Episode Transcript
Election Day SPECIAL! CNN’s Jake Tapper on Zohran Mamdani, Israel, Gaza & Antisemitism in America
They targeted my wife, they targeted my children.
They called me a war criminal.
We're very capable as human beings of holding two truths at the same time.
There is an anti-Israel, right, and it is becoming divisive in the Republican party.
Do people even want a guy with makeup and a suit behind a desk giving them the news?
My audience, definitely, this is the question they probably most want me to ask you.
Uh oh.
Today's episode is brought to you by Berkeley Mosha, a Jewish co-housing community being built in California.
Visit https://www.berkeleymoshav.org/ to learn more.
Welcome one and all to this special election day episode of Being Jewish with Jonah Platt.
Today I'm coming to you from our nation's capital, Washington DC future home of Cutter West to mark this important day in our country's political calendar.
I'm sitting with a guest who has been reporting on it for over two decades.
He's the former A BC News, senior White House correspondent hosts both State of the Union and the lead on CNN, and is a bestselling author with a brand new book out, which we will get to.
We also both went to Jewish schools named Akiba, both went to camps named Rama, and we both went on dates with Monica Lewinsky.
No wait.
That's just him.
Please welcome Mr.
Dapper.
Jake Tapper.
Thank you.
I was excited to hear about your date with Monica Lewinsky.
Yeah, sorry.
So big day today, election day.
Yep.
It's your job to frame.
What's going on in our country, in politics?
What's the, what's the macro storyline?
What are you looking at?
Well, I mean, we have three big races.
Um, the, and as is always the case, the year after the presidential election, it's the Virginia Governor's race, the New Jersey Governor's race, and the New York City mayoral race.
And, you know, all three of them are incredibly consequential.
The gubernatorial race is, uh, very competitive.
Both of them with.
Moderate ish Democrats running against MAGA ish Republicans.
Uh, and obviously Zoran Momani as the Democratic nominee for, uh, mayor in New York City is a story that I'm sure you're viewers are quite, uh, quite aware of.
Yes.
Quite, quite vocal about.
Yeah.
Which we'll get to.
But what's so consequential about that Virginia race and that New Jersey race, they're no more consequential than any other governor's race per se, but they happen to generally indicate, 'cause they're, the New Jersey is a blue state that's been trending purple.
Um, the last Democratic governor four years ago barely won.
Mm.
And then Virginia is a purple state, pretty much.
It has a Republican governor.
As of now, uh, and we'll see what happens, but it tends to trend blue in presidential races.
So you, you do get a sense for what is motivating voters.
You get a sense for what is, uh, with, with exit polls, what people are thinking about the country as they go out to vote, who is going out to vote.
That's always a really important part of this because, you know, people talk about President Trump winning over this block or Kamala Harris winning over that block, but a lot of times it's also who is bothering to show up to vote.
Mm-hmm.
Who is inspiring their voters to get to the polls.
Well, that, that really leads me to my next question, which is if you're doing like a temp check right now on.
Who and what the Democratic Party is, who and what the Republican Party is.
Where are we sitting going into these elections?
Well, I mean, I, I, or we don't know.
I don't know.
I mean, I, I think obviously the Republican party is very much Donald Trump's Republican party.
Uh, for better or for worse, however people feel about it.
Uh, and the Democratic Party is kind of drifting, uh, and people are unsure of where it's headed.
Uh, Zoran Momani obviously remove his politics, uh, the issues that people might have with him.
He is a Democratic socialist.
He's from the far left wing of his party.
He's also charismatic and he's been able to inspire a lot of people to get out to vote.
Uh, the Democratic primary was not particularly competitive even.
That's right.
You know, an experienced but very flawed, disgraced former governor.
Uh, Andrew Cuomo is his main opponent and has not really been able to dent.
Uh, his lead.
Um, and so is that the future of the Democratic Party?
There are people on the left, the Bernie Sanders and a OC, uh, wing who will say, this is how you get people to turn out to vote.
There are other people who will say, that might be how you get people to turn out to vote in Manhattan.
Right.
But it's not how you get people to turn out in the suburbs of New Jersey or the suburbs of Washington, DC and Virginia, where a lot of these presidential races are won or lost.
Right.
So speaking of Zoran, as you alluded to correctly, there have, you know, been a lot of conversations within the Jewish community about him, and I know Jews in New York that are voting for him, and I know Jews in New York who at least as of now, uh, are voting against him.
To what extent do you share the concerns as a, as a Jewish person that, that the Jews who are against Momani are raising?
Uh, I mean, I'll just say this like, and this is, this is not specific to Momani, but.
There has been an opening, uh, a shifting in the Overton window in terms of what has been all of a sudden more openly said about Jews.
And I've seen it on the left and I've seen it on the right, and it bothers me that it is not condemned more by non-Jews.
I see plenty of Jews saying, I don't like what Marjorie Taylor Greene just said, or Tweeted, and I've seen plenty of Jews say, I don't like, um, what Rashida Taleb just tweeted.
Um, and I have not seen a tremendous number of, uh, non-Jews in their own parties condemning it.
Right.
And so just as a Jew, that makes me, uh, sad to, what do you attribute that hesitance to, to call out?
Certain things that are, are blatantly obvious to anybody paying attention?
Well, a couple things.
One, I mean, politicians hate to go after people in their own party.
Right.
Um, for any number of reasons.
Um, two, there is, uh, there is a degree to which, um, our type, our ilk is a, a niche ilk in the sense that there is a, a, a Trump administration official in the Pentagon, who a couple years ago was before she was in the administration tweeting stuff about Leo Frank.
Okay.
Now you know who Leo Frank is?
Sure.
Leo Frank was a Jewish business owner who was unfairly blamed for a rape in Georgia in like 1913.
1913.
Right.
And, um.
He's like a symbol, like, uh, the Anti-Defamation League was created after he was, I think, lynched.
Yes.
He was.
He was held in prison and then was busted out by angry mobs and lynched.
Yeah.
That whole incident with Leo Frank caused a, the creation of the Anti-Defamation league, and b, a resurgence of the clan in, uh, Atlanta, which is the, which is where this all took place.
Right.
The people who know about Leo Frank are Jews, and not just Jews like super Jews, right.
And people who hate Jews, right.
Those are the two groups who hate, who, who know about Leo Frank.
And there is a degree to which, um, that is, that's, that symbolizes to me a lot of the issues that have to do with Jews and antisemitism in this country is I think a lot of people.
Just don't know.
Yeah.
They're not really paying that close attention.
We're a very small minority.
I wish that the conversation about us reflected how small of minority we are.
Yeah.
