Special Episode: "Taking the 5th" - Scenarios for Israel's next government
We join the team at Commentary Magazine for a discussion on scenarios for Israel's next government coming out of this election (the 5th in 44 months!).
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Transcript
DISCLAIMER: THIS TRANSCRIPT HAS BEEN CREATED USING AI TECHNOLOGY AND MAY NOT REFLECT 100% ACCURACY.
[00:00:00] Happy 5th Israeli election day. This morning I participated in a conversation on the commentary podcast with Jon Podhortz, Noah Rothman, Abe Greenwald, and Christine Rosen. where we dissected these Israeli elections and really went through the different scenarios for the formation of a new Israeli government.
So it's a good crash course on all the different permutations we can expect as the Israeli elected leaders head into negotiations after the election for the formation of a new government. And we even explore a scenario where there is a sixth Israeli election. next spring. At the end of our conversation, we also have a quick debrief on the latest state of play in the U.
S. congressional and gubernatorial midterm elections. So stick around [00:01:00] for that as well. This is Call Me Back. Welcome to the Commentary Magazine Daily Podcast. Today is Tuesday, November 1st, 2022. I am Jon Podhortz, the editor of Commentary Magazine. With me, as always, Executive Editor Abe Greenwald. Hi, Abe.
Hi, Jon. Media commentary, columnist, and American Enterprise Institute fellow Christine Rosen. Hi, Christine. Hi, John. Associate editor and author of Rise of the New Puritans, Noah Rothman. Hi, Noah. Hi, John. And joining us today, My old friend, commentary, Inc board member, author of startup nation, expert on all things, Israeli and American political dancing or high Dan.
Good morning, John. How are you? I'm good. So we are here this morning with you in part because. Uh, Israel is going is right now Israelis as we speak are voting in the, uh, [00:02:00] is it the fifth or the sixth election in 44 months in 40? Okay, so it's more than so I'm being very unfair. You are actually three and a half years.
I was, I was like, sure I was, uh, I was shorting them. Um, yeah, I would say, John, I was, I was in Tel Aviv last week and I was on a panel with Tom Nides, who's the U. S. ambassador to Israel. And he was pointing out how simple, how much more simple his life would be if he were ambassador to the U. K. instead of ambassador to Israel, trying to manage all this crazy politics.
And I pointed out to him that since 2015, The UK has had five prime ministers. Israel's only had three. So yeah, it could be much worse in the sweepstakes for, you know, broken electoral systems. Right. Okay. So, um, this is, so we thought we would try to provide you as you're going to hear a lot of the news and there's a lot of apocalyptic talk about this election in particular.
Not that [00:03:00] that's so surprising because there's always a lot of. Apocalyptic talk among, um, uh, disappointed liberals, particularly Jewish liberals about the, the direction of Israeli politics, uh, in general, with the, uh, strength of, um, kind of deciding strength factor of, um, Haredi and, uh, other ultra Orthodox.
Jews and settlers and people that they tend not to like. So here, here's where we are. We have five scenarios. I think we came up with last night, five scenarios to offer you to explain what is going on in the Israeli elections. But first, before we do the five scenarios, we need to just lay out a few factors for people who don't know that much about Israeli politics.
So Israeli politics has decided there is no general election for the leader of the country. As is true in most, there was briefly a moment when you could vote for the prime minister, but that moment came and went and [00:04:00] the law was changed. Uh, so you vote for party and the Knesset, the parliament has 120 seats.
So whoever controls 61 seats. is the prime minister, whichever party dominates in the coalition that runs up to 61 seats ends up controlling the, uh, the prime ministership. Um, but it's, it's a proportional system. So unlike parliamentary systems say in the UK or Canada, which, uh, members of parliament have individual constituencies or writings that they represent in Israel, it's a single.
District, the whole country. So there are no individual members of the Knesset of the parliament that represent specific regions of the country. So all that's done, it's all the who, which parties get which seats or how many seats is determined by the proportion of the vote. So just for simplicity's sake, if your party gets 10 percent of [00:05:00] the overall national vote.
Your party gets 12 seats in the Knesset. It's, it's actually that simple, one would think. The problem is, and I, we're going to get into this, because this is what really is creating a lot of confusion with this election, is one would say, okay, well that's simple, right? 10%, if you get 10%, if your party gets 10 percent of the vote, you get 12 seats.
And if you get 1 percent of the vote, then you get 1. 2, so call it one seat. So, and there are something like 39 or 40 parties, running in this election. Now only 10 to 12 of them will actually wind up in government, but there are all these other parties and all these other parties have, all they have to do is get 1 percent of the vote.
If they just get 1 percent of the vote, they get a seat. And in fact, with that one seat, enough of them could become Kingmakers as, as coalitions are formed. But there is a law that, that has a threshold mandate, which is yes, it's proportional, but you ha your party has to get a minimum of 3. 25%. of the [00:06:00] vote in order for you to get represented in parliament, which is about in the Knesset, which is about four seats.
So if you're competitive enough to get, say, in that range, but you don't get 3. 25%, not only do your votes disappear, but even your sort of ideological allies don't get to benefit from them. So you have a bunch of parties running now that both Blocks need the BB led block and the anti BB led block. There are a bunch of small parties that each of them need.
And what is coming up in a lot of the polling is a number of these parties are dangerously close to falling behind that threshold, which means you could have tens of thousands of votes be totally wasted. So here's. This system is so, uh, crazy that, um, this government that just, that fell and is now, uh, supposedly going to be replaced, uh, in the current election, [00:07:00] the person who at first ended up becoming the prime minister, excuse me, this is not this government, anyway, the per, Yeah, in the last election, yeah, this is no, no, it is this government.
It's just there was a rotation relationship. Yeah, right. There was, I'm sorry, there was a rotation, right? So it is this prime. It is this government. It is the same government and Bennett, even though, even though he's no longer prime minister, his party is still a member of the government. Okay. So, so the first prime minister in this rotation.
Uh, was Naftali Bennett, and Naftali Bennett was a member of Bibi's party, Likud, and in fact, a deputy to Bibi, began his political career as a deputy. He was chief of staff to Bibi when he was in the opposition, ran his, ran his office. Yeah, and like everybody who gets close to Bibi, uh, you know, now hates him like poison.
Except Ron Dermer. Except Ron Dermer, that's right. Um, so, Bennett. Ends up because of the [00:08:00] incredibly complex system that Dan sort of laid out in which votes to sit on all this ended up becoming prime minister of the country when his party scored a total of seven seats. And the reason this is interesting is that Bibi Netanyahu's Likud party, uh, which is the got 30 seats.
I believe in that election. He's by far and away the most popular politician in Israel, and Likud is maybe not far and away, but is, is the most popular party in the, in the country. And, um, for the past, all of those elections, Bibi could not assemble, could not take his party and then assemble a coalition that got to 61 seats.
