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Speaker 1: Breakingpoints dot Com. Good morning, Happy Wednesday, Welcome to Counterpoints.
Speaker 1: How are you doing, Ryan? Wonderful? Never better? How about you?
Speaker 1: I'm good. You said you had two pieces of news
Speaker 1: to mention right off the top here before we dive
Speaker 1: into what happened there one. So Germany overnight officially authorized
Speaker 1: the release of fourteen of its tanks news to Ukraine,
Speaker 1: which we'll escalate the war according to the Russian embassy
Speaker 1: in Germany and also according to common sense. And they
Speaker 1: also authorize other countries that are in possession of German
Speaker 1: tanks to release those into Ukraine. The US has even
Speaker 1: said that it's going it's going to move forward with
Speaker 1: the process of shipping tanks over to Ukraine, which is
Speaker 1: what got Germany to go along with it. Yeah, right,
Speaker 1: and so and then also in the House representatives, the
Speaker 1: you know, the House Republicans booted Ilan Omar from the
Speaker 1: House Foreign Relations Committee, Adam Schiff and Swallwell, Eric Swalwell
Speaker 1: from the Intelligence Committee. I mean to me, it's I
Speaker 1: get it that Democrats started it when they went after
Speaker 1: Marjorie Taylor Green. But if you can't be on a
Speaker 1: committee with somebody you disagree with like that, that's the
Speaker 1: first step to the whole thing falling apart. Yeah, they're
Speaker 1: in a bad tit for tat right now, and voters
Speaker 1: on both sides will take nothing less than responding for
Speaker 1: the responding to the tit with the tat right because
Speaker 1: because once you start kicking certain people off, and this
Speaker 1: is the problem with censorship as well. That why big
Speaker 1: tech platforms at first were hands off, because they said,
Speaker 1: if we take down some things but not others, that
Speaker 1: looks like we're endorsing the things that we don't take down.
Speaker 1: Advertising the same way, if you accept some ads but
Speaker 1: not other ads, then it's like, well you didn't not
Speaker 1: take that ad, so therefore you must approve of all
Speaker 1: the other ones. Well, this is actually a really great
Speaker 1: transition into the topic because, as I've been thinking, the
Speaker 1: topic of our first block here, which is the documents
Speaker 1: found that Mike Pence's Indiana home, is that we're in
Speaker 1: locked in this ridiculous pattern where politicians are just throwing
Speaker 1: stones in glasshouses and wasting all of our time and
Speaker 1: money in the process. We now have two special counsels
Speaker 1: into classified documents that were found, the third for Pens
Speaker 1: and I hope we don't. This is the news. Yesterday
Speaker 1: CNN broke that last week twelve documents, about a dozen
Speaker 1: documents were found in Mike Pence's Indiana home. It is
Speaker 1: not clear, according to CNN, what those documents are related to,
Speaker 1: which is a huge piece of this puzzle. Pence asked
Speaker 1: his lawyer to conduct the search in the wake of
Speaker 1: everything that have been going on with the Trump documents
Speaker 1: and the Biden die documents. He immediately alerted the National Archives,
Speaker 1: which is what you're supposed to do. Then apparently these
Speaker 1: documents were entaped up and unopened boxes. That's per his attorney.
Speaker 1: But Mike Pence has weighed in on the other document
Speaker 1: scandals in a way that's not super helpful to him
Speaker 1: right now, I believe we have a clip of what
Speaker 1: he told David Mure earlier this year. I actually think
Speaker 1: this was just a November take a listen, take any
Speaker 1: classified documents with you from the White House? I did not.
Speaker 1: Do you see any reason for anyone to take classified
Speaker 1: documents with them leaving the White House? Well, there'd be
Speaker 1: no reason to have classified documents, particularly if they were
Speaker 1: in an unprotected area. Well, there were classified documents, and
Speaker 1: they were in, as you report, an unprotected area. So Ryan,
Speaker 1: what drives me crazy about all of this is that
Speaker 1: it was clearly there's a substantive reason to be concerned
Speaker 1: about unsecure documents, whether because there's espionage at mar A
Speaker 1: Lago or there's Hunter Biden's garage, he's engaged in high
Speaker 1: level foreign lobbying and there's unsecured documents just laying around
Speaker 1: the place. The likelihood that these documents were reasonably classified
Speaker 1: and very sensitive and then actually came to be accessed
Speaker 1: improperly is small. And now we have two Special Counsel
Speaker 1: investigations going into something in which the likelihood for all
Speaker 1: of this is that people accidentally take classified documents because
Speaker 1: documents dirty little secret in Washington, d C. Are the
Speaker 1: classification system is wildly abused, and so it's much more
Speaker 1: likely that that was the case. And that's not to
Speaker 1: negate the reality that there may have been something serious here,
Speaker 1: but it is to say this coverage has been disproportionate
Speaker 1: because it's just become a political football in a very
Speaker 1: unhelpful way. And so in some ways, Democrats decision to
Speaker 1: go after Trump over these documents rather than go after
Speaker 1: him and we're going to talk about what they might
Speaker 1: also go after him over down in Georgia pretty soon,
Speaker 1: but to focus on these classified documents rather than let's say,
Speaker 1: some type of you know, Saudi bribery related to the
Speaker 1: killing of Koushogi, like you know, something that is a
Speaker 1: genuine like world historic crime rather rather than a paperwork violation. However,
Speaker 1: you know, like you said, depending on what kind of paperwork,
Speaker 1: names of people who end up getting killed, Like Okay,
Speaker 1: now you're talking like significant problems, but we don't know
Speaker 1: that yet, And like you said, it's more likely that
Speaker 1: it's that it's something small that was over overclassified. So
Speaker 1: Democrat's decision to go after him for that then sets
Speaker 1: them up to be hoisted on their own bootard. Like
Speaker 1: this with Biden finding stuff in his University of Pennsylvania closet,
Speaker 1: and then and then his garage next to his corvette
Speaker 1: or his Mustang or whatever he's gotten there. Uh. And
Speaker 1: then hilariously, you know Mike Pence, you know, he's he's
Speaker 1: got some he's got some documents too. It does seem
Speaker 1: like they came down on Pence a lot harder than
Speaker 1: they came down even on Trump or Biden. Eventually, they
Speaker 1: raided Trump, but he seemed to invite that by being
Speaker 1: completely shady about the way he was handling and not
Speaker 1: cooperating them. But Pence's lawyers told the National Archives. National
Speaker 1: Archives told the Department of Justice. Penzis lawyers were in
Speaker 1: communication with the National Archives, and they were setting up
Speaker 1: times to give these documents back, and then all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, the Department Justice shows up. Yeah, it seemed
Speaker 1: like they were eager, like, oh now we've got two
Speaker 1: to one, so we're back in the lead on this scandal. Well,
Speaker 1: because it keeps happening with Biden. I mean there's new
Speaker 1: documents that turn up every few days. So they're in
Speaker 1: a rhythm, right, like they're ready to go. They know
Speaker 1: what to do. They have the drill down, that got
Speaker 1: the personnel ready. Sure, it's a well oiled machine at
Speaker 1: this point. Yeah, it's muscle reflex. More classified documents at
Speaker 1: someone's house, Like, let's jump on it and get the
Speaker 1: truck ready. And that's again like Pence, you can see.
Speaker 1: I think it's really interesting in that David Muir back
Speaker 1: and forth. He looks very hesitant to me to come
Speaker 1: out fully and say I did not take any classified documents,
Speaker 1: because he, just like Trump knows, just like Biden knows
Speaker 1: that the likelihood that something that was classified and properly
Speaker 1: or overclassified to your point, ended up in his paperwork somewhere.
Speaker 1: I mean, at this point you have his lawyers going
Speaker 1: through boxes that are taped up and unopened looking for
Speaker 1: classified documents. By the way, fine, fine, but if we
Speaker 1: end up with a third special counsel for Mike Pence,
Speaker 1: it's going to be a great example of how much
Speaker 1: time we waste by getting locked in these ruts and
Speaker 1: the tip for tat. It's such a waste of everybody's time,
Speaker 1: it's a waste of our money, it's a waste of
Speaker 1: the media attention, and just all around. I think statement
Speaker 1: on how silly our politics are right now, and Edward
Speaker 1: Snowden underlined it if we could put up a four here,
Speaker 1: So Edward Snowden posted, how is it possible that I
Speaker 1: have fewer classified documents in my house than the last
Speaker 1: few White House administrations? The Espionage Act is a quote
Speaker 1: strict liability crime. Good intentions are no defense under the
Speaker 1: dumb law. These guys are all unindo I did criminals? Perfect,
Speaker 1: He's not wrong. No liaves detected there? Like that? Is
Speaker 1: that is accurate? Well? I was gonna say you would
Speaker 1: remember this, snowed. In the documents that were brought to
Speaker 1: light by Snowden, the classification abuse was pretty evident just
Speaker 1: in those I mean, that was like a really good
Speaker 1: window into how the system was abused, right right, Because
Speaker 1: and that's why it's such a dangerous path to go
Speaker 1: down to prosecute somebody like Julian Assange for publishing classified documents,
Speaker 1: because then the United States government can get around the
Speaker 1: First Amendment by just classifying everything and saying, well, it's
Speaker 1: not that we're censoring the press. It's not that we're
Speaker 1: restricting what the press can publish. We're just saying you
Speaker 1: can't publish classified documents. Oh, and by the way everything
Speaker 1: is classified. And there are a lot of authoritarian, autocratic
Speaker 1: or autocratic leaning governments that do actually have these State
Speaker 1: Secrets Acts where basically everything is classified. And that's what
Speaker 1: they used then to crack down on any any any
Speaker 1: media that is not even opposition but just like neutral,
Speaker 1: saying that, yeah, you reported on a cabinet meeting that
Speaker 1: was held. Those cabinet meetings are state secrets. You're all
Speaker 1: under arrest for national security reason, national scurity, This cannot
Speaker 1: be public information. Yeah, that's a great, a great slippery
Speaker 1: slope argument at how easily that can turn into something
Speaker 1: really dangerous. Right, And the and the reason they so
Speaker 1: often do it is to avoid embarrassment, right, classification because
Speaker 1: of shame, like we screwed up. Let's urryup, let's reverse
Speaker 1: classify all of this. You see that, you see that
Speaker 1: happening all the time, and in fact that it showed
Speaker 1: up in the Twitter files if you remember, the Department
Speaker 1: Homeland Security has started to try to like reverse classify
Speaker 1: its efforts around some of these like US Army bots
Speaker 1: around the world, not for any reason because they used
Speaker 1: to publicly declare themselves to be affiliate with the army.
