Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
It is verdict with Senator Ted Cruz Ben Ferguson with
you and Senator I think it's time that we do
a really nice job exposing the left and the dark
money that is funding all of these anti Israel protests
across the country.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
Well, that's exactly right. We're more than a week into
these rabid anti Israel Prohamas protests that we're seeing at
college campuses across the country, and a question that keeps
coming up is where is this money coming from. More
than a few people have noticed, Gosh, these protesters all
seem to have matching tents. The tents are brand new.
Who's paying for them? There's clearly real money behind that.
(00:41):
We're going to do a deep dive into that.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Yeah, you're not trying to hide it, by the way,
when there's no subtlety, it's like wearing matching uniforms, it's
clear somebody paid for them.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
That's happening. On top of that, we're going to do
a deep dive into NPR. NPR has a new CEO.
NPR is supposed to be national public Radio. It is
funded in significant part by your and my tax dollars,
and yet their new CEO is a hard left partisan activist.
She has no pretense of being impartial, of being unbiased.
(01:15):
She is a leftist, a proud, unabashed leftist. We're going
to go into her record as well.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
I want to tell you real quick about a cool
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Speaker 1 (01:52):
Is not hard like it used to be.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
And if you are sick and tired of the left,
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Speaker 1 (02:45):
So join me.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
Switching is easy, and I'm going to give you free
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verdict and you'll get free activation center. When you look
(03:06):
at all of these protests, and you mentioned the matching tents,
it's kind of hilarious. They're not even trying to hide it.
This is exactly what we saw with Black Lives Matter
as well. It seems that anytime we now have really
well organized, whether it's shutting down the Golden Gate Bridge,
the Memphis Bridge, or the new York Bridge. It seems
like it's orchestrated, and now we're seeing these sit ins
(03:28):
and these tent cities that are popping up. It's almost
like a Black Lives Matter two point zero playbook here.
And it's coming from dark money groups that are funding bail,
they're funding the legal support for any and every anti
Israel agitator that's willing to come out and do this.
Speaker 3 (03:46):
Well, that's exactly right. There's clearly significant money that are
funding these. As we noted a minute ago, they're tenth smatch,
they're tarpsmatch, they come in fully provisioned and we see them.
You know, we're seeing at universities it's not just students
as spontaneous. They're outside agitators who are treating it as
a job. So what do we know, Well that there
(04:06):
was an article that came out this week in News
Nation that says begins with the following. Columbia University is
warning of potential outside agitators as students hold continued protests
calling for a ceasefire in Gaza and a divestment from Israel.
And it explains that the demand has its root in
the BDS movement, the boycott divestment and sanctions movement which
(04:28):
has been going on for decades attacking Israel. And if
you look, there are several organizations who are funding this movement.
On Tuesday night, one group that was called Within Our
Lifetime held a protest outside the walls of Columbia calling
for resistance quote by any means necessary. They were chanting Colombia.
(04:51):
You will see we are all SJP Colombia. You will
learn refugees will return. And if you look at Within
our Lifetime is one of what News Nations describes as
a quote vast network of organizations that have coordinated protests
that have blocked highways, delayed trains, and shut down parts
(05:13):
of college campuses across the country for the past few months.
And it's led but it's a New York City based organization.
It's led by an individual named nier Dean Kisswane, who's
a twenty nine year old who founded the group nearly
a decade ago. And if you look at what Kiswane says,
he says, quote I just support the Palestinian people as
(05:35):
a whole, and I believe that we have a right
to resist. And if they're mad at it, they can
talk to Biden. They can talk to the Secretary of State,
they can talk to elected officials who keep funding wars abroad,
who keep funding death and killing on our name with
our tax dollars. And the group claims to not be
directly associated with a protest on college campuses. They're intertwined
(05:58):
with other organizations. One of the organizations is Students for
Justice in Palestine that's s JP, Jewish Voice for Peace
that's JVP, the Palestinian Youth Movement that's p y M,
and the American Muslims for Palestine that's a MP. And
and these are part of the of the whole network
(06:19):
of anti Israel, anti Zionists, anti Semitic groups across the country,
and several of the pro Palestinian organizations UH don't have
public tax filings. NBC did investigation within our Lifetime does
not have any public tax filings. Instead, what they use
is a group based in New York. It's a nonprofit
(06:41):
group called the Westchester People's Action Coalition Foundation WESTPAC, and
it's their fiscal sponsor to collect and process online donations
and tax laws allows them to be a five O
C three status organization and they can collect money. We
(07:02):
don't know for sure who's funding them. It's dark money.
This is by design, this is to hide it. We
do know one of the groups, if not Now, has
received one hundred thousand dollars in the past five years
from the Rockefeller's Brothers Fund, and that organization's stated goal
is quote to end US support for Israel's apartheid system.
(07:25):
The fund is also awarded nearly a half billion dollars
to the Jewish Voice for Peace, another Palestadian rights organization.
And what we're seeing is well. Here are the comments
of Jonathan Shanzer. He's a former Treasury Department official who
says that the organizing parties are cultivated by potentially dangerous groups.
(07:48):
Here's the quote quote, They're extremely organized. There are a
lot of the Islamists leaning groups that I think many
of us have come to expect here. They are not spontaneous,
they are not necessarily organic. They are cultivated by groups
that have an ax to grind, and in particular, Shanzer
(08:09):
called for more aggressive investigation of the ties between the
pro Palestinian groups and terrorist organizations. He called for this
in testimony to Congress. Here's what he said. Quote, individuals
who have previously worked for Hamas charities are now a
driving force behind the large pro Hamas demonstrations taking place
(08:29):
in major cities across America, and in particular, he pointed
to an individual named Hatam Basian, who is a lecturer
at the University of California, Berkeley, as an example. And
Basian founded the national branch of SJP to promote campus
based activism, and later he launched AMP and Shanzer claimed
(08:52):
that Basian and his organizations are part of a network
that quote is providing training, talking points, materials, and financial
support to students, intimidating and threatening Jewish and pro Israel
students on college campuses.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
You put all that together and you see it center
and it's like, this is pretty obvious. This is something
that I think should probably be at some point investigated.
In fact, Newsweek has a headline just now and it
says police investigating people behind the pro Palaestinian protests, and
that is something that I'm kind of shocked it took
(09:30):
this long, but officials quote with the New York Police
Department said that their department is looking to who may
be behind the pro palating in protests of rock to
universities in Manhattan in recent days. Several dozen demonstrators were
arrested by police Monday night after students set up a
pro palasing encampment on New York University's campus. The demonstration,
which started around fifty individuals know the Stern School of Business,
(09:52):
grew to hundreds of protesters before rest were made. Spokesman
from the university said that it believed many of the
individuals who joined rally, including some who breach barriers established
by canvas safety officers, were not affiliated with NYU. Therefore,
they're now saying they are going to investigate it. I
mean this to me is a captain obvious, no brainer.
(10:15):
Of course you should be investigating this. Of course you are.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
And I have zero confidence the Biden Department of Justice
will investigate. I have zero confidence the Biden FBI will investigate.
Why because, as we've discussed at great length, the Biden
DOJ and FBI have been thoroughly politicized and weaponized. And
the people funding these anti Semitic protests are leftists. They
are leftists who right now more and more are the
(10:38):
base of the Democrat Party. They're funding the Democrat Party
in significant respects. They are the radicals, they are the aocs,
they are the people who are chanting in dearborn Michigan,
death to America and death to Israel. And so the
Biden DOJ doesn't want to know. They want to plunge
their head into the sand like an Ostrich and say,
do not tell us. We do not care who's funding
(10:59):
it is not our concern. And let me point out
a they are a bunch of leftists. There are a
bunch of Marxists. There are a bunch of communists who
hate America who are funding this, I believe because they
hate America, because they hate Israel. And I will point
out those who hate Israel hate America. There is an overlap.
