After Party with Emily Jashinsky - DOJ Takes on Russiagate, with Glenn Greenwald, FCC Chair on Colbert's Exit, and Michelle O's Undignified Podcast

Episode Date: August 5, 2025

Emily Jashinsky is joined by Glenn Greenwald, Host of “System Update,” to discuss reports the DOJ is launching a grand jury investigation into Russiagate, Glenn takes a walk down memory lane to his late MSNBC appearance, plus deep thoughts about Sydney Sweeney’s jeans. Then Emily is joined Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr on the push for a revitalization of the public interest mandate tied to broadcast licensing.  Chairman Carr discusses the major shifts in legacy media since President Trump came back, credits the president for breaking Hollywood and liberal control, stresses the need for broadcasters to serve the public. He also discusses the FCC’s process in approving Skydance’s acquisition of Paramount CBS, South Park, why he views local television as crucial for America, what he listens to, and more. Emily rounds out the show agreeing with Michelle Obama on the Real Housewives and sports.Cozy Earth: Visit https://cozyearth.com for up to 40% off with code EMILY.Masa Chips: Go to https://MASAChips.com/AFTERPARTY and use code AFTERPARTY for 25% off your first order.  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to After Party, everyone. If you are a little sleepy, maybe you're nodding off that theme song. We'll always get you right back in the mood for some news, some partying, maybe a little bit of both. We got a big show today. The great Glenn Greenwald is here. He's going to join us in just a moment. I also had the chance to sit down with FCC commissioner, Brendan Carr, earlier today, for a long-form discussion of a lot, basically to talk about a lot of the speculation that's been swirling.

around Chairman Carr and the Paramount Skydance merger we've covered Colbert in the late show extensively here. We show him a clip actually of South Park, get his reaction to that, and much more. It's a pretty newsy conversation with Chairman Carr, so I would encourage you to stick around. Now, we do have some business to get to at the top of the show, first of all. And I would say most importantly, like I just mentioned, we have a big show today, but the most important thing to start with, I think, is that you know we love Democratic minority leader in the House, Representative Hakeem Jeffries on this show. We've often referred to him as the Democratic mascot, or I'm sorry, the unofficial mascot of After Party, the fearless leader of the House Democrats.

It's actually his birthday today. He posted this on Instagram and just said, straight up, double Nichols. There he is in Midtown, Manhattan, enjoying the day. I'm kidding. That's clearly California, I think. But just wanted to wish Hakeem Jeffries a happy birthday. We love him here on After Party. His fearlessness, his brave stance. And I think above all else, his social media acumen, his ability to relate to younger Democrats, younger Democratic men. So happy birthday, Hakeem Jeffries.

Now, on another note, more big news and more important topics for us to cover just very briefly. In case you're unaware, After Party actually caused a little bit of an international incident. after Wednesday's show, actually after Monday's show when Adam Carolla joined us, he spilled a little bit of tea about one time he was backstage with Ellen DeGeneres. And this was so juicy, in fact, that the Daily Mail covered it. Many, many international outlets covered it, entertainment weekly, all of these publications that I read fairly religiously covered it. And it looks like the Daily Mail actually sent a paparazzi to get pictures

of Ellen as she reeled from this news that Adam Carolla broke here on Afterparty about Ellen DeGeneres' staff seeming fairly afraid of her. This is a quote from the Daily Mail article, the couple affectionately held hands after the comedian and podcaster Adam Carolla alleged that DeGeneres' talk show staff were, quote, scared, real squared on the two occasions that he was a guest on her show. So the couple affectionately held hands. Good to know. And thanks, as always, to the Daily Mail for keeping track of this. Now, just one more. more thing on this note. The saga deepened when Rob Shooter of the Shooter Scoop actually confirmed with his source, his sources in Ellen World, quote, a source alleged that the former host of the

Ellen DeGeneres show was shocked, quote, shocked by the explosive news, new revelations. Moreover, DeGener's quote, had no idea the crew felt that way. This is the kind of breaking news that you tune in live Mondays and Wednesdays at 10 p.m. 4 here on After Party. Cutting edge, fearless, international. CFI. That's what I want you to think of when you think of after party. CFI, cutting edge, fearless, international.

That is what we do. That is who we are. And actually on that note, I think it's appropriate to bring in our wonderful guest, Glenn Greenwald, cutting edge, fearless international. Glenn, you are all of these things. I am all these things. I'm just, I'm so happy to be at your party.

I've seen all these people being invited before me. And I was like, when am I going to be invited to this party? And finally I got my invitation. I was so happy though. I wish you had told me it was Hakeem Jeffrey's birthday. And I brought some cake with like the double nickels. He's so cool the way he says that, the double nickels to celebrate. But no one told me.

But I think we can have a metaphorical cake. I'm going to have to pull in Ellen with the after party staff and actually get on them for not mentioning to you when were coming on today on all days. How rages. It's Harkim Jeffries. So I know you like to celebrate privately, but we're here, so we both wish Hakeem Jeffries a very happy birthday. Now, Glenn. Glenn, of course, the host of System Update, which I love.

Fantastic show. And Glenn, I want to get your reaction to something that you've been covering literally for years. This is F4. This is a Fox News headline from today. Attorney General Pam Bondi, the story reads, directed her staff Monday, to act on the criminal referral from DNI Gabbard related to the alleged conspiracy to tie Trump to Russia, and the DOJ is now opening a grand jury investigation into the matter. So, Glenn, it is my understanding that you were one of the great legal minds of your generation. You are trained attorney.

So what does it mean? What is the significance of the grand jury escalation that we learned about today? Well, I'll move two minds about it. Number one is I have seen the Trump Justice Department announcing what is pretty meaningless often, and you don't usually announce it for that reason, which is we're investigating so-and-so, and it's usually like red meat fed to log a base. I don't know what you're talking about. I don't know what you're talking about. And you never hear about it again. It's like, yeah, they're investigating, you know, John Brennan. And then it's like nothing ever comes of it because that's such a meaningless designation. On the other hand, if they're really impaneling a grand jury investigation that is not something that is done lightly, that is something that requires court approval. You need to get people who citizens who take off from their job, who stay there for a long time, who accompany this investigation.

It's a lot of DOJ resources. And, you know, I do think there's some stuff in this new set of disclosures that contributes to the belief. that there was criminality here, not just political abuses of the intelligence agency or deliberate dissemination of fabrications, that they did for sure. But whether it rises to the intent of a criminal mind of criminal intent that you would need even to impanel grand jury investigation, let alone indict somebody, I think there's a slightly stronger case for it now with these new disclosures. Okay, interesting. So one of the big questions then is does this imperil legally Hillary Clinton or former President Barack Obama?

Those are the two obvious names. I mean, I think it's pretty clear at this point that John Brennan could be in trouble. James Clapper could be in trouble. But when we're talking to former president, former presidential nominee, what do we know, actually, as you see it right now? That still feels very far-fetched to me, especially with the presidential immunity decision in the Obama case. But legally, is there much that can be done by the Trump administration at this point?

