After Party with Emily Jashinsky - Happy Hour": How “Veep “ Beats “The West Wing”, Toxic Kara Swisher, and Why Trump Isn't an Ideologue: Emily Answers YOUR Questions

Episode Date: June 19, 2026

On this edition of “Happy Hour,” Emily Jashinsky opens the show thanking listeners as “After Party” nears its one-year anniversary. Then Emily discusses why she prefers “Veep” to “The West Wing,” the importance of assimilation and the dangers of tribal politics, and shares her thoughts on media figures such as Scott Galloway and Kara Swisher. She weighs in on bias by omission in journalism, trust in the news media, and how important stories break through. Emily also addresses efforts to defeat DEI initiatives, the realities of data centers and local opposition to them, the downsides of free trade, and Hollywood’s role in projecting American soft power. She examines the escalation trap that can lead nations into war, highlights Mark Hemingway’s reporting on Portland, and explains why she views President Trump as a pragmatist rather than an ideologue, including her perspective on who he appears to respect in the media. Emily also offers commentary on Alex Cooper’s brand of “sex positivity,” the enduring importance of the written word, Kanye West’s public struggles and apology, Megyn Kelly’s reflections on the MAGA split, and more… Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome back to another edition of Happy Hour, everyone. It's great to be here with all of you. Of course, this is an edition of After Party that we do every Friday here on the show where I get to respond to all the great emails you send in to Emily at Devil Make Care Media.com. I mentioned this on Wednesday's show, but that was episode 99. Episode 99. We've been at it for a year, almost officially a year now. So I just want to take a moment and thank all of you for being here. Appreciate it so much. Super helpful if you subscribe over on the YouTube channel. Thanks for subscribing here. I assume you subscribed here. That's why you are on the podcast feed. It is so helpful. And as always, what I do is respond to your emails live. I flag them in my inbox. If they look like their happy hour, easy for me to flag and then get back to them here, going through them live so that it's a little bit of the thought process, I suppose. And that way you know that I'm not pre-researching or anything like that. I just want to kind of, what does Bill O'Reilly say? live. I think that's just more entertaining for everyone. So let's get into it. By the way, I was

thinking, I don't know that I've ever mentioned. I go through my inbox chronologically with all of you here during happy hour. So starts with exactly where I left off. First email that I didn't get to or that came in after last week's happy hour. So let's get into it. Craig writes, I've never felt as justified, vindicated, and seen as when you talked about Sorkin's overly glossy West Wing. I enjoy political news and staying relatively up to date. Part of this is for my job, but I genuinely am interested in the drama and sausage making. So my friends have said for years, oh, you got to watch West Wing. It's great. A few years ago, I sat down to watch it. And, yeah, like me, Craig says I was in middle high school when it first aired, but never watched an episode

before. I was thoroughly underwhelmed and let down. I thought it might take a season to get awesome, but by midway through the second season, I was done. Whoa, Craig. You actually made it all the way through the first season and then halfway through the second. That's impressive. I usually give a new show three episodes. That can make it tough. I think I gave Homeland a little longer than three episodes. I did first season of Homeland, first season and a half of Homeland, I guess. And it was fine, but I wasn't blown away. But usually I just do three episodes. Recently tried to get into Deadwood. I think I gave that five or six episodes. Was it working for me? Was it working for me? I'm sure I'm going to get emails from the Deadwood heads out there saying that I'm wrong. But Craig goes on to say, totally agree with you. too idealistic, self-righteous, condescending at times. Also, I don't know how you could watch it without subtitles. Craig says, and it's fine if a show isn't realistic, I enjoy a good sci-fi show, but it has a way of couching a certain political view as more moral or ethical.

I was simply turned off. Oh, Craig says that he hasn't tried Veep because he's fearing a similar letdown. You got to do. You got to try Veep, Craig. It is the appropriate, cynical glimpse into the real Washington. I'm not even sure how they made it so accurate. They had a team of consultants who have worked inside the swamp, inside top institutions. People, by the way, who tend to be institutionalists.

So I think what they did was download that knowledge and then hand it over to the satirists. It's from, you know, Death of Stalin and the guy who's behind Death of Stalin and all of that. So the institutional knowledge, even if it's from kind of West Wing-style institutionalists, in the hands of the satirists was so much better than, you know, Sorkin's point by point attempts to explain his political perspective

through the mouths of characters. But again, just me, just me. Jack says, I was listening to your Tuesday, the ninth episode, and I found your comments on all things J-Lo, very interesting, tying these comments to the immigration debate, ooh, with Scott and your co-host, Ryan, the most fascinating comments from both

perspectives. This is, by the way, in reference to the debate we held on immigration between Scott Jennings and Ryan Grimm here on After Party about a month ago. Jack goes on to say Ryan's views on immigration is simply the inflow of international labor along with international capital. Well, interestingly, Scott even went so far as telling a young lady who asked a question that she was perfectly, quote, unquote, assimilated while she spoke of her dual citizenship proudly. I believe what J-Lo not only said is correct. It's how most people naturally feel, talk, and most importantly think. I was born here, I was raised here, I'm an American, I am from New York, I held no moral guilt saying that as, and no one should. And Jack is referring to the segment we did on Jennifer Lopez

saying, you are not a New Yorker, even if you have been here for your entire life except for the first year, except for the first few months, she says, no, you have to be born and raised in New York. And I guess I covered that from a bemused perspective, the way that it contrasts with how many folks in the left talk about immigration. So Jack says, what does it say about liberalism, that it's at its far left in Ryan and at its center right and Scott? Both ideologies and practice are ultimately the disenfranchisement of their core constituents both in mind and reality. Ryan betraying the native working class and Scott betraying the normal white American. If birthright citizenship gets upheld, then anyone can come here and be one of us.

If you draw blank face on a piece of paper and point it and say, here's your American, who are we happy 250th? Well, happy 250th, right back at you, Jack, some interesting stuff here. I mean, I don't know if Scott is betraying the normal white American. There are, of course, people from a lot of different racial backgrounds, particularly black and white, who have been here just about as long as the colonies were settled, certainly as long as the country has existed. So I would say the idea that you can, I mean, it's interesting because I do believe in the beauty of the American system when it comes to assimilation. I actually do really believe in that. And I would say the same thing with New York, by the way. I don't think you literally have to be born here. I think it makes you a different kind of American if your family has sort of built the country, toiled, fought for the country. I do think that's different. And I think what's, you know, know, there's a, I think what's a bit different, and by the way, I mean, think about the black Americans whose families fought so hard for civil rights protections. I mean, think about that,

fought so hard to rid the country of bias and prejudice just on a cultural level, like individual to individual. And then you have, this is partially what's so upsetting when you see people from other countries who don't seem to want to assimilate and who, who, who bring much more tribal politics into this country. And I would actually call, I would call attention to the Somali refugee population. If you read even left-wing publications in the Minneapolis area, and if you follow left-wing coverage of Somali politics in the greater Minneapolis area,

you see, I mean, there's a pretty open admission that some of this is, is clan politics from Somalia that is being. mapped on to local politics and state politics and certainly even national politics in the Minneapolis area. And so I think we previously had this idea of assimilation as coming with enormous gratitude for what's been accomplished and achieved in the United States. And I would say that's kind of where people who are overly permissive of a broad asylum and refugee system are failing to uphold the value of kind of respect for what's been passed down, the good that's been passed down, you know, the Chesterton's fence good that's been passed down. It's not all good, of course.

