The "Super Sus" Pratt Loss, Jack Smith’s BIG Problem, and the Biden Grift, with Tom Bevan

Summary

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After Party with Emily Jashinsky

Episode: The “Super Sus” Pratt Loss, Jack Smith’s BIG Problem, and the Biden Grift, with Tom Bevan
Date: July 16, 2026
Guest: Tom Bevan (RealClearPolitics)

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Episode Overview

Emily Jashinsky hosts Tom Bevan, co-founder and president of RealClearPolitics, for a wide-ranging, unfiltered conversation on major news, politics, and pop culture. They dive into the viral moments from J.D. Vance’s recent Rogan interview, conspiracy theories surrounding Jeffrey Epstein, fresh bombshells about Jack Smith’s alleged surveillance of members of Congress, distrust in media institutions, culture war controversies involving celebrity activism, and more.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

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1. Joe Rogan Interviews Vice President J.D. Vance

Timestamps: 01:03–12:22

• Rogan’s Three-Hour Interview with Vance: Covered issues from AI and labor to the Epstein case; Rogan and Vance had a frank debate on conspiracy theories, with Vance showing deep fluency in Epstein-related intel connections.

  • Notable Quote (Emily):
    “JD was most animated…talking about AI and labor…and when he was talking about Epstein…he agrees as he has in the past with Susie Wiles description of him as being all in on the Epstein conspiracy theories…it’s absolutely, indisputably accurate. He absolutely had very, very top level connections to CIA and to Israeli intelligence.” (08:00)

• Deep Dive on Epstein Conspiracies: Emily contextualizes Vance’s remarks by referencing reporting from Vicky Ward and government email disclosures, confirming Epstein’s contacts at the highest levels with both US (CIA) and Israeli (IDF) intelligence, and ties with Ehud Barak.

  • Notable Quote (Emily):
    “Are there conspiratorial renderings of this reporting? Yes, of course. But this is four sources to Vicky Ward in Rolling Stone…he was known in the intelligence world as a, quote, hyper fixer.” (09:20)

• Political Takeaways:

  • Vance’s willingness to wade into controversial topics on major platforms like Rogan marks him as unusually accessible for a sitting VP.

  • Viral clips drive the wider political conversation and shape Vance’s public image.

  • Vance leads the Republican 2028 nomination race in both polls and betting markets, signaling stability for the post-Trump GOP. Comparison: Democratic betting odds are at odds with current polling (Kamala Harris leads polls but not betting markets).

  • Notable Quote (Tom Bevan):
    “[Vance] knows a lot about a lot of stuff and he’s very articulate and…I think he makes, every time I see him, I come away thinking…he knows what he’s talking about.” (13:11)

  • “There’s a complete inversion of the polling versus the betting markets on the Democratic side. On the Republican side…it just shows that that race is pretty stable, and…Vance is the favorite…” (15:06)

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2. The “Super Sus” Spencer Pratt Loss in LA

Timestamps: 16:44–25:02

• Primary Election Irregularities: Rogan and Vance questioned "super sus" mail-in ballot dumps in Los Angeles that saw Spencer Pratt overtaken after in-person voting, despite being a clear frontrunner—raising questions about the transparency and trust in election systems, especially in big blue cities.

  • Notable Quote (Joe Rogan via Tom Bevan):
    “It just so happened that the third place person, in relative terms did a lot better than the first and second place person…such that the Republican was actually kicked out of the race…” (17:41)

• Distrust in Institutions:

  • Emily and Tom discuss how both left and right increasingly distrust electoral outcomes, often due to high-profile claims from both parties in recent cycles—citing the 2016 “Russia” narrative and the 2020 “Dominion” narrative.

  • “Broken containment": Doubts about election integrity have gone “mainstream” and aren’t just partisan talking points.

  • Notable Quote (Tom Bevan):
    “There’s no interest in investigating or scrutinizing this stuff in any way…that just kind of shows the disconnect…But it certainly stands out as an example where people look at that and [think] really? That’s…really on the up and up?” (19:37–23:05)

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3. Jack Smith & DOJ Allegedly Spied on Members of Congress

Timestamps: 25:57–32:09

• Bombshell Reporting: Chuck Grassley releases documents showing the Biden DOJ’s January 6th investigation under Special Counsel Jack Smith accessed both metadata and content of text messages for 44 Members of Congress.

  • Smith had denied, under oath, accessing message content.

  • Emily highlights lack of journalistic outrage and frames the episode as larger than Watergate.

  • Notable Quote (Emily):
    “Are you kidding me? … They’re barely covering this. And now we see even four Democrats…were spied on. Barely a peep from corporate press. This should be sending everybody through the roof.” (27:01)

  • Notable Quote (Tom Bevan):
    “Somebody should go to prison. 44 members of Congress were spied on. Their text messages were read…a huge, massive abuse of power.” (28:01)

• Broader Institutional Distrust: The story is situated within a pattern of the intelligence and law enforcement establishment operating with impunity, recalling earlier government deceits (e.g., CIA's MKUltra).

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4. Waning Trust in Mainstream Journalism: Nicole Wallace, Jim Acosta, and NPR

Timestamps: 34:28–51:32

• Media Bias & Sanctimony:

  • Emily and Tom lampoon Nicole Wallace’s sanctimoniousness (claiming she was “hurt” by Trump’s press secretaries), and Jim Acosta’s self-styled independence and resistance-era grandstanding.

  • Discussion expands to overall distrust in corporate media, with examples of the revolving door between administration PR roles and media gigs (Jen Psaki, Chuck Todd, etc.).

  • Notable Quote (Tom Bevan):
    “They all think they’re independent and they’re really down the middle and boy, we’re…just giving you the facts…Jim Acosta was one of the most slanted reporters…” (37:15)

• Bill Maher vs. NPR’s Steve Inskeep:

  • Bill Maher challenges NPR’s claim to ideological diversity and open-mindedness.

  • Emily cites figures from former NPR editor Uri Berliner showing NPR’s audience dramatically shifted left in a decade (only ~11% conservative by 2023).

  • Notable Quote (Maher to Inskeep, paraphrased):
    “Are there beliefs the audience can actually examine…I think of this [NPR] as on the far extreme of the left.” (43:54)

  • Notable Quote (Emily):
    “Only 3 in 10 familiar with NPR said they associate NPR with ‘trustworthy’…and two years later, [they’re] going further towards audience capture while trying to maintain a facade of neutrality.” (49:51)

• Democratic Reluctance to Engage Critics: Cites Bill Maher’s inability to book Democratic candidates, illustrating risk-aversion and fragility in institutional politics.

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5. Biden’s Memoir and the “Biden Grift”

Timestamps: 52:05–57:29

• Biden’s Memoir Trailer: Biden, no longer running for office, previews his book “Promise Me America.” Emily and Tom criticize his delivery and question the honesty of the narrative, especially around the Afghanistan withdrawal and his decision to step aside.

  • Notable Quote (Emily):
    “He cannot get through a script on a teleprompter without sounding like his dentures are loose or he’s absolutely hammered…he’s still trying to leave his mark…” (53:45)

  • Discuss potential for cash-in book deals by both Joe and Jill Biden.

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6. Hunter Biden’s Media Push

Timestamps: 57:29–61:46

• Viral Interview Excerpts: Hunter Biden, on VladTV, unleashes on Donald Trump, challenges Don Jr to an MMA-style cage match, and generally leans into an “untouchable” persona.

  • Notable Quotes (Hunter Biden):
    “I would tell him to go f*** himself, that’s what I would tell him…This man has tried to torture me for 10 years…” (57:29)
    “I’ve challenged Don Jr to a cage match three times now. Never heard back from him. That’s how I’m going to pay all my debt.” (57:29)

• Tom Bevan: Jokes that this spectacle would be “the most-watched thing in history,” and speculates Hunter is acting like a man who knows he has a blanket pardon.

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7. Olivia Rodrigo and Celebrity Political Activism

Timestamps: 64:14–75:51

• Olivia Rodrigo’s Activism: Rodrigo is highlighted as using her platform and music festival (Daisy Chain Fields) to promote Planned Parenthood, voter registration, and reproductive rights, positioning her activism explicitly as a response to Trump-era politics.

  • The festival partners with organizations for on-site issues: reproductive rights, economic empowerment, domestic violence prevention, etc.

• Analysis of Celebrity Political Impact:

  • Emily references Jennifer Lawrence’s late realization that celebrity partisanship often “adds fuel to a fire that’s ripping the country apart” without changing many votes.

  • She notes, however, that artists like Rodrigo and Taylor Swift do influence culture, especially among young fans, and can normalize progressive causes.

  • Notable Quotes (Emily):
    “If you’re Olivia Rodrigo, you genuinely have to question if the costs are outweighing the benefits [of political advocacy]…because there’s so much distrust of elites and celebrities...” (72:00+)

  • Critiques media coverage framing Planned Parenthood’s positions as “mainstream,” while right-leaning celebrity activism draws intense scrutiny and is often labeled “extremist.”

