After Party with Emily Jashinsky - “Happy Hour”: Tucker and the NYT, Good-Faith Debates, PLUS Voting Rights and Gerrymandering: Emily Answers YOUR Questions

Episode Date: May 8, 2026

On this week’s edition of “Happy Hour,” Emily Jashinsky takes audience questions on a series of topics in the news. A number them center around Tucker Carlson’s recent interview with “The New York Times” and Megyn Kelly’s reaction to it. Emily addresses the fallout, Tucker’s antichrist comment, his comments on Islam, and she details how clips on social media can mislead people. Emily also addresses why she believes that it’s important for people to watch full interviews before rendering a public judgment and explains shy she doesn’t like the impulse to blackball people and write people off even if you disagree with them. Emily answers questions about enforcing immigration law, the recent immigration debate she hosted with Scott Jennings and Ryan Grim, gerrymandering and race relations, the politics of the Iran war, and the ideology of violence in America. She also responds to emails on the Mormon faith and the upcoming UFC fight at The White House. Emily reacts to a viewer comment about the ads she reads on “After Party” and explains that she appreciates companies willing to partner with us because it’s important for independent journalism to thrive. Emily rounds out this week’s episode on how she deals with burnout during difficult news cycles such as the one we’re in right now, and more… Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hello, everyone. We are back with another edition of Happy Hour, which of course is itself, a special edition of After Party. We do here every Friday, audio only, just on the podcast feed. So if you aren't a regular subscriber on the podcast feed, Apple, Spotify, please do go ahead and subscribe. Subscribe to our YouTube channel. If you haven't done that yet, we're up to 130,000 subscribers. I want that to be over a million. So if you're not subbed on YouTube, please do it. Tell a friend. And as always, on every edition of Happy Hour, I record it. Thursday evening, Thursday afternoon, really, and I'm doing it live. Just like Bill O'Reilly, I'm doing it live. I'm going through your emails as I see them while we record. Flag them in my inbox for Thursdays,

and then go through them while we record the show, because I just think it makes it better that way. That way you know it's not like prepped or anything. So I'm going to get to the Emily at devil make caremedia.com inbox. That is my real email address. Many of you know that because I correspond with you. So that's where you can send me the emails, and I'm going to jump right into it here. This is from Joel who says, hello, Emily? Is it just me? Or when Scott Jennings talks about how these are existing laws that are simply being enforced by the duly elected president, he sounds like David Sorota talking about Lena Kahn when she was in the FTC.

I assume Scott's opinion would be different on the FTC. That's funny. I'm a longtime listener of all things breaking points, and the Ryan Emily episodes are my favorite. I really enjoy y'all's banter and hope you will do a feel. Vaughn podcast or something soon. Have a good happy hour. Thanks, Joel. Appreciate it. I definitely enjoy listening to Theo. The FTC point is funny. It actually reminds me of Brendan Carr when he talks about how the public interest standard is important for broadcasters, you know, like CBS with Colbert or ABC with Kimmel, because it's the law that's on the book, right? He's just enforcing the law

that's on the books. But in a way, we've talked about this a ton on the show. but in a way that actually goes after the left, the argument from the right is, well, you know, this power has always been there. The right has just never used it against left-leaning broadcasters. And Brendan Carr says, you know, change the law. And so Scott's point, if I'm remembering back to the debate that Ryan Jennings, Ryan Jennings, Scott Grimm, no, the Ryan Grimm, Scott Jennings debate that we hosted last week, go back. listen to it if you didn't. But Ryan was saying that Trump was enforcing barbaric laws. And I think Scott was saying he's just enforcing the laws that have been around forever. And to that point, I do think, I remember wanting to ask Ryan. We were running out of time because it was only an

hour debate. But I did want to ask him about that when it comes to detention. Because actually, we're not supposed to have so many migrants coming into the country that we can't detain people while their asylum cases are pending. And that's why you've had so many people just turning themselves in and then waiting years, literally years, to have their asylum cases heard before the second Trump administration. That's what was happening. And the Biden administration was extending humanitarian parole

in all of these different ways. The law has been that you are supposed to remain in detention while these cases are processed. And what the Biden administration was doing was just speeding up the process by which people can wait out their hearings. And that's what's happening with the CPP one appointments. And then you're giving people court dates years in the future because the backlog was so high. So I see what I actually see what Scott was saying there.

And I'm curious how Ryan would have responded to that too. Obviously, we need Congress to step in and make new immigration laws for the long term, obviously. Now, not to close the border. Clearly nobody needed new laws to close the border. But, and Trump proved that, by the way, so did Biden. When as the 2024 election was nearing, Biden basically took more and more steps to slow the influx to a relative trickle. And then Trump just totally stopped the trickle even when he came into office. But for dealing with asylum cases, for dealing with citizenship,

visa laws, green cards, all of that. Obviously, Congress needs to step in, but that's a tall order. Congress is very lazy these days. Ryan says, you did a great job moderating the debate on your show. Ryan and Scott have both made great cases to defend their positions. We need more of this in our country. Thanks so much, Ryan. I appreciate that. I've said this before, but I really love moderating debates. I'm not a big debater myself because I'm always bombarded with questions in my own mind. And I always say more questions than answers. I always feel like I have more questions than answers. And so that's where moderating debates is really fun for me, because you get to kind of be prosecutorial and like ask all of these questions of other people's cases. So I appreciate that, Ryan, because it's something I really, really enjoy doing. And I loved the contrast between Scott and Ryan. And I agree it's something we need more of. I'm so sick of cable news and print publications doing the contrast between. center left and center right. I want contrast between populist left and populist right. I want contrast between far left and far right to the extent those are meaningful labels, because more and more, I think the center left, center right, as it's defined in Washington, really represents Washington. It represents the media establishment. So I always think it's good to get somebody who's willing to defend. And Scott's not, you know, populist right or far right on most policies, but I would say on immigration, I mean, he's pretty MAGA. He was pretty willing to defend the

Trump immigration policy, and that's pretty interesting to contrast with somebody who is totally against it. So I like the contrast between those clear positions. I always find that to be beneficial. All right. This one is from Christine, who says, oh, this was from last Friday, happy Friday. I hope you have a great weekend. I want to start up by saying that I love you, I love that you had Dave Smith on, because personally, I'm a fan of his, because he's 100% authentic. However, my question is, did you listen to Tucker's interview with MTG this past week? I may be misinterpreting this, but I swear she said something about people being radicalized on the right by evangelicals. I didn't go back to re-listen, but I was curious if you had the same take on it

and what your thoughts were. Honestly, I was just curious what your thoughts were on the interview in general. I generally like her, but she does sometimes say things that make me grinned a little. Anyway, happy May. Happy May to you as well, Christine. I have to say, I pay attention to so much of what Marjorie Taylor Green and Tucker both said that that is like the one Tucker episode I've recently not listened to in full. Again, just because I feel like I pay such close attention to both of them. But it's on my list. I just haven't gotten around to it yet. Same thing with the Massey interview that he did this week, both on my list. And they're not right at the top of my list because, again, I've listened to so much what Massey says and so much what Tucker says that

they end up slipping down. So I haven't gotten around to the MTG one yet. I have heard her make a point like this before, though. And it's a common point. I don't actually know. I would assume that Marjorie Taylor Green's kind of evangelical. But it's not an insane thing to say that because evangelicals were very heavily influenced by the dispensationalist. There are a lot of premillennial dispensationalist evangelicals.

