After Party with Emily Jashinsky - The "Super Sus" Pratt Loss, Jack Smith’s BIG Problem, and the Biden Grift, with Tom Bevan

Episode Date: July 16, 2026

Emily Jashinsky opens the show with a look at Vice President JD Vance’s lengthy appearance on Joe Rogan, breaking down the viral exchange over Jeffrey Epstein and explaining why she believes Vance��s comments about Epstein’s intelligence connections are supported by the public record. Then Emily is joined by Tom Bevan, Co-Founder and President of RealClearPolitics and co-host of RealClearPolitics on SiriusXM 111. They examine Rogan and Vance’s skepticism over the Los Angeles mayoral race, using Spencer Pratt’s campaign to explore the growing public distrust of elections while also discussing Vance’s political prospects in 2028. Then Emily and Tom break down newly released documents raising questions about Special Counsel Jack Smith’s January 6 investigation, arguing the allegations point to government overreach and a troubling lack of media scrutiny. They also react to recent comments from Nicolle Wallace, Jim Acosta, Bill Maher, and NPR’s Steve Inskeep, examining why legacy media continues to lose public trust. Later, they dive into Joe Biden’s upcoming memoir, Hunter Biden’s latest foul-mouthed media appearance, and whether the Biden family is trying to reshape its public legacy. Emily also examines Olivia Rodrigo’s growing political activism, contrasting it with Jennifer Lawrence’s reflections on celebrity advocacy to explore whether partisan activism ultimately helps or hurts public figures, and more…   USAFacts: Demand government accountability by signing the open letter for reliable public data at https://USAFacts.org/supportdata   Shopify: The best businesses aren’t built in boardrooms. They’re built by people who just started. Free trial at https://shopify.com/emily   Lean: Discover why LEAN is becoming the choice for real weight‑loss results—shop now at https://TAKELEAN.com use code EMILY. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome back to After Party, everyone. We got a great show for you tonight. Tom Bevin of Real Clear Politics is here, and we have a lot to discuss. Thank you for joining us. As a reminder, please do subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. And the most helpful thing you can do, honestly, to allow us to keep doing our independent journalism is to subscribe on YouTube, liking and commenting. I mean, you guys have just been going to the mat for us recently. Really appreciate it. It's genuinely so helpful. As a reminder, also, you can email me at Emily at Double My Care Media.com. every Friday we do a version of the show that's just on the podcast side. It's just audio, which I love because it's where I answer your emails. I tape it usually Thursday afternoon, and that's where we get to go back and forth, and it pops on Friday evenings. So make sure to hit me up there. Lots to discuss today, as I mentioned. So Joe Rogan dropped a three-hour interview with Vice President J.D. Vance this afternoon. We're going to go over some of the highlights with Tom Bevan. We're also going to talk to Tom about this Jack Smith story that's getting absolutely buried in the legacy media about Jack Smith wrongfully spying on the actual text messages,

the actual text messages of Republicans in Congress. It's a wild story, again, getting very little pickup in Legacy Media. Bill Moore, Mill Marr went in on NPR right to Steve Inkeeps face. Inkeeps face just in the last like 24 hours or so, Joe Biden dropped the video trailer for his memoir that comes out on November 17th. Hunter Biden is going off on Trump. Lots to get to. Nicole Wallace said she was too hurt to carry Trump rallies in a conversation with Jim Acosta, who maintains that he's an independent. He's a journalist. He's not coming to any of this with any perspective. And it seems to me like Olivia Rodriguez is really leaning in to politics.

So like I said, much to discuss. Before we bring Tom in, I did just want to mention quickly. this one particular moment from the Vance interview on Rogan that is getting some traction on the internet so far, just as folks are digesting this three-hour interview, there's a lot to get to. But my overall take here is J.D. was most animated when he was talking about AI and labor, which was super interesting,

and when he was talking about Epstein, also super interesting. He was pretty willing. I mean, he took a major L on behalf of the administration, said we messed up the comms, on that. I mean, I think it's, of course, as Rogan pushed Vance, obvious they messed up more than just the comms on the Epstein side, and he's very defensive of the president. But you can see he agrees, as he has in the past, with Susie Wiles' description of him as being all in on the Epstein conspiracy conspiracy conspiracy conspiracy conspiracy. You just see that he's very fluent in Epstein

is like in the conspiracy Epstein language. And at one point, this is a clip. You see this on your screen. Rogan says most people think Epstein was Massad. Vance responds, yeah, Massad or CIA or some other deep state, whether in America or Israel or Israel, he clearly had connections to the highest levels of American intelligence. He clearly had connections to the highest level of Israeli intelligence. And Bridget Fetasy, friend of the show, had such a fascinating insight to J.D. in this post. She said, I don't trust Vance because he's got a dad-sized hole. He's insecure in the worst way a man can be Graves' mail approval and fills centerless, much like a lot of comics and podcasters and Man'sphere. bros that said I'll still choose him over AOC if I have to. That particular description connecting Vance's quote dad-sized hole to the way he is, I think, very eager on these interviews with Rogan and Theo Vaughn, for example, to be accepted by or approved of by some of these guys is actually a pretty fascinating psychological insight that I hadn't really connected both of those things, like the Manosphere podcasts with Vance's own personal history, but I did just want to say on this particular question, it's getting pushback among folks. Vance is getting like pilloried by people who are more in the hawkish kind of pro

Israel hawkish camp. And it's just worth dwelling on this for a second because what he said in that quote, verbatim, that quote that I just read to you is absolutely indisputably accurate. He absolutely had very, very top level connections to CIA and to is very, Israeli intelligence. So as we, as you may remember, because we covered it here, Kathy Rumler, who was the top lawyer in the Obama White House, as she was being awarded by the CIA, was emailing Epstein about this. He was asking her to bring him into the CIA. He met with Bill Burns in 2013, who would go on to be Joe Biden's CIA director, corresponded with him. Burns was also trying to make that meeting happen. You know, obviously, from the timeline that's long after

Epstein was imprisoned, so the first time. So on the Israeli side, he had a deep business relationship with Ehud Barak. I mean, they're essentially best described as business partners. You can check out Ryan Grimm's reporting on some of those from the emails, whether it's the hacked ones or the ones that were released by our government. This is indisputable. Ahood Barak was the defense minister in Israel. He was the prime minister in Israel. But if we're talking about intelligence connections. Ehud Barak was staying in an Epstein-owned apartment that there are correspondence, there is correspondence back and forth about setting up cameras in that apartment, the Israeli government setting up cameras in that apartment. This is not conspiracy theory. This is indisputable.

Obviously, we also have Vicki Ward, who has been one of the top journalists on this beat, who reported for Rolling Stone back in 2021. Four separate sources told me on the record that Epstein's dealing in the arms world in the 1980s had led him to work for multiple governments, including the Israelis. Some of these sources are more reliable than others, but the gist of the claims that you will be able to hear and ultimately watch in a three-hour documentary series that came out. She continues, is that Galane, I'm sorry, that Robert Maxwell, who was himself a conduit between the Israelis and other governments during his lifetime, introduced Epstein to Israeli leaders, who then allegedly used Epstein as the equivalent of an

old-fashioned Russian, quote, sleeper, someone who could be useful in a, quote, intelligence operation. Now, according to my sources in the intelligence world, this is hyperbole, but also not completely ridiculous. His name was mentioned as a middleman in both Africa and the Middle East. We now know much more about that, thanks to some of the emails that have come out. He was known in the intelligence world as a, quote, hyperfixer, somebody who can go between different cultures and networks. So are there conspiratorial renderings of this reporting?

