Speaker 1: Welcome.
Speaker 2: It is verdict with Senator Ted Cruz Ben Ferguson with
Speaker 2: you and Senator it has not been a great day
Speaker 2: for the Biden family on multiple fronts.
Speaker 3: Well, that's putting it mildly. Number one, we've seen the
Speaker 3: evidence of Joe Biden's personal corruption continue to grow. James Biden,
Speaker 3: it's now come out. It's not just Hunter, it's the
Speaker 3: entire Biden family that has a business of selling favors,
Speaker 3: selling access to Joe Biden to the tune of millions
Speaker 3: of dollars. And James Biden was on Capitol Hill, was
Speaker 3: testifying and contradicted himself, and it is getting worse and
Speaker 3: worse and worse for the corruption of the Biden family.
Speaker 3: Beyond that, we're also seeing the media turning on him.
Speaker 3: I got to say Rolling Stone has abandoned Joe Biden.
Speaker 1: Holy crap.
Speaker 3: If you're a Democrat and you've lost Rolling Stone, what
Speaker 3: is next? And I'm going to say, finally, as the
Speaker 3: entire higher Biden edifice collapses in flames, the corporate media
Speaker 3: is an abject state of panic. And so they fired
Speaker 3: Catherine Herridge, the lone reporter at all of CBS who
Speaker 3: actually reported on anything happening in America. They fired her,
Speaker 3: and then the news broke this week that CBS has
Speaker 3: gone and seized her files. They've said, we want to
Speaker 3: see every damn confidential informant you talk to, we want
Speaker 3: to see every source. We want control of all of it.
Speaker 3: And I got to say, even lefty journalists are saying,
Speaker 3: what is going on when CNN is doing this, it's
Speaker 3: a big week.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we're running into all that.
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Speaker 2: IFCJ dot org center. This story when it broke was
Speaker 2: one where I kind of laughed. James Biden lies just
Speaker 2: like Joe Biden does. James Biden now had to tell
Speaker 2: the truth, contradicting himself during testimony on his brother, who
Speaker 2: just happens to be the President's involvement with the family
Speaker 2: business dealings, which means virtually every Biden that's ever spoken
Speaker 2: publicly about the Biden family businesses lied to the American people,
Speaker 2: saying Joe Biden had nothing to do with it, and
Speaker 2: we now know he was the entire business and his
Speaker 2: brother is now admitting it.
Speaker 3: Well, it's a sad pattern. It's one we're seeing over
Speaker 3: and over again. And to step back a second to
Speaker 3: set the stage. So this past week, Politico broke a
Speaker 3: major story. The story was entitled, Biden's brother used his
Speaker 3: name to promote a hospital chain, then it collapsed. This
Speaker 3: was a bombshell story. And so let me read a
Speaker 3: portion from the story because it's important.
Speaker 1: Quote.
Speaker 3: The investigation, based on public records, court filings, dozens of interviews,
Speaker 3: and hundreds of exclusively obtained internal documents, reveals that Joe
Speaker 3: Biden's role in Americ Corps was larger than previously reported.
Speaker 3: In some eternal documents and investor materials, his name is
Speaker 3: included among its top handful of leaders. That's Joe Biden,
Speaker 3: by the way. He also helped the company seal regulatory
Speaker 3: approval to acquire the Pennsylvania Hospital and personally fired Americ
Speaker 3: chief financial officer, according to the emails obtained by Politico.
Speaker 3: The investigation also reveals that Joe Biden's name and inner
Speaker 3: circle were more involved with the company than has been understood.
Speaker 3: In addition to the accounts provided by former executives, investor
Speaker 3: materials described Jim Biden as an advisor to his older brother,
Speaker 3: and on top of Joe Biden's own previously reported encounter
Speaker 3: with the firm CEO, at least three of Joe Biden's
Speaker 3: relatives did work with AmeriCorps. They include Jim Biden's wife Sarah,
Speaker 3: his son Jamie. The President's son Hunter Biden also met
Speaker 3: with its CEO and his personal doctor. The current White
Speaker 3: House physician Kevin O'Connor, joined meeting with Jim Biden and
Speaker 3: the president of a hospital being acquired by AmeriCorps. According
Speaker 3: to a former executive and emails obtained by Politico.
