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Speaker 3: All right, this is a special holiday edition of Breaking Points.
Speaker 4: We're coming to you from the past.
Speaker 3: We have no idea what is going on in the
Speaker 3: world in which you are currently living.
Speaker 4: We are recording this.
Speaker 3: Way back in the middle to early month of December,
Speaker 3: year of our Lord, twenty twenty five.
Speaker 4: I hope everything is going well for you.
Speaker 3: Today we're going to be joined by journalists Emily Joshinski.
Speaker 4: Emily, thank you for joining us.
Speaker 5: To be clear, this is part one of a series
Speaker 5: we're doing where Ryan is going to interview me and
Speaker 5: then I'm going to turn it back over to Ryan,
Speaker 5: and we're going to interview Ryan.
Speaker 6: Ryan appears to have googled me in preparation for.
Speaker 5: This, and I did not do him the same courtesy
Speaker 5: because I probably googled you before. I don't know, I'm
Speaker 5: sure when we first started hosting, I'm sure I was like,
Speaker 5: isn't that the guy who beat up Jesse Waters.
Speaker 3: Actually, right around the time that I was fighting with
Speaker 3: Jesse Waters is when you were fighting with the big
Speaker 3: LGBTQ lobby, which is what we're going to get into first.
Speaker 3: And then I do want to, you know, hear about
Speaker 3: more of like what got you into this world? But
Speaker 3: I think this is actually a good place to start.
Speaker 3: So we do have an actual element that I googled.
Speaker 3: There's a whole bunch, but I just grabbed one from
Speaker 3: Raw Story. So the headline here and this is the
Speaker 3: year twenty fifteen. I love the photo that adorns this.
Speaker 3: If you're only listening to this, you need to go
Speaker 3: find the video because there's a picture of two women
Speaker 3: making out next to the headline. College group hosting Rick
Speaker 3: Stands Forum demands quote sensitivity training to teach gay's quote
Speaker 3: respect and so this came from a GW hatchet article
Speaker 3: while Emily was the.
Speaker 4: At the at George Washington University and was.
Speaker 3: The head is that Right of Young Americans found hy
Speaker 3: af right. This is the Buckley Organization, right William William
Speaker 3: Buckley created this like youth organization, Young Americans Future or
Speaker 3: something like that.
Speaker 6: It's confusing. I can get a note if you want.
Speaker 4: But yeah, so yeah, that's that's what that's what I
Speaker 4: want to do.
Speaker 3: And so then GW mandated that they were going to
Speaker 3: do like you know, DEI stuff like sensitivity, sensitivity training
Speaker 3: particularly I think it was I think this one correctly wrong, particularly.
Speaker 4: Around trans issues.
Speaker 3: Pronounce pronouns, and you were quoted as saying, forget it,
Speaker 3: we don't, we don't want to do this. And interesting
Speaker 3: in the raw story article they have the College Republican
Speaker 3: throwing you under the bus.
Speaker 6: Oh, of course that's what always happens.
Speaker 3: So the head of the College Republican says, look, it's
Speaker 3: just a little just a little train, that little sensitivity training.
Speaker 4: That's how it used to be so sensitive.
Speaker 6: That's how it used to be. All right, So I've
Speaker 6: been vindicated.
Speaker 3: So you're a so that So when'd you graduate high school,
Speaker 3: so twenty even, so twenty eleven, so you start sor year,
Speaker 3: so this is your senior.
Speaker 4: Year of college. So what is what is this Buckley Group?
Speaker 3: And then we're going to get into the controversy because
Speaker 3: it became like a little national thing. You pay, you
Speaker 3: pay him like a punching bag for the kind of
Speaker 3: left wing raw story huff Post.
Speaker 4: I wonder ifuff Post did anything on you.
Speaker 5: If I remember quickly, I think huff Post did, but
Speaker 5: you know it was. It's actually very interesting and I
Speaker 5: think telling story it's a little thing, but like the
Speaker 5: dust up kind of it brings in a lot of
Speaker 5: different I don't know, it does bring in a lot
Speaker 5: of different trends that started to pop up, especially after
Speaker 5: twenty fifteen. But basically in college, I was a president
Speaker 5: of the YAFF chapter that's Young America's Foundation, which had
Speaker 5: just merged in twenty twelve with Young Americans for Freedom,
Speaker 5: which is the Buckley Group that was created with the
Speaker 5: Sharon Statement in nineteen sixty at the Buckley Estate. And
Speaker 5: Ronald Reagan kind of comes out of Young Americans for
Speaker 5: Freedom circles, who's you know, not a Young American of course,
Speaker 5: but that was part of the Reagan Revolution, guys like
Speaker 5: Roger Stone affiliated with YAFF and all of that.
Speaker 6: But when I got to.
Speaker 5: College, you know, that was the conservative group on campus
Speaker 5: that I got involved with. And this is the LGBT
Speaker 5: sensitivity training story is a funny one because it was
Speaker 5: I don't know, like a snow day, if I'm remember incorrectly,
Speaker 5: And I got a call from the student newspaper, the Hatchet, and.
Speaker 4: That's your job in coming.
Speaker 6: Yeah, And they asked, does GW.
Speaker 5: YAFF oppose this bill that the student Association passed like
Speaker 5: last night that mandates sensitivity training. And it was such
Speaker 5: a trap because I hadn't given any thought to the
Speaker 5: question of the Student Association like sensitivity training bill. And
Speaker 5: I think actually what they asked is if we would
Speaker 5: be requesting a religious exemption to the thing, and I
Speaker 5: think the quote that I.
Speaker 6: Have in The Hatchet is like, well, I'm sure we
Speaker 6: would be, because it.
Speaker 5: Doesn't sound very tolerant of other people's religious beliefs. Because
Speaker 5: the sensitivity training was going to for student leaders of
Speaker 5: student groups, it wasn't a huge deal, but it didn't
Speaker 5: mandate that you go to preferred pronoun sensitivity training.
Speaker 4: We have the receipts.
Speaker 3: Right here, you said, mandated training is not really being
Speaker 3: very tolerant of all religious beliefs. The way that people
Speaker 3: who are deeply Christian behave is for a reason, and
Speaker 3: if you're training them to change that behavior, there's obviously
Speaker 3: a problem with that. So they were going to have
Speaker 3: every student just if you were the.
