Barkley Gets Political, MAHA Revolt, and What the Legacy Media Exodus Exposes, with Shelby Talcott and Jason Willick

Summary

After Party with Emily Jashinsky

Episode: Barkley Gets Political, MAHA Revolt, and What the Legacy Media Exodus Exposes

Guests: Shelby Talcott (Semaphore), Jason Willick (Washington Post)
Air date: March 31, 2026

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Episode Overview

Emily Jashinsky hosts a lively, big-picture episode exploring several hot-button issues in politics, media, and culture. The panel dives into the fallout from the Canadian New Democratic Party convention and identity-focused activism, the deepening culture war over trans and health issues, internal fractures and the future of the MAHA (Make America Healthy Again) coalition, Charles Barkley’s viral political remarks during March Madness, the Trump administration’s Iran strategy and messaging, immigration policy changes under DHS's new leadership, and the ongoing exodus of “legacy” journalists to independent and partisan media platforms. Sharp analysis and first-hand reporting from Shelby Talcott and Jason Willick punctuate the night, with Emily weaving together disparate threads on political identity, media trust, and the continually shifting American coalition.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

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1. Clip Breakdown: Canadian NDP Convention and Identity Politics

[03:25 - 13:23]

• Emily recaps viral moments from the recent Canadian NDP convention, highlighting hyper-focus on identity categories and the fractiousness it breeds.
• Panelists observed intensifying activism, pronoun declarations, appeals to lived experience, and emotional confrontation among delegates.
• Emily’s analysis:
  • Draws parallels between Canadian progressive politics and similar trends in the US, noting that identity-based activist ideologies are “stickier” than many realized because they become foundational to individual personalities—especially among elder millennials.
  • Quotes Christopher Lasch’s “Culture of Narcissism” diagnosing the impulse to build politics from victimhood narratives:
    "It's not new that people are building political ideologies out of victimhood narratives. That's a natural human thing to do. It transcends the political divide." [09:15]
  • Social media has amplified and entrenched these dynamics, particularly on the left, giving people a powerful sense of “purpose and meaning.”
• The generational shift: Gen Z men seem to be pushing back against these dynamics, while young women are not as much, fueling cultural polarization.
• Referenced the "Lindy West" saga as a case study in identity becoming both worldview and coping mechanism.
• Quote from Roy Teixeira, Liberal Patriot:
  “Democrats’ embrace of radical transgender ideology and its associated policy agenda has become the most potent exemplar of Democrats’ lack of connection to the real world of ordinary Americans…If they’re not realistic about something as fundamental as human biology, why should they be trusted about anything else?” [12:25]

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2. Democrats, “Culture War” Fatigue, and Trust Issues

[13:23 - 19:00]

• Emily contrasts Democratic and Republican approaches to culture war issues, highlighting the party’s messaging struggles on trans and other cultural topics.
• Criticizes Democrat Graham Platner’s claim that culture war conflicts are merely distractions invented by their opponents:
  • "That is, with respect, absolute bullshit…What is absurd to deny is that the culture war, more broadly—if you take something like trans issues—to say that was pushed by the right is absurd." [13:31]
• Points out that many voters perceive Democrats as out of touch with basic realities (“Who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes?” problem).
• Notes the generational activist base is deeply invested in postmodern moral relativism, making intra-party dissent almost impossible.
• Democratic politicians challenging orthodoxy face strong backlash (e.g., Seth Moulton).

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3. The Iran Crisis: Is Trump Preparing for Ground Troops?

[19:50 - 29:32]

• Shelby Talcott discusses her Semaphore exclusive on Trump’s build-up in Iran:
  • While publicly emphasizing diplomacy, Trump is sending thousands of U.S. troops, including special operations teams, to the region.
  • Historic parallel: The pattern recalls the Venezuela operation, where initial limited strikes led to forces on the ground to capture Maduro.
  • Pentagon war plans for Iran contingencies have existed for years but officials see Trump as uniquely willing to activate them.
• Emily notes that Trump’s erratic public negotiating and willingness to “chop it up” with the press frequently muddle the administration’s message.
  • “You can do your best to sort of manage Trump. But ultimately, he is one of those people who loves to talk to the media. He says what he wants, and often that results in his team sort of adjusting based on what he is telling whoever is calling him.” — Shelby [27:36]

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4. MAHA Movement: Fractures & Election Risks

[29:32 - 36:33]

• Politico poll: Many MAHA-aligned voters don’t feel Trump has done enough for their priorities, especially on nutrition, raw milk, and anti-Big Ag/Big Pharma policies.
• "Bringing in the MAHA voters was brilliant coalition building, but you have to follow through…RFK Jr. promises courage and Trump promised to back him. So let him loose." — Source to Emily [summarized 31:28]
• Shelby reports internal tension between anti-establishment health reformers and entrenched lobbyist influence within the administration.
  • Trump is wary of embracing the movement’s more radical vaccine/message postures and is not highlighting these issues, focusing instead on Iran.
  • The administration’s struggle to balance foreign/domestic messaging leaves MAHA voters feeling unseen, risking turnout.

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5. Charles Barkley’s Viral Immigration Comments & GOP Messaging Dilemma

[38:27 - 44:42]

• Barkley, during March Madness broadcast:
  "The way some of these other immigrants are getting treated in our country right now is a travesty and a disgrace…Immigrants built this country and we should admire them and respect them." [38:30]
• Emily and Shelby discuss how Barkley’s unscripted critique reflects growing mainstream discomfort with immigration enforcement optics.
• Shelby:
  • Trump’s core base still wants strong enforcement, but swing voters (and even Trump himself) are unsettled by “Minneapolis-style” scenes of mass deportation.
  • “He doesn’t like when he turns on the TV and he sees, for example, the Minneapolis situation, right…That’s when he starts to think, okay, I don’t like what I’m seeing.” [41:15]
• Indication the administration is shifting to lower-key, targeted messaging (“focus on criminal illegal aliens”) in hopes of avoiding backlash from moderates, without alienating hardliners.

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6. Media Exodus: “Anchors” Peeled Back

[65:15 - 80:00]

• Emily surveys the rapid migration of network reporters and “straight news” figures (Scott McFarlane, Terry Moran, Katie Couric, Don Lemon, Jim Acosta, and others) to independent platforms and partisan outlets like Substack and Midas Touch.
• Observes that many of these journalists, who claimed to be objective, have “gone mask-off,” revealing long-held progressive—at minimum anti-conservative—leanings.
  • "These clear, like, liberal biases didn’t spring up overnight. You don’t wake up and say, ‘Oh, I work at Midas Touch now and I’ve discovered that I’m actually…virulently anti-Trump Democrat.’"
• Argues that their success relies on low overhead and loyal but niche audiences, suggesting the model isn’t durable or truly independent:
  • "What people want from their media is honesty and transparency…If what you’re doing is just this faux version of honesty and transparency, it is the symbolic untucked shirt from Jake Tapper…You don't really fully believe that it's transparent and that it's…"
• Overall, skepticism that ex-legacy figures represent a new, honest era of journalism; more likely, they’re rebranding established biases for a new media market.

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7. Jason Willick: The Filibuster, Iran, & Deterrence

[48:24 - 56:50]

• Jason Willick’s column: Connects logic behind Republican willingness to “nuke” Senate filibuster (out of escalation/deterrence logic) to U.S.-Iran relations.
  • “The filibuster…breaking that requirement is sometimes known as the nuclear option…Republicans think basically we need to strike first, because otherwise we’ll just get hit later.” [48:53]
  • Similar logic is at play in Iran, post-regime decapitation strike, where deterrence has broken down and both sides now expect further escalation.
• Emily applies the “self-fulfilling prophecy” concept to both politics and foreign policy:
  • “If you keep talking about nuking the filibuster, eventually you create the permission structure…It creates an incentive structure for your ‘enemy’ to do exactly what you're expecting…” [52:14]
• Trump’s unpredictable, negotiation-based approach makes clear deterrence difficult for adversaries; markets are less responsive to his cues now.

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8. Michigan, Iran, and Democratic Fractures

[56:50 - 63:02]

• Discussion of leaked audio revealing Michigan Senate hopeful Abdul El-Sayed’s sensitivity to pro-Iran sentiment among some Dearborn Muslim voters.
• Emily sees this as evidence of complex, identity-driven constituencies in Democratic coalitions, noting possible electoral problems if candidates feel compelled to “stay silent” on anti-American regime figures due to local sympathies.
• Jason:
  • Distinguishes anti-war positions from regime sympathy; recognizes tricky political balancing when demographic and ideological factors intersect in key states.
• Legal/ethical questions around assassination and regime decapitation are raised.

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9. Final Pop Culture Lightning Round

[65:13 - 66:30]

• Brief but animated pop culture segment:
  • Emily defends the current Real Housewives of Beverly Hills season and lauds The Comeback with Lisa Kudrow for its social commentary on affluent women and changing TV.

