Emily Jashinsky
Appearances
The Megyn Kelly Show
ABC Pays Trump Millions to Settle, and Government Deflects About "Drone" Truth, with Emily Jashinsky and Eliana Johnson | Ep. 966
They used this Aaron Blake Washington Post story about what Judge Kaplan, who was trying to like hedge and show there was wiggle room on how people understand rape being different than the legal standard of rape. It's just ridiculous for a judge to be involved in.
The Megyn Kelly Show
ABC Pays Trump Millions to Settle, and Government Deflects About "Drone" Truth, with Emily Jashinsky and Eliana Johnson | Ep. 966
They wanted that Washington Post story to give them license to say that it's just a fact when the jury said something completely different. And it didn't I mean, it doesn't hold it does not hold any weight or credibility. It's just a ridiculous claim. So it didn't work out.
The Megyn Kelly Show
ABC Pays Trump Millions to Settle, and Government Deflects About "Drone" Truth, with Emily Jashinsky and Eliana Johnson | Ep. 966
Yeah, I mean, so he is, you can tell, like a dog with a bone. He will not let this question go. It's one thing to just ask Nancy Mace the question, although it's, to your point, Megan, laughable. That George Stephanopoulos, who very famously defended Bill Clinton in some very scummy ways.
The Megyn Kelly Show
ABC Pays Trump Millions to Settle, and Government Deflects About "Drone" Truth, with Emily Jashinsky and Eliana Johnson | Ep. 966
for many, many years, thought that he was the guy who should put this question to Nancy Mace, that him as a man, he should be rhetorically beating down on Nancy Mace over and over and over again with the moral credibility of a journalist to just make sure that she has her feet held to the fire on this question. I Nancy Mace did a really good job of saying that you're shaming me.
The Megyn Kelly Show
ABC Pays Trump Millions to Settle, and Government Deflects About "Drone" Truth, with Emily Jashinsky and Eliana Johnson | Ep. 966
She performed fantastically in that. And just to the point about the jury sheet right there, it's so important because he is saying this is a fact. And as we were talking about, maybe there's this like left wing feminist opinion that the judge is getting to in that like op ed that the judge wrote so in a
The Megyn Kelly Show
ABC Pays Trump Millions to Settle, and Government Deflects About "Drone" Truth, with Emily Jashinsky and Eliana Johnson | Ep. 966
appropriately, that says we can broaden the definition of rape to include all of these different things. That is actually something feminists have tried to do despicably for a very long time. So you can maybe make that argument, but you can't say that it's a fact. And so while he is trying...
The Megyn Kelly Show
ABC Pays Trump Millions to Settle, and Government Deflects About "Drone" Truth, with Emily Jashinsky and Eliana Johnson | Ep. 966
to push Nancy Mace further and further like a dog with a bone on this really disgusting line of questioning, truly shaming her, as she said rightfully. He also, he doesn't have the moral credibility, nor does he have the journalistic credibility. It is a total farce. It is the problems with journalism in one perfect segment.
The Megyn Kelly Show
ABC Pays Trump Millions to Settle, and Government Deflects About "Drone" Truth, with Emily Jashinsky and Eliana Johnson | Ep. 966
And with much more credibility than E. Jean Carroll.
The Megyn Kelly Show
ABC Pays Trump Millions to Settle, and Government Deflects About "Drone" Truth, with Emily Jashinsky and Eliana Johnson | Ep. 966
Well, here's what's infuriating is like these are the defenders of capital T truth, right? I mean, first of all, does Jim Acosta not realize that his network settled with Nicholas Sandman in another very, very serious defamation case? So I guess they bent the knee in that one. So maybe his moral credibility is also in question. But secondly... These are the guardians of capital T truth.
