After Party with Emily Jashinsky - Talarico's BIG Problem, Alex Cooper's FAIL, with Evan Barker, PLUS Meghan Markle's PR Disaster

Episode Date: October 12, 2026

Emily Jashinsky breaks down new revelations in the “Cornell 7” case, including a potentially significant statement omitted from CBS News and The New York Times' coverage of a text message exchange between Jane Doe and one of the accused men. Emily is then joined by Evan Barker, author of the New York Times bestseller “Nothing Left: Confessions of a Democratic Operative,” to discuss her journey from progressive Democratic fundraiser to independent Trump voter. Evan reveals how wealthy donors influence the Democratic Party's priorities, why identity politics helped drive her away from the left, and why she still supports many traditionally liberal economic policies. The ladies examine the backlash against South Carolina Democratic Senate candidate Annie Andrews over her transgender sports ad and react to Marc Lamont Hill's contentious exchange with Piers Morgan. Emily and Evan also discuss James Talarico's unusual absence from the campaign trail, his appearance at a Kacey Musgraves concert, and questions about his strategy in the Texas Senate race. The conversation turns to the furious reaction to Shane Gillis's latest “Saturday Night Live” monologue and the cultural double standards Emily and Evan believe the controversy exposes. They also take on Alex Cooper's “Call Her Daddy” episode about the “Cornell 7” case, challenging its treatment of the evidence, criticism of fraternities, and implications for due process. Evan shares her own experiences with the #MeToo movement while working in Democratic politics. Emily rounds out the show with the controversy surrounding Meghan Markle's $148 Advent calendar, reports of her supporters attacking British priests online, her latest promotional collaboration with Malala Yousafzai, and rumors of a possible reconciliation with the Prince and Princess of Wales. GhostBed: Discover how GhostBed’s cooling, pressure-relieving design can help you sleep more comfortably and wake up feeling refreshed, plus get an extra 10% off their lowest prices of the season at https://GhostBed.com/EMILY with code EMILY. ZBiotics: Go to https://zbiotics.com/AFTERPARTY and use AFTERPARTY at checkout for 15% off any first time orders of ZBiotics probiotics. Wildgrain: Get $40 off your first box of artisanal bake-from-frozen sourdough and Free Croissants for Life at https://Wildgrain.com/AFTERPARTY40 with code AFTERPARTY40! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to After Party, everyone's next guest is Evan Barker. We are three weeks away from the midterm elections, three weeks and one day away from midterm elections. Early voting has started, so there's a lot of news over the weekend, and there's a lot polling and spending information to get to. So we are going to get to that. We're also going to talk about Shane Gillis and more of the Cornell story, and that's where I want to begin today, because we got an update over the weekend that got so little attention, but deserves so much attention. You may remember, I did an entire quick video, but it was about. 40 minutes long with Innes Stepman on Saturday. It wasn't on the podcast. It was just a one-off on the YouTube channel. So if you're interested in the weeds of why these Title IX cases happen the way that

they do, why they transpire, we went through the redacted Title IX document. There's some interesting evidence there about Cornell using the quote-unquote preponderance of the evidence standard versus the clear and convincing standard. If you followed Title IX cases on college campuses, you know exactly what that means. If you haven't, Annes breaks it down in a really helpful way and just explains by actually maybe even the Title IX investigation was wrong in the Cornell case. But one of the things we talked about is this TMZ report of a full text message exchange between Jane Doe and Jonathan Newell, one of the quote unquote Cornell seven men. And what was particularly interesting to see the full exchange is that the New York Times and CBS News reported on bits of the exchange without posting the screenshot. TMZ posted the screenshot. And Brianna Lyman over at the Federalist, I mean,

So I noticed, I thought that was interesting. I noticed that and then looked at the New York Times. Someone else posted to me that CBS did the same thing. We covered this with Anez. Brianna Lyman then goes and asks CBS, New York, for comment. And CBS, New York tells Brianna Lyman, our reporter reviewed the full text exchange before publishing, and our editorial decisions reflected the review. We also included her attorney's explanation and gave our audience the context necessary to understand why some of those messages may be disputed.

So what was missing from that full text exchange in the New York Times and the CBS New York story is that Jane Doe said, quote unquote, our body, our choice. She referred to this in the same breath as a gang rape and said, quote, unquote, our body, our choice. What they did report on, thankfully, was her saying that, quote, none of the sexual stuff was illegal. So that, if they had left that out, that would be 20 times worse. But also leaving out, intentionally leaving out our body, our choice, which is her going out of the way to affirm. consent and to do it in the language of the feminist left is an important element of the story. There's just no question about it. And to leave that out, I think it's egregious. It would be, again, 20 times worse if they left out, none of the sexual stuff was illegal bit of it. But for then to

even go further and say, quote, unquote, our body, our choice for the media to leave that out and now to defend leaving that out. New York Times did not respond to Brianna Lyman's request for comment. So we have no idea, but what it looks like, and part of why this media update is interesting, is that they were getting information from Jane Doe's legal team and running with it. So this confirms that they didn't just run with anything. They actually had the full text exchange from the legal team and actively omitted part of it, quote, our body, our choice. If you're a reporter, just for the sake of conveying to the audience the full context,

it's important to include both of those parts of this exchange. because it gives the reader the necessary context about the mindset of Jane Doe at the time these exchanges were happening. Now, yes, of course, there are some women who cope with sexual assault and misconduct and rape by trying to rationalize it away and trying to say, well, I was the agent and all of this. But in Jane Doe's case, most of the evidence suggests, as I wasn't in that room, I don't purport to be in this room, I don't purport to know 100% what happened in that room. But most of the evidence suggests based on her own testimony, in addition to the boy's testimony, in addition to all of these text messages, there are many of them. It's not just this one. The fact that she still wanted to go to the Halloween party.

In some cases, could that be a cope? Could that be a woman trying to rationalize and trying to feel empowered and like an agent? Yes, absolutely. Of course. Of course that can happen. Of course that does happen to women. But when we look at the scope, the full scope, the full breadth of all of the evidence in this case, her own testimony is that she was the agent every step of the way. And so it's not a case where we have a woman

who was likely totally passed out incapacitated as New York law. It doesn't have a loophole. It says if you're incapable of making decisions, then you're incapable of consenting, even if you have voluntarily consumed alcohol. So what we see in this case is, I think, over and over again, pretty obvious, which is Jane Doe was acting as an agent, as a quote-unquote empowered agent and had been taught by people like Alex Cooper, who we're going to talk about later in the show because she did a whole call her daddy on this that just dropped over the weekend,

have been taught that this is empowering and that you should be able to do this and feel empowered and feel like you are the agent that is in charge of all of this. And it looks like Jane Doe was. And this is just another piece of evidence in that column suggesting she was affirmatively acting as somebody who saw herself as empowered and who saw herself as participating in her own description, a gang bang, our body, our choice. And I think we need to be really careful as we read media reports about this now,

because it's becoming clearer and clearer. There are a lot of drops coming from Jane Doe's legal team and that there are still ideologues in the media, as though they haven't learned the lessons of Duke Lacrosse, UVA, UVA, UVA Rolling Stone, and others that happened over the last 10-plus years. So with that, let's get into midterm elections. Let's get into Evan Barker's book. We're going to be right back. It's funny, we've all gotten so good at explaining away our bad sleep.