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Emily (on Vance’s “Epstein fluency”):
  “You can see he agrees…as being all in on the Epstein conspiracy theories…very fluent in Epstein, like in the conspiracy Epstein language.” (03:00–05:00)

• Tom Bevan (on mail-in ballot suspicion):
  “…she was in tears on election night. She thought she had lost…suddenly she’s getting these disproportionate huge dumps…did that really…that’s really on the up and up?” (19:37–23:05)

• Emily (on Jack Smith espionage):
  “This should be sending everybody through the roof…44 members of Congress were spied on…this is worse than Watergate.” (27:01, 31:25)

• Tom Bevan (on legacy media personalities):
  “They all think they’re independent… Jim Acosta was one of the most slanted reporters and…used to yell at the brief...absolutely sanctimonious, indignant...” (37:15–38:29)

• Bill Maher (to NPR’s Steve Inskeep):
  “Are there beliefs the audience can actually examine …I think of this place as like on the far extreme of the left.” (43:54)

• Emily (on Olivia Rodrigo/celebrity activism):
  “If you’re using your art for partisan politics, it’s just going to make it much less interesting because you can’t really be open if you’re wearing a team jersey.” (approx. 73:00)

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Important Timestamps Quick Guide

• 01:03: Show start, JD Vance/Rogan/epic interview breakdown
• 08:00: Emily’s in-depth Epstein conspiracy context
• 11:25: Tom Bevan joins – Vance’s political style analysis
• 14:34: Republican/Democratic 2028 polling vs. betting markets
• 17:41: Spencer Pratt election “super sus” segment
• 25:57: Jack Smith bombshell – spying on Congress
• 34:43: Nicole Wallace and Jim Acosta media bias segment
• 43:54: Bill Maher confronts NPR's Steve Inskeep on bias
• 52:05: Biden’s memoir and branding/legacy critique
• 57:29: Hunter Biden’s viral Trump/Don Jr. comments
• 64:14: Olivia Rodrigo’s political festival and activism

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Tone and Takeaways

• The episode is lively, irreverent, and cross-party skeptical—it’s critical of institutions and traditional media from both right and left perspectives.
• Emily’s commentary is candid and sometimes biting; Tom Bevan offers seasoned, pragmatic takes grounded in polling trends and political history. Both highlight concerns over loss of trust in institutions—government, media, elections, and pop culture.
• Memorable moments include the critical breakdown of the Spencer Pratt LA race, revelations about Jack Smith’s investigative overreach, vivid takedowns of legacy media’s self-congratulation, and a culturally aware critique of celebrity political activism.

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Transcript

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[Emily]

Welcome back to After Party everyone. We got a great show for you tonight. Tom Bevin of Real Clear Politics is here and we have a lot to discuss. Thank you for joining us. As a reminder, please do subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and the most helpful thing you can do honestly to allow us to keep doing our independent journalism is to subscribe on YouTube. Liking and commenting. I mean you guys have just been going to the mat for us recently. Really appreciate it. It' genuinely so helpful. As a reminder. Also, you can email [e-mail] Every Friday we do a version of the show that's just on the podcast side. It's just audio, which I love because it's where I answer your emails. I tape it usually Thursday afternoon and that's where we get to go back and forth and it pops on Friday evenings. So make sure to hit me up there. Lots to discuss today as I mentioned. So Joe Rogan dropped a three hour interview with with Vice President J.D. vance this afternoon we're going to go over some of the highlights with Tom Bevin. We're also going to talk to Tom about this Jack Smith story that's getting absolutely buried in the legacy media about Jack Smith wrongfully spying on the actual text messages, the actual text messages of Republicans in Congress. It's a wild story again getting very little pickup in legacy media. Bill Moore, Bill Maher went in on NPR right to Steve innkeep's FAI face, Inscape's face. Just in the last like 24 hours or so. Joe Biden dropped the video trailer for his memoir that comes out on November 17th. Hunter Biden is going off on Trump Lots to get to. Nicole Wallace said She was too hurt to carry Trump rallies with In a conversation with Jim Acosta, who maintains that he's an independent, he's a journalist, he's not coming to any of this with any perspective and seems to me like Olivia Rodrigo is really leaning in to politics. So like I said, much to discuss before we bring Tom and I did just want to mention quickly this one particular moment from the Vance interview on Rogan that is getting some traction on the Internet. So far, just as folks are digesting this three hour interview, there's a lot to get to. But my overall take here is JD was most animated, animated when he was talking about AI and labor, which was super interesting. And when he was talking about Epstein, also super interesting, he was pretty willing. I mean he took a major L on behalf of the administration, said we messed up the comms on that. I mean I think it's of course as Rogan pushed Vance, obvious they messed up more than just the comms on the Epstein side. And he was very defensive of the President. But you can see he agrees as he has in the past with Susie Wiles description of him as being all in on the Epstein conspiracy theories. You just see that he's very fluent in Epstein, like in the conspiracy Epstein language. And at one point this is a clip. You see this on your screen. Rogan says most people think Epstein was Mossad. Vance responds, yeah, Mossad or CIA or some other deep state, whether in America or Israel. He clearly had connections to the highest levels of American intelligence. He clearly had connections to the highest level of Israeli intelligence. And Bridget Fedesy, friend of the show, had such a fascinating insight into JD in this post. She said, I don't trust Vance because he's got a dad sized hole. He's insecure in the worst way a man can be. Grant grieves male approval and feels centerless, much like a lot of comics and podcasters and Manosphere bros. That said, I'll still choose him over AOC if I have to. That particular description connecting Vance's quote dad sized hole to the way he is, I think very eager on these interviews with Rogan and Theo Vaughn, for example, to be accepted by or approved of by some of these guys is actually a pretty fascinating psychological insight that I hadn't really connected both of those things like the the Manosphere podcasts with Vance's own personal history. But I did just want to say on this particular question, it's getting pushback among folks. Vance is getting like pilloried by people who are more in the hawkish kind of pro Israel, hawkish camp. And it's just worth dwelling on this for a second because what he said in, in that quote, verbatim, that quote that I just read to you is absolutely, indisputably accurate. He absolutely had very, very top level connections to CIA and to Israeli intelligence. So as we, as you may remember because we covered it here, Kathy Rumler, who was the top lawyer in the Obama White House, as she was being awarded by the CIA, was emailing Epstein about this. He was asking her to bring him into the CIA. He met with Bill Burns in 2013, who would go on to be Joe Biden's CIA director, corresponded with him. Burns was also trying to make that meeting happen. You know, obviously from the timeline that's long after Epstein was imprisoned, so the first time. So on the Israeli side, he had a deep business relationship with Ehud Barak. I mean, they're essentially best described as business partners. You can check out Ryan Grimm's reporting on some of this from the emails. Whether it's the hacked ones or the ones that were released by our government, this is indisputable. Ehud Barak was the defense Minister in Israel. He was the Prime Minister in Israel. But if we're talking about intelligence connections, Ehud Barak was staying in an Epstein owned apartment that the. There are correspondence, there is correspondence back and forth about setting up cameras in that apartment, the Israeli government setting up cameras in that apartment. This is not conspiracy theory. This is indisputable. Uh, obviously we also have Vicki Ward, who has been one of the top journalists on this beat, who reported for Rolling stone back in 2021. Four separate sources told me on the record that Epstein's dealing in the arms world in the 1980s had led him to work for multiple governments, including the Israelis. Some of these sources are more reliable than others. But the gist of the claims that you will be able to hear and ultimately watch in a three hour documentary series that came out. She can. She continues. Is that Ghislaine? I'm sorry, that Robert Maxwell, who was himself a conduit between the Israelis and other governments during his lifetime, introduced Epstein to Israeli, who then allegedly used Epstein as the equivalent of an old fashioned Russian, quote, sleeper. Someone who could be useful in a, quote, intelligence operation. Now, according to my sources in the intelligence world, this is hyperbole, but also not completely ridiculous. His name was mentioned as a middleman in both Africa and the Middle East. We now know much more about that thanks to some of the emails that have come out. He was known in the intelligence world as a, quote, hyper fixer, somebody who can go between different cultures and networks. So are there conspiratorial renderings of this reporting? Yes, of course. But this is four sources to Vicky Ward in Rolling Stone. She had sources on this back in 2019, before the Epstein saga had blown up into obviously what it is now. So as this particular clip is getting a lot of pushback online, I wanted to pause for a moment to just recognize that verbatim, it's really an indisputable characterization of Epstein. Rogan was asking if that meant Trump had been compromised basically by Israel, that Trump had initially hesitated on the Epstein files because he has some type of the Israelis have some type of compromise on, on him and they blackmailed him into the Iran war. That's obviously a much bigger and more speculative conspiracy theory. But the idea that Epstein himself was tied into both United States intelligence, CIA and Israeli intelligence, whether through IDF intel or the CIA, is indisputable at this point. That is not a conspiracy theory. That is, as some people, I guess, would say, like a conspiracy fact. There are factual conspiracies and that is one of them. So a little just, I thought, a little moment in the interview. It's actually a pretty big moment in the interview, but one that was worth pausing on a bit. Now we're going to take a quick break and we will be right back with the one and only Tom Bevin fan favorite Tom Bevin in just one moment. This episode is sponsored by USAFax, a nonpartisan organization making government data easier to access and understand. I'm partnering with them on a great campaign called the Data We Depend On. The idea is pretty simple. If the government is going to spend taxpayer money and then make massive decisions, it should have to show its work. What a concept that starts with reliable public data. Government data helps track the economy, spending, and education. You've actually probably heard me citing sources like the bls, the IRS, or the dhs. But when that data is slow, incomplete, or hard to access, as believe me, it very often is, lawmakers have less to work with, journalists have less to check, and the public has a harder time finding the truth. 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[Commercial Announcer]

