On this episode of The Karol Markowicz Show, Karol sits down with Jennifer Van Laar, managing editor of RedState and a leading investigative journalist known for uncovering major political stories.
Jennifer shares her unconventional journey—from 20 years as a courtroom stenographer working on murder trials to becoming one of the most impactful investigative voices in conservative media. She explains how her courtroom experience taught her how to build cases, analyze evidence, and ultimately break major political stories.
The conversation dives into the investigation that exposed former Rep. Katie Hill, the year-long reporting effort that scrutinized RNC leadership and spending, and the pressures journalists face when reporting critically on their own political side. Jennifer also discusses the evolving mission of RedState, why intellectual honesty matters in political media, and how conservative outlets balance breaking news with opinion.
Karol and Jennifer also explore the future of California politics, the fallout from the Palisades fire, Governor Gavin Newsom’s leadership, and whether the political pendulum could swing back in the Golden State.
Plus, Jennifer reflects on her personal life—raising three sons as a single mother, finding purpose through storytelling, and why discovering your strengths and “staying in your lane” may be the key to long-term success.
Topics Covered in This Episode:
-
Jennifer Van Laar’s path from court reporter to investigative journalist
-
The RedState newsroom and conservative media today
-
Major investigations that changed political careers
-
Reporting on corruption within your own party
-
California politics and the future of the state
-
The importance of storytelling in journalism and life
Follow Clay & Buck on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/clayandbuck
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
On iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
I've talked about this subject a lot and I hadn't
done a monologue in quite a while and wanted to
talk about this again because I got a note in
my email about this and also today Kat Rosenfield on
X posted, starting to think the plummeting birth rate might
have something to do with millennial women being immersed in
these motherhood as identity annihilation narratives for the entirety of
(00:34):
their fertile years.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
And I tweeted, I.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Talk often to counter this persistent messaging that motherhood is
the end of your life about the fact that my
career took off only after having children and my identity
and my purpose crystallized because of them. Having kids was
the beginning, not the end. I also got a note
about this recently. I wasn't sure if I was going
to answer this because it was a short note and
(00:58):
it's not Like when they don't have a lot of details,
it's tough for me to really give an answer. If
you're going to write to me for advice, as much
detail as possible, as much detail as you feel comfortable
giving me.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
Would be great. This is the note. Hi, Ms. Markowitz.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
You spoke at my school a few years ago and
I had asked a question about how you balance family
and career. I'm now 23 and still don't see how
you do it. I'm not dating anyone partially because I'm
afraid that adding a relationship to my life will be
too time consuming. I don't have a high pressure job,
but imagine I will one day. How do I balance everything?
(01:35):
The thing is, you just do it is the easy answer.
But the other thing is you're 23 and you're not
dating anyone. So you don't have a picture of what
your life actually will look like. Part of what gave
me the space to grow in my career and do
what I wanted to do was marrying the right person
(01:55):
who Let me explore things and let me try out things.
And that made me able to succeed at another level
than I ever would have without him. So if you're
23 and you're not dating anyone and you say you
don't have a higher pressure job, but imagine you will
one day, you might not.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
You don't know.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
I would say don't put the roadblocks in your way
in advance. See where you end up on this. A
lot of women are just given this message that marriage
and kids are the end, when in fact, for a
lot of women, it really will be the beginning of
you being able to do things. You have somebody who
(02:34):
contributes to your household, maybe doesn't support the entire household,
but at least half of it. You are given the
ability to try things that you might not have been
able to try otherwise. So this whole thing about women's
identity being destroyed and their careers being over as soon
as they have kids, just makes no sense to me.
And I feel like a lot of this is just
(02:56):
messaging made to ensure that women.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
Don't have kids.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
And I think that it's on purpose. It's to say,
you can't live a life that is enjoyable with children,
don't have children.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
It's scary.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
And I know that it's aimed at liberal women, but
I think the woman writing to me is a conservative woman.
I am assuming this because I spoke at her school.
I speak to conservative groups. I can imagine who this
person is even though she didn't say or what kind
of person this is. And it's not the blue-haired liberal
girl on the college campus. This is somebody serious who
(03:34):
wants children and wants to hear that it's going to
be okay. And this idea that it can't be okay
if you have kids and that your life will be
altered for the negative is one that is just pushed
on them so hard. This girl is saying, She doesn't
even have a boyfriend or a high-powered career, and she
(03:54):
already doesn't know how to balance them. You are told
that it's going to be so hard, but in fact,
it's not. In fact, when you're with the right person
and you have a career that you care about and
you know how to do well, it's not the image
you see online of the devastated woman who doesn't have
(04:14):
what she actually wanted. I think people who have the
marriage that they want and the career that they want,
It happens often and they just don't tell you about
it because it's hard to be like, hey, my life's
really great. I have this marriage and career that I
really like and really works for me. I don't think
that message gets spread enough and I'm here to spread it.
(04:35):
Thank you for listening and stay tuned for my interview
with Jennifer Van Laar. Hi, and welcome back to The
Carol Markowitz Show on iHeartRadio. My guest today is Jennifer
Van Laar. Jennifer is the managing editor of Red State
and an investigative journalist.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
Hi, Jennifer. So nice to have you on.
