After Party with Emily Jashinsky - Hasan Piker Comes After Emily, the Jack Smith Story the Media MISSED & the “Cornell 7” Controversy

Episode Date: September 30, 2026

Emily Jashinsky responds to Hasan Piker’s criticism of her arguments about transgender issues and children and argues that he dodged the larger question of who originally pushed these debates into schools, sports, locker rooms, and libraries. Then Emily is joined by Mark Halperin, editor-in-chief of 2WAY and host of “Next Up with Mark Halperin,” to discuss his reporting on the difficult midterm environment for Republicans and what dozens of GOP sources are telling him about President Trump, the economy, and the Iran war. Emily also breaks down the latest revelations in the Jack Smith case and Smith’s Senate testimony, which were largely overshadowed by a viral Republican blunder. She digs into the complicated “Cornell 7” case and Sunny Hostin’s defense of the accused men. Finally, Emily reacts to Lindsay Clancy attorney Kevin Reddington’s stunning new argument about the murders of Clancy’s three children and Reddington’s treatment of the lone holdout juror. Cozy Earth: Visit https://www.CozyEarth.com & Use code EMILY for up to 20% off PreBorn: Dial #250 and say “BABY” or visit https://Preborn.com/EMILY Cowboy Colostrum: Get 25% Off Cowboy Colostrum with code AFTERPARTY at https://www.cowboycolostrum.com/afterparty Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey, everyone. Welcome to After Party. Thanks for being here with us on this Wednesday afternoon slash evening. Appreciate it. Please subscribe if you haven't yet. We're three days a week on the podcast side, Monday, Wednesday, Friday. So if you're not subscribed on Apple or Spotify, hit us up there too. Subscribe on YouTube. That helps us a ton. It's really the biggest way to help the shows to subscribe on YouTube. Help us keep doing our independent journalism here. Lots to discuss. Today, Mark Halpern is going to join us in just a minute to go through some of his Blockbuster report. that, listen, I can say here in D.C., had Republicans scrambling last week showing how bad they believe the situation is behind closed doors. And now, of course, this is bubbled out into the public because of Mark's reporting. And what we talked about, the public acknowledgments of the problem

from people like Steve Deese. It's in the public now. Everybody is rather aware that Republicans believe they have a potential blue tsunami or even worse than 2018 blue tsunami on their hands. So Mark is going to break down some of his reporting and go over new leaked audio of Ken Paxton saying that Trump is a drag on his campaign in Texas. In Texas, we're going to break down the Jack Smith hearing yesterday, why I think it actually is a pretty big deal. Going to break down the Cornell 7 story and the allegations and also talk about Kevin Redington's apparent flip-flop on whether Lindsay Clancy committed these murders in Massachusetts. So I want to start, though, a little response. here to a friend of the show, Hassan Piker.

I'm joking, of course, but you all know that probably the most flack I've ever gotten from our audience is when I did kind of a deep dive into Hassan Piker's background and things that I think are valid criticisms of him and things that I think are overblown partisan criticisms of him. A lot of you said, why'd you even bother? That guy would throw you under the bus,

and of course he would, of course he would. He's on Piker, but apparently I got him a little irritated the other day with a tweet that he started whining about. The original post here was Hassan, it was a clip of Hassan saying, we are the normal ones. It is less normal to constantly fucking freak out about transgender people than it is to just let transgender people live. Most people actually don't care about trans people existing in society,

but on the internet, that's the only thing the Republicans dial in on and they make it seem like being transgender is abnormal. You know, it's abnormal? Constantly fucking worrying about children's genitals. That's the most weirdo freak shit of all time. I responded, quote, you know what's abnormal, constantly fucking worrying about children's generals, that is the most weirdo freak shit of all time, and said, well said, talking about things like genderqueer. That was a book that was in a number of school districts around the country, so many so that it was actually the number one banned book,

according to Penn America, which means that it was in a lot of places. Google page 167, if you're of age, of genderqueer, or go look at what's in the book, Gender Queer. A lot of the excerpts are online. And I said, that was pretty terrible, could have all been avoided by Libs not putting it in libraries and then calling anyone who objected a weirdo book banner. And I added, of all the arguments against the right, this is the dumbest. It's the equivalent of the ref pulling the flag on the dude who hits back. And then I tacked on this press release from the conservative group, or I should say right of center group, do no harm. That found 5,700 roughly sex change surgeries on minors happened in four years from late 2010s to the early 2020s.

And I said, pretty weird. So the point that I was trying to make is I actually agree with them that for politicians to obsessively be the drum about kids' genitals is weird. The left started that conversation. You can't throw the flag on the right for responding, even if you think that response is disproportionate, even if you think it is, dare I say, weird, if the principle here is that to talk all of the time about kids' genitals is, quote, the most weirdo freak shit of all time, then the left has a serious problem on its stance. And I mean that because that's where it started. That's where it started. And he really took issue with the do no harm. And a lot of people who were responding to me, like getting dog piled on X over this,

took issue with tacking on the do no harm press release. So let's, in all fairness, because I don't really care about whether you take my side or his side. I just care that everybody has the relevant facts on the table. Let's go ahead and listen to Hassan's response to. my tweets for some reason. I know. Emily Jusinski, talking about things like gender queer was pretty terrible. Could have all been avoided by Libs, not putting it in libraries,

then calling anyone who objected a weirdo book banner. Because it was. It is. It is. Okay? It still is. That book is weird as hell. Making it seem like teachers were,

teachers were like showcasing pornographic material to children. Okay? 5,700 sex change surgeries on minors in four years. pretty weird. Okay. I haven't even looked at this data, but I'm willing to bet that this is far ranging, okay? Far ranging. Because the numbers you're pointing to is quite literally a fraction of the number of like 16 year olds that got a breast reduction surgery or breast enlargement surgery, 16 year olds that got a nose job. Okay, it's nonsensical data. And it's over four years. you know how little that is?

You're making it seem like they chop the penises of 5,700 minors. Okay, that's not a thing that's happening. That's literally not happening. But if you want to know the number of people that got elective bottom surgery under the age of 18, I can tell you what the number is. It's fucking zero. Stop saying you don't care. What is this?

Oh my God, shut the fuck up, dude. I'm literally directly addressing ridiculous trans panic shit and you're still mad. Oh my God, you are the one who needs to be normal. Shut the fuck up. I should start talking to our audience that way. I think it would be fun. It would be like cathartic maybe. Shut the fuck up.

No, I won't do that. But it is, he went on to use a site of Snopes fact check of the W-path numbers. I'm sorry, not the W-Path numbers that do-no-harm numbers. I was just about to mention W-Path that says, and he goes on to say this as well. Like you heard him saying, I'm willing to Brett, this is far-ranging, blah, blah, blah, and all of that. And actually, there are real questions that have been raised about the validity of the do-no-harm numbers. Do-no-harm argues that they're probably an undercount because they weren't able to get insurance data, which is what the study is based on, from Kaiser, the entire Kaiser system.

