Trump Warns Of Civil War If Impeached Causing OUTRAGE, But He Isn't Wrong And The Media Knows It
Trump Tweets Warning Of "Civil War" Causing OUTRAGE, But He Isn't Wrong And The Media Knows It. In a statement made on Fox news Pastor Robert Jeffress warned that impeachment of Donald Trump would cause a "civil war like fracture" that this country could not heal from.Trump quoted this and posted it to twitter sparking national twitter trends and outrage among the left and even some on the right.But while we can criticize the president for quoting Jeffress and for his use of twitter, the quote itself is not wrong. For years the media has presented stories about a second civil war or civil war 2. In one story from 2017 they even claimed that some security experts believe there is a 95% chance of a civil war in the US in the next 5 to 15 years.So why then are they mad at the president for now stating similar rhetoric that was pushed by outlets like the New Yorker?It's a media double standard, they can report on this and ask these questions but as soon as the president says something similar they called it Russian propaganda. An analyst for CNN did just that.While I think the President should be held to a higher standard than the press the issue is how they frame everything he tweets or says as cause for MORE division.When the media pushes the fake news for clicks we see the democrats chase after and it just makes the divide worse. meanwhile the far left agrees with Trump and thinks civil war is already here, at least some on the far left do.
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The other day, Donald Trump was tweeting about the scandals going on since 2016 and Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats.
And in the end of his tweet thread, he references a civil war-like fracture in this nation from which our country will never heal in the event he is impeached.
Now, this is a quote from an individual who appeared on Fox News.
Pastor Robert Jeffress, it says.
Maybe it's Jeffrey.
Is his spelling wrong?
I don't know.
That's what it says.
I'm just reading as it says it.
Well, this triggered outrage.
A national trend, several times over.
Civil War, Civil War II, Civil War sign-up.
A lot of people are making jokes.
But many people are genuinely outraged.
Some even saying this itself is grounds for impeachment.
While I think we can be critical of the president for the rhetoric he uses and his Twitter account, it is a bit hypocritical in my opinion that the media espouses talk of civil war over and over again for years.
And then they criticize the president when he quotes someone who brought it up.
Keeping in mind, he referenced a civil war-like fracture, not a direct civil war.
But I'll say this personally before we get started.
I do not think it was appropriate for the president to be tweeting this quote.
But I think that's besides the point.
I think we can criticize his language in the end.
The bigger issue, for me at least, is how the media creates these circumstances and then gets outraged by them.
Listen, I know the media isn't necessarily a monolith.
Fox News referencing Civil War is not the same as, say, Splinter doing it.
Splinter is a far-left outlet.
But here's the thing.
As much as there's a lot of outrage and people saying Trump could be impeached over this, and all of these Democrats and people on the left are saying, oh, how dare you!
Harumph, I say!
I think it's fair to point out that among the new, you know, progressive left wing, and among moderates and conservatives, the talk is there.
Now there are establishment media and Democrat types are using this against Trump.
They're saying, oh, Harumph!
How dare you!
But let's just be real.
The media and everyone has incessantly talked about civil war for years.
And I've got some interesting stories.
Now, first, we can talk about Trump all day and night.
But how about this?
In response to it, Splinter, a far-left outlet, full disclosure, I used to work for Fusion, which now became Splinter, says Trump's civil war is already starting.
We have article after article talking about the coming civil war.
So the media, in all its forms, has been talking about this.
And now they're angry because Trump cited a quote from someone referencing a civil war-like fracture.
You see, this is what the media does.
They call it Russian propaganda.
Well, this one's an FBI agent, former FBI agent.
They call it Russian propaganda.
CNN analyst here saying Trump is spouting Russian talking points.
I'm sorry, is the New Yorker Russian talking points?
So here's what I want to do.
I'm going to read you this tweet from Donald Trump.
I'm going to read you some of the responses and statements, and we're going to talk about the potential for civil war, why would Trump say this, and some of the media criticism, and push back on this duplicitous nature that exists, where they will bring it up, And then people in media will bring it up, not the president, and then when the president several years later references it, all of a sudden it's his fault?
Okay, there's criticism to go around for the president, absolutely.
I think Trump's Twitter account has been inappropriate in many circumstances.
It's unprecedented, to say the least.
There's a lot of bad things, but there are some admittedly good things when Trump comes out and just tweets stuff.
But I want to read through this and I want to show you some of the hypocrisy about how they frame this and how they weaponize the media's own rhetoric.
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I often criticize the media.
It's basically what I... You can count on me to do that.
And YouTube is propping up big players like MSNBC, Fox News, CNN.
I say it all the time.
For clarity, I just recently discovered this channel may actually be getting boosted as well, but not as much as some of these bigger channels.
To say the least, if you think that I'm doing a good job, share this so that we can outrank the competition.
But let's read the tweet from Trump.
He's quoting somebody here.
He says, Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats can't put down the impeachment match.
They know they couldn't beat him in 2016 against Hillary Clinton, and they're increasingly aware of the fact that they won't win against him in 2020.
And impeachment is the only tool they have to get rid of Donald Trump.
That's the extension.
It does an ellipsis.
And the Democrats don't care if they burn down and destroy this nation in the process.
I have never seen the evangelical Christians more angry over an issue than this attempt to illegitimately remove this president from office and overturn the 2016 election, and negate the votes of millions of evangelicals in the process.
They know the only impeachable offense that President Trump has committed was beating Hillary Clinton in 2016.
That's the unpardonable sin for which the Democrats will never forgive him.
If the Democrats are successful in removing the president from office, which they never will be, it will cause a civil war-like fracture in this nation from which our country will never heal.
That quote, I completely agree with 100%.
I believe the Democrats are very angry that Trump won, and they've been waving scandal after scandal with no effect.
Three years of Russia nonsense didn't work, and now Ukraine 2.0.
I believe they refuse to let go of their loss.
Now, I may agree with this individual, but for different underlying reasons.
When I look at the Democrats, you know, we've talked about it over and over again, what are they doing?
They're focused on scandals instead of policy positions.
The moderates won in the midterms.
That's a fact.
New York Times reports it.
But instead of focusing on the issues, they go after impeachment and scandals and Russiagate.
It shows they don't think, I don't know if they think they're going to lose or what.
But it shows they're trying to get rid of him by any means necessary.
I also would agree with him.
I defer to him when he says evangelicals are angry over the issue.
I don't know many evangelicals.
Never been a big fan of the religious right.
But I'm gonna take his word for it.
He's a pastor.
But in the end, he says it will cause a Civil War-like fracture, and I agree.
I've talked about the coming Civil War and what it would look like, and a lot of people, the problem is they assume, and I do this disclaimer all the time, they assume Civil War means two big factions marching in front of each other in tanks.
No, no, no, no, no, no.
We're in a Cold Civil War.
Don't take my word for it.
Take a Princeton professor's word for it.
We are in a Cold Civil War.
This is a Princeton professor saying this.
I don't know what you can expect from a Civil War or Cold Civil War or whatever it is.
I will say, however, we're in the information age.
Physical assault and physical attacks aren't necessary.
What you need is to win the majority.
It is an information war, and this has been referenced over and over again.
What you're seeing from the president is just this.
It is not so much that we're going to see factions forming and people taking up arms, though we still kind of are.
It may not ever devolve to a point where people are lobbing, you know, shooting each other in the streets.
