After Party with Emily Jashinsky - “Happy Hour”: MN Shooting Fallout, Dangers of Definition-Inflation, and Influencers in Politics: Emily Answers YOUR Questions

Episode Date: January 9, 2026

Emily Jashinsky opens the show with some pointed questions about antisemitism in the aftermath of Oct 7. She discusses what she believes are the dangers of definition-inflation. She also fields a few comments about her views on libertarianism, why she enjoys conversations with people who oppose her own political views, the Trump administration, and where we are on the issue of systemic racism. Another question concerns the fallout from the Minnesota shooting and why she believes it’s important to be slow to react to cases such as these. She also takes on a lengthy email about Candace Owens and discusses her views on Candace’s coverage of Charlie Kirk’s assassination and why she believes people with large platforms should vet information before they share it with the public. Emily then dives into her own history with Ben Shapiro and why she’d love to interview him again and what it means for the conservative movement to have social media influencers involving themselves in politics. Emily rounds out this episode with thoughts on why she’s optimistic about Gen Z and her top tips for someone visiting Washington for the first time. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome everyone to another edition of Happy Hour, which is, of course, our special Friday edition of After Party, where I get to answer all of the great questions you send in to me at Emily at devilmycaremedia.com, our email address where you can get in touch with me and also the After Party, Emily, Instagram, both of those places if you want to submit questions for future editions here of Happy Hour, which, as you know, I love. Please do go over to Emily at Double Mycaremedia.com, send me. email, get in touch on the after party, Emily, Instagram. I really do love answering your questions. And as a quick refresher, because by the way, I haven't recorded one of these since I pre-recorded the Christmas and New Year's Week editions. It's been since like, I don't know, December 20th or something, three weeks. It feels like forever. So I have some messages to get to just from that time period. And I'm excited. I think some of these are tough. I always answer them live. I don't really look at them first. I'll kind of see it in my inbox, flag it for a happy hour episode, and then go back to what literally as I'm recording here. I just think it's more entertaining to do it that way,

honestly. So let me go ahead and start with, all right, first one that I have here is from Kaya, if I'm pronouncing that correctly. Subject line, anti-Semitism just isn't funny. This is from Christmas Eve. Emily, I'm a huge fan. I really love your show, how you talk about things, the guests you have on, all of it. I was really disappointed tonight. as I listened and heard you chuckle when Dave Chappelle said his predictable punchline for his, quote, safe word was, I stand with Israel. I assure you those of us being targeted relentlessly by anti-Semitism in all of its forms don't find his obvious anti-Semitism remotely funny. We are the punching bags for the world. And since 10-7 is like pus oozing from every single open wound, the anti-Semites are free to come out of hiding.

It is now in vogue. Dave Chappelle is a comedian. He can say whatever he wants. But hearing you laugh was like a punch to the gut. I thought you might care to hear the other side of this coin. And Kai goes on a wish of Merry Christmas and continued success in 2026. Thank you, Kaya. I do appreciate that.

And I do care to hear the other side of the coin while we're on this one. I see in my inbox here, I have another email from Kaya. This was from January, early January. Emily, I just wish you would have said it. Candace Owens is an anti-Semite. I do not use this word lightly. You can't, quote, dabble in anti-Semitism, kind of like you can't be sort of pregnant. Long before the Charlie Kirk nightmare, Candace showed us who she is.

let's believe her. So let me take this one first, Kaya. I said dabbling in anti-Semitism because I think the way Candace has approached this, and I hate waiting into the whole thing because I don't think it's the most important conversation happening in the world right now. But while we're talking about it, I'm happy to. I use the word dabbling because I think what she does is engage in tropes without fully coming out and saying nakedly anti-Semitic things, I do think there's a distinction between A and B. And I think it's an important one. And so that's why I say dabbling. And maybe it's not. I'm totally open to the idea that that's not strong enough to describe what she does, but I think she does very intentionally bring up tropes. And that I will defend that as a distinction

that's meaningful because, you know, when she comes out outright and says, for example, you know, I think if she does, say, you know, I think Jewish people are inferior. Say she said that. That's anti-Semitism. And that's naked rank anti-Semitism. And I do think it's differently than playing games with, I think it's different than playing games with the tropes. So I'm obviously, of course, open to feedback and appreciate Kaya sending it. in. Appreciate all of you sending it in. But that's where I've said dabbling. Because as I've watched Candace, I don't listen to every second of every episode. I have watched some full editions of her show recently. And I try not to judge based on clips that I just see circulating because I've seen people

do that to me. And it's never like it's just not accurate. It's not helpful. It's not accurate in a lot of cases because you miss, you know, that someone might be playing devil's advocate sometimes or whatever. But what I see Candace doing is, I think, you know, some pretty inappropriate, some pretty inappropriate dabbling in those tropes and, you know, unhelpfully, and I think playfully and intentionally and sometimes not playfully. So that's what I've seen from her. And I do think it's worth distinguishing between that. And when someone goes full, pedal to the metal, racist, anti-Semitic. And to the point about Dave Chappelle, I don't think there was anything in that Dave Chappelle bit that was anti-Semitic. And, and Kaya, you and I may disagree on that. I don't think

