Speaker 1: Here's a relatable question. You ever get a job that
Speaker 1: you weren't totally qualified for? I know I have turns
Speaker 1: out not everyone's cut out to be a thoracic surgeon,
Speaker 1: but maybe things would have turned out differently for me
Speaker 1: if I had a famous dad, like if my dad
Speaker 1: was the President of the United States. This is the
Speaker 1: focal point of the Republican conspiracy theory around Hunter Biden,
Speaker 1: that he used his connection to his dad, Joe Biden,
Speaker 1: to make money and overseas deals. And yes, obviously this
Speaker 1: is coming from the people who supported Donald Trump and
Speaker 1: his family as they milked every government connection they could
Speaker 1: for four years, like in Oceans eleven movie if it
Speaker 1: took place during a Nickelodeon shopping spree. Now, if that
Speaker 1: reference is too far removed for you, then apologies in advance.
Speaker 1: Because the Hunter Biden story has so many references to
Speaker 1: things that seem fake Kafe Milano, Sinohawk, the secret Willard
Speaker 1: Hotel breakfast, that we probably should have made a Hunter
Speaker 1: Wiki ahead of time just to help you through it.
Speaker 1: This Jordan Klepper fingers the conspiracy. We gotta packed episode today.
Speaker 1: We're going to walk through the fariracy theory known as
Speaker 1: Hunter Biden's Laptop with a Fox News expert. Then Democratic
Speaker 1: Congressman Jerry Connolly will discuss the House of Strategy responding
Speaker 1: to an investigation, and then Tippany Cross will talk the
Speaker 1: media's responsibility. Before we even start, you should know that
Speaker 1: it's not even proven there is a laptop. There is
Speaker 1: a hard drive copied from what a Trump supporter who
Speaker 1: owns a computer repair shop in Delaware says was a
Speaker 1: laptop that he handed over to the FBI. But nobody's
Speaker 1: seeing a picture of it, and what the hell, let's
Speaker 1: just take his word for it. The Hunter Biden laptop
Speaker 1: saga is a fantastical right wing reverie concocted during the
Speaker 1: twenty twenty campaign by Rudy Giuliani, Donald Trump, and of
Speaker 1: course Fox News, which means it's inevitable that I heard
Speaker 1: the words hunter Biden laptop constantly at Trump rallies, even
Speaker 1: if the people there didn't exactly know what it is.
Speaker 1: You can see on Fox and One American News about
Speaker 1: the laptop, Hunter Biden's laptop, and then all the Crumpton
Speaker 1: taking money from the different countries, you know, from Russian.
Speaker 1: Then Joe Biden would do whatever these countries needed. Did
Speaker 1: oh he what? Either what he did or did not do?
Speaker 1: What didn't? What did he do? You have to be
Speaker 1: determined exactly what he did. I saw pedophilia and China
Speaker 1: something like that. Do you believe it? I don't know.
Speaker 1: We see about like the Hunter Biden scandal. What exactly
Speaker 1: happened with that? I think they found a laptop that
Speaker 1: had you know, emailed and um there was an FBI.
Speaker 1: They found a laptop with like emails and pictures of
Speaker 1: you know, Biden talking with like Ukraine and China about
Speaker 1: business deals and stuff like that. Which Biden, Hunter Biden
Speaker 1: did it? Something happened? I mean the conspiracy theorists would
Speaker 1: say that it's Joe Biden and Hunter Biden communicating with
Speaker 1: you know, outside countries on business deals and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: Are you calling him a conspiracy theorist? That's just what
Speaker 1: he said, right. Okay, let's help these private investigators out
Speaker 1: a little bit. Joining me today is Andrew Lawrence, the
Speaker 1: deputy director of Rapid Response at ME It Matters for America. Basically,
Speaker 1: that means he watches Fox News all day. Andrew, thanks
Speaker 1: for being here to talk about the laptop from Hell. Yeah,
Speaker 1: of course, thank you for having me. I'm excited to
Speaker 1: finger this conspiracy with you. Oh it sounds sexy when
Speaker 1: you say thank you. Hunter Biden is sexy. It's a
Speaker 1: sexy top he is. He is a sexy man. He's
Speaker 1: all over. If you're into pin up dudes and Fox News,
Speaker 1: he's your guy. I want to jump into it because
Speaker 1: House Republicans are about to become the majority, and they've
Speaker 1: announced that they're going to investigate Hunter Biden. So let's
Speaker 1: start with just establishing who Hunter Biden is, because some
Speaker 1: of the things Hunter Biden has done are probably not
Speaker 1: very becoming of a son of a public official, like
Speaker 1: using the Biden family name to make foreign business deals done.
Speaker 1: A good place to start. Yeah, I mean, I think
Speaker 1: I think it's fair to say that, Um, Hunter Biden is,
Speaker 1: you know, he's essentially a fail son. Um. I think, Um,
Speaker 1: he's He's had a lot of tough things happen into
Speaker 1: him in his life. You know. I think that it's
Speaker 1: it's fairly well known Joe Biden's history of tragedy with
Speaker 1: I believe it was his wife dying in a in
Speaker 1: a car accident. I know Hunter was involved in that,
Speaker 1: and Um, and you know that's something that's going to
Speaker 1: affect you. And then his brother Bo Biden as well,
Speaker 1: passing from from cancer not all that long ago. Um,
Speaker 1: and that's sort of when, according to what I've seen,
Speaker 1: his tailspin really began. Um. But you know, I think,
Speaker 1: like you're right, Like it is fair to say that
Speaker 1: that there is there's some questionable things there that Republicans
Speaker 1: and right wing media are trying to to glom onto
Speaker 1: this as some sort of giant scandal that's going to
Speaker 1: bring down Joe Biden and the Democratic Party is is
Speaker 1: a little bit ridiculous. And I mean, there's so much
Speaker 1: to get into the weeds here. Uh. You know, you
Speaker 1: got into it a little bit with that that nobody's
Speaker 1: really even seen this laptop yet. Um. And here we
Speaker 1: are with months and months. What's it been like two
Speaker 1: years now since this first came up. I mean, I
Speaker 1: think it is fast. Part of the reasons we wanted
Speaker 1: to cover it one, I'm running into people on the
Speaker 1: road and it's always a go to hunter Biden And
Speaker 1: more often than not, the stuff that I run into
Speaker 1: with people on the road, what is the dodge? What
Speaker 1: is the quickest thing you can grab a hold onto.
Speaker 1: It's easy to say Hunter Biden laptop. It's harder to
Speaker 1: say what Hunter Biden's laptop contains. But I think it's
Speaker 1: fascinating because I also think on the left, the left
Speaker 1: is trying as hard as they can not to address
Speaker 1: what is potentially on this laptop and some of the allegations,
Speaker 1: which are some dire allegations. Now I need a download
Speaker 1: on what I need to know about this, where the
Speaker 1: reality is, where we should be suspicions and what is
Speaker 1: the bullshit people are slinging at the board to try
Speaker 1: to distract you from something else. So so you're helping
Speaker 1: me out here with Hunter Biden, and I do think
Speaker 1: it is it's important to point out it is true.
Speaker 1: He's gone through a lot of tragedy in his life.
Speaker 1: We've seen images. He's dealt with drug addiction publicly, He's
Speaker 1: written about that in a book. A lot of these
Speaker 1: things are things that he verifies and talks openly about.
Speaker 1: He himself is an attorney and he's been a foreign lobbyist.
Speaker 1: Is that correct? Yes, And that's where some of this
Speaker 1: this drama starts too. And he's currently under investigation in
Speaker 1: Delaware as well. For I believe it's tax fraud. I'm
Speaker 1: not one hundred percent sure on that, but it's something
Speaker 1: like that. And I think that's that's an important thing too.
Speaker 1: When they talk about Hunter bid being under investigation, it's
Speaker 1: one of the little tax fraud God bless investigate that
Speaker 1: tax fraud. Not for me though, I and all of
Speaker 1: my tax fraud comes from imbecility. I really don't know
Speaker 1: the difference between W nin and W four, So so
Speaker 1: don't come at me. That's just that's my naivete. But
Speaker 1: so Hunter Biden is under investigation, but not exactly for
Speaker 1: the stuff that Republicans are arguing. So we got nepotism,
Speaker 1: and we got corruption, we got hardware repair, we got
Speaker 1: Ukrainian gas companies. What does that say about the nature
Speaker 1: of this conspiracy theory? Well, I think you know, we
Speaker 1: can take this. The Hunter Biden laptop is like the
Speaker 1: latest thing, right, and so you had in this every
Speaker 1: elect and it seems the Republican Party and conservative media
Speaker 1: are looking for something to grab hold of. And you
Speaker 1: said it yourself earlier that that people are fired up
Speaker 1: about this, but they don't really know why. Right, they
Speaker 1: know Hunter Biden's laptop is something that they should be
Speaker 1: they should be upset about and that that there's something
Speaker 1: nefarious there. But you can take a look back at
Speaker 1: you know, the her emails, same thing. You know, nobody
Speaker 1: really knew what was what was wrong with that, but
Speaker 1: they knew that there was something wrong with it. Um
Speaker 1: it proved her untrustworthiness, the same thing with you can
Speaker 1: go back to. It's also it also proves how little
Speaker 1: people know about technology. The fact that you can say
Speaker 1: emails and laptop. It's as if America is just a
Speaker 1: bunch of seventy four year old grandparents who lost for
Speaker 1: remote and they're like, I don't know, it's cinches and devils, right,
Speaker 1: that's your controls, the magnets. It's the magnets who could
Speaker 1: ever figure these things out. But you just describe the
Speaker 1: Republican base right there, right for the most part. I
Speaker 1: mean that's and and so they they hear Hunter Biden,
Speaker 1: they hear laptop and it just sounds it just sounds nefarious.
Speaker 1: And then all right, and then you throw into this
Speaker 1: was uncovered by a laptop repairman who contacted the FBI
Speaker 1: and talked to the FBI, and you know it, all
Speaker 1: the Deep States involved in this now and it's all though,
Speaker 1: these little buzzwords that they've they've spent years, you know,
Speaker 1: making these into buzzwords, making these into things that Republican
Speaker 1: voters just have a reaction to, a visceral reaction just
Speaker 1: hearing these words, you know, at this point, and I
Speaker 1: know we're going to get into the investigations and stuff
Speaker 1: like that, but if you remember back with Benghazi, I
Speaker 1: believe it was Kevin McCarthy, he was bragging about how
Speaker 1: there would not have been her emails without the Benghazi investigations.
Speaker 1: Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right, but we put
Speaker 1: together a Benghazi special committee, a select committee. What are
Speaker 1: her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping? Why because she's untrustable.
Speaker 1: But no one would have known any of that had happened,
Speaker 1: had we a great And that's really the point of this.
