Latest / The Death Of Journalism / Episode One Hundred Forty Eight: Catch And Kill

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Episode One Hundred Forty Eight: Catch And Kill · The Death Of Journalism

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Welcome to episode number one hundred and forty eight of the Death of Journalism Podcasts.
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My name is John Zigler. I'm your host on today's show. The
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first witness in the Trump Trial says a lot of interesting things having little to
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do with the breaking of real laws. Megan Kelly goes after my friend Matt
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Lower stupidly yet again, Columbia University effectively gets shut down by anti Israel protesters,
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Reggie Bush is getting his Heisman trophy back, and my former podcast co
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host Liz Habib joins us for an extensive interview. We begin this episode of
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the podcast with a couple thoughts real quick on episode one forty seven, which
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was really a clusterfark from a technical perspective, I want to thank our executive
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producer, Mike Agavino for stitching it together in the editing process and dealing with
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my anger and frustration over our technical problems. We had a catastrophic problem with
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our platform that we've been used using for the last year and a half for
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this podcast, a platform that I have never really liked but at least was
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functional, and all of a sudden for reasons that are still a mystery to
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us, it was no longer working, but was not working in a way
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that was particularly infuriating because we were never sure if it was working or not.
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Anyway, the result was a less than stellar episode one for seven.
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We're trying a different format for episode number one hundred and forty eight. Hopefully
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that will work, although I do perceive some potential problems as far as the
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aggravation and the amount of effort that it's taken to try to do this a
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podcast, But we'll do our best for our subscribers, and we'll keep our
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head down and at least for now, try to make the best of a
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less than ideal situation. That being said, there's a lot to talk about,
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and before we get to our interview with Liz Habe, which I know
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you're going to enjoy, I want to talk about the latest in the Trump
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try in New York City, the so called hush money trial. I have
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talked a lot in recent episodes about the absurdity of this situation from a due
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process perspective, both from the standpoint of it obviously being a case that was
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brought in a liberal jurisdiction because Donald Trump was likely to be the Republican presidential
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nominee. I have also emphasized something that even Trump himself I don't think has
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focused enough on the idea that we're putting these jurors in an absolutely impossible situation
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because they will know that they will have an enormous impact on the presidential election,
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a grotesquely outsized impact, and that human beings, being human beings,
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that's going to obviously influence what they do, and they will react to those
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self interests in a way that is completely contrary to due process, basic due
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process of a couple more thoughts on that little bit later in the episode,
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But instead of dealing with the due process aspect and the legal standards of this
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particular case, I want to start off by talking about what we actually have
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learned or at least has been verified in the first couple of days of testimony
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in the trial, because a lot of this has everything to do with the
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news media, at least depending on how you define news media if you include
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the National Inquirer in that definition, most of these allegations directly deal with the
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National Inquirer and its relationship to Donald Trump. And there's a lot of this
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stuff taking away the court case, which shouldn't be happening in the middle of
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a presidential election that are both interesting and important from the standpoint of the media,
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how the media works, the issue of obviously the death of journalism,
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but also why I have always loathed Donald Trump, because there's a couple different
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aspects of what we've learned or has been verified in this trial that I think
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go right to the heart of issues that the conservative media now just ignore and
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the vast majority of Republicans have never even been forced to think about. And
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that is really this relationship with the National Inquirer, which is not really a
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traditional media outlet. And I'm not just talking about the fact that it's a
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tabloid. But you have to remember a couple things as we talk about this
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and as this trial goes on. Back in twenty fifteen twenty sixteen, when
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the events surrounding this allegation actually occurred, the National Inquirer was a much more
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powerful entity than it currently is. Obviously, the media has changed dramatically,
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but the National inquir even though it was not a credible news source, had
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enormous influence because you saw it in the grocery checkout line, you saw what
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was on the front page, and it also had a very large subscriber base,
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and sometimes weirdly, they would actually do real journalism. For instance,
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they actually broke several important stories regarding the OJ Simpson case, but they mixed
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and matched that with a lot of stuff that was just completely totally false or
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made up. And it was not a legitimate news organization. Its business model,
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however, was based largely in being a terrorist organization or a mafia organization.