it's anti-Semitic to say that you'll know he's been, this was the joke, you'll know he's been co-opted if he ever says, quote, I stand with Israel. That's a political question. That's about the government of the country of Israel. That's not him saying, I stand with Jewish people. that's him saying, I stand with Israel. And there's a distinction between Israel and the Jewish people, obviously. Israel is a political entity. And it is, I obviously believe completely in Israel's right to exist. I'm not a fan of ethno-states. I'm glad that I don't live in one. But I think Israel absolutely, and I've been saying this over and over again recently, I think the Jewish people absolutely have a right to be completely paranoid about rising anti-Semitism. always have that sense of paranoia. They should always have their radars up. That, on the other hand, though,

doesn't mean other people can't point out when the paranoia is not well grounded in fact. So I completely, like, I get it. I do. I think, you know, I've come out of the last 10 years on the conservative movement of seeing definition inflation where racism and sexism and Islamophobia and bigotry, Those definitions are expanded to include people who don't like Colin Kaepernick, for example, or are disagreeing with BLM or think that Derek Chauvin has been maligned or whatever. The definitions have been inflated in a very, very dangerous way. And that is one of the central issues I've been focused on for the better part of the last decade. It's one of my pet topics.

And so when I see it happening, I don't care if it's coming for the left or the right. I don't care if it's coming from the center. hate it and I will talk about it. And so it's fine to disagree with me. I don't, I don't mind that at all. And I appreciate the emails. And I hope people keep on sending them in. But yeah, I mean, I just, I don't agree with the inflation of the term anti-Semitism, though I do fully, fully, fully understand where people are coming from with it. And I appreciate the feedback here. All right, Nick sends in a question. Hi, again, just listen to Ryan's interrogation of you. That's referring to a Ryan and I interviewed each other for breaking points videos over the break just about our backgrounds and our careers.

So this is what Nick's referencing. And it got me wondering, you said you had a short-lived libertarian phase, but I would have called you a libertarian similar to me. I know it's not a fun label to use because of the Reddit nerds out there, but how else would you define someone who is skeptical of all forms of concentrated power? I guess what about you is not libertarian? Is it just a little more social conservatism? Thanks in advance. It's a good question, Nick, because these labels, or increasingly useless. And it reminds me I just got another email. Let me find it. I saw it come in not too long ago, unless I'm mistaken here. Maybe it was one of the Instagram questions. Let me see. Yeah, okay, so this is from Christine. This is an Instagram question. I'll combine these two.

Christine says, I'm 57. Always consider myself a conservative, not MAGA. Lately, I've been listening a lot to Dave Smith. And I find myself saying yes to the vast majority of what he says. Is it possible to evolve in your views and be a mix of conservative and libertarian. I find myself in a strange place with this. And now you see why I'm combining both of these emails are these questions, because I think actually to Nick's point, the labels don't mean, I mean, did they ever mean a lot? I'm not sure. But from my vantage point, what separates me from libertarians? It just depends because, you know, there's so many libertarians who I think are on the wrong side of big tech. But they're on the wrong side of big tech from a perfectly, you know, libertarian economic perspective.

And libertarians would probably be hesitant to ever claim me or label me as a libertarian because of, you know, the fact that I support industrial policy. For example, I'm with Rubio and Vance on the question of industrial policy. I actually think Republicans may have been wrong not to vote for the Chips Act act as big of a boondoggle as it was. Because I think we have, we have thanks to the influence, honestly, of a lot of libertarians totally let the corporate, these corporate powers who were using this pretext of free markets organize a very, very unfortunate economy. where the price of services is skyrocketing and the price of goods has gone down. I don't think it's been good for anyone. I don't think outsourcing all of our chip production to Taiwan was particularly wise as we were learning on a day-by-day basis right now. So I think that's probably the biggest place where we differ.

There's a speech that Mark Arribio gave at Catholic University around 2017, 2018. Maybe have even been later than that. You can just Google Markerubio Catholic University speech and it'll come up. But it's where he talks about how free markets don't exist for the sake of free markets. They exist for the sake of strong families and communities, right? Like a government is the government gives birth to the free market, right? Free markets are birthed by human instinct. And part of the genius of free market systems is that,

They understand the genius of human behavior, or not the genius, but they understand the reality of human behavior. They're predicated on understanding the reality of human behavior. But nobody, apart from legitimate anarchists, believe that those markets should have zero direction. And again, this is where libertarians would hate me on, like, antitrust questions. I'm a conservative. It doesn't mean I think Lena Con was perfect in her position in the Biden administration. But I really, really believe that letting antitrust lapse has been a huge problem for our economy. I think there's way too much concentration.

I subscribe to a lot of what Matt Stoller says. Even I don't agree with him 100% of the time. I just think we have a wildly over-contentrated economy in multiple industries, and that's been a problem. So that's where I disagree with a lot of libertarians. My foreign policy is maybe more aligned with libertarians, I guess. I don't know. I don't agree with libertarians on drug policy for the most part. But I also listened to Dave a lot.

