After Party with Emily Jashinsky - “Happy Hour”: The Legacy Media Questions, Epstein’s FOIA, and Don Lemon’s Prosecution: Emily Answers YOUR Questions

Episode Date: February 6, 2026

On this week’s edition of “Happy Hour,” Emily Jashinsky responds to a series of questions about the situation in Minnesota and immigration including the recent video of Alex Pretti kicking the car, she explains how sanctuary jurisdictions work, how the media’s own narrative has impacted coverage, why Don Lemon is in legal trouble and Emily’s concerns about the prosecution of him, the 2A and 1A, plus that Ilhan Omar incident. Emily also takes up the issues facing Tim Walz and if she thinks he could go to prison. Emily answers several questions about the media overall, including thoughts on Sinclair, local reporting, how to keep track of the news, the power of podcasts, and why legacy media still matters. Epstein’s FOIA request also comes up and Emily explains why he would do that. On politics Emily offers her sense who will be the 2028 Democratic nominee and if she’d like to interview President Trump. The episode also includes Emily’s hot take on “The Lord of the Rings,” Billie Eilish, as well as Emily’s introvert personality, her favorite intellectual, and more… Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hi, everyone. We're back with another edition of Happy Hour, which is, of course, itself a special edition of After Party that we drop every Friday around 5 p.m. You know the drill. I record these live, meaning I don't pause and I don't edit anything out. I read your emails for the first time on air during the show. If you haven't subscribed wherever you get your podcast yet, please do. Subscribe on YouTube. It helps us a lot to subscribe on YouTube. So if you haven't done that yet, make sure you do that too. Also, you're just going to be missing out on all kinds of fun videos. If you don't, all right, let's get to all of your messages. By the way, I normally record these on Thursdays. This is Wednesday evening. I'm coming to you on a Wednesday evening this time around because I'm actually going on vacation for a few days. I wish it was going to be a longer vacation, but it's an election year. You can't just ditch the news cycle for much longer than a couple days. To be honest, there's so much work to do. So I'll be back in a few days, nothing to worry about. but I am going to, well, this is Wednesday, obviously. So when you're listening to it, there are certain things, I'm coming to you from the past.

There are certain things that you may know that I don't know right now. So we have a lot of emails. I'll go ahead and start here. This says from Marlowe, I enjoyed Michael Malice. He gave a great tribute to Scott Adams. But Emily, how are you fooled by Ilhan Omar? Once a fraud, always a fraud. Her house of cards is falling.

And she is a cornered animal. desperate to escape. Oh, this is in reference to whether or not it was a fake attempt to get attention that was concocted when Ilhan Omar was sprayed with that syringe. I think we now know it was water and apple cider vinegar during a town hall in the Minneapolis area. So I think as the facts have come out, this has vindicated me. I think Michael and I both thought it was real. I do, I still think it's real. And I think as details have dripped out of the investigation, that it is pretty vindicating for that theory. Sorry, Marlowe. Maybe I'll be proven wrong. But it just looked real to me. Honestly, it's like it's a weird thing to do. It's extremely weird. But there are extremely weird people

in the world. So that would be, Omar looked legitimately pretty surprised. And I did have to give her credit. I think Megan did too for going in on the guy. She was not going to take that one sitting down. She kept going with her speech. So I thought that seemed like a pretty genuine reaction. But yeah, if I'm proven wrong, I'm proven wrong. Feel good about it right now, though. Thanks, Marlow.

Mary says, looking out at that video that came out today of Alex Prattie, spitting at agents swearing, kicking the daylight on an ice car, these people need to be arrested for their own good. They're clearly unhinged. and maybe being arrested would scare at them straight. PSU are very funny. Have you ever thought of doing comedy? Well, on the first part about Alex Pretty,

I actually still don't understand why after that incident, which was January 13th, how had, why was he not arrested then and there? Why was he not arrested after kicking the taillight out of an ice vehicle? Yes, I'm Monday morning quarterbacking this, But part of the problem, and I know this is why ICE really wanted the local cooperation of officers, like Minneapolis, St. Paul, Hedepin County law enforcement. They wanted that cooperation because they were in so many of these cases outmanned. You know, it's a handful of them going to nap one person at this place or another place, and then they have a mob of people.

And I think actually that's really, really, in retrospect, I hope we get some analyses on just how. inflammatory and escalatory. I mean, that was just a recipe for inflammation and escalation. And it still will be, of course. But yeah, anytime you have people, a handful of law enforcement going into a fairly organized, call it a protest riot, I mean, there are different things at different times, right? You know, at one moment it's Renee Good, you know, in another moment, it's all of the people

blocking, have you seen these checkpoints that they've set up? It gets weird. It gets weird. But yeah, it's crazy that we're sending people into those situations because it's obviously just asking for trouble. And so maybe the cooperation of the local law enforcement is essential. Maybe that's something that even the left could say is essential to protecting their people too, because that's when, law enforcement starts to feel afraid and threatened. So yeah, I hope I hope that we get law enforcement officers to weigh in on the logistics of what's been going on in Minneapolis. I believe local law enforcement is now cooperating. That may have changed. There was a Sunday night recently where there was a riot breaking out outside of a hotel, basically, where people thought ICE was staying.

And finally, you saw some local law enforcement cooperation. But it's an important point because, you know, if you don't have the ability to arrest people who are breaking the law, you then don't have the ability to provide those disincentives for people to put themselves in dangerous situations. But, of course, to put law enforcement in dangerous situations where you're literally kicking out a taillight. And I think he was armed kicking out a taillight. Like, that's, again, just completely dangerous behavior. To your second question, your postscript, I have not ever thought of doing comedy. except for when I was in high school. When I was graduating high school,

