Jan. 11, 2017 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
21:16
3556 Buzzfeed Publishes Shocking Fake News About Donald Trump
On Tuesday, Buzzfeed published an "article" titled "These Reports Allege Trump Has Deep Ties To Russia" which included a completely unsubstantiated and error filled document supposedly from a former British Intelligence officer. When it comes to modern "journalism" this publication drops standards to a new low - even for an outlet like Buzzfeed. Archive of Original Buzzfeed Article: http://web.archive.org/web/20170111065115/https://www.buzzfeed.com/kenbensinger/these-reports-allege-trump-has-deep-ties-to-russia?utm_term=.uk3wJkD8XFreedomain Radio is 100% funded by viewers like you. Please support the show by signing up for a monthly subscription or making a one time donation at: http://www.freedomainradio.com/donate
BuzzFeed, for those who don't know, it's ranked pretty high up there in the US for websites.
They do news, I guess you could say.
Anyway, they have published a report Entitled to these reports allege Trump has deep ties to Russia.
Now, just in case you're about to fall asleep, because that's a boring headline, like worthwhile Canadian initiative.
Well, it's deep twist ties involving hookers.
So hang in there.
It's going to be interesting, if not downright alarming.
So the article...
A dossier making explosive but unverified allegations that the Russian government has been cultivating, supporting and assisting President-elect Donald Trump for years and gained compromising information about him has been circulating among elected officials, intelligence agents and journalists for weeks.
Okay, so this is, I assume, they're covering their butts by saying, no, no, no, you see, it's being circulated around all these other people.
But, of course, you know, when explosive allegations rise anywhere, you know, you call in some sort of threat or whatever.
Someone's got to investigate it.
Someone's got to look at it.
And the more explosive, the more they're going to look into it and all of that.
And so the fact that other people have been looking at it...
Doesn't really matter.
I do love the use of the word dossier.
It's just a document.
I mean, I don't know if it's a Word document or a PDF, but they say dossier because that sounds very spy-ish or spy-y, I guess you could say.
And a bunch of other people have declined to publish this because, well, for reasons we'll get into in a second.
So this dossier, they say, which is a collection of memos written over a period of months, includes specific, unverified, and potentially unverifiable allegations of contact between Trump aides and Russian operatives and graphic claims of sexual acts documented by the Russians.
That's really, really quite something.
Not to put too fine a point on it, and here's more things I never anticipated saying on this show, but the allegation is that Trump checks into the Ritz-Carlton in Moscow, and he basically says, I'm paraphrasing here according to these allegations, he says...
Hey, which bed did Barack Obama and Michelle Obama sleep in?
Ah, that one?
Okay, I'll take that one.
And then he arranges for Russian prostitutes.
Sorry.
I have a master's degree.
He arranges for Russian prostitutes to come in, I assume, with water in their valleys, and to pee on the bed that President Obama and Michelle Obama slept on because, you see, Trump is so full of hatred for them that he wants them subjected to rusty golden showers to piss play on the bed.
And this is the...
This is the allegation.
So BuzzFeed goes on to say, BuzzFeed news reporters in the US and Europe have been investigating various alleged facts in the dossier, but have not verified or falsified them.
Sure.
Yeah.
It's tough to falsify stuff, for sure.
You know, the null hypothesis is an epistemological challenge.
I quite agree.
Sorry.
They go on to say, CNN reported Tuesday that a two-page synopsis of the report was given to President Obama and to Donald Trump.
And then they go on to say, now.
BuzzFeed News is publishing the full document so that Americans can make up their own minds about allegations about the president-elect that have circulated at the highest levels of the U.S. government.
Now, there's other stuff in there, I'm sure, of course, about hacking the election and spying and all this kind of stuff.
But this, you know, we're just presenting the information.
You decide?
No, come on.
That's not how journalism is supposed to work.
You know, feeding like vultures on any previous legitimacy that restraint in these matters might have provided the media is a meal that can only last so long before you kind of have no credibility left.
We publish all these allegations.
You decide.
Now, I guess my first question is, on what basis is the American public supposed to decide these things?
Seems true to me.
