Trump is right to deport pro-Hamas foreign students | Think Twice
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Federal immigration authorities arrested Columbia graduate student Mahmoud Khalil at his university-owned apartment over the weekend. It's utterly asinine on every single level that there would be any controversy over this. Our Constitution would be a suicide pact if you had an inalienable right as a non-citizen to come here and call for destroying our country and attacking and violating the rights of Americans. ♪♪

This episode of Think Twice is sponsored by the Jewish Future Promise. Ensure a vibrant and thriving future for Jews and Israel. Hello and welcome to Think Twice. This week we have a timely and interesting conversation for you with investigative journalist Ben Weingarten about the first months of the Trump administration.

But before we start today's program, I want to remind you, as always, to like this video and podcast, subscribe to JNS, and click on the bell for notifications.

Also, you still don't have to wait a full week for more of our content. There is a Jonathan Tobin Daily podcast where I share more news and analysis with you about the most significant issues we're facing today. You can find The Daily Show under Jonathan Tobin Daily on the JNS channel, wherever you get your podcasts. Also, JNS's inaugural International Policy Summit will be held this April in Jerusalem.

Click the link in the description below to request registration in order to attend. And now to today's program. At what point is it acceptable for a nation to reconsider some of the assumptions that have long been the foundations of its domestic and foreign policy? Is an adjustment of those assumptions a betrayal of our national values or a sensible reassessment based on the facts?

That's a question that few among the chattering classes in the United States have given a lot of thought to. But, like it or not, President Donald Trump is forcing Americans to think about whether they mean what they say when they declare, as they so often do, that they want Washington to change.

The new administration has embarked on what can only be described as a revolutionary course of action at home and abroad, and the shock to the system on the part of those who think of themselves as the experts is considerable.

Whether it is the attempt to essentially audit the federal bureaucracy being carried out by billionaire-slash-Trump aide Elon Musk, or the way Trump is slaying the sacred cows of foreign policy, his refusal to simply go along with how things have been done for most of the last century is being depicted by his political foes as fascism or thinly disguised authoritarianism.

But few of them seem willing to acknowledge that a push for less government at home is the opposite of authoritarianism. The same is true for Trump's insistence on viewing American interactions with other countries from the viewpoint of contemporary U.S. national interests rather than obsolete strategic ideas. It turns out that Trump really did mean what he said when he promised to drain the swamp.

Doing that requires what he and Musk are attempting to do in cutting back on an unaccountable administrative state that now acts as an unelected fourth branch of government.

Similarly, his desire to reformulate foreign policy to suit the needs of 2025 rather than 1945 or 1989 is inherently sensible, but offends those who cannot let go of the past or the lessons of history that are often misapplied to today's dilemmas.

that and not the pearl clutching of the credentialed elites whose fears are about losing their own power rather than democracy is the context in which we should judge the claims that trump is overturning the constitution

Instead, we should be judging him on the actual impact of his policies. In particular, his efforts to roll back the leftist grip on American education, which has fueled the surge in anti-Semitism in this country since October 7, 2023, or to deport foreign supporters of terrorism that have organized efforts to intimidate and silence Jewish citizens.

The same applies to cuts in foreign aid that have less to do with assisting the needy than in political power games or the establishment's worries about Trump's offending European allies or proposing a solution for the Palestinians in Gaza that rightly discards all of the establishment's assumptions about what ought to happen.

Rather than succumbing to the hysteria about Trump, it's time for sober citizens to understand that the main political conflict that we are witnessing is one about a dying establishment rather than about the death of democracy. To discuss the changes that we are witnessing and what they mean, we're pleased to have back with us today one of the savviest writers about American politics and government,

Benjamin Weingarten is a senior contributor to The Federalist and a contributor to Real Clear Investigations. His writings can be found at outlets including Real Clear Politics, The New York Post, and elsewhere. He is also the author of American In Great, Ilhan Omar and the Progressive Islamist Takeover of the Democratic Party. He's also a panelist on the weekly NatCon Squad podcast. Ben Weingarten, welcome back to Think20. Thanks so much for having me.

Ben, thanks so much for taking the time to join us today. I want to start by asking you to give us an overview of the first weeks of the Trump administration. The left is arguing that it's all authoritarianism. What's your take?

Who would have thought that authoritarianism would be trying to dramatically shrink the size, scope, nature and power of the federal workforce, take the government out of our everyday lives, ensure that the government execute the narrow array of services that the Constitution says it ought to take care of?

And on and on. What the real alarm is among the administrative state, among the Democrats, obviously, probably some portion of the Republicans, and then obviously the media mouthpieces and all the adjacents in the private sector is that

They really don't like the idea that President Trump, the chief executive, is going to be in command of the executive branch. And that's because effectively the administrative state has been a fourth branch of government, an unelected, unaccountable branch of government that's allowed to operate as it sees fit to the point that it doesn't really matter who the president is.

the regime essentially gets to pursue its goals and interests. And the other aspect of this, of course, as Doge has exposed, is that essentially you have a whole sector, the quote-unquote non-governmental organization sector, but which receives government funding. And it is terrified of the idea that that funding pipeline would be cut off. So

on both ideological grounds as well as practical grounds, an administration which through executive order, certainly through action, has declared as one of its goals deconstructing the administrative state.

I think that very much alarms, of course, anyone who has been a beneficiary of the status quo. To your broader point about my impressions of the first 50 plus days, I would just say certainly in my lifetime, it's been an unprecedented process.

policy blitz. And maybe in American history, quite frankly, I'm not sure we can point to an analog in terms of the battery of executive actions undertaken, for one, in support of the MAGA

which ultimately is about pursuing America's national interest, restoring the government to the place that it ought to hold in American life and effectively a return to normalcy. But what which looks abnormal from the perspective of our progressive ruling class is

And then also to that point, beyond the size, scope and nature of the order is just the dramatic sea change in terms of the vision that's being laid out. It's a vision that's wholly antithetical to what transpired under Joe Biden, which was really, in my view, a third term of Barack Obama. And so consequently, I think we're witnessing a historic sea change. And the question will be ultimately,

Can the momentum be kept up? And then maybe even the harder question, will Congress codify it and will the courts ultimately vindicate it? And there will be an interplay there probably so that ultimately this lasts beyond just the opening weeks or one term of a presidency, but continues onward into the future.

Yeah, well, those are big questions. Obviously, Republicans' grip on the House of Representatives is very narrow. The courts are divided and eager, at least the liberal judges are eager to play their part in stopping Trump. But to your point about it being unprecedented, I think the

The precedent that comes to mind for me is the spring of 1933 when Franklin Roosevelt implements the start of the New Deal and sort of revolutionizes the federal government to start it on the road to vast expansion. This is sort of the opposite because he's trying to restrict it, but

It depends on which side of the ledger you're on, which side of the political spectrum you're on. Nobody thought it was wrong for Roosevelt to essentially take the mandate that he had been given and change the way the federal government operated, vastly expanded it. But obviously liberals who have been counting on the administrative state to hamstring Trump, as it did during his first term, that's the really interesting thing here.