Speaker 6: Leader of a student group.
Speaker 5: So if you're the head of a YEAF chapter or
Speaker 5: even you know, the Muslim student group, like you all
Speaker 5: would have had.
Speaker 6: To do it.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 3: Let me see if I can find the Republican one,
Speaker 3: he said, regardless of this is Alex Pollock. What's he
Speaker 3: up to now he's the head of the College Republicans
Speaker 3: at GW. He's got to be like lobbyists or something by.
Speaker 6: Now I think he works in publishing.
Speaker 4: Wow, flamed out double track.
Speaker 3: College Democrats and college Republicans like college democrats less. So
Speaker 3: now it's there, they're more act TAVISTI. College Republicans certainly
Speaker 3: to this day like that. Those those are people who
Speaker 3: are just gunning for internships on the hill and trying
Speaker 3: to figure out a way to run for Congress, and.
Speaker 5: Right and and YAF gets by the way, in disclosure
Speaker 5: I'm actually on the board of directors at YAFF because
Speaker 5: that was my first job out of college.
Speaker 6: I was a spokesperson there, and.
Speaker 5: You know, oh a lot to them because as a
Speaker 5: nonprofit group, you know, I got a lot of like experience,
Speaker 5: you went to conferences, and they were the group that
Speaker 5: paid for rick Anntorm to come to our campus and
Speaker 5: it was a very, very very interesting experience having rick
Speaker 5: Antorm come.
Speaker 6: But it was.
Speaker 5: The reason that that groups like Yeah are different from
Speaker 5: College Republicans is because there's that sort of populist element
Speaker 5: to it. And that's the forgotten part of the Reagan
Speaker 5: Revolution is the forgotten part of Buckleyism. So it was
Speaker 5: a revolution against the establishment Republican Party the time, against
Speaker 5: Gerald Ford. That's what it was against. And so that's
Speaker 5: what I've always liked about like YEAFF as a.
Speaker 6: Conservative student group.
Speaker 5: So anyway, yes, they were trying to mandate sensitivity training.
Speaker 6: I was like, m so.
Speaker 3: Alex Pollock said, quote, regardless of this is the College
Speaker 3: Republicans head, regardless of reviews on LGBT people.
Speaker 4: LGBT people exist.
Speaker 3: He said, it should be mandatory from a sensitivity perspective,
Speaker 3: which is not definitely not the Republican position anymore elephant
Speaker 3: in the zoom and so so how did that so
Speaker 3: how did how did that experience of becoming a momentary
Speaker 3: kind of national figure in the sense that you're it's
Speaker 3: got to you know. It's not as if like you
Speaker 3: were a household name or anything, but like if you're
Speaker 3: a college senior and all of a sudden your name
Speaker 3: is in like national publications with people hating on you.
Speaker 4: Was what was that like? And how did that shape
Speaker 4: your who you are now?
Speaker 3: Is this origin story stuff or were you this was
Speaker 3: just like you were on the same trajectory Either way.
Speaker 6: No, this is absolutely origent story stuff.
Speaker 5: I had a job already lined up for when I
Speaker 5: was graduating at a Republican consulting firm that was going
Speaker 5: to be doing like oppo research, and I ended up
Speaker 5: working at YAFF instead because after this happened, they were like, whoa,
Speaker 5: things on campus are actually even crazier than we had
Speaker 5: quite realized. Come work for us and do some PR stuff.
Speaker 5: So that was my first job, and I took it
Speaker 5: because I was very interested in media. I always wanted
Speaker 5: to be a writer, and this job would let me
Speaker 5: write columns and do that sort of thing. But it
Speaker 5: was horrible, truly it was horrible. You know, they wanted
Speaker 5: me to go on Fox News. I said no, and
Speaker 5: of course after that, like ended up you doing a
Speaker 5: decent amount of Fox News until about five years ago
Speaker 5: when we started hosting together tapered off. But it was
Speaker 5: it was truly horrible. I had people yell at me
Speaker 5: from across the street. I went on spring break like
Speaker 5: a student. Yeah, I went on with my friends. By
Speaker 5: the way, I have many gay friends at GW who
Speaker 5: were like, WHOA, what the hell you're the allied and
Speaker 5: pride group on campus.
Speaker 6: I would have to go look this up.
Speaker 5: But they put out a statement, if I remember correctly,
Speaker 5: that said we had committed an act of violence against
Speaker 5: the transgender community.
Speaker 4: I think they called you a hate group or something.
Speaker 5: They tried to get us pushed off campus, literally tried
Speaker 5: to get us pushed off campus. I think people were
Speaker 5: agitated for us to get suspended. And this is again
Speaker 5: not because we said anything other than we think that
Speaker 5: mandatory sensitivity training on perfect pronouns is not tolerant.
Speaker 6: That was the statement.
Speaker 5: So yeah, they tried to push off campus for that,
Speaker 5: and it was very like proto woke. I guess you
Speaker 5: would say, but it was horrible. It was genuinely horrible,
Speaker 5: and a lot of people, I'm sure there are a
Speaker 5: lot of people on the right who would of that,
Speaker 5: But for me, I hated it and I don't have
Speaker 5: like literal PTSD from it, but thinking about it feels
Speaker 5: still really still I still feel kind of panicky, yeah,
Speaker 5: because it was an early experience with a pylon, and
Speaker 5: I've never been comfortable, you know, when you when you're
Speaker 5: a journalist, even when you do a show like this,
Speaker 5: you know, it's everyone's been on something you say gets
Speaker 5: clipped or what, and it's horrible every time.
Speaker 6: I hate it.
Speaker 4: Yes, yeah, the headline.
Speaker 3: Here's another headline, conservative club labeled quote cancer quote hate group,
Speaker 3: yes for requesting to opt out of LGBT training.
Speaker 6: Come on.
Speaker 3: Interestingly, I just noticed that the original Hatchet article has
Speaker 3: a list of corrections that is almost as long as
Speaker 3: the article.
Speaker 6: It's oh it doesn't actually yeah, oh that's awesome.
Speaker 4: And one of them, And I wonder if this played
Speaker 4: into the pilon.
