After Party with Emily Jashinsky - “Happy Hour”: SPLC Fallout, Eye on 2028, Obama’s Chameleon-Like Qualities, and David French: Emily Answers YOUR Questions

Episode Date: April 24, 2026

On this week’s edition of “Happy Hour,” Emily Jashinksy takes your questions. She opens with an email about the role of Obama in Democratic politics and where he is ideologically. Emily also takes up questions about 2028, Marco Rubio vs JD Vance for president, how out of touch DC is with the public, Virginia’s recent redistricting vote, Mollie Hemingway’s recent appearance on “After Party” discussing her book “Alito” and the Supreme Court, and David French. She also talks media, why it’s important to develop a thick skin when you’re in the public eye, the SPLC fallout, the Iran war, preemptive military action and unintended consequences, the Strokes condemnation of U.S. foreign policy during Coachella, liberalism, and the privilege of being a citizen. Emily rounds out the show with reflections on her time working at The Reagan Ranch. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Happy Friday. Welcome to another edition of Happy Hour. This is, of course, itself a special edition of After Party that we do here every Friday evening. I tape on Thursdays and go through my inbox, Emily at Doublemaycaremedia.com, live, to see all of the great questions that you've sent into me over the course of the week. So let's get to it. Yes, as a reminder, I do this live. It's just podcast only, audio only, which I love. So if you haven't yet subscribed on a podcast feed, Apple, Spotify, where you're, you ever you get it, go ahead and subscribe here. And if you're already here, and you haven't subscribed on the YouTube page, please go ahead and subscribe over there. It helps us so much. All right, now, on to the show. This is a message from Steve. It says, Steve, this is a pretty long email. Thoughts here about Federman. Democrats continue to strongly support policies that seem out of step with broader public opinion, aside from a few figures like Federman, who appears more independent, most Democrats remain aligned. This raises the question, are these positions driven by personal belief or by party pressure? Overall, my takeaway is that Democratic politicians are unlikely to break from party direction, while Obama remains influential, interesting.

Federman may be an exception, but most appear to stay aligned potentially out of political necessity. And Steve also mentioned that there's an interpretation about Biden staying in the race about Obama and party leadership consolidating the support behind him in 2020. And then Obama's influence was extending beyond his presidency as he was maybe helping sway Biden in a more radical direction. So, yeah, that's interesting. I do think, so Obama has kind of a broken with tradition and lives full time in Washington, D.C. I've actually never seen him out here in Washington, D.C. So I'm sure he's kind of all over the place, but his main home is here in D.C. That was itself sort of seen as a gesture to Democrats that he was very serious about continuing

to have a lot of influence over the Democratic Party. Obviously, he went and did that photo op was Zoran Mamdani at a daycare center to promote universal child care this week. And I wrote a piece about that actually in unheard saying, I think it's remarkable that Obama went up to Zoran Mamdani after all of those years Obama spent trying to convince everyone he wasn't a socialist or a communist or a Marxist. Here he was. And I think it actually was a bigger sign of respect and deference to Mamdani than it was the other way around. If anything, you know, Mamdani, had at one point talked about, like, while he was in college, Obama being evil on Twitter. So if anything, it was a bigger, like, I don't know, it was almost a bigger gesture for Mom

Donnie to accept Obama than it was for Obama to go up and kind of kiss the ring of the new socialist mayor of New York City. I don't know that, I don't know how much there, who had some really good reporting on this at the time? Was it, um, I think it. was, yeah, I'm pretty sure it was David Samuels in Tablet. This was an article called The Obama Factor in 2023, and it was a Q&A with David Garrow, who is an Obama biographer. And the contention was that Obama was really influential over the Biden administration and was still calling a lot of shots behind the scenes. So it's possible. I honestly don't have to be. I honestly don't have have any original additions to Steve's theory, just that Obama is still pretty powerful and he still

clearly wants to be pretty powerful into the future. What's murky to me is where Obama is ideologically, right? And that's kind of his, I guess, political genius over many years, is if you wanted to see someone who had a more radical worldview that was really, restrained by kind of normal party politics, you could. If you wanted to see someone who was just kind of a normal party politics guy that played up this radical worldview, maybe he flirted with in college or during his community organizing career, you could see that too. And I've really, I mean, Obama governed in ways that are, you know, he droned on while

Alaki. And, you know, he was pretty, he did not get out of Afghanistan. for example, continued the security state, pretty firmly supported continuing the security state. On the other hand, he did start the process of opening the border, arguably, during his second term, especially. He pushed the limits constitutionally of executive power and started the entire Title IX gender identity controversy via his education department towards the end of his second term. So with him, you really can just, he's chameleonic. Whatever the moment calls for, he'll make himself the type of person, you know, that camouflages himself into one side or the other based on how he wants to be seen at that time. So it's an interesting thought, Steve.

I really, I can't say too much more. I think probably the biggest factor sending Democrats in one direction or the other is that the grassroots, I mean, Seth Moulton comes out against the excesses of the Biden-era trans policies. And within a couple of days, his staffers quit and he walks it back. Gavin Newsom, same thing happens. So I think what really drives them in that direction is the managerial elite, professional managerial class, however you want to put it, because they are the staffers and they are also the grassroots voters,

the type of people that organize and phone bank. and run the nonprofit sector. And I think that's even more powerful than Obama himself. So I think that's probably the most important response I could give to the question because to me, the professional managerial class is just what drives Dems in one direction or the other. Anyway, great question. Curtis says, this is a response to Dave Smith from last week. It's a pretty long email, so I'm trying to cut to the chase here.

people who claim the U.S. is the, quote, real terrorist because of its foreign engagements, miss a basic truth. The far greater horrors that happen when America does nothing or stays on the sidelines. Look at World War II. The clearest example of what U.S. involvement achieved versus what isolationism involved. And then Curtis ends by saying, fast forward to today, and we see the exact same choice with the Ron. Critics who scream that the U.S. is the real terrorist for sanctions, the Soleimani strike or 2025 strikes on nuclear sites ignore what doing nothing would unleash. All right, so this is a great point from Curtis. I don't agree with it in the case of Iran definitively.