Why I was just at a golden shower party last week with Ha-Ah and so-and-so.
Yeah, sure.
Yeah, I just like Trump.
That seems true to me.
I like Trump.
That seems false to me.
I mean, on what basis?
If your own journalists can't confirm any of this stuff, on what basis is the American public supposed to verify this information?
That was, I guess at one time in the golden age of journalism, I think around the time of Jonathan Swift, that kind of was supposed to be the job of the journalists.
They go on to say, the document was prepared for political opponents of Trump by a person who is understood to be a former British intelligence agent.
Now, you've got to look at the language again.
I'm no lawyer, but weasel words kind of jump out at me, you know, like raptors.
A person who is understood to be a former British intelligence agent.
Hmm.
Not a person who is a former British.
He's just understood.
Oh, maybe it's a he or she or whatever, right?
Former British intelligence agent.
How would they know?
Do you just call up the British intelligence service and say, hey, is Madam X a former spy of yours?
You know, just try that.
Try calling up the CIA with some names and saying, hey, were these former spies of yours?
And if he's got super secret spy information, isn't he supposed to keep it under wraps?
I think you've signed these big secrecy agreements, and I don't think that they just vanish when you punch out for the last time.
And so these are just sort of basic...
Questions that I would ask if Russia had such damning information on video.
You see, they say that not only did Trump do this stuff with these prostitutes, but they have it recorded, perhaps, even on video.
Now, if you had that kind of intelligence, you sure as hell wouldn't be leaking it to the British.
And you sure as hell, as a British intelligence agent, I don't think would just be leaking it around.
Oh, hire me for OPPO research and I'll turn over some of the most explosive state secrets I've ever been presented with.
That's not going to cause me any trouble, is it, now?
You're not Hillary Clinton.
I think you're supposed to keep these secrets.
I think that's, you know, just my view from the outside.
So, just some guy.
And they say about this document, now see here, they're not calling it a dossier, anyone calling it a document.
They say, quote, it is not just unconfirmed.
It includes some clear errors.
I'm sorry, this is so terrible.
They were going to say, the report misspells the name of one company, Alpha Group.
Throughout, it is Alpha Group with an F. The report says the settlement of Barvikha outside Moscow is, quote, reserved for the residences of the top leadership and their close associates.
It is not reserved for anyone, and it is also populated by the very wealthy.
The Trump administration's transition team did not immediately respond to BuzzFeed news requests for comment.
However, the president-elect's attorney, Michael Cohen, told Mike that the allegations were absolutely false.
He said, it is so ridiculous on so many levels.
Clearly the person who created this did so from their imagination or did so hoping that the liberal media would run with this fake story for whatever rationale they might have.
And they go on to say, Trump shot back against the reports a short time later on Twitter.
Trump, you know, when you get all caps from the president-elect, I have a feeling you might not have a very good couple of days.
He said, fake news, a total political witch hunt, and that came from Trump.
Okay, we're going for a sec, but just think, think.
Trump goes to Russia.
I mean, can you verify he was in Russia at the time?
Shouldn't be that impossible to do.
He was a pretty public figure, even before he ran for president.
So he just goes and performs...
Like, unimaginably horrifying sexual actions with two prostitutes or a couple of prostitutes from Russia.
Yeah, because they're never going to sell their story.
I mean, what are they, do stuff for money?
What are you kidding me?
That could never happen.
How insecure could you be?
I mean, like, non-secure.
And also, of course, if they've got all this bugging equipment, you know, they've got cameras and audio pointed at this room, well, I guess that would have meant that Barack Obama would have been filmed and recorded and all that kind of stuff now.
Don't they kind of put a sweep in, don't they?
Anyway, I mean, it just...
I mean, just none of it makes any...
Oh, bring the hookers in!
Let's do these sack-sacks!
Let them go!
Let's just go somewhere else!
Trump is, according to his Wharton academic achievements and his entrance exams, he's a genius.
And I just don't think a genius rests his entire reputation on the closed-mouthedness of a couple of Russian hookers.
I just don't think it does.
Anyway, to go on to the BuzzFeed...
Let's just say article.
A dossier.
No, an article.
