Speaker 1: Why on Sky News.
Speaker 2: This is Sharry.
Speaker 3: Good Evening, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 4: Tonight, the ABC admits it doctored a video adding in
Speaker 4: gunshots to accuse a commando.
Speaker 3: Of being a war criminal.
Speaker 4: This major admission from the ABC's investigations unit. Ben Fordham
Speaker 4: and Sarah Henderson would join me tonight to discuss this
Speaker 4: bombshell revelation. Well, Donald Trump speaks out after a second
Speaker 4: assassination attempt? Can the Secret Service actually keep him safe?
Speaker 4: I look at this with Kosher Gata and joining us
Speaker 4: live the polster behind new research that shows Dutton could
Speaker 4: be the next Prime Minister. Albanezi clearly on the nose
Speaker 4: with voters. Leo Shanahan will be on the show later. Also,
Speaker 4: Karon Milner shares his prediction that.
Speaker 3: Albo will be a one term PM.
Speaker 4: But first tonight, the ABC has made a bombshell admission
Speaker 4: that it published fake footage with extra gunshots added in
Speaker 4: a report wrongly accusing a hero commander of being a
Speaker 4: war criminal. This revelation has rocked the ABC after its
Speaker 4: beleagued investigations unit made the devastating admission that it used
Speaker 4: fabricated audio as part of its defamatory pursuit of Heston Russell.
Speaker 4: As you know, Russell is a decorated Farmer special Forces
Speaker 4: commander who fought against Taliban terrorists in Afghanistan. Well, the
Speaker 4: ABC's Mark Willersey published downing allegations against Russell and his platoon,
Speaker 4: wrongly claiming they killed unarmed civilians.
Speaker 5: We don't have the vision that comes immediately before this,
Speaker 5: but this Australian soldier is firing towards what appeared to
Speaker 5: be unarmed civilians in residential compounds.
Speaker 6: And they're saying that you're shooting at unarmed civilians.
Speaker 5: And this guy had literally just been on the back
Speaker 5: of a motorbike with his mate shooting at two of
Speaker 5: my teams that were on the ground. But we don't
Speaker 5: see any of it, no, nor do they, but they're
Speaker 5: still happy to jump to a conclusion from fifteen seconds
Speaker 5: worth of footage.
Speaker 4: And that was Heston Russell on Channel seven speaking about
Speaker 4: the original ABC broadcast from two years ago. Russell gave
Speaker 4: the ABC the raw footage to show the whole context,
Speaker 4: but the ABC wouldn't fix its report and Russell took
Speaker 4: the public broadcaster to court. He won and was awarded
Speaker 4: almost four hundred k in damages.
Speaker 5: Two things, First and foremost, it's not me. Secondly, here's
Speaker 5: the full context. They were not unarmed civilians.
Speaker 6: Incredibly, the ABC refused to acknowledge it, so in September
Speaker 6: of twenty twenty two, Russell commenced defamation proceedings in the
Speaker 6: Federal Court to defend himself again against their accusations of
Speaker 6: war crimes. The reporter Mark Willisy is saying, we don't
Speaker 6: know what happened before this, but he does. He's known
Speaker 6: about it since April last year. For a year he's known.
Speaker 6: So what's online, what's up on the net is a lie.
Speaker 5: Absolutely.
Speaker 4: And now Heston Russell has made the quite extraordinary discovery
Speaker 4: that the ABC had edited its footage, adding in extra
Speaker 4: gunshots and taking a fifteen second clip entirely out of context.
Speaker 4: Here was that amazing revelation on Channel seven last night.
Speaker 6: In the actual helmet cam vision, it's a warning shot,
Speaker 6: then Heston's command to shoot.
Speaker 2: Followed by six.
Speaker 4: Shots, and then seven went on to explain how the
Speaker 4: single warning shot became six.
Speaker 5: Have a look, they've literally added extra gunshots.
Speaker 2: That's phenomenon.
Speaker 5: So I fell off my chair when I saw this.
Speaker 4: A forensic audio expert analyzed the footage and had this
Speaker 4: to say last night.
Speaker 7: They've taken the audio from the six shots and they've
Speaker 7: applied it to this video in the news clip, and
Speaker 7: they've copied and pasted across this scene. It completely misrepresents
Speaker 7: what those soldiers were going through that day.
Speaker 6: It also makes you wonder where else has been fabricated?
Speaker 2: Doesn't it correct well?
Speaker 4: When presented with the evidence, the ABC admitted the concoction.
Speaker 4: They said, we have removed the online video where an
Speaker 4: error has been identified based on preliminary inspection of the audio.
Speaker 4: The ABC is seeking more inf on how this occurred.
Speaker 4: Joe Puccini, Mark Willersey, and Josh Robertson had no role
Speaker 4: in the production and editing of the online video you've
Speaker 4: brought to our attention. Any suggestion that they have acted
Speaker 4: inappropriately or unethically is completely false. So these are the
Speaker 4: three you can see them on the screen, who claim
Speaker 4: they had nothing to do with adding those extra gunshots,
Speaker 4: but they were responsible for the defamatory crusade against Russell.
Speaker 4: Already the court has heard that they relied on the
Speaker 4: hazy memory of an American soldier who said to Mark
Speaker 4: Willersey that he couldn't recall any specific details from a
Speaker 4: decade ago, and that his account shouldn't be relied on.
Speaker 4: Yet that is what the ABC based their story on,
Speaker 4: insisting they had a confidential source. And here was Mark
Speaker 4: Willersey boasting about repeatedly going back to his source when
Speaker 4: he was on stage at Walkley Awards.
Speaker 8: And I spent two months checking out, going back to
Speaker 8: this guy, getting more detail, more detailed.
Speaker 9: And this is this idea that we we make up
Speaker 9: and we don't.
Speaker 3: That's Joe Hood abround, laughing out loud.
Speaker 4: He can't help himself. And we'll get his opinion on
Speaker 4: that in just a minute. But as you saw, Mark
Speaker 4: Willisey never mentioned there that his source told him not
Speaker 4: to rely on his memory at all. Now, this is
Speaker 4: a journalist, Mark Willersey, who has called news corp tabloids,
Speaker 4: murdock bottom feeders. Well, I'll tell you this news corp
Speaker 4: would never add extra gunshots into a video to falsely
Speaker 4: accuse a decorated soldier of war crimes. This unthinkable conduct
Speaker 4: happened at the ABC, and it keeps claiming it's the
Speaker 4: most trusted media organization in the country. Well, Heston and
Speaker 4: his legal team Barrister Sucrasanthu and Rebecca Giles eventually discovered
Speaker 4: the sources, identity and emails from that soldier showed he warned.
Speaker 3: The ABC not to rely on his memory. He said
Speaker 3: it was hazy.
Speaker 4: What's worse, it's now eventuated that Heston wasn't even in
Speaker 4: Afghanistan at the time that the ABC claimed the war
Speaker 4: crime happened.
