After Party with Emily Jashinsky - Ana Kasparian Gets Harassed, KJP Rewrites History, and Sabrina Carpenter vs. Taylor Swift, with Mary Morgan

Episode Date: October 21, 2025

First Emily Jashinsky is joined by Ana Kasparian, Executive Producer & Host of “The Young Turks,” and the two begin with a troubling run-in Ana had with a neighbor who Ana says threatened her, her dog, and her husband’s livelihood.  The pair discuss what’s behind the campaign against Ana as well as the broader implications that endanger journalists. Then Emily and Ana move on to former White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre’s defense of former President Joe Biden and her efforts to rewrite history, Charlamagne tha God’s lashing out at MSNBC for accusing him of pushing MAGA messaging, PLUS Bernie Sanders’ suggestion democrats don’t throw opponents in jail.  Then Emily is joined by Mary Morgan, Host of “Pop Culture Crisis,” for a hilarious look at why Kim Kardashian feels the need to cover her face with fabric, why Taylor Swift may be in competition with Sabrina Carpenter, PLUS the return of the cowboy.  Emily rounds out the show with a look at troubling new reporting from Matt Taibbi on the politicalization of FEMA, the double standard of Zohran Mamdani, and more.Aware House: Visit https://awarehouseshop.com/discount/PARTY & use code PARTY for 15% off your first order. PreBorn: Help save a baby go to https://PreBorn.com/Emily or call 855-601-2229. Golden Age Fats: Go to https://Goldenagefats.com/AFTERPARTY and use code AFTERPARTY for 25% off your first order. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to After Party. It's 10 p.m. on Monday night. We're live, of course, as we are every Monday and Wednesday. Thank you for tuning in. We appreciate it. Now, we have a great show tonight. Anna Kasparian and Mary Morgan are both guests. So we're going to have lots to discuss with the two of them. As a reminder, Megan Kelly is going on tour. And Glenn Greenwald and I are with Megan on Friday in San Antonio. So you can go ahead and grab tickets. If there are any solo. over at megankelly.com Friday night in San Antonio. Looking forward to seeing so many of you out on the road. A lot to get to tonight. Obviously, Karin Jean-Pierre, maybe this isn't obvious too, because maybe you have a normal life and you haven't seen the 7,000 clips of Karin Jean-Pier on her book tour that went viral over the course

of just the last 24 hours. But we have them. She was on with Tim Miller of the bulwark, and man, is that quite a slot? quite a clip. Charlie and the God was on with Nicole Wallace and really goes after MSNBC in front of arguably the face of MSNBC. So we're going to dive into that.

And we have some clips from No Kingsworld, all of that. Sabrina Carpenter hosted Saturday Night Live over the weekend. Kim Kardashian wore a mask at a gala. I don't know why we wouldn't cover that, frankly. Huge news. and Cowboys are back in. Also huge news. So we'll be covering all of that on tonight's show.

Shout out to producer Kelly, who did all of this well. Sick. We appreciate it. What a wonderful team we have here at MK Media and on After Party. Before I get into the show, though, we have Anna Kasparian coming up right after this. But first, things feel heavy right now. You know that. Even just describing what we have coming up on the show tonight, you can feel the heaviness in the air. Politics is divisive.

The news can be depressing. I'm sorry, the news is depressing. It's not that it can be depressing. It is so depressing. And things often feel like we as a society have more pulling us apart than bringing us together. Here's something simple that unites all of us, and that is shopping small.

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makers across the U.S. to bring you handmade goods filled with heart and creativity, uniting people of all backgrounds in this singular mission. So let's choose connection over division and show small businesses the support they deserve. Super cool website. Go check it out. Visit a warehouse shop.com and use code party for 15% off your first order. That's a warehouse shop.com code party. All right, I'm happy to be joined now by Anna Kasparian, who is executive producer and of course host of the Young Turks. Anna, thank you so much for coming. back. Thank you for having me, Emily. It's good to be here. You've made a little bit of news yourself today. So I want to start Anna by playing this clip from Young Turks today. And I'm going to ask

you to break down the details. There's a lot to get into. So let's go ahead and roll S-Zero, Anna talking about her experience at home today on the Young Turks. Do you think it was appropriate for you to try to stick your dog on me? I did not. Do you think that was appropriate to stick your dog at me? You stick your dog at me. Was that appropriate? Was that appropriate? Was that appropriate for you? Okay.

Was it appropriate? Look at you. Can I talk to you? No. Why did you try to stick your dog at me? You told you to get away from me. I told you to get like this. Psycho.

I told you to stop following me. Now you're acting different because you're going to be recorded. Get away from me. I told you to get away from me. I told you to get away from me. Why did you get away from me? Why did you get me? You're a victim after you try to stick your dog at me and my dog.

No, no, no, no, no. You called her a Jew hater. You called me a Jew hater? Wait, wait, wait. So you're trying to get me fired? No, I did not. I said I'm telling everybody about her. No, that's what she just said.

You said that you're trying to get my husband fired. I said everybody's trying to get a liar. Exactly. Yeah, you're part of that everybody. Be careful. That woman's dangerous. She tried to sick that dog at me. She tried to sick that dog at me and my dog.

That's what she tried to do. That's what she tried to do. She tried to sick her dog at me and my dog because she doesn't like my political views because I don't like a genocidal government. So Anna, you broke down some of this with Jenk and folks should go over to Young Turks and watch that conversation.

But give us a little bit of the who, what, when, where, background of the story that was obviously you with your husband. Tell us more. I actually wasn't with my husband initially. So, you know, we split the responsibilities with walking the dog. And so this morning I took the dog out for a walk by myself. And I go, this is something that's important to know about me.

I go as early in the morning as I can because I don't want to talk to anybody. Like I just, I have so much going on and I got to get back to work. So like I just, I take the dog for a walk. I have my headphones in, which I, I shouldn't do. I'm now realizing. But like I live in a neighbor, like, you know, it's, it's not on a busy street. So I don't really, I wasn't thinking about it. Anyway, I'm walking the dog, no problem at all. And suddenly I'm on a street where there's a woman with her dog. And I recognize her. I've seen her like around before. I don't know her name. I've never spoken to her. But since she looked familiar to me, I didn't see her as a threat initially. But she's standing in the middle of the, sidewalk blocking the sidewalk with her dog. She's literally standing there with like a wide stance, like almost like come for me. And I'm, but her dog is going nuts.

And I don't really think much of it. What's going through my mind at that moment is, oh, that looks like a younger dog. She's probably still training it. And she was giving me this menacing look, but I thought maybe it's not menacing. Maybe she's just annoyed that her dog is kind of being unruly, right? So I decide I want to avoid that whole situation, plus she's blocking the sidewalk. So I don't even speak to her. I literally just go around.

I walk onto the street and I go around her, or at least I attempt to. But as I'm doing that, she starts coming at me with her dog as it's barking and going wild. And my dog is like a little 20 pound dog. So his name's Charlie. And Charlie is, I wish she was a little more brave, but he's not. So he's like skittish and he's freaking out. And I'm like, so at that point, I take my headphones out. And I'm like, what's going on?

Like, what are you doing? And then she calls me a Jew hater because I'm very critical, aggressively so, about a foreign government, Israel. Okay? And I don't apologize for that. I never will. I have seen what's been going on in Gaza. I have condemned in the most aggressive possible way what Hamas did on October 7th. I'm not a Hamas supporter.

I've gotten a lot of hate from. some on the left because of the fact that I don't see them as freedom fighters. But it doesn't matter. You can be as critical of Hamas as you want. If you are critical of the foreign nation state of Israel, you are automatically considered a Jew hater. So when she called me a Jew hater, I'm like, wait, wait, wait, hold on, hold on. And I tried to have a conversation with her at first.

