After Party with Emily Jashinsky - “Happy Hour”: WHCD Shooting Chaos, D.C. Party Secrets, and Reckless Rhetoric: Emily Answers YOUR Questions

Episode Date: May 1, 2026

On this week’s edition of “Happy Hour,” Emily Jashinsky takes your questions about news of the day and “After Party.” Several questions center around the White House Correspondents Dinner shooting and the suspect’s background. Emily explains why she doesn’t go to the dinner, where she was when it happened, and what the D.C. party circuit is really like. Emily also addresses questions about recent guests including Dave Smith, her connection to Evita Duffy-Alfonso, Michael Alfonso’s congressional campaign, moderating the recent debate between Ryan Grim and Scott Jennings, why she hates the term ‘platform,’ and why she believes people have been conditioned to act like snowflakes. She also discusses the importance of language, thoughts on classical liberal tolerance, the new James Comey indictment, the Minnesota fraud ring, and offers final thoughts on Lena Dunham, “Girls” , her book “Famesick,” and more… Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Well, hello, everyone. Welcome to another edition of Happy Hour, which is, of course, itself, a special edition of After Party that we do every Friday here just on the podcast feed only. So if you aren't a subscriber on the podcast feed, please do go ahead subscribe. You get every episode here. If you'd rather listen to the podcast, then watch clips or video on YouTube or X or Instagram or TikTok, then it's great to subscribe to the podcast feed. I'm a big podcast listener. This is where I go through all the great emails you send in to Emily at devilmaycaremedia.com live. I flag them in my inbox and then come back to them here so that it's kind of organic as I go through all of your emails and some of the comments that you sent in to Happy Hour. All right. Let's see. Oh, this is funny. So this is from last week still about Dave Smith. David writes in.

I think this came in just after I recorded last week's Happy Hour. I always record on Thursday evenings, barring some unfortunate circumstance. And sometimes I get emails right after the buzzer. So David says after feeling like the last two Friday shows have mostly been people trashing Dave Smith. I figured there might as well be one submission that sends in their support for him. You know, maybe I spent more time on the emails that were trashing Dave because I was trying to kind of talk through my own thinking.

But we got a lot of emails, too, of people being like, love Dave, so much fun having him on. And of course, I agree with that. So David says, for some reason, attacks on Dave tends to be personal in nature or they are, they straw man him. And then the truth is, there's no such thing as an interviewer, quote, unquote, platforming someone like Dave because he already has a following because people like him, not because he goes on other shows sometimes. People like him because it takes him to be proven correct and he stays consistent in his arguments. His message about Midnight Hammer lied about the reasons for, oh, wait, he says, his message about Midnight Hammer. Oh, I'm sorry.

He says, anyone with eyes can see that the war mongers in D.C. have lied through their teeth about Midnight Hammer, lied about the reasons for us starting this war and lied about the trajectory of the war thus far. The idea that you should only have people on your podcast that agree with your audience is insane and everything wrong with the world right now. Keep bringing out interesting people on your podcast because even though I don't agree with them and everything at the end of the day, I might learn something and says this is like, woke, cancel culture, snowflake type nonsense.

I think all of us are conditioned to kind of act like snowflakes now, and we have to constantly decondition ourselves to act like snowflakes. And I say that because I always talk about the social media-based, the algorithmic social media-based epistemology, like in contrast to what Neil Postman described as a television-based epistemology, in contrast to the print-based epistemology that he found superior, I think we have been sort of treated like lab rats. to talk to each other on social media and react to Dave, and just basically when we're in virtual spaces, to behave in virtual spaces, with these really perverse incentives towards the extreme, right? So that's where platforming in theory, you know, I actually think that word has become so,

like it makes my skin crawl when I hear the word platform because it has just been used and abused by, honestly, mostly people on the left over the last 10 years in relation to campus stuff, but then it's come up from people on the right in relation to podcast stuff. And it's just almost always illegitimate. But in theory, right, if you have your own platform, now my platform is not as big as Dave's. But if you have your own platform, you should want to use it in a way that is, conducive to the true, the good, and the beautiful, right? That's what your goal should be. So, uh, you know, for me, that means I'll bring on people who I think talk in good faith. Like, lots of folks don't like Jank and Anna. Um, but, you know, most of the people that I bring on the

show, I've, I've talked to like off camera and personally and I'm, you know, even if they, uh, turn people off when they're on screen, uh, depending on who it is, I've, I've talked to, I've talked to, like, I think they're coming to these conversations in good faith. That's usually like my kind of litmus test. And, you know, not, I won't be kind of prone to, won't be prone to ad hominem or disruptive conversations that are distractions and the like. I'm just not into that stuff. I think I've said this before, but I've been asked to do Peers Morgan a few of times,

like mostly on the big panels. I think maybe only on the big panels and debate style stuff. And part of me thinks it's at least good that we're yelling at each other now because for a long time, you know, everything was very, very siloed. Other than maybe a talker show on Fox News, there wasn't a ton of left-right crossover. You know, there were sort of centrist Dems like Jessica Tarlov. But there weren't, you know, you didn't have a lot of like real, serious cross-pollination happening on any of these cable networks.

I used to watch tons of MSNBC, and now I mostly watch CNN. I go through phases to just kind of gauge what's happening over long periods of time. And it was basically zero cross-pollination like MSNBC would have, I don't know, like Bill Crystal on or something like that. And so I'm kind of in one sense, like, okay, I'm glad that we can at least, you know, shout at each other and people are willing to do it and they're not turning up their noses and being like, oh, never platform this person. and therefore I'm not even going to yell at them on TV.

But at the same time, it's just not for me. I just don't have that in me. Here is Katie, who says, I think you're getting ahead of your skis in your coverage of the SPLC indictment. An indictment is an accusation that has yet to be proven. You can indict a ham sandwich, as they say, and this is Trump's DOJ going after an organization he has beef with.

