After Party with Emily Jashinsky - CBS’ Cynical Trump Interview, and Kimmel’s Gross Widow Joke, w/ Evita Duffy-Alfonso & Michael Alfonso, PLUS America's Sickness and "Social Murder"

Episode Date: April 28, 2026

Emily Jashinsky opens the show with a look at CBS News’ Norah O’Donnell and her line of questioning to President Trump in the aftermath of the White House Correspondents' Dinner shooting and why Emily believes O’Donnell’s questions were cynical and reckless. Then Emily is joined by Independent Journalist Evita Duffy-Alfonso and her husband, Michael Alfonso, a Republican candidate for Wisconsin's 7th Congressional District seat. Emily gets Evita’s reaction to the shooting. Her parents, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and Fox News anchor Rachel Campos-Duffy, were both in attendance. Evita and Michael also respond to the twisted response by a Wisconsin brewery owner promising free beer when President Trump dies. They explain how this man is deeply connected to the Democratic party in Wisconsin. They also discuss Jimmy Kimmel’s sick joke about Melania Trump being a widow. The conversation turns to Michael’s run for Congress, the challenges facing America’s younger generations, and why the couple believes younger conservatives must get involved in politics and take on leadership roles. Emily rounds out the show with a broader look at political violence in America, including Hasan Piker’s recent comments about social murder and the death of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson, she addresses if America is at a fragile inflection point, lessons we can learn from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and she ends with a powerful message to America’s elites and lawmakers.   Toups & Co: Ready to give Toups a try? Get 25% off your first order by going to https://toupsandco.com/afterparty , and use code AFTERPARTY for 25% off your first order.   PreBorn: Help save a baby go to https://PreBorn.com/Emily or call 855-601-2229.   Cowboy Colostrum: Get 25% Off Cowboy Colostrum with code AFTERPARTY at https://www.cowboycolostrum.com/AFTERPARTY Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome back to another edition of After Party. Everyone, thank you so much for being with us. Tonight, our guests are Michael Alfonso and Evita Duffy Alfonso. We're going to get to them in just one moment. A lot to go through on tonight's show. Of course, we are still just within days of the attempted assassination of President Trump, potentially many cabinet members as well at the White House Correspondence dinner here in Washington, obviously on Saturday. So we have all kinds of different angles to cover the played out throughout the last couple of days, even today, we saw on Monday, Caroline Levitt, host out of maternity leave, a White House briefing. And we've seen the president and the first lady react over the course of the day as well. So Jimmy Kimmel in particular, now under the microscope, once again at ABC Disney, a lot to go through as the story rolls on secret service failures, just absolutely astounding, astounding. Astounding. service failures. That Nora O'Donnell interview we're going to cover in just one moment. Plus, I want to go through kind of a long deep dive into who's to blame why we seem to be more

attracted to political violence right now. And that'll be at the end of today's show in light of, particularly that New York Times conversation between Hassan Piker, Giotlentino, and a Times editor, opinion editor, just last week. That was days before the attempted assassination. So I have a lot of thoughts. And we're going to break that down as well in just one moment. So stay tuned. Like I said, so much to cover tonight. Like I said, though, I do want to start with Nora O'Donnell. First, please make sure to subscribe. If you haven't subscribed yet here on the YouTube channel or wherever you get your podcast, that is the best way to help us keep doing our independent journalism here on After Party. So if you haven't done it yet, it helps.

us a lot. It's super easy. Just go ahead, click that subscribe button. We appreciate it. Now, on with the show. I'm going to start with Nora O'Donnell, who interviewed President Donald Trump in prime time on Sunday night within 24 hours of the attempted assassination of the president at the White House Correspondence Dinner. Now, Nora O'Donnell was also in the room, but that interview, I watched it in the moment that's gone most viral is getting a lot of criticism. But I actually think for some of the wrong reasons. So Nora O'Donnell, I'm sure everybody has seen it at this point, confronts Donald Trump with words from the alleged gunman's quote unquote manifesto. And I'm not going to play the clip because I actually think part of what is so objectionable about Nora O'Donnell's decision to do that.

is in the immediate aftermath of this situation, giving airtime to the verbatim quotes of a would-be assassin. She put it right to the president on primetime television. And obviously, President Trump, again, most people have seen the clip, President Trump jumps back and says that the media's horrible people, he says that right at North Donald's face. basically she was asking Donald Trump. I mean, this is another reason to be critical of the question. what was she actually asking, right? Because the quote that she read to the president was accusing him. And again, I'm not going to do verbatim, but basically like patophilia, being a rapist, that type of thing.

So was she going to, was she bringing up that quote to ask Trump if he is those things? Is that what she was doing? Because what the, what is the point of doing that? You know he's going to say, of course not. You know he's going to say absolutely not. And why are you lending credibility to somebody who just tried to kill him within 24 hours? If that's what you were going to ask, why would you even give that comment credibility to put it in front of the president of the United States if that's what she was asking? And I think that probably is what she was asking.

She probably wanted to say, he interrupted her before she got the full question out. She probably wanted to say, what is your response? Well, what do you mean? What is your response? It's like he's sitting here right now. He once again almost got shot. You don't need to quote from a manifesto. Some news outlets won't even use the word manifesto,

which I think is not a bad choice because it lends a sort of sex appeal, a romanticism to what, if you read this guy's quote unquote manifesto, it's the scribblings of a, it's like of a totally sophomoric, like, want to be terrorist. And, you know, I, they're, we'll talk about it later in the show. There's substance to it. He's trying to make an argument. Um, so you can kind of follow the logic. It doesn't seem to be someone that was in a sort of fit of deep, uh, schizophrenia or anything like that. It wasn't, you know, apparently trying to impress Jod Jody Foster, right? That's not what it seems like. You can at least follow some logic, as despicable as the logic is. You don't need to quote from this document verbatim,

give it airtime in prime time, in what you know will be a viral clip. And maybe that's why she did it. She knew it would be a viral clip. I don't think Nora O'Donnell thinks Donald is those things. So you can allude to the words, if you absolutely must. Never, ever, ever censor documents like that, ever. The public has a right to see them. And as soon as we stop trusting the public to access those documents, we will have even more distrust already than we already do in our institutions. So I'm not at all arguing for censorship. I'm just arguing for some basic wisdom. Let me put this up on the screen. This is actually an article that Zed Jalani wrote all the way back in 2019 for Berkeley, actually. And Zed wrote, experts have suggested that shooters is about

mass shooters are seeking fame as one possible motivation by focusing so much coverage on mass shooting events. These experts warn the news media may be creating incentives for mass shooter, shooters, especially when they focus intensely on the individual profile of the shooters themselves. So is that true to authors of a study? Walker and Jeter decided to test this hypothesis by analyzing the relationship between the level of news coverage and the occurrence of mass shootings. They picked the popular primetime news program ABC World News Tonight and tracked daily coverage from January 1st, 2013 to June 23rd, 2016.