And then there was election after election after election, and then this not Bibi. [00:09:00] Coalition made up of Bennett, uh, former, uh, military men in Benny Gantz, and then a kind of a telegenic TV personality, moderate named Yair Lapid, who is now the prime minister. And some defectors from BB's Likud, like Gideon Starr, who was, who was in previously Likud governments under BB.
He broke, he founded a new party, uh, obviously Ayelet Shaked, uh, had her own party. She's on the right. Right. So. So Ayelet Shaked's party is one of the parties that is. She's interior minister now. She is. But okay. But she is not, all the polling suggests her party will not make. Three, 3.25% threshold. And it's possible that Bennett's party.
Yeah, I think Bennett's party gone before the Prime Minister. It's gone. Yeah. So I think Bennett's party's gone guy who, two years ago, uh, or a year. A year ago. A half [00:10:00] ago. A year ago. A year ago, excuse me. A year ago. Yeah. Became the Prime Minister. His party cannot get 3.25% of the vote in the country. Yeah.
And, and, and, and Gidon Tsar, who was a Likud member in Bibi's government, who formed his own party and had his own power center is, and is, is in the current government, is worried about not meeting the threshold. So he merged with Benny Gantz, former defense, the current defense minister to kind of create a bigger block.
Um, yeah, so there are, there are these, there are these wildcard situations where Okay. So let's, let's get into the scenarios. Yeah. Because again, being the most popular politician in the country, the polling shows that Likud will get the most seats, as it has gotten in every single one of these elections, Likud gets the most seats, but it's dropped from its high watermark, I don't know, eight years ago of 35 or 36 seats down to 30.
And Bibi kept assembling coalitions that would get to [00:11:00] 59 seats or 60 seats, and she just couldn't get that last seat to, to, to get to 61 and be in these, in these elections. So nothing has changed, even though Bibi's under indictment and everything like that. He, all the pollings suggests he's around 30 seats and lap P'S party.
Lapid being the sitting prime minister is polling at around 25, 26 seats. So, like, for purpose of the discussion, let's just call Lapid the, the, the head of the anti BB block. So Bebe's, the head of the BB block and Lapid is the head of the anti BB block, right? So, uh. All the election analysts say that at this moment, based on polling, although it's also weird because you can't, Israeli law forbids polling in the last week, or is it the last By the way, this is fantastic.
No poll can be published three days before the election under [00:12:00] Israeli law, which means every news organization polls like crazy right up until, in this case, Friday. So on Friday night, just before Shabbat, you had 15 polls published. 15 polls like reputable polls published. So if you think of an in Israel, like the Shabbat dinner is like our Thanksgiving, like all these families get together every Friday night, multiple three generations.
It's like, it's not, it's like 70 plus percent of the country does some kind of multi generational family gathering every Friday night. So just imagine how crazy political discussions get around our Thanksgiving table. Now imagine Friday night, all these families. Assembling a few days before the election with 15 polls just published.
They all read it on their phones, then shut down their phones and they're loaded for bear to like, you know, get into brutal arguments over there. over their Friday night dinner. It's fantastic. We actually, we don't have an up to the minute picture. Right. Uh, and so, I mean, all that we could, all, all the, you know, the polling has the Netanyahu led bloc at like anywhere from 59 to 62, 63 seats.
That's kind of the [00:13:00] range. If you look at, So of course it needs, they need 61 to be back in power. Um, but there are all these scenarios that show them just at 60 or at 59 or something like that. So now we should run through what might happen in the next six weeks. Uh, with the proviso that if no government is formed in the next six weeks, guess what happens?
Election number six. Election number six. Can I just say it's incredible to see the turnout in these frequent elections. It's quite high, correct? Yeah, it's high. Exactly. I mean, how they don't have election fatigue. It's actually a very, it's something to aspire to, isn't it? So, so it's, so first of all, it's a national holiday, election day.
So people, people are, but, but, but you're right. I mean, voting is not compulsory. So the fact that they get this turnout is, is extraordinary. Although certain communities I think are going to see lower turnout than usual because I think some of them burnt out. But I think there were some, one of these many elections where there was election fatigue.
And there [00:14:00] was all, there was a lot of, there was a lot of crying and wailing about, about election fatigue and Israelis can't take it anymore, all this. And I think what happened is the turnout fell to like 77%. That's election fatigue in Israel is like turnout. That's just around 80, just around eight out of 10 voters actually turns out.
Okay. So. The scenario. So remember, uh, Bibi Netanyahu, the head of the Likud party, was prime minister for, was the longest serving prime minister in Israel's, continuously serving prime minister in Israel's history, also the longest serving prime minister in history, discontinuously because he had a two year term in the 1990s, um, is, is currently, uh, in an incredibly long trial.
It's going to take another year, forever. Just to continue hearing the witnesses, three charges, corruption charges against him, which are, by the way, nonsense, but we won't go into that. It's a, it's [00:15:00] a, it's a preposterous political, uh, moment that he's being, that he's even having to face the legal system with these three cases against him, nonetheless.
So, he's So he is the, he is the, the sole issue in the campaign, meaning is there, are there disagreements about how to handle Iran? Not really. Are there, does anybody not like the Abraham Accords? Not really. Is there much disagreement on what to do about The Palestinian Authority or the Hamas in Gaza, very little.
You saw Lapid take, you know, military action against Hamas in Gaza in August and Netanyahu was very supportive. I mean, um, yeah, the irony is everyone talks about the polarization of Israeli politics and that's the perception over here and what kind of shapes the press coverage of, of Israeli politics.
The [00:16:00] reality is it's not that polarized. I mean, ideologically, it's all, it's all people have very strong views about Bibi on one side of the other, but on the actual issues, there's actually a pretty broad consensus. And, you know, there is now a, uh, a serious and interesting, complicated policy dispute involving a deal struck with Lebanon over, um, Oil fields in the Mediterranean and it's interesting and it's complicated.
And I think on balance, Dan and I, and a lot of people who think the way people on this podcast think, don't think it's a very good deal and that, uh, Lapid, uh, was too eager for a win and, and, and agreed to this so that he could rack something up and have a, have a good moment with the Americans and, and look like he had made a major foreign policy move, but it's still a policy.
It's still. Despite efforts, things you may read about how this is [00:17:00] catastrophic and it's disastrous and, you know, it, it, Israel is doing something absolutely, you know, horrible. It just isn't like it is. And there are many on the right who basically think if, I mean, Netanyahu has been critical of Lapid and I think there's plenty to be critical about, but there are also You know, plenty on the right who think that if Netanyahu were prime minister, he probably would have cut the same deal or similar, similar.
Yeah. So anyway, the point is that there isn't a lot, the policy, whereas until really the mid two thousands, I mean the political situation in the Middle East has changed so radically that until the middle two thousands, there were deep. Profound disagreements about existential matters of policy in Israeli politics, how to deal with the Palestinian Authority, how to deal with Gaza, how to deal with, uh, the, you know, uh, militarization of the Palestinians, how to deal with [00:18:00] Lebanon at the northern border.
