Speaker 1: You're listening to Comedy Central.
Speaker 2: Here's a relatable question. Do you ever get a job
Speaker 2: that you weren't totally qualified for? I know I have.
Speaker 2: Turns out not everyone's cut out to be a thoracic surgeon,
Speaker 2: But maybe things would have turned out differently from me
Speaker 2: if I had a famous dad, like if my dad
Speaker 2: was the president of the United States. This is the
Speaker 2: focal point of the Republican conspiracy theory around Hunter Biden,
Speaker 2: that he used his connection to his dad, Joe Biden,
Speaker 2: to make money and overseas deals. And yes, obviously this
Speaker 2: is coming from the people who supported Donald Trump and
Speaker 2: his family as they milked every government connection they could
Speaker 2: for four years, like in Ocean's eleven movie if it
Speaker 2: took place during a Nickelodeon shopping spring. Now, if that
Speaker 2: reference is too far removed for you, then apologies in advance.
Speaker 2: Because the Hunter Biden story has so many references to
Speaker 2: things that seem fake Cafe Milano, Sino Hawk, the secret
Speaker 2: Willard Hotel breakfast that we probably should have made a
Speaker 2: Hunter wiki ahead of time just to help you through it.
Speaker 2: As Jordan Klepper fingers, the conspiracy, We've got to packed
Speaker 2: episode today We're gonna walk through the conspiracy theory known
Speaker 2: as Hunter Biden's Laptop with a Fox News expert. Then
Speaker 2: Democratic Congressman Jerry Connolly will discuss the House's strategy responding
Speaker 2: to an investigation, and then Tippity Cross will talk the
Speaker 2: media's responsibility. Before we even start, you should know that
Speaker 2: it's not even proven there is a laptop. There is
Speaker 2: a hard drive copying from what a Trump supporter who
Speaker 2: owns a computer repair shop in Delaware says was a
Speaker 2: laptop that he handed over to the FBI, But nobody's
Speaker 2: seen a picture of it, and what the hell, let's
Speaker 2: just dig his word for it. The Hunter Biden laptop
Speaker 2: saga is a fantastical right wing reverie concocted during the
Speaker 2: twenty twenty campaign by Rudy Giuliani, Donald Trump, and of
Speaker 2: course Fox News, which means it's inevitable that I heard
Speaker 2: the words Hunter Biden laptop constantly at Trump rallies, even
Speaker 2: if the people there didn't exactly know what it is.
Speaker 3: You can see on Fox and One American News was
Speaker 3: about the the laptop, the Hunter Biden's laptop, and then
Speaker 3: all the crupts and taking money from the different countries,
Speaker 3: you know from Russian and then Joe Biden would do
Speaker 3: whatever these countries needed.
Speaker 4: Oh what either what.
Speaker 3: He did or did not do?
Speaker 2: What didn't? What did he do?
Speaker 1: You have to be determined exactly what he did.
Speaker 5: I saw pedophilia and China something like that. I don't know.
Speaker 6: We see about like the Hunter Biden scandal.
Speaker 2: What exactly happened with that?
Speaker 6: I think they found a laptop that had you know,
Speaker 6: emails and it was an FBI. They found a laptop
Speaker 6: with like emails and pictures of you know, Biden talking
Speaker 6: with like Ukraine and China about business deals and stuff
Speaker 6: like that.
Speaker 5: Which Hunter Biden did it?
Speaker 2: Something that happened?
Speaker 6: I mean the conspiracy theorists would say that it's Joe
Speaker 6: Biden and Hunter Biden communicating with you know, outside countries
Speaker 6: on business deals and stuff like that.
Speaker 2: Are you calling him a conspiracy theorist? That's just what
Speaker 2: he said, right. Okay, let's help these private investigators out
Speaker 2: of the little bit. Joining me today is Andrew Lawrence,
Speaker 2: the deputy director of Rapid Response at Media Matters for America.
Speaker 2: Basically that means he watches Fox News all day. Andrew,
Speaker 2: thanks for being here to talk about the laptop from Hell.
Speaker 7: Yeah, of course, thank you for having me. I'm excited
Speaker 7: to finger this conspiracy with you.
Speaker 2: Oh it's sounds sexy when you say thank you.
Speaker 1: Hunter Biden is sexy. It's a sexy top.
Speaker 2: He is. He is a sexy man. He's all over.
Speaker 2: If you're into pin up dudes and Fox News, he's
Speaker 2: your guy. I want to jump into it because House
Speaker 2: Republicans are about to become the majority, and they've announced
Speaker 2: that they're going to investigate Hunter Biden. So let's start
Speaker 2: with just establishing who Hunter Biden is, because some of
Speaker 2: the things Hunter Biden has done are probably not very
Speaker 2: becoming of a son of a public official, like using
Speaker 2: the Biden family name to make foreign business deals. That
Speaker 2: a good place to start.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean, I think I think it's fair to
Speaker 7: say that Hunter Biden is, you know, he's essentially a
Speaker 7: fail son.
Speaker 1: I think.
Speaker 7: He's He's had a lot of tough things happened to
Speaker 7: him in his life. You know, I think that it's
Speaker 7: it's fairly well known Joe Biden's history of tragedy with
Speaker 7: I believe it was his wife dying in a in
Speaker 7: a car accident. I know Hunter was involved in that
Speaker 7: and and and you know that's something that's gonna affect you.
Speaker 7: And then his brother Bo Biden as well, passing from
Speaker 7: from cancer and not all that long ago, and that's
Speaker 7: sort of when, according to what I've seen, his tailspin
Speaker 7: really began. But you know, I think, like you're right,
Speaker 7: like it is fair to say that that there is
Speaker 7: there's some questionable things there that Republicans and right wing
Speaker 7: media are trying to to glom onto this as some
Speaker 7: sort of giant scandal that's going to bring down Joe
Speaker 7: Biden and the Democratic Party is is a little bit ridiculous.
Speaker 7: And I mean, there's so much to get into the
Speaker 7: weeds here. You know, you got into it a little
Speaker 7: bit with that that nobody's really even seen this laptop yet.
Speaker 7: And here we are with months in mindset. What's it
Speaker 7: been like two years now since this first came up.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think it is fascinating. Part of the
Speaker 2: reasons we wanted to cover it one, I'm running into
Speaker 2: people on the road and it's always a go to
Speaker 2: hunter Biden And more often than not, the stuff that
Speaker 2: I run into with people on the road, what is
Speaker 2: the dodge? What is the quickest thing you can grab
Speaker 2: a hold on to. It's easy to say Hunter biden laptop.
Speaker 2: It's harder to say what Hunter Biden's laptop contains. But
Speaker 2: I think it is fascinating because I also think on
Speaker 2: the left, the left is trying as hard as they
Speaker 2: can not to address what is potentially on this laptop
Speaker 2: and some of the allegations, which are some dire allegations.
Speaker 2: Now I need a download on what I need to
Speaker 2: know about this, where the reality is, where we should
Speaker 2: be suspicions and what is the bullshit people are slinging
Speaker 2: at the board to try to distract you from something else.
Speaker 2: So you're helping me out here With Hunter Biden, I
Speaker 2: do think it's important to point out it is true
Speaker 2: he's gone through a lot of tragedy in his life.
Speaker 2: If we've seen images, He's dealt with drug addiction publicly
Speaker 2: about that in a book. A lot of these things
Speaker 2: are things that he verifies and talks openly about. He
Speaker 2: himself is an attorney and he's been a foreign lobbyist.
Speaker 2: Is that correct? Yes, And that's where some of this
Speaker 2: this drama starts to.
Speaker 7: To And he's currently under investigation in Delaware as well.
Speaker 7: For I believe it's tax fraud. Not one hundred percent
Speaker 7: sure on that, but it's something like that.
Speaker 2: And I think that's that's an important thing too. When
Speaker 2: they talk about hunter Byde being under investigation, it's one
Speaker 2: of the little tax fraud God bless investigate that tax fraud.
Speaker 2: Not for me though, and all of my tax fraud
Speaker 2: comes from imbecility. I really don't know the difference between
Speaker 2: W nine W four, So so don't come at me.
Speaker 2: That's just that's my naivete. But so hunter Byden is
Speaker 2: under investigation, but not exactly for the stuff that Republicans
Speaker 2: are arguing. So we got nepotism, we got corruption, we
Speaker 2: got hardware repair, we got Ukrainian gas companies. What does
Speaker 2: that say about the nature of this conspiracy theory?
Speaker 1: Well, I think you know, we can take this.
Speaker 7: The Hunter Biden laptop is like the latest thing, right,
Speaker 7: and so you had in this every election. It seems
Speaker 7: the Republican Party and conservative media are looking for something
Speaker 7: to grab hold of. And you said it yourself earlier
Speaker 7: that that people are fired up about this, but they
Speaker 7: don't really know why. Right, they know, Hunter Biden's laptop
Speaker 7: is something that they should be they should be upset
Speaker 7: about and that that there's something the farious there. But
Speaker 7: you can take a look back at, you.
Speaker 1: Know, the.
Speaker 7: Her emails, the same thing. You know, nobody really knew
Speaker 7: what was what was wrong with that, but they knew
Speaker 7: that there was something wrong with it. It proves her untrustworthiness,
Speaker 7: the same thing with you can go back to.
Speaker 2: It's also it also proves how little people know about technology.
Speaker 2: The fact that you could say emails and laptop. It's
Speaker 2: as if America is just a bunch of seventy four
Speaker 2: year old grandparents who lost remote and are like, I
Speaker 2: don't know, it's greatious devils right that who controls the magnets.
Speaker 2: It's the magnets who could ever figure these things out.
Speaker 2: But you just.
Speaker 7: Described the Republican base right there, right for the most part.
Speaker 7: I mean that's and so they hear Hunter Biden, they
Speaker 7: hear laptop and it just sounds it just sounds nefarious.
Speaker 7: And then I and then you throw into this was
Speaker 7: uncovered by a laptop repairman who contacted the FBI and
Speaker 7: talked to the FBI, and you know it, all the
Speaker 7: Deep States involved in this now and it's all of
Speaker 7: these little buzzwords that they've they've spent years, you know,
Speaker 7: making these into buzzwords, making these into things that Republican
Speaker 7: voters just have a reaction to, a visceral reaction just
Speaker 7: hearing these words, you know, at this point, and I
Speaker 7: know we're going to get into the investigations and stuff
Speaker 7: like that. But if you remember back with Bengazi, I
Speaker 7: believe it was Kevin McCarthy, he was bragging about how
Speaker 7: there would not have been her emails without the Bengazi investigations.
Speaker 8: Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right, but we put
Speaker 8: together a Benghazi Special Committee, a select committee. What are
Speaker 8: her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping? Why because she's untrustable.
Speaker 8: But no one would have known any that had happened,
Speaker 8: had we a great.
Speaker 1: And that's really the point of this.
Speaker 7: They want to investigate this laptop just so they can
Speaker 7: find something to go after Joe Biden and by extension,
Speaker 7: the Democratic Party.