We have seen a guy shoved into an ICE facility with weapons.
We have seen terrifying acts of violence.
It's happened.
And we see street battles.
Just the other day, there was a story about a little old lady being screamed at.
These Antifa people were screaming in her face as she tried to cross the street.
Now, this is Canada, okay?
I want to make sure that's clear.
But this is just another example of a cultural-political divide, and it's not just in the U.S.
It's in the U.K., it's in Canada, and it is affecting the U.S.
very, very much so.
So there's a cultural divide happening.
Call it a civil war, call it what you want, but the battle is on.
When Trump tweets about this, this is what we see.
Don't forget that one of the talking points pushed by Russia's troll farm was that there would be a civil war if Democrats tried to impeach Trump.
An interesting coinkydink, right?
From the criminal complaint filed in federal court.
I don't care if this is true or not.
I care that a partisan actor who works for CNN, an analyst, is claiming Trump's claims are partisan Russian propaganda.
You want to talk about a potential for civil war, you claiming that Trump is coincidentally pushing Russian propaganda feeds the beast.
It feeds that narrative.
And I'll admit, I will accept fault for myself because a self-fulfilling prophecy exists.
I've repeatedly talked about it.
I can only talk about civil war as I see it.
People get angry.
How dare you, Tim?
Listen, The New Yorker started it, not me.
When I talk about this issue, it's not because I randomly got the idea one day that civil war was possible.
It's because I read The New Yorker, who once wrote about me, and I got the article on my wall, okay?
This is The New Yorker.
Is America headed for a new kind of civil war?
Well, when you read that, what can you conclude?
They conclude very heavily the answer is yes!
Absolutely yes.
Now look, we can have a conversation about whether or not it was irresponsible for Trump to engage in that kind of rhetoric.
But it becomes difficult.
Look, I'll say it.
I'll say it.
No problem.
Trump's Twitter account causes problems, and he's irresponsible.
Often.
I've talked to Trump supporters who have said that much is true as well.
Of course you'll find die-hard Trump supporters who will say Trump can do no wrong, but I tend to find that many sane, regular Americans who voted for Trump say, I wish he didn't tweet like that so much, but hey, the economy's doing really great, right?
It's a conversation I recently had.
So I think it's fine to criticize the president for engaging in rhetoric like this, but I've got to stop and say, listen, it was on Fox News and Trump retweeted it.
It's not like nobody heard that quote and you can't necessarily say it's just his fault for saying it.
It was on Fox News.
You then might say, you'll see from the left or critics saying, well, why was Fox News engaging in this Russian propaganda as we see from this CNN analyst?
Well, I'm sorry.
It's because the New Yorker.
It's because of San Francisco Chronicle.
It's because MarketWatch.com, and even in Australia.
It's because they are all talking about it.
How about KPBS?
I'm not sure what local outlet that is, but the point is, it's everywhere.
Local affiliates are even talking about it.
I'm sorry, it's a fact.
And when Trump tweets it out, what do we get from the left, from the progressive far left?
Trump's civil war is already starting.
You can't blame the president for simply repeating years later what the media has been saying the entire time.
Okay?
I think light criticism, but what do you want me to do?
Okay, I think the president needs to be a better character, and this is one of the biggest criticisms I have, and I think it's fair to point out, while you can agree with his policies and be happy that the country is doing better, we have a cultural divide that Trump isn't helping.
I get it, he's under fire from all sides and the media comes after him, and people want to defend himself.
I get it.
That's why I can only assign so much criticism to him.
In this instance, I think he shouldn't have tweeted this.
But what should I do?
Should I ignore the fact that she's claiming it's Russian propaganda when every media outlet... Okay, I'm gonna avoid being hyperbolic.
When many American mainstream outlets say the same thing, I'm sorry.
We see this tweet here.
Military expert slams Trump tweet, quoting Civil War-like fracture.
A terribly irresponsible thing for the president to say.
Yeah...
I agree, but at what point?
Should the president not talk about what the media's been talking about for years?
It's tough.
What do we do?
We're mad the president said something mean?
Okay, moving on.
Instead we get a national tweet, or I'm sorry, a national trend, and we get this.
Trump's Civil War quote tweet.
Okay, now you're crossing the line.
And this is what I talk about when I say the media takes things, they run these stories, and they turn around and weaponize it against the president.
You don't get to, for years, have this be bubbling up in the media, talking about it over and over again, and actually saying it's likely.
In this story from 2017, is America headed for a new kind of civil war?
They talk about how there was a poll showing that the security experts actually believe it's very likely.
I believe this is a story.
Let's actually read this so I can make sure.
I may be reading the wrong story, but let's read here.
Quote, we keep saying it can't happen here, but then holy smokes it can.
Mines told me after we talked on Sunday about Charlottesville.
The pattern of civil strife has evolved worldwide over the past 60 years.
Today, few civil wars involve pitched battles from trenches along neat geographic frontlines.
Many are low-intensity conflicts with episodic violence in constantly moving locales.
Mine's definition of a civil war is large-scale violence that includes a rejection of traditional political authority and requires a National Guard to deal with it.
On Saturday, McAuliffe put the National Guard on alert and declared a state of emergency.
This is back from 2017, mind you.
So, this may not be the story I'm looking for where they mention the... There was a survey done, essentially, where they asked a bunch of security experts... Oh, I'm sorry, this is the piece.
Okay, I just wanted... I thought I was wrong.
It says, Mines concluded that the United States faces a 60% chance of civil war over the next 10 to 15 years.
Other experts' predictions ranged from 5% to 95%.
The sobering consensus was 35%.
So, okay, okay, that was the story.
I thought I pulled it up, and I didn't see it, so I thought I was wrong.
But hey, I'm always trying to make sure I have my facts straight.
But there you can see, the New Yorker said security experts conclude a 35% chance consensus, with some even saying 95%, and the one being quoted 60%.
This has been in the media since 2017.
We have this story.
Princeton professor.
Cold Civil War.
There was another story about some Russian oligarch who apparently refused, or ambassador or something, refused to come to the U.S.
because we're undergoing a second Civil War.
And it's not my opinion, okay?
Here's Splinter.
Here's the left saying it.
So this is the problem.
For one, I think it's fair to point out we're all fractured, okay?
This country is fractured and divided.
But that lends itself to this idea that there is some kind of civil war-like fracture.
Now Trump didn't quote someone saying full-on war and violence.
He said a civil war-like divide.
I get it.
It's alluding to this great catastrophe in American history.
But it wasn't him who started it.
And when you have the left coming out and saying it is already starting...
Well, how are you going to blame the president for saying there's a potential for it when the progressives come out and say it's here now?
There was someone in the GOP who said, Rep.
Adam Kinzinger, a former Air Force pilot who represents an Illinois district, Trump won in 2016, tweeted on Sunday, I have visited nations ravaged by civil war.
I have never imagined such a quote to be repeated by a president.
This is beyond repugnant.
Fine.
I hear what he's saying.
Trump is repeating it.
That's true.
He's repeating something from Fox News which has been carried for years.
So let's do this, okay?
I've shown you the statements.
The main criticism I have is how the CNN reporter uses this to jump off and say, aha, proof Trump is pushing Russian propaganda.
What I see with this, with this tweet thread about everything Trump's saying being Russian propaganda, you can't come out With a list of everything Trump might say and then point to that list.
How easy is that?
