Tangle - Emergency Podcast - Elon goes nuclear on Trump.

Episode Date: June 6, 2025

We couldn't wait until Sunday. Isaac, Ari, and Kmele talk about the fallout between Elon Musk and Donald Trump as the tweets are coming out! They discuss the predictable nature of their breakup, the implications for political alliances, and the potential impact on legislation. They talk about Elon's future and his influence in the political landscape. They also discuss the feedback to Isaac's piece on Zionism. And, last but not least, the Airing of Grievances. Ad-free podcasts are here!Many listeners have been asking for an ad-free version of this podcast that they could subscribe to — and we finally launched it. You can go to ReadTangle.com to sign up! You can also give the gift of a Tangle podcast subscription by clicking here.You can subscribe to Tangle by clicking here or drop something in our tip jar by clicking here. Our Executive Editor and Founder is Isaac Saul. Our Executive Producer is Jon Lall.This podcast was hosted by Ari Weitzman and Isaac Saul and edited and engineered by Jon Lall. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75 and Jon Lall. Our newsletter is edited by Managing Editor Ari Weitzman, Senior Editor Will Kaback, Hunter Casperson, Kendall White, Bailey Saul, and Audrey Moorehead.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Just tell John, but he could just cut it quick, emergency podcast, drop it immediately. Yeah, that's not a bad thought, honestly. Coming up, Elon and Trump break up and the drama gets real while we are recording in a very, very, very hilarious way. And then I try to transition thoughtfully to a really serious topic. We talk about some of the feedback about my piece on Zionism. And then a grievances section to remember, one for the ages, I think. It's a good episode.

You're going to enjoy it. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening. And welcome to the Tangle podcast, the place where you get views from across the political spectrum, some independent thinking and a little bit of my take. I'm your host, Isaac Saul. I'm here today with Tangle managing editor, Ariitzman and Tangle editor-at-large Camille Foster and fellas, the breakup of all breakups, the most predictable collapse of a celebrity love story that I think we've ever seen. Well, since Britney and Kayfet anyway.

Yeah, since Britney and Kayfet. I think there's a little more all on my children. Are going their separate ways. Uh, I, there's so many, I think we sat in these chairs last week and we, we were like sniffing the air, you know, licking our fingers and putting it to the, putting it to the air. It was like, huh. We're doing disgusting things.

I was, I was standing, I remained standing. So disgusting things last week. I was standing. I remain standing. So everything you said is wrong, but continue. Something felt a little off. Something felt off. Something felt off. Elon doing CBS Sunday morning interviews. Bill can't be big and beautiful at the same time. I'm not going to. I think I've spent enough, he said.

He wanted to criticize the administration, but he couldn't. There are things he liked, things he didn't. We're well past that now. We're in full-blown double birds in the air moment. I think Elon, just before we got on the show, started tweeting about how Trump would have lost the election without him. I think he actually ended up deleting that tweet. But he has now pinned a tweet to the top of his profile asking, where did this guy go?

And the image on the tweet is a bunch of screen caps of Trump talking about how important the debt and deficit is, or are, or were. It's a full blown war. And we've got this clip, maybe as a little thought starter, we could tee up this clip of Donald Trump talking about Elon Musk in the Oval Office today. I've always liked Elon, and it's always very surprised.

You saw the words he had for me, the words of... And yes, he hasn't said anything about me that's bad. I'd rather have him criticize me than the bill because the bill is incredible. Elon and I had a great relationship. I don't know if we're well anymore. I was surprised because you were here. Everybody in this room practically was here as we had a wonderful sendoff. He said wonderful things about me.

You couldn't have nicer. He said the best things. He's worn the hat. Trump was right about everything. And I am right about the great, big, beautiful bill. I'm very disappointed because Elon knew the inner workings of this bill better than almost anybody sitting here, better than you people. He knew everything about it. He had no problem with it. All of a sudden he had a problem.

And he only developed the problem when he found out that we're going to have to cut the EV mandate. I'm very disappointed in Elon. I've helped Elon a lot. I'll tell you, he's not the first. People leave my administration and they love us. And then at some point they miss it so badly and some of them embrace it and some of them actually become hostile. I don't know what it is. It's sort of Trump derangement syndrome,

I guess they call it. That's amazing. Yeah, he is really funny. That if people leave it, some of them, they miss it, and some of them, they just go crazy. Just a quick update here. Trump has fired back now on Truth Social at Elon. He said, Elon was, quote unquote, wearing thin. I asked him to leave.

I took away his EV mandate that forced everyone to buy electric cars that nobody else wanted, that he knew for months I was going to do, and he just went in all capital letters, crazy exclamation point. And yeah, Elon replied and said, such an obvious lie, so sad on Twitter. So, I mean, this is it, the full confrontation, fellas.

What are we thinking? What are we feeling? Are we sad? Do we miss them? The love story? How do we feel? It's probably the most predictable breakup in American political history in certain respects.

It's also a bit odd that it took this long to happen. Elon has, on a couple of occasions now, there was that period just after the election when he was criticizing Republicans openly about a bill they wanted to pass. There was the tariffs where he broke ranks. One could have predicted that this would actually be something that he would be less than enthusiastic about. And what's super interesting to me is the fact that the administration took so long to respond to Elon, and initially seemed exceedingly

reluctant to try and escalate. And I think at this point, it's just been pushed to the point where it would be very odd if they were still doing this weird thing where they just say, oh, you know, the president knows Elon's thoughts on the bill and has felt this way for a long time, or even yesterday with the passive aggressive response from Trump where he just puts up an image

of a post from Elon praising Trump in response to Elon being critical of the bill. And I just found so much about that clip interesting. The fact that he's kind of talking in the past tense about their relationship, which lets you know that this is definitely real if you had any doubts about that. But also the fact that he insists, I would almost prefer if Elon were talking about me personally, attacking me personally, as opposed to offering what I think is substantive critiques of the particular approach of the administration on this bill.

It is unusual, in fact, unprecedented to be seeking this much of an increase on the debt restrictions that are there for Congress and to be seeking to do it while also insisting that you care a great deal about finding waste, fraud, and abuse in the government and cutting spending overall. You had a couple other responses to this right away that I thought were interesting. As we're joining the call, you said that-

Sorry, I'm sorry. I have to interrupt you. Holy shit. Elon Musk just tweeted, time to drop the really big bomb. Donald Trump is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public. Have a nice day, DJT. Elon Musk just tweeted that.

I think that's worthy of interruption. That is- We need the soap opera music. You need the As the World Turns, All My Children music, play it all at the same time. That is amazing. Man, yeah. But also, it's the guy who's in charge of our internet and our space rockets and satellites and the richest man in the history of the world and the president who's in charge of

the military who are publicly feuding. So that undercuts the comedy a little bit for me. I don't want them getting so personal that they lash out in ways where the collateral damage that may be caused by any subsequent penniness ends up being really something major. We do need the levity though. Sure. I'm a little surprised.

As a Tesla owner, maybe you can get the update where you get like a Donald Trump embarrassing gif on your screen when you come under your car and that could be fun. I expected a confrontation. I am a little surprised at the kind of nature of this particular nuclear exchange. I mean, Elon, for all of his wealth and his importance to things like space travel, for example, I mean, I suppose SpaceX at this point is sufficiently well established and has a broad portfolio of customers. I mean, if you're doing anything in space and you need satellites up in the air, you're at this point is sufficiently well established and has a broad portfolio of customers.

If you're doing anything in space and you need satellites up in the air, you're probably going to Elon. They're not just depending on government for most of the money for SpaceX anymore, if I understand the books correctly. But that is still a substantial part of the business. The regulatory apparatus of the state can do a great deal to hurt Elon's businesses and his wealth is, it's paper wealth, you know, to the extent the market moves in a different direction, all of these things could have profound consequences for Elon.

So for him to escalate in this way, certainly not unusual for him to have an open confrontation with the sitting president of the United States. We saw that last term from the last guy. But it is unusual with this particular administration who has shown a particular willingness to use the apparatus of the state to go after their political adversaries in ways that are explicit and in ways that are actually...

Actually clear with respect to the letter of the law and in other ways that are a little bit more subtle, but still consequential. Certainly the showdown with CBS and we're seeing reports today that that deal might be in jeopardy that they were hoping to pull off with Skydance. The possibility of them doing something similar here to SpaceX or Tesla at a time when those companies are already having substantial challenges is very interesting. Totally. And considering the risk or the reach of something like Starlink that we saw, how it could impact

like military forces in Ukraine or people were covering it from disasters in Tennessee. Those are real stakes. And I don't know if there's another business that's doing it as well as Starlink. So that's a thing to be concerned about for sure. Isaac, sorry I interrupted you there, but I had to just to try to even score. It's okay. Tesla's stock is currently taking a nosedive just for whatever it's worth. But is it lower than it was during the Doge days of winter? I don't think it was when I sent you that screenshot, but I imagine Elon tweeting about

the Epstein files. It's probably not going to turn it around. It's having an impact. Yes. Okay. I do really want to get, of all the people to be dragging us into the gossipy part of this, I do, I hate for it to be me. I do really want to get in some of the substantive stuff, but I just want to say one other quick thing, which is that the House Judiciary GOP just finally deleted the Kanye-Elon Trump tweet that was infamous, where it was just Kanye-Elon Trump period, period, period. So that tweet has been officially taken down. I guess two out of three was enough.