Speaker 1: Now they were getting embarrassed. They're like, oh, this whole
Speaker 1: thing's classified. Oh that was Lee's first Yes, let's not
Speaker 1: talk about this classified. Yeah, but according to the Wayback Machine,
Speaker 1: it used to say it was a Pentagon account. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's classified too. Yeah, wayback Machine is breaking the espionage
Speaker 1: I yeah, yeah. And I think the big missing piece
Speaker 1: of this puzzle again is we don't even know what
Speaker 1: these documents are related to, whether it's pens. We don't
Speaker 1: know what a lot of the Biden documents are related to.
Speaker 1: And to your point, this could range from being something
Speaker 1: that is legitimately serious to something that is wildly unserious,
Speaker 1: like a lunch shorter. So, speaking of a robust free press,
Speaker 1: there was actually some very good news out of the
Speaker 1: Department of Justice yesterday, Believe it or not. Let's roll
Speaker 1: this is. This is Jonathan Cantor, who we've been talking
Speaker 1: about for a long time on this show and also
Speaker 1: on the previous version of it Back at the Hills,
Speaker 1: as somebody who was really going to potentially bring it
Speaker 1: to big tech, and it's it's good to see that
Speaker 1: he's delivering here. So here's here's Jonathan Cantor. Let's role
Speaker 1: b one as a legendar complaint. In late twenty sixteen,
Speaker 1: a Google digital advertising executive asked the following question in
Speaker 1: an internal email exchange quote, is there a deeper issue
Speaker 1: with us owning the platform, the exchange, and the huge network.
Speaker 1: The analogy would be if Goldman or City Bank owned
Speaker 1: the New York Stock Exchange unquote. The answer to Google's
Speaker 1: rhetorical question is yes, indeed, there is a deeper issue.
Speaker 1: So the Department of Justice has brought a landmark case
Speaker 1: against Google. This is the United States versus Google, and
Speaker 1: they're particularly going after their ad tech platform, saying that
Speaker 1: because they own everything involved in it and are just
Speaker 1: hoovering up all the money, that that's illegal. What did
Speaker 1: you make of Cantor's decision to pull the trigger here? Well,
Speaker 1: that quote he zeroed it on from a Google ad executive,
Speaker 1: that is incredible, just sort of using out loud speaking
Speaker 1: of things people wish they could probably make private, just
Speaker 1: musing out loud about their monopoly power in a way
Speaker 1: that completely I think it is a great explanation of
Speaker 1: the problem with their monopoly power. So for Canter to
Speaker 1: zero in on this, this is the second major lawsuit
Speaker 1: that the Department of Justice has filed against Google in
Speaker 1: two years. The first one was under the Trump administration.
Speaker 1: That one was for the search engine function. This one
Speaker 1: is for the ad business. This is the suit says
Speaker 1: Google believed that quote, it could become the be all
Speaker 1: and end all location for all ads serving and would
Speaker 1: no longer have to compete on the merits. It could
Speaker 1: simply set the rules of the game to exclude rivals.
Speaker 1: The result, then, as the DOJ says, is that website
Speaker 1: creators earn less and advertisers pay more than they would
Speaker 1: in a market where unfettered competitive pressure could discipline prices
Speaker 1: and lead to more innovation and tech tools that would
Speaker 1: ultimately result in higher quality and lower costs. That's absolutely true,
Speaker 1: and it's a reason that so many of the libertarian
Speaker 1: vendors of tech are completely missing that monopoly power is
Speaker 1: unless you're like fully on the inn ran side of
Speaker 1: the monopoly debate, power is freedom. It's an absolute obstruction
Speaker 1: to free markets, and Google, adds is a great example
Speaker 1: of that. Yeah, let's actually play a little more of
Speaker 1: canter here and then we can get Google's response. The
Speaker 1: Department alleges that Google engaged in fifteen years of sustained
Speaker 1: conduct that had and continues to have the effect of
Speaker 1: driving out rivals, diminishing competition, inflating advertising costs, reducing website
Speaker 1: publisher revenues, steyming innovation, and flattening our public marketplace of ideas.
Speaker 1: And so if we could put up B three here
Speaker 1: with this is Google's public response. They said, the DOJ's
Speaker 1: lawsuit ignores the enormous competition and add ten, it attempts
Speaker 1: to unwind acquisitions made nearly fifteen years ago, doing so
Speaker 1: with harm publishers and advertisers while chilling innovation, chilling innovation,
Speaker 1: chill innovation. The only part of that that is a
Speaker 1: factual claim. The others are just okay, unwine acquisitions made
Speaker 1: fifteen years ago. Fine, yeah, we do want to do
Speaker 1: that double click it was a big one. So it
Speaker 1: DOJ's loss. It ignores the enormous competition ad tech. What
Speaker 1: competition and ad tech? Right, are you familiar with any
Speaker 1: competition in ad tech? They think they'll point to Facebook. Oh,
Speaker 1: that Facebook also is a monopoly that hoovers up. Okay,
Speaker 1: so yeah, don't worry, it's fine. And another thing Kantor
Speaker 1: said that I think is interesting is he ended on
Speaker 1: saying that Google was flattening the public marketplace of ideas.
Speaker 1: And this is a point I always appreciate that Matt
Speaker 1: Storer makes, which is when you have monopolies and as
Speaker 1: the right has come to be antiganistic and to cheer
Speaker 1: on people like Jonathan Canter and Lena Khan and the
Speaker 1: new brandicians, it's because it's been very illustrated, to a
Speaker 1: very i think extreme point, the way in which monopoly
Speaker 1: power creates monopoly power over discourse and ideas. And the
Speaker 1: left has that right now. And it happened at the
Speaker 1: Federalists to us with Google Ads. They threatened to deep
Speaker 1: platform us from the ad business over our comment section.
Speaker 1: Google owns YouTube. By the way. If they're so worried
Speaker 1: about comment sections and how that might reflect on a publisher,
Speaker 1: they should probably be more introspective. But you can see
Speaker 1: how these little things comments, yes well really from Google
Speaker 1: that you can really see how these silly things become
Speaker 1: levers of enormous ideological power. And that Cantor said that
Speaker 1: is important because it means he's sort of extending that
Speaker 1: olive branch to people who want to come into the
Speaker 1: cult with him. Yeah, let's roll a little bit more.
Speaker 1: Cantor House here's before. Here are just five examples. First,
Speaker 1: locking in content creators through tying arrangements. Second, manipulating auctions,
Speaker 1: including by giving itself a first look and then a
Speaker 1: last look advantage over competing at exchanges. Third, blocking industry
Speaker 1: participants from using rivals technology and punishing those that tried. Fourth,
Speaker 1: amassing and abusing troves of its rivals bidding data, and
Speaker 1: fifth depriving customers of choice by degrading the quality of
Speaker 1: Google's own products. And so that this goes right to
Speaker 1: what you were talking about, the way that publishers have
Speaker 1: no choice but to use basically but to use Google,
Speaker 1: and Google has a they can make the first their
Speaker 1: own company then can bid on their own platform. They
Speaker 1: can make the first bid, then they can sit back
Speaker 1: let the auction go, and then when the auction's done,
Speaker 1: they can come in at the very end and be like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll take that, or I won't take that. And then
Speaker 1: they can also get all of that data so they
Speaker 1: know what all of their rivals are doing when it
Speaker 1: comes to these bidding competitions, so that they can then
Speaker 1: beat them. And then he talks about how they walk
Speaker 1: away sometimes with up to eighty percent of the ad money.
Speaker 1: So you publish something, you make a website, people love it,
Speaker 1: they come and watch. Or you do it, or you
Speaker 1: make a show over here at YouTube. People like the show,
Speaker 1: they come and watch it. Advertisers want to reach your audience,
Speaker 1: so they pay to reach your audience, and then Google
Speaker 1: sweeps in and takes half or more of it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: There's a great quote in the complaint where it says,
Speaker 1: in effect, Google was robbing from Peter the advertisers to
Speaker 1: pay Paul the publisher is all well collecting a hefty
Speaker 1: transaction fee for its own privileged position in the middle.