Shock and Lee, they found a positive and statistically significant relationship between the amount of coverage dedicated to mass shootings and the number of shootings that occur in the following week. At its mean, the researchers conclude, ABC news coverage is suggested to cause approximately three mass shootings in the subsequent week, equivalent to 58% of mass shootings in the U.S. They said, quote, we find a pretty clear empirical relationship between coverage and future acts. Okay, goes on, Zed goes on to write, although the relationship between TV news coverage and mass shootings has been studied before the Walker-Jetter study, that's what we're talking about here, introduced a novel innovation to isolate causality,

between TV coverage and mass shootings, they also compared it to the occurrence of natural disasters. They found that news media coverage of shootings decreased during natural disasters, which was associated with fewer shootings the following week. Really, really interesting. Zed also notes, you can see this with suicidality. Unfortunately, after Robin Williams committed suicide, there was a, unfortunately, there was a spike when 13 reasons why debuted on Netflix. You may remember that. A study did, quote, in fact, find an association between watching the show in suicidal thoughts. Another show to spike in Google searches for suicide following the show's release. And another discovered that having seen the show led at-risk youth to

think more about killing themselves. All right, let's go to another. This is a 2017 study. Mass shootings, the role of the media in promoting generalized imitation. This is in the American Journal of Public Health. Quote, the way that the media report on an event can play a role in increasing the probability of imitation. When a mass shooting event occurs, there is generally extensive media coverage. This coverage often repeatedly presents the shooter's image, manifesto, there's that word, and life story and the details of the event, and doing so can directly influence imitation. Social status is conferred when the mass shooter obtains a significant level of notoriety from news reports. Images displaying shooters aiming guns at the camera,

projecting air of danger and toughness, similarities between the shooter and others are brought to the surface through detailed accounts of the life of the shooter with which others may identify fulfilled manifestos and repeated reports of body counts, heap rewards on the violent act and display competence. I'm going to go to one more, if that's not enough, one more here. Obviously, this is some controversial research. Not everybody agrees with it, but there is a lot of it. And I find it fairly convincing as somebody in the media who watches this play out all too often. This is from a new, it's an NPR write-up of an ASU survey from 2015. This is the lead, researcher on the study says, quote, it's a form of social contagion, somewhat like a suicide

contagion. That's like when a high profile suicide leads to more people taking their own lives. Like we mentioned, the Robin Williams spike, unfortunate tragic, vulnerable individuals who are already struggling with suicidal thoughts, read or watched news reports of the actor's death and then took their own lives. Vulnerable individuals who are also angry and already considering violence may read or watch the news of a mass shooting and identify with the shooter and be inspired by them. All right, I'm sorry to overload you with academic studies right now, but this point is so important, and I think underscores why it was so cynical of Nora O'Donnell to totally unnecessarily, cynical and reckless, to unnecessarily elevate the quote-unquote manifesto and the ravings of this would-be assassin who seemed to have wanted to take out, according to those writings, which you don't have to read to just say, according to those writings, the president potentially, other members of the cabinet. So that's a mass shooting in a very crowded ballroom with two guns, reportedly two guns, a shotgun and a handgun, two knives. So we know mass violence was on the table,

and we know that from this document, the alleged gunman left behind. So it felt like a really cynical ratings ploy to toss that out in front of the president and create a viral moment that put CBS ahead of the country. And it was really gross, because you're very thoughtful about these questions, especially a question like that. I mean, it goes through layers of editorial oversight if you're doing a presidential interview in primetime

for a major broadcast network. It's not just Nora O'Donnell's choice. It's not just whipping these out of the Offer Dome at the last minute. That was something that was carefully considered. They considered whether to read those words, and they made a major error. in my estimation, and I think it's always worth considering that in the wake of these horrible,

in this case, near tragedy, but sometimes complete tragedies. It seems like the Secret Service agent who was wounded is going to make a recovery and is doing all right. So that's what I wanted to say about the Nora O'Donnell Primetime interview. Donald Trump said that, you know, O'Donnell wanted to bring those things up for political reasons. I honestly think it was more more, even more cynical. I think it was even more cynical. It wasn't because of anything they believe. It was because they needed a big viral moment for this CBS rebrand. And that's really gross. Not just for the rebrand, but in general for the network. There are a lot of struggles here, and it's an easy way to create that. All right. We're going to be back with the Alfonso family in

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slash Afterparty. They're offering my listeners 25% off your first order with code Afterparty. That's Toops, T-O-U-P-S-and-Co.com slash after-party and code after-party for 25% off your first order. All right, happy to be joined now by Avita Duffy Alfonso, our friend, independent journalist and her husband, Michael Alfonso. He's a Republican candidate for Wisconsin's seventh congressional district. Hey, great to have both of you here. Thanks for joining. Thanks for having us, Emily. Good to be here. I've actually produced a podcast with you too. So it's nice to be on this side and not have to worry about the tech bugs. We're going to try really hard to make it difficult for you, Michael. Maybe we'll create some tech bugs for you to work on.

First of all, I have to disclose at the beginning of this that I, our listeners know, cannot stand politicians. I don't endorse politicians. I'm not planning to. I don't trust either party. I don't like either party. I will say I'm biased in the case of this. race because I really, really, of course, love Avita. And I think both of you guys are in this for the right reasons. The district is very special to my family, Wisconsin 7. That's where my great grandparents lived. My grandparents lived. My great-great-grandparents, too. My mom grew up there. A lot of family there. Truly my home away from home. So on that note, let me just ask, how is the campaign going, Michael?

It's going really good. So, you know, as a first time candidate, you never know what to expect. You get into the world of fundraising, of, you know, talking to voters. It's all new. I've never done a speech until I decided to announce for office. First one, yeah. And then I was on the stage at turning point in front of thousands of people. So, you know, it's been quite a whirlwind.

You get to meet so many really amazing people. And honestly, the best part is, Avita and I have always had a very busy life. Sometimes we didn't spend all that much time together. Now on the campaign trail, we actually spend more time together. So it's been really great. Emily, can I just lay out the district just a little bit for it? Please. Yes, so this is your dad's district for my dad's old district.

So I've, first of all, I've born and raised in the district, grew up campaigning. So this feels like very normal to me, right? As I'm getting out in the campaign trail with Michael, this is what I grew up doing in the seventh congressional district. it happens to be actually a pretty old district. So I believe it's 65 is 65. 65 is the age for the average voter age in the primary. So it's an older district. And Michael and I are both 26. If Michael's elected, Michael will be the youngest member of Congress. And yet we are finding that everywhere he goes, it's overwhelmingly a positive reception that he is a young conservative. Because I think a lot of older. people are really concerned about the future of our country. Is it going to be the same that they inherited? Are the young people going to be okay? Is this nation that they love so much going to be all right? And when they see somebody like Michael campaigning and espousing the kind of values that he

has, it makes them feel okay about the future. It actually gives them hope. And that's what we've been noticing on the campaign trail. So the biggest question we get is, well, he's so young and the district's so old. And I'm like, hopefully it works really well. Oh, I really like to hear that. Okay, so it's also a beautiful district. It's a huge district. I know you guys have been driving a lot. And Avita, you said you're used to that.

You mentioned your parents. So I actually just start. I mean, I have a lot more questions about the campaign, but I do want to start with the White House Correspondence Center. Avita, your parents are there. Michael, those are your parents-in-law. You posted this, Evita F-2, about when you heard there was an attempted shooting at the correspondent dinner.

You said I was with Valentina. That's your youngest sister. My stomach dropped and we immediately said a prayer together. Violence slash assassination prep are a key part of leftism. And I'm sick of pretending like these people just have a different point of view. Evita, the other part is that, I mean, you've been, like, you've been in the political game, as you mentioned a long time. You guys are both around, you know, the security of a cabinet level member just in the last. couple of years, you've seen all of that. My boyfriend was at the dinner, too. It was when you see that notification come up on social media, it's terrifying if you've ever seen anything like that happened before. So could you just help us understand? We may have just lost the Alfonso's. We'll get them back. We'll get it back in one second. Let's continue, though. Oh, it looks like, oh, okay. Here they are. They're back. Hey, guys. Okay, good. Well, okay, so just take us back into those moments. Don't do those tech plugs you're talking about. And we did it. We did it. Did you fix it, Michael?

Let's say yes. Okay. Good, good. That's why you need a man around. Okay. Take us back to those moments, though. Thankfully, everything was okay. But when you heard there was a shooting at the White House correspondent's dinner. Yeah, so I, first of all, it took me a second. My friend texted me like, hey, I hope everything's good. And I was like, what do you mean? I hope everything's good. And then I went on Twitter and I immediately just saw shooting. Like I said, my stomach dropped. I was sitting next to Valentina.

I was about to get her ready to go to bed. And I was like, God listens to your prayers more than listens to mine. She's six. She's six. She's got down syndrome. And so we set a little Hail Mary together. And then afterwards, she said, I'm ski. I'm scared because I think she could just feel my energy like that.

