After Party with Emily Jashinsky - Biden's Autopen Pardons, Why CBS Wants Bari, and Ethics of Phillies "Karen," with Michael Moynihan

Episode Date: September 9, 2025

Emily Jashinsky breaks down the alleged WILD and profanity-laced fight between two top Trump economic officials.  Then Emily is joined by Michael Moynihan, Host of “The Moynihan Report”  and Co-host of “The Fifth Column.” The two discuss a series of intriguing stories including how Biden officials were concerned about how he issued pardons, and how CBS is changing its editing rules as it looks to ink a deal with Bari Weiss’ “The Free Press”. The pair also discusses the awful stabbing death of a Ukrainian woman in Charlotte and the troubling spin from the media, new polling that raises serious questions about young people’s priorities in life, and they round out the conversation with the effort to find the Phillies “Karen.”  Emily closes the show with a prominent Democrat’s insane messaging in the wake of Chicago’s violence. 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.  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

What's up, everyone? Welcome back to After Party. I'm so excited to say tonight's guest is going to be the one and only Michael Moynihan. He's, of course, host of the Moynihan Report and a co-host of Fifth Column. So we're excited to have Michael join us lots of breaking news. Actually, two breaking stories in particular, one as it relates to Donald Trump's federal takeover, potential federal takeover of Chicago. Major new update in that story that was just reported at 8 p.m. by the Washington Post, East Coast Time. that is to say, and some new updates on the Biden Autopen story, scandal, whatever you want to call it, that the, let's call it, corporate press isn't paying super close attention to, but we of course are paying close attention to. So we'll get to that. Also, you know that I couldn't resist the seductive lore of Phillies Karen, who I like to think of as a cross between Katie Kirk and Rosie O'Donnell. Indisputable mashup, when you look at Phillies Karen, you'll have to test me later in the show. I don't think you could possibly argue against what I just described. So we're going to get into Phillies Karen. If you haven't been following the saga of Phillies,

Karen, I have Zaprudered this shit. I have seen every angle, every second of film about what happened at that baseball game. So we're going to bring you an update on that as well. Also, news on the CBS slash free press merger that we are going to talk to Michael about and, man, do I I have some thoughts on the state of Dem messaging on Trump's potential federal takeover of Chicago. So in addition to some updates on that front, I'm also just going to get into all of that. And of course, the horrific knife attack in Charlotte. If you haven't been following that story, we will be diving into it with Michael as well. By the way, did you see the story about Scott Bessett?

This is a Rachel Bade report in Politico. Before we bring Michael in, I just have to briefly touch on the story, which is, according to F1, so this was a Politico headline, Bill Pulte, who is the one going after Lisa Cook at the Federal Reserve, obviously a Federal Reserve governor. The story here in Politico is, quote, I'm going to punch you in your fucking face. Scott Bessent threatens an administration rival. According to Rachel Bade, quote, at a private dinner attended by dozens of admin officials. and Trump allies last week, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent threatened to punch housing finance official Bill Palti, quote, in the fucking face. The scene, the evening was supposed to be one of celebration, Trump world's most influential gathering for the much-awaited inaugural dinner at Washington, D.C.'s newest exclusive club for MAGA's Uber-rich, the executive branch. Probably remember

some reporting about the executive branch, that new club from a couple of months ago. Well, apparently, listen, I live here in D.C. I didn't know that this thing had launched. Probably a a good sign for me, for my soul, and my independence as a journalist that I didn't know this had launched. But, of course, people are already fighting there. Quote, a long table for 30, Bade continues, was set with top of the line crystal and dishware. The guestless was an eye-popping who's who of Trump's cabinet and inner circle. Sean Duffy, Brooke Rawlins, Howard Lattnick, Tulsa Gabbard, Kelly Leffler, Mehmet Oz, Doug Bergam, David Sacks, all-in podcast host, Chimoth Palahaphtia, celebrating his birthday.

I definitely just botched Chamas' last name, by the way. I was just calling Chamoth. But amid the din of attendees mingling during the cocktail hour, Bessent lashed out at Pulte and an expletive-laden diatribe. The Treasury Secretary has heard from several people, had heard from several people that Pulte had been bad-mouthing him to Trump. A person close to him said he wasn't about to engage in chit-chat, as if nothing was amiss.

Why the, this is F-3? Why the fuck are you talking to the president about me? Fuck you, Bessent told Pulte. I'm going to punch you in your fucking face. Pulte appeared stunned, and the tense encounter prompted the club co-owner and financier Omid Malik to intervene, according to the three people. But Bessent wasn't having it. He sought to get him kicked out. The eyewitness said, it's either me or him, Besson said to Malik, you tell me who's getting the fuck out of here. Or he added, we could go outside.

To do what? asked Pulte, to talk. No, Bessent replied. I'm going to fucking beat your ass. I can't believe I'm reading this. I mean, I don't know if anyone has ever watched Trump's old appearances. on the Wendy Williams show. But I actually think what should be happening here, that Wendy Williams is making a comeback, is these cabinet, these televised cabinet meetings that we see,

should actually be installments of a new Wendy Williams show. And Trump should be moderating between Bessent. Maybe we could bring Elon into the mix. I think we might even have Elon's reaction to all of this because you remember the stories from months back that Elon, this is F6, Elon and Bessent had nearly gotten physical over all of this.

Musk just posted, hmm, hmm, about the story. It kind of looks like Bessent, first gay treasury secretary is defying all of the stereotypes. I don't even know what to say about this. Historic first. I'm not sure if I believe this reporting, to be quite honest with you. It seems like maybe a thinly veiled advertisement for the executive club if you're a billionaire and you want to have some fun in Washington, D.C. Maybe this is a strategy to pull you in with a Rachel Bade scoop at Politico about Scott Besson, apparently bringing UFC to the cabinet early. Obviously, Trump is set to have a UFC fight literally at the White House, I think is next year.

So maybe they're trying to entice people to join this, like, extremely expensive executive club by promising early and actually very exclusive access to a different kind of fight. I don't know. I don't know what to think about this, but we might be just a cane's width away to another Brooks Sumner situation, but this time in Donald Trump's cabinet. We have Michael Moynihan, everyone. We have Michael Moynihan. Let's bring Michael Moynihan him in if we have Michael Moynihan. Okay, so I'm hearing in my ear. We do not yet have Moynihan.

He's having internet issues, which is totally understandable in this day and age. Also, one thing I did want to mention at the top of the show, please send your questions, by the way, to Emily at devilmaicaremedia.com. So we've been doing this show for what we're just over two months. now. And we have something fun, special, a new installment to add to your rotation. I'm a podcast obsessive and like an audio, just an audio junkie. So I want to give some of our podcast listeners a little bit of an opportunity to interact with us more. So Emily at devilmaicaremedia.com. I'm not going to spoil exactly what we're doing, but needless to say, make sure that you're

subscribed because if you send your questions in, I'm hopefully going to be answering them. in a new format soon, in addition to what you're seeing here live on Mondays and Wednesdays and hopefully catching up with on the podcast afterwards. So Michael's internet problems have apparently been fixed and have given me the perfect interlude to make sure I remember to advertise Emily at devilmaicaremedia.com. Michael Moynihan, what the fuck's up? Come on in. How's it going?

Don't say that the problems are fixed because it's going to collapse. This is Zoron Mamdani's New York already. Like nothing worse. It's collectivized. Everything's been turned into a yoga studio. Like, it's not, I think it's, that's the problem. It's anticipation. But this is post net neutrality.

I mean, we defeated net neutrality. And yet here you are, Moynihan. You know, Emily, can I ask you a question? Because I had this conversation the other day. Do you remember net neutrality? Well, I survived it. It was a seminal moment in my life. That we were, it was going to be the Sovietization of everything

and the internet was going to be controlled by just like Elon Musk and a couple of his tech bros. And then everyone just kind of forgot about it, didn't that? And then the internet became controlled by Elon Musk. Yeah, that's actually true. That's actually, in fairness, it is actually true that it is controlled by Elon Musk.

But yeah, that was great because I remember when I was doing the vice show for HBO, I interviewed Ajit Pai. And he, the guy who used to drink out of that, very big mug. And if you don't know what I'm talking about, Google it. It's very, very long. You're talking about 50 cent. Yeah, no. Yeah, yeah. That's he would, but Ajit Pye was like the most reasonable guy. And I went and interviewed him. And he was like on that, the, getting the brunt of this stuff of like he's, you know, Adolf Hitler. And he was like the most reasonable guy. And he's like,

you know what? Nothing is going to change. And nothing changed. And no one remembers Azjad Pye. but I'm remembering him here tonight because he was a good, he was a good guy. Yeah, he was a, he was right, he was right. He was right. He has been vindicated. Speaking of people who have been vindicated, Michael, who of course, just reintroduce him, host of the Moynihan Report, also the co-host of the fifth column, both of which you should, of course, pay attention to, subscribe to, and all of that. Alex Thompson's reporting on Joe Biden is continuing to blossom into a thousand beautiful flowers. So let's go ahead and get to the latest edition of the Autopin story.