Dispensationalism is not just. I mean, it's sometimes, including by me, gets oversimplified. to talk about or reading Israel in the New Testament as political Israel now and into prophecies, not even just in the New Testament, but any time you see Israel mentioned in the Bible

in a prophecy about the end times, dispensationalism, really substitutes or will substitute political Israel, the modern nation state of Israel, rather than the kind of nation of Israel, meaning, and Tucker's talked about this many times, but meaning, you know, what is Israel now after Christ? Right? How is that defined now after Christ? Is it by the modern nation state of Israel? Or does it mean Christians? That's supersessionism, and it's a whole big debate, but it's a common argument. And listen, I'm not a dispensationalist. Dispensationalism isn't just that. It's the belief basically that,

we are, that time is separated into dispensations, literally, dispensations. And there are all kinds of actually different strains of dispensationalism. But it's not crazy to say that because evangelicals have been heavily influenced for many years by that movement, it's kind of been pop Christianity for the past. I mean, I grew up in the 90s and it just sort of influenced me by osmosis with left behind books, which I've talked about a lot. And, um, it, but that's just, like that's just an example of the kind of pop cultural pop Christian, pop cultural Christian beliefs that were really, really popular back then. And again, like it just kind of reached me through osmosis that way. It tends to be people who believe in the rapture. And so if you

believe that, obviously, it's just easy to get people to buy into political support for the modern nation state of Israel. Of course it is. Of course it is. And I think some people took advantage of that. Some people who are just very pro-war took advantage of that. I think the Israeli right understood that if they could find real common cause with this super powerful voting block in the United States, it would just, it's, listen, I think it's rational. I think they made a rational alliance. it's an alliance that I think probably in some ways grew how many Americans believed in this dispensational definition of Israel. But it was rational from their perspective. So, you know, I think it's probably, I can't speak to the tone or the verbatim quote from MTG.

But that's a pretty common argument. Tucker's made it as well. and there's some there is some truth to it but Christians also have agency you know evangelical Christians dispensationalist Christians also have agency you know they have the ability to kind of think through these things and Christine I don't know if that was maybe your your objection to what mtg said and I think it's true you know if you're an adult Christian and you believe in that it's not because you're stupid it's because you thought through it and you believe in it and we can disagree with it I disagree with it but you know I think people have generally a lot of good reasons for believing what they believe, even when I disagree with them.

So I'll have to go back and listen to that interview. I'm sure it's a good one. She's had some pretty interesting experiences. She's not perfect. But I, you know, have a lot of tolerance for people who are rough around their edges in the House of Representatives on both the left and the right. I guess maybe even sometimes the center, people who are from these, like, wealthy purple districts. you kind of understand why they are who they are, because they're supposed to literally represent people. And the Senate's supposed to be kind of the cooling saucer, right?

Was it Madison? Who described it that way? It's in the Federalist papers, the cooling saucer. But in the House of Representatives, you're literally supposed to be representative. And so we have a country full of wonderful, wacky people, and some of them should be in Congress to represent the wonderful wacky people. Now, they should be the best of the wacky people. sometimes, you know, we all have wacky ideas and sometimes we have wonderful ideas, but, you know, we should want, you know, people who are respectable and decent, civil. But, yeah, I think it's just, D.C. has such a low tolerance for people who talk and act like they're normal.

And especially when they're from the South or from, like, quote unquote, flyover country. So I have a little higher tolerance for that because I just think you're representing the people who don't get a, who don't have much of, voice here in Washington. So anyway, that's a long answer to that. Okay. This is from James. This is a really long email. Let me see. James is upset with some, oh, this is about a breaking points interview with Branco March Teach on Epstein. And James says, very frustrating, listening to on Epstein, you keep skirting the edge. It's May 2026, catch a clue already. You mentioned it's like Epstein is cultivating teal. This was in reference to Peter Thiel and Jeffrey Epstein's relationship, which was the subject of

this Jacobin piece. We were interviewing Branko about, and James goes on to say, Epstein cultivated zillions of intel contacts, the outcome of Contacts, the outcome of Galane Maxwell showing up on his doorstep with Daddy Roberts, Global Rolodex of Contacts after his death, or did Epstein and Galane murder him as they gained the most from his death after all? It appears more likely, James goes on to say, that Epstein was the architect behind Palantir, have no idea if he was ever able to leverage it for himself. So I'll just, this is a really long email, but I'll just say on that point, and thank you for the note, James. I'll just say on that point, the CIA itself was, so Palantir, let me just get this, I want to have the dates right.

but Palantir itself was really founded on money from the CIA's venture capital fund. And it sounds like wild and conspiratorial to say that. But actually, like, literally the CIA has a venture capital arm. You can go on their website. It's called Incutel. And you can see who's all on their board. And Palantir really came. Unless there's like Epstein

CIA relationship that predates that I want to say it was the early 2000s. I'm trying to pull it up here without getting in the way of the microphone. But yeah, unless there's an Epstein CIA connection because Kathy Rumler and Epstein are emailing back and forth

in the early 2010s and Epstein is using her, apparently using her. to make inroads at the Obama-era CIA. I think it's likely he already had those inroads just, given that he foiled the CIA. That was around 2011 for stuff from the late 90s all the way up until that date. I think the NSA as well.

FBI CIA, for sure, maybe NSA. But, yeah, I'm sure he had some relationship to the CIA, I'm sorry, but he then, we can see him meet Teal over email. And that's documented in drop site stories. And it's later than 2003. Again, if I'm remembering correctly. So I don't know that that order checks out. And maybe you'll email me with some evidence that it does. But the CIA is very, very interested in Palantir from the beginning, literally funds its early the expansion and my interpretation of the information that we have is Epstein's CIA relationships at that time. I mean, I don't know. That is an interesting question, James. But it doesn't seem like

Epstein is involved enough with the CIA to literally be nudging them towards Palantir at that point in time. and then we do see him, apparently, over email meeting Teal at a later date. So that's my quick response. But maybe you'll email me, James, with more information. Howard sends a video here about a Wisconsin accent of the watch that. Gregory, oh, I read this one on this week's Monday edition of After Party. Gregory emails to talk about Lord of the Rings, Hobbit, C.S. Lewis. I actually had a show on Monday where it was just me.

We didn't have a guest because I wanted to try a version of AfterParty that way. And I think I'm going to do it again. I don't know. I put the open question out to the audience on Monday if you liked it or not. I want to have guests, of course, who are, like, we have so many fascinating, interesting guests. Sometimes I want a little bit of oxygen to build out my arguments, if that makes sense. I think it's a wonderful thing about podcasting is I can take, if I want, 20, 30 minutes. and build a detailed argument or do something in kind of a video essay style to make a point somewhat artfully with evidence and video and the like.

So that was one of the things I was looking forward to about Monday's show. And another thing I was looking forward to was being able to answer some of your happy hour questions on the main show in case people don't tune in to the podcast version. Maybe they just catch clips on YouTube. and then they know, hey, we do this for a full episode on Fridays. So I did answer this question from Gregory on that show. Also, I answered this question from Nate on Monday's show. Are we in a state of perma crisis or does it just feel like it? I love this question.

It's so quick and to the point and it opens up a beautiful discussion about what's happened to humanity over the last century. So I did a whole segment on this at the end of Monday show. I put a couple clips out of it as well, if you haven't caught it yet. Hank says, Emily, I have a feeling that when Dylan Roof shot all those people in the church, Jonathan K. Part wasn't worried about gun violence. More likely, the discussion centered on racism. Oh, boy, that is a good point, Hank. That is a very good point.

We played a clip of K-Part on last week, still reacting to the White House Correspondents and her alleged assassination, or I'm sorry, attempted assassination. And K-Part wanted to turn the conversation to gun violence really quickly, rather than a radical anti-Trump ideology that has maybe permeated the minds of too many people in the country. He wanted to change the subject away from that. And that's a good point. We rightfully talked about the ideology, the,

the strain of virulent hatred and bigotry that motivated Dylan Roof to shoot all of those innocent people who were praying at the church in Charleston, South Carolina. I hate having to think about that tragedy, but it's important to think about it. And that is a very, very good point. Hank, who also says, you're giving way too much credit to Hassan Piker for saying, look to Zoroamam Dani, the same Mamdani who just had to be press during the campaign to criticize the phrase, globalize the intifada, and then just said something like, I wouldn't use the phrase. The same mom-dani who talked about taxing white people slash neighborhoods more or despicably going to Ken Griffin's home to talk about taxing people like

him more. It was almost an invitation for someone to poll a Mangione. You know, Hank, I've seen a lot of conversation about this Ken Griffin thing along the lines of what you said. I have to admit, I don't agree with that. Ken Griffin is a public figure, and especially in a way that Brian Thompson wasn't. Ken Griffin is a very, very public figure, a very political figure who, you know, has intentionally given or seized power than more politicians have. And he's very kind of public about that. So he has a penthouse in a building that Mom Dani was outside of.

