After Party with Emily Jashinsky - The Media’s Credibility Crisis After NPR Mess, Caitlin Clark Controversy & SCOTUS Ruling Explained

Episode Date: July 2, 2026

From Caitlin Clark’s latest WNBA controversy to the Supreme Court’s transgender ruling, this episode tackles the biggest political and cultural stories making headlines. Emily is joined by Mark Hemingway to discuss JK Rowling’s response to the SCOTUS decision, Trump’s reported crypto earnings, and the disastrous Nina Totenberg NPR "mistake" and what many see as the growing credibility crisis in journalism. They also break down Congress’ bipartisan housing push, and the ongoing debate over media coverage and political narratives.   USAFacts: Demand government accountability by signing the open letter for reliable public data at https://USAFacts.org/supportdata   Cozy Earth: Visit https://www.CozyEarth.com & Use code EMILY for up to 20% off   Cowboy Colostrum: Get 25% Off Cowboy Colostrum with code AFTERPARTY at https://www.cowboycolostrum.com/afterparty Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to AfterBready, everyone. Thank you so much for joining us this evening. Our guest is the one and only Mark Hemingway, senior writer at Real Clear Investigations. He'll be joining us in just one moment so excited to have Mark back on the show. And with so much in the news, there's so much just, I'm like tongue-tied. Obviously right now at USA is playing soccer against what Bosnia and Herzegonia, I never get it right. Although I do think that embassy has a really clutch parking spot. at least it used to when I went to George Washington University, if you pro-tip come to D.C. And you get those embassy parking lot spots like right at 6 p.m. You can stay there all weekend. These are the types of facts I can offer you all. But anyway, that's what's happening. As we talk here, we're up by one goal. So we'll see what happens.

But no spoilers, of course. If you're watching us and going to watch the game afterwards, I respect your decision. In fact, I think it is your patriotic duty to tune in to after party. Of course. No, I'm kidding. It's really your patriotic. to tune into the World Cup right now as we are trouncing almost everybody that comes in our path. Lots to get to today, though, because as I was saying, or trying to say before I got totally

tongue-tied, there's a cultural news that I think is a good indication of what people may have thought past, I don't know, around 20, 24, is very much still with us. It's muted to some extent, but it's still with us. A lot of media stories tonight, too. I mean, we're looking at maybe the biggest single-story media F-Up in years coming from NPR and Nina Totenberg. Their explanation makes absolutely no sense. It has very consequential implications for the Supreme Court for the future of the country because it seems to imply there's a Supreme Court vacancy in the near future. We will see. But here you have NPR and one of the most famous reporters in all of American media claiming a story that makes absolutely no sense. So we're going to start by breaking

that story down. We're going to look into the way the media covered the Supreme Court case on athletes, males playing in female sports in the state laws that were upheld by the Supreme Court. There's some more Pride footage, this time from Seattle, where you see kids in the vicinity of naked adults celebrating pride. Caitlin Clark's fans are now somehow getting blamed for hate. I'm in a way being a bit cheeky with that description, but the finger is being pointed after that awful incident on the court, what was that last week now, where she basically got punched in the throat. You should see the media coverage of this as well. We're going to get into it. I'm going to ask Mark about a viral liberal country singer sensation and get into some other stories as well. So as always, thank you for being here. Please do subscribe if you hadn't yet. It's really the most helpful thing that you can do for the show. subscribe on YouTube. Totally free. Turn the notifications on, like, comment that hops us a ton in the algorithm. We really, really appreciate your support. Now that we're in year two of after party, it is so, so appreciated. We're very grateful for it. And you can email me at Emily at devilmaicaremedia.com.

We are going to be taping our weekly happy hour edition of the show. That's just for podcast listeners. It comes out on Friday. So make sure you are subscribed on the podcast feed. I'm biased. I kind of think those are some of my favorite episodes because it's so buttoned down and relaxed. I'm really just going through your questions that you send in to Emily at double make care media.com. That's my real email address, as many of you know. So if you want to get those questions in for this week, the episode drops on Friday, but I tape them on Thursday evenings so you can shoot me a message before then. Otherwise, I'll just include it in next week's batch. So without further ado, we're going to take a quick break, and then we're going to be

back with the great Mark Hemingway. This episode is sponsored by USAFax, a nonpartisan organization making government data easier to access and understand. Now, that's a mission that I can get behind. I'm partnering with them on a campaign called the data we depend on. The idea is simple. If the government is going to spend all of our taxpayer money and make massive decisions, maybe it should have to show its work. How about that? And this starts with reliable public data. Government data helps track the economy, spending, and education. You've probably heard me citing sources like the BLS, the IRS, or the DHS. But when that data is slow, incomplete, or hard to access, which it often is, lawmakers have less to work with,

and journalists have less to check, and you and the public have a harder time finding the truth. So if you care about accountability, you can't measure if programs are working or call out failure if the basic facts are buried. USA Fax is asking Americans to sign an open letter to lawmakers in Congress. The ask is straightforward. Use data to legislate and fix the data when it falls short. This is not a partisan issue, whether you won't. more government, less government, or just a government that has to show its math, you need reliable facts. Read and sign the letter at USAFacts.org slash support data. All right, as promised, we're back with the one and only. Mark Hemingway, he's a senior writer at Real Clear Investigations. Mark,

thanks for being back. Hey, glad to be back. Yeah, so glad to have you here for the Nina Totenberg fallout, actually really the lack there of fallout when it comes to Nina Totenberg, who is As I mentioned in the show's introduction, really one of the most famous and well-regarded journalists in Washington media, really in American media, that, of course, to most people, sounds like an insult, but here in Washington, it's a great honor to be highly regarded by your peers. And Nina Totenberg is up there. She's, I think, in her early 80s and published now infamously a scoop that Justice Samuel Alito was retiring. Her explanation for this, I'm going to put this up on the screen. Matthew Keyes has been paying attention to this. And Keyes points out some interesting discrepancies.

Keyes isn't the only one doing this. Everyone's kind of puzzled by what Nina Totenberg says happened. But Keyes points out that Kelly McBride of NPR, she's the senior, she's their public editor, wrote that Totenberg, quote, misheard John Roberts' statement about Supreme Court-related retirements. This is what Nina Totenberg herself said on air

on NPR, on all things considered after NPR quickly retracted the story that Alito had announced his retirement. And then the correction story was amended with a correction. Just incredible stuff to clarify, as the correction says, this is up on the screen right now. This story was updated to include Totenberg's description of her error as broadcast on all things considered. She did not personally hear the announcement from the Chief Justice. Now, this is actually important because what we now know is that Nina Totenberg claims she heard someone say John Roberts was making retirement announcements. But what she heard was retirement announcement. So it wasn't plural. It was singular.

Calls up her editors says publish the story. And she's being cagey about whether or not it was pre-written. It was very obviously pre-written. The Wayback Machine shows that it said he had announced a retirement on Friday, meaning she pre-wrote a story, assuming that he was making this announcement on Friday. and obviously then thinks, oh, John Roberts is making announcements. We better figure this out. We better now send it back to, or we better now put the story up

because it's, you know, Megan Kelly was saying this on her show today, basically the Holy Grail of Supreme Court reporting, which is a scoop light field of journalism, given that there's very few leaks from the Supreme Court. This is really the scoop of a lifetime. If you're Nina Totenberg, even at the age of 82. So, Mark, this excuse makes literally no sense whatsoever. And it sounds like, potentially, someone leaked to Nina Totenberg that Samuel Alito will retire.

It sounds like we might be staring down the barrel of a Supreme Court vacancy, just as there's all of this backlash to Amy Coney Barrett and really, more broadly, to the conservative legal movement that recommended Amy Coney Barrett to the Trump administration. Your lovely wife was on the show not long ago talking about her book on a little bit. Alito, he's the focus of a lot of conservative, well, what's the right way to put it? It's a conservative wagon circling, maybe. I mean, he's a conservative champion with Justice Thomas, the conservative stalwart on the court, not a Roberts, seen very much as somebody who's in opposition to John Roberts. So you, this is a subject you know intimately well.

What on earth is going on at NPR? I don't think anybody knows. I mean, one of the interesting things about this story, it's very emblematic of the media. There's this colossal screw-up, right? And then immediately they move on to patting themselves publicly on the back about how well they handled their own screw-up. It's just absolutely astonishing. I mean, look, I don't know, like, I'm still trying to parse this and make sense of it. I think it would be fair to say that if nothing else comes out of this story, is that Nina Totenberg, who I believe is 82 years old, needs to hang up her spurs. I mean, like, she's been covering, you know, the Supreme Court my entire life and look at me.

Can you see how much gray is in my beard, all right? This is not. I mean, this has been going on for far too long. And on top of that, like you said, you know, she has this reputation of, you know, being the grand dom of Supreme Court reporters or whatever. But like, I mean. Along with the other champion here, Jane Mayer. Don't forget Jane.

Right. Well, and there's another woman in the New York Times as well that was also, really well known for covering the Supreme Court. But having said that, you know, Totenberg is quite a checkered reputation. I mean, she was famously, like, you know, very, very close to Ruth Bader Ginsburg in a way that colored her reporting and, you know, frankly, should have been disclosed at every turn if not, you have, you know, if it shouldn't have disqualified her to begin with. I don't know.

