After Party with Emily Jashinsky - Elite Immigration Fails, Out-of-Touch Media Influencers, and Trump’s Reiner Post, with Batya Ungar-Sargon

Episode Date: December 16, 2025

Emily Jashinsky is joined by Batya Ungar-Sargon, Host of "Batya!" on News Nation, and they open with a discussion on the horrendous terror attack in Australia and discuss rising claims of antisemitism here at home. Batya explains why she believes America is fundamentally different than Europe and Australia and rejects fearmongering about antisemitism in the U.S., citing everyday assimilation, strong Jewish–Muslim coexistence, and Americans’ instinctive protection of Jewish neighbors. They also respond to Bari Weiss’s warning about social-media–driven conspiracy thinking, if the panic is largely caused by bots, niche audiences, and content monetization. Then the conversation turns to Democratic failures on immigration and Tim Dillon’s blunt critique of job competition. Next Emily and Batya discuss the backlash to President Trump’s post about the murders of Rob Reiner and his wife, Trump’s inability to rise to the occasion during some somber moments, and why his norm-breaking appeals to voters when it comes to other issues. They also touch on new reporting Kamala Harris is eyeing another White House run, the 2026 Senate campaign, and Leslie Jones’ comments about ICE. Emily ends the show with a heartfelt look at the pivotal scene between Archie Bunker and Michael Stivic on “All in the Family” and contrasts the show’s hard-earned unity with today’s hyper-polarized culture. Cowboy Colostrum: Get 25% Off Cowboy Colostrum with code AFTERPARTY at https://www.cowboycolostrum.com/AFTERPARTY Unplugged: Switching is simple, Visit https://Unplugged.com/EMILY and order your UP phone today! Vandy Crisps: Ready to give MASA or Vandy a try? Get 25% off your first order by going to http://masachips.com/AFTERPARTY & using code AFTERPARTY.  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. Thank you so much for being here. Our guest tonight is the always wonderful Bacha Unger Sargon. She will join us in just one moment. I have to say right at the top of the show here, this is our 50th episode of After Party. 50 times we have come to you live on a Monday and Wednesday night at 10 p. since back in June when actually Batya herself was one of our very first guests on the show.

I know it's the holiday season and not quite the new year, but hitting that 50 episode mile marker certainly feels good. And I want to say just a thank you to everybody for coming along with us. The audience keeps growing and building. So we're very, very grateful to all of you for sticking it out, episode 50. Let's get to episode, what do you? think 50,000, maybe episode 50 million? Who knows? The sky is the limit. Tonight's show comes amidst one of the very darkest news cycles that I can remember. How about you? I mean, I was on the Megan Kelly show today, and Megan said, you know, it was almost like dateline going through the stories that are at the top of the heap in the news cycle right now. It was a very, very dark weekend. And

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention one story that's not quite getting enough attention in the midst of all of the big stories over the last several days. Two members of the Iowa National Guard were killed in Syria in an ISIS attack. Horrific. And so praying for their family members, their friends, their communities, obviously we just saw two National Guard members be targeted, what, less than a month ago, now, one of whom from West Virginia, of course, died. So those National Guard killings hit communities really hard, and I'm certainly praying for all of you and waiting for even more information to come out. Actually, speaking of the West Virginia case, the case of the West Virginia National Guard member, St. Baxter, who was killed back in November, the Washington Post had a deep dive on the suspected, the suspect in this case, the shooter in this case, who, and sort of his, his journey to spiraling after coming to the United States being resettled. The Washington Post found this man changed his Facebook profile picture to include the banner of

the Taliban, like the Taliban flag. And then a year later was granted asylum by the United States. So speaking of stories with a whole lot more details to come, that is certainly one of them. I would love to know, as of right now, how it's possible to put two and two together and get four, four being the asylum case, the asylum case being granted, that is unfathomable, and there will surely be more and more details to come. Tonight, of course, we are going to be discussing the fallout from the savage murder of Rob Reiner and his wife. We're going to be discussing the Bondi Beach Massacre. We're going to be discussing H-1B visa developments, the politics of that. We have video from Leslie Jones. We have a report that Kamala Harris is pretty serious about running for president in 2028.

And Donald Trump has declared fentanyl a weapon of mass destruction. So we're going to get to all of that and more with Bacha Unger Sargon in just one moment. Please stick around. First, recently I learned about colostrum, the very first milk. If I don't do this in a Trump voice, everyone will get mad. It's known, of course, as a liquid gold that babies receive from their mothers after birth. It is packed with proteins, natural growth factors, antimicrobial peptides that work to enhance your immune response, reduce inflammation, repair and balance gut lining, reduce bloating, and make your hair and skin look amazing. Today's sponsor, Cowboy Colostrum, offers the highest quality cow colostrum available in the United States, 100% made. in America from 100% American grass-fed cows. They don't over process or strip their colostrum, leaving it whole, full fat, and high protein for ultimate nutrient density. It is the highest

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to be joined now once again by Bacha Unger Sargon. She is, of course, the host of Bacha on News Nation and comes to us tonight. from a party with, what, about you, the vice president? Is that what you were doing tonight? He has been, I had to leave before he showed to go on NewsNation. Oh, no, that is a bummer. Actually, it was a beautiful party. It was a Hanukkah party, so I had a great time.

But I did have to, because it was called for 730 to 9.30, and then they asked me to come on NewsNation to talk about anti-Semitism and Bondi, and I felt like I couldn't say no to that. And so, you know, with the timing, whatever, I ended up having to leave at 8.30. But, Emily, we said we were drinking next time we hung out. I hope you have your drink handy. I could not drink at the party.

And so this is my party right now. Why couldn't you drink at the party? Because I was going on TV. Do you do that? You drink before you go on? Absolutely. And I always have. I didn't know that was the thing people didn't do.

And I am not. Trust me, I'm not. There's a clip out there of me somewhere when there's that Fox News show that's on at like 11 p.m. I had, it was, I won't even send to people in the Google Spiral looking for that clip because I just remember Fox reposted something. I said the next day I was like red in the face and like shouting about cancel culture or something. Anyway, I hope that's you tonight. Me too. All right, so before we get started, I've never been to the Naval Observatory. Everything I hear about is that it's absolutely.

absolutely gorgeous and beautiful. What were the vibes like, Bacha, even though these were pre-JD vibes, but how were they tonight? They were great. I mean, it's muted because of what happened in Australia. I am a big, like, anti-Semitism in America skeptic, this is what I was talking about on News Nation. When people say like, oh, it's coming here, I'm like, no, it's not. It just isn't. Like, it's just the, everything that unfolded in that scene was just so able to.

alien to America. I was alien to America both in terms of how Jews are in America, but also how Muslims are in America. Our Muslim community is very middle class. It's very assimilated. I live in a neighborhood that's half Turkish immigrants and half Russian Jews. Like the idea that there would be like ethnic strife is ridiculous. Like everyone wants to get along. Everyone's chasing the American dream. Brooklyn is just full of streets that are just like very religious Muslims living side by side with very religious Jews, everybody gets along. Like, it's just so alien. That scene of the father and the son who just, they looked like people who had no

connection to the community, who were very other, not in terms of how they were seen, but how they saw themselves. Like, that's what I got from that video. And then, of course, that heroic Ahmed al-Ahmed, who jumped into the parade. That thing of being alien to the context that you're in, it's just, it's not American. to me and I you know each of you people are talking now a lot about like importing people who like don't share values or whatever we can talk about that at length but to me like the thing about American capitalism is like it takes no prisoners like people get here and they want in you know

like they want to be a part of it and in my neighborhood specifically so there's um I want to say like 20 blocks away from where I live which is kind of where my gym is, so I go there a lot, there's public housing. And it's clear that a whole, a big group of Afghans were moved into that public housing. And you see the kids and their parents and their families walking to the public school across the street. And you can see with every year the same little girls, like, you know, a year ago, the littlest girls were wearing hijab, and now they're not anymore. You know, you can walk into a cafe in Sheepshead Bay and have families where the mother's wearing hijab and the daughters aren't or where the daughter is wearing hijab and the

mother isn't like this is the beauty of america is like we believe freedom of religion you know so i just i don't i feel like the fearmongering about it happening here is really off not just in terms of who our muslims are but also americans are extremely protective of their jewish neighbors which is just something that's been like totally written out of the story i've traveled this country I wear a big-ass star of David everywhere I go. Like, the first thing you know about me is that I'm a Jew. And I just, I never feel unsafe ever. And I think it's a canard.