By having sort of the experience of a first term, then some years to be in opposition and then to come back, I think Trump is so much better situated, so much better prepared to actually do something. I mean, he talked about during the swamp in the first term, but really did very little of it. Now he's serious and seems to have an idea about how to do it.

He has the experience of the way in which he was sabotaged even before he assumed office in term one. I think there is a deeper bench of personnel who very shrewdly drafted and planned the executive actions. Also, just the tactic and maybe the strategy of a blitz of activities that it's very hard for the other side to actually respond to it.

But what I will say is that, you know, on the one hand, there's the sort of revolutionary policies stripping out DEI and wokeness from government and also extending that to the to the private sector to the extent possible. Immigration policy, obviously, the freezing of domestic assistance and then foreign aid and on and on. And we can talk about the significance of any one of those policies here.

But the first thing, the fundamental issue, the practical issue is,

the executive having control over the executive branch. And I think that the administration knew that almost immediately. And Doge working hand in hand with OMB, Office of Management and Budget, which people don't probably fully appreciate the significance of that office, but it's really responsible for not just setting the president's budget, but helping faithfully implement and execute policy, including around the regulatory regimes that exist in

That is a massive, massive effort, a critical effort. And because if you can't control the executive branch, you can have the best policies in the world, but it's not going to be implemented. And another point that I'd make on that is that he's a lame duck this time. So he is unconstrained in some ways relative to where he would have been constrained in term one, in addition to having the knowledge plus trifecta control. Although, as you note, it's very tenuous trifecta control.

And in some ways, it's trifecta control in name only, given the majorities that you need to hold and given where the courts are as well. But I think, interestingly, you mentioned FDR, and that came to mind for me as well. And this is sort of an FDR in reverse. One thing that FDR did oppose was the ability of a president or the inability to fire at will those leading, quote unquote, independent agencies. And there was a precedent set on that.

Humphrey's executor, where the Supreme Court, while acknowledging that the president basically had carte blanche to fire any subordinate that he wanted, within the independent agencies, they carved out

a protected class essentially of subordinates where if they weren't quite working on executive policies and if they were a member of a board that had a bipartisan composition, etc., that they could not be fired at will. They could only be fired for cause. Very quickly, this administration in litigation ongoing right now is getting close to challenging that precedent. And in my view,

Of all of the attacks, essentially, on our Republican order, constitutional order, within the administrative state, so-called independent agencies, this notion that they exist kind of outside the control of Congress or the presidency, and that's a huge affront to the Constitution. It's a huge affront to representative government and any sort of democratic accountability. And I think the administration is going to take that on. They've said they will already, that they consider it to be lawless, that precedent.

And of course, you're going to have the resistance fighting that hard in the courts. But the overturning of Humphrey's executor and challenging of independent agencies, which actually actually FDR himself wanted to do, interestingly, but lost in that ruling. That may be partially a tipping point in terms of turning the tide on the administrative state. But I go back to the fundamental principle that.

The policy agenda is incredibly ambitious. It's counter-revolutionary, going back to the government that I believe we ought to have to represent us. But if you can't have command over the executive branch, ultimately that agenda is going to crash. And that gets to the next point of the courts. And I've argued essentially that what we're seeing with the 100-plus people

suits that have been brought against the Trump administration and lower courts and in many cases, radical district court judges, in my view, who are not only enjoining, which is to say freezing the policies and prohibiting the president from pursuing some very basic basic policies, but

But saying that they're frozen for everyone everywhere, issuing these universal injunctions where even if you're not party to the case, they're going to freeze the government from taking that action against you.

We may have a real constitutional crisis on our hands. It's not the one that the left is saying exists of a president absorbing and trying to exert powers he doesn't have or exerting them in lawless ways. But we have a Supreme Court that appears to be waiting for these critical cases to sufficiently, quote unquote, ripen. But at the same time, the lower courts are

A substantial part of the judiciary itself is rotting while the cases are ripening. And I think that's going to come to a head. It's something that I'm going to be reporting on in the near term for real court investigations on what remedies conservatives and Republicans might be pursuing outside the courts to the extent the perception is that the wheels of justice are grinding too slowly.

Yeah, that's interesting because that's a really key question. It's not clear how the courts will come down. It's not even clear how the Supreme Court will rule. But in essence, you know, the sort of the big picture look at this is that Trump is trying to exercise his powers. He's not trying to take powers that he doesn't have. He's just trying to reassert the powers of the executive that have been essentially usurped by the administrative state, which is

You know, writes many of the laws that govern us and enforces them without Congress, without the executive and with only the Supreme Court to act as a check on them.

And it essentially takes government out of the people's hands because the executive branch has a singular leader. That singular leader who delegates his powers accordingly is directly responsive to us. And to the extent he oversteps his bounds, we obviously have a remedy of impeachment by our representatives in Congress. And essentially you have the courts arguably in effectively micromanaging the president's agenda,

not only just in joining policies, but saying his own appointees can't access government systems in the agencies that are subordinated to him. At the end of the day, what you're saying is that the courts are usurping his powers. They're arguably usurping the powers of the legislative branch as well. And then we don't have basic democratic accountability. And to your point, it's

It's a crisis over shouldn't the president be allowed to exert his powers? And it's also he's exerting his powers to send power back to us ultimately and to have Democratic accountability. So it's a perverse, topsy turvy world where the notion is,

He's an authoritarian for saying that he wants to fulfill and execute the agenda that the American people elected him on using every lever of power at his command. And the people who love executive powers when they're in office are very silent here when he's using those powers in a judicious manner to arguably trim the sails of a president, frankly. Yeah, I think, you know, the irony here is, of course, you know, the Biden administration

vitality of the Constitution, you know, ran roughshod over the law whenever it wanted to, whether it was student loans or something else. But all of a sudden, you know, the editorial board of The New York Times rediscovered the Constitution now that Trump is president. I'd like to turn now for a moment to foreign policy. Before we sort of drill down into the weeds of Ukraine, Middle East, let's talk a bit about sort of the narrative.

Trump is basically, as he is on domestic policy, sort of trying to counter revolution. He's changing a lot of the assumptions. And it seems to me what he's doing is saying it's not 1945, it's not 1987 before the Berlin Wall fell. We have to reassess what our needs are, what U.S. interests are. And that is just causing everybody in the foreign policy establishment, the liberal establishment, their hair is on fire.

saying, oh, you're a toady to Vladimir Putin, you're a fascist, you're an authoritarian. But isn't this just basically common sense to question whether just because we've been doing it this way, just because we've relied entirely on NATO, just because we are obsessed with, have always been obsessed with stopping Russia in the past, that that isn't necessarily where we should be as a foreign policy of the United States in its best interest now.