Speaker 1: They want to investigate this laptop just so they can
Speaker 1: find something to go after Joe Biden and by extension,
Speaker 1: the Democratic Party with fun exciting. So let's figure out
Speaker 1: what they're gonna what they're gonna find. So, so let's
Speaker 1: break this down. Twenty nineteen. There's three water damage laptops
Speaker 1: that allegedly Hunter Biden brings to a Delaware computer repair shop,
Speaker 1: and the shop owner, who's a Trump supporter, sees the receipt.
Speaker 1: It's from Hunter Biden allegedly. He starts going through some
Speaker 1: of these files, notices some pictures. He's also legally blind to.
Speaker 1: The shopkeeper is a bright and he can't he can't
Speaker 1: confirm that it was actually Hunter that dropped it off,
Speaker 1: you know, but there is a receipt with what books
Speaker 1: to be Hunters Hunter's signature, so you know, give them
Speaker 1: the benefit of the doubt. So okay, yes, there's a receipt,
Speaker 1: and supposedly Hunter doesn't pay for the repair, and therefore
Speaker 1: this is where things get legal. Now there's a moral
Speaker 1: question here too. But that laptop, multiple laptops are left
Speaker 1: there for past ninety day, so they become the owner
Speaker 1: of the repair shop. It's now his laptop. Yes it's
Speaker 1: it's it's his property by law. So he starts going
Speaker 1: through this stuff and he starts fighting pictures, he starts
Speaker 1: fighting emails like what happens next after he he sort
Speaker 1: of connects the dots of whose whose laptop this supposedly
Speaker 1: is and what he might have on it. Okay, so
Speaker 1: this guy's name is John mac Isaac and like you said,
Speaker 1: he's he's a conservative Trump supporter. This is all like
Speaker 1: you said, you know, twenty nineteen. It's important to sort
Speaker 1: of set the time frame as well. This is a
Speaker 1: month I think maybe three weeks before the election something
Speaker 1: like that. So he's, uh, he's deep into this world
Speaker 1: of right wing politics, conservative media. He's very worried about
Speaker 1: the deep state, but decide he talks to his dad
Speaker 1: about it, who I believe was formerly in the army.
Speaker 1: I believe I might be wrong about that, but his
Speaker 1: dad recommends any contacts the local FBI field office. UM.
Speaker 1: So so he does that. The FBI comes by and
Speaker 1: apparently they seize the laptop and that's it. That's the
Speaker 1: last time that the laptop was ever actually seen. Um.
Speaker 1: Mister Isaac made copies of the laptop and put it
Speaker 1: onto a hard drive. Um. And then at that point,
Speaker 1: you know, it's just him handing it off trying to
Speaker 1: contact Juliani. I know Steve Bannon ended up with with
Speaker 1: a copy of it. Um. And and then you end
Speaker 1: up with Bannon contacting the New York Post. And that's
Speaker 1: sort of how this became a thing. What does he
Speaker 1: think he has to begin with he's got a laptop.
Speaker 1: It's Hunter Biden. But what what what does he thinks
Speaker 1: on the laptop that's worthy of getting it to Steve Bannon. Now,
Speaker 1: according to him, he pretty much ignored the salacious pictures,
Speaker 1: the salacious details, things like that. He they say, they
Speaker 1: say that this thing's got a ton of that, right
Speaker 1: that all years and years of of of pictures of
Speaker 1: Hunter with UH and sexually compromising positions UH doing, using drugs,
Speaker 1: using drugs, things of that nature like that that's on there.
Speaker 1: So he claims he's not interested in that. He's not
Speaker 1: interested in that. He says, what he's interested in more
Speaker 1: is the emails, particularly about foreign policy type stuff. Hunter
Speaker 1: stealings with agents of say China. Um and there was
Speaker 1: Barismo was the one thing that he was really focused on,
Speaker 1: according to Isaac. According to the repairman, and Barismo was
Speaker 1: was an energy company where Hunter received I mean it's
Speaker 1: basically a no show job a million dollars a year,
Speaker 1: you know, a no show job, which again which is
Speaker 1: you know, look that sucks, um and and I mean
Speaker 1: not for not for him, you know, for him it's great.
Speaker 1: But that's like I mean, welcome to America, right, Like
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, like like the sons of politicians get
Speaker 1: million dollars a year, no show jobs, and so it's
Speaker 1: not really that big of a scandal, but that's what
Speaker 1: they're trying to turn it into, you know. Um, and
Speaker 1: I'm not too much into like what about what about?
Speaker 1: But I mean we're talking about a few months after
Speaker 1: Ivanka gets those those trademarks in China for whatever it was,
Speaker 1: twenty million dollars, you know, things like that. So at
Speaker 1: that point, it's it becomes barisma. And honestly, before this interview,
Speaker 1: before I started researching this stuff again, I totally forgot
Speaker 1: about barisma, but this was like a huge thing. That
Speaker 1: was the big talking point that they're trying to get
Speaker 1: stick before stick before that. I think it is. It's
Speaker 1: a good point. It shows just how broken this system is,
Speaker 1: and I think it is true. I think folks on
Speaker 1: the left need to look at this. And there's some
Speaker 1: shady stuff that happens, but it didn't look like there
Speaker 1: was a connection between Joe Biden having influence and the
Speaker 1: money that was paid to his son. Correct, that's sort
Speaker 1: of where it stood. Yes, yeah, and it doesn't show that.
Speaker 1: But so now what they're doing is they need a thing, right,
Speaker 1: Conservatives just need a thing that they can repeat and
Speaker 1: what they can say. And you know, I don't know
Speaker 1: if you remember. I think there was only one presidential debate,
Speaker 1: but in that debate, Donald Trump kept yelling asking Biden
Speaker 1: who was the big guy? Who was the big guy?
Speaker 1: And that's because there was there was an email where
Speaker 1: Hunter said, I'm going to set up a meet with
Speaker 1: the big guy. And conservatives are just like, all right,
Speaker 1: that proves that's Joe Biden. Joe Biden is meeting with
Speaker 1: this business partners, Joe Biden is taking money. You know,
Speaker 1: they say, that's what all of this proves, and like
Speaker 1: it doesn't, you know, I mean, all the proves is
Speaker 1: that Hunter Biden like was connected and got a bunch
Speaker 1: of money, and like there's there's there's a scandal there.
Speaker 1: But it's not like we're impeaching Joe Biden over this stuff,
Speaker 1: you know, And yeah, yeah, we're probably going to be
Speaker 1: impeaching Joe Biden over all of this stuff. Yeah yeah.
Speaker 1: So at that point is that the smoking gun when
Speaker 1: people are talking about what is there are they putting
Speaker 1: to this this email that says and maybe am I
Speaker 1: correct that there's maybe a couple of emails that reference
Speaker 1: one the big guy, a meeting with the big guy
Speaker 1: that perhaps Hunter could have was that with because there's
Speaker 1: there's Barizma uh, which is Ukraine U created gas company. Yes, right,
Speaker 1: but then we also had there's a Chinese there's Chinese
Speaker 1: money in there. There's Chinese there was there was a
Speaker 1: Chinese company as well. Yeah, that was in there as well,
Speaker 1: the Chinese company. And they're paying money to to Hunter
Speaker 1: and also Joe's brother is that correct? And yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean the whole family is kind of mixed up. I mean,
Speaker 1: this is shitty. This is it is what are we
Speaker 1: doing where we're are a good we're a good, clean politician.
Speaker 1: So so Joe's brothers maybe getting money from China, Hunters
Speaker 1: maybe getting money from China. I think the timeline is
Speaker 1: important here too, because they're maybe getting money after Joe's
Speaker 1: out of power, when he when he wasn't in office. Right,
Speaker 1: So so technically, even if Joe's getting money at that point,
Speaker 1: not illegal, but not ideal. No, not illegal and certainly
Speaker 1: not ideal. I mean I think that's that's definitely fair.
Speaker 1: But you know, I mean we're talking about this, it's like,
Speaker 1: all right, if you want to make make that type
Speaker 1: of stuff illegal, like make it illegal. But it's just
Speaker 1: it's it's not right now. Um. And so that's like
Speaker 1: that's the world we live in, you know, and it
Speaker 1: sucks like it sucks, but that's that's where we're at
Speaker 1: right now. Talk to me how the how Fox and
Speaker 1: sort of the Meca the Medio echo chambers started to
Speaker 1: elevate this story. Yeah, so you know there was when
Speaker 1: this four story first broke, This had been shopped around
Speaker 1: a lot by ilieve. I'm pretty sure it was Giuliani,
Speaker 1: I guess at that point shopping this around. Wall Street
Speaker 1: Journal turned it down, So they turned it They went
Speaker 1: with the New York Post, who ended up running the story.
Speaker 1: And so why are they turning it down because you
Speaker 1: can't even I mean, at that point, you can't verify
Speaker 1: that it's even actually the laptop. Right. And again, like
Speaker 1: we we got to remember like what we're coming off
Speaker 1: from in twenty sixteen with just the flood of misinformation
Speaker 1: and nonsense. And you know, I've worked on on some
Speaker 1: pretty big political campaigns and in the last few weeks
Speaker 1: of the election, the press isn't going to just take
Speaker 1: something like out of the blue that hasn't been vetted
Speaker 1: or verified, or at least most of the press isn't.
Speaker 1: You know, well, the press at this point was spooked
Speaker 1: because of what happened with Hillary and Trump just weeks before.
Speaker 1: Correct exactly, yeah, yeah, and and this type of thing,
Speaker 1: there's just no way to vet it. I mean, you
Speaker 1: need time to verify that this is true, that there's
Speaker 1: actually a scandal here. And you know, we're three weeks
Speaker 1: three weeks in, so I'm pretty sure that's why Wall
Speaker 1: Street Journal didn't didn't run. So the major media outlets
Speaker 1: are not running with this. They're scared to run with it.
Speaker 1: But now here we are a couple of years later,
Speaker 1: looking back at this, even this week, CBS News has
Speaker 1: verified parts of information that's on the hard drive. They
Speaker 1: still don't have a laptop. Correct. Yes, it seems as
Speaker 1: if there is some verification of what was potentially there,
Speaker 1: and there's already criticism of At the time, Facebook was
Speaker 1: limiting the amounts of stories that were showing up around hundreds.