I really thought I could be a stand-up comedian. But I'm very, very introverted. So I realized pretty quickly there was no way that I had the stomach to do the, like, stand-up circuit. I was like, ooh, no. No, no, no. Crashing is one of the best shows, though. If you have HBO, I think it's HBO, that show is incredible, especially if you're like a comedy buff, that show is, that is the life that I really,

was not for me pretty quickly after I was like, ooh, this could be fun because you get to write in comedy. So I have thought about it, but not since I was like 18 or 19. Sean says, I've loved your work since Megan introduced me to you. I've also been listening to Lovelin and Adam since I was 12, 30 plus years ago. My question, did you guys do a pre-interview? Ooh, this is a good question to discuss conversations on Kimmel. I've loved Jimmy since I was introduced to him back then as well and can maintain my appreciation for him because of how Adam frames their friendship. I think hearing him reframe Jimmy Kimmel on America's leaders is the most clearly I've seen him confront his friend. No, we did not do a pre-interview. We did not. I just put that question on Kimmel in because it was

relevant that day. And Adam rolled with it. That's how interviews I guess are supposed to go ideally. I don't want to be gossipy and personal. Kimmel was just one of the bigger entertainment stories in that post-Pretti news cycle because, again, he started crying on air. So it felt like totally fair game to me. And I don't think Adam had any problems with it at all. I agree, actually, Sean, that it was, I agree that it was a really nice moment from Adam who, I don't know. I mean, loyalty is the most, I mean, it's one of the most, what's the right word? I mean, nobody has it in entertainment and news media. Like, there's literally no loyalty. It's actually something I've always admired about Tucker Carlson. Whatever you think of the guy, he's loyal to a fault. You know, there are people that he easily could criticize, but he won't because they worked at the daily caller. He had a rule at the daily caller. that they couldn't write anything critical of Fox News while he worked there because he was getting a paycheck. And it's just not a good thing to do. Now, it's a little different with the news outlet, but that's just explaining. I really admire that. I really admire that because it's so often easy to distance yourself from a friend.

But I think it makes Adam, it speaks to his character. It makes him more likable, let alone. I was genuinely touched. I think you can hear me in the interview. I go, oh, when he says that Kimmel Kra, on their last episode of The Man Show over their friendship. I was genuinely touched by that. And listen, people who are unhinged and bananas, whether they're on the left or the right,

people who you feel like have been made crazy by news cycles, it's just always important to remember nobody sees themselves as the villain. You know, maybe like 1% of people see themselves as the villain. And I take a lot of heat for, you know, talking to people on the left. You know, we had people like Tim Miller, who's now, you could say, on the left on this show. but even, you know, my friends on the left, and they get a lot of heat for being friends with somebody on the right and having people from the right on their shows. But I just think it's important to, even when it's hardest, and I mean, it's been really, this last year has, of course, been really challenging for everybody on that front, especially after what happened to Charlie. I mean, things got very, very personal.

And so I just think it's been really, really worth it to push through some of those challenges. And I think that's something I really admire that Carolla is doing there with his friend. Jimmy. All right. Let's see. Tracy asks, but says, I've been listening to your podcast since last summer. I always look forward to the new episodes and so appreciate your perspective. Thank you, Tracy. I would love if you could explain sanctuary city status. I know that it exempts the city from complying with federal immigration laws. but I guess my question is why. How is this achieved? I live in the, I live in the Twin Cities, and the impulse of flea is strong. I heard the Holman Press conference where he conveyed his conversations with Walls Fry and Allison. How can he trust anything they say? Also would love to know what you think about the odds that we'll see walls come to justice. Ooh, great email here. Great email here. All right. So sanctuary city status or sanctuary jurisdiction. I usually say, because sometimes it's the county, sometimes it's the city, sometimes it's the state, sometimes it's a combination of the patchwork between the county, the city, and the state.

So it really does depend. I mean, the gist of it is exactly what you said, Tracy, that the city is exempted from complying with federal immigration laws. But I would argue it's actually the city is exempted from complying with some federal immigration laws because as Walls and Fry have been saying, they will cooperate. on violent criminals, meaning when, so Walls will say this, the state, when somebody is incarcerated in the state prison, they will tell ICE, this person's about to be released, or you can come and get this person if they're, for example, a violent, like, rapist, murderer. So they'll say, well, we still do that. But the other problem is there are people who have already been released

who are out in the city and local law enforcement is not like if you make an arrest if you stop of someone and again this differs from jurisdiction to jurisdiction but if you stop if you had a traffic stop

and local law enforcement comes on somebody who was released for what's a good example like robbery you know has it had already served the time maybe they did a year in prison robbery something like that they're not going to deport the person

or alert ICE to come and report the person in every circumstance. So it's really, I think part of the reason Dems get away with the sanctuary jurisdiction stuff is that it is so complicated. It is so, so complicated and hard to explain because it differs from one place to another. But yeah, I mean, the bottom line is that they're trying to protect people. That's why the sanctuary term came up. They're trying to protect people who are in the country illegally. that's really, I think that's really the bottom line.

It's not, because that, that's the umbrella, if you put it in that sense. Like, they are trying to shield people from deportation, shield some people from deportation. And that's why, again, it makes it easier. That's why sanctuary cities are real magnets. Often these policies, these protective policies come with, you know, subsidies and programs for migrants and the like, lots of local chariots. that make it possible, but they're also magnets because, again, you can just kind of hang out in a sanctuary city. And it's easier to get by knowing you, the threat of deportation is much, much lower. So that's not a perfect explanation. But I have gone through this so many times myself, like trying to dig into exactly, like, what is the exact best way to define a sanctuary city or sanctuary jurisdiction? And the answer is that it's honestly, really hard because there are so many different, that's just such a patchwork of municipal laws.

Sometimes it's passed through the legislature. Sometimes it is just a posture of the mayor or the governor, sort of like Michael Scott when he declares bankruptcy. I declare a sanctuary city. But other times it's more, it's gone through a legislative process. So absolutely crazy. walls coming to justice. I don't know. I mean, I would imagine between Walls and Allison, there's been some, I mean, Megan keeps saying she thinks walls could end up in prison. I have a hard time believing there isn't some law being broken. I don't know. I don't know. My guess is, you know, he doesn't go to prison. But I don't know. At least the punishment is that his political career seems to be totally dead in the water stalled out.

So there's that. Nick says this kerfuffle in the national discourse about Alex Prattie got me thinking about 2A because now I see liberals defending open carry and Republicans demonizing it. I think the reason we don't see gun legislation being talked about in news media outside of niche gun activists is pretty obvious. It's not everyone carries your own a gun. but I think it's almost as important to be aware of the First Amendment as it's a barometer of personal autonomy. What do you think? I also think you and Malas kind of skated over his shooting a bit. Whether he was being a dick or not, doesn't affect whether it was a good shoot or not.