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• Emily Jashinsky:
  • "This ideology is stickier than people realize because it’s actually not just an ideology—it’s an entire personality." [09:00]
  • "People cling to this pain-inducing, suffering-exacerbating ideology because they think it’s really all they have…" [10:45]
• Shelby Talcott:
  • "You can do your best to sort of manage Trump. But ultimately, he is one of those people who loves to talk to the media. He says what he wants, and oftentimes that results in his team sort of adjusting based on what he is telling whoever is calling him." [27:36]
  • On MAHA: "There is a huge conglomerate in D.C. who has had a real hold on the White House for decades…he’s running into that." [32:10]
• Jason Willick:
  • "Breaking the filibuster is sometimes known as the nuclear option…Republicans think basically we need to strike first, because otherwise we’ll just get hit later." [48:53]
  • "One problem with this war in Iran is that we escalated maximally. So how are we going to get them to abide by a new sort of détente and a new balance of power?" [51:36]
• Charles Barkley, on immigration:
  • "The way some of these other immigrants are getting treated in our country right now is a travesty and a disgrace…I think what's going on in our country, what we're doing to some of these amazing immigrants is really unfortunate and it's really sad." [38:30]

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Section Timestamps

| Segment | Timestamps | |---------------------------------------------|---------------------| | NDP Convention/Identity Politics | 03:25 – 13:23 | | Democrats & Culture War | 13:23 – 19:00 | | Iran: Troop Buildup & White House Messaging | 19:50 – 29:32 | | MAHA Polls & Coalition Friction | 29:32 – 36:33 | | Barkley/Immigration/GOP Moderation | 38:27 – 44:42 | | Legacy Media Exodus | 65:15 – 80:00 | | Willick: Filibuster/Iran Parallel | 48:24 – 56:50 | | Michigan, Iran, Democratic Base | 56:50 – 63:02 | | Pop Culture Commentary | 65:13 – 66:30 |

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Tone & Style

Maintains the sharp, humorous, and occasionally sardonic tone of Emily Jashinsky’s commentary, interspersed with Shelby and Jason’s more reportorial, analytical contributions. The podcast strikes a balance between insider political coverage, cultural diagnosis, and pointed media criticism—inviting both laughter and introspection from listeners.

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For Listeners Who Missed the Episode

This episode offers a compelling lens on 2026’s political, cultural, and media crosscurrents—illuminating how identity politics, foreign crises, coalition management, and the unraveling of “objective” media are interwoven. With sharp insights, notable quotes, and clear attribution, listeners are equipped with the key arguments, context, and contours of the conversations reshaping the American zeitgeist.

Transcript

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[Emily]

I'll keep trying out my new tagline. It's the show for people who like their news a little lighter and a little later. I don't know, maybe I'll stick with it. Tonight's guests are Shelby Talkin of Semaphore and Jason Willich of the Washington Post. We'll get to them in just a moment. Please support our journalism by subscribing on YouTube. That helps us so much or wherever you get your podcasts. And remember to like, comment and review as well. That helps us keep bringing you our independent coverage free, which we love to do. And it also boosts us in the algorithm so others see the content too. Now on the show tonight. Like I mentioned, my friends, I like them. They're smart. I think you'll like them too. We'll start with our friend Shelby talking of seminar who Semaphore who's back. She's very sourced up on Iran has some new details to share. Plus we're going to talk about a shocking new Make America Healthy Again poll and Mark Wayne Mullen's start during a pretty tumultuous time at the Department of Homeland Security. Can people expect to see from Mark Wayne Mullen, especially as the Sheridan Gorman tragedy continues to play out? We will check in with Shelby now. Jason Willock of the Washington Post is a really brilliant writer. He's Particularly brilliant on national security and the judiciary. So we're going to talk with him about his recent column on what the filibuster and the Iran war have in common. That one you're going to want to stay tuned for. We are also going to go through how another, quote unquote, mainstream journalist has decamped for substack. Where else? So I have a roundup coming of how this trend is revealing. A lot of these like quote, anchors, people who present themselves as straight news reporters and journalists, are actually just libs, which is fine, by the way. But maybe, maybe it reveals that we were being lied to all along. Maybe. I don't know. It's. It's hard to say whether all of these people just suddenly have viewpoints that lean dramatically to the left. Who knows? Who can say? All right, so let's start, though. Could not, could not do the show tonight without going through clips from Canada's New Democratic Party convention over the weekend, which a couple of people were graciously clipping. They were watching the live stream and pulling some moments, then posting them onto social media as a reminder. This is the year of our Lord 2026. We are not in 2017. We're not in 2021. We're not even in 2024. But the activists gathered at the New Democratic Party convention where they elected a new leader named Avi Lewis. It's a crazy time in Canada, of course. Big, big hockey losers, men and women. So things are tense and that tension clearly boiled over. Let's watch the clip. My pronouns are she, they. I'm from Ontario. Right now, there's discussions of 10,000American men

[Shelby Talcott]

and women being sent to Iran, being

[Emily]

deployed just to be part of this bloodbath. Canada cannot and will not be part of the legacy of blood. Your point's quite well made, Speaker. I'll again thank delegates not to call me Madam Chair, Madame Lance. I'm a non binary person. My pronouns are they, them, and their chair is sufficient.

[Jason Willick]

It's hard as a racialized and transgender delegate to sometimes use this card and, and speak up, speak to somebody in front of me in line and ask,

[Emily]

hey, this pertains to multiple intersecting parts of my lived experience.

[Jason Willick]

I'd like to speak. I was rejected.

[Emily]

I hope that in the future the,

[Jason Willick]

the federal NDP will also have a broader interpretation of the. The equity cards for speakers. That's all.

[Emily]

Thank you.

[Jason Willick]

I have a question about the video. I just watched the drug meat sing. I want to know how much money it costs.

[Shelby Talcott]

I want to know how much time

[Jason Willick]

it wasted out of the convention.

[Emily]

And that comment is so, so harmful in the space.

[Shelby Talcott]

I think the people that are here,

[Emily]

that are racialized, that are people that have not been seen before, deserve the space. And our leader that looked like us and changed the politics for us as

[Shelby Talcott]

New Democrats, as Canadians, as Ontarians, as

[Emily]

people from all across this world, as people that have survived genocide, deserve goddamn respect in this house. Okay, this reminds me of the segment actually we did on Lindy West a couple of weeks ago. Maybe it was last week time as a flat circle, but I was listening to the. The red scare on Lindy west just today because it dropped like five hours ago or something. And I forget whether it was Anna or Dasha, but they talked about how essentially her entire ideology is cope, right? It's. It's cope for pain and suffering, which, by the way, I think are. Are real. But this is what happens when your worldview is built on identity markers. And by that, I mean, you're always incentivized to go further and further because you're looking for something more, right? You're always looking for new, new ways to explain your own suffering, if that makes sense. So new ways to new. New copes that manifest in a political ideology. And it's actually like, it's very sad to watch. You know, it's hard not to laugh, but it's also very sad to watch so many people, because I think actually what we're going to find is that this is stickier than many people realized it would be. We've been covering that on the show since we started last year. But this, this ideology is stickier than people realize because it's actually not just an ideology. It's a entire personality for particularly millennials, elder millennials. We were talking about Lindy west as kind of a proxy for the elder millennial who, you know, found their entire identity kind of in the project of identity in. In the. There's this question, like Christopher Lash, we were talking about this in the Lindy west segment, too, wrote Culture of narcissism, what, in, like, the 70s or the 80s. And so it's not new that people are building political ideologies out of sort of victimhood narratives. That's a natural human thing to do. It is not just the left. It's not just the right. It's a natural human thing to do. It transcends the political divide. But social media has just absolutely fueled its popularity on the ideological left. And I think that it's, again, conservatives, not immune from that, but it's it's been particularly significant on the political left because you had a lot of people who were finding in victimhood or identitarianism actually a sense of purpose and meaning. It that's really, really powerful. It's really, really powerful. So it's not easy to just transition out of that, no pun intended actually. But it's not easy to leave that behind when your entire worldview and identity and personality is built on top of it. Because this is how you've understood yourself, this is how you've understood the world. And again, do I think a lot of Gen Z rejects that except for some people who grew up in bubbles and remain in bubbles? Probably, yeah. I think it's starting to become clear that at least young men are rejecting it. Young women on the other hand, that's part of the, the problem of sexual dynamics right now is that young men and young women are drifting apart on major cultural questions. We also talked about that last week, but when I watch a video like this I can't not laugh. But it is also really sad because I think what you see in it is a lot of people clinging to politics as a cope for their own personal suffering. They would find answers, fulfillment and happiness probably anywhere else more easily than they will in politics. But they're, they're groping for some sense of meaning, some sense of identity in politics. And that's just. It's not going to work. It's certainly not going to work for the Democratic Party and even like listen, I know that this is Canadian politics, but I think it reflects a pretty similar attitude among a lot of progressives who are not really leftists. I mean they might think of themselves as, as left this but progressives whose, whose politics are caught up, I mean even the Lindy west saga reveals that even through all of the tumult of her personal life where her husband, who I guess is also non binary, asks if they can bring a third and have threesomes and basically be in a three person marriage. And Lindy West's husband said that as a non binary person of color he was, I think, I think her husband goes by he pronouns but is considered, considers himself non binary. I don't know, it makes my head hurt. But that is as a, as a person of color, non binary person of color marriage feels too much like ownership. And this was how Lindy west was conned into deciding that she could be happy in a three person marriage and is obviously not happy. But this is my point is people cling, cling to this pain inducing suffering exacerbating ideology because they think it's really all they have and they go so deep into it over many years it becomes a foundation. And if that's what your roots are planted in, I don't think you're going to be particularly happy. But it's really, really hard to uproot that. And that's why I think it's a problem for Democrats in the United States too. We're still, we're still seeing this show up on the left. And I wanted to highlight something that Roy to Chairra wrote a, wrote at the Liberal Patriot, which is sadly, actually they shut down the Liberal Patriot. Roy is, he's coming on the program, but they shut it down because they said it was hard to make money and to sustain a publication when you're going against the grain. But here I pulled the article up right now. The quote in question from Roy is where he says down here he raises all kinds of problems. He's a, if you don't follow him, I highly recommend that you do. He's, he's on X. But he's been an, an analyst of Democratic electoral politics for a long time and it's kind of like a Clinton era Democrat. Super interesting. He writes indeed for many, many voters the Democrats embrace of radical transgender ideology and its associated policy agenda has become the most potent exemplar of Democrats lack of connection to the real world of ordinary Americans. For these voters, Democrats have definitely strayed into the quote who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes territory. And if they're not realistic about something as fundamental as human biology, why should they be trusted about anything else? It's a reasonable question to which Democrats currently have no effective answer. And no, calling the question a billionaire funded distraction is not an effective answer. Now let me pull up the clip that I believe Roy is alluding to there, which is Graham Platner who if you follow breaking points, you know, I find to be pretty impressive as a, as a candidate. Here it is, he gets asked or he's talking at a local event up in Maine. He's obviously the Democrats leading Senate candidate in Maine. He's leading current governor Janet Mills by double digits in a lot of polls. It looks like the race is his to lose. He's talking about the culture war at a recent stop in Maine.