Chesterton's fence, of course, says you ask why the fence is there before tearing it down. If you're not satisfied to the answer of why the fence is there, then maybe there's a good reason to tear it down. But not always. And, you know, my perspective, is, of course, that Ryan's position, except I think Ryan also kind of agrees with this. He said in that debate, it's really a question of levels, right? That it's almost a technocratic question of how many people should be let in at literally any given moment. And you have to make that assessment based on an economic analysis of what's good or what's

bad for the American working class. I have basically no faith in our ability to do that as a system. I think when you're bringing in a lot of low-wage laborers, it's just automatically going to undercut low-wage laborers in the United States. I don't at all dispute the idea that there's a possible technocratic system where you're bringing in like actually high-level or mid-level people with skill sets that are very particular. And that maybe at a very particular time right now, for example, there's an adjustment period where we've been so reliant in this country on mass food production that's brought to us, that's brought us cheap food via the system of cheap

labor, foreign labor, that we've gotten kind of addicted to it. And so maybe right now is an example of the time where you would need to kind of build up to reintroducing American labor to those dignified jobs. I see what Jack is saying here. I think Ryan, a charitable version of Ryan's perspective would be that you can do it without betraying the day. native working class. So interesting points there, Jack, especially in light of what Jennifer Lopez said. Let's see. Beth recommends a podcast from The Telegraph with Camilla and Tim. I actually think I'm familiar with this podcast. I think I might have even been on this podcast at some point. And Beth says, might we hope for a transatlantic podcast crossover? Great idea. That's a fantastic

idea. Thanks for the note. Beth. Ralph says, I love. after party and happy hour. As a baby boomer, I listen to the podcast version. You touch me with your James Vanderbeak tribute because I worked with his younger sister for 10 years and it really came from the heart. Oh my goodness, Ralph. That's, man, it's so sad to go think about. Sometimes it's just like, you remember people who are gone. Like, wow. It's just hits you every time. Ralph says, my thoughts and questions are regarding Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway. I believe they have a lot of cultural value and have a huge influence on the left, but their ideas on politics and politics. are very dangerous. Since Charlie died, I see the left push Scott Galloway forward as a voice and mentor

for young men, which some of his messages are admirable. But then when talking politics, he can lose his temper and come across as a narcissistic Marxist. He's been on with Arthur Brooks and Simon Sinek, but he's totally different with politics. Watch out. And Kara fuels the anger in him. I wanted to get your thoughts on this as someone who has a, quote, real pulse of both political parties. Again, really love your show and keep it the good work. Well, thank you, RJ, for the kind words. appreciate it. I'm a big Arthur Brooks fan. Actually, Arthur gets a lot of criticism from the right, particularly from like the populist right, but I think he has something pretty valuable to offer, even if his policy prescriptions aren't always the same as my own. I've never listened to Keraswisher and

Scott Galloway, and I'm not super familiar with Scott Galloway other than I've heard people make a similar point to Ralph's that the left sees him as someone who can step into this gap of, you know, or step into this vacuum on the left of a man providing advice to men, specifically, sort of unashamed to be giving a male perspective. I cannot stand, Keraswisher. It's rare that I say this, but without knowing somebody personally, my perspective on her, having followed her work, is that she is not a good person. No, we're all fallen.

far be it for me to judge whether someone is is genuinely good or bad. I do it very rarely. But I think what she spews is so toxic and uninformed often. I think she has a arrogance to ignorance ratio that is wildly out of whack almost more than anyone else. I put her up there with like a Don Lemon. And the confidence, I'm sorry, the arrogance to ignorance ratio is one of my most important, like, metrics determining whether someone is really additive, even if I don't agree with them, or someone who is detracting from the discourse. And I think she is, she's fundamentally detracting. I've just heard things about her that are really negative. And so I am fairly comfortable rendering that judgment in the case of Keroswisher, which is why I've just never touched that podcast at the 10-foot pole. I see Clip. sometimes and I try not to I try not to weigh in too much because I don't like talking about clips as you all know unless I go back and watch the full thing which if I ever talk about clips I do but I really can't stomach care swisher so I can't then really provide a good perspective on Scott Galloway my impression of both of them is that they are people who believe they are popping

a kind of coastal bubble, but they're not really capable of doing it. Because if you don't know the biases to check, then just knowing you need to check biases is not enough. It's a two-step process. And I think they've really only done step one. And so their stuff constantly, to me, rings us very out of touch, but very smug and confident. And I don't love that. So this is interesting. I mean, maybe it means I should start just consuming some of it. They're definitely, I mean, Galloway is definitely a pretty popular figure. But I'm not sure how much he's capable of being a really authority on what the average American male needs or doesn't need or what the average American male thinks or doesn't think. So anyway, that's a very interesting question.

I probably should do some due diligence on Keraswisher and Scott Galloway because I do know lots of people kind of in the elite tier do consume this stuff. This is from Ryan who says, for happy hour, here's a softball. I've never been to Wisconsin except for one cold freezing night. I went to Fort McCoy. Question, if I'm taking the family for a vacation and want to see the state and its natural wonder, where should we go? Hmm. Ooh, that is a really good question. You go to the driftless area over by lacrosse.

I have not spent a lot of time over there, but, you know, especially in the fall, people swear by the bluffs. I really like up in like by Lake Superior. I really like Bayview. It's is maybe the most gorgeous area of the state. Madison, because of the isthmus, where it is on an isthmus, is absolutely gorgeous, especially in the summer. You're generally going to get great moderate summer weather. And the lakes are really beautiful. There's great food in Madison.

you can usually drive over to the Wisconsin Dells, which are super cheesy, but also really beautiful if you get on one of the duck tours. Milwaukee itself is absolutely gorgeous. Love Milwaukee. It's really beautiful, beautiful lakeshore. Maybe that's not great for swimming, but a beautiful lake shore, great food, great scene, lots of fun. For the family, I'd probably recommend the Dells or up by, like, Eagle River. So much fun if you get up north and find one of those, like, little lake hotels or even, I'm sure there are Airbnb is up there now, but spend a week on the lake, chilling, going to supper clubs, getting some ice cream, spending time on the lake. That is just a fantastic way to see Wisconsin too.

And then if you're up there in like fall, winter, check out Green Bay, you know, because there's a lot of football-related stuff if you're with your family to do up in Green Bay. But I always recommend, I love the Dells. Again, I know it's corny, but it's a miracle. con it to me, and I love it. And it is also naturally very beautiful at the Dells. It's a nice drive from Milwaukee. You can stop. You could do Milwaukee, Madison, and the Dells all at the same time. Otherwise, you could just fly into Wausau, or you fly in a Rhinelander and drive over to Eagle River or Monaco. Those are beautiful any time of year. Honestly, you can do cross-country skiing.

