The Commentary Magazine Podcast

Yuval Levin joins the podcast to discuss an extraordinary piece in the New York Times alleging that the cost of Medicare has fallen radically to such an extent that it is no longer the budgetary monster looming on the horizon. Is that true? Or is it just a way of denying a danger and pushing it forward? Give a listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today's podcast takes up the stunning WSJ poll that has Trump up 46 points over DeSantis and asks whether, five months before the first electoral contest in the GOP and 14 months before the 2024 election, the Republican race is all over but the shouting. Give a listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today's podcast considers the weak job numbers and the persistence both of inflation and higher interest rates and asks whether Joe Biden is making a mistake touting "Bidenomics." And...oh boy, the NYT story about the DeSantis consultant and the $50 million ask from donors. Plus the first installment of the Commentary Magazine Podcast Mailbag! Give a listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit...

Today's podcast asks what political benefits or liabilities a politician can accrue from their behavior in the wake of a natural disaster, with specific reference to Ron DeSantis, Joe Biden...and Chris Christie. And Mitch McConnell's second moment freezing before a camera in five weeks raises the question of how much longer our gerontocracy can go on. Give a listen. Learn more about your ad choice...

James Kirchick joins today's podcast to discuss the overdue outrage about our botched withdrawal from Afghanistan and a new book that's surprisingly critical of Joe Biden. We also get into the border crisis, its connection to terrorism, the pressure it's putting on blue and red states, and what it portends for our politics. Give a listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoi...

The podcast today worries over the fact that the judge in the January 6 case set Donald Trump's trial date for the day before Super Tuesday next year, and what this portends about the politics of 2024 and the very real possibility that we are going to face a constitutional, or a political, or even a revolutionary crisis. Give a listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today Eli Lake joins the gang to consider what some of us got wrong about last week's Republican primary debate. According to polls, Ron DeSantis did himself a bit of good. What did we miss? And why did DeSantis's performance work as well as it did? Then we talk about Eli's new COMMENTARY article "Profiles in Malarkey" and why Democrats are unable to face the significance of the Hunter Biden scand...

On the last day of listener-questions week, we take up the war on drugs. Was it doomed? Have we surrendered? What are the consequences? Then we respond to a listener who challenges Tip O'Neill's famous observation about all politics being local. Give a listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We interrupt this week's listener-questions podcasts with our analysis of last night's Republican debate. The talk centers on Vivek Ramaswamy, and as such, what does that mean for the race going forward? What effect will Nikki Haley's knockout performance have on her campaign? And whither DeSantis? Give a listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On today's listener-questions podcast, we first discuss efforts on the right over the past 20 years to address issues of concern to working-class Americans and where they went wrong—before we get into a big, heated, passionate argument about the future and AI and the Internet and a lot of juicy stuff. Give a listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today's listener-question podcast finds us discussing how the COMMENTARY crew gathers the information we gather during the day and how and when we read books. And we talk about the relation between faith and liberalism. Give a listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today's podcast marks the first in a week devoted to listener questions. First up: How do we manage to stay friends with people we disagree with so strongly—or do we? Next: What writers and political figures have inspired us? Give a listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I start today's podcast saying I'm sick of talking about Trump and then...we talk about Trump. Which is suggestive of everything about American politics at this moment. Then: did Maui's emergency management chief do an honorable thing or a cowardly thing quitting his job in the middle of the disaster? Give a listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Yes, the original Commentary podcast band is back together for one night only! Noah Rothman joins Abe and me for a delightfully crushingly morose hour of worries about Ukraine, fears about Biden and Trump, and general gloom about everything. Don't miss it! Give a listen! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Chris Stirewalt joins the podcast today to examine Donald Trump's immediate future in the wake of the latest indictments and whether they make it more likely Trump will participate next week in the first Republican primary debate. And how much time does Ron DeSantis have to save his candidacy? Give a listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Andrew C. McCarthy joins the podcast yet again to help us go through the indictments of Donald Trump and 18 others in Fulton County, Georgia. We ask three questions. How strong is the case legally? How effective is the case politically as a cudgel against Trump? And how just is the case? Give a listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

James B. Meigs joins the podcast today to discuss the fire catastrophe in Maui and the fact that, once again, ordinary people are doing the work to help those in need while government just can't get itself organized—and the president of the United States thinks it's all right to say "no comment" when asked about it. Also on the president's mind: The weird hijinks surrounding the legal case against...

Today we talk about the record spike in American suicides, particularly those of adult men. What cultural, political, and economic forces are merging to create this tragedy? And why are the psychiatric and psychological communities falling down on the job? Then we discuss a new initiative in Louisiana to keep online pornography away from kids. Give a listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit...

Today's podcast connects new inflation numbers to a general feeling of uneasiness in the body politic reflected also in the way certain types of criminal conduct (shoplifting in particular) not only have an effect on rising prices but on the national mood. Give a listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today's podcast examines the results of an election in Ohio in which liberals blew past conservatives on an issue related to abortion. Will this encourage them to try to use the techniques with which they won this election on other issues besides abortion—trans matters especially? Give a listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today's podcast discusses the politics surrounding a strange special election today (Tuesday the 8th) in Ohio, which is a proxy for how voters feel about abortion rights. Then we discuss Mike Pence's emergence as an open critic of his former boss, and what happens when anti-establishment right-wing males get caught out for their racist and misogynist pasts. Give a listen. Learn more about your ad...

Today's podcast takes up the raging "truths" (tweets) released by Donald Trump this weekend on his social-media site, which seem reckless and possibly threatening to his defense strategy and to his ability to stay out of jail. Is there a strategy here? And foreign policy has taken a backseat for months—but now guess what? The Chinese, the Russians, and others are testing and prodding us to see how...

James B. Meigs joins today's podcast to talk about what a D.C. jury might think of the fraud charge against Donald Trump, what's really happening with all this UFO stuff, and what's significant about a new commercial nuclear reactor in Georgia. Give a listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Today we have Dan Senor on to talk about the state of the GOP primary, the prospects for the general election, the unpredictability of it all, and whether the polls tell us anything useful this far out. We also get into the legal and political crises in both the U.S. and Israel. Give a listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Andrew C. McCarthy joins us today to discuss the indictment of Donald Trump released on August 1st and how its spate of novel approaches makes it extraordinarily problematic not only as a matter of law but also as a political matter. Give a listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices