“Happy Hour”: Emily’s Travel Nightmare, Why Journalists Aren’t Special, Cuba Blockade, PLUS Demons: Emily Answers YOUR Questions

Ooh, welcome, welcome everyone to another edition of Happy Hour. This is of course always a special

“edition already of afterparty that we do here every Friday and it's where I get to go through”

only more emails that you send in to Emily at devilmicaremedia.com. Just want to thank everyone right off the bat for sending in so many great emails and today let me tell you this is kind of a special dish of happy hour because I have had this is maybe one of those days I described as a lemony sneak it day. So I get up before we dive into your emails just some context. Right now it is 949 pm in Hampton Inn in Cedar Falls, Iowa. I just got done talking to some

wonderful students at the University of Northern Iowa they were kind of enough to invite me here to chat about family policy some cultural stuff and one of great group of students. I mean you know that I enjoy talking to students working with students just it was fantastic to be out here but and welcome at 4am in Washington DC got my ass to the airport got on my flight get to Chicago around 7am might have even been a little earlier. We didn't Chicago for about four hours and

was supposed to be a 30 minute layover, 20 minute delay, 20 minute delay, 20 minute delay, 20 minute delay,

endless cycle, 20 minute delay. So finally I decided I have to fish or cut bait, jump in a rental

car and I am in a race against the clock to get across the entire width of Illinois and about half the width of Iowa it is a torrential down for the entire time people are pulled over on the side of the road because the visibility is just to that bad and it's you know one two lane highway a girl 20 west on the way from Chicago to Iowa where I was speaking today and I made it with about 10 minutes to spare to the wrong building actually then I now ended up being about 20

or 10 minutes late so anyway finally getting back to my hotel room almost 10pm but you know the good news is I'm at a great group of students and I now get to commune with all of you through the emails you send in so as a reminder I do all of these I read all of these emails live for the first time so I flagged my inbox just note that they look like they're from a happy hour and then I get to them right now so I'm going through them for the first time I just think it's more entertaining that

way this one is from Rachel who says hi Emily can you give us the cliff note so what happened with his son piker going to Cuba I know this wasn't a huge story but I'd be curious on your opinion if you know what happened oh boy Rachel do I ever know what happened so my friend Ryan Graham my friend cally Graham Graham was on that trip as well I was like interested in going on that trip I'll put

“it that way I got pretty close to being on that trip and you know how to had a had a conflict I think”

honestly I would have loved if you know to some extent I think it would have been a media story and I love media stories I mean you know if I were to say I had a beat probably be the the most insufferable beat in media which is media but so it part of me would have been fascinating I've

always wanted to go to Cuba so it was honestly a hard opportunity I had a conflict and the

dates were originally different it's a long story but anyway you know the thing about getting a visa to go to Cuba that was organized by codepank and the progressive international I forget the formal name of the group you know the Cuban government is giving a visa to go to Cuba to codepank for a reason and part of me thought you know as somebody who would have probably a different opinion then a lot of the folks on that trip I should like I almost felt like I was had an obligation

to go and to maybe pepper the the the process with some some different questions just when different angles and and all of that my perspective on Cuba actually is that I don't think the blockade is particularly productive I totally understand the like absolute hunger for the blockade

“it's not just American exiles it's also people in Cuba I think I've talked about this before but”

what was in North American Mexico and like 2021 John Daniel Davidson I met this Cuban kid named Austin now he was so desperate to be in America he showed us the scar said he had been beaten on the July 11 protests and just at one point we were talking to him for like an hour he said

about the blockade he just really he was he was second hired and fed up with the Cuban government

it's why many many people fled the the blockade that we've had since January I just don't think

“it's particularly productive I think we could have a very fruitful relationship with Cuba it might”

be something you know I don't know that we need a military operation at all it might be something that could be worked out along the lines of what's happened in Venezuela and it actually might just be better for everyone all around I don't want to push them further into the arms of Russia and China so coming from that perspective I did think it might have been fascinating a fascinating experience and we talked about this on breaking points you can't do anything in Cuba on a visa

that the government isn't basically sanctioning and that's you know every time there's

tourism of a dictatorship you just have to be extremely careful and I think the reporting that Ryan did was extremely careful and fruitful and I recommend people go watch his collabs between drop site and belly of the beast we talked about it a bit I'm breaking points this week