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And that's always been my biggest beef with regard to Donald Trump and his
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relationship with the National Inquirer, because what we have learned again again we've already
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knew most of this, but it's been verified under oath in court through the
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testimony of the former head of the National acquir David Pecker, a longtime friend
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of Donald Trump, is that Donald Trump was not just in bed with the
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National Inquirer, he was putting himself into a position where should he win the
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presidency, something I think there's evidence in this trial he did not think was
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likely to happen, so I'll get to momentarily, but if he had won
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the presidency, he was knowingly putting himself in a situation where he could be
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blackmailed by the National Inquirer a terrorist mafia organization. And I said this at
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the time, I said, how come no one cares about this? We
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talk about all sorts of national security issues held the classified documents case that Trump
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is facing is at least based partly in this concept of potential conflicts of interests
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and blackmail. But this is real, this is direct. This is a
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terrorist mafia organization, which is what the National Inquirer was wielding enormous power to
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destroy lives or to protect people if it was in their interest to protect people
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having extreme blackmail information on potentially the president of the United States. And let's
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go to the direct story here. Obviously, this trial revolves around the alleged
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hush money given to Stormy Daniels, former porn star with whom it appears Donald
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Trump hadn't fair and the National Inchoir was trying to help Trump make sure that
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stories like Stormy Daniels and a very similar story involving Karen McDougall, a former
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Playboy model, didn't become public before the election was decided in twenty sixteen,
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or the Republican primary process was decided in early twenty sixteen, and in the
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process of doing that they paid Stormy Daniels for her silence, and they also
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paid Karen McDougall to basically do some articles for them. They basically pretended to
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hire her in what was called a catch and kill. So there's there's there's
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a couple of different ways that they would do this in what I'm calling a
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terrorist mafia organization MO that they used, and with Karen McDougall, what they
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did was say, Hey, we're really interested in you from a fitness standpoint.
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We're gonna hire you to do some articles. We're gonna pay you a
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ridiculous amount of money, and you're gonna give us your story of having an
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affair with Donald Trump, and then we're gonna kill it. We're never gonna
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run that story with about having had an affair with Donald Trump. That's the
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so called catch and kill. Now, what's interesting to me about Karen McDougall
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is that if you put aside for a second, Donald Trump's marriage to Milania,
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which you know she's still with him remarkably after all this, if you
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put aside the issue of the marriage, if I'm Donald Trump, I'm telling
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everybody in the world I had an affair with Karen McDougall, I mean everybody.
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I mean, Karen McDougall, especially back in this era, was smoking
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hot, seemingly very classy, you know, especially for a playboy model,
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and really likes Donald Trump, I mean, is a to this day apparently
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a big supporter of Donald Trump. So the last thing I'm doing, if
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I'm Donald Trump, is paying Karen McDougall to not tell everybody I had an
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affair with her. But that's what the National Inquir did, apparently allegedly on
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Donald Trump's behalf. The Stormy Daniel's story is a little bit different. It
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seems to be more of a direct payment for keeping your mouth shut. Now,
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I was particularly familiar with this mo, this modus operande that the National
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Inquir used as blackmail in what I'm again referring to as a terrorist mafia organization,
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because it was only a few years before this whole situation occurred in twenty
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sixteen, where the National in Choir really did blackmail Tiger Woods, who at
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the time was my biggest sports hero. I had a website Tiger Woods Isgod
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dot com, and I'll never forget it. I can't remember the year.
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I shouldn't say that when I say, I'll never forget it. But it
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was in the two thousand and eight era, at the height of Tiger Woods's
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fame and power and glory, and you know, and Tiger Woods at the
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time. He's very different now, but at the time he had a very
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secretive persona. Everything about Tiger was tight lipped. He didn't do a lot
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of media interviews. He was not seen as a friendly guy. He was
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an assassin. Okay, you have to remember. So this is the early
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two thousands version of Tiger Woods. He's a golfing machine who only cares about
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winning golf tournaments. He's not doing any media that he doesn't have to do,
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and I'll never forget this part of it. I'm looking at the magazine
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rack and I'm seeing the cover of Men's Fitness magazine and Tiger Woods is on
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the cover of Men's Fitness magazine, and I'm like, what the fuck is
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that he's smiling And inside the magazine are all the secrets of Tiger's fitness regime.
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And I'm like, this makes no sense whatsoever. And I realized this
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sounds like, you know, very convenient twenty twenty hindsight. No, this
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was me seeing this magazine cover and thinking there is something going on here.