And the reason I think this is a great question from, this was a great question from Christine, is that the common ground, that middle of the Venn diagram between, you know, normal conservative and libertarian is a really, strong foundation because it's opposition to the political establishment. And that's where I find myself often in your shoes too, Christine, saying, yes, when I'm listening to Dave, you know, I don't agree with everything. But we agree on a lot of the diagnoses, the diagnoses, right, of the problems in our politics and government and all of that. So great questions. Appreciate it. That's something I think about a lot too. Let's see. Hank asks, do you think with all the jobs Rubio has, he at least gets time and a half or a double time even? I don't think he does. That is a good question.

That is a good question. I don't know. I mean, I wondered this with Sean Duffy when he was head of DOT and NASA. man, I don't know how much he's, Rubio, that is, is involved in oversight of the other agencies, apart from just state. I think that's a pretty legitimate question. And I would love to know more about it. I think he's probably like really, really, really big picture. But I don't know. It's a good question. Ryan says, hi, Emily.

I hope all is well. I'm a five-year BP subscriber slash rising watcher. I would love to know your thoughts on the shooting by a federal agent of an unarmed civilian who appeared to be driving away from the law enforcement officer. Hopefully you will discuss it on breaky points or after party. Thanks and all the best. Ryan, thank you for the question. I did discuss this at length on after party on Wednesday. So if you want to see, this was, you know, as the reports were still coming in, the story was developing, as it is right now as I tape this, this is Thursday afternoon. but I did do, I think it was like 15-minute monologue-type conversation about that.

So feel free to check that out. You know, it's a tough one because I've been pretty critical. And Megan, I have disagreed on this about, I've been fairly critical advice, you know, just from a civil liberty standpoint. It doesn't mean that I think ICE has to be perfect. I don't think ICE has been perfect. I don't think they have to be perfect. But I haven't loved, for example, I just did. disagree with the masks. I don't think armed officers of the state. As much as I would want my loved one

to be wearing a mask, I just don't think that's right ever. So I've disagreed with that. I don't think they should be wearing masks, even though I think the situation they find themselves in is dangerous. The law enforcement finds itself in dangerous situations all the time masked or unmasked, and I don't think it's appropriate. I've been unhappy with the detainment of American citizens in certain cases. When I look at what happened in Minneapolis, I hate it, hate it all around. My instinct is always to be slow to react in stories like this because I've been burned. I don't know. I shouldn't say I shouldn't say I've been burned because I've always been hesitant to weigh in right away. But I've seen a lot of people get burned as more and more evidence comes out

in the days afterwards. The things that you don't know, you don't. know, right? Like, for example, the toxicology report in the George Floyd case relevant to what actually ended his life. So I try to be, I try to be judicious and slow in reacting to these cases. What I've seen so far, I'm sympathetic, honestly, to the ICE agent in this case. and that is putting me in contrast to my friends on the left, certainly. But I think a couple of things can be true at the same time. One, this is my big picture takeaway, and this is what I find so frustrating about this case. There are thousands of criminal migrants in the country right now, and I'm not talking about people who violated immigration law.

I'm talking about people who are convicted, sex offenders, violent criminals. There are thousands. I mean, the Biden administration in the last year of, so 2024, the last year of the Biden administration, I went and pulled the numbers. They arrested 81,000 non-citizens with criminal histories. That included 57,000 assaults, 18,000, 579 sexual assaults and sex offenses, about 13,000 weapons offenses. I'm just reading from the numbers I pulled right now, almost 3,000 homicides, almost 3,000 kidnapped, burglaries, robberies, all of this. And so that's just one year of the Biden administration. When you bring in, over the course of a few years, a massive population of migrants, many of whom are not

criminals, are not convicted criminals, they're not going to go on to convict crimes. There's disputed research on whether they have a higher rate of criminality than the native-born population. You could be on either side of that. And the point, remains, the fact remains, that because the Biden administration, to use the New York Times numbers, brought in a population of at least 8 million people with light vetting because of that. And I saw that, by the way, up close when I was doing reporting down there. Because of that, that means you have thousands of people in the country that are actual criminals. And so sanctuary city policies like Minneapolis really piss me off,

because I think even if you're somebody who's been deeply unhappy with ICE and the Trump administration and wants to see more lenient immigration policy, even if you're that person, you don't want criminals to find literal sanctuary in pockets of the country where you, your family or other innocent people should be safe from people who are non-citizens. We have plenty of problems with actual citizens and criminality and drugs and despair that drive people to, unfortunately, decisions. We have plenty of those problems in this country. We really do. So the fact that you'd be subjected to violence, criminality from people who don't belong here is wildly unjust. And so I just, if you're somebody impeding ICE physically, I really, really, really don't know how we are supposed to protect ourselves. And that includes people who want more lenient immigration policies who I have good faith disagreements with. I want them to be safe too. And I think they want their kids and their families to be safe. So I'm right now, you know, I just think that's the

big picture conversation here. And I don't think, you know, we necessarily, I mean, I don't know. I'm totally open to the idea that I'm totally open to the debate, frankly. I'm not in law enforcement. I'm not a lawyer, obviously. And I have a lot of civil liberties concerns about law enforcement. I do. And I also have a lot of concerns as somebody who lives in a city where law enforcement was denigrated for years and demoralized for years. And I saw what happened to people who have the least resources in Washington, D.C. and how they were preyed upon the most by criminals when law enforcement was demoralized. You couldn't hire a cop in D.C. without offering crazy bonuses and all of that. It's still a problem. So it just, it's not an easy.

black or white situation for me. I'm totally open to the notion that this officer acted improperly. I'm sympathetic to an agent who has a deadly weapon in the form of a car that is backing up with the clear intent to accelerate, then does accelerate. You don't know how hard that acceleration, how fast that acceleration is going to come. I'm still waiting for the facts about whether Renee Good was getting conflicting instructions. I think that's an important question. Was she getting conflicting instruction from the agent who's trying to open her locked car door saying, get the F out. You can see that on the video and was somebody telling her to leave? I think that's an important question. I'm open to evidence that vindicates either side of it.