And I think it's just wrong that people spread that. So I'm a big skeptic about rising anti-Semitism in America. How are you doing? I feel like that was like a long, like, so much the queen. Good evening. Bacha, you know how to make a party fun. I'll tell you that. No, actually, on that point, the vice president, who I know you had to

before he entered the party. It may have been because he was posting on X. I know he was posting on X. Literally, he's sitting there posting on X instead of coming to this party that he's supposed to be hosting. Very millennial behavior. It is. It's the it's millennial vice president behavior. He posted actually about exactly this because right now there's an Atlantic article making the rounds citing a few different polls that purport to show rising anti-Semitism as the age demographics get younger, that is to say, there's in these various polls, one is from Yale, the other is from the Kamala Harris campaign, and they're being written about in the Atlantic. Now, I think we all would have to have a bigger conversation about how these polls define anti-Semitism and anti-Semitic

sentiments before, you know, parsing this. But one of the comments that Vice President Vance made, and we probably have the post that we can put up on the screen, is actually that he thinks it's wrong to comment about this polling without mentioning the way. of migration, of people who do not share, basically what he's saying is American values that have disproportionate numbers in younger demographics. And that reminds me exactly of the point that you are making Badia, which is in the United States traditionally, we have a history of assimilation that's very different than anywhere else in the world. It goes back to our past, our founding, and it's easy to understand kind of the through line in American history. A lot of people feel

like that's kind of slipping. I want to play this clip, although I think it's a very important question to your point. I want to play this clip of a local MP member of parliament. This is a G.B. News clip of this MP talking about how, quote, quote, diversity is our strength in Australia after the Bondi Beach massacre. We can go ahead and roll this. You don't want to speculate on what the factors are that have contributed to this awful tragedy that seems to be of a huge scale. You know, my heartbreaks for those people and their families. I think it's important to note that the escalation of this narrative of who we're against and how much we want to divide each other and how much we want to attack each other.

That is really at the core of a lot of the problems that we have in the country at the moment. And I firmly believe that people are good and that given the opportunity, they will look out for each other. And I just want to say that as much as possible we should try and detoxify the way that we think, think of people who aren't like us because our diversity in this country is our strength. And you can tell by the accent that I obviously misspoke. That's not an Australian MP. It's a British MP. But Bacha, that's where people, I imagine, like Vice President Vance, look to Europe. We've heard President Trump talk about this as well and worry the same sort of, maybe we could use the phrase that Gadsad and Elon Musk talked about empathy they see in European countries

that becomes a lack of empathy for maybe native-born citizens of all races, colors, creeds, that that becomes a significant problem. Do you worry about that or do you think actually America is different and will always be different in that respect? Well, I basically think immigration should be at close to zero right now. So I think Europe made massive, massive mistakes on this front. And we shouldn't make those mistakes. But because we have not made those mistakes, I am free to think about immigration from an economic point of view.

And that's really where my focus is. We just need, we're just, it's just, I'm sick of being fleeced. The American people are unbelievably generous. And their generosity has been taken advantage. of again and again and again and again, whether it's by Somalis literally stealing from them or 20,000 illegal migrants, 20 million illegal migrants, at least 10 million of whom have fraudulent asylum claims, 70% of whom never show up for their immigration cases. They're fleecing us because every one of those people is either working, in which case they're driving down the

wages for Americans, or if they're not working, then they are living off of the American taxpayer because they're getting welfare. There's no third option here, right? None of them have rich relatives in some other country that are like subsidizing their life here. So I'm sort of at like we need to get to immigration zero. I think that because of the way America works, we've had the luxury of not having to think about this from a cultural point of view.

because most of our migrants come from Central and South America and culturally they're very similar to us they're religious, they're into family, they don't like corruption because they come from very corrupt places. They like capitalism because they come from socialist places.

So to me, like they're very culturally similar to us. They still can't be here because they're making life worse for working class Americans. But yeah, for sure, we should not then like add, you know, to the problem we have with, you know, mass migration, the additional problem of

importing millions and millions of people who hate Western values and hate Jews. Like that would be really, really bad. In my view, you know, there's very few things that are as anti-American as anti-Semitism, if only because the founding fathers really saw Jews as the harbingers of the civilization they were trying to create here. They saw, the Hebrew Bible as the source of the ideas in the Constitution, the idea that we are all created in the image of God, the idea that our rights are God given. They saw that as being written in the Hebrew Bible. Like, it was not an idea that the founding fathers thought a person could think their way into. They saw that text as being divine and being the source of these amazing ideas.

And when Jews started coming here, in 1654, they already, their neighbors already saw. them as sort of bringing with them this civilization that had preceding preceded them to these shores this idea of you know all being created equal and in the image of god and having these god given rights and you know finally thomas jefferson would phrase that in this beautiful way where he would say it's not about religious tolerance it doesn't rely on the tolerance of your neighbor it's about liberty god gave you that liberty not your tolerant neighbor even though their neighbor were really tolerant. So, yeah, these are like very fundamental ideas to what it means to be an American.

If we imported, you know, 10 million people from Muslim countries, they certainly would not agree with any of those values and certainly would not see Jews in the same light. So that would be bad. We're very lucky because we're sort of, you know, in a different place right now, we're having, we're able to have a different conversation. So I sort of agree with the vice president, but I don't think that this is necessarily sort of coming home to roost here yet. That's a very, I think it is a very refreshing glass half full take. And let me put the Gadsad Elon Musk exchange on the screen. This is from December 13th.