Speaker 2: With fun exciting Let's figure out what they're gonna what
Speaker 2: they're gonna find. So, so let's break this down. Twenty nineteen.
Speaker 2: There's three water damage laptops that allegedly Hunter Biden brings
Speaker 2: to a Delaware computer repair shop yep. And the shop owner,
Speaker 2: who's a Trump supporter sees the receipt. It's from Hunter
Speaker 2: Biden allegedly. He starts going through some of these files,
Speaker 2: notices some pictures.
Speaker 1: He's also legally blind too.
Speaker 7: The shopkeeper is a bright and he can't he can't
Speaker 7: confirm that it was actually Hunter that dropped it off,
Speaker 7: you know, but there is a receipt with what looks
Speaker 7: to be Hunter's Hunter's signature, so you know, give them
Speaker 7: the benefit of the doubt.
Speaker 2: So okay, yes, there's a receipt, and supposedly Hunter doesn't
Speaker 2: pay for the repair, and therefore this is where things
Speaker 2: get legal. Now there's a moral question here too. But
Speaker 2: the laptop, multiple laptops are left there for past ninety days,
Speaker 2: so they become the owner of the repair shop. It's
Speaker 2: now his laptop.
Speaker 1: Yes, it's his property by law.
Speaker 2: So he starts going through this stuff and he starts
Speaker 2: fighting pictures, he starts fighting emails. Like what happens next
Speaker 2: after he sort of connects the dots of whose laptop
Speaker 2: this supposedly is and what he might have on it.
Speaker 7: Okay, so this guy's name is John mac Isaac, and
Speaker 7: like you said, he's a conservative Trump supporter. This is
Speaker 7: all like you said, you know, twenty nineteen. It's important
Speaker 7: to sort of set the timeframe as well. This is
Speaker 7: a month I think maybe three weeks before the election
Speaker 7: something like that.
Speaker 1: So he's deep.
Speaker 7: Into this world of right wing politics, conservative media. He's
Speaker 7: very worried about the deep state, but decide he talks
Speaker 7: to his dad about it, who I believe was formerly
Speaker 7: in the army.
Speaker 1: I believe I might be wrong.
Speaker 7: About that, but his dad recommends that he contacts the
Speaker 7: local FBI field office.
Speaker 1: So he does that.
Speaker 7: The FBI comes by and apparently they seize the laptop
Speaker 7: and that's it. That's the last time that the laptop
Speaker 7: was ever actually seen. Mister Isaac made copies of the
Speaker 7: laptop and put it onto a hard drive and then
Speaker 7: at that point, you know, it's just him handing it
Speaker 7: off trying to contact Giuliani. Uh, I know, Steve Bannon
Speaker 7: ended up with with a copy of it, and and
Speaker 7: then you end up with Bannon contacting the New York Post.
Speaker 7: And that's sort of how this became a thing.
Speaker 2: What does he think he has to begin with, He's
Speaker 2: got a laptop, it's Hunter Biden. But what what what? What
Speaker 2: does he thinks on the laptop that's worthy of getting
Speaker 2: it to to Steve Bannon.
Speaker 7: Now, according to him, he pretty much ignored the salacious pictures,
Speaker 7: the salacious details, things like that.
Speaker 2: He they say, they say that this thing's got a
Speaker 2: ton of that, right that, years and years of of
Speaker 2: of pictures of Hunter with uh uh in sexually compromising positions,
Speaker 2: doing using drugs, using drugs, things of that nature like
Speaker 2: that that's on there. So he claims he's not interested
Speaker 2: in that.
Speaker 7: He's not interested in that, He says, what he's interested
Speaker 7: in more is the emails, particularly about foreign policy type stuff.
Speaker 7: Hunters dealings with agents of say China, and there was
Speaker 7: Beismo was the one thing that he was really focused on,
Speaker 7: according to Isaac. According to the Repairman and Barismo was
Speaker 7: was an energy company where Hunter received. I mean it's
Speaker 7: basically a no show job, a million dollars a year,
Speaker 7: you know, a no show job, which again, which is
Speaker 7: you know, look that sucks and and I mean not
Speaker 7: for not for him, you know, for him it's great,
Speaker 7: but that's like I mean, welcome to America, right, Like
Speaker 7: I mean yeah, like like the sons of politicians get
Speaker 7: million dollar a year no show jobs, and so it's
Speaker 7: not really that big of a scandal, but that's what
Speaker 7: they're trying to turn it into, you know, And I'm
Speaker 7: not too much into.
Speaker 1: Like what about what about?
Speaker 7: But I mean we're talking about a few months after
Speaker 7: Evanka gets those those trademarks in China for whatever, it was,
Speaker 7: twenty million dollars, you.
Speaker 1: Know, things like that.
Speaker 7: So at that point, it's it becomes barisma. And honestly,
Speaker 7: before this interview, before I started researching this stuff, again,
Speaker 7: I totally forgot about barisma.
Speaker 1: But this was like a huge thing.
Speaker 2: Barisma was that was the big talking point that they
Speaker 2: were trying to get stick before stick before that. I
Speaker 2: think it is. It's a good point. It shows just
Speaker 2: how broken this system is, and I think it is true.
Speaker 2: I think folks on the left need to look at
Speaker 2: this and there's some shady stuff that happens, but it
Speaker 2: didn't look like there was a connection between Joe Biden
Speaker 2: having influence and the money that was paid to his son. Correct,
Speaker 2: Is that's sort of where it stood.
Speaker 7: Yes, yeah, and it doesn't show that. But so now
Speaker 7: what they're doing is they need a thing, right, Conservatives
Speaker 7: just need a thing that they can repeat and what
Speaker 7: they can say, and you know, I don't know if
Speaker 7: you remember, I think there was only one presidential debate,
Speaker 7: but in that debate, Donald Trump kept yelling asking by
Speaker 7: it and who.
Speaker 1: Was the big guy? Who is the big guy?
Speaker 7: And that's because there was there was an email where
Speaker 7: Hunter said I'm gonna set up a meeting with the
Speaker 7: big guy. And conservatives are just like, all right, that
Speaker 7: proves that's Joe Biden. Joe Biden is meeting with his
Speaker 7: business partners, Joe Biden is taking money. You know, they say,
Speaker 7: that's what all of this proves, and like it doesn't,
Speaker 7: you know, I mean, all it proves is that Hunter
Speaker 7: Biden like was connected and got a bunch of money,
Speaker 7: and like there's there's there's a scandal there. But it's
Speaker 7: not like we're impeaching Joe Biden over this stuff, you know.
Speaker 2: And yet yeah, we're probably going to be impeaching Joe
Speaker 2: Biden over all of this stuff.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So at that point is that the smoking gun
Speaker 2: when people are talking about what is there are they
Speaker 2: putting to this this email that says and maybe am
Speaker 2: I correct that there's maybe a couple emails that reference
Speaker 2: one the big guy, a meeting with the big guy
Speaker 2: that perhaps Hunter could have was that with be cause
Speaker 2: there's there's Bearisma uh which is Ukraine U craated in
Speaker 2: gas company. Yes, right, but then we also had there's
Speaker 2: a Chinese there's Chinese money in there.
Speaker 7: There's Chinese there was there was a Chinese company as well. Yeah,
Speaker 7: that was in there as well.
Speaker 2: The Chinese company they're paying money to to Hunter and
Speaker 2: also Joe's brother Is that correct?
Speaker 1: And yeah, I mean the whole family's kind of mixed
Speaker 1: up with them.
Speaker 2: This is shitty. This is it is what are we
Speaker 2: doing where we're are good, we're a good, clean politician.
Speaker 2: So so Joe's brothers may be getting money from China.
Speaker 2: Hunters may be getting money from China. I think the
Speaker 2: timeline is important here too, because they're maybe getting money
Speaker 2: after Joe's out of power.
Speaker 1: When he when he wasn't in office, right, So.
Speaker 2: So technically even if Joe's getting money at that point,
Speaker 2: not illegal, but not ideal.
Speaker 7: No, not illegal and certainly not ideal. I mean I
Speaker 7: think that's that's definitely fair. But you know, I mean
Speaker 7: we're talking about this. It's like all right, if you
Speaker 7: want to make make that type of stuff illegal, like
Speaker 7: make it illegal, but it's just it's it's.
Speaker 1: Not right now.
Speaker 7: And so that's that's the world we live in, you know,
Speaker 7: and it sucks like it sucks, but that's that's where
Speaker 7: we're at right now.
Speaker 2: Talk to me how the how Fox and sort of
Speaker 2: the Mica the media echo chambers started to elevate this story.
Speaker 7: Yeah, so you know, there was when this four story
Speaker 7: first broke, This had been shopped around a lot by believe.
Speaker 7: I'm pretty sure it was Juliani, I guess at that
Speaker 7: point shopping this around.
Speaker 1: Wall Street Journal turned it down. So they turned it.
Speaker 1: They went with the New York Post, who ended up
Speaker 1: running this story.
Speaker 2: And so why are they turning it down.
Speaker 7: Because you can't even I mean, at that point, you
Speaker 7: can't verify that it's even actually the laptop, right, And again,
Speaker 7: like we got to remember, like what we're coming off
Speaker 7: from in twenty sixteen, with just the flood of misinformation
Speaker 7: and nonsense. And you know, I've worked on some pretty
Speaker 7: big political campaigns and in the last few weeks of
Speaker 7: the election, the press isn't going to just take something
Speaker 7: like out of the blue that hasn't been vetted or verified,
Speaker 7: or at least most of the press isn't.
Speaker 2: You know, Well, the press at this point was spooked
Speaker 2: because of what happened with Hillary and Trump just weeks before.
Speaker 7: Correct exactly, yeah, yeah, and this type of thing, there's
Speaker 7: just no way to vet it. I mean, you need
Speaker 7: time to verify that this is true, that there's actually
Speaker 7: a scandal here. And you know, we're three weeks, three
Speaker 7: weeks and so I'm pretty sure that's why Wall Street
Speaker 7: Journal didn't dinner.
Speaker 2: So the major media outlets are not running with this.
Speaker 2: They're scared to run with it. But now here we
Speaker 2: are a couple of years later, looking back at this,
Speaker 2: even this week, CBS News has verified parts of information
Speaker 2: that's on the hard drive. They still don't have a laptop. Correct, right, Yes,
Speaker 2: it seems as if there is some verification of what
Speaker 2: was potentially there, and there's already criticism of At the time,
Speaker 2: Facebook was limiting the amounts of stories that were showing
Speaker 2: up around Hunter Binden.
Speaker 1: Nobody could share it, I think. I don't know anybody
Speaker 1: could share it.
Speaker 2: You couldn't sare right, I think, And that was Zuckerberg
Speaker 2: at at that point had been told by the FBI
Speaker 2: careful because Russian misinformation is all over the campaign, or
Speaker 2: there's a potential for it, so be on the lookout
Speaker 2: for it. Like in hindsight, was there more there there
Speaker 2: than the media gave credit to?