Speaker 1: That's a lot.
Speaker 2: And if you think about just all of that in
Speaker 2: the context of the Biden crime family, at least they're
Speaker 2: consistent now where they were willing to walk into basically
Speaker 2: any room with any person at any time, where if
Speaker 2: they had cash, it didn't matter. If they were enemies
Speaker 2: of America, it didn't matter. It matter if they're Russian
Speaker 2: oligarch's Romainian Oligarch's Ukrainian oligarks it didn't matter if they
Speaker 2: were doing business directly with the Chinese Communist government and
Speaker 2: people that were connected to the spying agency of the
Speaker 2: Chinese Communist Party.
Speaker 1: The Bidens were willing.
Speaker 2: To take a check to sell access to the United
Speaker 2: States of America. And he has now made it clear,
Speaker 2: Yes that was the business. Sure you got us, But
Speaker 2: is there going to be any accountability? That's the big question.
Speaker 2: Everybody wants to.
Speaker 3: Know the entire Biden family, their source of financial support,
Speaker 3: their business was selling. The big guy was selling Joe Biden.
Speaker 3: Here's also from that Politico story quote. One person on
Speaker 3: the receiving end of Jim Biden's healthcare pitch recalled a
Speaker 3: phone call in which Jim Biden said he was sitting
Speaker 3: in a car next to his brother Joe. Joe Biden
Speaker 3: has said that he has never discussed business with his brother.
Speaker 3: Now at this point, there's a parallel. Do you remember
Speaker 3: the text that Hunter Biden sent to the Chinese Communist
Speaker 3: executive where he said, I'm sitting next to my father.
Speaker 3: This is a pattern now that apparently the entire Biden family.
Speaker 3: It's a really lucrative business to be sitting next to
Speaker 3: Daddy Joe, and you sit next to Daddy Joe and
Speaker 3: you shake people down for cash, and you say, right
Speaker 3: next to me is Joe Biden. And if you don't
Speaker 3: give me millions of dollars right now, Joe is going
Speaker 3: to come after you. And the consistency of this story
Speaker 3: that it's not just Remember, look, what is the White
Speaker 3: House's main defense. Their main defense is, you know, Hunter
Speaker 3: is a sad soul. He's troubled by substance abuse. Look,
Speaker 3: the guy's a crackhead. That's not our fault, that's his problem,
Speaker 3: but just blame it on him. Well, it turns out
Speaker 3: it's not just Hunter. As far as we know. Joe's
Speaker 3: brother Jim is not a crackhead. He just is in
Speaker 3: the same damn business. And by the way, in the
Speaker 3: business with other family members of it. The business is
Speaker 3: selling Joe Biden. And in this case, the hospital that
Speaker 3: they acquired in Pennsylvania was a hospital that focused in
Speaker 3: rural Pennsylvania providing healthcare that was needed by Americans in
Speaker 3: real trouble. They acquired it and then they went broke,
Speaker 3: They went out of business. They left their patients high
Speaker 3: and dry. But you know, who did great on this.
Speaker 3: You know who made a whole bunch of money. That
Speaker 3: would be Joe Biden and every damn member of his family.
Speaker 2: Well, let's go back to the also the fact that
Speaker 2: this company which they were working for, AMERICRPS, allegedly defrauded Medicare.
Speaker 2: I mean, this claim comes, as you mentioned, the House
Speaker 2: Oversight committe Chairman James Comer. He's a former bank board member.
Speaker 2: We've had him on this show now, I think four episodes.
Speaker 2: He found in October that two hundred thousand dollars check
Speaker 2: from AmeriCorps, which allegedly defrauded Medicare, landed in Joe Biden's
Speaker 2: bank account via James Biden. So this is direct linkage
Speaker 2: of the money on top of the fact that that's
Speaker 2: not even the biggest part of the story of the
Speaker 2: two undred thousand. It's the fact that this is a
Speaker 2: company that was allegedly defrauding Medicare.
Speaker 1: Here, don't you normally go to jail if you do that?
Speaker 1: That's what I thought.