Speaker 5: When the ABC published their articles saying this happened between
Speaker 5: June and July, and I produced my deployment record that
Speaker 5: showed we weren't even in Afghanistan during that time.
Speaker 4: Pudin Well, another American soldier who did work with Heston Russell,
Speaker 4: had this to say about him.
Speaker 10: Most of our one on one interaction was with with Heston,
Speaker 10: and then usually we you know, we'd get up with
Speaker 10: the platuna in the aircraft. You know, most of the
Speaker 10: communication it was with Heston.
Speaker 2: Could you rank him highly?
Speaker 10: I held him in the highest regard out of everybody
Speaker 10: I worked with. I thought he was the most professional
Speaker 10: commander that I got the hand A pleasure of work
Speaker 10: went down. I spent a year in Afghanistan during that deployment,
Speaker 10: and at no point during that time that I ever
Speaker 10: did we ever think that any of the engagements were
Speaker 10: illegal or unethical or.
Speaker 2: Outside the rules of it.
Speaker 10: Absolutely so.
Speaker 6: Did anybody try to call you, any journalists from Australia
Speaker 6: Do they try to get in touch?
Speaker 2: No one ever trying to call me or contact me
Speaker 2: about it.
Speaker 11: No, sir.
Speaker 4: You just think how far removed is that account from
Speaker 4: how the ABC chose to portray Heston Russell. They portrayed
Speaker 4: him as a murderer who they claimed killed innocent civilians,
Speaker 4: and the public broadcaster has refused to apologize, showing extreme
Speaker 4: arrogance even after being found in a court of law
Speaker 4: to have wrongly pursued an innocent veteran. And here is
Speaker 4: the ABC's from a managing director showing no remorse for
Speaker 4: destroying Russell's life after publishing utter lies about him.
Speaker 12: What do you say to war veteran Heston Russell, the
Speaker 12: ABC wrongfully accused of committing all come at.
Speaker 8: The moment, I would say that. And the court agrees
Speaker 8: that those stories were in the public interests. The ABC
Speaker 8: held a genuine belief that they were in the public interest.
Speaker 8: The court degrees of that.
Speaker 12: I'm not interested in your belief, I'm interested in the
Speaker 12: facts you have been found to have him properly and
Speaker 12: wrongly accused mister Heston Russell of being a war criminal.
Speaker 12: What do you say, firstly to mister Heston Russell, Sandra, if.
Speaker 8: You're asking for me to apologize to mister Russell, I'm
Speaker 8: not going to apologize to mister Russell.
Speaker 3: It's unbelievable. All the ABC is erroneous.
Speaker 4: Reporting brought Heston Russell almost to the edge, and the
Speaker 4: ABC even went after his sexuality, shaming him he thought
Speaker 4: about taking his own life.
Speaker 9: Well.
Speaker 4: Rebecca Giles, his lawyer, said that she felt that ABC
Speaker 4: was trying to push Russell over the edge.
Speaker 13: I think the personal attacks were so hurtful to him
Speaker 13: that potentially there was a hope that he wouldn't survive them.
Speaker 3: This is disgraceful.
Speaker 4: The ABC recklessly destroyed the reputation of a fine serving
Speaker 4: commander who had repeatedly put his own life on the
Speaker 4: line fighting for our country. The ABC tried to prove
Speaker 4: that he was a war criminal, and even in the
Speaker 4: face of growing evidence that he was innocent and highly respected,
Speaker 4: refused to acknowledge the truth. Well, there needs to be
Speaker 4: accountability here. Yet we've seen ABC executives behave as arrogantly
Speaker 4: and despicably as their own reporters. The ABC does need
Speaker 4: to explain why this team still has jobs if it
Speaker 4: doesn't get more more serious than this than doctoring a
Speaker 4: video in a report wrongly accusing a decorated soldier of
Speaker 4: war crimes. Well, the accusations against our soldiers against Heston
Speaker 4: Russell came very quickly on the ABC. Yeah, the apologies
Speaker 4: for getting it wrong have not been forthcoming and this
Speaker 4: is shameful. Now Ben Fordham is going to join me
Speaker 4: on the show live to speak about this in a moment.
Speaker 4: Also Sarah Henderson as well. But right now let's bring
Speaker 4: in Sky News contributor Joe Hildebrand and Daily Telegraph columnist
Speaker 4: James Willis.
Speaker 3: Welcome it to you both.
Speaker 9: Now.
Speaker 4: James, you wrote a very strong piece about this in
Speaker 4: the Telegraph today. What's your take on this shoddy journalism?
Speaker 14: Well, this is as bad as it gets, but it's
Speaker 14: part of a wider four year campaign that the ABC
Speaker 14: ran against our soldiers, where there were dozens of stories published,
Speaker 14: every bit of footage, every from Defense or another sorcering
Speaker 14: government was allowed to be massaged together into a campaign against.
Speaker 9: Some of the most vulnerable people in the community.
Speaker 14: It was rumor, it was innuendo, and ultimately, in the
Speaker 14: last twelve months, the ABC has had to take down
Speaker 14: from my count three stories in regards to war crimes,
Speaker 14: two of them relating to the Heston Russell case after
Speaker 14: he won the defamation case against them, and now this
Speaker 14: one where they've conceded that there've been multiple gunshots added
Speaker 14: to a war crime. I mean, this is really really bad.
Speaker 14: What you said there is spot on. There is no
Speaker 14: other newsroom in the country, no other news boss that
Speaker 14: would allow this kind of journalism to go ahead, and
Speaker 14: yet we're talking about war crimes.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I also liked when you wrote in your piece today
Speaker 4: you asked, what is this off for online clicks or
Speaker 4: trying to get gongs at industry award nights.
Speaker 14: Yeah, that's right, And I think with a lot of
Speaker 14: media outlets, or sorry, a few of them, it became
Speaker 14: a race to try and outdo each other and say, okay,
Speaker 14: who can we name here? We want to go to
Speaker 14: this mission, We want to find out what people are saying,
Speaker 14: and ultimately they weren't getting the whole story. They were
Speaker 14: getting tiny little bits of information and dressing them up
Speaker 14: as incredibly serious accusations.
Speaker 9: And the way that this continued.
Speaker 14: And let's face it, at the very beginning, Heston Russell
Speaker 14: wanted an apology and his legal fees covered to the
Speaker 14: tune of about ninety thousand dollars. The ABC refused to apologize,
Speaker 14: doubled down, tripled down, went into his private life, and
Speaker 14: then at the end of the federal court case, it
Speaker 14: costs millions of dollars, But the people involved, the journalists
Speaker 14: and the investigations team that ran this campaign against a veteran,
Speaker 14: there were no consequences for And I can tell based
Speaker 14: on that statement that right now they are trying to,
Speaker 14: I have no doubt, to try and blame this on
Speaker 14: someone in production or say, oh, look it was an error.
Speaker 2: We're sorry.
