After Party with Emily Jashinsky - Israel-Hamas Deal Details, Civil War Potential, Unhinged Katie Porter, and CHILLING Supreme Court Plot, with Rod Dreher and Evita Duffy-Alfonso

Episode Date: October 9, 2025

Emily Jashinsky opens the show discussing the historic announcement by President Trump that Israel and Hamas have signed off on the first phase of the U.S.-proposed Gaza peace deal, allowing for the release of all Israeli hostages and a halt in the war. Then Emily speaks with Rod Dreher, Author of “Rod Dreher's Diary” and books including "Living In Wonder,” to talk about rising tensions in the West amid multiculturalism, what history tells us about the future of Europe and America, the prosecution of former FBI Director James Comey, the dangers of AI, and the “re-enchantment” movement as young people increasingly turn to faith as they seek meaning. Then Emily is joined by independent journalist, Evita Duffy-Alfonso, to discuss The Washington Post’s report on how TikTok keeps its users scrolling for hours, Gallup polling that shows trust in media is at a new low, California Democratic gubernatorial candidate Katie Porter’s epic meltdown, PLUS why Evita is a fan of Japanese anime. Emily rounds out the show with the story the media SHOULD be covering extensively… the man who was arrested outside the annual Red Mass ceremony in D.C. with 200+ explosives. She also issues a challenge to her friends on the left. Cowboy Colostrum: Get 25% Off Cowboy Colostrum with code AFTERPARTY at https://www.cowboycolostrum.com/AFTERPARTY Masa Chips: Go to https://MASAChips.com/AFTERPARTY and use code AFTERPARTY for 25% off your first order. Vandy Crisps: Get 25% off your first order | Use code AFTERPARTY at https://vandycrisps.com/AFTERPARTY   Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to After Party, everyone. Thank you so much for tuning in. We always appreciate it if you throw a little subscribe our way. Actually, tonight I'm going to be in the live chat over on YouTube because we have Rod Dreher, who was taped earlier today coming up on the show. I had an incredible conversation with Rod, who's one of my favorite writers. We went really deep on some timely, topical news stories like Jay Jones in Virginia, what happened in Manchester at the synagogue not long ago. And we dive up. all of that, but also just cover some, I think, really interesting foundational questions about Western civilization. So I will be in the stream chatting with all of you during that pre-taped interview. Right now, though, there is breaking news. And we are going to talk about it with Evita Duffy Alfonso, who will be with us live after 1030. I do want to start, though, before we get into the breaking news out of Gaza, just by saying this was brought to my attention maybe about an hour ago. It looks like Hakeem Jeffries is going to get a primary challenge, and I want to start just by saying, I think that's so wrong. Hakeem Jeffers is a statesman, and he is the future of the

Democratic Party. He is a brave voice, a beacon, really, of moral clarity and strength for Democrats. This man has his finger on the pulse of the electorate, and to primary him would be to undermine the entire Democratic Party. That's a joke, of course. I understand very much why someone would primary Hakeem Jeffries because this entire shutdown squabble has shown how very, very ill-equipped for the job he is. So no surprise that in the midst of it, it looks like a Mamdani-aligned candidate is looking to unseat Hakeem Jeffries. I wanted to start on that point. I know there's a lot of important stuff going on in the news, but Hakeem Jeffries, me and the leader of the Democratic Party right now, just absolutely face-planting.

after day. In more important news, however, we appear to have peace in the Middle East, at least peace in Gaza right now. I want to start with this post from Donald Trump. So he says, quote, I am very proud to announce that Israel and Hamas have both signed off on the first phase of our peace plan. This means that all of the hostages will be released very soon and Israel will withdraw their troops to an agreed upon line as the first steps toward a strong, durable, and everlasting peace. All parties will be treated fairly. This is a great. day for the Arab and Muslim world, Israel, all surrounding nations in the United States of America, and we thank the mediators from Qatar, Egypt, and Turkey, who worked with us to make this historic and

unprecedented event happen. Blessed are the peacemakers, obviously quoting from Matthew 5, sermon on the mount there, blessed are the peacemakers. Everyone in politics could use a good reminder of Matthew 5, just about every day, actually. Now, Benjamin Netanyahu posted as well, he said, with the approval of the first phase of the plan, and I'm just going to stop there in the sentence because notice that language echoing Trump's language. So they're obviously both using this first phase language, which is important because there was a deal that Donald Trump memorably stuck, that Donald Trump memorably was able to negotiate before he came into office in January, right on the cusp of coming into office in January. It was a really remarkable feat,

getting everybody to agree. That deal, of course, ended up falling apart as the phases went on. And so So that first phase language, obviously no peace deal. This complicated is going to be immediate, flip a switch, night and day. But the first phase language, I think, should give all of us pause. Netanyahu goes on to say, all of our hostages will be brought home. This is a diplomatic success and a national and moral victory for the state of Israel. From the beginning, I made it clear, we will not rest until all our hostages return and all our goals are achieved. Through steadfast resolve, powerful military action, and the great, efforts of our great friend and ally, President Trump, we have reached this critical turning point. I thank President Trump for his leadership, his partnership, and his unwavering commitment to the safety of Israel and the freedom of our hostages. Now, the Nobel Peace Prize talk is already mounting once again, as you will not be surprised to learn. Eric Trump just posted about a half an hour ago, retweet this. We believe that Donald Trump deserves a Nobel Peace Prize. I saw Megan McCain also making calls for a Nobel Peace Prize as well. Some of those calls were

or echo calls that were made in January and have been made after the Abraham Accords, for example, Netanyahu in his nomination for Donald Trump to receive the Nobel Peace Prize actually mentioned the Abraham Accords. And that's probably for a strategic reason. I know a little bit too much about the Nobel Peace Prize right now because I've been working on Story for Unheard about it. But basically, the Nobel Peace Prize nominations are due February 1st. And it's technically supposed to be for the prior year, although that's not always, the case. Sometimes it's invoked that, you know, something happened within the prior year. And that's why a particular candidate is especially supposed to be worthy. But sneaking it in

before the deadline could help. I don't know, probably unlikely that Trump gets a Nobel Peace Prize. But in this case, there's no downplaying the significance of what Trump was able to achieve. And I want to, before we toss to broad, explain a little bit why using reporting from obviously the left-leaning website, drop site. And of course, you know that from Ryan Grimm and Jeremy Scaehol. But this reporting is really important. And it gets to actually, I think, the achievement that Donald Trump seems to have within his grasp here. So reading from DrapSite's report, quote, multiple sources from Hamas and other Palestinian factions have told DropSite that their central concern in these negotiations was that handing over all Israeli captives would remove nearly all of their leverage if it did not include a complete Israeli withdrawal.

Israel has, as a matter of policy, is systematically violated. it's ceasefire agreements with Hamas and also with Lebanon. Dropside says, in entering into these negotiations, Hamas negotiators accepted they were engaging in a high-stakes gamble. Here's the important part. The source close to the negotiators told Dropside, quote, trusting Trump's word is the gamble they are taking. If it works, they will be considered geniuses. If it fails, they will be considered fools. It's as simple as that. So a senior Hamas official, also told drop site, the Palestinian negotiators have faced unprecedented pressure from Arab and Islamic mediators over the past 48 hours to make significant concessions and to quickly

reach an agreement on the aspects of Trump's plan that address the exchange of captives, a ceasefire, and the resumption of aid. Those last two bits in particular, sources say that it was Trump who has given his word because if you remember in this peace plan, Trump says he will be at the head of the board. If you remember the specific, in this 20-point peace plan that Trump and Netanyahu announced at the White House last week. That was actually one of the key, I remember in the White House reading it as it came out before they were coming to the podium. And that was a fascinating point of this 20-point peace plan because that was, as drop-site's reporting has suggested just over the last week as well, important for the

Palestinian side because they wanted Donald Trump to sort of personally guarantee that he was going to push for peace, they obviously feel that Donald Trump wants to have this as his legacy. And so from that side, what they're saying is Trump is going to put, if Trump puts his reputation on the line here, it gives us more trust. Now, I don't think they have, you know, they're under any illusion that Donald Trump is, is in any way whatsoever on their side during any of this. But what they do believe is that Donald Trump wants peace to be a part of his legacy. He's been called peacemaker-in-chief repeatedly over the course of his presidency by his own staffers.

