“Happy Hour”: The MAGA Iran Split, Talarico’s Odd Theology, and Clinton Depositions: Emily Answers YOUR Questions

Welcome everyone to another edition of Happy Hour, of course itself, a special edition of Afterparty, where every Friday I get to talk to all of you through the great emails you've sent in. To Emily at DevilMaker Media.com, that is my real email address or one of several real email addresses. I have, so you can go ahead and fire off feedback, questions, comments, concerns, everything. Right there in the inbox, I look at these emails live, I read them live, I kind of categorize them as they come in.

But I'm reading them in full live for the first time, every Thursday evening when I record

Happy Hour episodes, which pop Fridays around 5 p.m. So let's go ahead and get started with the emails in to today, let's see, we have. This one is about the save act. This was in reference to the Rachel and it is episode last week from Eddie, who says often when the save act is brought up, member sees members of legacy media. Actes if they are in the presence of radioactive material, their commentary seems to be required to include a breathless declaration that quote,

"It is already against the law for noncitizens to vote, there's a seem fishy to you." Well, Eddie, this is a very good question because a lot of it is downstream of the Biden era,

or the Biden censorship era, and it wasn't just coming from the government, it was coming from

“big tech, and I think very heavily from big tech that was relying on groups, unfortunately,”

like media matters to say what was in line and what was out of line, right? There were all kinds of crazy things going around at the time. People in the Trump camp were saying legitimately banana stuff, but that was then used as an excuse to shut down all conversation, and by the way, I know this acutely because as all of this was going on, I worked at the federalist, and the federalist was one of the few publications, I mean, Molly Hemingway, editor and chief

of the federalist wrote the book "Rigged," which has not been refuted, subsequently, the research in that book about Mark Elias, about ballot harvesting, it's real. This was an effort spearheaded by Mark Zuckerberg, Mark Elias, all of the marks apparently, but you can read about it in time magazine because Molly Ball wrote a whole piece about the well-funded

“Kabal, I think that's the actual word in the piece, that was looking to create”

conditions favorable to Democrats by changing the way in COVID, people voted. So, I think there's so much in the media, there's this built-in assumption, and I see it a lot, I still see it with Reshigate, that because Trump world was talking about this reporting on this, it must be a conspiracy theory, and therefore the standard disclaimers are just responsible and correct. Like, for most people, it is honestly because they're too arrogant to consider that maybe the people they see as

breathless robes, mouth breathers are talking about a real phenomenon, and so they've just missed it, and they won't dig into it because they assume everything is Sydney Powell, or, you know, the craziest person who was saying X, Y, and Z, and then just that is not what journalists are supposed to do. You throw everything out the window and say, "Where is it? It's all conspiracy theory." That's not what journalists are supposed to do, of course. So, that is, it is true.

That nobody even wants to cover the save act, because, you know, I remember when we were doing Ryan and I were doing Hill Rising, and I think this was with Robbie Swave as well at one point, I made a joke about the, like, 2020 election, and because I didn't use one of these standard disclaimers, the channel got in trouble. I think that is YouTube has changed with policies. I haven't tested it on that subject that I can think of. Actually, you know, I haven't any problems

talking about the save act on YouTube, I should say, so it seems like they probably have learned, but the channel, like, legitimately, was penalized because of that, like, views started going down because of that. It's crazy, and that's if I remember it in the story quickly, but the details of it. That's just the general gist of what happened. And so, there was so a lot of self-centered ships, like, people didn't even want to talk about it because the incentive was that you'd get written

up as a crazy person and the like, and that's how self-sensorship happens. That's how people just stop talking about things, so looking into things. So I think that actually still affecting

“conversations about the save act to be honest. I think that's why people are always in the legacy”

media. They don't, not only are they worried about getting, you know, written up or censored or whatever. I think it's even more that they don't want to be questioned by their in-group, right? They don't

want to end up on the outside of their in-group. So that's often the most powerful reason.

This course, "Kicking around my head for about a week." How do you think the style of

info consumption has affected messaging and coverage in the early days of the Iran conflict? My eyes went wide and my jaw dropped when the president called back nearly 50 years to the Iranian hostage crisis 1979 as a justification for current military action. I'm writing this on Monday morning, so apologies if you already addressed something along these lines on this week's shows. Hmm. I do think I don't think we've reconciled ourselves, or I don't think we fully

