Commentary Magazine Podcast

The first week of public hearings on impeachment concludes with the sense that maybe Democrats are just trying to make the case that Donald Trump is a bad and mean guy instead of making the case that he should actually be removed from office. And Mayor Pete surges... or is the story that Elizabeth Warren is falling? Give a listen.

So how did it go? We talk about the first day of the impeachment hearings before going on to talk about Turkey, Gaza—and Abe Greenwald's remarkable December COMMENTARY cover article, "The Failure at the End of History." Give a listen.

The billionaire former mayor of New York City looks to be entering the 2020 Democratic primary race, with an emphasis on “looks to be.” Can the wealthy technocrat compete for liberal votes nationwide? And if his candidacy is predicated on the assumption that Joe Biden will implode when the first votes are counted, is that assumption even valid?

The podcast surveys the results of the 2019 off-year elections, most of which are not all that great for Republicans. What do Tuesday’s returns tell us about the 2020 race? Also, progressives are irritated that the wealthy are not jazzed about the prospect of having their property expropriated by an avaricious state. Who could have guessed?

So who's up for a $52 trillion health-care-for-all plan? Anybody? Today's podcast takes up Elizabeth Warren's strange notion that this is the way to get herself and Democrats elected, especially on a day when a very specific piece of polling suggests next year's election is at best a jump ball for Democrats in the very places they need to win to take the presidency from Donald Trump. Give a listen.

Bad, but not impeachable. Is this the argument that Republicans will settle on to acquit the president if, as it seems increasingly likely, he is impeached by the Democratic House? Also, the bizarre effort on the part of the press to avoid offending… radical Islamist terrorists?

With the elimination of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, Donald Trump gets his first good news cycle in several weeks and he deserves every minute of it. But can it last, and will the president overplay his hand? Also, the hypocrisy of noted “throuple” enthusiast and recently resigned Rep. Katie Hill’s defenders.

On today's podcast, we bemoan the president's behavior, we bemoan the idea that we are Never Trumpers, we bemoan the notion that Republicans in the Senate are going to find a way out of the morass they find themselves in, and we just generally bemoan. Give a listen.

Donald Trump tweets that impeachment proceedings represent a “lynching,” which, aside from being ahistorical and callous, is also factually untrue. And yet, millions of Americans will read the president’s words and believe him, just as millions of Americans believe Elizabeth Warren was fired for being pregnant, among other dubious aspects of her self-professed record. Will the truth matter in 2020? Also, is Tulsi Gabbard a Russian agent or just a Democrat?

Today's day-early podcast takes up the Democratic debate, with three out of four of us giving Pete Buttigieg the crown as the undisputed winner. But will it matter one iota? Does it matter that Elizabeth Warren didn't fight back effectively? Does it matter that Joe Biden was the political version of the malapropist comic Norm Crosby? Does anything matter? Give a listen.

Today's podcast begins in all seriousness with a discussion of the horror in Syria and what it might cost Donald Trump and then descends into ludicrous comedy as we discuss the Democratic party's insistence on making it as easy as possible for Trump to be reelected—with a particular focus on Elizabeth Warren's claim that she was fired for being pregnant once upon a time. We now dub her "Pregnahontas." Give a listen.

This week, the COMMENTARY crew, down one Noah Rothman, discusses Turkey's military offensive in Syria, the betrayal of the Kurds, the White House's political strategy to fight impeachment, and the fate of Bernie Sanders's campaign.

Donald Trump has given Recep Erdoğan the green light to attack America’s Kurdish allies in Syria. He’s also called on China to look into that Hunter Biden guy. And for good measure, he’s called Mitt Romney a “pompous ass.” All this as additional whistleblowers emerge to make his life more difficult. The COMMENTARY podcast gang, temporarily without Noah Rothman, tries to figure out what’s behind the latest Trump decisions and what effect they’ll have on the president’s fortunes.

As the nation focuses on the Democratic effort to impeach President Trump, Democratic House leadership devotes its focus to… prescription drug pricing? The COMMENTARY podcast wonders what Democrats are thinking as they make a muddled case against Trump. Also, Bernie Sanders' health worries, Elizabeth Warren’s ascension, Joe Biden’s stagnation, and the spectacularly bad decision in favor of racial discrimination at Harvard.

How much political peril is Donald Trump in? That may not be the right question. The right question might be: Shouldn't this be a matter for the American people to decide in 2020 rather than Democrats in the House in 2019? This is what we discuss on the podcast today. Give a listen.