Latest / The Ben Ferguson Podcast / The Gravy Train is OVER-Trump Cutting Billions that was Funding the Left-wing Activists, NPR CEO gives Disastrous Congressional Testimony & Signalgate Dem Attack Fails

Transcript

The Gravy Train is OVER-Trump Cutting Billions that was Funding the Left-wing Activists, NPR CEO gives Disastrous Congressional Testimony & Signalgate Dem Attack Fails · The Ben Ferguson Podcast

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Good Monday morning. It is Verdict with Center, Ted Cruz,
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Ben Ferguson with you.
• 0:05
  Speaker 2: Center.
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: It's nice as always to be chatting with you. And
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: this was a very interesting week for the Democrats, whose
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: secret weapon has always been use the media to Jedi
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: mind trick. The American people seems to not be working,
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: and they could also be losing their funding when it
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: comes to MPR and their propaganda and PBS.
• 0:26
  Speaker 3: Well, the gravy train is over.
• 0:28
  Speaker 4: And I got to say, we're two and a half
• 0:30
  Speaker 4: months into the Trump administration and we have never seen
• 0:33
  Speaker 4: such a concerted onslaught on the entire wall of left
• 0:40
  Speaker 4: wing control, the elites of left wing control, and in
• 0:44
  Speaker 4: particular going after the money. What Doze is doing, what
• 0:48
  Speaker 4: Trump is doing, what Elon is doing, is going after
• 0:51
  Speaker 4: the billions and billions of funding, whether at USAID, whether
• 0:55
  Speaker 4: at EPA, whether throughout the administration, that are funding the
• 0:59
  Speaker 4: entire apparat of the left wing. And that is proving
• 1:03
  Speaker 4: incredibly effective. It is sorely needed, and it is causing
• 1:08
  Speaker 4: absolute chaos and panic and terror. Not only that, we
• 1:13
  Speaker 4: saw truly catastrophic testimony from the head of NPR before
• 1:16
  Speaker 4: the House. NPR and PBS are both hard left propaganda
• 1:22
  Speaker 4: networks funded by the taxpayers, and they're both on the
• 1:24
  Speaker 4: chopping blocks. And the left is panicking because again the
• 1:28
  Speaker 4: gravy train is over. And what we're seeing among Democrats
• 1:32
  Speaker 4: right now is chaos, is fear, is absolute disarray and panic,
• 1:37
  Speaker 4: and the Democrats are scattering. We're going to break all
• 1:40
  Speaker 4: of that down. And finally, the democrats big attempt, the
• 1:44
  Speaker 4: media's big attempt to take down President Trump in these
• 1:47
  Speaker 4: first couple of months was Signalgate. Signal Gate. They thought, okay,
• 1:52
  Speaker 4: we've got them, we can take you down the entire
• 1:54
  Speaker 4: national security team. It was breathlessly reported on every TV
• 1:58
  Speaker 4: station around the clock. Democrats called for resignations. Every one
• 2:02
  Speaker 4: of them went out and bought pearls just so they
• 2:04
  Speaker 4: could clutch those pearls. And yet the polling has come
• 2:07
  Speaker 4: through now and the president's approval ratings remain historically strong.
• 2:13
  Speaker 4: Signal gait has failed despite the Democrats and the media's
• 2:18
  Speaker 4: full court press.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it really is incredible, and we're going to dive
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: into all of that as well. I want to talk
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: to you real quick about the International Fellowship of Christians
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: and Jews. After more than a year of war, terror
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: and pain in Israel. The need for security essentials and
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: support for first responders is still critical. Israel must be
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: prepared for the next attack, wherever it may come from.
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: As Israel is surrounded by enemies on all sides. That
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: is where the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews has
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: supported and will continue to support the people of Israel
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: with life saving security essentials, and your gift today will
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: help save lives by providing bomb shelters, armored security vehicles,
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: armored ambulances, firefighting equipment, flat jackets and bulletproof vests and
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: so much more. Your generous donation today will help ensure
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: the people of Israel are safe and secure in the
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: days to come, as threats of tear remain imminent. So
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: give a gift to bless Israel andenter people by visiting
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: SUPPORTIFCJ dot org. That's one word, support IFCJ dot org.
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: You can also call to give eight at eight four
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: eight eight IFCJ that's eight at eight four eight eight
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: if CJ eight eight eight four eight eight four three
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: two five or supportif CJ dot org. All right, so, Centater,
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: let's start with something and again this goes back to
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: money is power. The Democratic Party has figured this out.
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: They've exploited to their advantage. And there was a very
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: intering article that was written about the money and the
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: shutting off of that valve by Bhi. Donald Trump, by
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: government funded patronage networks, explain this to everybody listening.