Speaker 14: Someone just went bang bang bang. You know, a couple
Speaker 14: more times that person's gone there on a contract. Don't worry,
Speaker 14: Come on, it doesn't. The journalists who put their name
Speaker 14: to this story, we all know this, would have sat there,
Speaker 14: would have looked through the whole thing and decided what
Speaker 14: went to We're in the end, so you know, And
Speaker 14: the fact the ABC didn't go out hard on it
Speaker 14: this morning, like we know they do when you know
Speaker 14: they want to stand up for themselves indicates that there
Speaker 14: is a big problem.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Heston Russell came on this program when he first won
Speaker 4: his defamation case.
Speaker 3: He was very emotional.
Speaker 4: I'm pretty sure it was his first television interview, and
Speaker 4: he said that ABC nearly broke him. And he said
Speaker 4: it was harder to come up against the ABC than
Speaker 4: any terrorist in Afghanistan. Joe, you can see the human
Speaker 4: consequences that ABC never cared that they were potentially breaking
Speaker 4: a soldier with no evidence to support it.
Speaker 13: Yeah.
Speaker 15: I've only met Heston Russell, I think once or twice.
Speaker 15: It's always struck me as the most incredible individual and
Speaker 15: incredibly decent and honest and warm and compassionate person. I
Speaker 15: don't know why you would single him out as being
Speaker 15: a murdering war criminal without any apparent evidence, and.
Speaker 2: I think that a lot of the I think there
Speaker 2: are a couple of interesting things.
Speaker 15: One is it's a matter of people in glasshouses not
Speaker 15: throwing stones. Now, every journal gets things wrong from time
Speaker 15: to time, but not every media institution has its own
Speaker 15: inner institution, A, which have more resources than any other
Speaker 15: organization in the country, and B, which sits in judgment
Speaker 15: quite literally over every other media organization.
Speaker 2: So ABC Paul Barr is a nice guy. I like it.
Speaker 15: But the ABC is the only one with a show
Speaker 15: called Media Watch, which says, right, all you are the
Speaker 15: ones you're not living up to expectations despite the fact
Speaker 15: we're scrambling on far smaller budgets.
Speaker 2: The ABC has also got its.
Speaker 15: Own fact check unit, and I think that is currently
Speaker 15: being revamped after a slight incident with Dick Smith. And
Speaker 15: I was lucky enough to do a function with the
Speaker 15: person overseeing it, and I'm sure he.
Speaker 2: Was very point being.
Speaker 15: And yet even after all that, they still manage to
Speaker 15: do something like this. And this tells me that there
Speaker 15: must be some weird, preconceived, hard baked in idea of
Speaker 15: soldiers as just been intrinsically murderously bad people.
Speaker 2: If only we could.
Speaker 15: Just get to the bottom of it, because I don't
Speaker 15: know how else you would take this one little scaret.
Speaker 4: I think he's been this journalist that the ABC have
Speaker 4: this god complex and they think they couldn't possibly be wrong.
Speaker 4: I should just point out that David Addison, who refused
Speaker 4: to apologize in that grilling by Sarah Henderson before he
Speaker 4: is still in the job.
Speaker 3: He leaves next year.
Speaker 4: And Sarah Henderson and Ben Fordham are coming up on
Speaker 4: the show to talk more about this. But let's turn
Speaker 4: to this massive news today, the second attempted assassination.
Speaker 3: Of Donald Trump.
Speaker 4: Now, at this point, I'm worried whether he's actually going
Speaker 4: to make it to the election alive.
Speaker 3: And you know, you just.
Speaker 4: Think there are so many crazy enemies out there. They
Speaker 4: keep coming for Donald Trump.
Speaker 3: James, are you worried.
Speaker 4: About this that voters might not actually have a choice,
Speaker 4: that they might succeed in killing him.
Speaker 14: Well, I think we'd be silly to think this will
Speaker 14: be the last attempt assassination attempt on Donald Trump. And
Speaker 14: I think the hostility we're seeing America right now is frightening.
Speaker 9: I think, you know, we.
Speaker 14: Have two people that are in a really genuine contest here.
Speaker 14: The polls have even up since Joe Biden dropped out,
Speaker 14: But ultimately it's terrifying to think that you could be
Speaker 14: heading into a poll and anytime Donald Trump steps out
Speaker 14: in public or goes on a golf course in this case,
Speaker 14: that there would be a possible risk on his life.
Speaker 14: I always wonder why the media in these stories reports
Speaker 14: on the person's political.
Speaker 9: Views or who they've voted for previously. I find that irrelevant.
Speaker 14: For someone to be taking this course of action is
Speaker 14: just unhinged, and it is terrifying that in a country
Speaker 14: like America this does go on. But thank god we
Speaker 14: live in Australia, I suppose.
Speaker 15: Well, the worst part is it's so incredibly stupid, Like
Speaker 15: if this person is trying to stop Donald Trump, it
Speaker 15: is events like this which actually make him more popular.
Speaker 15: The more you make him a martyr, the more popular is.
Speaker 15: This is why the judge was smart enough to know
Speaker 15: not to sentence him before election day. This is why
Speaker 15: his popularity shot up to unprecedented heights after the first
Speaker 15: assassination attempt. Here's someone who's actually clearly unhinged, clearly too
Speaker 15: stupid to be able to think it through, but who
Speaker 15: was actually going through with this and trying to stop
Speaker 15: him when in fact they're.
Speaker 2: Just fueling him.
Speaker 15: But I find it, I actually find it very interesting
Speaker 15: that this person, who does appear to be a Democrat supporter,
Speaker 15: has previously said that apparently he said he voted for
Speaker 15: Donald Trump in twenty sixteen, but he voted in a
Speaker 15: Democratic primary.
Speaker 2: And well or whatever whatever.
Speaker 15: But the point I think, well, no, I think the
Speaker 15: point is though, that this seems to have been very
Speaker 15: much downplayed, Like whenever else you get an attempted shooter
Speaker 15: or attemption, it's like, oh, it's an extreme right winger
Speaker 15: with you know, with you know, all these crazy views,
Speaker 15: and he loves guns, and he's got you know, he's
Speaker 15: a racist and he hates this.
Speaker 3: We only seeing the assassination Trump, that's.
Speaker 15: Right, But as soon as it's someone with links to
Speaker 15: the Democrats, it's like, oh, yeah.
Speaker 2: He was known to police.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 4: And Koshergarder would join me later to speak about Joe
Speaker 4: Biden's reaction to this.
Speaker 3: Now let's have a look at Twiggy Forest.
Speaker 4: Now we know he loves a bit of good publicity
Speaker 4: and he was keen to reveal the man behind the
Speaker 4: headlines to the Daily Telegraph on the weekend.
Speaker 3: He then went on to detail, and this.
Speaker 4: Is the very first paragraph of the entire story.
Speaker 3: He talks about an horrific.
Speaker 4: Childhood trauma, and the Telly reports that at eight years
Speaker 4: of age, Twiggy recall sitting in the back of his
Speaker 4: father's ute holding the hand of a badly burnt and
Speaker 4: dying man, and Twiggy says, I don't share that story,
Speaker 4: but I wanted to share it with you because it's
Speaker 4: why I have such a deep.
