Speaker 1: Welcome.
Speaker 2: It is verdict with Senator Ted Cruz Ben Ferguson with
Speaker 2: you and Senator I think it's time that we do
Speaker 2: a really nice job exposing the left and the dark
Speaker 2: money that is funding all of these anti Israel protests
Speaker 2: across the country.
Speaker 3: Well, that's exactly right. We're more than a week into
Speaker 3: these rabid anti Israel Prohamas protests that we're seeing at
Speaker 3: college campuses across the country, and a question that keeps
Speaker 3: coming up is where is this money coming from. More
Speaker 3: than a few people have noticed, Gosh, these protesters all
Speaker 3: seem to have matching tents. The tents are brand new.
Speaker 3: Who's paying for them? There's clearly real money behind that.
Speaker 3: We're going to do a deep dive into that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're not trying to hide it, by the way,
Speaker 2: when there's no subtlety, it's like wearing matching uniforms, it's
Speaker 2: clear somebody paid for them.
Speaker 3: That's happening. On top of that, we're going to do
Speaker 3: a deep dive into NPR. NPR has a new CEO.
Speaker 3: NPR is supposed to be national public Radio. It is
Speaker 3: funded in significant part by your and my tax dollars,
Speaker 3: and yet their new CEO is a hard left partisan activist.
Speaker 3: She has no pretense of being impartial, of being unbiased.
Speaker 3: She is a leftist, a proud, unabashed leftist. We're going
Speaker 3: to go into her record as well.
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Speaker 2: verdict and you'll get free activation center. When you look
Speaker 2: at all of these protests, and you mentioned the matching tents,
Speaker 2: it's kind of hilarious. They're not even trying to hide it.
Speaker 2: This is exactly what we saw with Black Lives Matter
Speaker 2: as well. It seems that anytime we now have really
Speaker 2: well organized, whether it's shutting down the Golden Gate Bridge,
Speaker 2: the Memphis Bridge, or the new York Bridge. It seems
Speaker 2: like it's orchestrated, and now we're seeing these sit ins
Speaker 2: and these tent cities that are popping up. It's almost
Speaker 2: like a Black Lives Matter two point zero playbook here.
Speaker 2: And it's coming from dark money groups that are funding bail,
Speaker 2: they're funding the legal support for any and every anti
Speaker 2: Israel agitator that's willing to come out and do this.
Speaker 3: Well, that's exactly right. There's clearly significant money that are
Speaker 3: funding these. As we noted a minute ago, they're tenth smatch,
Speaker 3: they're tarpsmatch, they come in fully provisioned and we see them.
Speaker 3: You know, we're seeing at universities it's not just students
Speaker 3: as spontaneous. They're outside agitators who are treating it as
Speaker 3: a job. So what do we know, Well that there
Speaker 3: was an article that came out this week in News
Speaker 3: Nation that says begins with the following. Columbia University is
Speaker 3: warning of potential outside agitators as students hold continued protests
Speaker 3: calling for a ceasefire in Gaza and a divestment from Israel.
Speaker 3: And it explains that the demand has its root in
Speaker 3: the BDS movement, the boycott divestment and sanctions movement which
Speaker 3: has been going on for decades attacking Israel. And if
Speaker 3: you look, there are several organizations who are funding this movement.
Speaker 3: On Tuesday night, one group that was called Within Our
Speaker 3: Lifetime held a protest outside the walls of Columbia calling
Speaker 3: for resistance quote by any means necessary. They were chanting Colombia.
Speaker 3: You will see we are all SJP Colombia. You will
Speaker 3: learn refugees will return. And if you look at Within
Speaker 3: our Lifetime is one of what News Nations describes as
Speaker 3: a quote vast network of organizations that have coordinated protests
Speaker 3: that have blocked highways, delayed trains, and shut down parts
Speaker 3: of college campuses across the country for the past few months.
Speaker 3: And it's led but it's a New York City based organization.
Speaker 3: It's led by an individual named nier Dean Kisswane, who's
Speaker 3: a twenty nine year old who founded the group nearly
Speaker 3: a decade ago. And if you look at what Kiswane says,
Speaker 3: he says, quote I just support the Palestinian people as
Speaker 3: a whole, and I believe that we have a right
Speaker 3: to resist. And if they're mad at it, they can
Speaker 3: talk to Biden. They can talk to the Secretary of State,
Speaker 3: they can talk to elected officials who keep funding wars abroad,
Speaker 3: who keep funding death and killing on our name with
Speaker 3: our tax dollars. And the group claims to not be
Speaker 3: directly associated with a protest on college campuses. They're intertwined
Speaker 3: with other organizations. One of the organizations is Students for
Speaker 3: Justice in Palestine that's s JP, Jewish Voice for Peace
Speaker 3: that's JVP, the Palestinian Youth Movement that's p y M,
Speaker 3: and the American Muslims for Palestine that's a MP. And
Speaker 3: and these are part of the of the whole network
Speaker 3: of anti Israel, anti Zionists, anti Semitic groups across the country,
Speaker 3: and several of the pro Palestinian organizations UH don't have
Speaker 3: public tax filings. NBC did investigation within our Lifetime does
Speaker 3: not have any public tax filings. Instead, what they use
Speaker 3: is a group based in New York. It's a nonprofit
Speaker 3: group called the Westchester People's Action Coalition Foundation WESTPAC, and
Speaker 3: it's their fiscal sponsor to collect and process online donations
Speaker 3: and tax laws allows them to be a five O
Speaker 3: C three status organization and they can collect money. We
Speaker 3: don't know for sure who's funding them. It's dark money.
