System Update - Glenn Greenwald - James Comey Indicted; TikTok and CBS Taken Over by IDF Funder Larry Ellison

Sept. 26, 2025 - System Update - Glenn Greenwald

01:29:50

James Comey Indicted; TikTok and CBS Taken Over by IDF Funder Larry Ellison

Glenn reacts to the breaking news of former FBI Director James Comey's indictment. Then: Glenn discusses the significance of the TikTok deal and the growing influence of IDF funder and billionaire Larry Ellison. -------------- Watch full episodes on Rumble, streamed LIVE 7pm ET. Become part of our Locals community Follow System Update: Twitter Instagram TikTok Facebook

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	Good evening.
	It's Thursday, September 25th.
	Welcome to a new episode of System Update, our live nightly show that airs every Monday through Friday at 7 p.m.
	Eastern, exclusively here on Rumble, the free speech alternative to YouTube.
	Tonight, literally just a couple of minutes before we went on air tonight, the news broke that former FBI director James Comey has been indicted on two felony charges, indicted by a grand jury, submitted to that grand jury by the Justice Department.
	They actually submitted three felony charges for which they sought his indictment.
	The grand jury rejected one, but did indict him on two others, namely providing false statements and obstructing justice.
	In connection with his statements and testimony surrounding the 2020 16 Russia Gate investigation that he oversaw as FBI director, we will provide you with all of the latest in terms of what we know and don't know and what the implications are.
	Then as well, we want to cover what was a major announcement by the Trump White House today, what it announced that it has essentially facilitated and finalized a deal for the forced transfer of ownership of TikTok from ByteDance, the Chinese company that currently owns it,
	to a consortium of American billionaires who are very close to Donald Trump, and who, in the case of Larry Ellison, one of the principal new owners and controllers of TikTok, is the largest single donor to the foreign army, the IDF.
	In addition to being on the verge of taking over TikTok, arguably the most influential social media app in the United States, certainly among young people, Larry Ellison and his son are also poised to take over CBS and CBS News, Paramount and all of its various organs, as well as potentially CNN.
	So, right exactly at the moment when support for Israel is rapidly unraveling in the United States, one of Israel's most powerful and influential and steadfast, not just supporters, but financiers, the world's second largest richest person, the billionaire, the multi-multi-billionaire Larry Ellison, is about to take over several of America's most influential media outlets and arguably its most influential social media app, and we'll cover that as well.
	And then also we want to cover the concept of scholastic terrorism, which was a term that found popularity when the liberal left in the United States wanted to try to find reasons why they could censor their right-wing adversaries.
	And this term was embraced that came from academia.
	That essentially means that certain language and certain rhetoric, words, can become so incendiary and so provocative that they spill over from being just words into basically violence, that words become violent.
	And as a result, the words themselves are a form of terrorism.
	Criticizing certain people, putting other minority groups in danger by virtue of rhetoric.
	And it was something that was widely mocked on the right for good reasons.
	Certainly I was vehemently opposed to it on free speech grounds.
	And yet in the wake of Charlie Kirk's assassination and other types of violence like that, we're seeing its return, but this time embraced by the American right, by arguing that certain kinds of rhetoric ought to be prohibited or even legally punished because of its tendency to provoke violence.
	And we want to examine the dangers of that theory, whether invoked by the left or the right.
	And then finally, there's been really bizarre happening in the United States Congress, which is that there was an election last night, a special election in Arizona, where a new member of Congress from the Democratic Party is about to be seated.
	It was actually somebody whose father previously held that seat, a Democrat from Arizona, Raul Gurala, and his daughter was just elected to fill that seat.
	And that means that she's about to become the 218th vote in favor of voting to compel the Trump administration to release all of the Epstein files.
	There are four Republicans joining the Democrats, and there is a major effort underway now by House Speaker Mike Johnson and the Trump White House to try and block that vote from taking place.
	In other words, trying to block the mandatory release of the Epstein files.
	They're trying to claim that there's a House committee that's investigating and that's sufficient.
	So you have this bizarre spectacle that Democrats out of Nowhere are trying to force the release of the Epstein files, while the Republicans, the Trump White House and Mike Johnson, the Republicans in Congress, who insisted for years that it was the most important thing that they be released are now actually trying to prevent the release.
	And we'll cover that as well.
	Before we get to all that, a couple of program notes.
	First of all, as a reminder system update is also available in podcast form.
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	For now, welcome to a new episode of System Update, starting right now.
	Sometimes you prepare an entire program and are about to go on air in order to cover the topics for which you prepare, and at the last minute, major breaking news emerges that you simply can't ignore.
	And certainly tonight is a perfect case where that happened, probably about 20 minutes ago at the most, 25 minutes ago, news broke that former FBI director James Comey is now under federal indictment.
	A grand jury has returned an indictment on two of the three felony charges sought by the Trump Justice Department.
	One count of it is providing false statements either to Congress or to FBI investigators.
	The other is obstructing justice.
	And all of it has to do with allegedly false claims and deceitful information that Comey provided when the 2016 Russia Gate investigation that took place during the 2016 campaign while he was FBI director that he oversaw when investigations were taking place into how that investigation emerged,
	whether or not there were politicized corruption or other types of deceit and fraud, that he provided false information that misled investigators, misled Congress, and therefore obstructed justice, all of which are felonies.
	There was a third count that the Justiment sought an indictment on, and the grand jury refused to indict him.
	So it's often said that grand juries will essentially indict anything that prosecutors ask for.
	Largely that's true.
	It's very, very difficult for a prosecutor to request a grand jury indict for their only for the grand jury to refuse, simply because, by nature of a grand jury, there is no other side there.
	It's only the prosecutors, only the government presenting their version of events.
	You don't have cross-examination, you don't have the defendants presenting conflicting evidence, and there's no standard of beyond reasonable doubt, which is the standard for convicting somebody of a crime.
	It's a much lower standard, and so generally prosecutors can obtain the indictments they want, but not always, as evidenced by the fact that in this case, the grand jury did reject one of the three counts, but did indict Comey on two others.
	Now, at least as soon as we went on there, the indictment itself has not been released, so exact details of what the indictment provides is not known, but we know enough from the background of what has led up to this moment to be able to have a pretty clear understanding of what the nature of these charges are.
	It's obviously an extremely significant news event that a former director of the FBI has been indicted.
	It's particularly ironic since James Comey built his career on pursuing indictments very similar to the ones that he now faces.
	He did that with Martha Stewart.
	He did that with former general Michael Flynn, and in many other cases, bringing very dubious indictments.
	I'm not saying this is dubious, but bring very dubious indictments, alleging false statements or perjury or obstruction of justice on big profile targets in order to advance his career.
	And now he himself faces and is required to swallow a lot of the medicine that he liked to dull out.
	Now, there is some background here that I think is very much worth understanding in order to assess this indictment.
	And namely that key crucial background is that just a couple of days ago, Donald Trump, in a very publicly in a very public way, chastise his own attorney general, Pam Bondi, for not having brought An indictment against James Comey yet, and essentially demanding that she do so, not just against Comey, but other people that Donald Trump has a lot of animosity toward, oftentimes for good reason.
	But this was a case where a president of the United States was not in secret interfering in the independence of the Justice Department, but very publicly demanding that his attorney general bring indictments against people he wants to see indicted.
	Now, it doesn't mean the indictments are invalid at all.
	In general, we have a protocol or a tradition where presidents don't interfere in specific prosecutorial decisions of the Justice Department, precisely to ensure that they can't abuse the Justice Department to prosecute or persecute their political enemies or to shield their political allies who have committed crimes.
	It's a protocol that really exists in name only.
	There are countless cases of essentially every president interfering in all sorts of ways in the Justice Department.
	So it's not one that I'm particularly shocked by or upset with, even though in general I think it's better that presidents don't do this.
	But here's what Donald Trump did in very Trumpian style.
	And if it's going to be done, I'd prefer that it be done in public and not in secret, the way most presidents do it.
	He took to true social on September 20th.
	So this was today is the 21st, I believe, so this is yesterday, just yesterday.
	And he posted this, quote, Pam, meaning Pam Bondi.
	I have, and there was a lot of questions as well, I have to say, about whether Trump thought he was sending her a personal email or whether he was deliberately posting it on true social because he directed it right to her.
	Though with Trump, uh he's not somebody who is easily predictable in terms of how he communicates, so it's very possible he did intend this to be public.
	And he wrote the following.
	Sorry, this was Saturday, this is Saturday.