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[Emily]

I'm Hannah. I've lost 75 pounds in 20 months with GLP1s/ diet and exercise on RO. I've gone from struggling to run a mile to running farther every day. You can access FDA approved GLP1s online. Get the support you need to reach your weight loss goals. Go to ROE Co Weight to see if you qualify. I'm a paid ROE partner. 20% average weight loss in one year in non diabetics with obesity or overweight with a weight related medical condition versus 3.1% in placebo arm Rx only. To stay informed about serious side effects, go to RO Co Safety. All right everyone, we are back now with Tom Bevin. He's co founder and president of Real Clear Politics and also the co host of the Real Clear Politics podcast which you can listen to on Sirius XM every day, 11am Eastern Time. I was listening. Today obviously is a week.

[Tom Bevan]

This is a slog.

[Emily]

It's a slog. But I was listening today as your co hosts, the great Carl Cannon and Andy Walworth were laying into you over this polo that you're wearing. Incredible.

[Tom Bevan]

Yeah, no, they, no, they want, they want the merch. That's right. Yeah. So M is one of our sponsors and I, I dialed him up and was like, hey, can you do some branded stuff for us and we'll wear it on the show in Prota? And they're like, sure.

[Emily]

So yeah, wheeling and dealing.

[Tom Bevan]

We finally got some merch.

[Emily]

Yeah, no, it's, yeah, the merch is great. I look forward to, I mean Carl

[Tom Bevan]

and Andy and I do say Mizzen and Main is a great company. I mean they sent me a bunch of clothes that actually will wear all the times. Great, fantastic stuff.

[Emily]

So you can believe Tom Bevin. You can take it to the bank. That's right, Tom Bevin.

[Tom Bevan]

That's right.

[Emily]

Well Tom, I did want to get your reaction to JD Vance's decision as he's Selling his new book Communion to sit down with Joe Rogan for basically, I think it was 2 hours and 53 minutes total. A 3 hour interview based.

[Tom Bevan]

I've seen a couple of clips. I have not had a chance to watch and listen to the whole thing. I mean, that is long.

[Emily]

Yeah. And I said earlier on the show that he was at his most animated when talking about kind of questions about AI and labor and also the Epstein conspiracy. But one thing I forgot is you just realize how fluent he is on UFO conspiracy theories as well. Like they went deep. He talked about his phone calls with Dave Grush. He was debating Rogan on demons and alien life. Like it was actually pretty interesting. But just your take on the politics of Vance going back on Rogan show, doing three hours and all of these clips, as you've mentioned, you've seen in the last, I think it's been out for six hours already, going super viral. Some very critical of him. It's a, it's a big decision, I think if you're the sitting vice president, to chop it up for three hours with Rogan.

[Tom Bevan]

Yeah, but I mean, look, JD is, that's, that's who he is. I mean, he's kind of a, you know, he will take all comers. I mean, he went on the View, he's done a variety of, of media hits promoting his book from friendly sources and not so friendly. And Joe Rogan's a guy who, you know, was friendly to Trump but maybe isn't so friendly anymore. And he's, he's definitely a, not an ideologue. He's not a hardcore MAGA guy. I mean, he likes parts of Trump's agenda and doesn't like other parts. And he's been very critical of Trump and the administration, so, so yeah, it's, it's, it's not quite walking into the lion's den, but at the same time, he does put himself in uncomfortable, you know, situations where he has to defend his, himself, his, you know, the administration's policies and like, and that's the thing about, I mean, he, I know, I hear all these folks in the left saying, oh, JD Vance has no charisma and oh, we can't wait to run against him in 2028. He's, you know, he just, he doesn't have, you know, and they called him weird the first time around. He's so smart and he knows a lot about a lot of stuff and he's very articulate and I think he makes, every time I see him, I come away thinking like, yeah, he's. He is. He knows what he's talking about, and he's very persuasive when he, when he makes his arguments.

[Emily]

Yeah. I'm looking at real clear politics right now. The average in the 2028 Republican presidential nomination. He's way ahead of Rubio. I didn't realize this. Rubio is at 20. Vance is at 39.4 in your polling average. And given the way the kind of pundit class has diagnosed the potential for both candidates, that's actually kind of a. I guess that kind of undermines the consensus or the emerging consensus maybe between some in the kind of legacy media. Right. And the broader public.

[Tom Bevan]

Yeah, I mean, we talked about this on our show a few days ago. I mean, what's really interesting to me about that is if you look at. And we've. We've partnered with polymarket, and so if you go to our pages now, you'll see our, our polling averages. And then if you scroll down below that, you'll see the, the latest poly market charts on, on the odds for, for each of these candidates. And, you know, Vance is ahead in the polls, and he's also substantially ahead in the betting markets in Poly Market. On the Democratic side, though, it's completely flipped. You've got Kamala Harris leading in the polls with Gavin Newsom second, and I think Pete Buttigieg's third. And then you've got AOC down in single digits. But if you, if you go and look at the betting markets, Kamala Harris is like 7%. I mean, she's way down there and, and just flatlining. And you've got, and you've got Gavin Newsom is ahead, but was falling the last time I looked, which was a couple of days ago. And you've got folks like John Ossoff, which there's this little boomlet for, for John Ossoff and AOC are both. You know, I think AOC is second. She's at like 19%. So I think. So there's a complete inversion of the polling versus the betting markets on the Democratic side. On the Republican side, it's. I think it just shows that that race is pretty stable, and I think it's. It's fairly well locked in that Vance is, is the favorite there now. I mean, obviously, we're a long way away and things could change. But on the Democratic side, I think what that inversion shows is just how wide open that race is and how none of these candidates have really laid a claim to being the, the leader of the party. And I Expect that to be a complete and total free for all.

[Emily]

Well, Matthew Schmitz had a really interesting piece in First Things this week about the fracturing of the anti woke coalition, as I believed. I believe that's paraphrasing how he described it. And Rogan is an example of somebody who is part of the anti woke coalition but like got off that bandwagon over Epstein, over the Iran war, over ICE at certain periods in time. But one thing that Vance and Rogan agreed heartily on, and I think this maybe speaks to the future durability of an anti woke coalition in presidential politics, is on the Spencer Pratt loss in that, well, let's say before the runoff. In that election. Before the runoff. And let's just roll this clip because they both suspect something's up. This isn't a bigger conversation about why these cities that are disasters are all led by Democrats. Basically from former Democrat Joe Rogan, who's clearly like a political independent. Now let's take a listen.

[Tom Bevan]

What happened with the last election in Los Angeles. The, the just the primary, I, I think was crazy. Oh, super sus. Yes, and here's why it's super sus. Spencer Pratt, who was in second place, got overtaken by Nithya Raman in the mail in ballots. But that the mail in ballots also passed a tax hike. I wouldn't be the Californian Joe who wakes up in the morning and says, you know what, I'm gonna go and vote for higher taxes. I don't pay enough taxes. The crazy thing about it too is it's that, okay, so after the initial ballots all came in, it was Karen Bass was number one, Spencer Pratt was right behind her. And then number three, whatever, this woman. Okay, so you would expect the mail in ballots to be more or less like the original ballots in terms of 1, 2 and 3. I'm not saying Spencer Pratt's gonna win the mail in ballot, but it just so happened that the third place person, in relative terms did a lot better than the first and second place person, disproportionately better, such that the Republican was actually kicked out of the race so that there's not actually a real election in California.

[Emily]

So Tom, I always wanna be really careful with this, like whether it's Republicans or Democrats making these claims, whether it's Hillary Clinton and R Russia or Trump and Dominion voting machines or whatever. But I do feel like this has kind of. What's the best way to put it? Broken containment into the mainstream. I mean, if you look at polling about people's trust in elections. It's a real problem for both parties right now. And when you look at the Pratt pattern, you followed this for, I mean, you followed elections for a long time. You followed elections versus polls for a long time. Looking at the results versus what's kind of predicted in the polling. I, I don't know that this comes across as just like conspiracy mongering anymore. I think this actually is pretty, or it seems to people like a kind of viable theory of the case and especially these blue cities.

