After Party with Emily Jashinsky - The Dark Side of Looksmaxxing, with Nick Freitas, and Dave Chappelle vs. Comedy Police, with Spencer Klavan

Episode Date: April 16, 2026

Emily Jashinsky is joined by Nick Freitas to discuss his new book, “THE MANBOOK: A Point-by-Point Guide to Sucking It Up and Getting the Job Done.” Nick is a retired Green Beret and former member of the Virginia House of Delegates, turned social media star. They discuss how the current culture has alienated young men, what parents can do about it, and the impact of ‘looksmaxxing’ influencers like Clavicular who was recently rushed to the hospital following an apparent overdose. Emily and Nick also dive into singer Maren Morris being offended after she was told her young son needs to toughen up, and the recent attack on TPUSA’s Savanah Hernandez. Then Emily is joined by Spencer Klavan, Associate editor of the Claremont Review of Books and Co-Host of the new show “Klavans On The Culture.” They dive deep into theology, attacks on the West, and Joy Behar’s wild comments about the Messiah. Then Emily and Spencer take up the topic of Dave Chappelle reflecting on backlash to his comedy, and the disturbing AI-generated performance of the late Val Kilmer. Emily rounds out the show with a major scandal erupting at media watchdog Mediaite, after its founding editor was suspended for a series of errors and fabrications.   PreBorn: Help save a baby go to https://PreBorn.com/Emily or call 855-601-2229.   Unplugged: Switching is simple, Visit https://Unplugged.com/EMILY and order your UP phone today!   Cozy Earth: Visit https://www.CozyEarth.com/EMILY & Use code EMILY for up to 20% off Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to After Party, everyone. Thank you so much for joining us. We have two guests tonight. Nick Fratus and Spencer Claven will both be joining us. And it's actually a great news cycle for both of these guests. There's a lot to talk about. First, make sure you subscribe to the YouTube channel, to the podcast feed. It helps us a lot continue doing this independent journalism. So we appreciate everybody who has to subscribe. We thank you for listening and are so grateful to all of you for being here. Now, like I said, Big Show. Dave Chappelle sat down with NPR for a very buzzy interview about comedy in 2026 about the Republican Party. He had some less than, predictably, less than kind words about the Republican Party, but actually particularly on the trans topic. So eager to get into that. A conservative reporter was assaulted in Minneapolis. Three people have been arrested in that case. We're going to break it down. Clavicular.

Manosphere, denizen, clavicular overdose. and one of the worst streamer videos that I can think of just last night. So we're going to talk about that. Val Kilmer has been resurrected, not literally, but virtually. It's really gross. So we're going to show you the trailer and tell you a little bit about what's going on in this new movie that features an AI, Val Kilmer. The View is getting into theology. There's just so much to get to.

So big show tonight. Appreciate everyone for being here. We'll be back with Nick Freitas in just one moment, but first, over the years, I've been clear about this. I'm not just pro-birth. I'm pro-life. And being pro-life means standing with mothers not only before the baby is born, but long after. And that is exactly why I partner and partner very proudly with pre-born.

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Just $28 provides a free life-saving ultrasound. One chance for a mother to see her baby and get this, this is a real number. When she does, she is twice as likely to choose life. Amazing. Pre-born is trying to save 70,000 babies this year, so please do you. be a part of that movement. Don't just say your pro-life, live it, help save babies, and support mothers today. Go to preborn.com slash Emily or call 855-601-2-2-2-9. That's preborn.com slash Emily. So Nick Freitas, again, I'll introduce him. He's the author of The Man Book as a

point-by-point guide to second it up and getting the job done. He's a retired green beret with two combat tours in Iraq, and he spent a decade in the Virginia House of Delegates. So Nick Fratis, if you could start, I'll tell you just a little bit about, where this book came from, why you wanted to do this book right now. Yeah, so obviously I've done a lot of content. A lot of it's been political, but I started noticing that to the extent when someone would recognize me at the airport or whatnot, a lot of times what they would, what they would thank me for if they weren't like throwing something at me, what they'd thank me for is some

of the things I would say about raising daughters or raising a son or being married or whatever it was. But it was a lot of that stuff around the family-oriented content and the masculinity-oriented content. And I really started to realize that a lot of young men have grown up in a time for at least the last two decades. They've just been trashed relentlessly. Everything within education, within pop culture, within politics is all been oriented around telling him that they suck, that they're the source of all the world's problems. The future is female. They don't have any place or voice.

And the best they can hope for is to sit down, shut up, and just pay attention. And I really wanted to write this as a way to not only kind of acknowledge that, but also encourage them. because I genuinely, I genuinely believe that we're at a crossroads right now with respect to, not just our country, but you might even say Western civilization. The whole woke thing, it loses. I'll never forget. I was at Cal Berkeley. And I was telling the students, I'm like, I just need you to know something. Like, regardless of what you think about me, regardless of what we think about politics, woke, this sort of like critical theory, progressivism, it loses. And the reason why it loses is because you have alienated young men.

and there's no such thing as a civilization which is built, defended, anything without young men having buy-in. And so young men are going to revolt against this. The problem is, is that mine isn't the only voice out there, right? Like John Lovell, Chad Robesha, these guys are not the only voice out there. There's a lot of people telling young men, you need to be strong, you need to be powerful, you need to be capable. So you can go take what you want. And what I really wanted was them to understand that, look, I've lived a little bit of life. I've been married for almost 27 years now. Just a little bit. Yeah. I've been married for 27 years. I've been a father for 22. I've seen combat. I've seen business. I've seen politics. And the biggest thing that I've realized

through all of it is that if you are going to become strong and capable merely to fulfill some sort of hedonistic, hedonistic desires, you're going to find yourself. You're not going to find yourself not only just lonely, you're going to find yourself depressed. Because true depression doesn't come from thinking that you've been denied things that you're owed. It comes from getting the things you always wanted and realizing it doesn't fulfill you. And so using that experience, talking about these things, I wanted to really just encourage these young men that, A, we need you and we need you desperately. But we need you to be not just strong and capable. We need you to be honorable.

We need you to recognize your obligations to God so that you can better fulfill your obligations, hopefully one day to a wife, to children, to your community, to your country. And these are just things, the 53 things that I think men should know. And again, it's the gambit, right? Everything from how to cook a steak, which, by the way, anything above medium is as an assault against meat itself, to how to kick in a door, to how to how to those questions about how do you discuss dating with your daughter one day, right? How do you have important discussions and dare I even say arguments with your wife and come out the other side stronger than when you would begin those? And so I've had some of those experience and wrote them down. Yeah. And the man book comes in the midst of the man

o' sphere discourse. Obviously the Louis Thoreau documentary was just released on Netflix looking at some of the guys like Sneco, I guess maybe Manosphere adjacent. But also that started, I mean this wave started after the toxic masculinity discourse, I think, kind of crested around 2016. And then there was all this talk about disillusioned young men flocking to Trump. And as the media would say, the far right. And now, I think in some sense, we're seeing the fruits of everything you've just described about how men have been treated in the culture. Clavicular has emerged in the manosphere and the streamosphere.

And Nick, I am really curious to get your reaction to what happened to clavicular last night and what he says he's doing tonight. So clavicular, this is going to be S7. I'm selling at the clip. He was out in Miami last night. If people don't know who he is, he's a looks maxing influencer. He's gone super, super viral on TikTok. He does the hammer to the jaw thing to try and make it look more chiseled, literally chiseled, I guess, takes a cocktail of different drugs to looks max. And boy, did the drugs catch up with him last night? Let's take a look here at S-7. This was all streaming live.

So Clovicular's at like a bar, live streaming. As he spirals into what we now know became an overdose. His friends offer him an Addie. And if you're listening to this, it's a bleak scene. His friends are, again, they know they're live on the internet, trying to figure out what to do here. And he was seen being carried out of the bar, carried to the hospital. Then he posts on X.

This was the consequence of all of the drugs that he had taken to cope with being neurotypical F8. We could throw that up on the screen. That's how he explained it. So then today, he said he'd be back at a club doing a promotion S8. Let's roll the clip. Hey, guys, I'm all good. Bokrock Club grand opening.

is still tonight, so I will see you guys at 12. You know, Nick, he's sort of like a circus freak on the internet. You know, nobody wants to be him, but people enjoy consuming the content to just, in a sense, gawk at him, laugh at him. And what's interesting is that he seems to know that. This stuff is live streaming. It's very sad, obviously, but through the prism of everything you've been thinking about and writing about lately, what do you make of this?

