In this installment, Dan and Jordan take a glimpse into the mind of Steven Crowder, as he is deposed over his misidentification of the Allen mass shooter and in the process reveals that he may be even dumber than previously thought. (Note: This episode was recorded in late 2024, hence the reference to Dan being on vacation)
| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
|
unidentified
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I'm sick of them posing as if they're the good guys saying we are the bad guys. | |
| Knowledge fight. | ||
| Dan and Jordan. | ||
| knowledge fight. | ||
| Need money. | ||
| Andy in Kansas. | ||
| You're on the air. | ||
| Thanks for holding. | ||
| Hello Alex. | ||
| I'm a huge fan. | ||
| I love your world. | ||
| KnowledgeFight. | ||
| KnowledgeFight.com. | ||
| I love you. | ||
| Hey, everybody. | ||
| Welcome back to KnowledgeFight. | ||
| I'm Dan. | ||
| I'm Jordan. | ||
| We're a couple dudes who like to sit around worship at the altar of Selene and talk a little bit about Alex Jones. | ||
| Oh, indeed we are, Dan. | ||
| Jordan. | ||
| Dan. | ||
| Jordan. | ||
| Quick question point. | ||
| We're recording a little earlier than usual, and I feel it. | ||
| You can feel the sense of stilted morning energy. | ||
| How does this... | ||
| What do we do? | ||
| What number of episode are we on? | ||
| To be fair for a number of them, we didn't have a set introduction. | ||
| That's true. | ||
| So there. | ||
| You know, you skip about 700 and you go back and we don't even know what we're doing. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Right. | |
| What's your bright spot today, buddy? | ||
| Why don't you go first? | ||
| My bright spot is... | ||
| When you are hearing this, the people, you're on vacation. | ||
| True. | ||
| You're gone. | ||
| You're outside of this country. | ||
| You have left the gravity of the earth for a short period of time. | ||
| That's not true. | ||
| No, you're right. | ||
| I'm not going zero-g. | ||
| No, well, you're going on the vomit rocket or whatever it was. | ||
| I'm doing that thing from that episode of Review where Fred Willard dies. | ||
| Oh, man, that one was great. | ||
| Spoiler alert for review. | ||
| No, it is so cool. | ||
| You're going to have a series of experiences, some pleasurable, some unpleasurable, but all of them part of this big experience that you can remember forever as being a thing. | ||
| And that's really cool. | ||
| Well, that's nice of you that your bright spot is something that I'm going to enjoy. | ||
| I'm excited for you. | ||
| Well, thank you. | ||
| It's going to be great. | ||
| That's very nice. | ||
| In return, I will say that my bright spot is that you brought me donuts this morning. | ||
| Absolutely. | ||
| These damn potato donuts. | ||
| They're fucking great. | ||
| So good. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| I've not had one of their chocolate ones before. | ||
| I was just messing with that hot cocoa one. | ||
| That is good. | ||
| It's good. | ||
| Subtle. | ||
| Subtle potato. | ||
| Not too much chocolate. | ||
| Yep. | ||
| Still rich, though. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yep. | |
| Good stuff. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Nah. | |
| So, Jordan, today we have an episode to go over. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| And we're going to be talking about another deposition. | ||
| All right. | ||
| We've got another one from this set of interviews that Mark Bankston, attorney, tapestry expert, did during the case about the Allen shooter being misidentified by a bunch of these outlets. | ||
| We've heard Newsmax and Owen Troyer. | ||
| We have a very different one with Steven Crowder. | ||
| Jesus Christ. | ||
| Of Louder with Crowder. | ||
| Right. | ||
| Noted guy who got punched by a union member back in the day. | ||
| Fun. | ||
| Noted idiot and not funny guy. | ||
| Not at all funny. | ||
| But very much thinks he's funny. | ||
| Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. | ||
| In like that psychopathic way. | ||
| Yeah, yeah. | ||
| He's definitely an example of somebody who has... | ||
| Some perceptions that do not match reality. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| There's like, he thinks he's funny, this stuff is dumb and not funny. | ||
| He thinks he's good at debating because he's just, like, argues with college students and, you know, he's really bad. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, yeah, yeah. | |
| And I came away from this deposition because I've never heard him in this kind of a setting before. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, yeah, yeah. | |
| And I think he's stupid. | ||
| I believe that. | ||
| I think he also is malicious and trying to be evasive in ways. | ||
| Sure. | ||
| But I think that he's one of the stupider people that I've ever heard be questioned. | ||
| At its core, it's just dumbness. | ||
| I think so. | ||
| Along with a little bit of hubris and thinking that he's much smarter than he is. | ||
| I find it fascinating how there is a certain level of, I don't know what I would call it, some part of human brains that I think exists for all people. | ||
| But if you have five people around you... | ||
| In concert, telling you about a reality, it can be anything, and you will just believe it. | ||
| Sure. | ||
| You know, like, they can truly create your reality, because that's the only explanation for why Crowder thinks he's funny, right? | ||
| Well, I think maybe there's a lot of money and insulation, and everyone works for him, and his dad runs the business, and a lot of his audience is really young, and so maybe fart jokes are like... | ||
| Avant-garde. | ||
| You just reinforce this kind of misconception and then it becomes your reality for real. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Fascinating. | ||
| And I think the funny and smart are both things that don't. | ||
| I think in general those are both allusions for all of us, or at least... | ||
| To one degree or another. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| I think it's a dangerous level. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| With Trowder. | ||
| That's definitely true. | ||
| And that's something we're going to see today. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay. | |
| But before we get to this, let's take a little moment to say hello to some new wonks. | ||
| That's a great idea. | ||
| So first, Jackson, your father is now a policy wonk, and you need to respect him. | ||
| Thank you so much, you're now a policy wonk. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'm a policy wonk. | |
| Thank you very much! | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Next, old-fashioned wonkery. | ||
| Genius. | ||
| You're now a policy wonk. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'm a policy wonk. | |
| Thank you very much. | ||
| I knew to do that one. | ||
| That's a good dude. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| Next, a machine gun and a bag of grenades. | ||
| Thank you so much. | ||
| You're now a policy wonk. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'm a policy wonk. | |
| Thank you very much. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Very... | |
| Referencing to Time Tunnel episode. | ||
| One of the greats. | ||
| Yep. | ||
| One of the best things that's ever happened. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yep. | |
| And we had a technocrat in the mix, Jordan, so thank you so much to Long Live King Jordan of the Screaming Maniacs. | ||
| You're now a technocrat. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'm a policy wonk. | |
| Four stars. | ||
| Go home to your mother and tell her you're brilliant. | ||
| Someone sodomite sent me a bucket of poop. | ||
| Daddy Shark. | ||
| Jar Jar Binks has a Caribbean black accent. | ||
|
unidentified
|
He's a loser little titty baby. | |
| I don't want to hate black people. | ||
| I renounce Jesus Christ! | ||
| Thank you so much. | ||
| That one makes me want to start a punk band. | ||
| That sounds like a great... | ||
| Jordan and the Screaming Maniacs? | ||
| That probably already exists. | ||
| Probably. | ||
| They've got the 10,000 Maniacs. | ||
| I don't have that many. | ||
| So you're already at a disadvantage. | ||
| Yeah, I don't even have that one band. | ||
| Screaming Trees? | ||
| That was a band. | ||
| How about Throbbing Gristle? | ||
| Probably a band. | ||
| Yeah, no, that's definitely a band. | ||
| I think everything has been. | ||
| All names are taken. | ||
| All names are taken! | ||
| No new bands! | ||
| No, if you want to be in a band, you have to wait until someone quits. | ||
| It's a one-in-one-out. | ||
| I like that. | ||
| I like that. | ||
| Blood in, blood out, you can just take over a spot. | ||
| Yeah, you can take someone's name. | ||
| All right. | ||
| So we start off, and I think that we've come to a point where the first question that we usually hear is, how much did you prepare? | ||
| Right. | ||
| For this. | ||
| And it doesn't start out immediately with that. | ||
| And I got a vibe that I was feeling. | ||
| And that is that Crowder sounds terrified. | ||
| Alright, sir. | ||
| Can you give us your name for the record? | ||
| Steven Crowder. | ||
| You are the founder of Louder with Crowder LLC? | ||
| Yes. | ||
| Louder with Crowder LLC is your media company? | ||
| Yes. | ||
| You operate a website and make internet videos? | ||
| Objection form? | ||
| Yes. | ||
| I'm just trying to figure out that's what your media company does. | ||
| That's part of it. | ||
| What else do you do that you would say that your media company does? | ||
| It's a general media company. | ||
| there's a daily program there's a separate you know reporting an investigative reporting unit and the website operates separately where someone writes articles so social media you know kind of all encompassing the So there's an interesting vibe that he gives off, which is simultaneously, like, there's a little bit of, I'm really afraid to answer any of your questions. | ||
| And then also, at times, I'm eager for a debate. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Both sides of this coin seem to be present with him. | ||
| It's a very interesting presentation. | ||
| Ridiculous. | ||
| Now I'm full-on going to open a consulting business for depositions, because here's your answers right there. | ||
| Sure. | ||
| You know what I'm saying? | ||
| Like, oh, what does your company do? | ||
| Make online videos? | ||
| Sure. | ||
| Never say, that's part of it, because now you have to answer what the rest of the part of it is, and now you're responsible for the other parts of it. | ||
| No, we just make internet videos, no? | ||
| Sure. | ||
| The answer of, like, that's not all we do, is kind of self-defensive a little bit, whereas, like, if you just answer yes, that doesn't imply that you don't do anything else. | ||
| No, no. | ||
| Like, the answer yes includes the possibility of other things. | ||
| It's not exclusive. | ||
| But, yeah, these people. | ||
| It is a psychological need to be like, I'm more than what you are. | ||
| For some reason, they have to get in there and be like, no, I'm better. | ||
| It's crazy. | ||
| So, Crowder gets the old primary question. | ||
| What did you do to prepare? | ||
| What did you do, buddy? | ||
| Did you do anything to prepare for this deposition? | ||
| No. | ||
| I read the The files that were sent over from your attorneys. | ||
| Well, yourself, I guess. | ||
| The files. | ||
| Can you tell me what you mean by that? | ||
| The documents, the complaints. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| In other words, the lawsuit that was filed? | ||
| Yes. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Have you reviewed any other documents to prepare for this deposition? | ||
| Not to my knowledge, no. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Have you viewed your May 8th or May 9th show? | ||
| I viewed at least a portion of it, yes. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| These guys all say that they didn't prepare much for their depositions because they think that helps them plausibly claim that they don't know various things, but there's an irony here. | ||
| They think that saying they didn't prepare gets them off the hook a little bit, but what it really reveals is that they aren't taking this seriously at all. | ||
| If a normal person were in Crowder or Alex's shoes, they would hear that something they did seriously hurt another person and that it was severe enough that they were sued over it and had to give a deposition. | ||
| They would probably have a moment where they worried that they may have made a mistake and actually hurt this person, and they would want to make amends for it. | ||
| They would likely want to review what they'd done so they could see where mistakes were made and how they could avoid making them in the future. | ||
| With people like Alex and Crowder, they don't care, because misidentifying a mass shooter isn't a mistake. | ||
| They did the coverage that they did for the express purpose of denying that the shooter was a Nazi because they want to minimize the threat that right-wing domestic extremists pose. | ||
| They didn't care that they were pointing at the wrong guy, and they'll do it again. | ||
| The act of saying that he's done no real preparation... | ||
| It's Crowder's way of thinking he's protecting the game. | ||
| Pretending that this was a mistake is kind of safe for Crowder, and he knows that if he plays ignorant, it's much easier for him to avoid revealing too much about why they were so eager to jump on this incorrect mugshot the way that they did, which is what's behind all of it. | ||
| It's not a mistake. | ||
| That's interesting. | ||
| It is an interesting choice to me, because in two regards, I would make a different choice, although not necessarily saying different words to Mark. | ||
| If I was going to get sued in this way, I would absolutely study all of this stuff and have a full and complete understanding of what's going on. | ||
| That way, if I'm going to lie, I'm doing it with the information that they are trying to get as well. | ||
| You know what I mean? | ||
| Like, I'm prepared for where you're going to try and angle it because I know what I'm lying about. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Whereas these guys seem to have no idea what they're actually lying about. | ||
| They're just kind of flailing about. | ||
| At least they seem to be playing it by ear a little bit too much. | ||
| Yeah! | ||
| Don't improvise! | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| But honestly, there's no reason to end up in this situation at all. | ||
| Sure. | ||
| Well, I mean, if we want to go further and further back, of course there's no reason. | ||
| But even if you're a shitty liar who does these awful, dumb broadcasts based on bad information, you still should never end up in this situation. | ||
| No. | ||
| It has a great model of this, like, apologizing to Hamdi Ulukaya and James Oliphantus. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Like, these things can be done, and it doesn't really cost you that much capital. | ||
| No. | ||
| So, like, there's no reason to end up in a deposition room when you can say, we made a mistake, we fired somebody, or, like, we did an investigation and someone got suspended for two weeks without pay, or whatever. | ||
| Just do something like that, and then you can move on. | ||
| Yeah, the legal system is very willing to accept an oopsie. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Right. | |
| But also, this plaintiff probably is, too. | ||
| Totally. | ||
| Like, this probably is something that can be resolved through recognition of wrongdoing. | ||
| Right. | ||
| And, like... | ||
| Maybe we don't believe that Crowder's going to change his ways, but him pretending that he's going to would probably get him off the hook. | ||
| Yeah, it is a question of whether or not it's one of those, like, the seed of destruction is sown within it before we even begin, because is it the paranoid self-importance that allows them to become what they become? | ||
| As also the thing that keeps them from doing the smart thing in these regards. | ||
| You know what I'm saying? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Could be all wrapped up. | ||
| So, we get to a question about Crowder's training. | ||
| His sort of academic credentials in journalism. | ||
| Before I get into all that, I want to confirm some details on your background. | ||
| As far as educational background, it's my understanding that you attended a couple semesters of college. | ||
| Correct. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| I think it's fair to say you have no educational background in journalism. | ||
| I wouldn't agree. | ||
| Oh, for God's sake. | ||
| Can you explain to me what your educational background in journalism is? | ||
| Years of experience. | ||
| We'll move on to your work. | ||
| I'm talking about your education at this point, if you have any educational background in journalism. | ||
| Well, I did study media for, as you said, two semesters in college. | ||
| Okay, so when you were in college for those semesters, part of that included journalism courses? | ||
| Part of it included, yes, broadcast. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| So he took a broadcast class in one of his two semesters in college. | ||
| This is not good. | ||
| I mean, I don't even remember. | ||
| So I went to the University of Missouri, and they have a prestigious journalism school. | ||
| They're very, very proud of it. | ||
| I don't know. | ||
| If I took a journalism class. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| I think I might have. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| It definitely wasn't what I studied, but I might have taken more journalism classes than Crowder. | ||
| Right. | ||
| Now, here's what I find fascinating about these people, is that they want the credibility of having an education in it. | ||
| Which makes me crazy, because the way that I would view this is, look at what journalism schools have produced. | ||
| I'm a better journalist for not having gone to a journalism school. | ||
| Right. | ||
| Thus I don't want the accolades of an education, so I don't need it. | ||
| But that's what they do on air. | ||
| Right, exactly. | ||
| The institution and the idea of journalism is fraudulent at its core, and that's why I'm better, because I make fart jokes on this show where my dad is... | ||
| Watching over me like a hawk. | ||
| And yet, inside, they have this like, well, I'm a legitimate journalist also. | ||
| In this setting. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| This setting brings that out. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Fascinating. | |
| That need to be taken seriously. | ||
| Crazy. | ||
| And it would be better if it wasn't there. | ||
| No, I mean, I would be proud of not having gone to a journalism school and then being like, look at where I am. | ||
| It would make sense. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Well, maybe... | ||
| And I'm starting to think like a comedy thing. | ||
| Okay. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Like... | |
| You know, you have to really know the rules before you can break them. | ||
| Sure. | ||
| In a lot of, like, comedy settings. | ||
| Sure. | ||
| Maybe it's just that, like, I break the rules, but I know some stuff. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Sure. | |
| I have some education, but that's what allows me to break the rules. | ||
| Sure, sure. | ||
| Maybe that's what he's trying to present. | ||
| Perhaps in the same way, though, you know, I would be like, hey, anybody who's gone to, like, a comedy class has exactly as much training as anybody who's not gone to a comedy class. | ||
| Right. | ||
| Doing it, doing it kind of thing, you know? | ||
