Latest / The Chuck ToddCast / Special Episode - Don Lemon’s Arrest By Trump’s DOJ Is CHILLING For Journalism

Transcript

Special Episode - Don Lemon’s Arrest By Trump’s DOJ Is CHILLING For Journalism · The Chuck ToddCast

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Just popping on because this is a huge moment for
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: those of us in independent media. The arrest of Don
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Lemon is pretty chilling. The pharmacy and an anchor to
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: get some context was reporting on the protests in Minneapolis.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: There was this high profile incident where some protesters went
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: into a church service. Don Lemon followed them in in
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: his capacity as a journalist. Even the videos have been
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: out there, his reports have been out there, even interviewed
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: the pastor. There's no doubt there were people very upset
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: with how that incident went down at the church, and
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: certainly because of previous instances where the president and his
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: supporters have not been big fans of Don Lemon. Of course,
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: everything gets quickly politicized, and everything is seen through this
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: prism of politics rather than the prism of the First Amendment.
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: And that's what I want to get at here. Look,
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: the First Amendment is there to protect speech we don't
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: like and speech we like. It's there to protect the
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: speech you agree with and the speech you don't agree with.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: Freedom of the press is also the same way, and
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: you don't have to like Don Lemon to defend his
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: right to do what he did. You can love Don
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: Lemon and also defend his right to do what he did. Look,
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: one person's journalist is another person's activist. We've always had
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: this fight and dispute about because those that are political
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: actors don't like press that questions what they're doing and
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: any a lot of times you get political activists who
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: when they don't like something that's being reported, they automatically say,
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: you're not a journalist, you're an activist, and the accusation
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: comes from said activist. Right. So, but this is a
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: really chilling moment for an e penemedia, and this has
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: been a thing I've been very concerned about and to
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: be fully transparent and been working on various ideas so
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: that we can create some sort of independent cooperative to
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: create some legal defense. Don Lemon is somebody who's high
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: profile figure. He's got Abbi Lole, a terrific attorney, somebody
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: that anybody in Washington knows, if you're in trouble, call
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: Abbi Lole, which is pretty much the best advice anybody
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: can can take in Washington. And so Don Lemon's going
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: to be fine, He's going to get proper representation in
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: this case. Is this is open that this is such
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: a bullshit case, which look has me. I'll be honest,
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: I'm been of two minds on this was a part
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: of me that wasn't going to put out anything because
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: this feels like an intentional distraction by the Trump administration
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: to desperately feed their base something, to essentially feed them
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: some chum. And you don't like Don Lemon, So we'll
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: throw this out there and you guys can have a
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: little bit of fun with that. And you see some
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: of the some of the MAGA media puppets sort of
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: jumping on this and trying to and trying to you know,
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: dunk on Don Lemon or whatever it is. But this
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: is an important This is going to be an important
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: moment to win for independent media and for frankly for
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: freedom oppress as it is with so much corporate capitulation,
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: which is damage the credibility of legacy media. Right when
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: you have all these corporate owned media companies that have
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: all capitulated to the government, to the Trump run government
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: in various ways, I understand why so many people don't
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: trust where that comes from. But the one thing working
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: for a big corporateentity did provide journalists with some legal
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: protection as an independent it's much more difficult, and that
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: is something that a lot of us have feared, that
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: you could get sued out of existence, You could get
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: sued out of being able to even do this for
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: a living. So this is why there's so many of
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: us independents are speaking out on this regardless, and to me,
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: this is a great MRI. By the way, if you
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: want to find out if your favorite influencer, whether they're
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: left or right, if they're not standing up for Lemon's
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: right to do this, they're not interested in the First Amendment.
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: They're not a constitutionalist. So just keep that in mind.
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: There is no definition of of you know, there is
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: no place you register as a journalist. Okay, it is
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: simply in the First Amendment that you that you have
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: a right to a free press and the government can't
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: intrude on that right. And this is a government intrusion
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: attempting on that right to try to criminalize what he
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: was doing, and he was practicing journalism. And again I
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: accept the premise that this is subjective to some people,
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: that one person's journalist is another person's activist. Was Thomas
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: Paine a journalist or an activist? When he wrote common
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: Sense is Alexander Hamilton a journalist or an activist when
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: he helped co write all the Federalist papers. The point
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: is is that, yes, there's quite a bit of incredible
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: journalism that led to important activism. So it is hard
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: to disaggregate the two, and you shouldn't even try to
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: do it. And our founders didn't attempt to try to
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: do it. They simply put in this as a foundational
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: protection against tyranny, bottom line, right, that's why it's the
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: first Amendment, that both speech and freedom of the press
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: is sitting there in the first And yes, I know
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: some of you will say, well, also freedom of religion.
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: And there's there's some that are going to try to
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: make the case that what happened with this group and
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: what Don Lemon doing was impeding upon somebody's ability and