You know, I didn't even know what looks maxing was until a few weeks ago. And we actually did a video on it. And one of the things we talked about it was trying to understand kind of the impetus behind it. And some of it's obvious, right? It's the idea that, well, yeah, if you're good looking as a guy, well, then maybe girls will date you, right? Like, at nothing else. But it's also this idea of, if you think about it in a strange way, it's seeking objectivity. And I don't mean that in the form of objectifying. somebody, I mean in the form of something that no matter what the experts say, something no matter what culture tries to tell you, is on some level true. And the idea is, and you actually saw this too, Andrew Tate once said, if you're, if you're, you know, if you think you've got a lot of problems, go get a six pack and then tell me how many problems you have. And on some level, people look at that and it seems kind of shallow. On another level, you say, at least with getting a six pack, it's okay, having a six pack is universally respected.

There's almost no one that will say, oh, that's a bad thing, right? Like, everybody thinks it's something that it's desirable. And when I look at what this guy's trying to do, he's trying to grasp out at something that is universally desirable. And the problem is, is kind of what I was saying earlier on, is that the moment you try to chase after stuff that isn't actually rooted in anything that is, let's say, genuinely honorable. It's going to leave you feeling hollow, right? because it's not actually filling the thing that you really need. It's not actually filling the core component of your identity that you're looking for. And I've seen this, not just within this area of looks maxing or the manosphere,

you look at the special operations community. And what do you have? You have a lot of, you have strong, intelligent, you know, competent, capable guys that were part of a network of other guys that went out and did very, very complex, difficult, oftentimes dangerous missions. And as long as they were in that environment, they had a sense of meaning, identity, and purpose, right? They were a Green Beret.

They were a seal. They were Delta. Whatever it was. And then when that goes away, all of a sudden, they're chasing after meaning again. It's what is it that defines me? What is it that sets me apart? And I think all of us are looking at on some level. And if someone were to ask me, like, where do you get your identity?

Like, oh, well, that's simple, right? Because I've been a Green Beret. I've been an elected official. You know, I've been a business owner. and now like social media influencer, right? Like that's when I still want to slap people when they call it to me. That's not where I get my identity.

My identity is in Christ. And the reason why that's so important is because it's not only, for me, it's not only objective, it's not only true, it's eternal. There's no circumstance. There's nothing that can happen to me that changes that reality. And so no matter where I'm at, if things are good, if things are bad, if things are going my way, if they're not going my way, if there's difficulty, I expect it.

It doesn't shake who I am at the core fundamental nature of, you know, how I identify myself or what my meaning or purpose in life is. And so I understand. I understand when a guy is in a situation where they feel like everything objective has been ripped away on some level. And they are searching for anything that gives them identity or some semblance of meaning or purpose. And, you know, look, if I don't, I don't presume know this, this individual or their motivations, but if what they're currently finding identity in is looks maxing and what they're currently finding meaning and purpose in is, is live streaming this and talking about their experiences.

And if they are associating likes and follows with love and community, then it's not hard to see why somebody would fall into this. But it's also not hard to see why they would overdose on it. And it's not hard to see why at some point this breaks down because your looks are going to change. I don't care what sort of cocktail you take. Things are going to change over time. And the question is, is what sustains you when all of a sudden the things that you anticipated giving you identity, meaning, and purpose do not? Well, there's this odd tension in actually, I would argue the entire manosphere over their obsession with looks and the kind of traditional masculine or our arched.

traditional concept of what masculinity is. I mean, to me, it's like incredibly feminine, how obsessed Andrew Tate and his brother and clavicular and a lot of these guys are with their physical appearance. That, of course, doesn't mean men shouldn't be presentable and, you know, clean gut. Shower, for love of God, shower. Please just do that. Like, base level. But, Nick, I find that interesting, too, because, you know, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with, you know, the exceptional man who's very interested in, there's some men who cut hair and are very good at that or our stylists are very good at that. But there's, it does seem to me to be attention. And some of this, you know, the cultural confusion about masculinity manifesting in these guys. Well, yeah. So for Andrew Tate,

I mean, given his due, the guy knows how to fight, right? The guy's a successful business owner. And so there's certain attributes that we generally chalk up to masculinity that, that Andrew meets, the question is, is in service to what? That's one of the biggest questions that need to be answered, because if it's just in service to, I sleep with a lot of women, I have a Bugatti, I have announced car, well, again, that's hedonistic pursuits. And again, guys really want more than that. All of us really want more than that.

We really want to feel like something that we're doing actually means something. Whether we want to admit it or not, we are searching for something that's true and meaningful. And again, the reason why I think when you look at things like looks maxing or the Bugatti or whatever else it is, it's because it's hard to argue that, you know, again, if you're aesthetically pleasing, right, that's rewarded in society. And no matter how much wokeism or progressivism or feminism or whatever else tries to pretend like those things don't matter, reality ends up has a way of demonstrating that they do. The question is, is do they matter enough?

Are they sufficient? And the answer is no, absolutely not. And again, when I was writing this out on what are the things you have to know, there's some stuff in there that's a little bit more frivolous, right? Do you really need to know how to kick in a door, right? I would argue you could probably go through most of your life, never having to kick in a door. But if you find yourself in a situation that for some reason the door is locked and your little girl's on the other side and the house is on fire, you better know how to kick in that door. And the thing is, is most men will think of us, well, of course I would know how to do it in that situation. No, you don't necessarily.

You could do something stupid. And so what the point of what I'm trying to do with a lot of these different tasks, some of them a little bit more meaningful and a little bit more philosophical and some of the little bit more fun but still relevant is this idea that there's all kinds of tasks that you should know how to do as a man. And unfortunately, in a civilization where we are largely fairly, we're fairly safe and fairly, we're fairly safe and very, prosperous and fairly secure without men having to kind of go into those typical pursuits that men have had to throughout most of human civilization. We start to get this idea that it's no longer necessary. And I was explaining it this way once, not to a man act, funny enough, but to a young woman. And we were having a conversation about marriage.

And I always make it a point to build up marriage. Because, again, I've had a great experience with it. And a lot of people think, oh, you got lucky. It's like my wife and I both came from divorced homes. We got married at 19 and 20. We moved across the country and I went into the military. And for the first 10 years of our marriage, I spent half of it away from home between training, combat deployments, other deployments, et cetera.

So if you wanted a cocktail for a marriage to fail, ours was it, right? And yet it did it. It thrived. Why? And I'm talking to this young woman. And she says, you know, I recently got engaged. I said, oh my gosh, that's great. Congratulations. Marriage is awesome. Don't let anybody tear it down. Like I've had a great marriage.

And I'm talking about how much I enjoy my role of protecting and providing and teaching my son that he's a protector as well. And she looks at me and she goes, oh, we don't subscribe to those traditional gender roles. And I said, oh, okay. I said, that's interesting. Can I ask you a question? She goes, sure. I said, if you and your fiancé, we were in Washington, D.C. at the time, I said, if you and your fiancé, we're here in Washington, D.C., and you'd just come out and had a wonderful dinner together, and you're walking back to the parking lot. And as you're walking back to the car,

somebody jumps out of an alleyway with a knife. Now, I want you to imagine in this scenario, in one version of this scenario, your fiancé jumps in between you and the person with a knife. And in the other scenario, he jumps behind you. In which scenario are you more attracted to your fiancé? And she kind of smiled and she goes, well, that's not fair.

I said, see, no, it is fair. It is fair because you and I both know in which scenario you're more attracted to your fiancé. And what I'm hearing to tell you is that's perfectly appropriate. You don't need to feel guilty that you're more attracted by the fact that your fiancé would step up and fulfill the role that a man should fulfill in that. And that's protecting his fiancé from someone that would harm her. And the inverses in which scenario does he feel better about himself as well? Exactly. Like there's like why are we fighting this?

Why all of a sudden are we meant to feel like there's something? wrong by feeling the way that we naturally feel about these sort of, the way I would say that Godwood has designed us to feel about it. And yet we are. And that's a lot of cultural influence, educational influence, political influence. But it's nonsense. Right. The moment we start to realize that, you know, no, as a man, any young man is going to, is typically going to feel competitive, is going to be prone to at least some degree of violence, right? We see this all the time with toddlers, right? Where you give the little girl a G.I. Joe and she will, will have a tea party with it. You give the little boy a doll and he will turn it into a weapon,

right? Why? Well, Nick, actually, we have a clip. So country singer Marin Morris, there's always a clip who had a great first album has been downhill ever since. But she, on April 5th, posted this clip that's been making the rounds, I suspect in mom circles, because Maryne Morris talked about as a mom of a six-year-old getting some feedback from a person in public about, you know, letting her six-year-old boy be a boy. take a listen here to S4. My son just turned six and some of these gender things happen pretty early where it's like only girls can like pink.