Gadsad said, please try to be empathetic and look the other way as your civilization is being raped and murdered into oblivion, die kindly. That was in response to Elon Musk or Elon Musk responded on December 14th saying either the suicidal empathy of Western civilization ends or Western civilization will end. But Bacha, just to put maybe a bow on this conversation we're having about the broader discussion of Western civilization versus American civilization, it is true that in some of these Western European countries, I think, you know, obviously, well, Australia is nowhere near Western Europe. It is very Western European, just in the way that the society is set up. You've actually lived outside of the United States, Bacha. You've seen this.

in other countries, is there something in the United States that maybe is an immune response to this, what is the phrase? I mean, Elon says suicidal empathy. Is there, do we have some unique bulwark against suicidal empathy or is, or should these trajectories of the UK, Australia, where you see serious, serious problems with integrating large populations of, in some cases, refugees, some cases economic migrants from Islamic cultures, some of whom, you know, Somalia's a good example, it has about a 99% female genital mutilation rate according to UNICEF. That is a very difficult culture to assimilate into northern Minnesota. And to be honest, we've done a remarkable job in the United States for all of the, you know, it's amazing to be that there isn't more like what we've

seen just in the last couple of weeks that it's not even worse as bad as it is. So maybe some perspective on that would be helpful about you? It's a really good question. But there's just, I feel like we really do, I'm a polyana. So I'm always in the glass half full thing. Like people are saying to me like, oh my God, you're like, you're so wrong. Like things are so much worse. But I, so I do have that tendency. But that's what makes you different in media. Seriously. Because that's, that's very reflective of the average Americans mindset. And it's very not reflective of the average journalist's mindset. Yeah, because it's so much easier to get clicks if you're saying like everything is terrible. But yeah, like we don't have that problem. We don't have these. You look at what's

doing in France. You look at what's doing in Sweden where you literally have no go zones. And it's so funny because they act like this is the problem is with like the Muslims. The problem is not with the Muslims. The problem is that their cops are pussies. Okay. I'm sorry. Like, can you imagine if, like, the NYPD was like, oh, yeah, Bay Ridge, we don't go there. We don't bring guns. No guns. Right? Like, it's just they're blaming the wrong people.

And I do think that America is exceptional and does not get credit for it. So, of course, this suicidal empathy is real. And you see it, for example, Tom Holman was talking about this today in the Oval Office. You see it in the approach to immigration, to where the love. left was like, oh, the compassionate position is to have an open border. And what that resulted in was a third of women being raped on the way here. That's not compassionate. That's disgusting. That is a perversion of compassion. So we have it. But we don't quite have it in the same context as they have it in Europe where they're afraid to literally arrest rapists because they happen

to be Muslims. Like, they're in a lot worse of a situation. Pakistani gangs. Exactly. And I just find that very like unimaginable and unthinkable here. And it's amazing that in Australia, the response to this attack was not like, wow, we've been like really siding with the wrong side in this conflict here. And instead it was like, oh, wait, there are too many guns. It's too easy to get access to guns. It's so amazing to see these or you see them like censoring the videos of the shooting there.

I was asked about this on Australian TV this morning. And I was just like, I was like, I don't even know what to say. Like, as an American, that's just like so, like, unthinkable that our government would, like, say, oh, you can't watch that. Like, what? Yeah. That's the whole point of America. Well, it's perfect that you should mention that project. I was actually just going to ask you about this, this clip of someone, both of us know, Barry Weiss, on CBS, sort of recapping the town hall.

she hosted with Erica Kirk. And here's a little bit of what Barry said. And I have to say, I actually do agree with a lot of it. And people are interpreting it, I think, maybe uncharitably in some directions, but I'm curious to get your take because there is a particular line that's a little concerning. Let's go ahead and roll Barry here.

If you go on the internet, and frankly, it is left beyond the internet now into real life, and you talk to many seemingly sane people, they do not believe that the 22-year-old people, named Tyler Robinson that has been arrested and charged with his murder is the actual murderer. They believe any number of theories. They believe that Erica Kirk was his Mossad handler and that he was killed by a foreign government. They believed that she was tracked by Egyptian planes.

They believe that the rings on her hand are signs of Illuminati. The theories themselves are absurd. What matters is that she speaks about this in the interview. The brain rock that social media is allowing. to spread the way that it is detaching us from humanity from our ability to talk to one another and our ability to discern the truth from just out and out lies is something that is incredibly important as a theme i think okay so let me before i toss it to you about just first say i agree that these social media companies are they are tweaking us with their algorithms i mean if twitter went

back to just a straight news feed. And Gen Z doesn't remember when Facebook and Instagram were like that either. You could literally scroll to the bottom of Twitter and Facebook at one point because you got through all of the posts from all of the people you'd followed since you last checked in. That's very different than incentivizing strong emotion to the point you just made in ways that are genuinely retraining our thought patterns. Now, on the other hand, she used the word allowed. She said the social media companies are allowing the brain rock.

And this is where people like Matt Taibi, this is F4, came in and said the proliferation of conspiracy theories on social media can't be fixed by censorship. That makes it worse, as I hope Barry Weiss knows. It only gets solved by major news organizations, recommitting to accuracy, owning up some mistakes, restoring trust, et cetera. So, Batchie, it does remind me a bit of almost blaming the guns in Australia for the Bondi massacre rather than the ideology. It could be a car. It could be a pressure cooker bomb. And in this case, I don't think social media is making anything better. but the problem is deep institutional distrust.

So is it a question of social media companies, quote, allowing this? You know, again, I'm like such a huge skeptic about all of this. There was a report that came out this week that over half of Nick Fuentes' followers are foreign bots, which I've been saying for years. You know, you take another example, Tucker Carlson. The average age of his viewer, I saw data that was put out that suggests, that it was even older than the average Fox viewer. Okay?

Now, so we're talking about like old boomers who are conservatives, right? Like these are the most pro-Israel people in America. So like, obviously he's not penetrating even to the people who are listening. So I just feel like, you know, there's a bunch of people on social media and they found a niche. They found a way to like monetize their content. And there's some weird thing happening where people are acting like that means that every view that they get on a video corresponds with an American voter who is 100% in agreement with their views. Like it just, I feel like we're like in moral panic territory. And Emily, you wrote this great piece being like, guys, I'm sorry, exactly.

Like the Gen Zs, they're not broopers. Like just relax for a second. And I sort of feel like that's, like, you know, Nick Fuentes is very funny. Like, people watch him and don't necessarily come away being like, yeah, he's right. Hitler's cool. They, it's funny. And so they laugh. Like, we all have our guilty things that we walk or listen to that we don't agree with,

but that kind of make us chuckle, you know? Like, I just don't feel like this is representative of like an actual, like, mass movement. I'll say another thing, you know, turning point. extremely important organization. So they'll go to college campuses and do their events. And then at the last one where the vice president was there, there were like three or four questions that were like very anti-Israel. And it was like, oh, yoy, the young people, they're burning.

They hate the Jews. They hate Israel. And it was like, I love turning point, okay? But we're talking about an organization that represents college conservatives, okay? Like, the number of college-educated Americans who are conservatives is tiny. And the share of the conservative movement and the Republican Party that are college-educated, tiny. We're talking about a really small portion of a very large movement. And I just feel like people are so, like when Barry White says, I know a lot of people who buy into Candace Owens.

I'm like, do you, Barry? We know a lot of people like that, because I know a lot of normies. I know a lot of working class people across the country, and none of them are watching Candace Owens, and none of them are watching Nick Fuentes, and none of them are watching Tucker Carlson, and even the ones who are not getting their marching orders from them, it's just so, and it's so funny. Like, you just, like, it's a time again and again and again where it's like the content creators their their whole like agenda is so divorced from the normie especially the normie working

class agenda i remember i'll never forget like i got a text message from this guy i know he works in a bar like he's middle-aged republican his whole life like super into trump and he texted me and he goes why does everybody keep talking about geoffrey epstein like why am i supposed to care about this Interesting. And it was so representative of like what people had been saying to me to where I was like, Trump knows what's up. He knows nobody cares about this except people who make money off of content. And we're all acting like the internet is not available outside of like the boundaries of the United States.