So Thompson is out with another story in Axios today this time. And Michael, I'm curious what you make of this because it's easy to see the Autopin story as like a red meat, silly, like conspiracy theory that just, you know, crazy MAGA people are clinging to in the middle of Epstein, whatnot to sort of like, they have that the Biden-era nostalgia. But actually, it's very interesting because the latest edition of Alex Thompson's reporting on this, and we can put the element up on the screen whenever we get a chance,

is basically that Joe Biden's auto pen, the authorization for his auto pen pardon of several Biden family members, according to this new scoop from Alex Thompson, came from Jeff Zinzance in an email. So not even from Biden, and actually not even technically from Jeff Zines, but from an aide to Jeff Zines. And so this Thompson story was full of sort of marshal's,

but that to me stuck out. And I've seen basically nothing about it in the media today other than Alex's story. Yeah, I mean, there's so many crazy things about this is that you're right. It was like three people down. And then there was somebody at the Justice Department were like, wait, are we sure that he's okay with this?

That was my favorite, like, big kicker at the end. is that someone was like, this just seems really weird. So it's like double check with the guy who passed away three years ago. Yeah, no, there's like a million terrible things about this story. And I get it that people think it's, you know, kind of MAGA red herring stuff. And there's been a bit of that. Well, I admit there's been a bit of that that people have just kind of been banging on about this story. But it's still a good story.

It's still stuff that keeps coming out. And I want to praise my old friend. I said that I worked on the show. I worked on that show with Alex Thompson, by the way. who was like a very young reporter and he is a great reporter and he doesn't care the fact that everyone ended up hating him and he got so much crap for all this stuff. But the story is interesting for a number of reasons. One of the ones is that it reminded me that Joe Biden pardoned his son and everyone in his family.

Oh, I thought you were going to say it was alive. It reminded me that Joe Biden is a sentient living being. No, he is not that. We are pretty sure that he's not that. But there was another detail in there that I had forgotten about too. is just kind of the recklessness of the pardons because, I mean, recalling that he very proudly said with the help of the auto pen

that he pardoned more people in American history as a president, one of whom was a guy who killed an eight-year-old boy and his mother because they threatened to expose his drug ring in Bridgeport, Connecticut. It's like that kind of stuff, imagine, I hate to be the person that says, imagine if Donald Trump did this, but, you know, I mean, he, the sum of his part,

and I'm not a big fan of either, so I can play both sides of that. But it's pretty astonishing that you have a guy who's doing the auto pen, not by the way, because it's too much. I mean, I remember Terry McCallif, who was doing the same thing when he was governed in Virginia,

said, you know, it's just too many people. I've got to get through it really fast that auto pen takes care of that. That was not what was happening here. It was like the people, the Justice Department, two of whom quoted in that story, by the way, have left because of Donald Trump. and one of them was sidelined and ended up resigning.

So these are people that are not like, you know, conservatives that are in there making trouble for the Biden administration, but contemporaneous to it, they were saying, like, is this okay? I mean, we're not so sure that this is okay. And did he approve of this stuff? So looking back on it, it's astonishing that this stuff is kind of trickling out still. And you have to wonder the motivation of people within Biden universe who are giving us this information now. Yes.

They're still doing it. the crazy thing. It's like, oh, this is trying to, MAGA, trying to distract from Donald Trump. Perhaps, maybe that is true. But this also people within Biden world who are, who are, you know, dribbling these stories out a year plus later. Yeah, it's a good point. And I mean, it's one of those things where the media kind of glossed over it. It was sort of like half and half. I'm curious what you make of this, actually, because it was like half of the media coverage at the time was like, wow, this is unprecedented. And then the other half of it was just like, okay, we're moving on. Or it was just, it wasn't treated as like a gravely serious offense, though it was sort of noted that it was unprecedented.

That's kind of my impression of how the media treated the story. And yet, in a way, just this is a Trumpian weave. It reminds me almost of Russiagate because it's something that happens. It is an infraction committed by kind of establishment Democrats. It happens. Media is like, okay, let's move on. frames it as kind of a minor infraction, a non-issue. And then Trump escalates based on the precedent that was shattered or set by Biden.

And then it's sort of like yelling at the ref for flagging the other guy. It's not that Trump isn't doing something wrong. It's just that the other guy never got a flag. So he's punching him back really hard. I don't know. Tell me if I'm wrong on that. No, you're not wrong. It's sort of the same thing with like the cascading abuse of executive power

that started growing under George W. Bush and then Obama like doubled it and everyone's like tripled it and quadrupled it since. Yeah, you kind of have to expect that that's going to happen if you normalize it. But the thing that it kind of keeps these stories going and keeps people like me angry about this stuff is the fact that no one does care when Joe Biden was willy-nilly, you know, granting pard peltier, who was like the college hero. Like, um, like people on the left when I was in college are like, I have free Leonard Peltier. I took two minutes and looked into it and I was like, oh, that dude's guilty.

He's like, really guilty. Like, holy shit. He's like Angela Davis. Yeah, oh, it's like Mumia Abu Jamal. I make a joke on the fifth column and people give me a hard time because I made a joke about it. Now they're like, where is the book that I was going to produce a book called guilty, which is every person you've ever been told. No, no, you can't do that.

Coulter already took that. Guilty liberal victims and their assault on America. Yes, but this is different than Anne's book because mine is the idea that everybody who you've ever been told was railroaded was absolutely guilty from Hurricane Carter, who was in the Bob Dylan song in the movie with, what's his name, who played Hurricane Carter? What was that? What's the name? Denzel Washington. Like, they're all guilty. Like, if you look at this, it's all guilty. But Leonard Peltier was one of these guys, and that gave him a lot of slow claps from people on, like, the progressive left. You know, I'm, the idea that you get from this stuff is there's a bunch of

people who went to jail because they sold a bag of weed. And that stuff just doesn't really exist anymore. And so who are these thousands of people? Look, I guarantee you that some of them, I would say absolutely should be pardoned. And I am outraged by some of the stuff that Trump did because I used to criticize all the time to maybe no friends amongst people

who were not of my same political persuasion. But I criticize constantly the Enrique Torrio. Oh, yeah. 22 years. He wasn't even in D.C. Proud boy later. A lot of, yeah, the black white supremacist. Yeah, the black, white supremacist. Yeah, but yeah, there was a lot of stuff that I criticized.

But, you know, the blanket partons on the other side of Trump and the January 6th. I mean, one guy was just resentenced to life in prison for trying to kill FBI agents. So there's a lot of bad guys in there, too, and you can't do it in both ways. But the outrage, which I was a part of, and I was like, you can't do that blanket part of. I didn't hear that previously. And you've got to just like it's kind of frustrating. It's like if you guys have some sort of principle here,

you should hold up that principle. And I try to be as kind of principled on this stuff as I can, but it's not to make myself sound like I'm a hero, but it's a kind of a lonely battle when it comes to the Biden people about those pardons, which beyond the auto pen, I think, is not great stuff, not great stuff. Because it's the family too.

It's like his brother, his sister, like pre-eastern. Ademptive partoms are bad, full stop. Right. No, I mean, that's another good point. And you know what? This is a, and we're continuing to weave here, but I was listening to a podcast recently where Trump's crypto business or the Trump family crypto business was basically described as something that's like it's a small African country. Like it's reflective of a small African country's politics.

With a bigger GDP than a small African country. Yeah, exactly. Where it's like you can put, you can inject some money into this coin and maybe you you get invited to a dinner, meaning you get access to Trump, whatever. But you're looking like, okay, great. You know, there's been some media coverage of that. But at the same time, you're also looking back. You're like, well, Biden just gave his family members permission slips to peddle influence

for decades with no legal consequences in ways that I think we're very obviously flirting with the legal line. In Hunter's case, blatantly crossing the legal. Like, he can't be charged for Farah violations? That's, like, completely insane after Paul Manafort. or etc. Yeah, I mean, you know, if you look at so many of the people that were involved in the Burisma stuff, you know, Tony Babelinski and these, I mean, everyone involved in that has become a Trump supporter, which I think is quite funny. Yeah, maybe they got pardons for it, but who knows.