Girls can't like Spider-Man. And you know, they hear this shit like at school from another friend, like whatever. And it's my job as his parents who correct that and be like, actually, anyone can like the color pink. I like Spider-Man. But this guy I was talking about this with was rolling his eyes and like being pretty dismissive of my concerns and was like, well, these boys need to toughen up anyways.

And upon hearing that, of course, my first instinct is to see red, but I can emotionally regulate myself. And I just calmly said, no, he doesn't need to toughen up, actually. And he loves baseball. He loves musicals. He's obsessed with Hamilton right now. He loves colors. Sometimes we paint his nails.

He loves to, like, make jewelry now and friendship bracelets. And it's like he's a person. But the tough way that word was being used by this man, I was like, he doesn't need to be tough, especially not in the way that you're using that word. If you're listening to this, Nick basically buried his head in his hands when he heard her talk about painting nails. But in some sense, obviously there's truth, Nick, to little boys and little girls having these, you know, very eclectic different interests and, you know, saying, oh, the girl has. has this really shiny pink bracelet. Maybe you're four years old and you're like, that's shiny, it's cool.

I like it. That stuff can happen. Of course it can happen. So how should people be thinking about this when you hear Merrin Morris saying, just go pedal to the metal? It's not a problem when a guy might have certain interests that are generally associated more with feminine traits and a girl has different interests that might be associated with more masculine traits. We're all them tomb boys, right? But this idea that he doesn't need to toughen up. Okay, well, good luck.

Did you decide that for him? Did you decide that for him, Mom? Because I have bad news for you. The world will require him to toughen up. And you're not protecting him right now. The things that you're doing right now when he's six may make him feel warm and safe and secure. But there will come a time, Mom, where those things make him feel weak. And that's not because society has.

some sort of grand plan to manipulate or harm your boy, it's because there really are roles in society. And that's not to say that there aren't, again, certain more masculine roles that women can play at times or more feminine roles that are things that we generally associate with femininity that men can play, right? There's no problem with a man cooking, right? That's not necessarily a feminine role. There's no problem with a woman knowing how to shoot really well. I highly encourage it and taught my daughters how to shoot since they were five. But this idea, he doesn't need to toughen up. We're going to paint his nails and we're going to do all these other things.

Okay. Is that for him, Mom, or is that for you? Because he's going to have to be a man one day. And I don't know anything about her or this boy's father or whatnot, but something tells me. Because from what I've seen is that most women, they don't want to marry or have children with a boy that's painting his nails and can't regulate his own emotions or can't deal with difficult situations. And yes, is there an element of masculinity that can delve into the realm of the toxic?

Sure, just like there's a realm of femininity that can delve into the realm of the toxic. So there's masculine traits, there's feminine traits. They're not necessarily moral or immoral until you start developing them for a particular purpose or a particular skill set. So for instance, if a man has aggression or a man has the capacity and capability for violence, Well, one man may use that to steal from people. That's a negative manifestation of a masculine trait. One man might use it in order to protect peel. That's a positive manifestation of a masculine trait.

But what she's essentially doing is telling them that there are no masculine traits. Right. It's just do what you want or what you feel like. And really what it ends up being is, no, you're doing what mom feels like. And, you know, I think God. I had a great relationship with my mom and dad. They got divorced when I was three. I'd spend the summers of my dad.

I'd spend the school years with my mom. But I always say one of the greatest things that my mom, I'd say one of the greatest things that my mom did for me was that as I started to get older, she called out the protector in me. So she would do things like, hey, you know, hey, buddy, I need you to carry the groceries from all me. I need you to, you know, you need to open the door. And as I got a little bit older, hey, buddy, can you please check the doors to make sure they're locked at night? And what it was is that she was basically telling me that, hey, I want you to do these things that are helpful and protective.

because like I said, when you're little, mom ends up being kind of the source of protection, right? Dad ends up challenging a little bit more. Usually, mom's over there trying to bubble wrap the world for her children where dad's up there, seeing how high he can throw them in the air because he likes it when they giggle. And there's a balance there, right? There's a balance where mom's providing kind of protection and security and dad's providing challenges and excitement. And when it balances out well, the child is getting everything that they need. They're learning how to navigate the world because the world will not be bubble wrapped for him.

And so I always tell moms especially, it's like, yeah, no, absolutely. Hold your little boy, right? You know, kiss the boo-boos, all of that. Like, that's great. Just understand when he gets older and now he starts to get in an environment that you can't control. The things that you did little when he was three or four are going to start making him fill a week when he's nine or ten, especially when it comes to that first moment where it's the bully. I have this conversation with my wife with my son.

And she's like, oh, I'm going to call the parents. I'm like, no, you're not. You can't, babe. And she's like, why? I'm like, because he's now crossing over into a different age group. And because your son doesn't want the bully to be afraid of you. He wants the bully to be afraid of him. And you know what?

We need a society where bullies are afraid of good men. But they're never going to become that as long as they're being pampered or protected constantly by their moms. So you need to start to work into this other phase. And I remember my wife asking me, like, how do I do that? that I said, baby, here's the next phase of your relationship with your son, and it's going to cause a great relationship between you two, because you're the first woman he gets to practice with. You're the first woman he gets to practice being a little man for. And if you call that out

on him, he will love you for it. And my son now is in the 101st Airborne Division. He's an infantryman. Yeah, he's an infantryman. It worked. But the funny part is, is like, dad was a soldier, right? Dad's a soldier, son's a soldier. But oftentimes when Luke is going through something or is experiencing something who is excited about something, the first person he calls is his mom. And it's because mom called out that protector in him. And so him and I get along, we get along beautifully. But I love the relationship he has with his mom.

And it's because instead of pretending that the world was not going to expect something different out of him as a man, instead she called it out. and now they have a great relationship. I wanted to get your thoughts on the case of Savannah Hernandez in Minneapolis. New information coming now just today from News Nation. So Savannah Hernandez is a reporter with Turning Point USA. She was in the Minneapolis area on Saturday and was attacked on camera. Everything now is streamed.

That's the so far the through line of today's show, unfortunately. News Nation reports that she was, quote, attacked Saturday during a protest in Minnesota. A flashpoint for conflicting views on immigration. She was covering a protest against Immigrations and Customs Enforcement at the Whipple Federal Building, which has itself become a flashpoint when she was swarmed by people screaming, obscenities, blowing horns and whistles, and repeatedly shoving her to the ground. We can start rolling some of the video of this. I'm going to talk over it because it's long.

This is S1. Yep. So you can see this happening, blowing whistles right in her face, getting super, super close to Savannah. and it's going to escalate from here. Man, those whistles. I'm about to get a shove. Apologous to everybody in the listening audience for the whistles. But that gives you a taste of exactly how brutal the situation around Hernandez was.

There we go. It's physical. Clearly just being attacked here by the protesters. Of course, the crime of documenting what they're up to. Oh, boy. All right. So as people are continuing to watch this, I just want to know, boy. News Nation reports there were three arrests in this case, according to the Heneman,

Pennepin County Sheriff's Office. Paige Astroshko, you can see on camera, was arrested for disorderly conduct. And her father, Chris Astricho, arrested for obstruction with force. Her boyfriend was also taken into custody, according to Rich McHugh, over at News Nation. Hernandez told McHugh, I've never asked for security when conducting point-and-shoot journalism because I've always had some semblance of hope that I still live in a safe country. However, after Saturday, TPP USA ensured that I will have new security protocols moving forward to the violent nature of the left wing.

All right, we could probably cut the video and get Nick's take. I'm just seeing how close they are. I volunteer for the security detail. Let's, yeah. So Nick, is she right that she needs security now just to do journalism? Yeah, she is. She is. So I do work with Turning Point as well from time to time.

