← After Party with Emily Jashinsky
After Party with Emily Jashinsky
Exclusive I-95 Bus Crash Details, PLUS Hasan & Cenk BANNED, and Pratt’s Strategy, with Michael Knowles
01:16:45
Emily Jashinsky opens the show with exclusive reporting on a fatal bus crash that killed at least five people, including 4 members of one family who were on their way to a wedding. Emily reveals that she has confirmed the bus driver was unable to speak English. She argues this case highlights broader concerns about commercial driver’s licenses. Then Emily is joined by Michael Knowles, host of “The Michael Knowles Show.” They discuss the UK's reported decision to deny entry to Hasan Piker and Cenk Uygur, the start of Pride Month and how sports leagues and even children's media companies are posting Pride-themed messaging, and Spencer Pratt’s upcoming primary and his message to voters. Then Emily breaks down comments from Jim Acosta and Katie Couric, who warned that changes at CBS and CNN could create a "propaganda" media environment. She rounds out the show with The View’s freakout over the escalating controversies surrounding Maine Democratic Senate candidate Graham Platner, and mo...
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- [00:01]
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Ryan Reynolds
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- [01:08]
Emily Jashinsky
Welcome back to After Party, everyone. We have a very newsy edition of the show tonight. Michael Knowles is going to join us. He's actually going pretty viral right now over something the two of us disagree on. So we have a little back and forth, particularly on this case in the UK where apparently Jake Uygur and Hassan Piker have been banned as of right now. That's what it looks like from entering the United States, United Kingdom, they say, over issues stemming from their their criticism of the state of Israel. So we will provide the details to you as we know them and ask Michael Knowles for some of his reaction to that. Get his reaction to the beginning of Corporate Pride month, which felt a little bit like a 2020 flashback as the Instagram posts came out of the gate today. So we're also going to talk about the Graham Platner. Well, some reaction from the View on Graham Platner's sexting scandal that I found pretty interesting. And then Katie Couric and Jim Acosta have more thoughts. Of course, they have more thoughts on CBS that are very worth dwelling on as an insight into the completely broken moral compass of America's fourth estate. But first, I do actually have some breaking news. I'm going to get to it in one moment. Just want to remind everybody, thank you first of all for being here. We appreciate it enormously. The best way you can help the show keep doing our independent journalism is to subscribe on YouTube if you haven't subscribed over there, do it. It's super easy. Just click the button. Helps us a bunch. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. And remember, you can always email me emily caremedia.com always look forward to hearing from you all. But I do want to start tonight with some breaking news that you're hearing for the first time here on After Party. Actually, there's a horrible story that broke last week, and it was a local news story here in Washington, D.C. about a crash in Stafford county on i90 in Virginia. We can put this first element up on the screen. This is a story from the Washington Post about what happened, about the victims. The headline is family Headed to Wedding among five Killed in Virginia Crash Bus Driver charged. Well, we have some news about that bus driver. So if you scrolled to the bottom of that Washington Post story, you would find in literally the last paragraph that Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy said the driver of this bus in question, who is believed to have caused the accident, is not proficient in English. And the Washington Post included that by saying they could not verify Secretary Duffy's claim. Well, here on After Party, we can verify, according to an official source, that all three Virginia Troopers, Virginia State Troopers, who got to the scene of this accident when it originally happened, all three agreed the driver here, who was severely injured, cannot speak English. They all noticed it right away. Immediately. We can also confirm, according to an official source, this was corroborated by passengers on the bus. What one of the Virginia State Troopers said basically was the first guy who got to the scene to talk to the driver said, immediately I understood that he couldn't speak English. Immediately I understood that he couldn't speak English. More breaking news you're hearing on After Party for the first time is that this driver has refused all language, all layers of an English proficiency proficiency Test. Now, that is marked as a failure, as it was explained by this official source. Basically, it means like a dwi, if you refuse the test, it's marked down as a failure. So is it necessarily indicative of guilt? It's probably indicative that the driver has a defense attorney who said, don't take the test. We don't think either in your condition, because from what I've heard, there was significant damage to the driver's leg, significant damage to the driver's torso. It did take three troopers, apparently, to get the driver out of the bus. He was driving a charter bus. But it appears he never decelerated and is now refusing to take the English. English Language Proficiency Test from Virginia State Troopers. Again, we have corroboration from passengers who were traveling to to Charlotte, North Carolina on this bus that he did not appear to be able to speak English. The troopers as well have conveyed this to official sources. They couldn't really even understand what he was trying to say about what caused this. Did not appear to have a head injury, nothing like that. And again is now refusing to take the English English Language Proficiency Test set. What I heard from an official source was that on the scene the only thing that remained in the car that was carrying this family. The Washington Post story was about. Actually, let me just put. Yeah, there was. You can see them right there. This is a family of immigrants
- [06:39]
Guest or Contributor (possibly a transportation or legal expert)
who
- [06:39]
Emily Jashinsky
by all accounts were hard workers. They were driving to Charlotte for a wedding. They had reportedly baked goods in the car with them. See two little kids, Emily and Mark. The parents are named Dimitri and Ekaterina Donchev. Another woman, Priscilla Mafalda, died 25 years old. What I was told was at the scene the only thing that remained of that family don't was a little boy's car seat was basically not even recognizable as a car. So I went and looked up some court records. I'm going to put this up on the screen. This was a. A Washington Times article where weighing into or waiting into the commercial driver's license debate that has been raging in trucking circles for a long time. Long before the rest of the country started paying attention to it, these cases became almost impossible to ignore. That's why there is Delilah's Law, something Donald Trump mentioned at the State of the union. A little 5 year old who was horrifically injured in a non English proficiency CDL related accident attended the State of the Union. She is the girl for whom the law is named. But Jing Dong is this non English speaking naturalized citizen from China who has been charged with two counts of involuntary manslaughter after slamming the charter bus he was driving into an SUV. Now to keep going. Mr. Dong, as the Washington Times puts it, is a driver based in Staten Island, New York who obtained his commercial license in 2024 despite not being able to read, write or speak English. Apparently that was originally sourced to Secretary Duffy. Again we have just corroborated via an official source that was immediately apparent to the Virginia State Troopers. Corroborated by passengers on the bus. Let's take a look here. I saw this post when I was searching for Jing Dong on X to see what other people had been saying and notice this post which was in line with what I had found on court records. So what you're looking at here is actually just a screenshot from Virginia court records. I pulled these up so that you could see them actually. Even better. Let me share this tab. All right, so there are multiple cases involving Jing Dong, Jing Sheng Dong, and actually in Maryland as well. But this is just in Virginia. You can see what's on the screen right now is felony charges stemming from involuntary manslaughter on the 529 accident. Now if we keep going through here, what you're going to see are other cases. By the way, this is very odd. Marked as a fugitive as of right now. So this is 9pm Monday night. Could have been an accident on the part of the clerk. Not sure. Maybe left the hospital. Not again, not sure what's going on with that. But it is what's marked on the Stafford Circuit Court docket right now. We will have updates in the morning. I'm sure the news will have updates in the morning on this case. Keep going here. The involuntary manslaughter. This is reckless driving. That's also from the 529 incident. This is trespassing. This is the same Jing Dong from Staten Island, New York who was charged with trespassing again in Virginia and paid a fine when I went and looked it up. So paid $100 fine. This is last year. More. Let's see, we have also another charge in from colonial heights in 2024. This is for going 73 miles per hour in a 55 mile per hour zone. All right, let's go to the state of Maryland. Well, actually, Jingdong was supposed to be in court this week for another traffic citation that happened this March at 1:20 in the morning. Again, this is the same person match. All the details match in this Virginia case. And for just going way over the speed limit once again, 72 miles per hour in a 50 mile per hour speed zone in a white coach bus. You can see it's listed right there, a white coach bus. So the company that employed Jing Dong is now under fire. Sean Duffy has. And the Department of Transportation has subpoenaed the state of New York, which has been, quote, less than helpful. According to official sources that I confirmed this with here at after party, New York has been less than helpful. Well, that's lovely. Isn't it just unthinkable that the state of New York wouldn't want to be cooperative in a story like this? But let's return one more time to the Washington Times op ed, which has some more details on New York in particular because New York has halted the issuance of new commercial driver's licenses to non citizens. But that hasn't solved the problem, as this Washington Times commentary editor writes of the cdls it has already issued. A federal audit conducted by the Department of Transportation late last year found that 53% of New York's non domiciled CDLs were lawfully unlawfully granted, often lacking verification of a visa or work authorization. The department flagged roughly 33, 000 non compliant licenses and demanded that New York revoke. The state refused. So as a result, the Trump administration withheld about 73 and a half million dollars of New York's federal highway funding. Now it just so happened actually that as I was prepping this segment, Tucker Carlson dropped an interview with Gord McGill, who maybe some of you have followed on Twitter, maybe you haven't. Gord McGill is, I think, a second generation trucker, a third generation trucker. Not trucking anymore, I think as of last year or the year before because of changes in the industry. But Tucker dropped an episode all about trucking and the problems in the trucking industry where they touched on this. And Gordon McGill, as somebody who spent years of his life dedicated to long haul trucking, explained a little bit about the problem with CDLS, and I wanted to bring his perspective into this.