My favorite theory about all this, although my wife was an expert in all things Alito has tried to dissuade me away from this is that Alito is trying to, you know, out a leaker. You know, there have been some problems with leaks at the Supreme Court. But, you know, it is, it is possible that Alito would want to retire. I mean, he's been on the court for 20 years and he's not a young man. And the other thing is that increasingly being a conservative Supreme Court justice is incredibly difficult and people don't talk about this. And dangerous.

Yeah, it's incredibly dangerous. You know, you can't really have dinner in public like, you know, a normal person. And at the same time, you have Kataji Brown Jackson, you know, going to the, what was it, the Emmys and, you know, peering on Broadway and all this other stuff. I mean, like, if that doesn't tell you about the situation with violence in America, you know, it should be revealing. So it's possible Alito will retire. It's also possible that, I mean, I think people just don't understand who Alito and Thomas in particular are. I mean, the two, you know, longest serving just, well, actually, I think I forget, Roberts might be slightly longer on the court than Alito. But, you know, they, you know, but, you know, Alito's been there for 20 years and they've been serving for a very long time.

And I think these are men of real integrity. Thomas has been quite clear that he's going to be going out of the court's Supreme Feet first. We'll see whether, no, he sticks to that or whatever. But as much as that might be something that gives Republicans heart. Bartburn, you know, he's certainly earned the right in terms of his jurisprudence. But, again, I still, I don't even know what to make of this. I mean, it's been so contradictory. It's been so confusing, you know, running corrections to their retraction.

I mean, like, it's, it is a complete and utter disaster. And at the same time, you know, I don't think you can really draw any clear inferences from this. Yes, it could mean that there's a complete and utter disaster. a source telling her that there's going to be a retirement or it could mean nothing it could mean that Nina Totenberg is 82 years old and out of her freaking mind well that's a good point and actually this is speaking of your wife i was also going to put this up on the screen uh she posted that in response to lulu garcia navarro who posted the new york i'm sorry the uh the npr story and the correction lulu from new york times writes one of the many

reasons I love NPR is this duo fighting to take the blame instead of pointing the finger. A lesson to us all when we F up. Molly replies, yes, they invented completely fake news and then published fake news and their explanation for why makes literally no sense. And we love them because they're not pointing fingers. Do you realize how bad the entire press court is that it is defending this indefensible thing? And that, the Lulu Garcia-Nivaro post is one of many, many, from people in the quote unquote mainstream media who were again congratulating patting on the back Nina Totenberg and NPR for owning the mistake

as though they had any other option. But to be clear, it's a smokescreen. They're not owning anything. She's not even telling you exactly what happened because she's not actually explaining how that story got written in the first place and why it was that without double checking The story just went up. It could be Mark. I mean, I think your explanation might be the one that makes the most sense, sadly. She's 82 years old. They trust her way too much. They trust that she hasn't lost her marbles way too much, and she is losing her marbles. But Chuck Ross, over at the Free Beacon, points out that she was fired by the National Observer back in 1972 for plagiarism, later said, quote, I was in a hurry. I used terrible judgment. And here's a quote that just crawls under your skin. A young reporter is entitled to,

one mistake and to have the holy bejesus scared out of her to never do it again. Never do it again. That's back in 1972. So maybe I guess it's a pattern with Totenberg who also falsely reported that mask story that Neil Gorsuch wouldn't wear a mask and Sonia Sotomayor wasn't attending meetings or oral arguments because of it and both Gorsuch and Sotomayor came out and rebuked the story. So it's a pattern it seems like maybe she's losing it. Maybe it's a pattern. maybe it's both yes um i fact thank you for mention that i was going to mention that um the mass story is featured prominently in my wife's book and there's a lot of discussion about that um look i don't want to like go into it because you know i'm not one you know i don't want to respond to this sort of

you know bad conduct by the media by reporting rumors and innuendo but it is true that i have heard lots of things about nina totenberg over the years things i wouldn't say publicly because i can't verify them um And you would say this about a lot of different things that happen in the media right now. And like to some extent, yes, reporters are human. You know, maybe reporters in their young do make, you know, one mistake with plagiarism or whatever. But her career has been marked by, you know, one of extreme sort of bias and partisanship on a beat that is, you know, incredibly sensitive. And she's gotten away with it because she was smart enough to get into a beat and develop good sources, you know, in an area that is very difficult to cover. people just sort of tolerate this.

And I don't think that that has at all been the right approach. And further, you make a really excellent point. But I mean, and then this applies to so many stories in recent years about how they're not being transparent at all about how they came about making the mistake. I mean, you look at so many things that have happened in the last 10 years. The media has just gotten like, you know, wrong back to front, reversing cause and effect. You know, mistakes that made people die. mistakes that completely ruin people's reputations and everything.

And the response to this is the media right now is being attacked. You know, we're the thin line between civilization and chaos. You know, and if the media, you know, isn't allowed to, you know, do its job fearlessly, then democracy will fall. And so the response to that has not been, oh, well, increasing in transparency will increase trust, which will in turn fix these problems, it's been to dig in and, and well, maybe no one will notice that we're getting a lot of stuff wrong. And it is so toxic that they continue to act this way. You know, you know, the New York Times never, you know, New York Times and

Washington Post never returned their Pulitzer's for reporting stories on Trump's involvement with Russia where like every word, including and the, was wrong. You know, it's just astonishing to me that, you know, we have this situation where the media has gotten so utterly defensive. Well, I mean, the problem is they're getting a lot of stuff wrong in the first place and getting some big picture stuff wrong in a level that I never anticipated, you know, and I never had a lot of faith in the media complex to begin with. But the fact that they're not just getting all the big picture stuff wrong, but the fact they have no desire to engage in behavior that would show transparency

and rebuild the trust is what's really shocking to me. And it seems so obvious to me, like that's their only option here. And yet they keep, you know, turning it away at every available opportunity. Right. Yes. So Barry Weiss, who has made decisions that I've plainly disagreed with and who has owners, whose decisions I've plainly disagreed with over at CBS News comes in. And it's not even that they're upset about the owners.

They will be upset about editorial decisions that are perfectly defensible. And then everyone else in the media is giving their peers a tongue bath for pushing back on Barry Weiss. And meanwhile, they're championing somebody like Scott Pelly when he asks, Lulu Garcia Navarro, well, what polls? What, what evidence? You know, I asked what evidence is there that CBS News is less trusted? And it's like, you people are 10 years into the Trump phenomenon where the host of Celebrity Apprentice beat the former Secretary of State

when all of you said it wouldn't happen. It couldn't happen. Here it is, it happened. You botched Russia. You botched Kavanaugh. So many, I mean, just story after story, the Hunter Biden laptop story, just completely, flagrantly incorrect. And then not only are you lacking in fury over somebody making such a

significant mistake, it's exactly the kind of mistake that makes people say, what the hell is going on in these newsrooms, why do I trust anything that comes out of them, but then again, continuing to obfuscate in their excuse that you are championing. I mean, it is so insanely backwards. Yes, and it has become, you know, the media is supposed to be a conduit, right? We're supposed to the conduit between, you know, the institutions of power and the general public, right? And the problem is, is that the media itself has started to think of itself as an institution of power. And in that regard, like, they can't fail, they can only be failed. Like you mentioned Barry Weiss.

I remember it was a New York Times story or whatever, but, like, I read a story from a major news outlet where people, you know, some unsourced, you know, people at 60 minutes were complaining that Barry Weiss was engaging in editorial, interference. Yes. How do you engage in editorial interference when you are the freaking editor? Yeah. Like it's her job.

Yeah. I mean like it's just absolutely astonishing the ego of these people. Who said that what did they, they were mad that she injected into a CBS package that Renee Good moved moved the vehicle toward the officer who ultimately shot and killed Renee Good that she had accelerated toward, which by the way, if you saw the video, I mean, It's actually not a red gold, a blue gold dress story. You can see that in the video. Yes.

But I mean, look, you know, I don't care whether she did, you know, go in and tell these people to change what they were reporting. That's her job. Like, she is in the position of authority in that organization where, you know, she gets to edit and she gets to say these things. I mean, that's always been the way it is. And I'm sorry that your established institution doesn't get to tow a certain ideological line anymore, you know. And, you know, and again, it's not like Barry Weiss is towing a particular, you know, particularly dramatic ideological line either. I mean, you know, she is a center-left, you know, lesbian who I don't think trucks with, you know, hard right MAGA people. But the fact of the matter is, is the fact of the matter is not being able to say exactly what they want to say all the time and present it to the American people as gospel truth, having someone look over their shoulder and say, you know, in question their assumptions is too much for them. And then like, and that's fundamentally the problem here.

And this is fundamentally the problem this Nina Totenberg story. And it's like, well, if Nina Totenberg says it, I guess so. I guess we don't have to check this. Run it. You know, run it. And, you know, again, if you know anything about Nina Totenberg, her past, her history of partisanship, you know, and all these other things, she's exactly the kind. I'm not saying she hasn't broken major stories over the years.