Speaker 3 (04:56):
So great to be here.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
So how did you get to this path?
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Where did you decide to be a writer and how
did you end up at Red State?
Speaker 3 (05:06):
So I'd always enjoyed writing.
Speaker 4 (05:08):
That was kind of my best class, you know, growing
up and going into high school. But outside of college,
I became a court reporter, like a stenographer in courtrooms, depositions.
And I worked for the state of North Carolina and
did about more than three dozen criminal first degree murder
trials from jury selection through verdict. So that was what
(05:28):
I did for 20 years while raising my kids. And
that really gave me such an insight into how people
build cases, which is really what you do as an
investigative journalist. So after I got divorced and I moved
home to California, I couldn't do court reporting there because
I used a different method than our regulatory scheme allowed.
(05:49):
So even though I had been the president of our
state association, all that, They wanted me to go back
to school.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
And I said, forget that.
Speaker 4 (05:56):
So I kind of got involved in political consulting, doing
some comms work for different candidates. Then I started writing
at Red State in 2016, right after that election and
just kind of moving from there.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
So I associate you very much with investigative journalism. Is
that your true love? It is.
Speaker 4 (06:19):
And it took me a little while to find it
because I liked doing more of the analysis or just
even the hot takes, you know, because there's so many things,
especially as a mom, you see people writing things and
you just want to go off on whatever their take
is on things. But once I started doing that and
my first big story ended up being kind of the
biggest story of my career so far, which was about
(06:40):
now former Representative Katie Hill and who was sexually harassing
her staff. And she also had issues with prescription drug abuse,
alcohol issues. She ended up resigning eight days after my
first report in that. And then I thought, okay, maybe
I might be able to do some of this stuff.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
Right.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
I was going to ask what your favorite story has been.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
Is that your favorite story that you've worked on?
Speaker 4 (07:04):
No, no, because that one brought so much terrible things
personally on top of like, even though it was a
great professional win. But I think my favorite one that
I think has made the most change was basically a
year and a half long examination of Ronna McDaniel's spending
at the RNC that resulted in President Trump firing her
(07:24):
and us getting a whole new RNC and then President
Trump winning.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
Yeah, I remember that very well, that those stories. Did
you get into a lot of trouble because you were
going after, quote unquote, your own side?
Speaker 1 (07:36):
Oh, yeah.
Speaker 4 (07:37):
And they tried to get us to not be able
to publish it. But, you know, I credit the late,
amazing Charlie Kirk. He kind of saw the writing on
the wall and I had been communicating with him what
I was finding. He said, well, come on my show
first and we'll give your findings. And that was before
the story was even published. So that whole night after that,
the people at the RNC were harassing me and my
(07:59):
publisher to not publish it. But really, you know, that
horse was already out of the barn. And I credit
Charlie for doing that.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
Yeah, he was brave.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
He really, I think, took chances that some people don't
take when attacking, you know, again, his own side.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
I think that was something that he did very, very,
very well.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
What would you have done if this hadn't worked out?
Speaker 2 (08:22):
If you hadn't left court reporting and got into writing and,
you know, it doesn't work out for everyone, what would
have been the plan B?
Speaker 4 (08:29):
I didn't even have one. It kind of had to work.
I was a newly single mom of a teenage boy
that had a learning disability and also taking care of
my dad who had had a stroke, which is why
I moved back to California.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
So it just, it had to work. It's funny for
people listening.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
A lot of people say I had no plan B
and this had to work. And I wonder if there's
something to that when you don't have another option, when
there is no other possibility and this has to work out.
I wonder if that makes people kind of more motivated
to make it actually work.
Speaker 4 (09:01):
I think so, because my option was trying to find
some kind of secretarial job driving in from the suburbs
of L.A.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
And to West L.A.
Speaker 4 (09:09):
And being in a car four hours a day and
not just I was not going to.
Speaker 3 (09:13):
Allow that to happen.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Right.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
What are you covering right now?
Speaker 4 (09:16):
So a lot of stuff on the Palisades fire and
watch my space over the next few weeks. There's some
deep dives into Gavin Newsom's personal finances. And let's just
say that he runs his personal finances the same way
he runs the state of California's finances.
Speaker 3 (09:32):
So it's pretty messy.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
So not that great.
Speaker 3 (09:34):
No.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
Do you root for California, though? I mean, you live there, right?
You you wanted to succeed. Did you have any hope?
Speaker 3 (09:43):
I do have hope and I absolutely want it to succeed.
Speaker 4 (09:45):
I think in Gavin Newsom touts, you know, the fifth
largest or sixth largest economy, you know, based on whichever
year he's talking about. And what people don't realize, it's
that in spite of Gavin Newsom, it's that in spite
of the Democrats and their terrible policies, there's so many
natural resources, so many human resources there with the brain talent.
(10:06):
And I've always said that the people that come to
California are the dreamers, the people who, you know, the
confines of the East Coast, were not for them and
they had a bigger vision. There's nothing wrong with that,
but it's just, they were different. They weren't going to
fit in there. And so they go out to California
and the thing, they do things that maybe, you know,
a stricter society wouldn't allow. And that's how we've came
(10:27):
up with so many great inventions in California and really
changed the world. And I'd like us to get back
to doing good things for the world instead of being
the incubator of bad ideas. Right.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
But you are optimistic that that could happen.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
I mean, that's saying something because I left New York
and I love New York and I root for it,
but I'm not optimistic about their future, you know.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
In the near future or in the far off future
right now.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
Right.
