After Party with Emily Jashinsky - Leo Backs Pratt?! Ryan and Blake Crash, with Maureen Callahan, PLUS the Biden Rehab Tour

Episode Date: May 28, 2026

Emily Jashinsky opens the show with a look at the Texas Senate race including controversial Texas AG Ken Paxton’s rout of Republican John Cornyn, and Democrat James Talarico’s attempt to spin his own odd takes on faith, transgenderism, and veganism. Then Emily is joined by Maureen Callahan, host of "The Nerve with Maureen Callahan," to discuss Spencer Pratt’s rise in the L.A. Mayoral race and why he appears to resonate with average citizens and celebrities. Then Emily and Maureen discuss Stephen Colbert’s move to YouTube, why it may not work, Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively’s growing public image problems, Rosie O’Donnell’s new face and poetry, and Kevin O’Leary’s viral advice about avoiding “cheap junk.” Emily rounds out the show with a deep dive into Hunter Biden’s rehab tour, the way interviewers are failing to hold him accountable for his past actions, plus Jill Biden’s ridiculous new comment about former President Joe Biden’s debate meltdown, and more…   Cozy Earth: This Memorial Day, visit https://www.CozyEarth.com & Use code EMILY for up to 30% off   Toups & Co: Ready to give Toups a try? Get 25% off your first order by going to https://toupsandco.com/afterparty , and use code AFTERPARTY for 25% off your first order.   Unplugged: Switching is simple, Visit https://Unplugged.com/EMILY and order your UP phone today! 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, everybody. Thank you so much for being with us here on this spring Wednesday. Our guest tonight is the great Marine Callahan. We taped this a couple hours ago. You don't want to miss it. We were able to talk about the Spencer Pratt race, which was fascinating from Marines' perspective as somebody who is not just a culture reporter and writer, but also, I think, a fantastic media critic.

So it was good to hear a bit of analysis from Maureen's end, just what she's seeing in the Pratt campaign, you know, what he's doing right, why things seem to be going well. Also, whether or not Jamie Fox and Leonardo DiCaprio are actually secretly supporting Pratt, as he suggested on Billy Bush's show recently, it's an interesting conversation, a Rosie O'Donnell story that's flying under the radar, Stephen Colbert, Blake Lively, Ryan Reynolds. It sounds like the worst party ever, but those are all of the topics we talked about. So I'm very excited to have Marine back on the show with us. We have an interview with her. It's about an hour long, so it's coming up in just one moment. First, though,

please do subscribe if you haven't yet. It helps us so much to subscribe on YouTube, subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. And that's where you get our Friday episode of the show, which is actually audio only. It's just for podcast listeners on the podcast feed. And we always have fun answering your questions that you send into my email address,

Emily at devil make care media.com. Again, those are on Friday. So we're Monday, Wednesday here, live on YouTube, video, Friday's just an audio version. And we have all kinds of fun stuff in store for the show's future. We're almost at our one year anniversary. So let's let's help us get more more subscribers before we hit the one year mark.

Send this to friends. It's super, super helpful on our end and make sure to subscribe yourself. I'm also going to talk a bit about the rehabilitation tour that Hunter Biden is going on, which listen, some good, some bad, a lot of bad. And Jill Biden is out doing interviews for her new book tour. We just got like right before air a clip of just. Bill Biden saying something remarkable about her husband's infamous debate performance, which Hunter Biden has also been talking about, of course, as well. So we're going to get to all of that on tonight's show. Appreciate everybody for being here and for your support, of course.

But first, I have to start with James Tala Rico. Timu Ritchie Cunningham, as he's known on this show, we've been covering him for a long time. Because at first, I thought the Texas Democrat primary was one of the most interesting primaries in the country. stand by that, I think, of this entire cycle, that was the most interesting race. And what's happened today since Ken Paxton's nearly 30-point blowout, at least as I last checked, it was 28 points, of John Cornyn, who outspent him three to one, had the support of national Republican apparatuses, with the exception of Donald Trump himself, $92 million of ad spending, according to the New York Times, on behalf of John Cornyn.

Ken Paxton was under $30 million of ad spending in this runoff competition. That's how badly Paxton was outspent, and he won by nearly 30 points. Last I checked, Cornyn had barely won in Dallas. So that should tell you how sick of John Cornyn Republican voters in Texas were. And the narrative here in D.C. all day has been how sort of unsophisticated Republican voters are to elect somebody like Ken Paxton with Let me just say, some real baggage. There's no downplaying Ken Paxton's personal and professional baggage. Those two things go together.

It's absolutely real. He's not an ideal candidate for that seat. No question about it. Ken Paxton was up against John Cornyn. John Cornyn is the avatar of the swamp in Washington, D.C. He had, as of this section, I think a 35% rating from Heritage Action, which scores senators on grassroots priorities. And that's where Cornyn was, like 35%.

That has to be one of the lowest in the Senate. And I'm talking about the Senate here. So that's already not great. His lifetime rating from Harry's action is somewhere in 60% range. People in Texas were furious. Republicans in Texas were furious with him for going against the base on guns. He's gone against the base on all kinds of things. He said Trump was irrelevant a couple of years back.

So basically, when you have Ken Paxton, who has, as Attorney General in Texas, despite this checkered record, which is not the type of person that I think you would probably want your daughter to marry. That's what it looks like from Ken Paxton. Just some really gross stuff. You probably wouldn't want to get into business with Ken Paxton either from his record. It's not good. But this guy has taken on big tech.

He has proactively fought for exactly the things that Texas Republicans feel John Cornyn has gone soft on. And so if you're asking Texas Republicans to choose between John Cornyn and Ken Paxton, they will, of course, in the Trump era, after most Republicans voted against Donald Trump in 2016 for another candidate or when you put all the other candidates together, most of the votes were not for Donald Trump. And if you were not voting for Donald Trump, you were kind of proactively voting against Donald Trump in 2016 in those primaries. everyone learned, Republicans learned, that they were in a new era, that they were going to have to deal with Trump's baggage to prevent Hillary Clinton from being president in the United States. And a lot of Republicans are now perfectly used to that. It's a lesser of two evils voting calculus.

And some people just sit it out. But some people think, especially if you're, for example, very anti-abortion, that it's it's immoral to passively let a Democrat take that seat. So that's why people are not particularly bother. They don't love Ken Paxton. We had some interesting callers on the Megan Kelly wrap-up show today from Texas. That's over on Sirius XM, 2 to 3 p.m. We take calls after Megan's show every day. We had some interesting callers from Texas being like, yeah, nobody is like embracing Paxton as like a fuzzy teddy bear, but they are embracing Baxter as an appropriate countermeasure to what Talleyco would represent and to what John Cornyn would represent often misunderstood fact about the Republican base

is that they often detest Republicans as much, if not more sometimes, as they detest Democrats because maybe they have higher expectations for Republicans. So James Talleyco, on the other hand, Democrats aren't getting any of this, any of these charges of being unsophisticated voters lobbed their way despite the fact that Talleyco is unelectable. We didn't have this conversation about how foolish Texas Democrats were to nominate somebody as unelectable as James Talleyco. And because the Democratic Party is in the midst of its own civil war right now and is a mess, their two choices in this Texas primary were James Tolariko and Jasmine Crockett. So, of course, they had no great choice either. But that is a problem of the Democratic Party

of Texas' own makes. either of their options was unelectable. And James Talleyco, I think, is actually a worse candidate than Beto O'Rourke. Here's what the Paxton campaign is already running on against James Tallerico. This is S4. This is Texas. This is not. There are many more than two biological sexes.

In fact, there are six. This is Texas. This is not. The American flag is such a complicated symbol for most of us. This is Texas. This is not. They're going to call me a radical leftist.

This is Texas. This is not. Something that you love. That's not family or friends. I love, I'm just saying this because it's on my mind, the trans children. This is Texas.

This is not. Our southern border should be like our front porch. There should be a giant welcome mat out front. This is Texas. This is not. It is now existential that we try to reduce our meat consumption. I am proud to say that our campaign has officially become a non-meat campaign. This is Texas.

This is not. So, Tyler Rico has been on a campaign today trying to convince Texas voters. He's actually made overtures to Cornyn voters that he, of course, believes that this is a real quote he said today. Of course, he believes that there are two biological. biological sexes. Well, you're on tape saying that. The vegan element is actually, I think it's even worse than what Tala Rico said because it's not, or what Talleyico is saying it is now. We're going to get to that in just one moment because it's actually goes into policy. And that's not, a lot of the media isn't covering the kind of policy implications of what Tala Rico said in the veganism quote that's getting tossed around as red meat, no pun intended, in this effort to frame Tala RICO as somebody, who's just out of touch with the average Texans values. I think it's pretty obvious that he is. But consultants looked at Tala Rico and said, this is a seminarian.

Actually, Joe Rogan liked him. Joe Roken had him on. And Tala RICO was talking about faith and how Republicans get it wrong. And I think Tala Rigo, I think Rogan told him he should run for presidents. Oh, they like that? But at first glance, people say this is somebody that sort of speaks the language of the, like, white Christian suburban base. that is vulnerable in the Trump era. But when you look at who that base actually is,

there are people who are not going to be comfortable with Ken Paxson. No question about it. They're not going to be comfortable with what Talleyico has said on a host of issues either. So it's not that simple. Let's take a look at his cleanup efforts here. S5. He went on CNN with Jake Tapper today

and got asked some questions about his past. The National Republican Senate Committee is already highlighting comments that you've made as a state representative. For example, they're highlighting this. Quote, God is non-binary. God is both masculine and feminine and everything in between. God is non-binary. What is your response to them using that and explain what you were talking about?

Well, I understand that that comment is a little provocative. I said it on the House floor when the extremists in the Republican legislature were picking on school kids who were different. But I don't think it's controversial, theologically. Most Christians would acknowledge that God is beyond gender. In fact, the Apostle Paul in his letter to the Galatians said that in Christ there is neither male nor female. And so if someone's got a problem with that statement, they shouldn't take it up with me. They should take it up with the Apostle Paul. So there are no difference between Jews and Greeks either because the Apostle Paul said there are no Jew, there is no Jew nor Greek, which is precisely about Christian universalism, egalitarianism.