I'm not saying there's no there there, but we're a long way from, quote, hard evidence. The FBI pays informants, and sometimes they help create terror. plots in order to foil them. So I have no trouble imagining a scenario where the SPLC was making themselves look like they have a reason to exist because they're greedy. Have you read the indictment? It doesn't claim a single act of violence or that the intelligence they gathered was false. It alleges they paid informants through protected channels and didn't disclose that. In their fundraising,

you list as a complaint that they are accused of, quote, infiltrating other hate groups and stealing their documents. Why is that not reasonable action for a paid informant? You might want to listen to Glenn. Greenwald's take on this, he admits to hating the SPLC, but he cautions against celebrating this indictment. Well, Katie, first of all, I definitely, like, as we were doing this segment last week, I had the indictment in my hand all marked up, and I said that. Absolutely, I read every word of it before we did that segment, as, you know, I always try to do. So absolutely read every single word of that indictment. And again, was referring to my verbatim copy on my desk. Well, I did that segment. And if you're a paid informant, quote, infiltrating other hate

groups and stealing their documents. That's illegal. That is illegal. That is not a reasonable action for a paid informant unless it has been sanctioned by the government. Now, Katie is absolutely right that the FBI pays informants. This was a huge conservative complaint about the Gretchen Whitmer plot and about January 6th. Now, this is controversial when I say it. I was reporting live from the Capitol grounds on January 6th. And I do not believe. the FBI, I believe without FBI informants, let me put it this way, I believe without FBI informants January 6 would have proceeded as it did. Now, we know that there were FBI informants in different capacities on the ground on January 6th and having infiltrated the groups that were there leading up

to January 6th. So I'm really not confident or comfortable just calling it a fact. plot or a Fedurrection because I was there and I saw a lot of, you know, very normal people who were definitely not informants. I talked to them. I was in the middle of the throngs of people for a very long time. And it was not manufactured. It was organic. And I think we'd cheat ourselves to think anything else about that because we should

understand that there is a very organic rage on the right about what happened during COVID. with Pennsylvania voting, for example, in the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, people were really, really mad. And a lot of that was natural. It did not need to be stoked by the FBI. But I don't support the FBI infiltrating groups, period. There isn't an interesting possibility that the SPLC was potentially working on behalf of the FBI when it was orchestrating these paid informants conduct. We have no evidence of that right now at all. The only reason I say that is the FBI historically does infiltrate extremist groups

or quote-unquote extremist groups. Sometimes it's people who are doing the Latin mash at their parish. Sometimes the FBI decides it should infiltrate Latin mass parishes. That did happen during the Biden administration. But typically, the FBI does that. And as the FBI's under Biden, and I think probably early in Trump won, maybe all of Trump won, as the FBI's definition of kind of white nationalism, white supremacy, started to more closely resemble the very partisan definitions of those ideologies that the SPLC was

embracing, it doesn't seem impossible to me that the FBI would have kind of taxed. or covertly outsourced that to the SPLC. Now, I have zero evidence of that. It's just possible. Now, if that had happened, I imagine there would be evidence of it that Cash Patel, Todd Blanche, were aware of before bringing this indictment. And I kind of think, if that's true, it's unlikely the indictment would have been brought, unless they're trying to burn the Biden DOJ and the Biden FBI,

but Patel has been pretty intentional about saying they were going to infiltrate Antifa with informants during Trump too. So I don't know. I really don't know. And that segment, you know, I was abundantly clear. I did a whole section of that segment

on what the government still needs to prove because the indictment doesn't connect the dots between the money being transferred and then the SPLC's intentions, right? It alludes to the intentions, but it doesn't kind of connect the dots. It's very strong, in my opinion, because of the bank records.

Now, the SPLCs is denying that this was, you know, immoral or was out of order in any way, and they're saying it's being taken out of context by the DOJ. maybe they'll have a case to make. There's, it's really hard to believe there are a lot of, there's a pattern over more than a decade of transactions going from secret SPLC bank accounts to people who were part of these extremist organizations,

which it appears that the DOJ has pretty solid proof that the people were called field informants and we're in this group, that group, and the other group. They name those specific groups. They show the specific fake bank accounts, and they track the payments going from those fake accounts to the people affiliated with very specific groups on the dates. So that is really strong evidence. What it's not is really strong evidence legally of the Y element.

And it's interesting that the DOJ lawsuit here is specifically focused on fraud, right? Like, this pattern makes it unlikely to me that the SPLC was just kind of had people on their payroll who turned out to secretly be part of extremist groups. Like, in a weird way, maybe extremist groups had actually been infiltrating the SPLC. And that's because they, they, I think, pretty clearly reconstruct this bank account scheme. And it's over many, many years. So I think it's a pretty strong case that the SPLC was up to no good. Whether they can legally prove fraud is going to depend heavily on what we hear from the SPLC.

PLC. And I just want to reiterate, respectfully, of course, that I did make that point in the original episode. It kind of went out of my way to say what the government has to prove, because that is certainly part of this. But from my perspective, it's, it's, you know, I actually hadn't listened to what, I haven't listened to Glenn's episode. I listened to most of what Glenn says, but I haven't gotten around to that one yet. He's a constitutional attorney, so it's, I'm sure, worth listening to. but I have seen a lot of people saying, you know, it's not strong legally evidence of fraud until we kind of see more of what the government has. I tend to agree with that on the question of like fraud, but on the question of whether the SPLC was up to no good, I think it's actually

pretty strong evidence of that. All right. Let's go to Hank, who says, after the twisted reaction of so many educators to Charlie's death, no one should be surprised that the White House correspondent's shooter turned out to be a teacher. I fear this isn't going to end well. Hank, thank you. And just thank you to the number of you who immediately after this correspondence dinner assassination attempt emailed that night to say, hope you're okay, hope you're okay. That was, I mean, it was really cool. So many of you reached out so quickly. So thank you. I do appreciate it. I was not at the dinner. I always kind of refused to go to the dinner. It was invited to the dinner. But I just kind of oppose it in principle. I'm also not a white house correspondent, but I kind of

oppose in principle what the dinner has become as this sort of spectacle of insider DC politics and elitism. So I always resist going to the journey. I mean, I don't really have to resist any a personal impulse to go. There's certainly a professional benefit to being there. You see so many powerful people kind of in one fell swoop. So like for networking purposes, great stuff. But I was headed to that substack party. As I got in the car, I think my brother texts me being like, whoa, and just asking if my boyfriend was okay. So my boyfriend is a White House correspondent. And he was there. And the reception was terrible in that ballroom because it's on the lower level. There's so many people in it. And it seems like wherever you're close to Secret Service, there's really bad reception.

