← After Party with Emily Jashinsky
After Party with Emily Jashinsky
“Happy Hour”: WHCD Shooting Chaos, D.C. Party Secrets, and Reckless Rhetoric: Emily Answers YOUR Questions
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On this week’s edition of “Happy Hour,” Emily Jashinsky takes your questions about news of the day and “After Party.” Several questions center around the White House Correspondents Dinner shooting and the suspect’s background. Emily explains why she doesn’t go to the dinner, where she was when it happened, and what the D.C. party circuit is really like. Emily also addresses questions about recent guests including Dave Smith, her connection to Evita Duffy-Alfonso, Michael Alfonso’s congressional campaign, moderating the recent debate between Ryan Grim and Scott Jennings, why she hates the term ‘platform,’ and why she believes people have been conditioned to act like snowflakes. She also discusses the importance of language, thoughts on classical liberal tolerance, the new James Comey indictment, the Minnesota fraud ring, and offers final thoughts on Lena Dunham, “Girls” , her book “Famesick,” and more…
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Well, hello everyone. Welcome to another edition of Happy Hour, which is of course itself a special edition of After Party that we do every Friday here, just on the podcast feed only. So if you aren't a subscriber on the podcast feed, please, please do go ahead, subscribe. You get every episode here. If you'd rather listen to the podcast than watch clips or video on YouTube or X or Instagram or TikTok, then it's great to subscribe to the podcast feed. I'm a, I'm a big podcast listener, so this is where I go through all the great emails you send in to emilyvelmaker media.com live. I flag them in my inbox and then come back to them here so that it's kind of organic as I go through all of your, all of your emails and some of the comments that you sent in to Happy Hour Hour. All right, let's see. Oh, this is funny. So this is from last week still about Dave Smith. David writes in I think this came in just after I recorded last week's Happy hour. I always record on Thursday evenings, barring someone foreseen circumstance. And sometimes I get emails right after the buzzer. So David says after feeling like the last two Friday shows have mostly been people trashing, trashing Dave Smith, I figured there might as well be one submission that's sense and their support for him. You know, there maybe I spent more time on the emails that were trashing Dave because I was trying to kind of talk through my own thinking. But we got a lot of emails too, of people being like, love Dave, so much fun having him on and of course, I agree with that. So David says for some reason, attacks on Dave tend to be personal in nature or they are. They straw man him. And then the truth is there's no such thing as an interviewer, quote unquote, platforming someone like Dave because he already has a following because people like him, not because he goes on other shows. Sometimes people like him because his takes tend to be proven correct and he stays consistent in his arguments. His message about Midnight Hammer lied about the reasons for. Oh, wait, he says his message about Midnight Hammer. Oh, I'm sorry. He says anyone with eyes can see that the warmongers in D.C. have lied through their teeth about Midnight Hammer, lied about the reasons for us starting this war, and lied about the trajectory of the war thus far. The idea that you should only have people on your podcast that agree with your audience is insane. And everything wrong with the world right now. Keep bringing on interesting people your podcast because even though I don't agree with them and everything, at the end of the day I might learn something and says this is like woke cancel culture, snowflake type nonsense. I think all of us are conditioned to kind of act like snowflakes now and we have to constantly decondition ourselves to act like snowflakes. And I say that because I always talk about the social media based, the algorithmic social media based epistemology, like in contrast to what Neil Postman described as a television based epistemology, in contrast to the print based epistemology that he found superior. I think we have been sort of treated like lab rats to talk to each other on social media and react to Dave. And just basically when we're in virtual spaces, to behave in virtual spaces with these really perverse incentives towards the extreme. Right? So that's where platforming in theory, you know, I actually think that word has become so like, it makes my skin crawl when I hear the word platform. Because it has just been used and abused by, honestly, mostly people on the left over the last 10 years in relation to campus stuff. But then it's come up from people on the right in relation to podcast stuff, and it's just almost always illegitimate. But in theory, right, if you have your own platform. Now, my platform's not as big as Dave's, but if you have your own platform, you should want to use it in a way that is conducive to the true, the good and the beautiful, right? That's what your goal should be. So for me, that means I'll bring on people who I think talk in good Faith, like lots of folks don't like Jenk and Anna. But you know, most of the people that I bring on the show, I've, I've talked to like off camera and personally and I'm, you know, even if they turn people off when they're on screen, depending on who it is, I think they're coming to these conversations in good faith. That's usually like my kind of litmus test and you know, not, I won't be kind of proned to, won't be prone to ad hominem or disruptive conversations that are distractions and, and the like. I'm just not into that stuff. I think I've said this before, but I've been asked to do Piers Morgan a few times, like mostly on the big panels, I think maybe only on the big panels and debate style stuff. And part of me thinks it's at least good that we're yelling at each other now because for a long time, you know, everything was, was very, very siloed. Other than maybe Tucker's show on Fox News. There wasn't a ton of left, right crossover. You know, there were sort of centrist Dems like Jessica Tarlov, but there weren't, you know, you didn't have a lot of like real serious cross pollination happening on any of these cable networks. I used to watch tons of MSNBC and now I mostly watch cnn. I go through phases to just kind of gauge what's happening over long periods of time. And it was, it was like basically zero cross pollination. Like MSNBC would have, I don't know, like Bill Crystal on or something like that. And so I'm, I'm kind of in one sense like, okay, I'm glad that we can at least, you know, shout at each other and people are willing to do it and they're not turning up their noses and being like, I would never platform this person, therefore I'm not even going to yell at them on tv. But at the same time, it's just not for me. I just don't have that in me. Here is Katie, who says, I think you're getting ahead of your skis in your coverage of the SPLC indictment. An indictment is an accusation that has yet to be proven. You can indict a ham sandwich, as they say. And this is Trump's DOJ going after an organization he has beef with. I'm not saying there's no there there, but we're a long way from quote, hard evidence. The FBI pays informants and sometimes they help create terrorist Plots in order to foil them. So I have no trouble imagining a scenario where the SPLC was making themselves look like they have a reason to exist because they're greedy. Have you read the indictment? It doesn't claim a single act of violence or that the intelligence they gathered was false. It alleges they paid informants through protected channels and didn't disclose that in their fundraising. You list as a complaint that they are accused of, quote, infiltrating other hate groups and stealing their documents. Why is that not reasonable action for a paid informant? You might want to listen to Glenn Greenwald's take on this. He admits to hating the splc, but he cautions against celebrating this indictment. Well, Katie, first of all, I definitely. I like. As we were doing the segment last week, I had the indictment in my hand all marked up, and I said that absolutely. I read every word of it before we did that segment, as I always try to do so absolutely read every single word of that indictment. And again, was referring to my verbatim copy on my desk while I did that segment. And if you're a paid informant, quote, infiltrating other hate groups and stealing their documents, that's illegal. That is illegal. That is