They weren't able to get it from the VA, and they weren't able to get it from anybody who paid for this via cash because their insurance wouldn't cover. it. So all that is to say, it's also worth noting that do no harm, and we can put this up on the screen, only counted records, quote, with confirmed gender transition related procedures and diagnoses that were included to ensure accuracy and relevance. So all of these numbers, like if he's talking about elected surgeries and they're just top surgeries, they're just facial surgeries, those sorts of things, they were only included in the do no harm report if they came with. And we can put this list of diagnosis codes up on the screen if you had had this series of diagnoses. So gender identity disorder, transsexualism, transvestic fetishism, transsexualism,

and the Snope fact check, for example, was a total hit job based on activists and advocates. But I responded, you could, like, for the sake of making this narrow point, I will accept you, saying that there were zero of these surgeries. Now, you could tell me that there were zero of these surgeries. He didn't address. He deflected from the central point I was making, which is that it's throwing a flag on the dude who threw the first punch. If you go back to 2016, it was Obama's Education Department

that said every K-12 school in the country, they did this with a dear colleague letter, every K-12 school in the country needed to read gender identity into sex, which is a radical change in Title IX. So when Title IX says on the basis of sex, it has to read gender identity into that. And they mentioned, they're the ones in that letter who mentioned bathrooms and locker rooms. Specifically, you can go look up the dear colleague letter. They're the ones that brought it up, changed these policies in schools overnight, and made it so that girls, women, whether they are conservative, liberal, whatever, then their school was threatened with federal funding, which is essential to almost every school.

from bureaucrats in Washington, D.C. If they didn't start making these changes that would allow boys to go into girls' locker rooms or play on girls' sports, and on top of that, they were already, if you go look at curriculum in Washington State, for example, it had already changed to start teaching kids as young as like five or six years old

about gender identity. This was not started by the right. This was started by the left. They insisted upon this conversation that focused on kids in locker rooms and bathrooms and sports teams and the like. They brought this up. They put genderqueer in so many school districts around the country and libraries. That book is fully pornographic.

Page 167, I don't even want to put it up because we didn't pull it because it's so disgusting. But that's just one, and it's just one book. There's books like Flamer. There's all kinds of books that are pornographic or wildly inappropriate. and they were available to kids in school libraries. And parents just said, maybe not, maybe not. And did some Republicans absolutely exploit that for culture war partisan purposes? Yes.

And are there some Republicans who are weirdo freaks? Yeah, of course. Of course. But to not deal with the fact that there was a significant amount of political and cultural capital, we didn't even talk about Hollywood pushing all of this. to ignore the fact to deflect the fact that the less spent a significant amount of political and cultural capital. Pushing this into schools and into youth programming, books, and all of those sorts of things is not helpful for the left. It's also just like not correct, but it's also not helpful for the left.

Now, I have to say, I agree with Hassan's take that he was making on the stream where he was responding to me about Andy Bashir. Let's roll this clip of Kentucky Governor, Democrat Kentucky Governor, Andy Bashir, handling questions about sports and bathrooms and locker rooms. Four years ago, you vetoed a bill in Kentucky that would have banned transgender students for participating in girls and women's sports. There are a bunch of Super PAC ads running against Democratic candidates right now on transgender issues. And in addition to that, some of the Democrats in red states and districts have responded, in some cases saying trans girls should not participate in girls sports.

What's your take on that? Well, sports need to be fair, and there should be no unfair advantage, but in Kentucky, we already had rules in place with our Kentucky High School Athletic Association that prevented any of the things that you saw ultimately in colleges or the rest. But that bill you're talking about didn't just do that. It banned all trans care for youth, any and all, and remove the ability of any parent to make decisions on the health care. for their children so it was sweeping but but here's my take we don't throw anybody under the

bus that is not the party that we are we start as a party of compassion and empathy and i tell you what if we want to ruin sports put government in charge of them that's a great line i'm sorry i'm obviously on the other side of this but i agree with us on byger that is a great line and i think bashear is doing something much more morally defensible than james tallorico who was very passionate about trans kids and policy related to trans kids and and and is now walking it back or pretending it never happened or saying he misspoke and the like. So Bashir is doing something that's smarter

and frankly more defensible than James Talariko is. I agree with that. And I think frankly that Republicans, we're gonna talk about this with Mark Halper and later in the show, are handling culture war issues abysmally right now in a way that is politically toxic and in a way that tries to mind this lazy culture war reflex

for votes. when in a tough economy, it's out of touch. And it comes across as weird when people are saying, I can't pay my damn bills. I can't pay to put gas in my car. And this is what you're talking about. So I think it's been a political error for Republicans. There's no question about it.

But when we get to the fundamental narrow issue of who forced this conversation about kids' genitals on the public, it was not the right. And for somebody in 2026 on the left, to throw the flag at the right and not have serious introspection about who was the weirdo freak that decided that we were going to do this stuff in the first place because the right and not even the right, people on the center, people like Karadansky on the left. I mean, to act like this is just the moral majority rubs in the Bible Belt who are mad about this instead of actually

being a broad coalition of like radical feminists, centrists, independence, and those moral majority types, it's why it's not helpful to the left to deflect from that question, because it'll happen again. It'll happen again. Finally, I did want to say, while we're on the topic of Hassan, stop trying to prevent them from talking at schools. Seriously, let's put this tweet up from the Dems at the University of Texas, the College Democrats at the University of Texas. They said, we will not back down. Hassan the Hun will be live from the University of Texas at Austin on 930. Let the guy speak.

Speaking of people not learning lessons, what they're doing at certain schools to block Hassan Piker, because it sounds like Republicans in the state don't want to face questions about why the university allowed him to speak. If that's the case, I've dealt with that a million times from the other side where they try to change the venue. or they tell you they can't get up any big enough, or they say the security costs would be prohibitively high, and they throw all these bureaucratic hoops at people to do it. It's not right to do it to conservatives. It's not right to do it to leftists on college campuses. Let Hassan Piker speak, and let's not even, that was like a moral question on speech,

but let's take it to another level and say, is it a tactical error? Yes, it's a tactical error, because then you end up looking, Like the people who want to suppress speech, which Americans have a deep aversion to. So just stop it. Get over it. All right. That concludes my response to Hassan Piker's response. Mark Halperin is going to be here in just a moment.

But first, a quick break. Well, I've been sleeping in coziress, bamboo, stretch-knit pajamas, and changing into them is officially the best part of my night. That is, if I actually take them off from the night before, sometimes I just stay in them all day. because I really like the texture. They're so, so silky, and they're so soft, and they feel amazing just the second that you put them on. I wear mine every night because they're naturally temperature regulating and breathable. So you stay completely cool without ever waking up hot or clammy, you know how that goes.

They really do help with that. And they're crafted from viscos from bamboo with just the right amount of easy stretch too. So the fit is relaxed, it's drapey, and you actually look put together even if you're sipping your coffee or answering the front door or if you're like me, sometimes even walking down to the bodega, plus there's no real risk in trying them out. They offer an easy return and exchange window if the fit isn't right and everything is backed by a warranty. Head to cozyearth.com and use my code Emily for up to 20% off home and sleepwear.

That's code Emily for up to 20% off on home and sleepwear. And if you see a post-purched survey, please be sure to mention that you heard about Cozy Earth right here. Joined now by Mark Halperin. You know Mark. Of course, he's the host of 2Way, next up, Mark Halperin. to catch up with everything Mark is doing. And he is causing all kinds of chaos in the Republican Party.

Mark Halper, thanks for being here. Emily, I'm not a creator of chaos. I'm very calm. But yeah, thank you for having me back. I've been on it a while. I think I was in the dog house, but I'm out of the dog house. I'm back on the show. So thank you for including me.

