
Emily Jashinsky opens the show with a look at CBS News’ Norah O’Donnell and her line of questioning to President Trump in the aftermath of the White House Correspondents' Dinner shooting and why Emily believes O’Donnell’s questions were cynical and reckless. Then Emily is joined by Independent Journalist Evita Duffy-Alfonso and her husband, Michael Alfonso, a Republican candidate for Wisconsin's 7th Congressional District seat. Emily gets Evita’s reaction to the shooting. Her parents, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and Fox News anchor Rachel Campos-Duffy, were both in attendance. Evita and Michael also respond to the twisted response by a Wisconsin brewery owner promising free beer when President Trump dies. They explain how this man is deeply connected to the Democratic party in Wisconsin. They also discuss Jimmy Kimmel’s sick joke about Melania Trump being a widow. The conversation turns to Michael’s run for Congress, the challenges facing America’s younger generations, and ...
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Emily
Welcome back to another edition of afterparty, everyone. Thank you so much for being with us tonight. Our guests are Michael Alfonso and Evita Duffy. Alfonso, we're going to get to them in just one moment. A lot to go through on tonight's show, of course, we are still just within days of the attempted assassination of President Trump, potentially many Cabinet members as well, at the White House correspondence dinner here in Washington, obviously, on Saturday. So we have all kinds of different angles to cover. The story played out throughout the last couple of days, even today. We saw on Monday, Caroline Levitt host out of maternity leave, a White House briefing. And we've seen the president and the first lady react over the course of the day as well. So Jimmy Kimmel in particular, now under the microscope once again at ABC Disney. A lot to go through as the story rolls on. Secret Service failures, just absolutely astounding, astounding Secret Service failures. That Nora o' Donnell interview we're going to cover in just one moment. Plus, I want to go through kind of a long, deep dive into who's to blame, why we seem to be more attracted to political violence right now. And that'll be at the end of today's show in light of particularly that New York Times conversation between Hasan Piker, D Gia Tolentino and a Times editor, opinion editor, just last week that was days before the attempted assassination. So I have a lot of thoughts and we're gonna break that down as well in just one moment. So stay tuned. Like I said, so much to cover tonight. Like I said, though, I do want to start with Nora o'. Donnell. First, please make sure to subscribe. If you haven't subscribed yet here on the YouTube channel or wherever you get your podcasts is the best way to help us keep doing our independent journalism here on afterparty. So if you haven't done it yet, it helps us a lot. It's super easy. Just go ahead, click that subscribe subscribe button. We appreciate it. Now, on with the show. I'm going to start with Nora o', Donnell, who interviewed President Donald Trump in prime time on Sunday night within 24 hours of the attempted assassination of the president at the White House Correspondents Dinner. Now, Nora o' Donnell was also in the room. But, but that interview, I watched it in full. The moment that's gone most viral is getting a lot of criticism, but I actually think for some of the wrong reasons. So Nora o', Donnell, I'm sure everybody has seen it at this point, confronts Donald Trump with words from the alleged gunman's quote unquote manifesto. And I'm not going to play the clip because, because I actually think part of what is so objectionable about Nora ODonnell's decision to do that is in the immediate aftermath of this situation, giving airtime to the verbatim quotes of a would be assassin. She put it right to the president on primetime television. And obviously President Trump, again, most people have seen the clip. President Trump jumps back and says that the media is horrible people. He says that right at Nora o' Donnell's face. Basically, she was asking Donald Trump, I mean, this is another reason to be critical of the question. What was she actually asking? Right, because the quote that she read to the president was accusing him. And again, I'm not going to do verbatim, but, but basically like pedophilia, rapist, being a rapist, that type of thing. So was she going to, was she bringing up that quote to ask Trump if he is those things? Is that what she was doing? Because what the, what is the point of doing that? You know he's going to say, of course not. You know he's going to say absolutely not. And why are you lending credibility to somebody who just tried to kill him within 24 hours? And if that's what you were going to ask, why would you even give that comment credibility to put it in front of the President of the United States if that's what she was asking? And I think that probably is what she was asking. She probably wanted to say he interrupted her before she got the full question out. She probably wanted to Say, what is your response? Well, what do you mean, what is your response? Like he's sitting here right now. He once again almost got shot. You don't need to quote from, from a manifesto. Some news outlets won't even use the word manifesto, which I think is not a bad choice because it lends a sort of sex appeal, a romanticism to what? If you read this guy's quote, unquote manifesto, it's the scribblings of a. It's like, of a totally sophomoric, like, wannabe terrorist. And, you know, I. There, there. We're. We'll talk about it later in the show. There's substance to it. He's trying to make an argument so you can kind of follow the logic. Doesn't seem to be someone that was in a sort of fit of deep schizophrenia or anything like that. It wasn't, you know, apparently trying to impress Jody Foster. Right? That's not what it seems like. You can at least follow some logic. As despicable as the logic is, you don't need to quote from this document verbatim. Give it airtime in primetime in what you know will be a viral clip. And maybe that's why she did it. She knew it would be a viral clip. I don't think Norah o' Donnell thinks Donald Trump is those things. So you can allude to the words. If you absolutely must never, ever, ever censor documents like that, ever. The public has a right to see them. And as soon as we stop trusting the public to access those documents, we'll have even more distrust already than we already do in our institutions. So I'm not at all arguing for censorship. I'm just arguing for some basic wisdom. Let me put this up on the screen. This is actually an article that Zed Jelani wrote all the way back in 2019 for Berkeley, actually. And Zed wrote, experts have suggested that shooters about mass shooters are seeking fame as one possible motivation. By focusing so much coverage on mass shooting events, these experts warn the news media may be creating incentives for mass shooters, especially when they focus intensely on the individual profile of the shooters themselves. So is that true? Two authors of a study, Walker and Jetter, decided to test this hypothesis by analyzing the relationship between the level of news coverage and the occurrence of mass shootings. They picked the popular PrimeTime news program ABC World News Tonight and tracked daily coverage from January 1, 2013, to June 23, 2016. Shockingly, they found a positive and statistically significant relationship between the amount of coverage dedicated to mass shootings and the number of shootings that occurred in the following week at its mean, the researchers conclude ABC news coverage is suggested to cause approximately three mass shootings in the subsequent week, equivalent to 58% of mass shootings in the U.S. they said, quote, we find a pretty clear empirical relationship between coverage and future acts. Okay, goes on. Zed goes on to write, although the relationship between TV news coverage and mass shootings has been studied before, the Walker Jetter study, that's what we're talking about here, introduced a novel innovation to isolate causality between TV coverage and mass shootings. They also compared it to the occurrence of natural disasters. They found that news media coverage of shootings decreased during natural disasters, which was associated with fewer shootings the following week. Really, really interesting. Zed also notes, you can see this with suicidality. Unfortunately, after Robin Williams committed suicide, there was a Unfortunately, there was a spike when 13 Reasons why debuted on Netflix. You may remember that a study did, quote, in fact find an association between watching the show and suicidal thoughts. Another showed a spike in Google searches for suicide following the show's release. And another discovered that having seen the show led at risk youth to think more about killing themselves. All right, let's go to another. This is a 2017 study, Mass Shootings the role of the Media in Promoting Generalized Imitation. This is in the American Journal of Public Health. Quote, the way that the media report on an event can play a role in increasing the probability of imitation. When a mass shooting event occurs, there is generally extensive media coverage. This coverage often repeatedly presents the shooter's image manifesto. There's that word and life story, and the details of the event, and doing so can directly influence imitation. Social status is conferred when the mass shooter obtains a significant level of notoriety from news reports. Images displaying shooters aiming guns at the camera project an air of danger and toughness. Similarities between the shooter and others are brought to the surface through detailed accounts of the life of the shooter with which others may identify fulfilled manifestos and repeated reports of body counts, heap rewards on the violent act and display competence. I'm going to go to one more if that's not enough. One more here. Obviously this is some controversial research. Not everybody agrees with it, but there is a lot of it and I find it fairly convincing as somebody in the media who watches this play out all too often. This is from an it's an NPR write up of an ASU survey from 2015. This is a the lead researcher on the study says, quote, it's a form of social contagion. Someone like, somewhat like A suicide contagion. That's like when a high profile suicide leads to more people taking their own