Much of the Western world is built on what the Apostle Paul was saying, which is that everybody, our differences are not as important as our salvation in Christ. That's what it's talking about. But this idea that you can apply postmodern progressive gender ideology to the God of the Bible is obviously ridiculous, but it is totally progressive seminarian babble, the type of stuff that people are chatting about. Like, it's enormously profound. It's like those freshman dorm college, those freshman college dorm conversations about libertarianism and the like. that's exactly, it sounds like he just hit a giant blunt and it's worse because he didn't. He really means this stuff and he is now going to get asked about it constantly. There's no running from it. But I would say that on this veganism question, Republicans have more to work with than they've already stepped into.

Let me just put up on the screen. This is a politifact fact check. Democratic, Texas, U.S. Senate candidate, James T. Tala Rico quote is a vegan. Apparently that's what Ken Paxson said and Politifact rates that as false. Democrats put out a tweet today of Tala Rico and his Texas T-shirt eating a big hunk of meat. I'm going to find this see if I can put it up on the screen. It's yeah, here it does. I'm sorry to do this to everyone. But they're yeah, they said November, here we come. And it's Tala Rico and his Texas T-shirt just diving into a big hunk of meat. But what he said about the veganism is honestly worse than if he were a vegan.

Apparently he's not a vegan, good for him. But what he actually said was in a 2022 campaign. And I'm reading again here from Politifact, where he's denied being a vegan. He's had fun with these allegations. But this is a 22 speech that he gave in front of the Texas Humane Legislation Network. That is a group that, according to Politifact, quote, lobbies for humane animal treatment. He said during this speech, reducing meat consumption is the, quote, moral thing to do and, quote, necessary to fight climate change.

I am proud to say that our campaign has officially become a non-meat campaign. So we are only buying vegan products from our local vegan businesses. Everyone has to take personal responsibility in this effort. So that's Tala Rico in 2022. Now he wants to act like he's a big meat lover. But what he said in 2022 was that he believed. it is necessary, it is ethical to reduce meat consumption for the sake of fighting climate change. That is pretty clearly representative of an ideology that in a state like Texas concerns people's

pocketbooks, concerns people's lifestyles, and it's a lot worse than whether or not Calarico is personally a vegan. Now, I would say it's kind of weird to not be a vegan and brag about your campaign being vegan. I feel like that's actually dishonest to the people. who are here lobbying for humane treatment of animals. But it's also for him running as Timu Ritchie Cunningham as a man of great character juxtaposed with Ken Paxton, who will certainly be attacked, already has been attacked, as a man of ill repute with all of this personal baggage.

Tala Rico can't afford to look like he's misleading people. It's already bad enough that he clearly has these cultural values, and I would say this is an economic value, that's out of step with the average Texan. But it's worse, actually, if he looks like he's being evasive about it. Because he's also preaching, literally, he is a seminarian. He's also preaching about decency and moral character and the like. And so he really can't afford to look like he's dancing around the truth on this issue.

So little political analysis of the stupid vegan controversy is I think it's actually worse than Republicans are making an out to be in Tala Rico. though, is promising to run a campaign on economic populism. And I think Republicans have some really powerful weapons figuratively to undermine the Tolarico campaign on these cultural questions. Don't get me wrong. But if he is in an economy where the AAA gas price average is over $4 a gallon, the president is mired in an unpopular war.

He's unpopular on all kinds of different issues that are going to be attached to Republican candidates like Ken Paxton, Republicans will need to have, I think, more creative responses and less sort of lazy responses than just say, this dude's a vegan. Now, it's 24 hours into the campaign. But there's a much more serious, dare I say sinister undertone to what Tala Rico really said about meat consumption, to be honest. And here, as if to prove my point, is Senator Ted Cruz, Texas Senator Ted Cruz, who had a nail biter with Beto O'Rourke, turned out to not be the champion that Democrats hoped Beto O'Rourke would be. But Cruz says take Talleyco seriously. I will tell you what makes Tala Rico dangerous and that worries me is he packages it in this

very nice, awesuch's demeanor. And he sounds like a preacher. He went to seminary. He has much of what he says, he quotes biblical verses. And what worries me is someone who's not paying a attention much to politics, might turn on the TV and look at him and say, oh, he seems like a nice young man. And for me, I would rather my wolves come in wolves clothing. Yeah, I think Ted Cruz is right. This could be a closer race than people realize. I don't really think that it's ultimately in play. I think it puts it in play and there will be a lot of money coming into this race. Probably would have been easier for Republicans to coast with Cornyn, who's not a particularly good candidate either, to be honest, for the reasons that he lost to

Paxton. But yes, I think it's definitely going to be a race where money has to be spent to attack Tala Rico at this point. I doubt that he wins, but President Trump is obviously unpopular. Who knows what happens with Iran War? Who knows what happens in the economy? So we'll stay tuned to that. But these cultural issues that really felt like they peaked for the left in 2022-ish, maybe, when Tala Rica was making that statement. They're just not going away. Now, California is different, but I wanted to roll this clip of Tom Steyer, billionaire Tom Steyer, who is running for governor, also on an economic populist platform, who went on with Jennifer Welch over at the I've Had It podcast and had this to say when it comes to transports. I'm totally interested for trans athletes

in high school. I think when you understand the vulnerability, the strength, the danger of being a trans kid and you understand that almost half of them try to commit suicide. Yeah. And then you think we're going to punish those kids. We're going to cut them off from team sports. We're going to cut them off from participating in the community. We're going to cut them off from fun.

It's like, no, we're not. No or not. They're more important things than whether you start on your high school basketball team. And that is standing up for people who are under a threat of death. The class dynamics at play in that clip are truly despicable. You have a billionaire politician telling girls who actually do care, do you think it's a very important thing, whether they start in their high school basketball team, because maybe they've been grinding since middle school to be a starter.

And hopefully by the time their seniors get a scholarship, doesn't have to be a D1 scholarship, but a lot of people pay for their college tuition, which is extraordinarily high. right now, obviously, by athletic scholarships. And so, yes, it does matter to them if they're starting on their school basketball team. And to tell middle class girls, don't worry about it if one trans kid takes that spot. Don't worry about there are more important things than whether you get your teeth knocked out, whether you get concussed. Tom Stey doesn't say that.

It's obviously the implication of the policy that he supports. And these debunked ideas about the suicidality of. of people suffering from very real gender dysphoria. Those are ideas that have been peddled by the special interest groups promoted by billionaires like Tom Steyer. It's just a never-ending cycle here. Now, I actually think Tom Steyer, I'm curious how Grant Platner will handle this in Maine. I'm curious how Tala Rico is going to handle this in Texas. I think Tom Steyer in California, first of all, it's not a huge issue.

It probably hurts him with some people. But I think Tom Steyer believes exactly what he just said. I honestly think he believes what he said. He's one of a minority people in this country who believes, exactly what he just said. I think Graham Platner also falls into that category. So if you're one of those people, by all means, probably the best way to mitigate the fallout, it's probably the less bad option. Could you just be honest and say, listen, maybe people don't agree with me, but this is what I believe. So I am leaning all in on it. It's actually I make this argument all the time

about Republican candidates and abortion. If you actually are very anti-abortion, then you should lean in on it because you believe it is the taking of a human life. Now, this is not apples to apples, But the point is, if you believe what you say you believe, then you should, of course, not try to evade and jump around on it. I am fascinated by how Talarico, who now is as of, I think, a recent CBS interview saying, of course, I know there are two sexes. Well, you said that there are more than, there are at least six biological sexes not that long ago. So what do you mean, of course, you know, that's true. I'm really fascinated by how Talariko is going to handle questions on this issue because I suspect it's not going to go well for him. And I don't think Republicans have to slam dunk here, but I also think some of the, the, it's like brat summer right now for Talleyco for the next 48 hours.

And as the summer goes on, again, it's going to be a grind for Paxton. Don't get me wrong. But I think some of the shine is going to wear off Tala Rico pretty quickly. Yes, he has to answer some complicated questions about the policies he believes in. All right. I'm going to toss to the great Maureen Callahan. Stick around after Marine. I'm going to do a breakdown on the Hunter Biden.

rehabilitation tour where his he's doing his darnness to rehabilitate his image. I'm going to talk about Jill Biden trying to do the same, trying and failing to do the same. I have some bones to pick with the Hunter Biden rehab tour. So we'll have that after the interview with Maureen. But without further ado, we're going to be back after this quick break with host of the nerve, the great Marine Calhahn. What does it feel like when your clothes actually feel good? Cozy Earth proves what you wear at home matters as much as what you wear out. The outfit that I have been living in lately is the brushed bamboo jogger set. And that's not an understatement. I actually really have been living in the brushed bamboo joccurcet lately. It's incredible. Crafted from bamboo viscose. It's

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30% off. And if you see a post-purch survey, mention that you heard about Cozy Earth right here. joined by Maureen Callahan, host of course, of The Nerve with Maureen Callahan. Such a wonderful show. Maureen, thank you for joining us. Emily, thank you. First of all, thanks for having me. And thank you so much for that really wonderful intro. I will Venmo you.

No need. No need. It is genuine. I am genuinely a fan, as are many, many, many, many, many other people. And I have so much to talk to you about, I want to start with Spencer Pratt, because I think, Maureen, you're such a good media critic. And Pratt's campaign for Los Angeles mayor is such an interesting media story. It's also turning into, because it's Los Angeles, of course, an interesting story about Hollywood.

This comment he made caught my attention. This was actually on Billy Bush's podcast recently. He kind of casually dropped that he has support from some like A-list A-listers. And I wanted to get your take on this. This is S-1. But you must be surprised by a couple of names. The most excited I've been where I was like, you know, oh, wow, was Leonardo DiCaprio and Jamie Fox. You know, they with witnesses, their teams can say it didn't happen, but, you know, there are a lot of witnesses and that felt great.