Yes, of course. But this is four sources to Vicki Ward in Rolling Stone. She had sources on this back in 2019, before the Epstein saga had blown up into obviously what it is now. So as this particular clip is getting a lot of pushback online, I wanted to pause for a moment to just recognize that verbatim, it's really an indisputable characterization of Epstein. Rogan was asking if that meant Trump had been compromised, basically, by Israel that Trump had initially hesitated on the Epstein files because he has some type of, the Israelis have

some type of compromise on him, and they blackmailed him into the Iran War. that's obviously a much bigger and more speculative conspiracy theory. But the idea that Epstein himself was tied into both the United States intelligence, CIA and Israeli intelligence, whether through IDF intel or the CIA, it is indisputable at this point. That is not a conspiracy theory. That is, as some people I guess would say, like a conspiracy fact. There are factual conspiracies, and that is one of them. So a little, just I thought a little moment in the interview. That's actually a pretty big moment in the interview, but one that was worth. pausing on a bit. Now, we're going to take a quick break, and we will be right back with the one

and only Tom Bevin fan favorite Tom Bevin in just one moment. This episode is sponsored by USA Fax, a non-partisan organization making government data easier to access and understand. I'm partnering with them on a great campaign called The Data We Depend on. The idea is pretty simple. If the government is going to spend taxpayer money and then make massive decisions, it should have to show its work. What a concept. That starts with reliable, public data. Government data helps track the economy, spending, and education. You've actually probably heard me citing sources like the BLS, the IRS, or the DHS, but when that data is slow, incomplete, or hard to access, as believe me, it very often is, lawmakers have less to work with,

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or just a government that has to show its math, you need reliable facts. Read and sign the letter at USAFax.org slash support data. All right, everyone, we are back now with Tom Bevin. He's co-founder and president of Real Clear Politics and also the co-host of the RealClear Politics podcast, which you could listen to on Sirius X-M. Emma every day, 11 a.m. Eastern time. I was listening today. Five days a week.

It's a slog. It's a slog, but I was listening today as your co-hosts, the great Carl Cannon and Andy Walworth, were laying into you over this polo that you're wearing. Incredible. Yeah. No, they want, they want the merch. That's right. Yeah, so Miz and Domain is one of our sponsors. And I dialed him up and was like, hey, can you do some branded stuff for us? And we'll wear it on the show and pro it. like, sure. So, yeah. Wheeling and dealing.

We finally got some merch. Yeah. No, it's good. The merch is great. I look forward to seeing Carl and Andy. And I do say, Miz and Maine is a great company. I mean, they sent me a bunch of clothes that I wear all the time. It's great. Fantastic stuff. So. You can believe Tom Bevin. You can take it to the bank. That's right. Tom Bevan. That's right.

Well, Tom, I did want to get your reaction to J.D. Vance's decision as he's selling his new book, Communion, to sit down with Joe Rogan for basically, I think it was two and 53 minutes total, a three-hour interview, basically. I've seen a couple of clips. I have not had a chance to watch and listen to the whole thing. I mean, that is long. Yeah, and I said earlier on the show that he was at his most animated when talking about kind of questions about AI and labor and also the Epstein conspiracy.

But one thing I forgot is you just realize how fluent he is on UFO conspiracy theories as well. Like, they went deep. He talked about his phone calls with Dave Grush. He was debating Rogan on demons and alien life. It was actually pretty interesting, but just your take on the politics of Vance going back on Rogan's show doing three hours and all of these clips, as you've mentioned, you've seen in the last, I think it's been out for six hours, already going super viral. Some very critical of him. It's a big decision, I think, if you're the sitting vice president to chop it up for three hours with Rogan.

Yeah, but I mean, look, J.D. is, that's who he is. I mean, he's kind of a, you know, he will take all comers. I mean, he went on the view. He's done a variety of media hits promoting his book from friendly sources and not so friendly. And Joe Rogan's a guy who, you know, was friendly to Trump, but maybe isn't so friendly anymore. And he's definitely a not an ideologue. He's not a hardcore maggot guy. I mean, he likes parts of Trump's agenda and doesn't like other parts. And he's been very critical of Trump of the administration. So, so yeah, it's, it's not, quite walking into the lion's den, but at the same time, uh, he does put himself in, in uncomfortable, you know, situations where he has to defend his himself, his, uh, you know,

the administration's policies and like. And that's the thing about, I mean, he, I know, I hear all these folks in the left saying, oh, J.D. Vance has no charisma and, oh, we can't wait to run against him in 2028. He's, you know, he just, he doesn't have, you know, and they called him weird the first time He's so smart and he knows a lot about a lot of stuff and he's very articulate and I think he makes every time I see him I come away thinking like yeah he's he is he knows what he's talking about and he's very persuasive when he when he makes his arguments. Yeah, I'm looking at real clear politics right now. The average in the 28 Republican presidential nomination, he's way ahead of Ruby.

I didn't realize this. Rubio is at 20. Vance is at 39.4 in your polling average and given the way the kind of pundit class has diagnosed the potential for both candidates. That's actually kind of a, I guess that kind of undermines the consensus or the emerging consensus maybe between some and the kind of legacy media right and the broader public. Yeah, I mean, we talked about this on our show a few days ago. I mean, what's really interesting to me about that is if you look at, and we've, we've partnered with polymarket. And so if you go to our pages, Now, you'll see our polling averages.

And then if you scroll down below that, you'll see the latest polymarket charts on the odds for each of these candidates. And, you know, Vance is ahead in the polls, and he's also substantially ahead in the betting markets and polymarket. On the Democratic side, though, it's completely flipped. You've got Kamala Harris leading in the polls with Gavin Newsom's second and I think Pete Buttigieg's third, and then you've got AOC down in single digits. But if you go and look at the betting. markets, Kamala Harris is like 7%. I mean, she's way down there and just flatlining. And you've got, and you've got Gavin Newsom is ahead but was falling the last time I looked, which was a couple of days

ago. And you've got folks like John Ossoff, which there's this little boomlet for John Ossov. And AOC are both, you know, I think AOC is second. She's at like 19%. So I think there's a complete inversion of the polling versus the betting markets on the Democratic side. On the Republican side, it's, I think it just shows that that race is pretty stable and I think it's, it's fairly well locked in that Vance is, is the favorite there. Now, I mean, obviously, we're a long way away and things could change. But on the Democratic side, I think what that inversion shows is just how wide open that race is and how none of these candidates have really laid a claim to being the leader of the party. And I expect that to be a complete and total free-for-all.

