The Comedy Cellar: Live from the Table - Political Commentator Fred Kaplan on his Novel and Trump's Plan for Gaza

Episode Date: February 6, 2025

Fred Kaplan is a former Washington, Moscow, and New York correspondent for the Boston Globe. He writes the “War Stories” column in Slate and is the author of seven books including The Insurgents: David Petraeus and the Plot to Change the American Way of War (which was a Pulitzer Prize Finalist). A Capital Calamity is his latest book and his first novel.

Welcome to Live from the Table, the official podcast for the world-famous comedy cellar. I'm here with Noam Dwarman, the owner of the comedy cellar. I am Perrielle, the producer of the show. And unfortunately, Dan Natterman is unable to join us today because his mother unfortunately fell and broke her hip. So we are wishing her a refoua shlema, as they say, a speedy recovery. As they say or as we say. We have a very special guest today. He's a return guest.

Why did you get so dewy? Go ahead, go ahead, go ahead. It's your fault. I wasn't like this until I met you, and you lectured me for years about how I should be more dewy. Go ahead. Fred Kaplan is here. He is a former Washington, Moscow, and New York correspondent for the Boston Globe, where he

won a Pulitzer Prize, which is very impressive. And he currently writes War Stories, the War Stories column in Slate. He is the author of seven books including his most recent one which we're here to discuss which is called a capital calamity and if i may i'd like it's a novel it's a novel it's your first novel your first novel and there are a couple of um

blurbs that i'd like to read to introduce the book, if that's okay with everybody. The first one is by Jeffrey Lewis, the host of Arms Control Wonk podcast. Quote, A Jane Austen meets Dr. Strangelove comedy

of D.C. manners. It's very, very funny and serious. There you go. And then one more from Joe Weisberg, creator of the Americans. Quote, a joyful romp. Just when we need satire more than ever,

one of our best political commentators has morphed into a brilliant and irresistible comic novelist. I did not pay for either one of those, by the way. So I'll say, first of all, Periel, there is an SNL spoof quality to the way you do these things. It literally, it could be like an SNL, you know, doing a send-up of some public access Yenta book club show. How would you do it?

I know. Anyway, welcome, Fred Kaplan. Good to be here. So turn Fred up just a little bit. Wait, wait, wait. Yeah. How would you do it? Why don't you?

So first of all, my friend and um he is the third person i a friend of mine that's written a novel really and um i find it absolutely amazing that somebody can write a novel. It's on the order. Like, there are things that people do that I think I could do, right? But like when Ava, who comes up in the book, when Ava draws these pictures, this is my stepmother who draws pictures. I say, you could put me in a room for 100 years. I couldn't draw just one portion of it. Maybe I could copy it. I couldn't draw just one portion of it. Maybe I could copy it.

I couldn't generate it. A novel, as opposed to a nonfiction essay or whatever it is, is such an amazing accomplishment, in my opinion, because you have to have characters and plot and twists, and each character has its own personality, and they write from within their personality, right? So did you always know that you had the ability to write a novel? No, actually, I've stayed away from it, because I actually do know several serious novelists,

and, you know, like, they're not writing histories of the Cold War or something. So I stay in my lane and they can, I've been kind of intimidated. But I'd always had a kernel of an idea in my head. I didn't know whether I could pull it off. When the lockdown happened, the way I usually write books, I go interview people in person. I go to archival libraries because not everything is online. And I wanted to write a book. I said, well, let's give this a try. And you're right. I mean, a friend of mine who is also a reporter who wrote a novel said, oh, it's great. It's easy. You just make shit up. And well, no, that, A, that's not easy i mean i never made shit up but b you know i read somewhere that a plot it's not and then and then and then it's and so and so and so and meanwhile yeah and

there has to be a plot line and this has to be carried by characters who have to be even if it's not completely realistic they have to be plausible within the framework which already they have to be, even if it's not completely realistic, they have to be plausible within the framework of what you're writing. They have to sound like people. And then something very interesting happened that I'd never experienced before. So I would get to the end of a chapter, and I would say, okay, what happens next? I don't know where this thing goes now.

And I would go to sleep, and these things, like you wake up at 6 o'clock in the morning a little bit, and it just kind of came to me. That's how it came to me that the last scene in the book should take place at the Comedy Cellar. But among others, this happened five or six times, and it worked. But interestingly, I've mentioned this to my friends who write novels and plays, and they say, oh yeah, this happens all the time. Also my friend Josh Epstein, who you know, who's into high-level mathematics, he goes, oh, yeah, happens in high-level mathematics. Who I believe is a character in the book.

No, not really. There's a lot of – by the way, so we were remiss. So the book is kind of an old-fashioned farce in a way, like the mouse that roared or wagged the dog in that... Our men in Havana. In that tradition of a hapless or Danny Kaye kind of movie, a hapless kind of dude who harmlessly does something and finds himself in the middle of an international incident and perhaps sparks World War III,

that he has to extricate the world from his own mess. So I don't know how much— And learn how to become a responsible citizen in the process. And learn how to become—and learn his lesson, yeah. So do you want to give a little—and by the way, the book is fantastic. And I'm always worried when a friend of mine has written a book, like, oh God, that's why I don't read perry ell's book because i don't want to have to but the book kept my attention 100 of the time i was anxious to see how it turned out now of course i there are autobiographical things in there including the final scene which takes place in the comedy cellar in ava's apartment and all that and and i am a character in the book

which you gave me permission to do by the way yeah yeah you don't need permission but i gave you permission and but you do need permission the publishers make you get permission but you want to give a little tease of the plot for the for the listeners well okay so it's about a cynical defense consultant and by cynical i mean you know he'll get a contract from the air force to write a study about how we need a new bomber. And then he'll seek a contract with the Navy to do a study of why we don't need a new bomber. So he calls it the Janus Corporation, like the two faces, working both sides of the street

to make double the fee. And he used to be an idealistic young man with a talent for math. And there was an experience in one of the flashbacks. I don't need to go into it. Now, you named him Serge Willoughby, but he's clearly Jew and Jewish. So it's a misdirect, but go ahead. Everybody else in the book is Jewish, but strangely, he isn't.

But in any event, he's become a cynic out of experience. He had a dastardly experience early on, which disillusioned him. And so he says, I'm just going to go make money. The opening line of the book is, Serge Willoughby just wanted to make money and have fun. He didn't mean to start World War III. So he becomes a consultant, and he plays a nasty trick on an old rival.

Another Jew. Wolf Mandelbaum. Wolf Mandelbaum, yeah. It's a great name. That's the one character, by the way, who is entirely based on an actual person. It's not a composite. It is this one person. And he's going to know who it is. And took one of his funders out to lunch at a place where there were no reservations and they were standing in line. And she goes, let's go someplace else. And he goes, no, it's my goal in life not to consume a single inferior calorie. And he lost the contract as a result.

That's a true story, as Michael Corleone says in The Godfather. Anyway, so now. That's a true story. So you mentioned autobiography. The fact is, like Serge Willoughby, I went to MIT grad school to study arms control and defense studies. I worked on the Hill for a couple years in my wayward youth. I didn't become disillusioned. I more I became bored, but and I didn't become a consultant but as i was going through you know i've been kind of in and out a kind of an insider outsider of the national security community as a reporter as

an analyst as a former capitol hill aide as i say and all these years i things have happened where i it occurs to me boy that would make a great scene in a satirical novel and so when i set out to write this i've i sort of regurgitated all of them characters events ambience and and yeah the challenge was to find a plot that connected all of this stuff that and that made you want to keep turning the page to to find out what happens next yeah and then sorry you. Did the plot come to you first? Like, did you think about like, was it like the characters?

