Kash Patel Parties with Olympic Winners, Newsom Plays Dumb, and Peter Attia's Epstein Fallout, with Rachel Bovard and Inez Stepman

Summary

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After Party with Emily Jashinsky

Episode Title: Kash Patel Parties with Olympic Winners, Newsom Plays Dumb, and Peter Attia's Epstein Fallout
Date: February 24, 2026
Guests: Rachel Bovard (Conservative Partnership Institute), Inez Stepman (Independent Women’s Forum)

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Overview

This episode of After Party dives into a whirlwind of high-profile news and pop culture debates, led by host Emily Jashinsky with recurring guests Rachel Bovard and Inez Stepman. Discussions range from the Peter Attia-Jeffrey Epstein email controversy, the political drama over the federal SAVE Act (voter ID legislation), and Gavin Newsom’s attempts at relatability, to viral moments like Kash Patel’s Olympic beer-chugging, a racially charged moment at the BAFTAs, and viral internet personalities. The episode’s tone is sharp, witty, sometimes irreverent, and always deeply political—offering both pointed analysis and lively banter.

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Table of Contents

1. Peter Attia’s Epstein Fallout (01:07–13:56)
2. The SAVE Act and the Senate Filibuster (15:06–29:43)
3. Gavin Newsom’s Relatability Gaffe (31:50–42:11)
4. Katie Porter’s “Buzzfeed” Politics and Swearing for Relatability (42:58–49:53)
5. Kash Patel, Beer, and Olympic Glory: Cringe or Pure Americana? (49:53–53:46)
6. BAFTA Tourette’s Outburst: Outrage and Race Discourse (56:36–65:30)
7. Bonnie Blue’s Viral Pregnancy—Fleeting Celebrity and Motherhood Trends (67:22–70:39)
8. Puerto Vallarta in Flames: Cartels, Border Policy, and Biden’s Immigration Fallout (73:34–end)

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1. Peter Attia’s Epstein Fallout

[01:07–13:56]

• Context: Peter Attia, famed doctor and longevity author, resigns from CBS News after the release of Epstein files shows him emailing Jeffrey Epstein. Bari Weiss reportedly pushed for Attia to stay, seeing the outcry as “cancel culture.”
• Key Discussion:
  • Attia’s emails described as embarrassing (“pussy” jokes, social plans), but not criminal.
  • Attia admitted past moral failings and misrepresented his whereabouts to family during those years.
  • Emily’s take:

    "If you have a guy palling around with Jeffrey Epstein, is that helpful? Probably not. ...The network has to maintain its trust with its viewers." (09:30)

  • The hosts weigh whether public suspicion is justified, but agree there’s no evidence of deeper wrongdoing.
  • Emily notes this is a uniquely “challenging cancel culture set of circumstances” because it blends #MeToo, Epstein, media, and medicine.

Notable Moment:

• Emily on Attia’s fit for the CBS role:

  “Was he qualified to have that position? Was it helpful to the network? Absolutely. But does this undermine his credibility as a doctor, as a longevity expert? No, it doesn’t.” (10:30)

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2. The SAVE Act and the Senate Filibuster

[15:06–29:43]

• Context: The Republican-driven SAVE Act seeks to federalize voter ID laws, sparking outrage from Democrats and some media who compare it to Jim Crow.
• Key Discussion Points:
  • Gavin Newsom and Jamelle Bouie (NYT) call the bill a form of “Jim Crow 2.0,” claiming birth certificate requirements disproportionately disenfranchise minorities.
  • Rachel Bovard passionately debunks this: most adults need birth certificates for basic bureaucratic functions anyway; the claim is patronizing, especially towards women and minorities.

    "I would take issue with Gavin Newsom's characterization that people are too stupid, women in particular, to get their birth certificate." – Rachel (19:09)

  • Senate process: Rachel clarifies the misunderstood “talking filibuster” tactic, noting its historical use and that it doesn’t destroy existing Senate rules.

    "The reason that people don't use [the talking filibuster] very often is there's two reasons. One, it's hard, and two, senators don't like working." – Rachel (21:05)

  • Insights into “failure theater”—Rachel and Inez argue that exposing how unwilling Congress is to take real action is threatening to the establishment.

    "...the minute you pull back the curtain on procedure...they get irate." – Rachel (22:28)

• Inez’s Legal Analysis:
  • Acknowledges federal involvement in elections isn’t new and critiques apocalyptic Jim Crow comparisons.

    "I want you to honestly tell me with a straight face that those kinds of questions are comparable to a request to prove who you are. That is not what those were." – Inez (27:33)

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3. Gavin Newsom’s Relatability Gaffe

[31:50–42:11]

• Context: Newsom, at a book event in Atlanta, claims he scored a 960 on his SATs and can’t read speeches, positioning himself as “just like you.”
• Reaction:
  • Nicki Minaj tweets, "His way of bonding with black people is to tell them how stupid he is and that he can't read."
  • Chris Rufo argues Newsom’s attempts are less about race and more about socio-economic relatability, calling Newsom a “chameleon.”

    “He just sort of takes on, like, this, again, the... skin of whoever he's with, and he tries to reflect it back... It's almost, like, deeply sociopathic in some way.” – Rachel (34:07)

  • The hosts contrast this “forced relatability” with Trump’s authenticity:

    “I love the poorly educated… People know that these politicians are, quote, unquote, 'not like us.'” – Inez (37:14)

  • Both panelists agree Newsom’s strategy feels false and pandering, but Rachel cautions not to underestimate his media savvy.

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4. Katie Porter’s “Buzzfeed” Politics and Swearing for Relatability

[42:58–49:53]

• Context: Katie Porter brings out a whiteboard with “Trump” written on it at the CA Democratic Convention. Her speech and persona mocked as “stuck in amber” from 2017-era politics.
• Analysis:
  • Panel criticizes politicians who use swearing and pop feminism to perform authenticity.

    “They don't do anything, but then they tweet, like swears, and they're like, 'Look how much I care. I'm authentic. I'm you. I can swear in my tweets.'” – Rachel (45:15)

  • Inez draws from John McWhorter’s linguistic analysis to explain how “obscene” language has shifted in meaning—swearing is now performative, not truly rebellious.

    “Now, the things that are actually obscene are definitely having to do with identity... it's not really rebellious. It's not really shocking.” – Inez (49:18)

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5. Kash Patel, Beer, and Olympic Glory: Cringe or Pure Americana?

[49:53–53:46]

• Context: Kash Patel, former government official, goes viral for chugging beer and celebrating with the USA men’s hockey team in Milan.
• Debate:
  • Emily is ambivalent, calling the display “a little cringe.” Rachel and Inez defend Patel as genuinely being “a bro” and call the moment “pure Americana,” emphasizing that it’s not a calculated social media stunt.

    “If he had inserted himself in this, it was... he's not trying to flex on people and... insert himself as the main character.” – Rachel (51:54) “He just seems like a bro. This is actually not inauthentic from him, I don't think… I thought it was a nice moment, a nice moment of American glory, assimilation, and joy. Too few moments these days for me to criticize this.” – Inez (52:44)

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6. BAFTA Tourette’s Outburst: Outrage and Race Discourse

[56:36–65:30]

• Context: During the BAFTA awards, a man with Tourette’s shouted a racial slur during a live broadcast, sparking a controversy that overshadowed the event’s intended celebration of disability awareness.
• Key Reactions:
  • Emily: “The entire point of the movie is about people who struggle with this disease... and so this idea that this was intentional racial slight... the whole thing is so sad.”
  • Rachel: “You've just celebrated this story. But then when confronted with that reality in its full messiness in your face... it's like, 'How I cannot.' It's an outrage.”
  • Inez calls out the magical thinking around the N-word:

    “It has gone from an understandable reaction to an ugly word... to like it literally being an, a, a curse, an incantation that by mere listening to it... you're going to burst into flames. Okay, nobody is going to burst into flames. It's fine. The guy has a disease. Awkward. Move on.” (62:36)

• Consensus: All agree that the pendulum has swung too far towards outrage culture and that real empathy is lost in the process.

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<a name="bonnieblue"></a>

7. Bonnie Blue’s Viral Pregnancy—Fleeting Celebrity and Motherhood Trends

[67:22–70:39]

• Context: Viral female adult star Bonnie Blue claims to be pregnant after having unprotected sex with 400 men in one day, documenting the process online for attention.
• Commentary:
  • Emily and Inez note that the blurring of sex, motherhood, and internet fame has grown extreme:

    “The friction between sex and procreation has just been so removed... we have a totally different approach to sex and motherhood.” – Emily (67:41) “It's all for clicks... It is always chasing attention and clicks and... the whole thing really repulses me.” – Inez (69:24)

  • Inez asserts, “It's not good for the child. Children need their mothers and their fathers under the same roof. Every other arrangement is inferior by every study and by common sense to that arrangement.” (70:30)

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8. Puerto Vallarta in Flames: Cartels, Border Policy, and Biden’s Immigration Fallout

[73:34–end]

• Context: Violent cartel battle erupts after the killing of the head of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel in Puerto Vallarta, a popular tourist town. Chaos is described: burning cars, stranded tourists, and heavy crossfire.
• Analysis:
  • Emily links the surge in cartel power to Biden-era border policies and increased cartel profits from human smuggling.

    “Every single person who crosses has paid the cartel... Cartels are now almost parallel institutions to the government in some cases... It was a disaster, chaotic. Every, almost everyone has rejected the Biden border policy.” (74:30+)

• Key Stats:
  • $32M a week in one Texas border stretch; $20B+ annual border smuggling economy estimated in 2022, much of it profit for cartels.
• Message: The media and policymakers failed to connect the massive border surge, cartel violence, and US immigration policy—and the consequences are now inescapable.