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That's ghostbed.com slash Emily promo code Emily. Go ahead, give it a try. These things are amazing. We're joined now by Evan Barker. She's the author of the bestselling New York Times bestselling book is called Nothing Left Confessions of a Democratic operative. She's also a columnist at Unheard. And she's the host of Bad Company with Evan Barker. Evan, welcome to After Party. Hi. Thanks so much, Emily. It's great to meet you finally. I'm so happy to be here. Yeah, well, thanks for being here. And actually, it's such an interesting book. I was wondering if you could start. We're going to talk about James Talarico. We're now just over three weeks away from the midterms, like three weeks and one day away from the midterm elections. People are early voting.

So let's start, though, with a little bit of your story. If people haven't bought the book, they should buy the book, read your story. But give us a little, like just a taste of who you are and what you were doing for the Democratic Party. Right. Yeah. So I'm originally from the middle of the country. I was born into a mostly blue collar union construction worker, Democratic family. grew up going to union halls, so just kind of grew up in democratic politics, and, well, not

in electoral politics, but believing in the Democratic Party, right? And I was also born with a rare lung disease, similar to cystic fibrosis, so that led to me becoming very active in high school and wanting to work for Barack Obama because he made a promise of changing health care. You know, I went without health insurance actually frequently as a child because my parents couldn't always afford to put me on a high-risk plan. And he ended up changing health care, and I was able to get insurance. And, you know, after that, I ended up finding the Bernie Sanders movement. I was actually with Bernie and AOC, the very first day they ever met, ended up moving up the progressive ladder, and ended up working for a fundraising firm based on a Washington, D.C., that had,

You know, I really described them in my book as being the secret weapon of the left. They had many different insurgent clients like Jamal Bowman, Corey Bush, Jasmine Crockett. I worked for her, Abdul Al-Sayed. I worked for him. Greg Kassar, Summer Lee. You know, I could go on and on and on. And ended up getting disillusioned with both the establishment and progressive wings of the party

and ended up leaving the Democratic Party in 2024. three days after the election. I kind of had a breaking point. I knew Kamala wasn't going to win. Posted a video on TikTok that accidentally went viral. I had 60 followers. The next day I woke up, it had millions of views. And the book is basically a deep dive into my story

and really explains to people how the insurgent left built their movement and explains the whole ride. and people like Zoran Mamdani, but also talks a lot about, you know, how Democrats have sort of alienated families like mine. One of the things that happened is that a lot of those blue-collar, you know, Democratic Union guys that I had in my family that used to support Democrats started shifting in 2016.

And that's another element of this story that I go into. And you were doing fundraising, right? Yeah, sorry, I forgot to say that. Yes. I was doing fundraising. So the other interesting thing is that you kind of get a inside view of how, it's funny, when I was writing this book, Emily, I did not think this was like that interesting,

maybe because it was so secondhand to me or whatever. But people are really interested in learning the ends and outs of, you know, what politicians have to do behind closed doors in order to raise a ton of money and in order to be competitive in elections. Yeah. And so you were talking about, lot of like high dollar donors, right? Like people, really, really, really rich people. You were,

you may have started with small dollar, correct my memory here, but like, you were, by the end, it was always high dollar. Always high dollar. Yeah. I think that's one of the things that people are surprised by, actually, is that it's, you know, even the insurgent left is often funded by, like, these big dollar donors, you know what I mean? People like the Soros family. And I actually name all the donors pretty much. There's a few that I leave anonymous, but or anonymized, but I name a lot of donors in the book. So, yeah. Another part of your story I find really interesting is that health care was so central to your attraction to the Obama era Democratic Party because it's something Republicans was like the

biggest Republican message for 10 years was repeal and replace. And the replace was really critical. And this is when you were working in politics. And were you working in fundraising, specifically for Democrats? And I just can't understand for the life of me other than, obviously, it's a hard policy solution. Why Republicans don't understand, that is still what drives so many people to Democratic candidates to this day. Well, it's political poison for them to repeal Obamacare and not replace it with something adequate. And I've never seen any plan that they've put forward that has promised to protect people like me. It was incredible, I think a lot of people have maybe forgotten what it was like before the ACA. If you had a preexisting health condition,

one in three Americans have them. But it was incredibly hard to get coverage. And, you know, I lived in a state, I think most states actually back then were like this, where, you know, you couldn't even really get Medicaid unless you were legally declared to. disabled, which takes years to get. And when you have a rare disease like mine, it's even harder. You know, I know PCD patients, that's the name of my disease, that are in places like, you know, Missouri and Kansas right now that are having a hard time just getting disability because it's, it's not like a well-known disease, even though it makes you really, really sick. And so the system was like incredibly flawed back then. And I think, you know, obviously there's issues with

Obamacare. But I think the fundamental change of allowing people with pre-existing conditions to be able to purchase health insurance without, you know, higher prices or any sort of discriminatory practices was groundbreaking and was, and is extremely popular. And so I think that's part of the reason why it's so difficult for a lot of people to understand how I was able to do what I did in 2024, I actually voted for Donald Trump in 2024. And the one thing that was like really keeping me from doing that was the fact that they had tried so hard to repeal Obamacare in 2017. I decided that he would not, I just, he said he wouldn't do that this time and maybe, and I just decided to believe that he wouldn't, basically, is how I got myself there.

because they tried and they failed so hard in 2017 and paid a price for that in the midterms. And so, and I think they have learned their lessons, at least in the short term. I still don't completely trust that that isn't a long-term goal, which is part of the reason why I'm not a full-fledged Republican, that I didn't, I wasn't able to go from Democrat to Republican overnight, like a lot of people do.

you know, I am still an independent. And I'm more left-leaning on economics. I support unions. I support breaking up corporate monopolies. I support health care access and expanding health care access, maybe like even a universal public option. And at the same time, I lean to the right, I guess, on culture issues and immigration at this point.

Yeah, that's actually what I was just going to ask you. It's like what you're, before we get into the news of the day, like, what is the big difference between yourself and a Jamal Bowman or a Cory Bush or like what was the wedge? And I think it was cultural issues for you, right? It's like immigration, LGBT, those sorts of things. Yeah, race, obsession with race and identity politics. I mean, this is, I guess this is something that like a lot of people have also kind of forgotten about, you know, but it's still very, it's still very much exist within the Democratic Party.

You know, I talk to even if they're being a little bit more quiet and not making, that like the centerpiece of their messaging anymore. I talk to democratic operatives and strategists all the time. I've had so many reach out to me since my book has come out, just being like, oh my God, I could relate to this or your book made me feel less insane, you know, are similar messages that I got. But, you know, they're still very much like obsessed with, they really are, like obsessed with race, obsessed with oppression status, obsessed with gender. behind the scenes, and it's kind of baked into their ecosystem into the way that they've organized themselves. It's been a coalition building strategy for them. It's very difficult for them to break from.

