“Happy Hour”: Tucker vs. Huckabee, Gambling Culture, and the Never Trump Legacy: Emily Answers YOUR Questions

>> All right, all right, everyone. Welcome to this week's edition of Happy Hour. Thank you so very much for tuning into what is already a post special edition of Afterparty that we do every Friday, right around Happy Hour time is when those episodes drop.

Do as a favor and subscribe if you haven't yet. It helps the show so much.

It's always helpful to leave reviews on Apple, wherever you get your podcasts.

And of course, comments and likes on YouTube also always very much appreciated. And you know what I just want to say? I appreciate all of you. If you were watching Wednesdays episode live,

it was the first time we had live technical difficulties. And our audience is so fun and just hung in there. So I appreciate you guys a lot, especially, especially now that you've been with us for months and we're growing and it means the world. So thank you, thank you, and as you know, on Happy Hour, what I do is,

this is my way of talking to all of you via the great comments that you send

in to [email protected], and also to the @Afterparty Emily Instagram.

Quick plug for that, by the way, we post a lot of clips there. So if you want to get clips in your on Instagram, we post a ton of clips from each show. So if you want to see them or share them, give us a follow on Instagram. We are there, you can also send in your questions.

“And as a reminder, I answer these live because I think that really is the best way”

to do it, otherwise it's just more entertaining. Again, you know how much I love reality. TV, this is my little slice of reality TV. It means you can't like, it is good to have to think on your toes and all that sort of thing.

So let's get to them. Got lots and lots of emails this week. All right, here is one from Jennifer, who talks about, so thank you for your positive disposition. I'm interested in your opinion about abortion for medical reasons, and goes on here to tell

an awful story about Kate Cox, who was fighting to abort her pregnancy and text us her unborn daughter was diagnosed with Edward syndrome. These babies often do not live to full-term when they do their missing vital organs and troubles, I have basic bodily functions, yes. So so sad, Jennifer says, like, her, I had a plan and wanted pregnancy with this diagnosis,

Jennifer, I'm so sorry, I can't imagine. Jennifer says, we had all but decided to terminate when the heartbeat stops while it was heartbreaking. I was relieved that we did not need to make the decision that Kate did, although we would

have ultimately terminated, which legal in our state, our decision would have been to allow

our son to die at a lower level of consciousness instead of possibly living painful hours. For days at full-term, Jennifer says, I feel that the situation often left out of the

“conversation, Kate's case is widely reported, what are your thoughts?”

And just Jennifer adds, I listened to your episode of "Marchery Down and Fulcester", where she stated in reference to "Marchery Down and Fulcester", where she stated in reference to "Marchery Down and Fulcester", and the only intention of the support and drug ists to not support child after conception. This is not true.

It is widely prescribed for a missed miscarriage as an alternative to a DNC and Jen says, "Thank you're being you. I listen, you often, I'm an independent moderate and Massachusetts, so below here that it's hard to be purple. I appreciate those who make an effort to hear both sides and further productive discussions. Jen, I can't speak to the medical questions at hand here. I can't speak in an expert capacity. And I am just so sorry. I'm so sorry.

That's heart-wrenching. And it sounds like you've been dealing with a healthily. I just can't imagine. My position on life is, and I came to this probably later, but my position on life is we have to draw the line when you have a living, unique human. So for me, that's the intention. And I don't, personally, it's super unpopular and controversial. I don't pray. I don't ever have to make this decision, because I can't imagine how this weighs on you,

and I can't imagine what I would do in this situation. But I think, of course, in the same way that I'm against physician assisted suicide, in the same way that I value the life of somebody who is in a coma, for example, or somebody who's in a tear-shiveow situation, I think that's the only moral place to draw the line. Because if you start drawing that line elsewhere, whether really young or really old, you start bartering with who's more valuable than

“who. And to me, I think you have to just say, "All human life is valuable." And when you have”

a new human life, so that is to say, implementation, you have unique human DNA that is living.

position, and it's a really, really hard position to emotionally defend when these stories are

“they're so hard to hear, and I can't imagine living through it. But morally, I think that's”

the right position to defend. Now, I love debate and disagreement, so I'm totally open to that. And I haven't gone through this myself, but yeah, that's my position. And I came to that later, but to me, it really has been a helpful framework for me morally to understand why we're here. And I actually came to it through Christopher Hitchens, like Arch-Atheist, because he pushed the left really hard on this to say, "Well, then what is it? What is it? What is it?" and "Planted Embrial?"

Is it alive as a human? And if you're answering yes to both those questions. So I always tell people

the kind of Google Christopher Hitchens has a good one. Actually, they only wolfed back in the new Republican, like the 90s, or what are really interesting prohibition, peace on this. So that's worth checking out, too. But yeah, that's where I come down on it. This is from Jacob who says, "For someone to say, "Thank you and encourage you in your path as a full Christian who works in media, I find your bullness, and speak about your faith for freshing. I also grew up Lutheran,

I'll see you in the Midwest, in the Midwest, and I live in LA, enjoy listening to breaky points, and a founder podcast to also be encouraging. You have a drawing in patients that is admirable, thank you, Jacob. I had a question for you. How do you square your conservative values with

“some of the things that the current administration is doing around gambling and predictive markets?”

