WEBVTT - Special Episode - Jimmy Kimmel Pulled Off ABC Reaction: Trump Uses State Power To Silence Free Speech 0:00:04.160 --> 0:00:06.720 Hello there, I'm Chuck Todd. This is a bit of 0:00:06.760 --> 0:00:10.119 a special little update. I guess we could call it 0:00:10.160 --> 0:00:13.920 an addendum to the most recent episode of the Chuck Toodcast. 0:00:13.920 --> 0:00:17.880 When I taped, we had not learned of the of 0:00:18.000 --> 0:00:22.120 what was going on between the FCC, Disney, Jimmy Kimmel 0:00:22.239 --> 0:00:26.080 Next Star, and everything that's going on, and I think 0:00:26.120 --> 0:00:30.960 the I just wanted to give it some context. I'll 0:00:31.000 --> 0:00:35.680 be honest, I I I I go back and forth 0:00:35.680 --> 0:00:42.360 about how much we should be focusing on the media 0:00:42.440 --> 0:00:45.640 problems in this country and the and the and the 0:00:45.760 --> 0:00:49.479 larger issue of that versus our political problems and our 0:00:49.520 --> 0:00:53.080 political divide. But the fact is that they're all intertwined now. 0:00:54.640 --> 0:00:57.400 But I wanted to put some context around why because 0:00:57.400 --> 0:00:59.440 I've I've even had questions of members of my own 0:00:59.440 --> 0:01:01.240 family sort of like, wait a minute, why is what 0:01:02.080 --> 0:01:06.240 is you know? I'll just answer this basic question. You know, 0:01:06.360 --> 0:01:09.720 Disney can decide whether or not they want Jimmy Kimmel. 0:01:09.880 --> 0:01:13.800 What's you know? How? And I think this what makes 0:01:13.880 --> 0:01:16.040 why so many folks are up in arms. Right. It's 0:01:16.040 --> 0:01:18.640 not just folks on the left, but civil libertarians frankly 0:01:18.680 --> 0:01:21.800 across the spectrum are so alarmed by this. It's the 0:01:21.880 --> 0:01:26.160 sequence of events on how this is done. Because I'm 0:01:26.160 --> 0:01:28.640 going to make a confession, I didn't hear anything that 0:01:28.720 --> 0:01:31.280 Late Night did on Monday Night about Charlie Kirk because 0:01:31.280 --> 0:01:35.160 I wasn't seeking it out. I wasn't interested. Don't I 0:01:35.200 --> 0:01:38.839 don't have the same I see clips of late nights, 0:01:38.880 --> 0:01:41.080 you know, this is part of the economics of late night. Right, 0:01:41.440 --> 0:01:44.039 I'm just like most too many other people for the 0:01:44.040 --> 0:01:46.640 economics of late night, I just wait for the clips 0:01:46.680 --> 0:01:50.040 the next morning. When we started this back in the 0:01:50.040 --> 0:01:52.920 old days of the hotline Wait, we became Washington source 0:01:53.040 --> 0:01:55.240 for Hey, tell me the best jokes that were on 0:01:55.320 --> 0:01:59.600 late night TV. And so the idea of just clipping 0:01:59.840 --> 0:02:04.360 and and just having the political stuff from the late 0:02:04.440 --> 0:02:08.160 night comedians as an easy to digest morning you know 0:02:10.000 --> 0:02:14.840 newsletter is something that that is is quite common. So 0:02:15.600 --> 0:02:19.160 when I I was not following the day to day, 0:02:19.280 --> 0:02:21.400 was not following what Carr was doing, and then all 0:02:21.440 --> 0:02:25.320 of a sudden, there's this breaking news alert about Jimmy 0:02:25.400 --> 0:02:29.960 Kimmel's off the air. So I was like, Wow, how 0:02:30.000 --> 0:02:32.880 bad was the joke that he told about Charlie Kirk? Right. 0:02:32.919 --> 0:02:35.320 So you go back and you think, well, he must 0:02:35.400 --> 0:02:37.520 did he use Charlie Kirk as a punchline? Did he 0:02:37.720 --> 0:02:40.200 what could he have said? And then you actually saw 0:02:40.240 --> 0:02:44.840 what he said and you're like, wait, what he got 0:02:44.880 --> 0:02:49.639 booted off the air for this? You know, because when 0:02:49.639 --> 0:02:53.720 the FCC gets involved, you assume did he say something indecent? 0:02:53.800 --> 0:02:56.840 Did he use a four letter word? Did he expose himself? Right? 