Megan McCain has entered the chat.

Welcome back to Megan McCain has entered the chat with me. Megan McCain, I know I say this every single week, but I really mean it. We have such an incredible group of guests today. We have Bacha Angar Sargon, who is the opinion editor at Newsweek. She's just like an absolutely fascinating and wildly intelligent woman. We talk about the election and a bunch of other stuff. And then we have Mary Morgan, who is co host of pop culture Crisis at Timcast Media, which is a live daily show on YouTube that navigates the insanity of today's pop culture. She's so smart. Going to get into the Grammys and all pop culture news, things having to do with Taylor Swift. And I also want to give a shout out to Donna, who approached my husband at Harris Teeter when he was grocery shopping on Saturday and said that both she and her book club love the podcast. So thank you. Made my Saturday. Ben was so excited and I'm really so grateful. I'm so glad. I don't know what your book club's called, but thank you for listening to the podcast. We're really very happy. So sweet. Right, Miranda?

Thank you.

We love you.

Yeah. Approach Ben. He was shopping for Harris here. You had to go get milk and eggs and all the stuff you need for little kids. And he texted me and then called me afterward and I was like, well, what a lovely. So that's sweet. Yeah. So people are listening and it's all good. And yeah, we're going to get into it with Mary and Bacha. And then coming up, we have some really great episodes coming up, including a full blown love episode for Valentine's Day, which I'm very excited to do. And yeah, thank you all for listening. Let's get into it. Welcome back to Megan McKay has entered the chat. Oh, so excited for this guest. Batia Angar Sargon is the opinion editor at Newsweek, author of Bad News, how woke media is undermining democracy, and the forthcoming second class, how the elites betrayed America's working men and women. So excited for that. I know you can't talk about it, but very excited for your second book. Bacha, thank you so much for coming. Know I'm such a fan of yours.

It is such a huge honor and privilege to be here with you. Megan, you are known within the jewish community these days as one few who can really see it and who stands up for us and uses your platform to just say absolutely not to anti Semitism on the right and the left. And I just can't tell you what that means to us at this time. So thank you so much for all of that. It's such an honor to be here.

Well, I really obviously deeply appreciate you saying that, and I do. It makes me sad because it's just not that hard. And I don't understand the extreme cowardice from people. And I also have a real deep appreciation for the kind of education I was given when I was growing up. I had a Holocaust survivor come and speak at my 7th grade classroom. We screened Schindler's list. I went to the museum of Tolerance when I was a freshman in high school. And my parents obviously had instilled a lot of these pro Israel values in me, and I took it for granted and didn't realize how important it would be to me as an adult. And now my husband and I are having active conversations about how we can do this same blueprint that he and I got to our children. Because apparently being anti semitic is something that's passing in culture today, and it blows. It's just a hideous poison. I mean, I was going to get to this topic. We can jump right into it. You actually tweeted, quote, I'm working on a presentation about anti Semitism, particularly on the left. It's my view that this is largely an elite phenomenon tied to the way universities, tech identities, and politics more broadly.

Can you explain to me a, what your presentation is going to be, or if you already did it? And it really has been very surprising to me, botcha, how this snake has reared its head recently. Why do you think we're in this place right now?

It's a great question. The presentation is for the Stryker center is having on February 27, ten speakers, each speaking for 18 minutes long, about antisemitism, about a different aspect of it. And they asked me to speak about left wing anti semitism. And I'm very curious, actually, if you agree with me, because a lot of people on social media, when I posted that, didn't agree with me. But it is my view that, by and large, anti semitism on the left today, in 2024, is very much an elite phenomenon. So you'll see it among politicians like the squad, right, like left wing progressive politicians. You'll see it on college campuses and in universities. You'll see it from people with higher degrees, especially in the social sciences, like social workers. And then, of course, you'll see it on TikTok, which is not an elite space, but is where the chinese communist party tries to sow division, basically in America, because they are our enemies. That's what they're trying to do. But by and large, the american working class is the least anti semitic population to ever exist on planet Earth. We are incredibly, incredibly, incredibly grateful and lucky to be Americans.

And we are still, I believe, the luckiest jews to ever walk planet Earth. The safest jews to ever walk planet Earth. And I don't like it when people talk about college students being unsafe because, as you know, Megan, leftists are cowards. I mean, they're physical cowards, right? Like, they're scared of guns, they're scared of fighting, right? It's just a bunch of sociopaths in blue hair, like, marching and chanting Hamas slogans. And the idea that jews should be afraid of that, I'm so deeply offended by that. But to me, there's just no buy in from the working class. So, for example, in Europe, which is sort of steeped in jewish blood for millennia, when politicians wanted support, they would get up and give anti semitic speeches. And the working class was sort of primed to blame all their problems on jews. I mean, this is what happened in Poland and why they were so ripe, know, all everything that happened during the Holocaust. But you see it in Europe as well. You see it in England as well. Like, at these protests. It's not just elites like it is here. There's a lot of buy in from the working class when you bring up anti semitic themes.

It is my view that in America, we're so lucky. The Protestantism that prevails here is deeply philosmitic. It's very pro Israel. And there's just like, when a politician like Ilhan Omar, Rashida Talib or AOC gets up and says something anti semitic, the people who are going to sort of yasqueen them are going to be the college educated. It's not going to be their working class hispanic or black voters. It's not going to be working class whites for sure. There's just not that kind of buy in for it. And so that's kind of my view. Of course, you are seeing it kind of. There is more today than there was before October 7. But I think a lot of that has to do with TikTok and the TikTokification of the news. And honestly, I just don't feel threatened by that because, like I said, you have to fight those ideas with better ideas. This is America. We don't believe in censoring speech. We believe that there are no ideas that you can't combat with better ideas. So I feel like it is rising, but I also feel like we need to be very clear about what's happening.

The elite universities are cesspools of woke mind virus, which teach people that they should hate white people, hate America, and therefore hate Israel and hate jews. It's not because they're anti semitic. It's because they're anti western and anti America. That's my view. Yeah.

And I think I actually was at a dinner party, which sounds very elite. I don't know, right after October 7, and there was a very liberal person who said, yeah, but it's on your side, too. And I said, but the difference is, on my side, it's rednecks with tiki torches in Charlottesville. And on your side, it's major actors. It's the head of Harvard, it's the head of major institutions. It's the congresswoman who's invited to the Met ball. We're talking about the elite of the elite of the wealthy, of the 1% that are running everything. It's not just crazy people. And I stand by that statement. I also think that it's been interesting to watch for me how my baseline is obviously just like the politics I was raised in, the faith I was raised in, but also, we are a Judeo christian nation. My patriotism is wrapped up in being a Judeo christian nation. Judeo christian nation. And I think part of the thing that people like the squad have really underestimated is there are still a lot of really patriotic Americans who are going to stand by our jewish brothers and sisters, because the alternative to that is something we don't want.

And I think they have sort of not clocked that, because they probably have never gone to a church in a red state and know how much Israel has, quite frankly, been talked about, at least in my pulpits growing up. And I think they haven't understood. You know, I find the squad repulsive, just like everybody else. But I'm hoping that people finally see this cancer for what it is. There's been a very illuminating time, at least for me, where I was like, see, I told you this was happening. I'm not crazy. Do you feel the same way?

Yeah, I used to be pretty woke, and then I had my big unawakening in 2018, 2019, really, where I started to realize, like, oh, this worldview is fundamentally flawed, is deeply anti semitic, and also very anti american and very alien in the communities that it purports to represent, like, Hispanic Americans. Black Americans don't think that way at all. It was wild on October 7 to see all these people who had denounced me as racist for arriving at that conclusion in 2019, suddenly arriving at the same conclusion themselves, like, oh, my God, our friends on the left hate us, the progressives hate us. And a lot of that sort of was. I tried to uncover in my book bad news about how a lot of what passes for progressivism is actually about elitism. It's these vanity virtues, these vanity morals, that people who have made a lot of money but still want to reserve the right to see themselves as the good guys against those evil conservatives, while they can't admit to themselves that they're making so much more money than the average American. So they had to come up with a new ideology that allowed them to paint the other side as evil and racist and themselves as the good guys, even though they were now wealthy.

And that's what wokeness is. They allowed themselves to convince themselves that the real divide in this country is racial and that the other side is racist and transphobic and hates gays. None of that is true, of course, but it was this sort of mind virus that allowed them to perpetuate their status and the distance that they were able to cultivate from good, middle class american values, like Dr. King's vision that we live in a colorblind society that now finally, everybody wants that. So they had to find a new way to be better than the other side.

One of the things I don't understand is why so many people in entertainment are doubling down. Last night I watched a piece of the Grammys. When I say a piece, I mean maybe ten minutes, because I didn't quite frankly, know that they were on. And then I pulled up Hulu and it was on and I'm like, okay, I'll give it a shot. I always have a little hope a ward show will actually make a difference. Turn it on. Annie Lennox calls for a ceasefire. I was like, nope, not today, satan. I'm out. Like, not watching this shit. I'm not being a part of it. Shut up, Annie Lennox. Like, whatever. And she literally, she sang a song in tribute of someone that was like.

