UNBIASED - July 27, 2026: Trump’s WHCA Jokes, Pentagon Casualty Questions, The Shiloh Hendrix Verdict, and More.

Episode Date: July 27, 2026

Get the facts, without the spin. UNBIASED offers a clear, impartial recap of US news, including politics, elections, legal news, and more. Hosted by lawyer Jordan Berman, each episode provides a recap of current political events plus breakdowns of complex concepts—like constitutional rights, recent Supreme Court rulings, and new legislation—in an easy-to-understand way. No personal opinions, just the facts you need to stay informed on the daily news that matters. If you miss how journalism used to be, you're in the right place. In today's episode: The White House Correspondent's Association Dinner and Trump's Remarks (0:47) Trump Administration Imposes Broad Tariffs on 60 Economies (8:25) Trump Orders Administration to Place Signs Outside Smithsonian Museum (16:12) Pentagon Changes Iran War Casualty Count. Here's What We Know (~26:31) The Shiloh Hendrix Verdict. Answering Your First Amendment Questions (~30:51) Critical Thinking Segment (~37:55) ⁠Watch⁠ this episode on YouTube. Follow Jordan on ⁠Instagram⁠ and ⁠TikTok⁠. All sources for this episode can be found ⁠here.⁠  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome back to Unbiased, your favorite source of unbiased news and legal analysis. Welcome back to Unbiased Politics. It's Thursday, July 27th, and we're talking about the White House Correspondents Association dinner, the new round of tariffs, the Shiloh Hendrix case and verdict, and more. As I mentioned last week, I am on vacation this week. So today's episode is audio only, and it might be just a little shorter than usual, but I wanted to make sure I at least got something out. to you because there won't be an episode on Thursday. Today's stories will mostly consist of the most frequently requested stories from the last four days or so. And just as a fair warning, we won't be doing quick hitters today, but we will do critical thinking. So without further

ado, let's get into it. We'll start with the White House Correspondents Association dinner. And really, there's not too much to talk about here, but there were two jokes in particular from Trump's speech that have been making some headlines. So we'll do a quick recap of the dinner generally, and then we'll talk specifically about those two jokes. Now, this dinner was actually supposed to happen back in April, but the original event was, of course, cut short after a man charged the security checkpoint and seemingly attempted to enter the ballroom. So the White House Correspondents Association decided to try it again on Friday, this time at the Waldorf Astoria, with a smaller crowd of about 700 people and much tighter security. And just as a reminder, the White House

Correspondence Center, it's hosted by the group that represents journalists who cover the president and the White House. It's partly about celebrating journalism. Also, you know, they present awards and they raise money for scholarships, but it's also traditionally a roast. So the president will usually make jokes about the press, and the press will make jokes about the president. And Trump had actually never attended the dinner as president before Friday. He skipped it throughout his first term, but this time, He stayed through the journalism awards and then gave a speech. And his speech included both a little bit of praise for the press and then a lot of jokes and criticism aimed at journalists, politicians, and celebrities.

But there were really two moments from the speech that kind of took over the headlines. So we'll talk about those two. The first one involved CNN's Caitlin Collins. So earlier in the night, Collins had received the White House Correspondents Association's Award for Excellence in Presidential News Coverage under deadline pressure in the broadcast category and she received it for her coverage of that February 2025 confrontational oval office meeting between Trump and President Zelensky. And so when Trump got to Collins during his speech, he started by congratulating her, but then said that the award was fake and

that she shouldn't have received it. He joked that the coverage was all about him. He didn't explain what specifically he felt was fake about the award or her coverage. But then he moved away from her reporting and started talking about her personally. And that's when he said the following. So I'm going to play a clip for you just so you can kind of get the full picture. But I want to personally congratulate CNN's Caitlin Callens on receiving her award. It was all about me. It's a fake. She shouldn't get the award. It was a fake. But I didn't mind. I said, Caitlin, congratulations. But it was fake. There's no question about it. But she's a young, attractive woman. She never smiles. I said, Caitlin, do you have a smile? Smile. You have a

nice position. You're at CNN fake news. You should be a happy person. So smile, Caitlin, just smile. But we attack, and I thought Caitlin had really made it big with a major new sponsorship. But then I informed her that it wasn't her on the Bud Light Can. It was Dylan Mulvaney. And Dylan Mulvaney cost but like $35 million in market cap. So people interpreted these comments differently. Some people saw it as a normal roast style joke at an event where the president and journalists are expected to make fun of each other. But others thought it crossed the line from criticizing Collins' professional reporting into making a personal and potentially gendered comment about her appearance. and how she should present herself.