not a reasonable action for a paid informant unless it has been sanctioned by the government. Now, Katie is absolutely right that the FBI pays informants. This was a huge conservative complaint about the Gretchen Whitmer plot and about January 6th. Now, this is controversial when I say it. I was reporting live from the capitol grounds on January 6th, and I do not believe the FBI. I believe without FBI informants. Let me put it this way. I believe without FBI informants, January six would have proceeded as it did. Now, we know that there were FBI informants in different capacities on the ground on January six and having infiltrated the groups that were there leading up to January 6th. So I'm really not confident or comfortable just calling it a fed plot or a fed direction. Because I was there and I saw a lot of, you know, very normal people who were definitely not informants. I talked to them. I was in the middle of the throngs of people for a very long time. And it was not manufactured. It was organic. And I think we cheat ourselves to think anything else about that because we should understand that there is a very organic rage on the right about what happened during COVID with Pennsylvania voting, for example, in the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. People were really, really mad. And a lot of that was natural. Did not need to be stoked by the FBI. But I don't support The FBI infiltrating groups, period. There isn't an interesting possibility that the SPLC was potentially working on behalf of the FBI when it was orchestrating these paid informants conduct. We have no evidence of that right now at all. The only reason I say that is the FBI historically does infiltrate extremist groups or quote, unquote, extremist groups. Sometimes it's people who are doing the Latin mash at their parish. Sometimes the FBI decides it should. Should infiltrate Latin Mass parishes. That did happen during the Biden administration, but typically the FBI does that. And as the FBI's under Biden, and I think probably early in Trump won, maybe all of Trump won, as the FBI's definition of kind of white nationalism, white supremacy, started to more closely resemble the very partisan definitions of those ideologies that the SPLC was embracing. It doesn't seem impossible to me that the FBI would have kind of tacitly or covertly outsourced that to the splc. Now, I have zero evidence of that. It's just possible. Now, if that had happened, I imagine there would be evidence of it that Kash Patel, Todd Blanche were aware of before bringing this indictment. And I kind of think if that's true, it's unlikely the indictment would have been brought unless they're trying to burn the Biden DOJ and the Biden FBI. But Patel has been pretty intentional about saying they were going to infiltrate antifa with informants during Trump, too. So I don't know. I. I really don't know. And I. That segment, you know, I was abundantly clear. I did a whole section of that segment on what the government still needs to prove, because the indictment doesn't connect the dots between the money being transferred and then the SPLC's intentions. Right. It alludes to the intentions, but it doesn't kind of connect the dots. It's very strong, in my opinion, because of the bank records. Now the SPLC is denying that this was, you know, immoral or was out of order in any way. And they're saying it's. It's being taken out of context by the doj. Maybe they'll have a case to make. There's is. It's really hard to believe. There are a lot of. There's a pattern over more than a decade of transactions going from secret SPLC bank accounts to people who were part of these extremist organizations, which it appears that the DOJ has pretty solid proof that the people were called field informants. And. And we're in this group, that group. And the other group, they name the specific groups, they show the specific fake bank accounts, and they track the payments going from those fake accounts to the people affiliated with very specific groups on the dates. So that is really strong evidence. What it's not is really strong evidence legally of the why element. And it's interesting that the DOJ lawsuit here is specifically focused on fraud. Right. Like, this pattern makes it unlikely to me that the SPLC was just kind of had people on their payroll who turned out to secretly be part of extremist groups. In a weird way, maybe extremist groups had actually been infiltrating the splc. And that's because they, I think, pretty clearly reconstruct this bank account scheme, and it's over many, many years. So I think it's a pretty strong case that the SPLC was up to no good. Whether they can legally prove fraud is going to depend heavily on what we hear from the splc. And I just want to reiterate, respectfully, of course, that I did make that point in the original. The original episode and kind of went out of my way to. To say what the government has to prove, because that is certainly part of this. But from my perspective, it's. It's. You know, I actually hadn't listened to what. I haven't listened to Glenn's episode. I listened to most of what Glenn says, but I haven't gotten around to that one yet. He's a. He's a constitutional attorney, so it's, I'm sure, worth listening to. But I have seen a lot of people saying, you know, it's not. It's not strong legally evidence of fraud until we kind of see more of what the government has. I tend to agree with that on the question of, like, fraud, but on the question of whether the SPLC was up to no good, I think it's actually pretty strong evidence of that. All right, let's go to Hank, who says after the twisted reaction of so many educators to Charlie's death, no one should be surprised that the White House Correspondent center shooter turned out to be a teacher. I fear this isn't going to end well. Hank, thank you. And just thank you to the number of you who, immediately after this correspondence dinner assassination attempt, emailed that night to say, hope you're okay. Hope you're okay. That was. I mean, it was really cool. So many of you reached out so quickly. So thank you. I do appreciate it. I was not at the dinner. I always kind of refused to go to the dinner. I was invited to the dinner But I just kind of oppose it in principle. I'm also not a White House correspondent, but I kind of oppose in principle what the dinner has become as this sort of spectacle of inside insider DC politics and elitism. So I always resist going to the dinner. I mean, I don't really have to resist any personal impulse to go. There's certainly a professional benefit to being there. You see so many powerful people kind of in one fell swoop. So, like, for networking purposes, great stuff. But I was headed to that sub stack party. As I got in the car, I think my brother texted me, being like, whoa. And just asking if my boyfriend was okay, because my boyfriend is a White House correspondent. And he was. He was there. And the. The reception was terrible in that ballroom because it's on the lower level and there's so many people in it. And it seems like wherever you're close to Secret Service, there's really bad reception. I assume it has something to do with bandwidth. I don't know. But people were having a hard time communicating and getting out that everything was okay. So it was a scary couple of minutes, but pretty quickly we realized everything was all right. Got to the entrance to the substack party, actually got like a block away from it, and the entrance had just been closed because it was right across from the White House. And I was saying on X this week, it was like, truly my dream to be locked in that party for hours with an open bar because it was like Michael Tracy fighting Jim Acosta. Like, just incredible stuff that if you sort of appreciate the media industry as someone at a zoo appreciates looking at a zebra, for example, then it would have just been a dream come true, just open bar and Jim Acosta fighting with people. So I was a little bummed to miss that. But Ryan Graham told me he was holed up at a bar, I don't know, a few blocks away. So the whole 17th street was all closed here in D.C. so I had to walk like five blocks north and then five blocks south again to get around what was like one block away to meet up with. With Ryan and his wife and a couple others, actually. But there were. There were a few minutes where it was. Where it was touch and go. Thankfully, we knew pretty quickly that everything was. Was all right in terms of, you know, the. The shooter being apprehended, the President being okay, the Cabinet being okay, everyone there being okay. So that was a blessing. Absolutely. The teacher part of