They finally turned on Kanye. Yeah. Sorry, Camille. They finally turned on Kanye. Sorry, Camille. They finally turned on Kanye. Yeah, Elon. I can only offer you a sigh at this point. We Kanye fans have been through so much in recent years. Just sigh.

I know. You can't even wear your shoes anymore. No, but don't. That's not true. I'll find a way. All right. We're trying to put a pin in that, you said, and I'm just opening doors left and right on you. Yeah, yeah. No, I think there are some really interesting substantive questions here. I think the most pressing one is just how is this actually going to impact the fate

of this massive piece of legislation. I mean, not for nothing, just to go on the record, I said this in today's newsletter and talked about it on the podcast, but like, Elon's right. I mean, the bill is... About the Epstein file? Yeah. He's right about everything. Read the hat.

Yeah. Elon is right about the big, beautiful bill. It is a financial abomination. It would do serious, serious damage to the fiscal stability and health of the United States. And pretty much every independent analysis of the bill reflects that. So he has the advantage of having the truth on his side. Pretty much every independent analysis of the bill reflects that.

So he has the advantage of having the truth on his side. There are like these little squabbles where Trump is claiming he, like in that clip we just played, he's claiming he showed Elon the bill and he supported it. And Elon's on Twitter saying, you know, the bill was never shown to me. It was passed in the dead of the night so fast, almost nobody in Congress even read it. I don't know who's, I don't know what's true about that or what isn't. But what I do know is that the bill would absolutely dynamite the debt and deficit. It's a betrayal of many of the promises Trump made on the campaign trail, which we've talked about a bit in entangle. There were members of the

house, most notably Marjorie Taylor Greene, who very obviously did not read the bill as she's now like come out against this huge section of it that she apparently only read after voting for it and admitted openly on Twitter, like I didn't read this, which I guess points for that, for being honest about it. So I'm kind of curious. I mean, I would say that bill had a tenuous status as it was given how fractured the GOP is being honest about it. So I'm kind of curious.

I mean, I would say the bill had a tenuous status, as it was, given how fractured the GOP is, and that the Senate is not a healthier majority, I guess, than the House in terms of percentages. But it's still like you can only lose a few votes. So I'm wondering what you guys think about the prospect that Elon's posture here actually changes the outcome of whether this bill passes or not. I feel like that's the most

pressing question. I think it does. My perhaps heel turn here is that I think it increases the chances that it gets passed. Really? Because I think if there's one thing that the saga underscores, it's that it's really tough when you're in mainstream national politics with a spotlight on you to disagree with one aspect of somebody's platform without rejecting it wholesale. What we're seeing now with Musk is not, I disagree with the bill and may have started out that way, but it's, you know what? Trump's wrong about everything.

He's in the Epstein files. This whole MAGA movement is destroying government now. He's now provided for proponents of the bill, for Republicans who may have been on the fence, a scapegoat to define themselves against, to say, that guy's bitter. He's got TDS. I'm not like him. I'm going to be part of this movement. I'm going to ask for moderate changes and then boom pass it is through So more than ever I'm thinking that it's likely that it gets through because of this. I'm I'm I think that's interesting I think that actually makes a lot of sense There's a sense in which if Elon were more disciplined here and we're sticking to

Listen, you know, he may want to make this personal. He may want to talk about EVs. I'm going to talk about this bill, because that's what's important here. Anyone who votes for this is betraying the MAGA promise. He could try that. But there's another sense in which he's kind of fighting fire with fire. These are Trumpian MAGA type moves.

The assertion that Trump is in the Epstein files, an assertion that I'm pretty skeptical of, primarily because if it were true, it probably would have leaked a long time ago in some way, shape or form. But beyond that, it's not just that Trump was reluctant to say anything critical about Elon in the wake of his departure and the growing criticism of this piece of legislation. It's also the case that members of Congress have been very reluctant to say anything negative about Elon.

He's a friend. I'm not mad about this. The president is disappointed. I'm making calls. He's not returning them. They want his money. They share some of the stated values that Elon has talked about both the kind of culture war stuff with respect to wokeness, quote unquote,

and also the spending stuff. I mean, these are core issues for conservatives. And the two it seems at least, holdouts, Ron Johnson and Rand Paul. I mean, these guys have some credibility and Elon gives them additional credibility. And quite honestly, I think Elon's critique of this particular piece of legislation to the extent anybody has the ability to torpedo it, he's probably best positioned to do it. A lot of the MAGA faithful are going to stick with him. You see it in the comments sections on a lot of different websites. You certainly see it emanating from people like Marjorie Taylor Greene.

And I think plenty of people are going to want to just try to stay out of this and hope this problem goes away. Yeah, that's a fair point. I think what I'm hearing or thinking, hearing your respond to that, is it's kind of dependent on the path Musk chooses. Because if he does maintain a little bit of discipline, even if it's kind of dependent on the path Musk chooses because if he does maintain a little bit

of discipline, even if it's not consistent, if he's able to make the conversation stay centered on the bill and try to go after those moderates like your Ron Johnson's and Rand Paul's, I don't know if you're going to get Rand Paul, maybe not the best example, but going after moderate Republicans, then yeah, he could win over some of those MAGA faithfuls if he's making it about that. But if he's trying to win a firefight with the biggest flamethrower of all time, then I think it becomes really easy for people who are on the fence to say, you know, we really, we're really appreciative of the work Musk has done.

We really support, like his support for our movement. We're very grateful for what he's been giving to our cause. We think he's going through something right now. We're not getting into it. We're going to vote for the bill. We wish him the best. I think that's a really easy thing to do if he tries to engage in full frontal online assaults like this moving forward.

So maybe it's still a coin toss. But for me, I think it's going to go that way. I'm a little bit of a Musk pessimist. I think the bill, my bet is that the bill is not going to pass. And I don't know how much Musk move the needle or not. But I think if it's on a razor's edge, first of all, I think Musk is better at the online stuff than Trump is.

I mean, a point taken about the flamethrower element of it and that trumps the king, and he is there in that regard. But I mean, Elon, he seems to have unlimited time. He's a meme factory. He controls the platform. It's just like, I mean, he just, by the way, he's doubling down on the Epstein thing.

He just replied to his own tweet and said, mark this post, the truth will come out in the future. So he's leaning in. And just, I'm just, as we're all talking, I'm just sort of like refreshing my Twitter feed. And there seems to be like a little bit of a, I feel like Elon's getting some, some positive reinforcement about his position here. The people seem to be cheering on the fact that he's fighting against this bill. All it takes is one vulnerable Senator who's up for reelection in 2026 to be like, I don't want to stare down the richest man in the world who might primary me or whatever.

Like Camille, I think you said, or one of you said, Elon might not be acting very disciplined right now, but if he figures out how to do that in the next 10 minutes or like two days, then, you know, maybe he can target that political leverage a little bit and apply it to somebody. It is, I will just say just a moment for like, how did Elon not see this coming? He spent $500 million or whatever it was.

He basically threw his businesses into total chaos. This was so inevitable. I mean, this was so inevitable. Like I would talk about the fact that I predicted it except for the fact that literally everybody predicted it and it's like the least original prediction to have. And I just, yeah, it's kind of remarkable to me that this brilliant genius guy couldn't see it coming, you know? I mean, I can't explain it. And I'm fairly confident in this explanation, although I haven't talked to anyone in Elon's circle about it at all,

my sense is that having been spurned by the Biden administration and having already been somewhat radicalized, and he's acknowledged this publicly by a lot of the culture war issues, our political system is fairly binary. And if you want to ensure a particular party is punished, and he had an enemy at that point, and it was, you know, seven months ago, it was Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, and he wanted to ensure that they lost above all else, and he wanted to get rid of what he saw as a kind of toxic, kind of social ideology as well, that that makes for a particular kind of relationship of convenience. This is the political alliance that makes the most sense for him. It happened to coincide with the fact that a lot of the tech community also felt similarly set upon by the Biden administration and at least felt as though some of their core issues,

whether it be crypto or AI, were not being addressed in an adequate and sober way by the Biden administration. And Elon, along with Peter Thiel and some other prominent folks in the Valley, were pretty essential to helping to rally a certain core group of people to support Donald Trump. And again, I think a lot of the reason for the particular calculus just had to do with

that math. This party is clearly better for us on these issues. Are we making compromises? Are there things we don't like? Well, yeah, most of them didn't like the tariffs. Most of them didn't like the immigration policy, but they were willing to make that particular bargain to get what they imagined would be, one, a degree of serious influence in the administration, and two, these other wins with respect to other policy that was slightly more directionally correct for them.

