← After Party with Emily Jashinsky
After Party with Emily Jashinsky
“Happy Hour”: The Weird Welch Moment, Trump's Insults, and That Catchy “After Party” Music: Emily Answers YOUR Questions
00:43:30
On this week’s edition of “Happy Hour,” Emily Jashinsky answers listener questions about covering the Trump administration, how she plans her questions, the Trump tariffs, if she would consider a Trump insult a journalistic accomplishment, and thoughts on Rep Elise Stefanik’s race for NY Governor. Emily also offers thoughts on Jennifer Welch and her role on the left, and why she’s both fascinated and repulsed by the Olivia Nuzzi story. Emily dives into questions involving recent “After Party” topics including the Minnesota fraud story, assimilation, what she’s learned from guests like Rachel Bovard, Inez Stepman, Sean Davis, and Megyn Kelly. Emily also answers some fun questions about the story behind “After Party’s” theme music, her favorite Arrested Development moment, her top scary movie, why history is both important and complicated, and she responds to an amazing email from a young mom and former leftie.
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Well, hello after party listeners. We are back with another edition of Happy Hour. It's been a couple of weeks since I recorded a new Happy Hour. I pre recorded last week's Happy Hour the week before so the team could have a little bit of chill time during the Thanksgiving holiday. Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving. I have so many questions from you guys that piled up so I'm really excited to get into them. Thank you so much for subscribing. If you haven't yet subscribed to the podcast feed, it helps us so much when you subscribe, when you review same thing on YouTube. We appreciate it. So many of you are so supportive. Thank you. Thank you for listening. As you know, I record these questions live, so I'm seeing the questions for the first time. I started to do a little bit of an interesting approach to this where as everyone emails me, I just flag the email, see whether it's an immediate question or a happy hour question. And then I just kind of put it in a separate folder in my inbox. You don't really need to know that, but I'm usually recording these on Thursdays and I like to look at the emails fresh. I think it's more entertaining for everyone. So that's how I am organizing it. Let's start with some questions from Instagram. Of course. By the way, the email is emilyevelmaycare media.com but let's go to Instagram. That's at Afterparty, Emily, this one says, this is from Nick. It says, now that you've been able to ask Trump a question face to face a couple of times, I think, are you looking forward to when he resorts to insulting and bullying you instead of answering the question? And would you see that as a great journalism achievement? You know, probably I would see that as a great journalism achievement if the question was a good one. You know, sometimes in those press conferences or in these, they're not really press conferences, but sometimes in those like media availabilities or sprays, as they're called in the business, you know, Donald Trump is going from one place to another. He's heading from the Oval Office to Marine One, something like that.
- [03:13]
People are bouncing questions off the President because he takes so many. And he's in conversation with the reporters himself. Unlike a lot of principals, they're just kind of, they do the generic answer that doesn't really say anything and they move on to another question. He's going back and forth with the reporters. So sometimes you might end up saying something in the heat of the moment.
- [03:37]
That is not a great journalistic achievement. That's certainly a fear that I have. But usually you go into these things with 20 questions, because if you don't, if they don't go to you first, then you're probably already going to lose an opportunity to ask what you wanted to ask. A lot of the questions are the same. I always think of my role as asking question that other people are not going to ask. And that's different from how a reporter at NBC or Fox or wherever sees their role. They're asking all of the important questions, in theory, all of the important questions. But there are important questions that nobody in the White House press corps is going to ask. So I always see that as being my job, which is extra tough because it rules out a bunch of obvious like who, what, when, where questions. But that's what I try to do. So I usually try to come in with a bunch of questions already. And it's an additional skill to be able to adapt your questions in response to what's already happened during the press conference or whatever it is. I don't particularly want to be insulted by the president.