And I'm not sure if you've seen the closer video, but he was clearly disarmed by one man and then executed well incapacitated by another. A bad shoot is a bad shoot. And if we don't hold these under-trained, undervetted, maskman accountable, they will only be emboldened. Thanks for advance. I don't miss a single show unless I'm feeling really news fatigue. I love the term news fatigue, Nick. I may start adopting that. That's fantastic.

Sounds like an official diagnosis, and it should be. On the carry point, I could not agree more. I was delighted to see the left start defending, carrying. I was like, yes, yes, yes. 2A protects 1A. And Malice had a good quote on the show. He was like, the reason you have the Second Amendment is to protect yourself from the government, from the government. And that's, again, if you're, you know, somebody who takes seriously the Second Amendment and Kerry and all of that, you have spent a lot of time thinking about the Second Amendment in those

terms, probably. And because, again, Nick, you're totally on the money. Because it's not common for members of the media to themselves be lawful firearm owners or people, especially not people who carry. Some of them may have guns at home that they never use just for a case of emergency, but they're not big hunters. They're not at the range or anything like that. They're not regulars. And so, yeah, it's one of those things where it's like they're not truck drivers either. So there was this, it was like 2014. It was going super viral on Twitter. Someone, it was, some journalists said something stupid about trucks.

And someone said, you know the F150 is like the number one selling car in the country. And journalists were like, no way. And you watched everybody discover in real time that yes, the Ford F150 was like the most. It was so telling because it was people who had just never gotten outside of. or spent very little time outside of their urban bubble. So I think guns are a similar issue. Now, on the shooting part, I think I've been pretty critical. I think malice, I'm trying to remember what he said.

I think his general position on it was don't, or was that the real story was the opposition to deal, to deportation enforcement, that what happened Alex Prattie is, if I'm remembering correctly, I don't want to totally speak for malice, but that, you know, it's, it was sort of an inevitability

because people do not want, he said, he had a good line where he said, you have tens of thousands of people who are in the country who do not want to leave. So it's going to happen. So there are, have been some sense of inevitability to that. Nick, I tend to agree with what you said. I feel like I've conveyed this. Maybe I haven't conveyed it clearly enough. I am increasingly of the position

that there was that yes, a lot of this stuff is inevitable. Malice is right. There are tens of thousands of people in this country, probably hundreds of thousands, really millions of people in this country who are here without proper status and they do not want to leave. Some of them are. are women. Some of them are women with children. Some of them are, you know, sweet families who were trying to, who Biden made think they'd be able to just comfortably live in the United States and someday get amnesty, pathway to citizenship, something like that. And so you're facing an enormously difficult situation. And I think is absolutely true that some of this was inevitable. There was a protest in Los Angeles over the last few days where you can watch the video of it online.

The chant is, from Palestine, to Mexico, border walls have got to go. That is a really important point to me because a really important admission, because that's the defined goal, right? Border walls have got to go. And that's just what Billy Eilish said. Nobody is illegal on stolen land. which is if that's your position I think it's foolish but I it's at least an honest explanation and so I do think a lot of this would be happening no matter how careful and gentle the deportation enforcement was so I think that is correct but I also think there's it's been somewhat, some of the theater has been somewhat unnecessary. You guys know I've been against the

masks. I don't think it's good to have, as Glenn Greenwald said on the show, armed agents of the state roaming the streets with masks on. Just don't think it's American. And I have said many, many, many times if my loved one were in ice, I would sure as hell want them to be masked. I completely understand it. But I do think some of it has broken trust and you need trust, broken the public's trust, and you need trust in order to carry out such a difficult mission that Malice is right was going to be difficult, was going to be depicted by the media as evil and Gestapo like no matter what. But I think there have been some unforced errors.

And maybe it'll turn out, like we were saying earlier just in this episode, that some of it was unnecessary to send guys, you know, five guys into mobs. You know, was there a better way to do that? So you wouldn't ultimately have to do what a lot of people are saying looks like a concession now and draw out forces from Minneapolis. I don't know. I think it's a good, I think it's a good question, Nick. Appreciate it.

Let's see. What else do we have here? Have you, so you often talk about people giving up freedom for security. Have you ever read the Lord of the Rings or at least seen the movies? Ken asks, ooh, and goes into a whole thing about Galadriel and Frodo. And this is a line from Galadriel that Ken describes it as a paradoxical last line. All shall love me and despair. I love the Hobbit.

As a kid, I've read The Hobbit over and over and over again. And I love the cartoons from like the 70s or the 80s that I think really capture the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings visually and sonically for me in a way that resonated with what I read in the books. you guys are going to hate me you're going to hate me i'm about to say something that is pretty hot uh pretty hot i didn't like the peter jackson jackson adaptation of lord of the rings and the hobbit um my boyfriend is obsessed with them so he he would agree with you ken uh and just deeply um deeply guided by the book the books i should say um um um And I think they are absolutely fables for our time. That's what Ken asked is a fable for our time.

Yes, absolutely. I think about Tolkien a lot. And I find myself going back to Tolkien and C.S. Lewis a lot. Even if I'm not going to the books, I go to Tolkien's writings and think about, you know, I like to think about the Hobbit. I started reading the first Lord of the Rings book and honestly found it. The way I described it is it's very male. I always get an email from someone after I say that being like, I'm a woman I love Lord of the Rings. I think if I push myself through it, I would probably like it. But it's so dense, right? On the

details as a woman, I'm like, dude, just please. He's building his world, right? And I'm like, please, just like have someone. I need some emotion, some action, some social, something social to cling to. So that's my horrible take on Lord of the Rings, but I do agree, Ken, that Tolkien was reflecting on world war, right, and technology. And that's why I find myself kind of dipping into that well a lot. Because what feels new to us, you know, abolition of man, C.S. Lewis's abolition of man is one of the most powerful pieces of writing that you can visit or revisit in 2026. Like I have. I think I first read that around COVID. And, you know, what feels new to us, like the, like social media, the changes that have come from algorithmic social media. I mean, imagine living through the dawn of air travel, the military impact of war travel, the consequences of air travel, I should say. the the advent of

commercial television let alone radio you can hear another person's voice from around the world it's just you can you can communicate that with them over a telephone it's really that the world was shattered

in so many different ways the innocence of the world was shattered in so many different ways the shire was the shire was disrupted in so many different ways you know, 100 years ago. And so I think these are these are helpful themes to return to. So I totally agree. Howard says, hmm, a doctor asked some questions to see how I was doing. And one was, do you talk to someone every day? I guess concerned about old people in loneliness.