That's clearly deliberate. He touts having accomplished pulled off seven peace deals and ceasefires over the course of his presidency. He talked about that at the United Nations. He said, I think this was back in the summer if his name were Obama, he would get the Nobel Peace Prize for the Abraham Accords, something to that effect. But you see how important it is in his historic legacy, and that also speaks to Jared Kushner and Steve Whitkoff being in Egypt. It looks like Egypt today before this deal was reached. That gets to the point.

Dropside emphasizes here about how the Palestinian negotiators say they have, quote, faced unprecedented pressure from Arab and Islamic mediators. This once again brings us to something that really only Donald Trump find himself in a position to pull off, which is bringing together the, Arabic world to put this pressure on Hamas and negotiators in Palestine. That is some of you cannot imagine another Republican president being sort of, I was going to use the word flexible enough, and maybe that is the right word, politically flexible. I don't think ideologically flexible is the right word, but just that has, that is a very, very difficult thing for any president, Republican or Democrat to pull off. but because Trump doesn't care about the political norms

in the way other politicians have, he literally sent his son-in-law, who's not a formal part of the administration, and who, of course, I and many of the people have concerns about conflicts of interests. Same thing with Steve Whitcroft, by the way. So Trump plucks his friend, long-time friend from the New York real estate business world

and his son-in-law, and they're operating behind the scenes in a way that gets many of these allied countries to pressure Hamas, to accept this deal. Again, this is not something that you can imagine virtually any other politician pulling off. So if it holds, it is a singular Trumpian accomplishment. If it holds, I'm probably less optimistic than other people about to what extent this will hold. That 20-point peace plan, which seems to have been the framework that was agreed to this evening, is fraught.

There are all kinds of ways it can go wrong, and hostilities can. can resume again, but I am hoping and praying right now that this sticks because this has been for everyone. I mean, it has just been an unbelievable tragedy. So, hey, if Trump can do it, every person, if Trump can achieve a just and lasting peace in this case, every person should be shelving their biases. and I think reckoning with the reasons that Trump himself was able to do this. Again, that's if it holds and if it sticks.

Okay, so this is a breaking story. Obviously, a lot of these details are going to be filled out in the hours and the days to come. We will, of course, cover them here. We're going to cover more reactions with Avita Defi Alfonso. First, though, I'm going to bring in an interview that I recorded earlier in the day, actually before this news broke, with the Great Roder, one of my favorite writers, a sub-second that I subscribe to and read every single day. And so we have a great conversation as I teased earlier in the show. I mentioned this, but I'm going to jump into the YouTube chat. I'll be there in

just a second. Before we bring in Rod, of course, we're going to do the cowboy colostrum ad. And maybe because of the news tonight, I can do it in a Trump voice. Recently, I did learn about colostrum. Wasn't super familiar with it. It's the very first milk known as liquid gold that babies received from their mother's afterbirth, packed with proteins, natural growth factors, antimicrobial peptides that work to enhance your immune response, reduce inflation, repair, and balance gut lining, reduce bloating, and make your hair and skin look amazing. Today's sponsor, Cowboy Colostrum, offers the highest quality cow colostrum available in the U.S., 100% made in America from 100% American grass-fed cows.

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Please support our show and tell them our show sent you. On that note, let's go ahead and turn to Rod Dreher, author of Living in Wonder. He has a subset called Rod Dreher's diary as well. Without further ado, here's Rod. I'll be in the chat. Well, one of the perks of my job is that I get to talk to some of my favorite writers. So we're joined now by Rod Dreher, author of the wonderful book, Living in Wonder, along with, of course, the Benedict option and Live Not by Lies. His substack is one of the few that I read every single day. I don't miss an addition of it, Rod, so thank you for being here. I have no unsubstacked thoughts, Emily, so thank you for tuning in. Right. Well, I mean, you're also like a wonderful curator of Link. from around the world, which is, I think, such a valuable service that you offer, Rod. So one of the many reasons I subscribe.

And I actually saw you recently, you've been talking a lot about David Betts and the kind of civil war discourse over whether or not the UK and maybe the United States are teetering on the brink of a potential for civil war, which David Betts, who's a fairly nonpartisan historian of civil wars, says in some ways, yes. And you wrote on X recently, Civil Wars are coming. absent strong government action, as Renu Camus said, and got convicted for saying it, quote, in the unfortunate circumstance that it comes to this, if the choices between submission and war, I say war, war, war. Now, I wanted to ask you about this in light of a clip of Eric Trump talking to Chris Cuomo

that's been pinging around the internet today. Also, of course, the National Guard is in Chicago. It's very tense here in the U.S. So let's watch this clip of Eric Trump, and we'll break it down. Did we raid Biden's home? You know, did we, did we try and ban corrupt Biden? Did they come after us? Did we weaponize every AG and DA, you know, against Biden? Do we do that against Hunter Biden who had a laptop from hell, pictures of cocaine, illicit drug use, prostitution? You know, did we do that?

Did we make up a dirty dossier about Biden? Did they try and destroy Biden's marriage? You know, was any of that true? I mean, did we make up stories that Biden had secret servers in the basement? of his home communicating with the Kremlin in Russia. You know, did we strip Biden off the ballot of multiple states? Did we take Biden off of Twitter and Instagram and Facebook and try and silence his voice so he couldn't communicate?

Did we put Biden in a courtroom every single day, 91 felony counts that have all been overturned from my father now, right, for nonsense to try and keep him off of a campaign trail and to try and destroy his life? You know, do we do any of that? So, Rod, that was in response really to a question about James Comey, who pleaded not guilty at an Alexandria courthouse today. But just listening to Eric Trump, you can hear the Camus line, war, war, war. Do you think the prosecution of Comey, but also basically the entire last five plus years, is the recipes sort of being fulfilled in the U.S., do you think? Yeah, you know, I first started listening to David Betts, who's a professor.

in the King's College, London War Studies Department. He started doing podcasts earlier this year talking about how all of the elements for civil war are present in almost every Western nation, especially present, he says, in Great Britain and France, but also everywhere else. And he says the main driver of this is multiculturalism. But that's not the only one.

And I think what we just heard there from Eric Trump is a good example of why we in the U.S. are flirting with this, too. I mean, look, I'm living in Europe now. You're talking to me from Budapest. And to be looking from across the ocean back at America at a time like not one month after Charlie Kirk was gunned down, you have this situation in Virginia with Jay Jones, the Attorney General Democrat candidate,

talking about how he wants to see a Republican killed. and the children of this guy killed to these, quote, little fascists, and all the Democrats are standing with them. Emily, I've got to say, I mean, what is the spark going to be to set this thing off? I hope it doesn't come, but we cannot live under the kind of regime that the Democrats and the liberals have been trying to inflict on us and would inflict on us, again, if Trump weren't in power. And the question, you know, if you're Eric Trump is, well,

and you're concerned about the prospect of a civil war is, okay, so what do you do to avoid it? Well, then also, I mean, are you supposed to not prosecute James Comey? Are you supposed to not prosecute people who erred in their attempts to prosecute your father and your political allies? It just, you've written a lot about what Betta is saying on this rod and the entire question. It's just, what is the, it feels almost.

inevitable because everything just keeps getting ratcheted up further and ratcheted up further, but nobody has any real incentive to stop. Yeah, you know, this reminds me a lot of what happened in Spain in the early 1930s. After the monarchy fell in Spain around 1930, I think it was, the left came to power in a democratic election. And some of the radicals on the left went crazy and did things like burning down convents and churches. So when the right came back to power two years later in the next election, it got its revenge. Then two years later, the pendulum swung left again.

By the time you got to 1935, both sides hated each other so much that there was no coming back from the brink. And I believe it was 1936 that the Civil War broke out. Now, the Spanish Civil War was one army against another army. And David Betz said that's not what we're going to see if it breaks out in the West. we're going to see things more like assassinations, bombings, racial violence, especially in the cities. And I got to tell you, just earlier tonight, I was out with some friends who are over in Budapest from the UK. And they're very, very worried.