Speaker 3: This is by design, this is to hide it. We
Speaker 3: do know one of the groups, if not Now, has
Speaker 3: received one hundred thousand dollars in the past five years
Speaker 3: from the Rockefeller's Brothers Fund, and that organization's stated goal
Speaker 3: is quote to end US support for Israel's apartheid system.
Speaker 3: The fund is also awarded nearly a half billion dollars
Speaker 3: to the Jewish Voice for Peace, another Palestadian rights organization.
Speaker 3: And what we're seeing is well. Here are the comments
Speaker 3: of Jonathan Shanzer. He's a former Treasury Department official who
Speaker 3: says that the organizing parties are cultivated by potentially dangerous groups.
Speaker 3: Here's the quote quote, They're extremely organized. There are a
Speaker 3: lot of the Islamists leaning groups that I think many
Speaker 3: of us have come to expect here. They are not spontaneous,
Speaker 3: they are not necessarily organic. They are cultivated by groups
Speaker 3: that have an ax to grind, and in particular, Shanzer
Speaker 3: called for more aggressive investigation of the ties between the
Speaker 3: pro Palestinian groups and terrorist organizations. He called for this
Speaker 3: in testimony to Congress. Here's what he said. Quote, individuals
Speaker 3: who have previously worked for Hamas charities are now a
Speaker 3: driving force behind the large pro Hamas demonstrations taking place
Speaker 3: in major cities across America, and in particular, he pointed
Speaker 3: to an individual named Hatam Basian, who is a lecturer
Speaker 3: at the University of California, Berkeley, as an example. And
Speaker 3: Basian founded the national branch of SJP to promote campus
Speaker 3: based activism, and later he launched AMP and Shanzer claimed
Speaker 3: that Basian and his organizations are part of a network
Speaker 3: that quote is providing training, talking points, materials, and financial
Speaker 3: support to students, intimidating and threatening Jewish and pro Israel
Speaker 3: students on college campuses.
Speaker 2: You put all that together and you see it center
Speaker 2: and it's like, this is pretty obvious. This is something
Speaker 2: that I think should probably be at some point investigated.
Speaker 2: In fact, Newsweek has a headline just now and it
Speaker 2: says police investigating people behind the pro Palaestinian protests, and
Speaker 2: that is something that I'm kind of shocked it took
Speaker 2: this long, but officials quote with the New York Police
Speaker 2: Department said that their department is looking to who may
Speaker 2: be behind the pro palating in protests of rock to
Speaker 2: universities in Manhattan in recent days. Several dozen demonstrators were
Speaker 2: arrested by police Monday night after students set up a
Speaker 2: pro palasing encampment on New York University's campus. The demonstration,
Speaker 2: which started around fifty individuals know the Stern School of Business,
Speaker 2: grew to hundreds of protesters before rest were made. Spokesman
Speaker 2: from the university said that it believed many of the
Speaker 2: individuals who joined rally, including some who breach barriers established
Speaker 2: by canvas safety officers, were not affiliated with NYU. Therefore,
Speaker 2: they're now saying they are going to investigate it. I
Speaker 2: mean this to me is a captain obvious, no brainer.
Speaker 2: Of course you should be investigating this. Of course you are.
Speaker 3: And I have zero confidence the Biden Department of Justice
Speaker 3: will investigate. I have zero confidence the Biden FBI will investigate.
Speaker 3: Why because, as we've discussed at great length, the Biden
Speaker 3: DOJ and FBI have been thoroughly politicized and weaponized. And
Speaker 3: the people funding these anti Semitic protests are leftists. They
Speaker 3: are leftists who right now more and more are the
Speaker 3: base of the Democrat Party. They're funding the Democrat Party
Speaker 3: in significant respects. They are the radicals, they are the aocs,
Speaker 3: they are the people who are chanting in dearborn Michigan,
Speaker 3: death to America and death to Israel. And so the
Speaker 3: Biden DOJ doesn't want to know. They want to plunge
Speaker 3: their head into the sand like an Ostrich and say,
Speaker 3: do not tell us. We do not care who's funding
Speaker 3: it is not our concern. And let me point out
Speaker 3: a they are a bunch of leftists. There are a
Speaker 3: bunch of Marxists. There are a bunch of communists who
Speaker 3: hate America who are funding this, I believe because they
Speaker 3: hate America, because they hate Israel. And I will point
Speaker 3: out those who hate Israel hate America. There is an overlap.