Speaker 1: Nobody could share it, I think. I don't know anybody
Speaker 1: could share. You couldn't share, right, I think, And that
Speaker 1: was Zuckerberg at the at that point had been told
Speaker 1: by the FBI, Uh, careful because Russian misinformation is all
Speaker 1: over the campaign or there's a potential for it, so
Speaker 1: be on the lookout for it. Like in hindsight, they're
Speaker 1: more there there than the media gave credit to. All right,
Speaker 1: maybe there was more there there, but what like just
Speaker 1: looking back at twenty sixteen, the firestorm that would have
Speaker 1: come out, there was no controversy known at that time
Speaker 1: other than like just Hunter Biden has a laptop, right,
Speaker 1: and the way that that conservative media and right wing
Speaker 1: media works in Unison, it would have drowned out everything else,
Speaker 1: you know. But it's about that that Steve Bannon flood
Speaker 1: the zone was shit uh strategy. You know, you just
Speaker 1: keep throwing stuff out there. And I mean you got
Speaker 1: to give conservative media credit for the way that they
Speaker 1: all reply in Unison and they can make a thing
Speaker 1: out of nothing. Yeah, I mean yeah, the flood the
Speaker 1: zone with the shit Bannon strategy, this feels like this
Speaker 1: was this had so much shit you could put into
Speaker 1: that zone. Yeah, yeah, and that's you know, that's something
Speaker 1: that he actually admitted. He said, Um, Hunter Biden's laptop,
Speaker 1: you put your own obsessions into it, you know. So
Speaker 1: for For Bannon, it was China, you know, he went
Speaker 1: he went after and the China thing. For other people,
Speaker 1: it was the drugs and the women, you know, and
Speaker 1: for others, and you just put whatever it is that
Speaker 1: you that is your obsession. You you channel that into like, oh,
Speaker 1: that Hunter Biden's laptop proves that that's real. I love it.
Speaker 1: It's it's a Maga Rorschach test. Yeah, yeah, exactly, stare
Speaker 1: into it. See see your peccadillo staring right back at you.
Speaker 1: I think that's fascinating. When Bannon has talked about it correctly.
Speaker 1: If I'm wrong, he had some moral issues with the
Speaker 1: idea of putting out some of these pictures of Hunter.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is some man's privacy. It's it's his
Speaker 1: personal pictures. For all the pictures of him with illicit
Speaker 1: drug use, there's pictures of like his brother's grave site.
Speaker 1: There's all these personal emotional moments that this person put
Speaker 1: on their laptop, and then now somebody else has They
Speaker 1: have their search histories, they have all these types of things,
Speaker 1: and and I believe Ben encountered that with but we're
Speaker 1: at war, yes, so you do it. And I think
Speaker 1: that's what's so fascinated and where we're so fucked right now,
Speaker 1: because there are legitimate things to be curious about with
Speaker 1: this information, and we should be critical of people who
Speaker 1: have close connections to powerful people. But when it's approached
Speaker 1: by operatives who treat this not as an investigation towards
Speaker 1: justice but as war, then what you have is people
Speaker 1: acting with warlike tendencies who will stop at nothing to
Speaker 1: only win that benefits their side, and that doesn't benefit justice,
Speaker 1: it benefits the person who is fighting, and that general
Speaker 1: at that point, that's somebody like Steve Bannon, who's trying
Speaker 1: to rip people off for building a new wall on
Speaker 1: the Mexico border at the same time, right well, and
Speaker 1: you have to understand, they're not just demanding that the
Speaker 1: press cover Hunter Biden's laptop. They're demanding that they cover
Speaker 1: it right now the way that I want you to,
Speaker 1: you know, and like these outlets, they do have a
Speaker 1: responsibility to vet this stuff and make sure that it's
Speaker 1: true before putting it out there, especially you know, and
Speaker 1: I don't want to repeat myself, but especially when this
Speaker 1: is something that would be used in an attempt to
Speaker 1: sway the election. Fast forward a couple of months from now, uh,
Speaker 1: investigations into the laptop. Is that a good idea for Republicans?
Speaker 1: I mean yeah, I mean why wouldn't you. That's just
Speaker 1: like targeting this one guy who is just taking advantage
Speaker 1: of the system that like we have created. Right, but
Speaker 1: that guy, but that guy is the president's son. Yes,
Speaker 1: is there are connections there to say we should know
Speaker 1: there's no we should know there's no corruption, right, we
Speaker 1: absolutely should. Um. At the same time, this is a
Speaker 1: system that we've got. And like, if you don't want
Speaker 1: nepotism babies or or or the children of wealthy and
Speaker 1: powerful politicians to get wealthy and powerful jobs, then like
Speaker 1: we need to change the way that we do things overall. Um.
Speaker 1: And it's it's not just him, and it's not just
Speaker 1: you know, it's not just the Trump kids either. I
Speaker 1: mean look at the way look at the you know,
Speaker 1: the way that people the Democrats buy stocks, you know,
Speaker 1: and and then pass legislation like this is it's everywhere,
Speaker 1: and and so that's why like I feel just going
Speaker 1: after this one guy is is um, it's so disingenuous,
Speaker 1: you know. Um. And but yes we should know if
Speaker 1: there's corruption, Yeah, we should know. And if he did
Speaker 1: anything Elial, we should be in jail. Of course, if
Speaker 1: America is going to look into the Rorschach test, that
Speaker 1: is Hunter Biden's laptop, what do you think America begins
Speaker 1: to see and begins to pull out, it's gonna be
Speaker 1: it is. I mean, what we're gonna see. There might
Speaker 1: be something there, but what I think is that we're
Speaker 1: just going to see bullshit from Republicans. Um, they're gonna
Speaker 1: look for meetings that Hunter tried to set up with
Speaker 1: his dad, you know. And then and then do those
Speaker 1: companies well do they do they have do they have
Speaker 1: connections to Zelenski or do they have connections to Fauci
Speaker 1: or you know, I mean you had the guy who
Speaker 1: found the laptop, Isaac. He thinks that it shows it
Speaker 1: might show proof that Hunter Biden is responsible for the
Speaker 1: COVID pandemic, that he was involved in the Wuhan Institute
Speaker 1: of Virology, and that that that he was he was
Speaker 1: responsible for creating COVID and on leashing it. Like this
Speaker 1: is fun. Now we're talking, Yeah, can we tie him
Speaker 1: to COVID. It's gonna become a fun parlor game. Pretty soon.
Speaker 1: We're gonna be playing this at Christmas where it's like,
Speaker 1: can you connect Hunter Biden to COVID? Okay, can you
Speaker 1: connect it to the nets having a subpar season this year.
Speaker 1: I'm sure there will be caravan, there will be immigration connections.
Speaker 1: You know that it's ten degrees of separation. All they
Speaker 1: need is to find something that maybe connects to George Soros,
Speaker 1: you know, and then all of a sudden, like, oh,
Speaker 1: Hunter Biden is involved in the Great Replacement theory. You know.
Speaker 1: It's it's things like that. So like, I don't really
Speaker 1: know where it's gonna go, but I can tell you
Speaker 1: it's going to be a lot of bullshit, you know.
Speaker 1: I like what it's done to the Trump family, specifically
Speaker 1: the kids. I mean, it's amazing to watch Don Junior
Speaker 1: criticize Hunter Biden for saying, like how he wishes his
Speaker 1: name was Hunter Biden so he could make money off
Speaker 1: his father's name, Which is it's a beautiful thing for
Speaker 1: somebody like down Junior to yearn for, as if that
Speaker 1: wasn't already the game plan from day one. Make a
Speaker 1: ton of money and do absolutely nothing except that, hey,
Speaker 1: you can meet my dad. That's a disgusting trade, right
Speaker 1: to just use your father's name to make money off
Speaker 1: of that. Absolutely, nepotism needs to be looked into big time. Yes,
Speaker 1: what do you think about Avonka? Oh, she's so gracious. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: totally amazing. I mean it's just the hypocrisy is amazing.
Speaker 1: But like that's never bothered them before, you know, And
Speaker 1: we're seeing reports of the foreign government spending one hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty thousand dollars at Trump hotel, you know, and
Speaker 1: things like that, and it's like, that's why, that's why
Speaker 1: I have an issue with just like going after this
Speaker 1: one person, you know, a hunter, you know, just targeting
Speaker 1: him because he's the president's son essentially, and like, um,
Speaker 1: I mean that's that it shouldn't happen. But like we
Speaker 1: need to be consistent here as well. I guess how
Speaker 1: should the media responsibly cover this as as we move forward? Essentially,
Speaker 1: what this is and what they need is you said,
Speaker 1: you know, when you go to a Trump rally, people
Speaker 1: are upset about hunter Biden's laptop and they're not sure why.
Speaker 1: That's all they need. They need people to be upset
Speaker 1: about this, you know, And that's that's really all it's about.
Speaker 1: And the investigations. You asked, what they're gonna uncover. I mean,
Speaker 1: Lord only knows where this is going to go, But
Speaker 1: where it's really going to go is just keeping that
Speaker 1: drum beat, going to keep that buzz those buzzwords hunter
Speaker 1: Biden's laptop to get that reaction from from the base.
Speaker 1: You know that you're seeing it at Rally's right now. Well,
Speaker 1: if Fox News has been pushing this story for a
Speaker 1: couple of years now and recently did a mocked trial
Speaker 1: of Hunter Biden, what the hell was that all about?
Speaker 1: At what point did you decide, sir, to contact the
Speaker 1: Federal Guard of Investigation about this matter? When the laptop
Speaker 1: became my property and late July, I proceeded to kind
Speaker 1: of research what was on it to make sure that
Speaker 1: what I had seen was what I perceived as criminal activity. God,
Speaker 1: I forgot about that. Oh my god, it was so funny.
Speaker 1: It was so funny. Um. Yeah, And they had like
Speaker 1: a whole jury and everything, and Judge Joe Brown was
Speaker 1: the judge. We'll tell me before we let you go,
Speaker 1: like walk me through a little bit as somebody who
Speaker 1: watches this for folks who aren't watching Hannity cover this
Speaker 1: and amplify this story. How has Hannity taken to this
Speaker 1: in the last few years. It is I mean, it's
Speaker 1: just the NonStop drumbeat, you know. And I think what
Speaker 1: you have to understand about Sean Hannity is his show
Speaker 1: is just like a stream of right wing consciousness. It
Speaker 1: is just these buzzwords. It's Nelly or it's the FBI
Speaker 1: love birds, it's I mean, he still talks about Hillary
Speaker 1: Clinton's emails, you know, and so he is he really is,
Speaker 1: more so than anybody else on that network. I think
Speaker 1: he is the king of these these bullshit conservative buzzwords,
Speaker 1: you know. And one of the buzzwords he's one are
Speaker 1: the ones he's creating for the Hunter Biden story. Well
Speaker 1: it was Bizma, you know a couple a couple of
Speaker 1: years ago. Was now he just calls him zero Experience
Speaker 1: Hunter Breese Oil and Gas Company, and zero Experience Hunter
Speaker 1: is fifty year old son Barisma. Zero Experience Hunter got millions.