Speaker 1: It's amazing the racket that they've been able to build
Speaker 1: under the nose of regulators. By the way, these were
Speaker 1: a lot of approved makers as the balance Obambaer was
Speaker 1: terrible for this. Yeah, right right, no, yes, absolutely, we
Speaker 1: got two more good counterclips. Let's do be five here. First,
Speaker 1: a Google employee characterized Google's ad exchange as quote an
Speaker 1: authoritarian intermediary. Second, a senior Google executive conceded that switching
Speaker 1: ad servers for publishers is quote a nightmare that quote
Speaker 1: takes an act of God. Third, a Google employee described
Speaker 1: the company's scheme to pay publishers three billion yearly by
Speaker 1: restricting access to Google ads and quote overcharging advertisers. Fourth,
Speaker 1: a Google manager made it clear that quote our goal
Speaker 1: should be all or nothing, use Google's ad exchange or
Speaker 1: don't get access to our advertiser demand. And fifth, a
Speaker 1: Google executive detailed the company steps to quote dry out rivals.
Speaker 1: You can see where their confidence is coming from because
Speaker 1: they have this repeatedly in Google's own words. You gotta
Speaker 1: love subpoenis. It's so good, And I think it's a
Speaker 1: very I mean, it's a very substantive complaint. And that
Speaker 1: comes through with thinking kids had a little swagger there,
Speaker 1: I would say, in a little swagger because he has
Speaker 1: them in their own words, right, Because when Google responds,
Speaker 1: He'm like, well, okay, what do you say to Google? Yeah?
Speaker 1: And he waxed poetic about the role of advertising in
Speaker 1: a free press and in free expression of ideas toward
Speaker 1: the end of it, So let's roll this last side.
Speaker 1: For more than two centuries, advertising in this country has
Speaker 1: funded newspapers and other avenues of free expression. Revenue from
Speaker 1: advertising has provided critical support for content creation, the sharing
Speaker 1: of information, the exchange of viewpoints, which promote a free
Speaker 1: and vibrant and healthy society. The Anti Trust Division, and
Speaker 1: I'm so proud of this, has a store read history
Speaker 1: of safeguarding competition and offline media, from music to broadcasting
Speaker 1: to publishing. It is now just as important, if not more,
Speaker 1: to protect competition in the digital marketplace of ideas, where
Speaker 1: powerful network effects make monopoly power even more durable and harmful,
Speaker 1: and abuses by companies with monopoly power like Google even
Speaker 1: more pernicious. It's good stuff. There, you go. That's why
Speaker 1: this stuff matters, yes, right, Because if you can't that,
Speaker 1: it leaves you with only a subscription model and without
Speaker 1: a possibility for an advertising model, which then drives everybody
Speaker 1: into kind of a niche place. It's nice to be
Speaker 1: able to have a combination of both of those. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And again, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, some other attorney
Speaker 1: attorney's general are in on a similar lawsuit on the
Speaker 1: state level, a handful of states, kind of a mix
Speaker 1: of some red and blue. I think Tennessee jumped in
Speaker 1: on it, filed alongside the DOJ yesterday. So this is
Speaker 1: a big, big, big case to follow going forward. There's
Speaker 1: going to be Google's argument will be really I think
Speaker 1: instructive and helpful to watch them try to defend this
Speaker 1: in their own words, because it's really indefensible at this point.
Speaker 1: Break them up, Break them up. Moving on to Georgia,
Speaker 1: we can put up C one here. Georgia prosecutor is
Speaker 1: saying that a decision on charges is imminent on whether
Speaker 1: or not to charge President Donald Trump in the effort
Speaker 1: to quote find what eleven thousand votes in Georgia or
Speaker 1: anybody around him who knows which cast of characters the
Speaker 1: grand the prosecutors may decide to indict. The question is
Speaker 1: whether or not to release the grand jury report that
Speaker 1: they produced or not whether to release it, but when
Speaker 1: at what point to release it? What's your read on this? Right, So,
Speaker 1: there was a hearing yesterday and that quote about decisions
Speaker 1: being imminent comes from the Fulton County District Attorney Fanny Williams,
Speaker 1: who was having to defend not releasing the full report yet,
Speaker 1: despite the fact that actually a bunch of media organizations
Speaker 1: have come out and so the full report should be
Speaker 1: released right now. There's been a seven month special grand jury,
Speaker 1: not regular grand jury, but actual special grand jury investigation.
Speaker 1: They've interviewed seventy five witnesses I think, including Rudy Giuliani
Speaker 1: and some other folks. And as she was defending the
Speaker 1: decision not to release that report yet, she came out
Speaker 1: and said it's because the decision on the charges is imminent,
Speaker 1: So no full report yet because we're still deciding. And
Speaker 1: it looks like potentially she's could be pursuing racketeering charges
Speaker 1: against Trump over election. That's what the probe, the special
Speaker 1: grand jury probe, was into his election, trying to overturn
Speaker 1: the results of the Georgia election in twenty twenty. They
Speaker 1: think they might have him on racketee hearing, which is interesting,
Speaker 1: and then they need to Williams needs to decide whether
Speaker 1: she'll seek indictments from a regular grand jury now that
Speaker 1: the special grand jury report is over. I think this
Speaker 1: is a weird excuse. The prosecutor say it's quite dangerous
Speaker 1: to release the full report before the charges are brought.
Speaker 1: But then again, it might be that they want to
Speaker 1: bring charges that weren't recommended by the grand jury, which
Speaker 1: by the way, did not even reach out to Donald
Speaker 1: Trump for an interview. That's what Trump's lawyers are using
Speaker 1: as a defense. And what if her resistance to releasing
Speaker 1: the report is strategic, yes, and she's actually quite fine
Speaker 1: with it being released. But when it gets released, then
Speaker 1: she can say, well, the judge forced our hand here.
Speaker 1: I didn't want to have to do this, but now
Speaker 1: this report is out and there's all this pressure on me.
Speaker 1: You see the evidence of the crimes. So yeah, we
Speaker 1: are going forward with the indictments. Do you think that
Speaker 1: that could possibly be part of the tactic here or
Speaker 1: do you think that there is really a decision that
Speaker 1: is imminent? And what does imminent mean? Because that could
Speaker 1: mean to me and it means like stick around because
Speaker 1: it's happening any day. Yeah, for prosecutors, I don't know.
Speaker 1: It could mean weeks or months. Well. And by the way,
Speaker 1: that's the big implication of the story. That's the big
Speaker 1: news here, that it's Donald Trump being charged with criminal
Speaker 1: racketeering could be imminent in the state of Georgia. That's
Speaker 1: obviously this is not an investigation. I think that there's
Speaker 1: so many investigations into Donald Trump that you can't pay
Speaker 1: attention to all of them. But this one is one
Speaker 1: that really has the potential to be a dangerous one.
Speaker 1: Now she's saying, to your point, quote, we want to
Speaker 1: make sure that everyone is treated fairly, and we think
Speaker 1: for future defendants to be treated fairly, it's not appropriate
Speaker 1: at this time to have the report released. So that's
Speaker 1: her explanation for why she doesn't think the report should
Speaker 1: be released because it's about treating defendants fairly, which I
Speaker 1: don't believe. Actually, I don't think she's really interested in
Speaker 1: treating defendants fairly, because if she were, I mean, listen,
Speaker 1: this is from Trump's slays. The grand jury compelled the
Speaker 1: testimony of dozens of other often high ranking official during
Speaker 1: the investigation, but never found it important to speak with
Speaker 1: the president. Therefore, we can assume that the Grand Juriy
Speaker 1: did their job and looked at the facts and the
Speaker 1: law as we have and concluded there were no violations
Speaker 1: of the law by President Trump. That's an interesting read
Speaker 1: on their decision not to reach out to And prosecutors
Speaker 1: are also not the ones you necessarily want protecting the
Speaker 1: rights of defendants, right, That's not exactly you're going to
Speaker 1: lean on for that. That's why I don't believer. How
Speaker 1: do you think Republicans would respond if they did press
Speaker 1: charges here? Well, that's why I think the media, this
Speaker 1: media consortium that's pushing for the report is absolutely right,
Speaker 1: because if there's witness testimony from some folks that shows
Speaker 1: there was some sort of racketeering conspiracy unfolding behind the
Speaker 1: scenes beyond the Trump quotes to Brad Raffensberger that everybody
Speaker 1: is already very familiar with. Sure, maybe there's something there,
Speaker 1: but I think Republicans for the most part, are already
Speaker 1: completely on the bandwagon that this is whatever is going on,
Speaker 1: whatever probes are happening in to Donald Trump, it's political
Speaker 1: bottom line, And maybe to your point, that's why the
Speaker 1: prosecutor is trying to hold off on something being released
Speaker 1: so she can make the charges then have it released,
Speaker 1: as opposed to it happening the other way around, where
Speaker 1: the report gets released and it's like eh, and then
Speaker 1: she has to make charges. It's more like, okay, I'll
Speaker 1: make the charges, then you can see the report. But
Speaker 1: all anyone's going to care about at that point is
Speaker 1: the charges. For most Democrats that call with Raffensberger, where
Speaker 1: he says, look, just find me the eleven thousand votes
Speaker 1: is enough right there? Like they're like, all right, you're done.