0:02:56.919 --> 0:03:01.400 Like you know, ultimately the FCC's role is about you know, 0:03:01.520 --> 0:03:07.640 public decency, right, And in this remark, other than look, 0:03:07.720 --> 0:03:11.440 I didn't love his remark, and I'll tell you why. 0:03:12.240 --> 0:03:15.680 I don't like what's happening right now. There's this contest 0:03:15.720 --> 0:03:17.680 between the left and the right to prove that the 0:03:17.720 --> 0:03:23.840 other side's ideology incites more violence. That's not the problem 0:03:23.880 --> 0:03:27.600 we have here. It doesn't matter whether it's sixty thirty 0:03:27.639 --> 0:03:30.480 on one end or the other. The thirty can cause 0:03:30.680 --> 0:03:33.480 just as much violence as the sixty and vice versa. Right, 0:03:33.680 --> 0:03:37.400 and everybody is so worked up in the sort of 0:03:37.600 --> 0:03:40.520 part and the partisan corners of wanting to prove it's 0:03:40.560 --> 0:03:43.360 the other side that incites more violence, not my side. 0:03:43.960 --> 0:03:46.800 That's not the issue. So I'm sorry he gave voice 0:03:46.840 --> 0:03:52.560 to that concept, but that's not the issue here, right, 0:03:52.600 --> 0:03:54.480 And you've heard me. I wish we would just be hey, 0:03:54.480 --> 0:03:57.760 we've got a political violence problem. We've let this get 0:03:57.800 --> 0:04:01.640 too far. Let's identify the actual problematic source, which of 0:04:01.680 --> 0:04:05.200 course we know is these algorithms and what we've done 0:04:05.200 --> 0:04:09.800 to political discourse in this country through social media. But 0:04:09.880 --> 0:04:11.880 it's the sequence of events here that make this a 0:04:11.960 --> 0:04:16.120 violation of the Constitution. Okay, And you've got to remember 0:04:16.160 --> 0:04:19.719 what the first The first Amendment is about protecting the 0:04:19.760 --> 0:04:25.840 people from government influence. So the second that Brendan Carr 0:04:26.240 --> 0:04:31.159 went on a podcast and essentially threatened, you know, like 0:04:31.200 --> 0:04:34.760 a mob boss, that's a mighty fine network you got there, Disney, 0:04:35.080 --> 0:04:41.240 That's a mighty fine merger you'd like to get completed there. 0:04:41.360 --> 0:04:46.760 Next star, that was coercion. That was government influence. That 0:04:46.880 --> 0:04:53.240 was an unconstitutional threat from Brendan Carr, the FCC chair. 0:04:53.720 --> 0:04:57.840 And I want to read all of his quotes here 0:04:57.880 --> 0:05:04.599 because it's fascinating how delusional this guy is about his 0:05:04.800 --> 0:05:10.920 role as SEC chair. And there's also a ton of 0:05:11.000 --> 0:05:13.760 hypocrisy in what he's saying in here. But I want 0:05:13.800 --> 0:05:17.560 to get through the larger quote. Look, everybody has seen 0:05:17.600 --> 0:05:19.240 the quote, we can do this the easy way or 0:05:19.240 --> 0:05:24.800 the hard way. But I think his larger context matters here. 0:05:24.839 --> 0:05:30.800 So he said to this sort of one of these 0:05:30.839 --> 0:05:33.440 conspiracy theorists on the right in some quarters, there's a 0:05:33.520 --> 0:05:35.520 very concerted effort to try to lie to the American 0:05:35.520 --> 0:05:37.720 people about the nature of one of the most significant 0:05:37.880 --> 0:05:40.600 newsworthy public interest acts that we've seen in a long time, 0:05:40.960 --> 0:05:43.000 and what appears to be an action by Jimmy Kimmel 0:05:43.000 --> 0:05:45.480 to play into that narrative that this was somehow a 0:05:45.520 --> 0:05:49.880 mega or Republican motivated person, so that in itself, so 0:05:50.000 --> 0:05:52.640 basically what he is admitting here is that Jimmy kimmel 0:05:52.800 --> 0:05:56.520 sin is insulting MAGA. Jimmy Kimmel's sin had nothing to 0:05:56.520 --> 0:05:59.520 do with Charlie Kirk. This was and this is why 0:06:00.120 --> 0:06:04.919 this is alarming so many civil libertarians. He didn't like 0:06:04.960 --> 0:06:07.880 it that MAGA was criticized. You may not like the 0:06:07.920 --> 0:06:11.280 criticism right twenty nineteen, Brendan Carr, by the way, would 0:06:11.320 --> 0:06:14.120 also be upset. We've all seen his if you've been 0:06:14.120 --> 0:06:16.960 paying attention to the story. Brendan Carr in twenty nineteen 0:06:17.040 --> 0:06:19.360 is having a huge debate with Brendan Carr twenty twenty five. 0:06:19.400 --> 0:06:22.200 