I was like, there's a misunderstanding. I'm not a Jew hater. and then she brings up, oh, you were rubbing your hands and making fun of the Jews. Right. So she was referencing a video that was intentionally cut out of context. It took out the part where I'm obviously and specifically talking about Larry Ellison

saying that he wants to surveil Americans 24-7, so we're all on our best behavior. And then after I do what I thought was just a villain impression, Jenk and I talk about how this is not representative of Jewish people overall. Okay, do not let the actions of Larry Ellison make you think that it is indicative of how Jews across the globe in America are. So literally in that moment, it was like you almost anticipated what was going to come, even though you made it clear. Emily, the thing that people really don't understand if they don't watch TYT regularly is that on a regular basis. I say we are critical of the Israeli government, not even the Israeli civilians,

regardless of what the polling says, right? The polling from Israel says that the majority of them are totally in favor what's happening in Gaza. I still don't care. They're civilians, and I am never going to develop a hatred for an entire group of people, whether it be Israelis or it's Jewish people. That's just not who I am. Okay. I work for a Turkish man. as an Armenian woman, because I'm able to separate the acts of a government from an entire group of people. Jank is a good person. I'm not going to reference what Turkey did to Armenians in 1915 as an excuse to hate Turks overall. That's stupid, right? You hate Jen for who he is, not for his background.

Listen, Jank is a strong Turkish coffee. You either love it or hate it. I just put it that way. But anyway, so, like, I eventually lose my patience because she's, like, screaming at me. And I'm like, I'm trying to explain to her. It was taken out of context. It's part of this very organized campaign by Canary Mission. And eventually, like, I just, I lost my patience because I realized, oh, no, this woman totally supports what Israel is doing. That's what this is about.

And so at this point, like, I just want to get my dog away from her and her dog because my dog is small and I want to get him to safety. And as I'm walking away, she says something along the lines of, um, good luck to your husband dealing with you. And I was like, my husband loves me. And she says, yeah, that's why we're trying to get him fired. Ah. So for me, that, that moment clicked because I realized, oh, my God, she's not some random lone wolf who decided to attack me because she doesn't like my political views. She's very much involved with the whole Canary Mission campaign to not just go after me. That's one thing. But to go after my husband who's not a political person at all, doesn't work in politics, doesn't work in news, doesn't even like to comment on politics. He's not, he's honestly not

interested in it. He's an athletic kind of guy, right? And so they've been on this campaign for months now to try to get him fired. And there have been demands for him to release a statement condemning me because of my political views. Obviously, he refused to do that. That's my husband. And so they're relentless. They won't give up. And so once she said that, I, like, called my husband. I'm on my way back to my place to drop off the dog. And he wants to know who is this woman.

I want to see who she is. And I wanted to get video of her because I wanted to, and I'm going to tonight after this, file a police report because she was literally sticking her dog at me. Okay? Like, Charlie could have gotten her, whatever. I could have gotten her too, but I care very little about that. I care way more about my dog. And then she threatened my husband, right?

Right. So we, after I drop off Charlie, me and my husband Christian go downstairs. She's standing in the same place. And that was when I recorded the video that we watched. And in the video, by the way. She was standing in the same place, Anna? That's a little odd. Well, now I'm a little worried that she's been keeping an eye on me,

knows when I'm usually walking the dog and was waiting for me, right? Right. And she also confirmed in the video, she's, like, yeah, yeah, a lot of people are trying to get him fired, meaning my husband. So that confirms that what I was saying is true. And now I don't know what I'm going to do. I'm probably going to walk around with a body cam. I'm probably going to, you know, have a weapon of some sort to protect myself.

That woman was totally unhinged. Right. And it's unsettling if you're somebody who's expressing your political views and doing political news coverage in the public eye that somebody is standing on the sidewalk relatively close to where you live during your morning routine. threatening your husband, potentially threatening your dog. Tell us about the Canary Mission aspect of all of this, because people who haven't followed closely,

Canary Mission and the campaign to discredit American critics of the most recent Israeli war might not understand how important that part of this story is. They're thugs. I think that's the best way to think of Canary Mission. They're literally thugs who bully Americans who are critical of Israel. And the really unfortunate thing about Canary Mission

is that their thuggish behavior tends to work when it comes to activists who don't have like a massive following, they don't have a massive platform. And so they're unable to do what I did today in terms of putting this woman on blast for what she tried to do in sicking her dog against me and my dog. And these people lose their jobs, right?

Whether it's activists, whether it's people, there's a story that Jenk and I are going to do later this week where they are targeting people who simply have a Palestinian flag in their social media profile as anti-Semites. How is that anti-Semitic? And they're like regular dehumanization of Palestinian civilians is somehow totally okay. But criticism of Israel as a government, Israel's government is not okay. You deserve to, like, lose your livelihood. You deserve to have your safety threatened.

It's unacceptable. Even if she hates my political views, that's totally fine. That is her right. But to attack me, to try to assault me because you don't agree with my political views, is beyond the pale. And I want to say is illegal, but do I think that the police are going to do anything about this? No. I mean, there was an American journalist who was just attacked.

Actually, he claims that the IDF led him and a group of Palestinian farmers into an ambush by violent Israeli settlers. And when he reached out to the, you know, American embassy in Israel about it, they're like, sorry, there's nothing we can do to help you. So, yeah, go ahead. Well, no, I was just to say, it actually reminds me a lot, as somebody on the right, it reminds me a lot of what the Southern Poverty Law Center did for, very long time until their, quote, hate lists were discredited. It's not to say that everybody on the SPLC's Hate Watch is unhateful. Of course, they have some legitimately bigoted and hateful people on the list, but they would get people categorized. There's just normal, like, Christian conservatives who people can disagree with, but who are not like actual hate groups in the way that most people

think of them, immediately discredited by putting them on a list. And when I see what Canary Mission does, It's so similar to me that it sounds innocuous on the surface. Everybody wants to fight anti-Semitism. Everybody sort of wants to know who the actual anti-Semites are and make sure that they're not, you know, as they're navigating this very complicated media landscape, consuming that type of content unknowingly. And it ends up, though, laundering that reputation of innocuousness

in order to target people like you, Anna, who are very clear about disowning anti-Semitism, as you did in that segment, that you were targeted over and over again. I was actually surprised. I don't know about you. You get this all the time, but I was surprised that that segment went viral, to be honest.

But you've been on the other end of that. Well, okay, so it went viral because when I was doing this, like I was imitating Larry Ellison as a villain, right? Right. Now, keep in mind, I'm nearly 40 years old. I'm a woman, and I don't spend any time on 4chan. I have dabbled with Kiwi Farms a little bit, but on very specific four, like,

For us. That's like going straight to heroin. That's like just skipping weed and going straight to heroin. It's true. It's true. But I follow very specific topics. So I had never, I didn't know what the, what is it called? The meme. Yeah. I don't know what it's called. There's a racist, I mean, disgusting like anti-Semitic meme, right? That I had seen on X here and there, but I didn't know that it was like a thing, right? Happy Merchant. That's a thing. That's what it's called. And so they accused me of doing the happy merchant meme. And I'm like, I don't know what that is. And then when they showed, one of my friends actually showed me the image. I'm like, no, I would never in a million years do that.

And like who in media who actually like has a career and is serious about it would be stupid enough to try to launder that disgusting meme seriously? I mean, first of all, it's wrong. Obviously, like I have a moral issue with it. but also just strategically, is that a smart idea? Is that something I would do? I would never do that. But it doesn't matter.

That's why it went viral. It was taken out of context. And it was all over the internet. I didn't know what to do. Because once that happens, you have no control over the narrative. And the more you try to defend yourself, it feels like you're just digging yourself in a deeper hole. It just goes to this question of definition inflation that I think you've experienced a lot,

which is, again, on the right, I saw this. happening for years in a, I think, a pretty anti-Christian way with like the Family Research Council getting on the SPLC watch list and then someone trying to shoot people at the Family Research Council. And this was, I think that was like 2012. It was around that time frame. But it's really, really dangerous. It's not a joke. It's why I don't think it's right for people on the right to talk about baby killers unless someone literally killed a baby or as Elise Stefonic did in the last couple of days to call Zora Mundani a jihadist. You're inflating the definition of that mean one thing to society in a way to implicate people in really, really terrible behavior

that you just think is a consequence of their rhetoric, not that you think they're directly involved in. This to me, Anna, seems like a really dangerous inflation of anti-Semitism and bigotry, targeting people like you who are merely critical, as you say, of a foreign government. And it feels very dangerous. Well, it is dangerous. And, you know, I like that you're bringing up, you know, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and other lists that for the longest time, mostly focused on targeting the right.