My answer was not if I can help it. But I think of what makes me happy another human is not the first thing that comes mind. That's funny. Basically, Howard is saying you sound almost as antisocial as me. Yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm antisocial. I like hanging out with my friends. I don't like to make new, no, I don't like to make new friends, hashtag no new friends. But it's not because I don't, I was going to say, it's not because I don't like people, but no, it's very much because I don't like people. It's because I'm very, I find it very painful because I feel like many of you probably. It's meeting new people. It takes a lot of my social battery. Some people get their social battery recharged by interactions with other people. Mine is depleted by interactions with other people. It's like it takes a lot of effort.

And I think it's just because, you know, you want to, you want to present a good impression. And, you know, it just for me, that takes so much. It's a lot. I find a very, stressful. So anyway, that's funny. But, you know, Howard, your answer, not if I can help it. We should all probably push ourselves. The introverts of the world should probably push ourselves because it's not healthy. I mean, I could just stay in like my office for days probably, like with a bag of chips or something, a bag of monster chips, of course. But I could probably stay in my office for days and not talk to anybody and just read and watch movies and TV and all of that, but that good for us. Marlowe, actually, emails about master chips and says

master chips are great. I had mine with tuna pokey. Oh, wow, that's interesting. I don't like pokey, and I'm going to get a bunch of emails about that, but I will say this looks like a great combination, Marlowe, and they are so delicious. If I had a choose between Maza and Vandy, both good. I love, love, love Vandy. The barbecue is just ridiculous. Christine says, thank you for mentioning Krasner in your happy hour episode this week as a lifelong Philadelphia and 30-year veteran of the Philadelphia Police Department. I can say from an up-close vantage point that his progressive policies have done so much damage to the city yet he keeps getting elected. It drives me crazy. Of course, a huge problem in the city is that the voter

turnout in local elections is just abysmal. Christine says, anyway, thank you for what you're doing. I love your perspective and willingness to listen and interact with people of all different opinions. Your podcast is wonderful and I look forward to it. We'll keep you in my prayers. Christine, that is so sweet. lot to me. Thank you. I think I said this on the show at the time. I went to Philadelphia and stayed overnight in Philadelphia for the first time ever. I'd been to Brynmore at some point, so I'd taken the train into Philly and then, you know, got out of there fairly quickly. But I was in Philly for like 24, 48 hours, probably like 24 hours in the fall. And I traveled

a lot of different cities. I could not believe the state of Philadelphia. I was thoroughly depressed, and I did not want to be there for another minute. It was really dark. It felt to me like San Francisco-esque. And, you know, I've heard San Francisco is getting better. And I hope that's the case. I haven't been there in a very, very long time. But, you know, roaming, all of our cities have roaming fentanyl zombies.

But it was like the state of Philadelphia. The absolute state of Philadelphia was so incredibly depressing. Just being outside of Independence Hall and seeing. looking around the blocks. So you see this beautiful architecture. And then outside of the green space and the colonial architecture, it is, it felt to me like a hellscape. It felt to me like what a lot of the cities in America felt like during 2020 and 2021. And I was so, like, you expect some of that in every city, but downtown Philadelphia was just absolutely covered in filth and misery and suffering. and I was, it was one of the most depressing moments of 2025 for me.

It was standing outside Independence Hall in a sunny, warm September day, and just seeing the filth of misery and suffering just all around. I took a walk over there with a friend, and we walked a bunch of downtown Philly, and it just, it was so, so sad. I love the concert at The Man, though. I went and saw Hyam at the Man. That was awesome. All right. This one is from Katie, who says, it is frustrating that you don't understand the

enormous difference between illegal immigrant killing Americans and massed federal agents killing Americans. The first group is hunted down, arrested, charged, tried, convicted, and imprisoned. The second group has their identity hidden. Keeps their job, we'll move to another location, is given, quote, absolute immunity by the government who refuses to allow investigation in officers blatant lies that can only be caught because of multiple angles of video taken by civilians who are threatened physically and that they'll put on a list of domestic terrorists. Those cycles who physically attacked a woman for legally filming them and killed the man who tried to help her are still out there as dangers to the American populace.

Just imagine how that woman Trevor treats the women in his life behind closed doors. Lake and Riley's murderer is currently in prison. No one protests this because we support it. How can you not see the difference? Thanks for the email, Katie. Let me think about this here. So you're saying don't understand the enormous difference between illegal immigrant killing it. Americans amassed federal aides killing Americans.

Okay, so to be clear, but I was critical of the administration in the Prattie case and of ICE in the Prattie case. And like, just, period. My point is about the position of the left in the media. So I'm not saying this is apples to apples. What I'm saying is that there is fundamentally an ideological revelation,

from any comparison of media coverage when you consider the victims of crime committed by illegal immigrants or people who were on TPS during the Biden administration or asylum applicants. Remember, Kilmara-Brigo Garcia was referred to as a Maryland man in the original Atlantic headline

that made his case super viral. They didn't bother to get the domestic abuse allegation before they ran a print with that. They didn't bother to get the human trafficking allegation before they went to print with that. It was, that piece of coverage has whithered in the test of time. But that's my point is if we are to be critical of ice

to the extent that it's these big news cycles like Minneapolis, the Minneapolis news cycle has been like two months long. And I'm not saying that's wrong, but I'm just saying there's so little, right? Like everyone agrees what happened to Kate Steinley. Everyone agrees what happened to Lake and Riley, for example, as Katie is pointing out in this email.