Like, were there a couple of stories that you knew that you wanted to tell? Or was that like narrative through line? I knew how it began. And I had a rough idea of how it ended. But really when I started out, I had no, I knew incidents.

I knew little bits. I knew people. But no, I really did not know where this thing was going. That's the fun part. And he puts some stuff in there, like obviously Fred Kaplan and stuff. I don't understand why everybody thinks Kissinger is such a smart guy. Well, my favorite is there's a very crucial scene where some myths about the Cuban Missile Crisis are exposed. And that's one of my bugaboos as a modern historian.

Oh, that actually there was a PBS documentary where they had the recordings. And even though all the truth about the Cuban Missile Crisis was out there, somehow people were still operating on the myth. See, I did read the book for it. He was still operating on the myth of the Cuban Missile Crisis. The most important fact being that Kennedy... He made a deal. Kennedy made a deal and didn't stand up to the Russians with bravado as they claimed.

He did both, but he also made a deal. And yeah, there's a big scene, an NSC meeting between the more dovish Secretary of Defense and the very hawkish Chairman of the Joint Chiefs where the General is bringing out the Cuban Missile Crisis, but doing all the bad interpretations. I like to work in

my bugaboos into... Well, actually, since you're talking about that, this is probably in the same part of the book. One of the things that I read in the book, and then I was in a conversation the other night, and I thought I'd write it in a column. I was like the things that I read in the book, and then I was in a conversation the other night, and I thought I'd write it in a column. I was like, who, where did I read this? Oh no, that was in Fred's novel.

It talks about mutually assured deterrence, which is the notion that nobody would use nuclear weapons. I have to tell Periel. Yeah, yeah, okay, really. You're getting a little bit to where you both have things that could destroy the other person. And so is that...

So I'll read this. This was really excellent. The basic idea of deterrence, and let us begin with nuclear deterrence because all three of our countries are... Wait, this is the Chinese guy talking at this big peace meeting. Yeah, yeah, but this is obviously you.

Yeah, it is. Obviously. Because all, except without the Chinese accent, because all three of our... Do it in a Chinese accent. Are you crazy? Fred will never forgive me. The turns, because all three of our countries

are nuclear powers, is that each of us convinces the other that we really will drop the bomb in response to aggression. Part of this process involves convincing ourselves that we would actually use nuclear weapons. Convincing ourselves, as well as others, requires building certain types of missiles and devising certain war plans that would enable us to use nuclear weapons. And before you know it, a strategy to deter nuclear weapons becomes

synonymous with the strategy to fight, and if possible, to win a nuclear war. If a crisis ever arose, the logic would encourage, would almost require, escalating the cycle of threats and counter threats to the point where deterrence and war converge in order to maintain what we call credibility. He paused for dramatic effect. Would we ever actually use nuclear weapons? I don't know. But for deterrence to work, for it to remain credible, we have to behave as if we would. Yet that increases the chance that we actually would. Wow. Very good, Fred.

Not only is that me, but I'll reveal something here. Yeah. That has taken almost word for word from my most recent nonfiction book, The Bomb, Presidents, Generals, and the Secret History of Nuclear War. Yeah. So that's absolutely true and insightful. Yeah. That's what I was going to ask you also. Like, it must have been great fun for you, who is usually so serious and writes like such serious.

Oh, no, come on. Some of my columns, I think, are pretty fun. No, they are. But, I mean, you don't have... Well, I mean, this is... Maybe I... You don't usually have the leeway that you have in a novel to, like, really do whatever you want

and, however, at the same time, be able to pull in, like you said, your bugaboos. Like, that's got to be... Well, no, Richard Clarke, you know, the former White House counterterrorism guy. She knows. I happen to know Richard very well.

He blurbed the book. He called it an only slightly exaggerated, darkly humorous portrait. Can we just take a break here? Okay, I'll say one more thing. Yes. After the comedy set on the first revelatory Is that how you say the word? Revelatory. Revelatory.

After the comedy set on the first I knew it wasn't right when I said it. After the comedy set on that first revelatory night long ago, Willoughby had wandered upstairs to the Olive Tree. This is why it's obviously autobiographical. Had wandered upstairs to the Olive Tree Cafe just above why it's obviously autobiographical. Had wandered upstairs to the ology cafe

just above the cellar, comedy cellar, and soon found himself in conversation with the owner of both establishments, an amiably argumentative musician and ex-lawyer named Noam Dorman. And it goes on. I'm mentioned quite a bit in this book, as is Ava and her drawings.

And the final scene takes place in Ava's studio. Before Fred gets the girl. How come you didn't change Noam's name? It is true that Noam is the only character in the book who is mentioned by name. I do mention another real character, but he's a part of a story that really happened that somebody's recounting, namely Michael Kinsley.

The story about how he exposed a bad restaurant in Washington is a true story. But yeah, I just thought it would be fun. Look, as I say, these scenes that would come to me at five o'clock in the morning. So I went to bed. Where, where's this big meeting with, with the Russian and the Chinese guy in the America?

Where's this going to take place? And I woke up and it just kind of occurred to me, I know it'll take place at the comedy cellar. It's great. And this is a tribute to Ava, who's my stepmother for you super fans, who is a, just a brilliant artist. And upstairs, you've been to a studio upstairs?

No. Really? Upstairs. Never. It's criminal. I'll take you up there. Upstairs, she has this beautiful studio

with all her artwork and it's like a New York gem because you would certainly imagine a woman who's created all this artwork would show it or something. She's just accumulating

and accumulating. It's crazy. We should do like a big show for her. It's actually insane. The climactic scene is when Willoughby has to go represent the united states at a sub rosa meeting with a guy from china and from russia to

try to settle the war and it can't be in washington and it can't be in any government building and the chinese guy is flying in and he wants it to be in new york and so the chapter 10 ends willoughby saying i know just the place it's perfect and then chapter 11 begins at the comedy cellar was a blah blah blah and uh and so yeah there's a whole scene that takes place on the stage upstairs in your stepmother's apartment and then on the stage the mc i just sound like john lasser or something like bantering it does thank you uh no then they decide to celebrate. He says, hey, you want to go downstairs

and see the set? Oh, there's a comedy club downstairs? Yeah, there's a very strong set tonight. Let's go downstairs. Okay, let's do that. I think I portrayed that scene pretty well. The whole thing is great, Fred. The whole book is great. It's not,

first of all, it's not long either. So I would, you know, and it's nice to have a book that's not too long. I'm reading Brothers Karamazov now. And, you know, no matter how many hours I spend reading it, I feel like I haven't, you know. You haven't made it then. Made any progress. Well, maybe you could read a portion of the book. That's 170 pages. Well, I mean like a paragraph. I read a portion of the book that's 170 pages well i mean like a paragraph i read a

paragraph already so um um you read a pretty didactic you want to read a paragraph well i don't know what i you know i have done did you do the audiobook there's no audiobook yet but there might be and maybe i have done like the first few pages do you want me to do that is that going to take up too much time not not a few pages, but like... Wait a second. I wanted to ask Fred a question before you launched into the book.

Can I change? Cue the car crash sound, Deanna. I tried to get it in before you started. We can replay what we started. I would be remiss to have one of the best political commentators in our clutches. I'm here every week, Perga.

And not ask, and I don't know if you want to talk about this or not. I said I would talk about anything. Okay, what do you have to say about Trump's performance yesterday about... That's a press conference. Yes. With... Maragazza. Maragazza.