Yeah, if you read the Supreme Court's immunity decision that, of course, redounded massively to the favor of Trump. And I was trying to tell everybody at the time, it's not just for Trump. It also reunizes past presidents and future ones. So if you do want to investigate in prison, Joe Biden or Barack Obama, this is going to completely shield them as well. Basically, it just says that any exercise of legitimate Article 2 power, even if it's done corruptly and criminally, it's still immunized. Just anything you're doing under Article 2 and obviously over. we're seeing an intelligence investigation, even if done with corrupt motives, is clearly within the article two powers. So there's no way you could indict President Obama, given that immunity

ruling. The other problem with Hillary Clinton is that a lot of these acts are eight years old now, and many of them are outside of the statute of limitations. One of the reasons why people think you could still prosecute Brennan and Clapper and even Comey is because they actually testified more much more recently and made some statements that are quite clearly false the way the New York Times described it as these newest disclosures complicate Brennan's narrative. That's such a nice way to have your lies described by the New York Times. It complicates the narrative. And another article called it these are some messy disclosures. But they definitely lied about what Rushinggate was, to what extent they were allowed in the steel dossier, what kind of intelligence they had that

justified these conclusions, whether they were alleging, merely. Russian involvement or actually collusion. And of course, the collusion was what drove the whole scandal in the first place. There would never have been a scandal about the collusion aspect. Still, having a former CIA director or FBI director indicted criminally charged and put into criminal court is something we do not see in this country. So I'll see it. I'll believe it only when I see it.

But I do think there are probably people inside the Trump administration, given that they did try to actually imprison Donald Trump, adding out won this election, he would be in prison for life. I'm sure starting with Trump moving down, they want some, I guess you could call it, equal application of the law or vengeance or some combination thereof, and want to see some of the people who tried to imprison Donald Trump themselves imprisoned. It's so strange to be in this Banana Republic territory where you look at what happened to Donald Trump. And whether you supported Trump or not, there were people, I think, that were, you

have sober minds saying this is setting a dangerous president. And then you look at the Trump administration, coming in and, you know, in some ways pursuing, I think, what's legitimate justice, and then in other ways pursuing very divisive justice, and, you know, there's still an open debate to be had, given where the evidence goes, about whether this is a legitimate pursuit of justice or not when it comes to, like, Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama, who clearly acted badly, but whether there's a legal rationale, I think, is yet to be determined. And then you have Trump going after, like, Ramesa Azturk and some of the, you know, excessive use of power, that's come from law enforcement under the directive of the president of the United States.

Like I know this is a much bigger picture question than Russiagate, but to me at all sort of, as somebody who's been opposed to Russiagate from basically the beginning, you want to see justice, you want to see clarity, you want to see disclosure, but then you just get that pit in your stomach about where it goes. And I don't know if I'm alone in that, or maybe it's just the red wine, which occurs to me I'm drinking in a white shirt. So give me your thoughts, Glenn. Yeah, I can create an unwarranted anxiety.

here. No, so, you know, I'm of two minds about this because I remember in 2007, 2008, which was like the first few years of my writing about politics, I was very focused on the war on terror, the crimes of the Bush and Cheney administration. And I absolutely believe that some of those policies were outright criminal. They ordered the NSA to spy on American citizens without the warrants required by law. They just ignored the law, created a theory that they had the power to do that. Obviously, torture, have people having prosecuted for torture under domestic law, as well as international law, and it went way beyond just three cases of waterboarding. There were, you know, all kinds of sleep deprivation and stress positions, things that humanitarian law blatantly prohibits.

And when Obama was running in 2008, a lot of liberals, a lot of people in his party were asking him, would you, if you're elected, consider having the Justice Department prosecute the people who committed these crimes. And he kept saying, absolutely, nobody's above the law, but I would ask my attorney general to see if there are crimes and if there are crimes, we would prosecute. He wins two months in office. He announces, nobody's being prosecuted. His argument was we have to look forward, not backward, which justifies never prosecuting any crime. I mean, all crimes by definition required looking backward. They're in the past, so you have to look backward. And that idea, we have so many important things we can't look backward, would, you know, you should free everyone

from prison that I never have any more criminal trials. And I remember at the time the overwhelming view of the corporate media was, yes, this is the right decision, only banana republics prosecute prior presidents, have administration's prosecute prior presidents. And I understand that. I understand the obvious potential for abuse in Brazil, for example. Just today, this very authoritarian judge, ordered Jayor Bolsonaro put under house arrest because he participated in a protest against this judge.

And the prior president, also the current president, Lula de Silva, was also imprisoned on charges that ended up being fabricated. So this kind of retribution of putting people in prison that are political enemies can be a sort of characteristic of Banana Republic. But I also think Banana Republic is a place where political elites are immunized, even if they break the law. So the idea that, well, because it creates a little bit of danger or potential for retribution, that someone like John Brennan or James Clapper

or even Hillary Clinton should be able to break the law and we're just going to say they're immunized. It's too turbulent to hold them accountable. That was the Gerald Ford argument for not prosecuting Richard Nixon, but instead pardoning him, which was like, we have to move forward. So you create this kind of immunity

that all political elites know they enjoy and they can violate the law with impunity and that also is a kind of banana republic. But like I said, threatening with Trump with prosecution in four separate jurisdictions two state and two federal. And all four, in my view, were frivolous grounds.

Rico. Yeah, I mean, and like a president has classified documents. A president is the only arbiter on what's classified or not. He could have just said, I hereby magically just classified them and they would have all been declassified. And the idea that a president of all people can't have classified material. And then, of course, the Manhattan case, which, you know, know, was about a bookkeeping error, basically, that never would have been a felony,

but a misdemeanor had have been in one of the Trump. That was vindictive. That was lawfare. That was an abuse of the political process against political enemies. And so I do think part of Trump, the motive of Trump and Trump officials is, like I said, a little bit of vengeance. But I also think that if there are crimes here and the grand jury finds them and I'm not closed at all to the fact that there were, then why shouldn't those people be punished the way

every other ordinary citizen is. Right. No, that's a great point. And actually, going back, you were just reflecting on some of your earlier reporting, you were all over this story in 2016, and you posted this as the last time you were on MSNBC. Actually, it was 2016. December. This is incredible. This clip is incredible.

Museum-worthy stuff, and we have it here. So I'm going to play it and then get your reaction on the other side. Glenn, this is S-3. But there is still, Glenn, of course, especially. that investigators, lawyers, and intelligence officials all use. And on that spectrum, the argument here is that the public accounting of the emails is known that there was a lead-up of intelligence about Russia doing this. Then it was done.

And then since that time, there's been a wide variety of, yes, anonymous sources, but in different outlets saying that this was Russia and it had certain political goals. Would you say, though, all of that adds up to circumstantially strong evidence as a general matter? No, no. What circumstantial evidence can you point to are you just identified what agents have claimed, what agencies have claimed, agencies that have a long history of error that are designed to disseminate disinformation, that are subject to group think, that are political actors who have constantly disseminated claims that turned out to be false for whatever their motives might be. You have taken all of those agencies and you just described in your question to me what they claim. What evidence is, what evidence is, you have taken all of those agencies, and you just described in your question to me, what they claim. evidence is there, definitive, circumstantial, or otherwise that they have presented that suggests that the Russian government is behind these leaks? There is none. What is the evidence?

Right. No, I mean, I'm asking you the question. I think the background is what they predicted and then the fact that the emails were released. He was asking you the question, Glenn, and there was nothing leading about the question. Of course, Ari Melbur went on to totally ignore everything you just said for the better part. of the last decade and cover Russiagate with a lot of the hysteria that characterized MSNBC like 24-7 for, again, the better part of a decade.

So, Glenn, I have to ask, tell us a little bit about, I mean, my memory is that you were, like, regularly on MSNBC during Bush or Obama years, during Obama years in particular. Is it true that you've actually never been invited back or you haven't been back on since that? I used to be on all those shows frequently. Yeah. And that was the last time I had ever been asked to go on MSNBC.