Speaker 3 (10:53):
I mean, we might or might not have hit rock
bottom yet.
Speaker 4 (10:55):
There might still be a rock bottom to hit. But yeah,
every the pendulum always swings back.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
You're a lifelong Californian. You grew up there.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
So what do you love about it?
Speaker 4 (11:05):
1850s.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
What do you love about it?
Speaker 3 (11:09):
I love the wide open spaces.
Speaker 4 (11:10):
It sounds like a weird dreamy thing, but just, you know,
when I lived back in North Carolina, which I love
North Carolina, but I felt so hemmed in by the
trees everywhere that were so tall, I couldn't see.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
I know exactly what you mean.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
And I love that.
Speaker 4 (11:23):
And I just love the, just kind of the attitude
of California, of the old school California, not the new weirdos,
but the old school where you're just an adventurer and
everything's possible. And you just love being in the outdoors
and just partaking in everything that it has to offer.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
Did the fires shift people's opinions?
Speaker 2 (11:42):
It seems like people who are natural, say liberals, woke
up after the fires and realized that the kind of
governance they had been living under just doesn't work. Are
you seeing that or is it just I'm looking for
it and that's why I'm seeing it?
Speaker 3 (11:56):
Now, I'm definitely seeing it.
Speaker 4 (11:57):
It's difficult for people to say it out loud still
because there's still so much societal pressure. But I saw
it when I was at Spencer Pratt's mayoral kickoff last week.
Speaker 3 (12:08):
He was saying something.
Speaker 4 (12:09):
He was even getting cheers when he was talking about
cooperating with ICE and cooperating with federal immigration enforcement and
just talking about how things have to change in the
way that Los Angeles is governed.
Speaker 3 (12:21):
Got so much loud cheers. And they were not.
Speaker 4 (12:23):
I've been to Republican events in California for a long time,
and it's usually a very old and white crowd. This
was a very young crowd and very diverse crowd. They
were not your general Republicans. And I think they felt
safe coming out of the closet at this event and
being among like-minded people. So I think that that's the
(12:44):
hope is And he's going to bring in this whole
new generation of people that maybe aren't your traditional conservative,
aren't social conservative, but who are like, OK, this isn't political.
It's common sense. We just have to have common sense.
So red state has been around a really long time.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
I mean, I remember the red state table at the
2004 Republican National Convention. I mean, they've really the site
has been through a lot of time periods in.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
Our political history.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
How do you keep it fresh and new and kind
of moving in the direction when things keep changing so rapidly?
I mean, the Republican Party today is so different than
it was back then.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
How does Red State stay relevant?
Speaker 4 (13:26):
Well, as managing editor, and then I have a great
editorial team, we try to make sure that we're not
enforcing any kind of groupthink.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
Among our people.
Speaker 4 (13:34):
I hope that people that maybe haven't read Red State
in a while maybe have Some ideas of what we
were in the past will come and look again because
on our page, I publish routinely things that I don't
agree with that opinion, but it's still a conservative opinion.
Speaker 3 (13:52):
And I don't.
Speaker 4 (13:53):
Feel like it's right to kind of censor that. We
do a lot more breaking news than we did in
the past because just the marketplace has evolved that way.
And I think big tech censorship really changed the way
we did some things in a good way, because now
we're forced to, unlike the left, really back up what
we write so that it doesn't get taken down by
(14:14):
the fact checkers.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
Do you feel any pressure to fall in line with
what the conservative opinion is right now? Or do people
come there for the difference of opinion still from a
conservative perspective?
Speaker 3 (14:28):
Obviously, we always feel pressure, mostly from our commenters.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
Which, oh, yeah, the commenters are the only ones who
can comment.
Speaker 3 (14:36):
But still, you know, they they get really upset. And
it's funny. Sometimes I'll say, you never print.
Speaker 4 (14:41):
Such and such, you know, opposing opinion when we just
like if they looked on the front page. Sure. An
essay to that effect that they just haven't read. Everyone
gets this tunnel vision of that. Everything has to agree
with every bit of it. talk about, but I try,
it's tough, you know, because we're all human, but I
try to say, okay, well, we still just, we need
to be intellectually honest. And even sometimes if it's criticizing
(15:06):
things going on in the administration, you know, we try
to not just pile on, but we try to, what
I've told my writers is criticism is fine.
Speaker 3 (15:13):
Don't just say orange man bad though.
Speaker 4 (15:15):
You have to have like an actual constructive criticism of
why you think this certain policy isn't helpful or what
you think the effects will be that maybe they're not
taking into consideration and list that out.
Speaker 3 (15:28):
Don't just, it sucks.
Speaker 4 (15:30):
Right.
Speaker 3 (15:30):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
My favorite is when I post something, a link to
an article I wrote, and somebody will comment like, why
don't you say blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, I literally,
in the piece that you did not read, say blah, blah, blah.
