After Party with Emily Jashinsky - The Real Reason CBS Caved to Trump, with Mark Halperin, Plus Charlize Theron is Part of the Problem

Episode Date: July 3, 2025

Emily Jashinsky is joined by Mark Halperin, host of "Next Up with Mark Halperin," to talk about the settlement between CBS News parent company Paramount and President Trump, the real reason CBS caved and paid Trump millions, the "dirty secret" about the corporate media, the state of the BBB, and more. Then Emily dives into the way the Diddy verdict intersects with the end of the MeToo Era, and why Charlize Theron may look great but isn't as cool as she thinks she is, and is in fact part of the problem that led to the failures of the libertine lifestyle that has fallen out of favor with today's culture. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey friends. Well, I have had a hellish 48 hours, so I couldn't be more excited to just sit down at the after party. This is my kind of party as a party that involves sitting, to be quite honest. So we're off to a great start. Thank you for tuning in. As a reminder, we're here Mondays and Wednesdays at 10 p.m. Make sure to subscribe. We love when you subscribe. It helps when you subscribe.

So do that, please. Big show, because lots of news is happening right now. The House has opened a rule to vote on the one big, beautiful bill. We have Mark Halpern standing by. I'm going to bring him in in just a couple of moments to talk to us about that, to talk to us about CBS's big settlement that it's very similar to the ABC settlement that we saw not long ago over that now infamous discrepancy between a 60-minute segment and a Face the Nation segment regarding Kamala Harris, then-Presidential Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris.

So we are going to get into that. Mark and I are going to go over Big Beautiful Bill. We're going to go over CBS, 60 Minutes. And then I'll talk a little bit about some of the Diddy trial. Megan covered it way better than I ever could. Maybe I'll do some high-level, 30,000-foot thoughts on what's going on with Diddy. And we're going to start with the news about Leah Thomas. So let's go ahead and get into that.

I'm going to put something up on the screen right here. This was pretty interesting. Just today, the University of Pennsylvania announced that it was going along with the Trump administration's request. They sort of struck a deal with the Department of Education that they now have to erase Leah Thomas's records, basically strike the records and apologize to the female athletes that were involved in all of this. So just reading here from the Fox News tear sheet, they say the U.S. Department of Education announced Tuesday that the University of Pennsylvania had agreed to resolution with the Trump administration to keep biological male trans teens out of women's sports. So that applies to the future and is obviously very important. The department

previously launched an investigation into UPenn on February 6 for Title IX violations. So just a couple of weeks after Donald Trump took office, take note of that. In the swimming program, transathlete Leah Thomas competed for the women's team in the 2021-2020 season, but we all remember that, of course. And so they now, these are some bullet points from Fox. They have to restore to female athletes, all individual UPenn, Division I swimming records, titles, or similar recognitions, which were misappropriated by male athletes. They have to issue a public statement to the university, community stating it that it will comply with Title IX. How demoralizing, by the way, if you're in the DEI department or if you're one of the Title IX bureaucrats at the University of Pennsylvania,

and they have to post the statement in a prominent location on its main website and on each of its websites for women's athletics. Clearly the Trump administration is making an example out of the University of Pennsylvania here. I have seen some commentary saying that this is just abject cruelty to do this to Leah Thomas and other athletes. But I think it's also really important to just take note of how the Trump administration did this, which by the way is a – I shouldn't even say by the way. It is the entire topic here. It was a Title IX investigation. The University of Pennsylvania flagrantly violated Title IX.

Now, conservatives before the trans ideology craze took hold had all kinds of problems with Title IX, and now conservatives have found themselves on the side of the issue where they're defending Title IX because it's something that is intended to give a boost to female athletes. Everybody knows it was a victory of the women's liberation movement, of the feminist movement. And all of a sudden, it was treated like garbage because it was the Obama administration started

this with what's called the Dear Colleague Letter. You don't need the whole history of this. But basically, it's perfectly reasonable for the Trump administration to bring a Title IX investigation against the University of Pennsylvania. They are making a very clear example of the school. So because of obviously what happened with Leah Thomas, which you will remember, One of the reasons you can, I guess, imagine the Trump administration pursuing an investigation into Title IX here is that people had to be in changing rooms with Leah Thomas. Go look at Paula Scanlon if you're not familiar with her. These are stories that got completely glossed over the media by the media for a really long time. The media was not covering the story accurately at the time. The media has gotten slightly better on coverage of this since realizing that the country was in such a dramatically,

different place than like the 10 interns from Penn and Oberlin and wherever the hell else, and that it was creating a huge trust gap and that, hey, actually even some of our leftist friends looking around are like, not everybody's on board with this. It's so different from what I heard in my human resources meeting when everybody told me this was a matter of life and death. Guess not. So it's 2025 and the Trump administration is just completely humiliating the University of Pennsylvania, making them post their statement in a very public place and take the recognition away from people like Leah Thomas. Last point on that, it is not cruel to take away Leah Thomas's medals. It is cruel to have ever allowed Leah Thomas and other athletes to take recognition away

from young women, to take scholarships away from young women. The left often likes to apply a class lens to absolutely everything. Well, a lot of needy women lost out on scholarships for, you know, half a decade because they were being beat in tournaments and all that sort of stuff by male athletes who were identifying as women. So it's one of those moments where, you know, you're frustrated because we can put Keith Olberman up on the screen. He had a reaction where he said, wanted to congratulate whiny Gaines and now being able to say she finished tied for fourth, not tied for fifth, in the Leah Thomas race and then tagged at Riley Gaines. I wish it was still, I wish Keith Oberman were still important enough for me to do a

Keith Oberman impression. I forget who it was on SNL, who did a great Keith Oberman impression back in the day. I want to say it was like actually Andy Sandberg or Chris Parnell. Ben Affleck. Producer Steve is in my ear. It was Ben Affleck. That's right. You could Google that. It's fabulous. And unfortunately now, though, as easy as it is to mock Keith Olberman, he's inconsequential and really doesn't matter at all. So I can't even

bother doing the impression of him, which would be a 10 out of 10. As you know, no question about it. I would knock it out of the park, but he is utterly unimportant. So we're not going to do an impression of Keith Olberman here. But we will bring up this other interesting anecdote while we're on the subject from Annie Carney of the New York Times about Sarah McBride, representative from Delaware, close to the Biden family. This is a little report that Annie Carney put out, I think today, saying Sarah McBride, Democrat of Delaware, and the first openly transgender member of Congress appears to be making some progress with Republican colleagues on the floor just now. Representative Steve Wilmack, Republican of Arkansas, introduced her, her according to the New York Times, the microphone as the gentlelady from Delaware. This was only the second time all year that