it is interesting because we've seen a good number of kind of white collar, self perceived Vigilante vigilantes like acting in these ways. I mean, the whole discourse around this guy has been that he's like a centrist shooter. And, and something just doesn't quite sit right with me about that because, yes, the guy was on Blue sky, for example, retweeting, kind of, what would you call it? Establishment liberals, I guess, like Jamel Bowie didn't seem to be a leftist leftist. But at the same time, you know, anytime you kind of appoint yourself John Brown, which this quote unquote manifesto, which is really just like a extra long iPhone message, I think it was literally an email, You're. You're kind of eschewing the centrist label when you decide to be John Brown. Because there's something ideological about embracing vigilante justice that obviously it's an interesting mix with kind of centrist complaints like Mangione, just sort of impossible to describe politics. But I feel like maybe that's actually the takeaway here is that more and more Americans, politics are not left or right. And that just means more and more of the people who are radicalized are not going to be neatly left or neatly right. You know, like the anarchist who goes for McKinley. Like, very easy to kind of classify that. But that's, that's maybe my sense. And the white collar part of that is, is interesting as well. To Hank's point here is John who says, I wonder what you think of the idea of debanking the SPLC. We saw this happen in the US of Trump's family and allies after January 6th, and if I recall, in Canada after the protests there. Seems like the SPLC case is an example where this may be justified. Unlike those cases I cited. Although the moral crimes the SPLC perpetrated in funding racist hate groups are getting all the airtime, the actual crimes seem to be the financial crimes involved. Setting up bank accounts tied to fake businesses to pass the money along to the hate groups. Why would any reputable financial institution want to be associated with them after this? Both for who they were paying and the fraud they are accused of committing in regard to banks and to donors. Debanking seems to me to be justified here. John goes on to say, late to the party on this, but I'm no Dave Smith fan. As soon as I saw him listed as a guest, I skipped that episode. Muscle on the opposite side of a lot of things. Dramatic barian, but we'll listen to her when she's on. The difference being she's not smarmy and doesn't hide behind the facade of Being a comedian when challenged. That's why I had to stop watching all the fake news shows like the Daily show way back when. They were pretty funny in the beginning until they began to take themselves seriously when convenient to them and complete became completely one sided. That's such a funny point, John, because it's a great way to put it that those shows, Daily Show, Colbert Report, I mean Colbert is now such a good example of this. But they always wanted to say, conservatives would point this out all the time back in the Bush era, but they always, in the Obama era, they always wanted to say oh I'm just a comedian and then hide behind that when it was convenient. But when they were being treated like statesmen, like great thinkers of our time, they were always kind of. Or, or I shouldn't say that because comedians are always great thinkers like good comedians are at least. But when they were being treated like heroes, political heroes, they were happy to kind of accept that praise. Now I don't think Dave does that, but you know, to, to each their own. On the SPLC debanking point, I just don't. I think banks should be like telephone companies. Now certainly if, if you commit financial crimes, there should be the due consequences to that. And if there is evidence, if the, if the SPLC is convicted of financial crimes, then they should face whatever the consequences are of that. Absent a guilty verdict is probably the best way to put it. I believe that banks should be like common carriers, right? Like Internet companies and phone companies. They. I hate the idea especially that being big banks would have the prerogative to just say, well no, we're done. Again, especially big banks who, you know, essentially have, from the FDIC to the way that they're, to the way that Dodd Frank set up actually, I mean a lot of this has been the banking infrastructure. But, but to the way that they're set up now that they basically have, you know, some federal guarantees and they get all kinds of government privileges. I don't, I think they should function basically as common carriers as Clarence Thomas suggested for big tech. So I would say no, unless there is a, a guilty verdict. I wouldn't want to encourage that. But this is kind of the big question on the right now. It's like, you know, if, if Republicans let Democrats off the hook forever for not using the broadcast airwaves and the public interest, then why shouldn't Brendan Carr go in there and say, all right, well this is on the books. Like, you know, no Republican has really gotten mad at Democrats before for spreading false information on A broadcast network that almost always benefits the left. So why aren't, why shouldn't Brendan Carr go in there and, you know, talk to Colbert and Kimmel or Kimmel, particularly in the wake of the Kirk assassination, implying that the shooter was a conservative in a joke? I don't know. I don't particularly like any of it, but the politics of that, it's. You can see where people are coming in this, like, kind of bloodlust. Eddie says thanks again for this little show exclusively for podcast listeners. It's such a great way to start my weekend and for some reason feels really intimate. I love that. Eddie. Eddie says. Emily, my very first thought upon seeing the comments of the WHDA shooter manifesto was of your campaign for the accuracy of language, the quote, rapist, pedophile traitor line. And it was jarring. I remember the importance really hit me hard during your clarifying explanation of your presser question about Elise Stefanik calling Momdani a jihadist. Just wanted to congratulate you on your wisdom and urge you to keep going. It feels more important than ever. Eddie, that is an incredible, incredibly kind email. I can't even tell you how kind that is because, you know, it's a lonely point to make because it's definitely like a both sides point. And I always try to use my questions, you know, when you have the privilege of speaking to the president, I try to use it in a way that's. I remember explaining this at the time that other journalists who kind of have blob group think in one direction or the other won't. And. And this question of Elise Stefanik calling Zoramdani a jihadist hadn't really been talked about much. And so that's why I asked that question because it really drives me nuts. It especially drives me crazy when conservatives who spent the better part of the last decade rightfully deriding the left, castigating the left for inflating the definition of what is racism, what is bigotry, what is sexism, and what is violence? Right. Silence is violence, speech is violence and the like. Then turn around and say, I'm going to inflate the definition of what a jihadist is to include this Muslim mayor of New York City who, you know, is. Is constantly. Not. I shouldn't say constantly, but is. Is intentionally. Has intentionally, whether you like it or not, spoken out against anti Semitism and gone to synagogues and had Jewish outreach programs on his campaign and is, you know, pro gay rights in a way that would be hard to. Obviously, people talk about the Kind of red green alliance, but typically that would be a hard thing to square with jihad. So I just. This is one of the most important things I think, in all, in all of politics. I think it is a symptom of the algorithmic social media based epistemology as we already talked about earlier in this episode, and I've talked about it all the time. I think social media drives us to use extreme language because we are being programmed to use, because we're being programmed to respond to the incentives of the algorithm which are to prize extremism. Right. And so extreme language, hot or cold, is how we're starting to be programmed to talk in campaign speak, in, in media speak, both of the, both of which take place on, on social media. And I really, really hate it. And you know, the, the rapist, pedophile stuff, it's just, I, I mean, it's just, I don't know, like, I don't like Trump's relationship with Epstein. I don't like, I certainly don't like the way Trump has talked about women in the past. But yeah, the, the, I guess evidence of, of