Uh, Uh, how to deal with the United States. There was a lot of, and really in the last 10 years, things have changed so much that those central existential issues have kind of fallen by the wayside. And, and so, uh, you were really are talking about BB versus not BB and BB is a, an incredibly controversial figure because on the one hand he is.
Inarguably the most successful democratic leader of the last, uh, pretty much of the 21st century in terms of his ability to make, to help his country progress in ways that are really staggering, both diplomatically and economically and in all kinds of ways. Uh, and on the other hand, he's very untrustworthy.
He mistreats people. He behaves very high handedly and, uh, as I said, everybody around [00:19:00] him, um, ends up somehow becoming his enemy. He has, he, he cannot keep people around him because he is disloyal to them but expects total loyalty from them. So he is the hinge figure here. Okay, five scenarios. So, let's start with scenario number one, which is BB, uh, forms a government, he goes into coalition, or we'll take two scenarios, BB goes into government, there are two scenarios in which he forms a coalition that helps him return to, to the prime minister's office.
So, Dan, coalition number one. Coalition number one is Bibi, the Bibi led bloc, wins an outright majority, 61 plus seats. Uh, that consists of Likud, his party. It consists of the two, uh, ultra Orthodox parties, uh, the Shas party and the United Torah Judaism party, which have Uh, you know, more often than not stuck with him.
And then the, the [00:20:00] new kind of big story of this election is this national religious party, uh, led by two very provocative, uh, figures, uh, uh, in Amar Ben, Benveer and, uh, and Smoltrich, these two individuals who are, you know, um, they're hardcore, uh, the, the most generous, uh, description of them is they're hardcore.
Uh, pretty extreme right wing leaders, the less generate generous description of them as they are like America, honest figures who are advocating positions that no one in it mainstream Israeli politics. Has advocated for, uh, total annexation of the West Bank. Um, I mean, you can go, I mean, Ben Gvir himself is like, he's defined himself by stirring up trouble at the Temple Mount, uh, you know, which is always a flashpoint between Israeli Arabs and Israeli Jews on the anniversary of, of Israel's unification of Jerusalem.
That's often when you see I'm not saying he's directly [00:21:00] responsible, but he definitely stirs things up. He he's famous or infamous for when he was much younger, he says he's took it down, but you know, 25, 27 years ago, there's that horrendous. Tragedy where a, uh, a settler, deranged settler, Baruch Goldstein, um, you know, was in the West Bank and slaughtered 25 or 30 Palestinians.
It was like a mass, mass, mass casualty attack. He, he was, he was infamous, Ben Gvir, for having a, a picture of Baruch Goldstein hanging in his home or his office. I mean, he kind of lionizing Baruch Goldstein, I mean, this is the kind of politics that he's. trafficked in and he's always been kind of a bit player and he's no longer a bit player.
So it seems not only is he not a bit player, but he and his partner who he's merged with merged parties with a Smoltrich. They, they may be key to the scenario that you just described, John, which is Netanyahu getting to 61 plus seats, uh, and being able to form a government because Netanyahu was clever in getting them to [00:22:00] merge their parties.
So going back to what I said earlier about parties not falling below the mandate, he was concerned that one of them could fall below the mandate and lose a lot of right leaning votes. So he wanted to, he got them to merge. So they're, they're, so they basically capture, they don't lose any votes. That's the, that's the, that's the reason to do these, these mergers.
They happen on both sides or historically have happened on both sides. Uh, and, um, And two, he's basically, you know, locked arms with them. I mean, he doesn't really appear with them, but he, he's, he's conveyed that Ben Gvir will serve in his government, Ben Gvir will be a minister. He said that as recently as the last couple days.
Keep in mind, a year ago, Netanyahu said Ben Gvir was unfit to be a minister in government. So he's, he's totally, um, built these guys up, and they are polling, you know, very competitively. They could get You know, no, well north of 10 seats, which would, would put them in a very powerful position in a, in a right of center government.
And the, [00:23:00] where their votes are coming from is that that's the tricky part. Like no one there, there, there, so that a, they could be taking votes from the, um, ultra Orthodox parties and the ultra Orthodox parties are worried about that. Uh, there's, there's a sense that among particularly some of the younger.
ultra orthodox male voters. They've become much more nationalist and they, and they, Ben Gvir's kind of charisma and provocations is like attractive to them. They're, uh, they could potentially be taking votes from those two right wing parties that you and I, John, talked about earlier, which is Yamina Bennett's party.
Uh, and the New Hope Party, which is the, the Gideon, former Likud Gideon Saar party. They could be taking votes from a yellow chick head small party, which probably won't make the mandate. So that could be where some of their strength is coming from. And then the other big question that analysts in Israel are asking is sort of like what we've dealt with in our politics here in the U.
S. is. Is Ben, we're going to just pull out a bunch of voters that we just haven't seen before. Is, is the, the exact, is, is it, you know, the old, it's a feature, not a bug. Trump in Wisconsin, yeah. Trump [00:24:00] in Wisconsin, that suddenly he's appealing to people that pollsters aren't capturing. And, um, this, this sort of national religious charisma.
Very right wing nationalist religious charisma is appealing to voters who may have historically sat in that small minority that actually didn't turn out to elections and now they're turning out and could that be enough to buy them another couple seats? So that's Right there. One interesting wrinkle here is that, um, Israeli politics, uh, religious parties have been hinge figures and coalitions forever.
Um, these guys are different because most religious parties are get into government with the idea of getting governmental spoils and money for their people. Uh, they want to control the education ministry so that they can get money for, uh, you know, through their school. Yeah. Subsidies for the communities.
Yeah. Yeah. And [00:25:00] they want some guarantees on not weakening the role of Jewish law in the state. So, no public transportation on the Sabbath, uh, you know, we can go on and on, yeah. But they are, they are very transactional, I mean, so transactional that it is routine for politicians from Israeli religious parties to go to jail, or to get a, you know, or, I mean, they're, they're, they're hyper Machiavelli, like realistic.
They want things from government. That's why they're in power and they want to maintain certain privileges that religious people have. These guys are different. They are, they are, uh, ideologically driven, uh, in a way that is probably more familiar to American voters, uh, at the national level than, than the kind of politics I'm talking about from other religious parties.
Um, they are, yeah. And because the [00:26:00] religious parties have a history of corruption and Ben Gvir and, uh, and Smotric different kinds of figures, that's also where they might get votes from dis from religious voters who are disappointed in the parties for which they have voted because they think that the people who run them are, are, are crooks.
Yeah, I mean, what's amazing, there was an ad I saw when I was in Israel, so the Shas party, which is one of these ultra Orthodox parties, uh, they are running an ad, I've never seen this before, where they have a young ultra Orthodox male going into the voting booth to vote and he's actually choosing between a Shas party, you know, checking off the Shas party, checking off Likud, and checking off Or the religious Zionist party, the Smoltrich Benver photo.