Maybe there's a pardon in that for a certain couple of people, both of whom I like, by the way, and who have met and I find very charming. But yeah, yeah, the stuff about that is like there There were mainstream journalists. And I would recommend that people go watch a interview that my friend, Nome Dorman did. Nome Dorman is the owner of the comedy seller. Oh, I know what you're about to recommend. Yes. You remember the Philip Bump interview.

Oh, do I. When he walked out because this is a guy in the Washington Post, mainstream journalism, who refused to acknowledge that not only was something untoward about this, but he had had, Joe Biden had dinner with some of them. these people. It was very, very clear when that's part of your portfolio as vice president, which Ukraine was, that, you know, my son who has a crack cocaine problem in no background to the energy sector is now working for a Ukrainian energy company. It is incumbent upon you, not as the vice president, but as a father to say, this seems like a very bad idea.

And you couldn't get people, you know, Philip acknowledges this, that, and the other, But I just won't characterize this argument. You can go watch it because it's a really fun interview because he thinks he's walking into an interview with some guy who owns a comedy club and he's Noem Dorman who is like the most well-read person on the planet and prepared for everything. But just notice how people treated that story

and how dismissive they were because it was just impossible to them psychologically to get around this idea that somebody who had made money his whole life a decent amount of money but had never left government. And somehow all of this made sense to people. Oh, this is the best.

Yeah. You have ever bumped taking up his headphones? I love this. I love this so much. Because there's also, he says you have no evidence. And it's, oh, this is circumstantial. And there's a great moment where Nome says, that's evidence about circumstantial.

And every time I see him, if he says something, I say, well, that's evidence. Because it's just the most amazing. display of somebody losing very badly as, you know, big Washington Post journalist to the guy who owns the comedy club. It's great. It's a great interview. I mean, it's, it is beautiful. And it's such a good illustration of the weakness of the left media bubble. And that's not to say there isn't a right media bubble, but it's just to say people on the left have this moral superiority as being sort of hyper-informed and the responsible people in the room, the responsible adults in the

conversation, and then they will get absolutely licked by someone like Noam, who has his facts, complete command of the facts, has actually done the reading. But they haven't done the full reading. They've done the reading in their bubble, and they've never ventured out of it because they've convinced themselves everyone outside of it is a hack and a bigot. Yeah, I mean, look, you're right, but there's an important distinction, I think, you're right, that there's a conservative or right-leaning, right-wing, whatever want to call it, media bubble for sure. I mean, no one can avoid bubbles.

I mean, we're just part of these because we're tribal. But I think that the way we handle them and talk about them is different. I mean, there's an expectation that when you talk in the mainstream about Fox News, I mean, much less, you know, newsmax or O-A-N or whatever else it might be, or podcast, that that's just this horrible bubble in an echo chamber of fake news, that exist to excite elderly people and get them angry and then buy supplements or something. We have this kind of thing that we understand on the right.

That's the media bubble. But there's a certain idea on the left that, well, what we say, it might be a bubble, but we're saying is true. So it doesn't matter. There's the truth and then there's the media bubble. It's like, no, guys, even on the rare occasion that I find things in certain mainstream newspapers

that happen to be true, then the interpretation of that from the adjunct podcast, The Daily or whatever, seem to go through a filter that I find often wrong, shall we say, I'm going to be nice about it. But no, I mean, the media bubble stuff is interesting in that interview with Philip Obama. I thought, you know, it doesn't matter who wins that on points.

To your point, Emily, it exposes something that's interesting and real, is that there's people here that are going up against somebody who's not in their industry, and they don't have a great command of the facts and they're writing about it all the time. And they're being challenged on this stuff and they're kind of sputtering and take, there's no way when you're winning a debate

and you're doing it easily, handily, educating people on your perspective, but you take the headphones off and walk out of it. It's never happened. So it's something telling about that. No, and I'm sure you get this a lot too, but it's like, people, you know, you get random stuff in your mentions all the time.

Like, well, why are you picking on the Washington Post? why aren't you get mad at like Gateway Pundit? And I'm like, because Philip Bump is getting awards and is treated as a responsible journalism. What the hell are you talking about? Jim Hoft is getting sued. It's slightly different. But yeah, yeah, yeah.

But I think it's also the obviousness of, you know, websites that are, you know, not serious and not, I don't think it's supposed to be serious in a lot of ways. But, I mean, they're pundits. I mean, pundit is in the title. It's not like you're delivering news. And, you know, those people are loonies, and I have no time for them. But it is, like, as you say, they're not feted by everybody.

They're not brought on the PBS News Hour to, I mean, they're sequestered in their own universe, which is fine. I don't mind that. That's fine. They serve a purpose. I don't like it. I don't love what they do. I think it is something that is designed to make people angry and they don't really care about the facts, which I think you can make people angry.

angry by delivering only the facts, which is maybe a novel idea these days. But it's also just, it's not in any way comparable to how people treat the New York Times and the Washington Post. Because if it comes from there, there's a certain gravity to it, right? I don't assign at that, but most everybody else does. Right. This is the, you know, all the news that's fit to print, not some bozo with a blog. Right. Right. Well, we're going to pick up on this media conversation after a super quick, quick break, Michael Monaghan, we'll be back with us. But of course, first we want to talk about a warehouse.

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Head to a warehouse shop.com and use code party. Such a great code for 15% off your first order. that's a warehouse shop.com code party. Check them out. We are back now with Michael Moynihan, who is, of course, host of the Moynihan Report and co-host of the fifth column. Also, the original author of the Moynihan Report. Yeah, yeah, I went, yes. In 1965, I was a very precocious child. Nobody gets that reference. And a virulent racist. Thank you. It's an virulent racist, too, according to Tanaughey-Codes. But, Emily, I appreciate you. getting the reference, which is like one out of every 300 people. So I appreciate it. I mean,

if people haven't read the original Moynihan report, I'm just saying. It's pretty fascinating, actually. And, you know, it turned out to be right about a lot of stuff too. Listen, he's no Steve Saylor, Mike. No, no. He was a Democratic senator and the, what, ambassador to the UN and India, not exactly some, you know, cross burner. But, you know, we're going to get into this crime discourse in just a moment, but before we do, just picking up, on the media conversation. Quick, let's do a quick detour into CBS world

because I actually, I don't know about you. I thought this story about, this is F-14, this is in New York Times on CBS changing their editing rules. So they're, according to the Times, abruptly changing these editing rules after they got attacked

by the Trump administration. So the Sunday show faced the nation, according to the Times, will no longer edit recorded interviews with newsmakers. The administration accused the network of deceptively editing in appearance of the Homeland Security Secretary

which I think we can just say, Michael, they did. In the Christenome case, they did do that. It was, you know, there was this, I actually think it was probably worse with what, than what happened with Kamala Harris in 60 Minutes last year that ended up in a fairly ridiculous settlement. It did seem like it was an attempt to grease this merger that happened with Larry Allison's son, who is now in charge of CBS, and, you know, in the process of obtaining 200 million, reportedly 200 million buy of the free press, which I think you worked for the free press,

Michael. Yeah, it's really done that I don't work for them now. I was going to say, man, you're just stuck with it. But yeah, I mean, can we talk about my bad decisions first of leaving? And it's like, oh, I didn't see the $200 million merger happening, but good for Barry, who's a friend and super talented. I mean, really nobody saw it happening. But this is, I think it's actually a sort of fascinating story about that.

them changing the editing process because I remember when the 60 Minutes thing happened about a year ago. Everyone was demanding transcript, transcript, transcript. And to me, it was such a window into where the media is going and where the public is going, which is if you are 20, 30 years old, you have grown up in basically a running reality television show that is American politics and culture, meaning you have, you know, the front-facing camera and everything is on it. For the most part, all of these viral moments that have told you stuff about politics and culture, you know, 80% of them now look like they're the vertical video. And you and I remember the pivot to video and everyone was saying,

don't film horizontal. Or don't film vertical, only film horizontal. And now it's all vertical. It feels authentic to people. And I remember thinking, and I think I said it at the time, everything is going to now be transcripts. Like you're not going to be able to get away with these artfully edited, elegant 60-minute packages anymore unless you're releasing everything else.

And tell me if you think there's something about that and the free press acquisition. There might be, look, there might be some. Go off, King. Yeah, there might be some relationship there of, which I think is a positive thing, if they're trying to expand the voices that they have. I mean, when people are freaking out about this with the free press, I'm like, you know, I said this to a friend, and I said this on the 5th Calm the other day. If they had hired Ezra Klein, would there be a single news story about it?