Well, Matthew Schmitz had a really interesting piece. first things this week about the fracturing of the anti-woke coalition, as I believe, I believe that's paraphrasing how he described it. And Rogan is an example of somebody who's part of the anti-woke coalition, but like got off that bandwagon over Epstein, over the Iran war, over ice at certain periods in time. But one thing that Vance and Rogan agreed heartily on, and I think this maybe speaks to the future durability of an anti-woke coalition in presidential politics, is on the Spencer Pratt loss in that, well, let's say before the runoff, in that election before the runoff. And let's just roll this clip because they both suspect something's up.

This isn't a bigger conversation about why these cities that are disasters are all led by Democrats, basically from former Democrat Joe Rogan, who's clearly like a political independent now. Let's take a listen. What happened with the last election in Los Angeles, the, just the primary. I think was so super sus. And here's why it's super sus. Spencer Pratt, who is in second place,

got overtaken by Nithia Rahman in the mail-in ballots, but that the mail-in ballots also passed a tax hike. I wouldn't be the Californian, Joe, who wakes up in the morning and says, you know what, I'm going to go and vote for higher taxes. I don't pay enough taxes.

The crazy thing about it, too, is it's that, okay, So after the initial ballots all came in, it was Karen Bass was number one, Spencer Pratt was right behind her, and then number three, whatever this woman's name is. Nitha Raman. Okay. So you would expect the mail-in ballots to be more or less like the original ballots in terms of one, two, and third. I'm not saying Spencer Pratt's going to win the mail-in ballots, but it just so happened that the third-place person, in relative terms, did a lot better than the first and second-place person. proportionately better. Such that the Republican was actually kicked out of the race so that there's not actually a real election in California. So Tom, I always want to be really careful with this, like whether it's Republicans or Democrats

making these claims, whether it's Hillary Clinton and Russia or Trump and Dominion voting machines or whatever. But I do feel like this has kind of, what's the best way to put it? Broken containment into the mainstream. I mean, if you look at polling about people's trust in elections, it's a real problem for both parties right now. And when you look at the Pratt pattern, you've followed this for, I mean,

you followed elections for a long time. You followed elections versus polls for a long time, looking at the results versus what's kind of predicted in the polling. I don't know that this comes across as just like conspiracy mongering anymore. I think this actually is pretty, or it seems to people like a kind of viable theory of the case and especially these blue cities. Yeah. And look, we've,

We follow this for a long time. And we've seen how California, whether it's this race or other races, every election cycle, midterm presidential, where California takes days and weeks to count these votes. And invariably there have been races where, you know, candidates, Republican candidates have been overtaken by the mail-in ballots. but we've never seen it happen because this race was so nationalized and there was a lot of attention on it and Spencer Pratt had generated a lot of sort of media heat around it and we'd never seen it to this degree, to this level where a third place candidate who was who was behind by, I forget what her initially, she was down by 10 points or something like that when the first balloting, you know, the election day balloting took place, was able to, as Joe and J.D. were just talking about,

you know, suddenly she's getting these disproportionate, huge dumps, ballot dumps. And again, it's, she didn't, she was in tears on election night. She had no idea this was happening or this was coming. I mean, usually if you had a really good get out the vote operation, you know, ballot harvesting operation, you'd be like, okay, well, look, you know, this is not the end of the story. Let's wait for some of these ballots to come in. She was in tears. I mean, she thought she had lost, clearly.

She didn't even carry her home district, okay? It was a disaster. And so you start adding up all of these things and you're like, well, hold on a second. I mean, one of the theories out there is that, and not to be, not, it hasn't been proven. It's been talked about a little bit. Is that Tom Steyer, who dumped hundreds of millions of dollars into his race and it was, was basically funding all of the ballot harvesting. and get out the vote operations, and this is why maybe Nithy Arama didn't know about it,

and that she ended up benefiting from it disproportionately. But, I mean, again, that's pure speculation. And, you know, when you talk about this in a way as if like it is, to use Joe Rogan's phrase, super suss, folks on the left and folks in the media are just like, you're an election denier, how dare you? You know, I mean, it's just like there's blowback. And, you know, that's a, there's no

interest in, in, it's just like, this is the way it's always been done and, and, you know, you're stupid for not knowing that. And, you know, there's no interest in investigating or scrutinizing this stuff in any way, shape, or form. And that just kind of shows the disconnect that's out there when you talk about things like the Save America Act and in, in all of these, when Trump talks about 2020 and some of the stuff that went on there, you know, Democrats have no interest in revisiting that. They think the system is just fine. And, you know, and, you know, In fact, they think Republicans are the ones who are suppressing votes by trying to get people to show ID or to register. You know, it's, but I think this race, it, to use your phrase, it has sort of broken containment.

I don't know that there's going to be any autopsy on it or any consequences that come from it. But it certainly stands out as an example where people look at that and go like, really? Did that really? That's how that, that's, that's really on the up and up. Well, that was going to be my next question, Tom. It's that like this question of the anti-woke coalition, Rogan, Vance, both seeming to agree on this particular topic. It's sort of a sad statement on our times that you do just have so much distrust in elections.

It's, I think, probably fair, given that the corporate press had the Molly Ball Story in Time magazine referring to the well-funded cabal, as our friend Molly Hemingway has written about and did write about and rigged of wealthy people who were changing election laws, pouring money into changing election laws and pouring money disproportionately into blue areas, doing it out in the open. It's a bit different than the conspiracy theories Trump ultimately embraced or initially embraced, I should say.

But there's this overlap. What brings people together on left and right now is this distrust of our institutions and our establishments. And it's like a warranted distrust. And so I was curious to get your take on whether this meant in the long term, it's almost helpful for future Spencer Prats, whether they're in Los Angeles or New York City

or other like deep blue areas that in a sense, they're kind of being vindicated in ways that people, I mean, it's really hard to look at what happened in Los Angeles. Just be like, hey, yep, this, I was looking into that ballot referendum they were talking about about raising taxes. It won within like, around 1%. It was really, really close.

And I hear what Rogan saying, like, what do you mean? People are voting to raise taxes and they're voting with it. It's weird, it's weird. And so I, I wonder if for better or worse, we're heading into an era where actually people are going to gravitate more towards the Pratt style candidates. Maybe. I mean, you know, Spencer Pratt strikes me as a candidate who managed to capture lightning in a bottle and really sort of threaten the establishment in a very serious and significant way because of a confluence of factors, right?

the palisades and he lived there and all that stuff. And so his situation is pretty unique. That's not to say we can't have other people like that. I had joked that he should move to Chicago and run for mayor against Brandon Johnson. He should just move around all these different blue cities and keep running for mayor and just doing the same thing. But look, as far as the distrust of institution goes,

you're absolutely right. And it's pervasive now, unfortunately. I think COVID had a lot to do with that in terms of, you know, the government, the, you know, public health establishment, the lies they told, the, you know, omissions and manipulations and obfuscations that really did damage to people. And we kind of knew that. And it's become more and more clear in the aftermath. The lawfare stuff, what's gone on. I mean, just today, this Jack Smith stuff, right? Yeah, Tom, let's talk about this. Let's put this federalist headline up on the screen. Sorry to interrupt, but this is exactly where we were going next. This is from my former colleague, Joy Pullman at the Federalist. New docs released by Chuck Grassley, the headline, quote, Democrat Special Counsel, Jack Smith, Spideon lied to Congress.