And I think that's part of the calculus here is whenever you are doing a preemptive war, and this is a huge, you know, I'm not Catholic, but this is a huge part of just war doctrine. And it's a raging debate right now, actually, among some Catholics on the right in particular, as the president has gone back and forth with the Pope. But whenever you have a preemptive action, you have to be reasonably certain that you were going to be attacked and it was going to be really bad. Now, when you have a country that chants death to America and has this, and death to Israel, and has this just longstanding hatred expressed over and over again within its government of the United States of America,

whether or not that's justified, we don't even have enough to get into that to say, yeah, there's a good likelihood. You know, any country that wants to defend its civilians would say, if they have a nuclear weapon, there's a non-zero chance that they try to obliterate American civilization. But the problem with Iran is that they didn't have a nuclear weapon. And the question is, did they have the capacity to create a nuclear weapon? Or, as Marco Rubio said very clearly,

within like 48 hours of the conflict breaking out, they were close to getting past the point of immunity. Meaning, if we would have wanted to take their weapons out, their weapons would have been developed beyond a point where it would have been, you know, as simple as it was. And again, you always do have to come up with counterfactuals. And I think we actually talked about this on last week's happy hour because I was getting into, we got lots of emails about Dave.

And Dave and I obviously debated his point about, terrorism. And one of my obsessions just in politics, in fact, as I tape this, I'm kind of arguing against Hassan Piker on X, he's, I'm not like tweeting at him or anything, but he kind of now is going viral for giving this interview to the New York Times for saying people, quote, understand the killing of Brian Thompson because Thompson was guilty of, quote, social murder. And this is why I started to debate Dave on the definition of terrorism. Because I think when you can inflate physical murder with social murder or terrorism with violence, it reminds me so much of why I was wholly opposed to Donald Trump claiming that an election was stolen in 2020. I think rigged,

speaking of which we had Molly Hemingway on the show this week, is an acceptable and a very meaningful distinction from stolen. If you think that Congress is literally stealing an election out from under your noses, a whole lot of people are going to say, well, it's rational to try and get into the Capitol and fight back against that. And that's why I totally told, I mean, it was, you know, as controversial as Ben Sass was while he was in the Senate, he had a really good comment afterwards in a Facebook post. He said that Trump was, quote, playing with fire after the 2020 election. So, yes, there was funny business that went on in 2020. But for the president of the United States, that rhetorical distinction is really, really important. And it

it's very important not to be reckless with these words in the way that academics kind of have the luxury of being reckless with, you know, Judith Butler and Chomsky. And it's different when you're the president or you're an influential podcaster and you're making arguments based on inflated definitions. I mean, it was the whole thing with calling Southern Poverty Law Center, calling everything hatred or racism. It incites violence. It happened multiple times.

They put Charlie Kirk on a hate map, or Turning Point USA on a hate map shortly before Charlie was killed when the alleged assassin was citing his hate saying some hate can't be reasoned with. I'm paraphrasing it. So, anyway, I do think these definitions, that's why I quibbled with Dave on the terrorism point. And to Curtis's point, you have to build up counterfactuals in order to be confident that not doing something was more just than doing something. And that's impossible. Again, I think we talked about this on last week's happy hour. With the Cold War, you know, I can say that we shouldn't have meddled in Guatemala.

We shouldn't have meddled in Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Indonesia, in Korea. Go down the list. Chile. I can say that. What I can't tell you, Cuba. What I can't tell you is that the Soviet Union would definitively never have used a nuclear weapon

from, you know, one of these footholds if we hadn't rigorously backed the anti-communist forces. I can't tell you that there wouldn't have been a chain reaction. I can tell you with the benefit of history, what I think, but I can't tell you for sure. And that's, when you look back at the history of the Cold War, it's difficult. And that's actually partially why I have such a hard time with preeminent action.

This is very indirectly preeminent, right? Because they were multiple steps away. If you're literally one step away and you're saying death to America, that's a little bit different. But Tulsi Gabbard testified, what, a year ago, multiple steps away. That was our best intelligence after Midnight Hammer. It's a little bit different when you're talking about nukes versus ICBMs. Their ICBM capacity, as we know, already goes into Europe. The nuclear capacity of North Korea, as we know, covers us about the whole world.

So does their ICBM capacity. So should we be at war with them right now? They hate us. It doesn't necessarily give us a clear answer to the question. not necessarily. It's an argument. I just don't think it's the definitive argument. So great point, Curtis. I really do appreciate it. And I think that distinction between terrorism and second order violence. In a lot of cases, the violence is secondary to some action that we've taken. I'm trying to think of a good example here. So like the Iraq war, a lot of direct violence,

but then also the indirect violence of ISIS filling the power vacuum and then civil wars taking over other countries and then us getting involved in those civil wars. And that's part of, again, why I'm really careful with these types of preeminent actions because they have unintended consequences that you have to weigh against this counterfactual of what would have happened. So anyway, Mack says that he has a backlog of questions. let's see. Why do people platform Dave Smith? Seriously, I know he kisses up to Ryan Grimbing crystal ball with his anti-Israel tie tribes. And Joe Rogan seems to like him. But what his talent? His CV calls him a comedian, but I've played in a monthly poker game for 20 years. We all listened to stand up and quote classic comedy. And not once and over two decades of the words Dave Smith been uttered. Frankly, I laugh more at Nick Fratis on your show.

Dave's not a journalist. He's not particularly knowledgeable in anything that I can discern. Ooh, Mac. Not a fan of Dave, I take it. I actually do think Dave is funny. I liked it when I said, thanks for dressing up or something. He was like, well, I respect the happy hour. He was wearing a sweatshirt on the show if you were watching and he was wearing a sweatshirt on the show.

I think Dave is super funny. And I think Dave comes to these conversations, kind of like an every man. He doesn't pretend to be an expert. So it's not really a great argument to come back with him, come back at him with, you've never been in Israel, for example, because he's not pretending to be somebody like that. He's pretending to just, he's not pretending.

He's literally just somebody who's doing his own research, like the average American, and then talking about it in the way that you would talk about it at a bar. And so I think that's where that comes in. And he's really, he's a great, as somebody who interviews people for a living, Dave's a really great interview because he keeps up a great pace. He has, he stays on question. he's a really reliably entertaining and dynamic interview. Like, he keeps up the conversation really well.