Would people, they're like, no, that's the natural state of affairs. People like Ezra Klein should be in the building at CBS because he's smart and he's interesting. It's like, I actually think that is true that he should be in the building because he is a certain segment of the Democratic Party, the abundance wing of the party. And I want to hear from them. And I disagree with him on almost everything, but I think he's smart. And the same thing is true of Barry.

She is somebody who's a great editor, brilliant as a businesswoman, as we can see just from this. And I like hearing from her. And I love the fact that all these people who ganged up on her on Slack, New York Times, they're like, oh, well, congratulations on making her the head of CBS News and giving her $200 billion, you dummies. Like, did you see that one coming? But I will say this. I'm actually going to say something slightly controversial

and probably a different position that you have. I don't think there was anything wrong with the way they edited the Kamala Harris interview. And the reason I think that is because I've done that type of TV for a really, really long time. And you shoot for 60 minutes, 70 minutes, 80 minutes. I mean, if the interview is really good and you just want to keep getting stuff

because someone's really opening up, sometimes it's 90 minutes that's compressed into 10 to 5, sometimes just a sound bite. And if you just get a sound bite, right, and you talk to somebody, and I've had so many people email me. Like, I talked to you for two hours and you give me one sound bite.

It's like, yeah, dude, that's the deal. I'm not making Roshamon here. Like, we can't do Ben-Hur of interviews. Like, I need just a bit from you. And I have to be the one that chooses that. And it's going to be chosen for a variety of reasons. One of them is like continuity of story, what's the best bite?

And, you know, you're going to choose bites that people make people look good, ridiculous, whatever. And there can certainly be biased in that. But there was a presumption that just because something was edited, that it was malevolent. It's like, no, no, no, it's an hour interview. And it's 60 minutes has three stories, not 60 minutes for one story. So they are going to cut stuff. And the whole thing kicked off because they showed two different bits, right? They showed them, though. They were like, they weren't trying to like hide one of them. They were like, one was better than the other and it was more bumbling, et cetera. So could it be true?

that somebody did that and the person who edited that and the producer cut it to make her look better. Possibly. It's very, very possible. It's also possible that her incoherence was cut out because it's incoherent. And it's not good television. I used to cut things all the time when people made very, very clumsy points. But again, it's not a presidential election. So I understand that too. But I think there's a lot of reasons that things are cut and cut down. They just they have to be cut down because that's what we do. We make TV pieces like that. So when it says, you know, when we hear the Face Nation's going to do on,

I think that's a positive element. I don't think Donald Trump should have sued CBS. It was not, I mean, the whole thing is crazy to me. I don't think that's, I think that's a, a dumb effort of intimidation that sort of worked. But I don't think it's, I don't think you should, the president should be leaning on. It was actually before he was president, you know,

it was some Austin Powers thing. It was like $50 billion dollars for an internet. that he wasn't involved in, that, you know, you could look either way. I mean, it was not going to go to court and he wasn't going to win that. But I just, I, I, I just think that the process of making television is a little more complicated than people were giving a credit for in a very partisan environment, saying it had to be because of X, Y, and Z. I thought she looked dumb in both versions of that interview, both the transcript and the one that was released, but that's, maybe that's just my bias. Well, so I actually think, a quick plug for an interview that you, you did with Barry, probably a year or two ago, about the trajectory of vice. Oh, yeah, that's right. The moral arc of vice is long and it bends towards destruction. It bends towards stupidity, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But, I mean, it's actually really, really fascinating and incredible interview. And I wanted to ask you about this thing. Oh, my gosh, it's so good. And there's so many good insights into how all this happened in early Internet. And that's one of the interesting points about the transcript evolution. Yeah. And I hope that is a positive development. I hope it's an enduring development.

that sticks around, that media doesn't just air these, as you say, I mean, necessarily truncated packages without also supplementing them if they can with the full versions. It's just, it's helpful. And I think people are increasingly expecting it. But I wanted to ask you about this thing that Matt Taibi wrote on Rackett today. He said, reflecting on everything, he said, quote, I came from independent media and won't ever leave. Well, I believe she, referring to Barry, always hoped to return to prestige media, preferably as it's conqueror. And this column is super from Taibi over at Rackett is actually like very, I think it's very fair. And like it's fine.

But that's an interesting insight. And I wanted to ask your perspective on, I don't necessarily know that anybody would disagree with the question of Taibi not ever wanting to leave independent media and Barry wanted to go as its conqueror. And I think people would see those as two competing visions of where new media goes in the future. Do you think that's accurate? And what do you think the respective virtues are of going? going down one path or the other. Yeah, I mean, I don't know if that's true of Barry. I can't sort of read her mind.

But I think that, I mean, she has certainly done that. And I think that, you know, provided this deal goes through, as we suspect it will. But I also think that's an incredibly admirable goal. I mean, conservatives for so long. And I think Barry is not a conservative. She's somewhere sympathetic to conservatives. And then she's liberal on some things. I mean, she's just genuinely an interesting thinker,

even if you disagree with her on foreign policy or whatever it might be, is like, that's great, fine. But I think that in conservatives in the past, used to bitch about liberal media. And why not go and destroy it and then try to take it over? I think that's a great idea. I think that's a fantastic thing, even if you don't agree with her politics,

just because it's more interesting. It's more interesting to have more voices in the building, which is something that these people never understood. I saw this when I was advised. I mean, pitching certain ideas, you would be kind of sideline for even thinking those things. And by the way, actually just remembered something when you were talking about my interview with Barry about that. A friend of mine, Jay Caspian Kang, who I think is a great journalist, did a piece on Jordan Peterson that the Jordan Peterson's fans. This was back when he was doing stadium tours and he had like very big, like, mega,

grateful dead like fans, attacked him and said, this is a totally dishonest piece. And they ended up releasing, like, almost, I think the whole video or something close to it. So it's like, it happens sometimes and people say like, yeah, they just release it. And they did.

And I don't think it put any of the controversy to bed. But to Matt's point, Matt should never be inside the temple. And the reason being is he's so good outside of it. And again, this is, you know, I always have to throat clear and say this. I don't care what you think about Matt Taibi's politics, his views on things. Matt is an original thinker.

He's a very, very, very smart guy. He's a productive, great writer, funny writer. Like, I like that he exists. And I like that no one can close the door to him. And that's what he's going to do. Barry built an institution and showed that you can actually make money and have a big audience by these people that CBS is forever ignored. I worked in publishing for a very short period of time

for the notorious cutthroat publisher Judith Regan and Judith published Rush Limbaugh's book, by the way. And she did that, I think, in 92. 91.92 is called The Way Things Ought to Be, I think was the book, goes written by John Fund. But when that happened, the people within Harper Collins who owned the imprint said conservatives don't read. don't why even bother

and she disproved that within a minute and if you look at the New York Times Bell's cell list over the past five years there's never a moment when there isn't five conservative books on it because conservatives read and this is the same thing that they've found out about Barry and like you know

there are people that subscribe to the free press whose names you would know that have nothing to do with politics but they might have to do with Hollywood they might have to do the music industry all over they've attracted a lot of people with a kind of disresbyes look at the country and different types of views,

and everyone shut them out. Like, Barry was literally at the New York Times, and they ran her out of the New York Times for the idea that they would publish a Tom Cotton piece about what, the National Guard, and look where we are now. And she might be bringing James Bennett, who was, like, the person in charge of the opinion section at that point on to CBS with her, according to reports.

Yes, and the, I think, brother of the Colorado senator, Bennett? I think it's his brother, yeah. But he was at the Atlantic. I mean, and James Bennett is nobody's idea of some loony right-winger or any type of right-winger. He's just like a guy who likes publishing broad swaths of opinion. I mean, it's crazy that this is even a controversy. Right. By the way, we consider it's we may not always read, but we do buy Christmas gifts, which is great for publishers.

That'll always help you. Yes, exactly. In 1993, put Rush Limbaugh on the cover. I got it for Christmas from my father, by the way, and it ruined me. Look where I am now. I'm on the after party. Thanks, Dad. That's what happened.

I've told you. This is a long crooked road to the after party. I took a, I got wrecked by a pothole on my bike right before we started recording. I'm drinking straight vodka as a, yeah. Can I admit something that I haven't admitted to anyone? Please. I was having a drink after recording beef of Columbia with my friend and co-host Matt Welch. and I had a drink and then I had 17 more.

And I was walking home and I was on my phone, you know, windmilling down the street on my phone. And I hit something and I went face forth. And I haven't been able to properly move since then. And I want to thank the lovely Jamaican woman who said, Are you okay? And I said, I think I'm all right. And she's like, you can't be on your phone.