One of the many reasons it is an America's national
security interest to support Israel is the enemies of Israel
(11:22):
are the enemies of America. There's a reason the iyatola
chance death to America and death to Israel. The two
are interconnected. But there's also a very real risk. And
I just noted the congressional testimony laying this out that
these anti America and anti Israel protests are literally being
funded by our enemies, are being funded by Hamas, are
(11:42):
being funded by Hesbela, or are being funded by Iran
or the financial sponsors of Hamas and Hesbela. And again
we see zero interest on the part of the Department
of Justice to investigate whether those who support actual terrorists
are funding the protests in support of the actual terrorists.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
And mind you, we pla ask.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
You this, what does the law then say, because this
is the frustrating part you look at. This was on
Good Day New York on Tuesday, the New York Police
Deputy Commissioner of Operations suggested that law enforcement was looking
into both instance or signs at the same individuals maybe
instigating the protests, adding that he believes some could be
(12:24):
funding this quote unquote in his words, he said, look
at the tents what you said earlier, They all were
the same color. They were all the same type of tents,
the same ones that we sough at NYU, the same
ones that we see in Columbia. To me, I think
somebody's funding this. He added that professional agitators have also
joined the student led protests who are just looking for
something to be and I think he was trying to
(12:45):
use calm words agitated. Somebody's behind this and we're going
to find out who it is. But if you're writing
this check, Senator, whether it's Soros group, whether it's coming
in from corporations, whether it's coming in from over their sas.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
It seems like they're operating.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
Under the the idea that hey, we've got a one
degree of separation here. We're just giving them money and
whatever choose for that's not us.
Speaker 3 (13:07):
Yeah, look, I mean that's right. I mean I've talked
about before that. For three months, I've had every Saturday
morning at seven am, anti Israel Prohamas protesters show up
in my house and it's the same fifteen people. Ironically,
now I don't know exactly what they look like because
they all wear masks. Because as we've seen on campuses,
these anti Israel and anti American zealots are also cowards
(13:29):
and they want to hide their face. They're not actually
willing to show who they are. But from the appearances
the people at my house, if there are any Palestinians
among them, I'd be surprised. They look like a bunch
of Hispanic and white liberals who are showing up. But
what's interesting is they show up every Saturday at seven am,
they leave about eight am. They show up, they have
the same cowbells, they have the same whistles. They're screaming,
(13:51):
they're waking children up, they're disturbing the neighbors. But they
show up like a job. That there is a regularity
to it that I'm convinced is paying them to do this,
That that that it's not spontaneous, it's not driven by
external events. It is it is our job to show
up and chant. And and and by the way, look a,
(14:11):
there is a risk that it is foreign actors who
hate America and hate Israel, but b there that there
is also the very real likelihood that that it is local,
local players, anti American Zealots. And and and the obvious
one in particular is George Soros. And and I want
to point you to an article that Fox News published
(14:32):
on April sixteenth, called left wing dark money group funds
bail legal support for anti Israel agitators blocking traffic and
and what Fox News reported was quote a left wing
dark money group funded by billionaire George Soros will provide
bail and legal support for anti Israel activists arrested after
(14:53):
blocking major roads and highways nationwide this week, according to
an online fundraiser, and the demonstrations were largely organized by
A fifteen Action, a recently created group that said it
would quote create coordinate a multi city economic blockade on
April fifteenth in solidarity with Palestine, and under the group's
(15:16):
quote resources section on its website, there is a quote
Bail and Legal Defense Fund hosted by Act Blue. Now understand.
ActBlue is the leading fundraising platform for Democrat candidates nationwide.
It raises billions of dollars for Democrat candidates running across
the country. Act Blue is essentially an extension of the
(15:39):
Democrat Party and it is Act Blue that is raising
money for the Bail and Legal Defense Fund to bail
out anti Israel Prohamas protesters who have been arrested and
the threshold to being arrested is is pretty high, particularly
in blue jurisdictions, and according to the website, the contributions
quote will benefit Community Justice Exchange, which is a project
(16:03):
of the Tide Center that is funded by George Soros,
and the fundraising page continues, quote donate here to support
community members who are criminalized in the US for their
solidarity with Palestine, and it goes on to say, quote,
should the actions of the state result in the need
for it, these funds will be used for bail, legal defense,
(16:23):
and support for defendants. And the Community Justice Exchange describes
its mission as to provide quote money bail, court fees
and fines to community based organizations across the country that
are experimenting with bottoms up interventions that contests the current
operation and function of the criminal, legal and immigration detention system.
(16:46):
So bottoms up interventions, that's a euphemism for riots, for angry,
disruptive protests. And to give you a sense of the volume.
In November, it was revealed that the Soros backed Open
Society Policy Center had given thirteen point seven million dollars
(17:10):
through the Tide Center to groups that have expressed support
for Hamas or have justified attacks on Israel, with over
fifteen million donated since twenty sixteen.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
That's incredible.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
And yet they're basically aiding and bedding and advocating for
people to break the law and advocating for them to
get arrested, and this is all apparently still legal. Welcome
to where we are in this country right now. I
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want to ask, and this goes back to the people
that are running these universities that are allowing this anti
senitism to continue to grow. You're one of your friends
in the house, Speaker Johnson. He went to Colombia and
(19:16):
actually called for the Columbia president to resign.
Speaker 1 (19:20):
Here is what he had to say.
Speaker 4 (19:22):
Let me say this very simply. No American of any
color or creed should ever have to live under those
kinds of threats. That is not who we are in
this country. Sadly, Colombia's administrators have chosen to let the threats,
the fear, and the intimidation of the mob rule to
overtake American principles like free speech and the free free
(19:44):
exchange of ideas and the free exercise of religion. They
have co opted First Amendment arguments to protect genocide and
to elevate the voices of anti Semitism. They have proven
themselves to be incapable of achieving their base basic responsibility,
which is keeping students safe. We just can't allow this
(20:05):
kind of hatred and any Semitism to flourish on our campuses,
and it must be stopped in its tracks. Those who
are perpetrating this violence should be arrested. And I'm here today.
I am here today joining my colleagues and calling on
President Shaffi to resign if she cannot immediately bring order
to this chaos. A Speaker of the House, I am
(20:29):
committing today that the Congress will not be silent as
Jewish students are expected to run for their lives and
stay home from their classes, hiding in fear. In the
House of Representatives, We've already acted to address anti semitism
on campuses. We have passed a number of statutes to
address this matter, and we call upon the US Senate
to act upon our legislation.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
He obviously came in with a game plan, and it's
sad that the President of the United States of America
isn't saying exactly what Speaker Johnson said.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
Immediately, the media attacked him.
Speaker 2 (20:59):
And a people that went to Columbia saying, oh, this
is just a pr stunt, the publicity stunt. They don't
really care about what's happening on campus as they saw
an opportunity here.
Speaker 1 (21:08):
I couldn't disagree with that more.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
But I'm glad that we have conservatives that are saying
enough is enough.
Speaker 3 (21:15):
Yeah, No, it was exactly the right thing to do.
Joe Biden lacks the courage or conviction to do the
same thing, and in fact, he's terrified to confront these
radicals because more and more they're the base of the
Democrat Party. I'll tell you Yesterday, AOC, in response to
the Speaker of the House and several House Republicans going
to Columbia, she tweeted out, let me quote her tweet
(21:37):
quote several here, like Representatives Lawler and Desposito, are vulnerable
New York Republicans in tight seats. They have played a
key role drumming up pressure to crack down on students
and asymmetrically police Palestinian human rights speech. Those campus hearings
(21:57):
gop led. They need to lose, and so I tweeted
out in response, I retweeted her and I said, understand,
AOC explicitly supports the anti Semitic mobs threatening Jewish students
at Columbia, Yale, and NYU. But it's not just her.
Joe Biden stood next to her as she praised their
(22:18):
hateful conduct. The entire Democrat Party is terrified of their
radical anti Israel base. And I'll tell you AOC actually
sent out another tweet and and and here's what she said.