[Jason Willick]

Here's what he says for getting dragged in to frankly culture war issues that are being invented by the people that

[Emily]

don't want us talking about raising their taxes. That's why it exists. I mean I just have to pause there and say that's. That is, with respect, absolute bullshit. Absolute bullshit. Have there been some, like kitty litter in the public school stories that are either invented or mostly fabricated by people who don't want their taxes raised or people aligned with people who don't want their taxes raised? Yeah, absolutely. But I wrote a comment, the Federalist about this years ago. It is utterly absurd for progressives who buy their actual moniker, the name they go by, their entire movement is built on movement. It is built on, and taking them at their own word, progressive progress. And progress means what? Going away from what, the status quo. So all of these cultural issues, for the most part, not every single one, I think, you know, it's obviously fair to say that there are plenty of opportunistic conservatives, Republicans who will sometimes cynically deploy cultural issues as a distraction to divide average Americans. Totally agree with that. Would never, ever deny that. What it is absurd to deny is that the culture war, more broadly, if you take something like trans issues, to say that that was pushed by the right is absurd. It doesn't land with most voters. And it's not helpful for Democrats who do have a real who are you going to believe, me? Or lying eyes problem, as Rachel Chara says with this issue. Because most people who hear Democrats talk about trans issues don't believe that they believe it. They don't believe that. They believe men can literally become women and have all of the same abilities. A woman has all of the same abilities, or a man who's become a woman says they've become a woman, has all the same abilities as a, as a woman. People don't believe. Democrats believe that. It's a really big problem for Democrats now. It can be solved, I think, potentially by people like Graham Platner, who like a Donald Trump. Trump benefits from the weaknesses of his opponents. Susan Collins is perpetually underestimated by. But of course there are weaknesses as a Republican candidate in a place like Maine, when Donald Trump and the Republican Party are struggling with popularity. So there, there will be some real challenges for Susan Collins and Graham Platner may benefit enormously from that. And he could handle this by saying, listen, I know a lot of people don't agree with me, but I'm not changing my mind on this. I believe 100. And he is, he is by all accounts a cultural leftist. And so if he believes that, he should say, listen, I know a lot of people don't agree with me. I'm not changing my mind on this. And I'm also not going to lie to you about this. But there are a lot of Democrats who you saw what happened to Seth Moulton in Massachusetts. He dared breathe one word against the or against his party on the issue after Trump won in 2024 and he had staffers quit. It's still a problem for him. There was recently a story in the national media about how it's still going to be a problem for him going forward because of what he said after the 2024 election. Why is that? Well, the activist class and the base are have built, it's a whole generation that has built their identity around postmodern moral relativism. And in that structure, you are a progressive or a bigot. And if, if you are a bigot, of course they're going to do everything they can to run against you, campaign against you, destroy your candidacy. You're closed down to them. So that's I know it's a funny clip, but it's also very sad in many ways. And I think it's still an underappreciated obstacle. Republicans will have plenty of problems and they'll have plenty of things. I mean, from Iran to the state of the economy to artificial intelligence and big tech, Republicans are going to have plenty of things dragging them down and making this, you know, quote, lesser of two evils voting in November helpful for, for Democrats. But that's still a serious obstacle. So going to bring in Shelby Talcott in one moment. Stay tuned. First, this spring, if you want real results, better gut health, glowing skin, stronger hair and steady energy, start with Colostrum. When your gut is balanced, everything else improves. Today's sponsor, Cowboy Colostrum offers premium bovine colostrum sourced entirely from American grass fed cows, no Canadian grass fed cows and made here in the usa. Unlike many brands, it uses true first day whole colostrum packed with bioactives like immunoglobulins and growth factors. 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[Shelby Talcott]

Thanks for having me back.

[Emily]

Oh my gosh, of course. You have a big story over at Semaphore right now that I want to start by discussing. First, Shelby, our friend Stephen Nelson asked a question to Caroline Levitt today at the White House briefing about President Trump's timeline, which will kind of frame up the conversation about your article. So let's go ahead and take a listen to that. First, on Iran, on the timeframe, President

[Jason Willick]

Trump initially said about four weeks. Secretary of State Rubio on Friday reportedly said it Might be another 2 to 4. Is 2 to 4 the current ballpark

[Emily]

that the administration is thinking with respect to the timeline?

[Shelby Talcott]

Again, the president, commander in chief, the

[Emily]

Pentagon has always stated 4 to 6

[Shelby Talcott]

weeks Estimated timeline for Operation Epic Fury. We're on day 30 today.

[Emily]

So again, you do the math on

[Shelby Talcott]

how much longer we the Pentagon needs to fully achieve the objectives of Operation Epic Fury, which I will reiterate, destroy

[Emily]

the Iranian navy, destroy their ballistic missiles, dismantle their missile and drone production infrastructure, significantly weakened their product proxies throughout the course of this operation and then of

[Shelby Talcott]

course, preventing Iran from ever obtaining a nuclear weapon.

[Emily]

So something to just bank in your head, Shelby, because I'm going to come back to it, is that Caroline Levitt there, as I know you noticed, is very clearly going through those objectives bullet point by bullet point because you can feel the White House's frustration with the media saying they aren't being clear about their objectives. Caroline has has intentionally put out that list of objectives many times at this point, but wanted to bring that up in light of F2. This is another New York Post writer on uranium. Quote, Trump considers high risk grade to seize £1,000 of Iranian uranium inside the country. We had Brian Dean right on a couple of weeks ago who said it's possible that, like, a Delta Force would go in and recover that uranium, and it would technically be boots on the ground. Shelby, you have a new piece, F1 over at Semaphore headlined why Trump's Latest Iran Moves May Signal ground Troops. This wasn't exclusive. Can you break it down for a.

[Shelby Talcott]

SHELBY yeah, I think it's pretty simple, honestly. There's a few aspects of this, but I think the biggest thing is you see how the administration is messaging about this right there. They're saying that the president is talking to Iran, that he's negotiating, that he prefers diplomacy. And I think all of those things are true. But you also have to look at what the administration is actually doing. And what they're actually doing is they are sending thousands and thousands of troops to the Middle East. And if you look historically at this administration in particular, the president doesn't typically do that and then do nothing with that. Right. And it is a huge haul to send these people over to the Middle East. And they're not just sending sort of your standard folks who might be there all year round. They're also sending these special operations teams, these guys who would be responsible for some of these really elite ground operations. And so I think when you look at what the administration is actually doing, which is sending all of these troops to the Middle east, it signals that, you know, a ground troop operation is very much a possibility on the horizon. And in fact, I've talked to people close to the White House who know the president pretty well, who argue that it's their theory because of this, that that's what's going to happen.

