The Karol Markowicz Show: Jennifer Van Laar on Investigative Journalism, RedState, and Challenging the Political Establishment
3/4/202625 mincomplete
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0:22The Emmy -winning comedy Scrubs is all new.
0:24This is a whole new chapter for me.
0:26No more sad sack. That's what I'm talking about.
0:28I want both of our sacks to be fun.
0:30You two idiots are perfect for each other.
0:32From executive producers of Ted Lasso and Shrinking.
0:35We were all a part of this victory.
0:36Now get those nachos out of the preemie warmer.
0:40Nachos! Feels like there's more applause for the nachos than my speech.
0:44The new season of Scrubs.
0:45Wednesdays, 8, 7 central on ABC.
0:48And stream on Hulu. Hi, and welcome back to the Carol Markowitz Show.
0:58I've talked about this subject a lot and I hadn't done a monologue in quite
1:04a while and wanted to talk about this again because I got a note in
1:10my email about this. And also today, Kat Rosenfield on X posted, starting to think
1:16the plummeting birth rate might have something to do with millennial women being immersed in
1:20these motherhood as identity annihilation narratives for the entirety of their fertile years.
1:26And I tweeted, I talk often to counter this persistent messaging that motherhood is the
1:31end of your life about the fact that my career took off only after having
1:35children and my identity and my purpose crystallized because of them.
1:39Having kids was the beginning, not the end.
1:42I also got a note about this recently.
1:45I wasn't sure if I was going to answer this because it was a short
1:48note and it's not, like when they don't have a lot of details, it's tough
1:51for me to really give an answer.
1:54If you're going to write to me for advice, as much detail as possible, as
1:57much detail as you feel comfortable giving me would be great.
2:00This is the note. Hi, Ms.
2:03Markowitz. You spoke at my school a few years ago and I had asked a
2:06question about how you balance family and career.
2:09I'm now 23 and still don't see how you do it.
2:12I'm not dating anyone partially because I'm afraid that adding a relationship to my life
2:16will be too time consuming.
2:18I don't have a high pressure job, but imagine I will one day.
2:21How do I balance everything?
2:24The thing is, you just do it is the easy answer.
2:28But the other thing is you're 23 and you're not dating anyone.
2:32So you don't have a picture of what your life actually will look like.
2:37Part of what gave me the space to grow in my career and do what
2:42I wanted to do was marrying the right person who let me explore things and
2:48let me try out things.
2:49And that made me able to succeed at another level than I ever would have
2:55without him. So if you're 23 and you're not dating anyone and you say you
3:00don't have a higher pressure job, but imagine you will one day, you might not.
3:03You don't know. I would say don't put the roadblocks in your way in advance.
3:08See where you end up on this.
3:12A lot of women are just given this message that marriage and kids are the
3:16end when, in fact, for a lot of women, it really will be the beginning
3:20of you being able to do things.
3:23You have somebody who contributes to your household.
3:26Maybe doesn't support the entire household, but at least half of it.
3:29You are given the ability to try things that you might not have been able
3:33to try otherwise. So this whole thing about women's identity being destroyed and their careers
3:40being over as soon as they have kids just makes no sense to me.
3:44And I feel like a lot of this is just messaging made to ensure that
3:49women don't have kids. And I think that it's on purpose.
3:52It's to say you can't live a life that is enjoyable with children, don't have
3:58children. It's scary. And I know that it's aimed at liberal women, but I think
4:04the woman writing to me is a conservative woman.
4:06I am assuming this because I spoke at her school.
4:09I speak to conservative groups.
4:11I can imagine who this person is, even though she didn't say or what kind
4:17of person this is. And it's not the blue haired liberal girl on the college
4:22campus. This is somebody serious who wants children and wants to hear that it's going
4:26to be okay. And this idea that it can't be okay if you have kids
4:32and that your life will be altered for the negative is one that is just
4:38pushed on them so hard.
4:39This girl is saying she doesn't even have a boyfriend or a high -powered career,
4:44and she already doesn't know how to balance them.
4:46You are told that it's going to be so hard, but in fact, it's not.
4:50In fact, when you're with the right person and you have a career that you
4:54care about and you know how to do well, it's not the image you see
5:00online of the devastated woman who doesn't have what she actually wanted.
5:05I think people who have the marriage that they want and the career that they
5:09want, it happens often. And they just don't tell you about it because it's hard
5:14to be like, hey, my life's really great.
5:16I have this marriage and career that I really like and really works for me.