Ceasefire, blah, blah, blah.

And I was like, you don't know what you're saying and you don't know what you're doing and you don't know anything about this. And I just find myself like. Mark Ruffalo is nominated for an Academy Award. He's one of the biggest ceasefire people on social media, one of the worst, one of the most ignorant idiots on all of social media. So there's not a lot of. What's interesting to me is you can get canceled a year ago, for know, there was a guy that was literally canceled for having a picture taken of him making the okay sign that someone thought was a white power sign. You can still get nominated for an Academy Award calling for basically, like, no ramifications for the rape and beheading of babies in Israel. That's not really a question, more a statement. But why do you think there still is sort of, like, cultural? Like, Annie Lennox was comfortable doing that last night.

Yeah, I mean, I think it comes down to there's a number of different people do it for different reasons. I think in the case of the squad, let's say it's very calculated to appeal to young voters, right? So there's this kind of worship of youth on the left. I don't know if you've noticed this, but it's just, like, so true, and it's so gross. It's just so gross. I think somebody like you, who grew up with a titan in your home, would never be able to have that. But it's so prevalent, and it's prevalent among these hyper educated millennials especially. It's in their parenting. It's in everything, right? Like, this worship of young people who are stupid. Like, they're supposed to be stupid. You're supposed to be stupid when you're young and idealistic, and then you're supposed to grow out of that and start thinking more communally. Stop being so navel gazing and so obsessed with yourself and your own emotions and the temperature of your body, and think about your community and think about your nation. Like, contribute what have you. Right? But instead, the Democrats, because they do better with whoever they do better with electorally, they become obsessed with, and they pretend to be the champions of.

So I think there's a lot of sort of following the lead of dumb young people who are on TikTok, who are getting that lead from the Chinese Communist Party, which is sided with Hamas over Israel. So you've got that piece of it. You also have woke mind virus people who have been just anybody who's gone to a university. You cannot graduate an american university without having taken a composition class taught by an English PhD, who, in order to get that English PhD, had to go through a critical race theory seminar or a critical theory seminar in which they were taught the oppressor oppressed binary. Right. The idea that it doesn't matter. There's no difference between right versus wrong. There's only who has more power and who has less power, and whoever has less of it is inherently virtuous. So Hamas, because they have less military might than Israel are the good. Literally, they can't see outside of this. This is like the all encompassing view. And on the left and in America's cultural institutions, the more money you have, the more at stake you have in staying inside the establishment, the more tightly you're going to cling to this worldview, because it masks so many things.

It masks, first of all, the class divide. Wokeness is a screen for the class divide. So someone like Mark Ruffalo, who's a millionaire, doesn't have to worry about the fact that everybody who works for him can't pay their rent and is struggling to achieve the american dream, even though their jobs are so much more important. If he can go out there and be like, I am the good guy, I stand for the ceasefire. Everything is racist. Zionism is racist. Right? It's a huge screen for economic privilege. Immense, immense economic privilege. There's been a huge, total realignment of the parties, and this ties into Trump and everything else to where it used to be. The Democrats were the party of the working class. They had a lock on labor, and the Republicans were the party of the rich and corporations and tax cuts and free trade. And the parties went like this. And now the Democrats are the party of the over credentialed college elites and the dependent poor who don't work. And then the Republicans have become the party of the working class. And so you're seeing all of these things start to shift. The vast majority of people who make over $500,000 a year now are Democrats.

97% of political donations from Silicon Valley Democrats. Nine out of ten of the richest congressional districts Democrats.

That is wild.

Totally wild. Whereas the majority of districts that make less than the median income, Republicans. And that explains everything about american politics today, in my view, that class divide.

Well, I'm glad you brought that up, because I think it's really important. And I want to talk to you about Trump, obviously, and this ties into your last book and your next think, you know, talking about, like, woke media undermining democracy. And then I know you can't talk about your book, but the next one that's coming out, please come back on the show when it comes out. But when I woke up yesterday, this polling that just came out for Biden, I don't know if I've seen this bad of a polling, like, anywhere for anything. Maybe like OJ Simpson post murder trial. No, this is not hubristic, but, yeah, I'm serious. And I have to say, for people that maybe don't know and have a life. A new NBC poll just came out and shows Trump ahead of Biden overall, 47 to 42. It's a nine point swing from July. It's the biggest lead Trump has ever had over Biden. And Biden has the lowest approval rating since Bush's second term. For me, the most disturbing part is that the same poll shows Trump holding a 16 point advantage over Biden on being, quote, competent and effective.

And then Biden's approval rating has declined, obviously to the lowest level that I said, fewer. And three in ten voters approve of his handling of the Israel Hamas war. And just to make this even more interesting, the two men are tied. Tied, ladies and gentlemen, among latino support, 42% Trump, 41% Biden. Why are Democrats not freaked out? Because you cannot get elected fucking dog catcher with this, let alone reelected president of the United States. Blatcha. What's going mean? And don't say it's an outlier poll because NBC does really extensive polling.

I don't think it's an outlier poll. It tracks with a lot of what I've been seeing out in the field. And I'm so glad you brought this up, Megan, because I was thinking to myself, like, what can I do for Megan McCain, who has done so much for the jewish people?

Stop saying that.

No, it's so true. And I have to keep saying it because it's so true. And I thought, well, what if I could make her slightly less upset that.

Trump is doing so well?

Would that not be at least something if I could do that? Because I've been hearing it in your voice, like, how upset you are about it.

Let me just interject. I understand it. It's not that I'm like, I mean, I'm in the sense that people feel so, like, I understand how Trump got elected. It's more that for me, there's just so many people I love in politics and have loved in the past that I would love to see have a shot at the presidency. And I have a problem with this, like, octogenarian stranglehold. I don't find either of these men inspiring. I could never vote for Biden. I could never vote for Trump. I guess I'll just go fuck myself again, but.

I'm going to give you the winning.

And also, he shits all over my family all day long.

First of all, I have to start by saying I totally respect that.

Thank you.

My mom is a single issue voter. She votes on Israel. She's a very religious, orthodox woman, and that's the only thing she votes on. And even she couldn't vote for him because she saw him once make fun of a disabled person, that disabled reporter. And that was it for Sarah Unger. That was it. And I so appreciate that and admire that about her. And I so admire you for having that in your gut, the defense of your family. Like, that's really important. And I totally, totally get that. Thank you. But I think I can make you feel a little bit better about it. And then I'm going to give you the winning formula, how anyone can come out of the gate and immediately get 40. Anyone who cares about America and cares about democracy, specifically american democracy, should be super stoked to see Trump doing this. Well, and the first reason is just the billions and billions and billions of dollars that have been spent to try to stop him. That meant nothing in the face of the american electorate. I can't tell you how buoyoed I am by that, how ecstatic that makes me that his competitors in the GOP primary could outspend him two to one that the Democrats could have thrown so much at him.

And yet our democracy is so vibrant that the will of the people was able to transcend all of mean. I really. I truly feel euphoric when I think about that, because I remember when Citizens United came out and we were all like, forget it. Our democracy is done. When you can spend billions of dollars through super pacs, what chance does the little guy have to get his guy in office? And I feel like even people who hate Trump, there's something about that that is so comforting and astounding and amazing, and against all ods, human beings, Americans going to the ballot box, putting down a name, it works, and it worked, and it's working. And I don't know, is that not, like, an amazing thing to be witnessing firsthand? Like, setting aside how we feel about him?

I gave an interview I don't even remember a while ago, and the interviewer asked, you have to say something nice about Trump. And I said, it's such a fuck you to the institutions. And I think the institutions in the country and the politicians. I agree with this, that most Trump supporters agree with, that they have deeply failed us on many different levels. I don't trust. Don't. Especially post Covid, where apparently most Democrats just would be fine with me being locked in my home and never leaving again and having every part of my life destroyed as long as they have ultimate power. Every time I see Gavin Newsom anywhere, I'm like, yeah, shut up, french laundry. You lock down the whole state and you'll go get a $20,000 dinner. French revolution level insanity. What are you talking about? So I, too, agree that I'm happy that it doesn't mean what it once did. Okay, that's a good point. All right, continue.

Sorry.

So that's the first point I would say. The second point would be in my book, which I can't really talk about because it's coming out in April. I hope you'll have me back.

Oh, yeah, by all means.

I basically interviewed tons and tons and tons of working class people across the country, both Democrats and Republicans, although most of them would not identify with either party anymore. And these people are just, they're people that you totally would recognize from your life. You're not one of these people who lives in a bubble, like people that you care about instinctively, who work and work and work and take so much pride in their work, have regular jobs that we all rely on. And he made them feel seen. And it's not just psychological, although a lot of it is psychological. They felt that he was talking to them and not in the gross tweeting and the gross commentary. Most of them were like, I wish he would leave that behind. That's not for us. They would say to me, like, the gross tweeting, the barbs, the attacks, that's for the other side to hate him, to keep him in the news. For us, it's about the policy. And they'll rattle off policy that he did, starting with immigration, which was like, that's why he is so much more seen as so much more competent than Joe Biden.