rape and pedophilia is certainly far from definitive, to say the very least. And for so many people, I guess, to confidently adopt that label, I do think that's been absolutely a mistake. Of course, I think it's absolutely been a mistake. And as we use that language more and more when it's sort of thinly predicated, you know, you, it's now become acceptable, I think, because of social media, to use this thinly predicated extreme labels. Yes, you're going to be more and more likely to justify Luigi style, Luigi Mangioni style vigilante justice against people like Brian Thompson. And I should probably just stop saying Luigi and always refer to him as Luigi Mangione, or maybe not even use his name. But at this point, I can't control how popular his name is. So for the sake of clarity, it's probably still worth it. So thank you, Eddie, very much for that email. I appreciate it. Uh, Hank says Thomas Massey is on my X page right now talking about an amendment he has to a bill that would defund the kill switches mandatory after 2026. I remember you doing a Federalist Radio hour segment about this a while back. Maybe you should revisit the issue. Amen, Hank. Thank you. You could probably still find it on the Internet. There's a brilliant professor at Hillsdale College named Matthew Meehan. Brilliant. One of the most brilliant and fascinating people I know. And back when the Biden White House passed this bill. Democrats in the Biden White House passed this bill. Might have been 2022, if I'm remembering correctly. In one of their big legislative packages, there was indeed a provision that mandated new cars. I think it was after 2027, have a kill switch installed in them. And Meehan was one of the only people who noticed this. And we did this sort of. He's a professor. This is a very deep philosophical episode, trying to sound the alarm about how profoundly anti American, illiberal and sort of anti human this was. And I was just enraptured by Dr. Meehan the entire time. And I'm so grateful to him for raising this all the way back then. Massey was one of the only people talking about it back then. Chip Roy has been on it forever. They were two of the loudest opponents of it this week as it was raised again. I'm always, always happy to revisit it. We did a Breaking Point segment on it. Ryan and I did a Breaking Point segment on it. Yeah, you know, the tech stuff isn't always what the afterparty audience is, is most like keyed into. But feel free to send me emails if you think I'm wrong about that. I try to, you know, make sure that I'm. What's the right way to put it? Make sure that, you know, if I guess an issue is. Is. I don't know. I guess. I guess we talk about very deep things on after party and I can't stop myself from talking about tech stuff. I just sometimes worry that I overdo the tech stuff everywhere that I am. So I try to be too careful about that. But for me it's almost impossible because everything I think about, I think about through the prism of technology. So maybe we should get a guest on that. Maybe we should try to get Chip Roy on. That would be great. Mary sends an essay that says we live in a world of liberal privilege. I would really like liberals to understand what they're putting us through and the two different countries we live in. I am not seeking dominance for conservatives, but a country where debate is open, dissent is protected, and my son can grow up speaking his mind without fear. Mary writes about how her husband's family has a story of immigration from Greece, that her great grandfather came from what is now Slovakia, that her husband is an engineer, and that they live in a Democratic district. But that Mary wants institutions that welcome debate instead of punishing dissent. And that we basically now live in two different countries. Well, I certainly agree that we live in, in two different Countries. Now Mary, I think that is a very good point. And what Mary is really bringing up, I, I think is best described by Aaron Ren, who I love Aaron Ren's substack is excellent food for thought. So if you haven't subscribed, it's Aaron a a R O n Ren R E N n Brilliant Christian thinker and writer. And Aaron has what he calls the positive world and the negative world. And this is really a formulation for Christians, the, the negative world which we, we live in now. And I, I'm not going to be able to remember Aaron's verbatim definition of this, but the negative world is basically a world where Christian cultural norms are no longer dominant. And I think about this a lot because my perspective of, as a Christian is that Christian history is the history of sort of being a minority and persecution, minority status and persecution. I mean, Scripture is abundantly clear that you should not be, you should not love things of this world. That you should stand out. Salt. Right, of course, Light that you should, you should stand out from darkness and you should be different from the world because the world is, is fallen. So I, I think that's really the history of the Christian faith and of individual Christians. And I think what we went through just in the last, I would say maybe like couple hundred years, maybe more than a couple of hundred years, but it's been kind of an aberration from that history worldwide. Obviously there's, you know, Constantine and then what happens when Christians conquer Europe, although much of the Christian world was under Islamic conquest kind of at the same time. And, and there remain, you know, a huge number of Christians in Africa now and in China, some, many in the Middle east still that are persecuted today. But in the, the west, we became accustomed to the sort of positive world where Christians were in the driver's seat of government and that was abnormal. And being in the negative world is sort of the normal condition for the Christian. And that's a very interesting way to look at it, and I think it's a very helpful way to look at it. And the kind of classical liberalism that Mary is demanding, I feel like is a, is a great baseline. Right? Like, we just want tolerance. We want liberal tolerance, classical liberal tolerance. And, and that is a great baseline. I'm just sort of pessimistic or maybe I, I would say, like realistic about human history. And I don't necessarily expect that we will get back to a baseline level of tolerance for lowercase O, orthodox Christianity. And that to me, you know, it's. I what is there's this line in the Lord of the Rings which by the way, I haven't led or I haven't read. I'm sorry, I have only seen. But it is a funny line. I'm trying to find it. I just asked for it. Yeah, here it is. I wish it need not have happened in my time, said Frodo. So do I, said Gandalf. And so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us. And I love Tolkien. I love C.S. lewis, I love Tolkien and Lewis. I, I love the Hobbit. For whatever reason, I found Lord of the Rings impenetrable. And I think that's a male versus female thing. And every time I say that I get a couple emails from women being like, I love Lord of the Rings and that's wonderful. I love the Hobbit and I'm sure Lord of the Rings is great too, but I always have to watch re watch the movies. My boyfriend is a Lord of the Rings aficionado and that line was like a gut punch the last time we watched. I think it's the first movie. I wish it need not have happened in my time. But Gandalf replies, so do I. And so do all who live to see such times. But it's not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us. Yes, I wish it need not have happened in my time, but I, I suppose we can all be Gandalf and say so do I, but we have to do. But the question is what we do with the time that has been given to us. Thank you, Mary. Richard says, I realized something last week. We need to bring back the perp walk. In the 80s and 90s, those were big. It gave people a sense of closure. Even if the person didn't get convicted, most were fine with seeing a person quote get what they deserved. Today's new organizations push the trial, the verdict and the incarceration. They need the content. But you can't perk walk perp walk. People, elites and the criminals among them know they will get off. So suffer a little embarrassment if the American people can't get through the real justice. Give them what they really crave. Great television, video clips and a great story to tell the next generation. So what's interesting to me about that? I can't, I can't co sign that Richard. But what's interesting to me about that is just from a media angle. We were kind of even doing public, you know, people in the stocks or public executions, public hangings for many years leading up to like