Speaker 1: Marty Baron is the longtime executive editor of The Boston
Speaker 1: Globe and the Washington Post and generally regarded as one
Speaker 1: of the finest journalists and executive editors of this generation.
Speaker 1: An excerpt of his new book has appeared in The
Speaker 1: Atlantic magazine. It details his years running the Washington Post
Speaker 1: during the Trump era. The first paragraphs tell the story
Speaker 1: of where The Washington Post came up with the phrase
Speaker 1: democracy dies in darkness. It's incredible, I'm going to read
Speaker 1: from Marty Baron's book. I should not have been surprised,
Speaker 1: but I still marveled at just how little it took
Speaker 1: to get under the skin of President Donald Trump and
Speaker 1: his allies. By February twenty nineteen, I had been the
Speaker 1: executive editor of The Washington Post for six years. That month,
Speaker 1: the newspaper aired a one minute Super Bowl ad with
Speaker 1: a voiceover by two Hanks championing the role of a
Speaker 1: free press, commemorating journalists killed and captured, and concluded with
Speaker 1: the Post logo and message quote democracy dies in darkness
Speaker 1: end quote. The ed highlighted the strong and often courageous
Speaker 1: work done by journalists at the Post and elsewhere, including
Speaker 1: by Fox News. Is Brett Bher because we were striving
Speaker 1: to signal that this wasn't just about us and wasn't
Speaker 1: a political statement. Please stop. Brett Bhaer has never done
Speaker 1: anything journalistically courageous. In fact, he is one of the
Speaker 1: great cowards that has ever sat in an anchorchair. Brett
Speaker 1: Baer was afraid of his audience, terrified, just like Josh
Speaker 1: Holly was terrified as he ran for his life from
Speaker 1: the insurrectionists he incited. Just like Ted Cruz was afraid
Speaker 1: for his life hiding in a closet from the insurrectionists
Speaker 1: he had cited. Brett Behar is the anchor of a
Speaker 1: network of lies that was forced to pay nearly one
Speaker 1: billion dollars for a conspiracy of lies that has poisoned
Speaker 1: American democracy in the plain light of day, not in
Speaker 1: the darkness of the night. What Brett Baer did was
Speaker 1: refused to deliver the news. And yet in the clubby insular,
Speaker 1: clicky world of Washington d C. Press, Brett Baer isn't
Speaker 1: just a good journalist, Brett Baer is courageous, a hero.
Speaker 1: What complete and total fucking nonsense. But I continue with
Speaker 1: the reading even that simple foundational idea of democracy was
Speaker 1: a step too far for the Trump clan. The president's son,
Speaker 1: Donald Trump Junior, couldn't contain himself. You know how mainstream
Speaker 1: media journalists could avoid having to spend millions on hashtag
Speaker 1: super Bowl commercial to gain some undeserved credibility end quote.
Speaker 1: He tweeted with typical two bit belligerents quote, how about
Speaker 1: report the news and not their leftist bs for a change?
Speaker 1: End quote. Two years earlier, a month into Trump's presidency,
Speaker 1: the Post had affixed quote democracy dies in darkness under
Speaker 1: its nameplate on the printed newspaper, as well as at
Speaker 1: the top of its website and on everything it produced.
Speaker 1: As the newspaper's owner, Jeff Bezos envisioned it, this was
Speaker 1: not a slogan, but a mission statement, and it was
Speaker 1: not about Trump, although his allies took it to be.
Speaker 1: Here's the thing. Democracy doesn't die in darkness. It dies
Speaker 1: in the plane light of day. It dies in plain sight.
Speaker 1: It dies because of lassitude, because of apathy, because of corruption.
Speaker 1: It dies when a former president of the United States
Speaker 1: on the very same day threatens to execute a four
Speaker 1: star general the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
Speaker 1: with no outrage from members of his party. It dies
Speaker 1: when a former president of the United States, leading in
Speaker 1: his party for the nomination by fifty points, decrees that
Speaker 1: he's coming after the free press. He's coming to get
Speaker 1: the journalists. He's coming to take away the airwaves. He's
Speaker 1: coming to lock them up. Donald Trump isn't keeping secrets.
Speaker 1: Donald Trump and his MAGA fanatics are telling us every day,
Speaker 1: all day long, from morning tonight, that they intend to
Speaker 1: burn down the American Republic. They intend to take away
Speaker 1: freedom of speech, freedom of press, freedom of worship. They
Speaker 1: keep saying it, and they mean it. We stand in
Speaker 1: this country at the edge of an abyss of our
Speaker 1: own making. We have put our country into tremendous danger,
Speaker 1: and we have risked the futures of our children and
Speaker 1: grandchildren because of the recklessness that we all share. In
Speaker 1: the United States of America is facing a profound crisis,
Speaker 1: and in the end, the Democratic Party will be unable
Speaker 1: to hold back the Trump tide. Understand this a party
Speaker 1: that does not have the integrity and the wisdom to
Speaker 1: throw Robert Menendez, who was caught red handed with gold
Speaker 1: bars and hundreds of thousands of dollars of cash sewn
Speaker 1: into his suit jacket liners overboard for corruption that is
Speaker 1: obvious and unmistakable and clear to the American people. The
Speaker 1: standard to serve in the United States Senate is not
Speaker 1: being acquitted in a criminal trial. In the fact that
Speaker 1: the majority of the Democratic Party's leaders, from is it
Speaker 1: In Biden to Chuck Schumer to Dick Durbin, do not understand,
Speaker 1: that means Donald Trump is on a glipath to winning
Speaker 1: the next election. His allies have a plan. Their plan
Speaker 1: is to completely dismantle the American government in six months time.
Speaker 1: They've written it out, it exists, they mean it. Why
Speaker 1: is it that the Democratic Party cannot stop this, whatever
Speaker 1: the reason may be, they can't. That means it's in
Speaker 1: the hands of the American people, not the Democratic Party
Speaker 1: as Washington politicians. The American people face a great test,
Speaker 1: a great reckoning. The practice of citizenship can be avoided
Speaker 1: no longer. We stand at an hour where every inch
Speaker 1: of progress that is accumulated against two one hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty years of time that has lifted the human being
Speaker 1: from a condition of servitude and economic misery to prosperity
Speaker 1: and freedom, stands to be erased. We are living in
Speaker 1: an ongoing story that is one of the most significant
Speaker 1: events in the history of the United States. On a
Speaker 1: seven year basis, the American democracy founded in seventeen seventy
Speaker 1: six has eroded. It has collapsed in substantial ways. Everywhere
Speaker 1: there is corruption. The American people look at Washington, DC,
Speaker 1: and they see one of the most corrupt congresses in history.
Speaker 1: They see the most corrupt Supreme Court in history, and
Speaker 1: they see a fascist movement on the march. This is
Speaker 1: the morning