Speaker 1: And that's not all. The report even found evidence linking
Speaker 1: zero Experience Hunter to allege human trafficking quid pro quote
Speaker 1: Joe zero Experience Hunter Barisma. Now, if you're not if
Speaker 1: you're not in that bubble, in that conservative bubble, what
Speaker 1: that refers to is he got the Barizma deal, you know,
Speaker 1: a million dollars a year, No show all the other
Speaker 1: boards that he said on, you know, but zero zero
Speaker 1: experience Hunter. That's Sean Hannity's thing. You know, he just
Speaker 1: keeps saying it over and over again, and then he
Speaker 1: uses this as as an example of the FBI being
Speaker 1: out of control, the DJ targeting conservatives and not going
Speaker 1: after Democrats. How there's no such thing as equal justice
Speaker 1: under the law in America. I mean, I could I
Speaker 1: could do an entire Sean Hannity monologue right now, like
Speaker 1: just based off of Hunter's laptop, because it's the same
Speaker 1: it's the same thing every single night. But what Hannity
Speaker 1: understands is that it's that repetition. It's that repetition that
Speaker 1: leads to the people outside the Trump rallies being upset
Speaker 1: about Hunter Biden's laptop. You know, you say this stuff
Speaker 1: over and over and over and over again, it just
Speaker 1: becomes accepted as truth. Um, same thing that that you know,
Speaker 1: crime and inflation are going to be the top issues
Speaker 1: in the election. You know, it's just they keep saying
Speaker 1: that stuff and it becomes the reality and and uh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: zero experience. Hunter would definitely be Handedy's favorite buzzword though
Speaker 1: on this and you know I deal with this as well.
Speaker 1: It's it's that balance between like this is hilarious, this
Speaker 1: is so funny versus like this is dangerous and like
Speaker 1: actually scary that so many people believe it. Um And
Speaker 1: and it's you know, it's about the conservative movement taking
Speaker 1: advantage of those people. I think more than anything else.
Speaker 1: How much is that an element in the Hunter Biden's story,
Speaker 1: because again, what does get glossed over is this is
Speaker 1: a man's private cache of his his communications, his search histories,
Speaker 1: and his relationship with his family and his his his
Speaker 1: loved ones. It is something to just dub out everything
Speaker 1: that was on your phone run your laptop for the
Speaker 1: world to see. It feels like we don't even grapple
Speaker 1: with the idea of whether or not we should. We
Speaker 1: just jump right to whether or not that we could right. Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: And it's um, you know, as far as I know that,
Speaker 1: like you said, this laptop if if it is his laptop,
Speaker 1: it seems to be acquired legally, you know, but it's
Speaker 1: it's horrifying and we saw this, We've seen them do
Speaker 1: this quite a bit actually, if you remember Peter Strock
Speaker 1: and it was at least a page. I think they're
Speaker 1: like they're they're sexty and like became public and was
Speaker 1: thrown up on Fox News every single night. You know,
Speaker 1: they will do this if they have an opportunity. I
Speaker 1: think there was also, and I don't know if you
Speaker 1: were aware of this, but Biden's daughter's diary was stolen
Speaker 1: and that never came out because there's serious legal implications
Speaker 1: into that right now. But Tucker Carlson has seen it
Speaker 1: and he sits there and he regurgitates parts of it
Speaker 1: and stuff like that. I mean, this is I think
Speaker 1: she was pretty young, maybe late teens, early teens when
Speaker 1: when she was writing this. And you know, if you
Speaker 1: watch Tucker, he'll throw in every single once in a while,
Speaker 1: he'll throw in that Hunters Joe used to shower with
Speaker 1: his daughter because apparently there's a passage in there about
Speaker 1: about that when she was younger, which you know, um,
Speaker 1: but it's yeah, it's that type of stuff. It's that's
Speaker 1: what they don't care. They don't have morals, and that's
Speaker 1: why it's so silly for you know, when when Steve
Speaker 1: Bannon said like, yeah, it kind it kind of feels gross,
Speaker 1: but like we're at war, Like, no, that's just your
Speaker 1: justification for doing it. Like, I don't think it feels
Speaker 1: gross to Bannon. You know, he's a gross, disgusting guy
Speaker 1: made of you know, spores and loose skin. I don't know.
Speaker 1: You know, the Bannons and the Tuckers and the Hanna days,
Speaker 1: you know, they really speak towards family values and bringing
Speaker 1: back the morality to America and civility. And how are
Speaker 1: you going to smash the pedophiles if you don't go
Speaker 1: through the diary of a teenager? Thank God that they're
Speaker 1: all very normal people. Well, Andrew, thank you for talking
Speaker 1: to it. Yeah, of course, short. This was so much fun, man,
Speaker 1: I really appreciate it. After the break, I'll be joined
Speaker 1: by Congressman Jerry Connolly. We'll be talking about his role
Speaker 1: on the House Oversight Committee and how he plans to
Speaker 1: approach the investigation on Hunter Biden's laptop. Welcome back to
Speaker 1: Jordan Klepper Fingers the conspiracy. We're talking about Hunter Biden's
Speaker 1: laptop because Republicans won the House and apparently that's the
Speaker 1: issue that they think Americans care about the most. To
Speaker 1: be clear, Joe Biden is the big guy. This evidence
Speaker 1: raises troubling questions about whether President Biden is a national
Speaker 1: security risk and about whether he is compromised by foreign government.
Speaker 1: That was James Comer, the incoming chairman of the House
Speaker 1: Oversight Committee, announcing the upcoming investigation into Hunter, Biden and
Speaker 1: the laptop. For those of you who think government committee
Speaker 1: hearings are dry and sterile, I have one word for you,
Speaker 1: ben Ghazi. You can bet all your crypto that House
Speaker 1: Republicans will use the Hunter hearings to make it seem
Speaker 1: like an explosive scandal worthy of impeachment. So we're gonna
Speaker 1: talk to a Democrat who sits on that committee right
Speaker 1: now to see what that's going to be like. How fun,
Speaker 1: Congressman Jerry Connelly and Virginia thanks for joining the podcast,
Speaker 1: My pleasure, Jordan. So, Congressman, it's a guarantee that these
Speaker 1: hearings are going to get coverage in the mainstream media,
Speaker 1: which means there's gonna be a lot of baseless allegations
Speaker 1: coming from Republicans that will be aired on news channels,
Speaker 1: and there's only so much fact checking that journalists can do.
Speaker 1: Do you see your role on this committee as part
Speaker 1: fact checker. Oh yeah, we've been through this before, and
Speaker 1: I think I think it's really important joy to put
Speaker 1: it in context. Right, So, when the Republicans were in
Speaker 1: the majority last time, and we had a Democrat in
Speaker 1: the White House, President Obama for six years, they breathlessly
Speaker 1: presented and the media, unfortunately, was complicit in giving them
Speaker 1: exactly what they wanted headlines, endless, breathless stories or Clinton's emails.
Speaker 1: You mentioned Benghazi, Lois Lerner and the irs, fast and
Speaker 1: furious Obamacare, Uh, you know, uh, funding solar solar energy
Speaker 1: and the great scandal of the waste of all of that.
Speaker 1: Not one of those so called investigations led to anything anything,
Speaker 1: not an indictment, not a trial. I mean, it was
Speaker 1: all uh you know, sound and fury, all done for
Speaker 1: one purpose to undermine two political figures, President Obama and
Speaker 1: Hillary Clinton. And unfortunately, the mainstream media, as you point out,
Speaker 1: doesn't spend much time doing fact checking itself. And you
Speaker 1: know they'll ask people like me, well, yeah, well, Congressman,
Speaker 1: you know, they they assert, they allege, and I'm thinking, well,
Speaker 1: even framing a question that way, it gives it credence
Speaker 1: when there may be none. The supposition behind that question
Speaker 1: is completely false, based on either fabrication, distortion, insinuation, or
Speaker 1: no facts whatsoever, And that doesn't seem to matter, and
Speaker 1: so it kind of puts us in a disadvantage when
Speaker 1: we even get asked those questions. It's not unfair to
Speaker 1: ask them, but it sure would be nice that the
Speaker 1: media took a little responsibility now and then, instead of
Speaker 1: absolving itself and allowing the insinuation that there's something to this. So,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know what's coming. What is your strategy?
Speaker 1: Are you going to attempt to discredit the very nature
Speaker 1: of this investigation itself? Do you call attention to the
Speaker 1: Fox News fever dream that this whole thing is or
Speaker 1: or do you admit that there are some elements of
Speaker 1: Hunter Biden's activity that is of itself worth investigating. I'm
Speaker 1: certainly not in advance going to conceive anything they're asserting
Speaker 1: is worth investigating, and I AM going to spend a
Speaker 1: lot of time talking about what should be investigated that
Speaker 1: they don't want to talk about. For example, in the
Speaker 1: same press conference where you cided, you know, James Comer said, well,
Speaker 1: why don't we just stop, you know, stick with Hunter Biden.
Speaker 1: That's what I wanted. That's really what I want to
Speaker 1: focus on. If we can keep it about Hunter Biden.
Speaker 1: This is kind of a big deal. We think if
Speaker 1: we can keep it about Hunter Biden, that would be great.
Speaker 1: He admitted he didn't want to focus on the fact
Speaker 1: that illegally President Trump has kept classified documents in moral
Speaker 1: lago against the law and lied about it and is
Speaker 1: being investigated as we speak, for criminal behavior with respect
Speaker 1: to that. Well, uh, I thought you wanted genuine oversight.
Speaker 1: That's a genuine oversight issue. Now. Of course, the world
Speaker 1: is replete with similar genuine overside issues when it comes
Speaker 1: to Trump and his acolytes and his administration, not one
Speaker 1: of which, not one of which Republicans want to look at.
Speaker 1: They never supported a single subpoena when they were in
Speaker 1: the majority and Trump was in the White House for
Speaker 1: anything having to do with oversight of the Trump administration,
Speaker 1: not one. Well, we may need to elect an entire
Speaker 1: House of representatives to deal with the issues and investigate
Speaker 1: all of those Trump era issues. But I guess I'm curious,
Speaker 1: Like it's always easy for us to for both sides
Speaker 1: to point out what the other side should be looking
Speaker 1: into and I think this is it's pretty clear in
Speaker 1: a situation like this. However, there are details within this
Speaker 1: Hunter Biden story that do rub people the wrong way.
Speaker 1: People on both sides of the aisle are skeptical of
Speaker 1: somebody who is this close to the president of the
Speaker 1: United States being close to foreign governments at a time
Speaker 1: where the details are sketchy, although we know it's going
Speaker 1: to be weaponized and you know the show that is
Speaker 1: going to be put on. What do you say to
Speaker 1: those people who are like, I'm still I'm still nervous
Speaker 1: about this situation and do think we should investigate that?
Speaker 1: Do you say, yes, we should, but this is not
Speaker 1: the place whether they will get a fair investigation, or
Speaker 1: do you just discredit that idea on its surface? Well,
Speaker 1: anyone who thinks that this would be a fair investigation,
Speaker 1: you know, balanced there. Let the truth come out. It's
Speaker 1: smoking something, because that is not the motor stop runde.