televised perp walks like Lee Harvey Oswald. Right. That's. It's. There's always been sort of not always, but there's a history of that being the public shame, this exercise, this theater of public shame being baked into the the punishment that we definitely don't really have anymore. And I don't know whether that's good or bad. But it's an interesting point. Scott says. I'm interested in your thoughts on podcaster Jordan Berman. She started out as Jordan is my Laura before rebranding as Unbiased. I don't know, Scott. I have never heard of Jordan Berman. May have to look Jordan Berman up. Howard says. I certainly enjoyed your latest program with Michael and Evito Alfonso. As with many of your guests, I'd never heard of them for but what a nice looking and sensible young couple. A wonderful change from the images you see of so many young people at college protests who look like complete psychos. I don't know what his chances are in the election, but I hope he wins. Congress could use more normal people. The place seems to be filled with lunatics. Yes. Aside from the drama this year, I was wondering if you have ever been to one of those White House correspondence dinners and if so, what are your thoughts? Fun or annoying? I loved the guy at this video. Kept enjoying his salad, unbothered by the chaos. It was no surprise to find he was a New Yorker. This has surely been a bizarre week. I don't know what is more dangerous, the woods of Wisconsin, the party circuit in D.C. definitely the party circuit in DC. No, I've never been to the dinner itself. I do always go to like one or two sometimes more of the kind of ancillary parties. The parties that are held around the dinner, mostly the conservative ones. There aren't a ton of conservative ones but sometimes you know, you'll get like, I guess maybe not cons. Is conservative the right word? I don't know but like I was going to the sub stack one this year that wouldn't be called conservative. And I did go to a YouTube one this year but no, I again I said this early in the program. I I don't go to the dinner. Just doesn't feel right to me. The some of the parties can be can be fun but a lot of them, I mean it's one of the times where the embassies have good parties. I wanted to go to one of the Irish Embassy this year. But the debate that we aired on Wednesday with Ryan Graham and Scott Jennings kind of at the same time. So, unfortunately, please take out your tiny violins for me. I didn't get to go to the Irish Embassy and have what I'm sure was some really wonderful beer and. Or champagne. That's what it is. I mean, it's like journalists, lobbyists, and politicians and their staff at these embassies or like, venues that cost tens of thousands of dollars to rent, sometimes in black tie, but, you know, dressed up, eating canapes, whatever the. I think I'm using that word correctly. I don't really know. And sipping champagne, it's just. It is gross. So I know people that go to, like, probably 10 parties over the course of three days. I already feel bad enough going to, like, two, so I try to limit it. But, you know, sometimes, like you, there's so many, like, just really gross social events in D.C. year round that, again, if you're a journalist, you really sort of have to go to them to make it worth it. Living in D.C. like you, you have to kind of meet people who you can talk to and get an accurate sense of what's happening in Congress or what's happening on K Street or what's happening in the Freedom Caucus or in this world or that world, corporate world, whatever. And if you don't do it, you're frankly out of. You're out of the loop. I mean, there are ways to compensate for that, but it's also really serious work. So I'm not gonna complain if people want to, like, throw me a free drink every once in a while, but you all probably know that about me. Anyway, let's keep moving here. Some of the parties are good, though. Like, they're amazing venues, and you're just like, wow, like, the substack party was going to be at a museum. And I was like, that is just so cool. Like, we have the most amazing museums here in D.C. and people who live in D.C. never go to them. So, anyway, that's my justification for partying. All right. Hank says, good show last night with Evita and Michael. You ran at the end, making it clear the person who committed a terrorist act was a person to blame, not someone else's. Rhetoric was spot on. As you said, speech is not violence, and defining it as such not only does injury to language, but leads us down that slippery slope to government censorship. Yes, yes. Yes, sir. Hank goes on to say, I think it's worth looking at the problem of political violence through the lens of what's known as a key part of the entrapment defense, a defendant is judged not guilty if he she can prove, but for the actions of government, the crime would have never been committed. Can we show that conclusively that quote, but for the inciting rhetoric of the left, the attempts on conservatives would have never happened. Probably not impossible to prove, the counterfactual Hank says, but I fully believe it to be true. And it's approach all of us should consider when launching a rant about one issue or the other. You know, it's interesting, like this is kind of what I was getting to at the end of the episode. It's that two things can be true. Individuals can be blamed and probably should be blamed for inflammatory rhetoric that creates an unduly tense political climate. And people who contribute to an unduly tense political climate are not responsible for inciting the violent actions of any individual. Even if, you know, it's, it's like Trump on January 6th who said to go march peacefully, but also said that the election had been stolen. You know, like, I do not think that Trump quote, incited. I don't think you can say that he incited legally incited violence. I can say, though, and some of you may disagree with me, but I can say that I think it was, it was reckless the way that he described the election. And I was actually at his speech at the Ellipse. I didn't find that particular speech to really even be what caused the, the riot on the other half of, on the other side of Pennsylvania Avenue. I think that had been brewing over many, many weeks, things in some part to his rhetoric. But you know that Trump literally said don't be violent. So he said peacefully. So anyway, I do think these distinctions are critical because as soon as we get away from them, then you can say, like on the left, I think you can make the argument that the left is responsible for, quote, social murder over climate alarmism. And I made that comparison to the, the Brian Thompson case as, as Hassan was talking about social murder and some people quibbled with it. But if climate alarmism is, you know, causing the mass displacement of farming livelihoods across, across Europe, for example, and farmer suicides, that, that logic goes through some really, really, really, really dangerous places because you are careening down the slippery slope of broad definitions rather than narrow definitions. And so while I think, as I said in the episode, the, the people primarily to blame, you don't get to sit at the top of a broken system and then blame the people who are acting out about the system being broken for acting out without changing it. Right. You can blame them, be like, this is immoral violence. But then you still have the. You're talking about a spec and you have the plank in your own eye. So two things gonna be true, basically, is where I come down on that. Here is another one from Katie who says, wonder if you caught Greg Bovina's recent interview with Borderhawk News. Quote, our culture is definitely in jeopardy by those hundreds of millions of foreigners that, as you say, don't care about your culture. That to me is a greater threat than a violent criminal or a terrorist. GRE Vino told the New York Times that before he was fired, he had a plan to deport 100 million people. I wrote to you about this before, but I think it is worth noting that this image is still up on official DHS Twitter account. No one has apologized, and it seems to me that we need to reckon with this as an official White House policy. So, Katie, I do remember going back and forth on this. I think it was around the Minnesota ICE controversy. And I remember at the time saying, I don't think that this weird meme DHS put out, it's a guy in a car or it's a car literally parked on a beach and it says after an old car, like a mid century car. It says, America after 100 million deportations. And I remember at the time, I think, saying, I don't think that's official White House policy. I don't think the