She said quote not only did Columbia make the horrific
decision to mobilize NYPD on their own students, but the
(22:38):
unions called the units called in have some of the
most violent reputations on the force. NYPD had promised the
city they wouldn't deploy SRG to protests, So why are
these counter terrorism units here? And again I responded to
that and said, between law enforcement and Prohamas protesters who
threatened Jewish students, tragically, Democrats side with the anti semits.
(23:05):
That is the reality. But it's not just DOOC, It's
not just the squad. It is where Joe Biden is,
It is where Chuck Schumer is, it is where Nancy
Pelosi is, it is where the leadership of the Democrat
Party is.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
Today we talked about the media giving them cover.
Speaker 2 (23:22):
I expect some in the media to be liberal hacks, right,
but this brings up a big issue that we need
to talk about.
Speaker 1 (23:29):
With MPR.
Speaker 2 (23:31):
The new CEO of MPR is someone that is paid
by US taxpayers and someone who has described the First
Amendment as the number one challenge she faces. Our tax
dollars are going to a CEO who's running in PR
National Public Radio saying the First Amendment really seems to
(23:53):
get in her way. Really, that's where money is going.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
Well.
Speaker 3 (23:57):
Unfortunately, NPR has been profoundly correct, and it's been made
worse by hiring a CEO who was a brazen, blatant,
unapologetic radical leftist, and she doesn't pretend to be unbiased
at all. Now, we discussed in a previous podcast couple
of weeks ago the Bombshell report from Uri Berliner. Uri
(24:19):
Berliner was a twenty five year NPR employee and was
the former business editor of NPR, and he wrote an
April ninth essay in The Free Press which resulted in
NPR suspending him for publishing how's that for free speech?
If you criticize us, you're out of here all and
ultimately led to his resignation.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
So he's gone.
Speaker 3 (24:40):
This essay cost of his job, but he laid out
the incredible bias at NPR and the shift at NPR. So,
for example, he laid out in twenty eleven, which was
not that long ago, NPR's audience was twenty six percent conservative,
twenty three percent middle of the road, and thirty seven
percent liberal, so it leaned left, but not dramatically. So
(25:04):
by twenty twenty three, those numbers had shifted dramatically. It
was now instead of thirty seven percent liberal, it was
sixty seven percent liberal, and instead of twenty six percent conservative,
it was only eleven percent conservative. And mister Berliner laid
out details of how they would stifle stories that were
(25:25):
inconvenient to liberals. They would amplify stories like the Russia
collusion story, even if they were not supported by the facts.
He outlined at great length how NPR had had no
interest in being impartial, being unbiased. And then you take
in the wake of this and the wake of what
(25:47):
should be real concern of Hey, we're national public radio.
We're supposed to be nonpartisan, We're supposed to be down
the middle. Now look, I for one, have serious doubts
why the taxpayer should fund any radio station. I think
there are plenty of for profit radio stations. I don't
know why the government should coursibly tax you to pay
(26:07):
for yet another radio station. But I'll tell you what,
even if there's an argument they should do so for
generic news that somehow there's not a market demand for,
there is no argument I know of that they should
do so only for left wing propaganda. And the newly
appointed CEO, Catherine Marr, has been a hard partisan her
(26:27):
whole life. So, for example, in twenty twenty, Mar referred
to President Donald Trump as a quote deranged racist sociopath. Well,
then I'm confident her coverage of Donald Trump will be
fair as long as she introduces him as a deranged,
racist sociopath every time he's covered.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
How do you even get that job?
Speaker 2 (26:50):
And I'm being serious, if you're national public radio, how
does that automatically disqualify you from that position as soon
as they see that quote?
Speaker 3 (27:00):
Yeah, and by the way, that's not an outlier. In
twenty twenty one, she celebrated Trump's banishment from social media,
referring to him as a fascist. So she loves censorship, Okay,
the former president of the United States elected by the
American people. I'm thrilled that he's being silenced because I
dislike his politics and I think he's a fascist. In
(27:22):
May of twenty twenty, right in the middle of the
George Floyd riots, mar suggested that looting represented a form
of reparative justice for historic wrongs, and she remarked how
white silence is tantamount to complicity and violence. She's also
(27:44):
posted repeatedly in support of Democrat politicians including Hillary Clinton,
Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, and Joe Biden. Now listen as
a private citizen, she has a right to be an
angry left winding radical and a hard Democrat partisan. But
(28:04):
explain to me why on earth the American taxpayers should
fund her partisan propaganda.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
Yeah, and yet that's exactly why she probably got the job,
because they're like, oh, perfect, You're going to keep pushing
this propaganda out there full speed ahead. Want to ask
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That's preborn dot co slash verdict. Senator, if you are
(30:04):
at MPR, can you imagine if you are lefty, lefty,
how much freedom. I think it would make you feel
like you had to then go out there and continue
to push propaganda on the American people. If this is
your CEO, I mean, it's a license to basically go
all in on liberal propaganda at the taxpayer's expense.
Speaker 3 (30:26):
Now, that is exactly right, And I've got to say listen.
As you know, I'm the ranking member on the Senate
Committee of Commerce, Science, and Transportation, and part of my
responsibility in that role, we've got jurisdiction over about forty
percent of the US economy, and part of my responsibility
is oversighted. I can tell you that I am actively
(30:47):
engaging in oversight right now, calling on NPR to explain,
to explain why they're willing to put in place a
hard left wing activist, not a neutral journalist, but someone.
Speaker 1 (30:59):
Who is biased, who is.
Speaker 3 (31:04):
Who is an active supporter of censorship, to violence, to
silence the views she disagrees with. Why NPR believes that
that is an appropriate leader for their institution.
Speaker 1 (31:17):
Yeah, that's a really great point.
Speaker 3 (31:20):
And listen, don't necessarily take our word for it. I
want you to listen to Catherine Maher in her own words,
because it's going to show just how radical she is.
And I want to play a couple clips. Let's start
with her explaining that, in her view, the number one
challenge that she faces is the First Amendment of the Constitution.
Let's play that clip.
Speaker 5 (31:38):
The number one challenge here that we see is, of course,
the First Amendment in the United States is a.
Speaker 6 (31:44):
Fairly robust protection of rights.
Speaker 5 (31:48):
And that is a protection of rights both for platforms,
which I actually think is very important that platforms have
those rights to be able to regulate what kind of
content they want on their sites, but it also means
that it is a little bit tricky you really address
some of the real challenges of where does bad information
come from and sort of the influence peddlers who have
made a real market economy around it.
Speaker 1 (32:10):
I mean, it's amazing center.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
This is the woman running MPR, and I guess this
is almost like the best thing you can put on
your resume, right. You're like, hey, I think the First
Amendment's are real problem. It's like perfect, We'd love to
hire you at MPR.
Speaker 3 (32:20):
Yeah, and she actually says, well, the First Amendment is
really important for platforms. But then what she describes as
their first Amendment right, is for their ability to censor
and silence things they disagree with. So to her mind,
what she cares about is the ability if there's a
view that is right a center. As far as she's concerned,
the First Amendment is all about silencing those views. There
(32:41):
can be no dissent, all right. I want you to
listen to another clip. This is a Ted talk where
she's discussing truth when she was at Wikipedia, and somehow
she has a different view of truth than I think
you and I might have. Give a listen.
Speaker 7 (32:55):
But the hard things, the places where we are prone
to disagreement, say politics, religion. Well, as it turns out,
not only does Wikipedia's model work there, it actually works
really well because in our normal lives, these contentious conversations
tend to rrupt or disagreement about what the truth actually is.