And a fundraising strategy, right? I'm not sure how much that came up, but I would imagine when you were raising money behind the scenes, support for the trans community, support for BLM, maybe not BLM explicitly. Oh, yeah, BLM explicitly. No, explicitly. There you go. So these things came up with the high dollar fundraiser. All the time. Yeah. High dollar donor really, really like this stuff, actually. Because it keeps the Democratic Party from focusing on material conditions that could impact everybody's lives. And so there were situations where we would be calling candidates and I would be calling donors and they would say, like, I'm not going to give to you unless you're a woman of color,

right? Or seriously, the one person we called, there was literally her voicemail, Emily, was like, It was like, don't bother leaving a message unless you're a woman of color. It was absurd. Totally absurd. You know, and then politicians that would say, like, I would push back and be like, well, why does your website say pregnant people? And this was, I genuinely did not understand.

This is when this was starting to happen. I didn't, I call me naive, whatever. I had no idea. I was very confused by it. And he was like, well, because, you know, men can get pregnant. I was like, but men don't have uteruses. Like, what are you talking about? You tried to, like, have a logical conversation.

I was so confused. And he was like, my brother had a baby. You know, so it's like this change that I saw occur inside of the Democratic Party. Like people like George Soros, you know, his organization put out a directive that they would only fund, that they would only fund organizations for the next five years that had at least one non-white leader leading them. And that led to, I saw personally, people would get passed over for jobs who were very qualified and very experienced just so that organization could maintain funding. There were other groups that demanded intersectionality, ringed through all campaign messaging. There was this messaging framework that was pushed by very high dollar donors inside of the party that is called race class narrative, which I go into in the book that I'm hearing is still very very. much a part of the Democratic Party behind the scenes.

Like reporters like Dave Weigel when I did an interview with him told me that he still hears about this stuff all the time from people in Democratic politics. Like it has not gone away because it's so difficult for it to go away and because very few people actually want to talk about it and have any sort of reckoning over it. I'm so glad that we're having this conversation because I was going to start with Tala Rico, but let's just get to him in one minute. I want to start with your post about Annie Andrews, who's running for Senate in South Carolina against Darlene Graham, obviously the sister of the late Lindsey Graham. And Trump has been calling her Tranny Andrews because there were some polls showing

that the race was much closer than anybody expected it to be again in South Carolina. I saw a recent Rasmussen poll that looked like Darlene Graham had a little bit more of a comfortable lead. But Annie Andrews responded to the Tranny Andrews attack from the president with a direct-to-camera ad. You said, I approved this message. Let's roll the ad and get your take on the other side. Politics can get pretty ugly, and when it does, you deserve to hear the truth. My career as a pediatrician has always been about taking care of kids, and I've got three of my own. So I want you to hear me loud and clear.

I don't support biological men playing women's sports, and I don't support. and haven't ever performed gender surgery for minors. I'm Dr. Annie Andrews and I approve this message because Darlene Graham lying about me won't do a thing to help you. So Evan also approves this message in addition to it. I do. But on a tactical note, I was not super convinced that was a smart move because I feel like it calls attention to the Trani Andy nickname and it calls attention to her being a dem on trans issues in an environment that's still not great for Dems on those So she was, on the other hand, she comes straight to camera and does what you've probably been seeing everyone is incapable of doing for the last 10 years as Democrats, which is just say point blank, no. Yeah.

You know, I think she didn't really have a choice because she's running in South Carolina. It's a Republican state. This isn't even like a populist red state like Missouri or Iowa, right? This is like a more traditionally Republican state. And I think that, you know, they were pelleting her with ads on this issue. So I think she tried to not do what Kamala Harris did, which is just ignore it in 2024. When Donald Trump was doing the same thing that they, them ad, they did not address it. They ignored it, probably thinking that that would be the better idea, right, to not draw attention.

But I think at some point, if you're getting pelleted with ads and your opponent is to find you. You know, I do actually recommend to candidates that they go direct to camera the way that she did. And I thought it was incredibly brave. And I will commend any Democrat that's willing to do that. I wish she had gone a little bit further. I wish she had said, you know, she's against, you know, giving hormones to children under the age of 18 and keeping messages like this out of children's schools because I think that a lot of, at least online Republicans, weren't fully satisfied, you know, with what she said. But I think all of... Overall, it's very helpful.

Now, the problem is that so many people in the progressive movement, especially, have reacted so negatively to this ad. You know, I was looking at reactions, almost universal disdain and anger and outrage over this ad. Corey Archibald, who is a co-founder of Track APEC. I'm not sure you know who they are, actually. And also, I think she did. She was a co-founder at Brand New Congress. put out a statement saying that, you know, basically that she hated it and that if anybody, you know, was, I can't remember exactly what she said, but it was very strong language, you know, that she would never support a Democrat who had this kind of message. You know, I saw people from Way to When, which is a donor collective that I write about in my book, that were very angry and I was actually kind of going back and forth with some people from there on X over this ad. But that's the problem is that whenever a Democrat, even if they're running in a place,

like South Carolina has any sort of a statement that deviates, even in South Carolina, when you're running against the sister of Lindsay Graham, tries to deviate on this message. The intense backlash is just so difficult. And one of the things I was going back and forth with this guy from Way to Win was that he was like, well, you know, we have no idea how many Republicans she actually went over with this ad. and we don't and probably, it's basically saying that probably didn't win over any Democrats and just alienated the base. I push back and I say, well, I'm an independent. She won me over with this ad.

So how many independents did she win over? And also, 65% actually maybe even more Democrats agree with her on this issue. They just privately agree, but they can't say it publicly. Yeah. And it's, I was going to say, it's the difference between not turning out to vote. because you're so disillusioned with Democrats and then actively, affirmatively showing up to vote because you say this person is common sense.

I'm just channeling your normal middle of the country Democrat who would say, I'll actually go out and vote for this Democrat this time. It's frustrating because I think so many progressives, I had this guy that worked for AOC on my podcast recently, and we kind of got into a little debate about this. He was a character in my book too. So it was really cool that he came on my show at all.

I was happy that he came on. But he and I went back and forth, And I was like, you know, why can't you guys just change on this issue? And then he did the thing that all progressives and Democrats and some Democrats, you know, establishment Democrats do, many establishment Democrats, where they just kind of hand wave it away. And they're like, this only affects a small number of people. This is an issue that's been blown up by right wing media. Like we're not going to, you know, give in to their framing of this issue.

This is ridiculous. The problem for me is that they, and we. what they seem to not understand is that it's not that it just affects a small number of people. It's that it really does reveal to many just like normie people out there, myself included, I'm a normie, that they don't have common sense. And it undermines their ability to message on other issues where they do have authority, like health care. It's a trust litmus test.

Yep, it is the trust litmus test. because if they believe that you believe that, they might think you're too weird. And if they believe that you don't believe that, they believe you're a coward and you're incapable of standing up. Right. And it's so, it's so frustrating to me. It's like if you're having a conversation with someone and everything they say makes total sense. And all of a sudden they look at you and they're like, the earth is flat, you know? And you're going to be like, wait, what? Like, do I trust anything else you just said? I mean, this is the issue with this issue. And it drives me not similarly. No, I can't imagine from the inside watching this what it was like.

But let's also, I mean, I can imagine a little bit because in your book. But I wanted to watch this clip of Mark Lamont Hill debating this with Pierce Morgan because we're in 2026. And I think this looks to people like an artifact of 2024, 2020, 2023, 2022 politics. But it really, it really is not. Because once you commit to this, the ideology, you have. have to commit completely to it or you have to leave it completely. That's part of the problem here. And that's what's interesting about the Annie Andrews ad.