They were talking about it. My one friend said, I can't let my little girl go down the street around the corner to the supermarket at night, without having to fear for her being abducted. This is not a joke. Americans never hear this from the American media, but this is what everybody in Western Europe is talking about. Except here in Hungary, where we don't have that problem, because guess what?

Victor Orban guards the borders. And on that point, actually, I wanted to ask you just today, this is being reported in the Associated Press. The assailant in last week's attack on a synagogue in the northwest of England that left two congregants, dead pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group, police said Wednesday. This is the AP, quote, the attacker, Jihad al-Shamee called emergency dispatchers during his deadly attack on October 2nd to express his commitment to the terror group. Counterterrorism policing Northwest said in a statement

he was shot dead by police outside of that synagogue in Manchester after he rammed a car into pedestrians, attacked them with a knife and tried to force his way into the building. The telegraph is also reporting he had three wives. And Rod, it does... Probably all on welfare. And to many people in the UK, it starts to feel completely untenable, especially just in the last few years, five years.

Do you know, I was in Oxford earlier this year at a conference, and I talked to this one American student who was in Oxford studying. And he said, look, this is not my country, but looking at it from the outside, if the people who actually ran Great Britain, if they actively hated the British people, I don't know how they would behave any different than what they're doing. People in Britain and all across the West, this is happening in France,

too. Whenever I go to France, they say the same thing. People have had it with the ruling class. And we don't know how this is going to go. I mean, when I was in France earlier this year, I was there right after Lent started. It was on Ash Wednesday, the churches were full all over France. They hadn't seen that in decades because France is a pretty secular, country. And I asked French Catholics I talk to, wait, how do you explain this? And a lot of them said people are terrified that civil war with Islam, with Muslims who live here is coming and they feel afraid and they want to shore themselves up spiritually. Well, this is what Renaud Camus was talking about. He's an atheist himself, but he feels that there's no way to avoid this. And he doesn't want there

to be a civil war. Nobody should. David Beds said an elector in Budapest recently, millions will die if this happens. But Camus is right. He said if the question is whether or not to submit to this new order or to fight, then we've got to fight. And you mentioned Camus getting convicted for what he said in that post, as I read earlier. I'm curious because you actually are in Europe.

And as you mentioned, you've been in UK, Paris recently having some of these conversations. It seems to me that it's become a lot less taboo to even bring up Camus and others. in conversation, is that your sense that there's sort of a reckoning among, sort of like what we saw here happen with DEI, BLM, transgenderism. There's sort of a reckoning on multiculturalism and immigration happening in Europe and in the UK. Oh, Emily, I think that's right. In fact, just tonight with my British friends who were in town, they were talking about how their own kids who were teenagers back in the UK, they despise woke. This younger generation, the Zoomers, are responding against wokeness, against multiculturalism, against all these things that have

ruined their countries and ruined their lives. And I think that this is one reason we see these governments in Britain, in France, in Germany, cracking down very hard on their own people. Not the Muslims who come and talk about killing Jews and, you know, jihad and things like that. They don't get in trouble. But if you have native-born people who say even the slightest thing against multiculturalism, against Islam, you can expect a visit from the police. People are fed up with it, and it's becoming, as you say, less and less taboo. There's a new book out in English, a new English translation of the 1973 novel by genre Spy, a French novelist called The Camp of the Saints. Now, this was a book I always read, was like, oh, it's white supremacy, it's white supremacy,

it's white supremacy. Turner Diaries. Yeah. Right. It's like the Turner Diaries. Well, I finally read it in this new English translation that's out. And I'm like, oh my God, A, it's not like supremacist. And B, this guy, genre, spy, who wrote the book in 1973, he saw it all coming. And the real villains in the book are not the migrant ward, but the liberals and the establishment people, even people in the church who surrendered, just gave up because they were so filled with self-hatred, civilizational self-hatred. Now, on that note, The only white pill scenario that I've been able to come up with in my own head is actually the Benedict option, rather than civil war, at least here in the States, which is where I'm most familiar, of course, with the politics.

The maybe easy way to get on the off-ramp is to see a Benedict option play out along the lines of geographic sorting. Something like that. People who are Benedict optioning to use the verb would be, you know, maybe if you live in D.C., you're going to be way out in. in Western Virginia or even West Virginia. People won't live in cities anymore if they don't want to be governed like this and vice versa. That's the only way I can think of avoiding what would be a really terrible confrontation

at this point, Rod. Do you see any possibility of something like that? Oh, yeah, for sure. In fact, I had dinner with David Betts when he was in Budapest recently and he told me that he and his wife who moved far out of London in anticipation of something going off

because he said that there will be no warning. It'll just be a spark and it's going to kick off. Now, Betz is a very solid guy. If you watched any of his podcast, you can see he's not an alarmist. He's just reading the evidence and drawing conclusions from the evidence. With the Benedict option, when I wrote that book, gosh, it's been almost 10 years now. It's not about escaping anything because I don't think we can fully escape the modern world. it's rather about building smaller communities where people share your morals, share your beliefs,

so you can be resilient when you face the modern world. But in the case of civil war, if God forbid it should come to us, then you absolutely will need to have around you people you can trust. This is why even though I live in central Europe, I have land back in Louisiana where I come from. And when I was just there recently, I was talking to my cousin about building a cabin there so I can have. a place to retreat to if, God forbid, things kick off. Because if they kick off in one country, David Betts warns that it will be, it will spread rapidly because of social media. Yeah, it seems alarmist. And I think a lot of people just don't even push quite that far into what this would manifest as if it were to happen. But it does, of course, feel like we get

closer and closer. You mentioned Jay Jones actually earlier. And we can put F7 up on the screen. This is a Washington Post article from today, which breaks down the situation as it's stands right now, quote, Democrats are largely standing by their nominee for Virginia Attorney General after revelations that he once mused about killing a GOP lawmaker, worrying some in the party who want to draw a hard line against political violence and drawing accusations of hypocrisy from Republicans. And this is a really critical line. The Post says top Democrats have condemned the 22 text from Jay Jones, but declined to join Republicans in calling for Jones to drop out, with early voting underway, already underway in the battleground state. No prominent elected Democrat has called on

Jones to leave the race in just for a little bit of context. If people haven't, if the story hasn't come across their transom yet, Jones sent the text in 2022 not long after leaving the state legislature. The message first reported last week by National Review, he imagined killing the GOP speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates and discussed urinating on the future graves of other Republicans. He laid out a hypothetical in which he had two bullets to fire at then state House Speaker Todd Gilbert. Hitler, the Cambodian dictator Paul Pot, and he said two bullets for Gilbert, I believe, Rod. What's your reaction to even a month after? We're still so close to the assassination of Charlie Kirk. Democrats actually not calling on this man to drop out.

Look, Charlie Kirk did everything right. You remember after he was killed, there were clips going around of him saying earlier that the reason he goes to college campus is to engage his ideological opponents is because the alternative to that is violence and they killed him for it. And now, not one month after he was killed, you see this, where the Democrats are willing to accept it and normalize it. I don't know how we come back from that. I hope we do. I don't want to be alarmist here, but you got to read the tea leaves. You've got to know something about history. If you know anything about the history of the Spanish Civil War, you know, this is how it got started. Now, one thing that worries me, Emily, I've got to be honest here, even as a Trump voter,

one thing that worries me about the Comey prosecution is the case looks weak. I think Jim Comey is a slime bag. I'm happy for him to have to pay the price for things he did. But from what I've been able to see, the case looks weak. If you go after the former FBI director, you better have a rock solid case. And I'm afraid they don't have it. If they lose this case, then that's just going to end up. add fuel to the Democrats' fire. I hope they win it. I don't like Jim Comey, but I'm worried about this.