Then the day after the dinner, Trump posted a picture, which was either AI generated or Photoshop, not really sure which, of Collins' face on the picture Dylan Mulvaney originally posted with the Bud Lightcans. So that was the first set of jokes that were making headlines. Then the other moment getting a lot of attention came right near the end of the speech when Trump joked about running for president again. So I'll play that clip now. But you people have no idea how lucky you are when I'm gone.

You're all going to be broke. Your business model is going to be finished. Oh, it's true. When I'm not around, you're going to be broke. There's not going to be anybody to report on. Nobody gives a damn about anybody else. The New York Times the other day had five stories about me. You know, before I got into politics, in my whole life, I had seven front-page stories.

This is years of success. I think six were good. one was bad. I had five stories, seven, five good. Yeah, I had a total of seven stories on the front page at the New York Times. This is not bad. Now I average about three or four a day, all different topics, all bad, everything bad. But here we are. I mean, here we are. In fact, when I'm finished, I'm going right back to the Oval Office, so I have to be doing okay. But we are all doing good together. That's why tonight to show just how much I care about the press, and I want to save your ratings. I'm pleased to announce my intention to, and this is a somewhat of a scoop,

my intention to run for a fourth term as president of the United States. I will be doing that. I will be having an official. In fact, I think I have, yeah. I won three times. Now I'm going to do it again. Thank you. going to do it. It should be easy. I'm getting very good at running for president. Now I won three times. Did very well the second time, by the way. It's a rigged election, but we don't have to talk about it. You know, it's interesting. When you come back and you do a good job like we did, and you don't care about it so much, but we do have to tighten up these elections because they really are in seriously bad shape. But on a serious note, I want to say,

once again, I just want to thank you all. It's been an interesting evening. I didn't really know what to expect. And again, similar to the Caitlin Collins joke the day after the dinner, he posted multiple AI generated pictures of himself wearing a 2028 Trump hat. So let's talk about this for a second. Trump has been the Republican nominee for president three times, right? 2016, 2020 and 2024. He won the elections in 2016 and 2024. The certified 2020 election results show that Joe Biden won that election. But Trump has, of course, alleged that that election was rigged. So when Trump says he's won three times, he's counting that 2020 election too. But just so we're clear, and I've talked about this many times before, the Constitution does not currently allow Trump to be

elected again. The 22nd Amendment says no person can be elected president more than twice. Trump has already been elected twice, so he cannot run again in 2028 and be elected to another term under the constitution as it currently exists. The only way to remove that limit would be to amend the Constitution. And as we've talked about in the past, that's an incredibly difficult process. An amendment would need support from two-thirds of both the House and Senate and then approval from three-fourths of the states. Now, based on the way he delivered this, right? You heard it the setup about helping the media's ratings.

He put on a Trump 28 hat, which you couldn't see in, you know, just hearing it audio. But then his follow-up words, which were on a serious note, he kind of transitioned that way. It does seem that he was joking. But just so we're all on the same page, the 20s. Amendment doesn't allow him to be elected president again. All right. Next, the Trump administration has rolled out another round of tariffs. This one reaches almost every major country the United States trades with. So the new tariffs kicked in on Friday and they cover goods coming from 60 different economies. Together, those economies account for 99.4% of everything the United States imports.

Now, that doesn't mean 99.4% of all imported products will actually be taxed because there are quite a few exemptions, but it gives you an idea of how broad this policy is. Most of the countries on the list will face either a 10% or 12.5% tariff. And this time, the Trump administration says the tariffs are meant to pressure other countries to do more to stop goods made with forced labor from entering their supply chains. And before we get into how that works, just remember that a tariff is basically a tax on something brought into the United States. Okay. So the American company importing the product pays the tax at the border. And then it has to decide whether it's going to, you know, A, absorb the cost, B, negotiate a lower price with the supplier.