Because as that was happening, I personally, and I want to apologize for where I used to stand on it, I used to trust those lists, right? And I think a lot of people do. I'll give you an example of someone who landed on a list recently, well, fairly recently. And it was disgusting and wrong. And that was a journalist by the name of Jesse Single.

I don't know if you guys are familiar with him. But in 2018, he wrote a very lengthy and nuanced piece about youth gender medicine. And it was very balanced. It talked about how for some minors, you know, transitioning was very beneficial. But for others, it wasn't. And the big question was, is there enough research into this or are we rushing kids into it? He got, like, listed in some weird, glad, you know, anti-exam. LGBTI transphob list.

And I'm like, wait, hold on. I listen to this guy's podcast every week. And he's like so careful and so nuanced. And obviously like he comes from a place of humanizing and understanding the humanity of everyone involved. Like he's not at all transphobic. And so that was the first moment that I woke up and I was like, these lists are total BS. And unless you're going to do the legwork and really research the people.

on the list to understand whether or not they're really what they're accused of being, don't trust the list. Just don't. No, it's such a good point. And Jesse obviously hosts Blockton reported with Katie Herzog, who's a lesbian and as went to great pains in that Atlantic article, which was vindicated, aged like a fine wine, to be compassionate and just absolutely relentless in the data, the accuracy of the data. So it's crazy how these lists just prey on people's desire to understand what's happening in the world around them.

And people end up getting suppressed, censored. Corporations end up donating based on SPLC lists and all of that. It just really, really, really sucks. Okay. And do you have anything else you think people should know about what happened to you today? Anything that, you know, it's just such a, it's a fraught time for people in public. And, you know, nobody has to be crime. for public figures, but at the same time, it doesn't make anything better when people get targeted.

No, it doesn't make anything better. And the final thing I'll say about it is, you know, I get very passionate about political issues. I am always open and willing to engage in dialogue and debate. I've had so many debates on this very topic. And no matter what, even if I disagree with the person I'm debating on this issue or any issue, I would never de-hehe you. humanize them, and I would never in a million years advocate for them to be physically harmed over our disagreement. Michael Rappaport celebrating today what happened, thinks I deserved it. Now, there were a bunch of accounts that engaged in similar commentary, but Michael Rappaport is a public figure, and what he is advocating for is an American and disgusting. And I just want to

blast him for that. So sad to see what happened to one of the greatest supporting characters and friends. One of the best recurring characters are friends. Okay. Speaking of queer icons, though, Karin Jean-Pierre is on a book tour. Her new book is called Independent, Anna. Independent, just incredible. She had the audacity to stop by Bullwork Live with Tim Miller today.

She was also on CBS. We have some clips from that as well. But let's start with this interaction between Karin-Jean Pierre and Tim Miller. Tim, I don't know if she anticipated this or not, pressed her on Biden's relationship with the media. Let's roll S-2. We did have legislative wins. Sure, but he didn't talk about him that well, though. He couldn't talk about it.

He wasn't campaigning that. No, no. Wait, first of all, first of all, he did talk about them. Whether it broke through or not, he did, Tim, he did talk about. He talked way less to the press than Donald Trump does. Wayless. And he wasn't out there at all. He wasn't good off the cuff. He wasn't doing press conferences. Let's just be real. Like he didn't do the paint events. That's not true. Tim, you're conflating all of it. That's what you're doing. No, you're first you're telling me he didn't talk well about it. Then you're telling me he didn't talk at all. He didn't do either. He didn't talk very often. And when he did, it wasn't very good. He sounded very old. Maybe you weren't paying attention to what we were doing at the White House. I paid attention. I'm with you on the policies. I'm talking about his performance. The president, the president spoke. to the American people a couple times a week. He traveled and did domestic travel and talked directly

to the American people. All right, a little cope there. Let's watch the CBS clip to get more from Corrine Jean-Pierre, who again is selling a book called Independent about how she left the Democratic Party. And here are the hosts of CBS, including Gayle King, by the way, who is like, I would call her a stenographer, but I don't think she writes. She is the spokesperson for the American elite without admitting it parting on David Geffen's yacht with the Obamas will continuing to cover the Democratic Party. Let's roll this clip. You said you're a member of the inner

circle and you never saw the decline. And after that I wrote, how? You even might, Corrine, that you were on the plane with him going to the debate and you didn't see anything. Well, when we were hard to Air Force One going to the debate, you got to remember his campaign people were on

the team, his family was on the team. I actually was one of those rare trips that I didn't really see him until after the debate, even though I was on the plane. So really, I take, I want everybody to know that I take this question incredibly seriously. I do. I was his White House press secretary, which means I had a role that saw him practically every day and traveled with him for more than 95%. We've always said, we're not going to say, oh, he didn't age.

He aged. And he poked fun at it. We always owned up. And with age comes what happens when you get older. Which is? What I, what I, but when we talk about the mental acuity, and again, I take this very, very seriously. I never saw anyone who wasn't there. I saw someone who was always engaged.

I saw someone who understood policy, pushed us on the policy, and also understood history. Yeah, because he's been history. And what is your reaction? Are you buying this? Of course not. Of course not. I mean, clearly the majority of the American people were not in close quarters with former president Biden to the extent that Karin Jean-Pierre was. And we all saw what was going on.

I'm going to be honest. I mean, I remember doing stories about Biden's mental fitness or lack thereof in 2020 when he was running in 2020. And we were just, I mean, people want to destroy us over that. How could you? You have to support the Democrat. And it's like, I mean, okay, but like, do we really want the country to be led by someone who is, first of all, at that point might not even make it, right? I was worried about that. Absolutely.

But even if he does make it, at this stage of his life, everything starts to happen pretty quickly, right? And so, anyway, but whatever, he got elected. And guess what? by the end of his term, it was a complete, and utter disaster. And so my biggest issue right now with the Democratic Party is that they are unwilling and have been unwilling for so many years to take constructive criticism

and I don't know, maybe change some things. I think that they've gotten very used to friendly media interviews. And it's almost like their political muscle has totally attrition. feed because they're not used to difficult questions. They're not used to being challenged. You know, they've kind of had legacy media going along with their narrative because legacy media hates Trump so much. You can hate Trump. That's fine. I don't care if you like Trump or not. But you have to be willing to have your political views, your policy proposals. And yes, your mental acuity challenged through these interviews.

And, you know, look at Kamala Harris. When she became the candidate, it was very careful. Like, she was very careful in regard to who she would sit down and have conversations with. Those interviews were still disastrous, but, I mean, you know?

So that's where I'm at because it's like, when you look at the talent in the Democratic Party right now, people are going to get mad at me for saying this, but I genuinely feel there isn't much. Like, there's,

I don't know who the next leader of this party is going to be. everyone is kind of singing the praises of Gavin Newsom. I live in California. He's the governor here. He's a disaster of epic proportions. Most Americans don't know that yet, but if he's going to be the leader of the opposition

and if he's the Democratic candidate in 2028, I think this country's in a lot of trouble. I mean, I was going to ask you actually why it is that Dems in particular seems so resistant to, as you describe it, constructive criticism. But I actually think this is an interesting theory. Like, is it because I've always thought that in some cases having media support, having the support of people like Gail King, for the most part, who has the audacity to ask Corrine Jean-Pierre, whether she knew Biden had any acuity problems. Well, she was covering Biden.