Speaker 3: Appreciation for life.
Speaker 4: Well, that's interesting, he says, this is a story he
Speaker 4: doesn't share. But let's have a look at the Sydney
Speaker 4: Morning Herald from back in two thousand and nine, where
Speaker 4: again the start of the story says, when he was eight,
Speaker 4: Andrew Forrest held a man in his final moments before
Speaker 4: death from bushfire injuries. The man passed away as the
Speaker 4: youngsters sang him nursery rhymes. Now, James, obviously this is
Speaker 4: a tragic story.
Speaker 9: But what is.
Speaker 4: Twiggy trying to achieve here? Is this an image brandt Well?
Speaker 14: I think two years a very fascinating person, and the
Speaker 14: supporters of him say that he's on this campaign to
Speaker 14: save the planet.
Speaker 9: Other people have accused him.
Speaker 14: Of flat at greenwashing, and I think the truth lights
Speaker 14: somewhere in the middle there. But he's always struck me
Speaker 14: as someone that is desperate to be liked by the
Speaker 14: public and wants to leave this great legacy.
Speaker 9: Now that can be done in a range.
Speaker 14: Of ways, but for him it's clearly very important and
Speaker 14: on a number of fronts, with a number of the
Speaker 14: things he's done.
Speaker 9: Publicly over the last few years.
Speaker 14: I feel like, ultimately he is desperate to make that
Speaker 14: legacy count. He's clearly forgotten the fact that he told
Speaker 14: the story previously fifteen years.
Speaker 2: Ago, but I can't remember much that I did fifteen
Speaker 2: Tell you a story fifteen years is exactly.
Speaker 4: So much positive publicity that I guess he can't remember
Speaker 4: his own spent now. The who's who of Australian television
Speaker 4: came together last night in a moving memorial for TV
Speaker 4: legend Reg Grundy, six years since his pass and he
Speaker 4: was remembered in a joint memorial with his late wife,
Speaker 4: Joy Chambers Grundy, she passed away last year. Have a
Speaker 4: look at some of the tributes to him from Tracy Grimshaw,
Speaker 4: Alan Jones and Tony Abbott.
Speaker 13: For decades from the dawn of television, Reg Grundy was
Speaker 13: Australia's most prolific and successful TV producer. Joy was the
Speaker 13: love of his life and Reggie, as she called him,
Speaker 13: was certainly hers.
Speaker 16: If ever there was an Australian team of achievement, these
Speaker 16: two were that team. Reg Grundy was the Rupert Murdoch
Speaker 16: of television, the biggest independent television producer in the world.
Speaker 4: Joe Alan Jones, made the point last night that Reg
Speaker 4: Grundy was so private that his legacy hasn't properly been celebrated.
Speaker 2: Reg Grundy, It's difficult to overstate.
Speaker 15: It's impossible, in fact, to overstate how much of a
Speaker 15: titan he is. This man has almost godlike status in television,
Speaker 15: and you don't.
Speaker 2: Really know it. Like everyone would know. At the end
Speaker 2: of every show you've.
Speaker 15: Ever watched, a real of fortune or a blankety blanks
Speaker 15: or perfect match, whatever, you know, the Grundy thing would
Speaker 15: come out and bubicuous. He never actually think of the
Speaker 15: person behind it. It was incredibly reclusive. I think he'
Speaker 15: lived for the last few decades of his life with
Speaker 15: joy in Bermuda, and it was impossible to see, possible
Speaker 15: to get in touch with and he had it was
Speaker 15: almost like a sort of Bond villain, but without the
Speaker 15: villain part, Like you just had this incredible mystique about.
Speaker 2: Him, but absolute reverence.
Speaker 15: When you do daytime television for seven years, you see
Speaker 15: all these sort of old kind of legends of the
Speaker 15: eighties and the nineties come through, people like Greg Evans,
Speaker 15: for example, and John Bagen all these people, and they
Speaker 15: would speak in almost hush tones about him as though
Speaker 15: again it was as close to sort of a demi
Speaker 15: god of television as you could possibly get. A four
Speaker 15: hundred TV shows, four hundred TV shows, prisoner, Real of Fortune,
Speaker 15: as I mentioned Blankety Blanks, I mentioned Class of seventy four,
Speaker 15: and of course everybody's personal favorite The Restless.
Speaker 4: Yes, no, incredible legacy. All right, Joe Hildebrand and James Willis.
Speaker 4: Great to have you on.
Speaker 2: Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 4: Now let's return to these massive bombshell revelations that the
Speaker 4: ABC has doctored video. There's now urgent investigations underway at
Speaker 4: the ABC. The footage featuring that compromised audio.
Speaker 3: Has been removed.
Speaker 4: To look at this further, let's bring in now two
Speaker 4: GB Breakfast host Ben Fod and Ben, great to have
Speaker 4: you on the show.
Speaker 3: From the very start of.
Speaker 4: This saga, you pointed out that the ABC's reporting was
Speaker 4: not up to scratch, But this video editing is just
Speaker 4: the latest egregious example.
Speaker 1: I remember the TV show Frontline, Sharry. I'm sure you
Speaker 1: do as well. It was one of those fantastic shows
Speaker 1: put together by the working dog team here in Australia,
Speaker 1: Rob Sitch and Jane Kennedy and many others, and they
Speaker 1: highlighted some of the crazy tricks and track that TV
Speaker 1: Current Affairs crews get up to, and that was all
Speaker 1: aimed at the commercial TV networks, of course, and we
Speaker 1: always presume that our ABC would never do a thing
Speaker 1: like that. I don't know how something like this happens.
Speaker 1: It's just unbelievable that it could be allowed to be
Speaker 1: up online for so long. And when you think about it,
Speaker 1: why would someone move gun shots from one section of
Speaker 1: a video to another. I mean, the footage is dramatic enough.
Speaker 1: I mean you've got an Australian commando and a helicopter
Speaker 1: flying above Afghanistan in the middle of a conflict, firing
Speaker 1: down below on suspected insurgents. That's dramatic enough. Why would
Speaker 1: you need to dress it up any.
Speaker 2: More than it already is.
Speaker 1: And to move the gun shots from the end of
Speaker 1: the sequence to the start of the sequence, you're changing
Speaker 1: the story because, as we've heard from Heston Russell, there
Speaker 1: was one warning shot and if you look closely at
Speaker 1: that warning shot, it was not directed at the individual
Speaker 1: on the ground. The gun moved away from them and
Speaker 1: shot the ground near them to send a sign to
Speaker 1: them that we're up above and we're coming after you.