And I said to her, it's actually the drinking. And she was like, fair enough. So I want to thank her. But I've been wounded. The drinking is fine. It's the phone that you need to put down. So you were drinking after the accident. I was drinking and caused an accident of myself.

Oh, so sort of the inverse. Yeah, that makes sense. Well, you know, this is my last question about media before we move on. But would Vice be crushing it as a substack? I mean, I know Shane Smith is out there trying to do it like an indie YouTube channel. but in the era of Substack, would Vice be crushing it? It depends. I think that Vice has learned its lesson, actually. I mean, I know that I think Shane Smith was accused on some, I can't remember.

It was like, you know, the intercept or something of being like some right-wing shill because he had like one person on his podcast or a couple people that were like skeptical of immigration. And it's like, no, well, I think that Shane's, ideas about the world were not, were not VICE's ideas of the world. I can't say that for fact, but I have a couple of, of, I mean, there's an old interview that I came across when I was writing my piece of him in Forbes. And when he said something about, because he's Canadian, and he said something about Canadian socialism being like lunacy. And I was like, wow, no one saw that. Like, if the people that I worked with advice had seen that, I'm sure there probably

would have been, like, called for his head or something. But I think, in Forbes. Yeah, like, yeah, there's not a lot of people there reading Forbes. Yeah, the Jacobin is even a little too high breath for them. But it was, it's funny because I think that one of the interesting things about that moment in media was it's not a bunch of people like in a moment, like in a cultural moment, say, if you see in 1933 a bunch of, you know, newspapers flirting with bigger government, it's like, well, yeah, of course, because, you know, the entire economy collapsed and we're at the beginning of the Great Depression,

and there's going to be a lot of people sniffing around that. The thing that happened at Vice and similar magazines was not a reaction to anything in the culture. It was a reaction of fear to a bunch of drones who had come out of Columbia Journalism School and had scared the shit out of everybody in the building. The teachers were afraid of the pupils, you know? And it wasn't as if that editorial direction

was a natural extension of what, you know, Shane Smith or any of the people within Vice at the upper levels of edictors. what they actually believes. No, I mean, this was like, okay, we have to keep them happy because the Me Too thing just happened. And Vice was on the receiving end of a piece from the New York Times saying it was like sexual harassment boys club advice. So they reacted. And of course, the employees there saw that and saw it as an opportunity. Right. It's like now you find out that, you know, one widget in your factory is made in Haifa or Tel Aviv. And you use that as an

excuse to like shut everything down and make a political point. I mean, that's what was done at vice and everyone. So to your long, long, you know, answer to a very simple question is that I think that maybe it would, because it would be freed of those insane politics that nobody believed. I mean, nobody believed in them. And like in the upper management, they would get on, I mean, I had people get on. But you just said something key in the upper management as opposed to this, yeah. Well, because they hired. everybody from Columbia Journalism School. And they're all just Xerox copies of each other

with the same dumb views. And, you know, I did a video one time for internal use, suddenly I should post it. I think it was like four and a half minutes. I had to speed it up. It was just screenshots of headlines about Q&ON in one year in 2020. It was the only thing they ever wrote about.

It was just like, you would have thought like Q&N was like 70 million people and occupied the American government. It was so wild. It was so fucking crazy. So that was what I was dealing with there. But yeah, if we got rid of those dummies, yeah, sure, you could probably do very well. Incredible. Incredible.

You know, I lied and said that was the last question I had about media because actually this awful story from the Charlotte Light Rail is, you know, not just a crime story. Obviously, there are all kinds of crime trends that we could get into. But, you know, if people haven't heard the story by now, they haven't seen V4, or this is the video we're obviously not going to show much more than what you can see in this video. But this is from the Charlotte Area Transit System. I believe the date on this was August 22nd. And this is the moments before a Ukrainian who had come to the United States to get out of, obviously, war-torn Ukraine. Her name is Irina Zarutka.

She was stabbed to death by the gentleman. If you're listening to this, he's in a red hoodie. If you're watching this, you already see him sitting right behind her on the light rail. And Michael, this Axios headline, F-17, there was an incredible dearth of media coverage of the story. Even the right-wing media kind of took a while to catch on to it. But when they did, you know, there was ample coverage. Then the media started covering it as a meta-story. Here's Axios' headline.

Stabbing Video Fuels Maga's crime message. To my knowledge, they did not cover this vicious, brutal stabbing of a Ukrainian woman, who, by the way, you would think, you know, many people in the corporate press would have a vested interest in her journey in the United States. But they didn't, to my knowledge, cover this. Most of the corporate media, I did a check as of last night. And most of the media had not covered it outside of local news and NBC affiliates in the Charlotte area, et cetera. That headline seems insane to me. The lack of interest in the story seems insane to me. Conservatives pounce, right? Yes, exactly. It's a version of that. I mean, this, this, this, this, this,

upsets me in a million ways. I paused the video probably a couple of frames before you paused it here because I can't watch something like that. It just, it would, it upsets me too much to see it. I mean, there's a number of stories in here that naturally would be outgrowth of that video and this crime, which would be a conversation about institutionalization and the failure of deinstitutionalization. Well, yeah, we should say, the suspect is named to Carlos Brown. He's 34 years old and he had a huge rap sheet. So convictions for armed robbery, felony larceny, breaking and entering. I think he had like 14 prior arrests. Yeah. And there was no interaction between him and the victim. And according to people who knew him and the police that he had very, very serious mental health issues and should never have been on the street.

I mean, particularly when you look at the rap sheet. But there's a real interesting point here that no one is pointing out. or these, you know, Axios and Politico or whoever's writing about this, says fuels, something about Maga's crime narrative. No, it doesn't, actually. This is not about crime. This is not about the number of people being murdered in North Carolina.

This is about how the media treats certain stories, right? I used to point out things on the podcast all the time when I would come across stories, and by the way, it was weird because it's kind of right-leaning publication. You stopped on the daily mail all the time. And they would say, you know, a white person did this to a black person. A black person was stabbed by a white. And you would realize when you read it that there was no racial element.

So what is the purpose of pointing out the race of the perpetrator and the victim when it's like they just were arguing over a parking space? So you can't actually have a crime in which the victim was black and the perpetrator was white because it was always put there to kind of make you think there might be something about America's sort of institution. racism that provoked this. Even if there's no fact that says that, you just put it out there, right? The same thing was true, you know, with the Michael Brown thing. It was in the news today

because one of the people who, you know, created part of the hands-up don't-shoot hoax was murdered. Unsurprisingly, because it's a horribly violent neighborhood that these people are in in East St. Louis. And so, which is precisely why the situation was what it was, and Michael Brown was killed when trying to go into the car

of the officer and pull is gone. And that's what happens when you do that to a police officer. But that became a racialized story. Everything becomes a racialized story, provided it's in one direction. So that's what people are noticing. So normally, I wouldn't expect a crime like this, to get national news coverage. There's murders everywhere.

There's murders by mentally ill people everywhere. They're just as brutal, sometimes more brutal. But a couple things here. One, there's a video of it, which really brings it home of how hideous this is. And, you know, I would, you know, lop this guy's head off tomorrow and save us all the time and money of a court trial

because we see it, right? But that kind of thing is, you know, furthers the story. But it is the kind of inverse racial dynamic. Was there something racial about this? No, not that I can tell. No one said that. But if it's the opposite thing,

if there was a young black girl sitting there, in a white perpetrator, you would have seen it on every newspaper and everyone knows that. There's no, I mean, you could pretend that that's not true, but you would be made a fool.

I mean, you know that that happens all the time. Because the number of these things that you see that have a racial dynamic that turn out not to have a racial dynamic, much, much later, I mean, even if it's a, you know, any identity, how long did it take us to figure out that the Matthew Shepard murder

was not a hate crime? Right. That was not what it was. There's a very, very good book about this called The Book of Matthew, which is written by a gay Hispanic journalist who lives in Brooklyn who looked into it and said, no, but there's plays about it, there's foundations. So the narrative sets very quickly in these situations like young gay kid, brutally murdered, by the way.

That's absolutely all of that's absolutely true. But the motivation, was it a drug deal? Was there some, the same thing is true, Michael Brown? We can go down the line in these things where we look later to see if. the actual narrative is true. And in this case, we see something, which has the same amount of evidence. I mean, there's, you know, in what you see is that not only is there no narrative that settles, it's good when there's no narrative that settles, because it's always bad when it does before that, but there's no coverage of it. So people notice this and say, oh, it's MAGA,

talking about MAGA's ideas about crime. No, it's MAGA or a lot of people who aren't MAGA. I'm not MAGA, and I'm really outraged by this. That same. that you get to cover certain stories, and they'll always be a racial dynamic provided it's in one direction and not the other. I don't think it should happen in either direction, to be honest. I'm not suggesting this should get a ton of coverage. All this stuff should be treated equally.