Speaker 3: One of the many reasons it is an America's national
Speaker 3: security interest to support Israel is the enemies of Israel
Speaker 3: are the enemies of America. There's a reason the iyatola
Speaker 3: chance death to America and death to Israel. The two
Speaker 3: are interconnected. But there's also a very real risk. And
Speaker 3: I just noted the congressional testimony laying this out that
Speaker 3: these anti America and anti Israel protests are literally being
Speaker 3: funded by our enemies, are being funded by Hamas, are
Speaker 3: being funded by Hesbela, or are being funded by Iran
Speaker 3: or the financial sponsors of Hamas and Hesbela. And again
Speaker 3: we see zero interest on the part of the Department
Speaker 3: of Justice to investigate whether those who support actual terrorists
Speaker 3: are funding the protests in support of the actual terrorists.
Speaker 1: And mind you, we pla ask.
Speaker 2: You this, what does the law then say, because this
Speaker 2: is the frustrating part you look at. This was on
Speaker 2: Good Day New York on Tuesday, the New York Police
Speaker 2: Deputy Commissioner of Operations suggested that law enforcement was looking
Speaker 2: into both instance or signs at the same individuals maybe
Speaker 2: instigating the protests, adding that he believes some could be
Speaker 2: funding this quote unquote in his words, he said, look
Speaker 2: at the tents what you said earlier, They all were
Speaker 2: the same color. They were all the same type of tents,
Speaker 2: the same ones that we sough at NYU, the same
Speaker 2: ones that we see in Columbia. To me, I think
Speaker 2: somebody's funding this. He added that professional agitators have also
Speaker 2: joined the student led protests who are just looking for
Speaker 2: something to be and I think he was trying to
Speaker 2: use calm words agitated. Somebody's behind this and we're going
Speaker 2: to find out who it is. But if you're writing
Speaker 2: this check, Senator, whether it's Soros group, whether it's coming
Speaker 2: in from corporations, whether it's coming in from over their sas.
Speaker 1: It seems like they're operating.
Speaker 2: Under the the idea that hey, we've got a one
Speaker 2: degree of separation here. We're just giving them money and
Speaker 2: whatever choose for that's not us.
Speaker 3: Yeah, look, I mean that's right. I mean I've talked
Speaker 3: about before that. For three months, I've had every Saturday
Speaker 3: morning at seven am, anti Israel Prohamas protesters show up
Speaker 3: in my house and it's the same fifteen people. Ironically,
Speaker 3: now I don't know exactly what they look like because
Speaker 3: they all wear masks. Because as we've seen on campuses,
Speaker 3: these anti Israel and anti American zealots are also cowards
Speaker 3: and they want to hide their face. They're not actually
Speaker 3: willing to show who they are. But from the appearances
Speaker 3: the people at my house, if there are any Palestinians
Speaker 3: among them, I'd be surprised. They look like a bunch
Speaker 3: of Hispanic and white liberals who are showing up. But
Speaker 3: what's interesting is they show up every Saturday at seven am,
Speaker 3: they leave about eight am. They show up, they have
Speaker 3: the same cowbells, they have the same whistles. They're screaming,
Speaker 3: they're waking children up, they're disturbing the neighbors. But they
Speaker 3: show up like a job. That there is a regularity
Speaker 3: to it that I'm convinced is paying them to do this,
Speaker 3: That that that it's not spontaneous, it's not driven by
Speaker 3: external events. It is it is our job to show
Speaker 3: up and chant. And and and by the way, look a,
Speaker 3: there is a risk that it is foreign actors who
Speaker 3: hate America and hate Israel, but b there that there
Speaker 3: is also the very real likelihood that that it is local,
Speaker 3: local players, anti American Zealots. And and and the obvious
Speaker 3: one in particular is George Soros. And and I want
Speaker 3: to point you to an article that Fox News published
Speaker 3: on April sixteenth, called left wing dark money group funds
Speaker 3: bail legal support for anti Israel agitators blocking traffic and
Speaker 3: and what Fox News reported was quote a left wing
Speaker 3: dark money group funded by billionaire George Soros will provide
Speaker 3: bail and legal support for anti Israel activists arrested after
Speaker 3: blocking major roads and highways nationwide this week, according to
Speaker 3: an online fundraiser, and the demonstrations were largely organized by
Speaker 3: A fifteen Action, a recently created group that said it
Speaker 3: would quote create coordinate a multi city economic blockade on
Speaker 3: April fifteenth in solidarity with Palestine, and under the group's
Speaker 3: quote resources section on its website, there is a quote
Speaker 3: Bail and Legal Defense Fund hosted by Act Blue. Now understand.