Right now, I think that what we're looking at was an officer having to make a really, really tough decision. And I right now am not, not, let's say, in opposition. That might be a good way to put it, not in opposition to the decision that the officer made. Though it does seem like it's possible there were other options available. I mean, shoot the tires, all of that. But I've never been in that situation. And for me, the big picture question here is, how are we supposed to deal with, like, the threat of violent criminals who don't belong? in the country, being in the country, if ICE is being physically resisted. The officer, the great Megan Kelly actually confirmed this on Thursday's Megan Kelly show. This officer

was arresting a convicted sex offender migrant in June and got dragged during the process with like a mutilated arm. So I just like that stuff I don't think is making anybody safer. And I'd like to know what Jacob Fry and Tim Walls are doing about that. That to me is the bigger problem. Gregory sends in thoughts for happy hour on Ryan. Hi, Emily. I like listening to Ryan, referring to Ryan Grimm's on the show Monday, but he seems to me, I guess as someone on the right, as someone who is a bit drinking the Kool-Aid on those issues like redlining, Trump coins, and other Marxist delusions regarding the evils of capitalism. Am I crazy? I tend to have sympathy for numerous economic issues that those on the progressive side can agree with,

but I feel I always get so far overboard with their own anti-market lunacy. Maybe I'm just ignorant of the truth, but I don't know. How do you do it? Some of the the stuff he said was just bonkers to me, repossessed property based on race. Due to a misguided on his part, supposed wrong from 70 years ago. Just nuts. Anyway, you rock. Thanks, Gregory. Thanks for the email.

Gregory, who also then sent an addendum of a link to an examination that shows redlining is grossly overestimated and says, get the Bedford's on, Moranese and Bovard. So just a quick note, I do think we're going to, I think the Bedford's are scheduled. and Nezum Bovard will be a bigger part of the picture in 2026 even. We're working on that right now. So thanks, Gregory. I like both of those ideas. It's easy to talk to Ryan because he's super tolerant of me saying things that he and his allies think are lunacy too.

He makes it super easy. I know he's always acting in good faith. I think actually a point here to make, he didn't. go on to defend the repossession of property based on race. We were talking about C.O. Weaver on Monday. And I'm pretty sure when I started reading some of the more of the posts from Weaver that were saying things like that, I'd have to go back and listen. Maybe he did. But he was, and I agreed with him on this, talking about how property ownership and net worth both are downstream of real systemic racism that existed in the past. And that's something I disagree with a lot of people on the

right on. But I just think maybe we don't disagree. I just think it's more of an issue than people on the right acknowledge because, listen, right now, I think it's a mistake to say the country is systemically racist. You could make the argument than the last 10 years is systemically racist against people who got disfavored in the DEI hierarchy. I think that's actually a fair argument to make. The Trump administration has rolled back so much of that, though, that I think we're in a pretty good place as far as the MLK version or vision of a colorblind legal society and justice system, all of that. So I don't think it's accurate and I think it's dangerous to say we live in a systemically racist country right now, right now. But the

accumulation of wealth over generations is downstream of a systemic racism. I mean, there are people alive now who live through Jim Crow and all of that. I am not qualified to get into the specifics of how redlining or Ryan also mentioned the GI Bill affected that. I think that's a longer conversation, but slavery and Jim Crow absolutely did. And you can, you know, still, like, slavery is recent enough in our history that you can go back and listen to audio recordings of people who were enslaved. Like, plug that into YouTube. It's a wild, wild journey. But, you know, Maybe I disagree with people on the right on that, but that's, I think it's actually a fair point. But some of this is semantic.

And Ryan, I think, I mean, he just, people might not, I think, the extent to which Ryan is like a genuine leftist. He's a real, like, old school leftist. And I, you know, that's, like, he comes to these political. questions with a deeply considered and, dare I say, like radical democratic socialist vantage point. And that's sort of similar. I think this is why it's easy to talk to Ryan.