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: that that may be something that the activists who are
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: the actual protesters, they may have to deal with that.
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: And I'm not going to have a constitutional debate on that.
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: But Don Lemon was practicing journalism as he was doing it. Now,
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: if you want to hit him with a trespassing charge,
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: that's a separate conversation. But this he had every right
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: to do what he was doing there, He was covering
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: this protest, He was there as a journalist. And I
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: don't even think the trespassing charge has much has much
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: traction here, But this is an important case to make
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: sure it gets thrown out if for some reason it doesn't.
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: If for some reason this this somehow has taken that
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: that Don Lemon, being a journalist, committed a crime and
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: he's charged with something and convicted, that's a that's a moment.
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: That's a moment, that is that is an erosion of
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: of who we are as Americans and what America claims
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: it is and wants to be. So. But I'm I'm
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: really confident this is going nowhere. I think this is,
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: like I said, my hesitance for even adding to the
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: material that's out there is simply this feels like an
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: intentional distraction. Right. The president is having a disastrous month.
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: I think this is and I've written it earlier this week.
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: I think this is the month that it all it's
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: all starting like it is not going to get better, right.
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: Everything seems to be building and you know, getting worse
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: and worse and worse, and he's kind of in a
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: bad public relations spiral at a minimum, here where you've
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: got more members of his own party splintering from this.
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: You know, this month, we've seen more elected Republicans feel
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: comfortable pushing back at this White House. Right, there's just
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: all these chinks in the armor. It's just that it's
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: the the erosion suddenly seems to be accelerating. So this
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: feels like, you know, hey, throw the base something to
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: distract them so they're not so mad about the president's
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: irresponsible comments about the Second Amendment or the or what
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: Ice did do uh in the in the killing of
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: Renee Good and Alex Preddie. So you know, I think
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: we there's there's too much of this happens, which is
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: people want to rationalize violating somebody's constitutional rights because they
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: say somebody, well somebody isn't a pure actor or whatever
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: is it, you know, and you know, so just because
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: you don't like Don Lemon's politics, you're going to look
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: the other way when his constitutional rights are violated. And
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: so that's when I say the good news about this
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: incident is that it's an MRI to find out who
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: on the right, you know, who was really concerned about
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: speech during COVID, really concerned you know about you know,
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: the freedom. The people that argue with what James O'Keeffe does.
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: What James O'Keefe does is is more blurring the line
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: about you know, when he when he does his undercover
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: that stuff's borderline criminal at times with what he's doing
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: in some of these cases, but he's been protected in
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: some cases by the First Amendment as well. So the
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: point is is that our constitutional rights are there for
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: even people we don't like, for people we don't agree with.
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: And if you start looking the other way just because
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: well I don't like that guy Don Lemon, so who cares.
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: I've always wanted to see him in handcuffs or some
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: sort of that's a slippery slope, folks, because the next
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: time it could be you. And guess what, When you
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: take a video and you decide to post it on
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: social media and somebody comes after you, you have a
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: First Amendment right, and you're going to be glad that
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: First Amendment right gets upheld. If somebody comes after you
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: with a lawsuit, well, that's the same thing here. So
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: I do hope, I do think that's the one thing
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: we're going to get out of this is we're going
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: to find out who the hypocrites are particularly those in
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: the MAGA media world who have beaten their chest, particularly
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: during COVID and during the whole dispute, the manufactured dispute
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: about the twenty twenty election that Donald Trump was was
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: trying to stir. So it is if you think that
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: speech is protected, and you think all of those lies
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: are protected under the First Amendment, then you should be
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: outraged by what happened with Don Lemon. So we'll see
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: if we get that. But the other thing to think
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: about here is just remember just because you think someone's
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: an activist doesn't mean they're not practicing journalism. And yes,
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: some journalism turns into activism. We had some pretty important
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: journalism during our founding that now might look like activist journalism.
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: But I think it was a pretty good thing that
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: Alexander Hamilton wrote the Federalist Papers, and I think it
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: was a pretty good thing that Thomas Paine wrote Common Sense.
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: What was juvenile and chilling at the same time is
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: how the White House is celebrating the fact that they
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: have used the federal government to violate the First Amendment.
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: I'm pretty confident our court system is going to throw
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: this out pretty quickly. But the fact that it's got
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: this close is alarming. It's really chilling for those of
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: us in independent media who are trying to escape the
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: influence of this government corporate marriage. And so if this
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: goes the wrong way, our information ecosystem is in more
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: trouble than it's in at the moment. And we're already
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: in a lot of trouble with it as it is.
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: So we're gonna keep plugging away. And this is why
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: so many of us have to band together and have
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: each other's back, not just rhetorically but legally as well.
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: I'll see them abom