Yeah, because it was pretty much a complete departure. And that's why people were frustrated with it. So let's roll Mark Lamont Hill debating with Pierce Morgan. But if you asked AOC, for example, what is a woman? We all know she'd struggle to answer, right? This is the problem, right? She would be very, very wary of articulating that a woman is an adult female. The only struggle would be arriving at a common point of death.

between her and transphobic people who refuse to accept trans people as people and trans women as women and trans men as men. Yeah, but this, Mark, this is where you're so wrong, and I'll explain why. The most successful ad in modern American political history, the New York Times said afterwards, was the 32nd ad about Carmelah Harris and the trans issues, ending with Carmel as for they, them, Donald Trump is for you. They reckon it moved the needle by three points. If you're like a mom with kids in sport, in women's sport, in middle, America, you absolutely care about this. And you want to have a candidate that can quite clearly

tell you what a woman is. Now, we're not struggling to define it. You just don't agree with us. Trans women are women. Ciswomen are women. They're all women. I don't have an issue that Kamala Harris prioritized or paid great attention to trans women's rights. The problem was she allowed the right wing to co-op the narrative and make it seem like that's all she cared about. But just quickly, can a woman have a penis, Mark? Yes or no. These types, a trans woman can, a trans woman may have a penis. A cis woman would not have a penis. These are silly gotcha games that are just used to get clips on the internet.

I understand your point. No, they're not. A dissimple biology. Biologically, if you have a vagina, if you're born with a vagina, you are a female. Biologically, if you are born, if you're born with a penis, you are a male. Yes, that's not in dispute. What's in dispute is, are our biological, are our identities of bio, are our biological identities the whole story.

And in a trans conversation, we're saying, no, that's not the whole story. Yes, I'm, I guess I was assigned male at birth. Everybody on this panel, ironically, was assigned male at birth. That's not in dispute. What's in dispute is, does that tell the whole story about our identity. I wasn't assigned male at birth. Hang on. This whole language, Mark, Mark, Mark, this whole language is so ridiculous.

I wasn't assigned male at birth. I was born, I was born a male. Okay. He was for a moment correct that he was not struggling to define it because he was using this language of trans versus cis. But then when he was asked about penis versus vagina, he stuttered and couldn't do it, which is precisely because it's inconsistent. It's internally inconsistent. And that is exactly why if you're Annie Andrews, you just kind of take the heat on this. But the difference is that the Annie Andrews of a couple years ago would not take the heat from the left of this.

It would just maybe it was the fundraiser. Maybe it was the donors, Evan. And I don't know. What is it that enables in Annie Andrews now to get away with this and not give in to the pile on? Probably, I would guess it probably wasn't donors because, I mean, maybe a little bit. But she was running in a red state. So donors, if you're running, I mean, donors really don't have a lot of interest in those kind of places, to be honest with you or even winning them back. So probably just to activist pressure and pressure within the party. and maybe she even believed it, you know, herself at one point. A lot of people don't believe that she's really changed on this issue,

that she's being politically convenient. I will give a Democrat credit no matter what if they're willing to go up and take the heat on this issue. It's not easy. It's not easy, yeah. And so, you know, yeah, that conversation is ridiculous. You're right. I noticed that, too.

He started to go into the trans versus cis thing. I still think even using that kind of language is very confusing to people. and they're just like, what? I'm not a cis woman. I'm just a woman. And not just confusing, but alienating, I think, too. You sound like you're from an ivory tower and sort of from a normal place.

And I think Mark Lamont Hill literally is a professor. A college. If you're a candidate, yeah, it's different. Faculty lounge speak, right? And yeah, I just, I think that, I think it's just silly. And we need to start saying, like, they need to start saying, this biolod is like,

yeah, if you're born a man, you're born a man and you can become a trans woman, but that doesn't make you the same as a woman. You know, this would be my compromise to Democrats for them to be able to talk about this issue while still giving dignity to, you know, marginalized groups, right, which they have adherence to. But like just call, just say, like, these are trans women.

They're not the same as biological women, but they are, and this is my, like, more moderate position, right? Like, right? I feel like this would resonate with people, stronger, you know, and trans women, you know, they can socially appear as women, but we don't treat them the exact same way that we do women in society. That doesn't get them access to women's sports teams. That doesn't necessarily give them access to locker rooms and bathrooms. You know, biological sex is still relevant. And I think that this is going to be such a difficult

thing. I think that they truly view this as the final frontier of civil rights. And I think that they think that the arc of history will eventually bend towards their direction. The point that I made, I spoke at USC last week, and this issue came up. And the point that I made there is, you know, people were kind of comparing this issue to gay marriage, right? And the fact that, you know, gay people weren't always given the right to marry and that it was once unpopular, just like the trans issue is, but then became popular over time and ended up becoming law. And I said the differences is that when, you know, giving a gay couple the right to marry took no rights away from me. It was just like an additive thing, right? Now gay people can get married. It doesn't mean that I

can't as a straight person. But when you're talking about treating all trans women or trans men as the same as their biological, as the same as a biological sex and giving them access to locker rooms and sports teams, you are actually infringing on the rights of other human beings. And so it's not a one-to-one with issues like gay marriage. And I don't understand how Democrats know see that. And conservatives like myself would still disagree with a lot of that. But what you just hashed out is like the average American is like appealing to the average American, the median voter in a lot of these places. And let's talk about Tala Rico now because folks over the

weekend probably saw a little bit and bless you if you didn't see any of this, but he was off the campaign trail for a long time. He said it was because he was sick. He said that he went to urgent care. He said it was his primary care physician. He's okay. No, I mean, he's clearly fine. He was

at a Casey Mosgraves concert, which we'll get to in just one moment. But he then someone, Republican operatives started spreading this rumor that he was actually at a mental health facility in Ohio. So one Republican operative called the mental health facility, released audio of them saying someone named James Tala Rico had just checked out. That mental health facility in Ohio now says absolutely not. He was never here.

Tala Rico is now saying he was never in Ohio anyway. That's just to catch people up on what was going on with Tala RICO over the weekend. As soon as people started raising attention to the fact that he was off the campaign trail, he showed up at Austin City Limits. And then at Casey Musgraves concert within like 24 hours of the rumors really starting to hit critical mass. so clearly realized he had a problem. But yeah, here he is with Casey Musgraves. More on that in a moment. But Evan, you also noticed something interesting.

Ad Impact Politics posted the ad reservations in Texas. Tala Rico had 3.9 million current reservations. Paxton had 150K current reservations. But current future, Paxton has 43 million. And Tala Rico has 6.7 million. Tala Rico has never been behind in the RealClear Politics average in this race. which is the opposite of Beto and Ted Cruz back in 2018. Cruz never had a, was never in the, in second in that race,

according to real clear politics average. But this time it's actually, Paxton has never been leading in the real court politics average. So this looks pretty bad. And part of it, I think, has to go with Republicans leaning really heavily on Tala Rico's cultural war problems, certainly a problem in Texas, but they're not tying it to class, which is very easy to do. I think at least it's very easy to do.

You can say all of these billionaires. That's who Tala Rico stands with. That's what he wants to, he wants to enact his billionaire. Yeah, it's crazy. But, like, they're running a campaign that sucks. They don't do that. They don't do that. Never.