It goes on to say, his former campaign manager and current senior White House advisor Kellyanne Conway also denied the claims during an appearance on Late Night with Seth Meyers, adding that nothing has been confirmed.
She also said Trump was, quote, not aware, end quote, of any briefing on the matter.
BuzzFeed goes on to say, the documents have circulated for months and acquired a kind of legendary status among journalists, lawmakers, and intelligence officials who have seen them.
I don't know.
You know, a legend is something that's not true, right?
I don't know how they pick their language.
And how do you know it's acquired a legendary status?
It hasn't really acquired much of a we-can-publish-it status from journalists, I guess, except for BuzzFeed.
Now, they go on to say, Mother Jones writer David Korn referred to the documents in a late October column.
BuzzFeed News reporters in the US and Europe have been investigating various alleged facts in the dossier, but have not stood them up or knocked them down.
Okay.
I'm going to say, Harry Reid spokesman Adam Jentleson tweeted Tuesday that the former Senate Democratic leader had seen the documents before writing a public letter to FBI Director James Comey about Trump's ties to Russia, and CNN reported Tuesday that Arizona Republican John McCain gave a, quote, full copy, end quote, of the memos to Comey on December 9th, but that the FBI already had copies of many of the memos.
And, um...
Completely unverified, unprovable, maybe can't ever be proven.
No particular source that can be verified.
Unnamed intelligence sources.
That seems to be the new thing that's going on.
Unnamed intelligence sources have told me.
I don't know.
Could be voices in your head.
I don't know.
Could be any number of things.
So Ben Smith, sorry, the editor-in-chief of BuzzFeed, wrote the following.
As you have probably seen, this evening we published a secret dossier, making explosive and unverified allegations about Donald Trump and Russia.
I wanted to briefly explain to you how we made the decision to publish it.
We published the dossier, which Ken Bensinger obtains through his characteristically ferocious reporting.
Okay, um...
Really?
Obtained?
It wasn't given to you?
It wasn't handed to you?
Did you corner someone and rip it out of their chest with your teeth?
It just seems like characteristically ferocious reporting.
You've got to go to this guy with one of those big armbands that they use to train police dogs.
So, anyway, to go on.
So that, as we wrote, quote, Americans can make up their own minds about allegations about the president-elect that have circulated at the highest levels of the U.S. government, as a quote from the article.
We just, uh, we just looked at.
He goes on to say, our presumption is to be transparent in our journalism to share what we have with our readers.
We have always erred on the side of publishing.
In this case, the document was in wide circulation at the highest levels of American government and media.
It seems to lie behind a set of vague allegations from the Senate Majority Leader to the Director of the FBI and a report that intelligence agencies have delivered to the President and President-elect.
As we noted in our story, there is serious reason to doubt the allegations.
We have been chasing specific claims in this document for weeks and will continue to.
I guess he means do so.
So he goes on to say, publishing this document was not an easy or simple call, and people of goodwill may disagree with our choice.
But publishing this dossier reflects how we see the job of reporters in 2017.
Well, I will tell you, my particular observation is that I genuinely believe he does.
I think this is how reporters should act in 2017.
I mean, on Barack Obama's first book, he claimed to have been born in Kenya.
But of course, anyone who questioned whether...
Barack Obama was actually born in the United States.
He was crazy and an outlandish conspiracy theorist.
But, yes, a document with typos and misinformation and the wrong security classification headers.
I mean, this is kind of important.
Like, neither the U.S. nor the U.K. nor Russia use any of these security headers that are in the documents.
It just seems to me to be made up out of sheer cloth, as Trump's lawyer was...
I was talking about, and so this is why WikiLeaks has said they don't consider it to be a credible document at all.
So, yeah, it's engaging in golden showers with prostitutes on Barack Obama's bed.
I mean, this sounds like, I don't know, fan fiction from the bowels of hell.
There is a rabbit trail on the internet, which I will only mention in passing, where people say they think they know how this information got from A to Z from...
A place on the internet to BuzzFeed, but I will let you look that up at your own leisure.
And of course, you know, why now?
Why today?
Well, you know, it's kind of coinciding with the start of Trump's cabinet confirmations.