Both worldwide and uh, in the country.
But I, I think like if I said to somebody, how can you hire her?
She was tweeting crazy an uh, you know, stuff about Leo Frank.
People would be like, who?
Right.
And when I say people, I don't mean just people off the street.
I mean like learned men and women.
Yeah.
Would have no idea what I'm talking about.
And I think there is a degree to which that is kind of a baked in problem when it comes to combating antisemitism in this country is people just don't know.
Yeah.
They don't know what this phrase means, or they don't know to like, have their ears to, there's words that people use.
You know what I mean?
Absolutely.
I've, I've sat down with Congress people before and sort of address this issue and it was actually, it was helpful for me to realize.
This Congress person has so many things Oh.
In their portfolio.
And they need to be paying attention to their district, what matters to them and what they're voting on.
And there's 10 bajillion issues.
Yeah.
And they, they may feel like, of course I'm aligned in theory with, you know, Jewish people and all people and what's right.
But they don't have the, the bandwidth to like be attuned to the things that we as Jews are attuned to.
And there are also 50 billion other bigotries going on.
Right.
Exactly.
In their congressional districts against Muslims and against Christians and against white people and against black people and I mean, and trans people and you know, so Yeah.
So part of part of paying attention to this era as a newsman who is also a Jew, is realizing that there is, as you say, like people have busy lives.
Yeah.
They don't have time to Wikipedia Leo Frank.
Right.
You know, I'm glad we're sort of voicing this for people listening who, who think that in every instance that.
Uneducation or ignorance equals hate or, or not caring.
It sometimes does, but it doesn't always, sometimes they just don't know because they've got 10 billion things they have to know.
Yeah.
And, and I think that's honestly, a lot of that happens, um, during the Mid East, during coverage of the Mid East piece process and the Hamas War and the Gaza War and all that stuff.
Uh, and then people who all of a sudden are paying attention to a conflict that you and I have been steeped in for our entire lives, um, like learning things and only learning one part of it.
Yeah.
And not the other part of it.
And, you know, these things are incredibly complicated.
I, I recently saw an interview with, um, former Transportation Secretary Buttigieg, where he was talking about just the tightrope walk of talking about these issues.
I, I saw the too.
He was very eloquent as always.
Yeah.
I could, and by the way, I could see.
Uh, like a Palestinian or an Israeli being offended by what he was saying.
I mean, like theoretically, right?
Because he was saying, well, you say this, and then somebody's like, well, what about that?
And it's true though.
Yeah.
I mean, like, it's a, it because you can't not acknowledge other people's pain while acknowledging the group, this group, et cetera.
By the same token, people are also like, this has become a, a thing in the Jewish community is people hate when, uh, when people like, there'll be a horrific act of antisemitism and somebody will issue a blanket statement condemning antisemitism, Islamophobia in all forms of hate.
And that has become two Jews.
What all lives matter mm-hmm.
Was to blacks, uh, after George Floyd.
Yeah.
You know, it's like, yes, of course, but we're not talking about them right now.
We're talking, you know?
Yeah.
A hundred percent.
So that's, first of all, I think a lot of people are just like, I don't wanna walk through this minefield.
Yeah.
That's another thing.
Yeah.
That I, you could sympathize with somebody.
It's, it's, it's very complicated.
Ba lagon.
Yeah.
As we all know, almost every Jew over the last two years, almost in, in so many professions and industries, have experienced some level of increased hostility towards Jews, whether outright bigotry or through the guise of anti-Israel sentiment.
Certainly in left-leaning industries like Hollywood and, and many others.
Is that something you felt at all in the news media as a generally left-leaning industry?
Yeah.
But again, I think a lot of it is rooted in.
Uh, ignorance.
Yeah.
Not like a hostile ignorance, just like a, not knowing ignorance.
An example might be somebody saying, oh no, they're not targeting him because he's Jewish.
They're targeting him because they're against genocide.
And that's all that is.
And you have to maybe explain, okay, but this is just a professor who happens to be Jewish.
This is not somebody who is like voicing support for Netanyahu or Netanyahu's policies.
And the only reason they're these, these, this particular protest or whatever is going is targeting him is because he's Jewish.
And if you target somebody because of their religion, and you're assuming that that person feels a certain way about this conflict going on thousands of miles away, that is by definition anti-Semitic in the same way that it would be for a Muslim professor, for anybody to assume that this Muslim professor feels.
Whatever about Hamas or about the Sudan, anything.
Right.
Um, and you, they, that Muslim professor who is just a Muslim American living his life and teaching mathematics or whatever, that, that focusing on that person, because it seems to be that they're targeting them because of their religion, which does happen also.
So I think, I think a lot of it is, and I'm not talking about CNN per se, I'm just talking about the media in general.
Yeah.
And then, you know, and then, uh.
More openly.
I've been, you know, I've had protesters outside my house.
Yes.
Which, I mean, I'll, I'll ask you about now.
We were, I was gonna get to it later, but We'll, we'll talk about it now.
You basically, the, the exact scenario that you just described is what happened to you.
They're protesting your house, they're protesting Dana Bash, uh, at her, her book event, a shout out to Dan, a friend of the pod had her on last year.
There's a lot of other reporters out there saying certain things, and it's a town full of anchors and journalists.
Right.
And they're, they're, they're at your house.
And they went and they went to my house in Dana B's house, two different houses for the record.
Um, and, um, yeah.
And we're identifiably Jewish, uh, proudly Jewish.
Um, we're not reporting on, I mean, we're reporting on the Middle East in the same way.
Uh, I think most mainstream publications and, and news outlets reported on reflecting on the pain.
That the Israelis experienced on October 7th and the pain of the hostage crisis, uh, and the pain of the Palestinian people in Gaza, um, both before October 7th and, you know, the historical inequities and all that.
And then obviously once the war started, a horrific war that, uh, you know, was devastating and, and brought way too much pain and suffering on too many innocent people.
And I, I don't think that there was really much difference between our coverage and anybody else's coverage in the, in the so-called legacy media.
So I, I do find it curious that we were targeted and not at our places of work, right?
But where our families are that, I mean, I, Dan can talk about her experience, but like, they targeted my wife, they targeted my children, my, you know, minor children yelling at them, and, uh, they called me a war criminal, you know.
Uh, they said I support genocide.
I mean, just all, all of these things that are not true.
How upsetting is that on a, on a human level to have that at your doorstep?
I feel angry because they're targeting me unfairly because they're not, even though they claim that they were actually talking about specific things that I reported on, a lot of it was false or twisted.
And it also did not reflect other things that I reported on.