5:20I don't think that message gets spread enough, and I'm here to spread it.
5:25Thank you for listening and stay tuned for my interview with Jennifer Van Laar.
5:31Run a business and not thinking about podcasting?
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5:47Plus, only iHeart can extend your message to audiences across broadcast radio.
5:51Think podcasting can help your business?
5:53Think iHeart. Streaming, radio, and podcasting.
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5:59That's iHeartAdvertising .com. ABC Wednesdays.
6:04The Emmy -winning comedy Scrubs is all new.
6:06This is a whole new chapter for me.
6:08No more sad sack. That's what I'm talking about.
6:10I want both of our sacks to be fun.
6:12You two idiots are perfect for each other.
6:14From executive producers of Ted Lasso and Shrinking.
6:17We were all a part of this victory.
6:18Now get those nachos out of the preemie warmer.
6:22Nachos! Feels like there's more applause for the nachos than my speech.
6:26The new season of Scrubs.
6:27Wednesdays, 8, 7 central on ABC and stream on Hulu.
6:33Hi, and welcome back to the Carol Markowitz Show on iHeart Radio.
6:37My guest today is Jennifer Van Laar.
6:39Jennifer is the managing editor of Red State and an investigative journalist.
6:44Hi, Jennifer. First, so nice to have you on.
6:46So great to be here.
6:48So how did you get to this path?
6:51Where did you decide to be a writer and how did you end up at
6:55Red State? So I had always enjoyed writing.
6:58That was kind of my best class, you know, growing up and going into high
7:02school. But outside of college, I became a court reporter, like a stenographer in courtrooms,
7:07deposition, and I worked for the state of North Carolina and did about more than
7:13three dozen criminal first -degree murder trials from jury selection through verdict.
7:18So that was what I did for 20 years while raising my kids.
7:22And that really gave me such an insight into how people build cases, which is
7:27really what you do as an investigative journalist.
7:30So after I got divorced and I moved home to California, I couldn't do court
7:35recording there because I used a different method than our regulatory scheme allowed.
7:39So even though I had been the president of our state association, all that, they
7:43wanted me to go back to school.
7:44And I said, forget that.
7:46So I kind of got involved in political consulting, doing some comms work for different
7:51candidates. Then I started writing at Red State in 2016, right after that election and
7:58just kind of from there.
8:01So I associate you very much with investigative journalism.
8:05Is that your, like, true love?
8:08It is. And it took me a little while to find it because I liked
8:12doing more of the analysis or just even the hot takes here because there's so
8:16many things, especially as a mom, you see people writing things and you just want
8:19to go off on whatever their take is on things.
8:23But once I started doing that and my first big story ended up being kind
8:27of the biggest story of my career so far, which was about now former representative
8:32Katie Hill, who was sexually harassing her staff.
8:35And she also had issues with prescription drug abuse, alcohol issues.
8:40She ended up resigning eight days after my first report.
8:43And then I thought, OK, maybe maybe I might be able to do some of
8:47this stuff. Right. I was going to ask what your favorite story has been.
8:51Is that your favorite story that you've worked on?
8:54No, no, because that one brought so much terrible things personally on top of like,
8:59even though it was a great professional.
9:01Yeah. Win. But I think my favorite one that I think has made the most
9:05change was basically a year and a half long examination of Ronna McDaniel's spending at
9:11the RNC that resulted in President Trump firing her and us getting a whole new
9:16RNC and then President Trump winning.
9:18Yeah. I remember that very well, that those stories.
9:22Did you get into a lot of trouble because you were going after, quote unquote,
9:25your own side? Oh, yeah.
9:28They tried to get us to not be able to publish it.
9:30But, you know, I credit the late, amazing Charlie Kirk.
9:34He kind of saw the writing on the wall and I had been communicating with
9:38him what I was finding.
9:39He said, well, come on my show first and we'll talk, we'll give your findings.
9:43And that was before the story was even published.
9:45So that whole night after that, the people at the RNC were harassing me and
9:49my publisher to not publish it.
9:51But really, you know, that horse was already out of the barn.
9:54And I credit Charlie for doing that.
9:56But yeah, he was brave.
9:58He really, I think, took chances that some people don't take when attacking, you know,
10:03again, his own side. I think that was something that he did very, very, very
10:07well. Yes. What would you have done if this hadn't worked out?
10:13If you hadn't left court reporting and got into writing and, you know, it doesn't
10:17work out for everyone, what would have been the plan B?
