After Party with Emily Jashinsky - Fani Willis Meltdown, Rumors of War, and the DEI-Caused Lost Generation of Men, with Tom Bevan

Episode Date: December 18, 2025

Emily Jashinsky is joined by Tom Bevan, Co-Founder & President of RealClearPolitics and Co-Host of RealClearPolitics on The Megyn Kelly Channel on SiriusXM 111, to discuss President Trump’s primetime address that was teased as a possible announcement of military action in Venezuela, but it turned out the President focused on his list of first-year accomplishments including the economy, crime, and immigration. The conversation then turns to AOC and if she’s a viable contender for the 2028 Democratic nomination. Emily and Tom also discuss a pair of sensational hearings: one involving Fani Willis in Georgia and the other connected to free speech and the media. They also talk about the recent fight between Jillian Michaels and Wajahat Ali, and the viral article in Compact Magazine on DEI and how it shut out white men. Emily wraps up the show with an in-depth look at the Trump administration’s escalating military posture toward Venezuela and why they need to be upfront with the American people about their plans. PreBorn: Help save a baby go to https://PreBorn.com/Emily or call 855-601-2229. Masa Chips: Ready to give MASA or Vandy a try? Get 25% off your first order by going to http://masachips.com/AFTERPARTY and using code AFTERPARTY Unplugged: Switching is simple, Visit https://Unplugged.com/EMILY and order your UP phone today! 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. Thanks so much for being here tonight. The good news is that we're not yet, at least, at war with Venezuela. Donald Trump just finished up his special primetime presidential address from the White House. We're going to break it down because Tom Bevin is joining us in just one moment. He's, of course, co-founder and president of Real Claire politics and is going to be with us to break down exactly what we just heard from the White House. Everyone was expecting this to essentially be a declaration of war with Venezuela. Tucker Carlson had said that's what he heard from a congressional source

earlier in the day. And as the president convened news cameras from every network for a prime time address, that is pretty much what people expected. But instead, it was, dare I say, underwhelming and a message understandable about the, understandably, a message about the president's push on the economy. We're going to get to all of that in just one moment. We have much, much more new footage from Fannie Willis down in Atlanta today who got into a truly hilarious and I think very telling back and forth in the state Senate down there over claims of impropriety with Nathan Wade, financial impropriety in this case. with Nathan Wade. We have a video from FCC chairman, Brendan Carr, who of course has been on

the show, going at it with Democrats in the Senate. A little bit with Ted Cruz, too, by the way. But Jackie Rosen looked incredibly stupid in one of their exchanges, and we have to bring you that clip because it's really a sight to behold. Jillian Michaels got called a white nationalist, and I am going to spend some time diving into what I think is a big mistake, brewing in Venezuela. Let's bring in now Tom Bevin, who's co-founder and president of Real Clear Politics and, of course, also co-host of Real Clear Politics on the Megyn Kelly channel on Sirius XM 11. Tom, thank you for being here. Great to be with you. Great to be with you. Thanks for having me. No, you were traveling today. I know you guys had your team, you had your team lunch, and now I feel like you're sick. Someone got you sick in D.C. I'm a little under the weather, so please bear with me. If I sniffle on camera, I apologize.

guys. Well, I just want to say, this is such a, like, everyone should know what a great guy, Tom Bevin is, that he travels, gets home, feels sick, stays up for a nighttime hit. Thank you, talking. Got to play hurt. You got to play hurt. That's what it's all about. True words have never been spoken. Okay. Let's start with Donald Trump's prime time address from the White House. I want to actually put Michael Knowles' reaction up on the screen before we get too serious because Knowles tweeted regarding Trump. He pulled a war in Venezuela fakeout to make the networks broadcast all his first year wins in prime time all in front of cozy Christmas decorations at the White House. Simply the best media manipulator ever to hold the office.

Tom, this seems like it really was going to be about Venezuela. Are you saying Tucker was part of a sci-op? Listen, he was, do we have the Tucker clip? Because if we have the Tucker clip, we can Yeah, okay. So, Tom, before we dive into this, just so people know, here is what was teased earlier on Wednesday from Tucker Carlson. Yeah. Is Trump going to start a war in Venezuela? That's Judge Andrew Napolitano. I don't know the answer. I certainly been on the phone a lot about it. I have no power. I'm a podcaster, but I'm very interested. And so here's what I know so far, which is that members of Congress were briefed yesterday that a war.

is coming and it'll be announced in the address to the nation tonight at nine o'clock by the president who knows by the way if that will actually happen i don't know and i never want to overstate what i know which is pretty limited in general okay so tom he said he had someone in congress who told him that and it is true all of the networks were prepared to broadcast this do you think because now that I'm actually considering this allowed, Trump really intentionally pulled a brilliant bait and switch to get the networks to cover those. No, I don't, I don't know. I mean, I don't think so.

But like, I think with Tucker, so a member of Congress tells him that. And then he says, well, I don't know if it's true. It's just like, well, okay, was the member of Congress lying to you? Were they, you know, what was that all about? I don't understand it. We might need to talk to Tucker a little bit more, get a little more information on who that was and what his level of he obviously felt he felt I wouldn't say certain enough but he felt compelled to share it publicly even though he added a caveat at the end so look I don't know I look

I thought Trump's speech was first of all Carl Cannon on our show today put the he put the over under an hour and I took the under so I won because it was a it was a tight 20 minutes for Trump yeah that was pretty impressive actually he stayed on message for the most part um he seemed the microphone seemed a little hot like he was kind of almost oh my gosh i'm so glad you said that i had the exact same reaction yeah yeah yeah and he seemed like he was he was using his outside voice his rally voice you know in the wherever he was and uh in the white house and so it was a little bit i understand he was wanted to probably you know not be sleepy and seem vigorous and seemed like he was really you know rah rah because that's basically what the speech was was a list of of not only

what he had accomplished, but what, and this was part of it, like what he's going to be doing, what his plan is moving forward. That's the piece that's kind of been missing. He's really, I think he's finally, whether he sticks with this or not, at least he finally hit the right notes tonight in terms of telling the American people that, you know, they're working hard and all these different areas to get prices down. Here's what we've done. Here's what we're going to do. So in that sense, I thought it was the best he's communicated on the economy thus far. And he certainly, you know, didn't say it was a hoax, which is a step forward for Trump. Let's go ahead and roll this section of a speech that I think captured the full 18 minutes

pretty well. We're deporting criminals, restoring safety to our most dangerous cities. Just take a look at Washington, D.C. It's at levels of safety that we've never seen before. And they decimated the bloodthirsty foreign drug cartels. We did that all. by ourselves with our people and we're so proud of it because they were poisoning and destroying our population. Drugs brought in by ocean and by sea are now down 94%. We have broken the grip of sinister, woke radicals in our schools and control over those schools is back now in the hands of our great and loving states where education belongs. After rebuilding the United States, military in my first term. And with the addition, we are adding right now, we have the most

powerful military anywhere in the world, and it's not even close. I've restored American strength, settled eight wars in 10 months, destroyed the Iran nuclear threat, and ended the war in Gaza, bringing for the first time in 3,000 years, peace to the Middle East, and secured the release of the hostages, both living and dead. Okay. So a couple of things there, Tom. First of all, you could hear the microphone hot. I'm glad you mentioned that because I picked it up too and wasn't sure if I was going crazy, but he did sound angry and elevated. And I'm curious what you make of that. And also, it was mini state of the union, essentially. He did a laundry list of these accomplishments that he's, that clip actually that we just played was posted by the White House. this is the message that they're trying to project. And I'm wondering if when first the affordability line coming out of the off-year elections, everyone's saying Democrats won on affordability. Then Trump says they have this new world word affordability, like within 24 hours.