And he always has something interesting to say, even if people disagree with him. And, you know, I've just talked about disagreeing with him. I don't love the word platform. I know what you mean. I don't love the word platform. But anyway, Matt goes on to say something like, okay, on Rogan, he started a rant based on how there was, quote, not one tread of evidence that the Iranian regime had harmed any protesters. That was an exact quote. It took Joe's producer less than 15 seconds

pull up articles by independent international health organizations that verified protesters had been killed. They had response. Well, anyway. So I'd have to go back and look at that. Obviously, it's true that some number of protesters were clearly killed in January. Mack says, I just wish y'all would call him out on his BS once in a while. But then again, even when Rogan does it, he ignores and steamrolls, though. I still love the show and we'll keep liking and beating the algorithm. Thank you, Mac. It's totally fine to not be a fan of Dave. I think Dave would be the first to tell you.

He is an acquired taste that is definitely not for anyone, which is sort of the point of being someone who's extremely opinionated and very aggressively opinionated, to put it mildly. So, anyway, maybe I'll go back and take a look at his Rogan episode. Like I said, I did. I did quibble with him on that terrorist point, but he actually was the one who initiated that. So I don't know. I'm not like a big debatey person. I just like getting, like eliciting interesting thoughts out of other people. And then sometimes like testing where they go or what they would say to a counterfactual or something like that.

But yeah, I try actually like actively try not to fight people. But I probably should pick fights more. guess. I probably should. They can be fun when you have built in trust with someone and, you know, it doesn't turn into a shouting match where you can't hear anyone. This is another one on Dave. Tiffany says, listen to your episode with Dave today. It was a good conversation. I also read a bit of your happy art question on Apple podcast earlier. I'd like to say I'm glad you had Dave on. I don't listen to a show, but he's a good guest on your show, Megan's and Tucker's. I like different perspectives. I like listen to Anna Casparian as a guest on the shows, too. I used to be a full-blown conservative. But since President Trump's elections and getting older, so many of my thoughts and

opinions have changed. I'm a Christian, so I doubt I will ever vote Democrat. There's sent in hills I will die on like being pro-life. I didn't vote in 2016 or 2020. I did vote for Trump in 24 because I couldn't imagine Kamala running the country. I'm so disappointed and a little angry about this Iran war and his rhetoric. I agree with her that our politicians these days are the lesser of two evils, which is sad. Keep up the great work. Well, thank you, Tiffany. I appreciate that. And I agree with that. It's just, you know, there's some people right now, who are saying, look, conservatives were wrong about Trump. And Tucker has come out and said just this week in that episode with his brother Buckley

that he feels like he has this sort of stain on his conscience, that he is sorry, that he was wrong. You know, Megan has held the line on that and has said, no, Kamala Harris would be much, much worse. I just think some of these criticisms also misunderstand why people vote for Trump. And that's really annoying because the big reason is often because some of these same people have led the Democratic Party down a horrible path towards like corporate cultural progressivism that culminated, I would argue, in the candidacy of Kamala Harris. Maybe it peaked. You know, I don't think it's ever going away, but it may have peaked in the, the, physical embodiment of that ideology, which was Kamala Harris. And that's why so many people voted for Trump. And so to say that it's irrational for people to have voted for a closed border

when you had the largest surge, immigration surge in American history. And to be honest, I hate saying how I voted because I think it becomes distracting, but I just didn't vote for president in 2024. But to say that people who looked at the border and said it was a very important, it was a irrational. Or say it's irrational for people who are looking at the border and saw the largest surge of immigration in U.S. history under Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. Like on that issue alone, it was so lawless, so dangerous, so many people have been hurt and victimized, including, by the way, millions of migrants who were trafficked and filled the cartel coffers. I mean, voting on that issue alone, you can make a, a, a, a,

rational case for voting against anybody who had anything to do with that. And man, where did I hear it the other day? Yeah, it was it was Russell Brand who brought this up with Megan. Megan was kind of making these points and was saying, you know, voted on immigration and trans issues. And Russell Brand was like, well, then you have to balance that with what it means that, you know, it could potentially be in a global nuclear conflict. And that's true.

You know, it's voting is a, it's the end of a kind of personal. equation. And you're weighing so many different factors and coming from different experiences, I don't like the whole black or white voted this way or that way, evil or not, because there's so much corruption and rot and incompetence and failure in both parties that people are almost all making lesser of two evil, lesser than two evil calculations. And those can be really close and really dicey, depending on where you're coming from. So anyway, it's a lesser than two evil calculation not to vote too. So I don't like this conversation around, you know, whether people should be sorry or they were wrong. Tucker was saying not that he was sorry for voting

for Trump, but for endorsing him and speaking on his behalf enthusiastically, which is different than voting, of course. But yeah, some thoughts, Tiffany. I appreciate it. Adam says, just finished tonight's edition of Happy Hour, listening to how you navigated in the various emails about the Dave Smith interview. Not only was great, but I knew I had to go listen to that interview, which I had missed. And only the space you've created here is great and so desperately needed. I found myself drifting away from news and political podcasts, seeing how they negatively affect me and ultimately my personal relationships.

But hold out for you and Mark Halpern. I adore you both and just wanted to say your interview with Dave Smith is exactly what I needed tonight. Thank you for modeling grace and curiosity so well. Adam, that is incredibly kind. And seriously, I, that's one of the nicest things that you could say, like, as far as I'm concerned. Curiosity, I think, is really the most important thing. When I'm listening to podcasts, for example, I think that's one of the most important things

that an interviewer can bring to the table. And it's really hard, too, to kind of genuinely be curious when you're somebody who has a big picture ideology and to make space for questions and curiosity. And, you know, unpopular opinion, I think someone who does that really well is Tucker Carlson and I was thinking about the Nick Fuentes interview he did, obviously in the fall, that was so controversial. When I listened this week to his interview with someone that I can pretty much assure you Tucker Carlson thinks is engaging in evil.