| Right, but if you were asked what is your academic history in comedy, you wouldn't say the experience. | ||
| I wouldn't say the school of hard docs for bad, which is what he essentially said. | ||
| Yeah, and so that's what the next question comes to, is like, let's talk about your learning on the job. | ||
| Right, right, right. | ||
| You worked for Fox back in the 2009-2013 time period? | ||
| I believe so. | ||
| Time period sounds correct. | ||
| Did they provide you any training in journalism? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Experience. | |
| I understand that you did the job for many years. | ||
| I'm sure you picked up some things, right? | ||
| But what I'm wondering, actually, is as part of your employment, did Fox provide you with formal training in journalism? | ||
| They did not send me to journalism school, no. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay. | |
| Now, at that time, I think it's fair to say that you're... | ||
| What you were doing for Fox was primarily concentrated on more comedic type presentations. | ||
| Is that fair? | ||
| No. | ||
| So back during the time period when you were working at Fox, would you say you were covering hard news at that point too? | ||
| Injection form. | ||
| Sometimes. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Okay, so you were doing hard news. | ||
| Really? | ||
| I do think that there's something, and I didn't talk to Mark about this at all, so this is not coming from him. | ||
| This is purely an observation that I have from watching this. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| I think Mark's, like, needling him a little bit. | ||
| There's a little bit of disrespect that is being implied through some of this, not to a level that's unprofessional necessarily, but... | ||
| I do get more of a feeling that he does not like Stephen. | ||
| I agree with you. | ||
| And I would even go so far as to say that his lawyer agrees with you because that objection form was actually like a, hey, don't be a dick. | ||
| Come on now. | ||
| That was 100% I know what you're doing, objection form. | ||
| But I can't be like, you're being a meanie. | ||
| So your journalism experience training is doing little comedy sketches, right? | ||
| Objection form. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| When Crowder was working at Fox, he was doing these hard news slash comedy things, and he started a YouTube channel, and eventually the audience grew. | ||
| And so the conversation comes up here about as your audience grows, do you have a greater responsibility to be accurate? | ||
| Now, ever since leaving Fox, say, the past ten years, it's fair to say that you've begun to amass a rather sizable audience. | ||
| Yes. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| You understand that as the size of your audience increased, the magnitude of potential harm that could be caused by publishing a false statement about someone also increased? | ||
| Yes. | ||
| And would you agree with me that as that potential magnitude for harm increased and your audience increased, your responsibility as a journalist also increased? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Objection, Warren? | |
| Well, I've never labeled myself a journalist, but yes. | ||
| I mean, well, you cover hard news. | ||
| We can agree with that. | ||
| Sure. | ||
| So does Jon Stewart. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Sure. | |
| Absolutely. | ||
| Right. | ||
| And let's make it clear, even today, on your show, in which you cover hard news, you also do things that are comedic. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| So, this Jon Stewart thing is not as good of a dodge as Crowder thinks it is. | ||
| For one thing, people in his end of the media constantly treat Jon Stewart as if he's one of the most important journalists in the mainstream media. | ||
| If you're saying that Stewart covers serious stuff and does jokes, then you think that journalists can cover serious stuff and do jokes. | ||
| You have actually just put yourself in a trap. | ||
| Also, if Jon Stewart went on The Daily Show and misidentified a mass shooter, he would get sued too. | ||
| The latitude that he might get because The Daily Show is funny doesn't extend as far as Crowder likes to pretend it does. | ||
| Like, if he did the same thing... | ||
| Yep. | ||
| It's not like, oh, you get a free pass because you're a lib or whatever. | ||
| Yeah, it is. | ||
| You're a professional, so you don't misidentify shooters. | ||
| Yeah, yeah, it's... | ||
| Okay, here's what I think, or like I wonder, and I don't know if we can answer this question today, but it is always... | ||
| There's no caravan at the border. | ||
| You know what I'm saying? | ||
| There is an awareness that we're pulling one over. | ||
| Right. | ||
| Right. | ||
| But in this situation, it feels like he does not actually have the awareness that he is... | ||
| What he is, you know what I mean? | ||
| That's something that I don't really... | ||
| Yeah, you say we don't know if we have an answer, and I don't know if I do, honestly. | ||
| That's the part where I think I'm worried about how stupid he is. | ||
| Yeah, could he... | ||
| Because I don't think if he was outside of this scenario, even in his quiet looking into a mirror, could he be able to actually answer these questions honestly? | ||
| Yeah, yeah, I don't know. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| I don't know. | ||
| And as we go through more of these clips, some of them are a little bit longer because I think you need the context of hearing how this progresses. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Like the thought-to-thought-to-thought thing of it. | ||
| If I just play, like some of them are like three minutes, and if they were a minute and a half, it would make no sense. | ||
| Right. | ||
| Because it just, it... | ||
| I dare you to tell me it does make sense after we listen to him. | ||
| It still doesn't, but the way that it doesn't make sense starts to make sense. | ||
| Right, right, right. | ||
| I was gonna say. | ||
| There are multiple times where it feels like Mark is trying to explain grammar to him. | ||
| Yeah, predicate is related to, yeah. | ||
| If this... | ||
| Yep, yep, yep, yep. | ||
| So one of the things that obviously is going on here at the beginning is this idea that you do funny things. | ||
| Right. | ||
| And I think that what's going on is that Mark is trying to eliminate the defense of, I'm just a clown! | ||
| And I don't think Crowder should abandon that. | ||
| It seems like he's willingly jumping into the, I'm eliminating the defense that I should be using. | ||
| Yeah, but he doesn't. | ||
| One of the things you offer your audience is fact-checking of the news, correct? | ||
| Correct. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| In fact, let's bring up tab one. | ||
| All right. | ||
| I want to show you something that was just posted to the website last week. | ||
| And as I think you may remember, we had this deposition scheduled for a few days ago. | ||
| But one of the reasons that we had rescheduled it... | ||
| Is so that you could do fact-checking at the DNC, correct? | ||
| Yeah, that's a portion of it, yes. | ||
| Okay, so for instance, in this broadcast, you'd be telling your audience, hey, certain claims are going to be made at the DNC, and we are going to use our skills to tell you what is real and what is not. | ||
| Is that fair? | ||
| Yes. | ||
| Okay. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So your audience can expect that you're going to be talking to them about matters of truth or falsity, right? | |
| Yes. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Do you agree it's reasonable for your audience to expect you to use the same level of care they would expect from any commercial media outlet? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| I mean, I guess what I'm getting at is... | ||
| It's not going to be your position that, hey, I'm just a clown. | ||
| I'm just a guy who plays dress up. | ||
| I'm not doing news. | ||
| That's not what your position is. | ||
| You do hard news. | ||
| Correct? | ||
| It depends on the context. | ||
| Absolutely. | ||
| Sure. | ||
| Like we said, there are some instances where your audience is clearly going to know that you're doing a comedic sketch, right? | ||
| Sure. | ||
| But your May 8th coverage of the Allen shooting... | ||
| That wasn't a comedy sketch. | ||
| I don't know if it included sketch elements. | ||
| We often mix news with sketch elements. | ||
| But no, not the commentary on the reporting, no. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay. | |
| I think that it's very unwise to cut this line of defense off for yourself this early. | ||
| Because what's the consequence to being like, yeah, I'm a dipshit. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| There's none. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| There's just pure self-image here. | ||
| Do you think that your audience is going to be diminished by you saying in this setting, I don't give a shit? | ||
| This is petty defiance as opposed to the defiance you really should be embodying if you wanted to navigate this. | ||
| Yeah, I mean, a clownish defiance would be both a perfect defense... | ||
| And reinforce the defense that you're lying about. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| At the very least, you know. | ||
| He should bring Nick DiPaolo along as his lawyer or something like that. | ||
| Totally. | ||
| He should make a farce of this whole thing. | ||
| Yeah, and then whenever, if this comes out and people are like, oh, look at what Steven Crowder said, you could be like, yes, look at what I said. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Instead of this, which is just kind of like... | ||
| You're a weasel child trying to get out of, like, a book report. | ||
| Kind of. | ||
| This is pathetic. | ||
| So they get into the discussion of the business and whether or not Stephen has a boss. | ||
| Right. | ||
| And it doesn't really appear that anyone can tell him what to do. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Let's talk a little bit about how things work at your business. | ||
| First of all, you're the boss at Lotter with Crowder, right? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I guess. | |
| Well, I mean, I'm guessing what I'm asking is... | ||
| If you're doing things throughout your workday, is there somebody who can come to you and says, Stephen, no, you can't cover that. | ||
| You're not allowed to do that. | ||
| Yes. | ||
| Okay, who would that person be? | ||
| My mom. | ||
| I'm going to be a multitude of people. | ||
| Oh. | ||
| So there are a multitude of people at Lauder of Crowder who have veto power over what you can cover on your show. | ||
| No, a multitude of people who have, you know, wise counsel. | ||
| Sure, I have a lot of people in my life who have wise counsel. | ||
| I listen to them and take their thoughts into consideration, but they don't have control over me. | ||
| And I'm wondering if there's anybody at Lauder with Crowder who has control over you, who says, if you do this, Stephen, you're fired. | ||
| You don't work here anymore. | ||
| At Lauder with Crowder? | ||
| No, no one can fire me. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| And if you want to say something on your show, is there anybody who can stop you? | ||
| On my show? | ||
| No. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| So you have ultimate responsibility for whatever's on the show. | ||
| No one can affect your editorial. | ||
| I think that Mark was fishing for, like, your dad. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| But, you know, this is just as good of an answer because now Crowder's responsible for everything. | ||
| Bananas. | ||
| Yep. | ||
| Bananas that you can pin yourself in here as being, like, both... | ||
| Oh, everybody can tell me what to cover, and also I tell everybody else what to do. | ||
| Your incrimination is of your own making, sir. | ||
| Yeah, see, that's the dynamic I was talking about early on. | ||
| He's like, everyone gives me wise counsel, but no one can tell me what to do. | ||
| You're evasive, but also stupid. | ||
| And I don't know which is the dominant force. | ||
| Yeah, yeah, yeah. | ||
| You're evading... | ||
| Believing yourself to be Bruce Lee. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| But in actuality, you're like, what if I run into a punch? | ||
| That's winning. | ||
| Yeah, you're a sloth. | ||
| Yeah, insane. | ||
| And not a quick one. | ||
| No. | ||
| So, we've seen these depositions with a lot of different people, and they have a lot of different styles of answering questions. | ||
| And I think that Crowder is unique in one way, for sure. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| And that is that, you know, Mark just asks him, Would it be your practice to confirm this shooter's picture? | ||
| He's like, no. | ||
| Alright! | ||
| Alright! | ||
| How about that? | ||
| That's good! | ||
| He kind of owns that it's like, no. | ||
| I don't need to confirm this. | ||
| I like that. | ||
| You would agree that it would be the usual practice of Louder with Crowder? | ||
| I'm going to put it in an easier way. | ||
| You agree it's your usual practice to verify the accuracy of images you share with your audience. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Objection. | |
| Can you, sorry, can you restate the question? | ||
| Yeah, sure. | ||
| If you're going to share images with your audience of news events, right, things that depict news events, it's your usual practice to verify the accuracy of those images before you show them. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Sometimes. | |
| Okay, let's make it more specific. | ||
| When you're going to share an image of a purported mass murder, It would be your usual practice to verify the accuracy of that image before showing it. | ||
| Objection form. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And to clarify, Mark, just so for reference, are you referring to Stephen individually or Ladder with Crowder? | |
| Him individually. | ||
| Me individually? | ||
| Then no. | ||
| No. | ||
| So there are, in other words, let's put it this way. | ||
| If you're going to use on May 8th an image, you're going to show your audience an image of who is purportedly the mass murderer. | ||
| Is that something you're going to see before you go air? | ||
| Or is this like a Ron Burgundy situation where you're seeing it for the first time? | ||
| I appreciate the reference, Ron Burgundy. | ||
| Based on Jim Walcott, actually, Canadian. | ||
| Objection, Ron. | ||
| There's a difference between breaking news, for example, someone's exclusive to us, where there's a... | ||
| Obviously a much more strict process of due diligence if we are the news. | ||
| Then there's reporting on the news that is available publicly or reporting on someone else's report. | ||
| So to answer your question, we would obviously ensure that the reporting on that person's reporting is accurate, meaning the original source would be the reporter. | ||
| So he's trying to make this distinction of... | ||
| First of all, the lawyer's question is very relevant. | ||
| Is it the business answer or Stephen? | ||
| Because Stephen can very easily be like, individually, no. | ||
| It's a bigger problem for the business. | ||
| But he's saying that if they have a scoop and they're going to report it, then there's a lot of fact-checking that needs to go into it. | ||
| But if they're just reporting on someone else's reporting, who gives a shit? | ||
| So that's kind of the angle that he's trying to take. | ||
| Which I actually think... | ||
| Is probably what a lot of these people should do. | ||
| I suppose. | ||
| But it also won't get them out of trouble. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| It's what they should do in terms of, like, yeah. | ||
| We're reporting on reporting. | ||
| It's what they believe they should do. | ||
| Whether or not they do it. | ||
| Do you know what I'm saying? | ||
| Like, not that they do it. | ||
| But that when asked these questions, the response they give is what they think they are doing because that's what they think they should be doing. | ||
| They just won't admit that they're not actually doing it. | ||
| Well, they want the presentation to the audience of what they're doing to be a lot more serious and severe than what they are doing. | ||
| Right. | ||
| But this is really what actually they're doing, which is... | ||
| I saw a headline. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
|
unidentified
|
But... | |
| I think that at least it's biting a bullet in some ways that I think you kind of have to. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah! | |
| And I don't think I've seen that level of just like, yeah, no, it's not my practice to verify every image that I show the audience. | ||
| Like, owning that is something that I think Crowder does that some of the other folks haven't. | ||
| Yeah, see, I think that's definitely part of it. | ||
| That's why I would want to do as much research and like... | ||
| I'm going to familiarize myself with everything that's going on here as much as possible because if I know I'm going to eat shit, then I'm going to bring a clown nose, you know? | ||
| And I'm going to honk my nose whenever I'm going to eat. | ||
| Do you fact check? | ||
| No. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Honk! | |
| You know, like, yeah. | ||
| What are we going to do? | ||
| Let's move on. | ||
| Let's go. | ||
| Next question. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| If there's no way I'm coming out of this with looking serious, then I'm going to really not look serious. | ||
| Then I'm really going to not look serious. | ||
| I'm not going to try and be like salvage some... | ||
| No, no, no. | ||
| I lost. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| So there's an interesting... | ||
| A thing that ends up happening at a few points during this deposition, which made me very uncomfortable, and that is that Crowder tries to get fancy. | ||
| Oh, boy. | ||
| And this was the first time that I really felt, like, worried during the deposition. | ||
| Mark asks about sort of fact-checking other people's news that you're reporting on. | ||
| So, in terms of sharing an image, right? | ||
| I believe what I'm hearing is that if it is your original reporting, you would have a higher level of care than when you are repeating someone else's reporting. | ||
| Is that fair? | ||
| No, what I'm saying is that there's a difference between breaking news being the subject of news and reporting on someone else's news. | ||
| So use your example like the DNC. | ||
| That's their story. | ||
| They run images or claims. | ||
| So we report on what they are running. | ||
| All right, let me give you an example. | ||
| If the DNC puts up an image of Mount Rushmore and says this is the Washington Monument, you would be able to fairly and accurately report the DNC is saying that this picture is the Washington Monument. | ||
| That's fine. | ||
| We're on the same page so far? | ||
| Yes, and I would show their picture. | ||
| Alright, it would be different to say, here is a picture that the DNC is showing that they say is Mount Rushmore. | ||
| And I'm telling you, they're right. | ||
| That's different in your mind, right? | ||
| No. | ||
| That's the same thing. | ||
| So you can, in other words, this is what I'm trying to get at. | ||
| It is okay for you without investigating. | ||
| To report someone else's accusation as truthful? | ||
| To report their reporting as authentic and truthful? | ||
| Yes. | ||
| If I believed it was Mount Rushmore and they told me it was Mount Rushmore and showed a picture, I'd show their picture. | ||
| And do it without any further checking? | ||
| Myself, at that moment in time, if I believed it was Mount Rushmore, why would I not believe the DNC? | ||
| That's a good question. | ||