I mean, she has, but she's also gotten a lot of stuff wrong. She's been very partisan and other things like that. I mean, you know, this is a huge story. Literally no one else was reporting it, you know. So this is exactly the kind of thing where you go back to the reporter and you say, hey, what's the story here? You know, what are your sources, whatever, you know, give me a good reason why we should rush this out.

And it doesn't appear that happened at all. In fact, the editors themselves don't appear to understand what's happening. It's like they're going back to Totenberg after the fact. Right. And being like, oh, what we said about how you got the story wrong is wrong. I mean, like, what on earth is happening there? I mean, you know, inmates are running the asylum over at NPR, but that's been the case for a long time, I think. Yeah, and actually, this is a great point.

The lack of curiosity among people who are now taking Totenberg's apology sincerely and just accepting it and congratulating NPR for handling this major misstep with class as the implication is from some of these posts, that tells you, if you're just a regular American, that really tells you everything you need to know about the failures of media and whether or not you should trust these quote-unquote mainstream media outlets because they are not even curious enough to poke holes. Some of them are. Brian Stelter has, as I mentioned, Matthew Keyes has, but if you're just uncritically accepting Totenberg's story and then congratulating her for issuing it and her outlet for issuing it, without any pause and saying none of this adds up, it doesn't make sense. That's the lack of curiosity that has basically destroyed the industry over the last 10 plus years particularly. Right. And it's not just a lack of curiosity. And we need to get right down to it. I mean, it's a lack of like standards. I mean, there used to be there was a certain way that things were done in the media and especially in the post-Trump world, like these things have all just been completely abandoned. You know, when I, you know, was in journalism school way back in the 90s,

you know, anonymous sourcing was incredibly rare. And there was a lot of discussion about where and when it was appropriate and stuff. And now it's just the order of the day. and no one questions anything about it. There was a major story in Trump's first term where there was, I think, a leaked email to CNN, where it was purportedly a WikiLeaks email released. Oh, yes, the Manu Raju report, right, where basically it showed that, you know, WikiLeaks had released a bunch of information that were of hacked Democratic emails. And there was an email purporting that WikiLeaks had sent this to Donald Trump Jr.

before it was public, right? And this is a big to-do in the Russia era because WikiLeaks has ties to Russian intelligence, yada, yada, yada, yada, and all that stuff was questionable. Well, as it turned out, CNN ran with a story. They ran with a story without seeing the email that purportedly sent. So it's literally like, trust me, bro. It appeared to come directly from the staff of Adam, California.

Adam Schiff's staff. And then what was crazy about the CNN story is that two other media outlets immediately confirmed the story, including NBC News and if it's someone else. And no one had seen. I think Kandalayan confirmed the Monorajus story. No one had seen the email. It turned out that the email had the people that leaked the quote unquote email or rather didn't leak the email and just gave CNN the information, misread the date on the email. So Donald Trump Jr. got the thing when this is all public or whatever. And like the whole thing was insane.

You have people, you can't confirm anonymous sources. And like, you know, this is journalism 101. And this is exactly what was going on. And then on top of that, they're reporting the contents of an email they had never seen. I remember talking to, oh my gosh, my 50-year-old brain here is really kicking in here. Press officer for George W. Bush, who's now in Fox. Ari Fleischer. Ari Fleischer, yes. Great guy. Sorry, Ari. I know who you are. Anyway, Ari Fleischer was telling me about, like, he worked for some congressional committee in the 90s, and they wanted to leak something to the press, and they tried to leak in the Wall Street Journal. And the Walser Journal was, we're not touching that until you actually give us the document.

And like, that's how it should be done. And Ari Fleischer was telling that story out of respect. Like, you know, you're dealing with the media or whatever. Like, if they're, you know, you're going to leak something. Like, they better, you know, know, know what they're doing. doing. And we're in this situation here where the idea that one 82 year old woman can just report something this dramatic and there's no apparent editorial oversight or, you know, demands for, you know, repartorial proof of any of this is just absolutely crazy. It's nuts. That should never, ever, ever, ever happen in a newsroom. And yet this kind of thing happens with absolute regularity in the last 10 or 15 years. It's absolutely appalling. And as, you know, citizens and consumers of media, we should be really upset and demand more. Right. Yep. But no, of course, it's always the reader, the viewer, the public's fault for not

trusting media, which is trusted in mass media is at a record low, tied at a record low, according to Gallup's annual statistics. We're going to take a quick break. There's much more where this comes from. We'll be back with Mark Hemingway in one moment. Well, what does it feel like when your clothes actually feel good? This summer, Cozy Earth makes a strong case that what you wear at home matters just as much as what you wear out, and maybe even more. The outfit that I live in, and I'm not exaggerating, is the brushed bamboo jogger set. It's made from viscos from bamboo. It's lightweight. It's breathable and it's unbelievably soft. I even bought my mom one as soon as I got mine. The fit is spot on. It's tapered yet relaxed

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for an exclusive 20% off. And if you see a post-purchase survey, mention that you heard about Cozy Earth right here. Comfort lives here. We're back with Mark Hemingway, senior investigative writer at Real Clear Investigations. And let's continue this conversation about media malfeasance, Mark,

because I was listening to NPR today. And they're reporting on the decision rendered yesterday by the Supreme Court on whether or not the laws in West Virginia and Idaho in particular regarding whether or not boys can play in girls' sports was upheld. Their reporting on it was outrageous, like just completely as though you were listening to MS now. I know that sounds like naive criticism of NPR, but it is sometimes stunning to imbib their content as you realize they're out there continuing to lecture everybody on their own lack of neutrality

and their reckless journalism and the like. We have soundbites here from NBC and ABC as well. with their reaction as the reports of the decision were coming out yesterday. Let's roll SOT 1. This is NBC. Just a quick note here. The terms that we're using here during our reporting, biological male, biological female, the High Court put those terms in quotations in their decision and their dissent. But just so you know, we're using those terms from the decision itself, biological male, biological female.

Just hearing that makes me want to go through the roof. But before we do that, Mark, let's roll ABC. There is not a speech that goes by where the president does not talk about transgender athletes. This is clearly a big win for him today. Yeah, Kira, rarely does a day go by here at the White House when the president doesn't rail against the participation of transgendered female athletes in girls and women's sports. The president really leaning in to this national debate. He feels this is a winning issue for him politically, and this is a win for him. The White House, in fact, has already taken to social media posting, in their words, quote, from now on women's sports will only be for women.

All right. And finally, control room, can we put actually the J.K. Rowling post up in this block? BBC reported with the headline, U.S. Supreme Court upholds bans on transgender women in female school and college sports. J.K. Rowling replied, you mean men? Men who claim to be women. You are a national broadcaster that consistently obfuscates facts around sex because you've taken in ideological position the public overwhelmingly rejects. This isn't news. It's propaganda. Again, it's like quaint to make that criticism of BBC at this point in 26. But Mark, we've seen the public polling on this go increasingly in one direction and in the correct direction in these cases. And to hear Craig Melvin, to hear Craig Melvin come out and say, we are using these terms. It was basically a trigger warning. We're using the terms that the Supreme Court use when actually the words that everybody should just be using is men and women. We don't even really need to say biological men and biological women because the majority of the country knows what the hell you're talking about. Yes. No, this is, yeah, it's absolutely infuriating. And as you point out, I mean, this is literally like an 80-20 issue in the country.

And, you know, in particularly in certain parts of the country, it's, you know, absolutely overwhelming, you know. And at the same time, you know, it's not like there's this epidemic of transgender violence and all these other things that they use as an excuse to hide behind. I mean, like, just the facts don't bear out that this is doing any sort of harm to people to use the correct terminology that we all used up until about, you know, five seconds ago in historical terms. There was a libertarian economist named Menker Olson who wrote a book called The Logic of Collective Action. It's like subtitles like Public Goods and the Theory of Groups in the 1960s, basically. And the book is really interesting, and one of the interesting things about it is that basically it makes the point that, you know, when it comes to issues of public policy, you have a situation here where highly energized minorities tend to run roughshod over even large majority. often and like this is sort of the knee plus ultra of this I mean this is just weaponized fanatical mental illness at this point in time and the fact that institutions like the media play along with

this you know again it goes back to this question that we were getting out a little bit before I'm like who do the media serve right you know uh you know are they the conduit between you know institutions of power and the public you know and then and are they meant to serve the public Or are they meant to uphold basically what are basically in this case bourgeois values that only apply to a select group of people and in fact do harm to a very large group of people, which in this case is the women of America. And yet at every turn, they're protecting this highly, you know, energized minority that is actively doing harm to a large majority. and it's just astonishing to me. Like it's a complete inversion of their responsibility as journalists. And I don't see them, you know, changing anytime soon.

It's just like, I don't know what it is possibly going to take. You know, and the other thing about it is it's also an extremely partisan line. The fact of the matter is, is that the Democratic Party, regardless of whether their own voters are invested in this. And polls show that the vast majority of Democratic voters, don't want men and women's sports. 67% was the latest poll I saw. Yes. That's among Democrats.