I come to a lot of these questions from genuinely considered, like, Christian conservative worldview. And yeah, I mean, I disagree with the right on. certain things. I think, you know, it's, it's weird to be in the media in the Trump era and to be like either on the right or the left because Trump himself confuses some of these boundaries and, you know, some of the issues you end up talking about Trump's temperament rather than the policy and the substance of it itself. And it's hard to kind of keep your eye on the ball sometimes. But, you know, it's, it's a weird, weird, weird time. And I think, you know, what I

appreciate it about Ryan is that he has a sincerely committed worldview, and he has first principle considerations, and he has a moral clarity that I totally disagree with, but he believes that things are black and white from his vantage point, just as I see a lot of things like abortion as black and white from my vantage point. So I actually think it's a good question, Gregory. And I appreciate people in my audience, just as I appreciate people in Ryan's audience, and a lot of them, of course, who hate me. But I appreciate people in my audience liking Ryan, because as I've gotten to know Ryan, he's just one of the people I admire most in the world. And so he makes these arguments in good faith. He's a decent human being. And I disagree with him

vehemently, like just vehemently. But I just, appreciate a lot of people who are, you know, maybe follow my work, hearing out Ryan, too, because I think you just get a better, personally, I like listening to kind of far left and maybe far right. I don't know if those are the right terms, but like genuine leftist and genuine conservative ideas clashing or perspectives clashing, because I think you often see the contrast in a way that's more helpful than corporate centrists debating. So let's see what else we got here. Oh man, a lot of nice emails.

Thanks for sending these. I really appreciate it. Let's see here. Yeah, a lot of thoughts on civil liberties. Let's say, this one is from Bruce. Bruce says, Venezuela is the hot topic for the day, but I'd like you to read this as a reminder

that the Iranian people are not our enemy. The Iranian government is, yeah, and you know, this is a, and Bruce ends by saying, been listening to MK for years, been listening to Afterparties as the first show. Thank you so much. I appreciate that, Bruce. And man, is it hard to know what's going on in Iran right now? My editor over at Unheard, where I'm a columnist, Sauravamari, obviously is Iranian and has been writing, I think, really helpful pieces about this lately. So I'm following him. But one thing that I've learned working in media is one of the advantages of sort of seeing how the sausage is made. one thing you learn when you work long enough in media is and well i guess if you're skeptical enough um is you see how the like you see how propaganda gets confused for or i guess maybe you just see

how easy it is to promote propaganda as real tested like eyewitness testimonials that aren't connected to any interest group in one way or the other or people who aren't as upfront about their connection with interest groups in one way or the other. So, you know, when people are saying things that are anti-Iranian regime or pro-Iranian regime, but particularly people who are saying things anti-Iranian regime, I'm always careful because obviously the United States government wants regime change in Iran. And so you don't know if they are promoting people who are going to be overly favorable

to narratives that the regime is about to fall, right? And that can give a false sense of the ease with which you'd be able

to get rid of, you know, Maduro is another good example of that or whatever. It's easy to kind of gloss over that there are a lot

of leftists, Maduro supporters where people who are allied with the government one way or another in Venezuela. And there's always

a possibility that's what's happening in Iran. So I'm super judicious about this. I do think Iran's history, Venezuela's history too, is clear that there are people who prefer a more democratic system in the country, a different system in the country that will probably be more aligned with the interests of the American people and not just the American government, maybe not even the American government, but genuinely the American people. So right now, what's happening in Iran appears to be very, very significant. Lots and lots of protests. Lots of genuinely people not wearing head coverings and testing the morality police and all of that. So huge storyline to follow, especially with what

just happened to Maduro Lindsey Graham put on his Make a Ron Great Again hat on a Fox News segment earlier. So boy, was that interesting. That one was quite. That one was quite. interesting to see. This one is from Jeff, who says, you are missing the whole picture when you and Megan don't listen to Candace's show much and then comment on her. She comes with receipts on anything she asserts. And for other points, when she doesn't have them yet, she clearly states it's her opinion. Then she openly explains she is looking for more information, asking the audience for help or still vetting information she's waiting through. Brigitte vaccinations or Harvey isn't nearly as major as the murder of Charlie. He was the assassination of our lifetime. You ladies should cover more deeply on it because it is huge and without a remotely believable answer yet. This goes on, Megan sounds foolish, saying she believes the FBI law enforcement narrative and that a caliber bullet, which would pass through multiple bodies, stopped in one. Your stance isn't as clear, but still berating the people trying to get real answers to Charlie's public execution isn't the greatest look. I think you should, you try to be sincere in your reporting, which is why I even bother commenting,

but it's hard when you admit you don't really listen to her yet. I think she's just sad with psychological issues and not bringing up real information or running down anyone. I'm going to actually pause right there because the email goes on a bit more at end saying, Charlie shouldn't be forgotten. He deserves the truth, be found and known by all. Amen. Jeff on that point. A couple of things I just disagree with in the email. I have made the effort to listen. I've said before I don't listen to, I said before in this episode, I don't listen to every second of every episode of Candice, but I have definitely watched more of Candice than most people who comment on Candice have. I have watched multiple full episodes of her reporting on Brigitte McCrone. I've watched actually the Brigitte series in full. I've watched multiple full episodes of her reporting on, or of her covering, I should say, what happened to Charlie Kirk. And I fully disagree with this viewer who has watched, I would assume, at least as much, if not more, than I have. When, Jeff, I just honestly disagree where you say she comes with receipts on anything she asserts. And for other points when she doesn't have them yet, she clearly states it's her

opinion that she openly explains she is looking for more information asking the audience for help or still vetting information she's waiting through. So I agree and disagree with that. First of all, I don't think she comes with receipts on anything she asserts. I don't think she, what I would say is I don't think she comes with, quote, fully vetted receipts. And that's where I disagree or that's where I agree with what Jeff is saying, that she says she's asking the audience for help or still vetting information she's waiting through. Yeah, I think she's doing that. And I don't think that's responsible or helpful in every scenario where you're reading, and I have seen this happen, you're reading tips on the air. You're just reading tips on the air and sending people in a million different directions.