- [04:49]
You know, I don't have, I don't, I don't look forward to that happening. I hope that doesn't happen. But, you know, if a politician, whether they're Republican or Democrat, gets really irritated at a journalist, usually it means the journalist is being an idiot or the journalist is doing a really good job. So I would hope that if the president did get mad at me, it was because I was doing a good job. It's a good question, Nick. This is from Rachel, who says, is Jennifer Welch flying too close to the sun? Will Dems turn on her? I love this question, Rachel. I hadn't thought about it in that way yet, but I think you might be right. Because the way I see Jennifer Welch is filling this vacuum on the left of confrontational commentary. And by that I mean people on the left have not learned that for the American public, they're actually able in the Trump era to kind of dispense with the BS norms of civility that are right now out the window. Right. Whatever you think of it, they're out the window. Donald Trump comes in in 2015, 2016, says things like he likes his war heroes that hadn't gotten captured. I think that was the John McCain quote that I'm paraphrasing.
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Swears. What did he say? Don't fuck with us. Isn't that what he said about cartels? And it took Democrats a long time to realize, and Tim Walls is still realizing this, like going on Meet the Press and whining that Donald Trump called him retarded, which, whatever you think of that word, people don't want to hear Tim Walls talking about that. They want substance. They want to hear what Tim Walls has to say to the question. And so I think what Jennifer Welch understands is there's this huge market, especially in the kind of progressive left for people, Hasan Piker, too, who just throw all of those norms out the window and try to go kind of, you know, into the boxing ring with Donald Trump and not stay on the sidelines, you know, just saying we shouldn't be boxing at all, basically. And she's. Because she's one of the few.
- [07:08]
That has really gone there.
- [07:13]
People don't have a lot of options. And she's just not the best person to be doing that because she's also just.
- [07:22]
You know, she's this like, rich white woman from Oklahoma who detests, clearly has nothing but contempt for.
- [07:33]
You know, the white working class, Christian, white working class around her. Her anti Christian takes are just dripping with venom.
- [07:43]
And that is, again, if Dems are looking to recover. And not even just Dems, but if the left is willing to do this sort of progressive populism. Bernie Sanders does not talk that way. Does not talk that way. Guess who else has learned not to talk that way? Alexandria Ocasio Cortez. So I expect Welch to peak and then Maintain probably a small but loyal audience, but not become the real cause celeb or stay as the real cause celeb or the. I feel like she's just one of the only people that's doing it in a new media format right now where they do that show so often. There's so many clips. They get really big guests and they grill Dems and this is a Dem Tea Party, right? They're just grilling Cory Booker and whomever else. And that's what people want to see. And because too few others are doing that, Jennifer Welch steps into the void and is successful. So I think Rachel is right. I think Jennifer Welch is flying too close to the sun. I hadn't thought of it that way before, but that is my theory. All right, EV from work, Best Arrested Development moment. Job's chicken dance is up there for me. Ooh. I mean, obviously, obviously. I love when Tobias blew himself.
- [09:11]
Hard to beat that one. I'm trying to think. I did watch. I'm probably one of the few people that watched the new Arrested Developments and I love remakes, actually. I've even watched God Forbid. I've actually watched the Frasier remake.
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I watch them all, but that one was.
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Really, for me, kind of tainted. The original Arrested Developments didn't you know, they still stand up and they're still wonderful. Oh, how about Iraq? The Iraq. That's a great Arrested Development moment. There's so, so many of them. Kane the main says favorite scary movie.
- [09:55]
I will say I don't really ever get scared in movies.
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I'm not someone that'll really jump.
- [10:05]
In scary movies. I think the scariest movie scene of all time. Of all time is at the end of Silence of the Lambs. And I won't spoil that for you. I know it's a 30 plus year old movie, so I probably couldn't spoil it if I tried. But the end of that movie, looking through the night vision goggles, I think that is the scariest scene in cinematic history. If I had to say my favorite. I'm not like a horror buff, but my favorite scary movie, like something that's in the genre. I would probably say Rear Window. That's one of my favorite movies. Really, really love Rear Window.
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Yeah, that's just an incredible movie. And it's not a slasher film, obviously, but.
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It has moments of suspense that are so emotive. Just one of the most beautiful movies ever. This is a great one from Constitutional Libertarian that we get a lot of questions about. Actually, it says your intro outro music is This a song that you've liked that you chose? Or was this a song that was made just for your show? I kind of dig it. It's a bop and. Okay, so great question. It was made just for our show, actually. It really was made just for our show. There are people who make songs just for podcasts, and I assume they do other things, but this was our show. We were going for a kind of 90s grunge. We didn't really know what we were going for at first, but, you know, I'm into the 90s.