The Megyn Kelly Show
ABC Pays Trump Millions to Settle, and Government Deflects About "Drone" Truth, with Emily Jashinsky and Eliana Johnson | Ep. 966
CNN ran those famous ads during the Trump administration about how they'll tell you something is an apple or a banana when Trump is telling you it's an apple. They'll tell you, no, it's actually a banana. They are so sanctimonious, and yet they are the ones in this case who are defending George Stephanopoulos for doing actually a really shitty thing, which is telling people
The Megyn Kelly Show
ABC Pays Trump Millions to Settle, and Government Deflects About "Drone" Truth, with Emily Jashinsky and Eliana Johnson | Ep. 966
that they are hearing a fact when what they are hearing is an opinion. And that is just about, as far as I'm concerned, one of the very worst things that an anchor, a host, somebody who was telling you, I'm coming straight down the middle. I think that's one of the worst things you can do because that is exactly why your audience comes to you. They want to trust you.
The Megyn Kelly Show
ABC Pays Trump Millions to Settle, and Government Deflects About "Drone" Truth, with Emily Jashinsky and Eliana Johnson | Ep. 966
They want to trust that if you're telling them something is a fact, that it actually is a fact. And it's not just your editorializing, but that was pure editorialization on Stephanopoulos' behalf with a an assist from the judge and the Washington Post, but it was opinion nonetheless.
The Megyn Kelly Show
ABC Pays Trump Millions to Settle, and Government Deflects About "Drone" Truth, with Emily Jashinsky and Eliana Johnson | Ep. 966
And that is, I think, one of the biggest sins in journalism is to tell people that you're just playing it straight and when you're actually opining. And so actually what his peers should be doing is saying, you screwed the rest of us here in a really big way and we are going to do better because of it to the extent they talk about this being quote unquote chilling.
The Megyn Kelly Show
ABC Pays Trump Millions to Settle, and Government Deflects About "Drone" Truth, with Emily Jashinsky and Eliana Johnson | Ep. 966
I hope that it does have a chilling effect. I'm saying that even as a journalist against some of this really, really bad behavior that is misleading people who are desperate for facts. So if you're telling people you're delivering facts, just do it. And to the extent you're not, I do hope it chills that the, we have the ad here.
The Megyn Kelly Show
ABC Pays Trump Millions to Settle, and Government Deflects About "Drone" Truth, with Emily Jashinsky and Eliana Johnson | Ep. 966
The Zucker classic.
The Megyn Kelly Show
ABC Pays Trump Millions to Settle, and Government Deflects About "Drone" Truth, with Emily Jashinsky and Eliana Johnson | Ep. 966
Well, no, I'm glad you brought that up because as you were going through those numbers, I'm thinking in my head, the overhead that sustains this model that is losing to much more nimble and leaner operations is astounding.
The Megyn Kelly Show
ABC Pays Trump Millions to Settle, and Government Deflects About "Drone" Truth, with Emily Jashinsky and Eliana Johnson | Ep. 966
I mean, if you look at, I mean, just even the bare bones like Joe Rogan said, it's so funny how upset many people in the corporate press get about Joe Rogan because he's just out there with like his whiskey on the table, his cigars on the table in a room. He has like two camera views.
The Megyn Kelly Show
ABC Pays Trump Millions to Settle, and Government Deflects About "Drone" Truth, with Emily Jashinsky and Eliana Johnson | Ep. 966
It's just like insane how competitive that is with these operations that have their midtown glossy newsrooms with just the salaries. I mean, it's just incredible. So it's not sustainable. And there was a glimmer of. of recognition of that when Jeff Zucker tried to launch CNN Plus, I think is what it was called.
The Megyn Kelly Show
ABC Pays Trump Millions to Settle, and Government Deflects About "Drone" Truth, with Emily Jashinsky and Eliana Johnson | Ep. 966
But just, it was such a disaster because they didn't have the guts or the courage or the wisdom to say, what needs to happen on something like CNN Plus, not only do we need to take the overhead down and get on this off ramp to the digital world, we actually need to understand the content demands of our audience, which would be, they understand you can draw a line from Duke Lacrosse
The Megyn Kelly Show
ABC Pays Trump Millions to Settle, and Government Deflects About "Drone" Truth, with Emily Jashinsky and Eliana Johnson | Ep. 966
to the Rolling Stone, Virginia rape hoax piece, to the Aziz Ansari Me Too movement piece. Like the American people sort of see what's happened and the CNN audience sees what happened and they find it interesting. And they now want people to be way more authentic in their delivery because they lost their trust.