Presumably anybody can find that information on the internet. And when you're in a big building like that, it has dormen, you're getting in cars. Anybody who wanted to harm Ken Griffin would have easy access to that information. And I would hope, hope, hope, hope that they would, of course, not do that. but I guess I just you know maybe maybe my reaction is it's probably not good

but it's also maybe not as bad as some people say that it was maybe that's my real position because I don't think I would do it but I also just don't know that it was really that big of a transgression just given how incredibly public Ken Griffin is

I would be like saying in my mind he's so public and he is so political, and he has taken so much power. And again, he's a super rich guy. Of course, that's what many of them do. But I think that's almost like saying, you know, somebody shouldn't film a video outside of, like, Obama's house here in D.C. I guess I would agree.

It's probably not great because, you know, just draws attention to the fact that he lives there. But at the same time, I would assume anybody. who wants to, for whatever reason, do something horrible is not just going to do it because they saw that video. It's pretty easy to find, if that makes sense. So anyway, you know, I was making the argument that Piker was taken out of context in the social murder clip, which I disagreed with, by the way, and did like a couple segments on it on the show. But I did say the broader point he was making was that the left should be very optimistic because of people, like Zoronan Mom Dani, who have been able to, through nonviolent political movements, take power and do something with it.

So that was the point that I was making is, like, I don't think the social murder concept is, you know, I guess maybe it is like standing outside Ken Griffin's home. Not great. Not a good thing to be talking about if you're using it to kind of wink, wink toward why people make decisions that they make. but Piker, I think, was almost incoherent in saying both things at the same time. You know, on the one hand that, well, it's social murder. Does that mean, though, if it's social murder, does that mean violence is justified or non-justified? I think if you start talking about that concept, you then have to offer an answer to that question. And my only point was that he tried to by talking about Mamdani. globalize the intifada.

I don't have to go on too long on that point, but my friends on the left would say intifada is not necessarily violent. It has been used to violent ends by people. It has been used to describe violence by people. And I think that's where Mom Donnie says he doesn't use the phrase. And I get.

I actually think there's some sensitivities to be understood on that question. But I also think it's not categorically when people use it, it's not categorically violent. So getting into some semantics here. Sorry, Hank, about that. But thanks for the email. Always appreciate it.

Howard says, I just watched your latest after-party with the All-Emily format, and it was great. I think this is the way to go. You are, after all, the reason I tune in. This is a really nice email. It's a long one, too, so I'll just, don't have to read it. Listen, I soak in every bit of the flattery. I don't have to read all of it on air.

this says obviously you know more about all this than I ever will but this is American any bonehead can voice an opinion and speaking of opinion I love your show but do hate those damn commercials every time you are Megan do a commercial I get this mental image of Walter Cronkite I picture him back in the glory days

stopping halfway through his broadcast to talk about the best brand of bean dip let's see what else goes what else do we do here just a thought Emily Paradox you have made it clear that you have the same content for politicians that I do but there you are in the most politician-infested place on the planet. Unusual choice.

I will close by saying how much I admire your discipline for completing that great debate, although it meant giving up the Irish Embassy Party. That's true. That was the sacrifice I had to make to moderate the debate between Ryan and Scott Jennings, as I mentioned on that. I think that was on last week's happy hour. As for the ads, the ads are great.

Megan has talked about this before. It's a great way to do independent journalism, like without ever having to take on a massive corporate sponsor where the content of your journalism conflicts with their political and cultural activities or their political, cultural influence, or interests, their political and cultural influence, or interests, I'm sorry. You know, for example, Megan has mentioned before, like, Masa Chips, legitimately amazing.

Love Masa Chips. There is really no coverage. Like, you know how I feel about TALO. You know how I feel about our food supply. It's not, like, the difference between that and selling. out ads to pharma is gargantuan. And so it's a great way to allow independent journalism, I think, to really flourish. So I don't mind doing the ads at all. I love doing the ads. And really only do ads for companies that we believe in and jive with my sort of ideological

transparency and don't have political influence, major political, financial, cultural influences, interests that are going to conflict with the type of reporting that we're doing, if that makes sense. I think for corporate media, it's genuinely very, very difficult for them to cover, you know, for example, war without disclosing that many of their war experts are literally on the board of of defense manufacturers. Like, that is just completely insane. And some of those war experts people love, and some of them really are experts. They have experience.

They're generals. But then they get out and go on a board and don't disclose that they're going to profit from what's happening. And it would be really cynical to think of them putting their head on the pillow at night and being like, yes, yes, another war, I can buy a pool. And I don't think that's how it happens. But when you're on these boards, the profit incentive of the company is to sell more and more and more weapons. And so you become more and more convinced of the goodness of the mission.

It's just so easy in decent people's minds to entangle these interests that the disentangling is almost impossible, which is why you should just disclose it. Anyway, let's go to this next one. Ooh, this is another long one. Emily, I was bummed to hear you say that members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are not Christians. We are referred to as Mormons. However, the LDS Church has asked medias and its members to please refer to us by our full name and not the easier and shorter name Mormons because it leaves out the most important piece of our faith. Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ is central to our faith and we want his name to be prominent. So there's no misconception as to our beliefs in who we

follow. Let's see. I would invite you to consider what actual members of our church say they believe, not just what Catholics or Baptists or other Protestants say we believe. Funny enough, right after you offhandedly made that comment, again, this is a long email. So I'm just going through the I'm trying to go through the important bits as I read through it here. Allie Beth Stucky did an interview with a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Jacob Hanson, from the Thoughtful Faith Channel. I thought that Jacob did a solid job on correcting misconceptions about doctrines that Allie had. You should watch that if you would like to know more about why you are wrong, saying we are not Christians.

Basically, semantics of creedal Christians versus Christians who believe that Jesus and God are separate beings. So actually, Kristen, I'll stop there. I absolutely already watched that. I watch pretty much everything that Alibeth does, and I can do even one better. I've watched multiple debates with Jacob. I've probably spent hours watching Jacob's debates with Christians, with Catholic Christians, with Protestant Christians, like Ali Beth. I've watched Jacob make this case many times, and I disagree with it, and I disagree with it very emotionally.

I disagree with it from what I believe logically as well. But, you know, this is, it's never easy to have these, these conversations, of course. And, you know, I've, I've nothing but, you know, love for Mormons out there. Truly, I mean that. But I think the creedal Christian versus Christian distinction is super, super important, so much so that, listen, it's just my perspective on this. I don't think you should need to qualify Christian. with creedal. I think that is the definition of Christian that the way and the truth and the life is Jesus Christ. Nobody can come through the Father except through me. And yes,

I get that Mormons believe that or LDS, members of the Church of Latter-day Saints, believe that they believe that. I believe that the teachings of the Mormon Church are incompatible with that

and I have listened to many of the debates. and I just can't get around that. So I do think there are many, and I know there are many like Jacob, very, and clearly like Kristen as well, very, very thoughtful Mormons who have, you know, spent many hours considering these arguments and considering, you know, how the teachings of the Book of Mormon can be harmonized with the New Testament. I just fundamentally disagree that they can. and you all know how sensitive I am about definitions and how important I think it is to use words very carefully.

And so that's where for me, I just cannot. There are all kinds of Christians I disagree with Catholics. You know, just like we have disagreements. Protestants and Catholics have deep disagreements. Catholics and Orthodox Christians have deep disagreements and they have deep disagreements with Protestants and the like. these are disagreements that people have fought wars over and part of you know lowercase l liberal pluralism is the challenge and the beauty of living closely with and in with people who come from very different backgrounds and belief systems and you know existing in a society among those people I mean again the beauty and the challenge of it all wrapped in

to one. So I want to be careful here to, of course, just, you know, reiterate nothing but love for my fellow man. But I just fundamentally disagree that those are compatible. And I've spent a good bit of time researching it and thinking about it. And that's the conclusion that I come to. And it's a very deeply, deeply held belief of mine, as is your belief. I know, Kristen, as is Jacob's belief as well. Kristen goes on to mention it's funny that Allie works for Latter-day St. Glenn Beck. She seemed a little hostile toward Jacob in the interview. But Jacob did a great job responding. Kristen says, I emphatically appreciate your testimony of Christ. You're sharing your framing and views and media all believers needed and you do a marvelous job at representing us. I was also heartened to hear