(33:17):
But the people who write these articles, they're not focused
on the truth. They're focused on something else, which is
the best of what we can know right now. And
after seven years of working with these brilliant folks, I've
come to believe that they are onto something that perhaps
for our most tricky disagreements, seeking the truth and seeking
(33:42):
to convince others of the truth might not be the
right place to start. In fact, our reverence for the
truth might be a distraction that's getting in the way
of finding common ground and getting things done. That is
not to say that the truth doesn't exist, nor is
(34:05):
it to say that the truth isn't important. Clearly, the
search for the truth has led us to do great things,
to learn great things. But I think if I were
to really ask you to think about this, one of
the things that we could all acknowledge is that part
of the reason we have such glorious chronicles to the
(34:28):
human experience in all forms of culture is because we
acknowledge there are many different truths, and so in the
spirit of that, I'm certain that the truth exists for
you and probably for the person sitting next to you,
But this may not be the same truth. This is
because the truth of the matter is very often for
(34:51):
many people. What happens when we merge facts about the
world with our beliefs about the world. So we all
have different truths based on things like where we come from,
how we were raised, and how other people perceive us.
Speaker 3 (35:06):
What utter garbage like every word of that you want
an indictment of the modern left you want an indictment
of the idiocy of media. You want an indictment of
the academic world. You want an indictment of big tech.
Good God, what utter garbage? Truth doesn't exist? George or
Well is spinning in his grave and laughing at the
same time. Two plus two doesn't equal four, It equals
(35:28):
five because we say it is. There is no truth.
Listen to that quote. Our reverence for the truth might
be a distraction that's getting in the way of finding
common ground and getting things done. But don't worry. This
is only for things that don't matter, the contentious issues.
What does she identify politics and religion? When it comes
to politics and religion, look, Jesus Christ said, I am
the way the truth in the life. But no, no, no, no, no,
(35:49):
no no, don't have reverence for truth. We're not interested
in that. We are interested in set aside of truth.
That can be your truth, my truth. Everyone has a truth.
Maybe for you, two plus two is five. What utter garbage?
You know what a journalist's supposed to be interested in
the truth. Now, do you have perfect truth? No? Do
you have perfect knowledge? No? But you should get damn
(36:11):
close to it. You should be trying to get to
the truth. Remember what journalists used to learn?
Speaker 1 (36:15):
Who? What, when? Where? How? Why?
Speaker 5 (36:17):
Like?
Speaker 3 (36:17):
What happened? What are the facts? Well, no, no, no, not
according to her. According to to her, there are no facts.
There is no truth. It's your truth, it's my truth,
and my truth. From Catherine Marr's perspective is as a
left wing partisan, whatever the orthodoxy is, and we will
silence views that disagree. And the First Amendment is a
pesky pesky barrier. All right, I want to play one
(36:39):
more clip. Yeah, one more clip where she's describing what
she did at Wikipedia. Listen to this third clip.
Speaker 6 (36:47):
I started by talking about the idea of free and
open as some of our founding principles sort of free
and open source coming from me to the open source community. Well,
I have come to the opinion and the perspective that
and open was a way of looking at the world
that was inherently limited relative to what we were trying
to achieve. Free and open has the best of intentionality,
(37:09):
but in the end, what free and open often ended
up doing, and particularly in the case of Wikipedia, was
really recapitulating many of the same power structures and dynamics
that exist offline prior to the advent of the Internet.
And so what we ended up seeing was Wikipedia really
rebuilt this idea of knowledge as a whole around what
the Western canon. You see, the exclusion of communities of
(37:32):
languages because of the ways in which Wikipedia is based
on reliable sources. The idea of a written tradition is
something that is particular to many I mean not sorry,
the idea of a written tradition which is particular to
some cultures and not to others. The ways in which
we I ascribe notability often really comes from sort of
this white male, westernized construct around who matters in societies
(37:58):
and who is elevated and who's and so some of
these ideas. So this radical openness really did not end
up with the intention, really did not end up living
into the intentionality of what openness can be.
Speaker 3 (38:12):
I mean, that just is brilliant right there, God bless so.
Look she's explaining at Wikipedia, they deliberately abandoned a quote
free and open approach. By the way she's telling you
what she's going to do at NPR. NPR is not
going to be free and open, according to her, because
she doesn't believe in free and open. Why because free
(38:32):
and open number one. She says, well, that advantages cultures
that believe in the written word, because you know, what
good has book learning ever done anyone? Well, heck, you're
forgetting those cultures that don't believe in that fancy learning
stuff like what utter garbage. I'm sorry, I thought, actually
(38:53):
a journalistic outfit should actually reflect celebrate the best of education,
of learning, of what we know. But she says, no, no, no, no.
If it's actually free and open, it will recapitulate a
white male, westernized, westernized construct. Let me ask you something, Ben,
(39:14):
what the hell does that mean? Seriously? Those are the
words Marxist use, and typically the more syllables they use
when they get polysyllabic, the less they're making any sense.
So explain to me the phrase recapitulate a white male,
westernized construct that does not end up living into the
(39:35):
intentionality of what openness can mean. Those words have no
content other than I want the power to silence things
I don't like.
Speaker 1 (39:44):
Am I wrong? No, you're right, And my question goes
back to this. For you. It used to be at MPR.
Speaker 2 (39:50):
And others they would at least fake it like their bias.
Now it's just flat out open, and they're doing it
with our tax tours. Is there ever going to be
a day day of reckoning where MPR finds out, hey,
good luck, do your own thing, because we're not going
to pay for this propagana anymore.
Speaker 3 (40:07):
Look, if NPR cares at all about journalistic integrity, if
they care at all about continuing to receive taxpayer funds,
they should terminate Catherine Marr immediately. Her job should be done.
They should not have a rabid left wing partisan who
hates the First Amendment, who've used it as an inconvenience,
who wants to censor conservatives, who is actively explicitly and
unabashedly opposed to free and open communication, who doesn't believe
(40:31):
in truth, who believes truth is an impediment to what
she's doing. That is not a journalist in any way.
She ought to go and join Emily's List, she ought
to go and join the DNC. She gotta go run
for Congress and become a henchman to Nancy Pelosi. She
should not actually be running a news organization, especially not
a news organization funded by the taxpayers. And if we
(40:51):
have to be honest, if you had a Democrat who
had a shred of integrity. They would say, of course,
this is not appropriate for her to run NPR are
the chances of that happening are zero? But I can
tell you I'm going to be pushing for accountability and
I'm going to be pushing for oversight of NPR because
it is brazenly shameless for them to put someone so
(41:12):
wildly unqualified in that position.
Speaker 2 (41:15):
Yeah, no doubt about it. Don't forget. We do this
show Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Make sure you hit that
subscribe auto download button as well so you do not
miss an episode. We also do our week in review
if you miss something during the week, We do that
on Saturdays and on those in between days.
Speaker 1 (41:31):
Make sure you grab my podcast.
Speaker 2 (41:32):
I'll keep you update on the latest breaking news, the
Ben Ferguson podcasts, so download that as well and The
Senator and I will see you back here in a
couple of days
Welcome.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
It is verdict with Senator Ted Cruz Ben Ferguson with
you and Senator I think it's time that we do
a really nice job exposing the left and the dark
money that is funding all of these anti Israel protests
across the country.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
Well, that's exactly right. We're more than a week into
these rabid anti Israel Prohamas protests that we're seeing at
college campuses across the country, and a question that keeps
coming up is where is this money coming from. More
than a few people have noticed, Gosh, these protesters all
seem to have matching tents. The tents are brand new.
Who's paying for them? There's clearly real money behind that.
(00:41):
We're going to do a deep dive into that.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Yeah, you're not trying to hide it, by the way,
when there's no subtlety, it's like wearing matching uniforms, it's
clear somebody paid for them.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
That's happening. On top of that, we're going to do
a deep dive into NPR. NPR has a new CEO.
NPR is supposed to be national public Radio. It is
funded in significant part by your and my tax dollars,
and yet their new CEO is a hard left partisan activist.
She has no pretense of being impartial, of being unbiased.
(01:15):
She is a leftist, a proud, unabashed leftist. We're going
to go into her record as well.