I think this would probably be a story that people would notice for two reasons. One is the video, as I said, and the other one is that this is a Ukrainian refugee. And actually, the third one is that she's amazingly beautiful. And that doesn't happen. When people are attracted, that's just the fact. That's going to happen. It's going to affect the coverage. And let's not pretend there's something we can do about that. So why did it not get covered? Well, I think we probably can guess.

This is, I mean, so I have this, I'm dating myself and making myself sound very naive and innocent, Michael. But I have this visceral memory from 2012 when I was in college. You mentioned Rush Limbaugh. I had not yet been born if that book came out in 1992. But I have this. This is visceral memory of 2012 in the spring of 2012 after the Trayvon Martin, Obama. If I'd a son, he would have looked like Trayvon. After that had bubbled into media, to me, that is, I mean, a lot of people look back at 9-11, and these are obviously on vastly different scales. These situations are vastly different scales, but people talk about 9-11 as the sort bifurcating point of past and present. For me, it was Trayvon Martin.

I was born in 1983. So for me, it was Trayvon Martin. That is the moment I remember feeling sick to my stomach. Like the country that I grew up in was slipping away, that something was being poisoned. And it's that story in particular that I remember. And that was also a time in the conservative media or in the conservative movement where if we put F9 up on the screen,

I don't know if you came across these NBC News Decision Desoling, but the numbers that came out, Seif Karnacki highlighted this. Yeah, yeah. Basically, the combination, as Kornacki says, the combination of gender and politics produced two very different sets of priorities. Men who voted for Trump said, for example, what's important to their personal definition of success. If it was having children, they said 34%. If it was women, having children was all the way down at 6%.

Who said it was important to their personal definition of success. Even, like, I know this isn't explicitly political, but even the fact that you have young. men trending conservative in stark contrast with young women trending liberal. Everyone back in 2012 thought it wasn't just going to be young women. It was going to be young men who also said that having children was important to them, their definition of success at the number of 6%. It didn't turn out that way. But you notice that Steve, who's a friend and I think one of the most honest people out there, just an incredible journalist. And I have no idea what he believes about anything. I just know he's very good at numbers, which is what you don't get a lot of these days.

Harry Enton's the same way. But you look at also, because that's broken down with women who voted for Harris. In women who voted for Trump, it's also surprising that the numbers for marriage and children were pretty low there, too. It was number one for men who voted for Donald Trump of having children. And I think marriage was a couple clicks down. But yeah, that surprises me. But I think one of the things... It's a 12-point difference between men and women who voted for Trump.

That's totally wild. I wouldn't think that because my biggest failure is as a father. So, I mean, I don't know if that's, is that. My daughter is great, but I, you know, me, I don't know. You may not remember this, but I have met your daughter and she is great. When did you mean my daughter? Where was that? Ben Dominic and I hosted a serious XM limited series. Oh my God, that's right. And you brought your daughter in. She was fantastic. That is so funny. At the serious studio in New York City, that is great. Well, can I tell you something? I know you've been dying since that time to figure out her progress.

Her first day of high school was today. So today, her first day of high school. Wow. Yeah, and we were texting, and she's just like her dad, because she was texting me from the subway. She's going to school in Manhattan, and I was in Brooklyn. And she was like, the MTA is the absolute fucking worst. And I was like, because she was sitting on the train.

And I was like, what are you mean? And I'm like, oh, that's right. You're my daughter. Oh, yeah, it makes total sense. And we were talking about history. She had a, read a small thing our first day of why learning history is important. And it was a great conversation. So I'm very happy about that.

But the Trayvon thing, by the way. One of the reasons that I realized that everything was falling apart around the Trayvon stuff was the introduction of the phrase white Hispanic, which I had never seen. I forgot about that. George Zimmerman. It was like NBC who said that. Yeah. And like everyone said it.

It was like no one had ever said that before. But they're like, oh, shit. He's like Peruvian. or Chilean, half, and he looks not like just a generic, like, Norwegian guy. So he's a white Hispanic. And I was like, oh, this is some serious corruption. And this is some serious people trying to set a narrative. But the thing about all of this stuff is how men view something like marriage to get back to that and, you know, family, et cetera.

And the fact that, you know, there's been so much of people, young people trending towards more conservative positions. I mean, we've had a million conversations about this. I'm a bunch of numbers on this. Why people are surprised at this is utterly baffling to me because if you have a culture that it beats people up for having kind of, you know, I wouldn't say heterodox views or sort of disparate views on certain things. And if you get out of line, they will destroy you, right?

I mean, you see this with so much of trans stuff of like people just having a, you know, a slightly different, like, well, I don't know. a woman, you can't just declare yourself a woman. And just to say that, I knew so many people that would never open their mouths, never open it, not political people at all, at all. And this, at the other end of that, people are exhausted by it. I mean, people are feel more open to saying what they really believe now because the culture

has shifted. And when the culture has shifted, it allows more people to come out of the closet with really basic ideas. And this is the important thing to say, these are not people coming out of the closet and they're Nick Fuentes. These are people that are coming out out of a closet who have 60%, they're on an issue that 60% of Americans agree with them on.

80-20 issues that people were afraid to not be in the 20%. That's wild. That's what a culture has really gotten corrupted when you say like trans people in women's sports. That's an 80-20 issue. Five years ago, I know

nobody that would say that publicly and then look at, you know, I mean, in New York. I'm not saying, you know, the normal world. Amongst the idiots that I live. Malcolm Gladwell, you saw that example. You saw what Malcolm Gladwell said. Astonishing. But everyone was surprised by that, but we weren't really because he's like, yeah, I just didn't want to say that because it was bad for my career and I would have been booed

at this place. It's like, yeah, that's why people are trending to the right. And I think that's also why, and this is maybe a controversial. position. I think that's also why conservatism is no longer about free market economics. I think that's totally right. Flesh it out. Go on. Go on. I mean, it's a thing that people come to the right. It's a vibe. It's a vibe. It's exactly

right. And it's also like a cultural thing like this is crazy that I should be afraid to say this, that I have to believe this, that you know, there's this kind of conspiracy of silence on on college campuses. It doesn't mean you think that rich people should have lower taxes. I mean, that's great.

People used to come to conservatism for different reasons, of course, but a friend of mine who very much agrees with me on, or used to agree with me in a lot of things, and that works in the Trump administration. And we were at dinner.

It is a pretty... Scott Besson. It's... Why did you pick him? Let me just ask you that question. He's been saying he's going to fucking punch people in the face. Seems like a guy

you'd get along with. No, I know. I know. Well, like, he's the angry gay guy. He's like, you know, you don't think I'm tough. I'll knock you out. He's like Jack and Dawson's Creek. Yeah. A reference that I know is funny, but I don't know it actually from watching the show. Just so you know. But that, he said to me when we were at dinner, I was arguing with him about tariffs. And he is a very fun dinner parties. He said to me, like, I said to him, like, you used to believe this. And then he accused me. and this is amazing.

This is exactly what I mean about this stuff. He accused me of zombie Reaganism. Oh, yeah. And I said, yeah, probably guilty, actually. That's kind of where I land on these issues. And we started having this, I mean, it was a very amiable fight, and I love him to death. And we have great conversations.

But I realized, and when we were talking about this, is that, you know, I'm kind of the weird one these days. And the fact that the Republican Party, and some of the Republican Party, conservatism in general, doesn't have one coherent economic message anymore, which I don't think is a bad thing. I think it's good that we have these arguments. I think it's fun. But that is something of so many of these people that have joined the right because of people like Chris Rufo, who's a great recruiter for his own patch. And I don't think that's a bad thing, but it does

actually scramble people's brains, particularly as an age breakdown of older people on the right are like, wait, what? What are you talking about? You guys all sound like socialist, you know? Right, and that poll we were referencing is Gen Z. I don't know if I said that, but that was just Gen C. Yeah. In the, you saw the poll that for those of us who still out of habit, go to Drudge every day, which is a very confusing experience for me because it's such a weird kind of- It's like, yeah, what happened to Matt Drudge? Is he like just became a kind of lefty? Well, no, but like literally what happened to Matt Drudge? Well, that's, yeah, I mean. Actually, where is Matt Drudge?