“you you don't also want to downplay the harms that the Cuban regime has done two it's”

own people let alone threats to the United States by cooperating with enemies and you know you can peel back the layers of the Cold War and you know try to pin the blame on one person or another but that also doesn't absolve the Cuban government of you know the political prisoners the artists that are locked up in Cuba right now of the central planning gone awry none of that absolve the Cuban government I think did not there's there's plenty of skepticism especially if

you're somebody who's anti-totalitarian to go around so that's that's always where I'm going

to depart from some laughter though I do think we could have a much more constructive I actually think it's it's one of the benefits of Trumpism is that he's such a pragmatist and there's a real opening to have a much more constructive and fruitful relationship with the country that's 90 miles

“off our shore so that they're not persistently at some point you have to break the cycle and”

stop pushing them straight into the arms of Russia and China where they are right now I mean their bases like they are still a threat literally right now still a threat but you know sometimes carrots sometimes it's the stick and we've been trying the stick for decades and there's there's so much suffering that I don't I don't want to keep blaming to I don't want I don't want the United States to continue punishing civilians that might end up hating the United States even

more and more and more some of them are some of them will still blame their government some of them will blame the United States but I think there's a real opening have a more fruitful relationship with the Cubans without going full with that going full has gone let's put it that way or did you see Elhan Omar's daughter like in the sugar cane fields there were some the memes from that trip were really something I will say that all right Jeff says Emily I'm a 75 year old man

trying to stay informed as to our toxic political environment your after hours podcast helps me do that I found the program that featured Darrell Davis quite disappointing his derogatory comments about President Trump for the most part went unchallenged no pushback as is often the case those accusing folks of being racist often come across as racist themselves I will continue to enjoy your work well thank you Jeff I appreciate the feedback we talked a lot about Darrell on last week's

uh happy arcs we got probably like 10 emails along the lines of the one that you sent Jeff so if you you go back and listen to last week's happy arcs sort of addressed this in depth I will say I was thinking after that podcast the other thing I meant to mention is that Darrell said certainly said things that I disagreed with I was also thinking even as I was preparing for that interview I was thinking about expecting him to come from just like sort of a more center-left perspective I was like

this man has done more than I will ever do to like actually you know help fight the scourge of hatred and I just felt maybe I'm maybe I'm wrong on this but I felt like he earned the opportunity to kind of make his case to any audience he wanted to on that and so anyway that was another thing that I meant to mention on last week's podcast I disagree with him all I want and and you are you know that I don't necessarily disagree all of you know I don't necessarily disagree with your points

in your feedback but also that was another kind of factor that was that was in my mind so anyway

Darrell for the great work he does and has done over the years Abe says re- Jo Kent your

“comments were 100% spot on let's see what else goes and then oh yeah a little bit everything here”

all right my wife agrees with you about hunting boring and cold that's funny let's see yeah that's more here Tucker's off in the street presented or misinterpreted and right

coded media now similar to how he always has been in left coded media yeah we talked about that last week

too that it just whatever you think about Tucker this happens to people whether on one side of debate or the other I just I've just seen so much more bad faith social media clipping we talk about this with Michael Malice it's like a trend right now and it's always been a trend but it just seems like it's more than ever before so that's I'm glad other people are seeing it because

“just attributing quotes people I mean all I did was when that when we posted that segment with”

Michael Malice on the after party Twitter account it really got people going people were like I

got the like I called see word like three times my grown men on Twitter because of that segment I was

just like there were a bunch of people saying you're missing the point he's you know you Tucker was saying you know he was saying nice things about Islam and Shibuya Law and I was like anytime you are saying that I'm missing the point by criticizing someone for lying you're missing the point actually I really hope we don't get to a place where we we stop caring about you know actual quotes being attributed to somebody in quotes that's a serious thing to attribute

of verbatim quote to somebody that is not a verbatim quote at all so anyway that was that was a lot going on all right let's see Hank says I'm going to go out and a limb and guess making Kelly Mark Levin aren't going to be spending any holidays together any time soon let's see Hank took in our no kings rally today in Chicago says I'm 72 and it could have been a boomer

high school reunion believable believable I I actually I remember saying when the first no

kings protest happened that I was pretty like I actually thought it was decent branding

