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Jon Stewart called out after suggesting Germany may revert to Nazism without US military influence

Jon Stewart called out after suggesting Germany may revert to Nazism without US military influence

Yahoo03-04-2025
"The Daily Show" host Jon Stewart was called out for suggesting that Germany would revert to Nazism without the military influence of the United States on Monday night.
Former Mitt Romney advisor Oren Cass appeared on Stewart's show to discuss President Donald Trump's tariffs and his forthcoming book, "The New Conservatives."
While discussing the role the U.S. military should play in overseas conflicts, specifically in Europe and Russia, Stewart alluded to the last time Germany was in the position of being a "global military power": World War II. He seemed to suggest that Germany would revert to Nazism if the U.S. didn't financially support their war efforts.
Stewart asked Cass if expecting "Germany to be able to fend off Russia on their own" would place the U.S. in a "very tenuous place."
"Why?" Cass asked.
"I have a book at home about Germany and their position as a global military power, where we didn't have sway, and they did whatever they wanted, and it didn't work out," Stewart said, to the laughter of the audience.
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"No, no, no, I want to pick up on this," Cass replied over the laughter of the audience. "Because this is the fun applause line that like, 'Oh, the Germans will just become Nazis again,' like that's a weird racist critique of Germans. I don't see any reason to believe that."
Stewart responded, "Well," while grinning, to which Cass replied, "Let's be honest, it is."
Cass then asked Stewart, "On what basis are you saying this is like something about Germany that we can't abide?"
"I think it's that there is an element within their society that they've deemed… this is not me saying Germans will do that, this is Germany. This is, I didn't say they'll become that, the leaders of Germany are fearful that they have this…" Stewart attempted to explain before being interrupted by Cass.
Cass fired back at Stewart, claiming that the leaders of Germany just "really enjoy spending virtually nothing on their military while the United States spends roughly 4% of GDP on ours."
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Stewart then asked if Cass felt that Germany was "freeloading on our military."
"There's no question they're freeloading on our military," Cass replied.
"The Daily Show" host explained why he doesn't see the U.S. building up its allies' militaries as "freeloading."
"I guess I don't understand the idea that they're freeloading, and we want each nation state to build up their military to the point, because to me, that makes it more likely if you build something like that, it's more likely you'll use it. Now that seems to be backed by general history when people rearm they tend to do it and use it," Stewart explained.
In a discussion about Trump's tariffs on nations like Canada and his ambitions for America to take ownership of Greenland, Stewart claimed that it feels like the current administration is trying to establish a "new world order," rather than "rebalancing economic inequalities."
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"It all seems so weirdly vindictive, and then you're like, and then we're going to take over Greenland. Like, it does feel a little less like rebalancing economic inequities, and we've decided on a new world order where big does what it wants, and nation states we go back to a little bit of that colonialist model or imperialist or whatever it was," Stewart suggested.
While Cass acknowledged that this was a "fair concern," he challenged Stewart's claims by offering his own take on the situation.
"I think there's some truth to it that's not all bad when you talk about this 'new world order' idea, which is that the United States has been sort of championing this liberal world order where we have essentially taken it upon ourselves to, frankly, absorb a lot of costs from other people, right? So in the trade world, it's not just China, it's also Germany and Japan and Korea. We are absorbing their production, they get the jobs," Cass explained before being interrupted by Stewart.
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Stewart asked Cass if he thought the U.S. was doing this in an effort to "buy influence," and claimed that Trump's view on the situation is that these nations were "abusing us."
"I think the view I have is, America wants to tell them what to do and so, by leveraging our military might, we have sway," he said.
Cass responded, asking, "But do we? What have we successfully told Japan or Germany to do?"
Stewart jokingly responded, "Uh, in general?" to the laughter of the audience, adding, "Uh, stop wearing the lederhosen, I think they've cut down on it."
"No, no, no, no, this is a serious point. I appreciate the joke, but there's a reason you couldn't answer the question," Cass fired back.
Stewart then alluded to Vice President JD Vance's trip to Greenland, where Stewart claimed the vice president disrespected Denmark, and that Denmark lost just as many people per capita during the wars in the Middle East as the U.S. did.
He also claimed that the "stable world order" hasn't mistreated the United States, and that he doesn't see us "as victims of a con game that Europe has been running on us."Original article source: Jon Stewart called out after suggesting Germany may revert to Nazism without US military influence
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Putin Loses Influence in Backyard
Putin Loses Influence in Backyard

Newsweek

time27 minutes ago

  • Newsweek

Putin Loses Influence in Backyard

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Stefan Meister, head of the center for order and governance in Eastern Europe, Russia, and Central Asia at the German Council on Foreign Relations, told Newsweek that Azerbaijan winning the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War and taking over the region prompted Aliyev to see Baku as a regional player Moscow can no longer dictate to. "Aliyev considers himself as the key shaper of the new regional security order, where Russia will not play the role it played in the past," he said. "Azerbaijan is not willing to accept compromises with Russia." This comes as Moscow faces a souring of ties with another regional neighbor. Armenia did not attend the latest summit of the Moscow-led Collective Security Treaty Organization, angered by the lack of solidarity from Russia when Baku captured Nagorno-Karabakh, an operation which Meister said emboldened Aliyev's attitude to Moscow. "Aliyev did what he did without getting punished by Russia," said Meister. 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Columbia genocide scholar may leave over university's new antisemitism definition

time3 hours ago

Columbia genocide scholar may leave over university's new antisemitism definition

