The Remnant with Jonah Goldberg · The Dispatch

‘A Zipper to the Gates of Hell’ | Interview: Chris Stirewalt

March 11, 2026·1 hr 11 min·5 clips

Stirewalt warns the Sunni-Shia blood feud could 'open like a zipper to the gates of hell' if Trump's Iran strategy fails.

The opening is pure Remnant machinery. Goldberg introduces the show, names the Dispatch umbrella, and brings in Chris Stirewalt with the usual mix of friendship, credentials, and dry throat-clearing. Ben Sasse hangs around the edges. His podcast with Stirewalt becomes an excuse to talk about three friends goofing around, gallows humor, and the oddness of recording something that might sound dated before it airs. The mood stays loose. Goldberg makes the affection clear and lets the banter roam before the punditry can settle in. Then etiquette takes the wheel. A nostalgic bit about NR cruises and H. Upman cigars slides into Stirewalt's cranky, exacting rules for proper dress. He agrees with Donald Trump on shoes. Not broadly, obviously, just on the strangely urgent matter of grown men wearing black, shiny, hard-soled shoes with blue suits. Pete Hegseth becomes the example. Stirewalt objects to frat-boy loafers with suits because sneakers and dress shoes should stop trying to be the same thing. Goldberg adds the restaurant complaint. Baseball caps at expensive restaurants become another small civic breakdown, or at least a fine reason for tabletop exasperation. The point is not only fashion. Under the jokes is the idea that some occasions deserve visible effort, because clothes can tell another person the event matters. Rank punditry waits. Goldberg closes by admitting they did less of it than planned, while promising his line of work will always provide more. The road barges in again: a Dallas energy event, an AI thing, and a badly needed nap. The result is digressive on purpose, with political friendship, personal fastidiousness, and cultural complaint all crammed into the same chair without acting grand about it.

As heard by us

Goldberg and Stirewalt turn shoes, manners, and political-adjacent crankiness into a companionable argument for adulthood.

Jonah Goldberg and Chris Stirewalt spend much of this Remnant conversation in the loose register of political friends who can wander without losing the thread.

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Why you'd press play

Jonah Goldberg and Chris Stirewalt eventually get around to politics, but the shoes conversation might land first.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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