	So today's the 25th.
	25th.
	So actually it was five days ago.
	He said this: quote, Pam, I have received over 30 statements in post saying that essentially, quote, same old story as last time.
	All talk, no action, nothing is being done.
	What about Comey, Adam Shifty Shift, Letitia James?
	They're all guilty as hell, but nothing is going to be done.
	He was quoting people he was purportedly hearing from, presumably supporters who were angry, saying, you keep talking a big game, but nothing's being done, these people aren't being indicted.
	And then Trump says in his own words, then we almost put in a Democrat-supported U.S. attorney in Virginia with a really bad Republican past, a woke rhino who was never going to do his job.
	And Trump is referring there to a prosecutor who was a top prosecutor in the dist, I believe the Eastern District of Virginia, where these cases were pending, who had essentially concluded that there was not sufficient evidence to indict either Jim Comey or Letitia James.
	A prosecutor has an obligation to bring indictments, only if they're reasonably certain they can obtain a conviction.
	And this prosecutor had written a memo saying he didn't think the evidence existed to justify an indictment, either against Jim Comey or against Letitia James.
	And so Trump demanded his removal, replaced him with a loyalist of his from the White House who had never previously served as a prosecutor, and then issued these orders to the attorney general to indict both James Comey and Letitia James, and that's what led, presumably to Comey's indictment today.
	He went on.
	That's why two of the worst Democratic senators, meaning in Virginia, pushed this prosecutor so hard.
	He even lied to the media and said he quit and that we had no case.
	No, I fired him, and there's a great case, and many lawyers and legal pundits say so.
	Lindsay Halligan is a really good lawyer and likes you a lot.
	She's the White House aide, the personal attorney of Donald Trump who he put in place of this prosecutor who left in the Eastern District of Virginia and who has now brought this indictment.
	He goes on, we can't delay any longer.
	It's killing our reputation and credibility.
	They impeached me twice and indicted me five times over nothing.
	Justice must be served now.
	President DJT.
	I think it's hard to read that as anything other than a direct order from the president to the attorney general to, as quickly as possible, bring an indictment against both Jim Comey and Letitia James.
	There was an issue in terms of the statute of limitation running out with James Comey.
	And so it basically had to be brought.
	I'm not sure exactly what the date was.
	As I said, the news just broke.
	We weren't planning on covering this, but I know the uh statute of limitations was very imminent.
	It had to either be brought or be lost.
	And so Comey has now been indicted, clearly, preceded by a direct order from Donald Trump to Pam Bondi to have Jim Comey indicted.
	And it came from a prosecutor who Trump personally appointed, who is a former personal lawyer of Donald Trump and who had never previously been a prosecutor.
	Now, I the extent that we understand that we know the details, as I said, they pertain to statements that Jim Comey made with respect to the 2016 Russia Gate investigation, and at least part of it relates to some extremely credible suspicions that during the course of the 2016 Russiagate investigation,
	which was obviously taking place during the election, the 2016 election, that the FBI, under Jim Comey's leadership, leaked information about the investigation to the media.
	And then, when asked by Congress and when asked by investigators, whether he either leaked himself that information or authorized his subordinates to leak it, James Comey vehemently denied that he was involved in any such leak.
	And according to Cash Patel and others, information has recently emerged, evidence has recently emerged, including in some of those documents that were declassified by Tulsi Gabbard concerning the Rushgate investigation that seemed to suggest, if not outright demonstrate, that Comey lied.
	That in fact he did participate in some way in those leaks, the leaks the uh which he denied any participation in, and that was at least part of what this indictment alleges.
	Now, here's some a summary of what was likely to be the James Comey indictment.
	This comes from Yahoo News earlier today, but this was about four hours before the indictment itself was confirmed.
	And the headline was James Comey indictment, why Trump's new prosecutor is reportedly, quote, racing to charge the former FBI director.
	And here's what the article says: quote, a new federal prosecutor handpicked by President Trump is reportedly moving quickly to secure an indictment of former FBI James Director James Comey on charges of lying to Congress.
	According to multiple reports, Lindy Halligan, Lindsay Halligan, who was sworn in Monday as U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, is preparing to ask a grand jury to indict Comey just days after Trump publicly urged Attorney General Pam Bondi to prosecute him and other perceived political adversaries, including Senator Adam Schiff and New York Attorney General Letitia James.
	Trump's appeal came after Halligan's predecessor, Eric Siebert, resigned in response to pressure from the president to bring charges against Comey and James.
	Trump then nominated Halligan, a White House aide who has served as his personal lawyer and had no prosecutorial experience to replace Siebert.
	The New York Times reported on Wednesday that Halligan is now, quote, racing to present the case against Comey, quote, even though career prosecutors determined there was insufficient evidence to indict him.
	And Halligan's indictment goes forward and will reportedly accuse Comey of lying to Congress on September 30th, 2020, the day he denied under oath that he was involved in leaking information from the FBI's Trump Russia investigation.
	The five-year statute of limitations on that charge will lapse on Tuesday.
	So that's the statute of limitation issue.
	Five days from now, the five-year statute of limitation on lying to Congress will elapse, meaning they had to indict him now or they wouldn't ever be able to indict him on that charge.
	That is at least part of the charge that was made.
	Now, one of the reasons why I find this so ironic is because one of the reasons I find and have long found Jim Comey to be one of the most deceitful and sinister forces in American law enforcement, all accompanied by this very self-righteous posture of probity and nobility that he assumes and that the media love to promote,
	is precisely because he has brought so many dubious uh prosecutions, either against people who were quite famous, and he thought if he brought down a rich and famous person like Marstha Stewart, his career would be advanced.
	Or against political adversaries like Michael Flynn, who was indicted on a very similar charge to the one that Jamie McComey now faces, ironically.
	In the case of Marsha Stewart, I'm not going to go into great detail.
	There's a documentary on Netflix, I believe I've recommended it before about Martha Stewart, and it has a long section on how she was prosecuted and why she was prosecuted.
	Essentially, the charge was that despite being worth close to a billion dollars her net worth, that she sold stock in a company the day before it basically imploded, and it saved her or made her about 40,000, which, as she kept insisting, was essentially pocket change to her.
	And it wasn't even her who made the sale or the uh sale recommendation, but her broker while she was on vacation, and James Comey saw an opportunity to bring down a very big uh wealthy person and and personally uh presided over that prosecution.
	And she wasn't actually even charged with insider trading.
	She was charged with, and this is why it's ironic, making false statements to investigators about the investigation.
	So he had this investigation, couldn't prove that she did insider trading, and so resorted instead to indicting her on making false statements to investigators and therefore obstructing justice.
	She ultimately uh was found guilty and went to jail for about six months.
	But the the far worst case for me was the prosecution of General Michael Flynn, where in the transition, after Donald Trump won the election, but before he was inaugurated while the Obama administration was still in office, Michael Flynn, who was the incoming national security advisor, did what you would hope a national security official would do in the transition, which was he picked up the phone and called his counterparts and other governments to introduce himself.
	And in the case of Russia, which at the time was obviously at the center of everything, that was the peak of the Russiagate investigation that Jim Comey was overseeing, called the Russian ambassador, called other Russian officials, and said, look, I know relations have been very bad between the U.S. and Russia.
	There were just new sanctions announced.
	Don't panic, don't retaliate.
	Once we get into office, we want to see if we can smooth over relations and get along better.
	A perfectly not just benign, but I think justifiable attempt by the incoming National Security Advisor.
	Unbeknownst to Michael Flynn, the NSA and the FBI were eavesdropping on that call that he was having with the Russians.
	And so they knew exactly what Michael Flynn said on the call.
	And then two months later, the FBI summoned Michael Flynn or asked Michael Flynn for an interview.
	And Michael Flynn, you know, thought he'd done nothing wrong and he was happy to talk to the FBI.
	And they basically asked him, what did you say?
	What did he say?
	And because his recollection wasn't perfect, the FBI said, Oh, we caught you in a lie.
	We caught you making false statements to us, the investigators.
	You didn't recount the call exactly as we know it happened because we were listening and we had the transcript.
	They kind of got him into a perjury trap, indicted him, threatened that if he didn't plead guilty, they were also going to indict his son.
	And that was when Michael Flynn ended up pleading guilty.
	I did a whole 90-minute mini documentary on the fraud of that uh indictment, but that was Jim Comey using exactly these kind of tactics, saying, we can't prove you actually committed an underlying crime, so we're gonna charge you with making false statements as part of the investigation.