[Emily]

Okay, so that's an important point because people who know Trump well would be able to or are often aware when the tone in the White House, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, Shelby, but if the tone in the White House is that Trump is negotiating, we've seen this happen with tariffs, we've seen this. We're almost on that Liberation Day anniversary, by the way. So happy first year of liberation, Shelby. But we also have this with the Gaza deal. It people can sort of sense when it's unclear, but if they're sensing him becoming comfortable with that, meaning he's receptive to the arguments, seriously receptive to the arguments, and he's not indicating to his close circle of advisors, that it's a sort of ploy, it's a public relations campaign. But he's, he's really seriously taking those arguments to heart. I would imagine that explains what you're hearing, Shelby.

[Shelby Talcott]

Yeah. And you talk to anybody inside the administration and they stress that, you know, the Pentagon's job is always to provide all of the options for the President, which is true. And they've planned for a lot of this for decades. Right. We reported earlier this month, I think it was, it's hard to remember if it was a few weeks ago or like a few months ago. But one of the aspects we reported was the fact that these ground operations, one option on the table is to go in and secure the uranium on the ground and sort of secure this nuclear, Iran, nuclear capabilities with special operations teams. And this has been a plan by the Pentagon for decades since, you know, the Obama administration considered it, the Biden administration considered it. And so I think that's important to emphasize is these aren't plans that are just now oftentimes coming to fruition. These are things that the Pentagon has planned for usually for a really long time, because they plan for all scenarios. But again, when we're talking to people close to the White House and people who know the president, you know, one thing somebody close to him pointed out to me was look at Venezuela, right? The president sent a bunch of troops to that region. And we started off by, you know, taking out these alleged drug boats by the ocean. We did that for a month or two. But that ultimately ended up with a ground operation in which we captured Maduro. And so they're sort of pointing at that and saying, you know, that operation alone, this is kind of similar. We're sending all of these troops. There's a slow buildup. All the while, we are negotiating with Iran. Right. And Iran, by the way, senses this too, because, you know, they had the, before this 12 day war when we bombed their nuclear facilities last year, the US Was negotiating with Iran. And so this time around, Iran's like, hold on, we've seen this rodeo before. But that's also how a lot of people close to the President are viewing it, which is, you know, he hasn't made any final decisions, but yet he is seriously keeping this on the table as an option.

[Emily]

Yeah, it's interesting because nobody right now is talking about like, boots on the ground in Venezuela. I mean, obviously we have boots on the ground in Venezuela, American diplomatic representatives on the ground in Venezuela. It's a very different operation than like boots on the ground looked like in Iraq or Afghanistan. So perhaps the president thinks there's a way to avoid that in the Middle east this time around. Shelby, I want to circle back to that question about Caroline Levitt laying out the objectives with, I would say, a noticeable frustration in her voice, because it does keep happening, that the media will say Trump's objectives are unclear. And the White House has put forward this list of objectives since, like, day three of the war, day two of the war. But. But at the same time, the messaging is obviously mixed, not just from the White House, but from the entire administration. So I'm curious if you've noticed an effort to be a bit more coherent, or if the president, because he's chopping it up with reporters on Air Force One, as he was doing just 24 hours ago last night. If the president's casual conversations in public about negotiating negotiations and the war itself, it's almost like everyone's just kind of following his lead. Is that what's happening on the.

[Shelby Talcott]

Shelby, I think we've talked about this before. One of the things that people who have worked with the president for a really long time have always told me on the campaign trail in his first term, you know, these people have been with him for years now, and they've always pointed out that you can do your best to sort of manage Trump. But ultimately, he is one of those people who loves to talk to the media. He says what he wants, and oftentimes that results in his team sort of adjusting based on what he is telling whoever is calling him at 10:30 at night or whoever is calling him at 6:00 in the morning. Right. Or what he's saying on Air Force One. So I do think there is always with Trump, this. This idea that, you know, his team can be really on message. I think Caroline is very on message. For example. Right. She has been saying, as you said, the same thing since day three of this war. But then you have the president sort of muddying the waters. I think, you know, he talks about having to secure the Strait of Hormuz. That's not one of the administration stated four goals. He talks about. He talked about regime change the other night on Air Force One, right. Saying, well, we have gone through regime change. That wasn't one of the stated goals. So there are sort of a muddying of the waters. And I also think even with the administration stated goals there, it's hard to gauge when you're successful. Right. How do we know that we have completely taken out Iran's nuclear capability? Or their missiles. And so I think that's the other aspect of it. So I do think that there's certainly people on Trump's team who are very on message, but I think he is so online and so willing to talk to press that, that that's where the waters get muddied.

[Emily]

So interesting. All right, let's talk about Maha next, because Politico released a poll this morning that I don't know if this was your experience. It was everywhere. I saw this everywhere in the Beltway today. It was rocking around the Internet. And you can understand why, because we could put this up on the screen. F5 is the graphic of the poll results. They actually polled self identified Maha voters. They polled. And I'm going to read a bit here. I wrote about it, so I'm going to read a little bit from my unheard article. And I really, really, really am curious what you're hearing internally, Shelby. So the political poll found, quote, a majority of Americans associate Maha with the Republican Party, but not overwhelmingly. And most believe the Trump administration has not done enough to, quote, make America healthy again. That includes a 41% plurality of Trump's own 2024 voters. Adults who self identified as Maha were relatively split on whether Trump has, quote, done enough to, quote, make America Healthy again. 47% say he's not done enough, 45% say he has. That's just outside the margin of error. So it's a very, very easy, even split. And a source close to Maha to the Maha movement told me in response to the poll that Trump should let RFK Jr. Loose. They said bringing in the Maha voters was brilliant coalition building, but you have to follow through. These voters don't want aesthetics about raw milk or even the childhood vaccine schedule change that the medical community will largely ignore without penalty. They want real and meaningful change to how our food is grown, processed and marketed. This will put Republicans at odds with Big Ag and Big Food, arguably two of the biggest lobbies in town outside the defense and pharma lobbies. But RFK Jr promises courage and Trump promised to back him. So let him loose. The perception that Trump has tied RFK's hands on challenging the interests that are poisoning America's kids is not helping. One last bit of data here, Shelby, before I turn it over to you. Politico actually polled about the system itself. They said respondents in the poll, quote, were more likely to say the Democratic Party can be trusted to make the country healthier and is more eager to improve health in America, while theorists at the same of Republicans And Republicans, on the other hand, were seen as more likely to be influenced than Democrats by lobbyists for the food and pesticide industries, which is the founding principle of the Maha movement, to oppose. What response did you pick up on from Maha World, which I know you've covered? The White House is. Is, you know, staffed by people who are Maha, but they're also, at least as my understanding, hearing a lot, getting an earful from lobbyists and Ag and food. Did this ring true to you, Shelby?

[Shelby Talcott]

Yeah, I think. I think what's most interesting about this is there. It. It kind of pulls at that tension that you just mentioned between sort of Big Ag and the Maha movement. And that' interesting because when I was covering the transition, this was one of the things that some of Kennedy's allies were worried about is they were saying, you know, he's going to come in here, he has all of these ideas, but there's also this huge conglomerate in D.C. who has had a real hold on the White House for decades. Not specifically Trump, but just sort of this town. And so I think that he's running into that. But I also think that there is an aspect of this, of at the beginning of the Trump administration, he certainly got into some hot water with some of his comments, particularly when he was talking about things like vaccines, etc. The Trump was a little bit nervous about that stuff. He's not totally bought in on that line of commentary. And so I think Trump, what's really interesting is you've seen how he really doesn't talk about that that much anymore. And I think that's intentional. I think that's a concerted effort. But I've also spoken to people close to the administration who have expressed exactly what you just expressed, which is essentially, we really hope that the administration unleashes him. I talked to one person in particular, just generally about the midterms and unprompted they brought up this was maybe a month ago. They were like, you. What I really think is gonna happen and what I hope happens, because this is how you win, is you have to take this very messy conglomerate of people that you got to vote for you, which is the Maha movement, the traditional maga Republicans, like very different groups, all came together and voted for Trump. And you need to lean into sort of, for example, the Kennedy aspect. You need to let him go on the campaign trail and talk and get those people out to vote for Republicans. And so this person was like, this is what they should do, essentially, whether or not they'll do it. Who knows? But that's what needs to be done to have a chance in the midterms.