I think it's common sense. And I think it's also a return to the, you could call it the John Quincy Adams foreign policy that really prevailed for over a century and I think served America well.

quite well and not an isolationist so-called. And I hate the notion of there's just isolationist or interventionist. You either want to engage in every war and overturn every government that isn't quite like ours, or you don't want to engage, period. I think that is a lazy and non-representative representation of what the choices are in national security and foreign policy. But I think that if you start from the principle of

First of all, assessing America's interests and our values and principles based on the constraints that we face and based upon the world as it is. What the administration is doing is, first of all, seeking to get control of our homeland, our borders, our sovereignty, as we've seen just this week.

push out of the country foreigners who have no inalienable right to be here and advocate on behalf of those who wish to do us harm, violate the rights of everyone, and ultimately see America and Western civilization overthrown.

So, it's first secure the homeland, and that's the immigration policy. The second part is in our near abroad. It's worth noting, where did Secretary of State Marco Rubio go first? He went in our own hemisphere. What was the purpose of his visit in our own hemisphere? It was to basically try to combat and neutralize communist China's

the role that it's playing in our near abroad. So you start at home and you start working your way out to what are the places that really matter to secure America's vital interest and to ensure that our adversaries don't infringe upon

critical territories, critical strategic partners, resources, et cetera. And I'm thinking the Panama Canal. To some extent, I'm thinking Canada. Beyond that, obviously, Greenland as well. This is all about essentially securing our vital interests, figuring out who our allies are, figuring out who our maybe non-allies are or who's going to be problematic for us. Obviously, also, J.D. Vance going to the Munich Security Conference and before that, this AI conference where

First of all, he spoke about the imperative to protect Americans' speech and that Europeans ought not to try to infringe upon that, that Europeans ought to pursue their own nationalist ends, and that requires being responsive to their own peoples. Interestingly, again, for all the attacks on Trump about he doesn't care about

sort of values and principles and only cares about interests somehow to our detriment. What the administration was basically saying was we want to be allied and work with and partner with those who share our interests. But you are actually repudiating the principles on which Western civilization is based. You are inviting en masse those who are diametrically opposed to Western civilization and want to undermine it. And you are opposing essentially democratic representation and governance.

So this was actually about finding allies and partners who actually share our values and interests. And then, of course, part of that is wanting to, again, neutralize China's influence in Europe, also Russia's influence, and to have partners that are actually partners and allies and that actually bear the burden of defending their own territory and

their own sovereignty and are not free riders who use America's largesse and security umbrella to protect them from adversaries, including Russia, and who also essentially we effectively allow them to underwrite their welfare states because we provide that security.

My kind of big picture point is that the administration is very rationally looking at what do we have to do to secure our vital interests in a very dangerous world where we are not hegemonic. We are not dominant in every single domain. We have stretched ourselves thin. We have wasted needlessly certain resources. We need to be able to have a domestic economy.

a manufacturing and defense industrial base. We lack that right now, which leaves us ill-prepared to the extent there is some kind of massive war with respect to communist China or in another part of the world.

And it also means acknowledging that the China, Russia, Iran axis is a huge pain point for us. But China is the senior partner and Russia is the junior partner. And Iran is obviously a partner of both. And that's the segue kind of into the Ukraine question, which obviously looms over all of this. And I'll note something that I think a lot of people have overlooked. But the Wall Street Journal back in February, several weeks ago, said,

interviewed J.D. Vance, and there were some headlines that I think kind of misportrayed what he said, talking about, well, is America going to would America intervene militarily with respect to Russia? Something certainly the administration does not want to do, given the lay of the land that I just spoke to.

JD Vance said, I think, and I'm paraphrasing here, that it's insane that Russia would want to pursue a policy that makes it the junior partner of China. And I think it's insane that America would try to pursue a policy essentially that pushes Russia into China's arms. And I think that during Trump won, one of the terrible consequences of Russiagate was that I think Trump wanted to, to the extent possible, and obviously,

The chances of this may be quite remote, but to the extent possible, try to keep Russia out of China's orbit.

because the partnership is a lethal partnership and a dangerous partnership. I think Trump wanted to do that, and I think that's one of the reasons he's tried to seek more positive relations with Vladimir Putin than others, while at the same time, of course, he went about arming Ukraine, he opposed the Nord Stream pipeline, and undertook a series of policies that Russia surely didn't like, on top of, of course, unleashing our energy and making us energy-dominant,

which is potentially the death knell of Russia's economy to the extent it's not going to be a normalized member of the quote unquote community of nations. This time around, I do think the administration very much wants to try and break China from Russia. And I think that does to some extent

dictate the kind of trade-offs that it looks to be trying to negotiate with respect to the Russo-Ukrainian war. Because ultimately, I think that the ideal is try to effectuate a reverse Sino-Soviet split. And by the way, if you go back and you look at what Kissinger was saying to Nixon in these cables or transcripts of their conversations, I think going back to 1972, he

Kissinger essentially said to Nixon, for the next 15 or 20 years, we have to break the

China from the Soviet Union, and the Soviet Union right now is clearly the dominant partner. But in the future, China is going to probably be the dominant partner, and we might need to switch. And I disagree with Kissinger in any number of areas, but in this one, I think he was very prescient, and I think he got it right. And so I think ultimately that's part of... This also goes to the Iran maximum pressure strategy, and more broadly, the administration...

Trump has said he wants to be, you know, he wants to win the Nobel Prize. He wants to end wars. He doesn't want to start them. Obviously, there are questions about how do you end them and on what terms? And the last point I'll make on that is that we had our enemies deterred under Trump won. And again, however remote Trump's

the prospect might be of pulling Russia out of China's orbit. However malign these regimes are and however much they may lie, cheat, steal, and do all sorts of other terrible things that obviously call into question how you can have a negotiation and trust it

In my view, ultimately, do the do the confines of the four corners of an agreement matter? What really matters ultimately is who is signing and who is enforcing the agreement. And so to that end, I think that Trump deters our adversaries in a way that his predecessors would not because of his unpredictability. And I'm sure we'll talk about, for example, the Gaza plan, totally unpredictable, but

Because of that and because of the zigging and zagging and the imposing pressure on the one hand, but showing an open hand on the other, because I think ultimately he wants to make deals, he wants to cut deals and take problems off the tables. Again, the terms of those deals absolutely matter, but who is executing and enforcing them also matter. And the proof was in the pudding in Trump won that our adversaries did not test us in large part.

Trump acted very boldly in a few narrow situations, and I think that kept our adversaries at bay. That's very consistent, by the way, with Ronald Reagan policy. And that's also very consistent with America's policy that, again, I think served us well for a first more than 100 years of secure vital interests in our near abroad, no permanent alliances, but permanent interests.

and pursue them vigorously. And that is to me how I see the foreign policy. And lastly, to your point about why this has upset the apple cart for so many people,

It's because it threatens the policies that many in our foreign policy establishment on both sides have been pursuing for decades. And it threatens their prestige. It probably threatens their business dealings and it threatens their power. And so that's why you have the same hair on fire response on the foreign policy side as you do to the domestic side, at least in some circles.