Then he starts calling it a hoax. Then he has Zora Mamdani in the Oval Office. And I think clearly starts paying closer attention to what the populist left is doing and is pissed off that his numbers are where they are in the economy, you can probably speak better to this than anyone else. You know where those numbers are. He's mad about it. And he feels like he's not getting credit

and like Democrats are successfully co-opting his thing. Yeah. And look, I also think he's been, you know, his instinct is to sort of wave it away and uses all these superlatives, which he did again in the speech tonight, which, you know, you run the risk of we're the hottest country on earth.

everything's great. You know, all these things are going down. And you run the risk of sounding like you're gaslighting the American public if you're not empathetic. And you say, look, I know prices are high. They have been. We're bringing them down. We're working hard. We're doing all these things. Just to say like, oh, everything's so great, everything's so great. Never, you know, in the history of the country, there's never been anything like this. And people are kind of like, well, okay, that sounds a little disconnected. Quite frankly, that's what the Biden administration did. And think, you know, there's no inflation. It's transitory. It's Putin's fault. It's all these things. You guys, you know, you're imagining this stuff. And it cost him. And I think it has

been costing Trump. I will say, I think J.D. Vance has been the one who's sort of been pushing Trump. And he definitely has a better framework for talking about the economy. And he did it in that cabinet meeting last week in front of everybody. He's like, you know, he blamed the Democrats, of course, which I think Trump does and should do. But but also said, look, we're, you know, he's just got a more empathetic tone when he talks about these these issues and they are far and away the most important issues in every single poll by an order of magnitude and on Trump's approval rating it's about 43 and a half points overall on jobs in the economy it's under 40 and on inflation itself he's down in he's down in the 35s and his and his disapprovals at you know over 55 so

he's he's he's underwater by about 25 points on inflation people do not and that's that's It's not just, you know, Democrats don't give him credit for anything, but that's independence and he's lost altitude with the Republicans who don't think he's paying attention and he's doing all these other things. He's building a new wing in the White House and he's getting, you know, he's getting peace awards from FIFA, you know, all these things doing these ceremonies. And I keep, I've said this on our show. I mean, you know, he should, for every event that he does like that

or every announcement that he makes like that, he should be doing five on the economy. Huh. Yeah, that's really interesting. And again, I think it gets to this question of why is he putting together this primetime address going into the holiday season? I mean, news slows down. People stop paying attention to it going into the holiday season. People are paying attention to it right now. And I just, it seemed like I pulled some quotes here from him. He was insistent about saying, I inherited a mess and I'm fixing it. He said, I'm bringing our economy back from the brink of ruin, bringing those high prices down and bringing them down fast. He the largest tax refund season of all time would be in 2026. So he's trying to do two things at once. Look forward. Tell people that tax bill, he talked about it in reverent terms. That's going to kick in next year.

And it was almost like also he wasn't just trying to convince the public. Like he was trying to convince the media, too. It kind of seemed to me like a media-centric speech. But I don't know what you make of that in addition to him continuing to, he's because he thinks on the one hand if he blames Biden it gives him a little bit of wiggle room but on the other hand that only goes so far after you've been in office for a year so maybe this is the last like he realizes this is the last gasp of blaming Biden that's possible I don't know yeah I mean look Biden blamed Trump for all four years and you know Obama blamed George W. Bush

for eight years probably in some cases so he's still got a little more mileage left in that but you're right I mean at some point and it's already happened that this becomes Trump's a He can still blame Biden, but it's just not going to, it's not going to have the same traction that it would have after, after he took office. And there was, you know, we interviewed Speaker Mike Johnson on our program on the Megan Kelly Channel 111. And, you know, he basically said the same thing. We asked him about this was the day after the election and we said, hey, you know, are you worried? I mean, look at what just happened and are you worried about 2026? He said, no, all this stuff is going to, you know, we just need more time and all these.

things are going to kick in next year and I feel like we'll be in good shape. Again, that's what the Biden administration said. We just need more time. Like the public, you know, it takes time for this stuff to trickle down to them or to get, you know, for them to actually feel it in their pocketbooks and maybe our messaging hasn't been great. They don't understand all the great things that we've done. That's not a winning message. It really isn't. You know, people don't like to be sort of patronized that way. And so I think Trump, it's good for him. him to say, look, we're going to be doing all these things next year, but ultimately, you know, the proof is going to be in the pudding. And I thought his strongest statement,

it was he talked about, you know, because people are focused on inflation. Inflation has been really sticky, but he talked about wage growth. And he had numbers to back it up, construction workers and miners. And they were making, you know, their wages have gone up X since I took office. And that's the most important thing, right? It's like, you know, as long as wages are growing faster than inflation, people feel like they're getting ahead, right? So that's the biggest component. And he hit that pretty hard tonight, which I think wasn't effective. He should do that all the time.

Well, and that could be, I mean, that could end up being a saving grace because he's given a big bear hug to Big Tech, which is obviously going pedal to the metal on artificial intelligence, and now so is the federal government, which we're looking at possibly the highest unemployment rate of young college graduates next year that we've seen in forever. I mean, anecdotally, everybody's hearing it in their own lives, but the numbers are looking really bad too.

And so if you are able to bring up wages because you're either deporting foreign workers or you are pushing people to self deportations and that's rising wages, you can't, you have to pay American workers to do those jobs. Maybe that does end up saving his bacon a bit, Tom. It certainly, I mean, it certainly could on the lower ends of the income spectrum. Yeah, I thought he did a good job, too, of connecting that to housing costs, right? because that's a big concern for people. And he said, look, you know, when you throw open the borders and we had millions and millions of people who were here illegally, you know, rents went up.

And I thought that was a pretty effective argument as well. So, you know, he's got to, he's just got to continue to do that. And he's got to be disciplined about it. And we'll see whether, you know, he's able to stay on this message, you know, in a significant, sustained way after we get back and after the new year. I thought there was something else that would be good to ask you, actually. I'm going to play this clip of Harry Enton on CNN just a couple of days ago talking about support for Trump among 2024 voters.

And I'm wondering if this might be a significant part of the president's political calculations and actually possibly his anger, which I think was obviously palpable in tonight's address as well. So let's take a little bit. I'm going to borrow a quote from my favorite Rocky film, Rocky Ford. He's not a machine. He's not a machine. He's a man. He's a man. And what are we talking about here? Strongly approve of Donald Trump.

Okay, this is 2024 Trump voters. In March it was 66%. Look at where we are now. It's just 50% of 2024 Trump voters strongly approve of them. Look, Trump voters still like Donald Trump, but they don't love him as much. And that means... So, Todd, that's really interesting, 16-point decline. Seems totally normal.