Speaker 1: Like that that's a crime. I could see. I've tried
Speaker 1: to twist myself into a way of finding a way
Speaker 1: that that would not be a crime. And you could
Speaker 1: imagine say both Al Gore or George Bush looking at
Speaker 1: Florida exactly in two thousand and saying, all right, we're
Speaker 1: down by five hundred votes. Find me five hundred votes.
Speaker 1: They don't necessarily mean go get a box and stuff
Speaker 1: it with five hundred votes. They mean they could mean
Speaker 1: find a county that you know there are butterfly ballots
Speaker 1: that it could add up to five hundred boats. But
Speaker 1: I think that requires giving Trump so much benefit of
Speaker 1: the doubt that nobody can really get themselves there. That
Speaker 1: on the other hand, the reporting from from that period
Speaker 1: and the documentary crew that followed him around, etc. All
Speaker 1: suggests that in his own mind, Yeah, he may have
Speaker 1: actually believed this. And it's George Costanza. That's the George
Speaker 1: Costanza line. If it's not a lie, if you believe it,
Speaker 1: the Costanza defense, the Stanza defense. But yeah, I think
Speaker 1: that's right, And I think that's why you don't get
Speaker 1: Republicans eagerly latching onto something like this like, oh, this
Speaker 1: is our opportunity to just give Trump the boot, because
Speaker 1: it's not as clear cut. And we were talking about
Speaker 1: this earlier with the classified documents at Mono Lago and
Speaker 1: why Democrats really wanted to seize on that. It's because
Speaker 1: they constantly are looking for something that's going to be
Speaker 1: the smoking gun, and that call is bad. But again,
Speaker 1: if you're you can imagine a world in which Donald
Speaker 1: Trump really thinks that there are eleven thousand votes out
Speaker 1: there that need to be found and so well, I
Speaker 1: think it's an inappropriate language and inappropriate pressure to apply
Speaker 1: in a situation like that. It's not a clear cut,
Speaker 1: bombshell like piece of wrongdoing to the extent that a
Speaker 1: man who was elected and one nearly fifty percent of
Speaker 1: the vote the second time, he didn't quite get there,
Speaker 1: but nearly beat Joe Biden. The point is he has
Speaker 1: tens of millions of supporters around the country. If you
Speaker 1: want to charge him with criminal conduct, this might not
Speaker 1: be the thing, like this might not be it the
Speaker 1: big one because it's it's still just not that big,
Speaker 1: clearcut thing. But like you said, I think it's a
Speaker 1: good point. We'll see what's in the report if and
Speaker 1: when it does come out. Yeah, that could change. It
Speaker 1: won't change a lot of people's minds, but it could
Speaker 1: change some people's minds. Well, who knows. I mean, there
Speaker 1: was crazy, Those were some frenzied times in the Trump
Speaker 1: White House, and who knows what Rudy Giuliani or someone
Speaker 1: else may have said or you know, evidence they may
Speaker 1: have come across. That actually really is even worse than
Speaker 1: that call, which was already bad, but even worse than
Speaker 1: the call. It's entirely possible about pal or somebody like
Speaker 1: trying to rally like the DHS to seize things, seize voting.
Speaker 1: She's and stuff. Yeah, like you could you could see
Speaker 1: something that being like, Okay, you can't do that, right,
Speaker 1: that's a crime, right. But her resistance to releasing it
Speaker 1: tells me there's probably not a bombshell, a real bombshell
Speaker 1: in it, or there is and she wants to like
Speaker 1: reluctantly release it. I think that's a good theory too.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, we were hoping to be joined by
Speaker 1: Status Cup reporter Tina desiree Berg to talk about her
Speaker 1: new reporting down in cop City, but she had technical
Speaker 1: difficulties couldn't join us where we wanted to let you
Speaker 1: guys know about it. Anyway, if we could put up
Speaker 1: her her latest dispatch for Status KUP News called inside
Speaker 1: the dangerous domestic terrorism charges against Cop City protesters. I
Speaker 1: think this is something should be concerning to viewers across
Speaker 1: the political spectrum, whether you wholeheartedly support the protesters in
Speaker 1: cop City, which is uh, which is a confrontation in
Speaker 1: Atlanta between police and protesters who are trying to stop
Speaker 1: basically the demolition of a wooded area in order to
Speaker 1: construct a police training center, or if you're completely hostile
Speaker 1: to them and want them all arrested, uh and charge
Speaker 1: and charge with protesting, civil disobedience, whatever it is. Because
Speaker 1: what they're doing is they're ratcheting up these charges to
Speaker 1: the level of quote unquote domestic terrorism. UH and so
Speaker 1: and Tina, And Tina does already got a number of
Speaker 1: the kind of arrest arrestaurants and police documents related to
Speaker 1: this from the protesters. She was We can roll some
Speaker 1: of her footage from from Saturday. She was there as
Speaker 1: people were getting arrested. But what's what's your what's your
Speaker 1: take on the the domestic terrorism book being thrown at
Speaker 1: the protesters. Yeah, it's definitely interesting. And one of the
Speaker 1: questions I wanted to ask Tina is as you're reading
Speaker 1: the charges. My read on it is that they're trying
Speaker 1: to in order to charge people with domestic terrorism. What
Speaker 1: they're doing is lumping all of these protesters in with
Speaker 1: people who, for instance, have been engaged in violence towards
Speaker 1: police and saying, because you're part of this group that
Speaker 1: has been engaging in violence towards police, we're charging you
Speaker 1: with domestic terrorism. You can see on this video, I mean,
Speaker 1: just stunning scenes out of Atlanta. That seems to be
Speaker 1: the argument. It's an interesting argument, especially as you said,
Speaker 1: you've seen a lot of pushback from the right on
Speaker 1: January six charges, and that has been a real concern
Speaker 1: that's mounted that weaponizing these broad charges and these broad
Speaker 1: labels of domestic terrorism is something that can can certainly
Speaker 1: be abused. And in the cases, as Tina points out,
Speaker 1: the charges for these individuals are not that they themselves
Speaker 1: in every case were engaged directly in serious violence so
Speaker 1: much as they were there and breaking the law in
Speaker 1: some where. The other was so we're throwing the book
Speaker 1: at you and saying, because you're part of this group,
Speaker 1: you're a domestic terrorist. Now. I think one interesting thing
Speaker 1: worth noting is that of the arrests. Only one of
Speaker 1: those people was from Georgia. To my knowledge, only one
Speaker 1: of those people was a local. So that's one thing
Speaker 1: I have seen folks on the right focus on is
Speaker 1: the fact that these are all a lot of people
Speaker 1: from out of town. What do you think of that
Speaker 1: read on this? They're conflating or they're lumping everybody in
Speaker 1: saying if you're there and you're part of this group,
Speaker 1: and this group, you know the protester, the activist who
Speaker 1: was tragically shot and killed had a gun, his mother
Speaker 1: has or their mother, I believe the protester is not
Speaker 1: binary has said we don't know why the gun may
Speaker 1: have been there to protect from animals in the forest,
Speaker 1: because that's what's going on here. So that's certainly seems
Speaker 1: plausible to me. But that's what the cops are going
Speaker 1: to use then, to say this is a domestic terrorist group.
Speaker 1: They're armed and targeting police. Right, these are these are right,
Speaker 1: These arrests are coming after the killing of Emmanuel Terran.
Speaker 1: Protests are known as noticea and there's a there's a
Speaker 1: there's a theory that's that's kicked around that that says
Speaker 1: that they did not have a weapon on them. So
Speaker 1: a police officer was was shot and injured. Police returned
Speaker 1: fire killed tord Guita. Uh later, after a very long search,
Speaker 1: found a weapon. Uh right, there is a there is
Speaker 1: What people are saying down there is that they suspect
Speaker 1: somebody else pulled that trigger, but it was not him.