| DNC is an organization you might not always believe though, right? | ||
| That's fair. | ||
| Touche! | ||
| Depends on who they are. | ||
| So in other words, what I'm saying is not all sources are equal, are they? | ||
| That's fair. | ||
| Yeah, I stepped in it. | ||
| I really tried to pull off a fun I'm debating a college kid change of my mind table kind of move. | ||
| Unreal. | ||
| That's awful. | ||
| Depose me, bro. | ||
| There is no reason for him to try something like this. | ||
| This is... | ||
| He must think that he's in a situation where there's no follow-ups. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Or there's no... | ||
| He's talking to an idiot. | ||
| I mean, it is. | ||
| But yes, he does. | ||
| He always thinks he's talking to an idiot. | ||
| You know, like he feels like he was like, oh, let me explain to you this thing. | ||
| Like, you know why we're here, buddy. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| But I guess you don't. | ||
| So Stephen is now staked out a position that if he is a show that purports to fact-check news like the DNC, but also if he believes that they're telling the truth, he can report to his audience that a picture of the Washington Monument they posted claiming it was Mount Rushmore is in fact Mount Rushmore. | ||
| He's claiming that he's fact-checking, but also if he wants to, he can just not fact-check. | ||
| Right. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And say that not true things are accurate. | |
| Right. | ||
|
unidentified
|
His position is incoherent because he's trying to answer questions in a way that he thinks will actually one up Mark's questions. | |
| It's wild to see because it's 100 percent doomed to failure. | ||
| But you get the sense that Stephen keeps seeing possible little logic windows that he might be able to squeeze through. | ||
| And then it's just like he gets deflated when he realizes that Mark's not impressed and has a follow up question like. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Like, yeah, maybe the DNC is, uh, maybe you don't trust them. | |
| Yeah, maybe that's true. | ||
| At no point in time is any lawyer ever going to be like, whoa, holy shit, and then that'll be it. | ||
| You're not going to blow minds here. | ||
| No. | ||
| This is not the place for that. | ||
| There might as well be a force field that is like, leave your cognitive dissonance at the door. | ||
| You cannot hold two competing truths in your head in this room. | ||
| Yeah, and the only way you're gonna, like, get a dunk moment or something like this is to do, like, what Alex did, where he was yelling like Epstein didn't kill himself. | ||
| Absolutely. | ||
| Like, just talk about something off-topic and yell. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Make a scene. | ||
| You can't get a gotcha moment like this through some kind of elaborate... | ||
| Like, logic puzzle kind of way. | ||
| You're going to hit a wall. | ||
| This is amazing. | ||
| The confidence with which these people behave is insane. | ||
| Because when I stop and really think about it, the idea of going into another professional person's arena and then, like, acting like they don't know what's going on, despite the fact that you yourself have proudly said you don't know what's going on. | ||
| Is insane. | ||
| Yeah, it would be like Steven Crowder getting into a roast battle with Don Rickles. | ||
| Yeah! | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah! | |
| Not gonna go great. | ||
| Oh, it's me one-on-one against LeBron! | ||
| No! | ||
| Not a smart move, man! | ||
| So, on one of the other depositions, we heard the why is it important to have sources question, which you very astutely pointed out was a trap. | ||
| Here is another bit of a trap, which is why is it important to get things correct? | ||
| Would you agree that it's important to verify the accuracy of an image of a purported mass murderer before showing it to your audience? | ||
| Yes. | ||
| Why is it important to verify the image of a mass murderer before showing it to your audience? | ||
| Same reason that it would be important to verify anything. | ||
| Why is that? | ||
| If you are making a definitive claim, you should do your best to be accurate. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Why? | |
| Because truth matters. | ||
| Just intrinsically or why? | ||
| Things happen? | ||
|
unidentified
|
What can happen? | |
| Intrinsically. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| So, do you understand, though, that if false information is posted about somebody, is published about somebody, that can have effects on the people who are the subject matter of those reports? | ||
| I would assume so. | ||
| Is that something that you can... | ||
| Let's put it this way. | ||
| If you have news that you're going to report that if false could have a damaging effect on someone's reputation or cause them grief, you would agree you need to take special care with that kind of news. | ||
| If one is making a definitive claim, they should do their best to be accurate. | ||
| So you can see, I think that this clip actually gives a real interesting view of two sides of attention that is boiling under the surface here that can never really be resolved. | ||
| On Mark's side, he's trying to bring up the fact that actions have concrete consequences. | ||
| In this case, the act of not checking your facts has led to a man being incorrectly branded as a mass murderer and directed harassment at a private individual. | ||
| This is part of why it's important to get things right, because if you don't, you can hurt people and cause damage. | ||
| On Stephen's side, he's trying to argue that no matter the consequences, it's just intrinsically important to be right. | ||
| It's an abstraction, which is okay to believe, but it's being deployed here to evade responsibility. | ||
| In his view, the reason it's bad to get things wrong is that there's a platonic ideal of the truth that you have a responsibility to, and violating that is always wrong. | ||
| That's great, and it sounds noble and high-minded, but Crowder's only pretending to believe that because he knows that the court can't do shit about enforcing platonic ideas. | ||
| ideals. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| He doesn't believe in this as a philosophical idea at all. | ||
| It's just that he thinks that it absolves him from human consequences for his actions. | ||
| I will be judged on the day I die for my adherence to the truth, which is intrinsically important as opposed to like, no, no. | ||
| Who cares? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| That's the consequence and the reason we're here. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Another deposition pro tip, alright? | ||
| This is what I would have done. | ||
| Once I get asked one of those questions, like at the beginning, that Steven Crowder answered as though it was a question. | ||
| Right? | ||
| It's the first thing I would be like, hey, you can't talk to me like a child. | ||
| Sorry. | ||
| No thanks. | ||
| You're going to have to rephrase that like I'm an adult. | ||
| Even if I'm not. | ||
| Because that way, an adult question is much easier to be like no or yes to without looking like an idiot. | ||
| You know what I'm saying? | ||
| Yeah, but I think as we get deeper into this, you'll realize that that's just not going to work. | ||
| Like, asking adult-y questions. | ||
| Yeah! | ||
| You kind of have to, like... | ||
| Draw a picture for him. | ||
| It is really bad. | ||
| It's really bad that I... | ||
| Because I can't even imagine allowing somebody to talk to me like that. | ||
| I would be like, we cannot continue if you ask me questions in that tone and with that angle. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| I think that it's earned. | ||
| Oh, no, I agree. | ||
| But I also agree that if it were me, we wouldn't get to the point where I'm being asked questions like a child. | ||
| That's definitely true. | ||
| That's definitely true. | ||
| I also wouldn't enjoy it. | ||
| Yeah, no, this is unacceptable. | ||
| When you're talking about pro tips, I think another good pro tip is don't get heady. | ||
| Don't get philosophical. | ||
| Absolutely not. | ||
| You're in a deposition. | ||
| You're not going to argue for your... | ||
| It's not an argument. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| You're not going to be able to succeed in destroying consequentialist ethics in this room. | ||
| Totally. | ||
| It's not going to work. | ||
| Just shut up. | ||
| This isn't even the room where the argument happens in for real. | ||
| No. | ||
| This is just a conversation. | ||
| Yeah, crazy. | ||
| So as Crowder is sort of a journalist, Mark asks him what would be described as a very basic journalism question, which is, what's the difference? | ||
| Oh, you should get that within two semesters of school. | ||
| I think that Stephen understands it and also doesn't. | ||
| Do you know the difference between a primary and a secondary source? | ||
| Yes. | ||
| Okay, can you help us understand that first by telling us what is a primary source? | ||
| It would depend on the context when you're discussing journalism or if you're discussing, like I said, commenting on someone else's journalism. | ||
| Primary source would be the primary reference point person who's the originator of it. | ||
| The secondary source would be a corroborating resource. | ||
| Confirming or also covering it. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| I'm going to kind of give you what I believe would be the understanding that I'm operating from, just so we can talk using the same terminology. | ||
| If I'm going to talk about a chair, I'm going to tell you what a chair is. | ||
| Have you ever heard that a primary source would be information that originates from a person or entity that is either has a firsthand account or isn't actively involved in the events being reported? | ||
| Yes. | ||
| Okay. | ||
|
unidentified
|
And then a newspaper, for instance, or a academic treatise or some other publication that is writing about an event that it did not have firsthand involvement in, that would be a secondary source. | |
| Does that seem fair? | ||
| Yes. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay. | |
| Right. | ||
| In terms of... | ||
|
unidentified
|
Let me do it this way. | |
| You would agree you should not display the image of a suspected mass murderer unless the image had been confirmed by someone involved in the official investigation or by reference to some kind of primary source. | ||
| Do you agree with that? | ||
| No. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| And would you agree that you don't fulfill your responsibility In verifying the photo of a mass murderer by assuming that another news organization has verified the photo. | ||
|
unidentified
|
No. | |
| Okay. | ||
| I don't agree. | ||
| Interesting. | ||
| Is that possible? | ||
| What are the requirements for publishing a photo allegedly showing a mass murderer? | ||
| Objection form. | ||
| So the process would be similar for any stories in which we're not the primary source, to use your example, would be to find at least one source that would be legitimate. | ||
| So usually that's why, you know, when we provide references, we also have sources, which we make available every day for every show, and then confirm it with another source where it is available. | ||
| That would be the process when someone else is reporting. | ||
| Does it matter who's reporting it? | ||
| That's why I said you try and find the most credible source to use as a primary source. | ||
| If there is a new study conducted on, let's say, COVID intervention, primary source would be one on PubMed, the people who conducted the trial. | ||
| Secondary source would be CNN covering said clinical trial. | ||
| So, same principle, but it's a little different when covering someone else's reporting. | ||
| So the primary source that we would look for would be as authoritative as available at that time. | ||
| I think that there's something wild going on here, and that is that the example that Crowder gave there at the end is correct. | ||
| Yes. | ||
| That would be a primary and a secondary source. | ||
| It would be. | ||
| But conceptually, I don't think he understands what the words mean. | ||
| I agree with you. | ||
| I think he means the primary source is the one that we're basing this stuff on, and then the secondary one is corroborating or background. | ||
| It gives us more excuse to believe the first... | ||
| Primary source. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| It's like, this is the one that we'll defend ourselves with, and then if called upon, we'll be like, oh, they're also reporting it. | ||
| It's like first and second, not primary and secondary in terms of, this is actually a descriptive term that means something about the quality of the source. | ||
| Totally. | ||
| And I think it's within his own accidental correctness, is that his primary source would be PubMed, not the actual study. | ||
| It would be that it was posted somewhere. | ||
| I read an abstract on this thing, not the actual study. | ||
| So that's my primary source of this thing existing. | ||
| Right, but that's close to actually being like, I'm talking about the study and I'm pointing to the study. | ||
| That's pretty close to a primary. | ||
| That understanding is there, but that's not how he's using it. | ||
| He's using it as first and second. | ||
| I think there's a lot of... | ||
| These people and their ilk don't understand words, but they gathered a meaning from context clues in places that they couldn't understand them, decided that that meaning worked like a bad puzzle piece, and have clung to it, regardless of any kind of further information. | ||
| Yep. | ||
| Yep. | ||
| That's what it seems to be. | ||
| But I will say that at least... | ||
| You know, you're hearing in there this kind of like, I don't really have any responsibility to check other people's work or whatever. | ||
| And I think that, you know, I don't want to say it's to his credit, but that is at least true. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| To what Stephen believes. | ||
| Yes. | ||
| He is at least not lying about that. | ||
| Yes. | ||
| All right, so to use that example, if you didn't have access to the PubMed article... | ||
| But you did have access to a CNN report in which they reported on the PubMed article and cited that PubMed article. | ||
| That's probably okay to report on. | ||
| You would agree? | ||
| I would report according to CNN. | ||
| Right. | ||
| What if CNN didn't have any sort of primary source? | ||
| What if CNN just reported a fact but it didn't have any source? | ||
| That's why I would report it according to CNN. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| And it would be important for you to make clear that you had not been able to verify that. | ||
| Would you agree to that? | ||
|
unidentified
|
No. | |
| Okay. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| That's interesting. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| But at least that's a position that tracks with him. | ||
| There's no pretense of, like, I'm also the best. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| That's definitely true. | ||
| So in the aftermath of the shooting, after everything, more information came out, it was very clear that the reporting that he was a Nazi guy was correct. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| And that Steven, the mugshot that they used, was incorrect. | ||
| Right. | ||
| And so Mark walks through some of this evidence, and there's a real... | ||
| Interesting. | ||
| And by interesting, I mean obvious dynamic that's going on where Crowder can't deny this evidence. | ||
| Right. | ||
| That refuses to acknowledge that this guy was a Nazi. | ||
| Interesting. | ||
| Let's talk a little bit about this incident we're here about today. | ||
| You understand that on May 6, 2023, a neo-Nazi mass shooter murdered several people at the Allen outlet malls? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Projection form. | |
| No. | ||
| You don't understand that right now, sitting here today? | ||
| The way you said it, no. | ||
| Help me understand what you mean by that. | ||
| What is it about that? | ||
| I don't understand a neo-Nazi mass shooter, no. | ||
| Mass shooter, yes. | ||
| Neo-Nazi mass shooter, no. | ||
| Okay, you're aware that the shooter had tattooed neo-Nazi symbols on his body? | ||
| Sure. | ||
| You're aware he did it with a right-wing Def Squad vest. | ||
| You don't contest any of that? | ||
| I'm aware that it was reported, yeah. | ||
| Well, I'm not asking you whether it was reported. | ||
| I'm asking you whether you can, like, do you believe that's true? | ||
| Do you contest that? | ||
| No, I don't contest any of the tattoos, no. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| So, I guess the hang-up is, you have a shooter who's tattooed up with a Swastika and SS lightning bolts. | ||
| But you're hesitant to call that a neo-Nazi message? | ||
| Correct. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| There's a real stickler on this point. | ||
| Fine to just randomly post a mugshot that he found somewhere, but real stickler about this. | ||
| It's very suspicious that this is something that is really... | ||
| Like, I need hard confirmation on this in order to... | ||
| It's almost notable. | ||
| That is fucking weird, man. | ||
| Just... | ||
| Let it go? | ||
| Sure. | ||
| It's not hard. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yep. | |
| It's not even hard for most of them. | ||
| Why him specifically? | ||
| Did he know the guy? | ||
| Well, probably not. | ||
| I would assume not. | ||
| But these people, if someone had a hammer and a sickle tattoo, they'd be screaming he's a communist. | ||
| Absolutely. | ||
| Even if it was less clear than that. | ||
| And it's not even like, this isn't to bring up the hypocrisy element. | ||
| It's just to point out like, This is insane! | ||
| Yeah, it's not to point out hypocrisy, it's to point out the, like, this is indicative. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| This behavior is, it illustrates a fundamental aspect of why they do what they do. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Right. | |
| And the lengths to which they will absolutely reject reality to achieve it. | ||
| And to protect that ability to play this game. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| So, I found this also to be a little bit rough. | ||
| Like, Crowder is trying to be fancy. | ||
| He's trying to, like, aha, but what about? | ||
| Kind of stuff. | ||
| And he just keeps... | ||
| It's like a Looney Tunes. | ||
| What's the point of a lawyer if they're there and they're not going, like, don't do this, buddy? | ||
| I don't know. | ||
| I don't know. | ||
| But he could have avoided hitting a lot of walls. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Right? | |
| Let's talk about the show, the May 8th show. | ||
| In that show, you told the audience that the media was lying about the shooting and that you were going to show them the true information, right? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I don't know if those are my words, but okay. | |
| Well, let's pull up Tab 2. How is it... | ||
| All right, I'm showing you now what is tab two. | ||
| We'll be offering this as exhibit two. | ||
| This is, every day with your show, there's also a webpage posted called the show notes, right? | ||
| Yes. | ||
| Okay, and today I'm just going to read the first paragraph here. | ||
| There was a deadly mass shooting in Allen, Texas, and we have information on the killer, Mauricio Garcia. | ||
| We'll be refuting the media's lies. | ||
| About the fact that he was a white supremacist and so much more. | ||
| You see that? | ||
| I do. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| So again, you had information on the shooter and you were going to refute the media's lies, right? | ||