Speaker 2: I mean, Democrats are obsessed with fraud right now, right
Speaker 2: that's their whole thing. They're obsessed with fraud, even if
Speaker 2: it's not even there. Like we saw with Donald Trump
Speaker 2: in New York. But this is actual fraud, actual payments,
Speaker 2: and actual defrauding of medicare.
Speaker 3: Listen, defrauding medicare, that means you're defrauding the American people.
Speaker 3: You're also defrauding your patients. And that is the Biden
Speaker 3: family's emma. That that is their approach. And this Politico story,
Speaker 3: it is number one interesting. We talked about the last podcast.
Speaker 3: We're going to talk more in this podcast about how
Speaker 3: the media, the corporate media, is turning on Joe Biden.
Speaker 3: The fact that they publish this story. Holy cow. A
Speaker 3: year ago, they would not have published this. Politico would
Speaker 3: have said, nope, no story here, We're not reporting this.
Speaker 3: Leave this to Breitbart. We the esteemed members of the
Speaker 3: fourth estate at Politico will not write this. Well, well,
Speaker 3: suddenly they've decided, uh uh, Joe Biden's a liability. Let's
Speaker 3: get rid of him. But you know what's interesting. This
Speaker 3: story then segues into what happened this week. So this week,
Speaker 3: GOP lawmakers who said James Biden contradicted himself during testimony
Speaker 3: about his brother, Joe Biden's supposed business dealings with his family.
Speaker 3: And here's what Fox News reported quote. The president's brother
Speaker 3: initially said he was not part of a deal with
Speaker 3: his nephew Hunter Biden and business associates Rob Walker, Tony Bobolinski,
Speaker 3: and James Gilliar, according to a source familiar with the interview,
Speaker 3: but when presented with an agreement with his signature on it, Oh, oh,
Speaker 3: that's a problem, Biden changed his story, saying he didn't
Speaker 3: recall signing the agreement. The source said, now understand James
Speaker 3: Biden's like, no, no, no, not in business with them.
Speaker 3: I don't know who's Hunter. What do you mean my nephew.
Speaker 3: Don't know the guy you mean the guy that's that's
Speaker 3: naked and smoking crack and running around with all the prostitutes. No,
Speaker 3: never heard of that guy, the one on Air Force two,
Speaker 3: Air Force one. No idea who that guy is. And
Speaker 3: then he's like, uh, here's the agreement you signed. And
Speaker 3: he's like, uh, I don't know what you're talking about. Look,
Speaker 3: a lot of our listeners are young enough. You may
Speaker 3: not remember Hogan's Heroes. I grew up with my dad
Speaker 3: watching Hogan's Heroes as a kid. And Hogan's Heroes there
Speaker 3: was a character Sergeant Schultz, big fat guy German guy,
Speaker 3: and and when when, when Hogan was like doing all
Speaker 3: sorts of shenanigans, Sergeant Schultz would say, I see nothing,
Speaker 3: I hear nothing. Well, that right now is James Biden's defense.
Speaker 3: I hear nothing well. I gotta say the rest of
Speaker 3: us we see something.
Speaker 2: It's big. And now the media is turning on him.
Speaker 2: We've talked about this. I just came back from Seapack
Speaker 2: in DC and it was a very clear topic of
Speaker 2: conversation and a real concern of many that were there,
Speaker 2: saying what happens next when it comes to Joe Biden?
Speaker 2: Will he actually be who we're running against come November?
Speaker 2: And the media seems to be turning on Joe Biden.
Speaker 2: And it's not just like they're testing out the waters now,
Speaker 2: it's like they've gotten their orders and the Democratic establishment. Okay, Now,
Speaker 2: maybe the time that we take our hand off of
Speaker 2: Joe and we push him underwater and sink this ship
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Speaker 2: Senater, I think the reason why the media has flipped
Speaker 2: on Joe Biden is because this is an orchestrated effort.
Speaker 2: It's not like one media outlet decided to go rogue here.
Speaker 2: They all started on the same day. They all are
Speaker 2: putting out stories at the same time. They're all trying
Speaker 2: to basically say, Okay, maybe we got to get rid
Speaker 2: of them rolling stones. For goodness, Sakes writes this that
Speaker 2: has never happened before to write an article like this
Speaker 2: about a Democrat, much less a sitting president in the
Speaker 2: Democratic Party.
