I’ve been following with interest the ongoing Aaron Rodgers/Jimmy Kimmel feud, and I’ll have more to write about it in the days ahead, but wanted to make a quick note about one aspect that sticks out: Jimmy Kimmel should, by all rights, have the advantage here. Maybe even until a few years ago, he would have had the advantage. We all can remember how he weaponized his show to great effect against Senator Bill Cassidy’s health care proposal back in 2017. In terms of ratings, Kimmel is the number one late night show in the 18-49 demo — and his viewership dwarfs Pat McAfee’s midday show on ESPN, where Rodgers is a regularly featured guest.
Yet it’s clear that in this showdown, it’s Kimmel who is back on his heels, threatening to sue Rodgers for a one line comment in which he made no accusation that Kimmel was on Epstein’s list, or was on his island, or was a pedophile (his actual comment was: “There’s a lot of people, including Jimmy Kimmel, that are really hoping that [list] doesn't come out.”) In response, Kimmel sent this Tweet:
And then did an eight minute rant on his show about it:
But Rodgers fired back, pointing out that he never made such a claim, and unleashed on Kimmel’s idea that he’s unserious or inventing something that doesn’t exist:
“I was referring to the fact that if there is a list … and there are names on it, that would be the second time that a soft-brained, junior college student wacko, anti-vax … whatever other things have been said by him and other people in the media, would be right twice.”
Ethan Strauss, who runs the best sports Substack out there, House of Strauss (strongly recommend subscribing) had an excellent summary of the actual back and forth between the two men.
The back story, which McAfee actually referred to on the fly in the aforementioned clip, is that Kimmel used his Jimmy Kimmel Live! talk show to roast Rodgers for, among other positions, the quarterback’s interest in the Epstein files. As you might guess, Rodgers’ stance on refusing the Covid vaccine originated Kimmel’s ire. Since that point in 2021, Rodgers has been referred to by Kimmel as a “whack Packer” multiple times.
In March of 2023, Kimmel played a McAfee show clip for his audience where Rodgers said the following:
Did you hear about the Epstein client list that’s about to be released too? There’s some files that have some names on it that might be getting released pretty soon.
Kimmel did a mocking dumb guy, “Ohhh,” to mimic the reaction on the show to Aaron’s reveal. Jimmy then said:
Might be time to revisit that concussion protocol, Aaron.
I can’t say I’m an expert on how Kimmel’s show works, but this seemed rather odd to me as monologue fodder. Why would the audience think it’s bad or stupid to believe that Epstein had a client list and that the names would be revealed? Incidentally, this is actually what ended up happening.
If roasting Rodgers over Epstein doesn’t make sense on its face, it might be because Kimmel had an unstated axe to grind. According to Newsweek’s Tim Norton, Rodgers’ friend and former teammate David Bakhtiari posted a hoax Epstein list that included Kimmel’s barely obscured name back on January 1, 2023. Bakhtiari is famously boys with Rodgers, so such a false accusation could have been interpreted by Kimmel as coming from Aaron’s camp. And by the way, Bakhtiari tweeted in response to the Kimmel’s “concussion protocol” clip:
Tell me you’re on the Jeffrey Epstein client list, without telling me you’re on the Jeffrey Epstein client list….
There’s also another layer here, which is that Kimmel appears to be good friends with Epstein’s former personal chef, Adam Perry Lang. This aspect might have nothing or something to do with the controversy, and I’m not comfortable speculating too much because I’m not well versed in the Epstein saga, or well acquainted with Hollywood circles.
Anyway, the basic sequence is as follows.
Kimmel mocks Rodgers on JKL for not taking the Covid vaccine
Rodgers’ buddy Bakhtiari posts fake listing of Kimmel’s name on Epstein flight log.
Rodgers, on TPMS, expresses an interest in who Epstein’s clients were.
Jimmy Kimmel mocks Rodgers on JKL for wanting to know the names on the Epstein list, invoking “concussion protocol.”
Rodgers says on TPMS that Kimmel is hoping the list doesn’t come out.
Again, the exact Rodgers quote, the one that’s inspired this talk of legal action is this:
There’s a lot of people, including Jimmy Kimmel, that are really hoping that (list) doesn't come out
Based on all the stupid context I just shared, you can see why a) Rodgers isn’t technically saying that Kimmel is on the list but also b) Why Kimmel might be pissed off that Rodgers is talking up the list.
In summary, Rodgers himself never specifically made a false accusation about Kimmel being an Epstein associate, but Bakhtiari appears to have shared a misleading document to this end, while defending Rodgers. That’s a lot to track, so I guess I shouldn’t be surprised by mainstream outlets and pundits running with this literal premise of Rodgers suggesting that Kimmel is on the Epstein list.