I think that's perhaps another attribute of this, like whether or not that coalition that you saw represented pretty well at the inauguration will still be there. that you saw represented pretty well at the inauguration will still be there. Maybe Trump just kind of gravitates towards some of Elon's other professional rivals, like a Sam Altman over at OpenAI, for example, which would really kind of twist the knife. But all of it is quite hard to guess at. And I'm not even sure that Altman would really want that, to be totally honest. Soterios Johnson I think it circles back to how you started that answer, which is about the seductive power of the bipolar political moment that we're in, which is the story tells it's

useful to remember the moment that we're in six to 12 months ago and what tech leaders were saying in the friendliness that they were signaling towards a different administration like back before the election, well before the election. And keeping that context in mind, it's also useful to remember people like Sam Altman or people like Peter Thiel or others who might be in Silicon Valley who are even lower profile but still big players who aren't getting involved to the degree that Elon did. It's very possible to want to signal friendliness to an incoming administration that he thinks can be instituting policies that you prefer, more helpful for you, without going full bore. But it's really tempting

when you have the influence that somebody like Musk has to pull both levers and wants to try to lever your power and also get on board this new ship. And it's tough to try to push your agenda while pushing an administration's agenda to while working together to subsume one over the other. There's going to be tradeoffs. And like we said, those tradeoffs were inevitable. A lot of people saw them coming, not just the people here, but others, many, many. But it's still really tough when you have the potential to influence as much as Elon Musk has. And you see somebody who's allied with something that's important to you, which Elon saw as voice fraud abuse, government spending bureaucracy, to want to try to leverage as much as you can.

And I think it's really easy to try to go fully onto that side, to jump all over that political platform without really thinking about what might be happening six months, one year out. In that regard, I think I have a good deal of empathy for Elon's position because it's really tough. I mean, things are moving, and you have this ability to do what you want within the halls of government, so you jump into it. I don't have a whole lot of empathy with the way

that he did it, per se. I've been pretty critical of Elon on this pod before, but I can at least understand that. I can understand how the mindset that he was in occluded him from thinking about the worst case six months out. I think that to me is pretty comprehensible. Yeah, I think that's a fair and fairly generous framing.

I mean, I guess now what's interesting, and you guys have both sort of eluded this, and for what it's worth, Trump is saying it directly now that the best way to curb waste would have been ending all these subsidies, like the Elon government subsidies. That's what Trump is basically tweeting right now. He said, the easiest way to save money in our budget, billions and billions of dollars, is to terminate Elon's governmental subsidies and contracts. I was always surprised that Biden didn't do it. Don't you love when he puts the Tony Soprano suit on? It's like, would be a shame.

These contracts, I don't know. Jeff Bezos is the biggest winner here. Except he just doesn't have the capacity to make up for SpaceX. NASA would be in big trouble. ["Sky's Got Talent"] We'll be right back after this quick commercial break. Another moment of levity. I was just looking at checking in on the responses to Elon Musk's tweet, the original Epstein file tweet.

Now 77,000 retweets, by the way, in 23 minutes. And one of the top replies to the tweet is from Alex Jones, just saying, God help us all. Which is so, like Alex Jones is shook up right now. That's how bad things have gotten. He's like, oh no. This would be bad for his business if the Epstein files are dropped. What would he be ranting about it?

It's like core to his brain. Do you guys remember, I mean, right after the inauguration, there was a period of maybe a week where, and it might've been even longer than that, where the thing that was so mystifying was the fact that the Trump administration seemed to be operating like this well-oiled machine. I mean, they had all these executive orders

just kind of lined up and ready to go. All the kids were playing nice with each other. Even the signal controversy gives you a glimpse of them interacting with each other behind the scenes and everyone is playing nice. And it is so interesting to see where things are now. And it will be so interesting to see what the next cabinet meeting is like. I expect they'll circle the wagons and most of the people who are still there are very, not most, everyone who's still there will still very much be making the same sort of

weird, obsequious gestures in the context of those meetings. But it's going to hit a little different now. And I think that the kind of sense that a lot of conservatives perhaps have had, that it is impossible to kind of stand up to the administration, do they feel a little more emboldened now as well, especially if this one big beautiful bill kind of fails? I'm not so sure about that. I think Republicans still believe that their political future depends upon the success of the Trump administration, but it's not hard for me to imagine people, this being the moment where some people decide that they want to try to put a little bit more distance

between them and the aspirations of the Trump administration. I mean, it's, yeah, beginning to look as ridiculous as it did during certain moments of the previous iteration of the Trump administration. Not that there haven't been low moments before, but the only thing that could be more absurd and shocking than this particular defection is JD Vance leaving the administration and suddenly deciding to become a Democrat. That is what would have to happen. Even that would be easier for the Trump administration to navigate because JD Vance doesn't have

a constituency outside of Donald Trump. I don't know that I agree with that comparison fully. I think I'm nodding along imagining this being the hearkening of some larger motion that could be a wave that goes through some other members of the Trump cabinet. I agreed with like, I was also nodding along when you're like, I don't know if that's what happens here, but I could see that being the impetus for such a chain reaction. But I think Musk is probably pretty far down the list of people who would be disruptive in that regard. I think everybody in the cabinet would be above him as people that I'd be surprised to hear

defect fully and with full-throated voice saying this administration's poison just because he's such a Johnny-come-lately to the party and he has his own agenda pretty clearly and his own ability to sort of sink or swim outside the administration. I think everybody else sort of hitched their wagon to Trump. Now that we're in like year 10, 11 of the Donald Trump era. I remember having gone through other conversations before where people have said, maybe this is the thing that makes Republicans think they can win without Trump. And I don't know if that thing exists.

So I think probably not. I'm gonna keep going in on like, that people are gonna go more in on Trump now who have the R next to their name rather than consider Their allegiance is the other way Camille I have to give you this update Kanye West has not me Great yeah Kanye's entered the chat bro Please no

with six nos, he says, please, no. And then people hugging emoji, we love you both so much. That's Kanye West's reaction. Bros, please, no, we love you both so much. Yeah, this is really, this is an iconic cultural, I'm so glad that we're on the we are recording this live while this happened. I wish the show was live. This is a moment we will remember for a long time. Were you guys, Tracy,

or sorry, were you 30 Rock fans at all when that show was live? A little bit, yeah. Not so much, but I like Tracy Morgan. There's a bit on that show where Tracy Morgan's character, Tracy Jordan is doing an interview with Stephen King. While he's on air, Stephen King is like, the markets are crashing in Asia. Tracy Jordan, what's your reaction? I feel a little bit like him right now where I think the first thing he said in that instance was, I'm not informed on this, but I do have an opinion. I like that.

I'm so glad I'm here. I just saw some Democratic advisor I follow who's a big LGBT advocate tweet, this is the gayest thing that's ever happened during Pride Month. That's a pretty good tweet. That is strong. This might just be the show now. Yeah, this could be the show, just live updating. Is there an element of this where everybody's just telling the truth and that's kind of the funniest part? Like the, this circling, like the...

No. Like, just, hold on. All right. Hold on. Wait, let's hear them out. of the funniest part, like the circling file, like the... No. Hold on. All right. Hold on. Wait. Let's hear them out.

Well, everyone's definitely not telling the truth, but please go ahead. I mean, Epstein's either. And those files are not. There are some things that seem mutually exclusive, but okay, maybe remove the Epstein thing. I'm not sure if that's true. I mean, by the way, for what it's worth, I'm very happy this is happening. Just to throw this out there, for nothing else, like the richest man in the world and the president of the United States working hand in glove is not something that makes me comfortable. I'd much rather

those two people be in some sort of tension. That's a good point. I was like wringing my hands about them feuding, but it's much better this way than them joining forces. Yeah, it's much better this way. We don't want them being buds, like world domination together, we want them sort of wrassling a little bit in the pit.

So I'm totally good with this. That's probably why I sound a little bit excited. What if like, Elon's right about the bill and Trump's right about Elon. Like he was in it for the contracts. He was trying to get his foot in the door on all this stuff to just like help SpaceX and, and he never really gave a shit about reducing the budget. And if he did, he would have done things differently. I mean, there's like,

there are all these little spats coming out now where, aside from the Epstein file stuff, I would say I'm a little bit like, oh, yeah, that seems right to me. Like, Elon's like, none of these guys, except for like two of them, Thomas Massey and Rand Paul, actually care about the deficit. Like Republicans would never do this if they cared. Rand Paul, actually care about the deficit.