Speaker 1: And sometimes when you fire a warning shot like that,
Speaker 1: Heston Russell says, the person will stop in their tracks,
Speaker 1: and that's what they're after. They were trying to kill
Speaker 1: people from the air. They were trying to capture people
Speaker 1: and to gain information from them. And to then move
Speaker 1: the one single warning shot and replace it with six
Speaker 1: shots after each other. It looked like Australian troops were
Speaker 1: showing very little regard for human life. And it's just
Speaker 1: phenomenal when you think about all of the mistakes that
Speaker 1: the ABC made on this and all of the warnings
Speaker 1: they've had. Shari think about all those moments. It's a
Speaker 1: bit like watching one of those movies where you're thinking, no,
Speaker 1: don't do that, get out of that, escape that, and
Speaker 1: the person keeps falling into trap after trap after trap.
Speaker 1: They've had so many chances to apologize, including David Anderson,
Speaker 1: the outgoing ABC boss, who was there before that parliamentary committee,
Speaker 1: and he said, I'm not going to apologize. He wasn't
Speaker 1: even asked whether he was going to apologize, but he volunteered.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to apologize. If anyone deserves an apology
Speaker 1: from the ABC, it's Heston.
Speaker 4: Russell one hundred percent. He had his reputation and life
Speaker 4: destroyed over this. It's possible that he might not have
Speaker 4: survived it. Thankfully he has. Thankfully he is seeing justice
Speaker 4: now thanks to the courts and media reporting, including yours
Speaker 4: on the two GB. But these personal attacks have been
Speaker 4: incredibly hurtful, the arrogance of the ABC not only refusing
Speaker 4: to apologize, but also Mark Willisy's conduct.
Speaker 3: I mean, Ben, when you were first reporting on this, Mark.
Speaker 4: Willisey rang your producer James Willison, who's now at the Telly,
Speaker 4: who I just had on the show and yelled at
Speaker 4: you guys over this.
Speaker 1: I can still remember sitting on air that morning and
Speaker 1: talking to the microphone and just looking outside the studio
Speaker 1: window and seeing James Willis out there with a shocked
Speaker 1: look on his face. And look, James is a bloke
Speaker 1: who can handle many many things. He's not intimidated by anyone,
Speaker 1: but to see his reaction that morning, and then when
Speaker 1: I threw to a commercial break, I asked him what
Speaker 1: was going on and he explained that Mark Willisey had
Speaker 1: just unloaded on him. James was in stun silence and
Speaker 1: then later called Mark Willisey back and returned serve. But
Speaker 1: it was a sign of how sensitive they were. I mean,
Speaker 1: they were wrong on so many counts on this, but
Speaker 1: if you think about it, from the very beginning Showry,
Speaker 1: they had a bloke and James explained this and a
Speaker 1: column in the Sunday Telegraph on Sunday, a bloke in
Speaker 1: America who said, look, I'm warning you, I'm a bit
Speaker 1: foggy on this. I'm a bit fuzzy on this. Don't
Speaker 1: go basing a story on what I'm saying because I
Speaker 1: can't rely on my memory.
Speaker 2: That was the source.
Speaker 1: He didn't see anything. He was not an eyewitness. He
Speaker 1: was an ear witness. He heard a sound and from
Speaker 1: that sound he came up with a claim that turned
Speaker 1: into the ABC calling it a war crime. And then
Speaker 1: you know, they had the platoon wrong, they had the
Speaker 1: rotation wrong, they had the dates wrong. It was wrong, wrong, wrong,
Speaker 1: And now we find out there was a manipulation going
Speaker 1: on in the edit suite. And look, I'm with James
Speaker 1: Willis on this. Someone will lose their job over this,
Speaker 1: and I'm just hoping it's not some poor editor in
Speaker 1: the ABC editing suites, because it needs to go higher
Speaker 1: up than that.
Speaker 3: Higher up, how high? Who do you think should lose
Speaker 3: their job?
Speaker 1: Mark Willersey, Well, look, I certainly think that this story
Speaker 1: warrants a proper examination of processes. I think if you
Speaker 1: have a look at Joe Puccini, who was above Mark Willersey,
Speaker 1: she was just running a defense left, right and center
Speaker 1: from the very beginning on this instead of sitting down
Speaker 1: and saying, right, oh, let's start from the beginning here,
Speaker 1: what have we got? Show me the emails. The fact
Speaker 1: that those things had to come to light in the
Speaker 1: Federal Court of Australia just shows that the processes weren't
Speaker 1: followed to begin with. I would be directing my criticism
Speaker 1: to Joe Puccini to be saying to her, listen, you're
Speaker 1: in charge here. When questions are raised about our reporting,
Speaker 1: when there are criticisms that are leveled at our journalism,
Speaker 1: you've got to then conduct a bit of an audit
Speaker 1: and say what have we got? Where did it come from?
Speaker 1: Do we need to retract here? Do we need to
Speaker 1: clarify or correct or apologize? This should have been done
Speaker 1: long before it turned up in the Federal Court of Australia.
Speaker 4: All Right, Ben Fordham, always love having you on the show,
Speaker 4: and I have to say I was very moved by
Speaker 4: your story this morning, terrible story about that twelve year
Speaker 4: old girl who took her own life after being so
Speaker 4: badly bullied. And you know you are just a champion
Speaker 4: of so many families. So I'm sure you'll talk about
Speaker 4: that on air again tomorrow if everyone watches starting at
Speaker 4: five am the Breakfast Club. Thankfully that's not a club
Speaker 4: I'm part of Get up at six, not five, but
Speaker 4: ben Fordham on air every morning from five am.
Speaker 3: Now to someone else who's been.
Speaker 4: Relentless in holding the ABC to account and senate estimates
Speaker 4: over this. We've showed you the grilling that Sarah Henderson
Speaker 4: gave the ABC bosses and she joins us now, Sarah,
Speaker 4: thank you for your time. Look, you just heard Ben
Speaker 4: Fordham say that perhaps the head of the ABC's investigations unit,
Speaker 4: Joe Puccini, should be sacked over this. What consequences do
Speaker 4: you think there should be after this admission by the
Speaker 4: ABC that it docted video to add in more gunshots.
Speaker 12: We'll shrey good evening, firstly, let me say this is
Speaker 12: a story the ABC got very very wrong and there
Speaker 12: needs to be a full investigation. This is the most
Speaker 12: appalling standards of journalism, and the fact that the ABC
Speaker 12: was presented with the evidence showing they had the story
Speaker 12: wrong and they continue to prosecute the case in the
Speaker 12: federal court mounting up millions of dollars in costs is
Speaker 12: an absolute disgrace. So there does need to be a
Speaker 12: full investigation, including in relation to the doctoring of the video.
Speaker 12: Of course, the Channel seven Spotlight program raised very very
Speaker 12: serious matters and so that does need to be fully investigated.
Speaker 12: It's also been brought to my attention that the ABC
Speaker 12: employees might have broader statutory obligations to act with honesty
Speaker 12: and due diligence and care and good faith, and those
Speaker 12: requirements are in the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability at
Speaker 12: twenty thirteen.
Speaker 3: So this is a very very serious.
Speaker 12: Matter and we need all of the answers, Sharry, and
Speaker 12: we need them urgently.