Sagar talk about his high school LDS friends and communicating our positive traits. I feel like it's still culturally acceptable to deride our beliefs and I appreciate Saga talking about us in a positive light. I'm obsessed with breaking points. I love you, Sager and Ryan. Ryan is such a good dude that if all people were like, Ryan liberalism would work. That's so true. If all men were Ryan Grims, no government would be necessary. Unfortunately, there are grifters and usurpers. Kristen says Crystal is her broccoli. Let's see. This is funny. Chris and well, thank you so much for the kind for the kind words and for the very thoughtful email. Every time I, you know, talk about Mormons, every time I talk about LDS world, it's always, you know, I think risking, hurting some folks. And so I try to do it with, again, nothing but love. And from a perspective of somebody who spent a good deal of time, you know, thinking about it. I'm a big, like I've met Mike Lee many times, and I believe Mike Lee is a decent human being,

a very decent human being, which is one of the reasons I think it's important before, you know, rendering judgments to be very, very thoughtful about people's faith backgrounds. And so I've definitely listened to a lot of Jacob. I loved Ali Beth's interview of Jacob. People can go check that out on the relatable channel. It was a great interview. I've watched him to be Catholics as well. well. And again, I just, I just don't agree with the arguments Jacob makes. And I sort of stand by

my point on that. But thank you so much for the email, Kristen, and thank you for being kind in your message and for listening as well. Christine says, hey, Emily, love the show. Thank you for all that you do. You may be the hardest media voice in Washington. You're everywhere. I'm writing because I've heard you mentioned twice. Grand Platner's response about going on Tucker's show. He alluded to the fact that he doesn't have an answer and he's wrestling with it, to which you characterize as relatable and real. While I can see your perspective, this was a red flag moment for me. Why would he be wrestling with having a conversation with a populist on the other side? Is it because he's waiting for his advisors to let him know if this would aggravate his far left base? I see this is more

of a calculated response than an authentic one. Anyone who plays this, we shouldn't platform or talk with the other side is a red flag for me and totally not relatable. Thank you for all you do. Christine, thank you for that email. That's a good question because I mentioned on Megan's show and then on After Party, I think it was Monday, that Platner did this interview, a super interesting interview with David Serota of Lever News. And, you know, the whole interview was very raw. Like, it was, you know, filmed on from an angle that was like too low, but they were literally just talking.

And Platner was kind of torn. And he openly mentioned he was kind of torn about whether to go on air with Tucker. Tucker said he'd been trying to reach out. or said that he was hoping to talk to Platner in Tucker's New York Times interview that aired last Saturday, last Friday or Saturday. And I actually found it, you know, if Graham is really back and forth on that, and I think he is. Again, I said I thought that was pretty real for him to just, like, openly tell people that. I wonder to what extent he's torn about it for like moral reasons or torn about it because it just becomes a distraction.

To me, it sounded real because it seemed like he was clearly, and Sarota, clearly leaning in the direction of, yeah, of course I'll talk to Tucker Carlson. And that is the correct position. That is the correct position. I just believe in that you should talk to journalists for the most part. There are some exceptions on a case-by-case basis. think. But it also can, and this is where Tucker landed, he told New York Times, the New York Times this week, that he regretted his Flentes interview. And I'm not trying to say it's all apples and oranges here. I'm just trying to say sometimes when you talk to somebody you really, really disagree

with. And some of your own people really, really disagree with. It does just become a plain distraction. And so you have to ask yourself, cost benefit analysis, is the juice worth the squeeze? Is it worth it for Platner to go take his message to somebody he disagrees with on a lot? if it then becomes this topic that everybody talks about, instead of, again, steelmanning it from his perspective, why people can't afford health care, why gas prices are so high, and why people can't afford homes, why rent is crazy and the like. And if it takes away from being able to have those conversations, is it worth it? And so that I actually genuinely think is a real conversation. And that's interestingly where Tucker landed on his, his fun test conversation ultimately.

I thought that was really interesting. And so I get what you're saying, Christine. Like, you and I both agree. Like, of course, of course. But that is a genuine, complicating factor. I hope they do talk. But I hope they do talk, by the way, because I think just like logically from Platner's perspective, first of all, you should talk to independence, conservatives who live in rural Maine, who like Tucker and might dismiss you as like a kami if they don't hear you. So just like politically it makes more sense. But the reason that I hope they do it is just I think it would be a really, really interesting discussion and they can push each other. And I'd love to hear that, frankly. So that's where that's where I am on that. But that is a

question, Christine. Bob says, I was on the cusp of becoming a devoted listener until your last three or four after our podcasts. I will not even need to name the podcasts or interviewees. They will be obvious to you. The exchanges below, in addition to the emails you received regarding the Smith podcast, exhibit a lack of logic and the inability or desire to ask the obvious question. So Bob lays out, it looks here like a hypothetical conversation. It says, first, paraphrased and taken from different portions of the interview. Donald Trump is a racist. I'm a good man because I will sit down and talk with racists. No one should call anyone else a racist. Host, priding herself on her preponderance to ask hard

questions, crickets. I'm trying to make sense of this one second here. I don't know if preponderance is the right word there. Let's see. So if... Okay, so this is about, this is about Daryl. Seems clear to me now that this is about Daryl. Donald Trump is a racist. I'm a a good man because I was sit down and talk with racist. No one should call anyone else a racist. Host me, crickets. Well, towards the end of that conversation, we did talk about what the proper definition of racism is. And that's part of having, I talked about this a ton on the happy hour after that at the time, because the Daryl interview was as controversial as Dave Smith interview, I'll say. And anytime a bunch of people are unhappy, it's not everyone. It's usually

a handful of people who are unhappy about interviews from different sides. Then I'm like, like, okay, probably doing something right because I think a lot of people just want to hear those different takes. And in this case, that Dave Smith interview was, we're still getting emails about Dave Smith, and it's May, but I don't mind it at all. I like hearing from all of you and still getting emails here about Daryl, but I will say I did a whole episode after that one where we spent a lot of time talking about Daryl. And I think, do I, I think, do I, I actually, that was one of the times where I said I probably should have gotten to this sooner and maybe even more explicitly, but wanted to have, you know, a good flow in the conversation. And I believe really strongly in the broader point that Daryl was making. So that was the conversation we had at the time.

But yeah, I did ask about that towards the end of the interview. But anyway, you go back and listen to that happy hour episode, Bob, if you want to hear how I addressed it at the time. second example from Bob. Host, the left is responsible for the majority of violence. Dot, dot, dot. Everybody knows that life isn't fair, but when you're getting slapped, dot, dot, dot, dot, by the people who are rigging the system, dot, dot, dot.

I can only assume that you're saying that people on the right are rigging the system. Bob says, please explain in what way. Are they rigging it only for those on the right? If not, why would there be more violence coming from the left? If it is because you just, just the current administration is getting the blame and the right is hesitant to be violent against their own,

where was the violence from the right during the Biden administration? best regards, Bob. Bob, no, I don't think that it's just people on the right who are rigging the system. I think it's the Uniparty that rigs the system. And I've been very, very clear about that. This was a huge element of my daily coverage, mostly back at the Federalist, during the DEI boom.

That was being pushed by corporations. That was being pushed by progressive millennials in middle management. And then some more conservative. but probably like Clinton voting boomers who are at the top of a lot of these corporations. That was absolutely, and politicians and regulators who were cowardly or supportive. So no, I think it's absolutely the Uniparty that is rigging the system in a way that is frustrating people. Like, look at student loans. That's the reason these campuses have been able to build pools and hot tubs or whatever.

Education is a big lobby for Democrats, and they have kept doling out those student loans. The Uniparty has been really supportive of student loans and grants. There's a shockingly low percentage of those that are actually being repaid right now, by the way. So that's Uniparty, but a great example of Uniparty kind of spearheaded, led for many years by the left. And I think the same thing is true of these corporations. that were screwing with people's pension money in ESG funds for however long they tried to get away with that.

So no, I mean, I would never, ever, ever, ever argue that the right is rigging the system. I really believe that the Uniparty is rigging the system. And the reason I think that you probably have seen recently more violence from the left, although I read Robert Pape's research on Monday's show because he has found polling on the question. Like, it's hard facts, pulling on the question that there are some people who are Trump supporters that have been, it's like 10%. It's not a big number.