lives. Like we mentioned, the Robin Williams spike. Unfortunate, tragic. Vulnerable individuals who are already struggling with suicidal thoughts read or watched, read or watch news reports of the actor's death and then took their own lives. Vulnerable individuals who are also angry and already considering violence may read or watch the news of a mass shooting and identify with the shooter and be inspired by them. All right, I'm sorry to overload you with academic studies right now, but this point is so important and I think underscores why was so cynical of Nora o' Donnell to totally unnecessarily cynical and reckless to unnecessarily elevate the quote unquote manifesto and the ravings of this would be assassin who seemed to have wanted to take out, according to those writings, which you don't have to read to just say according to those writings, the president, potentially other members of the cabinet. So that's a mass shooting in a very crowded ballroom with two guns, reportedly. Two guns, a shotgun and a handgun. Two, two knives. So we know mass violence was on the table and we know that from this document the alleged gunman left behind. So it felt like a really cynical ratings ploy to toss that out in front of the president and create a viral moment that put CBS ahead of the country. And it was really gross because you're very thoughtful about these questions, especially a question like that. I mean, it goes through layers of editorial oversight. If you' doing a presidential interview in primetime for a major broadcast network. It's not just Nora ODonnell's choice. She's not just whipping these out of the offer dome at the last minute. That was something that was carefully considered. They considered whether to read those words and they made a major error in my estimation. And I think it's always worth considering that in the wake of these horrible, in this case, near tragedy, but sometimes complete tragedies, it seems like the Secret Service agent who was wounded is going to make a recovery and is doing all right. So that's what I wanted to say about the Norah o' Donnell primetime interview. Donald Trump said that, you know, o' Donnell wanted to bring those things up for political reasons. I honestly think it was more, even more cynical. I think it was even more cynical. It wasn't because of anything they believe. It was because they needed a big viral moment for this CBS rebrand. And that's really gross. Not just for the rebrand, but in general for the network. There are a lot of struggles here, and it's an easy way to create that. All right, we're going to be back with the Alfonso family in just one moment, so stay tuned. But first, let's talk about what's really in your makeup. It's disgusting. It's disgusting. Most of us spend so much time worrying about actually what we eat or what we drink, how we take care of our families and. But then we cake our faces in these products that are chock full of chemicals nobody could possibly pronounce. Your skin is your body's largest organ. So whatever you put on it is getting absorbed. And if you think about it like that, it makes sense in the same way that we think about the food we eat. And that's why you should consider making the switch to Tubes and Co. 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Emily
Happy to be joined now by Evita Duffy Alfonso, our friend, independent journalist and her husband Michael Alfonso. He's a Republican candidate for Wisconsin's 7th congressional district. Hey, great to have both of you here. Thanks for joining.
Evita Duffy Alfonso
Thanks for having us, Emily.
Michael Alfonso
Good to be here. I've actually produced a podcast with you two, so it's nice to be on this side and not have to worry about the tech bugs.
Emily
We're going to try really hard to make it difficult for you, Michael. Maybe, maybe we'll like create some tech bugs for you to work on. First of all, I have to disclose at the beginning of this that I, our listeners know, cannot stand politicians. I don't endorse politicians. I'm not planning to. I don't trust either party. I don't like either party. I will say I'm biased in the case of this race because I really, really, of course, love Evita and I think both of you guys are in this for the right reasons. The district is very special to my family. Wisconsin 7. That's where my great grandparents lived. My grandparents lived, my great great grandparents too. My mom grew up there. A lot of family there. Truly my home away from home. So I, on that note, let me just ask, how is the campaign going, Michael?
Michael Alfonso
It's going really good. So, you know, as a first time candidate, you never know what to expect. You get into the world of fundraising, of, you know, talking to voters. It's, it's all new. I've never done a speech until I decided to announce for office.
Evita Duffy Alfonso
First one.
Emily
Yeah.
Michael Alfonso
And then I was on the stage at Turning Point in front of thousands of people. So, you know, it, it's been quite a whirlwind. You get to meet so many really amazing people. And honestly, the best part is Aita and I have always had a very Busy life sometimes. We didn't spend all that much time together. Now on the campaign trail, we actually spend more time together. So it's been really great.
Evita Duffy Alfonso
Emily, can I just lay out the district just a little bit for. For.
Emily
Please?
Evita Duffy Alfonso
Yes. So this.
Emily
This is your dad's district. For what?
Evita Duffy Alfonso
My dad's old district. So I've. First of all, I'm born and raised in the district, grew up campaigning. So this feels like very normal to me. Right as I'm heading out in the campaign front with Michael. This is what I grew up doing in the 7th Congressional District. It happens to be actually a pretty old district. So I believe it's 65.
Emily
Is 65.
Evita Duffy Alfonso
65 is the. The age for the average voter.
Michael Alfonso
Age in the primary.
Evita Duffy Alfonso
Primary. So it's an older district, and Michael and I are both 26. If Michael's elected, Michael will be the young member of Congress. And yet we are finding that everywhere he goes, it's overwhelmingly a positive reception that he is a young conservative. Because I think a lot of older people are really concerned about the future of our country. Is it going to be the same that they inherited? Are the young people gonna be okay? Is. Is this nation that they love so much gonna be all right? And when they see somebody like Michael campaigning and espousing the kind of values that he has, it makes them feel okay about the future. It actually gives them hope. And that's what we've been noticing on the campaign trail. So the biggest question we get is, well, he's so young and the district's so old. And I'm like, actually, it works really well.
Emily
Oh, I really like to hear that. Okay. So it's also a beautiful district. It's a huge district. I know you guys have been driving a lot, and Evita, you said you're used to that. You mentioned your parents. So let's just start. I mean, I have a lot more questions about the campaign, but I do want to start with the White House Correspondence Center. Evita, your parents are there. Michael, those are your parents in law. You posted this, Evita, F2 about when you heard there was a. An attempted shooting at the Correspondent Dinner, you said, I was with Valentina. That's your youngest sister. My stomach dropped, and we immediately said a prayer together. Violence, assassination prep are a key part of leftism. And I'm sick of pretending like these people just have a different point of view. Evita, the other part is that, I mean, you've been, like, you've been in the political game, as you mentioned, a long Time you guys are both around, you know, the security of a cabinet level member. Just in the last couple of years, you've seen all of that. My boyfriend was at the dinner too. It was. When you see that notification come up on social media, it's terrifying. If you've ever seen anything like that happen before. So you. Could you just help us understand? We. We may have just lost the Alphonso. We'll get them back. We'll get them back in one second. Let's continue, though. Oh, looks like. Oh, okay, here they are. They're back. Okay, good. Well, okay, so just take us back into those moments you were talking about. And we did it. We did it. Did you fix it, Michael?
Michael Alfonso
Let's say yes.
Evita Duffy Alfonso
Yeah.
Emily
Okay, good, good. That's why you need a man around. Okay. Take it. Take us back to those moments, though. Thankfully, everything was okay. But when you heard there was a shooting at the White House correspondents Dinner.
Evita Duffy Alfonso
Yeah. So I, I. First of all, it took me a second. My friend texted me, like, hey, I hope everything's good. And I was like, what do you mean? I hope everything's good? And then I went on Twitter and I immediately just saw shooting. Like I said, my stomach dropped. I was sitting next to Valentina. I was about to get her ready to go to bed, and I was like, God listens to your prayers more than he listens to mine. She's. She's sick.
Angie Hicks
She's.
Evita Duffy Alfonso
She's six. She's got down syndrome. And I. And so we. We said a little Hail Mary together. And then afterwards she said, I'm ski. I could. I'm scared, because I think she could just feel my energy like that. And I was like, no, no, it's okay. And then I did some more scrolling, and it seemed like the situation was all right. And I. But it's. It's interesting, Emily, because you have, like, that pit in your stomach when you hear news like this. And it really felt similar initially to what happened when I heard that Charlie Kirk was shot. I was on an airplane, and again, my stomach drops and I have so much anxiety. I. The plane lands and I get the news that actually he. He dies, and I just burst into tears. I mean, this is somebody. Michael had produced a podcast of Charlie's, and this is the political violence that we're seeing, I think, just heightened recently. People shouldn't pay attention to it, but it's kind of been a staple of my life forever. It feels like, you know, Emily, you're from Wisconsin. You understand this. When I was I mean, a little girl, 10 years old, 9 years old. We were going through the Scott Walker recall in Wisconsin, where radical progressives took over our state capitol. And Scott Walker did a fundraiser with my dad. And you had these rageful, angry people come to Bayfield, Wisconsin, not even Madison, a little tiny town in the North Woods.