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My Spotify Wrapped told me my music age was 47 because I listened to music from the early 90s. I think it's just because I had my. I have two playlists. I have sex segregated 90s playlists. One is best of 90s men and one is best of 90s women. I feel like that's actually a great way to.
- [11:55]
Do playlists for music from the 90s, but maybe it was. I had those playlists. I was racking those playlists a lot this year. But yeah, that's a custom song. And I'm always just like. Even when the vibe is we've got big news coming into after party, like something really serious, I'm always before we go to air, as the music is playing, I'm always bopping with it. So I think you're right. It's. It's quite literally a bop. Great, great questions here. Let's go to the emails. Marianne says today's pod confidence beater is 02 butthole picks. As I was driving, I seriously spit up my Diet Coke. I'm simultaneously fascinated and repulsed by the story. And this comment was top notch. Love the show. Thank you so much for the email. That is, of course, in reference to the moment when Bridget Fedesy brought up what I do think is a fake story about Olivia Nessie. I don't think she actually did that to Bobby Kennedy, but yeah, I agree. I'm simultaneously fascinated and repulsed by this story. I think it's, you know, in media circles, hard to know when a story is just popping with other people who work in the media and when it's genuinely interesting to the public. And this is such a crazy story, I have to imagine that it's hitting with the public. You know, nothing is ever going to be as interesting. No story about journalism is actually going to be as interesting to people who aren't journalists as it is to journalists. But, man, the story. Wow, wow, wow, wow. It really is something. It really is something. All right, so Marlo responds to the Shaun Davis episode from Monday and says, on the fraud in Minneapolis, I've been pondering the specifics on the autism funding. Do you think it's possible that the fraud is so widespread, long running, that the national autism numbers could have been skewed? Super interesting question, because I wonder if. And the Somali community in Minnesota, by the way, it's really, it's big.
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Based on, you know, being in one city, in one state. Not just in one city, but roughly in one metro area in one state. It's about 60,000, something like that. So very, very significant. But, you know, it's like 10 times the town I grew up in. But.
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As significant as that is, I don't know nationally if the numbers, if they were reported in national data, I don't know if they would even be enough to skew it. It's a good question. The other thing I would say is I don't know that they were even. I mean, this might be part of how they caught onto the fraud is were these children even getting treated for autism? I think not in ways that would be reported as cases of autism and put into national data banks. I don't know the answer to that question. I think it's a good question, though. All right.
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Hank says, don't you love President Trump's press conferences? He essentially causes every principle in his administration and one by one, they essentially bow down to him. I can't imagine any other president pulling this off as a normal feature. Yeah, Hank, this has got to be in response to that two plus hour cabinet meeting earlier this week. That was something. And you know, they always go the same way. But I think when Trump does these in front of cameras, it gives you a good sense of how his own cabinet reads him, meaning they know he wants to hear that they're happy to work for him. And that was the same in Trump 1. But, you know, it's, it's something to watch. If you were Donald Trump, of course, you would obviously want to know people are happy to work for you because you've had a lot of people who weren't happy to work for you, even your chief of staff thinking of like John Kelly. And so you want to. I'm sure he wants to see that loyalty.