Speaker 7: All right, maybe there was more there there, but what
Speaker 7: like just looking back at twenty sixteen, the firestorm that
Speaker 7: would have come out, there was no controversy known at
Speaker 7: that time other than like just Hunter Biden has a laptop, right,
Speaker 7: and the way that conservative media and right wing media
Speaker 7: works in Unison, it would have drowned out everything out,
Speaker 7: you know. But it's about that that Steve Bannon flood
Speaker 7: zone was shit strategy. You know, you just keep throwing
Speaker 7: stuff out there. And I mean you got to give
Speaker 7: conservative media credit for the way that they all reply
Speaker 7: in Unison and.
Speaker 1: They can make a thing out of nothing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, yeah, the flood the zone was shit
Speaker 2: Bannon strategy. This feels like this was this had so
Speaker 2: much shit you could put into that zone.
Speaker 7: Yeah yeah, And that's you know, that's something that he
Speaker 7: actually admitted. He said, Hunter Biden's laptop, you put your
Speaker 7: own obsessions into it, you know. So for for Bannon,
Speaker 7: it was China, you know, he went he went after
Speaker 7: the China thing. For other people it was the drugs
Speaker 7: and and the women. You know and for other and
Speaker 7: you just put whatever it is that you that is
Speaker 7: your obsession. You you channel that into like, oh that
Speaker 7: Hunter Hunter Biden's laptop proves that that's real.
Speaker 2: I love it. It's it's a maga rorshak test.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: Stare into it. See see your peccadillos staring right back
Speaker 2: at you. I think that was fascinating when Bannon has
Speaker 2: talked about it, uh, correctly if I'm wrong, he had
Speaker 2: some moral issues with the idea of putting out some
Speaker 2: of these pictures of Hunter. I mean, this is some
Speaker 2: man's privacy. It's it's his personal pictures. For all the
Speaker 2: pictures of him with illicit drug use. There's pictures of
Speaker 2: like his brother's gravesite.
Speaker 4: There's all these.
Speaker 2: Personal emotional moments that this person put on their laptop.
Speaker 2: And then now somebody else has They have their search histories,
Speaker 2: they have all these types of things. And and I
Speaker 2: believe ban encountered that with uh but at war, Yes,
Speaker 2: so you do it. And I think that's what's so
Speaker 2: fascinating where we're so fucked right now because there are
Speaker 2: legitimate things to be curious about with this information, and
Speaker 2: we should be critical of people who have close connections
Speaker 2: to powerful people. But when it's approached by operatives who
Speaker 2: treat this not as an investigation towards justice but as war,
Speaker 2: the what you have is people acting with warlike tendencies
Speaker 2: who will stop at nothing to only win that benefits
Speaker 2: their side, and that doesn't benefit justice. It benefits the
Speaker 2: person who is fighting in that general at that point,
Speaker 2: that's somebody like Steve Bannon, who's trying to rip people
Speaker 2: off for building a new wall on the Mexico border
Speaker 2: at the.
Speaker 7: Same time, right well, and you have to understand, like
Speaker 7: they're not just demanding that the press cover Hunter Biden's laptop.
Speaker 7: They're demanding that they cover it right now the way
Speaker 7: that I want you to, you know, And like these outlets,
Speaker 7: they do have a responsibility to vet this stuff and
Speaker 7: make sure that it's true before putting it out there,
Speaker 7: especially you know, and I don't want to repeat myself,
Speaker 7: but especially when this is some thing that would be
Speaker 7: used in an attempt to sway the election.
Speaker 2: Fast forward a couple of months from now investigations into
Speaker 2: the laptop?
Speaker 7: Is that a good idea for Republicans? I mean, yeah,
Speaker 7: I mean why wouldn't you? That's just like targeting this
Speaker 7: one guy who is just taking advantage of the system
Speaker 7: that like we have created.
Speaker 2: Right, but that guy, but that guy is the president's son. Yes,
Speaker 2: there are connections there.
Speaker 7: And we should know there's no we should know there's
Speaker 7: no corruption, right, we absolutely should. At the same time,
Speaker 7: this is the system that we've got. And like, if
Speaker 7: you don't want nepotism babies or or or the children
Speaker 7: of wealthy and powerful politicians to get wealthy and powerful jobs,
Speaker 7: then like we need to change the way that we
Speaker 7: do things overall. And it's it's not just him, I mean,
Speaker 7: and it's not just you know, it's not just the
Speaker 7: Trump kids either. I mean, look at the way look
Speaker 7: at the you know, the way that people the Democrats
Speaker 7: buy stocks, you know, and and then pass legislation like
Speaker 7: this is it's everywhere and and so that's why, like
Speaker 7: I feel just going after this one guy is it's
Speaker 7: so disingenuous, you know.
Speaker 1: But yes, we should know if there's corruption, Yeah, we
Speaker 1: should know. And if he did anything illegal, we should
Speaker 1: be in jail. Of course.
Speaker 2: If if America is going to look into the Rorshak
Speaker 2: test that is hunter Biden's laptop, what do you think
Speaker 2: America begins to see and begins to pull.
Speaker 1: Out it's gonna be it is. I mean, what we're
Speaker 1: gonna see.
Speaker 7: There might be something there, But what I think is
Speaker 7: that we're just going to see bullshit from Republicans. They're
Speaker 7: going to look for meetings that Hunter tried to set
Speaker 7: up with his dad, you know. And then and then
Speaker 7: do those companies, well do they do they have do
Speaker 7: they have connections to Zelenski or do they have connections
Speaker 7: to Fauci or you know, I mean you had the
Speaker 7: guy who found the laptop, Isaac. He thinks that it
Speaker 7: shows it might show proof that Hunter Biden is responsible
Speaker 7: for the COVID pandemic, that he was involved in the
Speaker 7: Wuhan Institute of Virology, and that that he was he
Speaker 7: was responsible for creating COVID and unleashing it.
Speaker 2: Like, well, this is fun. Now we're talking, Yeah, can
Speaker 2: we tie him to COVID? It's gonna become a fun
Speaker 2: parlor game pretty soon. We're gonna be playing this at
Speaker 2: Christmas where it's like, can you connect Hunter Biden to COVID? Okay,
Speaker 2: can you connect it to the nets having a subpar
Speaker 2: season this year?
Speaker 7: I'm sure there will be caravan there will be immigration connections.
Speaker 7: You know that it's ten degrees of separation. All they
Speaker 7: need is to find something that maybe connects to George Soros,
Speaker 7: you know, and then all of a sudden, like, oh,
Speaker 7: Hunter Biden is involved.
Speaker 1: In the Great Replacement theory. You know. It's things like that.
Speaker 7: So like, I don't really know where it's going to go,
Speaker 7: but I can tell you it's gonna be a lot
Speaker 7: of bullshit, you know.
Speaker 2: I like what it's done to the Trump family, specifically
Speaker 2: the kids. I mean, it's amazing to watch Don Junior
Speaker 2: criticize Hunter Biden for saying, like how he wishes his
Speaker 2: was Hunter Biden so he could make money off his
Speaker 2: father's name, Which is it is a beautiful thing for
Speaker 2: somebody like Don Junior to yearn for, as if that
Speaker 2: wasn't already the game plan from day one.
Speaker 9: Make a ton of money and do absolutely nothing except that, hey,
Speaker 9: you can meet my dad.
Speaker 2: That's a disgusting trait right to just use your father's
Speaker 2: name to make money off of that.
Speaker 7: Absolutely nepotism needs to be looked into big time.
Speaker 2: Yes, what do you think about Avanka?
Speaker 4: Oh she's so gracious.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, totally amazing.
Speaker 7: I mean it's just the hypocrisy is amazing, but like
Speaker 7: that's never bothered them before, you know, And we're seeing
Speaker 7: reports of the foreign government spending one hundred and fifty
Speaker 7: thousand dollars at Trump Hotel, you know, and things like that,
Speaker 7: and it's like, that's why I have an issue with
Speaker 7: just like going after this one person, this Hunter, you know,
Speaker 7: just targeting him because he's the president's son essentially, and like,
Speaker 7: I mean that's that it shouldn't happen, but like we
Speaker 7: need to be consistent here as well.
Speaker 2: I guess did the media responsibly cover this as as
Speaker 2: we move forward?
Speaker 1: Essentially?
Speaker 7: What this is and what they need is you said,
Speaker 7: you know, when you go to a Trump rally, people
Speaker 7: are upset about Hunter Biden's laptop and they're not sure why.
Speaker 1: That's all they need.
Speaker 7: They need people to be upset about this, you know.
Speaker 7: And that's that's really all it's about. And and the
Speaker 7: investigations you asked what they're going to uncover? I mean,
Speaker 7: Lord only knows where this is going to go. But
Speaker 7: where it's really going to go is just keeping that
Speaker 7: drum beat, going to keep that buzz those buds, buzzwords
Speaker 7: Hunter Biden's laptop. Uh to get that reaction from from
Speaker 7: the base. You know that you're seeing it at rallies
Speaker 7: right now.
Speaker 2: If Fox New has been pushing this story for a
Speaker 2: couple of years now and recently did a mock trial
Speaker 2: of Hunter Biden, what what the hell was that all about?
Speaker 3: At what point did you decide, sir, to contact the
Speaker 3: federal year of an investigation about this matter?
Speaker 10: When the laptop became my property in late July, I
Speaker 10: proceeded to uh kind of research what was on it
Speaker 10: to make sure that what I had seen was what
Speaker 10: I perceived his criminal activity.
Speaker 7: God, I forgot about that. Oh my god, it was
Speaker 7: so funny. It was so funny. Yeah, and they had
Speaker 7: like a whole jury and everything, and Judge Joe Brown
Speaker 7: was the judge.
Speaker 2: Well, tell me before we let you go, walk me
Speaker 2: through a little bit as somebody who watches this for
Speaker 2: folks who aren't watching Hannity, cover this and amplify this story.
Speaker 2: How has Hannity taken to this in the last few years?
Speaker 7: It is I mean, it's just the NonStop drum beat,
Speaker 7: you know. And I think what you have to understand
Speaker 7: about Sean Hannity is his show is just like a
Speaker 7: stream of.
Speaker 1: Right wing consciousness. It is just these buzzwords.
Speaker 7: It's Nelly, or it's the FBI love birds, it's I mean,
Speaker 7: he still talks about Hillary Clinton's emails, you know, and
Speaker 7: so he is. He really is, more so than anybody
Speaker 7: else on that network. I think he is the king
Speaker 7: of these these bullshit conservative buzzwords, you know.
Speaker 2: And one of the buzzwords he's one of the ones
Speaker 2: he's creating for the Hudder Biden story.
Speaker 7: Well, it was Beisma, you know, a couple a couple
Speaker 7: of years ago, was Barisma.
Speaker 1: Now he just calls him zero Experience.
Speaker 9: Hunter, Barisma oil and Gas company. And zero Experience Hunter
Speaker 9: is fifty year old son Barisma. Zero Experience Hunter got millions.
Speaker 2: And that's not all.
Speaker 9: The report even found evidence linking Zero Experience Hunter to
Speaker 9: allege human trafficking quid pro quote Joe zero Experience Hunter, Barisma.