And he's like deciding between the three. And then they beam in footage from the deceased [00:27:00] founder of the Shas movement, Rabbi Ovedia Yosef, who is like, they just use past clips of him, but like the way they edit it, it's like him admonishing this young. You know, um, um, lost, uh, ultra Orthodox Shas voter or should be, would, would be Shas voter from even contemplating voting for another one of these parties, which tells you how worried they are.
They are worried exactly about what you're describing, John, is that these young voters who have historically just done what the elders have told them to do to go vote for United Torah Judaism and vote for Shas are going to start dancing with, with this other party. Yosef, by the way, has been dead a decade.
So just to give you an idea of, of how desperate they are, like they have to reach back to a dead holy man, uh, to, to try to get people. To fall back in line. [00:28:00] Um, it's fascinating anyway. So that's scenario number one in which, uh, BB goes into coalition with the national religious parties with, with this national religious coalition, which is causing.
This is the, Oh my God, this is the end of Israeli democracy. We're lining up with these racist anti Arabs who, um, are following in the footsteps of Mayor Kahane. By the way, himself now dead 30 odd years killed by a terrorist in a hotel on Lexington Avenue in New York City. The first, uh, as Andy McCarthy says, the first actual act of Jihad.
Unless you want to count Robert Kennedy's assassination, the first act of the modern jihad, uh, Muslim terrorism in the United States was, was the, was the murder of Kahana. Um, and, you know, oh my God, this is it. This is the end of everything. And this is a big, uh, Gishrei and all that. [00:29:00] One thing I should mention before we go on is that every election season in Israel, every election has a party that comes out of nowhere and everybody goes, Ooh, this could change everything.
And often those parts, it's all a sugar high. And when people actually go to the polls, it doesn't happen. The last one was a kind of right wing, uh, pot lover whose name I can't remember, but who, uh, you know, like there was basically a mix of legalization of marijuana. Uh, and, and like super libertarian on markets, like free market reform.
He was actually kind of an interesting guy. Yeah, or wanted to annex the West Bank. I mean, anyway, but there was this whole like, I met various people on the right who were like, I'm voting for him, that's really, and he scored in the polls and stuff, and then he didn't even make the threshold. So, so his party disappeared.
But like, there is this thing. It's like, every, every, every season. And that's where you have to be cautious about, you [00:30:00] know, these. Yeah. But I do think this, there's something real going on with this one. I'm not, I, I, you know, I don't think they're just going to, and it's generational cause Smotrik and Smotrik and Benveer are young.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They're in their forties, both of them. And they are, um, and they're professionals. That's the interesting thing. Like Smotrik is a lawyer, um, who defends. Who was like defended Israelis who get, you know, who get accused of beating up. Uh, you know, like Israeli hooligans who end up, you know, accused of beating up Arabs or doing something like that.
Um, and Ben Gvir, I can't, is he also a lawyer? Anyway, they're, they're, they're professionals. They're not, they don't like sit around studying Talmud all day and, and they're not professional politicians either. So it's an interesting moment. Okay. So that's scenario number one. We need to speed up a little.
Scenario number two, not the coalition with the religious parties. So there's two, there's [00:31:00] two versions of that actually. So one is, uh, If some, if, if Gantz, which is, he's running as kind of center, center right, current defense minister overperforms, let's say he gets, I'm picking a number here, 14 plus seats, unlikely, but not impossible.
If I yell at Shaked, doesn't get wiped out. Uh, because she doesn't meet the mandate. There's four plus seats. Suddenly, Netanyahu has options. Netanyahu can say, Wait a minute, Ben Vir and Smoltrich. Not sure I need you. I've got Shaked over here, and I can actually cobble together 61 without you. So that's, that's one way a government is formed without, without the um, Zionist nationalist party in the coalition.
And then the next scenario where a Netanyahu government is formed, it would actually not be a Netanyahu government. It would be a national unity government where no party can actually form a government or it seems difficult. Herzog, Chaim Herzog, who's [00:32:00] the current president of Israel, whose job it is.
Bougie Herzog. Bougie Herzog. Yeah. Sorry. Chaim Herzog. Sorry. Isaac Herzog. Sorry. I'm going to, I'm going to get to Bougie's father in a second. Bougie Herzog, the current president. It's his job to work with the different parties after the election to negotiate how a government is formed. And he wants a national unity government.
That's what he wants. He thinks it's the healthiest for Israeli democracy. It would actually keep the extreme right out of the coalition. And, um, he's, he's very proud of the role he played in forming this current government, which we talked about early, which was earlier, which was, which was like, was included many firsts for Israel, including an Arab Muslim party in the government.
Um, and, uh, so national union government would be basically a government of Netanyahu, Lapid and Gantz in some kind of rotation. And what I was saying about Isaac Herzog, which, uh, uh, Bougie Herzog's father is he Negotiated it, the, [00:33:00] the, a national unity government with a rotation in the mid 80s between then the Likud leader, Yitzhak Shamir, uh, and, uh, and Shimon Peres, the labor leader, and Bougie wants to, you know, he's very proud of his father's legacy, it was a very important moment, Israeli politics was deadlocked back then, and I think Herzog thinks it could be part of his legacy to kind of continue his father's work and avoid, uh, this, this very extreme right wing party having a more prominent government.
role in Israeli politics and already does. So that's another way BB could wind up backing. Okay. So these, these three, these three BB scenarios, religious party, uh, coalition without the religious part with the national religious party and a national unity government, the last two, I think it is fair to say that in his heart of hearts.
The scenario that BB would like best is number two. He would like to be able to go into coalition with Gantz and avoid [00:34:00] the National Religious Party. This is the secret of BB. When you get down to it, he is a very He is a very non ideological politician, uh, in a very ideological coalition, governing a very ideological coalition, and he would prefer not to have this pressure placed on him by the right to do things that would, uh, alienate, um, the relationship with the United States and various other things, but it's the, but it's a hard lift, and it's a hard lift for Benny Gantz, who is a, who is kind of Be a little like Lucy in the football for him to go into coalition with Bibi with promises and guarantees of things because he knows Bibi will screw him.
He's done it before. They were in a coalition together. It was supposed to be rotation. Bibi negotiated the first slot. Uh, Gantz was supposed to take over in like a year later. And lo and behold, the government fell apart [00:35:00] six months in. Uh, and they went to a new election and Gantz never got to be prime minister.
So, he And by the way, the stuff they're saying about each other, I mean, I know politics gets heated and people work past it once they get, I got to tell you, the last few days, constant baby are saying about each other, the idea that these guys are going to be in a government together. I mean, I guess, you know, never say never, but wow.