And that would be, I think his name is Kian Sedediqi, Sedehi, the CEO of Nucleus Genomics, doing designer baby work. And in my own mind, I wasn't even doing this intentionally. It just popped into my head while I was listening to the interview in which Tucker was so kind and gave this man so much space to explain himself. Despite being engaged in something that Tucker thought was evil, Tucker was happy to give him time and, like I said, space, oxygen to make his argument, and pushed him in different directions and really grilled him. but did it with a smile on his face and while allowing his own priors to come into question. And I do think there was, you know, I've said many times I wouldn't have handled the Flentis interview the same way. But I think there was a kind of misunderstanding of what Tucker does on his show back in that interview, which is he tries to just talk human being to human being like it was before clips were bouncing around algorithmic social media,

where if you watched that without ever having seen any clips of it, and you were just a regular listener to Tucker Carlson's show, you wouldn't have thought it was super out of the ordinary. You would have been like, oh, can you maybe push a little bit on this or that? But he also did push on this or that. It's never enough for a lot of people. But the designer baby interview reminded me of that so much that there's just, he wants to ask, he finds benefits in asking,

questions. And this is honestly not to Glaze Tucker. It just Adam's comment made me think of this, because there's such a benefit to just giving people a space to respond to different questions and explain themselves. And, you know, I'm much more in that category than in the debate bro category. So I really do appreciate it, Adam. You know, it can be hard and thankless work because people do really want to see debates and shouting matches. Not everyone. The silent majority, I think doesn't like that, but it's definitely what's rewarded on algorithmic social media. So, you know, it's, you're always going to have a little quieter presence if you're not doing that. But I think it's totally, totally worth it. Appreciate it, Adam.

All right, Hank says, you described yourself as sort of a hippie on the subject of nuclear weapons. Do you support their entire elimination? If so, any thoughts on how democracies would defend their people from Hitler, Stalin, Mao types armed with large conventional forces? In Western democracy, there's much greater citizen pressure on leaders. to reduce defense budgets, which would make us vulnerable to predators. This is a great question, Hank. It really is the question. Yeah, I'll just reaffirm. I did say I'm a hippie on nuclear weapons. I think I said that on last week's happy hour. But there's no practical solution on the table right now because we've introduced to them.

They are global and they're in the hands of countries that are not Western democracies. Probably problematic enough already if they're in the hands of Western democracies. but the genie is out of the bottle, and I don't think there's any real way to put it back in, put the toothpaste back in the tube. I mean, again, pie in the sky, love the idea of coming to some sort of global disarmament agreement, but that's totally pie in the sky. There's no way you can see unilateral disarmament happening. It's just, it's almost impossible to envision.

Now, that doesn't mean we shouldn't, you know, hope and pray for unilateral disarmament. armament someday to take this, to take us, to take the horrors of civilian catastrophe suffering worldwide. I mean, we just always constantly live with a thin border between us and that. And that has just poisoned geopolitics and regular politics. It's really the entire reason we're about all of these countries in the Middle East, Israel or Iran, period, because technology has evolved as such that there are no borders between nuclear states and there are limited borders between states with long ICBM ranges or chemical weapons, biological warfare, that sort of thing.

And it feels like it's only getting worse as these technologies adapt. Maybe you could see if you're a glass half full person, they're getting better because deterrence is getting strugger and stronger. but that's just not how I see it. So I agree with you, Hank. I don't think there's any reasonable off-ramp to disarmament, unilateral disarmament. So I think we're sort of stuck for now.

Howard says, happy Sunday. So I just read a new story about your home state that has me laughing and thought I would share. Evidently, there's something called the youth turkey hunt. It's a real boy with a shotgun blasted two fellow hunters. Oh, my goodness, because he thought there were turkeys. Oh, my goodness. Okay.

I don't know about this story. That sounds terrible. Hunting accidents are absolutely terrible, and you should never give, I mean, it goes without saying, you should never give a three-year-old boy a shotgun. But I guess I'll have to look this, I guess I'll have to look this story up. I've never turkey hunted. It did have a couple of times a fresh turkey that my grandpa shot for Thanksgiving. but no, I've never turkey hunted myself. So, and I haven't seen that story, I'll have to look it up. Damien says, greetings again from London. I appreciate that you explain to your audience why you have guests like Anna and Dave on the show.

Personally, I would not listen to anything evolving Dave, but it is no reflection on you. Totally fair, Damien. My question is about the Republican candidate for the 2028 election. Even though I'm British, I find the mere prospect of a President Harris or even Newsom, very alarming. I've noticed there seems to be a shift recently where it is no longer clear cut that J.D. Vance be the heir apparent to Trump. My thought recently is that from a strategic perspective, it may be better to have Marco Rubio as the Republican candidate instead of JD.

Goes on to say, do you think I'm completely off the mark here? I just think that it would be better for America and the world to have a more traditional in the Republican. Also, I know this is a really old topic, but as a fellow Dawson's Creek fan, I completely dispute the notion that the show was really Pacey's story. Yes, thank you, Damien. So true. It was Joey's story. We all know that. I mean, I guess at the end of the day, it was Dawson's story. But to the Marker versus JD question, this is a, I think this is actually real. My assessment is that the internal deliberations over this are actually real, just based on the sourcing and the scuttle.

But it does seem like there are people inside the administration that are really having this conversation. Now, whether they're super, super, super high level people or not is an open question. but this is something that's definitely being talked about here in town. I could see J.D. Ventra saying he's had enough of politics. He's not a career politician like Rubio, and he could get a huge payday in the private sector, raises kids, write books, do media. I don't think that's out of the question if he senses that Trump may be favoring Rubio and that donors may be favoring Rubio or something to that effect. You know, we'll see.

Marco Rubio's really been on this journey or an evolution. And I say that not derisively, because I think he's sincerely changed his mind on a couple of things. I think that's something the left really, really gets wrong about Rubio and some of the populist right too. But, you know, emerging from a job as Secretary of State, I would have to see what kind of candidate Marco Rubio is to, like, assess what it would mean for a Rubio presidency. You know, Trump obviously thinks he's been a very, very strong Secretary of State. I think it's kind of hard to dispute that from the perspective of his political performance, he's been a strong Secretary of State.