And I remember that interview, Emily, created a lot of anger and rage among MSNBC viewers because Russia Gate was their religion. They didn't allow anyone on MSNBC to question it, to question it, to question it or dispute it. And looking back on that, like when I actually found it, I haven't seen that many years, I wasn't even saying anything definitive. All I was saying was like, hey, as journalists, I thought we should have learned the lesson that when the CIA leaked claims to the Washington Post and New York Times, we shouldn't put our blind faith and trust in it. To believe it, we should actually demand evidence before we see it. Haven't we seen a lot of examples that prove the necessity? It was like, it was like, hey, I think journalistic skepticism still applies, even though we all hate Donald Trump so much, like, we're not going to renounce that. And you would have thought I was saying, like, give Vladimir Putin the Nobel Peace Prize the way, you know, know, like that audience reacted. And the amazing thing about it is, you know, I probably have said the same thing on MSNBC a hundred times previously

and criticizing the media on other stories. And, of course, every liberal was so receptive to it because that was the story of what the New York Times and the New Yorker in the Atlantic did when it came to WMD. And that was what the New York Times apologized for. Like, hey, we can't just get anonymous leaks from the CIA and put them on our front page.

And so they're true unless we have evidence for it. And we didn't. And we're sorry. Sorry about that little. war that killed a million people. And I don't know, I was so mystified. On top of which, if I could just say quickly, I remember the very first time Russiagate emerged.

It was in mid-2016. It was in the form of this Hillary Clinton campaign ad, which was like very sinister music and the like baritone voice, like raising questions and doubt. And they were like, what do Donald Trump and the Kremlin have going on in secret? I was just like, this is the moment. Carthian script. It's like you just went to the basement of the CIA. There's like old crusty papers there, probably like the corners of the paper are like crumbly.

And you got that script and you're like, hey, it's been a long time. It's been like 70 years. Probably nobody remembers this anymore. And I was like, the Russians and Trump, why would the Russians need Trump and the Trump and the Trump campaign to hack into, but it never made any sense. It was just journalistically so fraudulent. And I always thought it was so dangerous to blame, you know, everything wrong in our country on Russia because there is a history of great antagonism between what is still the two largest

nuclear powers on the point. So I just from the beginning, never saw any evidence of it. And you know, there are people still today who believe that Trump concluded with Russia, even though Robert Mueller, the person they like held up as the greatest prosecutor ever closed his investigation without charging anybody with that core conspiracy theory and said in his report, he could find no evidence to establish that crime, but people just still believe it like a religious doctrine. And not an insignificant chunk of the public either. I mean, polling over the years has shown that. So I was actually just reading over the weekend hubris, which is a book by Michael Isikov and David Korn about the lead up to the Iraq War and how the intelligence was trumped up and sold to Judith Miller and others in the press.

And it occurs to me, the most obvious point in the world, both of them bought Rushagate, hook, line, and sinker, which is fascinating and were active participants in selling it to the public. So I just have to ask, as somebody on the left, I was thinking about this, Glenn. This was used very obviously by Republican elites who originally funded the Steele dossier and Democratic elites to distract from populism and to not deal with populism. What did Democrats talk about after Donald Trump won the Republican nomination, basically Russia for five years? And they never wanted to compete on the playing field of, like, kitchen table issues with Donald Trump. They thought this was sort of their shortcut.

So is it, or am I putting frustrations into sort of people on the left like yourself? Because I just have to imagine it's maddening to look back the last decade and realize that so many people, I mean, like David Korn is taking propaganda from the actual intelligence community deep state and allowing that. I mean, we know this would have been, it was applied to Bernie Sanders. I mean, this is just like crazy stuff that I can't believe how dis-indsaying. interested even now the left is in the story. Michael Issecoff and David Korn, as you kind of implied, were not just supporters of the Russian to get narrative. They were the leading media figures. It was David Korn who first wrote cryptically about the Steele dossier trying to get everybody. He was like,

there's his documents circulating that everyone watching the scene that's extremely incriminating of Trump and his blackmail that Russia. I mean, he's the one who introduced Steele dossier into the ether and Michael Isikov pushed it as well. To Michael Isikov's credit, about two years later, he actually went on MSNBC and said, we got Russiagate wrong. It's time to acknowledge that and admit it. David Korn, to this day, it's like he has his whole identity staked in it. But, you know, this was always so amazing to me is, so the real theme here was not just that Trump and the Russians colluded, but that Putin had sexual, financial, and personal black, blackmail over Trump, including like a urine video with prostitutes and the risk card.

I mean, this insane stuff was all made up and they purposely leaked it. And people believed it for a long time. So the idea was that basically Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin have taken over the United States through Donald Trump, who's their controlled blackmailed asset. And the two main policies that the Trump administration adopted toward Russia in the first administration were number one, they flooded Ukraine with offensive. arms, something Obama refused to do. They flooded all of Ukraine with very serious, sophisticated weapons to obviously be a threat in the Russians. And then the second thing Trump did was he was obsessed with destroying Nord Stream 2, the pipeline that was the center of Russia's future economic prosperity that would enable them to sell cheap economic gas in Germany and the

rest of Europe. He was threatening Europe and saying, we pay for your defense. If you keep buying natural gas from Russia, we're going to cut you off. You have to buy it from us. He was, he was was frontally attacking the two most vital Russian interests in the most direct and violent way possible. Everyone in the media at that point should have been like, oh, well, he's obviously not blackmailed by Putin because he wouldn't be flooding Russia, Ukraine with offensive arms right on the border of Russia or trying to destroy Nord Stream 2, the centerpiece of Russian economic prosperity. So it was, but it was such madness. Like, everybody had completely lost sense of their faculties. And I think what you're saying is so true, which is that originally

the Fusion GPS was hired by the Washington Free Beacon, which is funded by Paul Singer, the billionaire, neocon, and corporatist, who wanted to keep the Republican Party as like, you know, Jeb Bush and Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan, and he hated Trump. And then it was, you know, the Hillary Clinton campaign that took over that research and then found the steel dossier. And it's absolutely true that the Republican establishment used Russiagate as much as the Democrats did, in part to get everybody riled up over over, over, over, over, over, over Russia. Hillary Clinton hated Russia for a long time. She was a critical. The only thing she was critical Obama about was that he didn't confront Russia enough in Syria and Ukraine. She wanted like antagonism toward Russia. This is the perfect story for both the Democrat and Republican, warmongering establishment, not only to keep people, you know, rubbed up about Russia as our great enemy, even though they're, you know, like an economy barely the size of Italy, but also, as you say, to make sure Americans weren't focused on the populist themes that Donald Trump had so successfully convinced them to believe in, like deconstructing corporate power and defense of the

in favor of the American worker, trade policies, globalism, and the, you know, military industrial complex in the deep state, those were things none of them wanted to talk about. They wanted to make sure none of that was discussed. And Russiagate was the perfect distraction for both parties. Yeah. And again, like David Korn of Mother Jones, it's just, it's all so pathetic looking back. But before we let you go, Glenn, speaking of actual distraction, that elite class used to stop dealing with populism. I don't think it's any coincidence whatsoever that when we look back and say,

I guess, do we have to call it woke, but like peak woke, capital P, capital W happened, was in the middle of the last 10 years, so about halfway into the modern Trump era. And, you know, we've been talking about Russia, but we've neglected arguably the second. The much more important matter? Yeah, I think you know what I'm getting at.