Okay. And the national unity government has some of the same difficulties because then you would basically have got and Lapid and Lapid the current, his entire political definition. Is that he's not BB. He has no, and that he would never serve with BB. He served with BB briefly as finance minister in 2013, 2014.
But since then he's like, his whole political persona has been in, in opposition to be right. Okay. And let me, let me just say one other thing here. Cause it's, you mentioned these legal problems that BB has. I mean, it's, it's left unsaid that, you know, by BB and the people around them, but it's understood that, you know, he wants.[00:36:00]
By being prime minister and having his own government somehow these legal challenges be relieved. Uh, the sitting prime minister, you can't be prosecuting a sitting prime minister and a sitting prime minister can't be bogged down and in, um, a trial. And so it's understood that the National Religious Party is part of a coalition would kind of help him, uh, achieve that.
Um, it's not clear that Lapid or even Gantz, let's just say Lapid could, could live in a world where he Formed a government that resulted in BB getting off the hook on the legal stuff for all the reasons We just said because this whole persona so anti BB The question is could Herzog the president basically say to Lapid in the national interest You guys all have to be in a government together We got to keep the extremists out and in order to do this We've got to come up with some mechanism to take the legal pressure off BB It's the only way it'll work the threat to our country Pertzog would argue, and apparently he has said, you know, to other officials, the threat to our [00:37:00] country is far greater, uh, the threat of these guys, uh, the Smoltrich and Ben Gvir joining the government, that's the threat to the country.
Seeing a successful end to the legal, uh, pressure on Bibi is not. Okay. So, um, and let's go to the, the, the, the last, uh, scenarios, which are, uh, Not, uh, Bibi doesn't become prime minister. Right, so those are two. Those are two. So that's Lapid gets north of 60, and he just is able to form a, form a government. I, it feels very unlikely, uh, because A, he's already, I mean, The, if you add up all his, um, all the, all the, the anti Bibi block parties, it's, it's all winds up 55, 56 seats.
So he's got a much bigger jump, his block from, from like the mid fifties to 61 than Bibi has, if you believe all the polling from 60 to 61. And the other issue, if you look at the parties that are at biggest risk of losing. The falling [00:38:00] beneath the threshold, almost all of them are on the anti Bibi bloc, all right?
It's, it's labor, it's merits, it's a couple of the Arab parties, it's Ram, which is the Arab Muslim party that's in the current government. I think they'll make it. It's, um, it's Avigdor Lieberman's party, Israel Bteinu. So these, you know, now, I don't think all of them will fall behind, but if like one or two of them do.
It completely screws up Lapid's calculus. So much so, this was also, I talked about that Shas TV ad, another extraordinary site. Lapid was campaigning, I think last week, in labor and merit strongholds, encouraging voters to vote for labor or merits. So now why? Because He, he, he worries he'd be a victim of his own success.
If he convinces enough of them to vote for him, that's good news because his net vote increases. But if it's, but if it's just enough that it actually brings those parties below the threshold, but still many of those voters stick with those parties, he's screwed. So he was actually in labor and merit strangle strongholds [00:39:00] campaigning for parties that aren't his own.
So there we are. No, no, but we haven't gotten to one more. We have one more. The last is no government has formed. And they go to elections again in the spring or summer of, of next year. And I actually think that's not a bad scenario for Lapid because he gets to be prime minister for another, for another year.
And one thing BB did to great effect with great, uh, it was very effective at was those multiple elections we've just described, which began in 2019, basically continue to now for, for a big chunk of that time. BB, even though he's going from election to election election, he was always the incumbent prime minister.
He was the incumbent prime minister that was going into an election, but he was still on Balfour Street in the prime minister's residence, in charge of the government, dealing with national security crises, on television every day, managing the COVID pandemic, whatever, pick your crisis du jour. He was large and in charge.
And it meant that all, he was able to [00:40:00] hold his coalition together because all these other parties felt like, okay, we're not winning elections with Bibi. We're not losing elections though. And he's still in power. And he controls all the patronage and resources we need access to. So we can't abandon him.
He's now been a year in the opposition without that power. He's done okay. He's obviously held this coalition together. Can he hang on to it for two years? Like at some point Lapid is going to be looking like the guy who's in charge. And that, that I think is a pretty good scenario for Lapid. So, uh, that is, that's the Israeli election portrait.
Uh, amazingly informative. Let's move on to the American election, which is a week from ends a week from today, people have been voting all over the country, 23 million votes apparently have already been cast, uh, in the. In this election. Um, and, uh, so a, a, a major milestone [00:41:00] occurred yesterday for people who are insane, granular followers of politics.
I mentioned this before the five, five 38, the Nate Silver's website, uh, runs this, uh, Simulation of elections. It's a it's a probability index that is called a casino in like statistics 40, 000 different scenarios are run by a computer and and then they they offer, you know in In, uh, in these 40, 000 scenarios, uh, Democrats prevail in the house by this many thousands of times versus Republicans and the same in the Senate.
So three or four weeks ago, if you ran the model, the five 38 model, Democrats had a 69 percent chance. Of [00:42:00] maintaining control of the Senate and yesterday afternoon, uh, the model hit 50 50 that Republicans and Democrats have an equal chance of winning the Senate so that so the model has moved in the Republican direction by 20 points.
Or, you know, whatever that is, that's like, uh, however many simulations that is in the, in the thing. And so, um, my guess is that among people who watch this stuff, you know, like hysterically, um, we are now moving into the Elizabeth Kubler Ross stages of grief for, for Democrats. Which are anger, denial, bargaining, acceptance, and I can't remember what the fifth is.
Even though I think that was all crap, that this is actually not what the stages of grief are, nonetheless, using it for, for this purpose. Uh, uh, Dan, you, [00:43:00] um, you spent a lot of time talking to people, uh, behind the scenes, um, uh, But we were talking last night and, uh, you, I would not say that despite what I'm saying, that Democrats have every reason to start, you know, uh, uh, ordering bagels for the Shiva and, you know, getting the scissors ready to cut their, um, to slash their clothing, uh, that Republicans are acting like they either that they have this in the bag or that everything is just like, Oh my God, this is so great.
Like everything's moving our way. Emotionally. Yeah. I think in the, I think there are two things going on. One in the House, uh, you know, there's, there's already some, some bickering between different factions among House Republicans, but, um, but basically they think they're fine. The Senate. Um, look, for all the reasons you're saying, it looks and feels like this, the Republicans are going to win 51 [00:44:00] plus seats.
Well, you know, it's so, I mean, you just go race by race and you're like, well, is there a scenario, even though, um, you know, for all the reasons you're saying it looks like it's baked, is there a reason it's not baked? So let's start Pennsylvania, right? So I, I heard of two internal polls, one campaign and one from one of the, uh, Republican affiliated PACs that has.