I should probably shut up now. I could do this forever. But then if you go up to Vavu, too, it is just so remote and so beautiful, highly recommend. Great question. Let's see. Hank sends along an article, interesting from American thinker. I'll check that one out. Eddie says, it seems to me, bias by omission is one of the most insidious tactics used by legacy media. For example, my favorite spite listen, NPR's left, right, and center has yet to mention a word on the Swalwell sex scandal, Minnesota fraud, the SPLC indictment, or even the 10 million illegals that came in under Biden, but they jumped right on the Renee Good story. I first really noticed this when Rush Limbaugh died and they didn't mention a single word. Your thoughts on how they used story selection to push or

smother a narrative. So, so, so important, Eddie, thank you for this question. Bias by omission, assignment editing bias. This is critical and it's very frustrating, especially because when you're talking to or when I'm talking to my friends on the left, the quote-unquote mainstream media narrative is still really powerful if you're somebody who follows news closely because they're still setting, generally setting the news. Sometimes something cracks through new media. Actually, often it does. I mean, on the left, for example, the Israel-Gaza divide has totally cracked into the mainstream media

and has set the narrative conversation there. But on the right, that's really rare, like really, really rare. I mean, these examples, I don't know if these are true, Eddie. I mean, God bless you for listening to this. I don't think I've, I mean, maybe I've listened a few times to left, right and center, but oh my goodness, not covering Minnesota, the Swalwell scandal, SPLC indictment, that is really crazy. And the Limbaugh example is a good one that takes us right back to coming apart,

Charles Murray about how we've sort of socioeconomically sorted in ways where we're blind to people in different socioeconomic strata's cultural tastes and lifestyles. And that was such a significant moment for people between the coasts, even if they're on the left. Like this is, they were talking about rush all the time with their folks on the right probably if they were political and having debates with political folks. So it's significant. And to not even mention it in a sense where you're critical of Limbaugh shows, I think a real, I do think that shows just a total blind spot. They don't even know to cover it critically because they don't realize the cultural relevance that it has outside of their elite bubbles. I mean, the Minnesota fraud indictment,

the SPLC indictment, the swallow sex candles is another really good example. But if we just stick with Minnesota and the SPLC, these are big political stories that your audience is going to be ignorant of if this is their source of news. And so you're not even doing your own side a service by ignoring them because your own side again should be equipped to handle questions and debates about this and should know what's you know important to people on the right which this very much is and i'm not by the way saying conservative media doesn't have its own biases and its own selection biases uh of course it does but uh you know the right doesn't control except for maybe on like maybe on you know the question

of like lower taxes and sometimes on regulations and sometimes on foreign policy. I agree with some of the Chomsky diagnoses of media bias on those questions. But on cultural questions, the right doesn't control the quote mainstream media narrative. And by the way, I always say quote mainstream media because Molly Hemingway, if she ever hears me, just say mainstream media, will go through the roof because that's a language bias question. if you're calling a media quote mainstream when the Associated Press decided to use, for example, preferred pronouns. I think it was in 2017.

It was before most of the country had even heard of preferred pronouns. That's not mainstream. There's nothing mainstream about that. But that's why I always say, quote, unquote. I catch myself, or at least I try to. But Eddie, that's a really, really good point. Really, really good point. All right.

James says, on your show with fires, Greg. So this is Greg Glukyana. of the foundation for individual rights and expression. I'm not being critical of you as you are very young, but all these others should know better and stop flaking out. DEI are hardcore communist political-minded systems intended to enforce Maoist thought while implementing social collapse, designed or predicated on Mao's very bloody cultural revolution,

which ran from 1966 to 1976 and millions perished. In advancement on Fidel Castro, putting a political commissar in every block in Havana, after he and Che Guevara conquered Cuba, instituting mass executions of Cuban Christians, who refused to accept communist. rule. This is a long email. Let me try to find the crux of it here. Talks about communist organizers on college campuses. Talks about the pro-communist biblical commons operation based in Toronto.

And then says, Greg's a decent fellow. But all this piecemeal stuff when we were way into the Bolshevik era isn't a drop in the ocean and counterpoint to the mass subversion and assault on Western civilization. Love your show. Much thanks. Well, thanks, James, for that email. and for the pushback, I actually kind of expected that, and I know Greg is used to it, too. I sort of expected pushback on this. Greg, I imagine, if you've ever heard him speak about communism, I actually imagine he would agree with most of what James just laid out here. I certainly agree with most of it as well. These are serious points, and Greg is not in any way numb to the threat of communism, nor its influence in academia here in the United States,

I think his counterpoint would just be that right-wing fascism to counter-bushabism has its own, obviously, its own threats that are dangerous as well. And so his job at, you know, essentially what's a much more serious and better version of the ACLU via fire, his job there is really to call balls and strikes. it's not to constantly be saying which is worse, but I don't know. I shouldn't speak for him. I wouldn't be surprised if he kind of agrees that the scope and scale of the DEI push through all American institutions, really, almost every major American institution, was more nefarious than much of what we've seen just in, like, as a whole over those 10 plus years than what we've, we've, we've, we've seen in the first one and a half years of the Trump administration. I shouldn't speak for him. I should just say I would be surprised if he didn't agree with that. Now, my own perspective, this is why I like talking to Greg, is that I also, you know, again, I've worked

with campus stuff for as long as I've been an adult literally since I was 18 and I was on a college campus and it was my first job out of college. What I don't like seeing is people, on the right, excusing, like, this is where it gets really frightening to me, not frightening, but disturbing and frustrating, is when people on the right excuse, um, author, light authoritarianism in response to Bolshevism. That I don't like. Um, so that is to say, I don't believe in defeating DEI, for example, uh, with speech codes like the IHRA anti-Semitism definition. that are DEI from another perspective, call it right wing or whatever.

But I don't believe in that. But what I do challenge myself to do every time we have these conversations is keep in perspective the fact, that's a response, right? Because you don't want to be the ref throwing the flag on the guy who punched back instead of the guy who started the fight, right?

And that's not a perfect metaphor because, you know, you can flag both of them. And that's not always possible in politics. and you have to kind of intellectually understand the roots of this. But I totally hear you, James, and appreciate that pushback. I definitely expected it. Let's see, this is from someone named Emily, great name, who says, stay at home mom in rural Northwest Ohio.

First off, I want to say that I've been following you for a little over year now, and I adore you and I love your best knowledge about just about anything. I've been a Megan Kelly fan for years now. I think she made the right decision giving you your own show. Congrats with the success. You deserve it all. Thank you, Emily. a bunch appreciated. I wanted to get your opinion, Emily says, on what is happening with the

data centers. I've heard you talk a bit about them and also wanted to give my perspective as someone who this may possibly affect. In my area, this is a huge issue. If you drive down the main stretches of towns around here, you will see nearly every house has a no data center sign in their yard. Oh, very interesting. Emily says these township commission members sign NDAs and have secret meetings with third parties hired by these big tech companies to negotiate zoning changes on large amounts of farmland in order to push through their plans on building data centers in this area. It feels that the middle America is getting shit on, and there's truly no place for peace anymore. We live out here because we love our land.

My backyard backs up to a large farm field. My kids swing on our swing set with a view I could never have dreamed of as a child. It's so sad to see our communities get eaten up with big tech. With all that said, I want to know your opinion on these data centers and with the growth of AI. How do you think we can preserve any sort of, quote, unquote, normal life? Feels like a boulder tumbling down a mountain at this point. I know there's so much speculation on what this will do to us, but what do you think the reality is? This really is the question of the moment, Emily, and your personal story is really worth sitting with.

Because when you build a life in a peaceful, rural, naturally beautiful area, and then see big tech companies, and your experience, by the way, of this kind of lack of transparency is something that I've anecdotally heard from around the country. I can't say whether or not it's a definitive pattern, but I've anecdotally absolutely heard that. That's really tough. I would be apoplectic. And the tech companies have handled it so poorly. They're starting to try and recalibrate, but I think it just speaks to how out of touch they are with what the average American wants out of life that they thought they could do this to begin with. And that as a starting point for the people who are creating AI is frightening, right? If you are so out of touch with the average Americans' goals for their own life that you don't understand how the data centers would be received, that as a starting point for building this entire system of LLMs that you say are going to transform the workforce and transform basically every moment of our lives, that's a bad starting point. you're starting from a trust deficit.