It's so ridiculous. And I think even someone like Marjorie Taylor Green who used to be so in touch with like the grassroots and her voters and whatever. And she had this big thing where she kind of followed the, she followed the engagement and started obsessing over Epstein and being against the, you know, attack on Iran, which was wildly, wildly popular. Like 90% of Republican voters were like, yeah, go, you know, take out their nuclear reactors. But the content creators were like, how dare you engage militarily with Iran, right? There's this real divide, but I don't think the right is divided. I don't think MAGA is divided. I think there's a divide between people who make a lot of money actually off of content.

And then like your average normie working class voter who represents like the base of the party. And Trump is like one of the only people I've seen who can really see clearly which is which. What do you think, Emily? Do you agree with me? I agree with you in part because I think two things can be true at once, which is on the one hand, the average mega voter has kitchen table issues front and center. And by kitchen table issues, I mean, health care, taxes, costs of living, rent, housing, education for their kids, all of that. On the other hand, I think the Epstein case is sort of seen as a litmus test.

Like, nobody believes that we're actually getting transparency in this case. But it's sort of like if Trump is supposed to be Mr. Wreckingball, then yeah, like they're like, oh, you know, you've got to actually be the wrecking ball. You're going to lose some trust. But that doesn't mean, I mean, most people are voting in lesser of two evil elections. now and they want to know that you're going to make their life more affordable, better, richer. And by that, I meant like socially richer, just a better world. And so I think I'm of two minds on that, but it can be true that that represents the average and that people are also a little skeptical. I think you always have a needed dose of like outside perspective, though, Bacha from people

that you talk to and you've written about and you corresponded with for a long time who are completely outside of the media bubble. Yeah. And I think, also people go through like they go through phases where you know like you know I know this truck driver he listens to a lot of podcasts and you know he would be listening to certain podcasts that I would consider to be like beyond the pale and then like after a while he was just like gross like he just like he was like actually like no that's not they're trying to blame everything on this one and on that one and that's not and stop listening to them and moved on and so I feel like is kind of like a big moral panic happening around this kind of content.

And it's extremely important to have that kind of bigger picture perspective. You know, part of like the foundation of this country is that it has just always been a homeland for the Jews. I mean, Jews were coming here. They were moving here and seeing this as the promised land for 200 years, 250 years before the state of Israel even existed. And it was the promised land. they were treated as equals and emily should read the letters that like jews who had moved here from germany in like the 18th century 19th century would write back home like you just weep to read them like they'll say like because they still remembered what it was like in the old country and they would be

writing these letters home like we're treated like everybody else you can't even imagine how high a jew can rise here like it's just so amazing and that they would get the same love back from the community like just anyway beginning of my book where I'm just finishing up the copy edits on my next book and so I'm like swimming in this like the first 200 years of like Jewish history in America it's just so beautiful and the idea that that's going to be undone by some like you know twink who's sitting there just you know like I'm just so I know who you're talking about no oh Baja I'm going to save you with the bell here we're going to go to break And when we come back, we're going to talk more about immigration.

Not that you need to be saved by the bell botcha. We know exactly where you were going with that. All right, all right, all right. We'll be back in just one moment. First, though, if you've ever noticed those creepy ads that pop up on your phone and they seem to know exactly where you've been, what you've bought, and even what you've been talking about, and you've probably asked yourself, is my phone monitoring me?

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get $25 off a phone case with a purchase of a phone. Learn more and order your Upphone today. That's Unplugged.com slash Emily because you're your life should be yours, not theirs. And again, here you can see the upphone on your screen. All right, we are back now with Bacha Unger Sargon, host of Bacha on News Nation. Baja, I wanna ask about this Tim Dillon clip.

Tim Dillon, kind of an interesting, I'm actually curious where you're taking where he kind of fits in the broader MAGA universe, but this is actually before the New York Times story popped, or it's right around the same time this New York Times story popped. We were talking about young conservatives earlier. There's a New York Times headline about the quote,

zoomer cons. The headline is, the young people fixated on who gets to work in America. And it was all about how the zoomer cons are obsessed with this very wonky conversation about H-1B visas. And there are a lot of reasons for this. We're gonna get into all of them, but let's listen to comedian Tim Dillon. I think having his finger pretty firmly on the pulse

of where some of these sentiments are coming from. Is the goal here that Americans should compete with the entire world for jobs? Is that the point? Is the point that Americans should compete with people from all over the world for jobs in their own country? That's one of the most psychotic things I've ever heard. And it would only make sense if you were part of the asset-owning class that owned all of the things that are serviced

by people that you are paying a lot less money to. And Bacha, I don't know if you caught this, but James Telerico, one of the Senate candidates, actually now running against Jasmine Crockett in Texas in the primary down there. I call him Timu Richie Cunningham. It's not very kind, but it's accurate. He said on Jubilee,

he just point blank looked at the person across from him and said, Joe Biden failed us on immigration. And it's like, how hard was that? How hard was that? maybe it would have helped if some people were doing it while it happened. But isn't Tim Dillon closer to the average American here than like Democrats were for the last 10 years? It's so funny. Last week was really like I called it in my monologue on my show like the week of it can now be said, you know?

Like it can now be said Ukraine is a deeply corrupt country that is embezzling hundreds and millions of our taxpayer dollars. It can now be said. The New York Times said it. You know, like it can now be said Biden failed us on immigration now that it's like obvious that they'll never win another election if they can't like spit out those like force out those words, you know. The Democrats truly believe that our economy cannot work without an indentured servant cast working for less than minimum wage with no work protections.

And they will freely admit this to you. Like this is their stated position is like, well, everything. will get more expensive if we deport the illegals. We need them to work. Yes. Right? Like the household of like a rich progressive couple, you know, which relies on the labor of, you know, illegals because they don't want to pay.

It's so amazing. Like my grandmother, I'm sure I've told you the story before, but she thought raising children was like the most boring, like soul-sucking, boring thing. But she was the wife of a rabbi. It wasn't like she could just, like, not have kids. And so what she did was she had children. And then she hired what was called a domestic, Emma, who had come up from the Great Migration. She moved, Emma moved into their house.

She raised my mom and her brothers. And my grandmother, my grandmother got a teacher's degree. She became a teacher. And she would hand over her entire paycheck to Emma. And that made perfect sense to her. Like, she didn't want to raise her kids. but it never occurred to her because she had a piece of paper

that was a credential from NYU therefore Emma should be broke all the time and live on the streets and she should be living in luxury right? Like Emma was doing the job that she was supposed to do and didn't want to and so Emma deserved the same amount of money

as she made like this was utterly obvious to my ultra-Orthodox grandmother now what's happened is what the mass migration allowed the elites to do is they get that piece of paper and it means they should be flying in first class and everyone else should be in coach like they think that that means they should be making way more money than the people they're employing to do the things that really they should be doing like cleaning their own freaking toilets or raising their own children or mowing their own lawn right this is kind

of what mass migration allowed them to do is to think that somehow because of a piece of paper a credential, which like the elites just confer on each other. It doesn't signify any actual learning, right? They don't actually know anything. But because they have that credential, therefore, they should be allowed to employ people who make a fraction of what they make and they should be able to use the rest on whatever they want to spend it on. It's disgusting. And it's just, this is what Trump exists to fix on immigration and on trade, just the mass fleecing of the American working class to where, you know, the, The top 10% love to rail against the billionaires.