Like, you can do a story about a hostage family in pain one day and then do a story about, um, you know, starvation and Gaza the next, and like, you know, you're not endorsing either side or you're just covering a news story mm-hmm.
Which is multifaceted and has way too much pain all over the place.
Uh, so I thought it was unfair.
I thought it was antisemitic.
I guess what I'm getting at is like, I wonder who's behind the protests, not the 10 idiots who showed up, but the money.
Behind it.
Mm-hmm.
Because these protests were at like every Joe Biden event and every Kamala Harris event, they were outside the home of Anthony Blinken, who was right.
Jewish Secretary of State under Biden.
And then the election happened, and then poof.
They're not at any Trump events.
They're not at any advance events.
They're not outside the house of Marco Rubio.
I'm not saying they should be.
I don't want anybody to experience what I experienced, but like, why did they only target Biden and Harris?
Why did they focus so much on Jewish jour, two J Jewish journalists and Jewish members of Congress, like, uh, Congressman Land Landsman from, or landman from, uh, Cincinnati area.
Mm-hmm.
I just, I just think it's suspicious.
Yeah.
Like the, like the, the goal was to disrupt and divide.
Yes.
Like why would you, why would you go after Blinken and not Rubio?
Again, I don't want Rubio targeted.
Right.
But like, but, but theoretically why, why I, I suppose strategically, if you're trying to get one party to pay attention in a certain way to members of its own party, and as you say, divide, that would be interesting if you're, but what about when the Republicans win and they run the house and the Senate and the, and the White House?
Like why is there nobody protesting Speaker Johnson?
Why is there nobody, well, you don't protest the Republicans 'cause no one on that side is gonna change their minds about how they feel about this situation.
But, but is that true?
I mean, we talked about the Overton window shifting and like there is a, an anti-Israel, right?
That's increasing in size and voice and it is becoming divisive in the Republican party that, that is sharing the same sentiments against Israel.
Like the same reasoning that you're hearing on the left.
Sure.
If you listen to.
The Candace Owens of the world and the Tucker Carlsons of the world.
Well, those folks, at least what I've heard, and I'm sure you've heard more, it, it's, it's the conspiracy theory stuff, and it's the, the, you know, Jews are behind Charlie Kirk's murder stuff and you know.
Right.
But that's what I'm saying.
Like, but that's a little different than the Jews want genocide Jews, you know?
No, but they're, but they, there's a lot of overlap.
They, they're arguing that too, why there's a lot of anti APAC sentiments Right.
On the right that is similar to what you see on the left.
Like Marjorie Taylor Greene did a tweet a few weeks ago in which she was like, talking about how she didn't take shekel from apac.
Right.
Yeah.
Which is an American organization.
Right.
They don't give shekels, they give dollars.
It's only American people.
Right.
And, um, it's, I mean, I, I, I don't know, and I don't wanna sound conspiratorial myself.
Yeah.
What, I mean, what do you think the end goal is?
I think first of all, there is, um.
There's an antisemitism problem in the country on the left and the right.
Yeah.
Period.
I also think there's a racism problem.
I also think there's a sexism problem.
You know, there, I think there's a, we got issues.
Yeah.
I, I'm not saying this is the only one, but I, but it is, uh, it seems to be, uh, louder than it ever has been.
Yes.
In my lifetime for sure.
I'm 56, and so the, it's been louder than, than, than it's been in a long time.
So I grew up in a, in a very different world than one.
The one my kids are growing up in, but I don't remember experiencing serious antisemitism ever.
No.
Like I grew up in a not Jewish neighborhood in Philadelphia.
I didn't go to Jewish school until sixth grade, so there were years before that.
But I went to a Jewish school, a Jewish day school.
Um, governor Shapiro was four years behind me.
Oh, nice.
Yeah.
I went to Dartmouth, which is a pretty waspy school.
Um, certainly not as Jewish as Penn.
Right.
University of Pennsylvania.
I just don't remember really experiencing antisemitism.
It was the golden age kind of.
Yeah.
And now my kids are growing up in a different world where, and again, I'm not talking about people protesting Netanyahu's policies.
Right.
A lot of American Jews have their issues with Netanyahu.
A lot of Israeli Jews have their issues with Netanyahu.
No one pro protests him more.
And I'm not saying that people shouldn't have the right to protest, et cetera.
Sure.
Including people who are in this country on student visas.
That's a whole other topic.
But like I, I'm a free speech believer.
I'm talking about specifically saying you are Jewish, therefore you think this, I'm, I'm talking about spray painting on a synagogue, you know, free Palestine.
Right.
I mean, a lot of the Jews killed on October 7th, as you know better than I am Sure.
Were peaceniks we, we've talked about that on this show.
They were the, you know, the most left-leaning.
Peaceful, bringing Gazen into their homes, doing peace marches, all that stuff.
And then they all got murdered for it.
Yeah.
I mean, one of the reasons that they were so close to Gaza was because they believed in that.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
When you just assume that somebody, bel, I'm not gonna assume a black person thinks anything about anything.
Right.
Why would anybody assume a Jew thinks anything about anything?
So you said as we were talking about your coverage, that you felt like you covered the Gaza Israel conflict, sort of just like anybody else.
Yeah.
And I would agree, except that, or, or, or rather I would say you did it in the way that everybody else should have, um, which is to give both sides weight.
And it seems like when you give the Israeli side sort of any weight.
There, there are detractors and people who, who will, you know, come after you for that simply for shining a light on 50% of the conflict as opposed to the other 50%.
Yeah.
One of the things you spoke about was about the, the widespread denial of, of some of the Hamas atrocities, especially the, the sexual violence against women.
Yeah.
That's one of the things that the protesters said was that I was, that I lied about the rapes.
That was one of the things they targeted me for lying about the rapes.
I I, you know, you were there, women were raped.
Yeah.
I mean, it was a, it was a pretty planned out.
Uh, the New York Times just had a really good story on it.
Like with all these, I mean, this was not an incidental targeting of civilians.
This was purposefully targeting civilians.
That's why it's called terrorists.
They're, they strike to, they try to strike terror in the hearts of civilians by targeting civilians.
You know, if it had just been a military, um.
Operation, if they had just attacked people who were at that moment serving in the Israeli Defense forces, I think it would've been a very, it would've been covered very, very differently.
Do you feel like the denial aspect of things was improved upon over time?
We were one of the first Publica, one of the first media outlets to cover the sexual violence.
But then people like, uh, started speaking out a lot more.
Sheryl Sandberg played a really important role.
Another friend of the pod we had her on last year, I noticed as did so many people, how quiet international feminist organizations were and domestic f feminist organizations were women's organizations about the targeting of women.