Republicans have referred to her. Again, this is New York Times as a woman on the floor in hearings and on the floor. Republicans have routinely referred to her as a man. And that's true. I think Nancy Mace has made a big deal of referring to Sarah McBride as a man. My advice to members of Congress, whether they're Republicans or Democrats, I would not isolate this just to Republicans. And by the way, I shouldn't be giving advice to members of Congress because that will just get me down a long rabbit hole of things that I would advise them to do differently. But first of all, you don't have to make an issue of this at all. Have a private friendship with Sarah McBride. Be publicly respectful to Sarah McBride. Fine.

But if you don't believe that Sarah McBride is a woman, Sarah McBride is also an advocate for transgenderism. Just did a pretty interesting interview. I think it was Ezra Klein in the New York Times, but this is not sort of incidental to who Sarah McBride is as a politician. Sarah McBride is a proponent of this ideology. And you do not want to validate that if you think this ideology has left behind a decade of victims of young girls who have suffered, for example, irreversible damage. Sarah McBride believes in a lot of those prescriptions and has pushed them. literal prescriptions and, you know, metaphorical ones for what you should do if you're experiencing or suffering from gender dysphoria. And if you're on the side of the issue that most Republicans are, honestly, probably most Democrats are at this point. You don't have to validate it. And validating it for a long time is what gave the issue, is what gave it so much power

in our cultural landscape. So I wanted to touch on this, because it's also easy, by the way, to swing back and end up being just completely cruel and awful and treating human beings as a meme. That is entirely possible, and nobody should be doing that. But our primary focus here should always be on the victims of this ideology who have ended up suffering much more than anyone ever needed to because they were given horrific treatment, anti-treatment, essentially that was being heralded as treatment itself. So I wanted to touch on that. And now I'm excited to introduce our guest for tonight.

That would be Mark Halperin. He's the editor-in-chief of Two-Way. He's the host of Next Up with Mark Halperin on Megan Kelly's MK Media. So this is a little meeting of the MK Media podcast, Mark. Thanks for being here. Brough, great to be here. Thank you for including me. You are welcome, Mark.

I'm really curious to get your take on the, CBS settlement that was announced just within the last 24 hours. And before we get into the details of the settlement, let's reflect on the actual issue at hand, which was the editing of the Kamala Harris clip from Face the Nation versus what was played on 60 minutes. We can go ahead here and roll S-1. But it seems that Prime Minister Netanyahu is not listening. Well, Bill, The work that we have done has resulted in a number of movements in that region by Israel that were very much prompted by or a result of many things, including our advocacy for what needs to happen in the region. But it seems that Prime Minister Netanyahu is not listening. We are not going to stop pursuing what is necessary for the United States to be clear about where we stand on the needs.

need for this war to end. So, Mark, it's actually just that clip itself, a reminder of why Kamala Harris was such a disastrous politician, period. I shouldn't say was. She's still a politician, of course. But CBS ended up getting a lawsuit, and I'm curious what you think about this because of the lawsuit. I was just reading through it today. It's kind of a ridiculous lawsuit. It refers to her as Kamala throughout the lawsuit. There's just a question that what CBS did was, A, standard practice, and B, deceptive in the media. And you know this because you were inside the big network media world for a long time. So CBS settles. They have a merger in process. Paramount has a merger in process with Skydance, which is owned by Larry Allison's son or operated by Larry Allison's son. Quite interesting.

That'll be before the Trump administration. So give us your take. Why does CBS settle for 16 million the same amount that ABC settled for in the George Stephanopoulos case, which was much more serious. Because they're craven, gutless, and part of establishment media that has no legs to stand on because of their professional failure. Ironically, this was not a professional failure. This is business as usual. CBS is correct when they say, this is what happens.

People might find it unfortunate, but the New York Times does it. The free beacon does it. You do an interview and you run parts of the interview that aren't necessarily. lined up with the exact question. I can understand why civilians, regular non-pros, would find that offensive. But it's what happens. It's how news magazine pieces get edited.

Ironically, CBS, like the New York Times and everybody else, were part of the Hunter Biden coverup, were part of the Joe Biden coverup. So they have no leg to stand on. It'd be like a bunch of doctors killing a bunch of their patients through professional negligence. And then people say, well, you know, doctor, can you help me with something?

And doctors, like, well, I can't help you because I'm professionally negligent, but I won't admit it. So I'm just going to give you money to make it go away. It's a, it's just, there's so much irony. It's so horrible. If every news magazine producer who selectively and misleadingly edited an interview had to pay $15 million to the Donald Trump presidential library, it would, it would look like the Taj Mahal or the Kremlin because, because they all do it. But again, the irony is they should be paying a lot of money and they should be admitting error for a lot of things they've done, but not for this. But they have no leg to stand on. And, of course, Paramount and the leadership there wanted to make this go away.

So they were willing to pay any price, not bear any burden, but pay any price to make it go away. Right. They want their merger to go through and they want to have a good working relationship with the Trump administration. And it occurs to me having this conversation, actually, that you might be able to offer the audience some interesting. insight into how unfortunate the level of editorial control that is in the hands of so few people at a major corporation, like, for example, Paramount CBS is because you have people who are looking at the cuts of those interviews that are going to go on a major show like Face Nation or 60 Minutes that actually, if they want to, can exercise pretty, like, granular level

control over what goes out. You know this better than I do. So maybe you could just offer us, like actually some insight into how that sausage gets made when something, a big interview like that hits the airwaves. Well, first of all, they're crashing. And what you saw was the clip that was done by one show, not by 60 minutes. You know, the way it works is 60 minutes does the interview. They've got the raw tapes. They've got the full interview.