• 4:06
  Speaker 4: Well, it's an article that was in the Daily Signal
• 4:08
  Speaker 4: and it's entitled how Trump is decimating the Left's patriotage
• 4:12
  Speaker 4: networks by Jarrett Stepman. I want to read the beginning
• 4:14
  Speaker 4: of it because it's really, I think, quite powerful. President
• 4:17
  Speaker 4: Donald Trump has launched a political counter revolution in the
• 4:20
  Speaker 4: early days of his second presidency. One of the most
• 4:23
  Speaker 4: profound ways he's doing this is by effectively cutting off
• 4:27
  Speaker 4: the left's massive government funded patronage networks. What's making Trump's
• 4:32
  Speaker 4: move so effective is that many of these networks are
• 4:35
  Speaker 4: based on government functions that long ago either waned in
• 4:38
  Speaker 4: usefulness or have completely abandoned their purpose. Environmental Protection Agency
• 4:43
  Speaker 4: administrator Lee Zelden appeared on One American News Wednesday and
• 4:47
  Speaker 4: explained how the left has insidiously transformed the federal government
• 4:52
  Speaker 4: into a Democratic party funding apparatus. Zelden explained how the
• 4:56
  Speaker 4: EPA under the bided administration was used as a slush
• 5:00
  Speaker 4: fund to give money to activists. Quote the EPA was
• 5:05
  Speaker 4: absolutely being used to push out this green slush fund
• 5:08
  Speaker 4: to their friends, Zelden said. Quote by design, the director
• 5:13
  Speaker 4: of the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund leaves one of these NGOs,
• 5:17
  Speaker 4: goes to work for the Biden administration to design this
• 5:20
  Speaker 4: whole setup, and then sees his former employer get five
• 5:25
  Speaker 4: billion dollars. Zelden said the scheme applied to contracts large
• 5:31
  Speaker 4: and small, to both green non governmental organization executives and
• 5:35
  Speaker 4: to low level activists. The EPA has been acting as
• 5:38
  Speaker 4: a conduit to transfer huge amounts of taxpayer money to
• 5:42
  Speaker 4: the left's base. Quote are we providing clean air, land,
• 5:46
  Speaker 4: and water? Zelden ast rhetorically, this wasn't money spent towards
• 5:49
  Speaker 4: remediating environmental issue. This was money going through their friends.
• 5:54
  Speaker 3: Indeed it was.
• 5:56
  Speaker 4: Zelden has canceled hundreds of contracts worth one point five
• 6:01
  Speaker 4: billion dollars that were tabbed to go essentially to left
• 6:06
  Speaker 4: wing activist networks focused on quote environmental justice. Democrats are
• 6:12
  Speaker 4: apoplectic about the move. Of course, big surprise, Zelden is
• 6:17
  Speaker 4: going hard on other climate change initiatives too, where the
• 6:21
  Speaker 4: big money is at stake for the less green client network.
• 6:26
  Speaker 3: This is only the tip of the iceberg.
• 6:28
  Speaker 4: One of the real misunderstandings about the modern administrative state
• 6:34
  Speaker 4: was demolished in recent years is that it's operated by
• 6:37
  Speaker 4: nonpartisan experts. Instead, it is now a funding stream. And
• 6:45
  Speaker 4: this is me talking and not the article on it.
• 6:47
  Speaker 4: It's a funding stream for the left. And understand what's
• 6:51
  Speaker 4: gone on. Whether it was USAID, whether it was the EPA,
• 6:54
  Speaker 4: whether it was every single department, the Department of Education,
• 6:58
  Speaker 4: the Department of Agriculture, that Apartment of Justice, every cabinet agency.
• 7:03
  Speaker 4: What the left has done is taking these funding spigots
• 7:08
  Speaker 4: and spent billions and billions of dollars funding all of
• 7:12
  Speaker 4: their friends, funding all of the attack apparatus. If you
• 7:15
  Speaker 4: wonder why things seem sometimes so skewed left and right,
• 7:19
  Speaker 4: a big part of the reason is the left has
• 7:22
  Speaker 4: been addicted to this funding. But Ben, that's what's so
• 7:26
  Speaker 4: powerful about cutting it off. Listen the right. You know,
• 7:29
  Speaker 4: when conservatives are in power, when Republicans are in power,
• 7:32
  Speaker 4: we don't do this. We don't fund our buddies, And
• 7:35
  Speaker 4: I'm glad we don't. I don't want us to. But
• 7:37
  Speaker 4: one strength of that is that means conservative organizations are
• 7:41
  Speaker 4: not addicted to the government cash. We're not suckling at
• 7:46
  Speaker 4: the teat of the federal government. The left right now,
• 7:50
  Speaker 4: they don't know what to do because their entire ecosystem everybody,
• 7:54
  Speaker 4: and understand this is from the big senior poohbas to
• 7:59
  Speaker 4: the most junior, green haired left wing radical who dropped
• 8:04
  Speaker 4: out of school. They're all dependent on the government money.
• 8:07
  Speaker 4: And it's why, you know, when you and I interviewed
• 8:11
  Speaker 4: Elon Musk and he was saying, you know, I asked him,
• 8:14
  Speaker 4: why do they hate you so much? And if you
• 8:16
  Speaker 4: remember his answer, he said, well, I'm taking away their goodies.
• 8:20
  Speaker 4: I'm taking away their money. This is what's fundamentally happening.
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: Well, and the way you said it is exactly the
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: way he was. Just kind of like, look, they're in
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: deep trouble because they don't know how to operate on
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: their own without it, and if you take it away,
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: then it can literally disappear, and also their reach disappears overnight.
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: That is so powerful.
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: Make it on your own, but not with my tax
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: hour subsidizing your radical agenda.
