Speaker 1: Today from London, England, and there are forty five days
Speaker 1: until the noon hour when Donald Trump will raise his
Speaker 1: hand and swear the thirty five word oath, the only
Speaker 1: one in the American Constitution, the same one that George
Speaker 1: Washington took, that calls for him to preserve, protect, and
Speaker 1: to defend the Constitution of the United States. Of course,
Speaker 1: Donald Trump is the only president in American history to
Speaker 1: raise his hand in violence against the Constitution of the
Speaker 1: United States, fomenting the insurrection of January sixth, twenty twenty one,
Speaker 1: the insurrection that the American people have turned a blind
Speaker 1: eye towards, with a plurality of them slightly over forty
Speaker 1: nine percent awarding to Donald Trump his first popular vote
Speaker 1: victory out of his three presidential runs, of which two
Speaker 1: will have given him of office in the White House.
Speaker 1: This is the warning. There is a chill descending over
Speaker 1: America's corporate newsrooms, and it must be talked about because
Speaker 1: each day it will get colder and colder and colder
Speaker 1: until the depth of winter. And there what corporate newsrooms
Speaker 1: will produce is the blandest of Farina, designed to do
Speaker 1: one thing, which is to not make Donald Trump upset.
Speaker 1: The commandment inside of America's corporate newsrooms will be very simple.
Speaker 1: Be nice. Donald Trump wants a nice press. How will
Speaker 1: the press cover Elon Musk? How will they cover Vivak Ramaswani,
Speaker 1: How will they cover Donald Trump? We have indications and
Speaker 1: they are most alarming. One of the richest men in
Speaker 1: the world, Jeff Bezos, intervened and in weeks before the election,
Speaker 1: with the Washington Post's editorial process. Jeff Bezos interfered in
Speaker 1: the independence of his editorial operation inside the newspaper, which
Speaker 1: is his right to cost is credibility. You see, access
Speaker 1: to the powerful is not a prerequisite for covering them.
Speaker 1: Access to power is a prerequisite for being next to power,
Speaker 1: and that's not the job of journalism. Many news organizations
Speaker 1: are run by powerful corporations who have many other considerations
Speaker 1: and equities that far exceed the importance to their shareholders
Speaker 1: of telling the truth to you. This is important to
Speaker 1: comprehend to appreciate. The Los Angeles Times is an important
Speaker 1: national newspaper. It has a legacy of great reporters. A
Speaker 1: couple of them have resigned. They've resigned because the billionaire
Speaker 1: owner has interfered in the editorial process. No longer can
Speaker 1: the newspaper editors choose the headlines. The owner must approve
Speaker 1: them because Elon Musk was offended by one. This is
Speaker 1: how it works. The capitulant acts that you will see
Speaker 1: in newsrooms under the banner of being nice to Trump
Speaker 1: will be subtle, and the sins will be ones of omission.
Speaker 1: And there is no place where this is more dramatically
Speaker 1: playing out than on Morning Joe, when the Atlantic writer
Speaker 1: and White House speech writer David From came for a visit. Now,
Speaker 1: what David From said was witty, and it was funny,
Speaker 1: and it was appropriate, just given what one sees on camera.
Speaker 1: If you're too drunk for Fox News, you're very, very drunk. Indeed,
Speaker 1: so that's alarming. The point that David From was made,
Speaker 1: as if it needs explanation, was that Fox has incredibly
Speaker 1: low standards, and that one of those low people who
Speaker 1: works at Fox, unsurprisingly because of Fox's history, is an
Speaker 1: alleged rapist and a serial abuser of women and a
Speaker 1: drunk who is utterly unfit to be in the National
Speaker 1: Command authority to be the person woken up at one
Speaker 1: in the morning to be alerted should there be a
Speaker 1: nuclear attack unfit, and so David From, one of the
Speaker 1: most insightful and astute and wise observers of American life
Speaker 1: and culture and politics, made and observation, and he was
Speaker 1: immediately warned. There was a voice in the ear saying,
Speaker 1: don't do that. Shortly after David From left the air,
Speaker 1: Mika Brazinski said.
Speaker 2: This, before we go to break a little bit earlier
Speaker 2: in this block, there was a comment made about Fox
Speaker 2: News in our coverage about Pete hagg Seth and the
Speaker 2: growing number of allegations about his behavior over the years
Speaker 2: and possible addiction to alcohol or issues with alcohol. The
Speaker 2: comment was a little too flippant for this moment that
Speaker 2: we're in. We just want to make that comment as well.