Republicans would never do this if they cared. Trump said all these things. He talked to Big Game about giving a shit about this stuff, and now he clearly doesn't. This bill's going to bankrupt. And I'm like, yep, yep, yep. And then they're like, Elon was a joke. He had no idea what he was doing with Doge. It was a total shit show.

And all he wanted was to get his government contracts and to get out. And he's pissed off because the EV credits aren't in the bill. I mean, all of that sounds totally plausible to me. So I don't know. With one big caveat, the nuclear bomb that Elon just rolled into the playground, I guess- That's a lock-in. the playground. I guess that's just the there seems to be the potential in my mind that like everybody's just sort of being honest about each other all of a sudden, which is interesting to me. Yeah, Camille. There are certainly some some dimensions upon which we are getting at certain

truths that were not speakable before. But I think for the most part, everyone is going to be lurching towards maximalist condemnations, see Trump mocking Elon's black eye now. I mean, it is going to get more petty, more ridiculous, more idiocracy-like. And actually, what I wanna comment on briefly, Isaac,

is your assertion about this kind of division of power between the kind of private sectors, kind of essential actors and the government itself. I mean, the reason why divided government is important is precisely because there's some advantage to kind of gumming up the works, to forcing people to collaborate in different ways in order to be able to advance the ball, but also to just kind of fracture power. And there's a sense in which even the work that journalists do, this is a journalism podcast, we are a journalism company, like most of what we do, to the extent we're cheering for something like that, it isn't partisan at all. The expectation is always that there's

going to be something of an adversarial relationship between people who cover politics and the people who actually work and operate in politics. There is a sense in which there is a kind of default amount of lying that you can expect from any presidential administration, irrespective of party and how respectable that particular administration is, in a sense in which they at least want to shade the truth if you don't want to call it lying,

if that makes you uncomfortable for whatever reason, you sweet summer child. But I just wanted to be sure to kind of qualify that because I suspect there's at least someone listening who's kind of MAGA inclined, who's like, oh, of course, you people would want. But no, honestly, there is a genuine sense in which having meaningful separations and real tensions and a surfacing of the competing interests of these two people is hugely beneficial to the polity and generally beneficial to us with respect to getting at better policy. You mentioned Massey and Paul, but again, Ron Johnson also very opposed to the bill, a little more consequential than Massey at this stage in the confrontation because he's

in the Senate and is very publicly coming out against the bill. He's also articulating a better way forward, the reasonable way forward, which is to the extent you guys don't do budgets anymore because that's just how Congress operates now, you should probably have a smaller bill, and you should probably be trying to accomplish fewer things and maybe, maybe, maybe not set a record for the amount of debt that you're going to permit the federal government to take on before the mid or until after the midterms essentially. Peter Bilyeu Yeah. And to your point about us not being partisan in terms of the thing that we root for and just

sort of rooting for conflict, because conflict can be healthy. If there's one thing we believe in, it's sort of the health of argument in the public space. Something that we cheered for, indicate we're not rooting for the red team to lose here. We cheered when Speaker Johnson was trying to do exactly that. When he first took the gavel, when he was saying we should break these budget bills up and pass smaller items at a time so that we can debate these things in context. We thought that was a great idea. Didn't matter the color of the tie

if the guy who said it because it does sound like a good way forward. My bias here is that I was totally agree with what Johnson's saying and I hope we get argument about that. If we can get argument about the best way forward that actually passed legislation that's healthy, that would be great. Maybe that's something that's undercutting all of the drama today is we're a little bit farther away from that reality with the focus being on mud slinging in the public sphere currently. Can I give you guys just a couple more? You got more mud to sling.

Oh boy. Just a couple, it's just, it's so good right now. It's too good, it's too choice. This peak Twitter, yeah. I mean, I had so much stuff to talk about. It's complete. I think my favorite observation that's just briefly come out is kind of bizarre that Elon was just like, I was happy to work with a man I knew was a pedophile until he cut off my EV credit. Good point. It just, Elon's just like sort of set himself up for that one.

That he's just was totally fine with this arrangement where he knew Trump was on Epstein Island. The other one is a lot of people talking about the odds that Trump just deports Elon Musk now, which I also find kind of funny. Yeah, somebody said those white South Africans are about to get sent to El Salvador. Jesus. Yeah. It's hot in there. Also Trump has that Tesla.

Comedy's legal now though. We've- Yeah, comedy's legal. Trump has the Tesla he bought. Who knows what's going to happen to that. Everything's computer. Yeah. Gosh, I forgot all about that infomercial that he did for Tesla at the White House.

And then he chose one. You know what? Actually, Ari and I were talking just before we started recording. That was when it happened. There was a moment where Donald Trump was speaking with Elon alongside him. And I think it was at that event when he said, you know, these EV tax credits, Elon has never mentioned it to me. Like, he's never talked about wanting those there.

I'm, I'm fairly confident 80% certain that there was a moment where he said, he's never mentioned it to me. He doesn't care about that. He's just doing what's best for the country to the extent he's, he's correct about Elon now and his appraisal of him was so wrong before. I mean, this kind of undermines what is supposed to be the core attribute of this president, that he's a superior dealmaker and that he's excellent at spotting talent. And in this particular instance, he was representing Elon Musk as the very greatest thing in the history of mankind, the best person possible to be running Doge. It's a

bit odd for him to be publicly insisting that this entire thing is a scam and has been from the outset and that Elon is terrible and he's only ever been in it for his EV credits. He knew it was in the bill. It's a very, very bad look for the Trump administration. I don't know that it's a worse look for Elon. It's putting some distance between him and the administration is probably on net pretty good even if they try to come after him a bit. And that's what I was queuing up before, by the way, Isaac, when the Epstein tweet dropped

was cameo talking about is there is there proof though, on the record of Elon saying, I want these credits, because it does seem like there's more proof on the record of the opposite. I think Elon has said the opposite on a number of occasions. Whether or not he was being completely earnest in that respect is another thing, but he has said on more than one occasion, if the EV tax credits went away, he would be fine with that. In fact, he's actually advocated

to have them go away in the past. Whether or not he still believes that, given the circumstance that Tesla currently finds itself in is another question. Certainly the case that those tax credits aren't so great for him, or at least aren't particularly valuable in the places where the company is having the most trouble, which is in various overseas markets where they're under profound pressure, especially in Asia.

Is there a world where any part of this is like performative a little bit? I don't know exactly. Say more. Is there a world where it isn't? like performative a little bit. I don't know exactly. Say more. It's the world where it isn't. They both relish this so much and the kind of attention. Like I wonder if there's a back channel happening here, you know, where they're not like,

they're not choreographing this, but there are people on teams of theirs communicating like, ah, he's not going to back down. Like, they'll make up tomorrow as long as he does X, Y, Z. You know, like, what are the odds that in two days, they're sort of like handshake over Twitter, we're over this? I mean, Elon definitely just seems to have reduced the odds of that with the Epstein thing, but... Um, I don't know, I'm just throwing it out there. Just like a little bit of like...

There's something theatrical happening here that just like, I got a whiff of that in the room, and I'm like, I don't... Are they like leaning in a little bit? How is it totally genuine? Maybe this is just who both of them are and that's just it. I think that is just it, but just flagging a little bit of a performance. You're imagining that somewhere there's a lackey chat where they're back channeling messages to each other, saying things that are a little bit more sane and nice. I could see that.

I don't necessarily think they're back channeling, but I could see that. I don't necessarily think they're backchanneling, but like I could see, I could see like Elon's chief of staff texting with press secretary, Caroline Levitt being like, you know, look, Elon's not really this pissed off, but if Trump doesn't do XYZ back down a little bit, then we're just going to keep dropping bombs. And they're like kind of just, well, Trump's pissed and he's having a rough day with Iran nuclear negotiations, so he's going to get some stress off his chest and let some steam go.

And I don't know. I'm just, it's almost too perfect of the break. It's like, yeah, I don't know. I'm just, it's like, it's almost too perfect of the break. It's like, it, it, it, yeah. I don't know. We'll see. It's, I'm just flagging that if in 48 hours they're saying nice things about each other, um, publicly, that would be totally shocked. That would be incredible to me. I can't, I can't see it. I could see them responding a great deal based on the mood and the needs that they have of that moment and that time. I don't know if that would go as far as like bearing the hatchet.

The way that I will think about it is I used to think at one point that I was a complicated person full with incredible complicated multilayer emotions and nuanced thoughts. Then I realized that most of my mood is sort of based on whether or not I've eaten recently. I'm hungry. So like, I don't know, maybe he gets a nice meal on a nap and he wakes up and he's like, what did I say? Oh no.