• 8:50
  Speaker 4: That's exactly right. Let me read a little more of
• 8:52
  Speaker 4: this Daily Signal article. Like many of the federal government's projects,
• 8:55
  Speaker 4: USAID is in many ways a relic of a bygone
• 8:58
  Speaker 4: era when the US aimed to stop the influence of
• 9:01
  Speaker 4: communism around the globe. Sometime after the fall of the USSR,
• 9:05
  Speaker 4: it became a vehicle to fund various leftist projects around
• 9:08
  Speaker 4: the globe with little relation to US national interest. In fact,
• 9:13
  Speaker 4: many of these projects were downright loathed in countries that
• 9:18
  Speaker 4: weren't too pleased with the US government funding pride parades
• 9:22
  Speaker 4: in their capital city. The Trump administration is also pulling
• 9:26
  Speaker 4: the plug on the unofficially established Church of the Left too.
• 9:31
  Speaker 4: They are withdrawing or threatening to withdraw hundreds of millions
• 9:36
  Speaker 4: of dollars in grant money directed at colleges and universities
• 9:40
  Speaker 4: that failed to protect their students from anti semitism on campus.
• 9:43
  Speaker 4: They are threatening schools with removing even more funds if
• 9:47
  Speaker 4: they continue their illegal, racially discriminatory DEI programs too, and
• 9:52
  Speaker 4: one might add that the problem goes far beyond anti
• 9:55
  Speaker 4: semitism and DEI. American universities, which have in many cases
• 10:00
  Speaker 4: become hedge funds with schools attached, are increasingly failing to
• 10:06
  Speaker 4: serve the public good. Much of what they call vital
• 10:09
  Speaker 4: quote unquote research is bogus. In addition, there's no question
• 10:15
  Speaker 4: that taxpayer funded research grants allow universities to fund their
• 10:19
  Speaker 4: obnoxious humanities departments that are politically monolithic at nearly every school.
• 10:25
  Speaker 4: They are in the business of gatekeeping the American elite
• 10:29
  Speaker 4: and turning out generations of activists who not only run
• 10:32
  Speaker 4: the show on campus, but populate newsrooms, corporate boardrooms, and
• 10:36
  Speaker 4: government institutions. Want to know what, Nearly everyone who runs
• 10:40
  Speaker 4: an elite institution sounds the same, spouts the same dogmas,
• 10:44
  Speaker 4: and went along with every insanity of the twenty twenty
• 10:47
  Speaker 4: great awokening.
• 10:49
  Speaker 3: There's your source.
• 10:51
  Speaker 4: And this is fundamentally what is going on that Trump
• 10:54
  Speaker 4: is targeting the power at the source.
• 10:58
  Speaker 3: He's targeting the money.
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: That is a big, big deal, which brings us to
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: another aspect of this, and that was what happened in
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: Congress last week with MPR CEO and PBS a CEO
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: there in front of Congress having to deal with what
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: DOGE is doing, which is cutting waste, fraud, and abuse,
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: and it did not go very well for the CEOs.
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: It reminded me an awful lot center of when those
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: the presidents of the Ivy League schools had to come
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: and answer questions about anti Semitism on college campuses after
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: the attacks on Israel, and people were just in shock
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: how radical they were and how they were not stopping it.
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: That was very reminiscent of that.
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: With NPR CEO, very arrogant, pbsco very arrogant, like, this
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: is what we do. We take your money, we put
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: out propaganda, so sue us, That's what we've been doing forever.
• 11:55
  Speaker 4: Well, and Catherine Maher who's the CEO of NPR ist
• 12:00
  Speaker 4: dripping the arrogant. She is hard left, and it was
• 12:04
  Speaker 4: exactly like you're right. The president of Harvard, the president
• 12:08
  Speaker 4: of Penn both of them lost their jobs over there, arrogant,
• 12:11
  Speaker 4: out of touch testimony before the House. Where she is. Look,
• 12:17
  Speaker 4: she's a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. She
• 12:20
  Speaker 4: worked for UNISEF, She worked for the National Democratic Institute,
• 12:23
  Speaker 4: She worked for the World Bank in access Now, she
• 12:26
  Speaker 4: worked for Wikimedia Wikimedia Foundation.
• 12:29
  Speaker 3: She joined the Atlantic Council.
• 12:31
  Speaker 4: She was part of the Department of States Foreign Affairs
• 12:33
  Speaker 4: Policy Board. She is a hard leftist, but look don't
• 12:38
  Speaker 4: take my word for it. Listen to it out of
• 12:41
  Speaker 4: her own mouth. And I want you to listen in
• 12:43
  Speaker 4: particular for this back and forth with Brandon gil Brandon
• 12:48
  Speaker 4: Gill is a freshman House member from Texas. He's a
• 12:52
  Speaker 4: good friend. I campaigned hard for Brandon. I endorsed him
• 12:56
  Speaker 4: in the primary. Brandon is a rising star in the House.
• 12:59
  Speaker 4: And just listen of this back and forth as he
• 13:01
  Speaker 4: questions her and and and and hangs her on her
• 13:04
  Speaker 4: own petard with her own words. Give a listen.
• 13:07
  Speaker 5: Do you believe that America is addicted to white supremacy?