She was running in these circles where people were openly talking about this. But that, I think, in some cases, genuinely works against Democrats because they end up running Biden and then having to pull him back after the debate instead of allowing for an open primary. the media didn't give any coverage to the fact that the Biden administration or the DNC was trying to block a primary. It seems sometimes like actually genuinely having the media in your corner is in disadvantage and maybe increasingly a disadvantage for Democrats. That is 100% true. You experience the most growth when you're being challenged and when your ideas are being put to the test. And so I don't think legacy media did the Democratic Party many favors. And by the way, on top of that,

the reason why I believe Americans have completely lost trust in these longstanding media institutions is because everyone sees how one-sided and biased their coverage had been. I realized that, you know, for the longest time, I would rely on legacy media to do my research. And then I realize I'm not getting the full story

and I'm literally propagating misinformation, unwittingly. And once I realized that, I felt a tremendous amount of guilt. And I'm like, I need to diversify my media sources, number one. So right wing media, left wing media, go out of my way to find independent sources that are trustworthy, that have proven that they do the legwork necessary. You know, people like Ryan Grimm, who's over at breaking points with you, he does his original reporting. And I trust him, right? But even with his reporting, I try to cross-reference it because if you're relying on just a handful of sources, especially if it's legacy media, you're fooling yourself if you think there are no biases there. There are biases and you have to,

you know, account for that. I have a Republican flag in my inbox literally right now. Just got a message complaining about Ryan's reporting. It's how you know that Ryan is doing great reporting. It's great. Like literally 10 seconds before you said that I got a text message about it. I have a clip of Shalamein the God that's going to go perfectly with this conversation. So everyone and stick around and is going to be right back with us. First, over the years, I have been clear about this. Speaking of people just being open and honest about the positions, I'm not just pro-birth, I'm pro-life. And being pro-life means standing with mothers not only before their baby is born, but then long after. And that's exactly why I partner with pre-born and partner proudly with

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mothers today. Go to preborn.com slash Emily or call 855-601-229. That's preborn.com. I can't believe I'm about to say this sentence as Anna Kasparian joins us, executive producer and host of the Young Turks once again. But Charlamine the God spoke to Nicole Wallace on her MSNBC podcast today. Not a sentence that if you had told me in 2007 I would ever be saying I would believe it. Let's roll the clip. He said it himself, man, we want on one word groceries. And you know, you can't you can't tout things like Bidenomics when people,

people aren't feeling that in their pockets. You know, you can't just ignore people's criticisms of the border and chalk it up the MAGA messaging. I'll never forget when MSNBC did that to me. And MSNBC did that to me based off me listening to people, me listening to people in New York City, listening to people in Chicago, activists in Chicago, and them telling me what their issues with the border were.

And their issues weren't based on any type of prejudice for who was coming across the border. It was literally economic. It was, hey, these people are coming across the border and getting more resources than we are. And I remember me repeating exactly what I just said based off the conversations I was having with people actually in the street in these areas. And MSNBC said I was running, I was repeating MAGA messaging. I was like, damn, that means that y'all really are not paying attention to your constituents. And meanwhile, layoffs coming.

This is F2 we can put on the screen. major job cuts have been expected variety reports even before the skydance media paramount global deal closed which we've covered here of course and Anna mentioned earlier in the show the David Ellison slash Larry Ellison takeover of paramount but that round of cuts is expected to eliminate around 2,000 jobs in the US with additional layoffs internationally and of course some of the takeover of CBS is directly relevant even if Anna and I disagree with some of the direction they're likely going to go in editorially to flagging trust in institutional media legacy media, Gallup has it at a record low as of just this month. So, Anna, Charlemagne is exactly right,

saying that to Nicole Wallace's face. He's called, Dick, he's doing MAGA messaging because he conveyed what people were telling him about the border. And by the way, he's talking about low-income people, what they're telling him about the border. It's so true. I thought that was like a fantastic conversation he had, actually. Yeah, I really respect Charlemagne because he, he's willing to say things that I'm pretty sure he knows is going to lead to the kind of backlash that he gets. It resonates with me because I'd like to put myself in that same category.

You know, leading up to the 2024 presidential election, you know, there was this viral story about Aurora, Colorado, and how this apartment building or apartment complex had been taken over by Trenda-Iragua gang members. Now, I did a lot of digging into that story because there was quite a bit of evidence proving that this apartment complex had in fact been taken over by these gang members. But everyone was in denial about it on the left.

In fact, they're like, no, no, no, no. The real problem here is the landlord, which by the way, both things were true. The landlord neglected the apartment complex. That is true. And then Trenda, Araagua, on top of that, had taken it over and were extorting people for rent money. And what I love is that I was attacked like crazy, even though I provided the evidence. I showed my work. I'm like, I'm not interested in regurgitating any talking points. I'm just trying to give you guys the information. And for the left, if you want the Democratic candidate to win, that candidate needs to address this issue and provide policy solutions.

Otherwise, it creates a vacuum. And Trump's going to come right in and be like, I'm going to put a stop to it. I'm going to do X, Y, and Z, which is exactly what he campaigned on. And people are so desperate that they're, of course, going to go for the guy who actually has a policy solution to this issue, right? Or a proposal to address the issue. Now, I hate the fact that months after the election, the New York Times published a piece. Confirming that Trenda Aragua had taken over the apartment complex. And so for all the lefties out there who were so mad at people like me who were, you know, shedding light on that story,

was it better to just ignore the, like, asylum seekers, powerless migrants, and American citizens, low-income American citizens who were living in that apartment complex and were being terrorized by gang members? Was it the good lefty thing to do to just neglect them and pretend like they don't exist? It's insane. And tell people that they're conspiracy theorists and giving into quote MAGA messaging, as Charlemagne just mentioned, for taking the story seriously, it's classism, too. like just pure classism that when Charlemagne says he's talking to people, quote, in the street in these areas who are experiencing the problems, they don't, Nicole Wallace isn't talking to those people? So of course, she's going to very eagerly dismiss them as MAGA messengers. And I wanted to get your reaction to Bernie Sanders who went on The View and got a good reception, I think, because people underestimate the degree to which Bernie Sanders is a great communicator. And he goes into these spaces.

seems to charm people who are skeptical and critical of him and worked for him today, actually, on the view. But he said something. He had a line that I think is indicative of one of the things we've been talking about. Everyone listened to this quote. He says he's going to talk about whether or not the Democrats or independents who caucus with Democrats throw their opponents in jail. On Friday, we saw that Trump let George Santos out of jail. At the same time, though, that he's going after folks like James Comey and Letitia James. So how are you feeling about this, what I think most Americans see as an unequal display of judicial accountability and the weaponizing of government?

And he just happened to pardon, well, was it over a thousand people who try to overthrow the United States government, you know? January 6. All right. And meanwhile, in an unprecedented way, and this is scary stuff. He is going after the Attorney General of the state of New York because she did a job, going after a sitting United States senator, going after the head, former head of the FBI. That is not what America is about.

We disagree with each other. That's fine. But we don't throw our opponents in jail. You know what, Anna? I love that sentiment. And I wish Bernie Sanders had expressed it during the intense lawfare campaign of the last couple of years. Because if you want to be consistent and say Comey was right and I had to prosecute Clinton.

And Bernie said in 2016, people are tired of hearing about your damn emails. and he went, you took the foot off the gas puddle, a bit on that story, then he should have been really against what was happening in the last couple of years. I don't know. What did you make of that club? Well, I mean, look, when you have Letitia James running for the role that she's in right now, essentially saying vote for me, I was like, I'm not, it's not a direct quote. I'm paraphrasing, but essentially she implied, I'll stop at nothing to put Donald Trump in prison.