“because it comes across as I mean I first of all I think it's patriotic branding that like”

harkens to the founding which is great because I feel like the left has run away from that with 1619 project and the rest and has you know anything been criticizing the right for being overly reverent of the founders etc but also it's just hell yeah like that's that's it's so American and Trump you know some of you may disagree I think there are real examples just like there was with Obama where he goes with the line with executive power and I'm not just talking

about unitary executive theory which I don't entirely disagree with at all but anyway all those to say the branding for no kings has just been utterly torched because of the cringe boomer tyranny of those events it makes you just why any 20 year old mature up to one of those is beyond me alright let's see Mike says I'm sure you don't control this but I said I had a new backdrop so I popped an alpine cranked it up boom a Tom Steyer ad followed by one voice by Ryan Reynolds

what a buzzkill tough start yeah so the only ads that we control are the ones that I'm reading live so anything else is what's called the dynamic ad and that means it's like roughly based on your cookies and browsing history that I'm I'm saying roughly that's generally how it works there are some I'm sure there are some like big buys anyway I'm not in the weeds on that at all there's a kind of a good firewall on that but I dealt with it a bit at federal Australia

hour we had even even smaller team there so that was he was sometimes we'll get notes about you know like local ballad initiatives or whatever and usually what that means is like somebody is

at lib stuff for anything like that like some of the ways these ads are targeted it's just kind of

interesting so yeah that's we have control over what we read basically let's see

this one is from Bob this says I am Jewish a huge supporter of Israel and in Iran Hawke done the right way not this way and I completely agree with Megan on how she's gone after Marklev and in Lindsey Graham I don't know why people like this writer and Bob sends along a town hall column and says have to conflate Megan's views with anti-Semitism says more about him than what is what it says about her completely legit views yeah Bob they

to the email again we end up talking about this every week it feels like unfortunately but

“it's enormously frustrating I think you can hear the frustration and in the whole debate but yet”

to me it's just like especially with Megan you Megan I disagree on the Megan Kelly show over college campus crackdowns what the Trump administration was saying was anti-Semitism on college campuses and Megan was really like defending the Trump administration and going out of them to fight anti-Semitism and just the notion that she's the one who's flipped is so people can disagree they can you know call someone ignorant they could be just as mad as all

get out about someone without assuming that they've become a bigot or they've become it's just so it's so unfortunate I think it's being pushed by just very few people the audience is not buying it and Megan spoke to that as Megan has spoken to that you know I've been doing breaking points with people on the left you know every week since October 7th and when this issue's been front and center so you all know I've certainly gotten this for years and years as well and it's

unpleasant but it really is a few people and most viewers and listeners appreciate and they get to know you over the months and over the years and they know when you're coming from a good place they know when you're being when you're operating in good faith they know when you have you're kind of analytical hat on and you're trying to make sense of the world the best that you can and that's

“I think another really cool thing about podcast so it's amazing how few people actually listen”

and then criticize it's like just what we're talking about with a soccer clip so people will not even listen to the clip like we're talking about Ted Cruz we're talking about major journalists Chris Cuomo just posting a clip and assuming that the verbatim quote a non-journalist troll attributed to Tucker Carlson's true and spreading it to their massive audiences these are people big platforms and responsibility and they don't even check the video before spreading it and then they

want to act like everyone else's irresponsible they don't take it down or apologize or whatever

at least not that I've seen so that's not really irritating always watch the full clip always it's

not always easy it's very tempting to retweet or you know quote or repost with Instagram or comments on YouTube you'd be surprised how many YouTube comments or maybe you wouldn't be are like clearly

“posted before somebody watched the full video because they're like you need to address this and then”

like it's just in the second half of the video and you're like okay this person only watch the first 30 seconds and decided to leave a comment that is very unhealthy and I think it's structural it's a structural part of the medium so anyway this is Howard who said did you see the new story that J.D. Vance thinks UFOs are demons seems different John it's not alone feels more like the middle ages true or not I think we're probably screwed you know it's funny Howard

because John and J.D. would agree and they would say yes it does feel more and more like the middle ages because what Roger and John and and Rod is a friend of J.D.s what they have written

about is this quote reenchantment and we've talked about it on the show too but basically the

the sterile high tech world has lost the disaster spec for the enchantment I actually think that came from Max Weber if I remember incorrectly and the industrial world is in some ways out of touch with the natural world and the supernatural world for obvious reasons that have to

that of course we talked about the J.D. story with Billy Hallowell on this week's episode as well so