• 13:11
  Speaker 6: I believe that I tweeted that.
• 13:12
  Speaker 7: And as I've said earlier, I believe much of my
• 13:14
  Speaker 7: thinking has evolved over the last half decade.
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: It is okay, stop stop, stop, stops.
• 13:20
  Speaker 4: I want you to notice something she says there, Much
• 13:23
  Speaker 4: of my thinking has evolved over the last half decade, Ben,
• 13:28
  Speaker 4: what's a half decade?
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: Five years?
• 13:30
  Speaker 3: That would be five years. Doesn't that half decades sound long?
• 13:33
  Speaker 4: I believe much of my thinking has evolved over the
• 13:36
  Speaker 4: last half decade. Oh crap, what I said five years ago?
• 13:39
  Speaker 4: Oh no, that's a real problem. Run away, run away,
• 13:41
  Speaker 4: all right, go back to what he's playing with has evolved.
• 13:43
  Speaker 4: I just like that that that that comment. Her idiocy
• 13:46
  Speaker 4: only gets me laugh.
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: As soon as I heard, I was like, this is
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: not going well. Keep listening, it gets evolved.
• 13:51
  Speaker 8: Why did you tweet that?
• 13:53
  Speaker 7: I don't recall the exact context, sir, so I wouldn't
• 13:56
  Speaker 7: be able to say.
• 13:57
  Speaker 5: Okay, do you believe that America believes in black plunder
• 14:00
  Speaker 5: in white democracy?
• 14:02
  Speaker 6: I don't believe that, sir.
• 14:05
  Speaker 8: You tweeted that.
• 14:06
  Speaker 5: It's reference to a book you were reading at the time,
• 14:08
  Speaker 5: apparently The Case for Reparations.
• 14:11
  Speaker 6: I don't think I've ever read that book, Sir.
• 14:13
  Speaker 8: You tweeted about it.
• 14:15
  Speaker 5: You said you took a day off to fully read
• 14:18
  Speaker 5: The Case for Reparations. You put that on Twitter in
• 14:20
  Speaker 5: January twenty twenty.
• 14:22
  Speaker 6: I apologies.
• 14:23
  Speaker 7: I don't recall that I did okay, I'd no doubt
• 14:26
  Speaker 7: that your tweet there is correct, but I don't recall.
• 14:29
  Speaker 5: Okay, do you believe that white people inherently feel superior
• 14:33
  Speaker 5: to other races?
• 14:34
  Speaker 6: I do not.
• 14:36
  Speaker 5: You tweeted something to that effect. You said I grew
• 14:39
  Speaker 5: up feeling superior. How wide of me? Why did you
• 14:42
  Speaker 5: tweet that?
• 14:43
  Speaker 7: I think I was probably reflecting on what it was
• 14:46
  Speaker 7: to be to grow up in an environment where I
• 14:49
  Speaker 7: had lots of advantages.
• 14:50
  Speaker 5: It sounds like you're saying that white people feel superior.
• 14:54
  Speaker 7: I don't believe that anybody feels that way, sir. I
• 14:56
  Speaker 7: was just reflecting on my own experiences.
• 14:58
  Speaker 8: Do you think that white people should pay rep I
• 15:01
  Speaker 8: have never said that, sir. Yes you did. You said
• 15:04
  Speaker 8: it in January of twenty twenty.
• 15:05
  Speaker 5: You tweeted, yes, the North, yes, all of us, Yes, America, Yes,
• 15:09
  Speaker 5: our original collective sin and unpaid debt. Yes, reparations, yes
• 15:13
  Speaker 5: on this day.
• 15:14
  Speaker 7: I don't believe that was a reference to fiscal reparations, sir.
• 15:17
  Speaker 8: What kind of reparations was it a reference to.
• 15:20
  Speaker 7: I think it was just a reference to the idea
• 15:21
  Speaker 7: that we all owe much to the people who came
• 15:24
  Speaker 7: before us.
• 15:25
  Speaker 5: That's a bizarre way to frame what you tweeted. Okay,
• 15:31
  Speaker 5: many How much reparations have you personally paid?
• 15:34
  Speaker 6: Sir?
• 15:35
  Speaker 7: I don't believe that I've ever paid reparations.
• 15:38
  Speaker 5: Okay, just for everybody else, I'm not asking anyone. Seems
• 15:41
  Speaker 5: to be what you're suggesting. Do you believe that looting
• 15:44
  Speaker 5: is morally wrong?
• 15:45
  Speaker 7: I believe that looting is illegal, and I refer to
• 15:48
  Speaker 7: it as counterproductive. I think it should be prosecuted.
• 15:50
  Speaker 8: Do you believe it's morally wrong though?
• 15:52
  Speaker 6: Of course?
• 15:52
  Speaker 5: Of course, then why did you refer to it as
• 15:54
  Speaker 5: counter productive? Very different, very different way to describe it.
• 15:59
  Speaker 7: It is both morally wrong and counterproductive as well as.
• 16:01
  Speaker 5: Being you tweeted it's hard to be mad about protests
• 16:04
  Speaker 5: in reference to the BLM protests not prioritizing the private
• 16:09
  Speaker 5: property of a system of oppression. You didn't condemn the looting.