president has ever said that. I don't think anyone's ever introduced legislation to that point. Now Bovino, you know, was a representative of this administration, and the administration was certainly treating him as that before he was, before he was fired. So I don't think it's unfair, Katie, to point that out. I still think it's, it's probably a fair distinction because, you know, any individual lieutenant of the president can say, whatever, 100 million. I don't know what the hell they're doing with that, to be honest. I think it behooves everyone to use precise rhetoric at all times, lest you open fair policies up to criticism unnecessarily. So the 100 million number would, would involve like, denaturalizing probably millions of Americans and people make arguments for that. I do not like making arguments for that at all. But yeah, I, I don't hear a serious Trump administration policy like Bovino. Freelancing is one thing, and I think it is, Katie, entirely fair to your point to be like that. Is coming from an official before he was fired and he's repeating it. And he's kind of popular on the immigration hawks, among the immigration hawks and on the right. So it's, that's an example of a mainstream conservative figure kind of, I mean, I guess mainstream adjacent. I don't know if that's that counts because he was let go. But you know, someone who's, who's kind of popular in MAGA circles saying something like that. So I think it's entirely fair to say that people have to reckon with it. I don't think it's smart to talk like that at all. I also don't think it's official government policy. This looks like it's one more from Katie who says it's hard to listen to this couple. I think referring to Michael and Evita talk about political violence as if it's a problem specific to the left. The example she gives is Stalin and Mao. Let's not even leave this country and let's talk about the political violence of the 60s. You could talk all day about whether political violence is on the left wing or the right wing and you're going to come down to the fact that it's both. Crazy is on every side. But it is especially hypocritical to defend someone from political rhetoric when they're easily the person in our society with the most violent political rhetoric. Cabal. Trump's rallies in 2015 were violent and he spoke on camera promising to pay the legal fees for anyone in his audience who can knock the hell out of anyone who booed. He raved about a congressman who body slammed a reporter in a debate. He told the proud boys to stand back and stand by. The guy you're interviewing compares Trump's speech from January 6th to the crowds outside the correspondence dinner, seeming to forget the crowds outside. Congress had a hangman's new set up. Trump kidnapped Maduro planning to take Cuba. Next he has fisherman blown up in the water. He threatened to end a civilization forever after killing over 150 schoolgirls. Quote tweets a suggestion that anyone who does not agree with his conditions in Iran talk should be murdered. Trump blamed Ronald re Robert Reiner's murder on the fact that he made people angry. His followers cannot clutch their pearls when someone says something nasty. P.S. the guy notes they have a big Somalian population nearby. There's no accusation of fraud that he's aware of, but there's a daycare center nearby. Wow. So despite no accusations of fraud, their race, the fact they need Daycare enough to make him think it better be checked out. Katie? To that point, I would say no. The massive Somali fraud worrying right next door. I mean, if, you know, northern Wisconsin, you know, what he's talking about is really close to Minneapolis. And so there was this obviously massive Somali fraud ring. Vast majority of perpetrators were Somalis. We're talking about single digit non Somali. But you know, what are we talking? Like 70 Somalians that have been, have been, I think, charged, not just indicted, but charged in these cases. So, no, I don't think that's just the fact that they're Somali is evidence enough. And there's daycare, there's evidence enough. I don't think that's what Michael was saying at all. I think he was saying they are literally within, you know, a quick drive of a historic fraud operation run by their own immigrant community, which is very, very, very close knit. So that I take zero issue with at all. I don't think it's, it's fair to impugn any ill motive at all. I think it's, it's important for the left to reconcile with the kind of tribal politics that were brought into the Minneapolis area. You will hear Somali say this openly and critics within the Somali community of what happened. Casey Magin, I think is, is his name, who worked in the, who worked on fraud in the governor's office and was writing about this years ago saying that, you know, some of the tribal politics that were brought over, they're just different from the American system and caused the welfare system to be abused, basically. So I think that's, I definitely don't think that's fair. This political violence question, I'm definitely against, I've been against the Maduro stuff, the Cuba stuff, the fisherman stuff, the ending civilization forever. The, the, the school that was immediately struck on the first day of the war. The Rob Reiner stuff was super gross. Now, does this take away the ability of the right to critique the left? No, I don't think so, actually, because of a poll that I discussed which shows the, the Economist YouGov poll from September. It was taken September 12th to 15th, 2025, and it found by far, young liberals believe it is, quote, sometimes justifiable to use political violence. And it's not even, like, not even close among conservatives. So I just don't think, I think everyone should be able to and should be fair in evaluating Trump's rhetoric. I have no expectation that politicians will be, or people running for office. It's just not how politics works and it sucks. And Yeah, I don't like it. I think everyone should. I don't expect them to be, but I think the moral thing to do is to evaluate Trump's statements fairly across the board with statements on the left. I get the literally versus seriously stuff. Trump's supporters. Trump's critics take him literally. Trump supporters take him seriously. I get that. I don't think that really is an excuse. I. I would quibble with saying his rallies in 2015 were violent, and I just like violent. Is that Trump's fault? Because, you know, he was engaging in. Again, I don't like it. I don't think it's particularly becoming of a politician to say, like, go beat that guy next door up or whatever. I. I think that's, you know, small potatoes compared to some of the other stuff that's. That's mentioned here. But I was just having a conversation before I taped this happy hour about what I think might be one of the big differences between 20th century communism and fascism. I think with fascism, a lot of the state violence was external, so it was perpetrated on other countries. And in communism, a lot of the state violence was internal and committed against its own civilians. So Lenin and Mao being really good examples of people who said it is necessary to sacrifice X percentage of the population in order to move to the next level. Closer to the utopia. Right. Closer to defeating capitalism. And I actually think. I mean, like, there's. It's not a perfect comparison. Obviously, fascists sacrificed a lot of their own in. In war. But I do think that's a. I don't know. That's. That's my working theory of the day, because I was literally just in a conversation on another podcast before I jumped on this one, and I think that's a. Maybe we'll get more emails about it. An interesting distinction. This is Eddie emailing about the podcast. Left, right and Center, I guess. Apparently Bovard and Rich Lowry were panel members, but then were deemed too far right for the show. I haven't heard about that. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. Maybe I'll ask Rachel about it. Chelsea says, back in 2020, I remember seeing the insufferable Governor Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan having a little 8645 tchotchke on a table in her office when she was doing interviews. I found it so gross back then. It's clearly something she had either made or at least purchased, so why no scrutiny for her? I'm attaching a photo. I have not seen this before. Not that I Remember, at least, I guess it would have been six years ago, roughly. So I'm not sure. Interesting question. Yeah, the 86 stuff has been. It's interesting because, like, the origin of it. The origins of it go back to, like, restaurant lingo, but I guess people have had different exposures to it. Like, the only context I've heard, I've never worked in a. Well, I guess I worked at a concession stand at a day camp, but I've never worked in, like, a restaurant restaurant. And so I've never heard it used in the restaurant parlance, but I've heard it in the context of, like, kill, take this person out. And so they're just. People have had different experiences with it. And anyway, so still a wildly goofy thing for the former FBI director to be posting. He knows to some people that means kill. Anyway, let's see. Howard says, don't they usually declare a winner at debates? I thought Scott was the winner for sure, but he supported my view, so I guess I can bias. What do you think? I must say your debate was very civilized and compare some of the more fiery ones for the two people obviously hate each other. Buckley versus Vidal. I hope you will do some more of these. Ryan and I moderated a bunch of debates over on breaking points. Like, a couple years ago, we were doing it almost a debate a week. And I love moderating debates. It's one of my very favorite things to do because, as I always say, I have more questions than answers. So for me, it's really fun to be in a position where I am trying to test stress, test people's arguments. I really enjoy doing that. So I appreciate the words, Howard, the kind words, Howard. I hope we do more of them. Who do I think won? I, you know, I think Ryan made deeper points. So I think Ryan won on some of the deeper points and I think Scott won on some of the. More like, contemporary political points, if that makes sense. I think Scott Ryan could have been stronger on, like, policies, like current policies. Like, what does his rational immigration policy look like? You know, is it. Why then isn't the 8 million people in three years during the Biden administration a rational immigration policy? That's a, I think, a question that I increasingly sort of distrust politicians on the left to answer because I don't think they have a good answer for that. And I think Ryan kind of openly is like, it's. He had a great line in the debate that I thought is a really honest way to approach the question, that it's. It's not an ideological or principle based question. It's, it's kind of an epistemological, not epistemological. It's, it's a. What's the, what's the word he used? He had a great word for it. But it's, it's kind of a practical, pragmatic question about population of the country, the age of the country, birth rate and the like at any given time. So I thought it was a pretty good answer. But it still leaves a sort of policy question unanswered. Whereas with Scott, I, I don't think he fully answered the deep question in the same way that Ryan did about what it means to be an American and to participate in the American political project. I do think Scott stumbled a bit with the student deportations because I do like it's. I'm a conservative. I think the administration's policy on that with Ramesa Ostor, Ostrich Khalil is a different story. Ozark, I mean someone on a visa, I think she was on a visa. Either way, a student who criticized investment basically said that tough should do BDS divest from Israel as many, you know, anti Israel students have been doing for a long time, and then got detained, like just pulled off the street. If you've seen the security footage of it, it's somewhat chilling by mass agents of the state and put into a car, detained and then prepared for deportation. I do think that's kind of hard to defend and gets at this question of why shouldn't somebody who has that belief, why is that a threat to national security? Because then that means basically that other people who have that belief, who are American citizens, are a threat to national security or could be a threat to national security just by virtue of holding that belief. Or if not, then that needs to be explained and not just like, well, we already have enough problems in the United States. Why would we bring in more people who don't like the United States? But it doesn't prove that ostrich of course doesn't like the United States. And so you can, you can see how that sets a precedent that would then apply to U. S. Citizens. And I just don't think that that kind of core question of Americanism was quite answered in the same way that Ryan at least said questioning everything basically is the American way. So may disagree with that, but I just think Ryan had a kind of big picture take on that question. Whereas the policy question, I think it was sort of the other way around, but it was a ton of fun. Again, I love debates and I think Ryan is really one of the most brilliant people I've ever met in my life. He is so well read. His historical knowledge is just, just always. He always has sort of surprising historical parallels at the ready because he reads so much and I really, really enjoy that. And he's always open minded. So just. Anyway, I, I think the world of Ryan, so. And Scott was a, a. What was it? There's a particular phrase I want to use, but Scott was a total team player and came ready to duke it out in good faith, and I really appreciated that. So. And we all had great conversation backstage, so it was all good. So David said, take on Scott Jennings. To the extent that each of them have indefensible arguments, they struggled. For Ryan. As far as the topic was related to the Biden immigration surge and especially the cases of violent crimes by illegals, his only option was to dodge the question. For Scott, as far as he defend, is defending Israel's capture of the US Government immediate hampers? This whole argument of quote, is this good for America? That is his through line for the rest of the debate. Interesting. David says, unfortunately for Ryan, this is a debate mostly about immigration, where the liberal position recently has been pretty weak. If this were a debate about Israel, for example, Scott's neocon position would probably do pretty poorly. You know, I kind of had a sense that we were going to end up talking about the deport, the student deportations. And I actually think it was fair for Ryan to bring that up in context of immigration because again, I do see some of that as like a chilling precedent for US Citizens. Right. If it can be made in the context of foreign citizens. The proper argument would, would really be to make some type of argument that student visas are for, I don't know, are just like not for protesting the government that allowed you to come to the country. And that's a hard argument to make because a lot of times these people are just criticizing the Israeli government. But if you can find people criticizing the government, I actually think that that gave them, you know, entrance to use its systems and to use its, its many wonderful resources. I'm totally open to talking about that, but it's not quite the argument that was made. So I was. Okay. I actually think it made perfect sense in that context to bring it up. All right, let's see. We got a couple more here. Marlo says, what are your thoughts of some of the attendees at the correspondence drinker trading? Drinking straight from the wine bottles. Isn't that classy. I thought it was awesome. I thought that was Fantastic. Because they were kept there forever. You never know when you're in one of those situations when you're actually going to get out. Because of Secret Service, it was unclear whether Trump was going to try to come back on stage. It was unclear if there would be another security problem. And so you're just stuck in limbo. Everyone's scared or has to, like, everyone's scared. People need to kind of calm their nerves. And you've been in a room cooped up in black tie, and you don't. You have no certainty about what the rest of the night's gonna look like. I say go for it. So, so good on them. I thought it was funny. That was funny. Erica Kirk sort of was, like, horrified that there were 10 bottles of wine at each table. I don't know if that's truly. I mean, this. No offense to Erica Kirk. That is. I thought it was sort of funny that Erica was like, wow, how horrible that journalists had 10 bottles of wine at a table. I was like, man, I would have been horrified that maybe journalists having 30 bottles of wine at a table for three hours. You put 10 journalists at a table for three hours. You know, it's. That's standard. It's not that she's wrong, it's just that journalists are. I was gonna say bad people. I think that's kind of fair. Oh, my goodness. But anyway, that I. I'm. I'm joking about that. But it's one of the first things I noticed was just the extent to which in. In D.C. the extent to which the city revolves around alcohol. So much of your work