He's managed to walk that tightrope between serving Trump and being appealing or having at least a good, viable, best as possible political message more broadly. So there's a lot that could happen for Rubio in the next couple of years. You know, so I keep saying, I bet Nikki Haley runs again. wouldn't shock me if Mike Pence runs again. I bet Ron DeSantis runs again. He might be more formidable than people realize if the tech backlash is strong and if the kind of mega corruption backlash is strong. We're not going to know that yet, but obviously he would have his hands clean, having not been in this administration and having been kind of knocked down a peg by Trump,

we just don't know how the Trump administration ends. So I can't assess totally the political climate and what it would be like at that moment. So interesting question, Damien. I do think a lot of people are thinking about it. Ooh, another Dave Smith email. Big fan here. This is from Olivia. I have been following you since you join Breaking Points

and hearing an MK's show. I'm 32 years old and grew up in NYC where left rebel was the norm, but I found myself on the Bernie to Trump pipeline and growing more conservative in the wake of COVID-slash-trans, slash left cultural hysteria and excesses. But nothing brings me back to my leftist roots. like a little U.S. foreign intervention.

I'm also a big Dave Smith fan and find myself agreeing with nearly everything he says, particularly when it comes to American foreign policy. I was disappointed to hear that so many people had a negative response to his appearance on the show and having what seemed to me as very emotional responses to his analysis of history. Goes on to point out to the Strokes Coachella performance. I have seen that, Olivia, and folks can go watch it if they haven't seen it yet. I think it is on YouTube. and Olivia mentions how they put up a montage from CIA interventions back to Mossadegh in

in 1953 in Iran and then goes to Lumumba in Congo and Olivia says the stroke said also included an image of MLK Jr. along with text reading US government found guilty of his murder in civil trial. Some food for thought. I really value listening to your thought processes and you're always considered way of explaining them. Thank you, Olivia. I thought those strokes is video montage was really interesting. This is a great email. I'm so interested in stories like Olivia's because I hear them a lot. I don't think it's like a majority of the voting public,

but that Bernie to Trump pipeline is also totally misunderstood by the media, downplayed by the media, and the left doesn't understand it. They have not come up with a response to it at all. Just look at how they treat Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is, of course, polarizing and controversial, but the left has not realized that many people see him as a symbol, of what they have experienced politically. And thus they look at the way the left treats him

as the way the left would treat them or how the left looks as a sample of how the left looks at them. And yeah, I think that's something they're getting wrong. I have just totally mixed feelings about the strokes thing because, and this is a little bit also where I disagree with Dave. Like, it is, maybe I don't disagree with him. But I also always, to the point that another email made that I read just a couple of moments ago, the big picture matters too.

And it's so often from people like the strokes that you just hear about the U.S. and never about the Soviets. And never about the reality that Lenin, and this was obviously a huge disagreement, but that the Soviet Union was basically started on this idea of, initiating the era of world socialism and toppling capitalist democracies around the world, capitalism around the world. And then suddenly, yes, it was led into Stalin, but suddenly that country is led by someone who comes out of that world and has a nuclear weapon. And is, you know, you can peel back a million different layers, but after World War II, the meddling started

by both the U.S. and the Soviet Union pretty instantly. And people, People have different opinions on who started that. But it started. And from there, it just kept escalating and escalating. And so I do sometimes think it's, I don't know that Dave actually does this. I shouldn't say that. But I do sometimes feel like it's opportunistically punching the U.S. Without considering the bigger picture, if that makes sense.

Like, I feel like some people are just picking on the U.S. and in a way that's a bit misleading or dishonest. So maybe that's the gut reaction that I had to the Strokes montage. Maybe that explains why I didn't like it. Because, yes, I disagree with a lot of those interventions. But also it was happening in this context of nuclear annihilation being brand new. And having an enemy country, or at least a country that was a stated enemy, of world capitalism at its inception a couple decades earlier, suddenly with nuclear weapon

in its hands. So I do go back and forth on that. And sometimes it just hits me the wrong way because it's like the United States, it's like a lot like the slavery discourse, like the United States is not the unique force of evil in world history. There's some ways in which we're unique. But in terms of like being the unique force of history and in force of evil and world history, I just don't think it's close. And I say that as somebody who thinks we downplay a lot of the bad that we've done. It's, it's just hard when you're in the kind of the, when you're in the daily American political space to have the kind of bigger picture conversation. A lot of times you do have to just talk about the, you just have to talk about America as it is right now. So yeah, that's

It's a tough conversation, but I appreciate that, Olivia, because I think we totally downplay a lot of the interventions that the strokes highlighted in that montage. But yeah, just sometimes it hits me the wrong way. This person says, it's kind of hard to understand this one. It's from an anon. How do you guys, on breaking points, cope with the exponential dissonance of reconciling the things you were taught to believe with the hard truths of reality? This is a, like, tell Crystal I authorize her to order every piece of ordinance.

the military has an inventory, but immediately dropped on Israel? No, I don't think Crystal, it says, if she wishes, I think she's there. No, I don't want to speak for Crystal, but no, nobody wants mass civilian casualties. There's a lot of dissonance, I think, in the country right now, post-COVID, especially to Olivia's point. You know, people realize that the lessons of trusting institutions and authorities were leading. them in bad directions. So I think everyone's experiencing some dissonance right now. Not on that level. Let's see here. Hank says, Emily Likenez, I used to respect David French. So did I did, by the way. Here's a National Review piece from when he was saying. Not sure if it will open. Let's see.

It is, yeah, it's, it's David French on authorities. This was a, I remember this was kind of a long magazine piece from 2015. Wisconsin shame, quote, I thought it was a home invasion. This is after the crazy Act 10 stuff. There were Wisconsin conservatives who had their personal spaces invaded by authorities, law enforcement. It's a really crazy story, like lawfare, basically, against people who were in that space. So, yes, I remember that. I used to follow everything, David did. All right.

Eddie says January 6 was an undeniably historic day not to diminish this event. but I felt at the time January 8th, the day Trump was banned from all social media would end up having a more long-term impact. I can still remember MSNBC and CNN, even in April 2021, speaking in very hushed tones, whenever Trump was interviewed anywhere else and certainly never carrying any speeches or interviews live. Your thoughts on the backfire of those de-platforming decisions. This is a really, really, really good question, Eddie. It's how out of touch the Beltway is with the public. You know, I remember you could like audibly hear the sigh of relief. across Washington, D.C. on January 6 because people like Mitch McConnell thought that they were

finally rid of Donald Trump. Like, actually, that is what people thought. And it was always, I think, ridiculous if you understand where the American people are on these things. But I think actually what really changed it more than anything was the lawfare. That's the moment. Was it the, I mean, I can't even keep all of it straight, but I think it was the Alvin Bragg filing. You can pinpoint that, that moment in the chart between DeSantis and Trump. And all of a sudden, if you look at RCP, it becomes like a yawning alligator mouth. That's how Ryan Grimm described it once between Trump and DeSantis. DeSantis's numbers start going down.