[Tom Bevan]

Yeah. And look, we've, we've followed this for a long time and, and we've seen how, you know, California, whether it's this race or other races, any, every election cycle, midterm presidential, where, you know, California takes days and weeks to count these votes and invariably there have been races where, you know, candidates, Republican candidates have been overtaken by the mail in ballots. But we, we've never seen it happen because this race was so nationalized and there was a lot of attention on it and Spencer Pratt had generated a lot of sort of media heat around it and we'd never seen it to this degree, to this level where a third place candidate who was, who was behind by. I, I forget what her initial, she was down by 10 points or something like that. When the, when the first balloting, you know, the, the election day balloting took place, was able to, as, as Joe and JD were just talking about, you know, suddenly she's getting these disproportionate huge dumps. Ballot dumps. And again, it's, she didn't, she was in tears on election night. She had no idea this was happening or this was coming. I mean, usually if you had a really good get out the vote operation, you know, ballot harvesting operation, you'd be like, okay, well look, you know, this is not the end of the story. Let's wait for some of these ballots to come in. She was in tears. I mean, she thought she had lost. Clearly. She didn't even carry her home district. Okay. It was a disaster. And so you start adding up all of these things and you're like, well, hold on a second. I mean, one of the theories out there is that and not to be not. It hasn't been proven. It's been talked about a little bit, is that Tom Steyer, who dumped hundreds of millions of dollars into his race and was, was basically funding all of the ballot harvesting and get out the vote operations. And this is why maybe nithyaraman didn't know about it and that, that, you know, she ended up benefiting from it disproportionately. But I mean, again, that's, that's pure speculation. And you know, when you, when you talk about this in a way as if like it is, to use Joe Rogan's phrase, super sus, folks on the left and folks in the media are just like, you're an election denier. How dare you. You know, I mean it's just like there's blowback and, and you know, that's a, there's no interest in, in try. It's just like this is the way it's always been done and you know, you're stupid for not knowing that. And you know, there's no interest in investigating or scrutinizing this stuff in any way, shape or form. And that just kind of shows the disconnect that's out there. When you talk about things like the Save America act and in, in all of these, when Trump talks about 2020 and some of the stuff that went on there, you know, Democrats have no interest in revisiting that. They think the system is just fine. In fact, they think Republicans are, are the ones who are suppressing votes by trying to get people to show ID or to register. You know, it's, but I think this race, it, to use your phrase, it has sort of broken containment. I don't know that there's going to be any autopsy on it or any consequences that come from it. But it certainly stands out as an example where people look at that and be like really? Did that really, that's, that's how that, that's, that's really on the up and up.

[Emily]

Well, that was going to be, that was gonna be my next question, Tom. It's that like this question of the anti woke coalition, Rogan Vance both seeming to agree on this particular topic. It's sort of a sad statement on our times that you do just have so much distrust, distrust in elections. It's, I think probably fair given that the corporate press had the Malibaugh story in Time magazine, referring to the well funded cabal as our friend Molly He Hemingway has written about and did write about and rigged of wealthy people who were changing election laws, pouring in money into changing election laws and pouring money disproportionately into blue areas, doing it out in the open. It's a bit different than the conspiracy theories Trump ultimately embraced or initially embraced I should say. But there's this overlap. What brings people together on left and right now is this like distrust of our institutions and our establishments. And it's like a warranted distrust. And so I was curious to get your take on whether this meant in the long term. It's almost helpful for future Spencer Pratts, whether they're in Los Angeles or New York City or other like, deep blue areas that in a sense they're kind of being vindicated in ways that people, I mean, it's really hard to look at what happened in Los Angeles, just be like, hey, yep, this. I was looking into that ballot referendum they were talking about, about raising taxes. It won within like around 1%. It was really, really close. And I hear what Rogan's saying, like, what do you mean? People are like, they're voting to raise taxes and they're voting like, it's weird. It's weird. And so I, I wonder if, for better or worse, we're heading into an era where actually people are, are going to gravitate more towards the Pratt style Canadas, maybe.

[Tom Bevan]

I mean, you know, Spencer Pratt strikes me as, as a candidate who, who managed to capture lightning in a bottle and really sort of threaten the establishment in a very serious and significant way because of a confluence of factors.

[Commercial Announcer]

Right.

[Tom Bevan]

The Palisades, and he lived there and all that stuff. And so his situation is pretty unique. That's not to say we can't have other people like that. I joke that he should move to Chicago and run for mayor against Brandon Johnson, just like he should just move around all these different blue cities and keep running for mayor and just doing the same thing. But I look, as far as the distrust of institution goes, you're absolutely right. And you know, it's, it's pervasive now, unfortunately, I think Covid had a lot to do with that in terms of, you know, the government, the, you know, public health establishment, the lies they told them, you know, omissions and manipulations and, and obfuscations that really did damage to people. And, and we kind of knew that. And it's become more and more clear in the aftermath, the lawfare stuff, what's gone on. I mean, just today, this Jack Smith stuff. Right?

[Emily]

Yeah. Tom, let's talk about this. Let's put this Federalist headline up on the screen. Sorry to interrupt, but this is exactly where we were going next. This is from my former colleague Joy Pullman at the Federalist. New docs released by Chuck Grassley. The headline, quote, Democrat special Counsel Jack Smith spied on lied to Congress. This is what Chuck Grassley is revealing in some of these new documents. And if we roll this is going to be helpful on this question of what Jack Smith said under oath. S2 Katherine Herridge pointed out. There's a very interesting connection here. There's a very interesting part where Rand Paul noticed the question that Jack Smith got this last year. The toll records that you requested from the senators, did they include the content of the phone calls? Smith says no. The records that you requested, the toll records from the members of Congress include the content of text messages? Smith says no. Let's watch the clip.

[Tom Bevan]

Did the, the toll records that you requested from the senators, did they include the content of the phone calls? No. The records that you requested, the toll records from the members of Congress include the content of text messages?

[Emily]

No.

[Tom Bevan]

Can you explain for us on the record?

[Emily]

Oh, funny, Tom. That's absolutely fascinating because as Joy reports, during the Biden Department of Justice Biden DOJ's investigation of Donald Trump, on the pretext of prosecuting January 6, 2021 unrest and complaints about 2020 election law breaking, Smith's team ignored required procedures to view text Messages written by 44 members of Congress, according to these new documents. Yet Smith testified to Congress that he had only obtained toll records or data about the text, such as timestamps and recipients, not the text content. Are you kidding me? This guy already we know, spied on conversations that members of the members of Congress were having with the media. Media doesn't give a damn about it. They're barely covering this. And now we see even four Democrats as the Federalist Reports here were spied on. Barely a peep from corporate press. This should be sending everybody through the roof. And Jack Smith I think probably could go to put prison. Tom.

[Tom Bevan]

Well, let's hope so. I mean, somebody should go to prison. 44 members of Congress were spied on. Their text messages were read. And you saw the clip. There's another clip of Jamie Raskin asking basically the exact same questions. He's, he's testifying before Congress, he's under oath and he says no to the question of whether they were able to read text messages, the contents of the text messages. So yeah, this is a huge, a massive abuse of power. And to your point, if, if this were the Trump administration that was doing this, the media would be absolutely have lost their minds completely. But they don't seem nearly as interested when, when it's people who were after Donald Trump and in the case of Jack Smith, so look, know, we've seen what was it John Brennan lied to Congress back in the, you know, they spy, he spied on the Clapper.

[Emily]

Right?

[Tom Bevan]

Clapper lied about, they were spying on like the Senate Intelligence Committee or something. I mean, this stuff happens. And there are, you know, you go on to be a CNN contributor. I mean, there are no consequences for this stuff. And it's like, at what point are we going to start putting people, you know, making people face consequences for this kind of action? Because this is exactly the kind of thing that we're talking about. You want to know why people don't trust the government is because you have people like Jack Smith that just break the rules with impunity, lie to our faces about it, and then get off scot free.

[Emily]

Well, and we've seen throughout history, I mean, you have CIA officials, whether they're lying about MK Ultra or whatever else, under oath, they will lie. And then by the time they're dead, we get the documents that show they were obviously clearly, blatantly lying under oath. And there's never any account accountability for it. But it's part of what tanks trust in government. And here you have Democrats who claim to care about this, they're getting spied on. I mean, Todd, this part of what's maddening about this, it was the same thing with their community Senate communications, I think it was with CBS News. And then now you have the fact that four Democrats had their text messages pulled as part of this investigation. That was clearly a political effort to build a case against Donald Trump to prevent him from running and succeeding again in 2020. It was already so bad. That's kind of what's frustrating to me about this story is that like, it's incredible that he had the text of the text messages. It's incredible that he lied about it. But we have had this evidence, plain as day, since we started seeing more disclosures from Arctic Frost that this was going on. We didn't know again about the texts of the texts, but we knew that he was doing this. And it was already outrageous. Like the sweep of conservative movement groups, Turning Point usa, that got caught up in Arctic Frost. Again, if this were happening on the left, their heads would be spinning and it's absolutely insane. The same thing's not happening here.