Right. Yeah. I mean, it's certainly, as far as perjury chargers go, easy to imagine him legally finding plenty of wiggle room out of it, even if, as you say, he's pretty obviously breached ethics while telling everybody that he is the paragon of ethical behavior. And, Rod, that was my next question is what role you think the media plays in these tensions? Because when I look at this Jay Jones story, the media coverage, the volume of media coverage here is so obviously much lower than it would be if the parties were reversed. I think the same is pretty obviously true of what Comey did in and of itself. There was barely any coverage at the time in the legacy press of him as the evidence trickled out through other Durham report, IGA report, Inspector General

Michael Horowitz's report that Comey had acted poorly. And that, and that, feels to me like gasoline on the fire from the people who are lecturing everybody else about, you know, toning it down. Yeah, look, Emily, I have worked in newspapers for most of my life as a journalist. I've been working from more than 30 years. And I've always known from the inside that the media are liberal. This is not even a question, right? They are. But I always had to believe that at least they were trying to find the truth. At some point, over the last 20 years, I really, realize, no, they're not trying to find the truth.

They're more concerned with managing the narrative. This especially came home to me when I moved to Budapest in 2021, sorry, early 2022, and I was here when the Ukraine-Russia war started. Well, I started watching on my laptop Russian TV, their English language broadcast, knowing it was propaganda, but I wanted to see what they were saying to their own people, clearly propaganda. And then I turned on CNN to see what Americans were reading. We're sorry, we're seeing and hearing.

And I got to say, it was shocking to me how much they edited out of the actual story. And I notice over the years when I go back to the U.S. to talk to people about the war, so many Americans, even American conservatives with whom I share almost every view, they have such a radically different idea of the Ukraine-Russia war because they have. They've only been told about it through what they get in the American media, and it's just not true. Similarly with migration, every time I go back to America, they're all shocked when I tell them, you know, Europe may be going to civil war because the American liberal media just don't talk about it. And I've got to tell you, thank God for X and thank God for online for podcasts like yours, because they do provide a wider view. and people need to be paying attention to that because if you understand the mainstream media, again, not as telling you the truth as best they know it, but as managing a narrative, it will change the way you interact with the world.

Rod, one major subplot in the broader culture where that you've been following closer than many people for longer than many people, and it's suddenly a pretty big topic of conversation across the West is what's been dubbed kind of the reenchantment, but spiritual revival as well, especially among younger men. So in that context, I had to ask you about this news today about Jonathan Rindernecht. He's a 29-year-old who the feds have named today in a press conference, quote, as an arsonist who started the devastating Palisades fire in California. Officials say he used chat GPT to create pictures of people running away from a big fire,

and he was listening to music about starting fires. So what we have here is sort of the flip side of young men like Charlie Kirk digging deeper and deeper into their faith. It looks like what we have here is an example of, as Erica Kirk put it, a young man, the likes of which Kirk was trying to save, ending his life. But right in this case, I want to ask you particularly about chat GPT because you've written a lot about the potential for infiltration of chat GPT or powers. coming with chat GPT that people may be unaware of. What's your reaction? Yeah, when I was working on my book Living in Wonder, which is about Christian Re-enchantment broadly. It's a wonderful book, by the way. Everyone should get it. Yes. Thank you. I was really shocked to learn that there are no small number of people at senior levels in Silicon Valley who see AI not just as a tool, but as a sort of high-tech

Ouija board through which higher intelligences, as they put it, can communicate with us. And they will lead us to a brighter, richer, more prosperous, happier future. And this really shocked me because you don't think of Silicon Valley people as being into the occult, but it turns out a lot of them are. Now, I'm not saying that, oh, the demons are in chat GPT, but I do think, and this is based on talking to actual working exorcist, that there is something. potential for these things to be misused by evil spirits. A lot of people will laugh at this, but may tell you what, if you actually talk to people who have come out of the occult

or talk to exorcists who dealt with it face to face, it's no laughing matter. And I mean, look, I use grok for fact checking and things like that. I don't think every time you get on on AI, you know, you're dancing with the devil. But what's really interesting, Emily, is to see the number of people who have surrendered to what they're calling AI psychosis. They begin to think that AI is a God that's telling them what to do and telling them that they are a God. The New York Times did a story earlier this year about a 28-year-old married woman who spends 60 hours a week on chat GPT with her online lover, Leo. Now, she knows that Leo is just a machine. He's not a real person. but he gives her the good feelings that she can get from her husband.

So she's willing to entertain this lie and treat it as if it's her partner because of the feelings. And this is the great concern I have, leaving aside the spiritual aspect of it, if people have come to believe that good feeling, a sense of well-being, a sense of happiness or exaltation is more important than the truth, then we're done. We're done as a culture. And by the way, in that New York Times story, the husband didn't mind that his wife does this because he spends all his time with online porn. We are separating ourselves from reality. And I don't know how we keep together a liberal democracy, much less a society if people give up any care about truth.

And finally, this is what Hannah Aaron, the great 20th century political philosopher, said was one sign. of coming totalitarianism, when people cease to care about truth and instead only cared about having the things they already believed or wanted to believe affirmed. And the flip side of this again, Rod, it seems to me there's almost a heightening of the contradictions, not necessarily in a Leninist sense, but in the sense that as these contradictions are heightened, literally, when you are a curious young man, Charlie Kirk, for example, talked about struggling with porn addiction and those sorts of things himself. And you are just a normal young guy in the United States and you want to live a normal happy life and you look around

and you see the ravages of this ultra high technology. It can have the effect of not everyone, but sending some people further and further into faith in this way that, you know, Michael Knowles talks about how he grew up, you know, really inspired by the new atheists and Richard Dawkins. Christopher Hitchens and left that because he realized there was something much richer in the alternative. And it seems to me that what's happening right now is where both of these things are growing. You know, we have this sort of secularism growing and the spirituality growing alongside it. Well, yeah, and I got to tell you, I wrote a piece for Barry Weiss's online newspaper, the Free Press earlier this year about the pilgrimage to Chauter.

Chautre is a famous French cathedral. about 60 miles from Paris, every year for the past 43 years, about 20,000 young French traditionalist Catholics do a three-day walk to Shatra. They camp along the way, they sing hymns, they pray, they worship. I went to do a story about it, even though I'm not a Catholic. I'm Orthodox. And it was astonishing. The average age of these kids is 19. And these kids were desperate for faith, for roots, for community, for meaning for purpose. When I interviewed a bunch of these kids, the main storyline was,

we have been raised with nothing and we're desperate for something. And they believe that they can find that something in traditional Christianity. Now, as I said, I'm Eastern Orthodox. All of my friends who are in Eastern Orthodox churches back in the U.S. say they are overwhelmed with young people, especially young men who are seeking something deeper,

not just a sort of happy, clappy megachurch Christianity or a boring political sermons, but something that will give them deeper roots about the meaning of life. So in many ways, this is a great time. One of my English friends I was having dinner with tonight is an Anglican priest and said that, you know, the churches in England, the Anglican churches that go woke and only care about, you know, climate change, Ukraine, whatever the woke thing of the day is, they're dying out, but the Anglican parrises that really go deep, they are thriving. And there's so many young people, especially young men, come in. So there's schisms happening even within the

churches. Well, that's such an interesting example in the Anglican respect, because there's no constituency for the sort of secular watered down Christianity, whereas the constituency is for the deep traditional Christianity. And that actually is, I mean, that was sort of the history of mainline Protestantism over the last 30 or so years. As Protestant, I guess I can say that. It's what happened with Alka, evangelical Lutheran churches. And they're drying up, and they were supposed to be the future. Yeah, and you know, it has to be said.

I think Alibeth Stuckey has said this on her ex-account, that even though a lot of people are going to the Catholic Church, leaving evangelicalism, the fact is, for every one convert, the Catholics get eight Catholics leave. Well, I can tell you as a former Catholic, which ones are leaving, those that go to liberal churches or churches that are so mushy that they don't give people anything solid to hold on to. The Catholic churches that are thriving are those that actually teach the real thing. I think the same is true for orthodoxy. You know, it's funny.