Trump's numbers start going up. And he, you know, it started, I think one of the reasons Trump is really powerful is that he tells everyone they're wrong. They're lying to these authorities and institutions. The media is lying to, blah, blah, blah. And then people will start implicitly trusting him. because he's accurately diagnosing that. And he benefits from that enormously. And I think when a lawfare started, it really vindicated his point that authorities were trying to use the legal system for political ends. And so he starts looking right and more and more right. And like, he's on to something and is the only one because he's the premier victim of it that can, you know, fix the country and stop this.

So I feel like that it wasn't just the banning. I think a lot of it was also the lawfare. That's really interesting. I hadn't thought about that in a long time, but thinking back to those days, wow, it's crazy. Dunn says, good to see Rachel and Innes back on. They always make for a good show. It looked like the live audience was about 150.

I've seen it in 500 to 600 range after the switch to 9 p.m. Let's see, a guest suggestion. Was it higher or lower before? I'd like to see you with more folks, tuning in. Oh, I would love to have more folks tuning in live. Um, yeah, I don't, I don't, I actually don't look at the numbers too much to be honest. I think it is usually around like 400. Sometimes if the guest has a big Twitter and they tweet it. I'm trying to also get us live streaming on Twitter, um, because we can just throw the YouTube feed into X. And so I'd like to do that too, uh,

because some of our guests like Molly has over a million Twitter followers. So you can get a lot of live viewers from that. And yeah, I think, I mean, it's super fun that the show is live. And just the fact that it's being recorded live, I think gives it its own energy. And that's what I really like about it. It doesn't necessarily matter to me that it's being consumed minute to minute as it's airing so much as I love the energy that being live brings. Like even when we were trying to, remember when we were trying to air the Trump speech? And we had these actual first technical difficulty with playing video that we've ever had, and it was the one night we needed to play video live. It has worked for a year seamlessly.

But the one night we actually needed it because it was the entire, like, first half of the show because Trump, you know, made the speech, he scheduled the speech right during the show. It was like the one time that it wouldn't work, of course. But you just always have that, you're always kind of on edge when you're live because something could go wrong or someone could say something really funny or really brilliant. And so you just get these organic reactions. And so to me, yeah, it would be great if more people watch live. But I just, you know, the bigger the audience, the better in general.

To me, I just like the energy of taping live. Ryan says, do you follow any Wisconsin sports? If so, which would be your favorite team to follow? I do follow Wisconsin sports. It's harder to follow baseball when you're out of market. You know, I'm not a, I'm not like a die-ard baseball fan enough to pay for watching all the Brewers games. But, yeah, my dad never misses a brewer's game.

but for me like most Wisconsinites I just will never miss a Packer game that's I'll usually see the Brewers when they're here in DC but Packers always got to watch Packers don't get to watch a lot of Badger games but I will as a kid again those Badger basketball Badger football never missed those my dad always he watches every single one of them and probably I would say he probably would catch like um depending on the year like 30 to 50% of the buck games, went to a lot of bucks games, went to a lot of brewer's games, some badger games. But yeah, when you're out of market, it actually is really tough unless you pay for like big sports packages.

So, and, you know, there's not like people to talk about it with when you're out of state either, unless you're like on message boards or something. But I definitely talk about it with my dad, but follow the Packers, really. That's the one that I'm watching every game. Wish you for the best for the rest of them, though. here's another one from Dunn With good midterm turnout in Virginia Is it possible that Republicans could actually gain house seats?

That's interesting about the redistricting. Dems have diluted strength and no to push strength to Republican areas If Republicans overperform, can they hold their gain seats? I don't know because, yes, that's roughly true. On the other hand, a lot of those places those like rural areas, some of them are more like suburban that have gotten caught in that district because Northern Virginia is kind of, it's kind of small. And the districts are big enough to

span more than just Northern Virginia. But there are a lot of wealthy people, even as far out as like Loudoun County and kind of like almost all the way down to Richmond, to be honest. I'm sorry, to Charlotte. To Charlottesville, to be honest. Lots of Charlottesville talk. this week because you're within the distance if you need to get there in a couple of hours or in an hour and a half if you need to get up. Some people just live further away and work from home two days a week or three days a week. I've known people that have commuted from Manassas and West Virginia up to D.C. So I think there's still a lot of rich libs in those other districts. I remember I was like Prince William County reporting in 2024 the weekend before the election on early voting,

where I thought it was really going to be a battleground area. And I'd have to look and see if this is, if this got gerrymandered into like a northern Virginia spot. But it was a lot of, let's say like affluent suburban-ish voters. So I don't know. It's a good question. Hank said, you did the Nation of Service by having. Molly on tonight. Everyone should have her book on Kavanaugh with Carrie Severino on their required reading list. Yes, so, so true. Thank you, Hank. Eddie says, one of my hobbies is to spite

listen to left, right, and center, a truly awful public radio podcast. It self-righteously claims to be heterodox, but is anything but, oh, that sounds exactly right. Former NPR host, David Green, sits in the center chair. I think I've heard this before. You can imagine just how far left it tilts. that is so true, so true. It's always the person who considers themselves center that is so obviously actually left. Eddie says, my question is other than breaking points. Are there any truly quality heterodox offerings out there?

Why is it so hard to do this? The right seems very open to participate on these shows, but is really invited. Hmm. I'm trying to think of another one. Honestly, one of the reasons I love Megan's show is that she's got people from left and right on and really like lets them kind of air it out.

Like I thought the, just on Iran, the discussion with Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cook that Megan had on, I want to say it was Tuesday show. That was one of the, if not the single best. I think it was the single best debate discussion that I've seen on Iran since the war began among conservatives, like smart conservatives. So I always like that. Breaking points, I think the secret sauces that were populist. So what we fundamentally agree on is that the system is broken.