Yes, there's an interesting podcast from Jamie Weinstein about this, which is pretty interesting. But that is, the headline was about young Americans trending towards socialism. Just as far as like they don't, they're like, hey, we're not super. And that was people on the right and the left. It was like a big, it was crazy to me. It was pretty interesting. Well, I was going to say, I mean, I remember I helped pitch a story to drudge on that 10 years ago. Like that stuff we kind of saw coming.

But the vibe shifting right, I'm glad that you brought it to that because the reason I sort of connected the case of arena and this polling, it's that it seems to me they're like young men who are just viscerally disgusted. And young men and women don't trust institutions probably at the same rate. But young men are going right because of it. And young women are going left because of it. And that's, let's lay in the plane here on Philly's Karen, Michael.

Because like I said it. Like this is what made me a massage of it. This is watching my video. I have actually never hated women more than saying something because I wake up hating women and I go to bed hanging women. I actually, I propose legislation in the Pennsylvania State House

that women shouldn't be allowed to go to baseball games. I don't know if this is going to pass, but we're taking a flyer on it. We're just going to, you know, to make a Philly sports reference, we are taking a flyer on it. But yeah, that was, by the way, really crazy thing about the story?

Yeah. Really crazy thing that I cannot believe. Yeah. We haven't identified her. I know. Well, so this is the big update. We don't know who she is, which is nuts. I'm actually impressed because this tells me she has locked down her identity in ways we all wish that we could. So this is, let's put this up on the screen if you haven't watched it. I said, this is V1. Earlier in the show, I said that I basically Zeprootered this video, watched it from every angle, poured over every second of it to make sure that what I'm seeing is correct.

But Michael, it's actually weirdly among very online right people been polarizing, where some you've probably seen. seen this, say the dad who recoils and ultimately gives this woman the ball, you know, home run into the outfield, dad runs over just across the row, grabs the ball, gives it to his son, Philly's Karen, who is a cross between Rosie O'Donnell and Katie Kirk runs over, yells at him for allegedly taking the ball out of her hands. We can't, we have no way of knowing whether he literally took the ball out of his hand, out of her hands, but he had given it to his son. And it was the son's birthday. She stops away victorious. It's just a like bizarre. I mean, it's not bizarre. It's predictable of this sort of am I, you said it made you misogynist,

but I feel like it does confirm some people's priors. That's how she got dubbed a Karen, right? That she's this like, what's the right way to put it? Like the, I'm going to let you do it. She's not a Karen, by the way. Oh, right. Why not? No, a Karen is like, you know, someone who, complains about your, like, music at the beach and then goes against the cops. She's just an asshole. Like, she just doesn't understand, like, she bought the Phillies jersey on Amazon or something, but she doesn't understand the rules of the ballpark is that whoever gets to that ball first, it's their ball.

Full stop. Those are the rules. Your section is not roped off. Sorry. But I would say that a couple things about this, number one, as I said, I'm totally blown away in the sort of error of facial recognition that this person has not been discussed. And also, she's very distinct looking. As you said, she's Rosie Couric.

It is, like, not, it is not, like, some generic looking person. She, like, has this weird. She looks like she's in the Indigo girl. She has, like, weird haircut. Don't you even? Well, I mean, I know that you're a huge fan. Are you? No, I literally am a huge fan.

That's incredible. I mean, I knew that. I'm wearing flannel, man. I know. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. You love Tegan and Sarah. I don't.

I don't love Tegan and Sarah. I do love the band that you don't love from that genre, shall we say. But the thing about it is like, yeah, people saying the dad reacted in a weird way. Now, a couple things about this. I don't agree. And the reason I don't agree is because you can't hit a woman, right? Like, you just can't. Like, if there was a guy who did that, and he would never have backed off.

I don't think. I don't think it would have backed off. He would have been like, dude. But the other thing is that I have had. have this experience with my lovely phenomenal ex-wife who I, you know, I'm still very close friends with and all this stuff. But she has trained me over the years to not behave in the way that I want to behave in front of my daughter. And I am trained to stop myself from becoming very Irish in smashing bottles and people's eyes. Like, get the fuck away from me, you bastard. I have that

instinct and it's like nope and I look over and it's like nope same thing with road rage so I'm sure he's probably well trained to not do that in front of the kid on his birthday it's like you know I'm going to give it up and you know like in the ballpark people are filming you people are watching people are shouting at her you're going to win that battle in the end so don't do something stupid that will make you lose that battle he got the batter bat he got the the gift from the from the um wait who are they playing They're playing the Marlins. And that was actually in a way game, right?

Yeah, it was in a way game. It was in Florida. Yeah. So, and they got the Marlins people see this and they bring out all this stuff. And, you know, they get TV time. I mean, they win that battle. You lose that battle. But I think the one thing that I can't defend him on was how hilariously he recoiled.

Yes. Like a Chris Farley sketch. He was a, you know, it was like Mr. Furley on Three's company. That's an old reference for old people. But he was like shocked and like, you know, recoiled. That one, there's no. I did like that he bawled his hands into fist. That was redeeming. Yeah, but when he does the first move, though, when he balls the hands, he looks like he's about

to start crying. He's like going to start, you know, we... But I defend him because she is a monster and, but the one thing I'll ask of you, Emily, I'll throw it back at you. The number of people that I saw online were like, hey, she's an asshole, but let's stop this instinct to like ruin people's lives in like exposing because there's so many people like find her. Like, Is that a good instinct or a bad instinct? Well, so, yeah, this is why I'm conflicted on the story because I think that's a horrific instinct. And I also think that's why I agree with you on the dad.

I think his name is Drew felt well. I think I agree with him on returning the ball to her, not returning, but giving the ball to her, because you're in a panopticon. You have no idea how this could escalate in a way that hurts your child. Your child is now on national television because a woman is yelling trying to get the ball back. You know that.

And so I don't think it's right to take, I mean, who knows what was going on in that woman's life, but it's just not natural for the millions of people around the country to take a snippet of her life and weigh in on it. They'll never know her. They're not in her community. I don't know what her. I don't mean community of like Indigo Girls lickalikes.

I mean community of people who are like in Philly's world in Orlando or wherever or Miami or wherever they are. So anyway, I'm on. That's the side that I'm on. Yeah, yeah, I think that's right. But by the way, the Panopticon thing is that there's people of a, of a disgustingly old vintage like myself, are now still getting used to the idea

that my daughter doesn't have this. She always knows this, is that if you have a moment, I have to remember that I'm being filmed always. Oh, you're in New York. Or whether it's, you know, you can get a wise 4K camera for $20 on Amazon. And like, there's never,

I live in the city, but I have a retreat that I go to. And there's never been a crime. there. In like 400 years, no one's ever committed to crime. And I have like 7,000 cameras because they're so cheap and it's fun to watch like squirrels on my phone. I'm like, oh, there's the bunny doing his bunny thing. But like you can't get away from this stuff. It's so cheap and easy, you know, which is again, my plea for everyone to become more libertarian is the Epstein story because the government can't do anything well. Why do you, when you think like, did he commit

suicide? Does he kill? I think he committed suicide. Do you know why? Because they're like, how did it happen? It's like, it's the fucking government of New York City. The cameras didn't work. The cameras were literally broken. Yeah. The guards were asleep and the cameras were broken. It's like, yeah, welcome to New York.

And the other thing that's great about it is that literally 4K cameras are like $5. And these cameras are from the 90s and it's like one big pixel. And they're like, oh, it's a conspiracy. It's like, no, it's because. But when that technology is everywhere, I don't, I have to stop myself because I'm from a different generation where I'm like, oh, whatever I do here, I've got an argument with somebody on the subway, which I used to do quite a bit. You can't do that shit anymore.

You can't do it now. No, you're going to be, and you can't lose your temper and say something. Like, look, you could be, someone could almost stab your child, punch you in the face, push you. And you could say, and that person could be overweight. And my, you know, you might be angry and be like, look you and say some things that I won't say in the show because it's mean. And that would be worse.

than you getting punched in the face. Like that would be clipped and like, oh my God, this guy called this woman a slur about her weight or something. Like everything can be filmed and not manipulated in the sense that it's AI, but manipulated. Like if someone starts filming before the fight, obviously,

everyone has that kind of it. But if they start filming afterwards, everything from there on out is on you and you're screwed. Always. No, this brings us back to Michael Brown. Yep, 100%. Michael Moynihan, host of the Moynihan Report, also of course, co-host over the fifth column. This has been an absolute pleasure.