This conversation reminds me of this young evangelical megachurch couple who came to our tiny Orthodox Christian mission in Baton Rouge. where I was living in 2020, and they came during COVID. And we said, well, I'm glad to have you here, but why are you here? Because orthodoxy is kind of weird in an American context. And they said that COVID was like an apocalypse for them. It showed them how fragile our civilization is. And they realized that the sort of megachurch Christianity that they were used to was not giving them the spiritual and theological and moral depth and discipline

that they would need to make a, through a real crisis. So that's why they came to our church. Now, I'm not proselytizing here. I'm just telling people who are listening, whatever your tradition is, you better get into one that takes this stuff seriously and does not have its head in the ground and it's just there to sort of anesthetize you about the reality of the crisis or end, but one that gives you something real with which you can resist and build a life of joy and resilience. So beautifully put, Rod, one of the many reasons people should go up and buy Living a Wonder, subscribe to Rod Dreher's Diary.

Also, Rod, you're a wonderful recommender of books. I read so many of them that you recommend. So if people need book recommendation, that's another reason to subscribe over on your substack. Such a privilege to talk to you today, Rod. Well, it's always fun, Emily. Thank you so much. Thank you. Well, that was fun, right?

I had fun in the chat. I'll tell you that much. We're about to bring the wonderful Evita Duffy Alfonso in. But before, did you know that chips and fries were once cooked in beef tallow? Up until the 1990s, when corporations swapped it for cheap seed oils. Now those oils make up 20% of the average Americans daily calories and are linked to inflammation and metabolic issues. Somehow that got sold, marketed to all of us as, quote, healthy.

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Masa is now available nationwide at your local sprouts supermarket. Stop by and pick up a bag before they are gone. All right. I'm joined now once again by independent journalist Evita Duffy. Alfonso. Avita, thank you for being here. Thanks for having me. Where do you stand on the seed oil debate? I don't know if we've ever had that conversation. I am a very anti-seed oil. I don't eat seed oils. Yeah. It's to be expected. Also,

eat a lot of raw meat and raw dairy. But I was not, I was not the first person to drink raw milk like on the Maha bandwagon. I was doing it forever because I grew up in Wisconsin. I was going to say, I remember you going on that jihad pretty early. You were on the raw milk jihad. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, very early. It's a crime that it's illegal in a lot of states. You're proto-Maha, actually. Exactly. All right. Well, let's get to the breaking news from Israel, where actually right now, Evita, it's being reported. Barack Riveta is reporting over at Axios. He spoke to Trump on the phone.

Trump is saying he's going to go to Israel. He's open to speaking at the Knesset. The Nobel Prize is going to be announced on October 10th, so just in a couple of days. what is your just first reaction again this is breaking news we're going to learn a lot more in the weeks and i'm sorry in the days hours weeks to come but uh you've you've tracked this story very closely so what do you make of the news tonight that there seems to be a breakthrough well the president has been working extremely hard for a peace deal for a very long time he has branded himself the president of peace so this is this is what he's wanted this is what the american people put him into office for um i think this would be a massive victory

if it actually comes to fruition. There have been some back in force, right? Initially we thought we had a peace deal. Netanyahu made some changes. The Arabs seem to want to back out. Now it seems like we actually have a deal, which is wonderful if it's true. I think the American people will be very happy.

It'll be wonderful for the families of the hostages, even the ones who have deceased members whose bodies are still being held in Gaza. And of course, it will be good for the Palestinian people whose home has been under siege for a very long time. I am just, I'm hopeful, but I'm going to wait until it actually happens before I say anything more. Yeah, no, I'm with you on that. Let's say hypothetically that a week from now, we're looking in the rearview mirror,

and this deal does seem to have very much been settled. Let's say a month from now. Let's say we're in the holiday season, and it looks like this is a durable negotiation, which, again, I share your skepticism towards, or healthy skepticism, I should say towards. But if that happens, where do you think this raging debate among younger conservatives about America First and Israel, where does that go if this conversation fades into the rearview mirror? Do you think that makes a difference when we look at polling, you know, six months from now, a year from now, will there be support for Israel that rebounds among younger conservatives? Because right now there's a very stark difference between support for Israel among younger conservatives and older conservatives. Well, I'll just say this.

if you're a pro-Israel person, the best thing to happen for Israel, for the country, for the people, is for this war to come to an end. Because it's the fact that this war has continued for as long as it has and all of the images that we're seeing out of Gaza are popping up on people's TikTok and Instagram feeds, that support for Israel has plummeted with a lot of young people. Having this war continue is, I think, what has driven a lot of genuine anti-Semitic feelings. and then also just skepticism towards support for Israel among the American people in general. So this is a great thing for Israel, frankly, if this war comes to an end,

if they want to continue to have a partnership with America for generations to come. I'm saying that genuinely, I think this is a good thing for the state of Israel. And I think that if this is no longer in the minds of everybody, it's on the forefront on the front pages of the news, that there could be a change of heart potentially. But if the longer it continues, I think the more that young people, feel entrenched in their beliefs that Israel is a genocidal state. I'm not saying that, but that is the perception of many young people, especially because it's what is being promoted on social media

where young people tend to get their news from. We're going to talk about that in a minute. This is a long-running dispute between the two of us, so stay tuned for that. So finally on this question of the peace negotiations, I'm curious what you make of Steve Whitkoff and Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law, president's longtime friend from New York real estate world, Steve Whitkoff, being involved in these negotiations seemingly at a crucial level, looking like they were really a crucial part of pushing this over the edge. And so if this ends up, again, sticking around in Vita, I also right now have a really hard time looking at the future of the kind of post-Trump Republican Party.

And to me, it just looks like such a Trumpian achievement at first blush, as though I can't imagine any other politician getting all of these parties to the table and managing to have an agreement like this. What do you make? I mean, is there is there anyone else who could have done this? Well, certainly Joe Biden didn't. I mean, let's be honest about the state of Israel. I mean, there's been decades of conflict in that region. And a lot of presidents have tried to come to a two-state solution. And oftentimes there is failure. I think, we need to see what time has to say about this, that there's going to be a lasting solution. That would be amazing. He would go down as one of the greatest peace presidents of all time.

I think it's interesting you brought up Jared Kushner and Whitkoff. And there are Jewish men who are at the helm of these negotiations. There's been some, some criticisms of the admin that were not pro-Israel enough, that somehow President Trump is, is anti-Semitic, which is ridiculous. His ambassador is Mike Huckabee. His ambassador is Mike Huckabee, I know. is one of the most pro-Israel admins of all time, no doubt. And so this is the people who are working for a peace deal from the Trump admin, well-meaning, many of them Jewish. And so again, if this brings lasting peace, it's a wonderful thing for Trump's legacy. But let's get to social media because the Washington Post had a splashy deep dive where

they actually, quote, created a database of roughly 15 million videos served up to 1100 users. they plucked these 1100 users from their own readership and served up these videos to them in a six-month period last year. Our analyses showed just how effective TikTok is at getting even its heaviest users to swipe more and watch more on its platform after five months. The data trends for both groups suggested the features of, quote, compulsive behavior, repeatedly feeling urges to do something,

even if the person thinks it's harmful in the long run. They go on to write that increases in watchtime could be signs of binging behavior where a person finds it hard to stop something once they start and opening the app more often. may represent craving, while the faster swiping for new videos can be an indication of automatic or habitual behaviors. And lastly, they say research has shown that users on TikTok report being more prone to losing track of time and spending more time in the app than intended compared

with users on Instagram. I'm just, what we could get in all of this. Obviously, this comes as the TikTok deal looks like it's also been completed, like the sale to U.S. owners, including, of course, Larry Ellison, who seems to be like the reporting suggests one part of a seven-person board that's going to oversee it. The details are a little bit murky right now exactly as to logistically how it gets worked out. But that's how this reporting is, that's when this reporting is landing. I think that's useful context. So tell us, Evito, why you love TikTok and Chairman Shee. Okay, okay, okay. This is already an attacking, leading question. Beatty Porter would not be happy if she was in my shoes. Okay, so, Emily, I will say TikTok is addictive.

