Commentary Magazine Podcast

The COMMENTARY podcast breaks down the liberal psychological breakdown that followed Justice Anthony Kennedy’s retirement, and the activist left’s response to the Trump administration’s border crisis by advocating the abolition of ICE. Have Republicans caught a break as their opponents go over the edge?

The Supreme Court's decision this morning on public-sector labor unions is a dagger blow to the political ambitions of the Left, and raises the possibility of a kind of despair that could lead leftists in very dark directions. At the same time, an unexpected primary victory for a socialist in New York City might kindle new hopes of a leftist renaissance. And some words on the funeral of Charles Krauthammer. Give a listen.

John Podhoretz is out today, so the COMMENTARY Podcast hosts are left to navigate the great civility debate in his absence. When is it appropriate to allow politics to determine how you interact with other people? Are activists and service providers justified by allowing political disputes to spill out into the personal realm? And is any of this still about the border?

The implementation of a policy that separates illegal border-crossing children from their parents has thrown the Trump administration into crisis, in part, because no one is on the same page. Depending on the official speaking, this policy is either a necessary deterrent to future migrants, an unfortunate vestigial artifact of the Obama administration, or the law of the land. The hosts break down the political effect of the White House’s confusion. Also, the COMMENTARY Podcast breaks down the Justice Department’s Inspector General’s report that savages James Comey’s behavior in 2016 and suggests FBI Agent Peter Strzok’s anti-Trump bias might have had an effect on the product of the FBI’s Russia probe.

Was the Singapore Summit nothing, or bad, or the worst thing ever? This is the question we debate. We also examine the meaning of the primary defeat of Republican anti-Trumper Mark Sanford and what this portends for the GOP. Give a listen.

Donald Trump heads to Singapore for a summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un fresh off a pretty contentious summit with the G-7 nations in which conflicts over trade policy blew up into a full-scale war of insults between the American and Canadian governments. What does this mean for the Atlantic alliance and the North Korean summit? Also, the attacks on Trump at the Tony Awards over the weekend leads to a discussion of the value of civility.

The revelations of backchannel Iranian-Obaman efforts to skirt sanctions and worries about what might happen at the summit with North Korea next week begin our podcast. Then we enter the virtual dorm room with a long conversation about the Enlightenment and its enemies. Give a philosophical listen.

What on earth does it mean that Donald Trump tweeted he had the absolute right to pardon himself, and what will its political effect be? That's the question we take up today, along with Democratic political woes and the Supreme Court's finding in the gay-wedding-cake case. Give a listen.

The Roseanne Barr career meltdown says a lot about her and says something about the Twitter culture that allowed her to torpedo her top-rated show with a few disgusting words. We talk about that and try to answer questions about the Mueller probe, which only leads to more questions. Give a listen.

The first COMMENTARY Podcast of the week examines the firestorm that erupted over the weekend involving the treatment of unaccompanied minors at the Southern Border, and who is to blame for their condition. We examine the rediscovery of 2014’s border crisis among pro-Obama partisans, and the extent to which Donald Trump’s supporters have internalized the wrong lessons from that episode.

The Trump-Kim meeting is off, and the question is this: If the announcement of thawing relations with North Korea helped Trump's approval rating, will this hurt or harm it? And why won't Trump trumpet the bipartisan legislative successes of the past few weeks? Give a listen.

On a special edition of the COMMENTARY podcast, we discuss the life and legacy of Philip Roth, whose work we both admire and find wanting. Give a listen.

President Donald Trump has ordered his Department of Justice to investigate the claim advanced by his political allies that Barack Obama's FBI introduced a "spy" into his campaign in 2016. The COMMENTARY Podcast explores this claim and lays out the timelines, which so often get confused. Who was talking to the Russians and why, and what do we know about how the FBI responded to those revelations? Give a listen and find out.

We try, we really do try, to sort through the increasingly problematic "Russian collusion" narrative and establish a timeline of sorts—and figure out what's real and what's nonsense. Do we succeed? Give a listen.

The reaction to the violence at the Israel-Gaza border was not a surprise, we say on this week's first podcast, but the perpetual effort to deny Palestinians human agency and to absolve them of responsibility for the actions leading to the deaths and injuries on the Gazan side never ceases to amaze. And we take the measure of the life and work of Tom Wolfe, dead at 87. Give a listen.