The system is corrupt. And I started, you know, I was at the University of Chicago last weekend talking to some students, faculty. And, you know, one of the things I was thinking of is that in the long term, it's almost like you have, it's almost like you'll have liberalism be the center. and then whether people are like anti-liberal from the left or from the right is I mean let's I'm trying to figure out how to describe this without saying left or right it'll be sort of liberalism versus post-liberalism if that makes sense and that's a kind of better distinction and the liberalism is really the centrist and you can be lowercase L liberal it sounds like this podcast

podcast host is like that, and be really far left on cultural things because they're not necessarily illiberal cultural things. You know, if you pass through the democratic system, some of these insane bills like in California about crime and sex and gender, it's technically liberal. And a lot of centrists who are just fundamentally lowercase L liberal, classically liberal, consider themselves to be centrists because they see the things, they see the world that way. But if you have a liberal and then post-liberal and reluctantly post-liberal, those might be better categories because the post-liberals are kind of, you know, a lot of, it's often

attributed to the right, which is interesting because you'd think maybe pre-liberal is the better term for that. And then the reluctant post-liberals are the people that are like, well, I'd love to live in a liberal society, but we simply do not. It has failed. Therefore, we need democratic socialism or we need a heavier-handed moral apparatus in one way or the other. So anyway, that was just a brand of thought that I had. And it was not at all well-fleshed out. It's probably the best way to put it is, it'll be better to say illiberal, liberal, and post-liberal, more so than left-right or center, if that makes sense. And, you know, I sort of consider myself reluctantly classically liberal, because classically liberal gets used by, no offense guys, annoying libertarians who are sort of smug about all these different things and can bury their head in the sand. But, you know, I think the founders were lowercase ill-liberal.

and I think we can, that's, that's great. I think it's a wonderful system. It's not, what did Winston Churchill say? It's a terrible system, but it's the best of the worst or whatever. It's the best we have or something. It's the Churchill quote. Anyway, it is, it's really hard now because of algorithmic social media to do shows like McLaughlin Group, for example, just because everything gets clipped and your quotes get

made up or taken out of context. And then someone gets so. social heat, immense social heat for talking to you. And then they get immense professional heat for talking to you because everybody is expected to react in the algorithm. And I think Sagar and Crystal just built up a really, really thick skin. And they share that same foundation, which all four of us share, which that the system is broken and that our elites are corrupt. And so when you share that foundation, it's strong. And then you have to just also be, you have to have a really, really thick skin. I mean, the amount of

stuff that Crystal and Ryan get for talking to us, the amount of stuff we get for talking to them, you just really, really have to get used to it and say, I'm not going to please everyone, and there are going to be a lot of people who say terrible things. So I think that's probably wise is you really, really, really have to have a thick skin. Okay. Lauren says, Lauren has a story about the DMV. It says that he wanted to take a driver's test in, Mandarin. This is in Pennsylvania. And someone then came out and spoke to the man in Mandarin, apparently to go take the driver's test. I have no idea if that happens. It would not surprise me. If that happens, I think it's insane that we don't expect language assimilation anymore

and that we accommodate people who, I heard a story of someone who was saying they didn't want a particular person to face deportation. And this person I later learned, I'm not even commenting on one direction or the other, but this person had been in the country for like 15 years and didn't really speak English. It's like, how does that happen? It's only in like 2026 America because you can live in communities that you don't have to. This is a Spanish-speaking person. In a lot of parts of the country, you can just live in communities where you don't really have to interact with only English speakers. So anyway, I don't know. I don't know. I haven't heard that before. It would not shock me. But that is a real, I mean, that just drives me insane. Because to be a citizen,

a citizen, you know, did I talk about this on last week's happy hour? This is a rant that I've found myself stuck in recently. But to be a citizen means something. It means that you have the privilege of participating in the constitutional republic, that you have been. blessed with entry into that gives you a voice. It might not be perfect, but that is a privilege and a responsibility to care for your fellow man. And in order to do that, you need to be able to communicate, like most basic level, communicate with your fellow man. And you should work overtime to be able to read the original language of our founding documents and of our laws. And obviously for driving, that's another question entirely.

And it's really frustrating to see non-English, fluent people getting CDLs, commercial driver's licenses, and then ending up in wrecks that hurt Americans. But you have to, I mean, that's just the language element of it is so important. Let's see. This one says, I wonder how many marriages, the divisive machinations of the SPLC have destroyed. my own has been challenged because the framing of conservative ideas is hateful. I'm more likely to subscribe to the late Dave Mason lyric. There ain't no good guys. There are no bad guys. There's only you and me, and we just disagree. That's great. But the constant conflation of conservatism by liberal media with ignorance, hate, fascism, and racism raises the temperature of fever, even in personal relationships.

That's a really good point, Ken. It's a really, really good point. And I just want to linger on it for a moment to say, this is the experts, right? The SPLC were treated by the media as the experts in hate and extremism. And so if you're in a personal relationship with somebody who is saying that you are fomenting or supporting or endorsing hate and extremism, they could then turn to the experts and say, well, this is what the experts are telling us. Trust the experts. Sometimes you have to trust the experts, but sometimes the emperor has absolutely no clothes. And with the SPLC, that was abundantly clear. Even liberal journalists, like Ken Silverstein pointed it out as early as 2000, but especially in the 2010s. So that's a...

important. That is a really, really important point, and I can see how that would have affected people's personal relationships. Okay, let's go here to the, all right, these are Instagram questions. Kyle, hey, my fellow Wisconsinite, how about them Brewers? Will they actually go all the way this year? Fingers crossed, have had my hopes up many times, many times. Thanks for the question, Kyle. Let's hope so. I'm excited to see him play in the near future here. Tom says, first off, you're seriously one of the coolest people. I think you mentioned you interned or worked at the Ronald Reagan Ranch out in California. What was that experience like? And what did you think of California? So I worked and I'm still on the board of Young America's Foundation.

Young America's Foundation acquired the Reagan Ranch in the late 90s directly from the Reagan family and uses it to bring students up to the ranch to get to know Ronald Reagan, like, on a historical, personal level. And, you know, whatever you think of Ronald Reagan's politics, Ronald Reagan as a human being, was fascinating, had this depth that got completely, what's the right word to put it, flattened by the legacy media and art institutions. Ronald Reagan led a, quote, revolution. Ronald Reagan was a radical in some very good ways, I think, against the malaise of the kind of post-New Dural era, the Carter era of the late Cold War. And so I would, yeah, help give tours for students. Man, it was like once or twice a month for the couple years,

at least, that I worked at. Yeah, if I go there maybe once a year now, just for like different speaking things, the ranch centers in downtown Santa Barbara, it's right on State Street. So if you find yourself, and like lower state streets, so really, really close to the wharf. So if you know Santa Barbara, if you don't know Santa Barbara, you got to know Santa Barbara. It's the most incredible place in America. I stepped off the plane at the Santa Barbara Airport for my first time in California. It was like 2014. I'd always wanted to go to California.