“people can check that out let's see this is an interesting point from Dunn who says I think that”

Darrell, refrigerator, Davis is on the correct path I also believe that when someone is looking for racism they can find it or see it in many places where it does not exist I think that's well said Dunn I think that's that's true of just about anything when it's this is a huge fun that not to comment on Darrell here but just it's a huge problem that interest groups have like it one of my formative experiences was when I was an AEI intern for the great Christina Hoffs summers

I was doing some in the wage gap like I was helping Christina like I was double checking her research on I think it was like an American Association of University Women annual study on the wage gap and I remember Christina was like go look at this page and the very very end of the report and sure enough it might have even just been a footnote and they might have just been doing this every year too I'm trying to remember exactly what it was but they're like well when you control

for this factor in this factor and this factor the wage gap got shrinks to 93% okay but your report is like a hundred pages long and 95 of those pages are focused on like the 70 or 80 per dollar wage gaps so what are we doing here anyway it's just to say the incentives when your life's work is built on something can sometimes didn't even like it worked without you knowing it again I don't

“I'm not trying to comment on Darrell's career I think when it is what you do you see a lot of”

things just through that prism so it probably does come up more it's kind of your lens so I think

maybe to outsiders let's see bill says Emily Shrader I'd never heard of Emily Shrader until I saw

this interview reasoned and seemed knowledgeable about Ron in a way I have not heard before are you familiar with her I'm not familiar with her clicking through here now let's see this is an interview that she did with Quilette you know I have seen her before and I have seen her refer this there is a red flag here actually know that I'm seeing this I did hear her referred to 30,000 people being killed in the January protests in Iran which actually may be true but I like do not trust people

who state that as a fact that's a fact that can be used to justify the dead of American service

“members so I think when you don't know you say you don't know you say estimates range from it's”

way less satisfying but anyway that's just to say for me it's a red flag if someone says that they know that number with great confidence I just sort of distrust their motives and distrust honestly their research so I would have to look into this deeper but just to say I don't know Emily she might be wonderful she's got a great name but I did see that now that I'm looking at this email and I don't

think that's that to me it's just always it's it sets me off because or just it puts me makes me

immediately skeptical because again it's really hard to know what's happening in Iran during non times of war but yeah with those those mass protests I mean the the Iranian government slaughtered thousands of its own people that much we can say horrific horrific whether it was 30,000 or 30,000 we just don't know and those 30,000 numbers are not verified and I hope to God it was in 30,000 but it may have been and certainly wouldn't put that past they are only in government so

hopefully that's not the number but also it's just hard because we don't know and what we do know indicates it's a it's a big range it could be a big range so I I get why people who are advocates you know kind of go on the higher end but in terms of like people that I'm immediately

gonna kind of start paying close attention to I always get skeptical with that but it may just be

I could be wrong I could be wrong Richard says enjoy your show and notice you mentioned the

you should have them on as guests I would love to have them on as guests they are brilliant

“they've seen they've really been at the the front lines of some big cultural shifts so”

they have they're very interesting perspectives and I if I'm remembering correctly I have only interviewed them twice or I've only interviewed them once they're they're pretty big time they're probably hard to book but I would love that that's a great idea we should we should give that a

try Richard let's see he says I love Trump's latest take on the war quote you never know about

around we negotiate with them but then we have to pull off the map and quote we don't deserve he's been saying all kinds of stuff this week just all kinds of stuff this week all right let's see chucks says love your show I'm probably not the demo which is a tribute to you will be 66 this July um chucks says uh given up the mk show ben stuff was just too much I don't care who started it love help run love the real clear love the real clear guys um truck I would say

first of all thank you for the kind words second of all um you know it kind of goes back to what we were just we were talking about I have to listen I get to listen to a mega show every single day because I come on in the 2 p.m. hour on series XM1111 to do the mega cut wrap-up show so this gives you know I'm sure many of you listen to every episode in full and you know if you're one of those people who listen some Monday through Friday 12 p.m. on the dot to 2 p.m. you know how wildly

skewed the media picture of the show is and so I guess I would just say and I would just say keep