• 16:13
  Speaker 5: You said that it was counterproductive. NPR also promoted a
• 16:18
  Speaker 5: book called Indefensive Looting. Do you think that that's an
• 16:21
  Speaker 5: appropriate use of taxpayer dollars?
• 16:23
  Speaker 7: I'm unfamiliar with that book, sir, and I don't believe
• 16:26
  Speaker 7: that was.
• 16:26
  Speaker 8: A tweeted that you read that book.
• 16:28
  Speaker 6: But I don't believe that I did read that book.
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: It's amazing she tweeted that she read the book. She's like,
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: I don't believe that I ever read that book. So
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: you're either lying now or you're lying. What a half
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: half a decade ago is? She likes to describe it right, Senator.
• 16:43
  Speaker 4: Look, that is a crushingly effective cross examination. And if
• 16:50
  Speaker 4: you look at at She is running away from everything
• 16:55
  Speaker 4: she's ever said, everything she's ever believed, because it is
• 16:58
  Speaker 4: indefensible when she said, as you know, she claimed on Twitter,
• 17:03
  Speaker 4: she took an entire day off to read a book
• 17:05
  Speaker 4: on reparations. It was so important that shed de voted
• 17:07
  Speaker 4: a day of her and now she has no recollection.
• 17:09
  Speaker 4: I'm sorry, I I you know this. This will be
• 17:11
  Speaker 4: before you were watching TV. But but there was an
• 17:14
  Speaker 4: old series. You ever watch Hogan's Heroes? Yeah, gosh, yes, okay,
• 17:17
  Speaker 4: well do you remember Sergeant Schultz. Yes, Sergeant Schultz, he
• 17:20
  Speaker 4: would say.
• 17:21
  Speaker 3: I see nothing, I hear nothing.
• 17:23
  Speaker 4: That is that's that is Catherine Marr. She sees nothing,
• 17:27
  Speaker 4: she hears nothing.
• 17:28
  Speaker 3: Uh.
• 17:29
  Speaker 4: And and yet this is someone charged with spending millions
• 17:34
  Speaker 4: of taxpayer dollars running what is a left wing propaganda network.
• 17:40
  Speaker 4: You know her statement, I've never called for reparations. I
• 17:44
  Speaker 4: gotta say, Brandon, I think does a fabulous shop? Well
• 17:46
  Speaker 4: yes you did, let me read you the tweet and
• 17:47
  Speaker 4: she says reparations yes, oh oh well, well other than
• 17:51
  Speaker 4: when I called for reparations. But I haven't called for
• 17:53
  Speaker 4: it other than when I've called for it. But but
• 17:55
  Speaker 4: but no, no, it's not fiscal reparations. It's it's I mean,
• 17:59
  Speaker 4: I mean, I mean pairing the tires on their cars.
• 18:01
  Speaker 4: That's that that that those are the reparations.
• 18:03
  Speaker 3: I mean.
• 18:05
  Speaker 4: She has no answer, because her answer is she desperately
• 18:11
  Speaker 4: wants to run away from everything she has ever said
• 18:14
  Speaker 4: or done. But but let me actually let's actually go
• 18:19
  Speaker 4: to something else that that that that she said and did,
• 18:22
  Speaker 4: which is what do you think she has cited as
• 18:25
  Speaker 4: the number one challenge?
• 18:28
  Speaker 3: Uh? That it that that.
• 18:29
  Speaker 4: Is facing uh that that is facing journalism right.
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: Now, knowing this woman have no idea.
• 18:40
  Speaker 4: Okay, Here here is a quote from her at a
• 18:42
  Speaker 4: panel at the Atlantic Council Research Lab. Quote, the number
• 18:46
  Speaker 4: one challenge that we see here is, of course the
• 18:49
  Speaker 4: First Amendment in the United States.
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: It's it's so like, it's so on Brandford, that's almost unbelievable. Though,
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: like a woman who says that she leaves in the
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: public and radio and free speed says, that's the real
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: problem is the First Amendment. In fact, Sedator, here's the
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: MPR CEO in her own words, saying exactly that the.
• 19:12
  Speaker 9: Number one challenge here that we see is, of course,
• 19:16
  Speaker 9: the First Amendment in the United States is a fairly
• 19:19
  Speaker 9: robust protection of rights, and that is a protection of
• 19:24
  Speaker 9: rights both for platforms, which I actually think is very
• 19:26
  Speaker 9: important that platforms have those rights to be able to
• 19:28
  Speaker 9: regulate what kind of content they want on their sites.
• 19:31
  Speaker 9: But it also means that it is a little bit
• 19:33
  Speaker 9: trickically addressed some of the real challenges of where does
• 19:37
  Speaker 9: bad information come from and sort of the influence peddlers
• 19:40
  Speaker 9: who have made a real market economy around it.
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: I mean, you listen to her, and it's just amazing.
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: If we could just do what we want and get
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: rid of everything we don't want and silence anybody that
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: says something that is disagreeing with us, and everything would
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: be fine in media and with our government, right, we
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: could just control everybody and shut everybody down we don't like.
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: That is the NPR CEO saying it.
• 20:05
  Speaker 4: Look, the left believes in censorship, that they don't believe
• 20:08
  Speaker 4: in journalism, they don't believe in media, they believe in propaganda.