Everyone agrees. Everyone's happy that Lake and Riley's murderer is in prison. Right. I think that's true, Katie. I totally agree with it and I see your point. My point is that the news cycle and the concern from the left is disproportionate when you look at what happened to Prattie and good or what happened with Prattie and good. And then you look at the hundreds of people who have been victims of violent crimes, let alone identity theft, etc. It should be a major story constantly. And the ideological revelation, I think, that we get. from these comparisons, is that those crimes should be downplayed because ultimately downplayed relative to the misdoings of ICE, misdeeds of ICE, because ultimately there is no ideological objection to the influx of so many people in such little time. That's my point. So I'm not I'm not saying it's it's totally apples to apples, but I do have a very hard time with people now coming in and freaking out about Prattie and good and not freaking out about what happened over and over again to people during the Biden administration. Actually, it's happened like Kate Steinle was Obama administration.

And it's it's still going to happen in the future. And I think the problem with that is if you don't pay close enough attention to that, it, I think, reveals a disinterest in deporting people, frankly, or in, what's the right word? It feels like it's a soft on migrant stance. And as I think is the right way to put it, 100% of crimes committed by people in this country illegal. are preventable. There's a 100% pool of preventable crime. And that is not the same as crimes committed by Americans. So that's why it just, it does, it drives me a little bananas because the media is now building this narrative much likely saw with kids in cages, which again was not apples to apples, Trump Obama. They're not exactly the same set of circumstances. But the media's coverage of that in Trump 1.0 was so grossly misleading. And so they pick out stories that gin up public sentiment

in one direction or the other, the less powerful than they used to be. But that's what I'm saying is you could have easily done that once a month was somebody who was killed by or raped by a person in this country illegally for the last several years. And they did it. And they did it. And I think it is equally important. And I think the revelation is that the left of the media doesn't think it's equally important. And that is very frustrating because, again, it's 100% preventable crime. Good question, Katie. You may still disagree with me. No problem. I appreciate you writing in for sure. Let's see. Ryan sent me. Someone looks like a listener named Ryan sent me. Epstein information. We'll have to check that out. This is Hank sent me an article about the

face act. And let's see. Hank then also sent me a great Victor Davis-Hanson piece called slouching towards Fort Sumter. Thank you, Hank. Yes, this piece is excellent. Victor Davis-Hanson, it is so, so good to see him writing. Oh, my gosh, it's so good to see him writing. When that story popped, I was like, really, he's writing. Oh, my goodness. I'm glad to hear it, because it makes me hopeful that he is on the mend. He has said that he is on the mend. So fingers crossed, that's the case. He's so tough and strong.

And stoic, you don't know. I mean, it's, yeah, that I hope that's really true. And then Hank also emails about Billy Elish. I'm following this case. I think tonight's episode of After Party I'm going to cover this. I'm kind of obsessed with the Billy Eilish Stolenland. house story. So I think by the time you listen to this, I've covered it on after party. Let's see. What do we got here? Oh, someone recommending. Oh, someone asking here about Sinclair.

Almost every comment questioning the proposed taxes was met with a Sinclair question. This is about a Sinclair reporter. Have you heard this line in your spheres? Is there any validity in the concerns about Sinclair-owned stations? My Fierrasis talking point is going to be used to automatically shut down discussion and debate. This is about a report that Nick Minok of ABC7 News, D.C. did. And the question is from Rachel. Rachel, I haven't seen this particular report from Minok that you're mentioning. The Sinclair stuff is really familiar probably to a lot of people who saw. You might not even remember that it's Sinclair related. But a few years ago, the Sinclair stations were all. all, having their anchors all read the same script about, you know, the mission of news gathering, if I'm remembering correctly. And it was like dozens of stations around the country. And some left-leaning person or group put together a montage of all of it that looked super dystopian. It was news anchors, clips of news anchors blended into like this mosaic and all of them saying the same thing at the same time layered over one another. And it did look very distopian. And it did look very distopian. My response to that question, honestly, is I don't distrust the reporting at Sinclair because of ideological reasons. I think you can just take their reporting, like the public

is smart enough. It's so, I don't like concentration in media period. So I don't love, for example, that Ginnett, companies like Ginnett and Sinclair do mergers that leave them with this wide swath of coverage and then so often like Gannett being one good example, they'll lay people off in mid-sized papers and start covering, you know, Dayton from like Cincinnati or Cleveland. And they don't have as many people on the ground in Dayton anymore. And that I think is a huge problem. So I hate the centralization. I don't like that. That just always drives me crazy. but no, I don't think like these stations, it's the same thing. It's the same thing everywhere, right? Like, you could do it with Gannett from the left. You could do it with other conglomerates just in another direction. So the fact that Sinclair has some, like, right-of-center packages that they try to broadcast around the country. I mean, I just don't love that period. But I think, you know, the public is smart enough to at this point, almost everybody is trained, like to consider the source and to be aware of what line your local station

is coming from. If you're the person that still consumes local news, you know, be aware of that and, you know, factored into how credible you think the reporting is. But a lot of times those local folks are still, like, they're still doing local stuff, meaning it's not going all the way up the chain before it hits the internet or the airwaves. If it's, it's, it's like really hot, sometimes, you know, they probably do run it by, but if it's a report about taxes on a local level, that probably just went through the normal editorial, traditional editorial process, local production, local legal vetting, all of that. And so I would generally, you know, not be overly suspicious. And I did think the outrage over Sinclair was absolutely freaking

hilarious because they do it from the left with their affiliates all the damn time. So it was really amusing to me to see all of these, like, libs whining about Sinclair when it's like, yes, yes, hop on the bandwagon, concentration in media is bad. Now talk about gonna, now talk about these guys. So anyway, good question, good question. I haven't thought about that in a long time. Jesse says about Don Lemon, if they can come for Don Lemon by presenting evidence to a constitutionally mandated body of 1623 randomly selected register vote. voters, then they can come for any of us. Okay, joking aside, do you think the legacy media has done a poor job of explaining how the law actually works in the Lemon situation? Might actually be open to a, quote,

not guilty verdict at trial or even having a judge tossed the case, but the grand jury indictment itself seems completely legit. This hardly seems like a case of Trump standing in the shock troops to suppress speech. Lemon will have the opportunity to assert his special amendment rights in court. It just seems like I've had to explain the grand jury process to a lot of people. Am I missing something? No, Jesse, you're not missing anything. I agree the media's coverage of the Face Act has been laughably bad. the media's coverage of the administration's position on Lemon has been laughably bad. The best thing that you could watch as an explainer is Megan's interview with Harmeet Dillon, who's the head of the Civil Rights Division over at the Department of Justice right now. Harmeet is literally the best in the

