Dershowitz Leaves the Democrats, Meta’s $17B Child Safety Settlement, Inside the Afghanistan Withdrawal | Your News Talk America | August 28, 2026
Today's Guests
Nick Kangadis is Senior Content Creator at MRC Video, appearing in two segments this morning. Read his bio at MRC.org
9:00 · Show Open: Worst Media Quote of the Week
Jake opens the show with the week's worst media moments. NBC's Kristen Welker pressed Sen. Tim Scott on whether Republicans are trying to scare voters over Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El Sayed's faith. MS NOW's Mika Brzezinski called the administration's immigration enforcement "backwards, un American, and sick." And co host Joe Scarborough asked on air whether the country will "survive" the Trump administration's changes at the Pentagon, the Justice Department, and the National Institutes of Health.
Guest: Nick Kangadis, Senior Content Creator, MRC Video (bio)
9:20 · Media Watch: O'Donnell and Jason Johnson
More from the media beat: MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell goes after Trump for attending a private military school, and MS NOW professor Jason Johnson raises the specter of a "gulag" under what he calls an authoritarian movement, a fear NewsBusters notes he did not raise during COVID era lockdowns under the Biden administration.
Sources:
NewsBusters: Lawrence O'Donnell's tirade over Trump's high school
NewsBusters: MS NOW professor fears a gulag
Guest: Nick Kangadis, Senior Content Creator, MRC Video (bio)
9:35 · El Sayed, Hasan Piker, and the Antisemitism Debate
Jake revisits Kristen Welker's Meet the Press exchange with Sen. Tim Scott over Michigan Senate nominee Abdul El Sayed, who would be the state's first Muslim senator. Politico reports El Sayed has since distanced himself from ally and progressive streamer Hasan Piker after Piker faced criticism for suggesting that American Jewish support for Israel could lead someone to take action against Jews in the U.S. Rabbi Menachem Creditor writes in the Times of Israel that antisemitic violence is always the responsibility of antisemites, not of the Jewish community's political choices.
Source: Times of Israel: Antisemitic Violence Is Always the Responsibility of Antisemites
Guest: Asaf Romirowsky, PhD, Executive Director, Scholars for Peace in the Middle East (SPME) and coauthor of October 7: The Wars Over Words and Deeds
10:00 · The Path to Zero: Inside the Afghanistan Withdrawal
Michael Pack, producer and director of The Path to Zero, joins Jake to discuss the newest addition to the WSJ Opinion Docs series, produced with Palladium Pictures. The documentary reconstructs the chaotic final weeks of America's 20 year war in Afghanistan through firsthand accounts from senior commanders, diplomats, intelligence officers, Afghan allies, journalists, and the Marines who stood at the gates of Kabul's airport. It traces the decisions behind the base closure at Bagram, the collapse of the Afghan military, the ISIS K threat, the Abbey Gate bombing, and the U.S. drone strike that killed ten civilians, including seven children, and asks whether the officials who made those decisions have answered for them. Jake also gets Pack's reaction to a Politico report that Pentagon officials say they have uncovered classified documents on the withdrawal that had been "hidden away in safes where they would not be found," though officials have not yet released public details.
Sources:
Politico: Pentagon officials on newly found Afghanistan withdrawal documents
The Path to Zero trailer
More on The Path to Zero
More on The Last 600 Meters
Guest: Michael Pack, director and producer of The Path to Zero and President of Manigold Productions and Palladium Pictures. His previous documentary, The Last 600 Meters, covered the deadliest battles of the Iraq War.
10:30 · Nepal Disaster and Ukraine War Update, Day 1,648
Dr. Antonio Graceffo weighs in on the disaster unfolding in Nepal, a region he knows well, then turns to the latest from Ukraine. The Ukrainian military says it shot down seven ballistic missiles and 258 drones as Russia carried out a lengthy overnight strike targeting ports, grain storage, energy, and industrial infrastructure. Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said the barrage used both ballistic and hypersonic missiles alongside combat drones, and Kyiv residents went to work Thursday to the sound of air defenses engaging waves of drones. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said this week that Kyiv had received a small batch of U.S. made Patriot interceptors capable of downing ballistic missiles. Separately, coordinated Russian drone and bomb strikes hit Kyiv, Chernihiv, Sumy, Kharkiv, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson within a 24 hour window on August 25, the latest in a string of attacks that began with a heavy Independence Day bombardment. In Kyiv, jet powered "Banderol" drones struck the capital's Holosiivskyi district, damaging the 14th floor of a 16 story residential building; Mayor Vitali Klitschko reported no casualties. The attack was more destructive in Chernihiv, where a residential building was struck on Independence Day, and the injury toll has climbed to at least 20, including three children.