I think if you're in a position of influence like Candace Owens is, you should vet the information fully before, even if you use the context of it, it's just my opinion, it's just my opinion. I think in cases of life and death like this, you have to vet information that you share from a massive platform to, your fullest ability before you bring it to the public. Because if you inject it without fully vetting it, it completely confuses the, what's the best way to put it? It completely confuses the fact versus fiction in the arena, right? It confuses what's fact versus fiction in the arena. And I think it's a very convenient way for bad actors. And I'm not like, say you think Candace is a good faith actor. I'm talking about like, let's say, uh, someone on the left. If someone on the left was doing this and saying that a conservative had killed Charlie Kirk and, you know, taking tips from random people

and putting them out there, I would not like that. Even if they said, listen, this is just my opinion. This tip sounds really compelling. Uh, I would say, okay, go back and fully vet that. tip. And so I just think it opens up a, or it sets a precedent that's not helpful, even as important as this investigation is. And I also disagree with Megan saying that she believes the fake FBI law enforcement narrative. I just don't think that's true. She said she believes that there's Trans-TFA involvement, which is not what we've heard from the government so far. And so I feel like Megan has been appropriately skeptical, I may be even less convinced by some of what I've heard so far, just frustrated with the way it's been handled. So far, I don't personally know Cash Patel or Dan Bonjino.

I've met Cash like once, but I don't personally know them at all. Megan has relationships with them to really trust them. I don't actually know them. I don't have any personal reason to trust them or anything like that. So I am pretty skeptical of what I've heard yet. But yeah, As Jeff, as you say, Candace is quote also asking the audience to find missing pieces of the puzzles. That is fine so long as you are not, again, just taking random allegations about what might be a piece or what might not be a piece and treating them with more seriousness than, or credibility than they deserve. You can vet information and you can be investigating these stories in the background, right? you can be doing these investigations in the background and asking members of the public to keep sending tips without then not vetting information and putting it out there. So I do think she's people disagreed with me saying that I think she's been really affected by what happened to Charlie Kirk.

I don't know how close they were when Charlie Kirk died, but I know they were close for a very long time in that she cherished that friendship. and psychologically no matter who you are, whether you're a bad faith or good faith actor, when somebody you spent so much time with in life gets violently gunned down, then yeah, you're going to have some, that is going to be tough for literally anybody, macho, sensitive, whomever you are.

And so I think there is a little bit of that going on too. And I just, listen, I don't know if Candace calls herself a journalist. I don't know. I don't know if she still does, if she would still accept that label. But I think even if you don't, being in media, you have to, you have to just be right now, especially with AI, pumping deep fakes and all of that into the discourse. You just have to be super, super, super careful. Because right now we're all having a hard time figuring out what's real and what's not. and having people in positions of power not fully vetting things. Boy, that is, I don't think anybody right now needs it to be harder. Okay. Thank you for the note, Jeff. I do appreciate it.

And I hear, you know, things like this all of the time. Let's see. What else do we have here? This one is from Howard. Howard says, I just listened to your one, two, happy hour broadcast, re-mentioned my e-mail. out to you, charming as always. Thankfully, it was on YouTube, so I didn't have to figure out Spotify. I know a lot of people liked that we dropped those on YouTube over the break.

I don't think that we are going to keep doing that because one of the cool things about happy hours is that it gets people to subscribe on the podcast feed. And I love, I'm a podcast listener, so I love when people are listening on the podcast feed, too. So sorry about that, everyone. I appreciate it, though. let's see Howard goes on to say I should go watch

some of Buckley's debates with Gore Vidal during the Democratic Convention of 1968 oh yeah I have there's a great documentary about their back and forth I forget what it's called

but it's great I think it's on Amazon Prime it's awesome and then Howard goes on as I just thought if you became a Star and Fox you could get your hands on some of that Hannity money

and have your own mansion at Palm Beach maybe in the future I end up nowadays having to go to Palm Beach for work a couple times a year. Let me just tell you, I'd never been to Palm Beach until a few years ago. I love South Florida. Palm Beach is a creepy place. I do not like going to Palm Beach ever. I like great beaches. South Florida has wonderful beaches, especially the Caribbean side. Come at me. A lot of you probably prefer the Gulf side. I love the Caribbean side.

But I really don't like Palm Beach. If I had Hannity money, I I would not buy a mansion in Palm Beach. Let me tell you. I don't know where I would do it, but it wouldn't be a Palm Beach because Palm Beach gives me the creeps. Yeah, one of my least favorite places. Even though it is beautiful, some interesting history and architecture, oof, not my favorite place in the world. Although I will be there in the near future.