And I was with my best friend who is from California. We stepped out of the airport. It's one of those tiny little airports. So we stepped out, you look at the mountains, and it was the perfect climate, everything, I just turned to her. And I was like, why would you ever leave this place? She was like, trust me, there are reasons. But I think California is the most spectacular place in America. I also love Florida.

I love the heartland. I love so much of the country. And I think most Americans do it. It's just the most amazing, beautiful country. But California is incredible and has incredible history and culture, sadly horrible. politics right now. But yeah, that was part of my work at Yaff for the first couple of years that I was out of college. It's a student organization founded out of the Reagan Revolution era, acquired Young Americans for Freedom. About 2012, I literally was a spokeswoman and used to go in Fox News

talking about Yaf and the like. So I have some of this memorized. That's why the dates are so specific. but, you know, I left for journalism after a couple of years because I just can't stop myself from asking questions no matter for whom they're convenient. Maybe it's a problem. It's a pathology. No, I think, you know, I think it's a good thing to do. And so I'm always, you know, I can't just like stick to anyone's script, basically, even if I really like those people or whatever it is.

It just, I am constantly questioning everything. So I just always really wanted to be a writer and love media. And so I left there a couple of years. But Yaf is a great organization that really familiarizes people with the history of the conservative movement and of Ronald Reagan, who was really a very humble person. There's a lot of misinformation when it comes to Ronald Reagan. I didn't agree with Reagan 100%. But some things that really get glossed over about Ronald Reagan that you can. learn from a trip to the ranch, which is just, again, it is always totally stunning. You're in the

mountains, the Santa Anaes range, and you're overlooking the Pacific Mountain, the Pacific Ocean. So it's good stuff. Love California. This is from constitutional libertarian who says, I know you're not a constitutional lawyer, even a lawyer, but seeing how the Democrats just passed the bill to do the craziest redistricting ever, when that is implemented after next election, I'm assuming do you think there's any chance of Virginia Republicans could have some kind of legal standing for taxation without representation. Says, Link, you love the show. And by the way, and Dave Smith is 100% correct.

I don't know. I doubt it. I doubt it. I don't think that's possible. I don't think there's a good mechanism for that, unfortunately. Interesting question. Marlowe says, love Rachel and Innes. All I can remember is 67-year-old Madonna desperately trying to be young, truly sad.

Now I'm trying to forget it. Molly Hemingway is very insightful. I must say I'm a bit bothered when I hear her express that Supreme Court justices are not well paid. That seems as tone deaf as Sotomayor. Calling out Kavanaugh for being out of touch, many, many citizens would consider their compensation and benefits life-changing. The SPLC indictment is a hopeful step in the direction of accountability. Yes, yes, yes. May the SPLC face the same consequences they inflicted on the groups they harmed.

They really damaged our country. Now, that is where I disagree, because you know what? I don't want any violence to come to the SPLC, and that is something they inflicted on the groups that they harmed. But yeah, I don't think you were saying that, but I just wanted to make that point. I would never, ever wish that. And it was just truly despicable how they refused to pivot. Now, on the point about Supreme Court justices, I think what Molly was saying, and this is actually true of Congress, it's like the least popular argument to make.

But for Supreme Court justices, they could be making, you could leave and make millions and millions of dollars elsewhere. And so to really get public servants, I actually think this is, I really think it's some of what Clarence Thomas did was wrong. I think the media was hypocritical to freak out just over Clarence Thomas. But I think also some of it is totally normal. When you're in the upper upper echelon of success in American society, you are surrounded by people who are literal billionaires who are for them, like doing a favor with like an RV or whatever. It's nothing. And they make it seem like nothing. So some of that stuff is just like you don't even like necessarily think twice because

they're not thinking twice. I've seen that culturally happen because to them it's just no big deal. And when you're really successful, you just spend a lot of time with those types of people. Like, look at all the academics that were hanging out with Jeffrey Epstein, for example. And so I think the point that Molly was making is that they really, compared to what super successful attorneys make, they make nothing. I mean, probably like a tenth of what they could be making in the private sector. and they're constantly surrounded by people who are making that or more. And so to really, I think, first of all, it would crack down on corruption in Congress and in the Supreme Court if their pay was bumped up, especially staffers. It would create less incentive to go into the lobbying, revolving door.

Now, you can only pay them so much. You have to think of yourself as a public servant, first and foremost. You're not going to be making what you make in the private sector, and that's to have the privilege of working on behalf of the public. But I do think that was the bigger picture point she was making. And I think that's relevant because it is like absolutely nothing compared to the people who bend your ear when you're a Supreme Court justice and the people that you're talking to and the like. So I totally see your point Marlowe. I think the point Molly was making is that in the big picture, it does disincentivize people from staying in public service. And people, I think it's just, it's part of the culture of being really successful in America and even public servants themselves can, when you're in that environment, it can disincentivize you from taking those positions.

I think that's very true about members of Congress. If you have a bunch of kids or you live in a really expensive area, this is something AOC has mentioned about having to have two residences on, I think she probably is at 180. or $200,000 a year salary, one of which is in New York, one of which is in D.C., two of the most expensive places to live. Now, you can do it. Obviously, you can do it, or you can sleep in your office, which I also don't like for, like, obvious Me Too reasons that have actually happened because members sleep in their offices. But someone emailed this recently. Like, they should have a big congressional dorm. That's what I think. And they should probably pay them a little bit more too, especially staff so that not a lot more, but so that they're not constantly incentivized

to go and lobby to just raise a family. You know, it's, it's, D.C. is just really expensive to live in. So anyway, anything to stop the corruption or crack down on that. Thanks a much for all your emails this week. Everyone, appreciate it. Some really good questions today. Thank you for listening. I hope you have a wonderful weekend and God bless.