[Tom Bevan]

No. And you see on the left now they're all, they're up in arms about the Trump administration, you know, the New York Times, you know, wanting to get the, wanting to subpoena the journalists who leaked the story about Air Force One and the security stuff. And that's like, oh my God, you know, Trump's, Trump's attacking the press. He's violating our, you know, our First Amendment rights, blah, blah, blah. And yet very, very little concern about this stuff, which, which is arguably way, way bigger deal.

[Emily]

Yeah. Chuck Grassley says it's worse than Watergate. And by the way, Chuck Grassley was around for Watergate. He would know.

[Tom Bevan]

He actually was. He would know.

[Emily]

He sure would.

[Tom Bevan]

Every time I think we should have like, like, like age limits in the Senate, I see Grassley and I'm like, okay, maybe not. I mean, the guy's unbelievable.

[Emily]

He's, he's plowing forward, literally plowing forward on his farm.

[Tom Bevan]

I did an interview with him and yeah, I mean, he was, he was running. He was a big time runner. He would jog and, and he ran until like he was in his, you know, 90s, early 90s. He just quit like a few years ago. I mean, the guy's just an absolute beast.

[Emily]

Couldn't be me. Couldn't be me.

[Tom Bevan]

No, me either.

[Emily]

I, I hit 60 and all bets are off. I'm gonna take a quick break and we're gonna be back actually with some more news on the same theme. So stick around everyone. We will be right back. Starting a business is a big deal, but Shopify makes it a whole lot simpler because everything you need to launch is already included from day one. Think about that. If you've been sitting on an idea for a brand, product or side hustle, Shopify helps you get it out into the world fast. The professionally designed templates and built in AI tools make it easy to create a great looking online store without needing to know how to code or hire a developer. And when customers are ready to buy, Shopify checkout is already optimized to help more of them complete their purchase. Returning customers can even check out in a single click, which means fewer abandoned carts and a smoother experience right from the start. Plus, if you ever get stuck, Shopify's built in AI Assistant Sidekick is there to answer questions, help troubleshoot issues and keep you moving forward instead of getting overwhelmed. The best part, Shopify handles so much of the setup up so you can spend more time growing your business and focusing on what makes it unique. All you need is the idea. Shopify handles the rest. Start your free [e-mail] Emily Start your free [e-mail] Emily

[Tom Bevan]

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[Emily]

All right everyone, we're back with more afterparty and back with more Tom Bevan, co founder and President of RealClearPolitics, co host of the RealClearPolitics podcast on Sirius XM. You can also catch that on YouTube or anywhere you get your podcasts. Tom, thanks for hanging around tonight.

[Tom Bevan]

Of course. Happy to do it.

[Emily]

Love it. Well, I think you're going to be really happy to do it because I'm actually going to skip ahead here to this clip of Nicole Wallace.

[Tom Bevan]

Oh, good.

[Emily]

Acosta. It just seemed to be a perfect segue from what we were discussing about waning faith in American institutions. Nicole Wallace, who was of course one of George W. Bush's press secretaries, by the way, during the Iraq war, of course was talking. I shouldn't say talking. I should say verbally masturbating. Sorry, Tom. With Jim Acosta on this podcast episode. It's true, you know, that I'm right about this because here's both of them. I mean, it just we'll play the clip so that people get a feeling for what's happening here. Jim Acosta, obviously formerly of cnn, who was left with the network, or he was basically laid off when the network was going in a different direction. Cut when the network was going in a different direction. He famously sparred with Donald Trump in the first Trump administration. He read Home on the base of the Statue of Liberty in a White

[Tom Bevan]

House press the microphone out of that poor intern's hand.

[Emily]

The intern. Oh my gosh. And everyone knew that Jim Acosta was not the, quote, independent journalist he pretended to be. He's still pretending to be that independent journalist while also coming out of the closet as like a full progressive at this point. So let's start with Nicole Wallace talking about how hurt she is by Donald

[Tom Bevan]

Trump stopped carrying Sarah Huckabee Sanders briefings just refused to carry him because having worked there, it like actually hurt me to watch her lying. And I'm not saying that every press secretary in every White House doesn't, you know, try to get the best coverage they can or put the best possible light on the things that their boss is doing. I feel blessed to be welcomed to the pro Democracy coalition, but I feel sometimes like I'm rooting for them more

[Emily]

than they're rooting for themselves. House.

[Tom Bevan]

Yeah, no, I hear you. Democracy is our home, Nicole.

[Emily]

That's okay.

[Commercial Announcer]

I mean I've never been registered with the political party.

[Tom Bevan]

I've always been an independent, I've been a journalist. But I mean, I think I see things clearly.

[Emily]

Okay, fascinating final answer there, Tom. Where Acosta says I've always been an independent, I've been a journalist, but I think I see things clearly. We're going to get into that in just one moment, but I wanted to get your reaction first to Nicole Wallace, who was part of the Bush administration, that Ferry famously lied to the American public about an unpopular war, what became an unpopular war, saying that she's hurt by Trump's former press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders to the point where she wouldn't even carry it live on msnbc. So rich. And she has no self awareness.

[Tom Bevan]

So rich. You know what, you know what hurt me? Having to watch Karine Jean Pierre every day for four years. Who is the worst press secretary that we've, I think we might maybe ever, certainly in the last like three decades. And I'm sure Nicole Wallace carried all of her press briefings. Look, she's, she is one of the reasons that people have no faith in the media. It's like Shinsaki Jen Psaki was at the podium literally while she was negotiating her contract with msnbc, right? Then goes over there and gets her own show. I mean all of these folks are, are so, they, they first of all they have these massively self inflated egos, right? This self regard that they have about like their protectors of democracy. And we're doing all this, it's like no, you're just a, you're just a partisan hack. Honestly, like, and they, that, that's the other thing. They all think they're independent and they're really down the middle and boy, we're, you know, we're just giving you the facts and all that. That Jim Acosta was one of the most slanted reporters and, and he did it in this sort of grandstanding grand. He used to yell at the brief,

[Emily]

you know, I mean he was sanctimonious,

[Tom Bevan]

absolutely sanctimonious, indignant, all these things. And then he'd go on Colbert's show and, and which, you know, Jake Tapper still does to this day, and Kaitlan Collins and all these people. I mean, it's just, just, it's, it's nauseating, honestly. And you know, now plenty of them, right? All of these former, I mean, you look at Chuck Todd, for example, a guy who used to, he used to,

[Emily]

sleepy eyes,

[Tom Bevan]

used to helm like the most prestigious Sunday show, and now he's like, you know, broadcasting from his basement. Chris Aliza, Jim Acosta. Someone made a funny. You know, he, he posted this video yesterday. The intrepid journalist that I think it was yesterday, maybe it was this morning. Who even knows? And where he's at the reflecting pool and they've drained it and there's no sign of the gash that Donald Trump, you know, and he's like someone joke because he's wearing a hat that's like a hat that said sub stack and a T shirt that said YouTube on it. Someone was like, what do you do with all his CNN money? I mean, what. But it's, they've been really laid low, honestly. And, and that's a good thing, in my opinion, because, because they've, I think the media in general, the corporate media, the legacy media, has debased itself so spectacularly over the last 10 years. Their inability to cover Trump in any sort of objective way. And I'm not even, I'm not saying they have to provide great coverage of Trump, but, but they can't even provide any. I mean, you look at the numbers, like 9. No one's gotten worse press than Donald Trump. It's like 97, 95, 99% negative stories. I mean, the guy, they just refuse to, you know, be anywhere near balanced on the subject when it comes to Donald Trump. And they're proud about it. I mean, they, they dutifully joined the resistance when he was elected in 2016. And then they've never quit.

[Emily]

Well, I was going to say, actually they're both such artifacts of the like 2016-2022 era in media where they were kind of proudly driving the industry's trust into the ground. And what you see with them is, I mean, particularly with Acosta, I think he does like fairly well by substack standards and maybe by YouTube standards. But what's interesting about that is it means you have such a small niche or you have a niche of the American public. It's not, you know, tiny that you're not making nothing, but it's small compared to what they believed they had influence wise at cnn. And that's why his last statement was so interesting to me, where he says, to your point about them being proud of this, he says, I have always been an independent, I've always been a journalist, but I see things clearly. What he's telling you there is that the independent way to view American politics, to see things clearly means to be vehemently against Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Donald Trump. I mean, I can't even believe they're talking about Sarah Huckabee Sanders in 2026. But that's what he's saying is to see politics clearly means you have to believe that Trump is a uniquely, and his enablers are a uniquely evil force. And you could even buy into the concept that Trump is an evil force. But to say that he's a uniquely evil force, he's a uniquely different force. But my dude, you're talking to Nicole Wallace of the Bush administration where thousands of American soldiers were killed. I mean, it's just unbelievable.