Speaker 3: Well, listen, that's right. And we talked about in Wednesday's
Speaker 3: podcast how the media is turning on Joe Biden, how
Speaker 3: the Washington Post, how the New York Times is turning
Speaker 3: on Joe Biden. And you're right, there is an amazing thing.
Speaker 3: Maybe we'll discover at some point there's some secret list
Speaker 3: server or text message or signal app that they send
Speaker 3: each other. There like, okay, now we're turning on them.
Speaker 3: I don't know, I just know the results that they
Speaker 3: all do it simultaneously, and so look as bad as
Speaker 3: the New York Times is, as bad as the Washington
Speaker 3: Post is. When you think of lest wing mouthpieces, it's
Speaker 3: hard to find one that is more so than Rolling Stone.
Speaker 3: And here's an article from Rolling Stone this week. I
Speaker 3: want to read you the title over it, young Black
Speaker 3: and Done with Biden, the issues that could decide the
Speaker 3: taking a ride through Detroit with the young black Democratic
Speaker 3: voters who helped Biden get into office in twenty twenty
Speaker 3: and aren't so sure about doing it again.
Speaker 2: That's not a story that's ever written by the mainstream media,
Speaker 2: much less like hardcore lefties. And that would be Rolling
Speaker 2: Stones magazine. And they didn't just this didn't just happen,
Speaker 2: by the way, in a week. They clearly knew what
Speaker 2: they were going to write. They knew this was a
Speaker 2: story that probably was worth writing, and they just decided
Speaker 2: to look the other way for the last three years. Now,
Speaker 2: all of a sudden, you're going to write it like
Speaker 2: the timing of this is laughable.
Speaker 3: No, that's exactly right, and let me read you the
Speaker 3: opening of this article. Troy, Michigan is quintessential suburbia, strip malls,
Speaker 3: banks with drive throughs and jewelry stores through just thirty
Speaker 3: minutes outside of Detroit, feels a world away from the
Speaker 3: motor city with its blocks of boarded up houses and
Speaker 3: abandoned stores. The disparate environments speak to the systematic inequality
Speaker 3: that brought me here to talk politics and the bind
Speaker 3: that Joe Biden has gotten himself into. Inside Fresh and
Speaker 3: Pressed Juice, a brightly lit juice bar and cafe with
Speaker 3: a vibrant green ceiling, I talk with the impeccably dressed
Speaker 3: shop owner, Kiara Smith and her husband, wrapper Icewear Vezzo,
Speaker 3: who has brave the snow in his designer wool jacket
Speaker 3: over smoothies. Vezzo takes off like a rocket when I
Speaker 3: ask what issues he'd like to see presidential candidate's address
Speaker 3: in the lead up to November. Vezzo says that over
Speaker 3: the past several years he's been paying attention to electoral
Speaker 3: politics more than ever. He thinks Biden's deceitful and that
Speaker 3: likely Republican candidate Donald Trump is a blabbermouth Independent candidate
Speaker 3: Robert F. Kennedy is his preference over both men. He
Speaker 3: takes some local pride in Michigan being a battleground state
Speaker 3: because he said voters are actually paying attention. Now understand,
Speaker 3: this is Rolling Stone saying Black Democrats in Detroit, Michigan
Speaker 3: are not going to vote for Joe Biden. That's a
Speaker 3: big deal.
Speaker 2: It's not just that, it's also that all of the
Speaker 2: data is pointing to the disaster, which is the Biden administration,
Speaker 2: specifically on the economy, and you compare that to what
Speaker 2: Donald Trump did when he was in office. The lowest
Speaker 2: unemployment ry in the history of African Americans happened under
Speaker 2: Donald Trump, and Joe Biden came in said I'm going
Speaker 2: to fix everything in the African American community. Look at
Speaker 2: what's happened since Biden took office. As the latest number,
Speaker 2: overall prices are up seventeen point nine percent. Food prices
Speaker 2: are up twenty one percent, rent is up nineteen point
Speaker 2: four percent. Electricity is up twenty eight point six percent.
Speaker 2: That's Biden nomics, and this White House says, oh no, no,
Speaker 2: it's working it's working.
Speaker 1: We promise you it's working.