Because the number one issue everyone is thinking about is that border and these 10 million people who should not be here. And Trump was simply so effective on that. But, Megan, to be effective on immigration, he had to take on both parties when he got in because the Republicans, I mean, remember, Reagan was the one who gave amnesty to 3 million illegal immigrants, right? The Republicans were not anti immigration until Trump showed up in a big way. And that's really important to them because they see it in their wages. When you have 10 million more people competing for the exact same jobs as working class people have, that totally drives down the wages. And we know this because right now, that's why we're not in a recession, because all of these new workers came. So it stopped working class wage growth in its tracks. And these people know that. And he made them feel seen. He put money in their pockets. I mean, that's what they'll tell you. So people look at the economy now, they say, oh, look, there's so much wage growth, which halted, by the way. There was, but it's halted. Say, look, the stock market is doing great.

The stock market is doing great. GDP is up. GDP is up. But all of those gains are concentrated at the top.

But does it matter if inflation is so bad? Everybody can keep saying all this. One of my girlfriends and I talked about this on the show, literally sent me a picture of her receipt last Thanksgiving and this Thanksgiving, the difference of the same, all the normal stuff she bought at Costco. And there was, I don't remember, it was like a $100 difference. It was something extensive, especially for her because she is not an elite person. And I think that's what the left seems to be missing is like, it doesn't matter if you're saying all these things, if someone's Thanksgiving dinner costs $100 more, 100%.

And you know that the Democrats are now speaking only to the elites because all they talk about is how good the economy is. They literally don't know people who go to the supermarket and are like, how am I going to pay for this? They just don't know people like that. So I guess my point to you would be like, isn't it amazing that these working class people, like 50%, 60% of our country, who were ignored and abandoned by both parties, in their view, by the sort of free markets and free trade that they feel, the globalization, the offshoring of manufacturing, the open border, the trade deals with China and Mexico, that they feel sold out their future and the future of their children, they see in Trump a champion on a policy front. And if you bring up character to them, right, you'll say, like, okay, well, what about his character? They say, I just do not have the luxury of casting my ballot based on character. To me, the fact that whatever I think of this person, the fact that they feel seen and heard, that the gaslighting stopped for four years, that, like, oh, it's your fault that you don't have a good job.

You should have gone to college. You're an idiot. It's on you. That kind of Obama messaging, right, that, that stopped for four years. I mean, isn't that a good thing?

It is, but I want to ask you to juxtapose this. What is Biden doing so wrong? Because he did, I don't believe the election was stolen. I think he did win and he was doing better approval rating. But it's amazing to me when you hear people on the left just completely, I mean, say they have their head in the ground is putting mean. It's almost unfathomable, bodget. I mean, it's just crazy how much they don't see what a clusterfuck this is. Why do you think he has just lost the approval of so many people and the latino vote is going to kill you? That's the thing. That's the highest growing demographic in the United States. Highest growing demographic. My beloved home state of Arizona, swing state, officially. I mean, that'll fuck you. That will. I mean, why are people fleeing from him so much?

I think it's a number of things. The age thing, it's very hard to see those kind of the videos. I mean, the stumbling and the mumbling.

It's horrible.

It's so painful. It's so undignified and sad. So I think that's a big part of it. I think the border is the number one issue because it's the number one issue voters are giving for their concerns. And he's just been a disaster. That's the one thing you can really lay at his feet. The economy. I mean, he screwed up on energy big time. Caving to the green left over and over and over. That was big. That would have helped on inflation. Some of the inflation, though, is not his fault. The number one thing that is completely, 100% his fault is the border. He inherited a border that was being policed to the best extent that we have ever seen. And now we're having historic levels of open. It's an open border, and that was 100% by design. So I think that is really the number one issue. I think that a lot of Democrats under Trump, they had the luxury of being like, well, we are sanctuary cities. We support immigration because there wasn't any. We come to us. Welcome, welcome. Right? Because the border was closed, suddenly the border is open, and they're being forced to deal with the fact that there's 10 million people here.

Right. So I think that's the number one issue, of course, the economy. Presidents are always judged by the economy. So I think those sort of three things are the main issues that have people know. Even people who like him are like, I just can't. I mean, this is not a president.

I think Democrats have really shown their ass with immigration, too, because we're fine. As long as poor people in Brownsville, Texas, are getting annihilated and having their jobs and their life, they're fine. That's okay for you, but it comes to Manhattan and it's all of a sudden an issue. And obviously, growing up in Arizona in a border state, people just ignore things that are happening and ignore. And on top of it, when I hear people talk about how it should be open borders, and when you hear people like AOC, there's clearly someone who has never seen a dead pregnant person who didn't make it across the border in a coyote shack, which is what people that are paid to come and help. It's horrible. Human trafficking and horrible. Just like the worst kind of evil, vile shit that exists on planet Earth. And that's a humanitarian problem as well. So don't come to me with this bleeding heart stuff like you don't believe, whatever. A lot of women and children die crossing the border and you don't care. And that's just my little tangent, but I agree with you when it's just horrible. I want to switch gears to something else because your last book was about woke media, which I totally agree with.

I love the book. It was so good. Really important. I did. I really love that book. My husband gave it to me. It's fantastic. I remember I read it at the beach in like four days. Anyway. Yes, I did. Thank you. So yesterday, something got a lot of attention yesterday on Sunday, George Stephanopoulos was interviewing JD Vance on the Sunday show. This week. I don't care about Sunday shows anymore until they start being more balanced. I used to watch them religiously and now the only thing I have room for is CBS Sunday Morning with my love, Jane Pauly because it's very relaxing and it has a babbling brook at the end and I guess all that I can handle. But he cut JD Vance off mid sentence. Literally, it would be like if you were talking now and I just cut your mic. So disrespectful. I wanted to hear JD Vance's answer. And George Stephanopoulos couldn't control his revulsion at JD Vance saying something he didn't like.

How do we get to this place?

I just think even three years ago that wouldn't have been accepted. And I don't know what JD Vance was saying that was. I didn't understand enough about what was so offensive. But even if he's saying the most crazy stuff in the world, you still need to let him speak totally.

The disrespect that's shown to Republicans, even ones in power, is of course an extension of the absolute contempt that the media and political and university elites have for the working class. So, for example, in that disastrous hearing with the university presidents where they were smirking at Elise Stefanik, they weren't smirking at her because they were talking about jewish issues. They were smirking at her because they never have to answer to Republicans and they have so much contempt for them. They just see them as subhuman. It is so disgusting. And that's what you saw there. And it was exactly the same as. So when President Trump, former President Trump, won the Iowa election, the Iowa primary, against, basically he had against DeSantis and against Haley. He gave victory remarks that were actually quite nice. He was saying, now I want us all to come know. It's becoming clear. I'm the last one. I want Democrats voting for me. I want Republic. I want everybody. It was like a nice speech. CNN and MSNBC refused to carry it. I mean, in what universe does that happen? Like, former president, probable future president. They literally could not allow their listeners and viewers to be exposed to what he had to say.

And they were so shamed by that, that the second time around in New Hampshire, they actually did air some of his speech in which he was much less gracious, went on the attack against Nikki Haley because he was mad that she wasn't dropping. You know, they literally cannot bear to expose their viewers to reasonable people on the other side because they know that their ideas are terrible and that their ideas can't win. And their only way of winning is to bamboozle and hoodwink people into thinking that the other side is totally evil, completely made up of misinformation, total liars, complete racists, complete anti gay, everything, right? They can't bear to actually engage the ideas, because when they do, they find out that many of their supporters, Democrats, support the other side. So a great example of this is the don't say gay bill, right? The parental rights and education bill that DeSantis signed into law, which said, basically, you can't talk to kids younger than eight about sex, right? Like totally normal. And they had to rename it because the truth of the bill was that the majority of Democrats in Florida supported the bill.

So they couldn't allow people to debate it on the merits. They would lose because they are only talking to elites with these elite ideas that don't have any purchase in the middle class. So they had to rebrand it and rename it. Same thing here. He literally could not allow his viewers to see him respect him. He had to do this sort of performance of contempt, put JD Vance in his place to make sure that his viewers knew who the good guy was and who the bad guy was. Because at the end of the day, all of this is about the class divide and keeping the views of the majority of Americans out of the mainstream because Americans are actually not polarized. So polarization is a totally elite phenomenon where people who make their money off of divisiveness and division, either in politics or in the media, they are super polarized. But average Americans, they're so totally not polarized. And they hate this kind of divisiveness. They hate it.