	A lot of Russia Gate, a lot of the Russiate prosecution under Robert Mueller, were not about the underlying crime.
	In fact, he brought no indictments on the underlying crime, which was supposedly collusion between the Trump campaign and the and and the Russian government to interfere in the 2016 election.
	Instead, it was these kind of process crimes, like, oh, you lied to us in the interview, you gave us false information.
	And so to watch Jim Cohn Jim's Jim Comey now be kind of hoisted on his own petard is rather satisfying.
	I can't opine on the strength of the case because I haven't seen the indictment, let alone the evidence that supports it.
	An indictment is just an indictment.
	But I absolutely think Jim Jim Comey is a very corrupt law enforcement official.
	I've long thought that.
	I absolutely thought that in the way he presided over Russia Gate and the claims he made about it afterward.
	Once Tulsi Gabbard declassified all of those files on Russiagate and the investigation, there was a lot of evidence that key national security advisors in the Obama administration, including former CI director uh James uh John Brennan did make a lot of false claims, radically false claims about fundamental questions when it came to the Russian investigation.
	So the fact that the grand jury was active enough to reject one of the charges and indict him on two others Shows that they were thinking somewhat critically.
	I do think there's some evidence to suggest that James Comey made false statements about that investigation, whether that rises the level of criminality, whether these career prosecutors who said you'll never get a conviction will be vindicated, or whether Donald Trump is actually correct, that there's a lot of evidence to justify this indictment, and he will be convicted.
	That remains to be seen.
	We'll have to see the process.
	We'll obviously report on it as more is known.
	Right now, all we know is the indictment itself.
	But we thought it was very important to give you the context for what happened here.
	I do think we should not just dismiss the fact that we should consider it disturbing for a president to personally order the attorney general to prosecute people, including people he obviously regards as political enemies.
	There is that issue, I think is important, but that is a separate question from whether James Comey actually broke the law, deserves to be indicted, deserves to be prosecuted and convicted.
	Presumably this prosecution will now go forward, and so we will see soon enough, and we will certainly report on all of it as more evidence emerges.
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	Over the last couple of nights, we alluded to, but have not really delved sufficiently into a story that I consider far and away one of the most important events of 2025, and probably the most significant event that has gotten way too little coverage,
	which is the very rapid and extreme takeover of key American media outlets, and now arguably the most important or one of the two or three most important social media apps by a billionaire named Larry Ellison and his son, who has inherited his wealth named David Ellison, both of whom are beyond fanatical supporters of Israel.
	In fact, Larry Ellison, who recently passed Elon Musk to be the world's richest person.
	I think they're kind of going back and forth now, but he's certainly the second richest person.
	He's the founder of Oracle, and that's where most of his wealth derives.
	He is not just a supporter of Israel in the sense that we usually talk about.
	He's not just somebody who's Jewish and was indoctrinated from birth to love Israel and believe that Israel has to be defended, though that is true.
	He's actually somebody who, despite being an American citizen, donates his own personal funds directly to the foreign military of Israel to the IDF.
	He's donated millions and millions of dollars to the IDF.
	He's the single largest funder, individual funder of the Israeli defense forces, of certainly any American, I believe, of any person in the world.
	He funds all sorts of pro-Israel groups.
	Defending Israel is clearly far and away his primary political cause.
	He's Become quite close to President Trump.
	And we have been reporting over the last couple of months since it was announced that his son, David Ellison, which really means Larry Ellison, they do everything together, just bought from another fanatical Israel supporter, Shiri Redstone,
	who was the former owner of Paramount and the CBS properties that come with it, including CBS News, the 60 Minutes and the like, that Larry Ellison and David Ellison bought Paramount and CBS, and that is where all those reports come from that they intend to install Barry Weiss, who I don't need to call a fanatical Israel supporter since you already know that, into some mega editorial oversight role with CBS and perhaps even with other properties.
	There's now reports that the same Larry Ellison and his son are trying to buy the company that owns CNN, so they could be in charge of an own CBS news, Paramount Entertainment Properties, and CNN, and Barry Weiss is their weapon, their instrument for ensuring ideological conformity to their political agenda with all these properties.
	But far more significantly, Larry Ellison is now poised to become one of the primary owners, I think the most influential owner, of the social media app, TikTok, which, as you undoubtedly know, is the social media app of choice for young Americans by the tens of millions.
	And the quick background there is that TikTok has been around now for many years.
	It has become extremely popular among Americans under 30.
	In Donald Trump's first administration, he wanted to ban TikTok, and the argument was that because it was controlled and owned by a company linked to the Chinese government, that it was a national security threat.
	And yet that argument really could not get anywhere near enough votes to have Congress pass a ban on TikTok.
	The first Trump term came and went without any ban on TikTok, without that bill even getting close to the votes it needed.
	And then into the Biden administration, it was basically forgotten, and TikTok continued to grow and grow and grow.
	And it was only after October 7th, the October 7th attack in Israel in 2023, and polls starting to show that huge numbers of young Americans, far more than any other generation previously, were very radically turning against Israel, believing that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza, that the U.S. should not be financing Israel, should not be supporting Israel.
	And a panic set in among the bipartisan class in Washington, the two parties who have been steadfastly supportive of Israel for decades, watching an entire generation turn against Israel by seeing on TikTok and elsewhere, principally on TikTok, all the videos of what Israel was doing in Gaza.
	And the sponsors of the ban on TikTok and the Republican Democratic Party will tell you, and they've stated publicly that although the original argument for banning TikTok was that it was owned by the Chinese and therefore posed a threat to the American public, the thing that actually got enough voters, enough members of Congress on board to form a majority to ban it, especially Democrats who are reluctant to ban it previously, but then became supportive of its ban, was nothing to do with China and China's ownership.
	It was the argument advanced by the Anti-Defamation League and by AIPAC that TikTok had become a platform that allowed too much Israel criticism, too much pro-Palestinian content, and that members of Congress were led to believe was the reason young Americans were turning against Israel.
	And that became the impetus for not just a majority of members of Congress from both parties, but also the Biden administration to support a ban on TikTok, even though it was lingering for four years in Congress with no advancement at all until the October 7th attack and until public opinion started to turn against Israel.
	And we reported on that many times.
	We showed you all the evidence of members of Congress openly admitting that that was what finally led to Congress enacting what was essentially a ban on TikTok.
	It said either you force a sale of TikTok to American companies and American investors that the United States can better control, so that it can control the content on TikTok, or failing that if the Chinese company won't sell it or a buyer can't be found, it has to be banned within 90 days of The first of the year of January 1st.
	They purposely had it take effect after the election so that neither party would get blamed for it.
	Israel was the primary impetus for why TikTok got banned, or why there was a forced sale of it.
	A desire to protect Israel from the criticism that was circulating on TikTok.
	They couldn't control TikTok the way they could pressure Facebook and Google and even Twitter, especially in the pre-Musk realm to censor on command.
	We just had a whole array of documents released by Congress yesterday that we'll probably report on tomorrow, showing that Google was constantly censoring all sorts of dissent on COVID and other topics under the direction of the Biden administration, the way we already know that Twitter was, the way Facebook admitted it was.
	So they could control these social media apps.
	TikTok was the really one that they were having a hard time censoring the U.S. government was, and that was what caused them to want to ban it.
	They couldn't control it.
	And it was disseminating information to millions and millions of Americans.
	And Trump got into office and he decided he wasn't going to be bound by the 90 days.
	He kept extending it until he could find a deal, and he finally got a deal, and he announced the deal today.
	And essentially the deal involves the Chinese company ByteDance, that's been the owner and founder of the company selling majority stock in TikTok to a consortium of American billionaires who are very close to Trump and allies of Trump, but even more so, fanatical supporters of Israel, led by Oracle and Larry Ellison.
	And that means Larry Ellison and his son are about to control CBS, Paramount.
	They're trying to buy CNN and definitely are about to control TikTok.
	They're going to control the content that's allowed on TikTok, and that's not allowed.
	But also they're going to control Oracle will the data, the user data of everybody who uses TikTok as well.
	Here's Donald Trump in the White House today with J.D. Vance announcing the finalization of this deal.
	Next, sir, we have an executive order on TikTok from the first days of your administration.
	You've charged a team from your administration led by Vice President Vance with ensuring that we can preserve TikTok as a platform for the 170 million Americans who use it while ensuring that their data is properly protected as required by law.
	With this executive order, you will be effectively bringing into effect the agreement that will save TikTok and ensure that it can operate safely and securely.