I find it to be predatory and very anti-conservative values, and it leads to more concerning love of money, probably, and what I like to call the new conservative hedonism. I see it in the art party, looking forward to your thoughts. Jacob, I have to say that phrase, "conservative hedonism, I might adopt." That's really, I love that way of putting it.

Yeah, man, I've been incredibly critical of the predictive markets in the gambling. I think it's,

we covered a lot on breaking points. I've also been trying to get coffee's dilla onto afterparty to talk about the Trump administration and crypto, so we're working on that because it's not surprising, but yeah, I find it predatory, exploitive, disgusting. I think it's a absolute balm for a grieved young man, desperate young men who are lacking hope,

“but not in a good way. I think it's very seductive and encourages people to empty their wallets.”

And yeah, I think it's awful. I think it takes gambling to a totally new level, especially since so much for the stunt on smartphones that are casino-fied, look, cinos in your pocket

that you can never get away from, so I think it's really gross. I also think it's, and we see this

often with gambling. It has engendered a culture of corruption. You see that almost everywhere that gambling, gambling culture is like part and parcel of crap culture. I think it's because it's a vice, so I don't know if, yeah, I mean, I don't, I don't see gambling like drinking alcohol or even smoking a joint. I see it as a, and maybe, you know, I welcome discussion on this. I think I'm concerned with this pun-punted discussion on this for a long time. It probably should stop

doing that. I mean, it used to be for a Republican to support gambling. You used to be, like, a problem when you're trying to campaign, but that's totally out the window. I see it as something that is inherently corrupting, and that's where you see all of the, I think that's a position validated by all the corruption that springs up around it. So when you start gambling with public events, you're having these big whales drop in who obviously have public knowledge like with the Venice

Whaler raid, and that's, it's, it's awful. And again, it's predatory and exploitive, and it is, I'm not accusing people in the administration of seeing it this way, but I do think it's it comes from the Somos Nietzsche UberMunch. If you watch broke, rope handles it really well, the Hitchcock movie. You know, way of just, you're, you're carving your own path. You're creating your own moral code as you go, because you deserve to, just you're on the top of the world. And

I sort of see some of that mentality in all of this. I could talk about that forever, so thank you for the question, Drake, come on, cut myself off. Ken says Emily, have you prepared you? What did you think of the Huckabee interview? I thought the ambassador was awesome, and Tucker is too weird to watch. I'll pray for him, and I'm sure there's a reason he has beard out of control, but it is a bad look. There's been a lot of interesting debate about the Huckabee interview. I saw this sounds like a

bad look for ambassador Huckabee to make such a glaring error as he did when he said, oh, basically,

Israel can take the whole Middle East. He's ambassador to Israel. That was just a, he's not even

“abundant. He's an ambassador. And that, that was pundit tree, but I think it was honest, and I don't”

think anybody, but Tucker would have gotten him to that point. And that is a really talent moment of sort of ideological or theological, I suppose, honesty from my Huckabee. And I've talked about this a lot, but I should have grew up, you know, leaving the reading the left behind books, and my experience in the church, Missouri, centered with a little bit lower church, then a lot of folks. So, a pretty evangelical culture. And so, I didn't know, I'll see

him as theology on end times and eschatology, and actually, I'll see him as has a very, very good

stance on this that I basically agree with. It's not dispensationalism. And I kind of grew up with

that dispensationalist understanding of like a rapture and literally dispensations of time. And the more that I interrogated it, sort of asking myself the questions that Tucker asked my Huckabee, the more that I think it falls apart. Again, this is my experience. And so, I experience the Huckabee interview as Tucker forcing that theology to its logical conclusion to some of its logical conclusions. And when you see those, like, for example, his position on how much of the

Middle East Israel should at some point be able to take, that's difficult. So, for me, it validated some of my priors, but I mean, Huckabee did a better job than others at staying calm and his command of scripture is, you know, much better than mine. So, it was it made for probably the best debate that we've had since I would say like October 7th on the right about the correct direction to go in. So, I pray for Tucker all the time to, obviously, after he mentioned his encounter

“with what he refreshes as demons. I mean, Tucker's got a big voice. So, that's why I definitely”

pray for him. Anybody who's been in that situation, worth our prayers. Let's see, let me take drink a water here. Jesse says, "I recently finished William F. Buckle Jr.'s memoir. It hasn't been feeling a bit, "trad Conox P. Keaton nostalgic. Does Buckleys have a place with young conservatives. I know he got racist and competition ponies are tough sell in this more populist moment that said Buckleys got me at Yale. Something of a life preserve for me.