Speaker 2: And I think that's part of the reason why I
Speaker 2: center that the African American community is turning against him,
Speaker 2: as they're saying, you have ruined what we had under
Speaker 2: Donald Trump and now we have a massive crime wave
Speaker 2: on top of everything else I just mentioned.
Speaker 3: Well, if you remember the political party in New York
Speaker 3: previously that was called the rent is too damn high. Yeah, well,
Speaker 3: I got to say the rent is too damn high.
Speaker 3: That is a message that is resonating in a whole
Speaker 3: lot of cities right now. And Joe Biden he owns it.
Speaker 3: You think your rent is too damn high? That would
Speaker 3: be Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. Who brought that to you.
Speaker 3: And that's a real problem. That's a real problem for
Speaker 3: the voters. The Democrats need to turn out. If they're
Speaker 3: sitting there saying the rent is two damn high, they're
Speaker 3: in trouble. And it's why. Look, this podcast six months
Speaker 3: ago broke national media when we said that, I believe
Speaker 3: there was a very real risk the Democrats were going
Speaker 3: to jettison Joe Biden and replace him with Michelle Obama.
Speaker 3: It's been interesting the last two weeks suddenly seeing the
Speaker 3: rest of the press say, holy crap, there's a very
Speaker 3: real chance they jennison Joe Biden and replace him with
Speaker 3: Michelle Obama. And the fact that the media is turning
Speaker 3: on him day and night is increasing the chances every day.
Speaker 2: There's also another shocking story, and I want to make
Speaker 2: sure we spend some time on this. Many people may
Speaker 2: know the name Katherine Herrid. She is a phenomenal reporter.
Speaker 2: She was at Fox for a long time. She then
Speaker 2: moved to CBS News. She did incredible reporting on tough
Speaker 2: issues and stories, including what's been happening with the Biden
Speaker 2: crime family. She was let go, slash fired, whatever you
Speaker 2: want to call it, laid off with some other people
Speaker 2: as CBS is having financial issues and downsizing. But it
Speaker 2: was shocking that she was let go in that because
Speaker 2: she's basically that one of their best and only tough
Speaker 2: investigative reporters, certainly in Washington, d C. Now we have
Speaker 2: found out that CBS News went full communists after quote
Speaker 2: seizing her journalistic files. That is not what's supposed to
Speaker 2: happen in America in journalism. And yet now we're finding
Speaker 2: out not only they get rid of her. But the
Speaker 2: question is what was she what did she what was
Speaker 2: she about to report on? I would say this enter,
Speaker 2: I know you love her reporting. I think we should
Speaker 2: try to get her on Verdict because I would love
Speaker 2: to hear what she has to say about everything she
Speaker 2: uncovered that maybe she hasn't been able to tell us yet.
Speaker 3: So I agree with you that we should have Catherine
Speaker 3: Herridge as a guest on Verdict. We're going to try
Speaker 3: to make that happen. And I will say, look, in
Speaker 3: many ways, Catherine Herridge is a unicorn because the corporate
Speaker 3: media is so utterly corrupt that they do not report
Speaker 3: on news that is inconvenient to the regime. And Catherine
Speaker 3: Harridge was a rebel in that she actually reported on
Speaker 3: things the Biden White House didn't like, and so CBS
Speaker 3: was engaged in layoffs. And I get Look, the media
Speaker 3: are a bunch of dishonest, lying hacks. I understand that
Speaker 3: they're firing people because people don't want to purchase their
Speaker 3: goods anymore because it is useless. They're no longer journalists,
Speaker 3: they're liars. That being said, if you're off people, somebody
Speaker 3: and some corporate suit in a corner office made a decision,
Speaker 3: who do we want to lay off. Let's lay off
Speaker 3: the person who actually is criticizing the White House, and
Speaker 3: so Catherine the heritage they laid off. That was shocking
Speaker 3: in and of itself because she is such a unicorn.
Speaker 3: But then the news broke this week that then not
Speaker 3: only do they layer off, but CBS officials took the
Speaker 3: unusual step of seizing her files, her computers, her records,
Speaker 3: including her information on privileged sources. And and that I've
Speaker 3: got to say, so.