I don't feel like I ever heard from those organizations even two years later.
This is what is intersectionality, right?
Is the idea that, um.
That a group, that all the progressives have to be aligned on every issue, every all the progressive people and groups and, uh, that a labor union needs to speak out in favor of, uh, the Palestinians and against what Israel is doing, even if, you know, the labor union has nothing to do with this topic.
Um, and I think that was prob that probably played a role in the alliance of progressive groups with what is legitimately a, a, a serious now humanitarian, but even before October 7th, human rights issue when it comes to how Palestinians in the West Bank are treated and also the plight of the Palestinians in Gaza.
I mean, those are legitimate issues for people to be upset about and people wanna be activist on.
Um, and I, and I think that.
The, they, uh, because of that, there was the humanity of the Israeli victims, uh, erased on October 7th.
Mm-hmm.
Because it's, it's complicated, right?
It's complicated to say, I hate what happened on October 7th, and I hate also what's going on in the war.
And I mean, what, I dunno, is it that complicated?
You just made it sound pretty easy.
It's not complicated for me, but it for people who are activists, I think that, uh, there was a lot of anger towards them if they said something like that because of the historic inequities having to do with Palestinians and Gaza in the West Bank.
And, um, I mean, that was a long, ugly war.
I'm always of the mind of we're, we're very capable as human beings of holding two truths at the same time.
We increasingly seem to be in a world where somebody cannot say, president Biden should not have run for reelection.
That what he did in hiding his deterioration from the public and from Democrats up until it could not be hidden anymore during the debate is exactly how we ended up with President Trump, who is now doing a lot of things that a lot of Democrats hate and independents and probably some conservatives too.
Mm-hmm.
That's a complicated thought.
I don't have a trouble trouble saying it.
You probably don't have trouble hearing it, but it's not one that lends itself easily in the world that we're in right now, in which so many forces are trying to divide us, um, and not, and avoid common ground and villainize people who are not on your team.
I continue to, to believe in people that, you know, we, that's a choice we all get to make if we're going to play that game or not.
That regardless of whatever forces are acting upon us, like we don't have to opt into.
Polarization if we don't want to.
Well, and no, and, but it's a warm bath being on a team.
Right.
I mean, I see people on social media, just the worst of us.
Are there any particular moments or stories or or events that occurred while you were covering the war in those first couple of weeks?
Oh, that have haunted you or stayed with you?
Yeah, of course.
Uh, there was a woman named Adi who, um, was killed.
Uh, her husband was like, they were in a kibbutz and, um, they had two kids.
And, uh, he was like, I think he either went off on a jog or he like, went off to go look at the sunrise or something like that.
And like the terrorists came in and, um, the kids were kidnapped and Aade was, was, they couldn't find her body.
They thought she was kidnapped too.
But it turned out she had been killed.
And it was, and her body was in the house, and I covered it and talked to her parents, and I still hear from her mom every now and then.
Mm-hmm.
What did killing Adi achieve?
What did, what did it achieve?
I went with two Nova survivors back to Nova, to the site of the music festival.
Um, that's quick to go back.
That must have been really hard for them.
They were, they were, yeah.
They were weeping.
Yeah.
You know, I've been in war zones before.
I've, I've been to Iraq once.
I've been to Afghanistan twice.
Uh, we were in, we went to Paris both after the Charlie of Doe murders and then the Balon murders.
This was, I'd never talked to more victims of more.
Face-to-face acts of terror.
It's rough.
It's rough hearing these stories.
I can only imagine That's a lot to, to carry.
Yeah.
I'm still like, right now I'm feeling tension on my chest just talking about it Sure.
And thinking about it.
Sure.
My audience definitely, this is the question they probably most want me to ask you.
Uh oh.
Um, which is, you know, many legacy media companies, including a time CNN, have reported on the Israel Gaza War in ways that have times been damaging and false, uh, categorized by some as modern blood libel.
I'm talking about stuff like 14,000 babies will die in 48 hours or the Al Ali Hospital, um, not qualifying Hamas body count numbers, stuff like that.
Yeah.
It doesn't seem that hard to get some of those things right.
So it's hard not to draw.
Nefarious conclusions when you're sitting on the outside.
Sure.
What, what do you say about that?
I mean, I think that we have a First Amendment in this country and, and criticizing the press is part of that.
And you know, there are a lot of times that I agree with criticisms of the media, um, not just on this story, but on plenty of others.
And I try to not replicate those mistakes on my show.
Um, but I don't control anything other than my show.
Right.
And I have no idea how many innocent civilians were killed in Gaza, and I don't think anybody does.
No.
Because it was a horrible war in an urban, largely urban setting.
I mean, I think we can just say like it was tens of thousands and too many civilians.
And other than that, I don't know anything for sure.
Uh, and I see, you know, there's experts on some experts who say it's the lowest.
Civilian to combatant, uh, ratio of deaths in modern warfare.
Others disagree?
I, and I don't know.
I mean, so, uh, we report what we know and like I, I, um, I have avoided the numbers for some time just because having nothing to do with Israel Gaza.
And just as a somebody who's covered wars, I know how incredibly difficult it is to know these numbers.
I, I, we still don't know how many Iraqi civilians were killed during the American War in Iraq.
I mean, there really isn't a comprehensive, reliable number.
Um, and same thing with Afghanistan.
So I don't know why, uh, anybody would be sure of any number.
Um, when you're dealing with a war that is prolonged and, you know, uh.
There's, you know, people are still under the rubble right now, so why is it common practice to report those numbers as if it is a sure thing?
Like, look, initially the Israeli number, um, of victims on October 7th was 1300, and then they did an accounting, and then the number was lowered to like closer to 1200.
Mm-hmm.
And then we changed it to that.
Um, and I think, I mean, that also illustrates how difficult it is to, to know anything for sure.
In the fog of war.
Why is it done?
I, I, I can't say.
Yeah.
What, what's the conversation like behind the scenes when something like this happens, where something goes out in the news and it's like, oh crap, that's not true.
We got that wrong.
Like, is there, what is the conversation like?
Is there a conversation?
Well, I think, I mean the, the hospital, the, um, the hospital from early on in the conflict Yeah.
Where the Palestinians, the Health Authority and Hamas were saying the Israelis fired upon this hospital.
And killed.
I'm, I'm, this is by num by memory.
Yeah.
I forget X number, but it was like 500 people.
Yeah.
Something like that.
And it turned out it was an errant missile that had been accidentally fired by Islamic Jihad, and the number was probably closer to like 30 or something like that.
Right.
I think that was a big mistake by a lot of media organizations.
Oh yeah.