Yeah, I think that's very true. And I think it's worth discussing for a moment why Ukraine policy became so politicized. On the one hand, the left, which opposed Ronald Reagan for saying that the Soviet Union was an evil empire, now treat Putin's Russia, which is evil, but not much of an empire and not much of a threat to Western Europe, as

and treating them as if it still is. I mean, on the one hand, you know, they can't have it both ways. Russia can't be so weak that it could be defeated by Ukraine and quite frankly, can't take over Ukraine. They've failed. On the other hand, it's this tremendous threat. If we don't keep giving Ukraine billions, hundreds of billions of dollars, Russia will take over all of Europe. I mean, these are contradictory.

But it's also because Ukraine got bound up with impeachment of Trump because many on the left believe that Putin elected Trump the first time.

It became not really about foreign policy, but about domestic policy. And that's why the dust up with Zelensky and the Oval Office a couple of weeks ago set off the same thing, the same avalanche of I stand with Ukraine on people's Facebook profiles. You know, it's not that they so much stand with Ukraine as that they just don't like Trump. Right. You're absolutely right.

Everything foreign has become domestic in some ways. And I think it's worth noting, you know, first of all, we could have an interesting conversation about what do we think Vladimir Putin actually wants? And then what is he capable of achieving? And then what is America's vital national interest demand there? But one thing I would say is to the extent that

those in America who loathe Trump and are willing to essentially fund a quagmire in perpetuity, and they believe that Vladimir Putin otherwise will be Adolf Hitler reincarnated and take over Europe, essentially. The question would be, why haven't the European nations, why have European nations themselves chronically underfunded NATO and not met their commitments with respect to

the military funding. And then beyond that, of course, their own forces are very small and hollowed out to begin with.

Also worth noting. And then why was it that the left here had no problem with Germany and other countries predicating their energy supplies basically on having dealings with Russia? Why would you be funding the Russian war machine at the same time you're saying they're going to take you over? So obviously we can talk about all of those issues, but I think that your thesis is a very sound one, which is,

Basically, it's Russia. We created this predicate to go after Trump of Russia. And so Russia is the most evil country in the world. And it's worse than China. And it's even worse than climate change, for that matter, as a threat. And then to your point, on the other side, Ukraine not only was involved with that impeachment effort and the so-called whistleblower,

who was a foreign policy official pertaining to Ukraine under the Biden administration,

But in this last election as well, essentially you had Zelensky on the ground for Josh Shapiro in Pennsylvania and effectively stumping for the Democrats. So they have been involved in our domestic politics as well. And then you've had a lot of sniping, obviously, with Zelensky going after this administration, the administration punching back as well. So I think these things have all gotten bounded up together, but it's worth remembering that

First of all, when Vladimir Putin first burst onto the international scene, he was hailed as a potential reformer by many here. Let's also not forget that Barack Obama himself

repeatedly thanked Russia and Vladimir Putin for helping with the Iran deal negotiations. And Iran has been a partner of Russia, of course. And the Obama-Biden-Wahn administration did everything it could to try and negotiate that deal and prop up Iran. So, yeah, I think it's disingenuous. To your point, the Soviet Union, which really did pose an existential threat to us, Democrats oftentimes...

dismissed, if not worse, in terms of their own collusion with it. We can, of course, remember the dismissal of Star Wars, so-called, for example, and probably the long-term consequences of that. So it just, it reeks of disingenuousness

And I think to your broader point, the thing is, Russia punches above its weight. There's no question of it. It's a natural resource rich country. It has a massive amount of territory and it has a substantial nuclear weapons stockpile. And all of those things matter, obviously. But does it pose the threat that China does?

No. Is America in the same strong position, dominant position as it was at least at times during the Cold War and certainly after it? No. And so consequently, you have to deal with the world as it is rather than as we wish it to be with all those constraints, with the finite resources that we have. And I think the administration is trying to do everything it can to build up our strength while ensuring that we're only focused on our core challenges, our

as we go through this process of trying to rebuild our Navy, trying to rebuild our weapons stockpiles, trying to modernize our weaponry, trying to make our forces leaner, more lethal and more effective. And all those things are going to take time on top of, of course, just rebuilding the domestic capacity to supply our own military and not being reliant on foreign countries, including potentially adversaries, to field the force that we need with the weaponry that we need to be successful.

Yeah. Now, one sort of sidebar to this is the whole question of NATO. Now, many certainly of our fellow conservatives are still very, you know, very interested in NATO, propping it up and considering any pivot away from it to be a betrayal. And it's sort of as a terrible thing.

Are we a little too nostalgic for the Cold War? Are many of the people who are so all in, especially, you know, sort of part of the Republican establishment who are so all in on Ukraine, is it just, you know, they're kind of nostalgic for the Cold War and the very simpler era when, you know, we sort of knew where everybody stood, good guys, bad guys. It's a little more complicated now.

And they reject that. And that's why they go into, you know, that Trump is somehow a Russian agent. Anybody who questions the war in Ukraine is doing Putin's dirty work. It all revolves around this idea that the alliance that was created after World War II to stop the Soviet Union from taking over the rest of Europe is

is kind of now obsolete might be a harsh word, but it might also be very descriptive. Well, I think, look, one thing we can say is that you can make an argument that NATO members who have, as I noted, chronically underfunded relative to the commitments, as well as pushing for the expansion, obviously, over the last however many years,

On top of, of course, their own dealings with Russia in some ways and dealings with Russia's allies and partners, of course, they've sort of undermined NATO itself. I would also ask the fundamental question that I think should have been grappled with at the time, and I'm sure it was grappled with at the time to some extent, but I was young, so I'm probably not as in the weeds on the history of it as I should be.

However, what I would say is after the Cold War ended, what should the purpose of NATO have been? Did it demand reform? Should its aims have been different? Should its terms have been amended? And certainly, again, in a world in which China is the primary threat, but again, many European nations don't act like it, to the extent you're going to have some kind of alliance between

of like-minded countries, countries that want to work together to fend off adversaries.