business. She has dealt with FASC cases before, First Amendment cases before, from the conservative side. So she has seen the over-prosecution from the left up close, and she has won incredible cases. She's an incredibly smart person. So I would take a look at that. And if you need to like send something around to different people, because yeah, who said at first? Like the face act is only about, was it a Dem politician who said the face act is only? Yeah, it was Keith Allison. It was like it's only about abortion clinics. Okay. I guess that wasn't a journalist. But I bet a lot of journalists thought that too. If they and they certainly didn't know about a lot of the pro life cases during the Biden administration. Like those stories were so, so downplayed or outright ignored. They barely got, were barely a blip on the media radar during the Biden administration. So I think a lot of people had to acquaint themselves with the history pretty quickly. Now, yeah, I'm still like, the thing that I think is a problem for Lemon is that he stayed after the pastor asked him to leave. That, I agree, is absolutely a problem for him.

He should have gotten out of there. He was clearly trespassing at that point. I've said before I don't love the FASAC prosecution of Lemon. I can see so easily. I know people say this is like a very specific case where it's a church or an abortion clinic. And I loved what Michael Knowles and Megan were talking about. Like they should, when there's a Dem president, go to an abortion clinic and do the equivalent of what Don Lemon did and see what happens to them. Yeah, we know what a Dem would do, what a Dem president would do in that situation.

That was the point that they were making. My worry on that, though, is just it's going to become a race to the bottom in taking down independent journalists who, you know, again, these big corporations have the best legal teams, like the news media corporations have great legal teams. They're the best lawyers in the world. Everyone will take their cases, especially if they're Don Lemon, who's his attorney in this case. I forget. He has an incredible attorney. But on the other hand, you know, if you're an indie news outlet, this could bankrupt you. So I just, I get it. I see all the arguments here. I'm really skeptical that Don Lemon saying we, when he is talking about a group of people, activists that he is standing with as a journalist, I see how you slip into the royal we there, completely see how you slip into the royal we there.

I don't like that being used because he was saying he's embedded, right? Like if you watch journalists where embedded with like the Taliban, I'm sure you can find examples of them being like, all right, we're about to move from here to here when they're doing their coverage. So that's just a little bit more. And, you know, also when there's an event happening of public interest, I don't like, yeah, that I like to have journalists in the room. And so I don't like the idea that it'll be a race to the bottom and sending people. I've done this spiel about lemon a million times. But I think you're generally correct. Jesse, not signing off on that was the judge that didn't sign off on that was insane. Insane. So, Jesse, you're right about this overall. Dunn says, so you interviewed Trump on the Megan Kelly show or you were on Joe Rogan pick one. Interview Trump or go on Rogan.

I don't know the answer to that. I mean, I love Rogan. I guess probably I don't know That's a good question It would depend on what we were talking about on on on Rogan The thing with Trump is that everybody interviews Trump

And He is probably the hardest person to interview You know he He He There's no real art To interviewing Donald Trump Except if you are not a

Like if you're not just like spewing anger and hatred at him, anyone who just meets that basic fundamental is going to have a really similar interview. So I don't know that I could offer something completely different with Trump than a lot of great reporters on the right who've had the chance to sit down with him have had. I don't know that I would be able to bring something totally different to the table. And of course, it's everybody's dream to interview of the president of the United States. So I would love to do it. And I actually hope that I do get a chance to do it,

especially when there's a topic in the news that is maybe an area where I probably could bring something different to the table. So maybe it would depend on the timing, you know, what's going on in the news cycle. Good question here. Done. All right. This is Tony who says, thank you for your interview with Marjor, Dan and Felser, which I find incredibly helpful. I've been very concerned about the DOJ case against Louisiana abortion pills. and the fact that these can be legally sent to states with strong abortion restrictions.

The message seems to be abortion is bad, but fine if you do it with pills. Oh, I agree. That's so true. The comments on ICE last weekend are also nuts. The idea that no one is illegal on stolen land makes no sense. As a Native American, I find that deeply problematic. My ancestors were forced from their homeland because illegal immigrants occupied it. Not sure how no one is illegal makes that any better or how Grammy artists are somehow exempt from occupying stolen land. Tony plugs his website. I did get a chance to check it out, Tony, but not too deeply. The website,

if anyone else wants to check it out, is make America affordable again. Info. And then Tony asks, giving the surprise election results in Texas last weekend, I feel this is an incredibly important issue, and I feel that Republicans are struggling to respond. Are there any Republicans you might recommend I contact to share this? Oh, the website, would it help? Write an op-ed for it. And Tony, I'll follow up with you over email. You'll probably have my email by the time. you hear this. All right, John says, why foyer yourself? Because we were talking on Monday about Epstein foyering a request on himself. And John goes on to say, I don't care much about the Epstein file stuff, but wanted to share a reason why someone might file a foyer on themselves.

He tells a story about his own situation. And yep, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep, going through this. It's a very interesting story, a long story, but an interesting story. However, when I asked them to send me a copy of the report, so this is reports going back and forth trying to prove a case about, this was with the New Jersey Department of Fish and Wildlife. Like I said, very interesting story. They said they couldn't get a copy of the report, but I could file a FOIA request if I really wanted to see it. I never did, but it appears that it's a standard policy where even the subjects of investigations aren't entitled to completed reports as a routine matter, but need to go through the FOIA process. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This happens all the time, John. This is a really good example. It's a great point. People have to FOIA themselves sometimes just to get government documents. And if I'm remembering correctly, I've worked with students before who have had to like FOIA

themselves through local governments and even schools. Again, if I haven't done that in a long time. But sometimes to see what the administration was saying about trying to shut down a speaker they were bringing in or their conservative club on campus, that sort of thing. So yes, it's actually a very good idea to foyer yourself if you're engaged in this kind of local work. Like actually a very, very good idea. What Epstein was doing was foyering the, he was also looking at, he was also requesting some information from NSA, which I'm working on a story, not a story, but trying to get to the bottom of now too. But he foiled the FBI and the CIA for what appears to be. be, Mike Benz did a whole threat on this. It appears to be him. We don't have his FOIA. We might be

able to get this FOIA now, actually. Not that they would, you know, eagerly comply with that. They might slow that walk that for years. But he was, he was foyering seemingly. It was a little different than like the average, let's just FOIA what this person has. It was a little different and I'm actually even just going to pull this up because it's in the document itself. Yeah, so the CIA responded to him in 2011. We searched for CIA originated responsive records that might reflect an open or otherwise acknowledged agency affiliation existing from November 1999 to July 2011. We were unable to locate any information or records. So what it sounds like from that is this is Martin Weinberg, Epstein's attorney.