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Notable Quotes

• Rachel Bovard (on the Senate):

  “The minute you sort of pull back the curtain on procedure... they get irate.” (22:28)

• Inez Stepman (on language):

  “It's no longer truly obscene. It's a very surface level kind of faux transgression that isn't actually a transgression.” (49:23)

• Emily Jashinsky (on Newsom):

  “It's Gavin Newsom in his essence, which is chameleon-like, right?... It creeps me out every time.” (34:07)

• Inez Stepman (on BAFTA/words):

  “The fact that we've turned it into... pre-civilizational tribes that... have some taboo around the name of God or something and Voldemort. It's just a word, people.” (61:18)

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Timestamps for Major Topics

• Peter Attia/Epstein: 01:07–13:56
• SAVE Act/Filibuster: 15:06–29:43
• Newsom Gaffe: 31:50–42:11
• Porter/Buzzfeed Politics: 42:58–49:53
• Kash Patel/Olympic Beers: 49:53–53:46
• BAFTA Tourette’s Outburst: 56:36–65:30
• Bonnie Blue: 67:22–70:39
• Puerto Vallarta/Border Policy: 73:34–end

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Tone:
Conversational, irreverent, and critical—mixing deep policy analysis with sardonic humor, pop culture savvy, and insider takes on politics and media.

Ideal For:
Listeners seeking a no-nonsense, big-picture tour through the intersection of news, controversy, media hypocrisy, and internet culture.

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Transcript

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[Emily Jashinsky]

ABC Wednesday in comedian Nate Bergetzi's new

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No. I said a lot of no. That's all right. My wife says a lot of no as well. The greatest Average American premieres Wednesday, 9,

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[Emily Jashinsky]

Happy Monday and welcome to After Party, everyone. Thanks for joining us here in the second week of our new time slot, live at 9pm Although I know many of you are joining us via podcasts on YouTube after the fact. As a reminder, please do subscribe, subscribe. It helps us so much if you subscribe on YouTube. If you have not done that yet, subscribe on your favorite podcast feed. That's where we drop our Friday episodes, just for listeners only. Appreciate it. Appreciate everyone so much for sending in your emails to emilycaremedia.com and for supporting the show. My group chat is here tonight. You know that means it's Inez, Stepman and Rachel Bovard. We are going to bring them in in just one moment to get Rachel really angry about parliamentary procedure. You may be wondering why we're covering parliamentary procedure. Well, if you are concerned about the integrity of American elections, you may be concerned about whether or not Republicans will use something called the talking filibuster to pass this very popular piece of legislation that the Republican base is basically demanding called the SAVE Act. So Rachel and Inez are going to. Maybe they'll fight. Maybe they'll both support it. I don't know. We'll find out live. Also, going to talk about what happened with Gavin Newsom down in Georgia a couple of nights ago. Actually, I think it was just last night. He is being accused of racism. Not even just by the right. Some interesting takes on what happened at a book event with the mayor of Atlanta that we're going to go through Katie Porter, pull out a whiteboard for some reason in her California campaign that basically nobody is paying attention to. Cash Patel chugged a beer in the locker room after the US Men's hockey team won the gold medal. Wild stuff going on at the BAFTA ceremony. BAFTA broadcast where you may have heard about this, this new movie chronicling the struggles of a man with Tourette syndrome called I Swear. The man that movie was based on swore during the BAFTA broadcast. And it's now become a very sad racial controversy. Also, if we have time for it, Bonnie Blue says she's pregnant and Puerto Vallarta is literally in flames. This is the weirdest slate of topics ever, but we're going to do it. Let's start now with Peter Attia. News just broke this afternoon that Peter Attia is resigning, resigning from his new contributors SERP over at CBS News, where he was brought on by Barry Weiss to be a sort of fresh voice from outside the kind of typical media establishment. Although, I mean, he is more sort of like a obviously, if you know Peter Attia, if you've bought his book Outlive, which I think is literally on the shelf behind me, Peter, that is a book focused on longevity. And so he's actually kind of a smart person to slate in as a CBS News contributor to bring on air to follow, for example, what's happening with the Maha movement that has been installed in very high levels of the American government. But Atiya, as it turns out, was mentioned about 1700 times in the 3 million Epstein file documents. So the Hollywood Reporter is saying that on Monday, a note from the CBS booking department said that Atiya told the network he would be resigning amidst all of this. What's interesting is that reports from inside CBS News, we covered this just a couple of weeks or maybe even been last week, suggested Bari Weiss was pushing for Peter Attia to stay on as a contributor to, to push back against an example of quote, unquote, cancel culture, as Barry Weiss and actually probably many others in this situation feel is is descending on Peter Attia, who, by the way, that book is a monster bestseller. He is very popular. He's not really politically polarized. Obviously he's been in conversation with people in kind of Maha world, but he's not a super polarized political figure. So the question as we covered when it first came to light that he had been sending Jeffrey Epstein some emails, I think I'll put some of them up on the screen here just so you can see what we're talking about. Here's one Peter Atia says to Epstein in 2016, thank you so much, see you next time. Hopefully Jeffrey Epstein is in town when I'm back in two weeks. I go into je withdrawal when I don't see him. He then says at one point to Epstein in 2016 is indeed low carb, still awaiting results on gluten content though he also said again, this was 2015, so mid 2010s you the biggest problem with becoming friends with you. I think he was clearly trying to say, you know, the biggest problems with becoming friends with you. The life you lead is so outrageous and yet I can't tell a soul. Tia has explained this by saying, you know, he wrote about this from his perspective. He said, I wrote about this, my book, I was a bad person back then. Yes, people have matched the dates up. I should have been with my one year old son who I think was in the NICU or one month old son who was in the NICU at the time. But instead he wrote into the book that he was in New York City for quote unquote work. And the dates line up of course with him apparently meeting with Jeffrey Epstein. He said that he was a young scientist trying to make it, didn't really know any better. Now if you're emailing someone who was convicted of, what was it? Sexual, sexual, sexual solicitation of at least one underage girl from the Florida case with Epstein about pussy after he gets out of prison, that certainly reflects poor judgment. And then even if, let's say CBS News exists outside, it exists in a vacuum, outside of the normal cancel culture debate, let's say cancel culture never touched on this hypothetical world that CBS News exists in. The year is 1998. You then also have to ask some questions that have nothing to do with these traditional kind of cancel culture mobs and say, all right, does this impede on the workplace? As I talked about last week, I think that's a question. Are there women in the workplace or men, I don't know who are going to be weirded out having to bring Peter Attia into the green room knowing that he was emailing Jeffrey Epstein about pussy? Probably, yeah. Is that unreasonable? Personally, I'd think it was weird, but I would also say it was, you know, a long time ago and before the worst of the worst about Epstein was widely known to the public. So I don't know Peter Attia and if I knew Peter Atiya, I would have a better ability to make up my mind about that. But inside CBS News right now, Atiya himself stepped Down. I don't know if that was because CBS made it untenable, because Barry's support wasn't enough, or because he just didn't want to be a distraction. He genuinely felt like he should pull out. I don't know. Was he qualified to have that position? Was it helpful to the network to have that position based on his expertise? Absolutely. There's no question that he was a good addition to the CBS lineup. And does this undermine that? Does it undermine his credibility as a doctor, as a longevity expert? No, it doesn't. So for me, the question really is, does it harm the public trust that the network has because Atiya was emailing crass things back and forth with Jeffrey Epstein? Well, given the public's level of skepticism about Epstein, you could probably make that argument whether it's reasonable to blame Atiya for that or not. You can probably make the argument that the network has to maintain its trust with its viewers. And if you have a guy palling around with Jeffrey Epstein, is that helpful? Probably not. Not helpful. To that end, if you're trying to restore credibility in media, which of course, Barry says the broader project is. Now, we don't agree on everything these days, but that is the goal, to get more viewers because people trust you more. So you can see where that would come into the picture. You can see where it would come into the picture that some people have deep suspicions about what Epstein. About the severity of what Epstein was getting into. And now there's an entire question about if this is a metoo W hunt. I think there have been a couple of instances that do resemble me to witch hunt, but I also think we're still putting the puzzle pieces together on this, and we should be rational, we should try to be calm and stick to the facts. No question about that. I. I don't know. I think the Satia case is maybe the most challenging cancel culture set of circumstances that in recent memory, because you have Barry Weiss involved, you have Jeffrey Epstein involved, and you have the media medical world. I mean, it's just like the. Like this. This confluence of all of these different things makes it a genuinely tough one. I'd say they probably could have stood by Peter Atia. You know, this is not significant wrongdoing, though members of the public are not unreasonably suspicious that there was more going on. I don't see that there's any evidence of more going on. Peter Attia writes about how in the book he was totally misguided around that exact time period. And those emails include a whole lot of people sucking up to Jeffrey Epstein who wanted money for their research and was it wrong? Was. I mean, if he was a convicted offender, they were probably rationalizing it in their own mind that their research is really important and can help humanity. So if they get some money from this freaky dude, assuming all they know is that, you know, what happened in Florida, I wouldn't want anything to do with it. There's no way I would want to have any personal connection with him whatsoever. You know, it's a, it's dirty business when people are trying to fundraise. And that explains a lot of this. But if I knew Peter, it's here personally, I would be happy to testify to his character. I don't, so I can't. This is a tough one though. All right, enough babbling from me. In just one moment, I'm gonna bring in our guests. But first, over the years, I've been clear about this. As you know, I am not just pro birth, I'm pro life. And being pro life means standing with mothers not only before their baby is born, but long after. And that is exactly why I partner proudly with preborn. Preborn doesn't just say babies. They make motherhood abundantly possible. They provide free ultrasounds and share the truth of the gospel with women in and then they stay with real practical help, including financial support for up to two years after the baby is born. This is what true Christ centered compassion looks like. Not just for the baby, but for the mother too. 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[Emily Jashinsky]

Nachos.