Back when I was getting yelled at by polycypressors for my more right-lating views at hate to see the old chap lost a history. I'm not as down on Buckleys as a lot of people on the new right are just because I still think Buckleys was a fascinating thinker and character, and I watch a lot of the old fire in line debates. I just recently watched one, it's two hours long, and the Panama Canal. It's like Buckleys and Reagan and Pat Buchanan and all of these big players in the conservative

movement. I guess probably wouldn't have been prime time television. Either way, national television. Having a conversation at such a high level and in the policy weeds about a really important and timely issue. So I think Buckleys had an ability to carry on those conversations as a moderator of difficult discussions, and we definitely need more of that. We definitely need more of that. But you know, it's funny Jesse. I would take a shoot with the TradCon slash Alex P. Keaton line,

because I think what's different from Alex P. Keaton and the TradCon's is this is exactly where fusionism has crumbled, and that the three-legged stool called fusionism, that national review and Buckleys sat upon was from Frank Meyer, is you have your fiscal conservatives, your social

conservatives, and your neoconservatives. And I think Alex P. Keaton was first and foremost a fiscal

conservative, and maybe a neoconservative. Well, maybe not neoconservative, but something like that, and the Alex P. Keaton's kind of grew up to work at the places that were doing ESG.

“And that's what made the social conservatives and the national conservatives kind of”

and tearing the three-legged stool apart and saying this no longer works. So that doesn't have anything to do with your question, but I still really enjoy

throughout the Cold War. They all from, it was CIA and Mexico, it was translating books. Yeah, he has a very interesting, you could listen to the pop in a YouTube his fireling firing line episode with Howard Hunt. That's an incredible Cold War artifact.

Let's see, Craig says, "Do you think the Never Trump crowd will be never mega in the next presidential

election?" Yeah, well, there's no Never Trumpers elected office. I know there's some punitive journalists and expositions that remain committed to never Trump, or have converted to Democrats, but might they come back to Republican fold in 28 or beyond. Super, super

“interesting question. Will those Never Trumpers vote for JD Vance in the general election?”

Craig, I think the answer to that is mostly no. I could never see Adam Kinzinger coming back, or Bill Crystal, or, oh man, who's a different example? Yeah, like, maybe like a list of phara, I could see not voting for JD Vance, but if there's, like, say,

hypothetically, a John Kasich runs in a Republican primary. I could see them, like, an Adam Kinzinger

and they're, or an a list of phara, getting behind, like, a Kasek campaign. I think a lot of them, though, won't touch anything that they see as being contaminated by Trump. And they say the entire Republican party, the RNC, as being contaminated by Trump. And so they also have now created their social circle in left spaces. You know, Tim Miller, who I'm obviously friendly with, it's been on the show. I don't think Tim's going to vote for Republican unless it's a John Kasich type,

but I would see that type of person running as an independent and all likelihood, and if they

“ran as a Republican, and then used the RNC for the rest of the campaign, I think that would”

almost be disqualifying. For a lot of people like Tim, or Alyssa, or Adam Kinzinger, Liz Cheney, that you would ever use the official Republican apparatus because they see it's contaminated by Trump. So that's a good question. That's an interesting thought experiment. This is, Ken who says, "You're Rachel and the Net is dancing around Taboo subjects with so much fun. I'm having a hard time listening to my news podcast, as it all seems a little heavy. Love the

humor, love the Christian approach that comes through, even with a round banter." I give you the gold medal. Thank you, Ken. I love having them on. It's why I'm like, "I'm my most comfortable." So it's very cool to see that the audience also loves Rachel and the Net's because what you don't want to do, and I'm so aware of this, I know people have done this. You don't ever want to bring your friends on, and just talk like it's the three of you unless you naturally would have

very interesting conversations. I feel like when I'm, we don't, we don't all, three hang out that much, because in those lives in New York, obviously, but we know just last month we all were at a wine park, and I was just toxic millennial behavior, believe me, I know, but we were having a conversation that easily could have just been one of the conversations we have on the show. It's if they're both such interesting people. So I'm very wary of just like bringing my social

“circle as interesting and funny as I think they are onto the show, but those two, it just works,”

because they have a good rapport, and they're super, super smart people so well read. So I really appreciate that the audience appreciates them. Let's see. Oh, this isn't interesting. I was listening to the last half of the after-party while doing something around the house, Matthew Wrights, and I was wondering if the linguistic argument that was made around swear words is true, what kind of social shift would need to occur in order for identity swears to become as benign

as damn and hell are today. So this is a point that in as made, based on a point John McCorder's made, and I think, especially in New York times, if you're looking to find it, it would be my quarter in the New York Times about how identity politics were as a new swear word. So we're talking about the baffdas and how somebody shouted the n-word where you had Michael B. Jordan and

another black presenter on stage, which is embarrassing. You never want that to happen to anybody,