I've done tabling events and whatnot. And I've done the same thing with Young America's Foundation. And I've always been asked the questions, do you want security? And I'm always like, look, if you're concerned about the students, go ahead and get it. But I'm not necessarily. I don't want an event to not take place because of the costs associated with security, especially because a lot of universities now will jack up the cost for conservative organizations. It isn't it amazing that they don't seem to need the same security protocols

when left-wing speakers come on campus, but whenever it's a conservative. And in this case, you have a case where, where Savannah, where this, I'm not going to call him a man. That's not, that's not the best description for what he is. But, but when that fat ass jumped up there and decided to shove Savannah, who's all of about 120 pounds soaking wet to the ground, I'm sure he felt like a real man. And this is exactly what the left does. When my wife was actually running for state senate, one of the things that really surprised her on some level, she goes, you know, it's interesting. Leftist men really do hide a hatred for women

that they will let come out the moment they know it's a conservative woman. It's almost like they're allowed. And then all of that hatred, all that frustration, all of that angst, all of it just manifest right there. Most of the time verbally, but every once in a wall physically like this. You can tell when it's a man, they like

the offset of a rifle. But when it's a woman like this, they feel like they can walk right up and shove her to the ground. And one of the things that I said right after this happened, I said, look, to the sheriff's department, to the police, whatever it is, if you do not arrest and prosecute these people. I promise you this isn't going to be allowed to continue. One way or another, it will end. You can either end it through the typical legal processes.

But if you decide to play this game where it's like, oh, well, you know, we're not going to prosecute or we decided to let go or maybe they're not fit to stand trial or whatever else nonsense. Just understand it doesn't end there. It doesn't end there because too many of us are sick of this at this point. And I'm not kidding. I actually had a conversation with Turning Point yesterday. and they were talking about some of the projects that we were going to do. And I was like, if Savannah needs help, let me know. Because that's the sort of thing where I think a very, very difficult lesson needs to be taught to certain people that have grown accustomed to this idea, especially in blue cities

where you have cowards for mayors, governors, attorney generals, police chiefs, and district attorneys who refuse to prosecute. They have this idea that they can get away with this in perpetuity. And if law enforcement is not going to do its proper job, and I understand that a lot of the guys in the cop wearing the bat, They want to do it. It's leadership that prevents them from doing so. If they're not willing to do it, oh, it will get done. It will get done because all of us are tired of this.

And this has been part of a long play. If you read Sololensky's rules for radicals, you understand exactly what the left is trying to do. They constantly elevate and elevate and elevate until something bad happens and then they play the victim. Just like the people in this video shoving Savannah around it, they played the victim. The difference now is that we have cameras, we have body cameras.

And everyone knows they're not the victim. They're the perpetrators. And for the longest time, longest time in conservative politics, I remember wondering, why is it that when I had disagreed with somebody on the left on tax policy? They call me a racist or a sexist or misogynist, right?

It has nothing to do with what we're actually discussing around. Why is it when I want to protect Second Amendment rights? I'm called something that has nothing to do with you. Oh, you're a racist. How is that racist? And I realized it had nothing to do with the actual definition of the word. all they were trying to do was try to create a framework where they could rob me of moral legitimacy because the moment my argument was better than theirs, they immediately diverted to ad hominem attack.

Because if I'm a racist or a sexist or a misogynist, why would you listen to my position on taxes? Why would you listen to my position on the Second Amendment or self-defense? But see, something changed. Instead of being content with just trying to rob us of moral legitimacy, they started calling us things like a threat to democracy, fascist, Nazis. If you didn't agree with carving up gender confused children, you were now accused of committing transgenocide. If you said something they didn't like, your words were now violence. And what I realized was, they were using this break in terminology. Not because they were trying to

continue to lead, rob me of moral legitimacy. No, no, no. Now they were trying to create a moral framework where they could commit acts of violence against me and pretend like they were the victim. And my response to that is, I don't care. I don't care anymore. If I'm on the ground, if I'm on the site, and I see you push a woman to the ground, something is happening next and you're not going to like it. And quite frankly, I don't think the left is prepared for that. They're only used to burning down their own cities.

You notice Antifa doesn't go into the country. There's a reason for that. And it's about time that the country starts coming over there because I'm tired of this. I don't know in what world this is. is acceptable behavior, but apparently it's in the leftist world. And if they're willing to engage in that sort of behavior, they need to be taught a lesson. And either law enforcement can do it or someone else can. But I promise you the lesson's going to be learned.

I'm fairly impressed that Hennepin County actually made arrests in this case. That's been a difficult blue jurisdiction. So some good news, I guess, on that front. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and again, some of it too is sometimes you see a big difference between local police and sheriff. because sheriffs are elected. Now, actually, there's an interesting story in Washington State.

They just passed legislation that allows the governor to completely, like, essentially overturn a sheriff's election and remove him from power if he's a threat to public safety. And that's precisely because in many of these jurisdictions, the sheriffs is the last line of defense because they're directly elected by the people. Nick Fratus, pleasure to have you on the show tonight. Where can people buy the book? You can buy it pretty much anywhere. So anywhere you would typically buy a book, hard copy, paperback, audio, you can do the same there.

There you go. It's called The Man Book. Once again, Nick, we really appreciate it. I hope you have a great rest of your evening. Thanks so much for being here. My pleasure. Thank you. Absolutely.

We'll be back in just a moment with Spencer Claven. But first, a quick break. Well, for years, legacy media, government, and big data companies coaxed us into surrendering our digital freedom. We talk about this on the show all the time, giving lip service the whole. whole way to privacy while leaving their digital backdoors wide open for their own purposes. Well, Unplugged set out to do something about it. The Up Phone by Unplugged is the smartphone designed to restore your rights. When it comes to blocking third-party trackers from Shadowy Data Brokers, the Up Phone by Unplugged outshines every device on the market.

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independently verified and tested. So you can actually be confident in knowing your up phone is the most private smartphone that you could possibly buy. So check out Upphone from Unplugged at Unplugged.com slash Emily. That's unplugged.com slash Emily. All right. We're back now with our friend Spencer Claven. He's the associate editor over at the Claremont Review of Books. He's also co-host of Claven's On the Culture.

There's a new episode out today. He's also author of Light of the Mind, Light of the World. Very, very busy man, Spencer. How do you have time to come on after party and read all of the books behind you? I mean. That's a big assumption you're making there. And I don't do all of it at once, you know. You've got to keep the books on hand just in case you suddenly decide that you have a moment.

I do actually have, you can't see it, but I brought Dante's Inferno, which is the current Young Heretics topic or the theme of our discussion today, depending on how you view the news. Actually, since Spencer said that, can I just roll? We don't have to roll the whole thing, but I want to roll. role S-11. This is S-Nico's conversation with Alexander Duggan and what circle of hell is this. This is what I was going to ask you to Spencer. Okay, so quote Professor Jang. I've never been on the Jang train, to be fair. This is some interesting stuff. I guess people have seen from Professor Jang, but here's Sneko, Professor Jang, and Alexander Dugan. It's like a Stefan sketch, S-11. What do you think are the main causes of the problems we see with American

Western values right now. I think the root of a problem is 1694, because that is when the Bank of England was first charter. You have mentioned, for example, Libertas statute, but that is literally, he stole my bit. Hecate, the great goddess of the hell. Because America is a financial country. It's $19.00 in debt. Yes. And if people stop buying U.S. Treasuries, then America would collapse. So you can make argument that. We can pull out of this. Just, just wanted to give people a flavor of what was happening on the Sneiko streams. You know, Spencer, it occurs to me. Actually, as I'm watching that, that for Dukin, who's genuinely interesting, like, people can say he's dangerous. They don't like him,

whatever. I don't think he's really that big of a threat to be on. I think people overstate his influence. Let's put it that way. He's a somewhat interesting. Putin's brain routine is probably a little overblown. Right. And he's a, what do I know, but like, it doesn't seem like he's actually. in charge of anything. He's just kind of a rando. Exactly. He has some interesting criticisms of liberalism. I don't agree with him. But the fact that he, as like this academic, is on a stream with Sneco and quote Professor Jang, who's, I believe, like a high school teacher, a Canadian high school teacher in Beijing. That's just incredible

all around. I mean, this sci-up has everything. It's got random, obscure Russian philosophy, Post-Liberal philosophers. It's got bleach blonde Chinese high school teachers. It's got midgets doing coke into bathroom. Oh, wait. No, I'm sorry. I lost track. It's actually, Stefan.

Exactly. I think that my doggintake is basically, it's an indictment of us that this guy is even remotely interesting. Like, it's when the West becomes a caricature of itself that critics of the West start to be like, huh, the guy's got a point. Like, maybe everything did go wrong with the Enlightenment, you know? Yeah. It didn't, you know.

But we on the American right have also been playing the where did we go wrong game. And people have been tempted to sort of gesticulate wildly and say, kind of look around you everywhere, right? I will confess to you that I've gotten a little bit sick of this game because you can play it with the Protestant Reformation. You can play it. Oh, can you? Can you? Yeah.

Would you like to? Because I'm going to crack open this. Speaking of foreign sciaps, I'm going to crack open this Haibaru Japanese whiskey seltzer. Cheers. Yes, go read Spencer's latest in Claremont about how he's obsessed with Japan. I'm commemorating the Japanese American bromance with this Japanese seltzer and the new Klavians on the culture, which is about a Japanese video game.