And their whole thing to me is, we need you to make the streets safer again. Yeah. That was it. So that's why I keep telling people, this is not political. But Chelsea Handler, she's not a fan, said we should have learned by now that putting us straight. white male in office is a problem. How dumb is that? If someone said the same thing about a woman

or a gay person or a person of color, it would be widely condemned. Who are you connecting with on that? This unbelievable... Also, I am married to one of the global pop gay icon. So, you know, like the gays are with me. I have the entire gay vote, period. Any normal functioning brain

that doesn't want to step in human poop when they get their macha is voting for me, which is a lot of people. So first fact check, Maureen, Heidi Montag, gay icon. Is this true? I don't know. I'm not that dialed into Heidi's pop career. But she does kind of have some of the hallmarks, you know, that Uber exaggerated, like femininity that tends to kind of like, you know, I haven't really ever seen drag performers as Heidi. I'm not saying they don't exist. But I just, I've been watching the Kylie Minogue documentary on Netflix. Sorry to take you on an aside.

Oh, no, this is good. And she said, she realized, she felt like her career was in trouble because she was just this sort of bubble gummy pop princess with nowhere to really go. And then her manager said, hey, do you know there's a Kylie Night at the local drag club? The drag community is into you. And she was like, I want to go. And she went and she realized like, oh, no, like, I'm doing great. Like, I've got the drag community.

that's exactly who you want, you know? So anyway. Because it turns it into art. It turns it in a camp. But you're also like you're hitting, it means that your art is hitting with the outsiders and the misfits. And like, so you're, so what she once thought of herself is sort of this one dimensional pop icon.

She sort of realized, no, no, no, there's something deeper that maybe I'm not even dialed into about what I'm doing. You know what I mean? So, but anyway, the Spencer Pratt. I find the campaign fascinating. And I think the ads that he's been putting out, these AI generated ads that look like little films, which it's very Hollywood, you know, he's sort of,

it's very circular, but they're incredibly effective. I think it was even, I think was it George Bush or Jeb Bush, who said these ads that Spencer Pratt's camp is putting out are the most effective I've ever seen. Hmm. I mean, have you seen them? Yeah, they are like just the, there's a simplicity to them because they're AI, as you mentioned. But they're hitting the zeitgeist in a way that this is partially what I'm curious about from your end. It feels like only a reality star could be that in the zeitgeist or a reality staccum politician could be that in the zeitgeist because it's so in touch with kind of the normie Angelino.

It's interesting. You know, he hasn't been a reality. star really for quite some time per se you would think even well an actor would be able to do that or anyone in the industry would be able to sort of come up with ads that are that succinct clever that grab you but that get their point across I mean even though these ads are AI generated they look very sophisticated you know they they sort of they play on tropes that are very easily recognizable they're very digestible um here He's always the superhero, Karen Bass and the like, Gavin Newsom, they're the villains. He's running on a very, very simple platform.

Anyone can understand it. He wants to clean up L.A. And the mismanagement that led to the Palisades fires and the destruction they're all still living in. It shocked me that Billy Bush clip when he named the names. I didn't think he was going to. What do you think about this? Because most people hear those names. two pretty like notoriously left-leaning celebrities.

Left-leaning is doesn't do justice. I mean, they're like outwardly very progressive celebrities. And they're both A-lister's, DiCaprio and Jamie Fox, maybe Jamie Fox, less so than DeCaprio, but still huge, huge celebrities. Do you think that, I mean, it sounds like he said their publicist can say this didn't happen. Are there plausibly like real A-lister heavyweight? Oh, I believe that.

Tell me. Yeah, I 100% believe that. I actually, I don't know much about Jamie Fox's politics. And I don't know that we do. Leo, what I know about his politics, it goes only really to the environment. I otherwise have no idea what he thinks politically. And I think he's smart. I think he wants it that way.

Was he at the Bezos wedding? He was. Oh, that's a great question. I think you're right. I think he was. We might get a fact check on that, but that does. So you never know. You never know.

Yeah, so I, but the idea, so A, he dropped the names, which is huge because normally, you know, you protect celebrities. He was, by the way. He was. Okay. So there, so there we go. So we don't really know what Leo thinks politically. And I think, but I think it's incredible to say, for him to say, listen, their camps can deny it, but Leonardo DiCaprio wants me to win. Jamie Fox wants me to win.

Anyone who's sane and doesn't want to step in human excrement as they make their way around, Los Angeles wants me to win. It's extremely effective. I like this campaign a lot. Well, and so he says, I guess the AI videos aren't directly from the campaign. He's definitely kind of leaned into all of this. But this point that you're touching on reminds me of Trump in a certain way where celebrity endorsements, if it's to the sort of usual Democratic politician, Taylor Swift, did she get some people to register to vote against Marshall Blackburn or against Trump. Probably she got some people to register to vote. Did she move the needle? I don't know how much she moved the needle. It's a lot of this is just kind of routine. But when you see, and in 2024,

especially when you saw Trump have this like cultural momentum that was surprising, it's with Pratt almost also like arresting to see him be so as a, he's a Republican. He's not running in this race as a Republican. He's a registered Republican. But he says, you, I'm just somebody who wants to clear up the city. That's how he responds to questions. And these opponents are trying to peg him. as a MAGA guy, but honestly, he seems to have the pop cultural momentum, not just the pop culture cred, but now it seems like he's building into something else, Marine, and that's very, very interesting to watch. Well, he's been very smart and very sure. Whoever is advising him is very, very shrewd.

He's, he, there is one ad, I believe, in which he stars as like Batman. Yes. Right? And then another where he did a spin on the French, fresh prints, excuse me, a Bel Air, because the opposition was saying, you don't really live in a trailer. You live like in a Gulf Stream. You had a multimillion dollar house. He took that and he did a spin on the opening theme to the fresh principles. So he's speaking a lingua franca that we all acknowledge.

He's also leaning into the Trump playbook of like, you want to elect me because I'm the outsider, because I'm not part of this system that brought you the Palisades fire, that's bringing you rampant. homelessness and crime and drug abuse and so aela celebrities are feeling this crime too you know their houses are being broken into whenever they're like they're stupid enough to post online or they're like actually doing their jobs on like a junket overseas and criminals enterprises see oh brad pitt's house was broken into brad pitt while he was doing i think um f1 press overseas so you know it's trickling up not down

And did you see this? Go on. Sorry. Go ahead. No, no. I was going to say, did you see this Us Weekly cover? This is F1. Let's put it up on the screen. This is Spencer Brad on the cover of Us Weekly. A very positive. I mean, the quote on the cover is, this is my destiny. You never see a right-leaning candidates get treatment like this from tabloid media marine. Am I right? That seems other than, of course, like there's some New York Post daily mail. But the like People magazine, Us Weekly, that kind of bucket of entertainment coverage is. is not typically this willing to be favorable or to frame neutrally favorably the campaign of somebody like Spencer Pratt. Well, it's so funny you bring this up because I just bought that in my weekly tabloid hall, that copy of, I was surprised to see that cover. He's, I want to talk about that cover, but I just want to preface this by saying, I heard a soundbite of him the other day. Again, he's straddling this line very cleverly. He said, well, I was a Democrat. And I'm very much still in a lot of the social things that the Democratic Party represents, but I had no choice but to register as a Republican either after the Palisades fires or in order to get on something like that. Like he's threading that needle, right?

So he's giving permission for anyone no matter how much they align themselves with any given set of policies to vote for him. if it's possible to look at that Us Weekly Cover once more. Let's throw up up. So look at the color palette of this. Oh, right. Blue sky, right? Blue sky. It gets almost whiter in the middle.

He's in a light blue shirt. Blue, they often tell presidential candidates, when you want to project trustworthiness, wear blue. When you want to project power and confidence, you wear blue. like red you wear a red tie you often see trump in red i mean obviously red republicans etc um he's standing in front of lush vegetation not a hollowed out like this is basically this cover is an ad for him whether the editors realize it or not it projects optimism hope life growth and futurism are you surprised to see it from us weekly no i'm actually not because i don't i don't think these

these publications, I'm like one of the only people left who buys them. But I'm very interested in the way those covers are art directed and put together and the messages that they're conveying. Is us weekly owned by Penske Media? That's a good question. I'll look at it up right now. But I think that they're just in the business of trying to sell copies and to be relevant. And I knew that Spencer Pratt was going to be a major player when I want to say it was sometime over the winter, the New York Times Sunday paper ran a cover story. It was like it wasn't business. It wasn't opinion.

And it wasn't styles, I don't think. But it was the front page. And then it was a huge spread inside. It was like a 5,000, 8,000 word piece. And talking about his improbable nascent run for mayor. And I thought this is this is really something that's going to go somewhere. Yeah. And not, again, I'm not trying to get too political, but I just think it reminds me of after

Donald Trump was shot in Butler in 2024, you just started to see some pop cultural momentum shift his way. And that, it's shifted right in some interesting ways. And that, I mean, it appears to be catchy non-marine. I'm curious to get your take on this. Harry Enton on CNN just Tuesday. was looking at some of these numbers for Spencer Pratt. Let's roll this S2.

I'm to admit that in my mind, a friend of mine who is a fan of Pratt, you know, said, oh, you know, he seems you rise. I was really putting it down. But if you look at the prediction markets, you look at the cash of prediction markets, his chances are up significantly, up significantly over the last few months. You know, you go back a few months ago, February twice. He had just a 7% chance. What is that?

That's 5 plus 2. Now it's up like a rocket. Look, chances are he still won't be the next mayor of Los Angeles. but there's a pretty decent chance of it. It's now up over a quarter, a 27% chance. So those who dismiss Pratt's chances, well, you've got another thing coming because he's got a realistic shot of winning this thing. I hate using the Kalshi numbers for these types of things, Marine, but I guess what that does speak to is the cultural momentum, this belief that there's something about the Pratt campaign that's possible. And that's pretty impressive.

You know, I stopped trusting poll numbers when Trump beat Hillary. smart and you know even with the with the last presidential election um it was the polls the numbers weren't reflective of of the outcome and i wonder with someone like a spencer pratt if there might be a similar phenomenon at work that there might be a silent spencer pratt voter that's just not going to tell a pollster what they're going to do that seems plausible um although to your point about him also giving people permission. I mean, that's the, that I think is what I was trying to say earlier about why it's different when you have somebody who's seen as maybe an underdog, an insurgent, like Spencer Pratt getting, or saying at least he has the support of a Jamie Fox or a Leo DiCaprio.

It kind of does create permission for other people to say, all right, the taboo has been shattered. Apparently, Jamie Fox and Leo DiCaprio are in on this. It doesn't make me so crazy to say I might be, I'm a hypothetical Angelino. I'm a Democrat, a liberal. I support gay rights, but I'm so sick of the way the city is being run. It's just one of those things that adds up to the climate, making people more comfortable stepping in and being like enough with Karen Bass, enough with Karen Bass. It's okay to say, I'm going with this other option.