Emily
It's a hell of a drive.
Evita Duffy Alfonso
Yes, it's far, it's far north on Lake Superior. And they were rageful and they were angry when we came. And several of my friends actually were protesting the event, which was itself kind of scarring. And I get a 9 year old, 10 year old, I come out of the event with my parents, it's dark out, and somebody had actually rear ended the back of our minivan. And it seemed to have been, as far as we can tell, even to this day, an intentional targeting of our family car. It was, I think, a warning, a threat against all of us because we're associated with Scott Walker, because we're Republicans and the Scott Walker family had death threats on their lives. So I think that there's a tradition of left wing violence that goes back to Stalin and Mao, and then the Scott Walker recall and the BLM riots and the Charlie Kirk assassination. And now what happened last night, the attempts on Trump's life just on the campaign trail. And they can't be ignored and they can't be unlinked from one another because there is a through line and there is a culture of violence on the left that is distinct, is unique and I think rebukes this idea of both sides. Ism, when we talk about violence.
Emily
One more question on that I just want to ask. I mean, again, you've been around your dad's security. I imagine there's some anger maybe among both of you or your family, that someone even got so close to that ballroom where they seem to want to take out not just the President, but multiple members of the administration. And they really, I mean, listen, Secret Service stopped the shooting shooter, and that is a success and thank God for it. But you've been around the security, both of you have. You know, what's your sense of, of how safe? I mean, there's, there's only so much you can do. There are a lot of crazy people in this world and you know, they are going to do crazy things no matter what. But is your sense that our Cabinet is safe, that our President is safe?
Michael Alfonso
Yeah. You know, I can't speak for the rest of the Cabinet secretaries, but, you know, we've met every single person on Sean's Detail. They're amazing people. I mean they work holidays, nights, you name it. And you know, they, they really take their job seriously. And I am very happy to know that, you know, Evita's dad is taken care of great by a great Americans like that. But you know, when it comes to anger about this stuff, you know, they did stop the shooting. You know, he didn't get into the room where everyone was. But the anger really comes from the idea that, you know, when someone steps up, speaks their mind is, you know, like President Trump. They're not using violent rhetoric like Charlie Kirk. They're not. Silence is not violence, no matter what the left will tell you. And you know, now when someone runs for office, you have to look at your wife every time you leave the door and say, this might be the last time. And you know, it really is a step too far. The left has gotten to a place with the Marxist ideology that, you know, like Evita said earlier, I really do think it is part of the plan. It's not just some whack job that, you know, went off the deep end and did something crazy. No, these people are talking about redistributing wealth. That's not something you do without force. And it's very scary to see that there some people on the left are willing to start resorting to violence.
Emily
Yeah. And I actually wanted to bring this back to Wisconsin 7 actually, because this is a national news story. This is not just a state news story at this point. The we could put F8 up on the screen. Other people may have already heard about this, but this is from the Minocqua Brewing Company which posted at 9:15pm Central April 25th. Or I assume Central. Well, we almost got Freebearday. Either a brother or sister in the resistance needs to work on their marksmanship or he faked another assassination to get a positive news cycle. Will never know. Regardless, we stand at the ready to pour free beer the day it happens. Also get your free beer T shirts here. Our celebration of life is going to be legendary. Also, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Francesca Hong. Let's put this F13 up on the screen. Posted in the aftermath of this assassination attempt. I also want to point out the state enacts political violence on its citizens every day. We see it when ICE agents occupy our cities and put children in cages. We see it in the health care system that lets people die because they can't afford care. All of that in Wisconsin. Both of these are national news stories. So first question, do you guys feel safe on the campaign trail? Second what's your response to both of these stories?
Evita Duffy Alfonso
So, first, for some context on this, this. This Minocqua Brewery, the guy's name is Kirk Bankstad. He is a prominent Democrat in the state of Wisconsin, the owner of this brewery. Not a radical guy in terms of. I mean, he is radical, but for. For Wisconsin politics. Not radical because he is in. He's in the group. He is friends with literally everyone who is now prominent on the Democratic side. So he's a friend of Francesca Hong, who is the front runner for governor, and she actually gave to one of his previous campaigns. Kirk also employed Rebecca Cook, who is currently running against Derek Van Orden in the third Congressional District. Kirk also ran against my dad in the 7th congressional district in 2015, ended up dropping out of the race. But the point was, he was a Democratic nominee in that congressional race against my father in the seventh. This is not exactly. This is not a fringe individual.
Emily
This is mainstream. This is somebody who is in the mix of the mainstream Wisconsin Democrats.
Evita Duffy Alfonso
Exactly. I mean, we can pull tweets of crazy people all we want. What makes us significant? Emily, this is, like you said, a mainstream individual. And yes, it makes me feel deeply unsafe. It makes me feel worried for him and his safety, for every Republican in our state, knowing that his behavior and his rhetoric is completely normalized by one side of the aisle because they're all friends with him. They all think it's normal.
Emily
Mm. Mm. Michael, what about you?
Michael Alfonso
Yeah, you know, it's really just disgusting, you know, Evita. Evita and I wasn't long ago that we were on college campuses, and I think a lot of these trends, they start in the colleges and then they flow over into mainstream life. So, you know, what we were dealing with back in the COVID days on call in UW Madison and University of Chicago, seeing these kids turn to communist style, snitch lifts or, you know, burning
Evita Duffy Alfonso
down State street in Madison.
Emily
Yeah.
Evita Duffy Alfonso
Because they were protesting for blm.
Michael Alfonso
Yeah, it's. It's very.
Emily
It's only acceptable to do that after a badger's loss.
Michael Alfonso
Yeah, exactly.
Emily
Don't do it. Don't do it.
Michael Alfonso
Something serious. But, you know, it really is. You know, it's a scary thought to us to see that. You know, now people that have worked for Kirk Bankstadt, this Rebecca Cook, who is his finance, his fundraiser, she's now running for Congress, and she's won the Democrat nomination pretty much. And now we have to address this. And this is why I think it's so important. You know, a lot of the older generation can say it's just some crazy kids on college campuses. Well, five years after you say that, those people are in prominent places, they're working for important companies and soon they're running for office. And you know, we can't allow these violent, crazy ideologies to permeate through our colleges, which also, might I add, are completely state and federal funded.
Emily
That's a good point. And it is true. Surveys find it's young liberals who are most likely to say that political violence can be justified. And I want to put this post from Katie Pavlich up on the screen. Go national here again, F16. This was signage outside of the White House Correspondents Dinner. There's always little demonstrations outside of the Hilton, but this one says death to all of them and it's quoting Wendy Williams. Another one says death to tyrants, quoting the state of Virginia. But like an actual presidential assassination assassin, actually historically loved that quote. So Jimmy Kimmel, two days ahead of the White House Correspondents Dinner, made this joke while he was in a bit about the dinner itself.
Michael Alfonso
S1 Our first lady Melania is here. Look at Melania. So beautiful. Mrs. Trump, you have a glow like an expectant widow.
Emily
Oh, lovely. Okay, so Melania Trump does not usually thrust herself into the political fray, but she released a statement today, F5, a pretty long statement actually, by her standards for sure. She said Kimmel's hateful and violent rhetoric is intended to divide our country. His monologue about my family isn't comedy. His words are corrosive and deepens the political sickness within America. People like Kimmel shouldn't have the opportunity to enter our homes each evening to spread hate. A coward, Kimmel hides behind abc. She says enough is enough. It is time for ABC to take a stand. Then the President Posted this is F6A long truth social as well, where he said, wow, Jimmy Kimmel was no way funny, as attested to by his terrible television ratings. Made a statement on his show that is really shocking. Goes on to say, eventually Jimmy Kimmel should be immediately fired by Disney and abc. What do the two of you think when you see again you're running for office? You've experienced this your whole life. You see that outside the correspondence dinner. You see Jimmy Kimmel comfortably making jokes like that on prime time. What do you think ABC should do here?
Michael Alfonso
Well, you know, it's always tough because in this country we do have freedom of speech. But I don't know how ABC can stand behind it. It's a private company. It doesn't need to abide by freedom of speech from the government. You know, Kimmel has taken it too far so many times. He was horrendous during COVID He was, he got removed from the air for all of his craziness. You know, it's time to go. And when some has been like Jimmy Kimmel, the only way he can get ratings is by saying something even more flagrant than the last show. You just got to get rid of him. He has no talent whatsoever. I couldn't agree more with President Trump. And he's not even funny.