Right. Well, by the way, I mean, like the New York case of financial fraud, obviously the way that that was prosecuted was unprecedented. And what infuriates me is, like, you can't talk about how you're going to retaliate against your political opponents by putting them in jail and then be shocked when your political opponent is now suddenly president again and wants to put all of his political opponents in jail. Right. But at the same time, I don't, I don't want to discount the two cases that I actually think were. legitimate. The first one, of course, being the fake elector scheme. Okay, it's not about January 6th. January 6th was a small part of what I think Trump did that was very wrong, very much against our democracy. And that was hatching up this fake elector scheme to subvert the will of the American people. That was wrong. And I do think that there should be consequences for that. You know, when it comes to the classified document story and case, he had so many opportunities to just return the files, just return the documents.

And he wouldn't do it. He lied about how he had returned all the documents. The government knew that wasn't true. And even though they gave him so many chances to do the right thing, he just refused to do it. And I don't know why. I don't know what he was intending to do with those documents. But I think those two cases were the only like real legitimate cases. The hush money payment stuff, like, do I want to see a politician in prison for that, no, probably not. Right. Well, yeah, and I mean, that's the thing. It's like, I'm a lock

them all up type of person. Like, that's my mentality. And I sort of wish that Bernie still had that mentality, because if we're going to, if we're going to do it, we should, we should do it. I mean, a lot of them are criminals and corrupt. So, no surprise. I mean, but here's the thing. If we're going to live in that culture and that environment, which, you know, eventually could actually yield good results for the country, then I don't want to hear any complaining from one side. as the other side is doing it, and then vice versa, depending on who's in power. You get what I'm saying? Like, it's annoying.

And I also want to make sure that there is a there there. With James Comey, I don't like the guy, but I don't think there's any real evidence that he's done anything wrong. It does look like John Bolton was in possession of classified documents. That one's rough. Yeah. And then who is the other person? Oh, Latisha James.

It looks like there's some evidence that she did commit mortgage fraud. We don't know for sure yet. She'd have to stand trial and then we'll find out. But there is some evidence to suggest that what she's being accused of is true. Yeah, these ham sandwich prosecutions are a really, I mean, slippery slope is cliche, but it does get into a, it goes to a scary place. So lastly, before you leave, Anna, I wanted to ask you about this data we've seen circulate. First, it was Eric Kaufman, actually unheard, where I write,

talking about how some survey data showed trans identification among younger people was declined. And then Gene Twenge looked at some data that confirmed that among 18 to 22-year-olds, trans and non-binary identification had went down starting around 2021, 2022, around that, but really taking a nosedive recently. Ed Markey, this is going to be F3, was wearing a trans flag at his no-king speech, which is noteworthy because he's up against Seth Moulton, who famously sort of got in trouble for saying that Dems were wrong on the trans sports issue.

Nothing else. He literally just said the trans sports issue or trends kids issues, I think after the 2024 election as Dems were doing some soul searching for a couple of minutes.

And here we are. His opponent is wearing the, wrapping himself literally in the trans flag. I don't know. It still feels like this isn't going anywhere for Dems.

I, like they, please get off it. Please. Like, the country is suffering right now. Like in so many ways, like economically, foreign policy-wise, I just think latching onto a culture war issue like this

because you don't want to upset your corporate donors is not going to help you win. People are, they're onto the game now, I think, in ways that maybe previously voters didn't realize, but like these wedge issues, these culture war issues that are meant to create the illusion of a real substantive difference between the two political establishments,

like we're not falling for it. So address the real issues here, the issues where poll after poll, Americans keep communicating to our federal government, we're worried about the economy, we're worried about the debt, like the national, that we're worried about crime,

we're worried about immigrant. These are real substantive issues that I think Democrats drop the ball on because they thought, whatever, we'll just feed everyone the culture war slop and they'll be happy with it. No, it's not enough, not even close. Anna, thank you so much for joining the show. Appreciate it so much. Folks should obviously check out young Turks. If they haven't yet, they have. But go watch more young Turks. So Anna, thanks for being here and stay safe.

You're awesome, Emily. Thank you for having me. Appreciate it. All right. I'm excited to be joined now by Mary Morgan, who is the host of Pop Culture Crisis. I guess we're in a crisis. I think it's probably fair to say. Mary, thanks so much for being here. It's a pleasure to have you on. Hi, Emily. Thank you for having me. This show is still relatively new, right? So this does feel a little bit exclusive. Yes. And I heard that drinking is allowed. So it's only Monday night. We're breaking all the rules. I have a drink. I put wine in this copper mug, which is horrible of me. But I had no other choice. No, no, no. It's like it's always sunny when they get really into putting wine and Diet Coke cans, which came out. That came out when I was like, college and it was actually kind of became a little bit of a trick that we learned. If you put the red wine in the Diet Coke cans, you could take them to class.

That's a life hack right there. That's a cringe millennial behavior if I've ever heard it. But back to the pop culture crisis to borrow the name of your podcast. So I actually wanted to talk about Kim Kardashian because there's actually a new Kanye West documentary out. Kim Kardashian is front and center again. She was on Call Her Daddy. She was on a Red carpet this week and on the red carpet this week, she was in a full mask. Incredible. Just like I saw a meme that was like she should have ended up with Kanye. Like these two would have been, there's the picture of it if you're watching this. It's nude, matches her nude outfit, full,

mask. She brought her makeup team. Page 6 reports that she had a full face of makeup beneath the obstructing mask, but that her makeup stylist have been flown across the country specifically for the event to join her hairstylist, Chris Appleton. Not sure that worked out super well for the makeup artist and the hairstylist because she just put a beige mask over their masterpiece, Mary. But what can we read into Kim Kardashian still really dabbling in the Kanye aesthetic after their marriage has ended? And pretty, as she talked about, come on Call Her Daddy last week in a pretty nasty way. Yeah, she was revealing a lot of ugly information about the breakdown of their relationship

on Call Her Daddy, things that I don't think should be shared publicly by anyone, most especially somebody with such a huge audience. Obviously, that's something, that is a foreign concept to this entire family, is the concept of keeping anything to themselves, the concept of discretion. And then she tries to paint herself as a victim for it. For instance, her parenting mistakes, which are not really mistakes. They're just, I mean, the most blatant, honestly neglect cases, her allowing her daughter North to go out basically dressed like a prostitute at the age of 12.

And she addresses that on the interview as well and says, I mean, don't all of us parents know that? Like, we just, we make mistakes. And, and these things happen. But when we make mistakes, everyone's watching. And we, just the parents of teens and tweens out there, like, we just need so much grace and patience for these mistakes that we're making. It's not a mistake to let your 12-year-old leave the house dressed like that. Now, to Kim Kardashian's fashion choices, I wasn't the only person who, saw this and immediately thought she's hiding something, probably the results of a cosmetic

procedure of some kind or an invasive skin care treatment. Who knows what it might be? I don't believe that she has a full face of makeup underneath that mask. They could have planted that story. I mean, that wouldn't be crazy that the Kardashians planted that story. And this also is not the first time that she has gone out with her face covered like that. I think at the Gala in 2021. She showed up in like Taliban sheik, basically a skin-tight micabre. This has been her vibe for a while now. And to what people were saying about her and Kanye, I agree.

It's actually, I don't see it as this like thing to laugh at that their family fell apart. We're obviously never going to know the whole story, but some glimpses of it were offered in that documentary. that came out recently. And, you know, she's a person with feelings like anybody else. And there are moments where they're in the middle of these, like, yelling matches together. I don't think she wanted her family to fall apart and especially not in such a public way. And it's sad because I love when I see a couple where they both match each other's freak.

Like, they were the definition of that type of. of couple. And I think that's honestly why people liked Kanye and Julia Fox together as well. There are plenty of other examples, but they were definitely the most iconic example of that. Yeah. Your point about her call her daddy interview is well taken too, because there's this when people struggle with mental illness, as Kanye West obviously does. He's talked about it himself. the pressures is too cliche of a term, but just the climate of that level of celebrity is not conducive to healing and it's not conducive to having like a normal family life, which the Kardashians didn't have when the reality show started in this kind of Brady bunch fashion back in, I think it was 2007-ish. But they were trying. They were sort of trying to have this kind of normal but kooky lifestyle. And by achieving their dreams of wealth and success, they seem to have emiserated themselves.