I assume it has something to do with bandwidth. I don't know. But people were having a hard time communicating and getting out that everything was okay. So it was a scary couple of minutes, but pretty quickly we realized everything was all right. Got to the entrance to the substack party, actually got like a block away from it. And the entrance had just been closed because it was right across from the White House. And I was saying on X this week, it was like truly my dream to be locked in that party for hours with an open bar because it was like Michael Tracy fighting Jim Acosta, like just incredible stuff that if you sort of appreciate the media industry as someone at a zoo appreciates, you know, looking at a zebra, for example, then it would have just been a dream

come true, just open bar and Jim Acosta fighting with people. So it was a little bummed to me. that. But Ryan Graham told me he was holdup at a bar, I don't know, a few blocks away. So the whole 17th Street was all closed here in D.C. So I had to walk like five blocks north and then five blocks south again to get around what was like one block away to meet up with Ryan and his wife and a couple others actually. But there were a few minutes where it was touch and go. Thankfully, we knew pretty quickly that everything was all right in terms of, you know, the shooter being apprehended, the president being okay, the cabinet being okay, everyone there being okay. So that was a blessing, absolutely. The teacher part of it is interesting because we've seen a good number of

kind of white collar, self-perceived vigilantees, like acting in these ways. I mean, the whole discourse around this guy has been that he's like a centrist shooter. And something just doesn't quite sit right with me about that because, yes, the guy was on blue sky, for example, retweeting kind of, what would you call it, establishment liberals, I guess like Jamel Bowie, didn't seem to be a leftist leftist. But at the same time, you know, anytime you kind of appoint yourself John Brown, which this quote-unquote manifesto, which is really just like an extra long iPhone message. I think it was literally an email. You're kind of eschewing the centrist label when you decide to be John Brown, because there's something ideological about embracing

vigilante justice that obviously it's an interesting mix with kind of centrist complaints, like Mangione, just sort of impossible to describe politics. But I feel like maybe that's actually the takeaway here is that more and more American politics are not left or right. And that just means more and more of the people who are radicalized are not going to be neatly left or neatly right. You know, like the anarchists who goes for McKinley, like very easy to kind of classify that. But that's maybe my sense. And the white collar part of that is interesting as well. to Hank's point. Here is John who says, I wonder what you think of the idea of debanking the SPLC. We saw this happen

in the U.S. of Trump's family and allies after January 6. And if I recall in Canada after the protest, there seems like the SPLC case is an example where this may be justified, unlike those cases I cited. Although the moral crimes, the SPLC perpetrated in funding racist hate groups are getting all the airtime. The actual crimes seem to be the financial crimes involved, setting up bank accounts tied to fake businesses to pass the money along to the hate groups. why would any reputable financial institution want to be associated with them after this, both for who they were paying and the fraud they are accused of committing in regard to banks and to donors,

to banking seems to me to be justified here. John goes on to say, late to the party on this, but I'm no Dave Smith fan as soon as I saw him listed as a guest I skipped that episode. I'm also on the opposite side of a lot of things from Monica Sparion, but we'll listen to her when she's on. The difference being she's not smarmy and doesn't hide behind the facade of being a comedian when challenged. That's why I had to stop watching all the fake news shows, like the

daily show way back when they were pretty funny in the beginning until they began to take themselves seriously when convenient to them and became completely one-sided. That's such a funny point, Jen, because it's a great way to put it that those shows, Daily Show, Colbert Report, I mean, Colbert is now such a good example of this, but they always wanted to say, conservatives would point this out all the time back in the Bush era, but they always in the Obama era. They always wanted to say, oh, I'm just a comedian. And then, hide behind that when it was convenient, but when they were being treated like statesmen, like great thinkers of our time, they were always kind of, or I shouldn't say that,

because comedians are always great thinkers, like good comedians are at least, but when they were being treated like heroes, political heroes, they were happy to kind of accept that praise. Now, I don't think Dave does that, but to each their own on the SPLC debanking point, I just don't, I think banks should be like telephone companies. Now, certainly, if you commit financial crimes, there should be the due consequences to that. And if there is evidence, if the SPLC is convicted of financial crimes, then they should face whatever the consequences are of that. Absent a guilty verdict, it's probably the best way to put it.

I believe that banks should be like common carriers, right? like internet companies and phone companies, they, I hate the idea, especially that big banks would have the prerogative to just say, well, no, we're done. Again, especially big banks who, you know, essentially have from the FDIC to the way that they're, to the way that Dodd-Frank set up, actually, I mean, a lot of this has been the banking infrastructure, but to the way that they're set up now that they basically have, you know, some federal guarantees and they get all kinds of government privileges. I think they should function basically as common carriers, as Clarence Thomas suggested for big tech. So I would say no, unless there is a

guilty verdict. I wouldn't want to encourage that. But this is kind of the big question on the right now. It's like, you know, if Republicans let Democrats off the hook forever for not using the broadcast airwaves in the public interest, then why shouldn't Brendan Carr go in there and say, all right, well, this is on the books. Like, you know, no Republican has really gotten mad at Democrats before for spreading false information on a broadcast network that almost always benefits the left. So why aren't, why shouldn't Brendan Carr go in there and, you know, talk to Colbert and Kimmel, or Kimmel particularly in the wake of the Kirk assassination, implying that the shooter was a conservative in a joke? I don't know. I don't particularly like any of it. But the politics of that,

It's, you can see where people are coming in this, like, kind of bloodlust. Eddie says, thanks again for this little show exclusively for podcast listeners. It's such a great way to start my weekend. And for some reason, feels really intimate. I love that, Eddie. Eddie says, Emily, my very first thought upon seeing the comments of the WHCA shooter manifesto was of your campaign for the accuracy of language, the quote, rapist pedophile traitor line. And it was jarring.

I remember the importance really hit me hard during your clarifying explanation of your press or question about Elise Siphanic. calling Mamdani a jihadist, just wanted to congratulate you on your wisdom and urge you to keep going. It feels more important than ever. And that is an incredibly kind email. I can't even tell you how kind of that is because, you know, it's a lonely point to make because it's definitely like a both sides point. And I always try to use my questions. You know, when you have the privilege of speaking to the president, I try to use it in a way that's, I remember explaining this at the time. that other journalists who kind of have blob groupthink in one direction or the other won't.

And this question of Elise Stefani calling Zora Mamdani a jihadist hadn't really been talked about much. And so that's why I asked that question because it really drives me nuts. It's especially drives me crazy when conservatives who spent the better part of the last decade rightfully deriding the left castigating the left for inflating the definition of what is racism, what is bigotry, what is sexism, and what is violence, right? Silence is violence,

speeches, violence, and the like. Then turn around and say, I'm going to inflate the definition of what a jihadist is to include this Muslim mayor of New York City

who you know, is constantly, and not, I shouldn't it constantly, but is intentionally, has intentionally, whether you like it or not, spoken out against anti-Semitism and gone to synagogues and had Jewish outreach programs on his campaign and is, you know, pro-gay rights in a way that would be hard to, obviously people talk about the kind of red-green alliance, but typically that would be a hard thing to square with jihad. So I just, this is one of the most important things, I think, in all in politics. I think it is a symptom of the algorithmic social media-based epistemology.