We'll find out who wins that debate. And then he 0:06:22.240 --> 0:06:23.839 says this, I've been very clear from the moment that 0:06:23.880 --> 0:06:26.040 I became chairman of the FCC. I want to reinvigorate 0:06:26.080 --> 0:06:29.360 the public interest. Broadcasters are entirely different from people that 0:06:29.480 --> 0:06:32.200 use other forms of communication. They have a license granted 0:06:32.440 --> 0:06:34.320 by us at the FCC, and that comes with an 0:06:34.360 --> 0:06:37.560 obligation to operate in the public interest. He is factually 0:06:37.560 --> 0:06:40.680 correct on that, and then he goes, look, we can 0:06:40.720 --> 0:06:42.280 do this the easy way or the hard way. These 0:06:42.279 --> 0:06:44.920 companies can find ways to change conduct, to take action 0:06:45.000 --> 0:06:47.520 frankly on Kimmel, or there's going to be additional work 0:06:47.560 --> 0:06:49.960 for the FCC ahead. This is a very very serious 0:06:49.960 --> 0:06:53.120 issue right now for Disney. So he says that next 0:06:53.160 --> 0:06:57.440 Star affiliates announce what they announced, those ABC affiliates that 0:06:57.480 --> 0:06:59.400 they're not going to carry Jimmy Kimmel, and then of 0:06:59.440 --> 0:07:03.160 course it puts pressure on Disney. Now this is a 0:07:03.200 --> 0:07:07.080 reminder of the children's book that I cite all the 0:07:07.120 --> 0:07:10.560 time when it comes to capitulation to this administration on 0:07:10.600 --> 0:07:13.240 so many things that are where the laws on the 0:07:13.280 --> 0:07:15.560 side of these entities, and yet they don't want to 0:07:15.680 --> 0:07:17.920 use the law. And that is if you give a 0:07:18.000 --> 0:07:25.320 mouse a cookie. The second Disney paid the extortion price 0:07:25.600 --> 0:07:32.000 on the George Stephanopolis lawsuit, they opened themselves to more coercion. Right, 0:07:32.160 --> 0:07:34.560 you know, the second you sort of give into the bully, 0:07:34.840 --> 0:07:39.880 the second you agree to pay, you know, to pay 0:07:39.880 --> 0:07:43.840 a ransom. Right, Disney was being held hostage by Donald Trump, 0:07:44.240 --> 0:07:48.480 and so they paid a ransom on the on that 0:07:48.520 --> 0:07:53.080 with with Stephanopolis, and they came back and decided they 0:07:53.080 --> 0:07:56.200 had more that more that they wanted to get. Right. 0:07:56.240 --> 0:07:58.800 So next Star is doing this huge merger with Tegna. 0:07:59.400 --> 0:08:02.280 Tegna used to be it's just a renamed version. It 0:08:02.320 --> 0:08:04.400 used to be the Gannett TV station. So this is 0:08:04.440 --> 0:08:09.120 going to create the largest owner of local TV affiliates, who, 0:08:09.240 --> 0:08:11.600 of course affiliate. When I see the affiliate network, some 0:08:11.640 --> 0:08:12.880 of you may be like, what the hell are you 0:08:12.920 --> 0:08:15.640 talking about? Right, if you're under the age of thirty five, 0:08:15.920 --> 0:08:19.440 you're like, what is this? But ABC, NBC, CBS, and 0:08:19.560 --> 0:08:24.120 Fox the broadcast, not Fox News the cable channel. They 0:08:24.200 --> 0:08:28.680 have local TVs over the air TV stations that they 0:08:28.720 --> 0:08:31.880 have relationships with. And it used to be the networks 0:08:31.880 --> 0:08:34.440 themselves owned a lion's share of this, and then over time, 0:08:34.840 --> 0:08:37.679 due to some FCC rules, there were these used to 0:08:37.720 --> 0:08:40.840 be local people in the area would own the local 0:08:40.880 --> 0:08:44.560 TV station and then have personal and have affiliations with 0:08:44.600 --> 0:08:48.560 the big national broadcast networks, and then you had this consolidation, right, 0:08:48.600 --> 0:08:51.920 and next Star is one of these consolidated organizations. Techne 0:08:52.000 --> 0:08:53.960 itself was a consolid and this merger is going to 0:08:53.960 --> 0:09:01.600 be even bigger. It needs FCC approval, right, and it's 0:09:01.640 --> 0:09:05.680 a big deal to next Start to get this FCC approval, 0:09:06.240 --> 0:09:09.920 So it is not lost shouldn't be lost on anybody 0:09:09.960 --> 0:09:13.040 that the minute this has heard, you know, Next