C, pass some of the costs onto the customers. D, do some combination of those three things. Or the importer can find a new supplier altogether to try to avoid tariffs. So just as an example, let's say the United States imposes a 10% tariff on pharmaceuticals from China, totally making this up. For purposes of the hypothetical, just roll with it. The American company bringing those pharmaceuticals into the United States will pay a 10% tax at the border. That 10% tax goes to the U.S. government. So that's the general gist of how tariffs work.

But how does force labor fit into all of this? Well, earlier this year, the U.S. trade representative investigated 60 different economies to determine whether they were doing enough to stop goods made with forced labor from entering their countries. And the administration ultimately concluded that all 60 economies had either failed to ban imports made with forced labor or weren't doing enough to enforce the bans they already had. Now, that doesn't mean the administration is claiming that every product coming from these countries was made with forced labor. Their argument is that these countries don't have strong enough systems in place to keep those products out of their supply chains. And the administration says that that creates an economic issue for American businesses

because forced labor can lower the cost of making a product. So if companies overseas can use cheaper materials or goods connected to forced labor, the administration says American companies might be forced to compete with prices they can't actually match, right? And, you know, some of the affected countries disagree with that finding and argue that they already have laws and policies in place to address forced labor. But the administration says, no, you know, you guys either don't have laws in place or you guys aren't doing enough and therefore we're putting these tariffs on or on you. Now, the legal authority here is important because these are not the same tariffs the Supreme Court struck down earlier this year. These new tariffs were imposed under

Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974. Section 301 basically allows the U.S. Trade Representative to investigate in other countries' policies and decide, whether those policies are unfairly harming American trade. And if USTR finds that they are, one of the responses available under the law is imposing tariffs. In this case, USTR opened the investigations, accepted public comments, held hearings, and then formally came to the conclusion that the country's forced labor policies were burdening U.S. commerce and therefore put these tariffs into effect. Back in 2025, when Trump imposed those broad tariffs that were ultimately struck down,

He did that under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, otherwise known as IEEPA. IEEPA gives president's certain powers during a declared national emergency. And the Trump administration attempted to argue that one of those powers was imposing tariffs on other countries. But as we know, the Supreme Court disagreed. Basically, the court said, you know, Congress has to specifically give the president that authority. And the IEPA did not do that. Now, in this case, Section 301 is different because it specifically allows the government to impose tariffs after an investigation. So Section 301 gives the administration a more explicit legal basis for imposing tariffs than IEPA did.

And that's why these tariffs might be more likely to survive in court. That doesn't mean they're guaranteed to survive a legal challenge and businesses have already filed lawsuits. Basically, the businesses are arguing that the administration is just using Section 301 to recreate. the same broad tariff system the Supreme Court struck down. So courts will now have to decide whether these investigations and findings by USTR were detailed enough to justify tariffs this broad. As for how the tariffs are structured, 17 of the 60 economies received that lower 10% rate because the administration said that those countries already have some type of forced labor

restriction in place and have agreed to strengthen their policies or have taken other steps to address the issue. Those economies include Canada, Mexico, India, the UK, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and a handful of others. Another 38 countries received a 12.5% tariff. And then five countries have a special adjusted rate structure. So those five countries are the EU, Taiwan, Japan, North Korea, and Switzerland. And basically, how that works is the new tariff will be adjusted based on how much tariff a product already faces. So let's say a product from the EU already has a 6% tariff.