Speaker 3: ActBlue is the leading fundraising platform for Democrat candidates nationwide.
Speaker 3: It raises billions of dollars for Democrat candidates running across
Speaker 3: the country. Act Blue is essentially an extension of the
Speaker 3: Democrat Party and it is Act Blue that is raising
Speaker 3: money for the Bail and Legal Defense Fund to bail
Speaker 3: out anti Israel Prohamas protesters who have been arrested and
Speaker 3: the threshold to being arrested is is pretty high, particularly
Speaker 3: in blue jurisdictions, and according to the website, the contributions
Speaker 3: quote will benefit Community Justice Exchange, which is a project
Speaker 3: of the Tide Center that is funded by George Soros,
Speaker 3: and the fundraising page continues, quote donate here to support
Speaker 3: community members who are criminalized in the US for their
Speaker 3: solidarity with Palestine, and it goes on to say, quote,
Speaker 3: should the actions of the state result in the need
Speaker 3: for it, these funds will be used for bail, legal defense,
Speaker 3: and support for defendants. And the Community Justice Exchange describes
Speaker 3: its mission as to provide quote money bail, court fees
Speaker 3: and fines to community based organizations across the country that
Speaker 3: are experimenting with bottoms up interventions that contests the current
Speaker 3: operation and function of the criminal, legal and immigration detention system.
Speaker 3: So bottoms up interventions, that's a euphemism for riots, for angry,
Speaker 3: disruptive protests. And to give you a sense of the volume.
Speaker 3: In November, it was revealed that the Soros backed Open
Speaker 3: Society Policy Center had given thirteen point seven million dollars
Speaker 3: through the Tide Center to groups that have expressed support
Speaker 3: for Hamas or have justified attacks on Israel, with over
Speaker 3: fifteen million donated since twenty sixteen.
Speaker 1: That's incredible.
Speaker 2: And yet they're basically aiding and bedding and advocating for
Speaker 2: people to break the law and advocating for them to
Speaker 2: get arrested, and this is all apparently still legal. Welcome
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Speaker 2: want to ask, and this goes back to the people
Speaker 2: that are running these universities that are allowing this anti
Speaker 2: senitism to continue to grow. You're one of your friends
Speaker 2: in the house, Speaker Johnson. He went to Colombia and
Speaker 2: actually called for the Columbia president to resign.
Speaker 1: Here is what he had to say.
Speaker 4: Let me say this very simply. No American of any
Speaker 4: color or creed should ever have to live under those
Speaker 4: kinds of threats. That is not who we are in
Speaker 4: this country. Sadly, Colombia's administrators have chosen to let the threats,
Speaker 4: the fear, and the intimidation of the mob rule to
Speaker 4: overtake American principles like free speech and the free free
Speaker 4: exchange of ideas and the free exercise of religion. They
Speaker 4: have co opted First Amendment arguments to protect genocide and
Speaker 4: to elevate the voices of anti Semitism. They have proven
Speaker 4: themselves to be incapable of achieving their base basic responsibility,
Speaker 4: which is keeping students safe. We just can't allow this
Speaker 4: kind of hatred and any Semitism to flourish on our campuses,
Speaker 4: and it must be stopped in its tracks. Those who
Speaker 4: are perpetrating this violence should be arrested. And I'm here today.
Speaker 4: I am here today joining my colleagues and calling on
Speaker 4: President Shaffi to resign if she cannot immediately bring order
Speaker 4: to this chaos. A Speaker of the House, I am
Speaker 4: committing today that the Congress will not be silent as
Speaker 4: Jewish students are expected to run for their lives and
Speaker 4: stay home from their classes, hiding in fear. In the
Speaker 4: House of Representatives, We've already acted to address anti semitism
Speaker 4: on campuses. We have passed a number of statutes to
Speaker 4: address this matter, and we call upon the US Senate
Speaker 4: to act upon our legislation.
Speaker 2: He obviously came in with a game plan, and it's
Speaker 2: sad that the President of the United States of America
Speaker 2: isn't saying exactly what Speaker Johnson said.
Speaker 1: Immediately, the media attacked him.
Speaker 2: And a people that went to Columbia saying, oh, this
Speaker 2: is just a pr stunt, the publicity stunt. They don't
Speaker 2: really care about what's happening on campus as they saw
Speaker 2: an opportunity here.
Speaker 1: I couldn't disagree with that more.
Speaker 2: But I'm glad that we have conservatives that are saying
Speaker 2: enough is enough.
Speaker 3: Yeah, No, it was exactly the right thing to do.