And that's Sidney's Sweeney. So American Eagle has released a statement F5, we can put it on the screen. Sydney Swinney has great jeans. It is and always was about the genes. Her genes, her story will continue to celebrate how everyone wears their AE jeans with confidence their way. Great jeans look good on everyone. I think it's sort of obvious. Maybe you'll disagree with me on this point, but I think it's sort of obvious that American Eagle probably would have apologized or something if this had been 2018, 19, or 2020.

But don't you think so? Their executives would have committed suicide on television to like apologize. and to repent for their crimes against, like, they're in support of white supremacy. But even that wouldn't have been enough. No, no, they would know. No, no, absolutely not. You know, obviously this is not a big issue in one sense.

And what is irritating about it is that unlike in 2020 or 2018, with the excesses of Me Too and wokeism and the Black Guys Matter movement, where Democratic Party officials were all on board with that, this is coming from like leftist, anonymous, like losers who are 20 years old on TikTok. You know, this is not actually a theme at the Democratic Party. Yeah, exactly.

They all have to be blocked. So I don't have to actually see them. But, you know, it's like the idea that this is the Democratic Party telling people that it's not, you know, you're a Nazi if you find Sydney Sweeney pretty. This is all too like political warfare, just exaggerating it. But it does seem like that discourse does feel like you've been catapulted back to the worst moments of 2020.

He just, like, thought you escaped it. And then, like, this zombie discourse, just a, where was it? It was, like, molding in the corner or something, like, very late sleeper. And then there's Sidney Sweeney had come out, this blonde woman with blue eyes, even though she's not actually naturally blonde, talking about her jeans. And, like, just a play on the words. That was she, I mean, it's documented. And, you know, to have this discourse and then Donald Trump wait on it,

wait on it today. Oh, we have this. The Epstein files. Yeah, go ahead. This is F6. Glenn, I don't think even you could do this justice because Donald Trump posted on True Social today. Sydney Sweeney, a registered Republican, has the all caps. How does the ad out there? He says the jeans are flying off the shelves. Go get them, Sydney.

And then he goes into how Jaguar did a woke ad and ends the post by saying, of course, this is his signature sign off. Thank you for your attention to this matter. I would say it's about 100 words on True Social dedicated to Sydney, Sweeney, Glenn. So I feel liberated. First of all, when I was a lawyer, I would write like really mean long letters. You'll be surprised to know when I would always end it with thank you your attention to this matter. So I feel like Trump stole that. I used to love that.

It is such a perfect way to end, like especially vicious commentary. But what's so funny is it was just three weeks ago when Donald Trump got asked by a journalist in the White House, hey, can you let us know if Jeffrey Epstein had ties to any foreign intelligence or domestic intelligence agency? And Trump was like, you're talking. about Epstein, some weird obscure freak. Why is this important? Why does this warn our attention? We have so many important things to come on.

And three weeks later, he posed some catty, bitchy commentary on like Taylor Swift and Jag Marage and Sidney-Sweeney. And so it's just so funny to watch what Trump regards is important and what he doesn't. Of course, a lot of this is they know what stimulates the lizard brain of their supporters and they know their supporters are kind of disoriented,

disenchanted. And this kind of stuff is designed. to, you know, get them rubbed up. It's so kind of obvious, I think. Well, we promised that Glenn Greenwald would be cutting edge. We promised that he would be, what was the other thing? I don't even remember what I said. I know international. Fun, fun, party-like. Yep. Oh, fearless. Cutting edge, fearless and international. And I think, Glenn, you've checked off all of those boxes for us this evening. Thanks for coming on. Thank you, Emily. Great to see you. Appreciate it. All right. That was a blast. such a blast. We have, like I said, we have guests that I've been looking forward to for a long time,

and Glenn was certainly one of them. After this quick ad, we're going to have FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr join us. I pre-tapped this interview earlier today because people who are in positions of great import, they probably do need to get to bed by 10. So that's okay in the government. We'll see. I don't know. Maybe we can tempt a couple of them to come on actually after the party. But as you know, that means I'm going to be in the YouTube chat. Anytime we have to pre-tape, that means I'm in the YouTube chat. So if you're watching this live, I'm about to jump in to the chat. But before I do want to let everybody know that it's actually pretty hard to go to sleep

after wrapping up these shows at 11 p.m., obviously sometimes we go to 1120, 1125. I don't know. Maybe today we'll even go later because this is a media interview with Chairman Carr. But broadcasting gets your adrenaline pumping, like nothing else, live television, live broadcasting. It just gets you going. But I really do mean this. Cozy Earth's bamboo sheets and bubble cuddle blanket, they make it easy, much, much, much easier to just crash after the show. Like I said, I really mean this.

It makes it like something I look forward to to get into the bed and unwind after doing the show, even with all my adrenaline pumping, even after we're making all of this international news with Ellen DeGeneres. And, you know, great guests are here like Glenn Greenwald, consequential journalists like Glenn. It actually is really hard to go to bed, but I look forward to it because I don't know. I love, I'm just like, I love having a cozy bed. So I love having cozy earth sheets. These bamboo sheets are next level, buttery soft, breathable, and they keep you cool all night. You'll sleep a few degrees cooler, which is awesome, especially here in the swamp, and wake up genuinely refreshed.

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It was always Emily J. So what an honor to have the code Emily over at cozyearth.com. That is cozy earth.com. Code Emily. And if you get the post-purchase survey, be sure to mention that you heard about it right here because your bed shouldn't just be a place to sleep. it should be your happy place. And cozy earth, of course, makes that possible. As promised, I'm about to refill my wine glass, maybe turn the air conditioner on in here, and I will for sure be in the

YouTube chat. But without further ado, this is our after-party interview with FCC chairman, Brendan Carr. Enjoy. We're joined now by FCC Chairman Brendan Carr. Thank you so much for joining us, Mr. Chairman. Yeah, good to be with you. Thanks so much for having me. Of course. It's a busy time over at the FCC, and that's why I actually kind of want to start

by digging into your broader project as commissioner. So the right has, for a long time, decried media bias. But in recent history, the right hasn't talked too much about whether individual stations are violating the public interest element of broadcast licensing. And that's really interesting, because if you came in here on the heels of the last 10 years, media trust is tied for a record low again.

and you're starting to talk, for example, this was you responding to the axing of Stephen Colbert and the late show by saying, quote, broadcasters, they have a federal license and they're obligated to operate in the public interest. And to the extent that we're starting to see some changes, I think that's a good thing. So I kind of just want to start with the basics here, like even technically and historically. What does it mean that the FCC allocates broadcast licensing and how are you thinking about the question of public interest? Yeah, I'm really looking forward to this conversation in part because we are seeing right now some real seismic changes and shifts in the media landscape. And just to level set, there's a couple different types of speakers that are out there. So obviously, you have your podcast, you've got people that speak on X, formerly Twitter, you've got cable channels.

But then you've got broadcast TV and radio. And broadcast TV and radio is in a category unto itself, different from all those other mediums for a couple of reasons. but one is because they're licensed by the FCC, and they're required by federal law to operate in the public interest. And again, cable channels aren't licensed by the FCC, although I do get a lot of tweets about whether it's Fox News or MSNBC or CNN. We don't license them, but we do license broadcast radio, broadcast TV. Then even within that broadcast space, I think you've got to draw a quick distinction.