And I think people learn from it, which is these thing in the fog of war, we really have no idea and we need to be patient.
And I think, I mean, I do think coverage of the war changed to a degree after that mistake was made apparent.
Um, you saw that like a slowing down?
I think so.
Mm.
Uh, just, just because it's so difficult to cut.
Again, this is not just Israel.
Oh yeah.
This is, oh yeah.
This is all wars.
It's very difficult to get accurate information, especially instantaneous accurate, accurate information.
Governments, again, not singling out the Gaza government, but governments.
Lie and governments get things wrong.
Uh, and governments put out information that they think is helpful to their side.
I think there was skepticism, uh, a healthy skepticism that people realized from, I know I did.
'cause I think I was on air when that happened and we were trying to get the information in real time.
That's the other problem is that when you're, when this is happening in real time on tv, uh, it's more, um, it's just laid bare before everyone to see the news making process is much more complicated than we're just getting this report in.
You know?
I mean, it usually takes a long time.
How much is man, people don't trust us right now.
How much is that part of the conversation?
Well, that's part of the conversation in news media writ large for any number of reasons and has been for a long time and it's getting worse.
Yeah.
And some of it is self-inflicted wounds and some of it is purposeful, um, attacks.
Leslie Stahl from CBS News from 60 Minutes says that Trump told her one time, she asked, why do you attack us?
And he said, so, so they don't trust you.
You know, when you report on me.
Something like that.
I'm paraphrasing.
Something like that.
And you know, that's eminently believable that he said it and that he thinks it.
And you know, that happens.
Democrats are doing that too.
Not to the extent that Donald Trump is of course, but Democrats are doing it too.
And there are a lot of news outlets that their, they, their business is, don't trust the media, trust me.
Uh, and they spend a lot of time attacking media so that their listeners will trust them and no one else.
And it's the easiest thing in the world to say, the media's not doing this.
The media's not covering this.
The media has a bias against you.
I'm the one you should be listening to.
Yeah.
And people are commodifying that, and some of them are making quite a good living.
All right.
So let's shift gears a little bit.
Uh, talk a little bit about Jake the Jew.
Mm-hmm.
Um.
I, I mentioned you were in Israel after ten seven, but, uh, I imagine that was a little bit different than your time at, at Tel Aviv University right.
When you were, uh, studying abroad in 1988.
Yeah.
Very different.
Uh, how formative was that experience for you?
You have to remember, I went to a Jewish high school, so being surrounded with Jew, like when I went to, when I say I went to a Jewish high school, I mean, like I went to a Hebrew day school, right.
Not just like I went to a school with a lot of Jews in it.
Right.
Like it was, everybody was Jewish.
Mm-hmm.
So it wasn't strange for me to be in a school that was everybody's Jewish.
I mean, I think what I remember is how foreign the Israelis seemed to me.
How, how, unlike my experience, so our dorms were really crappy and I shared a room with a guy and it was a four room octoPal or whatever, like, like so like a suite with like a Yeah.
But suites, that's not it too kind of words.
It was a really small, shitty kitchen and really small, shitty bathroom and.
Four bedrooms, two person, two people each.
Wow.
I mean, it was interesting in the sense that the Israelis were so, like, one, one of the guys was Drews, one of the guys, um, was an immigrant from Morocco.
Uh, and it was, and look, it's, it's empirically cool being in a part of the world that is thousands of years old.
Mm-hmm.
And you're walking by buildings that have been there for hundreds, if not thousands of years.
And like the Arab Quarter and the Muslim quarter.
And I mean, all of that is just fascinating.
So you mentioned your Jewish high school.
Yeah.
I, Cuba Hebrew Academy.
A Hebrew Hebrew academy now called the Jack m Barrack Academy or something.
Right.
What did going to Jewish High School contribute to both your Jewish identity and your Jewish literacy?
What I really, uh, learned the most and enjoyed the most was the, like Talmud, all that stuff, Mishna and the history of just like debate and pouring over.
Seemingly esoteric issues and rabbis debating every little part of them.
And that was all, that was really interesting.
Well, that tracks for you.
Yeah.
No, and it, it definitely was very influential in terms of my career and also like being raised in a minority religion, like has definitely made me more empathetic to other people in minority religions, whether it's Mormons or Muslims or, or anyone.
Um, just, or Sikhs or you know, just the idea of who am I to judge.
We also mentioned that you are a camper.
Ma alum.
Camper Ma.
The Poconos, yes.
Poconos.
I went camper Ma Ojai, California, which is where my nephew and niece went.
Nice.
When I went to Poconos, you had to go for eight weeks.
Now you can go for like two weeks.
That's It's so long for so young.
I was, I was very homesick my first year when I was eight.
When I went for the month, I went for four weeks.
Miserable.
Yeah.
That was tough.
When I told, so my wife, you and I were talking about this before my wife converted to Judaism to marry me.
And th the, there were, you know, this, this was a, I wouldn't say it was a big point of contention, but when we were talking about whether or not we were gonna send our kids to, to camp, um, I mean, she was just like, absolutely not.
We're not gonna send our kids away for eight weeks or four weeks, or, you know, what are you talking about?
And I was like, yeah, you, you kind of have a point.
So my wife also converted weekly shout out to Courtney, and on our first date I said.
Hey, listen, I'm really serious about you.
You're really serious about me.
On your first date on, yeah.
We had a whole like saga before we even went on our first date.
Okay.
But basically, like we're kind of already in love before we even went out to dinner, but then we go to dinner, I said what I just said and I said, if this were to go all the way, like I think we both sort of feel like it might, would you be open to talking about converting?
And she said yes, very graciously was great.
And I said, and if that happens, our kids are going to camper ma.
It like came up Literally.
You did Ramah on first night.
Oh yeah.
First dates.
That's funny.
I did make it clear on the first date that I would only marry a Joe.
How'd she take that?
Uh, well, uh, she was 27 and I was 30, about to turn 35.
And um, so I had, I was late getting married, you know, 35.
Like everyone's married.
Everyone's got kids.
Sure.
And I was just like, I, the, the last girlfriend I'd had, like, we broke up because she would not have converted.
Mm.
She was a Catholic and.
Uh, I went to church with her one time.
Her, uh, one of her relatives had died and they had images of the 12 stations of the cross, and they were, they pretty antisemitic imagery in, in those, in the, in the depictions.
We're talking about like big hook nose kind of guys.
Yeah.
You, you know, you know, you know what I'm talking about.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That was pretty interesting.
Um, so, um, anyway, no, I just, I asked her how serious she was, uh, about her religion and, and she, uh, said not, not at all.