And, you know, tomorrow he's got his first press conference after Obama's Farewell speech, and so, I don't know, it just seems that this kind of timing may have a little something to do with all of this stuff, but I don't know.
It just...
If stories of golden showers just seem kind of credible to you on the surface, you might be hanging out with the wrong crowd, and I'd really recommend not shaking their hand in general.
And you can see this kind of monkey branching going on, right?
One outlet reports something, then another outlet reports that the first outlet reported it, and then people say that the second outlet also reported it, and so on, and, you know, it kind of goes back to one place.
But it doesn't...
You know, it doesn't really mean anything.
It's just that one person says something in media outlets, kind of unverified, and then other...
And, oh, look, everyone's reporting on it, and so on.
So it's not particularly credible as far as I'm concerned.
And, yeah, WikiLeaks actually stated openly, 35-page PDF published by BuzzFeed on Trump is not an intelligence report.
Style facts and dates show no credibility.
And, I mean, this, to me, I mean, stuff was said, and we've heard about it, and unconfirmed reports are, and we can't confirm or deny it, but we're going to publish it anyway.
I mean, God Almighty.
I mean, let's say you really dislike Donald Trump, and, oh, you want to believe it.
It's got to be, you really feel like it should be true.
It ought to be true.
It's a, man, I don't like slippery slope arguments as a whole, but I gotta concede it to the slope on this one.
I mean, how would you like it?
I, anyone could write up some document and circulate it to your local newspaper, and they're like, well, we can't confirm any of it.
There's no witnesses, there's no facts, nothing we can show that proves any of this is true, but we're going to publish it anyway.
Is that really the world that you want to live in?
Anyone can write anything.
And remember, the internet's a big place full of not entirely responsible people from time to time.
Is this the world that you want to live in?
People can just write stuff and circulate it, and then it just gets printed with no verification.
No, no, we just want the readers to decide.
Based on what?
Well, based on their own prejudices, I would assume.
Maybe this guy is a former British intelligence officer.
Maybe he got fired for being terrible at it.
I don't know.
I don't know.
And, of course, the anti-Trump people so desperately want it to be true that everyone's just lining up behind their prejudices, and it means that we're living in two opposing and separate realities.
And this is, of course, where societies break down, right?
Um...
Societies break down when there's no common reality that we can all get together and agree to subject our opinions to.
Right.
I mean, when you turn people into sort of fundamentalist and oppositional camps with no reality to mediate what's going on, I mean, you just end up with this ferocious internist in semi-religious warfare that starts off with words and ends up with swords in general.
This is what's happened repeatedly throughout history.
So it's very dangerous stuff that they're And I'm just thinking, you know, what is NBCUniversal?
They just invested $200 million last November in the BuzzFeed after dropping a couple of significant bills into their coffers before.
This is a very significant, it's a watershed moment, I think.
Not just for BuzzFeed, but for just journalism as a whole.
And much though I dislike and find it reprehensible and repulsive, these kind of leaps into the dark with people's reputations and so on.
I mean, there's something...
Great about it for the alternative media, right?
I mean, this insane hatred, the stuff that gets published.
I mean, there's an old saying, it says, never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.
And this kind of stuff coming from, you know, big, supposedly legitimate media outlets.
I mean, this is going to be a watershed moment.
This is going to be BuzzFeed's brand from here on in.
And...
People are going to be defined by how they react and respond to this story, to what is being talked about, to these kinds of allegations being printed.
Even with all of the caveats, even with all the weasel words, even with all the intelligence officials and blah, blah, blah, even with all of that.
I mean, yeah.
Even with all of that, how people react and respond to this story is going to be very telling, not just for them.
It's not just BuzzFeed's reputation that's going to be branded by this.
It's going to be yours and mine going forward that is branded by this.
So keep a very, very close and careful eye on how people respond to this.
And what they say, the words they use, the positions that they take, it is going to be a defining, dark-like moment in the progress of facts, reality, information, truth, and verifiability in the world.
I think this is a very, very key moment.
I can't wait to see what happens next, because I can tell you one thing.
What's going to happen next is that my numbers are going to go through the roof.