It's like a five-year-old's tactic of like, you know, they told me you'd say that, that's what they said you would say that.
Okay, I can write down every possible insult you might ever come up with and then we said, aha, I proved, I said you were gonna say that, you're just espousing it.
Listen, Trump is saying things that are said by a lot of people in this country.
It is not Russian propaganda when the New Yorker says it.
The San Francisco Chronicle, September, so let's do this.
August 14th, 2017.
Is America headed for a new kind of civil war?
San Francisco Chronicle.
September 27th, 2018.
Is the United States on the verge of civil war?
Market Watch.
November 7th, 2018.
What are the chances that America's disunion turns into civil war?
News.com.au, not even America.
This one is from January 6, 2019.
The second U.S.
civil war.
President Trump has lost.
November 2020, President Trump has lost the election.
He blames voter fraud.
He blames deep state interference.
He refuses to step down.
What next?
How about this one?
KPBS, May 20, 2019.
Is the U.S.
headed for a second civil war?
I've tweeted about this.
And people always play this game that I'm talking about two giant factions with rifles marching, the pro-Trump Republican nationalists versus the Democratic liberal anarchists or whatever.
That's not what I'm saying.
I'm saying that we're here.
The President and what the Democrats are doing is not politics as usual, at least as I understand it.
When the Democrats come out with scandal after scandal, Ukraine, Russia, whatever, trying to impeach him, that is not politics as usual.
Bill Clinton was implicated in a scandal where he lied under oath and he was engaging in behaviors with women in the office.
Trump has been accused time and time again, and they don't have any substantive evidence.
He even released the transcript and the whistleblower complaint, the opposite of what Clinton did.
So this is not politics as usual.
Now, I pulled up this story from a source called HistoryNet, a second US Civil War inevitable or impossible.
I don't know when this was written.
It says, Today in History, born on September 30th.
I don't know when it was from because it references 2016.
I couldn't find a date.
And I don't know what the source is, whether it's credible or not.
They just bring up an interesting idea that I thought I would point to.
They say, in 2012, Small Wars Journal Magazine published a fictional essay titled, Full Spectrum Operations in the Homeland, a vision of the future, which sketched out a scenario for how a second U.S.
Civil War might arise near 2016.
Basically, the story goes on to talk about how they believed it was possible.
Right-wing militias, motivated by goals of the Tea Party, seize government buildings in a rural town, setting off a chain of events that culminate in a massive civil uprising.
They say this past January, much of the scenario predicted ended up playing out at the Mahler National Wildlife Refuge in Eastern Oregon.
However, unlike in the paper, the militants' cause failed to rally widespread support.
Public officials from both sides of the aisle condemned their actions.
One of the problems with whenever we talk about the Civil War is this desire to base it off of the past.
We don't know what the future holds.
We have new technology, we have new politicians, we have fracturing tribes and new ideologies.
It's hard to know what it will look like.
So I think of the series, The Handmaid's Tale, right?
It's funny to me how many people on the left look to this book and the series.
It's basically about a religious right-wing group taking over.
It's very patriarchal.
Women are forced to have babies and be wives.
And they say, that's what the right wants.
And I say, there may be some people, to an extent, who want that.
But what they depict in that movie is just Abrahamic religious law.
It doesn't have to be Christian.
It doesn't have to be right-wing.
It could be Islam or Judaism or whatever if you're basing your law off of the books of the Old Testament And, you know, there's Sharia law, there's Mosaic law, and so basically they look to this and they imagine that's a potential future.
You look at 1984, you look at Brave New World, these stories that people like to reference are people imagining what the future could be.
And often they get a lot of things wrong.
You know, the dystopian future we're facing isn't going to be Fahrenheit 451, or Brave New World, or 1984.
It's going to be a little bit of all of them.
You know, we're actually seeing people in schools throw away books.
I'm not exaggerating.
We see books being banned from Amazon.
And that's something that, you know, we point to like Fahrenheit 451 and say, like, how could this be happening?
But then we also have the surveillance state, the Panopticon.
The point is, We can't predict what any kind of civil war will actually look like.
You know, people try to say, it will be a bunch of right-wing militias doing this.
We don't know.
We don't know.
It could have been Occupy Wall Street.
That's a point I like to make often.
In 50 years to 100 years, they may look back and say it all started, you know, on September 17th, 2011, when a bunch of protesters came in and demanded Wall Street accountability and government accountability, which evolved into this movement we just don't know.
We don't have the benefit of hindsight like we do when we're looking at history.
And people can't imagine because, for the most part, we don't know.
I mean, think about technologies that seem obvious.
Like, it makes so much sense that we have a touchscreen phone you don't need a stylus for.
But, I mean, we used to have touchscreen devices that used styluses.
Why get rid of them?
Well, it's true, capacitative touch emerged and technology got better, but we could have never imagined cell phones.
You look at, you know, Back to the Future and their vision of 20, was it 2015 or 2016?
Was wildly off.
Or no, was it 2018?
I can't remember.
The point is, we just don't know what will be invented.
No one could have imagined the internet because we didn't have a concept of what the internet was.
So when we're talking about the potential for a civil war-like divide, I think we're in it.
So here's what I want to do.
I want to show you one last picture.
This is a map of the Spanish Civil War, and as we can see, it's not so clearly defined, these factions.
We have the pink is nationalist, and the periwinkle, I believe it is, the color, is republican.
And it's not a north or south.
In fact, some republicans were split down the middle by nationalists, and there's one stretch going way north that's, you know, separated by a big swath of land, and there are islands even.
We don't know what it'll look like.
It may not be north and south, east and west.
It may just be urban versus rural.
It may be, you know, political factions operating in the same territories.
It may be completely digital, like what we're seeing now.
So anyway.
I talk about the Civil War stuff simply because I think you'd be a fool to ignore that there is a Civil War-like problem that is occurring right now.
No one knows what's true anymore or who to trust.
I mean, just a moment ago, on my second channel, I did a rant about a Twitter drama with a journalist claiming she knows what's true, and when I asked, how do we know, she got mad at me, put me on blast, and started insulting me.
How do we know it's true?
People on the right, who support the president, are viewing this Ukraine thing as an attempt by the deep state, by intelligence agents we know as a CIA agent, to try and take out a president because he wasn't supposed to win.
People on the left view this as a corrupt president, Donald Trump, who wasn't supposed to win, who cheated with the Russians, espouses Russian propaganda, and is trying to interfere in the 2020 election.
I'm not going to tell you what you should believe.
I'm just telling you that there is no bridging that gap.
And how that doesn't result in some kind of civil war-like fracture, I have no idea.
Whenever I talk about this, people will say there's too much security in the government for a civil war to ever happen.
Yet you're assuming MAGA hats march against, you know, pink cat hats.
I can't say what they're called.
I'm just saying that it may be a digital information war.
And if it is, we're in it.
And we're in it bad.
And that's why people are being banned from these platforms.
And that's why there's a debate over free speech.
We are in that battle.
I'm not going to tell you who to believe.
I believe in free speech and the rights of, you know, individual liberties and all that, and there are people who don't.
That tends to put me in a tacit alliance with many people who are more moderate or leaning towards Trump, simply because the progressives want to ban speech.
And then they get banned.
Maybe they're learning their lesson.
I don't know.
But the Cold Civil War is real.
Trump didn't make it up.
It's not his fault.