Shouldn't its mission be altered? And I think these are just very basic fundamental questions about what is the purpose of the thing? Is it serving those ends? Are there free riders or not? Do terms like Article 5, for example, potentially lead to more pitfalls than benefits? And again, how do you weigh the expansion versus the expansion of it or the threatened expansion of it versus the consequences? And

So I think ultimately, where the administration has come down is it wants NATO members to commit more. It wants them to defend themselves, essentially, in partnership still with America. But the administration has also said that, I think indicated, and certainly during Trump term one, indicated that these global multilateral institutions, especially when there are many members, don't always serve us. And I think that there's a

a bias towards bilateral relationships. I think that makes sense in any number of contexts. And many times these multilateral organizations, and obviously this goes for the UN and any number of other ones as well, the U.S. disproportionately pays and the interests of our adversaries are certainly not U.S. interests, are pursued by those organizations. So

It's reasonable to ask the basic questions about what should NATO aim towards? Is it achieving those aims? Are its members fulfilling those commitments? Does it need reform? Or is there going to be some more dramatic and drastic conclusion to it?

Obviously, Vladimir Putin wants daylight between members of NATO. It's good for adversaries when we in the Western world are split. But the Western world also needs to be genuinely united to combat those foes. But America, of course, always ends up shouldering the disproportionate burden here. And so I don't think it's too much to ask for these organizations to pursue the interests

that we have pledged to pursue. And I think it's perfectly reasonable to question any and all multilateral organizations that we are party to, especially when you have the potential liability of the Article 5 involvement. Are they serving their ends? And if not, should we look to modify them, reform them, restructure them? That's reasonable.

And it's not about being a Putin puppet. Again, it's about pursuing America's national interest. Yeah, that's entirely true. And just to answer the question that you started with in your answer, I'm a little older than you, so I remember it a bit better. The truth is the George H.W. Bush administration resisted the end of the Cold War with all their might.

The Bill Clinton administration simply punted on it, you know, in terms of foreign policy throughout their eight years. The George W. Bush administration sort of, you know, used NATO to entice, you know, Britain and some of the other European countries to get involved in the debacles in Afghanistan, in Iraq. And now here we are. You know, what is NATO? It's

supposedly it's the free world and we like that phrase. We like to think of ourselves, but as

J.D. Vance asked the question in Munich last month, if you're not really for free speech, if you're canceling elections, if you're undermining the whole Western canon, the whole belief in your own identity, are you really part of the free world with us? And if you want us to defend you, maybe you should be more interested in free speech and living up to the values that we actually believe in. And now a word about our sponsors.

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Sign the pledge at jewishfuturepromise.org. Sign the promise. It's an utterly common sense, logical posture to take. And it's hard to imagine that anyone could be up in arms about it on the merits. But the Europeans are very used to lecturing us. They're not so used to hearing what the American people, a substantial percentage of the American people actually think.

And I'll add to that the comments that Vice President Vance made in response to Zelensky when you watch the entirety of that sort of gaggle, that press conference in the Oval Office. Zelensky essentially was was totally ungrateful and almost seemed resentful of the U.S. despite all we have done so far.

for Ukraine in this battle with Russia and continually challenged the administration's perspective on the history. The administration's negotiating posture essentially said that any sort of ceasefire and resolution

worthless. It'll never be abided by. And meanwhile, America was trying to ink a minerals deal that would serve our national interests, would serve as a natural tripwire against Russia, including because many of those natural resources are in territory that's either Russian controlled right now or close to it. This would have been a natural tripwire that would have put a

real skin in the game for America within Ukraine, a security guarantee all its own in some ways. And Zelenskyy kept making maximalist demands. And it almost seemed like if you wanted to blow up a potential agreement with the U.S., what would you do differently? And so I tweeted out in real time as I was watching J.D. Vance say, have you said thank you once during this presser? He was speaking on behalf of tens of millions of Americans,

Many of them who more than sympathize with Ukrainians and who obviously understand that Russia is an adversary, but raising the basic question of,

There's no gratitude here. You're attacking the very country that really ultimately, at the end of the day, stands between you having a fighting chance of getting out of this intact, at least in some sense, sovereign, secure in some way. You'd rather bite the hand that feeds you and attack it. And I just thought it was a refreshing exchange. But of course, to your point, obviously, the foreign policy blob,

the ruling class, they couldn't imagine that an American administration would dare stand up for the American people, given what we have contributed and sacrificed for that effort.

Yeah, I mean, you know, we could spend the rest of this episode talking about that particular exchange and Zelensky and the way he is obviously completely unaccustomed not to be, you know, being treated as if he was not Winston Churchill. You know, he thinks he is Winston Churchill. He thinks he's Winston Churchill in a G.I. Joe outfit and really, you know, just doesn't take well to being questioned.

And doesn't like the idea that the United States is actually trying to stop this war. And I think, you know, we could, if you ask who benefits from continuing this war, obviously, you know, what we want to, the Ukrainian people don't want to be under Russia's thumb, but

there is a way out of this war. Um, but, uh, Zelensky, you know, profits from keeping it going. Uh, he's not quite the Jeffersonian Democrat that he's depicted as, uh, by most of his American fans. But again, I think that's more about domestic politics and feelings about Trump than anything else. I do want to, but we've got a lot more to get to. I want to turn now to the whole question of Trump's effective dismantling of the USAID agency. Um,

which is depicted in the mainstream media as an effort to stop helping the needy. But it's actually very much related to the question about Ukraine, the question about the foreign policy establishment and the administrative state.

So it's really about something else, isn't it? And how that agency was being used, whether its efforts were really directed so much as charity, you know, humanitarian help, as it was sort of exporting a specific view about the world and about America that isn't necessarily what most Americans want.

Well, that's a good way of framing it. And what I would say is there's just so many different layers to the scandal of USAID and how its activities were unmoored from its mission, which is really, in effect, a Cold War mission.

and pursuing essentially America's soft power, arguably. Maybe that's a cynical way of looking at it, but I also think it's the accurate way of looking at it and of looking at what most of our foreign policy is actually about, which is pursuing America's national interests, protecting our interests abroad through non-military means, essentially. And of course, those powers can be, those activities can be perverted and corrupted. And I think really,

Literally, in the case of USAID, it was perverted. When you look at the exportation, essentially, of the woke revolution sent global with respect to radical gender ideology, DEI, and a whole slew of other issues, making the world safe, essentially, for radical progressivism of the kind that the Biden-Harris administration instituted, of course, at home, as

as well. And then you get to the more sinister aspects of USAID activities. So one of them is, again, I noted before that NGOs, sort of NGOs in name only. And when you start to look, for example, at the area of immigration, for example, there's a very simple case to be made that the immigration NGOs were used to help fund

foster and facilitate the invasion of America that the administration pushed for with billions of taxpayer dollars, some associated with USAID, some through the UN and other organizations as well. And when you look closely at some of these organizations,

with respect to so-called refugee resettlement or fostering immigration from abroad, there's a revolving door in some cases between administration officials working on immigration policy and who are oftentimes former leaders of or who went in and then led some of these very NGOs on the ground. But beyond that, of course, there's obviously the fact that we can think of USAID in part as

as a legalized money laundering operation for the progressives friends. And one thing I would say is if you're an NGO and you can't exist without government funding,

Should you really exist to begin with? That would be a first question. And you're not really an NGO then. You're really a government organization. And one point I've raised, which is a little tangential to it, but I do think worth highlighting is, yeah, I think we've talked about this before and certainly you've written before about the censorship industrial complex. But one of the ways in which the censorship industrial complex operated was the government helped coordinate funding

fund and work with third party quote unquote non-governmental actors like academic institutions, think tanks and beyond to pressure social media companies to censor what the government perceived as wrong think and

As well as, of course, just providing funding for third party organizations trying to destroy the business models of conservative or independent media. And so the government essentially outsourced an attack on the First Amendment.

in order to create a layer of plausible deniability and protect itself from the idea that actually it's really the government at the end of the day violating those rights. I think you could make the same case probably that this occurred with the immigration NGOs, that the government outsourced essentially the dismantling of the U.S. borders and the facilitating of the invasion, harboring illegal aliens, helping facilitate illegal immigration via the NGOs. And you could probably find analogs in a whole slew of areas.