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But it's still so over the top. So over the top. This is a critical question. This is from Daniel. It's not really a question, actually. It's kind of a criticism. I was listening to your interview discussion with Shaun Davis about the assimilation issues that have been discussed from the Somali immigrants within Minnesota. And I agree that if people decide to come to America, they should be agreeing to the base values of America. It is the same expectation any country should have for those coming there to live. I did struggle to listen to the vitriol that Sean seems to have for people who do not assimilate. I know you and Sean are both Christians, and I was wondering how we as conservative leaning Christians can show up in the political discussion with more grace and appreciation of the human value and dignity that all humans have as creations of God. The lack of talking with dignity to those we disagree with has made me very concerned about a lot of Christian conservatives. Thank you so much for the note, Daniel. I appreciate it. And I like when people disagree. Sean and I definitely have disagreed in the past about just like. And I think more people are on Sean's side than I am usually. I'm usually like minority in this. You know, Sean is fiery, spicy, and I'm just. It's not my style. So we're obviously different on that front. But I don't think Sean did anything that would call into question the dignity of people we disagree with at all. Now, if you disagree with that, totally fine. I don't see, I mean, in the question, there aren't examples of something that Sean may have said. He did say send them all back. But again, I don't think that questions the dignity of an immigrant group. And I said multiple times in that conversation, this has nothing to do with skin color. I think actually it's important during these conversations because what you hear most often from political elites, the center, the left and the center right, you hear constantly about the plight of the refugees and the migrants. And what you don't hear about is the dignity of the American worker who is toiling away at the mall of America, picking up shifts, getting their ass kicked by an annoying boss, and then finds out there was a billion dollars allegedly in fraud from a migrant community that is not assimilating and that they were weaponizing by the claims of people in the Somali community. They were weaponizing charges of racism and xenophobia and Islamophobia to shield themselves from accountability as they stole money from hardworking black, brown, white Minnesotans and the governor and politicians were too cowardly to put a stop to it. Again, the feds prosecuted these cases. There doesn't seem to be any strong evidence of Tim Walls taking matters into his own hands. This has been building for years.
- [18:38]
So again, if Sean said something that called into dignity Somalis, I'm happy to hear it genuinely you know, he's definitely spicy. I think, though, that Christians feel taken advantage of, feel their kindness and welcoming, has been taken advantage of and has been exploited by, you know, even, like Sean mentioned, the Elko Lutherans, Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, Very, very progressive branch of Lutheranism, very different from lcms or Wells and the like, but that it's been exploited by people who too often forget and actually subordinate the dignity of the American who deserves to be treated with respect by their own country that they pay for with their labor.
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We too often subordinate that person's dignity and respect for that person to others around the world who may be living in dangerous conditions. I mean, I looked up UNICEF's calculation on FGM. So female genital mutilation in Somalia. 99%. 99% Rate of people who have undergone. Women who have undergone some type of FGM in Somalia, according to unicef. People have good reasons to want to get the heck out of Somalia, to want to get the heck out of Venezuela, to want to get the heck out of Cuba or Honduras, wherever it is. But we can't subordinate their needs. Have to be aligned with the dignity of the American and the American's ability to be safe and prosperous and all of that. So I don't think people are wrong to be really, really angry at the system and people who are taking advantage of it, others who are taking advantage of it, especially those. You know, a lot of these Somalis actually are Americans. Trump revoking TPS from Temporary Protected Status from Somali. It's only like 700 people. A lot of this is. A lot of these people actually have been here for a very long time, which, you know, people in Minnesota have been the few conservatives out there. Actually, it's more than a few. There are a lot of conservatives in Minnesota. It's just a blue state, so they don't have as many good options. But they've been screaming into the void about this forever, and nobody has paid attention to them. And I think people are right to be angry about that, and I think people are right to have this kind of righteous indignation about what's happened to their community.
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So I do think there's room for frustration in this case. I don't think Sean questioned anybody's dignity, but, Daniel, I definitely appreciate the question and am happy to debate that. So thanks for. Thanks for writing in. All right, let's see, what have we got here?
- [21:48]
Oh, this is a nice message from Burn, he says. Goes on here a bit.
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Really nice words.
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And Burn says, why am I writing for a Very simple reason. I wanted to thank you personally for your well measured and intentioned spirit. Megan. This says Megan sometimes crosses the boundary in a propagandist, and I understand why. But you stay firmly behind the walls of civil discourse. Remind yourself of the humanity of the other, obviously. Thank you for the message, Byrd. I don't agree that Meghan crosses the badgery to propagandist. I think Megan is someone who.
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Very much, very much wants the Republican Party to succeed because like most conservatives.
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Who have reasonably made this decision, and I probably shouldn't speak on Megan's behalf, but I just think this is how a lot of conservatives see the Republican Party as the vehicle, the vehicle that will. This is the only possibility that people have to fix the United States of America. And so I don't think there's anything that's propagandistic about wanting Republicans to succeed or Donald Trump to succeed. I'm honestly probably just more.