NEW YORK -- For years, Marianne Hirsch, a prominent genocide scholar at Columbia University, has used Hannah Arendt's book about the trial of a Nazi war criminal, 'Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil,' to spark discussion among her students about the Holocaust and its lingering traumas. But after Columbia's recent adoption of a new definition of antisemitism, which casts certain criticism of Israel as hate speech, Hirsch fears she may face official sanction for even mentioning the landmark text by Arendt, a philosopher who criticized Israel's founding. For the first time since she started teaching five decades ago, Hirsch, the daughter of two Holocaust survivors, is now thinking of leaving the classroom altogether. 'A university that treats criticism of Israel as antisemitic and threatens sanctions for those who disobey is no longer a place of open inquiry,' she told The Associated Press. 'I just don't see how I can teach about genocide in that environment.' Hirsch is not alone. At universities across the country, academics have raised alarm about growing efforts to define antisemitism on terms pushed by the Trump administration, often under the threat of federal funding cuts. Promoted by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, the definition lists 11 examples of antisemitic conduct, such as applying 'double standards' to Israel, comparing the country's policies to Nazism or describing its existence as 'a racist endeavor.' Ahead of a $220 million settlement with the Trump administration announced Wednesday, Columbia agreed to incorporate the IHRA definition and its examples into its disciplinary process. It has been endorsed in some form by Harvard, Yale and dozens of other universities. While supporters say the semantic shift is necessary to combat evolving forms of Jewish hate, civil liberties groups warn it will further suppress pro-Palestinian speech already under attack by President Donald Trump. For Hirsch, the restrictions on drawing comparisons to the Holocaust and questioning Israel's founding amount to 'clear censorship,' which she fears will chill discussions in the classroom and open her and other faculty up to spurious lawsuits. 'We learn by making analogies,' Hirsch said. 'Now the university is saying that's off-limits. How can you have a university course where ideas are not up for discussion or interpretation?' A spokesperson for Columbia didn't respond to an emailed request for comment. When he first drafted the IHRA definition of antisemitism two decades ago, Kenneth Stern said he 'never imagined it would one day serve as a hate speech code.' At the time, Stern was working as the lead antisemitism expert at the American Jewish Committee. The definition and its examples were meant to serve as a broad framework to help European countries track bias against Jews, he said. In recent years, Stern has spoken forcefully against what he sees as its 'weaponization' against pro-Palestinian activists, including anti-Zionist Jews. 'People who believe they're combating hate are seduced by simple solutions to complicated issues,' he said. 'But when used in this context, it's really actually harming our ability to think about antisemitism.' Stern said he delivered that warning to Columbia's leaders last fall after being invited to address them by Claire Shipman, then a co-chair of the board of trustees and the university's current interim president. The conversation seemed productive, Stern said. But in March, shortly after the Trump administration said it would withhold $400 million in federal funding to Columbia over concerns about antisemitism, the university announced it would adopt the IHRA definition for 'training and educational' purposes. Then last week, days before announcing a deal with the Trump administration to restore that funding, Shipman said the university would extend the IHRA definition for disciplinary purposes, deploying its examples when assessing 'discriminatory intent.' 'The formal incorporation of this definition will strengthen our response to and our community's understanding of modern antisemitism,' Shipman wrote. Stern, who now serves as director of the Bard Center for the Study of Hate, called the move 'appalling," predicting it would spur a new wave of litigation against the university while further curtailing pro-Palestinian speech. Already, the university's disciplinary body has faced backlash for investigating students who criticized Israel in op-eds and other venues, often at the behest of pro-Israel groups. 'With this new edict on IHRA, you're going to have more outside groups looking at what professors are teaching, what's in the syllabus, filing complaints and applying public pressure to get people fired,' he said. 'That will undoubtedly harm the university.' Beyond adopting the IHRA definition, Columbia has also agreed to place its Middle East studies department under new supervision, overhaul its rules for protests and coordinate antisemitism trainings with groups like the Anti-Defamation League. Earlier this week, the university suspended or expelled nearly 80 students who participated in pro-Palestinian demonstrations. Kenneth Marcus, chair of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, said Columbia's actions were an overdue step to protect Jewish students from harassment. He dismissed faculty concerns about the IHRA definition, which he said would 'provide clarity, transparency and standardization' to the university's effort to root out antisemitism. 'There are undoubtedly some Columbia professors who will feel they cannot continue teaching under the new regime,' Marcus said. 'To the extent that they self-terminate, it may be sad for them personally, but it may not be so bad for the students at Columbia University.' But Hirsch, the Columbia professor, said she was committed to continuing her long-standing study of genocides and their aftermath. Part of that work, she said, will involve talking to students about Israel's "ongoing ethnic cleansing and genocide' in Gaza, where more than 58,000 Palestinians have died, over half of them women and children, according to Gaza's Health Ministry. 'With this capitulation to Trump, it may now be impossible to do that inside Columbia,' Hirsch said. 'If that's the case, I'll continue my work outside the university's gates.'

Elon Musk fires back at Trump's claim that his companies will still enjoy subsidies
Elon Musk fires back at Trump's claim that his companies will still enjoy subsidies

Yahoo

time3 hours ago

  • Yahoo

Elon Musk fires back at Trump's claim that his companies will still enjoy subsidies

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