“reckoned with. It's probably the best way to put it failures of the Cold War. And”

you all know that I'm like an amateur student of the Cold War, like read about it a lot. And one of the things that struck me in the last couple of years

you always, you're reading these histories, or you watch like the Oliver Stone show untold

history of the United States. And this is why, by the way, I think Roger Stone is an interesting guy because he doesn't do what I'm about to describe. He doesn't. His Cold War history is a skeptical of government and a deep state, but from the right. But most of the people who talk about Cold War history, or do Cold War history, autopsies, like try to excavate the common stories we tell ourselves about the Cold War, they're almost always on the left. And they're

almost always downplaying the legitimate threat that the Soviet Union posed. And struggle to put themselves in the mind, not just of the right at the time, but kind of across the board, people who were terrified of a nuclear Soviet Union. So it was obviously terrified of a nuclear United States. But all that is to say, that paranoia pushed us in some unfortunate directions. And I definitely worry that we haven't learned, you know, even just talking about the Kurds this week. It's hard not

to think about what happened in the Syrian Civil War. I mean, Tulsi Gabbard was a huge critic of how we ended up funding through the CIA both sides of the Syrian conflict at one point. And then

“you have to grapple with an armed group that is, you know, what happened in Afghanistan during”

the Cold War with the Mujahideen, for example, who was part of that? Well, some have been a lot of it. So it's just about taking a kind of more realistic lesson from some of these experiences. And a lot of people who disagree with me on some of this are clear-eyed about it. They know these

lessons. But I think there's always this temptation to think you can do it better. You can do it

differently. And you can control it this time or that time when, I don't know, there was a point where the Washington Post reported on this in the 2010s. There were still textbooks from when we were Army in the Mujahideen that were radical, that were textbooks with radical Islamic teachings in them that we had funded and sent to Afghanistan. This was in the early 2010s. They were still circulating. It's very hard to control this stuff. Once you kind of let it out of the bottle, this kind of a long

wind-up Jesse, 1979, you can't talk about it without talking about 1953 because that's the answer that Iranians would give as part of their motivation. And whether you believe them or not, it's

“that's what they say. So, thinking that we can exercise, or we can exercise enough control over”

a lot of these situations without sacrificing a lot of ground troops. Makes me nervous. I don't know if that quite nailed the answer, Jesse, but that's what came to mind. Steven says, "New pitch to change Congress, college-style dorm rooms, no page, just per DM, home bills paid, all stock trading in related money, making options ban, one-round trip flight per week to go home, cameras in common areas, being a kind of sort of reality view. Do you think it would be a hitter

flop at least, at the least, it would keep politicians in the game for love of country and service, at the best we get the real representatives of DC. This isn't an awesome email, Steven, make like big brother out of Congress. They sort of already do because they have C-span, but obviously not in their living areas. To some extent, we're getting more and more of this because the tick-tockification, and because everyone, you know, even tourists in DC, or people who are at the

district meetings and the like, they have their cameras out at all times. So we're getting much closer to this, but I actually, on a serious note, your point about college-style dorm rooms is such a good one. Honestly, you hear people in Congress who've been there a long time, talk often about the camaraderie that's been lost, and some of it is good, right? Like, I don't want you in the smoke-filled

there is, they'll often talk about so much rancor and just distressed of other members,

because there's so little socialization at this point. Everyone is back in a district all the time, which is good, right? It's good, but it's good to be back in your district. But you also have to have some collegial ability to talk and have some trust and, you know, be able to get things done. Actually, I mean, Congress just punt so much. I know it's crazy to say, but they do need to spend more time in Washington. They punt so much responsibility now to the executive, which is part of

the reason that Trump is in a power vacuum and accepting some of the power that's been punted by Republicans and Democrats. So I actually really like this idea. I hate the Congressman's sleep in their offices. I hate that. Some Congressman's women. And then they like to talk about how they're through goal because they sleep in their offices. It's inappropriate. They're staff walking around the buildings all day. They're staffing the offices early. It's inappropriate period. It should not be

happening. I love the idea of an equalized central-ish space. It may, I mean, it may be a security problem. I think there are ways you would deal with that. You would maybe have like five different residences. There's something to that extent in senators would hate it because so many of them are

“so rich and have multiple houses in DC, beautiful townhouses. You should see some of these places”

there incredible. But it's, you know, you just like walk past me like, whoa. So I think they would

hate it. They probably wouldn't want it. But it also is discourages people from running for Congress in all seriousness because you can't afford to have, to AMC talk about this one time. It should be right. You can't afford to have two different residences because rent in DC is insane. And that's especially insane. If you're a place where if you're like from a place like New York City, it's hard for normal people to run for Congress. It's already hard enough because you have to raise

money and be connected. And in some cases, self-funded. If you can't get the money because maybe you're had her docks and you're not a puppet. So it's already a bad enough situation than ask people to pay two different rents. It's not great. It's not great. Or two different mortgages or whatever it is.