Speaker 3: It says the Hatchet incorrectly reported that the sensitivity trainings
Speaker 3: would include information about sexual assault. The focus of the
Speaker 3: trainings would be LGBT issues. We regret these errors. And
Speaker 3: so it may have initially been reported that you also
Speaker 3: wanted to opt out of sensitivity trainings around sexual assault,
Speaker 3: which would but I mean clearly it was originally reported
Speaker 3: that way, like that's why they had to correct it.
Speaker 3: That would be even more egregious, probably to the public,
Speaker 3: like how dare you?
Speaker 4: How could you not? So I wonder if that played
Speaker 4: a role. What really zip in the pile on.
Speaker 5: What really started it was the Allied and Pride at
Speaker 5: GW's statement and that started going viral on our campus circles.
Speaker 6: Like Facebook was big back then.
Speaker 5: And I think they yeah, they put out the statement
Speaker 5: on Facebook, and when that happened, it was just everything
Speaker 5: from their national media picked up on it, so like
Speaker 5: raw storymever else picked up on it, and it became
Speaker 5: a just a total nightmare.
Speaker 6: We got like.
Speaker 5: Hauled into a meeting with the student association. It was
Speaker 5: it's origin story stuff. Just for the fact that this
Speaker 5: was you know, I would say, the point of this
Speaker 5: being mandatory and then having like a pretty I think
Speaker 5: reasonable request to not have to go to a mandatory
Speaker 5: like reprogramming training.
Speaker 6: I feel like that was kind of reasonable.
Speaker 5: Then you have the College Republicans throwing us under the bus,
Speaker 5: and you have the ad and Pride group freaking out.
Speaker 5: And this is about like three months before Bruce Jenner
Speaker 5: became Caitlyn Jenner, and it's just all of the stuff
Speaker 5: was happening in the spring of twenty fifteen. That was
Speaker 5: pretty interesting because Trump was literally about to come down
Speaker 5: the Golden escalator like a few months later.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 3: Right, Yes, this is this is definitely an This is
Speaker 3: definitely an interesting time. I could imagine some people coming
Speaker 3: out of this with it with more of a more
Speaker 3: of an ax to grind, Like you have a you know,
Speaker 3: you're pretty firm and your culturally conservative politics, but I
Speaker 3: haven't noticed you with any kind of hardcore like vendetta
Speaker 3: and probably much more tolerant rhetoric than a lot of
Speaker 3: people who have your same politics.
Speaker 4: How did that come about?
Speaker 5: I would yeah, it's kind of for me is the opposite,
Speaker 5: because one of the things that one of the reasons
Speaker 5: that it came to DC is I grew up like
Speaker 5: in the woods in Wisconsin, not a super rural area,
Speaker 5: kind of the exurbs of Milwaukee, but you know, my
Speaker 5: my family definitely was like in the woods.
Speaker 4: And could you see your neighbor or like, what was
Speaker 4: your situation?
Speaker 5: No, yeah, no, you can shoot on our property all that.
Speaker 6: Good stuff, and.
Speaker 4: We hopefully that means your neighbors were really far away.
Speaker 5: Yes, well it's also just that even they have a
Speaker 5: lot of woods, so they have a bunch of property.
Speaker 5: And anyway, so all I was say, you can see
Speaker 5: them now because all the trees are down. But anyway,
Speaker 5: going on, going forward.
Speaker 4: I grew up like why are the trees down?
Speaker 6: What happened the cycle of the forest.
Speaker 5: They're old and also my dad has just been like
Speaker 5: deforesting and taking him down for.
Speaker 6: Well because they're dead.
Speaker 5: And yeah, anyway, I also good excuse to use the chainsaw.
Speaker 5: But I grew up like hunting, fishing. My mom is
Speaker 5: from a very rural area. My dad's from a very
Speaker 5: blue collar background and going to church every Sunday. And
Speaker 5: it was just like one of the reasons I came
Speaker 5: here is that I was so frustrated by what I
Speaker 5: was seeing on TV and in movies, just the way
Speaker 5: that culture talked down to people.
Speaker 6: I always felt like.
Speaker 5: I just wanted to prove the point to elite that
Speaker 5: these are decent people. I just am so annoyed by
Speaker 5: this assumption that you are bad if you come from
Speaker 5: a culturally conservative background for whatever reason. That has just always, really,
Speaker 5: really really gotten under my skin.
Speaker 6: And.
Speaker 5: That's why I came here. And so I hate feeling misunderstood,
Speaker 5: like it just drives me insane. And so I like
Speaker 5: having conversations. And that's where I think I don't have
Speaker 5: an axta grind. I just genuinely have a point to prove,
Speaker 5: and I like having those those conversations, like I want
Speaker 5: people to see that, you know, I might disagree and
Speaker 5: really disagree on difficult stuff, but I don't hate anyone,
Speaker 5: Like it's really the opposite, right, and that's just frustrating.
Speaker 3: Were your parents conservative? When did you get a political awakening?
Speaker 5: So my mom definitely is conservative. My dad votes for
Speaker 5: both parties. He's a He worked for the state. He
Speaker 5: was an engineer for the state of Wisconsin. His whole
Speaker 5: career is retired now, but he was a public employee
Speaker 5: union and so went through the kind of Scott Walker era.
Speaker 5: I was funny to Scott Walker's president if you have now,
Speaker 5: but you know they would really Yeah, my mom is
Speaker 5: an HL for years at some big corporations like Johnson controls,
Speaker 5: and they would argue about Walker and unions. She was
Speaker 5: an HR and had to deal.
Speaker 6: With a lot of that, so a little bit a
Speaker 6: little bit of both.
Speaker 5: My dad's Catholic when mom's Lutheran, so it was a
Speaker 5: little bit of both. But for me, it was just
Speaker 5: kind of this cultural It wasn't always like hardcore conservative.
Speaker 5: And I don't think I'm you know, I'm not like
Speaker 5: MAGA or Republican now. I just am kind of a
Speaker 5: limited government, cultural conservative type person.
Speaker 4: I pulled up another twenty thirteen article.
Speaker 6: This is another Hatchart article.