I don't think we even have a dog house here. But Mark, this story, so you wrote two columns in the Daily Mail. And it kind of upended. I mean, I was hearing from people, as I know you were, because you were actually inviting more people to talk to you. But behind closed doors, the Republican Party was freaking out over your stories

because they know it's accurate, but also because Chris Lasavita, outside Trump advisor, all these guys see the damage that does to have this information become public. And now, I'm sure they're equally displeased by the breaking news from New York Times this morning that Ken Paxton, Republican Senate nominee in Texas is now admitting that Trump is a drag.

Down in Texas, we're talking about Texas, by the way. Let's roll this audio. Do you feel like, man, all these guys know, but do you feel like he's a little bit of a drag? So, to be honest with you, the numbers in case. When we did that in the convention, it was wrong for numbers. Everybody can't read off. By now, yeah. Not good.

I wish there was something to do that turned on. But obviously, that was not. That was in a conversation with donors and lobbyists just last week as the Halpern backlash was playing out behind closed doors. So Mark, basically what you reported, and you can catch listeners and viewers up on the details, but you reported behind closed doors, Republicans are saying they expect that if people are tied or in close races, it's possible that they're even behind. So somebody like Darling Graham, for example, would be a good example.

Of that, or Tolerico, Paxton, another good example, is Paxton actually five points behind or worse? Pete Ricketts, another possible example, Trump heading to Nebraska in the near future. But does this jive with everything you were hearing last week? Yeah, and you've chosen two races that are good illustrations. I'm a reporter. And all I'm doing is saying what my sources are saying. Yep. I'm not predicting.

I'm not cheering. I'm not telling you this is how it's going to come out. And I'm not trying to depress the vote. I want everybody to vote. But there's a strange thing, Emily. People ask me all day, what's going to happen? They ask me a two-way. They ask me an email.

They ask me a text. They ask me when I go on programs. What's going to happen? And then I tell them what my sources say is going to happen. And then they get mad at me for telling them what I'm reporting. What's happened with this is kind of unusual is I have very good sources. I'm proud to say. I've been doing it for a long time.

I know a lot of people. And to a person, to a person, my Republican sources, working on races, not reading public polls. that are fake, not guessing. People who are working races say, it's really bad. And the president, the president's a drag in Florida, the president's a drag in Kansas,

the president's drag in South Carolina. It's possible he's literally a drag in all 50 states right now, some more than others. But what happened is I wrote the article, and then I said, if you're a Republican and working on a race, whether I know you're not, or you're a candidate,

because some of my sources are candidates, let me know. Tell me, you've got a different perspective. And instead now, I've lost count. I'm over 60. I've heard from 60 Republicans. I've built new sources in this process. People I've never met, didn't know, someone I'd heard of, contacting me saying, same in my race.

Reaching out to you, proactively saying, I'm getting in touch with Halper. Sliding into my ex or DMs or getting my contact information from somebody and saying, yeah, you're right. Same thing. If we're within the margin of error, we'll probably lose. Now, some think they can pull it out. I interviewed Mike Lawler on Next Up. Even Democrats say, yeah, there are people who can, you know, when you have a big, to extend the metaphor, when you have a big tsunami, they're miracle survivors, right?

There are people who got under their hut and held their breath and somehow live. But most everybody dies. And right now, that's the state of things. There's five weeks to go. Republicans have a lot of money. I believe their turnout operations superior. The Democratic candidates in many of these competitive races are weak and vulnerable. So let's see what happens.

But there's no doubt in my mind, after all the reporting I've done for, not just for the two columns, but since, that except for Chris Las Savita, no one's contacted me or gone in public as far as I know saying this is wrong. And again, I'm not rating public polls. I'm not listening to Democratic sources about making it up. I'm just talking to people who are doing races who say it's really bad out there. And part of it is, a lot of it is, four issues. It's the war. It's the economy. it's health care and it's corruption.

Well, let's talk about that next point because Kristen Sultes-Anderson has done some polling that shows corruption. This is logical that corruption is maybe landing harder right now because of the economy. So that's also part of what you're hearing from sources is that people are pissed and it doesn't help that the president, the standard bearer of the Republican Party right now, the leader of the Republican Party is also under fire for these crypto relationships, for his relationships with all those AI CEOs and Bidia Jensen Wang that were all flanking him outside of the White House yesterday. And he's also, by the way, talking about ballrooms and arches and that sort of thing.

That's part of what they're hearing on the ground. Emily, no doubt. And, you know, Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries, the two Democratic leaders, they're not that prominently visible out there. And a lot of people complain about them, both in the media, Republicans, Democrats. But I will say that if this election does go in a very positive way for Democrats. They will get partial credit for coming up with this, I don't know if it's a brilliant insight, but it's something that had to happen for them to message because they don't have very much positive things to say, right? But the critique of the Trump's and their friends are getting rich while the economy sucks for you and your family, linking those two things, rather than

make it, hey, on the one hand, the economy is bad. Oh, by the way, Trump, the Trump family's getting rich. No, they came and said, let's link them. Let's say these two things are happening. simultaneous. The rich are getting richer, including the Trump's, and that's a direct impact, and has a direct impact on whether your family is going to be able to afford stuff. Schumer and Jeffries helped develop that, and I think you see that, lots of Democratic ads against Republicans. And by the way, some Republican ads against Democrats play up this notion of special interests and career politicians conspire and lobbyists conspire to get rich while you get poor. And that's a big problem.

And I don't know that there'll be exit polls that will tell us, as I hope there are, but that we don't have the exit polls like we did once upon a time. But if there is a blue tsunami, I have no doubt, based on what's in the ads and based on conversations I've had with folks about research, I have no doubt that while the war and Iran, I mean, while the war in the economy will be the dominant two reasons. Perceived corruption and health care will be really important in, in, causing it. Well, you're Abdual Sayyad, as you've pointed out over and over again, if you're on the ground watching his campaign of Michigan, what you're hearing about over and over again is Medicare

for all. And that is a boost to his campaign right now, whether or not Republicans can change that and message against Medicare for all. Like, Mike Rogers can do that as an open question. But I wanted to test a theory on you, knowing that you've been covering this for a long time. I actually think that Democratic strategy you just described where they're connecting the corruption to the economy is partially why we're. Republicans aren't having success against Tala Rico because they're not connecting the

culture war stuff to the economy. They're not saying, well, you struggle, this is what the billionaire back candidates like James Telerico are trying to do to your kids in school. While you try to put food on the table, while you're just trying to survive, you want your public school to be good. You don't want to pay tens of thousand dollars for private school. And this is what Tala RICO wants to do. There's none of that. And that was different from like the 2020 to 2024 era, especially especially 24 year, Republicans connected culture war and economy all of the time. But I see very little of it now. I think it's a really important insight you've made. And it's a challenge. Some Republicans believe that the culture issues have played themselves out, that you cannot for three cycles in a

row run on trans athletes and girls and women sports. Others believe they're just as potent. And the polling suggests they're still pretty potent. But I think people in some elites, circles, look at the economic data, which is no doubt mixed. I mean, just today, there's a bunch of positive economic data. Jobs are, job situation is good, earning corporate earnings, the stock market, the equity markets. But there's statistics like the number of people who are buying their groceries on layaway is, is up dramatically.