And instead of filling in the hole or climbing up the hole and trying to get out of it, they dug it like 10 feet deeper with the data center push. And they're not helping by saying it's being fueled primarily by Chinese propaganda. Because what Emily just laid out is the reality that most Americans are having, or not most Americans. Well, according to polling, yes. Most Americans are having with the data centers. And polling is a little bit all over the map.

but the thrust of what I've seen is in that direction. So I think the unfortunate answer here is we don't know. Because as the pushback to data centers has grown, I think it has actually slowed down some of these efforts. So I don't know how this evolves when it comes to the average American integrating AI into their daily lives. I mean, we've got college students booing mentions of AI and commencement speeches around the country. We have everybody mocking the SNAP CEO for wearing his ridiculous AI glasses this week and their stock tumbling perhaps because of that. There's a lot of like

pro-human pushback right now. And I guess I go back to what my kind of big picture prediction for the next 10, 20 years, maybe even longer in American politics and culture is going to be, which is that we will increasingly start sorting by these cultural lifestyle preferences geographically, meaning rather than living in New York City or maybe Los Angeles is a better example, anybody who wants to reject the anti-human or transhuman is probably a better way. The transhuman lifestyle is going to go inland. And the cities will be people who kind of embrace the transhuman lifestyle think it's good. They're accelerationists.

But people who value, let's say, natural beauty. their kind of physiological experience, their spiritual experience as a human being, whether they're left or right, who aren't into super processed food, who aren't into the academic bureaucracies are going to just sort. And I don't know that that's healthy, but it is my prediction for what's going to happen. That'll come with its own challenges, right, because you'll have some folks on the left, some folks on the right, increasingly colonizing, settling rural areas, and then having to get along at town council meetings and that sort of thing. But yeah, that is my sort of best guess at how this is

all going to go, that you will be able to kind of opt out, but it will involve probably moving. And if you've already lived in an area where it's easier to opt out, because, for example, in Emily's case, people are pushing back against the data set. center movement, even if it's difficult, they will, like, we will just kind of shape our geographic areas that way. This already happened to some extent. We've got, you know, more red states and blue states, but I think it's going to happen geographically in a way that just makes it more tolerable to live without constant conflict, constant warfare on your soul. if you're someone who's maybe in the anti-tech camp, because so many things are tech.

We just don't even think of them that way because they're old by our standards. But in the scope and span of human history, they're not. I mean, just even being able to have enough land that you have a garden, can grow a lot of your own food, can spend a lot of time outside, and can spend a lot of time in nature, not just on like the high line. or in Central Park. But, you know, you're able to really live like that. So that's my kind of big picture assumption about how some of this is going to go, that you will have a little bit more autonomy, but it will mean, you know, living in an area like where you live, Emily, where you're starting to see this pushback bubble up. And even if it's not successful right now, eventually,

it kind of, they'll hit a point of critical mass. And it will be successful. But the cities will still be pretty, I guess, progressive culturally, if that makes sense. Dave sends a video about Midwesterners running into each other in the wild. It says, we have other incredibly coincidental encounters with people out here in northern Idaho as well. That's so funny. It's about, yeah, it's about Midwesterners who run into people from their same, like, small areas in random quarters of the world. Yeah, that does seem to happen. I bet that probably happens with a lot of people's experiences, whether you're in Idaho or in Wisconsin. It's funny. Hank says that was an interesting talk with Chris tonight.

Also enjoyed your take on the Alex Cooper thing and how Gen Z is turning away from the whole sex positivity. Lifestyle, my friends and one relative in the liquor business tell me they're not only shying away from promiscuity, but heavy alcohol use as well. Yes, this is true. This has been a really big problem for the liquor companies, and they're trying to diversify with a lot of NA options, which by the way, I think is great. but this is a really risk-averse generation that extends to heavy drinking, probably particularly heavy drinking of liquor. It's the exact opposite of what the culture was for millennials, and that happened really quickly. Millennials had like blackout culture.

If you go back and look at barstool, and I'm sure this was also true in the 80s, the Animal House Day, is if you go back and look at barstool content from like 2012, it was just absolutely celebrating as heroes. like the college chicks getting totally blacked out on Friday nights or the guys like just drowning themselves in beer. So Gen Z is not like that at all. What's interesting is that extends to a lot of different things in the Gen Z lifestyle. So yeah, it's that that's not just anecdotal. That is showing up in polling and it's showing up in market research and in sales as well. This is from Paul who says,

Awesome take down of Scott Pelly, you said it all, and he deserved every bit of it. Such a putsi is a strutting peacock of cluel as arrogance. Ooh, beautiful. Not that different from Kimmel. Anyway, love your show. Keep it up. Thank you, Paul.

Actually, you may have heard me squeeze this into our conversation with Megan. A new CNN poll this week came out asking if people have journalists or outlets that they trust on the news. 55% of people said no. Of the 45% of people who said, yes, Fox News was the highest at, 5%, and then everyone was kind of scattered, 2%, 1%. Guess who didn't even rate? CBS News, ABC and NBC did. They had about 1% of that 45% saying they trust them as an outlet.

CBS didn't even make that list, which actually is totally in, that's in line with the polling about the most trusted news outlets. If you go look, it's ABC NBC over CBS in recent years. years. So for Scott Pelley and his defenders, like my friend Tommy Veter, who went off on my post about Scott Pelly, for them to say, he didn't run the industry into the ground. 60 Minutes was doing great. Okay. You know, if you're talking about money, sure, but of course, this is not what people are talking about. So let's see. This is, and by the way, the money even, we talked about this with Megan. That's not going to last. If 60 minutes is

is doing fine now, that's, I mean, it's fine with a pretty small slice of the population that is going to quickly change, quickly change. As people who are younger, just don't even have the muscle memory of 60 minutes really in their lives. This is a long email from Chris, who says, just watched your Monday Night podcast with the Hollywood producer. I'll watch again. I noted somewhere that Spencer Pratt says he has more dirt on one of the two finalists for the L.A. Mayer race. That is true. We did talk with Fenton about that, Chris Fenton. Let's see. This is about, ooh, there's a lot of stuff in this email. All right. Okay. Well, thanks for the email, Chris.

A lot going on here. Interesting. Interesting. Some tips for the overseas trip that I've mentioned in regard to the up phone because that thing does have a kill switch. And that's really helpful if you're traveling overseas. Ryan says, do you ever come to Wisconsin? for any keynote addresses or other events. Yes, Ryan, I don't have anything on the schedule right now. I was at, I was speaking at one of the UWs last year, actually with Charlie Cook, who you hear on Megan's show from National Review. We talked about kind of the new right versus the old right,

and it does seem like once a year I end up on a panel or something back in Wisconsin. Maybe I can announce these things in advance in the future. people want to show up. I'm trying to think of anything else that might be on the schedule. I'm sure I'll be home soon enough over the summer. But yeah, I don't have anything. I don't think I have anything on the books right now for Wisconsin events. But I love, I mean, I love doing Wisconsin events because it's easy to get home and the like I spoke in Chicago and Iowa, the spring. And my parents were able to come to Chicago. Couldn't come to Iowa for various reasons. But it's always great to give back in the area. Let's see. Alexa says you talk about the pop culture aspect of Hollywood,

but it's really gone under the radar what a dire position Hollywood is as an economic industrial hub. There's so much talk and fearmongering that AI will be the demise of the entertainment industry, but it's already dead and it was absolutely absolutely the result of the 2023 writer, actor, director strikes. Those misguided strikes, at least it allowed the studios to reset after the streaming wars and talking heads of the strike, big liberal elite actors and showrunners immediately started making shows out of the country. Yep. After the deal. at the expense of completely abandoning the entire workforce in L.A. The below variety article estimates over 70,000 jobs lost.