Start 0:09:13.160 --> 0:09:16.560 literally coming up has had you know, knows its merger 0:09:16.559 --> 0:09:19.480 with Tegna is going to get a review by the FCC. 0:09:20.320 --> 0:09:25.679 Disney is already agreed to buy out NFL's television all 0:09:25.679 --> 0:09:29.080 of it's the NFL's media properties, which is going to 0:09:29.160 --> 0:09:32.280 consolidate ESPN and the NFL network into one thing. And 0:09:32.320 --> 0:09:37.040 that's something else that the FCC has oversight over. And 0:09:37.160 --> 0:09:40.840 so you know, this is in a way that a 0:09:40.840 --> 0:09:43.480 mobster might say, that's a mighty that's a mighty nice 0:09:44.559 --> 0:09:47.520 television network. You might have there. This is a very 0:09:47.559 --> 0:09:51.000 serious issue right now for Disney. He didn't say it 0:09:51.080 --> 0:09:54.079 was an issue for ABC Entertainment, which is who Jimmy 0:09:54.120 --> 0:09:57.400 Kimmel works for, not even work for ABC News. He 0:09:57.440 --> 0:10:00.320 said it was an issue for Disney. Well, that means 0:10:00.320 --> 0:10:02.760 you're going after the corporation. And then of course they 0:10:02.800 --> 0:10:05.600 have shareholders and they have a phidio shared responsibility shareholders. 0:10:06.320 --> 0:10:10.280 So this is why there is so much alarm because 0:10:10.280 --> 0:10:13.720 they already if Brendan Carr never does this interview, never 0:10:13.800 --> 0:10:17.240 goes public with any of this, right, he ended up, 0:10:17.280 --> 0:10:20.439 this is a self owned by Brendan Carr. Right, this 0:10:20.559 --> 0:10:24.200 is where where the where If he doesn't do this 0:10:24.320 --> 0:10:31.839 interview and he behind the scenes exerts this basically reminds 0:10:31.920 --> 0:10:35.040 Next Star in Disney that they need their approval and 0:10:35.080 --> 0:10:37.360 they didn't like what Jimmy Kimmel said. So you might 0:10:37.400 --> 0:10:39.000 want to do something about this if you want to 0:10:39.040 --> 0:10:42.400 curry favor with us. I guess we should be thankful 0:10:42.400 --> 0:10:45.320 he said it out loud. Right, he could have done 0:10:45.320 --> 0:10:47.120 this behind the scenes, we wouldn't know about it. We 0:10:47.160 --> 0:10:50.520 would all be speculating that perhaps Next Star in Disney 0:10:50.840 --> 0:10:55.280 were either anticipating concern about this and decided to act 0:10:55.360 --> 0:10:58.240 Earli or whatever right in the wake of sort of 0:10:58.240 --> 0:11:01.760 a manufactured outrage. As we know, there is a you know, 0:11:02.080 --> 0:11:07.760 jd vance in his in his when he substituted for 0:11:07.800 --> 0:11:12.920 the first show after Charlie Kirk's assassination, he called on 0:11:13.760 --> 0:11:19.360 a fellow travelers to essentially docks people, right, He called 0:11:19.400 --> 0:11:22.840 on them to do this, you know, promoted cancel culture. 0:11:23.160 --> 0:11:26.560 This is the same guy who lectured European nations a 0:11:26.559 --> 0:11:32.760 few months ago for them coming down too hard on speech. So, yes, 0:11:33.040 --> 0:11:38.480 this hypocrisy everywhere in this story, but really a lot 0:11:38.480 --> 0:11:42.440 of hypocrisy here on the right with cancel culture and 0:11:42.440 --> 0:11:45.719 things like that. So but when he put out that 0:11:45.880 --> 0:11:52.679 call for for doxing, you know, it was clear they 0:11:52.679 --> 0:11:55.640 were looking, right, They're looking they were looking for somebody 0:11:55.679 --> 0:11:58.400 to make an example of it. And you know Donald 0:11:58.400 --> 0:12:03.640 Trump himself, right, I mean, this is where the laws 0:12:03.679 --> 0:12:09.439 on their side, right, Trump after after Colbert was fired 0:12:09.440 --> 0:12:13.400 by paramount during you know that whole thing, so they 0:12:13.400 --> 0:12:15.960 could get that merger done, so that Sherry Redstone could 0:12:15.960 --> 0:12:22.360 get her money, Trump himself said, one down Kimmel's next 0:12:22.840 --> 0:12:25.880 lo and behold where do we go? Is it been 0:12:25.960 --> 0:12:29.600 four weeks, five weeks since the Colbert news and lo 0:12:29.760 --> 0:12:33.880 and behold Kimmel's next So