And yet, you know, I see a tweet from Elizabeth Warren recently saying, this is disgusting. The Trump administration is, quote, targeting, you know, transgender people. It's like, again, complete inversion of reality. At every point in time, we have the transgender people that are the aggressors. They're the ones demanding admission into female spaces, bathroom, sports teams, whatever, you know, shelters. I mean, whatever it is. It's just absolute insanity. Prisons. And, you know, they're the aggressors here. They're the ones that are demanding accommodation. They're the ones that are doing

harm by doing this. And somehow they're being targeted in this vision. And the media plays along with it. And it is completely the wrong frame. And J.K. Rowling is absolutely right. It is pure propaganda and they refuse to see it as such. Meanwhile, every criticism of transgender people, valid or not, is considered propaganda by the media. It's, again, an inversion of reality. Well, it's also just amazing this far into the, like, grand gender experiment that was run on children for years to see what... You may remember this book. A Coulter dropped a book.

It's like 2007 or eight called Guilty, and I think the subheading was liberal victims and their assaults on a... America, something like that. And her point was that the left selects victims that then the media will borrow the framing of. And when you look at the trans issue, it's probably the most clear example of how that fails. Like choosing one victim over other victims can often fail Democrats, fails politically, although Melak Kuros, who's just elected, will probably be the seventh DSA line member in Congress, just won the nomination in Colorado's first district. on Tuesday has put forward a Trans Bill of Rights. Some of these DSA candidates,

ascendant candidates who have won in recent weeks have reacted to this decision with opprobrium. No real surprise there. Probably Peggy Flanagan is going to win the race in Minnesota to replace Tim Walls. So the party actually is continuing to kind of cling to this. Seth Moulton famously walked back what he said.

Gavin Newsom famously walked back what he said, all in the face of the public rejecting it. Because they have a really hard time. I'm letting go of the original narrative they said. Well, again, you know, it goes back to this situation here where you have, you know, organized minorities, you know, that are running counter to the majority here, you know, at the same time, yes, you see people doing this in Minneapolis and you see DSA candidates in heavily urban areas doing this. But how is this going to play out nationally?

For instance, Kamala Harris got absolutely slaughtered on this issue when she ran for president. Like everyone admits those, you know, Kamala is for they, them, Trump is for you ads, or whatever, just destroyed her. Like, I don't see this being an issue that plays out nationally. And you have this situation here where Democrats are constantly caught between a rock and a hard place where they are beholden to all of these, you know, radical minorities and radical issues right up until the point that, you know, they aren't. I mean, you know, remember how I just saw a thing today where, um, climate change groups are going after progressive Democrats now because all they talk about is Palestine or they talk about affordability, but they're not talking about

how climate change is making things more expensive. Like the Democrats just discarded kind of climate change because it ceased to be a losing issue. I don't know if this is going to happen with the transgender thing, but it takes a while to sort of get to that point. And the point is going to be whether or not this proves to be a liability in an international political environment. And the DSA thing is really interesting because it's really testing that hypothesis.

Like right now, for instance, you know, the two latest polls have Graham Platin are either barely leading above Susan Collins in Maine in the New York Times poll. Or the Fox poll where Susan Collins is slightly ahead. And mind you, if you've looked at Susan Collins' last couple of Senate elections, she's notorious for over-polling. Like, you know, I think it was like, you know, she was like, she pulled eight points. She was like her actual victory was eight points ahead of what her polling average was. Under polling, right, yeah. Yeah, sorry. She overperforms her polling averages and things like that.

So, you know, right. I mean, this radical DSA stuff might work well, you know, in a New York City congressional primary. It might even work well in the Denver suburbs where, you know, everybody is, you know, more liberal. But when it comes to having to win a large electorate, it might well be toxic. And if I were a Democrat right now, trying to figure out where to land on this stuff, it's, I mean, I'm not saying the DSA folks can't pull this out, you know, maybe over time, whatever, they will drag the whole base left. But for now, it just seems like the party has been drifting steadily left. I mean, there was another poll that came out today, I think, on the Senate battlegrounds, like the eight Senate battleground states or whatever it is. and something like only 8% of,

I remember some overwhelming majority thinks the Democratic Party is too radical. And like this is going to be a problem for them. And the transgender issue is like just ground zero for this. Yeah. And it's, and it's, go ahead. What are they doing? Right. And it's a lesser than two evil,

a lesser of two evils election. So Republicans are also perfectly capable of botching races to super radical candidates. Platner is, he tries to talk about it as a distraction. He actually tries to downplay it. Probably one of the better Dem responses on the issue. It's a big issue in Maine. But Mamdani also barely talks about it. Also kind of muted on the issue relative to where people were in 2020

and relative where the new crop is on this too. Actually, let's continue with this theme. And I want to show a little bit from Seattle Pride on Sunday. We can't even show you this full thing. I think it, yeah, here you go. We can't even show the full thing on air. because it's so explicit, but please take note of the children around the area. What we don't want to show is the up-close nudity, because there was plenty of that.

But I'm reading a little here from Fox News's reporting. Seattle's LGBT Pride Parade on Sunday descended into Bedlam as attendees stripped off their clothes and marched the streets naked while children looked on. One video filmed by Chloe Cole, who is a very brave detransitioner, posted by frontlines of Turning Point USA, shows people from a group called Friends of Denny Blaine, March. in the nudes. Some onlookers clapped and cheered while the video panned to young children watching the spectacle. Another video shows naked people prancing around an outdoor fountain near children who are playing in the water. One thing we've covered here over the course of June is Andrew Sullivan

and some others reacting to polling declines for basically the entire LGBT issues or the spectrum of LGBT ideology, meaning we've seen polls on the morality. of same-sex relationships and same-sex marriage, two of the most critical issues, if you are an LGBT activist like Andrew Sullivan, who fought for marriage equality, as he would put it, and for people to believe in the morality of same-sex relationships, that's declining among everyone, slight decline among Democrats, decent decline among independents, decently significant, and decently significant decline among Republicans, a huge decline among Republicans, actually. And I just wanted to also read from Julie Bendell, who is also

gay like Sullivan reacting to some of this in Compact magazine today. Bendell wrote, New York City Pride June 2026, a sea of men wearing Call Me Daddy T-shirts, pushing strollers, carrying babies in gay subcultures. A daddy describes a dominant, authoritative figure who's often paired with a twink, a much younger, slight boy-like male as a sexual partner over in Seattle, fully nude male bicyclists rode past children with their genitalia on full display. Pride in Salt Lake City was teeming with men dressed as slutty women, while others dressed up in animal costumes, flaunted their pop fetishes. Minneapolis just lifted its 1988 ban

on bathhouses to commemorate the holy season of pride. The ban had been put in place in the early 1980s. Bindal writes during the AIDS crisis to reduce high risk anonymous sex. And Mark, this is basically, you're a Pacific Northwesterner, so you've seen the excesses of like granola progressivism for many years, especially on the cultural front. Like the socialism question is different when it's extricated economics from the cultural stuff. We could get into that too. But basically, this is just to say, it's on a silver platter for Democrats now to realize

they have a problem. Because when the public is seeing children around nudity in the name of pride, the public is going to reject that. And that rejection is going to start trickling into the movement more broadly. Sullivan has pointed out that most people who look at this polling,

or who are included in this polling, also believe in, protections for adults who believe they're transgender and want different rights based on being transgender. But this stuff is destroying their own cause and they're so blinded and dug in. They can't see it. Is it though? I mean, oh, interesting. I mean, uh, the onion back when it was funny and people cared about it ran one of their more,

more notorious headlines was great gay pride parade sets mainstream acceptance of gays back 50 years. And it was all a joke about how you go to a gay pride parade and you see a bunch of men writing a paper mache phallis and, you know, wearing leather fetish gear or whatever. And this is supposedly celebrating their culture. And isn't that, you know, ridiculous and horrifying, which that was the joke 25 years ago. And yet look at how gay rights have moved on, you know, in the 25 years since then. You know, that was, you know, probably right around the era of Will and Grace or whatever. And then the next thing you know, we've got a Bergerfell and all these other things. I just don't know.

Like, it is really insane to me that we have this situation here where, like, as I've gotten older, I've gotten sort of borderline conspiratorial about this in the sense that, you know, the last thing that the government can control, basically, is what you say to your children when you tuck them in to bed at night. And it is, you know, there's a long body of literature on the left. And, you know, storied history on communist countries about, you know, doing what you can to break up the nuclear family because that is the last bulwark of authority that, you know, is between, you know, the state and the ultimate control over someone, right? It's the family unit. And again, I don't want to sound like paranoid about this. You know, I know plenty of gay guys that reject all this stuff outright, you know, and certainly don't behave this way and will tell you. they find this behavior among gay people appalling. But it is also true that there is an effort being put forward by like very progressive

politicians like what happened in Minnesota. We're like, let's open bath houses. Never mind that like we all know that like these are public anonymous sex areas, which is a public health threat and it always has been. I remember like there was a debate some years back in D.C. about this because there's a big problem with cruising in the parks in D.C., men having anonymous sex at night in public parks. And they were like, well, we don't want to condemn this because it's part of gay people's culture. I'm sorry, if your culture is to have a sex with someone you don't know,

there is something horribly wrong with your culture and we have every right as a society to stop this from becoming a public health threat, never mind all the other problems that are downstream from that in terms of, you know, social cohesion and things like that. Yeah. You know, and doing that is not at odds with, you know, basic freedoms, you know, in terms of like, I don't think the government should be necessarily kicking down people's, you know, doors to ask who they're having sex with. But at the same time, you know, when you engage in risky behavior that, you know, does things like lead to outbreaks of things like monkeypox,

which was this inherently gay thing. And like, we're just now learning. Like, I was raised in the 80s and 90s or whatever. And like basically, like, we're just now learning that everything I was told about AIDS growing up was complete propaganda. Like, it's very hard to get AIDS. from unprotected sex if you're heterosexual and you know engaged in typical male female sexual acts. It's like really hard. Anal sex on the other hand, different story.