[Tom Bevan]

Yeah, no, an Acosta has, you know, he, he has, I mean, he did very well by, you know, when he threw him with the resistance, he became one of CNN's feet. He got his own show. He was on, you know, he was just a lowly White House reporter, but because he would make, you know, make these grand statements and grandstand in front of the cameras and, and the more he displayed his sort of tds, the more he adulation he got from all of the, you know, folks who, who hated Trump. Right. All the Trump haters, they boosted him. And, and he was basically like huffing his own hearts. I mean, he was just like, you know, he couldn't stop. And, and, and he ended up doing very well in those initial years. But he was so clearly playing, he was not independent. He was not seeing things clearly at all. He was seeing one side of the story. And, and once he started getting the sort of, you know, adulation that he got, he was all in. And he's been all in ever since.

[Emily]

Similar moment happened during Bill Maher's recent interview with Steve Inskeep of npr. This clip is also really delicious. So this came out today. Bill Maher is basically taking on Inskeep to his face. Npr. There are a few outlets, I think, in American media that deserve this as much as NPR that display the exact same qualities we just were discussing with Jim Acosta and Nicole Wallace of the sanctimony ratio being wildly off the charts. Like the sanctimony to substance ratio being wildly off the charts. Where or Sanctuary even to self awareness. Right. Like they believe they're aware of their flaws and their biases, but they can't. They're so biased, they can't even see their flaws and their biases. So here's Mar taking on Steve Inskeep in a rather uncomfortable moment.

[Tom Bevan]

Your audience is going to love this, by the way. The audience is a little more diverse

[Emily]

than you might think.

[Tom Bevan]

Really? Sure, Some people, I mean, I'm surprised you even had me on. What I always want people to do, but it's so hard to get people to do these days is just, just engage with the argument. Maybe I'm wrong, but I think of this place is like on the far extreme of the left. Well, but I could be wrong. Yeah, maybe. Maybe there's a little more variety in who we talk to than you might be told. Who you talk to is different than like what people believe. What's the, you know, are there beliefs that the audience can be, you know, examine this. Oh, you know, I think that's a good point, maybe. Or is it just like. No, that's. It does not conform to the one true opinion. So, you know, I mean, it's. Well, I'm with you. We want to hear all kinds of people and we go out of our way to do it. Great.

[Emily]

Tom. I listen to too much NPR for my own good. So what? Mars. So God bless you. God bless you. That, that tells me you have CarPlay. I don't. My car is old. I get in there and I'm like, I have my choice is the radio. Unless I want to spend time like connecting the Bluetooth. Anyway, they are. When it's trans athlete, it's trans ideology, free speech, Christian nationalism. It's exactly what that marchescribe. It's like, no, no. At no point did they pause and be like, oh, okay, well, that maybe is an interesting counter argument. Literally never on some of those cultural issues. And you'll remember this. Yuri Berliner, who had been at NPR for a really long time, wrote a landmark essay for the Free Press back in 2024 where he said, looking at survey data in 2011, quote, although NPR's audience tilted a bit to the left, it still bore a resemblance to America at large. 26 of listeners described themselves as conservative, 23 is middle of the road, and 37 as liberal. By 2023, the picture was completely different. Over only 11 describe themselves as very or somewhat conservative, 21 as middle of the road, and 67 of listeners said they were very or somewhat Liberal. That's up 30 points in the course of about a decade, he says, we weren't just losing conservatives, we were also losing moderates and traditional liberals. That is exactly how you would probably describe Bill Maher. And Berliner specifically hones in on their coverage of the Russia collusion hoax, hones in on their coverage of the Hunter Biden laptop story and then of the lap leak, which they dismissed as a conspiracy theory. He mentions. We introduced our coverage of that development on February 28 by asserting confidently that the scientific evidence overwhelmingly points to a natural origin for the virus. Perfect. It's, it's all right there for them to see.

[Tom Bevan]

Yes. And, and what did they do? This is, this is what drives me crazy. So your audience is getting more and more one sided. And so what do you do? You hire a CEO who doesn't believe in the First Amendment. Right. Who's giving TED talks about how you just make up facts and make up reality. I mean, this is part of the problem with the media is that they're, there's no, there doesn't appear to be any sort of self corrective, there's no introspection, there's no reckoning of any of this stuff. Right. They just keep on keeping on and meanwhile their audience is dwindling and people are going to find different voices because they can't trust the mainstream media. And whenever any of these institutions does try to, you know, push back or make some sort of correction by hiring someone like Barry Weiss at CBS or who was it? Chris Licht at cnn. These, it's, it's like an, it's like a white blood cell antibody reaction. You know, these organizations all go crazy and, and try and force these people out. They just, they resist any sort of change in part because they think they are right. They think they are sort of doing the Lord's work. They're righteous in their viewpoints and they don't believe that there's two sides to these stories and they don't believe that, you know, you can, there's a, there's a plausible argument to be made for any of the policies of the Trump administration. So it's, it's just a never ending cycle. Right? There's no, there's no accountability. The only thing that's accountable is when these folks, you know, they get let go because their audience dwindles. And eventually these companies are going to go out of business and it's going to be all of their own doing. I would also, to sort of bring this full circle. That's another interview that J.D. vance did with Bill Maher and Bill Maher, when he interviewed him, he said, look, I can't get Kamala Harris to come on the show. I've asked her the whole time she was running for president, the whole time afterward he's asked her to be on. She will not come on the show. Show and sit down with him to talk. And he's, he is a liberal. I mean, he is a dyed in the wool liberal who in the sort of classic sense, and she is afraid to. And he says it's not just her, it's everybody. I mean, he can't get. Democrats refuse to sit down and have those kinds of conversations and discuss issues and be presented with other viewpoints. And that's a bad sign for the party because if they can't do that, and she really didn't do that when she was running for president. She, she didn't have a single press conference. She did very few interviews. And even the one she did, the one that tripped her up the, the most, was that friendly interview on the View. It was a question by Sunny Austin who was like, here's this softball. Can you please knock it out of the park? She was just like, so, you know, I don't think that's gonna, I don't think that's going to bode well for, for Democratic candidates at the presidential level, certainly, or the media itself.

[Emily]

Yeah. And actually one more part from the Suri Berliner piece that was so telling. He Sundays, back in 2024, in February, our audience Insights team sent an email proudly announcing that we had a higher trustworthy score than CNN or the New York Times. But the research from Harris poll is hardly reassuring. It found that three in 10 audience members familiar with NPR said they associate NPR with a characteristic trustworthy. So they're bragging about being better than CNN and the New York times. But only 3 in 10 of the audience members in that poll, which they are sending around internally, Steve Inskeep, is now in 2026 being like, well, our audience may be a little bit more diverse than you think. Only if Bill Maher thought the audience was literally a hundred percent hardcore progressive, could that be true. Because we just saw a 30 increase in people who are identifying as liberal in NPR's audience. And what we're seeing here is even their own research shows they're not highly trusted by people familiar with the brand that they're bragging about. Research that shows people are not ascribing trustworthiness to this media outlet. And two years later, you still have Steve Inskeep and a network that if anything, Tom is going further towards the audience capture. It was like when the New York Times canned that Tom Cotton op ed Send in the Troops, where he called for the Insurrection act to be used to quell, quote, violent riots, not peaceful ones. They rescind it. Why? Because their subscribers and their staffers were mad, not because it was journalistically bad practice in any way whatsoever. And that's. I mean, the Times is trying to get away from that a little bit, but NPR is going pedal to the metal on their own audience capture while still trying to maintain this facade of neutrality and independence that I think is their big mistake.

[Tom Bevan]

Like, I agree. And it leads you down a sort of, you know, dead end street where your audience continues to shrink until you have only like a small. It's the niche thing that you were talking about earlier. Like you're left with just a small group of, of hardcore believers and supporters who, who want nothing more than to tune in to NPR to get all of their priors confirmed by Stevens. Keep. Right. That's not a sustainable model. And especially now that NPR is not getting any government dollars, they're gonna have to find it elsewhere.

[Emily]

Yes, National Public Radio, Brooklyn Public Radio. Just leave it at that. Tom, you said dead end and it reminded me that Joe Biden is alive. Mitch McConnell also alive. Joe Biden, alive and well. Apparently he released a trailer for his upcoming memoir.

[Tom Bevan]

Such a high quality transition there from a professional broadcaster. I love it.

[Emily]

This is why they pay me the big.

[Tom Bevan]

That's right. That's right.

[Emily]

I can do that stuff right off the top of my head any day. Well, I. I'm sleeping. I can do transitions like that. Well, the trailer is out. We're doing trailers for memoirs now. I guess the book is going to come out in November, November 17, after the midterms, which I think is pretty interesting. It'll keep his media tour, hopefully, blessedly, for Democrats, away from the press. But this is the trailer for the memoir. I don't even need to say anything to introduce it, but let's take a listen to a bit. You're gonna get why it's so problematic.