Speaker 1: It is very clear. The Republicans have already and been
Speaker 1: saying this for several years. Right, don't forget it was
Speaker 1: Donald Trump who committed a criminal act, we felt, and
Speaker 1: he was impeached for it with respect to Hunter, because
Speaker 1: he was extorting a foreign leader with our military assistance,
Speaker 1: which now we know was badly needed in the Ukraine
Speaker 1: in order to get political dirt on hunter By. So
Speaker 1: the whole so called investigation is tainted going back to
Speaker 1: that what Trump called perfect phone call. And so I'm
Speaker 1: not going to provide any legitimacy to that line of
Speaker 1: inquiry unless something is presented to me that would qualify
Speaker 1: for yeah, all right, that's troubling. We have to look
Speaker 1: at it. So I'm not going to concede that at
Speaker 1: all in advance. And I am going to point out that,
Speaker 1: you know, what little fact checking has been done in
Speaker 1: the press about this, and I cite Glenn Kessler, the
Speaker 1: Washington Post is sort of their official fact checker. You know,
Speaker 1: they're looking at one email out of something like one
Speaker 1: hundred and twenty two thousand that is subject to interpretation.
Speaker 1: They're looking at some great scandal about keys to an
Speaker 1: office in Spain that und divided in fact never picked up,
Speaker 1: but that somehow that's a big conspiracy. I would say,
Speaker 1: there's really thin rule here so far, and the idea
Speaker 1: that we're going to put the entire weight of the
Speaker 1: Oversight Committee of the United States Congress behind such anemic evidence,
Speaker 1: and then Gruel worries me greatly. But as part of
Speaker 1: the pattern of my friends on the other side of
Speaker 1: the aisle, going back to Dan Burton and Clinton, I mean,
Speaker 1: maybe this shows that it is a dying fire and
Speaker 1: these are the embers if we've gone from but her
Speaker 1: emails too, but his email singular, maybe that showing progress
Speaker 1: in some way. You bring up something interesting. You've been
Speaker 1: on this committee for years. Some of these Republicans Jim Jordan,
Speaker 1: Andy Biggs, Andrew Clyde, they love a good conspiracy. They've
Speaker 1: denied the twenty twenty election was real. Spread January sixth
Speaker 1: conspiracy theories. How can you use your platform on the
Speaker 1: committee to help a viewer who maybe doesn't know their context.
Speaker 1: How do you let them understand the full context of
Speaker 1: where they're coming from. The good news about our process
Speaker 1: is when we have a markup of legislation or when
Speaker 1: we a hearing, we Democrats get equal time. And you
Speaker 1: know that's why the leadership of our committee is going
Speaker 1: to really matter. Can we cohere and forge our voice
Speaker 1: as one to push back, get the facts out, tell
Speaker 1: the truth, and puncture their false narrative in an effective way.
Speaker 1: That is critical when you're in the minority and you're
Speaker 1: defending a democratic white House, and if you don't do that,
Speaker 1: you know they controlled the narrative. So fighting for control
Speaker 1: of the narrative and making sure that you repeat, rent,
Speaker 1: and repeat when it comes to facts, do not assume that,
Speaker 1: having said it once, it's in everybody's head. That's not
Speaker 1: how human beings work. And in our media market today,
Speaker 1: given the multiplicity of sources of news, accurate and falls
Speaker 1: and everything in between, you've got to really spend time
Speaker 1: making sure or that the truth penetrates consciousness and public opinion.
Speaker 1: What does that look like? What are some of the
Speaker 1: tactics there? I think I think about the January six hearings,
Speaker 1: which many people would say are have been effectively communicated.
Speaker 1: Perhaps the lesson there is just don't invite the other
Speaker 1: side of the table. It's really easier to get your
Speaker 1: point across. UH. Perhaps it's the use of video. Perhaps
Speaker 1: it's just the repetition of baseline facts, like are there
Speaker 1: are there elements that you could draw from uh from
Speaker 1: from from those hearings that you'd like to bring to
Speaker 1: the forefront here. I think we talk about Benghazi, we
Speaker 1: talk about those things. You know, you know the machine
Speaker 1: that is going to be behind this narrative. So how
Speaker 1: do you get out ahead of it? How do you
Speaker 1: change what Democrats did six years ago to be more
Speaker 1: effective in the upcoming year. I don't think there's any
Speaker 1: one tactic, but there are a lot of tools in
Speaker 1: the kit bag, and one of them is humor. I
Speaker 1: remember once they were you know, you got the Democrats
Speaker 1: are going to rely on humor. Oh my god, what
Speaker 1: are we doing, congressman. I'll give you an example six
Speaker 1: of your sweet spot. I'm sorry, I'm irish, and how
Speaker 1: to use humor. I'll give you an example. We had
Speaker 1: a career civil servant from i RS and the Republicans
Speaker 1: hauled her before our committee. They were in the majority,
Speaker 1: and her job was to enforce the Provision and Affordable
Speaker 1: Care Act that you would be fine if you didn't
Speaker 1: have health insurance, by the way, a provision that was
Speaker 1: a Republican idea that was enshrined in Romney Care in
Speaker 1: Massachusetts that we took on. But they just excoriated her,
Speaker 1: And you know, I was getting agitated waiting my turn,
Speaker 1: and I thought, you know, there's another bit of which
Speaker 1: I'm going to say that, And then I thought, you know,
Speaker 1: that's not the effective way of making the point. And
Speaker 1: they're looking for a headline tomorrow that's going to say
Speaker 1: Republicans accused I RS official love, you know, subverting American
Speaker 1: freedom or something. And so I when it came down
Speaker 1: to my turn, I said to her, so you're under oath.
Speaker 1: She went yes. I said, I want to remind you
Speaker 1: you're under oath. She went okay. I said, have you
Speaker 1: been consorting with the devil? Not? To my knowledge, sir,
Speaker 1: are reports that you can fly accurate, greatly exaggerated? Sir?
Speaker 1: Have you been involved in any way and trying to
Speaker 1: pervert our youth in Salem or anywhere else? I certainly
Speaker 1: hope not, sir. You're sure, yes, sir. The looks on
Speaker 1: their faces like, what is it? Oh my god God,
Speaker 1: because people were now lapping. Well, the next day the headline,
Speaker 1: instead of the one the Republicans wanted was I R.
Speaker 1: S Officials denies consorting with devil. People were howling with laughter.
Speaker 1: It completely punctured their narrative. So sometimes humor can be
Speaker 1: a tool too, But a lot of this is too serious.
Speaker 1: I mean, honestly, what's so interesting? Because I hear you
Speaker 1: on that, and I do think it's almost in an
Speaker 1: example like that, we've been talking a little bit about
Speaker 1: the Steve Bannon flood, the flood, the narrative with bullshit,
Speaker 1: get it out there, like how much of it of
Speaker 1: it is that? Are we? Are we using humor in
Speaker 1: that sense to be like, we know what people are
Speaker 1: going to click on, we know what people are going
Speaker 1: to talk about, and if we can be outlandish in
Speaker 1: our approach from a satirical point of view, that can
Speaker 1: trump somebody else being outlandish from perhaps a more politically
Speaker 1: advantageous point of view. Absolutely. There was another time they
Speaker 1: had an FBI official who had privately expressed support for
Speaker 1: demo for I'm sorry, had privately expressed criticism of Donald Trump.
Speaker 1: This is early in Trump's tenure, and they were just
Speaker 1: again excoriating him. So when it came down to my turn,
Speaker 1: I started reading criticisms of Trump without identifying who said it,
Speaker 1: and I said, so, that was you, right, And before
Speaker 1: the witness could answer, I went, oh, no, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: that was Mark a Rubio, Republican senator, and then I
Speaker 1: just went to you know, and of course by the
Speaker 1: time I was finished, people again we're, you know, snidely chuckling.
Speaker 1: But it completely exposed the hypocrisy of the Republicans for
Speaker 1: attacking this guy for criticizing Trump when at the same
Speaker 1: time they were doing it too. Congressman, I got I
Speaker 1: gotta say, using hypocrisy as a stand in for humor,
Speaker 1: that's my lane. So back off. You're gonna use Rubio's
Speaker 1: words against him and the whole GOP. What else do
Speaker 1: we have out there? It's dangerous business. But you know,
Speaker 1: it goes to the old line a friend of mine,
Speaker 1: humorous Jim Borne wants, used to say, if you're going
Speaker 1: to be a phony, at least be sincere about it.
Speaker 1: It feels like a lot of the Republican strategy is
Speaker 1: to work the refs, bully the mainstream media into covering
Speaker 1: it as a legitimate man of scandal. Do you think
Speaker 1: that's working. I think it works all too well, all
Speaker 1: too often, and that's why we have to be much
Speaker 1: better at our game. And that's why we have to
Speaker 1: be discipline and coordinated. I mean, you can't this can't
Speaker 1: be one off. This can't be one rogue member who
Speaker 1: maybe is effective, but everybody else is doing that thing.
Speaker 1: And that's why you know, in the minority especially, our
Speaker 1: committee is going to have to be organized, strategic, and
Speaker 1: as I said, discipline, both in messaging and in the
Speaker 1: attack of their narrative. You know what's the best way
Speaker 1: to do that to get the truth to the American
Speaker 1: people and through the media. Have you thought about starting
Speaker 1: an improv group if you're going to utilize both humor
Speaker 1: and teamwork with a coherent message, perhaps some sort of
Speaker 1: yes and exercise some trust falls. I know a lot
Speaker 1: of out of work people in Chicago right now who
Speaker 1: could come, get on a plane and teach you guys
Speaker 1: some basics of improv to save democracy. I have enjoyed
Speaker 1: improv in Chicago myself for many years, and it can
Speaker 1: be It can be very useful, but it's not a
Speaker 1: substitute though, for discipline, narrative discipline, lines of questioning and
Speaker 1: taking the fight to the other side. When they are
Speaker 1: propounding fabricated narratives, when they are distorting facts, peddling conspiracy
Speaker 1: theories that are without foundation, and sometimes just flat out
Speaker 1: making it up. They don't they don't have a compunction
Speaker 1: about that. We do, which is sometimes to our disadvantage.
Speaker 1: Although I'd rather be where we are than they are.
Speaker 1: But that means we've got to be doubly more effective
Speaker 1: in puncturing what they're doing. What Congressman, you sound like
Speaker 1: my parents. Improv, although valid, is no substitute for real
Speaker 1: hard work and fact checking. I get it. I should
Speaker 1: be a doctor or an architect. I think we can
Speaker 1: both degree. If the fate of our democracy lies on improv,
Speaker 1: we might be in a bad place. Um, I'm curious.