And the number who are defaulting on their groceries is up dramatically. And obviously the price of diesel, the price of gas, the price of home. the price of lots of things, food. It's very difficult in this environment, particularly for younger people who have never seen inflation, literally in their lives. And they go to the store,

and it's like, well, I remember when that basket of goods cost me $40, and it just cost me $95, that's, it's hard to fight on culture issues. And as you said, if you can't link them, it's hard to be relevant in the conversation if people are feeling that way about the economy. And to a large extent, particularly amongst obviously Democrats, but also independence

and some Republicans, they're blaming the war, they're blaming the terrorists, they're blaming a president who promised he would do better on the economy substantially than this. It's such a good, just to illustrate that a guy named Rob in Michigan called into the Megyn Kelly Wrapup Show that I host on Sirius the other day and said he runs a business where he has to fill up his truck with diesel. And on top of that, he's been going, he's got to clean his truck. with paper towels. He's noticed last year, would it cost him for paper towels? He's a Trump voter. Last year, it costs him a couple bucks for paper towels. Now, it's up like at least 30%. I don't

remember the exact number. And he said it's killing him. The diesel costs are killing him. He doesn't want to vote for Abdul Al-Sayed. He definitely doesn't want to vote for Mike Rogers. He's pissed at Trump. And I guess, Mark, to that point, it becomes a question about enthusiasm and turnout. Our Republicans who in the Trump era have done a little bit better with low propensity, quote-unquote, low propensity voters, I mean, that could just be totally crushed in a way that it wasn't quite in 2018. Yeah, the polling, well-framed, again, the polling is mixed on how much of an enthusiasm gap there is. Democrats do seem fired up to vote. Some polls show Republicans are too. And a lot of what you're seeing now is intended to,

in terms of the messaging of the Republicans, is intended to goose the base to make sure every election, despite what some of our colleagues will say, every election is about both persuasion and turn out. It's not one or the other. Sometimes people will say, oh, it's just a base election who can do a better job of getting their base out. It's just never true. Every election has both persuadables and independence and then and then base voters who if they vote will vote for you, but you've got to get them out to vote. I believe one of the secret, quote unquote, advantages Republicans have is I think they have a better mechanical operation to register voters, to contact them, to get them to the polls.

and to get them to turn in their ballots. I'm pretty confident, based on all my reporting, that that's true. What the Democrats have is the natural enthusiasm and anger that comes when you're the party that doesn't control the White House. And those people are going to vote in many cases. They don't need 10 tax reminding them where they're polling places. They don't need somebody coming to their door saying, you know, have you sent back your absentee ballot? They're going to vote.

And right now, that's why some Republicans say, if our polling shows the race even we're going to lose because we'll never be able to use our mechanics to get people out to the polls in the same number as the people who in in the in the in the polls the other kind of polls the public opinion polls who say they're going to vote for democrats so if it's 45 45 they're 45's going to vote and our 45 some of them aren't going to vote because they're pissed at the economy they're pissed at the war lastly mark i wanted to ask you about a story i don't think's getting quite enough attention on Capitol Hill today. Burgess Everett at Semaphore posted that Schumer, got this quote from Schumer actually about John Hustas, Rate Pair Protection Act and Senator Rickett's

Congressional Stock Ban Voter ID Bill. They're supposed to be getting votes today. We'll see. Schumer said Americans are demanding guardrails on AI and data centers. All Republicans offer is a toothless messaging bill. The bill is a fraud. I can sum up the short cakes of the Republican Data Center bill with one word optional. And he called the Ricketts bill that would ban stock trading in Congress. It is, from my perspective, at least a little bit of a weak bill. Both are not the strongest bills, but they're also better than nothing. Schumer referred to that as skull duggery. He said if Republican senators really cared about stopping stock trading by members, they wouldn't have loaded it up with a poison pill voter ID bill. Fair point politically on that last part of Schumer's quote.

But both of these bills did have Democratic interest at first. And it seemed like they realized they did not want to get anywhere near handing Republicans a win. The Ricketts bill, for example, had a house companion that was already passed could end up on the president's desk. They did not want to give Republicans a win on two areas where some Republicans have clearly wizened up and said there's overlap with economics and culture war, whether it's stock banning, banning stock trading or data centers. Democrats know that would be probably a powerful tool in Ohio and Nebraska. Yeah, I mean, I think if there was a non-political vote on those two issues, stock trading and data centers, They both pass with bipartisan support.

But as you said, it would be political malpractice for Democrats to just let those pass and let the Republicans get a win or two wins. And Congress, I think, pays more attention to this than real people. Republicans will say, we voted for it, the Democrats voted against it, we're better on this issue. And Democrats will say these issues were bogus, these bills were bogus. And the voters will say, get back to us when you've done something. So I know there's going to be a lot of spinning of whatever happens and likely with the Democrats blocking the votes. But I don't know that I don't know the Republicans are going to get that big an advantage out of failing to pass something.

Mark Halper, and you're in high demand always, but especially after the blockbuster reporting last week, which I think allowed the public to see something that's been discussed behind closed doors in a way that was valuable. So really appreciate your time. I know you're very busy these days. I grateful to you for having me on. I noticed you let someone else put stuff in my locker, so I'm going to throw that away, but I'm glad to be back. I don't know who's sandwich this is. Have a great day. Thank you for including me. Here's your sandwich. Bye. For 20 years, preborn has stood in the gap between fear and hope. And this year alone, think about this. God has used preborn to save nearly 60,000 babies from abortion.

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yesterday. And Republican Senator Eric Schmidt was the focus of much of the coverage. I mean, I went back and read a lot of the legacy media's coverage on this. And when I say he was the focus of much the coverage that's not really an exaggeration, given the virality on social media, especially X of this particular moment. I'm not surprised by it, but I will say it's totally missing the bigger story about Jack Smith and his testimony yesterday, in addition to prior testimony that he's given that is baked into the entire Jack Smith story in general. But Smith screwed up bad yesterday, and it's kind of hilarious. But just so you get a taste of what distracted from, I think, more serious coverage. Let's take a look.

Did you go to an NBA game between the Golden State Warriors and the Atlanta Hawks on February 3rd, 2024? What city would that be in? Atlanta. No. Okay. So your testimony today is that you did not go to a Hawks game on February 3rd, 2024. Is that correct?

I have no recollection of that. Okay. Is it your testimony that you were not in Atlanta on February 3, 2024? for. Let me just give you a little context. The day before Fannie Willis came clean with her affair with the prosecutor. You know the Atlanta prosecutor that was also trying to get Trump. The next day were you in Atlanta? I do not believe so. I definitely did not go to a hawks game. I'm sure that. Did you ever meet Nathan Wade or Fannie Willis in your time at special counsel? No. What would you say if I had a series of text messages from your team that said you were in Atlanta at a Warrior Hawks game on February 3rd, 2024, the day after Willis and Wade announced

their affair. I don't think you know that we have this stuff. So I'll give you a second to process it so you don't, you know, perjure yourself. You just took it down really quick. If I could look at that again? We'll put it in a follow. If you can respond. I think you've already perjured yourself, but if this is the correct basketball game, I recall going to a University of Maryland basketball game where Caitlin Clark was playing right around that time. And the Marshal Service was there with me. You could check if that was the exact date. It was Maryland playing Iowa, I think February of 2024.