But these little minorities on the left and the right, I think he said it was about 10%, are expressing higher level. of justification for political violence. And I think the reason that is happening is because the Uniparty is rigging the system. And I feel like I was very clear about that, but I apologize, Bob, if not. And that's just going to drive people, some people nuts. And what PAPE was saying is the bigger that percentages, the bigger pool you have, from which insane people, sometimes literally like schizophrenic people, other times, people like what appears to be the case in what appears to be the case in the Mangione example,

a person who was capable of reason, so capable of reason, coming to this awful conclusion that violence is justifiable because it's revolutionary. And I think that's probably why you see such a high number. As we have talked about many, many times, that economist UGov poll from after Charlie Kirk was killed, it was a higher number of people who were young and on the left. When you separated it out by age, you saw that was the demographic of people who were more likely to say political violence can sometimes be justified. I don't think it's because they're more exasperated with the system than people on the right are. I think it's because there is a very long tradition of Marxist thought

about revolutionary violence that is very, very contemporary. Of course, there are some fringe right groups that have that theory, but I think it's just, it's more current for people on the left to be revisiting. People on the left, young people tend to be more revolutionary anyway. And so the left has that history of like young revolutionary Marxism. And there is a strain of justification for political violence that can be easily picked up on, more easily picked up on by that. So Bob, to say, I can assume you are saying that people on the right are rigging the system, no, I think it's the uniparty, and some of which are center right. So anyway, that's my response. Thank you very much for the note, Bob. Here we go. This is Annetta, who says,

hi, Emily. Over the years, I have listened to various right-wing podcasters to keep up with politics, says listen to Daily Wirehosts Walsh and Claven being your favorites. Enjoy Mark Kaye. His podcast's very entertaining. Started following him when he had a radio show. Lately, I've been listening to you, Patrick Pet, David, and Dave Rubin, along with Megan Kelly. The rift between some of these podcasters has made me uncomfortable. I wish they would realize that they have a common enemy, the Democrat Party, and would stop this petty squabbling. I recently listened to Megan's show where you and she discussed Tucker Carlson's NYT interview, which she praised.

My question to you is why didn't she show the part where the interviewer asked why Tucker called Trump the Antichrist? He flat out denied it, even though she had him on video saying it. What are your thoughts on that part of the interview? Although I don't like the rift in the party, I do think Tucker along with Candace have lost the plot. First of all, we have done, I've answered a lot of questions about Candace over the last, like, what, six months now? There are a bunch of happy hour episodes on it. It's usually in the headlines. So you could probably find my thoughts.

My thoughts haven't changed much since then. It's probably really the same. So probably not too much use in going back on that now, because I'd just be saying the same thing over and over again. I can't speak to why Megan didn't play that part of the interviewer, but I would ask Annette a question myself, which I've been asking people on social media ad nauseum for the last few days. Respectfully, why didn't you ask me about the part of the interviewer Tucker Carlson

apologized for saying incorrectly that he didn't utter the words Lulu asked him about. And the only reason I'm being a little cheeky with Annetta is because I got into it back and forth with someone on social media. And I said, you know he apologized for that. And they said, no, he didn't. And I was like, no, no, literally. Like, that clip was circulated so much. So Lulu Garcia Navarro asked Tucker Carlson about an episode he did. I think it was the one right after Trump's wipeout civilization tweet, where he asked a question. could Trump be the anti-Christ? That's not the verbatim, but that's an accurate paraphrase of the question that he asked.

And he said, I didn't say that. Those words never came out of my mouth. She said, yes, they did. Here is the quote. And then when presented with a quote, Tucker Carlson said, I sincerely apologize. I don't know. I think he said what I was trying to get at. I think he said what he believes he was probably trying to get at

was that people are asking that question, something like that. And to be clear, he was asking it as a question in that original monologue he did. But he was presented, like you could tell in the interview, he really believed he didn't say that. And then when he was presented with evidence, he said it, he stopped cold in his tracks and apologized for being wrong about it straight to the camera. And so people were circulating that clip without circulating his apology,

which I think is totally out of context. And I don't think it's appropriate because he did apologize. And that clip went massively, massively viral. And so people just thought that he was content to tell this lie and blah, blah, blah. The New York Times doesn't have the video to show you while you're in the interview. She was able to read off the quote because she had it in front of her. But when that happened, he apologized. Maybe I can just pull up the quote here, just so you have the full context. And it was really, really frustrating. Like, this drives me crazy. There's so many substantive arguments people can make against Tucker. They can make them against me. They can make them against Dave Rubin, Megan. There's so many real arguments that we can have

that when people circulate clips that leave folks feeling misled, that's part of why I was going back and forth of it on people on social media because I thought they were being misled. And that's the response I got from at least one person when I was going back and forth about this for a while. And that sucks. Like, these people who are clipping things like that are genuinely misleading people.

And you can make really good arguments without doing that. In fact, you'll make better arguments without doing that. that. Yeah, this person was sending me tons of tweets about it. And they said, um, what do you think of the four times Tucker was caught red-handed lying? I don't know. Um, about that. But this person said one example when they said, why did you say this? And he said, I didn't. And they play a clip of him saying it. Just trying to understand if you actually see these things or turn a blind eye. I said, pretty clear he didn't intentionally lie. He quickly apologized on camera when presented with his own words instead of continuing to deny them. Uh, and then this person said, I just rewatched for your

benefit. This was his response to her verbatim. Where's the apology? And I said, it's literally right here and posted the transcript where Lula Garcia Navarro said, I just want to make the point that you did say, quote, could this be the antichrist? And then you said, quote, well, who knows? You did use those words. And Tucker said, quote, man, then my apologies to you. If there's a video of me saying that, I guess what I'm expressing to you is it doesn't reflect exactly how I feel. It suggests a precision that I haven't arrived at that Trump is the Antichrist. You'd have to define Antichrist. And I know that I can't define it, and it's not clearly defined in the New Testament or Old Testament. So again, people can make these arguments against Tucker Carlson, and they should be able to make good

arguments because what he says he knows is controversial, and we'll have a much better conversation if it is all properly contextualized and leaves people with all of the information that they should have. So I have no idea why Megan didn't play that clip. I can't speak to the editorial judgment there, but I can't say, I thought our conversation. about the Tucker interview was great because overall I thought the Tucker interview was great. I thought they had a really good back and forth and she pushed him in some interesting directions and he pushed her in some interesting directions. And that's why I just, I like Tucker because he makes you, he's very provocative. And I like when people engage in good faith with Tucker because

of course there are arguments that he should grapple with and he's happy to grapple with them. And we just don't have to be like so. Part of this is because like I've had a lot of friends who've worked with Tucker over the years. I do know him a bit. And there aren't a lot of like decent people in Washington. He is like genuinely in person a decent guy. Greta Van Susserun was tweeting this week that one of the, she said like true fact about Tucker, hair and makeup people always thought that he was the greatest person.

I didn't spend as much time around hair and makeup people in cable news world as Greta, who worked with them at two different networks. But over like the five plus years that I was doing a ton of Fox, that was the, I would tell people that, like, the answer you get when you ask them who the actual nicest person is, Tucker. It's like universal. They would all say it was Tucker. And that is absolutely true. I can definitely vouch for that. And so part of this is I have that experience, which in a lot of other people, don't have. And that's probably coloring my perspective to some degree. But I also just don't feel this need to rush to disqualify people one direction or the other. Like Dave Rubin, I'm still listening to willing, willing to listen to Dave Rubin, even though he has said awful, awful, awful things. He like unfollowed me on X. He says terrible things about Megan. Whatever. I don't like it.

I think it's really, really bad, but I still listen to people. And I don't like that. impulse to just blackball people's perspectives. I just don't like it because I assume that other people have good reasons for believing what they believe. And sometimes you can obviously see, okay, no, you know, this person is just trying to be a troll or whatever. But I try to engage in good faith with folks and not write them off. I try to never write people off ever. for the most part, because once you do that, you start to some degree finding yourself in a bubble. And I understand, by the way, this is part of it, why people disagree with me on that, why they think, you know, maybe they think Tucker's lost the plot or whatever.

You know, obviously, I don't think you have to, like, take everybody. You don't have to say that this person is extremely credible or you don't even have to think they're a good person. But it just makes way more sense to deal with people's arguments than to deal with them. because a broken clock is right twice a day. You know? And you don't have to listen to people you don't like. You know, you don't have to do it.