And I was like, no, no, it's okay. And then I did some more scrolling and it seemed like the situation was all right. But it's interesting, Emily, because you have like that pit in your stomach when you hear news like this. And it really felt similar initially to what happened when I heard that Charlie Kirk was shot. I was on an airplane. And again, my stomach drops. And I have so much anxiety. The plane lands and I get the news.

And actually he dies. and I just burst into tears. I mean, this is somebody, Michael had produced a podcast of Charlie's. And this is the political violence that we're seeing, I think, just heightened. Recently, people shouldn't have paying attention to it. But it's kind of been a staple of my life forever, it feels like. You know, Emily, you're from Wisconsin.

You understand this. When I was, I mean, a little girl, 10 years old, nine years old, we were going through the Scott Walker recall in Wisconsin where radical progressives took over our state capital. And Scott Walker did a fundraiser with my dad. And you had these rageful, angry people come to Bayfield, Wisconsin, not even Madison, a little tiny town in the North woods. It's a hell of a drive. Yes. It's far north on Lake Superior.

And they were rageful and they were angry. when we came and several of my friends actually were protesting the event, which was itself kind of scarring. And I get up a nine-year-old, 10-year-old. I come out of the event with my parents. It's dark out and somebody had actually rear-ended the back of our minivan. And it seemed to have been, as far as we can tell, even to the stay, an intentional targeting of our family car. It was, I think, a warning, a threat against all of us because we're associated with Scott Walker because of Republicans. And the Scott Walker family had death threats on their lives. So I think that there's a tradition of left-wing violence that goes back to Stalin and Mao.

And then the Scott Walker recall and the BLM riots and the Charlie Kirk assassination. And now what happened last night, the attempts on Trump's life just on the campaign trail. And they can't be ignored and they can't be. unlinked from one another because there is a through line and there is a culture of violence on the left that is is distinct, is unique, and I think rebuke's this idea of both sidesism when we talk about violence. One more question on that. I just want to ask, I mean, again, you've been around your dad's security. I imagine there's some anger maybe among both of you or your family that someone even got so close to that ballroom where they seem to want to take out not just the president, but multiple members

of the administration. And they really, I mean, listen, Secret Service stopped the shooter, and that is a success. And thank God for it. But you've been around the security, both of you have. You know, what's your sense of how safe? I mean, there's only so much you can do. There are a lot of crazy people in this world. And, you know, they are going to do crazy things no matter what. But is your sense that our cabinet is safe, that our president is safe? Yeah, you know, I can't speak for the rest of the cabinet secretaries, but, you know, we've met every single person on Sean's detail. They're amazing people. I mean, they work holidays, nights, you name it. And, you know, they really take their job seriously. And I am very happy to know that, you know, Evita's dad is taken care of by great Americans like that.

But, you know, when it comes to anger about this stuff, you know, they did stop the shooting. You know, he didn't get into the room where everyone was. But the anger really comes from the idea that, you know, when someone steps up, speaks their mind is, you know, like President Trump, they're not using violent rhetoric. Like Charlie Kirk, they're not, silence is not violence no matter what the left will tell you. And, you know, now when someone runs for office, you have to look at your wife every time you leave. the door and say, this might be the last time. And, you know, it really is a step too far. The left has gotten to a place with the Marxist ideology that, you know, like Evita said earlier, I really do think it is part of the plan. It's not just some whack job that, you know, went off the deep end and did

something crazy. No, these people are talking about redistributing wealth. That's not something you do without force. And it's very scary to see that there some people on the left are willing to start resorting to violence. Yeah. And I actually wanted to bring this back to Wisconsin 7, actually, because this is a national news story. This is not just a state news story at this point. We could put F8 up on the screen. Other people may have already heard about this. But this is from the Manacua Brewing Company, which posted at 9.15 p.m. Central, April 25. or I assume central. Well, we almost got hashtag free beer day. Either a brother or sister in the resistance needs to work on their marksmanship or he faked another assassination to get a positive

news cycle. We'll never know. Regardless, we stand at the ready to pour free beer the day it happens. I also get free beer t-shirts here. Our celebration of life is going to be legendary. Also, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Francesca Hong, let's put this F-13 up on the screen. posted in the aftermath of this assassination attempt. I also want to point out the state enacts political violence on its citizens every day. We see it when ICE agents occupy our cities and put children in cages. We see it in the health care system that lets people die because they can't afford care. All of that in Wisconsin, both of these are national news stories. So first question, do you guys feel safe on the campaign trail? Second, what's your response to both of these stories?

So first for some context on this this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, bankstad. He is a prominent Democrat in the state of Wisconsin, um, the owner of this brewery, not a radical guy, um, in terms of, I mean, he is radical, but for, for Wisconsin politics, not radical because he is in, he's in the group. He is friends with literally everyone who is now prominent, um, on the Democratic side. So he's a friend of Francesca Hong, who is the frontrunner for governor. And she actually gave to one of his previous campaigns. Kirk also employed Rebecca Cook, who is currently running against Derek Van Orden in the third congressional district. Kirk also ran against my dad in the seventh congressional

district in 2015, ended up dropping out of the race. But the point was he was a Democratic nominee in that congressional race against my father in the seventh. This is not exactly. This is not a fringe individual. This is mainstream. This is somebody who's in the mix of the mainstream Wisconsin Democrats. Exactly. I mean, we can pull tweets of crazy people all we want. What makes this significant, Emily, this is, like you said, a mainstream individual.

And yes, it makes me feel deeply unsafe. It makes me feel worried for him and his safety for every Republican in our state, knowing that his behavior and his rhetoric is completely normalized by one side of the aisle because they're all friends with him. They all think it's normal. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Michael, what about you? Yeah, you know, it's really just disgusting. You know, Evita and I, it wasn't long ago that we were on college campuses. And I think a lot of these trends, they start in the colleges, and then they flow over into mainstream life.

So, you know, what we were dealing with back in the COVID days on college, in UW Madison and University of Chicago, seeing these kids turn to communist-style snitch lists or, you know, burning down state street in Madison because they were protesting for BLM yeah it's it's very it's only acceptable to do that after a badger's loss yeah exactly don't do it don't do it something serious but you know it really is

you know it's a scary thought to us to see that you know now people that have worked for Kirk Bankstead this Rebecca Cook who is his finance his fundraiser she's now running for Congress and she's won the Democrat nomination, pretty much. And now we have to address this. And this is why I think it's so important.

You know, a lot of the older generation can say, it's just some crazy kids on college campuses. Well, five years after you say that, those people are in prominent places. They're working for important companies, and soon they're running for office. And, you know, we can't allow these violent, crazy ideologies to permeate through our colleges,

which also might have asked, are completely state and federal funded. That's a good point. And it is true. Survey is fined. It's young liberals who are most likely to say that political violence can be justified. And I want to put this post from Katie Pavlitch up on the screen, go national here again, F-16.

This was signage outside of the White House Correspondents' Dinner. There's always little demonstrations outside of the Hilton. But this one says death to all. all of them and it's quoting Wendy Williams. Another one says death to tyrants, quoting the state of Virginia. But like an actual presidential assassination, assassin actually historically, loved that quote.

So Jimmy Kimmel two days ahead of the White House Correspondents dinner made this joke while he was in a bit about the dinner itself, S-1. Our first lady, Melania is here. Look at, so beautiful. Mrs. Trump, you have a glow like an expectant widow.

Oh, lovely. Okay, so Melania Trump does not usually thrust herself into the political fray, but she released a statement today, F5, a pretty long statement, actually, by her standards for sure. She said, Kimmel's hateful and violent rhetoric is intended to divide our country. His monologue about my family isn't comedy. His words are corrosive and deepens the political sickness within America. People like Kimmel shouldn't have the opportunity to enter our homes each evening to spread hate a coward Kimmel hides behind ABC. She says enough is enough. It is time for ABC to take a stand.