This is what Chuck Grassley is revealing in some of these new documents. And if we roll, this is going to be helpful on this question of what Jacksmith said under oath. S2, Catherine Harwich pointed out, there's a very interesting connection here. There's a very interesting part where Rand Paul, noticed the question that Jack Smith got, I think this was last year, the toll records that you requested from the senators, did they include the content of the phone calls? Smith says, no. The records that you requested, the toll records from the members of Congress include the content of text messages. Smith says no. Let's watch the clip.

Did the toll records that you requested from the senators, did they include the content of the phone calls? No. The records that you requested, the toll records from the members of Congress include the content of text messages? No. Can you explain for us on the record? Oh, funny, Tom. That's absolutely fascinating because as Joy reports during the Biden Department of Justice, Biden DOJ's investigation of Donald Trump under the pretext of prosecuting January 6th, 2021, unrest and complaints about 2020 election lawbreaking,

Smith's team ignored required procedures to view text messages written by 44 members of Congress, according to these new documents. Yet Smith testified to Congress that he had only obtained toll records or data about the text, such as timestamps and recipients, not the text content. Are you kidding me? This guy already, we know, spied on conversations that members of Congress were having with the media. Media doesn't give a damn about it. They're barely covering this.

And now we see even four Democrats, as the Federalist reports here, were spied on, barely a peep from corporate press. This should be sending everybody through the roof. And Jack Smith, I think probably could go to prison, Tom. Well, let's hope so. I mean, somebody should go to prison. Forty-four members of Congress were spied on. Their text messages were read. And you saw the clip. There's another clip of Jamie Raskin asking basically the exact same questions. He's testifying before Congress. He's under oath. And he says no to the question of whether they were able to read text messages, the contents of the text messages. So yeah, this is a huge, a massive abuse of power. And to your point, If this were the Trump administration that was doing this, the media would be absolutely, have lost their minds completely. But they don't seem nearly as interested when it's people who were after Donald Trump. And in the case of Jack Smith.

So look, we've seen, what was it, John Brennan lied to Congress back in that, you know, he spied on the. Clapper, right. Clapper lied about they were spying on like the Senate Intelligence Committee or something. I mean, this stuff happens. And there are, you know, you go on to be a CNN contributor. I mean, there are no consequences for this stuff. And it's like at what point are we going to start putting people, you know, making people face consequences for this kind of action? Because this is exactly the kind of thing that we're talking about. You want to know why people don't trust the government is because you have people like Jack Smith that just break the rules with impunity,

lie to our faces about it, and then get off scot-free. Well, and we've seen throughout history, I mean, you have CIA officials, whether they're lying about MK. Ultra or whatever else, under oath, they will lie. And then by the time they're dead, we get the documents that show they were obviously, clearly, blatantly lying under oath, and there's never any accountability for it, but it's part of what tanks trust in government. And here you have Democrats who claim to care about this. they're getting spied on.

I mean, Todd, this, part of what's maddening about this, it was the same thing with their Senate communications, I think it was, with CBS News. And then now you have the fact that four Democrats had their text messages pulled as part of this investigation that was clearly a political effort to build a case against Donald Trump

to prevent him from running and succeeding again in 2024. And it was already so bad. That's kind of what's frustrating to me about this story, is that like, It's incredible that he had the text of the text messages. It's incredible that he lied about it. But we have had this evidence plain as day since we started seeing more disclosures from Arctic Frost that this was going on.

We didn't know again about the texts of the texts, but we knew that he was doing this. And it was already outraged. Like the sweep of conservative movement groups, turning point USA that got caught up in Arctic Frost. Again, if this were happening on the left, their heads would be spinning. And it's absolutely insane. The same thing's not happening here. And you see on the left now they're all, they're up in arms about the Trump administration, you know, the New York Times, you know, wanting to get the, wanting to subpoena,

the journalists who leaked the story about Air Force One and the security stuff. And that's like, oh my God, you know, Trump's attacking the press. He's violating our, you know, our First Amendment rights, blah, blah, blah. And yet very, very little concern about this stuff, which is arguably way, way bigger deal. Yeah, Chuck Grassley says it's worse than Watergate. And by the way, Chuck Grassley was around for Watergate. He would know. He actually was.

He would know. He sure would. Every time I think we should have like age limits in the Senate, I see Grassley. And I'm like, okay, maybe not. I mean, the guy's unbelievable. He's amazing. He's plowing forward, literally plowing forward on his farm in Iowa. I did an interview with him like 20 years ago.

And, yeah, I mean, he was running, he was a big time running. or jog and he ran until like he was in his you know 90s early 90s he just quit like a few years ago. I mean the guy's just an absolute beast. Couldn't be me couldn't be me. No, me either. I hit 60 and all bets are off. Tom, I'm going to take a quick break and we're going to be back actually with some more news on the same theme. So stick around everyone. We will be right back. Starting a business is a big deal. But Shopify makes it a whole lot simpler because everything you need to launch is already included from day one. Think about that. If you've been sitting on an idea for a brand, product, or side hustle, Shopify helps you get it

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The best part, Shopify handles so much of the setup so you can spend more time growing your business and focusing on what makes it unique. All you need is the idea. Shopify handles the rest. Start your free trial at Shopify.com slash Emily. Start your free trial at Shopify.com slash Emily. All right, everyone, we're back with more After Party and back with more Tom Bevan, co-founder and president of Real Clear Politics, co-host of the Real Clear Politics podcast on Series XM. You can also catch that on YouTube or anywhere you get your podcast.

Tom, thanks for hanging around tonight. Of course. Happy to do it. Well, I think you're going to be really happy to do it because I'm actually going to skip ahead here to this clip of Nicole Wallace and Jim Acosta. It just seemed to be a perfect segue from what we were discussing about waning faith in American institutions. Nicole Wallace, who was, of course, one of George W. Bush's press secretaries, by the way, during the Iraq War, of course, was talking. I shouldn't say talking.

I should say verbally masturbating, sorry, Tom, with Jim Acosta on this podcast episode. It's true. You know that I'm right about this because here's both of them. I mean, it just, we'll play the clip so that people get a feeling for what's happening here. Jim Acosta, obviously, formally of CNN, who was left when the network or he was basically laid off when the network was going in a different direction. Cut when the network was going in a different direction. He famously sparred with Donald Trump in the first Trump administration. He read the poem on the base of the Statue of Liberty in a White House press briefing.

The answer. The microphone out of that poor intern's hand. The intern. Oh, my gosh. And everyone knew that Jim Acosta was not the, quote, independent journalist he pretended to be, he's still pretending to be that independent journalist, while also coming out of the closet as like a full progressive at this point. So let's start with Nicole Wallace talking about how hurt she is by Donald Trump.

Stopped carrying Sarah Huckabee Sanders briefings. Just refused to carry him because having work there, it like actually hurt me to watch her lying. And I'm not saying that every press secretary and every White House doesn't, you know, try to get the best coverage. they can or put the best possible light on the things that their boss is doing. I feel blessed to be welcomed to the pro-democracy coalition, but I feel sometimes like I'm rooting for them more than they're rooting for themselves. Yeah, no, I hear you. Democracy is our home, Nicole.