And another show or the promo department needs to slap something together really quickly. And they don't care about the editorial integrity of, does answer A match up with, question A match up with answer B. So in this case, I can say without fear of contradiction, that the reason they did what they did was not as the lawsuit charges to help Kamala Harris. They did it because that's the way they make the sausage. They want the thing to be linear. They want it to be compact and good storytelling.

Now, again, I'll say CBS News, like everybody else in the liberal media, does lots of things to hurt Donald Trump and help Kamala Harris during this campaign. This was not one of them. but they're so weak because they're so unable to defend their normal shoddy practices that do represent bias, that they had to pay the money because, and this is the dirtiest little secret of all, they didn't want to go through discovery. Because if the Trump lawyers got a hold of all the communications done by CBS and 60 minutes during this process, then there'd be trouble.

Then there'd be trouble for CBS. That was the same thing in my understanding is that was very likely the same thing in the ABC case with George Stephanopoulos, which I think was much more of a significant challenge legally than this one was. I mean, he actually got a materially incorrect. He broadcasts a materially incorrect statement about the president. And I think they were probably terrified of discovery too, Mark. 100%. Can you imagine the tax and emails that George Stephanopoulos have sent in the context? of that period to his friends Paul Begala and James Carval, who he's been communicating with

for 40 years since they worked together in the Clinton campaign. Like, that would be hideous. So, yeah, that's part of the settlement. Part of the settlement was they want the merger to go through. Part of the settlement is they don't want discovery, I'm sure. And part of it is, again, as diluted and in denial as they are about their actual transgressions, they know that they don't have a leg to stand on because they have been biased in so many other cases. I'll say again, ironically, this was not one of them. This is such a good point. Let's put this

Dave is Koff. This is F5 post up on the screen. He was, he picked up on this line in the New York Times story on the settlement that said Paramount's board was concerned that paying a higher amount to settle the case could increase the company's exposure to potential legal actions from shareholders accusing them of bribery. This is delicious. I'm sorry. I mean, it is such a, we have to be able to laugh at it because it's a very funny statement on how pathetic the media has become in this country. But yes, they have a pending merger in front of the Trump administration. Mark Zuckerberg recently started pouring a bunch of money into the Trump inaugural coffers after he beat Kamala Harris.

He has a merger or is an FTC complaint ahead of the Trump administration. They're still going peddle to the medal on that FTC case, Andrew Ferguson, and the Trump administration hasn't dropped it at all. And interestingly enough, something similar might happen with the Skydance merger. Their money might not even end up mattering. Yeah. Look, I think one of the dogs that's not barking that's so interesting to me, and you see it in Silicon Valley too, you see it at the Washington Post, you see it at Harvard. There are some people protesting.

A couple people did quit CBS, including the head of the news division and the head of 60 Minutes. But you're not seeing what I think you would have seen a year ago in something comparable. You're not seeing mass resignations. you're not seeing people quitting Facebook in mass numbers to protest. And so I think it's a sign that these leaders, I say leaders in air quotes, hopefully you could hear it in my voice because I don't want to move my hands. It's a sign that people like Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos and the people who run Paramount, they recognize that they are on the wrong side of current history with Donald Trump and MAGA and anti-Woke.

and something's going on with the employees at Facebook and the students at Harvard and the reporters at the Washington Post. Either finally they're being stood up to in effect and like most bullies, they're backing down when someone stands up to them, or they see the handwriting on the wall and recognize that they're on the wrong side of history on so many of these issues. Right. And the business model, and again, this is a place where you'll have more insight that I do, but the business model is so quickly becoming outmoded in that with the business model, breakup of monoculture into, you know, this multi, everyone sort of clustered in a niche. And when monoculture goes away, you can't have the overhead that you have at CNN. You can't pay, for example, Anderson Cooper, what you pay Anderson Cooper, if the ratings are going to be that low because you're just appealing

to a tiny slice of the public. And I think some of them, there's some reporting about this and Jeff Bezos at the Washington Post, they want to broaden the audience again because there's more ad revenue in it. And yet, I don't know, Mark, if this allows them to really rebuild trust with the people that they, I don't know that they can repair that trust at this point, I guess is what I'm trying to say when there's so much competition. Yeah, I mean, first of all, I'd say it's from monoculture to Emily culture, right? That's the transition we're in now. You know, Michael Jordan, the NBA player, it was a Democrat, but he didn't endorse Democratic politicians. And they asked him, why not? And he'd say because Republicans buy sneakers too.

I've never understood these organizations whose premises, we're going to reject trying to appeal to 50% of our potential consumers. One thing that 2A, where I work tries to do is we say, we want everybody. We don't just want moderate, centrists, and independence, although that's a pretty big group. We want everybody. We want far left, far right. We want everybody in between. And I think that these organizations that have been masquerading as non-ploid.

partisan and fair, which have alienated half the country, really have a problem now, because they're not going to go as far left as MSNBC. And so there's nothing in it for that group, that group that just wants to hear liberal dog, doesn't want to watch these places. And they're not appealing to half the country. So they've created a business model that's ideologically untenable. And as you said, the cost structure is completely out of whack with the audience they can reach. So they've got to figure out what they want to be when they grow up and they're old men and women.

So they've got to have to go to like a Benjamin Button situation. They need to reverse, get younger, figure out what they want to be, grow up and then execute something that's actually, you know, a sensible business model to make money. Benjamin Button for CBS, just an incredible visual mark. You know, I also wanted to ask if you think, because this is one of the things that I was just out of the Aspen Ideas Festival. the things that was sort of dogging me as I was theirs. I just don't know that because of the way we've isolated ourselves and we've clustered in these sort of geographic bubbles, Charles Murray wrote a whole book about that coming apart. I don't know that many of these people, many of whom you've known over the years, are actually capable of knowing what constitutes bias and what

doesn't. And that's an interesting thing with the Kamala Harris interview. As you've mentioned, it's not on the level of the Hunter Biden laptop. It's not the same thing at all. I do think one of the versions of it made her sound slightly less stupid. And that's one of those things that when you have blinders on, I don't know that you even notice if you're a pro-Kamela Harris journalist in Manhattan, if you really even, maybe you're not even pro-Kamala Harris, maybe you're an anti-Trump journalist in Manhattan.