But Trump does rely on that core group. a lot and it's interesting now that he's not running for another term as president presumably although he seems to be having conversations with Alan Dershow's not that but that is somewhat interesting because it Marjorie Taylor Green is that they're saying the dam is breaking the Epstein files let me share this Alexandria Ocasio Cortez post she's saying that this is all about Epstein files she said all view all political developments for the rest of the week in light of the fact that that the Epstein files are supposed to be released on Friday. That was in reference to votes being canceled Friday,

but she also said it in reference to the speech tonight. I've heard this a million times. You and I both have heard this a million times that the dam is breaking on Trump. If it were to happen, it would, of course, make sense that it would be in his last term as president, and that would have big implications for the party going forward, but I'm always so skeptical, Tom.

Totally. I mean, it's like losing the football. Democrats have, you know, the Democrats have tried, The Epstein files, I mean, they've just absolutely done everything in their power, including these dirty tricks that they played last week with the photos and the blacking out of the women's faces. I mean, you know, if there were incriminating photos in that batch, you can bet they would have put them out.

They wouldn't have had to use some sort of dirty trick to try and make it look like he was with underage women when he was, in fact, with these models at Mar-a-Lago at like a, you know, publicity event or whatever it was. So I don't put much stock in the whole AOC, you know, it's all about Epstein. But I do think, look, Trump, there's no question Trump has lost ground with Republicans and in his approval ratings, particularly, as I mentioned earlier, on the economy and inflation. And, you know, some of that has been, you know, if you look at the cross tabs, I mean, he's lost among pretty much every group.

And, you know, a few points here, a few points there, among Republicans, among Hispanics, among, you know, young voters, he's sort of back to where he was, I think, pre-20204. You know, he moved the needle fairly significant on the economy. I mean, that's what it was, what it came down to. I mean, people look back at his first term and they thought, you know, the economy was pretty good. And he was promising them that he would bring it back. And they believed him.

They had good reason to believe him. And so that's why I think he ended up doing as well as he did. and winning all the swing states. And then he gets into office. And for the better part of the last three or four months, he's been focused on, you know, things overseas and, you know, signing peace deals and all of that. All of which is, I'm not saying it's not important,

but the point is the economy got lost in that. I think that's reflected in the polls. His numbers have bounced back a little recently in the latest batch of polls. But he's still, and I would, you know, to the extent he continues to focus on the economy and to the extent people feel in their lives. And he mentioned, you know, I was, I was on a road trip with my son this past

weekend. He had a volleyball tournament. So we were on the road, drove down to Louisville. And I noticed that when I was down to Louisville, I filled up the tank, and it was 275 a gallon. And I was like, dang. I mean, you know, that's like, that's like a dollar or more cheaper per gallon than what we're used to paying. And I was like, you know, that's the kind of stuff. When people see that and they're like, okay, I can fill up my, you know, it's not 80 bucks or 100 bucks anymore to fill up. It's 40 or 50. That makes a huge. huge difference. And that's when people start feeling better about where they are in the economy. So that kind of stuff has to continue. And I do just want to make a charitable case here that if you

were to accept the premise that and this takes everybody, you know, depending on where you are ideologically, it just you have to take it with a grain of salt. But if you were to accept the premise that Trump's policies, deportations, manufacturing incentives, which were passed in the tax bill, getting incentives for people to build factories here, you know, like, fully allowing right-offs for those costs, all of those sorts of things, reshoring domestic production, tariffs. That, even if you accept the premise, those things are all going to work, that obviously takes time to adjust and hit the economy. And so even in the best case scenario for Trump, December of 2025 is going to be a rough time. It's a question of whether it's in

substance it shakes out. And if it's also going to be politically viable at a time that's convenient again in election season for Republicans. And before we move on from this time, I want to ask you about J.D. Vance, because you mentioned that you thought J.D. Vance has done a good job messaging, the Trump 2.0 economy relative to maybe Trump himself we've seen in recent weeks.

Let's go ahead and roll this clip of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez being asked outside of the Capitol tonight by Pablo Menrique about a poll with her going head to head against J.D. Vance. I want to get your take on this. Do you think that you'll beat that you could beat J.D. Vance in a head-to-head race for president, as polling suggests in 2028? Listen, these polls like three years out are, you know, they are what they are. But let the record show, I would stomp him. I would stomp him.

Thank you, Congresswoman. I would stomp them, she says. Tom, a little bit of a swagger from AOC there. I mean, that was kind of cheeky, right? That's fine. Yeah, this poll came out. She was up two points, 51-49, I think, is the number. And she's right. Her caveat is right. Like, they're meaningless at this point.

However, I will say, and I've said before, I'm on record as saying this, you know, I think Republicans who underestimate her, they think she's stupid, they think she's too young, they think she hasn't done anything. They think that J.D. Vance would wipe the floor with her. And I think that's a mistake to underestimate her in particular, but any Democrat, quite frankly, but you know with her she she has a great social media presence big following she is you know she tours the country she draws big crowd she's attractive and she's charismatic she has kind of the it factor and you know you think about these i mean the country just proved that they were willing

you know 45% of the country is willing to vote for you know anything with a d a potted plant it doesn't matter, anything with a D next to its name. And so she just has to win the extra, you know, two, three, four, five percent to get to the magic number where she beats J.D. Vance and he's going to be fighting for those five percent as well. So I just think underestimating her is foolish on the part of Republicans. The question is whether she can, you know, A, whether she's going to run for president instead of Senate, and then, you know, be, could she win the primary and I look I think she'd be a strong candidate in a primary field when you're talking about you know against someone like Gavin Newsom I think she'd be right in the mix this is the first time

that I've seriously thought based on her comments she seems interested just because if you're not if you're not at all interested you're just like you respond to him you're like man I'm not running what are you talking about I'm not running but she actually entertained the question which I guess just psychologically I feel like you only do if you're entertaining it internally Tom. Of course. I mean, why would she not entertain it? I mean, if you put yourself in her position and why would she not, even if deep down, she's like, I don't want to run for president or I don't want to be president, she wouldn't say that out loud because that would, you know, their mystery would end. And she wouldn't, you know, get the kind of publicity that she, that she, I think, desires and

and is good at getting. And so, but I do think she's, look, she's got a lot of people telling her that she's a star and she could be president of the United States. And I'm sure she's got people whispering in her saying, look, you'd have all the money you need. You know, here's the plan. We can chart out the course for you to become president. And, and, you know, I don't care if you're 35 or 85 when people tell you that, you know, it's, it's, I think it's intoxicating. And why wouldn't it be? Mm-hmm. All right. Well, we'll be back with Tom Bevan in just a moment. But first, I have been so clear about this over the years. I'm not just pro-birth. Pro-birth. I'm pro-life. And being pro-life means standing with mothers not only before their baby is born, but long after. That is exactly

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So be a part of that. Don't just say your pro-life. Live it. Help save babies and support mothers today. Go to preborn.com slash Emily or call 855-601. 2-2-29. That's preborn.com slash Emily. All right. We are back with Tom Bevin, co-founder and president of Real Clear Politics, also the host, the co-host of Real Clear Politics on the Megan Kelly channel on Sirius XM-11. I just made you the host, Tom. I know. You promoted me. Andy's going to be disappointed in you, Emily. They can, they can, you guys can fight it out. Actually, maybe we should do that at some point. We should have a fight to, not the death, but to the host chair.