Epstein had his attorney, FOIA, the CIA, and the FBI for records that might reflect an open or otherwise acknowledge agency affiliation, which is very, very interesting. And I've been talking to people who are aware of this world, from this world, but what might have been going on there. And one theory is that it's a warning shot. So if you're looking for documents that reflect a relationship, open or acknowledged, that is a little bit different than like foying just to see what they've talked about with you or to get a reporter, that sort of thing. He was specifically asking, I probably didn't explain this very well on Monday. He was specifically asking to see if they would be able to public release any information related to whether he had an open relationship, an open relationship. open relationship with the Bureau and the agency. So one theory, there's the warning shot theory that he's saying, listen, this can get you in trouble. Let's get all of us in trouble.

This could be public. Or there's, alternatively, I think it's important to note, if you had no relationship with the FBI or the CIA, know what's the word that this used here, an acknowledgment. an open or otherwise acknowledged agency affiliation, if you knew you had none of that, you would never file this FOIA. You would never have your legal team file this for you. Because there's no chance that any documents are going to come up. So this is, I think, a mission in of itself.

And it's possible that he was looking to see what might be accessible by journalists or others. Maybe he could even use it to drum up business, something like that. But yeah, it's really, really wild. Let's see, a couple more here. Cecilia says, did you know that Pinterest has a report option for white supremacy? Screenshot attached. I may have a pair of social relationship with you given as soon as I noticed this after

accidentally misclicking the report button reading this option I thought of you. Holy smokes. This is really funny. This is really funny. If white supremacists have Pinterest boards, that's incredible information. If they are like, I'm just picturing in my head right now, like some, you know, KKK Grand Dragon having his Pinterest board, like the type of wood they're going to use for the cross burning and their favorite fabric and where they get their stickers. I mean, it's, if that exists, if that exists, it sounds like a real window into a very pathetic community of freaks.

So maybe I now need to search Pinterest for that. I never go on Pinterest. I have zero experience on Pinterest, which makes me a very unusual millennial woman I realize. But I get why people like it. I've just never used it. So this whole interface, there's a screenshot attached. It's all very foreign to me. I think I created a fake Pinterest for a friend once in college. Also, Cecilia says, I first and foremost want to say that your show has been one of my greatest finds. I feel like I learned something every time I listen to you and appreciate how reasonable you consistently are. I feel like I found someone that verbalizes my thoughts on the current state of the country so well, even if I did not share each in every viewpoint

in this day and age it's a comfort, although more so because you were fellow Midwestern or surviving on the East Coast. See, that is very sweet. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And then Sillia asked, I'd love to hear your recommendations for keeping up with the news. Your daily reads and listens. You're weekly. I pride myself on being well-informed and well-read, but there's so much news at all times. And I find it very easy to get so bogged down and come away with nothing of substance. Would love to hear your thoughts. Okay. So I think by far in a way, the best place to keep up with the news is Twitter, X, of course, now. And you can make lists on X of very targeted people who post about the news regularly from a good vantage point, and then you can combine them all together in one place.

So that's where I think it's just you can get the TikTok minute by minute. you also now X has a what are they technically refer to it as I'm going long today but I don't even care they have the the 4 U tab which I think is still like I think there was briefly see Twitter changes so much they briefly had an option a couple of weeks ago to just get a like minute by minute like what X used to be And I love that so much because you can dip in and see what's happening minute by minute. So anyway, either way, I think X is by far the best place for that. And I just, that's why now, the reason is now it is so important to follow absolutely every, not every, but as many publications as you can reasonably.

And so create a mosaic for yourself of, you know, New York Times, Washington Post. The shortcut I find, especially on a. big story like ICE is I would go read Jacobin or the nation's coverage and then I would go to read the Federalist's coverage or, you know, Andy McCarthy at National Review or, you know, one of those places. I would go look at what Will Chamberlain is saying from Article 3 Project. And then on the right, such a sharp lawyer. But that's a good example. Like you just got to develop people who are good on certain topics. And there's honestly, I, you know, do with the Megan Kelly wrap-up show. So part of my job is listening to Megan Kelly every day and the show every day. She has an

incredible news judgment. So the stories that she covers, I feel like our stories that really matter to the average person on the center right, maybe even just on the center too. So I find a lot. I like it's very helpful. It's listening to Megan because of the guest that she has such a good roster of people. But yeah, my shortcut trick is to find someone you trust on, you know, if it's a, immigration or foreign policy, whatever, on the far left, far right. Not really the far, but kind of populist left, populist right. Maybe those are good ways to put it, you know, not MSNBC versus Fox, but somebody who's like really a one of the, just find that for a bunch of different issues. And then, or someone who comments on every issue and he's really sharp. Just that's my

shortcut advice. But otherwise I would say just compile a good, a good Twitter list of, publications and keyword search on Twitter, that's really, really, really helpful. So if I'm trying to, like, during the Alex Prattie thing, you know, what I was doing was going on Twitter search function and searching Alex Prattie or searching Nicolette Ave, right? I think that's the street where it happened. And everyone who was on the ground was like, this just happened on Nicolette Ave. That's what they were posting. So then everything you search for Nicolette Ave, it comes up. And you see the videos. You see the commentary, the reactions, and analysis. It all was in one place. So sadly, I can't recommend X enough for following the news. It's a very, very helpful tool. I wish it weren't built like a casino or a video game. I think it's very damaging to our brains.