And it's, yeah, it's tough because I think that the
criticism comes no matter what. And a site like Red
(15:52):
State that's been around for so long, I mean, I
imagine you get, you know, your.
Speaker 3 (15:56):
Share of it. Yeah, it's funny.
Speaker 4 (15:58):
The other day, I posted something about Google still throttling
our domain. And someone said, well, you know, you would
think as lefty as Eric Erickson is like that they
would have that in the bag. And I'm going, my gosh,
Eric has been with the site for 10 years. So
I know you don't read it if you don't know that.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
That's right. Yeah, people just associate it with him. And that's,
that's it. They just run with it. Plus lefty as
he is Eric Erickson. Come on.
Speaker 4 (16:22):
Right.
Speaker 3 (16:23):
Yeah, super lefty right, right there.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
We're going to take a quick break and be right
back on The Carol Markowitz Show.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
What are you most proud of in your life?
Speaker 4 (16:35):
I thought about this a long time because I obviously
the first thing I want to say is my kids.
I have three sons and they're all grown and two
of them are married and I have two granddaughters.
Speaker 1 (16:44):
Oh, amazing.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:45):
But then I'm thinking, I don't. I feel like God.
Speaker 4 (16:48):
Just gave me three amazing souls to be my children.
And I really didn't have to do a whole lot.
So I don't feel like I can be super proud
of them.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
I hear you.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (16:59):
But I am proud that they are each other's best friend.
My two older boys are just over two years apart.
And they fought like crazy when they were kids. And
I thought they're never going to talk to each other
when they're grown up. You know, my younger son is
nine years between him and my oldest. So he's the
He never really got beat up on by the other team.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
Right, right, yeah.
Speaker 4 (17:20):
But the older two, they talk to each other all day,
every day. They have a podcast together focused on hockey.
Speaker 3 (17:27):
They're best friends.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
That's awesome.
Speaker 4 (17:29):
They're still best friends. And I'm going, okay, so I
am proud that they're each other's best friends. And they
help each other financially. Yeah, so I'm very proud that
they are each other's best friends and that we just
all love to be together.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
That is such an amazing outcome.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
That's really all that I'm rooting for, for my kids
to grow up and get married and have kids and
be friends with each other.
Speaker 1 (17:53):
And what else really is there? And when their.
Speaker 3 (17:56):
Spouses get along too, it's perfect. It's huge.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
But my 10-year-old, I was telling him that I have
three questions that I ask all of my guests and
I change it. I change the three questions every year.
And this is my third set of questions. But I
said to him that one of the questions is, what
are you most proud of in your life? And I
asked him, what are you most proud of in your life?
And he said, my parents. And I was like, you
had nothing to do with who your parents are.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
What are you proud of?
Speaker 2 (18:20):
But I realized it's the same thing as when I
say I'm most proud of my kids. Like you're, you know,
did you have an effect? Maybe, hopefully, you know, it
couldn't just be presented. Give us a five year out
prediction and it could be about anything at all.
Speaker 4 (18:39):
I'm really bad at any political predictions or even on
my own life predictions because so many times I've looked
back and said, if someone told me five years ago,
this is what I'd be doing, I would have not
believed them. So I think I'm going to say that
the Dodgers will have another world championship in the next
five years. Hopefully a couple more. I know people love
to hate the Dodgers, but, you know, they're my teams.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
I'm from Brooklyn.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
So I have, even though, you know, obviously my family
wasn't even in America yet when the Dodgers left, but
I grew up with a sense of like, we have
been betrayed by this team who left us.
Speaker 3 (19:12):
Yes.
Speaker 4 (19:13):
I feel it because when the Rams left LA for St.
Louis for those years, like we were not allowed to
talk about them in our house.
Speaker 3 (19:19):
And now that they're back in LA, you know. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
When did the Dodgers last win?
Speaker 3 (19:24):
This year. Okay. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
So what do you... Please, you guys with your Dodgers....
Speaker 4 (19:31):
I don't know how many people have teams that three-peated
in baseball.
Speaker 3 (19:35):
I mean, I know basketball, there's been a few, but. Okay.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
I'm not, I don't follow baseball that closely, but so you,
you guys have won two years in a row and
now your prediction is a third one.
Speaker 4 (19:45):
Jennifer at some point in the next five years i'm
not gonna say this next year but some all right.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
Five years starting to sound like the patriots who like
you know had a few years off from going to
the super bowl and really bitter about it but you
know yeah all right maybe the dodgers come back in
the next five and win another one yes i don't
know if i'm gonna be rooting for that or not but.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
I'll think of you if it happens.
Speaker 3 (20:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
All right.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
I've loved this conversation, Jennifer.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
This has been really great getting to know you. Leave
us here with your best tip for my listeners on
how they can improve their lives.
Speaker 4 (20:20):
So it goes back to your question about what was
my plan B. And around that time that I started writing,
I realized that all the things that I'd done in
my life that were most successful had to do with storytelling,
whether it's laying out an investigative thing or even writing
something more from a personal perspective. So I've told myself
I'm a storyteller at heart and to just stay in
(20:41):
that lane. Whatever I'm going to do has to be
involved in telling a story. And that can take so
many forms. So my advice for success or one tip
for being happy is to find what it is that
you're really good at that you feel like you're called
to do and stay in that lane. Don't be influenced
by what other people are doing or try to be
somebody else.