On the one hand, you have what are called national programmers. These are like ABC, CBS, NBC. They also own some TV stations, but in the main, they're the ones that produce all the programming that has then aired over broadcast TV stations. And in the majority of cases, those broadcast TV stations are owned by entirely different entities. And so you've got two different types of players in the broadcast space. And what we're trying to do as a policy matter at the FCC is to empower the owners of the

actual licensed TV stations to feel like they have the first. freedom to serve the interests of their local communities because for too long, the FCC has stepped back from enforcing the public interest mandate. The results are to speak for themselves, these national programmers based on executives that live usually in New York or Hollywood, are creating this content that's then getting pushed down and out through the local broadcasters. And I don't think the FCC has done the industry or the American public any favors by not enforcing the public interest mandate. So that's what we're focused on. And again, comes at a very interesting shifting time in the media landscape as a general matter.

So this is really interesting because back in, you know, 2020 when big tech was censoring conservatives, you were an absolute leader in that space, free speech. And you're getting criticized now. I saw this dispatch article pulling quotes that said in 2020, you said a newsroom's decision about what stories to cover and how to frame them should be beyond the reach of any government an official, criticized the injection of partisan politics into our licensing process, said the FCC is operating as the nation's speech police by saying if ever there were a time for a federal agency to show restraint, when it comes to the regulation of political speech and to ensure that it is operating within the statutorily defined bounds of its authority, now would be that time.

What's interesting about what you just said with all of that is it sounds to me like you see using the public interest actually as a free speech issue in and of itself and not mutually exclusive with what you've said in the past, despite what your critics are saying now. So is that the case? Are these two in the same vein about free speech at the end of the day from your perspective? Yeah, these are entirely consistent. So those remarks that you referred to, the context there was there was Democrats in Congress who were writing letters to cable companies like Comcast and urging them to drop cable channels like Fox News, OAN, and Newsmax, based on the political viewpoints of the newsrooms. And again, cable channels are fundamentally different than broadcast channels.

So broadcast TV stations have this obligation to operate in the public interest. And I very firmly believe that we need to have more speech, more diversity of opinion. Obviously, that's sacrosanct on the internet, on social media. I think that's a good thing. When it comes to broadcasters, though, there is that obligation to be in the public interest. And one thing that's interesting is if you look, for instance, at CBS. So CBS recently had a transaction before the FCC. They're being purchased by Skydance.

One of the things that the new purchasers said in the FCC record was if this transaction goes through, they're going to commit to a greater connection with fact-based journalism, with objective reporting, with what they described as diversity of viewpoints, across the political and ideological spectrum. And I think that's such welcome news. And frankly, it's not just a regulatory thing. I do think it's something that the marketplace is demanding. Again, just look at Colbert.

We can talk more about that. But I think that's a sign of where the marketplace is changing dramatically right now. Yeah. So you don't believe that it encroaches on free speech to say, if you are a broadcast network, the public interest should mean that you. you are broadcasting kind of across the political spectrum and the mainstream spectrum, and you're doing your best to be fair and balanced, as people say, if you are licensed to operate in the public interest,

it's not an encroachment on free speech so much as it is, you know, so much as it is about that umbrella definition of the public interest. That has to be, again, like as somebody who comes from years of free speech activism, essentially, like that has to be, from your perspective, something you're thinking about balancing all of the time. Yeah, there is something just fundamentally different about a broadcast license. Because again, when the government says you get to use these six megahertz of airwaves, or necessarily denying other speakers the ability to use those six megahertz of airways for their own political viewpoints.

That's why the government imposes a mandate that is different than a cable channel, different than a podcast. And how the FC is to define the public interest in the broadcast space over the years is a couple ways. One, they say you need to be responsive to the needs of your local. communities. They talk about diversity of viewpoints. And so they would talk about competition as well. So there's lots of features of the public interest standard. And I do think that it's incumbent on broadcasters to meet that and frankly incumbent on the FCC to reinvigorate our enforcement. And if broadcasters don't like it, if they don't want a public interest obligation, that's fine. The FCC's address is 45 L Street. They can take their federal license. They can put it in

the mail. And they can become a cable channel or they become a podcast. That's perfect. be fine. But if you want the benefit of using this public resource, a scarce public resource, you have to hold up your end of the bargain. And again, that's why I was glad to see CBS make some commitments in that direction. And hopefully we'll see a course correction across the board as well. And maybe one even that benefits the left, too, because there are a lot of people on the populist left who feel shut out of the kind of mainstream discourse. They have their own issues with the elite Democrats, for example, who were involved in basically trying to get Bernie Sanders, as we now know, to be defeated by Hillary Clinton in 2016 and to shut him out of the race in 2020.

So I guess Chairman Carr, there's an argument, perhaps, that this isn't just beneficial to the right, that it could also probably be helpful to the populist left in some circumstances as well. Yeah, I think it's right. Again, it's principally a particular set of executives. Again, they're mostly in New York, mostly in Hollywood. It's been their viewpoint or their lack of diversity of viewpoint that has been. been the predominant factor in media over the last couple of years. And look, there is a real

sort of crisis taking place in the legacy mainstream media right now. I mean, just look at the number of stories over the last four or five years where there's just been massive, massive misses and consistent misses across all of these different legacy outlets, whether it's Russia gig, whether it was the Russian bounties in the Middle East, whether it was, if you remember sort of the whips at the border or the, you know, juicy Smollett, you know, mostly peaceful protests, Covington Catholic. I mean, something has gone seriously awry that these, you know, significant major stories, you know, the Hunter Biden laptop story, President Biden's mental acuity, just were all missed.

And so I do think, you know, there's definitely a need for a course correction. I think in the main, it happens from the market. But again, I don't think you can overlook the role that President Trump is playing here. He's playing a very important role where I think President Trump is fundamentally reshaping the media landscape, but not necessarily in the ways that a lot of people think about it. I think what he's done is he's helped facilitate a much broader macro movement. So, for instance, when President Trump ran for election, he ran directly at the legacy mainstream media. And he smashed through the facade that, again, these executives in New York and Hollywood get to control.

the narrative. They get to decide what everyday people think and are allowed to say. And he was really speaking up for American people who simply don't trust the mainstream media anymore. And once they lost that gatekeeper status, there's a lot of different consequences that flow from that. Again, I think that broader trend is why you see Colbert show ending and them struggling in other shows similarly. But I think it goes back to President Trump because most politicians they just simply accepted the narrative that the mainstream media dictated. They felt constrained to operate within the terms that they set. And President Trump upended that.

And again, if you look at all of the changes that are taking place already since President Trump has won the election, in terms of the reshaping the media landscape, it's pretty impressive. You've got PBS defunded. You've got NPR defunded. You've got Colbert Show ending. You've got Joy Reid out at MSNBC, Lester Holt, out. at NBC. You've got Terry Moran gone at ABC.