I think short-form video, we're going to come to realize it's very damaging to our brains, unfortunately. But for news, there's just no better place to be. Anyway. Let's see. Okay. One more here for the emails. Then I have a couple Instagram ones. This is about... So James says the nominee for the Democratic Party will be Kamala Harris. And I will explain why. It goes on to say, she wasn't given a fair chance will be the battle cry. If you think for a second that voting base will tolerate Gavin Newsom standing in the way of Harris getting her, quote, fair shot, you're crazy.

They will make it very clear that if she isn't the nominee, they're staying home on election day. And this is in reference to black women. James' theory is that black women will say, you have to give Kamala Harris a fair chance. And she's leading the polls, James says, at 31% currently. And the party is faced with a lose-lose situation. I don't know. I mean, I think she's probably going to be more formidable than people realize. My sense of the dem nomination is that it's a dark horse right now.

that like the likeliest candidate is a dark horse candidate right now. It's probably not Newsom or Harris, but maybe it's like an Andy Bashir or someone that just, you know, maybe it's a business person who throws their hat into the ring. I don't think it's like Buttigieg Harris or Newsom. That's just how I'm seeing it right now. I get your point, James, that there are people who still clearly want to kind of weaponize the identity politics part of it. But Kamala Harris herself, Yes, she's still invoking it, you know, and it's annoying. But she shied away from that, too. So I don't know how much she wants to lean into that. And I don't know how much consultants would tell her to lean into that, meaning would she even activate that kind of cohort by talking about it a bunch? I don't know. It's an interesting question.

It's an interesting point, James. We will see. My gut instinct is that it's a dark horse candidate, like I said. but you know everyone who makes presidential predictions is is proven wrong of course let's see let's go to got a couple instagram questions here texan says do you think mainstream media is no longer CBS CNN Fox etc but podcasts um I don't think there's anything anything that we could describe as mainstream anymore because if it means they represent the mainstream media quote-unquote has not done that for years mollie hemingway uh i feel like she appears like beetlejuice every time i say

mainstream media without saying quote-unquote mainstream media uh it's like molly's bucaboo and she's totally right about it um you know i i use it sometimes as a shortcut because everybody knows what you're saying when you say mainstream media it's just better to say corporate media legacy media liberal media. But I think it's mixed. So ideologically, there's never really been a mainstream media, but we're not in a very long time since the real like heyday of mass media in terms of like mathematically mass media and mathematical monoculture to the extent that we could quantify what that meant. But on a like, let's see, in terms of like viewership and all of that, Yeah, I mean, I still think there are some really big corporations that have incentives.

Like the Washington Post right now is trying to be mainstream, right? They're trying to represent the mainstream. CBS right now is trying to represent the mainstream, meaning they're trying to capture that median, those people that are, you know, kind of reasonable on both sides or reasonable in the center. And the problem with that is, you know, You have to really do it. I think you have to really do it from an ideologically transparent angle.

There are just too few people that can do the voice of God thing. And everyone's clustering in their own niches, their own silos. And I think the post is going to try to use AI to bring mainstream into people's silos and to try to do both at once. We'll see how that works. But no, I think it's not that podcasts have overcome the quote-unquote mainstream, but it's that podcasts are now almost as powerful, probably as powerful overall. So the legacy media is still really powerful.

They're just not nearly as powerful as they used to be. And the podcast sphere, YouTube sphere, is now much more powerful. I think they're kind of rivals now. I actually think that's been a good thing, right? Because in the podcast world, I'm not saying everybody has to be organized like a traditional Bureau, but there's something still good about having, you know, people with the money and the resources and the legal coverage, all of that, to have bureaus in Moscow or Beijing or even Ukraine and other places. Like, that's not something that most podcasts have or set up to do.

And so I think it's good that the, like, legacy guys have competition. from people doing much better coverage, even if they're not on the ground. Like, Sagar and Jetti runs circles, runs circles around the foreign policy analysts and reporters at CNN. And you're going to be much better informed if you watch Sager than if you just watch CNN. But Sagar doesn't live in, he doesn't live in Moscow. He doesn't live in Beijing. He doesn't live in Caracas.

So there's something, I think, still has. helpful about that in this transition period where, you know, I can read what the Associated Press people on the ground in Donbos are saying, like, their attempt at a wire report. And I'll be like, well, okay, so these people are probably talking more to U.S. government and U.S. intel and alike and just kind of take that for what it is. And then, you know, go listen to Saeger's analysis of it. But yeah, I think it's still good that there are places that have resources to put people on the ground and that they now have the competition that should, you know, theoretically at least light a fire under them, even though it's, you know, 10 years in. It's slow movement. All right. Last question. Who is your favorite intellectual? Camille Polly. Holy smokes. This is the longest happy hour I've ever done. We're over an hour. Man, there's a buildup of a lot of questions. And I suspect the same will happen while I'm gone over the next few days. But yes, Camille Pahlia. is my favorite intellectual because she brings a vigor and a carelessness and a passion to important topics that go ignored or what's the right word downplayed or you know seen as too too populous.

by a lot of the academic establishment. And when I said carelessness, by the way, I mean that, like in the sense that she does not care what the academic establishment thinks. And that's what I meant by that word. You know, she's very careful with her own words. And I used to assign when I would have journalism students, I used to assign this great piece Pollyar wrote about how the casino-like atmosphere of, this was like 2002 for

I think salon. The casino like atmosphere of a web page as opposed to a book where you have ads blinking in your face she loved that. She said it was like Vegas if I remember incorrectly and she talked about how to write for the internet.

She's a very, very careful writer and really an artist in that respect. But I think her sexual personae is one of the most important things to it's i really think of it as also like a treatise on tech even though i don't think it thinks of itself that way or that she would think of it that way maybe she would now um i interviewed her once too and it was

just incredible incredible uh so that's i feel like she's not writing as much of late but yes my my favorite intellectual is uh camille paulia all right that's going to do us do it for us on today's edition of happy hour today's longest ever edition of happy hour oh my My goodness. It's not like I have to pack or anything. I'm probably procrastinating. That's probably what this is all about. All right.

Appreciate it. Emily at double macaramedia.com is my email address. We'll be back next week with more after party. Enjoy the Super Bowl, everyone. Have a good one. And we will see you back on Monday with another edition of the show.