Well, when Andy's on vacation or takes day off, which he hasn't yet since we got to the Megan Kelly channel, but when he does, then I have to assume the host duties, which I really don't like. I don't think I'm very good at it. I think he's way better at it than I am. And I just like to, you know, just, you know, jabber. It's much more fun for me to just jabber. The public will decide. We'll do a gladiator, thumbs up or thumbs down. It'll be fun. Let's do that. So, Funny Willis, obviously, the DA, Fulton County, DA. I'm going to read from a New York Times. article here, quote, was unrepentant about her failed elections case against President Trump during a combative hearing on Wednesday, calling Mr. Trump in his former co-defendants, quote, criminals and crooks before members of the Republican-led state Senate. So Fawney Willis sat for a hearing, as the New York Times says, in a packed room at the state capital in Atlanta, took place a few weeks after a state judge dismissed Willis's election interference case,

which, by the way, was a blip on the radar of national media, continues, quote, she was removed from the case last year following revelations that she had a Roman romantic relationship with the lawyer she had hired to oversee it. The committee of five Republicans and two Democrats was created early last year to investigate Fannie Willis following the revelations of her relationship with who else, but Nathan Wade, the lawyer she had hired. Defendants in the election case had accused her of self-dealing because she took a number of vacations with Mr. Wade after hiring him while using public funds to pay him more than $650,000 for his work on the case. Now, Fawney Willis showed up.

It was, I think the high in Atlanta today was around 60 degrees and like a white coat with fur trim, a designer handbag. And here is how she reacted when questioned about, this is a long hearing, by the way. It's about an hour into a multi-hour hearing. Here's how she reacted when questioned about these allegations of financial impropriety during her time on this case. I don't review those documents. So you're asking me to look at documents that I haven't for the first time. What I can tell you is that I'll give you time to review this. Wade to bill 160 hours a week.

And then Mr. Wade would be the first one in the office making sure that my staff arrived. He corrected their behavior. They thought that 830 men 830. He taught him that 830 means 745. He got there before them. He left after him. He taught them how to

do this case. And he was a leader to that team and a public servant. And for that, him like me has been threatened thousands of times. You want something to investigate as a legislature? In How many times they've called me the N-word? Why don't you investigate that?

Why don't you investigate them writing on my house? Why don't you investigate the fact that my house has been swatted? If you want something to do with your time that makes sense. And you can use all this in your campaign ad. You attacked Fannie Willis. What have you done, sir? Nothing. So I'm going to refer you to the screen. I know you said you don't approve.

I don't review these bills. I can't talk to you about documents. I don't approve and don't review. Can't talk to you about it. Who does approve the documents in your office? office when invoices come in i thought we've been through this i don't believe you said who reviews the invoices and approves the invoices in your first of all i have no firsthand knowledge of it you have no first hand knowledge of you want me to testify about something i don't have any

firsthand knowledge of i mean tom this is just an incredible performance uh asked about financial allegations of financial impropriety which by the way are serious she just says i have been called the n word many times you should be asking me about that incredible deflection i was going to say, you know, talk about swagger, her walking in with the Louis Vuitton bag and the fur coat. I mean, she was like, she's almost like a cartoon character. And, and I don't mean that in a good way. Yeah, look, did she, did she say in that clip that she let Nathan Wade bill for 160 hours per week? Yes. 160 hours per week that's like what i mean that's like 20 hours a day or something i mean

why aren't you asking about the end word i right yeah and then of course this the last refuge of scoundrels right is to play the race card and to use it as a heat shield from you know answering legitimate questions about this stuff look this is you know when this when this whole thing came out. One of my favorite scenes was when in the original trial, when he, Nathan Wade was on the stand and he was getting asked about like, did you go and meet her at the house and he sat there for like 20 seconds and didn't say anything? He was just kind of like, you remember that? That was so funny. You can see the wheels turning. He's like, should I say something here? Should I, what should I do? How much trouble am I going to be in if I opened my mouth? Yeah, so look, I mean,

she's she i think is fairly well disgraced and and it was interesting to see her sort of pop back up on the on the media radar screen but i suspect you know this is the curtain call for her i get the suspicion from the way she's conducting herself that she believes she can ride this to some type of political like escalating political career that she can continue to uh ride this to higher and higher office. I don't know. Maybe I'm crazy, but she walks in, I mean, this is a woman who is prosecuting, she was prosecuting a corruption case. She brings the sloppy RICO case, as Jonathan Turley and many others have outlined, just not a well-conceived case. I remember reading it when it first came out in 2023, and this is a mess. And legal experts who know much more

about this than I do, agreed with that. And she's prosecuted corruption, comes in with her fur coat after being accused of her own corruption, financial impropriety, fleecing taxpayers, it comes up with an extremely expensive, like, wardrobe look, and it comes in so hot that she is, you know, railing against anybody asking your questions, turning simple questions into monologue opportunities. I don't know, Tom, I feel like she thinks that because she's gotten so much attention and positive coverage from, quote, mainstream press over the years, that she actually might be able to use this to have some bigger career. I mean, I guess it's theoretically possible. I mean, there are second acts, and we see that from time to time. And we've seen people who've

probably been in more trouble or been more disgraced than she has that have made comebacks of some kind. But sometimes they, you know, they also don't work out. I mean, I, I, I, I, I, Again, it might be possible. I'm trying to think, like, what would that look like? Are you talking about a house seat? Are you talking about the Senate? Are you talking about governor? Are you talking about just like a little local race or something?

I don't know. I don't see a huge future for her, certainly not running statewide in a state like Georgia, but maybe in, you know, maybe there's a house district that she could figure out how to get her way into. But beyond that, I mean, it looks tough. Well, lucky you. I'm just so good at internet because everything is computer now I was able to pull up the Nathan Wade

club look at you it's so good we had to we had to ever ever ever this is what

this is the one this is the one this is the one yeah again president of the United States social media account here. He found it on Trump's social media account. That's hilarious.

No. No. Oh, man. Thank you so much for reminding me about that time. It's really something else. Very, very good stuff. That was a special moment for sure. Let's move on to another special moment today,

which was courtesy of Brendan Carr and Jackie Rosen, who were going back and forth in the Senate because Carr was testifying and got some, you know, tough questions, not just from Democratic senators, but also Republicans, Ted Cruz, being the most prominent example, but Carr and Rosen were arguing about, it all started. I mean, most of the questions today, you have FCC, the chairman of the FCC, the Federal Communications Commission in front of the Senate, they wanted to talk a lot about the Kimmel story after, of course, catching people up to speed. I know it's been along like three months. It feels like it's been three years, but Jimmy Kimmel made

that quote joke, where part of the setup to the joke, was about MAGA spending the weekend trying to convince people that the man who killed Charlie Kirk was anyone but one of them. Brendan Carr said on Benny Johnson's show, we could do this the hard way or we could do this the easy way, meaning he was going to invoke the public interest clause of the FCC's regulatory oversight with broadcast. networks, which would include ABC, where Jimmy Kimmel's show is broadcast. This created a huge conflict on the right. Some people saw it as a sort of long overdue threatened use of government power. Some saw it like Ted Cruz as an affront to the free press. Jackie Rosen, obviously,

and other Democrats used this to talk about the free press and how important and wonderful the free press is after four years of the Biden administration, pretending that they didn't. you know, do everything to start setting us up for mass. Engage in censorship and... Yeah. Yes, it's setting us up, conditioning us to have government pipelines to social media networks that are used to quiet people. So she was not prepared for Brendan Carr. Let's roll the clip.