Speaker 1: Do you think House Republicans are planning on using this
Speaker 1: investigation as a basis to impeach President Biden. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's a crowd of them that's already decided that's what
Speaker 1: they want to do. I think I think they would
Speaker 1: have trouble right now selling that to enough people in
Speaker 1: their own caucus to have the votes. Frankly, there is
Speaker 1: a there is a dwindling group of more common sense
Speaker 1: Republicans and modern Republicans who are very uneasy about the
Speaker 1: hard ideological tilt of the Freedom Caucus and their accolytes
Speaker 1: and would like to find a way to reassert themselves
Speaker 1: and what they believe is what's going to be necessary
Speaker 1: if the Republicans are really ever gonna be successful again
Speaker 1: in American political life. In terms of a real serious,
Speaker 1: working majority. I think that there are some built in
Speaker 1: breaks on that, And what I predict is that the
Speaker 1: Republicans on our committee will do what they always do,
Speaker 1: which is overreach, right, And when they do that, they
Speaker 1: lose public support and they lose credibility, and in this
Speaker 1: particular case, they're likely to alienate some of those more
Speaker 1: moderate numbers of their caucus, albeit and dweling numbers they
Speaker 1: need to get to eighteen. Do you think that you
Speaker 1: really think they will alienate It feels like there's there's
Speaker 1: rarely any pushback or political repercussions for appearing hawkish and overstepping. Yes,
Speaker 1: but you asked about impeachment. Impeachment is a different matter,
Speaker 1: and you do think that is a line for most Americans?
Speaker 1: You think they will see that just as a craven
Speaker 1: partisan overreach. Yeah. I don't think anybody in America. Well,
Speaker 1: let me with I simply don't think that's a majority
Speaker 1: opinion at all, not even close. That there's something unseemly
Speaker 1: about Joe Biden that desperately needs to be investigated. And
Speaker 1: we just had a midterm election. They tried out that theme.
Speaker 1: It didn't work, you know, Americans did not vote to
Speaker 1: have hard line accountability for Joe Biden because he's getting
Speaker 1: away with stuff, and that's why we need a Republican majority.
Speaker 1: They barely got a majority, they and they didn't get
Speaker 1: one in the US Senate. They lost governor seats net,
Speaker 1: they lost legislative seats net, and they barely won the House.
Speaker 1: So I hardly think that's a mandate to go at it.
Speaker 1: And that says something about I'm not saying that Americans
Speaker 1: don't want accountability. They're not persuaded that Joe Biden has
Speaker 1: done anything that merits that kind of you know, which, Huntsman,
Speaker 1: are you optimistic going into this next year that the
Speaker 1: American public will be able to sift through and see
Speaker 1: through the bs. We live in a world with so
Speaker 1: much in front of us, right, you know, we don't
Speaker 1: live anymore where in a world where you know, I
Speaker 1: get my news in the evening broadcast for thirty minutes
Speaker 1: on one of three choices. Those days are long gone, right,
Speaker 1: So there's this fog of news and data being presented
Speaker 1: to me an opinion, and I'm somehow expected to separate
Speaker 1: the truth from the non truth or the half truth,
Speaker 1: and the facts from the fiction. So that's why it's
Speaker 1: so important we do our jobs and do them well
Speaker 1: that we help the American listener, viewer, voter separate what's
Speaker 1: true from what is not true. And that's, as I said,
Speaker 1: why I think our committee is going to be on
Speaker 1: the front line of this this struggle, and it's a
Speaker 1: struggle as much for the truth as it is for
Speaker 1: political advantage or partisan gang. Well, Congressman Jerry Connelly, thank
Speaker 1: you so much for joining the podcast, and let me
Speaker 1: know if you need any punch ups on jokes. I
Speaker 1: work for cheap and I'd like to help this democracy.
Speaker 1: I'll come back to you on an improv Thank you.
Speaker 1: After the break, we're going to be joined by author
Speaker 1: and journalist Tiffany Cross. We're going to dive even more
Speaker 1: into media coverage behind Hunter Biden's laptop. We'll be right back.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Jordan Clepper Fingers. The conspiracy we're talking
Speaker 1: about Hunter Biden's laptop basically the right wing fever dream
Speaker 1: that a MacBook Pro that was left at a computer
Speaker 1: repair shop in Delaware proves that the Biden family was
Speaker 1: doing corruption in Ukraine. And that was before it was
Speaker 1: cool to know about stuff in Ukraine and also China
Speaker 1: is involved. Obviously, if you watch Fox News or Newsmax
Speaker 1: or Max News or Real American Truth or any other
Speaker 1: right wing media that sounds like it was created by
Speaker 1: a Steve Bannon word generator, you're probably extremely familiar with
Speaker 1: the weird details of the Hunter Biden saga. But if
Speaker 1: you get your news from real places, you might only
Speaker 1: know some of it, and that creates a minor dilemma.
Speaker 1: House Republicans are about to start investigating Hunter Biden, and
Speaker 1: that means it's probably going to get a lot of
Speaker 1: coverage on mainstream outlets. So if the role of the
Speaker 1: news media is to cover what's happening but also to
Speaker 1: stop the spread of misinformation, what are journalists supposed to
Speaker 1: do here? To help us answer that question, we're going
Speaker 1: to talk to Tiffany Cross, an author, journalist, cable news veteran,
Speaker 1: and until recently she was the host of The Cross
Speaker 1: Connection on MSNBC. Tiffany, thanks so much for talking to
Speaker 1: us here today. Thanks for having me Jordan, It's great
Speaker 1: to be connected today. Yes, So, this Hunter Biden laptop
Speaker 1: story poses an interesting problem for the news media. On
Speaker 1: one hand, it's an obsession fanned by right wing trolls
Speaker 1: who most of the time can be ignored. But on
Speaker 1: the other hand, Republicans are taking over the House of
Speaker 1: Representatives and they're going to launch congressional investigations into it,
Speaker 1: hoping for media coverage that makes the investigation look like
Speaker 1: a legitimate process. So I guess the big question is
Speaker 1: can you have a legitimate investigation into something run by
Speaker 1: the people who think January sixth was antifa? Right, I
Speaker 1: would say no, And I wish that more people in
Speaker 1: the news media would be so direct and honest about that.
Speaker 1: You know, when we talk about corruption in this whole
Speaker 1: incident with a Hunter Biden campaign or the Hunter Biden
Speaker 1: laptop rather in Ukraine, I think it's really important to
Speaker 1: remember what the Ukraine story is, and that is that
Speaker 1: Donald Trump was trying to hold up hundreds of millions
Speaker 1: of dollars in support for Ukraine because he wanted President
Speaker 1: Zelinsky to investigate his political rivals. That is the story.
Speaker 1: The counterpoint to that story was Republicans trying to institute
Speaker 1: this laptop storyline. And so when you have people who
Speaker 1: employ the logic of bad actors like Lauren Berberd or
Speaker 1: Marjorie Taylor Greene, who will have committee assignments. You know,
Speaker 1: the Republicans have taken over the House. Now we don't
Speaker 1: know what leadership looks like. We don't know who the
Speaker 1: Speaker of the House will be. Kevin McCarthy is quite
Speaker 1: embroiled in his own battles. I think it is very
Speaker 1: dangerous to pretend that these are intellectual people, that these
Speaker 1: are people acting in good faith, or that these are
Speaker 1: people who give a damn about democracy, because they don't
Speaker 1: see your point. They said January sixth was Antifa. We
Speaker 1: have seen quite blatantly these folks lie. They have said that,
Speaker 1: you know, they were like tourists walking through the Capitol,
Speaker 1: even though we saw Republican members of Congress themselves helping
Speaker 1: to barricade a door. And so it seems to be
Speaker 1: yet again a lesson that the news media has not learned,
Speaker 1: and they make such great overtures to this right wing
Speaker 1: extremist Republican Party, and they have not yet accepted what
Speaker 1: we as all Americans, have witnessed, and that is there
Speaker 1: are no right wing extremists and a separate group of Republicans.
Speaker 1: These two factions have merged. And so if you're going
Speaker 1: to turn over political investigations to right wing extremists, then
Speaker 1: you're going to essentially waive the white flag on democracy
Speaker 1: and say goodbye. This is feels like the series finale
Speaker 1: of the Great American Experiment, and as you can see,
Speaker 1: it ain't going so well. Tune in everybody, I guess
Speaker 1: it brings in interesting questions. Though you're right they they
Speaker 1: may not believe in the tenets of democracy, But is
Speaker 1: there a point of view in and of itself news
Speaker 1: which should be covered because people will look at this
Speaker 1: Hunter Biden laptop story and it is in many way
Speaker 1: you used as a distraction, But there is news to
Speaker 1: be made in there. There is perhaps an investigation that
Speaker 1: could happen around this, whether or not it's a legitimate one,
Speaker 1: who knows. But you bring up people like Bobert a
Speaker 1: lot of times. The news doesn't have to report on
Speaker 1: all of the wilder things that perhaps somebody like a
Speaker 1: Bobert will say. But then you'll have people like Kevin McCarthy,
Speaker 1: who very well could be the Leader of the House,
Speaker 1: who will repeat those talking points. So what do you
Speaker 1: say to a journalist who says, if Kevin McCarthy is
Speaker 1: the Speaker of the House, and he says something that
Speaker 1: means that it is news that must be reported. I
Speaker 1: think it's fine to report that through the proper context.
Speaker 1: I think what we have seen is the news media
Speaker 1: goes out of its way to present something that is
Speaker 1: factual or something that is at least based in some
Speaker 1: level of intellect, and then they will take something asinine
Speaker 1: and present both of these things as though they are
Speaker 1: equal in thought. So if I say, hey, Jordan, it's
Speaker 1: raining outside, and it's in fact raining outside, and you say, well,
Speaker 1: there are purple unicorns falling from the sky outside, the
Speaker 1: answer to that is not, well, some say it's raining outside,
Speaker 1: and some say there are purple unicorns, you know, falling
Speaker 1: from the sky. We'll let you decide. We're fair and balance.
Speaker 1: That's bullsit and we ought to be honest about that.
Speaker 1: And I think, you know, I think why you have
Speaker 1: so much of that is because again one of my
Speaker 1: big passions, um to my my career has been newsroom diversity.
Speaker 1: And so when you have people in these newsrooms who
Speaker 1: make these overtures to Trump fanatics, you know, to these
Speaker 1: cult members who are believers um of the Maga doctrine,
Speaker 1: that you've so brilliantly highlighted um in your comedic reporting
Speaker 1: for the Daily Show. You've done better reporting the most
Speaker 1: journalists out there, Um, and just let these people talk
Speaker 1: and say what they believe. Make no mistake, we have
Speaker 1: the guns and we are now in the streets. Can
Speaker 1: I ask why're carrying a pitchfork? Well, pitchfork is a
Speaker 1: just iconic representation of how of what people over time
Speaker 1: have done in this cart it field rulling a weapon's
Speaker 1: farm equipment, and it's legal in this, in this in
Speaker 1: the city. Yeah, are you farming today? It's it's it's
Speaker 1: a representation. We're not asking for violence right now. I
Speaker 1: gotta tell you from the movies I've seen the the
Speaker 1: hordes of people with pitchforts are usually the bad guy.