The administration would add another 4% to bring the total to 10%. But if the product's already being taxed to 10% or more, there might not be an additional charge. As far as exemptions go, products that are already subject to separate national security tariffs like steel, aluminum, cars, auto parts, things like that, those generally won't be hit. with these new tariffs, you know, on top of that. And then there are certain food and agricultural products as well as fertilizers, oil and gas, aircraft, aircraft parts, and then critical minerals

that are also exempt. And the administration says it specifically made these things exempt because if tariffs were placed on these kinds of products, it could either cause a shortage in the United States. It could create bigger economic problems or, you know, it might raise the price of something that can't be made here in the United States or purchased from somewhere else. So that was the justification for the exemptions. One last thing worth mentioning is the timing of these tariffs. So after the Supreme Court struck down Trump's earlier IEPA tariffs, the administration imposed a temporary 10% global tariff using another law called Section 122. But Section 122 only allows those tariffs to last for 150 days unless Congress extends.

them. Congress did not extend them. So those actually expired on Friday, which is the same exact day these new Section 301 tariffs took effect. So the administration essentially replaced the previous tariff system with this new system. The first one relied on those emergency powers and was struck down by the Supreme Court. The temporary replacement expired after 150 days. And now the administration is using Section 301, which specifically allows tariffs after, you know, in investigation by the USTR, finds certain things. So that's the deal with those new tariffs. Moving on to the next story, President Trump signed an executive order directing his administration to put temporary signs outside the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History. Those signs tell visitors that

the administration believe some of the exhibits inside the museum present either an inaccurate or politically slanted version of American history. Now, you might be wondering why is the administration putting signs outside the museum instead of just changing. the exhibits inside or putting the signs inside near the exhibits. And there's actually a reason for that, which we'll get into. But first, I want to talk about what this order actually does. The executive order directs the Interior Department through the National Park Service to put temporary signs on the property along the paths and sidewalks leading to the museum. Those signs are supposed to tell visitors about the findings of a recent White House report, say that the museum's exhibit should be renovated,

on those findings and direct visitors toward other places or resources that the administration believes provide more accurate information about American history. The order also calls for additional temporary signs or exhibits that would respond to what the administration describes as inaccurate information inside the museum, particularly when it comes to how the museum presents the country's founders during America's 250th anniversary year. Now, the order, order doesn't give us the exact wording that will appear on the signs, but the White House report behind the order did recommend putting a warning at every entrance that says, quote, the exhibits in this museum were prepared by people who don't want you to love your country, end quote. So that was

the exact warning recommended in the White House's report, but again, the executive order itself doesn't specifically require the National Park Service to use those exact words. So where is all of this coming from? Let's back up a second. Back in March 2025, Trump signed an executive order called Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History. That order directed the White House Domestic Policy Council to review the Smithsonian and determine whether its museums and programs were promoting what the administration described as improper ideology. Then on the 4th of July this year, the White House released the results of that review. It's a 162 page report. It's called Saving America's Story, how ideological capture at the Smithsonian Institute's National Museum of American History erases our heritage.

And the White House's argument in that report is essentially that the Smithsonian has moved away from simply teaching American history and has instead started using history to promote political and social causes. The report says the Smithsonian spends too much time focused on slavery and racism and oppression and the country's failures and at the same time doesn't give enough attention to the founders, the revolution, or, you know, America's accomplishments or the country's patriotic traditions. Now, the report doesn't say that the museum should completely ignore slavery or the mistreatment of Native Americans or other injustices throughout our history. In fact, it says those things should still be included. But the administration's argument is that those parts of history are being presented in a way that encourages visitors to see the country mainly through resentment, suspicion, and division. For example, the report criticizes the museum for not putting enough emphasis on the founding and says there wasn't enough special programming tied to Independence Day and the country's 250th anniversary. The report also takes issues with exhibits and educational materials involving race and gender and sexuality and immigration and abortion and drugs. The administration argues that some of those materials do more than explain the history of those issues and instead encourage visitors to support particular political or social positions.