I do it because it's kind of my job. But I just see so many people who don't listen. My job is listening to every episode of the Megan Kelly show because I do the Series XM wrap-up show. I listen to every episode in full. And so it's extra frustrating. I also listen to most techer episodes in full to see people just saying things are not true. totally out of context and so many people starting to believe things that are utterly out of context

because people are clipping videos and everybody does it no matter what strain ideologically you believe in happens everywhere and it's it's so unhelpful so anyway that stuff really gets me wound up but I wish people in general and maybe this is what you're talking about with the podcast stuff and that I wish people in general would deal with the ideas yeah, anyway. So that's what I would respond to that. It's not a bad question. Hank says, I'd like to think Mr. Baker is right about this, but leftists write the history, no matter what happens with the latest indictment of James Comey, his tenure heading, the FBI is defined by his dishonesty and widely in irresponsible behavior. That is the subheading of an article by Thomas Baker

in The Federalist that Hank sent me. I'll have to read that. Hank also says, Rubio's the man. Now, Rubio's doing the press briefings? What are the as he gets trapped by the Florida Panthers next month. Yeah, Caroline Levitt's on maternity leave, and Marco Rubio stepped up to the podium this week with some very viral moments. He's always been... Some people got really caught up by that bad debate he had in 2016,

but this guy has always been... I'm not talking on a policy basis, but this guy's always been a very talented politician. Very talented politician. This is a funny email from John. who says he met Grand Platner in a shooting class 15 years ago. Nice. Marlowe says, I must say you keep me hopping. I consider myself to have an above average vocabulary, but I keep having to look things up while watching listening to you. High slash low church,

tiki-tacky and epistemology are a few. You are my personified, increase your word power from Reader's Digest. I don't know about that, Marlowe. Marlowe. Also, the only reason that's, if that's true, the only reason is because, again, my job is listening and reading to everything. And so I just, I read a ton. It's like sun up to sundown. And then longer, actually. Like, it's the amount of words that I have to read in hours is like overwhelming. Marla says, I want to thank you for providing your take on Spencer Pratt as having learned good lessons from his time on scripted reality TV as a villain. And I had no idea who he was. Ask my 29-year-old daughter if she knew who he was. And she said, not really maybe had a show back in the day.

Do you think most voters have any idea of his past? I hope he writes and delivers a hero script. Ooh, good point, Marla. And actually starts the comeback of L.A. He might not even need to write a hero script. It depends on how badly people dislike Karen Bass and Nickyaraman. But, no, I don't think a ton of voters have a really clear idea of who Spencer Pratt is. I think it's your 29-year-old daughter is probably just too young.

It's probably people who are like early 30s, probably I would say like maybe like 32 to 50, maybe who know who Spencer Pratt is just because they would have been watching reality TV around 2005-ish when the Hills was on. That might maybe 2006, 2007, if I'm remembering correctly, but that that would be. be my guess. So no, I don't think a lot of people have like clear memories. LA, they might, just because it's the entertainment industry and people pay closer attention to that stuff for work and everything and all those folks live around them. So, but no, I think people don't. It's pretty obvious when you hear him that he's not a politician, though, which probably works to his advantage. Interesting question. Malo also says, I have watched commercials in the Philly Metro area, advertising if you live in PA, you two can be paid to take care of a loved one. Just call 1-800.

dot, dot, dot. Interesting, Marlowe, who also says she's looking forward to checking out Liz Collins documentaries. Was your mom happy Mother's Day for me. Thank you, Marlowe. I will. And happy Mother's Day to you as well. Very interesting point here about the Philly Metro area, because that's exactly what Luke Roziak was talking about in Ohio, people making money off of being home health care providers and encouraging others to be home health care providers. I'm very eager to see we're Luke's reporting on this goes. And by the way, just to underscore this point about dealing with ideas more so than people or brands or whatever, Megan mentioned on this week's on Monday, Monday's episode of the Megan Kelly Show. She was like, I'm rooting for the Daily Wire.

And Luke is obviously from The Daily Wire. And Megan and I were critical of the business aspect of the Daily Wire on Monday show, which I have followed and covered actually the Daily Wire's business model for a long time. I was on the set of one of their movements. movies back in like 2019, 2020. No, it must have been like 2021, actually. I really like Dallas Sonnier, who works with them on those films. And I have a lot of good things to say about some of what comes out of The Daily Wire. I do think they've made some critical business mistakes. I think on Megan's show, I was talking about it as a new media example to learn from. Just the expansion, I don't think was handled particularly well. And I think people there would

probably tell you that as well, but I'm certainly rooting for Luke Roziak to do more of this excellent reporting. I'm a big Michael Knowles person, as you know, and so I don't like this impulse to just, you know, sign people or companies or organizations off. I just, I don't like it because it's just too black and white for me when, you know, there's always some nuance, and I like hearing from people I disagree with when they're making good arguments. So I'm always willing to deal with good arguments from people I disagree with. And I'm always willing to hear arguments from people I agree with who maybe I disagree with on other issues. And I'm just honestly rooting for anybody in new media who's going to undermine the power of the legacy institutions.

And Luke Roziak is by the just such a fantastic reporter. I've been following him since he was, man, I don't know if he was anywhere before the Daily Caller, but he did some really scrappy, great investigative work back. I mean, this was like more than 10 years ago, well over 10 years ago now. He did some great reporting for the Daily Wire on Loudoun County. Such a good reporter, good guy too. What a pleasure to have him on. Matthew says, if Trump was able to get Jim Acosta and Michael Tracy to do a six-round exhibition match at the White House lawn,

UFC Freedom 250 in June, who do you think would win other than America? If you can make your own fight card for that event, who would you pair up? I know I would absolutely have to see a Mary Catherine Hamm versus Jeffrey Toobam match and maybe a Justin Robert Young versus Joe Scarborough or we could let Marco and Vance just do get out in eight rounds to become the 2028 nominee.

I mean, this UFC fight happening on Trump's birthday for America 250 on the White House lawn is so stripped straight from the idiocracy script. This is just completely insane. I cannot get behind this. UFC fight on the White House lawn. Do I think the media is going to make way too big of a deal out of it? Yes, yes, absolutely a thousand times, yes. I don't have any particular, like, snobbish disdain for UFC. I've only watched it, like, a couple of times. I don't really have a strong opinion on

UFC, but using the White House lawn on your birthday to, like, watch two men fight in front of you. It is, like, so on the nose Roman decadence. But in this, like, American. idiotocracy way. Who would I want? Mary Catherine versus Jeffrey Tubin is incredible. I think Jim Acosta would beat Michael Tracy, to be honest. We thought about covering the Hampton Inn debacle after the substack party, which I wasn't able to get into.

It was like a block away before they shut it down. It was running parallel to White House correspondence dinner, and Acosta and Tracy famously got into a fight over Julie K. Brown's Epstein reporting at the substack event. and then Tracy challenged him to a fight outside of a Hampton Inn. And then I provided my travel tip, which is actually that new or newly renovated holiday ins or Hampton Inns are actually often nicer than the local boutique option and sometimes even nicer than like a rundown good option. Like they can actually be nicer than, you know, the very very,

run-down Hilton, for example, or a rundown Marriott, for example. I know that sounds crazy, but sometimes it's true. Like a new holiday inn, that could be good stuff. So anyway, I do think Acosta would win. And I just, Matthew, think this is a great idea, Mary Catherine versus Jeffrey Tubin, if she's willing to get that physically close to Jeffrey Tubin, which many people would not be. All right. David says, I'm a big fan of Afterparty, and I think Wednesday's episode is a good example of why we need video on Spotify. You showed clips of two documentaries and a clip from Spencer Pratt's debate that I now have to pull up on YouTube. Please add, or I guess I should ask, can you please add video to Spotify? Great question. I actually don't know the answer to it.