Speaker 7: Now, if you're not, if you're not in that bubble,
Speaker 7: in that conservative bubble, what that refers to is he
Speaker 7: got the Barisma deal, you know, a million dollar a year,
Speaker 7: no show, all the other boards that he set on,
Speaker 7: you know, but zero Experience Hunter. That's Sean Handedy's thing.
Speaker 7: You know, he just keeps saying it over and over again,
Speaker 7: and then he uses this as as an example of
Speaker 7: the FBIB and out of control, the DOJ targeting conservatives
Speaker 7: and not going after Democrats. How there's no such thing
Speaker 7: as equal justice under the law in America. I mean,
Speaker 7: I could, I could do an entire sean Handy monologue
Speaker 7: right now, like just based off of Hunter's laptop, because
Speaker 7: it's the same it's the same thing every single night.
Speaker 7: But what Hannity understands is that it's that repetition. It's
Speaker 7: that repetition that leads to the people outside the Trump
Speaker 7: rallies being upset about Hunter Biden's laptop. You know, you
Speaker 7: say this stuff over and over and over and over again,
Speaker 7: it just becomes accepted as truth. Same thing that you know,
Speaker 7: crime and inflation are going to be the top.
Speaker 1: Issues in the election.
Speaker 7: You know, it's just they keep saying that stuff and
Speaker 7: it becomes the reality. And yeah, yeah, zero experience. Hunter
Speaker 7: would would definitely be Hannity's favorite buzzword though on this,
Speaker 7: and you know, I deal with this as well. It's
Speaker 7: it's that balance between like this is hilarious, this is
Speaker 7: so funny, versus like this is dangerous and like actually
Speaker 7: scary that so many people believe it, and it's you know,
Speaker 7: it's about the conservative movement taking advantage of those people,
Speaker 7: I think more than anything else.
Speaker 2: How much is that an element in the Hunter Biden story,
Speaker 2: because again, what does get glossed over is this is
Speaker 2: a man's private cachet of his his communications, his search histories,
Speaker 2: and his relationship with his family and his his his
Speaker 2: loved ones. It is something to just dump out everything
Speaker 2: that was on your phone, run your laptop for the
Speaker 2: world to see. It feels like we don't even grapple
Speaker 2: with the idea of whether or not we should. We
Speaker 2: just jump right to whether or not we.
Speaker 1: Could right, Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 7: And it's you know, as far as I know that,
Speaker 7: like you said, this laptop, if it is his laptop,
Speaker 7: it seems to be acquired legally, you know, but it's
Speaker 7: it's horrifying and we saw this. We've seen them do
Speaker 7: this quite a bit. Actually, if you remember Peter Strock
Speaker 7: and uh was at Lisa Page. I think they're like
Speaker 7: they're they're sexty and like became public and was was
Speaker 7: thrown up on Fox News every single night. You know,
Speaker 7: they will do this if they have an opportunity. I
Speaker 7: think there was also and I don't know if you
Speaker 7: were aware of this, but Biden's daughter's diary was stolen
Speaker 7: and that never came out because there's serious legal implications.
Speaker 1: Into that right now.
Speaker 7: But Tucker Carlson has seen it and he's sits there
Speaker 7: and he regurgitates parts of it and stuff like that.
Speaker 7: I mean, this is I think she was pretty young,
Speaker 7: maybe late teens, early teens when when she was writing this.
Speaker 7: And you know, if you watch Tucker, he'll throw in
Speaker 7: every single once in a while, he'll throw in that
Speaker 7: Hunter used to Joe used to shower with his daughter
Speaker 7: because apparently there's a passage in there about that when
Speaker 7: she was younger.
Speaker 1: Which you know, but it's, yeah, it's that type of stuff.
Speaker 7: It's that they don't care, they don't have morals, and
Speaker 7: that's why it's so silly for you know, when when
Speaker 7: Steve Bannon said, like, yeah, it kind of kind of
Speaker 7: feels gross, but like we're at war, Like no, that's
Speaker 7: just your justification for doing it. Like I don't think
Speaker 7: it feels gross to Bannon. You know, he's a gross,
Speaker 7: disgusting guy made of you know, spores and loose skin.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I you know, the Bannon's and the
Speaker 2: Tuckers and the Hannities. You know, they really speak towards
Speaker 2: family values and bringing back the morality to America and civility.
Speaker 2: And how are you going to smash the pedophiles if
Speaker 2: you don't go through the diary of a teenager.
Speaker 1: Thank God that they're all very normal people.
Speaker 2: Well, Andrew, thank you for talking to us.
Speaker 4: Yeah, of course, Jordan.
Speaker 1: This is so much fun, man, I really appreciate it.
Speaker 2: After the break, I'll be joined by Congressman Jerry Connolly.
Speaker 2: We'll be talking about his role on the House Oversight
Speaker 2: Committee and how he plans to approach the investigation on
Speaker 2: Hunter Biden's laptop. Welcome back to Jordan Klepper Fingers the conspiracy.
Speaker 2: We're talking about Hunter Biden's laptop because Republicans won the
Speaker 2: House and apparently that's the issue that they think Americans
Speaker 2: care about the most.
Speaker 11: To be clear, Joe Biden is the big guy. This
Speaker 11: evidence raises troubling questions about whether President Biden is a
Speaker 11: national security risk and about whether he is compromised by
Speaker 11: foreign government.
Speaker 2: That was James Comer, the incoming chairman of the House
Speaker 2: Oversight Committee, announcing the upcoming investigation into Hunter Biden and
Speaker 2: the laptop. For those of you who think government committee
Speaker 2: hearings are dry and sterile, I have one word for you,
Speaker 2: BEng Ghazi. You can bet all your crypto that House
Speaker 2: Republicans will use the Hunter Biden hearings to make it
Speaker 2: seem like an explosive scandal worthy of impeachment. So we're
Speaker 2: going to talk to a Democrat who sits on that
Speaker 2: committee right now to see what that's going to be like.
Speaker 2: How fun, Congressman Jerry Connelly and Virginia thanks for joining
Speaker 2: the podcast.
Speaker 4: My pleasure, Jordan.
Speaker 2: So, Congressman, it's a guarantee that these hearings are going
Speaker 2: to get coverage in the mainstream media, which means there's
Speaker 2: going to be a lot of baseless allegations coming from
Speaker 2: Republicans that will be aired on news channels, and there's
Speaker 2: only so much fact checking that journalists can do. Do
Speaker 2: you see your role on this committee as part fact checker?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 4: Yeah, we've been through this before, and I think it's
Speaker 4: really important joy to put it in context. Right, So,
Speaker 4: when the Republicans were in the majority last time and
Speaker 4: we had a Democrat in the White House, President Obama
Speaker 4: for six years they breathlessly presented, and the media unfortunately
Speaker 4: was complicit in giving them exactly what they wanted headlines, endless,
Speaker 4: breathless stories, Hillary Clinton's emails, you mentioned ben Ghazi, Lois Learner,
Speaker 4: and the I R S Fast and furious Obamacare, you know, uh,
Speaker 4: funding the solar solar energy and the great scandal of
Speaker 4: the waste of all of that. Not one of those
Speaker 4: so called investigations led to anything anything, not an indictment,
Speaker 4: not a trial. I mean, it was all uh, you know,
Speaker 4: sound and fury, all done for one purpose, to undermine
Speaker 4: two political figures, President Obama and Hillary Clinton. And unfortunately,
Speaker 4: the mainstream media, as you point out, doesn't spend much
Speaker 4: time doing fact checking itself. And you know they'll ask
Speaker 4: people like me, well, you know, well, Congressman, you know
Speaker 4: they they assert, they allege, and I'm thinking, well, even
Speaker 4: framing a question that way gives it credence when there
Speaker 4: may be none. The supposition behind that question is completely false,
Speaker 4: based on either fabrication, distortion, insinuation, or no facts whatsoever.
Speaker 4: And that doesn't seem to matter, and so it kind
Speaker 4: of puts us at a disadvantage when we even get
Speaker 4: asked those questions. It's not unfair to ask them, but
Speaker 4: sure would be nice that the media took a little
Speaker 4: responsibility now and then instead of absolving itself and allowing
Speaker 4: the insinuation that there's something to this.
Speaker 2: So, I mean, you know what's coming. What is your strategy?
Speaker 2: Are you going to attempt to discredit the very nature
Speaker 2: of this investigation itself? Do you call attention to the
Speaker 2: Fox News fever dream that this whole thing is or
Speaker 2: do you admit that there are some elements of Hunter
Speaker 2: Biden activity that is of itself worth investigating.
Speaker 4: I'm certainly not in advance going to conceive anything their
Speaker 4: asserting is worth investigating, and I am going to spend
Speaker 4: a lot of time talking about what should be investigated
Speaker 4: that they don't want to talk about. For example, in
Speaker 4: the same press conference where you cited, you know, James
Speaker 4: Comer said, well, why don't we just start, you know,
Speaker 4: stick with Hunter Biden. That's what I want, That's really
Speaker 4: what I want to focus on.
Speaker 1: If we can keep it about Hunter Biden.
Speaker 11: This is kind of a big deal. We think if
Speaker 11: we can keep it about Hunter Biden, that would be great.
Speaker 4: He admitted he didn't want to focus on the fact
Speaker 4: that illegally President Trump has kept classified documents in moral
Speaker 4: lago against the law and lied about it and is
Speaker 4: being investigated, as we speak, for criminal behavior with respect
Speaker 4: to that. Well, uh, I thought you wanted genuine oversight,
Speaker 4: that that's a genuine overside issue. Now, of course, the
Speaker 4: world is replete with similar genuine overside issues when it
Speaker 4: comes to Trump and his acolytes and his administration, not
Speaker 4: one of which, not one of which Republicans want to
Speaker 4: look at. They never supported a single subpoena when they
Speaker 4: were in the majority and Trump was in the White
Speaker 4: House for anything having to do with oversight of the
Speaker 4: Trump administration, not one.
Speaker 2: Well, we may need to elect an entire house of
Speaker 2: representatives to deal with the issues and investigate all of
Speaker 2: those Trump era issues. But I guess I'm curious, Like
Speaker 2: it's always easy for us for both sides to point
Speaker 2: out what the other side should be looking into, and
Speaker 2: I think this is it's pretty clear in a situation
Speaker 2: like this. However, there are details within this Hunter Biden's
Speaker 2: story that do rub people the wrong way. People on
Speaker 2: both sides of the aisle are skeptical of somebody who
Speaker 2: is this close to the president of the United States
Speaker 2: being close to foreign governments at a time where the
Speaker 2: details are sketchy, although we know it's going to be weaponized,
Speaker 2: and you know the show that is going to be
Speaker 2: put on. What do you say to those people who
Speaker 2: are like, I'm still I'm still nervous about this situation
Speaker 2: and do think we should investigate that? Do you say, yes,
Speaker 2: we should, but this is not the place whether they
Speaker 2: will get a fair investigation or do you just discredit
Speaker 2: that idea on its surface?