It's wild and wacky, but I'm going to give it a try because anything's better than the status quo. And when you start building that type of momentum, it can be hard to stop in pop culture world. It's also interesting that he's gotten the discussion off of the talking point, you're a reality star. It's you're a Republican, which, you know, he's kind of made that the more radioactive aspect of his run than his lack of civic experience or municipal experience. You know, his experiences in being on the hills on MTV, you know. But again, I think, you know, I watched, I saw parts of that debate in which he demolished. He demolished his opponents.

And it goes to really, you know, it's the most important part of campaigning. It's like it's your it factor. It's your star power. It's your stage presence. It's your swag. Your swag. It's your argument. How succinct is it?

How powerful is it? How much does it hit people truly where they live? I don't know the last time you were in L.A., but the last time I was in L.A., I was shocked by the condition. I was seeing shocked. You go near the Staples Center. You know what you have to go through to get to the Staples Center? I stayed by the Staples Center last time I was in L.A.

Really? Yeah, a big mistake. I mean, what did you see? I mean, exactly what you're describing. And it's sad. There are a lot of cities like this. After COVID, parts of the city is just, they slowed down so much, hollowed out so much, and some of it just hasn't come back.

But yeah, that's... But there's segments of L.A. that have just been seated to the homeless. Just been, it's like we give up on you. We give up on this. We give up. You know, it's shanty towns. It's like roll up your window, hold your breath, run the red light, get out of there. You know, it's bad.

It's bad. That plus, you know, I find it personally just as I find it Americans have lost a certain segment of Americans, I should say, not all Americans. Shame is dead in our culture. If a Karen Bass had been an elected official in Japan, can, she would have wandered off into the forest to commit to the side. And that would have been the honorable thing to do. What do we do in America?

We run again. We run again. You know, break a few eggs. Proudly. We run again proudly. Yeah. Don't worry about it. Speaking of no shame, Marine, Stephen Colbert wanted to get your take on this.

Has started a YouTube channel. I think he's up to, what, 120 subs. There's a gardening in article on it. in a couple of days, F2. No big surprise that he's getting some followers over there. I checked his Late Show YouTube channel before the Late Show ended forever last week. And recently, he'd actually been doing pretty well. The Late Show YouTube had been doing pretty well, which is interesting because previously

he'd been getting lapped by Kimmel and Fallon when it came to digital media. He also did, I don't know if you saw this, a local Michigan public access television show that felt a little bit more like vintage Colbert. Back when his like Dana Carvey show days and Strangers with Candy days, it wasn't totally a transformation. I don't expect that to happen. But there's a world outside of broadcast prime time that is probably a better fit for Stephen Colbert. I don't know if it'll be YouTube because he's gotten so in his own bubble and kind of incapable of self-reflection,

which is utterly necessary to be able to pull off good comedy. but F3 caught people's attention. Ryan Reynolds at the farewell show to Stephen Colbert. Lots to get into about this. Rob Schueter had some reporting, basically saying that Blake lively was welcome to the late show farewell, but Ryan Reynolds chose to go alone because he is a gentleman who didn't want to distract people from all of the glory

that was Stephen Colbert's farewell, Maureen. And so a couple topics in one there, Stephen Colbert on YouTube, Brian Reynolds, both of them. Why don't we start with Colbert on YouTube? Do you think he has a future? Did I hear you right, Emily, when you said his new YouTube channel has 120 subscribers? That's what I think, 120,000. Oh, okay. That's what I was going to say, wait.

What? Okay, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think that's what the Guardian said it was. So I had read an item, and I'm not sure. I talked about this with our beloved Rob Shooter over at the next. at night. He stops by once a week and we really dish it up good. He said that we were talking about this report that Stephen Colbert, now that the late show is done, really wants to pursue

something that gives his life higher meaning, sense of higher purpose, right? So, Emily, is it Habitat for Humanity? It is not. Is it the World Food Bank? It is not. Is it any number of, you know, charities operating in Africa. It is not, it is theater. The theater has been his lifelong calling. And that's where he really thinks he's going to self-actualize at the age of 62. I find Stephen Colbert, you know, I think his problem really,

without the framework of a franchise, such as The Late Show, in which you are a steward, right? It's not yours. I mean, he killed it. Nobody else is going to take it over. but it belonged to Letterman. And before Letterman, I forget who it belonged to. But you sort of stepped into this franchise.

I think his problem on YouTube in the digital lane is you have to be authentic. And Stephen Colbert from his beginnings in, as a real figure in pop culture, he was playing a version of himself who was lampooning like in O'Reilly. And his name, the Colbert rapport, We're supposed to be sending up that kind of, like, puffery, that kind of self-regard that, like, you know, male news anchors often have.

And, you know, his real name is Stephen Colbert. But now we all really have to call him Stephen Colbert. I didn't know that. This is actually the first time here. This is the first I'm hearing of this. Come to us at the nerve, Emily. So, yeah, no, that's true. And, you know, he's this big.

The other thing, so authenticity, I think, is going to be as difficult thing. The other thing that bothers me about him, he's got one of those theater voices. You know, he was trained in the theater. He speaks from his diaphragm. He overly articulates. It's a baritone. It's booming. The bril-creamed hair.

Everything just feels like artifice to me. Like it just reads as artifice. He doesn't read to me as someone who is comfortable in his own skin. we took apart a podcast he did with his fellow late night comedians in which Jimmy Kimmel asked him, oh, is there ever been a guest you've been really attracted to? Stephen Colbert's been married for like over 30 years. Oh, yeah. And then he went on to name any number of beautiful young actresses, like one of whom he said he had to leave the building for.

That's weird. But it was gross. It was really gross. And it just, this is the same guy, though, who's like very, very vocal about, I'm such a big Catholic. And, you know, one of my favorite appearances on that show ever, and I'm not a fan of Stephen, but I am a fan, a big one of Ricky Jervase, and Ricky Jervis on, okay? Far greater intellect than you, Stephen Colbert. Ricky Jervis is an avowed atheist.

He's done stand-up specials about it. He talks about it all the time. Stephen Colbert decided the best use of his time with Rickie Zer vays. Ricky Jervais in his chair in front of American audiences who just want some laughs before they go to sleep to grind it out all over again was to give Ricky shit for not believing in God and in particular not believing in Stephen's God. And who is Stephen Colbert to get on anybody, let alone a guest, that's a guest in your house. You have a guest on your show. That's a guest in your house. You treat them with respect. It was outer limits. I forgot about that. Now that you mentioned, I remember that was very uncomfortable. But he became a left-wing version of the right-wing character that he played.

He's just so self-serious and incapable of really being self-deprecating in a meaningful way. I mean, you can do it. Ah, ha, ha, I'm so important. I'm Stephen Colbert type thing. But it's not really self-aware, like great comedians have to be. Otherwise, you just turn into a douchebag. That theater point is, that sounds exactly right. I mean, he's always just been a theater nerd, basically.

No offense to theater nerds. many of whom are lovely people around the country. But that is perfect for Stephen Colbert, actually. He's like this self-serious man who wants to be taken seriously by the public as a serious. I mean, how many times can I use the word serious? It's very fitting. But as like a serious pundit, not just a comedian. And he got this response from people who made him feel like he was. And so I guess we are all in to suffer. We will all have to suffer accordingly. Yeah, you know, sanctimony has no political party. I, uh, if you, Have you put in front of me the choice to be taken either as a serious pundit,

excuse me, or a great comedian? No question I would choose great comedian. A million times over. And also because I think great comedians are smarter than a lot of so-called serious pundits. I really do. You know, there's that great parlor game. Like, if you can invite any three writers to dinner, like who would you invite? Mine would all probably be comics.

Like George Carlin, Chris Rock, Joan Ripper. Rivers, Richard Pryor, the people who really, Lenny Bruce, the people who really push against the norms and make people really think, Dave Chappelle can say anything he wants about any cohort or protected class. And it doesn't matter because he's so smart and so funny. So I think Colbert chose the wrong lane. And it really, it speaks to his massive insecurity because I think most people would choose to be a great comic.

Oh, that is so well said. And people taking themselves too seriously brings us right back to Ryan Reynolds. Rob Schroeder was reporting about here. Let me, I have this quote from Rob Schueter Substack. He said, according to sources, in regard to Reynolds choosing to show up alone at the late show farewell, without Blake, even though Blake was welcome, Rob sources say, Ryan understood that if Blake showed up, she would instantly become the story. The attention would shift away from Stephen Colbert's goodbye and straight onto the the controversy surrounding Blake. It looks like another one said Blake's image is extremely polarizing right now, and Ryan knows it.

He didn't want Stephen's final show overshadowed by gossip, social media backlash or questions about Blake. Going alone was the smartest move. First of all, Maureen, I kind of feel like he was there as a quiet promotion of Rexum, which is back on the air now. Welcome to Rexum, back on the air, which is also complicated, given all of the baggage that Ron Reynolds and Blake lively not bring to the table. Am I crazy?

or is actually Ryan Reynolds also very controversial right now? It's not just Blake lively who's very polarizing right now to extremely polarizing is the word that Rob's source used. I feel like he is too. He is too. Ryan Reynolds is a horrible person. Over at the nerve, we always refer to him as psycho-arsonist Ryan Reynolds. Yes. Oh, my gosh.

I was listening to the nerve about the psycho-arssonist backstory. Incredible stuff. Incredible stuff. He set his elementary school on fire in Canada when he was a kid and he is admitted to it. And he's never. Who among us? Right? Who among us hasn't?

Okay. So, Ryan, I believe, is, you know, we all know his involvement in attempting to sabotage Justin Baldoni, steal this movie, make him persona non grata in Hollywood. He has been appearing often, like Blake went to the Met Gala a few weeks ago alone, hours after settling this lawsuit. She went along. And you don't show up like that deciding in like a few hours. I'm just going to throw on my nearest, you know, ball gown that's been custom made and get hair and make. I'm going to call Priv, you know. I'm going to call glam squad, see who's available.