Speaker 2: Explain people privileged sources so people understand why that's such
Speaker 2: a shocking, in my opinion, abuse of power by CBS.
Speaker 3: Well, listen, reporters have sources that give information and under
Speaker 3: promises of confidentiality, and those promises or that their name
Speaker 3: will be held secret, they will not be outed. And
Speaker 3: that is right at the heart the essence of journalism,
Speaker 3: of free press. Well, CBS, the corporate suits have said,
Speaker 3: we want to know who your sources are. And the
Speaker 3: problem is that nobody rational with their head not inserted
Speaker 3: in a bodily orifice, believes that the corporate suits want
Speaker 3: that for any reason other than bad purposes. Look, I'm
Speaker 3: going to read from an article in The Hill. So
Speaker 3: in the Hill, this is something written by Jonathan Turley,
Speaker 3: who has been really terrific on a lot of these issues.
Speaker 3: But here's what he but he wrote, quote, I've spoken
Speaker 3: confidentially with current and former CBS employees who have stated
Speaker 3: that they could not recall the company ever taking such
Speaker 3: a step before. One former CBS journalist said that many
Speaker 3: employees quote are confused why Herridge was laid off. As
Speaker 3: one of the correspondents who broke news regularly and did
Speaker 3: a lot of original reporting, this has led to concerns
Speaker 3: about the source of the pressure. He added that he
Speaker 3: has never seen a seizure of records from a departing
Speaker 3: journalist and that the move has sent a chilling signal
Speaker 3: to the ranks of CBS and that is deeply, deeply disturbing.
Speaker 3: By the way, there have been reports that when Catherine
Speaker 3: Herridge published stories that were critical of the Biden White House,
Speaker 3: that CBS executives pushed back, including someone CBS News president
Speaker 3: ingrid Cyprianne Matthews, who I don't know, but good god,
Speaker 3: her name sounds like something out of a science fiction
Speaker 3: movie about some overlord in the star chamber who wants
Speaker 3: to silence, all dissent ingrid Cyprian Matthews. Let's fire the
Speaker 3: reporter that dares report anything of substance because we are propagandists.
Speaker 3: And I got to say, there was a time when
Speaker 3: CBS actually had a reputation as being real journalists. How
Speaker 3: many Walter Cronkite is rolling over in his grave at
Speaker 3: what has happened to CBS today.
Speaker 2: I want to just talk about the quality of Catherine's
Speaker 2: reporting for a moment. There are reporters that you don't
Speaker 2: talk to. There's reporters that I don't talk to. You
Speaker 2: see them, you roll their eyes, You deal with it
Speaker 2: a lot more than I do. There's certain reporters on
Speaker 2: Capitol Hill You're like, really, you again, give me a
Speaker 2: break because you know they're hacks. When when you saw
Speaker 2: Katherine and now there's like there seemed to be mutual
Speaker 2: respect from both sides the owl because she wasn't partisan,
Speaker 2: she just was a truth teller and investigative journalism. It's
Speaker 2: something that we've lost in this country and that's what,
Speaker 2: ultimately I think made her lose her job at CBS.
Speaker 3: Look sadly, what Catherine Herridge does used to be the
Speaker 3: norm and journalism. Yeah, you would have journalists who would
Speaker 3: actually investigate stories, they would follow the facts, they would
Speaker 3: report on the substance. That used to be how the
Speaker 3: entire enterprise worked. Now and I really think this is
Speaker 3: post Trump. Trump broke the corporate media. They hate him
Speaker 3: so much that they've abandoned any effort at truth telling,
Speaker 3: any effort at reporting facts, any effort at being even handed,
Speaker 3: eddy effort reporting both sides. Instead, Look, if you go
Speaker 3: back a decade ago, if you go back to twenty fourteen,
Speaker 3: twenty fifteen, you would have people at CBS, You'd have
Speaker 3: people at CNNMSNBC, even MSNBC that would claim they're trying
Speaker 3: to be journalists and report both sides. What has changed
Speaker 3: is Trump convinced a lot of the so called journalists
Speaker 3: and all of the corporate brass that reporting fairly was
Speaker 3: no longer acceptable, that Trump was the devil, and because
Speaker 3: he was the devil, their mission was no longer present
Speaker 3: both sides. Their mission, and this is the way they
Speaker 3: framed it, was to save democracy. And what they mean
Speaker 3: by save democracy is elect left wing democrats in every
Speaker 3: election no matter what, which means never ever ever report
Speaker 3: on anything harmful to left wing Democrats and only be
Speaker 3: propagandists for the left wing of the party. Now listen,
Speaker 3: I don't like the New York Times. I think they're
Speaker 3: a bunch of freaking communists. I don't particularly like the
Speaker 3: Washington Post. I don't like much of the media. But bizarrely, Ben,
Speaker 3: I think they're valuable. How many years were you an
Speaker 3: employee of CNN?