- [23:11]
Temperamentally pessimistic. I don't know if that's the right word. Yeah, I'm like, I'm, I'm so jaded and pessimistic. But I'm. I'm also like, married with kids. And I think that for a lot of people, it's just, you gotta have the success of the one party that says men and women are different. Right. Like, that's entirely, entirely reasonable from my perspective for the one, the one presidential candidate who can say that. I mean, my goodness. So that's. I think that's probably a difference. Just because again, I watched so many Republicans for so longfoot around on that issue and I'm just jaded. So that's probably why it seems like a difference. But I don't think that's propagandistic. All right, let's see, let's see, let's see.
- [24:05]
All right. Some nice messages here.
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Ken says happy Thanksgiving. Loved the show last night. Thanksgiving, you ladies, this is my group chat. Inez and Rachel, give me hope for the future of America. There's so much change in America right now. I love discussing politics and faith with people I know, but so many are afraid of it. I always enjoy debate when people show grace and try to learn from for each other. Thank you, Ken. And you know, Rachel in particular is like Megan on a lot of those questions. And so is Sean, as I was just talking about. Like, I think they're much more focused than I am, and they have more reasons to be jaded and pessimistic than I do, to be honest. And so this is probably exposing a character flaw on my part. But, you know, I think that's one of the things that I learned most from Rachel and Inez is just that moral clarity. I think that pushes, pushes me to be better about hedging or still kind of pushing for the gray area. And I spend a lot of time with people on the left. I do a show with people on the left. So for me, I'm always being exposed to the other side. And there are a lot of people that I love on the other side. And so I'm just more inclined constantly to be questioning myself and what I think. And I just appreciate, you know, from Sean, Rachel, Megan, Annette is surrounding myself with people who are just able to come from the top rope.
- [25:40]
And, you know, still be just so I think interesting as just have such interesting perspectives and insights. So they're, they're all so appreciated for that. Marlo again says, I totally agree with Rachel Bovard on the wines and sends a picture here of a good looking wine. I'm not gonna lie. I'm not gonna lie. All right.
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Let'S see, what do we have here?
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Oh, another, another nice message here from Chris. I think your question to Trump at the press conference was great. This was about Zoan, whether he was a jihadist. And I agree with your views on that issue. I also agreed with your critique, the New York Times article about the identity theft story. Oh my gosh, you remember that article about how there were two victims, both paid the price for that migrant who's been here since like 2005 and 2006.
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With all of these, the string of DUIs, the New York Times put it. Oh my gosh, that story was so ridiculous, it makes me mad just to think about. Thank you for the note, Chris. And this is a message from Mana who says just listen to today's episode with the great Scott Jennings. Such a good conversation. Also strongly agree with you about careless smears like Mamdani as a jihadist and how that doesn't benefit or befit the right at all. Stefanic Wal Bulldog dog bites a bit too hard for me lately. Lastly, the ad reads, following lots of chips with McDonald's made me spit out my tea. Hilarious. I do love McDonald's, probably not as much as some people. I have a friend who eats at McDonald's literally every day. I think for years he's done that. It's really, I mean, it's pretty crazy, but yeah, Stefanik, I've heard, you know, on the Megyn Kelly wrap up show this week, we had a New Yorker call in and say they were pretty unhappy with the Stefanik campaign. And that's something I've heard building. Now, Stefanik did a go after House Speaker Mike Johnson this week, and Nancy Mace and Marjorie Taylor Greene piled on. Then Mary Miller came out in support of Mike Johnson. And I was at a lunch actually earlier today where I was like, is Mike Johnson losing control? And somebody was like, compared to what? That's such a good point because no Republican speaker, arguably as bad as it is, has had this level of control over the Republican conference on Capitol Hill, even if the level of control is not great. But people are obviously very frustrated with Mike Johnson. Now, whether that's valid or not. Remember, the man has a really, really closely divided conference, so he can barely ever afford to lose votes, you know, a handful of votes. And, you know, he's in a tight spot. But people, the frustration, I will say, on Capitol Hill seems very, very much to be growing. Stefanik, I don't know where it's coming from. I think she has some real sour grapes with Trump world over. What happened with Nation's ambassadorship. It was supposed to be her. Then Waltz got. Waltz got fired after Signal Gate, and they slotted him into that position. I shouldn't say he got fired. He got reassigned. But, I mean, we all knew the implication of that. So I'm curious to see where Stefanik's gubernatorial campaign ends up. I don't think she's gonna win. I don't know. Crazier things have happened. Things change over the course of the next year. We'll see. But I am curious to see how it goes for her because she was somebody that had massive national ambitions, and if she flames out in this race, she would, at minimum, probably need a recovery period. All right.