Immigration is one of the specific examples the report focuses on. It claims some of the Smithsonian educational materials promote giving legal status or citizenship to undocumented immigrants rather than simply explaining the different arguments surrounding immigration policy. The report also says the museum has minimized or portrayed white people, men, Christians, and Americans negatively, while failing to give enough attention to the role that Christianity and Christian principles played in America's development. And then finally, the report raises concerns about the museum's influence outside the actual building. So the Smithsonian creates materials that are used by teachers and schools across the country. and the White House argues that those programs promote what it considers a politically radical version of American history to students. So the overall argument from the Trump administration is basically that the museum can acknowledge America's failures without making those failures

the main story, right? The report says in part that the museum can broaden the story without dissolving the story. In other words, the administration says there should be room to talk about slavery and discrimination and injustice, but those things should be presented. alongside the founders, the country's accomplishments, the progress America has made over time, things like that. Smithsonian leaders disagree with the White House's report. The director of the National Museum of American History says the museum doesn't take political sides and argues that including stories and perspectives that were historically left out expands

the American story rather than replacing it. And she also pointed to the museum's new 250th anniversary exhibit, which actually includes 250 different artifacts like Thomas Jefferson's writing desk, a Revolutionary War gunboat, the original Star-Spangled Banner. And, you know, she says those things are evidence that the museum isn't ignoring the founding of our country. So can Trump actually force the Smithsonian to change its exhibits? Not in the same way he could tell a normal executive branch agency to. And that's because the Smithsonian has a different structure. So it does get a significant amount of federal funding. and government officials do serve on its government board, but it's not a regular cabinet department controlled by the president.

The Smithsonian is governed by its board of regents, so Trump can't just, you know, fire the museum's leadership or order the museum to rewrite a specific exhibit, things like that. That's likely why this executive order focuses so heavily on the sidewalks and, you know, the federal property outside the actual museum. Now, the National Park Service is part of the Interior Department, which, is part of the executive branch. So Trump has much clearer authority to tell the park service to put up signs on Smithsonian property, you know, on federal property that it controls than it does to directly control what the Smithsonian puts inside the building. So for now, Trump's order doesn't actually change any of the exhibits inside the National Museum of American History. Instead, it directs his administration to put signs outside the museum telling visitors that the White House disagrees with some

of what they're about to see inside. Let's take a quick break here. When we come back, we'll talk about the confusion surrounding the Pentagon's casualty count, as well as the Shiloh Hendricks verdict. You're not going to be a dictator, are you? I said, no, no, no, other than day one. How did Donald Trump turn the presidency into a king?

Well, it didn't start with him. It was the goal of a decades-long master plan. When the president does it, it is not illegal. I'm the decider, and I decide what is best. Where they won't act, I will. I'm David Sorota from The Lever. On our new season of the award-winning Master Plan podcast, we uncover the stealth plot to create an all-powerful president. Or as some call it, a unitary executive.

The unitary executive. Our journalists reveal the hidden scheme to eliminate checks and balances, crush democracy, and turn government by the people into government by one man. I have the right to do whatever I want as president. Check out Master Plan season two, the kingmaker. Visit masterplanpodcast.com or search master plan in your podcast app to start listening right now. Welcome back. You guys have some questions about how the Pentagon is publicly counting the U.S. service members who have been killed or wounded in connection with the conflict in Iran. And these questions really pertain to the news from late last week that the four most recent deaths tied to the war in Iran were removed from the Pentagon's website. So let's talk about that, but just as a fair warning, the story is a little confusing because the numbers on the Pentagon's website have changed multiple times.

So just stick with me as we go through this. The Pentagon has a public database called the Defense Casualty Analysis System, and it keeps track of U.S. military deaths and injuries connected to different wars and overseas operations. The individual military branches submit the casualty reports. And then the Pentagon updates the public database. Well, earlier this week, the database said 18 U.S. service members had been killed during Operation Epic Fury, which is the name, you know, that's being used for the conflict with Iran. But then on Thursday, that number dropped from 18 to 14. And the four people who were no longer included were the four service members who died just a couple of weeks ago in Jordan and Iraq. three were killed in Jordan, one was killed in Iraq. But the deaths weren't the only thing that changed. The number of wounded troops also changed. At one point, the database listed 482 wounded service members, but that number dropped to 420. So obviously, people started asking, like, what was going on? Were these casualties accidentally removed? Was the Pentagon changing? How it was defining the conflict? Were the deaths being treated differently for some reason? Like, what was the reason? And initially, three military officials who spoke anonymously told reporters that the four deaths were specifically