Then the president posted, this is F6, a long truth social as well, where he said, wow, Jimmy Kimmel was no way funny as attested to by his terrible television ratings made a statement on his show that is really shocking, goes on to say, eventually Jimmy Kimmel should be immediately fired by Disney and ABC. What are the two of you think when you see, again, you're running for office. Vita, you've experienced this your whole life. You see that outside the correspondence dinner. You see Jimmy Kimmel comfortably making jokes like that on primetime. What do you think ABC should do here?

Well, you know, it's always tough because in this country, we do have freedom of speech. But I don't know how ABC can stand behind it. It's a private company. It doesn't need to abide by freedom of speech. from the government. You know, Kimmel has taken it too far so many times. He was horrendous during COVID.

He was, he got removed from the air for all of his craziness. You know, it's time to go. And when some has been like Jimmy Kimmel, the only way he can get ratings is by saying something even more flagrant than the last show, you just got to get rid of him.

He has no talent whatsoever. I couldn't agree more with President Trump. And he's not even funny. Mm. Evita, we showed that sign, death to tyrants, death to them all. My impression is those were younger protesters, like millennial Gen Z level protesters. I'm sure there were some others there as well. But the crowd looked a bit younger. We showed the, or we just discussed the polls, which find pretty overwhelmingly, this is young liberals who are more comfortable, comfortable justifying political violence. This is how does. How does that even happen outside the White House correspondent? Is there death to the mall, death to tyrants without someone saying, maybe you should take like a step 100 yards back or like 20 steps? Right.

Well, I think the age is key here, Emily. I think we have a problem with young left-wing violence specifically. And the cultural Marxism that Michael was talking about at American College campuses is real. But it actually starts way earlier than that. The Federalist has been reporting on this for years. social, emotional learning is a Trojan horse in our elementary school system for cultural Marxism among American youths. And when you look at Marxist revolutions throughout human history, first of all, anything in the name of progress is justified, including egregious, horrendous,

horrific violence. This, I mean, literally look at any left-wing revolution throughout human history. You will see this more out. But something else that's key is it's not necessarily the lower-class the poor and the, you know, deprived who are rising up and destroying the elite classes and these revolutions, oftentimes it's people who are somewhat well off, people who are middle class, people who are just a step below the upper class, who are the ones who are perpetuating this kind of violence. And right now in America, we have a problem where we have thousands and thousands of individuals who are elite college educated. Their degrees are worthless because the schools are worthless. They're not teaching much. And yet they feel entitled to a lot because they have these

credentials that, again, are meaningless. And so we have a situation where there's so many people who feel, I think, entitled to wealth and to prosperity that they really haven't earned yet because they've been defrauded out of their tuition dollars and these institutions. And they also are being indoctrinated in these institutions to hate our capitalist system, to hate the traditional Christian morality that our country was founded on, to embrace something else, which is secular and Marxist. And those things become very dangerous and very violent. And we're seeing that increase all across the country. It's getting more and more, I think, obvious what we're dealing with. And, you know, I can't. Go ahead, Michael. I can't stand the double standard here. You know,

President Trump was put on trial for saying, head to the Capitol and let your voices be heard. Peacefully. We're supposed to believe that that's inciting an insurrection. And then there are people outside of the Capitol with posters that basically say kill someone. And we're supposed to say, oh, it's just hyperbole. They didn't really mean it. You know, I wish we would have some honest, true standard as to what a call to violence was. Because the right, we are, put on trial for something that you would have to be only a lawyer could see it as a call to violence. And the left, they're just allowed to do anything because, you know, they're protesting. Or, you know, back in Kenosha, Avita and I were in Kenosha in 2020 when it burned down the city.

I was very mad at you too for known. Right. Yeah. Yeah. But that was that was violent, but mostly peaceful. I, it's just ridiculous. Yeah. No, you guys did a great report on that.

There's still like a mini doc up on. YouTube that you can find that you guys shot in Kenosha. It was worth your time. I was very glad that you were there with her, Michael. I was her editor at the time, one of them and was like, oh, you got to be careful. All right, I'm going to take a quick break much more with the Alfonso's in just one moment. But first, over the years, I've 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. That's exactly why I partner and partner very proudly with preborn. Preborn makes motherhood abundantly possible.

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Once a mother gets a chance to see her baby, just one chance. When she does see the baby, she is twice as likely to choose life. And Preborn is trying to save 70,000 babies this year. It's amazing. So don't just say your pro-life, live it, help save babies, and support mothers today. Go to preborn.com slash Emily or call 855-601-229. That's preborn.com slash Emily. All right, we're back once again with a Vita Duffy Alfonso, independent journalist,

and Michael Alfonso, who is a Republican candidate for Wisconsin's 7th Congressional District. And back to that race a little bit, Michael. Let's get into some of what's going on in Wisconsin 7 and the race for Wisconsin 7. Your opponents, I know you're familiar with this line of attack, F-14, We're at a debate a couple days ago. They called you a Nepo baby. They said that you, of course, were in Washington, D.C., raising all kinds of money, alluding to reports like this one in the Washington Examiner,

we can put F-15 up on the screen that some of your backers have business in front of your father-in-law. So, Michael, I just want to give you a chance to respond to some of what we are seeing from your opponents so far on this race. Yeah, you know, it's rich. You know, when people start losing in a race, they'll throw anything at you. You know, in Wisconsin, we just lost a Supreme Court race by over 20 points statewide. And it's because the candidate who was a great person promised, you know, to not legislate from the bench, but she didn't raise any money. That's how we lost this race.

And if Republicans are going to be serious and actually win races, we need to raise money. And that's what I've been working very, very hard to do. But, you know, when it comes to, you know, certain interests trying to buy a vote or buy maybe Sean's favor, you know, truly, if you think someone can be bought off with $3,000 or $10,000, you shouldn't vote for me in the first place. Because for me, I got into this race because of what happened to Charlie Kirk. I had met him. And, you know, he never gave up on my generation. And I believe it's my generation's job to step up and do something to carry his mantle. So when I say my price is my life, I really mean it.

And we're going to do everything we can to win this race. But, you know, the arguments of nepo baby, I'm not related to Sean. You know, my family is actually. Oveena's the nepo baby. To be clear, if there's a nepo baby, it's your wife. Somebody said, somebody said it was so funny, Emily, that maybe he, he's running for Congress to help Evita's journalism career. It's been the worst thing ever for my journalism career.

Do you know how many articles I've had to trash for this campaign? Because I'm like, I'm just going to stay out of it. We don't need to be getting in the weeds on this issue or that issue. So it's been the worst thing ever, but I'm so happy to support him. The other thing, Michael, she mentioned in the forums. Michael has agreed to forums. We put out a statement a couple weeks ago. about forums. He agreed to do one that's much closer to the election so that voters are actually

dialed in and can listen and engage. Sometimes when you do forums this early on, the primaries not until August 11th, no one's paying attention. So we want people to actually be able to listen and hear from him and the other primary candidates. So. But, you know, I really do think when it comes to electing someone to office, you have to believe in their character, that they're willing to stand up and make the tough votes and also tell the donors no when it comes down to it. And you know, that's why I think it's so important to vote for candidates who, I hate to say it, are young, who have grown up in an America that doesn't sound like the one that our parents grew up in. You know, I talk about this on the campaign trail a lot. The average first time home buyer in

the United States, 40 years old. That's really scary to someone like me and Evita. I guess we'll have a home when our daughter is a freshman in high school. You know, when we talk about cutting government spending, we really mean it because we were the ones that are, they actually bankrupted our generation from this wasteful spending. We are going to go in there. And I say we, because Avita is as big of a part of this campaign and we'll be as big of a part of- He needs to start saying, I more often. Vita's like, I'm tired.

It's been a discussion like, no, I, you are running. Okay, fine. When I get into office, if the God willing, I get there and the voters decide to put me there, we're going to focus on two things, immigration and inflation, because those are the things bankrupting the next generation. And I refuse to let my daughter grow up in a country worse than what I grew up in. Well, Michael, you're in rural northern Wisconsin. What could immigration possibly be doing to the economy there?