But again, you could check that out if that's what we're talking about. Yes. Could it then be that University of Iowa is the Hawkeyes? Could that be it? And maybe before we show this kind of thing. He went so far as to say he thought Smith had already perjured himself. He was trying to catch him in a perjury trap. Basically, that was why the information was presented.

Turns out it was an Iowa Hawkeyes game, not a Hawks game. And this entire setup that Eric Schmidt thought was an absolute slam dunk was approaching Jack Smith as though he had just slam dunked over him. Like Michael Jordan style was based on an assumption that somebody should not have made to set him up like that. And he shouldn't have made it either. Obviously, he's a lawyer, whoever checked those facts before they baked an assumption like that into such a major line of questioning, made a huge mistake.

And in some part, that's because that's a huge mistake because it discredits. It's going to be used to discredit the Republican case against Jack Smith. It's going to be used to discredit the credibility of the case against Jack Smith, the seriousness of the case against Jack Smith. And I have to say, it was a really funny moment. It was a huge face plant for Republicans. At the same time, however, what Chuck Grassley released ahead of this testimony, we already knew some of it, but this is very complicated to break down.

Reading from the Washington Times here, I want to lay out the facts on the table and then get into some of what we know and what we don't know. They reported former special counsel, Jack Smith's probe into President Trump and Republicans collected, quote, communications from members of the news media, including major networks and newspapers, the Senate senior lawmaker revealed Tuesday. Mr. Grassley, chairman of judiciary, said the outlets range from the Associated Press, 60 Minutes, Washington Times, Wall Street Journal. Grassley called it a disgraceful government overreach.

All told Mr. Grassley said nearly 50 journalists' communications were collected by the special counsel's probe. Mr. Grassley had previously revealed that Mr. Smith had sought phone toll records from companies on 16 members of Congress. Mr. Smith also obtained actual communications from the lawmakers he subpoenaed phone records from the Trump White House and failed to filter out information that implicated the Constitution's protections for members of Congress engaged in speech and debate. I'll get back to them in just one moment.

Washington Times continues the full list of news outlets. Mr. Grassley cited, 60 Minutes, Associated Press, Bloomberg, CBS, CNBC, CNN, Fox News, L.A. Times, Mark Levinschow, NBC, NPR, New York, Mag, Reuters, the Federalist, where I worked at the time, The Washington Post, the Washington Times, and the Wall Street Journal. The Federalist has since confirmed that at least one of the journalist communications belonged to editor-in-chief, Molly Hemingway, my friend, and my boss. at the time at the Federalist. And all this is to say, as a principle, as a principle,

the National Archives had these communications from the Trump White House. They were subpoenaed by Smith. They turned over these journalists communications. So there's some question of who's to blame here for these communications getting turned over to Jack Smith. But they turned over the communications, and they happened to include source contacts,

source communications between, journalists and their sources in the White House. And we heard nary a peep about this. I mean, this was hardly the focus of any of the coverage outside of conservative media. This was hardly the focus of any of the Smith hearing yesterday. And again, it is as a principle, journalists should be very freaked out when subpoenas like this are used as even if it's legal, by the way, there are a lot of legal and there's historically there have been legal obtainments of journalist communications that still freaks the ACLU, the Brennan Center for Justice, press freedom groups out, as it should. Because there's an incredibly serious argument. This was not

necessary to Jack Smith's investigation. The Smith case was so broad. I think I have a Taibi quote here from when it was originally announced. He wrote, if Smith simply focused on those damaging episodes in states like Arizona, Michigan and Georgia, and this is in the election case, obviously, or on Trump's interactions with Mike Pence, this prosecution would be an easier yourself to the general population and said Smith has tried to pen a unified field theory of insurrection that would massively expand the meaning of concepts like incitement to include false statements, tweets, and other forms of protected speech, down to classic Trumpisms like, quote, I don't care about a link. I have a much better link. And quote, I have a lot of friends in

Detroit. Detroit is totally corrupt, which were included in Smith's prosecution. So what could have been a narrow case about Trump scheming in some ways behind the scenes, I would have like to see the legal case built out better, but you can absolutely make the case that Trump was told one thing, did another thing based on something he believed or, well, this is actually part of the problem, is Jack Smith has to then believe, like if you're going through the bullet points in the case, has to believe that Trump just knew when someone was telling or agreed with everyone who told him that something was wrong. Like, hey, we didn't actually find X votes in Y, state, that's what cited as evidence that Trump was then building some effort to obstruct

the election certification. And points like those are problematic, as opposed to points where they know that something is not right and they try to stop it anyway. That case would have been way more serious than what Smith brought this into, which was subpoenaing hundreds of conservative groups and individuals and taking donor information, personal information, media contacts. It was a case so broad, it's part of the reason that it failed. So another reason Democrats should not be breathlessly defending Jack Smith or anti-Trump people should not be breathlessly defending Jack Smith. But part of the problem with the case is that it was, it got weak because it was so broad. And its broadness was clearly, clearly at the very least an ethical violation. And we're

going to get into questions about perjury in just one moment, but a little bit more here from Fox News about the records in question. So the record stem from a June 2nd, 2023, subpoena, this is about the media communications, issued by Smith's office to the National Archives seeking text messages from phones associated with numerous officials who served in the first Trump White House. The archives produced responsive records on August 21, 2023, according to documents previously disclosed through congressional oversight. Grassley and Johnson pressed Ron Johnson, pressed the Justice Department in FBI in May for information about how potentially privileged material in that production was screened before investigators could review it. Grassley asked

whether Smith's operations obtained donor data, including the financial and personal information of rank and file civilians who gave even small sums to political candidates. So this is another revelation from yesterday is that Smith, without citing any of this in his eventual case, subpoenaed, got thousands, like close to 5,000 pieces of donor information, people who had given like $100 to Trump. Why could he possibly need that? And is that not a precedent that should freak both Republicans and Democrats out? Of course it is. You should freak conservative journalists and liberal journalists out. Limbled journalists' communications were turned over as part of this. Now, Grassley asked whether Smith's operation obtained donor data, including the financial and

personal information of rank and file civilians who gave even small sums to political candidates. Smith acknowledged the claim, saying he could not recite, quote, every history referring to the allegations against Trump. Indeed, you did, Grassley fumed in reply and said his committee obtained at least 4,782 donors' checks. Many of those checks were $5 to $10. Why Jack Smith needed that I think we all know the answer is he didn't. The list includes checks from constituents in every state of every single member of this committee, both Republicans and Democrats, and included 42 checks from Iowans who dared to donate money to Republicans. Grassley said there was, quote, no legitimate basis for, as Fox put it, what he described as a violation of donors' privacy. All right. So the National Archives

gets the subpoena, complies with it. But I think people don't know that Jack Smith also directly subpoenaed, media communications. This came out about a year ago via more information grassly released. We put it up on the screen. I genuinely don't think people are aware that Smith's team specifically subpoenaed media communications. So I'm reading from one page of a subpoena that was issued. This is to a guy who runs a Republican consulting firm. Now, Turning Point USA was caught up in this. Republican consulting firms, Republican consultants themselves. This is Jack Smith subpoenaing, quote, any media outlet a representative or agent of any media outlet, including but not limited to CBS, RFD TV, Fox News, Fox Business News, OANN, Newsmax, and or Sinclair. That was from, that's a subpoena issued by

Jack Smith's team to consultants and consulting firm, James Town, asking for all of their communications with these journalists about particular ads in the post-election to inauguration period of time. That is outrageous. That is outrageous. He has no good reason for wanting journalist contacts about ads from people who are not even in the White House. At this point, we're talking about Republican consultants and consulting firms. They're not even in the decision-making capacity about the vote on January 6th. And that gets us back to the speech and debate question.