but then it turned into this huge controversy where the man who has Tourette's, and was there to celebrate a movie about his struggle with Tourette's, which I understand to be a very poignant movie is being humiliated even though he was there to be celebrated as a storyteller and somebody who's been through a struggle. So I mean, I was so sad and I wonder what would it take to stigmatize those words? Well, this is what always really bothered me about

progressive identity politics. I worry that it undermined the stigma against racism that people spilled blood to build in this country. Like, I know people all the time talk about growing up the 90s, growing up in the 80s, but truly, I'm just so proud of the country that existed when I grew up in the way that we handled our differences despite the ugly ugly history of race in this country. And when you start doing anti-white stuff, you're intentionally, you're intentionally

unstigmatizing racism. You know, and you're doing it through this lens, this anti-colonialist lens,

really, of saying that the oppressed can never be racist against the oppressor because of the

“power dynamic. And that doesn't carry a water, in my opinion, I think that's like post-modern nonsense,”

because treating people differently and the basis of racism, and it's wrong. So treating them as less than based on the basis of their skin colors, wrong. And so I worry that that, so I think what we need to do is re-stigmatize racism, like actual racism, we need to re-stigmatify. And the back to controversy aside, it's such a tangled knot of identity questions. Like, it's good that someone should be, it's good that society was like, oh my gosh, you cannot call people the

end word. You cannot call black people the end word. That's bad. But it's inconsistent when

they're also trying to show nothing but complete compassion towards this man's suffering, which makes him say things he does not want to say. He doesn't want to say that. That's the entire point of the story that you're telling. So, yeah, I guess my answer isn't super-responsive

“to your question. I mean, it maybe went in a different direction. But I think the broader point”

about what would make it so that, you know, it's, it's inappropriate like across the board and morally consistent. I think, would be the moral consistency of re-stigmatizing racism period, if that makes sense. That is a very good question. Have a little more water here. All right, this is, Rachel says, had an issue was Spotify. Oh, interesting, doesn't get added to the autoplay. Keep the good work and just know that people want more of the dramatic areas of

company by the same process and fame. I need more literary political works of political acts of, let's say, right word, literature, political acts of literature. I need more of that. You know, why it's all just to be scraping the bottom of the barrel. And I will absolutely look into the Spotify thing, Rachel. Very, very interesting. Mike says, do you think cash was simply frame-mogging the hockey team? Do you think there are more sinister undertones that border and

gesture maxing? Oh, that's a good question. Frame-mogging versus gesture maxing. I think he was frame-mogging. I think to be gesture maxing, there would have had to be an intentionality that I don't think was there. In fact, it kind of looked like he got caught on the stream because I forgot which player's stream it was. He took it down right away. And it made it seem like FBA was like, oops, nobody was supposed to see the cash was parting in the locker room with

the bruise and then they rolled with it. So I think for it to have been gesture maxing, that would have had to be more intentional and orchestrated and it doesn't seem like it was. So, good question, Mike. Frame-mogging. I'm going to go with frame-mogging. This is Hank who says, I love Kim Strassel, hockey, not level one who raised him. Lush and Derby and High School with her mom. But it probably wasn't happening ever to pick a fight with Rachel about center procedures.

I'm just saying I too love Kim Strassel. As such a good point, I would never, ever ever pick a

“fight with Rachel about center procedures is the only thing she thinks about. She's kids and she”

thinks about them but other than her kids and her husband all she thinks about a center procedure. Now, Strassel held her own. But, man, this is the last person last fight. Last person I would pick a fight on center procedure. It was an interesting exchange back and forth though. I like when

show." No, I don't have to listen to her. I was about usually using this to my Kim. Sybil,

yeah, this is basically saying a lot of Nancy Guthrie coverage.

I've heard a couple people say that they're just not interested in Nancy Guthrie's story and

“I don't quite get that. I think it has huge political significance and I think the world of”

Megan and I know most of you do. Of course, of course Megan is the goat. And then Nancy Guthrie's stuff to me has political significance because this is, I mean, it doesn't look like there's any political or foreign policy motivation. No, I don't rule that out though. You have one of the biggest political journalists. I know she's on the today's show, but she does a lot of political interviews that are very influential.