look, Kimmel should know that 0:12:33.920 --> 0:12:38.080 the You know, if Kimmel's agent, I would assume told him, hey, buddy, 0:12:38.720 --> 0:12:41.800 you oversee something that Disney would love to get rid of, 0:12:42.120 --> 0:12:47.240 So be careful. You know, the smart thing to do 0:12:47.240 --> 0:12:51.959 would have been to avoid that topic altogether. But then again, 0:12:52.280 --> 0:12:54.640 they were going to find something at some point, right 0:12:54.720 --> 0:12:57.599 this was there was no doubt he was going to 0:12:57.640 --> 0:13:01.520 be targeted. There's you know, the president's obsessed with trying 0:13:01.559 --> 0:13:04.480 to silence any of his media critics, and that should 0:13:04.520 --> 0:13:07.120 be what's so alarming here is that they're using the 0:13:07.280 --> 0:13:10.960 power of the state. Right. You know what Jimmy Kimmel 0:13:11.000 --> 0:13:13.760 didn't do. He didn't call for the execution, for the 0:13:13.840 --> 0:13:16.880 lethal injection of homeless people. That would have been a 0:13:17.000 --> 0:13:21.400 really disturbing thing that happened on cable news. So in theory, 0:13:21.640 --> 0:13:24.959 the FCC doesn't have oversight over that, but it was 0:13:24.960 --> 0:13:30.080 certainly in bad taste. He apologized for I guess saying 0:13:30.600 --> 0:13:34.439 for apologize for people noticing that he said something outlandish. 0:13:34.600 --> 0:13:37.840 That's what the apology felt like rather than realizing what 0:13:37.880 --> 0:13:40.600 he said was just awful and hateful, but the fact 0:13:40.640 --> 0:13:45.400 that it was instinctual on that, you know, Fox News 0:13:45.400 --> 0:13:48.200 has a choice if that's who they want representing them, 0:13:49.160 --> 0:13:51.679 go for it. Right, They're a private enterprise and they 0:13:51.679 --> 0:13:54.160 can go ahead and do that. But that was an 0:13:54.200 --> 0:14:00.600 extraordinary bad taste. I didn't hear anybody on the right 0:14:01.760 --> 0:14:05.440 get upset about that, And of course Kimmel didn't do 0:14:05.440 --> 0:14:09.760 anything that was remotely like that. Again, Kimmel sin was 0:14:09.800 --> 0:14:16.200 criticizing Mega. He did not disparage Charlie Kirk. He did 0:14:16.240 --> 0:14:21.240 not disparage Charlie Kirk's family. He's in fact on the 0:14:21.280 --> 0:14:27.280 record offering condolences. What he did was go after Maga. 0:14:27.720 --> 0:14:30.160 And again, like, I think this is bad politics for 0:14:30.200 --> 0:14:33.600 everybody to try to blame the other side for political violence, 0:14:33.640 --> 0:14:36.200 because we're going to not only not do anything about 0:14:36.200 --> 0:14:39.960 our political violence problem, but it's likely to incite more violence. 0:14:42.760 --> 0:14:45.400 And there's a part of me that wonders if that's 0:14:45.400 --> 0:14:48.600 a feature not a bug, if this is exactly what 0:14:49.240 --> 0:14:52.480 Stephen Miller and Brendan Carr hoping, like they want to 0:14:52.520 --> 0:14:56.360 poke and get more reaction so they can come down 0:14:56.400 --> 0:15:02.000 even harder on more institutions. And that is that is 0:15:02.080 --> 0:15:06.320 chilling on all this front. And we've seen now all 0:15:06.320 --> 0:15:11.360 these corporate don't look here's my I'm begging these corporations 0:15:11.720 --> 0:15:17.520 that are publicly traded that own news organizations. Just sell them, Please, 0:15:18.200 --> 0:15:22.960 just sell them. Do not do not stop this. You 0:15:23.000 --> 0:15:27.600 are you are destroying the information ecosystem. You are participating 0:15:27.600 --> 0:15:32.440 in this. You are you are undermining your own employees. 0:15:32.600 --> 0:15:34.920 This is not fair. Look what happened to John Carl 0:15:34.960 --> 0:15:40.080 earlier this week when when when the President threatened him 0:15:40.200 --> 0:15:44.240 and ABC News nobody backed him up. I didn't see 0:15:44.280 --> 0:15:48.280 Disney trying to push back on that, and there was 0:15:48.360 --> 0:15:53.480 nothing illegitimate about that question. In fact, in many cases, 0:15:53.520 --> 0:15:57.240 you know, if it is, it's not worth his time. 0:15:57.240 --> 0:15:59.600 But John Carl could be suing the President for defamation. 