There's the corrupt aspect, arguably, of the funding of left-wing NGOs where you can't necessarily see that there was any benefit to the U.S. national interest of these monies going out the door. Obviously, there are also businesses that received massive, massive contracts from USAID. Some of them, of course, in the districts of members who are huge champions of USAID, something that's worth scrutinizing.

And then beyond that, you probably get to the more potentially nefarious acts of USAID, as some have chronicled with respect to trying to push for color revolutions and regime change. And of course,

Serving as a journalist is one profession oftentimes in the area of espionage and trying to exert soft power as an intel cover. Obviously, diplomatic posts provide intel cover. And certainly as well, NGOs, as every country likely uses NGOs, there can potentially be an intelligence and espionage component to it.

and attempt to, again, organize color revolutions. And there's been pretty significant reporting on that as well. So obviously, we can have a vigorous debate about should the U.S. use every possible means to pursue its interests abroad? What should our interventions in foreign countries look like? What's lawful and what's not lawful or what's in a gray area? Should there be greater oversight of it?

But one of the fundamental problems that we face today is that oftentimes we've had administrations that have who our allies are and who our adversaries are backwards. And as a consequence, if you have these authorities, they're going to lead to

situations that prove undesirable to the U.S., if not unlawful. So let's say you believe that the U.S. should engage in trying to topple certain governments to get a more favorable government. What happens when the administration in power says,

thinks that a more favorable government is actually a very hostile government to our interests. And that's, of course, been the case when you look at, in my view, who the Obama-Biden administration sought to curry favor with and who the Biden-Harris administration sought to curry favor with. So...

Who they were against. I mean, Hungary being a great example. Precisely. So, and obviously, you know, we're seeing this today with Romania. You could argue, you know, you have this push to say, well, basically invalidate their elections. And that was sort of the Biden-Harris decision. Because the wrong person won. Yeah. Yeah. And we could probably tick off a lot of different countries where this has been the case. So I think this has...

opened a window into, and this is why the people who were exposed hate it, it's opened a window into both grift and graft and corruption and also arguably malign efforts that the government has undertaken. It's worth noting, and most people really haven't focused on this, but it was Samantha Power, of course, who was the director of USAID.

She has, of course, a long track record in the national security and intelligence world. She was infamously famous, responsible for the mass unmaskings of those in Trump world.

And she really hasn't been held to account at all for what transpired under her watch. So I think USAID is illustrative of probably what we see writ large and maybe only the tip of the iceberg relative to other areas of the government as well that have yet to be fully exposed to the light of day. Yeah. Let's turn for a moment to the Middle East.

Trump is clearly, I think by any measure, the most pro-Israel president that the United States has ever had.

But how does Israel fit into the America first, the Trump foreign policy? And I think there's sort of two trends here. On the one hand, Trump has taken that, as you already noted, that willingness to question everything, that spirit of questioning everything with his plan for basically depopulating Gaza and rebuilding it as a resort.

which, whether that happens or not, it basically throws out the Palestinian state fantasy and rightly destroys the sandcastles that have been created by the foreign policy establishment. On the other hand, some of his envoys, Adam Boehler and Steve Witkoff, have at times said and done things

that made it seem as if they're really just sliding back into the same mistakes that previous administrations have made, dealing with the Palestinians, dealing with Iranian allies like Qatar. And it's given some grounds for some of Trump's critics to say that, well, he'll eventually betray Israel, too. Where do you see this sorting out as we head towards more negotiations

And at the same time, as Trump is, you know, in some of his social media posts, giving real moral clarity about America's stand on Hamas and the need for helping Israel win that war. Well, I think first it's worth noting, you know, we've seen a return to the Trump one policies in many ways and maybe even more robustly, first of all, from day one,

Rolling back many of the Biden administration executive actions antithetical to Israel, including imposing a sanctions regime, really, I think an unprecedented sanctions regime that spread the war on wrong thing to Israel and sanctioned Israelis and threatened to sanction Israeli leaders for daring to have the gall to oppose the Biden administration's policy to effectively reward Hamas and the Palestinian Authority for October 7th with a Palestinian Arab state.

And, of course, we can talk about the getting out of UNRWA, challenging other multilateral institutions that are essentially terrorist-captured entities, targeting, of course, the U.S. students and trying to deport them, those who are non-citizens, taking up the cause. To your point, rhetorically, I'm not sure we've ever seen such strong words. In my view, the shattering of the two-state delusion

might be the most significant thing that he does with respect to Israel, even setting aside, obviously, releasing the weapons that the Biden administration had slow walked and withheld, giving Benjamin Netanyahu carte blanche, at least in his rhetoric, to go about destroying, obliterating Hamas and other enemies.

All of that, I think you have to say, looks incredibly strong and robust. And the two-state delusion, really, it's about so much more than just Israel and the Palestinian Arabs. It's really about Israel and the Middle East and the Gaza plan itself that Trump put forth, whether you think it's a trial balloon, whether you think it's deadly serious, beyond the fact that

I think that's a death knell of the two-state solution from America's side, certainly at least under Republican presidents. It's also imposing the ultimate loss on Hamas and on jihadists, and that is land lost. And that is a language that they speak, deaths and land being lost. Anything else is not really, in my view, a decisive decision.

And so I think, look, that in and of itself is is massive and should not be at all dismissed as a monumental sea change that is about is so much bigger than just about Gaza itself.

Now, that said, to your point, there are envoys and there are others who seem to take a different posture. One way to read this might be that Trump comes out with the most maximalist position and then he has envoys going out there taking sort of an incremental position and maybe a more traditional U.S. kind of position, whereas essentially Trump escalates and then they say, and here's an off ramp. And then he escalates up another notch and then there's another off ramp.

Another way you might look at this is, is it strategic ambiguity? The principal says one thing and the subordinates say another thing.