How could you, I mean, you're not a border state. this can't possibly bother voters in northern Wisconsin. I'm glad you bring that up. So in Barron County, we have a large Somalian population. And no one has looked into the fraud possibly being there. But I do know for a fact, there are some daycare centers there. I would love that Nick Shirley could come there and check it out. If he doesn't, I might do it.

But, you know, immigration is something that is affecting all of the areas of the United States. And in Wisconsin, we have a lot of farms. And I've talked to some donors that say, you know, well, if we don't employ illegal labor, we can't afford to keep the business going. This is the only time that you'll ever hear Republicans be against the free market. You know, we're always the party of the free market. And yet when it comes to labor, they'll say, you know, we put out a job for $10 an hour. Nobody's willing to work in the United States anymore.

Well, actually, I think it's not that young people aren't willing to work because I personally worked construction for over six years. It's not that we're not willing to work. We're not willing to work for a wage that is beneath us. We want a wage where we can raise a family, have kids, and support our wives sometimes. And the other thing, I mean, Michael actually has experienced what it's like to work alongside the legal labor and the breakdown is fascinating. Yeah, so when I was in school in UW Madison, I was work in construction and I would make slightly more on paper than some of the, I know they were illegal employees. And at the end of the day, because they didn't pay taxes and they got paid in cash, they actually took more money home than I did. And it's really offensive when we say, you know, there's a lot of talk about what does it mean to be America first?

Well, I can tell you, if we're paying illegals more than citizens for working the exact same job because the illegals don't have to pay taxes, that is a big, big problem. Yeah, so the government gets its money from you and the companies get their cheaper labor. The person who gets screwed is the American worker. And you keep bringing up the generation issue, which is one of the things I wanted to ask you about. you even started earlier in the hour by talking about your age. This was a really interesting post to me from Chris Arnod, who is a fabulous writer. People should absolutely follow Chris Arnod. F-20, we can post on the screen. It's such an interesting point that he made. And it's kind of big up on this, or it's a lot of

text up on the screen. So just to kind of break it down for folks trying to pull this up, he says, I've written for the last decade about the educational divide in the U.S., but culturally there is now a large divide between generations, specifically those over 60 versus basically everyone else. The 60 plus cohort have a lot more certainty that they've discovered the truth. Younger people are much more uncertain and relativistic. I'm reading this in chunks here. They don't accept the claim that it's been solved and the boomer's rigidity and religious like certainty seems to them either laughably naive or arrogantly condescending. The boomers see everyone else as having fallen away from the path to historical. work with perfection they paved and are uniformly angry about that. What most of the boomers miss is

that the younger generation is living in the world they built of hyper individuality, of smashing of prior norms and of moral post-relevis or moral relativism. So this is interesting because partially what you were explaining earlier, Michael, and Avita you were mentioning this too. It's almost like there's a horseshoe between some older voters and some young conservatives who have come around on the other side. Younger conservatives didn't ever know the wonderful country, of the boomers and they know that they didn't ever know that. They keep being told how wonderful the country is and they want to experience that. And the boomers remember what it was. And I'm curious if that's kind of the experience you're talking about why there are so many older people

in your district, which by the way was held by Democrat David Obie, Sean Duffy, unseated, David Obie after 40 years in the Tea Party wave pre-Trump. This is a district that got hollowed out by bad trade deals, paper mills, just disgusting what was done. to the people of northern Wisconsin through some of the globalism. But I wonder if that's kind of what you're picking up on is that it's almost like a commonality that a younger conservative would have with somebody who does feel like they have this confident belief in what America was, and they want to see that back. You know, I actually think they're right. What America was was amazing. It really truly was. And I think the boomers are actually on the right track,

that there is truth, there is objective truth. And our generation has been raised through school, through college, you name it, to believe that there is no such thing as truth. I think the boomers are completely right when it comes to believing in truth. However, we have to acknowledge certain facts in the data. Homes in 1970 were two to three times your average income. Now, there are eight times your average income. And I think some people don't realize that.

You know, they'll look at our generation. they'll look at our generation and they'll say, they're not willing to work hard. They're not willing to make the sacrifice. They're just buying Starbucks coffee and AirPods. Now, there is a little bit of truth to that. We are doing that. But that's just because there's no possible way to make a down payment on the house. You know, homes are about $400,000 on average in the United States. That's not a mansion. That's a starter home. So you need to have $80,000 in the bank saved before you can get into a home. So people like Evita and I look at that and we say,

we make maybe $50,000 a piece on average, how are you going to save $80,000? They start giving up. And frankly, I think this is why Democrats have been making so much headway with the young people. They're the only ones that will address the idea that they're disaffected, that they are not able to afford the things that their parents did.

And I think if Republicans, want to win anything in the midterms or in 2028, they need to start talking about affordability because it is an issue. It truly is. Can I just also say, Emily, that I think the people in Michael's district are pretty unique. You kind of laid it out that this was a district that was held by a Democrat for 40 years. Many of them were and continued to be socially conservative. At that time, they were union Democrats. They had this. perception that Republicans are for the rich old guys and that Democrats are for the working class people. And that has proven to, of course, be untrue. And especially in the age of

Trump, these individuals have become hardcore conservatives because of especially what President Trump is doing with manufacturing and immigration. So out of all of the boomers in the country, I actually think that young-based Gen Z conservatives have a lot in common with the older people in this district specifically because these are the individuals who are really thinking hard about who we are as Americans, where the future of the Republican Party should go. Should we be the party of pre-Trump or post-Trump? This is a post-Trump GOP in the 7th District of Wisconsin. And that is the type of GOP that Michael and I identify with. And so it hasn't been, there hasn't been much of a clash, maybe in another district that doesn't have those values. We might run into

those issues. I really think that the divide we're looking at, Emily, is much more about class, about middle class and working class than it is about generations. And the town Avita and I met in, Wausau, Wisconsin was actually really offensively worded as the most middle class town in America. They said it as if it was a bad thing. named it the most middle class city in America. It is the most middle class city in America, Wausau, Wisconsin is where he grew up. And I love to say it like it's a bad thing.

Wouldn't you want to be from the middle class, like the actual American people? And, you know, this is where I think, you know, we talk about generational divides. I think it's these, the boomers that are far left, that are, you know, independently wealthy from the East Coast or the West Coast. when we talk about these generational divides, they don't exist in the Midwest, because no matter

the generation, everyone there is a hard worker and cares about their family, their faith. That's another really important thing to people in the district. And, you know, Avita and I joke about it. Our values are basically just the values from the 1950s. That's funny. Well, speaking of which, actually, let's put this on the screen. This is F-21. Walter Russell Mead flagged some interesting results from a new Gallup survey, and I don't know if you saw this.

Michael, I think you actually work at your church. Walter posted skeptics claimed that the supposed religious revival among young men wasn't showing up in the polling. Gallup says otherwise a shift is here, and it's massive. F-22, we can put up on the screen. Rise in young men's religiosity realigns gender gaps. Young men in U.S. now surpassed young women on importance of religion, have slight edge on affiliation, tie in attendance. So there is something of a revival happening with Gen Z, but among men in particular. And so that's where some of the big aggregate data misses it.

When you boil it down, there's something happening. Tell us why it would be that what people might expect to see as the most secular generation, especially for young men, is suddenly more interested in Christianity? Well, there's been such an attack on young men in America over the recent years that I think men have reassessed their lives. They're searching for meaning. And one of the best ways to find meaning is through faith, through Christianity. And I can speak personally.

Almost every single one of my friends is deeply involved in a church. Not all of them are Catholic. A lot of them are. But, you know, I think this gender gap where men are trending towards the church and women seem to almost be trending to the left, it's leading to a lot of animosity between the sexes. And I just have to take this opportunity to say, wow, was I lucky to meet the right one in middle school? So I'm glad I don't have to be a part of this. We didn't start. No apps.