Speaker 1: Uh well, I mean shooting is foul play on the
Speaker 1: behalf of the cops that are trying to pin the
Speaker 1: gun to they killed him, they find a gun, they'd
Speaker 1: like to say, okay, well he was the one that
Speaker 1: was pulling the trigger. There will be forensics done, so
Speaker 1: we and we good, we should know soon you know
Speaker 1: whether or not there's there's residue. That's something that can
Speaker 1: be you know, demonstrated or not. But your point, your
Speaker 1: point is right on that lumping everybody together is deeply
Speaker 1: on American and there's also an irony to it that
Speaker 1: neoliberalism says that, you know, everybody is an individual ripped
Speaker 1: from community, except when we want to lump you in
Speaker 1: with domestic terrorism charges. Then if you're anywhere near somebody
Speaker 1: else who's doing something that we find criminal, then you
Speaker 1: also then become a criminal. So all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: that we believe in community but just to pull out
Speaker 1: one completely absurd example from Sina Desires reporting, Uh, you
Speaker 1: know one one suspect is charged and this is this
Speaker 1: is from from the charging document. The crime they committed
Speaker 1: was fleeing from Atlanta Police Department. Investigator Ronald Sluss, causing
Speaker 1: injuries to Sluss his right knee and right elbow said,
Speaker 1: injuries being scrapes and cuts. So a person ran and
Speaker 1: you saw the scenes like those are the types of
Speaker 1: scenes that are going on. So somebody is running away
Speaker 1: from this, a cop chases them, falls and gets cuts
Speaker 1: and quote literally this is from their own documents, but
Speaker 1: it gets quote scrapes and cuts on their right knee
Speaker 1: and right elbow, and then charge the person running with
Speaker 1: domestic terrorism. We use the word dystopian on this show
Speaker 1: a lot, but we're not overusing it yet because that
Speaker 1: what could be more dystopian than that the history of
Speaker 1: the leveling of domestic terrorism charges, I mean what they're
Speaker 1: charging in the document. Again, this is as I'm reading
Speaker 1: the charges and trying to parse what law enforcement is saying,
Speaker 1: they really are making that connection between what the group
Speaker 1: is engaged in and then what they can charge the
Speaker 1: individuals with. And as you point out from Tina's report,
Speaker 1: in individual cases, there's some really low level stuff that
Speaker 1: doesn't seem to qualify as domestic terrorism. And as much
Speaker 1: as except for if you're saying because they're part of
Speaker 1: this group that was engaged in domestic terrorism, et cetera,
Speaker 1: et cetera, than they are guilty by association because they
Speaker 1: were involved in a riot that was domestic terrorism. That
Speaker 1: would be the law enforcement argument. But here's another one
Speaker 1: for you. Possessing road flares of the same style and
Speaker 1: type as have been used to set fires on the
Speaker 1: property and possessing incendiary devices. So possessing road flares is
Speaker 1: now crime and not just a crime, but domestic terrorism.
Speaker 1: And that's what I was going to ask you is
Speaker 1: do you see this as being in line with the
Speaker 1: history of abusing the domestic terrorism charge maybe Post nine
Speaker 1: to eleven in a way that's chilling and attempts to
Speaker 1: chill and silence activities because a lot of the stuff
Speaker 1: that they're charging them with is against the law. Evading
Speaker 1: law enforcement is against the law. Slap a domestic terrorism
Speaker 1: charge on top of it. I wanted to ask you
Speaker 1: what you think about that decision politically, how that kind
Speaker 1: of fits into the history. It does, and it goes
Speaker 1: back to the nineteen nineties. Well, actually, I mean it
Speaker 1: goes back much further than that. You can always take
Speaker 1: it back further. But in the nineteen nineties it really
Speaker 1: ramped up with you know, the ALF and ELF you
Speaker 1: remember the Animal Liberation Front, Environmental Liberation Front where they started,
Speaker 1: you know, trying to then you know, slap terrorism charges
Speaker 1: on people who were engaged in civil disobedience that was
Speaker 1: extending into you know, significant proper destruction like burning down
Speaker 1: you know, a ski lodge or something like that. And
Speaker 1: then after two thousand and one, with public support for
Speaker 1: prosecuting terrorism cases at ninety plus percent, that's when the
Speaker 1: United States government really ramped it up and said, oh
Speaker 1: now we can really really drive this home. And they've
Speaker 1: never really let their foot off the gas. I think
Speaker 1: there are really serious concerns of the double standard that's
Speaker 1: applied to over the course of the last few years,
Speaker 1: the Trump years, And that's what I'm talking about specifically.
Speaker 1: I'm not talking about in general. I'm just saying this
Speaker 1: is turnd in the last few years, a double standard
Speaker 1: that the media applies to political violence on the left
Speaker 1: and on the right. Which obviously is both wrong, and
Speaker 1: so I do have concerns about double standards from law
Speaker 1: enforcement and for media about that violence. That doesn't mean, though,
Speaker 1: that there aren't distinctions that are well worth maintaining. And
Speaker 1: when we have charges on the books that exist to
Speaker 1: add the domestic terrorism charged to people who possess flares
Speaker 1: as opposed to using the flares for violence, which they
Speaker 1: don't seem to have this person on, I still think
Speaker 1: that's probably an important distinction. Well, what's your point Today
Speaker 1: we talk about Jeff Bezos, maybe a little Michael Bloomberg billionaires.
Speaker 1: It'll be a little bit a lot of alliteration. I
Speaker 1: promise that's what everyone he watches the show Boyds appreciate it. Yes, Well,
Speaker 1: rumors abound that Jeff Bezos might be selling the Washington
Speaker 1: Post to then buy the Washington Commanders. He can't get
Speaker 1: out of DC. It's amazing. The New York Post reported this. Now,
Speaker 1: the reason that deal would make sense is because he's
Speaker 1: trying basically to sweeten the pot for Dan Snyder, who
Speaker 1: really doesn't like the Washington Post and really doesn't seem
Speaker 1: to like Jeff Bezos by selling the Post, and then
Speaker 1: perhaps the theory goes, he'll be able to sell the commanders.
Speaker 1: He'll feel more comfortable selling the commanders to Jeff Bezos.
Speaker 1: That's the New York Post report. There are other rumors
Speaker 1: Axios has reported just last month. I believe that Michael
Speaker 1: Bloomberg is also potentially eyeing the Washington Post. A source
Speaker 1: told Peter king Over at NBC It'll never happen. Dan
Speaker 1: Snyder detests the Washington Post. No way he'd sell to
Speaker 1: the owner of that paper. JP Finlay, also at NBC, tweeted,
Speaker 1: I've had people tell me the Snyder family has absolutely
Speaker 1: no interest in selling to Bezos. Meanwhile, Jeff Bezos, also,
Speaker 1: you may remember, made a big splashy announcement just last
Speaker 1: fall that he's going to be giving one hundred and
Speaker 1: twenty billion dollars one hundred and twenty billion dollars away
Speaker 1: to charity. Layoff at the Washington Post started just yesterday.
Speaker 1: They started on Tuesday. This is actually is reported on
Speaker 1: the plans of an initiative also on Tuesday called quote
Speaker 1: Rebuild Local News. So as the Washington Post is laying
Speaker 1: off these national reporters, there is now a coalition of
Speaker 1: outlets and media groups that have this initiative called Rebuild
Speaker 1: Local News. It's been around for a couple of years,
Speaker 1: but Axios and Sarah Fisher over there reported on the
Speaker 1: initiative to quote deliver approximately three to five billion dollars
Speaker 1: into the local news economy from philanthropy, business, consumers, and
Speaker 1: the government, mostly through tax credits. Now, they say, of
Speaker 1: course not all support would be used to hire retain journalists,
Speaker 1: but if a meaningful fraction was local news would be transformed,
Speaker 1: the number of local reporters would likely double. Most local
Speaker 1: news deserts would be eliminated, resulting in a local news
Speaker 1: system more geared to serving communities. That's a big deal. Now,
Speaker 1: I don't really think tax credits for subscriptions to get
Speaker 1: around paywalls and ad bys are going to do as
Speaker 1: much as this group thinks that they're going to do.
Speaker 1: Those are all part of the proposal. It's a package
Speaker 1: of a bunch of different proposals that comes together in
Speaker 1: this big, sweeping plan to rebuild local news. As their
Speaker 1: name says, I'm not sure that that stuff is going
Speaker 1: to be some as powerful as they think. There are
Speaker 1: some steps like changing the way you can apply to
Speaker 1: be a tax exempt nonprofit news organization via the irs.
Speaker 1: That's a good thing of scrutinizing media mergers with localism
Speaker 1: in mind also a very good thing and also could
Speaker 1: be very powerful. But think about this. The group is
Speaker 1: predicting three to five billion dollars could double double the
Speaker 1: number of local reporters. The number of local reporters three
Speaker 1: to five billion. Bezos bought the Post for two hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty million back in twenty thirteen. The paper was
Speaker 1: actually going to lose money last year per calculations back
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty two, but they have been profitable in
Speaker 1: years since Bezos bought the paper. In other words, they
Speaker 1: don't need Jeff Bezos as much as local media needs
Speaker 1: Jeff Bezos and needs that money now. It should if
Speaker 1: it is given, come with no strings attached, of course,
Speaker 1: so that you don't have billionaires pulling the strings of media. Ideally,
Speaker 1: that's not the healthiest media ecosystem to have. That you
Speaker 1: can see how these numbers just do the math. They're
Speaker 1: saying three to five billion could totally revitalize local news,
Speaker 1: could double the number of local reporters. If Bezos or
Speaker 1: Michael Bloomberg who are looking at the Post really care
Speaker 1: about journalism and democracy and charity. They'd funnel some of
Speaker 1: their money to local media with no strings attached. Why.
Speaker 1: I mean, some local outlets are great, some are just
Speaker 1: as awful and biased as the Washington Post before and
Speaker 1: after they had sort of been gutted by changes in
Speaker 1: technology and the economy. But you should rather have biased
Speaker 1: eyes on our public affairs than no eyes at all.