- [13:33]
Guest or Contributor (possibly a transportation or legal expert)
S14 Some friends of mine have been studying the sort of issue of CDLs by various states and this has been the sort of locus of Secretary Duffy's investigations into this stuff. You know, shout out to Shannon and his crew at American Truckers United for doing this. They found that like we're talking, hundreds of thousands of CDLs have been issued in a suspicious or outright illegal manner, many of them to people who do not qualify under federal regulations. Right. So there's an old federal regulation that's been on the books since 1937, which stipulates that to drive a commercial vehicle in the United States, you must have a certain command of the English language. Right?
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Emily Jashinsky
Right.
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Guest or Contributor (possibly a transportation or legal expert)
You have to be able to communicate with law enforcement, the motoring public, read information signs, read construction signs. We know we have, we have signs everywhere on our highways. You know, hey, this lane is closing. There's construction up ahead. You have to put your tire chains on to go over Donner Pass. You know, the wind is too high in Wyoming and they're all in English. America is, for better or worse, an English country. This is a safety sensitive job where you can crash a truck and kill people. You should probably know English. In 2016. The regulation of that, or I should say the enforcement of that regulation Was waived in the waning days of the Obama administration. They just said, we're not going to place trucks out of service anymore. We're not going to place the driver out of service. We'll just give them a fine and send them on their way. So this opened up a loophole where you could bring more people in to drive trucks who did not meet this federal requirement.
- [15:03]
Michael Knowles
And what was the effect?
- [15:05]
Guest or Contributor (possibly a transportation or legal expert)
Well, I mean, we're. We're seeing it all around us, right? Like, I think so far in 2025, we had over 30 people in America killed by people who are here illegally.
- [15:18]
Emily Jashinsky
So just to be clear, the family was going to a wedding in South Carolina. I said Charlotte. The bus was going to Charlotte. The company, which is called ENP Travel, is based out of Kings Mountain, North Carolina. That is about 30 miles outside of Charlotte. Local news has tried to get in contact with that company to know to no avail, actually. As of right now, they have four vehicles and 11 workers, Seven News Washington reported, and have actually had some problems in the past. Not a smooth record. The Washington Post reported that in 2024, one of the company's buses was involved in a crash in Lexington, North Carolina, in which it failed to slow down and struck another vehicle from behind. According North Carolina state highway patrol records, nine people were injured in that crash. According to federal records, some like 40 people were injured in this crash. A couple of them are still in the hospital in critical condition. So this is five deaths as of right now. Could be higher than that, of course. And it's just unfathomable. As Gordon McGill explains in that episode of the Tucker Carlson show, the reason that so many foreign workers started trucking is that the industry pushed for more foreign workers because they said we needed more truckers. The industry needs more truckers. Well, instead of getting more truckers from the American public, they went to foreign workers. Why? Well, because you clearly can pay foreign workers less money, especially when they're on visas. You clearly can get away with that. Instead of making these jobs more attractive for Americans to do, we became reliant on because the industry pushed for a cheaper labor source, foreign workers. And this is the consequences of all of those bad corporate decisions and policy decisions. And we are looking at them right in front of our faces right now. They're human faces. What a disgusting story. Disgusting story. And it is crazy to me that when you read the Washington Post report, you have to scroll to the very, very bottom to hear that maybe there's an English proficiency question here. And they say they couldn't Verify. It took me honestly all of an hour to get corroborating sources on this. But the Washington Post with their vast resources stuffed it at the bottom of the article and just said we can't verify it. This is like the leading detail in the story as to how it happened. And there's abundant evidence the transportation secretary is on the record saying it. All you have to do is pick up a phone. This is a critical part of the story. Maybe the critical part of the story. The family by the way does have a GoFundMe. I think it might actually be. Let me make sure that it I send the the right location. Yeah, I believe it is a GoFundMe and it already is as raised more than it's already raised. 75, almost $76,000 of the $50,000 for funeral expenses that they were looking for. It's called supporting the Dunshab family's funeral expenses. God bless them. Apparently also were regular attendants at their local Russian Orthodox church. May God rest their souls, all of the victims here and may we see justice. May we see justice in this case and prevent future accidents like this from happening. All right, we're going to be back in a moment. Like I said, it's a newsy program with Michael Knowles and get his reaction to why he is in hot water right now over some of his statements on Cenk Uygur and Hassan pike are being banned from the United Kingdom. As of what we know right now they are banned from this country or one of our allies, two Americans banned. So we have Knowles coming up in just a bit when we talk to him about all kinds of good stuff. Then we are also going to have a couple of segments after Knowles so stick around for that. See this was nose was pre taped a little bit earlier in the day. I think we pre taped with him around 5:30 and so pretty, pretty recent reaction. But I'll be in the chat if you are watching this live because it's live and I'll be there to to talk to you for your reactions, answer any questions you have. All right. We'll be right back. Time for some life talk. Life insurance talk that is. You probably have it. But do you know how much you're paying for it? The truth, you likely pay too much for too little. Plus if coverage is tied to your job and you're laid off, you're left with zero protection. It's scary but simple to fix with Selectquote. Unlike one size fits all companies, Selectquote's licensed agents work for you in 15 minutes. They compare top rated providers to find the perfect fit for your health and budget. Best of all, their service is free. Don't worry about medical exams. They have partners offering same day coverage up to $2 million without a doctor's visit. Even with pre existing conditions like diabetes. 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- [20:47]
Michael Knowles
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- [21:15]
Ryan Reynolds
Opportunity Builder Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile with a message for everyone paying Big wireless way too much. Please, for the love of everything good in this world, stop with Mint. You can get premium wireless for just $15 a month. Of course, if you enjoy overpaying, no judgments. But that's weird. Okay, one judgment anyway, give it a try@mintmobile.com Switch upfront payment of $45 for
- [21:40]
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- [21:48]
Emily Jashinsky
Knowles, host of course of the Michael Knowles show, also author of this, this book that I'm going to reference in just one moment. Michael, I have it here in front of me, of course, as I always do. Welcome back.
- [21:59]
Michael Knowles
Wonderful to be with you. Thank you for having me.