That is 100% true. But so is Instagram Reels and so is YouTube shorts. They all have short form video content. And you don't see a massive Washington Post profile about Instagram and about YouTube. And the question is, why is that? Well, now they'll say it's Chinese influence. You don't want the Chinese to influence the American people to brainwash the minds of our youth. And to that, I would say BS, because our own Americans.

social media companies are controlled by our American deep state. This was born out before all the world with the Twitter files. We saw the way the Biden admin was directly censoring speech on X and presumably Facebook and Instagram and all other American forms of social media because they were American and their Section 230 and a veiled threat that they would lose their protections if they don't follow in line with whatever the federal government wants. Now, TikTok being a Chinese app, doesn't have those same kind of obligations. They aren't under the same kind of pressure that American social media companies are at.

What I think this is is a bid to control the minds of Americans. TikTok is a very good app. A lot of people are on it, and the American intel agencies cannot control it like they can other social media companies. Well, I actually don't disagree with you on that point at all. I think it's fairly clear. We've heard many people actually just say the quiet part aloud.

Mike Gallagher is one example. It's been like, yeah, we have to continue. control TikTok because the narrative is spinning out of control. And they'll blame, for example, China for doing it when I think, you know, very clearly public opinion was organically shifting in the case of Gaza and Israel over the last couple of years. It was, you know, I wouldn't put it past China to sort of be manipulating the algorithm. But the one point that I still disagree with you on is that when the Twitter files came

out, we had a measure of at least some democratic and then free market. response from the American public. And X is now better than Twitter was. Mark Zuckerberg has been responsive to the American public. And again, that's just in a way that the Chinese government would never have an incentive to, you know, be responsive to it. In fact, we know that because they largely haven't been responsive to it over the last, whatever five years, however long TikTok has been around. So I still think it's better that it's in the hands. I'm not a huge fan of how this deal was gone about, but I guess I still think it is better if it's in the hands of people who are at least

marginally responsive to the American public? I don't know. Oh, that's an okay argument to make, Emily. And to say you think it's better in the hands of Larry Ellison than it is with the CCP. Okay, fine. Well, what I'm upset about is the lying. Because they'll say, it's about protecting your data. This is about your security. Well, okay, first of all, we're not secure with Instagram and Facebook and X and all these other account and all these other social media apps that collect our information via the federal government,

which itself has weaponized, has been weaponized. against the American people many times, including against you and I, Emily. And what I'll say is we fix the data problem. So there are a little argument about how, oh, our data is being stored in China and can be weaponized against America. We already have a deal where the data on TikTok is housed in the United States. So what this deal is about, this latest deal, is about the algorithm, which is my point, that this isn't about privacy and data.

It never was because the government never respects our privacy and data. This is about the algorithm. It is about controlling our minds. And in fact, the federal government admits to doing that all the time. SISA, cybersecurity, infrastructure security agency publicly said their leader, Jenny Sterly, under the Biden admin, that her job is to protect our cognitive infrastructure, meaning our minds. She literally went out and said, my job is to control the minds of the American people. They're pretty upfront about it. So I just wish they would be up front about the reason that they're trying to control TikTok.

I think that's a great point, actually. This is the most that we've agreed on this since like 2020. And I think you make a point that's important also with the new Gallup poll. They put out their annual poll of trust in mass media every October. And I wait for it like a child on Christmas. And this year, I hate to say it. In some ways it's good. In some ways it's bad, they actually hit another record low. And this is different from what happened after 2016, where Dem trust in mass media and independent trust in mass media started. ticking up a little bit for like the first couple years of the Trump administration then continued on the decline. This is now at another record low, lower than the previous records in recent years. So just reading a bit here from Gallup, when Gallup began measuring trust in the news media in 1970s between 68 and 72 percent of Americans expressed confidence in reporting. However, the next reading in 1997, public confidence had fallen to 53 percent. Media trust remained just above 50 percent until it dropped to 44 in 2004, and it has not risen to the majority level since the high reading in the past second was 45% in 2018, which came just two years after. Confidence had

collapsed amid the divisive 2016 presidential campaign. The latest 28% confidence reading from a poll in mid-September marks the first time the measure has fallen below 30%. So, Evita, a couple of quick things. Porta tossed over to you. On the one hand, I'm actually very happy to see that the number of people who trust mass media is low because mass media does not deserve a high level of trust from the American public right now. If there's media were trusted by the American public, I would be more concerned than people being skeptical of mass media at the same time. It's really not a sign of a healthy system where people don't trust the primary information delivery vehicle. So that high watermark in the post-war

period I think is historically unusual. I think it did make for a relatively functional system. it's probably never going to be that way again. It's sort of healthy on days of monoculture. But at the same time, where we are right now is really bad. I would push back, Emily, on the idea that they are, that the mainstream media is our main source of news. I think that's true for people over 50. I think it's not true at all for Gen Z and millennials and increasingly Gen Xers.

And I think people are. I think people are doing what Megan Kelly said really recently. I think she was at the Charlie Kirk. And was a Q&A that she did. Somebody asked her a question about media. And she said, you know what I think you should do to discern the truth these days? I know it's opaque. We don't always understand what's going on.

We feel like we're lied to a lot. Is to pick a few people, a few individuals in media and go with them. Like maybe it's an influencer or a podcaster. I don't know if that's the answer. but it's what a lot of people are doing. They have three or four people that they really trust and they're listening to their show every day or every other day. And I think that there's something to be said

about going with an individual who is maybe independent and accountable to themselves and their viewers versus a company where you don't know if the person who's talking has orders from someone unseen. You don't know if the overhead has their own messaging that the person who's in front of the camera really has no control over. There is something personal and accountable to an individual who's independent in media

that I actually really like. Maybe I'm going to be wrong about this. It's going to turn out terrible and there are some really bad influencers out there. But I think by and large, that's better than mainstream media clearly because they have been liars forever. There's a reason the trust is low. I can't believe you just gave a full-throated endorsement of shock collar dog owner, Hassan Piker.

I did not. I can't believe you did that, Evita. This is a video from today, by the way. Jesus Christ. What are you doing? People noticed it looked like Hassan was, Hassan Piker, used a shot collar on his dog who was trying to move out of frame. And I think Hassan said that it was like, it's a zap collar. It's one of those ones that, like, they make you try and yourself to actually, you know, know that it's safe and effective.

I have no idea. But then now everybody is digging up the way that Hassan Piker has treated his dog Avita. I didn't know if you wanted to weigh in on that, given the full-throverted endorsement that you just... I did not give an endorsement of the top-fiker. I said some of them are very bad and not all of them are great. Megan Kelly is a great influencer. Emily Justinski is a great media personality. These are good...

I only shot cats. Okay. Oh, no. I only put shock collins on cats. Let it be known. I do not support animal cruelty, whether it's from Hassan or it's from Emily. Not a fan. Hassan is terrible

and by the way he wears dresses he does weird things he listens to his podcast he is a bizarre human being I like how you're like don't it's the problem isn't that he's like the dog is one thing

but wait till you see him in a dress okay but the dress thing is scarring he's like at a Japanese like made cafe don't go down the Hassan Pike I know you know exactly what I'm about to do Avita because I was going to pivot into anime worlds but before we do that

Let's put F-13 and 14 up on the screen. These are charts showing how low trust in mass media is by age in the Gallup poll. It's at 38% of Democrats between the ages of 18, 29, 29% among independents in that age range, and 12% among Democrats. So even among young Democrats, trust in mass media is only at 38%. And that is such a huge gap between older Democrats who have 69% level of trust in mass media, which I think explains the way that MSNBC programs it shows as older Democrats are watching and want to hear Nicole Wallace say, I am the voice of truth and reason.

So it's a huge problem for Dems going forward about how they target their media. You know, Zohamam Dani, Evita was really clever about putting different videos on different mediums. And I guess that's probably what everyone's going to have to do going forward. Well, I'm surprised it's not lower for young Democrats because I, Young conservatives, many of them have come into the MAGA fold, which used to be on the outskirts of the Republican Party, and now it is the Republican Party. Like, right-wing, populism, Trumpism, that is the movement. A lot of young people, the vast majority of them are a part of it. There's a whole MAGA information ecosphere.