“That's how people end up trying to do like Dean Crenshaw talked about. I don't make it all”

all that much money. I'm not living high. That's why I'm trading stocks. So only $20,000. Well,

$20 is a lot of money. First of all, Congressman. But also, yeah, it's just, it's not a good

situation. And it's just hard, though. There's not a lot of incentive to give like Congress people raises their better housing or whatever. So I actually think the dorm idea is kind of a good one. All right. Let's move on here. What have we got going on? This past week on Happy Hour Jacob says. You spoke a bit about your experience growing up reading the left behind books and then having that view challenge or reshape later in life. I know you're not a theologian in your podcast.

This is about politics and culture, but given recent events, I think it would be cool to hear someone like you dive into this topic a bit. It's interesting to me personally that dispensationalism seems to be an almost holy American theology, whereas other Christians throughout the world do not hold to that interpretation. At least in my experience, any books are the resources you recommend on the topic. Personally, my last one, my Bible study group read a book called

Revelation Unwrapped by a Theologian named John Richardson, hard to find. But if you can't as a fantastic walk through the book of Revelation, that does sound really good at Jacob. Thanks to the recommendation I might have to check that one out. The one thing I think I've recommended the wrong place to find this before, but I've recommended it in the past. It is, let me look at my phone. I just had a pulled up on my phone, so I was looking for it last night. It's from LCMS, so that's, you know,

“that's how I grew up. Although it's to be honest, I was reading left behind and it was such a”

like low church environment that I definitely was believing in things like the rapture until I got more serious about trying to understand it as I got older. But LCMS has a really great document. I'm trying to pull up the name of this here. I literally just downloaded it last night, so I should be able to find it. You'd think I'd be able to find it. But it's called something like what's called what I'd be left behind or something like that. Let me, I'll find it and then

recommend you can tell that I'm doing this live by the way. Let's see. I love the little downloads folder on your phone. Yeah, here it is. Okay, here it is. It is called a Lutheran response to the left behind series. It's from April 2004, but it's really, really helpful actually, kind of walking through all of this stuff, not purely from a Lutheran perspective. I actually feel like if you're Protestant or a non-dispensationalist, you'll find a lot to agree with in it and it's a good

You know, if you're my age, if you're a little bit older than me, basically, if you were born

“after like 1960, so maybe even older than me, you know, maybe even like roughly my parents age,”

you are accustomed to this idea of Israel existing as a nation state, living in a world with a country called Israel. And that was not true for many, many years before that, many, many years before that. So it's interesting, right, that now we just, of course, as a country called Israel, but I think in America, particularly taking the helm after World War II, sort of the the hegemonic position after World War II, this idea that scripture was being fulfilled because you could substitute,

you had a real country of Israel that you could read into scripture. And sometimes if you're reading political Israel, the modern country of Israel into prophecies, you can understand why it would hit people that way, especially in the last 100 years. I get it. I do because it looks like prophecy being fulfilled. And by the way, maybe it is, I don't know. I honestly don't know. And I don't

“know that anybody knows for sure. And I think to have that certainty that you must read political”

Israel into revelation or Daniel, that exerts a level of confidence over the end times because you're reading political Israel as opposed to the nation of Israel, the the the Larkas and like nation of the Jewish people. And does that mean, you know, the the the the the supersessionist belief, like what is that actually mean? I think to politicize not to politicize, I don't mean that in a derogatory way, just mean to to be confident enough in your reading of a prophecy to say this must

become a political prescription to support creating these conditions on the ground in the nation of Israel. That's that's where I have significant disagreement with it. But anyway, yeah, that's a great document. I definitely recommend it. This is Matthew who says do you have any recommendations for a shorter format news update aggregators that can keep me in the loop well on the go without the addictive doom scrolling part of social media. Matthew says he deleted Instagram and

Facebook for lent great idea. Yes, actually everyone I or I guess maybe not everyone, but people might know I like the I like the old idea of our assessments because it's not an algorithm that is

designed to, first of all, it's not an algorithm. It's not driven by an algorithm. Second of all,

it's not designed to keep you scrolling as long as possible by racing to the bottom of your brainstem, meaning feeding you stuff that's extreme in one direction or the other. So one place that I really, really like, I don't know if I've ever mentioned this before, it's called Feedly. Feedly.com, F-E-E-D-L-Y dot com. This is often when I just feel like social media is snake pit, which is constantly, but some days it's worse than others. I will go here and look for

the news to cover. It's a really great way to do it. You can build lists. So for example, I have a list of like all the outlets that I'm curious what they publish that gets really long and you get it actually looks nicer than one of the old RSS feeds. They have a really great site design, but it's not algorithmically driven and it's just from the outlets that you pick. So I have a list for all of the news, so that's like every outlet that I read regularly. Then I have a list of

targeted, so this is like if I don't have as much time, it's the outlets that I value the most to get update on the news. So that's a great question, Matthew. Yeah, I appreciate it. This is another email from Matthew, who says been a long time fan of your work ever since your days. The Federalist, thank you so much, Matthew. I know your name, Matthew. You've been kind of enough to give me feedback over the years and speaking of which just dropped my phone. Every episode

is that that's happened like three weeks in a row now, dropping the phone. Matthew says,