Speaker 4: Well, anyone who thinks that this would be a fair investigation,
Speaker 4: you know, balance, fair, let the truth come out, is
Speaker 4: smoking something because that is not the motives operunde. It
Speaker 4: is very clear. The Republicans have already been saying this
Speaker 4: for several years. Right, don't forget it was Donald Trump
Speaker 4: who committed a criminal act, we felt, and he was
Speaker 4: impeached for it with respect to hunter byd because he
Speaker 4: was extorting a foreign leader with our military assistance, which
Speaker 4: now we know was badly needed in the Ukraine in
Speaker 4: order to get political dirt on hunter Byden. So the
Speaker 4: whole so called investigation is tainted going back to that
Speaker 4: what Trump called perfect phone call. And so I'm not
Speaker 4: going to provide any legitimacy to that line of inquiry
Speaker 4: unless something is presented to me that would qualify for yeah,
Speaker 4: all right, that's traveling. We had to look at it.
Speaker 4: So I'm not going to concede that at all in advance.
Speaker 4: And I am going to point out that, you know
Speaker 4: what little fact checking has been done in the press
Speaker 4: about this, and I cite Glenn Kessler of the Washington
Speaker 4: Post is sort of their official fact checker. You know,
Speaker 4: they're looking at one email out of something like one
Speaker 4: hundred and twenty two thousand that is subject to interpretation.
Speaker 4: They're looking at some great scandal about keys to an
Speaker 4: office in Spain that kind of vided in fact never
Speaker 4: picked up, but that somehow that's a big conspiracy. I
Speaker 4: would say, there's really thin rule so far, and the
Speaker 4: idea that we're going to put the entire weight of
Speaker 4: the Oversight Committee of the United States Congress behind such
Speaker 4: anemic evidence and then Gruel worries me greatly. But as
Speaker 4: part of the pattern of my friends on the other
Speaker 4: side of the aisle, going back to Dan Burton and Clinton.
Speaker 2: I mean, maybe this shows that it is a dying
Speaker 2: fire and these are the embers if we've gone from
Speaker 2: but her emails too, but his email singular, maybe that's
Speaker 2: showing progress in some way. You bring up something interesting.
Speaker 2: You've been on this committee for years. Some of these
Speaker 2: Republicans Jim Jordan, Andy Biggs, Andrew Clyde, they love a
Speaker 2: good conspiracy. They've denied the twenty twenty election was real.
Speaker 2: Spread January sixth conspiracy theories. How can you use your
Speaker 2: platform on the committee to help a viewer who maybe
Speaker 2: doesn't know their context. How do you let them understand
Speaker 2: the full context of where they're coming from?
Speaker 4: The good news our processes when we have a markup
Speaker 4: for the legislation or when we have a hearing, we
Speaker 4: democrats get equal time. And you know that's why the
Speaker 4: leadership of our committee is going to really matter. Can
Speaker 4: we cohere and forge our voice as one to push back,
Speaker 4: get the facts out, tell the truth, and puncture their
Speaker 4: false narratives in an effective way. That is critical when
Speaker 4: you're in the minority and you're defending a democratic white House,
Speaker 4: and if you don't do that, you know they control
Speaker 4: the narrative. So fighting for control of the narrative and
Speaker 4: making sure that you repeat, rent and repeat when it
Speaker 4: comes to facts, do not assume that, having said it once,
Speaker 4: it's in everybody's head. That's not how human beings work.
Speaker 4: And in our media market today, given the multiplicity of
Speaker 4: sources of news, accurate and falls and everything in between,
Speaker 4: you've got to really spend time making sure that the
Speaker 4: truth penetrates consciousness and public opinion.
Speaker 2: What does that look like? What are some of the
Speaker 2: tactics there? I think I think about the January sixth hearings,
Speaker 2: which many people would say are have been effectively communicated.
Speaker 2: Perhaps the lesson there is just don't invite the other
Speaker 2: side of the table. It's really easier to get your
Speaker 2: point across. Perhaps it's the use of video. Perhaps it's
Speaker 2: just the repetition of baseline facts like are there are
Speaker 2: there elements that you could draw from, uh from from
Speaker 2: from those hearings that you'd like to bring to the
Speaker 2: forefront here? I think we talk about Bengazi, we talk
Speaker 2: about those things, you know, you know the machine that
Speaker 2: is going to be behind this narrative. So how do
Speaker 2: you get out ahead of it? How do you change
Speaker 2: what democrats did six years ago to be more effective
Speaker 2: in the upcoming year.
Speaker 4: I don't think there's any one tactic. But there are
Speaker 4: a lot of tools in the kit bag, and one
Speaker 4: of them is humor. I can remember once they were
Speaker 4: you guys.
Speaker 2: The Democrats are going to rely on humor. Oh, oh
Speaker 2: my god, what do we do with congressman. I'll give
Speaker 2: you an example six of your sweet spot.
Speaker 4: I'm sorry, I'm irish, and how to use humor. I'll
Speaker 4: give you any example. We we had a career civil
Speaker 4: sufvent from IRS, and the Republicans hauled her before our committee.
Speaker 4: They were in the majority, and her job was to
Speaker 4: enforce the provision and the Affordable Care Act that you
Speaker 4: would be fine if you didn't have health insurance, by
Speaker 4: the way, a provision that was a Republican idea that
Speaker 4: was enshrined in Romney Care in Massachusetts that we took on.
Speaker 4: But I rate they just excoriated her, and you know,
Speaker 4: I was getting agitated waiting my turn, and I thought,
Speaker 4: you know, there is another bit of which I'm going
Speaker 4: to say that. And then I thought, you know, that's
Speaker 4: not the effective way of making the point. And they're
Speaker 4: looking for a headline tomorrow that's going to say Republicans
Speaker 4: accuse IRS official of you know, subverting the America and
Speaker 4: freedom or something. And so when it came time and
Speaker 4: I turned, I said to her, so you're under oath.
Speaker 4: She went yes. I said, I want to remind you
Speaker 4: you're under oath. She went okay. I said, have you
Speaker 4: been consorting with the devil?
Speaker 2: Not?
Speaker 7: To my knowledge, sir, our reports that you can fly.
Speaker 5: Accurate, greatly exaggerated.
Speaker 10: Sir.
Speaker 4: Have you been involved in any way and trying to
Speaker 4: pervert our youth in Salem or anywhere else?
Speaker 5: I certainly hope not, sir. You sure, yes, sir.
Speaker 4: The looks on their faces like what is Oh my god, god,
Speaker 4: because people were now lapping well. The next day, the
Speaker 4: headline instead of the one the Republicans wanted was Iris
Speaker 4: official denies consorting with devil. People were howling with laughter.
Speaker 4: It completely punctured their narrative. Sometimes humor can be a
Speaker 4: tool too, But a lot of this is too serious.
Speaker 2: I mean, honestly, what's so interesting? Because I hear you
Speaker 2: on that, and I do think it's almost and an
Speaker 2: example like that, we've been talking a little bit about
Speaker 2: the Steve Bannon flood, the flood the narrative with bullshit,
Speaker 2: get it out there, like, how much of it is that?
Speaker 2: Are we are we using humor in that sense to
Speaker 2: be like, we know what people are going to click on,
Speaker 2: we know what people are going to talk about, and
Speaker 2: if we can be outlandish in our approach from a
Speaker 2: satirical point of view, that can trump somebody else being
Speaker 2: outlandish from perhaps a more politically advantageous point of view.
Speaker 4: Absolutely. There was another time they had an FBI official
Speaker 4: who had privately expressed support for them, I'm sorry, had
Speaker 4: privately expressed criticism of Donald Trump. This is early in
Speaker 4: Trump's tenure, and they were just again excoriating him. So
Speaker 4: when it came time to my turn, I started re
Speaker 4: criticisms of Trump without identifying who said it, and I said, so,
Speaker 4: that was you, right, And before the witness could answer,
Speaker 4: I went, oh, no, I'm sorry, that was Marco Rubio,
Speaker 4: Republican senator, and then I just went, you know, And
Speaker 4: of course by the time I was finished, people again were,
Speaker 4: you know, snithely chuckling. But it completely exposed the hypocrisy
Speaker 4: of the Republicans for attacking this guy for criticizing Trump
Speaker 4: when at the same time they were doing it too.
Speaker 2: Congressman I got, I got to say, using hypocrisy as
Speaker 2: a stand in for humor, that's my lane, So back off.
Speaker 2: You're gonna use Rubio's words against him and the whole GOP.
Speaker 2: What else do we have out there?
Speaker 4: It's dangerous business. But you know it goes to the
Speaker 4: old line A friend of mine, humorous Jim Bourne once
Speaker 4: used to say, if you're going to be a phony,
Speaker 4: at least be.
Speaker 2: Sincere about it. It feels like a lot of the
Speaker 2: Republican strategy is to work the refs, bully the mainstream
Speaker 2: media into covering it as a legitimate, massive scandal. Do
Speaker 2: you think that's working.
Speaker 4: I think it works all too well, all too often,
Speaker 4: and that's why we have to be much better at
Speaker 4: our game. And that's why we have to be disciplined
Speaker 4: and coordinated. I mean, you can't this can't be one off.
Speaker 4: This can't be one Roague member who maybe is effective,
Speaker 4: but everybody else is doing their thing. And that's why
Speaker 4: you know, in the Minority especially, our committee is going
Speaker 4: to have to be organized, strategic, and as I said,
Speaker 4: discipline both the messaging and in the attack of their narrative.
Speaker 4: You know what's the best way to do that to
Speaker 4: get the truth to the American people and through the media.
Speaker 2: Have you thought about starting an improv group if you're
Speaker 2: going to utilize both humor and teamwork with a coherent message,
Speaker 2: perhaps some sort of yes and exercise some trust falls.
Speaker 2: I know a lot of out of work people in
Speaker 2: Chicago right now who could come, get on a plane
Speaker 2: and teach you guys some basics of improv to save democracy.
Speaker 4: I have enjoyed improv in Chicago myself for many years,
Speaker 4: and it can be very useful. But it's not a
Speaker 4: substitute though, for discipline, narrative discipline, lines of questioning and
Speaker 4: taking the fight to the other side when they are
Speaker 4: propounding fabricated narratives, when they are distorting facts, peddling conspiracy
Speaker 4: theories that are without foundation, and sometimes just flat out
Speaker 4: making it up. They don't have a compunction about that.
Speaker 4: We do, which is sometimes to our disadvantage. Although I'd
Speaker 4: rather be where we are than they are, but that
Speaker 4: means we've got to be doubly more effective in puncturing
Speaker 4: what they're doing.
Speaker 2: Well, Congress, when you sound like my parents, improv, although valid,
Speaker 2: is no substitute for real hard work and fact checking,
Speaker 2: I get it. I should be a doctor or an architect.
Speaker 2: I think we can both agree if the fate of
Speaker 2: our democracy lies on improv we might be in a
Speaker 2: bad place. I'm curious, do you think House Republicans are
Speaker 2: planning and using this investigation as a basis to impeach
Speaker 2: President Biden.