0:16:00.160 --> 0:16:04.920 Right if if, if, if you accept the premise of 0:16:04.960 --> 0:16:08.400 Trump's lawsuit against the New York Times, then we all 0:16:08.560 --> 0:16:11.360 then there's a bunch of us who have been defamed 0:16:11.400 --> 0:16:14.360 by Donald Trump over the years via his Truth for 0:16:14.520 --> 0:16:20.440 Truth social organization, which he's an owner of. Right, it 0:16:20.600 --> 0:16:23.840 makes him responsible. It's not he's not a public figure. 0:16:23.960 --> 0:16:26.360 He's a public figure. In addition to be an owner 0:16:26.400 --> 0:16:32.240 of a platform that he uses to disparage with malice, right, 0:16:32.360 --> 0:16:36.040 with malicious intent, which is always part of those things. Now, 0:16:36.080 --> 0:16:38.440 are they extraordinarily hard to prove? And as a journalist, 0:16:38.520 --> 0:16:40.720 as somebody like John Carr gooing, hey man, I can 0:16:40.720 --> 0:16:48.200 take the arrows, of course he is. But if you're 0:16:48.280 --> 0:16:50.720 if you own a news organization and you're a publicly 0:16:50.760 --> 0:16:52.640 traded company and you're not going to stand up for 0:16:52.640 --> 0:16:56.240 your journalists, don't get can get out of the journalism business. 0:16:56.680 --> 0:16:59.800 Just put ABC News up for sale. Put put up 0:16:59.920 --> 0:17:03.920 all these news divisions up for sale, because you're undermining 0:17:03.960 --> 0:17:06.840 the credibility you think they've been. Their credibility has been 0:17:06.920 --> 0:17:10.879 undermined already by this concerted effort on the right to 0:17:11.000 --> 0:17:15.400 undermine the credibility of these news organizations fairly or unfairly. Well, 0:17:15.440 --> 0:17:20.080 what you're doing is actually undermining them for everybody. Right, 0:17:20.160 --> 0:17:23.720 So nobody is going to trust CBS News because of 0:17:23.720 --> 0:17:26.320 what they've done. Look, the guy they hired to be 0:17:26.480 --> 0:17:28.840 an umbudsman would be a good hire if you were 0:17:28.920 --> 0:17:32.200 just hiring a conservative umbudsman and a liberal umbudsman, if 0:17:32.200 --> 0:17:34.760 you were hiring somebody from the Hudson Institute and somebody 0:17:34.800 --> 0:17:37.480 for the Center for American Progress, then I might have 0:17:37.560 --> 0:17:42.200 some faith that CBS was trying to be something different here, 0:17:42.280 --> 0:17:45.480 but that is not what they did, right, They just 0:17:45.640 --> 0:17:47.679 catered to one side of the ouse. So what it 0:17:47.720 --> 0:17:50.960 is going to do? It already doesn't really have credibility 0:17:50.960 --> 0:17:52.800 with the right. Now they've made sure they're not going 0:17:52.880 --> 0:17:55.320 to have any credibility with the people that live in 0:17:55.359 --> 0:17:58.080 the in reality and the people that live in the left. 0:17:58.640 --> 0:18:01.720 So here we all are. So I would just beg, 0:18:02.119 --> 0:18:04.159 you know, if you're not going to stand up for 0:18:04.200 --> 0:18:07.159 your news organizations, the laws on your side in this 0:18:08.000 --> 0:18:10.159 the First Amendment, the laws on your side. If the 0:18:10.200 --> 0:18:14.000 FCC had nixed the merger of Tegna and and and 0:18:15.080 --> 0:18:18.200 next hour over this, or nixed the merger of ESPN 0:18:18.720 --> 0:18:21.480 and the NFL media properties, right, and this was sort 0:18:21.520 --> 0:18:24.760 of a car was going to weaponize his role at 0:18:24.760 --> 0:18:28.960 the FCC. The amount of evidence that Disney and the 0:18:29.080 --> 0:18:32.439 NFL would have to essentially sue and say that this 0:18:32.600 --> 0:18:35.040 was a violation of their kind of the of their 0:18:35.040 --> 0:18:40.199 constitutional rights government, you know, the government's insertion in speech. 0:18:40.520 --> 0:18:45.040 They'd have a case. But what's really scary is that 0:18:45.080 --> 0:18:49.600 they refused to use the law to protect their business 0:18:49.640 --> 0:19:05.560 interests and instead they're capitulating. You know. This is why 0:19:05.680 --> 0:19:09.719 again a lot of US civil libertarians are extraordinarily alarmed 0:19:09.720 --> 0:19:14.840 at how easy it is to control these these entities. 