Speaker 3 (21:01):
Be yourself and stick with that.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
I love that.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
I love the idea of sticking in your lane and
do what you're really good at and don't let other
people get in there or dissuade you from it.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
She's Jennifer Van Lark. Check her out at Red State.
Thank you so much for coming on, Jennifer.
Speaker 3 (21:18):
Thank you.
On iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
I've talked about this subject a lot and I hadn't
done a monologue in quite a while and wanted to
talk about this again because I got a note in
my email about this and also today Kat Rosenfield on
X posted, starting to think the plummeting birth rate might
have something to do with millennial women being immersed in
these motherhood as identity annihilation narratives for the entirety of
(00:34):
their fertile years.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
And I tweeted, I.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Talk often to counter this persistent messaging that motherhood is
the end of your life about the fact that my
career took off only after having children and my identity
and my purpose crystallized because of them. Having kids was
the beginning, not the end. I also got a note
about this recently. I wasn't sure if I was going
to answer this because it was a short note and
(00:58):
it's not Like when they don't have a lot of details,
it's tough for me to really give an answer. If
you're going to write to me for advice, as much
detail as possible, as much detail as you feel comfortable
giving me.
Speaker 1 (01:09):
Would be great. This is the note. Hi, Ms. Markowitz.
Speaker 2 (01:14):
You spoke at my school a few years ago and
I had asked a question about how you balance family
and career. I'm now 23 and still don't see how
you do it. I'm not dating anyone partially because I'm
afraid that adding a relationship to my life will be
too time consuming. I don't have a high pressure job,
but imagine I will one day. How do I balance everything?
(01:35):
The thing is, you just do it is the easy answer.
But the other thing is you're 23 and you're not
dating anyone. So you don't have a picture of what
your life actually will look like. Part of what gave
me the space to grow in my career and do
what I wanted to do was marrying the right person
(01:55):
who Let me explore things and let me try out things.
And that made me able to succeed at another level
than I ever would have without him. So if you're
23 and you're not dating anyone and you say you
don't have a higher pressure job, but imagine you will
one day, you might not.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
You don't know.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
I would say don't put the roadblocks in your way
in advance. See where you end up on this. A
lot of women are just given this message that marriage
and kids are the end, when in fact, for a
lot of women, it really will be the beginning of
you being able to do things. You have somebody who
(02:34):
contributes to your household, maybe doesn't support the entire household,
but at least half of it. You are given the
ability to try things that you might not have been
able to try otherwise. So this whole thing about women's
identity being destroyed and their careers being over as soon
as they have kids, just makes no sense to me.
And I feel like a lot of this is just
(02:56):
messaging made to ensure that women.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
Don't have kids.
Speaker 2 (03:01):
And I think that it's on purpose. It's to say,
you can't live a life that is enjoyable with children,
don't have children.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
It's scary.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
And I know that it's aimed at liberal women, but
I think the woman writing to me is a conservative woman.
I am assuming this because I spoke at her school.
I speak to conservative groups. I can imagine who this
person is even though she didn't say or what kind
of person this is. And it's not the blue-haired liberal
girl on the college campus. This is somebody serious who
(03:34):
wants children and wants to hear that it's going to
be okay. And this idea that it can't be okay
if you have kids and that your life will be
altered for the negative is one that is just pushed
on them so hard. This girl is saying, She doesn't
even have a boyfriend or a high-powered career, and she
(03:54):
already doesn't know how to balance them. You are told
that it's going to be so hard, but in fact,
it's not. In fact, when you're with the right person
and you have a career that you care about and
you know how to do well, it's not the image
you see online of the devastated woman who doesn't have
(04:14):
what she actually wanted. I think people who have the
marriage that they want and the career that they want,
It happens often and they just don't tell you about
it because it's hard to be like, hey, my life's
really great. I have this marriage and career that I
really like and really works for me. I don't think
that message gets spread enough and I'm here to spread it.
(04:35):
Thank you for listening and stay tuned for my interview
with Jennifer Van Laar. Hi, and welcome back to The
Carol Markowitz Show on iHeartRadio. My guest today is Jennifer
Van Laar. Jennifer is the managing editor of Red State
and an investigative journalist.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
Hi, Jennifer. So nice to have you on.
Speaker 3 (04:56):
So great to be here.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
So how did you get to this path?
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Where did you decide to be a writer and how
did you end up at Red State?
Speaker 3 (05:06):
So I'd always enjoyed writing.
Speaker 4 (05:08):
That was kind of my best class, you know, growing
up and going into high school. But outside of college,
I became a court reporter, like a stenographer in courtrooms, depositions.
And I worked for the state of North Carolina and
did about more than three dozen criminal first degree murder
trials from jury selection through verdict. So that was what
(05:28):
I did for 20 years while raising my kids. And
that really gave me such an insight into how people
build cases, which is really what you do as an
investigative journalist. So after I got divorced and I moved
home to California, I couldn't do court reporting there because
I used a different method than our regulatory scheme allowed.
