Read: The art of navigating a family political discussion, peacefully

Jesse started receiving these text-message reviews of his performance after he joined The Five in the spring of 2017. “I used to read them to my co-hosts, and everyone just got a kick out of it,” he told me. He doesn’t remember if it was his idea or a producer’s to read them on air, but, he said, “I always thought they were gold.”

They are indeed amusing. “Please pronounce your ‘ings.’ The word is ‘putting’ not ‘puttin’,’” Anne advised her son two years ago. And after Jesse wore a salmon-pink blazer on the show in spring 2018, she texted him saying that he looked like a “ferris wheel operator.”

Anne also routinely addresses their serious differences head-on. One Mom Text was “Do your research about border security—you don’t sound like you have any facts!” Another was “I hope your Squad criticism can be just a tad more measured today … Please don’t sound like an old white guy who lacks any understanding of otherness.” A media personality might hear similar statements from any online commenter. But the thing that distinguished those two messages was the parental warmth of their final beats: The first ended with “You look tired—after a vacation?” and the second with “Love you so.” Even as Anne has taken issue with her son’s commentary on the House impeachment hearings, she has sprinkled some affection into her messages: “Please be assured that despite your WRETCHED political orientation I love you forever!” read a text broadcast last week.

“I always laugh,” Jesse said of how he reacts when the texts come in. Sometimes he sees them during commercial breaks, and usually his responses are acknowledgements of her messages: “I’ll [send a] thumbs-up or a ‘Hahaha’ or an emoji—laughing, crying, something like that.” The messages don’t have any effect on his political beliefs, though, he said. “She's always telling me two things that are constant in these texts: One, stop screaming. And two, don't be too much of a Trump supporter. I don't really listen to either.”

“By pressing send, I actually find the action clarifying and clearing,” Anne, a child psychologist in Long Island, wrote to me in an email. “Next I pause, quietly hoping that he heeds just a moment of my perspective (and ire). And then, more times than not, I shake my head in disbelief and remark to my husband, ‘Can you believe that boy!!! Can you believe he said that! That’s typical. That’s my Jesse! Look at that grin and those sparkly eyes!’ Despite my degree of outrage, I have to laugh.” (Anne declined a phone interview but agreed to respond to written questions.)

Jesse thinks that “Mom Texts” makes for good TV because it “humanizes” him: “It’s even funnier that it’s my mom—everybody can relate to it … It’s just another layer to getting to know, or feeling like you know, the host.”