As we already talked about earlier in this episode, and I've talked about it all the time, I think social media drives us to use extreme language because we are being programmed to use, because we're being programmed to respond to the incentives of the algorithm, which are surprise extremism, right? And so extreme language, hot or cold, is how we're starting to be programmed to talk in campaign speak, in media speak, both of the, both of which take place on social media. And I really, really hate it. And, uh, you know, the, the rapist pedophile stuff. It's just, I mean, it's just, I don't know. Like, I don't like Trump's relationship with Epstein. I don't

like, certainly don't like the way Trump is talking about women in the past. Um, but yeah, the, the, the, I guess, evidence of, of rape and. pedophilia is certainly far from definitive, to say the very least. And for so many people, I guess, to confidently adopt that label, I do think that's been absolutely a mistake. Of course, I think it's absolutely been a mistake. And as we use that language more and more, when it's sort of thinly predicated, you know, it's now become acceptable, I think, because of social media, to use this thinly predicated extreme labels, yes, you're going to be more and more likely to justify Luigi-Mangioni-Sty-justice against people like Brian Thompson.

And I should probably just stop saying Luigi and always refer to him as Luigi Mangione. Or maybe not even use his name. But at this point, I can't control how popular his name is. So for the sake of clarity, it's probably still worth it. So thank you, Eddie, very much for that email. I appreciate it. Hank says Thomas Massey is on my ex-page right now talking about an amendment he has to a bill that would defund the kill switch is mandatory after 2026.

remember you doing a Federalist Radio Hour segment about this a while back. Maybe you should revisit the issue. Amen, Hank. Thank you. You could probably still find it on the internet. There's a brilliant professor at Hillsdale College named Matthew Meehan. Brilliant. One of the most brilliant and fascinating people I know. And back when the Biden White House passed this bill, Democrats in the Biden White House passed this bill, might have been 2022, if I'm remembering correctly, in one of the of their big legislative packages, there was indeed a provision that mandated new cars, I think it was after 2027, have a kill switch installed in them. And Mian was one of the only people who noticed this. And we did this sort of, he's a professor, this is a very deep philosophical episode trying to sound the alarm about how profoundly anti-American, illiberal and sort of anti-human this was. and I was just enraptured by Dr. Mean the entire time, and I'm so grateful to him for raising this all the way back then. Massey was one of the only people talking about it back then.

Chip Roy has been on it forever. They were two of the loudest opponents of it this week, as it was raised again. I'm always, always happy to revisit it. We did a breaking point segment on it. Ryan and I did a breaking point segment on it. Yeah, you know, the tech stuff isn't always what the after-party audience is is most like keyed into but uh feel free to send me emails if you think i'm wrong about that i try to you know make sure that i'm what's the right way to put it um make sure that you know if i guess

an issue is is i don't know i guess i guess we talk about very deep things on after party um and i can't stop myself from talking about tech stuff i just sometimes worry that i overdo the tech stuff everywhere that I am. So I try to be too careful about that. But for me, it's almost impossible because everything I think about, I think about through the prism of technology. So maybe we should get a guest on that. Maybe we should try to get Chip Roy on. That would be great. Mary sends an essay that says, we live in a world of liberal privilege. I would really like liberals to understand what they're putting us through in the two different countries we live in. I am not seeking dominance for conservatives,

a country where debate is open, dissent is protected, and my son can grow up speaking his mind without fear. Mary writes about how her husband's family has a story of immigration from Greece, that her great-grandfather came from what is now Slovakia, that her husband is an engineer, and that they live in a democratic district, but that Mary wants institutions that welcome debate instead of punishing dissent and that we basically now live in two different countries. Well, I certainly agree that we live in two different countries now, Mary. I think that is a very good point. And what Mary is really bringing up, I think is best described by Aaron Wren, who I love.

Aaron Renn's substack is excellent food for thought. So if you haven't subscribed, it's Aaron A-A-A-R-O-N-R-N-R-E-N, a brilliant Christian thinker and writer. and Aaron has what he calls the positive world and the negative world. And this is really a formulation for Christians. The negative world, which we live in now, and I'm not going to be able to remember Aaron's verbatim definition of this, but the negative world is basically a world where Christian cultural norms are no longer dominant.

And I think about this a lot because my perspective, of as a Christian is that Christian history is the history of sort of being a minority and persecution minority status and persecution. I mean, scripture is abundantly clear that you should not be, you should not love things of this world,

that you should stand out, salt, right? Of course, light. That you should stand out from darkness and you should be different from the world because the world is fallen. So I think that's really the history of the Christian faith and of individual Christians. And I think what we went through just in the last, I'd say, maybe like a couple hundred years, maybe more than a couple of hundred years, but it's been

kind of an aberration from that history worldwide. Obviously, there's, you know, Constantine, and then what happens when Christians conquer Europe, although much of the Christian world was under Islamic conquest, kind of at the same time. And there remain a huge number of Christians in Africa now and in China, some many in the Middle East still that are persecuted today. But in the West, we became accustomed to the sort of positive world where Christians were in the driver's seat of government. And that was abnormal. And being in the negative world is sort of the normal condition for the Christian. And that's a very interesting way to look at it. And I think it's a very helpful way to look at it. And the kind of classical liberalism that Mary is demanding, I feel like it's a great baseline, right? Like we just want tolerance. We want liberal tolerance, classical liberal tolerance. And that is a great baseline. I'm just sort of pessimistic. And that is a great baseline. I'm just sort of pessimistic. or maybe I would say realistic about human history and I don't necessarily expect

that we will get back to a baseline level of tolerance for lower case O Orthodox Christianity and that to me you know it's I what is the there's this line in the Lord of the Rings

which by the way I haven't led or I haven't read I'm sorry I have only seen but it is a funny line I'm trying to find it. I just asked for it. Yeah, here it does. I wish it need not have happened in my time, said Frodo. So do I, said Gandalf. And so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us. And I love Tolkien. I love

C.S. Lewis. I love Tolkien and Lewis. I love The Hobbit. For whatever reason, I found Lord of the Rings impenetrable. And I think that's a male versus female thing. And every time I say that I get a couple emails from women being like, I love Lord of the Rings. And that's wonderful. I love The Hobbit. And I'm sure Lord of the Rings is great too. But I always have to watch, rewatch the movies. My boyfriend is a Lord of the Rings officinado. And that line was like a gut punch the last time we watched. I think it's the first movie. I wish it need not have happened in my time. But Gandalf replies, so do I. And so do all who live to see such times. But it's not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us. Yes, I wish it need not

have happened in my time. But I suppose we can all be Gandalf and say so do I. But we have to do. But the question is what we do with the time that has been given to us. Thank you, Mary. Richard says, I realized something last week. We need to bring back the perp walk in the 80s and 90s. Those were big. It gave people a sense of closure. Even if the person didn't get convicted, most refined with seeing a person, quote, get what they deserved. Today's new organizations push the trial, the verdict, and the incarceration. They need the content. But you can't perk walk people.