Well, I'll walk back a little bit, but I don't think he's going to fully walk it all back. These are still humans is what I'm saying. So I'm sure that they'll settle down a little bit at some point. And that wouldn't necessarily be proof that there's some secondary conversation. That's what I mean. Well, I'll try not to get interrupted with some other insane tweet before the show. I have no promises that I won't go back to reading tweets. This is by far the hardest transition I've ever had to make, but we should, I feel like we have to talk about the much smaller, much different elephant in the room,

which is this piece on Zionism that we published in Tangle last week. I have no idea how to pivot from Epstein files to that. There's like a Jew joke in there somewhere, but I'm not gonna touch it. Specifically, specifically, Epstein would. Epstein would, yeah. There's like a Jew joke in there somewhere, but I'm not gonna touch it. Specifically, specifically. Epstein joke. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, massage joke. Oh, nice, all right, nailed it. Wow. So, first of all, by the time this comes out on Sunday, my interview with Jonah Platt, or Jonah Platt kind of interviewing me on the Tangle podcast, which is more like what it was, will be out.

It was a conversation, a really good, healthy dialogue, and I'm super happy I did it and really proud of it and appreciate Jonah for coming on. This obviously drove a ton of feedback, a lot of interest. There were like 600 comments on the article and uncountable number of emails that came in. And we like to use some space on the podcast throughout the week to just talk a bit about, you know, do some navel gazing, engage with some criticism, respond to some of the things people have said.

Both of you have expressed like interest in maybe following up on a few things that came out of the piece. So I figured we should do that. That's sort of my table set. I guess I'll start just by saying this, which is I was really pleasantly surprised. The response included a lot of criticism, which I expected, but I thought so much of what I got. The tenor of it was compassionate and thoughtful and measured, even though I could tell in many instances,

there was like something below the surface that was a little bit more furious or upset. I think whatever we did in framing the piece and maybe it was just like the fact that I was really open about the reality that I'm wrestling with this stuff and my views are evolving and my mind can change and position myself as being open.

I was just really impressed with the Tangle community, and even some of the broader audience with this piece circulating on Twitter and stuff who responded to it. It just felt like the dialogue was a bit more elevated than I expected it to be. I'm happy to take a little bit of credit for the writing, but I also think it was just a lot of people decided to not choose violence in their responses. But I also think it was just a lot of people decided to,

you know, not choose violence in their responses. And they wanted to better understand where I was coming from. So I just want to start and say that. And thanks to the people, the listeners of this show and the readers of the newsletter who wrote in with, I would say, like 96% rate of just being thoughtful and reasonable and inquisitive rather than screaming or shouting me down or telling me I was, you know,

doing blood libel or whatever. That was very appreciated. It made for a much better week and more interesting week for me. So I don't know. Yeah, I'd be curious to hear where you guys are at and burning questions or thoughts or things that have come up for you. Because you were both a part of,

in different ways of massaging the piece and probing it, and editing it, and all that good stuff. Yeah. The big thing, I mean, I have one thing I want to talk about, so I don't want to dominate the exchange, but it's just a lot of the feedback was really compelling. I think when readers wrote – a couple people said a version of a similar argument, which I'll try to recapitulate very quickly, which was Zionism is a movement that not only was about Jews having a home state for themselves but continues to be a movement that says that state ought to continue to exist.

And their pushback was briefly, you can have issues with the way that some Zionists are behaving or with the way the state is behaving while still believing in that core tenet, which is that the state as a homeland for the Jewish people ought to exist. I thought that was in a very small kernel of an argument, pretty powerful and tough to crack under the hydraulic press of a larger argument. I just wanted to talk about that a little bit because I thought that was a pretty compelling counter-argument to engage with. Yeah, it is. This is something Jonah Platt brought up in our conversation as well. He asked me to define Zionism and then was just like, I don't really think that you're leaving Zionism if you

believe Israel has a right to exist, which I do. First of all, I think it's a really compelling and interesting kind of counter argument that undercuts the framing of the piece a little bit in a way that I'm thinking about. And I haven't landed anywhere definitively. There are like a few big overarching thoughts that I have, I guess, in response to it. One is that I understand Zionism to be a political movement. I think in defining it, you would say it's like a movement, a nationalist movement, a Jewish ethno-nationalist movement, something along those lines, pursuing the existence of a Jewish state. So, you can make the argument that the state exists and Zionism has achieved its goal and we sort of transcended Zionism, we've moved on to some other reality

that we have to deal with. The state is here and I know nothing's permanent, but I don't think Israel is at risk of falling or being dissipated any more than the United States or France or whatever is. I think it is a sovereign state with millions of citizens, well-funded army allies, recognized internationally. It's not going anywhere. So it exists, it is a sovereign state with millions of citizens, well-funded army allies, you know, recognized internationally. It's not going anywhere. So it exists, it's here. And I think it's sort of a redefinition of Zionism to say that it is now not about the creation of the state,

but the maintenance of the state. I think like those are fundamentally different things. And I think people who are doing that are playing a little bit with it. But I think maybe the thing that I'm like more kind of zeroing in on is some people define Zionism as just the belief that Israel has a right to exist or that Jews have a right to a homeland

or a right to self-determination. And I do think that is the core tenet of Zionism, but like, I would define it as the movement toward that thing, toward that goal, toward that tenet. And when that part of the definition is included, like, then to me, the question is, okay, what makes up a movement? It's like the people that are included in it, the values that they espouse, the ideas they embrace. And so, you know, this is what I said to Jonah in our conversation was like, I could say, for instance, I could observe about Zionism that it's become a more religious movement over time. It used to be secular and now many of the

most dominant voices in Zionism are more religious Jews. I can't say that about the statement that Jews have a right to exist. That statement hasn't evolved and changed in these particular ways. Zionism, the movement has. And so I think when I say I feel like I'm leaving Zionism or maybe I'm leaving Zionism, it's like, I'm not just, I'm not questioning the very basic underlying tenant of the existence of Israel or its right to exist. But I'm talking about like the people and the ideas and the sentiments that make up the movement that encase Zionism, that encase that, or that is Zionism, that encase that belief. So to me, that's kind of the clarification, I guess, or the difference. I don't know if that feels like a

resolution, but you made the point Ari, or maybe it was a reader, I can't remember, that if democracy produced a bad outcome or something, I wouldn't just say I'm giving up on America or I'm done with democracy, which there's something there. Democracy produced slavery. So I do think there's a good argument that we shouldn't abandon this very good political system because it had a bad outcome. We should improve it. And we did.

Like, we shouldn't necessarily, I shouldn't necessarily abandon Zionism because it produced a bad outcome. I don't think that's like a good enough reason. And that is a really compelling point. And maybe that is a winning argument that like, I don't really have a way out of. To me, I would say something closer is people who want to spread democracy are part of a coalition to nation-build abroad, bring democracy to Afghanistan and Iraq. And then you watch the failures of that thing happen, you can say nation-building is a bad political ideology or goal or whatever. In the same way, I think you could maybe say Zionism is, or that this outgrowth of Zionism is, without sort of abandoning the basic tenant

that democracy is good or without sort of abandoning the basic tenant that Israel has a right to exist. And I don't know, maybe I'm splitting hairs in a way that's impossible, but that's sort of like how wrestling with it a little bit. Yeah, I'll be honest, it still doesn't crack the nut for me. with it a little bit? Yeah, I'll be honest. It still doesn't crack the nut for me. So I'm hearing three different arguments and I'll provide the counters to them as I see them. So the first, which I think is the most important one, is the definition of Zionism and saying

it's accomplished its goal and people are saying now it's about the maintenance of a thing instead of the creation of a thing. Ergo they're changing the definition. I don't know that that makes sense to me because if it did, then the state would have been created and nobody would be using the term anymore as of 1948. But I think the definition that continues to be the most transmissible is the belief that there ought to be a Jewish state in Israel. It's not that there should be a state called Israel that should exist. It's not that there should be a state called Israel that Benjamin Netanyahu is the prime minister of. It's there ought to be a state

in Israel that is definitionally a Jewish state. That to me is what Zionism is. I think that's something that a lot of people can connect to and when you say Okay, but Israel exists. I'm not saying Israel shouldn't exist and that feels like it's a it's a bit of them It's a recapitulation of a different point. It's not quite the same point It's of course like a lot of people are saying Israel should exist being not being Zionist doesn't mean Israel shouldn't exist It's just saying should it exist as a Jewish state? I think that's the important thing and then the question is is, do you believe that or not? Which leads to the second point which you were saying, which is, it's not just about the principle, but about the movement

and the movements about the people that form it. And I think you sort of rebutted that a little bit with the way that you responded with democracy, which is if you're adherent to an idea, the idea should be more important than the people's who share the idea with you or the beliefs that accompany the people who share the idea. So if a lot of Zionists are now promoting some really uncomfortable things that other Zionists in the minority don't believe in. I don't think that that's a good enough reason

to say I don't believe in Zionism anymore if we just focus the idea based off of the definition of it. I do think there's a good and interesting conversation that ought to be had, which a lot of people are connecting to, of do I have a home in this movement if people aren't listening to this idea? And the idea is we're doing ethnic cleansing in Gaza and we shouldn't do that. And like, why is there not an idea that's taking hold that's saying this is compatible

with Zionism? I think that's a good point. But I think that the answer to that question is like, they can be compatible. And the third point about like nation building and democracy, I think that that analogy misses the mark a bit too, because saying like, I believe in democracy and the flaws of the United States doesn't disprove my belief in the United States should exist as a democratic state. It says, I don't think the United States should be exporting its viewpoint to other people with force. And if that were part of the definition

of democracy, I would fight for a different one. If that were part of the definition of democracy, I would fight for a different one. If that were part of the definition for Zionism, I'd fight for a different one. But I think in that way, all of those points don't quite break the nut to me of if you believe that there should be a state in Israel that is defined as a Jewish state, is it the right answer to say, I'm going to question whether or not I should be in this movement because of other things that are important to me. We'll be right back after this quick commercial break. Discover the magic of BetMGM Casino, where the excitement is always on deck.