The Megyn Kelly Show
ABC Pays Trump Millions to Settle, and Government Deflects About "Drone" Truth, with Emily Jashinsky and Eliana Johnson | Ep. 966
as they sort of traced that line in real time, saw a lot of people's lives get ruined unjustly, were lied to over and over again about politics. So, I mean, they are not willing to create the content.
The Megyn Kelly Show
ABC Pays Trump Millions to Settle, and Government Deflects About "Drone" Truth, with Emily Jashinsky and Eliana Johnson | Ep. 966
They might be willing to like sort of take the playbook and sort of look at the numbers, but they're not gonna see improvement if the content itself, like it's one thing to have a good YouTube audience and to take your costs down and be a little bit more nimble and build digital platforms. It's another thing entirely to give people the content they want. And that's where they're going to go wrong.
The Megyn Kelly Show
ABC Pays Trump Millions to Settle, and Government Deflects About "Drone" Truth, with Emily Jashinsky and Eliana Johnson | Ep. 966
OK, I want to move on from very close to saying that.
The Megyn Kelly Show
ABC Pays Trump Millions to Settle, and Government Deflects About "Drone" Truth, with Emily Jashinsky and Eliana Johnson | Ep. 966
Oh yeah. I'll never forget it. Indelible.
The Megyn Kelly Show
ABC Pays Trump Millions to Settle, and Government Deflects About "Drone" Truth, with Emily Jashinsky and Eliana Johnson | Ep. 966
Yeah, it may be that he actually duped the rebels who they themselves duped Clarissa Ward and the CNN team. I think it does look like a combination. Yes, it's double do, which is I mean, this is perfectly fits the propaganda that Jelani and the rebels right now are trying to destroy. are trying to distribute throughout the Western world. They need Western cooperation. They are Islamists.
The Megyn Kelly Show
ABC Pays Trump Millions to Settle, and Government Deflects About "Drone" Truth, with Emily Jashinsky and Eliana Johnson | Ep. 966
And what they need to show is that they are, quote unquote, freedom fighters, that they are liberating Syria from Assad. And so literally liberating a man from a prison is sort of exactly what you would expect to see from them. And it's actually so on the nose that you would expect for a pre-produced package by CNN. Because unless I'm wrong, this didn't air live. This was a pre-produced package.
The Megyn Kelly Show
ABC Pays Trump Millions to Settle, and Government Deflects About "Drone" Truth, with Emily Jashinsky and Eliana Johnson | Ep. 966
They had- Correct. Voiceovers and all of that stuff prepped. This should have gone through a lot of layers of editorial oversight. And so it's one thing for Ward to get duped in the moment if it were happening live or something like that. It's an entirely different thing to have a name and to have so many details.
The Megyn Kelly Show
ABC Pays Trump Millions to Settle, and Government Deflects About "Drone" Truth, with Emily Jashinsky and Eliana Johnson | Ep. 966
I mean, whoever's editing this package, producing this package would have had the same questions theoretically that people immediately had on the Internet. about the nature of the setup. Why does this look like it's staged? Why does this all seem so strange? Those questions would have been asked in production. So it's all very, very, very odd, but it does show the sort of credulousness.
The Megyn Kelly Show
ABC Pays Trump Millions to Settle, and Government Deflects About "Drone" Truth, with Emily Jashinsky and Eliana Johnson | Ep. 966
I think at the very least, it shows a credulousness of being led around by the rebel group and having this opportunity to see someone be literally liberated when the propaganda line is about liberation. It just seems it should have seemed to them too good to be true and that it didn't, I think, is pretty suspicious and unfortunate for their credibility.
The Megyn Kelly Show
ABC Pays Trump Millions to Settle, and Government Deflects About "Drone" Truth, with Emily Jashinsky and Eliana Johnson | Ep. 966
I think it was probably too good. I mean, at the bare minimum, you wouldn't ask for a name unless you were going to check it. But at the bare minimum, check the name. I mean, they could have been in touch with the Syrian fact checking outlet. Now, it's very hard to do this stuff in Syria right now because there's so many different factions and lines have shifted and allegiances have shifted.