I've given them my book and they can read my book and see that this stuff, this is stuff that billionaires promote. And it would be a great populist message, right, to take on the billionaires that want to to push crazy things, right? Like, God has seven genders. Especially in a bad economy, right? Like this stuff is you can't just rely on Talafriko, like the label in a bad economy, when he's running on class and economics. Right.

Yeah, I think, you know, the numbers thing, the amount of money that they've spent on ads is really interesting to me. Because $3.5 million in a statewide, an expensive market like Texas, multiple media markets there, is just not that much money. And I don't understand if they're sitting on a bunch of cash, why not just place the ad buys now? Because what happens, a lot of people don't realize this. You can actually, they can sell out of ad space. And since that post, you know, from October 5th, a Pro-Paxton SuperPack has actually just dumped another $30 million into ads. Since then, and James Chalorico, to my knowledge, has still not expanded his ad buy. And so I'm trying to understand what is going on here because he's running in Texas.

And if he has $20 million that he's sitting on, like many people believe that he has online, like what are they doing? It does not make any sense to me unless they are just so confident. They're like overconfident from all the polls that they don't think that they actually need to spend the money on ads. But like me, knowing, you know, knowing what I know about working on campaigns, you have to, you're supposed to spin down to zero. You're not supposed to have anything left on the table. If you have something left on the table, you haven't ran a very good campaign. So it indicates one of two things.

That's either they're so overconfident that they're going to win because of all of the polling and maybe their own internal polls or two, that he really actually doesn't have a lot of money because he sort of already hit his fundraising. ceiling and resources are going to places like Michigan and Maine and maybe even Iowa and Alaska over Texas. Oh, that's very interesting because you also posted recently. Republicans will no doubt lose the House. They'll probably lose the Senate, depending on what happens in the Midwest and Alaska, but James Talleyica will not become the next U.S. Senator of Texas book market. This is a very bold thing to post Evan, given where the polls are. But at the same time, Adam Wren over at Playbook, posted data points in vibe shift debate. Casey Musgraves publicly boost James Talleyco in Dallas. Shane Gillis bombs on SNL. We're going to talk about Gillis later. But Casey Musgraves, like,

having Talarico at the concert is not interesting to people at all unless you're like an educated person in the Austin area or Dallas area because celebrities do this all the time. Country stars, believe it or not, she's a pop star at this point. She's hardly like a narrow country genre star, but she's a pop star. And they do this all of the time. with Democratic candidates. He looked weird at the concert. Maybe we can put the video back up. Like, he looked so, he looked like he was trying so hard. He looked awkward. And like, I'm glad that people feel like he's tapping into something. But it's something that works in Austin, but not in the rest of the state. Am I crazy? No, you're not crazy. I love Casey Musgraves music. I'm a big fan.

I listen to her all the time. I do not care what her opinion is on this US Senate race. And she can knock herself out. Like, have fun, Casey. How fun. Yeah, I love her look. I love her outfits. I love the Delhi Parton tribute. She just did. I don't care at all. Like, I don't give, can I, can I cuss? I don't give a shit what she thinks about politics. And I write about this in the book, too. I address the celebrity issue. The reason why Democrats are obsessed to celebrity and trot them out every election cycle for U.S. Senate races, presidential elections, some congressional races, is because the party operatives and the the politicians themselves just want to be around famous people. Yes. It really is that shallow. Like, that's what it is. They know that it doesn't really move the needle.

They know that. They know that, you know, they've, the other thing, though, is that there is kind of this debate inside of democratic politics in general, especially in Texas, that, you know, it's not so much about persuasion or converting Trump voters to vote for Democrats, but that is more about revving up and turn. at your base. So I do think some of them kind of like tell themselves, oh, like people like Bruce Springsteen, they appeal to our base. They're going to get more of the base excited, which is what we need. The reason why I don't think Tallarico is going to win. And if he,

if he does win, I'll eat my lunch, right? I'm sure every, that post went super viral. I had two other posts that also went viral about Tala Rico. Democrats got really mad at me. I've never seen, I think me saying this angered them more than my vote for Donald Trump. the fact that I did not think he would win. I'm serious. It's amazing. Yeah. I mean, it made them so bad.

And I think that people will bookmark, people book, people are going to tell me, they're going to rake me over the coals if he wins. Okay. And I'm fine with that. I'm fine with being wrong. But I don't think he's going to win. And I don't think he's going to win because I think he's making the mistake that the last two nominees have made in Texas.

I've worked in a Texas U.S. Senate race before. I worked in the one in 2020 in the primary against John Cornyn when he was still a U.S. Senator's the exact same race. It was the last time he was up. And the last two nominees have really just hyper-focused on the suburbs and turning out the base in the cities. And then they sort of neglect persuasion and converting voters in rural red areas. And I think that in a state like Texas, It's very similar to where I am from in Missouri. To be really successful, right?

You have to do all three. You have to do all three. You have to drive out turnout in the cities. You have to get people in the suburbs to vote. You have to win over Republican women in the suburbs. And then you also cannot neglect rural voters or write them off. And I've heard from people on the ground in Texas that he's not really targeting rural voters. the way that he should be.

And it's still almost 20% of the state is in a rural area. And if you look at the breakdown of the last two elections, the reason that the Republicans have won and that the Democrats didn't really have a chance, it was because of those rural votes coming in so strong. And so I think, you know, he might get close to winning. I've had people that live in Texas that actually work in Democratic politics

that have told me that they had, they don't even think he's going to get close, that this is like, you know, that he's going to lose by double digits. I'm not sure about that. But I think that, you know, if it's going to come down to those rural places. And Democrats, you know, when I bring this up, they're just like, well, what's the point in focusing on those people? They're not going to vote for us. And they're only, you know, 20% of the state, so who cares? And I just think that that's the wrong attitude. And so I don't think he's going to be. And I think that his views, you know, in saying things, his rhetoric, saying things like God has seven genders and, you know, all the trans ads that they are pouring into Texas and his lack of response, he came out and said basically what Annie Andrews said about the sports issue, but then quickly reversed it. Yes.

And hasn't done any direct-to-camera ads. And again, this comes back to what we were talking about earlier, you know, is that. Democrats sort of, you know, they undermine themselves and their trustworthiness, especially with rural people, especially with religious voters, over issues like this. And so ultimately, no, I don't think he's going to win in Texas. We'll see what happens. Living in a big city means your life revolves around dinners, birthdays, rooftop parties, rinse and repeat. Guilty is charged. Living in a city also means you probably have real responsibilities because, well, you're a real adult, I think I am at least. But I also

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And one thing that I want to point out is the Shane Gillis monologue controversy over the weekend. If people were on X, Shane Gillis comes host to SNL and a bunch of accounts because he said that you're allowed if you're a woman to dress like a whore at a gym now. which is just like hilarious and kind of true, sorry, but kind of true. It's kind of true. It's funny. It's like his whole schick is being an ignorant bro. That's his whole schick. He's also sort of making fun of himself when he talked about his last line was you're either, he talks about accidentally getting a Hitler haircut. And he talks about, you know, how he doesn't want to move it when he's on stage because that's gay. So you're either gay or you're Hitler and that's America in 2026. And he's making fun of himself for being too afraid to touch his hair on stage because

it looks gay. So his whole schick is being like, In ignorant bro, he knows, he's a comedian. So he says things that everybody are thinking, which is that if you go to a gym now, you see like 30% of women who are definitely dressing like that for attention. Sorry, like I'm sure it's more comfortable. In some cases, it's probably less comfortable. But we all know it. He said it.