I don't know that you even can sense that you're biased in a case like that. Right. It's an incredible question. First of all, I need to congratulate you for being, a Gwen Eiffel fellow. Thank you, sir. Gwen Eiffel was a close friend of mine from before the time you were born. So you can read about it in the history books.

I look forward to your history book, Mark. So here's the thing. Like, I've seen liberal media bias in the media from the time I started working at ABC News in 1988. It was just so obvious. And I could give a thousand examples. And I would say to my colleagues, you may not see the liberal media bias. I don't know how you don't, but maybe you maybe you don't.

But you should know that half the country not only sees it, but they think it's extraordinarily unfair and in some cases determinative in who wins political fights and elections. Now we get to the cover up of the attempted cover up because it didn't work because everybody saw it of Biden's cognitive decline. And I have said that the biggest scandal I know of an American media history was the press's denial and attempts to help Kamala Harris, first Joe Biden and then Kamala Harris, I think that's the biggest scandal in American media history, except now I think what the bigger scandal is, now that everybody knows what happened, and everybody acknowledges what happened, who has eyes

and ears, they're still not acknowledging it. They're still saying it was all the fault of five people in the White House who engaged in a cover-up so crafty that we couldn't see what was happening on C-SPAN, illustrating his obvious cognitive decline. And so now you say, how could they not see it? I really don't know. And these are people I've worked with for decades. I really don't know if they don't see it at this point. The same with the Hunter Biden laptop and saying, you know, 51 intelligence officers said this was the hallmarks of a Russian operation. Like Joe Biden knew when his own team was putting that out, that it was, the laptop was real. The president of the United States knew, that seems like an enormous scandal. Seems like an enormous scandal. And yet, have you ever read

anything in the mainstream press that is what I call the dominant media? Have you ever read anything about that point? That he was, his top advisors were orchestrating a phony story to try to head off coverage before the election. He knew it was a phony story. And he said nothing. And we now know the FBI had the laptop for months. Yeah. But forget that. He knew it was real. He also knew that his son did business in China, and he said in the debate, his son didn't. Donald Trump lies all the time. There's plenty to cover about Donald Trump. But the press covers all that. They don't cover any of this. And so I say again, I really don't know if my colleagues who claim they don't see liberal bias, I really don't know what they actually think. It's very hard to understand because I was 22 when I was. I started. And the third day on the job, I was like, this is nutso cuckoo. Mark, I defy you to name a single time that Donald Trump has lied. Just, I've never heard of

this. That can't be right. Well, I mean, saying the election was stolen is a pretty big one, because it's undermined faith in our democracy. But Barack Obama said, if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor. That seems pretty bad, too. Quote unquote, faith in our democracy, all of these minor issues. Of course, kidding, because it's a great point, that a lot of times it's about selection bias, what's called selection bias, and what you choose to cover,

what you don't choose to cover. I want to put this element, this is F6 on the screen. The South Park creators are a little bit upset. They say about the settlement, this merger is a shit show, and it's fucking up South Park. We are at the studio working on new episodes,

and we hope the fans get to see them somehow. And this, I think, kind of brings up a bigger business question, too, Mark. You know, I've never been a part of a media company that also has all of these other properties and it is part of such a massive corporation. I'm sure this is affecting, I'm sure resentment over the politics of this is affecting Paramount's other businesses right now, too. I mean, I think to some extent, but I'll say it's testament to the changed environment that the South Park guys, of course, they'll pop off. But you don't hear, I haven't heard yet very many other people. You see blind quotes from some people at CBS, but they're not quitting en masse, even though what their parent company did was an outrage.

I'll also say I've worked at Disney at ABC News owned by Disney. I worked at NBC owned by Comcast. I don't actually believe there's very much interference by the parent company normally. Now, there was in this case, but normally I don't think there is, at least as I experienced it, I don't think there's much interference. What they do do is they leave the news organizations alone to be biased. Right. Because everyone thinks the same way.

There's no real threat to them because they're hiring people who come from the same schools and all of that. Mark, stick around. We're going to talk about alligator, Alcatraz and the one big, beautiful bill in just a moment. But first, this month, Tax Network USA proudly celebrates our nation's birthday honoring freedom, resilience and financial independence to mark the occasion they're offering great deal here 10% off all services through july 4th that's coming up if you're dealing with back taxes or missed the april 15th deadline don't wait the irs is rapidly stepping up enforcement penalties can add up quickly up to 5% per month maxing out at 25% of your total tax bill just for not filing and that is of course on

top of what you already owe the irs but there's good news tax network USA can still help turn things around whether you're self-employed, run a business, or your books are a complete mess. Once again, that is relatable. Their team knows how to cut through the chaos and find solutions that work. Your consultation is always free and getting ahead of the problem now could help you avoid harsh penalties, wage garnishment, or surprise bank levies. So take the first step. Call 800-958-1,000, or visit t-n-usa.com. And don't forget, you'll get 10% off all services through July 4th as part of their celebration of our nation's birthday, regain control of your finances with expert help from Tax Network USA. Once again, we are joined by Mark Halpern. He's the editor-in-chief of Two-Way and host of Next Up with Mark Halpern on Megan Kelly's MK Media.

So, Mark, let's take a look at this interesting video, one of many videos that Nancy Mace decided to post today. Obviously, Republican Congresswoman from South Carolina. Everyone's flights were canceled. My flight was canceled yesterday. I had two delayed flights, one canceled flight. Members of Congress were rushing up to get here, Democrats and Republicans, to vote on the one big beautiful bill to vote it up or to vote it down. Nancy Mays seems to have rented a luxury sprinter van, gone to Waffle House, stopped at Wawa.

Let's take a look here at us, too. Oh, wait, did she own in? 9 o'clock, 8.452. 8.52. We made it an hour to go to the vote. So she stepped out there in her jammies and posted another compilation of the entire trip. I just want to say Nancy Mason Mason, you should maybe leash your dog. That's just an idea.

But Mark, she seems to have made it. On the other side, Hakeem Jeffries was posing with his baseball bat. This is an incredible picture. I don't know if you saw it. Look at him go. There he is. America's Minority Leader. Also America's sweetheart, Hakeem Jeffries posing with his baseball bat.