The Megyn Kelly Show
ABC Pays Trump Millions to Settle, and Government Deflects About "Drone" Truth, with Emily Jashinsky and Eliana Johnson | Ep. 966
So I understand that it's hard. But if you're going to put if you're going to air it and you're going to be so dramatic when it airs, you're going to really push it. Man, just the fact that they don't seem to have checked the name, done the most basic thing, checked the name.
The Megyn Kelly Show
ABC Pays Trump Millions to Settle, and Government Deflects About "Drone" Truth, with Emily Jashinsky and Eliana Johnson | Ep. 966
And there were all of these obvious questions that people on the Internet raised within like 10 minutes of the thing airing. That just tells me they were too excited to like really, as you said, kick the tires and do their due diligence. It just probably seemed too good for them not to use.
The Megyn Kelly Show
ABC Pays Trump Millions to Settle, and Government Deflects About "Drone" Truth, with Emily Jashinsky and Eliana Johnson | Ep. 966
Yeah, I mean, it's like a cry for help. The best case scenario is that this is just a cry for help for Caitlin Clark, who's been getting the tar beat out of her by players who are taking out their upset, their anger over her white privilege physically onto Caitlin Clark. I mean, the The clips, if you watch them back, are just horrendous and so insane.
The Megyn Kelly Show
ABC Pays Trump Millions to Settle, and Government Deflects About "Drone" Truth, with Emily Jashinsky and Eliana Johnson | Ep. 966
And that's the type of pressure that she's under. And maybe she thought that she had no choice. She had to say it. It doesn't take the agency away from her from actually saying it. She probably believes it because it's all she ever hears from everyone around her. But even if she didn't believe it, she realizes that it's probably physically dangerous for her not to say something like that.
The Megyn Kelly Show
ABC Pays Trump Millions to Settle, and Government Deflects About "Drone" Truth, with Emily Jashinsky and Eliana Johnson | Ep. 966
But of course, it wasn't good enough to say that this is all like that. That Caitlin Clark isn't about the surge of... the surge of interest in the WNBA is not just about Caitlin Clark is stupid. It is literally just about Caitlin Clark. And it's not because Caitlin Clark is white. It's because she had this meteoric, crazy story in the tournament.
The Megyn Kelly Show
ABC Pays Trump Millions to Settle, and Government Deflects About "Drone" Truth, with Emily Jashinsky and Eliana Johnson | Ep. 966
And it was just a narrative that was too good for people to not pay attention to. It was crazy. It was such an amazing story. And that is what it was. It was not her race. It was that. And of course, though,
The Megyn Kelly Show
ABC Pays Trump Millions to Settle, and Government Deflects About "Drone" Truth, with Emily Jashinsky and Eliana Johnson | Ep. 966
Of course, we have to listen to CNN segments like that one with Sheila Johnson about how the reason it should have been the whole WNBA literally doing the cringe everyone gets a trophy routine is because it was hurting people's feelings. I mean, this woman is so out of touch with what the country is basically in the position right now of throwing all of that like bullshit out the window.
The Megyn Kelly Show
ABC Pays Trump Millions to Settle, and Government Deflects About "Drone" Truth, with Emily Jashinsky and Eliana Johnson | Ep. 966
And she's going on CNN acting like she has the moral high ground saying it.
The Megyn Kelly Show
ABC Pays Trump Millions to Settle, and Government Deflects About "Drone" Truth, with Emily Jashinsky and Eliana Johnson | Ep. 966
I'll start with you, Emily. Well, I'm also enjoying really ABC's peers in media freaking out because of the ABC settlement. I mean, that's been, I think, equally as delicious as watching so many people now criticize ABC for, quote unquote, caving in. What was a pretty serious case?