[Tom Bevan]

I've written a book about my time as president. It's called Promise Me America. It's about the challenge we face as a nation, about the decisions I made

[Emily]

decisions, why I made them,

[Commercial Announcer]

leading the

[Tom Bevan]

country through Covid, rebuilding our economy and restoring our democracy after the attack on January 6, ending our nation's longest war in Afghanistan, strengthening it up and supporting Ukraine. It's about why I chose to run for re election and why I chose to step aside. Most of all, it's about my faith in the promise of America.

[Emily]

To be clear, he cannot get through a script on a teleprompter without sounding like his dentures are loose or he's absolutely hammered, which he doesn't drink, so he's not hammered. And the man has, has cancer. I get it, he's suffering, but he's still trying to leave his mark on the American and on American politics and culture with this memoir. He's still political in that capacity, Tom. And finally, it's just a reminder. This man thought he could be president right now in 2026 and run a second term. He cannot get through a teleprompter in the most controlled setting possible.

[Tom Bevan]

Right. That was the best take they could get, right? I mean, how many times did they do that? And that was, they were like, this is it. We got it.

[Emily]

I just,

[Tom Bevan]

yeah. I mean, for all those things you just said, the fact that he thought he could run again, I, I find it interesting that, that Jill's book came out first.

[Emily]

Oh, good sense.

[Tom Bevan]

You know, like. Yeah, that's very telling to me. And she's, you know, she did her media tour and it wasn't well received necessarily. Democrats were kind of like, really, we're doing this? And before the election. But they both made millions and millions of dollars off of publishing these, these two. I guess it was a twin book deal. I don't know what the actual number was, but I'm pretty sure that the publishing house will not make their money back because I don't think anybody, I'm not sure. I don't think her book did particularly well. I don't expect his book will do very well either. He's bragging about ending the war in Afghanistan. Thirteen U. S. Soldiers died at abbey Gate. I mean, I, I just, I. And, and to your point, you know the story about why, why he is. Does anyone think we're going to get the actual story about why he decided to run or why he decided to step aside? I, I don't think he, he says he chose to step aside. Are we really going to get the, you know, the tick tock on the phone calls with Nancy Pelosi where she's like, telling him he's got, he's got to hit the showers, you know, I just don't, I don't. It's going to be his version of history. And remember too, speaking of Nancy Pelosi and people forget this, or maybe some people forgot it. I didn't Forget it. Remember when, when this was all going on, she wanted it to put him on Mount Rushmore. She thought he deserved to be on Mount Rushmore.

[Emily]

I forgot about that.

[Tom Bevan]

I was thinking about that on July 4th when or the day before when Trump was giving a speech at Mount Rushmore and there's all this coverage Brett Bear was broadcasting from Mount Rushmore and I thought to myself, my God, they actually, Nancy Pelosi actually with a straight face said that Joe Biden should be up there. That was an all timer for me.

[Emily]

I actually had completely forgotten about that. It does. That's actually amazing because there was this at the time when he was passing these big spending bills push to say

[Tom Bevan]

he is greatest president of all time. Oh my gosh, since he was, he's top five, you know, all that.

[Emily]

Yeah. He was bringing John Meacham and I was just exactly going there, Tom, to talk to him about how he can be the FB FDR of his generation and be a significant fdr. And Meacham was helping him write speech. I mean it was, it reminds me that my pick for Mount Rushmore I think is probably Hunter Biden. He is on his ongoing media tour where he kind of is trying to frame himself as this independent guy who's just, who just wants the country to get along and kind of be what it was like when his dad was coming up in politics and people understood each other as humans and less as, you know, political opponents. Here's Hunter Biden on Donald Trump from a Vlad TV interview that I think aired in the last week week.

[Tom Bevan]

I would tell him to go his self, that's what I would tell him and please leave. I mean like, like I can be, I can be civil and I can tell you like, oh listen, I, he's a president. I don't want him going to be pissed off. I mean I, I, you know, like it's President of the United States. Well, obviously, wouldn't you want to have a constructive dad? This man has tried to torture me for 10 years. He says that the that he says about my dad, the that he says about my dad, his obsession with tormenting my dad, hanging a picture of an auto pin on the, on the colonnade, demeaning him and all the things that he said about him and anyone would expect me to do anything outside of which I would never do is physical violence against that person. What kind of man would I be if I didn't tell him to go himself belt what kind of man would I be? And I asked that to all of you UFC fans. I'm a UFC fan, too. You know, I've challenged Don Jr to a cage match three times now. Never heard back from him. That's how I'm going to pay all my debt.

[Emily]

He's dead serious, too. That's the best part. This is what.

[Tom Bevan]

Do you know how much money pay per view that would make? Hunter Biden versus Don Jr. Cage match. Oh, my God. It was unfathomable. It would be.

[Emily]

I would pay.

[Tom Bevan]

Could pay the national debt with that thing. I mean, unbelievable. It would be. It would be the most watched thing in history. Hunter Biden sounds like a man who has a. Has a blanket pardon.

[Emily]

Yes. That's so true.

[Tom Bevan]

He's talking like a guy who can't. He's untouchable. So, I mean, yeah, look, I do find it interesting that some folks on the right have. Have taken to sort of glazing Hunter Biden and, oh, he's so great on X and he makes all these funny posts and, oh, I had no idea that he was this, you know, this whatever. Funny or witty or whatever, as if that's, you know, I, I. Exonerating. Yeah, I did see also that he was. He did this joint interview with Nick Fuentes and apparently they almost came to blows, speaking of fighting. So, know, I'm not sure if we're gonna get video of that or not, but look, he's. I don't know what to say about Hunter Biden other than he's continues to put himself out there and wants to be in the conversation and be part of the limelight. He's squeezing his, you know, 15 minutes into 20 minutes, and I don't know if he's doing that. I'm trying to, you know, resurrect or, or, you know, his legacy or his father's legacy or the family's legacy, whatever the case may be. But he just, He's. He's an unbelievable character, to be honest.

[Emily]

I think it's really simple. It's. The Bidens want and need money. They've always wanted more money. They probably right now need more money because the cash cow is on its last legs, Tragically, in Joe Biden's case.

[Tom Bevan]

Is he making money off of X, though, posting stuff or doing these podcasts? I don't think so. Right.

[Emily]

No, but he's probably putting himself in the position to get a better type of, like, media or book deal at some point or launch his own channel. That's my guess. That's my, that's my, that's my theory. But who knows I might read a

[Tom Bevan]

Hunter Biden tell All book if he

[Emily]

actually wrote that one. That was. But it was. It didn't.

[Tom Bevan]

Yeah. It wasn't as. It wasn't.

[Emily]

Wasn't.

[Tom Bevan]

It was a. It was a edited history, wasn't it?

[Emily]

Yes. A sanitized version of history. And that's what I think he is. He's probably a fairly high IQ person. I feel like one of the things he's noticed about new media is that it does incentivize this pretty raw commentary. And he's absolutely capable of that. Most people are capable of that, to be honest. He's just lived a life that I'd. I'd love to hear more raw commentary. What it doesn't do is exonerate him as like some type of sane, normal, decent, civil man with useful thoughts on American politics. And that's where when people go in that direction, I'm like, give me a break. It's Hunter Biden.

[Tom Bevan]

Yeah. No, I totally agree. Totally.

[Emily]

Tom Bevin. Tom Bevin's here in his real clear politics polo. Looking sharp. If you're listening to this RCP up

[Tom Bevan]

here, what's on this side there it

[Emily]

is like a nascar.

[Tom Bevan]

I know.

[Emily]

For your own company. Tom, you are a fan favorite. I always say it. So thank you for taking the time staying.

[Tom Bevan]

Absolutely.

[Emily]

To do the show.

[Tom Bevan]

Anything for you, Emily.

[Emily]

Love it.

[Tom Bevan]

All right.