Will you commit to opening an investigation into Fox News for its deceptive editing of this clip again yes or no please because I have questions for the other witnesses no no so you're an elected bureaucrat you're deciding that some investigation should go on and others shouldn't and are you basing this solely on the target or are you basing this what what are you basing this on can you answer that question this was clearly edited why is one at it fine and one at it not in the middle of a presidential campaign. Senator, it's based on the law. The Fox News interview was on cable. There's no public interest standard. There's no broadcast hoax rule. There's no news distortion. There's no role for the FCC there. Well, I think there is a rule for fairness and the American public understand

what's fair and just. You think there's a broad fairness rule that we should apply at the FCC to cable companies? I'm going to go on to merger threats. I mean, I am astounded by the racial of arrogance to ignorance in that clip. Tom, this is a senator. That was incredible. Yeah. Maybe someone on her staff might get demoted or fired for not, you know, not prepping her properly and letting her walk right into that one.

Yeah, it's, and it is always, it is always shocking when we see these senators saying things that are so. And this, you know, a lot of people may not know the distinction between cable and network, but, you know, we've seen other, what did Tim Cainty said something ridiculously stupid about the Constitution recently and, you know, like every now and then we're shocked by how dumb some of the statements that senators make. Anytime they talk about the internet. Yeah, yeah. So, and the other thing about, you know, not Kimmel in particular, but ABC that people talk about and mention, you know, their morning show. the view falls under the sort of rubric of the ABC News Division. And that has that designation, you know, when you have the view on and they've like never

had a Republican on the show in like 10 years. Like there, that creates a problem in a potential action by the FCC. So look, I, you know, Brendan Carr has been, I think, he's been, we were happy when, when he came in that he was going to be, and even before during the campaign, he talked about the censorship and his desire to really push back on that. I think he has, for the most part, and that's been, I think that's been good. But he also has, you know, been aggressive and used language that I think has made some Republicans uncomfortable with the, you know, the way that he's framed some of these issues. Yeah, because I mean, I think that's really well said,

because when Brendan Carr was on this show, I think it was August, it was right before the Kimmel dust up. I had a long conversation with him. And he had this conversation with Ted Cruz today, actually, about how Congress should do something about the public interest obligation, actually being part of the FCC's oversight, because that does mean then the FCC technically has a public interest obligation in late night comedy. And the FCC probably doesn't need to have oversight over late night comedy, even though broadcasting. licenses. And it's possible that Fox News interview, Jackie Rosen was talking about, aired on Fox News Sunday. I don't think that's the case. It's possible. If that's true, it might have been also broadcast on the network. Something tells me that's not what she was talking about, but that is, there is a possible exception here. But it's, Congress could do something about it that puts him in a different situation. I think it was using that kind of mafioso Trumpian language that we could do it the easy way or the hard way, which is different than saying, listen, if you're

using a public, if you're using the public airwaves, that is a privilege, it was conferred on you by the government, by the president of the United States who is elected to appoint people like me to ensure that the law is being fulfilled. And so I'm going to do that right now and just say, you have to be telling the truth as you know it when you're on those airwaves. You have to be doing your best to serve the American people. And this wasn't doing that. These are, but those are two obviously very different ways to go about threatening Jimmy Kimmel. Yeah, no, I did see, and I also saw, you know, people reacting to, and really not, not in a smart way. You know, you read Kimmel's comment about Charlie Kirk's killer, and then they were, they were comparing

that to Trump's statement on Rob Reiner, which, you know, was obviously, I think, insensitive and and shouldn't have been put out. But nevertheless, there really wasn't much of a much of comparison there to be made, in my opinion. Yeah, that's a good point. All right, before I let you go and get some rest, Tom, I want to ask you about this clip going viral of Jillian Michaels and Wajahat Ali on Pierce Morgan uncensored this week because it's also a very telling exchange. Let's go ahead and roll this clip from the show.

And his talking points are from 2001, which is why I yawned. The DeLorean right now is in 2025. This is, listen, I've been in this for a long time. Jill, I know you're discovering this. Congratulations. I think I've also. Let me just finish. I let you say a lot of hateful, stupid, reckless things about Muslim and Islam.

Would you like to say one? That's 20 million people. Jillian, Jillian, you are, you by your own admission, are a white nationalist. You buy your own admission. That's what you are, a white nationalist. You admitted it. I'm a white nationalist. You know, I'm Arab, right?

The number one. I'm Syrian and Lebanese. It's okay. Oh, that was delicious. I love moments like that, Tom. As much as, as low as I am to admit that that melee, that televised melee produced something enjoyable. It really did at the end because Wajahad Ali thought that he had her.

And, boy, she has been taking, I don't know if you've been following that. this, but oncoming from the, like, Groyper world for days, uh, because she's been going on like Don Jr.'s show, for example, and saying Republicans need to take the Fuentes stuff seriously. Like, she's quite obviously not a white nationalist. Yeah. I mean, look, she's, she's, she's really interesting in the way that she's, you know, because she's gay and she lives in California and she's been outspoken against, uh, you know, she's, I mean, she's basically a great example of a person who is very liberal, I think she would have said, you know, but wasn't liberal enough for the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party ran so far to the left that even she could not get

on board with some of the crazy stuff and that was going on particularly in California. And so she's become this sort of interesting figure. And, you know, I do, you see this more and more. it used to be on television when people would say you're white nationalist or you're racist or whatever, that people would be afraid to respond to that. And they're not anymore. And I'm thinking of like, you know, Scott Jennings and some of the stuff that goes on an Abby Phillips show. You see this every now and then where they, and the Republicans who are on those shows are like, you know, wait a minute. Like, we're not doing that. We're not going there. Which is, good because I think that's that that's what the calling someone that is an attempt to shut down

debate we're not talking to vanity fair yeah well it's an attempt to intimidate people from from you know and and label them and and ostracize them and basically shut them down and you know she wasn't having any of that and that's good because you know that's a that's not how debate is supposed to go in this country yeah and he's so lazy what he did was so lazy let's put jillian michael's post up on the and this is F9. She goes, why do haters never do their homework? I called this out because Wajahad Ali was accusing her of three different things. She took it point by point. And first one, she was like, called that out with Bing and Kelly on stage. I did all of these things. Made a video. Called for the vice president to address it. Two, she says she doesn't engage in

rhetoric. Name calling. Three, she says there are high profile examples of immigrants of color on the right that no one is calling to deport for example. So anyway, she just completely. completely bodied Wajah Dali, who coasts on this totally lazy ad hominem rhetoric. And it's always satisfying to see it get kind of smacked down, Tom. I agree. I agree. And like I said, I think it's happening more and more, which you see this. If you spend any time online, you'll see that the old playbook that the left has used for a long time is no longer working. Mm-hmm. And Wadjah Ali, and it was, oh, my gosh, what is that guy? Rick Wilson were the ones on CNN, that one point, joking. Do you remember this one? It was so bad. He's one of the most, like, odious human beings on the planet, I think. Yes. And they were joking, yes. I do remember that clip.

That clip was going around. Let's see how good your skills are. Can you pull it up? I could, I could. But I have a Ted Cruz press release about it pulled up because he has the quote here. But yeah, Rick Wilson was talking about credulous boomer rubes that backed Donald Trump. And they were just amazing. It's really not the same without the video and them yucking it up. I know. I don't want to torture you, though, because I did want to get your take on Vice President J.D. Vance, just this evening posting the mega viral Compact magazine article called The Lost Generation. And Compaq, I love Compact.