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Now. I had no idea what we later would learn was going on,
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which was that Tiger Woods was blackmailed by the National Choir into doing that cover
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story. The Men's Fitness magazine was a sister publication for the National Inquirer,
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and what had happened was the National Inquirer had gotten wind of and basically gotten
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proof, physical proof of an affair that Tiger Woods was having with a diner
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waitress. It is a horrendous story as to how it's actually gross how they
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got the evidence of the affair, but they had Tiger Woods dead to rights
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and instead of deciding to publish the story at the time, this is before
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the scandal became very very public in late two thousand and nine, before they
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did that, they went to Tiger's people and they said, okay, are
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you willing to play ball? I'm paraphrasing, and they said, well,
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what do you mean. He said, well, we'll not run the story
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about the waitress and the affair in the parking lot. I think of a
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church where they had physical evidence of the affair. We won't run that.
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If you do something for us, Well, what do you have in mind,
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well, how about a cover story on our sister publication, Men's Fitness
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Magazine. And then all of a sudden, Tiger Woods does something completely out
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of his normal routine and does this cover story, and you know, let's
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that magazine into his world and he tells people what his fitness regime is.
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And that's what happens. Now, it's not the same thing as giving away
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national secrets or all sorts of things that could happen when you're president. But
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I think you understand where I'm going with this. Tiger Woods was about as
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big as sports celebrity as there was at this time, and he's being blackmailed
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into doing things he clearly does not want to do because the National Inquirer had
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very negative information about him. Well, this was effectively what Donald Trump was
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doing in twenty fifteen twenty sixteen. He was allowing the National Inquirer to have
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extraordinary blackmail power over him. And that part of this whole equation has never
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been talked about that I've ever seen, and to me, it's maybe the
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most important part of the story. Now, none of that is illegal,
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but it's very troubling, very unethical, and very problematic and it's consistent with
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what I think is going on with the Saudis and Donald Trump. Ironically enough,
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when it comes to golf and the live golf tournaments that are being played
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at Donald Trump golf courses, and the massive conflict of interest there with Trump
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taking money undisclosed clearly being paid way way way above market price for the renting
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out of his golf courses by a sometimes adversarial foreign government in the Saudi Arabian
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royal family. These are problematic things, at least they used to be in
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the pre Trump era. And so the whole issue of the National Inquirer and
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David Pecker and his relationship with Donald Trump is at the center of the first
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week of the Trump trial. And you know, Pecker said a lot of
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things that the prosecution liked. He said a few things that the defense liked.
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One of the more interesting things that I did not know, or if
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I did know it, I'd forgotten, it was that these deals that the
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National inquir made with Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougall and did after the election at
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twenty sixteen, now if true legally, and again I want to preface everything
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I say here or underline everything I say here that I don't think the facts
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in the law are really going to matter very much. I think this is
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all about jury's selection in this particular kind of case. But if you care
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about the facts, it is certainly possible that Pecker's testimony that these deals ended
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after the election helped the prosecution, because that indicates that this was all about
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the election and not about marriage preservation. See. I think Trump could make
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a very strong argument without Pecker's testimony this week that really what he was doing
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was knowing that because he was a leading presidential candidate, this was going to
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incentivize women with whom he had affairs or maybe even didn't have affairs. By
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the way, there's this one of the things the National Choir did was to
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pay some guy thirty thousand dollars to not talk about an alleged pregnancy that led
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to an abortion that he had knowledge or allegedly had knowledge of regarding Donald Trump.
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And I don't think that story was true at all, And that's why
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the guy only got paid thirty thousand dollars. Should be pointed out that the
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amount of money that was being paid here, even in twenty fifteen, twenty
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sixteen dollars was not very very much at all, and I think it was
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an indication that some of these stories weren't all that problematic, like, for
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instance, the Karen McDougall story. Again, I might be paying Karen McDougall
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to tell people she had an affair with me and she's likes me. But
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I digress. The point here is that these were not a lot of money
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being dealt here, and I think part of it was because that one story
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was not even true. But Trump could make the argument that all I was
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doing was knowing that people were going to come out of the woodwork. I
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didn't want to harm my marriage, so the National Inchoir was doing me a
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favor. And so you know, David Pecker is a friend of mine.