Elites and the criminals among them know they will get off. So suffer a little embarrassment. If the American people can't get through the real justice, give them what they really crave. Great television video clips and a great story to tell the next generation. So what's interesting to me about that, I can't co-side that, Richard, but what's interesting to be about that is just from a media angle, we were kind of even doing public. people in the stocks or public executions, public hangings for many years leading up to like televised perp walks like Lee Harvey Oswald, right?

That's a, it's, there's always been sort of, not always, but there's a history of that being the public shame, this exercise, this deed or public shame being baked into the punishment that we definitely don't really have anymore. And I don't know whether that's good or bad, but it's an interesting point. Scott says, I'm interested in your thoughts on podcaster Jordan Berman. She started out as Jordan as my lawyer before we're branding as unbiased. I don't know, Scott. I have never heard of Jordan Berman. May have to look Jordan Berman up. Howard says, I certainly enjoyed your latest program with Michael and Evita Alfonso. As with many of your guests, I'd never heard of them before, but what a nice-looking and sensible young couple. A wonderful change

from the images you see of so many young people at college protests who look like complete psychos. I don't know what his chance is on the election, but I hope he wins. Congress could use more normal people. The place seems to be filled with lunatics, yes. Aside from the drama this year, I was wondering if you've ever been to one of those White House Correspondents' Dinners, and if so were your thoughts? Fun or annoying. I loved the guy at this video kept enjoying his salad and bothered by the chaos, so it was

no surprise to find he was a New Yorker. This has surely been a bizarre week. I don't know what was more dangerous. The Woods of Wisconsin is a party circuit in D.C. Definitely the party circuit in D.C. No, I've never been to the dinner itself. I do always go to like one or two, sometimes more, of the kind of ancillary parties, the parties that are held around the dinner, mostly the conservative ones. There aren't a ton of conservative ones,

but sometimes, you know, you'll get like, I guess maybe not conservative, the right word. I don't know. But like I was going to the substack one this year. That wouldn't be called conservative. And I did go to a YouTube one this year. But no, I again, I said this really. in the program. I don't go to the dinner. It doesn't feel right to me. Some of the parties can be fun, but a lot of them, I mean, it's one of the times where the embassies have good parties. I wanted to go to one at the Irish embassy this year, but the debate that we aired on Wednesday with Ryan Graham and Scott Jennings was kind of at the same time. So unfortunately, please take out your tiny violence for me. I didn't get to go to the Irish embassy and

have what I'm sure was some really wonderful beer and or champagne. That's what it is. I mean, it's like journalists, lobbyists, and politicians and their staff at these embassies or like venues that cost tens of thousands of dollars to rent, sometimes in black tie, but, you know, dressed up eating canopas, whatever that. I think I'm using that word correctly. I don't really know. and sipping champagne, it's just, it is gross. So I know people that go to like probably 10 parties over the course of three days. I already feel bad enough going to like two. So I try to limit it.

But, you know, sometimes like you, there's so many like just really gross social events in D.C. year round that, again, if you're a journalist, you really sort of have to go to them to make it worth it living in D.C. like you have to kind of meet people who you can talk to and get an accurate sense of what's happening in Congress or what's happening on K Street or what's happening in the Freedom Caucus or in this world or that world, corporate world, whatever. And if you don't do it, you're frankly out of the loop. I mean, there are ways to compensate for that. But it's also a really serious work. So I'm not going to complain if people want to like throw me a free drink every once in a while. But you all probably know that about me. Anyway, let's keep moving. in here. Some of the parties are good, though. They're amazing venues, and you're just like, wow, like the substack party was going to be at a museum. And I was like, that is just so cool. Like, we have the most amazing museums here in D.C. and people who live in D.C. never go to them. So anyway, that's my justification for partying. All right. Hank says, Good show last night with Avita and Michael. You ran at the end, making clear that the person who committed to Tarrasack was the person to blame, not someone else's rhetoric, was spot on. As you

his speech is not violence and defining it as such not only does injure to language, but leads us down that slippery slope to government censorship. Yes, yes, yes, sir. Hank goes on to say, I think it's worth looking at the problem of political violence to the lens of what's known as a key part of the entrapment defense. A defendant is judge not guilty if he, she can prove, but for the actions of government, the crime would have never been committed.

Can we show that conclusively, that quote, but for the inciting rhetoric up the left, the attempts on conservatives would have never happened, probably not, impossible to prove the counterfactual. Hank says, but I fully believe it to be true, and its approach all of us should consider when launching a rant about one issue or the other. You know, it's interesting. Like, this is kind of what I was getting to at the end of the episode. It's that two things can be true. Individuals can be blamed, and probably should be blamed, for inflammatory rhetoric that creates an unduly tense political climate. and people who contribute to an unduly tense political climate are not responsible for inciting the violent actions of any individual, even if, you know, it's like Trump on January 6th who said to go march peacefully, but also said that the election had been stolen. You know, like, I do not think that Trump, quote, incited, I don't think you can say that he incited, legally incited violence. I can say, though,

And somebody may disagree with me, but I can say that I think it was reckless the way that he described the election. And I was actually at his speech at the ellipse. I didn't find that particular speech to really even be what caused the riot on the other half of on the other side of Pennsylvania Avenue. I think that I've been brewing over many, many weeks, things in some part to his rhetoric. but, you know, that Trump literally said don't be violent. So he said peacefully. So anyway, I do think these distinctions are critical because as soon as we get away from them, then you can say, like on the left, I think you can make the argument that the left is responsible for, quote,

social murder over climate alarmism. And I made that comparison to the Brian Thompson case, as Hassan was talking about. social murder. And some people quibbled with it. But if climate alarmism is, you know, causing the mass displacement of farming livelihoods across Europe, for example, and farmer suicides, that logic goes through some really, really, really, really dangerous places because you're careening down the slippery slope of broad definitions rather than narrow definitions. And so, well, I think, as I said in the episode, the people, primarily to blame, you don't get to sit at the top of a broken system and then blame the people

who are acting out about the system being broken for acting out without changing it, right? You can blame them and be like, this is immoral violence. But then you still have the, you're talking about a spec and you have the plank in your own eye. So two things are going to be true, basically, is where I come down on that. Here is another one from Katie, who says, wonder you'd be caught Greg Bovina's recent interview with Border Hawk News. Quote, our culture is definitely in jeopardy by those hundreds of millions of foreigners that, as you say, don't care about your culture. That to me is a greater threat than a violent criminal or a terrorist.

Greg Bovino told the New York Times that before he was fired, he had a plan to deport 100 million people. I wrote to you about this before, but I think it was worth noting that this image is still up on official DHS Twitter account. No one has apologized, and it seems to me that we need to reckon with this as an official White House policy. So, Katie, I do remember going back and forth on this. I think it was around the Minnesota ICE controversy. And I remember at the time saying, I don't think that this weird meme DHS put out, it's a guy in a car, or it's a car literally parked on a beach. And it says after an old car, like a mid-century car. It says America, after 100 million deportations.