I'll always hope for more episodes with Bedford. The cooking episodes, y'all used to do

looked so fun, though the episodes with a Nezodragile are always a treat since I don't get a lot of misstepments. Views and she's stopped doing her podcast with IWF. No, I agree. I loved a Nezod's IW podcast. We had a lot of fun on that one. Yeah, man. Bedford is probably itch to do more cooking videos. I should check in on that one. He's obviously busy with the baby now, but maybe we could do more cooking videos. Those were really funny. He's a great cook by the way.

“Like, yeah, I think the best steak that I've ever had in my life was, you know what? It was”

prime rib. He made the single best primerib that I've ever had in my life. So maybe that's one reason to do it. This is from James who says, "Can I tell you enough? How much I enjoy as a conservative

Iran issue? James, I think that's just a good observation. And I'm very, very conscious of this.

My friend, Batcha Ungersargon, will say this about Epstein as well, that the conservative pundit class is much more focused on some of these online social media debates than the average Republican voter. And sometimes are just out of line with them on things like foreign policy and alike. I actually do think that's true in the case of Iran. I have more quibbles with it on Epstein,

“you know, that I don't need to get into that now, but I think this is a good observation. I think”

most, well, I think the conservative pundit class is right now more split on the war if I'm looking at polling than the average Republican voter is. And I do think for those of us who are more

skeptical of it, you know, it would be a mistake to act as though the Republican basis, you know,

with the skeptics. I don't think that's true. I do think there's something about being in media that I don't only use a word scarred. I think it's too hard, but it might be the best word to convey what I'm thinking. I think there are people like Tucker Carlson, probably Megan, others who were, even the journalism space during Iraq and Afghanistan, who have enough distance from that now to have seen how the propaganda was kind of cooked up.

And, you know, our extra skeptical watching it happen again in real time.

“It just skeptical that it may be happening again in real time. I think it is. I think there,”

this is one of the things I wanted to talk to Matt Taiby about. I think there are pretty obvious parallels happening. But it's interesting to me that even opponents of like forever wars and nation building on the right seem to be pretty willing to trust Trump, and that's probably many of you know, I understand that. His foreign policy instincts are definitely better than like a jab bush as foreign policy instincts. And I think people just want to give the present grace.

And I think people personally do not like criticism of the president or the country during times of war when you have people unfortunately coming back in coffins. So I understand that. I do want to say that, you know, for journalists, that's not my job. My job is to, of course, be praying. And to be a, you know, I think it's fair. It's not, you know, necessary. But I think it's, for me, the, the more I'll think to do is offer support to people who are putting their lives

on the line right now, of course. But my job is to be skeptical of power period. I do it from a conservative vantage point. Hopefully I do it from a Christian vantage point. That's, that's my goal. But my goal is not to be supportive of power because my job is to be one of the people who's

“everyday life. There's my phone again. My everyday life is focused on skepticism of power.”

It's not a good use of my time to be supportive of decisions people in power make because there aren't a lot of journalists in the world. There are already too many journalists. But they're especially aren't a lot of conservative journalists in the world who are, you know, spending their

time asking questions. So I always say I have more questions than answers. And I think that's a good

way to look at the Iran situation. I'm skeptical. I have a lot of questions. I'm not saying that I have all of the answers. And I hope everyone kind of understands that. That's at least how I look at it. You know, in times of war in particular, it's definitely important. I think to be extra extra skeptical. So that's where I think it's true. The skepticism level is going to be higher among the journalist pundit class, particularly because that's many journalists jobs to be skeptical

and to ask tough questions. And I hope all people are doing that. But it would definitely be a mistake to say that the conservative pundit class right now, or conservative media is fairly representative of the breakdown of Republican positions on this. Now, some of this could change quickly. I know people trust that Donald Trump is not going to end up in a quagmire. And if it starts to look like that, yeah, this could change. So good question. Very good question. Hank says,