| Yes. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| So when viewers tuned into this, they could reasonably expect that you were going to be trying to provide them with true information about the shooter. | ||
| Yes. | ||
| And that in providing that information, the information that you had, you could demonstrate that the media was lying about the shooting. | ||
| Primarily that the media was lying about the shooter. | ||
| Oh my God. | ||
| It seems to be written there by Brodigan, yes. | ||
| Sure, let's change that. | ||
| Because the shooting itself is a bigger topic than the shooter, right? | ||
| Just one person. | ||
| So let me ask that again. | ||
| You had information on the shooter. | ||
| And you would be refuting the media's lies about the shooter. | ||
| Well, that's a description written by Brodigan on the website, a synopsis of the show. | ||
| I spoke on the program regarding the media lies and what they were. | ||
| Let's take a look at that. | ||
| Let's bring up Tab 3. Oh, God. | ||
| That's where you've got to be real worried. | ||
| He keeps being like, well, you know... | ||
| I don't know if those are my words. | ||
| Let's pull up a... | ||
| Do you think I don't have your words? | ||
| What are you fucking doing? | ||
| Do you think that they don't prepare? | ||
| Like, what are you expecting here, Steve? | ||
| It is the level of, like, if I cover my eyes, then I'm invisible, so you can't see me. | ||
| Like, it is insane that, like, well, I didn't read any of this to prepare, so you probably didn't either. | ||
| Yeah, I don't care about this, so why should you? | ||
| It's wild. | ||
| It's just banana peels. | ||
| He's walking along, hitting a banana peel, kicking back up, hitting another banana peel. | ||
| It's crazy. | ||
| Maybe I should have asked this question better at some point in time. | ||
| Is there a law in these depositions that says the lawyer can't say anything but objection, one thing or another? | ||
| I think yes. | ||
| I think you're not supposed to. | ||
| I think it's bad form to... | ||
| Because I know that when Barnes was getting into arguments with the lawyers and stuff, that was... | ||
| Considered poor form. | ||
| Sure, but I mean, I'm not even talking about that. | ||
| I mean, like, as a lawyer to my client, can I say something like, hey, that is a question that you must answer, honestly, but try not doing it like a fucking idiot. | ||
| I think that would be poor form, too. | ||
| What I think you can do is, like, request a break and, like, talk to your client. | ||
| Sure. | ||
| I think that you can do that. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay. | |
| I think that's more the accepted... | ||
| All right, so if I'm a good lawyer... | ||
| And by that, I'm going to mean somebody who is looking out for the interests of their client as opposed to their own personal interests. | ||
| I am saying, let's go outside for a second. | ||
| Okay, now we're outside. | ||
| Keep your answers to yes or no. | ||
| You sound like a fucking moron, right? | ||
| But now, if I'm out here looking for billable hours, I'm going... | ||
| Objection form. | ||
| If you're looking out for the interest of the client, you request a break and pull a fire alarm. | ||
| I mean, this is crazy. | ||
| How do you listen to this as a person's lawyer who is there for them and not go like, oh, this sounds dumb? | ||
| I don't know. | ||
| How do you be an agent or a manager and see him do stand-up and think, like, this is a good set? | ||
| That's a really good point. | ||
| How are you his dad or one of his producers and be like, this show is crushing it? | ||
| I guess if you're his dad, you have a biological imperative to care in some form or another. | ||
| I don't know if it extends to thinking his show is good. | ||
|
unidentified
|
It doesn't extend in that way to my family. | |
| So, Mark, at the end of that last clip, was like, let's go to the clip. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Sure. | |
| Let's hear you on the show. | ||
| If we have to do this, we have to do it. | ||
| Yeah, you can say that Brodigan or whoever is writing on the website, but what about you? | ||
| Fine. | ||
| And so here is the clip from Stephen's show. | ||
| Jesus Christ. | ||
| I spoke on. | ||
| The program regarding the media lies and what they were. | ||
| Let's take a look at that. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Let's bring up tab three. | |
| All right. | ||
| I'm going to show you an excerpt that I want to ask you some questions about from your May 8th show. | ||
| So let's play that now. | ||
| Who the shooter was first. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| So you're going to hear the media give you some reports. | ||
| A lot of what they say is bullshit. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Shooter was a 33-year-old Hispanic male. | ||
| His name was Mauricio Garcia. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oh. | |
| Mauricio Garcia. | ||
| Oh, I said it twice. | ||
| The reason that we are pulling this, and you're asking yourself because we make the references available, we're pulling this from Today News Africa, is because it's the only news outfit showing you the shooter's face. | ||
| You won't find his face in, here you go, NBC, Wall Street Journal, CNN, CBS, Washington Post. | ||
| They want to tell you. | ||
| That he was a white supremacist. | ||
| Yes. | ||
| And not see his very Hispanic-looking face. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Right. | |
| And a second ago, I actually signaled you, because CNN had that lower kind of chyron that said, basically, that this person was influenced by white supremacy. | ||
| That's the headline that they're running with right now, over, over, over, over. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| To make sure they drill it in. | ||
| Okay, my first question is, in the lead-up to that show, you had been reviewing a lot of media coverage about the shooting. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Injection form. | |
| Yes. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| And that review of the media coverage showed that Today News Africa was the only news outfit reported to show a picture of the shooter's face. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Correct? | |
| Can you repeat the question? | ||
| Yeah, sure. | ||
| That review of media coverage That showed that Today News Africa was the only news outfit purported to show the shooter's face. | ||
| No. | ||
| Okay, so when you said we're pulling this from Today News Africa, it's because it's the only news outfit showing you the shooter's face. | ||
| That wasn't accurate. | ||
| Sorry, what was the last part of that question? | ||
| That wasn't accurate, what you said in the video. | ||
| What I was saying was it was the only place. | ||
| Currently... | ||
| With an article including the image of the shooter. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| As I believed it. | ||
| Right. | ||
| So when you were making that broadcast, your review of media had shown you that Today News Africa was the only news outfit doing that, showing a purported picture of the shooter's face. | ||
| No. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| I'm a little confused because I thought what you said was that at that time, that's why you said that it's the only news outfit showing you the shooter's face. | ||
| Is that right or is that not right? | ||
| It was the only place at that moment in time with an active article including that image. | ||
| Of course, there are many other places that are created for social media. | ||
| So, at that moment in time, because it was a Wally House press credentialed reporter. | ||
| Well, no, that's all I'm asking about is that moment in time. | ||
| And that they're the only news outfit purporting to show the shooter's face. | ||
| We can agree with that. | ||
| I don't. | ||
| Can you tell me the news outfits that at that moment in time were showing the shooter's face? | ||
| No, it would be difficult to remember. | ||
| It was everywhere on social media and different articles. | ||
| Steven looks like a total idiot here because he's trying to pretend not to understand a very basic question about what he said on his show, which he just listened to. | ||
| He just listened to the show. | ||
| Can't be like, I don't remember what I said. | ||
| In the clip, Stephen said that he used Today News Africa as a source because no one else would post the mugshot since they didn't want everyone to know that the shooter was a Hispanic man. | ||
| The point he's making relies on an understanding that he had to choose this source because he reviewed all the other news outlets and they were all too anti-white to post the mugshot. | ||
| Hence, he had to go with this one. | ||
| Mark is trying to ask about this because it implies a level of heavy preparation behind the statements that Steven's making, and one might think that if he did any preparation for his show, it's certainly strange that he didn't notice glaring problems like how the shooter wouldn't have a booking for him. | ||
| photo because he was dead and had no criminal history. | ||
| Stephen is playing these kinds of verbal games because the alternative is to admit in this deposition room that he knows that his job is to spout bullshit meant to defend white identity beliefs. | ||
| and That's probably not something that his dad wants. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Another thing that I would explain to him if I was a lawyer, if I was his lawyer, and again, not trying to get billable hours, is that essentially what you're experiencing in this deposition is an algebra problem. | ||
| Right? | ||
| So we've got whatever algebra... | ||
| I don't even remember what this formula means. | ||
| Y equals MX equals B. Whatever. | ||
| I think that's about slopes. | ||
| Something like that. | ||
| Y equals MX plus B? | ||
| Sounds right to me. | ||
| So... | ||
| The point being here is once we figure out what B is, that's this series of questions. | ||
| I am narrowing down the answer to determine exactly what B is. | ||
| Then this series of questions gives us M. Then this series of questions gives us X. And no matter what you say, now I know what Y is. | ||
| So once we get to the why part, you have to answer why, whether you like it or not. | ||
| The math is done. | ||
| And if you don't, we kind of have figured it out. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| We know what you're doing. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| And so also, the thing that's interesting about this case is that the name is correct. | ||
| Mauricio Garcia is the right name of the shooter. | ||
| It's just that the picture was the wrong Mauricio Garcia. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Right. | |
| So, like, him saying the name isn't that big of a deal. | ||
| It's the showing the image. | ||
| Yeah, yeah, yeah. | ||
| And so that also becomes really complicated in the deposition setting because he's, you know, you can say the name and you're referring to both people, sort of. | ||
| There's a lack of clarity sometimes. | ||
| So Stephen has this problem, and that is that the media didn't report a picture of the shooter at all. | ||
| Right. | ||
| And so he's defending himself publishing this wrong photo because no one else published a photo of the shooter. | ||
| Right. | ||
| And so Mark is trying to walk him through this and understand how syntax works. | ||
| Right. | ||
| And this is just troubling from a mental understanding. | ||
| From an adult man. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| I want to ask you, though, in the video, you said... | ||
| You won't find his face in NBC, Wall Street Journal, CNN, CBS, Washington Post. | ||
| They want to tell you that he was a white supremacist and not see his very Hispanic-looking face. | ||
| Do you remember seeing that in the video? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| All right. | ||
| So we can agree that you told your viewers that mainstream media outlets were hiding the picture from the public for nefarious political reasons. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Injection four. | |
| Which picture? | ||
| The picture you were displaying from Today News? | ||
| No. | ||
| No, I don't agree. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| So when you said that you won't find his face in those outlets, and they want to tell you that he was a white supremacist and not see his very Hispanic-looking face, you're saying that's a choice they made, right? | ||
| These media outlets made a choice. | ||
| To include no image verification, yes. | ||
| To include no images of the shooter, right? | ||
| Right. | ||
| And the reason that they didn't include pictures of the shooter, the reason you had to get it from Today News Africa is because they didn't want the public to see the shooter's face. | ||
| That was what you were telling your audience. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Objection form. | |
| No. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| I'm having trouble reconciling what you're saying now with what you said in the video because you said straight up that They don't want you to see his very Hispanic-looking face. | ||
| Right. | ||
| So we can say the media outlets made a decision for political reasons to say that he was a white supremacist that they did not want to show his face. | ||
| Right? | ||
| That's what you were telling your audience. | ||
| Just show any images, sure. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| I'm sorry? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Right. | |
| And you had an image, right? | ||
| You had one that you think they should have shown. | ||
| Objection form. | ||
| No, I believe they should have shown any image. | ||
| I'm sorry? | ||
| Oh, my God. | ||
| Just exhausting. | ||
| Just what is this person talking about? | ||
| Wow. | ||
| Obviously, it's just, I wanted to say that this was a Hispanic person. | ||
| I wanted to talk about that. | ||
| And I didn't like it. | ||
| The media was saying that he was a white supremacist. | ||
| And that bothered me. | ||
| Wah. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| I have, okay. | ||
| Maybe here's what we, here's what, oh no, I just don't know how you can do it. | ||
| I will say. | ||
| Or perhaps this, right? | ||
| Okay, we all know that enhanced interrogation techniques don't work to get accurate information. | ||
| They only work to get information that you already want to get because you won't stop until you receive that information, right? | ||
| But there's got to be something to keep that... | ||
| Pulling teeth from happening. | ||
| So I say we pull teeth! | ||
| Alright? | ||
| Anytime we get into there, we get to take a tooth. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| We get to take a full Crowder tooth. | ||
| Anytime we get into a position where we're explaining how just basic words and their relationship to each other in a sentence where you got a tooth coming. | ||
| Right, right, right. | ||
| I don't think you should torture to get information. | ||
| But you should torture to... | ||
| Get somebody to understand the basics of language. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I don't feel like I'm not going in a good place with this. | |
| I don't agree with you on this. | ||
| I don't either! | ||
| But I also think that when you have somebody who's showcasing this level of understanding about what things mean, I don't think you can ask them questions. | ||
| I really don't know if it's productive because they're just kind of... | ||
| Dumb. | ||
| Yeah, yeah. | ||
| And I don't mean that to be like, you're worse as a person if you're dumb. | ||
| But he's not equipped to understand what some of these concepts mean. | ||
| Right. | ||
| Or deal with the relationships between ideas. | ||
| Like, it's just, he is dumb. | ||
| Yeah, I mean, maybe, you know, not inherently, not dumb in the sense of like, this man was born dumb. | ||
| But dumb in the sense that he has willfully remained ignorant of things that he should absolutely know in order to function in a society that shares these... | ||
| And presented himself as, like, an expert in the world of taking these ideas into account. | ||
| It's a mess. | ||
| Yeah, no, his sentence should be going to school. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| And, like, it just gets worse. | ||
| So Mark's trying to explain to him that there are two possibilities in front of us. | ||
| And one is that the media decided not to post this picture because they're doing a cover-up. | ||
| Right. | ||
| And the other one is they had seen the photo that you used and decided it wasn't good. | ||
| Right. | ||
| So is... | ||
| Talk! | ||
| Exactly. | ||
| I want to talk about two possibilities that existed for you on May 8th. | ||
|
unidentified
|
All right? | |
| One possibility is that major media organizations made a decision that they were not going to show any pictures of the shooter's face. | ||
| And they were doing that because they wanted to press a story about white supremacy. | ||
| And a second possibility is that those news organizations were either unable to confirm the accuracy of a photo, or they had already determined that the photo that you were showing was false. | ||
| You understand those two possibilities? | ||
|
unidentified
|
No. | |
| I'm not saying you agree with them. | ||
| I'm understanding you understand that those are two possibilities. | ||
| No, the second one is not possible. | ||
| It is not possible that the news organizations you were referring to were either unable to confirm the accuracy of the photo or had already determined it was false. | ||
| You're saying that's impossible. | ||
| You just said it had determined the image I showed was false. | ||
| Correct. | ||
| They would not have been able to do that because I was reporting on their reporting. | ||
| So they wouldn't have been able to report on my image being false or confirm it because... | ||
| Their stories were already out there. | ||
| It wasn't your image, though. | ||
| Right? | ||
| Beg your pardon? | ||
| We just talked about, you didn't break the symbol. | ||
| You said second possibility definitively using that they determined my image was false. | ||
| The image you used. | ||
| So that wouldn't be possible. | ||
| Let's rephrase that, because I'm just saying the image you used. | ||
| Let's take the image you used and divorce it from your production. | ||
| That is a physical image that existed out there in the world. | ||
| That image, yes. | ||
| It is totally possible that the reason the media wasn't printing any pictures of the shooter is because they'd been unable to confirm the authenticity of any picture, or they had already confirmed that that picture we're talking about, that picture of my client, they had already determined it was false. | ||
| That's possible. | ||
| It's possible. | ||
| By God. | ||
| You have one, where the media intentionally doesn't want to show the picture for political reasons. | ||
| Or two, they'd simply been unable to confirm a picture. | ||
| The second possibility is more likely. | ||
| You'll agree to that? | ||
| No, I don't agree. | ||
| Alright. | ||
| So, it's a faint praise, but there's a small little bit of like, well, at least Stephen's sticking to his guns here. | ||
| You know, at least at the end, he's just being like, yeah, no, that's not more likely. | ||
| The very obviously more likely scenario is not more likely. | ||
| But this is worrying. | ||
| Like, this is... | ||
| Steven is either so stupid or is so bad at arguing that he thinks that he's got a gotcha moment out of, like, no, it's impossible that they could have fact-checked my story before I did the story. | ||
| Totally. | ||
| You can't time travel. | ||
| Ha-ha! | ||
| Ergo, I win. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| It's really, really, really dumb. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Yeah, it is to the point now where it feels like... | ||