And he got piled on, absolutely piled on. I pulled so many posts. You have, this is someone named like buzzing pop on X. says that he took cheap shots at women, and we can just start rolling through these. Adam Wren said it was part of the vibe shift. He's an author at Playbook. I think he's Indiana-based, or at least he was before, but saying that it's part of the vibe shift that he bombed on S&L, which he did not actually bomb.

Like, he bombed in a monologue at one point on S&L because it was more for like a bar crowd than it was like 2025 or 2024, whenever it was SNL crowd. And he legitimately bombed. Like it was really awkward with the audience. It was a funny monologue, but it was awkward with the audience. If you watched this one, that didn't even happen. We could go through. Variety had a really negative review.

This other person, Dale Thompson, said, most men know a guy like this, the guy who calls women whores or sluts and thinks they get a say in what women can or cannot wear to a gym. Ironic, because he clearly has never been to a gym. I'm just going to roll through these so people get a taste of what was happening on social media. Someone said, she's not dressed like a whore.

You think like a rapist. Another person said, these are viral tweets, by the way. I only feel like. Yeah. Another person said, how fucking disgusting. This is rape culture, by the way. Said, what the fuck is SNL allowing the shit while women are getting raped upstate? So then connecting it to Cornell.

Finally, Dan Levy, obviously of Schitt's Creek fame, said, I'm speechless that something like that can exist on live national television. And to be perfectly honest, more men need to be standing up in opposition to it because it's complacency that has created the environment in which women are sexually assaulted. And it's a quote, conversation as opposed to a crime. Evan, your reaction. I'm just so confused about women and what women and what culture and what the media actually wants, like what they want women to be. You know, I'm very confused, Emily, about this because it's like they want women to be sexually liberated, right?

To have feminism. There's nothing wrong with being a whore, right? There's nothing. You should feel empowered to sell your body to be a sex worker. There should be nothing wrong with that. But there's no consistency on this issue. Because it's like, yeah, you're sexually liberated. But at the same time, we want women to be infantilized and treat it as if they are puritans, you know, in other cases.

Don't make a joke about it. Don't make a joke about it. And to me, it's like I'm actually quite a libtard on this issue. I like, but consistently a lib tard. Yeah, yeah, it's consistent. I am like, okay, cool. Yeah, I'm fine. Like women should, you know, be slutty.

I don't care. You know what I mean? I really don't. Like, I'm like, be slutty if you want it, but just own it and like accept that like other people might call you that. Yes. But don't let it like define you or upset you or offend you, you know, just neutralize it. Kind of go back to like 1990s like slut culture, you know, where it's like you can be a slut.

Like who cares? Own it. At the same time, yes. It's like you have to show that you are a kind of. countable for your actions and your choices, right? And that's, and that's, um, that's kind of like, what was my whole take in the Cornell situation, right? I had friends. This really shocked people, I guess. I don't find this shocking. You know, I went to college. I knew people that did group sex activities consensually. And when they told me about it, I was like, cool, like, good for you,

you know. I did not like, shame them over it. I was like just, wow. like good for you like you had fun you had an experience and then life went on and that was it and they weren't traumatized by it um you know and i think that part of what happened with cornell i know we're talking about cornell but i know we're about to talk about it so go on okay yeah it's like you know she had a situation that was really fun you know she sent text messages and she was like this is great I had a great time with you guys, our body, our choice, you know. And then her sorority sisters did the same thing that all of those people just did in reaction to the comedian's joke, Shane Gillis's joke, where they slut shamed her and actually.

But did it in a way that framed her as a victim, right? Instead of a sexually liberated woman making adult choices. And I think that that is the thing that's the thing that's. been lost in all of this. And then she reframed it in her mind because she did not like the reaction because it's a very ugly reaction, you know, that she was getting from other students on campus. Well, let's go to Alex Cooper, who dropped an episode with a Cornell faculty member, Cape Man, feminist Cornell faculty member. And there's so much to go over here. There was a lot wrong with it. I want to start with some of the key moments. And then I'll do a little bit of

a breakdown of where she went wrong. And I'm really curious to get more from you on this as well, Evan. So let's take a look. I think it's important to highlight the injustice is just as strong, whether it was seven, whether it was one, however many, assault and rape is assault and rape. That's exactly right. And so part of what is going on here is people feel particularly disgusted towards the Frat Brothers, which I think makes sense. but that drives a more heightened morally outreach reaction. And I think that is the right reaction. I share it completely if what Jane Doe alleges in her lawsuit is true.

And for the record, I believe her. And so I do want to just say, let's extend that out in the way that I think the hashtag I am Jane Doe is doing precisely that. Okay. We have one more clip. Let's take a look at that one too. as fraternity culture reinforce these beliefs or motivations? I mean, I think all male groups generally are very problematic. I mean, look at the Epstein files in the way so many men didn't call each other out for doing disgusting things to girls.

There is good evidence that they're more likely to be initiated into rape culture if they're a member of a fraternity versus not. And so I just don't think these institutions should be part of a modern university, which I had posted a couple weeks ago, Kate, at the very beginning of this. And I just was like, how are fraternities still up and running? Like, we need to shut these fraternities down. Right. So to the person who says, look, my fraternity was nice or it wasn't that nice, but nothing like this ever happened. I'm sorry, I'm so pleased for you. That's wonderful. But the risk reward calculation is just complete. completely off. These are dangerous institutions to the point where a really telling detail from Jane Doe's lawsuit is that they are virtually uninsurable. That's how dangerous fraternity houses are, that they're just a hair below hazardous waste disposal and asbestos removal in terms of insurance risk. Okay. So what they are getting at there is they man made a point of saying that we should be able to talk about risk-reward calculations without slut-shaming women. So we're allowed to talk

about the fraternity being a dangerous place, but we're not allowed to talk about group sex, drunken group sex, potentially being something that'll lead to danger. Man wrote on suspect. There's no moral reason for a female student to avoid a frat party she wishes to attend. There is, however, a prudential one, a reason of prudence or self-interest or self-protection. Not everyone is interested in prudential norms about minimizing risk, and that is entirely valid. But if like you, dear reader, you are, let's not sugarcoat the risk factors. Let's give you that information. Well, let's do the same thing. If we can do it for the boys, let's do the same thing or the men. We can do the same thing for the women. And just before I toss it over to you, Evan, I wanted to go through a little

bit of what Alex Cooper said. At the beginning, she said, we are a decade after the Me Too movement, and this is still happening women, basically that we're not believing women. As though the Me Too movement had nothing to do with overreaching and making some people less likely to take media reports like this at face value, she suggests, this is a conspiracy theory, that they clipped Jane Doe's claim that she 100% thought she was raped out of the statement before it got truncated to six pages. It went from like 120 pages to six pages to cover up because the Cornell Police Department was in bed with the university and it was all a big cover up. That's why they took it out. Jane Doe signed, marked up the signed statement, the signed six page statement. She saw it

herself. She marked it up and she agreed to take it from 120 pages to that six pages. So it doesn't make sense. This conspiracy theory doesn't make sense. And not that I think the Cornell PD wouldn't, you know, act in Cornell's interest. I think that is kind of a problem. But Jane Doe signed off on this. She just didn't describe 100% rape. She described something that was consensual basically every step of the way. She suggested that five of the seven men being allowed to graduate was wrong. Well, at least one of the men isn't even accused or said he doesn't even touch her, didn't even touch her. Many of the men have said they didn't even touch her. And that's why the chargers weren't brought.