	So this is interesting because I had a very good talk with President Xi, and a lot of respect for him.
	Hopefully, he has a lot of respect for me too.
	By the way, it's really interesting that for the last decade, there was an enormous amount of hostility and very aggressive rhetoric toward China from both the Republican Party and the Democratic Party.
	I know a lot of people think it was only from the Republican Party, but recall that Nancy Pelosi engaged in a very provocative act by beating with the Prime Minister of Taiwan and treating it as a state visit, essentially recognizing Taiwan as a separate sovereign country, a violation of what had been decades of U.S. policy of kind of being ambiguous on that topic.
	President Biden repeatedly said that he would order the US military to go to war in order to defend Taiwan in the event that China invaded, also a violation of decades-long policy to placate China on this issue of deliberate ambiguity.
	Biden simply said, no, we're gonna go to war to defend Taiwan.
	The Democrats are very hawkish on China, Republicans were as well, and yet nobody speaks with more admiration and more affection about President Xi than Donald Trump.
	He clearly has a great deal of respect for the Chinese leader.
	And their ability to have this deal is what facilitated this agreement because obviously the deal needed China's approval.
	There was nothing you could do to force Bite Dance or Chinese interest to sell to the United States.
	Trump didn't want to ban TikTok.
	He knows how popular it is among millions and millions and millions of American young people.
	And if it ended up being banned under his presidency, he knows that he would be blamed for that.
	And he has the sense not to want to do that.
	But he also wanted to make sure that it got into the hands of people he trusted and whose business interests meant that the U.S. government Could influence how TikTok is managed, meaning how it's censored, how it's moderated.
	And he needed the approval of the Chinese government, specifically President Xi to do that.
	And he talks very openly about how he has a great relationship with President Xi, a great friendship, great respect, and that's what led to this deal being done.
	And there's probably a lot of truth in that.
	Here's the rest of what he said.
	And uh we talked about TikTok and other things, but we talked about TikTok, and he gave us the go-ahead.
	You know, it's uh run by American investors and American companies, great ones, great investors, the biggest.
	You know, get bigger, I don't imagine.
	And uh maybe I'll have to uh JD, JD was very much involved in charge of it.
	And maybe I'll have you say a few words about the deal.
	He would report back, and uh the points of the deal I think are great for our country.
	So, JD, do you want to give it a little talk, please?
	Yes, sir.
	Yeah, so thank you, sir, for your leadership and for your help.
	We really couldn't have done this without the president actually uh ushering this deal over the finish line.
	There was some resistance on the Chinese side, but the fundamental thing that we wanted to accomplish is that we wanted to keep TikTok operating, but we also wanted to make sure that we protected Americans' data privacy as required by law, both because it's the right thing to do, but also because it's a legal requirement of the law that was passed last year by Congress.
	So we think that we were able to do that.
	Of course, we're gonna keep on working at it, but this deal really does mean that Americans can use TikTok, but actually use it with more confidence than they had in the past because their data is going to be secure and it's not going to be used as a propaganda weapon against our fellow citizens.
	We're very excited about it.
	We appreciate the cooperation of everybody involved, and uh it's a big day.
	And I think I can say that especially the young people, they really wanted this to happen.
	They did not want to have TikTok closed.
	And uh I got you know a little used to TikTok.
	I used it myself during the campaign, and it was very successful because you know how I did with the young voter.
	And uh Charlie helped me a lot too, and he said to me, uh you should go on TikTok.
	And and it actually had because we uh we got record votes with the young voters, you know, for the election.
	So I was a little bit prejudiced in that way toward TikTok.
	It was very good and very meaningful, but we have American investors taking it over, running it, highly sophisticated.
	Uh all right, so there's a lot going on there.
	I but just to be a little bit specific about the crucial timeline.
	As I said, it was the Trump administration in 2020 that first advocated that TikTok be banned from the United States on the grounds that Chinese influence made it a danger to national security.
	Then, after October 7th, as I said, the Biden administration itself became supportive of a TikTok ban.
	Democratic voters and con Democratic members of Congress formed a majority in order to ban TikTok.
	And once that happened, Trump actually came out in the middle of the campaign and announced his opposition to banning TikTok.
	Now, part of that might have been political, because as he just said, he pr he's politically astute if he's nothing else.
	He understood that he wanted the votes of young Americans, that they were very much invested in TikTok, would have been angry if it had been banned.
	There was already a lot of anger over even the possibility that it would be banned because that's the place a lot of Americans go voluntarily to express themselves, to get information, to form communities.
	And so Trump actually announced his opposition.
	Now, he also announced that opposition during the 2024 campaign after a very significant shareholder, a billionaire by the name of Jeffrey Yass, went to the White House and was a big Trump donor and talked to Trump and urged him not to ban TikTok.
	Banning TikTok would obviously be extremely costly for major shareholders in that company, like Jeffrey S. And so whether it was because Trump was engaging in political maneuvering in the campaign or listening to a big donor, whatever it was, he actually positioned himself against the TikTok ban that he himself had previously supported.
	And so there was always a kind of doubt in Trump's mind about TikTok, especially once, as he said, he started using it in the campaign, which was kind of odd.
	He was the one who said it needed to be banned because it's a national security threat, but then he began using it.
	He felt that he was popular on there, and so he didn't want to ban it.
	And this argument that Trump advanced has made.
	I've been very against this TikTok ban and the bill that forced the sell of it for a long time for a lot of reasons, including the fact that I do think it was motivated, not out of fear that China was propagandizing the public through it, but that they had trouble Controlling what Americans were hearing the way they could with other uh social media uh apps.
	And what Vance and Trump just said there, which was especially Vance said, oh, young Americans were really worried about their privacy, they really wanted this deal to happen.
	Americans weren't concerned about TikTok.
	They were using it voluntarily.
	They were happily using it.
	They didn't feel propagandized at all by there was that didn't come from users of TikTok.
	It came from the deep state in the United States that felt like they couldn't control TikTok.
	It came from ultimately Israel supporters who felt like there was too much criticism of TikTok of Israel allowed on TikTok.
	And then it came from the bipartisan political class in Washington.
	That's where the alleged concerns came from, not from the people who use TikTok, but Trump is right that the young people who use TikTok and anyone who used TikTok didn't want it closed.
	And so he's kind of there to present himself as the savior of TikTok, even though he was the one who originally advocated its banning, and now it's been transferred out of the hands of people the United States couldn't control into the hands of the people the United States can control.
	And Trump there says, and JD Vance too said now it's being in the hands of American investors.
	That is true to some extent, although ByteDance is actually retaining something like a 20% uh ownership of TikTok, which a lot of members of Congress who passed this bill are saying is illegal.
	The bill requires a complete divestment by ByteDance, not a retention of 20%.
	There's also a big sovereign fund associated with the United Arab Emirates that provided massive amounts of cash and will have a big ownership stake in TikTok as well, which is foreign ownership.
	But it is true that the majority of ownership will be in the hands of what Trump is calling American investors, by which he means people like Larry Ellison, the head of Oracle and a couple other companies with very deep ties, both to the deep state and the intelligence community as well as the state of Israel.
	Here's CNBC from earlier today on some of the details of this agreement.
	Trump approves TikTok deal through executive order, Vance says.
	Vance says the business is valued at 14 billion dollars.
	Quote.
	The deal satisfies the requirements of a national security law requiring China based ByteDance to sell TikTok's U.S. operations or face an effective ban in the country according to the executive order.
	Under the terms which China must still approve, a new joint venture company will oversee TikTok's U.S. business with ByteDance retaining less than a 20% stake.
	Enterprise tech giant Oracle, Silver Lake, and the Abu Dhabi-based MGX investment fund will be main investors in TikTok's U.S. business, controlling your roughly 45% stake in the entity, while ByteDance investors and new holders will own 35%.
	Under the planned arrangement, Oracle, which is Larry Ellison's company, will oversee the app's security operations and continue to provide cloud computing services for the new TikTok U.S. firm.
	The deal does not involve the federal government taking an equity stake or a so-called golden share in TikTok's U.S. operations.
	So the big change here is that the controlling shareholders are no longer Chinese interest or Chinese company out of the control of the U.S. government, but very close allies of President Trump's and extremely fanatical supporters of Israel.
	Here's the Wall Street Journal a couple of days ago on the same deal, quote, the future of TikTok in the US is coming into focus, and users likely won't have to download a new app to access it.