He's ready to do battle over the one big, beautiful bill that looks right now like it's on course to pass. Republicans met with Donald Trump today. He seems to have persuaded them in the White House. Do you have thoughts, Mark, on how Republicans ended up getting to a yes, ultimately, after literally months of talk of war? Well, first of all, Nancy Mace is such a free spirit. She makes you look like Tag Romney. Tag Romney. That is such an obscure reference at this point, Mark.

I was going for someone who's like, you know, kind of uptight and, you know, straight-laced. Nancy Mace, man. Well, not quite breaking news, but news update. The bill's now in some trouble. So if you'd asked me an hour ago to give you my analysis of how the president got his way, I would say here's an incredible tale of perseverance, strategy, coordination, appeal to American highest values. but now it may go down. So now it's a different story.

You know, there's some things about a president trying to get an important piece of legislation passed that's kind of linear and textbook and predictable. And then some of it's kind of mysterious alchemy and mystical confusion. And that's what's going on right now. They're voting, not the final vote, but they're voting on the so-called rule, the question of it's kind of a procedural vote about whether it's going to, go forward. And last I looked at my phone a few minutes ago, they weren't getting there. They were already enough votes to kill it. Now, if they kill it, it's kind of like Freddie Krueger.

It doesn't mean it's dead forever. It can still come back. But it's not on the glide path right now. And we'll have to see they may decide to go home and continue again tomorrow. But I had said this morning, because I'm about full disclosure and accountability, I had said this morning there was a 6% chance it will fail. And that means it might fail and it might. Yeah, right now from the New York Times, the Republican holdouts are ultra-conservatives, according to the Times, who are concerned that the Senate bill would add to ballooning federal deficits and did not do enough to cut spending. But one of those yet to vote is Representative David Vallado of California, who has expressed deep reservations about voting for the Senate version of the bill because it's cut to Medicaid are deeper than those passed by the House.

Yes. And one of those who's already voted no is not a super conservative. He's one of the most moderate House Republicans, Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, who is one of the, I think, three House Republicans who represents a district won by Kamla Harris. And he voted no on the rule, the procedural vote. And it's being interpreted that he would vote no on the bill. So people can change their mind. And, you know, as you were monologuing, I was multitasking. I was breathlessly listening to everything you said,

but also following the story on the House floor, they're hoping the speaker in his team, Speaker of the House, Speaker Johnson, are working to change some of the nose, at least one of the nose, to a yes. And of course, you can do that. And if the vote isn't closed, if other colleagues haven't yet voted,

you can change your vote. So they're trying to turn these votes around. If they don't make it, again, it doesn't mean it's dead forever, but it probably means that bill won't pass until you and I get some sleep. Well, I'm not surprised by that at all because it seemed like they were stopping short of extracting all of the concessions that they possibly could have. Although they're on a really tight deadline here with the Fourth of July coming up and seemed to have a good meeting with Trump.

I mean, Tim Burchett came out of that meeting, feeling really good, Jim Jordan. Yeah, those guys who might have been knows were yeses. I think Jordan has drifted away from rebel to conformist. But Burchett was a good pickup for them. part of what's been surprising is, do you know Halpern's seventh rule of Washington? I'm sure you do, which is Congress never acts unless it absolutely has to, and sometimes not even then. And the so-called forcing mechanism, why are they forcing the House to vote? Why are they convinced almost all the House Republicans to vote now?

It is the Fourth of July holiday. That's not much of a forcing mechanism. The tax cuts don't expire until the end of the year. There's nothing else in here that must pass. this week as opposed to in a couple weeks. So I've always, not always, but since it was clear that they were using this as the forcing mechanism, I was always a little skeptical that this would focus the minds of enough House Republicans to get it passed.

And that skepticism should have allowed me this morning to say it was more than 6%. But at least I didn't say zero. I went with the Jim Carrey alternative. So you're saying there's a tiny chance. And there is a tiny chance. And that tiny chance has grown like a sea monkey in a swimming. pool. Sea monkey in a swimming pool. Another fabulous visual mark. And it, it, they have been able to, I mean, the 6% number isn't crazy to me at all because they've had so much momentum. Like, actually, the, the serious point about the Nancy Mace video is that she was showing there, she's very excited and proud to vote for the big beautiful bill because a lot of people see it as a great deal for their districts. And a lot of people in swing districts see it as a really significant political liability, given what it does so all of it. of these different entitlements. Now, obviously, we could talk about how Trump is trying to keep

the sort of austerity Elon Musk wing happy while, you know, he lost Rand Paul's vote. He wasn't probably going to get it in the Senate. But you have to keep that wing, people who are the hawks, like the Chip Roy, happy, while also keeping Susan Collins happy. I mean, it's an incredibly difficult thing. But coming into today, it seemed like they had all the momentum in the world. Mike Johnson was going to get a vote on it. It's Fourth of July. Then they can go to recess in August and feel fine. The consequence of not passing this, Mark, do you think is potentially

it ends up getting even more difficult than it was? Because when everybody has time to hash things out, they get a lot of different, you end up getting a lot of different conflicts that are less easy to resolve. Right.

So where it stands right now is at least one person who hasn't voted, Chip Roy of Texas, says he doesn't want to vote tonight. He wants them to pull the vote. and give them more time to talk stuff through. And they'd still have to turn one of the people who's already voted no.

Now, they could do that tonight, potentially, or they could do what Chip Roy wants and call it a night and start the vote over tomorrow. This is one of these situations where people are going to ask me, as you have and others, you know, what's going to happen? No one knows. No one knows. Because once you start to lose the momentum, and you're right, they had a lot of momentum this morning. Once you start to lose the momentum, it's a different. difficult thing to stop and reverse the trajectory. So I don't know what's going to happen, but I do

know that, as I said, even if it seems dead tonight, doesn't mean it's dead. They can find another way to skin the feline. Just so many great images today, Mark. Before I let you go, it would be wrong of me not to get your response to the alligator Alcatraz content. It isn't really what it was yesterday, obviously alligator Alcatraz was, there is the 3,000 bed facility. They think maybe they can get it to 5,000 that was constructed in like less than a week, maybe eight days, seven days, something like that, down in the Florida Everglades. And Donald Trump went and toured it yesterday with Governor Ron DeSantis. Before he did, he got on, he was getting on the helicopter to go to Joint Base.

