Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Donald Trump's nominees in their own words, discussing policy, politics, and their relationship with the president-elect.
On Monday, featured nominees include Florida Senator Marco Rubio and New York Congresswoman Elise Stefanik.
On Tuesday, we'll hear from Defense Secretary nominee Pete Hagseff.
Wednesday, we'll feature North Dakota Governor Doug Bergham and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
On Thursday, South Dakota Governor Christy Noam, his nominee for Homeland Security Secretary.
And on Friday, President-elect Trump's nominee for Education Secretary, Linda McMahon.
Our marathon continues on Monday, December 30th with Tulsi Gabbard.
And then on Tuesday, December 31st, we'll hear from Dr. Mehmet Oz and Mr. Trump's nominee for FBI Director Cash Battelle.
Watch Trump nominees in their own words.
Our marathon begins on Monday at 8 a.m. Eastern on C-SPAN 2.
Joining us now to discuss President-elect Trump's recent and potential actions against the news media is Caroline Hendry.
She is the Executive Director for the Society of Professional Journalists.
Caroline, thank you for being with us.
Thank you for having me.
It's a great privilege.
Why don't you tell our audience about the Society for Professional Journalists, your mission, and who you work with?
Right.
Well, the Society of Professional Journalists is the oldest and most broad-based journalism membership organization in the country.
We go back to 1909, and we stand for working journalists, all the journalists across the country who are doing the really hard work of reporting on what's happening around them and reporting it and interpreting it truthfully and accurately and informing the public.
So we work with press freedom allies in very many different organizations to protect our First Amendment freedom of the press.
We believe in a strong and independent press and we try to be a strong and independent voice for that press.
And when we talk about the press and President-elect Donald Trump, it was last week that ABC News announced they had reached a $16 million settlement for a defamation lawsuit that he brought against them.
What does the First Amendment say about defamation?
Right.
Well, we should go back to the civil rights era.
And back in the early 60s, when reporters were covering the civil rights movement, state's officials were trying to weaponize defamation cases to basically censor them.
So there's a landmark decision from 1964 called New York Times versus Sullivan.
And that set a very important standard for plaintiffs that are trying to win a defamation suit.
If you're a public official, you have to show that any disputed statement, there was actual malice behind it.
It's called the actual malice standard, the test.
You have to prove that the disputed fact or statement was the people who made it, you know, published it or said it in your broadcast, knew it was false or showed reckless disregard for whether it was false or true.
So it's a high standard and it's worked well.
It's been successful.
And that's appropriate that there be a high standard.
So in this case, the case settled pretty early, only after about eight months.
And frankly, we're concerned that it sends a message that employers might not support their journalists in cases of this kind.
We're frankly a little concerned that there's going to be a chilling effect on journalists and their news outlets, that if it is seen that you have to make massive payouts against legal challenges, that this is going to put a damper on the kind of really fearless and independent reporting that the public needs to hold the powerful to account.
Our guest for the next 35 minutes or so is Caroline Hendry, Executive Director for the Society of Professional Journalists.
If you have a question or comment for her, you can start calling in now the Lions Republicans, 202-748-8001, Democrats, 202-748-8000, and Independents 202-748-8002.
President-elect Trump has also filed lawsuits against a couple other organizations, including the Des Moines Registered newspaper.
And their pollster, he says that they committed consumer fraud and election interference over a poll that showed Vice President Kamala Harris leading him.
That was in Iowa before the election.
And he has also filed one against CBS's 60 Minutes, claiming that an interview with Vice President Harris was partisan and unlawful acts of election and voter interference, saying that those were meant to mislead voters.
Are there precedents or protections for maybe an editorial decision?
Right.
Well, I think it's very important that we preserve and maintain the guardrails for a free and independent press.
And what we're concerned about is this is basically the dawn of a new era of lawfare against journalists and their employers.
That people will bring, it just should not be seen as normal that powerful elected officials wage legal campaigns against reporters and their employers, often because they don't agree with what's being published or broadcast, that they don't want to be criticized and they see it as an intimidation tactic.
So I think it's very important that we maintain the legal guardrails.
And you mentioned the New York Times v. Sullivan ruling, 1964, so important.
This case, the case again, the one in Des Moines, the Des Moines Register case, was brought under a consumer fraud statute, actually.
And we think that that is really misguided, that those sorts of deceptive practices laws were designed to protect consumers, for powerful elected officials to put themselves in that place and say they were somehow injured in this matter seems like a real stretch.
And we really hope to not see more cases like this, but we're concerned.
And the legal media law bar is really concerned too.
We're afraid that there's just going to be an onslaught of these kinds of cases.
And so folks in the media and their allies are gearing up and trying to prepare for the need to defend themselves.
We believe in ethical journalism, principled journalism.
We believe in holding ourselves to the high standards that we expect of others.
And we very much believe in accountability and transparency and admitting it if you make an error.
But making an occasional error is not tantamount to, it's not illegal.
We have constitutional freedom of the press and freedom of speech.
So this can't become, freedom of speech just can't be litigated in court every time someone is unhappy with what is said about them.
We'll go to our first caller for the segment, Tom in Ohio, Line for Republicans.
Good morning, Tom.
Yes.
Ma'am, I'd like somebody to explain to me, like, President Trump was accused of rape in a dressing room.
And I've been in several dressing rooms myself and trying on clothes and stuff like that.
And I've been by them several times, and their walls are not insulated.
You can't stand by one and listen to a conversation inside of it.
If a woman were being raped inside of that, don't you think she'd at least scream or holler?
Well, I think the caller is referring to the case of a journalist in New York.
And the president-elect was found libel in civil court for, you know, not rape, but sexual misconduct.
And that was a finding in court.
So, you know, this settled, this came into the, you know, public eye when this lawsuit just recently was settled.
There was a defamation case against ABC News and anchor George Stephanopoulos over the issue of him referring to the president-elect being found liable for rape.