Speaker 4: Sarah, what's your view on the ABC using unlimited taxpayer
Speaker 4: funds for a case like this? Do you think there
Speaker 4: should be a limit to how far the ABC can
Speaker 4: go when it's defending ultimately a hopeless defamation case with
Speaker 4: taxpayer funds.
Speaker 12: Well, I think the bottom line is that they failed
Speaker 12: the ordinary standards of good journalism. They didn't interrogate the facts,
Speaker 12: and rather than do their job, they continue to prosecute
Speaker 12: this in the Federal court, mounting millions of dollars. And
Speaker 12: it's very clear to me, Shari that the ABC has
Speaker 12: not been a model vitigant. They could have resolved and
Speaker 12: settled this matter for a very small amount of money.
Speaker 12: In fact, initially they could have resolved it for no
Speaker 12: money at all, just an apology and removing the offensive material.
Speaker 12: But the ABC doubled down, they did not check their facts,
Speaker 12: they ran this horrendous case in the Federal court and
Speaker 12: Heston Russell was subjected to the most appalling conduct by
Speaker 12: our national broadcaster. So I think as part of this
Speaker 12: full investigation, the actions of the lawyers, as I said
Speaker 12: in cened estimates, must also be fully investigated.
Speaker 4: All right, Well, Sarah Henderson, good on you for holding
Speaker 4: them to account and thank you for your time this evening.
Speaker 4: Now after the break, could we be heading for Peter
Speaker 4: Dutton Prime Minister ship. Well, the polster behind this new
Speaker 4: research will Join Me Live, plus a war of words
Speaker 4: between the PM and Elon Musk as Musk doubles down
Speaker 4: on his fascist comment that's all coming up. Don't go away,
Speaker 4: welcome back. Well, Anthony Albernezi should be getting worried because you.
Speaker 4: Polling today shows the Coalition is inching closer to the
Speaker 4: prospect of minority government. Freshwater Strategy polling shows that on
Speaker 4: a two party preferred basis, the Coalition now leads at
Speaker 4: fifty two percent. Meanwhile, Labour's primary is tanking down two
Speaker 4: points to thirty percent, and according to this pole, the Coalition's.
Speaker 3: Primary is at forty two percent.
Speaker 4: We're joining us toyn pack is Freshwater Strategy director Leo Shanahan. Leo,
Speaker 4: this is extraordinary polling. Can you tell us a bit
Speaker 4: more about these results?
Speaker 17: Yeah, well, look, I mean you say it's extraordinary, it's
Speaker 17: actually pretty consistent with the trend that we've had. We
Speaker 17: had a trend whereby two pp effectively Labor fell behind
Speaker 17: a month ago and had fallen behind before. Now it's
Speaker 17: at fifty two to forty eight to the Coalition. Now
Speaker 17: that is you know, it is within the margin of error,
Speaker 17: but it's showing pretty consistently, it's about fifty to fifty
Speaker 17: two aabouts. And a really worrying thing for Labor is
Speaker 17: that is that primary vote that's dropped down just to
Speaker 17: thirty with the Coalition going up over forty now forty two. Now,
Speaker 17: if that swing on a two pp basis was reflected,
Speaker 17: and I should say swings are very rarely uniform, of course,
Speaker 17: but if that swing was reflected at federal election, based
Speaker 17: on these results, we'd have a seat count of Labor
Speaker 17: just at sixty five and the Coalition at seventy five.
Speaker 17: So obviously, on those numbers, the box seat to form
Speaker 17: a government, I should say, and fresh water in our
Speaker 17: head of polling Dr Mike Turner has said more likely
Speaker 17: on these numbers, we're looking about seventy seats for the Coalition,
Speaker 17: but you know, still very close between the two major posts.
Speaker 4: And I should say he is a highly respective polster
Speaker 4: by both political parties. Can you tell us which vote
Speaker 4: issues and concerns are shaping the results, contributing to this momentum.
Speaker 17: Yeah, well, it's that key. It's that cost of living again, Sharry.
Speaker 17: I mean it's been I've spoken to you before about this,
Speaker 17: but look at that. I mean it's cost of living
Speaker 17: in daylight and really a cost of living and housing
Speaker 17: an accommodation are really a super issue in terms of
Speaker 17: the way in which it's viewed in the electric because
Speaker 17: housing accommodation is very much the cost housing and accommodation,
Speaker 17: that is, interest rates rent for renters and interest rates
Speaker 17: for mortgage holders. So it's that issue and the inability
Speaker 17: or the perception of an inability of this government to
Speaker 17: deal with that issue after it put it central in
Speaker 17: the last election saying.
Speaker 2: That it would.
Speaker 4: Peter Dutton's also spent a good amount of time, you know,
Speaker 4: a full fortnight of a parliamentary sitting period focusing on
Speaker 4: alban easy bringing in Gazans without proper security checks. How
Speaker 4: does this issue of immigration and national security feature in voters.
Speaker 17: Concerns, Well, it does increasingly actually figure in voter concerns,
Speaker 17: and concerningly for the Labor Party, it's very much an
Speaker 17: issue that the Coalition historically is owned and that trend
Speaker 17: is not going anywhere. In fact, it's gaining ground in
Speaker 17: terms of both immigration, national security and this view of
Speaker 17: criminality as well, which is kind of tied up in
Speaker 17: the in the issue of concerns about you know, refugees
Speaker 17: not having proper security checks and those that were obviously
Speaker 17: released obviously released incorrectly into the community, and that we're.
Speaker 3: Then from the immigration from immigrated attention exactly.
Speaker 4: Yep, all right, Leah Shanahan, thank you so much for
Speaker 4: your time, really appreciate it. Thanks y Now, Labor Insider
Speaker 4: also believes Albanezi could be on the cusp of a
Speaker 4: major pical defeat, and he'll speak about this on air
Speaker 4: for the first time after the break. Plus, Joe Biden
Speaker 4: and Kamala Harris respond to the second assassination attempt on
Speaker 4: Donald Trump.
Speaker 3: That's all coming up. Welcome back.
Speaker 4: Well, a prominent labor strategist is predicting that labor might
Speaker 4: be on the cusp of a voice like federal election defeat,
Speaker 4: and he thinks the coalition could be poised to win
Speaker 4: the next election. And Cameron Milner joins us now along
Speaker 4: with John Howard's former press secretary David Gazard for our
Speaker 4: regular Monday panel. Welcome gentlemen, Cameron, talk us through your
Speaker 4: reasoning here.
Speaker 18: Well, Sharie, a week ago you challenged me on the
Speaker 18: program to name the seats and show that I was
Speaker 18: the only person saying Labor could lose, and so I
Speaker 18: went through the exercise and I got Cos Samaris, a
Speaker 18: very good polster from Redbridge, to check my work as well.
Speaker 2: We looked at news.
Speaker 18: Pot, we looked at Freshwater, we looked at all the
Speaker 18: poles out there, and all the poles are saying one thing,
Speaker 18: Labour's behind and even further behind than the last election
Speaker 18: on their primary and the Coalition consolidate their primary to
Speaker 18: election winning levels in the low forties. And so we
Speaker 18: extrapolate that seat by seat, state by state, Labour's well behind.