“going truck um the conversations I think have just been wonderful especially during a very”

difficult time you know to have rich laurion and and Glenn Greenwald I mean there just no other shows doing that and with the analytical, prosecutorial uh questions that mega nass I mean I was listening to her with John Karyaku today former C C I A to the extent there is such a thing and you know mega was still manning the conspiracy theories about you know assassinations and the

like and saying if the C I A you know has all of these powerful technologies and you know we're told

that they can get into our cars and you know make a car drive off the cliff and like it was like well then why these these conspiracy theories about the C I A still conducting MK alter type experiments and you know using the like kind of mentoring candidate people that doesn't make sense why would they need to do that and was poking holes in the conspiracy theories so oh my gosh the prosecutorial uh lens I just find so helpful uh this is another one from Hank who says you and Jason

right to be unclear about the legality of whacking how many Jason Willick got to read his columns in the Washington Post it was great to have Jason on Ryan says when you're in a press conference and the person speaking doesn't call on you how does that affect the piece you're writing um yeah that's a really good question um if it's a small press conference you can kind of guarantee that you are going to get called on so if it's like a congressional thing um they don't attract as much attention

so you can usually pretty much guarantee you're going to be able to shout a question and even as the principals kind of walking away you usually be able to shout a question um and if they don't answer it it's it's kind of just a no comment at that point a lot of times you go to a press conference not because you're writing a story but because but because maybe you're looking for a story um

“and I think that's a good way to go into a press conference unless you have something that you've”

been working on for days or something and it's the only place you can see or get a question in because a lot of that now is is done just over the phone or over email or sometimes even over like text message but you're usually able to catch up with the person outside of a press conference so one of the interesting things about press conferences is maybe you ask a question that is designed to see if there's a story right to kind of a listen an answer that might suggest there's something

else going down uh beneath the surface or the the answer is in and of itself murky or it's different

than what people might have expected because you got a tip and one direction or the other um but

for a story if you have a story in mind just pick up the phone uh or send an email ask for a phone call um and do everything you can to keep getting the press on the record and then you can keep going back to the press conferences too if you don't get us the first time you can you know I have these those stories of uh colleagues like waiting in congressional offices uh until the congressman or the chief of staff walks out the door because they only have one way in and out for the most

part so uh you you can just wait there and they can choose not to answer your question but you'll

get it in and then you can add in the story that they never responded uh let's see Jesse says

helped maybe the latest rebound of no kings protest would center around anti-war messaging instead we went through establishment media photo galleries I saw a lot of costumes and protests signs like the season rising it's so where we climate change is real my black pill take is that these folks just want someone with better manners and a nice smile to drop bombs and foreign school children I generally try not to impune motives but this movement just seems like they performance or

did you happen to observe any significant anti-war messaging on the ground in DC um I did not go to the no king's protest in DC sometimes the protest are so big that you can't even ignore them

but in my case this was it was last Saturday right I was doing something um I forget what I was

“doing but I remember uh I took a bike right that day and there was no way I was going anywhere near”

the national mall let me tell you that much I want uh in like the exact opposite direction even then you still saw some people trickling around um the city so I did see a good bit of the signs and the protesters did not see anything at anti-war now that Jesse mentions it this was super interesting observation um the no king's protests did not obviously did not spring up there were a lot of Gaza protests uh but there were not any specifically branded no king's protests uh that were

drawing crowds this big uh during the Biden administration which was the bulk of the Gaza war so

they're definitely not you know motivated animated primarily by anti-war sentiments um which is

interesting because it suggests that to Jesse's point uh maybe there are folks who just want someone quote with better manners and a nice smile to drop bombs on foreign schoolchildren that it's and this is really sad uh it gets you mad when Donald Trump does it but maybe you don't pay attention to it when someone else does it right like the double standard when it comes to something like this and by the way some people don't even agree with that some people here are say that this is

this war needs to happen that's much more morally consistent than the folks are saying it you know the that Biden is is doing everything right and then get mad um about Donald Trump uh with similar policies now I'm not trying to say it's apples to apples that's Joe Biden what have done when he did or anything like that uh Trump is prosecuting the war in a way that tons only Donald Trump can um so that's it's it's definitely not apples to apples with Biden I'm not

trying to make that comparison but just the principle of it that is an interesting question