(05:49):
So even though I had been the president of our
state association, all that, They wanted me to go back
to school.
Speaker 3 (05:54):
And I said, forget that.
Speaker 4 (05:56):
So I kind of got involved in political consulting, doing
some comms work for different candidates. Then I started writing
at Red State in 2016, right after that election and
just kind of moving from there.
Speaker 2 (06:09):
So I associate you very much with investigative journalism. Is
that your true love? It is.
Speaker 4 (06:19):
And it took me a little while to find it
because I liked doing more of the analysis or just
even the hot takes, you know, because there's so many things,
especially as a mom, you see people writing things and
you just want to go off on whatever their take
is on things. But once I started doing that and
my first big story ended up being kind of the
biggest story of my career so far, which was about
(06:40):
now former Representative Katie Hill and who was sexually harassing
her staff. And she also had issues with prescription drug abuse,
alcohol issues. She ended up resigning eight days after my
first report in that. And then I thought, okay, maybe
I might be able to do some of this stuff.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
Right.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
I was going to ask what your favorite story has been.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
Is that your favorite story that you've worked on?
Speaker 4 (07:04):
No, no, because that one brought so much terrible things
personally on top of like, even though it was a
great professional win. But I think my favorite one that
I think has made the most change was basically a
year and a half long examination of Ronna McDaniel's spending
at the RNC that resulted in President Trump firing her
(07:24):
and us getting a whole new RNC and then President
Trump winning.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
Yeah, I remember that very well, that those stories. Did
you get into a lot of trouble because you were
going after, quote unquote, your own side?
Speaker 1 (07:36):
Oh, yeah.
Speaker 4 (07:37):
And they tried to get us to not be able
to publish it. But, you know, I credit the late,
amazing Charlie Kirk. He kind of saw the writing on
the wall and I had been communicating with him what
I was finding. He said, well, come on my show
first and we'll give your findings. And that was before
the story was even published. So that whole night after that,
the people at the RNC were harassing me and my
(07:59):
publisher to not publish it. But really, you know, that
horse was already out of the barn. And I credit
Charlie for doing that.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
Yeah, he was brave.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
He really, I think, took chances that some people don't
take when attacking, you know, again, his own side.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
I think that was something that he did very, very,
very well.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (08:19):
What would you have done if this hadn't worked out?
Speaker 2 (08:22):
If you hadn't left court reporting and got into writing and,
you know, it doesn't work out for everyone, what would
have been the plan B?
Speaker 4 (08:29):
I didn't even have one. It kind of had to work.
I was a newly single mom of a teenage boy
that had a learning disability and also taking care of
my dad who had had a stroke, which is why
I moved back to California.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
So it just, it had to work. It's funny for
people listening.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
A lot of people say I had no plan B
and this had to work. And I wonder if there's
something to that when you don't have another option, when
there is no other possibility and this has to work out.
I wonder if that makes people kind of more motivated
to make it actually work.
Speaker 4 (09:01):
I think so, because my option was trying to find
some kind of secretarial job driving in from the suburbs
of L.A.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
And to West L.A.
Speaker 4 (09:09):
And being in a car four hours a day and
not just I was not going to.
Speaker 3 (09:13):
Allow that to happen.
Speaker 2 (09:14):
Right.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
What are you covering right now?
Speaker 4 (09:16):
So a lot of stuff on the Palisades fire and
watch my space over the next few weeks. There's some
deep dives into Gavin Newsom's personal finances. And let's just
say that he runs his personal finances the same way
he runs the state of California's finances.
Speaker 3 (09:32):
So it's pretty messy.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
So not that great.
Speaker 3 (09:34):
No.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
Do you root for California, though? I mean, you live there, right?
You you wanted to succeed. Did you have any hope?
Speaker 3 (09:43):
I do have hope and I absolutely want it to succeed.
Speaker 4 (09:45):
I think in Gavin Newsom touts, you know, the fifth
largest or sixth largest economy, you know, based on whichever
year he's talking about. And what people don't realize, it's
that in spite of Gavin Newsom, it's that in spite
of the Democrats and their terrible policies, there's so many
natural resources, so many human resources there with the brain talent.
(10:06):
And I've always said that the people that come to
California are the dreamers, the people who, you know, the
confines of the East Coast, were not for them and
they had a bigger vision. There's nothing wrong with that,
but it's just, they were different. They weren't going to
fit in there. And so they go out to California
and the thing, they do things that maybe, you know,
a stricter society wouldn't allow. And that's how we've came
(10:27):
up with so many great inventions in California and really
changed the world. And I'd like us to get back
to doing good things for the world instead of being
the incubator of bad ideas. Right.
Speaker 3 (10:37):
But you are optimistic that that could happen.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
I mean, that's saying something because I left New York
and I love New York and I root for it,
but I'm not optimistic about their future, you know.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
In the near future or in the far off future
right now.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
Right.
Speaker 3 (10:53):
I mean, we might or might not have hit rock
bottom yet.
Speaker 4 (10:55):
There might still be a rock bottom to hit. But yeah,
every the pendulum always swings back.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
You're a lifelong Californian. You grew up there.
Speaker 2 (11:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
So what do you love about it?
Speaker 4 (11:05):
1850s.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:07):
What do you love about it?