You've got these new owners of CBS committing to more fact-based, objective reporting. ABC reach a settlement with Trump. CBS reached a settlement with Trump. At Washington Post, Jeff Bezos, you know, committing their editorial board to a different approach on their editorials and people quitting because they didn't want to run patriotic op-eds over there. So I do think that there's a fundamental shift. taking place. I think you do have to look at Trump as part of the reason for that. But again,

in a much bigger macro picture way, it's not, you know, sort of the nefarious picking up the phone and, you know, bullying people that some of the reporters want to sort of attribute it to. Again, I think the reason why they look at that is they don't want to grasp or deal with that much bigger picture changes that's taking place in media right now. Yeah, because that's where this gets into a lot of the media criticism and actually probably criticism from some folks on the Hill as well, definitely some criticism from some folks on the Hill as well, because there's what you're doing at the FCC, and it's not happening in a vacuum, because it's also happening with what Donald Trump is doing, sort of with the bully

pulpit and true social and his various statements about his own different political enemies. So, Chairman, I wanted to get you to respond to the rendition of all of this, because you just mentioned those sort of picking up the phone and making those kind of backroom deals, whatever. I wanted to get you to respond to this rendition. Speaking of cable being different than broadcast networks on South Park and see what we can talk about on the other side of it, we can go ahead and roll the South Park clip. Break bread with me. This is my body given for you. Do this in remembrance of me. Now just eat the bread and listen. I didn't want to come back and be in the school, but I had to because it was part of a lawsuit and the agreement with Taremont.

The president's suing you? The bargain to do whatever he wants now that someone bark down, okay? Eat the bread, eat the bread. You guys saw what happened to CBS? Yeah, well, guess who owns CBS? Paramount. You really want to end up the cold power? You guys got to stop being stupid.

We can't understand you. Just shut up. We're going to get canceled, you idiots. What about who from? Tom, they're calling it the sermon on the mount. Okay, Chairman. So is that protected speech? And what is that rendering of how this is all going down,

getting right or wrong from your perspective? Yeah, I think everyone's trying to look for the tree and they're missing the forest, right? That broader trend line of, you know, once President Trump ran at the legacy national, media and he sort of removed their gatekeeper status. Once you had social media like X, embrace free speech, people had access to news and information. And so, you know, running just a partisan carnival, I think the way the Colbert Show was, is simply just not very good business.

And satire is awesome, right? Satire is probably one of the most fundamental and early aspects of free speech in all democracy. And people should feel free to make fun of people that are in, you positions of power, whether it's the president or myself. I mean, trust me, I get my fair share of ripping. You know, I'm not doing my job until I get made fun of more in some of these shows. I mean, it reminds me there was a former FCC chairman, Newt Minow, who talked about broadcast TV at the time being what he gave his famous speech that described it as the vast wasteland.

And broadcasters didn't like it. That's why you saw sort of the SS Minow was the famous ship on Gilligan's Island, was named after National City Chairman. So that's the mark that I need to try to at least, you know, hit or exceed. But I think also when you look at comedy, you look at these late night shows. Again, satire is great. We want it. Make fun of everybody. I think it's part of what makes for democracy. But a lot of these late night shows went from, there's an op-ed that described this, that they basically went from being court jesters, making fun of everybody, to court clerics, where instead of going for laugh lines, they were going for applause lines. And they were trying to enforce a particular

political orthodoxy. And not there's anything wrong with that, but it turns out that that's not necessarily a great business model. And reports are that the Colbert's show was losing something like $50 million a year. And you can only sustain that for so long. And so again, I think people want to look for the tree. They want to look for something specific and nefarious because they are whistling past a graveyard of these bigger macro shifts

are taking place in media. And yes, I think those bigger macro shifts have to do with President Trump, but not for the reasons that people think. It's because he hasn't played the game of allowing the legacy mainstream media to set the narrative. Yeah, there's a lot of speculation about nefariousness, potentially behind the scenes of the Paramount Skydance merger, which actually required your approval at the FCC, cleared that hurdle last week. Do you believe that CBS axed Colbert and the late show in any way to win your favor, to win Donald Trump's favor in the merger process?

No, I don't think so at all. I mean, look, the FCC's own review process here. We ran our normal course standard process. We had a full commission vote. All the commissioners, there's three of us, two Republicans, two Democrats voted. There was people that were expressing concern that we weren't to have a commission level vote on the item. We did. We ran our normal process there in terms of the amount of time that it took and the timing of the review itself.

It was right in the sweet spot of how long it takes the agency, both now and the prior administration to review. deals like this. And so these things were all, as I said, many, many times unrelated. There was that private lawsuit that was settled. There was a news distortion complaint that continues to be pending at the FCC. And then there was the transaction itself. And we just ran our normal process on it. Was the, from your perspective, the late show operating in the public interest? And did you have any prior conversations with them about whether they were operating in the public interest with that show with Colbert? I mean, they're still on and they're still doing their thing. So did any of that go on? No, I mean, there's no discussions from my part about the

Colbert show at all. I mean, I learned about it the way everyone else learned about, or I guess most everybody learned about it, which was on news reports. It wasn't part of the FCC's review or transaction one way or the other. And is that, like, as we think about public interest and, you know, the old one thing we talk about on the show all the time is the Johnny Carson model versus the Colbert model. And both of them respectively were top. in late night, which is a remarkable reflection on some of the macro trends you've just been talking about. One was top in making money and one was top in losing money. Yes, yes. Although it's remarkable that Colbert, I think, was able to be top in ratings,

and that's with a much lower number than Johnny Carson was because you're just competing for a smaller slice of the public. Because the scarcity that meant you were allocating licenses to them in the past has basically evaporated with different technology. I mean, it's still exists obviously with broadcast licenses, but it's different with all of the other technology. So if Colbert is doing a broadly anti-Trump show, does that mean CBS is not operating in the public interest? Well, the one interesting question is, you know, Congress has created special rules for equal opportunity, equal time, for instance.

And the FCC has said, actually statutorily, that those particular rules don't apply to a bonafide news program, at least historically, there were some late night shows where the FCC would say that that sort of couch sit-down interview portion was itself a bona fide newscast, and therefore exempt from the congressional political rules, meaning if you're in the relevant period of time before an election, you could have one candidate on and not the other. We haven't looked at those rules in a long time, but, you know, it strikes me that, you know, a lot has changed since the FCC first started saying that those, you know, couch sits downs are bona fide news programs and it would seem to me that before the fcc would provide

any such exemption uh to any of these late shows i think they should come back into the fcc and re-up any requests because it's not clear to me that they would qualify as bonafide news programs but again the obligation isn't on uh cbs itself as a national programmer the obligation the public interest obligation is on the local tv station so for instance if they don't feel like the programs that they're getting from CBS Central meet the needs of their communities or further the public interest and they should have the right and they're supposed to in their agreements to preempt the programming and do something else. In fact, a week or so ago, I started a new inquiry into Comcast, which owns NBC, and I've asked to get copies of their agreements with the

local TV stations to try to make sure that there's not terms or conditions in that relationship between, again, national programmer and the actual TV station that is precluding the TV station from fulfilling its public interest obligations. So, you know, those are sort of a cluster of issues that we need to look at. Yeah, I wanted to ask about that. We can put this up on the screen because this is, I'm reading from a variety report as of last week, that you informed concasts on Tuesday. You're launching an investigation in the company's relations with NBC affiliates. And they write days after President Trump called for the network to be held, quote, unquote, accountable for favoring the dumb party and threatened to revoke broadcast licenses. The FCC

has an interest in and the authority to promote the public interest and to ensure that local broadcast TV stations retain the economic and operational independence, independence necessary to meet their public interest obligations is your point. And so I basically want to ask in this case, do you see your deregulatory agenda as actually complementary to course correcting or helping the media course correct to being more aligned with that perspective on public interest? Yeah, I think so. Again, fundamentally our North Star in the the media portion of the FCC do, and there's other stuff that we do. In fact, we have a whole Build America agenda that we're running that looks at spectrum and infrastructure and workforce

issue. But within the media space in particular, my North Star is I want to find ways to empower those local broadcast TV stations, the ones that are actually licensed by the FCC. And they're owned by a range of different companies, Neckstar, Gray, Sinclair, to empower those stations to feel like they can serve the needs of their communities and to some extent to shrink the power of the national programmers like CBS, NBC, ABC. And so by looking at NBC in the contractual relationships they have with the local stations, it's consistent with that broader goal that we're trying to push in the media ecosystem. And to the point that variety sort of combined these two things,

noting that you sent Comcast that letter after Donald Trump called for NBC to be held accountable, that doesn't strike you as inappropriate. I mean, I'm guessing because you're involved in it, but it's not inappropriate from your perspective to have the president criticizing the networks, pressuring the networks for different coverage, and then acting with that letter from your part. Yeah, no, not at all.