So you have someone in a position of power. Svenig Guthrie, who is at the upper echelon of media, her husband's at the upper echelon of the lobbying world, Democratic politics. And her mom lives very close to the border and you have a generationally reformative, that's not the right word, reform-minded FBI that has this difficult task in front of them. So I do feel like pulling at all of these threads is important. I mean, you've had major corporations involved, like,

or is it nested as Amazon? No, nested as Google and ring as Amazon. So some of these companies have been involved on the technological level. So I know that some people like Trichram just isn't everyone's thing. I love it, of course. But I just feel like there's a lot of political significance to this story as well. Gregory says, so very pleased to hear the trio back together,

big fans of you all together, even the Bedford's come in second. Oh, I love that. I'll five of

you would be a showstopper. Now, I think Chris actually introduced me to Beauvard. I think he was like, I've been a lot of people through Chris because he has a big network. He was a bartender, he knows everybody. He's working a bunch of different places. So he's been a journalist for a long time and longer your journalist, more people you know if you're going to your job. But I think he's the one who first introduced me to Beauvard. Now Gregory's going on to say, I want to let you know

and give you a chance to let your audience know that the George Hw Bush grocery scanner incident you referenced in the show is a made up media event. Gregory, yes, I didn't know this. It was a joke in passing. I thought about it in the moment stopping and saying, well, here's the real story, but because it was just a joke about George Hw Bush being clueless and then passing, I said something like, oh, I think it was a grocery scanner. I did not go deep into that, but this is Gregory saying

he was at a tech convention demonstrating new machines and such for stores in this particular scanner was a prototype that could be redamaged, torn, or partial UPC symbols and bar codes on

“products. And then Gregory goes into the whole story and says it's not the only thing the news”

coordinated on they also coordinated on push in fact that we were in recession on the country. The only thing was the recession ended in '92 and we were all a lot about it in the start of what would be a huge boom for the next eight years by the fall, but going into the lecture

day, the news frame the economy is weak and if you didn't subscribe to WSJ, you never read the

economic reports coming out, showing the fame, showing the recovery. So, yes, I think that is I think there's a helpful update, Gregory, thank you for sending it in. Yes, appreciate that. I doubt to be fair, George H. W. Bush would have been able to say the price of eggs maybe I'm wrong. It's hard to go back and prove maybe he answered that question, but at that moment, I thought he would have been able to do that. I think the point of the joke was that he was

if I remember incorrect, because I did think of this over in my head was more just that like George H. W. Bush was a super wealthy kind of anti-populous guy and that is true even if he was experimenting with a prototype of a grocery scanner, but in retrospect, if you make that joke,

“you should explain that joke. So, helpful, helpful, Gregory, I appreciate it, I appreciate it.”

Let's see. So, in asking my position on Candace, I think it's kind of a longer email, will I truthfully talk about this on my show so far you haven't and I'm left to wonder if there's more of this than we know and love to give you the benefit of doubt. It's possible you're instruction not speak about it or perhaps their other factors have put in a promise you, promise you,

I feel like I've even said too much about it to be honest. I want to just underscore something

Michael Null's said this week about, is it sort of challenging to a lot of folks right now because Candace is saying it's just completely insane stuff and I've mentioned before like because I've talked about this. I feel like last like around Christmas, we did particularly a couple happy hour episodes where I dressed this, I think I even said in one of the episodes like we've

“talked about this for too long, but my position on it is that you have to defeat with”

argument facts and that sort of thing and not just say, you know, someone is like I literally just

said I think she's been saying some crazy things, but if I were going to do like a whole segment on it,

you know, you would want to build it into a big, big factual picture and the like and even that probably wouldn't be super persuasive to people who are pulling at these floods with her to be honest and maybe some of you find it compelling, I have watched a ton of the like full episodes of Candace and it's true like there are kernels of compelling, should, what is the right way to say? There are kernels, there are compelling kernels that get built into these,

sort of get built into these big webs that go off in media directions, but if you're going to argue

“against her, you have to be extremely substantive and deliberate about it and I do not think”

honest to goodness, I do not think that is a good use of my time. I don't think it's going to persuade many people and as Nulls put it, if you want to defeat, or if you, if you don't agree with what Candace is doing, do you think it's a good use of your time to constantly criticize Candace? That's publicity for Candace over and over again, it's publicity for Candace. So if people want to go down those routes, I just think that it's giving a ton of oxygen to her and is making her show

more and more popular probably and honestly I feel like people in this country right now are struggling in myriad ways and you know we're on the brink of war, we just changed out the leader of the you know most oral rich country in South America and we are still in like there's still a war raging in Ukraine, consumer confidence keeps declining, we seem to be in some type of bubble, maridrates are unsatisfying, happiness, life satisfaction, all these things are going down.

I think people have a better thing to do with their time to be honest. I'm happy to take time

ever once in one of them to like listen, I've gone into it, watched her episodes and I always

try to approach these things with fair minds and not let them be colored by my perception of whoever's hosting it and I've really found it to be not compelling at all. So I'm happy to say that. But I don't think it's a particularly good use of my time. Respectfully, Matty, who asks that. I just don't think it's a good use of my oxygen or my manpower at this moment, but I get it, but I think we're talking about our way too much to be honest. And I think that's sort of self-perpetuating

at this point. The more you talk about it, the more power she has, not the less. And you know, I don't want more and more people to think things that aren't true. I think, you know, I want as many