Speaker 3: Joe Biden lacks the courage or conviction to do the
Speaker 3: same thing, and in fact, he's terrified to confront these
Speaker 3: radicals because more and more they're the base of the
Speaker 3: Democrat Party. I'll tell you Yesterday, AOC, in response to
Speaker 3: the Speaker of the House and several House Republicans going
Speaker 3: to Columbia, she tweeted out, let me quote her tweet
Speaker 3: quote several here, like Representatives Lawler and Desposito, are vulnerable
Speaker 3: New York Republicans in tight seats. They have played a
Speaker 3: key role drumming up pressure to crack down on students
Speaker 3: and asymmetrically police Palestinian human rights speech. Those campus hearings
Speaker 3: gop led. They need to lose, and so I tweeted
Speaker 3: out in response, I retweeted her and I said, understand,
Speaker 3: AOC explicitly supports the anti Semitic mobs threatening Jewish students
Speaker 3: at Columbia, Yale, and NYU. But it's not just her.
Speaker 3: Joe Biden stood next to her as she praised their
Speaker 3: hateful conduct. The entire Democrat Party is terrified of their
Speaker 3: radical anti Israel base. And I'll tell you AOC actually
Speaker 3: sent out another tweet and and and here's what she said.
Speaker 3: She said quote not only did Columbia make the horrific
Speaker 3: decision to mobilize NYPD on their own students, but the
Speaker 3: unions called the units called in have some of the
Speaker 3: most violent reputations on the force. NYPD had promised the
Speaker 3: city they wouldn't deploy SRG to protests, So why are
Speaker 3: these counter terrorism units here? And again I responded to
Speaker 3: that and said, between law enforcement and Prohamas protesters who
Speaker 3: threatened Jewish students, tragically, Democrats side with the anti semits.
Speaker 3: That is the reality. But it's not just DOOC, It's
Speaker 3: not just the squad. It is where Joe Biden is,
Speaker 3: It is where Chuck Schumer is, it is where Nancy
Speaker 3: Pelosi is, it is where the leadership of the Democrat
Speaker 3: Party is.
Speaker 1: Today we talked about the media giving them cover.
Speaker 2: I expect some in the media to be liberal hacks, right,
Speaker 2: but this brings up a big issue that we need
Speaker 2: to talk about.
Speaker 1: With MPR.
Speaker 2: The new CEO of MPR is someone that is paid
Speaker 2: by US taxpayers and someone who has described the First
Speaker 2: Amendment as the number one challenge she faces. Our tax
Speaker 2: dollars are going to a CEO who's running in PR
Speaker 2: National Public Radio saying the First Amendment really seems to
Speaker 2: get in her way. Really, that's where money is going.
Speaker 1: Well.
Speaker 3: Unfortunately, NPR has been profoundly correct, and it's been made
Speaker 3: worse by hiring a CEO who was a brazen, blatant,
Speaker 3: unapologetic radical leftist, and she doesn't pretend to be unbiased
Speaker 3: at all. Now, we discussed in a previous podcast couple
Speaker 3: of weeks ago the Bombshell report from Uri Berliner. Uri
Speaker 3: Berliner was a twenty five year NPR employee and was
Speaker 3: the former business editor of NPR, and he wrote an
Speaker 3: April ninth essay in The Free Press which resulted in
Speaker 3: NPR suspending him for publishing how's that for free speech?
Speaker 3: If you criticize us, you're out of here all and
Speaker 3: ultimately led to his resignation.
Speaker 1: So he's gone.
Speaker 3: This essay cost of his job, but he laid out
Speaker 3: the incredible bias at NPR and the shift at NPR. So,
Speaker 3: for example, he laid out in twenty eleven, which was
Speaker 3: not that long ago, NPR's audience was twenty six percent conservative,
Speaker 3: twenty three percent middle of the road, and thirty seven
Speaker 3: percent liberal, so it leaned left, but not dramatically. So
Speaker 3: by twenty twenty three, those numbers had shifted dramatically. It
Speaker 3: was now instead of thirty seven percent liberal, it was
Speaker 3: sixty seven percent liberal, and instead of twenty six percent conservative,
Speaker 3: it was only eleven percent conservative. And mister Berliner laid
Speaker 3: out details of how they would stifle stories that were
Speaker 3: inconvenient to liberals. They would amplify stories like the Russia
Speaker 3: collusion story, even if they were not supported by the facts.
Speaker 3: He outlined at great length how NPR had had no
Speaker 3: interest in being impartial, being unbiased. And then you take
Speaker 3: in the wake of this and the wake of what
Speaker 3: should be real concern of Hey, we're national public radio.
Speaker 3: We're supposed to be nonpartisan, We're supposed to be down
Speaker 3: the middle. Now look, I for one, have serious doubts
Speaker 3: why the taxpayer should fund any radio station. I think
Speaker 3: there are plenty of for profit radio stations. I don't
Speaker 3: know why the government should coursibly tax you to pay
Speaker 3: for yet another radio station. But I'll tell you what,
Speaker 3: even if there's an argument they should do so for
Speaker 3: generic news that somehow there's not a market demand for,
Speaker 3: there is no argument I know of that they should
Speaker 3: do so only for left wing propaganda. And the newly
Speaker 3: appointed CEO, Catherine Marr, has been a hard partisan her
Speaker 3: whole life. So, for example, in twenty twenty, Mar referred
Speaker 3: to President Donald Trump as a quote deranged racist sociopath. Well,
Speaker 3: then I'm confident her coverage of Donald Trump will be
Speaker 3: fair as long as she introduces him as a deranged,
Speaker 3: racist sociopath every time he's covered.