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Feels like there's more applause for the nachos than my speech.

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The new season of Scrubs Wednesday, 8, 7 Central on ABC and stream on Hulu.

[Emily Jashinsky]

So happy to be joined once again by the people in my favorite group chat. That's Rachel Bovard, who is vice president over at the Conservative Partnership Institute, and Inez Stepman, legal analyst with independent women. Welcome back, guys.

[Rachel Bovard]

Glad to be back.

[Inez Stepman]

Glad to be back an hour earlier. That's easier for us old people with children.

[Emily Jashinsky]

I know, I know it is. And Inez is in the middle of like a giant logistical moving process and she still made time kindly to come on after party. And you know what, Inez? There's nothing like a post move party. That's the real party.

[Inez Stepman]

Well, that's why I look like I'm in a hostage video right now. My audio is bouncing off the empty walls.

[Emily Jashinsky]

Inez, I would take you, if you literally were a hostage as a guest on the show and we would do whatever we could to rescue you. That's, I mean, that's who we are.

[Inez Stepman]

What phrase do you guys think I, I could say to convince people that I'm actually kidnapped?

[Emily Jashinsky]

Oh, good question. The education department should remain intact. Fund the Education Department?

[Rachel Bovard]

No, I think it would be something like, I mean, I don't like being kidnapped, but they do have taste.

[Emily Jashinsky]

So I can't argue if they have taste. That is to say, let's talk about the SAVE act because I think it's going to make Rachel really mad before bed. And that's a goal that we have with the show. So Gavin Newsom recently, we're going to talk about him later too. But this is what he said about the SAVE Act. If people haven't been following, that's obviously it's been pinging its way Congress for a while. But if you follow politics, if you are, you know, close to the average Republican voter, if you, you're close to people who are die hard gop, you know, types of folks that are making calls at the party headquarters, you have probably heard about the SAFE act because the base is absolutely demanding the SAFE act. And basically it is a voter ID federalizes voter ID across states for people to vote. That does require some extra steps to prove citizenship. But we're going to get into all of that in a moment after taking a listen here to Gavin Newsom with Jim Clyburn talking about how the SAVE act is, as Chuck Schumer said, Jim Crow 2.0, here he is.

[Promo Voice]

And of course, we're not talking about the other aspects of the SAVE act that go well beyond id. And it goes to the, the, I mean, which is also part of Jim Crow the history. And that is when it comes to registration, you got to find your birth certificate if you know where yours is. I have no clue where mine is. Or you have a passport. And two thirds African Americans don't even have passports.

[Emily Jashinsky]

Oh, that's nice. Soft bigotry of low expectations on full display there. Finally, before I get your two takes on this, let's bring in Jamelle Bouie, the one and only New York Times opinion columnist did a little vote, who did a little video for the Times on just how evil the SAVE act is. Let's take a listen.

[Jamelle Bouie]

Many millions of Americans do not have easy and immediate access to their birth certificates.

[Emily Jashinsky]

And moreover, he's wearing a Metro hat,

[Jamelle Bouie]

a passport, you have to pay standing for the Metro.

[Emily Jashinsky]

I was confused.

[Jamelle Bouie]

And to get a birth certificate, most states require you to pay a fee, 10, 20, 30, $40, forcing potentially tens of millions of Americans to pay a fee to prove their citizenship. And it's being potentially an unconstitutional poll tax is something that degrades the notion that voting is a right. And that's what the showing suffragettes discourage

[Emily Jashinsky]

suffragettes on the screen.

[Jamelle Bouie]

And that I think explains why the administration is preoccupied with passing this, because the president is worried that his party will lose control of Congress. And what this attempt to enshrine a set of election restrictions demonstrates is that Donald Trump does not see the rest of the American people as his equals. He sees them as his subjects.

[Emily Jashinsky]

Okay, well, this is probably going to be passed. I mean, it has been passed by a democratically elected House of Representatives. Most members of the Senate will support it. Republican members of the Senate will support it, will probably be enough to get it over the edge. Rachel is going to have many thoughts on that. And as I turn it over to you, Rachel, let's put F2 up on the screen. This is a report from David Svek at the Washington examiner, who is highlighting some real and tough internal dynamics here. He said today, just hours ago, John Thune is facing rare MAGA backlash over the SAVE act, including threats of a primary challenge in 2028 if he does not skirt the 60 vote filibuster to pass it. Mike Lee has been all over this. Rachel's former boss. I'm sure there's been some collusion between you nerds over there huddling on parliamentary procedure. So, Rachel, the Wall Street Journal editorial or the Wall Street Journal, Kimberly Strassel thinks this. That you are wrong about this. You wrote about it in the Federalist. You are obsessed with the talking filibuster. You're obsessed with the SAVE Act. Why?

[Rachel Bovard]

Well, so there's the SAVE act, right?

[Emily Jashinsky]

The.

[Rachel Bovard]

The legislation that is the voter ID bill, and then there's the talking filibuster, which is how a lot of us have said the Senate should pass it.

[Emily Jashinsky]

Right.

[Rachel Bovard]

To a little bit different issues. Although I would take issue with Gavin Newsom's characterization that people are too stupid, women in particular, to get their birth certificate.

[Emily Jashinsky]

You take issue with that?

[Inez Stepman]

I do.

[Rachel Bovard]

And in fact, I'm so stupid and too stupid to get a birth certificate. So I asked ChatGPT to make me a list of things that you need to do with your birth certificate. And I came up with all sorts of things like enrolling a child in

[Emily Jashinsky]

school and hold tax.

[Inez Stepman]

Yeah.

[Rachel Bovard]

And getting Medicare and Medicaid benefits and, you know, basically. And applying for a marriage license, which I also had to get a new copy of my birth certificate to do because. Thanks, Mom. When I called her, I'm like, do you have my birth certificate? She was like, we have four kids, and your brothers are the ones I managed paperwork for, not you. So figure it out.

[Emily Jashinsky]

Marriage test. I managed it. But.

[Rachel Bovard]

But yes. So to get to the talking filibuster, the way the Washington Post characterized it is wrong. There's so much gaslighting around this issue. We are not circumventing the 60 vote requirement in the Senate. There are actually two ways to break a filibuster in the United States Senate. Everybody knows about the. The mechanical way, which is cloture, which is ending debate with.

[Emily Jashinsky]

No, first of all, no, everybody does not know about cloture. Okay. Yes, your friends all know about cloture.

[Rachel Bovard]

Well, everybody knows at least about this idea of 60 votes.

[Inez Stepman]

Right.

[Rachel Bovard]

Everybody says, oh, you need six.

[Inez Stepman]

I now know about cloture because I've listened to Rachel.

[Rachel Bovard]

Yeah, I'm sorry. All right. Like, if. If any of your listeners disgrace themselves and follow me on Twitter, you've seen my, like, intense autism at work on this question.

[Emily Jashinsky]

That's bad.

[Rachel Bovard]

Of how the Senate can operate. But okay, so you have the 60 vote requirement, or what we call the quote unquote requirement, which is how you end debate. The mechanical way you vote on it. Right. This was instituted in the Senate in 1917. But the second way that you can break a filibuster in the Senate is by physical exhaustion. And this is the way the Senate has broken filibusters since its inception. Okay. Up until 1917, it was the only way available. And it is kind of what people are familiar with in the lore of the senate, which is Mr. Smith goes to Washington. You stand and speak until you can speak no more. That's basically what it is. It's a talking filibuster. It doesn't get utilized in the Senate very often, although they could bring it up at any. They could go this route anytime. But the reason that people don't use it very often is there's two reasons. One, it's hard, and two, senators don't like working. Those are the two reasons that they don't utilize this strategy because it's physically exhausting. You have to force Senate Democratic senators to speak, and that requires participation of the full Senate. But this is and has always been available to the senators. And the reason, and there's a couple reasons to do it, but the primary ones are once you've broken the filibuster, you can pass the bill. You put the question a simple majority. Every bill passes the Senate a simple majority. You either break the filibuster by invoking cloture of 60, or you break the filibuster by exhausting the minority. But second, it forces a public political process on a question that 83% of the country supports. Right. I would love Democrats to tell me for two straight weeks why they oppose voter ID, when again, 83, 87% of the country says they support it. It's just good politics at the end of the day.

[Emily Jashinsky]

So why is Jonathan resisting it? I mean, Trump would be happy with the SAVE act, voters would be happy with the SAVE Act. So why won't John Thune force the talking filibuster?

[Rachel Bovard]

You know he has.

[Emily Jashinsky]

And why are people so mad at you for suggesting it, by the way?

[Rachel Bovard]

I have found over the years that you can disagree with sort of the establishment here in Washington on policy anytime you want. They're not going to give a crap about that. But the minute you sort of pull back the curtain on procedure and you show what's possible or you show how things aren't, things are what we call failure theater. Right? It's. You're Just doing this, but it's fake. They get irate. And I think that's the dynamic that's playing out right here, is, you know, they're upset about the fact that people know they could be doing this and they don't want to do it. And, you know, Jonathan's public comments have just been, well, you know, we'll take a lot of time. You know, his, his public, his initial public comment on it was actually, to his credit, extremely honest. He said, yes, we could do a talking filibuster, but we probably aren't going to do it because we have a lot of other things we want to do instead, like pass Russian sanctions and permitting reform and a crypto bill, things the country are clamoring for, you know. But since then, he's basically said, well, there could be ramifications that we don't know about and we don't want to get into those. You know, there's been a lot of accusations that this is nuking the Senate or upending the filibuster. This just simply aren't true. Democrats did try to use the talking filibuster to nuke the Senate. This is not what Republicans are suggesting. Republicans are saying this is just the Senate in its full measure. You don't have to change any rules to do this. You know, the 60 vote requirement will still be there for other bills. You can still file cloture. You just have this opportunity, lean into it.