| It feels like beating up on a child. | ||
| And it feels like the lawyer should act as the... | ||
| Should step in, in some form or another, to be like... | ||
| Mark, my client's not capable of understanding your words. | ||
| Throw in the towel. | ||
| Yeah, like, here's what you do. | ||
| You send me a bunch of things that you want him to have said. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| And put a little blank there. | ||
| I'll give him a stamp that says yes or no, and he'll just at random press yes or no to fill in the blanks. | ||
| Yeah, like, I felt really bad for Rob Dew whenever he was doing his corporate representative deposition, but it was bad in a way of like, oh, you're in over your head, buddy. | ||
| Yeah, totally. | ||
| And there was not... | ||
| He doesn't comprehend this. | ||
| It's just like, you're never going to be able to navigate this thing you're unprepared for. | ||
| With Stephen, it does feel like the slaughter rule should be enacted. | ||
| Totally! | ||
| In a way that I don't think I've seen since maybe... | ||
| I don't know if I've seen it in any of these depositions. | ||
| Honestly, Kit Daniels started crying, and that is even less embarrassing. | ||
| No, that actually... | ||
| Him crying... | ||
| Suggests an awareness of what is occurring in totality. | ||
| It's a recognition of reality and being overwhelmed by what has happened. | ||
| Totally. | ||
| And that is human and respectable. | ||
| Totally. | ||
| This is somebody who can't really even fully engage with ideas. | ||
| Yeah, and like you're saying, with Rob, it wasn't a matter of like, I don't understand what's going on. | ||
| It's a matter of once Rob got it, he was like, oh, I'm not... | ||
| Prepared for this in any fashion. | ||
| So there's really... | ||
| I got nothing to lose, in a sense. | ||
| I'm gonna try and dodge bullets. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| I... | ||
| I'm going to use whatever tools I have available, but as I'm looking at my quiver, it's borderline empty. | ||
| Yeah, and it's mostly defensive, just kind of like, let's just be... | ||
| I like being in here. | ||
| Yeah, but also playing defense. | ||
| Yes. | ||
| And Crowder's going on the offense at points like this, and it's like, you're stupid. | ||
| You think this is a point that's worth making. | ||
| You think that there's something here, and it's just... | ||
| I don't know. | ||
| It feels very immature. | ||
| Yeah, it feels like at that point I felt more angry with his lawyer for not being, like, aware of this. | ||
| Maybe there's nothing he can do. | ||
| Maybe. | ||
| So I'm going to skip ahead a little bit because there's just some clips about the Today News Africa. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Sure. | |
| And Stephen's insistence that, like, I took this seriously because it was a White House credentialed reporter. | ||
| And so Mark is explaining that that doesn't mean anything. | ||
| We all know that you had to go to Today News Africa for one reason only. | ||
| Yeah, and that the White House, being a White House reporter might just mean that they have a pass to go to the White House. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Like, it doesn't mean... | ||
| It doesn't have meaning. | ||
| Yeah, and so there's an attempt to try and get, like, okay, what is a credible source? | ||
| Right. | ||
| And what comes out of it is really just a sense that whatever I decide is a credible source. | ||
| But Crowder doesn't want to own that position, and it's fairly circular. | ||
| Yeah, because the true answer is, I don't know. | ||
| Or I don't care. | ||
| It's irrelevant to what I do. | ||
| Exactly, exactly. | ||
| There is no point in us coming to any agreement about this, because to me... | ||
| Before here and after here, it has no meaning to me. | ||
| Today News Africa was a very credible source because it said what I wanted it to say. | ||
| Yeah, and tomorrow it will be incredible. | ||
| In hindsight, it is incredibly credible to me because this guy is a White House press. | ||
| That's the excuse that you're using that is attempting to mask the, just like, I pick and choose based on what I need to say. | ||
| Absolutely. | ||
| Or to defend white supremacy. | ||
| Totally. | ||
| But you're never going to get him just... | ||
| Like, having that, you know, a few good men moment. | ||
| Yeah, right, yeah. | ||
| So, at a certain point, I think that Crowder doesn't want to play anymore. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Sure. | |
| And he starts to just kind of plead the fifth. | ||
| Whine like a little baby? | ||
| Before you decided to use our client's image, did you know if you were looking at the original image? | ||
| What do you mean? | ||
| If the image that you were looking at was the original image, or if it had been somebody else's edited image, if it had been cropped, changed, manipulated, anything like that? | ||
| I don't recall at this time. | ||
| That would have been a process with staff with any image. | ||
| Did you know who took the original image? | ||
| I don't recall at this time. | ||
| Did you know when the photo was taken? | ||
| I don't recall at this time. | ||
| That's why I referenced the person who had... | ||
| Included that image. | ||
| Did you know where the photo was taken? | ||
| I don't recall at this time. | ||
| Did you at least know why the photo was taken? | ||
| Again, I don't recall at this time. | ||
| I don't recall at this time is sort of his version of pleading the fifth. | ||
| And you get a sense that he's just kind of like, alright. | ||
| I'm lost. | ||
| There's nothing I can really do here. | ||
| He's trying to self-soothe. | ||
| And trying to be like, alright, alright, alright. | ||
| I'm fine. | ||
| I can be cagey. | ||
| I can get through this. | ||
| I'm not smarter. | ||
| I've proven that. | ||
| So my first arrow that didn't exist is gone. | ||
| Now I'm going to try and deny everything. | ||
| Yeah, I'm going to answer everything in a completely noncommittal way that I assume no one can draw any information from because I'm weak in this moment and my pretend strength and going on the offense has not worked. | ||
| Yeah, which is again the wrong move. | ||
| Because for him... | ||
| Changing strategies is worse than sticking to a bad strategy. | ||
| Yes. | ||
| Because if you stick to a bad strategy, at the end of it, ultimately they're going to go, I think this is too stupid to use. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Really? | ||
| Well, at the end of the day, if he had, at the beginning of this, he's saying, I don't personally feel that I need to check other people's reporting. | ||
| Totally. | ||
| Then the answer to all of these things, did you know when this was taken? | ||
| No. | ||
| I don't know. | ||
| Why would I? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| I've already established. | ||
| I don't recall it this time is such a way of trying to just say no. | ||
| It doesn't matter. | ||
| You're just an idiot. | ||
| Yeah, at the end of this, the worst thing that can happen is that you have been negligent in your coverage. | ||
| And that's already pretty clearly established. | ||
| Just keep up acting like you don't care. | ||
| Humans are weird. | ||
| They are. | ||
| But also, some of them are dumb. | ||
| And I think that this next clip, Really was worrying, much like a couple of the other ones we've seen. | ||
| This is where Mark is trying to discuss if this shooter was dead and didn't have a criminal history, which was reported immediately, then he couldn't have a mugshot. | ||
| Because he wasn't arrested for the shooting and wasn't arrested before. | ||
| Those are how words work. | ||
| Yes. | ||
| And so that's a really basic syllogism. | ||
| It's very easy. | ||
| I don't think that Stephen can really understand it. | ||
| You knew the shooter wasn't arrested for the shooting, right? | ||
| Yes. | ||
| And you knew that from law enforcement on their announcement of his name and age and details that he had no criminal history, right? | ||
| That the shooter had no criminal history? | ||
| Right. | ||
| The shooter who was killed in Allen? | ||
| Correct. | ||
| I don't recall that at this time that he had no criminal history. | ||
| Would it be the normal practice of your show when covering an event like this to keep up with the announcements from DPS and City Allen police, the law enforcement officials? | ||
| I don't know at that specific instance in time. | ||
| I would imagine there would be an aggregation of sources. | ||
| Okay. | ||
|
unidentified
|
What? | |
| Let me ask you this. | ||
| That's where we got the footage. | ||
| I don't know where we got the footage of the officer. | ||
| Shot the shooter. | ||
| Sure. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| But again, I don't remember. | ||
| Assume for me that you had taken the efforts to find out about the details of the shooter, right? | ||
| That he was Mauricio Garcia, 33 years of age, Dallas, Texas, no criminal history. | ||
| If you had known that information, you would have known the image that you were looking at. | ||
| This mugshot was not the shooter, right? | ||
|
unidentified
|
No. | |
| Alright, well, let me try to walk you through the logic of it. | ||
| Please don't speak to me like that. | ||
| I don't know if you did. | ||
| I don't know if you did or you did not look at this or whatever. | ||
| I'm not making that assumption. | ||
| But if you did know the shooter had no criminal history and you knew he wasn't arrested for the shooting, you knew that mugshot wasn't a picture of the shooter. | ||
| Right? | ||
| If you had known that information, you would have reached that conclusion. | ||
|
unidentified
|
No. | |
| Can you explain to me how a person with no criminal history and no arrest for the shooting, how they would have a mugshot? | ||
| You were the one who said we are under the assumption that it's a mugshot. | ||
| I know that at that moment... | ||
| I just want to make sure I'm understanding, because obviously it's a little complicated. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Is it? | |
| You just mentioned Mauricio Garcia, 33 years old, Texas area, Hispanic. | ||
| That information... | ||
| Is accurate, to my understanding? | ||
| Yes. | ||
| All that's accurate. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| And the image was not? | ||
| Right. | ||
| The image is Mauricio Garcia, 36 years old in Dallas. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Right. | |
| I understand that. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| What I'm asking you is something a little different. | ||
| Is that if you knew, if the information you were being reported is, hey, this mugshot is the shooter. | ||
| But if you had known, if you had known he had no criminal history and wasn't arrested for the shooting. | ||
| You should have concluded, based on that information, that that's not the shooter. | ||
| Is that fair? | ||
| No, I disagree. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Again, can you try to explain to me how somebody who has no criminal history and was not arrested for the shooting, how they would have a booking photograph? | ||
| I was reporting on the reported information that include the other information, which we both just agreed was accurate, and an image. | ||
| I don't remember the rest of the details. | ||
| I'm not asking any of that, though. | ||
| I'm asking a very simple question. | ||
| If you had known, in fact, let's go ahead and take this completely away from the Allen shooter and treat this as a hypothetical. | ||
| You have an individual you're trying to identify and match with a picture. | ||
| And you have two pieces of information. | ||
| On one, you have somebody reporting, hey, this mugshot is the shooter. | ||
| And then the other piece of information you have is that person has no criminal history, and that person was not arrested for the event. | ||
| If you know those two pieces of information, you should know that the first piece of information, that mugshot, is not the shooter, right? | ||
| It's a hypothetical question. | ||
| I don't know that researchers at that moment in time knew that. | ||
| I don't know that that was included in the original reporting. | ||
| And it's why we made sure to list the original reporting and report it on their reporting. | ||
| I don't know that that information was known. | ||
| That's a tooth. | ||
| I'm telling you right now, I don't think you or your people did know that. | ||
| I don't think so. | ||
| I have positions about whether I think you should have known that. | ||
| But what I'm asking is, if you did know it, if you did know the shooter had no criminal history, and you did know that the shooter was not arrested at the scene, then you would have known that a mugshot was not the shooter. | ||
| Or at least would have raised serious doubts about whether that was the correct image. | ||
| If one did know that there was no criminal history, if one knew that there had never been any type of image taken in a police precinct or legal type situation or context, if one knew that definitively and then knew that that was definitively a mugshot. | ||
| Then that would be a reasonable assumption, I believe, if I've met those prerequisites that you said. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Oof. | |
| So I'm super conflicted about that exchange because there's a solid argument that Crowder is doing a terrible job at being evasive. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| But there's an equally compelling argument that he's just legit stupid and doesn't understand basic rules of inference. | ||
| I have a strong suspicion that Crowder has existed for so long in a context that's highly curated and controlled to the point where he doesn't really have any critical thinking skills at the ready, but he thinks he does. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| His brain is looking for dunks and possible gotcha moments that he thinks are like cheat codes to making an argument because that works in every other scenario in his life. | ||
| Yep. | ||
|
unidentified
|
It takes five minutes of incoherent flailing for him to finally just accept the basic practice. | |
| It's very basic deduction, but Stephen has to argue like this because in this moment, he can't think of a good reason why he and his whole staff of reporters wouldn't have had this thought. | ||
| He knows the answer to why they didn't have this thought is because they didn't have any thoughts. | ||
| The goal was to refute the idea that the shooter was a white supremacist and this mugshot allowed them to write that narrative. | ||
| There was no moment of caution or thinking, is it possible this is wrong? | ||
| Because that's not the business they're in. | ||
| This line of questioning is really illuminating because I believe that Crowder understands that it's pretty damning that no one put two and two together about the mugshot. | ||
| I believe that he knows that this kind of reveals how little he and his staff care about getting stories right when they're convenient for their fun bigot storylines. | ||
| I think he has some awareness of that, and he's trying to avoid that, but he's too dumb to know how, and he thinks he's coming up with, like, Aha, well, if this is true, then this is true. | ||
| No, no, no, no, no. | ||
| You're wrong. | ||
| Yeah, I think, okay, two things. | ||
| On my billboard, if I become a lawyer, it's, if we're pulling teeth, I'm pulling teeth. | ||
| That's my slogan. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Jordan, DDS at law. | ||
| Well, but here's the problem. | ||
| I think that for someone like Stephen, if you're going to get him as a client, you're going to need to say, if I'm pulling teeth, Parentheses, metaphorical. | ||
| Sure. | ||
| Then I'm pulling teeth, parentheses, literal. | ||
| With Stephen, yes, it would have to be very well explained. | ||
| You need to spell it all out. | ||
| The subtlety would be lost upon him. | ||
| It's a double entendre. | ||
| Because here's the thing that I agree with you on, and I kind of think that this is almost a base animalistic instinct to evade there, is that he doesn't know why, but like... | ||
| Like a bunny aware somewhere because of the scent on the wind. | ||
| His hackles are raised and he's like, this is a bad question for me to answer honestly. | ||
| Whether or not he knows why is a completely different question. | ||
| I will need to descend into games about this. | ||
| I can feel the hackles raised. | ||
| There's a predator nearby. | ||
| It's interesting you put it that way because maybe what it is is that He doesn't understand logic and structure. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Inference. | ||
| The whole gamut. | ||
| Right. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| But he knows what it looks like. | ||
| Right. | ||
| And so he sees what's going on here as an if-then statement, and he doesn't know how to navigate it. | ||
| Right. | ||
| But he knows that he's about to get stuck in a logic thing. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| And so he has to descend into these weird games to try and get himself out of it, and he doesn't realize that that doesn't work. | ||
| But it does in the Change My Mind debates. | ||
| Right, because you can just leave or yell. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| The predator is concrete thinking and logic. | ||
| Yeah, yeah. | ||
| Reality. | ||
| As always, the greatest of predators. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| So he starts to flail a bit because he seems to have a view that the media was covering up that the shooter was Hispanic. | ||
| He does believe that. | ||
| He does seem to believe that. | ||
| Right. | ||
| No one was. | ||
| Right. | ||
| And so, it's tough. | ||
| He just sort of is like, it feels like they were. | ||
| I want to ask you about something you said during the show. | ||
| You had kind of started your segment there about the shooter's identity by saying who the shooter was, a lot of what the media is telling you is bullshit. | ||
| You remember saying that? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
|
unidentified
|
What was bullshit about it? | |
| Well, if I recall, in the context of that, when we ran clips or segments of this effect was the white supremacist mass shooter and then, of course, the aggressive push for gun control and that the media had initially just covered it as a white supremacist mass shooter and then didn't go back to it, which was a pattern. | ||
| What do you mean didn't go back to it? | ||
| What does that mean? | ||
| Didn't go back to the story they said they would be reporting on once new information had come out. | ||
| And instead pivoted to, you know, gun control measures. | ||
| And I believe that we were pointing out at that point that the black officer used what would be described as an assault weapon. | ||
| So are you saying that they abandoned the idea that the shooter was a white supremacist? | ||
| I'm saying that the coverage was significantly less afterward. | ||
| After what? | ||
| After the name and information on the shooter was available. | ||
| Well, the name was available well before you did your broadcast, right? | ||
| In other words, when the media was calling this person a white supremacist, this narrative that they allegedly abandoned, it was known that the shooter was a Hispanic man. | ||
| Well, I didn't say they allegedly abandoned that. | ||
| Okay. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I'm sorry. | |
| I'm getting really confused by some of your answers today, and I apologize for that. | ||
| Because what I believe that I had heard is that they shifted the story away from this white supremacy stuff once new information came out. | ||
| No, they shifted away from the wall-to-wall coverage altogether. | ||