But the share of the economy that's controlled by the billionaire class has not significantly changed since the 70s, which was like the high water mark for working class purchasing power. So where did all that money go? Well, it went from the middle class into the upper middle class. So the top 10% now control over 60% of the GDP. And of course, they're all Democrats, like 70% of people who make over $500,000 a year now are Democrats.

Which is, by the way, Emily, I'm sure you agree with me. actually, I'm curious if you agree with me on this, which is why I keep yelling at Republicans, like, why are you giving tax cuts to the rich? They're all Democrats. They're just going to take that money and fund Democratic candidates. They're going to run you out of office and then they're going to put you all in prison. Like, why are you doing this? It's so dumb. Like, they have this muscle memory to where, like, they think they still have to cater to the bitch. Oh, I mean, it's the answer is so obvious when, you know, Donald Trump comes into office. and surrounds himself at his inauguration with the richest of the rich who, you know, want, yeah, but anyway, we have to get back into that.

I think it's, you know, funniest example was Georgia giving Hollywood all of these tax credits to film in Georgia with very mediocre returns to their own economy while Hollywood was calling everybody from Georgia a racist bigot for their faith. Anyway, by the way, I do have to say, we're watching a movie. I'm trying to, I'm trying to remember what it was. Oh, was it a TV show on Netflix? Oh, yes. I was watching a TV show on Netflix. And the heroin is running away from the law. And a truck, she hides in a truck, okay? And then the truck driver gets, I'm going somewhere with this, I promise. It's really good. I don't even care if you're going somewhere with it.

So the truck driver gets in the truck and he's driving, you know, and then, and he's like a big, fat white guy with like a camo hat, okay? Like, you know, it looks like a truck driver, okay. At some point, you know, she falls asleep and she wakes up and he's pointing like, you know, a rifle at her. And he's like, all right, get up, get out. And then there's this whole scene where you're like, okay, well, it's Netflix. And he's like a fat white guy who obviously voted for Trump. He drives a truck. Like, okay, is he like going to rape her?

Like, what's going to happen here? And she's like, you know, I just need a little help or whatever. And he says, are you running away from the law? And she says, yes. And he goes, and this is, by the way, this is like such a truck driver thinks to say. He goes, there's only two things I really hate. And he's like, my ex and the law. I knew that was going.

And then he helps her. And I'm like, nature is healing. Because in any movie TV show on Netflix or any of these like, you know, Disney or Amazon or whatever, like pre-20204, that guy would have been the bad guy, right? Like there's no, like you knew when the Trump voter showed up on the screen that they were going to be like horrible, you know? And it's like there was something about that scene where I was like, okay, it's like somebody has gotten the message. that like you just can't treat people like that anymore or they're just not going to watch your stuff. And they're not going to pay for your Georgia tax breaks, Bob Iger. Yeah.

No, I mean, really, it's as true. I always say the most like actual hillbilly thing about J.D. Vance is that post that he had to apologize for saying he hated the cops. That's how you know he's a real hillbilly. Okay. But yeah, while we're at it, uh, you, when you were describing elite Democrats or Remind me of that Jasmine Crockett, the old Crockett clip that's going around now, that could basically be your entire book of her saying, you know, we're done picking cotton in reference to why she believes you need to have migrants coming into the country en masse. Now, there's a report in Axios that Kamala Harris is seriously considering, like very seriously considering, right now starting to mount a bid for the White House in 2008. This is, of course, a woman who has tasked with the getting to the bottom of the root causes of the immigration crisis as it worsened to historic proportions under the Biden administration amid so many other swirling controversies.

Joe Biden can't raise anything for his presidential library right now. There was just a giant piece. I think it was in the Times about that as well. I mean, truly, he can raise almost nothing for his presidential library and may just turn what already is the Joe Biden Center at the University of Delaware into the library. So Kamala Harris thinking that she can mount a serious bid for the presidency, she's taking her book tour to South Carolina next year, telegraphing in Axios, that she's serious about it. This seems insane to me, but yeah, but of course, weirder things have happened. Oh, I hope she does. I'm like, you know, Kamala Harris.

Oprah. Oh, my gosh, the Oprah Town Hall. I forgot about that. Do it. I want to see her like, you know, and Gavin Newsom just taking the gloves. I'm here for it. I love primaries because they get just so brutal. I love that. You know, I hate the Biden stuff. I really, it hurts me. Like, I think I did not do a good job calling out the decline. I was in denial about it because it was, I felt so embarrassed for him. Like I would go on Fox News and they would promise. me to talk about and I would say look let's not talk about the that stuff like let's talk about the policy the policy is terrible they have an open border like what's up with that let's talk about that because I just found it unbearable like on a human level to see this elderly person be so humiliated by people that he thought were in his corner I I still I find it unbearable like and the fact that all these ghouls are now piling on you know like the Jake tappers and whatever like acting like he's now their scapegoat right like they can now like just completely dump on him because he'll never have power again right and so they can act like they're

speaking truth to power when actually they're just like like they're literally punching an old man who can't defend himself and i know that's like a crazy wrong way to talk about a president who was like the most powerful person on the planet obviously i think his policy was like awful but I truly I cannot be a good journalist on this like mental decline thing I find it just the humiliation like I just feel this like vicarious secondhand like and just I don't know like in my culture like respecting your elders is such a big deal and the Democrats as long as they thought they could get him through and they could use him to hurt Trump they were perfectly willing to do that and I feel that a lot of the attacks on him right now are just because. because he's powerless. Like it's, I don't know, I find, like, I don't think I'm being a good journalist, like, but I can't, I somehow, like, my personality is not enabling me to, like, think about this objectively.

I do truly hope Kamala Harris runs again, not wins, but runs. I just think it'll be so great. And the fact that I feel that way probably means she shouldn't because, like, obviously, like, it'll be terrible. But I do think it's so interesting. Like, I, I, what do you think about this, Emily? I think that the Republican primary is going to be very bruising. Like right now everybody's kind of pretending to get along because Trump is such a powerful

character and he has such a strong people like try to minimize what he's doing right now by being like, oh, he has this ironclad hold on the party and what have you. Like, no, he has a completely lucid theory of the case but how to stop the decline of this country and he will do everything he can. can to do it and he doesn't care about anything else and like it's it's incredible the use of power here happens to be for things that I really truly believe in and so it's like amazing to see it but I do think that there's kind of a very bruising primary that's going to happen I don't think he's going to you know coronate jd vans I personally think that vance is going to have a lot of problems in a lot

of areas that probably we've we've discussed but a lot of like larger issues as well um the holly thing did you see this he put out um a new initiative to bolster pro-life i guess initiatives in the states and it was reported in axios i don't know how accurate it is that the trump people are very upset about this oh yeah if they're not they should be not because like you know i mean i think holly's a great senator but Trump really neutralized the issue by making it clear that he pretty much supports abortion, you know, to get six to 12 weeks, you know, like he's kind of there, which is where 85% of Americans are. And if the Republicans come out and say, we're going to go into 2026, we're going to go into 2028 and like, you know, a national ban on abortion is going to be our number one issue.

Like, it's over. Like it's over before it starts. That's what I think. What do you think? Well, yeah, I mean, I saw that report too. And I assumed, to be honest, that one of the sources in the article Slamming Holly was Chris LaSavita, who is kind of known in pro-life circles to be, what are the people whispering in Trump's here and all of this. And their political instincts are absolutely accurate. I agree with you completely. I didn't read that Holly's group was trying to be a presidential primary force into starting this group. So I think it, to me, felt like, you know, Trump advisors love evangelical Christians until they need evangelical Christians and, or I'm sorry, they hate evangelical Christians.