Speaker 3: Another hatchet article I'll read from this one, says sophomore
Speaker 3: Emily Jashinsky said she grew up in a strict Lutheran
Speaker 3: household and is also morally opposed to same sex marriage,
Speaker 3: but after honing her political views as a libertarian, she
Speaker 3: doesn't and she'll be doing well. We did the reason
Speaker 3: debate already. She does not think the government should be
Speaker 3: taking a stance on the issue at all. She will
Speaker 3: not head to the Supreme Court this week or there
Speaker 3: was going to be a protest around marriage equality, ruling
Speaker 3: Republicans do not need to get caught up in social issues.
Speaker 3: She said Jashinski, a member of the Young America's Foundation,
Speaker 3: said she is inspired by new voices in the Republican Party.
Speaker 3: They are more libertarian, like father and son, Ron and
Speaker 3: Rand Paul. She called them the future of the GOP.
Speaker 5: Amazing that seems so I can hopeful future, I can guarantee.
Speaker 5: That was like a six month phase with libertarianism.
Speaker 3: Although but the limited government that you still espouse is
Speaker 3: But so this was hardcore libertarianism.
Speaker 4: You were like, no, I mean, yeah.
Speaker 6: Kind of it was becoming that. I mean the.
Speaker 4: Sophomore year that's around when people try on libertarianism.
Speaker 6: That's exactly right. Yeah, and it was. It was definitely
Speaker 6: a short lived.
Speaker 5: But the reason that I was attracted libertarians because I've
Speaker 5: always been a populist and at the time Ron and
Speaker 5: Rand Paul were popular, the Tea Party movement was populist.
Speaker 5: And so the thing that I was wrong about and
Speaker 5: Charlie Kirk was wrong about this at the time too.
Speaker 5: I think I just came around a little earlier, was
Speaker 5: that the Republican Party did need to get caught up
Speaker 5: in social issues, not in the way.
Speaker 6: That a lot of people, you know, wanted.
Speaker 5: It to get caught up in social issues, and Rick
Speaker 5: Sntorm is an interesting figure in this respect too. On
Speaker 5: the one hand, was talking about Charles Murray's coming apart
Speaker 5: and cultural elitism. Then on the other hand, was talking
Speaker 5: about a pretty unappealing worldview that Americans were moving away
Speaker 5: from that wouldn't fit on a populist platform. So anyway, Yeah,
Speaker 5: that was short lived. I don't think I've ever really
Speaker 5: considered myself a libertarian. I still really like Rand Paul
Speaker 5: because I think he is a populist. I like Ron
Speaker 5: Paul because I think he's a populist. But at the
Speaker 5: same time, you know, I am kind of an economic.
Speaker 6: Populist in a way that they aren't. Like.
Speaker 5: I believe in industrial policy and protectionism and all that
Speaker 5: fun stuff.
Speaker 3: So yeah, So Ron Paul ran in two thousand and
Speaker 3: eight for president when you would have been what you're
Speaker 3: graduating eleven?
Speaker 6: Yeah, I was in high school.
Speaker 4: So was that kind of the first campaign you paid
Speaker 4: serious attention to?
Speaker 5: Or yeah, yeah, because I was in twenty four it
Speaker 5: was twelve, or I'm sorry, it was eleven.
Speaker 6: Yeah, so that was definitely the first major one.
Speaker 4: Did he do better in twenty twelve?
Speaker 3: I'm trying to remember, Yeah, so he runs in two
Speaker 3: thousand and eight to twenty twelve, he comes out this
Speaker 3: is post Tea party.
Speaker 4: Yeah, he was almost mide he almost whin Iowa or
Speaker 4: when Iowa.
Speaker 6: Like he did incredibly well.
Speaker 4: He was shocking the Republican establishment. Yep.
Speaker 3: And the people who got behind him in twenty twelve,
Speaker 3: I think ironically you could say many of them became
Speaker 3: Trump supporters.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Like Ron Paul.
Speaker 6: Was the like, yeah, I know some of them.
Speaker 4: He was the avatar for challenging the Republican establishment.
Speaker 6: Yeah, exactly, yes, And so it.
Speaker 3: It feels like people were more interested in challenging the
Speaker 3: Republican establishment than whenever that person was saying yeah, it's
Speaker 3: so that's why you're like, Okay, if it's going to
Speaker 3: be Ron Paul that I'm going to learn about, libertarianism
Speaker 3: is going to be Trump, I'm going to do this
Speaker 3: other thing.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 5: And after twenty twelve, Ron and Rand were treated as
Speaker 5: the future of the Republican Party by the media. There
Speaker 5: was that Time magazine cover that was like the Libertarian Moment,
Speaker 5: if I'm remember incorrectly, and it was all the rage
Speaker 5: and like young conservative circles like nobody wanted to be
Speaker 5: connected to the santorums in young Republican circles, because there
Speaker 5: was this sense pre Trump that the culture War was
Speaker 5: dragging everybody down and to the extent that the pronoun
Speaker 5: sensitivity training thing is origin story and lower. It's that
Speaker 5: for me, that is an early point where I reversed
Speaker 5: that twenty thirteen hatchet quote where I was like, oh no, actually,
Speaker 5: the culture war is where this is like the big tent.
Speaker 5: The culture War is the big tent. And I'd always
Speaker 5: been more interested in the culture War than most people
Speaker 5: who were like in coulege Republican circles. But that's you know,
Speaker 5: to me, I was like, this is getting so wild
Speaker 5: that kids are being chased off a campus for saying
Speaker 5: like they're being called a hate group for saying they
Speaker 5: didn't want to do a mandatory pronoun training.
Speaker 6: Like this is getting a little crazy. These are getting weird.
Speaker 4: And so then how long were you at YAF after college?
Speaker 6: Almost two years?
Speaker 5: Almost two years and my college job I was I'm
Speaker 5: probably the longest American Enterprise institute in turn ever because
Speaker 5: I worked for not in foreign policy. Although I would
Speaker 5: be like standing in the lunch line behind Paul Wolfowitz.
Speaker 4: Wild exactly Iraq War.
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, wild stuff.
Speaker 5: But I worked for chrisino Off Summers, who is like
Speaker 5: she was very favorable to Bernie in twenty sixteen, but
Speaker 5: was at Ai writing about feminism. She wrote that, but
Speaker 5: from in nineteen ninety four, w hoostole feminism?