Speaker 4: I mean, there's a crowd of them that's already decided
Speaker 4: that's what they want to do. I think they would
Speaker 4: have trouble right now selling that to enough people in
Speaker 4: their own caucus to have the votes. Frankly, there is
Speaker 4: a dwindling group of more common sensor Republicans and modern
Speaker 4: Republicans who are very uneasy about the hard ideological tilt
Speaker 4: of the Freedom Caucus and their accolytes and would like
Speaker 4: to find a way to reassert themselves. And what they
Speaker 4: believe is what's going to be necessary if the Republicans
Speaker 4: are really ever gonna be successful again in American political
Speaker 4: life in terms of a real serious, working majority. I
Speaker 4: think that there are some built in brakes on that,
Speaker 4: And what I predict is that the Republicans in our
Speaker 4: committee will do what they always do, which is overreach, right,
Speaker 4: and when they do that, they losed public support and
Speaker 4: they lose credibility, and in this particular case, they're likely
Speaker 4: to alienate some of those more moderate numbers of their caucus,
Speaker 4: albeit in dwindling numbers they need to get to eighteen.
Speaker 2: Do you think that you really think they will alienate
Speaker 2: It feels like there's rarely any pushback or political repercussions
Speaker 2: for appearing hawkish and overstepping.
Speaker 4: Yes, but you asked about impeachment.
Speaker 2: Impeachment is a different matter, and you do think that
Speaker 2: is a line for most Americans. Do you think they
Speaker 2: will see that just as a craven partisan overreach.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't think anybody in America. Well, let'll be
Speaker 4: with me. I simply don't think that's a majority opinion
Speaker 4: at all, not even close. That there's something unseemingly about
Speaker 4: Joe Biden that desperately needs to be investigated. And we
Speaker 4: just had a midterm election. They tried out that theme.
Speaker 4: It didn't work. You know, Americans did not vote to
Speaker 4: have hard line accountability for Joe Biden because he's getting
Speaker 4: away with stuff, and that's why we need a Republican majority.
Speaker 4: They barely got a majority, they and they didn't get
Speaker 4: one in you a Senate. They lost governor seats neet,
Speaker 4: they lost legislative seats net, and they barely won the House,
Speaker 4: So I hardly think that's a mandate to go at it.
Speaker 4: And that says something about I'm not saying that Americans
Speaker 4: don't want accountability. They're not persuaded that Joe Biden has
Speaker 4: done anything that merits that kind of you know.
Speaker 2: Which, hunt, Congrischmann, are you optimistic going into this next
Speaker 2: year that the American public will be able to sift
Speaker 2: through and see through the bs.
Speaker 4: We live in a world with so much in front
Speaker 4: of us, right, you know, we don't live anymore where
Speaker 4: in a world where you know, I get my news
Speaker 4: in the evening broadcast for thirty minutes on one of
Speaker 4: three choices. Those days are long gone, right, So there's
Speaker 4: this fog of news and data being presented to me
Speaker 4: and opinion, and I'm somehow expected to separate the truth
Speaker 4: from the non truth or the half truth, and the
Speaker 4: facts from the fiction. So that's why it's so important
Speaker 4: we do our jobs and do them well that we
Speaker 4: help the American listener, viewer, voter separate what's true from
Speaker 4: what is not true. And that's, as I said, why
Speaker 4: I think our committee is going to be on the
Speaker 4: front line of this this struggle. And it's a struggle
Speaker 4: as much for the truth as it is for political
Speaker 4: advantage or partisan gang.
Speaker 10: Well.
Speaker 2: Congressman Jerry Connelly, thank you so much for joining the podcast,
Speaker 2: and uh pleasure let me know if you need any
Speaker 2: punch ups on jokes. I work for cheap and I'd
Speaker 2: like to help this democracy.
Speaker 4: I'll come back to you on the improv Thank you.
Speaker 2: After the break, we're going to be joined by author
Speaker 2: and journalist Tiffany Cross. We're going to dive even more
Speaker 2: into media coverage behind Hunter Biden's laptop. We'll be right back.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to Jordan Klepper Fingers. The conspiracy we're talking
Speaker 2: about Hunter Biden's laptop basically the right wing fever dream
Speaker 2: that a MacBook Pro that was left at a computer
Speaker 2: repair shop in Delaware proves that the Biden family was
Speaker 2: doing corruption in Ukraine. And that was before it was
Speaker 2: cool to know about stuff in Ukraine. And also China's involved. Obviously,
Speaker 2: if you watch Fox News or Newsmax or Max News
Speaker 2: or Real American Truth or any other right wing media
Speaker 2: that sounds like it was created by a Steve Bannon
Speaker 2: word generator, you're probably extremely familiar with the weird details
Speaker 2: of the Hunter Biden saga. But if you get your
Speaker 2: news from real places, you might only know some of it,
Speaker 2: and that creates a minor dilemma. House Republicans are about
Speaker 2: to start investigating Hunter Biden, and that means it's probably
Speaker 2: going to get a lot of coverage on mainstream outlets.
Speaker 2: So if the role of the news media is to
Speaker 2: cover what's happening, but also to stop the spread of misinformation,
Speaker 2: what are journalists supposed to do here? To help us
Speaker 2: answer that question, we're going to talk to Tiffany Cross,
Speaker 2: an author, journalist, cable news veteran, and until recently she
Speaker 2: was the host of The Cross Connection on MSNBC. Tiffany,
Speaker 2: thanks so much for talking to us here today.
Speaker 12: Thanks for having me Jordan, It's great to be connected today.
Speaker 2: Yes, So, this Hunter Biden laptop story poses an interesting
Speaker 2: problem for the news media. On one hand, it's an
Speaker 2: obsession fan by right wing trolls who most of the
Speaker 2: time can be ignored. But on the other hand, Republicans
Speaker 2: are taking over the House of Representatives and they're going
Speaker 2: to launch congressional investigations into it, hoping for media coverage
Speaker 2: that makes the investigation look like a legitimate process. So
Speaker 2: I guess the big question is can you have a
Speaker 2: legitimate investigation into something run by the people who think
Speaker 2: January sixth was antifa?
Speaker 12: Right, I would say no, and I wish that more
Speaker 12: people in the news media would be so direct.
Speaker 5: And honest about that.
Speaker 12: You know, when we talk about corruption in this whole
Speaker 12: incident with the Hunter Biden campaign or the Hunter Biden
Speaker 12: laptop brother in Ukraine, I think it's really important to
Speaker 12: remember what the Ukraine story is, and that is that
Speaker 12: Donald Trump was trying to hold up hundreds of millions
Speaker 12: of dollars in support for Ukraine because he wanted President
Speaker 12: Zelenski to invest gate his political rivals.
Speaker 5: That is the story.
Speaker 12: The counterpoint to that story was Republicans trying to institute
Speaker 12: this laptop storyline. And so when you have people who
Speaker 12: employ the logic of bad actors like Lauren Berbert or
Speaker 12: Marjorie Taylor Greene who will have committee assignments, you know,
Speaker 12: the Republicans have taken over the House. Now we don't
Speaker 12: know what leadership looks like. We don't know who the
Speaker 12: Speaker of the House will be. Kevin McCarthy is quite
Speaker 12: embroiled in his own battles. I think it is very
Speaker 12: dangerous to pretend that these are intellectual people, that these
Speaker 12: are people acting in good faith, or that these are
Speaker 12: people who give a damn about democracy, because they don't.
Speaker 12: To your point, they said January sixth was in Tifa.
Speaker 12: We have seen quite blatantly these folks lie. They have
Speaker 12: said that, you know, they were like tourists walking through
Speaker 12: the Capitol, even though we saw Republican members of Congress
Speaker 12: themselves helping to barricade Adore. And so it seems to
Speaker 12: be yet again a lesson that the news media has
Speaker 12: not learned, and they make such great overtures to this
Speaker 12: right wing extremist Republican Party, and they have not yet
Speaker 12: accepted what we as all Americans, have witnessed, and that
Speaker 12: is there are no right wing extremists and a separate
Speaker 12: group of Republicans. These two factions have merged. And so
Speaker 12: if you're going to turn over political investigations to right
Speaker 12: wing extremists, then you're going to essentially wave the white
Speaker 12: flag on democracy and say goodbye. This feels like the
Speaker 12: series finale of the Great American Experiment, and as you
Speaker 12: can see, it ain't going so well.
Speaker 2: Tune in everybody, I guess it brings an interesting question though.
Speaker 2: You're right they may not believe in the tenets of democracy,
Speaker 2: but is their point of view in and of itself
Speaker 2: news which should be covered because people look at this
Speaker 2: Hunter Biden laptop story and it is in many way
Speaker 2: you used as a distraction. But there is news to
Speaker 2: be made in there. There is perhaps an investigation that
Speaker 2: could have around this, whether or not it's a legitimate one,
Speaker 2: who knows. But you bring up people like Lauren Bobert.
Speaker 2: A lot of times, the news doesn't have to report
Speaker 2: on all of the wilder things that perhaps somebody like
Speaker 2: a Bobert will say, But then you'll have people like
Speaker 2: Kevin McCarthy, who very well could be the Leader of
Speaker 2: the House, who will repeat those talking points. So what
Speaker 2: do you say to a journalist who says, if Kevin
Speaker 2: McCarthy is the Speaker of the House and he says
Speaker 2: something that means that it is news that must be reported.
Speaker 12: I think it's fine to report that through the proper context.
Speaker 12: I think what we have seen is the news media
Speaker 12: goes out of its way to present something that is
Speaker 12: factual or something that is at least based in some
Speaker 12: level of intellect, and then they will take something asinine
Speaker 12: and present both of these things as though they are
Speaker 12: equal in thought. So if I say, hey, Jordan, it's
Speaker 12: raining outside, and it's in fact raining outside, and you say, well,
Speaker 12: there are purple unicorns falling from the sky outside, the
Speaker 12: answer to that is not, well, some say it's raining outside,
Speaker 12: and some say they're a purple uni corns. Uh, you know,
Speaker 12: falling from a sky. We'll let you decide. We're fair
Speaker 12: and balance. That's bullshit, and we ought to be honest
Speaker 12: about that. And I think, you know, I think why
Speaker 12: you have so much of that is because again, one
Speaker 12: of my big passions throughout my career has been newsroom diversity.
Speaker 12: And so when you have people in these newsrooms who
Speaker 12: make these overtures to Trump fanatics, you know, to these
Speaker 12: cult members who are believers of the Maga doctrine that
Speaker 12: you've so brilliantly highlighted in your comedic reporting for the
Speaker 12: Daily Show, You've done better reporting the most journalists out there.
Speaker 5: And just let these people talk and say what they believe.
Speaker 2: Make no mistake.
Speaker 1: We have the guns and we are now in the streets.
Speaker 2: Can I ask why you're carrying a pitchfork?
Speaker 5: Well, pitchfork is a just iconic representation of how of
Speaker 5: what people over time have done in this country.
Speaker 2: It feels rolling a weaven.
Speaker 4: No it's not.
Speaker 1: It's farm equipment, and it's legal in this in this
Speaker 1: in the city.