[Emily]

Yeah. Alex Clark has been covering this constantly on, on her show. There's clearly a demoralization of Maha that really was most exposed during the glyphosate roundup meltdown of the last month. And it's a huge electoral problem for Republicans because the coalition that Trump put together in 2024, we historically haven't seen his coalition nationwide and in big state races extend when he's not on the ballot. And so if you're trying to get that coalition to turn out again and you have like a disillusioned mom in Ohio who is has the Sherrod Brown election in front of her, polls are very close in Nebraska and Iowa and Maine. It's early, but those are pretty tight polls and those would be flips for, for Democrats. And if you're that mom who's really busy and has to decide on election Day whether or not to go and, you know, in, in the middle of your morning and your errands, interrupt that and pull the lever when you're actually for Republicans, when you're like kind of disillusioned by them, makes a big difference. It makes a really big difference if they've actually tried in high profile ways to get your vote back. I could see how sending RFK Jr out on the trail would, would be helpful. Shelby.

[Shelby Talcott]

I also think an aspect of this, and I've talked to administration officials who will acknowledge, is that it's kind of similar to the, you know, we're not talking about the economy enough, which is foreign policy, like going back to the war in Iran has taken such a front seat over this past year and a half that even when some of these other groups do stuff, it's just not breaking through. And so voters aren't really hearing about it because, you know, the president isn't necessarily highlighting some of these efforts. He's not bringing up Kennedy as much as maybe he could be. He's not bringing up, you know, Besson as much as he could be. It's all focused on foreign policy. And so there's been a challenge for this administration, I think, to figure out how to talk about all the other things that helped them win in the election.

[Emily]

So interesting. Speaking of places where there have been friction, I wanted to get your take on the Department of Homeland Security. We're in Mark Wayne Mullen's first week and the Sheridan Gorman tragedy continues to play out on a national scale. Although the story isn't getting too much Coverage in the, like, legacy media outlets. It's being covered intensely in conservative media, as I would say rightfully it should. But Mike, I was going to say for some reason. Yeah, just ignore what I was going to say. But I have all kinds of things that shouldn't end up coming out.

[Shelby Talcott]

I'm having my modelo in honor of, of Maha Hell.

[Emily]

I mean, it's the. Isn't it the best selling beer in America? It's great. I love Mexican line. You know what?

[Shelby Talcott]

It's all we had. I'll take it.

[Emily]

That's actually shocking because Shelby's fiance is a fellow Wisconsin guy and he's a Miller Light devotee.

[Shelby Talcott]

We've only got modelas, so

[Emily]

interesting. Suspicious. I'm wondering where his loyalties actually lie. Shelby. But Mark Wayne Mullen, first week in office and there's this tension I don't think was well understood until Kristi Noem's last week's in office that people saw internally a divide between Noem and Tom Holman, Gnome and Lewandowski and Tom Homan. And when they left, I had a lot of immigration hawks privately complaining that it might mean the administration is moderating on, quote, mass deportations, on these enforcement activities that we saw blow up in places like Minneapolis. And I wanted to play this clip of Charles Barkley on a recent March Madness broadcast that might be characteristic of the type of criticism that the Trump administration is now sensitive to and get your sense of whether that's accurate because it may or may not be. Let's go ahead and roll the clip.

[Jason Willick]

I want to be very careful with

[Emily]

my words right now.

[Jason Willick]

I love that kid and his family, but the way some of these other immigrants are getting treated in our country right now is a travesty and a disgrace. I think there is a difference between amazing immigrants and criminal immigrants. And I think what's going on in our country, what we're doing to some of these amazing immigrants is really unfortunate and it's really sad. And that's a great immigrant story.

[Emily]

We have a lot of great immigrant

[Jason Willick]

stories out there who, their stories need to be told. But immigrants built this country and we should admire them and respect them.

[Emily]

That was like actually a great moment for the sir. This is a Wendy's meme. Like, he's literally, if you're listening to this, he was on set.

[Shelby Talcott]

Everyone tunes into March Madness to hear about the, the, the hot topic of immigration. Actually.

[Emily]

He's got like the Yukon mascot behind him. He's like randomly dipping into this very, like, emotional and, you know, I Think resonant tangent on, I don't know, back

[Shelby Talcott]

from that, like, did the, did the rest of the broadcaster just be like, and up next, no, it's like that

[Emily]

great Vin Scully clip where he just goes, anyway, oh. And like he's like talking about how the commerc niece of Hugo Chavez is the richest woman in Venezuela because of socialism. And then. Anyway, Owen too,

[Shelby Talcott]

that's, Yeah, I mean, I, I, I do think, I think that the topic of immigration has become, I mean, I think it was always a very kind of sensitive topic for people. But people did vote for Trump because the border was out of control, because their, you know, illegal migration was out of control. I think, think that there are a core group of his supporters who knew what they were voting for, who said, yes, you know, we, we want all of this gone. We want to completely stop illegal immigration. And then I do think that there is a group of voters who are a little bit more moderate who maybe didn't vote for Trump all three times, who, you know, kind of held their nose and voted for him because Biden was the alternative. And also they were frustrated with some of the things going on. I think those people are uncomfortable with some of the scenes that we've seen play out in public. I also think the president is uncomfortable with the scenes we've seen. Right.

[Emily]

We heard, which is interesting, by the way, because he was entirely comfortable with the optics of mass deportation because it was polling really well and it still polls as a split with the public.

[Shelby Talcott]

I think the big thing is though, he is, remember where he came from, right? He's the TV guy. He watches a lot of tv. He came from tv. He knows how to put together a show. And so he doesn't like when he turns on the TV and he sees, for example, the Minneapolis situation, right. These shootings, like, that's when he starts to think, okay, this, like, I don't like what I'm seeing. I don't like how this is visually playing out. This is not good. And I think there are a lot of voters who agree, who are and who are saying, well, hold on, maybe we're going too far. And you'll hear the administration say, I think Caroline Levitt said it today that the Trump administration's immigration policy has not changed. But at the same time, you've heard behind the scenes some sense of moderation. Right. We heard during a closed door chat with lawmakers, one of Trump's, Trump's top aides was saying, you know, focus the conversation on criminal illegal aliens. And that doesn't necessarily mean that their whole immigration tactic is shifting. But I think that's important because it shows how that they're aware how the messaging matters and how. Right. Their argument is. You should focus, messaging wise on the criminals that we're deporting, not on, we're going to deport every single person. We're going to deport your neighbor who your kids play with. Right. Which.

[Emily]

Which could maybe just mean doing that stuff more quietly. Is that like, so if, if you're again, an immigration hawk, like, say you're one of those people who voted for Donald Trump because you want mass deportations, are you going to just be happy about like a Mark Wayne Mullen? Because now you think the strategy. He's now the face of a worst first, as Tom Hellman would say, public relations campaign and Kristi Noem style hawkish deportation regime, just not as high profile, playing out on everyone's TV screens.

[Shelby Talcott]

Yeah, I think that's what people hope. And honestly, we won't know. I think there are some people who honestly, like, don't care about the public messaging. And they're saying, who cares? Right. We said we're gonna deport everyone to why are we. Yeah, why are we, like moderating ourselves even publicly? But I do think that my sense is that Mark Wayne Mullen agrees with the president on a lot of issues, but he also is a DC Person. He knows how this world operates in a way that I think Kristi Noem didn't. And you saw that with some of the decisions she made, some of the comments she made and sort of some of the troubles that she got herself into. And so I think that they're going to be much more careful and low key about what they're doing than the DHS under Kristi Noem. And I think, you know, you saw, you talked about the drama between Kristi Noem and Tom Holman. I think Tom Homan is like a pretty hard line immigration person. But you also. He's been tapped to sort of calm down. He was tapped to calm down everything in Minneapolis. He was also brought in for DHS negotiations on Capitol Hill. I think that shows you how the administration sees him. And it's as somebody who, despite being a hardliner, knows how to talk and message and sort of compromise on these topics.

[Emily]

Well, Shelby, I am going to send you out on the Vince Gulley clip because I obviously, it's worth watching.

[Shelby Talcott]

Amazing.

[Jason Willick]

All in one.

[Emily]

Perez, 25 years old, originally drafted by the Tigers, lives in Venezuela. Boy, can you imagine? You're a young kid playing in the United States. You're from Venezuela and every time you look at the news, it's a nightmare. A butt attempt is missed.

[Jason Willick]

Runners for a whole.

[Emily]

Socialism failing to work as it always does.

[Shelby Talcott]

Like I might as well go home

[Emily]

everybody something free and all of a sudden it's so food to eat. And who do you think is the richest person in Venezuela? The daughter of two little chom. Hello. Anyway, Owen two.

[Shelby Talcott]

I mean that's literally, that's that's the perfect example.

[Emily]

I mean it's, I mean, Charles Barkley got pretty, pretty damn close to that.

[Shelby Talcott]

Yeah, it's amazing.

[Emily]

Oh my gosh, so much fun to have you here. Shelby Talcott is a White House correspondent over at Semaphore. Thanks so much, Shelby.

[Shelby Talcott]

Thanks.