[Emily Jashinsky]

And as. Do you see this as something that tells us a story about Washington or that gives us insight into the way Washington works? Do you see this as Rachel getting really upset about something because she's mentally ill? What's the story?

[Rachel Bovard]

Can't rule it out.

[Inez Stepman]

No, I, I actually think Rachel's completely right on this one. Believe it or not, I, I every single one of the objections that Kimberly's jostle, who I generally think is a good columnist and had a lot of, you know, great that she's done in the past, but every single one of the objections, even in her framing, if you strip back the, the sort of language around it, it was just, the Senate doesn't want to do its job, it doesn't want to work. And the senators have other things to do that are more important than sitting in the Senate. And those are just, just not convincing to me. And I think Rachel's exactly right when she talks about the failure theater being the thing that cannot be exposed. Because I don't know, for me, when I was in Washington, D.C. that was the biggest black pill of being Actually, in the city, is that. Not that you. I mean, everybody knows that sometimes you win elections and sometimes you lose elections. Sometimes you convince the American people of your perspective on the right, sometimes you don't. And the left convinces the American people and the average people in the middle right to go with their perspective. Everybody understands that you can lose this game called politics. What was really blackpilling about being in D.C. was realizing that people, often the people that are, quote, unquote, fighting the hardest for you, are actually just fighting this, like, fake kabuki theater kind of fight where they get to say, well, I voted against this, but in secret. They know that X number of people, like one person voting against it, a bill is standing in for 10 other people because they knew it wouldn't pass. Right. And that is failure theater. And so I completely agree also with Rachel's point that it helps to focus the country on a particular debate about a particular policy issue. The last talking filibuster that I can remember and in my political observation, was in 2010 or 2009 with Obamacare, where Ted Cruz did a talking filibuster. He read Green Eggs and Ham on the Senate floor. He just. He did a talking filibuster. And people usually point to that as a failure. I did not see it as a failure because he rallied the entire half of the country behind opposing Obamacare. And then we saw this, like, populist outpouring against Obamacare that turned into the Tea Party, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So, like, it focused the country on a policy question. It forced all of the media to cover the policy question. And yeah, ultimately he didn't succeed because he wasn't in the. But that's. I didn't. I didn't see that as a failure on his part. I think it was how the Senate was supposed to operate. So on this question, I'm completely with Rachel on the substance of the SAVE Act.

[Emily Jashinsky]

Yeah. Can I ask you about that, Inez? Because you are. You are a legal analyst. You did go to law school. And this does federalize moral election policy, which some people on the kind of never Trump side are saying that's anti conservative. There's the Jim Crow 2.0 nonsense, and then there's the stuff about Real ID and how some states haven't mandated Real ID or some states, whatever it is, it's this idea that, like, real ID isn't everywhere. Not everybody has it yet. So there are different steps that you have to go through. Any credence to this on.

[Inez Stepman]

On I mean, on Jamelle Bowie's points, by the way, it's the first time I've seen him on a video as opposed to hysterical columns. You know, there are always people who write in all caps, but then he's kind of got that soft voice when he's putting it out on the video.

[Rachel Bovard]

These two things do not go together.

[Inez Stepman]

To have his hair on fire and just like screeching and running around, because that's how his columns sound always. Anyway, I would like people just once to go and actually read the kind of poll questions that were used in the Jim Crow south, the kind of tests that were used to keep black people from voting. And I want you to honestly tell me with a straight face that those kinds of questions are comparable to a request to prove who you are. That is not what those were. If you read them, they're intentionally confusing. They're meant to. And they were only applied to certain classes of voters.

[Rachel Bovard]

Right.

[Inez Stepman]

People who didn't have, for example, grandparents who were registered to vote. Right. And then you read these, these questions and they are difficult to answer. For me, they are intentionally tricky. The obvious. It was an obvious ruse. It was an obvious ruse that was covering for preventing people to vote. That's not what voter ID is. That's not what 80% of the country supports. And I would like, just once, all of these comparisons. So there's Gavin Newsom or Jamelle Bouie, I would like them to put pull up a side by side between some of the poll tests that were required under Jim Crow and the requirement to get an id, because I think it would be instantly ridiculous. It would make the comparison instantly ridiculous because that's. That's what it is.

[Emily Jashinsky]

What about taking this question away from the states and does that bother you at all?

[Inez Stepman]

I do think it's important that the states maintain control over the elections. I did not like some of the comments that President Trump made on this score that we need to take over the elections. That being said, there is a lot of regulation on state elections already. We have the vra. We have interference with the way that people draw districts. I mean, like, there are federal courts that interfere with that all the time. So this is not a pristine libertarian like so many of these questions. Right. There is a part of the right that wants to pretend that we live in a free market utopia, or in this case, a federalist utopia. The fact is, this is not something that is new or shocking in terms of regulation that's coming from the federal governments. But yes, yes, I would, I would like to see states maintain their position in the driver's seat over their own elections.

[Emily Jashinsky]

You want to know something funny? I just realized that my door is open the tiniest bit and it's going to drive me crazy. But that's okay. My position on SAVE is before we move on, similar to Ro Khanna's position on a billionaire tax in California. He calls it an anti revolutionary tax. We don't have to debate the wisdom of that policy. But I think people underestimate the degree to which Republicans and actually some independents too. I mean, voter ideas wins in a landslide in polling. I think people underestimate the degree to which Republicans have lost trust in federal elections because of the citizenship question. I agree with a lot of people that it's not something that's happened in huge numbers, that it's not, you know, swaying our elections in one direction or the other all of the time. But the point that Republicans are making is that but it could here in Washington, D.C. noncitizens can vote in elections. That's a messy, messy process that can obviously confuse the way people are showing up and voting. And so I see it in that sense for John Thune to think about whether or not he should be doing the Bovard strategy of attacking filibuster. Let's go back now to Gavin Newsom, who was at a book event moderated by the mayor of Atlanta yesterday. Newsom's got to get out there and sell books called. What is it called? Young man in a Hurry. Cool. But here he was talking about how they're debating reports. So he's in Atlanta. He's talking to the black mayor of Atlanta. He was talking about race relations during this event. And then he comes out and does this thing about how he got a low score on the sat. Can't really read very well. He's just like you. And so some people took this, we'll get into that, as him doing a soft bigotry of low expectations thing again, in addition to what we just covered with him and the SAVE act and birth certificates and the like. But him doing that with like low SAT scores. Other people said, including Chris Rufo, we'll get to this in just one moment, that it was a pretty white audience. So it was just Newsom trying to level with people and be relatable. This is the clip.

[Promo Voice]

I'm not, you know, I'm not trying to impress you. I'm just trying to impress upon you. I'm like you. I'm no better than you. You know, I'm a 960sat guy. And you know, and I'm not trying to offend anyone, you know, trying to act all there if you got 940, but literally a 960 SAT guy. I cannot. You've never seen me read a speech because I cannot read a speech. Maybe the wrong business.

[Emily Jashinsky]

I mean, incredible stuff. Nicki Minaj reacted by, say, his way of bonding. Reacted by saying his way of bonding with black people is to tell them how stupid he is and that he can't read. Let's move on now to Chris Ruffo, who made a contrarian point. He said the accusation against Newsom is that he was condescending to black voters. But from the video, the crowd appears to be heavily, if not mostly white. Does the accusation still apply or does it depend on race? And if the latter, why? He goes on to say, I know we're supposed to laugh at Newsom, but he's an impressive talent whose political instincts are vastly superior to the perfect test score. Nerds who like to think they can outsmart him. You can put up as many IQ charts as you want, but it's a mistake to underestimate Newsom. And now let's bring in a reaction from the left. This is Nina Turner, Bernie aligned person on the left, who said Governor Gavin Newsom went to Atlanta and told the crowd that he is, quote, just like them. He a 960 sat that he can't read speeches. How insulting. Working class people believe politicians are out of touch because they don't worry about the cost or rent or medical bills. Rachel, it seems to me whether or not this is specifically racial, it is Gavin Newsom attempting with his slick back hair, multi thousand dollar wardrobe to relate to the average American, whether it's racial or not. So first to you, is, is this racial? And B, even if it's not racial, is it still sort of a weird political strategy?

[Rachel Bovard]

I mean, it's, it's Gavin Newsom in his essence, which is chameleon, like, right? He is a. If what he means is, oh, I'm just like you. If he means I'm a deeply insecure, try hard, then yes, he is just like me. Right. Because that is, I feel like that's what relatable. Yeah, like, well, he, he just sort of takes on this skin suit of the audience that he's with. You saw this in the Charlie Kirk podcast. You saw it in the podcast with Steve Bannon. He's like, oh, yeah, like I, yeah, I can totally see. I kind of agree. Right. He just sort of. It's almost, like, deeply sociopathic in some way. He sort of just takes on, like, this, again, the. The, like, skin of whoever he's with, and he tries to reflect it back it. And it creeps me out every time. But that. It seems to me like that's exactly what he was doing here. He's saying, oh, look, I don't know that skin color necessarily plays into it. It seems to me like he's trying to reflect the socioeconomic status of the audience and making a lot of assumptions about them and then trying to kind of be that person to them. So I think Rufo is correct in the sense that that is a very sort of. Do not underestimate that political quality.

[Emily Jashinsky]

Well, and, Inez, let me turn this over to you. One of the things Trump did very well was not try faux relatability and actually just say, hey, I'm gonna give kids helicopter rides at the Iowa State Fair, not roll up my sleeves and stuff a corn dog into my mouth like Mitt Romney and many others. That was, I think, in this new media environment, obviously, much more successful. Is Newsom doing that, or is he not doing that? Because on the one hand, I can see how he shows up looking slick, like he's Patrick Bateman, talking about how he's also kind of dumb. And it comes across as more honest, but it could also come across as like, bro, you're the governor of California, grew up with a Getty family. Even you trying to say you had this dual existence is bizarre. You're not like us.