• 20:11
  Speaker 4: And you and I on this podcast covered last year
• 20:15
  Speaker 4: a story that was written in The Free Press by
• 20:18
  Speaker 4: Yuri Berliner, and it was in April of twenty four
• 20:22
  Speaker 4: and it was entitled I've been at NPR for twenty
• 20:25
  Speaker 4: five years. Here's how we lost to America's trust. And
• 20:27
  Speaker 4: I just want to read the beginning of it again
• 20:29
  Speaker 4: because we did a good chunk of a podcast just
• 20:31
  Speaker 4: on this story, but it really sets up the absolute disaster.
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: That is NPR today. How Uri Billinner began.
• 20:39
  Speaker 4: You know, the stereotype of the NPR lister, an ev driving,
• 20:42
  Speaker 4: wordle playing, tote bag carrying, coastal elite. It doesn't precisely
• 20:46
  Speaker 4: describe me, but it's not far off. I'm Sarah Lawrence, educated,
• 20:50
  Speaker 4: was raised by a lesbian peace activist mother. I drive
• 20:54
  Speaker 4: a super room and Spotify says my listing habits are
• 20:57
  Speaker 4: most similar to people in Berkeley.
• 21:00
  Speaker 3: I fit the NPR mold. I'll cop to that.
• 21:03
  Speaker 4: So when I got a job here twenty five years ago,
• 21:04
  Speaker 4: I never looked back. As a senior editor on the
• 21:06
  Speaker 4: business desk, where news is always breaking, We've covered up
• 21:09
  Speaker 4: peeples in the workplace, supermarket prices, social media, and AI.
• 21:13
  Speaker 4: It's true NPR always had a liberal bent, but during
• 21:16
  Speaker 4: most of my tenure here, an open minded, curious culture prevailed.
• 21:20
  Speaker 4: We were nerdy, not knee jerk activists or scolding. In
• 21:23
  Speaker 4: recent years, however, that has changed Today those who listen
• 21:27
  Speaker 4: to NPR or read its coverage online find something different
• 21:31
  Speaker 4: the distilled worldview of a very small segment of the
• 21:35
  Speaker 4: US population. If you are a conservative, you will read
• 21:39
  Speaker 4: this and say, duh, it's always been this way, but
• 21:43
  Speaker 4: it hasn't.
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: For decades.
• 21:44
  Speaker 4: Since its founding in nineteen seventy, a wide swath of
• 21:47
  Speaker 4: America turned into NPR for reliable journalism and gorgeous audio
• 21:51
  Speaker 4: pieces with birds singing in the Amazon. Millions came to
• 21:55
  Speaker 4: us for conversations that exposed us to voices around the country,
• 21:58
  Speaker 4: in the world radically different from our engaging precisely because
• 22:02
  Speaker 4: they were unguarded and unpredictable. No image generated more pride
• 22:06
  Speaker 4: within NPR than the farmer listening to Morning Edition from
• 22:10
  Speaker 4: his or her tractor at sunrise. Back in twenty eleven,
• 22:14
  Speaker 4: although NPR's audience is tilted a bit to the left,
• 22:17
  Speaker 4: it still bore a resemblance to America at large. Twenty
• 22:21
  Speaker 4: six percent of listeners described themselves as conservative, twenty three
• 22:24
  Speaker 4: percent as middle of the road, and thirty seven percent
• 22:27
  Speaker 4: as liberal. By twenty twenty three, the picture was completely different.
• 22:32
  Speaker 4: Only eleven percent described themselves as very or somewhat conservative.
• 22:36
  Speaker 4: Twenty one percent as middle of the road, and sixty
• 22:39
  Speaker 4: seven percent of listeners said they were very or somewhat liberal.
• 22:43
  Speaker 4: We weren't just losing conservatives, we were also losing moderates
• 22:46
  Speaker 4: and traditional liberals. An open minded spirit no longer exists
• 22:50
  Speaker 4: within NPR, and now, predictably, we don't have an audience
• 22:55
  Speaker 4: that reflects America.
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: So you see where we are with this.
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: It's very clear that she was exposed for what she
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: believes and just how radical. You even had a Congressman,
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: William Timmins, who is asking her a basic question about, Hey,
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: you claim that you guys aren't biased, and he asked
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: her about her editorial board. I want people to hear
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: what she said about her editorial board members.
• 23:19
  Speaker 10: Listen, you're a rabid progressive, and do you not think
• 23:23
  Speaker 10: it's a problem that your political leanings make it seem
• 23:28
  Speaker 10: to the American people that you're not biased and you're
• 23:31
  Speaker 10: not doing your job because you agree that your job
• 23:33
  Speaker 10: is to have journalistic integrity.
• 23:34
  Speaker 7: Right, absolutely, But there is a strong firewall between the
• 23:38
  Speaker 7: newsroom and anything that I.
• 23:39
  Speaker 10: Let's talk about the newsroom. You have eighty seven registered Democrats,
• 23:43
  Speaker 10: not a single Republican in your editor boards. I mean,
• 23:47
  Speaker 10: how does that work to give us the perception that
• 23:50
  Speaker 10: you're doing your job of actually delivering unbiased information.