| Wall-to-wall coverage of the shooting or the coverage that he was a white supremacist? | ||
| Of the event altogether, yes. | ||
| Okay, so it's your initial coverage. | ||
| The initial coverage was white supremacist mass shooting. | ||
| Mm-hmm. | ||
| And then when the story was Hispanic male mass shooter taken out by a black officer with, I believe, an AR-15 or something equivalent, the story was not covered with the same zeal. | ||
| And I believe that's the point that we were addressing. | ||
| Contextual. | ||
| I'm not understanding, though, from the day of the shooting, or at least the day after, at least since May 7th, we all knew it was a Hispanic mass shooter, right? | ||
| I believe you're correct the day after, yes. | ||
| And so when the media was pushing this story about that law enforcement sources were saying that he was a white supremacist, they did that knowing he was Hispanic. | ||
| Not initially. | ||
| I don't understand, Mr. Crowder. | ||
|
unidentified
|
We knew on May 7th. | |
| So she can speak. | ||
| A full day before you're reporting. | ||
| The whole world knew that this was Mauricio Garcia, a Hispanic mass shooter, right? | ||
| That's what we reported that day, yes. | ||
| I believe your memory is correct. | ||
| It was the day after the shooting that that information came out, right? | ||
| Yes. | ||
| Right. | ||
| And then the day after that is when you did your reporting. | ||
| Right. | ||
| So we already knew he was a Hispanic. | ||
| That didn't change. | ||
| Nothing changed in terms of his identity. | ||
| I did because... | ||
| I believe the information became available after I... | ||
| I believe what you just showed me was a Monday. | ||
| I'll take your word for it. | ||
| I think that was the clip that you had just shown. | ||
| So if it would have been available during the weekend, but not when the shooting had just taken place. | ||
| So initially it was simply white supremacist mass shooting. | ||
| And that was covered with great enthusiasm. | ||
| And then the day after, as I believe your recollection is correct, Hispanic male, it wasn't covered with the same extensive coverage. | ||
| This is nuts. | ||
| That is nuts. | ||
| This is a really bizarre thing where Crowder is talking about his feelings, but he's trying to make it seem like he's talking about the media. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Because the... | ||
| A lot of the revelations about the Nazi tattoos and the right-wing death squad and the social media accounts that the shooter had was based on the reporting of his name. | ||
| That's how people found the social media. | ||
| So there was not a time where both pieces of information weren't both being discussed. | ||
| So this idea that, oh, it was a white supremacist shooter, and then as soon as we found out it was a person named Mauricio Garcia... | ||
| And by extension, we know that this is a Hispanic person. | ||
| Right. | ||
| Then they're like, oh, we can't use this. | ||
| Everyone already knows that it's a Hispanic person. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Right. | |
| That is his brain. | ||
| That's Stephen's brain. | ||
| He wrote that story in his brain. | ||
| Yeah, you made that whole thing up, didn't you? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yes. | |
| Made that whole thing up, didn't you? | ||
| And it's his defense. | ||
| Yep, yep. | ||
| Pretend! | ||
| Don't do this. | ||
| If you're in a deposition... | ||
| Don't start expounding on your elaborate, unprovable theories about how the media hates white people. | ||
| You're not going to be able to defend this. | ||
| I genuinely don't understand. | ||
| The thought that I had was, when I was in high school, I had an English teacher who every year would give us, at some random point in time, he would give us one... | ||
| Test on these literary terms that were very, very specific, and their use is very, very specific, and you had to define them and then use them correctly, right? | ||
| And I feel like that needs to be done with Crowder before we begin this thing, just as like a, what do you understand to begin with? | ||
| You know? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Because I don't know what you understand now. | ||
| No. | ||
| I'm not clearer on your ability to understand anything. | ||
| The ability to engage with ideas in a way that makes sense, an ability to understand words, definitions, it's being illustrated that he has no competence in that. | ||
| And it does seem to be, like, when you... | ||
| There's an element of it that is evasiveness. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Sure. | |
| That is like, I'm trying not to take responsibility for things, and so I don't know at this time, I don't remember at this time. | ||
| Right. | ||
| If he was using entirely evasive things to try and just walk through this deposition, it would make sense. | ||
| Yeah! | ||
| But he's doing like, I think the media hates white people. | ||
| Why are you doing? | ||
| What are you doing? | ||
| You have to be stupid. | ||
| What are you doing? | ||
| This is a good defense for you to bring up in this setting. | ||
| It can't just be evasiveness. | ||
| There is an overconfidence and a stupidity mixed in here that is just shocking. | ||
| Yeah, because the trap of the deposition is ultimately neither of us are going to tell the truth at the end of this. | ||
| Nobody is going to just say, You made it up because it helps you with your agenda. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| That's just not going to happen, right? | ||
| So because the truth will never be spoken, there are plenty of evasive things you can do if you've prepared. | ||
| In advance for what the questions are going to be. | ||
| Well, I think that if you're someone like Crowder and the business that he's in, you know that your audience is not going to be swayed by this deposition. | ||
| They're already primed to believe whatever you say about it, so who gives a shit? | ||
| Which is the part of the... | ||
| This is why we're here! | ||
| It's not a threat to you at all. | ||
| So, like, the name of the game, it seems to me, should be don't give up more information. | ||
| No own goals. | ||
| Don't provide things that allow for follow-up questions that get off... | ||
| Totally. | ||
| Just, you know, like, take the basest amount of responsibility and say, I don't know about a bunch of shit, and just go home. | ||
| Crazy. | ||
| Don't bring up your fucking weird white identity conspiracies about the media. | ||
| Like, it's not, it's pointless. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Yeah, it feels like he thinks that a smart person in this situation would win the deposition. | ||
| Right, and prove that the New York Times hates white people. | ||
| Exactly, as opposed to what a smart person would do, which is like, Have a 10-15 minute deposition where they said yes, no, yes, no, yes, no, and then left. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Crazy. | ||
| But he's not that guy. | ||
| Nope. | ||
| Let's walk through the chronology. | ||
| We have the shooting on May 6th. | ||
| And on May 6th, we don't know anything about the shooting. | ||
| There's no information on who the shooter was, his identity, his motivations, anything. | ||
| You agree with that? | ||
| I don't know if that's correct, and I don't know that the media was covering it that way. | ||
| I believe they were covering it as a white supremacist. | ||
| Immediately. | ||
| Alright. | ||
| I would... | ||
| I think if you go back and you look at these events, what you're going to find happen is that the New York Times published from law enforcement sources saying that Mauricio Garcia had social media that had neo-Nazi ideation, he had tattoos, and that they were looking at a social media site. | ||
| That's where all this comes from, this New York Times report. | ||
| And on that day... | ||
| As that's being reported, it's being reported that the guy's name is Mauricio Garcia. | ||
| So what I'm trying to understand is what new information came to light that you say made the media change the narrative of its story? | ||
| I would imagine that it's a Hispanic male being labeled a white supremacist, and that was why they didn't cover it nearly as extensively. | ||
| Let me just make sure I have you correct. | ||
| Do you think... | ||
| That the media was saying, that mainstream media outlets were saying that the shooter was a white supremacist shooter. | ||
| And they did that without saying that he was Hispanic or given his name. | ||
| I believe that they were reporting, my recollection is reporting that he was a white supremacist. | ||
| And as it was circulating, this was a Hispanic male. | ||
| The story was not being covered with the same zeal, yeah. | ||
| No, again, I'm going back to the idea of, Do you believe that there were reports identifying the shooter as a white supremacist that also did not include his name and a clue to his ethnic identity? | ||
| There could have been. | ||
| I don't recall exactly. | ||
| I'm going by your timeline. | ||
| Yeah, yeah, okay. | ||
| But I do remember at that point in time it was labeled the greatest domestic terror threat, white supremacy, and that was something in the media quite a bit. | ||
| So what you have to understand is that media and all this that he's talking about includes dumb shitheads yelling on social media. | ||
| So a lot of that informs what he believes the conversation in the press was around this time, and it is not. | ||
| It is not accurate. | ||
| Mark is laying out for him, like, this is where these articles were and when it published, this is the timeline. | ||
| I know this because I prepared for this deposition and you didn't. | ||
| That was the adip shit. | ||
| So, like, Stephen's trying to struggle with this. | ||
| But if you really listen to what he's saying, this is the code. | ||
| Yep. | ||
| I will explain this fully. | ||
| Yep. | ||
| When the news broke that it was someone allegedly who had white supremacist leanings, Stephen was defensive. | ||
| And he didn't like that it made him feel bad. | ||
| He felt relief when he saw a picture of someone that he identified as Hispanic, and that's the whole story. | ||
| He was trying to be defensive about white supremacists that he identifies with on some level, and then the media stopped covering it so much because he didn't feel like, oh, this is so important anymore because we have this picture of this guy. | ||
| That's all that's going on. | ||
| He's very stupid. | ||
| Yeah, I mean, it is that simple. | ||
| It is like, oh, pleasurable impulse, unpleasurable impulse, you respond. | ||
| That is it. | ||
| You're a rat looking for cheese. | ||
| You are not capable of more. | ||
| He's basically doing a they don't report on black criminals line in this deposition. | ||
| It's unwise to do this because... | ||
| It's not relevant necessarily to the case of you reporting on the wrong person, the wrong mugshot. | ||
| And I think it just opens up avenues that I guess if Mark wants to ask questions, you're going to look really stupid and really racist. | ||
| So that's what ends up happening. | ||
| Because we loop back now to something that was... | ||
| Obviously a dangling thread from earlier, which is that on Crowder's show, he said that this person had a very Hispanic-looking face. | ||
| Yes. | ||
| And I think it was probably conspicuous that we didn't talk about it then. | ||
| We didn't. | ||
| And the reason is because it comes up again. | ||
| Uh-oh. | ||
| And this ain't good. | ||
| Oh, no. | ||
| You said that my client has a very Hispanic-looking face? | ||
| Very is an interesting word. | ||
| What does that mean? | ||
| It means exactly what I said. | ||
| Can you explain it to me? | ||
| I'm confused as to what that means. | ||
| You're confused as to what a Hispanic person looks like? | ||
| Yeah, is there anybody Hispanic on their Zoom call right now? | ||
| Objection form. | ||
| Well, I see a lot of boxes. | ||
| Well, you got some pictures in front of you. | ||
| You got gallery view. | ||
| Is there any Hispanics on the call right now? | ||
| Objection form. | ||
| Not one that would jump out to me is a very clearly Hispanic male face. | ||
| Alright, so help me understand what that is, because there is a Hispanic on this call. | ||
|
unidentified
|
What is a very Hispanic-looking face? | |
| Objection form. | ||
| In the context of white supremacist, people generally think of white people, and this was clearly a Hispanic male. | ||
| Are you treating me like I'm dumb? | ||
| People are not white. | ||
| That's what you're saying. | ||
| I'm saying they aren't typically white supremacists. | ||
| Where'd you get that idea? | ||
| You believe that Hispanic people aren't white, there are no white supremacists Hispanic people? | ||
|
unidentified
|
I didn't say no, I said typically. | |
| Right. | ||
| That means that there are, that does exist. | ||
| If you say, yeah, typically, that comes with a but, doesn't it? | ||
| But there are Hispanic white supremacists. | ||
| Right? | ||
| If you say there are some. | ||
| I'm asking you. | ||
| Did you know that? | ||
| I would imagine that people who are not particularly white don't make great white supremacists. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Hmm. | |
| That's an interesting question. | ||
|
unidentified
|
So let's... | |
| It wasn't a question. | ||
| Oh, man. | ||
| So this is an unnecessary thing for Crowder to be getting into. | ||
|
unidentified
|
This is not necessary. | |
| And I do think it's interesting that Mark doesn't do that. | ||
| Have you met Nick Fuentes? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| Do you know him? | ||
| Because he's a guy who's in your media space. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| But, so, this is alarming. | ||
| Because I think that it means that Stephen really doesn't understand what Hispanic means. | ||
| Not even close. | ||
| And he has decided, like... | ||
| I can visually pick out Hispanic people, and they're not white. | ||
| They're not white enough. | ||
| He has a definition of whiteness that he is superimposing on white supremacists and people who would have white identity beliefs, which is wild. | ||
| Yeah, yep, yep, yep, yep. | ||
| I mean, it's hard not to think the man might as well have said, pale is the way that I know! | ||
| I have a skin check that I do. | ||
| I mean, it is wild. | ||
| It is wild whenever you hear them actually say what they think. | ||
| And it's so unnecessary in the context of this deposition. | ||
| There's no reason why Crowder should be getting into any of this. | ||
| No, and the disdain for which he uses other, like, ugh, of course you know what I mean. | ||
| Like, buddy, you need to understand a lot more before we get to, no, I don't know what you mean. | ||
| But that's why I think this is more stupid than craft or evasiveness. | ||
| Like, he is very confident in his definition that he's using, which is wrong. | ||
| And I think it's just because he's dumb. | ||
| And he doesn't have people around him who have checked any of these beliefs. | ||
| I mean, yeah. | ||
| So Mark tries to, and he tries to explain that the broad category of Hispanic includes a lot of different groups of people. | ||
| Some of them identify as white, and some identify not as white. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Sure. | |
| And this is very hard. | ||
| Because Crowder does not accept or understand really any of this. | ||
| Okay, Crowder, we're going to start with colonialism. | ||
| Right. | ||
| Now, Spain... | ||
| Now, do you... | ||
| Let me try and get this. | ||
| The people that you are going to refer to exclusively as Hispanic only speak this language for one reason! | ||
| Yeah, he's, um... | ||
| This is a struggle. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| I take it you know, like, in your life, you've known some Hispanic people. | ||
| And some of them might have names like Robert. | ||
| And some of them might have names like Roberto. | ||
| You understand what I mean? | ||
| No. | ||
| Very well. | ||
| And you understand what I mean by assimilationist. | ||
| That there is a part of Hispanic culture that has attempted to be assimilationist. | ||
| Right? | ||
| And adopt into white American culture. | ||
| You know that exists. | ||
| No. | ||
| I understand that it exists. | ||
| You understand that there is also another separate part of Hispanic culture, which is non-assimilationist, which rejects an Anglo self-identity, right? | ||
| Sure. | ||
| And you understand that some people who are Hispanic identify as white, whereas other people in our culture do not consider them white. | ||
| You understand that? | ||
| Are you saying that some people identify as white and other people don't identify? | ||
| Yes. | ||
| Consider them white. | ||
| Yes, I understand. | ||
| Well, I understand white supremacy very well, but they would not include any of the aforementioned groups amongst them. | ||
| Right. | ||
| They would not allow it, which is why it's a repugnant ideology. | ||
| Right. | ||
| So what I'm saying is, you already knew when broadcasting this show that not only do some Hispanics identify as white, let's go back. | ||
| When I talk about cultural litigation, for instance... | ||
| The real shooter, let's talk about the real 33-year-old Mauricio Garcia who committed this crime, right? | ||
| That person very well might consider themselves white or considered before their death, but you didn't consider them white, correct? | ||
| Would I consider a Hispanic-looking male white? | ||
| No, I would consider them a Hispanic male. | ||
| Do you know what the real shooter looks like? | ||
|
unidentified
|
What the real shooter looks like? | |
| It is my understanding that he's a Hispanic male. | ||
| Well, I'm asking you, does he have a very Hispanic looking face? | ||
| Objection form. | ||
| Called it! | ||
| I was there! | ||
| I knew it! | ||
| He looks Hispanic, yes. | ||
| You understood when doing your broadcast that not only do some Hispanics identify as whites, some identify as neo-Nazis and white supremacists. | ||
| You knew that, right? | ||
| No. | ||
| You didn't know that? | ||
| That was new information to you? | ||
| I believe if you watched the show, it was comical information. | ||
| You found it funny that a Hispanic person in an attempt to litigate their own whiteness might associate with white supremacy and white supremacist ideas. | ||
| I find it comical that someone who would not be accepted amongst racist white supremacists in any way, shape, or form would identify with them. | ||
| Are you really in touch with how racist white supremacists might view certain people? | ||
| Is that something you know a lot about? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Objection form. | |
| All right. | ||
| Are you asking me personally? | ||
| Look, I know there are Hispanic white supremacists. | ||
| That's a thing that exists, right? | ||
| I know that. | ||
| I know there are neo-Nazi white supremacists who have Hispanic backgrounds, right? | ||
| And I think what you're saying is that that's actually not possible because no white supremacists would ever associate. | ||
| So I guess what I'm getting at is... | ||
| Correct. | ||
| As a general rule, white supremacists tend to be quite racist. | ||
| Right. | ||
| I get that. | ||
| And Hispanic white supremacists also tend to be quite racist, don't they? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Objection form. | |
| I know that Hispanic people can be racist as anyone can be racist. | ||
| I'm asking you specifically, though, about Hispanic white supremacists can be very, very racist, right? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Objection form. | |
| I would imagine if a Hispanic person identifies as a white supremacist, that they would be quite racist. | ||
| I think we can agree there. | ||
| So let's just drop it at that. | ||
| We're not going to figure out any other truths here. | ||
| This guy done no shit. | ||
| It's very strange. | ||