I mean, I've sent a number of letters at this point to lots of the entities that we regulate, whether it's Comcast. I've sent letters and inquiries to Disney, which runs ABC. Of course, we've done issues with Verizon as well. We're working with a lot of different companies across these regulated spheres,

And I want to move them all in a direction that promotes the public interest, whether it's, you know, a company like Verizon where they've agreed to end their DEI, their invidious forms of DEI discrimination. I think that's a good thing. Disney, ABC, I'm looking similarly at some DEI issues there, whether it's Comcast, looking at this network affiliation relationship. I mean, there's going to be a lot of activity, the FC's busy place. There's going to be a lot of activity between the FCC and regulated entities. And President Trump is also, you know, very focused on media issues as a general matter from his public feet. you can see that. And so I do think we're both going to be speaking on similar issues at similar times.

But I think that's going to continue because that's where our focus is. Yeah. And we have this from The Verge as well. The Freedom of Press Foundation filed a complaint against you with the Office of Disciplinary Council at the D.C. Court of Appeals alleging that you had repeatedly broken basic principles of conduct as a licensed attorney, including by leveraging your power to control media outlet speech. But the Verge in their coverage of this letter even admits, as a legal complaint,

quote, it's a long shot, but the filing accuses you of perpetuating a, quote, unquote, unconstitutional shakedown. Now, I know you don't agree with that characterization. But I think this was just filed today. So what's your response, Mr. Chairman, to this complaint that was filed here in D.C.? Well, look, it's obviously a totally frivolous filing that's simply trying to intimidate the FCC and, you know, stop us from doing our job. And I can assure you that that is not going to happen. anything, you know, we're going to continue to accelerate our work. We've got an obligation from Congress to enforce a public interest mandate on broadcasters. And, you know, that's exactly what we're going to do. And we're going to, you know, keep at it as long as we have the privilege

of serving this job. I'm not worried about that filing. You know, it was an attempt, I think, to get a headline and maybe they got one in the verge. But beyond that, you know, it has no meaning to me. Okay. So just returning as we wrap up here to that question of scarcity, I'm a millennial. It's weird for me. I can't imagine what it's like for Gen Z and people, what Gen Alpha next up, who don't know, as you said, who juicy small A even is, Mr. Chairman, to think about anything in the media world as being scarce

because there's just so much technological capacity for competition now. So I wanted to ask you a little bit how your own, what your own media diet looks like, what are you consuming, are you deep in the podcast world? how do you think about these things based on your own consumption of different media on your own? Yeah, I've definitely shifted a lot into podcasts. I mean, really, it's sort of accelerated during COVID-19. I sort of kept the habit up. But yours is a good one.

So we've got to keep that in the mix as well. Good answer. Yeah, a lot of ruthless, a lot of all-in podcast. You know, try to take in a variety of different things. But you're right. I mean, this idea of scarcity and broadcast, which has justified historically the like licensing of these stations may seem odd to people. But at the same time, you know, it's, it's a something that, a decision that Congress made, and it's up the FCC to enforce it. If people don't

like it, again, they can go to Congress and they can say, we don't think it makes sense anymore to treat broadcasters different, given all the competition that's out there. But until that happens, we've got to enforce the law. And I do think that there's some changes we should do in the media space in light of podcasts and all this competition, because if you look at local TV stations, for instance, they're competing really in the market for advertising. advertising dollars. And if you look at sort of the percentage of advertising dollars that had supported local TV stations that has swung to digital, whether it's Google or Facebook, it's a dramatic number. And we saw this first with newspapers, right? We've got hundreds and hundreds of newspapers

that have shuttered all across the country. And at some extent, that's the ghost of Christmas future for local TV stations. If the FCC doesn't update its approach so that those local stations can compete with Google, with Facebook, in the market for advertising. I do think there's still something very important in this country to have local news, local reporters, local journalists, and to some extent that's unique among the broadcast TV, because podcasts and cable channels, they're really good at the national stories, but it's those local reporters at local TV stations that cover the local stories. And so I do think, you know, again, empowering those to continue to do well, to survive, to stay in business is part of what the FCC does, even if it does pinch some of

those national programmers a little bit. And last question, as I think about, this as someone on the right and, you know, broadly supportive of the idea that competition generally makes a better product. I look at all this competition. I look at, you know, how Colbert, I think, made that show, drove that show into the ground from my perspective because he was going for a narrow, narrow slice that was more and more loyal of the public. And that's how you end up with, I mean, I think his average is probably two and a half, three million, somewhere like that. But still losing money for the network. So anyway, all that is to say is this competition making any of those outlets right now better, or is that trend sort of yet to be seen from your

perspective? I do think that the competition is helping. I do think the market forces are encouraging right now. Again, if you just sort of run your program the way CBS had allowed the Colbert show to be run, they're losing money. And so I do think you're seeing a market course correction there, which is needed. But a lot of this stuff you see across the board, I mean, frankly, with NPR and PBS as well, with Congress passing law, that he fund them, really they only have themselves to blame. Over for years, it wasn't that long ago that NPR and PBS, their viewership, was a pretty good cross-section of the American electorate as a general matter.

When you're basically forcing the American people to have money taken out of their pocketbooks to support something, I think it makes sense that you would attempt to be broadly appealable. But as, you know, a former editor-NPR, Uri Berliner had put out a lot of op-eds on this, said, In his view, NPR just increasingly tried to appeal to a narrower and narrower base of basically, you know, Asella Corridor listeners. And then, you know, that bargain with the American people have forced them to subsidize it no longer made sense. And so I do think across the board, obviously there was some government action there. But we are seeing some market forces and some course corrections. I think that's a good thing.

It's definitely needed. Chairman Brendan Carr, thank you so much for your time tonight. Yeah, good to be with you. Thanks. Okay. So a couple of interesting takeaways there. Obviously, the chairman said that he did not have any communication with CBS or Paramount about Colbert. He said he found out about the decision from the news media, just like everyone else did, which is quite interesting, also very interested in his point, that if the broader public doesn't like him suddenly leveraging that definition of public interest,

then Congress perhaps should act about whether or not the public interest definition still should apply to broadcast networks in basically a media atmosphere that nobody could imagine would exist when the, I think it was actually the Federal Communications Act, the piece of legislation that established that was originally passed. Now, I will say I still, you think there's an interesting, well, I don't know if interesting is the right word. I still think having the president weighing in on these media outlets and their broadcast licenses while also having the FCC chairman do that. As a journalist, which is the worst three words that you can say, maybe after as a millennial, my God, I'm in a millennial journalist. I'm having an identity crisis on the air right now. But there are certain people in the industry who,

will make decisions based on that. I'm not saying that I have any examples of that happening right now because I don't know that that's the case. But it also wouldn't shock me if we learn out, if we learn that later down the line, that was what was happening behind closed doors. So not ideal, but also the media status quo is so egregious and offensive that I frankly have a hard time getting worked up about any of it. So we thank Chairman Carr for joining us here on After Party. for an ad that I tell you with all sincerity, I have been so excited to read for weeks because it's massa chips. I got a box of these to my front door. I didn't know what they were. I tried them and I was blown away. Let me tell you, I love chips. I love chips with a sandwich. It is one

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Just South Park is so male-coded to me. Every time I watch it, I guess I see the appeal. But it's never been my thing. So it's probably not surprising to people. Like cartoons aren't my thing. But I actually have always also thought that American Dad, and Family Guy are funnier than South Park and queuing a lot of angry commenters here, including some of my friends, but that is just my perspective on it.