And, you know, there's some, I get what people do it. I get what people do it. This is from Braden, Sonson, nice note here who says, I think you should have Benjamin, Benny Shapiro on After Party. I really like the episode with Michael Knowles. I also enjoy any of drinks on the show. I think you should have to take a drink when someone gets a question wrong or you could have a karaoke episode. No way in hell. Thank you for the email, Braden. Will I be having a karaoke episode? I would love to have Ben Shapiro on After Party. I know we have an invitation out for Ben. I haven't talked to Ben in a long time,

but did work with him a bit back in like 2015, 2016, when I worked at Young America's Foundation and have interviewed Ben. I think he interviewed him not on this most recent book, but the one before it. So I'd be all for having Ben on as much as I disagree with Ben on some certain questions. I agree with him a lot on other questions. And I just think he's a super, like, interesting person

and would love to pick his brain about certain things. So would, yeah, not even like necessarily points where we disagree. His new book, I think it's called what, Lions and Scavengers or Lions versus Scavengers, there's like a lot of rich room for discussion there. And yeah, I just think Ben is an interesting thinker and would always be happy to talk to Ben. So I hope he does come on. At some point, this is from Michael who says, Emily, I have to hand it to you. I've never watched a podcast from beginning to end.

I watched this one regarding the Nikki Minaj, this one completely in Sit Down. It was very interesting and just couldn't stop watching it. I'd also like to know the program you talked about with the redactions. I hope you read this and tell me the name of it. Ooh, I don't remember what that's in reference to. So this would have been an episode before Christmas when we talked about Erica Kirk's conversation with Nikki Minaj at America Fest. I don't remember what I talked about regarding redactions. I'm so sorry about that.

Michael, I wish I did remember, but I don't. A quick thought on Nikki Minaj. I thought this with Spencer Pratt recently, too. There's just super interesting. Like right now, I think we're starting to see what people will, you know, 50 years from now see as part and parcel of what happened in 2015 and 2016 with Trump. Even though for us it feels like it's been forever. To them, it'll see like it was a similar moment in history. You have these media figures starting to get more and more like involved in.

politics from the right. And that was sort of normal on the left, but on the right, what's interesting is that Pratt and Minaj, Spencer Pratt has been dabbling in conservative-ish, like right-coded stuff for several years, but is now running for mayor of L.A., of course, motivated by the failures of the government after and during the Palisades fire, Nikki Minaj has been really pro-Maga, pro-vance, pro-Trump, seemingly animated. by Christianity and all of that. There's a huge question for the right about, one, qualifications and two, character, when you have these random media figures starting to involve themselves in conservative politics,

right? Like, with Trump, people were making this calculus that they care more about substance and policy than character, which I think, again, is perfectly defensible. I don't always agree with it. But the kind of Flight 93 election essay that Michael Anton wrote in 2016 is where, where a lot of people who comment on this stuff on the right landed, which is that this is a sort of cultural political emergency. And Trump's character flaws, let's say Clintonian character flaws in the past,

should be subordinate to his importance in the policy sphere. Those are questions that it's like, is that going to be the same with a Spencer Pratt? Is a Spencer Pratt, you know, better than a, radical Democrat or unqualified Democrat, ideologically unqualified or experientially unqualified Democrat for Republicans in the area, even if Spencer Pratt is a reality star who doesn't have any particular expertise in government. Is that better? Like all of these questions, should Nikki Minaj, somebody who has absolutely disgusting lyrics, be elevated by the right without ever atoning for those because she's suddenly saying the right things? And I don't

I don't have the perfect answer for either of them because I haven't sat down and thought deeply about either Nicky Minaj or Spencer Pratt in recent months. Maybe I thought deeply about Spencer Pratt back when the Hills came out in 2009. I was actually always way more Laguna Beach person than the Hills. I didn't really watch much of the Hills. I watched, I think I watched most of Laguna Beach. I found it, I don't like scripted reality, which is what the Hills was. I don't think they had perfected that formula with Laguna Beach. So there were still a little bit more reality in the reality television. But, the Hills is basically like my least favorite kind of reality television. So anyway, all that is to say. Yeah, I think there some of these questions are as Trump approaches his last term as president, these questions are being like, it's very interesting to see people who are really, really good on social media, Minaj and Pratt, people who understand what works on social media, which is now increasingly, I talk about it in the context of like, I'll use the label, the epistemology of the algorithm, playing off of Neil Postman, the epistemology, or the television-based epistemology, that's what he wrote about in amusing yourselves to death. He was upset about Ronald Reagan being president because everything had gone to TV.

Well, now algorithmic social media is dictating, like actually everything is downstream of political media, politics. It's all downstream of algorithmic social media now. And so we're going to start seeing people become really powerful in politics who don't have, certainly the backgrounds that they did during the print era, let alone the TV era. And that's just going to be part of how it goes. That's part of Candace's appeal. She also, to the point that we were just making, there are going to be more and more people who are sort of making these investigations, doing these investigations like she's done into what happened to Charlie in real time, because part of connecting with your audience is being authentic. I think there still needs to be

guardrails if someone is in public life and doing that. And that's just where I disagree with how she's handled some of this. But all that is to say, we're going to see more and more of it in different ways and buckle up. Buckle up because it's coming and it's coming fast and it's definitely different. Sometimes we're like the frogs in the boiling pot. We don't necessarily realize how quickly things are changing so until they actually happen. Two more quick questions. What are your thoughts on the future of Gen Z? As a Gen Z or the topic constantly crosses my mind, this is from Texas 316. I don't know, I'm kind of optimistic about Gen Z because I feel like they weren't the frogs in the boiling pot, right?