| He seems ignorant of everything. | ||
| He seems just completely unequipped to even discuss this subject in a meaningful way. | ||
| I would not... | ||
| Read a book at the fifth grade level with him. | ||
| I don't believe he's capable of understanding it. | ||
| I'm not confident he grasps concepts like ethnicity, race, history. | ||
| I don't think he understands what white supremacy is when you talk about it in a meaningful, serious way. | ||
| I think that he's equipped to put on costumes and maybe do publicity stunts here and there, get punched by a union worker. | ||
| Like, that's about all I trust him with. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Any kind of handling of information, he has shown himself to just not be up to the task. | ||
| Yeah, I believe that he would be capable of eating worms for a small amount of money. | ||
| That is what I would trust him with. | ||
| Would you trust him to figure out new ways to eat fried worms? | ||
| Absolutely not. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| No. | ||
| So is that at a fifth grade level? | ||
| Creativity not going to happen from him. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| So, he is... | ||
| There's an issue where it's like, I don't define this person as white. | ||
| Right. | ||
| And so, therefore, they are not. | ||
| Right. | ||
| Could you stop right there? | ||
| You shouldn't be defining anyone as anything. | ||
| All right, we'll continue. | ||
| Next question. | ||
| That's something that I think is very irrelevant to the case, for the most part. | ||
| But Mark has elicited... | ||
| In a way that Crowder should be very uncomfortable with. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| Like, this illustration is bad. | ||
| So, another thing that's illustrated here in this next clip is that the media did not lie about the shooter at all. | ||
| Ooh, that's gonna be a struggle. | ||
| And Steven's whole thing is, like, we're covering the media's lies about the shooter. | ||
| Right. | ||
| And he can't think of anything that was actually a lie. | ||
| The idea here was you had information on this shooting, and you were gonna show the lies of the mainstream media. | ||
| But when it comes to the identity of the shooter, you were incorrect about that. | ||
| The media wasn't lying, right? | ||
| All the other information was correct, as you listed, as far as the age, the name, person, and yeah, the image was incorrectly sourced from other reporters before us. | ||
| I'm not talking about what you did. | ||
| I'm talking about... | ||
| When it comes to the shooter's identity, the media didn't lie. | ||
| The mainstream media outlets that you identified, they didn't lie. | ||
| I believe they were misleading, yeah. | ||
| In what way were they misleading? | ||
| In saying white supremacists and then abandoning the story once they realized that the person was Hispanic. | ||
| Even if you may say so, but the media decided that it wasn't a story they wanted to cover as much. | ||
| All right. | ||
| Because we need to have an idea of what a white supremacist looks like, I would imagine. | ||
| Right. | ||
| Well, I want to... | ||
| Right, and he didn't look like my client, did he? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Objection form. | |
| A white supremacist wouldn't look like someone who looks Hispanic. | ||
| Right. | ||
| I'm talking about the actual shooter. | ||
| And I know that you're hesitant to call him a neo-Nazi shooter, but I'm going to call a chair a chair. | ||
| He's a neo-Nazi shooter. | ||
| And that neo-Nazi, he doesn't look like my client. | ||
| Mariso Garcia, the neo-Nazi shooter? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Right. | |
| Doesn't look like my client. | ||
| I don't recall how much they look alike. | ||
| Again, it's a little confusing because there's two Mariso Garcias. | ||
| So confusing. | ||
| The media was accurate that the shooter was Mariso Garcia. | ||
| The mainstream media outlets that you cited, they were accurate about that. | ||
| Yes. | ||
| They were accurate that he was 33 years old. | ||
| That's my understanding. | ||
| They were accurate that he had neo-Nazi, multiple neo-Nazi tattoos on his body. | ||
| That's my understanding. | ||
| They were right that he had a vest that was for right-wing death squad. | ||
| Correct? | ||
| I don't recall that, but if you say so. | ||
| They were correct that he had a social media presence where he expressed neo-Nazi views. | ||
| I don't recall that, but if you say so. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| I'm just trying to figure out what they might have said about the shooter's identity, if anything, that was bullshit. | ||
| Yeah, well, as you said, the shooting happened, I believe, on the 6th. | ||
| And the 7th. | ||
| That's when the investigation came out. | ||
| It's my understanding that the media was running with the narrative of white supremacists before the 7th. | ||
| And certainly we're running with the narrative that white supremacy is the greatest domestic terror threat in the United States. | ||
| And certainly pushing the narrative of gun control. | ||
| And so the bullshit there is because a black officer, who if my recollection is correct, was either off duty or responding to a call at chance, shot the man with his own firearm that the same media said would need to be controlled to prevent mass shootings. | ||
| That has nothing to do with who the shooter was. | ||
| You asked what the media was presenting that I believed was bullshit. | ||
| Actually, what I asked you was, when it comes to their reporting on the shooter's identity, when you said who the shooter was, a lot of what the media is telling you is bullshit. | ||
| What were they telling you that was bullshit about who the shooter was? | ||
| Objection form. | ||
| You showed a brief clip. | ||
| I believe the entire show was devoted to the narrative and clips from the media and what they were presenting and why it was misleading. | ||
| As far as a shooter on the 7th, if the articles that you bring up are accurate, then it seems they got the name and age correct. | ||
| I mean, they got everything correct, right? | ||
| What didn't they get correct? | ||
| Again, they were misleading the other information surrounding it. | ||
| About who the shooter was? | ||
| You asked me what I believe was bullshit from the media. | ||
| Again, I'm going to tell you again what I'm asking you. | ||
| Is when you said who the shooter was, a lot of what the media is telling you is bullshit. | ||
| When it comes to who the shooter was, there was nothing that was bullshit, was there? | ||
| I don't know about their initial reporting, which would have been the sixth. | ||
| Crowder is... | ||
| Desperately trying to cling on to what was bullshit was this guy looks Hispanic. | ||
| He looks not white to me. | ||
| This picture that I found justifies me being defensive about white supremacy, white identity. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Like, that's what the media wasn't reporting. | ||
| The media wasn't alleviating my white victimhood grievance feelings in a way that I felt sufficient about. | ||
| That's what he's saying, essentially. | ||
| Right, right, right. | ||
| There was nothing that was bullshit. | ||
| The media was reporting that his name was Mauricio Garcia. | ||
| The media was not ignoring or hiding the fact that he was a Hispanic male. | ||
| It's just that Steven Crowder saw a picture that, to him, slotted into non-white. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| And that's what he felt the media wasn't covering. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Crazy. | ||
| Because when he asks who the shooter was, you and I and Mark and people who understand words... | ||
| Understand he's talking about who the shooter, the specific individual. | ||
| The actual. | ||
| That the shooter was. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| In the act of being at the time. | ||
| Right? | ||
| Whereas what Steven Crowder is understanding who the shooter was to mean is a more abstract in the sense of like, the shooter was not a true Scotsman. | ||
| Yes. | ||
| Because the shooter shot. | ||
| A million percent. | ||
| Right? | ||
| It is essentially like the media was lying because the media wasn't telling you that actually white nationalists are nice, and this guy is an aberration, and so thus can't even be called a white nationalist because he's bad. | ||
| Every shooting should essentially be covered by... | ||
| Saying white people are cool. | ||
| It should start with white people and guns are cool. | ||
| Yes. | ||
| White people and guns are great and should be the most important things in the conversation at all times. | ||
| Because if the media doesn't clarify those things explicitly and point the finger somewhere else, then what they're doing is trying to push this agenda. | ||
| Right. | ||
| And that's dumb. | ||
| By observing a thing, they are making me feel bad. | ||
| Cool, man. | ||
| I demand they look elsewhere. | ||
| Sounds like that's about you. | ||
| Or lie to me. | ||
| I demand the media lie to make me feel better. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| So I think that what you're talking about is totally right. | ||
| That there's this abstract idea of the shooter that is really what Stephen's talking about. | ||
| And there's just this breakdown because I think that we're looking at media coverage of the story as being about reporting information. | ||
| Right. | ||
| And for him, it's tactical. | ||
| It's all a strategic game. | ||
| And that's what people believe, right? | ||
| If something is front-page center news, and we know this, how the media works, front-page center news, white supremacists without that information, a narrative, gun control before the bodies assume room temperature, the information comes out the next day, and that goes up in an article that people don't read to the same degree, people still believe the preconceived notions from when the media was initially reported. | ||
| But okay, let's go ahead and assume for me. | ||
| I'm going to go ahead and tell you, this ain't real, what I'm about to tell you. | ||
| Let's establish that first. | ||
| But let's just go ahead and assume that your understanding of it is accurate. | ||
| That on May 7th, the media reported that he was a white supremacist. | ||
| And that was the only fact they reported. | ||
| They didn't report that his name was Mauricio Garcia or that he was a Spanish. | ||
| Assume for me that that happened. | ||
| Or May 6th, yeah. | ||
| Or May 6th, right? | ||
| I can tell you, the shooter's name was not known on May 6th. | ||
| There was no information about the shooter. | ||
| No, not the shooter, but the idea of a white supremacist shooter, yes. | ||
| Right, not that either, right? | ||
| None of that even happened, right? | ||
| But go ahead and assume for me that it did. | ||
| Go ahead and assume for me that the media reported that the shooter had white supremacist leanings. | ||
| That's not bullshit, right? | ||
| That's 100% accurate. | ||
| Right? | ||
| If they reported that he had white supremacist leanings? | ||
| Mauricio Garcia on the 7th? | ||
| Sure. | ||
| Right. | ||
| So again, about the shooter's identity, about who he was, there's nothing they said was bullshit. | ||
| Right? | ||
| I disagree. | ||
| As it relates to the story at large, I disagree. | ||
| I think a very important... | ||
| I know that we've been talking about this idea that there was a gun control narrative and that there was a cop who shot him, so therefore that invalidates gun control in some way because there was a cop with a gun. | ||
| So, I mean, I'm not sure who's trying to regulate cops having guns or how that ties in, but I get that that's a whole separate discussion, right? | ||
| But what I'm saying is in terms of the media's identity of the shooter, the details that it reported about who the shooter was and what his background was, what his belief systems were. | ||
| None of that was bullshit. | ||
| It never was. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Right? | |
| Yeah, I don't know if that's true. | ||
| Alright, so again, trying to focus down so you can tell me, because this is my chance to get to ask you. | ||
| No, I was just throwing because you said you didn't know anyone who was trying to regulate cops with guns and it was an off-duty officer with an AR-15. | ||
| I find that difficult to believe that you are not aware of that. | ||
| So I just thought this was taking place in good faith. | ||
| No, and I mean, I am unaware of that. | ||
| Are you saying that there's some sort of legislation in the works to make it so that off-duty officers don't have access to their weapons when they're off-duty or something like that? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Objection form. | |
| Yeah, I'm being serious, man. | ||
| I don't know about any legislation like that. | ||
| Are you not aware of the movement for non-lethal weapons, including tasers, to be used by officers? | ||
| No, I don't believe it's so. | ||
| And of course, whether you're on duty or off duty, those weapons, yeah, were being included in a list of weapons that should be a part of gun control, which was used to stop the Hispanic shooter who was presented as white supremacist. | ||
| There were important components to the story. | ||
| I believe the media was being misleading about that. | ||
| Extremely fascinating line of inquiry that we could get into on all of these issues. | ||
| If we were in any other situation, I would love to talk to you about the vagaries of gun control and all of that, but not terribly relevant to what I want to ask you about today, right? | ||
| And so what I'm really focusing in on is the idea of the shooter's identity, the details of the shooter's identity, his belief systems, his backgrounds, everything about who he is, right? | ||
| I believe you told me that when I said that none of that was bullshit, you said you didn't agree with that. | ||
| And I'm trying to figure out, because it's my chance to ask you questions today. | ||
| Is if you can tell me what the mainstream media organizations that you cited got wrong about the shooter's identity, background, and belief systems. | ||
| And my answer is that those are not mere vagaries when they were the primary driving narrative of the story. | ||
| That's why the story was being covered. | ||
| So there's just a disconnect that happens here, which is impossible to bridge because it's unquantifiable. | ||
| Stephen has an insistent belief that the media is covering this shooting and making up that it's a white supremacist because they want to push gun control and attack white people. | ||
| In his mind, the media doesn't care about the shooting or the victims, which is actually a key part of his ability to emotionally rationalize how little he cares about them. | ||
| The shooting happened in the same way that things happen every day, but the media chose to cover this one this way because it was part of their anti-gun, anti-white script. | ||
| This imagined anti-white, anti-gun script is what Stephen's coverage is based on, not the shooting itself or any real information about the case. | ||
| The shooter's age, name, ethnicity or photo are not important pieces of information in and of themselves. | ||
| The only thing that matters is finding ways to undermine any potential this story has to be used in a way that Stephen perceives as making white people feel bad or arguing for gun regulation. | ||
| Stephen's coverage centers entirely around countering what he believes is the media's anti-white, anti-gun script. | ||
| So if he sees a picture of a guy that he thinks looks too Hispanic to be a white supremacist, that's perfect to report. | ||
| It doesn't enter his mind to fact-check this mugshot, because the truth or falsity of it doesn't matter. | ||
| It's an effective prop in the moment to attack the imagined media script, so it's going to be used 10 times out of 10. Stephen doesn't really even dispute that this is the case, it's just impossible for him to substantiate, and this ends up sounding really stupid. | ||
| He can say the media covered this a lot when they thought he was a white supremacist, but stopped when they found out he was Hispanic all he wants, but that's just based on his feelings. | ||
| Mark can explain media coverage of the shooter's identity all day long, and it won't change the fact that Stephen felt like he was being attacked when people said that the shooter was a white supremacist, and when Stephen learned that the shooter was Hispanic, he felt vindicated, because according to Stephen, no Hispanic person can be a white supremacist. | ||
| He's just pretty stupid and racist, and if there's one thing this deposition really highlights, it's that there's no way to diagram sentences for someone like Stephen. | ||
| Explaining what words mean to him is like playing tennis against the drapes. | ||
| It has the same character as when people don't realize that white nationalist is a combination of the word white and the word nationalist. | ||
| The word nationalist, it's not like the adjective white is, it's just a nationalist that happens to be white, right? | ||
| They refuse to understand these words having a compound meaning. | ||
| Yeah, yeah, yeah. | ||
| And that's... | ||
| The same sort of thing that Steven is embodying, and you can't get through that with explanation. | ||
| Yeah, yeah, I mean, because essentially he's trying to signal in his base way that our reality simply will not coexist. | ||
| Like, whatever your reality, as you understand it, is large enough to hold mine. | ||
| Right? | ||
| There's my reality, and I'm filled with white nationalist rage that's based on bullshit. | ||
| Your reality is big enough to also have other stuff and conceive of my white nationalism. | ||
| But what you don't understand is that my world is not inside of your world. | ||
| Our worlds are separate and at odds with each other. | ||
| No amount of your language will ever matter to me simply because we don't... | ||
| Occupy the same world. | ||
| And yours is inherently destructive to itself and everyone else. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| But, like, there's a... | ||
| Even if you are aware of that and recognize that, everything in Stephen's life has enforced that this is the right way to go about things and that his reality is good. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Because he's... | ||
| Made tons of money and gotten super famous on a very low level of skill, talent, or wisdom. | ||
| So why would you challenge these ideas? | ||
| They've been proven in the field. | ||
| Yeah, it does feel like listening to some of this, it feels like when you see a sprinter, you know, like the fastest off the block idea is removing thought. | ||
| And just your body reacts instantaneously without you having to be like, I heard the gun, now run. | ||
| That kind of thing. | ||
| And some of that, like the way he was like, oh, I heard you say something about the cop. | ||
| Like, that was pure. | ||
| He could not control that. | ||
| He couldn't have stopped himself from doing that. | ||
| His body is trained to just react in that instant. | ||
| Yep, and it's the way, it's the, I don't know exactly what the right word is, but it's pedantic, and it's the game that he plays on college campuses and on his own show that is... | ||
| Fucking successful. | ||
| I mean, you see Alex doing the same thing in depositions. | ||
| He does his throw out a million topics strategy because that works in every other setting. | ||
| So why not use it here? | ||
| It just doesn't work. | ||
| Absolutely. | ||
| No, it's prickish. | ||
| He's a prick. | ||
| And Mark, in that case, is engaging with the sort of childish going off on a little bit of a tangent and then brings it back around to like... | ||
| This is great, and we could talk about this, but it's not really important to what I'm trying to ask you about. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Which is, again, treating him like a child, which I don't think is unearned, but also hard. | ||