Speaker 2 (01:20):
I want to tell you real quick about a cool
note I got from one of you guys, and it said,
then I'd heard you talk about Patriot Mobile. And then
I did some digging and I found out that you
really weren't joking about how radical Big Mobile has gotten
in supporting democratic causes and candidates. But I didn't switch
because I've switched before and it took forever, and then
(01:41):
finally I actually had enough with my cell phone carrier
and I switched, And you were right. It is now
really easy with technology. Yes, switching your cell phone provider.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
Is not hard like it used to be.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
And if you are sick and tired of the left,
then stop funding them. Well, when you pay your bill
a Big Mobile, there's a very good chance you supporting
democratic causes, candidates, organizations that include Plan Parenthood. That's why
I switched to Patriot Mobile, and it's why I want
you to switch as well, because when you do five
(02:15):
percent of your bill every month on average without it
costing you any more. Money actually goes back to support
conservative causes, like those causes that support our First and
Second Amendment rights and the rights of unborn children. They
also do an incredible job supporting our military veterans, our
wounded warriors, our first responders, and those that have given
(02:36):
the ultimate sacrifice protecting and defending this country. That's another
reason why I'm with Patriot Mobile. I'm tired of my
money being used against my family values.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
So join me.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
Switching is easy, and I'm going to give you free
activation as well. Call Patriot Mobile right now, nine seven
to two Patriot it's nine to seven to two Patriot
or Patriotmobile dot com slash verdict that's Patriot Mobile slash
verdict or nine to seven to two Patriot promo code
verdict and you'll get free activation center. When you look
(03:06):
at all of these protests, and you mentioned the matching tents,
it's kind of hilarious. They're not even trying to hide it.
This is exactly what we saw with Black Lives Matter
as well. It seems that anytime we now have really
well organized, whether it's shutting down the Golden Gate Bridge,
the Memphis Bridge, or the new York Bridge. It seems
like it's orchestrated, and now we're seeing these sit ins
(03:28):
and these tent cities that are popping up. It's almost
like a Black Lives Matter two point zero playbook here.
And it's coming from dark money groups that are funding bail,
they're funding the legal support for any and every anti
Israel agitator that's willing to come out and do this.
Speaker 3 (03:46):
Well, that's exactly right. There's clearly significant money that are
funding these. As we noted a minute ago, they're tenth smatch,
they're tarpsmatch, they come in fully provisioned and we see them.
You know, we're seeing at universities it's not just students
as spontaneous. They're outside agitators who are treating it as
a job. So what do we know, Well that there
(04:06):
was an article that came out this week in News
Nation that says begins with the following. Columbia University is
warning of potential outside agitators as students hold continued protests
calling for a ceasefire in Gaza and a divestment from Israel.
And it explains that the demand has its root in
the BDS movement, the boycott divestment and sanctions movement which
(04:28):
has been going on for decades attacking Israel. And if
you look, there are several organizations who are funding this movement.
On Tuesday night, one group that was called Within Our
Lifetime held a protest outside the walls of Columbia calling
for resistance quote by any means necessary. They were chanting Colombia.
(04:51):
You will see we are all SJP Colombia. You will
learn refugees will return. And if you look at Within
our Lifetime is one of what News Nations describes as
a quote vast network of organizations that have coordinated protests
that have blocked highways, delayed trains, and shut down parts
(05:13):
of college campuses across the country for the past few months.
And it's led but it's a New York City based organization.
It's led by an individual named nier Dean Kisswane, who's
a twenty nine year old who founded the group nearly
a decade ago. And if you look at what Kiswane says,
he says, quote I just support the Palestinian people as
(05:35):
a whole, and I believe that we have a right
to resist. And if they're mad at it, they can
talk to Biden. They can talk to the Secretary of State,
they can talk to elected officials who keep funding wars abroad,
who keep funding death and killing on our name with
our tax dollars. And the group claims to not be
directly associated with a protest on college campuses. They're intertwined
(05:58):
with other organizations. One of the organizations is Students for
Justice in Palestine that's s JP, Jewish Voice for Peace
that's JVP, the Palestinian Youth Movement that's p y M,
and the American Muslims for Palestine that's a MP. And
and these are part of the of the whole network
(06:19):
of anti Israel, anti Zionists, anti Semitic groups across the country,
and several of the pro Palestinian organizations UH don't have
public tax filings. NBC did investigation within our Lifetime does
not have any public tax filings. Instead, what they use
is a group based in New York. It's a nonprofit
(06:41):
group called the Westchester People's Action Coalition Foundation WESTPAC, and
it's their fiscal sponsor to collect and process online donations
and tax laws allows them to be a five O
C three status organization and they can collect money. We
(07:02):
don't know for sure who's funding them. It's dark money.
This is by design, this is to hide it. We
do know one of the groups, if not Now, has
received one hundred thousand dollars in the past five years
from the Rockefeller's Brothers Fund, and that organization's stated goal
is quote to end US support for Israel's apartheid system.
(07:25):
The fund is also awarded nearly a half billion dollars
to the Jewish Voice for Peace, another Palestadian rights organization.
And what we're seeing is well. Here are the comments
of Jonathan Shanzer. He's a former Treasury Department official who
says that the organizing parties are cultivated by potentially dangerous groups.
(07:48):
Here's the quote quote, They're extremely organized. There are a
lot of the Islamists leaning groups that I think many
of us have come to expect here. They are not spontaneous,
they are not necessarily organic. They are cultivated by groups
that have an ax to grind, and in particular, Shanzer
(08:09):
called for more aggressive investigation of the ties between the
pro Palestinian groups and terrorist organizations. He called for this
in testimony to Congress. Here's what he said. Quote, individuals
who have previously worked for Hamas charities are now a
driving force behind the large pro Hamas demonstrations taking place
(08:29):
in major cities across America, and in particular, he pointed
to an individual named Hatam Basian, who is a lecturer
at the University of California, Berkeley, as an example. And
Basian founded the national branch of SJP to promote campus
based activism, and later he launched AMP and Shanzer claimed
(08:52):
that Basian and his organizations are part of a network
that quote is providing training, talking points, materials, and financial
support to students, intimidating and threatening Jewish and pro Israel
students on college campuses.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
You put all that together and you see it center
and it's like, this is pretty obvious. This is something
that I think should probably be at some point investigated.
In fact, Newsweek has a headline just now and it
says police investigating people behind the pro Palaestinian protests, and
that is something that I'm kind of shocked it took
(09:30):
this long, but officials quote with the New York Police
Department said that their department is looking to who may
be behind the pro palating in protests of rock to
universities in Manhattan in recent days. Several dozen demonstrators were
arrested by police Monday night after students set up a
pro palasing encampment on New York University's campus. The demonstration,
which started around fifty individuals know the Stern School of Business,
(09:52):
grew to hundreds of protesters before rest were made. Spokesman
from the university said that it believed many of the
individuals who joined rally, including some who breach barriers established
by canvas safety officers, were not affiliated with NYU. Therefore,
they're now saying they are going to investigate it. I
mean this to me is a captain obvious, no brainer.
(10:15):
Of course you should be investigating this. Of course you are.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
And I have zero confidence the Biden Department of Justice
will investigate. I have zero confidence the Biden FBI will investigate.
Why because, as we've discussed at great length, the Biden
DOJ and FBI have been thoroughly politicized and weaponized. And
the people funding these anti Semitic protests are leftists. They
are leftists who right now more and more are the
(10:38):
base of the Democrat Party. They're funding the Democrat Party
in significant respects. They are the radicals, they are the aocs,
they are the people who are chanting in dearborn Michigan,
death to America and death to Israel. And so the
Biden DOJ doesn't want to know. They want to plunge
their head into the sand like an Ostrich and say,
do not tell us. We do not care who's funding
(10:59):
it is not our concern. And let me point out
a they are a bunch of leftists. There are a
bunch of Marxists. There are a bunch of communists who
hate America who are funding this, I believe because they
hate America, because they hate Israel. And I will point
out those who hate Israel hate America. There is an overlap.