	A new version of TikTok's content recommendation algorithm would be retained and crucially users would be able to access the service via the same app they had been using.
	Bytecopy would copy the app, ByteDance would copy the algorithm it uses to recommend content to users, then lease it to the new entity, according to the official and people familiar with the agreement.
	Your company would then recreate the algorithm for consumers under the supervision of Oracle and the US government.
	Co-founded by Trump ally Larry Ellison, Oracle would continue to safeguard U.S. user data under the arrangement.
	That is the key part.
	Byte Dance will continue to own TikTok, but not the U.S. version of TikTok.
	And under this deal, Byte Dance will continue to control the algorithm.
	But under the deal for the U.S. edition, meaning for the platform and version of the platform that Americans inside the United States use, the algorithm, what it gets promoted, what gets suppressed, as well as content moderation, will be under the control of the U.S. government and Oracle under Larry Ellison and Oracle.
	So basically you now have what had been the only major social media app that the U.S. government couldn't really control, directly now under the control of the Trump administration or the U.S. government and Larry Ellison.
	I don't understand why anybody who has been concerned about U.S. government control over social media or its ability to censor would be celebrating this deal in any way.
	Here is Trump on September 21st, talking about a couple of the other parties that he says are involved beyond just Larry Ellison.
	Disaster.
	So you get back from the United Kingdom this week.
	First thing you do, talk to President Xi.
	It seems like you guys are getting really, really close to a deal for Americans to take over TikTok.
	Don't get to keep the algorithm because it's so addictive.
	That's what makes it so valuable.
	How much money are we talking?
	How much are these Americans?
	A tremendous amount of money.
	Billions?
	Oh, I'd rather have them, you know, they're very well-known people.
	And Larry Ellison's one of them.
	He's involved.
	He's a great guy.
	Michael Dell is involved.
	I hate to tell you this, but a man named Lachlan is involved.
	Do you know who Laughlin is?
	That's a very unusual name.
	Lachlin Murdoch.
	Mr. Murdoch.
	I believe.
	And you should you call him.
	And Rupert is probably going to be in the group.
	I think they're going to be in the group.
	A couple of others really great people, very prominent people.
	And they're also American patriots, you know, they love this country.
	So I think they're going to do a really good job.
	All right, so besides uh Larry Ellison, who has donated many millions of his own uh money and his own wealth directly to the IDF.
	You also have Michael Dell, a very, very steadfast lifelong Israel supporter, as well as the Murdoch family, which uh I don't think I need to describe either in terms of Israel or anything else.
	So that is now who will control TikTok along with the U.S. government.
	Now, just to demonstrate that what I said earlier is entirely true, namely that what actually generated enough support for the TikTok ban to actually enable enough votes to be uh assembled in Congress to enact it, was the concern that TikTok was influencing young Americans to view Israel in a critical light.
	Not because they were being propagandized to or deceived, but because they were being allowed to see the reality of what was taking place in Gaza.
	Here from the New York Times, November 8th, 2023.
	So this is just two months after the October 7th attack, quote, lawmakers renew calls to ban TikTok after accusations of anti-Israel content.
	Quote, in the past week, Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri asked the Biden administration to outlaw TikTok for its quote, ubiquity of anti-Israel content.
	So it was pending for three months, three years based on the alleged concern about China.
	And then after October 7th, they got rid of that concern and made very clear that the reason they wanted it banned, and they were asking the Biden administration to help them, which the Biden administration did, was because of the fear of quote, anti-Israel content.
	Representative Mike Gallagher, the Republican of Wisconsin, said the app was, quote, brainwashing American youth into sympathizing with Hamas.
	Senator Marco Rubio of Florida accused Beijing officials of using TikTok, whose parent company is based in China to spread propaganda to Americans, quote, a regime that hates America controls TikTok's algorithm and knows how to use it to divide and demoralize Americans.
	Mr. Rubio has introduced our legislation to ban the app, said in a statement, what we're seeing right now is a real-life demonstration of that capability.
	We should have banned TikTok a long time ago, but this should be a wake-up call.
	Senator Hawley said in a letter this week that the conflict underscored the continued power of the platform.
	TikTok has the quote power to radically distort the world picture that America's young people encounter, he said, on Wednesday, and called for a vote for a bill he wanted to ban the app.
	Quote, Israel's unfolding war with Hamas is a truth, is A crucial test case.
	I mean, could they make it more explicit?
	The reason the Biden administration signed that ban, the reason why Congress enacted it was not because of China, but was to protect Israel.
	Here's Congressman Josh Gottheimer, a Democrat of New Jersey, as vocal and unyielding supporter of Israel, you will find in the U.S. Congress on November 8th, 2023, that same day, he released the following announcement.
	Quote, Representative Galtheimer, Representative Bacon, and the Anti-Defamation League announced a new action to combat terrorists and disinformation on social media and the China-owned TikTok.
	Quote, U.S. Representative Josh Gottmeyer, Gottheimer, Don Bacon, and Mike Gallagher, chair of the select committee of the CCP and anti-defamation league CEO and national director, Jonathan Greenblatt, held a press call on action to combat terrorists and disinformation on social media, including China-owned TikTok.
	Gotmeier and Bacon are introducing the bipartisan stopping terrorists online presence and holding accountable tech entities act, that rolls off the tongue, known as the Stop Hate Act, to help stop terrorism and disinformation on social media and online.
	The legislation is supported by the Anti-Defamation League.
	Quote, the content on social media platforms, especially on China-owned TikTok, is being used by Russia, China, and Iran as a tool of terror, propaganda, and disinformation to influence Americans, especially younger Americans.
	Using TikTok, China has the ability to control what an entire generation of kids see and consume every single day, said Congressman Gottheimer.
	It's time to put an end to these online weapons of terror.
	This is about protecting our national security, blah, blah, blah.
	Last year, Gothheimer worked to give the president the power to ban TikTok in the United States or force the sale of its U.S. operations to an American company.
	Nikki Haley, remember her?
	She ran for president in 2024.
	And even for the Republican primary, she made a statement that was so laughable about TikTok and Israel that it was widely mocked by pretty much everybody, but it did indicate the ethos that was prevailing among the people in DC, the foreign policy community, which she always represents, who wanted to ban TikTok and the real reason for it.
	Here's the claim she made.
	We really do need to ban TikTok once and for all.
	And let me tell you why.
	For every 30 minutes that someone watches TikTok, every day they become 17% more anti-Semitic, more pro-Hamas based on doing that.
	We now know that 50% of adults, 18 to 25, think that Hamas was warranted in what they did with Israel.
	That's a problem.
	So she's admitting, I mean, she stated outright, we need to ban TikTok because a large number of young Americans believe something that I find deeply offensive and that is contrary to our policy.
	I mean, that is an explicit declaration of the need to censor for political speech as you will find.
	And as far as the study is concerned, apparently every day that you spend on TikTok, every 30 minutes that you watch TikTok, you become 17% more anti-Semitic.
	I would love to know how that was determined.
	And like, what happens if you spend two weeks watching TikTok for a half an hour a day, become like what, 112% more anti-Semitic?
	I mean, the whole thing is laughable.
	But that statement is so valuable because it was a very unadorned and naked admission that the impetus behind banning TikTok had nothing to do with China, had nothing to do with concerns that China was deceiving or dividing Americans.
	It was that too much Israel content, too much Israel criticism was permitted to circulate on that platform.
	Facebook was doing a good job censoring it.
	Google was doing a good job censoring it, but TikTok wasn't.
	And that's why it needed to be banned.
	One of the sponsors of the TikTok ban was Mike Gallagher.
	We've referenced him a couple of times before.
	And in the free press, Barry Weiss's state media for Israel, on November 1st, 2023, he wrote an article entitled this, Why do young Americans support Hamas?
	Look at TikTok.
	So they weren't hiding it.
	Wisconsin Public Radio, March 13th, 2024, House passes a TikTok ban in a win for Wisconsin representative Mike Gallagher.
	Quote, the Green Bay Republican introduced the bill that would force parent company bite dance to sell TikTok within six months or be removed from app stores.
	Gallagher has focused on foreign policy concerns involving China throughout his time in office.
	The bill passed with overwhelming bipartisan support, 352 votes to 65.
	In a speech on the House floor before the vote, Gallagher said the bill is not about censorship, perish the thought.
	Quote, the text explicitly prohibits that, and it cannot, cannot be used to censor speech.
	It takes no position at all on the content of speech, Gallagher said.