Speaker 1: And when you have people who say, well, you know,
Speaker 1: all these people aren't so bad because my grandmother is
Speaker 1: a Trump supporter and she's my nanna and she's so sweet,
Speaker 1: or my dad supports Trump. I try to talk him
Speaker 1: out of it, but he still believes that. But they're
Speaker 1: not bad people. Me on the other side, I'm saying,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry to tell you, but they actually are pieces
Speaker 1: of shit. You know, these are horrible people. Who are
Speaker 1: supporting a horrible man who says horrible, racist, xenophobic, misogynistic things.
Speaker 1: And if you can't call your family out on that,
Speaker 1: then that is a problem because now you're penetrating the
Speaker 1: atmosphere where it's supposed to be truthful information and not
Speaker 1: a you know, a sympathy fest for people who would
Speaker 1: see folks who look like me oppressed. And that has
Speaker 1: created such a chasm in media Jordan. It is two
Speaker 1: people have now tuned out media. I mean you look
Speaker 1: at cable news and it's really a melting ice cube
Speaker 1: at this point. And when people do not trust that
Speaker 1: there is no reputable outlet where they can get this
Speaker 1: kind of information, they find their news and information from
Speaker 1: other sources, and those sources are not always reputable. And
Speaker 1: we saw what happened with that in twenty sixteen. A
Speaker 1: lot of people felt like their lived experience was reflected
Speaker 1: in an Internet meme. What we later learned that was
Speaker 1: the you know, Internet Russia agency, who also did not
Speaker 1: care about American democracy. And when they looked at this
Speaker 1: country and said how can we mess with American democracy?
Speaker 1: It took them all of two months to say, oh,
Speaker 1: white supremacy, that's it. That's how that's their greatest weakness
Speaker 1: and we will tap into that. And this is really
Speaker 1: an extension of that philosophy. I can't wait for the
Speaker 1: Tiffany Cross How to Do Thanksgiving with Relatives book, Call
Speaker 1: the pieces of shit out and move on, Belise my Thanksgiving.
Speaker 1: We don't have that problem, but a lot of people's
Speaker 1: tables they do. And I think that is the you know,
Speaker 1: with allies and people who you know want to get
Speaker 1: in this fight. It's like, yes, start in your own home,
Speaker 1: challenge your own family, because it is not my job
Speaker 1: to convince the you know, willfully ignorant people to not
Speaker 1: believe in a man who's lying to them. And it
Speaker 1: is not my job to extend empathy or sympathy to
Speaker 1: people who feel that way. I don't know how to
Speaker 1: meet a bigot in the middle. So if that is
Speaker 1: how people feel, it's start there, Start there, at your
Speaker 1: own table. And that brings up an interesting question, because
Speaker 1: I do think that's a question I get on the
Speaker 1: road a bunch. Are you ever able to change somebody's
Speaker 1: mind or what have you? And that's not the intention
Speaker 1: of the pieces that we go out to do. I
Speaker 1: think more often than not, it's to confront people with
Speaker 1: logical fallacies that we see back home and see what
Speaker 1: the reality is in the field. But I do think
Speaker 1: it's interesting it's somebody a member of the media. There
Speaker 1: is this chasm here. There's a chasm also a bad
Speaker 1: information that people are getting, And I do think you
Speaker 1: want to have empathy for those people who have been
Speaker 1: getting given such misinformation. How do you balance the deliverance
Speaker 1: of real news with the idea of showing a certain
Speaker 1: amount of empathy and an outreache towards perhaps voices and
Speaker 1: people who who who aren't willing to meet in the middle. Well,
Speaker 1: I would challenge the first part of empathy. UM. I
Speaker 1: think if you do have empathy, um, Jordan, for some
Speaker 1: of the folks you have spoken with, that's not such
Speaker 1: a bad thing. Um. You know, perhaps I can understand that,
Speaker 1: as long as you're not asking me to have empathy. UM.
Speaker 1: I do not have empathy for people who have bought
Speaker 1: into um a lie or a myth or a system
Speaker 1: that means my oppression. I don't have any empathy for
Speaker 1: such people at all. I actually think the country would
Speaker 1: be better off without those people having an influence on
Speaker 1: what this democracy looks like or how this government works.
Speaker 1: But that is not the way American democracy was designed.
Speaker 1: I think when it comes to reporting these things, UM,
Speaker 1: and in the media landscape, UM, you run the risk
Speaker 1: of having a large number of the population I would
Speaker 1: call the rising majority. UM. Tune you out when you're
Speaker 1: when your perspective, when the starting point is we have
Speaker 1: empathy for these people who feel this way because you
Speaker 1: do not hear people. Well, look, the Nazis were fed
Speaker 1: a bunch of bad information. We have to have empathy
Speaker 1: for them. Get the fuck out of here, like we
Speaker 1: would never say that, we would never believe that, you know.
Speaker 1: And so why am I being asked to have empathy
Speaker 1: for the people who would see me staying in a
Speaker 1: dilapidated community, sending my children to dilapidated schools, living in
Speaker 1: rundown neighborhoods and say, well, that's just how it goes
Speaker 1: because they can't win, because if they win, that means
Speaker 1: I'm losing. I have no empathy tivity. I gotta see.
Speaker 1: If you don't think people are showing empathy towards Nazis,
Speaker 1: you're just not on Twitter anymore. You're right, and elon
Speaker 1: not Twitter. It is the land of empathy for Nazis.
Speaker 1: I would say it's a surprisingly popular opinion that's really
Speaker 1: somehow coming back in vogue. I guess I have a
Speaker 1: question who makes those decisions about what gets covered and
Speaker 1: what doesn't get covered at a network level. Is its anchors,
Speaker 1: Is it producers, news executives. Is there a conversation that
Speaker 1: happens in the newsroom. Well, it's a variety of things,
Speaker 1: and I think it all depends on the news room.
Speaker 1: You know, broadcast has a different set of rules in print.
Speaker 1: When I was in cable news, I made the decisions
Speaker 1: about what I covered on my show, but I did
Speaker 1: not do so without a fight. Um. You know, there
Speaker 1: are assignment desk assignment editors, and there are people who
Speaker 1: oversee and people who oversaw my show. And it was
Speaker 1: always a fight because you know, it's like the echo chambers, right,
Speaker 1: Like the three news networks are covering mostly the same things.
Speaker 1: I mean, now, you know Fox would be an outlier
Speaker 1: and you know, still cover Hillary's emails, But for the
Speaker 1: most part, people were covering the same stories throughout the day.
Speaker 1: I was very intentional about disrupting that and um, talking
Speaker 1: about stories that impacted community's color policy, you know, people
Speaker 1: who live below the poverty line. I wanted to have
Speaker 1: conversations that were being had in the corner office, as
Speaker 1: well as the barbershop, as well as the beauty salon,
Speaker 1: as well as on the block, you know, for the
Speaker 1: old men who sit outside in front of the you know,
Speaker 1: convenience store all day. I wanted everyone to feel like
Speaker 1: they had a home, and I wanted to reflect the
Speaker 1: lived experience of everyone. But we talked a lot on
Speaker 1: this show about the tragedy of America's maternal mortality rates,
Speaker 1: especially the disparity that claims black and Indigenous women at
Speaker 1: three times the rate as white women. Imagine being without
Speaker 1: clean water for six straight days. Well, that's the reality
Speaker 1: right now for the one hundred and fifty thousand residents
Speaker 1: of Mississippi's largest city, all right after centuries of genocide
Speaker 1: and oppression. Imagine seeing your ancestors stolen belongings sit in
Speaker 1: a museum and you're told you can't have them, you
Speaker 1: can't touch them or even photograph them. You take something
Speaker 1: even as simple as the economy, right. You know a
Speaker 1: lot of people you know in these morning news shows
Speaker 1: and they say, oh, look, the economy is doing well,
Speaker 1: you know, the market is up, and it's like the
Speaker 1: market is not the economy. And if you go and
Speaker 1: talk to people in my pre gentrified neighborhood, they would
Speaker 1: not say the economy is doing well. You take labor
Speaker 1: reports and they're like, oh, we added x amount of
Speaker 1: new jobs and here's the unemployment numbers. Well, that's the
Speaker 1: overall unemployment numbers. But when you disaggregate that data and
Speaker 1: look at unemployment for black people, for Latino people, we
Speaker 1: build disrespected when you say, oh, the job of reports
Speaker 1: numbers are great. And so the more that people kind
Speaker 1: of centralize white perspective and white voices, it leaves so
Speaker 1: many people out. And so when you talk about newsroom
Speaker 1: diversity and who makes these decisions, don't come tell me
Speaker 1: that you just hired you know, you know fifty percent
Speaker 1: of people of color and women, and they're all entry
Speaker 1: level employees or mid level management. Put those people in
Speaker 1: the c suite. Put those people in decision making positions
Speaker 1: so they can disrupt the echo chambers in a meaningful way.
Speaker 1: Because what is it twenty five year old to do
Speaker 1: When a fifty five year old is in charge of
Speaker 1: the entire newsroom and they're making a decision that runs
Speaker 1: contrary to the lived experience or belief system or you know,
Speaker 1: experiences of the rising majority. They don't always have or
Speaker 1: feel the sense of agency to challenge that, and so
Speaker 1: when they don't have that, they either exit the business
Speaker 1: or they become a part of this machine that keeps
Speaker 1: doing the same thing over and over and it never
Speaker 1: gets disrupted or changed forever. Those battles that you're having
Speaker 1: in the newsroom with your show on MSNBC, the Cross Connection,
Speaker 1: how much did you have to split your time being
Speaker 1: the host of that show, helping create the narrative of
Speaker 1: that show, the stories you wanted to cover, and also
Speaker 1: what sounds like a teacher of this experienced did you
Speaker 1: find yourself having put on those two hats? Were you
Speaker 1: surprised by that culture at MSNBC. Yes, I put on
Speaker 1: those hats out every day, and so what I found
Speaker 1: on my show is I would have to do something
Speaker 1: to please network executives, and then I would have to
Speaker 1: do the rest of my program to please the viewers.
Speaker 1: And those things often went like this. You know, if
Speaker 1: I was going to please the executives, fine, I will
Speaker 1: do two segments on Trump, because that's what everybody wanted,
Speaker 1: you know, the networking executives wanted to talk about Trump. However,
Speaker 1: if you know, you know, one of the members of
Speaker 1: the group Migos was murdered, well that was something that
Speaker 1: a lot of people were talking about, especially on the
Speaker 1: hills of so many other hip hop artists being murdered.
Speaker 1: So that was going to be something to please viewers.