Speaker 1: What happens in the darkness, as Washington Post might say,
Speaker 1: is that democracy falters and democracy dies. And that's a
Speaker 1: really serious problem, and we've seen examples of that that
Speaker 1: we're going to get into in just a bit. But
Speaker 1: consumers have also woken up to the problem with bias,
Speaker 1: and so I think that's that's slight a slight improvement. Anyway,
Speaker 1: if you're going into your local newspaper and you know
Speaker 1: exactly how biased it is, you can sort of appreciate
Speaker 1: the reporting and interpret it with that lens of knowing
Speaker 1: that it's biased. So why, of all charities in the
Speaker 1: world is local media worthy of money? Corruption, as we
Speaker 1: just said, is metastasizing and festering without it. We've seen
Speaker 1: example after example of this. National media is fanning the
Speaker 1: flames of division. There's actual academic research showing that the
Speaker 1: death of local news is tied to the rise in
Speaker 1: division school board decisions. For instance, this is a really
Speaker 1: great example that could have been dealt with after they
Speaker 1: were brought to light by a local media coverage, are
Speaker 1: now immediately going viral and becoming fodder in a national
Speaker 1: culture war in ways that just explodes local communities, makes
Speaker 1: them way more bitter and divisive. And again, if you'd
Speaker 1: had a local news reporter who knows all of the
Speaker 1: players in these hearings, the ecosystem would have been functioning
Speaker 1: way more healthily. That's why, for instance, look at George Santos.
Speaker 1: This is a great example George Santos. A local outlet
Speaker 1: called The North Shore Leader with a Republican partisan Republican publisher,
Speaker 1: by the way, was calling attention to inconsistent inconsistencies in
Speaker 1: Santos's story during his campaign. No other local outlets picked
Speaker 1: up on the story, nor did national media. The publisher
Speaker 1: told PBS that that might have been because it was
Speaker 1: a busy cycle and people were distracted by bigger races,
Speaker 1: so it stayed in just this one local outlet that
Speaker 1: many voters may have missed, rather than getting pick up
Speaker 1: from other outlets in the community. As the publisher told PBS,
Speaker 1: though quote, nobody else covers local news and local communities
Speaker 1: like the local newspaper does. Again, you might hate your
Speaker 1: local newspaper, or you may have hated it when it
Speaker 1: existed ten years ago, but without any eyes on all
Speaker 1: of these goings on, public officials are corrupt, right because
Speaker 1: they know they can get away with it. They know
Speaker 1: they're not going to have to answer to the local reporter.
Speaker 1: They just might have to answer to somebody on the
Speaker 1: national beat on some major story, but on the little things,
Speaker 1: on the tiki taki stuff, they're not going to have
Speaker 1: to answer to anybody because nobody is following it, except
Speaker 1: in the case where their constituents might have time or
Speaker 1: interest in following it. But that's not everyone, and that's
Speaker 1: not every issue. There are all kinds of small things
Speaker 1: that happen in local government, that happen in local school boards,
Speaker 1: that happen from public officials, that create these that create
Speaker 1: major problems. And when you don't have the eyes of
Speaker 1: the press in the community, even if you hate the press,
Speaker 1: the reason that it's important to improve the press, to
Speaker 1: fix the press, whether you believe in challenging it through
Speaker 1: outlets like this, or you know, trying to improve other
Speaker 1: the existing institutions, which feels like a losing battle at
Speaker 1: this point. It needs to be improved because it's an
Speaker 1: essential part of the way we function as a constitutional republic.
Speaker 1: Without the press, without a free press, corruption runs amok,
Speaker 1: and so on the local level, that's a hugely, hugely
Speaker 1: important issue. It's very worthy of charity, it's very worthy
Speaker 1: of people's money. If they're going to give money away,
Speaker 1: maybe they should help, you know, local papers develop sustainable plans.
Speaker 1: If you're sort of funneling billions of dollars into local papers, Okay,
Speaker 1: sustainable plans would be very helpful. We all know that
Speaker 1: Jeff Bezos and Michael Bloomberg own major national media outlets
Speaker 1: for reasons other than charity, right, We know Jeff Bezos
Speaker 1: doesn't own the Washington Post to save democracy from the darkness.
Speaker 1: But it would take just a fraction a fraction of
Speaker 1: their wealth to utterly transform local news, and that would
Speaker 1: go a shockingly is shockingly long way towards transforming our
Speaker 1: politics for the better. Speaking of extremely wealthy people and
Speaker 1: corporations that may not be the most sympathetic cases, but
Speaker 1: our instructive ones. Nonetheless, what's your counterpoint today, Ryan Taylor Swift.
Speaker 1: So yesterday the Judiciary Committee convened the first hearing of
Speaker 1: the year, where senators bombarded witnesses with Taylor Swift quotes.
Speaker 1: To have a strong capitalist system, you have to have competition.
Speaker 1: You can't have too much consolidation, something that unfortunately for
Speaker 1: this country. As a ode to Taylor Swift, I will
Speaker 1: say we know all too well. The focus was on
Speaker 1: Live Nation's abusive monopoly practices. And here's Clyde Lawrence of
Speaker 1: Lawrence the Band laying some of that out. There's literally
Speaker 1: not been a single time in our career when we've
Speaker 1: played at a Live Nation venue where we had any
Speaker 1: opportunity to not have Live Nation be the promoter, or
Speaker 1: not have Ticketmaster be the ticketing company, and the seat
Speaker 1: Geek CEO was on hand to explain how all of
Speaker 1: this works. Because Live Nation controls the most popular entertainers
Speaker 1: in the world, routes most of the large cores, operates
Speaker 1: the taking systems, and even owns many of the venues.
Speaker 1: This power over the entire live entertainment industry allows Live
Speaker 1: Nation to maintain its monopolistic influence over the primary ticketing market.
Speaker 1: As long as Live Nation remains both the dominant concert
Speaker 1: promoter and ticketer of major venues in the US, the
Speaker 1: industry will continue to lack competition and struggle. There was
Speaker 1: also plenty of lying in real time fact checking. Here's
Speaker 1: Ted Cruz questioning the Live Nation president. How about on
Speaker 1: the ticketing side, what percent of the market you'll have?
Speaker 1: I would estimate, depending on how you want to count,
Speaker 1: what's in the market between fifty and sixty percent fifty
Speaker 1: and sixty And depending on how you count it, does
Speaker 1: anyone have a markedly different measure of that? Yes, sir, yes, senator,
Speaker 1: they could. They have eighty seven percent of the ticketing
Speaker 1: contracts at the NBA and the NHL arenas, they have
Speaker 1: ninety three percent of the ticketing contracts at the NFL stadiums.
Speaker 1: And of course there were more and more Taylor Swift lines.
Speaker 1: I have to throw out, in difference to my daughter Eliza,
Speaker 1: one more Taylor Swift quote. Karma's a relaxing thought. Aren't
Speaker 1: you envious? That? For you? It's not. That's all I've
Speaker 1: got to say, thank you, all right, So, and I'm
Speaker 1: not going to punish the audience with many more of them.
Speaker 1: But it was just all day long. Any Clobachar jumped
Speaker 1: in on the fone right right out of the gate,
Speaker 1: didn't Bloomenthal of course, all of them, Yeah, every single
Speaker 1: one had to do it now to start with, of
Speaker 1: course this is excellent, my Ticketmaster Live Nation. Destroy them,
Speaker 1: fire them into the sun, break them, up, them out.
Speaker 1: They're the worst. But what's amazing is you know who
Speaker 1: agrees with that is big Tech. So after the after
Speaker 1: the election, uh uh, And I got this email that
Speaker 1: was sent out by net Choice, which is the I
Speaker 1: got to say email and immediately forwarded to Rachel Beauvart. Yes,
Speaker 1: and so here here's what net Choice suggested to Congress
Speaker 1: right after the election, and this one that jumped out
Speaker 1: at you too. Congress and progressives like Amy Klobuchar are
Speaker 1: spending all this time going after tech leaders, including Meta, Google, Amazon,
Speaker 1: and Apple, which are far from monopolies. Instead, the government
Speaker 1: should use existing laws and resources to protect consumers and
Speaker 1: investigate ticketmasters anti competitive practices in the concert marketplace, like literally,
Speaker 1: yes literally telling Congress to go after Ticketmaster and not them.
Speaker 1: And and there's a reason for this too, So what
Speaker 1: and they They elaborated on this argument yesterday in a
Speaker 1: statement kind of celebrating the ticketmaster was under the gun,
Speaker 1: basically said, and it goes back to this consumer welfare
Speaker 1: stand which is, you know, for forty years has been
Speaker 1: the way that we kind of do anti trust policy,
Speaker 1: which says that as long as a consumer is benefiting,
Speaker 1: like as long as you can't identify particular price increases,
Speaker 1: then it doesn't matter if they control one hundred percent
Speaker 1: of the market and they're abusing everybody else in the market,
Speaker 1: their suppliers, other customers, et cetera. As long as the
Speaker 1: consumer is doing okay, then it's fine. And so what
Speaker 1: Big Tech is saying is they are clearly in violation
Speaker 1: of anti trust law based on the consumer welfare standard.
Speaker 1: So go after them and don't change the laws, the
Speaker 1: anti trust laws to reinterpret what it means to be
Speaker 1: a monopoly, because what Big Tech has said is that, okay,
Speaker 1: Google is not a monopoly when it comes to search
Speaker 1: because it's free to do search. Google is not a
Speaker 1: monopoly when it comes to ad tech because it's free
Speaker 1: for the consumer to read these news outlets. Is it
Speaker 1: a problem that, hey, we're ripping off everybody in the
Speaker 1: back end and kind of restructuring the culture and the
Speaker 1: economy doesn't matter because it doesn't violate the consumer welfare standard.