"Tellerico might be even more woke than you think if the tweets that are servicing today are legitimate five years ago, he was talking about white people spreading of iris, what we spread it wherever we go, although white people are apparently immune from the virus, whatever it is, racism, I suppose. And we don't even need to wear a white hood or carry a Confederate flag. We're still contagious. Megan and I talked about this tweet. It was in response to Ahmad Arbery,

who was killed just before the George Floyd Floyd thing blew up. And the Arbery killing to my memory was genuinely a act of racism. It appeared to be like one of the stories that actually the

to it was to basically say that all white people are racist. That was this post that Hank's referring

to. It's just in Texas. I mean nationwide, hopefully, but especially in Texas. That these posts, that one in particular, I mean, I think he ran a very smart primary campaign that Tellographed, he's in a better position than he should be going forward into the general, just given his history and his record. So, you know, I don't want to downplay the fact that he's about to run a pretty smart campaign, I think. But I don't think the smartest campaign in the world

could unless you want to walk back all of these positions. And I'll take the smartest campaign in the world that's going to be able to overcome this sheer baggage of having talked about transportions, rights and interrogating patriarchy and the contagion of whiteness. I just don't think you're going to be able to overcome that no matter how you're going to be campaign you run.

“And that's what I'm not rolling out that he could run a good campaign or the best that he possibly”

can. This is a joke, though. It's honestly so offensive. It's easy to laugh at because he's so earnest when he's saying these things, but it's such a joke, such a joke. Okay, Cruz says, "Being a little overyear into the Trump presidency, do you think the conservative project would have been better off with four years of commonwealth out of my eight years of disantis?" It kind of feels like now we might be doomed to eight years of Gavin Newsom, someone who's

much more competent and likable than commonwealth just curious of your thoughts. I think Cruz, it's an interesting question. I think it's an almost impossible counterfactual to consider. It's almost to me like asking, what was that series that did the, it was a book series, then a TV series. It was a book, then a TV series. Yeah, there've been many of them, but you guys know the one I was a man in the high castle where you're reconsidering what would have happened. If

other people of one world war two, or I just find these to be kind of impossible because

what can always, I mean, Black Swan events just change everything. So if, you know, Butler had

turned out even more tragically, and Quiracum par tour and Trump had both lost their lives, or Richard Ralph, whatever, had been able to pull off, but he apparently was trying to pull off. Or, I mean, there's just so many different things that I guess it would, we would just be trying to do the math here and assuming no Black Swan events, what might have happened with X, Y, and Z. But, I mean, a year ago at this point, everyone thought the cultural momentum was with Trump

“and Doge and Elon, and that just changed so quickly. So I honestly don't know.”

My, I get where you're asking the question, Cruz. My point on this, or my general take on these types of scenarios, I almost think they're, they're pointless. See what you're saying, though,

does it feel like we're building up to a very powerful, new some presidency or Buttigieg presidency,

or Harris presidency, probably unlikely on that. But I don't know that you would get four years of Kamala Harris with eight years of front to Santa's, for example, because you just don't know what happens. You know, it's just, it's all so unpredictable now that I have our time even grappling with the hypothetical Cruz, but thank you for the question. I do appreciate it. I see where you're going with it. It is interesting. Rachel says, I saw your reporting on the murder of

Stephanie Mentor, so horrible. Her family's at my thoughts. My question below is not meant to

“politicize her tragic death, but simply to understand how the system failed. I live in Fairfax”

and have seen, this is the county where it happened, have seen several posts saying, I said the opportunity to pick up Abdul Jalou when he was most recently released in November 2025, but did not show up. I have no idea if this is true. Is there a way to confirm if an immigration detainer was honored or ignored? I feel like Fairfax County is intentionally confusing with their public communication regarding county jail cooperation with ICE. Most people here don't

want to get into a political debate that just want to know exactly what is happening. There should be a way. I mean, this is going to be a problem. I know that some speculation already is circulating about whether ICE made a mistake in this case and did not show up. If they were given notice that Jalou was being released and deported him properly. We're talking about a person who has 30 plus arrests though, so it sounds to me like obviously if they were all

in Fairfax County, it's entirely fair to lay blame at the feet of Fairfax County, because it can't possibly have gone that wrong 30 different times, but then maybe again, the immigration system is also failing 30 plus times. What it sounds to me more like though is Fairfax County not prioritizing, getting this person out of the country, even though they're repeatedly being

It sounds like he was praying heavily on other homeless people. You're going to send

“where there are difficulties, but for it to happen that many times, I think is insane. I do believe”

we're going to get an answer on what happened with ICE because ICE is inevitably going to have to answer that question. So I think I agree with you. It sounds to me so far like Fairfax is planning a little fast and loose here, because they know that this is a big story. This is another like and Riley level story. It probably won't be as big as like in Riley because that happened in the height of the Biden surge and was so vindicating, tragically vindicating, but vindicating

to people who had been saying this is going to happen, but in this case you have emails saying

this is going to happen from local police and it's actually ending up happening. It's such a powerful

story. God bless them into family, but I do think we are going to get an answer on that with basically from ICE aside about what happened because Fairfax seems to be asserting that maybe it's ICE's fault as of right now. It seems to be the one. All right, what I got here, Richard says, "This is funny. If you want some fun viewing, watch the Hillary Clinton Epstein testimony and compare it to the Benghazi testimony with the sound off, body language is so similar,

“board-face in the hand slamming desk. I was expecting her to say what difference does it make?”