So I don't like George Stephanopoulos because he never had me back on this week when I worked at ABC, when I criticized Ilhan Omar. And if you ever, you can just find a little Google search. And then it was actually what led to Seth Meyers ripping my ass open right before I had a miscarriage about the same issue. And I forget exactly what I said about her, but I called her anti semitic. And again, this is like years ago when you're not allowed to say that and whatever. And I was called phobic, so. And I was never invited back on the again. Like, maybe I was just shitty, whatever. But I had been asked to go on for a period of time when I was working at ABC. So I'm not a fan of his or the show for. There's personal stuff. There's always, like, personal stuff with me. It's not always just political, but I feel like I should give you that context. But what happens to a George Stephanopoulos if Trump wins? Because you have to cover it. You have to deal with this. And the thing I don't understand is every time you cut off JD Vance's mic, a Republican sees that someplace on social media and is like, screw you, you're trying to silence us.

So you're helping Trump, you're helping Republicans. Why haven't they gotten this at this point, right?

It's the same thing with the indictments, right? Like one indictment, okay, maybe he did something wrong. Two indictments. Oh, maybe he did two things wrong. 91 indictments. They're out to get him, right? So how come the third judge wasn't like, we're kind of hurting the cause here, fam, let's kind of set this aside. And the reason is because they're not actually coordinating. Each person, each of these sort of over credentialed leftist elites who has been in the university system for twelve years, 13 years, right, imbibing all of that woke crap. Each one thinks that they are the hero saving America from what is essentially the desires of the working class embodied by Donald Trump. And so each one is sort of mindlessly, like a zombie, doing what they think the program is, but it's not actually being coordinated, which is why it actually ends up helping Trump, because it is so gross. And it's one thing if you have an ideology that most Americans really don't like, that is really gross and goes against things like everything Dr. King taught us. Right? But you're a little minority and you're doing your thing in your little corner, and you make the average amount of money that everybody makes.

And our government is representative know? Yeah, there's one or two people like you, and then most of the people in government are like most of the Americans. And most of the people in the media are like most of the Americans. Right, that would be fine. But the problem is that this tiny elite with this totally sociopathic worldview has 96% of Democrats, 96% of journalists are Democrats. Okay? The Democrats, the entire party, is on this trans agenda when it represents 16% of their voters. Right? So the problem is that all of the political power and all of the media and all of the powers that be, all of the judges and all of the people who are in positions to lead this country, hold this worldview that only a tiny portion of Americans have, but they have all of these positions of power. That is the problem. And that's why it's not just like, even if you don't vote for Trump, he laid this bare, like, he laid bare the moral bankruptcy of their claim to be representing anybody but themselves and their own economic interests.

Well, on that note, that they just don't care. At what point does money and ads and actually being successful matter? This morning, when I was coming in to interview you, it came out on the transom that CNN has switching its morning show again and firing its two co hosts and getting new people in, I guess, to host. And they're just basically reorganizing the chairs on the Titanic. But they have their lowest ratings in all of CNN history. In all of CNN's history, they have the lowest ratings. I hate CNN. I need to preface that, that some of my best friends on the planet work at CNN, and I love and respect them, and it's not personal. And they know how I feel. And they're good people who should honestly be actually hosting because they're much smarter than these people. At what point does it matter? Just like economically, if you don't give a shit about the people, do you care about making money? Do you care about ads? Do you care about your network existing? At what point do you think places like CNN make a shift? Or is it just like worship at the altar of wokeness until the Titanic sinks into the ocean.

It's a really great question. So CNN is a complicated case. I'll explain in a minute. But for a lot of outlets, going woke was actually very profitable. And the New York Times is a really great example of that. So it used to be that media made its money by appealing to the largest swath. Right. The great american middle, because the more subscriptions you had, the better you did. Right. And so then it was very important for journalists to report the news straight because you didn't want to alienate half the country. You'd lose half of your subscriber base or potential subscriber base today because of digital media. And digital media ads never made as much as print ads. The real measure, and you know this, of success is engagement. And of course, the most engaged readers are the most extreme, which is why you saw this kind of polarization of the media, because they were measuring success based on the most outrage they could create. But in a place like the New York Times, it wasn't just outrage. It was outrage of a very specific audience, because they still do have ads and they sell now first person data.

They sell the data of their readers to other companies. But the thing is, you can make more money off of that if the readership is rich, right? It's the same thinking with ads, right? Let's say you want to sell an ad for, like, a Louis Vuitton handbag, right? You're not going to sell that to a magazine whose readership is working class because they can't afford it. So advertisers want some kind of assurance that no plebs are going to be seeing this. The majority of people are going to be seeing this are people who are going to be in the market for a Louis Vuitton bag or in the New York Times magazine case, a Cartier watch, right? So the publisher wants to be able to prove to them that their readers are wealthy, and so they have to create content that will only attract the wealthy. That's what the Times does. Everybody misreads the New York Times and says, oh, it's so leftist. It's not. It's appealing to the educated elites. And what those people love is wokeness. They love racial outrage. They love outrage at Trump. That was the stuff that got the heartbeat going of these college educated elites who people all the institutions, because that's who he was the biggest threat to.

And so the New York Times really leaned into all of this outrage coverage through this patina of being this elevated paper. But really, they were trying to get these 10 million upper class people in the top ten percentile who are in the market for a cardier watch. So the content started to morph to fit the desired audience. Now CNN, the problem with CNN was it always pretended to be down the middle, but it's clear that all of the hosts are completely wokeified. Right? And so that's what didn't match anymore because it was this sort of pretense to catering to everybody when actually the content was unbearable to anybody who wasn't in their little bubble. I really don't know where they go from here, but for a lot of outlets, becoming woke actually was pretty profitable for them. I do think that someone like AOC is much more comfortable in the minority than she is having power like she is an activist. So I don't think this is conscious, but subconsciously there's a level at which she doesn't want to win. Because when you win, you have to govern, and to govern, you have to make compromises.

And you don't get to go on Twitter and just complain and whine. You actually have to do stuff and you have to make compromise with people who you don't agree with. And no activist wants to do that.

Think. I think I totally agree with you. I agree that I don't think she actually wants to win because then she would actually have to, like you said, pass a bill, which would be complicated for her, instead of just sitting around in dresses that say tax the rich and going and crying on the congressional floor and making sure the cameras are in her face. I can't stand her. But my last question for you, and this is a little pop culture and wokism, but this is right up your alley. So the comedian Shane Gillis, do you know who that is?

I don't know who that is.

I'll tell you this story. Shane Gillis, super lame. Don't worry about it. You'll get it. Don't worry. So Shane Gillis is a very, extremely popular comedian who got famous because he was hired to be a cast member on Saturday Night Live four or five years ago, I think four at the height of 2019, 2020, like height of craziness. He was fired four days later before he ever actually got to be a cast member on Saturday Night Live for, quote, offensive tweets. He is a comedian. Going to put that down. Cut to today. He has a number one Netflix special, a number one podcast, and is one of the largest comedians on planet Earth, selling out arenas. Huge star. My husband saw his Netflix special being taped here. Huge Saturday Night Live. It just announced he will be hosting next week. Now, there's also rumors some of the cast is not going to be happy about it because the cast, there's people like Bo and Yang who refused to stand on stage on the exit with Dave Chappelle when he hosted. There are cast members that are refusing to be on with people like Dave Chappelle.

So I'm sure Shang Gillis, who has pictures up on his instagram account, standing with thumbs up with President Trump, I'm sure this is going to be a real assault to your senses because you have to talk and host with an actual person who's not woke. What do you think this means? Some people are calling it cancel culture's funeral. You think it's a signifier that even Saturday Night Live, in its complete rating slump, knows that they got to get a few of us republicans watching at some point. There's nothing in the world on planet Earth at all that could get me to watch this show. Except this. Is that why they're doing it?

It's amazing. There's a lot of evidence that we're in the kind of woke lash, the first being that the New York Times is running articles about detransitioners and people who regret transitioning, which is like a big deal. Yeah, I'm really shocked to hear this because to me, Saturday Night Live is so woke and so unfunny and just so unbearable in its smug the world. Like, acting like they are the good guys and the heroes and the aggrieved side when they are totally on the side of power. That's something that I hate, is seeing the powerful beating up on the powerless while acting like they are the virtuous, which is the mo of the democratic left today. Like, it's so gross. So this is great. Wow. Like, hallelujah. This is really exciting news. I didn't know about this. And, yeah, I definitely think this is. I think, first of all, Gen Z is much less censorious than millennials are. They're weird. They don't have any sex, which I don't understand that at all. They don't drink. They go to bed really early. They're kind of weird. But they also, because they've lived their whole lives online and everything is there for the taking, they're a little bit less judgmental, apparently.

Maybe that's playing a role here. But, yeah, this is really cool. I'm excited to see how it goes.

