I wish I could say that John McWhorter and I are closing out 2025 on a cheerful note, but the events that marked the weekend before we recorded were bleak. High-profile shootings and murders marred the holiday season, and we couldn’t ignore them. In this episode, we wrestle with the personal and political violence that erupted in Providence, Sydney, and Los Angeles. We do manage to find a few moments of levity, despite the gravity of it all. That doesn’t undo what’s been done, but it does make it easier to bear.
John and I talk about the shooting at Brown University, and my memories of one of the victims, Ella Cook, who took a class with me last year. Then it’s on to another grim episode: the Bondi Beach Hanukkah massacre. We debate John’s contention that Western pro-Palestinian sentiment is largely driven by the sense that the Palestinians are “brown” and the Israelis are “white,” and that therefore the former are victims and the latter victimizers. I think John gives far too much credence to skin color as such, and too little to historically grounded critiques of settler colonialism. We do agree, however, on the despicable nature of Donald Trump’s comments about Rob Reiner’s murder. Is Trump, as John seems to believe, in a state of decline? Or is this an ordinary, if particularly dismal, expression of Trump's misanthropy? We round out the hour with me trying to persuade John to write a memoir.
Note: At the time of this recording, the identity of the Brown gunman was unknown. He’s subsequently been identified, and his body was recovered from the storage locker where he apparently ended his own life. He was also named by law enforcement as the killer of MIT physicist Nuno Loureiro.
This episode is drawn from our latest livestream. We recorded another hour after it, in which we took calls from TGS subscribers and answered subscriber questions. To get that, though, you’ll have to become a full subscriber yourself. The Glenn Show is almost entirely viewer supported, so to those of us who are already full subscribers, let me extend a heartfelt thank you. And if you’re not yet a full subscriber, please consider becoming one. The Glenn Show can only do what it does through the generosity of viewers and listeners. For a mere $6/month or $50/year, you’ll get weekly episodes of The Glenn Show earlier than their public release, monthly Q&A episodes with John McWhorter, access to the full Substack archives, and other exclusive bonus content.
0:00 The shooting at Brown University
8:09 The Hanukkah massacre at Bondi Beach
11:42 Ground News ad
13:34 Searching for a narrative in an information-thin environment
17:34 Is the pro-Palestine movement about “whiteness”?
23:26 Glenn: There’s more to Israel-Palestine than race
29:44 What does a representative American look like?
36:50 Trump’s inflammatory comments about the murders of Rob Reiner and Michele Singer
42:40 Trump’s allegedly declining help
51:26 Why John won’t write a memoir
Recorded December 18, 2025
Links and Readings
John’s book, Losing the Race: Self-Sabotage in Black America
William Greider’s 1981 Atlantic article, “The Education of David Stockman”
Glenn’s memoir, Late Admissions: Confessions of a Black Conservative