removed from Operation Epic Fury because they happened after President Trump announced the ceasefire in April. So under that explanation, the Pentagon would essentially be treating the fighting that happened after the ceasefire as a separate phase or possibly a separate operation from the fighting that happened before it. But publicly, the Pentagon gave a different explanation. A Pentagon spokesperson said the lower totals were caused by a temporary data disruption that affected the casualty database and said the issue would be corrected quickly. And the four deaths have now been added back to the Pentagon's public database. But here's where things get a little more confusing. They weren't added back into the Operation Epic Fury total. Instead, the Pentagon created

a separate category called Overseas Operations. And that new category includes the four service members who were killed a couple of weeks ago, as well as more than 200 wounded troops. The Operation Epic Fury page still lists 14 deaths and 420 wounded. So the four service members haven't disappeared from the Pentagon's records altogether, but they're now being counted separately from the first 14 service members that have been killed during this conflict with Iran. So the question has now become why. And so far the Pentagon hasn't provided a detailed explanation. It's also unclear exactly what the new overseas operations category includes. We don't know if it's specifically tracking casualties from this latest round of fighting with Iran, whether it

includes other operations happening in the region, whether the Pentagon will, you know, continue counting any future casualties connected to Iran separately. from Operation Epic Fury, there's still a lot we don't know here. As far as whether this has precedent, we know that the military does separate casualties by different wars and named operations. So creating different categories isn't by itself unusual. What is unusual is that these service members were initially counted under Operation Epic Fury, but then removed from that total and placed in a different category without any sort of explanation of what changed. And again, some military officials connected the change to the April ceasefire, but that hasn't been part of the Pentagon's official

public explanation, so it hasn't necessarily been confirmed by the Pentagon. But that is what we know at this point. If the Pentagon comes out with another explanation, I will be sure to update you. All right. Finally, I got a lot of requests to cover the Shiloh Hendrix case and specifically how the verdict reached squares up with the First Amendment. And some of you might not recognize this case by name, but you might have actually seen the video of the confrontation that led to this case because it did go very viral. So let's start with what happened. Back in April of last year, 37-year-old Shiloh Hendricks was at a playground in Rochester, Minnesota. And she got into a confrontation with an eight-year-old boy that had autism.

The boy's dad testified that his son had reached into Hendricks's diaper bag. took an applesauce pouch and then climbed onto the playground equipment. According to the dad, Hendricks followed the child while yelling the N-word at him. At some point thereafter, a bystander started recording and questioning Hendricks about what she had said. In the video, you can see Hendricks holding her own kid and sort of like walking away while the guy is recording her and telling her to repeat what she just said. She then turns toward him and calls him the N-word several times. As I said, the video went very viral. Hendricks actually started an online fundraiser saying that she and her family had been threatened and doxed and needed help relocating.

That fundraiser raised close to $900,000 and that created a whole new round of controversy. But Hendricks was ultimately charged with two misdemeanor counts of disorderly conduct, one for her conduct toward the child and one for her conduct toward the guy who recorded her. The case went to trial. Hendricks was found not guilty on the count involving the child, but guilty on the count involving the guy that recorded her. She was ordered to pay a thousand dollar fine, complete 200 hours of community service, and serve probation. She won't serve jail time unless she violates her probation. If she does violate probation, she gets a 90-day jail sentence. So obviously the big question people have is, how can someone be convicted for something she said when the First Amendment protects

freedom of speech. And the answer is that the First Amendment protects a lot of speech, but it's also not absolute. So the First Amendment generally protects speech that is racist, hateful, insulting, or deeply offensive, right? The government usually cannot punish someone just because the words that they say are offensive or just because the words that they say, you know, don't align with a lot of people and a lot of people disagree with them or make a lot of people mad. Like the government can't punish for that. However, like, Like I said, the First Amendment also is in absolute. The Supreme Court has recognized a few very narrow categories of speech that are not protected in the same way.