Speaker 6: And she wrote The War Against Boys?
Speaker 5: And my job was to fact check the original War
Speaker 5: against Boys, the footnotes and make sure the research hadn't changed.
Speaker 5: And in fact, what I found often is that some
Speaker 5: of these trends had gotten worse about young men in
Speaker 5: schools and all of them.
Speaker 4: When did the War Against Boys come out?
Speaker 5: The original two thousand, two thousand, yeah, yeah, the re
Speaker 5: release was twenty thirteen.
Speaker 3: I think, how did Christina hoff Summer's shape shape your
Speaker 3: politics working with her?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 5: I mean, Christie's amazing. I just wrote in the Washington
Speaker 5: Post this month about my experience working for her. She's amazing, Like,
Speaker 5: she's brilliant, And it was for me more of like
Speaker 5: an awakening along these same lines that I had. You know,
Speaker 5: I felt it in my gut, but I didn't have
Speaker 5: the language or the research or the experience.
Speaker 6: I kind of back it up, which is this is
Speaker 6: a person.
Speaker 5: Who's eminently reasonable brilliant and had leftist critiques of the
Speaker 5: feminist movement. When she was her courses were cross listed
Speaker 5: in the women Studies department at Clark University I think
Speaker 5: it was in Massachusetts in the early nineties, and she
Speaker 5: had leftist critiques of the feminist movement, got kicked out
Speaker 5: of the women's studies conferences and everything when she wrote
Speaker 5: Who's Stole Feminism? And ended up at AI making it
Speaker 5: I think a lot of the same like leftist critiques,
Speaker 5: feminist critiques of the feminist movement in ways that aren't
Speaker 5: easily categorized as like necessarily leftist or reactionary. But she
Speaker 5: was so misunderstood and that I think I haven't even
Speaker 5: thought about that until now. But like that I think
Speaker 5: really resonates with me is that these elite distortions of
Speaker 5: well intentioned people who are just trying to engage in conversation.
Speaker 3: Who did steal feminism? Like what was the feminists? And
Speaker 3: for what purpose? Like what's her? What's I haven't read that?
Speaker 4: What's her?
Speaker 5: That's where she h that's where she goes through some
Speaker 5: of the statistics that the feminist movement has often relied
Speaker 5: on that aren't great, Like so for example, overstating the
Speaker 5: age gap, overstating the prevalence of domestic abuse and violence,
Speaker 5: and in ways that further like victimize women. It's like
Speaker 5: the learned helplessness, but applied to women in the feminist movement.
Speaker 5: But also she was very early in saying that erasing
Speaker 5: sex distinctions was going to hurt women's spaces, it was
Speaker 5: going to undermine Title nine, it was going to create
Speaker 5: serious problems.
Speaker 6: She was very early on gamer Gates, which is funny.
Speaker 5: I think I told the story before of like ending
Speaker 5: up at a gamer Gate meetup while I was a
Speaker 5: Christina intern at a bar on U Street here in
Speaker 5: DC that got like a bunch of bomb threats called
Speaker 5: in and it was all of these.
Speaker 6: Gamer Gate people. Milo was there, who came from around
Speaker 6: the country.
Speaker 3: Like it was gamer Gate for people who like, if
Speaker 3: you're under thirty, yeah, that's probably doesn't exist to you.
Speaker 6: Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 5: It's seen as like Trump lures twenty fourteen lore, yeah,
Speaker 5: twenty fourteen. It's it's sort of seen as like proto woke.
Speaker 5: It was a bunch of men getting mad about the
Speaker 5: feminization or the feministization of video games, and some of
Speaker 5: them channeling that in really awful ways, and some of
Speaker 5: them channeling it in ways that was just like stop
Speaker 5: encroaching on our spaces, like we have to let some
Speaker 5: stuff be for guys. And some of the feminization feministization
Speaker 5: of the video games was like proto woke. But anyway, Yeah,
Speaker 5: I was at that gamer game meet up and it
Speaker 5: was like a.
Speaker 3: Bus that as his origin story, he like saw the
Speaker 3: energy around game or Gate.
Speaker 4: So there's a lot of angry young men here.
Speaker 3: We could channel this into a publication and a presidential
Speaker 3: campaign and a political movement.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and some of that went to.
Speaker 5: Some of that energy went to Trump, some of it
Speaker 5: went honestly to things like Charlottesville, and some of them
Speaker 5: went to you know, just Jordan Peterson and early Jordan Peterson,
Speaker 5: like some really good stuff. So yeah, but I was, like,
Speaker 5: I say this respectfully, like in a party of like
Speaker 5: sweaty basement dwellers who had traveled it was the worst
Speaker 5: spilling party I've ever been to, who had traveled from
Speaker 5: around the country and were so nervous and they didn't
Speaker 5: have a lot of money, and they put everything into
Speaker 5: getting to this meetup and it was like the highlight
Speaker 5: of their year, and it was in a way. You know,
Speaker 5: there's some of them who were clearly fringy and off,
Speaker 5: but in a way it was like also some of.
Speaker 6: Them were well intentioned and it was very kind of touching.
Speaker 4: I don't know any of them talked to you or
Speaker 4: were they all afraid of you.
Speaker 5: They were afraid of the women, that is for sure,
Speaker 5: but yeah, they were. They were really excited, and then
Speaker 5: they were really excited when the leftists called them bomb
Speaker 5: threats and they had to evacuate three times because it
Speaker 5: made the street their renegades, right, exactly right, I mean
Speaker 5: they feel kind of alive.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Which, so you being at the game or gate
Speaker 3: basement party goes to a question I've seen a lot
Speaker 3: of people ask I've wandered about, like the the how
Speaker 3: do you square you in the public space? You work
Speaker 3: harder than almost anybody than I know. Like the day
Speaker 3: that we're taping this, you're up early in the morning
Speaker 3: do breaking points and then recording some episodes for the holidays.
Speaker 3: You'll then have maybe four hours to go do other work.
Speaker 6: The Serious Exam Show, It Too Serious.