So that was long planned. She went alone. She was at a Fendi event in New York a few nights ago, alone. So this is a Hollywood marriage. Like I'm not saying they don't love each other. But what I'm saying is if somebody becomes liability, and radioactive somebody's a liability and radioactive and if that's your spouse well you got to keep your distance um i don't know what he was doing at colbert's show but i just thought wow this this again

this speaks to me of stephen colbert's character it's his final show final show you're gonna allow someone as toxic and radioactive as ryan reynolds to be in your crowd with a speaking a speaking moment between the two of you. According to Rob, Ryan had a good hand in writing the ostensible joke, which wasn't funny. According to Rob, Ryan left the late show as soon as his bit was done. He didn't stay. And Rob also told us on The Nervant Night, which just went up a few hours ago, that they had to seat Ryan at the end of the aisle. One of the other actors who were doing that bit wanted to be near him. Allegedly, reportedly.

That's not surprising at all. I mean, one of the crazy things about the lively Baldoni-Rennold Swift story is how they're seen manipulating media coverage. And I guess, yeah, it's like Colbert being a star kisser to just do anything to include this guy would be my guess. But also, Ryan Reynolds and Blake lively have both seen themselves as people who are able to like manipulate others. It's in the text messages that have come out, emails that have come, all their communications that have come out as part of this, or that did come out as part of this,

we were able to see they thought they could control the press. And I guess, I don't know, is there marriage on the rocks? Or are they just also really bad at controlling the press? You know, it's interesting. Again, like, just to go back to Stephen Colbert being such a man of faith in God and a moralist and so like upright, you know, you have this. guy who we've all seen through discovery, emails, text messages, trying to bully this guy and having him up at the Tribeca Loft, the 4.2 million Tribeca Loft that he shares with Blake, Taylor Swift is there, in comes Baldoni, and it's Ryan's reading him the Riot Act about how they're going to take this? You know, it's like, how can you align yourself with somebody

like that? How can you possibly have it on one hand floated that? you're so godly and important that you know who your final guess might be the pope the pope right and then have that garbage excuse for a human being known as ryan reynolds sitting in your audience given pride of place on your very final show it doesn't track and i think that's why we're seeing this real rejection like we've all we're seeing behind the curtain now that we see the way Ryan and Blake comport themselves, guess what? Most of us don't like it. We don't like them and we don't want to put money in their pocket. They're $2 million in debt reportedly. TMZ had this report. They're building a house upstate or renovating it. And construction is stopped. They're $2 million in debt.

A friend of mine in the UK sent me aerial photos of their $12 million, roughly, a state outside of like a city center and said, you know, the upkeep on that thing has got to be enormous. You know, it's going to be interesting to see if they can afford to keep it. Ryan's unemployable right now. If you've noticed with the Wrexham series, his co-producer has been the one doing the media rounds. Ryan's been quiet as a mouse. Oh, yeah. No, it's, and Blake's image has always been girl next door. Ryan Reynolds' image has always been this sort of lovable hunk. And he's supposed to be somebody like, Deadpool is constantly trying to skewer douchebags. And instead, now we learn Blake lively is certainly not the girl next door. And Brown Reynolds is actually himself a douchebag. It feels to me like they can't

recover from this unless in terms of like being on the A list, I don't know, unless they do some crazy last ditch effort. But Marie, my question for you is like, do celebrities really, I mean, you've, you've had experience with this. They were really that self-confident in their own abilities to manipulate other people. Like they're texting Matt Damon. They're trying to bring Matt Damon's wife into it and all these people can go read it in addition to the Taylor Swift stuff like they're just trying to surround themselves with powerful people manipulate their celebrity friends manipulate the press and it's so disgusting but their own confidence and their ability to do that was also just stunning to me too it's you know it's a case-by-case basis with people who have power and fame and money but what struck me

most about those communicates among Ryan and other stars, Blake and other stars, was the level, like you see celebrity, Carly Simon said this once, I don't know if she originated it, but it's absolutely true. She said, nobody cares about famous people more than other famous people. Right? That's good for journalists, too. No, no, really, really, when you look at, by which I mean, nobody wants to be liked and admired and befriend famous people more than other famous people, right? Like, their approbation matters more than to the average bear. So when you read an email from Ryan Reynolds to Colleen Hoover, the author of it ends with us, terrible writer, terrible writer who I don't think understands.

I don't think she understands what she's putting out into the world. with these books. I don't. But writes an email to her that is very lengthy, so lengthy you think, like, what drug did this guy take before he sat down to write this letter? It's just, it goes on and on and on and on. I'm not saying he was on anything. And it's like, Colleen, this is, I'm paraphrasing,

but it was basically like, Colleen, I'm standing over here and I'm jumping up and down, and I'm clapping, clapping, clapping, clapping, and doing somersaults and screaming your name because you're such a genius. You know, she's a hack. She's a hack who writes at a second grade level, and they're making the movie out of this book that is so horrible. I couldn't even get through it.

And it's my job to get through this stuff. Okay. And, you know, but you see the level of insincerity and just... Performative. But how much Ryan Reynolds and Blake lively need the Colleen Hoovers of the world and the Matt Demons of the world to love them. One of my favorite artifacts from the discovery before they settled was Blake's message to Ben Affleck. Who she reportedly allegedly hooked up with on the set of the town. Great movie, but allegedly reportedly hooked up with him on the set of the town.

He was married to Jennifer Garner. She writes this email to Ben Affleck. And it begins, Ben, it's Blake. Don't hang up. Like, everything is like at 11. Do you know what I mean? It's like, I'm impressing you, right? I'm funny, right?

Like, now I'm going to ask you for a big favor, no pressure. But, hey, would you get involved in my issue? Imagine Emily. Okay, this is my analogy. I'm having a problem at work with my boss. I call you, Emily. You have nothing to do with my boss. Say it's over at the Daily Mail.

You have nothing to do with my... Oh, I was hoping this was Megan. Okay. You could make it fun. But, you know, and I say, but like for these purposes, like Blake to Ben, Ben, get involved. in my movie. Emily, do me a favor. Get involved in my fight with my editor over my most recent column. You know what, Emily? You know what I'd like you to do? I'd like you to get my editor fired. How about that? I would expect you to drop me as a friend immediately.

That's insane. Ask. How insane are you? Other people, by the way, have their own reputations that are, if you're a celebrity, it's your business. Your reputation is your entire business. Like you are, it's Ben Affleck, Inc. This crazy behavior. Yes, you got enough. You got enough of your own, you know what I mean? So, yeah, I just, but that's really where you really see who these people are. And, you know, the genies out of the bottle, there's no putting it back in.

We talked recently to the, do you remember that clip that went viral not long after this story was launched? You know, Blake's New York Times, quote unquote, expose. day, the journalist Shasty Flaw, who, oh yes, yes, who had the temerity to congratulate Blake during a press junket on her pregnancy and said, oh, congratulations on your bump. And Blake said, oh, congratulations on your little bump, you know, like a real freaking mega bitch.

And Shastie was not pregnant. And then Blake proceeded to be a horrible mean girl to a journalist who is not only well respected, but whose job is to do nothing really than make the stars of any given crappy movie they're promoting look good. Look good. Right. Yep. It tells you exactly what you need to know about them.

We're going to take a quick break and be right back with Maureen. Let's talk about what's really in your makeup. Most of us spend so much time worrying about what we eat, what we drink, how we take care of our families. But then we cake our faces with products that are absolutely chalkful of chemicals that we can't even pronounce. Your skin is your body's largest organ, and whatever you put on it gets absorbed. That's why you should consider making the switch to Toops & Co. Their liquid foundation and face primer are designed to do more than just cover your skin. They also help support and nourish your skin throughout the day. And unlike traditional makeup that fades or requires constant

touch-up, this makeup is formulated with aloe vera that stays put while keeping your skin feeling comfortable. No caking, no build-up, just smooth, natural-looking coverage that lasts. The stuff is great. If you're tired of choosing between looking good and poisoning your skin with mystery chemicals, you don't have to anymore. If you're ready to simplify your routine and actually feel good about what you're putting on your skin, head to tupes and co.com slash afterparty. They're offering my listeners 25% off your first order with code after party. That's tubes and co.com slash afterparty and code after party for 25% off your first order. We're back now with Maureen Callahan, host of course of the nerve with Maureen Callahan. And boy, Maureen, I cannot wait to talk about this next story.

Flying a little bit under the radar for now. But Rosie O'Donnell has a facelft. Stop the presses. She did it. She got the facelift. And what's more, she wrote about it in stanza form on her substack. Now, viewers of this show know that I have some credibility, some scholarly authority here as a college minor in creative writing with a concentration in poetry, Marine. So let me just read. Yeah, that's my level of sort of artistry that I bring to the show. Respect. Thank you, Marine. Very welcome.

I don't want to brag. You haven't mentioned that I'm an astronaut, Emily, but I'll let it go. You know, Maureen, I try not to embarrass you. by lavishing you in such praise, but people should know that is part of your life. They should. They should. I've been. I've been. Anyway, sorry. But we don't want to brag. No, no, we don't want to brag. Here goes Rosie O'Donnell on her substack in reference to this facelift. I used to feel very strongly about facelifts, not casually, morally. I had assigned myself as head of all women who would never, ever. I thought it was a betrayal of feminism, of aging, of our team of

women worldwide. And then I lost 50 pounds. Dot, dot, dot, dot. It wasn't wrinkles. It was gravity. I'd look in the mirror and think, this is an aging. This is melting with intention. She goes on and on and on. I mean, what, 20 more stanzas here and says, so in January, I did it. I found a doctor I trusted who had worked on friends of mine, who all looked like themselves, still looked like themselves, just like they had recently been told good news. And I can't do justice to the stanza breaks and the line breaks she's doing here. So people have to just go to that substack. I didn't know she had a substack. Got to smash that subscribe button because this is spectacular. But boy, she, I mean, I am a gay woman. She says always happen. I told the executives

at Warner Brothers that truth before I started my show were scrolling down. I'm still scrolling Marine. That's how long this poem about a facelift is. She says something like, as I get ready for the last day of school with my youngest, the caboose here at 64 years old, happier than I've been in years, just to be alive, able to feel and choose and use my voice whenever I feel called to, for the girl I was, the woman I am, and all those joining my ranks as we carry on in Act 3, this is me. I have chills, I have goosebumps. Here's the picture. Oh, oh. You want to see the picture? This is F10. I don't know if you've seen this yet, Marrain. She posted on Instagram. Look at that. That is a... That's good work. It's poetry.