Speaker 18: The best Labor can hope for. The best Labor can
Speaker 18: hope for is a minority government with Adam Bant and
Speaker 18: the Teals being in charge, and that that's what Albanize
Speaker 18: wants to take the next election. Good luck to him,
Speaker 18: or in fact, Labor's actually on the customer losing altogether,
Speaker 18: because even if Dutton falls short, as my article says,
Speaker 18: I think there are a couple of Conservatives in the
Speaker 18: Lower House will get re elected who may well plum
Speaker 18: for him to be the Prime Minister of Australia and
Speaker 18: the LNP to form government after just one term of Labor.
Speaker 18: So that's the really serious conversation. Labor's got to have Sharik.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and that article, of course is in the Night Leave.
Speaker 4: If you want to read it, you can search for
Speaker 4: that online. Dave Gazard, what do you think we've heard
Speaker 4: about this Freshwater polling tonight, which is an official polling
Speaker 4: company Cameron's given his analysis. Do you think this might
Speaker 4: be wish thinking by some or do you think the
Speaker 4: momentum is against Albanzi here?
Speaker 19: Well, the momentum is certainly against Albinesi. The question is
Speaker 19: can he arrest the slide and bring it back into
Speaker 19: a position where he can win. Now, you can come
Speaker 19: back from fifty two to forty eight down, there's no
Speaker 19: problem with that. John Howard did that several times, and
Speaker 19: he did it over the course of the election campaign.
Speaker 2: But Cameron is quite right.
Speaker 19: The numbers have just kept drifting for Anthony Albanesi and
Speaker 19: there is no sign of any restoration in sight. The
Speaker 19: other thing that I think we can add to his
Speaker 19: interesting analysis is that even that the Teal Teals, the
Speaker 19: Teals that would never normally vote for the coalition in
Speaker 19: a pink fit but are in coalition seats, they would
Speaker 19: have to think very carefully about going against the wishes
Speaker 19: of a large swing towards the coalition in seats that
Speaker 19: have traditionally been co There's been a couple of examples
Speaker 19: of this in recent history. Probably the most prominent is
Speaker 19: how Rob Oakshot and Tony Windsor got it wrong in
Speaker 19: the twenty ten election in both in Conservative seats, back
Speaker 19: Julia Gillard and paid the price in the next election.
Speaker 19: So if you're an alleged respender or a Sophie Scomps
Speaker 19: somebody like that who's come in with a big swing
Speaker 19: in a traditionally coalition seat, you've got to think twice
Speaker 19: about backing alban Easy this time around. If it is
Speaker 19: poised in a minority situation.
Speaker 4: Yeah, indeed was Its going to be a tough battle.
Speaker 4: That's for show for both sides. Let's have a look
Speaker 4: at the Labour's misinformation bill now. Now, this has been
Speaker 4: widely criticized by the left and the right, by every group.
Speaker 3: Under the sun.
Speaker 4: The Coalition has accused Albanezy of being contemptuous of free speech.
Speaker 4: Here was David Coleman with Andrew Clenel yesterday.
Speaker 20: The government got this wrong catastrophically last time, Andrews. So
Speaker 20: I've minused to put this bill out in June last year.
Speaker 20: We had four months when pretty much everyone in Australia
Speaker 20: came out and said it was a grotesque piece of legislation,
Speaker 20: from the Civil liberties councils to the Human Rights Commission.
Speaker 20: They pulled the bill in disgrace in November. They then
Speaker 20: work on it for ten months and then they've come
Speaker 20: out with a bill which has a lot of issues.
Speaker 20: We in the Coalition will always stand up for free speech.
Speaker 20: We did that last time. We fought this bill very
Speaker 20: hard it had to be withdrawn, and will certainly fight
Speaker 20: hard for free speech this time.
Speaker 4: Caaron, I've spoken a lot on the show about my
Speaker 4: concerns about this piece of legislation. From a journalism perspective,
Speaker 4: Elon Musk has come out and accused the Albanezi government
Speaker 4: of being fascists over this.
Speaker 18: What do you think, Well, I'm not on social media,
Speaker 18: but the social media is full of awful stuff, awful
Speaker 18: terrorism stuff, racism and semitism, misogynistic hate. So it's a sewer.
Speaker 18: It's a sewer shari and if it's going to be
Speaker 18: a news or organization, if it wants to promulgate itself
Speaker 18: as that, it needs to be held to the same
Speaker 18: standards that our show does, or you know, the Australian does,
Speaker 18: or the wider newspapers and the radio in television Australia.
Speaker 18: We need to have standards, but I don't think those
Speaker 18: standards should be arbitrarily set by people like Albow.
Speaker 9: Just because he's offended.
Speaker 18: Just because Albo doesn't like it, doesn't mean it's wrong.
Speaker 2: Shari.
Speaker 18: I think that's the real concern about this bill, that
Speaker 18: the misinformation disinformation test is not about whether it's true,
Speaker 18: whether it's false, or whether it's actually offensive.
Speaker 2: It's just whether Albo doesn't like it.
Speaker 18: I think that's a really poor standard to try to
Speaker 18: put into the bill.
Speaker 4: I mean, David Gazard, we've heard the number of things
Speaker 4: the Prime Minister has accused of being misinformation, including people
Speaker 4: who opposed the Voice. So there are a lot of
Speaker 4: concerns around this. We saw how much was censored during
Speaker 4: the COVID pandemic. There are a lot of concerns about
Speaker 4: having legislation around misinformation.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's no doubt.
Speaker 19: And when you get as Cameron has just rightly pointed out,
Speaker 19: the various ministerial powers where ministers can direct reviews into
Speaker 19: matters that it deems to be misinformation. Then you've got
Speaker 19: another worry because it's the government forcing the chilling hand
Speaker 19: of censorship into the community. You know, it's taken all
Speaker 19: of a few days to find out that academics who
Speaker 19: say one thing are exempt from the legislation, but people
Speaker 19: who repeat what they hear by the academics are caught
Speaker 19: up in it. So there does seem to be an
Speaker 19: arbitrariness of it, and it will be easy to pick
Speaker 19: apart on that basis side.
Speaker 3: Imagine, Yeah, it is. It's quite terrifying.
Speaker 4: Now, very quickly before we go from a Defense foss
Speaker 4: Chief Angus Campbell and other prominent military figures are being
Speaker 4: urged to give back their medals. Cameron, what do you
Speaker 4: think do you think this would be appropriate for the
Speaker 4: top brice to surrender their honors given others have had to.
Speaker 18: Well, it stops at the top as far as I'm concerned, Shari,
Speaker 18: and they should if they're not asked to leave them,
Speaker 18: they should actually do the voluntary thing and give them up.
Speaker 18: I mean, ultimately, the buck stops at the top of
Speaker 18: the Defense Force. For what has been found the burrit
Speaker 18: and report. You can't just fly middle management. The CEO
Speaker 18: has got to go as well.