Speaker 3: XM Show two, and then you're going to do the
Speaker 3: Reason Debate at be there at five thirty and then
Speaker 3: you're doing your after party show on Megan Megan Kelly's
Speaker 3: network at like ten, which will go till when like midnight.
Speaker 6: Eleven eleven thirty.
Speaker 4: Right, So that's it's a long day. It's a fun day.
Speaker 3: I don't want to say that, like like it the
Speaker 3: way I always.
Speaker 4: Think, what is it? Beats working? Yeah, you always it's
Speaker 4: not real work it because it's fun.
Speaker 3: But it's a lot. That's a lot. It's six am
Speaker 3: to like eleven, twelve pm. We can acknowledge that.
Speaker 4: That's like a long day, even if it's fun stuff. Yeah,
Speaker 4: it's a long day.
Speaker 3: On the other hand, from the cultural political perspective, it's like,
Speaker 3: well women should shouldn't you know, shouldn't be working or
Speaker 3: I don't even know exactly where. Obviously you wouldn't ban
Speaker 3: them from working, but like, how do you square that?
Speaker 6: That's a good point.
Speaker 5: No, I've that's that's gone back to like people who asked,
Speaker 5: you know, Philish Slaughley that for years and actually yeah,
Speaker 5: another one of my form of experiences was we brought
Speaker 5: Philish Laughley to campus. I went to a Bertucci's and
Speaker 5: sat next to Phylish Lafley when I was like twenty
Speaker 5: years old, and you know, she was eighty nine at
Speaker 5: the time, and I just remember working, still working, escorting
Speaker 5: her down this narrow hallway at GW and the protesters
Speaker 5: eighty nine years old were like shouting in her face
Speaker 5: and calling her like the most awful things. And again,
Speaker 5: I actually do understand where some of that comes from,
Speaker 5: directed to Phylish Laffey, because there's a lot of you know,
Speaker 5: there's a lot of angst from like the sexual Revolution
Speaker 5: and LGBT stuff, feminist stuff that then comes out and
Speaker 5: actually probably isn't real stuff too, that comes out when
Speaker 5: you have a kind of somebody like Philischlaffley as an
Speaker 5: avatar for that movie. Anyway, Yeah, watching the like Hatred
Speaker 5: and Bitriol was quite an experience. I don't I'm not
Speaker 5: one of those people that you know, has ever thought
Speaker 5: that women should not work. My mom worked, you know,
Speaker 5: probably seventy hours a week, like she was flying to
Speaker 5: like you know, for a lot of my childhood, just
Speaker 5: flying like China and Germany because she worked for you know,
Speaker 5: automatic company.
Speaker 6: No no, no.
Speaker 5: No, she wishes, she wishes, but no is she was
Speaker 5: in human resources, which would be a horrible.
Speaker 6: CIA cover or maybe a great no but I've never
Speaker 6: thought that. I think we have.
Speaker 5: Mary Harrington has this really interesting point about how the
Speaker 5: separation between home and work is actually industrial, it's post industrial.
Speaker 5: It's only something that we think about. This idea that
Speaker 5: women should stay home and that home isn't work is
Speaker 5: like very much in Americans at this from like a
Speaker 5: Marxist perspective that like men and women shared the work
Speaker 5: of the home until industrial society came along. So I
Speaker 5: think some of these are like artificial distinctions. I think
Speaker 5: if you look at surveys, it's true that most women
Speaker 5: want to work part time with their kids and be
Speaker 5: home for part of the time with their kids.
Speaker 6: That is the plurality of what women want to do.
Speaker 5: So I think women should should be treated that way,
Speaker 5: and you shouldn't be talked down to for choosing to
Speaker 5: work part time or stay home with their kids. But
Speaker 5: I don't really buy into the artificial distinctions between That
Speaker 5: is an.
Speaker 3: Interesting point that because the the whole like women should
Speaker 3: be at home is a post World War two, Like
Speaker 3: in the nineteenth century, like, yeah, everybody was working at home,
Speaker 3: especially because energy production was such a significant part of
Speaker 3: home life. Yeah, like going out like basically getting cold
Speaker 3: or chopping wood and making sure that you had like
Speaker 3: enough to heat the house occupied, like like men, men
Speaker 3: had to do that, and we're doing it on top
Speaker 3: of whatever their job was otherwise the house is called
Speaker 3: and that gave them an out then too, they're like
Speaker 3: that they're not you know, if they're shirking other duties,
Speaker 3: because they're not sharking anything, because they're like, like, literally they.
Speaker 4: Got to be out there chopping wood.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly, an enormous amount because it burns so fast.
Speaker 4: And interesting, so.
Speaker 3: Energy production being taken care of now by just the
Speaker 3: house has freed men up, and so men filled that
Speaker 3: time with any game or gate and like right now
Speaker 3: now it's now it's back to being wildly unbalanced back
Speaker 3: at home.
Speaker 5: It's a good Christmas book recommendation Feminism Against Progress by
Speaker 5: Mary Harrington.
Speaker 6: She goes into some.
Speaker 4: Of those house what's her take?
Speaker 6: Just what I like, Like, it's actually very fascinating. At
Speaker 6: the time.
Speaker 5: I don't know if she would still define herself this way,
Speaker 5: but at the time it's a very Marxist critique of
Speaker 5: the feminist movement.
Speaker 6: It's really interesting.
Speaker 3: That's interesting because yeah, I guess, like I guess a
Speaker 3: lot of it.
Speaker 4: They grew up in the forties. Yeah, in fifties.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and it's it's right.
Speaker 4: That was their perspective rather than a long historical one.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it becomes like a corporate academic feminism.
Speaker 4: So then how do you wind up with a federalist.
Speaker 5: I was at the Washington Examiner working for so when
Speaker 5: you know Tim Carney on the commentary desk for a
Speaker 5: couple of years. A job opened on the commentary desk
Speaker 5: at the Examiner. I jumped at it right away because
Speaker 5: I really wanted to do writing, and I told yeah
Speaker 5: that when I started working for them, that's what I ultimately.
Speaker 6: Wanted to do. So I jumped at that.