Yeah. And I think, like you said, I hope there's a woke lash right now, too, because it's just been an absolutely insufferable years of this and seeing friends of mine get canceled for absolutely ridiculous and obnoxious things. And the one thing I will say, and I want to ask you just like this, on your personal level, if you don't mind. For me, I'm always conservative. Obviously, I was, like, raised in a conservative household, but my dad was more independent, more like mavericky, as his nickname was. And so I was more like, no, we can work with the left, and we'll find common ground or whatever. And I still feel it's not completely exercised out of me, but Covid really has taken that giant red pill, shoved it down my throat. I swallowed it, and it's now completely in my entire body. It was a combination of all the things that happened to everybody else. The censorship, the applauding of the lockdowns, the black lives matter riots, destroying my neighborhood, and people saying violence is okay. All the things that everybody happened to, you happened to me as well. And now I'm very distrusting of institutions.

I have a harder time than I used to in the past socializing with people on the left. I can still do it, but it's harder because I just find them to be again. Like, I don't know what joke I'm going to say is going to make you cry and get under the table. I don't know how you feel. I just don't want to be around, like, sensitive daisies in general. I don't have that much free time. I want to know from you, I don't like when you go out to.

Dinner, do you want to be with.

Someone if you're having a glass of wine that they want to cry about you saying, like, a joke or something? And I'm not a disrespectful person. I was on the view for almost five years and never got canceled. I know how to hold myself together. But I just want to know from you, how did your evolution go to being to a place where you're obviously anti woke, and how has it impacted your personal life? Because it can be a cruel world out there. And I know I've been in situations where people have been really fucking nasty to me because I'm conservative. And sometimes it's a hard thing to navigate. I think that's also the reason why a lot of people stay silent. What's that journey been like for you?

It's hard. I think if you're not religious, it's impossible. I don't know how people who are not religious do it, because people really try to hurt you.

They do.

They try to humiliate you and shame you in public, which is a very hard thing to get through if you don't have a higher power that you answer to. So it's been really hard. But, yeah, I think being religious is really important. And has that helped you in these times?

Yes. It's a combination. I mean, I have a deep faith. I don't proselytize about it because honestly, I just think it's kind of boring content.

No offense. I'd rather talk about Jane Gillis.

I just don't think people like. But, yeah, I'm like a practicing Christian, my husband. I go to church on Sundays, and it's really important to have that baseline. And faith is really important to me. But I also. Maybe this sounds botchy. I don't know how this sounds to you, but to me, I'm so proud that I'm not a lemming that bends the knee and bucks to norms and bows to peer pressure. I think it's cooler. I think if you're just someone who's going to go around and be like, oh, my God, words are violence, and I can't be in the same room with the Republican. You just come off like such an asshole. And so I think for me, it's brought this community of people like you. There's just, like, this community of really wonderful, fascinating people who have really interesting things to say. And even if I disagree with you, it's so much more interesting than hanging out with someone who's like a progressive social justice ware who just wants to bitch the whole time. And I just feel like, for me, I'm really proud of the kind of example I'm setting for my girls.

I'm like, I was not someone. There was a time when you could have put that black square on your social media and your mother didn't because she thinks with her brain. So that's how I've gotten to it. But I'm also, like, contrarian and defiant by nature. And I don't want to be a part of this club. I don't want to be a part of this club that's judging poor people, that thinks that Jewish People, asian people, south asian people, indian people, and hispanic people are not minorities. Like, no, not a club I want to be in. And there's just a lot of their values that I think are so fucked up. And I think also this anti semitism stuff, this raise of over 100% increase in antisemitic hate crimes, I know the difference between good and evil. And that is evil. And I'm not going to be a part of a club that's going to spread evil and make jewish people scared to be in America. Not today, Satan. No. So I think that's where I've come from, too. But there are those moments where you're at dinner or wherever somebody yells at you, somebody's nasty to you, somebody unfollows you on social media you thought was your friend, and you grow a spine real quick.

Sorry, that's a tangent. Does that happen to you? Just, you just, you just know who your friends. But now I'm friends with people like you. Anyway, I am very proud of you. Not that you give a shit, but I am so proud of the work you do. Thank you. I love everything you do. You can find Botch's work. She's the opinion editor at Newsweek, author of Bad News, how woke media is undermining democracy. It's very, very good. And you have a new book that's going to be coming out in April called Second Class how the elites betrayed America's working men and women. Really great time for that book to be released, by the way, coming up in the spring.

Yeah, I'm really excited about it. A lot of people shared their stories with me and I feel really humbled that they trusted me to tell their stories. And I'm so excited for people to meet these people in the book. Yeah.

You promised to come back to talk about.

Yes. Thank you so much, Megan. Thank you for everything.

The woman, the myth, the legend, Bhatya, Angar, Sargon. I'm really so grateful to have you on. Thank you. Come back.

Thank you.

Welcome back to Megan McCain has entered the chat. I'm so excited about our next guest. Mary Morgan is co host of pop culture crisis at Timcast Media. It's a daily live show on YouTube that navigates the insanity of today's pop culture. Mary, I've been watching your work for a long time and I'm just so happy you decided to come on the show. I didn't know if you'd think you were slumming it coming on my podcast. So thank you so much for taking time.

Of course not. I don't think that at all. Thank you for having me. I'm really flattered that you've been watching the show. I didn't know that research on your do I actually?

How I got into it. My husband watches Tim Poole and has been on Tim Poole's podcast and show and you are on on occasion. And I remember seeing you and being like, oh, she has something really interesting to say. And then I saw that you host your own. You know, I like pop culture as much as I like politics, and I like anti woke, more interesting contrarian perspective. And you guys certainly give that about a lot of things. But I was very sad to hear that Olivia Rodrigo's stans came after you very hard.

Oh, I kind of blocked that out of my memory, but since you bring it up. Yeah, that was crazy. There was just that. Did you see that video of her that was circulating x, not Twitter?

Yes. She's trying to be punk, and it's, like, not really landing. And I agreed with you. I didn't know that she had that kind of a following, though, which was interesting. But before we get into different controversies, I just want to start out with your background, because you're very young. You're only 23. How did you end up getting into this space of commentary, of pop culture commentary, and then ultimately being a part of Tim Poole's team?

Yeah, the story is kind of bizarre. If you want me to get into it, I can.

Oh, no, I'm fascinated.

The full butterfly effect story. Basically, it started because I got into a bar fight in DC after CPAC in 2020, which was right before COVID lockdowns. So people were just meming about COVID but we didn't really know what it was yet. So this was after CPAC. I was at Harry's, which is no longer open in DC, and basically, I won't get into the whole scuffle, but basically, I ended up having to defend myself in a bar because a woman grabbed me by the neck, pulled a lock of my hair out. And it happened to be that Cassandra Fairbanks at the time is now Cassandra McDonald. She was there as well. And after the police were called and we were all standing outside and I was giving a testimony to them, she walked out and handed me that lock of my hair that was ripped.

Oh, my.

It's actually. It was funny at the time, and it's even funnier now thinking back on it. And to see how that progressed is funny because Cassandra is Tim's editor in chief for his news website, so they are friends and colleagues. And I remained in touch with Cassandra over the years after that. And then I guess Tim just asked her for a recommendation for someone to co host this pop culture podcast and appealed to the Gen Z youths out there. And I happened to pop into conversation and, yeah, I came out here to visit the castle one time. There wasn't really a job interview. I guess it was sort of just a vibe check, and I passed the vibe check, and now I'm here, and I kind of was just thrown into this line of work that I had zero experience with prior. Literally had never done anything on camera except trolling on TikTok, and I'm now banned on TikTok. That happened, like, a week after I got hired here.

Why are you banned?

Yeah, I had zero experience, like, doing a podcast or any work on camera. No acting, no nothing. And I kind of just had to adapt really quickly. And thankfully, it went well because it really was a gamble. They didn't really know me that well. And funnily enough, I'm kind of the most conservative, right wing person at this company, if I had to guess.

Can I ask you two things?

I have a lot of contrarian takes.

So do I, and I love it. First one, what was a bar fight over? Or do you want to keep that private? It's fine. I've been in a bar fight myself one once a very long time ago, if that makes you feel better. And my hair, too, got ripped. You know, it's awful.

Only to keep it on public record that I was defending myself. Basically, I was there at CPAC with my brother and this woman named Mindy Robinson. I assume she's some kind of pro Trump influencer or was at the time. She happened to be in the bar, and we were about to leave. It was, like, 02:00 a.m. He was walking out the door with me, and he threw out some insult and said that she had a big forehead, and she was very offended by this. And basically she told him, step up to me. Come over here. Because she thinks that she's really badass, even though she's a tiny woman, and she put him into a headlock. And obviously my brother is a grown man. He can get out of the headlock. He thought it was funny. He was laughing. I mean, you can see this was being recorded. This was being live streamed. You could see that he was laughing. It was funny. And she was like, say that to me again or call me ugly again. And I called her ugly again as I was watching on the sidelines. And she pushed my brother away and then directly went to reach out and grab my neck.