I said, 'cause I would only marry, I'm Jewish and I would, I would need to be married to a Jewish person.
Yeah.
The other thing that was put on our first on, on the table was okay, but we're, we're doing Christmas with my parents.
Every year was on her end.
That's fair.
Totally fair.
That's how I was raised.
My mom converted.
Right.
So we would go down to North Carolina, chapel Hill, North Carolina, and they would.
Have a Christmas tree and stockings, but we would all, if it coincided, we would also light the hanukia.
We don't have, we've never had a Christmas tree, but I, but we do do a thing called winter wonderland where there's lots of decorations.
It's not Christmas, the colors are blue and white, but you know, there's lots of snow and that kind of thing.
We, we are the, the same, although my wife is not a huge fan of like the blue and white motif so much.
So it's a lot of sort of like silver and gold.
Yeah.
But wintry, hot.
Wintry.
Yeah.
Hanukkah.
Like we have Hanukkah ornaments around, like things of that nature.
Yeah.
All right.
So the, the wives should, should swap, uh, some swap style stories.
I call my wife Martha Jew.
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As we've mentioned in this conversation, you are also an author, somehow a, a prolific one in your all your free time.
Um, and you also brought up the book you released this past spring with Alex Thompson of Axios Original Sin.
Yeah.
About Joe Biden.
Yeah.
About Joe Biden.
What made you and Alex decide to take this book on and, and when did you decide We're doing a book about this?
We all watched Joe Biden age, right.
Uh, and we, you know, were told he was fine, uh, in the media.
Those of us in the news media were told he was fine.
And if it came up in.
Conversation on air, you know, he's fine, blah, blah, blah.
And then the debate came and I was, I had a front row seat to that.
The debate was starting at nine and he showed up for the walkthrough at like eight 30.
8 31.
That's way late in the game.
Yeah, no, he, Trump had come hours before.
Mm-hmm.
And, and you need to get your sense for the space and know which is your camera and all that stuff.
And he showed up way late when I was walking out there at 8 45 or eight 50 whenever we were allowed to go out there.
After Biden was done walking through it, I was thinking, God, this is so late.
Yeah.
That is nine o'clock's a late starts nine o'clocks late, then it's an hour and a half to debate.
It's not, we're not gonna be done till 10 30.
What the hell.
Right.
Um, and then he hobbled out.
Right.
And shuffled out and, and looked every day of his, I think 81 years.
It was at that point.
Right.
And, um, he seemed sick.
He was coughing.
It was bad.
And I remember thinking like for people who have not really been playing, paying close attention, he's gonna look really old.
If you haven't really been paying much attention.
Yeah.
Whatever picture you had of him in your mind, it's not gonna look like what you're seeing today.
Well, I go, people should go watch and watch what he sounded like during the 2020 debate.
Right.
There were two debates with Trump and it's very different.
Yeah.
Uh, and then go get shocked even more and listen to his debate in 2012 with Paul Ryan.
I mean, like, so anyway, um, I thought, wow, this is gonna surprise a lot of people.
And then I thought during that first answer that he really started to like lose his train of thought, which was in the first 10 minutes.
And I, we have iPads so we can communicate with the control room.
Mm-hmm.
Because we can't talk obviously.
Right.
So I wrote Holy Smokes after that first horrible answer.
And Dana wrote on, uh, one of the questions, one of the question pages to me, he just lost the election.
Um, so it was pretty clear, pretty early.
That something was really going down and it got worse.
And some answers were better than others or less horrible than others.
But the whole thing was awful.
Yeah.
And he came over to us afterwards and I don't think he seemed to have any idea that it, it was as bad as it was.
It's hard to argue that that was anything than the worst debate performance in the history of presidential debate.
Oh yeah.
It changed the course of history.
It changed the course of history.
Yeah.
And then there was three weeks plus of him, of the Democratic party telling us he was fine.
Um, and it was just crazy.
You have now seen five feet away from you.
He's not alright.
And they're still telling you he's all right at that point, you're like, something, something's off.
They were gaslighting the American people and then became the whole pers uh, period where Democrats were saying, well, he just needs to go out and show that that was an aberration and just do 10 press conferences and five interviews and six town halls and, and he was not capable of doing it.
Yeah.
Not a lot of people were talking, and that was one of the reasons why there was, this was not covered to the degree it should have been.
I, I really put most of the blame on Democrats.
Well, that there's that picking aside a little bit, right?
I mean, prioritizing what you're gonna cover and not Yeah.
I mean, but I, you know, people did cover it.
Um, should we have covered it more?
I guess, I mean, like, it's always easy in retrospect.
I mean, like, should we be covering right now more how much money the Trump family is making with crypto?
I mean, I probably, you know, are we gonna find out in five years that they're worth a trillion dollars?
I mean, like, I don't, you know, there, it's tough to balance this stuff.
Um, but I do primarily blame Democrats who saw how bad things were and didn't share it.
In any case, the day before the election, Alex was on my show and I said, I think she's gonna lose tomorrow.
And there's gonna be a real reckoning.
Yeah.
I mean, like, you looked at all the polls and you looked at every, all the trends and it just seemed like, I can't see one battleground state that he's gonna lose.
Not one.
First of all, people are very hinky on polls, which I understand since, uh, 2016 mm-hmm.
When the polls seemed to suggest Hillary was gonna win.
Right.
Um, so I get that, I get the skepticism.
I also think there's a lot of people that didn't wanna believe it.
Right.
Um, but I mean, I, I thought it seemed pretty clear to me he's gonna win.
And I don't think it's gonna be particularly close.
I think it's not gonna be as bad as it would've been if Joe Biden had stayed on the ticket.
And I know you guys have said that this is somewhat of a first draft.
Like there's even more that's come out since you've published.
It's a first draft, but I just mean like, um, we, we will learn more.
Sure.
Which, like, for example, you know, poor Joe Biden, who we all want to be healthy and live a long life, is now suffering from cancer.
And one of the cancers he suffered from this 'cause he didn't get a PSA.
Uh, test while he was in the White House because, um, that seems like there are a lot of tests they were not doing 'cause they didn't wanna know the answers.
Mm.
Um, so yeah, there's, there's more that we're gonna find out.
But that said, like the book, I'm really proud of it.
I think it's, um, I mean like, it's a lot of very intense reporting.
I've talked to some, I, I've done some podcasts where somebody was like, I was skeptical and mad at you, and then I read the book and you convinced me.
So like, I'll take that, you know?
Yeah.
But look, it's just a, it's a, it's just a true story about a horribly tragic circumstance that it ended up having repercussions far beyond one man and his family.
Somehow you also found time to publish another book.