- [22:03]
Emily Jashinsky
Oh, our pleasure. The book is called Speechless by the way, and it's a perfect segue into what I wanted to chat about with Michael first because you're, you're slightly viral right now. Michael, I don't have to inform you of this, but you weighed in on. We could put F1 up on the screen. The UK's decision apparently to ban both Hasan Piker and his uncle Cenk Uygur from entering the country, period. Hassan Piker says his visa was revoked. Both of them say that it is because of their comments on Israel. We don't seem to know completely what the actual statements in question are here. There's still information to be learned but basically Cenk was like literally at the airport says that he was not going to be allowed to get into the United Kingdom. You posted at Facebook 3 you said Western countries should Western nations should ban many more people like Hasan Piker. Letting them in has done far more to erode our free societies than keeping them out. Michael, before I ask you to defend this people shocked by this comment from you really shouldn't be because I pulled up this passage from Speechless which is a great book as much as I disagree with some of it. It's a great book. A very like provocative in a good way. You write vague harangues against quote unquote cancel. Culture missed the mark because they fail to acknowledge the justice of ostracizing certain people and marginalizing certain ideas. All cultures quote unquote cancel. You also say as a prudential matter, Conservatives must begin their case against political correctness with the practical tradition of free speech as it has existed in America. Such a defense would require that Conservatives admit the necessity of just and prudent censorship. In particular, we would need to restore prohibitions against obscenity, which politically correct radical have long exploited to arouse the people's base passions and undermine their liberty, just as the founding fathers feared. All right, so this is not necessarily about obscenity. This apparently, if we take their word for it, is over foreign policy. Should we still be wary of the excitement of folks basest passions here?
- [24:11]
Michael Knowles
Michael yeah, it's kind of unclear. I mean I love that you read that passage. I couldn't have said it better myself. This really, it all feels very providential. Maybe like my birthday came early because I am flying out to the UK tomorrow specifically to speak at the Oxford Union. I guess Hasan Piker was scheduled to speak there as well. Last I checked, my visa is still okay for the uk so I'm glad that I can make it there. Hasan is blaming this on his anti Israel commentary, though I'm a little skeptical of that because the UK is not exactly the most pro Israel country in the world. In fact, the UK currently bans multiple senior members of the Israeli government, the Finance Minister and the Security Minister. And they they've also said that they would arrest Bibi Netanyahu if he sets foot on British soil. They also just within the last month or so banned Valentina Gomez, who is a right wing influencer here, who's absurdly pro Israel. I think she filmed herself eating popcorn while Israel was bombing Gaza. So I don't really think this is chiefly an Israel issue when it comes to who the UK is or is not gonna ban. I also have a moderate affection for Cenk Uygur, so if I were in charge in the uk, maybe I would let him in. But Hasan Piker is terrible. He certainly should not be welcome into any civilized country. I think he should be in prison. He regularly has threatened conservative politicians, people like Tom Cotton, people like. Who's the other one he went after? Oh yeah, Rick Scott, the most amiable, centrist kind of politician. He goes after all these guys. He's awful. He conspires with foreign governments, says America deserves 9, 11. So that guy just totally sucks and he should be censored. And if he weren't an anchor baby, we wouldn't have to tolerate him in our. Well, so I think the UK got this totally right. It seems to me what this comes down to is the UK looks at foreigners who want to come in and they say, okay, is this person going to be good for our country or bad for our country? Hasan Piker is awful for any civilized country. So it's only common sense to keep them out. And I think they did a good job and we could learn a lesson from them.
- [26:14]
Emily Jashinsky
What if they banned, for example, Ann Coulter for criticizing their immigration policies? Would that fit into the Michael Knowles acceptable ban category?
- [26:24]
Michael Knowles
Well, look, I would disapprove of that because I love Ann Coulter. So if I were running the show in the uk, I wouldn't do it. But I think at a very basic level, nations have a right to determine who gets to come in. I don't think that foreigners have any particular right to go visit the uk And I think that what the UK is demonstrating here, the political right that they're demonstrating is really salutary because we in America have certainly forgotten that we should have a say over who gets to come here. And we shouldn't just be flooded by anyone and everyone, especially people who are overtly hostile to our country, people like Hasan Piker, or especially people who don't have U.S. citizenship who are hostile to our country. So then what you'll hear from the libertarians and the small l liberal types is, well, Michael, if you're going to make these kinds of decisions over who gets to come in and who doesn't, who decides? And I guess my answer is the UK government decides. The governments of sovereign countries decide who gets to come in. Foreigners don't have a right to go to any country willy nilly that they want and this is actually an expression of democracy, an expression of self government, and an expression at a really basic level of just self preservation, which is the basic charge of any political community and one that we've long forgotten.
- [27:41]
Emily Jashinsky
Yeah, I don't necessarily dispute the theoretical framework. I would push a little bit more on like the Ramessa Ozturk case for example, where I think the Secretary of State has absolute authority to do what Marco Rubio did in the case of Ramesa Osterk, who is foreign student who was at I think Tufts and wrote an op ed against BDS in the school paper, or I'm sorry, in favor of bds. So divesting from Israel, asking the school to divest from Israel. And again, do I think the Secretary of State has the right to that? Sure. But by saying that what Rameza Ostrich did threatened national security, I worry that's then used to say American citizens, and we can flip this to the United Kingdom as well, are threats to national security if they say the same things that Ramessa Ozchurk said. So if it's a threat from foreigner, might the Secretary of State have a right to try and deport that person? Perhaps. But then does that set precedent that the same thing out of the mouth of an American citizen might also be a threat to national security? Should Brits be concerned about that?
- [28:40]
Michael Knowles
Sure. I'd be fine if the Secretary of State just came out and said, look, this guy, he's no good for us and he doesn't align with us on our geopolitics, so get him out. Which is obviously not the same argument you can make for an American citizen, which is one reason we should get rid of birthright citizenship. And this leads to all other sorts of political matters. But you would have to treat those situations differently. So I agree. I don't think we should be deceptive here. I would much prefer if we get to the heart of the political matter. Part of the reason that I think politicians want to dance around these issues and make claims about national security or what have you, is because they don't want to state the truth, which is that no, there are limits to speech. It's good that there are limits to speech. There have always been limits to speech. Our earliest presidents and statesmen all talked about this openly. It was our second president and our most conservative one, John Adams, who passed the Alien and Sedition Acts, we will recall. And I think the idea of free speech absolutism was really an op from the left in the 60s through the free speech movement. At Berkeley, it was always totally fake. The minute the libs used the free speech movement to erode all of our standards and norms, then what did they do? They immediately erected their own standards, norms which were really bad and hostile to our country. But really, as I argue in Speechless, the whole debate isn't between free speech and censorship. The debate is really between two competing sets of standards and norms. So, sure, we can say, well, maybe the grad student isn't a major threat to national security, so maybe he is. We actually do take in, not just from the Middle east, but especially from China, people who are threats to national security. But yeah, let's be more forthright about it. You gotta be on the team if you wanna get a visa to study here or to work here. And so right now, when we're talking about foreign policy, the United States has a pretty long standing alliance with the state of Israel. And that irritates plenty of people in some cases for good reason. And so you might say, well, America should reconsider her relationship with Israel. Yeah, that's fine. Those are all the sorts of debates that occur in democratic societies. But when the rubber meets the road of how to deal with foreigners who wanna come here or not, the principle that you have to align with us on foreign policy, on domest. On basic principles, that I think is pretty much indisputable.