0:19:15.520 --> 0:19:20.080 I personally believe this goes back to the difference between 0:19:20.160 --> 0:19:21.840 you know and Trump one point zero. When he would 0:19:21.960 --> 0:19:27.880 veer into these unconstitutional territories, there were fellow Republicans and 0:19:28.320 --> 0:19:32.680 people in Trump's cabinet who were the guardrails, and when 0:19:32.720 --> 0:19:35.959 they would speak up, corporate America then would actually stiffen 0:19:36.040 --> 0:19:41.440 its spine, you know, sort of the non partisan part 0:19:41.480 --> 0:19:45.560 of the of the nation's sort of cultural and business 0:19:45.560 --> 0:19:48.760 elite would say, whoa, this is too far, and because 0:19:49.520 --> 0:19:51.760 they felt like they had cover because it was coming 0:19:51.800 --> 0:19:55.240 from both sides of the aisle. But Donald Trump has 0:19:55.280 --> 0:20:00.439 purged the party of those Republicans that were comfortable up. 0:20:00.440 --> 0:20:02.359 He's made it clear that if you speak up, I'll 0:20:02.359 --> 0:20:06.160 destroy and end your career, potentially even harm you financially. 0:20:06.960 --> 0:20:10.840 So those that might be speaking out against these this 0:20:11.000 --> 0:20:15.600 government overreach have chosen to not run for reelection if 0:20:15.640 --> 0:20:19.439 they're uncomfortable being members of Trump's political machine, right, and 0:20:19.480 --> 0:20:21.399 so you know, you know who those people are. I 0:20:21.400 --> 0:20:24.040 don't have to I don't have to recite them by 0:20:24.160 --> 0:20:27.280 name right now, but that's what's happened. And then so 0:20:27.440 --> 0:20:31.040 when you've had no Republican pushback, right, then you've had 0:20:31.320 --> 0:20:35.720 all these I think corporate America has been scared away 0:20:35.760 --> 0:20:39.679 from this there's and they know that the government, you know, 0:20:39.760 --> 0:20:46.359 this administration's comfortable weaponizing government against any political anybody that 0:20:46.400 --> 0:20:49.600 they think is standing in their way politically, and so 0:20:49.760 --> 0:20:51.960 they won't stand up because they don't want to look 0:20:52.720 --> 0:20:56.439 if the only people opposing Trump are are you know, 0:20:56.920 --> 0:20:59.280 people like me in the media over these things, or 0:21:00.040 --> 0:21:04.119 folks on the left, if they're the only ones critiquing 0:21:04.160 --> 0:21:06.119 what he's doing, they don't want to look like they're 0:21:06.160 --> 0:21:09.359 just you know, he lumps everybody in as a partisan actor. 0:21:09.720 --> 0:21:11.080 And it gets me to the core of one of 0:21:11.080 --> 0:21:13.879 my biggest sort of and I and I you know, 0:21:13.920 --> 0:21:18.280 to my conservative friends out there who constantly think everything 0:21:18.320 --> 0:21:21.680 that isn't conservative is biased, I would say to you, 0:21:22.800 --> 0:21:25.879 Brendan Carr is a co partisan conservative. He does not 0:21:26.320 --> 0:21:30.000 have the intellectual ability to know what's neutral. He thinks 0:21:30.040 --> 0:21:34.240 anything that isn't conservative is liberal. Right. There's some liberals 0:21:34.240 --> 0:21:36.600 that believe this, that anything that isn't liberal. If you're 0:21:36.640 --> 0:21:40.360 not siding with them, you're part of the right wing machine. 0:21:40.840 --> 0:21:44.520 This is how we've lost our ability to have conversations. 