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I don't want my marriage to be harmed. Make sure these people don't talk,
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or we do everything we can to make sure their stories don't become public.
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Well, if that's the case, then you have a tougher time with
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that argument. It's not impossible. You have a tougher time with that argument
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if the deals end after the election, the women are allowed to talk after
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the election. Now you could argue, if you're the Trump people there's no
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need to keep it going after the election, because after the election, the
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market, assuming Trump loses, the market for stories about Trump having an affairs
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suddenly drives up. But that then leads me to another part of this story,
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which is it certainly seems to me that the premise for these deals was
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that Donald Trump was never going to become president, because if you're Trump,
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why in the world, if you think you're going to be president, why
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would you want these deals to end after the election, Because if you become
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president, if anything, these stories become even more marketable. The only explanation
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I can come up with is you don't really think you're gonna win, and
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it doesn't really matter after that point, which is certainly consistent with the whole
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series of other data points that I've always pointed to. Because you know,
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when the Trump people say, oh, well, we were the Trump fans,
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the Trump cult members say we were right about twenty sixteen. Okay,
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you were right about twenty sixteen. I was wrong, But you know who
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else was wrong? Donald Trump and everybody around Donald Trump. Nobody around him
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thought he was gonna win in twenty sixteen. And this is further evidence of
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that because if he thought he was gonna win. These deals would have been
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extended beyond just the twenty sixteen election, but that didn't happen, And I
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think that's very telling. And that's similar to the blackmail situation involving the National
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Choir and then dangers involved in that. That's another part of this story,
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another part of this equation that the conservative media should be at least mentioning,
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but of course has no self interest to do so now because no one wants
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to mention. Oh, by the way, Trump was an accidental president,
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didn't even think he was gonna win himself. That, by the way,
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also goes to one of my pet theories about the whole Russia Gate situation.
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I believe that the whole Russia Gate scandal, the essence of it, to
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this date, ninety some percent of the American people have no idea that this
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even happened. But I believe that Trump was trying to hide the fact that
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is the presumpt of Republican presidential nominee in twenty sixteen. He was trying to
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leverage that position to get a Trump tower built in Moscow because he didn't think
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he was going to be president. He's like, oh, my god,
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I'm the Republican presidential nominee. Putin's gonna take me more seriously, I can
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finally get this Trump towerth built. That was his plan, and that was,
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in my view, what a lot of the cover up actions were about.
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Michael Cohen is integral to this, this hush money case. Michael Cohen
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lied to Congress about the timing of the Moscow Trump towerth plan, and the
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only reason he could have possibly have done that in the way that he did
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was he was instructed either by Trump or Trump's lawyers to lie to Congress about
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the timing because, somewhat delusionally and hilariously in retrospect, Trump was concerned that
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people might find that outrageous. And I think he knows now he could have
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gotten away with anything, but at the time we didn't know you could get
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away as Donald Trump trying to do a business trying to use the Republican presidential
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nomination to do a business deal with Vladimir Putin to build a Trump Tower in
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Moscow. But these are all sorts of things that the vast, vast,
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vast majority of the public and even Republicans have no clue about, because the
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media is completely and totally broken. Now, one other thing about the National
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Inquirer's role in this, and this certainly does go to the issue of journalism
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or lack thereof, and that is that in twenty sixteen, in the Republican
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primary race, rather famously or infamously, the National Inquirer ran a story that
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connected Ted Cruz's father, Ted Cruz was one of the primary opponents against Donald
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Trump, senator from Texas, that connected Ted Cruz's father with Lee Harvey Oswald
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just before the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Now, I have always
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felt, and I said so at the time, that even the National Enquirer's
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story was being misperceived for its potential significance. It got perceived as the National
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acquir was saying that Ted Cruz's dad helped kill jfk. That was not what
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that story claimed, And to me, that wasn't the most important part of
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that story, assuming it was even remotely true. It gets a little complicated,
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but basically, the National inquir claimed and showed indicated that they had a
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photograph of a person who certainly looked like Ted Cruz's father with Lee Harvey Oswald
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in New Orleans, handing out pro Castro leaflets, not just before, not
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long before the assassination. Now at the time, you know, I thought,
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wow, this is a weird story, but it sure looks like Ted
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Cruz's dad, and some of the data points kind of connected with Ted Cruz's
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father and his history and where he was at the time. And my dog
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in that hunt was I never thought there was any chance that Ted Cruz's father
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had anything to do with the assassination of John Kennedy. But you got to
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remember back at twenty sixteen, before Ron de Sandas and before the COVID panic,
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Florida was still very much a swing state, and you can't win the
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presidency without Florida. And I kept thinking, well, wait a minute,
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if Ted Cruz is the nominee and this story is true that his father was
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very pro Castro, you can't as a Republican win Florida without the Cuban vote,
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and that's going to crush him in the Cuban vote if this is true.