Of course, Kimmel should know that such a list would come out eventually — he is, after all, in business with Epstein’s former personal chef. Not that there’s anything weird about that… But overall, the real lesson here seems to be how much audiences distrust the folks who previously lectured them about topics they know nothing about and got away with it. The level of skepticism toward all corporate media has increased dramatically in ways I don’t think polls are even accurately depicting as of yet. The Kimmel of 2017 who operated on an outsized degree of public trust is long gone, and he’s not coming back.
Will Mike Johnson Get McCarthyed?
It turns out it’s hard to be the Speaker!
Johnson may have many skills, but he’s no magician. The appropriators Johnson is talking about know that they won’t be able to finish by next week.
We spoke to several House GOP leadership sources about what options are available to the Louisiana Republican.
1) The cleanest option is to pass a CR next week and move the deadlines for all 12 spending bills to March. This would allow the appropriators to get the funding bills done in a rational way. The downside here is that this would effectively undo the “laddered” approach to government funding that Johnson has been bragging about. All the bills would come to the floor around the same time. House GOP conservatives will be mad, but they won’t vote for the spending bills anyway.
2) Johnson can pass a CR next week to avoid a Jan. 19 shutdown. According to leadership sources, Johnson doesn’t appear ready to do this. But it seems like a decent option if the right erupts.
3) The four bills that expire Jan. 19 are Agriculture, Energy and Water, MilCon-VA and Transportation-HUD. Johnson could let those departments shut down next weekend while appropriators continue to try to hash out the bills covering those agencies. There’s absolutely no upside to this at all, or at least none that we can see.
4) Johnson could just ignore both deadlines and let everything shut down. Again, nothing gained here for any Republicans.
The question Johnson needs to try to answer is what is it that he’s trying to achieve. If Johnson wants to fund the government while fighting for GOP policy changes at the same time, he’s not going to be able to do that by next week. In fact, Johnson may not be able to do that at all. But the more time he has, the better off he is. Johnson has already effectively taken a shutdown off the table. So the next logical step is choosing a CR strategy.
The GOP leadership needs to move quickly. If Johnson wants to have a say in this process, he will have to make a decision and get moving or else the Senate will jam him.
Among some in the House GOP, Johnson is on thin ice. House Freedom Caucus Chair Bob Good (R-Va.) got into a heated discussion with the speaker during Tuesday night’s meeting. Here’s what Good told us about the prospect of a stopgap afterward:
“Well, if you fear the consequence of a failure to reach agreement more than your opponent fears the consequence of a failure to reach agreement, you’re going to lose every time.”
One question that’s bouncing around the leadership is whether hardline conservatives will try to dump Johnson over this deal. Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) has openly raised the possibility, while Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) — one of the eight GOP lawmakers who pushed for former Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s ouster — acknowledged “A lot of people are talking about it, but not yet. I think they’d like to see something on the border.”
Nikki Haley’s Chameleon Complex
Haley’s recent comments about the Republican primaries tell the tale. Speaking on a local Iowa PBS station, she remarked: “[The Iowa Caucus] starts it. You change personalities, you go into New Hampshire.” These words encapsulate her approach: adapt, morph, become whatever the moment demands. In Iowa, where she is rising in the polls but still trailing both frontrunner Donald Trump and DeSantis, who has several political endorsements influential in Iowa, she paints herself as the tribune of patriotic, God-fearing America.
But in New Hampshire, where she is polling much higher and even getting within striking distance of Trump, she adopts a different persona, one that supposedly resonates more deeply with the emotional and forthright nature of its independent-minded voters. The gameplan, however, is the same, as she told the state’s voters last week: “You know, Iowa starts it. You know that you correct it [in New Hampshire]… And then my sweet state of South Carolina brings it home. That’s what we do.” This flexibility is both her secret weapon and her Achilles’ heel, betraying her lack of a core, enduring identity. It’s a remarkably transparent act of political shape-shifting that indicates a deeper identity crisis within Haley’s campaign.
Haley’s political biography is rife with instances of flip-flopping, none more illustrative than her stance on the Confederate flag. Once a staunch defender of its presence at the South Carolina statehouse because — one cannot make this up — “not a single CEO has complained”, Haley quickly reversed her position following mass shooter Dylann Roof’s attack on a Charleston church. This pivot, while a response to a seismic shift in public sentiment, highlights a pattern of opportunistic realignment rather than principled leadership; her hand was forced, in her words, because Roof had “hijacked the flag”. She added that it had to go because “no one should feel pain” at the sight of it, even as it remained a symbol of “service, sacrifice, and heritage” for “some” South Carolinians. It’s always a dance of two steps forward, one step back, leaving observers confused about where Haley truly stands amid all the practised corporate doublespeak.