And I remember at the time, I think saying, I don't think that's official White House policy. I don't think the president has ever said that. I don't think anyone's ever introduced legislation to that point. Now, Bovino, you know, was a representative of this administration, and the administration was certainly treating him as that before he was fired. So I don't think it's unfair, Katie, to point that out. I still think it's probably a fair distinction because, you know, any individual lieutenant of the president can say whatever. A hundred million, I don't know what the hell they're doing with that, to be honest. I think it behooves everyone to use precise rhetoric at all times lest you open fair policies.

up to criticism unnecessarily. So the 100 million number would involve, like, denaturalizing probably millions of Americans. And people make arguments for that. I do not like making arguments for that at all. But yeah, I don't hear a serious Trump administration policy. Like, Bovino freelancing is one thing. And I think it is Katie entirely fair to your point to be like, that is coming from an official before he was fired. And he's repeating it, and he's kind of popular on the immigration hawks, among the immigration hawks on the right. So that's an example of a mainstream conservative figure,

kind of, I mean, I guess mainstream adjacent. I don't know if that counts because he was let go. But there's someone who's kind of popular in MAGA circles saying something like that. So I think it's entirely fair to say that people have to reckon with it. I don't think it's smart to talk like that at all. I also don't think it's official government policy. This looks like it's one more from Katie, who says, it's hard to listen to this couple.

I think referring to Michael and Evita, talk about political violence as if it's a problem specific to the left. The example she gives is Stalin and Mao. Let's not even leave this country and let's talk of the political violence at the 60s. You could talk all day about whether political violence is on the left wing or the right wing and you're going to come down to the fact that it's both. Crazy is on every side. but it is especially hypocritical to defend someone from political rhetoric when they're easily the person in

our society with the most violent political rhetoric of all. Trump's rallies in 2015 were violent and he spoke on camera promising to pay the legal fees for anyone in his audience who can knock the hell out of anyone who booed. He raved about a congressman who body slammed a reporter in a debate he told the proud boys to stand back and stand by. The guy you're interviewing compares Trump's speech from January 6 to the crowds outside the correspondence dinner, seeming to forget the crowds outside Congress, had a hangman's news, set up. Trump kidnapped Maduro, planning to take Cuba next. He has fishermen blown up in the water.

He threatened to end a civilization forever after killing over 150 schoolgirls. Quote tweets a suggestion that anyone who does not agree with his conditions in Iran talk should be murdered. Trump blamed Robert Reiner's murder on the fact that he made people angry. His followers cannot clutch their pearls. When someone says something nasty, the guy notes they have a big Somalian population nearby, there's no accusation of fraud that he's aware of, but there's a daycare center nearby. So despite no accusations of fraud, their race. In fact, they need daycare enough to make him think it better be checked out. Katie, to that point, I would say, no, the massive Somali fraud wearing right next door.

I mean, if you know Northern Wisconsin, you know what he's talking about is really close to Minneapolis. And so there was this obviously massive Somali fraud ring. Vast majority of perpetrators were Somalis. We're talking about single-digit non-Somali, but what are we talking? like 70 Somalians that have been, or Somalis have been, I think, charged, not just indicted, but charged in these cases. So, no, I don't think that's just the fact that they're Somali is evidence enough. And there's daycare that there's evidence enough. I don't think that's what Michael was saying at all.

I think he was saying they're literally within, you know, a quick drive of a historic fraud operation run. by their own immigrant community, which is very, very, very close-knit. So that I take zero issue with at all. I don't think it's fair to impugn any ill motive at all. I think it's important for the left to reconcile with the kind of tribal politics that were brought into the Minneapolis area. You will hear Somali say this openly. And critics within the Somali community of what happened.

Casey Magin, I think is his name, who worked on fraud in the governor's office and was writing about this years ago, saying that some of the tribal politics that were brought over, they're just different from the American system and caused the welfare system to be abused, basically. So I think that's, I definitely don't think that's fair. This political violence question, I mean, I'm definitely against, I've been against the Missouri stuff, the Cuba stuff, the fishermen stuff, the ending civilization forever, the school that was immediately struck on the first day of the war.

The Rob Reiner stuff was super gross. Now, does this take away the ability of the right to critique the left? No, I don't think so, actually, because of a poll that I discussed, which shows the economist UGov poll from September. I was taken September 12th to 15th, 2025, and it found by far, young liberals believe it is, quote, sometimes justifiable to use political violence. And it's not even, like, not even close among conservatives. So I just don't think, I think everyone should be able to, and should be fair in evaluating Trump's rhetoric. I have no expectation that politicians will be or people are writing for office. It's just not how politics works and it sucks. And yeah,

I don't like it. I think everyone should. I don't expect. them to be, but I think the moral thing to do is to evaluate Trump's statements fairly across the board with statements on the left. I get the literally versus seriously stuff. Trump's supporters, Trump's critics take him literally. Trump supporters take him seriously. I get that. I don't think that really is an excuse. I would quibble with saying his rallies in 2015 were violent. and violent is that

is that Trump's fault because, you know, he was engaging in again, I don't like it, I don't think it's particularly becoming of a politician to say like, go beat that guy next door up, or whatever. I think that's, you know, small potatoes compared to some of the other stuff that's mentioned here.

But I was just having a conversation before I taped this happy hour about what I think might be one of the big differences between 20th century communism and fascism. I think with fascism, a lot of the state violence was external, so it was perpetrated on other countries, and in communism, a lot of the state violence was internal and committed against its own civilians. So Lenin and Mao being really good examples of people who said, it is necessary to sacrifice X percentage of the population in order to move to the next level closer to the utopia, right?

Closer to defeating capitalism. And I actually think, I mean, like, there's, it's not a perfect comparison. Obviously, fascists sacrificed a lot of their own in war. But I do think that's a, I don't know. That's my working theory of the day. Because I was literally just in a conversation on another podcast before I jumped on this one. And I think that's a, maybe we'll get more emails about it.

An interesting distinction. This is Eddie emailing about the podcast left, right and center. I guess apparently Beauvard and Rich Lowry were panel members, but then were deemed too far right for the show. I haven't heard about that. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. Maybe I'll ask Rachel about it. Chelsea says back in 2020, I remember seeing the inseparable Governor Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan having a little 8-645 Chotchke on a table in her office when she was doing interviews. I found it so gross back then. It's clearly something she'd either

made or at least purchased. Why no scrutiny for her? I'm attaching a photo. I have not seen this before. Not that I remember at least. I guess it would have been six years ago, roughly. So I'm not sure. Interesting question. Yeah, the 8-6 stuff has both. And it's interesting because, like, the origin of it, the origins of it go back to, like, restaurant lingo. But I guess people have had different exposures to it. Like, the only context I've heard, I've never worked in a row. I guess I worked at a concession stand at a day camp. But I've never worked in like a restaurant restaurant.