No apps. No apps. Yeah, Emily, I think there is a definitely a gender. divide politically. And it's a big problem because young men and women are not, they're not getting married and they're not having kids and they don't feel like they have anything in common with one another. So in one way, I'm, I'm happy to see young men become more conservative and see them go to church. And, you know, they voted. I think they swung 20 points to the political right between 2020 and 2024. I mean, that's, that's wonderful for the GOP. In terms of our civilization, it's a little bit distressing because young men and young women just keep getting

farther and farther apart when you look at their values and they're just the stats of them staying together. And that's, I guess, a lot of people would say this is going to be my last question for both of you. Why should we care what you have to say? You're 26. Why should we vest you with the enormous responsibility of membership in the U.S. house. Evita, why should I read a thing that you have to say or listen to a thing that you have to

say? You're 26 years old. You know, you're obviously about to become a mother. You already are a mother, but you are about to have a baby. So you're both going to be parents. So you haven't hit that milestone yet. People will be like, why do I care? You haven't lived. You haven't seen the world. So what's your answer to that? You know, I would say that, you know, sometimes conservatives can say, we're going to win the races, you know, a red seat, a blue seat, whatever it may be. If you look at the age breakdown, almost all of them are voters over the age of 50. And we need to start winning young people. The only person on the right that I remember never stopping outreach to young people was Charlie Kirk. And we lost him. If we care about

the country, not just in 10 years from now, but 30 years from now, 40 years from now, 40 years from now. We need to start talking to young people. We need to figure out how to win these people over. And I think the answer to that is to start having someone who has dealt with the same issues that they have. And, you know, I really think it's important that when we frame this question, you know, you're so young. What do you know of the world? Evita and I have been married for four years. We grew up in an America that isn't the same as what the older generation did. And I think it's time that the younger generation takes that leadership role on the right because the left has already done it. The left has chose their young people champions. Their AOC, Zohan Mamdami and Maxwell

Frost. So if we're going to start deciding who the younger generation of the Republicans are, we need to make sure that they have a good head on their shoulders. And I can't say that I have a good head on my shoulders, but I know Evita does. He's a very good head on his shoulders. And I'll just, I'll just say that, you know, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were 26 years old when they were first elected to public office. The founding fathers intended for younger people to, to run our country because they have the energy to do that. You mentioned our district being uniquely large, Emily. It's the largest district east of the Mississippi. it's difficult for somebody who's not young like Michael to get to every single county,

to be at every single event, to put in the work that he's putting in. He's able to do that because he has a lot of energy because he's a young guy. He's got a young family. And the other thing that I'll say is, you know, he has values and convictions that I can speak to. I've known him since I was in middle school. We started dating after high school graduation. This is somebody who has what's really important, which is a strong faith. which is true moral conviction.

That's what matters when you get to Congress. There's a lot of people with experience. I think AOC has a lot of, I'm sorry, I think Nancy Pelosi is somebody who has got a lot of experience. Chuck Schumer has a lot of experience. Joe Biden has a lot of experience. I don't think they're very good at their jobs. So I think somebody like Michael is only an asset to the GOP

because the messenger matters when you're talking, when you're talking to young people. And he's also somebody who's very smart and has a lot of conviction, will be able to stand up to the demons in Washington. There are demons in Washington. There are demons everywhere, but they're especially prevalent in Washington. All I want is for you guys to find a way to reopen the Monaco, Paul Bonion. That's really what this was all about at the end of the day.

It's been close. I think we can just like say that's a state issue, local municipality issue. Or just like pass the fuck on that one. Well, no, actually the first time that I realized Trump was a very serious candidate was I was roller blading around a part of your district. I'm not going to docks my family, but I was rollerblading around and saw these giant plywood spray-painted Trump 2016 signs, like July of 2016, homemade outside of, you know, trailers, like people were so in love with Trump.

So it's a really, really interesting district. Thank you both for helping us understand a little bit of your perspective as you make a run here. Michael, best of luck prayers for your little daughter. Thank you. Thank you so much for having us. Oh my gosh, of course. All right. We will be back with more in just one moment.

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you use code Emily at cowboy colostrum.com slash afterparty. All right, as we close out the show, I promised to get into a big picture conversation about political violence. and that is exactly what I'm going to do. There's a lot happening. So I'm going to ask you to bear with me. I have some receipts that we're going to walk through. But I want to first start just by saying, in the media, we spent a lot of the week leading up

to the White House correspondence dinner and the assassination attempt talking about this mega viral New York Times podcast during which the paper's opinion editor sat alongside Hassan Piker, left his street, and Giotolentino for a moderated discussion on what they described as micro-looting. That's exactly what it sounds like. And political violence.

I'm going to roll the clip right now. 40% of Gen Zeres felt that that murder was morally justified. But it's scary to be in a society where people feel that murder is morally justified. And I'm curious how we thread that line. Yeah. Engels wrote about the. concept of social murder. And Brian Thompson, as the United Health Care CEO, was engaging in a tremendous amount of social murder, the systematized forms of violence, the structural violence of poverty. Because of the pervasive pain that the private health care system

had created for the average American, I saw so many people. I saw so many people. people immediately understand why this death had taken place. Okay. So what you saw was a New York Times podcast with this like soft white set featuring shabby chic podcasters, writers, media people, uh, Jia Tolentino was like literally wearing denim overalls, breezily, maybe even gleefully debating the distinction between political violence and political consciousness raising, almost like they're in an Oberlin seminar. Talentino at one point is basically like bragging about stealing from Whole Foods. It's just, it makes you wonder what side of the class war they seem to want to usher in these folks would actually be on.

But the debate was over Pikers' Invocation of Friedrich Engels on that question of social murder. And people were also wondering whether the New York Times should, host him for this particular conversation at all. Ross Douthit did a great New York Times interview with the son Piker that I recommend everybody taken out. Take a, what was I even saying? Take a, check it out. I think that's what I was saying. Take a look at and check it out. And I combined them all. Anyway, because Piker has said things that Dauth had asked him about in the past, you know, like about landlords, kill them, kill those motherfuckers, murder those motherfuckers in the street. Let the streets soak in their fucking red capitalist blood dude

on the opponents of liberals. He said, you need to be shanking these motherfuckers and letting their fucking intestines writhe on stage. Slice him up. Slice him and fucking dice him. So at one point, if you cared about Medicare fraud or Medicaid fraud,

you would kill Rick Scott. The New York Times is, of course, the publication as Graham Wood in the Atlantic pointed out, in 2020, gave into internal protesters who said that an op-ed from Tom Cotton, put them in danger. Put Black New York Times staffers in danger.

That was the infamous Sendin the Troops op-ed. That was the New York Times' headline on the piece, by the way, calling for Trump to use the Insurrection Act against violent rioters. It was in the peace. Not peaceful protesters, violent rioters during the 2020 riots. Now, there's just a lot of debate about Hassan Piker in general, who streams for, what, like up to eight hours a day and often is engaging in like, what do you even, I don't even know how you would describe it, but it's video gaming.

It's a format that, and it's streaming, like going through the news live with people joking, riffing. A lot of it is very contextual. It's not a cable news segment that is intended to be sort of snipped out of context and watched by somebody who's channel surfing and doesn't know what happened earlier in the program. It's a very different format. And I think people who don't consume it regularly have a really hard time understanding it. It's not an excuse to talk like that or joke like that when you're in a position of power. He's apologized for some of it. He's walked some of it back.

I don't think he said anything like that particularly recently. I could be wrong. But it seems like he sobered up a little bit. Now, still, still, political violence happened, obviously over the weekend as this alleged gunman left a paper trail where he outlined exactly why he believed violence against Trump administration officials would be justified. So I want to make three points here. First, pundits are not directly responsible for individual acts of violence. The people who commit those acts of violence are directly responsible, and I do not care if it's Sarah Palin or Hassan Piker. Now, the reason it's worth pointing out the double, or that it's worth pointing out those quotes from Piker is that there is obviously a double standard for who the New York Times is willing to quote unquote platform based on their rhetoric.