[Emily]

Amazing. Well, we got the Vin Scully clip in too, which was unplanned and a total bonus. We're going to be back with Jason Willick in just moment. First, over the years, I have been clear about this. I'm not just pro birth, I am pro life. And being pro life means standing with mothers not only before their baby is born, but long after. And that's exactly why I partner and partner very proudly with preborn. Preborn doesn't just save babies. They make motherhood abundantly possible. They provide free ultrasounds and share the truth of the gospel with women in need and in crisis. And then they stay with real practical help, including financial support. Get this for up to two years after the baby is born. That is what true Christ centered compassion looks like. Not just for the baby, but for the mother too. And here's where you can make a difference. Just 28 provides a free life saving ultrasound. One chance for a mother to see her baby. And this is a real figure. When she does, she's twice as likely to choose life. Preborn is trying to save 70,000 babies this year. So don't just say you're pro life, live it. Help save babies and support mothers today. Go to preborn.com emily or call 855-601-2229. That's preborn.com emily There are countless reasons to learn a new language. Whether you have an upcoming trip planned or you simply want to learn a new skill. Rosetta Stone breaks down your new language into bite sized pieces and focuses on

[Shelby Talcott]

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[Emily]

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[Shelby Talcott]

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[Emily]

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[Jason Willick]

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[Emily]

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[Jason Willick]

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[Emily]

We're joined now by Jason Willick, who is a wonderful columnist over at the Washington Post. I've known him for a long time. Jason, thanks for coming on the show.

[Jason Willick]

Thank you, Emily.

[Emily]

All right, let's start with your column that I read and thought was so brilliant, connecting the filibuster to the war in Iran. It was like a Stefan SNL moment. This Washington Post column has everything the the legislative filibuster, the war in Iran. But really it did, and this is a very smart point, Jason. We could put F7 up on the screen. The Senate filibuster debate has lessons for Trump's war on Iran. So true. King Tell us what they are.

[Jason Willick]

JASON well, it was a little bit of a provocation, but it's not a coincidence that the filibuster, as people may know, is the 60 vote requirement to pass most legislation. And breaking that requirement is sometimes known as the nuclear option. So there's kind of Marshall metaphor force here with the the nuclear option. But basically what I was saying was the Republicans think basically are arguing for nuking the filibuster on the grounds that the Democrats will do it first. So it's an exercise of deterrence. How do you deter the other people from not doing, not escalating? And I think there's a lot going on there in Iran. I think specifically, basically John Cornyn, who's running for Senate in Texas, says, I used to support the filibuster, but now the Democrats tried to nuke it in 2022 to try to pass this voting bill. So now I think that they're just going to nuke it when they come in. So there's no point in my posing it anymore. We need to strike first, basically, because

[Emily]

Manchin and Cinema were sort of the bulwark in 2022. Neither of them is in the Senate anymore. It doesn't mean that tells us what a Ruben Gallego, whomever would do. But Jason, what is the mansion and cinema of Iran?

[Jason Willick]

Exactly. So the Democrats were trying to pass this legislation with 50 votes. Mansion and break the filibuster with 50 votes. Manchin and Cinema voted against it. They're Both now were basically run out of the party.

[Emily]

Wasn't that also a voting bill? Am I correct? Was that it was a voting bill?

[Jason Willick]

It was going to rewrite sort of state voting laws across the country to have mail in ballots and the Democratic wish list for voting. So John Cornyn says basically we can't be suckers and let them hit us first. We need to, we need to strike first. And so in Iran there's a lot going on with deterrence that I think is kind of similar. I think one problem is we've already tried to decapitate Iran's regime. We, you know, did this all out attack in which we killed or the Israelis probably killed the Ayatollah and many other senior leaders. So if you're Iran, you might be thinking similarly to John Cornyn where you think, you know, why should I de escalate if they're just going to, why shouldn't I just do the nuclear option? Why shouldn't I go to get a bomb? Because I can't trust them not to escalate. They've already escalated as much as they can. So it's a, it's a, one problem I think with this war in Iran is that we escalated maximally. So how are we going to get the, how are we going to get them to abide by a new sort of detent and a new balance of power if they figure we'd be suckers to do that, they just tried to kill us all in the regime and they'll do it again.

[Emily]

And so I guess, I don't know if this is the perfect description but it's almost like there becomes a self fulfilling prophecy mechanism where you say this is going to happen so many times that it becomes normalized. At least I'm thinking of with the filibuster now you have so many Republicans saying Democrats are definitely going to do it. Democrats are definitely going to do it. And over the years you get a permission structure for Democrats to do it. I don't know exactly what the parallel to that is in Iran, but it does sometimes feel like in foreign policy world you talk something up to the point almost of inevitability. It creates an incentive structure for your quote, enemy to do exactly what you're expecting your enemy to do.

[Jason Willick]

Yeah, there's really, I've been thinking about it a lot in the Iran war. There's a self fulfilling nature to a lot of foreign policy. Like I think the Israelis were sort of thinking, thinking this is our last pro American president, we've got to do this, now, this is our last pro American president. And I think, I think with the filibuster, you're right. Republicans are saying this is our last chance before they go and nuke the filibuster and pack the Supreme Court. And so maintaining deterrence, it requires basic that it's in both people's interest to do it. The Democrats say we won't nuke the filibuster because that would be bad for us ultimately if Republicans did it. And Republicans say we want nuclear filibuster because that would be bad for, for us if Democrats did. It's in both of our interests to maintain this sort of mutual deterrence in Iran. I sort of think we had that going. We could deter them from closing the Strait of Hormuz. We were preventing them from getting a nuclear weapon or at least setting them back. But, but that's all broken. Once you, once you go for the jugular like this, once you go and do an all out attack intended to annihilate a regime, then they're, then there. How are they, how are you going to deter them anymore more once you've already escalated to that degree? So I think that's, that's a tricky thing. It's not a perfect analogy. It's a little bit of a provocation. But both things are going on at the same time. And I think people are not thinking so clearly about deterrence and they're. And deterrence is going to fail as a result of that.

[Emily]

And this is a way in which Donald Trump himself is an anomaly and almost the Kissingerian madman figure in foreign policy, which is that he doesn't always set expectations very clearly. And that's intentional, at least it seems like it' typically intentional because he's doing exactly what he wrote about in Art of the Deal when it pertains to business deals, which also by the way, often have international government components to them. But he's negotiating in public, he's using the media as part of his negotiation. And that is a little bit different than Barack Obama setting a red line in Syria, which kind of is similar to what we were just talking about actually in terms of foreign policy. But then on the flip side, the muddling means that Iran is not just preparing for one expected outcome, but like a bunch of them probably. And that's, I guess perhaps makes it even more difficult for, for us to anticipate what they're serious about.

[Jason Willick]

Yeah, yeah, he negotiates in a special way for sure. He puts things out there. The most recent is going to blow up the desalination plants, other, other infrastructure. And he's as much right doing that to put it out there and see what the response is as it is a real threat. And you notice sort of that he's, he's sort of lost the ability I think to control the markets. Like there was this joke, you know, at the end of every, or you know, at the beginning of every week when the markets were going to open, he would give some de. Escalatory gesture and the markets and oil prices would, would fall again. I think he's sort of losing that ability. So at some point, you know, people get onto your, people figure out what your strategy is.

[Emily]

I was thinking that recently too with the markets, like what comes next? Because so much of him, like even with back to Liberation Day, which we're, we're almost at the one year anniversary of, so much of that was him trying to mitigate market consequences. And part of that is what he's trying to do now as well.

[Jason Willick]

Yeah, no, it's very similar. This is similar to Liberation Day in that yet for one thing he was elected on reducing prices and both tariffs and this war in Iran put upward pressure on prices. But it's also him at the height of his sort of executive power. I can set the import rate at whatever I want. I can bomb whatever I want. The biggest constraint on him has been the markets. In these circumstances he is sensitive to how the markets respond. So he's trying to juke them out. But we're seeing the limits of that. And it did. I think the term taco originated from the Liberation Day tariffs. And he did ultimately back down and he could ultimately back down here or not. But I sort of think back to the deterrence point. It's going to be tough to get back into a modus vivendi where we have deterrence. That's why the Iranians want security guarantees. They're sort of like Ukraine, they're like, we think you're just going to attack us again. Ukraine thinks Russia is going to attack them again if they end the war. They probably would. Ukrainians think the US and Israel will attack them again if they end the war. So they're looking for guarantees. Is it going to be China, Is it going to be Russia? You're getting into a very complicated sort of set of negotiations to reassure all parties that they can stop.