“people as possible things that aren't true. That's why I'm in journalism. And so I don't feel the need”

with everything going on in the world to do condemnations over and over again. So anyway, that's my perspective on that. I actually have talked about it, Matty. So if you go back, I want to say like December, there were a couple after party episodes. We're kind of just like this right now. I probably talked about it for too long about it. That's my good faith position. Is that it doesn't have to be journalists, let's talk about it at the journalist. They let

talk about people in media. People who follow media really love to talk about media, like who are news obsessives. They love to talk about the news and the people doing the news,

it has some really huge, national importance, like the utterly corrupt media. And the media is

overwhelmingly corrupt in one direction. And so, you know, to me, it just seems like it's worth my time to talk about things, but I'm happy to say what I think when I'm asked. But I don't think it's helpful to go around fleeing insults. I just think that those more harm that does good. I really want people to think about being persuasive to people who disagree with them. I think that is how people should be spending their time and, you know, especially especially if you want things to change. If you want

“things to change, you have to persuade people. So I mean, I just find that a more interesting challenge”

anyway, but I do think we have better bigger fish to fry if that makes sense. And again,

good faith answer. I appreciate people who disagree with me on it. But that's my take care.

Marlos says, "Did you realize the fridge or half of one of the alternate say the universe was the same guy theorizing the people of Minneapolis church with Don Lemon?" I didn't, I thought as I was looking at this email that Marlos was going to tell me it was Don Lemon. I thought, Marlos, like, "Did you realize that Don Lemon sometimes stresses a draft?" No, I didn't realize that. That's very interesting. This is, and Marlos says,

"And Nes really stood out when Shakespeare thought some bunny blues pregnancy." She was right. The best chance for a child to prosper is a biological family unit striving for the

“best possible situation should not be shunt. Marcammyway discussing the current set of Portland”

to sad. I'm glad I saw Seattle when in 2017, maybe it was just the beginning to be sat with, camping tents dotted under the beautiful cypress trees. Marlos doesn't get lost in the far left. So sad what's happened to our great cities. So sad. Some of them are on the upswing. DC has gotten significantly better since COVID. So be beautified a bit by the current administration. As well, which doesn't hurt. And, you know, we'll see what happens in Mondehoney's New York.

It had gotten better since COVID as well, but yeah, it's just thoroughly depressing. I feel like our cities really are our jewels. And they are, like, New York City, some best city in the world. Chicago, that's one of the best cities in the world. And they're really, they're struggling so much right now. It does make me very sad, especially like, people don't realize how wealthy and huge those rust belt cities were like Cleveland or even like Baltimore and Milwaukee.

Your Pittsburgh's made a pretty good comeback as I understand it, but it's so sad. I feel like to walk around some of those cities and just see the blight. Oh, it really depresses me. So yeah, it was interesting to hear from Mark on that. Watching after party Howard says, last evening with the small technical problems at the beginning of your program from the road, maybe curious. I don't know anything about how this new modern media works and would be fascinating to learn how the shows are made.

Do you go into a studio somewhere and do the show like at CBS or CNN or do you do it from home on a phone? You show away seems so spontaneous and based on your knowledge and the subject of the day with your thoughts and the questions for your guests. It doesn't seem contrived at all, but maybe it's like Hollywood, maybe you have a staff of 20 people point out everything that you just present with great skill, natural and hilarious who can be the hot. That's a really interesting

how it question Howard. I'm always interested about how other people do it too. That really is just

my office. So I have a camera set up on my desk. I have a microphone set up on my desk. The normal after party set up. That sort of does. I use it the same set up for everything that I do. I'm came media did a great set up in my office. It's one camera with a nice lens and then it's hooked up to a it's a teleprompter, but I use it just to see the show. So I literally see a zoom on the screen.

“And that's how I see what's happening with the guests and the graphics and all of that. I do have”

a button that lets me put stuff from my laptop up on the screen, which you've probably seen before. That's kind of cool. But otherwise, it's honestly gotten so easy to do all of this just at your desk. It barely even disrupts the normal look and feel of my desk to be honest. And I like it that way because I think it does for me it's inviting you into my office, which is where there's a couch in there. It's literally where all my books are. It's where my spare closet is where all

of my old suitcases in old clothes are. So it's my living space. And I have a TV in there and watch TV when it's cold out because it's warmer up there and I have an old house. So yeah, that's

I am obsessed on healthily with microphones and cameras and setups. So I knew I had to go to this

dinner in Florida and I was really excited to do a new kind of setup. The camera and the iPhone is great. I usually when I travel like use a DJI Osmo Pocket, which I love, the DJI mics. I know it's unfortunately, it's a company that I don't know that I have total confidence in. I think it's like sanctioned or something like you can't, because it's a Chinese company. I don't know how true or false allegations against DJI and its drones are. But anyway, I love the Osmo Pocket.