Not, I shouldn't say hate, but they resent evangelical Christians kind of political influences, which can sometimes be damaging. There's no question about it until they need them. And then it's like, okay, I don't think anything that Josh Hawley announced was super threatening, but I can see why they would be annoyed. about it stepping into the Trump brand. But this is interesting because what I wanted to ask you about next was the Rob Reiner controversy. And this sounds disconnected, but I have to say, I was hosting as usual, the 2 to 3 p.m. hour

right after Megan on the Megan Kelly channel on Sirius today. And when we talked about Trump's Rob Reiner tweet, this is anecdotal, of course, our phone lines lit up particularly with women. And they were all at least identified as Trump. Trump voters. They all said, we are MAGA, or I am MAGA, and this Rob Reiner tweet really pisses me off. Now, I imagine the serious XM audience is on average a little bit more affluent, but Trump posted on X, or on true socialized to say, shortly after the news broke that Rob Reiner and his wife, Michelle, had been murdered in their home, and their son is the lead suspect. He is in jail. He's being held right now on no bail for slitting this. throat, allegedly slitting their throats. It seems like it's a pretty clear-cut case here, but Trump said that he heard it was that Rob Reiner was reportedly, he said, passed away together

with his wife, Michelle, due to the anger he caused others through his massive unyielding and incurable affliction with a mind-cripling disease known as Trump derangement syndrome. He goes on to say he was known to have driven people crazy by his raging obsession of President Donald J. Trump, et cetera. etc. Then ended it by saying, may Rob and Michelle rest in peace. He got asked by this today at the White House. Let's take a listen to his response. A number of Republicans have denounced your statement on true social after the murder of Rob Reiner. Do you stand by that post? Well, I wasn't a fan of his at all. He was a deranged person as far as Trump is concerned. He said he knew it was false. In fact, it's the exact opposite that I was a friend of Russia controlled by

Russia. You know, it was the Russia hooks. He was one of the people behind it. I think he heard himself in career wise. He became like a deranged person, Trump derangement syndrome. So I was not a fan of Rob Reiner at all in any way, shape, or form. I thought he was very bad for our country. Okay, Butcher, the reason that I'm very curious what you make of this is that it's often difficult to separate media controversies when it comes to Trump from real world controversy. when it comes to Trump. And I was genuinely surprised to see people upset about the Rob Reiner tweet. And I don't think anybody is voting in 2028 based on the Rob Reiner tweet. Don't get me wrong. But it does open up this question about what the post-Trump, to your point, Republican

primary in 2028 looks like. What is the character of a Marker Rubio, J.D. Vance, running in 2028. So I guess I'm just curious to get your reaction to Trump saying that into this, this very like serious, intense conversation happening on the right now. You have Marjor Taylor Green on one side, people like Jack Posobic on the other side saying Rob Reiner did hate Trump. He was, you know, paranoid about Russia collusion, which by the way, that is absolutely true. Like, is this important? Is this going to be important for Republicans going forward? Does this reflect on anyone else what is going on help help me think about this um i mean look the the the the the rob riner thing is it confirmed now that it was his son he's been

arrested right and both yeah he's been arrested he's being held at what he was on four million dollar bail now he's not uh there was there's now a report in tmz he was fighting with his parents at conan o'brien's christmas party shortly before it happened was acting very odd it does seem like it's pointing in that direction. It's just a horrific story. And it's so amazing that how rich you get, you know, how successful you get. Addiction, mental health, it comes for everybody. Just horrific.

Imagine being murdered by your own son. And I kind of think this is why it touched a nerve. My impression is like, boomer, MAGO women. That's why I touched a nerve with them is he's, Rob Reiner's just, before he was super, super political. He was to so many people just kind of an icon. He was appointment television. He was a familiar face. And so there's something jarring about seeing the president lash out at him after we just heard he had had his throat slit, possibly by his son.

Yeah, Trump's not known for his ability to rise above. It goes back to the John McCain comment, yeah. Meet the moment with dignity, if you will. Yes. There are moments like this where you're like, ah, shouldn't have said that, that sucks. But in my view, you know, nice people who know what to say when Rob Reiner is killed

don't take on the entire global economic order and slap tariffs on the entire world and say, screw you, I don't work for you. I work for the American people. it's sort of like two sides of the same coin I think with Trump that's that is a really interesting way to put it and let me I'm going to share this tab here I saw this post that's going viral right now

conservative Twitter see when a liberal dies conservatives behave like adults Donald Trump and then it's a gif of the Kool-Aid man busting through a brick wall saying oh yeah and I don't mean to make light of the obviously this horrible situation but this is absolutely the Trump that everybody's known and many millions of people have voted for over and over again since the primaries first started in 2016, Baja. So it's, I suppose it doesn't necessarily have political ramifications, but I guess it does raise that question of women in particular who have never been, conservative women have never super been in that huge numbers the same as men in love with Trump. I guess maybe it's a reminder of that

to some extent. Yeah, I do have to say like when you think about like what's 2020 going to look like on the GOP side. You've got Marco Rubio, you got J.D. Vance. You got Ron DeSantis, right? Probably Nikki Haley will throw her hat in the ring. Maybe Josh Hawley, maybe Tom Cotton. None of them would have made this error, right? Let's just call what it is.

It was not a nice thing to say. None of them would have done that, right? They're all going to be much higher on the, like, you know, censorship, like saying the right thing. Norms. Yeah. Norms. And the question is going to be, Given that they are more sensitive to those perceptions, are they going to be willing to give a Tom Holman free reign to deport millions of illegals?

Are they going to be willing to give a Scott Besant the free reign or, you know, Howard Lutnik to say to South Korea, Japan, the EU, we're going to raise the tariff. so you better open your markets to us or else, right? Like, it's sort of two sides of the same coin. Like, Trump, like, does not give a, you know what, right? And so you see it in moments like this where maybe we would rather have, like, a more dignified response, right? But you also see it in moments where he's willing to tell everybody else to F off. He doesn't work for them, right?

And that is a big part of the draw as well, which is why when people go to the voice, voting booth they don't think about like you know what did he tweet about Elon Omar what did he say about Reiner they think about you know what has he done for me like how much am I paying for drugs right like is there now a factory being built that my son is going to work in are there fewer illegals competing with me for housing that's his legacy and I think that's something that a lot of people understand intuitively about him and all of the articles where it's like oh now he's really done it this time he's done it this time like he's not done it this time you know even like me like when he he was asked about um Tucker Carlson giving Nick Fuentes a platform right and he said

well I guess you have to give him an airing right like let let people decide on their own or whatever it was and some people were like oh you know that's he didn't you didn't make it clear what he was saying that he was saying, like, no, like, you have to give him an airing so people can, like, make up their own minds or whatever, which is the free speech argument, which is great. It sounded more like he was saying, no, like, he has a position, whatever. You know, like, you have to always remember, like, you have the symbolic issues that elites like us sit around obsessing over and parsing over. Right.

And then you have just the fact that for 60 years, our economy was an upward funnel of wealth from the working class into the pockets of the elites. and Trump just took that spigot and turned it around. Like, there's nothing he can tweet or say that will undo that or that will take away the significance of that. He may be the last president in American history who was willing to do that. I hope that's not true.