So I'm opening up this post here from Josh Christian. of the New York Post. This is him in July, noting that Jack Smith denied, as Grassley put it, he received records. This was back in July. I received records from DOJ confirming Jack Smith's investigative team, reviewed the contents of text messages sent by 44 members of Congress. He said, I'm one of the 44. Now, Smith gets asked back in December 2025, did you seek search for the content of any of the telephone calls or, you know, the content relates mostly to text messages. The question, and this is very important, did you seek a search warrant for the content of any text messages from members? From members? Yes. No, I don't recall that. Okay, it was just

toll records. Correct. So there you have Jacksmith saying, did you seek a search warrant for the content of any text messages from members? For members? Yes. He did not seek a search warrant. He had a subpoena, these are different. And on top of that, the national records, the National Archive records, we're supposed to go through what's called the filter team. And in the emails that Grassley released yesterday, you can see they go right to Jack Smith's assistant and then right to the full investigative team. Unless there's missing context from that, what we don't see is them going through a filter team first, which is supposed to catch any violations of attorney, client privilege, that sort of thing before it gets passed on. So,

All that is to say, there's a mountain of serious, like some people are arguing that and have argued that Smith, because he was being asked about toll records in that exchange, didn't perjure himself. But the question is actually broad. It's in the context of toll records. And it might not be prosecutable because of that because it's, you know, it's a little iffy because of that. But he does get asked verbatim. Did you seek a search warrant for the content of any text messages from members? From members, he replies. the questioner says yes, and he says, no, I don't recall that. There's a mountain of evidence that Jack Smith was, at the very least, overreaching.

At the very least overreaching. And of course, the media is much more interested in that than they are in the fact that literally they got spied on, direct subpoenas for media contacts, which should raise alarm bells, because if there was evidence that Jack Smith absolutely needed that, for some reason, and we would have seen it so far. And then the National Archives turned over their communications with their sources in the White House, which of a journalist has an obvious chilling effect.

And the speech and debate question is a significant one because Republican members of Congress, just like Democrat members of Congress, who had the option to refuse to certify the electors from states, some of them did it in 2016, in 2004 and 2000, if I'm remembering correctly, but certainly obviously in 2016, you have the right to be wrong about that.

And in the course of your lawmaking duty, you can't snoop on in the course of their lawmaking duties, you can't snoop on these members of Congress. So if they're deciding whether or not it's the right decision to certify the electors, and even if they come to the decision that they shouldn't do it, that is their privilege as lawmakers. They have a right to be wrong about that. Maybe you think they're a right, but even if you think they were wrong, which I don't think they were right, but even if you think they were wrong, they have a right to be wrong about that. They have a right as elected representatives of their states or their districts to say, I believe this is the correct decision. It is within the purview of my office, which they also have the right to debate. They have the right to listen to John Eastman, who I think was wrong about this,

but they have a right to listen to John Eastman and think that he made a strong constitutional case without being implicated in a criminal probe, which I think there may have been some basis for behind the scenes of the White House, when you're looking at Trump, Rudy Giuliani, Sidney, Sidney Powell, those sorts of things. Part of the problem with Smith's case is that he would have had to prove that they didn't believe what they believed. I think they were believing some kooky stuff. I don't know if Trump always believed it. But I think they genuinely believed some of this kooky stuff. Part of the problem with the case. But he had a much stronger case for a much narrower case and instead decided to sweep in the communications, donor information, financial bank

records of over 100 conservative groups and individuals. It is so sprawling. You can think of almost nothing else like it. And in the media's eyes, it's a funny story about Eric Schmidt face planting. Like that's what most of this is about. Even when they are getting their communication, their source communications turned over to the FBI. All right. Let's talk about the Cornell 7. Sunny Hosson, oddly enough, is defending the Cornell 7. And if you haven't heard this story, before I rule Hoston, I do just want to read a little bit from the Guardian to set the facts. And then it'll make more sense. If you haven't followed the particulars of the story, more is coming out by the day because now Kathy Hockel is asking for an independent investigation into Cornell's initial investigation.

But the Guardian reported just yesterday texts about alleged Cornell gang rape released after investigation reopened. Now, these were texts that were released to CBS News on Tuesday. They were released by CBS News on Tuesday. And let's just get the facts on the table as they were reported by the Guardian. Excerpts of text messages reportedly exchanged by a defendant in the Cornell University gang rape case. And the woman who claimed she was assaulted were published by CBS News on Tuesday, a day after New York prosecutor said they were reopening a criminal investigation. The texts were reportedly sent within days of the alleged October 2024 assault at a campus fraternity house in which a fee. email students said she was drugged and repeatedly raped over the course of seven hours by multiple men who were alerted to her presence on the social media platform Snapchat.

Taken together, the text seemed to highlight the complications that have often presented themselves in investigations centering on rape on college campuses in the U.S. In one of the messages, screenshots of which were obtained by CBS New York, the unnamed male defendant appears to apologize to the woman for, quote, how things went down and said his memory of events two nights previously was, quote, kind of fuzzy. He said he and another male who was present regretted that they were too intoxicated to, quote, shut it down and kick people out before it got way out of hand. Now, the woman who, as the guardian notes, was 20 when this alleged assault took place. She left Cornell.

She said her memory, according to these texts, was quote, super clouded too, and said that they were all intoxicated. According to CBS, she also wrote, quote, none of the sexual stuff was illegal. They have that in the Snapchat message. None of the sexual stuff was illegal. and stated that she liked being with him and another man. Later, she suggested they smoked together again, but, quote, like, leave out the extra 5 billion men and ketamine. So the Cornell story has resurfaced.

It took place in 2024. Charges were not brought. An alert was sent to everyone on campus about a report of sexual assault in November. The alleged assault had happened in October. Weeks go by, the alleged victim here says, friends convinced her to go to the police, November 8th, based on the civil suit, it looks like that's when it happened. The campus police send the alert the same day. She gives a sworn statement the same day. And now because this alleged victim filed a civil lawsuit, the case is back

in the limelight. And that's where the DA has said he's reopening the case. It's the same DA that was there, Democrat for what it's worth, same DA that was there when it happened. And Kathy Hockel was calling for an independent investigation into Cornell's initial investigation. So the civil lawsuit, the guardian goes on to say, was filed by the woman earlier in September and alleges that seven men assaulted her at Cornell's Chi Phi fraternity house after she went there an intoxicated state looking for a friend. And the civil suit, which I read all of yesterday, does name Cornell in negligence, bars, places where she may have been served underage, names them in negligence.

The frat house is apparently Cornell property, which is why, again, a attorney. probably told her she had a civil suit in this case. But as the Guardian notes, two of the alleged perpetrators were subsequently expelled after an internal investigation by Cornell, while the other five were allowed to resume their studies at the Ivy League institution after writing an essay, attending a workshop or serving a short suspension. None were ever arrested or charged. And the outrage of the treatment of the alleged offenders grew when the woman's lawsuit was made public. The DA is saying Jane Doe's sworn statement in November of 2024 did not allege that she was drugged against her will or gang raped. On the contrary, her statement described her participation in drug use and sexual conduct as voluntary, conscious and consensual.