Seems conservative to me, but it's a tight-knit, small industry, and workforce. The blue collar below the line workers and mid-level writers and execs were left at a ghost town. And somehow, Hollywood always finds a way to blame Trump and the federal government for a total collapse of the local industry. From your perspective, why isn't this a bigger discussion topic in media? I can't express how big of a disaster this has left L.A. And people are playing pickleball and sound stages in L.A. Oh, that is a depressing but poetic image, Alexa. Thank you so much for the email.

Yeah, I've got some friends who've been affected by this. And Fenton on the show was talking about basically, he didn't put it this way, but basically an industrial policy for Hollywood. And he mentioned that Hollywood is one of the least sympathetic industries you could possibly imagine pitching such a significant financial investment or policy to help. No question about that. Totally clear that's the case. What I would say is, I mean, the out, the offshoring of the jobs, Chris was talking about this. I think you might have even mentioned this variety article or the numbers from it. The outsourcing of the jobs from people who were part of the strike really, it just not living there, working there. It just seems so crazy on its surface. Because, yeah, they, I mean, basically a lot of these people don't want to pay what they have to pay. They don't want to do things the way that they should do them as stuff gets cheaper. And so they leave, but then they want to have their cake and eat it too and act like they care about art and artists, but then constantly blame the unions or whomever. And this is actually, I'm glad you wrote this in Alexa, because even as we're just

talking and thinking about, I think probably one of the biggest, clearest problems with quote-unquote free trade in a global world, which is that there's always a cheaper market. to export or offshore to, especially when you have parts of the world still developing, there's always going to be a cheaper way to make your product that will prevent you from paying American workers what they're worth, right? So especially with the immigration system, too, although that doesn't totally apply in Hollywood. It might some. I just don't know it.

But yeah, that's, I think, a really good point. And it's something that we've been blind to because there are obvious benefits. to free trade, like obvious benefits. I don't think anybody really disputes that there are obvious benefits. But when you zoom out, the big picture is also really obvious, but it was myopic, right? Because or as a political society, our political society was myopic. And I think a lot of that has to do with class. You know, you have people who represented, for example, rural northern Wisconsin, David Obie saying basically he regretted his vote. I forget whether it was NAFTA or WTO because the worker protections and such that people who voted for it were promised never came to pass.

Well, there was a myopia in the political class about how the benefits would be so strong that they would outweigh the costs. And that would just sort of be a natural product of the free market working. And you'd need to kind of augment the what's the best way to put it, the ravages for the working class. into particular manufacturing heavy areas in the country, but that could be kind of done bureaucratically, technocratically, and it didn't really come to pass that way. And I think one of the reasons, immigration policy is part of it, but also it's just when you make it easier for jobs to offshore,

technology helped that, of course, too. But when you make it easier to offshore jobs, that means America workers are not going to be able to kind of climb the ladder, keep up with inflation and cost of living, that sort of thing, as easily as they once were, because you can always find a way to take that job to Mexico. You can always find a way to take that job to Canada. And yeah, there are probably more people, I don't know if on the aggregate, but there are probably more people who are working safer and sometimes, you know, equal or higher-paying

jobs than being on a factory floor. But then when you realize 20 years down the road, you need the factory jobs because you can't rely on chips manufacturing on the tiny island of Taiwan or some of these tech products coming from China. You can't rely on parts of your industrial chain being based in vulnerable regions around the world, which you did because it was in food supply, by the way, another part of this, just some of the basics, like COVID. How many things did we realize we had blind spots towards the manufacturing chain on? And they were over, the manufacturing chain moved overseas because it was cheaper than paying Americans more. And so anyway, I actually think, I don't know,

I mean, Hollywood does seem to be a really good example of that, like production going to the UK, going to Vancouver and different places who are offering their own types of industrial policies to incentivize Hollywood going over there. So as much as I don't like the idea of, like, I am not in any way blind to the ways industrial policy can corrode an industry and make get fat and lazy, basically. But it doesn't mean you can't do some of it temporarily or on a smaller scale to compete on the world stage with an industry like Hollywood, which has been such a engine of American soft power. And I think in previous years, I mean, think of the art that was made that came out of Hollywood in the 1940s, 50s, 60s, I mean, even sometimes in the 1990s, and sometimes

today too like just absolutely beautiful products powerful products important virtuous products less and less so um but that was an engine of soft power it was good for the united states uh it was good for the people who were contributing to it who are consuming it and yeah it's it's not good uh that was a really interesting question Alexa thank you um Hank says so trump's piece it with around his 14 points the analogies to Woodrow wilson's 14 point peace plan are inevitable especially if the mow you screws up the chances for a peaceful Middle East like Wilson's compromises on the planet, affected the League of Nations debate, keeping the U.S. out.

You know who wrote a piece about that? I think it was Neil Ferguson in the free press. I've been reading his coverage closely of the Iran War, and I think he wrote, let me actually just double check it. I think he wrote at some length about the Wilson parallels in the free press. Let me, there we go. Yep. It's called, if you want to look it up, Neil Ferguson,

it's too soon to call this a U.S. surrender. And he actually gets at exactly the points that Hank is making about what happens after the deal is signed, affecting, obviously, the way the deal was perceived at the time that it was signed. And that kind of post-deal period being as consequential or if not more consequential than what is put on the paper itself. I read Douglas Murray also in the free press making a similar point with a little bit more optimism than Ferguson. So interesting. Yeah, it's an interesting point. Sabina says, hi, Emily. Every time an abortion question conversation comes up,

I pay attention in order to get a better understanding. What I'm curious about and have not heard discussed is, if we determine end of life by no pulse slash heartbeat and no brain activity, why don't we determine beginning of life with heartbeat and brain activity? Thank you. Love your shows and commentary. You're very informative. Keep up the great work.

This is a really good question, Sabina. And I think it's actually why, as to previous conversations we've had on the show, I believe that the pulse heartbeat brain activity metric is not, I mean, I don't know if you heard this on Ross Douthith's podcast with J.D. Vance. But J.D. Vance writes in his new book on the Terry Schiavo case and having an almost snobbish opinion of the Christians who were trying to protect Terry Schiavo at the time. And this is why I don't think that's, I think that's an imperfect way to measure the dignity of life and the value of life and the start or the end of life. It gets easier to make these determinations the more technologically advanced we become, of course. We wouldn't have always even, I mean, for most of human history, we probably wouldn't have always had a way to determine brain activity before birth or heartbeat and pulse before birth. And of course, we have that capacity now.

so these questions get more and more tempting. But that's why actually I think drawing a red line at the, when there is a living, unique human, that's the line for me. And I know that's difficult and creates a lot of big problems. And I think there are a lot of big problems we think about differently because of the technology we have at our disposal. But anyway, I think that is a really good question and a worthwhile question. And it's certainly something that I'm happy to think about

appreciate you emailing in. David sends a message. Looks like it's a Casey Means newsletter. This is a long one. Hmm, looks like it's about some of the weird stuff that Casey Means has recommended. And this came up, I haven't actually dug too deep into this, but I have seen, and I've looked a bit into some of the new age, almost mystical health recommendations that Casey B.