They are a niche magazine. Yeah. This piece is easily one of the most viral that I can remember in the last five years. Vice President Vance posted it saying a lot of people think DEI is a lame diversity seminars or racial slogans at NFL games. In reality, it was a deliberate program of discrimination primarily against white men. This is an incredible piece that describes the evil of DEI and its consequences. He posted that shortly before 5 p.m. So as this White House address was being prepped this evening, Tom, J.D. Vance was posting about this piece.

Not surprising that J.D. Vance would read compact or be aware of this. But what did you make of him waiting into this conversation? Because that's new for a vice president to be so, I mean, this is our millennial vice president who's so in the zeitgeist that he's picking up on like trending niche articles. Yes. And I do think J.D. Vance has, you know, he has really, obviously he was good friends with Charlie Kirk, but he went sort of, I think, out of his way, not out of his way, but he definitely, he, he embraced turning point he he he is embraced sort of the cause of of disaffected young men in this country

and talking to them and and trying to understand their issues and anxieties and and really um and you've seen him do that in a number of ways and this is another perfect example of that i think in that sense jd vance is very much i think uh in touch with parts of the maga base that he's trying he wants to continue to build and that Trump is Trump doesn't obviously Trump doesn't read Compaq magazine he's not down to the weeds isn't read anything I don't think but you know so so it is interesting and I think that's that's why I'm I would say fairly convinced like

that J.D. Vance is going to be the nominee like he's the inheritor of the mega movement because he's the one who it particularly with young people and young men, he's got his finger on their pulse. And so I think that's part of his, I think it's because of where he comes from, too. He was one of those disaffected young men growing up in Appalachia and all that's, you know, poverty and drugs and all the things around him. He felt probably, if you've read his book, you know, you know that it was, it was pretty grim the circumstances. He was lucky to get out of there and go to Yale law school and become a senator and now vice president. So I think he sort of really does have a deep empathy for for young people

and young men in particular. And yeah, so. And Tom, lastly, just on the substance of this, because you are a white man who works in media and probably saw this happen over the course of the last decade plus. The article is by, I think the writer's name is Jacob Savage and Matt Taibi interviewed him on racket earlier today. You got to go check that out. He actually says the Atlantic rejected a version of this article, which is also amusing because they missed out on obviously a compelling, well-written, well-reported story, but also all of that traffic. Anyway, he puts these numbers together in ways that are stunning and says, in 2021, new hires at Condé Nast were just 25% male and 49% white.

At the California Times, parent company of the Los Angeles Times and San Diego Union Tribune, they were just 39% male and 31% white. ProPublica hired 66% women and 58% people of color at NPR, 78% of new hires were people of color. And he has someone, a hiring editor saying it was a given that we weren't going to hire the best person. It was jarring how we would talk about excluding white guys. And now the same thing was happening in Hollywood as the, yeah, oh my gosh, just crazy. These numbers that were put together are absolutely wild. And it's not to say that there wasn't, you know, room for more awareness about that time.

Actually, maybe you and I would disagree on this, but I actually think there was room for more awareness of that in media. But you now have a generation, a quote, lost generation of men who saw unfair hiring practices, nobody caring about it, them being called racist. And as Rod Dreher pointed out in his newsletter today, they're the ones being called wrong and stupid. and they're the ones that then go into fringe ideologies because of all this. They get so disillusioned. Yeah, and I totally think that that's the case. And I agree with you. I think there probably was some room.

But the point is, you know, they put their thumb on the scales. That's what DEI was meant to do. It was not, it was the opposite of merit-based. And, you know, if you have two candidates that are equal, and you know one of them is a minority then you know and you want to increase your minority you know have a minority at your company or whatever fine but but if they're not equal and you're taking the minority over someone who is more qualified just based on race first of all that's illegal but it became this entire the institutional structures that that

that DEI built up inside these companies across all industries I mean this is this is this happened throughout, I mean, every nook and cranny of our society. And, yeah, it certainly was reflected in media. We've had this discussion on our show, you know, part of, A, all these newsrooms, New York Times, Washington Post, they've all been captured by young, woke folks of, you know, white, black, doesn't matter, it doesn't matter their race, they're all left-wingers, basically. And they've been, you know, we've seen them sort of threaten. You know, remember the whole thing with Tom Cotton, one of the, in the New York Times, and when they were on the Slack channel, and they were saying, you know, silence is violence and all of that. And they threatened

to boycott or whatever. And one of the, one of the negotiation points was they had to hire like two more LGBTQ reporters or something like that. I mean, it was like, you know, these were the hostage demands. Why not three? Why not four? Why not 40? And the problem with that, too, is that it has affected journalism in the way journalism used to be, right? We come up with a story idea, you go out and report it, and it leads where it leads, and you talk to both sides and you do all these things, right? And now, because you have these folks who are, you've got LGBTQ people, reporters covering the LGBT community, there's no way they could cover them objectively, right? Never. And just like you have, you know, African American reporters covering the African American community, you would expect them to be biased and fair. And so, and they're no longer just looking, you know, where the story leads. They're creative. They're creating, you know, they have agendas and they're creating narrative journalism. They've already decided in their heads the story they're going to write before they actually go write it. And then they go find people who support that and they put them in the story. And they don't get the other side, anybody who's who's negative. And that's also. also what how are we find ourselves in a situation

where journalism is is so distorted now and so far from what it used to be, which is just, you know, going out and talking to people and reporting the facts as they exist. Yeah, lastly, I mean, the writer pinpoints is happening around 2014 for a reason that doesn't quite explain everything, but says that that's the year that kept coming up.

And these numbers are really something. In 2011, the year I moved to LA, he writes, white men were 40% of lower level TV writers by 2024, they were just 11.9%. Atlantic's editorial staff won from 53% male and 89% white to 36% male and 66% white from 2013 to 2024. White men fell from 39% of tenure track positions, the humanities at Harvard in 2014 to 18% in 2023. So these are big changes happening in a very, very short period of time. And Tom, you must have noticed, um, even like as an observer, this was happening at media companies back in what late obama second term sure yeah yeah oh i mean

it was it was and and we saw it i mean you could see it in you know advertisements you know you didn't there were no white people in advertisements anymore every company wanted to be out there you know uh showing their bona fides to their their liberal bona fides um and so yeah we saw in everything, I think. And certainly you saw it in the media space as well. But it is, it's one thing to sort of have this idea that you see it anecdotally happening. But then to have it laid out in black and white in front of you with a wall of data, as you said in this article, it really does. That's why this article, I think, is getting as much attention as it has because it's pretty compelling when you have to read those numbers in black and white. That's right. Well, Tom Bevan, who

by the way, we should mention is like filling in last minute for a cabinet secretary who had to reschedule. I didn't know that. Yes, yes. I won't say who. I won't put anyone on blast. I'm happy to be your plan B, Emily. It's fine. Well, no, you were, you were the, we thought we're like, let's get Tom. Let's get Tom. We've got a presidential address, which I'm sure is why the cabinet secretary had to reschedule. But who better to react to a presidential address than Tom Bevin, co-founder, president of Real Clear Politics, and of course, co-host over at Real Clear Politics on the Megan Kelly Channel Series XM 11.

Thank you so much. 11 a.m. 11 a.m. to noon. Please tune in. Do it. And then you're already there for Megan. So you finish up an RCP guys. And you got Megan.