Do you think the Clinton era is over? Oh my gosh, the what difference does it make line? I that had somehow slipped my mind. Also, what do you mean like wipe it with a cloth? As history books have been written already about Clinton, it's abundantly clear that this woman privately has a very bad temper. So one of my big takeaways from the deposition was watching her get so heated. Sometimes, Fairly, like when the warm bobert, I think it was

took the picture. Oh my gosh. But you can just see her like gritting her teeth. Furious. And Buzz Patterson wrote a book. I don't know what buzzes up tonight. I think he ran for Congress, but he cared the nuclear football for part of the Clinton administration and wrote a tell-all book shortly after leaving the White House. And some of the the anecdotes about the Clinton, especially Hillary Clinton, are absolutely wild. Richard says, as an owner, oh, by the way,

“do I think the Clinton era is over? It's coming to an end. It's coming to an end. But I think they've”

been sort of buoyed by, I think, Hillary Clinton now feels like she got another round of very sympathetic media coverage. You know, New York Times framed her as the victim once again of Bill's sexual exploits in just like a news report. So I don't know. I think she still feels very powerful. I don't know that Chelsea Clinton ever is going to seek like some major political career. But and as long as Hillary Clinton is alive, I think she's going to be trying to have

political influence. Richard says, as an American born Mexican male, just a point to add to your

analysis, your most vocal Mexican wants the dissolution by life will always fall back to family

and tradition. There is no loyalty to any issue that will surpass that. No one should count on them to show up the day after a loud rally. Great, great perspective. They're Richard. I appreciate it. Yeah, it's I think both parties get Hispanic voters wrong, especially Mexican voters wrong. I think, you know, during the culture war, Republicans thought, oh, we've made permanent in-round inroads with Mexican voters in the Rio Grande Valley and the like and I don't want

to underplay how serious the left problems still are on cultural issues in these areas. I think they are. But once the borders closed and if it's not a good economy, the Republicans still need to make a pitch that they care about families and the like. Richard also says, "Love your work. I'm serving myself with massive chips. I actually just had some. I just had some of the choral flavors. Drinking heavily to enjoy popping,

seep by addicts, personally going into debt to get media, that really, and pushing female hormones which again as an American-born Mexican is a leap and a big endorsement of you personally. Richard, thank you. You, you, you, thank you for getting the female hormones up. You don't have to. You don't have to.

Marlo says, "Another two information field shows. Love Matt Taibi. Roger Son always looks like

a cartoon character to me, not true about Massey. Though I like to maha-wise, but contrarian for contrarian sake, consistent or not, is tiresome. Massey gets that criticism a lot. I think he's consistent in his contrarianism though. I think he's sort of, those are libertarians that they're most pure, you know, perpetual contrarians and they play a really valuable role in the

that clip referring to Talarico on Rogan." Rogan said, "Hey, you should run for President at some point," and Talarico was explaining how, in his view, the Virgin Mary gave consent to God. I mean, it's just such a disgusting way to read. He's referring to the book of Luke. He says specifically, and if you go and read the book of Luke, it's just an absurd way to try and spin what happens in that scenario. It's one of these like postmodern, progressive theologies that tries

to, they kiss the right of doing this all the time of trying to project modern politics and descriptor, and that is exactly what you're doing here to try and stretch that story. It's really,

really gross. And there's basically no evidence for it. His evidence is that Mary says, yes,

like I will be here. I mean, that is, if that's consent, that's a crazy, crazy way to describe consent. And even to think about it in that way, especially as we see in Yudaro, Baby John and Jesus, in Scripture. I mean, it's just, it is really, really disgusting. I think though,

“man, I wish I remembered who, I wish I remember who posted this. I think it was Terry Shilling.”