She at one point says that the men's lives won't be ruined. I mean, is this insane? One of them has already lost their job. She says at one point that it can, she says at one point that if Snapchat didn't exist, we'd be even more lenient on the boys. Alex Cooper said that. Well, two of them were actually expelled for sexual misconduct reasons. All of the other ones were punished.

And now all seven have been publicly identified as alleged rapists. And many people have said straight up that they are rapists. She repeats the one in five rape statistic that Heather McDonald has done a great job debunking. And I'll just read a little bit from Heather McDonald's before I toss it over to you, Evan. The one in four statistic is correct. McDonald's rights. It is sometimes modified to one in five to one and four. Campus rape represents a crime wave, if it is correct, represents a crime wave of unprecedented proportions.

No crime, much less one is serious as rape, has a victimization. remotely approaching 20 to 25% even over many years. And she goes on to talk about how preposterous blowing it up to that level is. And you only do that if you look at the surveys. I've looked at many of them myself by massively expanding the definition of what constitutes sexual assault or rape. So here we have Alex Cooper, one of the most popular female podcasters, one of the most popular podcasters, period, repeating disinformation about this being applauded for repeating

disinformation about this. And Evan, this is the woman who talks about how promiscuity can be. empowering over and over again and doesn't want to own any of that risk factor. We'll say the fraternities are a risk factor, but not that engaging in promiscuous sex and not wanting to own the consequences of it. That's not a risk factor at all. Yeah, it's the continued infantilization of women while at the same time saying that they're sexually liberated. There's no consistency here. And when they started talking about how fraternities should be banned. Like that just, it disgust me.

It really disgust me because, you know, people want to, you know, women like this, they want to continue to talk about how men have all of the power, right, that they have all the advantages in society without actually digging into any of the data that we have now about how well women are doing comparative to men. I mean, if you look in 2024,

there was a study that came out. 69% of women that graduated from high school in 2024 went on to college to enter a four-year university. Men, on the other hand, it was only like a little over 50% of them went on to go to college. The number, you know, the incoming freshman college classes are overwhelmingly women now. Okay. Women are getting more education. More adult women in general that are just alive right now have college degrees over men. Men die from suicide at rates four times. higher than women. It feels like these women will not stop until they dismantle all male groups. You know, I'm a mother to a four-year-old little boy. The Boy Scouts does not even exist anymore in its

original form. It is now just scouts because they've basically gotten rid of just this boy's only group. Okay. So men suffer from the loneliness at a much higher rate than women. You know, they are more socially isolated. And I just think that it's, it's incredibly dangerous and sad, quite frankly, that the reaction to this case from people like Alex Cooper is to just continue to dismantle all male spaces. And you, okay, yeah, go ahead. Well, I was thinking it strikes me that you were working in Dem fundraising during the Me Too movement. And there was, I know, like, I think almost everybody who was talking about this responsibly, like, completely believes that it is a problem because women, there is a problem with women not wanting to report rapists and sexual assaults. There is an enormous amount of shame that comes with it. And the early Me Too movement, I think, was actually really highlighting some of these egregious examples of where women were intimidated out of and shamed out of reporting these things and how men used their power, their physical power, and often their financial.

and industry power to intimidate and shame women. That is absolutely a real thing. But then this exact thing that Alex Cooper is doing now, expanding the definition to infantilize women and victimize women who are perfectly capable and empowered to make their own decisions. They have agency that has partially been endowed to them by Alex Cooper, normalizing all of this stuff. By expanding the definition, they hurt the credibility.

It's so the lack of self-awareness is just maddening. And you must have seen something interesting from the inside at that time. Yeah, I did. actually. There's a cut chapter from my book that I wrote called Toxic Femininity that I might release as a substack essay at some point. But I'm always very, I always question whenever, you know, especially when I see male politicians around the time of elections, you know, who are me-toed or because I just, I saw the way that it works behind the scenes. I, um, I, I, actually had women in democratic politics that pressured me to say that certain people

who also worked in democratic politics had sexually harassed me when I did not feel that way. I did not feel like I had been sexually harassed. But there is this phenomenon that occurs with women in democratic politics where they, you know, they sort of create like these whisper networks with each other where they talk about other men. And, you know, I was told things like, Evan, if you don't, if you don't call this out, if you're, if you don't go public with this, you're endangering other women. And so there's sort of like this psychological pile on effect that is very real. And I think you're right. I think that Me Too started in a good place. It was exposing, really egregious, true

sexual assault examples. But I think it did go too far. And I think that it just becomes so absurd when you're told that, you know, to just believe all women, people are going to have a reaction to that, right? And then that's kind of what we're seeing unfold now. Now, clearly all of the mainstream media institutions believe Jane Doe, right? They're not doing what Michael Tracy has so bravely done. And then, and, you know, reporting her name or, you know, airing any sort of, like, questions about it. I think most of them are, are, you know, there was a New York Times report, though, that was actually that came out right when this, when this story dropped that I thought was actually really interesting

and really fair. Yeah, you read that. Yeah, there were a couple of them. They were reporting started in a way that was, like, post-me-2 kind of conscious of some of the trip wires, and then it seems to have all just, like, gone downhill the last. week. Yeah, it seems to have gone downhill, but there was some interesting pieces when this first came out that seemed pretty fair to me, actually. And maybe it shows that we've made progress since 2017 and 2018 in the Brett Kavanaugh era. I hope so. I mean, one of the things that was

disturbing about the Alex Cooper episode is that she was accurately saying this is a really important moment. It's one of those stories that can change the way people think about things. And when she's one of the most powerful voices, trying to shape the way people think about these things, I agreed that the story has become maybe as big as Duke LaCross was at the time. It's hard to say because it's apples and oranges with the media culture. But it's really, really broken through. Yeah. No, it's been dominating.

I am definitely obsessed with it. I'm invested in the outcome and I want to know what happens. But yeah, there's just, when you see the original text messages and her responses and how she was feeling about it immediately in the days after. right? This is what I just think it's so crazy because I do think that this happens and it's like something that people don't really want to talk about where it's like as a woman, you know, you have a regrettable sexual experience, right? Or you have an experience that you don't regret and you tell your friends about it and that they have a negative reaction, right? And then you end up reframing it in your mind about what happened. And like she might truly believe because she was convinced. And then you, you end up reframing it in your mind

about what happened. And like she might truly believe because she was convinced, right, by other women, that she was raped. And I think that that's something that people miss often about these stories is that, you know,

they're like, oh, this woman is just trying to get money. She's just completely lying. She knows she's lying. So true. Right? But actually, what often happens is that these women become convinced

by other women that what happened was actually not consensual. And then they truly start to believe it. And I think that that is, that's what's happening. And I've seen this happen before with other women. You know, I've had, I've had people try to tell me that things happened to me that I didn't feel were wrong, you know. And that's something that like people don't want to talk about. But I think it's important that we talk about it. And I'm not trying to obviously like rape and sexual assault is horrible and it does happen. I have a hard time believing it's one in four though. The way they do it, they'll say one in four with sexual assault and then one in five with rape. And the way they do it is they define the terms really, really broadly.