Well, this book I had been working on for three years.
Sure.
So, so this book was the first draft of, um, race Against Terror was done.
Before election day last year.
Right.
I had been working on it for a long time.
The the book is called Race Against Terror, chasing an Al-Qaeda Killer at the Dawn of the Forever War.
And that's so nice that you've agreed to send a free copy to everybody that's listening.
Congratulations.
You get a book.
Um, so it give us the log line.
I just have to, you know, the, the main character's name is Spin Goul.
He's a bad guy.
He's the bad guy, which is just like a really cool, bad guy name.
So give give my audience the log line.
So it, so the log line is, it is the race of assisting US attorneys and FBI agents to prove a case against an Al-Qaeda killer who's in an Italian custody before the Italians.
Put him in a refugee camp and he just vanishes into the night and then goes and kills as many Americans as he can.
And it's a completely true story.
I've written a few novels too, and so I took whatever I've learned about pacing and structure from the novels and applied it to this book to make it seem, to make it read like a thriller.
Yeah.
And it does.
It's really cool.
The style of it is very, it's almost like sort of cinematic, the, the level of detail that you get into as you're sort of painting the scenes and the, the tone of people speaking and the action.
I, it was very impressive.
I, I mean, I, I'm imagining you're taking all this from testimony.
Yeah.
Are you getting interviews such detailed testimony and interviews that you're able to paint these Yeah.
Novelistic scenes?
Well, it, yes.
And, and thank you.
That's a huge compliment and I hope you're, uh, many, I'm sure some Hollywood producers are listening and it has not been optioned yet.
Um, okay.
Pay attention.
I do think it's, uh.
It's just in, forget me and forget the book.
It's just inherently a fascinating story.
And when I heard about it, um, I just couldn't believe the story because it's all about the sleuthing and all about the fingerprints and the witness testimony and how do we prove this case against this guy.
And it was just so interesting to hear.
Um, and then, yeah, there's a ton because they tried this guy.
He is the first and only foreign terrorist tried in a US criminal court for killing Americans, American service members in a battlefield never happened before.
Why is that?
Why is it such a unique occurrence?
Because initially the way that the Bush people did it, and, you know, let's assume the best possible intentions, they were just trying to keep us safe in a terrifying circumstance, um, was to, uh, torture people.
The CIA would capture terrorists or suspected terrorists and torture 'em, and that rendered their.
Testimony, uh, inadmissible in any court.
And so there really wasn't, uh, a lot of, uh, evidence that they could try these initial guys with and they would just put them in Guantanamo.
They'd just stick 'em in Guantanamo and worry about it later.
Right?
Then Obama came in.
He wanted to quote close Guantanamo wanted to try as many of these people as possible.
That became clear that some of the people could not be released 'cause they were too dangerous, too dedicated to killing Americans.
But also the evidence against them was tainted.
And so they either would be shipped to some other foreign country or they're still in Guantanamo today and they're about 15 still at today, including some of the people that spin Goul worked with when he was doing his stuff.
Um, but then the other thing that's so interesting, when I went back and wrote about this and researched it, 'cause I kind of forgot, was everybody was so scared shitless of terrorists in 20 11, 20 12, 20 13, the notion of bringing.
A foreign terrorist to the United States to try them.
Scared people.
Yeah.
People were still, uh, 10 years after terrorized still Democrats, Republicans, nobody wanted them to come to this day.
Only one detainee from Gitmo has been tried in a criminal court.
And that's this guy.
He's in the book.
Um, yeah, Achmed Gani didn't go well.
It did not go well.
He was acquitted of 284 outta 285 charges because the witness was thrown outta court because they learned his name through torture.
Okay.
All right.
So now we're gonna debut, uh, uh, a short new segment.
Oh, wow.
Okay.
Called, uh, five Deep Questions.
Oh boy.
Uh, and if this is a, if a segment that you enjoy, I hope you do.
We're then going to be moving it after this episode.
Behind the paywall to our new subscriber community that we're calling the Keila, the, which is Hebrew for Community.
You can find it at beingjewishpodcast.com.
Uh, click on the community button, you can join.
We're gonna have all kinds of awesome stuff there.
This new segment being one of them.
So without further ado, here is five deep questions with Jake Tapper.
What's a mistake that you have made recently that you still regret?
Most recently, I was a little harsh with my daughter.
Uh, I told her that we were going on vacation and we were going to the same place that her boyfriend and his family were going.
And I thought that was like a really nice gesture by me.
Yeah, she wanted her own room and she wanted her own, uh, bed.
And she, I mean, that makes sense to want her own bed, but like, we were getting a suite.
I know.
I got really, I got really mad 'cause I thought she wasn't appropriately, uh, appreciative.
Yeah.
Grateful.
Mm-hmm.
And I should have been much more relaxed about it and I regret it.
A lot of opportunity to, to regret the way we speak to our kids as parents.
Yeah.
You know, in the heat of the moment.
Yeah.
So that's one that I think about today.
What's one goal or dream you haven't yet fulfilled?
Oh, wow.
I've achieved pretty much everything I wanted to achieve.
Amazing.
So I have a great family.
I have achieved, uh, in my career success beyond my wildest dreams.
I'm, I'm pretty centered on that stuff.
Be Hashem.
Yeah.
Um, what's the most challenging part of your job?
The most difficult stuff is the stuff that I have no control over, which has to do with the changing media environment.
I mean, you're a success because the podcast world has exploded.
Yeah.
Right.
YouTube is the biggest media company in the world.
Yeah.
So.
All of that, uh, is the most difficult part of my job because it's like, okay, how do I do what I do in this new world?
Like, do people even want a guy with makeup and a suit behind a desk giving them the news?
I don't even know if they want that anymore.
Um, so that, and I don't control any of it, and all I can do is try to, you know, figure it out and do as much as I can.
Makes sense.
Um, what's the most important key to being a good parent?
The part that I find the easiest, but the most important is the constant expressions of unconditional love, which it makes me sad that we all didn't grow up getting that, but I'm gonna do everything I can to make sure my kids never have any doubt that that's.
All that matters.
And in fact, somebody asked me the other day if I could have three wishes, what they would be.
Mm.
And the, and they, and the answer was, I just want my daughter to be happy where she is.
And she is.
I just want my son to be happy where he is and he is.
And I don't care about wish number three.
Mm-hmm.
And that was a very sincere answer.
That's really how I feel.
Sure.
I don't really give a shit about anything else other than them.
And I think they know that.
I think they know that well, if they didn't, they do now.
Yeah.
And number five, you have unlimited time, unlimited budget.
What is one thing you would do to help create a more secure, thriving Jewish future?