Oz up by two, basically a two point race between Oz and, um, Fetterman. Okay. That's great. Uh, cause Fetterman had been way above Oz for, in the, according to the public polling for a while, you know, Oz is still below 50%. Right. And both those polls, I think it's like 48 percent, 47 percent, 49 percent. And, um, and obviously the wild card is the, is the gubernatorial race, this Mastriano.
Like what is that going to do to us? So Republicans, you know, the, in polling, you say the trend is your friend. It's not about vote share. It's about, it's about the trend and the trend is moving in Oz's direction. So, and given the issue set. [00:45:00] You know, that's dominating this last week. Republicans, you know, Oz should be fine.
And yet, well, we're not sure what will Mastroiano be a drag on Oz. So we can't totally bet on that one. And then you look at Georgia and you say, all right, look, can you imagine a Kemp? I mean, is it, it seems that this, the abortion issue has not completely destroyed Walker and Kemp still so is overperforming, uh, Abrams, Stacey Abrams in the gubernatorial race that you can't imagine a world in which There, there are Kemp Warnock voters, so Herschel will be fine, right?
And then, well, but, is candidate quality really a big problem and could you have a bunch of people voting for Kemp and then just not voting in the Senate race? They're not Kemp Warnock voters, they're just Kemp voters and then they disappear from the rest of the ballot. And you, and you systematically start, you know, Kelly in Arizona.
is even though Masters has tightened the race, he's still, he's the one guy who's been Democrat, who's been in these battleground states, in these battleground races, who's been [00:46:00] consistently polling above 50%. He is a strong candidate. He's been consistently voting above, uh, polling against 50%. So, you know, maybe that's good.
So you, you start, so on the one hand, You're right, John. On the other hand, Republican operatives are like going race by race, and they're like, it's not that big. And basically, we could easily be the 50 50 Senate and be back in Georgia for a, you know, another vote in a month. And, you know, oh, my gosh, this is stressful.
Yeah, Noah, we've been talking about this for weeks, but like the this discrepancy when they do this issue polling on what people are saying. On issues, right? Inflation, the number one issue by at least 10 percent above abortion, at least in the recent Gallup poll. So on a, if you, if you ask people the most important issue, they say inflation, like 49%, something like that.
And then, uh, you ask them who would be [00:47:00] better to handle it, Republicans or Democrats. Republicans are 30 points up on an issue that half the electorate says is the most important, and yet the generic ballot, do you prefer a Republican or a Democrat, is basically at 50 50. I don't understand how this computes.
I continue to find this incredibly puzzling. I find it puzzling to a certain degree. I think the electorate generally isn't sold on Republicans. It's very apprehensive about Republicans. It's only two years ago, four years ago, that they voted him out of Congress and voted him out of the White House two years ago.
Um, but at the same time, I, at the risk of contradicting. Dan, this cake is as baked as it gets. Um, the movement in the polls in the last two months, or two weeks rather, has been pronounced and it's exactly what you would expect to see in a wave year where undecided voters are breaking in one direction and one direction only.
Nate Cohen over at New [00:48:00] York Times has this little nugget. Um, and our final wave of Senate and House polls the last few days, a hallmark of non response bias looks like it's backed, it's back, the non response bias being among Republicans. Overall, white registered Democrats were 28 percent likelier to respond to our Senate polls than Republicans, a disparity that exceeds that from our polling in 2020, when Republicans gained, what, 13, 14 seats unexpectedly.
Um, I fully expect to see an R plus 5 environment, could be R plus 5, 6, could be R plus 7. But I expect an R plus five environment, and then both chambers fall. Maybe they get one seat margin and they get 23 seat margin. And yes, intellectually, as I said before, it's hard to square. Ticket splitting to the degree that you would need to see it in places like Pennsylvania, where the top of the ticket is a huge drag.
It's really only Pennsylvania. Carrie Lake's not a drag. Kemp's going to drag Walker over the finish line. He may even get them over the 50 percent [00:49:00] threshold. I would not be surprised to see it. Um, so yeah, I think we're going to see a pretty substantial. Wave race. By the way, just know, I, I, I'm, I'm projecting to you the, the agita I'm hearing.
I get it. I actually agree that I, I actually think Republicans are going to win the Senate and win the House well into the two thirties. I admit that I'm relying on what is disparagingly called in the among the kids vibes, but the vibes are pretty strong. The vibes are all moving in one direction. And yes, I look at the same data and not the internal polling, obviously, but the public polling and the public polling presents something of a mixed picture, but the picture is becoming clearer and clearer by the hour.
Listen, um, the numbers that, because it's sort of been assumed that Republicans would take the house, but because, uh, Democrats in the generic balloting, we're doing better than they, than the atmosphere said that they should, people haven't been focusing on the wave possibilities in the house and what they mean, we are looking at a [00:50:00] possibility of Republicans winning 25 to 30 seats that would get them into the largest.
Majority that Republicans have held in the house. I think since 1946 and 1946 was itself an anomalous election because it was the first election after World War II and Roosevelt's, uh, Roosevelt's death and, you know, the, and Truman, you know, we were, we were like strikes in a recession. It was, it was absolutely terrible.
Right. And there was a huge Republican wave in 1946. That's all, you know, what is that? That's 75, 76 years ago. We could be looking at. Republicans with over 240 seats in the house. An R plus seven environment would be about 260, which is gigantic. And yeah, I mean, I don't even know that that's possible because that would really mean like corpses would be beating Democrats in some, like, I don't even know if there are enough competitive races.
That's the problem is that we, that not the problem, but Republicans [00:51:00] won a lot of races that no one expected them to win in 2020 because no one expected Republicans to win seats that They shouldn't win when Trump was losing this is what Rove, you know, Rove made this point on, on my podcast and others have made it so, so we almost, you almost have to view 2020 and 2022 as a combo, like, you know, anyways, because a lot of those 2020 wins would have happened in 2022.
Nonetheless, um, you know, uh, the, the most friendly tracker for Democrats. Has been the CBS YouGov tracker. And they're at, I think seven, they're at a minimum of a 17 seat game for Republicans, which itself brings them to the same level that they were at in 19, after 1994, now, 1994. You know, they won 52 seats and they had this, you know, huge wave and then control.
But again, the margin of control, if you need 218 to [00:52:00] control the house, having 232 isn't that big a margin. I wanna bring two 40 into this, 'cause this, there's more vibes here. Just because this just to, if you read the lay of the land, you can get a sense of this panic. Kathy Holle. Governor of New York, who's in a little bit of trouble, surprisingly, governor of New York.
Um, nevertheless, she's facing a tough election. She appears yesterday, or two days ago, rather, on, um, MSNBC with Al Sharpton, where she is talking about crime. And she says that Republicans are essentially making up the crime issue. Quote, these are master manipulators. They have this conspiracy going all across America to convince people that Democratic states are not safe.
Well, guess what? They're not only election deniers, they're data deniers. She's saying it doesn't exist. First of all, just take the message out of the way. Think of the venue. She's on MSNBC talking to Al Sharpton. How many registered [00:53:00] Democrats are watching that show? How many of them are in New York? How many of them are unenthused to vote?