Emily
Evita, we showed that sign. Death to tyrants. Death to them all. My impression is those were younger protesters, like millennial Gen Z level protesters. I'm sure there were some others there as well, but the crowd looked a bit young. We showed the or we just discussed the polls which find pretty overwhelmingly this is young liberals who are more comfortable, comfortable justifying political violence. This is. How does, how does that even happen outside the White House correspondence? Death to them all. Death to tyrants. Without someone saying, maybe you should take like a step 100 yards back or like 20 steps.
Evita Duffy Alfonso
Right. Well, I think the age is key here, Emily. I think we have a problem with young left wing violence specifically. And the cultural Marxism that Michael was talking about at American college campuses is real, but it actually starts way earlier than that. The Federalist has been reporting on this for years. Social emotional learning is a Trojan horse in our elementary school system for cultural Marxism among American youths. And when you look at Marxist revolutions throughout human history, first of all, anything in the name of progress is justified, including egregious, horrendous, horrific violence. Literally, look at any left wing revolution throughout human history, you will see this bore out. But something else that's key is it's not necessarily the lower classes, the poor and the deprived who are rising up and destroying the elite classes in these revolutions. Oftentimes it's people who are somewhat well off, people who are middle class, people who are just a step below the upper class, who are the ones who are perpetuating this kind of violence. And right now in America, we have a problem where we have thousands and thousands of individuals who are elite college educated. Their degrees are worthless because the schools are worthless, they're not teaching much, and yet they feel entitled to a lot because they have these credentials that again, are meaningless. And so we have a situation where there's so many people who feel, I think, entitled to wealth and to prosperity that they really haven't earned yet and because they've been defrauded out of their tuition dollars in these institutions. And they also are being indoctrinated in these institutions to hate our capitalist system, to hate the traditional Christian morality that our country was founded on, to embrace something else which is secular and Marxist. And those things become very dangerous and very violent. And we're seeing that increase all across the country. It's getting more and more, I think, obvious what we're dealing with.
Emily
And, you know, go ahead, Michael.
Michael Alfonso
I can't stand the double standard here. You know, President Trump was put on trial for saying, head to the Capitol and let your voices be heard peacefully. We're supposed to believe that that's an inciting an insurrection. And then there are people outside of the Capitol with posters that basically say, kill someone. And we're supposed to say, oh, it's just hyperbole. They didn't really mean it. You know, I wish we would have some honest, true standard as to what a call to violence was, because the right, we are put on trial for something that you would have to be. Only a lawyer could see it as a call to violence. And the left, they're just allowed to do anything because, you know, they're protesting or, you know, back in Kenosha, Evita and I were in Kenosha in 2020. Burn down the city.
Emily
I was very mad at YouTube, right?
Michael Alfonso
Yeah, yeah, but that was, that was violent, but mostly peaceful. I, it's, it's just ridiculous.
Emily
Yeah, no, you guys did a great report on that. There's still like a mini doc up on YouTube that you can find that you guys shot in Kenosha. It was, it was worth your time. I was very glad that you were there with her, Michael. I was her editor at the time, one of them, and was like, oh, you got to be careful. All right, I'm going to take a, a quick break. Much more with the Alfonso's in just one moment. But first, over the years, I've 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. That's exactly why I partner and partner very proudly with preborn preborn makes motherhood abundantly possible. They don't just save babies, they also provide free ultrasounds and share the truth of the gospel with women in crisis. And stay. They stay with real practical help. And that includes financial support for up to two years after the baby is born. Amazing. This 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. This is a real number. Once a mother gets a chance to see her baby, just one chance. When she does see the baby, she is twice as likely to choose life. And Preborn is trying to save 70,000 babies this year. It's amazing. So don't just say your pro life, live it. Help save babies and support mothers today. Go to preborn.com emily or call 855-601229, 2229. That's preborn.com emily do you have $10,000
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Emily
once again with Evita Duffy Alfonso, independent journalist and Michael Alfonso, who is Republican candidate for Wisconsin 7th congressional district. And back to that race a little bit. Michael, let's get into some of what's going on in Wisconsin 7 in the race for Wisconsin 7, your opponents, I know you're familiar with this line of attack. Fourteen were at a debate a couple days ago. They called you a nepo baby. They said that you, of course, were in Washington, D.C. raising all kinds of money, alluding to reports like this one in the Washington examiner. We can put F50 15 up on the screen that some of your backers have business in front of your father in law. So Michael, I just want to give you a chance to respond to some of what we are seeing from your opponents so far in this race.
Michael Alfonso
Yeah, you know, it's, It's.
Emily
It's rich.
Michael Alfonso
You know, when. When people start losing in a race, they'll throw anything at you. You know, in Wisconsin, we just lost a Supreme Court race by over 20 points statewide. And it's because the candidate who was a great person promised, you know, to. To not legislate from the bench, but she didn't raise any money. That's how we lost this race. And if Republicans are going to be serious and actually win races, we need to raise money. And that's what I've been working very, very hard to do. But, you know, when it comes to, you know, certain interests trying to buy. Buy a vote or buy maybe Sean's favor, you know, truly, if you think someone can be bought off with $3,000 or $10,000, you shouldn't vote for me in the first place. Because for me, I got into this race because of what happened to Charlie Kirk. I had met him, and, you know, he never gave up on my generation. And I believe it's my generation's job to step up and do something to carry his mantle. So when I say my price is my life, I really mean it. And we're going to do everything we can to win this race. But, you know, the. The arguments of Nepo baby. I'm not related to Sean. You know, my family is actually.
Emily
Evita is the Nepo baby. To be clear, if there's a Nepo baby, it's your wife.
Evita Duffy Alfonso
He said. Somebody said. That was so funny, Emily. That maybe he's running for Congress to help. Evita's journalism career has been the worst thing ever for my journalism career. Do you know how many articles I've had to trash for this campaign? Because I'm like, I just. I'm just gonna stay out of it. I don't. We don't need to be get getting in the weeds on this issue or that issue. So it's been the worst thing ever. But I'm so happy to support him. The other thing, Michael. She mentioned the forums. Michael has agreed to forums. We put out a statement a couple weeks ago about forums. He agreed to do one that's much closer to the election so that voters are actually dialed in and can listen and engage. Sometimes when you do forums this early on, the primary is not until August 11th. No one's paying attention. So we want people to actually be able to listen and hear from him. And the other primary candidates. So.
Michael Alfonso
But, you know, I really do think when it comes to electing someone to office, you have to believe in their character that they're willing to stand up and make the tough votes and also tell the donors no when it comes down to it. And, you know, that's why I think it's so important to vote for candidates who, I hate to say it, are young, who have grown up in an America that doesn't sound like the one that our parents grew up in. You know, I talk about this on the campaign trail a lot. The average first time homebuyer in the United States, 40 years old. That's really scary to someone like me and Evita. I guess we'll have a home when our daughter is a freshman in high school. You know, when we talk about cutting government spending, we really mean it because we were the ones that are. They actually bankrupted our generation from this wasteful spending. We are going to go in there and I say we because Evita is as big of a part of this campaign and will be as big of a part of.
Evita Duffy Alfonso
He needs to start saying I more often.
Emily
Like, I'm tired.
Evita Duffy Alfonso
It's been a discussion like, no, I. You are running.
Michael Alfonso
Okay, fine. When I get into office, if the God willing I get there and the voters decide to put me there, we're going to focus on two things, immigration and inflation. Because those are the things bankrupting the next generation. And I refuse to let my daughter grow up in a country worse than what I grew up in.
Emily
Well, Michael, you're in rural northern Wisconsin. What could immigration possibly be doing to the economy there? How could you? I mean, you're not a border state. This can't possibly bother voters in northern Wisconsin.
Michael Alfonso
I'm glad you bring that up. So in Barron county, we have a large Somalian population and no one has looked into the fraud possibly being there. But I do know for a fact there are some daycare centers there. I would love if Nick Shirley could come there and check it out. If he doesn't, I might do it. But, you know, immigration is something that is affecting all of the areas of the United States. And in Wisconsin, we have a lot of farms. And I've talked to some donors that say, you know, well, if we don't employ illegal labor, we can't afford to keep the business going. This is the only time that you'll ever hear Republicans be against the free market. You know, we're always the party of the free market. And yet when it comes to labor, they'll say, you know, we put out a job for $10 an hour. Nobody's willing to work in the United States anymore. Well, actually, I think it's not that young people aren't willing to work because I personally worked construction for over six years. It's not that we're not willing to work. We're not willing to work for a wage that is beneath us. We want a wage where we can raise a family, have kids, and support our wives sometimes.
