The Insidious & Unreported Legal Assault on Landmark Free Speech Rulings, From BLM Leaders to Donald Trump. Plus: Darren Beattie on Jan. 6, Tucker, & DeSantis | SYSTEM UPDATE #106
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Welcome to a new episode of System Update, our live daily show that airs every Monday through Friday at 7 p.m.
Eastern, exclusively here on Rumble, the free speech alternative to YouTube.
Tonight, if forced to identify the single greatest danger the West faces, I would almost certainly choose the ongoing institutionalization of censorship, or put another way, the incremental yet aggressive erosion of free speech, both as a legal right and as a social value.
There are multiple ways the censorship regime is being implemented.
We know from the Twitter files and from other reporting, both before and since, that U.S.
and Western security state agencies apply enormous pressure on big tech corporations to heavily censor online political discourse, largely by banning dissent from establishment orthodoxies on virtually every consequential debate.
From reporting on Joe Biden to the integrity of elections, from COVID to the war in Ukraine, all of those issues have ushered in extreme levels of censorship, invariably aimed at those who question or dissent from establishment narratives.
We have reported on such efforts many times.
Then there is the truly pernicious attempt to stigmatize or even criminalize political dissent by depicting it as, quote, too dangerous to allow, based on the theory that this dissent is the primary culprit that inspires violent attacks.
After a white supremacist shooter murdered people at a grocery store in Buffalo in May of 22, for instance, established media outlets instantly created a narrative that the real criminal with blood on his hands was not the shooter, but instead Fox News host Tucker Carlson, whose speech was blamed for inspiring the killer, even though there was no evidence the shooter had even heard of Tucker Carlson, let alone watched his show, let alone was inspired by him to murder.
This theory, of course, is never applied the same way to establishment voices.
When a rabid fan of Rachel Maddow and Bernie Sanders tried to murder GOP Congressman Steve Scalise and other members of the Republican House Caucus in 2017, based on his view that Republicans are racist traitors and Russian agents, nobody serious tried to claim that Maddow or Sanders had blood on their hands.
Nor did anyone claim that about environmental activists when a climate activist murdered the Dutch politician Pim Fortin in 2002 just nine days before a general election which could have made Fortin the new Dutch Prime Minister.
This media narrative is, again, yet another weapon designed to suppress and ultimately lead to the outlawing of dissent against establishment pieties on the grounds that such dissent is too dangerous to permit.
Then there are the social pressures designed to marginalize or silence establishment critiques.
In many countries now in the democratic world, major societal sectors barely pretend any longer to value or defend free speech.
At most, they may pay lip service to free speech, but then immediately offer a mountain of other values that they insist are more important and that justify the restrictions on free speech.
Increasingly, the phrase free speech is depicted as a far-right or even a fascist cause, even though every fascist in history has embraced censorship and not free speech.
And the demands are now intense for establishment critics to be silenced or censored.
We saw just last week that liberal media figures demanded that nobody, neither Joe Biden nor Professor Peter Hotez, Ph.D., M.D., debate RFK Jr.
on the ground that RFK Jr.' 's ideas are simply too harmful to allow to be heard.
Google has repeatedly censored RFK or even mentions of him from YouTube and that should not be surprising.
Seemingly every day new theories are invented as to why one should regard dissent not only as wrong but it's too dangerous to allow.
That is the pernicious theory that is leading in many democratic countries throughout the world, from Brazil and Canada to Ireland and Germany, a spate of new censorship laws, regulations, and judicial rulings based on the view that dissent either constitutes, quote, hate speech or disinformation.
Terms that intrinsically cannot apply to establishment defenders, but only to their critics.
But then there is a topic on which we want to focus tonight, which are the direct legal attacks on free speech.
In the U.S., the First Amendment of the Bill of Rights imposes serious obstacles in the way of the ability to censor or to censor in order to outlaw or criminalize dissent.
But a recent series of judicial rulings, including the attempt to indict former President Donald Trump for the political speech he gave on January 6th, along with a case now making its way through the federal judicial system that attempts to hold Black Lives Matter leaders, including DeRay McKeeson, liable for the violent acts of others,
...whom they are accused of inspiring are making significant inroads in undermining and even erasing some of the most important landmark Supreme Court rulings from the 20th century which have safeguarded our free speech rights when it comes to political debate.
Because these kinds of legal attacks are often carried out under the darkness of technical-sounding debates about obscure legal dogma, they rarely receive media coverage.
But that is something we want to fix tonight, because of all the ongoing attacks on free thought and free debate, this legalistic one, now being carried out through the American court system, is among the most threatening.
And it's vital that it be reported on and explained in a way that is easily understood.
We'll review those developments tonight.
Then, for our interview segment, we will speak to the former Trump speechwriter and current investigative journalist at Revolver News, Darren Beatty, who, among other things, has done some of the most important journalism surrounding January 6th.
We'll speak to him about these free speech attacks, about the latest developments in that January 6th investigation, about the recent revelations of the two IRS whistleblowers, about the investigation into Joe and Hunter Biden, which you covered on Friday night here, about the posture of the Republican establishment and the Republican presidential primary, and more.
Darren has become a somewhat regular guest on our program and always has important and unique insights that one cannot obtain anywhere else.
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For now, welcome to a new episode of System Update, starting right now.
In order to understand the ongoing multi-pronged attacks on free speech in the West, the attempt to institutionalize censorship, it is first extremely important to understand the mentality that underlies this craving for more censorship.
And this has become increasingly easier as a result of the stigma and shame that once surrounded admitting that you were a believer in censorship rapidly eroding where people now just stand up and freely admit they oppose free speech and instead believe censorship serves higher values and that gives a lot of insight into this mentality.
Currently in Ireland, as we see from the Irish Times this week, there is a new hate crime law that is now a step closer to being implemented.
You can see the headline on the screen, the introduction of new hate crime law is now a step closer.
And the article reads, quote, the introduction of a new hate crime law is a step closer after it passed second stage in the Senate.
The criminal justice, which is called the incitement to violence or hatred and hate offenses bill 2022, is aimed at updating laws, criminalizing hate speech and legislating against hate crimes for the first time.
It will criminalize, criminalize any intentional or reckless communication or behavior that is likely to incite violence or hatred against the person or persons because they are associated with a protected characteristic.
So just to be clear, anything that you say that can be said to incite not just violence toward but hatred against a particular minority group, Now is a crime.
So if you presumably were to say that you don't believe that there are more than two genders or you believe that same-sex couples are a sin under the Bible or you believe that women have certain capabilities that are less than men or different than men You will now be charged criminally under this hate crimes law because you are inciting hatred toward a particular minority group.
The article says, quote, such characteristics are said to include race, color, nationality, descent, religion, ethnic or national origin, gender, including expressions, gender expressions or identity, sexual orientation, or disability.
Now the impetus for this bill is a debate almost entirely focused on the rights of transgender people, including the right to provide medical treatments for people under the age of 18 that include things like puberty blockers and all the debates with which you are now undoubtedly familiar.
Throughout Western Europe there are actually attempts in many Western European countries based on health concerns to scale back or even prohibit the administering of puberty blocking medication or other types of quote-unquote gender-affirming care to minors.
And yet there is also a reaction to that which is to try and criminalize any kind of dissent To the prevailing orthodoxy on the new gender ideology.
So even though it covers a broad range of issues and can criminalize the kinds of statements I just enumerated, the immediate impetus is this debate over transgender rights and the attempt to turn into criminals.
People who question or dissent from the new prevailing orthodoxy.
The reason I mention this law in Ireland is not only because it's becoming representative of the trend throughout the democratic world with regard to legislation, but because the senator, one of the key senators who's in the Green Party, Senator Pauline O'Reilly, stood up and gave a speech on the floor of the Irish Parliament that is incredibly revealing.
About the dominant mindset throughout the West when it comes to justifying censorship and dismissing free speech as no longer a paramount value.
And I want to show you what it is that she said because this really does shed vivid light on how these people think.
Listen to what she said.
All law, all legislation, is about the restriction of freedom.
That's exactly what we're doing here, is we are restricting freedom, but we're doing it for the common good.
You will see throughout our constitution, yes you have rights, but they are restricted for the common good.
Everything needs to be balanced.
And if your views on other people's identities Alright, you feel comfortable yet?
their lives unsafe, insecure, and cause them such deep discomfort that they cannot live in peace, then I believe that it is our job as legislators to restrict those freedoms for the common good.
All right, you feel comfortable yet?
Just so you know, your free speech rates are being restricted because of her view of what serves the common good.
She believes, and she's about to win this argument in Ireland and in many other countries that if you say things that make other people uncomfortable in their lives that or make them in any way feel some kind of pressure societally, she doesn't want to just restrict your rights to say it.
She wants to turn you into a criminal if you do.
And obviously this includes things like misgendering people or arguing against the idea that there's more than two genders.
All of that would immediately fall into this criminalization scheme.
Because her view is that you may think you have free speech rights, but those have to be restricted for the common good.
Meaning, if your political views make other people uncomfortable, you can be turned into a criminal and will be.
And this is absolutely the prevailing mindset that free speech Really no longer exists because the only things you're permitted to say are things that align with establishment ideology.
Now, as I said, there are many ways that this has been achieved.
I mentioned earlier the attempt, the increasing attempt, to affirm and endorse and implement a theory, and this is really at the heart of this entire censorship movement in the West, that posits that a person who expresses a particular idea Is not only responsible for the words that they speak, but for the actions that anybody hears and then carries out in the name of that ideology.
So in May of 2022, a self-described white supremacist went into a grocery store in Buffalo that he purposely chose because it was an African-American neighborhood, and he gunned down 10 people in cold blood in order to advance his racist ideology.
And immediately the narrative was invented that the real person to blame was Tucker Carlson as well as social media sites who allowed too much free speech.
And they're the ones with blood on their hands.
Here from CNN by the now-fired host Brian Stelter on May 16, 2022, you see the headline, Tucker Carlson and social media sites come under scrutiny after Buffalo attack.
Was there any accusation that Tucker Carlson or social media sites helped participate in the planning of this attack?
No.
The acknowledgement is that he acted alone.
The argument instead is that the ideology of Tucker Carlson that he defends each night inspired this person to go and commit this murder and that social media companies by allowing too much freight also fed the fuel that allowed this person to go and do this or caused him to go do that and therefore people like Tucker Carlson need to be restricted in what they can say and social media sites need to be centered even more heavily because of this attempt, this very pernicious attempt
To draw a causal link between people using their free speech rights to express their views and the claim that other people who go and commit violence or other criminal acts in the name of that ideology are somehow, that that link is somehow demonstrated and that means that the person exercising their free speech rights can be held accountable.
CNN with Brian Stelter said quote while most news organizations focused on the suspect's purported manifesto Fox News created a safe space for its viewers who have bought into the great replacement theory sold by the right-wing network's top host The network largely ignored the theory at the heart of the suspect's apparent screed.
I searched Rush transcripts and could not find any mentions of the Great Replacement Theory, outside one instance in which anchor Eric Schon briefly referenced it in Sunday's 4 o'clock hour.
It is a glaring omission from the network that has promoted the racist theory over and over again to its audience.
So, Brian Stelter wants to say that the real criminal to blame is not the shooter, but Fox News and particularly Tucker Carlson.
New York Governor Kathy Hochul and other elected officials, before the bodies were even cold, called out social media platforms on Sunday.
CNN national security analyst Peter Bergen wrote that, quote, social media continues to be a key source of radicalization for many terrorists, and it's clear that social media companies are not capable of policing themselves to the extent that is necessary.
He described how the growing discipline of, quote, threat management may be able to help.
Now Peter Bergen is one of these people who became a quote-unquote terrorist expert and he's taking the war on terror theory that because of 9-11 and the dangers it revealed we cannot have civil liberties anymore and he's trying to exploit in the immediate aftermath of this Buffalo attack the killings of the dead people in order to say that social media has to be reined in even further.
CNN goes on, quote, related.
The New York Times, Kellan Browning and Ryan Mack have a news story about, quote, the role and responsibility of social media sites and allowing violent and hateful content to proliferate.
So their instinct in every case is to find a way to exploit any kind of event and use it to justify increasing acts of censorship, both in real life and online.
Now we've covered that specific episode before.
The argument that this shooter was somehow influenced by Tucker Carlson was completely fabricated because there was no evidence.
He even had heard of Tucker Carlson in the long manifesto he left.
He listed a large number of people who he listed as influences, all of whom are overt white supremacists and didn't even include Tucker Carlson.
The only mention of Fox News was to criticize Fox News for being some part of moderate component of the establishment.
So they just fabricated that.
They also fabricated the idea that the Great Replacement Theory, as espoused by this killer, was something that Tucker Carlson advocates, as though Tucker Carlson goes around arguing that the only legitimate American citizens are white ones, and any people of color, by definition, cannot be American citizens, and any attempt to allow non-white people into the country is an attempt unjustly to replace white Americans.
That has been That is not even close to what Tucker Carlson says.
He says the opposite.
To the extent he ever mentions the replacement theory, it's to talk about how Democratic Party strategists have written books!
Extolling immigration on the grounds that it will change the face, the demographic face of the United States, and with it, will ensure the Democratic Party has a permanent majority because they believe that non-white people who they can get into the country, this is their views and their argument and their theory that they champion, will automatically become Democrats.
It's an incredibly racist theory to assume that immigrants from Latin America will become Democrats, and in many cases we're finding that is not true.
Donald Trump is extremely popular.
Among Latino Americans, including many who are first-generation immigrants to the United States.
But be that as it may, even if Tucker Carlson had espoused the white replacement theory in the most malicious and racist form that it has, which is this one that the killer in Buffalo espoused, holding someone responsible For the violent acts of others, based on the theory that their speech has somehow inspired those other people, has long been regarded as taboo because it would destroy free speech.
In every debate where there's an inflammatory or controversial sentiment, it is possible that you can go and inspire violence.
As I said, Rachel Maddow sitting around year after year accusing Republicans of being white supremacists and Kremlin agents and traitors to the country quite predictably inspired one of her viewers to go and attack and try and kill Republican members of Congress at a softball field in 2017.
The idea that Rachel Maddow has blood on her hands because she expresses her political views that are protected by the Constitution, and that now somehow she's responsible because some nutcase in her audience decided to internalize that and go try and kill people, even though it was predictable that someone might.
I mean, if you sit around saying the Republican Party are fascists and white supremacists and threats to the country, it's very predictable that someone in your audience might go and try and hurt a Republican.
Nobody would say that her speech should be criminalized, even though she probably inspired this person to go and do that.
Because in every debate, let's take the abortion debate, if you're somebody who was pro-life and says that you believe abortion is murder, of course you might inspire.
Someone who hears you to go in and kill an abortion doctor on the grounds that you convinced them that abortion doctors are murderers.
Conversely, if you argue that those who believe in an abortion ban are killing women by preventing them from getting procedures that might save their life, it is very predictable that you might inspire somebody to go bomb a pro-life clinic, our pro-life office, as has happened several times in the past two years.
The environmental activist who went and murdered that Dutch politician clearly was listening to a radical environmentalist.
But the minute you start trying to hold people responsible for the implications or the consequences of their political speech, immediately you make political speech impossible.
Because every single person who has strong views on any topic runs the risk of inspiring others, even if it's not their intention, To go carry out, to go engage in violence carried out in the name of that cause.
That is true of every single political faction and every single view and every single political debate.
Now, there are two 20th century landmark Supreme Court cases that define the outer limits of free speech in a way that is extremely important to the protection of free speech in the United States.
If you just look at the Bill of Rights, These are very short guarantees that the founders wrote on purpose, knowing that they were vague and that society would apply them in specifics as courts ended up ruling.
The First Amendment is very short.
It's one paragraph long.
And there's no way to know all that much about what the First Amendment protects, what kinds of speech it protects.
Until you go and read Supreme Court cases and jurisprudence interpreting the First Amendment and setting those limits.
And one of the most important cases, probably one with which you're familiar, which is the Brandenburg case in 1967 in which the state of Ohio tried to prosecute a leader of the Ku Klux Klan when the leader of the Ku Klux Klan stood up and said, I believe our government is increasingly racist against white people.
And if that doesn't stop, I think violence might become justifiable.
We may have to take vengeance on them.
And the state of Ohio tried to prosecute that KKK leader for that political speech on the grounds that he was advocating terrorism, namely the use of violence to achieve political ends.
And the Supreme Court in Brandenburg ruled in 1967 that that conviction was unconstitutional.
They overturned the conviction of that KKK leader.
And they said that you're allowed to say anything in terms of political opinion that you want, including advocating the theoretical necessity of violence.
That was how our country was founded, by people saying, I think the British king has become so repressive that a violent revolution is justifiable.
And so the Supreme Court said, not only are you entitled to express every single political opinion, it even extends to the abstract expression of the need for violence.
And they therefore overturned the prosecution of this KKK leader.
And they created only one exception where your political speech can be prosecuted, which is if you are directing the imminent use of violence.
So in other words, you gather a mob of people, All of whom are carrying gasoline and torches and you say, I think we should go burn down that house right on that corner because it contains a senator who has done these bad things and the mob then goes and does it.
There you're deliberately inciting immediate and imminent violence.
But other than that, Even the expression of the need for political violence, or the necessity of political violence, is protected speech under the Constitution.
Most people know that Brandenburg case.
The case that is not as known, and yet is at least as important, is the one I want to talk to you about.
Because this is the case that says that you cannot hold people liable for the behavior of others who hear your speech when that speech expresses constitutionally protected ideas.
And this question is very relevant for the current attempt to try and indict Donald Trump For the speech he gave on January 6th on the theory that even though he didn't go to the Capitol and engage in violence or trespass, he inspired people to do so with the speech that he gave.
And what's amazing about that is if you look at his speech, he specifically said, I don't want you to engage in violence.
I want you to be peaceful.
And yet liberals are eager.
That's the kind of Big prize for them is to indict Trump not on that documents case and not on the case of the bookkeeping errors in Manhattan, but they want to indict him as having inspired that quote-unquote insurrection with the political speech he gave.
And as I said there's a similar case working its way through the court on the other side of the political aisle where a police officer who was beaten by Black Lives Matter protesters wants to hold responsible not only the people who beat him but the Black Lives Matter leaders who gave the speech that he said inspires that violence and in particular the person that he wants to sue and hold responsible is DeRay McKeeson.
The Black Lives Matter leader and the case was originally dismissed but now it was reinstated by an appeals court based on the theory that Jarre's speech can be said to have inspired these protesters.
It's a very dangerous incursion, both of those, into free speech.
So I want to show you what the Supreme Court said.
The case of the NAACP versus Claiborne Hardware was a 1982 ruling.
It was an 8-0 decision.
The only person who did not vote was the black justice Thurgood Marshall.
He recused himself because he had been general counsel for the NAACP during these events before going on the court.
And what had happened in this case, which is incredibly interesting, I use this case a lot when I did First Amendment litigation, Was that there were NAACP leaders who had imposed a boycott of white-owned stores in the state of Mississippi.
And they would give these rousing speeches, angry, rousing speeches.
And certain people who would hear these speeches would go and commit violence in the name of enforcing that boycott, including beating store owners or burning down stores.
And they did a lot of property damage.
And they sued these NAACP leaders, not the people engaging the violence, but the leaders, on the theory that they had inspired these people to go and commit violence.
And the state of Mississippi, in their court system, held a trial and found in favor of the plaintiffs and held these NAACP leaders liable.
They appealed to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court overturned that verdict and said it is unconstitutional to hold people liable or responsible For the acts of others based on the theory that those other people were inspired by their political speech.
So let me just show you some of the key parts of this decision.
This is a crucial landmark decision that is now under attack in order to try and indict President Trump for his speech on January 6th.
And that will in general let them set precedence that if your speech is too inflammatory, if it's too passionate, You can cross the line and somehow become a criminal because of the violence other people do in the names of the ideas that you defend.
That's how dangerous this is.
So here's what the court said.
Quote, the boycott of white merchants at issue in this case took many forms.
The boycott was launched at a meeting of a local branch of the NAACP attended by several hundred persons.
Its acknowledged purpose was to secure compliance by both civic and business leaders with a lengthy list of demands for equality and racial justice.
The boycott was supported by speeches and nonviolent picketing.
Participants repeatedly encouraged others to join its cause.
Each of these elements of the boycott is a form of speech or conduct that is ordinarily entitled to protection under the First and Fourteenth Amendments.
The black citizens named as defendants in this action banded together and collectively expressed their dissatisfaction with a social structure that had denied them rights to equal treatment and respect.
And so as we recently acknowledged in the case of Citizens Against Rent Control versus Berkeley, quote, the practice of persons sharing common views banding together to achieve a common end is deeply embedded in the American political process.
We recognize that, quote, by collective effect, individuals can make their views known when individually their voices would be faint or lost.
In emphasizing, quote, the importance of freedom of association and guaranteeing the right of people to make their voices heard on public issues, we noted the words of Justice Harlan writing for the court in NAACP versus Alabama, quote, effective advocacy of both public and private points of view, particularly controversial ones, is undeniably enhanced by group association as this court is more than once recognized by remarking upon the close nexus between the freedoms of speech and assembly.
The court then went on.
The right to associate does not lose all constitutional protection merely because some members of the group may have participated in conduct or advocated doctrine that itself is not protected.
In DeYoung versus Oregon, the court unanimously held that an individual could not be penalized simply for assisting in the conduct of an otherwise lawful meeting held under the auspices of the Communist Party, an organization that advocated, quote, criminal syndicalism.
After reviewing the rights of citizens, quote, to meet peaceably for consultation in respect of public affairs and to petition for a redress of grievances, Chief Justice Hughes, writing for the court, stated, quote, it follows from these considerations that consistently with the federal constitution, peaceful, peaceable assembly for a lawful discussion cannot be made a crime.
Peaceable assembly for a lawful discussion cannot be made a crime.
The holding of meetings for peaceable political actions cannot be prescribed.
Those who assist in the conduct of such meetings cannot be branded as criminals on that score.
Then the court went on to review a whole body of law that says that free speech protects not only just standing up and expressing ideas, but actually using those ideas to organize and to protest.
And then this is what the court said, quote, in sum, the boycott of NAACP in Mississippi clearly involved constitutionally protected activity.
The established elements of speech, assembly, association, and petition, though not identical, are inseparable.
Through exercise of these First Amendment rights, petitioners sought to bring about political, social, and economic change.
The court acknowledged the First Amendment does not protect violence.
Quote, certainly violence has no sanctuary in the First Amendment, and the use of weapons, gunpowders, and gasoline may not constitutionally masquerade under the guise of advocacy.
Although the extent and significance of the violence in this case are vigorously disputed by the parties, there is no question that acts of violence occurred.
They're saying people who engage in violence, even part as political cause, are not protected under the First Amendment.
And in this case, there's no question That people who are adherents to the NAACP used violence in order to advance this boycott.
Nonetheless, the court ruled in favor of the defendants.
And it said, quote, Petitioners withheld their patronage from the white establishment of Claiborne County to challenge a political and economic system that had denied them the basic rights of dignity and equality that this country has fought a civil war to secure.
While the state legitimately may impose damages for the consequences of violent conduct, it may not award compensation for the consequences of nonviolent protected activity.
It may not award compensation for the consequences of nonviolent protected activity.
Meaning, if you give a speech that itself is protected by the First Amendment because you're expressing politically protected ideas, You cannot be held legally responsible for the acts of others who carry out violence in its name.
Quote, only those losses proximately caused by unlawful conduct can be recovered.
The court went on, the First Amendment similarly restricts the ability of the state to impose liability on an individual solely because of his association with another.
Meaning, if all you do is express your views, and it happens that the person next to you with whom you're working goes and commits violence, you cannot be held responsible for that person's acts.
In Scales versus the United States, the court noted that a, quote, blanket prohibition of association with a group having both legal and illegal aims would present, quote, a real danger that legitimate political expression or association would be impaired.
The court suggested that to punish association with such a group, there must be, quote, clear proof That a defendant specifically intends to accomplish the aim of the organization by resort to violence.
That's the only way someone can be held legally responsible under the Constitution, is if they intend to use violence to accomplish their ends.
The court went on.
Moreover, in no divorce of the United States, the court emphasized that this intent must be judged, quote, according to the strictest law.
For otherwise, there is a danger that one in sympathy with the legitimate aims of such an organization, but not specifically intend to accomplish them by resort to violence, might be punished for his adherence to lawful and constitutionally protected purposes because of other unprotected purposes which he does not necessarily share.
In Healey v. James, the court applied these principles in a non-criminal context.
In that case, the court held that a student group cannot be denied recognition at a state-supported college merely because of its affiliation with a national organization associated with disruptive and violent campus activity.
It noted that, quote, the court has consistently disapproved government action imposing criminal sanctions or denying rights and privileges solely because of a citizen's association with an unpopular organization.
The court stated that, quote, it has been established that, quote, guilt by association alone without establishing an individual's association poses a threat feared by the government is an impermissible basis upon which to deny First Amendment rights.
Here's the key.
Civil liability may not be imposed merely because an individual belonged to a group, some members of which committed acts of violence.
Finally, the court said, quote, The evidence does support the conclusion that some members of each of these NAACP groups engage in violence or threats of violence.
Unquestionably, those individuals may be held responsible for the injuries that they caused.
A judgment tailored to the consequences of their unlawful conduct may be sustained.
We also rejected McKeeson's argument that imposing liability in these circumstances would violate the First Amendment.
OK, so that's the Claiborne case that essentially says that as long as what you're doing is protected by the First Amendment, then there's no way for you to be held criminally or legally responsible on the grounds that you somehow have inspired others to go and commit violence.
If you're not directing them immediately to go commit violence, And if you're not, you're self-engaged in violence, you are completely protected by the First Amendment.
And that has been a critical case, a critical part of 20th century jurisprudence, protecting our freedom of speech by ensuring that we cannot be criminally or legally blamed for the acts of others who hear our speeches and go commit violence.
Now that Claiborne precedent has safeguarded our free speech rights in very crucial ways for many, many years.
And now they're like everything regarding free speech is an attempt to erode it and to launch a full frontal attack on it, as I indicated.
The most threatening development is the attempt to create a theory that would allow the Justice Department to criminalize the speech Donald Trump gave on January 6th, and we'll get to that in just a moment, but there is a case that produced a very alarming ruling Just this week from the Fifth Court of Appeals, which is the case in which a police officer who was injured at a Black Lives Matter movement directed by Jarae McKesson,
who was with Pod Safe America and has kind of built a public profile for himself, was originally dismissed and who was with Pod Safe America and has kind of built a public profile for himself, It went to the Supreme Court that ruled on a tacticality and sent it back.
And now the Court of Appeals has again decided not to dismiss this case, that instead there are circumstances, despite Claiborne, which the Court says is its North Star and it spends a lot of time discussing the parameters of Claiborne and its principles.
Nonetheless, McKesson could be held liable even under Claiborne because Claiborne is now being weakened.
There you see the case is Doe vs. McKesson.
They've given anonymity to the police officer who was Injured and the court explains why they're allowing this case to go forward and why it may go to trial and why McKesson could ultimately be held liable and there you see the rationale on the screen.
Quote, McKesson's actions were a necessary antecedent to Doe's injuries.
Restated, Doe must prove that he would not have been injured but for the manner in which McKesson organized and led the protest.
That is a tall task, and the standard will only be met in exceptional cases, whereas here, the allegations support the inference that the leader's specific actions caused the plaintiff's injuries.
To recap, where a defendant creates unreasonably dangerous conditions and where the creation of those conditions causes a plaintiff to sustain injuries, that defendant has, quote, directed his own, quote, tortious activities for purposes of Claiborne.
Now, that really is a major inroad into Claiborne to say that even if you're somebody who's just leading a protest and if all you're doing is expressing views that inspire other people, you can still be held liable
In this case, civilly but presumably criminally, despite the principles enunciated in Claiborne that protect First Amendment activity from being criminalized by holding people accountable for the consequences, if you can prove that the person somehow acted negligently or created dangerous conditions that allowed someone to get injured.
This is all part and parcel of the erosion of free speech protection and the increasing embrace by establishment actors of the idea that speech itself can be so dangerous that it has to be either outlawed or constricted or regulated or the people responsible for having others hear their views can be criminally responsible or civilly responsible for those.
consequences, that, if that happens, will be one of the gravest threats to free speech in many years.
Now, there was a dissent in this case, and I want to show you the key part because it reveals just why this is such a abandonment of longstanding First Amendment protection The dissent begins, quote, I disagree that the plaintiff, the police officer, can sue McKesson as the protest leader.
The Constitution that Officer Doe swore to protect itself protects McKesson's rights to speak, assemble, associate, and petition.
First Amendment freedoms are not absolute, but there's the rub.
Did McKesson stray from lawfully exercising his own rights to unlawfully exercising Doe's?
I don't believe he did.
And then they explained the Claiborne ruling that I just walked you through, and he said, quote, yet the Supreme Court unanimously held that the Constitution protected his, quote, highly charged political rhetoric, and it refused to hold him, quote, liable for the unlawful conduct of others.
That's Claiborne.
This, even though Evers, one of the people suing the NAACP leaders, vilified and urged by, or rather the NAACP leader, this, He's saying the court ruled in favor of the NAACP leaders, even though Evers, one of the NAACP leaders, vilified and urged violence against boycott breakers, warning, quote, if we catch any of you going in any of them racist stores, we're going to break your damn neck.
Even that was protected free speech.
The dissent says, quote, Claiborne shows that, quote, mere advocacy of the use of force or violence does not remove speech from the protection of the First Amendment, citing Brandenburg.
Because the NAACP leader only advocated for violence but did not provoke or incite imminent acts of violence, the court said his fiery words, quote, did not exceed the bounds of protected speech.
And under a wealth of precedent before and since raucous political protests, even, quote, impassioned and emotionally charged appeals for the use of force are protected under the Constitution.
Unless intended to and likely to spark immediate violence.
So while, quote, the state legitimately may impose damages for the consequences of violent conduct, it may not award compensation for the consequences of nonviolent protected activity.
To sum up, state laws already protect protest leaders from liability for lawful conduct.
For protest leaders, Claiborne and the First Amendment are nugatory unless they protect something that state law doesn't, namely, conduct that is unlawful under state law.
In other words, the only reason that Claiborne even matters, the only reason it exists, is because it's saying that state law cannot make certain behavior unlawful because doing so would violate the Constitution.
Quote, as to the specific question, whether a protest leader can be liable for someone else's violence I view the protest leader's own violence as the dividing line between what the First Amendment does and does not protect.
In other words, if the person being held responsible for violence did not himself engage in violence, that's the end of the inquiry because all he did was engage in protected First Amendment speech.
This judge goes on, quote, "But even if that line fails, I believe that the protest leader's unlawful actions must at least be intentional.
The majority's dividing line, lawful versus unlawful, yields the same result whether a defendant looks to state law or the Constitution.
It says that the First Amendment protects protest leaders only until they need its help.
This police officer put himself in harm's way to protect his community, including the violent protester who injured him.
And states have undeniable authority to punish protest leaders and participants who themselves commit violence.
The Rock Curler's personal liability is obvious, but I do not believe that DeRay McKesson's is.
Our Constitution explicitly protests nonviolent political protest.
Claiborne is among, quote, our most significant First Amendment cases.
It insulates nonviolent protesters from liability for others' conduct when engaging in political expression, even negligently planning a protest that aims to spur anything less than immediate violence.
The Constitution does not insulate violence, but it does insulate citizens, including protest leaders, from responsibility for others' violence.
Dr. Martin Luther King's last protest march was in March of 1968, in support of striking Memphis sanitation workers.
It was a prelude to his assassination a week later, the day after his quote, I've been to the mountaintop speech.
Dr. King's hallmark was not a violent protest, but as he led marchers down Beale Street, some young men began breaking storefront windows.
The police moved in and violence erupted, harming peaceful demonstrators and youthful looters alike.
Had Dr. King been sued, either by injured police or injured protesters, I cannot fathom that the Constitution he praises, quote, magnificent, quote, a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir, would countenance his personal liability.
That is what is at stake in upholding the principles of Claiborne, namely the right to free speech.
Which will be destroyed if you can be said to be held liable for the violent acts of others.
Now, as we know, there is a craving
Among media outlets and American liberals for Donald Trump to be criminally prosecuted for the political speech he gave on January 6th on the theory that that was what inspired other people to go to the Capitol and commit violence on that day, which would be a direct frontal assault on Claiborne and our core First Amendment rights in a way that would be part and parcel of the multi-pronged attack on First Amendment freedoms throughout the West.
And the fact that this court ruled this way, even though you may not like DeRay Mckesson, is an inauspicious sign of how these rights are being eroded.
From this week, PBS News reports, quote, Report says DOJ resisted investigating Trump's role on January 6th for over a year.
Merrick Garland, for the first year, never imagined they could indict Trump for this.
Just like he didn't want to indict anybody for sedition and treason for January 6th, but political pressure from every corner, including the White House, finally induced Merrick Garland to indict people on sedition charges and is now prompting him to strongly consider the possibility of indicting Trump over that speech on January 6th.
This is all from a Justice Department that we promised would become apolitical, that we promised would only take actions for purely apolitical ends, follow the law and the like.
It's clear that Mayor Garland has been repeatedly and successfully pressured by political actors to bring these cases.
Here is an article from USA Today, also from this week, that asked the question, quote, Will Trump face federal indictment over January 6th?
Some ex-prosecutors say DOJ is moving too slowly.
So they're, again, trying to put pressure on Merrick Garland to bring this case.
Quote, The federal indictment of Donald Trump in the classified documents case this month has trained a spotlight on the DOJ's other ongoing investigation.
Into whether the former president illegally conspired to overturn the results of the 2020 election and stay in office after he lost to Democratic rival Joe Biden.
For nearly a year, some legal analysts and federal former prosecutors have questioned whether Attorney General Merrick Garland and his team of prosecutors have moved quickly enough to investigate the events leading up to the January 6th Capitol riot and Trump's potential role in any related conspiracies to keep him in power.
Some lawmakers and legal experts said they were alarmed by the new disclosures in the Washington Post.
That said that essentially Garland for the first year didn't want to even consider these charges because they were so constitutionally dubious.
Quote, the Washington Post investigation confirms what I have been concerned about for almost two years.
said Congressman Adam Schiff of California.
Namely, while the DOJ moved quickly to investigate the foot soldiers of the January 6th attack, it waited far too long to investigate leaders of the efforts to overturn the election.
That is the kind of extreme political pressure they are applying to President Trump and rather to Merrick Garland to indict President Trump for this political speech.
Here in This NPR article from the February 10th of 2021, so just a month or so after January 6.
You see here, read Trump's January 6th speech and a key part of the impeachment trial.
And this is the thing that Democrats kept pointing to as arguments why Trump was criminally responsible.
Quote, Democrats have pointed to one phrase in particular as they argue that Trump incited those present to march down to Pennsylvania Avenue toward the Capitol.
Quote, we fight like hell.
And if you don't fight like hell, you're not going to have a country anymore.
There's nothing even remotely Defensive or justifying about violence, that is common political rhetoric.
We need to fight for our cause.
If we don't fight, we're going to lose.
If that is the foundation, which it is, of trying to criminalize President Trump's January 6th speech, that will be one of the gravest assaults on basic press freedoms in many years.
Certainly greater even than the decision by Big Tech to collude and unify to remove Donald Trump from the Internet, even while he was the sitting President of the United States.
Even if Trump had advocated violence in that speech, it would fall within Brandenburg and Claiborne, but he did not.
In fact, not only didn't he advocate violence, he said the opposite.
Let's look at the video from President Trump's speech on the question of what kind of protests he was advocating.
I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard today.
I mean, that should end the question immediately based on all the case law that I just showed you.
The long-standing seminal principles that under the First Amendment you are absolutely entitled to rouse up a crowd, to rile up a crowd, to inflame a crowd without the threat of being held responsible if somebody in that crowd or many people in that crowd go and commit violence.
But the fact that Trump explicitly told them to do so peacefully makes even the threat incredibly menacing and chilling.
But the reason this is possible, aside from the establishment's willingness to do anything and everything to destroy Trump and his movement, which we've gone over many times, there are no ethical constraints, no legal constraints, no concept of truth.
That in any way governor guide them based on the Sam Harris principle that the evils of Donald Trump is so great that anything and everything done to stop him is morally justified by definition because the threat of Trump is so much greater than the threat of those deceitful and pro-censorship moves.
The real reason this is being permitted is because there's a general prevailing sentiment that is getting stronger and stronger in the United States and the West every day That free speech really doesn't matter, that there are values far more important than free speech that justify its curtailment.
And because this is aimed exclusively at opponents of, and critics of, and dissidents to establishment orthodoxy, obviously people who are on the side of the establishment and who believe in establishment ideology don't feel threatened in any way, and for good reason.
People who espouse establishment doctrine on Ukraine or COVID or Russiagate or January 6th don't get censored from the internet.
They don't have their speech threatened with criminalization.
It's only critics of the establishment, either on the left or the right, who are subject to those kind of attacks.
I, earlier today, did a Interview with the left-wing podcasting host, Katie Halper, who reminded me, because she was interviewing them, of the recent case where the Justice Department indicted five radical black activists who are genuine radical leftists.
They opposed the war in Ukraine and they were indicted for being Russian agents, even on the most dubious of charges.
And the only person in corporate media who covered that was Tucker Carlson, who denounced it, but nobody else did because These are people who dissent from establishment orthodoxy rather than affirm it, and therefore people in the establishment do not care.
They genuinely regard dissent from their orthodoxy as illegal, as criminal, as dangerous, as disinformation, as hate speech.
All the terms that are in every country in the democratic world being harnessed to curtail the right to free expression and free dissent in all kinds of ways, the ways that I outlined earlier.
And if Donald Trump is indicted, On January 6th, or if that DeRay McKesson case is permitted to proceed, that will be the end of Claiborne and Brandenburg, the two seminal cases protecting free speech in the United States.
And I know it can seem to be about jargon and legal dogma and the like.
It's not an easy ride to have to go through that case law and understand the contours of what the Supreme Court has done.
But it's incredibly important to engage with that because that is the stuff of which First Amendment freedoms are made.
And I will reassert what I said at the beginning of this show, which is that if there is any Danger or menace that can be identified as the greatest in the West, it is these attempts to undermine dissent and free speech because without the ability to speak freely, without the ability to question establishment decrees, without the ability to question them and oppose them, every single other right is basically rendered illusory.
And that is what they are trying to do.
The attacks on independent media, the attempts to censor the Internet, the attempts to undermine First Amendment dogma are all about controlling the flow of information because they know that the public no longer trusts them.
They can't convince the public any longer.
They've given up on debate.
They've given up on persuasion.
And the only tactic they're using is brute force through censorship and this case law and these developments.
are some of the most important to understand as the way in which that is being done.
Joining us now is the former speechwriter for the Trump White House, the investigative journalist and founder of Revolver News.
And I'd like to say a friend of System Update, someone who's becoming a regular guest, Darren Beatty, Darren, it's great to see you as always.
Thanks for joining us.
Always a pleasure to be here.
Thank you.
Absolutely.
So one of the episodes that you have done, I would say, the best work on reporting on and investigating is the January 6th riot, and in particular things that are being hidden and concealed about that investigation, in particular the role that the FBI might have played in the events on the ground that day, the role that they're Informants and agents have played.
January 6th seems to have kind of disappeared from the discourse except with regard to the issue we just talked about which is the attempt to hold President Trump criminally liable by hopefully in the view of liberals indicting him for that speech.
What else is it that's going on when it comes to this investigation?
Well, there's been a pretty remarkable development recently, and people who followed our work at revolver.news know that we've covered what I've termed the Fed's erection from a variety of angles, but my position has always been there are two real smoking guns of this Fed's erection.
One is the curious case of Ray Epps, which I believe we've discussed in a prior episode, and the other is The still more curious and I would say damning case of the January 6th pipe bomb.
Now, we've reported a variety of things about this, from how the official story was impossible in terms of how the pipe bomb by the RNC was allegedly found, to how the DNC pipe bomb wasn't found, to how they covered up the fact that Kamala Harris was in the DNC building for over a year, Um, and therefore, you know, the Secret Service swept the area and
For some reason, didn't find the pipe bomb, even though it allegedly had live explosives.
You know, maybe the secret service dogs had COVID that day.
So there are just so many things that don't add up, including the forensic material, the surveillance footage that the FBI presented to the public about this.
And we've covered how they're hiding critical footage from the public.
And finally, that they've artificially tampered with the frame rate so as to make it Impossible to identify this person that a certain individual presented the public saying, we need your help finding him.
And here's where the story really gets interesting, because that person, that public face of the pipe bomb investigation is someone called Steven D'Antuono.
Now, I suspect on the basis of our pretty devastating reporting on the pipe bomb, he quietly retired from his coveted position running the field office and now he's a humble accountant at KPMG.
But he's come out of his accounting firm To subject himself to interrogation by the Judiciary Committee, voluntarily.
Now here's really something kind of wild.
So he talked about a variety of things.
First he talked about the Mar-a-Lago raid, which is interesting.
He came forward and basically said the Mar-a-Lago raid, which is the basis of the sham indictment of Trump, probably the penultimate one before the J6 indictment, that the Mar-a-Lago raid was Not legitimate.
And he emphasized three or four pretty critical points where there was a deviation from protocol that he said didn't make sense.
They were outsourcing regular jobs from the FBI to counterintelligence officials, so forth.
So I thought this is weird for an FBI guy and let alone this guy who I neglected to say before serving as the head of the Washington field office in the months leading up to and after January 6th.
He was the guy who oversaw the now fully disgraced and discredited entrapment operation that was the so-called Michigan Fed-knocking plot, the kidnapping plot with Whitmer.
So he has a pretty decorated resume in terms of dirty jobs against Trump and this guy of all people is coming forward voluntarily Pouring water on the Mar-a-Lago raid, and, I say even more shockingly, actually answering questions about the pipe bomb.
He could have said this is an active investigation, like they always do.
He actually answered questions.
Now, for the full story, I'd encourage people to go to the site revolver.news, but here's one, like, really interesting bombshell from that.
So, he was asked... Before you get into this newest bombshell, just remind people of the kind of centrality that this allegation had on January 6th and the days after about the iconography of January 6th and the reason it was so dangerous.
What were the claims about this pipe bomber or the pipe bomb?
Well, the kind of the context of it, the contextual implication, given that January 6th is presented to be this domestic terrorist event, you know, the worst in America's history, according to many Democrat elected officials, That the pipe bombs were kind of, that was the closest thing to anything resembling conventional terrorism about January 6th.
So they're making a huge deal about it.
And in fact, a recent report from the Washington Post revealed that they had 50 FBI agents on this case, which is pretty remarkable and gives a sense of how high profile it was.
They were saying that this is one of their highest profile investigations.
Which makes it all the more remarkable when we start to learn about just the absolute malfeasance, just the basics.
They didn't even do the basics.
But here's what they asked Stephen DiAntonio.
They said, we know you guys have been using geofencing technology to identify other January 6 participants.
Have you used geofencing to identify this pipe bomber depicted in the surveillance footage?
And multiple accounts, I've been close to the people who were involved in this, multiple accounts said his body language clammed up, started to get fidgety.
Eye contact was much more difficult at that point.
And he said, yes, we did actually attempt to identify this person with geofencing.
But the telecom company came back to us and said, for this specific request, unfortunately, the data is corrupted.
And And then he said, look, you know, it was basically, I know this looks bad.
I can't explain it.
This is extremely unusual.
But I don't want to encourage any conspiracies, guys.
He literally said, that's like, that's the best he had.
And so basically, the dog ate the geofencing data must have been the same dog that ate the Epstein tapes must have been the same dog that ate There's surveillance footage that depicted John Doe 2 in Oklahoma City.
There's a dog that's very hungry for a very specific type of surveillance footage, who is one of these government dogs that you hear acclaimed in the media so often.
So it's a very strange story, and that was just one of several bombshells that really just reinforces the reporting that we've done.
And shows that even the guy who is the public face of it and the nominal head of this investigation basically admits in more or less terms that the investigation doesn't make any sense.
He finds it weird.
And, you know, I think we can all draw our conclusions about that.
You know, I've always been so interested in the reaction to your reporting.
I remember the first time the question was raised about whether the FBI knew about these events or had agents on the ground.
The New York Times actually reported that they had at least one informant on the ground as the events were unfolding, and the idea was This is a horrible conspiracy theory, even though liberals had spent the entire war on terror, it was one of the things on which I reported the most, documenting the fact that the FBI constantly incited its own plots, directed its own plots, they recruited vulnerable Muslims, young Muslim men who were either vulnerable financially or because of mental health problems,
And turn them into terrorists, convince them to join the FBI's own plots and then would break up the plot at the last second and heroically pat themselves on the back for the way they kept the country safe.
So the fact that the FBI does this sort of stuff is well documented and yet there was this rage against even suggesting that the FBI might have played a role in facilitating these events.
And in particular, when it comes to Ray Apps, they finally did have to respond.
Their last response was that 60-minute interview where they basically turned him into a victim, talked about how terrible it was that the allegations were being made against him.
We all saw the videos where Ray Apps was inciting and urging people to go into the Capitol and break in and use violence to do so.
And it's so notable that many people who didn't even allegedly use violence have been prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, and yet no one's interested in him.
And it seems like the claim has been, if you mention AAPS, you're going to get sued, and it means you're guilty of harassment.
But has, and I'm asking this earnestly, has the United States government, the Biden administration, the FBI, its media servants offered any explanation at all as to why Ray Epps has never been prosecuted, even though if you look at the videos of him, he clearly did infinitely more than the vast majority of people who have been prosecuted to encourage and incite these events.
No, there's no innocent explanation in my mind for the extraordinary degree of protection that he's enjoyed.
Protection on the part of the Department of Justice and protection on the part of the media, which I would have to conclude from that.
And I'll say as a matter of my informed opinion, because he has retained a David Brock rubber stamped lawyer and they're going around threatening everyone with defamation suits.
When he himself is revealed in text messages, literally texted his nephew saying, quote, I orchestrated it.
So he should begin by suing himself because I haven't even come out to say anything that explicit about his participation on January 6th.
Um, but, uh, no, there's, there's no explanation for it.
that's innocent.
And it's even more than that, because I think if you're a low-level informant, you know, the Feds have a long and storied history, not only of having informants, but burning informants when they become inconvenient.
So the fact that Ray Epps wasn't burned indicates that, you know, I think we can only speculate from there, but I think this wasn't his first rodeo.
And they may be more concerned about some other things in his possible participation with them that they don't want to come to light.
But he truly is enjoying an extraordinary degree of protection that's not really consistent with any innocent explanation, in my view.
Yeah, and there's an aggression to prevent people from even talking about him, as I said, including basically implying that there will be some very big law firms suing.
They're threatening to sue Tucker Carlson and Fox for having asked these questions.
So they're clearly trying to create a climate where no one's allowed to ask these questions any longer, and I find that very revealing.
It has been effective to a degree.
I won't name the institution, but there is a media institution that I know for a fact simply won't talk about EPS anymore on the basis of this.
And it's not Fox News.
Fox News, like Tucker, was the only guy who would dare talk about it anyway.
But there are other conservative media institutions that will not talk about EPS for one reason or another, and it's probably because of the defamation threats.
But EPS is the one smoking gun.
The other is the pipe bomb.
I find it amazing, this geofencing story.
And just to add a little tidbit to that, because there are two types of geofencing.
One is available to law enforcement where they go directly to the telecom company.
There's another kind of alternative route where you use geofencing through apps that are plugged into GPS.
And there are big data services that collect this information.
So it caches out effectively as a geofencing tool.
And there's a handful of big data firms in the country that Just sell this as a business.
And I'm a known quantity, so I knew they wouldn't want to do business with me.
But I got a proxy who is very clean in terms of political reputation, who is in this world, who has every position to do that sort of business, make inquiries to a number of these firms, and there are only a handful of them.
And in each case, the initial reception was very warm as in, you know, we're happy to do business, we're happy to take your money.
And then within one to two days, there was an answer with a much different tone, basically saying, this isn't something we're able to do.
So if that's happening on the commercial side, and We're getting corrupted data from the telecom, according to the FBI.
You'd think there's got to be some other way they can get to this.
I mean, if we have the NSA spying on us anyway, you know, they clearly have it.
There are probably a bunch of other intelligence agencies that have it.
It's simply not believable, but it, again, I think it goes to show the lengths to which the regime is willing to go to cover up this specific narrative is pretty extraordinary, up to the level of, in all likelihood, tampering with this geofencing data, such as to make it very difficult to identify this pipe bomber to the public, which in my opinion, I think they know who it is.
And that person is severely inconvenient to the narrative that they've that they've presented to the public for years now, and they're covering it up.
Yeah, and again, the lack of interest in finding out who that person is by both the media and by the government is extremely striking.
Now, let me ask you, because you alluded to it.
And by the DNC.
Think about this.
This is ostensibly a MAGA terrorist bomber who planted an explosive device outside of their national headquarters.
Why aren't they interested?
Yeah, again, I mean, it's so, again, and if you even raise this, they will accuse you of being conspiratorial, even though the people who first claimed that there was a pipe bomber to begin with was them, and they have no interest in finding out, as you said, who was behind the act that most approximated domestic terrorism.
Let me ask you about Tucker and the firing of him by Fox, since you alluded to that and I want to get your view on it.
I was being interviewed by a left-wing YouTube host earlier today, Katie Halper, and by coincidence she was interviewing the group of radical left-black socialists who had been Indicted by the Justice Department based on very dubious allegations that they were acting as agents of the Russian government because they opposed the U.S.
proxy war in Ukraine.
And it reminded me of the fact that the only person on television with any kind of meaningful platform who was willing to talk about that case and denounce it as dangerous was Tucker Carlson.
He also, of course, was the only voice, maybe in addition to Laura Ingraham, but a huge difference in terms of extent and intensity who opposed the U.S.
proxy war in Ukraine.
He was the only one willing to do things like defend Julian Assange and Edward Snowden and crusade for Assange's pardon.
Clearly there was a major difference between Tucker and pretty much everybody else on TV when it came to the willingness to dissent from establishment orthodoxies and And Fox News fired him despite the fact that he was by far its highest rated host.
It was very predictable what happened, which is a collapse in primetime ratings from which they never may recover.
They were not only willing to take that loss, but they're now trying to say that Tucker needs to be silent entirely.
Through 2024, coincidentally, the beginning of 2025 when his contract ends, including not even speaking on Twitter, where he's currently posting videos occasionally subject to no contract at all.
What do you think was, and I realize we're of course speculating to some extent, but you look at the board of directors and obviously it's led by the Murdochs, who have been long-time supporters of traditional establishment GOP orthodoxy, You have people like Paul Ryan on the board who obviously despises Tucker's populism and the entire Trump world.
What do you make of the motives that drove Fox News not only to fire Tucker from that 8 o'clock slot, but now to insist that he not be heard from at all?
You know, that's a great question.
It's complicated, multifaceted, and, you know, I have limited, you know, direct, you know, insight into this, but I think it is important to emphasize he was unique on television.
Unique not only with respect to Fox, unique with respect to the entirety of American, and to some extent even Western television.
You know, he wasn't supposed to happen.
He was kind of a fluke.
Somehow he slipped through the cracks and here's this guy on the, you know, golden primetime hour television, just saying things that in some cases are so bold, I couldn't believe I heard it on national TV.
There were some times when I was on the show waiting to go on hearing the monologue and thinking, I can't believe this is on.
Primetime television in the United States.
And so to some degree, irrespective of how much money he brought in, and that's a separate conversation because yes, there is an ultimate sense in which the influence and the narratives at that level are worth more than the kind of raw profit motive.
And you saw that with Twitter, which is clearly worth more than, you know, 20, 40, whatever billion dollars.
You know, it's Home Depot has a higher market cap than Twitter.
But who controls Twitter is vastly more consequential in the world politically, socially, culturally and so forth.
So there's a similar dynamic with the media.
But then there's a question of this Dominion lawsuit and just the variety of lawfare tactics used against Fox.
And whether, you know, simply having a brave and truthful voice on TV in America really is too much of an economic liability, which would be sad if that were the case.
I think it was a perfect storm of events.
Plus, there was a kind of prognostication on the Murdoch side of thinking, OK, the Trump thing is kind of over and we want to reestablish sort of authority as Fox.
We're the guys.
The channel is what matters.
The company is what matters, not the individual talent.
We're going to sort of, you know, get rid of the people who are harder to control.
And we're going to reestablish something more like under Bush, where it was a very kind of top down mechanism run by the controversial and in some ways brilliant figure in media, Roger Ailes.
But it was it was a very different type of top down system where everybody was on message.
You couldn't you wouldn't have had somebody like Tucker was an outlier on critical issues like war.
And I think they want to go back to something like that in terms of media as they shut down the Trump chapter and inaugurate someone who's a bit more compliant like Ron DeSantis. - Yeah, well that's the perfect bridge to the next question.
I can't help but notice that the firing of Tucker and now the attempt to silence him, whether by design or not, results in the removal of one of the very few establishment dissenters, one of the few heterodox voices from the airwaves, and I find it very hard to believe that wasn't at least part of the motive.
Especially when you look at the ideology of those who were responsible.
So let me ask you about Ron DeSantis.
I think maybe people have forgotten that in 2015 Trump got the nomination despite being widely outspent because so much establishment money was behind first Jeb Bush and then when he started getting exposed as a very weak candidate went to Marco Rubio and a series of other candidates in this desperate attempt to stop Trump.
The Republican establishment this time around seems even more eager to stop Trump, and there's a ton of money being poured into Ron DeSantis.
Do you think the Republican establishment sees DeSantis as the tool or the weapon that they can use to realign the Republican Party back into traditional establishment ideology?
And other than the culture war, Well, he certainly is an instrument to remove Trump.
to be going further than they would like, do you see him in that way as well, as kind of an agent or an instrument of establishment ideology?
Well, he certainly is an instrument to remove Trump.
The question of whether they think he's sufficiently compliant is to say they can deal with him.
I think they can, but that's a separate one because there's always a possibility they use him to get rid of Trump and then, you know, they let him lose to whoever it is that he'll be running against.
You know, some say Biden.
It could be someone like Gavin Newsom.
And then they just try to get someone who's even more compliant to run after that.
That's always an option.
I think if they're smart, they would.
They would be happy with somebody like DeSantis.
I think he can really play ball with the establishment, but he represents maybe a kind of Minimal concession to anti-establishment politics that you need without really rocking the boat in any meaningful sense.
Let's put it this way.
Trump earned his indictments.
I don't think DeSantis will get indicted.
And in fact, that should be a question posed to all these candidates.
What do you propose?
What are you going to do for the country that's going to get you indicted?
Yeah, absolutely.
If you're not getting indicted or in another way severely attacked by the establishment, it means that you're not a threat to them.
And that's a pretty negative thing.
I can't help note that DeSantis really hasn't had to speak and explain his position on a lot of these issues that made Trump an enemy of the establishment.
We've put in a request to sit down with Governor DeSantis to be able to ask him about his views on things like Ukraine, but in depth, not in the two-minute cable soundbite and civil liberties and the security state and foreign policy in general.
And so far, the campaign hasn't been willing to grant us that.
I hope they do shortly, either to us or anybody who can sit down with him, kind of pin him down, because right now he's sort of a blank slate and he seems to want to keep it that way, both in order not to alienate.
establishment financiers, but also to continue to make that Trump base believe that he's on their side.
And I don't think that balancing act can be maintained for that long.
No, it can't be maintained indefinitely.
And here's another thing to say, because a lot of people are pointing out how he has a charisma deficit, to put it generously.
He's not the kind of person who has a direct connection with the voter.
He's not somebody who can have rallies.
He's sort of stiff, a little bit cringe, incongruent and so forth.
And And you know, people can say this, these are superficial observations.
He's his whole comparative advantages.
He's the guy of substance and so forth.
But there's another layer to the analysis that I think is important is that charisma itself, the ability to connect directly with the people is a form of leverage.
The more charisma you have, the more you connect with the people, The less you're dependent on your handlers, the less control your handlers have over you, because you're not simply interchangeable.
And so, I think you need a modicum of charisma or direct connection to really step outside of the establishment zone, because when you're getting the pain box treatment, when everyone's attacking you, if you don't have that direct connection, you're very limited in terms of how you fight back.
I think that's another thing to point out is that all the talk about charisma or, you know, DeSantis can't fill, you know, huge rallies and things like this.
To some degree, it's like, yes, this is, you know, politics is about personality, but there's a less superficial dimension to that, which is you need the direct connection to the people.
In some cases, that was Trump's only weapon.
But it matters if you're stepping, you know, stepping into the high stakes, into the high-stakes arena, and that's just one of many reasons that I don't really see him doing anything that's meaningfully challenging to the regime as such. -Yeah, that's how I see it as well, though.
I'm trying to keep it up with mine.
I'm willing to give him a hearing, again, whether it's from me or somebody else who has to pin him down on these issues so that he's finally forced to take a position.
Darren, it's always a great pleasure to speak to you.
It's always something that ends up being very enlightening.
I appreciate the ongoing work you're doing on January 6th, even if A lot of people are uncomfortable doing it.
I particularly appreciate it for that and I'm glad that you found the time to come on and talk to us about it.
Thanks very much.
We will definitely see you shortly and have a great evening.
Thank you so much, Glenn.
Okay.
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