[Emily]

All right. Well, the feeling is mutual. Thank you, Tom Bevin. We're gonna be back with more in just one moment, but first, a quick break. Everybody's talking about weight loss injections because the results are so dramatic. We all know what I'm talking about. They work by lowering blood sugar and reducing appetite. So what if you're looking to lose weight but not interested in painful weekly injections? Especially when you hear about some of those intense side effects? That's why doctors created a weight loss supplement called Lean. And the results are remarkable. The studied ingredients in Lean have been shown to lower your blood sugar, burn fat by converting it into energy, and curb your appetite and cravings so you're not as hungry. But listen, Lean is not for the casual dieter. With only a few pounds of pounds to lose, the doctors at Brick House Nutrition created Lean for frustrated dieters with 10 or more pounds to lose. So let's get you started with 20 off and free rush shipping so you can add Lean to your healthy diet and exercise plan. Visit takelean.com and enter Emily for your discount. That's promo code [e-mail]

[Tom Bevan]

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[Emily]

wrap up the show with Olivia Rodrigo's turn towards activism. This isn't entirely new, of course, for Olivia Rodrigo, who has has been pretty open about, I would say, cultural left leaning politics in the past. But Olivia Rodrigo now we can put this up on the screen is, quote, standing or taking a stand against Trump as she raises money for Planned Parenthood? This is a headline from the Mirror. Again, let me just read that Olivia Rodrigo stands against Trump as she raises money for Planned Parenthood. Now reading a bit from this article. Olivia's support of Planned Parenthood hasn't gone unnoticed as she's a strong advocate of reproductive rights for women. That's why earlier this year Planned Parent had honored her with the Catalyst Awards. Quote When I play shows, I look at crowds filled with young girls and the bond I feel with them is profound. I often wonder what happens to those girls when they leave those venues. What are their dreams? What kind of world are they returning to? She said in her acceptance speech, according to the Mirror. This, though, is, I think, mostly taken from a Hollywood Reporter feature on Olivia Rodrigo with the headline How Olivia Rodrigo is Getting Back at the Trump Administration. So in the article, this is what I assume is the source for the Mirror piece because you may have heard Rodrigo is launching a Lilith Fair. What's the best way to put it? A Lilith Fair sort of child. It could be an inheritor of the Lilith Fair brand. It's called Daisy Chain. It's the Daisy Chain Fields Festival. This was announced a couple of weeks ago. She's now encouraging entrants, according to the Hollywood Reporter, to check their voter registration status, register or or explore election resources for a chance at an all expenses paid trip to the festival, travel and hotel included, according to Headcount, the nonprofit running the promotion. Headcount, according to thr, partners with musicians and music events nationwide to build awareness around civil rights and voter participation, working at over 1000 concerts and festivals a year beyond Just as I'm wrapping this quote up, the all women lineup organizers say Daisy Chain Fields will fold in an activism component, with non profits on site sharing resources on issues like reproductive rights, maternal health, economic empowerment and domestic violence prevention. Partners reportedly include the center for Reproductive Rights and Planned Parenthood, turning the festival grounds into as much a civic showcase as a stage. Now, as an inheritor of the Lilith fan Lilith Fair tradition, this is not at all unusual to hear from reporting on what the Daisy Chain Fields festival will look like. The activism component was obviously part of Lilith Fair, which as especially younger women are re exploring or exploring perhaps the first time the culture of the 1990s. It's really no surprise that you see Rodrigo, who's somebody who has been openly a fan of 90s culture, go to a Lilith Fair type event or lead her own Lilith Fair type event, be the new Sarah McLachlan, I suppose, and then include this activism component to it. But I think what's interesting is that Hollywood Reporter is framing this as her quote, getting back at the Trump administration. And you heard from the earlier article that this was part of her quote, stand against Trump. Ice at one point used a Rodrigo song and she was furious about that. As, by the way, I think is perfectly reasonable for an artist to be. But it has nudged her further along this political journey in a way that for me recalled the wisdom of Jennifer Lawrence, who as a young actress in the first Trump administration got really caught up up in some of the activist components of it. She told the media, you'll remember this after Trump won. This was actually last fall as Trump was wrapping up his first year. She looks back and she says, during the first Trump administration, I felt like I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off. But as we've learned, election after election, celebrities do not make a difference whatsoever on who people vote for. So then what am I doing? I'm just sharing my opinion on something that's going to add fuel to a fire that's ripping the country apart. And Lawrence was making this argument that it's it's more powerful to build a, an ideological or political message into your art than to do partisan politicking in the media. And using that as an example of where she went wrong during the first administration where celebrities were tripping over one another to have the most anti Trump quote in the press or on social media. And Lawrence is correct in saying you're adding by doing that, adding fuel to the fire that's ripping the country apart. And for what? If you're a celebrity, sometimes you're hurting your own cause because you are, I think, showcasing how so many wealthy elite Americans believe they know what's in the best interest of everybody else and are using the platforms built on their wealth and their elite status, their insider status to do partisan agenda building. And that does hit Americans, especially in this era of low institutional trust, the wrong way. Now, I think Lawrence is wrong to say that celebrities make no difference whatsoever. Obviously, Rodrigo is doing voter registrations at this festival. She's, she's planning. Taylor Swift very famously created an increase in a big bump in voter registrations when she was advocating for that. It matters. I don't think there are a lot of Americans taking their marching orders on partisan politics from celebrities. But I do think on cultural questions, for example, like abortion, the Olivia Rodrigo's of the world, the Jennifer Lawrence's of the world do create a sort of cultural permission structure that this is what enlightened cool people believe. If you're a fan, and a lot of young women's or young women are fans of Olivia Rodrigo, if you're a fan, it's like, okay, it sort of lends credibility to Planned Parenthood, which is frankly an extreme organization that is out of touch with the mainstream American. Now don't get me wrong, Republicans, myself included in conservatives, like, I don't consider myself Republican, of course, but among conservatives, my position on abortion is wildly out of touch with the average American. And I'm perfectly happy to admit as much. But the best way to deal with that is to just make your argument and be honest about it. And Planned Parenthood acts like they're the mainstream. They act like they are totally, to most Americans, the acceptable force for abortion activism. But that's just not the case. And we should talk about also how they were very wrapped up in transitioning younger people through the distribution of different medical and psychological transition, trans transition materials at their Planned Parenthood facilities for a long time. And so it's not mainstream in that respect either. But that's what I think is kind of interesting here is that the, if you're on the, on the right, the media will jump all over you and say this is an extremist position on abortion. Your Planned Parenthood or the the conservative version of Planned Parenthood, they'll call it far right, great, anti choice, whatever. But if it's Olivia Rodrigo, you get written up in the press as somebody who's supporting reproductive rights and Planned Parenthood isn't mentioned for their positions that are like out of such step with the public. And that's where I think, to Jennifer Lawrence's point, because people are so hyper attuned to this now, it actually is probably you, if you're Liviago, you genuinely have to question if the costs are outweighing the benefits. Benefits here because again, I am very anti abortion and I think the cost is normalizing. First of all, what I believe is the taking of a human life in the form of abortion. A lot of people don't agree with me on that. Fine, I'll make the argument. Made it before on the show, made it on a lot of our Happy Hour Friday episodes. But if you believe the opposite of that, it's not treated nearly as though it's controversial in the press. And so what ends up happening is you get a chunk of the country that's enormously frustrated with the coverage and that, like with the LGBT agenda, issues that have now become unpopular nationwide, boys and girl sports, men and women's prisons, women's shelters, those types of stories. People also end up losing even more trust in institutions in the country and what they're being told by celebrities. Because at a certain point in the democratized media environment, you're not just getting the talking points from the corporate press anymore. You start to hear different ideas and you realize that this credibility that's been ascribed to one position on an individual issue, abortion, for example, is not exactly what you believed it to be. Be that actually there are legitimate debates to be had about when human life begins, that this thing that you were told is a clump of cells. There's a serious argument that that is a. A human life. Obviously, I believe that argument. But as you come to explore this, because you're not just getting talking points from corporate press anymore, it does make things worse. And there's so much institutional distrust, there's so much distrust of elites and celebrities right now that I think Olivia Rodrigo could learn from Jennifer Lawrence's experience in the first Trump administration about the costs versus the benefits of leaning into political advocacy really hard. Listen, I don't have any problem with artists at all using their platforms for politics. I think if you're using your art for partisan politics, it's just going to make it much less interesting because you can't really be open about what you think if you are wearing a team jersey. That's why I'm a journalist, for example, because I can never do that. I can never just stuff it. If you put a team jersey on, you're conditioning yourself to be less skeptical of power on one side versus the other side and overly skeptical of power on the other side. And it's extremely difficult to remain consistent and thoughtful in a way that creates good art. So I have zero problem though, with her saying, I feel like I have a responsibility, I have lots of money, I have influence with these young women to use it one way or the other. Mother wouldn't have a problem if she were anti abortion doing this in any way whatsoever. I'm just saying that right now, if you believe in kind of taking on the Trump administration and the right, this might not even be in your best interests. And contrasting that with the Jennifer Lawrence realization to me was actually pretty interesting. As I was thinking about what to say in this segment, I went back to the Lawrence quote. I was like, she's really hitting on something that's just underappreciated, especially amongst celebrities who continue to not quite be at the fever pitch, frenzied level they were in 2017, 2018, 2019. So I think some people have learned from Jennifer Lawrence and some celebrities themselves are questioning everything that they thought they believed. Not most of them, but some of them. So interesting times indeed. That's going to do it for us on tonight's edition of After Party. Thank you so much for tuning in, everyone. Remember to subscribe on YouTube like comment share. All of that helps us enormously. Subscribe wherever you get your podcast so you can listen to the Friday episode of the show and we'll be back with more soon. Appreciate it.

[Commercial Announcer]

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[Tom Bevan]

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