Like they were born into the boiling water. And so they were well aware they were burning up metaphorically from this new environment before a lot of other people wrap their heads around it. And a lot of other people still haven't wrapped their heads around it. So kind of optimistic about Gen Z. And there's some nihilism in Gen Z, but there's also some, I don't know, just motivation because they saw millennial nihilism or millennials kind of go from being optimistic to nihilistic. So, yeah, I mean, there's a chunk of Gen Z that I think we all should be very worried about

because they got beaten down by the technological, political, systemic problems and have kind of checked out and given up. I worry about that. but I also think there are a lot of people who just were able to make better decisions because they saw it more clearly. That's a good question, though. This is from Tom, who says, I'm thinking about visiting D.C. the spring for the first time.

Any recommendations for things to do besides the usual tourist stuff? So D.C. has a ton of tourist stuff that it would take a week to do all of it. So if you haven't done all of it, I would recommend still kind of leaning into some of the tourist stuff. like the National Gallery is a place that not everybody goes. There's the portrait gallery and then there's the National Gallery. I think it's called like National Gallery of Art, both Smithsonian's. But the National Gallery is great. I'm not a, you could probably guess, like a huge modern art person,

although I love certain modern artists, but the Modern Art Gallery is really good too. It's just an interesting place. So there's some touristy stuff that's kind of off the beaten path that people don't always do, something like the lesser Smithsonian, the more obscure Smithsonian, I would say, still do. But, you know, this is a good question. I think there's a lot of touristy stuff. Like I was just saying, that's like more obscure that people don't always do. But also, if I were coming to DC and was trying to do

less touristy stuff, I would probably stick around like Capitol Hill and Georgetown, and both those places have touristy aspects to them. But you could to see like kind of old DC history, which I really love at places like the Watergate. The Watergate has a cool bar inside of it, a cool whiskey bar inside of it. And the Watergate has been recently very, very renovated, but it's still, it's still even on the outside, but in parts of the inside has that cool character. the historic character. So much history has happened at the Watergate and even just in that area. A lot of people don't think to go to the roof of the Kennedy Center. You can go there. I don't know if it's 24 hours. I feel like at one point it was 24 hours, but maybe that was just me in college,

thinking that you could get in 24 hours. They did turn me away one time from the Kennedy Center trying to get late at night. So it might not be 24 hours. That might have been false advice. But the roof of the Kennedy Center is spectacular. It's also fun to take, it's touristy, but not a lot of tourists do it. Take a boat in the spring. It's really great if the cherry blossoms are in bloom, which they are for a huge chunk of the spring, not just peak bloom, but they're beautiful even right before peak and right after. So don't worry too much. There's such crowds during the peak that don't worry about coming like a little earlier or a little late. But you can take a water taxi from Georgetown to Old Town Alexandria and back. Old Town, Alexandria is a great place to hit.

And if you're staying in D.C., just doing the water taxi makes it so you don't have to rent a car or worry about Uber, and they give you a nice tour of the Potomac River. If you like biking, I definitely recommend getting on some of the bike trails here in D.C. It's really easy to rent Capitol bike share or like an e-bike now and you can go. If you ran an e-bike, you can do like a nice five miles from D.C. than Mount Vernon Trail along a Potomac River, which is spectacular when the, the cherry blossoms in the spring or out or even before or after. So just great, great bike trails here in D.C. That's another piece of advice. But yeah, if you hang out in Georgetown and you get off M Street or you're on Capitol Hill and you're not just like next to the capital, you sort of see where locals historically have had big presence and you kind of feel like you're a part of the

you're in parts of the city where a lot of big decisions are made. You can kind of feel the weight of history more in those neighborhoods. So even just like spending some time at the restaurant. like off of M Street, maybe go up Wisconsin Avenue a bit more. The, yeah, there's a, there's a great ghost tour of Georgetown. I try not to do ghost tours anymore because I feel like sometimes they're not in, often, I should say, they're not in, what's the right way to put it? They don't, they're not aligned with my faith. I'll put it that way.

I haven't done the Georgetown one in a while, but it was one of the most interesting walking tours. One of the reasons I do ghost tours is because you get some of the best history that you don't get on the other walking tours. And the Georgetown one at night, you get such interesting history about like the Lincolns and the Kennedys. That one might be okay, but I haven't done it in a while. So the one in Lafayette Squares is great too. Capital Hill one, not so great. But there are a lot of fun places if you're just like walking around Capitol Hill and Georgetown or DuPont Circle.

The Phillips Collection in DuPont is awesome. And a lot of tourists don't go there because I think they don't know about it. It's a paid museum as well. Anyway, there's a little rant. Love it, love it, love it. There's lots to do here in D.C. It's a great city. Thanks so much for tuning in to this edition of Happy Hour,

where I rambled. As always, you can send your questions to Emily at devilmaycaremedia.com. I really do try to read and answer every single one of them. You can set other questions to the after-party Emily. Instagram account, which you should give a follow. Also follow us on YouTube and wherever you get your podcast. Appreciate all of your emails and the ones that are disagreeing with me.

You're critical of me. I'm happy to answer them. Thanks for tuning in. We'll see you back here with more soon.