But like, oh, well, there you go. Okay. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, I'm so out of it. I'm such an old that I have a hard time really parsing the Sneco of it all. The Sneco Dugan Alliance. Yeah, right? The axis of the access of duchery. Is that how we would say it? I mean, it's like, it does seem to me like this is the sign of an intellectual void rather than an actually interesting conversation. Like this is a, this is because. because we don't have a lot of, like, direction or clarity internally that we're turning to these obscure, sort of so-called edgy, you know, Russian philosophers. However interesting they may be to, like, entertain as thought experiments, I guess, like,

I don't know. It's like, have you ever wanted to entertain far out philosophical ideas, but on a platform for idiots because boy have i got a show for you like uh wait you don't you don't see this as as sort of you know you don't see this as sort of when um you know let's say tom wolf used to go on a talk show to promote a book or you used to have uh you know William f buckley hosting debates on broadcast television or didn't johnny carson have sort of the public intellectuals on the late night circuit you don't see this as the public intellectuals returning to the the masses.

It's not quite of the caliber, is it, of Jorge Luis Borges talking to William F. Buckley about the differences between Spanish and English and why he prefers the kind of etymological richness of English. I mean, I think it's like history repeats itself the first time as tragedy, the second time is farce. Like, that's kind of, it would be the return of the public intellectuals to the public sphere if the intellectuals and the public were in the same universe. But it does sort of feel, doesn't it, to you,

as if, like, the actual caliber of thought that goes on in this podcast world is kind of, like, empty somehow. I mean, it's one thing to say, like, the West has somehow lost its way. Like, let's interrogate where, when, and how. It's another thing to say the West has lost its way because the West is inherently evil, which is just the same thing that we've been kind of bored with on the left for some time. Yeah. And I think that, you know, I always have this metaphor that I brought up when BLM was a big deal.

But like, if you're in a fistfight with somebody and he says, your shoe's untied, right? Your shoe might actually be untied. In other words, his criticism might be valid. But he's pointing it out to you right now so that you'll drop your guard and he can deck you in the jaw. In other words, these systematic, introspective criticisms that we in the West are used to making of ourselves have their time and their place. But I find myself less interested in them when they obviously come from a corner that is already rooting for us to fail. And I mean that when it's Russians and I mean that when it's BLM. Like I think of those as sort of of a piece as an intellectual project.

And that's, it's not that I find the, you know, the criticisms themselves entirely without merit. It's that I find the spirit in which they're being made inherently unhelpful. In the same way that a hit piece against an institute that I'm a part of, let's say the Claremont Institute, might have some things that I would think, huh, like. It's never the subject of a hit piece. Yeah, we've never, we've never actually been through this. Just hypothetically. Like, in Minecraft, let's imagine that somebody wrote a thing. piece about the Claremont Institute. It's like, it's not like the New York Times has never said anything

about the Claremont Institute that I thought like, hmm, like I could sort of see how from the outside you might view us that way or like maybe we could do a better job and presenting yourself. But like, I know that the author of that piece is making these criticisms because they want the Claremont Institute to fail. Similarly with the hit piece that came out against UATX recently in Politico, the university, the kind of startup university where I teach, you know, it described things which I think people within UITX would say, like, that some of these are realities. But it described them from a point of view of like, I really club, the author clearly obviously wanted the thing to have failed already.

And so it was presenting the whole attack in this very motivated, motivated way. It's about framing. Yeah, I think that's fair. It's about framing. It's about intent. It's about like, you know, friendly versus constructive and friendly criticism, which, again, the West has always done to bring it back to Dugin and the Enlightenment and all these things which you and I probably, like if we sat here and gamed out, what are our criticisms

with the Enlightenment? We would probably agree on like 75 to 100 percent of what those are. But we do so internally from a place of love, don't we, for Western civilization, right? Like understood that this is an enterprise which we value and cherish. Where are some ways in which it has like fallen prey to certain congenital defects that might need like rectification from another side. I just don't, I don't know that that's Dugan's project, or sneakos for that matter. I mean, I don't know. Or sneak. Yeah, no Russo heads here, to be fair. Now, you said the phrase intellectual void and that conjured in my mind this clip of the view trying to understand the Gospels. S-10, let's go ahead and roll this from yesterday.

But Jesus himself did not run around saying I'm the Messiah. I'm the Messiah. Uh, Jesus kind of, you're supposed to have a little bit of... Well, here's exactly what Jesus said. I am the... You know what? Why is it not? She is. It's the thing.

He's got God in time. She's got God in time. She told me, Jesus. Jesus what's not narcissistic like this guy. And by the way, she's not narcissism to say it. Yes, it is. When you are the Messiah? I'm sorry.

That was let's just quoting looking. It's too much for me. It's okay when Whoopi says it. It's not okay when you say. I'm sorry. That's right. That's like that's our word, right? Old is our word. Yeah. I mean. Well, listen, and also you're a man. So it's a different, it's coming from a different context. Speaking of context and framing, Spencer, yes. It's it's aggressive. We'll put it that way. Okay. Okay. Now, Joy Behares trying to make this point about Donald Trump. And it's the Trump as, of course, as we now know, a Red Cross doctor. The image of Donald Trump, Yeah, yeah. A sacred red cross doctor from on high with weird demons behind him, as I recall in that picture. Yeah, but I wouldn't put too much thought into it, Spencer. It was simply the Red Cross, which we love. We love Red Cross. That's all it was. And this is also all baked into the criticism that Donald Trump has been hurling at Pope Leo, an American Pope. So obviously, that's baked into it. Let's take a look at J.D. Vance here talking about. about the back and forth between his boss and the Pope S-9.

So the Pope said something where he said, and I'm going to try to remember this exact quote, but he said that God is never on the side of those who wield the sword. God is never on the side of those who wield the sword. I'm pretty sure that he said that exact statement. Now, on the one hand, again, I like that the Pope is an advocate for peace. I think that's certainly one of his roles.

On the other hand, how can you say that God is not, never on the side of those who willed the sword. Was God on the side of the Americans who liberated France from the Nazis? Was God on the side of the Americans who liberated Holocaust camps and liberated those innocent people from those who had survived the Holocaust? I agree. Jesus Christ certainly does not support genocide. Whoever yelled that out from the dark, he certainly does not. I think that's pretty easy.

I think that's a pretty easy principle. voice clamoring in the darkness. And Spencer, what I'm seeing in all of this, just over the last 48 hours, I guess since Trump posted that, me, it must have been, so it's probably 72 hours. So I think it was later on Sunday. But I've seen a fairly interesting conversation, not just on the right, but more broadly about the sacred and the profane. And it hasn't been framed exactly in that way, obviously. I mean, in some corners of the intellectual world. has been. But you mean it's not part of the AI poster that Trump is, so it wasn't like the

sacred and the profane kind of. No. But you know, in a way, it did have the sacred and profane all built into one image. Okay. I have a take on this. I think Trump has a philosophy of the sacred and the profane that he actually expressed at Charlie Kirk's funeral. But let me kind of back up to get into this. Oh, okay. Let's do it. Okay. So I am not. a Catholic. And I frankly don't understand, and I leave it to Catholics, like, how to resolve the cognitive dissonance that happens when the Pope says something you disagree with, but you are in a position to express opinions publicly. Like, genuinely, I say that with the brightest goodwill. Like, I don't think that I am a person to speak with authority on how you should do that.

But, yeah, let me say how I see it as a scholar just of, like, intellectual history more generally, right, they're emerged from about, say, St. Augustine up through, like, the end of the Holy Roman Empire. There emerged this thing that's sometimes called the Diorarchy, which is really a theory of two spheres of power. And Protestants are about sphere sovereignty where they say, you know, the earthly executive wields power on earth and the Magisterium, the Catholic Magisterium or the Church wields power over souls. And those are two different but complementary ways of talking about our condition. Obviously, one is ultimate, the religious one is ultimate. But the temporal one is also important, and it's the imperfect stage on which this spiritual drama plays out. So we ought to pay some attention to it and give respect within his sphere to the sovereign.

Right. And the sovereign's job, the earthly sovereign's job, is to secure the goods of this life, whereas the churches is to secure eternal life. roughly speaking, that's in theory how I think all of this is supposed to work, right? Donald Trump got up at Charlie Kirk's funeral and said something very remarkable that drew a lot of heat, which was Erica Kirk had just performed this act of Christian,

public Christian forgiveness, where she said, I forgive the murderer of my husband, and I forgive that young man. And Donald Trump got up and he said, that, you know, that's very nice. Erica Kirk, she loves her enemy. She's a good Christian. I don't.