Then you got me, by the way. Not to make this about me, but I am right after. That's like the heart of the lineup right there. It's the sandwich. Yes. All right. On top, Bevan, feel better soon. Thank you so much.

Thanks, Emily. All right. We are going to reschedule the cabinet member and are looking forward to that. Much, much more, I have a lot to say about Venezuela. First, have you ever taken a look at the nutrition label on any typical bag of chips? You will find a chemical cocktail. It's disgusting. It's seed oils, MSG, artificial dyes, vague, natural flavors and ingredients that sound more like a science experiment than a snack because they are a science experiment and not a snack.

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And if you don't feel like ordering online, Masa and Vassah, are now available nationwide at your local Sprout's supermarket. So stop by and pick up a couple of bags before they're gone. All right, everyone, as we mentioned at the top of the show, in Washington, mostly expected the speech. People thought the likelihood was that Donald Trump's speech on Wednesday night, tonight would be about Venezuela, not actually only because Tucker Carlson said he'd heard that from somebody in Congress.

There were other rumors circulating about that as well. And it wasn't a bad guess, all things considered, because the buildup, the armada that Trump mentioned, the blockade, basically that Trump announced on those Tuesday night, the buildup is really, really significant. And there are all kinds of tricky political calculations to be discussed on the foreign policy front, and particularly on the Venezuela front. And we might get into that a little bit. But I actually wanted to talk just a bit about the substance of the decision to potentially get into a kinetic, a kinetic conflict with the Venezuelan government, to get into a war, a hot war with the

Venezuelan government. You can probably tell that I already believe the boat strikes have been mismanaged and wrong. Like, I think they've been legally probably are, Our war powers are so broad that if they're using the AUMF to defend these strikes because terrorism covers the authorize use of military force, that's the AMF that was passed after 9-11, because it covers terrorism. It's been used in 22 countries, 22 countries since it was first passed after 9-11. The war powers are so broad in the AUMF that it is entirely possible legally. The Trump administration has justifications for these strikes. Now, does that make it appropriate to withhold information from Congress

and to withhold information from the public? No, I mean, I think the administration has failed to show its work at how they know. They say the intelligence tells us, the intelligence tells us, the intelligence tells us, well, politically that doesn't fly in the age of low institutional trust, but it also morally doesn't fly

after people were told over and over again that the intelligence was saying Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, We are seeing people like Mark Wayne Mullen now actually invoking the term weapons of mass destruction in reference to these boat strikes. Donald Trump declared fentanyl a weapon of mass destruction. It certainly causes mass destruction, no question about that. And the cartels have reeked evil in the United States. Havoc is an understatement.

Evil in the United States. Death and destruction en masse at scale for. more than a decade. So, I mean, way more than a decade, but if we're talking about fentanyl, more than a decade now. So there's just no question about those things. But the seriousness, and this is what I want to get into,

of the boat strikes. I think there's a really, really significant question. And I want to go into some detail. Before we continue, I do also want to show you something fascinating. You see this? This is the upphone from unplugged.com. I've been testing it for a while now. And what I'm going to do here,

here is pull up this dashboard where you see the real-time firewall. I think you can see that here. It shows how many, like, actually, you can just pull this up at any time on the phone, and it will show you how many trackers are being blocked. So today, it's 11 trackers that have been blocked. And if you imagine you're somebody who, maybe you're a journalist and you're criticizing in administration's war powers in foreign policy, but even just think of yourself. Maybe you're a Senate aide, maybe you are a campaign staffer. All of these apps every second of every day, literally every second of every day while you're sleeping. They are harvesting your data. They're building very detailed profiles. They're tracking your location.

And if you imagine yourself in one of those circumstances, but even just think of yourself in your daily life. Think about how this data could be used in ways we don't even know we don't know down the road. Every one of those block track trackers on the up phone that I have right here, you can see it on your screen, is someone who is trying to build intelligence on you. They're trying to track what you're reading, who you're talking to, what campaigns you're researching. And the upphone shows you exactly which apps are trying to spy on you and then it blocks them in real time. So it does all of that itself at once. So if you work in this business, you're going to want to go to unplug.com. Visit unplug.com slash Emily.

and get $25 off a phone case with a purchase of a phone. Learn more and order your up phone today. That's unplugged.com slash Emily because your life should be yours, not theirs. And it is going to get, by the way, increasingly, I think difficult for the right to criticize these policies from the Trump administration because if somebody, God forbid, but if somebody gets hurt in a conflict, there becomes a different, right, the incentives obviously shift. If a militant harms an American service member, or if, you know, we have the CIA active, the president, we remember this, we covered this not long ago, the president has given the go ahead for the CIA to engage in ground intelligence operation gathering, ground covert actions on the ground in Venezuela. If someone gets hurt,

things change, and it will get more difficult once the ball gets rolling. We've seen that time and again once the ball gets rolling, it's much, much harder to pull back. And so let's do it before we have to actually pull back. And I have a few specific points to make here. Have you ever heard anything about the theft of American oil until right now? Because that's what Donald Trump is talking about right now. He's talking about, put out a true social, this was last night, on how Venezuela has stolen American oil and it's important for America to recoup its oil. Stephen Miller chimed in on that note as well and said that Venezuela's oil production was a product of a lot of American like blood sweat and tears, innovation. I'm basically paraphrasing that and

it's true. This was Hugo Chavez at the time, I think it was 2005, when he did the expropriation of American oil. And I think there are some pretty significant legal questions I'm sure that were raised by Hugo Chavez expropriating oil. It created all kinds of problems, but expropriating resources is something that left-leaning leaders did throughout the Cold War. It is a very familiar cycle. And again, we're talking about something that happened years and years and years ago at this point. And I'm reading a report today from Politico, quote, the Trump administration is asking U.S. oiled companies if they're interested in returning to Venezuela once leader Nicolas Maduro is gone. Three people familiar with the discussions told Politico. And so far,

the answer is a hard no. Do you blame them? Do you blame them? So here we have three people familiar with these discussions saying that they're happening. And the answer that people are getting in response is no. What does that tell us? Well, recall the Vanity Fair two-part expose hit piece on the Trump administration that Susie Wiles, White House Chief of Staff, reportedly cooperated to the tune of 11 conversations with this journalist over the course of roughly a year on. She said that Trump, quote, wants to keep blowing up boats until Maduro cries uncle. And this is what we have heard when, you know, you have basically cold warriors,

people like Maria Lovio Salazar, South Florida Republican going on TV. It is abundantly clear because now we have Susie Wiles, the White House Chief of Staff basically saying this. to a journalist, that this is about regime change. And when you have a president who, by the way, campaigned on draining the swamp, who campaigned on ending the neo-conservative adventurism, I'm not saying these two things are necessarily mutually exclusive. I'll get to that in a moment. What I am saying is that he is borrowing the exact same tactics, which is building a case based on kernels, but selling hyperbole, selling this war, this potential war to the American public or this attempted

regime change to the American public with enormous hyperbole. And I think, frankly, that's dishonest. I think it's really dangerous. Have you, again, did Donald Trump campaign on the theft of American oil in Venezuela? Did he make that a serious issue in the campaign? Because nothing has changed when it comes to Venezuela and American oil in the last year, nothing substantial has changed. We were talking about a theft of many, many, many years ago at this point. So he didn't campaign on it. It's suddenly being invoked. What does that tell you?