It's good work. That doctor really, I don't know if it's filler or the facelift, but the downturn, those lines, those frown lines around the chin, I don't know. I'm sure they have a technical name. But, you know, it looks like marionette lines that are, you know, almost like Pinocchio. Those are gone. That also tells you what her normal resting expression has been, lo, these many years, probably since Trump v1. I love Rosie O'Donnell. She gives so much. That I think would maybe be classified as an epic poem. Probably. It says to me that she feels she needs to justify wanting to look good to herself. Which, you know, like it shouldn't be that heavy. Like you want to look good, you can afford it.

You got a doctor you trust. Go for it. Right. But you're right. She brings this like feminist shame to the table. Like she literally writes about that, how it feels like anti-feminist to her. Why, though? I've never understood that, that, like, wanting to feel good about yourself and the way that you look is anti-feminist.

I've never subscribed to that. I don't know what that's about. I think it's all internal with her. Oh, is that what it's about? But, of course, for Rosie O'Donnell, it would not be about the male gays. It wouldn't, but also it would be about, oh, God. So, you know, like, there's this old saw, and it's really true, you know, like, women don't really dress up for men. Like we really dress up for other women.

Like we all know the codes. You know, it's like, oh, is that like the seasons, whatever, whatever? You know, men don't know. They don't, you know, they're like, oh, you look great. But yeah, I just, I find it. And I wonder why she felt the need. You know, she moved to Ireland. She's got this other adopted kid now.

She's not, I don't know what she's doing professionally. Substack. Like you said, I have got to subscribe to the substack. I did not know she was. on substack. I'm going as soon as this episode, as soon as we're done talking, I can't wait to see what she's up to over there. I have a soft spot for Rosio. She's like a fellow Irish Catholic girl from Long Island. She lost her mother very young. She came of age in the days when, because she's talked about this with her friendship with Madonna was really forged over their shared bond of losing mothers

at very young ages. And my own mom went through this, which is why I do have a soft spot for her. when my mother's mother was dying of cancer, they did not tell the children. And so suddenly one day she was just dead. And the kids didn't really understand what it happened. And I think Rosie O'Donnell has written and spoken of a very similar thing where the mother was just dead one day and you never mention her again. And I think that really fundamentally shapes a person. So I don't know. Anyway, that's my way of saying, good for you, Rosie.

It looks great. Great work. You know, okay, so Maureen approves of the rosy face. It does look good. It does seem like, I mean, I guess her famous sort of spat with Trump was over him calling her a pig. So it was over looks. I mean, I guess maybe that.

Wait, but did she start it. So this is. Oh, no, she did. With the hair flip on the view, right? She totally started. 100% she started it. Now, absolutely she started it. This is an oft miss.

It's like when someone, the one guy in a football game punches the other guy and the ref flags the guy who punched him back. That's exactly what the entire Rosie O'Donnell, Donald Trump thing. Great did Trump punch back probably a lot harder? But all that is to say, for her, if you're a celebrity, you do carry around the weight of like what is your biggest public, what you're most known for. And for Rosie O'Donnell, I mean, he became the president of the United States.

It's probably in the last 10 years of her life, what has followed her around the most. So I could see where she would be particularly, she would feel a particular, maybe like, guilt in her conscience of being this person who, like, stood up against looksism and then giving in to her own desire to do the looksism or to look good, even though she was standing up and saying, well, you know, that's not what this is about. Well, you mentioned something very interesting that she mentioned on the way to her facelift, which was that. she lost 50 pounds. Yes. And I have one question, is Rosie O on the jab? Because women at that age typically don't drop that much weight that quickly. And a side effect of being on the jab is the weight comes off so fast that the skin really

does begin to sag and you lose the musculature in your face, everything that was like it was all attached to, it's gone. And suddenly you're like a sharp hay. And if that happened and her face, change that quickly over it. I could absolutely see the alarm and like I've got to, I don't look like myself. I don't recognize myself in the mirror. Oh, that's so interesting. Yeah. All right. Well, some food for thought here. You've given me a lot to consider Marine. Didn't want to end without bringing up this clip from Kevin O'Leary, Mr. Wonderful star,

breakout star of Marty Supreme Data Center, King of Utah, who in an interview had some advice for people on how to save money. Let's go ahead and roll S3. My mother, Georgette taught me, and this really probably flows into why I buy these watches, don't buy crap. She used to only buy one Chanel jacket a year, but a really good one. She loves Chanel. And when she died, there was a cat fight for her clothing amongst the women and my family, because they were now vintage Chanel's that were worth way more than what she paid for them. So she really, so most people, you go look in your closet, it's full of crap. you don't need. You bought crap that you just don't wear. You wore it once and it's just crap. Don't buy the crap. Buy the good stuff and just buy less of it.

Marine, I kind of agree with this in principle. In principle. I don't know that Kevin O'Leary is the messenger for this to talk about his mother's vintage Chanel because the average person who was looking for like new work pants is still probably going to go to H&M or J-Crew or Target to get the new work pants and not buy one quote really nice pair because if unless you're buying chanel you end up going to what like j crew which is way more fast fashion i guess that's changed a little bit but way more it's way closer to fast fashion uh than to chenelle certainly and there's not like a ton of middle ground between those two things so i don't i get what people are this is like going viral because some people are mad at him for it some people really love it i i do agree in principle that it's probably the

quality over quantity is better we're in this like consumerist quantity mindset because of fast fashion. I don't know that that came across right, but I'm curious what you think. Yeah, I mean, he's going to sound a little bit out of touch. After all, I mean, he and his wife were driving a boat. I don't know which one of them was driving a boat and somebody died. His wife, I think, right? They got away with it. Yeah. Allegedly, reportedly, I'm sure a big check was cut. That aside, I couldn't talk about Kevin O'Leary without referencing that because nobody was referencing that when he was doing his old press tour. Nobody ever talks about it. Nobody ever talks about it. And it's like, how can you not talk about it?

Somebody died. I think they were day drinking. Mr. Wonderful loves to talk about his wine collection on Shark Tank and how he invests in wine. And you know what I'm saying? Anyway. No, it's actually always drove me crazy. So I'm glad that this is- I'm so glad you feel the same way.

So that said, you know, so I don't, I'm not being super literal and taking like, oh, of course not everybody's buying Chanel, you know, or vintage Chanel. Or, you know, maybe not real, Chanel. But this reminds me of, so my dad, so my dad taught me this and my dad adhered to this. And my dad was also not a man of wealth. He was a truck driver. But he always believed in buying like one high quality thing over 10 things of lesser quality and price, right? You buy the nice coat.

You buy the nice shoes. You buy the nice bag. That pulls an outfit together. You also take care of the things that you love that you spend money on. And it really does. It's a reflection of you and how you think about yourself. And, you know, it's funny when he died, my brother and I were going through his stuff. Every closet door we opened.

It was stuffed to the gills with clothes. I don't know how he did it. I don't know how he did it. He was such a clothes horse. But yeah, you know, but I do agree with it. And I do love it. I mean, I think, you know, there's this wonderful line in, One of my favorite films is the before trilogy, before sunset, before sunrise, the Richard Linklater, Ethan Hawk, Julie Delphi.

And they're talking in the second film, they meet again. And they're, you know, in love with each other. And they're trying to impress each other. And they're talking about this very thing, consumerism, right? As like very smart, hipster, sophisticated, literate guys, people. And he talks about, oh, he's trying to sort of say, like, oh, I don't. I don't know that I really believe in consumerism or wanting items for the sake of just having them. What is that?

And Julie Delpy says, I don't know. I think I disagree because I think there is something very life affirming to have these ever-renewing desires. And that's how I think about it. You know, it's more than just, it can be more than just consumerism or acquiring for the sake of acquiring. It can be about really falling in love with something that feels reflective of you or something that you want to wear. or present as an extension of yourself. And I just really love that notion. Did you see Everlane was bought by Sheen?

I just saw that. Yeah. Everline always very controversial is this millennial kind of, what's the right way to put it? Millennial gender bending kind of, I don't know how to put it, Maureen, but a little maybe Frumpy is the way to put it. But like their stuff,

The whole point of Everlane is that it was very, very high quality and that you could source. I actually really love Everlane because basics, shirts, that type of thing, undershirts, that type of thing. Yeah. And it's always really high quality. But they couldn't make it work because they're competing with all of the fast fashion consumerism now.

And they were bought by Sheehan. Like, it's probably the worst person to buy Everlane, given their own mission. But here we are. Do you know what I recently learned? I, like, it takes something like 80 or 120 gallons. of water to manufacture one pair of jeans. Oh, gosh.

I mean, if you really go down the rabbit hole, like you won't be able to buy anything for yourself ever again. Yeah. You know. But yeah, no, I agree. Fast fashion is there, you know, it's a double-edged sword because fast, you know, I used to shop at H&M all the time when I wasn't making money.

And when they were really good and when they were really knocking off, like really great designs and designers, Zara is the same way. You go into a Zara on a good thing. a Zara on a good day, you could come out with some great stuff that's like really, really good dupes for stuff most people could only dream of affording. So there's that aspect to it too, you know, like it actually kind of erases class differences that really exist. Like, if you were someone- Submocratizing.

It is. Like if you were someone of no means and had to rely, say, on the local goodwill to get somebody else's hand-me-downsand-they didn't quite fit right, you know, but it was like, You at least like now there's an outlet for people who don't necessarily have a ton of disposable income to go somewhere where they can buy new clothes that are theirs that look nice, that look cool, that look of the moment. So there's something, there's something good about it as well. Oh my gosh. That's so interesting. I didn't. I would not have thought about that either.

Moring Callahan, which is why we love having you here. Thank you so much for giving us so much of your time. We appreciate it. Well, thank you so much for having me, Emily. it flew. And now, because of you, I know I got to go over to Rosio's substack and subscribe. Smash that subscribe button, her two biggest fans right here. Thank you so much. Thanks, Emily. Well, for years, legacy media, government, and big data companies coaxed us into surrendering

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unplugged.com slash Emily. Hi, everyone. We are back again. Thank you so much for sticking with us. I'm excited to talk now about the Hunter Biden Rehabilitation Tour, where he has gone on Sean Ryan's show. He has gone on Soft White Underbelly and Candice Owns show, among others, by the way. I'm probably even forgetting to list different examples. But I did want to talk about it for a moment, because there's a good side and a bad side to it from my perspective. The good side is the human side. Hunter Biden has actually lived an extraordinarily interesting life. I'm going to get to the bad side in just one moment, so stick with me.

