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Episode One Hundred Eighty Five: Zuck's Regret · The Death Of Journalism

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Speaker 1: Wilcome episode number one hundred and eighty five of the
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Speaker 1: Death of Journalism podcast.
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Speaker 2: My name is John Zigler. I'm your host on today's show.
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Speaker 1: Mark Zuckerberg apologizes for censoring Facebook users at the last
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Speaker 1: of the Biden administration during COVID and I make a
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Speaker 1: very interesting TV appearance about it. Kamala Harris is finally
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Speaker 1: going to do a real media interview, sort of more
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Speaker 1: evidence that Trump should be running against the state of
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Speaker 1: California and not Kamala. And a preview of the new
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Speaker 1: era of college football that you will absolutely not hear
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Speaker 1: anywhere else.
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Speaker 2: We begin this episode with the rather startling.
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Speaker 1: Development that the owner of Facebook Meta, Mark Zuckerberg, wrote
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Speaker 1: a letter to Congressman Jim Jordan, where he expressed regret
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Speaker 1: for having censored Facebook users on two specific subjects, one
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Speaker 1: the COVID panic and specifically the twenty one twenty twenty
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Speaker 1: two era where the Biden administration was still trying to
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Speaker 1: enforce vaccine and mask mandates, as well as during the
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Speaker 1: twenty twenty election, where Facebook censored commentarian stories regarding the
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Speaker 1: Hunter Biden laptop situation. And this has gotten understandably a
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Speaker 1: lot of press for a number of reasons. First of all,
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Speaker 1: as we've discussed in this podcast many times, free speech
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Speaker 1: is under attack in the Western world, especially in Europe,
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Speaker 1: but even here in the United States. I mean, we
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Speaker 1: currently have a vice presidential candidate, Tim Wall who is
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Speaker 1: on record on television saying he does not believe in
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Speaker 1: the First Amendment, doesn't understand the First Amendment, doesn't.
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Speaker 2: Believe that certain.
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Speaker 1: Types of speech that are absolutely covered under the First
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Speaker 1: Amendment should be or are protected by our constitution. That's
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Speaker 1: just one of many, many examples of where free speech
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Speaker 1: is under attack. It wasn't for Elon Musk having purchased Twitter,
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Speaker 1: I would say that we would be in a massive
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Speaker 1: crisis situation currently regarding free speech. I still think we're
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Speaker 1: going to be in a crisis situation in this country
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Speaker 1: in the not too distant future, because I think we
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Speaker 1: are bringing up an entire generation. In fact, we may
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Speaker 1: have already brought up an entire generation that has no
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Speaker 1: understanding or respect for free speech. And I see this
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Speaker 1: all the time, especially here in California, in our public
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Speaker 1: school system.
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Speaker 2: You may recall that.
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Speaker 1: I've been battling mildly because my wife cut my balls off.
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Speaker 1: I've been battling our local school district over this program
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Speaker 1: they have called Say No to Hate, which is one
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Speaker 1: of these classic liberal education programs. It sounds great, everyone
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Speaker 1: signals their virtue, but in fact it is a grave
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Speaker 1: threat to free speech, and it teaches kids that there
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Speaker 1: are certain things you're not allowed to say, that they're
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Speaker 1: wrong to say, that it's okay to punish people for
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Speaker 1: saying when that's not the way this country is supposed
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Speaker 1: to work. And you're basically indoctrinating kids into.
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Speaker 2: Believing that this is totally appropriate.
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Speaker 1: And we just came through a COVID panic where it
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Speaker 1: absolutely happened in very significant ways by media outlets that
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Speaker 1: are supposed to be bastions a free speech. Now, thankfully
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Speaker 1: Elon Musk corrected the many mistakes that Twitter made during
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Speaker 1: the COVID panic. Mark Zuckerberg still owns Meta or Facebook,
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Speaker 1: and he wrote this letter to Jim Jordan where he
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Speaker 1: expresses regret overdoing this.
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Speaker 2: Now, there are a couple of important points to this letter.
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Speaker 1: Number one is that he is acknowledging very clearly, more
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Speaker 1: clearly than I think he's ever done before, that what
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Speaker 1: Facebook did, especially during COVID was at the request quote
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Speaker 1: unquote of the Biden administration. Effectively, he's admitting we did
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Speaker 1: this because the federal government intimidated us into doing it. Now,
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Speaker 1: it's important to point out, and some people have mocked
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Speaker 1: Trump's reaction to this story because he seemingly is saying
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Speaker 1: that he was not president in twenty twenty when the
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Speaker 1: Hunter Biden laptop story was censored.
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Speaker 2: So therefore, you know.
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Speaker 1: How could the Trump administration be the culprit here for
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Speaker 1: forcing Facebook into censoring this stuff? And that was the
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Speaker 1: intelligence agencies, which clearly we're not aligned with Donald Trump
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Speaker 1: in many ways, especially in twenty twenty, it was still
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Speaker 1: the federal government. It was just different elements of the
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Speaker 1: federal government forcing or coercing Facebook into censoring these two stories.
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Speaker 1: And let's be clear, one of the reasons why this
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Speaker 1: is not just a request, this this is intimidation. It
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Speaker 1: is because, first of all, the federal government has enormous
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Speaker 1: power over everybody in this day and age, unfortunately, but
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Speaker 1: especially when it comes to social media. Social media is
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Speaker 1: still a relatively new entity and therefore is vulnerable to
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Speaker 1: new regulations and restrictions by the federal government. So therefore,
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Speaker 1: even though it may not be overt there's an implication that, hey,
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Speaker 1: you know, if you don't want us to screw with you,
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Speaker 1: do what we're asking you to do. That's not what
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Speaker 1: Zuckerberg says, but I think that's a pretty fair assessment
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Speaker 1: of why it is that zucker would have gone along
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Speaker 1: with this and why he now regrets going along with
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Speaker 1: it now. I wish he would have been a little
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Speaker 1: bit more specific in this letter about what he actually
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Speaker 1: regrets some of the content that was censored that he regrets,
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Speaker 1: because there's been a, I think a misperception that one
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Speaker 1: of the key elements of the COVID era censorship was
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Speaker 1: related to parody or sattire or people making jokes about
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Speaker 1: the restrictions or the things that the government was doing,
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Speaker 1: which would be outrageous because in my view, satire parody
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Speaker 1: should basically almost always be protected as free speech. And
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Speaker 1: I get we're in a hazy area, you know, the
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Speaker 1: Facebook and meta private company, although this is where the
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Speaker 1: First Amendment I do think comes in. When the federal
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Speaker 1: government is urging a company that they may have leverage
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Speaker 1: over to censor a story and they go ahead and
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Speaker 1: do it, that's very dangerous territory. But I think that
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Speaker 1: this went way beyond, way beyond the parody of the satire.
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Speaker 1: It also went way beyond misinformation.
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Speaker 2: See.
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Speaker 1: I think this is one of the pieces of misinformation
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Speaker 1: about this story, is that there's a perception, especially among
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Speaker 1: the left. Well, you know, yeah, I guess philosophically, maybe
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Speaker 1: we went too far, but it was well intentioned and
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Speaker 1: we were right because we were just cracking down on
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Speaker 1: people telling lies that might have been threatening the safety
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Speaker 1: or the security or the medical well being of our
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Speaker 1: fellow citizens. And so yeah, okay, no real harm, no
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Speaker 1: real foul, because this was just false information that was
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Speaker 1: being censored. That's flat out not true. That is misinformation.
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Speaker 1: There was absolutely accurate information that was being censored. And
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Speaker 1: with regard to the Hunter Biden's story, that turned out
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Speaker 1: to be effectively one hundred percent true. That story got
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Speaker 1: mocked out of The New York Post by major media outlets.
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Speaker 1: Joe Scarborough just went viral the other day from an
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Speaker 1: old clip that he had created about him, or because
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Speaker 1: of a commentary he made on Mourning Joe on MSNBC
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Speaker 1: where he went out of his way to mock people
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Speaker 1: who were believing the Hunter Biden laptop was real.