[Emily]

That's a really interesting point. I also wanted to ask you about this new audio. The Free Beacon got their hands on. The Washington Free Beacon got their hands on. This isn't Alana Goodman story. The headline here is, quote, there are a lot of people in Dearborn who are sad. Democratic Senate hopeful Abdul El Sayed said he needed to stay silent on Khamenei killing because many of Michelle Michigan's Muslim voters, quote, are sad. I think this is a really significant story, Jason, but not for the reason that a lot of people are calling it significant. I think you'll set aside. We literally just had Abdul say it on Breaking Points on, on Friday. And I take him at his word that he is sincerely against the war based on his sincerely held ideological position. It might be something that we could all disagree with, but I think he's entirely serious about that. What this reveals, at least from my perspective, is that people who are utterly sympathetic to Khamenei, even by Abdul Al Said sort of private standard, are a significant electoral force in Michigan. That's very interesting because we're constantly told that we don't have to worry about having, you know, people who would be like, quote, sad about a radical Islamic cleric in Dearborn. People would be sad about his death in Dearborn. We're constantly being told that's not the case. But here we have somebody who is a Democrat, who's on the left, who's saying, no, that's a real electoral force when they're not in public. Am I reading too much into this? I think that's a kind of a significant omission.

[Jason Willick]

Yeah. I mean, one tough thing about these Iran wars was it's a bad regime, it's a wicked regime, it does terrible things to people. To be critical of the war should not imply that you have sympathy for the regime. And two, you get no credit for starting a war against a bad regime that can go badly just as much as if it wasn't a bad regime or whatever. So I don't give, I don't, you know, when I'm calculating, is a war a good idea? Whether the regime is wicked or not is really a secondary consideration. It has to be more about your interests and your strategy. But of course, there are people who not only don't think that it's a bad regime, but then are sympathetic to it. I mean, yeah, that's true and that's unfortunate. And the anti war political people have to get their support too, apparently, or at least are trying not to alienate them. In this case, in this case, the Democratic primary. Obviously a successful Democratic politician who is opposing the war would have to say, I don't shed any tears for, for Ayatollah Khamini, but, but you have, you know, Dearborn is, is one of the most, you know, Muslim highest Muslim populations. And, you know, these are how, how demographics and political opinions, you know, work regionally.

[Emily]

So which of course, you can have a huge concentration of Muslim voters and Muslim Americans and Muslim immigrants without then worrying you're going to offend Muslim voters. Being sad over the death of a deeply anti American leader. I mean, we're talking about the death to America regime, which is, which is still in power even though Khamenei is not. And I'm just reading into this, it's interesting because it's a really close Democratic Senate primary and they're all trying to kind of outdo each other on some of these questions. The base is obviously furious about what happened in Gaza and that's been a real problem for people like Alyssa Slotkin in the state. But it is, it does seem to me like that's fundamentally a serious problem for the country if candidates are, are changing their talking points so as not to, you make, make people angry who might be sad over the death of just an explicitly anti American leader. That seems like a really difficult position as a country to find yourself in if it continues to build.

[Jason Willick]

Yeah. Although I do think Democrats overestimate this. I mean, remember that, that interesting Joe Biden, you know, in 2024, what we're told are sort of the narrative of Biden's evolution on the, the Gaza war and Israel was, well, we're going to lose Michigan. We're going to lose Michigan. They probably overstated how much supporting Israel would cause them to lose Michigan and it probably made them make worse political decisions, frankly. So, you know, this candidate could be, could be misreading and to be fair, you know, even if it's a bad guy, you can think you shouldn't be assassinating heads of state, you know, and that's, that's a, sets a bad precedent. So, you know, I'm not, I'm not, frankly.

[Emily]

So that's a fair point. No, that is a fair point because, I mean, there's some chatter about how insane it is and blah, blah, blah to just execute, assassinate. There's like an interesting legal debate that I know you followed Jason, on assassinating even oppositional heads of state. Now, I don't think that's really what Abdul Al said was, was referencing.

[Jason Willick]

Yeah, he was saying possible.

[Emily]

That's. Yeah, right. But that's, but that's entirely possible that, you know, for some people it's just a pure objection to the way the United States conducted the first strikes, which were to. To decapitate the regime.

[Jason Willick]

Yeah. And I listened to some of the recording, and they were complaining about the Maduro raid as well, which that I actually support and think think worked fine. But, you know, you can have questions about this, this sort of strategy of decapitation, which we're now able to do much better thanks to technology and precision weapons and very sort of high quality surveillance and all this technology that allows you to just decapitate. Although, of course, if the sun is taking over, they don't even need to change the Twitter handle. It can still be Khamenei. It can still be the Sun. Although Trump said, we've already changed the regime. A friend of mine joked, because there was some reporting that the. The sun is gay. They said, well, it's an LGBTQ regime in Iran. There's been regime change. It's been a radical, radical change.

[Emily]

But from father to son, one generation to the next.

[Jason Willick]

Yeah.

[Emily]

Yeah.

[Jason Willick]

And of course, we haven't. We haven't heard much from the sun, but, you know, I. I don't. Yeah, I think. I think Democrat. Yeah. There's obviously a faction in Michigan and in Dearborn that's like, you know, that has these political views and that this guy's trying to cater to. But we'll see. We'll see. I guess the ultimate test will be how it affects him in the primary and what the Democratic voters say.

[Emily]

Right. And how he responds the next few days as well, because his opponents are going to use this up as much as they can. Jason Willock, such a pleasure to have you on the show. Thanks for being here.

[Jason Willick]

Thank you, Emily.

[Emily]

Great to have Jason here. He's, as I mentioned, a columnist with the Washington Post. Make sure to follow his writing. It is always super interesting. One of the best there. All right, we have a little bit more coming up. First, though, a fresh start is possible. Debt can feel like it's getting worse every month, but that only continues if nothing changes. PDS debt has already helped hundreds of thousands of people rewrite their financial story and take back control. And your turn can start right now. If you are struggling with credit cards, personal loans, or medical bills, PDS debt creates personalized options to help you get out of debt. They look beyond the numbers to understand your situation and build a plan that's designed specifically for you. Review. There's no minimum credit score, and their entire mission is to help you save more, pay off debt faster, and finally put money back where it belongs in your pocket. They're A plus rated by the Better Business Bureau. Have thousands of five star Google reviews and hold a five star rating on trustpilot because their approach works and the longer you wait, the more interest and fees pile up. The best time to start was yesterday. The next best time is right now. If I had needed this product, it is what I would view. So don't wait another month. Change your story in 30 seconds. Get your free personalized assessment and the best option for you at pdsdebt.com Emily that's pdsdebt.com Emily again. Pdsdebt.com Emily there are countless reasons to learn a new language. Whether you have an upcoming trip planned or you simply want to learn a new skill. Rosetta Stone breaks down your new language into bite sized pieces and focuses on

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[Emily]