But they weren't saying that because they didn't want you to demonize gay people or whatever. But the fact of the matter is, is, you know, how much that helped to not tell the truth about these sorts of things? How much does it help the gay population to say, go have anonymous sex in bathhouses, even though you might get a disease that can ruin your life? Like at what point? we, you know, actually, you know, tell these people no. And I think this is part of the thing where to the extent we are seeing a rollback of people post-a-Fel looking at this and going, whoa, whoa, whoa, maybe this is moving too far too fast. It's because we've been propagandized on these issues. We're

not having open and honest conversations about, you know, what being gay in society means. Like, look, probably two to three percent of the population has been gay since time memorial, right? Yeah, of whatever reason. It seems to be unlike, say, transgenderism, which, by the way, is a very novel memetic ideology from what I can tell being spread by the internet. Being gay is something that is kind of endemic to the human condition. We can have all kinds of conversations about why that is or whether it's biologic or this, but it's been with us for a very long time. So I think that we can accept that, you know, and accept that there's going to be gay people in society and then have honest conversations about what that means and how gay people can, you know,

flourish, you know, while still not causing active harm to themselves and the rest of broader society. And it needs to be a conversation that we need to have honestly. And we haven't been having it my entire life. Yeah, your point about the broad history, or the bad history, I should say, reminded me of the Matthew Shepard case. The bad history that often gets pulled in the propaganda. Billy Binion did a great story on this at Reason a couple of years ago. headline here is Matthew Shepard's murder was almost certainly not an anti-gay hate crime, but that is another example of history that we've imbibed en masse. This is mainstream historical fact that is also just clearly propaganda, the more that you

poke holes into it. So, Mark, I think that's, you know, the last year DC hosted World Pride. And so they tried to close the DuPont Circle Fountain because there'd been violence and pandemonium at the fountain in years past. gay activists fought to get it reopened. That is a place that had a history of cruising. They said it was very important to the gay community. Well, they reopened the fountain and people got hurt.

There was a shooting like a block away. It was a gathering space. So it's just so sad. It's often so sad to see this. Yeah, no, I think so. And like, again, you can be gay without participating in this kind of gay culture. I mean, like, there's nothing that says that you have to, you know, be having lots of anonymous sex.

with men, you know, in a way that is dangerous. And, you know, I think we have an obligation to be honest about, you know, when people are engaged in cultural habits that are unhealthy. And the thing is, is, again, this isn't even a gay thing. I mean, if you look at what's happening in terms of the cultural attitudes in certain parts of the country with homeless people, for instance. Oh, it's totally fine to be on the streets and, you know, do injectable drugs. You know, that's their lifestyle choice.

Or anonymous straight sex. Right. Correct. of culture for yeah correct yes um you know and like we are we as a society have become very afraid to tell people this is safe this is not safe this is moral this is not moral and we need to be doing that you know a lot more often um you know um and there's a whole bunch of forces that are pushing to do this less and less and it's just clearly not good for us it's not good for you know any number of things and most of all it harms the people that are supposedly the beneficiaries of this.

I don't think this is helping gay people to be honest, to be dishonest about this stuff and open bathhouses. That's not helping the gay community. I want to get to this Caitlin Clark story because Kurtz Hook over at the Media Research Center flagged Good Morning America's report on the fallout from that Alyssa Thomas suspension, if people haven't seen this video yet, it is just a clear punch to the third.

throat basically while Caitlin Clark has spined on the court down on the ground on her back, Alyssa Thomas seems to very intentionally punch Caitlin Clark in the throat. Well, actually, punch might not be the best way to put it. It tries to basically help herself up from the ground by pushing into Caitlin Clark's throat in a way that looks like a punch. But this was Good Morning America's report on the backlash that Alyssa Thomas is getting, some of which, of course, by the is ugly and bigoted and racist. Most people who are reacting to this Alyssa Thomas penalty are saying, what the F?

Why does this keep happening? Why are people not protecting Caitlin Clark? This is egregious. This is flagrant. This is disgusting. Here's how Good Morning America covered it. There's a difference between trolling and there's a difference between hatred and that's the hatred that we're experiencing over a play that honestly was a complete accident.

Just a complete accident. Roberts basically uncritically accepted that framing. Now let's turn to Indiana fever coach, Stephanie White, Caitlin Clark's coach, also reacting to the hate against Alyssa Thomas. Before we start with questions, you know, I just want to address, you know, what's going on with AT. You know, I think first and foremost, it's absolutely unacceptable. You know, I think as a league, as a whole, there's been so much more toxicity,

racism, homophobia, straight out, like nonsense, hate nonsense. And it is absolutely unacceptable. Most of this coming from the online community, most of this, you know, in my heart of hearts, I believe not coming from WNBA fans, Indiana fever fans. You know, I believe that this is people who are using our league, using our players to further divisive agendas. It's not acceptable. Yes.

Okay. Now, on the other hand, Sophie Cunningham, famously Caitlin Clark's teammate slash protector has a podcast where she reacted as well. She's been going massively viral for her fingerpoint. I think she was pointing at Alyssa Thomas for like 20 seconds. It was poetic in a way. Here's how Sophie Cunningham responded. Well, so during real time last night, I did not see that happen. And like, I don't, none of our teams. all happened because I promise you if that we would have seen that happen we would have had her back unfortunately this type of shit happens every single game to her and the league and the refs do absolutely nothing about it yeah yes because it keeps happening over and over again Thomas was originally suspended I think for just one game and then that was brought in out I'm reading here from CBS news who CBS news reports that it was this is the this is the coach Stephanie White, you heard this, absolutely unacceptable. White wasn't even asked that question, by the way,

White decided you saw this in the video just to address it before getting questions, like just leaning into making this very sanctimonious stand on behalf of Alyssa Thomas to call out, quote, toxicity, racism, homophobia from the online community, people who are not WNBA fans, which includes the vast majority of Americans, Mark. But most people did see this story and said, But is that how could you possibly allow that to happen and just go with a one-game suspension? This is insane. And something even worse is going to happen to Caitlin Clark.

Yeah, it's really, I mean, I don't even know what to say. Which is also truly bizarre because, you know, Caitlin Clark is the WNBA's golden goose. It's been around forever. It's been hemorrhaging money. No one cared about it. And that all of a sudden she comes along. And in fairness to Caitlin Clark, I think it's pretty obvious. she is the greatest female basketball player of all time.

I mean, you know, it's just, I mean, her college record and everything was just, you know, unbelievable. I mean, just in terms of pure stats, you know, I know that she struggled when a championship, but in terms of pure stats is just unbelievable. It is, she's the golden goose for the WNBA in terms of like, I forget what insane percentage of WNBA jerseys are either Caitlin Clark or, or Sophie Cunningham. It's like 70 some percent or something. Clearly, she's the only reason why anyone really cares about the league.

So when they say, I don't think this is WNBA fans, are they referring to like the 5% of people currently watching WNBA games that were watching them before Caitlin Clark? I mean, like, because the vast majority of fans that are watching the WMBA in the last couple of years are there because they're tuning in for Caitlin Clark. And again, I don't understand this and I don't understand how it's happening. you know, again, just for like the financial incentives for the league, let's say Caitlin Clark gets seriously injured and like, you know, has to hang it up or whatever. Like, what is that going to do to the league and its finances, for instance?

Yeah, well, but this also goes with what we've been talking about all night mark, which is these institutions that have come to be dominated by what used to be called like wokeness. And that's sort of been subliminated, whatever we want to call it, or muted. But these institutions are still clinging to it, including obviously the WMBA. That's no surprise to anybody. But I think also Good Morning America, which framed this entire incident with really a heavy emphasis on the pushback Alyssa Thomas was getting. They referred as did multiple media outlets to, oh, it was such funny or well-y phrasing. I wish I had it in front of me. But something to the extent of like, oh, yeah, here it is.

This is from CBS News. Thomas recently served a one-game suspension because, quote, her hand-made contact with Clark's throat during the first half of their game on June 24th. That's from CBS. ABC did a very similar turn of phrase that are clinging to this incessantly. Yes. And I think part of there's a lot of, there's a lot happening here, and it is a very loaded issue. I mean, like, I do think race has something to do with this. And it's race in a way that people don't want to talk about. I think that there's a lot of people in this league that have trouble dealing with a few. fact that the greatest female basketball player to date is a white girl. You know, and this is a league that has been dominated by black women and, you know, has had a lot of great black women players or

whatever. You know, this shouldn't be an issue, but I mean, I do think that there is an element of race that is coming in here. And I don't think people are crazy to, you know, talk about that. I mean, I've seen racism against Caitlin Clark online myself. I mean, this is a thing that people are out there saying. But that doesn't get covered on. Good Morning America. Of course, that does not get covered on Good Morning America because that is a very difficult and awkward way to, you know, very difficult and awkward thing to have a conversation about, but it is nonetheless real.