[Inez Stepman]

Well, the one thing that Gavin Newsom is not as honest, and I share Rachel's assessment of Gavin Newsom, which is that we should not underestimate his ability to sociopathically lie and just say within 30 minutes, completely diametrically opposite things with a totally straight face. I know a lot of people thought on the right that, for example, Ron DeSantis won the policy debate, the California versus Florida policy debate, and it's hard to imagine how he could lose. Not because Ron DeSantis did a bad job presenting the much better, objectively state of Florida versus California, which is literally on fire, but because Newsom was able to just straight lie. Anybody who hadn't looked into it in detail, I think, will be convinced by his ability to lie. And so I. I would not underestimate him at all. That being said, this. I. I think you're right to draw the contrast, Emily, with. With Trump. I mean, what kept going through my head was, I love the poorly educated. Right? Which is just. Just so much More honest. And so, you know, working in McDonald's in a suit and tie,

[Emily Jashinsky]

incredible work.

[Inez Stepman]

You know, people, people know that these, these politicians are, quote, unquote, not like us. We already know that we don't need them. I find it always extremely condescending. I, I don't think this was particularly racial, if for no other reason than I, you know, Gavin Newsom knows the politics of the Democratic Party and would never make it. I don't, I don't think he's morally above it in any way, but I don't think he would make a racial comment like that or that kind of projection simply because I think he's smart enough to know that despite his 960 SAT score, I think he's smart enough to know that that would not go well for him within the dynamics of the party. I think this is, is what, what Rachel said. It's his, his sociopathic tendency to try to reflect what he thinks of the audience. And in this case, it's just unintentionally tipped his hand as to how, how lowly he thinks or how, how badly he thinks of the audience.

[Emily Jashinsky]

And I want to think, or I just want to say I think Rufo is overestimating Newsom's talents a bit. He's right that he is more talented than a lot of the other Democrats. But I think what Newsom has on the others is he understands the media environment and he is. Let's just go back to this point about his sociopathy, willing to debase himself enough to.

[Inez Stepman]

I think it'll actually work really well in the current media environment. You would say, you would think that, hey, like in the, in the age of the 247 news cycle where everything is on camera, you know, how can you expect to get away with this kind of lying? Which was very popular in the 19th century, by the way. A politician would do a train stop tour, and in the north they would be for tariffs, and in the south, south they'd be for free trade. Right. So they would just say totally opposite things and the local newspapers would write about it and everybody would be happy. So this is not new when it comes to politicians, but I do think we've kind of weirdly looped back in the media environment where everyone has so little trust in anything.

[Emily Jashinsky]

Well, and it's because video, it could

[Inez Stepman]

be AI you just. And people just don't even look at material that contradicts their priors on the first glance. So I think in that media environment, being a really good liar is essential and important quality For a politician, that's

[Emily Jashinsky]

super interesting is because I think there's information overload compared with the 19th century. Meaning you could not.

[Inez Stepman]

Reasons same, same result.

[Emily Jashinsky]

Right. You couldn't pull what they were saying in the north and the south and compare. And unless you were swimming in information for whatever reason, you were a publisher, something like that, you would have no idea for the most part. So what were you going to say, Rachel?

[Rachel Bovard]

I was just going to point out, you know, I do think the media loves this, the character narrative that some of these politicians build for themselves, but the voters can always sniff out. Right. What's actually going on. And. But what's interesting is that we always had this sort of artificial authenticity problem on the right for at least most of my life a little bit. We had, you know, these domestic political families. Right. We had the Bushes, who, like, you know, didn't know what the milk costs at the grocery store, you know, and then you had Mitt Ramen.

[Emily Jashinsky]

Oh, no, the scanner. Didn't he.

[Rachel Bovard]

The scanner. Yes, it was, you know, and then you had Mitt Romney, who was like,

[Emily Jashinsky]

what is the sorcery?

[Rachel Bovard]

Yeah, Mitt Romney. What is a poor. I've never seen one.

[Inez Stepman]

Right.

[Emily Jashinsky]

Like, you know, my favorite meat is hot dog.

[Inez Stepman]

Yeah.

[Rachel Bovard]

Like, so we've always had a little bit of that. But I think it's interesting now because Trump, by far, right, is just the most authentic president we've ever had. Just so comfortable in his own skin. But I would also argue that, you know, J.D. vance has a similar quality. You know, people can think what they want about him, but the man is comfortable with who he is, and he just is secure and it kind of comes across. And I would say the same for Marco Rubio. I would not have said the same for Marco Rubio early in his career, but I do think he's evolved into this person who's just very comfortable with who he is, and that's a nice position to be in. Finally, I think, on the right a little bit, which is just like, all right, our people are who they are. They don't try to do this, like, skin suit thing.

[Inez Stepman]

I disagree with Rachel on both counts on Marco Rubio and J.D. vance both. I think they're both insecure millennials.

[Rachel Bovard]

Well, I mean, it kind of comes with the territory, right?

[Emily Jashinsky]

Yeah, I. I think Ruby was an

[Inez Stepman]

excellent quality, and I think it's going to be a problem for us. I mean, Trump. Trump has a unique. Yeah, actually, I don't think either one of those guys can pull off what. What Trump does in this exact sense.

[Rachel Bovard]

Marco an exer. I think he might be.

[Emily Jashinsky]

He's Gen X, I think. But he can. They can both.

[Inez Stepman]

Oh, he's what? What? He's. But he's got to be young. Gen X, right? He's. Yeah, he's young.

[Emily Jashinsky]

To Rachel's point, I think they can both hit this minimum, minimum baseline though now, which I think is actually a good litmus test, is could they sit with Joe Rogan or Lex Friedman for two hours and come across better than if they hadn't done it? I feel like that's where Harris failed. That's where others would have failed. I don't know if Gavin.

[Inez Stepman]

If Kamala Harris is the standard for

[Emily Jashinsky]

authenticity, then, yeah, it's lesser of two evil politics now. I mean, that's the thing. Like, that's all the other stuff.

[Inez Stepman]

And I just, I don't see either one of those guys having exactly that thing. Rachel, I disagree on very precisely on what you're saying. I don't think either one of them is self assured enough. One of the most remarkable things about Trump, at least from an observer, and I hate doing this kind of pop psychology, but it just is something that keeps coming up whenever I observe him, which is. I don't think the guy has a meta narrative in his head. I don't think he has that little voice in the back of his head that is concerned about how he is being perceived at any moment. He is just like embodied all the time. And that is something that our entire generation. Yeah, I, I don't, I don't know that we'll ever have a politician again who has that simply because the type of people who are like that, I, I just, I think they have been snuffed out by the Internet.

[Emily Jashinsky]

Well, let's, let's check in on a couple of very online people. First, the California Democratic Convention featured one Katie Porter because of course, who seems to be stuck in amber, frozen in amber in the pussy hat moment of 2017. She's never left this era and she's at the Democratic convention in California doing the most. I mean, even Dems have turned against Katie Porter, who for a while was a kind of cause celeb as someone who could come across as authentically working class, just the single mom trying to make it. Then all kinds of stories came out, including one out allegation that she like whipped potatoes at her husband. Ex husband. Mashed potatoes.

[Inez Stepman]

Hot mashed potatoes.

[Emily Jashinsky]

Hot mashed potatoes. Yeah, that's not good. Yes, we. I mean, we've all been there. Jarrett just can Duck. Really? Well, but. And that's. Would never throw potatoes and as would never waste potatoes because is an immigrant food. That's true.

[Inez Stepman]

The Slavic table.

[Emily Jashinsky]

Yes. Anyway, Katy Porter comes out with a whiteboard that just says Trump on it at the Democratic Convention. Let's take a look. Simple, powerful message that we can all agree on. Say it with me.

[Inez Stepman]

Are you ready?

[Emily Jashinsky]

One, two, three. Yeah, that's right. Trump.

[Inez Stepman]

That's right.

[Emily Jashinsky]

We're about to watch the Murphy Brown reboot and you know, I have no ideas.

[Rachel Bovard]

I just have swears.

[Inez Stepman]

It's worse than that, Rachel. It's, it's. I'm telling you, this is all generational. This is like that cringy, you know, elder millennial, Gen X thing. And it's all the self help books that say, you know, I was effed up and I fixed myself here.

[Emily Jashinsky]

So you pray love.

[Inez Stepman]

Well, you pray love. It's, it's, it's the same thing with all the sex stuff, like pancakes shaped like dicks. And this is the height of humor. Like, it's, it, it's incredibly cringy.

[Emily Jashinsky]

It's Buzzfeed politics. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Rachel Bovard]

No, but this is the thing. It's like, this is one of my biggest pet peeves, actually. Like, you want to make me mad before I go to bed?

[Inez Stepman]

This is it.

[Rachel Bovard]

It's like these politicians who literally can't do anything. They don't do anything, but then they tweet, like swears, and they're like, look how much I care. I'm authentic. I'm you. I can swear in my tweets. And it's like, you know, somehow we're supposed to be. That's relatable. And somehow we're supposed to think they're fighting for us because they said the F word in their tweet because they called Donald Trump a shithead.

[Emily Jashinsky]

That's, that's also like soft bigotry of low expectations. Not in a racial sense, but in a kind of class sense where they're trying to perform as relatable working class people by peppering their speech with contrived cuss words and listen, Katie Porter, actually, I think ostensibly before she got into her political career, I think she's a pretty normal, before politics, pretty normal person now. Normal people don't really go into politics. And once you're into politics and you have to fundraise and go everywhere, it's almost impossible not to be corrupted by that culture. You're in a bubble. She's in a bubble. She's not relatable. Anymore. She's frozen in Amber in 2018. And Inez, this is your home state. California's got the Newsoms. They've got the Katie Porters. It's also depressing.