10:20I didn't even have one.
10:21It kind of had to work.
10:22I was a newly single mom of a teenage boy that had a learning disability
10:27and also taking care of my dad who had had a stroke, which is why
10:29I moved back to California.
10:31So it just, it had to work.
10:33It's funny for people listening.
10:35A lot of people say, I had no plan B and this had to work.
10:39And I wonder if there's something to that when you don't have another option, when
10:44there is no other possibility and this has to work out.
10:47I wonder if that makes people kind of more motivated to make it actually work.
10:51I think. So, because, you know, my option was trying to find some kind of
10:55secretarial job driving in from the suburbs of L .A.
10:59into West L .A. and being in a car four hours a day.
11:02And that just I was not going to allow that to happen.
11:04Right. What are you covering right now?
11:07So a lot of stuff on the Palisades fire and watch my space over the
11:12next few weeks. There's some deep dives into Gavin Newsom's personal finances.
11:16And let's just say that he runs his personal finances the same way he runs
11:20the state of California's finances.
11:21So it's pretty messy. So not that great.
11:25No. Do you root for California, though?
11:28I mean, you live there, right?
11:30You you wanted to succeed.
11:31Did you have any hope?
11:33I do have hope and I absolutely want it to succeed.
11:36I think in Gavin Newsom touts, you know, the fifth largest or sixth largest economy,
11:41you know, based on whichever year he's talking about.
11:43And what people don't realize it's that in spite of Gavin Newsom is that in
11:47spite of the Democrats and their terrible policies.
11:51There's so many natural resources, so many human resources there with the brain talent.
11:56And I've always said that the people that come to California are the dreamers, the
12:00people who, you know, the confines of the East Coast were not for them.
12:05And they had a bigger vision.
12:06There's nothing wrong with that.
12:07But it's just they were different.
12:09They weren't going to fit in there.
12:10And so they go out to California and the thing they do things that maybe,
12:14you know, a stricter society wouldn't allow.
12:16And that's how we've came up with so many great inventions in California and really
12:21changed the world. And I'd like us to get back to doing good things for
12:24the world instead of being the incubator of bad ideas.
12:27Right. But you are optimistic that that could happen.
12:31I mean, that's saying something because I like, you know, I left New York and
12:34I love New York and I root for it.
12:36But I'm not optimistic about their future, you know, in the near future or in
12:41the far off future right now.
12:43Right. I mean, we might or might not have hit rock bottom yet.
12:45There might still be a rock bottom to hit.
12:47But every the pendulum always swings back.
12:50You're a lifelong Californian? You grew up there?
12:54Yeah. Yeah. So what do you love about it?
12:561850s. Yeah. What do you love about it?
12:59I love the wide open spaces.
13:01It sounds like a weird dreamy thing.
13:02But just, you know, when I lived back in North Carolina, which I love North
13:06Carolina, but I felt so hemmed in by the trees everywhere that were so tall,
13:09I couldn't see. I know exactly what you mean.
13:12Yeah. And I love that.
13:14And I just love the attitude of California, of the old school California, not the
13:20new weirdos. But the old school where you're just an adventurer and everything's possible and
13:25you just love being in the outdoors and just partaking in everything that it has
13:29to offer. Did the fires shift people's opinions?
13:32It seems like people who are natural, say liberals, woke up after the fires and
13:37realized that the kind of governance they had been living under just doesn't work.
13:42Are you seeing that or is it just I'm looking for it and that's why
13:45I'm seeing it? No, I'm definitely seeing it.
13:47It's difficult for people to say it out loud still because there's still so much
13:52societal pressure. But I saw it when I was at Spencer Pratt's mayoral kickoff last
13:57week. He was saying so.
13:59He was even getting cheers when he was talking about cooperating with ICE and cooperating
14:04with federal immigration enforcement and just talking about how things have to change in the
14:10way that Los Angeles has governed.
14:11Got so much loud cheers and they were not.
14:14I've been to Republican events in California for, you know, a long time.
14:18And it's usually a very old and white crowd.
14:21This was a very young crowd and very diverse crowd.
14:24They were not your general Republicans.
14:26And I think they felt safe coming out of the closet at this event and
14:30being among like minded people.
14:32So, you know, I think that that's the hope is and he's going to bring
14:36in this whole new generation of people that maybe aren't your traditional conservative, aren't social
14:40conservative, but who are like, OK, this isn't political.
14:44It's common sense. We just have to have common sense.
14:47So Red State has been around a really long time.