Speaker 3 (11:09):
I love the wide open spaces.
Speaker 4 (11:10):
It sounds like a weird dreamy thing, but just, you know,
when I lived back in North Carolina, which I love
North Carolina, but I felt so hemmed in by the
trees everywhere that were so tall, I couldn't see.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
I know exactly what you mean.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
And I love that.
Speaker 4 (11:23):
And I just love the, just kind of the attitude
of California, of the old school California, not the new weirdos,
but the old school where you're just an adventurer and
everything's possible. And you just love being in the outdoors
and just partaking in everything that it has to offer.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
Did the fires shift people's opinions?
Speaker 2 (11:42):
It seems like people who are natural, say liberals, woke
up after the fires and realized that the kind of
governance they had been living under just doesn't work. Are
you seeing that or is it just I'm looking for
it and that's why I'm seeing it?
Speaker 3 (11:56):
Now, I'm definitely seeing it.
Speaker 4 (11:57):
It's difficult for people to say it out loud still
because there's still so much societal pressure. But I saw
it when I was at Spencer Pratt's mayoral kickoff last week.
Speaker 3 (12:08):
He was saying something.
Speaker 4 (12:09):
He was even getting cheers when he was talking about
cooperating with ICE and cooperating with federal immigration enforcement and
just talking about how things have to change in the
way that Los Angeles is governed.
Speaker 3 (12:21):
Got so much loud cheers. And they were not.
Speaker 4 (12:23):
I've been to Republican events in California for a long time,
and it's usually a very old and white crowd. This
was a very young crowd and very diverse crowd. They
were not your general Republicans. And I think they felt
safe coming out of the closet at this event and
being among like-minded people. So I think that that's the
(12:44):
hope is And he's going to bring in this whole
new generation of people that maybe aren't your traditional conservative,
aren't social conservative, but who are like, OK, this isn't political.
It's common sense. We just have to have common sense.
So red state has been around a really long time.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
I mean, I remember the red state table at the
2004 Republican National Convention. I mean, they've really the site
has been through a lot of time periods in.
Speaker 1 (13:11):
Our political history.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
How do you keep it fresh and new and kind
of moving in the direction when things keep changing so rapidly?
I mean, the Republican Party today is so different than
it was back then.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
How does Red State stay relevant?
Speaker 4 (13:26):
Well, as managing editor, and then I have a great
editorial team, we try to make sure that we're not
enforcing any kind of groupthink.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
Among our people.
Speaker 4 (13:34):
I hope that people that maybe haven't read Red State
in a while maybe have Some ideas of what we
were in the past will come and look again because
on our page, I publish routinely things that I don't
agree with that opinion, but it's still a conservative opinion.
Speaker 3 (13:52):
And I don't.
Speaker 4 (13:53):
Feel like it's right to kind of censor that. We
do a lot more breaking news than we did in
the past because just the marketplace has evolved that way.
And I think big tech censorship really changed the way
we did some things in a good way, because now
we're forced to, unlike the left, really back up what
we write so that it doesn't get taken down by
(14:14):
the fact checkers.
Speaker 2 (14:16):
Do you feel any pressure to fall in line with
what the conservative opinion is right now? Or do people
come there for the difference of opinion still from a
conservative perspective?
Speaker 3 (14:28):
Obviously, we always feel pressure, mostly from our commenters.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
Which, oh, yeah, the commenters are the only ones who
can comment.
Speaker 3 (14:36):
But still, you know, they they get really upset. And
it's funny. Sometimes I'll say, you never print.
Speaker 4 (14:41):
Such and such, you know, opposing opinion when we just
like if they looked on the front page. Sure. An
essay to that effect that they just haven't read. Everyone
gets this tunnel vision of that. Everything has to agree
with every bit of it. talk about, but I try,
it's tough, you know, because we're all human, but I
try to say, okay, well, we still just, we need
to be intellectually honest. And even sometimes if it's criticizing
(15:06):
things going on in the administration, you know, we try
to not just pile on, but we try to, what
I've told my writers is criticism is fine.
Speaker 3 (15:13):
Don't just say orange man bad though.
Speaker 4 (15:15):
You have to have like an actual constructive criticism of
why you think this certain policy isn't helpful or what
you think the effects will be that maybe they're not
taking into consideration and list that out.
Speaker 3 (15:28):
Don't just, it sucks.
Speaker 4 (15:30):
Right.
Speaker 3 (15:30):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
My favorite is when I post something, a link to
an article I wrote, and somebody will comment like, why
don't you say blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, I literally,
in the piece that you did not read, say blah, blah, blah.
And it's, yeah, it's tough because I think that the
criticism comes no matter what. And a site like Red
(15:52):
State that's been around for so long, I mean, I
imagine you get, you know, your.
Speaker 3 (15:56):
Share of it. Yeah, it's funny.
Speaker 4 (15:58):
The other day, I posted something about Google still throttling
our domain. And someone said, well, you know, you would
think as lefty as Eric Erickson is like that they
would have that in the bag. And I'm going, my gosh,
Eric has been with the site for 10 years. So
I know you don't read it if you don't know that.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
That's right. Yeah, people just associate it with him. And that's,
that's it. They just run with it. Plus lefty as
he is Eric Erickson. Come on.