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You don't want to miss out. Visit betmgm.com for terms terms and conditions 19 plus to wager Ontario only Please gamble responsibly if you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you Please contact connects Ontario at 1 8 6 6 5 3 1 2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge But MGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with I gaming, Ontario Yeah, I think hearing you say all of it back, the thing that sort of makes, the thing that I, that I think I feel most attached to or the argument I feel most attached to of those three is really the argument of like the part of Zionism's definition being the movement. I think that's the one to me that feels like the thing that I most clearly

express in the piece where, or the thing that I'm, and the thing I'm struggling with the most of just like, we... If the movement is producing these ideas that feel so alien and so wrong to me, if it's producing poor outcomes, if it's producing, you know, a sort of group think that I feel is so corrupted. And then that's paired with the fact that the underlying tenet of the movement has already been achieved. It's just kind of like, there's just something there that I'm like, do I need this? Do I want this? Do I want to identify this way?

And this might just be the fallacy of labels and trying to put people into political boxes. And maybe that's just like, I can just be a guy who thinks that Israel is a right to exist and abhors a lot of what the current state of Israel is doing. And it can just be as simple as that. And I wrote like a sort of provocative headline that kind of opened myself up to like undercutting of that framing. But I do feel acutely that there is no place in Zionism for me, like, in the most basic sense. And I think that's kind of the feeling I'm articulating,

is like, it doesn't feel like I actually have a home there. BOWEN You know, I'm thinking about, and it's interesting that I was not privy to the conversations you all had about the piece. I saw some of the kind of feedback going back and forth in some of the drafts. But I do think this kind of parallels what you and I talked about, Isaac. And specifically, if I can try to paraphrase my thinking about this, as I read the piece and got through it the first

time, I was having some difficulty really orienting myself to a reason why Zionism myself to a reason why Zionism was kind of the top line issue. There's a sense in which every major conflict involves a lot of these same kinds of decisions. There is a question of what is too far? What is out of bounds? Not even to use the word proportional here, but just what is sufficiently safe? Is there a point at which you stop pursuing this conflict because the level of collateral damage is too great or because of the scale of the international concern about your conduct

is too great? Or do you have this kind of maximalist duty, especially after a conflict has kind of been in a state where it kind of flares up so routinely in these extraordinary ways to try and actually finish the job, quote unquote. That is a separate matter from the particular ideology that a lot of the people in the government might subscribe to. Because again, like I could imagine a totally secular state wrestling with exactly the same concerns.

But the response that you provided when we talked about that, Isaac, I think was clarifying and interesting and maybe is valuable to get into here. And I don't know what Ari's thinking about it would be. And I would try to paraphrase that as well, but I'll let you do it because you're here. Yeah. I mean, I think like what I, First of all, I thought it was a really good line of inquiry also. I mean, I think again, this is all pretty illustrative of just like what it's like kind of wrestling with this stuff in a kind of public manner. But yeah, I would

say like, I do think that removing Zionism from the equation wouldn't make resolving the conflict easier. I think what I said to you was to flip the analogy for a moment, imagine some other conflict like we've had in the past, the US and Japan or France and Germany, or even just like Egypt and Israel, if there was like this some founding charter or document or tenant that existed in one of those countries that demanded an ethnic identity being prevalent in certain ways or dominating the culture in certain ways that prevented them in explicit terms from reconciling their conflicts, I think it would have made all of that so much

harder and more complicated. So Israel's decision tree in how to navigate what's going to happen next, and obviously Hamas has agency and the Arab States have agency, but like Israel's the dominant power in the region and their decision tree is limited by Zionism because it can't ever really invite moderate secular Palestinians into society en masse. It can't open its borders really. It can't allow Jews to ever become a minority, whether, you know, in population or just in terms of like who's controlling the country. And I understand all that, but it's like that to me does feel like a big deal.

And that is honestly a sort of line of thinking that makes me the most uncomfortable because that is really something that questions the very heart of even the tenant, like the Jews having their own state, or how you define the Jewish state. Does it have to be this kind of ethno-state or kind of just be a pluralistic society where what will be will be in terms of the population. So yeah, I think the ideology makes it harder. As I wrote in the piece, it's not just Israelis and Jews and Zionists whose ideology makes it harder. Hamas has a much more extreme version of the kind of Zionist vision for Israel, like an Islamic ethno-state with far less acceptance for pluralistic society or diversity

or even people who aren't adherents to a kind of radical version of Islam. So they believe that and many Zionists believe a sort of very watered down version of that for Jews and that creates the sort of like irreconcilable tension, I guess. I brought this up, another thing that came up a little, not directly, a little indirectly in the conversation I had earlier today with Jonah and I think the best case for it, which a reader made as well, this reader named Dina right from here in Philadelphia, who she penned some feedback that's going to be in tomorrow's newsletter. They said basically in some perfect world, of course, the Jewish state would be this

pluralistic democratic society like the US that maybe flies the Star of David flag and has Jewish leaders and some kind of like Jewish principles that are part of its constitution or whatever, but like didn't necessitate the kind of Jewish majority. But we don't live in a perfect world, we live in a world where all throughout history over and over and over again, wherever Jews have become a minority, they've been subjugated. And that's the reason why the cause of Zionism exists and why Israel exists and what like necessitates it. I don't find that a particularly satisfying answer, but I think it's a reasonable

point to make about why the quote unquote, like, ethnic state is maybe necessary or we should hold more space for it, even if it makes me uncomfortable when other countries do it. I think I'm really, well, first I want to apologize for the fact that if there's static in the background, it's because it started raining here and I tried to close the window and it broke off in my hand. So there's going to be some rain noise in the background. I'll fix it later.

It's all right. You're not the only one struggling with things is what I'm trying to tell you. The point that you just made that I think stuck with me the most is you really trying to wrestle with that heart of the matter of if Zionism is getting to this place where it's permanent impasse with the state of Israel and its neighbors is a doctrine worth reconsidering. To me, I think that's the stone that we'll continue to trip up arguments in either direction. I think as long as that's an open question,

it might be the right thing to just try to eschew labels and say their aspect of Zionism I agree with. The lot of the heart of it makes sense to me, but concerned directionally with what it will mean for an Israeli state and the ability for Jews in the region to live in peace with their neighbors is to say nothing of the Arabs in the region to live at peace with their neighbors. That's a tough thing. I kind of don't envy you for having to wrestle with that. I don't adhere to Zionism myself.

I'm much more of a non-religious, I inherited the Jewish identity kind of person. It's not something that I feel like I have a dog in the fight in order to try to wrestle with you on. My two cents for what it's worth is, I think to Dina's point about we as Jews, I think identity sort of negotiated and there's an aspect of myself that's always going to be Jewish regardless. So to the extent that we as Jews benefit from the security of an Israeli state that is Jewish, I don't know how much I buy that argument either. I don't know how much an Israeli state that is defined as a Jewish state makes us safer. And maybe that's something that I have the privilege to say where I am, but at the same time, perhaps that causality

is actually inverted. Maybe it's not I have the privilege to say that because of where I am, but maybe where I am makes me safer because I'm not in a state that's defined by its Jewish identity. And that's something that I keep coming back to when I think about this argument as well. Yeah, I think that the count of that is just like, look around to all these places like in Russia,

Northern Africa, Europe. I mean, even in modern times where people need to flee due to anti-Semitism and the place that they are guaranteed entry to is this democratic state in the Middle East on the homelands with an army that will protect them and whatever else. That's a real thing for a lot of Jews. I don't think we ever need to worry about that because we've made it to America and we're American citizens, but there are plenty of people who'd want to come here who couldn't but would want to go to Israel and could, and would be kind of welcomed with open arms in the event that they

felt that need. And the counter to that is a lot of those places that you're bringing up are authoritarian states that are defined based on an ethnic identity already. So it might not be, identity already. So it might not be like it sounds sort of again to recur a theme like fighting fire with fire of like combat ethnic state with a different ethnostate. And I think the answer might be let's do try our best because it's really difficult and it's not going to be snap of the fingers thing. I don't want to trivialize it, but try our best to get to a form of governance that sort of transcends that. I would do the that. The argument to me that's almost more potent about the kind of historical Jews have been subjugated anytime than the minority and this is like necessitates the state is just like, up until 150 years ago, the majority of all places on earth had slaves, total lack of liberties, no free speech, monarchies.