- [30:58]
Emily Jashinsky
Well, one of the things I like about Speechless is we may disagree on application of this, but you make the point that free speech is sort of like free markets. They don't exist for the sake of free markets. They exist for the sake of the common good. And that's how the framer saw speech, that it was a means to a just end. And the just end was getting closer to truth. And having a society that is based on sort of the capital T, truth. That's what the purpose of free speech is. So any speech that isn't toward that end would have been something they would be comfortable, of course, prohibiting. Right, Michael?
- [31:29]
Michael Knowles
Yes. And this is also why, even within the context of the First Amendment, all sorts of speech is not protected. We mentioned earlier obscenity. But that's also true of threats. That's also true of fighting words. That's also true of fraud. And you have to ask yourself, well, why are those kinds of speech, such as it were, why are those not protected? And the reason is that is speech that undermines speech. You know, it undermines our reason. The whole point of free speech is to arrive at the truth. That's why we have it. It's Instrumental in order to arrive at the truth and therefore to have a good government and to advance the good and to avoid evil, which is the first charge of any political community. When you have fraud, when you have. Well, fraud obviously does not get you to the truth. It's kind of contraceptive speech. When you have obscenity, it appeals to the prurient interest. It makes you much less rational. When you have fighting words that. That censors people, that suppresses speech and so on. So you know the problem. I know that I'm gonna be called an authoritarian and a fascist and all the rest for saying this, but I don't want people to misunderstand me. I love free speech in the American tradition as it has actually been practiced. But I don't make an idol out of free speech. And that's the problem. I go back to a guy like GK Chesterton who points out that the vices very often are. Or heresy. I think he makes the point. Heresy is when you take one virtue and you separate it from all of the others. Heresy isn't usually when you promote a vice. It's when you take one virtue, but you totally take it out of context. And so it gets really disordered. So free speech is great within the context of the American tradition. When you make an idol out of it, it becomes another thing entirely. We don't love free markets because we serve the economy, because we serve the gdp. That's not what we're after. We don't have free speech because we like to hear people bab all the time and just, you know, expel hot air. We have it for a purpose. And so you have to. You have to make sure that the good of free speech or free markets is in order to the higher goods, which is what we're really after.
- [33:30]
Emily Jashinsky
I saw someone trying to troll you on X. Like they had just really gotten one over on you with a Voltaire quote. And I was. I saw it and I was like, oh, my gosh. You knew not. You know, not what you are arguing with, dear friend. You're just. You're just helping Knowles.
- [33:44]
Michael Knowles
I love it. You know, so the Voltaire quote, which, you know, it might be apocryphal, but it's certainly attributed to him, which is this idea they say, I might not agree with what you say, but I'll defend to your death the right to say it. And I think, first of all, my version of that is, I may not agree with what you say, and I will kill you for saying it, but maybe that's A little too extreme. But the funny thing about Voltaire, of course, is Voltaire was a radical leftist, anti Christian. He was wrong about absolutely everything. Whenever you hear a quote attributed to Voltaire, it is safe to say you should do and think the exact opposite. But this is so funny, Emily. I mean, a lot of the libs who are upset about Hasan getting spiked from the uk, they'll respond to conservatives and they'll say, you hypocrites. So what? I thought you conservatives were free speech absolutists. And I'd say, well, first of all, you got the wrong guy, man. Don't worry. I promise you, I'm not that guy. But what it shows me is they really don't know what we believe. You know, they really seem to think that we conservatives are all just liberals. And I would say, no, it's a little more complex to support the banning of Hasan Piker from the uk, which, by the way, is not his country and does not have a First Amendment even to begin with. Though I think he's also violated American law and should be punished for that. But regardless, I just think it's not that conservatives who support this are violating our principle. It's just that we have different principles. And by the way, our principles are more correct than the principles of the left.
- [35:13]
Emily Jashinsky
Right. Yes, it's. It's. There's not just neutrality. Now, since we're speaking about the French Enlightenment, I do want to get your perspective on. Well, actually, first, I want to wish you a happy Pride Month.
- [35:22]
Michael Knowles
It's June 1st, so this is, of course, the sacred month.
- [35:27]
Emily Jashinsky
Yes, and it's an important day in the Knowles calendar. I know, but we saw Paul posts expectedly. Although I have to say, if we put the NBC or I'm sorry, the NBA posts up on the screen. This is F13. I think the Glibs of Tick Tock collected a bunch of the NBA Happy Pride pro posts. There were a lot of them. Even Sesame street got in on the action. Perhaps it's a poor choice of words. F14. We can put up on the screen. I think it also says LGBTQIA plus. And the Sesame street post. I mean, Boston is celebrating. Let's put F10 up on the screen. I'm going to read from a pro LGBT website because their description of this is wonderful. They say an annual event in Boston has drawn the ire of conservatives for supporting transgender people who have periods. The most important LGBTQ plus this is. Oh, sorry, that's how the organization, the outlet, describes itself. The article goes on to say the event, sponsored by the Massachusetts National Organization for Women and the Massachusetts Trans Political Coalition, was billed on an Instagram fly this week as a, quote, consciousness raising discussion about menstrual equity and trans people who menstruate goes on to say it's was scheduled to take place at the Boston Public Library, co sponsored by Boston alliance of LGBTQ+Youth, Massachusetts Transgender Political Coalition and the Mayor's Office of LGBTQ Advancement. One of the big debates in Boston over the past week, interestingly enough, has been over her cuts of about $700,000 to the Veterans Service office in the city of Boston in the budget, which I guess was also restored. But Knowles, this stuff feels like it's right out of 2020. It doesn't feel like much has changed.
- [37:07]
Michael Knowles
It was, it was somewhat jarring to me that in fact, this is my first thought when I saw these teams. The one that really pained me, the New York Yankees actually posted. They held out for a little bit, then they posted the gay. The rainbow logo. And I said, guys, you're, you're, you're baseball. Leave the gay stuff to the NFL. And also you're the Yankees. Leave the gay stuff to the Mets. You don't have do this. You don't. Because it's not 2023 anymore. It does feel like they don't realize that it's not 2023 anymore. And I actually just blame Abigail Spanberger. I blame Abigail Spanberger for all of this because Abigail Spanberger told us the Democrats plot in 2026, which was they were going to sort of pretend to be moderates, but then they would just deceive people to get power and then they would implement the most radical agenda you've ever seen in their competencies. And that's, I think, what's happened with woke. The Libs got completely blown out of the water in 2024, lost the popular vote for the first time in 20 years, gave the Republicans unified government, and the Republicans were pummeling the LGBT issue, especially the trans issue, just absolutely pounding that into the ground. And it worked. So they all kind of shut up about it for a little bit, despite the Sesame street, you know, monkeypox characters or whatever. Regardless of that, it's mostly subdued this year. It does seem a little chiller than in years past. But they're just waiting. WOKE is not de. Lying dormant right now. And if these guys win real political power again, it's all coming back. This is why the attacks on James Talarico are so funny and why I think they might be effective Is that all that nonsense that Talarico was saying in 2020, 2022, 2023? God is non binary and women are just neighbors with uteruses or whatever? He still believes that. He hasn't changed his mind at all. He's just trying to be a little quieter about it now. But the people were convinced. Now the libs, I think, are just going to try to deceive us and then implement it the next shot they get.
- [39:03]
Emily Jashinsky
Well, yeah, he outright is lying about what he believes now. He said there are at least six genders, and now he's saying, of course I believe there are two. I think he said at least six sexes. Now he's saying, of course I know there are only two sexes. So it's like, were you lying then or are you lying now? Did you have an amazing literal come to Jesus moment? Which is unlikely given the things you say about Jesus, Pastor Jane. So I just. The Sesame street one, though, Michael, that one throws me off a little bit. Do parents want that? I mean, Sesame street now is, I, I suppose, ostensibly responsive to the free market. I can't imagine that is genuinely helpful to Sesame Street.