You can criticize him because Trump needs to be above everybody else and held to a higher standard.
That's fair.
But in the end, the rhetoric?
It's coming from us.
Trump isn't creating the problem.
Trump is the same as each and every one of us.
He is a human being.
He watches the media.
He chooses who he trusts.
And that's the worldview he has.
If you have a problem with it, you need to figure out how we simmer things down.
But accusing him of pushing Russian propaganda doesn't solve the problem.
It exacerbates it.
So what can you expect to come next?
All of this condemnation will make the problem worse.
You win no hearts, you win no minds.
A Trump supporter will not change his mind because I or anyone else said he shouldn't have tweeted that.
Nope.
The left will not change their mind because he did tweet it.
They're going to say it's proof positive that he's pushing Russian propaganda.
The divide is set.
The moderates are being split in half, but they're falling on the side of Trump.
The independents are being put off by what the Democrats are doing.
And it's a fact, repeated over and over again.
So maybe it's a civil war.
And maybe the Democrats' only option is to slam and smear Trump for whatever he does.
But I'll do this.
The New York Times, what Democrats could lose with their left turn.
A survey experiment shows that some independents are already being turned off.
I'm going to cover this story at 6 p.m.
because it is a bit different, and I want to wrap this up.
I went a little long.
Go to youtube.com slash timcastnews at 6 p.m., and I'll be talking about this, but the point is, The Democrats are not taking popular action.
They've said, they know they could lose the House majority, and it's worth the risk.
That was Nancy Pelosi.
It sounds noble, fine.
But all I can say is, whatever is going on, the smearing, the slams, the left is being ripped apart, and the moderates and the Republicans are off on the same platform where they have always been.
There is a divide in this country, and it's getting worse.
What the left is doing is not helping, but they're sacrificing themselves in the long run.
We'll see what happens.
Stick around.
I'll see you at 6 p.m.
YouTube.com slash TimCastNews, and we will talk about this.
Antifa was threatening to shut down Dave Rubin's sit-down conversation about free speech with Maxime Bernier, who is a politician in Canada.
Well, Antifa showed up, and now we have the infamous viral video.
Many of you may have seen, because it is, boy, is it viral.
Listen, the heroes of Antifa standing up against the Nazi scum like the heroes they truly are, this horrible old woman with her walker who struggles to inch forward, is the perfect depiction of the evil scourge they must battle with every day.
Is that seriously what they think?
You ever see that sketch from Hamish and Andy or something where they ask if they're the baddies?
It's like, dude, this old lady is just trying to cross the street and they scream in her face, Nazi scum off our streets.
What is wrong with you?
Wow.
You know?
We'll read through this, because there's some other Antifa news.
This was in Ontario?
This was in Canada?
Man, Canada, you're crazy.
And something also wrong with the Pacific Northwest.
What is going on up there?
I mean, it's politically active, right?
When I was in Portland, people were really nice to me.
Someone gave me free hot sauce.
It was awesome.
It's really good.
It's called Secret Aardvark.
That was cool.
But I met a ton of people in Portland who were familiar with my work, who were supportive.
And even, like, some Antifa people, it was really kind of weird.
I'm serious, I mean it.
Some Antifa person whispered that they liked my work, and I was like, that's surprising.
But hey, I guess.
I guess the issue is they have a lot of extreme politics as it is.
So, anyway, the point is, there's something weird going on up there in that space.
Maybe it's because of all the clouds, and everyone's, like, depressed.
But I'm gonna have to stop and ask, you know, what happened to the millennial generation?
Okay?
It's an honest question, listen.
My viewership demographics are, you know, like the majority of it are people around my age, like 28 to 35.
The next biggest demographic is 35 to 54, I think.
And then the next biggest is 18 to 28 or something.
I don't know.
I don't know the numbers.
It's something like that.
Basically, most people who watch, you guys are like the same age as me.
So, for the Gen Z and for the Gen Xers, I ask you this, because we need this outside perspective.
What happened to Millennials?
Now, there are young Gen Xers who are crazy too, but for the most part, they're not that bad.
And Gen Z seems to be doing better than Millennials.
According to, I think it was Pew, Gen Z is more conservative than Millennials.
They're definitely more progressive than Gen Xers, but it was the first time in the past like hundred and some odd years That a generation moved slightly more towards conservative.
Maybe it's because of YouTube or whatever.
So here's the thing.
There are a lot of millennials who are sane, rational, normal human beings.
I know this for a fact because you happen to be watching my video.
But what about these people?
Listen, man.
Look at this little old lady.
Like... What?
Oh, you just jumped.
Okay.
Let me pull forward.
What is this?
What are you doing?
And why are you doing it?
What about this little old lady trying to cross the street has anything to do with Nazis?
And then apparently this old guy says something to her and they start screaming at him, Nazi scum or something like that.
So for the most part, that's the big story.
But I'm going to use this opportunity to question the sanity of millennials.
And I have some other sources.
So, I mean, you should watch the video.
I'll play a little bit in the background.
Because, you know, this is more about... You can watch the video.
It's 10 seconds long or whatever.
But this is what Antifa does.
I mean, they wear ski masks.
They put on hoodies.
They beat people.
They beat progressives.
In Portland, they clubbed a guy over the head who was a Bernie Sanders voter.
In Boston, they stole an American flag from a little old lady and dragged her on the ground.
You're the baddies, okay?
You're the bad guys.
Listen, man.
I get it.
Revolution, hoo-ha, communism, all that stuff?
Yeah, that's a conversation we can have.
I think those things are nuts.
But I understand that the U.S.
government does things that are bad.
And I've been on the front line of many of these protests when I was a lot younger.
Yeah, I get it.
Foreign intervention.
That's one of the reasons I like Tulsi Gabbard.
But going out in the street and shrieking at an old lady with a walker?
What?
So there's a couple other things I want to do.
But the big overarching thing is I want to rag on Millennials for a little while.
Sorry, Millennials.
I'm a Millennial, and I think we're allowed... Here's how the rules work when it comes to criticizing a group of people.
If you're a member of that group, you're allowed to do it.
So Gen Xers and Boomers and Gen Z, you're not allowed to make fun of us.
You're not.
Only we are.
That's how the rules work.
So here's another video from last week where Antifo caught on camera harassing Portland police near Climate Rally.
Now trust me, this is going to be a beautiful segue.
Everything I'm saying is going to come together and you are going to facepalm.
Millennials, I'm so sorry.
You're going to facepalm.
Our generation is messed up.
Now, at least we exist, right?
At least we're sane adults.
Look, you don't have to be a hardcore conservative to recognize that shrieking in the face of an old lady is insane.
But trust me, it gets better.
Now, there's a reason why I highlight Antifa running through the streets and fighting with cops during a climate protest.
Because these people have lost their minds, or they never had them in the first place.
I blame their parents.
Is it the Boomers?
Boomers, what are you doing?
So, I must have gotten lucky with my parents.
So here's the thing.
The story here, it's just that.
It's, you know, Antifa at a climate rally, like, rushed the police, and then, you know, the police ended up chasing after them.
It's the same stupid thing we see over and over again with these weirdos dressing in all black, think they're fighting in La Resistance, when they're actually just weirdos running through the street like weirdos who shriek at old ladies.
And now the perfect segue.
How, might you ask, do we get from Antifa shrieking in the face of an old woman To Antifa near a climate strike.