Means has proffered in recent years. And I actually don't know Casey Means at all. I've never had a conversation with Casey Means or Callie Means. I followed their work pretty closely. I haven't read the book. But I've listened to a lot of their podcasts or a lot of their articles and followed them pretty closely. And that stuff I do think is genuinely concerning. I don't know that it was concerning enough to miss a maybe generational opportunity to put someone in who would be, you know, transformative for a few years, at least in terms of their frame of mind and their outlook on the problems, like fundamental problems with the big ag, big pharma industries that have been too comfortable for too long. I don't really have a firm opinion on that. My inclination is that it

would have been worth it to have somebody just shaking it up for a few years in a role that is not super consequential. But this stuff I do. think is, is, I haven't looked into it deeply. I do think it's concerning. Uh, this is from Bob, who says, um, it's not surprising that Trump is facing attacks like these from not only Israel, but many Republicans. This is about the MOU. Um, Democrats are piling on, not because they disagree with what Trump has done, but because it is politically useful for them to do so. True. Uh, Bob says, the reality is Trump had no choice. This is the result of the tragic choice of starting this war in the first place. I agree with that. None of these critiques, and we may see many

in our media as well, give any credence to what Iran was capable of doing and would have done in retaliation for future military action. Yeah, that's an interesting point. Bob goes on to say this kind of a long email. What I do believe that this, quote, adventure was a fool's errand from the beginning and that the war needed to come to an end and the straight needed to be open. That might be a hard pill to swallow for Americans accustomed to believing we, quote, always win. There was no other rational choice. Well, this is what Robert Pape was talking about with the escalation trap formula. where you end up trapped with an almost sunk cost fallacy. And I actually asked him about this on breaking points this week,

where if you don't have the political will to use all of your military force in Iran, then you end up either having to cut your losses or escalate. And I think Trump didn't have the political will to escalate because he doesn't believe the American people. have the political will to escalate. And there's a debate right now. I think some folks who have probably disagreed with over the course of the war are saying nobody was arguing for, it's a straw man, to say people were arguing for thousands of ground troops, billions of more dollars, and many more months spent with this around war. And I grant them the point that most people were not saying that. I think the counterpoint is that people who are now creating that straw man, as they see it,

are arguing it was the inevitable consequence. It would have been the inevitable consequence of achieving particular goals in Iran. Now, Victor Davis-Hanson would disagree. There are people who disagree by saying you could have just carpet bombed Iran in any military or dual-use equipment in the country for another two weeks and called it a day and not landed on any type of MOU. It didn't necessarily have to be unconditional surrender or regime. change or complete annihilation, a ground troop going in to retrieve the nuclear dust, as seemed very imminent at one point in the war. We had Brian Dean Wright on actually talking about that when it seemed most imminent early in the war. Doesn't appear to have happened. But what was the

option that would have prevented escalation? Is it just another two-week bombing run that goes even harder. And does that actually end in the way that people would expect it to? Meaning we aren't forced to escalate because we lose more troops. And then the American people demand total revenge. And then we end up sending ground troops and occupying. So that's, that would be the, I think, you know, Bob is on the same page as probably broadly myself, probably Megan, some people who were skeptical of the war in the first place, but not at all skeptical of the idea that Iran is, you know, there are factions of the Iranian government that hold to an irrational Shia ideology that they do wish Israeli civilians harm and the like,

that there's a real danger. But, you know, you can kind of hold two things in your mind at the same time and folks just disagree on the right way to approach that. Certainly from my perspective, that's the case. So I think, yeah, Trump probably did realize that this was the only choice that made, that, that mitigated the losses. I mean, we'll see. This thing, I'm surprised more people haven't made the comparison to the Gaza deal, which has really just, has really been moved to the back burner and has not been fulfilled. So, I mean, there was, what, a 20-point plan?

And most of that has not come to pass in many months now. And it's, I think most people would say it was like, appears to have fallen apart. It doesn't mean it can't be resuscitated. But it's not out of the question to me that this deal, once Trump kind of wraps it up with a bow, it moves to the back burner. Gas prices start to recover, visibly start to recover. And this all fades to the back of people's minds rather than the front of people's minds. And, you know, there are diplomatic negotiations that are happening in the background. and we're still at an impasse, basically, with Iran. So, yeah, interesting points there, Bob.

There's a lot of, I mean, we can talk about that for forever. I'll go to Justin now, who says, the episode you did on Portland a while ago had a big effect on me. I was living in Portland at the time, and I knew the place had problems. The episode really brought to my attention the magnitude of how unhealthy the environment had become. I don't live there anymore. Also, I think Kanye is being genuine. He has a pattern of acting in a really assonine manner and then coming too conscious about it later. I don't have any questions, but I'm increasingly enjoying your show. You're great. Well, thank you, Justin. And man, I'm so sorry about Portland. I've never been to Portland. I want to go to Portland. And it's one of those many places that makes me sad because just hearing about its

natural beauty and its potential for a great cultural scene, it bums me out so hard to see unforced errors wreck a place and make it uninhabitable for a lot of normal people who value safety and cleanliness and compassionate policy towards addiction and homelessness. So it's funny, though, that you emailed us because that was with Mark Hemingway. And I told Mark this before, but we did like an 18-minute video on that because Mark is from Oregon. And it exploded. It's one of our most popular videos, if not our second most popular video on the channel in the year that we've existed. And I love that. when that happens because you would never, ever expect it. You would never ever expect it. And it's such a good

reminder not to blindly follow the algorithm because the stuff that's unexpected when it pops, it just, it warms your heart a bit because you see how good content can kind of penetrate the reward system that's sometimes flawed in the algorithm and how sometimes just when people are really compelled by a journalist like Mark who has this great personal story and is super well, researched, has done deep reporting on this, it pops because it's compelling and people like it. And it's what you're looking for when you're kind of browsing YouTube. You want something that is, first of all, entertaining because Mark is funny. But also it is leading with facts. And it is leading with kind of moral clarity and an interesting kind of niche discussion on a

city like Portland. So I've been, I really love that that episode has done so well. And I think we have Mark scheduled again soon, or yeah, I want to say we do. Either way, he'll be back soon. Love Mark Hemingway. Hank says, as someone who supports the war effort or at least isn't openly hostile, Megan is right about the BS from people supporting the war being so freaked out about the MOU. They don't even know how everything is going to turn out yet. No one does.

The outcome of any large policy effort like this takes years to properly evaluate. She's also right about the need for people from the right of center to come to some kind of accommodation with each other. if for no other reason, then we most certainly agree on most issues. And it would be terrible if that hurt us politically. Yeah, it's been a fresh... I mean, J.D. Vance, you can just hear the frustration in his voice. As I'm recording this Thursday, just a couple hours ago, he did the White House press briefing from the briefing room. Carolyn Lovett's still on maternity leave.

And you could hear how frustrated he was with the Israeli right. And with some of the people in the MAGA coalition who... He has, I think, gone out of his way to accommodate as somebody who is more of an anti-interventionist. You know, he's surprised to some of them. He's to some of their delight. He's surprised them by his defense of the war publicly. And it still wasn't enough. I mean, a lot of people still just don't trust him.