My friend, Terry Shilling over at the American Principles Project, who said, "People shouldn't underestimate, you know, how talarico's progressive Christianity lands on normal people, and by normal people, he means like none Internet-addicted Twitter conservatives. That makes sense, right? And I think what he's trying to say is there are a lot of people who have different perspectives than conservative Christians, or even I would say like lower case

out orthodox Christians, on things like abortion. America's a pro-life country in some respects, not supporting, basically supporting moral aligned with Europeans, supporting an abortion policy, moral aligned with Europeans, but also still wanting exceptions, and being supportive of your first trimester and the like. And so to just say that everyone's going to hear talarico and be like, "Oh, that's bad, that's bad theology." There's so many people who are just,

they haven't been in church for a really long time, and they're especially post-COVID looking for some anchor, and considering, you know, reconsidering faith, and if you don't have to challenge

“too many of your cultural commitments, policy commitments, then I think it does sound good if that”

makes sense. And I would put Rogan kind of in that category. He's of course willing to challenge his cultural commitments, but he just schooled Steve O on Steve O was saying that trying to put trans people in internment camps, like just, yeah, but Rogan went in on him, didn't take that at all, which was super interesting. So, but again, it's, it's just, it's easier to swim with a current than to swim upstream on some of the culture issues. So, I keep that in mind for sure.

Jesse says, "Why are so many people in denial about Trump's posture real rant of Rear

Iran over the years?" He's always been hawkish and a staunch pro is really individual in every policy

in platform. He ran on reflects that the same people who say he's betraying his movement or praising his hard-line stance against Iran and his threat of force over the years. Now that he's using the force, they have the mentality of wait. This isn't what we signed up for. As someone's skeptical of this operation, they're trusting him due to his previous foreign policy decisions for now, at least. I feel like I'm taking crazy pills. Maybe everyone really is either a grifter,

a panic in or just plain scared. What do you think? You know, there's a, I think for a lot of people, there's a charitable explanation, which is that when you hear Trump say I'm not going to start wars, I'm going to end wars. You assume that the blaster toward Iran was a piece through

strength approach, right? Like, for me, I think there's always an argument that you ought at the

panic on and actually increase the panic on budget, like Ronald Reagan then, to deter other countries. And you can do it in a smart way, but right now I don't trust the military industrial complex, including the panic on to do that in a particularly smart way. So I'm not, that's, that don't take it as a prescription, but that Trump's rhetoric towards Iran was an attempt to do peace, their strength, and without, you know, to, to make deals without starting new wars. For example,

and that's, that's how his success at ending the bloodshed, as well, and in the bloodshed formally

“with the agreement in Gaza, that's what a lot of his team was framing it as. And I think they have been,”

I do think it's kind of a fair interpretation of Trump, though I do think there are also people

it's, it's all rank hypocrisy, but I also think, you know, it's not wrong to take him seriously

when he says things like he's not going to start new wars. And so I think there's a charitable interpretation for a lot of people who felt that way. At the other hand, yes, I think it's being wielded very cynically by other people who are just, had forgotten how hawk has she had been on

“Iran or are willfully ignoring it. So I think the bottom line is, and maybe the best way to say”

is that Trump himself was trying to have it both ways and it worked because people often project onto Trump what they want to. And because he, you know, has a totally different communication style to put miles, they project onto him, one thing or another. And sometimes he does that intentionally, I think, and you can argue in foreign policy, that's a good thing, right? It's a sort of Kissinger's madman theory, a foreign policy, and maybe it works. I don't know, maybe it works.

He's right, Putin didn't invade Ukraine in his first term. So there are a lot of possibilities here,

but I do think the president deserves some blame for saying, talking about both sides of his mouth on that. Now, if his plan was to have heated rhetoric to avoid a war, then it's not the worst plan, but I also think when you're talking about decisions of life and death, people deciding whether or not to enlist, people deciding whether or not to vote for you. I just think it's such a sin to be misleading or dishonest when it comes to a war in particular.

“It's always wrong, but when you're talking about war, I think it's it's egregious. All right,”

what else? We got here just a couple more, dedice says, Emily, lots of complaints about cash being at the hockey game, use a plane, et cetera, where the complaints about the Clinton is having their hearings in chapicala, and the tremendous expense that will cause taxpayers, no complaints from chapical residents for the security bill. All the members of Congress have the fly up to New York,

food, hotels, lodging, where's the outrage, and why were the Clinton's allowed to bring the hearings to them? You know, this is a good question because I don't technically know how it works. My guess is those houseover sight members were more than happy to agree to this because everyone wanted to get the Clinton's on the record on this for political reasons, but I think also for substantive reasons, everyone just wanted to get them on the record over the course of

hours. I mean, we have like eight hours of Clinton depositions now, so I don't blame them for bringing it up there. I have seen that it did seem to cost the locals a lot of money so far. Yeah, I just think people don't hold the Clinton's against the Democratic Party anymore, because it's like they have been so disgraced. I don't know, I don't think it's necessarily fair because Bill Clinton got a prime speaking slot at the DNC. I think Hillary got a pretty good speaking