My office, he said, obviously did not and could not have based on our November 20204 decision on the allegations in the civil lawsuit that would not be filed until nearly two years later. one of the messages that CBS apparently got from Snapchat this was sent while the woman apparently was upstairs allegedly stated there was quote free pussy upstairs someone asks shop still open and another person says yeah absolutely disgusting CBS has these Snapchat messages so we can say confidently that these young men conducted themselves despicably in how they discussed this young woman.

Whether it amounts to sexual assault is another question. We're going to keep going through the story to try to break that down. The attorney for the woman has confirmed that his client exchanged text messages with one defendant after the alleged assault said he couldn't confirm the Snapchat screenshots as authentic. But Van Houghton released, this is the DA, released sections from the original sworn statement that this alleged victim, who has not been named it, by the way, this alleged victim gave on November 8th, according to the civil suit, that's when this happened. So the DA has not released the full sworn statement and has redacted parts of it, but has only released excerpts in different. defense of not bringing charges at the time. So here's an excerpt. And it's an excerpt that it's sort of his summary with experts. So it's kind of with excerpts. It's like the DA saying,

here's what she told us at the time, summarized with quotes. So let me read from that. Eventually, mail number one and meal number four ushered Jane Doe out of the room, brought her upstairs to a small room. Mill number one stated, quote, let's do more ketamine. Jane Doe, quote, remembered snorting more ketamine and, quote, remembered feeling extremely high. She'd been drinking all night. Mail number one said he wanted to have sex again because he wanted redemption for passing out earlier in the night. That's a quote, from the statement. Jane Doe initially stated that she was tired and asked male number one, quote, what happened to just you and me? Jane Doe could not remember how it started, but she then engaged

in a threesome with male number one and male number four involving oral sex and vaginal sex. She described her level of intoxication as an eight out of ten at this point, quote, the threesome continued till at some point around 544 a.m. Jane Doe said she was tired and needed to turn in. At that point, both guys stopped the threesome with her as far as she can remember. So the as far as she can remember part of that is is obviously critical. But one of the men named in the civil suit has actually already been fired. And again, there has not been a court case here yet. This is from the New York Post. The headline is Wells Fargo fires Cornell 7 Fratbro accused of raping drugger former student after the probe is reopened.

The Post reports that this guy is no longer employed at the Charlotte Brants of Wells Fargo, where he had worked since 2022, according to TMZ, which said his termination was directly connected to the announcement Monday that a new investigation had been launched. So Wells Fargo, I mean, maybe you can argue that's a business decision. They don't want then to have to deal with all of the publicity. that would surround this person who was named in the civil suit, working for them as a moral decision. Maybe you do a suspension until you know exactly which male this person was, exactly what their involvement was, and you let proceedings continue. But nevertheless,

I think it's also worth saying, and let me pull this up, there is denial from some of the alleged participants here. So I'm scrolling down to a Kat Rosenfeld article in the free press. Kat noted at least two of the men who have been publicly smeared as gang rapists have denied ever touching the accuser or even being in the room during the alleged assault. It is impossible to know if they're telling the truth, just as it is impossible to know if she is. And again, we put the civil suit up on the screen. You can read through the entire thing and compare it with what's been released from the DA's office. But there is an interesting. situation going on here where the DA released the statement and said they advised Cornell PD.

So the alleged accuser after this happens, several weeks after it happens, is advised by friends to go to Cornell PD. It sounds like she reported a sexual assault to Cornell PD. Cornell PD took a statement. The DA looked at it and said, this is not actionable. there are not charges here that we can bring for sexual assault because in this sworn statement, what you're seeing is going to be difficult to prove any sexual assault, given that there's repeated, repeated proof or repeated testimony, I should say. The alleged victim is repeatedly testifying in the sworn statement that she went along with all of this. Now, the question is, obviously, can you consent when you're that drunk and when you are that high?

The same, of course, then goes for the men. Can the men consent when they're that drunk and when they're that high? And is there any way to actually know? The DA says her statement described her participation in drug use and sexual conduct as voluntary, conscious, and consensual. Now, I think one place where they may have a problem with that is, is because of the part we rolled earlier, where she said one of the sexual encounters, she didn't remember how it started.

That was in the testimony. That has been often in these campus stories, which were especially at a fever pitch during the Title IX disaster that Obama wrought upon college campuses by insisting they lower the standards to, for the births, burden of the proof, burden of proof in these campus rape cases where, you know, you're often trying to do, trying to prove definitively he said, she said, and men get falsely accused.

That was a real thing. It happened dozens of times over the course of the Obama administration. And sometimes that would come into it. Like, what does somebody remember? What does the other person remember? And so it might be a problem for the DA to have dismissed this when, there's a question of whether or not everybody was conscious, right? If somebody was unconscious and somebody who was conscious, then decided to sexually assault them or decided to initiate intercourse, then or sexual contact, then yes, you may have a real problem. But let's listen to Sunny Hostel.

Let me turn this over to Sunny Hosten, maybe an unexpected defender here of the Cornell 7. for her disagreement with all the celebrities, Florence Pugh, Josh Gad, who are now coming out and rallying on behalf of the victim against Cornell. Here's Austin. And under New York law, voluntary intoxication or drug use that merely impairs judgment does not legally constitute an inability to consent to sexual activity, right? So that means if you voluntarily ingest drugs, you voluntarily take alcohol, you can agree. to have threesomes, which in her statement, she agreed to have two separate threesomes.

One boy did walk in. One young man did walk in and say, everybody out. So there was one person that did that. And according to her statement, three of the young men did not touch her. But I say all that to say the pictures of these young men who have not been charged,

not been adjudicated, are being plastered all over the Internet. I think people are reporting this story inaccurately. I think they're reporting it unfairly. And while this is something that we have to take very seriously, there is no way, according to her statement in 2024, that any prosecutor would have brought forth a case. And you hear Joy Behar objecting there and saying,

yeah, but she was intoxicated. And that'll be part of certainly the reviews that happened in this case and the further discussion about it. But this is exactly the problem with these cases. that unfortunately, the Obama-era kangaroo courts exploded under the pretext of combating what was called quote-unquote rape culture. And that was often supplemented or augmented with statistics that wildly overstated the serious problem of rape and sexual assault on college campuses. This was while I was in college as this was exploding. And I happened to work for Christina Hoffsummers

at the time, who was one of the sharpest analysts and was was, was, was, was, reporting on these facts and talking about it in the media. And I was a little intern helping with research, but I saw a lot of this up close. And it was really bad. It was needlessly throwing men under the bus, ruining their young lives. I've talked to some of them and their parents.