We are just in a totally fundamentally different time in world history where I feel like it's just we're all much freer and safer and healthier and there's much more justice and fairness and civil society has developed in a way that like, yeah, it didn't exist in Babylon a couple thousand years ago, but it does now. And so I'm just like, and that's the point of privilege, I guess, but I'm just way less concerned about it, I think. And that makes me feel like the state is necessitated a little bit less for that reason. Yeah. Well, interestingly, the question becomes what has brought about that circumstance?

I think if we talk about it thoughtfully and probe it long enough, we probably arrive back at this reality that the founding of the United States was part of the culmination of a certain set of philosophical ideals and values. Today, it is typical for people to refer to the liberal, democratic order and to talk about democracy. But this notion of a constitutional republic was pretty revolutionary. It didn't depend upon the codification of ethnic identity alongside this principle of a republic based on rules where the state was held to certain standards and there was at least this pointing in the direction of a notion of equality under the law and the law being no respecter of persons. It was of course imperfect in its articulation initially, but certainly what we've tried and I think have largely moved

towards in this country is one where the law has increasingly become less of a respecter of persons. I think to the extent we've made errors in that direction along the way, it's often with the best of intentions moving in the direction of becoming more identity specific and identity obsessed and the fact that that can despite the best of intentions and again The motivation can be to kind of protect people or perhaps even to redress some past injury I Think that we often end up

Discovering a great many unintended consequences and perhaps even cultivating a kind of backlash and perhaps even cultivating a kind of backlash that might not have existed otherwise, or at least that becomes, it creates a much more kind of fractious polity than might have existed otherwise. If we were trying to build along or at least make progress along a different axis, one one where we're obviating the need for conflict along identitarian lines and more so emphasizing the things upon which we can all agree, the several interests that we want to pursue while recognizing that we can work together collectively to build up

that pluralistic artifice. Interestingly, even I think the conversation that we were having before that we just alluded to with respect to this taking Zionism out of the equation and focusing on this identity question, there's something about, well, I don't know. I don't want to push it too much further because I know we're coming closer to time anyways. But I do find the entire exchange enormously fascinating, genuinely complicated. And I do want to just commend you, Isaac, for one, kind of wrestling with your own uncertainty with respect to this piece and doing your best to try to represent all sides adequately. It seems to me that I've read plenty of critiques of the Israeli government in the context of this conflict.

I think yours does a pretty profound job of addressing a lot of the kind of worst, kind of emptiest criticism that is often hurled in their direction and makes it makes a point of kind of moving away from that, but also doesn't shy away from addressing some of the more serious questions. Is this definitionally genocide? And you know, you came down with your particular point of view, and I think you argued your perspective rigorously. Again, I love being associated with a publication that is encouraging people to think out loud, to exchange error for truth,

and inviting its readership to challenge those perspectives and engage with them in a fulsome way. And even to host someone else on the podcast who has such a strident disagreement. But again, to be able to do that in a really respectful way. So tuning our own horn a little bit there, but also just kind of commending you for getting close to something

that I know is quite important to you and was pretty difficult for you to actually write. Yeah, thank you. I appreciate you saying that. I mean, I think the irony of like going through this whole process of distilling all my views and getting them down on paper and like spending months collecting them

and trying to clarify them is that I just come out on the end feeling more complicated and conflicted than I did before. Which I guess is, I think there's something good, some good signal there. I think so. I'm not exactly sure what it is, but to Ari's point, I found a lot of the responses and stuff compelling on some of the things that maybe I wasn't quite as sure-footed about. Also in places felt like the arguments were so unanimously unconvincing on certain points that I made that I feel hardened in my views in some areas, which all of that is really helpful, I think.

areas, which all of that is really helpful, I think. Um, so yeah, I'm certainly appreciative of like, um, the opportunity to kind of wrestle with it publicly as, uh, as nerve wracking as that can be sometimes. Um, before we get out of here, just really quick, Elon Musk is now endorsed impeaching Donald Trump, just in case you guys haven't logged onto Twitter for a few minutes. I thought that was pretty good. Yeah. Ian Miles Chong tweeted, President vs Elon, who wins? My money's on Elon. Trump should be impeached and JD Vance replace him. And Elon Musk tweeted it and just said, yes, with the sub tweet.

Of all the people. And then Trump said, I don't mind Elon turning against me, but he should have done so months ago, this is one of the greatest bills ever presented to Congress. The record cut in expenses, $1.6 trillion in the biggest tax cut ever given. If this bill doesn't pass, there will be a 68% tax increase in things. Far worse than that. I didn't create this mess. I'm just here to fix it.

Puts our country on a path to greatness, make America great again. Wow. Who pulled this up? Oh, I did. They just posted like two minutes ago, a headline Musk says SpaceX will decommission Dragon spacecraft after Trump threat. And I mean, the Dragon spacecraft is what SpaceX uses to take people to and from the space station. That's been very useful to NASA with respect to its mission. And yeah, as I said earlier in the conversation, SpaceX has plenty of customers. They're not completely dependent on the federal government at this point. They do have regulatory concerns, which is part of the reason they moved from Canada,

from California to Texas. But, you know, do they need NASA's business to stay in business? No, not really. So, you know, Ari, to highlight some of your concern here. These are material consequences for the country perhaps. Certainly for our efforts with respect to space travel as a country, perhaps not as a species because Elon's gonna continue to work on that. But yeah, it's just extraordinary stuff all happening in real time. And one would hope for leadership in both the kind of private and public sense here

That was perhaps a little less petty And a little more focused on Everyone's bottom line the country is facing so many extraordinary challenges all at once Right now at this moment Trump's just taking questions at the roundtable discussion with the Fraternal Order of Police. That's happening. We'll see what news comes out of that. Never a dull moment. They cut the stream.

Whoa. Camille, I can't imagine what he said in order for that to happen. It's right before questions. Validate your memory here, your very, very good memory here. Elon Musk has just retweeted with the one eyebrow raised emoji an old clip of Donald Trump in the Oval Office saying, Elon has never asked me for a thing. I mean, I got rid of the EV mandate, but he's never asked me for a thing. I think that's an amazing attribute.

Elon is a patriot. We want to thank you very much for the job you're doing. So you remembered that correctly. Trump did, in fact, say that Elon never asked him for anything on the EV mandates. And Elon has insisted that he didn't care about them. And now Elon's bringing back up these old tweets to remind everybody that I guess Trump is either lying now

or he was lying then. So you can kind of take your pick. Elon's also said the Trump terrorist will cause a recession in the second half of this year. He tweeted, sub tweeted somebody talking about the relationship between Trump and Epstein being well established. So he's really leaning in on the Trump Epstein stuff. All right, maybe you guys are right.

Yeah, they're not going to patch this up in a couple of days. So he's really leaning in on the Trump Epstein stuff. All right. Maybe you guys are right. Yeah, they're not going to patch this up in a couple of days. I think maybe that's not coming. Wow. All right. Well, an eventful day. Easily a top five day in Twitter history. There's been a few of these, but this is definitely up there in my view.

Yeah, top five something. I think the most memorable day before this in Twitter history was when Yulon called that dude who was trying to take the kids out of the cave a pedo for no reason. A pedophile, yeah. So he's going back to his old tricks now. Yeah, same thing. He falls back on that a little bit, just hates somebody.

Sorry, I'm lost here. It's just pedophile. You should be careful. All right. Well, before we get out of here, we've got to do our grievances. So, John, you can play the music. The airing of grievances. That's some kind of a phobia. All right. I think I'm going to go first today just to get mine off my chest, and then I can sit back and listen to you guys as we wrap up here.