Andrews and get on Air Force One. Here's what he said. This is S3 about running from alligators. You know, snakes are fast. But alligators, we're going to teach them how to run away from an alligator, okay, if they escape prison. How to run away. Don't run in a straight line. Run like this.

And you know what? Your chances go up about 1%. Okay? Not a good thing. One of the things I like about that clip is he's kind of bragging about his knowledge of escaping an alligator attack. He's like you got to run in a, you can't run in a straight line, otherwise you're going to get hit. Mark, a very controversial situation, obviously, down in Florida, but Trump had quite a bit of fun with it yesterday.

Am, a couple of things. May I call you M? A couple things. First of all, the Internet says the president is spouting an old wise tale that it's not true. I don't know the answer to that. I hope I never have to determine the jiggity, jaggedy nature of how to run away from an alligator. But I don't believe he's necessarily correct. the other thing is there's a big debate among scientists whether Trump derangement syndrome is naturally occurring or whether it's man-made, human-made.

And President Trump, by going to that place and talking about it the way he did, just inspired another outbreak. It's like he might as well brought it back from a Wuhan lab because the left can't handle the notion that people here illegally should not be staying in the Roosevelt Hotel in Manhattan, but they should be staying someplace maybe slightly less night. And I don't, I mean, yeah. So, I mean, you know, they say it's air conditioned, whatever. I think it's just another instance of the president understanding how to be simultaneously a fine television producer and president of the United States. Yeah, that's a good point. Before I let you go also, this is, we've been talking about wonderful visuals for this entire segment, Mark. We've got to put F9 on the screen.

This is a screen grab from Fox News that had just an unbelievable. unbelievable Chiron. It said, the lower third said, now, Trump takes questions at Alligator Alcatraz after the Senate passes the big, beautiful bill. This is F9. And Ali Samarko posted this and said, imagine turning on the TV and seeing this in 2012. Like someone tells you, Mark, this is the United States of America in 2025. I don't know. What would you have said in 2012, Mark, if someone said this is an image of your future? I mean, there are probably some people in 2012 who would have said Donald Trump's going to be president of the United States. It'd probably be the starting point, although in 2011 I said he might be president.

So I wouldn't have been shocked by that. I don't know. You know, business as usual. You know, Nostradamus was my great, great, great, great grandfather. So it doesn't phase me. Right. Yeah, you get it. You know that this is how the world inevitably progresses.

Yeah. Me on the other hand, I'm looking at and I'm thinking, this man is leaving celebrity apprentice. That's probably the worst news that I've heard. And we need to soak it up all we can because it's going to be gone before we know it, four years. I always felt Bucie could step in and do the job. You know, he did some great work in North Korea, underrated work in North Korea. Couldn't agree more. All right.

Well, Mark Halibrand, it's been a pleasure having you stopped by After Party. Thank you so much. Congratulations on the show. I'll see you at the VIP after after party. Yeah, much appreciated it, Mark. Have a great night. Bye-bye. All right, did I get Gary Busey and Dennis Rodman confusing?

Both were on Celebrity Apprentice. A producer can tell me this, but I thought Gary Bucie made a trip to North Korea as well. But I thought they both did. But anyway, we'll get a fact check on that because the last thing I would want to do is pull the CBS here. But before we get into all of that, let me tell you a story about a guy named Leo. Grillo, while on a road trip, Leo came across a Doberman. This dog was severely underweight and clearly in trouble. Leo rescued that Doberman and named him Delta. Sadly, Delta was just one of many animals that needed help, which inspired Leo to start Delta rescue. The largest,

no-kill, care for life, animal sanctuary in the world. They've rescued thousands of dogs, cats, and horses from the wilderness, and they provide their animals with shelter, love, safety, and a home. This dedication and everlasting love to animals is Leo's mission and legacy. Delta Rescue relies solely on contributions from people like us. And if you want to care, if you want caring for these animals to be part of your legacy, speak with your estate planner because there are tax-saving estate plan benefits too. You can grow your estate while letting your love for animals live well into the future. Check out the estate planning tab on their website to learn more and speak with an advisor.

We call a dog man's best friend for a reason. You can help those who need it most. So please visit deltarescue.org today to learn more. That's delta rescue.org. All right. Let's get into the Diddy of it all. We actually have a clip for Megan. If you missed Megan's show, you never should miss Megan's show.

I want to make that very clear. But if you did, we do have a clip of Megan reacting to the verdict, which I think came out either shortly before she went on air right after she went on air today. And basically, like, the gist of it is that Diddy was found guilty on two counts, but those were two of the lesser counts. So he was found guilty of two kinds of transportation to engage in prostitution, obviously still a serious crime. But nothing compared to the other three charges. So there were five charges. Those were the two he was found guilty of.

The others involved racketeering, conspiracy, and all of that. He was denied bond later in the afternoon and is going to be in prison until his sentencing hearing in October. I think that is on October 3rd, it seems on its face insane. Let's go ahead and roll Megan's initial reaction here. This disgusting, pervert, female abuser who I can't believe is about Jerome our streets again. I'm sorry, I'm disgusted by this verdict. This is fucking ridiculous. I just find it absolutely outrageous the amount of crime that this guy just got away with.

I believe he committed arson. He definitely battered Cassie. He battered Jane, too. The statute of limitations for battery in Los Angeles, California, is one year, one year. So if they didn't charge him for battery within one year and they couldn't because he bought the tape and it remained hidden, thanks to those security guards out there, then they could never charge him with that again. There's no question. He dragged her back into that hotel room. Why wasn't that kidnapping?

So Megan made an interesting point also about how did he? has defenders, people who are capitalizing on the lack of trust post-B-Me-2. That has been, that has surrounded allegations of abuse. Now, in Diddy's case, there is literally a video, the one that Megan just referenced, of him beating Cassie Ventura. It is a heinous video. So, and there, I mean, the mountain of allegations against Diddy is very compelling, unlike a lot of the single source stories from the Me Too era.