Is that important enough for Americans to die for? Years old expropriation of American oil companies. And by the way, the petroleum industry in Venezuela goes back to the 1920s. They built a petro state off of it, that it was like an oligopoly. And there were, it wasn't just American companies. But the expropriation process, I think, is at the time was and continues to be questionable. Did Donald Trump campaign on it? Did he tell you that he thinks this was such an important issue that American service members should risk their lives, should risk their lives going to war over the theft of American oil. No, that's not what this is about.

And what he should say, if it's about regime change, to quote his chief of staff, blowing up boats until Maduro cries uncle, if that's what this is about, he should say that. He should say, I think it's worth it for American service members to risk their lives in order for me to get Maduro to cry uncle. Say that, say that.

Go to Congress, authorize the conflict in a way that's also honest and moral. Don't rely on the AUMF. Do it the right way. Be honest with the American public. That's what somebody who is actually unraveling neo-conservative foreign policy would do.

So far we have not seen that. But the case for regime change comes down to, I think Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who's obviously Cuban American, seeing the conflict with China and arguably Iran, but really China, then Iran, then Russia, as a new Cold War period. And that's why we are repeating the Cold War playbook. You know, we could talk about all kinds of examples, Guatemala, Chile,

over the course of the Cold War, that almost feel, I mean, this feels like ripped out of those pages of your history textbook about what happened in those cases. And basically the only one that is maybe from their perspective, defensible as a success as Panama and Noriega, you can still debate that. But it's pretty clear that interventions and places over the course of the Cold War

didn't create total stability. And it didn't, communism was not defeated in these conflicts in South and Central America, in these proxy wars in South and Central America over the course of the Cold War. often would happen. I mean, there's literally a Sandinista in power. Ask yourself why there's a Sandinista in power if these things were so successful right now, because the answers that they created instability, they created a lot of antipathy towards the United States, that

Chavez, Maduro, Iran, and China are continuing to exploit in their efforts to usurp the United States and to usurp the United States as hegemony. There's a very good debate to be had about whether the United States being at the top of the food chain is worth all of the money and the military might that it takes, all of the military sacrifice that it takes, and all of the sort of hard power and cynical deployment of soft power that you have to use in order to do that. That's not what I'm going to talk about here. I'm talking about how Marco Rubio and maybe Donald Trump himself, but people inside of the administration really believe that because, for example, Iran has like agricultural land in Venezuela. They have cooperated closely with Venezuela. China has been

allied with Venezuela, has been putting out statements in support of Venezuela against any type of encroachment by the United States. And so you get into the situation where it's like with the Cuban missile crisis, there's a serious, I mean, it's the same thing with Cuba. There's a serious problem if you do have nuclear capacity off the shores of South Florida. There is a serious problem. If you have China and Iran at some point wanting to do significant harm to the United States and getting this toehold in Venezuela that allows them to topple other dominoes in the region, like you can see the logic. You can understand the logic of all of this. But the question that I'm raising here is, Does anybody think that American lives right now

are worth sacrificing to prevent all of those downstream potentialities? Is there another way to prevent all of those downstream potentialities other than kinetic regime change operation in Venezuela, where you would have potentially American military lives on the line, the creation of a mass refugee crisis on another scale, we've already seen a serious refugee crisis from Venezuela, but a mass refugee crisis on an entirely new scale, is that worth it?

And I think if most Americans would answer yes to that question, the Trump administration would be honest about this war and say that that's exactly what they're doing. That's exactly what they're doing. Now, remember, this is also, there's a difference between fentanyl and cocaine. Sounds like a distinction without a difference. It's not, it is significant.

Let me put this up on the screen. This is a map of cocaine trafficking. If I zoom in on it here, you can see what's coming out of Venezuela, cocaine-wise, is going mostly to Europe. There are numbers that I've seen between 5% and 10% of cocaine that ends up in the United States passes through. Venezuela. But then to again make the point that this is worth some type of kinetic war that is

also covered by the AMF, meaning there's narco-terrorism that is being used, again, it's narco-terrorism being used as terrorism, meaning it is being used as an act of war, essentially against the United States of America intentionally, rather than purely economic sales for people for narcos, that it's narco terrorism and not just narco, you know, narco selling. But those two things, you know, again, may seem like a distinction without a difference, but we were talking about Wart here. So we do have to make some pretty significant distinctions when we're looking at the legal justifications for it.

So when you're looking at this map, it's, this is pretty serious evidence that, you know, and here, let me put up this on the screen. This is a really interesting chart. So this is US drug overdose deaths involving cocaine by opioid involvement. So about 20,000 deaths attributed to cocaine every year in this country. Now, this shows 29,000 deaths from cocaine period in 2023,

but a fraction of those are just cocaine and a big chunk of them are cocaine with opioids. So cocaine with fentanyl that comes in, most of it pre-cursor chemicals shipped from China. Everyone knows this at this point. And then put together as fentanyl in Mexico and trafficked often through legal ports of entry. Definitely going to be harder for them to traffic now that the border is essentially closed because you have fewer mules who are being blackmailed into trafficking the drugs,

which is something that was done again in mass over the course of the Biden administration and created a really serious significant problem. But the Trump administration also just part in. Juan Orlando Hernandez of Honduras on drug trafficking charges. It doesn't make sense. Their justifications are dishonest, and I think it is perfectly fine to take issue with that after what happened in the buildup to the Iraq war,

after the carnage, the loss of life, and the lies to the American people, the lies to the world, it is entirely, entirely worth asking these questions and pushing for honest, right now on the cusp of a war that everybody thinks is going to be just fine. And I think a lot of us probably remember hearing that in the, I was pretty young, but in the buildup to the Iraq war as well. And you're reading speeches that were given, watching old news hits. It was

going to be, everything was going to be, it was all going to be very easy. There's no need to worry. We'll make quick work of Saddam Hussein and in and out. But of course, that's not what came to pass. And so people are right to be wary and skeptical and cynical about what's happening now. and to want more honesty. And so I think the Trump administration should come out and say that this is fully, you know, not just through an interview that Susie Wiles is upset, gets printed, but should say this is about regime change. We want to go to war with Venezuela because we think it is worth the potential sacrifices of American lives

and treasure in order to prevent or in order to replace Nicolas Maduro. We think we can replace Nicolas Maduro with an American out. ally and we think it'll be, Venezuela will be better off, and that will be better off for the United States to the tune of however many sacrifices of American lives and treasure that it takes. Make that argument. I completely disagree with that argument, but at least we wouldn't have to bushwhack through all of these ridiculous justifications in order to get to it. So that's what I wanted to say. I went on a little longer than I wanted to, but it's important. And yeah, I was expecting potentially a speech about Venezuela tonight, so prepped a lot of it and didn't want

it to go to waste because I spent the better part of the day thinking about it, to be honest. Appreciate you all for tuning in. Remember, we're going to do an episode of happy hour on Friday. I record it tomorrow. So if you shoot me an email, Emily at devil makecaremedia.com and put that it's a happy hour question in the subject line. That helps a ton. I'll do my best to get back to every single one of them and to answer them on the show tomorrow. Make sure to subscribe. By the way, it helps us, and I'm so bad about plugging subscriptions, but please subscribe, subscribe, subscribe, subscribe, subscribe on podcast feeds to get happy hour, because that's only for podcast listeners. It's not behind a payroll or anything, but you just have to

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