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Speaker 2: Well, it was real.
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Speaker 1: And somehow Joe Scarborough, despite this and many other reasons
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Speaker 1: why he shouldn't be, is still the successful morning show
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Speaker 1: host on MSNBC along with his wife Meeker Brazinski.
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Speaker 2: But anyway, I talk about Morning Joe all the time.
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Speaker 1: Because I'm just absolutely baffled as to how Joe Scarborough
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Speaker 1: has been able to navigate this minefield, with all the
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Speaker 1: mistakes that he's made, all the times that he's been
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Speaker 1: exposed as a fraud former conservative Republican, and he's the
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Speaker 1: morning show host on the liberal network.
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Speaker 2: It's just absolutely mind blowing. But I digress.
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Speaker 1: So this letter I thought was a very significant move
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Speaker 1: by Zuckerberg. It was a at least a hint of
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Speaker 1: accountability where we have had none, as I've talked about
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Speaker 1: many many times on this podcast. Where will there be
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Speaker 1: some semblance of accountability for all of the massive outrages
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Speaker 1: that occurred during specifically the COVID panic. And this was
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Speaker 1: one small, but I think significant one, And for a
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Speaker 1: lot of people like myself, it felt like vindication because one,
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Speaker 1: we've been screaming about the anti free speech elements.
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Speaker 2: Of what happened.
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Speaker 1: But two, and this is why I wish Suckerberg would
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Speaker 1: have been more specific in the letter. I think from
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Speaker 1: a substantive standpoint, we've also been vindicated because Zuckerberg wouldn't
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Speaker 1: be doing this, in my opinion, if the information that
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Speaker 1: was censored didn't turn out to be right. I really
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Speaker 1: think that's an important threshold, and I wish he would
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Speaker 1: have been more clear and specific about this. Now, why
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Speaker 1: did Zuckerberg do this? This is an interesting question, and
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Speaker 1: I have a very smart friend of mine from high
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Speaker 1: school who's a subscriber to this podcast, Dave Petrucco, who
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Speaker 1: I've mentioned many times before, and he raised this issue
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Speaker 1: with me via text because he thinks, and I don't
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Speaker 1: think this is a bad take at all.
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Speaker 2: This is why I'm mentioning it.
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Speaker 1: He thinks that this is an indication that Zuckerberg doesn't
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Speaker 1: believe the Democrats are about to have a tsunami election
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Speaker 1: where they're in total control of everything, and in fact,
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Speaker 1: he thinks that maybe Trump will be president because you know.
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Speaker 2: Zuckerberg's a data guy.
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Speaker 1: He has access to more data than just about anybody,
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Speaker 1: real world data.
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Speaker 2: And you'll hear he is writing a letter to very.
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Speaker 1: Pro Trump conservative Congressman Jim Jordan right in the middle
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Speaker 1: of an all season and let's be clear, in a
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Speaker 1: rational world. Now, unfortunately, I have no faith that the
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Speaker 1: Trump team's going to be able to do this. But
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Speaker 1: in the rational world, this was a hell of a
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Speaker 1: weapon to give to the Trump team. You have Mark Zuckerberg,
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Speaker 1: member of the liberal elite, putting down on paper to
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Speaker 1: a Republican congressman that Joe Biden and Biden Harris administration
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Speaker 1: censored truthful information and.
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Speaker 2: Here they are claiming to be the party.
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Speaker 1: Of democracy and freedom. I mean, that should be a
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Speaker 1: heck of a weapon. I doubt that the Trump team
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Speaker 1: will be able to use it. Unfortunately, obviously, when it
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Speaker 1: comes to COVID, everything gets blurred because Trump was the
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Speaker 1: president when all when the panic all began, and I've
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Speaker 1: been very, very very very critical of how Trump handled
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Speaker 1: that whole situation. But back to the political element of this,
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Speaker 1: it certainly doesn't seem like the action of a guy
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Speaker 1: who thinks that Democrats are about to control everything. Because
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Speaker 1: if Zuckerberg did think that, then only ask to do
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Speaker 1: is delay. Jim Jordan might be powerless in a few
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Speaker 1: months because the Democrats will take the House.
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Speaker 2: And if Harriss president, I mean, this isn't going to
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Speaker 2: do anything.
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Speaker 1: There's nothing that they can do to Meta or Facebook,
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Speaker 1: and so I acknowledge that that's an interesting element to this. However,
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Speaker 1: I think there's a possible explanation. One is it's possible
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Speaker 1: that Zuckerberg actually cares about the truth. And two, you know,
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Speaker 1: Zuckerberg just turned forty years old, and you know, for
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Speaker 1: a lot of people, you know this is a cliche,
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Speaker 1: but I think there's truth to it. When you'd start
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Speaker 1: to turn forty and you've seen the real world and
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Speaker 1: you've lived a you know, at least half, you're about
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Speaker 1: half your life, and you start to learn the way
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Speaker 1: things really work. And if you're a smart guy, which
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Speaker 1: Zuckerberg clearly is, you naturally tend to become less liberal,
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Speaker 1: especially in modern times when the modern liberalism is completely
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Speaker 1: batshit crazy. So it's possible that Zuckerberg is just going
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Speaker 1: through his normal evolution of thought as a forty year
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Speaker 1: old man. I do think it was interesting that on
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Speaker 1: the fourth of July he posted a video of himself
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Speaker 1: on Instagram surfing in a tuxedo while holding the American
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Speaker 1: flag and drinking a beer.
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Speaker 2: I mean, that's not.
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Speaker 1: Exactly liberal behavior. So I think there could be a
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Speaker 1: lot of things going on here that are all true
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Speaker 1: at once, and one of them is I think that
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Speaker 1: Mark Zuckerberg is not nearly as liberal as he used
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Speaker 1: to be. He also praised Trump after the assassination attempt,
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Speaker 1: which is something we discussed on the podcast.
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Speaker 2: So I'm not.
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Speaker 1: Necessarily a belief that this is a aha. Mark Zuckerberg
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Speaker 1: knows something that we don't know, and he's preparing for
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Speaker 1: Republican control after the election. I don't think that's it.
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Speaker 1: I think there's probably a little bit of everything going
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Speaker 1: on here, and I'm glad that he did it because
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Speaker 1: it was it was important from a historical record perspective,
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Speaker 1: and also I think it's important that people understand that
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Speaker 1: the Democratic Party claiming to be the party of freedom
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Speaker 1: is nothing of the sort. And they proved it in
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Speaker 1: many many ways, but one of them was the way
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Speaker 1: they censored proactively.
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Speaker 2: I mean, just unbelievable to me that we're even.
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Speaker 1: Discussing that's that the US federal government proactively got a
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Speaker 1: social media company to censor information that turned out to
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Speaker 1: be truthful about a really important public issue.
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Speaker 2: It's just amazing, and it just it does indicate just.
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Speaker 1: Harf how far and how quickly we have fall in
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Speaker 1: and how dangerous the slippery slope is when it comes
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Speaker 1: to the sanctity of free speech. Now, in the aftermath
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Speaker 1: of Zuckerberg's letter, there was a lot of media coverage,
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Speaker 1: and I got contacted to do a TV appearance on
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Speaker 1: News Nation television, where I'm on about every other week,
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Speaker 1: and I'm almost always on with Dan Abrams, who hosts
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Speaker 1: the primetime show on News Nation, but on this particular occasion,
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Speaker 1: Dan is on vacation, and so Elizabeth Vargas was going
15:34
Speaker 1: to be the fill in host for Dan, and a
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Speaker 1: producer asked me if I would come on to discuss
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Speaker 1: the Zuckerberg letter, and I'm like, great, this is perfect
15:44
Speaker 1: for me for reasons that are obvious to anybody who
15:46
Speaker 1: knows anything about me, and so I agreed to do it.
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Speaker 1: And so I plan the rest of my day around this,
15:54
Speaker 1: and you know, I have to make certain arrangements to
15:56
Speaker 1: make sure that I could set up my studio, and
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Speaker 1: we have to move dinner up a little bit early
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Speaker 1: so that we're done by the time that I do
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Speaker 1: the appearance in our in my makeshift home studio, because
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Speaker 1: they don't have enough resources to send a TV truck
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Speaker 1: for you know, non celebrities like me, and so you know,
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Speaker 1: that's the way I'm expecting this to go for a
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Speaker 1: couple of hours, and then I get contacted by the producer. Hey,
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Speaker 1: and the way they phrased it was a little bit unusual. Hey, uh,
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Speaker 1: we're gonna have a congressman, uh do this segment?
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Speaker 2: So thanks. Anyway, I'm like, so, did you just bump me?
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Speaker 1: Because that's what it sounds like you're doing so a
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Speaker 1: language that was unclear, and yeah, sorry, And instead of
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Speaker 1: being nice about it, which I normally am, I was
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Speaker 1: a bit more prickly in my response, basically saying that
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Speaker 1: this was very disrespectful, but okay, live and learn. And
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Speaker 1: it was obvious that the producer was I think felt
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Speaker 1: badly about it. I've had a good relationship with this
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Speaker 1: producer and it's obvious it wasn't their decision. But it
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Speaker 1: made me think, Okay, so I wonder how this happened.
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Speaker 1: Is it possible that they just stumbled across some congressman. Now,
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Speaker 1: if it had been Jim Jordan, I would have been like, yeah,
17:16
Speaker 1: that makes total sense.
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Speaker 2: Have Jim Jordan on.
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Speaker 1: He was the one that Zuckerberg sent the letter to
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Speaker 1: but I was positive it wasn't Jim Jordan, because they
17:23
Speaker 1: would have told me if it was. And so I
17:26
Speaker 1: was like, that's that's weird. But one of the things
17:29
Speaker 1: that crossed my mind is that is it possible that
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Speaker 1: Elizabeth Vargas remembered me from an episode about ten or
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Speaker 1: eleven years ago and decided that it wouldn't be a
17:42
Speaker 1: good idea to have me on.
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Speaker 2: I didn't know this. I wasn't sure, but I was like.
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Speaker 1: Okay, that's weird, because you know, and this is a
17:50
Speaker 1: very small business, and I talk all the time about
17:53
Speaker 1: six Degrees of John Zigler, and this is clearly a
17:57
Speaker 1: story that fits into that category.
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Speaker 2: I think it was.
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Speaker 1: It was at least ten, It might have been eleven
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Speaker 1: years ago during the entire Steubenville rate case, which I've
18:08
Speaker 1: discussed multiple times in this podcast. I've described it as
18:12
Speaker 1: kind of the sun of the Penn State case, and
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Speaker 1: it involved a high school football team in Stubenville, Ohio,
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Speaker 1: about which I had written a book many many years
18:21
Speaker 1: ago with the same head coach, Reno Sukosh had spent
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Speaker 1: an entire calendar year with this high school football team
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Speaker 1: after having covered them for two seasons as a television
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Speaker 1: sportscaster at the NBC affiliate in Steubenville, Wheeling, just outside
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Speaker 1: of Pittsburgh, where I began my television sportscasting career. And so,
18:42
Speaker 1: ten or eleven years ago, this story explodes. There's so
18:46
Speaker 1: much misinformation. The media is running with a false narrative
18:50
Speaker 1: that they're trying to create this football cover up storyline
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Speaker 1: for and ABC twenty twenty is going to do an
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Speaker 1: hour on the entire story. And at that time, Elizabeth
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Speaker 1: Vargas was the co host of twenty twenty. And so
19:08
Speaker 1: I go to Steubenville a couple times, and I'm in
19:11
Speaker 1: Steubenville when they're going to do this this story to
19:15
Speaker 1: try to help Reno through it, and Elizabeth Vargas calls me.
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Speaker 1: I forget exactly how this happens, but she was pitching
19:24
Speaker 1: me to do an interview.
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Speaker 2: I wasn't going to do an interview.
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Speaker 1: She I guess would do the interview with Reno Sukosh,
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Speaker 1: the football coach at Steubenville High School, and he wasn't
19:33
Speaker 1: doing any interviews. In fact, I had actually come to
19:37
Speaker 1: Steubenville previously to do a mock interview with Reno because
19:42
Speaker 1: I was thinking about having him go on the Today's Show,
19:45
Speaker 1: because I was in contact with Matt Lauer at the
19:48
Speaker 1: time and his producer and they had expressed interest. And
19:53
Speaker 1: I came to Steubenville kind of just to see whether
19:56
Speaker 1: not Reno could do a Matt Lauer style interview, which
19:59
Speaker 1: I knew would be very, very dangerous. And let's just
20:02
Speaker 1: say the mackt interview did not go well, not because
20:06
Speaker 1: Reno was guilty, but because Reno's an asshole and doesn't
20:09
Speaker 1: understand how to do this kind of stuff. And so
20:12
Speaker 1: I put the kebash on any interviews with Reno. I
20:17
Speaker 1: was not going to allow Reno to do any interviews
20:19
Speaker 1: at all unless it was absolutely mandatory. And Elizabeth Vargas
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Speaker 1: was giving me this song and dance about how she
20:28
Speaker 1: was from rural America. She was a high school football
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Speaker 1: cheerleader and she understands places like Steubenville and she would be,
20:35
Speaker 1: you know, a great person to hear Reno's side of the.
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Speaker 2: Story, and I was not buying it.
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Speaker 1: I was like, well, look, we're just not doing it
20:41
Speaker 1: any interviews at this time, but I would really like
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Speaker 1: for Reno to be able to have a statement, you know,
20:49
Speaker 1: at the end of twenty twenty, which is you know
20:51
Speaker 1: they do this for serial murderers on twenty twenty, where
20:55
Speaker 1: at the end, after spending fifty six minutes convicting somebody,
20:59
Speaker 1: they'll let them have, you know, a couple of sentences
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Speaker 1: to give their side of the story, even.
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Speaker 2: If they don't do an interview.
21:06
Speaker 1: And she said, yeah, sure, you know, if you want
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Speaker 1: to get us a statement, that would be great.
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Speaker 2: And so I go back to Reno.
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Speaker 1: And I mean, God, getting anything out of Reno was
21:16
Speaker 1: like blood from a rock. And it took an enormous
21:21
Speaker 1: amount of effort for me to get two sentences, two
21:25
Speaker 1: sentences that Reno would approve of that could be put
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Speaker 1: on ABC twenty twenty at the end of this hour
21:33
Speaker 1: long basically hit piece on his football program in the
21:38
Speaker 1: city of Steubenville.
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Speaker 2: Because of this this rape case.
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Speaker 1: And I finally get the two sentences, and I get
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Speaker 1: those two sentences back to Elizabeth Vargas, and so the
21:48
Speaker 1: ABC twenty twenty airs, and at the very end, Elizabeth
21:53
Speaker 1: Vargas reads only the second of the two sentences, which
21:59
Speaker 1: didn't even makes sense because the two sentences were intended
22:04
Speaker 1: to go hand in hand. So she cuts out literally
22:07
Speaker 1: half of Reno's response that I had worked for free
22:12
Speaker 1: on for quite a long time, without any explanation, no apology,
22:17
Speaker 1: no foresight, or any warning that, hey, look, we only
22:23
Speaker 1: have time for half the statement, or could you revise
22:26
Speaker 1: this because it's absurd that she didn't have a time.
22:29
Speaker 1: These were very I think she saved eight seconds maybe
22:33
Speaker 1: by cutting out the first sentence of this two sentence statement.
22:37
Speaker 1: But as you might expect, I was pissed. Now, I
22:41
Speaker 1: don't remember expressing that outrage directly to Elizabeth Argus, but
22:45
Speaker 1: I may have so. But anyway, so I'm thinking, is
22:51
Speaker 1: it possible that that's why I got bummed to talk
22:54
Speaker 1: about Mark Zuckerberg. Well, a couple more hours pass and
22:59
Speaker 1: all of a sudd and they get a phone call
23:01
Speaker 1: from the News Nation producer and they say, hey, look,
23:07
Speaker 1: I don't remember the exact verbiage, but basically, the congressman
23:11
Speaker 1: has canceled. Are you still interested in available to do this?
23:15
Speaker 1: And we kind of joked about it, and I thought, well, look,
23:19
Speaker 1: you know, you deserve a lot.
23:20
Speaker 2: Of credit for calling.
23:22
Speaker 1: Back after our prickly text exchange, at least from my perspective.
23:26
Speaker 2: My you know, I was prickly.
23:28
Speaker 3: She was.
23:29
Speaker 2: I think in Barras.
23:30
Speaker 1: I said, sure, I'll do it, which of course I
23:34
Speaker 1: was glad that that meant that there was no bad
23:37
Speaker 1: blood between me and Elizabeth Vargas. But then I had
23:40
Speaker 1: another challenge because I didn't know because I've never done
23:46
Speaker 1: a television interview with Elizabeth Vargas, and I don't know
23:49
Speaker 1: her very well. I don't know what her political beliefs are,
23:54
Speaker 1: her sensibilities are, especially vis A VI COVID, so I
23:58
Speaker 1: don't know what respective she's coming from.
24:01
Speaker 2: So I'm basically going in blind.
24:04
Speaker 1: I mean, one of the reasons why I'm a really
24:05
Speaker 1: good guest for Dan Abrams is that I think he
24:08
Speaker 1: and I understand each other exceedingly well. I mean, we've
24:11
Speaker 1: been in some some uh you know, bad situation together,
24:16
Speaker 1: We've been in some foxholes together, We've known each other
24:18
Speaker 1: for a long time. We have similar thinking, and so
24:22
Speaker 1: you know, when we do the dance, it's very natural.
24:26
Speaker 1: But I've never danced with Elizabeth Vargas, and so I
24:29
Speaker 1: didn't know what to expect, and and so I kind
24:33
Speaker 1: of was a little worried about how this was going
24:35
Speaker 1: to go down. But it went much better than I expected.
24:40
Speaker 1: And so here's the the essence of the appearance. The
24:44
Speaker 1: audio is again not great because News Nation is very
24:48
Speaker 1: unreliable about which clips they post on YouTube and on
24:53
Speaker 1: social media.
24:54
Speaker 2: As of this taping, they have not.
24:56
Speaker 1: Posted the actual clip, so I have to use the
24:59
Speaker 1: clip that I created off of my own television, but
25:02
Speaker 1: it's only a couple of minutes long.
25:04
Speaker 2: That's the other thing.
25:05
Speaker 1: I was told just before this segment that we were
25:08
Speaker 1: being cut, which almost always happens when I'm in the
25:12
Speaker 1: third segment. I prefer to be in the first or
25:14
Speaker 1: second segment because those segments always go long. It's only
25:18
Speaker 1: by the third segment that they realized, okay, we're this
25:21
Speaker 1: whole show is going along, we need to cut back.
25:23
Speaker 1: And so it's generally the third segment that you know,
25:27
Speaker 1: gets the short end of the stick. And just before
25:29
Speaker 1: we went on, I was told that we were being
25:32
Speaker 1: cut for time, and that I always hate one because
25:36
Speaker 1: there's always too much to say, especially on a juicy
25:38
Speaker 1: topic like this. But also I'm never one hundred percent sure. Okay,
25:43
Speaker 1: does that mean I'm only getting one response or do
25:46
Speaker 1: I normally? You know, am I going to get the
25:48
Speaker 1: normal two responses?
25:49
Speaker 2: Well?
25:50
Speaker 1: I think Elizabeth Vargas actually liked the topic enough where
25:54
Speaker 1: she went longer than we were scheduled for it the
25:58
Speaker 1: last second, and so I did get the two new responses,
26:01
Speaker 1: and I found this exchange to be very interesting and
26:05
Speaker 1: as absurd as it is.
26:07
Speaker 2: Even late summer twenty twenty four.
26:09
Speaker 1: This is still a highly, highly unusual conversation to be
26:14
Speaker 1: held on mainstream television. But it happened on News Nation
26:19
Speaker 1: on Tuesday night, and here's what that sounded like.
26:21
Speaker 4: Thanks joining us down to talk about the implications. Conservative
26:24
Speaker 4: commentator and host of the Death of Journalism podcast, John Ziegler.
26:27
Speaker 3: John, great to have you on.
26:28
Speaker 4: Got to get your reaction for about this letter from
26:31
Speaker 4: Mark Zuckerberg.
26:32
Speaker 3: Are you surprised? I was a little bit surprised.
26:35
Speaker 5: It was great to see some level of accountability for
26:38
Speaker 5: what has been a shameful chapter in the history of
26:41
Speaker 5: US media.
26:42
Speaker 3: I loved your commentary there, Elizabeth. I would just add
26:45
Speaker 3: a couple of things.
26:46
Speaker 5: What President Biden said there was not factually accurate, and
26:51
Speaker 5: we had a pretty good idea that at the time,
26:54
Speaker 5: so this was even more outrageous. This was not misinformation
26:58
Speaker 5: that the White House was trying to sensor through Facebook.
27:01
Speaker 5: These were legitimate contrarian opinions, many of which turned out
27:06
Speaker 5: to be right when it came to the issue of
27:08
Speaker 5: mask mandates and vaccine mandates, which were incredibly Unamerican and
27:13
Speaker 5: anti freedom. And it's a conservative I'm outraged by all
27:17
Speaker 5: of this, especially since the Democratic Party is pretending that
27:20
Speaker 5: it's the party of freedom in this twenty twenty four election.
27:23
Speaker 5: Mark Zuckerberg has proven that that's not the case, and
27:26
Speaker 5: he deserves a lot of kudos for that.
27:28
Speaker 4: So what are we suffering from a little bit of
27:32
Speaker 4: the armchair quarterback syndrome here? Like we now know that
27:35
Speaker 4: that censored speech, these valid questions about you know, mandates
27:40
Speaker 4: and the vaccine were valid, but we didn't know it then,
27:45
Speaker 4: and it was a global pandemic and the government was
27:49
Speaker 4: trying to get people vaccinated. In other words, like we
27:52
Speaker 4: now know that the Hunter laptop is real. At the
27:54
Speaker 4: point when it emerged, the FBI under President Trump, by.
27:59
Speaker 3: The way, said we think it might be rushing this information.
28:03
Speaker 4: And so Mark Zuckerberg said, I now regret burying the
28:06
Speaker 4: laptop story. In other words, we now have the benefit
28:09
Speaker 4: of hindsight of knowing that in fact, they were right
28:14
Speaker 4: back then, but we didn't know it.
28:16
Speaker 3: At that point, I would say two things.
28:18
Speaker 5: I think we knew it much sooner than the White
28:21
Speaker 5: House and the media has admitted to.
28:23
Speaker 3: But more importantly, we live in a country.
28:26
Speaker 5: Where free speech is supposed to be the bedrock of
28:28
Speaker 5: our society.
28:29
Speaker 3: It's the first Amendment.
28:31
Speaker 4: And have the time either speech that's wrong or inaccurate.
28:34
Speaker 5: But one hundred percent because who gets it aside what's inaccurate?
28:39
Speaker 5: And we saw here that sometimes inturner and speech can
28:42
Speaker 5: actually be very accurate, and sometimes the conventional wisdom can
28:46
Speaker 5: be wrong. And we need that freedom in this country.
28:50
Speaker 5: One of the bedrocks of our entire country, the first Amendment,
28:53
Speaker 5: because sometimes the government is wrong.
28:55
Speaker 3: And by this premise this president, as you already.
28:58
Speaker 5: Said in your govermentary to you, security as a way
29:01
Speaker 5: of cracking down on one of our bedrock freedoms. That
29:05
Speaker 5: is the definition of dangerous, wrong and Unamerican.
29:09
Speaker 4: John Ziegler, you came to play love having you on.
29:12
Speaker 3: Thank you so much.
29:13
Speaker 2: Now.
29:13
Speaker 1: I have to say I was shocked, pleasantly so that
29:17
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Vargas was clearly.
29:20
Speaker 2: On my side.
29:21
Speaker 1: And you know you probably could tell that from the
29:23
Speaker 1: audio if you saw the video which I posted on
29:26
Speaker 1: my Twitter page several times. It's clear from the body
29:31
Speaker 1: language that she very much agreed with my perspective, and
29:34
Speaker 1: then you know, she gave me the nice compliment at
29:37
Speaker 1: the end, and so that was a surprise. I didn't
29:41
Speaker 1: know what to expect with regard to Elizabeth Vargas, and
29:44
Speaker 1: I was pleasantly surprised, if not shocked, that she seemed
29:47
Speaker 1: to be on Team Reality.
29:49
Speaker 2: Now.
29:49
Speaker 1: I don't know whether or not she's one of what
29:52
Speaker 1: I perceived to be a pretty large number of people
29:55
Speaker 1: in the media who aren't now on Team Reality, who
30:00
Speaker 1: at the time either kept quiet or hadn't yet been convinced.
30:04
Speaker 1: I don't know which category she belongs in. There were
30:08
Speaker 1: many media members who were keeping their mouth shut and
30:13
Speaker 1: biting their tongues. I know many media members in that category.
30:19
Speaker 1: I've even mentioned a few of them on the podcast before,
30:22
Speaker 1: who were just afraid to express their true opinions on
30:26
Speaker 1: COVID while the panic was happening. It's possible that she
30:30
Speaker 1: was one of those, or it's possible that she's one
30:33
Speaker 1: of those that realized in retrospect or hindsight, which was
30:37
Speaker 1: kind of funny that she referenced the benefit of hindsight.
30:40
Speaker 1: If you watched the video of this, I laugh, I smile.
30:44
Speaker 1: I think a little bit more dramatically on purpose, because
30:46
Speaker 1: I was anticipating that fans of our podcast With the
30:50
Speaker 1: Benefit of Hindsight would find that to be rather humorous.
30:53
Speaker 1: That she inadvertently because I'm sure she has no idea
30:55
Speaker 1: about my With the Benefit of Hindsight podcast with the
30:58
Speaker 1: Mike Egavino and Liz Beibe, but that's what she inadvertently
31:03
Speaker 1: quoted her podcast With the Benefit of Hindsight, which was
31:06
Speaker 1: an interesting element to this whole thing. But it's possible
31:10
Speaker 1: that she's one of those with the Benefit of Hindsight people,
31:12
Speaker 1: since she even literally used that phrase that in retrospect,
31:16
Speaker 1: she's willing to acknowledge that, Okay, we got a lot
31:20
Speaker 1: of this wrong. I wasn't particularly impressed by the idea
31:27
Speaker 1: that the threshold seems to be, and I don't know
31:30
Speaker 1: why not she was asking a rhetorical question for me
31:33
Speaker 1: to knock it out of the park, or whether or
31:35
Speaker 1: not this was something that she actually believes, but that somehow,
31:40
Speaker 1: you know that we didn't have enough information at the time,
31:44
Speaker 1: that somehow that means that the benefit of the doubt
31:48
Speaker 1: goes to the government censoring.
31:51
Speaker 2: No, it works exactly the.
31:53
Speaker 1: Opposite, at least at least should work in an exact
31:56
Speaker 1: opposite way, which is, if you don't know for sure,
31:58
Speaker 1: then you as sure as hell she'd me censoring people
32:01
Speaker 1: if you're just guessing or hoping, which is what the.
32:05
Speaker 2: Biden administration was doing there.
32:07
Speaker 1: And when I referenced Biden making a factually inaccurate statement,
32:11
Speaker 1: which I should have set up the clip a little
32:12
Speaker 1: bit better, they had shown Biden in the middle of
32:17
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one telling a reporter very dramatically and forcefully
32:22
Speaker 1: that we are in a pandemic of the unvaccinated, and
32:26
Speaker 1: that the unvaccinated or killing people. That was the incorrect
32:31
Speaker 1: statement that Biden made, that he was using to try
32:34
Speaker 1: to justify these vaccine mandates, and.
32:39
Speaker 2: That was false.
32:41
Speaker 1: That was I was actually probably too kind and saying
32:44
Speaker 1: it was factually inaccurate.
32:45
Speaker 2: That was an.
32:46
Speaker 1: Insidiously false statement, a lie, and we knew it at
32:51
Speaker 1: the time. We knew it at the time that data
32:55
Speaker 1: was already becoming clear that the vaccines did not stop transmission.
33:02
Speaker 2: And the only way you could make.
33:04
Speaker 1: The argument of a pandemic of the unvaccinated is if
33:09
Speaker 1: getting vaccinated stopped transmission, and that therefore the only people
33:15
Speaker 1: getting it were through the unvaccinated. But of course that
33:19
Speaker 1: never made any goddamn sense either, because you know, if
33:24
Speaker 1: you if you believe in freedom, and if you really
33:27
Speaker 1: believe that the vaccines were stopping transmission, right, well, then
33:32
Speaker 1: you had a choice to make yourself invulnerable to those
33:35
Speaker 1: who are spreading the virus because they're unvaccinated.
33:39
Speaker 2: If you're on, if you're vaccinated, what the hell do
33:42
Speaker 2: you care?
33:43
Speaker 1: I mean, you might not want other people to die
33:46
Speaker 1: around you who were again unvaccinated by their own choice,
33:50
Speaker 1: But at that point, everybody that wanted the vaccine could.
33:54
Speaker 2: Get it for free.
33:56
Speaker 1: So I never understood, even if they were right, what
33:59
Speaker 1: the logic of this was. But they were wrong because
34:04
Speaker 1: the vaccine did not stop transmission.
34:07
Speaker 2: We don't know if it ever did.
34:08
Speaker 1: They try to claim now that it did for a
34:10
Speaker 1: short period of time, but when I look at the data,
34:13
Speaker 1: I'm now pretty convinced that basically what happened was that
34:18
Speaker 1: the vaccine just happened to come out at the exact
34:22
Speaker 1: time when we were in a natural downturn, because we
34:25
Speaker 1: had had a very very large surge of COVID cases
34:30
Speaker 1: just before the vaccine came out. Now, was it possible
34:33
Speaker 1: that there was a combination of coincidence and that there
34:36
Speaker 1: was some effect on transmission early on? Yeah, that's certainly possible,
34:42
Speaker 1: But we knew within a few months and changed.
34:45
Speaker 2: I changed. I believed in the.
34:48
Speaker 1: Stopping of transmission theory based upon the initial data, but
34:51
Speaker 1: I shifted at least two or three months at most
34:56
Speaker 1: after the vaccines started to come out in big numbers,
35:00
Speaker 1: because it was obvious the data did not support that conclusion.
35:04
Speaker 1: And yet President Biden double and tripled down his administration did,
35:08
Speaker 1: and they even asked, forced coerced whatever Facebook and other
35:14
Speaker 1: social media companies into censoring people who had different opinions
35:20
Speaker 1: and censoring actual facts and accurate information, which is about,
35:26
Speaker 1: as I said, un American and as anti free speech
35:30
Speaker 1: as you can get. So that's the long story of
35:34
Speaker 1: that television appearance, which I always like to give you
35:38
Speaker 1: the color of the background, the making of the sausage,
35:41
Speaker 1: because I think you oftentimes learned more than just by
35:45
Speaker 1: what its said on these particular television shows. But hopefully
35:50
Speaker 1: you got something out of that particular story. And now
35:53
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Vargas and I are, buddy, buddy. We've now followed
35:56
Speaker 1: each other on Twitter, which is great, and I'll be
36:00
Speaker 1: to see whether or not, you know, we go back
36:03
Speaker 1: on television again. I think we might after the things
36:06
Speaker 1: went the way things went with that particular appearance. Now,
36:11
Speaker 1: obviously to me, there's a direct connection between this story
36:15
Speaker 1: and the presidential election. I referenced it in the appearance
36:20
Speaker 1: where the Democratic Party is trying to claim that they're
36:23
Speaker 1: the Party of Freedom, which is just absolute lunacy for
36:27
Speaker 1: a lot of reasons, but most prominently their actions during
36:31
Speaker 1: the COVID panic. Well, there's been a lot of other
36:35
Speaker 1: hypocritical elements to the Democratic Kamala Harris campaign, which we've
36:40
Speaker 1: discussed previously on this podcast, and just since the last
36:43
Speaker 1: episode of the Death of Journalism, Kamala Harris has now
36:47
Speaker 1: flip flopped in Simone Biles level gymnastics. She is now
36:55
Speaker 1: flip flopped on two major issues, one of which sounds
36:59
Speaker 1: like it has to be a joke because you're like,
37:01
Speaker 1: how can this possibly happen? I'll do the second one first.
37:06
Speaker 1: She has now apparently come out against an electrical vehicle mandate,
37:13
Speaker 1: which is in contradiction to a whole host of things
37:17
Speaker 1: that the Biden Harris administration has been doing, and trying
37:21
Speaker 1: to phase out the traditional automobile gasoline powered automobile and
37:28
Speaker 1: instead transition to electrical vehicles. Well, apparently Harris is now
37:34
Speaker 1: against the EV mandate, something I agree with but I
37:39
Speaker 1: don't necessarily believe is an indication of her true beliefs.
37:44
Speaker 1: At this point, I don't know what the hell her
37:46
Speaker 1: true beliefs are, because, frankly, ever since her convention speech,
37:50
Speaker 1: she's sounding more conservative than Donald Trump does. Frankly, that's
37:54
Speaker 1: not even being all that facetious. But the biggest flip
37:58
Speaker 1: flop of the last couple days is somehow Kamala Harris
38:02
Speaker 1: thinks that she can get away with and frankly, the
38:05
Speaker 1: way that the media has treated her, it's not difficult
38:07
Speaker 1: to understand why she thinks she can't get away with anything.
38:11
Speaker 1: She can get away with anything she wants because the
38:13
Speaker 1: media is acting like her campaign manager. She is now
38:16
Speaker 1: flip flopped on the issue of a border wall on
38:21
Speaker 1: the southern border. Even I am completely flummoxed by how
38:26
Speaker 1: this is possible, because it's not as if Harris has just,
38:31
Speaker 1: you know, mildly said well, I'm against the border wall.
38:34
Speaker 1: I don't think we need it. There's other things we
38:35
Speaker 1: can do when it comes to illegal immigration.
38:38
Speaker 2: No no, no, no no no no no, no, no,
38:40
Speaker 2: no no.
38:41
Speaker 1: That's not what her position has been at all. She
38:45
Speaker 1: has on multiple occasions gone out of her way to
38:49
Speaker 1: mock and to ride the entire concept at.
38:54
Speaker 2: Every level of a border wall.
38:57
Speaker 1: And now she's claiming that she'll help build a border wall,
39:03
Speaker 1: you know, something that even Trump didn't do, even though
39:05
Speaker 1: he had the opportunity to do so. He didn't do
39:07
Speaker 1: it nearly to the extent that he had promised during
39:10
Speaker 1: the twenty sixteen election, which is actually, frankly one of
39:14
Speaker 1: my probably top ten problems with Trump. I mean, if
39:17
Speaker 1: he had actually done what he had promised, I think
39:19
Speaker 1: we'd be in a lot better shape when it comes
39:22
Speaker 1: to illegal immigration than we are today. But for Harris
39:26
Speaker 1: to now come out in favor of a border wall
39:28
Speaker 1: is just gaslighting in the extreme. It's frankly hilarious, especially
39:33
Speaker 1: given her past statements on that. And here is a
39:37
Speaker 1: montage that it went viral on Twitter that is Harris
39:43
Speaker 1: at various different points and in all in recent years,
39:48
Speaker 1: discussing this issue of a border wall and how and
39:52
Speaker 1: why she's vehemently against it.
39:55
Speaker 6: And folks, on the subject of transnational games, let's be
39:59
Speaker 6: perfectly clear, the president's medieval vanity project is not going
40:05
Speaker 6: to stop them. This issue is about a vanity project
40:10
Speaker 6: for this president, right, and it.
40:13
Speaker 1: Is a problem of.
40:15
Speaker 6: His own making. And listen, when I travel this country,
40:19
Speaker 6: folks have plenty enough problems that they need their president
40:22
Speaker 6: to focus on instead of a wall. That, by the way,
40:26
Speaker 6: because I was a prosecutor for many years, including the
40:28
Speaker 6: Attorney General California, I specialize on transnational criminal organizations. That
40:33
Speaker 6: wall ain't going to stop them. No.
40:35
Speaker 1: No, Now, in the olden days like twenty fifteen, pre Trump,
40:51
Speaker 1: I mean.
40:51
Speaker 2: That would be game set match.
40:55
Speaker 1: That would be something that a presidential candidate could not
40:57
Speaker 1: get passed. Wait a minute, you're changing your position after
41:01
Speaker 1: all of these past statements in very prominent venues, all
41:06
Speaker 1: in recent years, to be the exact same as your opponent,
41:16
Speaker 1: when you've never gotten one vote for president before you
41:20
Speaker 1: were handed the nomination and the context.
41:22
Speaker 2: Here is important, and now you're just going.
41:24
Speaker 1: To duplicate Donald Trump's position on his number one issue
41:29
Speaker 1: in complete contradiction to all these things you've said in
41:33
Speaker 1: the past. I mean, if we lived in a remotely
41:35
Speaker 1: rational world, that would be it. That would be game
41:39
Speaker 1: set match. I mean, John Kerry has to be thinking,
41:42
Speaker 1: my god, they called me a flip flopper and it stuck.
41:45
Speaker 2: I mean the Bush campaign ran one ad.
41:49
Speaker 1: I actually know the guy who produced his ad ran
41:53
Speaker 1: one ad where you know, he was windsurfing and they
41:57
Speaker 1: flipped Carrie windsurfing using a visual effect so that he
42:03
Speaker 1: was going in both directions at the same time. And
42:06
Speaker 1: this was an image for him as a flip flopper,
42:09
Speaker 1: and it stuck, and it was partially why Carrie ended
42:13
Speaker 1: up losing the two thousand and four election. I mean, yeah,
42:15
Speaker 1: he was a flip flopper, but nothing in comparison to
42:18
Speaker 1: what Kamala Harris is. I mean, it's just it's it's
42:22
Speaker 1: mind blowing what she is getting away with.
42:25
Speaker 2: And it's not just her.
42:27
Speaker 1: Tim Walls on this issue of the wall was on CNN.
42:32
Speaker 1: This is before, well before he was the vice presidential nominee,
42:36
Speaker 1: but he was on CNN with Anderson Cooper, and I
42:40
Speaker 1: mean he went to the mat literally almost literally on
42:44
Speaker 1: how against the wall he is and this is what
42:48
Speaker 1: here's what that sounded like.
42:50
Speaker 7: And I think seeing a plan that's out there, talking
42:53
Speaker 7: about it with folks knowing that he's not going to
42:56
Speaker 7: do anything. He talks about this wall, I always say,
42:59
Speaker 7: let me know how high it is.
42:59
Speaker 2: It's twenty five.
43:00
Speaker 7: Feet, then I'll invest in the thirty foot ladder factory.
43:02
Speaker 7: That's not how you stop this.
43:04
Speaker 1: So you have both Harris and Walls on record as
43:10
Speaker 1: clearly as you can possibly get being against the idea
43:14
Speaker 1: of a border wall, and now Harris just kind of
43:18
Speaker 1: casually oh yeah, by the way, we're in favor of
43:22
Speaker 1: a border wall now, and no real blowback from the
43:26
Speaker 1: main street news media. It's absolutely extraordinary.
43:30
Speaker 3: Now.