Speaker 3: David, what's your take on this?
Speaker 19: Yeah, look, I hate this debate. In the Defense services,
Speaker 19: we train these people to go into really, really difficult
Speaker 19: jobs in a wide range of challenging circumstances, and then
Speaker 19: we pick it apart from the side through through media
Speaker 19: articles and inquiries when it's highly dynamic. But I tend
Speaker 19: to agree with Cameron on this. If there is malfeasan's
Speaker 19: displayed in the defense forces, the buck stops with the
Speaker 19: commanding officers. You can't just sort of, you know, push
Speaker 19: it down the line to the poor person in Afghanistan
Speaker 19: or Iraq who's who's had been forced into a difficult
Speaker 19: situation and maybe made the wrong choice. He's got a
Speaker 19: commanding off us and that extends all the way up
Speaker 19: into the senior brass Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think this debate is going to run for
Speaker 4: a while yet. All Right, David Gazzard, Camra.
Speaker 3: Milner, thank you for your time.
Speaker 4: Now after the break, Donald Trump says he hates Taylor Swift.
Speaker 3: We'll talk about that.
Speaker 4: Plus, Biden and Kamala respond to the second assassination attempt.
Speaker 4: This is an insider comes out to claim that the
Speaker 4: US ABC network leaked questions to Kamala ahead of the debate,
Speaker 4: don't go away, that's after the break, welcome back.
Speaker 3: Well. Photos have emerged of Donald Trump.
Speaker 4: In golf gear and smiling after the second attempt on
Speaker 4: his life.
Speaker 3: In just two months.
Speaker 4: Let's bring in now our Sky News contributor Koshergade to
Speaker 4: discuss Kosher. This is highly concerning another assassination attempt. What
Speaker 4: has been the reaction from Kamala Andree Biden along with
Speaker 4: the fomb president today.
Speaker 11: Really concerning and just stepping back really quickly, Shari, it
Speaker 11: really is such a remarkable day, and I feel very
Speaker 11: sad for my country that there's this level of hatred
Speaker 11: out there, whether directly or stoked or every which way
Speaker 11: in between. And I do fear for the former president
Speaker 11: that now this has not happened for forty years in
Speaker 11: the history of the country. The last one was Ronald
Speaker 11: Reagan's attempted assassination, and now in a matter of sixty
Speaker 11: two days, you have not one, but two attempts. So
Speaker 11: it is highly, highly concerning. In terms of the reaction,
Speaker 11: Kamala Harris put out a statement that I think you
Speaker 11: know was appropriate. She condemned all forms of violence as
Speaker 11: it has no place in America, and express relief that
Speaker 11: President Trump is safe. I will say that it felt
Speaker 11: a little bit boilerplate to me. I think she actually
Speaker 11: missed an opportunity to do something more vice presidential, such
Speaker 11: as a live televised address from the West Wing or
Speaker 11: something like that might have helped take down that temperature.
Speaker 11: But at least you know the statement was out there.
Speaker 11: President Biden put a statement out I think hours late.
Speaker 11: It was three hours late and after the Vice president,
Speaker 11: which I don't.
Speaker 3: Think was a good look.
Speaker 11: And I also really quickly looked at other people like
Speaker 11: former President Obama, Michelle Obama, vice President Mike Pen's, Dick Cheney,
Speaker 11: all these people who are obviously not big fans of Trump.
Speaker 11: There was the silence, I think was quite conspicuous. I
Speaker 11: didn't see a lot of statements coming out from them,
Speaker 11: and I think that's something that's a little bit unfortunate,
Speaker 11: because this really is a serious matter.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they claim to care about democracy, Well, democracy means
Speaker 4: both candidates staying alive before and after the election, and
Speaker 4: I think there are serious concerns that Donald Trump may
Speaker 4: not survive an assassination attempt. I think this is a
Speaker 4: genuinely terrifying prospect. Now we got another indication today that
Speaker 4: Trump hasn't taken Taylor Swift's endorsement of Kamala Harris Well.
Speaker 3: He wrote on social.
Speaker 4: Media, I hate Taylor Swift, but surely this reaction Kosher
Speaker 4: won't go down well either, given she is literally one
Speaker 4: of the most popular figures in well not just the
Speaker 4: US but lively.
Speaker 11: Yes, I think you know that's Trump being Trump with
Speaker 11: his four worded tweet that drove all these media cycles.
Speaker 11: I think the whole Taylor Swift thing, it's great for
Speaker 11: commanding attention in the media cycle and sucking up the oxygen,
Speaker 11: just given the name brand that she is, and Trump
Speaker 11: knows how to play into that, for better or for worse.
Speaker 11: I don't know that she's really going to influence too
Speaker 11: many opinions of undecided voters, the few remaining ones in
Speaker 11: the swing states. But the biggest value she brings is
Speaker 11: potentially her contributions to database of voters, because since we
Speaker 11: don't have mandatory voting in the US as you know it,
Speaker 11: so much about it as the turnout game and the
Speaker 11: machinery of both parties being able to target those last
Speaker 11: few remaining voters who may not have turned out to
Speaker 11: vote in the swing states. And she's got this database
Speaker 11: of hundreds of thousands of concert goers, people that are
Speaker 11: typically low propensity voters because they're young and they're not
Speaker 11: inclined to show up at the polls, and she can
Speaker 11: convert even one to two percent of those people to
Speaker 11: show up and vote. That potentially is problematic. And I
Speaker 11: think the counter to that is going to be the
Speaker 11: Republican Party doing everything they can to drive turn out
Speaker 11: from their base to counter what I would call the
Speaker 11: Taylor Swift database effect.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I think it is possible though, that people like their
Speaker 4: favorite pop star but don't necessarily follow their political insights.
Speaker 4: And as many have pointed out, she is the woman
Speaker 4: famous from making wrong decisions, at least.
Speaker 3: When it comes to men. So there you go.
Speaker 4: Look just twenty seconds, Kosher. There's claims on social media.
Speaker 4: We don't know if they're credible or not. They're probably
Speaker 4: not credible that a US whistleblower says that the questions
Speaker 4: were given to Kamala Harris before the debate.
Speaker 11: Yes, in regardless of the veracity of those comments, I
Speaker 11: think what it's highlighting and underscoring is what we all
Speaker 11: saw with our own eyes in terms of the lopsided
Speaker 11: nature of the moderators, and that what's interesting here is
Speaker 11: it's getting a lot of weight and traction from people
Speaker 11: like Bill Ackman and Elon Musk that are asking Bob Iger,
Speaker 11: the CEO of Disney that's the parent company of ABC,
Speaker 11: to investigate, which is interesting. But other than that, as
Speaker 11: you see, who knows what's going to come from this.
Speaker 4: All right, Always great to have you on the show, Koshagada,
Speaker 4: Thank you, and that's it for me. I'll see you
Speaker 4: tomorrow at eight o'clock. Right now, Paul Mara