To my mind, the way that I see it is that what Trump says and does matters the most. I'm to some extent baffled by why Israel has not operated more vigorously and more aggressively to the extent what Trump is saying and the material support that he's providing goes. I don't know that you're ever going to have a better chance to do what you can, where you must, right?

to eviscerate the existential threats that face you. And obviously, of course, I'm sure the prime minister would say, well, I have lots of other constituencies that I have to

appeal to as well. And he's been under inordinate pressure and obviously was under inordinate pressure from the Bibi deranged in Israel. At the same time, he was dealing with it from the Biden-Harris administration. But this is a unique hostage and the hostage families and their, you know, the bully pulpit that they've been given by the Israeli and even the international media as well to pressure him. Obviously, it's under enormous pressure not to blow up any chance of getting any more hostages. And

And to that point, obviously, and you've seen sort of mixed messages from the administration on what it thinks about that. Trump touted the

hostage so-called deal before the ceasefire. And then the administration's also said we would never agree to a deal like that. And there hasn't really been an open conversation about things like should Israel execute terrorists so that this does not happen? How do you weigh trying to release the hostages versus decisively winning the war? And to the extent those two things are in conflict, what prevent

prevails. At this point, my view from the start, and I wrote this 10 days after October 7th, was that Israel needs to act decisively and overwhelmingly. That will lead to the war being prosecuted far more quickly. And as a consequence, you've got a better chance of potentially saving more lives all around and not potentially guaranteeing a quad

quagmire, a long in the trenches dugout battle, and some of the challenges that we've already seen faced to this point. I think it's notable that you've seen Israel cut off the electricity. And frankly, in my view, Israel should have kept all these resources cut off from the very outset. And obviously under pressure from the Biden administration, they didn't.

But the Trump administration self-evidently, I think, has its back on that move. It seems like and you have to read between the lines that if Prime Minister Netanyahu said that he wanted to take out Iran's nuclear capabilities where able, that the administration wouldn't stand in the way. That's my perception of it. Maybe that's wrong. Trump has essentially said, you know, I want to I would we don't want to go that route. But if it has to be done that way, fine.

I think, again, he would rather have a negotiation. He would rather probably see the malacracy conceded and not deal with a massive blow up there. But ultimately, I do think that Israel will never have a better chance potentially to decisively deal with these threats. And if it refuses to take the opportunity given to it,

It's going to lead to a suboptimal outcome that's going to perpetuate the very same maladies and putting off these festering problems that lead to intifada after intifada, essentially. And that just seems like an untenable posture to me. So irrespective of whether or not you think that there is inconsistency in terms of here's what the president says and does, here's what underlings are going out and doing or not,

I still think there's a golden opportunity for Israel to neutralize these threats in a way that is decisive and lasting. And to the broader point about where does it fit in the foreign policy, I think that the posture of the administration is very clearly that Israel is a

uniquely capable adversary that's capable of defending its own backyard. The stronger Israel is, the more likely the Sunni Arab states in the region are to work with it and serve as a bulwark against Iran. And that was obviously the thinking behind the Abraham Accords. That's obviously the thinking behind any expansion of the Abraham Accords. And the

And the question is going to be in any and all of these deals, whether it's I saw today reported the administration is going to push for some kind of resolution between Israel and Lebanon, whether it's with the Saudis and beyond. The question is going to be, what are the terms of those deals look like? Are they enforceable? But in the interim, to the extent the administration is giving Israel space to do what it can, where it must be.

In my view, it very much ought to seize that opportunity that will redound ultimately not only to its interests, but also America's national interest as well. Yeah, I think that's quite true. Let's turn to a variant of this in terms of domestic policy and another front where Trump's critics are claiming he's being authoritarian, deceptive.

destroying free speech, is his efforts to roll back the woke tide in American education and much else in society, which has been fueling. It's a sidebar. I mean, it's bad for America in general, DEI, critical race theory, intersectionality. But one definite byproduct of it has been the way it has fueled the surge in anti-Semitism in this country, especially after October 7th and

And now by defunding major education institutions, Columbia, the 60-odd schools that have been now warned, and by attempting to deport a Hamas activist who was using his green card to basically promote harassment of Jews and violating the law by supporting terrorism, that that is something that the Democrats are rallying around and to oppose.

This, again, is a clear example of how Trump's revolution in policy is causing the left to basically blow itself up. Let me point out an irony here that the very same people who were proponents of the federal government led censorship industrial complex, which silenced en masse.

tens of millions of Americans over their protected speech that the left didn't like. In this case, a rallying to the cause of a non-citizen to propagate essentially jihadist propaganda

on our shores, call for the overthrow of America and Western civilization at an institution, by the way. And I'm an alum of the institution at an institution that we're both Colombians in this conversation. Yeah. For better or worse, I guess. And an institution where, as you know, you have to take core curriculum, which in

involves a study of the Western canon, an institution that is, of course, a beneficiary of and supposed to be a promoter of, a fosterer of the values and principles of Western civilization. So it's utterly asinine on every single level that there would be any controversy over this when you're talking about a non-citizen who is propagating Hamas and jihadist

tropes and also to your point, beyond the speech, engaging in the acts that essentially threaten the rights of American citizens. And of course, our Constitution would be a suicide pact if you had an inalienable right as a non-citizen to come here and call for destroying our country and attacking and violating the rights of Americans. It's absurd on its face.

One can obviously look to who counts as inadmissible under immigration law. And you have those who are members of totalitarian parties and you have those who are involved with jihadist groups. There are several cases out there which document the links between the riots, essentially, and protests that broke out across college campuses and the nexus to Hamas and or other jihadist groups as well.

in the immediate time period after October 7th. So this should not be a controversy in that it is a controversy, speaks volumes about where the left is. I also, I would say, I do wonder if to some extent the left is louder than it is wide in terms of a constituency here. Haven't seen the polling on the Columbia, former Columbia student, the Columbia grad yet.

But this feels like an 80-20 or 90-10 issue. But if you're on social media, it feels as if there's a massive groundswell on the left. And obviously, there are reports out there citing over 100,000 people supporting him and certainly several members of Congress.

who have endorsed essentially freeing Kim and treat this as he's being taken hostage and having his rights violated and the like. It's totally it's total gaslighting and insanity to the broader. So no inalienable right to come here and call for our destruction and essentially collude with and execute an information operation propaganda on behalf of jihadist groups.

