Do Trump's Vendettas Harm Trump's Agenda?

The Commentary Magazine Podcast

Commentary Magazine

News Commentary, Politics, News

4.6 • 4.5K Ratings

🗓️ 29 September 2025

⏱️ 74 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Does Donald Trump help or hurt himself by using the weapons of the presidency as personal tools for revenge? This is apart from the question of whether his doing so is simply turnabout-as-fair-play or simply an outrageous misuse of his power. Give a listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hope for the best.
0:09.0	Expect the worst.
0:11.0	Some drink champagne, some die of thirst.
0:15.0	The way of knowing which way it's going.
0:19.0	Hope for the best, expect the worst.
0:22.5	Oh, for the best.
0:24.6	Welcome to the Commentary Magazine Daily podcast.
0:27.4	Today is Monday, September 29th, 2025.
0:30.5	I am John Pudhor.
0:31.4	It's the editor of Commentary Magazine.
0:34.0	With me, as always, executive editor, Abe Greenwald.
0:36.5	Hi, Abe.
0:37.3	Hi, John.
0:38.1	And Washington commentary columnist Matthew Contenetti.
0:41.6	Hi, Matt.
0:43.4	Matt, you have a column today in the free press about the looming government shutdown and the Democratic responses to it.
0:51.3	We'll talk about that a little later. I find myself after, you know,
0:57.8	decades of panic over government shutdowns from 1999 to 2011 to 2013 to 2017 or 2018, whatever that was.
1:13.7	Now it's just like another thing that happens in Washington, whereas it had never really
1:18.9	happened before.
1:20.7	And so I find myself unable to get excited about it.
1:25.8	And, but we'll discuss whether we should be excited about it so much going on
	...

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