But they did trust Trump. And the MOU is, honestly, shocking. I think most people who saw it were surprised. by the terms, the specifics of the terms and the volume of kind of Iranian wins versus American wins, like the difference in the MOU of that. But I also think Hank is correct. And was it Bob who also wrote in, or Hank actually, we were talking about Woodrow Wilson. Like what happens next is going to be, it has the potential to be even more important than what ends up on the paper. So we'll see how it goes. But I think people really, like this is where I know I disagree with a lot of you on this,

But I think ever, people who ever see a mirror image of their ideological convictions in Donald Trump at any given moment make a mistake to invest hope in that mirror image because it's almost always fleeting. He is not an ideologue. He is pragmatic, even if you disagree with his assessments of what's pragmatic and what's not. And so when he draws nearer to an ideological, when he draws near into one ideological camp on the right, everyone, everyone ends up feeling burned. And so I think it was unwise of some people to really be taking victory laps. There was some smugness about, I trust the president, people who are criticizing him, don't trust him. They don't trust him in times of war. And now some of those same people are

saying, I don't trust the president, especially not in this time of war. And I actually think all of that is reasonable except for ever acting as though, unless you are a pragmatist like Trump and you really just trust Trump, he is reflecting a real ideological persuasion. You know, some people might even argue that he's abandoned the anti-free traders at different points with the deals that he's cut. So you almost always end up with egg on your face if you're in that position because Trump is just really not that ideological. Sometimes I think he is even pragmatic over the kind of pillars of ideology that he does hold to.

For example, trade would be one thing. What else is there? I mean, he was willing to cut a deal on DACA with Nancy Pelosi at one point. Immigration, right? So sometimes we even see that. It's not often, but you do sometimes see that subjugated. But he's a pragmatist at the end of the day. And so I just think it was unwise.

people to be taking victory laps and to be talking smugly about this or that. Because honestly with Trump, the answer is that on the right, he respects you more if he's critical of it. He's not going to convey that publicly. But if you're willing to criticize him, he respects you more than if you're a lap dog. And I think the lap dogs, I've talked to people who would know the answer to this and they agree with me on it. The lab dogs get, you know, love from Trump. People who ask the really nice questions and that sort of thing, you know, he'll shower them with praise and he'll say nice things. about them and he might promote their book or something like that. But the question of respect is very

different. And that's why he clearly talks to, you know, journalists at New York Times or wherever else because ultimately he respects their power. And so anyway, I always think that's the better route because you never know what he's going to do. He's not a hardened ideologue. He's a politician at the end of the day. And there are a million competing forces and pressures on any given president in any given moment. And so he's never projected that he is some, you know, Republican standard bearer, a traditional Republican standard bearer. And I think that has confused the debate a bit. Howard says another great show this evening, Emily, I love when you and Megan are on together to blonde superstars. You're like Megan's meeting me. That's very flattering to me, overly

flattering to me. Megan is the best. So kind of her to come on. Howard says, I have to say that one of my favorite parts of the show are the Emily Rance at the end. Last Monday, you eviscerated Scott Pelly. This Monday, it was Alex Cooper. You know, yeah, this is interesting, Howard. I appreciate it because those ends of show kind of monologues, or I like it when I'm in front of my computer and kind of going through the articles all at the same time. I always wonder how they land with people. Sometimes they really take off on YouTube, but that's not always a good barometer. So I, you know, do often put some, some good effort into those, I guess you can call them, monologues. And I enjoy doing them. So people like them. I'm happy to keep doing them.

So this is a long email from Howard about more Alex Cooper and says, we have become a nation of weanies. I sometimes feel as though I'm living in the late Roman Empire. Yes, Marco Rubio wrote a book called decades of decadence. And I think the epigraph is Gibbon. I think it is, to kind of follow the Roman Empire, and it hits on some of these themes. So that's one to check out.

Samuel says, Hi, Emily, excellent observations in this segment on Alex Cooper and her, quote, sex positivity, posturing. Given the overall context of her recommendations, men are worthless, if it feels good, do it, no limitations or context to sexual behavior.

What she has been advocating is a mere contemptuous hedonism. If her employees seem confused by the situation they are in. That means their minds and consciences, what little remains of them, have been impinged by some natural law insights. Yes, so true. Will they dismiss those insights to better fit into the zeitgeist, or will they ponder them further to divine some faint fragments of understanding at all levels it really turns out to be sex negativity? Super, super well put, Sam. I appreciate that. And I always go back to Lena Donham, who is the best example of somebody's whose minds and consciousness

has been, quote, impinged by some natural law insights. And this is one of the most fascinating points of, hmm, overlap between the anti-transhumanist right and the anti-transhumanist left, even for people who don't necessarily see it in those terms as being explicitly about transhumanism or anything like that, which are many. And certainly I would say Alex Cooper fits into that category. But, yeah, I mean, the way birth control-fueled, consequence less sex, high-tech abortion fueled consequence less sex, and you see people more defensive of those positions.

That's obviously we can do the institution of marriage. It is why women are having fewer babies than they say that they want. It certainly affected the average age of marriage, though. I do think what we're going to see is small declines, ultimately with millennials and in Gen Z in terms of the overall marriage rate when you can gauge that years down the road because there are, you know, certain biological imperatives in the human body that take over ultimately. And sometimes you see cope, right? And I, you know, Alex Cooper got married and is now having a baby.

And I do think from some people you often see this manifest as cope. I think that Emily Radikowski essay that we were talking about Monday, yeah, it was in the same segment, is another example of cope. She's clearly dissatisfied by this hookup she has as a single mother, I think divorced mother. And she's coping by framing it as this kind of poetic or artful feminist fling. The zipless F, to quote Erica Zhang, if you haven't read fear of flying, I always reflect fondly on the time I was in the creative writing department. at GW. And my boomer poetry teachers, I'd never seen them so, so excited as when Erica Jong came to campus, it was like Christmas morning. It was so funny. But if you read that book, it's the best view, I think, into the pre-modern boomer mindset that led to the Alex

Coopers of the world. And maybe that would be a good segment, actually. That's a good idea now that I think of it. So I think it's just going to be mixed. We're going to see some cope. We're going to see some people kind of walking back. You see some of that in the tradd world, trad influencer world, people who are saying, well, I did X, Y, and Z, and I made mistakes. This is this great zoomer, Bryce Crawford, who talks about how he came to Jesus. He's a YouTuber and a podcaster, and he talks about all the mistakes he made and how it all led to him being really unhappy. I think you see that with a lot of female, and Bryce is an evangelist. It does some really cool stuff, but you see that with a lot of female influencers, in my opinion, too.

So I think it's just going to be a mix. I don't think there will be kind of a broad awakening to or embrace of natural law so much as you'll see a little bit of cope. You'll see a little bit of actual introspection, but it'll be mixed at the end of the day. This is from Stephen, who says, on BP, Sogher made the point that graduating college students have had access to chat GPT since they entered college at being created in 2022. Oh my gosh, that's mind-blowing, actually. and that basically no one has had to write an essay from scratch because of it.