- [29:29]
Ryan asked, did I see the movie A Cherry Pie Christmas? I don't think so. And asked, if so, did you feel that Hollywood portrayed small town Wisconsin life in a positive way? I'm Googling this right now to see if I've watched it yet. No, no, I haven't watched this. Oh, is this a. Oh, it's about Door County. Oh, there we go with the cherries. I see. I see. Yes. I have not seen this movie. This looks like a Hallmark movie. It's on Great American Family. This is hilarious. The plot is in a Wisconsin Christmas pie. Oh, no, this is a different movie. Oh, my gosh. Wow. There's so many movies about cherries and Door county and Christmas.
- [30:12]
But Door county, if you've never been to Door county, especially if you're in the Midwest. I mean, I know people who have gone to Door county from, like, the east coast and been like, wow, that place is amazing. It really is. It really is. And I bet the Cherry pie is excellent. Indoor county. I haven't been there in a long, long time.
- [30:32]
Let's see, what else do we have here?
- [30:40]
All right.
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This is from Tony, who says.
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This was before Thanksgiving. Tony says, it's clear that so many ideals that most Americans grew up with are being questioned. And I think the Thanksgiving narrative fits within that conversation. And Tony says, as a Native American myself, it was a story I took for granted. It was only when I was an adult that I learned that much of the story was a myth and that the story of the first Thanksgiving is far more complicated. You know, it is crazy how we smooth out.
- [31:15]
History in ways that make it less interesting. You know, it just. It's obviously for the sake of an agenda, but it also just becomes less interesting. And when you hear the real history, it's so much more interesting and more compelling. So I hope we get better about that in the future. I mean, now as we're in this age of primary source documents and low institutional trust, there's so much room for diving back into history. And history podcasts right now, by the way, are just booming.
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All over YouTube in the podcast feeds. You know, I'm a restless history subscriber with Tom Holland and Dominic Sambrook. Don't always agree with them, but the way they dive back into history, Dan Snow, I mean, these guys are so fascinating. I also think that's why.
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Daryl Cooper is popular. It's just there aren't a lot of people who get into the complications of history. Whatever you think of Daryl Cooper, he has that combination of storytelling skill and.
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The. An interest in. An interest in nuance. And again, like, I'm not saying you have to agree with Daryl Cooper. I definitely don't always agree with Daryl Cooper, but I'm thinking, I'm just saying I think people are really interested in that kind of history right now, which explains the success of Martyr Maid. Because people want to know more about what happened with, for example, Jonestown. Jonestown is a really good example. It's a low institutional trust environment. So if you can go back and go through primary source documents, read writings of people who were involved, and be a really good storyteller, that stuff can pop. This is a super interesting email here from Emily. Great name. Who says, I first saw on the Hill, I believe back when I was on. Was way on the left. Typical lefty feminist, millennial. Honestly, you're a gateway drug of the right Free. Oh, that's awesome. Back when I was just dating my conservative husband, I loved your podcast on the Federal so much. And I love this new show. You introduced me to so many smart voices I would never have exposed to otherwise. During the last few years when I have shifted to the right, I especially loved when he had Chris Bedford on because I'm also a New Englander and I think he's hilarious. I'm just gonna pause there and say, yes, Bedford is peak New England