Speaker 1: How do you even get that job?
Speaker 2: And I'm being serious, if you're national public radio, how
Speaker 2: does that automatically disqualify you from that position as soon
Speaker 2: as they see that quote?
Speaker 3: Yeah, and by the way, that's not an outlier. In
Speaker 3: twenty twenty one, she celebrated Trump's banishment from social media,
Speaker 3: referring to him as a fascist. So she loves censorship, Okay,
Speaker 3: the former president of the United States elected by the
Speaker 3: American people. I'm thrilled that he's being silenced because I
Speaker 3: dislike his politics and I think he's a fascist. In
Speaker 3: May of twenty twenty, right in the middle of the
Speaker 3: George Floyd riots, mar suggested that looting represented a form
Speaker 3: of reparative justice for historic wrongs, and she remarked how
Speaker 3: white silence is tantamount to complicity and violence. She's also
Speaker 3: posted repeatedly in support of Democrat politicians including Hillary Clinton,
Speaker 3: Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, and Joe Biden. Now listen as
Speaker 3: a private citizen, she has a right to be an
Speaker 3: angry left winding radical and a hard Democrat partisan. But
Speaker 3: explain to me why on earth the American taxpayers should
Speaker 3: fund her partisan propaganda.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and yet that's exactly why she probably got the job,
Speaker 2: because they're like, oh, perfect, You're going to keep pushing
Speaker 2: this propaganda out there full speed ahead. Want to ask
Speaker 2: all of you listening right now to do me a
Speaker 2: favor real quick. I want you to place your hand
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Speaker 2: That's preborn dot co slash verdict. Senator, if you are
Speaker 2: at MPR, can you imagine if you are lefty, lefty,
Speaker 2: how much freedom. I think it would make you feel
Speaker 2: like you had to then go out there and continue
Speaker 2: to push propaganda on the American people. If this is
Speaker 2: your CEO, I mean, it's a license to basically go
Speaker 2: all in on liberal propaganda at the taxpayer's expense.
Speaker 3: Now, that is exactly right, And I've got to say listen.
Speaker 3: As you know, I'm the ranking member on the Senate
Speaker 3: Committee of Commerce, Science, and Transportation, and part of my
Speaker 3: responsibility in that role, we've got jurisdiction over about forty
Speaker 3: percent of the US economy, and part of my responsibility
Speaker 3: is oversighted. I can tell you that I am actively
Speaker 3: engaging in oversight right now, calling on NPR to explain,
Speaker 3: to explain why they're willing to put in place a
Speaker 3: hard left wing activist, not a neutral journalist, but someone.
Speaker 1: Who is biased, who is.
Speaker 3: Who is an active supporter of censorship, to violence, to
Speaker 3: silence the views she disagrees with. Why NPR believes that
Speaker 3: that is an appropriate leader for their institution.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a really great point.
Speaker 3: And listen, don't necessarily take our word for it. I
Speaker 3: want you to listen to Catherine Maher in her own words,
Speaker 3: because it's going to show just how radical she is.
Speaker 3: And I want to play a couple clips. Let's start
Speaker 3: with her explaining that, in her view, the number one
Speaker 3: challenge that she faces is the First Amendment of the Constitution.
Speaker 3: Let's play that clip.
Speaker 5: The number one challenge here that we see is, of course,
Speaker 5: the First Amendment in the United States is a.
Speaker 6: Fairly robust protection of rights.
Speaker 5: And that is a protection of rights both for platforms,
Speaker 5: which I actually think is very important that platforms have
Speaker 5: those rights to be able to regulate what kind of
Speaker 5: content they want on their sites, but it also means
Speaker 5: that it is a little bit tricky you really address
Speaker 5: some of the real challenges of where does bad information
Speaker 5: come from and sort of the influence peddlers who have
Speaker 5: made a real market economy around it.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's amazing center.
Speaker 2: This is the woman running MPR, and I guess this
Speaker 2: is almost like the best thing you can put on
Speaker 2: your resume, right. You're like, hey, I think the First
Speaker 2: Amendment's are real problem. It's like perfect, We'd love to
Speaker 2: hire you at MPR.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and she actually says, well, the First Amendment is
Speaker 3: really important for platforms. But then what she describes as
Speaker 3: their first Amendment right, is for their ability to censor
Speaker 3: and silence things they disagree with. So to her mind,
Speaker 3: what she cares about is the ability if there's a
Speaker 3: view that is right a center. As far as she's concerned,
Speaker 3: the First Amendment is all about silencing those views. There
Speaker 3: can be no dissent, all right. I want you to
Speaker 3: listen to another clip. This is a Ted talk where
Speaker 3: she's discussing truth when she was at Wikipedia, and somehow
Speaker 3: she has a different view of truth than I think
Speaker 3: you and I might have. Give a listen.