Even that said, nobody is other than like the MAGA right saying this about the South Park episodes on Trump so far, I know we were talking about Sidney's Sweeney earlier, but I feel like for South Park, which I'm not even a huge fan of, of this satire has been mid. I feel like South Park can do better than what they've done with Trump. It feels like, honestly, I'm sorry, but it feels like sort of brain dead 2017 like MSNBC lib nonsense. It just, it has not made me laugh that hard and I'm willing to laugh at this. So far be it from me, a humble podcaster, but I feel like South Park can, like it just, it feels like they're doing so much low-hanging fruit. And that's, that's kind of their thing sometimes.

Like if you're the best person at picking the low-hanging fruit, that there's a virtue to that. But I actually feel like they can, they can do better. So that was just, that's been sort of stuck in my craw for a couple of weeks now because there's so much hype about how hilarious these South Park segments are. There is really funny anti-Trump satire. And I just thought that was mid. I feel like it was mediocre. Like it really could be better.

So moving on from that, maybe this will be a more popular take. But I wanted to roll this clip of a position of agreement I found with Michelle Obama, maybe unexpected to everyone. But I thought this was actually quite an interesting comment from the former first lady. So let's take a listen. If I listen to ESPN for an hour, it's like watching the Real Housewives of Atlanta. I mean, you know, it's the same drama and they're yelling at each other and they don't get along. You know, I mean, Stephen A. Smith, he's just like every other talk show post.

He'd be a great real housewife. He would be. Right. He would be amazing. So that's why I'm like, what's the difference. It's just, you know, it's just sociological drama. If I listen to ESPN for an hour, it's like watching a real. Let me just share this tab instead because guess what?

I actually wrote a story very similar to this for the Federalist in 2019. So if anything, Michelle Obama, maybe she read it. That seems slightly unlikely to me. But I actually think this is a really interesting point. And at the same time, I think it's somewhat undignified. correct me if I'm wrong, undignified. First of all, for the former First Lady of the United States to have a podcast. I say that as a podcaster. For the former First Lady of the United States to have a podcast, which she does with her brother, and obviously she had her husband on recently, it just

feels undignified. It feels like it is below, especially because it's not like some type of special podcast. It's them sitting around in t-shirts and jeans and talking about the real housewives. And I'm saying this again is somebody who is a podcaster and agrees with Michelle Obama on this on this very important take. This was the headline of my federal story all the way back in 2019, which was assigned to me, so I can't take full credit. But if real housewives fought physically instead of verbally, it'd be WrestleMania. I watched all of WrestleMania. And this brilliant nugget occurred to me about halfway through it. And I think it's completely true. And there's something about the emotional dynamics of the housewives. So if you are watching, if you're watching

the housewives as a woman, the primary poll is the emotional dynamics of the group. If you are watching football as a man, it's not that the emotional dynamics are irrelevant, but you are primarily pulled in by the physical dynamics of the competition. And to me, that's such a perfect distillation, oddly enough, of the male and female brain, that for women, here you have this utterly low risk, with a couple of exceptions, but this utterly low risk arena for emotional warfare. And for men, in the case of sports, you have this relatively low risk, it's not literal war arena for physical dynamics, physical competition. So the house has their emotional competition, and don't get me started.

I don't think that this necessarily applies to The Bachelor. I've always said the Housewives are far superior to The Bachelor. If you want to watch Real Reality TV, give up on the Bachelor, go to The Real Housewives, start with Season 4 of the Real Housewives of New York City. That would be my recommendation are start for the beginning of Vanderpump rules and just clear a weekend.

Don't move off the couch. Get a cooler for water, electrolytes. That's how you should handle. whichever weekend you're able to book out for it. But I thought it was somewhat interesting after all of the sort of gender fluid mania of the last 10 years to have Michelle Obama, I think making a shockingly salient point here, dare I say, about the actually really, I think, fair illustration that we see in both of these things. And actually, Jerry O'Connell, Jerry O'Connell had a great show on Bravo for men at one point that I think made this very clear because it was sort of ironic and

funny that the men were also pulled in to the emotional dynamics of the housewives and of Bravo. That was like genuinely the shtick of the show is that's funny that the men are getting pulled into this. I don't think again, I think emotions are an important part of sports too, but I also think that the primary, the primary, let's say, appeal of both genres really clearly illustrates where we're coming from as men and women, and to hear it from Michelle Obama herself, the former First Lady herself. I'm not going to go any further into exploring that particular thread or any jokes that may come of it, but Michelle Obama, I think you were correct about the real housewives.

Finally, before we wrap tonight, I just wanted to share a couple of thoughts. I did watch the new Happy Gilmore. I was a little disappointed. I mean, it was basically what I expected. I love the original Happy Gilmore. That was a VHS tape that my friends and I just wore out at sleepovers back in the day. So I thought that it was totally worth watching, like a really fun time. Could have maybe been funnier.

You know who was great in it, though, was Travis Kelsey. And Pad Bunny was really good in it, too. So it was a delightful watch. It doesn't, of course, live up to the original. Nothing really ever does. But, you know, worth a watch could have been better. Still really fun. More importantly, I watched the live action Lilo and Stitch last night.

And I'm curious, I don't watch a lot of kids movies, so I'm curious if any of the parents have a reaction to this. But, man, translating that from animation to live action, I think absolutely upped the emotional resonance of the plot in a way that was borderline sadistic. I was a wreck. I was sobbing. I was losing my mind at the live action Lilo and Stitch because it was all grass, no breaks, on the emotional low notes.

And the pains, this is not a spoiler at all. I mean, the original Leela's Sitch, which this is very true to, has been out for a long time. So all I'm saying is that they twist the knife over and over again in a way that feels, just, it feels cruel when you're watching the live action version. The actress who played Lilo was brilliant. Of course, the actor who played Stitch was brilliant. I actually don't know how they did Stitch. I assume a combination of CGI.

I don't know. But it was great. it was just, honestly, I thought borderline cruel for a children's movie to keep twisting the knife. But actually, probably a lot of that goes over kids' heads because I don't remember it pulling at my heartstrings quite as much when I was a kid either. So maybe it's when they really, really gets the adults. Many such cases, many such cases as the president would say. My email address, by the way, is Emily at Devil Make Care Media.com. Emily at DevilMakeer.media.com.

Feel free to send your thoughts over there. I try to respond to every email as best I can. We will be back here on Wednesday, 10 p.m. live. Maybe we'll have more updates on the international saga of Ellen DeGeneres and whether or not she was cruel to her staff when she had a talk show back in the day. So stay tuned. Maybe we'll have updates. Maybe we won't.

I shouldn't promise anything, but I will promise more fun. So 10 p.m. Wednesday, we'll be back.