One of the many reasons it is an America's national
security interest to support Israel is the enemies of Israel
(11:22):
are the enemies of America. There's a reason the iyatola
chance death to America and death to Israel. The two
are interconnected. But there's also a very real risk. And
I just noted the congressional testimony laying this out that
these anti America and anti Israel protests are literally being
funded by our enemies, are being funded by Hamas, are
(11:42):
being funded by Hesbela, or are being funded by Iran
or the financial sponsors of Hamas and Hesbela. And again
we see zero interest on the part of the Department
of Justice to investigate whether those who support actual terrorists
are funding the protests in support of the actual terrorists.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
And mind you, we pla ask.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
You this, what does the law then say, because this
is the frustrating part you look at. This was on
Good Day New York on Tuesday, the New York Police
Deputy Commissioner of Operations suggested that law enforcement was looking
into both instance or signs at the same individuals maybe
instigating the protests, adding that he believes some could be
(12:24):
funding this quote unquote in his words, he said, look
at the tents what you said earlier, They all were
the same color. They were all the same type of tents,
the same ones that we sough at NYU, the same
ones that we see in Columbia. To me, I think
somebody's funding this. He added that professional agitators have also
joined the student led protests who are just looking for
something to be and I think he was trying to
(12:45):
use calm words agitated. Somebody's behind this and we're going
to find out who it is. But if you're writing
this check, Senator, whether it's Soros group, whether it's coming
in from corporations, whether it's coming in from over their sas.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
It seems like they're operating.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
Under the the idea that hey, we've got a one
degree of separation here. We're just giving them money and
whatever choose for that's not us.
Speaker 3 (13:07):
Yeah, look, I mean that's right. I mean I've talked
about before that. For three months, I've had every Saturday
morning at seven am, anti Israel Prohamas protesters show up
in my house and it's the same fifteen people. Ironically,
now I don't know exactly what they look like because
they all wear masks. Because as we've seen on campuses,
these anti Israel and anti American zealots are also cowards
(13:29):
and they want to hide their face. They're not actually
willing to show who they are. But from the appearances
the people at my house, if there are any Palestinians
among them, I'd be surprised. They look like a bunch
of Hispanic and white liberals who are showing up. But
what's interesting is they show up every Saturday at seven am,
they leave about eight am. They show up, they have
the same cowbells, they have the same whistles. They're screaming,
(13:51):
they're waking children up, they're disturbing the neighbors. But they
show up like a job. That there is a regularity
to it that I'm convinced is paying them to do this,
That that that it's not spontaneous, it's not driven by
external events. It is it is our job to show
up and chant. And and and by the way, look a,
(14:11):
there is a risk that it is foreign actors who
hate America and hate Israel, but b there that there
is also the very real likelihood that that it is local,
local players, anti American Zealots. And and and the obvious
one in particular is George Soros. And and I want
to point you to an article that Fox News published
(14:32):
on April sixteenth, called left wing dark money group funds
bail legal support for anti Israel agitators blocking traffic and
and what Fox News reported was quote a left wing
dark money group funded by billionaire George Soros will provide
bail and legal support for anti Israel activists arrested after
(14:53):
blocking major roads and highways nationwide this week, according to
an online fundraiser, and the demonstrations were largely organized by
A fifteen Action, a recently created group that said it
would quote create coordinate a multi city economic blockade on
April fifteenth in solidarity with Palestine, and under the group's
(15:16):
quote resources section on its website, there is a quote
Bail and Legal Defense Fund hosted by Act Blue. Now understand.
ActBlue is the leading fundraising platform for Democrat candidates nationwide.
It raises billions of dollars for Democrat candidates running across
the country. Act Blue is essentially an extension of the
(15:39):
Democrat Party and it is Act Blue that is raising
money for the Bail and Legal Defense Fund to bail
out anti Israel Prohamas protesters who have been arrested and
the threshold to being arrested is is pretty high, particularly
in blue jurisdictions, and according to the website, the contributions
quote will benefit Community Justice Exchange, which is a project
(16:03):
of the Tide Center that is funded by George Soros,
and the fundraising page continues, quote donate here to support
community members who are criminalized in the US for their
solidarity with Palestine, and it goes on to say, quote,
should the actions of the state result in the need
for it, these funds will be used for bail, legal defense,
(16:23):
and support for defendants. And the Community Justice Exchange describes
its mission as to provide quote money bail, court fees
and fines to community based organizations across the country that
are experimenting with bottoms up interventions that contests the current
operation and function of the criminal, legal and immigration detention system.
(16:46):
So bottoms up interventions, that's a euphemism for riots, for angry,
disruptive protests. And to give you a sense of the volume.
In November, it was revealed that the Soros backed Open
Society Policy Center had given thirteen point seven million dollars
(17:10):
through the Tide Center to groups that have expressed support
for Hamas or have justified attacks on Israel, with over
fifteen million donated since twenty sixteen.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
That's incredible.
Speaker 2 (17:24):
And yet they're basically aiding and bedding and advocating for
people to break the law and advocating for them to
get arrested, and this is all apparently still legal. Welcome
to where we are in this country right now. I
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are cancible at any time. One other question, Senator, I
want to ask, and this goes back to the people
that are running these universities that are allowing this anti
senitism to continue to grow. You're one of your friends
in the house, Speaker Johnson. He went to Colombia and
(19:16):
actually called for the Columbia president to resign.
Speaker 1 (19:20):
Here is what he had to say.
Speaker 4 (19:22):
Let me say this very simply. No American of any
color or creed should ever have to live under those
kinds of threats. That is not who we are in
this country. Sadly, Colombia's administrators have chosen to let the threats,
the fear, and the intimidation of the mob rule to
overtake American principles like free speech and the free free
(19:44):
exchange of ideas and the free exercise of religion. They
have co opted First Amendment arguments to protect genocide and
to elevate the voices of anti Semitism. They have proven
themselves to be incapable of achieving their base basic responsibility,
which is keeping students safe. We just can't allow this
(20:05):
kind of hatred and any Semitism to flourish on our campuses,
and it must be stopped in its tracks. Those who
are perpetrating this violence should be arrested. And I'm here today.
I am here today joining my colleagues and calling on
President Shaffi to resign if she cannot immediately bring order
to this chaos. A Speaker of the House, I am
(20:29):
committing today that the Congress will not be silent as
Jewish students are expected to run for their lives and
stay home from their classes, hiding in fear. In the
House of Representatives, We've already acted to address anti semitism
on campuses. We have passed a number of statutes to
address this matter, and we call upon the US Senate
to act upon our legislation.
Speaker 2 (20:50):
He obviously came in with a game plan, and it's
sad that the President of the United States of America
isn't saying exactly what Speaker Johnson said.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
Immediately, the media attacked him.
Speaker 2 (20:59):
And a people that went to Columbia saying, oh, this
is just a pr stunt, the publicity stunt. They don't
really care about what's happening on campus as they saw
an opportunity here.
Speaker 1 (21:08):
I couldn't disagree with that more.
Speaker 2 (21:11):
But I'm glad that we have conservatives that are saying
enough is enough.
Speaker 3 (21:15):
Yeah, No, it was exactly the right thing to do.
Joe Biden lacks the courage or conviction to do the
same thing, and in fact, he's terrified to confront these
radicals because more and more they're the base of the
Democrat Party. I'll tell you Yesterday, AOC, in response to
the Speaker of the House and several House Republicans going
to Columbia, she tweeted out, let me quote her tweet
(21:37):
quote several here, like Representatives Lawler and Desposito, are vulnerable
New York Republicans in tight seats. They have played a
key role drumming up pressure to crack down on students
and asymmetrically police Palestinian human rights speech. Those campus hearings
(21:57):
gop led. They need to lose, and so I tweeted
out in response, I retweeted her and I said, understand,
AOC explicitly supports the anti Semitic mobs threatening Jewish students
at Columbia, Yale, and NYU. But it's not just her.
Joe Biden stood next to her as she praised their
(22:18):
hateful conduct. The entire Democrat Party is terrified of their
radical anti Israel base. And I'll tell you AOC actually
sent out another tweet and and and here's what she said.
