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