So I understand why people pull those quotes out and shove them in the face of the New York Times. And again, if you have, and I'll get into this a little bit more, if you have a public platform means your voice is amplified more than other peoples. By the nature of your work, if you're in this field, your voice is a little bit louder than other people's. And so you can contribute to an overly heated climate that does help radicalize people to violence. So we shouldn't joke about it or cavalierly use reckless language about people being, like, quote, hateful extremists, which happened to Charlie Kirk. The SPLC did this all of the time. It happened to the Family Research Council. And people, there was actual violence, Steve Scalise, actual assassination attempt on Steve Scalise.

And that was somebody who in part was citing the Southern Poverty Law Center. So it's, you shouldn't be using reckless language to score political wins, as the SPLC did all of the time. And as I would say, Hassan did there with landlords. You just have to be careful about that. But it's the fault of individuals at the end of the day who take responsibility in their own hands, we can all contribute to this climate, this political climate, especially if you're in the public eye, and you should be thoughtful about it, of course. But at the end of the day, it's the people who are making these decisions who are to blame for what happens going forward.

You can find a way to blame, yeah, again, like Sarah Palin. You can find a way to blame people constantly. And it doesn't mean they said, it doesn't mean they did everything perfectly. They made no mistakes. It doesn't, nobody is saying that. But it's also important that we blame people when people make mistakes or when people, it's not even a mistake in the scribblings of this wannabe assassin. This was a very thought out position on the use of violence. And actually, and I'm going to get into this in a second as well, the limits of nonviolence, which Piker, in that New York Times interview, actually was fairly hopeful by looking at people like Zoran Mamdani, who you may detest if you're on the right. But Piker said, there are routes to political change, and there's reason for people not to despair. And it seemed like he was talking about the Brian Thompson case and political violence. But let's get into this a little bit as well.

who is to blame, who is most to blame, for creating this environment of heated political tension? The people at the top of the system who are creating a broken system or the people who are responding to it, right? Again, this doesn't take an iota of blame away from people who commit political violence. They are responsible for doing it. It doesn't take any responsibility away from people who also must, be thoughtful about what they say in the public square. It just doesn't give them any direct responsibility for violence when it happens. What's very important, though, is that the people at the top of our very broken system have created a country where Americans feel more and more

disempowered, and they are correct. Just going to read some of this. This is a Pew study, 2024, more than 80% of Americans believe elected officials don't care what people think. It's up on the screen as well. Americans are more likely than people in many other countries to believe that most elected officials don't care what people like them think. More than eight in 10 U.S. adults said this in a spring 2020, P.R. Research Center survey compared with a median of 74% of adults across the 24 countries surveyed. The U.S. public doubled down in this view in a separate center survey conducted in July 23, when 85% said most elected, most elected, elected officials don't care what people like them think in the early 2000s by comparison,

a much smaller majority of Americans felt this way. So that number is going up. And I don't think it's obvious to people anymore that terms like, quote, social murder, which Piker invoked angles to cite in the New York Times interview, should not be conflated with physical murder, which, to be clear, is one person intentionally ending the life of another person. So academia loves to play with words like this. The algorithms absolutely love it too because it's extreme, and algorithms love extremeness because it keeps you on their apps longer. Americans have also correctly noticed that elites will screw them over for a cheap buck, just like Purdue Farma did. But it's important to be clear, you can believe Brian Thompson willfully profited off of perpetuating a system that causes suffering and death. I think that's true. that is bad. But it is not the definition of murder. It's just not, which involves one person

personally, one person purposefully snuffing out another's life. And it's not the same just because you slap social in front of it. These inflated definitions will ricochet right back at the left. One could hypothetically argue, for example, that climate extremism is social murder because farmers then commit suicide or they die prematurely from economic hardship. Again, bad, it is not murder. And that's why I think, by the way, Trump was very wrong to claim that an election was literally stolen because people reacted with violence. I think that there's an important distinction between rigged and stolen. And it feels like nitpicking to many people, I get it. But we talk on the show all of the time about the importance of using

words and definitions correctly. The slope gets slippery very, very, very, very fast. And I made this point on X the other day. And someone responded, there's a solid moral argument to be made that social murder is in fact significantly worse than physical murder. The fact that we as a society have swallowed the notion that it's not has killed more people than Hitler and Stalin combined. I responded, I disagree with that, but this argument is still predicated on a legitimate direction, distinction between the two, Hitler and Stalin directly ordered mass slaughter. Healthcare executives like Brian Thompson would argue, A, that denying coverage in some cases allows for coverage and others, and B, people have agency and can find ways to finance

expensive treatments. Those arguments can be really gross, but that intentionality of the person absolutely matters for our language. Right. Healthcare executives, and this is a very important, Very important thing to understand about corruption. And I honestly think that I only understand it because I have worked in this field. Like I only truly understand because I have worked in this field. People justify, and I've lived in this city for so long. People justify being a Brian Thompson, for example, because they'll say, well, we have to prioritize this person or that person.

We can't make everybody perfect. They're not sitting behind their desks saying, I want five million more dollars this year. So those other people, we're just going to let them die. It's not what they're thinking. You probably believe that's the consequence of their action. Or many people believe that's the consequence of their action. But it is not the intention.

And so is it worse to have a system that allows for this mentality to fester? It's different. It's different. It's bad. but it's different than mass murder. So again, I just think that's a really, really, really important distinction. It's why I think the distinction matters with the Southern Poverty Law Center. It's why I think the distinction matters, whether it's Sarah Palin or Hassan Piker.

We have to be careful about these definitions because when you inflate definitions, you make people, you condition people to see others as potential targets of violence. And again, it's the falls of the person who buys it and, takes matters into their own hands. But we don't have to inflate definitions this way. We don't have to do it. We can still make these distinctions and be careful about them. And I hope that we will, because look at this poll. This is one of the most suppressing things I've seen in a very long time. And it speaks to why, first of all, people like Hassan Piker are popular, why you see young people out there protesting on behalf of Luigi Mangione, expressing sympathy with Luigi Mangione. Actually, let me put this up

on the screen first. This is also going to be sort of depressing. This is a poll that was taken by UGov and the Economist, and you see a screenshot here from the Economist, September 17, 2025, which is five days, obviously after Charlie Kirk was assassinated. This is the poll from the 12th to the 15th. Is it ever justified for citizens to resort to violence in order to achieve political goals. The percentage of liberals who age 18 to 39 responded yes is 30%. For conservatives, that number is like 5%. Moderates, it's hovering over 10%. It's a huge, huge difference. Now, 60 plus, everyone is roughly around the same level. 40 to 59 liberals around 15%. Conservatives still under 10, moderates still under 10. But a huge difference between

young liberals and young moderates and young conservatives on that question. And one of the reasons that we're going to see more and more of that is what is the result, what are the results of this Harvard youth poll that just came out. This was just the, this was just released. Compared with our poll ahead of President Trump's first midterm election in 2018, the Institute of Politics wrote, the most defining shift among young Americans as a perceived a loss of perceived agency, a growing belief that what they do no longer shapes what happens next. Half now say people like them have no real say in government. Half. Trust in the federal government has fallen to 15 percent and confidence in the military has dropped sharply. Political engagement is still

present, but its meaning is changing. Fewer young Americans believe participation delivers results. Most see elected officials as driven by self-interest. What once converted concern into action is becoming more conditional. A generation still paying attention, still showing up, but increasingly unsure that their voice carries weight. Oh, they're paying attention. Yes, there are a lot of people who check out of the news, but now you get news without finding it. There's polling on this as well. There was a recent, I think it was a peep poll that came out on that. And just the nature of social media, you go in to check on friends and family and people are posting about politics or you follow Time magazine or whatever, and you're getting politics in your feed along with your friends and family, too,

and your local news and the weather. So it's all in one place now, which means it's inescapable. And as that has happened, people have started to believe they are less powerful and they have less trust in government. I just want to say,

I mean, this is a generation that watched Democrats not hold a primary after Joe Biden dropped out in 2024. They didn't vote for the candidate. That was the Democratic Party nominee. Look at where the polls are. right now on the war. And a president, again, we don't have to get into the politics of this, but on a president

who did say on the campaign trail, no new war. Yes, there was also hawkish stuff about Iran. I'm just explaining how young people are experiencing the world that they live in right now. Michael Alfonso was on the show earlier today talking about how the average homeownership age is 40. That is absolutely an increase. people are graduating with an average of I think $40,000 in student loan debt and starting to see surveys that show it actually isn't a benefit for them to have gone into that debt because they're roughly making the same in some demographics as what non-college degree holders have or are making on average. Of course, people are feeling helpless.