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Of course, that was a way too nuanced take on what the National
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Enquirer was doing, because it all became Ted Cruz's dad killed JFK. But
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we learned this week and this is new information as far as I know that
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even the photograph in the story was faked by the National Choir, So I
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was wrong to give that story any credibility at all because the photo at the
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center of the story was an National in Choir creation, which is a completely
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different level of insanity. I mean, that is beyond outrageous. It's one
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thing, right, if the photo had been real and you either misinterpreted or
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you exaggerated, that would be bad. But to proactively fake a photograph to
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try to take down a Trump opponent in Ted Cruz. And by the way,
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Ted Cruise is such a cuck that when asked to respond to this,
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he basically said, you know, history is history by gods, by byguides.
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Those are my words. But that's a paraphrase of what Ted Cruz said.
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I mean, what an absolute wuss. I mean, this was at
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a point in the campaign. I don't know how much impact it had at
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the time, but this is the extent to which the National Inquirer was willing
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to go to help Donald Trump win the Republican presidential primary. And again,
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you got to remember, at that time, the National Inquirir had real power,
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real influence over people who are not cable news viewers or cable news viewers.
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They a lot of people who you know, are just very surface newspeople.
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They just get their news by accident, like for instance, in the
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grocery line and seeing the cover of the National Inquirir. And sometimes that stuff
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has more influence than anything you see on a news broadcast because people who are
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watching news broadcasts on a regular basis, they're getting conflicting information. They're getting,
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you know, theoretically other sources of information, and they might not be
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so easily in fluence by seeing the cover of the National acquir while waiting to
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check out of the grocery line. So this is not an irrelevant situation.
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This is not a circumstance where the National inquir doesn't matter. I realized that
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for highbrow media users, we think, wow, the National Inquirer doesn't have
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any real significance. It absolutely did in twenty fifteen and twenty sixteen. And
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what they did that Ted Cruz and Ted Cruz's father is outrageous, and I
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feel embarrassed that I gave the National acquire enough credibility where I thought they couldn't
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have faked the photo. By the way, it's amazing to me that no
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one figured out that they faked the photo. Maybe with today's technology would have
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been easier to be able to say, wait a minute, this is clearly
26:45
photoshopped. But the National Inquirer had enough credibility, largely because of their OJ
26:51
coverage and because of their John Edwards coverage. I mean, they had broken
26:56
some legitimate stories that I presume, and I don't even think I ever thought
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that they could have faked the photograph, but they did, and that is
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I think, very very telling with regard to the extent to which the National
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Inquirer was willing to go to try to help Donald Trump, and by the
27:14
way, also the extent to which they would have blackmail blackmail power over Trump
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if in fact Trump became president, which by accident he did. Now,
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the left wing media reaction to David Pecker's testimony and some of the revelations I've
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already discussed on this episode of the podcast has been rather hilarious and telling in
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and of itself, and the best example of that came on MSNBC, where
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a guy by the name of Andrew Weissman, who does a podcast called Prosecuting
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Donald Trump, was very indignant about the revelations from David Pecker's testimony and basically
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tried to the argument, I can't believe this, This is unbelievab, this
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is outrageous. This is ironically Russia, like, this is Russia, like
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where we would have a media outlet that would be doing the bidding for one
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candidate and one candidate only. And the reason I'm playing this wasn't on MSNBC.
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I'm not sure I would even play this clip, but I mean,
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the lack of self awareness here is just absolutely hilarious. This is a network
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that might as well be run by the Democratic Party. They are absolutely in
28:33
cohoots with the Democratic Party, and when it comes to this particular presidential election,
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they could not be more in the tank for Joe Biden if they were
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paid to be. So it doesn't matter that no direct money seems to be
28:45
passed from one person to another like it allegedly has. It was between the
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National in Choir and Michael Cohen and Donald Trump and Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal.