Speaker 2: We want to make that clear.
Speaker 1: But why would they apologize for it? Is the fear
Speaker 1: that great and then the justifications about civility. Let's watch Shascarborough.
Speaker 3: Mika said after the comment was a little too flippant
Speaker 3: for the moment we're in. We disagree with Fox News,
Speaker 3: but there's some good people over there, including of course
Speaker 3: those talking to NBC News about their concerns.
Speaker 4: This got turned into a column and a headline that
Speaker 4: said that, well, let's see what was the headline this
Speaker 4: sound of fear. Now, that wasn't the sound of fear,
Speaker 4: that was the sound of civil and saying that Mika had.
Speaker 3: Apologized, you cant it apologized.
Speaker 1: She simply said it was too flimid civility. Excuse me.
Speaker 1: Let's watch Mika talk about Pete Hegsath and all of
Speaker 1: the people that care about Pete at Fox News, where
Speaker 1: she just wants to leave it at that.
Speaker 2: But right now, I just want to say, there's a
Speaker 2: lot of good people that work at Fox News who
Speaker 2: care about Pete Heggsath, and we'll want to leave it
Speaker 2: at that.
Speaker 1: Why is Mika Brzynski apologizing to Rupert Murdoch's Lye machine.
Speaker 1: Why is she personalizing what David from said in cow
Speaker 1: telling to an institution? Why are they intimidated? The accommodations
Speaker 1: to come will all be justified as necessary, particularly by
Speaker 1: the people who make them. Running a newsroom in America
Speaker 1: is about to become a very serious job. The lighthearted
Speaker 1: age of nonsensicalness has ended. There will be real, constant
Speaker 1: and significant pressure. The job will require fortitude, and it
Speaker 1: is a job. The job requires the ability to sit
Speaker 1: under threat and to speak truth to power. Without fear
Speaker 1: or favor. The show is becoming a cancer on the
Speaker 1: credibility of NBC News and an insult to the fortitude
Speaker 1: of people like Nicole Wallace and Rachel Matdow and everybody
Speaker 1: else who is modeling fearlessness in the face of intimidation,
Speaker 1: including from an FBI director designate who has promised to
Speaker 1: lock up journalists. If you are a member of Congress
Speaker 1: and you fear for your life because of the threats
Speaker 1: and the intimations of violence in the air, and you
Speaker 1: cannot perform your duties, your duties require you to resign.
Speaker 1: If you are a journalist who cannot pursue the truth,
Speaker 1: who cannot look into the camera without being intimidated, without
Speaker 1: showing fear or favor, then you must step away. What
Speaker 1: we are witnessing is unsightly because cowardice is It's uncomfortable,
Speaker 1: especially when it's dressed up as something virtuous, and we
Speaker 1: know it's not the most important quality in the opposition
Speaker 1: to what will be coming is fearlessness. The idea that
Speaker 1: because Trump has won and because he has blustered, we
Speaker 1: must lay down and Neil must be rejected. It is
Speaker 1: inappropriate for people like Anthony Fauci to accept a pardon
Speaker 1: for doing nothing wrong out of fear. It is wrong
Speaker 1: for Liz Cheney to accept a party for doing nothing
Speaker 1: wrong out of fear for doing her duty. It is
Speaker 1: a submission that is deeply wrong. And so when Joe
Speaker 1: Biden talks about giving pardons preemptively to these people, they
Speaker 1: must reject it, because if they accept it, they will
Speaker 1: cut themselves off from the people that admired them with
Speaker 1: special privilege that those citizens who followed them will not enjoy,
Speaker 1: but who will be called upon to rise up and
Speaker 1: to resist at significant costs, perhaps abuses of civil liberties,
Speaker 1: the likes of which will be unprecedented in this country
Speaker 1: if the president elect does what he says he will do.
Speaker 1: And here is the thing, and here is why this
Speaker 1: matters above all else, And here's why Joe and Mika
Speaker 1: matter in the space they occupy matters. There is no
Speaker 1: person ever who has promised to do the things that
Speaker 1: Donald Trump has promised to do, who upon taking power
Speaker 1: didn't do them. None ever. So there is fear, and
Speaker 1: we're seeing it, and it's unsightly. And the American people
Speaker 1: deserve better. What they deserve is truth telling. This is
Speaker 1: the warning. I'm Steve Schmidt. This is the warning and
Speaker 1: I invite you to join. Subscribe on our substack, on
Speaker 1: our YouTube channel, follow us. Welcome to the community.