Speaker 1: Don't worry about it, right, exactly, don't worry about it.
Speaker 1: Go after Listen to Taylor Swift, go after Ticketmaster instead.
Speaker 1: It's also it doesn't technically technically violate the consumer welfare
Speaker 1: standard by their argument. In some ways, I think you
Speaker 1: can probably show how it does, right, you could, Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I thought it's harder. Ted Cruise's question was really
Speaker 1: good there, because that's one way these companies get around
Speaker 1: it is they create these BS calculations by their own metrics,
Speaker 1: and then when you ask about specific individual cases like
Speaker 1: the NHL, for instance, as the other witness brought up,
Speaker 1: you can see this is a joke. I think he said, like,
Speaker 1: what eighty seven percent of NHL stadium venue agreements. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's insane and definitely not good for consumers. Right, So
Speaker 1: it might be true that it's Division III college basketball arenas.
Speaker 1: You can just walk up to the window and buy
Speaker 1: a ticket, or you know, if you're going for a
Speaker 1: drag Queen story hour at the local library, Ticketmaster Ticketmaster. Right,
Speaker 1: it's free and it's it's not a live Nation Ticketmaster
Speaker 1: event you can just walk right in. So therefore we
Speaker 1: only really control fifty to sixty percent your Thanksgiving dinner
Speaker 1: for instance. Yeah, didn't use ticket Master for that. Yeah, right,
Speaker 1: So clearly we're not a monopoly over events. No, you're
Speaker 1: the point that you just made from the Netrocee email,
Speaker 1: which is so funny because we didn't talk about this
Speaker 1: before at all. But I also thought it was a
Speaker 1: funny email. It's like they're saying, don't change the law.
Speaker 1: The law works, just go after the people who are
Speaker 1: violating the actual law. Take that, like, let's let's use
Speaker 1: this as the most clear cut, instructive example about why
Speaker 1: the consumer welfare standard works to regulate monopolies. Leave us
Speaker 1: alone because we're not in violation of it. That's one
Speaker 1: thing that's always funny about government regulations is that a
Speaker 1: lot of the other big players really love to see
Speaker 1: it right because they know it'll put the smaller guys out,
Speaker 1: Like they'll lobby for more regulation. Tim Carney has a
Speaker 1: great book called The Big Ripoff that you can read
Speaker 1: on this. They lobby over and over again for more
Speaker 1: regulation because it ultimately works out better for them In
Speaker 1: this case, it's two big guys debating whether it's Ticketmaster
Speaker 1: or Facebook, Google, Meta whatever it is, debating over this regulation.
Speaker 1: But so funny and frankly they're not half wrong, Like
Speaker 1: they ought to crack down on Ticketmaster like big Tech
Speaker 1: and Titus with there both right, they should, but that's
Speaker 1: not a reason to just let Google off the hook.
Speaker 1: Do you think they want to sell tickets on Facebook? Oh,
Speaker 1: I'm sure they would actually Google, And I'm sure Google
Speaker 1: and Facebook would love to get into the ticket space business.
Speaker 1: You know what, I bet artists would love it if
Speaker 1: all of them were in the business. Yeah. Well, speaking
Speaker 1: of the potential for censorship, we'll be talking about a
Speaker 1: pretty incredible case out of India after this. Twitter and
Speaker 1: YouTube have censored a BBC documentary that was critical of
Speaker 1: Indian Prime Minister Nerandra Mody, raising all sorts of questions
Speaker 1: about the role of big tech increasing authoritarian societies as
Speaker 1: well as now the biggest democracy in the world in India.
Speaker 1: And so for a little bit of backstory, Conscian Gupta,
Speaker 1: who is his title, is a senior advisor of the
Speaker 1: Indian government's Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. He posted that
Speaker 1: this BBC documentary that looks into Mody's role in the
Speaker 1: Gujarat Masacer back in two thousand and two is quote
Speaker 1: a hostile propaganda and anti Indian garbage unquote, and said
Speaker 1: that the Indian government under Indian under new Indian kind
Speaker 1: of anti free press laws, had asked Twitter and YouTube
Speaker 1: to take down links to the documentary as well as
Speaker 1: the documentary itself, as well as any commentary kind of
Speaker 1: around it, and that both Twitter under Elon Musk and
Speaker 1: YouTube owned by Google had complied with this. Some members
Speaker 1: of Indian members of parliament even had their tweets taken down. Amusingly,
Speaker 1: well I put that in quotes, two John Cusack tweets
Speaker 1: were blocked in India. You can still see the John
Speaker 1: Cusack tweets here in the United States and around the world,
Speaker 1: but Indian audiences would be blocked from seeing them. A
Speaker 1: number of Indian members of Parliament attempted to pot to
Speaker 1: get around it by posting links to the Internet Archive,
Speaker 1: and rather shockingly, the Internet Archive took it down, so
Speaker 1: you couldn't even go through that way. They're now left
Speaker 1: to a telegram audio channel, basically the only way an
Speaker 1: Indian audience can now hear this documentary is through a
Speaker 1: telegram channel. So Elon Musk free speech absolutist, but he
Speaker 1: has waffled on what his definition of free speech is
Speaker 1: relative to local laws. So what do you make of this,
Speaker 1: this latest development from Musk. I think it's a very
Speaker 1: big test for Elon Musk that so far is not
Speaker 1: going well. And you have a big story on that
Speaker 1: exact question right now. What this tells us about how
Speaker 1: Elon Musk is looking at the platform. Ken Clippenstein tweeted
Speaker 1: about this, and Jack Dorsey liked Ken's tweet about your story.
Speaker 1: That sounds kind of meta. Jack is liking Ken's tweet
Speaker 1: about a Ryan Grimm's story. But I think it shows
Speaker 1: that there's some This is a there's some dubious decisions
Speaker 1: happening at Twitter headquarters, helmed by a suppose of free
Speaker 1: speech apple salutist that does have a lot of foreign
Speaker 1: business ties, lucrative foreign business ties, and all kinds of
Speaker 1: different pots on the stove. And for the reasons you've
Speaker 1: been raising over the course of the last year, basically
Speaker 1: since Musk flirted with buying Twitter first, this could be
Speaker 1: a real problem for him, right because he has all
Speaker 1: of these his other companies have these other you know,
Speaker 1: they're other goals that the Tesla has been trying to
Speaker 1: get into the Indian market. And I was, I was
Speaker 1: thinking this morning. I was like, man, I wish Emily
Speaker 1: were kind of a more doctionnaire, just straight up musk
Speaker 1: defender so that I could do. And I told you
Speaker 1: so here. But you you've been you know, you've been
Speaker 1: skeptical of musks approached in foreign countries for this exact reason,
Speaker 1: China in particular. But he had already failed the test
Speaker 1: in China before he took over Twitter by doing a
Speaker 1: red carpet ceremony in Shinjong when the Tesla factory opened there.
Speaker 1: We're really lucky actually to have a guest who can
Speaker 1: weigh in on this today. The documentary, by the way,
Speaker 1: BBC documentary is called India the Modi Question, and we're
Speaker 1: going to hear more about it right now. And so
Speaker 1: Rakeip Nayak is a is an Indian journalist who's been
Speaker 1: who's been covering this situation. Rakeev Uh, thanks thanks for
Speaker 1: joining us. Can can you talk to us a little
Speaker 1: bit about the relationship between the Modi government and big
Speaker 1: tech companies over the years, because this is certainly not
Speaker 1: the first time that the Modi government has kind of
Speaker 1: pressured Silicon Valley to censor critics or to censor news reports.
Speaker 1: But it does seem like some type of a line
Speaker 1: was crossed here. That seems like it was kind of
Speaker 1: the most well, I'll let you speak, because there was
Speaker 1: even a raid by police of Twitter headquarters previously. So
Speaker 1: to say that this crossed a new line and setting
Speaker 1: that aside might be wrong. But how are people in
Speaker 1: India responding to this? Yeah? Definitely, I mean Indian Prime
Speaker 1: Minister neither mood He has used his emergency powers to
Speaker 1: block access to the BBC documented in India. And I mean,
Speaker 1: as you ask, I mean, this is not the first
Speaker 1: time that such kind of a crackdown on the content
Speaker 1: Poston and social media has happened in India. It has
Speaker 1: been happening and exacerbating all the past nine years under
Speaker 1: his rule. But definitely, the way mister Moody's handling the
Speaker 1: whole fiasco right now is unprecedented. And this is a
Speaker 1: direct attack on press and directly why leads freedom of
Speaker 1: expression and the right to information. And I mean, see,
Speaker 1: we need to see this desperation to censor the documentary
Speaker 1: in a broader context, which is the G twenty summit
Speaker 1: that is upcoming later this year, and mister Moody's using
Speaker 1: this is an opportunity to ball through his image both
Speaker 1: nationally and internationally and is spending big money to get
Speaker 1: favorable courage. But that momentum has been disrupted by the
Speaker 1: sudden release of this documentary that has rightly put the
Speaker 1: much needed spotlight on his murderer's past, and his information
Speaker 1: ministry has sent over hundreds of requests to different social
Speaker 1: media platforms like YouTube and Twitter to censor and withhold
Speaker 1: posts with videos and links to the documentary, and unfortunately,
Speaker 1: the so called flag bearers of free speech like Musk
Speaker 1: or caving to the pressure and complying with the government order.