43:31
Speaker 1: I don't even know how Trump handles this, because now
43:34
Speaker 1: he's in a situation where he has to criticize Harris
43:38
Speaker 1: for agreeing with him. I mean, I think that the
43:43
Speaker 1: target here ought to be the hypocrisy and the fact that.
43:45
Speaker 2: We don't know who the hell Kamala Harris really is.
43:49
Speaker 2: I mean, that, to me, should be the theme about this.
43:52
Speaker 1: We've gotten to the point now where there have been
43:53
Speaker 1: so many flip flops that it almost doesn't matter what
43:57
Speaker 1: her real position is. We don't know what her real
44:00
Speaker 1: position is. That's a bigger problem then if you just
44:04
Speaker 1: disagree with whatever policy she's in favor of at the
44:09
Speaker 1: current moment.
44:10
Speaker 2: But of course we can't even to me, we can't
44:14
Speaker 2: even get.
44:14
Speaker 1: Out of the batter's box when it comes to rationality,
44:18
Speaker 1: when it comes to defining Kamala Harris. And that was
44:23
Speaker 1: exposed by a tweet by the media outlet Politico that
44:28
Speaker 1: was rightfully and roundly mocked, including by JD Vance, Trump's
44:34
Speaker 1: vice presidential nominee, because it deals with jd Vance connecting
44:41
Speaker 1: Kamala Harris.
44:42
Speaker 2: Get this.
44:43
Speaker 1: Jd Vance had the audacity, the audacity to connect Kamala Harris,
44:49
Speaker 1: the Vice President of the United States, to the policies
44:54
Speaker 1: and the results of the Biden Harris administration.
44:59
Speaker 2: I know, I know, well, I know it's crazy. I
45:02
Speaker 2: get out of town. I know. Outrageous.
45:05
Speaker 1: Wow, that is so unfair to hold Kamala Harris accountable
45:11
Speaker 1: for the actions and results of the Biden Harris administration.
45:16
Speaker 2: But here was a tweet.
45:19
Speaker 1: By Politico quote our corrupt leadership unquote. Vance tries to
45:26
Speaker 1: tether Harris to Biden during Michigan rally. Advance tries to
45:36
Speaker 1: tether Harris to Biden during Michigan rally. Now this was
45:43
Speaker 1: so mocked that Twitter actually put a community note.
45:47
Speaker 2: On this, as if it was needed to.
45:50
Speaker 1: Say, Harris is Biden's vice president, not just his nominee
45:57
Speaker 1: vice president has been for four years.
45:59
Speaker 2: You could even argue.
46:01
Speaker 1: Since Biden has checked out, that she's essentially the president now, right.
46:05
Speaker 1: I mean, that's one of the many questions that the
46:08
Speaker 1: media seems completely uninterested, which is, so, who the hell
46:12
Speaker 1: is president United States for the next five months? We
46:15
Speaker 1: have no idea who's really in charge? We really don't,
46:18
Speaker 1: and no one seems to be all that interested.
46:21
Speaker 2: It's amazing.
46:22
Speaker 1: We're spending billions and billions of dollars and man hours
46:27
Speaker 1: on a presidential campaign to determine the next president, but
46:30
Speaker 1: we don't care who the current president is or if
46:34
Speaker 1: there even is a current president for the next five months.
46:38
Speaker 1: But here we have a situation where the media won't
46:40
Speaker 1: even fully accept that it's appropriate and acceptable and mandatory
46:46
Speaker 1: to connect Harris to Joe Biden when she's his vice president.
46:53
Speaker 1: And this was amplified by a tweet by Aaron Blake,
46:58
Speaker 1: who is the Washington Post senior political reporter.
47:01
Speaker 2: So the Washington Post senior political reporter.
47:05
Speaker 1: In the context of this whole controversy, but without it's
47:08
Speaker 1: appropriate to tether Harris to Biden when she's his vice president.
47:14
Speaker 1: He wrote, the GOP is trying hard to tie Harris
47:19
Speaker 1: more closely to Biden on the economy, immigration, and the border.
47:25
Speaker 1: One big problem Americans don't think she played a particularly
47:30
Speaker 1: central role, and that includes on immigration despite the quote
47:34
Speaker 1: unquote border czar stuff.
47:37
Speaker 2: And then Blake.
47:38
Speaker 1: Cites some polling data which admittedly does back up that belief.
47:44
Speaker 2: But here's the thing, So which is it?
47:49
Speaker 1: And this is probably my primary theme of everything that
47:54
Speaker 1: has occurred since the Biden withdrawal, actually been just before
47:57
Speaker 1: the Biden withdraw My big premise here is that the
48:02
Speaker 1: massive mistake by the media and by the Trump team
48:06
Speaker 1: has been that Democrats have been able to have it
48:10
Speaker 1: both ways on many, many elements of this whole thing
48:15
Speaker 1: and have never been forced to pay a price. My
48:18
Speaker 1: whole thing is force them to pick a lane.
48:22
Speaker 2: I get that they have massive.
48:24
Speaker 1: Advantages because they control the media industrial complex or vice versa.
48:29
Speaker 2: I get that.
48:30
Speaker 1: So all I ever ask is force them to pick
48:33
Speaker 1: a lane and there will be some level of punishment. Well,
48:39
Speaker 1: this is a classic example of that, where the media says, well, wait,
48:45
Speaker 1: a minute. You can't tie Harris to Biden because afdra
48:49
Speaker 1: Awal even the public doesn't really think that Harris had
48:53
Speaker 1: much to do with what happened in the Biden administration. Okay,
48:58
Speaker 1: first of all, that's partially the media's fault. Why don't
49:02
Speaker 1: we find out Why don't we ask Kamala Harris? Why
49:05
Speaker 1: don't we ask Joe Biden how much Harris has had
49:08
Speaker 1: to do with anything? So there's only two possibilities here.
49:12
Speaker 1: Either they say, yeah, she was integral and everything, in
49:16
Speaker 1: which case, okay, we can now tie her to Biden.
49:20
Speaker 1: Or they say no, actually, you know, she was not
49:25
Speaker 1: a particularly active vice president and I was making you know,
49:28
Speaker 1: Biden says I was making the decisions myself, or she
49:30
Speaker 1: says it was mostly Biden. Well, then she doesn't get
49:35
Speaker 1: the benefit from the quote unquote experience of being vice president.
49:41
Speaker 2: She doesn't get the benefit.
49:43
Speaker 1: From any of the things that people might think were
49:45
Speaker 1: good about the Biden administration, because they make all sorts
49:49
Speaker 1: of crazy claims about things that were good, usually by
49:52
Speaker 1: manipulating stats based upon what occurred during the COVID panic
49:56
Speaker 1: and the recovery from the COVID panic. But all I
50:00
Speaker 1: ever ask is pick a fucking lane, and the media
50:04
Speaker 1: will not force Harris to pick a lane or Biden
50:08
Speaker 1: to pick a lane. And the Trump team has been
50:11
Speaker 1: terrible at forcing the Harris campaign to pick a lane.
50:17
Speaker 2: Which is it does she have experience.
50:22
Speaker 1: Or does she not? If she has experience, then that
50:26
Speaker 1: means blame. If she doesn't, then that means how is
50:31
Speaker 1: she qualified? How do we even know what the hell
50:34
Speaker 1: she even believes. It's incredibly frustrating, especially as somebody who
50:40
Speaker 1: doesn't even like Donald Trump and has never voted for
50:43
Speaker 1: him and probably never will. I'm looking at this from
50:47
Speaker 1: a fargoing. How can they get away with this? And
50:51
Speaker 1: it's quite extraordinary. I mean, the gaslighting is all over
50:55
Speaker 1: the place. And I talk all the time about the
50:58
Speaker 1: news media as the referee.
51:00
Speaker 2: I usually use the.