• 23:53
  Speaker 7: I would agree with you that that number is a
• 23:55
  Speaker 7: concern if it is accurate. I do believe that we
• 23:57
  Speaker 7: need to have journalists who represent the full breadth of
• 24:00
  Speaker 7: the American society so that we can report well for
• 24:02
  Speaker 7: all Americans.
• 24:03
  Speaker 10: Well, I think that you are failing. I realize you
• 24:06
  Speaker 10: don't even there for a year, but I just really
• 24:08
  Speaker 10: think that while it is a small portion of your budget,
• 24:11
  Speaker 10: you very much should expect to restructure your revenue streams
• 24:15
  Speaker 10: because I don't think that MPR is necessarily worth saving.
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: I love these I don't think MPR is necessarily worth
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: saving the fact that their editorial board has eighty seven members,
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: all of them registered Democrats. Center, there's not even independence.
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: Are like non registered people on their board. You don't
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: apparently become an editorial board member unless you are a
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: card carrying Democrat. Even independence be damned, forget Republicans, you
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: got zero. MPR is blatantly partisan in balance, that's obvious.
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: But then the question becomes, Okay, what happens next. We
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: know it, we've confirmed it, We've witnessed it. We heard
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: her testimony. I don't think she's going to lose her
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: job over this, but will she actually lose our taxpayer
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: dollars that are funding them.
• 25:04
  Speaker 4: Well, And the stat of the eighty seven registered Democrats
• 25:09
  Speaker 4: actually comes from that that article Uriberliner wrote in the
• 25:12
  Speaker 4: Free Press, and he wrote last year, he said, quote,
• 25:16
  Speaker 4: concerned by the lack of viewpoint diversity, I looked at
• 25:19
  Speaker 4: voter registration for our newsroom in DC, where NPR's headquarters
• 25:24
  Speaker 4: and many of us live. I found eighty seven registered
• 25:27
  Speaker 4: Democrats working in editorial positions and zero Republicans.
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: None.
• 25:34
  Speaker 4: So, on May third, twenty twenty one, I presented the
• 25:37
  Speaker 4: findings at an all hands editorial staff meeting. Now note
• 25:40
  Speaker 4: this is a senior editor at NPR who's reporting this.
• 25:44
  Speaker 4: Here's what he writes. The response was when I suggested
• 25:46
  Speaker 4: we had a diversity problem with a score of eighty
• 25:49
  Speaker 4: seven Democrats and zero Republicans. The response wasn't hostile, it
• 25:55
  Speaker 4: was worse. I was met with profound indifference. A few
• 26:00
  Speaker 4: messages from surprised, curious colleagues, but the messages were of
• 26:04
  Speaker 4: the oh wow, that's weird variety, as if the lopsided
• 26:07
  Speaker 4: tally was a random an anomaly rather than a critical
• 26:10
  Speaker 4: failure of our diversity north Star. In a follow up
• 26:14
  Speaker 4: email exchange, a top NPR News executive told me that
• 26:16
  Speaker 4: she had been skewered for bringing up diversity of thought
• 26:20
  Speaker 4: when she arrived at NPR, so she said, I want
• 26:23
  Speaker 4: to be careful how we discuss this publicly. Look, NPR
• 26:28
  Speaker 4: is nothing but a left wing propaganda out let, PBS
• 26:31
  Speaker 4: is the same. And the very best witness to demonstrate
• 26:35
  Speaker 4: this is Katherine Marr, who is an absolute zealot. She's
• 26:40
  Speaker 4: someone who, when Tim Waltz said let's put tampons in boys' bathrooms,
• 26:44
  Speaker 4: I'm sure Katherine Marr said, oh you hero, you social
• 26:48
  Speaker 4: justice warrior. That's the world she's coming from. She's someone
• 26:52
  Speaker 4: who I suspect only refers to latin X because Latinos
• 26:58
  Speaker 4: and Latinos do not exist in her elite, left wing, blinkered,
• 27:06
  Speaker 4: bizarre world. And you know what, Catherine Maher is entitled
• 27:10
  Speaker 4: to her opinions. I will defend her right to spout
• 27:13
  Speaker 4: innateities for the rest of her life. I just don't
• 27:16
  Speaker 4: want to pay for him, and I don't think you
• 27:18
  Speaker 4: should have to pay for him if she wants to
• 27:21
  Speaker 4: spout idiocies. She needs to find some left wing billionaire
• 27:24
  Speaker 4: to pay for her. It shouldn't be the American taxpayers
• 27:28
  Speaker 4: forced to subsidize her efforts at propaganda.
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: So will we actually have the funding of these two platforms?
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: What is your best guess now? After these hearings were
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: so clear.
• 27:40
  Speaker 4: Look, I very much hope so that this gets to
• 27:43
  Speaker 4: the sixty four thousand dollars question coming out of all
• 27:46
  Speaker 4: of Doze, which is how much of what DOGE is
• 27:49
  Speaker 4: doing right now will be memorialized in legislation that Congress
• 27:53
  Speaker 4: can pass. And that is an open question right now, Ben,
• 27:57
  Speaker 4: because anything that goes through what's called regular order in
• 28:01
  Speaker 4: the Senate means that it takes sixty votes to pass,
• 28:04
  Speaker 4: which means that Democrats can block it. And so we
• 28:08
  Speaker 4: will try to use exceptions to the filibuster rule, the
• 28:12
  Speaker 4: most important of which is is reck budget reconciliation to
• 28:16
  Speaker 4: do as much of that as possible. But I don't
• 28:19
  Speaker 4: know if Congress will succeed on getting the job done.