Speaker 2: Seven years? In hell is how long I was there
Speaker 2: fighting the good fight.
Speaker 3: Okay, but compare CNN all right, you're a former employee.
Speaker 3: You were an employee there from win to win.
Speaker 2: Gosh, it was I mean, go back what two years
Speaker 2: ago and then and then add seven on to there.
Speaker 2: So in the middle of it, right before Trump was elected,
Speaker 2: when it wasn't that bad.
Speaker 1: I was there for I guess about two years.
Speaker 2: Before the sixteen election when Trump was elected and then
Speaker 2: the will came off.
Speaker 3: So give your perspective, because you were a paid employee
Speaker 3: of CNN. Give your perspective of CNN before twenty sixteen,
Speaker 3: in the Trump election and after, because look, what I'm
Speaker 3: describing is real, but you experienced it from the inside.
Speaker 2: Yeah, when I first got hired, it was funny. When
Speaker 2: I got hired by CNN. The call came in and
Speaker 2: they said, look, we want real and genuine conservatives on
Speaker 2: the air.
Speaker 1: I got hired.
Speaker 2: I think it was on the same day with New
Speaker 2: Gingrich and they said, we want to have a robust debate,
Speaker 2: and it was and that's exactly what it started out as.
Speaker 2: And even when they were covering Donald Trump in sixteen,
Speaker 2: remember CNN would go wall to wall with him campaign
Speaker 2: event after campaign event, and I remember, well, yeah, it
Speaker 2: was huge for their ratings. You remember, you were running
Speaker 2: against him. It's like CNN was giving it was almost
Speaker 2: like the Trump News Network during the primary. And then
Speaker 2: once he got the nomination, and then once he actually
Speaker 2: looked like he might have a chance of winning, they
Speaker 2: started to turn a little bit.
Speaker 1: It wasn't intil the night.
Speaker 2: And I was at CNN that night all night long
Speaker 2: in election night, and you could see the shock and
Speaker 2: the anger because everyone there from the highest up.
Speaker 3: People they assumed tilly.
Speaker 1: Assumed Hillary was gonna win.
Speaker 2: So this was basically just great TV drama until he won.
Speaker 2: And then when he won, they basically and once he
Speaker 2: started saying they were fake news, and he was in
Speaker 2: there going after them as the president and going after
Speaker 2: them in the White House Press Briefing Room and allowing
Speaker 2: Sara Huckabee, Sanders and others to fight back. They couldn't
Speaker 2: take it out on Trump enough, so they started taking
Speaker 2: it out on the commentators that were left. I was
Speaker 2: one of the last, I think real concertis left at CNN.
Speaker 2: I actually begged them to not re sign me at
Speaker 2: the end. They had a right to sign and right
Speaker 2: to match, and they did it anyway, And in my
Speaker 2: last year they signed me to silence me.
Speaker 1: I don't think I've ever talked about this publicly.
Speaker 2: Actually, in my last year I asked them not to
Speaker 2: and they said, no, we're going to resign you. And
Speaker 2: I had another offer and they were gonna match, and
Speaker 2: and that was it. I can say this and you'll laugh.
Speaker 2: I will go down in history as being the highest
Speaker 2: paid CNN contributor in history if you count it per appearance,
Speaker 2: because in the last year of my contract, when they
Speaker 2: extended it, they signed me to bench me just to
Speaker 2: say they had a pro Trump commentator on the payroll.