behavior. Total. No offense. He just embodies the stereotype. And definitely goes on to say, I always enjoy the Inez and Rachel episodes, which at this point I've been listening to for years. Bedford, by the way, is scheduled to come back on soon. And of course Inez and Rachel are as well. Emily says I have few girlfriends irl who I can talk about this stuff. So many are total TDS victims. Yes. In the last few years, I have converted to Catholicism. Amazing. Gotten married, had a baby, and abandoned the toxic backward leftism and modern feminism that was telling me to work against my own reality. This is an amazing email, Emmy. And realized it's really all about following Jesus Christ. Oh my gosh. Cultivating your own virtue and the fight between good and evil. It's so hard to see people in my circles who absolutely celebrate Charlie Kirk's murder and seem to write off anyone to the left of them as stupid, insane, malicious and evil. We are late blooming millennials who are moving our little family to the Midwest. Oh, that's great. So that we can get a jump on the American dream and hopefully not be in the coastal bubble any longer. I appreciate your choice of topics so much. From talking about Catholic and Christian conversion trends, the serious nature of witchcraft politics, of course, in the small town piece recently. Just want you to know you've had a positive influence on my faith journey, pro life stancer, rightward journey. You're doing important work. God bless you, Emily. Rooting for you and praying for you. Emmy. Emmy, if I played any tiny part in the upward trajectory, the positive trajectory that you feel like your life is on right now, I am beyond honored. So thank you for listening, thank you for getting in touch, and thank you for the kind words. I hope your story, whether or not anyone has ever listened to me, I hope your story is being replicated multiplied around the country right now. I mean, we were just talking about how we're in a low institutional trust environment and folks are starting to kind of Dig into what they were told, expectations versus reality, what they were told to expect from culture, from Hollywood, from media, and what they've come to see as reality, which is that, you know, women, especially as you enter your 20s and 30s, men too, have biological.
- [35:55]
Impulses and desires that really bloom in ways that you're. You're taught to either suppress or not expect. And you know that the human.
- [36:07]
The human longing for God and for Christ is written into us and that there's so much fulfillment to be found. If you question what the institutions have been telling us, you know, over the last 20, 30 years, in particular about faith and about family, you can really flip the script and find so much happiness and fulfillment. So I hope this story is being replicated. And I'm just so grateful.
- [36:35]
So, so grateful that you sent this email and that you're on this amazing journey. This sounds great. This sounds great.
- [36:47]
All right, here's a question from Dominic, who says it's been a daily Breaking points listener since 2020. Really appreciate your work and love that you've been able to spread your views on Megan's platform. Couple things, he says, I would like Breaking Points to see Breaking Points do documentary style. Deep dives into each anchor's background political journey.
- [37:08]
How you developed your views on economics, immigration, culture, housing and more, I think would be fascinating and add even more depth to the show. Maybe it's something worth considering or mentioning to Crystal and Sagar. Funny you mentioned that tonic. I think we're pre taping holiday content and this may or may not come to fruition, but Crystal and Sagar had really cool different ideas. But each host, I think, has been tasked with pre taping some holiday content. And Crystal and Sagar have really exciting things. But what may or may not come to fruition is Ryan had the idea that the two of us kind of turn the microphone on the other and ask questions and sort of go into.
- [37:46]
You know, what Ryan Fraisa does, what went wrong?