[Inez Stepman]

There is nothing more depressing than California politics. And I say that as someone who moved to New York, so I think I have some perspective on the matter. California politics are still way more depressing. So that's just to give you just the absolute floor. So, yeah, I mean, California is totally screwed. It has no prospect of digging itself out, in my opinion. And it's just going to continue to be an example of failed leftist policies. We should just be thankful that they cannot build a Berlin Wall around California, because they are absolutely there in terms of trying to block people in, to make sure that they continue to pay outrageous taxes and so forth. But, you know, aside from the substance on. On the swearing issue, I do think it's just like, cringe millennial culture.

[Emily Jashinsky]

It is.

[Inez Stepman]

I think it's everywhere. It's in that Frida baby sex jokes stuff. I don't know if you followed that. There was a little bit of a online flap over this baby company and it had just a bitch of sex jokes in the advertising, which people obviously found inappropriate for a baby company. But I think that's just the way it is. And I really actually recommend John McMorter's Nine Nasty Words on this because I think it has a really interesting insight onto, you know, how we curse. And the reality is that words like the F word and I'm not gonna to bomb your. I think on this channel we could say it, but I'm not gonna bomb it for you. But like, basically that they have become blue. Been truly obscene the same way that hell and dam moved into the past. And John McWhorter, as a linguist, who I find him much more interesting as a linguist than as somebody whose takes on politics, but like, is that we had three basically eras of swearing in English. The first were the worst words you could say. All kinds of things related to sex and other matters of the body. But what was really obscene was things that contradicted religion, right? So damn and hell were worse than saying the F word. Then we moved into this era where everything that was obscene had to do with the body. And apparently this coincided with people actually being able to have enough space to put up walls. Because before, you just saw everything all the time. Bodily function, sex, you know, within the household. There was no wealth to separate yourself from. And that's really where we. I think we grew up at the end of that era. Now, the things that are actually obscene are definitely having to do with identity. Right? Because you cannot imagine any of these people dropping the N word or the F word, the other F word. Right. They would never in a million years use those actually obscene terms because those actually create the same reaction in people that the f word did 20, 30, 40 years ago. So this is like a faux. You know, it's not really rebellious. It's not really shocking. Even though we're saying the F word, we all use this word in our.

[Emily Jashinsky]

Our.

[Inez Stepman]

Our daily lives. Maybe that's not a good thing, but it has. It's no longer for me during Lent.

[Emily Jashinsky]

Yeah.

[Inez Stepman]

It's no longer truly obscene. My point is, is actually just like. It is a very surface level kind of faux transgression that isn't actually a transgression, because, again, you cannot imagine a single one of these people. They would never, ever use any of the slurs related to identity, because those are actually the obscenities in our culture. And I think that does say a lot about what we worship. Right. First we worshiped God, then we worship the body, then we worshiped identity. And that's. That's true taboo.

[Emily Jashinsky]

That is a really good point. Before we take a break, I want to keep playing. Cringe or no cringe? We've decided Katie Porter's cringe. What about Cash Patel swilling beers after USA Hockey wins in Milan? Men's hockey, I should specify. It's very great that the women won as well. Cash is. Let's just play this, then we'll. We'll react to it. But Cash, who? There's a whole controversy over what he was doing there. He said he was monitoring interagency cooperation. Obviously, you can see there's a legitimate reason for the FBI, which is coordinating with other law enforcement internationally, to provide security at the Olympics. Makes sense from my vantage point, but that's what he said he was doing there. All kinds of debate about why this was an expensive and necessary trip. Cash is having the time of his life with the men's hockey team. They're singing Toby Keith. They're pounding bruise. Let's take a look. Wasting beer. Throwing it, pounding his chest. All right, we can probably get it there. It's an amazing clip. Like watching those guys go. It's an amazing clip, but the cash of it all. There was a guy who went on to Mar a Lago with a gun and a fuel canister. Like, almost as this was happening. Savannah Guthrie's mom is still missing. Is this Am I being. I mean, to me, just like the video. I loved the hockey team. Having fun. That was amazing. Amazing win. Cash looked like he was trying really hard to fit in with a bunch of bros. I know he loves hockey, and I know he plays hockey, but to me, I thought it came across a little cringe. I now open up the floor to Rachel and then to Inez.

[Rachel Bovard]

Yeah. You know, I'm inclined to give him a little bit of grace because they clearly wanted him there. Right.

[Emily Jashinsky]

Yeah, that's true.

[Rachel Bovard]

If he had inserted himself in this and it was.

[Emily Jashinsky]

He says they invited him in.

[Rachel Bovard]

Right. You know. You know, they're putting their medals around his neck, like, he's hanging out with them. He didn't post that video.

[Inez Stepman]

Right.

[Rachel Bovard]

He's not trying to, like, flex on people and be like, you know, insert himself as the main character. So I have a little bit of. Of grace for that. I also just think it's, like, pure Americana. Like, he got Trump on the phone later, and, like, Trump talking to the gold medal hockey team is kind of, you know, what I sign up for in the Olympics. So I, like, I take the point. You know, it's not a superb look, but, you know, for a moment of Olympic grace, I'll let it pass.

[Emily Jashinsky]

What say you and us?

[Inez Stepman]

I loved it. I fell down a rabbit hole, by the way, with Cash Patel, like, looking up where his people are from in India. They're from, like, some kind of cast in India that's allowed to drink alcohol and eat meat.

[Rachel Bovard]

Oh, I didn't even think about that.

[Inez Stepman]

So much sense, because he's just. He just seems like a bro. This is actually not inauthentic from him, I don't think. I think this is actually. I mean, I don't know the guy personally, but it would not surprise me if this were not, like, can you imagine? I mean, to pick another Indian guy and Vivek in there, like, trying to,

[Emily Jashinsky]

like, you know, like.

[Inez Stepman]

Like, it would just be so.

[Rachel Bovard]

It would be in a suit, like, full suit.

[Commercial Announcer]

Right.

[Inez Stepman]

Okay. And not in a Trump way. Right. Trump would be comfortable in the suit. But, like, I actually think this is probably how Cash Patel actually is. And I don't know. I thought it was a nice moment, a nice moment of American glory, assimilation, and joy. I. I too few. Too few moments these days for me to criticize this.

[Rachel Bovard]

Well, there's also a point someone was making to me earlier because they were like, oh, I just really want my FBI director to be like. Like, in a fedora and being very serious. And I'M like, okay, Fedora, you know, but like we, we had that and they spied on us and it didn't work out. Like, so whatever this is. What if this is the FBI director? That's not going to violate all my rights. That's fine. I'll take it.

[Emily Jashinsky]

So, Rich McGinnis, my friend Richie says he's played on a local hockey team here, like a rec hockey team with Cash Patel for a while. And Richie says the dudes on his team like him a lot. Like him a lot. Referring to Cash. This is a fact. I'm torn here. I'm a hockey bro and also a media guy, but are we paying for this trip? Didn't Cash criticize the same stuff under the previous admin? Either way, that I can tweet such critics, such criticisms proves America is epic. All right, well, I think that's it gets to this, this question of whether it was authentic if Richie says people on the hockey team like him. So we'll, we'll table that discussion for now and be right back in just one moment. Have to take a quick break. If you finally want to fix your gut, make your hair healthier and stronger, and add some glow to your skin in 2026, you need to add Colostrum to your daily routine. Today's sponsor, Cowboy Colostrum offers the highest quality bovine that's of course, cow colostrum available in the U.S. cowboy Colostrum is 100 made in America from 100% American grass fed cows. And don't worry, Cowboy Colostrum only collects the surplus colostrum after baby calves have had their fill. Cowboy is easy to drink and is made with delicious natural ingredients and no artificial flavors. You simply add a scoop of their chocolate, Madagascar vanilla matcha or strawberry into your coffee or smoothie and feel great the entire day. Not only will Cowboy Colostrum bring stability to your gut, the peptides and growth factors will make your skin and hair look amazing. For a limited time, our listeners get a great deal up to 25 off their entire order. Just head to cowboy colostrum.com afterparty and use code AFTERPARTY at checkout. That's 25% off when you use code [e-mail] Afterparty High Five Casino is the

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[Emily Jashinsky]

All right, we're back now with Rachel Bovard of the Conservative Partnership Institute and Inez Stepman of Independent women. And I want to talk about what happened at the baftas. This is a wild story that has become racialized for. No, I mean, it's not surprising at all given what actually happened. But basically, I'm not gonna play the video because nobody needs to hear the N word being shouted. But it was a presentation of award at the baftas in the UK and there's a movie out right now actually winning awards called I Swear, based on the true story of a man who struggles with Tourette syndrome. So they brought that man into the audience, warned the audience ahead of time that he may have ticks and outbursts because of course, he has Tourette's during the broadcast. And he did shout the N word when Michael B. Jordan and Delroy Lindo were presenting in award. This, though let's put Jamel Hill up on the screen, has turned into a major racial controversy. Jamal Hill says, asking for more grace for the person who shouted a racist slur instead of for Michael B. Jordan and Del Rey Lindo. Delroy Lindo, who had to push through being embarrassed in front of their peers. But that's often the expectation that black people are just supposed to be okay with being disrespected and dehumanized so that other people don't feel bad. That was, I think, in response to news that Alan Cumming of traitor's fame. I mean, also of other fame. But for the purposes of this week, Traders Fame was he got up and said something like, this is what we expected. It's part of the disease, etc. Jamie Foxx joins in and says the man who shouted the N word at the BAFTAs, quote, meant that shit. And again, this has turned into a big thing. The man, John Davidson, not the writer, our friend John Daniel Davidson from the Federalists, but the man John Davidson the movie is based on, was saying that he left the ceremony after that happened, that he is mortified. And of course, if you watch the trailer for the movie or if you've spent five minutes learning about Tourette's, you know that what it does is make people say things they don't want to say. And so this idea that, that this was intentional racial slight, that it was, I mean, I just think it's, the whole thing is so sad. This poor man left the events. He was mortified. The entire point of the movie is about people who struggle with this disease. And you're honoring it at the ceremony. Rachel, what do you think?