But it is very hard to imagine another political figure who is willing to say not just to Wall Street, but to the entire global economic order, screw you cry harder libs i don't work for you and i think that's really important let's on that note roll this clip of leslie jones formerly of saturday night live talking about ice on the podcast of nicole wallace i think it's called like the best people it is a self-defeating every single episode it defeats its own title unless the purpose was ironic which of course it's it's not so we can go ahead here and roll leslie jones she's very mad on how do you think it ends how do you think the era ends

girl this is i'm hoping this is what i'm hoping that midterms people come out and vote like crazy to switch it over and then the reckoning comes that's what i want all everybody that work for ice i want them in jail i just want a reckoning i want a reckoning y'all know y'all did wrong stuff you know know some of the stuff you did was so wrong i need a reckoning because that's to me that's the only thing that's going to make it right she also went on a rant that was like for 20 seconds bleeped entirely by nico wallace's podcast like literally 20 seconds just full bleeping noise which i'm not going to play for people because it's too hard on the ears but um but yeah that's where you know it's it's sort of the what you were just saying about trump it reminds me of the distinction between

populism in style and populism and substance. And Jasmine Crockett is somebody who's trying to do populism in style without the populism in substance, meaning she's saying, we have to let people in to come pick American crops because poor Americans won't take those jobs. Leslie Jones, lock everybody up who worked for ICE. And if that's the Democratic Party's response come 2028. Kamala Harris thinking about running for president. They're in real, real trouble. Who's winning this out? Is it Tala Rico or Crockett? Like, which direction is the party going in? It's so funny because they're neither of them is like in my mind really politician. They're just two versions of content creator, right? Totally, totally. But that's what politicians are going to

have to be more and more. Well, are they? I don't know, Emily. Okay, I really want to know what you think about this. In my view, the less online campaign, always wins no matter what. I like that role. Like, I don't know. It seems to me like, I know exactly the content creators that James Telarico is like imitating. And I know exactly the content creators that like Jasmine Crockett.

Honestly, she's a great content creator. Oh my gosh. The bad, built, blonde, butch body. It was incredible. She got all the words out. She didn't stutter once. She did it like. Poetry.

Hello. Oh, like, you know, Hot Wheels, you know? Governor Hot Wheels? Governor Hot Wheels. Yes. She's a great content creator, you know? Like, I don't know. I'm starting to think, you know, I'll tell you, Emily,

I'll probably get in trouble for saying this, but like, I look at Graham Platner, okay? Yeah. The guy's a Nazi tattoo. Okay, first of all, by the way, I'll for sure get in trouble with anything. The tattoo he covered it up with is so much worse. Like, it's just, it's so cringe.

that stupid wolf like give me a break okay like i i had hopes for you before but then when i saw that little you could still see the like skull sticking out of it like i don't know i'm sorry like that just like really offended me honest just aesthetic ground just as a tattoo yeah as a tattoo okay like obviously like it's so freaking annoying that every conservative get called the nazi and then they have an actual guy with an actual nazi tattoo and they like no he's good but honestly Emily I look at that guy and I'm like yeah I kind of want him in there because I think I think he'll he'll mess things up you know he's got his stupid land acknowledgements but like come on like I don't know Emily I support kind of Medicare for all I'm so disgusted

with what's happening with the insurance companies is he more or less likely to make a deal with Republicans to get to put a cap on health care premium raises I don't know like I like and then I'm like well am I bad Jew am I a bad like he has a freaking Nazi tattoo yeah but there's a part of me that's like I kind like can you imagine him like with his energy being in there kind of like forcing the issue with all these people who are just kind of like have been there for so long they don't care about anything. They won't rethink anything. I don't know. What do you think? Well, I mean, I think the most important demographic to boost the representation of in Congress as class, honestly. And Platter grew up pretty privileged, but he's lived the life after

he got out of the military of somebody who's struggled, just like a lot of guys who struggle after getting out of the military, because they're sort of aimless and have, they smoke way too much weed, do too much drugs, and he's ended up in a pretty blue-collar job, you know, as an oyster man. And so I think Platner is an example of exactly what you're talking about. He's a disruptor. I don't think, I mean, I think if you're drunk off-duty in Eastern Europe and so blacked out that you get a tattoo and it's not a Nazi tattoo, that's probably remarkable. You're probably one of the only people who would walk out without one. Wait, wait, wait. Okay, let me just say what I think really happened. I think he got the tattoo. He didn't know it was a Nazi

tattoo. But at some point, oh, he definitely knew later. Yeah. He became aware, and it was a good story to tell women he was sleeping earth or what have you. Oh, hey, check it out. I got this tattoo and I was drunk. Guess what? It's a Nazi tattoo. Ha ha. That sucks. But, like, at the same time, is that the most important thing about him? Right, right. No, and it's like Dan Osborne. My, I get in fights with my Republican friends about this all the time. Dan Osborne. They have, I think, some of the same consultants. And they're both, like, obviously going to, Dan Osborne is probably going to be more of a Democrat than a Republican in Congress. But the dude is, like, literally coming off the factory floor and serve the country. And he has a mindset that I'm

not going to agree with most of his votes, but I'm going to agree that they're representing the people that he's supposed to represent. And that's just a healthier system. So it's hard kind of not to root for people who are going to shake up the class dynamics. Yeah, I think the thing that I really would want to see is like if you could have a candidate who was like you know supports ice supports the cops right but is also like Medicare for all that person would represent like 80% of Americans and that's the thing that I find like so upsetting is that like you have one party that's really good on immigration and then one party that's sort of good on health care it's not great, right? By the way, have you noticed, Emily, that the left's big move now is not

actually Medicare for all, it's anti-ice. Like, they're going back to their symbolic anti-working-class crap. And that really, really offends me in a big way. But, you know, whoever could get to that spot of being like, we're going to protect working-class wages by being very hawkish on immigration, but then we're going to protect working class dignity by being very expansive in how we imagine health care, which is just a disaster in this country. That is the sweet spot. And, you know, two years ago, if you had asked me,

who is more likely to get to that spot, the Democrats or the Republican? Republicans, I would have said, obviously the Democrats. I mean, Bernie Sanders in 2015 was a hawk on immigration, right? Like, all they have to do is get back to their, but now I think it's actually. much more likely that the Republicans will understand how important health care is.

Like, I had Senator Schmidt on my show this weekend, and I said to him, can I get you to commit to looking into a government cap on health care premiums, like that they just cannot, you want to take money from Medicare, Medicaid, which they all do, no more caps on premiums. And he was like, sure, that's a great idea. Let me look into that. You know, you would never have a Democrat say, if you said to them, them, look, the American people are really sick of being fleeced. We just need to pause on asylum claims. We need to pause on all immigration. Let's just take a break for a year and see what

happens. You wouldn't have a single Democrat say yes to that. I think that's true. But yeah, this has been, this is great. This was like the darkest news cycle that you turned into such a pleasant conversation. I noticed that I was the only one drinking, even though you promised me, Emily. You don't know what's in here? I have a feeling it's water. Yeah, it's water. No, but you will understand this. Christmas season has wrecked me. No, I get that. In D.C. It is nonstop drinking. It's too much and I'm from Wisconsin. So that means if I hit my limit, then you have a problem. The city has a problem. All right, uh, Baja, everyone makes sure to tune in, uh, like my dad did this weekend, to Bataia on News Nation. Uh,

make sure to watch batya is such a fun show it is a fun show thanks so much for having me emily god bless you and protect you i just love you and thank you so much for having me next time before you when you're on next time i will do a shot and you can hold me to that i'll do it on air i will all right batya have a great night we will be back with more after party in just one moment now first though have you ever taken a look at the nutrition label on any typical bag of chips you will find a disgusting chemical cocktail seed oils msg artificial dyes viz vague natural flavors and ingredients that sound more like a science experiment than a snack because they are a science experiment, frankly. Vandy Crisps are part of the growing movement