• 28:22
  Speaker 4: I certainly hope so, and I can tell you this,
• 28:24
  Speaker 4: I'm fighting tooth and nail to make it happen.
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: Which center brings us to another story, and it may
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: have been one of the biggest fails that we've seen
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: a long time from the media. They grabbed onto what
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: they described as signal gait. They were demanding that people
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: resign or be fired by the president. That was never
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: going to happen. But really what it was they were
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: hoping that the American bee would turn on Donald Trump,
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: it would tank as approval rating and stop the momentum
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: with doge and everything else. It turns out the American
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: people actually care more about killing terrorists than they do
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: about who's on a signal chat and CBS poll numbers
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: are proving that to be true.
• 29:02
  Speaker 4: Well, you know, the left is not subtle. The Democrats
• 29:05
  Speaker 4: in the media, they tell you exactly what they're doing,
• 29:08
  Speaker 4: and they're all monolithic because they believe in censorship, they
• 29:10
  Speaker 4: believe in propaganda. Every one of them says exactly the
• 29:13
  Speaker 4: same thing one hundred percent of the time. And listen,
• 29:17
  Speaker 4: it's clear they hate Donald Trump, they want to destroy him,
• 29:21
  Speaker 4: they hate everything he's doing. And they looked at this
• 29:24
  Speaker 4: signal text thread as their big chance. This was going
• 29:28
  Speaker 4: to be their Russia Russia, Russia, that they were going
• 29:30
  Speaker 4: to use it to go after the President. To go
• 29:32
  Speaker 4: after every one of his appointees. And so we've seen
• 29:36
  Speaker 4: for the better part of a week breathless coverage in
• 29:39
  Speaker 4: the media, every Democrat demanding investigations, demanding firings. You know,
• 29:44
  Speaker 4: one of the funniest was Eric Swalwell, who even among
• 29:48
  Speaker 4: left wing nutcases, managed to really stand out. You know,
• 29:52
  Speaker 4: he tweeted out every person on the signal thread should
• 29:55
  Speaker 4: be fired. Yeah, okay, I'm sure that's the great idea there,
• 29:58
  Speaker 4: the vice president, secretary of State, Secretary of Events, every
• 30:00
  Speaker 4: national security official in the entire administration. Okay, sure, I
• 30:04
  Speaker 4: know why you want that, I understand, but America's.
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: Not You didn't have the same guy that slept with
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: a spy. I just want to make sure I get
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: the connection here, right.
• 30:15
  Speaker 3: I don't know why you'd hold that against him.
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: Got it? Yeah, that's a little rich from that guy,
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: But keep going.
• 30:21
  Speaker 4: Look everything they wanted to destroy Trump, and they were
• 30:27
  Speaker 4: convinced this was their this was their opportunity. And look,
• 30:32
  Speaker 4: you and I did a podcast to media after this
• 30:34
  Speaker 4: broke where we pointed out, yeah, it was a screw
• 30:36
  Speaker 4: up to include the editor of The Atlantic on it.
• 30:39
  Speaker 3: That was a mistake.
• 30:40
  Speaker 4: It was a pretty an embarrassing mistake, but the underlying
• 30:43
  Speaker 4: substance of the text exchange was great. It was actually
• 30:45
  Speaker 4: the president of the National Security Team taking out terrorists
• 30:48
  Speaker 4: who were attacking Americans, who had been attacking American shipping lanes,
• 30:52
  Speaker 4: who Biden had ignored and done nothing, and who had
• 30:55
  Speaker 4: been driving up costs for American consumers because it was
• 30:58
  Speaker 4: so expensive to get through the Sue Canal. And President
• 31:01
  Speaker 4: Trump said, open up the shipping lanes, take out the
• 31:04
  Speaker 4: houthy radical Islamic terrorists. And they did, and it was
• 31:06
  Speaker 4: an incredible success. So the substance of it was all
• 31:11
  Speaker 4: strong and successful. But yet the media and the Democrats thought, Aha,
• 31:16
  Speaker 4: we finally got through this mistake. The way to go
• 31:18
  Speaker 4: after Trump well. On Sunday CBS poll CBS released a
• 31:23
  Speaker 4: new poll, and it turns out their entire attack on
• 31:27
  Speaker 4: Signal Gate failed. CBS polls shows fifty percent of Americans
• 31:31
  Speaker 4: approve of Donald Trump, fifty percent disapprove. In other words,
• 31:35
  Speaker 4: their entire effort to take him down failed utterly.
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: Gotta love it. Don't forget me to this show Monday,
• 31:42
  Speaker 2: Wednesday Friday.
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: Hit that subscriber auto download button and share this podcast.
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: Please.
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: You can text it to your friends. You can put
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: it on X or on Facebook or on Instagram. Make
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: sure you get it out there so other people hear
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: what we're doing and the Senate and I will see
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: you back here on Wednesday morning.