit of a downer on this, but I know I'm in the minority. With that, let's go to our final sponsor this episode, our friends at Vair. We spent a lot of time this year talking about terrorists, whether it's still actually possible

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You can find them at Vairwatches.com. That's V-A-E-R-Watches.com. Please check it out. So with that, let's hit a few other things. Before we go, Noah Rothman, we're assuming it was a big get-together on July 4th in the neighborhood, but I don't know, maybe not. Well, there typically wouldn't be. We're supposed to go, we have every year gone up,

to my sister-in-law's house in upstate New York. She's on a lake. So we're very distant from, you know, what goes on in my neighborhood. I have no idea. But this year, our dog got Jardia. And no threat to the dog. You know, he's fine. But it was sufficient to keep us distant from my sister-in-law.

So we did stay low. What's Jardia? It's a parasite, but it's, you know, it's not like the worst parasite. Anyway, he was exposed to it. But he didn't really develop symptoms. We just had to keep him under observation for a little bit of time. And so we stayed home. And we did have one of those very impromptu, smaller than typical, but nevertheless, old-fashioned Rothman House party on, I guess it was Friday, and then into Saturday went on the boat.

So we, with one of my neighbor's boats. So we managed to marry the two things that conflict. You know, my house, poolside, the boat thing all over the course of this weekend. It was a fantastic neighborhood weekend, one of the ones, you know, one of something that I haven't actually. had in a very long time because we've been kind of down on the party situation. They're expensive. They're hard to plan. This one came out of the blue, which makes it easier because you don't have to plan anything. It just kind of happens. All right. Tim Garrity, you just watched the movie pressure. I did. I have a birthday

recently and I got to pick the movie for once. And all three members of my family were like, huh? You know, because I said, oh, it's a World War II movie about weathermen. And, you know, when the trailer came out, people said, we're kind of, you know, snarking. Oh, yeah, I've heard about this. Yeah. Like, oh, this is the, you know, we no longer need World War II movies. We've made every possible one. This thing is a masterpiece. It is absolutely fascinating. It's adapted from a stage play. And it is about the weather forecast leading up to the invasion of Normandy. And it is by far the most tense, pulse-bounding movie you're ever going to see about a weather forecast. Great performances all around. I would not have expected a performance of Dwight Eisenhower from the guy who would play the caveman in Encino Man. But, you know, to his credit, Brendan Fraser, who's really enjoyed a great career renaissance. The prenaissance continues it.

And I wouldn't be surprised if it cleaned up at Oscar time. So just great movie. I recommend it to everyone. I think it's now on demand. So, Charlie, despite coming back to the World Cup being a red-blooded American, you're still rooting for English soccer. Well, I am. And I know this seems to upset some people, but so be it.

I was rooting for the United States. We all sat and watched the game last night. or may not have been some tears from my kids when the US went out. But they're out now and they never played England and I'm from England originally and I have a great love for the English soccer team because I spent the first 26 years of my life rooting for it with my dad and I shall continue to do so. Unfortunately I shall be doing this from home. The English soccer team is in the quarterfinal against Norway. It's actually in Miami which isn't too far away from me but the tickets start at $3,500,000.

That would be cheap for a Madison Square Garden ticket to the next to the finals. So I don't think I'm going to be doing that. But, yep, I'm hoping England can go all the way for the first time since 1966. I don't think they're going to. I think it's going to be won by France. All right. Well, good luck. So my July 4th, I said I enjoy public readings of the Declaration, small town parades and fireworks.

went 0 for three. Just couldn't manage the first two. And then the fireworks got disrupted in our town because of thunderstorms. But I have to say, I just love July 4th evenings. I just love being outside. I love the booms that you hear from random directions, random people setting off fireworks. So I enjoyed it anyway. With that, it's time for our editor's picks.

Jim Garrity. What's your pick? A lot of really good work on Graham Platner lately, but I'm going to give credit to Noah Rothman for talking about the two ideologues, Morris Katz, who helped recruit Graham Platner, and just the, also as well as Daniel Moraff, and just how these guys are the most remarkably bad talent scouts and or background checkers in the history of American politics. It's a good, funny, stinging piece. Well done, Noah. Noah's your pick. Thank you, Jim.

touching on Catherine Jean Lopez's. When does Lindsay Fethfield get her post-Graham Platner campaign apology? K. Joe goes into what we talked about briefly, about how the New York Times did Lindsay Fafield very dirty, and misled Democrats into believing that it really was much more of a partisan accusation than a genuine allegation of misconduct on Graham Platner's part. Good piece. Go read it. That's right.

Yeah, I'm going to take Phil Klein's corner post about Graham Platner. I haven't read it because it went up while we were recording, but we discussed it for about 30 minutes this morning. So unless he's completely changed his mind on everything that he relayed to me. Maybe he botched this post. How do you know? No, I don't think so. I don't think so.

Look, I think as Phil does, that he'll probably drop out. But I think there's a really strong case to suggest that for him personally, staying in would be much better because if he drops out, then he's that rapist who had to leave. But if he stays in, yeah, he probably loses, but he loses if he has to drop out, then all of the people who are currently telling him to drop out will either back him again or go quiet.

And that's probably preferable to him. So I think that Phil is right when he says there's not a huge amount of the Democrats can do to force him out and that there is a real incentive for him to stay in. So although I think that he probably goes, I think there's a good case here. Yeah, well, the lessons the last 10 years

is just never quit, you know? No one can really make you, can really make you. But so my pick is Dan McLaughlin post on Caitlin Clark, the Indiana Fever star, who once again is a focus of controversy because other NBA players have been committing hard fouls against her

that often have not been called. And I paid a little attention to the WNBA. I like Caitlin Clark. And I was paying attention to this for a video I was doing at the National Review YouTube channel. By the way, check out the National Review YouTube channel. We're updating it pretty much every single day now. So I thought I was pretty up on it. And then I read this Dan McGuckland post that is so well-informed and so sophisticated

and had incredible background on Jackie Robinson. We often praise Dan when the big Supreme Court decisions because it's, His legal analysis is without peer, but he's so good on so many things. So that's it for us. You've been listening to a national view podcast. Any rebroadcast, retransmission, or a count of this game without the express written consent of National Union Magazine is strictly prohibited. This podcast has been produced by the incomparable Sarah Shuddy, makes it sound better than we deserve. Thank you, Charlie.

Thank you, Jim. Thank you, Noah. Thanks to Donor's Trust, Maiden, and Vair. And thanks especially to all of you for listening with the editors. We'll see you next time.

You know, and the,