- [37:51]
Because obviously he'd be coming from his perspective and I'd be coming from my perspective. But I hope we do that because I think it would be really fun. And Ryan is as literally the Dos Equis man, the most interesting man in the entire world. We learn more Ryan lore literally every week. We'll be like, oh, you were a fishing guide. Which actually, that story is true. So I hope that we do get to do that because I have so many questions for Ryan. Crystal and Sagar are also super, super interesting, and I think they should do that at some point, too. Or Ryan And I should interview them. I love, love that idea. All right, last question here from Dominic, who says we both felt major effects from Trump's recent policies. Tariffs have driven up import costs. Talking about his and his wife's background here. And the immigration crackdown has created serious disruptions in my image industry. Dominic says we both voted for Trump in 2020 and 2024 and support these policies in principle. But the rollout has felt chaotic and has hit our livelihoods hard. What could have been done to soften the impact on industries like, like ours? These are home goods stores that import products and CDL drivers. And why wasn't there more planning around phasing these programs in and out more gradually? This is a great question because I actually think Chris Jacobs wrote this in the Federalist, and I forget where I mentioned it this week, but he wrote one way to kind of ease the pressures of inflation on American families would be to ease up on tariffs that are affecting foodstuffs that really can't be grown at scale in the United States. So, for example, bananas and coffee. Two pretty good examples, straightforward examples. And it's probably true that bananas and coffee never needed to be caught up in the tariff war, but they were. Because what Trump was trying to do was gain leverage by being the madman. Right? Like, you don't know what I'm going to do because I'm tariffing your freaking coffee like your Folgers tariffed, your bananas tariffed. And that's how I think we ended up with what did feel chaotic and has been very much patchwork, because Trump wanted to set his point at a really, in these negotiations, he wanted to set his bar really high and be very, very clear that he was. I don't want to use a poker metaphor because I don't know how to play poker, but he was holding all the cards and he was not afraid to use them. And then as the deals got worked out, they would have to come down from a really high benchmark. So that was clearly his plan, but what it meant is that his administration had to go work out these patchwork deals, carve out these little patchwork deals all over the place, internationally over the course of time. And there was so much uncertainty. Still is so much uncertainty. And it sounds like, Dominic, you know that way better than I do. You and your wife know that way better than I do. We haven't dealt with a lot of tariffs in the media, but, yeah, that's. I think I actually, I, I'm still up in the air on this, to be honest. Which Makes me sound crazy and alone. But I think it's a really hard counterfactual to know what would have happened if the tariff rollout wasn't so insane, because I still think we don't know what's going to happen this time next year, this time by 20, let's say. When is his term over? 20, 28. I don't think we're going to know where the economy is and where manufacturing is and where certain companies and industries are, because that uncertainty is still lingering, because it's still coming from Trump. Trump is still projecting uncertainty, whether it be towards China or Japan. Like, we actually aren't sure. Or the UK eu. We aren't sure where these deals are going to go and how he's going to use these deals to change foreign policy geopolitics, and not just on economics. And so I think he still sees that uncertainty as his leverage. So the question in my mind is clear. It's difficult, but it's clear. The answer is murky, but the question is clear. Is the cost of the uncertainty going to be outweighed by the eventual benefit? And I just don't think we have an answer of what the benefit is going to be. I don't know that we have a clear answer of how bad the cost is going to be. It's not great in certain industries, and Republicans would be wrong to downplay that. But I also see so many stories going without mention at all. Like what? I mean, the Wall Street Journal profiled Sharpie's move to Tennessee. It's an amazing story about how Sharpie was like, we're just going to bet on manufacturing in the US because in the long run, we don't know where this is going. Are other countries, other industries in other countries going to start thinking of things the same way? We've seen some evidence, but it's a total patchwork. It's a total hodgepodge, and I just don't know how it's going to shake out. I am completely open, completely open to the theory that this would have made more sense to have been done. You could still have a lot of leverage and do it with more clarity. Completely open to that possibility. At the same time, I'm completely open to the possibility that he is going to totally restructure global trade because of the uncertainty. I just right now feel like we're in the middle of it. And I, as a layperson podcaster, don't purport to have the clearest kind of grasp of the economy as it stands right now. But I try to use heuristics to talk about these things and read all of what the experts are saying. This is bad. This is great. We don't know. And that's kind of my perspective. Having studied this and followed really closely. I do know some of the people that are working on this and.
- [43:32]
That'S where I come down. It's a really, really good question though. Okay, that does it for this edition of Happy Hour. I go on so long because you know that I love doing this. Probably too much, but thank you so much for the questions. I really appreciate them. I'm so grateful to all of you for listening home. Hope you're having a wonderful Christmas season. I'm so happy that the time has once again come. So we will be back with Happy Hour on Monday or I'm sorry, After Party. I said it was such confidence. We will be back with After Party on Monday and on Wednesday and then another edition of Happy Hour where you can send your questions to the party Emily Instagram handle or@emilyevilmaycaremedia.com via email. I will make sure to start flagging those in the inbox so I can build up the list as we head into next week. Hope you guys have a great weekend. See you soon.
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