Many years ago, my late boss, then staff director of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was having one of those days one has too often in government. He asked us what it would cost to become a member of the United Nations if we got our own island. It was less than $200k dues in those days. 30 years later, when we’re having one of those weeks, I go looking at private islands. Last week was just such a week in Washington.
I mean, what’s not to like? (And #pt you don’t have to join the UN either.)
Sadly, absent an unexpected lottery win, this isn’t on the cards. So Elise and I hit the highlights: the Mamdani win, and his shockingly odious victory speech; the ambitions of his far Left wing of the Democratic Party; Trump’s hollow China “win,” and the odds of a major Supreme Court smackdown on tariffs; and, yawn, the implications of Nancy Pelosi stepping down after a 16 century career. (Nah, just felt like it. Members should retire before 85.) And finally, we dug into the Heritage/Tucker Carlson/Nick Fuentes fiasco. I wrote about that, and Marc and I had a fantastic podcast on same with Eli Lake.
Indeed, on this last topic, without betraying private communications, I have to say that the silver lining to the Tucker neo-Nazi nightmare were the deliberations of the once Heritage-based National Taskforce to Combat Antisemitism. A principled group of Jews and Christians, including key Heritage staff, who reiterated their stalwart principles, and gave me hope that there are many more decent people out there than it sometimes appears. (The NTFCA quit Heritage last week.) In the same vein, kudos to Ted Cruz and the Federalist Society, both loud and insistent on the need to expel antisemites and bigots from the Right as well as the Left.
Thank you David Galinsky, Hava Salita, and many others for tuning into my live video with Elise Labott!
And if you love Elise as I do:
SHOW NOTES
Dany’s piece: #WTH New York forgets its past (Substack, Nov. 4, 2025) and podcast: #WTH: What do Mandani and the Socialists really believe? (Substack, Oct 30, 2025)
#WTH How do we keep Neo-Nazis out of the conservative movement? With Eli Lake (WTH podcast, Nov. 7, 2025)
Elise’s piece on China: The art of the long game (Substack, Oct. 31, 2025)
Trump’s China Deal Is a Major Indictment of U.S. Trade Policy (The Dispatch, Nov. 5, 2025)
Trump: I’ll Work with China, Not Canada (AEI, Oct. 27, 2025)
Heritage-affiliated antisemitism task force to cut ties with embattled think tank (Jewish Insider, Nov 6. 2025)
How Tucker Carlson instigated an inevitable war within MAGA (Washington Post, Nov. 6, 2025)
The Buckley Test: Can the Right Still Police Its Own? (The Free Press, Nov. 6, 2025)
Dany’s piece on Heritage: #WTH Sorry is not enough (Substack, Nov. 3, 2025) and podcast: #WTH: How do we keep Neo-Nazi out of the conservative movement
Bonus: Hillary Clinton quote in Pakistan in 2011 about its support for the Haqqani network, a terrorist group launching attacks in Afghanistan :
“You can’t keep snakes in your backyard and expect them only to bite your neighbors.”
(Now you get the metaphor about MAGA’s association with antisemites like Tucker Carlson and Nick Fuentes)