I mean, you know, racism sometimes runs in the other direction, even if historically it has been much worse than the other direction. But it is something that I do think we have to acknowledge. I also think that there's just something about basketball in this sense. I played basketball when I was younger and I like basketball a lot. I have not been able to watch the NBA for a long time now, just because it has become a basically a lot of preening and just sheer athleticism has taken precedence over the game itself. People don't run plays anymore and other things like that.

And one of the reasons why I used to love watching girls college ball was because girls didn't, weren't, you know, six foot 10 and couldn't dunk from the free throw line. So that meant they had to be much more artful about passing and running. plays and things like that and it made the sport very sort of interesting to watch and the WNBA in a weird way it's their branding has all been like we're going to be the NBA but female and I think that's kind of the wrong approach to things I mean Caitlin Clark's great strengths as a player she's a passer and she's an excellent shooter and a lot of what's gone on in the NBA with WMBA with like Angel Reese and other

things like that is like there's a lot of like brawling in the pain like they're men or there's a lot of like trying to meekly dunk because there are some tall women and stuff and it just doesn't come off very well and that same sort of like you know male you know you know pushing each other around and getting in their faces and you know doesn't translate well to female spaces like men learn from a very early age playing sports there's kind of a ritual to certain kinds of violence right if you've you've ever on a football team or whatever like you're allowed to do certain things in certain circumstances that are, you know, maybe not the greatest thing or maybe the most, like, you know, sportsman-like thing, but it's understood that that guy had it coming or whatever. But there are rules and all these things that you're built up surrounding this because men kind of instinctively know that they can really hurt each other if they're not careful about how they engage in this ritualized violence. I don't know if women quite have these same sense of rituals in terms of how violence could

and should be approached in these situations. And it just tends to like when women actually get to the point of physical violence, there's not a lot of breaks. You know what I'm saying? Mentally. Like women typically don't get as violent as men, but when you put them in a situation when you encourage them to be physically violent, they don't have the the ability to dial it down swiftly when they need to. It's very personal. And they don't need to, they don't know that only go this far, but, you know, maybe pull your punch a little. And I think that's partly what's going on if I can just add another horribly, politically, incorrect and possibly sexist take to this.

But I think that that's, you know, I've got two daughters and like this is kind of my observation about how these things are handled among women. And I'm not sure encouraging women to be gladiators is good for, good for anybody. You know, I'd like to see them run plays. And I'd like to see them, you know, be, you know, good shooters. and I'd like to see them, you know, do the sport more elegantly than men because I think they can do that. I had a terrible temper on the basketball court, but I'd never thought about it this way, Mark. So now you're just like changing the way that I see my childhood.

Before you read, I did want to get your reaction to this. Again, the theme of the show is how so many of our institutions are clinging to unpopular cultural progressivism, despite public backlash, despite the experiments failing, the Biden border experiments, failed in front of everyone's face, as Mark Kelly is now admitting in 2026, and some Democrats are now admitting in 2026. Meanwhile, you do have people like Milak Keros, Valdez, Chevalier, El-Said running on DSA-Aligned, hashtag abolish ICE platforms. And on top of that, it's really not clear what they would change about the Trump policy from the Biden policy, right? If a Democrat gets in office, you have Democrat congressional control, what is their plan? because this was similar with Biden, who was saying, we need border control.

And then basically maybe because he was senile or maybe because he was really being controlled by ideologues had so little border control because the magnet policies were just wildly abundant. We're not being reigned in for years. We had the largest immigration surge in American history according to the New York Times. Meanwhile, real people are suffering because of this. And the media is still giving it so little attention. just searched the name of Jessica Gorman in Google News to see how much coverage Jessica Gorman had got after testifying in front of the House Judiciary Committee yesterday about her daughter Sheridan Gorman, 18 years old, who was walking with friends, quote, this is according

to CBS News, near the pier at Toby Prince Beach at Pratt Boulevard shortly after 1 a.m. Thursday, May 19th, when Gorman told her friends she saw someone hiding behind the lighthouse. Medina, Jose Medina, was a Venezuelan national who was in the U.S. illegally. During a hearing before a U.S. House Judiciary Committee on Sanctuary Policies, Jessica Gorman described her daughter as the girl who always waited for others on her grade school's body bench. She asked lawmakers to sit together on a bench to work this out. She said, I challenge you all to sit down with me, take my hand, look me in the eye, and then explain to me because I just don't understand. Explain why people here illegally matter more than your American citizens. Explain why sanctuary policies matter more than my Sheridan's life.

We have a clip of it. Let's take a listen. If you have the courage, please come talk to me. sit on that bench, I'll buy Congress a bench. Talk to each other. Talk to each other. We shouldn't be screaming across the room. I mean, we also shouldn't say but, because I have to just say, and I understand that you're here for a reason, I don't understand why it's only the Republican side that cares about our American children. And I know that you're a mother. I know that you're a father. I deeply value that. But basically what you just did, what you said was, I'm so sorry for your loss. I have a

daughter too. I have a son. I feel your pain. You don't. You don't feel my pain. Because the next words out of your mouth were, but, there's no but when your child is in a coffin. There's no but. And I need you to understand that. And if you ever want to talk about it, I'm here, I'm going to buy you a bench. I'm going to buy, I can put that on the record. I'm going to buy Congress the bench. And they can come and sit and hold my hand and look me in the eye and explain to me why illegal immigrants are more important than my. my daughter. I really want to know what because I don't understand. Please, I welcome you. I will listen. I will listen. I care. I care. I just need you to explain it to me because I don't and nor and I fear I will never understand. I don't think she will. She also said we're in Chicago getting ready to claim my daughter's body and the mayor there is naming a truck abolish ice standing and laughing and joking while my daughter was just murdered there. Mark, no, basically no coverage of this.

unbelievable. It's if this were just getting back to our like liberal victim conversation, it's a, it's really a perfect victim for the media to latch onto, right? It's a cynical and awful thing to say, but we see them do it in the other direction all of the time. And yet with this, they won't touch it. Yeah. I mean, I don't even know what to say. And the thing is, is there are dozens and dozens of people that are in this woman's situation. I mean, there are, you know, a big part of the problem of having an open borders, it wasn't just that we were letting in illegal immigrants. I mean, we're letting in people without any vetting whatsoever.

I mean, we're letting in people that were criminals, you know, part of transnational gangs, you know, terrorists, you know, people that were, you know, came here explicitly to do harm. In addition to, you know, the guy that came here just to, you know, do, you know, mow lawns or whatever. And everyone likes to pretend that, you know, well, you see these stats thrown out about, oh, you know, the Cato Institute will try and tell you constantly that, you know, the average immigrant or whatever has, you know, is less likely to be a criminal than the average, you know, American citizen. Well, I don't know if I trust their methodology, given how motivated they have been on this issue to begin with. But even if that were true, that's no excuse for letting any sort of criminal into the United States unbedded. And we've seen this happen again and again and again and again. And this is the thing where it's like, I don't know how you don't get conspiratorial about this. Like, you know, the rational explanation for why they're doing this is that they're trying to import democratic voters.

The irrational explanation is that they have some sort of like weird complex where they truly, believe that every downtrod in person in the in the in the in the in the in the in the world is entitled to arrive in in in u.s. on u.s. soil and make a life here regardless of what it does to the existing people and whether or not they suffer as a result and neither of those explanations are particularly acceptable and it's just absolutely horrifying to contemplate that this is what's been happening but it's what's been happening yeah and it's amazing to see the abolish ice platforms i mean abolish ice is actually more popular post-M Minneapolis than it has been, even since it wasn't the first Trump administration. So they feel like they've got some juice and some momentum. And in some ways,

they do have an advantage because the media basically will ignore Jessica Gorman. But at the same time, when you have to sell that if Abdul El-Sayed wins the Democratic primary in Michigan, he's kind of take that message statewide. And I think that's actually not going to be as easy as some of them think it is. No, I don't think so either. I mean, I think that it's not quite as bad as, you know, you know, defund the police, but it's, it's pretty, pretty bad. I mean, part of the problem here, though, is it's to what extent the people that are in favor of abolish ICE want to abolish ICE because they are under the impression that it has become a uniquely bad law enforcement organization that acts poorly and they're acting as sort of Trump's personal, you know, jackboots

versus the number of people that want to actually abolish all, you know, immigration controls and think we should have open borders. Like the latter is obviously, I think, going to be very unpopular, but the thing is, is I have bad news. I mean, this is the exact position of, was it Chevalier, whatever her name is, the woman who just won the Democratic primary in New York. And she literally wants to abolish borders. So you can't, if you're a voter trust that abolish ICE means, oh, we're just going to reform the agency and or create a new agency that handles border control that isn't as, you know, Trumpy and violent as I think what's going on right now. But at the same time, The other issue here is that, you know, Joe Biden led in, you know, at least 10 million illegal

immigrants here in the span of a few years. I mean, it was just absolute insanity or whatever. And, again, a lot of these people are very bad people. A lot of, you know, are criminals. And, you know, ICE has been prioritizing the criminals and the very bad people. And what did people think it was going to be like when we led a whole bunch of, you know, criminals and bad people into the country? And we had to send law enforcement in to arrest these people.