To the next bit, well, the next bit is the climate strike.
See?
Apparently, I think this is climate strike related, okay?
I'll just say that.
You have this video where there's a woman talking to, I believe it's Kamala Harris, and she says, I was scared every day, and I just, I think she's talking about Trump.
Here's the thing, you're right.
You're right to feel this way, Harris says, but you also have to remember that we're all in this together, and you have to remember that you're not alone, do you hear me?
And then this young woman with the, Is that a haircut that the ADL has said is a Nazi haircut?
Like the sides shaved and the top not?
She says, you have to remember that, okay?
And then this young woman, I believe, says, I just don't want to die.
You could literally walk into the middle of the woods, strip naked, and you'd still live for a little while!
You don't gotta worry about making- like, nah, granted, you'll want to find water, shelter, and fire.
I think the first thing you want to do is find shelter.
The point is, you are in a city where everything is handed to you.
Let me- let me point something out, millennials.
You ever just stare in awe at a bridge?
Seriously, just at a bridge.
Think about it.
Now, there are a lot of great bridges in New York City.
You got the Brooklyn Bridge, you got Manhattan, you got Williamsburg, you got Queensborough.
So there's a lot.
Um, George Washington, Man Tappansy, a lot of bridges.
They're massive structures, like ridiculously massive structures.
The interesting thing to me about the Manhattan Bridge is the metal architecture, the construction.
And the Brooklyn Bridge is like a lot of brick, and it's got like wood on top, you know?
And so I was really inspired about how they built this bridge.
There's a reason why I'm talking about it.
Because I have no idea.
The bridge, to me, has always existed.
Isn't that amazing?
I was born into a world with a way to walk across the East River in New York City.
Okay, so when you want to go from Manhattan, for those who aren't familiar, Manhattan is an island.
And when you want to get to Brooklyn, or, you know, Long Island, which is all the other boroughs, You have to cross a bridge.
If you're going north to like, you know, the Bronx or whatever, there's smaller bridges.
But the Brooklyn Bridge is huge.
And there's the Manhattan Bridge and the Williamsburg Bridge.
They're big.
They've always been there.
I don't know when they were built.
I didn't watch them get built.
I don't know who built them.
All I know is before I was born, a long time before I was born, because this is like the late 1800s or something, there was a river.
There was a river.
And people were like, I'd like to get to the other side to go see some friends.
Could you imagine trying to cross to in today?
There's a funny thing going on in New York where they're gonna shut down the L train.
The L train is the fastest way from like the Williamsburg hipster neighborhood into Manhattan.
It's a subway.
It's like two stops.
It goes under the river.
And then brings you to Manhattan.
And there's panic.
Because how will we get across this river without our trains?
Well, the train's gotta get fixed, but that's a good question.
But then it makes me think.
The spoiled nature, the lack of gratefulness.
We are standing on the shoulders of giants.
Not even in the sense that we create things off of those who created before us, right?
The famous saying was that, I'm forgetting the guy who said it, but all of these great
inventors learned from those who came before them and took that knowledge and built upon
it.
That's how we progress.
It's not that we're smarter, we just know more because someone figured something out,
stored that data in some capacity, and we can then read it.
And that's amazing.
But it's also the fact that you couldn't get across the East River with ease, with as much
ease.
So today, you can literally wake up, cross the bridge to grab a cup of coffee, and cross the bridge right back.
It's that easy.
And it's because the generations before us planted a tree, they planted a tree whose shade they knew would actually
benefit generations to come, because the bridge was completed quickly enough that the people who built it
got to use it.
The saying is, a society grows great when people plant trees
whose shade they know they will never sit in.
Meaning you plant a tree, and what's the benefit for you?
It's a tiny tree.
But in two generations, it's a great, you know, mighty fruit-bearing tree of some sort that people can lay under.
And it protects those who come next.
These millennials don't seem to understand you're not going to die.
You're surrounded by luxury and wealth, security, cell phones, medicine.
You know, one of the funny things about The whole healthcare argument is that while I certainly believe we need to do better to make sure people can have access to basic healthcare, you also have to understand why healthcare is so expensive.
Now, there's a lot of reasons why it's unjustly expensive in that CEOs will jack up the cost because they're like, hey, we can.
You know, we've got people literally by the cancer.
They have no choice but to pay a thousand bucks.
Now, the right will tell you, It only exists because of the insurance companies.
And that's a good point.
If the people couldn't afford it, there would be no market for it, right?
So let's say there is no insurance company to guarantee the purchase of some medicines, because sometimes, a lot of times, insurance companies won't do it anyway.
Well, they can jack up the costs in some instances because they know it will be paid for by an insurance company.
And they negotiate.
And it's a weird, complicated system.
If you were sick and you only made $30,000 a year, well, they couldn't charge you $1,000 for that pill because you don't have it.
They'd have to figure out what they could charge you so that you can keep working and stay on the medication.
So that's one of the criticisms.
But here's the thing.
Let's say a research facility develops a rare and expensive cure that can only be manufactured in the deep jungles of Guatemala by a small team who are in quarantine with four layers of security because it's a very, very intricate and precise model.
They gotta import special things, test it in certain environments, and then boom!
They have a magic wonder pill that can cure your disease.
But it took a combined effort of hundreds of millions of dollars.
Yet they can't sell that cure for 10 bucks, and you can't guarantee it to everybody.
Resources are finite.
So when I think about the healthcare thing, I understand the severity because we're talking about people's lives.
But I'm curious.
Medicine is technological advancement.
Same as anything else.
We don't see people walking around demanding that everybody get access to a new high-end iPhone.
No, we think people should have access to the Internet, and that means you get a $20 Android from, you know, Walmart or from Rite Aid, and it can work and it can get you on the Internet.
But there are people who don't seem to understand this.
So here's the point I'm making, because I know we segued from Antifa into this.
Excuse me.
But I just don't want to die.
She seriously doesn't know what it's like to actually be a terrified rabbit in the middle of the woods, panicking, shivering, wondering if that bird above is going to rip your throat out.
I think about the past, and I think about how far we've come as humans, and how comfortable and safe and secure we all are, and how silly it is that these people have no perspective.
I also think it has to do with the fact that they're not learned.
They're isolated.
Americans don't travel.
I've been around the world.
I have truly seen what it means to be afraid to die.
You know, in the Middle East, people are worried that at any moment, a drone might drop a bomb on them and kill them and their families.
Or that American soldiers might do something out of, you know, look, there's conflict and crisis.
American soldiers might shoot you up or kill you and who knows?
I'm not here to condemn all American soldiers.
I'm saying these things have happened and these people are scared.
Now, I will stress the counterpoint.
There are a lot of people who actually are the inverse.
They're less scared when the Americans are there.
Look, I'm no fan of regime change wars.
And again, I'm trying to stress, I'm not saying all soldiers are bad.
I'm saying there are some times that bad things happen.
And I also understand why people can be afraid of police.
But the point is, when it comes to what the world these people live in, I don't want to die.
She says, no, baby, you're not going to die.
You're not.
You're not.
We're going to be smart.
And with you as president, we are going to win.
We are going to win.
This is insanity.
This is pure insanity.
I think it's fair to point out that sometimes cops are bad people.
I think it's fair to point out that sometimes American soldiers commit crimes and we prosecute them for it.