- [39:43]
Michael Knowles
Yeah, it's really. It's pretty personal for me, too, because my, my middle kid, who's three years old, he loves the Elmo song. La la la la la la la la. He does. We were listening to. I was listening to it in the car just yesterday. I can't show my kids Sesame Street. Certainly not new or gay Sesame Street. That's off. That's off limits. Even when the MLB posted their rainbow flag or rainbow logo, they said, baseball is for everybody. And actually this kind of brings us back to the speechless conversation, which is by showing the gay flag, MLB is telling me, no, no, baseball is not for everybody. It's not for kids, it's not for Christians, it's not for observant Jews, it's not for Muslims. It's not for normal people who don't want this shoved down our throats. So it's not. It's actually for about 2 to 4% of the population, is what you're saying baseball's for. Because you can't just be everything to everyone. You can't be neutral. You know, Aristotle's law of non contradiction remains undefeated. If we're gonna live in a world where we say that men can be women, then we are excluding all the people who say that men cannot be be women. And Sesame street is. Is now excluding an audience that doesn't want their kids indoctrinated with creepy Sex stuff. And I. I hope in as much as they're responsive to the free market, I hope they're punished for it.
- [41:02]
Emily Jashinsky
Well, finally, I wanted to roll this clip, actually, of Spencer Pratt on Bill Maher's Club Random podcast because he had this moment. A lot of people are loving the clips that it came come out of, of Spencer Pratt, who obviously is up for election Tuesday. See if he can make it to the runoff, but. And is clearly surging right now too. But he mentioned something that I think actually probably does resonate with a lot of people in Los Angeles and California. He was talking about trans issues, and here's what he said. This is going to be S1.
- [41:31]
Spencer Pratt
I grew up in LA. All my best friends are Jewish. I grew up going to Crossroads. I've been to more bar and bat mitzvahs than I had been to church until I was maybe still tied. The level of psycho Nazi lunacy that came at me to just say that I want my friends and family to feel safe in la, to feel safe if their kids go to ucla. I had to see if the only thing that came out of this whole experience. There's a lot of things if I, God forbid or God's plan, I don't win. To see what people experience right now just because of their religion is. Is diabolical. And again, I don't care if you're Muslim. I don't care what. I don't care how you identify. I don't care if you're trans. I don't care whatever you do. But you should have the right to do that and feel safe wherever you are, whether it's going to school, going to your pop and trans bar, whatever it is, you should feel safe and not feel in danger.
- [42:30]
Emily Jashinsky
So, Michael, I believe we call that barstool conservatism. Is this where you find yourself hopping off the Pratt bandwagon?
- [42:37]
Michael Knowles
Listen, politics is the art of the possible, the art of inclusion, and the art of the second best. So I don't think we're getting the trad cat crusader coming into California anytime soon, though we should, because, you know, I mean, for goodness sakes, the city is called Los Angeles. And, you know, there are a lot of Catholic missionaries around there. But anyway, probably that's the best we're gonna get. And what Spencer Pratt said is technically true when he comes out and he says, you know, look, people even at their weird. I mean, certainly just like Jews should feel safe. That part I think most people agree with, except on parts of Twitter. But when it gets to like the trans popping off on whatever. I would say, well, they should feel safe. Like people shouldn't go shoot them, you know, so technically true. They also also, those bars should not exist. And they shouldn't be, like, using the wrong bathrooms and all that stuff too. But look, Pratt, I give him a little bit of grace on this because he has to win an election. And so I think he makes a keen political observation at the top, which is he says, you know, I love the Jews. And one, there's a lot of Jews in la, so it's a good thing to say if you're running for mayor. But also it is true that the kind of. Of anti Semitism, philo Semitism, like pro Israel, anti Israel, it does code one way or the other. You know, the really anti Israel, anti Semitic stuff. It exists on both sides of the aisle, but it does kind of code left. It's Greta with the keffiyeh. It's more complex than that, but it kind of codes left. Pro Israel definitely codes right. Because there's no leftists who support that anymore. And so I think that's all really at play there. And if you're someone like me who's very philo Semitic, but also is not a Zionist religiously or ideologically, and also wants to restrain the state of Israel sometimes, but is not pro, like, Palestine state, you basically, you get it from all fronts. And I think that's what Pratt is reacting to there. He says, I was seeing all this crazy Nazism or whatever. And so when he takes it to the extreme and he says, even when it comes to the trannies and their bars, whatever, I'm just saying I'm running to keep you safe. I think he's gotta say that. I mean, he's downplaying all those divisive issues on the right and even on the left, and he's saying, yo, vote for me and your house won't burn down, and the fentanyl schizos on the streets who are threatening your family will be behind bars. It's a low but solid ground for a campaign. But if anything is gonna convince the voters to turn against the Dems, I think that's gonna be it.
- [45:02]
Emily Jashinsky
The Maslow hierarchy of Los Angeles needs Michael Knowles. Thank you so much for making time for us. We really appreciate it.
- [45:10]
Michael Knowles
Good to see you. Thank you for having me, as always.
- [45:12]
Emily Jashinsky
Well, Michael Knowles had to run. He really is going to London tomorrow, so he's got lots to do. But I did want to cover this part of the Pratt campaign, which is what seems to Be maybe like a cascade preference. I mean, we covered with Maureen Callahan last week that Pratt says Leonardo DiCaprio and Jamie Foxx have offered the support behind closed doors for his campaign, which is very interesting. And we covered what it means that celebrities are backing someone like Pratt, despite the fact that most people on the right particularly aren't that interested in celebrity endorsements. But there is something, as Maureen put it, about the cultural momentum giving other people permission to feel like I'm not crazy, right? Like I'm supporting this guy too. And that doesn't make me crazy. Maybe it's okay if I say it. Maybe it's okay if I vote it. There's just something about that that I could see genuinely having an effect when the election on Tuesday takes place. And Pratt, Karen Bass, Nithya Raman. I mean, I looked at the margin of error in that Berkeley survey that was released last week that had Sprat. Sprat Pratt at 26. I'm sorry, at 22%, Bass at 26%, and Nithya Rahman at 25%. The margin of error, I think, was, like, three points. And so for likely voters, and so they're really bundled up close together. We'll see if Pratt's able to pull it off and advance to the runoff. But the creator of Entourage also came out in pretty emphatic support of Spencer Pratt. His name is Doug Ellen. He was also the head writer over at Entourage. Let's take a look here at S12LA times gaslighters.
- [46:48]
Doug Ellen
It's weird. One of 15 cameras that I now have at this house. Two German shepherds, three legal guns five years ago, didn't lock a door here. But you know what happened? Two animals. Animals invaded my house. And no, I'm not racist, because they were wearing masks. I don't know if they were white. I don't know if they were Jewish. I don't know if they were rabbis. I know they were animals because they invaded my house. I know. I don't care what their excuses are like. A lot of you care. And this city has collapsed in the last five years. There is no denying it. Unless you have an agenda, and I don't know what that is, but you say, oh, Spencer Pratt has no experience, so how can we possibly think about this? What experience did Karen Bass have for Rick Caruso, who we know can build things, who we know can fix problems, when you made sure he couldn't win? So right now, you've putting people in the same position that you did with Trump, who I did not vote for. By the way you put him in by making sure we had no fucking options.