But this man survived a car accident when he was three years old with his brother, which killed his mother. He has lived as the son of one of the most powerful U.S. senators for decades. And, of course, the vice president. He has battled intense addiction problems. he had a really severe brain accident or head injury, I should say, from that car accident. I don't know if that contributed to his addiction issues, but he's talked a bit about how he's has a lot of issues stemming from that very traumatic event in his life.

But he's been all over the world. He's been at all these kinds of crazy situations. This is part of the bad side. But he's interesting as a human being. His Andrew Callahan interview, watched the whole thing. I watched the whole Candace interview, whole Sean Ryan interview, watch the whole soft white underbelly interview which is like more than two hours long. He's a very interesting guy.

There's one point in the Sean Ryan interview where Ryan says, like, I didn't expect to like you this much. On the other hand, Hunter Biden being interesting as a human being and being a compelling storyteller and somebody who has clearly suffered a lot and has a lot of guilt from causing his family to suffer a lot as well is now downplaying. the severity of his corruption and influence peddling. And it's really not particularly helpful, even from a human perspective, to allow Hunter Biden act like this was,

to act like this was all a witch hunt. Were there some partisan witch hunters, absolutely, who were peddling, bad information, dubious information, absolutely no question about it. But Hunter Biden was pretty nakedly, trading on his family's name in a way that we do not expect of our public servants or their family when they are in office. Now, this is obviously, we talked about this on the show a couple of weeks ago, a huge issue with the Trump family right now. And what the Trump family is doing is on

another scale from what Hunter Biden did. Isaac Saul has an article on his website. Breaking down, we put it up on the screen just a couple of weeks ago. You go back and watch the segment. everything that is going on with world liberty financial, the lobbying for pardons, and so on from the Trump family. It is significant. It is more blatant in a way, perhaps you could say, more honest, because they're kind of doing a lot of it out in the open and not, we don't have to get a laptop hard drive to find out kind of the basics of it, but I'm sure a hard drive would have more to say. all that is just to make the point that it's not to revisit what happened with Hunter Biden. It's not to excuse any of what's happening now. I feel like you shouldn't have to say that. But I do want to say it because what's happening now, Hunter Biden is correctly diagnosing as on another level.

Doesn't let him off the hook one bit, nor does it make it, I think, particularly helpful to let him keep saying all of these different things about what actually happened. that are just ridiculous. They're ridiculous. So let's roll a bit of him with Candice Owens last week, S8. There are forces that I used to say, oh, this is bullshit. Have you ever read The Devil's Chessboard?

Yes. This is a great book. Alan Dulles, looking into the CIA, I read this book, Chaos, that then led me the Devil's Chessboard. It's actually on our list for books to read for the book club. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. It'll knock you chaos. CIA, the mansion stuff, that was the one that knocked me. And I was like, what the heck is our government? What is going on? And you realize that anyway. What the CIA is capable of and you think it's all a conspiracy. And I think that's what they're fearful of is that people will have a wake into that. And so when they're kind of trying to throw red meat now, what you see them doing, the left, the right, it's just not landing the same anymore. This is a very weird conversation to have with Hunter Biden, who in that Candace interview, says he believes. the suppression of the laptop story was wrong. But then in other interviews, he said basically that

it wasn't suppressed in other recent interviews, that there was no suppression of it. There was some, you know, shutdown of the speech, but because conservative media covered it so extensively, the New York Post covered it so extensively, it actually was a huge media story. And listen, it's just not true. There's even polling on what people actually knew about the laptop or hard drive, however you want to put it. He's also vacillated a bit on that or gone back and forth a bit on whether there was a laptop or if it was always just a hard drive, laptop is the shorthand that people understand. It was, it sounds like it was a hard drive, but all that is to say, Hunter Biden was doing influence peddling, and much of it we know because of what we saw on the laptop. And for him to make this really

interesting book recommendation, I mean, Devil's Chesbord, I think I recommended it as one of my three books at the end of the Ezra Klein episode that I did a couple of years ago, if I'm remembering correctly by the great David Talbot, who has covered this stuff extensively. It's fascinating book totally downplays some of the threats from the communist governments associated with the Soviet Union. That's a story for another day. Maybe we can get into it another time. But the cover-up of the laptop story was orchestrated by 51 former intelligence officials, at least one of whom was using an active CIA email address, according to Sean Davis at the Federalist. And so Hunter Biden goes on in that Candace Owens interview to say that his father,

was never associated with the Epstein class. If anything, he was a victim of elites and elite scheming. Let's take a listen to some of his thoughts on the Butler assassination attempt and potential conspiracy theories around that, S-9. I mean, whether it's Butler or Charlie or these things that it's just not right. And I mean, it's so glaringly not right. It's almost as if they're just saying, F you. They don't, they're not even trying.

I don't care. You know what? You know what? I keep saying. I'm like, it's so disrespectful that we're not even getting good siops anymore. Like, we're supposed to believe he survived four, what do we have, four assassination attempts, the first president that's ever survived four assassination attempts. I mean, even the recent White House correspondence dinner, there was so much theater to it after,

so much theater. And now it's kind of, okay, Secret Service maybe shot each other and we're just going to kind of quietly move on. But Trump needs a ballroom. Like, that's a normal reaction. Hey, there's a shooting duck. Hey, well, we better get that ballroom. By the way, it's going to cost a billion dollars.

now. And by the way, it's not from donors. And by the way, we're going to do it. Like, it's just like, it's just the, the constant, like, talk about gaslighting. It's been, this has been just this. And we're not even, are we even a year into Trump's second term? We're a little over a year. So I'll be the last person to say there are no questions around the Butler assassination attempt. Of course, there are questions about the Butler assassination attempt. Of course, there are questions about the Butler assassination attempt. Don't get me wrong. on that one, because I agree. On the other hand, the idea that Hunter Biden is now a brave truth teller on the question of foreign influence in American politics is so beyond ridiculous. I do find him interesting. And I do think we're going to get more and more from these interviews information about how he saw him. his role, but he was like Burisma alone. I think he talked to Sean Ryan about this. His role in the Burisma board alone probably had some intelligence benefits to the United States. We're talking Mexican business, Carlos Slim, Carlos Slim, Mexican billionaire, one of the most powerful people in the world, Carlos Slim. Hunter Biden was a, I'll show you this in just a moment.

In fact, there are messages about Hunter Biden's negotiations with Carlos Slim, his team's negotiations with Carlos Slim, Romania. Kazakhstan, China, of course, he was negotiating with CEFC, as Peter Schweitzer has reported. He dismisses the Schweitzer reporting on Sean Ryan, I think. But that's real. The connections between Hunter Biden and CEFC, which itself is linked to the CCP, real. He met up with potential Chinese business contacts when he flew on Air Force 2. When he flew on Air Force 2, this state visit that Biden did, I think it was. 2014 on that state visit that Biden, Joe Biden did when he was vice president. So there is a lot

of there when it comes to Hunter Biden's influence peddling. And probably some of it, probably some of it put him in good position just aside from being, Joe Biden was on Senate Intel for years and years. Then he was the vice president. Well, and before Hunter was doing all of this. So the idea that Joe Biden, who benefited from the 51 former Intel agency suppression letter, this led to the suppression of the New York Post story on social media. We know that the FBI had briefed social media companies. Mark Zuckerberg has talked about this to expect that they'd war a game to this even, to expect a potential laptop hard drive drop from Hunter Biden. I mean, all of it is absurd if you're trying to make the argument that Biden was that Joe Biden and Hunter Biden are

are now going to be sharp critics of the deep state. That said, if Hunter Biden is having his eyes open to some of these evils of the surveillance state, I will gladly hear some of what he knows, because I think he does know a lot, to be quite honest, F-15, or F-19, we can put this on the screen. He announced a soft white underbelly interview by saying, for years, the story of my life was told by people who wanted it to end. This time, I told it myself. It's about two plus hours long, two hours, 20 minutes long, a very interesting interview, like I said. But once again, he has a sympathetic interviewer who is totally entranced, seduced by his compelling, personal, self-aware life story about addiction, his own failures. And that is used. I don't even

know if he's doing it on purpose. If it's on purpose, it's very clever. But it's used as a way to earn this credibility when Hunter Biden then says, there was nothing on the laptop that showed criminality or corruption or anything like that. Hunter Biden is damn lucky. He didn't get charged with a FARA violation. Prosecutor, I think David Weiss said he just couldn't find enough to prosecute Hunter Biden with a FARA violation. This is the Farrar statute. I'm putting it up on the screen. I reported on FARA a good bit over the last 10 years. And you can see any person, the Foreign Agents Registration Act comes out of World War II to crack down on unregistered propaganda. Any person who acts as an agent, representative, employer, servant, or any person

who acts in any other capacity at the order, request, or under the direction or control of a foreign principle or a person whose activities are directly or indirectly supervised, directed, controlled, finance, or subsidized in whole or in any major part by a foreign principle and who directly or through other persons, any other persons engages within the United States in political activities for in the interests of such foreign principle, acts within the United States as a public relations council, publicity, agent, information service, employee, or political consultant for the in the interest of such foreign principle, it goes on and on, but you get the point. I just wanted that to be kind of downloaded in our minds as we look at a little bit at Hunter

Biden's record. That is a description of a lot of the work that we saw on Hunter Biden's laptop itself. And I'm focusing on that because he has said that there was nothing of import. It was all just personal problems. It was all just personal material that there wasn't anything of real political import on the laptop. And it's just, like, frankly, not true. The New York Times, Ken Vogel, who did a lot of really good Hunter Biden reporting,

reported on this Romanian plot that involved material from the laptop. Romania, China plot that involved material directly from the laptop. This is another thing that I recommend people read. This is from Marco Polo. He's a researcher who has done a ton, a ton of stuff on Hunter Biden over the years. And I'm just going to put the PDF up on the screen because I bookmarked a couple of places where you see some obvious stuff happening with FARA violations. This is China.