I don't know. I mean, when I look at Chris Jenner's – yeah, I'm sure you've seen the headlines about Chris Jenner aging backwards. She just seems to have gotten more work done and people are marveling at it. When I look at that, she's 16-9 years old. I don't know, Mary. That just doesn't sit right with me. It doesn't look like the picture of happiness.

They're all trying to meld into one person, it seems like. I mean, I wouldn't say if you put a picture of Chris Jenner and Kim Kardashian side by side that I would mistake one for the other, but it's getting dangerously close. And Chris Jenner is 70 years old. Maybe she's just like weeks away from turning 70 years old. And there is just no sane, healthy reason to celebrate that. She's obviously not defying aging in a natural way with normal health measures. She's going under the knife time and time again. And all of the women in this family seem to be part of a hive mind.

They all want to be the same hot 22-year-old forever. Or maybe it doesn't really matter what age you look like, as long as you just pick one age and just stay there and don't move. Right. So you've got like 12-year-old pretending to be the hot 22-year-old. You've got the 70-year-old woman pretending to be the hot 22-year-old. You've also got the old man who also is pretending to be the hot 22-year-old. That's right. And like all of you have completely lost any sense of identity. It's really quite uncanny and disturbing. Meanwhile, America has a hot 22-year-old. I actually don't know. Oh, Sabrina Carpenter is actually 26. Roughly 22-year-olds. Yeah, close enough.

But let's, so Sabrina Carpenter hosted Saturday Night Live. It was over the last weekend. And this is fairly uneventful other than the fact that she dropped two F-bombs, which actually previously was a big event in S&L history. Jenny Slate, people remember that, of course. But it's sort of going, like, people are just shrugging it off. Like, it's so normal that it's not really a headline anymore. She had a clever moment in her monologue.

I want to get your reaction to this, Mary. Let's go ahead and roll S8. Since I'm here, I want to clear up some misconceptions people have about me. Everyone thinks of me as this like horn dog pop star, but there's really so much more to me. I'm not just horny. I'm also turned on. And I'm sexually charged.

And I love to read. My favorite book is the encyclopedia. It's so big and it's hard. And, wait, seriously, okay, sorry. There is a real person underneath all the sparkles. Right, not the worst writing that's ever come out of Saturday Night Live, I suppose, and self-deprecating from Sabrina Carpenter. But, Mary, Sabrina Carpenter was this huge flashpoint.

People remember over the, what was it, the summer now? I can't keep track of time. You know, Chris Jenner is still 45, and it all stopped. Time stopped then. But she was, became this like lightning rod over the American Eagle, jeans, J-E-A-N-S ad versus G-E-N-E-S ad. And people were comparing her to the viral sorority girl videos. Like, American women can be hot again, and we don't have to worry about political correctness and all of that. But then some on the right were saying, Sabrina Carpenter, like, she's kind of not the model that you would want your daughter to be.

So what are we to make of the Sabrina Carpenter phenomenon in October as the American Eagle's dust, American Eagle Dust has settled a bit, Mary? Well, I have noticed a lot of people drawing comparisons between Sabrina Carpenter and Sidney Sweeney for that exact reason. Oh, my God. I just, I just completely conflated them. Well, I assume that you meant people were comparing them. Yes, yes, yes. But I also conflated them in my mind. Yes, they do compare them. No, you're right.

The American Eagle was Sydney, Sweeney, and if I made it sound like I was talking otherwise, I apologize. I retract. This just did. And I'm like Walter Cronkite during JFK assassination. But yes, she gets, she's in that group of like hot 20-something women who are like sex pots in a way that sometimes the right sees as a cultural victory and sometimes the left sees as a cultural defeat.

because they were trying to push, for example, Lizzo, who is now skinny. Right. So I think that the two of them are compared so frequently because for some reason, Sidney-Sweeney, when she leans into, I guess, objectifying herself, when she leans into her sexuality and does this sort of self-aware, semi-ironic tongue-in-cheek thing where she's allowing the male gaze to stare upon her, but she's looking back. It lands. It works really well for her for some reason. She's not great at acting. She's great at marketing herself, and she's very ambitious. So I have to give her credit for that where it's due. But somehow when Sabrina Carpenter does the exact same thing, it just doesn't land with anyone, with her predominantly female fan base or even with a male fan base, although I have seen my fair share of simping for Sabrina Carpenter as well. It pales in comparison to the simping for Sidney Sweeney.

And I think that all culminated in Sabrina Carpenter's album cover for a man's best friend, which she also addressed in the SNL monologue in a lighthearted, humorous fashion. But Emily, would you permit me to just have a moment? because I need to read you a quote from Sabrina where she addresses the controversy around this album cover in a very serious way. Please. Please.

Okay, so this was back in August. I just never recovered from reading this. To me, it's so up to interpretation. My interpretation is being in on the control, being in on your lack of control, and when you want to be in control, I think as a young woman, you're just as aware of when you're in control as when you're not. I think some of those are choices.

And I think for me, this whole album was about the humanity of allowing yourself to make those mistakes, knowing when you're putting yourself in a situation that will probably end up poorly, but it's going to teach you something. So there's a lot of different meanings. Wow. I mean, that's actually very profound because she's, unknowingly, I'm not, not being sarcastic right now, she's unknowingly giving voice to what women, how women cope. And Taylor Swift sort of famously right now is walking some of this back by mocking the childless cat

ladies. I guess she's talking about dog, people who treat their dogs as children. But she once was proudly a childless cat lady. It was a Dorisin Kamala with her Childless Cat Lady photo shoot. And even she is admitting some of that was a cope, talking about how she said she didn't believe in marriage to kind of put on, to dress as a wolf, that's an eldest daughter on the latest album. But there what we have is Sabrina Carpenter, I think just kind of saying she still believes in this cope that it's empowering to make these bad decisions in the sort of sexual promiscuity, in the arena of sexual promiscuity. Well, anyone can say what they want about Taylor Swift. And I am.

I'm not a fan myself, but she is a clever woman. She has a high verbal IQ. She's very good at articulating herself, especially when she's talking about herself. I cannot say the same thing for Sabrina Carpenter. And, you know, call me anti-intellectual, call me a media illiterate Philistine. But when I read that quote from her,

I'm sorry, it's just the most word salad, meaningless, nonsense. I've ever come across. She doesn't understand any of these supposed nuances of her own artistic output. And, and, you know, Taylor Swift is kind of aping Sabrina Carpenter at the moment with this new album. I think that she feels threatened that she's about to be eclipsed by the young girl star. By the Sweeney's and the Sabrina Carpenter's who are very sexual in a way that Swift, I mean, Swift is still, she's still controversial among conservatives for the same reason we were talking about with Sidney Swinney, who I was talking about as Sabrina Carpenter, of course.

But in the same way that, you know, it's like, okay, so she's not, she's not Rihanna, but that doesn't make her like Phyllis Schlafly, right? And so, you know, just sort of stuck with where things are. But actually, I don't know. That's such an interesting point, Mary, that Swift maybe is, is, feels threatened by the, like, old pinup model coming back with these sex pot 20 somethings who are just very overt about it. Well, that's why her whole new era feels so totally manufactured because she is clearly jumping on this bandwagon of writing lyrics about sex in this lighthearted tongue-in-cheek way that Sabrina Carpenter is known for. and with both of them, there is ironically a similarity.

I don't believe either of them are sexually charged women. The problem with Taylor Swift's new album is, I'm sorry, nobody believes that you have sex. Nobody believes that Taylor Swift is horny. I just don't want to hear about Taylor Swift's fluids. Like, it was too much. It was too much. And it's like, I compared it to, like, you know, when you jokingly say, like, ew, gross when your grandparents are kissing.