That's okay. I mean, I've never been registered with the political party. I've always been an independent. I've been a journalist. But, I mean, I think I see things clearly. Okay, fascinating final answer there, Tom, where Acosta says, I've always been an independent. I've been a journalist, but I think I see things clearly. We're going to get into that in just one moment, but I wanted to get your reaction first to

Nicole Wallace, who was part of the Bush administration, that very famously lied to the American public about an unpopular war, what became an unpopular war saying that she's hurt by Trump's former press secretary, Sarah Higabee Sanders, to the point where she wouldn't even carry it live on MSNBC. So rich, and she has no self-awareness. So rich. You know what hurt me? having to watch free jump here every day for four years, who is the worst press secretary that we've, I think, we might, maybe ever, certainly in the last like three decades. And I'm sure Nicole Wallace carried all of her press briefings.

Look, she's, she is one of the reasons that people have no faith in the media. It's like Jen Saki. Jensocky was at the podium, literally, while she was negotiating her contract with MSNBC, right? Then goes over there and gets her own show. I mean, all of these folks are so, they, first of all, they have these massively self-inflated egos, right? The self-regard that they have about, like, they're protectors of democracy and we're doing all this. It's like, no, you're just a, you're just a partisan hack, honestly. And that's the other thing.

They all think they're independent and they're really down the middle. and boy, we're, you know, we're just giving you the facts and all that. Jim Acosta was one of the most slanted reporters. And he did it in this sort of grandstanding, he used to yell at the brief, you know, I mean, he was just. Sanctimonious. Absolutely. Sanctimonious, indignant, all these things.

And then he'd go on Colbert's show and which, you know, Jake Tapper still does to this day. And Caitlin Collins and all these people. I mean, it's just, it's, it's nauseating, honestly. And, you know, now, plenty of them, right? All of these former, I mean, you look at Chuck Todd, for example, a guy used to, he used to. Sleepy eyes. Sleepy eyes, Chuck Todd. It's the best Trump nickname, I think I've ever heard.

Used to helm, like, the most prestigious Sunday show, and now he's like, you know, broadcasting from his basement. Chris Eliza, Jim Acosta, someone made a funny, you know, he posted this video yesterday, the intrepid journalist that, I think it was yesterday, maybe it was this morning, who even knows, where he's at the reflecting pool and they've drained it and there's no sign of the gash that Donald Trump, you know, and he's like, someone joke because he's wearing a hat that's like a hat that said substack and a T-shirt that said YouTube on it. Someone was like, what do you do with all the CNN money? I mean, what? It's, they've been really laid low, honestly. And it, and that's a good thing in my opinion, because, because they've, I think the media in general, the corporate media, the legacy media has debased itself so spectacularly over the last 10 years, their inability to cover Trump in any sort of objective way. And I'm not even, I'm not saying they have to provide great coverage of Trump, but they can't even.

provide any, I mean, you look at the numbers. It's like nine, no one's gotten worse press than Donald Trump. It's like 97, 95, 99% negative stories. I mean, the guy, they just refuse to, you know, be anywhere near balanced on the subject when it comes to Donald Trump. And they're proud about it. I mean, they, they dutifully joined the resistance when he was elected in 2016 and then they've never quit.

Well, I was going to say, actually, they're both such artifacts of the like 2016 to 2022 era in media where they were kind of proudly driving the industry's trust into the ground. And what you see with them is, I mean, particularly with Acosta, I think he does like fairly well by substack standards and maybe by YouTube standards. But what's interesting about that is it means you have such a small niche or you have a niche of the American public. It's not, you know, tiny that you're not making nothing. But it's small compared to what they believed they had influence-wise at CNN. And that's why his last statement was so interesting to me where he says, to your point about them being proud of this, he says, I have always been an independent, I've always been a

journalist, but I see things clearly. What he's telling you there is that the independent way to view American politics, to see things clearly means to be vehemently against Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Donald Trump. I mean, I can't even believe they're talking about Sarah Huckabee Sanders in 2026, but that's what he's saying, is to see politics clearly. means you have to believe that Trump is a uniquely, and his enablers are a uniquely evil force. And you could even buy into the concept that Trump is an evil force. But to say that he's a uniquely evil force, he's a uniquely different force. But my dude, you're talking to Nicole Wallace of the Bush administration where thousands of

American soldiers were killed. I mean, it's just unbelievable. Yeah. No, and Acosta has, you know, he, he, he has I mean he did very well by you know when he threw him with the resistance he became one of CNN's feet got his own show he was on you know he was just a lowly white house reporter but because he would make you know make these grand statements and grand stand in front of the cameras and and the more he displayed his sort of TDS the more he

adulation he got from all of the you know folks who it who hated Trump right all the trumpeters, they boosted him. And he was basically like huffing his own parts. I mean, he was just like, you know, he couldn't stop. And, and he ended up doing very well in those initial years. But he was so clearly playing, he was not independent. He was not seeing things clearly at all. He was seeing one side of the story. And once he started getting the sort of, you know, adulation that he got, he was all in and he's been all in ever since similar moment happened during Bill Maher's recent interview with Steve Inskeep of NPR

this clip is also really delicious so this came out today Bill Maher is basically taking on Inskeep to his face NPR there are few outlets I think in American media that deserve this as much as NPR that display the exact same qualities we just were discussing with Jim Acosta and Nicole Wallace of the sanctimony ratio being wildly off the charts, like the sanctimony to substance ratio being wildly off the charts,

or sanctimony even to self-awareness, right? Like, they believe they're aware of their flaws and their biases, but they're so biased, they can't even see their flaws and their biases. So here's Marr taking on Steve Inskeep in a rather uncomfortable moment. Your audience is going to love this, by the way.

The audience is a little more diverse than you might think. Really? Sure. Some people... I mean, I'm surprised you even had me. What I always want people to do, but it's so hard to get people to do these days, is just engage with the argument. Maybe I'm wrong, but I think of this place is like on the far extreme of the left. Well, maybe, maybe there's a little more variety in who we talk to than you might have been told. Who you talk to is different than like what people believe. Are there beliefs that the audience can be, you know, examine,

Oh, you know, I think that's a good point. Maybe, or is it just like, no, that's, it does not conform to the one true opinion. So, you know, I mean, it's. Well, I'm with you. We want to hear all kinds of people and we go out of our way to do it. Great. Tom, I listen to too much NPR for my own good. So what Marr is describing.

God bless you. God bless you. That tells me you have car play. I don't. My car is old. I get in there and I'm like, my choice is the radio. unless I want to spend time like connecting the Bluetooth. Anyway, they are when it's trans athlete, it's trans ideology, free speech, Christian nationalism.

It's exactly what Mar described. It's like no, at no point did they pause and be like, oh, okay, well, that maybe is an interesting counterargument. Literally never on some of those cultural issues. And you'll remember this. Yuri Berliner, who had been at NPR for a really long time, wrote a landmark essay for the free press back in 2024, where he said, looking at survey data in 2011, quote, although NPR's audience tilted a bit to the left, it still bore a resemblance to America at large.