We're already doing timeshares, right? No, I was sitting around. I'd written a story earlier that day about his tariff game and what a disaster that was. And I'm sitting around waiting for this press conference to start. It was supposed to start at 10 past five, starting at about seven o'clock. It's like a Madonna concert. Well, I better watch it because who knows what's going to happen.

And, oh my God. I mean, he started talking about things. I mean, my headline was something like, this is the craziest thing I've ever heard a president say. I mean, I've never heard anybody talking, the idea of, and it's all said so casually. Like, oh yeah, no, it's a hellhole. It always will be. It always was.

They've all just got to leave. It's never going to be anything. We'll settle them. We'll settle them someplace else. I don't know, in 2, 3, 4, two three four five seven twelve or maybe just one site i think they used to call that a diaspora right maybe there will be a zionist palestinian movement later on but and then and then we'll move in and and we'll make a spectacular place it'll be like i'm really not trying to be a wise guy he said it'll be like the Middle East Riviera.

And will the Palestinians live there? Well, maybe some of them, but it'll be a place for people from international, I guess he could have said cosmopolitan, right? I mean, it was like, and you could tell, people in the room were like, and he talked about how this would be done under American ownership, and we would go in, it'll create thousands of jobs. An ownership position, he said, which implies... Well, the whole thing is bacaqed. It's just a point to get it accurate. Ownership position is real estate lingo, or corporate lingo for one of the various... But here's the thing. But this is something you're watching, and you're taking it seriously.

No, what I'm taking seriously is this is who this guy is as you say he looks at everything like a real estate project but here's it's not just wild it's also very destructive because here's what's going on we are right in the middle of phase one of a ceasefire deal between hamas and israel i don't know how long it's going to go, but it's going pretty well now. There's going to be supposedly a phase two and then a phase three. In the meantime, Saudi Arabia really does want to do some normalized deal with Israel, but they really are insisting for their own domestic purposes, there has to be at least a theoretical acknowledgement of a Palestinian state sometime. And here's Trump, stumbles in with this fucking weird fantasy in which there is no Palestinian state. In fact,

there are no Palestinians. They're all moved out. I mean, this is like, as I said, this is like the Hamas terrorist caricature of a Zionist American imperialist. Like, we'll just get rid of all of them. And yet, this is in his mind. And he thinks, well, look, they'll want to leave because they're living in a hellhole. We'll find someplace really spectacular for them to live. And meanwhile, Saudi Arabia, they have to deal with this. The king of Jordan is coming to visit the White House in two weeks. The president of Egypt is coming. They have to deal with this. The King of Jordan is coming to visit the White House in two

weeks. The president of Egypt is coming. They have to deal with people in their midst. They have to somehow convince people that, you know, let's keep this cease. How do you go from step one to step two if you think that the American president has this in mind for step three? I mean, it's really throwing, I'm not saying it was it was a low chance of it working anyway but there are things happening there's a little chance of what working a piece a ceasefire that extends for many months maybe years and evolves into some kind of political settlement but you know the the conditions have been created. You know, Iran at its weakest ever, Hezbollah practically destroyed, Hamas trailing, Saudis wanting to make a deal, where a smart president could get in there and really try to make something going and this is like throwing not just a wrench but just a string of

fireworks just just just dog shit just throwing it into the middle of the pile and making it very difficult for the people who have to take part in this and who have to really take a leadership role in this for the first time who who are those people the saudis the egyptians the qataris and they've got their own situation. They're not going to take—they've said many times, look, we are not going to take a million Palestinian refugees. And we did this a little while ago. This is going to be too destabilizing.

That's your problem to solve? Want me to give you the counterpoint? Counterpoint? There's a serious counterpoint. Okay. So first of all, we know this is never going to happen because— But this is what's in his head. No, no, no.

Well, maybe, maybe, maybe he's that deranged. But, obviously, unless the Palestinians are ready to go, you know, give me a couple hundred thousand dollars and they go happily, you'd have to get them out at gunpoint. And that's obvious. The American or the Israeli are not going to remove two... And take them where? Even if there's no place to go, they're not going to remove two million people at gunpoint, killing them to get them to leave

Gaza. Or even bribing them. Hold on. Or even bribing them. That's not going to happen. I don't even know if it would be, it would definitely be illegal to remove them and immoral. But what this does communicate in some way to the Palestinians is that the unthinkable is now thinkable. And these are people who believe that Israel is ready to,

at any moment, destroy the Al-Aqsa mosque. And if they think that America, what this communicates is we're losing patience with this situation. We're not going to tolerate it anymore. And if you guys don't change the way you behave, we're ready to throw you all out. And they take that seriously. But here's why it's not. Because instantly, as had to happen,

the Saudis put out a statement at four o'clock in the morning Saudi time saying, this is bullshit, this is not going to happen, we're not going to allow it, this isn't serious at all. And anybody who knows anything about the Middle East would know that nobody would sit on this for more than two hours. Hold on, let me finish. So it's not, so they don't have to be serious. And obviously, psychologically, when Palestinians are confronted with the fact, unless you think they would ever believe this is real, but if they believe this is real, they look at Hamas and say, hopefully, what the hell have you gotten us into here? They're ready. Let me just talk. They're ready. No, not like, no, this is exactly, because Trump understands what the Biden presidency didn't understand. Trump understands that all the heart

on the sleeve, moral hand wringing on the one hand, on the other hand, we're so upset as heartfelt and as legitimate as that emotion might have been as they're expressing it. This only fed the Hamas notion, we're winning. We have them where we want them. At any moment, they're not going to be able to go through with this anymore. Trump is communicating, we're done with you. The Israelis are going to do whatever they want. We don't care.

We lost patience with this. And this is what Hamas has gotten you into. It is reasonable now that you may all get thrown out of Gaza. Is that what you wanted? So this breaks, potentially, the psychological back of the run-of-the-mill Palestinians. Well, let me ask you a question. If you're a Palestinian and you hear Trump—try to be really honest here. If you're a Palestinian and you hear Trump say that—

No, I'm going to say— Wait, wait, wait. Just answer me. If you're a Palestinian and you hear Trump say that. No, I'm going to say. Do you? Wait, wait, wait. Just answer me. If you're a Palestinian and you hear Trump say that, do you not say to yourself, uh-oh, our leaders might have gotten us in real trouble here? Is that wrong or right? I will give you that I would have said, uh-oh, the day before yesterday. You're not going to answer my question.

No, I am going to. Now, listen to me. The day before yesterday, it was certainly true that Trump had made it clear, privately and publicly, that Israel, listen, finish this up. Do what you need to do. Finish the war, by which he meant win the war. He didn't mean make a... And so, and yeah, he was going to let them do whatever he wanted. You know, Biden had put a ban on 20,000 pound bombs because all they do is kill neighborhoods. He released the bombs. You can do whatever you want. You know, Biden had put a ban on 20,000 pound bombs because all they do is kill neighborhoods. He released the bombs. You can do whatever you want. If I had been a Palestinian, I would have been very nervous by that. But after the ridiculous stuff he was saying last night,

this puts me back into a position of saying to all of my Arab enablers, see what kind of crazy guy we're dealing with? You think the Palestinians are following this that closely? They are following... Oh, no, everybody knows about this. All they care about is the headline, which is Trump is talking about throwing us all out. That's right.