But then it gets really weird and it turns into like a makeout session. You're like, I don't, I just want to like erase my neurons right now. And then similarly with Sabrina Carpenter, okay, maybe her persona, her sexualized persona is a little bit more credible. But even her, she's now the avatar for just women who begrudgingly hook up with men, who are trash, who they know are trash, who know, you know, they will treat them like trash. And they're just kind of resigning themselves, as she said, to giving up control. Because, you know, in the end, after all of the hundreds of men that you hook up with, I guess you're going to have an epiphany.

You're going to learn a lesson from it. That's what she said, right? You're supposed to learn a lesson from it. I don't know what that is. I'm hoping that she'll tell us eventually. Well, maybe she will. If the vibe continues to shift, let's move on to the CNN piece about the American West, being very in vogue, Mary, literally in vogue. And I actually think this connects directly to what we were just talking about because the post-2020-fi shift has seen an embrace of a American aesthetic that's not exactly how CNN described it. So CNN has a splashy piece out just in the last 24 hours about how the cowboy is back.

They say it's cowboys and they're everywhere, according to Emily Keegan, a photo director for both magazines and brands. It's more pervasive than I think I've ever seen a trope in recent history, perpetuated by popular media and politicians alike. The cowboy costumes, current ubiquity is evidence of the image's grip on the American imagination, while not always a reflection of the true history of real cowboys. Its cyclical commercialization is in its own right. American tradition. Here's my reaction to story, Mary, and I want to get yours. It's right and it's wrong. So it's obviously correct that this is happening and that it's complicated in some ways,

but completely like out to lunch suggesting this is some type of, I don't know, like, so for example, if you go to Aspen, it's a bunch of billionaire libs who are larping as cowboys at the Ralph Lauren's store. But it doesn't mean that they're embracing anything maha or conservative. Same thing with like Beyonce and her tour, whatever that. Like, there's just something going on right here that's going on right now. That's this pro-American. It's not necessarily like a reactionary thing that's happening. I think it's a pull toward naturalism in aesthetics more than anything. I wouldn't even call it partisan politically. And you did mention Vogue.

That was a cover with Gigi Hade and Kendall Jenner. They're posing together in these like little paisley dresses. And they're talking about being horse girls. And it's kind of crunchy coated. And Bella Hade, actually, if I'm recalling correctly, is in a relationship with this like equestrian guy. Yes. She's been at the rodeo.

of like through line going on there. And then the left in general has been appropriating these cowboy aesthetics far more than the right actually for quite a while now. Everyone knows like there are guys in every major metropolitan area that all look the same. And they all have a mullet mustache combo. You're not to trust them. They all wear, you know, brands like real tree. or Carhart.

And that's just the trend. You know, it's not representative of, you know, what those brands originally were meant for. Even Abercrombie and Fitch is having its own comeback, which used to be more oriented toward like the equestrian or like fox hunting, like preppy outdoorsman activities. These are all being appropriated by the left. I even recall this ad that was produced.

by Vote Safe America last year for the Kamala campaign. I know exactly what you're about to say. You remember it too? Real men vote for Kamala or whatever. These like just slovenly libshit guys delivering a speech about how I'm man enough to cry when I watch Goodwill hunting and I'm man enough to braid my daughter's hair and I'm not afraid of powerful women controlling their bodies and getting abortions because I'm a real man and they're tipping their cowboy hats and pretending to be good old

country boys. That was really the beginning of it, from what I could tell, they started reappropriating Americana aesthetics and now it's fully mainstream. I mean, even look at Benson Boone's album cover. His album name was like something Americana, whatever. They're all names shit like that. But he's like posing with an American flag and he's got dirt on his chest and he's got this mullet. He's like, you know, trying to channel that aesthetic as well. So, I mean, the left has been doing this for a while.

Even at the No King's protests, they're trying desperately to pretend that they're patriotic and flying American flags everywhere suddenly. You need only look at one of the protests from the, you know, the anti-ice events. in L.A. just earlier this year where they're proudly waving a Mexican flag to find out how they really feel about America. But yeah, I'm not surprised by this cowboy revival at all. I will say Glenn Powell did it excellently in Twisters. Oh, well said. Blackbuster movie, by the way. Everybody loved Twisters. The music did well from Twisters. And this is actually where I was going to sort of tie a bow on this, Mary, was asking you, is there some evidence of the fragmentation of our culture

in the way even the return of the cowboy aesthetic and the Western aesthetic is fragmented. And in and of itself, right, like it's sort of appropriated by the left. It is true that on the right, some of it is genuinely like wanting to bear hug the American flag, Trump style and seen as a cultural signifier along probably political. lines to some extent. But at the same time, the Sydney Sweeney and Sabrina Carpenter, Taylor Swift versus Kardashian discourse, the Kardashians going sort of aggressively against naturalism to borrow your word while Sidney Sweeney and Sabrina Carpenter are aggressively leaning into, let's say, natural looks. Barbarism. Right, right, right. So I guess it's sort of we can say over

overall, something is happening in the culture when it comes to the return of the Western aesthetic. But then under the surface of that, it means so many different things now that it's not the same as when, like, the 60s came back during the 90s. I think what comes to mind right now is such a black pill. But I think the reason why these ultra wealthy elites, celebrities, you know, models, the reason why they specifically are leaning into this sort of Western frontier, cowboy aesthetic and naturalism, as I put it earlier. I literally think that they are signaling embodiment, like the flesh world, as a status symbol. Because increasingly, if you're not in that upper echelon,

in their tax bracket, in their social circle, you will be alienated from really, anything that embodies your world. You work from home on your laptop. Your kids are more likely to, but this goes along socioeconomic lines, the amount of time children spend on, yeah, the internet. Alienation from your community, from your family, from the sources of your food and the textiles on your body. All of these things are going to be status symbols for the ultra wealthy elites going forward. And I can tell that's at least one reason why this is happening. I hope that wasn't like reading way too deep into it.

No, no, no. That was, I mean, that was, I think that was like a really brilliant observation that because they have the money to afford, for example, natural food and, let's say nannies that prioritize natural child rearing methods, it's very, very different for them. And that's a, I think that was a really sharp observation. Mary Morgan, host of pop culture crisis, who stayed up late to come on the show and share great insights like that. I stay up late anyways, but thank you for having me. No, very well, I have to have you back. I appreciate you being here, even if you stay up late anyway.

Thanks for joining. Yeah, of course. Awesome. All right. Well, you know I have thoughts at the end of every show, even though we're going late tonight. I'm still going to impose those thoughts on you, of course. But first, after party listeners, it's Emily here.

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slash after party and code after party for 25% off your first order. Okay. I didn't want to leave the show tonight without giving some attention to a story that Matt Taibi, who who has mercifully recovered from his concussion published just today. And it's a follow-up on a story you may remember from election season last year about how FEMA, in the wake of Hurricane Milton in Florida, was avoiding homes, or in a couple of cases, had avoided homes that were, they were, quote, advertising Trump, as it was put at the time, houses that had Trump signs up around the election season.