And so I've never heard it used in the restaurant parlance. But I've heard it in the context of like, kill. Take this person out. and so they're just people have had different experiences with it and uh anyway so still a wildly goofy thing for the former FBI director to be posting he knows to some people that means kill anyway um let's see Howard says uh don't they usually declare a winner at debates i thought Scott was the winner for sure but he supported my view so i guess i can be biased what do you think uh i must say your debate was very civilized and compare some of the more fiery ones for the two people obviously hate each other

Buckley versus Vidal. I hope you will do some more of these. Ryan and I moderated a bunch of debates over on breaking points like a couple years ago. We were doing almost a debate a week. And I love moderating debates. It's one of my very favorite things to do because, as I always say, I have more questions than answers. So for me, it's really fun to be in a position where I am trying to test, stress test people's arguments. I really enjoy doing that. So I appreciate the words Howard, the kind of words Howard. I hope we do more of them.

Who do I think won? You know, I think Ryan made deeper points. So I think Ryan won on some of the deeper points. And I think Scott won on some of the more like contemporary political points, if that makes sense. I think Scott, Ryan could have been stronger on like policies, like current policies, like what does his rational immigration policy look like? You know, why then isn't the 8 million people in three years during the Biden administration a rational immigration policy? That's, I think, a question that I increasingly sort of distrust politicians on the left

to answer because I don't think they have a good answer for that. And I think Ryan kind of openly is like it's he had a great line in the debate that I thought is a really honest way to approach the question that it's it's not an ideological or principle based question it's it's kind of an epistemological not epistemological it's a what's the what's the word he used he had a great word for it but it's it's kind of a practical pragmatic question about population of the country the age of the country birth rate and the like at any given time so I thought that was a pretty good answer but it still leaves a sort of policy question on answer. Whereas with Scott, I don't think he fully answered the deep question in the same way that Ryan did about what it means to be an American and to participate in the American political project. I do think Scott stumbled a bit with the student deportations because I do, listen, I'm a conservative. I think the administration's policy on that with Ramesa Ozturk, Khalil is a different story. Ozturk, I mean, someone on a visa, I think she was on a visa, either way, a student who criticized investment, it basically said that Tuff should do BDS, divest from Israel, as many, you know, anti-Israel students have been doing for a long time, and then got detained, like, just pulled off

the street. If you've seen the security footage of it, it's somewhat chilling by mass agents of the state and put into a car detained and then prepared for deportation. I do think that's kind of hard to defend and gets at this question of why shouldn't somebody who has that belief, why is that a threat to national security? Because then that means basically that other people who have that belief, who are American citizens, are a threat to national security, or could be a threat to national security just by virtue of holding that belief. Or if not, then that needs to be explained and not just like, well, we already have enough problems of the United States. Why would we bring in more people who don't like the United States? But it doesn't prove that OssRic, of course, doesn't like the United States. And so you can see how that sets a precedent that would then apply to U.S. citizens. And I just don't think that that kind of core question of Americanism was quite answered in the same way that Ryan at least said questioning everything basically is the American way. So it may disagree with that. But I just think Ryan had. a kind of big picture take on that question, whereas the policy question, I think it was sort of the

other way around. But it was a ton of fun. Again, I love debates. And I think Ryan is really one of the most brilliant people I've ever met my life. He is so well read. His historical knowledge is just always, he always has sort of surprising historical parallels at the ready, because he reads so much. And I really, really enjoy that. And he's always open-minded. So just, just Just, anyway, I think the world of Ryan. So Scott was a, a, what was it? There's a particular phrase that I want to use, but Scott was a total team player and came ready to duke it out in good faith.

And I really appreciated that. So, and we all had great conversation backstage. So it was all good. So David said, take on Scott Jennings. To the extent that each of them have indefensible arguments, they struggled. For Ryan, as far as the topic was related to the Biden immigration surge, and especially the cases of violent crimes by illegals, his only option was to dodge the question. For Scott, as far as he is defending Israel's capture of the U.S. government immediate, happers this whole argument of, quote, is this good for America? That is his through line for the rest of the debate. Interesting.

David says, unfortunately, for Ryan, this is a debate mostly about immigration, where the liberal position recently has been pretty weak. If this were a debate about Israel, for example, Scott's neocon position would probably do pretty poorly. You know, I kind of had a sense that we were going to end up talking about the student deportations. And I actually think it was fair for Ryan to bring that up in context of immigration, because again, I do see some of that as like a chilling precedent for U.S. citizens, right? If it can be made in the context of foreign citizens, the proper argument would really be to make some type of argument that student visas are for, I don't know, are just like not for protesting. the government that allowed you to come to the country. And that's a hard argument to make because a lot of times these people are just criticizing the Israeli government. But if you can find people criticizing the government, I actually think that that gave them, you know, entrance to use its

systems and to use its many wonderful resources. I'm totally open to talking about that, but it's not quite the argument that was made. So I was okay. I actually think it made perfect sense in that context to bring it up. All right. Let's see. We got a couple more here. Marlo says, what are your thoughts of some of the attendees at the correspondence drinker drinking straight from the wine bottles? Isn't that classy? I thought it was awesome. I thought that was fantastic because they were kept there forever. You never know when you're in one of those situations, when you're actually going to get out because of Secret Service, it was unclear whether Trump was going to try to come back on stage. It was unclear if there would be another security problem.

And so you're just stuck in limbo. Everyone's scared or has to like, everyone's scared. People need to kind of calm their nerves. And you've been in a room cooped up in black tie and you don't, you have no certainty about what the rest of the night's going to look like. I say go for it. So good on them. I thought it was funny. That was funny.

Erica Kirk sort of was like horrified that there were 10 bottles of wine at each table. I don't know if that's true. But truly, I mean, there's no offense to Erica Kirk. That is, I thought it was sort of funny that Erica was like, wow, how horrible that journalists had 10 bottles of wine at a table. I was like, man, I would have been horrified that maybe journalists having 30 bottles of wine at a table for three hours. But if you put 10 journalists at a table for three hours. you know, it's, that's standard. It's not that she's wrong. It's just that journalists are, I was going to say bad people. I think that's kind of fair. Oh my goodness. But anyway,

I'm joking about that, but it's one of the first things I noticed was just the extent to which, in D.C., the extent to which the city revolves around alcohol. So much of your work in D.C. occurs after 5 p.m. And that's certainly true if you're a journalist. It's certainly true if you're a lobbyist. And of course, because that's when lobbyists and politicians spend their quality time together. You know, it's just true across the whole city. So, you know, it's really exhausting to constantly, I know it sounds crazy,

but it is really exhausting to constantly have to push yourself to go to this rubber chicken dinner to meet these people. You don't, after a certain point, you can, you know, start saying no, but you still have to do some of it. And you just notice how much of it is booze-fueled. And it's definitely not healthy. So I don't think, like I said, I don't think Erica's wrong. Did you hear Representative Gill asking abortion activists their favorite method, read the face act? It broke my heart, but it was very effective. Amen.