And there's perfectly reasonable to say, maybe we need to make a deal. And the Saudis and the Egyptians and the Qadaris and everybody else is saying, this is not going to happen. We disavow this whole thing. So, actually, I think what this does, this... And by the way, let's... This doesn't communicate to the Palestinians that the American attitude is quite different and we maybe need to play ball with them? You have backpedaling going on

even among senior officials today. Well, that's not what he really meant. This is good cop, bad cop. No, it isn't. No, it is not. How many times have the Palestinians heard that Israel's not good cop, bad cop? It's crazy president.

How many officials have told them that Israel's not after Al-Aqsa? They know, but they still believe it. They hear the American president talking about throwing them all out of Gaza. You think they disregard that? They take it seriously. Americans are taking it seriously. Why wouldn't they take it seriously?

Nobody takes it seriously in the sense that this is something that's going to happen. What they did take seriously before, and I think this did have an impact, is Trump saying, yeah, go ahead, do whatever you need to do, which is something that Biden never did. And by the way, it worked both ways.

Trump sent his emissary to join Biden's emissary in the last days of the Biden administration to say, Trump wants you to do this deal, the ceasefire. And that's how it got done. I mean, I'm... But I don't know if you can... So we do know from SINWAR that they read the Biden administration's comments as weakness, and there was a comment, I think it was almost verbatim, we have them right where we want them.

Yep. Now, if that's... I think Trump has now reversed a lot of what he had. So now Trump is telling them no, the, the, the, and by the way,

I don't want to sound hard because I, I tried to allude to it, but I was being quick. Much of what Biden was saying in terms of the sympathy, this is proper and righteous feelings that, that Biden was saying out loud, but that doesn't make it good for, as a matter of fact, I think more Palestinians died because of that communication,

even though the communication was a righteous emotion, meaning that the hope that if we just keep this up, Israel, America will force Israel to capitulate, this fueled a resistance which went on and on, and more and more and more people die. And Trump is trying to break the psychological back of Hamas here. A few things— And this seems like a—

Look, a few things have been going on. Yeah. It's not just us. A few things have been going on in recent months. Hamas—and Sinwar was beginning to realize this, but it's even more so now—Hamas has realized nobody's coming to their rescue. Iran, they've been put in a position where all of their air defense is destroyed. Israel can attack them whenever they want.

So Iran isn't going to attack Israel anymore. Hezbollah is basically destroyed. Hamas, severely weakened. The Arab countries, the Sunni Arab countries in the region, who have never really liked the Palestinians at all, want nothing to do with them, but have radical elements in their own population, and therefore have to stand up to them rhetorically in any event. Given that situation, some very shrewd diplomacy could be done, and was in the works, and was in the makings. And for Trump.

To what end? To have the thing settled. What does settled mean? Well, I don't know exactly, but no more fighting for one thing. And that eventually Hamas is no longer in control of anything worth controlling. And that Saudis and Egypt and Qatar come in and create some new kind of authority that really does something. You know, I was at a dinner with a with a but wait let me let me just finish yeah so and then trump comes in with this fantasy which he thinks is something that would be good for the palestinian people

which basically shows that this guy has no grip on anything having to do with the history, politics, or culture of the region. And in fact, this gives Hamas a little bit more of a leg up in saying, you see the mashuganis that we have to deal with here? I mean— I give them a leg up. And by the way, if I'm Hamas or the Palestinians and I read— assume for the sake of argument that you're correct, I say, oh my God, the American president doesn't know a goddamn thing about this conflict except he supports Israel.

That says to me, we're in trouble here. We need to make a deal. Yeah, I think, no, you think they need to make a deal. Well, they did make a deal. No, they made a deal. Somebody needs to,

it took them eight months, but they finally did it. So there's a fantasy, I think it's a fantasy that continues in your milieu, and I was at a dinner not long ago with somebody. What milieu is that?

Kind of left of center, people vis-a-vis the Arab-Israeli conflict, and I said to a guy who's known, I said, can you point to me to one editorial, one leader, something that indicates that this Thomas Friedman notion that the Palestinians want a state side by side is real? Because if you start from the assumption they don't, they want the destruction of Israel because that's what they say. They support Hamas to this day. They support Hamas a lot more now than they did two years ago.

But Fred, the reason they didn't have an election on the West Bank three or four years ago was because everybody expected Hamas would win. Which is what happened in Gaza. Right, right. There shouldn't have been an election. Right. But the point is that the smart money said three, four years ago, before Israel did any of this stuff, that a majority of the Palestinians would vote for the party that was sworn to the destruction of Israel. Not for the party that swore to try to make a deal.

Okay, no, you're right. But here's, look, we can go, look, we've all read, you know. But there's this sentimental aspect to this. No, I have no—just to make it clear when you're talking about milieu, my milieu, I have never had any sentimental attitude. I have sympathy for the Palestinians. Yeah, of course. I have sympathy for the people. But the first book that I read on the Middle East when I was in college, the book had just come out. Actually, it's a very interesting book to go back and read by Malcolm Kerr called The Arab Cold War.

He wrote it in 1967. Before or after the war? He started writing it before. He was—it's Steve Kerr's father, you know, the basketball coach. Yeah, yeah. I don't know Steve Kerr. I know Malcolm Kerr. Yeah, Malcolm Kerr.

That's what I'm talking about. A few years after he wrote this book, he was the first American assassinated by an Islamic terrorist. He was the president of the American University in Beirut. And the point of his book, and it influenced my thinking about the conflict ever since, was that what's really going on since 1967 is tensions and schisms between Sunni and Shiite Arabs. The Palestinian thing is a cover.

It's a cover to disguise their own internal problems, and they're putting on Israel all of their problems, and it's a way to just disguise what's going on. But there was no Palestinian issue in 1967. Well, but the occupied territories after the war. The book came out after the war. But the conflict then was all... But the Nakba and all that, that was still...

But it wasn't Palestinian. Until Carter and Egypt, the war... When I was a kid, when it was never the Palestinian conflict, it was the Arabs. It was the Arab world against Israel. Right. He was putting it all... His point was he was putting everything on Israel

as a way to disguise their own internal conflicts. And then later he wrote updated editions where he talked about it. And that influenced me, and it's influenced me ever since. And in fact, in recent years, as there is now all but a formal alliance between Israel and several Arab Sunni states, because they see Israel as a potent ally against Iran. And Iran wasn't the consideration in 67. No, I'm talking about now. I'm talking about we now see the conflict in the area has come to that.

And in fact, it's very interesting. A case can be made, and I'm not the only person who's made it, that Hamas attacked Israel precisely because the Saudis were about to do a deal with Israel. And that would have put the Palestinian issue off the table. And in fact, that very interesting article by Franklin Foer in The Atlantic said that they were about to have a meeting about this on October 6th. That's how close it was. Sinwar says something about wanting to put the Palestinian issue back on the table. He said. And it worked.

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Subscription required. Price varies based on product and subscription plan. But we've been given no indication from Hamas that this is a lasting ceasefire. They've made it very clear that this is a temporary ceasefire and that they continue to be... So did Netanyahu. Yeah, but that Hamas continues to be committed

to destroying Israel. Hamas... Wait, wait, and committing another and another and another October 7th over and over again. I haven't said that lately, but yeah, theoretically. Well, I mean, it seems like an important point not to gloss over. Look, everybody realizes that if this really does evolve into something

hamas cannot be a serious power within gaza it's definitely what does have to happen and netanyahu is not in a political position to do this given the nature of his ruling coalition and maybe himself i mean for many years israel at least said oh yes we are interested in negotiations toward a two-party but they're not saying that anymore and the problem with and but but saudis and others they need that to be said to satisfy their own people that we're not throwing the palestinians under the under the bus we're working toward x it has to be said even if it's not serious what trump does with this statement last night or the other night is now we're just gonna i just want to kick them all out of the country and i

think this is a really good idea and people i talk to say it's a wonderful idea so you could say this exposes the pretense but a lot of what diplomacy is is pretense so now the saudis and the egyptians and the qataris and the jordanians and other people who really want to do a deal who have no they don't like they don't they don't like hamas they Hamas. They know what's going on there. They don't much like radical Palestinians, period. They have their own political problems. For the president of the United States, who's the necessary mediator in this, to come out and just say, they all have to go. Where does this leave them in terms of dealing with their own people, of going in the next phase or trying to continue the ceasefire, turning it into someplace else without getting their own heads chopped off in the process? It screws things up. And the fact is he doesn't know.