26% of listeners described themselves as conservative. 23% is middle of the road and 37% as liberal. By 2023, the picture was completely different. Only 11% described themselves as very or somewhat conservative. 21% as middle of the road. And 67% of listeners said they were very or somewhat liberal. That's up 30 points in the course of about a decade. He says, we weren't just losing conservatives. We were also losing moderates and traditional

liberals. That is exactly how you would probably describe Bill Maher. And Berliner specifically hones in on their coverage of the Russia collusion hoax, hones in on their coverage of the Hunter Biden laptop story, and then of the lap leak, which they dismissed as a conspiracy theory. He mentions, we introduced our coverage of that development on February 28th by asserting confidently that the scientific evidence overwhelmingly points to a natural origin for the virus. Perfect. It's all right there for them to see. Yes. And what did they do? This is this is what drives me crazy. So your audience is getting more and more one-sided. And so what do you do? You hire a CEO who doesn't believe in the First Amendment, right? Who's giving TED talks about how you

just make up facts and make up reality. I mean, this is part of the problem. with the media is that there's no there doesn't appear to be any sort of self-corrective. There's no introspection. There's no reckoning of any of this stuff, right? They just keep on, keeping on. And meanwhile, their audience is dwindling and people are going to find different voices because they can't trust the mainstream media. And whenever any of these.

institutions does try to, you know, push back or make some sort of correction by hiring someone like Barry Weiss at CBS or who was it? Chris Licked at CNN. These, it's, it's like an, it's like a white blood cell antibody reaction. You know, these organizations all go crazy and, and try and force these people out. They just, they resist any sort of change in part because they think they are, right? They think they are sort of doing the Lord's work. They're righteous in their viewpoints. And they don't believe that there's two sides to these stories. And they don't believe that, you know, you can, um, there's a, there's a plausible argument to be made for any of the policies of the Trump administration. So it's, it's just a never ending cycle, right? There's no,

there's no accountability. The only thing that's accountable is when, when these folks, you know, they get let go because their audience dwindles and and eventually these companies are going to go out of business and it's going to be it's going to be all of their own doing i would also to sort of bring this full circle that's another interview that jd vans did with bill mar and bill marr you know when he interviewed him he said look i can't i can't get camilla harris to come on the show i've asked her you know the whole time she was running for president the whole time afterward he's asked her to be on she will not come on the show and sit down with him to talk and he's he is a liberal i mean he is a died in the wool liberal who in this sort of classic sense and she is afraid to and he says it's not just

her it's everybody I mean he can't get Democrats refuse to sit out and have those kinds of conversations and discuss issues and be presented with other viewpoints and that's a bad sign for the party because if they can't do that and she really didn't do that when she was running for president she didn't have a single press conference she did very few interviews and And even the one she did, the one that tripped her up the most was that friendly interview on the view. It was a question by Sunny Austin who was like, here's this softball. Can you please knock it out of the park? She was just like, uh, uh, I don't know what's.

So, you know, I don't think that's going to, I don't think that's going to bode well for, for Democratic candidates at the presidential level, certainly, or the media itself. Yeah. And actually, one more part from the Syria Berliner piece that was so. He says back in 2024 in February, our audience insights team sent an email proudly announcing that we had a higher trustworthy score than CNN or the New York Times. But the research from Harris poll is hardly reassuring it found that three in ten audience members familiar with NPR said they associate NPR with a characteristic trustworthy. So they're bragging about being better than CNN and the New York Times.

But only three in 10 of the audience members in that poll, which they are sending around internally, Steve Inskeep is now in 2026 being like, well, our audience may be a little bit more diverse than you think. Only if Bill Maher thought the audience was literally 100% hardcore progressive, could that be true? Because we just saw a 30% increase in people who are identifying as liberal in NPR's audience. And what we're seeing here is even their own research shows, they're not highly trusted by people familiar with the brand, that they're bragging about research that shows people are not ascribing trustworthiness to this media. outlet and two years later, you still have Steve Innskeep and a network that, if anything,

Tom is going further towards the audience capture. It was like when the New York Times canned that Tom Cotton op-ed send in the troops where he called for the insurrection act to be used to quell, quote, violent riots, not peaceful ones. They rescind it. Why? Because their subscribers and their staffers were mad, not because it was journalistically bad practice in any way whatsoever. And that's, I mean, the Times is trying to get away from that a little bit, but NPR is going peddle to the metal on their own audience capture while still trying to maintain this facade of neutrality and independence. That, I think, is their big mistake.

I agree. And it leads you down a sort of, you know, dead-end street where your audience continues to shrink until you have only like a small, it's the niche thing that you were talking about earlier. Like you're left with just a small group of hardcore believers and supporters who want nothing more than to tune in. into NPR to get all of their priors confirmed by Steve Inskeep, right? That's not a sustainable model.

And especially now that NPR's not getting any government dollars, they're going to have to find it elsewhere. Yes. National Public Radio, Brooklyn Public Radio, just leave it at that. Tom, you said dead end. And it reminded me that Joe Biden is alive. Mitch McConnell also alive, Joe Biden alive and well, apparently he released a trailer for his upcoming memoir.

So such a high quality transition there from a professional broadcaster. I love it. This is why they pay me the big bucks. That's right. I can do that stuff right off the top of my head any day while I'm sleeping. I can do transitions like that. The trailer is out. We're doing trailers for memoirs now, I guess.

The book is going to come out in November, November 17th after the midterms, which I think is pretty interesting. It'll keep his media tour, hopefully, blessedly for Democrats away from the press. this is the trailer for the memoir. I don't even need to say anything to introduce it, but let's take a listen to a bit. You're going to get why it's so problematic. I've written a book about my time as president.

It's called Promise Me America. It's about the challenge we faced as a nation. About the decisions I made. Decisions. Why I made them. Leading the country through COVID, rebuilding our economy, and restoring our democracy

after the attack on January 6th. any of our nation's longest war in Afghanistan, strengthening NATO, and supporting Ukraine. It's about why I chose to run for re-election and why I chose to step aside. Just of all, it's about my faith in the promise of America. To be clear, he cannot get through a script on a teleprompter without sounding like his dentures are loose or he's absolutely hammered, which he doesn't drink so he's not hammered, and the man has, cancer. I get it. He's suffering, but he's still trying to leave his mark on the American, and on American politics and culture with this memoir. He's still political in that capacity, Tom.

And finally, it's just a reminder. This man thought he could be president right now in 2026 and run a second term. He cannot get through a teleprompter in the most controlled setting possible. Right. That was the best take they could get. Right? I mean, how many times did they do that? And that was, they were like, this is it. We got it. Yep. Yep. Um, Yeah, I mean, for all those things you just said, the fact that he thought he could run again, I find it interesting that that Jill's book came out first. Ooh, good sense. You know, like, that's very telling to me. And she's, you know, she did her media tour and it wasn't well received necessarily.

Democrats were kind of like, really, we're doing this and before the election. but they both made millions and millions of dollars off of publishing these two. I guess it was a twin book deal. I don't know what the actual number was. But I'm pretty sure that the publishing house will not make their money back because I don't think anybody, I'm not sure. I don't think her book did particularly well. I don't expect his book will do very well either. He's bragging about ending the war in Afghanistan.