It can be things like unwanted touching. So if you're on a college campus and a guy puts his arm around you, like literally, it can be something as simple as that. Or a man kisses you on the cheek and maybe you didn't want him to kiss you on the cheek. Like, they really, really define it very broadly. And that's how they blow up the numbers. But, you know, that's the thing. And I'll just end on this. It can be true that the boys are lying.

It can be true that she was coping with it by what they described in the episode as, quote, fawning over her alleged rapists by saying, love you, King, our body, our choice, all of those things. It could be true that that was part of her cope. It could be true that she genuinely didn't realize that something non-consensual was happened. It actually doesn't mean that you get to ruin other people. lives over things that you supplied evidence to the contrary of. Yeah. Right. It doesn't mean that all of those things, I'm sure some women do cope with things these

way. There are cases where women don't realize that something non-consensual happen. There are, of course, cases where men lie, many cases where men lie. All of those things can be true. It doesn't mean that in the court of law, you get to find someone guilty of rape. It doesn't even mean that in a Title IX investigation, you get expelled from campus for sexual misconduct when many of, two of the boys, one of them said, she did this to him that he was not able to consent. Like the whole thing is you can believe what you want if you're Alex Cooper, but you can't then take your problems out on the justice system when the alleged victim in this case has produced so much evidence to the contrary in her home,

her own words. Like you don't get to do that. Like the system works this way for a reason. It's not a loophole. It's so that no person who has sex while they're drunk can then turn around and accuse a man of rape. Like we cannot have a society that functions that way. I agree. And I think that's why the prosecutor originally declined to take on the case, because they knew that it would be too difficult to prove in a court of law with all of those text messages. It does so suspicion beyond a reasonable doubt, you know, that they are not guilty. And, you know, based on her own words, love you king, you know. So, you know, a few days after the situation went down.

And we'll just have to see how it plays out. That's right. Well, Evan Barker is the author of Nothing Left. Thank you so much. Evan also hosts Bad Company with Evan Barker, so check out the podcast for him as well. Thank you so much, Evan. Really appreciate it. Hey, it was great to hang out with you, Emily.

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slash after party 40 or use after party 40 at checkout. I could not leave this particular Megan Markle story unaddressed. I leave many Megan Markle stories on the table unaddressed because it's so exhausting with Megan Markle. But let's take a look at this one from the New York Post. They wrote, Megan Markle fans have been accused of, quote, unquote, terrorizing to British priests after they criticized her pricey advent calendar and suggested a cheaper, more traditional alternative according to the Daily Mail. She is selling an Advent calendar with 24 chocolates for $148 in collaboration with an L.A.-based chocolatier, and the online feud began reportedly after Reverend Daniel French weighed in on Megan's new, as-ever holiday offering. French instead urged his followers to consider an $8 Christian Advent calendar from the Meaningful Chocolate Company that includes Fair Trade Chocolate, a Christmas story and activity booklet while supporting the leprosy mission.

Great advice, first of all. Great advice. his post prompted a barrage of angry responses from some members of the so-called Sussex squad. Get your head checked if you're in that group, with critics branding him evil and Satan spawn and accusing him of having an ugly heart for a so-called Christian. I mean, just want to pause here. Advent is a Christian holiday. $148 for an Advent calendar is not being a good steward. paying that, even if you're a billionaire, spending that much money on an advent calendar, not being a good steward of your resources, which, by the way, we're all guilty of doing

from time to time, but just from a Christian perspective, he is absolutely dead on, completely accurate. Father Chris Phillips, the post reports, then back French on X, writing that he had encountered the Sussex squad on here. Is that a real thing? I sort of refused to believe that's a real thing. Is it like five people with a bunch of puppet accounts? So it looks like it's 500 people. This is the next mystery. We'll have to get to the bottom of. Philip subsequently faced his own wave of hostile messages and eventually lacked his account and blocked some Megan supporters, according to the Daily Mail. One critic accused the priests of using their platforms to attack Megan. Well, another called them sorry excuses for Christianity.

I'm not sure that defending Megan Markle's $150 advent calendar makes you a better arbiter of true Christianity than these priests. But according to the post, the controversy comes as Megan continues to expand her. ever lifestyle brand, including a new holiday collection that has drawn comparisons to Buckingham Palace' festival offerings. Now, this gets even more interesting because just over the weekend, Megan Markle had tea with Nobel Peace Prize winner, Malala Yusufasi. We put this up on the screen. And immediately, as ever posts on Instagram, this International Day of the Girl in partnership with Archwell Philanthropies, 100% of net proceeds from our jams and teas will support Malala fund. and it's vital work to ensure that every girl has access to free, safe, quality education,

T42 has never felt so good. Shop at the Link in Bio. And yes, they had been, like, they'd gotten paparazzi photographs together as well. And listen, 100% of her proceeds from one day, God bless you, Megan Marco, that is a wonderful gesture. It does also feel a little bit like a promotion for your tea company. It does feel a little bit like a promotion for as ever. it feels a little opportunistic, a little opportunistic, a little bit, maybe. I don't know.

I'm just also trying to put myself in the mindset of somebody who loves Megan Markle so much that they are bullying, cyberbullying priests in the name of defending Christianity. And Megan Markle at the same time, it's not right. You're not right. Nothing's right. The whole situation is bad. Everything is bad. I don't know.

I don't know. I'm following Marine Callahan's reporting anxiously to see whether or not Megan Markle. And maybe Prince Harry would come with, but specifically whether or not Megan Markle ends up back here in the United States sooner rather than later. Right now, one of the rumors is that they might make some public offering of apology to Kate and William. That would actually be smarter than the rest of what they've been doing. That actually is like a PR move that has some real cleverness. and strategy about it. The rest of what they're doing is such ham-fisted stratagery that you can hardly make sense of it. I mean, it makes sense when you put yourself in Megan Markle's footsteps, this like perpetual victim of an evil world whose only problem

is having the wrong skin color and sex. If you put yourself in that mindset, then yes, some of this makes sense. But this woman, need I remind everyone, was enormously popular. She was like the princess of tabloid media in the UK and here in the US until she started acting so freaking annoying. It's like, that's a $150 advent calendar. That's going to turn anyone against you. I'm sorry, that's going to turn people against you. And maybe it'll draw some people closer to your side. And for anyone, we wish that for anyone. If you're going into battle, Megan Markle, if you're going into battle against the other Advent competitors, the ones that support leprosy, for example. I'm just glad that you have diehards by your side, riding with you till they die for that $150

advent calendar. Really beautiful. Thanks everyone for tuning in today's edition of Afterparty. I'll leave it there. Why else continue going? Continue rambling about Megan Markle. I should always have a time limit on that. Appreciate it. Make sure to subscribe. By the way, if you've been Emily at Delphanacaremedia.com for Happy Hour. I just found a batch of emails that didn't get into the right place. It's a weird quirk on my Apple mail. But anyway, I'll be responding to those. We'll have an extra long edition of Happy Hour this week because I just found like 20 over the last few weeks. So I am going to get to you. Have some patience. But please subscribe if you haven't yet and we'll catch you on the other side.