	Only foreign adversary control, foreign adversary control of what is becoming the dominant news platform for Americans under 30, even though even Mike Gallagher and other sponsors of the bill admitted the reason it got enough votes was because of concern that it was allowing too much criticism of Israel.
	All of this is taking place in the context of a huge avalanche of polling data, much of which we've reviewed and reported many times, that shows that support for Israel among Americans, particularly young Americans, not just young liberal Americans, but young conservatives as well.
	But basically every demographic group, support for Israel in the United States is unraveling rapidly.
	Here from Pew Research, uh, and I believe this was, if I'm not mistaken, uh today, this was issued today.
	Here you see the concern.
	TikTok is increasingly a place for news, especially among young US adults.
	And you see the data on the screen that TikTok is a place where Americans regularly get their news.
	For all adults, 20% regularly get their news from TikTok, and you see the starp, the sharp increase.
	For Americans, 18 to 29, 43 percent, 18 to 39, 18 to 29, regularly get their news from TikTok.
	And you see there the steep uh increase as well.
	And actually, for even the other groups, the older groups, I mean, 6065 plus barely use TikTok.
	50 to 64 percent, only 10%, 30 to 49, 25 percent.
	But in each of these, it's increasing as well.
	But the big concern were young Americans, where support for Israel has all but collapsed.
	This is the panic that led them to either want to ban TikTok or force its sale into the control of somebody like Larry Ellison, who, again, is not just a supporter of Israel, but a direct financier of the Israeli military.
	Here from Gallup in July of 2025, they found 32% in the United States back Israel's military action in Gaza a new low.
	It's hard to conceive of that number if you followed this topic for any period of time that only 32% of Americans, one out of every three, back Israel in its action in Gaza, a new low.
	And most of that support is coming from old conservatives, the only demographic group that reliably supports Israel.
	Conservatives over the age of 50 people have basically watched Fox News for 30 years and have fed on that, but even there there's a decline.
	But in every other demographic group, including conservatives 18 to 49, a majority now oppose Israel.
	Speaking of Fox News, two of their most famous and successful former hosts, Megan Kelly and Tucker Carlson spoke to one another on Megan's show on September 16th about many topics, including Israel.
	And here is something that Megan Kelly said.
	It was in the context of talking about why Charlie Kirk had started to question U.S. support for Israel, why he was opening up turning point to things like a debate involving Dave Smith over Israel or allowing Tucker Carlson to be a keynote speaker, knowing he was going to criticize Israel,
	knowing that his funders, his pro-Israel funders were angry that he allowed Tucker Carlson to appear there, making Kelly, who's been a long time supporter of Israel, even though she's starting to entertain more questions than she previously did, was describing why Charlie Kirk felt compelled to start becoming more open on that issue.
	And here's what she said.
	And let's face it, Charlie was like an unofficial spokesperson For the youth of America, in particular, conservative youth.
	And I don't know if people have checked, but they no longer support Israel.
	Everybody under 30 is against Israel.
	Charlie was 31.
	Everyone under 30 supports is against Israel, she said.
	Now, obviously, she meant that as hyperbole, she doesn't mean literally every person.
	But what she was referring to is all this polling data that showed that young Americans don't understand why we finance the Israeli military.
	They don't understand why we go to war for Israel, why we deploy our military assets to protect Israel every time they have a war.
	They don't understand why we're supporting blowing up babies every day in Gaza.
	And that's coming from Megan Kelly and Tucker Carlson, but Megan Kelly in particular, who has not really been on the same path as Tucker Carlson in terms of becoming an outright opponent of U.S. support for Israel.
	She's only opened up just a little bit, questioning it.
	But I've debated Megan on her show about things like Israel and related issues, and she was always on the pro-Israel side.
	But now just for entertaining some questions, she's regularly attacked and grouped in with Candace Owen, Owens and Tucker, and others as an anti-Semite.
	Mark Levin just referred to her like that, uh, referred to her that way uh this week, but she's just recognizing the reality, which is that conservatives, young conservatives, Charlie Kirk represented, don't support Israel.
	And as she said, essentially everybody under 30 is opposed to Israel.
	I want to show you something that is actually quite amazing.
	I think sometimes people think that when you talk about the influence that the Israel lobby has on the United States, even people who know it's very significant might think like maybe it's a little bit overstated, maybe it's a little bit too centered.
	So I present to you one Jonathan Greenblatt, who is the executive director of the anti-defamation league.
	And this was in March of 2024, basically just a couple of weeks prior to the Congress voting to ban TikTok.
	And Jonathan Greenbot had been on many shows previous to this, including Morning Joe, where he was basically demanding that TikTok be banned, and citing what obviously is his only interest, his only mission, which was the fact that he says there was too much criticism of Israel being permitted on the platform.
	And here he is, he went to visit his bosses in Israel.
	Here he is speaking in Israel to a bunch of Israeli officials and activists.
	And here's what he told them about TikTok and the importance of what he called capturing it is for Israel.
	The Asian United States'support for Israel is not left and right.
	It is young and old.
	And the number of young people looking at the office.
	You know, massacre was justified as shockingly and terrifyingly high.
	And so we really have a TikTok problem.
	We really have a TikTok problem, he says.
	Now, I'm at a confused that actually, I think this next, yeah, this next video is actually him speaking to his bosses in Israel up the Knesset.
	That was an audio recording of Jonathan Greebot.
	We'll check on exactly where that was.
	Um, but this is January of 2025, where Trump is about to be inaugurated, so the ban of TikTok has not yet been implemented.
	It's still up in the air.
	Who's going to buy TikTok?
	Who's going to take it out of uh who's going to buy it from Bite Dance?
	Trump had made clear that he doesn't want to close it.
	He wanted it sold to Bite Dance.
	And this is Jonathan Greenblatt visiting his bosses in Israel.
	And this is where he said that there's essentially nothing more important than Israel and its supporters, quote, taking control of TikTok.
	Here's what he said in the Knesset.
	We must, you must take this deadly seriously.
	Pushing extremists off Wikipedia might not seem equal to the challenge of pushing Hezbollah north of the Latani River.
	Capturing TikTok might seem less meaningful than holding on to Mount Hermon.
	Libelous tweets certainly might seem less deadly than missiles from Yemen.
	But this is urgent because the next war will be decided based on how Israel and its Allies perform online as much as offline.
	So that's the head of the ADL in his home country by heart, if not legally, which is Israel, talking about, quote, capturing TikTok for Israel, the way you would capture parts of Lebanon or parts of Syria or parts of Gaza and the West Bank, all of which Israel has been militarily doing, capturing all that land that's not theirs.
	He's talking about capturing TikTok, and he's saying capturing TikTok is at least as important as militarily defeating Hezbollah and Hamas.
	And then he went on to say the next war is basically going to be a war online.
	And just like we need to occupy the West Bank in Gaza, and just like we need to bomb Iran and take land from Syria and take land from Lebanon, we also need to take over TikTok.
	And this is after he called for a ban on TikTok.
	This was him saying TikTok is for sale.
	We need to control it.
	We need to capture it.
	And now nine months later, President Trump announces that the second richest person on the planet, Larry Ellison, who, as I said, has donated money directly to the IDF and is a lifelong supporter of Israel, has captured TikTok for Israel.
	And the tens of millions of Americans who now use TikTok are now only going to be seeing content promoted and permitted that Larry Ellison and the ADL want them to see.
	I'm showing you what these people are saying in their own words.
	They're not really being subtle about it because they're in a panic over the collapse of support.
	The Jerusalem Post this week issued a list of quote the 50 most influential Jews.
	And it did it kind of by grouping, so it ended up being more than 50.
	But one of the group of Jews that they say are most influential are what they call the philanthropists of the Jewish world, and included Deanne Comb, Michael Dell, who's part of this consortium buying TikTok, Bill Ackman, and Larry Ellison, along with Michael Bloomberg.
	And that's the Jerusalem Post saying these are the Jews who are not only most influential, but from an Israeli perspective.
	Here's a Jerusalem Post as part of that same series.
	And this is what they posted on X. Quote, three Jewish American business leaders under 50 are reshaping Hollywood and tech, with one of them seeking Israeli residency and another reinventing himself after WeWork.
	And included there are David Ellison and Brandon Corff and Adam Neumann, David Ellison being Larry Ellison's son, who is now going to be running for his dad, CBS and Paramount, and intends to put Barry Weiss in charge of its editorial content.
	And Barry Weiss was also touted in this list as well.
	Here's another Israeli newspaper windup.