Speaker 2: And I did a total of two appearances in twelve
Speaker 2: months under contract. Yes, lot of appearances. Yes, I've never
Speaker 2: really talked about this publicly. So they resigned me, and
Speaker 2: I said, please don't and they did it anyway, and
Speaker 2: they didn't have me on for like three and a
Speaker 2: half four months.
Speaker 3: All right, Ben, I don't want to out your personal finances,
Speaker 3: but I kind of do. How much to see Ann
Speaker 3: pay someone. I mean, look, if you don't want to
Speaker 3: answer that, don't answer that. But I'm kind of curious.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it all depends on if you're hosting, what your
Speaker 2: past resume was, how long you been there, and so
Speaker 2: I made I mean low six figures when I was
Speaker 2: there my first Yeah, clus I think it's what it was.
Speaker 3: And you did two appearances in a year, in a year,
Speaker 3: in a year, they paid you fifty freaking thousand dollars
Speaker 3: per appearance.
Speaker 1: A little more than that.
Speaker 2: That's why I said, I go down in history, is
Speaker 2: the highest paid CNN contributor in history per appearance. But
Speaker 2: they benched me, and the Hollywood Reporter noticed that there
Speaker 2: was like two or three of us that were pro Trump,
Speaker 2: and we vanished from the screen. Because a normal week
Speaker 2: when I was there in the first you know, six years,
Speaker 2: I would probably average four to six appearances a week
Speaker 2: some weeks to be eleven, twelve, thirteen during the political campaigns.
Speaker 2: I did so many appearances in my first contract.
Speaker 3: That I'm doing some quick math, let's say five appearances
Speaker 3: a week fifty two weeks. That's over two hundred and
Speaker 3: fifty appearances a year. That yeah, that's what you used
Speaker 3: to be. And you went from two hundred and fifty
Speaker 3: appearances a year to.
Speaker 2: Two to two in my last year two and it
Speaker 2: was only I did one appearance where they tried to
Speaker 2: I think it was actually to try to get rid
Speaker 2: of me. They had me come on to defend Rush Limball,
Speaker 2: and they try to turn me into a racist bigot
Speaker 2: that was defending Rush Limball, that was anti gay, and
Speaker 2: I didn't take the bait. And you could see I
Speaker 2: was very angry when I was on TV because I
Speaker 2: knew what they were trying to do and it didn't work,
Speaker 2: and I didn't take the bait, and I fought back.
Speaker 2: And then there was a bunch of articles from you know,
Speaker 2: scumbags and me that were trying to apply that I
Speaker 2: said something I didn't say. And then Hollywood Reporter noticed
Speaker 2: that the pro Trump sarrogates in essence, these conservatives at
Speaker 2: CNN had vanished from the air, and they wrote an article.
Speaker 3: So I say this seriously, and look, I don't watch CNN.
Speaker 3: So but I can't recall a single pro Trump surge
Speaker 3: in years they've had. I can tell you I used
Speaker 3: to do CNN. I didn't do it five times a
Speaker 3: week because they paid me zero and in my entire
Speaker 3: life have been paid zero by CNN, and you know,
Speaker 3: I feel it was a fair trade. But I used
Speaker 3: to do CNN once a week consistently. I haven't done
Speaker 3: them in years, years because they're not interested in a
Speaker 3: fair discussion. They are propagandas, yes, and they're not even
Speaker 3: Democrat propagandists. They are the left wing of the Democrat Party.
Speaker 3: And it's not just CNN. Why did CBS sees Catherine
Speaker 3: Herriage's confidential source notes that is extremely unusual, but it
Speaker 3: is a manifestation of the complete corruption of the corporate.
Speaker 2: Media, no doubt about it. This is really fun. I
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Speaker 2: I heard the show before. I don't forget we do
Speaker 2: the show Monday, Wednesday, Friday. I keep you up to
Speaker 2: date on my podcast, the Ben Ferguson Podcasts, on those
Speaker 2: in between days as well, so download that podcast mine
Speaker 2: the Ben Ferguson podcast as well, and we have that
Speaker 2: week in review what you may have missed during the
Speaker 2: week if you didn't get to get every episode, we
Speaker 2: have that for you on Saturdays as well and the
Speaker 2: Sinat and I will see you back here Saturday morning
Speaker 2: for that.
Speaker 1: Have a great day.