0:21:45.160 --> 0:21:48.919 We've lost our ability to sort of moderate, not in 0:21:49.000 --> 0:21:52.280 saying you have to be moderate, but moderating temperament where 0:21:52.320 --> 0:21:55.560 you realize that the whole point of these you know, 0:21:55.920 --> 0:22:01.120 and ideological left and ideological right and practice politics means 0:22:01.640 --> 0:22:05.440 it's a little bit, you take a little bit of both, 0:22:05.480 --> 0:22:08.159 and whoever's winning, maybe you get seventy percent of the pie. 0:22:08.320 --> 0:22:10.560 They get thirty percent of the pie. When we stop 0:22:10.800 --> 0:22:14.040 viewing politics that way, when we stop governing that way, 0:22:14.600 --> 0:22:16.800 where winning forty nine percent of the vote means I 0:22:16.800 --> 0:22:20.000 get one hundred percent of my way right, which is 0:22:20.080 --> 0:22:21.880 essentially what Donald Trump has done. He did not win 0:22:21.920 --> 0:22:24.320 a majority in this country. Yes, he won the popular 0:22:24.480 --> 0:22:26.360 plurality of the popular vote, but he did not get 0:22:26.359 --> 0:22:29.760 fifty percent. Doesn't even have half the support of the country, 0:22:30.240 --> 0:22:32.960 and he does not govern as if there is a 0:22:33.080 --> 0:22:37.040 robust minority out there that didn't that didn't want that 0:22:37.080 --> 0:22:39.840 point of view. If you want to be a successful president, 0:22:39.920 --> 0:22:44.280 you actually try to govern a little bit for everybody. 0:22:44.359 --> 0:22:46.919 But that isn't what he's looking for. He's looking in 0:22:47.000 --> 0:22:52.480 some cases for revenge or accumulating power. But this is look, 0:22:52.560 --> 0:22:57.719 this is you know, sometimes you have an imperfect moment, 0:22:58.720 --> 0:23:05.760 an imperfect person that ends up being a galvanizing issue 0:23:05.800 --> 0:23:08.280 in the moment. I don't know whether this has long 0:23:08.400 --> 0:23:13.920 term relevance to the mid term elections, for instance, but 0:23:14.000 --> 0:23:15.720 what I will say, you know, and I do worry 0:23:15.720 --> 0:23:20.520 that sometimes these criticisms of that come from US folks 0:23:20.520 --> 0:23:23.479 that are worried about our civil liberties, you know, are 0:23:23.480 --> 0:23:26.000 seen as sort of like a you know, a luxury issue. 0:23:26.480 --> 0:23:28.880 You know about the First Amendment, and it's all about 0:23:28.880 --> 0:23:33.720 the press and all of this stuff. But you'll care 0:23:33.800 --> 0:23:37.760 when it comes for you, right, And how I do 0:23:37.800 --> 0:23:41.480 think this stuff hurts politically long term on the right 0:23:41.560 --> 0:23:44.280 and that they're inviting actually a political loss over this 0:23:44.359 --> 0:23:48.200 over time is that we know people in the middle 0:23:48.240 --> 0:23:50.280 didn't like the cancel culture that was taking place on 0:23:50.320 --> 0:23:53.200 the left, right, this idea, right, you'd hear this all 0:23:53.240 --> 0:23:57.280 the time. You're afraid of you know, you'd have people 0:23:57.280 --> 0:24:01.359 that weren't partisan but would find themselves side with those 0:24:01.400 --> 0:24:03.920 and the right that were complaining that, you know, political 0:24:04.040 --> 0:24:06.640 thought was being weaponized against them, it would cost them 0:24:06.720 --> 0:24:12.280 jobs or cost them opportunities. A lot of people in 0:24:12.280 --> 0:24:15.560 this country don't like that. And now the Republicans are 0:24:15.560 --> 0:24:19.200 doing exactly They're behaving the exact way they said they 0:24:19.240 --> 0:24:22.320 didn't like when they thought the left or other institutions 0:24:22.320 --> 0:24:24.720 were doing this to them. I mean, I will go 0:24:24.800 --> 0:24:27.600 to my grave believing the single biggest mistake we've made 0:24:27.600 --> 0:24:31.840 in the last five years was deplatforming Donald Trump from 0:24:31.920 --> 0:24:35.480 Twitter and Facebook and the pressure campaign on Jack Dorsey 0:24:35.760 --> 0:24:38.439 and on Zuckerberg when they cave done that. You know, 0:24:38.760 --> 0:24:42.479 you know, it's a it was. It just is a 0:24:42.520 --> 0:24:47.080 monumental mistake, right it That was sort of the moment 0:24:47.280 --> 0:24:51.680 that we stopped even having shared conversation, shared debate. An 0:24:51.840 --> 0:24:57.160 entirely new right wing media ecosystem was created in under 0:24:57.200 --> 0:25:01.560 the guys, an umbrella of grievance, created the situation we're in. 0:25:02.119 --> 0:25:05.119 So you know, I couldn't. I was one of the 0:25:05.160 --> 0:25:08.040 few who said, this is a mistake to not to 0:25:08.119 --> 0:25:11.480 somehow ban anybody that didn't certify the election from TV. 0:25:11.600 --> 0:25:15.080