For young leftists, there's really nothing. Like, they do not associate with CNN MSNBC. They don't like it. I think what's happened with Israel and Palestine is a huge. huge reason for that. There's a major disconnect in support of Israel among young leftists and their politicians and their media personalities. So I'm surprised it's not even lower for them and it's a huge problem. I think that the future of the Democratic Party is clearly with left-wing populists, which frankly is a scary thing to think about, right? You have like government-owned grocery

stores from Zoran Mamdani, AOC, Bernie Sanders. That's a scary thought. Like it's equitable suffering for everyone. But that is clearly the future. of the party? Well, speaking of Dems and media, let's roll this clip of Katie Porter, who is one of the candidates for governor in California, one of the Democratic candidates for governor in California, whose interview with CBS News Sacramento has gone mega viral on political Twitter, political X, I guess we have to call it now. For her interaction with the reporter, we can roll S5. What do you say to the 40% of California voters who you'll need in order to win? who voted for Trump.

How would I need them in order to win, man? Well, unless you think you're going to get 60% of the vote. You think you'll get 60%? Everybody who did not vote for Trump will vote for you. That's what you're saying. In a general election? Yes. What if it's you versus another Democrat?

I don't intend that to be the case. But you just said you don't need those Trump voters. But you asked me if I needed them to win. So you don't think anything. I feel like this is unnecessarily argumentative. What is your question? The question is, the same thing I asked everybody. What do you say to the 40% of voters who voted for Trump?

Oh, I'm happy to say that. It's the do you need them to win part that I don't understand. Well, to those voters, okay, so you... I don't want to keep doing this. I'm going to call it. Thank you. Ah! You're not going to do the interview with us?

Nope, not like this, I'm not. Not with seven follow-ups to every single question you ask. Every other candidate has answered our problems. I don't care. I don't care. I want to have a pleasant, positive conversation which you ask me about every issue on this list. And if every question, you're going to make up a follow-up question, then we're never going to get there. And we're just going to circle around.

I am an investigative reporter. I have never had to do this before, ever. You've never had to have a conversation with a reporter. Okay, but every other candidate has done this. What part of, I'm me, I'm running for governor because I'm a leader. So I am going to make. So you're not going to answer questions from reporters? I don't want to have an unhappy experience with you.

And I don't want this on one camera. I don't want to have an unhappy experience with you either. I would love to continue to ask these questions so that we can show our viewers what every candidate feels about every one of these issues that they care about. So Katie Porter is not especially known for being like a charmer of Ida, and you may have even heard more about that in the past

when she was serving in the House of Representatives. She was sort of known for being gruff with her staff. There are ugly allegations that came out from her, I think ex-husband at one point about her throwing stuff and just being sort of emotionally abusive, It sounded like, I'm not surprised by this, but those were some easy questions, man. Like, those were some softballs she was getting mad at. That was my reaction to, Emily, because if that's a hostile interview, like, this interview is obscene.

Like, I should have walked out five, ten minutes ago, Emily. You're like, I am not going to do this on camera, not if there are seven follow-ups to every question about TikTok. It has to be a nice. And by the way, this is CBS. Like, are we kidding? right? This is like easy a stop. And the answer is so easy. What are you going to do to win Trump voters? Well, I'm going to message them. It's like, no, she was just like, why do I need them? She literally did that. I don't need them. Like this is like how to lose a guy in 10 days, how to lose an election in 10 seconds. Like, what is this answer? What is the strategy here?

Beats me. Katie Porter probably didn't have a strategy in this moment. She probably let her own. Okay, so let's roll S7. This is another clip of Katie Porter back from when she was in the House of Representatives. to the point you're asking, Evita, about what is her strategy? It seems like sometimes she lets her personal emotions. You have a lot of little brothers and sisters. You know about managing our personal emotions, Evita. It sounds like Katie Porter could use some of that S7. We did a study recently this fall in September.

And what it showed is if we don't electrify our transportation sector, that we're going to lose more than half a million California's diet. Immaturally, the air pollution and other problems. There we go. Upper right. See the staffer in the surgical mask creeping in. I'm out of my fucking shot. It's electric vehicles.

It's that if we don't need the commitments, I need a Paris climate of order. Okay. It does. Okay. You also were in my shop before that. Stay out of my shot. Okay. I'm going to start again with electric vehicle saving us money.

Please start again. Okay. So that is a member of the house talking that way with the energy secretary on the other end of of the Zoom. Imagine Evita when there's no energy secretary and no cameraman to watch Katie Porter. I mean, she clearly is a deranged human being. She clearly is a deranged human. But can I just say, Emily, your last answer about about how to win over Republicans and how she's just not going to win over Trump voter, she doesn't care about them, that actually is not just a Katie Porter issue. That is a like all Democrats issue. You cannot win on Trump,

arrangement anymore. Like, actually, you never have. Trump's arrangement has never won anyone, any election. It doesn't work. Left wing populism works. What Zora and Mamdani is doing is working, unfortunately. This strategy doesn't work. And I'll say, we're from Wisconsin. I'm from Marathon County in Wisconsin. This was a place that went for Obama, a black man, and then went for Trump. And then the New York Times came in and tried to call my working class major city in Marathon County, Wausau, Watson, a racist town. A town that voted for Obama twice, suddenly we're racist because we're Trump supporters and we don't want to sign an equity document. The details don't matter. The point is these people are lashing out at the working class voters that they lost

to MAGA and they're never going to win them back that way. This is a losing strategy. So I say continue, Katie Porter. Keep doing it. It's whatever. I forgot about that New York Times story. I mean, just incredible. People should Google it. Wausau, New York Times, and the way that it talks about how the Hmong community was integrated by working class white people in Wausau, like just completely insane. And people are still mad about all of that kind of stuff. So when they hear Katie Porter talking like that, it sends them through the roof. There are fewer people like that in California, but there are still people like that in California, no question about it. Evita, before I let you go to bed or watch more anime,

I'm going to ask you, I'm going to ask you about this federalist story you wrote. Why Demon Slayer speaks to the soul and Disney doesn't Because I thought this was a really lovely story of Vita And I think you should make the argument Well, thank you for bringing up this piece that I It's just one of those articles I just had to write Because I just had to like get it off my mind I saw recently, and I think it's a little older

But a video that Michael Knowles did Where he and another guest accused anime Of being demonic or something Michael and I agree on this No, no, no. Anime is a medium. It is animation and oftentimes made in Japan. And what I'll say is it does not, some of it's bad, just like other types of medium are bad.

And a lot of it is really good. And it's not, I think, defiled in the same way that a lot of Western children media is defiled. Leo, which was the recent Disney movie that came out, did terribly in the box office. Right now we're seeing demons. Slaher, which is a Japanese anime about this young boy who slays demons with his demon sister, it has a lot more heart and spirit than anything Disney or DreamWorks has put out this year, and it's doing better in America. This is a foreign film that is doing incredibly well.

I was going to say, isn't this thing like a juggernaut? Like hugely, hugely popular. Like massive. Like they have quadrupled the weekend box office sales. that Disney's Elio had, a foreign film. And right after this major news that Demon Slayer is doing incredible, Trump is now, I guess, putting 100% tariff on foreign films. So maybe he heard the news about Demon Slayer.

But I'll see there is not, I mean, there's a lot to get into, but there is real heart and soul in it. And I think when somebody goes out of story to write or to create something that is just honest and heartfelt, even if it's not coming from an explicitly Christian place, Christian values always shine through. Like, I'm a big believer that the Christian story, the greatest story ever told, always comes through stories that aren't intentionally trying to do that. Lometic, right.

Like J.R. L. Tolkien said, I was never trying to create an allegory. This was just my work and this, my faith shined through. And I think people who are just good people are able to create stories like that. And Disney and a lot of other American media are explicitly trying to create. create bad stories, stories to indoctrinate, and they don't ring true, and people don't like them. Okay, Evita, maybe I'll watch it. Maybe I'll watch it. It's good. It's excellent. It's the only 10 to 10 movie that I have seen in recent memory. Seriously.