And then the second that she touched me, I defended myself, grabbed her by the neck as well. And we sort of got into, like, I don't know, we were locked in place, and then we were broken apart. But she ripped that part of my hair out. My hair was damaged at the time, so it was probably pretty easy to do that. My adrenaline was pumping. It was kind of scary in the moment, but I thought it was hilarious, and everyone who watched thought it was hilarious. And I look back on it fondly.

I can't believe that.

Especially because after that, the COVID lockdowns kept us all at home. So I had my one brief moment of wild times.

You could have pressed charges. I mean, that's, like, very violent, but not that we could have.

But the police offered, and they did put her in handcuffs, if I recall correctly, outside the bar. And we were asked if we wanted to press charges, but it wasn't that serious, so we did end up doing that.

CPAC's wild, man. I've heard some insane stories from CPAC. For real. I'm sure you have things in this vein. I have never been to CPAC, and I don't go to see my husband has been, but I don't. And I always hear, not like this, but people really get their drink on and just live.

Also, for the record, I was 19 at the time, and also, I didn't drink until I was 21, so I was only drinking water that night, as was my brother. We were fully sober. I don't know Mindy's story. That's for her to tell, but I don't know.

According to her, whatever.

I had the crazy eyes, okay? And I've been told that a lot.

Well, I mean, I have been in this industry for almost 20 years, and to pull a Mariah Carey, I don't know her. I have no idea who that is. And I know who you are. So I think things are going a little better for you than her. But I want to get into your more conservativeness, because you are young, you're 23, and you went to CPAC, as you said. You're very open with your Catholicism, which I really appreciate. I saw a panel you did with Dave Rubin, and I didn't really understand the panel, and forgive me, there were just, like, a lot of women on it. It looked like there were, like, ten women on it talking about cultural things, and the one woman was trying to defend basically being on doing porn and being porn. And you argued against it. I can't believe we're even having to sound like the grandma here. I'm 39, but I can't even believe you're on panels where people are trying to say if I'm not, like, an anti sex person. But I think porn is probably something you go into if a lot of left turns have been made in your life.

What was that?

Experience like, yeah, so that was on the whatever podcast. And those are usually pretty big panels of up to like ten people or more. And usually the way it's set up is that the one side of the table that the host, brian, is on, that's where people who are more on, I guess, the right, if you want to call it that, they will be sitting there on the other side is going to be know college girls who are from the area who tend to be very liberal, and girls who do only fans girls who are strippers with those kind of histories, who probably want the exposure of being on the podcast to promote that. And they also want to defend their decisions, which no one has asked them to do. They're volunteering to defend their lifestyles, which I obviously have moral objections to. And when I was on that specific panel you mentioned with Dave Rubin, it was weird to me that he was even sitting on that side of the table with me because he kind of agreed with them on everything, almost everything that they were saying, because Dave Rubin is more libertarian, I guess, centrist.

I said no one would accuse him of being a conservative anyway. And I don't believe that he's religious either. And yeah, he was kind of just saying, like, you do you like whatever floats your boat, you should do what makes you happy. And if doing sex work makes you happy and is your path to flourishing and financial freedom all power to you. And that is, I could not be more opposed to that sentiment, not only because I don't think that they are happy, but also you could be making hundreds of millions of dollars and you could convince yourself you're happy doing that kind of thing in your would still say that it leads to a path of self destruction, essentially, and it's also bad for society at large and the men who are funding their lifestyles. So afterwards, I did publish a tweet saying, dave Rubin, you know, he's not conservative. So it was kind of confusing to me that he was sitting right next to me and espousing all the same beliefs as all of these women who do sex work.

Yeah, I actually don't know what he considers himself. I know he is embraced in conservative circles, but I actually have no idea. I do want to ask you, have you gotten any, there's like this weird sentiment in culture right now where to be christian and to be catholic and to have sort of any christian proud christian faith. It's seen as something by a lot of people on the left and a lot of people in culture as sort of confusing. And then you have a movie like the sound of freedom come out, and people are shocked that it's making hundreds of millions of dollars. My agency recently opened up a segment of their agency that's literally for the heartland and for christian content. And I think people are finally seeing there's money to be made in that space. How do people approach you when you're like, and I'm not saying this to be in any way ugly, there just aren't a lot of women hosts who are proud Catholics and open about their faith in a way that you are.

You mean, like, how do people react to that?

Yeah.

Are people ever nasty to you about your faith? I mean, not to be so blunt, but I find that there's just such an antichristian sentiment in so many people in entertainment and news that it's refreshing to hear a young woman talk about it.

Well, of course, when it's brought up or if I am questioned about it, I'm perfectly transparent and willing to answer questions and willing to talk about it. But at least on pop culture crisis, my show, I don't intentionally bring it into every conversation. I make my own moral principles known, and I don't intentionally try to hide that in any way. But I don't want to be the person that's constantly, like, bible thumping, I guess, would be the word.

Sure.

But that doesn't mean that I'm compromising in any way. And, yeah, of course people have been nasty to me about my faith or they've tried to discredit me or said maybe I'm hypocritical because maybe I haven't gotten married yet or had a family yet, even though I think that those.

Are 23 things to aspire to.

I understand 23. But at the same time, there's this other side of the culture that's saying the 30s are the new. Are the new. Understand the reaction in the opposite direction. I definitely have gotten a lot of criticism from basically every side, and I try to take it all in stride. I'm still figuring out how to navigate that in the healthiest possible way. If you have any advice for me, I would love to hear it.

You are doing everything right. Really. I really like your work. Well, this actually feeds into my next question. So, I'm 39, I'm an old millennial, and when I was sort of in my college years, sex in the city was, like, the biggest show on television. And do you even know what that is? Do you know what sex.

Yeah, I have heard of it.

Yeah.

It's an older show. It's for old people, whatever.

I didn't watch it personally, but, yeah.

You can skip it. So it's basically the premise of the show. I have actually a real resentment towards the show now. It is a show about, like, four single women in New York City. I went to Columbia University in New York City, and they have sex in the city. All they do is have sex and then talk about their problems. And it's, like, graphic. But I guess by today's standards, not as much. And I think that it has sent extreme poison to women of my generation. When I was younger, I kind of was like, oh, we have forever. Thirty s of the new twenty s, same type of thing. And when I was about 32, a woman named Margaret Hoover, who is my friend who works at CNN, said to me over lunch was the smartest advice maybe anyone's ever given me about anything. She said, you have to take your fertility as seriously as you do your work, and you're not doing that. You're not dating the way like you are for someone who wants to get married. I know you want to get married. I know you want to have kids. I know all these things.

And it was like a real dose of reality. And I can't believe I was 30 or 32. I don't remember. But around that age, I can't believe I got to that point before I started really being like, oh, my God, what am I doing? And I feel like part of it is just the culture tells young women, you have forever, you shouldn't date for marriage. And I sound again like a grandma. But I think that it's a lot of really toxic messaging. Are zeers doing anything different? Because clearly you got the message of just, like, if you want to get married and have kids, you should take dating more seriously and not go by Sarah Jessica Parker. Do you think zeers are doing anything differently? Because there's actually a lot of data that zeers are maybe more conservative and that they're not having as much sex and that they are not drinking as much. Do you think that's true or that's a stereotype?

I am definitely cautious about saying anything is a white pill for Gen Z. All of these trends have their own explanations that are actually more depressing. I think Gen Z is having less sex because they're socializing less. Gen Z is. They're hooking up less because they're drinking less because they don't go to parties. They don't leave their homes. They're always on their phones, scrolling TikTok. I personally know Gen Z girls who are veering the other direction. But that's just because of the circles that I run in and the fact that I know other girls who are devoutly Catholic and things like that. But at large, I really don't think that I can say confidently Gen Z is less lost than the millennials. Actually, I see that millennials have frustrations with Gen Z for being sex negative. They're calling them the puritine generation, which is just to mean that they have more negative or skeptical ideas about pornography, about sex work, and the liberal feminism that promotes those things and glamorizes those things. But they still don't have the essential vocabulary to even criticize those social movements. They don't have the vocabulary to even call something morally objectionable.

They're still deeply nihilistic. It's reflected in their sense of humor. It's reflected in the fact that they're so socially isolated. I don't feel optimistic on the whole for Gen Z. I wish I could say that, know have something more positive to say about them. But unfortunately, I think that they're not on a good path. And they're not getting much encouragement from the right either. Because every time that they sit on TikTok and they start crying about the fact that they need to work 40 to 60 hours a week to not even make rent, the conservatives are saying, suck it up. You got to work to make a living in this country. And it's just not really offering them a positive alternative. And that's kind of a larger problem on the right in general, is that every time that Gen Z has something valid to complain about, like cost of living, or like the brokenness that has followed the sexual liberation movement, there's not really any positive alternative being offered to them. They're just getting pummeled into the ground.