I think it's fair to point out that the past administrations, notably Obama, have used drones to a rather absurd and extreme degree, creating a reign of terror in some of these countries.
And I think it's fair to point out that American foreign policy has resulted in what the CIA called blowback, resulting in terror actions across the Middle East and even affecting the United States.
Not that you have to trust everything they say, but these are things we get.
The western war machine has negative effects.
But these people live in one of the safest, most comfortable, technologically advanced societies in the history of the planet, if not the.
With access to some of the best medicine in the world.
And they are terrified and crying about how they're going to die because Trump is president?
They really think it.
They really, really think it.
What do you think's going to happen?
You think Trump's going to show up at your house and throw you in the back of a bus?
You've lost your mind.
None of that is happening.
It is just not reality.
I'll tell you what is reality.
It's this little old lady trying to cross the street, and a bunch of wingnuts scream in her face, Nazi scum.
It's a guy waving an American flag, getting clubbed over the head, even though he was a Bernie supporter and put in the hospital with a concussion.
You want to talk about being scared to die?
Put on a MAGA cap and wave a flag outside of an event with Dave Rubin, and then we can talk about who's afraid to die.
But you and the most comfortable, medically advanced, technologically advanced society in the world have nothing to worry about.
You should worry more about dying of a peanut allergy than you should about what Trump is going to do to you.
That's insane.
What has Trump done?
Reappropriated funds.
Questionable foreign policy actions with people like Kim Jong-un.
Which, look, I'm saying questionable in the public debate sense.
I actually liked that he won the DMZ.
Canceling the attack on Iran was the smart move.
He shouldn't have called it in the first place.
The point is, how is that affecting your life?
Look, I get it.
Passively, you could be like, oh no, now the international community is upset, and there's a trade war, and the economy's great, man.
What are you worried about?
You're a... Look, this looks to be, like, a young white woman who's crying, thinking she's going to die, with one of these... I don't... That's a... She's got, like, a shaved haircut.
It looks like one of those... Didn't... Didn't... Didn't, like, the ADL say if you, like, shaved the sides and put your hair up, that's, like, a Nazi haircut or something?
So, I'm just... I'm somewhat kidding.
But listen.
These people... I don't know what's happened to Millennials.
But they've absolutely lost their minds.
They've absolutely lost their minds.
Or... I'm sorry.
They've never... They've never had them.
I have to stress, not all millennials.
I understand, not all millennials.
Like, I'm a millennial, right?
I'm doing okay.
But what is going on?
Benny said, due to the endless deluge of paranoid apocalyptic propaganda Democrats have drowned their base in for over the past three years, presidential candidates must now be safe space counseling to their fragile snowflake base having a mental break.
You made the bed.
You know what, man?
It's bad for you too, Benny.
And it's bad for me.
And it's bad for America.
It's bad for the family.
You see, these people are part of this country.
And this country is only as strong as its weakest link.
Any group is.
And that means when we're facing down a true threat, either foreign or domestic, these people will be the ones who are targeted.
And that's why they are.
That's why they're freaking out.
That's why they're terrified.
This woman, my recommendation, I want you to take your phone, take your wallet, put it, leave it in your room, and I want you to go out into the middle of the woods with nothing but a map.
You know, a small survival kit, some food and water, and I want you to just live, like, in the middle of nowhere.
Truly understand what life is like outside of civilization, so you can come back and get some perspective.
There's actually an easier way to do it.
Go to Brazil.
Go to Egypt.
Go to, uh...
There's a lot of countries you can go to.
And do it safely and be careful.
But I would appreciate, if you're scared about dying, I would like you to go and look at some of the... You know what?
How about this?
Go sleep on Skid Row in Los Angeles.
Go see how Californians are living.
The homeless population.
When you leave this country and you go to places like Brazil, okay?
No disrespect to Brazil.
I think Brazil's a fantastic and amazing country.
It's doing great things and they've dramatically improved the favelas and the poverty line is improving.
The lower class people now have access to medicine and water and TV.
It's doing great.
I'm not trying to rag on Brazil.
I think Brazil's fantastic.
But Brazil's average gross domestic income product for the average person is $8,000 a year.
You could work at McDonald's here, full time, and make more than that.
So go to Brazil, and go see how they live in the favelas, and then you can talk to me about why you're scared.
Because we have it better than anyone.
Now I get it, Scandinavian countries to an extent have a better baseline for a lot of reasons, but in the United States...
We're doing great, man.
We're doing really, really good.
So, anyway, I'm not gonna ramble too much.
I'll leave it there.
Stick around.
Next segment's coming up at 1 p.m.
on this channel.
I will see you all there.
This segment is gonna be about journalists being snooty, and I'm gonna go through one of my Twitter threads to explain to you the problem with modern journalism, one of the problems, and why it's so difficult to understand what is real and what isn't.
See, here's the thing.
I worked for Vice, I worked for Fusion, I worked in these companies, I worked out of the ABC building with a lot of ABC employees, and I will tell you, I encountered a big problem with snooty elitism.
People who know they're smarter than you and are angry that you don't just know what they know.
They always tell you, it's not my job to educate you, it's what we hear.
If you don't know better, that's your own fault.
Well, listen, man.
The average person doesn't have time to go through all of the news and try and fact-check something.
Here's the story from The Federalist.
Intel community secretly gutted requirement of first-hand whistleblower knowledge.
Federal records show that the intelligence community secretly revised the formal whistleblower complaint form in August 2019 to eliminate the requirement of direct first-hand knowledge of wrongdoing.
This story is in dispute.
The Daily Beast claims it is all just one big conspiracy theory, saying that GOP shows Russian trolls how it's done with whistleblower smear.
Who am I supposed to believe?
I've got one story claiming it's true, I've got another story claiming it's not, and they're both opinion pieces.
Now, in the Federalist, he says, secretly revised.
Well, what does that mean?
Was it really secretly revised?
I don't think so, otherwise he wouldn't have found it.
But something was changed, and that's what we can see.
In one document, from the 24th of May, 18, it says, First-hand information required.
In order to find an urgent concern credible, the ICIG must be in possession of reliable first-hand information.
Okay.
But then we can see a revision on August 29th that says, I know about the information I am disclosing here, and I either have direct personal knowledge or heard about it from others.
The main issue that's being argued from the left on this issue, and it's a weird divide, is that what this document is saying is not that the whistleblower needs to have first-hand knowledge, but that the inspector general must be in possession of reliable first-hand information.
Anybody can report anything so long as, in the end, they end up getting the story.
Now, I'm not going to go through the crux of this story.
I'm just going to tell you it's complicated.
It's very complicated.
The point of this segment is to talk about the problem of journalism, and not so much the Inspector General, but hey, we'll get two birds with one stone.
So here's the thing.
I read the story from The Federalist, and I'm trying to dissect it and break it down.
He brings up some good points.
What does this mean?
Why was it, you know, formally approved on May 24th, 2018?
And why then is it being refuted, and who is correct?
Well, let me tell you my point.
The average person doesn't have time to do the research that I did.
The average person just has to decide which op-ed they will trust.
The Daily Beast or, you know, the story from The Federalist.
And yes, they are both opinions.
Saying something is secret, secretly revised, is an opinion, not a fact.
You could argue in your opinion it's true, but that's the issue.
What determines secret is up to interpretation.
It was changed, it's on the website, and Sean Davis, the Federalist, was able to get the form unclassified.