Did they think that this was going to be a very polite and orderly thing to do? This is why you don't let it out of control in the first place. I don't like the idea that ICE is running around en masse and whatever having to do this either, but I think it's very necessary because of situations like this woman, you know, this poor, you know, mother, you know, highlights. But, you know, if you didn't want to see ICE going around, you know, violently arresting people, well, you shouldn't have let a lot of violent people into the country unvetted. And that's exactly what the last Democratic administration did. I mean, it was always going to be this way.

And I'm sorry that people are having to deal with the reality now. But unfortunately, ICE has a very difficult and ugly job to do, but it's got to be done or else more people are going to die. Before I let you run, Mark, I lied. I do have one more story. People might not know this. If you read the Federalist, you know this. Mark is a wonderful music critic. And I wanted to get your take on viral, like, TikTok sensation is probably.

probably a good way to describe him, Brian Andrews, whose stick is being a leftist country music singer. I went to Andrew's website. He's gone viral just over the last year a couple of times, but he's got a new single coming out. His website, on his website, he's described as, part of a new generation of country artists bringing authenticity back to the forefront,

rooted in traditional storytelling, yet driven by a modern edge, he believes history will be written through art. Goes on to say, before stepping fully to music. He spent four and a half years working as a pipe welder living the blue collar life. He now sings about the early morning, long hours, and callous hands shaped both his work ethic and his perspective. That foundation shows up in every lyric and every stage he steps onto. His voice and perspective had landed him across major media platforms from Rolling Stone to Don Lemon.

Let's take a listen here. I vote the same color as my collar because I know it ain't the immigrant stealing my dollar. Unless I guess you're on your deathbed and unless I guess you're on your deathbed and I think that's the song that's coming out on Friday. Do we have another clip, guys? It's fish. Same song, yep. Okay, we can get out of it.

It's the same thing, but just to show he's making a point of fishing. And by the way, it is the, what does he say? I know it's not the immigrants stealing my dollar. Well, of course, there's a lot of pressure put on low income, income earners by immigration. You don't need to be a genius. You know that. Bernie Sanders believed that for a long, long time. And it's true. It's just true. Supply and demand. So anyway, Mark, I do want to get your take out of it because it's funny to see folks like Don Lemon rally around a dude. He was on MS Now, I saw recently, rally around a dude who you

know they have nothing but contempt for. They're like, you are dirty. You are probably dumb. Everyone around you is probably gross, but because you are anti-Maga, we're giving you a platform and you're going to be our little play thing. Like, he's being used by them. So obviously, because he's undermining the elite narratives, by the way, that hurt blue-collar workers. Yeah. Well, I mean, look, as a general rule, art should not be explicitly partisan or political in this way. And generally, the more it goes in that direction, sort of the worse it becomes. You know, this isn't particularly great, you know, on a musical level, never mind, you know, we get into the problems with the lyrics. It's kind of low-rent stuff, but hey, this guy is getting attention.

He'll probably book some gigs or whatever. It may even get a record contract out of it. So, you know, look, more power to him, I guess. But I don't know, it's like ever since Democrats realize that they just have, like, completely alienated rural America. they've been obsessed with this sort of like white whale of like, well, what do we got to do to appeal to these people or whatever? And it's, you know, stop being, you know, elitist, you know, crazy people that think that men can become women, you know, is not an acceptable answer. I mean, this is what's driving. This is what's driving.

He's the musical Tala Rico. Exactly. This is what's driving the grand platinum phenomenon as well. I mean, like, grand platinum is a rich person's idea of a poor person, which is to say that he's actually a rich person. You know, I mean, it's just such cosplay. And the thing is, say what you want about the country music audience, the audience itself is still, I think, invested to some degree in authenticity. There's been a very interesting thing that's been going on in recent years where country music has exploded in popularity. And rock music, which had been moribund for a long time, has been not at the level of country as, you know, but it's been rising in popularity.

In the same time, I think for the first time ever just in the last couple weeks, there wasn't a single hip-hop song in the entire. hot 100, which is just, you know, crazy to think about. I think, you know, music listeners in general are looking for more authenticity at this particular moment. And that manifests itself in weird ways. You know, I'm not sure Olivia Rodriguez is the mother of Sabrina Carpenter and the most authentic artists or whatever. But, you know, things that are explicitly designed to capture an audience this way, I don't think are destined to succeed. Although I will say that there's a whole other subtext here, which is if you pay really close attention what's happened to the music industry in Nashville in particular, what happened is, is like the music industry in both L.A. and New York

just has died off to a large extent in the last few decades or whatever. And it's all collapsed on Nashville. So it's interesting. So like, you know, a lot of the rock star, the rock music scene is in Nashville now. You know, a lot of the songwriting stuff that was in New York or whatever is it's all in Nashville. And so you've had people from the traditional music industry, which were much more liberal, all descending on Nashville in the last few decades, which had historically been a much more conservative place politically in terms of people in the industry. And there's definitely a lot of angst in the music industry about liberal music industry people that have descended on Nashville in the last 20 years and having to deal with the fact

there are still elements of that industry that are very politically conservative, even if they don't necessarily always go out and advertise it. And there's a lot of wailing and gnashing and teeth about that. New York Times did a big profile of, I forget, some gay country singer-songwriter a couple of years ago that really delved into a lot of these issues. Yeah, I mean, I actually, like, I'm not a total hater on the hicklubs. I think some of them make good music, like Sturgeoner and Tyler Childers, like they're capable when they veer into two. Jason Isbell has got to stop appearing on MS now or whatever. It's awful.

Yeah. But it's just like so. obvious that they're using him as a little play thing. They don't really know people who fish. And man, it's just like, it's another thing that's kind of sad to see. Mark, anyway, you have been so generous with your time tonight. I kept your extra long because I was having extra fun. Thanks so much, Mark. Glad to be here anytime. Oh, really appreciate it. All right, well, we will take Mark up on that and we will have him back anytime. You just wait and see. All right, we're going to take a quick break.

and I'm going to go rogue with a segment on the other side of this break because there's something on my mind I want to get off my mind, so stick around. This summer, if you want real results, so think better gut health, glowing skin, stronger hair, and steady energy, start with colostrum. When your gut is balanced, everything else improves. Today's sponsor, Cowboy Colostrum offers premium bovine colostrum sourced entirely from American grass-fed cows and made in the USA. Unlike many brands, it uses true first-day,

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cowboy colostrum.com slash afterparty and use code afterparty at checkout. That's 25% off when you use code afterparty at cowboy colostrum.com slash after party. All right, as promised, I'm going to go rogue as we wrap up this edition. this evening's pre-America 250 edition of after party, happy hours on Friday. Stay tuned for that. But this article from Fox News was on my mind. I was reading it right before we went to air earlier this evening. And it talks about there are a couple of things happening simultaneously in the news cycle right now

that I don't think you're getting enough attention, but especially if you can combine them all together. We've been ragging on Dems a lot this episode, actually a lot the last couple of episodes because I happen to be very interested in some of these significant cultural problems. But I think there's a lot, obviously, I mean, it's not just me thinking this. I think there's a lot going on the country would agree on that's troubling. Or many people in the country would agree on is troubling with the Trump administration as well. Maybe you disagree.

Totally fine. I understand. I'm going to try to keep everything in complete perspective here. But the headline on this Fox News article from the Supreme Monday is Congress's eyes rare bipartisan housing win with or without Trump's help. Now, this is about the 21st Century Road to Housing Act. It will, just to be clear, pass automatically if Trump doesn't do anything for the next 10 days, he could veto it. He could sign it, but it has been passed by the House.

It's been passed by the Senate. And it is bipartisan. It's not like super wishy-washy bipartisan either, but it's usually what bipartisan signature legislation is. This was really written by Tim Scott and Elizabeth Warren, a very interesting pair to say the lease, it is far from a perfect bill. It does ban large institutional investors from owning certain number of homes. There's all kinds of numbers that go along with it, in particular, that go along with it. The industry did fight and probably successfully watered it down to some extent. They were like congratulating Maxine Waters for helping water down the bill on the outside.

And again, like I said, it's not a perfect bill. It's a complicated problem with complicated solutions, obviously, but helps to handle some of those supply side concerns about housing construction and the like. And then also, listen, it's true that institutional homeownership, you know, from some of these big financial firms is relatively small overall. But the problem that's much more worth focusing on is that in certain pockets like the Atlanta area, it is concentrated enough to make a really big deal for people who are in their 20s and 30s. and trying to buy a home, maybe to propose, maybe to then start having children.