- [47:44]
Emily Jashinsky
We had no fucking options is what he just said to emphasize that's exactly how we've been covering this race. It's that reminds me kind of of a conversation happening with Platner and Paxton right now, which is that we have so many lesser of two evil voters in America now, unfortunately, but not irrationally. So many people say I am cynical about politicians and they're correct to be cynical about politicians. How many times have they seen the John Edwards type or they look at like a Mitt Romney and they say maybe you do have an upstanding, perfect moral personal life, but voting to send people to war is, is unjust wars for example, or what you did in the private equity space. I don't think that is particularly moral. Even if it was your, your right when you were at Bain. Anything like that is actually where people are kind of starting to look at these politicians more like pieces on a game board. So like I expect you to advance roughly in this direction, but I don't expect you to, I don't have to, you know, treat you like you're necessarily going to be this, this wonderful three dimensional figure of moral excellence. But I do see you as a tool to an end. And the end in the case of Angelenos is a cleaner, safer city. And the other candidates in Bass and Ramen promise basically to continue trying the same old failed aspects of their agenda. Because Nithya Raman has been on city council, has had some oversight of homelessness. Karen Bass said she was going to dramatically drop homelessness. I think what she's touting now is like a 17 drop in homelessness with some which some studies actually dispute. There's a Rand study showing that basically it's not budged much and Angelina's know that they know that. And if you don't like Susan Collins for example, in Maine, you may not care very much about Graham Platner's sexting scandal or his tattoo or his old Reddit posts. Now there's some interesting stuff you could get to do with, with Platner. And I think candidates who want people to believe they believe what they're saying need to not find themselves misleading people about things that they've said. Like Talarico, for example, if he wants to be the anti Paxton morally, he can't then come out like we were talking with Knowles and say listen, of course I believe there are two sexes when he's on camera saying there's what, at least six not that long ago. So the honesty, the believability, that stuff is important. And Pratt has that. I mean, the guy is saying, saying whatever he thinks this is the social media based epistemology that Neil Postman would have hated. But there's nothing we can do about it. We're in the moment, right? He hated the TV based epistemology, which he said replaced the print based epistemology when Ronald Reagan was president, let alone governor of California, God forbid from Postman's perspective. But it's true that the way we communicate changes and what we communicate changes. The way we communicate changes what we communicate. And that's what the Pratt campaign is demonstrating when you're communicating on algorithms going to change the way you communicate. And the way he's communicating and doing it well, by the way. And what he's communicating is just getting to the basic fundamental question of whether or not people are safe, whether the streets of Los Angeles are safe, and whether or not the city is hygienic and clean like the basic functions of a city. And mastering social media has allowed him, probably because he comes from reality TV and to really be a champion on this medium. And those are the issues where it's easiest to just say, listen, this is simple. We don't have to overcomplicate it. Bill Maher tried to get him to talk about solar panel policy and he's like, I'm going to appoint someone to deal with that. That's an honest answer that no politician who's been in local politics for their career would give give really like you're, you'd never see that except for somebody like Spencer Pratt. But it's actually the truth. Most of them don't know the ins and outs of it. And even if they do know the ins and outs in it, ins and outs of it, they probably don't know it as well as their advisor who's going to take care of it anyway. So this is tomorrow. California could be on the cusp of doing something really interesting. Unfortunately, I think a lot of people sense, I mean, here you have Pratt, who is culturally not coded MAGA really at all. Like the guy is, you just heard it there, pro trans, pro gay. He's always talking about his wife, Heidi Montag, as a, a gay icon. I don't really know what his position is on abortion. It's not really something he's talked about. He says, yes, he's a registered Republican because he needed to get a gun to protect his family, but he's running not as a representative of one party or another. And so I think that's what's coming across to a lot of people. There's a great piece on him in Mama magazine. It's a really good piece. I would recommend that you check it out if you get a chance. Inside the fundraising circuit for Spencer Pratt, you can see what's kind of drawing people to him. I think he really is the only person who's going to try something dramatically different if he gets, if he makes it to the runoff. And dramatically different is to many people, if the binary is more of the same or dramatically different and the dramatically different is a risk, I think to many people that's going to be a much more attractive option. Especially since so much more of the same is illogical and increasingly illogical. We saw the progressive policing experiment play out. We've seen the, quote, compassionate, incompassionate care of so many people struggling with mental illness who are on our streets making themselves less safe and making others less safe, making the environment less welcoming, making everything less pleasant. And California man, this is one of our pioneer states. This is a symbol of the American pioneering spirit. American greatness used to be a wonderful destination for self actualization in the American middle class. And I think people are just willing to try anything other than what's been done or what's promising to just do more of what's been done. Which is why you see Gavin Newsom trying to change tack a little bit. But anyway, that's tomorrow. We've been following this race, we've been taking it seriously for a long time, so you can bet we'll be covering it on Wednesday. Say we'll be right back with more this spring. 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- [56:56]
Emily Jashinsky
I wanted to cover this appearance that Jim Acosta made on a podcast called Next Question with Katie Couric. Clever. This was on May 27, referring to the name of her podcast. By the way, very clever. Next Question with Katie Kirk. Excellent. How far the mighty have fallen. She is doing a conversation here with Jim Acosta about the takeover of CBS and how it has all of the quote makings of a propaganda giant. Shout out to Newsbusters for flagging this conversation. I have a lot of thoughts on it because both of them come from these these outlets, these massive media corporations that they are now implicitly venerating the histories of. So let's take a listen. Listen here.
- [57:46]
Jim Acosta
I think this is an ideological project of the Ellisons who have bought cbs, Paramount and Barry Weiss, and that they're going to try to translate this ideological experiment over to cnn. And I'm very worried about what's taking place right now because. And that you're going to have what is essentially the makings of a propaganda giant in this country. And Katie, what concerns. Concerns me so much about this is, is that you and I have been in this business long enough to know we haven't had that before.
- [58:17]
Oregon Lottery Announcer
We have Fox News. Wouldn't you call that.
- [58:19]
Jim Acosta
I would say we have. We have that in this. But, but I think Fox is, is a, is a different animal in that we kind of already are living with it and have been living with it for some time. Whereas you were taking two news organizations, CBS and cnn, that had been basically operating as, you know, regular tried and true news divisions and in fact, trying to turn them into propaganda arms of the Trump administration.
- [58:46]
Oregon Lottery Announcer
I've been pretty outspoken about this whole sort of tit for tat and, you know, pay to play situation that happened almost at abc, but they turned it around and reinstated Jimmy Kimmel. But this thing with $16 million for a specious lawsuit that had no merit about the editing of a Kamala Harris interview, that's how it all started. You know, I still have friends at cbs. They're very upset about what is happening there. I'm sure you also talk to people at cnn and, you know, Trump has even pointed out anchors he doesn't like. I mean, case in point, you were one of them, Jim.
- [59:22]
Jim Acosta
Yeah, he said he got rid of me.
- [59:25]
Oregon Lottery Announcer
Yeah.
- [59:25]
Jim Acosta
And, you know, here I thought these were just programming decisions. You know, he put out a truth social post not too long ago and taking credit for the ousting of various various anchors and hosts. Stephen Colbert, being one, myself, Terry Moran, some others.