Evita Duffy Alfonso
And the other thing, I mean, Michael actually has experienced what it's like to work alongside illegal labor. And the breakdown is. Is fascinating.
Michael Alfonso
Yes. So when I was in school in UW Madison, I was working construction. And I would make slightly more on paper than some of the. I know they were illegal employees. And at the end of the day, because they didn't pay taxes and they got paid in cash, they actually took more money home than I did. And it's really offensive when we say, you know, there's a lot of talk about what does it mean to be America first. Well, I can tell you if we're paying illegals more than citizens for working the exact same job because the illegals don't have to pay taxes. That is a big, big problem.
Emily
Yeah. So the government gets its money from you and the companies get their cheaper labor. The person who gets screwed is the American worker. And you keep bringing up the generation issue, which is one of the things I wanted to ask you about. You even started earlier in the hour by talking about your age. This was a really interesting post to me from Chris Arnott, who is a fabulous writer. People should absolutely follow Chris Arnaud F20. We can post on the screen. It was, it's, it's such an interesting point that he made. And it's kind of big up on the or. It's, it's a lot of text up on the screen. So just to kind of break it down for folks trying to pull this up, he says, I've written for the last decade about the educational divide in the US but culturally there is now a large divide between generations, specifically those over 60 versus basically everyone else. The 60 plus cohort have a lot more certainty that they've discovered the truth. Younger people are much more uncertain and relativistic. I'm reading this in chunks here. They don't accept the claim that it's been solved. And the boomers, rigidity and religious like certainty seems to them either laughably naive or arrogantly condescending. The boomers see everyone else as having fallen away from the path to historical Perfection. They paved and are uniformly angry about that. What most of the boomers miss is that the younger generation is living in the world they built of hyper individuality, of smashing of prior norms and of moral post relevance or of moral relativism. So this is interesting because partially what you were explaining earlier, Michael and Evita, you were mentioning this too. It's almost like there's a horseshoe between some older voters and some young conservatives who have come around on the other side. Younger conservatives didn't ever know the wonderful country of the boomers, and they know that. They didn't ever know that. They keep being told how wonderful the country is and they want to experience that. And the boomers remember what it was. And I'm curious if that's kind of the experience you're talking about, why there are so many older people in your district, which by the way, was held by Democrat David Obi. Sean Duffy unseated David Obi After 40 years in the Tea Party wave pre Trump. This is a district that got hollowed out by bad trade deals, paper mills. Just disgusting what was done to the people of northern Wisconsin through some of the globalism. But I wonder if, if that's kind of what you're picking up on is that it's almost like a, a commonality that a younger conservative would have with somebody who does feel like they have this, this confident belief in what America was and they want to see that back.
Michael Alfonso
You know, I actually think they're right. What America was was amazing. It really, truly was. And I think the boomers are actually on the right track, believing that there is truth, there is objective truth, and our generation has been raised through school, through college, you name it, to believe that there is no such thing as truth. I think the boomers are completely right when it comes to believing in truth. However, we have to acknowledge certain facts in the data. Homes in 1970 were two to three times your average income. Now they're eight times your average income. And I think some people don't realize that. You know, they'll look at our generation and they'll say they're not willing to work hard, they're not willing to make the sacrifice. They're just buying Starbucks Coffee and AirPods. Now, there is a little bit of truth to that. We are doing that, but that's just because there's no possible way to make a down payment on the house. You know, homes are about $400,000 on average in the United States. That's not a mansion, that's a starter home. So you need to have $80,000 in the bank saved before you can get into a home. So people like Evita and I look at that and we say we make maybe $50,000 a piece on average. How are you going to save $80,000? They start becoming, they start giving up. And frankly, I think this is why Democrats have been making so much headway with the young people. They're the only ones that'll address the idea that they're disaffected, that they are not able to afford the things that their parents did. And I think if Republicans want to win anything in the midterms or in 2028, they need to start talking about affordability, because it is an issue. It truly is.
Evita Duffy Alfonso
Can I just also say, Emily, that I think the people in Michael's district are pretty unique. You kind of laid it out that this was a district that was held by a Democrat for 40 years. Many of them were and continue to be socially conservative at that time. They were union Democrats. They had this perception that Republicans are for the rich old guys and that Democrats are for the working class people. And that has proven to of course, be untrue. And especially in the age of Trump, these individuals have become hardcore conservatives because of especially what President Trump is doing with manufacturing and immigration. So out of all of the boomers in the country, I actually think that young based Gen Z conservatives have a lot in common with the older people in this district, specifically because these are the individuals who are really thinking hard about who we are as Americans, where the future of the Republican Party should go. Should we be the party of pre Trump or post Trump? This is A post Trump GOP in the 7th district of Wisconsin. And that is the type of GOP that Michael and I identify with. And so there hasn't been much of a clash. Maybe in another district that doesn't have those values, we might run into those issues. I really think that the divide we're looking at, Emily, is, is much more about. About class, about middle class and working class than it is about generations.
Michael Alfonso
And the town Evita and I met in Wausau, Wisconsin was actually really offensively worded as the most middle class town in America. They said it as if it was a bad thing.
Evita Duffy Alfonso
Time magazine named it the most middle class city in America.
Emily
It is.
Evita Duffy Alfonso
It is the most middle class city in America. Wausau, Wisconsin. Swear he grew up and I love
Michael Alfonso
say it like it's a bad thing. What wouldn't you want to be from the middle class, like the actual American people and you know this is where I think, you know, we talk about generational divides. I think it's these. The boomers that are far left that are, you know, independently wealthy from the east coast or the west Coast. When we talk about these generational divides, they don't exist in the Midwest because no matter the generation, everyone there is a hard worker and cares about their family, their faith. That's another really important thing to people in the district. And, you know, Evita and I joke about it. Our values are basically just the values from the 1950s.
Emily
That's funny. Well, speaking of which, actually, let's put this on the screen. This is F21. Walter Russell Mead flagged some interesting results from a new Gallup survey. And I don't know if you saw this, Michael. I think you actually work at your church. Walter posted. Skeptics claimed that the supposed religious revival among young men wasn't showing up in the polling. Gallup says otherwise. A shift is here and it's massive. F22, we can put up on the screen. Rise in young men's religiosity realigns gender gaps. Young men in US now surpass young women on importance of religion, have slight edge on affiliation tie in attendance. So there is something of a revival happening with Gen Z, but among men in particular. And so that's where some of the big aggregate data misses it. When you boil it down, there's something happening. Tell us why it would be that what people might expect to see as the most secular generation, especially for young men, is suddenly more interested in Christianity.
Michael Alfonso
Well, there's been such an attack on young men in America over the recent years that I think men have reassessed their lives. They're searching for meaning. And one of the best ways to find meaning is through faith, through Christianity. And I can speak personally. Almost every single one of my friends is deeply involved in a church. Not all of them are Catholic. A lot of them are. But, you know, I think this, this gender gap where men are trending towards the church and women seem to almost be trending to the left, it's leading to a lot of animosity between the sexes. And I just have to take this opportunity to say, wow, was I lucky to meet the right one in middle school. So I'm glad I don't have to be a part of this.
Emily
No apps.
Evita Duffy Alfonso
Well, no. No apps. No apps. Yeah, Emily. I think there is a. Definitely a gender divide politically, and it's a big problem because young men and women are not. They're not getting married and they're not having kids, and they don't feel like they have anything in common with one another. So in one way, I'm happy to see young men become more conservative and see them go to church. And, you know, they voted. I think they swung 20 points to the political right between 2020 and 2024. I mean, that's. That's wonderful for the GOP in terms of our civilization. It's a little bit distressing because young men and young women just keep getting farther and farther apart when you look at their values. And. And they're just the stats of them staying together.
Emily
And that's. I guess a lot of people would say, this is gonna be my last question for both of you. Why should we care what you have to say? You're 26. Why should we vest you with the enormous responsibility of membership in the U. S. House? Evita, why should I read a thing that you have to say or listen to a thing that you have to say? You're 26 years old. You know, you're obviously about to become a mother. You already are a mother, but you are about to have a baby. So you're both going to be parents. So you. You haven't hit that milestone yet. People will be like, what? Why do I care? You haven't lived. You haven't seen the world. So what's your answer to that?