I really have no idea. I watch videos on Spotify all the time. Like I watch Tucker on Spotify. So, yeah, that's interesting. David says, bonus comment. I'm a fan of Ryan Grim, but I would have preferred more actual data from him in the debate last week. He gave anecdotal accounts of the overachieving student that was deported and the Palestinian woman abducted on the street for contributing to a letter critical of Israel, both of which are very persuasive, but is there data showing how common stories like these are? Yeah, David, this is a good point. I always try to, immigration data is not, it's so murky because there are so many people who are trying not to get counted, basically. That's why, like, even having the known godaways,

it's like, I'm glad that we have known godaways, but that means there are unknown of ways, right? So some of this information is super murky. But I do always try to make the point, you know, when talking about Lake and Riley, for example, or Justin Nungeret, that there is a, like, that is part of a broader pattern. Like, it is not exception. It's not exceptional, right? Or, well, let's say, exceptional is the wrong word. It is, it is not just anecdotal. It is tied to a broader pattern. Now, pro-immigration people will say, well, the illegal immigrant community, once you take illegal immigration as a crime off of their record, have a lower rate of crime than Native born Americans, which is, again, utterly unpersuasive because 100% of crime from non-citizens living

in the country illegally is preventable. And secondly, people do quibble with those numbers. thirdly, it's, we have plenty of crime already to deal with in the United States. We're overwhelmed in some cities by crime from citizens. You don't need to layer an additional problem unnecessarily on top of it. And it is unnecessary when you have enough people to work here in the United States. Definitely will be an adjustment period for some states in some areas. But you hear stories, this is really, really hard to. find data on. So I'll have to rely on stories, but you hear stories of, you know, meatpacking,

uh, meatpacking companies having to get rid of their workers and then having, um, waiting rooms full of American citizens the next day of people applying for jobs. There are all kinds of problems that come with, you know, stopping our addiction to cheap and often illegal labor. Um, I'm not arguing that that won't be the case, but it's, it's not necessary to have so many non-citizens living in precarity in the country, and it's so bad for them in many cases. First and foremost, it's bad for the American people who have to deal with preventable crime. Murder, a lot of DUIs. There are, there's theft, a lot of drug offenses. It's just unnecessary, and it is concentrated in ways that are detrimental to local population in some places as well. Mark passes along,

Oh, anyway, just to finish that thought, David. That is why I do think it's good to provide. It's always good to provide data. I will say in Rains defense, data on immigration stuff is very tricky to find. The Ramesa Ostrick story sticks out to me as like the one that is so objectionable. And I think that that one doesn't necessarily need data to back it up because what's objectionable to me about that one case is if you, you say that her opinion in that that pro bDS tufts student newspaper op-ed she was one of i think four people on the byline if you say that that is a threat to the foreign policy of the united states the reason again

i don't think you need statistics is because that is a designation then the government can turn inward on the american people right it sets a precedent the one case sets a precedent uh but i am much more concerned to your point. And this is, yeah, I would be curious what Ryan would say to this. I am, I think it is a much, I think crime from non-citizens in this country is a much bigger immigration problem than the Trump administration setting what is a very bad precedent on what constitutes a threat to the foreign policy of the United States in terms of speech. Because it's life or death. Like right now people are dying at the hands of non-citizens. American citizens are dying at the hands of non-citizens. And people are getting paid less and are, our economy is all messed up because of it. So it's always going to keep those sort of things in perspective. Mark tells the story here about the Reagan Ranch. I mentioned last week working with the Reagan Ranch. And Mark, I'm going to pass this a long.

I'll probably get your permission first, but I'll pass this a log to the folks out there. Joshua says, hey, Emily, love the shows regarding Iran and how to get out of it. I won't pretend to know how to do that, but what do you think of this possible approach to how to end the war without Trump seeming like any deal is just another taco? If Trump bombs at power plants, bridges, ports, and perhaps Card Island, taking out their infrastructure, yes, I know the IRGCS generators, etc., for themselves, but it would still hurt. He would have the anti-war crowd in the same place and be in a better position with the pro-war crowd when he eventually ends up with a deal, because at that point he'd done everything he could without ground troops, and that would give him credibility for trying to break them even if he ends up. stuck in a crappy deal if that happens. At least Iran is in an even worse place than they are now overall. Josh says, do you think that's a viable option as a possible least harmful to Trump and Republicans' overall solution that would allow an off-ramp when Iran is still unwilling to concede?

Well, there's a political aspect to this and a moral aspect to this. And I will say, Josh, one thing I kind of disagree with in this hypothetical is that he would be in a better position, quote, he would be in a better position with the pro-war crowd when he eventually ends up with a deal because at that point he'd done everything he could without ground troops. Because this is, I just heard that argument after Midnight Hammer and that wasn't enough. And then this war already hasn't been enough. The deal that Donald Trump was considering via Axios, according to Axios, where there was a moratorium on enrichment for like 15 years, and then a lifting of sanctions on Iran

and an unfreezing of billions of dollars in assets. Mark Levin immediately freaked out about that, and so did others like him who said, no, that's a no-go. So I actually don't believe. I mean, I feel like there's always give an inch, take a mile. There's always a given inch, take-a-mile dynamic on the table. with people who basically don't want an Iran with, don't want, let's say a sovereign Iran with, you know, radical Shia Islamists in charge at all.

And while I think it is better for the United States, you know, if you could wave your magic wand, and better for probably most of the Iranian people and say, you know, they don't want radical. Shia Islamists to be in charge of Iran. If you could wave your magic wand, I think that's certainly better for everyone. But there's no means to that end without making the situation worse in the long term. That's my perspective.

So I just, I think anything short of that, you always hear, all right, more, either immediately or six months later. And so I actually don't know politically that would leave him, but practically, pragmatically, I don't know that it would really help. And then I think politically it would still not be enough to put him in a better position with the pro-war folks.

But I also don't think that's a huge political constituency. I think when you're looking at polling on the war right now, the politics of the war for Republicans and for Trump's approval ratings, frankly, people just want it to end. and so I don't know, I don't know that he would be able to, I have a suspicion. And this was possible, what, on Wednesday, when he was saying we were close to a deal that we've heard that many times. I have a suspicion that the way this does all end is with a very tenuous deal that kind of looks like what happened in Gaza, where it allows the war to just go to the back burner of the news cycle. so it's it's a deal that's kind of agreed to theoretically with a framework and then it kind of fizzles but slowly in the background that's my i have a feeling he he it's possible i'm not saying it's likely but it's possible that

he gets to a place like that um and you know draws it out it draws out to the end of the presidency and yeah, that's kind of what I'm, if he gets like a ceremonial deal, we've seen that in some of his peace negotiations. He gets to a ceremonial deal and is able to, to your point, to your point, Joshua, he's able to kind of have a public relations victory that'll stick in the, I guess, in the new cycle and allow that to just kind of fade into the background. Obviously what I'm describing is very, very difficult and hard to conceive of what it would look like. but I just, it does seem like he is trying to find that moment where he can make the victory cry stick and just move on. So it doesn't seem impossible to me that he lands on that at some point. And maybe it's not a real peace deal. It's more just like a de-escalation deal.

Okay, let's see, just a few more here. All right. Andrew says, Emily, question about section two of the Voting Rights Act. Is this not just racial affirmative action for the House of Representatives? I'm in favor of ensuring representation for groups, but it seems like only racial diversity is what matters. So many other demographic indicators such as urban, rural, rich, poor, or coastal versus inland could be used in addition to race to ensure diverse representation. In my ideal world, you would increase the House and have smaller representation. So you can then ensure all of the groups previously mentioned are represented.

It's a central issue here that representation is a zero-sum game instead of a non-zero-sum game. I'm against tracking Section 2 of the VRA because it opens up more redistricting and we don't have a better system to replace it. Thank you for answering the questions. Well, Andrew, this is a very good question. Crystal and Saga had a great debate about this on one of this week's shows. You just plug that into the YouTube search and it will come up. But my own position, I'm with Sager on this one and I guess kind of with you on this one as well, Andrew. Nobody likes gerrymandering. Everybody believes now that it is necessary to gerrymander.

You know, every partisan believes it's necessary to gerrymander because otherwise it's unilateral disarmament, right? If there's no fix to gerrymandering, if there's no serious end on the table, then you can't just disarm yourself. And so that's the cycle, vicious cycle that we are now in. It's far from an ideal world. There are some gerrymander defenders out there who make interesting, provocative arguments, but it's far from an ideal world. I think that much is obvious. I just don't believe in any laws that push us back on race relations, meaning that privilege people because of the color of their skin in one direction. Or, like, to say, like, affirmative action, actually, as Andrew describes.