[Rachel Bovard]

Well, I think it's just this, like, layer of detachment and commitment to, again, these sort of like race politics, identity politics. Like, you've just made a movie about this. Like, you've just celebrated this story. You are now you, you were, you made a movie about what is a very messy reality. But then when confronted with that reality in its full messiness in your face and being actually, like, impacted by it and getting it on you in some respect, it's like, oh, I, you know, I, I, how I cannot. Right? Like, this is an outrage. And it's just, it goes to the point of, like, why do we listen to celebrities about literally anything? Like they are not normal people. Like, normal.

[Emily Jashinsky]

I just read a Nicki Minaj tweet on the show Rachel about Gavin Newscomb.

[Rachel Bovard]

Okay, separate category for Nicki Minaj at this moment. But setting that aside, Republicans do.

[Inez Stepman]

And we will regret it forever.

[Rachel Bovard]

I know we will, though.

[Inez Stepman]

Celebrity says anything nice about us, we're like

[Emily Jashinsky]

American hero Nicki Minaj.

[Rachel Bovard]

The only reason I have a special

[Inez Stepman]

with Schwarzenegger as governor of California, and he was worse than most of the Democratic governors of California.

[Rachel Bovard]

But I'm never, never going to get over the picture of Trump and Nikki holding hands with Nikki's like nine inch like nails.

[Emily Jashinsky]

That was beautiful. I had Grok turn it into a Renaissance painting. Anyway, Rachel, go on.

[Rachel Bovard]

No, I mean, it's just the point. Like it, how can you say you are celebrating this film again about a very messy reality, but then when confronted with it, condemn the Person at its center. Like you are just heartless and graceless at this point.

[Emily Jashinsky]

What do you think?

[Inez Stepman]

I mean, I kind of just gotta go with what John McWhorter said. I think we worship race and identity. That's the only explanation for not even being able to give grace to people in a situation where it's obviously like a neurological disease that hearing that word isn't, to be clear, like it's an ugly word. I, I understand it's an ugly word. I never use it myself. I, I don't like hearing people use it. But it also isn't magic, right?

[Emily Jashinsky]

Right.

[Inez Stepman]

Yeah, there is, there is no magic. And again, actually, I'm going to cite John McWhorter and saying like, we had a healthier attitude towards this in the 90s where for example, you could read the N word in, in Huck Finn or, and you would read it out loud as part of like reading this, this literature. Or you could have a panel in which you would quote somebody saying this. Right. And nobody had a fit over it. The fact that we've turned it into it, it literally reminds me of, of pre civilizational tribes that like have some taboo around some, you know, the word, the name of God or something and Voldemort. It's just a word, people. I know it's an ugly word, but nobody is actually injured by this word in such an astonishing way that we need to have a hysterical fit over somebody saying it as a matter of a neurological disease. Okay, this is not like, or, or do you remember the, there was the college professor who was saying the Chinese word, which is apparently a filler word, nega N E G A over and over again. And like people in the class were so offended they had to leave the class. Even though this is an entirely different language and doesn't have anything to do with the English N word. Right. It just this level of worship around a word is indicative of something sick in the way that we think about race. That's, I mean, it may not be like the most popular opinion out there these days, but like, I, I, I truly think that this is, this has gone way overboard. It has gone from a understandable reaction to an ugly word with an ugly history and an understandable sort of taboo in polite society of using that word to like it literally being an, a, a curse, an incantation that by mere listening to it like, like you're going to burst into flames. Okay, nobody is going to burst into flames. It's fine. The guy has a disease. Okay, Awkward. Move on.

[Emily Jashinsky]

That's the thing about Jamie Foxx's comment that just gets under my skin. And I think Rachel made such a good point about how everything is out the window when you can have an identity politics blow up. Jamie Foxx is extremely intelligent. He is a wonderful, rich, deep actor. He's very, very good. You have to be very smart to do that. And I don't know if he paused a second before posting that this man suffering from Tourette's quote meant that shit. I actually do feel badly for black presenters who have to hear that in front of the world and react in time.

[Inez Stepman]

It is embarrassing. And I actually. But the same way that, you know, have you ever been around somebody with down syndrome who. Or like, absolutely. Like really, you know, clinically low IQ and for example, they. They grab your butt 100 thing. It's a thing that happens people that is tolerating. And by the way, some of the worst reactions were not what you just read about Jamie Foxx. It was, oh, we need to put guys like this in. In a separate room. Yeah, we need to segregate them in the clock.

[Emily Jashinsky]

Well, that's what he did. He left and he. His. This film was being honored. And the whole point of what he suffers from is that he says things he doesn't want to say. And that was the art that they all wax poetic about so often. That was the point of this work of art, is that.

[Rachel Bovard]

Yeah. And that's. But that's the whole point. Like, it's an aesthetic, right? Everything about this is.

[Emily Jashinsky]

I think that's a good point.

[Inez Stepman]

It's.

[Rachel Bovard]

It's the, you know, the movie was an aesthetic. It wasn't meaningful. The things they purport to believe are not meaningful. This, you know, race trophy thing is a. Is an aesthetic. You know, you have now ostracized this person that you made a movie about claiming to celebrate, like, nothing.

[Emily Jashinsky]

Me, they.

[Rachel Bovard]

They mean nothing. At the end of the day, it's a completely superficial take on everything. And to like. And as this point, people who have actually encountered this messiness in the real world, like I have a brother with down syndrome. The stuff that I have gotten into with him. Right.

[Emily Jashinsky]

And.

[Rachel Bovard]

And this is. People like this exist and they're beautiful and they're wonderful and they're created in the image of God. Like, why do they. Not everybody understands this. Who's lived around these people except for the people purporting to celebrate them in Hollywood.

[Emily Jashinsky]

And he apologized and left the room and said he was mortified. So to blow it up into an international Embrace incident is. Is so sad. Before we run, guys, let's talk about Bonnie Blue. Listen, the entire world is enraptured by Punch, who is the sweetest little Japanese monkey you'll ever see in your life and has been lugging around a little stuffed animal from Ikea that is now sold out around the zoo as he or she. Unclear to me. I've seen both tries to make friends and be nurtured, and it's. It's horrible. Here we have. This is a Trump level weave here, though, we have a porn star in. In. I was gonna say Lily Phillips. Well, Lily Phillips, too, but also Bonnie Blue, who are kind of engaged in, like, a sexual arms race to bang as many people as possible in the shortest time period possible. And you have Bonnie blue with what, 400 people in one day? 400 people one day. She takes a pregnancy test, does a whole video. This is F17. We can put it up on the screen. The TMZ headline, Bonnie Blue says she's pregnant after having unprotected sex with 400 men. Pregnancy test comes back positive. And I don't know, guys. I mean, she is such a. I don't know if you've ever watched interviews with her, but she's like a psychopath more than even a Gavin Newsome. Like, she's just unfeeling and. And stoic in a sense that's robotic about having sex with so many people. It's bizarre. But here she is, I guess, trying to figure out whether or not she should have this baby. She took DNA samples of all of the 400 people that she slept with that day. I just don't even know what. My head is blowing up. She, like, did it for, I would argue, like, TikTok and only fans, because that was being rewarded. I don't know what's. Someone just stopped me from rambling. I'm so sad about this whole situation. Mostly about Punch, but I'm sad about Bonnie Blue too.

[Rachel Bovard]

Inez, don't make me take this. You have to.

[Emily Jashinsky]

Yes. Now you have to take it. Because you asked not to.

[Rachel Bovard]

No, I have. I mean, honestly, congratulations.

[Inez Stepman]

Right?

[Rachel Bovard]

Like, there's a new. There's a new baby. We love babies. So congratulations to her. But, like, also, this is like, how the human body works. This is how babies get made. What did you think you were getting? What's happening here?

[Emily Jashinsky]

Well, I mean, 400 people, it's. It just shows the extreme. Like, and as we had your colleague Hadley on last week on one of the shows that we did about the new report that you all put out at Independent Women. And Hadley was talking about how the friction between sex and procreation has just been so removed to the point where we have a totally different approach to sex and motherhood. And little Punch shows what happens when mothers don't take their job seriously enough. But enough about punch. Bivalou is like the least maternal person that I can imagine, but I don't like, maybe she'll. Maybe she'll surprise us. I don't know.

[Inez Stepman]

Look like having had a child changes you. That being said, I mean, I, I don't. I don't even know what to say about this kind of discourse because we're all participating in what is driving even this entire pregnancy thing, I'm sure is just a curated thing for clicks. Kind of like the trajectory of porn stars who then convert to Christianity and then like, like film their baptism. And it's not that I don't think people can come back from, you know, be forgiven for their sins or whatever under the rubric of Christianity. That's not. My point is to argue theologically with it, but it's obviously part of a coordinated game that then is like you just get a whole new set of followers, right? And a whole new set of people who are giving you their clicks and money for like a new purpose. Right. And it's just, it, it's is always chasing attention and clicks and like it just. The whole thing really repulses me. I have a hard time commenting on it. I don't really want to think about it.

[Emily Jashinsky]

Sorry.

[Inez Stepman]

So I. Look, I. It's not good for the child, right?

[Rachel Bovard]

That's right.