All right. I mean, I'll take your word for it. But I will say, Emily, that there is like four other seasons of this anime and another movie that you have to watch before you go. So maybe that's too much. Oh, you do actually have. So wait, but that actually makes its success even more impressive, right? that people are bought into this entire entire franchise. It's all on Netflix if you want to watch all of this, all four seasons and the previous movie are

on Netflix and this is a follow-up to all of that. It's, you cannot watch this movie and not have all of the prior context, unfortunately. I mean, I don't have the moral high ground that Knowles does to critique anime for being demonic because instead of watching the anime, you know what I'm doing, it's just going to be

real housewives. And I don't, again, I can't claim to have the moral high ground on this. So, Evita Devi, Alfonso, independent journalist. It was great to see you. Thanks for coming back. Thanks for having me, Emily. Of course. Anytime. Now, I have something that's making me a little bit angry before we talk about that, though I'm going to talk about something that makes me happy, which is Vandy Crisps. I love them so much. Did you know that the chips and fries, they were cooked in tallow. We talked about this earlier until the 1990s, when those big corporations switched them to

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and it makes these chips taste incredible. Unlike regular chips, Vandy leaves you satisfied, energized with no bloat or crash. They're 100% American-made, no compromises. The best chip I've ever tasted. The tallow keeps you from mindless binging, and my co-to is barbecue. I love them so, so much. They're a perfect compliment to a sandwich. So if you're ready to give Vandy a try, go to vandycrisps.com

slash after-party and use code after-party for 25% off your first order. That's vandycrisps.com slash after-party and code after-party for 20%. 25% off your first order. And if you don't feel like ordering online, that is fine. Vandy is now available nationwide at your local Sprouts supermarket. Stop by and pick up a bag before they're gone. Now, before I'm gone tonight, let me talk a little bit about this new report in The Daily Wire. I first heard about this story in local news here in Washington, D.C., by the way, and had one of those moments, you see a news story and you think, why does this seem to be getting buried? Well, fast forward, this is F-17. The Daily Wire is reporting today. Washington, D.C. police on Sunday arrested a man with hundreds of explosive devices outside

a church, holding a mass and honor and honor of the Supreme Court. The man had a manifesto that suggested he was targeting the Supreme Court and Catholics, according to court papers obtained by the Daily Wire. Louis Jerry, a 41-year-old from Arizona and New Jersey, was apprehended outside the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle. It's a beautiful, beautiful cathedral on October 5th. the same day the church held its annual red mass in which a cardinal praise for the high court as it embarks on a new term and which is historically attended by justices.

I think last year there were three justices at this mass. So just to pause, we already talked today about Jay Jones in Virginia, who texted three years ago these like absolutely insane unhinged thoughts about Republicans where he, according to the Washington Post, quote, imagined killing the GOP speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates and discussed urinating on the future graves of other Republicans. Now, amidst no major Democrat, again, according to the Washington Post, they say, this is no prominent Democrats. It's a quote, no prominent elected Democrat has called on Jones to leave the race.

This Daily Wire story, we know if this was not an anti, ostensibly at least, from the reporting and evidence that's been really. so far. If this was not what appeared to be an anti-Catholic, anti-conservative, because obviously the Catholic justices are largely conservative justice, justices that overlap is baked into a lot of the criticism, if not most of the criticism, that they get. We know that. This story would be massive. This is not, this is certainly not a local crime story. But in the wake of what happened to Charlie Kirk, just about a month ago, what date is it? Yep. October 8th. So still, we're still within the first month after Charlie Kirk's assassination. You have a man with explosives that were fully functional, according to reporting,

fully functional explosives in a crowded area of downtown Washington, D.C., at a cathedral, saying he was going to commit an act of anti-Catholic terrorism. And this is barely a blip on the radar of the media, a blip on the radar of the media. this should be the biggest story in the world. But I'm just saying in the context of this big national conversation that everybody said it was time to have within the hours of what happened to Charlie Kirk, a lot of the people, particularly people on the left, but, you know, I'll just say particularly people on the left, should be thinking very hard about this story. And I'm not somebody again who comes from the perspective that this is only happening from the left. I'm disappointed

with the media coverage that suggests often downplays and uses BS studies, as we talked about with Rachel Lenninez last week, to pin this more on conservatives. I'm not even somebody that is like trying to get bogged down into this competition about who is more violent. But most of the high-profile acts of terrorism or attempted terrorism political violence in the last couple of years that have been downplayed by the media have come from the left, have come from the left. And I'm not saying that's everything. I'm not saying that's everything. But I am saying this story, we all know it in our hearts. We all know it. It would be wall-to-wall coverage of this story, which again, I'm not suggesting is the most important story in the country, but it would be

treated as the most important story in the country if this were not ostensibly an act of anti-Catholic, anti-conservative violence. And this stuff is obviously very frightening. If it were looking like it was targeting the liberal justices, it would be very frightening. It's very frightening. And so I just, it's so hard to have this conversation when the, when one side who has power over most of the mass media, as we were discussing in Gallup, cultural power, over most of the mass media. I think we can have conversations about where the media's bias is when it comes to economics and foreign policy. I certainly agree with a lot of people on the left that the media has biases that line up with the kind of political establishment and even with Republicans

when it comes to hawkish foreign policy and economics. But on cultural issues, we all pretty much understand that the media's bias goes in one direction. And the mass media is losing its power to independent media, no question about it, but it's still very powerful. And that's what makes extremely difficult to have this conversation when the very journalists and news organizations and corporate news organizations, I should add corporations, powerful people, democratic lawmakers are purporting to care about the rise of political violence and not pausing and reflecting and spending time talking about this as they would if the sort of ideological, this sensible ideological leaning here, we're reversed. And I'm going off of what we have right now, by the way,

these stories do change. But again, this is pretty good evidence here in the Daily Wire story, certainly good evidence in the case of Jay Jones. It's outrageous, and it makes the conversation almost impossible to have because if you're a conservative, you are constantly going to be up against that. And it just, again, in order to even talk about political violence, you have to get over the hump of how we perceive it as a country. And the metaphor that I always use is like the media is our glass. Like it's the window into public affairs. And if the window is smudged and cracked,

depending on where you're looking through it, you're going to see, or even say it's like a glass divider at a zoo. If the glass divider is smudged and cracked, you're going to see the red parrot behind the glass divider in a very different way, depending on where you're peering through the glass. And so if we can't all be on the same page about what's actually happening

in one side of the aisle, which has plenty of its own problems, but on the question of political violence, constantly feels like the other side is downplaying, downplaying, downplaying, which of course people on the left feel like what happened in Minnesota or downplayed and all of that.

But these examples by the power brokers in mass media are obviously being downplayed in one direction. And so it makes it impossible to even have this conversation with consensus. And I find that very, very frustrating. I find it very frustrating. This Daily Wire report isn't getting more attention. I find it very frustrating. The story itself isn't getting more attention because it's horrifying.

It was close to a massive tragedy at a historic cathedral in downtown Washington. I would say about a mile north of the White House. I used to live right around the corner from it. Actually, it's a beautiful, leafy neighborhood in northwest Washington that came to, came so close to mass tragedy. And we are teetering on the brink here. You know, everyone felt that when Charlie Kirk had his erupted in blood in front of the entire country, less than a month ago.

Everyone felt that. And think about how close we just came to another possible, like, breaking point event in American politics and culture. So again, just very, very frustrating. that these stories are so needlessly downplayed. And I think it makes it, this is like a sort of tough love thing for friends of mine who are in mass media or on the left. I'm happy to have these conversations.

They're really difficult ones. And I don't think everyone is getting everything 100% right. Certainly not me, but it's so frustrating to see dramatic, significant stories like this one. just get downplayed and get so little attention. All right, on that really unfunny note, sorry about that. I'm going to sign off, but remember, I'm not signing off until Monday. I'm only signing off until Friday when we release a new edition of Happy Hour.

So send me those questions. You can send them at After Party Emily on the Instagram. Send them to Emily at devilmaycaremedia.com. We love, love getting those questions. I love answering them. I answer them live to tape. It's taped, but I'm going through them for the first time. I answer those questions. So hit me up after party. Emily appreciate it. That's Instagram and

Emily at devilmaicaremedia.com. Thank you so much, everyone. We will be back here next Monday, next Wednesday at 10 p.m. live and on Friday, on podcast, wherever you get your podcast, your favorite podcast platform, that drops Friday. So subscribe there as well. See you all soon. Thanks for tuning in.