It's terrible what happened to some of these young men. It's terrible what have happened to many young women in these situations. And college campuses, you combine hormones and alcohol and the lack of supervision as you send kids into the adult world. So I think we all understand why this happens. so often, but the idea that we can always, A, know exactly what happened to the point where you

can confidently attack the men, and B, then meet the burden of proof in the courtroom, says you can confidently punish the young men. It's sadly just not always the case, and it doesn't mean that it didn't happen. It doesn't mean that something despicable didn't happen. In this case, I think if those texts are real, which they appear to be, those Snapchat messages are real, which they appear to be. That is despicable. And those young men were acting not like men. Just like creeps and sociopaths is how they're acting if those are accurate. But the combination of booze and hookup culture means we can't always know definitively what happened, let alone legally meet the burden of proof, of what happened. And that is a very uncomfortable reality. It's a very uncomfortable place to be.

If you're somebody who wants to see young men stop talking like that in Snapchat groups, wants to see young women not find themselves in those situations and endure enormous trauma, which I can imagine. I mean, the civil lawsuit talks about, or some of the reporting talks about how people were talking about this after it happened all over Cornell. That's just awful. And young people replied without alcohol make mistakes. There's no question about that. Brains aren't fully developed. They're out of the house. They're, again, drinking heavily, doing ketamine, apparently. It's a disaster. And nobody deserves, whether they're drunk or not, to be put through that type of trauma. Nobody. And whether they're

drunk or not, no man should be talking like that about a woman, let alone acting like that about a woman, towards a woman. There's just no excuse for it. But it's an uncomfortable reality that we can't always know who's telling the truth. And we can't always prove that in a court of law. And sometimes we just have to sit in that discomfort because it's not worth ruining the lives of potentially innocent men. Again, some of them deny it. And we don't know. So I actually think Kathy Hockel's call for an independent investigation of Cornell's investigation, It's probably prudential because this case is now drawn the attention of the world. And so I think it would behoove the state of New York to put facts together for the public to see.

I don't know that it'll necessarily convince anyone one way or the other, but it's a good thing to do. Even for the sake of everybody involved, it's a good thing to do. I don't even object to that. But this could be ripped straight out of the headlines of 2014, basically. and it takes us right back to the same place we were then, which is that it's often very difficult to get justice if it's warranted, to even know if it's warranted in these cases, because they devolve into unprovable, he said, she says.

Now, you can probably prove conduct cases if you're talking about women that way, if you're abusing the property that was entrusted to you, all of those things. And that's fine. But it's different than, legal culpability for rape or sexual assault. It's very different. Doesn't mean these guys are amazing stand up.

It appears that they aren't. Maybe they've grown up since. I don't know. But those two things can be true at the same time, and that's often uncomfortable. Going to take a quick break. We'll be back with an update in the Clancy case. It's fall, and if you want to feel your best heading into the colder months,

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The clinical study found that 83% of participants reported improved gut health and 79% experienced less bloating and inflammation. For a limited time, our listeners get up to 25% off their entire order. Just head to cowboy colostrum.com slash afterparty and use code afterparty at checkout. That's 25% off when you use code afterparty at cowboy colostrum.com slash afterparty. Well, Lindsay Clancy's attorney, Kevin Reddington, is changing his tune in a really interesting in wild way. I think we have video of what he said in court, I believe this was yesterday. I'll first just read a bit here from WBUR local news. They said Plymouth County DA, Timothy

Cruz said Tuesday that his office has not yet decided, and this is a critical decision coming down, whether there will be another trial for Lindsay Clancy. Now, the judge in the case, WBUR reports William Sullivan is considering several motions, including one from Clancy's attorney, asking that she be found not guilty before any retrial. Defense attorney Kevin Redington, argued during the trial for what's known, for what's known as the insanity defense. Speaking at Tuesday's hearing, he said prosecutors had not proven that Clancy killed the three children, let alone that she was mentally competent to face first-degree murder charges. Quote, this entire case is based on speculation, Reddington said in court.

Let's have Kevin Reddington compete with Kevin Reddington. Roll the clip. This is a woman that did not get the medication. did not get the medical treatment that she so deserved. This is a woman that was suffering from psychosis at the time that she went down to that basement. Where's the evidence that she did this? Where is the evidence that she did this? The evidence is in the civil suit that Lindsay Clancy filed that actually is predicated on her having done it

because it's about getting what? she believes is justice from the medical providers who pushed her to that. And also, of course, from Kevin Redington, who admitted in court as her attorney. Now, there may be some interesting legal gray area here where he can argue that because it wasn't proven in court that she did it, that's probably what he's doing. But it's not going to win in the court of public opinion. It's probably not going to win in the court of law, but it's certainly not going to win in the court of public opinion. Now, of course, there are all kinds of Internet theories about Patrick Clans. and whether or not Lindsay Clancy actually did that.

But I will remind you that once again, Lindsay Clancy has a civil suit against these medical providers, which I think there is a good case against these medical providers. And it is predicated on her having done it because that's the way that she can say they mistreated her. So at least it's one of the avenues to which she can say they mistreated her. So Kevin Reddington has, of course, also been, I would argue, harassing the holdout juror in this case and making the entire work of a juror more difficult, chilling. It will have a chilling national effect on jurors who are trying cases that they worry might become high profile,

and they will be outed by all of these other jurors. And then Kevin Reddington will do his best to like make you face potential consequences because all the other jurors are bullying you because you voted your conscience. What evidence does Kevin Reddington have of wrongdoing on the part of, by the way, this black man, Desron Veal, who is just a holdout juror, said he just voted his conscience, said he disagreed with the other jurors, and then has been harassed by the other jurors in the media who all but forced him to come out and say that he was the holdout judge. juror. It's all been ridiculous from start to finish. I was actually open to it at first because you

heard my initial coverage of it. Members of the media generally like to be able to see more information, not less information. But Desmondville's name was going to come out at some point, but not as the holdout juror. And they're the ones that made it so all of the attributes that could easily be attributed to him or that could easily be identified with him were on the table. So when his name came out, would be obvious who the holdout juror was. It immediately would have come out that he would have come out that he was the holdout juror. And that means he either has to take their one-sided narratives being, again, one-sided in media, or he himself has to speak. And he doesn't have any reason that he should have to speak if he doesn't want to because he was a juror who simply did his duty and voted

his conscience. So shame on Kevin Reddington for having any part in that. And shame on Kevin Reddington for trying this now after saying what he said over and over again. If there's evidence, seriously, if there's evidence that Patrick Clancy changed his shoes or his clothes, that is the one thing that I've said before, it does give me a little bit of a hang up. It's like a blue, gold dress situation. Some people look at the CCTV footage and they say, oh, he changed his clothes. These are different shoes. Some people look at it and say they're the same shoes. I think there's an open question there. It doesn't necessarily prove anything. But if Kevin Redington has serious significant evidence that he didn't bring up in the trial, he needs to say it right now before he just changes his tune on one of the most significant evidence. that he didn't bring up in the trial, he needs to say it right now before he just changes his tune on one of the most significant legal questions that the country has digested in recent years.

But his conduct in recent weeks has been irresponsible at best. I wanted to bring you that update before we wrapped today's show. We're going to continue following that case, obviously, because it has so many people pitted against each other and obviously also raises significant questions. questions about culpability in a highly medicated society. And those are important questions that, again, we will continue to follow. Thank you so much for tuning in into today's edition of After Party. Please subscribe. It's super helpful if you subscribe on YouTube. We'll be back on Friday with another episode of Happy Hour. Emily at double-madecaremedia.com. If you disagree with me,

if you're mad at me, hit me up. I'll answer all your questions on Friday's edition of the show. Until then, have a great evening, everyone.