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That doesn't matter from a substance standpoint. From a content perspective, it's
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all exactly the same thing. And so here was MSNBC hilariously ruining the reality
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that, my god, can you believe that there would be a media organization
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completely and totally in the tank for one presidential candidate? And here's what that
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sounded like on MSNBC. How damaging is this? It's you know, we
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knew all of this, a lot of it over the years. It's a
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reminder though, of how ugly it is and a look behind the curtain kind
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of of the process and how the Trump campaign, according to David Pecker,
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worked directly with him in the National Inquirer to get these stories planted that could
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be damaging to his opponents in twenty sixteen. What did you hear in that
29:45
testimony yesterday? Which way did it cut for you? So? I think
29:48
there's a legal aspect to that, and I think there's sort of a big
29:52
picture aspect that might be viewed as sort of a political repercussions aspect. I
30:00
thought what David Pecker said was truly shocking. And the only reason that I
30:06
think we're maybe a little bit neword to what he had to say is because
30:11
of Fox News and Dominion Jet. Lets me step back. What he said
30:17
was that media outlet, even if it's considered maybe a down market media outlet
30:23
was in cahoots with one political candidate. That is what happens in Russia.
30:29
That is not what is supposed to happen here. I mean, I just
30:33
found that to be hilarious. Complete lack of self awareness. And this is
30:37
a guy who hosts a podcast called Prosecuting Donald Trump on a network where they
30:45
have the former press secretary for the current president doing her own show, and
30:51
where they would not even allow their network, NBC to hire as a minor
30:57
contributor former head of the Republican Party because that was just too outrageous. I
31:04
mean, you can't make this up. This is parody stuff. But you
31:08
know, I found it worthy of mentioned on the Death of Journalism, mainly
31:12
because of the lack of self awareness and the hilarity. Speaking of hilarity,
31:18
the left wing media has been desperately and hypocritically hoping for Trump to be in
31:26
prison for breaking the gag order in this case. Now, I find this
31:30
case to be repugnant because of its timing and because I don't think it's significant
31:37
enough to be bringing against anybody, but specifically a Republican presidential candidate, all
31:42
these years after it allegedly happened, and after the statute limitations had closed,
31:48
and with all sorts of different problems, it's a case in search of a
31:52
felony to underlie it. I mean, there's all sorts of due process problems
31:57
with this particular case. But I I'm really offended as a free speech advocate
32:02
that Trump is being gagged. Now I'm not naive. I think Trump actually
32:08
likes the fact that he's facing gag orders because the penalty in New York is
32:15
only one thousand dollars apparently for each violation, and so he can create the
32:21
narrative that he's being censored and that he's under attack, and he can be
32:25
the victim. I get all that Donald Trump is playing that to his advantage,
32:30
and I think he's purposely pushing the gag order to the full extent that
32:37
he possibly can, because I think he wants to be punished by the judge
32:42
for breaking the gag order. So I get that. But the idea that
32:46
Trump not only has to be taken off the campaign trail, and you have
32:52
a situation where jurors are given the opportunity to potentially very significantly impact his presidential
33:00
campaign by simply voting to convict him because they don't like him, because they
33:05
come from a very, very liberal jurisdiction. The fact that he not only
33:08
has to put up with that, but then can't fight back in a country
33:12
based on free speech that has a First Amendment, that he's being literally gagged
33:16
by the judge. That's wrong. There has to be some semblance of accommodation
33:24
made because of the fact that he's the Republican presidential nominee and that inherently,
33:30
inherently everything that happens surrounding this case is a presidential campaign issue. And I
33:38
have seen almost nobody in the media, even people I consider to be free
33:43
speech advocates, come to Trump's defense on this. Nobody in the non conservative
33:47
right wing media, But the left wing media has been out of their fucking
33:52
minds. They've been openly cheerleading for Trump to be imprisoned. These are media
33:57
people. The First Amendment is the core of their livelihoods, their business,
34:04
and they want him in prison for his speech in the middle of a presidential
34:09
campaign. You gotta be fucking kidding me. And it's so revealing, I
34:15
mean, just how much they don't understand the First Amendment, how much they
34:20
hate Trump, how they don't care about basic fairness and how willing they are
34:24
to give therapy to and placate their very liberal audiences. Because the liberal audience
34:30
is just so desperate for Trump to be significantly punished in some way. I
34:35
mean, they took such visceral joy in the verdicts against him that are costing
34:42
him hundreds of millions of dollars. But it's not the same as putting him
34:45
in prison. You know, that would be orgasmic for the average left wing
34:51
media consumer and the left wing media I'm talking about CNN, MSNBC places like
34:57
that have been openly against their own self interest as media members hoping for Trump
35:04
to be in prison for breaking a gag order that should not exist in a
35:07
country based on free speech. In a case like this, where you have
35:12
the Republican presidential nominee being forced to stand trial in a liberal jurisdiction right in
35:15
the middle of the campaign, it's absolutely astonishing. Now. One of the
35:21
things that has been kind of weird about the last few months of the Death
35:24
of Journalism podcast is that I have been continually and increasingly finding people with whom
35:30
I normally disagree saying things that I think are very true and worthy of mention.