Speaker 1: If there was a story about indigenous communities, you know,
Speaker 1: having to travel over two hours to vote, that was
Speaker 1: something that was going to please viewers. If we were
Speaker 1: going to do something on the Asian American Pacific Islander
Speaker 1: community being the fastest growing demographic in the country but
Speaker 1: yet no political parties are reaching out to them, that
Speaker 1: was something that was going to please viewers. And so,
Speaker 1: you know, the way my bank account was set up,
Speaker 1: I had to at least do something to please network executives.
Speaker 1: But it was always my mission, you know, and I
Speaker 1: would encourage you know, anybody who wants to pursue any
Speaker 1: career when you are mission driven, and I was mission driven,
Speaker 1: and my mission was for the equality and liberation of Black,
Speaker 1: Indigenous and people of color, the rising majority of the country.
Speaker 1: That was my mission. And so nothing was going to
Speaker 1: sway me from that mission, and I knew if I
Speaker 1: ever fell out of favor with network executives, that would
Speaker 1: have to be okay, because my mission was to elevate
Speaker 1: the lived experiences and to hold the line for the
Speaker 1: people who were very much architects of this country and
Speaker 1: very much deserve to have their voices and actives heard,
Speaker 1: particularly after centuries of being so violently silenced. No, I
Speaker 1: mean your your show was canceled days before the midterms,
Speaker 1: four days before the mid terms, an important voice in
Speaker 1: this conversation and made a lot of news. And there
Speaker 1: are a lot of questions how much how much did
Speaker 1: you find that your personal mission was out of touch
Speaker 1: with whatever MSNBC's mission was. Um, well, I felt that
Speaker 1: pretty early on UM. Every week I had to defend
Speaker 1: and fight for segments that we did. Uh you know,
Speaker 1: did that feel? Did that feel contrary to what other
Speaker 1: hosts at MSNBC we're having to do with their own shows? Yeah? Um,
Speaker 1: you know, I would say my colleague Joy Read and
Speaker 1: I probably had the most UM pushback on our shows. Um.
Speaker 1: But there were also things that other hosts would do
Speaker 1: that would make it easier for us, which again is problematic. Um.
Speaker 1: My colleague Ari melbur Um. You know it's a big
Speaker 1: hip hop fan. If you watch five minutes of his show,
Speaker 1: you know that he quotes rapp lyrics all the time time.
Speaker 1: And it was fine when the white man did it.
Speaker 1: You know, when the white man didn't, it made it
Speaker 1: easier for everybody else to do it. But let the
Speaker 1: black woman start out doing that, and they would have
Speaker 1: made a major problem, a major problem. But he was
Speaker 1: celebrated for doing that, Tippy. It was it was never
Speaker 1: fine when a Melbourne did that. It was never fine.
Speaker 1: That was never accepted amongst the audience members. Well, he
Speaker 1: could get rap artists on his show, and you know
Speaker 1: they they seem to you know, play into it. But
Speaker 1: either way, Um, you know, you look at Morning Joe,
Speaker 1: my former colleagues Joe and Mika. I mean we got
Speaker 1: the term moscow Mitch from Joe Scarborough. Um. But if
Speaker 1: you know, you know, if if Joy or I you know,
Speaker 1: were to to say something similar, it was like, hey,
Speaker 1: we don't really want name calling. Um. But even if
Speaker 1: you take it out of MSNBC and just look at
Speaker 1: the media landscape in general, um, and some of the
Speaker 1: more colloquial conversations that happened. When it comes to voters,
Speaker 1: they were so often in the media landscape that you
Speaker 1: would hear terms like um, soccer moms, Nascar ads. Well,
Speaker 1: those were all euphemisms for white voters. And it's not
Speaker 1: that black people could not you know, have that same
Speaker 1: um moniker as well. But we understood what that to me,
Speaker 1: that what those terms meant. It did not feel inclusive
Speaker 1: of the black experience, which is the biggest voting block
Speaker 1: when it comes to Democratic to the Democratic Party. And
Speaker 1: so even when they did voters of the heartland. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, you go to these diners in the middle
Speaker 1: of nowhere where apparently no Black people have ever been
Speaker 1: or ever eaten, and that was voters of the heartland.
Speaker 1: But why not go to a basketball game in southwest
Speaker 1: Atlanta after it let out and talk to the parents there?
Speaker 1: Are they not voters of the heartland in a purple state,
Speaker 1: I'd add, um, why can't we have like basketball dads
Speaker 1: or you know, the untie voting block or something that
Speaker 1: reflects my lived experience. Even when you have UM candidates
Speaker 1: on and you'd have you know, these Democratic candidates and
Speaker 1: the anchor would always press them, how are you going
Speaker 1: to appeal to these red state voters. How are you
Speaker 1: going to, you know, get these voters who's at home?
Speaker 1: It's how are they going to come over to you?
Speaker 1: I have yet to see somebody ask a Republican MAGA voter,
Speaker 1: how are you going to appeal you want to penetrate
Speaker 1: Democratic part How are you want to appeal the bass vote?
Speaker 1: Are black voters your party seems to outstand for a
Speaker 1: lot of things that runs contrary to what black voters want.
Speaker 1: How are you going to appeal to them? How are
Speaker 1: you going to appeal to the changing demographics? People of
Speaker 1: color are increasingly becoming the base vote. What are your
Speaker 1: policies that speak to that demographic? Those things never happened.
Speaker 1: I was never able to get Republicans to come out
Speaker 1: on my show because they did not want to answer
Speaker 1: those types of questions. But access journalism would grant you
Speaker 1: an interview with Ted Crews or Marjorie Taylor Green, or
Speaker 1: the guy, the Senate guy, the Senate candidate Ron Johnson,
Speaker 1: the Trump accolyte who was running for Senate in Wisconsin.
Speaker 1: He would happily go on those shows if he knew
Speaker 1: it was going to be an easy interview. And that
Speaker 1: does not serve anybody but the anchor itself. It certainly
Speaker 1: does not serve viewers or voters. And you bring up
Speaker 1: an energy point is in twenty sixteen, after the media
Speaker 1: landscape was quote unquote surprised by the red wave the Trumpism,
Speaker 1: there there was all you saw was anchors in these
Speaker 1: small little diners. And now we have this midterm election
Speaker 1: where everybody's shocked by the blue whether whether you call
Speaker 1: it the blue pushback right there, we're not seeing anybody
Speaker 1: go to these other democratic areas and try to figure
Speaker 1: them out. I guess I think you're you're you're hitting
Speaker 1: on something that there are a lot of perhaps progressives
Speaker 1: out there who look at a place, who look at
Speaker 1: the media landscape. Everybody's picking their own media outlets to
Speaker 1: try to tell them perhaps the story that they think
Speaker 1: one elucidates the world that they see, or the story
Speaker 1: that makes them feel better about themselves. More often than not,
Speaker 1: there are those places in the mass media market that
Speaker 1: people look at and we don't have to go all
Speaker 1: in on MSNBC, but I do know that as a
Speaker 1: place for a lot of people who look at that
Speaker 1: as having a left leading perspective, who will take in
Speaker 1: a lot of these considerations, and I think hearing some
Speaker 1: of your stories here is depressing to hear that even
Speaker 1: even these ideas of being inclusive in the stories that
Speaker 1: we tell is meeting such resistance at at these levels.
Speaker 1: Like where do you see these stories being able to
Speaker 1: be told? Clearly we know where they need to be
Speaker 1: able to be told. Where are you seeing examples of
Speaker 1: them being told? Well, I think social media has really
Speaker 1: democratized who has a voice in this space, which has
Speaker 1: come with great benefits to democracy but also to some
Speaker 1: of our demise. Right, Like we talked a little bit
Speaker 1: about Twitter, which you know, you have superstars on Twitter
Speaker 1: who we really don't know who they are, We just
Speaker 1: know their avatar. You know, you have people who just
Speaker 1: create these YouTube shows who can just declare themselves journalists
Speaker 1: who might not have the journalistic acumen to really interview.
Speaker 1: The podcast Drink Champs, you know when they had Kanye
Speaker 1: on that podcast, Well that wasn't a journalist, you know,
Speaker 1: that was somebody having a drink with Kanye. So there
Speaker 1: wasn't the space to challenge some of the things that
Speaker 1: he said. And so, you know, I think the good
Speaker 1: thing about it is their space and it has made
Speaker 1: everybody wake up and say, well, wait a second. You
Speaker 1: know a lot of people are getting their news from
Speaker 1: other places, like the Daily Show, quite honestly, and I
Speaker 1: have been a long, long time fan of the Daily Show,
Speaker 1: but I do think, well, that should not be your
Speaker 1: only news outlet. You know, you do have to supplement
Speaker 1: that even my show. And people would say, I don't
Speaker 1: watch any news except for your show. It would make
Speaker 1: me a little nervous because it's like, well, I'm a
Speaker 1: perspective host, and you know I'm giving you my perspective.
Speaker 1: It would be helpful if you had some of the
Speaker 1: baseline stuff. And you and I both know print drives broadcast.
Speaker 1: Print journalism drives broadcast journal room. Everybody starts out reading
Speaker 1: the paper, read six seven, eight papers. But even there
Speaker 1: there's a lack of newsroom diversity. So I don't know
Speaker 1: that I can say where news should be consumed. I
Speaker 1: would say the best answer I could give to that
Speaker 1: is stay tuned to where I am. A final question
Speaker 1: in here, do you think the media is glad Trump's
Speaker 1: running again? I do? I do. I think Trump gave
Speaker 1: the cable news network such a boom that they salivated, um,
Speaker 1: and that's why. I think they were always constantly trying
Speaker 1: to get me to do tum tum, tump tump, you
Speaker 1: have to talk about Trump um. But I think they're
Speaker 1: going to be disappointed. I have seen some in the
Speaker 1: news media a day late and a dollar short be
Speaker 1: a little more mindful about how they cover him. But
Speaker 1: I also think that the American body politic has lost
Speaker 1: their appetite for the reality TV show that was cable
Speaker 1: news for a brief moment in time. People love to
Speaker 1: see you know, this throwdown, this battle, this kind of
Speaker 1: gutter back and forth between opposing viewpoints, and you know,
Speaker 1: it was like the anchor would do all but say,
Speaker 1: let's get ready to rumble, and then you bring in
Speaker 1: this you know segment. Um. You know, I think post
Speaker 1: pandemic and being overly sensationalized by this level of yellow
Speaker 1: journalism from print to broadcast has left people a bit
Speaker 1: apathetic towards consuming news at all. Yeah. No, well, Tiffany,
Speaker 1: I'm excited to see where you land. That is definitely
Speaker 1: going to be the place to check out. Thank you
Speaker 1: for coming on, and thank you everybody else for checking out.
Speaker 1: This episode of Jordan Clapper figures the conspiracy whether you're
Speaker 1: listening on your phone or watching on your laptop, especially
Speaker 1: if it's a laptop at a repair shop in Delaware.
Speaker 1: We'll see you next time, Thanks Tony. Listen to Jordan
Speaker 1: Clapper figures the Conspiracy from The Daily Show on Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts.