| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
|
unidentified
|
for defying a subpoena from the January 6th Committee after being found guilty on two counts. | |
| In his new book, I Went to Prison So You Won't Have To, Peter Navarro lays out the Justice Department's case, his arrest and trial, and what it was like for him behind bars. | ||
| People think you're in a dorm rather than a cell. | ||
| It's like everybody told me there that they'd rather be in a cell because you only have to worry about one other guy. | ||
| You know, there's a thing called the lock, lock in the sock, right? | ||
| You take a padlock, you throw it in a sock, and a lot of rough justice goes on like that. | ||
|
unidentified
|
White House trade advisor and author Peter Navarro, Sunday night at 8 Eastern on C-SPAN's Q ⁇ A. You can listen to Q ⁇ A wherever you get your podcasts and on the C-SPAN Now app. | |
| Joining us this morning is the political editor of Deadline, Ted Johnson, to talk about the Trump administration's FCC policies and freedom of the press. | ||
| Ted Jones, I want to begin with a recent piece written by you. | ||
| The headline is, FCC launches review of network-affiliate relationships. | ||
| What did you find out? | ||
| Well, first of all, it sounds pretty regulatory and pretty technical, but very simply, what the FCC chairman Brendan Carr has started is looking into the question of whether the broadcast networks, ABC, NBC, Fox, CBS, have too much power over local stations, their affiliates that agree to air the programming. | ||
| This has been a long time concern of affiliate stations that they're just kind of forced to air some of this programming. | ||
| And also, I should say it's also a matter of money that the networks just have so much leverage over them to extract certain affiliate fees. | ||
| So there's a business reason for this, and there's also probably a political reason for this. | ||
| So what we're going to see over the next month is different groups weighing in, different companies weighing in to see if there is anything that the FCC can do to actually change this policy or to actually establish some policy on how those contracts are written between broadcasters and their affiliate stations. | ||
| Now, again, that's a pretty regulatory way of putting things, but I think there's a lot of suspicion on the part of Democrats in particular that this is just another way for the Trump administration to kind of punish major networks because they don't like some of the programming that they're airing, in particular some of the late night shows as well as some of the news programming. | ||
| Another headline from Deadline, Donald Trump continues attacks on ABC with call to drop Jimmy Kimmel after a late night host makes Jeffrey Epstein jokes. | ||
| Ted Johnson? | ||
| Well, this is one in a series of attacks that Trump has made actually through both terms where he has watched something, whether it's Jimmy Kimmel or Seth Myers, and he'll take to Truth Social and say, why isn't anything done about this? | ||
| They should lose their license. | ||
| Well, the fact of the matter is that's a very complicated process. | ||
| It's also a very rare process where the FCC moves and tries to revoke a broadcaster's license. | ||
| I can only cite one instance where it happened. | ||
| It was actually in the late 60s, where there was a station in Mississippi that lost its broadcast license. | ||
| It was advocating segregation. | ||
| So Look at the historic timeline, you can see how that was probably problematic in that era. | ||
| But it is a, it's a, it's actually a very kind of draconian process for the FCC to take, in particular, if it's just the president upset over something that he saw on the airwaves. | ||
| If it were to happen, I would imagine that broadcasters would challenge this in court, and in all likelihood, they would win. | ||
| What is the role of the FCC in our government? | ||
| Does it have the authority that you are talking about here? | ||
| Well, yeah, you know, first of all, a lot of people kind of misinterpret what the FCC does. | ||
| They will watch something on cable, they will watch something on streaming, and they think, well, how can the FCC allow this? | ||
| Well, the FCC doesn't really have much authority over cable and streaming. | ||
| It has authority over broadcasters. | ||
| This goes back to the 1930s, where it issues broadcast licenses to use the public airwaves. | ||
| In return, broadcasters are supposed to abide by this standard called the public interest standard. | ||
| Now, it's somewhat vague, but it's come to mean localism, it's come to mean diversity, and it's come to mean competition. | ||
| So there is some leeway that FCC chairmen can take or chairwomen can take in trying to enforce this broadcast, this public interest standard. | ||
| And Brendan Carr, who is a Republican, has come into office even before Trump was sworn in, saying that he wants to take a rigorous view of the public interest standard. | ||
| It's somewhat rare for Republicans who tend to be a little more regulatory hands-off. | ||
| Now, the FCC also runs up against the First Amendment. | ||
| There actually is limitations on what it can do, and its authority is actually pretty narrow. | ||
| What has happened, though, is Brendan Carr has launched a number of investigations against broadcasters over certain programming. | ||
| And he's also looking at certain complaints that has been filed against broadcasters. | ||
| His detractors, Democrats, and even some former Republican FCC chairmen say that he's overstepping his authority. | ||
| And what he's doing is actually something called jawboning, which is kind of another term for it is regulation by raised eyebrow, where he doesn't necessarily have the authority, but just the threat of the FCC coming down on a local station or coming down on NBC will get broadcasters to actually change their behavior. | ||
| And to a certain extent, that has happened. | ||
| We are talking this morning with Ted Johnson, political editor of Deadline. | ||
| We want all of you to join us in the conversation as well. | ||
| Democrats 202-748-8000. | ||
| Republicans 202-748-8001. | ||
| And Independents 202-748-8002. | ||
| We'll get to your calls in just a minute. | ||
| Ted Johnson, let's listen to the president. | ||
| Here's the most recent example of a dust-up with an ABC news reporter in the Oval Office recently. | ||
| Here's President Trump. | ||
| Why wait for Congress to release the Epstein files? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Why not just do it now? | |
| Well. | ||
| It's not the question that I mind, it's your attitude. | ||
| I think you are a terrible reporter. | ||
| It's the way you ask these questions. | ||
| You start off with a man who's highly respected, asking him a horrible, insubordinate, and just a terrible question. | ||
| And you could even ask that same exact question nicely. | ||
| You're all psyched. | ||
| Somebody psyches you over at ABC. | ||
| You're going to psych. | ||
| You're a terrible person and a terrible reporter. | ||
| People are wise to your hoax. | ||
| And ABC, your company, your crappy company, is one of the perpetrators. | ||
| And I'll tell you something. | ||
| I'll tell you something. | ||
| So why not just sign it out? | ||
| I think the license should be taken away from ABC because your news is so fake and it's so wrong. | ||
| And we have a great commissioner, the chairman, who should look at that because I think when you come in and when you're 97% negative to Trump and then Trump wins the election in a landslide, that means obviously your news is not credible. | ||
| President Trump in the Oval Office recently, Ted Johnson, before you respond, I want to show this post by Ana Gomez on X. | ||
| The FCC doesn't get to decide whether the news coverage of those in power is acceptable. | ||
| It has neither the legal authority nor the constitutional right to pursue broadcasters for their journalism. | ||
| These threats sound ominous, but they're empty. | ||
| Who is Anna Gomez? | ||
| Anna Gomez is the sole Democrat on the FCC. | ||
| There are three commissioners right now, so it's a two-to-one split in favor of the Republicans, which is pretty traditional. | ||
| Every administration gets to control the FCC. | ||
| But she has been very outspoken on what has been happening there. | ||
| She calls it an effort by the Trump administration to exert censorship and control over broadcast programming, in particular broadcast news programming. | ||
| The way in for Brendan Carr to kind of address some of these instances where there is a flare-up over some network's news report has been through the FCC's news distortion policy. | ||
| That's a policy that says that broadcasters can't deliberately misrepresent the facts in a broadcast news report. | ||
| It has been rarely enforced. | ||
| And the instances, you know, you can probably count on one hand where it even led to the FCC kind of admonishing the networks. | ||
| Probably the most recent was back in the early 90s when NBC shows Dateline tried to rig a, with explosive devices, tried to rig an auto auto test. | ||
| It was on a, I think on GM, how they were testing automobile safety. | ||
| And that didn't lead to a fine. | ||
| It didn't lead to broadcast licenses being revoked. | ||
| It led to just kind of a sternly written letter. | ||
| But what Hannah Gomez says is that Carr is way overstepping his bounds when it comes to the news distortion policy. | ||
| And there has been an effort by former FCC chairmen as well as former FCC commissioners, including those in the Reagan administration and the George H.W. Bush administration, to revoke the news distortion policy, saying it shouldn't be allowed to be used as a weapon to try to intimidate stations and broadcasters. | ||
| We are talking with Ted Johnson, political editor with Deadline. | ||
| We'll go to Patrick, who's in Naples, Florida, Democratic Caller. | ||
| You're up first, Patrick. | ||
| Question or comment for Ted Johnson about the FCC. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, a question and maybe a comment. | |
| Back in 1933, there was something called the Reich Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda. | ||
| And the comparison to that and Trump today and how he's taken over our press and how we'll no longer have a free pass. | ||
| I think that's all. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Ted Johnson? | ||
| Well, yeah, I don't think we're at that point yet. | ||
| The thing about it is that the courts have, there's quite a bit of case law in the courts that upholds the right of broadcasters, upholds the rights of the press to report freely on issues of public importance. | ||
| And that's why, you know, some of these complaints that have been filed against the FCC, for example, the way that EBC moderated the presidential debate or the way that 60 Minutes edited an interview, a lot of legal experts think that if there were ever an FCC fine or an effort to revoke the license, that it just wouldn't stand up in court, even in the Supreme Court. | ||
| That it just because it runs aground with the First Amendment, it's the FCC getting involved in editorial decisions, which the courts have frowned upon. | ||
| So there is that protection there. | ||
| But again, none of these complaints, none of these investigations, there have been no decisions. | ||
| And companies have, in certain instances, actually changed their policies rather than deal with the headache of trying to challenge the FCC and trying to challenge the Trump administration. | ||
| Barbara's next. | ||
| Whittington, Vermont, Republican. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hi. | |
| So two points. | ||
| Of course, today, they don't just report the news. | ||
| It's opinion, opinion, too many opinions. | ||
| And there's a million opinions. | ||
| So it's swayed in one direction, definitely anti-Trump today, you know, policy, bad, whatever. | ||
| This is bad. | ||
| But, you know, so it's definitely swayed people's judgments because they just listen to the shows, the opinions. | ||
| How about like a station that just has facts? | ||
| That would be great, like the old days. | ||
| And then I have a question. | ||
| I don't know if he can answer it. | ||
| Back in the 80s or so, when they took off broadcast whatever TV that was free, so we used to have all these channels that were free. | ||
| And then when the cable channels came into play, they said, you're going to pay for it because there will be no commercials. | ||
| And that was like a contract of some sort with America. | ||
| That didn't happen. | ||
| So we all know our bills are up to $200 a month, and we get so many commercials and no free TV today. | ||
| Could you explain those two little issues, please? | ||
| Thanks, Barbara. | ||
| Ted Johnson. | ||
| Yes, thank you. | ||
| Those are two good issues. | ||
| The first on the whole idea that there's too much opinion, I think you're certainly right. | ||
| There is no shortage of opinion on cable, even on broadcast. | ||
| One of the reasons that you see that is because it's relatively cheap to produce. | ||
| It costs much less to get two pundits on the air and to go at it rather than to go out and hire a reporter and do a heavily reported news report and a package with a camera person. | ||
| So that it's part of it has to do with money, just the expense of it. | ||
| And the other part is that there's ample examples where opinion tends to get higher ratings than just straight news reporting. | ||
| Part of the reason is that there is quite a lot of straight news reporting out there, whether it's online, whether it's been broadcast, whether it's in cable. | ||
| But there have been examples. | ||
| For example, News Nation is a network that started about five years ago, and they really marketed themselves that, hey, we're going to be unbiased. | ||
| We have like a biased monitor to make sure that we don't lean in one direction or the other. | ||
| And the result, while they have been gaining some in the ratings, they are very far behind any other cable network. | ||
| So it kind of goes back maybe to that whole idea of in the news business: if it bleeds, it leads. | ||
| You know, it's sometimes the loudest voices are the ones that get the attention. | ||
| And who owns that network? | ||
| That is owned by Nexstar. | ||
| And Nexstar right now is trying to buy Tedna, which is another TV station group. | ||
| I should say Nextstar is a station group as well. | ||
| And they're trying to combine right now. | ||
| And that is one of the big rationales that they're making: hey, we really do need more unbiased news out there. | ||
| Your headline, we were showing Ted Johnson on Nextstar. | ||
| Next, our weighs in after Donald Trump criticizes one of its key deregulatory goals: eliminating the media ownership cap. | ||
| What does Nexstar want, and what is the White House saying? | ||
| Well, there is an FCC regulation that you can, if you are a company, you cannot own stations that cover more than 39%, that reach more than 39% of the households. | ||
| I think that's kind of the exact language. | ||
| Nextstar wants to buy another major station group, Tegna, as I mentioned. | ||
| They would be well beyond the cap. | ||
| So they're trying to merge. | ||
| So that opens the question of how can they do it? | ||
| Well, at the same time, the FCC is looking at whether to raise that 39% cap and essentially deregulation, which would allow Nexstar and Tegna to combine. | ||
| Trump, just a few days ago, to a lot of surprise, said, hey, caution here. | ||
| Maybe this isn't the right thing to do. | ||
| Maybe we should really keep this 39% cap in place. | ||
| He wasn't specific. | ||
| Well, he was specific to the broadcasters, but he wasn't specific as to how this would all work out. | ||
| But I think that that has given Nexstar some pause. | ||
| Even though there's been indications that this FCC supports raising the cap, the president has kind of weighed in and he has a lot of misgivings. | ||
| Keith is in Boulder, Colorado. | ||
| Democratic colour. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning, everyone, and happy Thanksgiving. | |
| You're pretty much spot on, but let's not split the baby by half. | ||
| Right-wing media is a threat to our democracy. | ||
| That's a bold statement. | ||
| I'm aware of it. | ||
| But what right-wing media and Trump are doing is akin to McCarthyism, the blacklists of the 1950s and 60s. | ||
| I've spent 30 years in media. | ||
| I'm semi-retired since I've taught school and history. | ||
| And I try to relay this to my students when discussing history. | ||
| I strongly encourage everyone who's interested in the fallacy of media bias or liberal bias. | ||
| There's no liberal bias. | ||
| It's a corporate bias. | ||
| And why I say that is because we learned this from Fred Friendly decades ago, and George Clooney rightly put it in good night, good luck. | ||
| I'd also suggest that everyone watch the film network, which led me into media as a teenager. | ||
| Okay, Keith, I've got to jump in because we are running out of time. | ||
| Ted Johnson, we've got just about a minute here. | ||
| Could you walk us through what you're watching next when it comes to the FCC actions that we talked about this morning? | ||
| Well, the ownership cap is probably the biggest issue because it does impact the Nexstar Techna merger, which is one of the bigger mergers that we've seen in recent years. | ||
| So that is certainly a major thing that everyone is watching, what they do. | ||
| And also, is there any other FCC action like we saw with Jimmy Kimmel, where the FCC chairman issued this warning and it led to Kimmel being suspended at least for a few days? | ||
| Is there any other instance like that because of the president's upset over certain programming and the FCC's chairman's willingness to take certain action or to make certain statements that lead to such incidents like that? | ||
| For our viewers interested in following Ted Johnson's reporting, go to deadline.com. | ||
| He's the political editor there. | ||
| Thank you very much for the conversation and happy Thanksgiving to you. | ||
| Happy Thanksgiving. | ||
| Thanks so much. | ||
|
unidentified
|
On Wednesday, a Georgia county judge dismissed a criminal case against President Trump and 18 others who were indicted on racketeering charges over alleged attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election result in that state. | |
| In this one-page order, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee stated, this case is hereby dismissed in its entirety. | ||
| This happens after Pete Scandilakis, the state prosecutor who recently took over the case, filed an earlier motion to drop charges against the president and other defendants, including former New York City mayor and the president's former attorney, Rudy Giuliani, and former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows. | ||
| In the motion, Mr. Scandilakis stated, quote, overt acts such as arranging a phone call, issuing a public statement, tweeting to the public to watch the Georgia Senate subcommittee hearings, texting someone to attend those hearings, or answering a 63-minute phone call without providing the context of that conversation, just to name a few examples, are not acts that I would consider sufficient to sustain a RICO case, unquote. | ||
| In response, President Trump's defense attorney, Steve Settow, said, quote, the political persecution of President Trump by disqualified DA Fannie Willis is finally over. | ||
| This case should never have been brought. | ||
| A fair and impartial prosecutor has put an end to this law affair, unquote. | ||
| In August of 2023, then District Attorney Fanny Willis pursued the case, but was removed from the post for having a prior romantic relationship with the special prosecutor she chose to lead the case. | ||
| Ms. Willis appealed the disqualification, but the state's highest court declined to take it up. | ||
| C-SPAN's Washington Journal, our live forum, inviting you to discuss the latest issues in government, politics, and public policy. | ||
| From Washington, D.C. to across the country. | ||
| Coming up Thursday morning, author Alexandra Hudson discusses efforts to promote civility in American politics, combating polarization, and her book The Soul of Civility. | ||
| And television host and author Alexander Hefner reflects on his own efforts to encourage more respectful political discourse in the U.S. C-SPAN's Washington Journal. | ||
| Join the conversation live at 7 Eastern Thursday morning on C-SPAN, C-SPAN Now, our free mobile app, or online at c-span.org. | ||
| On Thanksgiving Day, starting at 10 a.m. Eastern, C-SPAN presents a day-long America 250 Marathon, all part of our more than year-long coverage of historic moments that explore the American story. | ||
| At 11 a.m., we'll feature Boston's Freedom Trail through a guided tour featuring the site of the Boston Massacre, Old State House, Faniel Hall, and Old North Church. | ||
| Give me liberty or give me death. | ||
| At 2:30 p.m. Eastern, Patrick Henry's Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death speech on the 250th anniversary and in its original location, St. John's Church in Richmond. | ||
| At 6.05 p.m., the U.S. Navy 250th Anniversary Victory at Sea concert in Philadelphia with a musical performance by Patty LaBelle. | ||
| Also at 8 p.m., the 1775 Battle of Bunker Hill, where more than 1,000 reenactors commemorate one of the earliest and most consequential Revolutionary War battles. | ||
| And at 9:30 p.m., a celebration of the U.S. Army's 250th anniversary, featuring a parade through Washington, D.C., an enlistment ceremony, parachute demonstration, and fireworks. | ||
| Watch the America 250 Thanksgiving all-day marathon on Thursday on C-SPAN. | ||
| Also, head over to C-SPAN.org to get the full schedule. | ||
| C-SPAN, Democracy Unfiltered. | ||
| We're funded by these television companies and more, including Comcast. | ||
| Agriculture is the main life in Sussex County, and I'm very proud of that. | ||
| I felt like we were being left behind. | ||
| Everybody around us seemed to have internet, but we did not. | ||
| When I found out that Comcast was coming, I ran down the road and I said, welcome. | ||
| High-speed internet is one of those good things that we needed to help us move our farming, our small businesses, our recreation forward. | ||
| And now future generations will thrive here in Sussex County. | ||
| Comcast supports C-SPAN as a public service, along with these other television providers, giving you a front-row seat to democracy. | ||
| Next, a press conference with D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, FBI Director Kash Patel, and Metropolitan Police Assistant Chief Jeffrey Carroll on the shooting of two National Guardsmen near the White House. | ||
| Okay, also PFME, are we ready? | ||
| Ready. | ||
| Good afternoon, everybody. | ||
| My name is Kash Patel, FBI Director. |