Speaker 7: But the hard things, the places where we are prone
Speaker 7: to disagreement, say politics, religion. Well, as it turns out,
Speaker 7: not only does Wikipedia's model work there, it actually works
Speaker 7: really well because in our normal lives, these contentious conversations
Speaker 7: tend to rrupt or disagreement about what the truth actually is.
Speaker 7: But the people who write these articles, they're not focused
Speaker 7: on the truth. They're focused on something else, which is
Speaker 7: the best of what we can know right now. And
Speaker 7: after seven years of working with these brilliant folks, I've
Speaker 7: come to believe that they are onto something that perhaps
Speaker 7: for our most tricky disagreements, seeking the truth and seeking
Speaker 7: to convince others of the truth might not be the
Speaker 7: right place to start. In fact, our reverence for the
Speaker 7: truth might be a distraction that's getting in the way
Speaker 7: of finding common ground and getting things done. That is
Speaker 7: not to say that the truth doesn't exist, nor is
Speaker 7: it to say that the truth isn't important. Clearly, the
Speaker 7: search for the truth has led us to do great things,
Speaker 7: to learn great things. But I think if I were
Speaker 7: to really ask you to think about this, one of
Speaker 7: the things that we could all acknowledge is that part
Speaker 7: of the reason we have such glorious chronicles to the
Speaker 7: human experience in all forms of culture is because we
Speaker 7: acknowledge there are many different truths, and so in the
Speaker 7: spirit of that, I'm certain that the truth exists for
Speaker 7: you and probably for the person sitting next to you,
Speaker 7: But this may not be the same truth. This is
Speaker 7: because the truth of the matter is very often for
Speaker 7: many people. What happens when we merge facts about the
Speaker 7: world with our beliefs about the world. So we all
Speaker 7: have different truths based on things like where we come from,
Speaker 7: how we were raised, and how other people perceive us.
Speaker 3: What utter garbage like every word of that you want
Speaker 3: an indictment of the modern left you want an indictment
Speaker 3: of the idiocy of media. You want an indictment of
Speaker 3: the academic world. You want an indictment of big tech.
Speaker 3: Good God, what utter garbage? Truth doesn't exist? George or
Speaker 3: Well is spinning in his grave and laughing at the
Speaker 3: same time. Two plus two doesn't equal four, It equals
Speaker 3: five because we say it is. There is no truth.
Speaker 3: Listen to that quote. Our reverence for the truth might
Speaker 3: be a distraction that's getting in the way of finding
Speaker 3: common ground and getting things done. But don't worry. This
Speaker 3: is only for things that don't matter, the contentious issues.
Speaker 3: What does she identify politics and religion? When it comes
Speaker 3: to politics and religion, look, Jesus Christ said, I am
Speaker 3: the way the truth in the life. But no, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 3: no no, don't have reverence for truth. We're not interested
Speaker 3: in that. We are interested in set aside of truth.
Speaker 3: That can be your truth, my truth. Everyone has a truth.
Speaker 3: Maybe for you, two plus two is five. What utter garbage?
Speaker 3: You know what a journalist's supposed to be interested in
Speaker 3: the truth. Now, do you have perfect truth? No? Do
Speaker 3: you have perfect knowledge? No? But you should get damn
Speaker 3: close to it. You should be trying to get to
Speaker 3: the truth. Remember what journalists used to learn?
Speaker 1: Who? What, when? Where? How? Why?
Speaker 5: Like?
Speaker 3: What happened? What are the facts? Well, no, no, no, not
Speaker 3: according to her. According to to her, there are no facts.
Speaker 3: There is no truth. It's your truth, it's my truth,
Speaker 3: and my truth. From Catherine Marr's perspective is as a
Speaker 3: left wing partisan, whatever the orthodoxy is, and we will
Speaker 3: silence views that disagree. And the First Amendment is a
Speaker 3: pesky pesky barrier. All right, I want to play one
Speaker 3: more clip. Yeah, one more clip where she's describing what
Speaker 3: she did at Wikipedia. Listen to this third clip.
Speaker 6: I started by talking about the idea of free and
Speaker 6: open as some of our founding principles sort of free
Speaker 6: and open source coming from me to the open source community. Well,
Speaker 6: I have come to the opinion and the perspective that
Speaker 6: and open was a way of looking at the world
Speaker 6: that was inherently limited relative to what we were trying
Speaker 6: to achieve. Free and open has the best of intentionality,
Speaker 6: but in the end, what free and open often ended
Speaker 6: up doing, and particularly in the case of Wikipedia, was
Speaker 6: really recapitulating many of the same power structures and dynamics
Speaker 6: that exist offline prior to the advent of the Internet.