Look, we're going to just look at some of these screenshots. This is obviously evidence of FARA violations. And I can't read all of it on the podcast side here, but you can download this report on your own. It's screenshots of emails where you see FARA violations, potential fair violations in action. CEFC, this Chinese energy conglomerate, was connected to the CCP, it was connected to the Chinese state government. So based on the fair statutes that I just read, it's just to say there was no evidence,

it's crazy. Let's go over to Romania. You're going to see something really similar. You can do this with Mexico. You can do this with all kinds of different deals, Romania. As I mentioned, you're seeing screenshots here. These are related to Carlos Slim, from. from Hunter, from his business partners, over and over again.

There you have examples. I can't read these because it's so long, but you can go check them out yourself. There's just ample evidence that is directly, directly from the laptop, directly from the laptop. Now, let's then go over to news reports because the house investigators pulled banking activity, of course, as well. So let's find, I'm going to put this one up on the screen. There's a lot of reporting on this, but a Fox News article, summarizing a New York Post article, quote, over the course of 14 months, the Chinese energy conglomerate that's CFC and its executives paid $4.8 million to entities controlled by Hunter Biden and his uncle, according to government records, court documents, and newly disclosed bank statements, as well as emails contained on a copy of a laptop hard drive that purportedly once belonged to Hunter Biden, the post report. Fox rights before writing that it found no evidence that President Biden, quote, personally benefited from or new details about the transactions with CEFC, which all took place after he left office as vice president.

These deals were happening because Hunter Biden was named Hunter Biden. He knew that these deals were happening because he was named Hunter Biden. He talked to Sean Ryan about how he was put on the Burisma Board, likely because he thinks one of the kleptocrats over there wanted some protection with the Biden name, and that was a good way to get it. But, I mean, I don't even really need to keep going. Here's a New York Post article that I'm tossing up on the screen. Hunter Biden used Joe's VP perks to pursue deal with Carlos Slim.

This is a Miranda Devine report. Hunter Biden used the perks of the vice presidency parties, means with Joe Biden in flights on Air Force, too, to pursue business deals with Mexican billionaire. Carlos Slim, Hunter's involvement was Slim. At one time, the world's richest man, commenced soon after a White House state dinner, the magnet attended in May 2010,

along with Joe Biden and his wife, Jill. The diary on Hunter's abandoned, laptop shows he and Slim were both guests at a State Department luncheon, goes on to say the, and then just goes on to outline their relationship and how Hunter was very clearly pursuing a business relationship. Now, if you are connected to the government, based on the Farah definition that we just read, that's pretty clearly covered by foreign principle. If you're trying to influence politics in the United States, there was also pretty ample evidence of that too. Farrer was what was used against Paul Manafort. It has been used against some Trump associates. Tony Podesta came under

scrutiny for it, closed up the lobbying shop, I think is back to lobbying. But it was used to, it basically was dormant. Prosecutions were dormant for a really long time of Farah violations. But they're felonies. They are felonies. And so that's where the government is just declining to bring these felony cases against Hunter Biden by saying, well, we can't really prove and connect to the dots between X, Y, and Z. Sure, that's actually probably true that it's hard. These are hard cases to build, but there's so much evidence of Farah felony violations on the laptop that for Hunter Biden to just sit there and say, oh, it's all crazy. Part of the reason I'm doing this segment is so that anybody who interviews Hunter Biden in the future gets the full story, which is going to be more

interesting than Hunter Biden's bullshitting from Hunter Biden himself. Because if you're going to sit down and talk to him about this stuff. I thought Sean Ryan did a pretty good job, but Hunter Biden is peddling some pretty good bullshit because apparently when you sit down with him, the guy is likable. And he's right about the weakness and the corruption of the Democratic political establishment. He is correct about media and politics culture. He's right about those things. And now he's going to be apparently criticizing the CIA, which helped suppress the story about his laptop. It's all so ridiculous, as is his claim, that his dad just wasn't, had no part in what's now been called the quote unquote Epstein class, no part in any of this corruption. Here's a Byron York article, the great Byron York, from 2008 looking into Joe Biden and Hunter Biden's connections to MBN, a Delaware business, as Joe Biden refers to it.

Yes, sir, MBNA is indeed a Delaware business. One way to put it, they ultimately hired Hunter. But Byron Irk was saying it's true that for much of Joe Biden's career, he was one of the poorer members of the Senate. But eventually, he had a relationship with MB&A that seemed to pay off for him. Now, not multi, multi-millions, but Byron wrote, quote, summarizing what had happened. A top executive of a rich and spendthrift company buys the home, the Biden home, of a financially strapped senator paying a generous price, a little bit over what the House was appraised at, basically. After that, virtually the entire top management of the company gets together in a coordinated campaign to donate money to the senator, getting around campaign contribution limits. And then after the senator is reelected, the company hires the senator's son. And we don't know what they were paying, Hunter. We know that the family has lumped their finances together over the years. So who knows if Joe Biden profited from a really good salary that was going to his son.

And this was long, but it was all to make this point that Hunter Biden saying the laptop itself was not incriminating because the charges weren't brought. Prosecutors don't like bringing Farah charges. They like bringing it to get Trump when they felt they had no choice. But they honestly, these cases are a lot of work. They take a lot of effort. And it is hard to like definitively without a shadow of doubt prove guilt. But what we can look at from all of these records from the laptop and then from the banking records is that there were clear conflicts of interest. There were clear and egregious ethical lapses.

So even if Hunter Biden was not criminally guilty of Farah felony violations, which I don't think is likely. I mean, I think you can all see it even if the legal standard is different. So those things you can put the pieces together, but you can maybe not prove the legal, make it. up to the legal standard, even though you're kind of like, okay, we know what was going on here because it's happening in all of these different cases over and over again. Maybe you could win on one of these cases. But again, the point is, he was peddling on his family's name, pedaling influence on his family's name, getting rich off his father's public service. And now, instead of just owning that, which would be a much more interesting story for Hunter Biden to tell

because it's true. His dad did resist a lot of the, you know, leaving to go lobby, leaving the Senate to go lobby and the like. But he did have his family members around him, from Hunter to his brothers, to his sister, enriching themselves on the Biden's name, apparently melding their finances together, which we have seen over the years. And to act like that wasn't happening or to buy the Hunter Biden story because he's a damn good storyteller and clearly a likable guy, he's not doing any great service to the public record. So that is just my public service announcement for anybody who finds themselves across from Hunter Biden, this apparently very charming and fascinating man, I don't blame anybody

for finding him likeable. I'm sure I would enjoy a conversation with Hunter Biden, too. I just, it's a little, it's a little irritating to see this downplayed as Hunter Biden tries to act like he wasn't doing anything that was necessarily unethical. All right. Now, Jill Biden, as we round out a record-shattering long episode of After Party tonight, Jill Biden was or is now on a media tour to promote her new book and got some questions about her reaction as Joe Biden melted down during that infamous debate when he said, we beat Medicare. Let's take a listen.

Were you horrified as you saw it unfold? I wasn't horrified. I was frightened because I had no. Never, ever seen Joe like that. The, with the COVID, excuse me, with dealing with everything we have to do with, uh, look, if we finally beat Medicare. Thank you, President. Before or since. Never. Or since.

Yes. Or since. You've never seen them like that. Never. No. What happened? I don't know what happened. I mean, as I watched it, I thought, oh my God, he's having a stroke.

And it scared me to death. Joe, you did such a great job. So scared. Here she was after the video. You answered every question. You knew all the facts. Did Trump do? He hate that close so much. You knew, you answered all the questions.

He's just absolutely shredding the kindergarten standard for success at a debate. In fact, he was so great. He did so great that his own wife thought he was having a stroke on the debate stage. That is an excellent performance from Joe Biden. And now, as you see with Hunter Biden, there's this resentfulness in the Biden family that they watched everyone around them get rich while Joe Biden, their patriarch, was engaged in public service. And so they cobbled together what kind of life they could live in comparison to the luxurious lives that the lobbyists around them were leading the consultants around them, we're leading the Hollywood stars around them,

we're leading and now they want to have the good life and so uh joe biden is trying to sell a book her husband is suffering from cancer hunter shared um on soft white underbelly that it's it's tough for him uh he says he doesn't complain much this is what hunter biden says of joe biden but that you know he is having trouble sleeping and alike jill biden is now on a book tour selling books and trying to make money so much so that she's willing to answer questions like that she's willing to answer questions like this that make her look ridiculous. This is deeply embarrassing for Jill Biden because we all have these clips and we can play the clips back. But my read is honestly that she wants to sell a book because they compared to Hollywood celebrities and such, they don't have a ton of money. It's a lot of

money to the rest of us. You look at their Delaware Robith home. If we look at some of the other things that they, like I think Hunter Biden lives in Santa Monica. Compared to the average American, they're just fine. But compared to the people they've spent their lives around as their patriarch was toiling in the Senate and the vice presidency and then also trying to sell a book after the vice presidency, they want a piece of a good life. And that's my explanation for why Jill Biden is out there peddling books despite the setup to just shamelessly act like she really thought maybe her husband was having a stroke and she's never seen them like that before or since, despite going out afterwards and putting on a brave smile and instead of canceling the rally afterwards and saying

that Biden had a cold or whatever else they were saying, she goes out there and says he was great. You knew all you answered all the questions, blah, blah, blah. And now she's trying to sell books admitting that. Oh, no, she thought admitting or saying, claiming she thought he had a stroke because that's an acceptable answer to somebody who maybe doesn't see the flashback clip. That was a preview of CBS Sunday morning. But the Biden family is a tragedy, sort of deep trend. and we apparently aren't done with it.

So I actually do look forward to future Hunter Biden interviews. As you can tell, I'm something of a connoisseur having watched all of them, even though like three, four hour ones. I do find him very interesting. But let's also come to this conversation with a sort of factual starting point. That would be helpful. I want the whole story from the Bidens. I don't want a fake self-serving story. So if we're going to do it, let's do it.

Let's do it. All right. That does it for us on today's record-shattering edition of After Party. Thank you so much for tuning in, everyone. We appreciate it. We'll be back on Monday with more Friday. You'll have a happy hour on your podcast feed. Have a great evening, everyone.