Sources:
The Gateway Pundit: Drone warfare and the changing nature of combat
The Gateway Pundit: Russia expands strikes on Ukraine's infrastructure
UNN: Russia attacked Kyiv with jet powered Banderol UAVs
Kyiv Independent: Ukraine war latest
Guest: Dr. Antonio Graceffo, PhD, China MBA, economist and national security analyst focused on China and Russia, reporter for The Gateway Pundit (bio)
10:50 · Meta's $17 Billion Child Safety Settlement
Meta has settled a multistate lawsuit alleging its platforms harm children, with California, Colorado, Kentucky, and New Jersey representing a larger group of states that accused the company of designing Facebook and Instagram to be addictive to kids and of violating child privacy law by collecting data on users under 13. Under the proposed settlement, Meta will pay $17 billion in penalties to the states over ten years and must make major changes for users under 17, including a two hour daily cumulative time limit across Facebook and Instagram, prompts every 15 minutes of continuous use, a default night mode blocking access from midnight to 6 a.m., a school mode that curbs notifications during class hours, hidden like and reaction counts by default, a ban on extreme makeup filters for minors, and the option to turn off autoplay and algorithmic feeds. Parents can authorize a less restrictive limit, and if similar deals are reached with Snapchat, TikTok, and YouTube, the per platform limit would rise to 60 minutes, subject to the same 120 minute overall cap. Carolyn Gorman joins Jake to discuss whether the settlement dollars will actually reach the families affected.
Guest: Carolyn D. Gorman, fellow at the Manhattan Institute, where her research examines how U.S. policy changes affect individuals with mental illness (via X)
11:00 · Why Alan Dershowitz Left the Democrats
For nearly seventy years Alan Dershowitz was a loyal Democrat, until, in his telling, the party abandoned its centrist foundations and embraced hostility toward Israel. He reluctantly aligned with the Republican Party despite disagreeing with parts of its domestic agenda, driven mainly by concern over what he sees as a rising threat to democratic institutions. Dershowitz says he spent years challenging a leftward shift on campuses from within the party as a loyal dissenter, but concluded after October 7, 2023 that the party's transformation, especially on Israel, had become irreversible. His break is not absolute: he still supports reproductive choice, gay rights, environmental protection, racial equality, and expanded health care access, while opposing what he calls anti meritocratic policies such as race based affirmative action and DEI. Had the party not shifted against Israel, he says, he might still call himself a "Fetterman Democrat."
Guest: Alan Dershowitz, Harvard Law Professor Emeritus, author of Why I Quit the Dems and So Should You
11:30 · Climate, Natural Gas, and California's Tire Rules
Jake gets geologist Gregory Wrightstone's read on the Nepal disaster and the climate change framing around it, then turns to energy policy. A new analysis from the nonprofit Global Energy Monitor finds the U.S. is building twice as much natural gas capacity as China, giving Washington an edge in powering the data centers that run artificial intelligence; natural gas projects under development in the U.S. in the first half of this year already ran 50 percent ahead of all of 2025, a boom tied directly to AI's rapid buildout. Wrightstone pushes back on characterizations of natural gas as simply a polluting fossil fuel. Jake also asks about a new California Energy Commission tire efficiency rule, questioning why regulators keep adding requirements for drivers.
Sources:
Washington Examiner: U.S. builds twice the natural gas of China to power AI
Global Energy Monitor: U.S. gas power proposals tied to data centers
KCRA: California's tire efficiency rules
Guest: Gregory Wrightstone, geologist and Executive Director of the CO2 Coalition in Arlington, Virginia, author of A Very Convenient Warming: How Modest Warming and More CO2 Are Benefiting Humanity (bio)
11:50 · Salute the Troops
Today's salute goes to all those who served in Afghanistan.
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