Great listeners can get an exclusive 20 off IXL membership when they sign up today at ixl.com 20. Visit ixl.com 20 to get the most effective learning program out there at the best price. It occurs to me before we wrap up that I haven't mentioned two major cultural questions that I've yet to weigh in on. First of all, there's a raging debate right now about whether the season of the Real Housewives of Beverly Hill is boring. That is ridiculous. You people have Jennifer Tilly, Rachel Zo on your screen with Kathy Hilton. Just those three and you're complaining about the season being boring. It's true. It's true. I think Bose now has a little bit too much main character energy. I think Dorit's story is deeply boring. I think some of the women in the cast could give a little bit more, but oh my gosh, it's driving me insane. I have not been this compelled by a Beverly Hills Housewives season in a very long time. So I just wanted to quickly say, what are. What are you talking about? That's crazy to me. Even if it was just Jennifer Tilly, Rachel Zoe. Rachel Zoe is doing the work of a million housewives. She has them all on her shoulder. She has the weight of the show on her shoulders. And then you have Kathy Hilton and Jennifer Tilly adding so much, much comedic relief that it's astounding to me. I think sometimes the like housewife social media echo chamber gets a little, I don't know, I think it gets a little too in the weeds and loses the forest for the trees. So also, the Comeback has returned to hbo. That is not something I thought was happening. I, I like had forgotten there was another season of the Comeback coming to HBO with the great Lisa Kudrow. That show is one of the great cultural artifacts of the aughts. When it came back like 10 years later, it was fantastic. And its comeback is very interesting right now as well. They're kind of grappling with sitcoms and artificial intelligence, but it's not for everyone. It's a really, I think, brilliant window into the cultural plight of like affluent women in coastal bubbles though it does a great job and it has from beginning to end. So those are just a couple of things I wanted to mention. Now back to the regularly scheduled programming. I just decided to go on that tangent because I wanted to and why not? All right, so Fox News had a great story. Shout out to Brian Flood and Joseph Wolfson over there. Just counting up all of the legacy news people who have decamped for like substack because the news hook here is that someone you may recognize, he's a CBS News reporter named Scott McFarland, announced Monday that he was going to be a like correspondent for Midas Touch. Midas Touch right now by the way is thriving because they recognized that there was this massive audience that had not been served on YouTube for kind of center left stuff, basically doing what Ms. Now wants to do and is trying to do, but on YouTube with a much lower budget, much more nimble schedule and editorial abilities. So they were originally, you probably might Remember back in 2020 a package if you're on social media, you saw Midas touch constantly in 2020 during the law for Lawfare heydays. They've gotten a little bit more, I would say like a little bit less lowercase L liberal since then. A little bit more like progressive might be one way to put it, like anti establishment. Because that's where the base who's looking for this content on YouTube is. And now you have Scott McFarlane just leaving CBS News where he was a reporter for Midas Touch. For Midas Touch. I mean incredible, incredible stuff. It's another like one of many examples. I'm going to put the article actually up on the screen here. It just goes through. This is, this is a trend that absolutely deserves attention. So we started with McFarlane, you probably know Terry Moran. Terry Moran was actually thought to be center right, like privately center right, right. For all of the years that he was at ABC News. And obviously he had that crazy situation with Stephen Miller. This was like last spring. So it's been basically a year. But he's now, I think he's on substack. He's like gone independent. And pretty quickly, yeah, he's on substack pretty quickly. Said that legacy media is, quote, failing the American people. And he is said that Mike Johnson, quote, is worse than the pedophile Hastert, referring to Denny Hastert. He obviously hates, hates, hates Donald Trump. But again, I'm just going, as I go through this trend, remember this hatred of, of Donald Trump and these like, for the case of McFarland, these clear progressive biases, these clear, like liberal biases didn't spring up overnight. You don't wake up and say, oh, I work at Midas Touch now. And I've discovered that I'm, I'm actually, you know, virulently anti Trump Democrat. Katie Couric. This is another example from Fox News, also like independent now, which is incredibly funny. She says she feels more liberated. Quote, I think that for so long I had to appeal to this mass audience, you know, the Today show. And I think we all, especially women, contort ourselves into that, you know, desire to be likable. And I think at some point in my career, I just realized not everybody is going to like me. Well, that's very self aware. So points to Katie Couric for that. By the way, I loved watching Katie Couric. My mom always had the Today show on and I'm sure she's watching right now. So shout out, mom. But always had the Today show on. And I really loved Katie Kirk and I feel like it was healthier for the country when Katie Couric was focused on what she was good at doing. But anyway, let's move on to Don Lemon. I'm not even going to go deep into Don Lemon because we are all very familiar with his inspiring Art Park. He has given birth to a new generation of independent journalists covering these stories without fear or favor that will enter the industry inspired by Don over the course of the next next decade and we thank him for that. Appreciate all the work you're putting in here, Don. Who can forget Jim Acosta, the savior of the independent media, the savior of the free press in Trump 1.0, who over and over again, like Don Lemon, basically insisted that he was just, just calling balls and strikes this is what Tara Moran and Scott McFarland's jobs, by the way, were like explicitly to do. And they just suddenly like took the mask off again overnight, basically. Acosta leaves CNN because CNN is trying to adapt. And he said in his closing monologue, as the Fox article points out, don't give in the lives lies. Don't give into the fear. Hold on to the truth and to hope. Hope even if you have to get out your phone, record that message. I will not give in to the lies. I will not give in to the fear. Post it on your social media so people can hear from you too, okay? He has since just again gone totally mask off. He is clearly a, an ideological anti conservative figure. That's how I would describe a lot of these people, by the way. It's not even necessarily that they're pro progressivism. A lot of them are just like deeply anti conservative. They just don't, you know, maybe they're moderate on some issues. They're certainly not like leftists for the most part on foreign policy or on economics. Right. Like, these are people who generally like low taxes and low crime and, you know, aren't super into experimenting with criminal justice reform or like anti imperial foreign policy. They're not really into that stuff. Stuff. But that's why they go wherever the never Trump wind blows. We see it over and over again with these folks. A couple of other examples that I wanted to bring up. Remember Dan Rather? Dan Rather now is, is sadly kind of an aging joke. But Dan Rather, when he left legacy media, he has since become also virulently not just anti Trump, but anti conservative of Soledad o', Brien, another one. And Chris Cuomo's or Don Lemon's handoff buddy Chris Cuomo again, who were on Apples and Bananas CNN during Trump 1.0, where CNN was saying, some networks this is an Apple. Some networks might try to say it's a banana. I think this is one of the most important cable news advertisements or marketing campaigns ever produced. CNN was, was claiming to be different from Fox News by intentionally not like both sidesing the news. Both sidesing is always a little bit of a misleading pejorative for what happens in the news because you should actually just be doing all siding, meaning all perspectives that are within. This is the hardest thing for any news organization within the kind of spectrum of belief among the American public. So is this a, is this a significant force in electoral politics? People who are skeptical of this, skeptical of that. And often it's not a both sides thing. Often it's, you Find some, like progressive Democrats and hardcore Republicans who are against this campaign in Syria, for example, but they don't even get to that side. They'll just say, this Republican says, you know, it's that Biden is a bad commander in chief. And this Democrat says, no, this is important and we trust President Biden. That's not both sides. That's, that's like, I mean, I guess it's like both, both sides of the political establishment. But that's where the kind of pejorative reference to both sides always fails. But what's so fascinating about all of these people and Soledad o', Brien, there's another one, all of these people is that right now they position themselves as champions of independent media. And a new media like Katie Kirk talking about how she's been liberated is true to some extent. Right. They are living the life that Jake Tapper wishes he can live, where you have your shirt untucked and you're just in your office with a microphone and you're chopping it up with your guests on a couch. Like this is what they're trying to do at cnn. But it's also. Yeah. Has Jim Acosta found an audience? I guess like Chris Salizza seems to be finding something of an audience, yes. But what their model is is really low overhead and a niche of subscribers. And if you're able to, like Stephen Colbert did, it's how we started afterparty back in June, talking about Stephen Colbert being the least funny and the most political, but the top rated host in late night for much of Trump's first term. Why did that work? Well, again, it certainly wasn't low budget, hence some of his problems now. But it was for a. It was trying to cultivate a loyal niche. And you can sometimes do that with partisan appeals, Right. To people's tribal loyalty. And I actually think that's why you see so much kind of banal, never Trumpism from a lot of these folks. They don't really display open minds. They aren't really exhibiting a rejection of the political establishment. They kind of think they are because some of the establishment has flirted with Trumpism from now Big Tech to. From Big Tech to some of the media companies like CBS being a good example. I'm sure that's why Scott McFarland felt comfortable ditching CBS for new media. Because Midas Touch is now like literally rolling in gold, presumably. So all that is to say, is it successful competing to really be a significant player, a stream of information in the long run, I think that's a question that some of these guys really, really, really have to ask themselves, because I suspect actually that they're still operating in many cases on speaking fees. Like they get some of their income or a lot of their income from speaking fees. And, and also that this subscriber base isn't super, super durable, because at the end of the day, what people want from their media is honesty and transparency. And if what you're doing is just this faux version of honesty and transparency, it is the symbolic untucked shirt from Jake Tapper, which I think is also what you get from like a Jim Acosta. Do I believe that Jim Acosta is this passionate about things? I mean, maybe he is, but they're also just kind of performatively gesturing constantly to anti Trumpism, never Trumpism. You can see it in the guests that they have on for the most part. And, you know, you don't sense that they have a lot of independent thought that isn't still the programming from big corporate media outlets that was ingrained in their minds for decades. And it's not interesting. It's honestly not interesting. And you don't really fully believe that it's transparent and that it's. You know, on the one hand it's like kind of desperate and ideological, but on the other hand, I don't know that they're really capable of independent thought. It's just. You sort of see more honestly what they talk about at the cocktail party circuit in New York City and in, in Georgetown here in D.C. like you're just getting that. And frankly, what we're learning is it's, it's really uninteresting, and I don't think that's super sustainable. Some of them are doing great. I think Jim Acosta's subsack is like, fairly successful. But will it be successful? Will it be an enduring force in politics and media unless there's a change? I, I highly doubt that. I mean, it's enough with the low overhead, and it's based around. It revolves around one person essentially for him to probably make an okay living. And you can supplement it in other ways that you probably can't at legacy media. But is it, is it lasting? I mean, they have convinced themselves they're in the zeitgeist, that they have their. They're. That they're fingering the pulse. Is that, what was that a Colbert ism back during the Colbert Report, or was that John Stewart fingering the pulse? Comes to my mind that that was something in the, the odds in the 2010s they really think they are. They really think they are. And that's it's just because they're continuing to exist in these same echo chambers, the same cocktail party circuits where everybody's always patting each other on the back and knocking everyone else over the back of the head as being stupid and toothless rubes. And they're still part of that. So some some happy thoughts to end the show tonight. Thanks so much for tuning in everyone. Appreciate it. EmilyMaycare Media.com is where you can email me. Make sure to subscribe on YouTube. It's super helpful. Like comment subscribe on your podcast feeds and we'll be back here on Wednesday live at 9pm Eastern with more happy hour. Have a good one everyone.

[Jason Willick]

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[Emily]

Huh?

[Jason Willick]

Nibbles gone too soon. May he scurry in peace. Hey, sorry about your pet, but I just wire stuff. Nibbles would have loved you like a brother.

[Emily]

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