Yeah, I don't disagree with that. And I also feel like I have some friends in my life who are single, not by choice, they have dated into oblivion, are just having a very hard time, and it's hard out there on the apps, whatever, and they're good people and conservative women. And both of them have come to me at different times saying, it's weird that the republican party seems to have a lot of messengers who are like, if you're not married and you don't have kids, then you're invaluable, which to me is hurtful. And I'm married and I have kids because it's like, why do we want to shame people for maybe not reaching the goals? They want to, again, want to get married. Don't want to get married. Whatever. Everybody can do what they want. But I agree, there's a lot of sort of weird toxic messaging on that front. Do you feel that way as well?

Well, if you ask any Gen Z or millennial, I guess, why they are avoiding starting families or why they don't want to get married, it's usually not because they think those aren't aspirations in life. It's because they've been so assaulted with fear mongering, basically fear porn all the time, whether it's in the language of climate catastrophe or economic catastrophe. They don't have an optimistic worldview for the future. And I don't think they have much reason to feel positive about the future. And the older generation isn't really offering a positive alternative if their only message back to them, know, clean your room, bucko. And I want to men, for young men, that messaging, like Jordan Peterson type of things, like male leaders giving them tough love, that really resonates with young men. But you can't expect that message to resonate the same way with young women who want to feel affirmed. They want to feel encouraged and validated and all of those cringe terms. They want to be recognized. And they also want to feel they have human value. And in this pornified, individualistic, modernist culture, they don't feel like they have any intrinsic value outside of what they can offer to a corporation, basically, what money they can make for a corporation.

And they feel that they can work their entire lives and not have anything to show for it at the end of the day. So why would they want to start a family if they have nothing to pass on to their progeny? I think that they're just very nihilistic, and that's the reason why they may not aspire to start families.

I think you're right. And I think the stuff about the climate change porn is really important because I know that's a huge thing, which is just so insane on so many different levels and really toxic. I just want to switch gears a little bit. Did you watch the Grammys last night?

I, like most people, did not tune into the Grammys last night, but I have familiarized myself with some of the viral moments.

Okay. So I didn't either. I didn't even know it was on. And then I saw on my Twitter feed when I was checking it, it's like, hashtag Grammys was number one. I was. I don't. I had no idea. One of the things that's getting a lot of attention, though, is that Taylor Swift seems to snub Celine Dion while she was accepting album of the year. So I just need to say, I am a Celine Dion super fan. I saw her in Las Vegas. She was wonderful, like, voice of an, like, very important to, I think, older millennials because she was kind of like the first tailor, I guess, or comparable or, like, comparable in fame. And I. I don't know if I'm allowed to say this, and I mean this, Mary. I don't want to have any violence directed towards you or me or pipe bombs put underneath my house. I am sick of Taylor Swift. I don't know if I'm allowed to say that. I don't want to have violence directed at me or you because her fans are so scary, and it scares me, the level of attention. But I thought it was really kind of classless for her to snub Celine Dion.

And I've seen the picture afterward backstage. I know she's accepting for the first time, but Celine Dion has a very serious illness the first time she made appearance in public. What did you think of that moment?

I watched the video, and I understand it is a little bit rude, it's a little bit bad etiquette to not make eye contact with her as she passed off the award and everything. But I honestly think that for Taylor Swift, whose public image is spotless at the moment and really for a long time, really has been, is this really her big f up? Like, what she did to make people hate her, it could be a lot worse. I didn't think it was that bad when I watched the video, but maybe to the Celine Dion stands out there, like you, it was deeply disrespectful. I don't know. Just because people on the Internet are making a big deal out of something doesn't mean it's a big deal, I guess.

Well, that's true. That's obviously true.

And they were also saying she should have thanked Travis Kelsey in her acceptance speech.

All right.

Really?

I don't think. Do you think all this conspiracy theory about her being a psyop and her and Travis being put together to somehow get Biden reelected? What do you think of that conspiracy theory that's going around? And. I don't know. What do you think of that?

It gives me so much secondhand embarrassment, I guess, when I see all of these political junkies and also sports junkies, like, trying to make sense of Taylor Swift when they are not her target audience and they are not her. Like, I gave comment to a Washington Post article that was just published about this issue and questioning. Like, is Taylor Swift going to give her endorsement to Biden 2024? Which she obviously will at some point here since she did in 2020, it's not surprising about her public views. She agrees with democrats. That's really out of the question. But it gives me secondhand embarrassment to see conservatives not approach culturally relevant people or topics with a spirit of inquisitiveness. Instead, they want to attack immediately. And if you want young people, especially young women, to sympathize with your side, that attacking the person that they love and idolize is not the way to do it. No, I understand, though, all of the conspiracy, that just boils down to a concern, which is a valid concern because pop culture has an outsized influence on politics, which it shouldn't have. And celebrity idol worship is essential to that. And it's really ramped up in the last couple of decades.

And I see that Taylor Swift gets compared to Michael Jackson a lot in terms of relative success and notoriety. But I feel like if Michael Jackson, at the height of his fame, made some political stance or endorsed a political candidate, the people who like Michael Jackson's music wouldn't immediately say that they would vote for the same candidate that he endorsed. Because at the time, celebrity idol worship was not nearly as big of a cultural ill as it is today. And I saw that poll that they did. It said 15% of voters reported they're likely to back a candidate that Taylor Swift endorsed. My God, that was kind of misreported. I mean, just when you read that headline, it's extremely depressing because think for yourself. Like, have some level of independent thought. But it wasn't as bad as it seemed. Because if you look at the poll, it was like 1500 people that were surveyed, and I think an almost equal amount of people said that they would be less likely to back a candidate who was endorsed by Taylor Swift. And then the rest were just like, I don't care who Taylor Swift supports. So really it's only relevant to, I guess, the portion of her fan base that isn't politically engaged is kind of politically moderate, but could be swayed either way.

She also endorsed Marcia Blackburn's opponent, and obviously Marcia Blackburn won. So I'm actually curious if she does end up supporting anyone. She's not omniscient, as you said. There's just no celebrity on planet Earth that's going to influence my vote. But I don't know. I'm not like someone who worships at the altar of celebrity. But 15% is too much. Even if that's not that faithful. I just want to move on to Kim Kardashian being the new face of Balenciaga. This is a weird story, because for anyone that wasn't paying attention, Balenciaga had a very gross and bizarre and disturbing ad campaign, like, a year ago, six months ago. I don't remember the exact timeline.

That was in 2022.

Oh, my God. It was two years ago.

Yeah.

Married. Excuse me, where is my time? Oh, my God. That's so embarrassing. I have a year old child, so that period of time, my brain is, like, melted. Yes. Anyway, okay, so it's 2022. But I was really disturbed by the scandal. It's not like I was out buying a ton of Balenciaga anyway. But I did have a Balenciaga purse I actually ended up selling because I just felt like if I carried it, I would be endorsing pedophilia in some level. Why is she comfortable being the face of this brand? And why do you think this brand has been able to sort of, like, turn around and not have any culpability for. Again, I think one of the most disturbing ad campaigns I probably have ever seen.

Yeah.

To, I guess, explain to anyone who might not be familiar with it, who's listening. They photographed child models holding teddy bears that had bdsm bondage gear on them, which is obviously sexual in nature. And then also, they pictured one of their purses in a different campaign, sitting on top of court documents from a Supreme Court decision that, in my understanding, led to a more lenient precedent on illustrated child pornography. I don't know if I'm allowed to say those words on your podcast. Sorry if you need to bleep that out, but at the time, Kim Kardashian was obviously associated with the brand and was being asked for days to make a statement because this is just so obviously wrong, and it's not morally complicated in the least. And she waited because she said she needed to talk to the team to understand how this could have happened before she made a statement on it. And later on, she defended that period of time that she waited and said it was an example of cancel culture, that she was criticized for not making a statement soon enough when I can't think of something more obviously wrong than what they did.

So that in and of itself, was ridiculous, especially because she's a mother. I mean, anyone, regardless of whether you're a parent, could see how disgusting that was. But as a mother, she was really feeling more strongly about the safety and protection of children. And now, yeah, it came out that she is one of the official brand ambassadors for Balenciaga just a couple of weeks ago, and I covered that, and I wanted to think, like, oh, she's in it for the money. But actually, it's because she doesn't have morals. She has no moral priority other than her own fame and keeping her own inner circle of elites in good graces with her. She doesn't need Balenciaga's money. She doesn't need a brand sponsorship from literally anybody. She is a billionaire, has a brand of her own. She has skims. She's just fine. Like, her bank account would not suffer from declining this opportunity. So it really has nothing to do with money and everything to do with the fact that Kim Kardashian, and really, her entire family, is just the avatar for everything that is wrong with our culture today.

Yeah, I don't disagree with that. I have a really hard time with the Kardashians for all the obvious reasons. First of all, again, if you can't come out saying, like, I'm anti child exploitation and child porn, and there's no gray in that story, it was obviously intentional. It was obviously intentional to be like, here's child porn cases. We're trying to be okay with it. The photographer had a bunch of photographs that came out also that were, in my opinion, child porn as well. It's a disgusting will never. I'm not a Balenciaga buyer anyway, but I would never buy it or carry it again, for all the obvious reasons. I don't understand why she would continue doing it. Like you said, the Kardashians, I had watched the show when I was younger, and I do agree. They just sort of encompass all that. I don't want my daughters to be, meaning they all have just. And this sounds horrible, but they've all just fucked up their faces so much. In all ways. The fact that we feel like, as women. I know my producer talked to you about this. Apparently there's, like, this thing that Gen Zers are aging differently, and I just feel like if a bunch of young kids are putting shit in their faces because they feel like it's the thing you have to do.