“genuinely I think that's an interesting question David says subject line two weeks to flattener”

on should we believe it David I am absolutely torn on this because as we talked about on Wednesday show that was a reset you know that that speech from Trump was a reset it was an attempt to an a clever attempt to inject his the messaging on his terms in a major way into the bloodstream of the mainstream discourse and onto social media and to broadcast networks in the print outlets and he wanted it to be clearly very choreographed saying the best possible putting the best possible

foot forward messaging wise everything scripted by uh the speech writing team and everything like hitting the right emotional notes hitting the right intellectual notes and uh in a primetime address that he tees as he did he tees at one point that maybe it was going to be about NATO a lot of people thought maybe it would be about boots on the ground uh some type of big announcement which of course you do when the president in the middle of war announces updates he's going to give a

“live address the nation on updates um but I think are they sincere do they sincere that they think”

two to three weeks I don't know because there were you know high level people telling us two weeks at the beginning of the war that it was like a two week bombing run um so that's the kind of question about the escalation trap uh if we have more service members killed in the next two weeks can we do we get another speech three weeks from now saying all right we're this time we mean it

hard to say do I think they want it to be another two to three weeks yes I think Donald Trump wants

it to be another two to three weeks I don't think he wants this to be drawn out much longer um others may wish to draw it out much longer but even Lindsey Graham at this point is saying two to three weeks

“I think the fear is what makes me believe it less um is perhaps that you get caught in the”

the escalation trap so that's a good question. Marlos says uh the discussions this week revolving on the fight of good versus evil had me thinking is present Trump making his decisions reerron because he sees this role as a personal mission of good overcoming evil having been spared death and butler or was he influenced to act by evil doers acting selfishly for their own hands Netanyahu and Graham oh Marlos that is a deep and good question I would say neither Netanyahu or Lindsey

Graham likely sees themselves as a villain you know that's just a trueism in life very few people see themselves as the villain of their stories um you everyone likes to see themselves as generally being a force for good and uh being you know being the protagonist of their own life and certainly of their own country um but there was an episode that darker did recently and some of you may have listened to it it was with the interim the one time interim president

of Israel who's been on a little bit I've seen him on media interviews the last couple weeks um I want to make sure I get the name correct um and he gave an explanation for Netanyahu that I thought made a lot of spec a lot of sense oh yes it was Abraham Berg who said that framed Netanyahu as you know obviously somebody in the shadow of the Holocaust generation

and what you don't want to be ever nobody wants to be uh the leader that allowed for a second

Holocaust to take place you know you wouldn't want that obviously morally ethically on your conscience you personally don't want that on your conscience and uh that there's a perhaps a paranoia to Netanyahu that you can understand better um and I'm paraphrasing obviously but if you think

“about it in that sense that you know that's that's why October 7th is so visceral and”

animating and I think that's not just true of Netanyahu but I think it does kind of explain um why obviously there is a also a personal element to not being the person who lets that happen on your watch right like you don't want it to happen on anybody's watch you especially you don't want it to happen on your watch for posterity for the the dignity of your family the pride of your family for again for posterity for your reputation um let alone for of course the innocent lives uh but

you know we're we're human beings and we think about these things and that may or may not be right but you know positioning Netanyahu historically where he is um and and seeing you know in the generation of the state of in the shadow of the the state being created the state of Israel being created and so much war and and sacrifice um from you know people just in previous generations uh or sorry people in immediately previous generations you know people that you knew um people's who

“whose children you still know and socialize with and run the country with um I think that's”

something we have a hard time understanding uh in the U.S. is not to justify anything but I do think it's an interesting explanation Lindsey Graham I think has just convinced himself that our interests like the venn diagram between America and Israel's interests is just a circle

always and he's not flexible about that whatsoever um because he's it is a deep seeded ideological

ideological longstanding ideological principle of his um so that's uh what that's the best that I can explain there I don't I don't know that they're necessarily and you know I actually don't think Lindsey Graham is entirely cynical because I think he believes what he says um meaning all right I'm sorry I don't think he always believes what he says I mean I think sometimes he's like willingly leaning on propaganda um to prime the public for in one direction or another um but I think he