	Isn't it amazing, by the way, that the Jerusalem Post is allowed to post a list of all the different Jewish billionaires who are taking over key sectors?
	Whereas if anybody who else who said that would be instantly decreed anti-Semitic or promoting tropes if they say it.
	Here's YNET, which is also an Israeli newspaper.
	This was yesterday.
	I'm not sure why they're all using now to post their list of the most influential Jews, but they are from Israel to the diaspora, 30 of the most influential Jewish leaders.
	Quote, as a tumultuous Hebrew year, oh, I guess that's why.
	The tumultuous Hebrew year draws to a close, 30 influential Jewish figures from Netanyahu and Mark Zuckerberg to ex-hostage Noah Argamani and NBA star Danny Abjia have shaped Israel's fate and global Jewish identity amid war.
	Number six on the list, Larry Ellison.
	This is not my description, this is YNET.
	Co-founder of Oracle and one of the world's wealthiest men is also one of the most influential Jews in global business.
	A major donor to pro-Israel causes, Ellison has been outspoken about the need For strong U.S. Israeli ties and has invested in cybersecurity and defense technologies that strengthen both nations.
	His influence stretches from boardrooms to Capitol Hill, where his voice carries weight in conversations about the strategic partnership Israel and the United States between the Israel and the United States.
	Not just Larry Ellison, but another person from Oracle, Safra Katz, who's now the CEO, Larry Ellison founded the company and clearly still runs it, but he doesn't run a day to day.
	He has Safra Katz, who's his CEO, and she was number eight on the list of YNET.
	And here's what they said about her.
	Remember, this is the company now, basically not just running the content of TikTok, but also in charge of keeping all the data of people who use TikTok.
	Safra Katz, CEO of Oracle, is one of the most powerful women in global business and one of the highest ranking Jewish executives in the world.
	Born in Israel and raised in the United States, Katz has led Oracle through nearly two decades of growth, overseeing massive acquisitions and steering the company into cloud infrastructure and AI.
	Under her leadership, Oracle has become a central player in global enterprise software and defense contracts, making her influence felt from Wall Street to Washington.
	Her presence symbolizes not only Jewish success at the highest levels of business, but also the strategic reach of Israeli born leadership in shaping the future of technology and security.
	And it's amazing what the Israeli media can say that other people around the world can't say, but it's very worth reading it exactly for that reason.
	It often contains truths that in other contexts are not really expressible.
	Here is Larry Ellison in Israel.
	You'll be, I think, unsurprised to learn that he is there quite frequently.
	And he was speaking to an Israeli media outlet, Channel 10, and this was at an event called the Friends of the IDF Gala.
	Friends of the IDF is how American citizens, I guess, are legally permitted to donate their wealth to a foreign military.
	They do it through this thing called the Friends of the IDF.
	They just donate their own millions to the Israeli military, even though, as Trump called them today, they're American investors.
	And here he is describing why he's there and what he's doing.
	Well, um the renewal of the Jewish states uh is something that I think touches all of us.
	Um for 2,000 years we were a stateless people.
	And now we have a country of our own, defended by all the brave men and women of the IDF.
	So anything we can do to support them who devote their lives from preserving the state of Israel, keeping the people safe, and allowing our state to continue in very sometimes in very, very difficult situations.
	All right, so that's him and his own words talking about his priority, which is supporting not just Israel, but the IDF.
	And here is variety about the person who's now going to control CBS, CBS News, Paramount, possibly CNN, and also TikTok, Larry Ellison, in November of 2017.
	The headline, Friends of Israel Defense Forces, Gala, raises a record-breaking $53.8 million.
	Quote, Friends of the IDF raised a record $53.8 million at its annual Western Region Gala on Thursday night, held at the Beverly Hills Hotel.
	The figure represents the most money raised at any single FIDF event in the organization history.
	The sold-out gala, which has become one of Los Angeles' premier charitable events, united some 1,200 supporters from across the country to support the brave men and women of the Israeli defense forces.
	Isn't that odd to you that on American soil in the United States, in Los Angeles, the capital of the entertainment world, American citizens gather every year to fundraise and donate money to a foreign country's military.
	They don't donate that money to the American military, even though they profit enormously off the American military.
	All of these Companies that are now in charge of uh TikTok are all deeply tied to the American military to uh the Pentagon.
	They profit off the American military, they benefit from the American military, they live in the country where that military fights for, yet they donate their money and their profit that they make off the American people and off American institutions to this foreign military.
	The article goes on, quote, the top donation announced at the event, the largest single gift in the history of the Friends of the IDF was $16.6 million from Oracle co-founder, executive chairman, and chief technology officer Larry Ellison.
	His donation will support the construction of well-being facilities on a new training campus for the IDF COVID infantry squads, infantry units.
	Do you think Larry Ellison is going to allow a lot of Israel criticism on CBS News on 60 Minutes?
	On Paramount, on TikTok.
	Do you think Michael Dell is?
	Do you think the Murdoch family will?
	Is there a lot on Fox News?
	Here is what the uh magazine Globes reported in October of 2024 with a picture of the Oracle headquarters.
	The headline was Oracle shelves plans to build a data center in Israel.
	Quote, Oracle's management is considered especially pro-Israel.
	Let me say that again, because this is the company that now is in charge of TikTok.
	Oracle's management is considered especially pro-Israel.
	And its leaders have spoken many times in the past about expansion of their operations in Israel.
	Imagine how fanatical you have to be to be described as especially pro-Israel when it comes to America's power centers like Wall Street and Silicon Valley and Hollywood and tech.
	In 2021, Oracle CEO Safra Katz, who was born in Israel and grew up in the U.S., told Globes that unlike Google or Amazon, an employee who is not satisfied with the company's cooperation with Israel has no place in the company.
	Even at Google and Amazon, employees are allowed to express discomfort or concern about cooperation with Israel.
	Not at Oracle.
	The Israeli-born CEO, chosen by Larry Ellison, who now runs TikTok, said, unlike those other companies, if you don't love our cooperation with Israel for tack and defense, you have no place in our company.
	Loving Israel is a requirement to work at Oracle.
	The article went on, quote, she also stressed the importance of building an Israeli data center that would serve the local market and solve dependence on foreign companies that serve Israel remotely.
	Larry Ellison, who hosted Netanyahu at his Hollywood mansion while he was chairman of the operation in opposition in 2022, and is even believed to have once offered Netanyahu a place on Oracle's board of directors.
	Netanyahu has run Israel for basically the last 30 years, with a few intervals where a couple other people went in, up Tali Bennett.
	And 2022 was one of the very few times or a little bit of period of time where Netanyahu wasn't running Israel.
	And Larry Ellison offered him a seat on Oracle on Oracle's board of directors, Benjamin Netanyahu.
	Obviously, all sorts of extremely rich people would ensure that Netanyahu had an extremely lucrative post-president prime minister life if they haven't already ensured that.
	I doubt Netanyahu is struggling financially.
	But it just shows you the extremely close ties between Larry Ellison and not just Israel, but Netanyahu and the IDF.
	And I guess if you want to be naive, you could say, I don't know, maybe it's just a coincidence that exactly at the moment that American support for Israel is unprecedentedly unraveling.
	This person who has made Israel his center of his life, Larry Ellison, decided to buy CBS News, Paramount, and control TikTok at the same time trying to buy CNN.
	Maybe it's a coincidence, maybe it has nothing to do with Israel.
	Or maybe you can embrace the obvious reality that that is the primary motive.
	Last night we, or rather on Tuesday night, we interviewed the independent journalist Jack Polson, who had been working with the leak of the email inbox of Israeli official Benny Gance, and there was a lot of there were a lot of revelations in there, and one of them was about,
	as you can see from this article on Jack Poles' Substack, was about the attempts by David Ellison, Larry Ellison's son, who's now in control of CBS and Paramount, to, as the title put it, exclusive, new owner of CBS, coordinated with former Israel military chief to counter the country's critics, according to leaked emails.
	And it was basically describing how David Ellison, who now bought Paramount and CBS with his dad, was working directly with the Israeli military to shape public opinion in the United States to undermine Israel's critics.
	Do you think they might use their media platforms for that goal?
	You might also recall that TikTok has actually made some changes before this for sale that were demanded by the ADL, including this extremely significant one.
	This is from July of 2025, as reported by not Tucker Carlson, not Candace Owens, not Nick Fluentes, but by the Jerusalem Post.
	And the title was TikTok's New Hate Speech Manager, is a former IDF soldier and a proud Zionist.