This is an instrument. This is like a collection of grievances. But here's what I'll just say. Today in the office, after a series of things have happened over the last couple of weeks, I said to Lindsay, who works here with me in Philadelphia, I was just like, what is going on? Is this my imagination? And she was like, no, something's off. I don't know what it is. There's just like, something is just not quite right. And there's just these like little inconveniences that are just over and over and over again. We have this server in the office that we've been having to get rid of in order to put the studio up. Took forever to get rid of. It's all these very bizarre, unlikely seeming things

have popped up in the process of getting the server into a different room. And then they finally did it this week so we can start building our studio up there. And it came on a day when Lindsay and I needed to record the Zionism piece for YouTube. And so we went up to the kitchen of the office space that I'm in, in order to do the video because the studio,

we have not decorated it or built it out yet. But the server was now in the room next to the kitchen, and they were working on the server the day we were there. So it was too loud and too crazy for us to record the video. So we had to move the studio that we had built in the kitchen and go to a conference room. And in the process of doing that, the camera like got out of focus. So we recorded an hour long YouTube video where I was just totally out of focus in

the whole video and the whole thing was unusable. Just like one example. And then today, the thing that prompted this conversation was my food, my lunch got delivered, but instead of getting delivered to the address, which was 1727 where we are, it got delivered to 2027. That's where the picture was and the food wasn't here. So I went looking for 2027, like a 2027 near the office, because I figured my food was just sitting on some random porch.

And it turned out there were like five 2027s within like a five minute walk of me, all in complete opposite directions of each other. And so just in like this weird labyrinth of how the Philadelphia streets are addressed. And so I just one by one randomly went where I thought maybe, and it of course was at like the fifth one that I found.

So it took me like 30 minutes to find my lunch, which had then been baking in the 85 degree sun the whole time. Just weird little things. And so my grievance is just whatever this, like my wife threw her back out, like that just like, I don't know. It's like not really- Such an inconvenience for you, I know. Yeah, huge inconvenience for me. Let's talk about my feelings about it. But also just like, it just doesn't seem like something that quite fits on the timeline. So yeah, I said, I was like, Lindsay, am I going crazy?

Am I imagining this? Like, I feel like, and she was like, no, I totally agree. There's something off. There's all this just like weird little thing. So some little karma thing is just like the, everything's just a little off kilter. I'm excited for the shift to happen. Maybe we need like a new moon or some hippie shit. I don't know exactly what it is, but I'll take whatever it is. So that's my grievance for the week is that there's

just something a little off. Maybe the breakup between Donald Trump and Elon Musk will heal the universe somehow. The massive tear, like yeah, the supernova terror they leave in the skies will shift the gravity in my favor. I don't know. So that's me. That's where I'm at. Just a collection of petty grievances. Sorry, bro. That's a lot of shit. Sorry, bro. Sounds like a lot of it's downstream from the server being moved and just, there's going to be inconveniences from that. I hope that gets resolved soon. Cause yeah, I mean, just, just as Phoebe's back has inconvenienced you, your schedule slightly inconveniences me.

So I have a stake in this too. I'm also in a group party. I hope I get my check when the class action lawsuit comes through. Sounds good. I'll tee you up. Sounds good. Just as an aside, I think I've been party to like three class

action lawsuits in the last couple of years. I've just been opening checks. It's fucking great. I love it. Apparently the University of Chicago class action lawsuits in the last couple years. I've just been opening checks. It's fucking great. I love it. Apparently, the University of Chicago was part of a conspiracy amongst education institutions in fixing financial aid prices lower than they should.

So I'm expecting somewhere between $50 and $5,000. Who knows which? Probably like 50 sometime in the next week. So that's great. Sort of bizar bizarre grievance, but I wanted to add it, what was on the top of my mind, speaking of class action lawsuits. Wait, is that, that is the grievance? Uh, no, it's just sort of an aside.

My grievance is the thing fell off in my hand earlier, that was annoying. That's fair. Yeah. Can you explain what happened exactly? Yeah. Um you explain what happened exactly? Yeah. Sort of.

So we just had our house built like a couple months ago. So parts of it, like it's a very good house, but there are parts of the finishing that still aren't totally finished. So we took on a lot of that. And one of the things we took on was installing the handles into most of the windows. One of the windows, the arm that connects from the handle to the window, like we have the ones that you pump and then they go out.

You crank it. Yeah. They sort of swing out like a door. That arm on the external side of the house broke off when I was cranking the window back in so it's fixable I just have to remove the screen and do that but I can't do that now so it's just a little annoyance but you know I'm good pretty pretty decent week generally I guess I can say that the natural cool babbling

brooks nearby and the pools that result from them are just not quite deep enough. So that's also a great sense. Yeah, nice. All right, Camille. I feel a little bad about this one. I had an event at my daughter's school before coming here. It's a sort of graduation, but not quite,

because she's not graduating. It's just another year in the same class. It's weird Montessori thing. But there were a bunch of performances by children, which were almost uniformly adorable. There was one talented young lady who both sang and played the piano. But she sang a song that I discovered that I actually hate.

And I didn't know that I hated it. I knew I didn't really like it much, but I didn't know that I actually, I actively hate imagine. I think it's a bad song. I agree so much. I'm so, yes, it's not even, it doesn't even sound particularly good, but the song is like utopian, um, silliness like actually makes me deeply uncomfortable.

And I actually think there's something about hearing an actual child sing this song and not an adult that you're being kind of inculcated into this ridiculous nonsense and encouraged to believe it and imagine like, this is the way that things will someday be and should someday be. You will own nothing and you will be happy. Eh, no, no. I don't think so. Not only do I not think so, I don't want to aim for that. Utopia is not an option. And there are very good reasons why every single utopian scheme

in the history of mankind, and I'm overstating it, just a little, has ended in something like genocide. So maybe we shouldn't imagine that at all. It isn't hard to do, but also, it's hard to achieve. In fact, impossible to achieve. So let's focus on actual progress and the difficult hard work of making the world a more better place.

There is a phrase in the United States Constitution, we talked about the kind of work of making the world a more better place. There is a phrase in the United States Constitution, we talked about the kind of history of the United States a couple of times, that is awkward and strange, more perfect. Doesn't make a lot of sense, except, no, it's great. There is a sense in which like there's a way to interpret Candide's, this is the best of all possible worlds from Dr. Pam Gloss in a kind of absurd, ridiculous way, which is what Candide and Voltaire wanted you to take away from it. But there's another sense in which, well, no, this world that we live in is the best and perhaps worst of all possible worlds because it's the one that we're in.

And we have an obligation to take it seriously, to recognize its defects and limitations, and I think to work as hard as we can to improve upon it, but doing the hard, difficult work of making it better and improving things requires us to abandon utopian fantasies. And I think that we should put Imagine Where It Belongs into dustbin, and I am sorry to say that. I am not a Beatles hater. I sing Golden Slumber with my daughter at nighttime,

and she loves it it and my son too But I don't like that song is bad and we should do something about it So there it is and I actually feel a little bad saying it again. Her performance was great, but I left feeling a little sad Come on. I just can we all just pause for a moment and just imagine this monologue running in Camille's head while he's sitting at like a six year old's recital. This is what Camille's just like Voltaire and I'm gonna imagine a genocide and this little girl is just singing her heart out trying to, and that's where Camille's at. That really makes me happy.

You actually have to imagine me. Imagine my wife. Like I'm hitting her with my elbow. I'm like, can you? And she's just shh, shh, shh. Yeah. So Camille's begging for us to imagine a world where children are singing very pragmatic political songs about how we should all be embracing imperfectness. Maybe imagine makes the most sense.

In curiosity and moderation. When a child is singing it though. Intellectual humility. All right, all right, you know, I've been feeding Camille a bunch of stuff during this podcast directing things at him. I heard you say earlier, oh, all right, well, but this one's for you. Buried in the absolute insanity that is the Twitter V Elon is Aaron Rodgers has signed with the Pittsburgh Steelers.

So if you would like me to pass you a lethal weapon so you can take your own life, I'd be happy to do that right now. But that happens. Sorry, I got my fidget knife with me already. I wish we were on video so you all could just see Ari's head just devastatingly drop into his chest as I delivered that news.

I didn't even have the context and I love it. Yeah, Ari's just a diehard Steelers fan. I'm wearing my steel city hat right now. I just, what's nothing. God damn it. This is the worst day. This is what I get for being happy during the grievances.

I had this coming. Yeah. Yeah. Spilled the beer and found out Aaron Rogers is coming home to Pittsburgh all in the same 30 seconds. Coming home to Pittsburgh. Send him back to California where he belongs. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, God. All right. It's time to get out of here. Get out of here.

Gone. That's my grievance to Aaron Rodgers. I wish I didn't have to run to dinner so I could just sit on Twitter for the next three hours. But you guys will have to give me a praise. Sorry, Phoebe. All right, fellas. I'll do it at dinner. It's fine. You guys like to give me a praise. All right, fellas. I'll see you guys soon. Take it easy. Take care. Peace. Our executive editor and founder is me, Isaac Saul, and our executive producer is John Law. Today's episode was edited and engineered by John Law. Our editorial staff is led by managing editor Ari Weitzman with senior editor Will K. Back and associate editors Hunter Kaspersen, Audrey Morehead, Bailey Saul, Lindsay Knuth, and

Kendall White. Music for the podcast was produced by Dye 75 and John Law. And to learn more about Tangle and to sign up for a membership, please visit our website at reedtangle.com