I love the functionality of the DJI mic, but I was like, "Oh, I'm going to get a cool, easy road setup where I put a cage around my iPhone. Get a road boom mic on a shoe and get this new fancy Logitech travel light on a shoe, put it up on a cage and then suction cup it to my laptop. And I tested out this setup. I was super excited about it. It was very satisfying. It's like finishing

“a puzzle. That's what it feels like. Getting your word, whatever. And I had a failed recording”

from AM update on Wednesday, so I had to re-record that. And by the time I finished doing that, it was almost time for after party. And I had tested my setup the night before, felt really good about it. And all of a sudden nothing was working. And that's how my whole day was. So if you were watching, you saw my camera fall down like three times. And my audio was a little iffy. Even though I'm using the same microphone right now, because what it's working gets working great,

but I just ran out of time that night. So I had this big dinner to go to down here in Florida. That was super interesting, but it just time got away from me and the setup ended up not working, which was so disappointing because I thought I had such a great setup. So excited about it. Let's see. This is someone who sends the mayor saying, "Huma is mentioned the public file. This is having that with Epstein." I will check in on that. That's interesting. Obviously, "Huma Abadine," who's

being referenced there. Ricky says, "I saw your post on Epstein getting a stock tip and info about BlackRock." What's remarkable is information to this kind of, his access to this kind of information is that Epstein was a losing stock trader. Ricky sent me a sub-sac that he wrote about it. It looks like it's, the sub-sac is called Jeffrey Epstein was very bad at trading the full trading

record this year. It's a count four million dollars. This is relatively small. For God,

like Epstein, but at one point, he was making 11 trades per day. He lasted about a million dollars,

“then appeared to rage coins. I think this record shows exactly why he was bad at investing.”

Something that hasn't been covered much. Yeah, that's super, super interesting. Thank you Ricky. I just clicked the link to this sub-stack and I'm excited to read it. I also found an email today where Epstein was talking about how his investment advice was going back and forth with Kathy Rumler. I think talking about how his investment advice was basically just park your stuff in a money market. You're not playing the stocks. So that fits perfectly with Ricky's

reporting, which I am excited to read. All right, let's get to, I think we have one more. Let me find it. Here it is. Jane says, "I'd love to hear your thoughts on two wildly opposite topics that somehow managed to have Palestine in common." First, Tucker Carlson's Christianity and the Holy Land recent episodes. I found that it would be eye-opening and truly genuine. And second, East Palestinians, settlement payouts, or lack thereof. The lever recently came out

with a story about the reality of the last few settlements in current life for people living there. And it's infuriating. I worry the rest about what continued to suffer in silence until the next disaster happens in the cycle of repeat. I'm also just pointed in advance for not talking about it anymore, or doing something now that he's in more of a position of power and influence.

Leverstrom breaking points. Keep up the amazing work and please forgive my run-on sentences.

Jane, these are great. Really good questions. Let me start with the last one, just because it's for I should just read it. JD had a bill. And I remember I spent a week digging into the bill, trying to figure out if it was a good bill or bad bill. Because you know, I'm like, someone who finds themselves between new right, and old right, you know, like many people. I don't think new right is totally right about everything. I definitely don't think old right is

“right about everything. But do I think that new right sometimes has too heavy handed of a”

government approach? Yeah, of course. And so this is a bill on regulating trains and the the

I spent like a week reporting on this bill. And JD was his office was pouring their heart into

this bill. Obviously, he was sent her from Ohio. So they were working really, really hard on it. And it got defeated by the old right. And lobbyists and after looking into it, I was like, this is a completely reasonable bill given what just happened. They're asking for it was something that made unions happy. Yes, but they were asking for extra people per X number of train cars and more sensors and mandating that on the railways. Given what happened, East Palestinian, again,

totally reasonable bill. If we lived in a perfect world, you might not need a bill like that. But

“this is my memory of the situation. And that went down. And I think that was really”

disillusioning. It was really disillusioning moment for some people in the new right kind of a general.

But yeah, I have I have followed some of the levers reporting and other people's reporting from East Palestinian and it's disgusting. It's exactly what people predicted would happen in East Palestine. I don't know. And maybe I'll ask the advanced office. There's anything else going on with that. It's like a question. I don't know how much a little or much he's addressed that. I haven't seen a ton of it or tried to help people get fair treatment.

Yeah, that's an interesting question. I'll look into that. I have followed a little bit and just one of my big takeaways from the last 10 years is that we should live in a country where the CEOs and executives of these companies can't show their faces in public. And this actually happened eventually to a lot of people, historians, you can write in correct me if you disagree with this. But like Carnegie, at a certain point, it was embarrassing for them to show their faces in public.