14:50I mean, I remember the red state table at the 2004 Republican National Convention.
14:56I mean, they've really the site has been through a lot of time periods in
15:01our political history. What how do you keep it fresh and new and kind of
15:07moving in the direction when things keep changing so rapidly?
15:11I mean, the Republican Party today is so different than it was back then.
15:14How does Red State stay relevant?
15:17Well, as managing editor and then I have a great editorial team, we try to
15:20make sure that we're not enforcing any kind of groupthink among our people.
15:24I hope that people that maybe haven't read Red State in a while, maybe have
15:29some ideas of what we were in the past.
15:32We'll come and look again, because on our page, I publish routinely things that I
15:39don't agree with that opinion, but it's still a conservative opinion.
15:42And I don't feel like it's right to kind of censor that we do.
15:47We do a lot more breaking news than we did in the past because just
15:50the marketplace has evolved that way.
15:52And I think big tech censorship really changed the way we did some things in
15:57a good way, because now we're forced to, unlike the left, really back up what
16:02we write so that it doesn't get taken down by the fact checkers.
16:06Do you feel any pressure to fall in line with what the conservative opinion is
16:11right now? Or do people come there for the difference of opinion still from a
16:16conservative perspective? Obviously, we always feel pressure.
16:20mostly from our commenters which oh yeah the commenters are the only ones who can
16:26comment but still you know they they get really upset and it's funny sometimes i'll
16:30say you never print such and such you know opposing opinion when we just like
16:35if they looked on the front page sure an essay to that effect that they
16:39just haven't read everyone gets this tunnel vision of that everything has to agree with
16:43every bit of what you talk about but i try it's tough you know because
16:47we're all human but i try to say okay well we still just we need
16:52to be intellectually honest and even sometimes if it's criticizing things going on in the
16:57administration you know we try to not just pile on but we try to what
17:01i've told my writers is criticism is fine don't just say orange man bad though
17:05you have to have like an actual constructive criticism of why you think this certain
17:11policy isn't helpful or what you think the effects will be that maybe they're not
17:16taking into consideration and list that out don't just it sucks right absolutely my favorite
17:22is when i post something in our link to an article i wrote and somebody
17:26will comment like why don't you say blah blah blah and i'm like i literally
17:31in the piece that you did not read say blah blah blah and it's yeah
17:36it's tough because i think that the criticism comes no matter what and a site
17:42like red state that's been around for so long i mean i i imagine you
17:46get you know your share of it yeah it's funny the other day i posted
17:50something about google still throttling our domain and someone said well you know you would
17:55think as lefty as eric erickson is like that they would have that in the
17:58bag and i'm going my gosh eric has been with a site for 10 years
18:02so i know you don't even read it if you don't know that that's right
18:06yeah people just associate it with him and that's that's it they just run with
18:10it plus lefty as he is eric erickson come on right yeah super lefty right
18:14right there we're going to take a quick break and be right back on the
18:18carol markowitz show run a business and not thinking about podcasting think again more americans
18:25listen to podcasts than ad supported streaming music from spotify and pandora and as the
18:30number one podcaster iheart's twice as large as the next two combined so whatever your
18:34customers listen to they'll hear your message plus only iheart can extend your message to
18:39audiences across broadcast radio think podcasting can help your business think iheart streaming radio and
18:45podcasting let us show you at iheartadvertising .com that's iheartadvertising .com abc wednesdays the emmy
18:54winning comedy scrubs is all new this is a whole new chapter for me no
18:58more sad sack that's what i'm talking about i want both of our sacks to
19:02be fun you two idiots are perfect for each other from executive producers of ted
19:05lasso and shrinking we were all a part of this victory now get those nachos
19:10out of the preemie warmer nachos feels like there's more applause for the nachos than
19:15my speech the new season of scrubs wednesdays 8 7 central on abc and stream
19:20on hulu what are you most proud of in your life i thought about this
19:27a long time because i obviously the first thing i want to say is my
19:31kids i have three sons and they're all grown and and two of them are
19:34married and i'm two granddaughters oh amazing yeah but then i'm thinking i don't i
19:39feel like god just gave me three amazing souls to be my children and i
19:44really didn't have to do a whole lot so i don't feel like i can
19:46be super proud of of them i hear you yeah but i am proud that
19:51they are each other's best friend um my two older boys are just over two