That is not, I don't think that's good, whether it's boosting or attempting to discriminate, right, like Jim Crow laws, because I think race neutrality is so legal, race blindness is something that we've worked very hard for, and it is good. And so I just don't like anything that in the name of affirmative action uses racial preferences. I don't like it. As for the rest of the question, I was telling some people this week, like the worst case scenario for me is a, you have more members of Congress here in D.C., like a 600-person House of Representatives. That's just really from a D.C. resident perspective. I don't know what the fix is. That probably is the fix. Henry Olson, I think, has argued that you can expand the House of Representatives to be

more in line. Like, it works in Europe to be more in line with like a 600-ish number. I don't know if Henry said that specifically. But maybe that's the fix. I don't know. I mean, this is not my area of expertise, but I know the system right now is bad, very bad. It is not anybody's ideal. This is someone who says, this is from Jamie. The only reason I still watch Kelly is because of your show and your show alone. The minute you leave, I do too. Kelly is not being fair nor accurate. And yes, I do happen to understand the sticky wicket we find ourselves in over Iran, but to absolutely mislead viewers. Well, that is a bridge too far. My nephew is active duty, so Kelly can try to support America instead of raging on about Iran and their wholesome war choices like not bending a knee.

I'm so upset at her. And this person linked to a clip that said, Megan Kelly's Tucker take was painfully dishonest. This video argues there were good and bad moments from, this is a note from producer Kelly because it's an Instagram question and says Megan should have acknowledged the good and bad moments and took issue with Tucker's comments about Muslims, Jesus, and the Antichrist. Well, okay, so I do think the interview had good and bad moments. I also think that overall it was great. I guess we talked about this earlier and we went through the Antichrist thing earlier in the show. But I will also say the stuff about Islam is also getting, I think, really taken out of, I don't know if context is the right way to put it, but like not considered, we're getting a little bit myopic about certain comments because when you zoom out, it is absolutely true. And Megan said this on Pierce Morgan show this week, that Tucker and her as well have been evaluating whether some of their beliefs about Islam have been based on propaganda pushed by, um,

supporters of Israel who really, really want to galvanize U.S. foreign policy and create a support system in public opinion against the Islamic countries neighboring it that could be threats to it. And so, yeah, I mean, it's true. They've both mentioned that. But they've also, and this is where the myopia gets a little grading to me, you know, There was clips going around this week of Megan from January talking really tough about either the problem of radical Islam in the United States. She always says that by saying she has, she always, always talks about that in the context of saying she has Muslim friends. Like, I noticed that. I shouldn't say always, but I noticed that often when Megan talks about this.

And Tucker himself has been critical of Islam in the past. He has, yes, made the point recently that some of this is based on propaganda. But it's not a flip-flop. It's like, it's not a, maybe Tucker has changed his mind. And maybe Megan will change your mind. I don't know. But that doesn't mean to an extent. But I don't know that it constitutes a, quote, flip-flop if you're still critical of radical Islam.

Like, that's, like, Tucker talks about that on his show too. He says, like, I don't support Sharia law. And then there will be a clip of him where people are verbatim attributing a quote. I covered this on After Party, verbatim attributing a quote to him that he did not say about Sharia law. And he'll talk about this and show, be like, am I against Sharia law? Of course, I'm a Christian. And that never makes it into the clips. It never makes it into the clips.

And so I think, yes, it's true that interviews have good and bad qualities to them. I don't have any problem with covering like the big picture of the conversation. But I also think a lot of what people were objecting to was based on really misleading clips, really, really misleading clips that were just leaving stuff out. And so anyway, that would be my response. Appreciate the note, Jamie. Yeah, I just, my new, like, cause is going to be, my new life's purpose is going to be begging people. And I don't know if this is true of you, Jamie, but I think some of this is, you're so down. stream of the clip-based epistemology.

There's the social media algorithm-based epistemology and the clip-based epistemology. They are the same thing. But I just am begging, I think before you render a public judgment on social media, which makes rendering public judgments seem so breezy and casual, but I think before we do it, and this is not me trying to be patronizing or anything like that. I just grew up in the social media age. And I think we are way too Blase about publishing public judgments. When you are posting messages on social media, that is an act of publishing.

It is like the definition of publishing. It is the new printing. You are putting it out onto the virtual paper. And I think we are way too casual and blazay about doing that. And I think you owe it to the public. you're shouting in the public square and you owe it to the public because you're influencing the discourse, you're making noise in the public square, virtually, of course,

but I think you owe it to the public and to yourself as a citizen to, before you render public judgments, watch full interviews. And if you don't have time to watch a full interview, then you don't have to render the public judgment. the internet doesn't need you to render public judgments on absolutely everything, to publish a public judgment on absolutely everything. So you should do it when you have watched a full interview and have not been misled by accounts

that have ulterior motives. You know, if you're running a Twitter account and your job is to disqualify Megan Kelly and to bolster support, your job is to disqualify people. You know, you believe in Israel. And God bless you, you. You believe in Israel and that's your cause and you want to undermine her critics here, then tactically what you're going to do is take on Megan. But if in the process you're misleading people, I do think that's immoral. I don't think it's a means to a, those are moral means to an end.

And also I just want to say, we all should be aware that there are people who are doing that because they do think it's an appropriate means to this moral end. And I disagree with that, but there are people who that's what they're doing. And it's very easy to take people out of context. So anyway, I think before we were under public judgments, you write something, you publish it on the internet. We should consume it in full. I have burned times before. I've been so glad that I didn't publish because after I watched something, it challenges you. It challenges your conventional wisdom, your preconceived notions, and it humbles you.

So anyway, I think a lot of the discourse this week was driven by bad clips. And I'm not saying that about you, Jamie. Maybe you did watch a whole thing. I really thought overall it was just a good conversation. So anyway, one person writes here, this is M-S-E-7-R-E. How do you deal with burnout in times of continuous sad news? Well, you try not to be numb to it. And I think the answer to this, we're all, you know, not just journalists, but people, you know,

if you're listening to the show, you probably do follow news very close. closely. The answer is that you just kind of learn to live with it. And that's where, didn't I quote that Lord of the Rings thing, I keep using this quote where Frodo asks Gandalf about, you know, why we had to be born in bad times. And Gandalf is like, well, our only, our only choice is to make of our time, make the best of the time that we have. You know, we can't pick the times that we're born into. And so I guess I, for me, it's something. of it is just accepting that we live in a very exceptional time period, a very unusual time period of this hyper-novel rate of technological change that outpaces our body's ability to adapt.

And acknowledging that, accepting that, I think gives you a lot of grace and a lot of humility for what you and other people are going through, whether it's with social media. like I just was talking about publishing your judgments on social media. I have a lot of grace. That's what I was talking about early in this episode. That's why I keep listening to everybody. Because I think a lot of us, it's just so easy to get caught up in these algorithms, breaking our brains and poisoning the conversations.

So much of what we just talked about today is based on internet discourse. And internet discourse is governed by algorithms. So much of our politics is governed by algorithm now. And I have enormous grace. and humility as somebody who has also been manipulated by algorithms and probably is also on a regular basis manipulated by algorithms. And so for me, it's just realizing we live in extraordinary times and that it's a burden, but also a responsibility to live in these extraordinary times. So I guess that's how to deal with it. It's probably not a good answer. But yeah, I don't even watch as much like TV to

relax as I used to. Like, I've just, I watch a lot of documentaries. Um, I watch a lot of podcasts and YouTube videos, as you've, you've probably heard. Um, so, I can't even be like, well, I watch reality TV. I do some of that, but less than I used to. Um, but you do have to get some time off the internet. Uh, that's really important. Um, you're reading books and, and all that sort of thing. Anyway, great questions on this week's edition of Happy Hour. I rambled on and I knew it as it was happening and I was like, I don't care. I'm going to keep going. So maybe this is our longest episode of all time. I hope you enjoyed it. Lots and lots of questions this week. So there was a lot to talk about. Obviously, a very busy news week as well. Happy Mother's Day, everyone. Happy,

happy, happy Mother's Day. Thank you for listening. Thank you for subscribing. Thank you for leaving comments, reviews, likes. It means a lot to me, truly. God bless you all. We'll see you back there next week.