Michael Alfonso
You know, I. I would say that, you know, sometimes conservatives can say, we're going to win the races. You know, we. Red seat, a blue seat, whatever it may be. If you look at the age breakdown, almost all of them are voters over the age of 50. And we need to start winning young people. The only person on the right that I remember never stopping outrage to young people was Charlie Kirk, and we lost him. If we care about the country, not just in 10 years from now, but 30 years from now, 40 years from now, we need to start talking to young people. We need to figure out how to win these people over. And I think the answer to that is to start having someone who has dealt with the same issues that they have. And, you know, I really think it's important that when we frame this question, you know, you're. You're so young. What do you know of the world? Evita and I have been married for four years. We grew up in an America that isn't the same as what the older generation did. And I think it's time that the younger generation takes that leadership role on the right, because the left has already done it. The left has chose their young People Championship. They're aoc, Zorhan Mamdami and Maxwell Frost. So if we're going to start deciding who the younger generation of the Republicans are, we need to make sure that they have a good head on their shoulders. And I can't say that I have a good head on my shoulders, but I know Evita does.
Evita Duffy Alfonso
He's a very good head on his shoulders. And I'll just say that George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were 26 years old when they were first elected to public office. The founding fathers intended for younger people to, to. To run our country because they have the energy to do that. What's you mentioned our district being uniquely large, Emily. It's. It's the largest district east of the Mississippi. It's difficult for somebody who's not young, like Michael to get to every single county, to be at every single event, to put in the work that he's putting in. He's able to do that because he has a lot of energy, because he's a young guy, he's got a young family. And the other thing that I'll say is, you know, he has values and convictions that I can speak to. I've known him since I was in middle school. We started dating after, after high school graduation. This is, this is somebody who has what's really important, which is a strong faith, which is true moral conviction. That's what matters when you get to Congress. There's a lot of people with experience. I think AOC has a lot of. I'm sorry. I think Nancy Pelosi is somebody who has got a lot of experience. Chuck Schumer has a lot of experience. Joe Biden has a lot of. I don't think they're very good at their jobs. So I think somebody like Michael is only an asset to the GOP because the messenger matters when you're working, when you're talking to young people, and he's also somebody who's very smart and has a lot of conviction, will be able to stand up to the demons in Washington. There are demons in Washington. There are demons everywhere, but they're especially prevalent in Washington.
Emily
All I want is for you guys to find a way to reopen the Minocqua. Paul Bunyan. That's really what this was all about. At the end of the day, it's been.
Evita Duffy Alfonso
I think we could just, like, say that's a state issue, local municipality issue. It's like, pass the, Pass the plug on that one.
Emily
Yes. Well, no, actually, the, the first time that I realized Trump was a very serious candidate was I was rollerblading around a part of your district. I'm not going to dox my family, but I was rollerblading around and saw these giant plywood spray painted Trump 2016 signs like July of 2016 homemade outside of, you know, trailers. Like people were so in love with Trump. So it's a really, really interesting district. Thank you both for helping us understand a little bit of your perspective as you make a run here. Michael, best of luck, prayers for your little daughter.
Michael Alfonso
Thank you. And thank you so much for having us.
Emily
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Emily
right, as we close out the show, I promised to get into a big picture conversation about political violence. And that is exactly what I'm going to do. There's a lot happening, so I'm gonna ask you to bear with me. I have some receipts that we're going to walk through, but I want to first start just by saying in the media. We spent a lot of the week leading up to the White House Correspondents dinner and the assassination attempt talking about this mega viral New York Times podcast during which the paper's opinion editor sat alongside Hassan Piker, left a streamer, and Gia Tolentino for a moderated discussion on what they described as micro looting. It's exactly what it sounds like. And political violence. I'm gonna roll the clip right now.
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40% of Gen Zers felt that that
Emily
murder was morally justified. But it's scary to be in a society where people feel that murder is morally justified. And I'm curious how we, how we thread that line.
Michael Alfonso
Yeah. Engels wrote about the concept of social murder, and Brian Thompson, as the United Healthcare CEO, was engaging in a tremendous amount of social murder. The systematized forms of violence, the, the
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Michael Alfonso
pervasive pain that the private health care system had created for the average American. I saw so many people immediately understand why this death had taken place.
Emily
Okay, so what you saw was a New York Times podcast with this, like, soft white set featuring shabby Chicago podcasters, writers, media people. Gia Tolentino is like literally wearing denim overalls, breezily, maybe even gleefully debating the distinction between political violence and political consciousness raising. Almost like they're in an Oberlin seminar. Tolentino at one point is basically like bragging about stealing from Whole Foods. It's just. It makes you wonder what side of the class war they seem to want to usher in. These folks would actually be on. But the debate was over Piker's invocation of Friedrich Engels on that question of social murder. And people were also wondering whether the New York Times should host him for this particular conversation at all. Ross Douthat did a great New York Times interview with Hasan Piker that I recommend. Everybody taken out. Taken. I. What was I even saying? Take a. Check it out. I think that's what I was saying. Take a look at and check it out. And I combined them all anyway, because Piker has said things that Douth had asked him about in the past. You know, like about landlords. Kill them, Kill those. Murder those in the street. Let the streets soak in their red capitalist blood, dude. On the opponents of liberals, he said, you need to be shanking these and letting their intestines writhe on stage. Slice them up. Slice them and dice them. Said at one point, if you cared about Medicare fraud or Medicaid fraud, you would kill Rick Scott. The New York Times is, of course, the publication, as Graham Wood in the Atlantic pointed out in 2020 gave into internal protesters who said that an op ed from Tom Cotton put them in danger, put black New York Times staffers in danger. That was the infamous send in the troops op ed. That was the New York Times headline on the piece, by the way, calling for Trump to use the Insurrection act against violent rioters. It was in the piece, not peaceful protesters. Violent rioters during the 2020 riots. Now, there's just a lot of debate about Hassan Piker in general, who streams for what, like up to eight hours a day and often is engaging in, like, what do you even. I don't even know how you would describe it, but it's video gaming. It's a format that. And it's streaming, like going through the news live with people joking, riffing. A lot of it is very contextual. It's not a cable news segment that is intended to be sort of snipped out of context and watched by somebody who's channel surfing and doesn't know what happened earlier in the program. It's a very different format. And I think people who don't consume it regularly have a really hard time understanding it. It's not an excuse to talk like that or joke like that when you're in a position of power. He's apologized for some of it. He's walked some of it back. I don't think he said anything like that, particularly recently. I could be wrong, but it seems like he sobered up a little bit now. Still, still, political violence happened obviously, over the weekend as this alleged gunman left a paper trail where he outlined exactly why he believed violence against Trump administration officials would be justified. So I want to make three points here. First, pundits are not directly responsible for individual acts of violence. The people who commit those acts of violence are directly responsible. And I do not care if it's Sarah Palin or Hassan Piker. Now, the reason it's worth pointing out the double or that it's worth pointing out those quotes from Piker is that there is obviously a double standard for who the New York Times is willing to quote, unquote, platform based on their rhetoric. So I understand why people pull those quotes out and shove them in the face of the New York Times. And again, if you have, and I'll get into this a little bit more, if you have a public platform means your voice is amplified more than other people's. You, by the nature of your work, if you're in this field, your voice is a little bit louder than other people's. And so you can contribute to an overly heated climate that does help radicalize people to violence. So we shouldn't joke about it or cavalierly use reckless language about people being like, quote, hateful extremists, which happened to Charlie Kirk. The SPLC did this all of the time. It happened to the Family Research Council and people. There was actual violence. Steve Scalise, actual assassination attempt on Steve Scalise. And that was somebody who, in part, was citing the Southern Poverty Law Center. So it's. You shouldn't be using reckless language to score political wins as the SPLC did all of the time, and as I would say Hassan did there with landlords. You just have to be careful about that. But it's the fault of individuals at the end of the day who take responsibility in their own hands. We can all contribute to this climate, this political climate, especially if you're in the public eye and you should be thoughtful about it, of course. But at the end of the day, it's the people who are. It's the people who are making these decisions who are to blame for what happens going forward. You can find a way to Blame. Yeah, Again, like Sarah Palin, you can find a way to blame people constantly. And it doesn't mean they said it doesn't mean they did everything perfectly. They made no mistakes. It doesn't. Nobody is saying that. But it's