Speaker 1: And honestly, I wonder if Mosk's free speech absolutism was
Speaker 1: meant only for the global North and the for right
Speaker 1: and not the countries in the global South. But it's
Speaker 1: not surprising to me his focus on making quick profits
Speaker 1: at Twitter makes it very vulnerable to pleasing the Indian
Speaker 1: government as the country is one of the biggest markets
Speaker 1: for social media company and it's not just Musk. Right now,
Speaker 1: before Facebook has done the same and over the years
Speaker 1: they are allowing platforming of hate speech and hate speeches
Speaker 1: on their platforms that target country's religious minorities, especially Christians
Speaker 1: and Muslims. And some of our viewers may not know
Speaker 1: much about the Gujarat massacre. Can you talk a little
Speaker 1: bit about what that was and what the documentary exposes
Speaker 1: as Modi's role in it. So Ryan, what happened on
Speaker 1: February twenty seven, two thousand and two was that a
Speaker 1: train filled with Hindu devotees was passing through Godra town
Speaker 1: in Gujarat State when it caught fire and led to
Speaker 1: death of fifty nine people, and the Hindu parade groups
Speaker 1: and the state government immediately put the blame on Muslims,
Speaker 1: which was later disputed by an Indian government investigation in
Speaker 1: two thousand and five that said that the fire was
Speaker 1: an accident not caused by Muslims. Nonetheless, the accusitions were
Speaker 1: enough for the star of an anti Muslim violence which
Speaker 1: resulted in killing of more than two thousand Muslim men,
Speaker 1: women and children and displacement of another two hundred thousand people.
Speaker 1: And the BBC documentary on Prime Mister Moody is a
Speaker 1: damning piece of journalism that looks at his that looks
Speaker 1: at what mister Mody really is, a bigot who has
Speaker 1: built his political career on fanning anti Muslim hate, bigotry
Speaker 1: and violence. And to be honest, Ryan, what has been
Speaker 1: told in BBC documentary is already known across India since
Speaker 1: two thousand and two. But the new piece of information
Speaker 1: that this documentary adds is the findings of an inquiry
Speaker 1: conducted by the United Kingdom government right off the riots,
Speaker 1: which without ifs and butts, holds Narindermodi, the primester of
Speaker 1: world's so called largest democracy, directly responsible for slaughter of
Speaker 1: thousands of Muslims and it was all pre planned. The
Speaker 1: report says. I'm quoting from the United Kingdom's own report
Speaker 1: that on one pretext or the other, the Hindu extreme
Speaker 1: is led by militant groups like Wish were in the
Speaker 1: parishid were going to attack the Muslims. They had computerized
Speaker 1: lists of Muslim homes and businesses they were supposed to target,
Speaker 1: and which is quite telling of the fact that the
Speaker 1: government officials were aiding it. There was widespread and systematic
Speaker 1: use of rape as a weapon to target Muslim woman
Speaker 1: and to put it precisely. It was a mini Rwandan
Speaker 1: genocide which had the seal of mister Moody. And there
Speaker 1: were police officers who filed afidevit before the Supreme Court
Speaker 1: saying that he gave explicit orders to police not to
Speaker 1: act and let the Hindus rent their anger. And in
Speaker 1: retribution furious back, mister Mody jailed one of those police
Speaker 1: officers under under bogus charges. And I mean it's also
Speaker 1: important to talk about the victims of the Gujrat two
Speaker 1: thousand and two. Their wounds are still fresh. I have
Speaker 1: met the victims just this past October. I met one
Speaker 1: of them who had to take asylum in the UK,
Speaker 1: and the whole Indian judicial system has miserably failed them.
Speaker 1: Just yesterday, a court in Gujrat acquitted twenty two Hindu
Speaker 1: extremists accused of killing seventeen Muslims, including two children. And
Speaker 1: this past August, mister Mody's Home Ministry shamefully gave a
Speaker 1: go ahead to the premature release of eleven extremists who
Speaker 1: were serving life sentences for brutally gang raping a pregnant
Speaker 1: Muslim woman and killing fourteen of her family members, including
Speaker 1: her two year old daughter. During the violence, and not
Speaker 1: just that, even activist activists spearheading the legal fight for
Speaker 1: justice and holding mister Mody to account were thrown in
Speaker 1: jail after Indian Supreme Court in June twenty twenty two
Speaker 1: cleared mister Modia of complicity by ruling that there was
Speaker 1: no evidence against him. But Ryan, one thing I do
Speaker 1: want to make clear is that this documentary is also
Speaker 1: a stock reminder to the world that the person who
Speaker 1: they think can usher the so called world's largest democracy
Speaker 1: in prosperity or turn it into a global power is
Speaker 1: a myth because politicians with blood of inn since citizens
Speaker 1: on their hand, can only do one thing that is oppressed,
Speaker 1: divide and rule, and that's what mister Moody in India
Speaker 1: is doing today. Kiep. But I want to pick up
Speaker 1: on one thing you said, which is a lot of
Speaker 1: the Modi's involvement in the riots back in two thousand
Speaker 1: and two is pretty widely understood and known in India.
Speaker 1: So how then does this censorship decision, which is getting
Speaker 1: international headlines and his big news here in the United States,
Speaker 1: how does that play in Indian politics? Does that change
Speaker 1: modis standing? Is it a sort of political net benefit
Speaker 1: or a net disadvantage for him and not lost for him.
Speaker 1: Just on a purely political level, How does this affect
Speaker 1: his political standing in India? I think it won't affect
Speaker 1: him politically because right now he has a strong loyal base.
Speaker 1: And in twenty fourteen, when he was he was brought
Speaker 1: into power, it was because of his mother's past years
Speaker 1: of his Islamophobic past. He was he was taken into power,
Speaker 1: he was brought to power. But but I think definitely
Speaker 1: it will create a lot of noise internationally and within
Speaker 1: the country from the minorities, from the religious minorities, and
Speaker 1: from the victims who who who are still waiting for
Speaker 1: a still waiting for justice. But I don't think it
Speaker 1: is going to be a disadvantage for him politically. Uh.
Speaker 1: But but as long as far as his support basis concern, Uh,
Speaker 1: they are more emboldened, they are more I think they're
Speaker 1: they're they're happy about what they see in the documentary
Speaker 1: because this is this is what their ideology of hin Hindutwa,
Speaker 1: Hindu supremacism stands for. That is anti Muslim hate and
Speaker 1: bigetri Well Rockley, that's you know, incredibly important context, uh
Speaker 1: for these the dystopian decisions made by Musk, Twitter and
Speaker 1: Google's YouTube to censor this information. I appreciate you joining
Speaker 1: us today and that does it for us today, and
Speaker 1: we got anything else. I was gonna say once again,
Speaker 1: there was sort of a through line, and we didn't
Speaker 1: do it intentionally, but of creeping authoritarianism on a global level,
Speaker 1: not just an indeply dystopian stuff, deeply dystopian stuff that's
Speaker 1: happening from a collection of people who operate globally. Right,
Speaker 1: So not just censorship in the US or censorship in India,
Speaker 1: but people in the US helping for them to be
Speaker 1: censorship in India of a documentary out of the UK. Right.
Speaker 1: And if people think that, well, I don't care about India.
Speaker 1: So you know, if the Indians want to change the
Speaker 1: Indian laws, then they can change Indian laws, not my problem.
Speaker 1: Musk shouldn't be criticized for this. I think people need
Speaker 1: to understand that we're a connected world and the same
Speaker 1: kind of corporate power currents and the same political currents
Speaker 1: that are coursing through India are also coursing through the
Speaker 1: United States. And if you think that you can allow
Speaker 1: the collapse of democracy and freedom of expression in India
Speaker 1: and it will not bleed back into the United States.
Speaker 1: I think you're mistaken. I think you should care about
Speaker 1: the right of Indians to freely express themselves and to
Speaker 1: share whatever information they want for its own right on
Speaker 1: its own grounds. But if you don't, you should understand
Speaker 1: that it's going to come home at some point too.
Speaker 1: And that's why the DOJ lawsuit that we covered earlier
Speaker 1: in the show against Google is so important. That's why
Speaker 1: reigning in the abuse of the classification labels is so important.
Speaker 1: A quote from Rand Paul, he said, I haven't actually
Speaker 1: been to a classified hearing where I actually thought I
Speaker 1: heard a secret. He said that just last night, and
Speaker 1: I saw the quote and wanted to bring that because
Speaker 1: I think it all gets to the overarching theme of
Speaker 1: how people are using national security implications to abuse public
Speaker 1: trust and to abuse the system. And they're doing it
Speaker 1: not just in the United States, but, as you said,
Speaker 1: on an interconnected global level. So we'll obviously continue to
Speaker 1: watch that theme as it develops on a daily basis.
Speaker 1: We will, all right, and we'll see you next time.