Who on earth are you trying to talk to here? Why would you even take this message? This as insane as this message is to this particular venue, unless you are just underwater, scrambling, drowning, and terrified. Well, she is. She's, she's been drowning. I mean, at least since the night of the debate. I mean, where she turned in this terrible performance and, and, and could never satisfactorily answer the crime issue.
Um, he talked, I'm, I'm so sorry. I've just got pent up issues here, but we talk about this conspiracy theories. Like Republicans are only beholding to conspiracy theories. This is a conspiracy theory. She's peddling a conspiracy theory. It's not the last one. It's funny when john was talking about the the the stages of grief Um for democrats, there's only going to be anger and denial here.
You could you could forget the rest There's not going to be bargaining and acceptance and then we're going to first see uh, uh democratic [00:54:00] conspiracy theories the hokal thing is particularly crazy because she and Mayor Adams made a major move last week. If you ride the New York city subways, there are cops flooding the platforms.
Well, he was picking up garbage in the subway the other day, right? 1, 200, 1, 800 cops are now on subway platforms 24 hours a day. And she's not going on TV to say, help is on the way. We have sent in the cavalry. Like she's saying, no, no, no, it's safe here. She's not speaking to those, it's the white suburban women right now who she should be talking to.
They're worried about the economy and they are worried about crime. I don't know, call them the Karen voter if you don't like them. But she's not speaking to them. And neither are a lot of these other Democrats in other states where crime and inflation are really top of mind for voters. See, the crime issue has has come into focus in a [00:55:00] very bad way for her for Democrats in New York, which is that it has really come to center on transit crime.
It has come to center on the subway. And this is something that is so eminently relatable for New Yorkers. And it is so identifiable and everyone has seen it. And there is simply no way to talk about it because yeah, sure. When you walk around the streets, uh, you may not, uh, uh, encounter, uh, uh, that many scenarios.
Well, if you're, if you live in long Island or you live in purchase, New York, you're not, there's not a lot of street crime. You're first of all, you're not on the streets that much. And second of all, you know, that's not, that's not where it is. The important thing about subway crime, the important thing about New York city crime is.
That there is a threshold that any Republican candidate, in this case, Lee Zeldin, needs to meet statewide in order to be competitive because it is assumed that Republicans will prevail, [00:56:00] uh, upstate, uh, or outside of New York City, which is about half the population of the state. Uh, Democrats need to rack up huge numbers in the city.
And have been, you know, in election after election. Um, so that the minimum that a Republican needs to get simply to even be in the conversation is 30%. And there's been very little polling in New York state. We should talk about that a little bit, but the very little polling. Uh, the last poll Quinnipiac had Zeldin at 37 in the city.
If he gets to 37 or 40 and that solidifies, he probably wins. I mean, um, you know, he's going to win Suffolk County, which is, I think the largest, well, Nassau is a larger County, but I mean, he might win Nassau. I think he will win Nassau. And I was in upstate. Over the weekend. I think that I mentioned this yesterday.
I was in upstate. Right. I did. [00:57:00] And they yeah, and and there was no there was no street. Hokel had no presence. Don's become the lawn, the lawn sign. Yeah. Which is always bad. It's always bad. It's happened to the commentary. It's always bad. He's counting lawn signs and bumper stickers. I'm sorry. This is like, this is like saying crowd.
This is the crowd size thing, right? No, it's like Romney is going to win because he had a big rally. Don't tell me. Don't get me. Sorry about that. Or subject. We were just, I will say, by the way, the conversation we're having around about New York right now is the same conversation. I had with our friend, Mike Murphy, who lives in LA about what's happening in the LA mayorals.
Oh, talk, talk. Where Rick Caruso, he thinks is within a couple points of beating Karen Bass. Now Caruso is running as a Democrat, but everyone knows he's a Republican because they don't, they have the nonpartisan election there. So he and Karen Bass, who's the longtime Democratic Congresswoman, were finishers.
And he's, he's a longtime Republican who switched his registration. He's running on this issue. He's running on the city is a mess [00:58:00] and crime is a problem. And there's, you know, drugs and syringes and a homeless situation that's gotten out of control. And, you know, it's, I don't know if it'll win, but it's going to be really close Oregon, the gubernatorial race.
I think the, I think the Republicans are going to win that race. Right. And that's, it's, it's a Portland story, right. Which was like kind of ground zero in the craziness of 2020. And, um, and also in California, by the way, people aren't paying attention to this race, not the top of the ballot, down ballot.
There's a race for, for the, but they, it's a CFO, it's a controller's race, which a big statewide office. No Republican has held the statewide office in California. And like, you know, since Jurassic times and, uh, And Lon He Chen, who parenthetically I worked with on the Romney campaign, was the policy director for the Romney campaign.
He's at the Hoover Institute. He's running like a really competitive campaign for this statewide position. He's been endorsed by the L. A. Times. He's been endorsed by the Sacramento Bee. He's, he's kind of a Republican, moderate Republican. I think that he's [00:59:00] associated with Romney, makes it easier for some of these You know, establishment organs to support him, or at least not oppose him.
But he's running hard on these law and order breakdown and civility issues. So I think this New York dynamic you're describing exists all over in pockets of deep blue America. The question is, will Republicans win? Or just get really close, right? That's, you know what I mean? That's, that is going to be like the Murphy, you know, the, the New Jersey gubernatorial race where, yeah, which went right where, where, where, um, uh, Cinerelli got within three and had been polling.
I think Murphy had been pulling what plus 16. The only reason I think this is going to be different is because Republicans were caught off guard in the Murphy situation nationally. I mean, the RGA was running ads, but where's this one? The Republicans are paying attention, there is mass. The R that the RGA.
I mean, just think about this. The RGA is now frantically P deploying money in Oregon and New York. [01:00:00] If you would've told them three months ago to start coming up with the New York and Oregon strategy, they would've laughed at you. And now it's like they're in it. Um, so, uh. What's interesting, Abe, it seems to me, is that, uh, if Portland is the reason that the Republicans win a governor's mansion they haven't had in 40 years, and if crime is the reason that a Republican wins the mayoralty in L.
A., which, by the way, happened, uh, has happened twice in the last 30 or 40 years. Yeah, but, yeah. Because of crises. It was Riordan. It was Riordan. Yeah, Riordan. Sorry, Riordan is the author of the Percy Jackson series. And Riordan was literally in the, in the Early nineties. I mean, it's, it's been right. But, but again, same sort of situation, out of control city, out of control.
You get like a, a, a businessman manager, uh, [01:01:00] ideological, you know, uh, figure who is making a racial statement by being a politician. Um, if all of this is happening, imagine that the Democrat party had taken seriously the portents of. 2020. Uh, we keep talking about this, like Abigail Spanberger on this call after the 2020 elections, yelling at her fellow Democratic Congress members saying, you cost us South Florida.