And when I see the giant lips and the whatever, I feel like something is going wrong. When this family is influencing the way women think, beauty is. It's the only form of beauty. And I agree with you. I just don't know what they're doing. I mean, it's just really disgusting. Do you have anything to say about the plastic surgery part of it?

Yeah, I think that they're inspiring young women to hate themselves. That's what they're doing in this culture. I think that recently Megyn Kelly did a segment where she talked about an actress named Erin Moriarty from the show the boys. She went through an intense transformation, whether it was plastic surgery or just fillers, I don't know. She didn't really clarify after the fact, but it's obvious that she got work done to an extensive degree and also wears this Kim Kardashian style makeup that contours your entire face to look unrecognizable. And she said that she's a Kim Kardashian disciple, and that's exactly what it is now. I think that trend is changing. I see that even the Kardashians are evolving in the way that they present themselves. They used to want to appear very ethnically ambiguous. For a long time, they were accused of blackfishing, and now they are getting their bbls either removed or reduced. They're getting skinny again. They're on ozempic or whatever they're doing. They probably have recovery clinics in their homes so that no one knows when they make these surgical changes. And they're lightning their skin again. And they're dating white men all of a sudden.

So not only do they influence the way that women look and beauty trends and fashion trends and makeup and all that, but they also have an outsized influence on women's taste in men, which is very worrying.

Yeah. And it's all just so. I think it just feels very like Twilight Zone episode. Like that actress you referenced, her face looks. I mean, she's completely. And I have compassion for whatever is going. There's something mental happening if you're doing that to your face as well. But this idea, again, I'm old, so just keep this into consideration. I'm 39. I'm going to be 40 next October. I have never done an injectable or anything in my face, ever, because I don't fear aging the way I think. I've been told by society I should. And my dad died of brain cancer. And the idea of putting toxins near my brain is like, I'm just way too paranoid about it. There's no proof of anything. It's my own feeling. I'm just not going to put botulism in my fucking face. So I just want to know, do you think there really is a backlash, like you said, with the Kardashians? I really hope so. I have two young girls, and I really hope that by the time they're old enough, this will sort of be a phase that's over, but it really scares me.

Well, whatever replaces it is going to be worse, I'm sorry to say. Can you really predict that things are going to improve from here? I mean, whatever the Kardashians or whoever replaces them, they're going to be worse than the Kardashians. And I can't predict what that's going to be. But people are talking about heroin chic making a comeback, and I would say that's not good. But at the same time, if it's something that we can aspire to without going under the knife for it, that might be an improvement. All of these celebrities are on ozempic because they're looking for the temporary gratification instead of making a lifestyle change to lose weight. Let's just make ourselves sick. So we're essentially medicalizing bulimia and making ourselves look monstrous in order to get thin again. And then we're acting surprised after we stopped taking Ozempic because we gained all of the weight back, plus more. Well, it's because you didn't actually put in any of the work to have the figure that you wanted. But really, that's just a testament to the endless narcissism of celebrities.

We've talked about this on the show. I was like, I know tons of people on Ozempic, and I am not skinny. I go up and down with my weight. I've had two babies, but I exercise and I do all the healthy things. And someone asked me if I would ever take it after I had my last daughter, and I was like, all I know is that there ain't nothing in the world for free. There is no easy way out. The only way out is through. And I'm not putting a needle in my stomach to lose weight. It doesn't make sense. And I feel like the world is making me sick with the stuff they're putting in my food. Now they want to give me a shot to make me thin? No, there's too many questions in that. So I'm very, are we really going.

To trust big pharma?

Yes.

That's a magic solution.

Post Covid.

How are so many people, like, give me this thousand dollar shot? I'm so confused by it. I know we're running a little bit on time, so I just want to wrap this up by just going back to you personally. How did you end up coming to a place? Because you're very young to be, like, sort of a free thinker, conservative. You obviously have this hit show. What was your background where you didn't become someone who idolized the Kardashians and all the negative tropes that come with being 23.

I wasn't intensely sheltered, which a lot of people would accuse me of having had a religious upbringing. I think in my household I was just allowed to ask questions about literally anything and everything, and I would get the real answers to anything and everything. And I didn't have to turn to the Internet or to celebrities or to friends who were bad influences, maybe for those answers, for things that resulted from the sexual revolution or beauty standards. I didn't need to outsource that to the culture. So you're either going to teach your kids, or the world is going to teach your kids how things are and how they should act so true and how they should look. And I wasn't one of those people who left the left. I don't really have some kind of inspiring story about how I woke up one day and I just saw the truth of everything. And I started doing my own research. I was allowed to do that for my entire childhood. And I was raised Catholic. I'm a cradle Catholic. I was raised with conservative values. My parents were always pretty politically engaged. In fact, my parents met because my mom was a volunteer on my dad's political campaign.

I love that they were always very.

Politically engaged and paid attention to those things and talked to me about it. And I was allowed to ask any questions I wanted about the origins of the universe, about religion, about any of those things. So you can raise your kids in religious upbringing, but if you're not going to be their authority, then the world will be their authority on everything, and that's not going to lead them to a good place. But also, I think for me, it maybe is just a temperamental thing. You can kind of do everything right and your kids will end up disagreeing with you. I feel like I've always just been this way. I always was the person who asked the contrarian questions in class. And I was a little bit of the wild child, at least relatively, for the kind of schools that I was in, in a catholic or religious school. And as for my religious views, first, like before going to a catholic high school, I went to protestant schools. So I was kind of picked on for being Catholic. Not that it's a bad thing, honestly, I think that it was a good thing for me to face some of that adversity and be questioned on my beliefs at such a young age, even if it was from adults who probably shouldn't have been doing that or from my peers who maybe didn't know better.

I think that that only strengthened my beliefs to this day.

My final question for you is on pop culture crisis. It's a daily show. It's a grind. What are the topics you love covering? What gets you up in the morning? Excited to host your show? What is your favorite kind of thing to cover? And what has been your biggest reaction so far, again, for this ever growing show right now? Because like you said, you didn't go into it going into your life being like, I'm going to host this show and it's going to be really successful. You're somewhat new at it just because you're young. What has surprised you the most?

Wow.

Okay.

So I'm always searching for things to cover constantly, and that's kind of why I have to be on Twitter all the time bookmarking things. We are almost at 100,000 subscribers as we record this, maybe we will be by the time this is out.

So that's really congratulations.

The channel is doing well. I'm really excited about that. I think that since I joined and over the time that I've been on it, I've veered the topics we covered to be more what women might be interested in. So I think I've influenced our increase in the female portion of our audience. It's like a quarter female watching us on YouTube at this point, and I only hope it goes up from there. So usually what I like to cover is anything like a celebrity feud or like drama. I just really love tea like that because I don't have all the background knowledge that my co host does. He's around your age and he watched everything and he has all the background knowledge on that type of thing. And he relates more to the guys in our audience on that stuff, like superhero movies, comic books, video games, that type of thing. But I like more of the interpersonal feuds, dramas, things like that. I haven't enjoyed covering Taylor Swift recently because it's kind of like always in the news cycle and it's getting tired, it's getting stale. But at the same time, I do have fun talking about that stuff.

I don't know. It's nice that we get to cover something different every day because if it were just a Taylor Swift podcast or if it were just a movie review podcast, then I would be bored out of my mind. But it's always something new every day. So that's fun.

Yeah, and it's really great. And again, you can find her show, pop culture crisis on YouTube at Timcast Media. And I just want to thank you so much, Mary, for taking time. I know it's hard to do, like almost a full hour with me and then do your whole show afterward. I really appreciate it and I really, really enjoy your work. And it's nice to see fresh, interesting voices, as I say, with my old lady gray hair everywhere. But it's nice to see cool young women coming up. There was a period of time when I thought there was a little bit of, I don't know, like a dead zone of seers. And all of a sudden there's some really interesting people. So thank you so much for taking the time and come back anytime. And like I said, you can follow Mary on Twitter x whatever at Mary Morgan and check out pop culture crisis at Tim Media and YouTube.

Thank you so much for having me.

Thank you all so much for listening to Megan McCain has entered the chat. I will see you on Thursday. Thanks for listening to this episode of Megan McCain has entered the chat. Brought to you by Teton Ridge. I am your host and executive producer, Megan McCain. Additional executive producers are Miranda Wilkins, Eric Spiegelman and Wynn Weigel. Our supervising producer is Olivia Decopoulos. Our senior guest producer is Kara Kaplan and a associate producer, Austin Goodman.