	Erica Mendel's new position involves developing and driving the company's public policy positions on hate speech according to her description.
	So essentially the ADL demanded that TikTok, in order to address what the ADL claims is this anti-Semitism problem, hire a content manager specifically devoted to censoring the site relating to Israel and anti-Semitism.
	And the person they gave to TikTok, which TikTok has been dutifully hired at a remarkably high salary, I think it's probably like 380 or 400,000 a year, is an American citizen, one of those who went to Israel and joined the IDF and fought in the IDF, and basically her entire adult career has been talking about her love of Israel, her loyalty to Israel.
	She's an IDF soldier.
	And she's now in charge of censoring content as hate speech pertaining to Israel and Jews on the grounds of uh on with the stated goal of cleansing the site of anti-Semitism.
	I mean, you can see exactly what's happening here, right?
	Without having to lay it all out.
	It's it's really quite self-evident and explicit.
	Aside from the content aspect, there's also the surveillance aspect.
	As I said, Oracle is the company that is going to keep all the data from TikTok users.
	They already retain a lot of it as part of what the U.S. was trying to do.
	TikTok was saying, look, we don't have any interest in controlling the content of our site or in spying on you.
	We're a for-profit company.
	We would just want to make billions of dollars.
	And whatever we have to do to stay in the US, just tell us what we have to do.
	And they started hiring away from Facebook and Google huge numbers of former NSA and Pentagon and FBI and CIA officers to run their content moderation.
	And they were saying, we don't care about the data, you can keep it in the United States.
	And it was Oracle that was chosen to keep it.
	So now it's Oracle that will be actually in charge of all the user data of anybody who uses TikTok.
	And Larry Ellison, I remember going back to the Snowden reporting, was a harsh critic of Edward Snowden and of our reporting.
	He was a big believer in the NSA.
	He loves surveillance.
	Obviously, he's in Silicon Valley, has tons of contracts with the deep state.
	And here he was at the Oracle Financial Analyst meeting just last year, September of last year, and he's talking about how surveillance is going to become even more ubiquitous, even more invasive as a result of artificial intelligence, and here are all the reasons why he thinks it's a great thing.
	The police will be on their best behavior because we record constantly recording, watching and recording everything that's going on.
	Citizens will be on their best behavior because we're constantly recording and reporting everything that's going on.
	Oh did you hear that?
	And do you hear what he just said?
	I just want to make sure that we process this.
	He said, citizens, As long as there's a ubiquitous surveillance state where you're constantly being watched, you're gonna be on your best behavior.
	Because everything you do is going to be watched by AI, and if there's anything wrong with it, it's gonna be reported to the government.
	When I was doing the Snowden reporting, and we were reporting on how the NSA had converted the internet into this weapon of mass surveillance, mass warrantless surveillance.
	I used to always hear the argument well, what do I care if the government is spying on everybody and reading all my emails and listening to my communications?
	I'm not doing anything wrong, I'm not a terrorist, I'm not a pedophile.
	Why should I care?
	I have nothing to hide.
	And I had been debating this issue for months.
	Everywhere I went around the world to do the Snowden reporting, I was hearing this.
	And so finally I put together a speech, I gave a TED talk.
	It was called Why Privacy Matters.
	And the thesis of it is basically exactly what Larry Allison just said.
	Only I didn't consider it a positive thing the way he did.
	I considered it extremely destructive of humanity.
	Which is that human beings need privacy because it's only when you have a private realm when you're able to think and make decisions and engage in behavior and experiment without judgmentalizes of society being cast upon you.
	Are you able to make decisions that are the byproduct of your own autonomy and agency?
	It's where dissent and creativity and exploration exclusively reside in the private realm.
	And there's all kinds of psychological studies, but also development in architecture and philosophy and in religion and theology that recognize what Larry Allison just said, which is that in contrast to the private realm where you're free to engage in the behavior that you want, if you know that you're being watched, or even if you know that you have the potential to be watched, the decisions that you make are no longer ones that are the byproduct of your own agency or autonomy.
	You make sure that your behavior and your statements and your views are aligned with societal demands and government expectations.
	Basically, surveillance, a surveillance society creates a conformist society.
	I personally think that's very destructive of what makes humanity valuable.
	Larry Allison thinks it's great because it keeps you in line, it keeps you obedient, as he said, you're always going to be watched.
	And you know you're always going to be watched, so you're going to be better behaved, better behaved from Larry Allison's perspective.
	Here's what he went on to say.
	Um it's unimpeachable.
	The cars, the cars have camera, you know, camera cameras on them.
	I think we have a squad car here someplace.
	Uh, but those kind of applications using AI, if we can use AI, and we're using AI to monitor the video.
	So if that altercation had occurred that occurred in Memphis, the chief of police would be immediately notified.
	It's not people that are looking at those cameras, it's AI that's looking at the camera.
	No, no, no, you can't do this.
	It would be like a shooting.
	That's gonna be immediately, that's gonna be an event that's immediately re uh an alarm's gonna go off.
	It's gonna be and uh we're gonna we're gonna have supervision.
	In other words, every police officer is gonna be supervised at all times.
	And the and the supervision will uh and if there's a problem, AI will report the problem and report it to the appropriate author uh person, whether it's the sheriff or the chief or whom whomever we need to um take control of the situation.
	We have dr you know, same thing with we have drones.
	We just if there's something going on in a shopping center, and I'll stop a drone goes out there or go there way faster than a police car.
	There's no reason reason for, by the way, high-speed chases.
	You shouldn't have high speed chases between cars.
	Uh you just have a drone follow the car.
	I mean, it's very very simple.
	And the new generation generation of autonomous drones.
	So he tried to emphasize what he knew the most people in an audience would find at least palatable, the idea that, oh, look, this ubiquitous surveillance, not the kind that we reported with the Snowden reporting,
	that's archaic by now, but artificial intelligence-driven surveillance, where the algorithms are constantly monitoring everybody and assessing your behavior, and if the artificial intelligence and its programming detects behavior, not just on the part Of the police, but as he said, every citizen that it considers or it's pro the people who control it consider to be divergent from what you ought to be doing and saying and thinking, it will automatically report you to the authorities.
	And basically, you won't even need the authorities to do anything because knowing that you're always being watched will ensure that you won't engage in any of the behavior that displeases people in power.
	This is his vision.
	He doesn't consider that dystopian.
	He considers that exciting because he and people like him are in control of this technology and consider the power that that vest in them.
	And that would be newsworthy itself, just that clip in terms of what's coming in terms of surveillance and how these people think about it.
	But the fact that he's now coming out of the shadows, there's a lot of billionaires who are very well known in the spotlight, Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk and Bill Gates, people like that, Michael Bloomberg, now Bill Ackman.
	Larry Ellison has typically flown under the radar, even though he's someone of great wealth and power.
	And like a lot of the Israel lobby, he's forced to come out in a much more brazen and blatant way than he's accustomed to doing because as I said, they're driven by panic.
	They're trying to stem this tide of the collapse of support among Americans for Israel, which Israel considers existential because America provides them with the money and the weapons and support and protection they need to be the bully of their region to dominate their region.
	And they're petrified of losing that, of having to stand on their own.
	And you watched Jonathan Greebot say we have to capture TikTok.
	That's as important, if not more so, than capturing land or defeating Hezbollah and Hamas.
	And then nine months later, Larry Ellison, the single largest owner to the IDF in the world, by CBS and Paramount, tried to buy CNN is now in control of TikTok, both its data and its content.
	And that's why it's so crucial to spend the time to delve into who he is, what these deals are, and what is driving them, because it's hard to imagine anything more consequential And that's why I say it is clearly one of the most important events of 2025.
	And I would say easily the most significant event that has received far too little journalistic coverage and attention, and we hope to rectify that with our reporting tonight and with reporting that we intend to continue to do as all of this unfolds as it undoubtedly will.
	All right, so that concludes our show for this evening due to that breaking news with Jim Comey's indictment.
	We felt it was necessary to spend the time on that in this last segment.
	And so we had a couple segments prepared for you, one on uh scholastic terrorism and its return and a lot of discourse and also the bizarre attempt by the Republican Party in the House to block release of the Epstein files that we had intended to report on, but because we run out of time, we'll save that for tomorrow.
	Uh we'll also have our QA session, as we always do on Friday night, and a couple other things as well.
	So we have a lot to get to for the rest of the week as well.
	This was a jam-pack week, and we expect next week to be the same.
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