Chevron Deference Was Fun While It Lasted
I’m less hostile than many conservatives toward Chevron v. NRDC(1984), the Supreme Court decision that instructs judges to defer to certain agency interpretations of statutes they administer, which the justices will reconsider next week. My ambivalence springs in part from filial loyalty—my father, JusticeAntonin Scalia, wasChevron’s foremost champion before souring on such deference doctrines in his last years.
Additionally, I once enjoyed Chevron deference myself, as labor secretary under President Trump. And boy did I enjoy it. After decades as a practicing lawyer pleading before federal judges, finally they had to defer to me.
Kidding aside, as secretary I had good reasons to favor deference. It strengthened my department’s hand and our ability to implement the president’s agenda. It could also help bring uniformity to the law, and I adopted two rules partly for this reason. One rule distinguished independent contractors from employees for purposes of the wage and hour laws. The other delineated when two companies are the so-called joint employers of a worker, so that each company must ensure the minimum wage and overtime are paid.
Both of these were important legal issues the Supreme Court hadn’t addressed in decades. In the lower courts, the legal test being applied varied by circuit. My rules were intended to bring clarity and consistency, in a way that I thought reflected the right view as a matter of both law and policy.
As secretary I was nonetheless conscious of a peculiarity to the deference my interpretations suddenly were due. For the first time since I became a lawyer, I wasn’t doing much interpreting. Often, my job involved choosing among a menu of options presented by staff. What the law said was an important factor in determining that menu, but in many cases it wasn’t a factor I gave much thought because it was the responsibility of my lawyers to ensure the options I was given were legally viable.
To be clear, there were times as secretary that I posed legal questions—more than most labor secretaries, no doubt. But I had already been labor solicitor, the department’s top lawyer, years earlier. Someone else was solicitor now, and I wanted her to do that job while I focused on mine.
Does it tell us anything about Chevron that the officials whose interpretations receive deference seldom interpret? At minimum, Chevron deference is a misnomer. You don’t defer to someone’s performance of something he didn’t do. My actions were policy choices, often outfitted after the fact with legal explanations I didn’t review. For an agency interpretation to be authoritative, courts have said, it has to come from a senior official—a cabinet secretary or agency head. But the people actually doing the interpreting often are staff lawyers at a much lower level in the agency.
The problem runs deeper. Some agency heads not only don’t interpret; at times they’re indifferent to—even contemptuous of—the right legal answer. For my part, I read statutes, edited draft rules, and never took a position that I thought was wrong legally. But that isn’t necessarily typical. Many agency heads aren’t lawyers, and countless factors influence their decisions: the president’s goals, the forcefully stated views of a budget committee chairman, even anxiety about what the media will say and how that might affect the agency head’s prospects for some future job he’s eyeing. For some decision makers, these factors will supersede legal considerations. Some rules get adopted against the advice of the lawyers—the actual interpreters.
The decider might say to his lawyers: “I hear you about legal risk. But I’m going to do what’s right. After all, it’s possible no one will sue over this rule. And if they do, I might win—you just admitted you can’t be 100% sure what the courts will say. And if I lose, then it’s on the judges. Everyone will know I did the right thing.”
Feature
The Unjust Pursuit of D.C. Police Officer Sutton.
Items of Interest
Foreign
Explaining Ukraine’s stalled counteroffensive.
Why American military support for Ukraine must continue.
Vladimir Putin has an egg problem.
France suffers from Brexit derangement syndrome.
Justin Trudeau’s popularity fades.
Domestic
“Reckless and Irresponsible” — Pentagon reels from Austin news.
Republicans and Democrats rip DOD for hiding Austin’s ICU stay.
Lipson: Why Lloyd Austin’s mistake should be career ending.
Biden continues to resist calls for firings.
Violent political threats, swattings surge.
States face massive problems after boosted pandemic budgets run out.
Universities face tax exempt investigation after Jewish harassment.
Retailers battle fraudulent returns.
Lawfare
House Republicans push vote today on Hunter Biden contempt.
Fani Willis subpoenaed to testify in divorce case over involvement with colleague.
2024
DeSantis and Haley to debate on CNN tonight in Iowa.
Olsen: There’s still time for the GOP race to surprise us.
Michigan poll: Trump trounces Biden but loses to Whitmer.
Tech
SEC claims compromised account gave false Bitcoin news.
Ephemera
Andrew Tate’s fake charity empire.
Dennis Miller hosting new Fox docuseries.
Netflix’s Three Body Problem trailer.
Last of Us casts Kaitlyn Dever in key role.
Star Wars Mandalorian movie a go with Favreau directing.
Jerry Holkins on how to be a better DM.
Podcast
Quote
“The voices that speak for the left have never been less convincing. It is hard for people to see the menace that drives millionaire football players to kneel before the flag. And then there is the failure of virtually every program the left has ever espoused—welfare, public housing, school busing, affirmative action, diversity programs, and so on. For the American left today, the indulgence in hate is a death rattle.”
— Shelby Steele