Man, I don't know.
I mean, part of me is tempted to say like getting behind whatever Abraham Accord comes to Gaza and the West Bank, but I don't think that that's a matter of budget.
Right.
By the same token, I also think that.
That's kind of a cop out because I think no matter what, there's gonna be antisemitism.
Right.
And there could be peace in the mi, peace in the Middle East, and there still would be antisemitism of course.
And like, it doesn't really matter, right?
I mean, it matters that there's peace in the Middle East, but there's always gonna be antisemitism.
'cause we're always gonna be blamed for whatever.
You can't make people who have never met a Jew meet a Jew and, and like a Jew.
I mean, I could send you into, you know, Appalachia or whatever and like, I'm sure they'd like you.
Yeah.
We got, we get along, we'd have a good time.
But I don't know that anybody wants a missionary program of Jews that No, we're not trying to convert you.
We just don't want you to hate us.
Yeah.
We just want meet you.
Maybe, maybe that's what it is.
It's a missionary program with bagels, right?
We just show up at the doorbell with the, with the basket of bagels.
But good bagels.
Yes.
New York Bagels.
H and h There you go.
Um, or Zbars And, and, uh.
Yes.
That would be, that would be a, I like that.
That's good.
But again, not trying to convert.
Right?
No proselytizing.
No.
You do your religion and we respect it and we love it.
And you know, we just want you to know we're here and we mean you.
No harm.
Yeah.
We mean you.
No harm.
I love that.
Um, all right.
That was five deep questions with Jake Tapper.
Again, we're not gonna show that again on a regular program.
If you want to hear the next five deep questions with my next guest, please join our Kehillah.
I'll say more about it after the episode.
Who else should we send?
I mean, like Natalie Portman.
It needs to be like the, like, really good people represent on, on the thing.
Sandler Sandler, I mean, Adam Sandler shows up at your door.
Everybody loves, loves Sandler.
Let's talk about Jews.
You know, it'd be great.
Yeah.
Um, alright, final thing here we do, we like to end the show with a lightning round.
So these are not deep questions.
These will be a little bit quicker.
Okay.
Favorite Jewish holiday Hanukkah?
Just because, uh, I, I like giving presents to my kids and my wife.
That's a good reason.
Yeah.
Best Jewish deli in DC Call your mother's Good.
Call your mother as a bagel place that also has a deli.
That's a great name.
Yeah.
Call your mother.
I love that.
Yeah, that's good.
Okay, great.
You, you've said you studied the Talmud in, in Jewish day school in high school.
Yeah.
Is there a, a Talmudic teaching that sticks out to you?
Something that you like never forgot, that you always liked?
It's not, uh, it's not the best of the Talmud.
Doesn't have to be.
It's, it's the most, uh, arrogant statement I've ever heard.
It's from a rabbi named Solomon Iben ga, and it made me laugh so much when I first read it.
Tiny little ants that they are, they venture to compare themselves with me.
Wow.
It's so funny when I read that in, in whatever class I read, I, my friends, my best friend Josh and I, we just thought it was the funniest, I mean, it's not anything to emulate, it's just like, but that's, I mean, that's a confident rabbi right there.
It's like, who says that?
Yeah.
You know?
And now he's known forever.
Maybe he was onto something.
I guess if you could make any documentary, what would it be about?
My favorite founding father is a guy that nobody has ever heard of.
Ooh.
Um, he was Benjamin Franklin's grandson.
His name was Benjamin Franklin, B-B-A-C-H-E.
And he was, he inherited his grandfather's printing press and he started a newspaper called the Aurora Advertiser in Philadelphia.
And he was the bane of George Washington's existence.
He was a very tough, aggressive journalist.
He was publisher who broke stories about George Washington that George Washington hated.
Like George Washington has slaves or, um, everyone acts like George Washington is so great 'cause he doesn't draw a salary.
But guess what?
He just uses the Treasury as his own personal bank account.
Mm.
There are some theories that one of the reasons George Bosch Washington only served, served two terms was because he was so annoyed with Benjamin Franklin Bish.
And then he was the same with John Adams.
And he broke a ton of stories with John Adams, the X, y, Z affair and all this stuff.
And then John Adams passed the Alien and Sedition acts and locked him up and he died in prison.
Wow.
And he was.
A truly just like ballsy journalist, but I don't think anybody really wants to hear any hero stories about journalists.
Could be a musical if Hamilton could be a musical.
You know, you ju Bish could be a musical, you joke about that.
But I actually started a screenplay in which it is a musical, not like I, I'm not writing songs, right.
But it, uh, it uses punk rock from the seventies as like their theme as the theme of these of these journalists.
But anyway, so that's kind of like a idea I have that like appeals to me.
And maybe me only maybe you now too, but yeah, I'm into it.
All right, cool.
We're gonna keep an eye on it.
Uh, and the last question that we ask all of our guests, challah Rip or slice?
Oh, rip.
Oh, easy.
That's not even, why would anybody cut?
Haah?
Be I there's, unless you're making sandwiches.
Well, so if you're, if you're doing french toast the next day you want to preserve the integrity of the loaf, and you buy two, you buy two loaves, or, or you know, you want everybody to get, you know, equal peace.
You wanna control the amount the kids are getting.
Control What?
No.
Rip it away.
Dunk it in the matza ball Soup.
Oh yeah.
It's dunk it in the honey on Rosh Hashanah.
Yep.
A hundred percent.
Um, oh my God.
Okay.
That's not even close.
That's the clear, the clearest answer you've given all day.
That's like asking me if I would order a blueberry bagel.
Absolutely not.
That's okay.
Jake, thank you so much for the time, for your candor, for, for teaching us a lot about a lot of different topics.
Oh, this was so much fun.
Thank you so much.
Good.
I was great.
I'm glad.
Awesome.
And everybody, uh, vote, vote.
If you're, if you're listening and you are in one of the places where there, there's an election.
That's right.
Get out there, make your voice heard.
What's the point of being in a democracy if you don't make it count?
Exactly.
Thank you again so much to Jake Tapper.
His book is Race Against Terror.
It's out now and it's awesome.
And again, if you enjoyed our five deep questions, please join the brand new being Jewish with Jonah Plat Keila.
That's Hebrew for community.
Head over to being jewish podcast.com.
Click on community and sign up to receive exclusive footage.
FaceTime with me and special guests, a chance to ask questions right here on the show and a whole lot more.
I'm really excited about it and to keep this show up and running, we could really use your support and like Jake said, don't forget to vote.
Get out there and I will see you back here for the next newsworthy episode of being Jewish with me, Jonah Platt.
Thanks again to this episode.
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