19:55years apart and they fought like crazy when they were kids and i thought they're
20:00never going to talk to each other when they're grown up you know my younger
20:03son is uh nine years between him and my oldest so he never really got
20:09beat up on by the right right yeah but the older two they talk to
20:13each other all day every day they have a podcast together focused on hockey their
20:19best friends are still best friends and i'm going okay so i am proud that
20:24they're each other's best friends and they help each other financially like yeah so i'm
20:29very proud that that they are each other's best friends and that we just all
20:34love to be together that is such an amazing outcome that's really all that i'm
20:40rooting for for my kids to grow up and get married and have kids and
20:43be friends with each other and what else really is there and when there's it's
20:50huge but my uh 10 year old i was telling him that i have three
20:54questions that i ask all of my guests and i change it i change the
20:57three questions every year and this is my third set of questions but i said
21:01to him that one of the questions is what are you most proud of in
21:03your life and i asked him what are you most proud of in your life
21:05and he said my parents and i was like you had nothing to do with
21:09who your parents are what are you proud of but i realized it's the same
21:13thing as when i say i'm most proud of my kids like you're you know
21:16did you have an effect maybe hopefully you know it couldn't just be presented give
21:23us a five year out prediction and it could be about anything at all i'm
21:30really bad at any political predictions or even on my own life predictions because so
21:35many times i've looked back and said if someone told me five years ago this
21:39is what i'd be doing i would have not believed them so i think i'm
21:41gonna say that the dodgers will have another world championship in the next five years
21:46okay a couple more. I know people love to hate the Dodgers, but, you know,
21:52they're my team. I'm from Brooklyn, so I have to, even though, you know, obviously
21:56my family wasn't even in America yet when the Dodgers left, but I grew up
21:59with a sense of, like, we have been betrayed by this team who left us.
22:03Yes, I feel it, because when the Rams left L .A.
22:07for St. Louis for those years, like, we were not allowed to talk about them
22:10in our house, and now that they're back in L .A., you know.
22:13Yeah. When did the Dodgers last win?
22:15This year. Okay, yeah, so what do you, please, you guys, with your Dodgers.
22:22I don't know how many people have teams that three -peated in baseball.
22:26I mean, I know basketball, there's been a few, but.
22:28Okay, I'm not, I don't follow baseball that closely, but, so you guys have won
22:33two years in a row, and now your prediction is a third one?
22:36Jennifer. At some point in the next five years.
22:38I'm not going to say this next year, but some point five years.
22:42Starting to sound like the Patriots, who, like, you know, had a few years off
22:45from going to the Super Bowl and were really bitter about it, but, you know.
22:49Yeah. All right, maybe the Dodgers come back in the next five and win another
22:53one. Yes. I don't know if I'm going to be rooting for that or not,
22:57but I'll think of you if it happens.
23:00Yeah. All right, I've loved this conversation, Jennifer.
23:03This has been really great getting to know you.
23:05Leave us here with your best tip for my listeners on how they can improve
23:10their lives. So, it goes back to your question about, you know, what, what was
23:14my plan B? And around that time that I started writing, I realized that all
23:19the things that I'd done in my life that were most successful had to do
23:22with storytelling, whether it's laying out an investigative thing or even writing something more from
23:27a personal perspective. So, I've told myself I'm a storyteller at heart and to just
23:31stay in that lane, like whatever I'm going to do has to be involved in
23:35telling a story and that can take so many forms.
23:39So, my advice for, you know, success and one tip for being happy is to
23:44find what it is that you're really good at that you feel like you're called
23:47to do and stay in that lane.
23:49Don't be influenced by what other people are doing or try to be somebody else.
23:53Be yourself and stick with that.
23:55I love that. I love the idea of sticking in your lane and do what
23:59you're really good at and don't let other people get in there or dissuade you
24:04from it. Choose Jennifer Vandlar.
24:06Check her out at Red State.
24:07Thank you so much for coming on, Jennifer.
24:09Thank you. ABC Wednesdays. The Emmy -winning comedy Scrubs is all new.
24:18This is a whole new chapter for me.
24:19No more sad sack. That's what I'm talking about.
24:22I want both of our sacks to be fun.
24:24You two idiots are perfect for each other.
24:25From executive producers of Ted Lasso and Shrinking.
24:28We were all a part of this victory.
24:30Now get those nachos out of the preemie warmer.
24:34Nachos! Feels like there's more applause for the nachos than my speech.
24:37The new season of Scrubs.
24:39Wednesdays 8, 7 central on ABC and stream on Hulu.
24:43This is an iHeart podcast.
24:46Guaranteed human.