He doesn't realize how screwed up. And that's why people like— Let me tell you why I don't think so. Well, I'll tell you who does think so is Marco Rubio, who, whatever else he is, does no things. He— Little Marco? Little Marco? He said, well, no, that's not what he meant.

He meant blah, blah, blah. No, they have to walk it back. Good cop, bad cop is a trite and true. He didn't mean that. But it's out there. But this is why I don't think so. This isn't good cop, bad cop, by the way. This is somebody who, like, goes up and shoots somebody in the head. It's not good cop.

This is the president. He's not playing good cop, bad cop. How many times have people walked back stuff that Biden said about Ukraine? When Biden would say stuff about, we need to get rid of Putin. And they'd say. Wait, he never said that. Yes, we need to get rid of Putin, and they'd say... Wait, he never said that. Yes, he did. Get rid of Putin? Yes. In an active sense? He said that

that's the way that it can be settled. He put it in a way that the White House had to walk it back. That's true. And this was a misstatement. I've been thinking about this for weeks. I've been talking about it with people. Who do you think he's been talking? Oh, he makes sense.

Let me tell you why. They say, sir, this is a wonderful idea. Let me tell you why I don't agree. Okay. And this actually goes to the Palestinian conflict, too. I made this point maybe two weeks ago. So what's happened to the Gazan people is horrific. 20, 30, 40,000.

I'm talking about civilians. Who knows how many were killed, right? I don't think it's 40,000. Let's say it's 20, 25,000 people. Well, there's 40, 40 some thousand people, maybe half of whom are civilians. All right. Despite all this carnage,

despite the claims of genocide, despite the streets on fire with protests, the Saudi Arabians have never stopped making very clear they're still interested in a deal with Israel, meaning that even, and they'll say it's genocide, even the genocide was, let me just finish, even the genocide was not enough to deter the Saudi Arabians from this deal because the Saudis feel this deal is in their interest. And that's how a party behaves when something is in their interest. Now, it juxtaposed it to the Palestinians who were close to making deals with Israelis at various times. And then something happened.

You'll get no disagreement. Hold on. Hold on. The opposition, Ariel Sharon, took a walk near Al-Aqsa in Jerusalem, second in Tefada. We're throwing this whole deal away, but the deal was for you to make a state. It doesn't matter. Ariel Sharon took a walk.

Hold on. You'll get no disagreement. Hold on. That's how a party behaves. Let me just say it. That's how a party behaves. Let me just say it. That's how a party behaves when they never wanted to make a deal, and they're looking for a pretext to get out of it. If the Saudi Arabians could withstand 20,000 murdered Palestinians

and still keep their eye on the ball for a deal, they will certainly not be derailed by Trump's mouthing off. No, here's why. Because they need one thing. Am I wrong? Yes. Really? This is what's going to break their off. No, here's why. Because they need one thing. Am I wrong? Yes, because here's why. Really? This is what's going to break their back.

No, no, here's why. Yeah. They need one thing, and they've said this repeatedly. Yeah. They need Israel to say, not necessarily to do. They will say it. No, they're not. They need Israel to say, wait, wait yes we are now going to have negotiations

toward a palestinian state netanyahu has never now he has said we will never have a palestinian state trump has now said yeah furthermore i think all the palestinians should be kicked out of gaza there was one moment in the press conference when somebody asked, do you think that the Palestinians in the West Bank should always also leave? He goes, we're having talks about that. So Saudi Arabia, Saudi Arabia needs that one

little thing for their own domestic politics. They will get it. They're not getting it now and Trump, if you take if you think that Trump said what he believes, then he has said not only. And by the way, look who he sends as an ambassador to Israel. Mike Huckabee, who says there's no such thing as occupied territories. Yes.

There's Judea and Samaria. There are no Palestinians. This is all Israel. You can't be open to the— This is the U.S. ambassador. I don't like Huckabee's position. He's the U.S. ambassador. Hold on. I'm trying to make a deeper point. I don't like Huckabee's position, but I also can still recognize that having somebody like Mike Huckabee in that position has maybe a good effect on the people he's negotiating with because this kind of

a soft guy, somebody they see as an ally, somebody they see as persuadable, just encourages them. You know who he's going to be negotiating with? Ben Gvir and Smotrich. Those are his allies. Well, listen. They all think the same way. I think one of them is already out of the government. No, they're not.

Didn't one of them leave? He's out of the War Cabinet, but he's still in the cabinet. Netanyahu has been saying for five years now that the Saudi deal will be his ultimate achievement in life. Yes, but he refuses to utter those words. There is no report that everything has been negotiated except for his uttering the words. He will tell Gavir and Smotrich, shut up, I don't mean it, I'm just going to say it. He has said that to some degree, but he has never said, in fact, he has said the contrary about a Palestinian state. This issue exists regardless of Trump's statement.

I think what we need to do now, because I've been asked this question now, and that is, why should we be reading a lighthearted satire at a moment like this? Hasn't your book been overtaken by events? And I would say two things about that. One, you know, Philip Roth said back in the early 70s when Nixon was president. She slept with Philip Roth. Is that right? Is when Nixon was president. She slept with Philip Roth. Is that right? I did not sleep with him. She's very close.

Maybe your husband doesn't know. Did Philip Roth make a move on you? He made a move on you. She bought him a box of cherries. I have a whole chapter on Philip Roth in my second book, yes. Has the second book been published? Yeah. Yeah, she has two published books.

I didn't know this. I'm sorry. So we'll have to talk about that. Anyway, Philip Roth said satire is becoming very hard. It keeps getting outpaced by events. Well, if he were alive today, I mean, you know, holy moly. So in that sense, yeah, the book is like, I mean, what I have is satirical events like this or nothing. On the other hand, on the other hand, this is also a book.

I mean, I think it's funny. I think you'll agree. But it's also a book that has a moral arc. It's about a cynic who thinks that everything that goes on in Washington is bullshit and everybody's pretending. Nobody has real interest. They'll just do what will please them pecuniary way. But then he realizes at some point that oh my god i've i've caused this crisis and i have to get in and stop it and maybe once in a while rational

argument and and a fine political case can actually have a good effect so i think what's going on now quite aside from the book uh i know people, you probably know people too. I know somebody who spends four months of the year in Argentina. He's there now. And he says, boy, I know a lot of American friends here who are signing permanent residency permits. They just don't want to go back to Trump's America, you know, where are you going to go? I know somebody who has... No, I know someone, a serious guy. He was born in the Netherlands. His grandparents perished in the Holocaust. They didn't leave in time, you know. He's thinking of... Maybe I don't...

Who cares? If I told you people didn't want to go live in some liberal America, you'd say, let him go. Wait, here's my point. I'm going to make your point. Yeah. Oh, good. So this is a guy.