[Inez Stepman]

Children. Children need their mothers and their fathers and ideally they need their mother and father to be married under the same roof. Those are the, those are the most important things actually after life that children need made. We are constantly engaged in the mommy wars and the like ridiculous things about edge case, you know, like minor, oh, should I put the baby for tiny tummy time, 20 minutes or 40 minutes a day? Like, do I have to show them the black and white flashcards? Is Montessori better or Waldorf method? Like all of the stupid, you know, stupid mommy wars that go on constantly that are. Are on a sleep training, whatever. Like, let's be honest, none of those things matter. What matters the most for these children is that they have their mother and father, biological mother and father under the same roof. Every other arrangement of quote unquote family is inferior by every study and by common sense to that arrangement. And that's what that child needs and mother didn't act in. In a way that was conducive to that.

[Emily Jashinsky]

And that's.

[Inez Stepman]

That's sad for the child. But things, things difficult Life is still life. So we wish the best.

[Emily Jashinsky]

I was gonna say you knocked that out of the park. And I really hope that Punch's mom was listening. I don't know if, if the mom, if she's a listener, but Punch, punch his mom if you're out there. I think and as just nailed it. So something to. To think about. All right. And as stepman of Independent women and Rachel Bovard of the Conservative Partnership Institute, I love having you guys here. Thanks for staying up late. Not as late this time, but thank you, guys. I know you're busy.

[Rachel Bovard]

We like to come check in on the youth.

[Emily Jashinsky]

It's important. It's important. We need it. We need it. Thank you.

[Inez Stepman]

It's like Punch, we need to make sure that you're okay.

[Emily Jashinsky]

I really am like Punch in so many ways. In so many ways. Still attached to stuffed animals. Feel like I'm living in a zoo. All right, I'll let you guys go. Oh, man, that was fun. I love it when they're here and also the audience loves it when they're here, so we have to keep bringing them back. Even if I hated it, they would still have to be here. Quick break. Small businesses are the backbone of the American economy. We all know this. But getting funding from traditional banks is an uphill battle. Of the 36 million small businesses in the US over 70% report needing additional capital every year. Cardiff is the largest privately held small business lender in the US having funded over 12 $12 billion since 2004. Their application takes less than five minutes, has no impact on personal credit, and approvals happen in minutes. With same day funding, banks try to lock out small businesses. Cardiff has the key. Big banks may not want to approve your business loans, but Cardiff does. If you've been in business for at least a year and are pulling in $20,000 a month in revenue, apply now for up to $500,000 in same day business funding at Cardiff Co. Again, that's Cardiff Co. Emily. Real growth, fast funding. Cardiff Borrow better High Five Casino is

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[Emily Jashinsky]

I want to finish tonight on Puerto Vallarta. Some thoughts on what's happening across Mexico. It's actually not even just in Jalisco. It's also in Tamaulipas and around the country. The last estimate I saw, courtesy of yo and Grillo, Great, great reporter on this Beat crash out is his substack. You should follow it. He said 60 reported deaths of both cartel members and soldiers combined. Pray that doesn't tick up even higher than it already is. But if you haven't seen the scenes out of Puerto Vallarta, we can roll V3 here. This is credit to Justin Carpenter. Many, many videos rolling in from Puerto Vallarta. Obviously a very popular winter tourist destination for people in the United States and Canada and really around the world. I mean, Puerto Vallarta is a beautiful place like most of Mexico, and is flocked this time of year. Crazy stories about people trying to get out scenes from the airport. It obviously looks like a war zone. And in a tourist town, that's especially jarring. What happened is El Mencho was killed by. That's the. The head of the golf cartel was killed by Mexican law enforcement, apparently with quite an assist from U. S. Intelligence. That's what the US Side is claiming, is what the Trump administration is claiming. It looks like they used his girlfriend to lure him and then to kill him. So a lot obviously on the line. The reward, as you just saw up on the screen was $15 million from the state department for El Mencho, major, major cartel leader. And as most people understand, cartels run significant swaths of Mexico, of land, of the territory. And when it happens again in a Tourist town, which is a huge section of the Mexican economy. You can bet that the government is incredibly rattled. People stuck in airports having nightmares at the hotel where they're at these. Again, it's very jarring juxtaposition of these lush, all inclusive resorts and people looking out at the scenes of a war zone. You know, cars on fire, bodies in the streets, bullets being shot in multiple directions. Absolutely crazy scenes. And I just think it's at least a good reminder, as Bill Malugian pointed out. I mean, he literally tweeted, quote, a reminder that a vast majority of the millions who crossed the border illegally during the Biden administration were lining the pockets of cartels like cjnj. So that's Jalisco new generation cartel paying thousands, sometimes tens of thousands of money per head to be smuggled into the U.S. so, I mean, that is, by the way, I think I said el Metro was golf cartel. That was an excellent accent, cg. So as Malujian said, haliska, new generation cartel, cjng. That is why this happened in the heart of Jalisco. And Malujian's point is so critical because the reason, I mean, there were headlines that went ignored about this or there were reports that went totally ignored about this during the Biden administration. The cartels, because such a big chunk of their business became human smuggling. Every single. As people told me in northern Mexico when I was down there in 2021 or 2022, I said, every single person who crosses has paid the cartels. Multiple sources told me that on the ground, every single person who crosses has paid the cartel. Well, how many individual people crossed during the Biden administration? Some people made multiple attempts, meaning they paid multiple times. And what percentage of that was profit? Wharton actually estimated it was like 80% of the revenue was profit. Stunning. Stunning. Stunning number. And there's crazy. So here, let me put this up on the screen. This is a Washington Times headline from 2024. Cartels make $32 million a week of migrants in one stretch, one stretch of the Texas border, just one stretch of the border in that week. These estimates from back during the Biden administration. I'm reading here from another Washington Times report, one of the only outlets that was trying to put numbers on this, along with groups like the center for Immigration Studies, which is of course anti immigration. Immigrant. Can't really accuse Wharton of being anti immigrant. The New York Times did some research in this space. A lot. The estimates vary. But the bottom line is that human, human smuggling became a massive chunk of cartel business during the Biden surge. The Washington Times quote, estimated in 2022 that the border smuggling economy topped $20 billion annually, with at least 2.6 billion of that going specifically to cartel, cartel crossing fees. This is why Mexico was in some cases displeased with the Biden administration because this was taking over. Now there's, Mexico has cartel corruption. So it's, it's a mixed bag. And obviously the Trump administration has accused, accused Claudia Sheinbaum of being part of cartel corruption or at least being afraid of cartels, too afraid of cartels to push back. They are cooperating with CIA flights, obviously with intelligence in this case. I hope that this, you know, scenes are all over Mexico, not just Jalisco, not just Puerto Vallarta. You're seeing some of this in like Baja or going up towards Baja, like Tijuana. So coming closer and closer to the border, it obviously hits very close to home when you see American tourists and Puerto Vallarta. Probably for the average person who follows the news, that is an enormous amount of money, an enormous amount of money that cartels pocketed. It helped them become even more formal organizations, almost, you know, almost parallel institutions to the government, in some cases more powerful than the government in different parts of Mexico. And that was a direct result of Biden era policies which were enriching the cartels with every single person who crossed. It's part of why it was a disastrous policy in the first place, to create so many pull factors, making it easier and easier because the Biden administration was afraid of being criticized by the far left because they were being accused of racism. If they had continued the, well, they had accused the Trump policies of being racist. So if they had continued some of those Trump policies, they kind of painted themselves into a corner. And of course, ideologically many of them wanted to open up the borders because they want borders to be much, much thinner and less stringent. And that created an enormous amount of pull factors where you had people from all over the world, not just south and Central America, pouring up to the US border. When I was there, I met people from Russia. There have been people from many people from China. And the Mexican government wasn't exactly pleased. Many people in Mexican government weren't exactly pleased about this either because every single person with more money in the pockets of the cartels who were professional organizations at this point, they are multi billion dollar operations, probably bigger than some governments around the world. And they're enormously powerful. And a lot of that, a lot of that came right from the money they netted the profits. They Netted during the Biden administration's pull factor induced surge where every single migrant who came over and again, the New York Times estimates like at least 8 million, probably 10. 10 million is another even conservative estimate. Other people say it's higher. The Washington Times also did a. They kept a database of how many, how much people said that they were paying to come over. And it was, I mean, you know, I talked to people who difference between, you know, 10,000, 6,000, but all that money then is going to the cartels. They are sometimes then asked to smuggle drugs or to pay ransom once they get into the United States. It was a disaster, chaotic. Every, almost everyone has rejected the Biden border policy. So the question you should be asking yourselves now, if you don't like the Trump policy, which is also many people is underwater on immigration ahead of tomorrow's State of the Union. The question you should be asking yourself now is what policy are Democrats offering? That would be a better alternative, a more humane alternative that is not a subsidy to cartels, that does not wreak havoc on the lives of average Americans or average Mexicans for that matter. People in Guatemala and other countries that people were going through to come up smuggling routes that were became cartel controlled territory. The story of this was not being told by the media as it was happening. And it was so much bigger than what anyone was saying. It was so much bigger than this question about, you know, whether people even had legitimate asylum claims or what a just immigration policy is. Was this massive foreign policy question too? It was a humanitarian question. It was obviously wreaking havoc all over these countries. And all people had to do was go down there or talk to people who were down there and reject the framing, the media's framing that this was just about, about, you know, the Biden administration trying to restore America to the Statue of Liberty poem glory. It wasn't about that. I mean, this was the downstream consequences of those pull factor policies are continuing to wreak havoc throughout the region. Cartels were powerful before it, but they're more powerful now. They have even more professional operations, more weapons, more power, power, more land, more money because of it. So you have to connect the two of them. You have to connect the two of them. So that's the question is what, what does a good policy alternative look like from, from people who may be in a position of power to swing the pendulum back from Trumpism in just a couple of years? All right, that does it for us on tonight's edition of Afterparty. Thanks so much for joining us as a reminder, please do subscribe on YouTube. Wherever you get your podcast, email [e-mail] we'll see you right back here on Wednesday at 9pm Eastern.

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