Speaker 5: But Tim was insistent and rightfully so, that if you're
Speaker 5: a twenty four year old and you have an opinion
Speaker 5: writing job, you're actually going to be doing reporting. So
Speaker 5: like you can do your blogs, but you need to
Speaker 5: bring new information to the table. And so that's where
Speaker 5: I hate reporting. I always say there are a couple
Speaker 5: types of journalists. There's the journalists who get into the
Speaker 5: job because they love reporting and talking to people and
Speaker 5: they hate writing. There's the journalists who get into the
Speaker 5: job because they love writing and hate reporting. There's the
Speaker 5: rare person who likes both and is good at both.
Speaker 5: But I'm the type of person that I'm in it
Speaker 5: because I love writing. I don't like reporting. But Tim
Speaker 5: forced me to do it, and that was incredible. So
Speaker 5: the Federalists plucked me from there to sort of do that,
Speaker 5: but with more at the time, like considered elegant kind
Speaker 5: of cultural writing every day. So my job was to
Speaker 5: write one piece on culture a day. It's like the
Speaker 5: dream job, which because the Federalist is very small, quickly
Speaker 5: turned into a lot of other things. I was doing
Speaker 5: a lot of editing, read the submissions every day, which
Speaker 5: was fascinating. The Federal submissions from like twenty eighteen to
Speaker 5: twenty twenty.
Speaker 6: Four were very very interesting, not bad.
Speaker 5: Yeah so, And the Federalist model was publishing non professional
Speaker 5: writers from around the country, which I think any leftist
Speaker 5: publication is that is a model that they should take.
Speaker 5: Because we were publishing most of our staff was in
Speaker 5: the rest of the country, you know, our politics editor
Speaker 5: was in Texas, executive.
Speaker 6: Editor in Indiana, like everyone was elsewhere.
Speaker 5: But most of our writers were non professional writers either,
Speaker 5: just like people with normal jobs like small town lawyers.
Speaker 6: Say moms that type of thing.
Speaker 5: So that was very very interesting to see the difference
Speaker 5: between like the DC Hive mind and the submissions every day.
Speaker 3: So now you went to college with two interesting people,
Speaker 3: Graham Platner, Yeah, I think sell Yah Soger and Jetty.
Speaker 3: Yes you did you know him in college? And is
Speaker 3: that how you first started doing like how did you
Speaker 3: first start doing Rising Appearances?
Speaker 4: So actually before then doing the show, Sagur and.
Speaker 5: I definitely met each other without knowing it in college,
Speaker 5: is my theory, because he was in a frat that
Speaker 5: I would occasionally like be at the parties that had
Speaker 5: a friend of a friend who was like in that
Speaker 5: frat party was Yeah, probably he was a he was
Speaker 5: not getting But soccer used to be a much better time,
Speaker 5: much better dive.
Speaker 6: It used to be a much better hang. Yeah. So
Speaker 6: Sager is a year head of me and g W.
Speaker 5: Platner was just going through GW very slowly on the
Speaker 5: GI bill, and we found out recently that we overlapped
Speaker 5: with him.
Speaker 6: I don't think either of us knew him, but.
Speaker 5: Sager had a really similar circle of friends to me,
Speaker 5: and so when we met at an event that he
Speaker 5: was covering, it was he was covering a yeah event,
Speaker 5: we met in person.
Speaker 4: And you were at at the time.
Speaker 5: Yeah, this was it was like the week of the
Speaker 5: twenty sixteen election, and we met in person.
Speaker 6: We were like, oh, yeah, we have all these friends
Speaker 6: in common.
Speaker 5: And then our friend circles like became totally intertwined because
Speaker 5: one person started like my best friend started dating one
Speaker 5: of his best friends, and there.
Speaker 4: You go, there you go.
Speaker 3: And so then he starts asking to do like weekly
Speaker 3: are you doing weekly rising things?
Speaker 5: You know, it's funnier, it's even funnier than that. Sager
Speaker 5: was really interested in starting to do like on camera
Speaker 5: stuff when he was at The Daily Caller and I
Speaker 5: at the time was doing a decent bit of on
Speaker 5: camera stuff at Fox, and so we were talking about
Speaker 5: like what that's like, if it's worth all that sort
Speaker 5: of thing, and so when he was at the Caller,
Speaker 5: we were kind of strategizing on those types of things,
Speaker 5: and then he would come and like, I think you
Speaker 5: too would be on the panel and rising when he
Speaker 5: got that job.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think we had like maybe you had this too.
Speaker 3: I think it was like Tuesday, you'll be on like Tuesdays, Yeah,
Speaker 3: and whatever you want to talk about. Yeah, Tuesdays something
Speaker 3: like that. So then, so you helped Saga with the
Speaker 3: whole Fox thing.
Speaker 6: I don't know if you'll admit it, but yeah, we.
Speaker 4: Got well we'll interview Saga.
Speaker 5: Were to him on Connecticut Avenue. Yeah, I mean we
Speaker 5: had a little conversation about that. But and I was
Speaker 5: also on the Daily Caller softball team, so I was
Speaker 5: like hanging out with all.
Speaker 4: Those guys the team any good?
Speaker 5: Oh hell yeah that year we beat the State Department
Speaker 5: in the championship.
Speaker 6: Awesome.
Speaker 5: Yeah that's Hillary's state, well not Hillary's but Obama stage part.
Speaker 3: I played on the House Ways and Means Committee team
Speaker 3: several years.
Speaker 6: It's the crazy story.
Speaker 4: We had like four four four or five hough Post
Speaker 4: people and then.
Speaker 6: Ways of so inappropriate.
Speaker 3: We literally were going to bat for them. So so
Speaker 3: then Saga and Crystal leave, they go do breaking points. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and you come in for a couple of weeks and
Speaker 3: do rising and then end up doing it for a
Speaker 3: very long time. Like how did how did that fit
Speaker 3: into your how you had seen your career going?
Speaker 4: I guess. Then we got to wrap up pretty soon.
Speaker 5: Yeah, people probably chick here. I know I've said this before.
Speaker 5: People probably know this like I, on camera stuff is
Speaker 5: not my favorite.
Speaker 6: I don't love it.