We lost these seats because of you, because you started talking about defunding the police. Stop it. Are you crazy? And they, they did, they, they've soft peddled a lot of that, but, um, the cake was already baked and well, they also have let them. The media have created an atmosphere in which the Democrats have no feel for the fact that they are on the bad side of all these issues.
Like it's like they have to wake up in the morning and and say, I have to shut off the New York to I have to shut off what I'm [01:02:00] hearing in order to understand my electorate and it's too hard by by November. 2021. Um, the democratic politicians who were the mayors, whatnot, who were talking about defund had changed their rhetoric.
What came next is you've got to try to reverse The result of the policies, um, and that, and that is still what everyone has ended up living with. Oh, they resent it. Yeah. Well, that's why they're trying to impeach a prosecutor in, in, uh, in Philadelphia, right? I mean, it's because that, that the rhetoric changed, but the policies underlying.
That have not, they've just, that was another fantastic portent, right? Which was that with the recall of Chesa Boudin in, you know, what was arguably the most liberal city in the United States, which is turning neocon. I mean, I, I don't want to over, I don't want to overrate it, but. San Francisco doesn't get better.
It's going to be [01:03:00] San Francisco is going to be what it was in the 1950s, which is a rock ribbed Republican city in a decade. Like there is going to be no alternative, but to turn away decisively from, from these policies, but look at inflation and then we should serve like wrap, but you know, inflation is the most important issue.
Right. So you have Biden framing. A spending bill as the inflation reduction act. So that's like, okay, we know we need to deal with inflation somehow. So we'll do something inflationary and say that it's anti inflationary like. Are they crazy or are they cynical? By the way, John, no Democrat is running on the passage of that bill.
Point to me, any competitive race where a Democrat now is running on it. Are the Democrats running on Biden's success as a president? That's the other interesting thing is there's this whole talking point among liberals that, you know, My God, Biden, look what he's done. He's like with [01:04:00] this 50 50 Senate.
They have gotten so much done. And it's like, yeah, congratulations. You're about to, you're about to, you're probably going out into the wilderness, you know, uh, and, uh, You're being exiled and, uh, and, and this is what you want to say is we're, we're really great. It's like this Hogle thing. Again, over the last week, there were people saying New York is the safest place.
Oh, I can't tell you how much I resent the idea. That being peddled now that you can't, you can't hand the keys to Republicans. They're crazy conspiracy theorists. All you do is try to gaslight me. All you do is invent narratives that are false, that are demonstrably false, that I know by looking out my window to be false and you just.
You're you dare call us master manipulators, conspiracy theorists, peddling this garbage nonsense. You reoriented the social contract around conspiracy theories for the last two years, and I've [01:05:00] noticed. How dare you? Noah, can I just ask you one final question? I think Dan too, because I think you're, um, Are you going to pay 20 a month for your blue check?
There will be nothing lamer than being a blue check mark if you have to pay 20 for it. You might as well just tape an L to your forehead. I think this is genius. I think this is absolutely, this is the smartest move. This is the one way you think maybe he can save it because yes, every blue check now is going to be like, I'm offended that I have to pay.
Being buying a blue check is like joining Mensa. There are, I'm sure there are a million people on Twitter who want that blue check and are willing to pay 240 a year to get it. And right there, that's a quarter billion dollars in revenue for Elon Musk. But only one time someone up with this. No, it's ongoing.
It's a yearly thing. It's annual? No, it's monthly. He's gonna kill this place and we'll all be [01:06:00] free. By the way, forget whether or not I'm gonna pay it, I think making blue checks lame is the greatest thing you can do. It is the greatest, but we're calling it lame because, look, I spent two years when I was on Twitter making jokes about how I didn't have a blue check.
It was a whole, like it was a routine that I, that I sort of like a ongoing comedy routine. And then I, then I got one, so I couldn't, couldn't do it anymore. And then it became this whole thing. The whole purpose of the blue check was to, was to secure people's accounts so that, you know, people couldn't, uh, you know, fake them.
Right. So now I just think. A world in which you have to pay for the blue check is fed. It's great. It's it's, it's, and he's apparently going to defend it today. Elon Musk, he's going to explain his revenue system, how he intends to bolster revenue. But, [01:07:00] um, there are still people paying for AOL. I'm not going to comment on Twitter.
I'm not going to comment on Twitter for business reasons, but I will say, but I will say, John, you've come a long way. From getting your blue checkmark, bailing on Twitter, despite your blue checkmark, and then just commenting on lawn signs. That's like the trajectory on Podhorst. I've gone in a terrible, terrible, terrible direction.
You really have hit rock bottom. It's bad. You know, it's really bad. Um, I'm so sorry. I'm just imagining you driving like Columbia County. C A L, I saw another Zeldin sign. Write it down. Write it down. That's number 12. Okay. You got your pad out. Like,
uh, it's the, you know, it kills the first time. The first time I went to the, uh, uh, the R R N C meeting. I, 30 years ago, I started a board of my friend, Dan Cass. And I started a newsletter called the Republican fax [01:08:00] wire. Um, and, uh, Uh, we went to cover the R, the RNC and, uh, uh, interestingly enough, it was, uh, the race in which Dan's future boss, Spence Abraham, tried to become head of the RNC and Haley Barber won.
And, um, people were talking about, complaining about what happened in 1992 with Bush. There are a hundred and fifty, forty, a hundred and fifty six, something like that, RNC members who choose who's the head of the RNC. And the amount of talk about how the Bush campaign hadn't provided them with lawn signs.
That was like people, you couldn't get away from a conversation. It was like the ancient Mariner, you know, like would fix you and tell you how terrible the lawn sign distribution was at the Bush campaign. So maybe I have PTSD from 28 years ago and the RNC meeting in St. Louis. Could, could that be. Maybe anyway, the best thing that ever happened to Spence, by the way, because he [01:09:00] lost the race.
He's like, okay, well, I guess maybe I'll run for two years later. He's in the U. S. Senate and then he's energy secretary. So thank God he didn't win that race. Yeah. Although Haley Barber did become governor of Mississippi. Yeah. And Haley was a good RNC chair. Anyway, Dan C. North, thank you so much for joining us.
Uh, we will, uh, you know. Uh, maybe we'll talk again if Herschel Walker doesn't reach the 50 percent threshold and see, or we can do a combo as we gear up, as we gear up for the sixth Israeli election. Exactly. Okay. And so, uh, for, uh, Abe, Christina, Noam, Jon, Pat Horowitz, keep the candle burning.
That's all for this special episode. Thanks again to the team at Commentary Magazine. for this conversation. Be sure to follow commentary. Go to commentary. org where you can subscribe to the magazine. You can also subscribe to the podcast wherever you get your podcast. It's a daily podcast, [01:10:00] uh, from the team at commentary.
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