I wouldn't call that secret personally.
The Daily Beast, however, also makes their own claims that it has always been this way, and all along, there's a requirement, there's a reason why they do this, and why they're blocked.
Listen, they're saying in this one, it all makes sense, and they're asserting their opinion, and pushing back on someone else's opinion.
Therein lies the problem.
Now, I don't want to act like the Daily Beast is the only one pushing back, because a journalist from ProPublica was.
And herein lies the big issue that I take.
I tried engaging with this individual.
And I ask a simple question.
Listen, I've seen both of these stories, and I'm trying to figure out...
What's real and what isn't?
Some journalists I've respected have come out and said, it's not true, you misunderstand.
And then other journalists that I respect say, it is, you're incorrect.
Well, which is true, man?
Look, I'm not gonna play your political game.
Picks or it didn't happen.
Explain to me exactly why you're right or wrong, okay?
Here's the thing.
I pulled up the Office of the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community Report, and to the best of my ability, reading through the report, reading two different stories to figure out what the truth is, you can imagine the average person is not going to be able to do this when they're at their job, I found that the best evidence, that the reason why this was deemed credible was simply right here, very tiny, you can see other information obtained during the ICIG's preliminary review supports the complainant's allegation.
Among other things, the call yada yada yada.
If they need direct first-hand knowledge, then that's what they have in the report.
That they have a complainant, but they found other information.
I don't know what other information is.
It may or may not be first-hand information, so it may or may not be a legitimate complaint.
I have no idea.
The Daily Beast tries to make that claim that someone said they did find first-hand evidence.
Well, where is the first-hand evidence?
Because as far as I know, in a statement from the Acting Director of National Intelligence, when Devin Nunes asked, I just want to get one thing straight.
Because one of the quotes they're going to use from you is you saying that this was a credible complaint.
That will be used and spun as you're saying that it was true.
And I want to give you an opportunity.
You do not.
You have not investigated the veracity or the truthfulness of this complaint.
That's correct, Ranking Member.
Open up the floodgates to what any of this means, and we're still at an impasse.
Who is right?
Who is wrong?
Now, you might see this and say, dude, that's the acting DNI saying straight up we didn't investigate, but he's saying he personally didn't investigate?
He didn't say his office, he says, you do not, you have not.
Is it implied that as the acting director, an investigation by him personally would involve everyone in his office?
You're going to hear all of these semantic arguments.
That's kind of the point Nunes was making.
That's correct ranking member.
I will stress, veracity doesn't mean truthfulness.
These are two different things.
Veracity also means whether, well, it's essentially truthfulness, but not overt factually, right?
The veracity is How much weight does this statement have in likelihood of being true?
Something to that effect.
I'm not going to play semantics.
This is the complicated nature of what's happening.
Okay?
I don't know.
It does seem like the main idea that this was changed just in time for the complaint is not likely to be the case.
Because, as the Federalist points out, It was formally approved on May 24th, 2018. According to
the Daily Beast, there was an article available since at least May of 2018 saying the
exact same thing, that you could have secondhand knowledge. Their argument is that firsthand
information required just means that after they receive a complaint, they can't move
forward unless they have firsthand information. And according to the ICIG, that is the case.
I think to the best of my ability, it seems the Federalists may have misinterpreted this, though it's not completely cut and dry.
There's still a semantic argument to be made, and so long as we don't know what the other information they received is, well, we're just gonna have an argument, okay?
Who do you trust?
I think it's fair to point out that if they did obtain information, they probably followed standard procedure.
That doesn't mean that the whistleblower complaint is, in my opinion, Something we should actually consider.
I want to make the more important point about the Daily Beast.
The Daily Beast the other day smeared John Solomon, a reporter from The Hill, saying that he was pushing Biden-Ukraine conspiracy theories.
This is where we get to the problem of who do you trust?
They have stated that a sworn affidavit from a prosecutor, from multiple prosecutors, is a conspiracy theory, but that second-hand complaints, gossip and hearsay, of which the Inspector General's report does have many incorrect statements based on the transcript, that's a credible claim.
That's what the media is saying.
The media is saying, see, it was entirely credible that second-hand information led to, you know, the ICIG finding other information and transmitting this report, of which the acting DNI did not investigate the veracity of.
Why am I—okay, where are we at?
Why are we having this conversation, and why is there a call for impeachment?
Please answer me this.
Please.
Because I don't see it here.
Now, when it comes to Ukraine, and they have the sworn affidavits, the response from, you know, CNN, TAP, or whatever, is that, but they're corrupt.
Okay, they're corrupt as your word.
It was the Obama administration that was claiming they were corrupt.
I'm not going to take them at their word.
We got a sworn affidavit under oath?
Okay, let's investigate.
This secondhand whistleblower complaint, I'm still even willing to entertain, because fine, let's just shut up and figure out what the truth is.
In the end.
I assure you.
There will be people who say, Tim, you're wrong, The Federalist is right, and there will be people who say, Tim, you're wrong, The Daily Beast, and others are correct.
Okay, so I'm not going to tell you what I know and what I don't know, and this is why I often avoid stories like this.
Semantics will be—words will be spun, semantic games will be played, and it's hard to know what, when, why.
And even after all of that, the argument falls back on, yes, but why are we impeaching the president over second-hand gossip, even if there was some other information?
The president released the transcript?
Okay.
Well, what about the sworn affidavits?
Why are we ignoring those and calling them conspiracy theories?
That does not make sense.
The question then arises, when someone on the left accuses a right-wing journalist of being a hack, why should I trust them?
When someone from the right says a left-wing journalist is a hack, why should I trust them?
I honestly don't know, especially when the information is rather conflicting.
But in the end, I dug around, and I actually more so agree with the assessment that the Federalist is getting this wrong.
At least a little bit.
It's really hard to suss out, I gotta be honest.
But reading through this, it does look like the Inspector General heard a complaint from a person who read gossip, obtained other information which allowed them to then follow procedure and submit the complaint.
That doesn't mean the complaint is true.
It just means they backed it up, potentially, with first-hand knowledge.
So they don't say first-hand knowledge, they say other information.
And therein lies the big political debate.
Okay.
Well, I lean on the side that it is likely following procedure, and I don't think it's as nefarious as many people would claim.
So here's what I want to do.
I want to engage with someone who's made that claim.
And I did.
And I have blurred, I have censored out their name to the best of my abilities.
I'm not saying you can't find who this person is, but I'm going to show you what happens when you try to engage with these journalists.
This reporter said in response to Donald Trump, he said, who changed the longstanding whistleblower rules just before submittal of the fake whistleblower report drained the swamp?
Well, a form was changed.
We can see that it was revised.
That is factually true.
It says revised August 2019th.
I don't know if that means they removed this statement right here, first-hand information, but these are not necessarily the same thing.
To stress, this may mean that receiving a second-hand complaint won't allow them to move forward, but they did investigate and they did then find other information.
Fine.
So here's my response.
I'm sorry, this reporter says, this is objectively false and you can literally go read the whistleblower statute and see that.
Okay.
You can literally go and read the whistleblower statute and see that.
Totally agree.
Understand.
Okay.
The question I have is for the average person who say like, I don't know, a plumber, right?
The average person isn't a plumber, but I'm just making a trope, right?
Are they going to start Google searching statutes and try and understand this?
The answer is no, they're not.
What's really going to happen is they're going to defer to journalists and say, I don't know, okay?