That would be the case for high school students, too, since it would have come out of a freshman that is now graduating to college, what are your thoughts about this and how it relates to the future of journalism? A lot of thoughts. I hadn't heard him say that, but that's like kind of chilling to think about. There are certain traditions of the modern education system that we don't have to see as overly precious. And I do think maybe essay writing is one of those things, not that people, we have a problem. with people not being able to just competently convey ideas in written form. I don't know that the mandate for essay writing, as it was always, manifest was super helpful towards that ends.

And I'm sure some of you are teachers and would weigh in on it. But I do think being able to competently convey your thoughts in writing is an important skill for the mind. And for, of course, the modern workplace, because you're sending emails, you're texting or slacking. and you need to be able to have a clear thought process that allows you to convey to another human being, X, Y, and Z, because we're using written mediums to do these communications. And also, I think it's healthy for the brain. People didn't always have access to writing, and people weren't always broadly literate. So I don't think it's, like, essential to being human.

But I also think, you know, then you need to, we need to have a healthy balancing with oral traditions, which I'm not sure that we have either because of the. the way algorithms mediate our oral communication increasingly as well. So yeah, how does it affect journalism? I mean, you're going to see a lot of people who don't want to be writers, probably, but want to be verbal essayists, kind of oral essayists and do a really artful job, like a Johnny Harris or something maybe, in the future. And to some extent, that's fine. But there is something that forces you to organize your thoughts and think clearly and speak, concisely with logical progression by being forced to write. And we also read a lot of content. I mean,

even captions on videos. I tell journalism students this. Like, we all read the captions. You know, we might ignore them, but we read them. And that, you know, you can be an Instagram caption, Facebook, X, even TikTok. Those videos are often scripted, which people don't realize. So you have to write a script. And people still do read written news. It might not be the whole public every single day, but people are clicking on articles all of the time, whether it's political news or other types of news. Certain news outlets are thriving. And yes, if it's the New York Times, it's because of cooking and puzzles and the like. Wall Street Journal is strong.

But there is a demand for that. And I think there will always be some demand for it. It's probably going to be smaller. But, you know, I think there, you'll have to see a little bit of the dropping of the snobbishness in the industry towards oral reports. and storytelling. But you know, you should also push for basic competence in the written language, for anybody whose job is to convey ideas. And so that's kind of how I see it.

I could talk for like hours about that. So as that's a, that's probably I should stop myself there, Stephen, so I don't go off. As Stefan says, I was listening to your pod where you were responding to Rick Scott and you were giving a lot of good points about how Kanye, aka. Yay, has apologized and made amends for anti-Semitic remarks. They were all good points. But I really would have, wish you would have referred to his verse on vultures. Oh, I can't, I can't read that.

I cannot read that first. So I won't. But, yeah, there's a couple emails now that I've mentioned Kanye. And I just think it's crazy that Rick Scott seems to have, I've had first into this fight without familiarizing himself with what Kanye West has done over the last half year. because it's been intentional and it's been significant. It wasn't a tweet here or there.

Oh, I'm sorry. Or like a struggle session notes app screenshot. It was, again, pretty significant. Maybe it was because of his business interests. Maybe not. But the guy clearly has serious mental health struggles. He has discussed this in pretty great detail and pretty self-deprecating detail. So at that point, you know, having a senator not even familiarized himself with that or be dismissive of it.

and suggest that somebody's concerts should be canceled. I just don't think it makes a lot of sense and I think it sends a bad message. Hank mentions that Hillary supports Trump's 14-point peace plan. I didn't see that. That's funny. And Marlowe says, thank you for partnering with and making me aware of USAFax. I signed and shared the pledge on X.

It would be great to be able to trust all the data gathered and know that is actually being used to make sound legislative decisions. Why do you think Rain Wilson wouldn't talk to Fox? I guess he did. But I don't know. I just don't know what the advantage is for him. I think he's kind of an eccentric guy. He's Baha'i, right? So he's an eccentric guy. I guess I shouldn't say I was totally surprised. I was just kind of caught off guard by it. He's, he's, I believe, friends with Justin Baldoni still. And so Marlowe says, isn't imitation the most sincere form of flattery? It seems those who

mocked the alternative Super Bowl halftime were the same people who backed rise up against fascism. Oh, that's hilarious. And I just want to say, the alternative Super Bowl halftime is like kind of a joke now in, I don't know, political circles. But it absolutely accomplished in spades what it set out to accomplish. So I don't, it is funny also the double standard with the rise up against fascism. And the alternative Super Bowl halftime couldn't have existed 10 years ago. So I think there's still there's still a compelling argument for that, even if people are snobbish and, you know, see it as cringy. Now, Marlow says, I think I finally hit upon my reason for seeing Megan differently with this whole podcaster blow up on the right. Megan said something on this episode to the effect, politics is no beanbag and it gets rough.

As a viewer, I didn't appreciate when she told me on one of her shows many months ago to go fuck myself if I didn't agree with who she supports. I didn't realize viewing no beanbag. It reminded me of the reason Scott Adams was canceled for supposed racism when he noted that black activists said the white people are not welcome. He said, why would I go where I am not welcome? He was canceled for it to the point where it was the operating line, opening line of his obituary in many left-leaning publications. It is said that anger and division are winning mix for attention these days. Thank you for how you approach discourse with more questions than demands.

Yeah, it's interesting. I think the context of when Megan said that was she believed her audience understood where she was coming from and that people who are outside the audience. And I don't know if that's the exact context, but that's my memory of it. Could F off. But that is where it's true. She is so good at being herself on her show. And I think that's why it's successful,

because you see her reacting to the way people treat her. And she made the point on the show that they all drew first blood. They all drew first blood. And it really started with her conversation with Charlie Kirk last August, I believe. She was very supportive of Midnight Hammer. And I don't think some of her critics have fully appreciated. First of all, I listen to every episode of the show. So I hear everything in full context every single day.

And I know a lot of people do too. And I also don't think people appreciate the level of vitriol that was ratcheting up towards her over many months. And so on yesterday's show, I think you saw her reflections about how you have to deal with it at some point. And everyone may not agree X, Y, or Z with, you know, the best way to deal with it. But being in the loop on this, it is stunning what she faced for many, many months. And she didn't draw first blood. And the way that some of this has been scripted to convince people who I know and have had conversations with it, I think have been persuasive, that, you know, one thing is true

or another thing's true. it's really stunning. And so that level of frustration, I don't know how she deals with it. Honestly, I do not know how she deals with it. So politics is not being bag, and it's because of that. And so I think, you know, you at a certain point, reconcile yourself to that if you're super influential. Otherwise, you don't have a thick enough skin to, you know, defend yourself. And it's tough. It's tough. It's been made really hard by the democratization of media, meaning we all have opinions that we're sharing on all different formats all the time. And that just opens up a lot of room for some really horrible things to be said and instantly. And that was happening for a really, really long time.

It is really crazy. So I loved hearing Megan's reflections on where the right can go, the potential for the right going forward. So so, so helpful to have her on. I just, I love talking to Megan, I love learning from Megan. And her prosecutorial outlook approach is so fact-forward and concise and thoughtful. It was, you know, I feel very lucky. So I appreciate Megan so much. And our great team here at MK Media and on After Party as we hit the year, Mark, thank you so much for all your questions here to nalant, double-Keremedia.com.

We will, of course, be back next week with more of the show. please stick around and you know hopefully we'll I think we've got the the girl chat we've got a nez and Rachel coming up next week we've got glen greenwald coming up next week so it's going to be a lot of fun on our anniversary week hope you all have a wonderful wonderful weekend happy happy father's day god bless