This book is about a cynic who has a pretty astute view of what's going on around him, but who realizes, in this case because of something that he set in motion, that he has to get involved in the game. He has to try to make an impact. He has to deal. He can't can't dismiss so i don't even want to go meet with these people he has to deal with the powers and try to have an impact on them so the book i i think in some ways is uh again i'm sorry to be well i'm self-promoting but that's what i'm doing here right uh i think it think it has a kind of a potency that I didn't even

intend or was aware of at the time that I was writing it. The book is excellent. It's called A Capital Calamity, and you can purchase it. Well, most places where you can purchase books, you know. Amazon.com. That's one nice. Your website? FredKaplan.info. Or the

Miniver Press, where you can order it directly from them. What's it Or the Miniver Press, where you can order directly from them. What's it called? Miniver Press. Fred would prefer that you find the local LBGT bookstore. That's great, too. Yeah, absolutely. And if they don't have it, ask for it. I read it on Kindle.

And, yeah, it's great. Wait, I have to ask yeah, it's great. We have to— Wait, I have to ask you, though. Yeah. We've marked on the fact that the penultimate climactic chapter in this book takes place at the Comedy Cellar. Yes. So let me ask you, putting you on the spot, and I'm a big boy, I can take it. What did you think of the way that I portrayed the milieu,

the ambience? I thought it was perfect. Okay. I was so proud. Really, I was so proud to have my name there as an actual character be called argumentative. I think amiably argumentative. Amiably, yeah, that's a good title

for your memoir. The description of the club and the place and the vibe and everything. Was there something negative that you... No, I didn't think so. Are you going to have a book party? A book launch party? Here? Well, I don't have the authority. I had a book launch with some friends in Washington.

And at a bookstore in Park Slope. Now, are you trying to shop it? I want to ask you about Ukraine before you go. Are you trying to shop it as a script? Well, this is interesting. Because it reads like a script. Here's the interest. This is also something about our culture.

There was actually a writer-producer in Hollywood who called me and he was interested. He was going to write episode one on spec to shop it around. But what's happened recently, he told me just the other day, you know, he goes, uh, I think the timing is, is not good for this. And my daughter who works at a major Hollywood studio told me that as far as she can tell, everybody is now staying clear of any projects that are DC centric. They just fear it. They don't want to go there because everything is so turbulent. They don't know where it's going. They don't want to offend anybody. You know, they're just staying away. She thinks that, you know, we're going to be in for a season of total escapism.

Rom-coms. So I think if the election had gone differently I think there might have been a chance. But things are getting too hairy. I'm just telling you what Hollywood people tell me. They don't know what they're talking about.

In terms of what's going to buy my book for a movie know, they don't know what they're talking about. In terms of what's going to buy my book for a movie rights, they know everything about what they're talking about. I mean, just in another context, the amazing thing about DeepSeek, if you believe it, I don't even know if I actually believe it, this Chinese AI,

is that they developed it for $5 million. I don't believe that. You don't believe that number. I think it cost quite a bit more. But still, it's $20 million. Maybe even more than that, but less than the NVIDIA cost. And as opposed to

$1 billion that open AI costs. Yes. Elon Musk reduced Twitter payroll from, I think, $15,000 to, 15,000 to 3,000. And Twitter is now... It's a ghost town.

But nothing to do... Nobody's on Twitter. No, no, no. Don't confuse. This is what people always do. I don't know why. Hold on. I'm saying Twitter is... Twitter, first of all, is not a ghost town, but he changed some policies on Twitter that people don't like. That's different from the efficiency. It has nothing to do with it.

The fact is the site actually works. It has more features than it ever had. It's got videos. It's got this. It's got that. It's got all kinds of innovations. I hope you're not going to say that he's going to make the U.S. government a spick and span organization. This is something that we probably don't have time to get into.

But I think that what he is creating, and I usually don't talk like this. You know this. You know this. He is creating the foundations for a dictatorship if powers wanted to go in that direction. He is grabbing hold of certain funnels and he has people who know how to do it that could really just strangle

the democracy. I don't know enough about it and what the legal challenges will be. Well, let's hope they're there somewhere because otherwise we're in a heap of trouble. My feeling about Musk is that if I didn't know his resume,

I say, this guy's a fucking idiot, right? But, but knowing that brilliant people can be idiots and other, it's not just brilliant. Knowing that he's obviously made many correct, difficult analytical choices again and again and again and again.

Often when everybody told him this will never work, and he prevailed, forces me to say, you know what, Dorman, who are you to say? Like, I don't, I don't, I don't. What is his goal? As opposed to Vivek Ramaswamy, who I just always dismissed as kind of a huckster and a salesman, Musk has had too many accomplishments. Yeah, but what does he want? He wants an authoritarian regime.

No, I don't believe that. Oh, yes, he does. What is he doing going over to Germany? There's no evidence. Wait, what is he doing going over to Germany, speaking at rallies of, and don't say I'm exaggerating here, Germany's neo-Nazi party, saying in editorials in Germany, the AfD, the Alternatives for Deutschland, must come to power if Germany has become a serious power. This is what he is saying. I'll tell you what I think it is. By the way, I googled and read whether anybody thinks that they're a neo-Nazi party and everything says no.

I asked you. No. Look, I've spent some time in Berlin. The head of the AFD is a woman named Alice. Fred, does the neo-Nazi party not use swastikas? Wait. They do many... Does the neo-Nazi party not refer to Nazism and Hitler?

What does neo-Nazi mean? Some of them do. No, but the leadership does. Look, here's the thing. The leadership is a woman named Alice. And actually, an interesting character. She's a lesbian. She's the head of the AFD.

The slogan that they are giving is, Alice for Deutschland. Alice. Now, Alice, the word Alice means everything. Alice for Deutschland is a phrase that is outlawed. It's a Nazi. So these people are going, and they're going to rallies... Careful, Fred, someone's going to get you on.

This is what they're doing. They're saying, alles für Deutschland, alles für Deutschland. And some of them are outright Nazi. Anyway, he has... Can I tell you an answer about the friend in the... First of all, to me, in my naive vision of Nazism, vis-a-vis... I said neo-Nazism. Yeah, or neo-Nazism, vis-a-vis... I said neo-Nazism.

Yeah, or neo-Nazism, vis-a-vis Elon Musk. Without the gasket, without the gasket. There's no such thing as Nazis without anti-Semitism. You don't think he's anti-Semitic? Musk is clearly not anti-Semitic. Three weeks ago, this problem is, you know, three weeks ago, he produced a beautiful video of him speaking about how all the anti-Semitism

in Gaza, and how they're raising... Well, I'll tell you this, the people in AFD... He went to visit the kibbutzes, he went with Ben Shapiro. Alright, fine, yeah, and did you know what the Holocaust survivors said? He was just here for his own benefit. He showed no emotion at all when we talked. Fred, Fred... I will

say this, AFD, AFD is... Let me answer why I think the AFD. AFD is anti-Semitic. Please let's not smear people as some... No, Musk as some sort of Nazi Jew hater. But what I believe fuels Musk vis-a-vis the AFD and fuels the AFD, and I don't even know this, I believe it,

is, forgive me, they hate the Muslims. It started, It started. Europe is on fire because of all this mass Muslim migration. It started as a protest to Merkel. Yes, right. And all through Sweden and

Russia, I mean, and Germany and even Ireland and everywhere, this is what's fueling the far right. It's not the Jews. It's not Israel. It's Muslims. It has recently become a very powerful country. They have spread a party.