I hate my enemies. I hate them very much. Now, everyone freaked out about this because Trump is a That was good. That was good. It was better than mine. Oh, thanks, man. I've had some time to work on it.

And, okay, so everyone freaked out about this. That's his literal job description. Like, according to the theology that I just laid out, like hate your enemies, hate our public enemies on our behalf is the job of the magistrate. It's the job of the person who's like the embodiment of temporal power where we have earthly enemies that we have to act against, right? Like literally the friend enemy distinction, another very controversial thing. But it's like it's not, okay, whoa.

But like before you get into Carl Smith, it's in the world, the year is 1933. The live streamer Spencer Claven, his guest, Carl. This is quoted as a friend. No, but it's in Plato. Like, it's not, you know, that part of it. Carl Schmidt, actually, I do think is, like, makes some big errors. But, like, this isn't really one of them. Like, the idea that there is a necessary distinction that all states make between kind of us and them,

which is this bad, you know, way of framing things now is just, I think it's inescapable. And Trump is, like, really frank about it. And I guess if I think I guess I'm coming around to agreeing with you that we really are having a discussion about sphere sovereignty right now. Like we're having a debate. I don't know that we're having it in quite the Catholic way that like, you know, Catholics might like us to have it. But we are having it in a very American way, which is like what is the kind of role, the interrelation between the things we believe about the spiritual world, which includes. including loving your enemies, right? Include like that your inner state will be maximally peaceful and oriented toward the good if you practice.

Peace maxing. You'll be peace maxing. You'll be salvation magging, right, if you, like, are loving your enemies. But also in this world, like, the reality is such that we have enemies and we have to hate them in the purely technical sense of like enforcing our interests, against theirs with extreme prejudice. Now, none of that means, like, you can have any number of positions about the Iran war itself and still think all of those things that I'm saying, if you see what I mean. But, like, I just think that's kind of the conversation that we're having.

Maybe, is that what you meant when you said, like, no, no, I think that's, well, but even in the view clip, they're talking about in the, this is wildly ignorant way, what Joy Beher was trying to get at was this, like, the humility of Christ. And obviously, she's wrong on the Messiah point. But yeah, I think it's interesting. Let's talk about... Can I defend Joe over here for five seconds? It'll just be so brief.

Please. Yes, King. Yes. Because I think I would go like one step further, having just like stepped in it and called her old. I would just go one step further and say, stipulated that intellectual void would be a good alternate title for the view. But Jesus does often leave it to other people to call him the Messiah. He obviously does it. But he's like, who do you say that I am? And like, I think you're right that that's kind of...

probably what she had in mind. Maybe. I don't know. Maybe. That's true. Let's listen to, actually, let's listen to Dave Chappelle now, who sat for an interview with NPR and reflected a bit on his experience advocating for the rights, frankly, I would say, of women and women to be protected from the madness of forcing them into private spaces with men. Also talking a little bit about comedy in 2026. So I'm going to run two, clips here, kind of back to back. Let's start here with the trans part S-14 about Republicans and Lauren Bobert. I did resent that the Republican Party ran on transgender jokes. You know,

I felt like they were doing a weaponized version of what I was doing. I didn't, I didn't, it's not what I was doing. I gave an example. As before I learned the phrase, I respectfully declined. And I was on Capitol Hill, and everybody ran up to take pictures with me from every congressional office. And I just take pictures with whoever asked. I didn't ask how they voted, what their voting record is. And everyone, at first it was like CBC people. And then here comes Lauren Beaubert. And she said, can I get a picture?

And I'd already taken 40 pictures. I didn't want to say no for everybody. But I didn't know the phrase I respectfully declined. So I just took the picture. And then she posted a picture before I'm going to be. even get from there to the show and says something to the effect of just two people that knew that is just too generous. She instantly like weaponized it or politicizing.

So I got to the arena and I lit her ass up for doing that. And she never do that person like me. Now she knows what's up. Yeah. Now she knows what's up. Yeah, right, of course. Here's S13. Chappelle's broader thoughts on the state of comedy right now.

But what about people who feel like you're punching down? Like you're not, you are not a trans person. What do you say to people who feel that in some occasions you're punching down? Well, okay, this is a conversation that, you know. You're bored by? Sick of. Nah, yeah. Well, not sick of it.

I don't want to be dismissive to that sentiment, but I don't know. That's a tough one for me because so much of that was a media phenomenon. They almost reported on it as if I, I was doing something other than a comedy show. Part of one of the reasons comedy works is because everyone that bought a ticket, clearly, they wanted to work. They want to have a good time. They want to have fun. But if you're a person that is very angry or passionate about something and you're afraid that you're going to be misrepresented or misconstrued

and you feel like you have to police comedy to get your point across, you should assess your point. I actually get kind of what he's saying about Bobert and that if you're a comedian, it feels maybe icky to you to be then used as a pawn. But at the same time, Spencer, he's talking about how comedy can be a useful, obviously weapon of satire and should be to political ends, to cultural ends. And it's frustrated then when people take that and run with it and try to change the system. It's odd. Yeah.

I think it's a little cowardly. I mean, I give him like a B plus, maybe B minus on this, you know, because he is, you know, he's a comedian. And in the domain of comedy, he is 100% correct. Like, he's done a lot better than most mainstream comedians have done. He's held the line of saying the unsayable thing, the joke that people don't want him to make. There are a lot of, you know, better comedians about this. this issue and many others out there, but they're not as famous or as successful as Dave Chappelle, and it means something that somebody with that kind of clout to risk and lose would

have been as courageous as he was. I think the better answer to the Bober question would be, I'll take a picture with anybody. I don't care what people say all sorts of things about me and about my work. Like, this is true even of small, like, this is true of classics podcasters, Right? I mean, people say things about me all the time. Let's we forget the classics podcasts. Just forget the celebrity classics podcasters who shall remain nameless. Yeah. No, it's like, you know, so won't somebody please think of the classics podcasters?

Too often, we forget. Yeah, exactly. Their heroism goes unharalded. But just to say, like, if you say anything in public ever, you know, you'll be, people will project their own agenda onto you. Like, they say, there's that old joke, why to priests have white collars and so people can project their home movies onto them? Like, these roles that people play, in part, like, public figures are there for people to work out their own, like, psychic issues and questions and test out their own ideas against. And I think what Chappelle instinctively rejects, but doesn't quite know how to really say, is, you know, you know, He instinctively rejects being held accountable to any version of that.

And I think that's correct. But he's instead filtering it through the easiest, the path of least resistance, which is like this bad Republican has used my work for bad ends. I mean, I think it's just like he should, he genuinely, like not everybody should just be saying whatever comes to mind and stand the consequences. And we have a neutral standpoint towards truth or whatever. But comedians actually should. Like that's kind of why. they're such an important cultural role right now is that this is that is the domain where you're

supposed to do that I don't know I'm like you know yeah B plus be sorry B minus be minus first no I think that's right um speaking of we've we've got their intellectual void and now we've landed at the I don't even know where we're going with the Spencer I do know that I want to get your thoughts on Val Kilmer because he's been resurrected virtually which is certainly not the same as being resurrected literally and yet we continue to hurdle towards a blurred distinction between the two. You wrote about this in light of the mind, which is a great book that people should absolutely buy and check out. A trailer was released today for a film that stars the recently deceased Val Kilmer who suffered, I would say, I mean, Spencer, I don't know about you, but I feel like he suffered very

valiantly in life and in a way that's sort of imprinted on people's memories. His death was premature and awful and there was a documentary about it that I think sticks with many people. His daughter has supported this. Her daughter Mercedes has said, quote, he always looked at emerging technologies with optimism as a tool to expand the possibilities of storytelling. The spirit is something that we are all honoring within the specific film of which he was an integral part. So basically, the movie is called As Deep as the Grave. My understanding is that he was set to be in this film. They couldn't do it. And so now that he's passed and AI has advanced, this is the trailer S-15. Don't fear the dead. And don't fear me. Spencer, this is freaky. This is

uncanny. This is like when the first time people were totally shocked by where CGI was going, I think, was the Harrison Ford, Indiana Jones, de-aging process, which was similarly uncanny. This is getting to a point where you will always know something is off. You will always know something is different. You will always have that instinctive reaction to it. But if you squint, it's almost inseparable from reality. Well, have you, do you remember Roadrunner, the Anthony Bourdain documentary? Yes.

