“I think of the Eye of Sauron in Lord of the Rings and it’s that the big eye will shift suddenly and everyone will shift in that direction without paying attention to the things they were literally looking at five minutes ago.”
Posobiec opened by noting the sudden pivot in the news cycle. “You run both Human Events and The Post Millennial—a week ago, we weren’t talking about regime change in Iran. I remember being on this show, talking about the deportation bill and mass deportation. We had these huge ICE protests, which turned into riots very quickly, Los Angeles and other places, President Trump had his military parade. What’s going on that has driven this so quickly?”
Emmons pointed to how quickly the public narrative was redirected thanks to Israel's strike on Iran. “It’s been a huge, quick diversion,” she said. “I think of the Eye of Sauron in Lord of the Rings and it’s that the big eye will shift suddenly and everyone will shift in that direction without paying attention to the things they were literally looking at five minutes ago.”
She noted that as tensions between Israel and Iran blew up after Israel struck the fundamentalist Islamic nation, media coverage shifted. “Last week, we had all of this stuff starting to heat up in Israel. Israel took aim at Iran… All of the sudden, we’re all supposed to look overseas and look at fighting between other nations, one of which is allied with America and one of which is not.”
Despite the overseas focus, Emmons emphasized, the domestic situation remains active and unresolved. “The deportations are still underway,” she said. “The issues between ICE and Democrat lawmakers are still happening. Brad Lander, New York City mayoral candidate, was detained when he tried to obstruct an ICE arrest. He was demanding a judicial warrant for a man whose asylum hearing has failed.”
“We also still have Tren de Aragua in Aurora, Colorado, police in that city releasing [doorbell] footage showing them in Aurora, which we remember from last summer terrorizing residents in that apartment building,” she said. “That’s still going on. You still have riots going on in Portland, Oregon, where that’s the main hobby.”
But there are also huge stories of conservative legal victories being buried amid the foreign coverage. “There’s a lot going on with the Supreme Court,” Emmons added. “We had a win today that I was very excited about where the Supreme Court upheld Tennessee’s ban on child sex changes, so that’s a huge win not just for Tennessee but America at large. I know that a lot of women in America are super excited about this. It’s way more awesome than what’s going on between Israel and Iran.”
Posobiec then shifted slightly, asking. “Libby, if I can, can I ask you an interesting tidbit? You mentioned before something to me about the clickthrough rate on stories that you’re seeing on the backend. So obviously the way that it usually works, Post Millennial covers the day-to-day domestic news and Human Events we have the opinion section but also the international news. Can you tell me which side is picking up more traction right now, even as the Iran-Israel conflict takes off?”
“Our readers are primarily reading domestic American news and the opinions on domestic American happenings,” Emmons explained. “That’s what people are looking to us for and what we’re focusing on. There’s plenty of news out there on Iran and Israel… Our readers are really still interested in the things that impact their lives.”
She also pointed to new immigration data as evidence that domestic stories still dominate public interest. “Yesterday got word from Customs and Border Protection that they had released zero illegal immigrants into the country in May. That’s zero! Zero illegal immigrants released by CBP into the country in May and that contrasts to 64,000 in May last year under the Biden administration,” she said. “That’s pretty impressive.”
Economic indicators are also on the minds of readers. “We also saw releasing of some numbers that showed real wages for blue-collar workers are up… a couple percentage points for something like the first time in 60 years,” Emmons noted. “And that’s what a lot of our readers are interested in."
Wrapping up, Emmons highlighted new polling data that underlined her point. “We had a story yesterday about the fact that the majority of Americans across race, gender and party lines are opposed to American intervention in this new fight between Israel and Iran,” she said.
Posobiec asked for more details: “Can you walk me through some of that poll that you’re seeing?”
“I looked a little about that,” Emmons said. “Hannah Nightengale covered that for The Post Millennial, but I was surprised to see that it was across all parties, both parties, both sexes, all races, don’t want to get involved. It was across class lines too, if I recall correctly.”
Watch the full interview below:
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