- [59:41]
Emily Jashinsky
First of all, Katie Couric looks like she's trying to be in the Mamas and the Papas for some reason. Like, nobody understands what's happening with Katie Couric except for, I mean, actually, if you spent a lot of time inside corporate media, you probably understand exactly what's going on with Katie Couric now. Very rich to hear this from both of them. I want to throw this up on the screen. This is something that Glenn Greenwald, front of the show, flagged not long ago. I think it was last year when the cbs, like, takeover was happening, which, by the way, you've heard here criticism of we here have been critical of what seems to be happening at cbs. We've been critical of Tony decouple. But Barry Weiss has the worst enemies. I swear they're the worst enemies. Scott Pelley reportedly lashed out at Barry, Barry's new pick for the 60 minutes top job over there today at a meeting, meeting. And it's like we're now supposed to say Scott Pelly has credibility because he's mad at Barry Weiss. No, I don't think so. Scott Pelly is one of the least qualified people to start criticizing those who want to try and turn the Titanic around. Now, I don't think CBS is showing signs of, of doing a good job of turning the Titanic around at cbs. I think there are a lot of concerning details about how the Ellisons took over cbs, why the Ellisons took over cbs. And yes, it' sounded like they did it for ideological reasons. Now there's an ideological anti Ideological reason, right? If you're saying my ideology is that the Fourth Estate should be as neutral as is humanly possible, that's still an ideology. And there was some of that indicated by Barry and the rest of the folks when this takeover was happening. David Ellison, Larry Ellison's son Larry Ellison helped David Ellison, his son by the network. And there was some indication, they said, listen, there's a market for people who want to want something that looks more neutral. Now I would just add, I don't think it's a particularly huge market and it's certainly not the future of news because we are becoming nichified in a million different ways. And institutional outlets are just going to be, especially those who pretend to be neutral. When I always say I can count on one or two hands the amount of people I know in the media business who actually can be genuinely neutral, neutral in their reporting, they can actually sort of do the best possible version of the Voice of God, like a wire reporter used to do, saying X, Y and Z just happened over their telegram. And that would be all you had to know about what had just occurred in some battle or an election overseas, that type of thing. But it's very hard to do. There aren't a lot of journalists can do it who can do it. And because trust in media is so low below, people have correctly realized very few people in media are actually even providing the service that they say they're providing. And so people are now realizing you have to compare different sources. So Glenn pointed out that Sherry Redstone, who owned Paramount for years, told the New York Times that she had resisted entreaties for potential suitors eager to buy Paramount. What pushed her to finally agree to sell the family business was the October 7th mass curve and estimated to to 1200 Israelis. Quote, once that happened, I wanted out, she told the Times. Quote, I wanted to support Israel and address issues around anti Semitism and racism. She told the Times that her breaking point came just days before she withdrew from settlement talks with Trump in January this year. Goes on to say there's another quote from her in here. Yeah, days after the segment aired. George Cheeks this was about a segment that aired in relationship to the war in Gaza which was blasted by the American Jewish Committee as quote, shockingly one sided. Said it lacked factual accuracy and relied heavily on misguided information. Redstone and her thoughts, her upset over this Gaza episode were shared with a producer at 60 Minutes, which I just have to say that's a breaking of the firewall that is never supposed to happen at corporate media outlets. Really at any major media outlet outlet, you should not be having the thoughts of the owner be pat. The private thoughts of the owner apparently be passed along to you as a producer. That's what we are constantly assured by people in the media. Never happens that they don't. These owners are just out there, the floating heads. We don't know what they think, blah, blah, blah. Well, here's a report that it was happening inside 60 minutes. So, so why were Katie Couric and Jim Acosta not upset about this then? Serious question. Why were they not upset about this then? It didn't fit a perfect political narrative ahead of time. But we all know instinctively you don't need to go back and pull out the receipts that I mean, for example, Katie Kirk worked at NBC. Do we all remember when MSNBC got rid of Phil donahue in like 2003? Because internally they thought it was bad to have an anti war voice on in the early days of the Iraq war. And Phil Donahue had been very opposed to the Iraq war. Where was Katie Kirk then? Why was Katie Couric still defending her network after that? Katie Couric worked at CBS where apparently there were personal biases of the owner being shared at least as recently as a couple years ago show was that happening when Katie Couric was there? I mean there's this great Chomsky quote to a journalist. I think it's a channel for a BBC journalist and the guy says, you know, I'm not biased. And Chomsky says, you may not think you are, but you wouldn't be sitting where you are sitting unless you agreed with the corporation on certain just fundamental points. The bias is baked into the job. You could didn't have the, you wouldn't have the job job that you had that you have if you were really honestly a free thinker. And that is the case with most people in news. It's certainly the case with Jim Acosta. Let's go back to Jim Acosta. This is a Politico article from the first Trump administration. The political article, Politico article written at the time was about when Jim Acosta, who Trump singled out out at a press conference once, I think he said, I watch you on tv, you're a real beauty. And their relationship was never the same after that. Acosta, in a White House press briefing very memorably quoted the poem on the Statue of Liberty to Stephen Miller, you know, said, quote, give me your tired, you're poor. And added, what the president's proposing here does not sound like it is in keeping with the American tradition when it comes to immigration. The Politico writer says it sounded more like a debate rebuttal than a question question. It actually wasn't a question at all. And it triggered one of the most heated exchanges between a member of the administration and the media since Trump took office. Now, Jim Acosta, since leaving cnn, I think he was let go from cnn, to be honest. Since then he's been on, I believe, substack. Here's a conversation he had with April Ryan and Jennifer Rubin. I think this was on, I'm trying not to laugh. I think this is on a no Kings Day livestream. So that just completes your bingo resistance bingo card for this segment. But I think April Ryan asked him. Incredible. April Ryan asked Jim Acosta what question he would ask Trump and Caroline Levitt if he were given the chance if he were back in the briefing room. I kid you not. Jim Acosta answered, why do you hate the Hispanic people of our country? Why do you hate the Hispanic people of our country? These are the folks that are upset that cbs, along with these inside veteran journalists at CBS News, they are now so furious over a center left person like Barry Weiss. Her politics are a little bit hard to categorize. Left on social, cultural issues, I guess, right on foreign policy, like to the right of the center on foreign policy, obviously very pro Israel, I would say generally fairly hawkish. And it's clear, I mean, yes, they get the whole Colbert thing. We covered ad nauseam. We were critical of the way the administration handled it. Critical of Colbert. Very critical of Colbert. More critical of Colbert. But what's happened in terms of the direction from the top down is actually not all that new for any of these major corporate media outlets. It's just that they don't like the direction it's coming from. That's all it is. And so Scott Pelley, who's been at this network for years, has absolutely no credibility. No credibility. I mean, cnn, currently owned by David Zaslav, but CNN has had like when it's when you go all the way up the chain of the corporate ownership has had very political, dare I say, activist owners who were just less obvious about it, but who also, like we were just talking about with NBC, had biases that were baked into their coverage in one way or the other. And they're upset about it now because it's, it's more overtly coming from a direction that is politically inconvenient for them. So just rich, rich stuff to hear from these two. We're going to take one more, more quick, quick break and then I will be back with some reaction to the views coverage of Graham Platner. I think it's really telling about how the left is handling the Platner scandal. We'll be right back. 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Emily Jashinsky
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Emily Jashinsky
all right, well main Senate candidate, Democratic Senate candidate, borderline nominee basically his his top opponent, Janet Mills, the sitting governor supported by Chuck Schumer and other top national Democrats Democrats, was getting so destroyed by Platinum she actually dropped out of the race before primary day. Nonetheless, primary day is coming up. Platner is expected to easily be the nominee even though Mills is still on the ballot. Well, the in addition to the Reddit post, the Nazi tattoo and all this, all these storms that Platner has pretty easily weathered so far. Platner now apparently was sexton with it's believed to be half a dozen women. He's denying some aspects of the story that made its way into the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal over the weekend. They've cited several sources. It looks like his former campaign manager was told this confidentially by Platner's wife. They've been married since 2023, so this is pretty recent and she told in the the stage of the campaign, the former campaign manager, that this had happened and it was when they were kind of trying to assess Platner's vulnerabilities. Very normal thing that happens here in Washington. You hire a consulting firm to do what's called a vulnerability study. So that's supposed to predict, anticipate what Republican opposition researchers might find about your candidate. And in the course of that process, Platner's wife confided in this person, Genevieve McDonald, who then appears to have gone to the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. There are other sources in these article. Platner's denying some of it. His wife came out over the weekend and said that they were having, they've had problems in their marriage, they're in therapy, marriage is hard. Again, this is early in their marriage, but they're still generally early in their marriage because they were married in 2023. So I don't think they've actually even been married three full years. And Platners discussed his prior Reddit posts, which just run the game and all kinds of Reddit posts. But that I think I, everyone sort of understood wouldn't bother most main voters. He's a four time combat veteran from Iraq and Afghanistan. He said that he has ptsd, that he was struggling a lot when he came back from Afghanistan. I think his last tour was 2012 and was dealing with that as some of these weird Reddit posts were made. But he said he started getting treatment at the VA in 2017 and that really changed his life. Again, the sex scene stuff is 2023, so there's an element of, I guess questions linger about Platner's mental health. I don't think most voters are really going to care that much. But let's take a listen to how the View reacted to the latest round of scandal in Maine. Here it is.