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or Masa a try, go ahead and use code after party for 25% off your first order at vandycrisps.com chips.com or simply click the link in the video description or scan the QR code to claim this delicious offer. Don't feel like ordering online. No problem. Vandy and Masa are now available nationwide at your local Sprout supermarket. Stop by and pick up a couple of bags before they're gone. All right. Before we wrap up tonight's show, I did want to take a look back at why the murder of Rob Reiner allegedly at the hands of his own son who again allegedly slit his throat and slit his mother's throat at their home in Brentwood, California. Why I think that is so jarring for the country to experience right

now it would be jarring to know that Rob Reiner and his wife had been murdered in their home no matter what. It's extra jarring to hear the details as they emerge from these early reports if they pan out that his throat was slit by his son. His mother's throat was slit as well, that his son suffered from a decade plus of serious addiction and at one point homelessness, or perhaps at least one point homelessness. But Rob Reiner, to so many people, what he represents is why this is touching a nerve for a lot of us. Now, I'm way too young to have watched all in the family while it actually aired.

I was born in 1993, but somewhere around 2010, maybe 15, just about 15 years ago, there was a channel way up on the list. You know, we're talking like channel 500, something like that, one of those rerun channels that every night played an all-in-the-family rerun Monday through Friday in sequence. So one Monday you would get one week's episode, if it were airing, you know, back in the 1970s, then the Tuesday would be the next week. next week's episode that would have aired in the 1970s. And I have no idea why, but my family got into the habit for basically a full year of sitting down around 2010 and watching in sequence all in the family together as a family, these wonderful 30-minute Norman Lear episodes,

again, over the course of many, many months, almost an entire year, if I'm remembering correctly. And to me, it felt very current. But it also felt very different. And this is again, around 2010. I was probably a junior, senior, senior in high school. It feels like it was around my senior year of high school. But we have a clip here of this is the last episode of, gosh, I want to say it was like season eight of all in the family,

which was the last season where Michael and Gloria lived at the bunker home together. And this is the last scene of that episode. It's Rob Reiner and Carol O'Connor. It's hard to watch now, but. If you can make your way through it, I think it'll be rewarding at the end. We can go ahead and roll the clip here. I want to thank you for all the years you'll let me live here, and for all the free meals, and for all the nice times we had together.

I know there was a lot of arguing and fighting, but we did have some nice times. Yeah, there was. nice times. You've been like a father to me. Oh, hey, you know, you've been just like a son to me. You never did nothing I ever told you to you. Hey, Arch, uh, we want you and Ma to come visit us out there.

Oh, well, maybe your mother-in-law can do that, but, you know... Well, I think you'd like it out there. Nah, no, I don't think. Sure, fresh, fresh juice every morning. Well, you know me, I always take the candor. Out to sunshine? Yeah, what I bring these here? Pacific Ocean.

Yeah, well, I don't like an ocean where the sun goes down. I like an ocean where the sun comes up. I'm going to miss you. Well, listen, I, I'm gonna, you know, I, hey, listen, do you just take very good care of Gloria and Joseph? Those are two things you never have to worry about, arch, I promise. It was wrenching, because what that scene epitomized was what all, the family worked towards for all of those seasons. Again, this is the last episode of season eight.

It aired in March of 1978. And it epitomized that is sort of the crescendo of what the show was doing, which was working through how parents, particularly a father and his daughter and his son-in-law, were able to overcome a lot of stress in their relationship, strife, political differences, cultural differences, social differences, and honestly just personality differences so often

between Archie and Meathead. And that was what the show was about. And to know that Reiner, who was probably most familiar, I mean, as an incredible director, an actor, film actor, but most familiar to people as Michael Stivick on All in the Family, to know, that he met his end, as it appears, at the hands of his own son. Oh, there is something so incredibly, incredibly tragic about that.

And I have seen many conservatives over the years mount very interesting criticisms of the Norman Lear shows as kind of being insidious for using a character like Archie Bunker as in some ways, well, he's not, you know, depicted as a bad person as in some ways as somebody who was a force for bad in the world politically, that you couldn't just have, you know, somebody in Archie Bunker's position who was, you know, was fundamentally decent kind of across the board. And those are familiar criticisms of the Norman Lear shows from people on the right over the years. But I was talking recently about, you know, an interview I did with somebody who had a very forced Gump-like

personal history, professional history through civil rights marches in the 1960s. Somebody was on the right, but, you know, had been at the march on Washington. In 2020, Chris Bedford and I interviewed this person, June of 2020, and asked, you know, does it feel worse to you now than 1968? And the answer we expected to get was, no. No. This is 2020, right? So there's riots breaking out. And, you know, all of the 1968 comparisons are front and center in the discourse. And we expected to get the answer, no, of course not. You know, there's Robert F. Kennedy. There was Martin Luther King. There's been this, there'd been the string of political assassinations throughout the 1960s. So no, it doesn't feel as bad as that. But the answer we got was it feels worse. When I watched that scene between Archie and Michael Stivick, I really get why we received that answer during the interview, because this person explained, back then there was almost a patriotism to the left, or there was still this kind of fundamental decency.

And I'm seeing right now people on the right pass around these clips of Rob Reiner saying, legitimately hilarious, cringy things about Russia collusion in those fevered days of 2016 and 2017 and 2018. He was in the Mueller report choir on the left among Hollywood celebrities who were just so eager for that Mueller report to drop and prove that Donald Trump had somehow colluded with Russia. And I see that. And I think not the time to be criticizing Rob Reiner for taking seriously the conspiracy theories, the entire major media was spinning up over the course of years, over the course of years, against a political opponent of his. Rob Reiner, whatever you think about the guy, he liked the United States of America. He loved

the United States of America, and so did Michael Stevik and Archie Bunker. And that's why all in the family felt to me when I was going through this around 2010, going through the series around 2010, on the one hand, it felt outdated, right, because there was something so warm at its core that there was, you know, the ties that bound, the ties that bind, you know, were the through line of just about every episode. And it was the process of getting from point A to point B, from division. And again, it wasn't always political. Sometimes it was just personality, from division to unity, just in this little family unit. And I think that, that's just become for so many people very, very difficult now for political reasons, but

also for reasons that have to do with algorithmic social media, the media culture itself, isolation and loneliness and high potency drugs. It's getting really difficult. It's getting really difficult for people. So in that sense, it felt, you know, it felt outdated. Is there something almost outside of our grasp about the America that Norman Lear, not just depicted, but captured. And so that's what's, you know, looking back on why Rob Reiner is such a powerful figure to so many, especially baby boomers. I think it's because that's what he represented. So I've been rambling enough tonight. Appreciate everybody tuning in in this very, very dark, dark news cycle. Thank you. This is our 50th episode of After Party. It was great to have Bacha here for it.

I appreciate all of you for tuning in. We have some great guests coming up. Stay tuned on Wednesday. You're going to want to be there for Wednesday. We have a big interview, a big interview. So make sure that you tune in. We'll see you then.