35:37
You know, Bill Maher, Stephen A. Smith. I'm going to
35:39
get to him because he's had a retraction in just a moment. And John
35:45
Stewart another very liberal media character who's back on The Daily Show on Comedy Central
35:52
and just for this election season. And I got to give John Stewart some
35:55
kudos here because he really took the media to the shed in general, but
36:01
specifically with regard to their over hyping of the Trump trial and how they refuse
36:07
to learn the lessons from their past mistakes. And I think this will translate
36:13
into audio, but this was Jon Stewart this week on The Daily Show.
36:19
This trial will obviously be a test of the fairness of the American legal system,
36:23
but it's also a test of the media's ability to cover Donald Trump in
36:27
a responsible way, a task they have acknowledged they've performed poorly in the past.
36:34
I think to the degree that the media had lessons turned sixteen, they
36:37
seem to have been learned as irresponsible for cable news networks to give Donald Trump
36:42
hours and hours of free airtime, way too much speculation and liberal wishful thinking
36:45
and attempts to connect dots that did not connect get to the media's responsibility to
36:51
not get distracted. I think we were much too busy chasing after shiny objects.
36:54
All of us have learned some very valuable lessons from the last couple of
36:58
years, needing what's significant, what's important. So brave, well done,
37:12
and I think for this trial we will see the seeds of that introspection bear
37:15
fruit, or we will learn that learning curves are for pussies. Here we
37:22
go, it's on, it's happening. History will be made, shaping up
37:27
to be the trial of the century, maybe the trial of the century or
37:30
trial of the century, but just might be the trial of the century.
37:32
The taxman is here, Donald Trump, you will finally be forced to face
37:37
the music. The legal walls closing in around Donald Trump. The legal walls
37:40
are starting to close in on Donald Trump. Yes this time, mister Bond,
37:50
its truly as you're doing. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm
37:52
going to leave this room. Obviously, when I leave, I'm not going
37:55
to press this button right here that opens all the doors and dismantles the killing
37:59
machine. Outy faished, don't follow me, mister b Perhaps if we limit
38:06
the coverage to the issues at hand and try not to create an all encompassing
38:10
spectacle of the most banal of details. Perhaps that would help. You're looking
38:15
at live pictures in New York City of Donald Trump's motorcate. It's about a
38:19
twenty minute drive between Trump Tower and the Court building. Trump leaving Trump Tower
38:23
on Fifth Avenue. They're now making their way across town along fifty seventh Street.
38:28
They just crossed Park Avenue, making their way up towards Lexington Avenue.
38:31
Who's heading down the FDR to the Manhattan Courthouse on Chamber Street, arriving at
38:36
this intersection of American history with defiance. Arriving at the intersection of American history
38:47
with defiance. The brilliant juxtaposing of the gravitas of the moment with simple traffic
38:53
terms was here. I've got the intersection of the second history where you put
39:01
a quarter in the parking meter of destiny, leaving the car looking to avoid
39:10
stepping in the urine puddle of jurisprudence. Seriously, are we going to follow
39:16
this guy to court every thing day? Are you trying to make this oj?