slot at the DNC, too. Last time around, they're still trying to exercise political power clearly, so yeah, I think everyone was just so eager to get them on the record. It was like, let them do whatever it takes to get the Clinton's on the record about Epstein. Victor says, "What foundational

issues are essential for our survival as a country?" "Fundational issue would be," I mean, I think

the survival of the West depends on not a couple things, but first of all, not having a consensus, not having a thoroughly post-modern consensus, right? I think that's what was really at risk in the 2010s and early 2020s that there was this moment where everyone was almost starting to get on board with it. It hadn't passed critical mass, that's where we saw a rejection of certain things. Men on women's teams, that's not going away for Democrats, by the way, that's still,

I talk about this all the time, that's still a part of their base. They still have to be responsive to people who think that way, but that was rejected as a country overall, and I think

“that's what you have to fight against is moral relativism. This idea that truth is relative.”

That's a foundational issue, not just for America, but for the West. I don't know how you can survive in a constitutional republic without devolving into socialism, communism, or anarchy, complete total clippedocracy, getting away from any semblance of lowercase de-democratic rule. That's not even where lowercase are republican rule, constitutional republican rule, an order. If you can't agree that, for example, when male is in a legal document, it means male.

You have to have a patriotic country, because if you lose the will to support the country, what is the point of any of it? If you have nihilism, you'll probably end up with if you have nationalism, what's the right word? Nihilism, rather than nationalism, and by nationalism, I've really just been patriotism, a belief that our politics should be for the betterment of the country, not the whole world, because we can't please the entire world at once, so we have to take a

care of our own people first. If you lose that, then you go into the patriotic nihilism, right?

Where patriotism doesn't matter, because we're really here for the world, and it's an strong America. They have a strong moral country. A strong and moral is it can be a more perfect union, not a perfect union, but a more perfect union. That should make the world a more perfect and

“stronger place, but you have to take care of the millions of people in your own country, so that they”

are prosperous, happy, healthy, as can possibly be. And that will in turn make the world a better place, but you can't have happy, healthy, prosperous people, if you are not prioritizing them, but are instead prioritizing the entire globe, which is full of countries with values that we just don't share nor should we share, and it's okay to say that. We don't have to share the values of China. I want us to be at peace with China. I want us to be at peace with the people of Iran,

but that doesn't mean that we have to share their values, right? And that we have to say that it's all relative, right? We don't have to do that. And so I think that's a response to some of the,

I think your question is a really good one factor. What foundational issues are essential for survival,

that one. The only other thing I would add is we cannot agree to go on with these casinos and our pockets that are gamifying our social, political, and professional lives. We can't do that anymore, and I don't know how you avoid descending into more relativism and cutocracy without getting rid of that. That is disrupting absolutely everything right now. It is hypernavity as Brett Weinstein and Heather Heing, right about in a hunter-gatherers guide to the 21st century essential book. If you have

not read it, I highly, highly recommend it. It doesn't get enough attention to be honest. It's a very

good book, a practical book, literally a guide book. But this is a hypernavity that our policy is not

“corrupt to our social understanding of the world has not caught up to. I honestly don't think that the,”

I don't know that humans can survive that. The rate of change is just getting faster and faster, every single year, smartphones are the best example of it. And that is the thing that is making us less human personally, politically, professionally every single day. And I do think a foundational agreement has to be, we don't want that. And maybe the way to deal with it is to government, maybe the way to deal with it is through culture. Maybe it's a combination of both. I'm not saying

that we all have to agree on the exact right policy prescription, but we should agree that we need to find consensus on a policy prescription soon because it's so, so dangerous. All right, that's going to do it for this addition of happy hours. So much fun to talk to all of you through Emily at Devil

“Maker Media.com. I want to say a very sincere thank you to everyone. I really appreciate it.”

I know now that there's a we're going on. It's, it's even, you know, if it's hard to deal with things, when you're, you're not at work. We're already at, you know, in such a difficult climate. When you're not at work, it gets even harder when you're seeing Americans die abroad to continue having civil conversations and giving each other grace and coming to these conversations with open minds. So I really appreciate all of you for supporting the show. I'm going to continue doing my

best. I'm not going to be perfect, but I'm going to continue doing my best. And I'm so grateful to all of you for listening. Please do subscribe to the YouTube channel. I'll tell your friends if you haven't yet. It's super, super helpful. Thank you for subscribing on your podcast feeds that you can get happy hour. It's only place to get happy hour, of course. And I will see you on Monday with more afterparty. Have a great weekend. God bless you, everyone.