also important that we blame people when people make mistakes or when people. It's not even a mistake in this, the scribblings of this wannabe assassin. This was a very thought out position on the use of violence. And actually, and I'm going to get into this in a second as well, the lim of nonviolence, which Piker in that New York Times interview actually was fairly hopeful by looking at people like Zoran Mamdani, who you may detest if you're on the right. But Piker said there are routes to political change and there's reason for people not to despair. And it seemed like he was talking about the Brian Thompson case and political violence. But let's get into this a little bit as well. Well, who is to blame? Who is most to blame for creating this environment of heated political tension? The people at the top of the system who are creating a broken system or the people who are responding to it? Right. Again, this doesn't take an iota of blame away from people who commit political violence. They are responsible for doing it. It doesn't take any responsibility away from people who also must be thoughtful about what they say in the public square. It just doesn't give them any direct responsibility for violence when it happens. What's very important, though, is that the people at the top of our very broken system have created a country where Americans feel more and more disempowered and they are correct. Just going to read some of this. This is a Pew Study 2024. More than 80% of Americans believe elected officials don't care what what people think. It's up on the screen as well. Americans are more likely than people in many other countries to believe that most elected officials don't care what people like them think. More than 8 in 10 U.S. adults said this in a spring 2023 Pew Research center survey, compared with a median of 74% of adults across the 24 countries surveyed. The U.S. public doubled down on this view in a separate center survey conducted in July 2023, when 85% said most elected officials don't care what people like them think in the early 2000s. By comparison, a much smaller majority of felt this way. So that number is going up. And I don't think it's obvious to people anymore that terms like, quote, social murder, which Piker invoked Engels to cite in the New York Times interview, should not be conflated with physical murder, which, to be clear, is one person intentionally ending the life of another person. So academia loves to play with words like this. The algorithms absolutely love it, too, because it's extreme. And algorithms love extremeness because it keeps you on their apps longer. Americans have also correctly noticed that elites will screw them over for a cheap buck, just like Purdue Pharma did. But it's important to be clear. You can believe Brian Thompson willfully profited off of perpetuating a system that causes suffering and death. I think that's true. That is bad. But it is not the definition of murder. It's just not, which involves one person personally, one person purposefully snuffing out another's life. And it's not the same just because you slap social in front of it. These inflated definitions will ricochet right back at the left. One could hypothetically argue, for example, that climate extremism is social murder because farmers then commit suicide or they die prematurely from economic hardship. Again, bad. It is not murder. And that's why, I think, by the way, Trump was very wrong to claim that an election was literally stolen because people reacted with violence. I think that there's an important distinction between rigged and stolen, and it feels like nitpicking to many people. I get it. But we talk on the show all of the time about the importance of using words and definitions correctly. The slope gets slippery very, very, very, very fast. And I made this point on X the other day and someone responded, there's a solid moral argument to be made that social murder is in fact significantly worse than physical murder. The fact that we as a society have swallowed the notion that it's not has killed more people than Hitler and Stalin combined. I responded, I disagree with that. But this argument is still predicated on a legitimate direction distinction between the two. Hitler and Stalin directly ordered mass slaughter. Healthcare executives like Brian Thompson would argue, A, that denying coverage in some cases allows for coverage in others, and B, people have agency and can find ways to finance expensive treatments. Those arguments can be really gross. But that intentionality of the person absolutely matters for our language. Right? Healthcare executives. And this is a very important, very important thing to understand about corruption. And I honestly think that I only understand it because I have worked in this field. Like, I only truly understand because I've worked in this field. People justify. And I've lived in the city for so long. People justify being a Brian Thompson, for example, because they'll say, well, we have to prioritize this person or that person. We can't make everybody perfect. Perfect. They're not sitting behind their desks saying, I want 5 million more dollars this year. So those other people, we're just going to let them die? It's not what they're thinking. You probably believe that's the consequence of their action, or many people believe that's the consequence of their action, but it is not the intention. And so is it worse to have a system that allows for this. This mentality to fester? It's different. It's different. It's bad, but it's different than mass murder. So, again, I just think that's a really, really, really important distinction. It's why I think the distinction matters with the Southern Poverty Law Center. It's why I think the distinction matters. Whether it's Sarah Palin or Hassan Piker, we have to be careful about these definitions, because when you inflate definitions, you make people. You condition people to see others as potential targets of violence. And again, it's the fault of the person who buys it and takes matters into their own hands. But we don't have to inflate definitions this way. We don't have to do it. We can still make these distinctions and be careful about them. And I hope that we will. Because, look, at this point, this is one of the most depressing things I've seen in a very long time. And it speaks to why, first of all, people like Hassan Piker are popular. Why you see young people out there protesting on behalf of Luigi Mangione, expressing sympathy with Luigi Mangioni. Actually, let me put this up on the screen first. Is also going to be sort of depressing. This is a poll that was taken by YouGov and the Economist. And you see a screenshot here from the Economist, September 17, 2025, which is five days, obviously, after Charlie Kirk was assassinated. This is the poll from the 12th to the 15th. Is it ever justified for citizens to resort to violence in order to achieve political goals? The percentage of liberals who age 18 to 39 responded yes is 30%. For conservatives, that number is, is like 5%. Moderates, it's hovering over 10%. It's a huge, huge difference. Now, 60 plus, everyone is roughly around the same level. 40 to 59. Liberals around 15. Conservatives still under 10, moderate still under 10. But a huge difference between young liberals and young moderates and young conservatives on that question. And one of the reasons that we're going to see more and more of that is what is the result. What are the results of this Harvard youth poll that just came out? This was just the, this was just released. Compared with our poll ahead of President Trump's first midterm election in 2018, the Institute of Politics wrote the most defining shift among young Americans is a perceived, a loss of perceived agency, a growing belief that what they do no longer shapes what happens next. Half now say people like them have no real say in government. Government half. Trust in the federal government has fallen to 15% and confidence in the military has dropped sharply. Political engagement is still present, but its meaning is changing. Fewer young Americans believe participation delivers results. And most see elected officials as driven by self interest. What once converted concern into action is becoming more conditional. A generation still paying attention, still showing up, but increasingly unsure that their voice carries weight. Oh, they're paying attention. Yes, there are a lot of people who check out of the news, but now you get news without finding it. There's polling on this as well. There was a recent, I think it was Pew poll that came out on that and the nature of social media. You go in to check on friends and family and people are posting about politics or you follow Time magazine or whatever. And you're getting politics in your feed along with your friends and family too, and your local news and the weather. So it's all in one place now, which means it's inescapable. And as that has happened, people have started to believe they are less powerful and they have less trust in government. I just want to say, I mean, this is a generation that watched Democrats not hold a primary after Joe Biden dropped out in 2024. They didn't vote for the candidate that was the Democratic Party nominee. Look at where the polls are right now on the war and a president. Again, we don't have to get into the politics of this, but on a president who did say on the campaign trail, no new war. Yes, there is also hawkish stuff about Iran. I'm just explaining how young people are experiencing the world that they live in right now. Michael Alonso was on the show earlier today talking about how the average homeownership age is 40. That is absolutely an increase. People are graduating with an average of, I think $40,000 in student loan debt and starting to see surveys that show it actually isn't a benefit for them to have gone into that debt because they're roughly making the same in some demographics as what non college degree holders have or are making on average. Of course people are feeling helpless. Of course people are Feeling like they lack agency. And that is exactly when people turn to violence. I want to put this Rod Drer post from today up on the screen. If you don't subscribe over to Roger's diary, it's roger.subsack.com this is one of my indispensable reads. Every single day, Rod is has been working on a book fleshing out his theory that we are in Weimar America, that right now America resembles Weimar Germany. Basically that we're in a cultural and political powder keg. And today Rod's post as he, he's finished his, his manuscript. He's right at the end of it, he says, quote, I have reached the end of my manuscript believing that we are one major economic crisis away from something awful happening. Bear in mind of course, that the Mag 7 constitutes what, like 30, 35% of the S P 500. A lot of economic experts look at this as a bubble, the, the AI boom. As a bubble. We could