She said quote not only did Columbia make the horrific
decision to mobilize NYPD on their own students, but the
(22:38):
unions called the units called in have some of the
most violent reputations on the force. NYPD had promised the
city they wouldn't deploy SRG to protests, So why are
these counter terrorism units here? And again I responded to
that and said, between law enforcement and Prohamas protesters who
threatened Jewish students, tragically, Democrats side with the anti semits.
(23:05):
That is the reality. But it's not just DOOC, It's
not just the squad. It is where Joe Biden is,
It is where Chuck Schumer is, it is where Nancy
Pelosi is, it is where the leadership of the Democrat
Party is.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
Today we talked about the media giving them cover.
Speaker 2 (23:22):
I expect some in the media to be liberal hacks, right,
but this brings up a big issue that we need
to talk about.
Speaker 1 (23:29):
With MPR.
Speaker 2 (23:31):
The new CEO of MPR is someone that is paid
by US taxpayers and someone who has described the First
Amendment as the number one challenge she faces. Our tax
dollars are going to a CEO who's running in PR
National Public Radio saying the First Amendment really seems to
(23:53):
get in her way. Really, that's where money is going.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
Well.
Speaker 3 (23:57):
Unfortunately, NPR has been profoundly correct, and it's been made
worse by hiring a CEO who was a brazen, blatant,
unapologetic radical leftist, and she doesn't pretend to be unbiased
at all. Now, we discussed in a previous podcast couple
of weeks ago the Bombshell report from Uri Berliner. Uri
(24:19):
Berliner was a twenty five year NPR employee and was
the former business editor of NPR, and he wrote an
April ninth essay in The Free Press which resulted in
NPR suspending him for publishing how's that for free speech?
If you criticize us, you're out of here all and
ultimately led to his resignation.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
So he's gone.
Speaker 3 (24:40):
This essay cost of his job, but he laid out
the incredible bias at NPR and the shift at NPR. So,
for example, he laid out in twenty eleven, which was
not that long ago, NPR's audience was twenty six percent conservative,
twenty three percent middle of the road, and thirty seven
percent liberal, so it leaned left, but not dramatically. So
(25:04):
by twenty twenty three, those numbers had shifted dramatically. It
was now instead of thirty seven percent liberal, it was
sixty seven percent liberal, and instead of twenty six percent conservative,
it was only eleven percent conservative. And mister Berliner laid
out details of how they would stifle stories that were
(25:25):
inconvenient to liberals. They would amplify stories like the Russia
collusion story, even if they were not supported by the facts.
He outlined at great length how NPR had had no
interest in being impartial, being unbiased. And then you take
in the wake of this and the wake of what
(25:47):
should be real concern of Hey, we're national public radio.
We're supposed to be nonpartisan, We're supposed to be down
the middle. Now look, I for one, have serious doubts
why the taxpayer should fund any radio station. I think
there are plenty of for profit radio stations. I don't
know why the government should coursibly tax you to pay
(26:07):
for yet another radio station. But I'll tell you what,
even if there's an argument they should do so for
generic news that somehow there's not a market demand for,
there is no argument I know of that they should
do so only for left wing propaganda. And the newly
appointed CEO, Catherine Marr, has been a hard partisan her
(26:27):
whole life. So, for example, in twenty twenty, Mar referred
to President Donald Trump as a quote deranged racist sociopath. Well,
then I'm confident her coverage of Donald Trump will be
fair as long as she introduces him as a deranged,
racist sociopath every time he's covered.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
How do you even get that job?
Speaker 2 (26:50):
And I'm being serious, if you're national public radio, how
does that automatically disqualify you from that position as soon
as they see that quote?
Speaker 3 (27:00):
Yeah, and by the way, that's not an outlier. In
twenty twenty one, she celebrated Trump's banishment from social media,
referring to him as a fascist. So she loves censorship, Okay,
the former president of the United States elected by the
American people. I'm thrilled that he's being silenced because I
dislike his politics and I think he's a fascist. In
(27:22):
May of twenty twenty, right in the middle of the
George Floyd riots, mar suggested that looting represented a form
of reparative justice for historic wrongs, and she remarked how
white silence is tantamount to complicity and violence. She's also
(27:44):
posted repeatedly in support of Democrat politicians including Hillary Clinton,
Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, and Joe Biden. Now listen as
a private citizen, she has a right to be an
angry left winding radical and a hard Democrat partisan. But
(28:04):
explain to me why on earth the American taxpayers should
fund her partisan propaganda.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
Yeah, and yet that's exactly why she probably got the job,
because they're like, oh, perfect, You're going to keep pushing
this propaganda out there full speed ahead. Want to ask
all of you listening right now to do me a
favor real quick. I want you to place your hand
over your heart if you can, can you feel that
it's your heartbeat telling you that you are alive. It's
the same for a preborn baby. Their heart begins to
(28:34):
form at conception, and in just three weeks it is
already beating. At five weeks, a baby's heartbeat can be
heard on an ultrasound. And that is why I am
proud to say that I'm partnering with Preborn, because we
need to help those precious babies. Every day, Preborn's network
of clinic rescues two hundred babies from abortion. Why because
(29:00):
when a mother with an unplanned pregnancy meets her baby
on ultrasound and here's their baby's heartbeat, it is a
divine encounter that doubles a baby's chance at life. By
six weeks, eyes are forming, by ten weeks, a baby's
able to suck his or her own thumb, And for
(29:20):
just twenty eight dollars, you can be the difference between
life or death of that child. It is incredible because
what Preborn does is they give the chance for a
mother to hear the baby's heart beat.
Speaker 1 (29:37):
Now, all gifts are tax deductible. You can donate, and
you can donate easily.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
Just dial pound two fifty and say the keyword baby.
That's pound two fifty and say the keyword baby. You
can donate securely at preborn dot com slash verdict as well.
That's preborn dot co slash verdict. Senator, if you are
(30:04):
at MPR, can you imagine if you are lefty, lefty,
how much freedom. I think it would make you feel
like you had to then go out there and continue
to push propaganda on the American people. If this is
your CEO, I mean, it's a license to basically go
all in on liberal propaganda at the taxpayer's expense.
Speaker 3 (30:26):
Now, that is exactly right, And I've got to say listen.
As you know, I'm the ranking member on the Senate
Committee of Commerce, Science, and Transportation, and part of my
responsibility in that role, we've got jurisdiction over about forty
percent of the US economy, and part of my responsibility
is oversighted. I can tell you that I am actively
(30:47):
engaging in oversight right now, calling on NPR to explain,
to explain why they're willing to put in place a
hard left wing activist, not a neutral journalist, but someone.
Speaker 1 (30:59):
Who is biased, who is.
Speaker 3 (31:04):
Who is an active supporter of censorship, to violence, to
silence the views she disagrees with. Why NPR believes that
that is an appropriate leader for their institution.
Speaker 1 (31:17):
Yeah, that's a really great point.
Speaker 3 (31:20):
And listen, don't necessarily take our word for it. I
want you to listen to Catherine Maher in her own words,
because it's going to show just how radical she is.
And I want to play a couple clips. Let's start
with her explaining that, in her view, the number one
challenge that she faces is the First Amendment of the Constitution.
Let's play that clip.
Speaker 5 (31:38):
The number one challenge here that we see is, of course,
the First Amendment in the United States is a.
Speaker 6 (31:44):
Fairly robust protection of rights.
Speaker 5 (31:48):
And that is a protection of rights both for platforms,
which I actually think is very important that platforms have
those rights to be able to regulate what kind of
content they want on their sites, but it also means
that it is a little bit tricky you really address
some of the real challenges of where does bad information
come from and sort of the influence peddlers who have
made a real market economy around it.
Speaker 1 (32:10):
I mean, it's amazing center.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
This is the woman running MPR, and I guess this
is almost like the best thing you can put on
your resume, right. You're like, hey, I think the First
Amendment's are real problem. It's like perfect, We'd love to
hire you at MPR.