This was the first deep fake controversy that I recall. And it was, Burtain killed himself. And he wrote a note. And they had his voice reading the note. But the voice was deep fake. So the words were his words. I think I'm getting this right. The words were his words.

And the voice was a composite of his voice. And people flipped out. I mean, this was a sub. This was like weeks of public conversation, and rightly so, because it is an abomination. Like, it is a terror and a horror. And I think we've become completely desensitized to it in this moment where everyone has lost their heads over AI. People are completely immersed in this hype about it, which comes out of a totally misinformed, about intelligence and artificiality.

Like both parts of the term are being radically misunderstood for what human intelligence can do and what the artificial can and cannot achieve. There's a wonderful observation by the Austrian computer scientist, Hans Moravec, I think is how you say it. And it's basically that things which people can do, effortlessly, machines struggle to do, like hiking. Things which take humans a lot of effort and analytical horsepower are sometimes really easy for machines to do, like playing chess. So there is this actually like complementary inversion in the things that they're good at and the things that we're good at, which sends completely to reason. Because in fact, right,

our intelligence and their mimicry proceed in opposite directions. Our, we think in absolute ideals and abstractions and then resolve them into particulars. AI takes a huge heap of particulars and makes a kind of mushy pile to imitate an abstraction out of them, right? And there is something demonic, not about the technology itself, but about using the technology to imitate what we do. There's a Psalm, I think it's 115, where in the Bible, David, King David, the Psalmist is singing about idols. That is the statues that people worship and mistake for gods. And I say this purely as a psychological insight. So whatever the listener's kind of theological presuppositions are, you can take this with you no matter what, right?

The psalmist says of these statues, eyes have they been seen. not, ears have they but hear not. And this is the most important point. Those that make them are becoming like them. In other words, the minute you start confusing an external imitation of your inner life for the inner life itself, you have begun to give away your own inner life. And I think we're seeing that most in the realm of art where we already have started to confuse mass-produced schlock for creativity. Like, Marvel movies could already have been made by machine. They are already basically just composites of pre-arranged formulas, right?

And so now you see all these tweets where people are like, Hollywood is finished. Like, AI has made the perfect movie. It's made a movie that just totally has other stuff out of the water. It's like, yeah, because you've already trained yourself to accept gunk as high. art and now a machine comes along and you're like, look, it jingles my favorite keys in front of me. Like it's become sentient. No, no. Like, you are already on the path to selling your own sanctions away. And I think like this part of it is is the worst version of it where we residing

That sounds eschatological, Spencer, actually. I mean, it's everything is eschatological. This is like a one of our themes on this. That's true. That's true. But like, look, I mean, I do, in light of the mind, I do sort of talk about this in eschatological terms in the sense that, like, I think this is, this meets the description of kind of the ultimate thing. Now, there have been other, other versions of this throughout history, I think. And in some ways we're always, yeah, like, we're always faced with this temptation. But, you know, Aquinas wonderfully has these four different ways that you can read scripture, one of which is eschatological. And it's kind of like always, you can always read history. and scripture eschatologically, because we are always sort of progressing in that direction. But this is our great temptation. Our great temptation is to outsource the job of being human to something other than ourselves, a system of politics, a machine, right? Like, we want that because, well, like, we were fallen and broken and we, like, really crave something to take

it off our hands and be our God that we can create, you know, in control. And it's just not you know, it's always bad news. It just never works. I do have some hope that like what you said about it's always going to look weird. Like it kind of is always going to look weird. You know, like Jim Acosta tried this with this poor family of the dead, dead child, you know. And everyone immediately was like, you're a ghoul, you know, because this is, it's a ghoulish, it's a sort of like manifestly ghoulish thing to do. And I, you know, I'm sorry that Val Kilmer's daughter has lost her father in this tragic way. I think that people who grieve do all sorts of things, not all of them well judged, but this is a bad thing to do

with your grief is to like kind of profit off of your father's reanimated image, like some sort of weird occult puppet. Like that's just, I think, the wrong, the wrong path to go down, you know, turn back, stop. Yeah, I mean, it's going to, I think, actually create a bigger market for things that are very real. And that could go in different directions. that could go in the, however raw milk manifests in Hollywood streaming. I mean, that's where Sneako comes from is that people want to see something that's happening live because they trust production less, just like they trust production turning corn into Doritos. Like people have stopped trusting that processing.

And so it's going to go somewhere very dangerous, but potentially, for some people, it'll be good, Spencer. It's reawakening the human in us. Well, it's like, learn to code turned out to be the worst advice in our lifetime. our lifetime. And we've had some pretty bad advice given to us. Yeah, you do. I mean, because it's really funny, right? Like, the coders created a giant input-output machine. And the first thing they did is they turned around and they said to the poets, this will replace you. And my feeling was like, no, you? Like, your whole job is inputs and outputs, right? And you've never read a poem in your life. So how do you even know that,

You read the least cultural people who have maybe ever walked the face of the planet, right? These guys that have like systematically deprived themselves of literary sensibility. And they're like, look, it's spat out, this machine spat out the next great sonnet. It's like you didn't even know what a sonnet was until five minutes ago. How do you even know? It's like me saying, look, Claude has solved quantum gravity. It's like, I don't even know how to fail at solving quantum gravity, right? It's like these people don't even know how to fail at making poetry,

and they're telling us like this is going to be the use of this technology is to make art. I do have, I take heart in this, you know, there's a passage in Plato's Fidris, which is about the invention of writing. So just to show you this has been around forever. Oh, yes, Plato was not really on board. Well, he was a total curmudgeon, or like he was like a half dumer, right? because he was an early adopter and a doomer at the same time, which is kind of cool.

Like he was one of the first great written artists and one of the great critics of writing as a technology. And he imagines the inventor, the God, who invented writing, presenting it to the king and saying, look, I've created this great memory aid. And the king has this wonderful line. He says, oh, God, you know, the creator of a technology is not the same as the person who can judge the good and bad,

uses of it. Like the people who make something have a certain, are enamored of it. We're enamored of our creations, right? And so it's actually for the users to decide, like, what the right and wrong versions of this are. And I definitely think you're already starting to see made without AI turn into a prestige label. Like, you know, my next book, which is kind of about this, it's called... Non-GMO, baby. Yeah, exactly, exactly. It's raw milk, right? It's like, I have this book coming out in February called A Way with Words, which is about human language and how it's different from AI language and kind of like, you know, how this stuff works. And in it, I say at some point, like, you know, you have my guarantee that nothing in this book was written by AI unless I'm quoting something that I got Grock to do so that I could use it as an example. And as I was writing then, I thought, wow, how funny. Like, that's actually, I'm just saying that because it's true, obviously.

But, like, that actually is a seal of authenticity now. Like, this is this sort of, I think people are seeking these human created, curated experiences. They're already sick of screens. And when you create scarcity, just in economics, right, the value of the thing goes up. Like, we've created relative to all of the slop with which we've now flooded the zone, we've created a relative scarcity that attaches to human-made art. And I do think that drives its value up. Like that creates more like rarity and excitement around those sorts of things.

And it's not a foregone conclusion. It means we have to then enter into that space and like confidently educate people to recognize and admire the products of the human soul. And to really just be enthusiastic again about what humans can do. with their souls, the most refined, the liberal arts, right, have always been something you have to train yourself to love. And now it's like you have to train yourself to love them or be submerged under a tidal wave of gunk, which is kind of a good sales pitch for, you know, humanists. And if you really care about your soul, you can podcast. Spencer Claven is

associate editor over at the Claremont Review of Books. He's the co-host of Claven's on the culture, there's a new episode out today. Also author of Light of the Mind, Light of the World, one of my favorites. Spencer, thanks for staying up late. I appreciate it. Thanks, Emily. It's a pleasure. So good, so good. All right, we're going to be back in just one moment, but first, a quick break. You know this. I've mentioned it before. One of my favorite ways to relax at home, especially after a long show, you're hyped up. You've been talking to great guests, has been with cozy Earth. Now, if you haven't tried their robes or their slippers yet, go ahead and do that. You're missing out. If you haven't done it yet, their robes are super, super soft.