be on the cusp of something very, very ugly. And Rod and I disagree on some things, but I find as this is very compelling, he draws some really specific parallels. Economic parallels, political parallels. And when you look at these numbers about young people feeling utterly helpless, like they lack agency, you see young liberals more and more likely to justify political violence. That's a response to helplessness. People feel like the political class is not acting in their interests and that they've lost power in the political process. It's just a terrible combination. And it would be foolish to blame the Americans for feeling like they're at wit's end. When people feel that way, naturally they're going to be more likely to contemplate political violence. Our own founders, by the way, boy agonized over this in the American Revolution, which you see in the Declaration of Independence and not just in the Declaration of Independence, but there's a Washington Post piece back in 2013 from, I think, a Georgetown professor researcher that noted a year before the Declaration of Independence, the second Continental Congress issued what has become known as the Declaration on the Causes and Necessities of Taking Up Arms. This is basically fleshing out just war thesis penned primarily by Pennsylvania's John Dickinson, who I think was a Quaker with assistance from Thomas Jefferson. The Declaration was written just weeks after the British attacks at Lexington and Concord. It lays out a rationale for self defense that is completely aligned with just war thinking. Indeed, the colonists beseeched London to not provoke the calamities Civil war. There's no talk of independence. This has weighed heavily on many societies and it's very easy to given to hopelessness and despair. It is not always incorrect to like the American Revolution. Right. Like it was not the French Revolution they laid out in that particular document. I was just referencing why they had exhausted what they felt like were all of their other options and that they had been forced into a civil war. War. Our political class right now needs to make sure that they are not putting people in a position where they feel like they're at wit's end, have exhausted all of their options and are in a civil war. And while we're talking about Brian Thompson, Charlie Kirk's assassination, what almost happened to President Trump again this weekend. I just wanted to read. I was going to say a little bit, but not a little bit. From a speech that Martin Luther King gave at Illinois Wesleyan in 1966, he wrote, I still believe or said that non violence is the most potent weapon available to oppressed people in their struggle for freedom and human dignity. So he wasn't just arguing it was the moral weapon, but that it was the most potent weapon. He said, this method has a way of disarming the opponent. It exposes his moral defenses, it weakens his morale. Well, and at the same time, it works on his conscience. And he doesn't. He just doesn't know how to handle it. If he doesn't beat you, wonderful. If he beats you, you develop the quiet courage of accepting blows without retaliating. If he doesn't put you in jail, wonderful. Nobody with any sense loves to go to jail. But if he puts you in jail, you go to that jail and transform it from a dungeon of shame to a haven of freedom and human dignity. Even if he tries to kill you, you develop the inner conviction that there are some things so dear, something so eternally true, something so precious, that they are worth dying for. For. And if a man has not discovered something that he will die for, in a sense he is not fit to live. And the nonviolent discipline says that there is power in this approach precisely because it disarms the opponent and exposes his moral defenses. It also says that it is possible to work for moral ends through moral means. MLK went on to say, we will match your capacity to inflict suffering by our capacity to endure suffering. We will meet your physical force with soul force and do to us what you will and we will still love you. We cannot in all good conscience obey your unjust laws, because non cooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good. This is straight from the Gospels, by the way People can debate the theology of Martin Luther King Jr. And the politics of Martin Luther King Jr. And there's a lot to be said there there. I'm just telling you, you read this, it is straight from the gospels. He was grappling in letter from Birmingham jail with just war theory with Augustine. He says, so throw us in jail. And as difficult as that is, we will still love you. Bomb our homes and threaten our children, and as difficult as it is, we will still love you. Send your hooded perpetrators and violence into our communities at the midnight hours and drag us out in some wayside road and beat us and leave us half dead. And we will still love you. But be assured that we will wear you down down by our capacity to suffer. That is again why Nietzsche absolutely detested Christianity because it valorized suffering. Martin Luther King was proven correct. I mean, this is a still a very heated debate. I think it's incontrovertible that Martin Luther King was proven to proven correct, that his capacity to suffer itself was one of the most powerful catalysts for race relations to improve in the country and for justice to improve in the country. And in the shooter's scribblings that we've seen so far, they've been reported, and I'm going to read from them here because I believe early in the show that in the days after something like this occurs, there's a real danger of inadvertently creating lore and romanticism around people's writings and actions. But in the document you see this shooter trying to justify and even with some allusions to Christian principles, yield to Caesar. What is Caesar's and the like trying to justify taking this action. You saw it in the Tyler Robinson case, that Tyler Robinson writing the allegedly said some hate can't be reasoned with. These are all direct explanations from young men, by the way, the shooter, 31 years old, Tyler Robinson, 20s, Luigi Mangioni, 20s, his quote, unquote manifesto, similarly seemed to try to develop this rational, logical justification for political violence and political assassination. And I would just recommend anybody who's starting to find that more and more seductive grapple with what Martin Luther King said in that 1966 speech many times after, and whether history proved him correct. And I am imploring America's most powerful class, politicians, business executives, people in the media, to take this seriously, to stop enriching themselves at the expense of others and to start seriously questioning if they are perpetuating an unjust system that is perpetuating this festering, seething contempt for the country that we all have to share. And live in that. We, we all have a role to play making the country a better place and the people who have the most influence over that have fallen down the job and want to blame other people. You want to scapegoat other people and keep the system going. We're at war with Iran right now. What are gas prices? There's still technically a government shutdown over dhs. Utterly embarrassing all around on a bipartisan basis. So I'll leave it at that tonight, but appreciate everyone hanging in there with me. There will be much more more to come on the story, of course. We'll be back on Wednesday with the debate between Ryan Grimm and Scott Jennings that was hosted at George Washington University last week. Afterparty viewers are going to get it live on Wednesday night and then in your podcast feed and your YouTube afterwards. It was. It got heated. It got heated. It was quite a debate. So make sure you stay tuned for that. Emily devil may care Media.com is where you can email me if you have questions for Happy Hour. That's our podcast only edition of the show where I answer your questions every Friday. So if you subscribe on itunes, I guess it's not itunes anymore. Apple or Spotify. Go ahead, head over and make sure you subscribe to that feed. Thanks so much everyone. We'll see you back here with more soon.
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Episode: CBS’ Cynical Trump Interview, and Kimmel’s Gross Widow Joke, w/ Evita Duffy-Alfonso & Michael Alfonso, PLUS America's Sickness and "Social Murder"
Date: April 28, 2026
Host: Emily Jashinsky
Guests: Evita Duffy-Alfonso (independent journalist), Michael Alfonso (Republican candidate, WI-7)
This episode tackles the fallout from a recent attempted assassination of President Trump at the White House Correspondents Dinner, the controversial CBS interview with Trump, and heightened political violence in America. Emily is joined by Evita Duffy-Alfonso and Michael Alfonso for a conversation spanning personal reactions to the attack, media responsibility, generational divides, and the rise of left-wing political violence. The show closes with a “big picture” monologue on America’s political sickness, social alienation, and the erosion of nonviolence as a political norm.
[01:05–15:00]
Emily’s Critique of the Interview:
Media & the Contagion Effect:
On Responsible Reporting:
[16:38–31:36]
The Alfonso Family’s Response to the Shooting:
“A Tradition of Left-Wing Violence”
Safety on the Campaign Trail:
[31:36–38:12]
Local Political Discourse:
The Escalation from Campus to Politics:
Jimmy Kimmel’s “Widow” Joke
Generational Shift in Attitudes Toward Violence:
[41:15–57:50]
Michael Alfonso’s Campaign and Generational Politics:
On Immigration Policy and Working-Class Discontent:
Discussion of Generational Divide:
WI-7 and Class-Based Realignment:
[54:59–57:50]
[65:29–94:41]
NYT Podcast, "Social Murder" & Class-Radicalization:
Responsibility for Political Violence:
Inflation of Terms like "Social Murder":
Mass Alienation and Justification of Political Violence:
Dangers of Elite Neglect:
Call for Nonviolence
Final Plea:
On CBS and manifestos:
On cultural Marxism and left-wing violence:
On the hypocrisy of calls to violence:
On the alienating American experience:
MLK on Nonviolence:
Emily’s approach is forthright, earnest, and big-picture, routinely citing academic studies and polls, interweaving personal experience and cultural criticism. The guests speak as committed conservative activists — sometimes zeroing in on “cultural Marxism” and perceived double standards on political violence. The dialogue is earnest, sometimes impassioned but often grounded in data and decades of personal experience in politics.
This episode of After Party offers an unflinching look at the intersection of media, politics, and violence in America after a traumatic week for public figures. The conversation underscores the rise of alienation and radicalization among young Americans, the influence of elite rhetoric, and the urgent need for a renewed commitment to nonviolence — both as a guiding principle and as a practical remedy for political sickness.