Of course, people are feeling like they lack agency. And that is exactly when people turn to violence. We want to put this Rod Dreher post from today up on the screen. If you don't subscribe over to Rod Dreher's diary, it's at rodrae.substack.com. This is one of my indispensable reads every single day. Rod has been working on a book, fleshing out his theory that we are in Weimar America, that right now America resembles Weimar Germany. Basically that we're in a cultural and political past.

powder keg. And today, Rod's post, as he's finished his manuscript, he's right at the end of it, he says, quote, I have reached the end of my manuscript, believing that we are one major economic crisis away from something awful happening. Bear in mind, of course, that the Mag 7 constitutes, what, like 30, 35% of the S&P 500. A lot of economic experts look at this as a bubble. The AI boom as a bubble. We could be on the cusp of something very, very ugly. And Rod and I disagree on some things. But I find this is very compelling.

He draws some really specific parallels, economic parallels, political parallels. And when you look at these numbers about young people feeling utterly helpless, like they lack agency. You see young liberals more and more likely to justify political violence, that's a response to helplessness. People feel like the political class is not acting in their interests and that they've lost power in the political process. It's just a terrible combination. And it would be foolish to blame the Americans for feeling like they're at wit's end.

When people feel that way, naturally they're going to be more likely to contemplate political violence. Our own founders, by the way, agonized over this in the American Revolution, which you see in the Declaration of Independence. And not just in the Declaration of Independence, but there's a Washington Post piece back in 2013 from, I think a Georgetown professor or researcher. that noted a year before the Declaration of Independence, the Second Continental Congress issued what has become known as the Declaration on the Causes and Necessities of Taking Up Arms. This is basically fleshing out just war thesis penned primarily by Pennsylvania's John Dickinson, who I think was a Quaker, with assistance from Thomas Jefferson. The Declaration was written just weeks after the British attacks at Lexington and conquered.

It lays out a rationale for self-defense that is completely aligned with just war thinking. Indeed, the colonists besieged London to not provoke the calamities civil war. There's no talk of independence. This has weighed heavily on many societies, and it's very easy to give in to hopelessness and despair. It is not always incorrect to, like the American Revolution, right? It was not the French Revolution. They laid out in that particular document, I was just referencing, why they had exhausted what they felt like were all of their other options

and that they had been forced into a civil war. Our political class right now needs to make sure that they are not putting people in a position where they feel like they're at Wits' end have exhausted all of their options and are in a civil war. And while we're talking about Brian Thompson, Charlie Kirk's assassination. What almost happened to President Trump again this weekend.

I just wanted to read, I was going to say a little bit, but not a little bit, from a speech that Martin Luther King gave at Illinois Wesleyan in 1966. He wrote, I still believe or said that nonviolence is the most potent weapon available to oppressed people in their struggle for freedom and human dignity. So he wasn't just arguing it was the moral weapon, but that it was the most potent weapon. He said this method has a way of disarming the opponent. it exposes his moral defenses, it weakens his morale, and at the same time, it works on his conscience, and he just doesn't know how to handle it. If he doesn't beat you, wonderful. If he beats you,

you develop the quiet courage of accepting blows without retaliating. If he doesn't put you in jail, wonderful. Nobody with any sense loves to go to jail, but if he puts you in jail, you go to that jail and transform it from a dungeon of shame to a haven of freedom and human dignity. Even if he tries to kill you, you develop the inner conviction that there are something so dear, something so eternally true, something so precious that they are worth dying for. And if a man has not discovered something that he will die for, in a sense, he is not fit to live. And the nonviolent discipline says that there is power in this approach, precisely because it disarms the opponent and exposes his moral defenses.

It also says that it is possible to work for moral ends through moral means. MLK went on to say, We will match your capacity to inflict suffering by our capacity to endure suffering. We will meet your physical force with soul force, and do to us what you will, and we will still love you. We cannot, in all good, conscious, obey your unjust laws because non-cooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good. This is straight from the Gospels, by the way. People can debate the theology of Martin Luther King Jr. and the politics of Martin Luther King, Jr., and there's a lot to be said there. I'm just telling you, you read this, it is straight from the Gospels.

He was grappling a letter from Birmingham jail with Just Worre Theory with Augustin. He says, so throw us in jail. And as difficult as that is, we will still love you. Bomb our homes and threaten our children. And as difficult as it is, we will still love you. Send your hooded perpetrators and violence into our communities at the midnight hours and drag us out in some wayside road and beat us and leave us half dead. And we will still love you.

But be assured that we will wear you down by our capacity to suffer. That is again why Nietzsche absolutely detest your Christianity. because it valorized suffering. Martin Luther King was proven correct. I mean, this is still a very heated debate. I think it's incontrovertible that Martin Luther King was proven correct, that his capacity to suffer itself was one of the most powerful catalysts for race relations to improve in the country and for justice to improve in the country.

And in the shooter's scribblings that we've seen so far, they've been reported, and I'm going to read from them here, because I believe early in the show that in the days after something like this occurs, there's a real danger of inadvertently creating lore and romanticism around people's writings and actions. But in the document, you see the shooter trying to justify, and even with some allusions to Christian principles, yield to Caesar, what is Caesar's and the like, trying to justify taking this action. You saw it in the Tyler Robinson case, that Tyler Robinson writing allegedly said some hate can't be reasoned with. These are all direct explanations. from young men, by the way, the shooter, 31 years old, Tyler Robinson 20s,

Luigi Mangione, 20s. His quote-unquote manifesto similarly seemed to try to develop this rational, logical justification for political violence and political assassination. And I would just recommend anybody who's starting to find that more and more seductive grapple with what Martin Luther King said in that 1966 speech, many times after, and whether history proved him correct. And I am imploring America's most powerful class, politicians, business executives, people in the media, to take this seriously, to stop enriching themselves at the expense of others and to start serious. and to start seriously questioning if they are perpetuating an unjust system that is perpetuating this festering, seething, contempt for the country that we all have to share and live in.

That we all have a role to play, making the country a better place. and the people who have the most influence over that have fallen down on the job and want to blame other people, want to scapego to other people, and keep the system going. What are the run right now? What are gas prices? There's still technically a government shutdown over DHS. utterly embarrassing all around a bipartisan basis. So I'll leave it at that tonight.

But appreciate everyone hanging in there with me. There will be much more to come on this story. Of course, we'll be back on Wednesday with the debate between Ryan Grimm and Scott Jennings. That was hosted at George Washington University last week. After-party viewers are going to get it live on Wednesday night. And then in your podcast feed and your YouTube afterwards, it was, it got heated. It got heated. It was quite a debate.

So make sure you stay tuned for that. Emily at devilmicaremedia is. is where you can email me if you have questions for Happy Hour. That's our podcast-only edition of the show where I answer your questions every Friday. So if you subscribe on iTunes, I guess it's not iTunes anymore, Apple or Spotify, go ahead, head over and make sure you subscribe to that feed. Thanks so much, everyone. We'll see you back here with more soon.