13 U.S. soldiers died at Abbey Gate. I mean, I just, I, and, and to your point, you know, the story about why he is, does anyone think we're going to get the actual story about why he decided to run or why he decided to step aside? I don't think he, he says he chose to step aside. Are we really going to get the, you know, the TikTok on the phone calls with Nancy Pelosi where she's like telling him he's. he's got to hit the showers, you know. I just don't, I don't, I don't, it's going to be his version of history. And remember, too, speaking of Nancy Pelosi, and people forget this. Or maybe some people forgot it.

I didn't forget it. Remember when, when this was all going on. She wanted to put him on Mount Rushmore. She thought he deserved to be on Mount Rushmore. I forgot about that. I was thinking about that on July 4th when, or the day before, when Trump was giving a speech at Mount Rushmore and there's all this coverage. Brett Bear was broadcasting from Mount Rushmore.

And I thought to myself, my God. God, they actually, Nancy Pelosi actually, with a straight face, said that Joe Biden should be up there. That was an all-timer for me. I actually have completely forgotten about that. See? It does. That's actually amazing because there was this at the time when he was passing these big spending bills, push to say he is one of the most significant. Oh, my gosh.

Since FDR, he's a top five, you know, all that. Yeah, he was bringing John Meachman. I was just exactly going there to talk to him about how he can be the FDR of his generation and be as significant at FDR and Meecham was helping him write speech. It reminds me that my pick for Mount Rushmore, I think, is probably a Hunter Biden. He is on his ongoing media tour where he's trying to frame himself as this independent guy who's just, who just wants the country to get along and kind of be what it was like when his dad was coming up in politics. And people understood each other as humans and less as, you know, political opponent.

here's Hunter Biden on Donald Trump from a Vlad TV interview that I think aired in the last week. I would tell him to go fuck his fucking self. That's what I would tell him. And please leave. I mean, like, I can be civil

and I can tell you like, oh, listen, he's a president and I don't want him to be pissed off. I mean, you know, like, it's the president of the United States. Well, obviously, wouldn't you want to have a constructive? Fuck that. This man has tried to torture me for fucking 10 years.

says the shit that he says about my dad the shit that he says about my dad his obsession with tormenting my dad hanging a picture of an auto pin on the fucking on the colonnade demeaning him and all the things that he said about him and anyone would expect me to do anything outside of which I would never do

as physical violence against that person what kind of man would I be if I didn't tell him to go fuck himself what kind of man would I be? And I ask that to all of you UFC fans, I'm a UFC fan too. You know, I've challenged Don Jr. to a fucking cage match three times now.

Never heard back from him. That's how I'm going to pay all my debt. He's dead serious, too. That's the best part. This is what we're talking earlier. Do you know how much money pay-per-view that would make Hunter Biden versus Don. junior cage match. Oh my God.

Unfathomable. It would be what I would pay. Could pay the national debt with that thing. I mean, unbelievable. It would be the most watched thing in history. Hunter Biden sounds like a man who has a blanket pardon. Yes, that's so true. He's talking like a guy who can't, he's untouchable. So.

I mean, yeah, look, I do find it interesting that some folks on the right have have taken to sort of glazing Hunter Biden and oh, he's so great on X and he makes all these funny posts and oh, I had no idea that he was this, you know, this whatever, funny or witty or whatever. As if that's, you know, I don't know. Exonerating. Yeah.

I did see also that he was, he did this joint interview with Nick Fuentes and apparently they almost came to blows, speaking of fighting. So I'm not sure if we're going to get video of that or not. but look, he's, I don't know what to say about Hunter Biden other than he continues to put himself out there and wants to be in the conversation and be part of the limelight. He's squeezing his, you know, 15 minutes into 20 minutes. And I don't know if he's doing that. I'm trying to, you know, resurrect or, you know, his legacy or his father's legacy or the

family's legacy, whatever the case may be. But he just, he's, he's an unbelievable character. To be honest, I think it's really simple. It's the Biden's want and need money. They've always wanted more money. They probably right now need more money because the cash cow is on its last legs, tragically in Joe Biden's case. Is he making money off of X, though, posting stuff or doing these podcasts?

I don't think so, right? No, but he's probably putting himself in the position to get a better type of, like, media or book deal at some. point or launched his own channel. That's my guess. That's my, that's my, that's my, that's my, that's my, that's my, that's my, that's my, that's my, that's my, tell all book if he actually, he wrote that one that was, but it was, it didn't. Yeah. It wasn't as it wasn't it was a, it was a, it was a, it was a, it was a, sanitized version of history. And that's what I think he is, it's probably a fairly high

IQ person. I feel like one of the things he's noticed about new media is that it does incentivize this pretty raw commentary and he's absolutely capable of that. Most people are capable of that, to be honest. He's just lived a life that I'd love to hear more raw commentary. What it doesn't do is exonerate him as like some type of sane, normal, decent, civil man with useful thoughts on American politics. And that's where when people go in that direction, I'm like, give me a break. It's Hunter Biden.

Yeah. No, I totally agree. Totally. Tom Bevan. Tom Bevin's here in his Real Clear Politics. Polo, looking sharp if you listen to this. The RCP up here. What's on this side?

You're like a NASCAR vehicle. For your own company. Tom, you are a fan favorite. I always say it. So thank you for taking the time staying up to do the show. Anything for you, Emily. Huge fan. Love it.

All right. All right. Well, the feeling is mutual. Thank you, Tom Bevan. We're going to be back with more in just one moment. But first, a quick break. Everybody's talking about weight loss injections because the results are so dramatic. We all know what I'm talking about.

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But Olivia Rodriguez, now we can put this up on the screen is, quote, standing or taking a stand against Trump as she raises money for Planned Parenthood. This is a headline from The Mirror. Again, let me just read that. Olivia Rodriguez stands against Trump as she raises money. money for Planned Parenthood. Now, reading a bit from this article, Olivia's support of Planned Parenthood hasn't gone unnoticed as she's a strong advocate of reproductive rights for women. That's why earlier this year, Planned Parenthood honored her with the Catalyst Awards. Quote, when I play shows, I look at it at crowds filled with young girls and the bond I feel

with them is profound. I often wonder what happens to those girls when they leave those venues. What are their dreams? What kind of world are they returning to? She said in her acceptance speech, according to The Mirror. This, though, is I think mostly taken from a Hollywood Reporter feature. on Olivia Rodriguez with the headline how Olivia Rodriguez is getting back at the Trump administration. So in the article, this is what I assume is the source

for the mirror piece because you may have heard Rodrigo is launching a Lilifair, what's the best way to put it? A Lilith Fair sort of child. It could be an inheritor of the Lilith Fair brand. It's called Daisy Chain.

It's the Daisy Chain Fields Festival. This was announced a couple of weeks ago. She's now encouraging entrance, according to the Hollywood Reporter, to check their voter registration status, register or explore election resources for a chance at an all expenses paid trip to the festival, travel and hotel included, according to headcount, the nonprofit running the promotion, headcount, according to T.HR, partners with musicians and music events nationwide to build awareness around civil rights and voter participation working at over 1,000 concerts and festivals a year. Beyond, just as I'm wrapping this quote up, the all-women lineup organizers say Daisy Chainfields will fold in an activism component with nonprofits on site sharing resources on issues like reproductive rights, maternal health, economic empowerment, and domestic violence prevention.