They've spread beyond. They are invoking well-known tropes in German rhetoric. Well, it's that old thing that if you're a racist, you're going to vote Republican, but then people use that to say the Republicans are racist. I'm sure if you're some sort of Nazi, you vote for the AFD. I'm going to repeat something that you said. I don't know this, but I believe it. I would say look in a little more deeply into what the AFD is all about, and you might—and not on Google. Go read some articles in use that for something.

You send me something. But I think that Musk is a libertarian. I don't think he wants a dictatorship, although he's human and power will go to his head and he has this inflated

vision of his own talent and he thinks he's going to benevolently take on more power than he would ever want anyone else to have. These are dangerous traps. The Treasury Secretary, who should be impeached for this, gave him and his crew access to the Treasury cash flow channel. He now has access to all Treasury payments, to everybody, every corporation every he has already stopped some payments so now what's the danger here the danger is besides the fact

that he has yours and my social security number and everything else it's let's say let's say let's say trump says i don't want to fund x anymore and congress says nope you have to fund X anymore. And Congress says, nope, you have to fund it. We're telling you to fund it. Musk can say, I'm turning off the spigot to that outfit. No, wait, then what do you do? Can't. He can drive. Physically can't. So, what, well, we're going to send the FBI after you.

Well, who's in charge of the FBI? Kash Patel. Is he really going to go after him? We're going to send the Justice Department after you. This is all, this is all somewhat plausible, Fred. No, this is the game. This is the game book. Okay, what? This is the game book. Here we are, eight years later, after Russia...

I'm not talking about eight years later. Come on, don't talk to me about Russia again. I want to ask a question. This is absolutely what's going on. I'm setting up a question. Here we are, eight years later, after there were so many dire predictions about what Trump's intentions were and what he was going to do. What degree of probability do you put on this risk that it will actually happen as opposed to just be potential danger. I would say this. He has given blanket pardons to 1,500 rioters who stormed the

Capitol on January 6th, including many, not all, but many who committed acts of pianist violence. Some of them, in fact, since getting out of jail, have been arrested for doing, one of them was killed in a shootout with police over something else. These are dangerous people. Not only that, he has sought to fire not just the people in the FBI who went after him, but who were involved in the January 6th cases. This is 6,000 FBI agents. He's settling scores. Wait, wait, wait.

But these were legitimate crimes. These people didn't go after January 6th. We're talking about Musk. We're talking about Musk. Wait, hold on. Wait a minute. Yeah. I'm creating the whole... You cannot have a job, a senior job,

any kind of political appointee in the Trump administration unless you answered correctly the question, who really won the 2020 election? If you say Joe Biden, then you are not getting a job. He has hired people. Is that true? Yes. He has hired people. Is that true? Yes. He has hired

people. He has hired people to run agencies. Some of these ridiculous, you've agreed with me on this, these preposterous. I agree with everything you're saying. But let me keep going. Let me keep going. They're there for one of two reasons, either to drive the agency into the ground or to completely twist it to serve Trump's interests. So he is creating the book. He has captured law enforcement, Justice Department, assuming Patel gets confirmed, which given what's going on, I guess he will be. He has captured the intelligence network. He has captured the Justice Department. He has, maybe in this part, maybe he doesn't even know the full extent of it he has

musk and his computer wizards going into networks within the government which hey most of us didn't even know existed and you're not supposed there's we're all learning that there's a reason for a civil service right to have apolitical experts in charge of keeping things running but they're not apolitical yes they are people running the fucking treasury cash flow believe some of them may be apolitical it doesn't matter if they're political they're they're they're typing in the things in any event they are now he's turning them this was this is the the book book on how Viktor Orban became a dictator or an authoritarian in Hungary. He's following the Orban book. Okay, but I'm trying to understand, dictatorship usually means no more elections.

No, I'm talking about quiet dictators. For four years. We'll see how long it, look, he's even talked and people said, ha ha, he's joking. There are now lawyers. I've heard them talk. I think they're giving bullshit arguments, but I don't know what the Supreme Court is going to rule. Coming, no. There's not going to be a third term. I don't think so either. But no, if you're not alarmed by what's going on, you're not paying close attention. I'm alarmed. This is how I'm alarmed,

that they can do some terrible things. That's what I'm alarmed, that there can be injustice, that there can be abuse. I'm not alarmed. I don't think that there can be injustice, that there can be abuse. I'm not alarmed. I don't think that there's going to be a dictatorship. I don't think the courts are going to be dismantled or overruled. The courts are the one thing that's keeping this going.

Maybe it's hope that they stay out. I don't think Trump thinks he can run for another term. I don't think Elon Musk is going to run despite the fact— No, he's not going to run. He can't run, for one thing. Why? He's not an American. Lawyers will find out a way. No, no, no.

He wasn't born in America. There's no two ways around that. There's no two ways around two terms. I think so, but no, some people say, well, if he was Don Jr.'s vice president, then maybe, well, there's a line in the 12th Amendment which says that restrictions on presidents also apply to vice presidents. I don't think so either, but the point is, these guys,

these guys are... So what percentage, how risky do you think it is? I'm sorry, I don't think so either. But the point is, these guys, these guys are... So what percentage, how risky do you think it is? I'm sorry, do you think it's a... And also, I went... 5% is a big risk to live with. One thing that I've been shocked by is how completely the Republican Party has rolled over on all of this. It's huge. I mean, the Democrats are in a minority.

They're holding together, but they don't have a majority. Although then again, I think they should be doing more. I mean, when the Democrats had a majority, the Republicans would do things like, you know, like in the Senate when they say a unanimous rule of consent, one person can say, I object and hold things up. I hope that the Democrats start doing this. They need to start holding things up and say, look, we'll let this thing go, but you've got to stop. You know, it makes me laugh. I actually agree with you even more than you might know, because Republicans just make me sick the way they they they're they're astonishing. Yeah. But I do remember when Biden said, OK, we're going to give disaster relief, but not to white people. Every Democrat voted for it. They wrote, you know, this is really exaggerating. Well, we'll see. That wasn't exaggerated.

Look, we'll see what happens. Like, you know, he wants to kill the Department of Education. People say, well, so what? Well, if you look at a chart, 70% of Department of Education funds go to red states. It's because blue states, we have state governments that provide a lot of this stuff. They don't have that in Kentucky and Mississippi. They can't afford it, right. So what's going to happen when a lot of these stuff. They don't have that in Kentucky and Mississippi. They can't afford it, right. So what's going to happen when a lot of these programs

start to disappear? I think people are going to start, the question is, will it be too late? People are going to start realizing, oh my god, a competent, well-meaning government actually plays a role in my life and now it's gone. There's another risk

and I think this is a higher probability risk. The other risk is that short term, all this cleave, this meat cle intent. No, I'm afraid people are going to overlook things that they ought to have more respect for because they see the economy doing well, and this could be dangerous. Because Musk... That's why I'm just a little humble about it. He's not stupid.

And all of them know they need the economy to do well. They know that well if you if if if one of these big tariff threats actually goes through do you think that's going to make the economy well well i don't know because the the bernie sanders said it could be 1200 per family it depends what's being affected but a lot of people when it looked like the canada thing was going to happen a lot of republicans were about to like car makers farmers they were on the verge of going what about the poor kentucky bourbon people who saw all the the liquor stores in british columbia taking their supplies off the shelves. I'm only trying to make the point that the economy can do well despite headwinds.

And it wouldn't shock me that the economy did well despite the tariffs. And that's a dangerous outcome because $1,200 per family is, as Bernie, up to $1,200 per family was the cost, Bernie Sanders said. You know, my goodness, they've hit every New Yorker who drives with two... Hold on. But hear my point. They hit every New Yorker who drives with $2,000 to $3,000 per driver, not per family. How much were you paying for parking?