- [75:09]
Spencer Pratt
These are character flaws that I'm tired of hearing about.
- [75:12]
Emily Jashinsky
Yeah, yeah, me too. I just, I'm tired of it.
- [75:14]
Michael Knowles
I'm just like, just keep it in your pants.
- [75:17]
Emily Jashinsky
Just stop, stop, stop being stupid. So he's a cheater. He's an anti Semite because the fact that he had that tattoo for 20 years and didn't know what it was is a lie. So he's a liar, a racist, an anti Semite homophobe. He's a homophobe. So he's all the things and character does matter. The quality of candidates we've chosen to
- [75:40]
Mint Mobile Advertiser
put an officer to run diminish over the last decade. I'LL tell you it's not worth it.
- [75:44]
Emily Jashinsky
It's not worth compromising your morals and values and integrity.
- [75:47]
Mint Mobile Advertiser
To be honest, his sexting is the least of my concerns with this guy.
- [75:52]
Emily Jashinsky
So obviously Alyssa came from the Trump administration and that's what she is saying there. It's not worth compromising for people whose values are bad. But the American people have moved so far beyond the question of personal character, partially for somebody that Alyssa worked to for. And she's copying to it right there. When Donald Trump came along, a lot of the public just said, we have seen the John Edwards character a million different times. Do you remember this happened from a lot of feminists in the late 1990s with the Clinton scandals, like Gloria Steinem telling people, just get over, we don't care about his personal life. It's always convenient to say it when it's your side. Republicans are going to do this with ken Paxton until November 2nd. So it's been a little bit amusing to see some people then go puddle to the metal on Platner. Though, of course, I think it all adds up to the picture of somebody who is, who is troubled. I think if you're like me, you'd probably give somebody who did four combat tours enormous amount of grace for PTSD and for their mental struggles and for what it's like to come back. I mean, having somebody who understands that in the the Senate what it's like to serve your country overseas and to carry the mental scars in addition to the physical scars is important. So is your ability to handle a high stress, high stakes job. Hello, John Federman. So that's all on the table right now, but most people are beyond the character question. And what was amusing to me about the clip from the View is that they're saying, oh, he's racist, he's homophobic, and he's anti Semitic. All going back to the Reddit posts and the fact that when he was drunk on Marine leave in Croatia, he got the Totenkopf tattoo. Did he probably know at some point that it was affiliated with the Nazis? Yeah. He was also on Reddit, apparently on the P Hustle account, saying that it had been kind of reappropriated by some US Service members. If memory serves, that's what he was. The argument was that he was making at the time. So did he. Is he probably not being totally truthful that he had no idea what was. Yes. Is he probably dodging now about the depths of the sexting scandal? Yes. And this is where the Platner campaign can run into trouble. It's the same trouble that we identified in the Tal Rico campaign last week, where if you are saying straight, the camera, of course, I believe there are only two sexes, as James Talco has done, and you are on camera saying there are at least six biological sexes not all that long ago. This populace, this nonsense that Tal Rico is trying to run on. And I say nonsense because I don't think he believes what he's saying. That is not going to come across as believable. People aren't going to believe that. You believe what you say you believe. They don't buy it. You have to at least if you're going to run one of these campaigns on being authentic. In Talo's case, the anti Paxton, in Platner's case, the anti career politician. The last thing you can afford to look like, like, you can afford to look like somebody who had politically incorrect opinions on sexual assault, as Platner's Reddit history suggests he did. You can afford to look like somebody who made a mistake when you were on Marine leave in Croatia and you were hammered at a tattoo parlor late at night. You can afford to look like all of that. You cannot afford to look like a liar. Still somewhat amusing to see what the real problem for the View is. Platner, they still can't get over it's not even the sex scene, right? They still can't get over the sort of like, I hate using this word but woke cultural problems with Platner. And it's exactly why Democrats freaked out and populist leftists freaked out when the Bernie Sanders Joe Rogan interview was happening. Happening. You can't go on Bernie. You can't go on Joe Rogan's show. He's a racist, sexist, homophobic XYZ. And then by 2024, you had so many people on the left saying we made a mistake of not talking to Joe Rogan. Where is the progressive Joe Rogan? First of all, it was Joe Rogan, like obviously to some extent still is Joe Rogan, even though they've basically tried to purge him from any official apparatus. But secondly, if you want to have masculine Democrats or, or Democrats that are like coded as guys, normal guys, you're gonna have to have a little bit more tolerance for prior politically incorrect histories on Reddit and maybe some sexting as well. And they're just not. You can't do it because there are people like this in the Democratic Party who can't stump stomach the actual like toxic masculinity aspects of Graham Platner's. A prior personality, even though he says he's been working on it, he's been to therapy. They won't buy it with Platner because these are their most preciously held beliefs. So how dare you transgress what we say? The acceptable range of opinion is on these cultural questions, and that's somewhat amusing. I think. This is one of the most interesting races in the country, just like I thought with Talarico and Crockett. Texas race is going to be interesting too. But this main one I think is going to be fascinating. It's been fascinating since the very beginning, so we will of course keep following it here. Thanks so much for tuning in everyone. As a reminder, emily caremedia.com is where you can email me. We do an episode of the show every Friday that's audio only, where I answer your questions and you just send them over there and I read them on the end. Emily caremedia.com Please subscribe if you haven't yet. It helps us so much and we'll be back on Wednesday with some great guests. Senator Rand Paul is getting to come on, so we will see you all then.
- [81:46]
Pharmaceutical Advertiser
For adults with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis symptoms, every choice matters. Tremphya offers self injection or intravenous infusion from the start. Tremphya is administered as injections under the skin or infusions through a vein every four weeks, followed by injections under the skin every four or eight weeks. If your doctor decides that you can self inject Tremphya, proper training is required. Tremphya is a prescription medicine used to treat adults with moderately to severely active Crohn's disease and adults with moderately to severely active ulcerative colitis. Serious allergic horizontal reactions, increased risk of infections or lower ability to fight them and liver problems may occur before treatment. Get checked for infections and tuberculosis. Tell your doctor if you have an infection, flu like symptoms or need a vaccine. Explore what's possible. Ask your doctor about tremphya today. Call 1-800-526-7736 to learn more or visit
- [82:43]
Michael Knowles
tremphyaradio.com it's the Smuckers Uncrustables Radio Hour with round soft pillowy bread filled with delicious PB and J. Here's your host Uncrustable.
- [82:53]
Emily Jashinsky
Call her on line three.
- [82:54]
Michael Knowles
What's eating you? No one crust Is that you? Uncrustables are the best part of the sandwich. Sorry, crust.