Speaker 3 (32:20):
Yeah, and she actually says, well, the First Amendment is
really important for platforms. But then what she describes as
their first Amendment right, is for their ability to censor
and silence things they disagree with. So to her mind,
what she cares about is the ability if there's a
view that is right a center. As far as she's concerned,
the First Amendment is all about silencing those views. There
(32:41):
can be no dissent, all right. I want you to
listen to another clip. This is a Ted talk where
she's discussing truth when she was at Wikipedia, and somehow
she has a different view of truth than I think
you and I might have. Give a listen.
Speaker 7 (32:55):
But the hard things, the places where we are prone
to disagreement, say politics, religion. Well, as it turns out,
not only does Wikipedia's model work there, it actually works
really well because in our normal lives, these contentious conversations
tend to rrupt or disagreement about what the truth actually is.
(33:17):
But the people who write these articles, they're not focused
on the truth. They're focused on something else, which is
the best of what we can know right now. And
after seven years of working with these brilliant folks, I've
come to believe that they are onto something that perhaps
for our most tricky disagreements, seeking the truth and seeking
(33:42):
to convince others of the truth might not be the
right place to start. In fact, our reverence for the
truth might be a distraction that's getting in the way
of finding common ground and getting things done. That is
not to say that the truth doesn't exist, nor is
(34:05):
it to say that the truth isn't important. Clearly, the
search for the truth has led us to do great things,
to learn great things. But I think if I were
to really ask you to think about this, one of
the things that we could all acknowledge is that part
of the reason we have such glorious chronicles to the
(34:28):
human experience in all forms of culture is because we
acknowledge there are many different truths, and so in the
spirit of that, I'm certain that the truth exists for
you and probably for the person sitting next to you,
But this may not be the same truth. This is
because the truth of the matter is very often for
(34:51):
many people. What happens when we merge facts about the
world with our beliefs about the world. So we all
have different truths based on things like where we come from,
how we were raised, and how other people perceive us.
Speaker 3 (35:06):
What utter garbage like every word of that you want
an indictment of the modern left you want an indictment
of the idiocy of media. You want an indictment of
the academic world. You want an indictment of big tech.
Good God, what utter garbage? Truth doesn't exist? George or
Well is spinning in his grave and laughing at the
same time. Two plus two doesn't equal four, It equals
(35:28):
five because we say it is. There is no truth.
Listen to that quote. Our reverence for the truth might
be a distraction that's getting in the way of finding
common ground and getting things done. But don't worry. This
is only for things that don't matter, the contentious issues.
What does she identify politics and religion? When it comes
to politics and religion, look, Jesus Christ said, I am
the way the truth in the life. But no, no, no, no, no,
(35:49):
no no, don't have reverence for truth. We're not interested
in that. We are interested in set aside of truth.
That can be your truth, my truth. Everyone has a truth.
Maybe for you, two plus two is five. What utter garbage?
You know what a journalist's supposed to be interested in
the truth. Now, do you have perfect truth? No? Do
you have perfect knowledge? No? But you should get damn
(36:11):
close to it. You should be trying to get to
the truth. Remember what journalists used to learn?
Speaker 1 (36:15):
Who? What, when? Where? How? Why?
Speaker 5 (36:17):
Like?
Speaker 3 (36:17):
What happened? What are the facts? Well, no, no, no, not
according to her. According to to her, there are no facts.
There is no truth. It's your truth, it's my truth,
and my truth. From Catherine Marr's perspective is as a
left wing partisan, whatever the orthodoxy is, and we will
silence views that disagree. And the First Amendment is a
pesky pesky barrier. All right, I want to play one
(36:39):
more clip. Yeah, one more clip where she's describing what
she did at Wikipedia. Listen to this third clip.
Speaker 6 (36:47):
I started by talking about the idea of free and
open as some of our founding principles sort of free
and open source coming from me to the open source community. Well,
I have come to the opinion and the perspective that
and open was a way of looking at the world
that was inherently limited relative to what we were trying
to achieve. Free and open has the best of intentionality,
(37:09):
but in the end, what free and open often ended
up doing, and particularly in the case of Wikipedia, was
really recapitulating many of the same power structures and dynamics
that exist offline prior to the advent of the Internet.
And so what we ended up seeing was Wikipedia really
rebuilt this idea of knowledge as a whole around what
the Western canon. You see, the exclusion of communities of
(37:32):
languages because of the ways in which Wikipedia is based
on reliable sources. The idea of a written tradition is
something that is particular to many I mean not sorry,
the idea of a written tradition which is particular to
some cultures and not to others. The ways in which
we I ascribe notability often really comes from sort of
this white male, westernized construct around who matters in societies
(37:58):
and who is elevated and who's and so some of
these ideas. So this radical openness really did not end
up with the intention, really did not end up living
into the intentionality of what openness can be.
Speaker 3 (38:12):
I mean, that just is brilliant right there, God bless so.
Look she's explaining at Wikipedia, they deliberately abandoned a quote
free and open approach. By the way she's telling you
what she's going to do at NPR. NPR is not
going to be free and open, according to her, because
she doesn't believe in free and open. Why because free
(38:32):
and open number one. She says, well, that advantages cultures
that believe in the written word, because you know, what
good has book learning ever done anyone? Well, heck, you're
forgetting those cultures that don't believe in that fancy learning
stuff like what utter garbage. I'm sorry, I thought, actually
(38:53):
a journalistic outfit should actually reflect celebrate the best of education,
of learning, of what we know. But she says, no, no, no, no.
If it's actually free and open, it will recapitulate a
white male, westernized, westernized construct. Let me ask you something, Ben,
(39:14):
what the hell does that mean? Seriously? Those are the
words Marxist use, and typically the more syllables they use
when they get polysyllabic, the less they're making any sense.
So explain to me the phrase recapitulate a white male,
westernized construct that does not end up living into the
(39:35):
intentionality of what openness can mean. Those words have no
content other than I want the power to silence things
I don't like.
Speaker 1 (39:44):
Am I wrong? No, you're right, And my question goes
back to this. For you. It used to be at MPR.
Speaker 2 (39:50):
And others they would at least fake it like their bias.
Now it's just flat out open, and they're doing it
with our tax tours. Is there ever going to be
a day day of reckoning where MPR finds out, hey,
good luck, do your own thing, because we're not going
to pay for this propagana anymore.
Speaker 3 (40:07):
Look, if NPR cares at all about journalistic integrity, if
they care at all about continuing to receive taxpayer funds,
they should terminate Catherine Marr immediately. Her job should be done.
They should not have a rabid left wing partisan who
hates the First Amendment, who've used it as an inconvenience,
who wants to censor conservatives, who is actively explicitly and
unabashedly opposed to free and open communication, who doesn't believe
(40:31):
in truth, who believes truth is an impediment to what
she's doing. That is not a journalist in any way.
She ought to go and join Emily's List, she ought
to go and join the DNC. She gotta go run
for Congress and become a henchman to Nancy Pelosi. She
should not actually be running a news organization, especially not
a news organization funded by the taxpayers. And if we
(40:51):
have to be honest, if you had a Democrat who
had a shred of integrity. They would say, of course,
this is not appropriate for her to run NPR are
the chances of that happening are zero? But I can
tell you I'm going to be pushing for accountability and
I'm going to be pushing for oversight of NPR because
it is brazenly shameless for them to put someone so
(41:12):
wildly unqualified in that position.
Speaker 2 (41:15):
Yeah, no doubt about it. Don't forget. We do this
show Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Make sure you hit that
subscribe auto download button as well so you do not
miss an episode. We also do our week in review
if you miss something during the week, We do that
on Saturdays and on those in between days.
Speaker 1 (41:31):
Make sure you grab my podcast.
Speaker 2 (41:32):
I'll keep you update on the latest breaking news, the
Ben Ferguson podcasts, so download that as well and The
Senator and I will see you back here in a
couple of days
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