No, that's not the point. The point is that... Okay, let me... No, no, but Fred, I'm making a logical argument here. I'm saying that... But it's not just the cost to individuals. It's the cost to supply chains. It's the cost to other countries deciding we better not invest in the United States anymore.

We better go— There's a multiplier effect. We better find our own ways to do things. We can't really include the United States as a trading partner anymore. But there's other things that happen. The dollar strengthens. There's all kinds of... That's not always a good thing. No, it's not.

But it can mask the effects of the tariffs. It actually even could zero out the tariffs in a weird way, and I'm not a good enough economist to say this. It's selective, affecting different things. But if I were you then, I would hope for the tariffs, because...

Look, I don't want the country to go to shit. It'll slump, and that'll be enough to prove Trump wrong. But I'm afraid... That's not my goal here. Anyway, I don't think it's going to be tariffs. I guess China. Now, China, I have to say... It depends.

China's a different case, and it was 10%, not 25%. There were already some tariffs in place. But, I mean... Let me ask you, do you think he's really going to put tariffs on Denmark if they don't sell us Greenland? No, I don't think so. Okay, we'll see. I hope he doesn't. That wouldn't be a very consequential, because it wouldn't be a very consequential action, he might.

That is so crazy. If the EU comes to Denmark's defense. I don't know what he's capable of. I don't know. I think he's capable of, even when the times that he's bluffing, I think he's capable of unleashing more madness than we can possibly imagine.

I've said this before. He has a certain gut instinct. And I know, because I've had this instinct too. And it's not, it's a little reckless when you're the president. It's not so reckless as a businessman that you know when you shake a tree, fruit is going to fall. You don't know which apple precisely is going to fall, but I know some are going to fall. Let me ask you this.

And when you do that, opportunities are, I'm going to fucking disrupt and shake the tree, and then I'm going to see what falls. And then these are going to be my opportunities. And that is a, a legitimate strategy. It works for business people. It's not healthy on the world stage. Don't get me wrong, but you don't know how that's going to turn out. In a big,

in a big economy, big corporations, they want stability. They want certainty. Yes. They want to be able to look at their forecasts and not have stockholders be surprised when the earnings report comes down. And it's a nickel per share short

of what they hoped it would be. They don't want that. They want stability. And this guy is not providing them stability. He's a disruptor, for sure. Can you tell us what's going to happen in Ukraine before we go? Look, it's, I don't, no, I don't know what's going to happen in Ukraine.

The last time I came on this show, you might recall. Oh, I remember. I predicted that Putin would not invade Ukraine. No, I gave eight reasons why he wouldn't, all the things that would go wrong if he did invade Ukraine. And all of those things came true. What I got wrong was underestimating Putin. And I think, by the way, I think Putin had good reasons to believe that nothing would happen because nothing had happened when he took Crimea. Nothing had happened.

So you want me to end this thing by making another prediction and therefore getting me thrown off the show for another three years? No. Do you think Trump will capitulate to Putin? See, this is interesting. During the election, Putin said, I will have peace in one day. I'll have peace even before I'm president. Because he thinks all this. Here's his view.

His view is, I'm the only good dealmaker. All these horrible things are happening in the world because everybody else doesn't know how to make a deal they're incompetent they're inept i'll come in i know how to do this because i'm good friends with putin and i can do this and i can do then he gets in there and he puts a deal on the table and putin says no yet yet and then he's shocked he doesn't understand that in some cases, this shit is just hard. Okay?

And you can have friendship with someone, and that can take you a certain distance. But if it collides with what that person sees as his interests, friendship is not going to get you over the hump. So he thinks everything is personal relationships. Now, it is interesting. One thing that he said, he goes, I'm going to demand that Putin get out of here,

and if he doesn't, I'm going to really strike. Is he going to take Ukraine's side? Because he's going to get pissed off at Putin? That's what I'm wondering. I don't know. One thing that he is right about, I mean, it's the war that's been going on there. I mean, it's heartbreaking.

The number of people killed over the advancement of a few kilometers, one side or another. I mean, it's, and both sides. One thing I did not anticipate, and I don't think anybody did, was Putin's willingness to have so many of his own people killed. I mean, it's just astonishing. A lot of them are prisons. Here, we'll let you out of jail. Just go to the front line. And he uses them as fodder.

Just cannon fodder. This is what cannon fodder is. Rush toward the scene. You're not going to make it through, but you're going to use up their ammunition in the process. And North Koreans. Yeah, and they're really dying in considerable numbers, and they think they're doing it for Kim Jong-un.

So, it's horrible what's going on. And Trump is jealous. How come people won't die for me like that? Or how come people don't stand up and applaud when I come in the room? He said that once, by the way. But, so, look, the question is, both sides think they can gain a little more advantage by keeping fighting. You know what would have been nice all along?

If we had had a good relation with China, and if we could have gotten in a situation where we're putting pressure on Ukraine and China's putting pressure on Russia, maybe something could have happened, but the politics have not worked out. We live in an anarchic world. I just want to remind you, I think it was on a podcast with you in 2017. I said, Trump is never getting, I mean, Putin is never getting out of Crimea. Sanctions against Crimea are sanctions till the end of time. Trump wants to make a grand deal with Russia. He wants to. I think he was smart, but everybody's saying if he does it, they're going to say he's a Putin stooge. He's in with Russia.

He had wanted to do it. Kissinger had advised him to do it. To do what? What? To do what? To make some sort of deal with Russia to end the sanctions. It's nice to say a deal. Let them keep Crimea and the sanctions, whatever it was.

Crimea probably, I've said this, that Crimea probably is... If he had done that, if he had made a deal with Putin in 2017 or 2018, he would have gone down in history as the guy who capitulated to Putin

and nobody would ever be able to prove that he had prevented the invasion of Ukraine. Nobody was talking a deal with Putin. Yes, they were. In 2017? Yeah. Yes, they were. 2017? Yeah. Yes, yes.

I mean, after they started the incursion in 2014 in Donbass, nobody was talking anything. When Trump took over, there was a talk of this grand deal, and it was not plausible for him to do it, because everybody was saying he was a Manchurian president. At that point, Putin was denying that he had any troops in Ukraine. Right, but... The men in the green uniforms. Oh, those aren't my soldiers. Google, listeners, Google Grand Deal

with Putin in 2017. You see what Kissinger talked about it. All right, we have to go. Capital Calamity. A Capital Calamity. A Capital Calamity, a novel. It has war, sex,

humor, Jews with Gentile last names. Great names. Come on. Natalie Gold. Donica Bloom. Come on, these are great names. Serge Willoughby.

Isaac Douglas. Ike Douglas. And there was like a Rumsfeld character. Well, James Weed Portis, the Secretary of Defense. Portis, yeah. Listen, yeah, I read... And now I'm Dwarman. Or a Dickensian. I once read, you know, Martin Amis once said

names of characters are important, and so I've taken that to heart. I'm trying to read Brothers Karamazov. I can't keep track of all the friggin'... Because the Russian have that thing where the middle is named after the father. So they all have the same. They have a guide at the front of the book, don't they? They usually do have a little.

They do, but I'm getting older. I can't. Nikolai Nikolaevich. Exactly. And then there's like Dmitry, Mitya, Dimi. It's like five different ways. Mikhail is Misha. Alexa, Aloysia, Yoisha, Isha.

Oh, that's Alex. It's true. Okay. All right. Good night, everybody. Thank you very much.