And then the other element is the institutions themselves that have refused to defend the rights of their students, stood by and let their campuses be taken over by Hamasniks and Hezbollah supporters, allowed people's lives to be obstructed.

and genuine bodily harm threatened against them, and in some cases, executed against them. And so it's almost low hanging fruit. Why would we consider subsidizing or underwriting or providing any privileges to any institution that essentially serves as an incubator of anti-American sentiment and violence, and then also as a protector, essentially, of those who

who violate others' rights. It seems basic common sense to me that we would not provide them U.S. government largesse, which is, say, our tax dollars. So this $400 billion in canceled contracts to Colombia, I think constitutes a

About an eighth or sorry, a little bit. Four hundred out of five billion dollars that is owed. I'm struggling with my math here. A little a little under 10 percent of all of the funding essentially in contracts.

to Columbia. And this is one institution. Obviously, you're talking about billions and billions of dollars across many institutions that have operated in an analogous fashion to Columbia. And we've already seen, I think, Harvard responded by saying they're going to impose some kind of a hiring freeze potentially. So hitting the colleges where it hurts is

Definitely matters. There are other privileges and benefits beyond just these grants, and we'll see if the administration pursues this remedy against other schools. Another aspect I would say that ought to be looked at is very, very minimally disclosure of foreign funding from countries who support a worldview that is antithetical to the American worldview.

Obviously, there are students, of course, who pay full freight and schools very much want foreign students who pay full freight, regardless of how regressive the countries are that they come from, to continue coming to these institutions. So they make up a bigger and bigger percentage of the tuition base. And then obviously you have foreign governments or adjacents who fund many institutions.

within these schools, and that, of course, includes the Middle East Studies Centers. And, of course, at Columbia, that's been a hotbed of jihadism and Jew hatred and anti-Americanism for decades now. When I was there, you had Israel Apartheid Week every single year. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad came to speak on campus, and you had the same sorts of agitation that you see today. So the foreign funding is another aspect of this, ultimately, that deserves scrutiny. And then to your basic point, which is worth underscoring,

The nexus between DEI and the work world-- worldview and critical race theory and Jew hatred and this notion of the oppressed and the oppressor, and turning it on its head to make Ashkenazi Jews the greatest oppressor of them all,

you know, 70 years post or 80 years post Holocaust. It is beyond perverse, but there is a clear nexus there. And the administration's efforts to combat DEI and critical race theory and the like then not only, of course, targets the anti-American forces that have exploited and really undermined the very roots of these institutions, but it's also a direct challenge

to the Jew haters, genocidal jihadist supporters, and the anti-Americans that prevail across far too many of these campuses. Yeah, I think that's absolutely right. Len, my last question, I want to sort of flip the script in terms of anti-Semitism. I think we know that the engine of anti-Semitism in this country right now is coming from the left. It's coming from woke ideology.

But there is also the phenomenon of sort of right-wing influencers and right-wing talkers who are platforming or in some cases actually speaking anti-Semitism. We saw with Joe Rogan interviewing somebody spouting anti-Semitism in the last week. We've seen ongoing problem with Tucker Carlson. Never mind Candace Owens, who has completely gone off the deep end. How serious a problem do you think this is?

And, you know, to what extent, you know, is this ultimately, you know, coming from a crack up? Because some of these people claim to be supporters of Donald Trump. And in the case of Tucker Carlson, he's sort of the court jester at Mar-a-Lago.

the contradiction between what they're saying about Jews and about Israel and Trump's policies, which are, you know, more, you know, taking greater steps against anti-Semitism than any other administration, as well as being very pro-Israel. What you're highlighting in part is, and at least at attempt on the side of those who

are pursuing a position that certainly looks and sounds like an anti-Semitic position and not just an anti-Israel position to try and define what MAGA is. And I think ultimately what the administration does in word and deed defines that and shows you where its priorities are and its heart lies. I would also say that

The voices being platforms and the positions that are being espoused

thankfully do not prevail across the electorate and thankfully are not representative of where conservatives are. One can absolutely have a good faith argument about what America's position in the world is, what our foreign policy looks like about foreign aid. And if we want to drill down foreign aid with respect to Israel and does it benefit both parties and is it in the U.S.'s interest and is it in Israel's interest in the way that it's been carried out?

And I would point everyone to the great tablet symposium on this from a couple of years ago. And I think it was before October 7th when it came out, which I think made a very compelling case that both sides would be better off to the extent you didn't have the USAID, which essentially created a lot of trouble.

creates a bear hug and allows America to, in some ways, dictate Israel's policy, sometimes to its detriment, and other times, you could argue, beneficially. But also, as with any support- And I might also point out that it's sort of aid to U.S. arms industry, because almost all of it is spent in the United States, as opposed to what we give Ukraine, which is far more. But yes, you're right. I think you're absolutely right. Israel would be better off without it.

And also to your point that the benefits to the U.S. are many multiples of what the dollar figure is on an annual basis.

And beyond that, of course, also there's the notion of Israel needs to have its own defense industrial base as well. And I realized that during the Biden years, I think the Obama years should have were a preview of what was to come ultimately. And now you see Israel trying to build its rebuild and build its own defense industrial base, probably in anticipation of the fact that there will be a hostile American administration again down the road, probably on the left. So but.

There's a question, the question to those who would question aid or U.S. relations with Israel is, are you also asking that question about every other country that gets U.S. aid? And obviously, this goes into this notion that there's a there's a Jewish cabal, essentially, that's controlling things and a Jewish lobby. OK, for those who are going to raise that sort of point, and if you're going to claim to do it in good faith.

Are you also going to talk about the lobbies of every single Arab government, many of which contribute substantially more than Israel does on an annual basis? And if this Jewish cabal is in control of things, why is anti-Semitism so prevalent in so many pivotal institutions and powerful institutions? And why is this little state in a sea of Jew haters so

portray it as the evil colonizer when, in fact, all those states around it engaged in ethnic cleansing around the time of the Holocaust and, of course, colluded in some cases with Adolf Hitler themselves. And we could go through all of that. You can judge whether it's a good faith or a bad faith argument by are any of these points even entertained or any of these points even discussed?

It's right to have a vigorous conversation about what America's national interest demands, what our policies ought to look like.

It's very corrosive when it gets into what's clearly anti-Semitism or anti-Semitism adjacent. In my view, that worldview is baked into, is embedded in the progressive worldview. The progressive worldview is prevalent among Democrats. And so that is still the far graver threat.

to Jews in America and ultimately to America writ large because Jews are ultimately the canary in the coal mine here for civilization in my view.

That said, it's obviously been more than troubling and disturbing to see some of it come from the right. And I draw an analogy here, at least I hope that this is the case, that the platforms and the size of the voices, the megaphones that we're seeing portrayed is not actually representative of what the American people think. It would be a very damaging thing, I think, to the fabric of this country and ultimately to the

America's existence to the extent you see any sort of growth of Jew hatred on the right that looks anything remotely like in terms of size, scope and scale, what we've seen on the left. But I do think that what the administration says and does and also where the electorate is on these questions is widely divergent from those who drape themselves in the mantle of America first and use it ultimately to try and pursue and advocate for policies that are

antithetical not only to Jewry or Israel, but ultimately antithetical to America and Western civilization and start to sound a lot like the critiques of America and the West of our adversaries. Well, Ben, thanks so much for sharing your insights with us today. You can subscribe to Ben Substack at weingarden.substack.com and follow him on X at bhweingarden.

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