his entirely sincere about his belief that the interests of Israel the United States are uh always

interesting question I think he must feel some type of providential um he must he must he must because

he talks like that sometimes you hear it uh sometimes come out when he references Butler that there is some providential element to his being spared and you know he's he he he he he he he talks about himself a lot but he doesn't talk sort of introspectively about himself a lot so it's sometimes which is interesting but it's it's sometimes difficult to know how these things sort of affect him but he has talked about that and his kids have talked about it so I don't know if I mean he's on a tear

trying to make peace stills happen and that's clearly something he's it's at the forefront of his mind um and on top of that you know he feels like he has a generational opportunity of assembling this administration that's just ready to you know go all in um that's like ready to leave it out on leave it all on the table leave it all in the field um because they feel like

“it's a generational opportunity um which explains dos to some extent I think as well so yeah I think”

they're probably is some element of that uh let's see Mary sends in a suggestion for reforming the FDA and says take the approval of drugs out of the hands of the government all together this will limit government power and influence over our health care reduce lobbying money in DC the accounting firms approve the financials for all public companies overall this system has worked fairly smoothly you can even ask the existing accounting consulting firms who stand up

divisions to do this you can even require all drug approval contracts be limited to five years and after that they must change auditor slash approvers oh interesting Mary um I haven't heard that idea

“before uh very very interesting you know my immediate gut reaction like many Americans would be uh I think”

it's it's perhaps one of the uh narrow responsibilities that should rest with government but then again to challenge myself we've seen that go awry and certainly you're not gonna find a defender of the efficiency and an accuracy of the big government me overall but with drugs it's just my natural instinct to say that makes me nervous because you know we also I have I have a hard time trusting the big of counting firms obviously we all have a hard time trusting the big drug companies and I think

you know there's a there's a logical argument that makes sense for what you're for what you're saying Mary I have to think about it all I have to think about it more um don't mind the my bag of fruit snacks rustling around in the background it's been a long day. Dances I should have Angela duck worth as a guest let's see here um yeah well all kinds of guests that we need to get to um good stuff good stuff uh email here from Howard it's like the star last one for the day so it's okay it's official

this has definitely been demon week uh first John um then uh demon guide number two building

hell well got a lot of feedback from the billionaire view of people saying they wanted to watch his documentary you can go over to CBN to watch the documentary it's called investigating the supernatural angels and demons we really did get um people asking where they could find it including my parents uh let's see uh Howard says to each of their own but it was when it's shocking when someone who's obviously intelligent and educated believed something I think it's crazy you know

Howard that's so I just want to stop on that sentence because uh I have to have a conversation literally uh today was someone about that and you know we were talking about how how to get college students who grew up in social media age to just like what's the advice that people have for having

those conversations and the good way to put it is always just humility right but I think it's

“more specific than that because humility is so abstract you have to always believe that the other”

person you're talking to uh is just as good as smart and uh as worthy of consideration as you are

they are experts they see themselves as experts uh and it's their job to sort back from fiction

apples from bananas as CNN says that they uh no more that they are you know better qualified than the average news reader and it's just so ridiculous it's true that maybe journalists can list more things that happened in a given week on average but that doesn't bestow them with a higher IQ or greater analytical skills or the breadth of life experience that so many people outside of journalism have uh to to help them make educated decisions or the the ethical moral compass

“the ethical moral um that's the best way to put this um history concern for for ethics and”

morality I mean you're you're not special basically what I would say to most journalists who who have

that mindset and I think it just applies to all of us um so I really like that because I was talking in a day to somebody who 100% thinks that a lot of what I think is crazy uh we come from vastly different backgrounds and I could you just get that sense right and we were even having a conversation along those degrees along those lines but you just have to have that like not abstract humility but like abject humility like just it who am I to think that you know I have all the answers here

and also by the way the other thing that I was talking about this today too perplexes me

is are you not first of all constantly learning from others even if somebody you know maybe

if you go through a conversation you're like yeah this person is indeed this person is dumb I can say that respectfully having an interview done on them before and I really have we had him on breaking points like a year and a half ago two years ago um you sometimes you have a conversation with someone you're like oh okay um that doesn't mean that you're better than that just like it means that you know for whatever reason they are not applying they're they're

they're not sending their best brain cells uh to paraphrase Trump um so even even if you think that's true people have different life experiences people have different all kinds of different experiences not just like a travel or their backgrounds you know group and this kind of family or this part this kind of family this part of the country that part of the country um we can learn from everyone everyone and don't people enjoy that don't people in your views even if you're

utterly confident in what you believe in um you will iron will sharpen iron don't you want to read books from people who disagree with you because you expect that maybe you'll learn something but also maybe you'll learn uh the the best possible version of the opposition's argument so you will emerge better like is that not interesting to people it just drives me a little crazy because I think