But I think there's something very interesting there about people who are choosing to believe that Diddy is the victim. And this is something that we heard from the prosecution, which, by the way, fun fact, did you know James Comey's daughter is part of? Marine Comey. Also prosecuted Jeffrey Epstein. We don't need to open that Pandora's box about the prosecution there. But just keep that in mind. the RICO charges, the racketeering charges, I think are going to be a huge flashpoint in the days ahead.

You know, was this an over-prosecution? Did it make it harder to get him? Or was the jury just, the jury just see something different, like in the OJ Simpson case than a lot of the country did? I don't know. But what I do know is that there was, as TMZ puts it, a freak off outside of the court. Take a look at this video. Yeah, that's baby oil. That's baby oil. They were armed with baby oil on the streets. More oil?

First there was more cowboy. Now there's more oil. Okay, you get the point. They seem nice. It's, in the deady case, truly, he could face, I think, two 10-year sentences, and we'll see what happens. There are a bunch of other,

I think there are a bunch of other civil complaints. against them. But this was what people were saying throughout the Me Too movement, that eventually you have destroyed the trust in women that you said that you were trying to build up. And I'm not blaming the excesses of the Me Too era for what's happening here. I think in some measure, somebody who's as popular as Diddy has been around for so long had this massive business empire. You know, I think you would probably always have some people that are just not willing to concede. He looked guilty as hell. But I also think it's true that the sort of trust in allegations like these was just grossly eroded over the course of the Me Too movement.

And that's a sad outcome. And it's something that, again, people were saying over and over again would happen. So here we are. Obviously, there was Brian Koberger news. I'm just going to refer you to Megan on the Brian Koberger news. I was listening to a bit of the TMZ coverage about how Koberger's admission of guilt in this case, he's now pleading guilty to four counts of first-degree murder were, his admissions were just so dry. And, you know, banal.

He was just saying, you know, basically, I did it, I did it in the most chilling and disgusting way. So the family's reaction to that has to be incredibly, I mean, it's just, it reopens all of the wounds and on the other hand, it feels like there's some semblance of justice that you get an admission and that there's some truth and honesty in it. You can see those kids on the screen in front of you. It's just such an awful story. But some closure coming to those families. So that is at least a positive thing. Now, something caught my attention that's, I don't know, let's say it's a little bit more lighthearted. Oh, that's so pretty sad.

That would be Charlize Theron going on Call Her Daddy. Chalise Theron is, I believe, 49 years old. And important to keep in mind, because I haven't seen it in much of the reaction to the Charlize Theron clip. that's starting to go rather viral. She's two daughters. Here is what Charlize Theron decided to say. I mean, this is, I can't even play the whole thing

because it's so obscene. The teaser from Call Her Daddy, but here's a little bit of what she said. It would be helpful if I handled the technology correctly. But I did just recently fuck a 26-year-old, and it was really fucking amazing. There's a casting for... She's like Amy Poehler and Mean Girls when she's like, I'm not a regular mom.

I'm a cool mom. I say, fuck. Like, great. Good work, Charlize Theron. I am now convinced that you are the hippest person in the world. Not only are you 49 years old and having sex with 26 year olds, but you are also using the word fuck on podcasts. Very cool. First of all, let's just, I think, stipulate upfront.

She looks amazing. cannot take that away from her. She looks absolutely incredible. She looks young. She looks just good. Well done, Charlize Theron. I am not in any way surprised that 26-year-olds are jumping at the chance to, you know, go on a, let's just say go on a date. Maybe go see a movie with Charlize Theron.

But this is in the broader context of her talking about why she wishes she would have slept around like this when she was, quote, in her 20s and 30. And now that she's on almost 50, she's just having this realization. This feels really, to be honest, this feels like actually so far behind the curve. Like this is what people were being told, I don't know, 10, 15 years ago. And now that Gen Z is and Gen Alpha is like porn sick and miserable and not having sex, if you look at the social science research, this is a, exactly what people will say pushed them to be terrified of like getting out there. There was a really sad BuzzFeed article. I think it was 2019 or 2020.

And it quoted a young rape victim. She was referred to anonymously as Virginia. If I'm remembering correct, though, she went to the University of Virginia. I forget what the name that they used for her was. But the BuzzFeed article in that, she said, HBO, quote, did a number on me. And she looked back at shows like girls. She looked back at sex in the city and said, this idea that you should just sort of be libertine for your own sake, that it would be fulfilling to you. Ended up being really harmful to her and putting her in a position she felt where she was ultimately the victim of rape. And, you know, Shilis Theron is just talking about her own sexual exploits in a way that I think she thinks makes her seem kind of cool. and Alex Cooper is, of course, eating it up,

but it's not at all the message. Well, first of all, it's not the message that women should hear. And second of all, like, I don't even need to say that. But second of all, it's sort of one of those things that, like, the contradictions, the heighten the cultural contradictions, if I, you know, sound like 21st century, century Lenin, that has made people realize a lot of these sexual mores were emiserating. And a lot of what they were told by people at the height of American culture was just actually,

and they were told this, by the way, from feminists who were saying they had women's best interests at heart. Similar, we can tie a bone on the whole program here, go back to the people who fought for Title IX, the women's movement. Some of them ended up, you know, fighting what happened with the Obama administration reading gender identity into sex on the basis of sex in Title IX. But a lot of those same advocates for women ended up pushing women to realize that the liberty and lifestyle they were being told was the antidote to what Betty Friedan wrote about. And Betty Friedan, to some extent, wrote about, that book resonated for a reason, right? There are a lot of women who felt like maybe they wanted to go into the workforce.

They wanted to, that their sort of purpose wasn't being fulfilled. well, the antidote to that ended up from the women's movement becoming like total libertine sexual anarchy. And, you know, millennials, my generation, X, Gen X, probably some younger boomers, were told that it was actually you living your best life, basically, to throw away all of the strictures of sexual politics that existed in the United States and in the West for a really long time. And it wasn't until, I think, really the last 10 or so years, especially as smartphones put, like, access to all of the pornography that has ever existed in the entire world in people's pockets accessible at any time. And then girls were meeting boys who had been exposed to all of that over the course of years and years. I mean, it just got so undeniable. Nobody could ignore it. And now you have Charlize Daron, acting like none of this has happened.

the last decade. Like, she sounds so out of touch. This is the type of thing. And people who are like amplifying it, Alex Cooper laughing at it. It looks so completely out of touch. It's not what women want to hear. It's not what anybody thinks is cool outside of like the quote unquote mainstream media. So I couldn't help but roll this clip of Charlize Theron. You know, it's a little bit of a double-edged sword for her. She looks great. And that's probably attracting 26-year-olds left and right when she steps out with her skateboard like the Steve Bischemi meme and says, hello, fellow kids. Probably works really well for Charlize Daron, but maybe it's working a little bit too well for her. And as I mentioned at the top of this, she has two daughters. She's a mother.