Speaker 4 (16:22):
Right.
Speaker 3 (16:23):
Yeah, super lefty right, right there.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
We're going to take a quick break and be right
back on The Carol Markowitz Show.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
What are you most proud of in your life?
Speaker 4 (16:35):
I thought about this a long time because I obviously
the first thing I want to say is my kids.
I have three sons and they're all grown and two
of them are married and I have two granddaughters.
Speaker 1 (16:44):
Oh, amazing.
Speaker 2 (16:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:45):
But then I'm thinking, I don't. I feel like God.
Speaker 4 (16:48):
Just gave me three amazing souls to be my children.
And I really didn't have to do a whole lot.
So I don't feel like I can be super proud
of them.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
I hear you.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (16:59):
But I am proud that they are each other's best friend.
My two older boys are just over two years apart.
And they fought like crazy when they were kids. And
I thought they're never going to talk to each other
when they're grown up. You know, my younger son is
nine years between him and my oldest. So he's the
He never really got beat up on by the other team.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
Right, right, yeah.
Speaker 4 (17:20):
But the older two, they talk to each other all day,
every day. They have a podcast together focused on hockey.
Speaker 3 (17:27):
They're best friends.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
That's awesome.
Speaker 4 (17:29):
They're still best friends. And I'm going, okay, so I
am proud that they're each other's best friends. And they
help each other financially. Yeah, so I'm very proud that
they are each other's best friends and that we just
all love to be together.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
That is such an amazing outcome.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
That's really all that I'm rooting for, for my kids
to grow up and get married and have kids and
be friends with each other.
Speaker 1 (17:53):
And what else really is there? And when their.
Speaker 3 (17:56):
Spouses get along too, it's perfect. It's huge.
Speaker 2 (18:00):
But my 10-year-old, I was telling him that I have
three questions that I ask all of my guests and
I change it. I change the three questions every year.
And this is my third set of questions. But I
said to him that one of the questions is, what
are you most proud of in your life? And I
asked him, what are you most proud of in your life?
And he said, my parents. And I was like, you
had nothing to do with who your parents are.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
What are you proud of?
Speaker 2 (18:20):
But I realized it's the same thing as when I
say I'm most proud of my kids. Like you're, you know,
did you have an effect? Maybe, hopefully, you know, it
couldn't just be presented. Give us a five year out
prediction and it could be about anything at all.
Speaker 4 (18:39):
I'm really bad at any political predictions or even on
my own life predictions because so many times I've looked
back and said, if someone told me five years ago,
this is what I'd be doing, I would have not
believed them. So I think I'm going to say that
the Dodgers will have another world championship in the next
five years. Hopefully a couple more. I know people love
to hate the Dodgers, but, you know, they're my teams.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
I'm from Brooklyn.
Speaker 2 (19:02):
So I have, even though, you know, obviously my family
wasn't even in America yet when the Dodgers left, but
I grew up with a sense of like, we have
been betrayed by this team who left us.
Speaker 3 (19:12):
Yes.
Speaker 4 (19:13):
I feel it because when the Rams left LA for St.
Louis for those years, like we were not allowed to
talk about them in our house.
Speaker 3 (19:19):
And now that they're back in LA, you know. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
When did the Dodgers last win?
Speaker 3 (19:24):
This year. Okay. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
So what do you... Please, you guys with your Dodgers....
Speaker 4 (19:31):
I don't know how many people have teams that three-peated
in baseball.
Speaker 3 (19:35):
I mean, I know basketball, there's been a few, but. Okay.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
I'm not, I don't follow baseball that closely, but so you,
you guys have won two years in a row and
now your prediction is a third one.
Speaker 4 (19:45):
Jennifer at some point in the next five years i'm
not gonna say this next year but some all right.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
Five years starting to sound like the patriots who like
you know had a few years off from going to
the super bowl and really bitter about it but you
know yeah all right maybe the dodgers come back in
the next five and win another one yes i don't
know if i'm gonna be rooting for that or not but.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
I'll think of you if it happens.
Speaker 3 (20:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
All right.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
I've loved this conversation, Jennifer.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
This has been really great getting to know you. Leave
us here with your best tip for my listeners on
how they can improve their lives.
Speaker 4 (20:20):
So it goes back to your question about what was
my plan B. And around that time that I started writing,
I realized that all the things that I'd done in
my life that were most successful had to do with storytelling,
whether it's laying out an investigative thing or even writing
something more from a personal perspective. So I've told myself
I'm a storyteller at heart and to just stay in
(20:41):
that lane. Whatever I'm going to do has to be
involved in telling a story. And that can take so
many forms. So my advice for success or one tip
for being happy is to find what it is that
you're really good at that you feel like you're called
to do and stay in that lane. Don't be influenced
by what other people are doing or try to be
somebody else.
Speaker 3 (21:01):
Be yourself and stick with that.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
I love that.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
I love the idea of sticking in your lane and
do what you're really good at and don't let other
people get in there or dissuade you from it.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
She's Jennifer Van Lark. Check her out at Red State.
Thank you so much for coming on, Jennifer.
Speaker 3 (21:18):
Thank you.
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