I think I got to get Brandon Gill on. He has had some real moments of courage. And if you haven't seen this clip yet, they have abortion activists. in Congress and Gil uses his time to ask them, what is their favorite method of abortion? And does not let them slip out of the question and instead uses his platform to go through examples of abortion methods very graphically in a way that the public is not often exposed to. And the clip went pretty viral. And I thought it was very effective. How about Spencer Pratt's commercial drop of Karen Bass's house and his? I thought it was very effective. It was effective, although airstreams are pretty

boogey now. So I was wondering how much that airstream was. I don't know if it's an old one or a new one, but Marlis says Avita and her husband, give me hope that young conservatives can stand for issues that impact Americans the most. Like I said at the beginning of that episode, sort of hopelessly biased when it comes to them, even though I detest politicians sort of across the board and parties. But, you know, I personally know Avita, I like Avita a lot. And I haven't spent a lot of time with Michael, but Avita is a deeply good person. And back when, you know, I'm not. And back when I'm not, I'm not when Evita was going to Kenosha, we referenced this in the episode, to do reporting back in 2020, I remember I dealt a little bit as her editor with Evita and Michael.

And I remember one time I was on the phone, I think they were driving to Kenosha. And I remember being on the phone and just being like, Michael, you need to take care of her. I don't want, you know, like just take care of her. I'm very glad you're there, but take care of her. And if memory serves, I was very impressed by Michael. says the debate was very interesting. I'm a big fan of Scott Jennings. Not so much for Ryan Graham. I thought that Scott was prepared for analysis past. Detsos of presence and planned for the future. I felt Ryan was in the weeds of sob stories of individuals. Maybe he will be better

prepared at the Congo rare earth minerals debate. Time will tell. That's hilarious, Marlowe. We did talk about, uh, sort of sarcastically, uh, we did talk about a Congo rare earth mineral debate because we somehow, uh, wandered into a discussion of that. Let's pull up. I think we have Instagram question. I think Shawna says, I'd love to hear your thoughts on Lena Dunham's fame sick. I loved your analysis on HBO Girls TV show

and would totally love it if you did a rewatch podcast. I'm scared to rewatch girls. This is a great question. Thank you for sending it. I'm scared to rewatch girls. I've wanted to do a rewatch for a long time, but I'm, I always sort of procrastinate things that I think will overwhelm me. And this is one of those because I feel like it's just for the type of coverage that I do,

going to be a variable buffet of kind of fascinating, like data points almost about what's happened in the sort of politics and culture of the last 10 years. So, and I was writing about girls when it was on. And it's one of those things where I don't feel like I was right about everything, but I sort of feel like I nailed girls at the time. And so I've been a little bit hesitant to open up this Pandora's box again. And it was just, it was so good. It was so good.

And it also aired at the time of my life where I was kind of at the Hannah Horvath stage of life, meaning I just, like it was on when I was late college and then graduated college. And so it was, you know, like a lot of people who it coincided with that sort of time in your life. it's just very, I just have really good memories of kind of watching it with my roommates and I have memories of it kind of being the, hmm, what's the way to put it? The atmosphere of my early 20s, like the kind of climate of that coming of age period. And, you know, I also lived in a big city, graduated college, and was working in media. So there was just a lot going on.

on. And it's not that I don't want to like disturb those memories, but it's sort of just like, I genuinely feel like I'll be overwhelmed with nostalgia and overwhelmed with, you know, data points basically as to what's happened. And that's always, for me at least, it's like, all right, this is going to be a big thing. If I do it, it's going to be a big thing. So yeah, a rewatch podcast would be awesome, but so many people have done it. I actually before other people were rewatching, girls, I at first thought it was too early, but I was literally on the cusp of doing a rewatch podcast. Back when I was at Federalist with someone who I can't say who it was, but we were so close to actually doing it like a week away. And this person got another job, whatever. So it didn't happen.

But before anyone was doing the rewatches, we were literally about to do one. So I've always kind of regretted not doing that because then everyone else flooded the zone. But maybe, maybe, maybe. I'd love to do that. I haven't read FAMSIC yet, but now I know I have to because one of my normal friends who doesn't work in politics or journalism told me that they were reading it and that it was very good. And at that point, I was like, okay, well, now I have to. So I will keep everyone posted, I guess, on my thoughts on FAMSIC because I'm really excited to get into it now. There aren't a lot of great millennial writers, unfortunately. And it would not surprise me one bit to find out that Lena Dunham was our great millennial writer. Some people get really mad when I praise

Lena Dunham. I'm not saying Lena Dunham's like an amazing human being. I'm saying Lena Dunham is an interesting person and that her art sort of effectively and artfully conveyed a representative millennial experience. And I find that useful and of course I find it moving. So I'm not saying that it's like perfect. I think it's unconsciously conservative. And that's what I've always found so compelling about Lena Dunham is that as she is trying to advance the cause of progressive feminism, unconsciously what seeps into her work is this conservative naturalism almost.

Again, I'm not going to spoil the last episode, but I talked to somebody the other day, a zoomer, who had just finished, like within 24 hours, the finale of girls. And I was like, pretty conservative, right? And they were like blown away. They were like, yes, I couldn't believe it. But you do sort of see how the show builds up to that. And I don't think it's intentional. And I think that's what's so interesting about Lena Dunham is that she writes really good.

She's very clever. She can write a great joke. That show was cast really brilliantly. just everything was great writing was great acting was great casting was great um and she's super clever like technically it's it's good it's awful in a lot of ideological ways but then there's this kind of unconscious beating heart of the plot that is unintended again like it's unconsciously conservative not even anti-liberal but or anti-progressive but conservative so anyway that'll do it for Today's edition of After Party, as always.

Thanks for hanging in there with me. I really enjoyed doing these episodes for the podcast listeners. It's fun for me to not have to worry about the screen and the production and all of that. And just it really is, I think Eddie said it feels intimate. I hope so because it's literally just my laptop is open, my microphone's on, and I'm here in my office, and I've got a cup of coffee. So that's probably why I want extra long today because I've had a lot of caffeine. All right.

Thanks so much, everybody, for listening. the email address is Emily at Devil MakeCaremedia.com. We will be back with more actor party on Monday. See you then. Have a great weekend. God bless.