Stop talking. You're almost 50 years old. Stop talking about your sex life on national podcasts, like one of the most popular podcasts in the country. It's not good for your daughters. And I'm sure the left would say it's wonderful for her daughters to hear that she's sexually comfortable and sexually liberated and realizing that she should have been doing all of this in her 20s and 30s and how healthy it is for her to be transparent and comfortable in her womanhood. But we all know, do we have to go through another multiple decades to realize that that is terrible parenting advice? How many people have to suffer going through hearing their parents talk about that? Because, you know, the elites say that it's a cool way for you to relate to your young daughters. Do we have to go through

that again? Or can we just finally accept what we know just by pure logic and instinct is wrong? I think we should be able to do that at this point. But of course, I'm sure Charlize Theron is going to get all kinds of support from those very out-of-date people in the libertine feminist world who are disproportionately represented in the halls of power at major media outlets and the like. I'm sure that's going to happen. But it's kind of interesting how they don't realize that it's just dramatically out of touch. We don't even have to get into the whole trad debate, the trad, anti-trad, Gen Z civil war. I'm so glad to be a non-actor in that conflict and that I can sort of be the UN.

and observe them having that fight. I've never been more grateful for anything, frankly, but it is very interesting how, because people have gone through this process of realizing, like they had to live it out. They had to run the experiment to realize that this was bad advice, which is really sad. But it had to run the experiment to realize it was bad advice,

and now they find themselves looking around, and they find themselves almost with like the cultural momentum. Lots of Gen Z going back to church. I think we talked about this on the last show, the show before that, lots of Gen Z heading back to church. Lots of Gen Z supporting Republicans, particularly supporting Donald Trump, whatever you think of that,

it's a reaction to the censoriousness. One thing Gen Z doesn't remember is what it was like, circa 2012 when the like rape culture endemic. We were being told we all existed in a rape culture endemic and there were like actual instances of people having consent contracts signed in college dorms or wherever else before engaging in intercourse. They don't remember that. They're lucky not to remember that. They can Google that. But man, those were bleak days. And it was like people had to go through it to realize what was actually happening. So those are my thoughts on Charlize Theron. I don't often think about Charlize

Theron, but when I do, I think about how great she was in Monster and how bizarre and behind the times she, as an almost 50-year-old woman at this point, sounds trying to be cool and relate to young women who actually do not find this compelling or cool whatsoever. And 10 years ago, if you had told me that would be the case, I actually probably wouldn't have believed it. So on that note, I know how valued the things that I have to say about Shalise Theron and Alligator Alcatraz are to all of you. Because, I'm joking, but because I'm not joking about this, we got some great news this week that warrants a giant thank you to everybody in the audience and to the wonderful team here at After Party. but we were the number three new podcast in the country. After Party is the number three new podcast in the country this week.

So that's some great news we got. We're also the top comedy podcast, new comedy podcast in the country, which is extra pressure to have hilarious guests on to do some of the heavy lifting. As I say random shit about Gary Bucie going to North Korea, which I'm told by my producers is absolutely not true. There's no record of Gary Bucy going to North Korea. why I thought Gary Bucy went to North Korea. We will probably never know.

Nonetheless, Gary Bucy did not go to North Korea, and I want to be very clear about that. Maybe he went to North Carolina, but he sure as hell did he go to North Korea. So who knows where that came from? But these are the things that people tune in for, me just stumbling into abject nonsense. So thank you for that.

But really, it is huge news. It's humbling news. I hope at 10 p.m. on Mondays and Wednesdays, you appreciate what we're doing and that we're trying to have a little bit of fun, trying to get through the news of the day. These really difficult, tangled, depressing news cycles with some fun and with some levity and with a more relaxed sense than you're probably getting on cable at this hour. So thank you.

I feel like everybody really does get it. I've talked to so many of you. I've gotten so many emails. That's Emily at Devil Maycare Media. dot com. I think I've read every single one of them. I've replied to most of them. And it's been really gratifying to say I do think a lot of you get what we're doing. And we're going to keep getting better. Don't worry about that. It's kind of funny to, I'm in my, I'm literally in my guest bedroom here. Our team set up an amazing studio in my guest bedroom. And I'm just talking

into a tiny little camera that's here on my desk. And I will say that is one of the things I found most kind of challenging is when it's just kind of you and the camera, it's fun to have a guest in that circumstance. But when it's you and the camera and I've got my printout, outline of the show, I've got my screen share, which I'm having a lot of fun with, look for that to get even even more fun. But it's very interesting to like be trying to have a party vibe when you're basically alone. But like I said at the beginning of the show, nothing screams party to me personally, like sitting alone in a chair. And that is my ideal party, honestly. And talking to people over the internet, it's the best kind of party that I could ever ask for. It's much better than having

to talk to people in person. No offense. And no offense, everybody who sent me party invitations over the years that I have declined because I would rather be sitting in a chair alone on the internet. But that's what we're here for at after party. So on that note, thank you all for tuning in. I hope you have a great Fourth of July that everyone has a great Fourth of July. What a wonderful time to reflect on the fact that you could even say that Gary Bucie went to North Carolina, North Carolina, North Korea, that you live in a country where you have the freedom to mistakenly inform thousands of people that Gary Bucce went to North Korea. That's a freedom that I won't be taking for granted at all this Friday. So thank you very much for tuning in. God bless you. Have a great

4th of July and we will see you back here next Monday 10 p.m. and next Wednesday 10 p.m. I wish I could show you all the guest list for what's coming up because it is amazing. We're so excited. Subscribe. Stay tuned. We'll see you then.