Once they've proposed, it's sort of part of the American psychology of the dream, right? The psychology of the American dream really does involve homeownership. And then we see that rightfully or wrongfully, just as a stepping stone to the rest. And for obvious reasons, by the way, too, that like it's hard to have families and apartments.

It's even hard to have two people living in apartments, and especially affordably so, especially when people are saddled with so much student loan debt because of all the subsidies we've poured into higher education for a long time. But the president has now decided he's not going to sign the bill unless the Save America Act is passed. Now, what Senate Republicans have done when it comes to the Save America Act is frankly shameful. It is inexcusable and stupid. The president is perfectly within reason to be very frustrating.

by the way, Senate Republicans, some of whom are from red states are obstructing passage of the Save America Act. The Daily Caller reported recently, John Thune said there are just some senators who hate Trump so much. They're not going to vote for the Safe America Act. So it's not as though Thune is in the easiest position, but even the fact that he's not in an easy position on a piece of legislation like Save. Yes, Republicans have thin margins in both bodies, but it's really like, for

from a political perspective, slam dunk legislation. The president wants it. And so again, the president is totally right to be frustrated. Senate Republicans are disgracing themselves. Trump, though, called the housing bill, quote, a yawn. He says, some people say it's wonderful to me, compared to the Save America Act,

just about everything is a big yawn. And so where I'm going with this, you could probably tell, is from the president of the United States, this particular bill, I mean, he made inroads with young voters for a reason. And that's because he was talking about really taking on some of these issues. And he was like kind of leaning into the idea that his administration would tackle some of these issues. And there is no, like, arguably there is no bigger concern for people in their 20s and 30s who obviously vote at lower rates than people in different stages of their lives, older stages of their lives, especially midterm.

elections. To be clear, I get that, I hear that. But this is probably the biggest possible deal issue, housing, and to give Republicans an easy win to say, well, we worked and the president signed this bill. He says bipartisan, the president signed this bill. Donald Trump, his signature is on this bill that is starting to change the housing market in Atlanta or Charlotte or wherever it may be. It's a powerful political weapon. And honestly, again, it's not a perfect bill, but it is a good bill. It's a worthwhile bill, and I've spent a lot of time studying the bill. It's an kind of obtuse bill. Like, it's, what's the best word for it? It's, you know, it's a very heavy, dense bill, and it takes a long time to digest, but it's a worthwhile bill. No question

about it. And meanwhile, Donald Trump's financial disclosure dropped last night. Here's the NBC news headline, Trump's financial disclosure lists $1.4 billion in crypto earnings powered largely by meme coins. And the reason I'm doing the kind of one-to punch here is that this is how a lot of I think Americans are going to be ingesting the second Trump presidency when you have a bad economy. So as Trump is fighting against Joan Biden in 2020, it wasn't, Biden wasn't technically the nominee yet, but the economy was pretty good. And Trump's approval was, not a disaster. Gas prices were pretty good. The economy was in a decent place. And a lot of the self-dealing and personal enrichment that's happening. And by the way, I just want to say also,

if you think that I'm overstating this, I cared a lot about the Hunter Biden story. What's happened with the Trump family is on another level. Totally on another level. There are some differences. It's apples and oranges, yes. But what we've seen from Jared Kushner in particular, what we have seen from the meme coins with world liberty financial. Isaac Saul did a great breakdown of this over at Retangle that I've referenced a number of times. And I would just recommend you give that a read because I don't even think the media is doing a good job contextualizing everything. It's hard to do. But this financial disclosure shows $80 million in income from settlement tied to Trump's lawsuits against companies like ABC, CBS, Meta, and YouTube. I don't know that that

bothers the average American all that much. But his net worth has jumped significantly since he was reelected in 2024. And NBC News reports on this 930 page disclosure document that he, his, his crypto holdings have been pushed past a billion dollars. Trump's mean coin earnings came on top of more than $236 million worth from additional crypto token sales and an additional sale of equity worth more than $65 million associated with the Trump family, crypto venture, World Liberty Financial. There's also more than $200 million classified as income from cryptocurrency wallets associated with world liberty.

And if you were watching the UFC fight, you probably saw the World Liberty Financial branding actually on the octagon. Now, this is what the White House said. Neither the president nor his family has ever engaged or will ever engage in conflicts of interest. President Trump proudly made the U.S. the crypto capital of the world through executive action, supporting legislation like the Genius Act and other common sense policies to drive innovation and economic opportunity for all Americans. Now, it's entirely possible Trump was genuinely

sincerely convinced on crypto. He was very skeptical of crypto and very negative about crypto until he started talking to crypto folks that poured money into the Trump apparatus. That looks like Trump was bought when it comes to crypto. It looks like it was very obviously transactional. Lots of people have fluid opinions on crypto. The more they talk to people about it, the more. they learn about crypto, the more they have a different opinion, whatever. I have no idea. But obviously, when your net worth is increasing and you know you have holdings in crypto, you know your sons are overseeing companies that have holdings in crypto, you know that your sons are building via the Trump organization in places like the UAE or that Steve Whitkoff, who is negotiating

these deals, has family ties to projects happening, massive projects happening in various countries. That's in your head, and it's obviously impossible to extricate as a conflict of interest. Obviously impossible to extricate as a conflict of interest. So all this is to say, when we look at the rise of Democratic Socialists of America candidates, whether it's Malik Kiroz, Claire Baudez, Daria Liza Avela Chevalier in New York City, Abdul Al-Sayed, who's succeeding looking like he may win that Michigan Democratic primary, Senate primary. When we look at that, and we have...

have a moral panic over the rise of democratic socialism, but only point our fingers at the young people and actually just, you know, regular people, whether they're in Colorado or the commie corridor in the New York area, point the finger at them and say, how could you be so stupid? How could you be so evil? Don't you know what communism and socialism hath wrought? And it's true. We don't do a good job teaching about communism plainly in public schools. There's a big difference in the way that we teach about communism and fascism in public schools and in pop culture and world history. But at the same time, even in the first Gilded Age, I'm referring to the first, because I think we're in the second, even in the first Gilded Age, there's a recognition

among Teddy Roosevelt, who Donald Trump celebrated at the Teddy Roosevelt Library today, among Teddy Roosevelt, ultimately Franklin Roosevelt, arguably, I think you could say, Andrew Carnegie, Milton Friedman talked about this a lot. Adam Smith talked about this a lot, that often it's the capitalists who undermine capitalism. Often it's capitalists who push people towards socialism. This is not to quote Lenin. What did he say that capitalists will give us the rope to hang them by? But that sentiment was popular around that time period as well, because it's obviously in some cases a situation that just engenders such distrust and hatred. And when it is, immoral, like in the case of this insane egg price setting settlement that the Justice Department

just reached, have you seen this? I mean, it's also not getting much attention. Matt Stoller wrote about it, and I was reading a Wall Street Journal story about it also before we went to air, but it's insane the evidence that there was open price fixing happening among the biggest egg companies. I'm trying to pull this up on the screen. Truly insane. Stoller writes, the egg bandits made a thousand times the fine, they just paid for price fixing. They're paying like a $3 million fine and they're being forced to donate eggs. They're not being forced to admit that they did anything wrong, which means that it protects them from other possible lawsuits here. Look at this. You can see this is from BLS data. That when the antitrust investigation became public,

the prices started going down, meaning the companies realized that people were onto them essentially and stopped the price fixing. But as Stoler points out, $3 million is nothing based on the amount of money, the companies that were conspiring made during the course of this process. And again, all of this is to say people, I think, are correct to be concerned about the rise of democratic socialism. I am a conservative. I obviously do not agree with Democratic Socialist policy prescriptive.

But there's so much blame to be placed on big business itself and to be placed on Republicans, Republicans who are supportive of big business, deferential often to big business, especially crawling back into this relationship, deferential relationship with big business after they felt peak woke had ended, which we saw the Trump administration certainly do with big tech in some ways that are good for conservatives. of there's no question about it, right? Like, it's been good to have speech codes relaxed and to be more fair. So, yes, that's all true. But to allow what's happening with the AI boom for the Trump administration to be so powerfully

implicated in these grifts, it is the exact type of thing that pushes people closer and closer towards democratic socialism. So Republicans need a good answer. a moral answer, a clear answer. They do need moral clarity to respond to the DSA rise. Otherwise, more and more people are going to go to them. And it's going to be a serious problem for Republicans to answer for if subpoenas start flying,

Democrats retake the House. This time it's not about some BS Russia collision investigation, but it's about much more serious self-dealing where you have like financial disclosures and bills all in the public domain. You can put the dots together. on your own. For a long time, the public has not, genuinely has not cared about Trump doing this stuff because he made it part of his first campaign. He said, I know the system. I alone

can fix it. And the economy in his first term was making people feel more comfortable with Donald Trump. But if the economy is not good, that becomes a lot more difficult politically for him to pull off. So a little bit of rant here to end the show and head into America at 250 weekend. but appreciate you all tuning in. Thank you so much. As a reminder, you can hit me up at Emily at devilmaicaremedia.com. We'll have a new happy hour episode of the show out on podcast feeds Friday. And so we will, of course, see you back here on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts on Monday.

Thanks so much, everyone. Have a wonderful and safe America 250. God bless.