Perfect for those slow mornings or relaxing at night. Like I said, you got to unwind. And if you're working later into the evenings, this is a great way to unwind. The fabric is really breathable. It's lightweight and it's incredibly comfortable. The kind of robe that you will put on and just right away feel better, feel more relaxed. Their slippers, those are pretty cool. They slip on right away instantly, super easy. They have this plush, shearling lining with supportive footbed, so they're warm, comfortable, and they're easy to wear around the house all day. Sometimes I do that. With Mother's Day coming up, Cozy Earth makes an amazing gift, and it's something that she'll actually use, which is good. Moms out there will tell you, that's a great way to actually give a gift,

and something that she can appreciate every single day. It's built into her everyday life. So here's the best part. Cozy Earth backs everything with a 100-night sleep trial and a 10-year warranty. You can try it completely risk-free. Go to cozyEarth.com and use my code, Emily, for 20% off. That's CozyEarth.com promo code, Emily, for 20% off. And if you see the post-purchase survey, please go ahead, mention you heard about Cozy Earth from this show. All right, everyone, we're going to wrap the show up tonight

with a media scandal, actually at a media watchdog publication. Now, if you're not a close media watcher, You might not know about media it. It's a fairly small publication. It's been around for years. If you are in the media, you definitely know about media. If you ever say something on a podcast, something that they don't like, it gets written up right away. Now, of course, I follow media very closely because they write up what's happening, what people are saying across the media. The, interestingly, the founding editor of Mediaite is right now under suspension. because of an AI-based scandal. So, status where Oliver Darcy, this is his publication, status first noticed that there was something weird happening with this quote, one sheet publication that was supposed to be aggregating

and sorting through all of the media newsletters into one place. And Colby Hall was the author. So we can put F12 up on the screen. Darcy posted last night. Scope, Mediaite has suspended this founding edit, Colby Hall after a series of instances we raised about significant errors and outright fabrications in his work. Now, Max Taney, who's been on our show, had a long piece over at Semaphore about some of those errors. This is F-14. We can toss it up on the screen. This is bad.

What they found, what Semaphore found, what Oliver Darcy found is unreal. I mean, it's very believable, actually. Unreal is probably the wrong word. But essentially, Colby Hall says that it was about the inputs going into an AI output. And that caused misattributed quotes going in different directions and status because status had been, there was an attribution to status in this one sheet newsletter that status that was wrong. because they knew they didn't write about it. So these are quotes and stories being attributed to publications that never published

what they were alleged to have published. So of course in the media, people are going to pick up on this type of thing. So the one sheet, like I said, supposed to be aggregating what's happening across media newsletters. And Colby Hall says he was putting into a spread spreadsheet, different things that had been written about in the different publications that Colby Hall was aggregating. So the claim here is that it was just those inputs being wrong and then

the outputs because they're only as good as what gets put into them. Here's a little bit of what Hall said. It uses AI in a, quote, limited way and all, quote, written ideas, angle, summaries takes in editorial judgments are minds. Our mind, he said, according to Max Taney, the mistakes were the result of problems with his production process. Hall said he has a spreadsheet populated with dozens of newsletters organizing the sheet with columns for source writer, topic, angle, summary, and takeaway. And he said recent errors, quote, originated in the data entry process. Like many editors, I use AI in a limit away as part of my editorial workflow. Now, the status misattribution that was caught on, that was caught this week was,

Tanny reports, quote, the second time Mediite had misquoted status. This is just status. In February status, said Mediite falsely attributed quotes to the newsletter, claiming founder Oliver Darcy had written a column on U.S. President Donald Trump posting a photo of the Obama's as eight. And again, Colby Hall says that happened because I, quote, entered my own misinterpretation into my sourcing note as if it reflected what status had actually published. These points don't totally make sense. I mean, I see where Hall is going that when you're

doing really quick data entry, you see something on the website, you attribute it to status and Oliver Darcy because it's on the website and you're doing data entry really quickly and then the output gets garbled. The way that process actually happened is completely unclear. Now, CNN, according to Semaphore's catch, quote, has also experienced frustrating misattribution issues. In Monday's edition of One Seat, Mediaite mixed up CNN media writer Brian Stelter's commentary on athletic reporter Diana Rossini with recent reporting about California Representative Eric Swalwell. Think about this. Seriously, think about this. One sheet wrote, Stelter frames the Rossini story as a case study and the difference between Internet whispers and investigative reports. But, Tanny adds, Stelter's comments about the difference between Internet whispers and investigative reports.

were in reference to recent reporting on Swalwell, not Rusini. Eric Swalwell is being accused of sexual assault. Your dumbass AI process cannot mix up over and over again. People's quotes about serious topics, political topics, and the publication more broadly's coverage of those topics, it's not a casual error. That's obviously why Mediite has suspended Colby Hall, But for this to be so systematic over so many months, I mean, Max reports earlier this year,

one sheet also misattributed quotes from reliable sources, Press Gazette, and Neiman Labs. Politico's Dasha Burns noted the tactical shift on Fox and Friends Monday morning. Brian Kilmead reportedly called for Holman, Tom Holman, to be sent to Minneapolis throughout the course of the show. CNN's Brian Seltzer added that Maria Bartaromo's weakened criticism was key to Trump's thinking, dot, dot, dot, dot. The entire chain was misattributed. Max Taney writes. It was CNN's Brian Stelter that noted, Kill Me, its calls for Home and to be sent to Minneapolis.

Well, the Washington Post noted Barter Romo's criticism was key to Trump's thinking. So not only are you misattributing it to another author, you're actually taking someone else's work and attributing it to another offer. So you're attributing something to another author and depriving it, depriving the original author of the scoop, basically. So insane that this seems to have gone on for so long that it was from a founding editor of the publication. And I have to say, Colby Hall is constantly guilty of these half-baked, self-absorbed columns that I would describe as just often making rudimentary points where you have this total mismatch between how basic and rudimentary the point is and the level of cockiness and confidence. with which it's being conveyed. This is basic, basic points being dressed up as like

brilliant and like worthy of self-aggrandizing writing. One of those columnists that writes I every other sentence. And so I'm not entirely surprised by this, to be honest. I went back and looked at some recent Colby Hall columns because I'm constantly thinking about about that byline. I don't really know who Colby Hall. I'm not like super familiar with Colby. I don't know Colby Hall, but I have read Colby Hall for many years.

And I'm constantly thinking about how annoying that byline is. And one of the recent stories was, Hassan Piker is the left's Candace Owens and the press treats him like a rock star. And the column starts by Colby Hall writing, I edit and write for political media criticism outlet and I've spent close to three decades tracking political narratives and the voices that carry them.

Piker gets media coverage when something he says breaks through into mainstream news, which it turns out happens fairly regularly, but almost always for the same reason. He says, ugly things on purpose, period, for the clicks, period. I didn't know the full extent of it until Monday when CNN ran a segment on the lead that I found generally interesting. Okay, everything in CNN's segment that Jake Tapper did on Hassan Piker, if you are even like barely on the internet, would have been familiar to you as a media journalist. If your job is to cover the media, you're just like openly admitted, you're admitting you were totally out of the loop on what Hall writes about in terms of this, quote, gap between what Piker says and how the media covers Hassan Piker. Now, there are all kinds of different problems with this column. That's just one example. But also a column, how the Mueller report was never a hoax. It was a warning.

That's another recent one. Megan Kelly's outrage over Bad Bunny perfectly reveals white fragility. I mean, these are banger after banger. Sometimes getting basic things or admitting to getting basic things wrong, and then also just sometimes being so basic, but also so arrogant that it's the most annoying combination you can imagine. So I guess Colby Hall clearly needed a significant dose of humility and is going to get it.

But for a media watchdog to let this go on so long from a founding editor, from somebody at the third, top of the publication. And media, it's influential, by the way. It's a blog, but it influences the way journalists think about each other. It's a source of news for a lot of journalists. So the fact that this went on for so long is remarkable. And I think a statement on how quickly AI is transforming the industry for the worse in many cases. I'm not saying there aren't good uses of AI. But nobody was prepared to catch this. It wasn't until people started noticing they were being written about incorrectly.

I mean, God knows how many other incorrect facts are in these newsletters that weren't caught because they weren't easily recognizable because they had been attributed to one person or another. So this stuff is taking the industry by storm, and it took the industry months to catch up to the newsletter, being full of misattributions and flatly incorrect information from a media watchdog's founding editor. Just incredible stuff. All right. We seem to be setting records every night for how long I can go, how long I can ramble. But Nick Fradis and Spencer Claven were both so much fun. I went along with each of them. Thank you for being here. As a reminder, you can email me at Emily at devilmaicaremedia.com. Happy hour is the audio-only edition of the show. We air every Friday where I talk to all of you via the questions you send in to Emily at double-maycaremedia.com.

I record those Thursday afternoon. So if you have questions, get into me soon. otherwise I'll respond on next week's edition of the show. Subscribe if you haven't yet. It helps us out a lot and we'll see you back here soon with more Apple Party.