in D.C. occurs after 5pm and that's certainly true if you're a journalist. It's certainly true if you're a lobbyist. And of course, because that's when lobbyists and politicians spend their quality time together. You know, it's just true across the whole city. So, you know, it's. It's really exhausting to constantly. I know it sounds crazy, but it is really exhausting to constantly have to. You push yourself to go to this rubber chicken dinner to meet these people. You don't. After a certain point, you can, you know, start saying no, but you still have to do some of it. And you just notice how much of it is booze fueled. And it's definitely not healthy. So I don't think. Like I said, I don't think Erica is wrong. Did you hear Representative Gill asking abortion activists their favorite method? Read the Face Act? It broke my heart, but it was very effective. Amen. I Think I gotta get Brandon Gill on. He's. He has had some real moments of, of courage. And if you haven't seen this clip yet, they have abortion activists in Congress. And Gil uses his time to ask them what is their favorite method of abortion and does not let them slip out of the question and instead uses his, his platform to go through examples of abortion methods very graphically in a way that the public is not often exposed to. And the clip went pretty viral and I thought it was very effective. How about Spencer Pratt's commercial drop of Karen Bass's house in his. I thought it was very effective. It was effective. Although Airstreams are pretty bougie now. So I, I was wondering how much that Airstream was. I don't know if it's one or a new one, but Marlo says Evita and her husband give me hope that young conservatives can stand for issues that impact Americans the most. Like I said at the beginning of that episode, sort of hopelessly biased when it comes to them, even though I detest politicians sort of across the board and, and parties. But, you know, I personally know Evita. I like Evita a lot. And I haven't spent a lot of time with Michael, but Evita is a, a deeply good person. And back when Evita was going to Kenosha, we referenced this in the episode to do reporting back in 2020. I remember I dealt a little bit as her editor with Evita and Michael. And I remember one time I was on the phone, I think they were driving to Kenosha and I remember being on the phone and just being like, Michael, you need to take care of her. I don't want, you know, like, just take care of her. I'm very glad you're there, but take care of her. And if memory serves, I was very impressed by Michael. Marla says the debate was very interesting. I'm a big fan of Scott Jennings, not so much for Ryan Grimm. I thought that Scott was prepared for analysis as past details of presence and plan for the future. I felt Ryan was in the weeds of sob stories of individuals. Maybe he will be better prepared in the Congo rare earth minerals debate. Time will tell. That's hilarious. Marlow. We did talk about, sort of sarcastically, we did talk about a Congo rare earth mineral debate because we somehow wandered into a discussion of that. Let's pull up. I think we have an Instagram question. I think Shauna says, I'd love to hear your thoughts on Lena Dunham's fame. Sick. I loved your analysis on HBO Girls TV show And would totally love it if you did a Re Watch podcast. I'm scared to Re Watch Girls. This is a great question. Thank you for sending it. I'm scared to re watch Girls. I've wanted to do a RE watch for a long time, but I. I'm. I always, you know, sort of procrastinate things that I think will overwhelm me. And this is one of those, because I feel like it's just for the type of coverage that I do. Going to be a variable buffet of kind of fascinating. Sorry, like, data points almost about what's happened in the sort of politics and culture of the last 10 years. So. And I was writing about Girls when it was on, and it's one of those things where I. I don't feel like I was right about everything, but I sort of feel like I nailed Girls at the time. And so I've been a little bit, like, hesitant to open up this Pandora's box again. And it was just. It was so good. It was so good. And it also aired at the time of my life where I was kind of at the Hannah Horvath stage of life. Meaning I just, like, it was on when I was late college and then graduated college. And so it was, you know, like a lot of people who. It coincided with that sort of time in your life. It's just very. I just have really good memories of kind of watching with my roommates, and I have memories of it kind of being the. What's the way to put it? The atmosphere of my early 20s, like the kind of climate of that coming of age period. And, you know, I also lived in a big city, graduated college, and was working in media. So there. There's a lot going on. And it's not that I don't want to, like, disturb those memories, but it's sort of just like I genuinely feel like I'll be overwhelmed with nostalgia and overwhelmed with, you know, data points basically, as to what's happened. And that's always, for me at least, it's like, all right, this is gonna be a big thing if I do it. It's gonna. So, yeah, a Rewatch podcast would be awesome, but so many people have done it. I actually, before other people were rewatching Girls, I at first thought it was too early, but I was literally on the cusp of doing a Rewatch podcast back when I was at Federalist with someone who. I can't say who it was, but we were so close to actually doing it, like a week away. And this person got another Job, whatever. So it didn't happen. But before anyone was doing the re watches, we were literally about to do one. So I've always kind of regretted not doing that because then everyone else flooded the zone. But maybe, maybe, maybe I'd love to do that. I haven't read Fame Sick yet. Yet. But now I know I have to because one of my normal friends who doesn't work in politics or journalism told me that they were reading it and that it was very good. And at that point I was like, okay, well, now I have to. So I will keep everyone posted, I guess, on my thoughts on. On Fame Sick, because I'm really excited to get into it now. There aren't a lot of great millennial writers, unfortunately, and it would not surprise me one bit to find out that Lena Dunham was. Are great millennial writers. Some people get really mad when I praise Lena Dunham. I'm not saying Lena Dunham's like an amazing human being. I'm saying Lena Dunham is an interesting person and that her, her art sort of effectively and artfully conveyed a representative experience, millennial experience. And I find that useful. And of course, I find it moving. So it. I'm not saying that it's like, like perfect. I think it's unconsciously conservative, and I. That's what I've always found so compelling about Lena Dunham is that as she is trying to advance the cause of progressive feminism, unconsciously, what seeps into her work is this conservative naturalism almost. Again, I'm not going to spoil the last episode, but I talked to somebody the other day, a zoomer who had just finished, like, within 24 hours, the finale of Girls, and I was like, pretty conservative, right? And they were, like, blown away. They were like, yes, I couldn't believe it. But you do sort of see how the show builds up to that. And I don't think it's intentional. And I think that's what's so interesting about Lena Dunham is that she writes really good. She's very clever. She can write a great joke. That show was cast really brilliantly. Just everything was great. Writing was great, acting was great, casting was great, and she's super clever. Like, technically, it's. It's good. It's. It's awful in a lot of ideological ways. But then there's this kind of unconscious beating heart of the plot that is unintentional. Again, like, it's. It's unconsciously conservative. Not even anti liberal, but. Or anti progressive, but conservative. So anyway, that'll do it. For today's edition of After Party. As always, thanks for hanging in there with me. I really enjoy doing these episodes for the podcast listeners. It's fun for me to not have to worry about the screen and the production and all of that and just it really is. I think Eddie said it feels intimate. I hope so, because it's literally just my laptop is open, my microphone's on, and I'm here in my office and I've got a cup of coffee. So that's probably why I went extra long today because had a lot of caffeine. All right, thanks so much everybody for listening. The email address is emilybevelmaycaremedia.com we will be back with more After Party on Monday. See you then. Have a great weekend. God bless.
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