Speaker 7: Are you farming today, it's a it's a reper We're
Speaker 7: not asking for violence right now.
Speaker 2: I gotta tell you from the movies I've seen, the
Speaker 2: hordes of people with pitchforks are usually the bad guy.
Speaker 12: And when you have people who say, well, you know,
Speaker 12: all these people aren't so bad because my grandmother is
Speaker 12: a Trump supporter and she's my nana and she's so sweet,
Speaker 12: or my dad supports Trump. I tried to talk him
Speaker 12: out of it, but he still believes that. But they're
Speaker 12: not bad people. Me on the other side, I'm saying,
Speaker 12: I'm sorry to tell you, but they actually are pieces
Speaker 12: of shit.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 12: These are horrible people who are supporting a horrible man
Speaker 12: who says horrible, racist, xenophobic, misogynistic things. And if you
Speaker 12: can't call your family out on that, then that is
Speaker 12: a problem because now you're penetrating the atmosphere where it's
Speaker 12: supposed to be truthful information and not, you know, a
Speaker 12: sympathy fest for people who would see folks who look
Speaker 12: like me oppressed, and that has created such a chasm
Speaker 12: in media Jordan. It is to people have now tuned
Speaker 12: out media. I mean you look at cable news and
Speaker 12: it's really a melting ice cube at this point. And
Speaker 12: when people do not t us that there is no
Speaker 12: reputable outlet where they can get this kind of information,
Speaker 12: they find their news and information from other sources, and
Speaker 12: those sources are not always reputable.
Speaker 5: And we saw what happened with that in twenty sixteen.
Speaker 12: A lot of people felt like their lived experience was
Speaker 12: reflected in an Internet meme. What we later learned that
Speaker 12: was the you know, Internet Russia agency, who also did
Speaker 12: not care about American democracy. And when they looked at
Speaker 12: this country and said how can we mess with American democracy,
Speaker 12: it took them all of two months to say, oh,
Speaker 12: white supremacy, that's it. That's how that's their greatest weakness
Speaker 12: and we will tap into that. And this is really
Speaker 12: an extension of that philosophy.
Speaker 2: I can't wait for the Tiffany Cross how to do
Speaker 2: Thanksgiving with relatives of book call the pieces of shit
Speaker 2: out and.
Speaker 5: Move on, please my Thanksgiving.
Speaker 12: We don't have that problem, but a lot of people's tables.
Speaker 12: They do, and I think that is the you know,
Speaker 12: with allies and people who you know want to get
Speaker 12: in this fight. It's like, yes, start in your own home,
Speaker 12: challenge your own family, because it is not my job
Speaker 12: to convince the you know, willfully ignorant people to not
Speaker 12: believe in a man who's lying to them. And it
Speaker 12: is not my job to extend empathy or sympathy to
Speaker 12: people who.
Speaker 5: Feel that way.
Speaker 12: I don't know how to meet a biggot in the middle.
Speaker 12: So if that is how people feel it, start there,
Speaker 12: start there at your own table.
Speaker 2: That brings up an interesting question because I do think
Speaker 2: that's a question I get on the road a bunch.
Speaker 2: Are you ever able to change somebody's mind or what
Speaker 2: have you? And that's not the intention of the pieces
Speaker 2: that we go out to do. I think more often
Speaker 2: than not, it's to confront people with logical fallacies that
Speaker 2: we see back home and see what the reality is
Speaker 2: in the field. But I do think it's interesting it's
Speaker 2: somebody a member of the media. There is this chasm here.
Speaker 2: There's a chasm also a bad information that people are getting.
Speaker 2: And I do think you want to have empathy for
Speaker 2: those people who have been given such misinformation. How do
Speaker 2: you balance the deliverance of real news with the idea
Speaker 2: of showing a certain amount of empathy and outreache towards
Speaker 2: perhaps voices and people who who who are willing to
Speaker 2: meet in the middle.
Speaker 12: Well, I would challenge the first part of empathy. I think,
Speaker 12: if you do have empathy, Jordan, for some of the
Speaker 12: folks you have spoken with, that's.
Speaker 5: Not such a bad thing.
Speaker 10: You know.
Speaker 12: Perhaps I can understand that, as long as you're not.
Speaker 5: Asking me to have empathy.
Speaker 12: I do not have empathy for people who have bought
Speaker 12: into a lie or a myth, or a system that
Speaker 12: means my oppression. I don't have any empathy for such
Speaker 12: people at all. I actually think the country would be
Speaker 12: better off without those people having an influence on what
Speaker 12: this democracy looks like or how this government works. But
Speaker 12: that is not the way American democracy was designed. I
Speaker 12: think when it comes to reporting these things and in
Speaker 12: the media landscape, you run the risk of having a
Speaker 12: large number of the population I would call the rising majority,
Speaker 12: tune you out when you're when your perspective, when the
Speaker 12: start point is we have empathy.
Speaker 5: For these people who feel this way because you do.
Speaker 12: Not hear people saying, well, look, the Nazis were fed
Speaker 12: a bunch of bad information, we have to have empathy
Speaker 12: for them. Get the fuck out of here, Like we
Speaker 12: would never say that, we would never believe that, you know.
Speaker 12: And so why am I being asked to have empathy
Speaker 12: for the people who would see me staying in a
Speaker 12: dilapidated community, sending my children to dilapidated schools, living in
Speaker 12: run down neighborhoods and say, well, that's just how it
Speaker 12: goes because they can't win, because if they win, that
Speaker 12: means I'm losing.
Speaker 5: I have no empathy.
Speaker 2: Tivvy. I gotta say, if you don't think people are
Speaker 2: showing empathy towards Nazis, you're just not on Twitter anymore.
Speaker 12: You're right, an Elon on Twitter it is the land
Speaker 12: of empathy for Nazis.
Speaker 2: I would say it's a surprisingly popular opinion. That's really
Speaker 2: somehow coming back in Vogue, I guess I have a
Speaker 2: question who makes those decisions about what gets covered and
Speaker 2: what doesn't get covered at a network level. Is z anchors,
Speaker 2: is it producers, news executives. Is there a conversation that
Speaker 2: happens in the newsroom, Well.
Speaker 12: It's variety of things, and I think it all depends
Speaker 12: on the newsroom. You know, broadcast has a different set
Speaker 12: of rules in print. When I was in cable news,
Speaker 12: I made the decisions about what I covered on my show,
Speaker 12: but I did not do so without a fight.
Speaker 5: You know, there are assignment desk assignment.
Speaker 12: Editors, and there are people who oversee and people who
Speaker 12: oversaw my show. And it was always a fight because
Speaker 12: you know, it's like the echo chambers, right, like the
Speaker 12: three news networks are covering mostly the same things. I mean, now,
Speaker 12: you know, Fox would be an outlier and you know,
Speaker 12: still cover Hillary's emails, but for the most part, people
Speaker 12: were covering the same stories throughout the day. I was
Speaker 12: very intentional about disrupting that and talking about stories that
Speaker 12: impacted communities of color policy, you know, people who live
Speaker 12: below the poverty line. I wanted to have conversations that
Speaker 12: were being had in the corner office, as well as
Speaker 12: the barber shop, as well as the beauty salon, as
Speaker 12: well as on the block, you know, for the old
Speaker 12: men who sit outside in front of the you know,
Speaker 12: convenience store all day. I wanted everyone to feel like
Speaker 12: they had a home, and I wanted to reflect the
Speaker 12: lived experience of everyone. But we talked a lot on
Speaker 12: this show about the tragedy of America's maternal mortality rates,
Speaker 12: especially the disparity that claims black and Indigenous women at
Speaker 12: three times the rate as white women. Imagine being without
Speaker 12: clean water for six straight days. Well, that's the reality
Speaker 12: right now for the one hundred and fifty thousand residents
Speaker 12: of Mississippi's largest city, all right after centuries of genocide
Speaker 12: and oppression. Imagine seeing your ancestors stolen belongings sit in
Speaker 12: a museum and you're told you can't have them, you
Speaker 12: can't touch them or even photograph them. You take something
Speaker 12: even as simple as the economy, right. You know a
Speaker 12: lot of people, you know in these morning news shows
Speaker 12: and they say, oh, look the economy is doing well.
Speaker 12: You know, the market is up, and it's like the
Speaker 12: market is not the economy. And if you go and
Speaker 12: talk to people in my pre gentrified neighborhood, they would
Speaker 12: not say the economy is doing well.
Speaker 5: You take labor reports.
Speaker 12: And they're like, oh, we add an x amount of
Speaker 12: new jobs and here's the unemployment numbers. Well that's the
Speaker 12: overall unemployment numbers. But when you disaggregate that data and
Speaker 12: look at unemployment for black people, for Latino people. We
Speaker 12: feel disrespected when you say, oh, the job supports numbers
Speaker 12: are great. And so the more that people kind of
Speaker 12: centralize white perspective and white voices, it leaves so many
Speaker 12: people out. And so when you talk about newsroom diversity
Speaker 12: and who makes these decisions, don't come tell me that
Speaker 12: you just hired you know, you know fifty percent of
Speaker 12: people of color and women, and they're all entry level
Speaker 12: employees or mid level management. Put those people in the
Speaker 12: c suite. Put those people in decision making positions so
Speaker 12: they can disrupt the echo chambers in a meaningful way.
Speaker 12: Because what is it twenty five year old to do.
Speaker 12: When a fifty five year old is in charge of
Speaker 12: the entire newsroom and they're making a decision that runs
Speaker 12: contrary to the lived experience or belief system or you know,
Speaker 12: experiences of the rising majority, they don't always have or
Speaker 12: feel the sense of agency to challenge that. And so
Speaker 12: when they don't have that, they either exit the business
Speaker 12: or they become a part of this machine that keeps
Speaker 12: doing the same thing over and over and it never
Speaker 12: gets disrupted or change forever.
Speaker 2: Those battles that you have in the newsroom with your
Speaker 2: show on MSNBC, The Cross Connection, how much did you
Speaker 2: have to split your time being the host of that show,
Speaker 2: helping create the narrative of that show, the stories you
Speaker 2: wanted to cover, and also what sounds like a teacher
Speaker 2: of this experience, did you find yourself having just put
Speaker 2: on those two hats and were you surprised by that
Speaker 2: culture at MSNBC.
Speaker 12: Yes, I put on those hats every day, and so
Speaker 12: what I found on my show is I would have
Speaker 12: to do something to please network executives, and then I
Speaker 12: would have to do the rest of my program to
Speaker 12: please the viewers.
Speaker 5: And those things often went like this.
Speaker 12: You know, if I was going to please the executives, fine,
Speaker 12: I will do two segments on Trump, because that's what
Speaker 12: everybody wanted, you know, the network effectors wanted to talk
Speaker 12: about Trump. However, if you know, you know one of
Speaker 12: the members of the group Migos was murdered, well that
Speaker 12: was something that a lot of people were talking about,
Speaker 12: especially on the hills of so many other hip hop
Speaker 12: artists being murdered, So that was going to be some
Speaker 12: to please viewers. If there was a story about indigenous communities,
Speaker 12: you know, having to travel over two hours to vote.