People mostly went to church. People mostly had certain moral standards. And I'm not talking about Jersey Shore being on television. I'm just talking about like, yes, our culture has gotten much closer. But it's also not embarrassing anymore for Walmart to have its employees be subsidized by food stamps. I don't know if you've seen any of the research on how many Walmart employees are on food stamps. It's insane. And it should be embarrassing for a Walmart's executive team to

show their faces in public. It should be embarrassing for the nofic Southern people to go to charity dinners and benefits and the like when this is what's happening in East Palestine. But they're able to make donations. You see a good bit of this in the Epstein files too. Just how you ingratiate yourself with the other influence influential people in these fears. It's really it's really dark. It really sucks. But it's not stigmatized to be, you know, and there's a

birthful some book called Myth of the Robert Barrens. And I wrote it years ago. So I'm not saying

“that all of the Robert Barren archetypes are true. But I think there was some obviously fair”

criticisms of Robert Barrenry in the kiltyd age. And what I worry about now is that, I mean, think about how these tech companies are what they're doing to children, what they're doing all all of us. And this is like a purchase, you know, like a lot of people are mad at him. Yes. But he's still welcome in all of these spaces. The people who run Instagram, the people who run TikTok, you know, the Trump administration is bragging about TikTok.

Elon Musk is bragging about X. I think it's great that you can now have an honest conversation about sex and gender on those platforms. But I actually think what's even worse is how they're reprogramming our brains and gamifying culture, social life, politics, and all of that. And it's crazy to me that it would not crazy, but it's very telling to me how we've just embraced the right, getting ahold of these platforms and not structurally changing them to be better for kids,

better for, I mean, even with AI right now. So anyway, I think we should, I think the much bigger than any of these political questions is the cultural question. Can we create a culture as Sean Adams wrote the Constitution as only fit for a holy moral, what was it? Holy religious and moral people

I always botched the exact quote, but something paraphrasing, something that affects absolutely

“true. That's the operating system of our software, that's what it is. And if you don't have that,”

things just don't work. And so I think we should think really hard about whether there is an interplay, like political solutions can, you know, some culture is downstream of politics.

more about creating a world where it's stigmatized to treat people poorly, to treat workers poorly and like, so long, long answer to that, but interesting and I will look into it on the Tucker Christians and the Holy Landry synapse. So yeah, I watch this too. I do think they're interesting. I do think some of this has been undercover. I don't know how accurate all of it is because what Tucker's doing is just interviewing people. And one of the things that is so hard

for me, and shout out to Maddie Kerns, who's a great reporter, who just did a very, very good deep dive on what's actually happening in Nigeria to Christians in Nigeria for the free press.

“I think it's great that Tucker is talking to these guys. I always take that as an”

interview with one perspective, sharing one person sharing their perspective on the situation.

If you talk to five, ten people, you're going to get a million different perspectives.

I'm especially sensitive to this because this is journalists, you see it all the time. You know, one person, it's like the picture of whether you see a vase or a face. You know what I'm talking about, like the optical illusions. And so a lot of people can be looking at the same thing and talking about a different layer describing different aspects of it. And so I think it's helpful. I'm really wary because so much of it gets pulled through different lenses and different

experiences. And that's great. But I also feel like I need to accumulate a lot of perspectives to feel like I have a, you know, even trying to get into it on Nigeria and to read what people are

“saying across the board to try to understand the truth. I think Maddie did a really, really”

good job of this. So I would commend that article to everyone. But it's so tough in these foreign countries, especially where the main language is an English. They're culturally very different. There are all of these tribal or ethnic or religious, sometimes racial differences that are hard for Americans to understand and you don't know what you don't know. So drawing conclusions,

you know, I wouldn't do it after like one interview. Not that anyone is, but I always try to

look for as much information as possible. I never know exactly what's going on in those situations but I do really appreciate Tucker highlighting those voices because, I mean, they don't get too much play. Although some of them, you know, I know, yeah, some of them will say the right thing about one thing and then you go look to the other stuff that they're done and like, oh my gosh, this person's theology is a little questionable. So anyway, there's my response that I think we got

through all of them this week. So appreciate that. Thanks so much for writing in everyone. I had a

“I was at the beach earlier, so I think that's why I kept having a swig water. But yeah,”

no, it's like as I'm down here in Florida for a work event, a lot of travel this spring. It's just

crazy spring for some reason. It's always crazy. I think it's because there's a lot of

campus stuff, but it's good to be out on the road and not in DC for journalists or you can talk to people and actually see the rest of the country and not just, you know, the national mall, which is lovely. And you get a great cross section of America on the national mall, but anyway, these episodes always, it's like it's I like it because it's you and room talking in the microphone, but I feel like sometimes you like end up going down all of these little rapid trails.

This is a rabbit hole, but I think rabbit trails is the better description here. So it's so easy to go off on tangent and then five minutes later, like what was I talking about again? But I appreciate everybody listening. Maybe I was going to say despite that, but maybe it's you enjoy it in a sick way. You're like, let's see where this plan lands. Thanks everyone for tuning in. We'll see you on my day's edition of AfterParty in the home studio.

Everything will be functioning will be on time. Yeah, it'll be great. So we'll see you then. Hope you all have a wonderful, wonderful weekend. God bless.