| No, our realities share only one Venn diagram point, and that is that we exist in this room together. | ||
| Beyond that, when you leave this room... | ||
| I won't exist. | ||
| I will exist as Democrat lawyer. | ||
| I won't be a person. | ||
| They will exist as blankety-blank person. | ||
| We don't coexist. | ||
| So, Stephen, one of his main points is that the media changed their narrative when they found out that this was a Hispanic person. | ||
| One of his main lies. | ||
| Right. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Defense mechanisms. | ||
| Right, right. | ||
| Rationales. | ||
| But it turns out that he actually kind of changed his narrative. | ||
| Hey! | ||
| What are you going to do? | ||
| As things went along. | ||
| So, in the middle picture videos, we see that those episodes were the ones in which, or episode, was the one in which you used an image of my client as the shooter, right? | ||
| I would appear so. | ||
| Now, the episode the next day... | ||
| What you're showing there, that's a picture of the real shooter there of his Nazi tattoos, right? | ||
| To the best of my recollection. | ||
| All right. | ||
| And once it became clear, once it became clear to you that there was images out there of this person of neo-Nazi tattoos, your next report was to say that intelligence agencies might be involved in this shooting, right? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Injection form. | |
| I don't recall. | ||
| Have you watched the May 9th show recently, like, in preparation for this deposition? | ||
| No, I haven't watched it. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Would you disagree with me that once all this came out about the shooters, pictures of the shooter's actual body, that once that happened, you started suggesting that this incident was some sort of PSYOP or psychological operation? | ||
| I don't believe that I referred, I don't recall referring to it as a PSYOP. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| Do you have any idea why you thought intelligence agencies might be involved? | ||
| Is that something you thought? | ||
| I don't recall, but it wouldn't be surprising. | ||
| Explain that to me. | ||
| It wouldn't be surprising for U.S. intelligence agencies to be involved in this neo-Nazi mass shooting? | ||
| That's not surprising? | ||
| I would imagine that intelligence agencies would be involved with any. | ||
| What? | ||
| Wait, you're meaning that what you're saying right now is you think intelligence agencies would be involved after the fact in some way, like investigating it? | ||
| They could. | ||
| That's not what this show is about, right? | ||
| You understand that. | ||
| I don't recall. | ||
| Is it something like the Hunter Biden laptop story? | ||
| It's that instinct. | ||
| So that is exactly that. | ||
| That is the instinct. | ||
| He realized that he'd answered a question so poorly and so dumb that he needed to, like, reassure himself with the knee-jerk... | ||
| Right-wing social media storyline. | ||
| Well, what about this? | ||
| Yeah, can we get you a pacifier? | ||
| It doesn't work, though. | ||
| And at this point, he knows that it's not gonna work, right? | ||
| Like, that's what I find really interesting. | ||
| He has to know by this point that this kind of thing is just not gonna work. | ||
| You'd think. | ||
| He's not gonna derail the questioning or, like, Mark's not gonna be blown away by this amazing comeback. | ||
| Nothing is achieved other than, like, a dopamine rush for Steven. | ||
| That's... | ||
| Fascinating. | ||
| I'm still a good boy. | ||
|
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Yep. | |
| I'm still good at this. | ||
| Yeah, it doesn't matter if I'm getting my ass kicked right now. | ||
| I'm still a good boy. | ||
| And Mark brings up Bellingcat because Eric Toler from Bellingcat was the person who uncovered the Nazi tattoo photos. | ||
| Right. | ||
| And folks in Steve's area of the media believe that they're a U.S. State Department front. | ||
|
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Right. | |
| And so that's what he... | ||
| Steven should understand that that was what is being discussed, not that intelligence agencies investigated a crime. | ||
| He knows that. | ||
| Yeah, that's pathetic. | ||
| Yeah, that's stupid. | ||
| So, a lot of people who ran with this photo maybe aren't getting sued and stuff. | ||
| And maybe some of that is because they made a correction. | ||
| As it turns out, Steven never made a correction. | ||
| Do you remember on this May 9th show? | ||
| That you said there was some confusion over which was the real photo of the shooter? | ||
| I vaguely recall, I believe, Gerald saying that, and I believe that was mentioned. | ||
| All right, let's make it clear. | ||
| You have never told your audience that you showed an incorrect picture on your show. | ||
| Injection form. | ||
| Again, I don't recall. | ||
| What you're saying sounds correct, that someone said there was confusion about the image. | ||
| Right, but you know, one of the things that when I first reached out to you on behalf of my client that I asked, was I asked, could you make a retraction and tell your audience that that was false? | ||
| And you've never done that, have you? | ||
| I don't believe I've ever communicated with you before today. | ||
| Well, I've certainly written you a letter. | ||
| I don't believe we've ever communicated you and I before today. | ||
| That's interesting. | ||
| Have you ever spoken before today? | ||
| We've never spoken, no. | ||
| Have we even? | ||
| This whole odyssey began when I wrote a letter on May 22, 2023 addressed to you and your company that first informed you of all of this and then asked you to make a correction. | ||
| Are you aware of that? | ||
| Injection form. | ||
| I'm just trying to... | ||
| You're saying that I responded to you directly? | ||
| No, I don't think you ever responded to me. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| So I don't believe you and I have ever communicated before today. | ||
| Well, I mean, I would say sending you a letter makes it a communication. | ||
| I would say that, yes. | ||
| So what I'm asking you is... | ||
| I don't even call myself reading a letter from you. | ||
| I don't. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| And so, in other words, not making a retraction, that wasn't was that an intentional choice on your part? | ||
|
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Injection form. | |
| No, because I don't recall anything that you're discussing. | ||
| You sending me a letter. | ||
| I don't recall that letter or that request being made from you. | ||
| The only thing I recall is, again, my staff saying there was some confusion and that being addressed on the show. | ||
| Right. | ||
| And part of that show was, in fact, to express your doubts that these images of the shooter with neo-Nazi tattoos were real. | ||
| Right? | ||
| I don't recall. | ||
| Well, that's unfortunate. | ||
| I don't know if you get to just say, I never got your letter, and get off the hook for not responding to a request for retraction. | ||
| I mean, but... | ||
| I guess it's worth trying. | ||
| I'm just saying, as a lawyer, I'm going into a deposition wearing a necklace of teeth. | ||
| And then I'm going to say most of these are Steven Crowder's. | ||
| Yeah, I think that this, it just looks bad. | ||
| And I think that, being I've never talked to you, is such a, like, again, I feel like he thinks he has technicalities or something, and they're just not real. | ||
| This is the type of thing where I, and I hate to be an old man, but this is the type of thing where it feels like your mom has taken you to speak to the teacher, and if you had a mom that was going to help you grow into a good adult, that mom would, like, wrap your knuckles with a ruler every time you were about to talk shit. | ||
| Well, I guess it kind of depends. | ||
| Depends a little bit, because I think that growing through an experience like this could involve a recognition of what was done wrong. | ||
| Sure. | ||
| And if your mom is bringing you to the principal's office and you're taking accountability and understanding what the issue with your behavior was, don't hit that kid on the knuckles or whatever. | ||
| You don't need to do more when the kid is engaging with the process of, Of, you know, what was done wrong. | ||
| Possible. | ||
| Stephen will not even accept any of that. | ||
| Nope. | ||
| He's like someone who's being brought to the principal's office, but just will not accept that they broke a rule or anything. | ||
| They did something that requires a recognition of wrongdoing. | ||
| Right. | ||
| But it's the opposite of that. | ||
| It is fully recognizing that they did wrong and refusing to accept any consequence for it. | ||
| Yes. | ||
| We both know that I fucked up and I fucked over your client. | ||
| If I didn't, we wouldn't be here. | ||
| I had to defend white people. | ||
| Exactly. | ||
| Don't you understand? | ||
| Here's why it's okay and here's why I refuse to accept consequences from you. | ||
| You're illegitimate. | ||
| I did something that was probably bad or wrong. | ||
| Whatever. | ||
| But I did it in service of a greater good, which is white people. | ||
| Only God can judge me. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| So we end on a somewhat disappointing note where... | ||
| Because he has all of his teeth. | ||
| And not only does he have all of his teeth, he has no awareness of why this is even happening. | ||
| Of course not. | ||
| You would agree that this photo should have been investigated more fully before it was put on the air. | ||
| I would agree with that being the case, if not reporting on someone else's reporting and pointing out to people the source of the reporting. | ||
| That is something that we have to do very often. | ||
| I want to make sure I get this, to make sure I understand this. | ||
| It is your belief that if you have a media organization, Today News Africa will call that a media organization for these purposes, right? | ||
| If you have this media organization and you find them suitable, that that is all the fact-checking you need to do. | ||
| And you can put the image that they say is a mass murderer on the air to your audience. | ||
| That's correct. | ||
| All those prerequisites? | ||
|
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No. | |
| Okay. | ||
| So what else has to happen before you can do it? | ||
| Before you can do what? | ||
| Before you can put that picture out to people. | ||
| Let me just start by you got a website and it's saying This is the shooter. | ||
| No sourcing, just this is the shooter. | ||
| And you've got it on a website. | ||
| And I guess you find that website suitable. | ||
| Is that enough or what else has to happen before you can put that out to people? | ||
| No, again, it was saying according to this source, this is the shooter. | ||
| And there were other, as I recall, other existing sources. | ||
| So there just has to be some other existing source. | ||
| I'm just trying to get them all. | ||
| So what we have is... | ||
| That would be a minimum that there would often have to be at least more than one place that that is seen. | ||
| It's not the only process. | ||
| So we have in an article, it's used in an article by someone purporting to be a media organization. | ||
| And then if you see it somewhere else, then we're done. | ||
| We can put it on the air. | ||
| Nothing else needs to happen. | ||
| I didn't say nothing else needs to happen. | ||
| What else needs to happen? | ||
| Certainly if this is something that is novel or new, You would have to cite the source and say according to them, which is very important, especially when there's original reporting that's not your own, only to give credit. | ||
| Sometimes they're investigative journalists who are the only sources of information that exist. | ||
| And you have to give them credit and say according to this person because that's the information that you have available at the time. | ||
| All right, so now let's put that on. | ||
| And then make it publicly available. | ||
| So as long as you have... | ||
| A website that covers news that you find suitable, uses the image, and then you see it somewhere else, and as long as you say that you got it from the source you got it from, Today News Africa, that's all we need to do. | ||
| Now we're done. | ||
| We can put it on the air. | ||
| Right? | ||
| What else needs to happen? | ||
| Depends on the story. | ||
| What needed to happen here? | ||
| I couldn't tell you what needed to happen here at that moment in time. | ||
| That's a shame because that is literally what I came to ask you about. | ||
| And I think that will call it a day for today. | ||
| Thank you for your time, Mr. Crowder, and see you soon. | ||
| So that is basically a moment where you're offering a, you know, have you thought about this at all? | ||
| Do you recognize what mistakes were made and how they could not be made in the future? | ||
| Do you care at all about the harm that was caused by the carelessness of reporting this image? | ||
| And there's just a refusal to engage even with the idea. | ||
| And that's amazing. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Because I think you can be a shithead and be in that space and still act like a Like, you can still be like, hey, look, I'm fast and loose sometimes. | ||
| We make mistakes. | ||
| I'm really sorry about this. | ||
| I recognize, you know, here's a correction. | ||
| Like I said, we suspended this reporter who let the picture go through or whatever. | ||
| There's so much you can do to just, even if you don't have empathy, feign it. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| And just don't care. | ||
| Yeah, I was going to say, it feels like the truth of this world, Is that it cannot coexist. | ||
| But the reality of this world is that it can at least act like it. | ||
| You know? | ||
| Like, there is no possible way for Steven Crowder's brain to hold true information. | ||
| But it is capable of understanding physical cues and responses therein. | ||
| You know? | ||
| Like, that is what he's capable of doing. | ||
| So you can never teach him anything, but you can train him or, like, domesticate him, in essence. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
|
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That's the best you can do for this world, is... | |
| I would suggest that based on this deposition, it doesn't seem very possible. | ||
| I mean, not for us. | ||
| You would need to have a dog trainer to do it. | ||
| I mean, all of that kind of training is based on stimulus and response. | ||
| You'd think that being sued and going to a deposition and having this unpleasant hour and 45 minutes of your life is going to be the negative stimulus that corrects the behavior or is... | ||
| But that's what I'm saying. | ||
| That's the reality of the not... | ||
| We cannot actually coexist. | ||
| Because in this world where you live... | ||
| That is an experience that will cause you to change your behavior. | ||
| If it is not an experience that will cause them to change their behavior, it is because it is not an experience in their world. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| You know? | ||
| Yeah, it's not sufficient. | ||
| It might be good, but it's not sufficient to change the behavior at this point, it appears. | ||
| And I think that based on listening to Steven, I don't know what would be. | ||
| Cesar Millan. | ||
| Maybe. | ||
| I think that a lot of the times we come away from a deposition with something that's kind of interesting or revealing about the case or the person. | ||
| Something. | ||
| And the only thing that I really feel after watching this is that Stephen is way dumber than I thought and has an entrenched racism that is much more than... | ||
| A lot of his comedy is pretty racist in nature, but you hide behind, like, I'm making jokes, I'm making... | ||
| I think that there is a much more sincere racism in him and a much stupider person. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| And I guess that's worth it, but I don't know. | ||
| It's not as insightful. | ||
| Even that Newsmax one was insightful into how a lot of this bullshit works. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| I feel like Steven doesn't really fully understand even the game that he's playing. | ||
| No! | ||
| I think that he is maybe a front man of an operation. | ||
| Yeah, I would say... | ||
| He's not an Alex. | ||
| No, no, no, no. | ||
| I would say he's more of like a tribal follower kind of thing, wherein, like, within the group, he is capable of altering behaviors based upon what the group says. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| But outside of the group is not possible. | ||
| I don't think that if he wasn't getting queues and, like, having other people run his business, I don't think this would work. | ||
| I don't think he would. | ||
| Whereas I think Alex obviously needs some infrastructure help from folks. | ||
| Sure. | ||
| But he can, like, before he had those things, he still created Infowars. | ||
| Right, right, right. | ||
| He had Hustle where he didn't have the smarts. | ||
| If Crowder hadn't got on Fox News and, like, I don't think anybody would be interested in this. | ||
| I don't think he has it. | ||
| No, I mean, I think the irony of it truly is that... | ||
| Only someone as stupid as this would have done the stupid things he did to get to where he is. | ||
| Yeah, that might be it. | ||
| You know, like, you would have to be a fucking idiot to set up a fucking table on a goddamn campus and be like, debate me, bro. | ||
| And he's a fucking idiot. | ||
| It makes sense. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
|
unidentified
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Yep. | |
| And, like, Owen Troyer initially did that, like, let's go fight with college students and stuff. | ||
| But he pivoted. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| I don't know if Crowder really has. | ||
| I mean, he couldn't stop doing it in a deposition with a lawyer. | ||
| But I think Owen can't resist some of that shit, too. | ||
| But he's just a shithead, you know? | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| He's like a shithead bro. | ||
| But I just think that there isn't much more here. | ||
| There isn't. | ||
| Stephen's stupid. | ||
| That's the headline. | ||
| It is. | ||
| Stephen Crowder, dumb. | ||
| It is really. | ||
| But... | ||
| Really dumb. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| In a way that you almost don't think it's possible to reach an age and still be said dumb. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| A lot of times I will say, you know, hey, if you really like watching Depositions, go ahead and watch the thing, but you don't really need to watch it. | ||
| In this case, I think, like, if you can find the full version, go ahead and watch that whole thing, because it's, like, it's pretty nuts. | ||
| Inability to engage. | ||
| Yeah, you'd marvel at it. | ||
| And I hope to, you know, I hope I captured some of that, but whatever. | ||
| I think you did. | ||
| So, we'll be back with another episode, but until then, I hope we have a website. | ||
| Indeed we do. | ||
| It's knowledgeright.com. | ||
| Yep, we'll be back. | ||
| But until then, I'm Leo. | ||
| I'm Leo. | ||
| I'm DZX Clark. | ||
| I am the Mysterious Professor. | ||
| Woo! | ||
|
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Yeah! | |
| Woo! | ||
| Yeah! | ||
| Woo! | ||
| And now, here comes the sex robots. | ||
| Andy in Kansas. | ||
| You're on the air. | ||
|
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Thanks for holding. | |
| Hello, Alex. | ||
| I'm a first time caller. | ||
|
unidentified
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I'm a huge fan. | |
| I love your work. |