Speaker 6: And so what we ended up seeing was Wikipedia really
Speaker 6: rebuilt this idea of knowledge as a whole around what
Speaker 6: the Western canon. You see, the exclusion of communities of
Speaker 6: languages because of the ways in which Wikipedia is based
Speaker 6: on reliable sources. The idea of a written tradition is
Speaker 6: something that is particular to many I mean not sorry,
Speaker 6: the idea of a written tradition which is particular to
Speaker 6: some cultures and not to others. The ways in which
Speaker 6: we I ascribe notability often really comes from sort of
Speaker 6: this white male, westernized construct around who matters in societies
Speaker 6: and who is elevated and who's and so some of
Speaker 6: these ideas. So this radical openness really did not end
Speaker 6: up with the intention, really did not end up living
Speaker 6: into the intentionality of what openness can be.
Speaker 3: I mean, that just is brilliant right there, God bless so.
Speaker 3: Look she's explaining at Wikipedia, they deliberately abandoned a quote
Speaker 3: free and open approach. By the way she's telling you
Speaker 3: what she's going to do at NPR. NPR is not
Speaker 3: going to be free and open, according to her, because
Speaker 3: she doesn't believe in free and open. Why because free
Speaker 3: and open number one. She says, well, that advantages cultures
Speaker 3: that believe in the written word, because you know, what
Speaker 3: good has book learning ever done anyone? Well, heck, you're
Speaker 3: forgetting those cultures that don't believe in that fancy learning
Speaker 3: stuff like what utter garbage. I'm sorry, I thought, actually
Speaker 3: a journalistic outfit should actually reflect celebrate the best of education,
Speaker 3: of learning, of what we know. But she says, no, no, no, no.
Speaker 3: If it's actually free and open, it will recapitulate a
Speaker 3: white male, westernized, westernized construct. Let me ask you something, Ben,
Speaker 3: what the hell does that mean? Seriously? Those are the
Speaker 3: words Marxist use, and typically the more syllables they use
Speaker 3: when they get polysyllabic, the less they're making any sense.
Speaker 3: So explain to me the phrase recapitulate a white male,
Speaker 3: westernized construct that does not end up living into the
Speaker 3: intentionality of what openness can mean. Those words have no
Speaker 3: content other than I want the power to silence things
Speaker 3: I don't like.
Speaker 1: Am I wrong? No, you're right, And my question goes
Speaker 1: back to this. For you. It used to be at MPR.
Speaker 2: And others they would at least fake it like their bias.
Speaker 2: Now it's just flat out open, and they're doing it
Speaker 2: with our tax tours. Is there ever going to be
Speaker 2: a day day of reckoning where MPR finds out, hey,
Speaker 2: good luck, do your own thing, because we're not going
Speaker 2: to pay for this propagana anymore.
Speaker 3: Look, if NPR cares at all about journalistic integrity, if
Speaker 3: they care at all about continuing to receive taxpayer funds,
Speaker 3: they should terminate Catherine Marr immediately. Her job should be done.
Speaker 3: They should not have a rabid left wing partisan who
Speaker 3: hates the First Amendment, who've used it as an inconvenience,
Speaker 3: who wants to censor conservatives, who is actively explicitly and
Speaker 3: unabashedly opposed to free and open communication, who doesn't believe
Speaker 3: in truth, who believes truth is an impediment to what
Speaker 3: she's doing. That is not a journalist in any way.
Speaker 3: She ought to go and join Emily's List, she ought
Speaker 3: to go and join the DNC. She gotta go run
Speaker 3: for Congress and become a henchman to Nancy Pelosi. She
Speaker 3: should not actually be running a news organization, especially not
Speaker 3: a news organization funded by the taxpayers. And if we
Speaker 3: have to be honest, if you had a Democrat who
Speaker 3: had a shred of integrity. They would say, of course,
Speaker 3: this is not appropriate for her to run NPR are
Speaker 3: the chances of that happening are zero? But I can
Speaker 3: tell you I'm going to be pushing for accountability and
Speaker 3: I'm going to be pushing for oversight of NPR because
Speaker 3: it is brazenly shameless for them to put someone so
Speaker 3: wildly unqualified in that position.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no doubt about it. Don't forget. We do this
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Speaker 2: subscribe auto download button as well so you do not
Speaker 2: miss an episode. We also do our week in review
Speaker 2: if you miss something during the week, We do that
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Speaker 1: Make sure you grab my podcast.
Speaker 2: I'll keep you update on the latest breaking news, the
Speaker 2: Ben Ferguson podcasts, so download that as well and The
Speaker 2: Senator and I will see you back here in a
Speaker 2: couple of days