39:22
It's not a chase he's commuting now, as far as the media hysteria
39:30
surrounding the Trump trial. My sense, and we're only a couple of days
39:34
into this as of this taping, my sense is that this is not going
39:38
to reach anything close to OJ levels OJ Simpson levels, mainly because there are
39:44
no cameras in the courtroom. That's number one. Number two, we already
39:49
know this story and for the most part, and number three, you know,
39:52
it's not all that dramatic a story. It's not like OJ Simpson is
39:58
a case where he killed two people. No one seems to even understand what
40:01
the real damage of these allegations really were, even if proven to be true.
40:08
And it certainly seems as if reading the tea leaves here that the mainstream
40:15
media, left wing media even are toning down not the tone of their coverage,
40:20
but the amount of their coverage because this is not a ratings winner.
40:24
I'm seeing no signs as of this moment that the Trump trial is even close
40:31
to the trial of the century or you know, OJ Simpson redo. Now
40:36
it's going to have significance because that verdict could very much have significance on the
40:40
polling in the presidential race, depending on what that verdict is and how it
40:45
comes down and how it's perceived, and that's part of why I talk about
40:50
this and have been and will continue to do so on this podcast. But
40:53
there's no evidence to me that this is enthralling the nation. And I'm seeing
40:59
in the coverage on cable news, and you know, they get their overnight
41:02
television ratings every morning at like eleven am or so, and they respond immediately
41:08
to those ratings. And I'm seeing some major cable news television shows really do
41:14
very little coverage of the Trump trial, and even when they do it,
41:17
it's not wall to wall, and that tells me the ratings aren't that great.
41:22
And if you look at Twitter trends, the trial really isn't impacting very
41:29
much at all. I mean, David Pecker's name trended for the last couple
41:31
of days, but he was, you know, the primary witness. And
41:36
there's some news about it. I'm not saying it's a non news story,
41:37
but it's nowhere near as gigantic as I think the media hope that it would
41:44
be. And I do think that not having cameras in the courtroom is the
41:47
main reason for that. The other reason for that. I was watching CNN
41:53
the other night Caitlin Collins, who I generally think is decent. I mean,
41:58
I think she's pretty decent at her job. She clearly doesn't like Trump.
42:01
She had that very infamous town hall in New Hampshire where she and Trump
42:07
went at it and it appeared very much to work to Trump's advantage, and
42:10
CNN took a lot of criticism for it. But she had a panel discussing
42:15
what happened. I think this was on day one of the of the trial.
42:20
And so it's Caitlyn Collins with a clear anti Trump reputation, and then
42:25
four older, unattractive, boring so called legal experts on a panel with her,
42:35
and all four of them are liberal. So you got a liberal host
42:38
with four legal so called experts, none of whom are interesting, none of
42:44
whom are compelling, none of them were attractive, all of whom have the
42:50
same exact perspective. And that was bad enough from a bias perspective as I'm
42:54
watching it, but I really got sent off the deep end when they came.
43:00
They came to this discussion of the issue of jury bias and Trump's complaints
43:06
that he can't get a fair trial in New York, and they all just
43:10
poo pooed the whole idea. Oh, this is silly because and I'm paraphrasing,
43:15
but basically, you know, Republicans go on trial in Manhattan all the
43:20
time and they get a fair trial. Why couldn't Donald Trump get a fair
43:23
trial as a Republican? And I almost fell off my chair. I'm like,
43:28
are you people insane? How many times has the Republican presidential nominee in
43:34
an election year gone on trial in New York City? You don't think that
43:38
that's going to impact how the jury views this case and what they're likely to
43:44
do? My god, I mean, it's it is comical how we're all
43:50
just pretending that we're not handling this jury an insane amount of power here.
43:57
That is a violation of base. There's the concept of due process. I
44:02
gotta believe that if Trump is convicted in this case, that's some appellate court
44:07
eventually is gonna go, wait a minute, what the fuck was this?
44:13
How can you possibly believe that you can have a fair jury for a Republican
44:19
presidential nominee in a liberal jurisdiction in the middle of a presidential campaign. It's
44:23
absurd, And yet the media is just pretending and they were doing that on
44:28
CNN, just pretending, oh no, these are silly, silly, silly
44:31
concerns. Well, it's not just the left wing media that has been embarrassing
44:37
themselves when it comes to their analysis of the Trump trial. I have to
44:40
take at least a few moments to discuss the latest with regard to Megan Kelly.
44:45
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44:49
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