And that includes true threats, incitement, defamation, obscenity, and what the courts call fighting words. And fighting words are the category that's relevant here. So fighting words are basically direct, face-to-face personal insults that are so likely to provoke an immediate violent reaction that's, they can be punished without violating the First Amendment. But the standard is really high. It's not enough that the words make someone mad. It's not enough that they really offend someone. The question is whether the words in that specific situation were reasonably likely to cause an immediate fight or some other breach of the peace. And Minnesota's disorderly conduct law says that someone can be convicted for engaging in offensive conduct or speech when they know or reasonably should know,

that their speech could alarm, anger, or disturb someone, or provoke an assault or breach of peace. Okay. Now, hearing that law, you might be thinking, well, couldn't almost any offensive speech be treated as disorderly conduct. And if the law were applied that broadly, it would certainly create a big First Amendment problem. But Minnesota courts have narrowed it. So when a case is based on speech, like I said, it's not enough that the words were offensive or made someone mad. They have to qualify as fighting words. They have to be reasonably likely in that specific situation to provoke an immediate assault

or breach of the peace. So Hendricks was not convicted in this case just because she used the N-word. The jury found that her words and her conduct toward the guy recording her crossed that higher legal threshold. Now at trial, to prove that her words were reasonably likely to provoke an immediate assault or breach of the peace, prosecute her. told jurors to look at the entire confrontation, not just the slur itself, but the fact that it was repeated, the yelling, the face-to-face exchange, Hendrix's overall behavior, all of it. And the defense's

argument was basically, well, yeah, look, the language was offensive, but offensive speech is still protected speech. Her attorney argued that Hendricks didn't threaten the guy recording. She didn't try to physically attack him. She was actually walking away at certain points. And, you know, the guy recording her didn't respond in a violent manner. So according to the defense, the state couldn't prove that Hendricks's words were likely to provoke an immediate fight. But as we know, the jury did in fact find that her words were likely to provoke an immediate fight with the guy, but not with the child. So that's the First Amendment issue. That's how you can charge and convict someone for things that they say. If what they say is reasonably likely to provoke some sort of

breach of the peace or, you know, immediate fight, something like that. Now, a lot of people are also asking why the jury found her guilty for what she said to the guy who filmed her, but not guilty for what she said to the child. And we don't know for sure. The jury didn't provide an explanation. But my guess is that the jurors saw the interaction with the guy recording as a more direct face-to-face conversation between two adults that could, you know, therefore more likely result in an immediate physical altercation. Maybe the jury felt that because the child wasn't likely to engage in a physical response, her actions toward the child didn't meet that higher legal standard that's required to find her guilty. But again, that's just that's just an educated guess. my part, we don't actually know what the jurors were thinking or what specifically convinced them on the one count and not the other. Hendricks' attorneys do say they plan to appeal. So that doesn't mean that there will be a new trial. That just means the appellate court will now look at whether the trial judge applied the law correctly, whether the jury received the right instructions, whether there was enough evidence, legally speaking, to support the conviction. Remember, the legal

issue here is not whether what she said was racist or wrong. The issue is whether her words and conduct in that specific face-to-face confrontation were reasonably likely to provoke an immediate assault or breach of the piece. That is what this whole thing comes down to. So hopefully that answered most of your questions. I know a lot of you, more people honestly than I thought were, had questions about that verdict. Okay, let's finish today's episode with the critical thinking segment. I actually want to play a little game with this one and we'll tie it back to the Smithsonian story. So I want you to imagine you're in charge of creating a national museum that tells the story of America. You're telling the story of America from its founding 250 years ago until today in 2026. But you only have room for 100 objects in your museum. I want you to think about how many of those objects you would use to highlight the country's biggest accomplishments, how many of those objects you would use to explain the country's biggest failures. And how many of those objects would represent moments that are kind of like a little bit of both.

And then who gets the final say? Who reviews your work and decides whether you struck the right balance? Should it be a group of historians? Should it be Congress? Should it be the public? Someone else who's reviewing your work and having the final say? And then finally, I want you to think about whether it's possible to tell a country's history in a way that everyone agrees is balanced. why or why not? That's what I have for you. I'm off to enjoy the rest of my vacation,

but I hope you have a great rest of your week, and I will talk to you on Monday.