“we all understood that it's always going to be hard to challenge yourself that's why it's called”

the challenge um but I think everyone just saw it as much more gratifying you know it's like the version of taking a run get not a treadmill uh for uh your your worldview I think we used to understand that just much much more uh hopefully we're getting back to that we'll see we'll see but uh you know that's Howard I I appreciate that because I think you know it's good to be honest and say that is a difficult thing um how it goes on to say it's easy to dismiss a person who's just nuts but as

if you're correctly said there are many brilliant people who believe the supernatural stuff it is mystifying to me the problem with believing in the supernatural is where do you draw the line? I mean I don't quite know what to say about that where do you draw the line um

“trying to think of what that might be uh what do you draw the line I mean I think if something”

well for me at least if something is just out of whack with what scripture describes about the natural and supernatural world then that's a that's a line um and that involves you know going to the book and uh you're listening to to theologians and uh clergy and their experiences with the supernatural synthesizing that with their study of scripture um and uh yeah I think it has to be concordant for me um with what's in with what's in scripture um there's something like that that's

where the the aliens and demon question gets interesting you know people talk about the nepheline

explain some of this and then again there are other theories about aliens that just uh just don't think there's any precedent or there's any sort of scriptural basis for making that assumption

so anyway that's where I would draw the line um and then Howard says the second revelation is more

“disturbing that you like reality TV I think these shows are the sleazyest tackiest and most”

unredeemable junk out there like a combination of candid cameras soap operas and Mexican wrestling you were obviously person of many dimensions but I still think you're brilliant have a great way to walk out with those demons thank you Howard that's basically too kind really too kind I will say I commend it to everyone Camille Poly is writing so you can just google them

on the real housewives so I actually kind of agree with Howard on uh the bachelor the Mormon lives

and some of what's on like TLC and the like uh I do think a lot of it is just low as common denominator not in a good way um I don't typically have anything wrong with like mid-brow offerings but um

“I think Poly is an art critic and art historian um and has some fascinating insights on how”

the real housewives um sort of drawn on a western tradition um you're not just some of the great soap operas which ever sure uh people also are going to look down on but also to the understanding the nature of of women and and how women are different from men uh that I mean it's it's some good writing I think it's some persuasive writing I'll put it that way I don't want to act like the housewives it's like watching uh scorsese it's it's not it's it's not uh not saying

the the deserve any uh Oscars or even Emmys um but I do think done correctly they aren't always

done correctly but like real housewives of of New York City uh some seasons of Beverly Hills some seasons of New Jersey uh probably the most recent season of Miami uh some damn good

“seasons of Atlanta in there but I mean I think really real housewives of New York City is is probably”

the best example where there's this very meta season um where they're they're referencing great gardens as a joke but they're not in on the joke you know they're comparing themselves to great gardens it's a theme of the whole season um you know living in this totally um fading townhouse on the upper east side Sony Morgan's infamous townhouse that she got in her divorce from a literal Morgan uh and it's falling apart it's physically fading and she's shacking up with one of the other

housewives and their you know middle-aged bringing different men in and acting a fool uh in this this dilapidating I don't even know if that's a word uh townhouse on the upper east side and it's it's meta but it's really poignant and I think it's quite a comment on uh the sexual revolution and baby boomers and wealth in uh New York and on the east coast and uh one of the great world global power centers in history so anyway anyway I'll stop

branching about the housewives it's probably enough for today appreciate you guys for listening hangin in there uh boy has it been a day uh it was great to take some time and chat with all of you this evening uh just decompress a little bit so thanks for sending all your questions then we appreciate it we hope everyone has a blessed Easter we'll see you back with if back here with more after party on Monday everyone so have a great weekend have you Easter God bless you