Indefensible: The Jena Friedman Interview

Important reminder! We’re phone banking with our friends at Indivisible for Reverend Raphael Warnock who we need to keep in the Senate, because he’s a good person; Dems need a 51 majority in the Senate to have a stronger hand negotiating with the ruthless GOP/Manchin/Sinema; and we cannot normalize bonkers Herschel Walker in the Senate for six years. And finally, the Senate map is abysmal for Dems in 2024 so we must ensure Warnock wins the December 6th Georgia runoff to stand a chance of keeping the Senate majority. Join us at any or all of the below phone banks. We’re selecting one volunteer at each event to receive a signed copy of Sarah’s new book They Knew and a Mr. Jones film poster! Sign up here:

• Thursday, December 1st 6:00pm - 8:00pm ET
• Monday, December 5th 5:00pm - 7:00pm ET

Comedian Jena Friedman has a long career in stand-up comedy and production, which has often earned her harrassment online from the MAGA crowd and Kremlin trolls. In this interview, Andrea discusses the role of comedy in a time of dictatorship, who's afraid of a good abortion joke?, Jena's 2016 election night live TV moment that still earns her hate messages, and how far comedy has come, or not, for women, whom Christopher Hitchens once declared are inherently not funny.   We're grateful for the fearless comedy of people like Jena working on the frontlines of white male patriarchy grievance and their culture wars. If you like Gaslit Nation, check out Jena's series True Crime Story: Indefensible on the Sundance Channel and AMC+ streaming, available on Amazon, YouTube, and several other places here. Indefensible pulls back the veil on legal warfare and corruption in America in the style of The Daily Show, Jena's old stomping grounds where she worked as a producer. Also, check out her stand-up comedy on reproductive healthcare, violence against women, and other lighthearted subjects called Lady Killer, streaming on Peacock.    In our bonus episode for our Patreon subscribers, Sarah and Andrea discuss the disinformation war in Elon Musk's battle against Twitter and why he spent $44 billion on the site now, especially as his chaos endangers an important plaform that has brought so many of us together in the fight for our democracies and against global corruption. That's a conversation not to miss as it puts our struggles here in the US in greater perspective. Sign up to access that and our full back catalogue of bonus episodes by signing up at the Truth-teller level or higher on Patreon. Thank you all for your support of the show and for keeping our independent journalism alive in a time of emboldened far-right oligarchs.

This content originally appeared on Gaslit Nation with Andrea Chalupa and Sarah Kendzior and was authored by Andrea Chalupa & Sarah Kendzior.