Partners reportedly include the Center for Reproductive Rights and Planned Parenthood, turning the festival grounds into as much a civic showcase as a stage. Now, as an inheritor of the Lilifan, Lilifair tradition, this is not at all unusual to hear from. from reporting on what the Daisy Chainfields Festival will look like. The activism component was obviously part of Lilith Fair, which as especially younger women are re-exploring or exploring perhaps the first time of the 1990s, it's really no surprise that you see Rodrigo, who's somebody who has been openly a fan of 90s culture,

go to a Lilith Fair type event, or lead her own Lilith Fair type event. Be the new Sarah McLaughlin, I suppose. and then include this activism component to it. But I think what's interesting is that Hollywood reporter is framing this as her, quote, getting back at the Trump administration. And you heard from the earlier article

that this was part of her, quote, stand against Trump. ICE at one point used a Rodriguez song and she was furious about that, as by the way I think is perfectly reasonable for an artist to be. But it has nudged her further along this political journey in a way that for me,

recalled the wisdom of Jennifer Lawrence, who as a young actress in the first Trump administration got really caught up in some of the activist components of it. She told the media, you'll remember this, after Trump won, this was actually last fall, as Trump was wrapping up his first year, she looks back and she says, during the first Trump administration,

I felt like I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off. But as we've learned, election after election, celebrities do not make a difference, whatsoever on who people vote for. So then what am I doing? I'm just sharing my opinion on something that's going to add fuel to a fire that's ripping the country apart. And Lawrence was making this argument that it's more powerful to build an ideological or political message into your art than to do partisan politicking in the media. And using that as an example of where she went wrong

during the first administration where celebrities were tripping over one another to have the most anti-Trump quote in the press or on social media. And Lawrence is correct in saying you're adding, by doing that, adding fuel to the fire that's ripping the country apart. And for what? If you're a celebrity, sometimes you're hurting your own cause because you are, I think, showcasing how so many wealthy elite Americans believe they know what's in the best interest of everybody else and are using the platforms built on their wealth and their elite status, their insider status, to do partisan agenda building.

And that does hit Americans, especially in this era of low institutional trust, the wrong way. Now, I think Lawrence is wrong to say that celebrities make no difference whatsoever. Obviously, Rodrigo is doing voter registrations at this festival. She's planning.

Taylor Swift, very famously, created an increase in a big bump in voter registrations when she, She was advocating for that. It matters. I don't think there are a lot of Americans taking their marching orders on partisan politics from celebrities, but I do think on cultural questions, for example, like abortion, the Olivia Rodriguez of the world, the Jennifer Lawrence's of the world, do create a sort of cultural

permission structure that this is what enlightened, cool people believe, if you're a fan, and a lot of young women are, young women are fans of Olivia Rodriguez, if you're a fan, it's like, okay, So it sort of lends credibility to Planned Parenthood, which is frankly an extreme organization that is out of touch with the mainstream American. Now, don't get me wrong, Republicans, myself included in conservatives, like I don't consider myself Republican, of course, but among conservatives, my position on abortion is wildly out of touch with the average American. And I'm perfectly happy to admit as much. But the best way to deal with that is to just make your argument and be honest about it. And Planned Parenthood acts like they're the mainstream. They act like they are totally, to most Americans, the acceptable force for abortion activism.

But that's just not the case. And we should talk about also how they were very wrapped up in transitioning younger people through the distribution of different medical and psychological transition, trans-transition materials at their Planned Parenthood facilities for a long time. And so it's not mainstream in that respect either. But that's what I think is kind of interesting here, is that if you're on the right, the media will jump all over you and say, this is an extremist position on abortion. your plan parenthood or the the conservative version of plan parenthood they'll call it far right

anti-choice whatever uh but if it's olivia rodrigo you get written up in the press as somebody who's supporting reproductive rights and plan parenthood isn't mentioned for their positions that are like out of such step with the public and that's where i think to jennifer lawrence's point because people are so hyper attuned to this now it actually is probably you if you're lividriro you genuinely have to question if the costs are outweighing the benefits here because again I am very anti-abortion and I think the cost is normalizing first of all what I believe is the taking of a human life in the form of abortion a lot of people don't agree with me on that fine I'll make the argument made it before on the show made it on a lot of our happy hour Friday episodes but um if you believe the opposite of that

it's not treated nearly as though it's controversial in the press. And so what ends up happening is you get a chunk of the country that's enormously frustrated with the coverage. And with the LGBT agenda issues that have now become unpopular nationwide, boys and girls' sports, men in women's prisons, women's shelters, those types of stories. People also end up losing even more trust in institutions in the country and what they're being told by celebrities,

because at a certain point in the democratized media environment, you're not just getting the talking points from the corporate press anymore. You start to hear different ideas, and you realize that this credibility that's been ascribed to one position on an individual issue, abortion, for example, is not exactly what you believe it to be, that actually there are legitimate debate to be, had about when human life begins, that this thing that you were told is a clump of cells,

there's a serious argument that that is a human life. Obviously, I believe that argument. But as you come to explore this, because you're not just getting talking points from corporate press anymore, it does make things worse. And there's so much institutional distrust. There's so much distrust of elites and celebrities right now that I think Olivia Rodriguez could learn from Jennifer Lawrence's experience in the first Trump administration. about the costs versus the benefits of leaning into political advocacy really hard. Listen, I don't have any problem with artists at all using their platforms for politics. I think if you're using your art for partisan politics,

it's just going to make it much less interesting because you can't really be open about what you think if you are wearing a team jersey. That's why I'm a journalist, for example, because I can never do that. I can never just stuff it. If you put a team jersey on, you're conditioning yourself. to be less skeptical of power on one side versus the other side, an overly skeptical of power on the other side. And it's extremely difficult to remain consistent and thoughtful

in a way that creates good art. So I have zero problem, though, with her saying, I feel like I have a responsibility of lots of money. I have influenced with these young women to use it one way or the other. Wouldn't have a problem if she were anti-abortion doing this in any way whatsoever. I'm just saying that right now, if you believe in kind of taking on the Trump administration and the right, this might not even be in your best interests. And contrasting that with the Jennifer Lawrence realization to me was actually pretty interesting as I was thinking about what to say in this segment.

I went back to the Lawrence quote. I was like, she's really hitting on something that's just underappreciated, especially among celebrities who continue to not quite be at the fever pitch frenzied level. they were in 2017, 2018, 2019. So I think some people have learned from Jennifer Lawrence and some celebrities themselves are questioning everything that they thought they believed. Not most of them, but some of them. So interesting times, indeed.

That's going to do it for us on tonight's edition of After Party. Thank you so much for tuning in, everyone. Remember to subscribe on YouTube, like, comment, share. All of that helps us enormously. Subscribe wherever you get your podcast so you can listen to the Friday episode of the show. And we'll be back with more soon.

Appreciate it.