51:02
Speaker 1: Simile or analogy, metaphor whatever you want to call it
51:07
Speaker 1: of the news media being like an NFL football referee,
51:12
Speaker 1: where one team knows they ain't going to get called
51:15
Speaker 1: for holding. So it's amazing how well they can protect
51:18
Speaker 1: the quarterbackan if you know you're never going to get
51:21
Speaker 1: called for holding, it's very easy to be a really
51:24
Speaker 1: good quarterback, especially when you also know that the defensive
51:28
Speaker 1: backs if they breathe on the wide receivers are going
51:32
Speaker 1: to get called for past interference. So you get no
51:37
Speaker 1: pressure as the quarterback, and your receivers are always wide
51:40
Speaker 1: open because the quarterbacks are terrified of the referees. The media,
51:44
Speaker 1: I think it's a pretty good way of looking at things. Well,
51:48
Speaker 1: here's another really good example of that. So Kamala Harris
51:52
Speaker 1: has really leaned into and the media has really leaned
51:55
Speaker 1: into this whole aspect of her campaign of how my
52:00
Speaker 1: history making it is and how inspiring it is, especially
52:05
Speaker 1: for young girls of color, And she tweeted out the
52:09
Speaker 1: other day, I want every little girl across our country
52:13
Speaker 1: to know this, you can do anything, even if it
52:18
Speaker 1: has never been done before. And then there's a picture
52:22
Speaker 1: from behind what appears to be two black girls who
52:27
Speaker 1: are looking up watching Harris give her convention acceptance speech,
52:33
Speaker 1: and look.
52:34
Speaker 2: I would love I would love.
52:38
Speaker 1: For this to be a situation that was truly inspiring
52:43
Speaker 1: for young people.
52:44
Speaker 2: Whether it's girls, girls of color, what does matter to me?
52:49
Speaker 1: I mean, I love that that is fantastic To give
52:53
Speaker 1: young people inspiration that they can do the same thing
52:58
Speaker 1: that someone else has. That is a fantastic element when
53:04
Speaker 1: it's real of something like Kamala Harris ascension to the
53:10
Speaker 1: Democratic nomination, But this is exactly the opposite. This is
53:16
Speaker 1: frankly insulting to little girls, especially little girls of color,
53:22
Speaker 1: because when we look at Harris's life and career through
53:27
Speaker 1: the prism of reality, she has been handed everything.
53:33
Speaker 2: She has been handed virtually.
53:36
Speaker 1: Everything, whether it's from Willie Brown, which we discussed in
53:40
Speaker 1: the last episode of the podcast and her affair with
53:43
Speaker 1: him and how that jump started her career to when
53:47
Speaker 1: you're in California politics, it's the elites that determine who
53:52
Speaker 1: the Democratic nominee is going to be, especially before this
53:55
Speaker 1: current bullshit system that we have where you're gonna have
53:58
Speaker 1: two Democrats running in a general. But back when Harris
54:01
Speaker 1: was Attorney General, she got the nomination by the elites,
54:07
Speaker 1: and so once she's the nominee, there is no campaign,
54:10
Speaker 1: there is no vetting, there's no Republican Party, there's no
54:13
Speaker 1: news media in this state. So she gets handed the
54:16
Speaker 1: position of attorney general. Then she gets handed in exactly
54:19
Speaker 1: the same way the position of US Senator from California,
54:23
Speaker 1: where there is no vetting, there is no campaign, there's
54:26
Speaker 1: no Republican party.
54:27
Speaker 2: There's no news.
54:28
Speaker 1: Media scrutiny, especially of a Democratic candidate who's a female
54:33
Speaker 1: of color. So she's handed a place in the US Senate.
54:38
Speaker 1: Then she runs for president, craps out completely and totally
54:42
Speaker 1: never even makes it to the Iowa caucuses, yet somehow
54:47
Speaker 1: gets selected as a DEI job applicant. That's literally Joe
54:53
Speaker 1: Biden bragged. Joe Biden bragg about how she was representative
54:59
Speaker 1: of diversity, equity and inclusion in his selection of a
55:04
Speaker 1: black or a woman.
55:06
Speaker 2: Of color female. Biden bragged about this.
55:10
Speaker 1: This is what I was so incensed when Trump was
55:13
Speaker 1: asked about this at the Black Journalist event a couple
55:15
Speaker 1: of weeks ago, and he said he wasn't sure whether
55:18
Speaker 1: or not Harris was a DEI selection for vice president.
55:22
Speaker 1: She absolutely was, we know because Biden bragged about it.
55:26
Speaker 1: So she gets handed the vice presidential nomination, no scrutiny
55:30
Speaker 1: or vetting there because it was in the middle of
55:32
Speaker 1: the COVID panic, and because she's a woman of color
55:37
Speaker 1: and the news media is not gonna, you know, do
55:39
Speaker 1: anything to harm a liberal, very liberal female of color.
55:44
Speaker 1: When she's just the vice presidential nomination, She's not gonna
55:46
Speaker 1: get the Sarah Palin treatment. That's for goddamn sure, and
55:50
Speaker 1: so then you know she doesn't run for president. In
55:54
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four, she sits back and watches as Biden
56:00
Speaker 1: vomits all over himself during the debate. The media takes
56:03
Speaker 1: him out, the other liberal elites, Democratic elites take him out.
56:08
Speaker 1: He finally gives up the car keys after three weeks.
56:11
Speaker 1: She gets literally handed the nomination, not even a remotely
56:15
Speaker 1: an open process, remotely in open process, no open convention,
56:20
Speaker 1: no nothing. Even Gavin Newsom mocks it and jokes about it.
56:24
Speaker 1: We played that clip in the last episode of the podcast.
56:27
Speaker 1: So here she is handed, in an unprecedented situation in
56:31
Speaker 1: the modern history of American politics, handed the nomination, just
56:36
Speaker 1: like she was handed the vice presidential nomination, handed a
56:40
Speaker 1: Senate seat, handed the position of attorney general in California.
56:45
Speaker 1: So this is what's inspiring for little girls. Yes, you too,
56:50
Speaker 1: if you happen to get really lucky, you can use
56:53
Speaker 1: your gender and your race to do great things, or
56:57
Speaker 1: to appear to do great things, or to be given
57:00
Speaker 1: and great things.
57:01
Speaker 2: But Harris seems to think that she, at least from
57:04
Speaker 2: her words.
57:05
Speaker 1: That she's actually achieved something here I mean, I remember
57:10
Speaker 1: when former governor of Texas and Richards mocked George Herbert
57:15
Speaker 1: Walker Bush during the was a nineteen eighty eight presidential campaign.
57:22
Speaker 1: She got so much play for this, even though it
57:24
Speaker 1: went nowhere where she mocked Bush for being born on
57:29
Speaker 1: third base and thinking he hit a triple, and that
57:34
Speaker 1: was not accurate at all, because George Herbert Walker Bush
57:36
Speaker 1: was a war hero, he had worked in every element
57:39
Speaker 1: of government. He was probably the most qualified president we've
57:42
Speaker 1: ever had, maybe in history, and from a purely resume perspective,
57:47
Speaker 1: but because the Bushes were perceived as rich and elite,
57:52
Speaker 1: it really resonated. Oh my god, that was such a
57:54
Speaker 1: big deal. And here now we've evolved to where it's
58:00
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four, we have women of color, and you
58:04
Speaker 1: could argue that there's some elements of this that's good.
58:07
Speaker 1: It's an indication of how much we've evolved as a society,
58:10
Speaker 1: and some of that is good. But we've now evolved
58:13
Speaker 1: to the point where Kamala Harris was born on third
58:16
Speaker 1: base and thinks she hit a triple. I mean, she's
58:19
Speaker 1: basically born a few steps from home plate at this
58:22
Speaker 1: point and thinks she hit a home run. Already, and
58:26
Speaker 1: she's done basically nothing, And this is what's supposed to
58:30
Speaker 1: be inspiring for little girls of color. I'm sorry. I
58:35
Speaker 1: would like to think we can do better than that.
58:37
Speaker 1: Maybe we can't. Maybe this is where we now live in,
58:40
Speaker 1: especially in the political realm, but I don't find there
58:43
Speaker 1: to be anything inspiring about.
58:45
Speaker 2: That at all.
58:47
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58:50
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59:20
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