So I'm going to go ahead and put this article from Matt up on the screen over at Rackett. Definitely make sure to check it out. But he's following up on the politicization of hurricane aid. And let me read a bit from the story. So he writes at first last November 8th, the Saturday after election day, one of the more bizarre posts to Donald Trump's reelection emerged in the form of a federal emergency management agency decision to sideline one official accused of telling female workers to, quote, avoid homes advertising Trump

while canvassing for victims of Hurricane Milton. In Florida, the Daily Wire spoke to multiple FEMA officials who produced screenshots of entries like, quote, Trump sign, no contact per leadership. Per leadership. So then Matt writes, the most painful confirmation actually came from then FEMA administrator, D.N. Chriswell, who testified after the election that the episode was, quote, isolated,

as well as unacceptable and heartbreaking, suggesting it was limited to one eventually terminated disaster survivor's system. crew leader, adding, I do not believe that this employee's actions are indicative of any widespread cultural problems at FEMA. All right. Well, fast forward then to now, where Matt had, Matt has his hands on some documents from the Privacy Office of the Department of Homeland Security that were released, showing, quote, the broader issue of using disaster relief work to collect potential intelligence on voters and the potentially withholding of benefits from some people. with the wrong belief. So before I get into what these documents show, let's pause and talk about

what this story is about. It is about a administration actually having instances of partisan screening in hurricane relief. But at the heart of this is that people didn't see it as partisan screening so much as they saw it as self-protection, literal physical self-protection. And that's what we're about to get into right here. So this is Matt writing, perhaps unsurprisingly, the new administration, Trump administration, found more than just one isolated incident describing violations of the Privacy Act of 1974, which with a few exceptions, bars collection of information about First Amendment protected speech like political signage. Most tellingly, though, DHS investigators found in a near exact parallel to trends in pro-censorship programs that a lot of the political controversy surrounding FEMA aid grew

out of the vague way in which the agency's disaster survivor assistance field operations guide was written. So here is one of the important parts. That guide instructed FEMA workers to, quote, remove yourself from the situation if you feel threatened when dealing with, quote, hostile individuals. The only problem being is the new report notes, according to Matt, the disaster survivor assistance field operations guide does not define the term hostile. So how was hostile interpreted? Well, a Washington-based First Amendment lawyer, put it this way. The way the guide was written, FEMA employees had leeway to skip outreach to a house if its signs made them feel uncomfortable. So it's basically the same concept of a harm or distress standard we're seeing in Europe with speech issues where the emotional

response of the observer is what matters legally as opposed to a concrete rule. The DHS report doesn't describe a huge number of instances, Matt writes, but does list examples of FEMA workers from various relief efforts, taking down political information well before the incident that actually made the news. So this was not limited, according to documents to the Milton relief efforts, but some examples cited here from October 2021, homeowner had signs stated, this is Trump country. September 2021, a lot of political flags, posters, et cetera, fuck Joe Biden, MAGA 2024, Joe Biden sucks, Trump 2024. We do not recommend anyone visiting this location. November 2024. There was a political flyer, so I didn't leave a FEMA

brochure. Neither Chriswell nor Washington responded to requests for comment. There was a political flyer. So I didn't leave a FEMA brochure. I'm zooming in on the solicent that I can here. This is scary stuff. This is scary, scary stuff. The politicization of relief aid, which we saw at the time did not get much covered from the corporate media. We said earlier that this was a daily wire story that was to the extent it got much attention downplayed by the legacy. media. And yet, you can see how when the shoe was on the other foot, if you are somebody who is seen as hostile and dangerous because you're hostile to a conservative, if you have signs in your yard that conservatives don't like or have been trained to feel suggests a violent tendency,

and they're withholding relief aid from you, you can see how you would say, probably the limiting principle here is actually we use the First Amendment as our guidepost and just give people hurricane relief, give people FEMA relief if they need FEMA relief. But this and the double standards around it thrust the right into a position where people throw their hands up in the air and say, well, what the hell are we supposed to do, tie our hands behind our backs? And again, I disagree. I mean, I'm not saying that I'm on the bandwagon that says, you know, fight fire with fire in every single case. But this is exactly what creates fight fire with fire mentality on the right. And it's not going to be pleasant when it happens to people on the left.

And I take absolutely no joy in saying it feels like we're creeping ever closer to something like that. And you know what it reminds me of, actually, oddly enough, is the story of Zeramam Dani meeting on Friday. He attended prayers at the Masjid Al-Takwa mosque on Fulton Street in Brooklyn, where he posted a photo smiling with the Imam Saraj. Wahaj, his name might be familiar if you follow sort of New York world politics. But Wahaj is, I'll go and read from this Fox News report. He, quote, served as a character witness for the mastermind of the bombing, that was of the World Trade Center in 93, and has been a longtime defender of convicted terrorist raising funds for the legal defenses in their photo. Fox News reports there isn't a woman to be seen because Wahaj also

practices the interpretation of Islam that denies women access to the main hall of mosques, believing they would sexually tempt the men praying inside. Well, New York Post on Saraj Wahj. This is a New York Post report on him. This is a quote from Wahj. You know brothers and sisters, you know what the punishment is if a man is found with another woman. The prophet Muhammad said the one who does it and the one to whom it is done, kill them both. Waharj, according to the post, people shouldn't kill gays and didn't have the right to quote go get sticks and start running outside looking for homosexuals but that scaring them into changing their ways was perfectly okay in his view you go to them and invite them to Islam and make them feel uncomfortable but don't beat them up he said now

imagine if a republican candidate was seen with a let's say a christian pastor who talked this way and who did not who had sex segregated prayers imagine if a Republican met with a Christian pastor who talked like this. Imagine, as Curtis Hawk did, from Media Research Center and NewsBusters, imagine if the No King's protest had any of like the one sign that you would find, you know, at a Tea Party rally. He went back and pulled examples here from 2009. On CBS Face the Nation, host Bob Schaeffer decried the angry and nasty Capitol Hill rally, Tea Party rally, where ABC's Dan Harris scorned protesters who wave signs likening President Obama to Hitler and the devil. Some prominent Obama supporters are now saying that it paints a picture

of an opposition driven in part by refusal to accept a black president. Okay. Imagine, imagine the way the No King's protest, which I would encourage everybody to go back and watch Megan's opening segment on the Megan Kelly show earlier today where she had a compilation of moments. from the No King's protests, where people were actually going into pretty serious territory talking about violence, potential violence, killing Nazis, saying Stephen Miller was a Nazi and Nazis should be killed, those types of things. She had a ton of examples, but if just one of those had happened at a No King's rally on the same scale, but it was conservative. We all know how it would have been covered. We all know how Mom Doni would be covered.

if he were a Christian Republican. This pushes people to the brink of exasperation. This is what is making people go insane. And sometimes that provokes a rational, reasonable, just response. Sometimes it provokes completely unjustified responses. But nevertheless, the media that's been so much time lecturing everyone, everyone on democratic norms and truth and fairness and accuracy is literally pouring gasoline on the fire every single day and shirking responsibility completely. Gallup's new trust in media

poll as we covered just last week. Every October, they have trust in mass media polling record low, record low. Ten years, literally ten years since Donald Trump descended the Golden Elevator in 2015 and said he was running for president. Everyone in the press said it was impossible. He wins, loses wins again after Russia collusion and law affair and all of that. And still, media trust is dipping and not climbing. It is not because people are irrationally less likely to trust the media. It's because people are rationally less likely to trust the media because the media is behaving in ways that suggested has learned nothing from the last decade, the last decade. And it gives me absolutely no pleasure to see people in the right creep towards what I would consider illiberalism.

I'm not going to talk about it as much as what I think is the illiberalism that we see from, we've seen from institutions over a decade that's provoking this illiberalism, but I think it's still right to say stop it. Everyone has to stop it, but you're pushing people. You're pushing people wrongfully. It's not like the media is doing its job really well. The media is doing his job poorly, pretending that it's doing it, its job really well. And it's pushing people to the brink, pushing people to the brink. And we know how this stuff goes when the shoe is on the other foot. We know it. And if there was some type of serious reckoning with what had happened just over the last decade, little than lost a couple of

decades, but just to start with the last decade, that would go a long way toward healing the country, but I don't think anybody's feeling particularly optimistic about that right now. I went really long tonight. I think this is our longest show ever, but I had to keep talking to our two great guests. So thanks for sticking it out if you're still here with us. Appreciate it. If you want even more, we'll be in San Antonio. Glenn Greenwald and I will be with Megan Kelly on the Megan Kelly tour, live tour, San Antonio Friday. Megan Kelly.com is where you can go get tickets. If you want to submit questions for happy hour, which drops every Friday, Emily at devil makeairmedia.com.

is where you can email me those questions. I do my best to answer every single email. Appreciate all of you for watching, listening. We'll see you back here on Wednesday with more after party.