Speaker 5: I'm happy to do like radio stuff, but I really
Speaker 5: hate doing on camera stuff. And so one of the
Speaker 5: reasons I didn't want I didn't jump at the chance,
Speaker 5: among many other reasons, Soccer and Crystal kind of filled
Speaker 5: us in on what was going on at the Hill,
Speaker 5: So there were a lot of reasons. I think both
Speaker 5: of us were skeptical it was great money, though at
Speaker 5: the time it was great money, and so yeah, just
Speaker 5: like you know, it was also kind of trying to
Speaker 5: help them out and was like trying at the time,
Speaker 5: I was trying to do less on camera stuff, to
Speaker 5: be honest, because Fox had again tapered off for various reasons.
Speaker 5: But it started to become really fun, and I think
Speaker 5: you and I both experienced the obvious reaction that audience
Speaker 5: has had to Crystal and Sager, which was awesome, Like
Speaker 5: just it was so cool.
Speaker 6: It's cool to see how that's blossomed.
Speaker 3: But yeah, that's I didn't And around that time, reading
Speaker 3: has like been steadily decliding, and like audiences are moving here.
Speaker 3: So if you want to share the news that was
Speaker 3: so cool, kind to go where they are here we
Speaker 3: are well.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and I don't know, I mean, I don't I
Speaker 5: don't know that I would want to co host anyone else.
Speaker 6: I mean, there's obviously also a Chrystal.
Speaker 5: Sorry they're great, but yeah, but I just mean, if
Speaker 5: like we hadn't initially been paired up together, yeah, I
Speaker 5: don't think. I don't know if I would be here
Speaker 5: because I feel like that was really crucial.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it's that that's the limiting factor. And I
Speaker 3: think in these shows.
Speaker 6: Actually is that it's I think that's right.
Speaker 3: There's a there's an audience for much more of this
Speaker 3: type of news than is produced, but people can't produce
Speaker 3: it because they can't get along and they can't or
Speaker 3: they don't not or but and they don't know what
Speaker 3: they're talking about. So it's it's hard to find people
Speaker 3: who like they know what they're talking about and also
Speaker 3: like the other person if they don't uhgree with them
Speaker 3: on everything.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it was really hard.
Speaker 5: I mean, I mean the fact that we got through
Speaker 5: peak woke, that Crystal and Saga and all of us
Speaker 5: got through Peak woke, and like.
Speaker 4: My t shirts, yeah we should.
Speaker 5: We survived the cancel culture wave. I actually think it's
Speaker 5: an amazing achievement. And the last thing I'll say is just.
Speaker 6: From here it's gonna be downhill.
Speaker 5: And also, yeah, I mean we certainly have disagreed on
Speaker 5: Israel stuff and probably definitely still do, but that has
Speaker 5: been an interesting journey.
Speaker 6: For me too.
Speaker 5: But it's the last thing I'll say is I think
Speaker 5: algorithms are reprogramming our brains, especially in media. So and
Speaker 5: this is just also audience directed. You guys have probably
Speaker 5: see just the amount of people that react to Ryan
Speaker 5: and Me and Crystaline Sager with total sometimes extreme like
Speaker 5: you can't talk to that person, you can't talk to
Speaker 5: this person. People will probably be surprised at how much
Speaker 5: that we get constantly like this disqualifying, you should never
Speaker 5: talk to this person again.
Speaker 6: How can you host a show with this person? How
Speaker 6: can you host a show with this person?
Speaker 5: Given what this person that this person is friends with, thanks,
Speaker 5: Like it's just crazy, And so I think one of
Speaker 5: the reasons there's a demand for this type of show
Speaker 5: that doesn't get done is because the algorithms are like
Speaker 5: reprogramming so many people to give in to those pressures
Speaker 5: and to fight or to dig in their heels and
Speaker 5: not continue to learn from each other and whatever.
Speaker 6: So that's one thing I think we do well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I think if you push past those people like,
Speaker 3: we're winning.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 6: I think that's true.
Speaker 3: Because there are more people who are like, no, actually,
Speaker 3: you should talk to each other and I want to
Speaker 3: hear Like a lot of people will watch both Fox
Speaker 3: and CNN.
Speaker 4: It's like, why are we making people do that?
Speaker 6: Yeah, exactly, give it to them, Just give.
Speaker 4: It to him right here.
Speaker 3: And it also creates more honest news because it fights
Speaker 3: audience capture.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Like you you.
Speaker 3: Know, if you just have one perspective and then you're
Speaker 3: then you build an audience that wants to hear that perspective.
Speaker 3: And if you want to change direction or if you
Speaker 3: have a position that differs from what they think, which
Speaker 3: you have to because times change, right, we move on,
Speaker 3: like we get new information totally. You can't or you
Speaker 3: lose your audience, whereas our audience very much expects to
Speaker 3: hear things they don't agree with.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's so true, and I hope people see that
Speaker 5: we like learn from each other. I think journalist should
Speaker 5: have more questions than answers, you know, And that's where
Speaker 5: I get a lot of times people being like, well,
Speaker 5: what do you actually think about this? It's like, because
Speaker 5: we're used to having people in media who have a
Speaker 5: rock solid opinion on every single thing, because that's how
Speaker 5: you were taught. I mean, I always talk about how
Speaker 5: when I did media training before I went to Fox.
Speaker 5: The first time I answered I don't know to a
Speaker 5: question in training, and the one was like, just don't
Speaker 5: ever again. Yeah, right, And now it's like a lot
Speaker 5: of times I'm just asking questions because you don't have
Speaker 5: to have a prefab ideological conclusion for every question that
Speaker 5: comes up.
Speaker 6: And shows that are in the.
Speaker 5: Habit of giving you that are bad, I think people
Speaker 5: are getting sick of them.
Speaker 4: Well.
Speaker 3: Emily co host of Breaking Points, co host of The
Speaker 3: Emilyki Late Night Hour on The Kelly Show, Still ongoing
Speaker 3: writer Unheard.
Speaker 6: Yeah calumnist and Ryan.
Speaker 5: Host of the show Ryan I'm Ryan Grim's biggest fan,
Speaker 5: I swear, other than maybe Allison.
Speaker 3: There you go, so well, thanks so much for joining me,
Speaker 3: Thanks for having me right. I hope everybody's having a
Speaker 3: wonderful holiday.
Speaker 6: Now it's my turn to turn the camera on. Ryan