Speaker 12: That was something that was going to please viewers. If
Speaker 12: we were going to do something on the Asian American
Speaker 12: Pacific Islander community being the fastest growing demographic in the country,
Speaker 12: but yet no political parties are reaching out to them,
Speaker 12: that was something that was.
Speaker 5: Going to please viewers.
Speaker 12: And so, you know, the way my bank account was
Speaker 12: set up, I had to at least do some things
Speaker 12: to please network executives. But it was always my mission,
Speaker 12: you know, And I would encourage you know, anybody who
Speaker 12: wants to pursue any career when you are mission driven,
Speaker 12: and I was mission driven, and my mission was for
Speaker 12: the equality and liberation of Black, Indigenous and people of color,
Speaker 12: the rising majority of the country. That was my mission,
Speaker 12: and so nothing was going to sway me from that mission.
Speaker 12: And I knew if I ever fell out of favor
Speaker 12: with network executives, that would have to be okay, because
Speaker 12: my mission was to elevate the lived experiences and to
Speaker 12: hold the line for the people who were very much
Speaker 12: architects of this country and very much deserve to have
Speaker 12: their voices and perspectives heard, particularly after centuries of being
Speaker 12: so violently silenced.
Speaker 2: Now, I mean your new your show was canceled days
Speaker 2: before the midterms. Four days before the midterms, an important
Speaker 2: voice in this conversation and made a lot of news.
Speaker 2: And there are a lot of questions how much how
Speaker 2: much did you find that your personal mission was out
Speaker 2: of touch with whatever MSNBC's mission was.
Speaker 12: Well, I felt that pretty early on every week I
Speaker 12: had to defend and fight for segments that we did.
Speaker 2: You know, did that feel did that feel contrary to
Speaker 2: what other hosts at MSNBC were having to do with
Speaker 2: their own shows.
Speaker 12: Yeah, you know, I would say my colleague Joy reed,
Speaker 12: and I probably had the most pushback on our shows.
Speaker 12: But there were also things that other hosts would do
Speaker 12: that would make it easier for us, which again is problematic.
Speaker 12: My colleague Ari Melbourne, you know, a big hip hop fan.
Speaker 12: If you watch five minutes of his show, you know
Speaker 12: that he quotes rap lyrics all the time.
Speaker 5: And it was fine when the white man did it.
Speaker 12: You know, when the white man did it, it made it
Speaker 12: easier for everybody else to do it. But let the
Speaker 12: black woman start out doing that and it would have
Speaker 12: been a major problem, a major problem. But he was
Speaker 12: celebrated for doing that.
Speaker 2: Tiffty, it was it was never fine when Ari Melbourne
Speaker 2: did that, it was never fine. That was never accepted
Speaker 2: amongst the audience members.
Speaker 12: Well, he's to get rap artists on his show, and
Speaker 12: you know they they seem to you know, play into it.
Speaker 12: But either way, you know, you look at Morning Joe,
Speaker 12: my former colleagues Joe and Mika. I mean, we got
Speaker 12: the term moscow mitch from Joe Scarborough. But if you know,
Speaker 12: you know, if Joy or I you know, were to
Speaker 12: say something similar, it was like, hey, we don't really
Speaker 12: want name calling. But even if you take it out
Speaker 12: of MSNBC and just look at the media landscape in
Speaker 12: general and some of the more colloquial conversations that happened
Speaker 12: when it comes to voters, they were so often in
Speaker 12: the media landscape that you would hear terms like soccer moms,
Speaker 12: Nascar dads. Well, those were all euphemisms for white voters.
Speaker 5: And it's not that black.
Speaker 12: People could not you know, have that same moniker as well.
Speaker 12: But we understood what that to meet, what that what
Speaker 12: those terms meant. It did not feel inclusive of the
Speaker 12: black experience, which is the biggest voting block. When it
Speaker 12: comes to Democratic to the Democratic Party. And so even
Speaker 12: when they did voters of the heartland. You know, you
Speaker 12: go to these diners in the middle of nowhere where
Speaker 12: apparently no black people have ever been or ever eaten,
Speaker 12: and that was voters of the heartland. But why not
Speaker 12: go to a basketball game in southwest Atlanta after it
Speaker 12: let out and talk to the parents there? Are they
Speaker 12: not voters of the heartland in a purple state? I'd add,
Speaker 12: why can't we have like basketball did dads, or you know,
Speaker 12: the anti voting block or something that reflects my lived experience.
Speaker 12: Even when you have candidates on and you'd have, you know,
Speaker 12: these Democratic candidates, and the anchor would always press them.
Speaker 5: How are you going to.
Speaker 12: Appeal to these red state voters? How are you going
Speaker 12: to you know, get these Trump voters.
Speaker 5: Who's thet Holmes? How are they going to come over
Speaker 5: to you?
Speaker 12: I have yet to see somebody ask republican MAGA voter,
Speaker 12: how are you going to appeal you want to penetrate Democratic?
Speaker 12: How are you going to appeal the base vote? Are
Speaker 12: black voters? Your party seems to stand for a lot
Speaker 12: of things that runs contrary to what black voters want.
Speaker 12: How are you going to appeal to them, How are
Speaker 12: you going to appeal to the changing demographics? People of
Speaker 12: color are increasingly becoming the base vote. What are your
Speaker 12: policies that speak to that demographic? Those things never happened.
Speaker 12: I was never able to get Republicans to come out
Speaker 12: on my show because they did not want to answer
Speaker 12: those types of questions. But access journalism would grant you
Speaker 12: an interview with Ted Cruz or Marjorie Taylor Green, or
Speaker 12: the guy, the Senate guy, the Senate candidate Ron Johnson,
Speaker 12: the Trump acolyte who's running for Senate in Wisconsin. He
Speaker 12: would happily go on those shows if he knew it
Speaker 12: was going to be an easy interview. And that does
Speaker 12: not serve anybody but the a itself. It certainly does
Speaker 12: not serve viewers or voters.
Speaker 2: And you bring up an interestry point. It is in
Speaker 2: twenty sixteen, after the media landscape was quote unquote surprised
Speaker 2: by the red wave, the trump Ism, there there was
Speaker 2: all you saw was anchors in these small, little diners.
Speaker 2: And now we have this midterm election where everybody's shocked
Speaker 2: by the blue whether whether you call it the blue pushback.
Speaker 2: Right there, we're not seeing anybody go to these other
Speaker 2: democratic areas and try to figure them out. I guess
Speaker 2: I think you're you're hitting on something that I think
Speaker 2: there are a lot of perhaps progressives out there who
Speaker 2: look at a place, who look at the media landscape.
Speaker 2: Everybody's picking their own media outlets to try to tell
Speaker 2: them perhaps the story that they think one elucidates the
Speaker 2: world that they see, or the story that makes them
Speaker 2: feel better about themselves. More often than not, there are
Speaker 2: those places in the mass media market that people look
Speaker 2: at have to go all that on INSNBC, But I
Speaker 2: do know that as a place for a lot of
Speaker 2: people who look at that as having a left leading perspective,
Speaker 2: who will take in a lot of these considerations. And
Speaker 2: I think hearing some of your stories here is depressing
Speaker 2: to hear that even even these ideas of being inclusive
Speaker 2: in the stories that we tell is meeting such resistance
Speaker 2: at these levels, like where do you see these stories
Speaker 2: being able to be told? Clearly, we know where they
Speaker 2: need to be able to be told. Where are you
Speaker 2: seeing examples of them being told?
Speaker 12: Well, I think social media has really democratized who has
Speaker 12: a voice in this space, which has come with great
Speaker 12: benefits to democracy, but also to some of our demise. Right,
Speaker 12: Like we talked a little bit about Twitter, which you know,
Speaker 12: you have superstars on Twitter who we really don't know
Speaker 12: who they are, We just know their avatar. You know,
Speaker 12: you have people who discreate these YouTube shows who can
Speaker 12: just declare themselves journalists who might not have the journalistic
Speaker 12: acumen to really interview the podcast Drink Champs, you know,
Speaker 12: and they have Kanye on that podcast that wasn't a journalist,
Speaker 12: you know, that was somebody having a drink with Kanye,
Speaker 12: So there wasn't the space to challenge some of the
Speaker 12: things that he said. And so, you know, I think
Speaker 12: the good thing about it is their space, and it
Speaker 12: has made everybody wake up and say, well, wait a second.
Speaker 12: You know a lot of people are getting their news
Speaker 12: from other places, like The Daily Show, quite honestly, and
Speaker 12: I have been a long, long time fan of The
Speaker 12: Daily Show, but I do think, well, that should not
Speaker 12: be your only news outlet. You know, you do have
Speaker 12: to supplement that. Even my show, when people would say
Speaker 12: I don't watch any news except for your show, it
Speaker 12: would make me a little nervous because it's like, well,
Speaker 12: I'm a perspective host and you know, I'm giving you
Speaker 12: my perspective. It would be helpful if you had some
Speaker 12: of the baseline stuff. And you and I both know
Speaker 12: print drives broadcasts. Print journalism drives broadcast journalm. Everybody starts
Speaker 12: out reading the paper, read six seven, eight papers. But
Speaker 12: even there there's a lack of newsroom diversity. So I
Speaker 12: don't know that I can say where news should be consumed.
Speaker 12: I would say the best answer I could give to
Speaker 12: that is stay tuned to where I land.
Speaker 2: A final question here, do you think the media is
Speaker 2: glad Trump's running again?
Speaker 5: I do? I do.
Speaker 12: I think Trump gave the cable news network such a
Speaker 12: boom that they salivated, and that's why I think they
Speaker 12: were always constantly trying to get me to do Trump.
Speaker 12: I have talked about Trump, but I think they're going
Speaker 12: to be disappointed. I have seen, uh, some in the
Speaker 12: news media a day late and a dollar short, be
Speaker 12: a little more mindful about how they cover him. But
Speaker 12: I also think that the American body politic has lost
Speaker 12: their appetite for the reality TV show that was cable
Speaker 12: news for a brief moment in time. People love to see,
Speaker 12: you know, this throwdown, this battle, this kind of gutter
Speaker 12: back and forth between opposing viewpoints, and you know, it
Speaker 12: was like the anchor would do all but say, let's
Speaker 12: get ready to rumble, and then you bring in this
Speaker 12: you know segment. You know, I think post pandemic and
Speaker 12: being overly sensationalized by this level of yellow journalism from
Speaker 12: print to broadcast has left people a bit apathetic towards
Speaker 12: consuming news at all.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: No, well, Tiffany, I'm excited to see where you land.
Speaker 2: That is definitely going to be the place to check out.
Speaker 2: Thank you for coming on, and thank you everybody else
Speaker 2: for checking out this episode of Jordan Clupper figures the
Speaker 2: Conspiracy whether you're listening on your phone or watching on
Speaker 2: your laptop, especially if it's a laptop at a repair
Speaker 2: shop in Delaware. We'll see you next time, Thanks so many.
Speaker 2: Listen to Jordan Clepper figures the Conspiracy from The Daily
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