I kept you way long, but I'm not sorry at all. Emily, I could have gone another hour, but your viewers and listeners are not massacists, so I wouldn't force that upon them. But I greatly enjoyed it, and next time I'll be drinking. I was going to say, yeah, likewise. Also, all the viewers, so they don't care. I mean, they're hopefully blind drunk. Yeah, they're all, they're all, they're all,

falling down. But, you know, internet problems meant that I was plugging and unplugging things and not getting a drink as I should have been. So it's pathetic. Well, we'll do it next time. Thanks, Michael. Thank you. Thank you. Good to see you. All right. Well, that was a blast. I don't even need to say that. You all know that I had a lot of fun with that. So let's just say over the years, I have been clear about this. I'm not just pro-birth. I am pro-life. And being pro-life means standing with mothers, not only before their baby is born, but long after. And that is exactly why but you know I partner very proudly with the great folks over at preborn. Preborn doesn't just say babies.

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one chance for a mother to see her baby, and when she does, she's twice as likely to choose life amazing. Preborn is trying to save 70,000 little babies this year. So don't just say your pro-life, live it, help save babies and support mothers today. Go to preborn.com or call 855-601-229. That's pre-born.com slash Emily. Every time I start reading a pre-born ad from the lovely love of people over at pre-born, I start flashing back to all of the times that I have cussed during the show and we've got to be up to like three, four, five. I think like two of those being F-bombs. So my apologies.

But, you know, sometimes you just get swept up in the moment. And we were having so much fun with Boy in a Hand. I mean, I could do not. I do have some quick thoughts that I want to get to on Democrats messaging when it comes to Trump's now planned federal takeover of Chicago. There's actually some breaking news on this front. Washington Post around 8 p.m. reported, we can put this up on the screen. that in Chicago, the Department of Homeland Security,

we don't have the tar sheet, but this was Washington Post, not that long before we went to air, reporting that the Department of Homeland Security was starting an operation in Chicago. What does that mean? Well, the Trump administration's justification, in all likelihood,

this is going to mirror what happened in Los Angeles. They probably feel confident that that Judge Breyer decision from California relating to the Los Angeles federal surge, when there were riots over ice raids not too long ago. When you have ICE operating in Chicago, DHS operating in Chicago, you then have the pretext for the National Guard to guard, to protect, to be mobilized in defense of these federal officers.

Same thing goes for federal buildings. That's another thing we saw in Los Angeles. Trump administration probably feels like that Breyer decision is, let's just say, thing rule. And they will have the upper hand if they test something similar in Chicago. Breyer was ruling that the National Guard deployment in that case violated Posse Comitatis. But of course, you actually can deploy the National Guard to protect federal troops. It's a different thing if they're doing sort of normal law enforcement duties.

But if you are protecting federal troops, that's actually a different legal story altogether. So I just have to say I saw this statement from Tammy Duckworth over the weekend. and Illinois Senator, Democrat Illinois Senator, this is F-19. Tammy Duckworth cut a post of her interview on Face the Nation from the weekend and posted on X. The more we're talking about Chicago, the less we're talking about the Epstein files. That's what Trump wants. Listen, Tammy Duckworth and I would have probably dramatic differences in politics. opinion when it comes to policing.

Actually, you know what? I don't even know sincerely what she believes in police reform or the extent to which she actually has sold up to the activist class on police reform. But we'd probably disagree. Either way, I think we can all agree that whether it's rising or falling, the murder rate in Chicago is insane.

By the time that interview aired, Five people had been shot fatally over the weekend in Chicago, and that interview aired Sunday morning. Five people dead. That was after a total of, I think, 10 shootings, five of which have been fatal. It might have even been higher than that. In Chicago, and this is the Illinois Democratic senator,

saying the more we're talking about Chicago, the less we're talking about Epstein. How about this? The more we're talking about Epstein, the less we're talking about Chicago. I mean, that's the most obvious rebuttal you could possibly come up with. But it is sort of insane how numb we are to violence in Chicago. It shouldn't be partisan.

Basically, every American would agree with that, let alone every person in Illinois, many of whom are deeply ashamed of what happens in Chicago, many of whom probably don't go to Chicago to shop. Some of these crimes actually happen in tourist areas in a nice, previously nice shopping areas. It's not all in the worst neighborhoods of Chicago. It trickles into different places that affect tourism and the like,

which affects your entire state, Senator Duckworth. So to just say that, I think, I mean, we could have a policy debate. I think it just lacks, or it just reflects a stunning incompetence on behalf of Democrats who have the most obvious option in front of them, which is to say both things can be important. Epstein is probably not what most people are voting on. Most people, and this is based on polling results, most people also do think that there's a cover-up happening. Crime in Chicago, maybe not what people are voting on nationally,

maybe not even the only thing that people are voting on statewide in Illinois. But it matters to them, and it should, because people are being slaughtered by the dozens every single year in one of the most prosperous cities, in one of the most prosperous countries that has ever existed on the face of the earth, the messaging here is incredibly stupid and in a way that is such an unfor,

it reflects such an unforced messaging error, unforced error, period. Why can't they say both of these things? Because, again, it is the year 2025, and they're completely blinded by their hatred of Donald Trump. Muriel Bowser here in D.C., I know we've covered this before, but there was another splashy Washington Post featured today about how she said to some of her critics that she or in response to some of her criticism, she just wants to win. So what are Muriel Bowser's options?

Muriel Bowser's options are to piss Trump off and make the situation that she already doesn't like, which is the federal law enforcement surge. She said she's grateful for it. Obviously, it wasn't her first choice. She can make that situation much worse for her own goals. or she can realize that putting a thumb in Trump's eye will make the situation much worse, whereas cooperating with him, you can maybe, maybe still get some things out of it that you think will be helpful to you.

One of the things she says she's pressuring the Trump administration to do is make, and I agree with this, by the way, ICE agents not wear masks. Many of you probably disagree with me on that. I just don't think it's sort of anti-American, and fully understanding the doxing concerns and all of that, I think law enforcement should show their faces and identify themselves when they are asked in public

in the act of law enforcement. Now, that's beside the point though. What Tammy Duckworth is saying here is so completely un-forced, as such a complete unforced error, as opposed to just being able to say, Chicago has a real crime problem, we can solve it with the federal government, but we don't need the National Guard. I mean, God forbid I ever become a messaging consultant,

for the DNC, but I think I'd be worth a lot more that they're paying people right now. A lot more than they're paying people right now. So I just had to kind of go off on that one. By the way, we were talking to Michael about this, and I teased earlier in the show, so I want to mention it. Alex Thompson broke shortly before we went to air, since we were talking to the spectrum from dead to alive that Joe Biden is on and has been on. This is F8, going a little out of order here, but Alex posted the talking points that Joe Biden

was given about Hunter Biden. and the pardon? Why did you change your mind to pardon Hunter now? This is the talking point he was given. Hunter was targeted by my political opponents to hurt me. Enough is enough. Believe in the justice system, but as I wrestle with this, also believe politics infected this process. Hope American people will understand why a father and a president would come to this decision. Why did you, or when did you decide to do this? Made the decision this weekend. Won't this hurt your legacy? Any reasonable person who looks at Hunter's case can see he was singled out. It's plain wrong. The fact that he needs these talking points to discuss the case of his own son. That's, I mean, I think we know with Joe Biden.

These weren't just like a backup. These are actually probably like, hey, we're, we're scared of him riffing about Hunter Biden, given the nature of these pardons, which involves pardoning, like, obvious crimes. It's not quite like some of Biden's under other pardons. Like the, well, I was going to say, but the Fauci crimes, that's probably not a good comparison because there are probably some some obvious ones that you could pull like perjury on him too. But with Hunter Biden, there's obvious fare charges, felony charges that could have come from all of this. It wasn't like some of the pithen pardons of like maybe James Biden, maybe Valerie Biden that were, we don't have quite as much of a case built against them.

This is his son, who has been the focus of a lot of attention. And they're giving him talking points to say the most basic things like Hunter was targeted by my political opponents to hurt me. Enough is enough. Goodness. Alex Thompson, thank you for giving us these Biden talking points. We could probably go back and watch any Biden presser and realize that he's reading off a script and sometimes reading poorly off a script, but at least in this case, we can now go reverse and match the talking points to what came out of his mouth. All right. As a reminder, Emily at double-maycaremedia.com is where you can send me an email. I teased this early. in the show where we're waiting for Moynihan to join the year 2025 and get his internet connected.

But we are going to have some fun with the questions that you send us over at Emily Edelmaicaremedia.com. Make sure to follow us on Instagram where you can submit questions as well and stay tuned to all of our podcasting channels, Spotify, Apple. Make sure you subscribe over there because we'll be doing something with those Q&As soon. Stay tuned there. We'll be back here Wednesday live at 10 p.m. Eastern and we'll see you then. Thank you.