The Megyn Kelly Show
ABC Pays Trump Millions to Settle, and Government Deflects About "Drone" Truth, with Emily Jashinsky and Eliana Johnson | Ep. 966
It's just in the last 24 hours that so many different people in media are now accusing ABC basically of enabling Trump when they were staring down the barrel of a very, very problematic deposition, being in litigation with an incoming president, and all of that would entail for the incoming administration, their coverage of the
The Megyn Kelly Show
ABC Pays Trump Millions to Settle, and Government Deflects About "Drone" Truth, with Emily Jashinsky and Eliana Johnson | Ep. 966
But what he does know from having been briefed in the past is what they know generally, not to do the whole who knows what they know and we know. But that's, I mean, he is aware of the kinds of intelligence that people with the highest levels of classification and access to get. He understands drone technology as it's used by the military. It's interesting, I think, what he just said.
The Megyn Kelly Show
ABC Pays Trump Millions to Settle, and Government Deflects About "Drone" Truth, with Emily Jashinsky and Eliana Johnson | Ep. 966
And it would be staggering if the government did not know what these were at this point. This has been so sustained and has involved so many different sightings, some of which do seem to be like BS. But either way, there have been so many serious sightings at this point over such a long period of time, if they don't know. It's outrageous. It's a scandal.
The Megyn Kelly Show
ABC Pays Trump Millions to Settle, and Government Deflects About "Drone" Truth, with Emily Jashinsky and Eliana Johnson | Ep. 966
And I think it would be a much worse option for them to be going to the press and talking about how they don't know if they truly don't know that interview with Martha McCallum. I mean, I don't understand why that even happened. If they don't know, why are you talking? I mean, and if you do know, why are you talking if you're not going to tell us or you're not going to have a better explanation?
The Megyn Kelly Show
ABC Pays Trump Millions to Settle, and Government Deflects About "Drone" Truth, with Emily Jashinsky and Eliana Johnson | Ep. 966
I mean, seriously, this is so such a disaster for them. Two things can't be true. It cannot be true that they don't know what this is and that there's no threat to the public. They can't know those things. They can't. That is absurd. Anybody can see through it. So it's a disaster for them right now.
The Megyn Kelly Show
ABC Pays Trump Millions to Settle, and Government Deflects About "Drone" Truth, with Emily Jashinsky and Eliana Johnson | Ep. 966
Like you said, I'm not cheering on like lowering the threshold for defamation for journalists. And I don't necessarily think this lowers the threshold. I think it really was a very, very serious case. So all kinds of schadenfreude to be enjoyed this morning.
The Megyn Kelly Show
ABC Pays Trump Millions to Settle, and Government Deflects About "Drone" Truth, with Emily Jashinsky and Eliana Johnson | Ep. 966
Can I just say, it's not necessarily that we would be afraid. It's that we might also be angry. Maybe it's not something that we should be scared of, but maybe it is a use of resources that would really piss people off.
The Megyn Kelly Show
ABC Pays Trump Millions to Settle, and Government Deflects About "Drone" Truth, with Emily Jashinsky and Eliana Johnson | Ep. 966
He said, yeah, you wrote the clip of him saying, that's just a fact. And it's sort of the problem with people like George Stephanopoulos and crystallized in one perfect example. That's just a fact about something that's absolutely not a fact. In fact, it was found the opposite. Like, literally, the jury answered no.
The Megyn Kelly Show
ABC Pays Trump Millions to Settle, and Government Deflects About "Drone" Truth, with Emily Jashinsky and Eliana Johnson | Ep. 966
And it's also interesting, I mean, we haven't even touched on the rank misogyny in that interview, which is just maddening to watch. He's telling Nancy Mace exactly how she should feel about this as a woman, as somebody who's survived sexual abuse. But he also, Trump was, I believe in this judgment, found liable of something much lower than rape, which was sexual abuse, which...
The Megyn Kelly Show
ABC Pays Trump Millions to Settle, and Government Deflects About "Drone" Truth, with Emily Jashinsky and Eliana Johnson | Ep. 966
George Stephanopoulos could have used that. There's something very particular about wanting to accuse Trump of being held liable of rape that they knew better. I mean, they wanted to use this Aaron Blake Washington Post story they put up on the screen if people were watching this and saw the ABC clip.