I'm not on the internet all day.
I'm at work.
I get home.
I've got about an hour to watch the news.
I listen to podcasts a little bit.
Can you just break it down for me and show me the evidence?
That's what people do.
It's why people watch my content.
Sure.
And I can also talk about the New York Times putting a front-page story up claiming that there's right-wing YouTube radicalization and then showing evidence that absolutely refutes their claim.
This is the problem.
I have seen the New York Times put out trash information.
I've seen them hire racists.
I've worked for these companies.
I know they do it too.
And that puts me in a weird position.
When the story broke, I didn't find it compelling enough to actually engage with.
I didn't have enough information to refute it.
I didn't have enough information to support it.
So I can't do anything.
What do you want me to do?
Just make a video where I say I honestly don't know?
So I did some digging, and it turns out Federalists may be misinterpreting this.
Fine.
Here's my response.
Serious question, though.
If they say the same about you, then who are we supposed to trust?
The Federalist is certified by NewsGuard same as ProPublica.
Okay.
You see, I use a third-party fact-checking agency.
I'm not saying everybody needs to know what NewsGuard is, but here's NewsGuard.
They do not publish false content.
They gather information responsibly, and they do clarify errors.
They don't handle the difference between news and opinion responsibly, however.
That I get.
ProPublica, on the other hand, is certified, my understanding is across the board, they're a non-profit journalism outfit, and I understand they're considered to be very credible.
Okay.
Well, you know what?
I don't care for them because their reporters are mean people who act in bad faith and refuse to engage honestly.
So here's the Federalist, certified green, saying this is true.
Here's the Daily Beast, certified green, saying this is true.
Now the Daily Beast says, handles the difference between news and opinion responsibly.
I disagree with NewsGuard on that, but it's fine.
Okay?
They're both certified green.
In this instance, I'm leaning more towards the Daily Beast's conclusion.
So I asked.
Seriously, though.
Like, who do we trust?
If your outlet and theirs are certified, what's the average person to do?
There's a reason why NewsGuard exists.
It's because people don't know what these websites are.
It's a fact.
Well, I got a glorious response.
First, she puts me on blast, which means she doesn't respond to me, she quote-tweets me so that all of her followers will start harassing me, which they're doing.
Thank you very much.
This is why I don't bother with engaging with these snooty elitists who think they're smarter than you, and then when you try to ask a serious question, just treat you like crap.
She said, not disclosing your funders should be immediately disqualifying.
The comparison of ProPublica and The Federalist is bad on its face.
What?
Why?
I don't know anything about this.
Why should I trust you over anybody else?
You're both certified by the same agency.
Two fundamentally different forms of journalism.
I agree.
One of them is fact-free commentary, the other published investigative work that takes months.
But you, personally, didn't cover the story.
I checked your bylines.
I don't see it anywhere.
I asked you, how does the average person know that you are more trustworthy?
That's it.
Instead, she puts me on blast, and now I'm getting dragged by her followers.
Of which he has 61,000.
Thank you.
I get it.
I didn't do that to you.
I didn't say anything mean.
I can't stand these people.
They are nasty, snide individuals who refuse to justify anything they do or even explain it.
You should know.
Period.
No, I'm sorry.
I said, if you're trying to convince people to trust you, just saying you should know better isn't enough.
People don't know better.
Federalist publishes images and made claims.
You tweeted the claims were incorrect.
The average person has no ability or time to fact check either of you.
Fact.
Okay?
I can pull up an individual's life history, addresses, phone numbers, everything.
Everything you've ever done, I can find things about you.
I've been a journalist for quite some time.
And before that, I was active in the hacker community.
I know how to dig things up and find information.
Does everyone?
The answer is no.
But the point is, ability and time.
Okay?
Are you an expert journalist, the average person?
The answer is, of course you're not!
Otherwise, journalism wouldn't exist.
I mean, it's actually going that way a bit, because people are learning to fact check.
Journalists are supposed to exist to prove, to provide evidence and context.
And that's the question I asked.
If I have two outlets saying the same, two different things, how do I know which is correct and which isn't?
Well, she said you can look up the statute.
Does the average person know how to pull up the statute?
Know which statute you're talking about?
No.
And to assume otherwise is to assume that your job should be obsolete.
Because if the average person knew how to do this, they wouldn't bother going to you for information.
She said, you're assuming most people are stupid.
I'm not going to.
The average person may not have the time to literally fact-check stories, but they can read and tell the difference between the two.
No.
No, they can't.
Because both stories are opinions.
You didn't write about this.
At least when I pull up your... The last thing I saw was from, like, the 13th.
So you didn't write about this, okay?
You're just tweeting about it.
So I asked a serious question.
How can you tell the difference?
If you read the Federalist and they show you images, you're likely going to be like, well, I don't know, there's pictures.
It says it was revised, it makes sense.
I had to not only read the Federalist, read the Daily Beast, I then had to pull up the Inspector General report to see if they followed standard procedure like the Daily Beast claimed.
Okay?
It wasn't a simple snap of the fingers.
It was me actually reading two different stories and the ICIG report to figure out if they followed procedure.
And I can only say it seems likely.
I can't even definitively tell you if it was correct.
Because then we have the acting director of national intelligence saying they haven't investigated the veracity of it.
What does that mean?
I don't know, man.
Who do I trust?
Okay, you're gonna tell me, go pull the statute.
Fine.
I understand that.
But why?
Why the hostility?
Why the snarky attitude?
Why be Why be mean?
I don't get it.
I really don't.
And this makes the problem worse.
You know why I don't care for your opinion on the matter or why you think it's wrong?
Because you're a nasty person.
I simply ask the question, how do we know who to trust?
And it's just, I'm told I'm assuming people are stupid and I'm an elitist.
Okay?
Frankly, it's elitist and BS, you think what you just said is true.
People who aren't fundamentally biased, and already convinced of their position, can read and understand what's on the internet.
Is that true, miss?
Because in response to you putting me on blast, I got inundated with a bunch of left-wing mean people harassing me, who don't know anything about the story.
Thank you for that.
Thank you for me asking a serious question, how to- you know, because I liked ProPublica before this, now I don't, and I'll make sure that's reflected in any donations I make, I might make in the future.
I said you expect people to know what ProPublica is.
The average person isn't even on Twitter, they spend their days at work.
No one said anything about being stupid, it's about expertise.
You're awfully hostile over this and I don't know why.
This is Twitter.
This is what these journalists do on Twitter.
They are rage mongers, swirling around in a pool of anger all day and night.
And I can admit, I'm angry right now too.
But I didn't direct it.
At her on Twitter or put her on Blast.
I'm venting to my camera like I always do, talking about my feelings on the internet.
It's kind of therapeutic, okay?
But I understand this may put her on Blast as well, which is why I censored her name.
Now, you know where she works, fine, I get it.
It's to the best of my abilities.
I have a right to talk about this, the same as she has a right to put me on Blast, but I'm doing my best.
I'm trying to avoid rage battles on Twitter.
She says, yeah, I mean it's shocking I might be annoyed some random guy thinks you need expertise to determine the difference between ProPublica and The Federalist.
Okay.
Some random guy.
Forgive me for engaging with an honest question about helping people differentiate and fact check.
For F's sake, I didn't even say you were wrong.
I asked how to spot the difference, and now you're just being mean.
Twitter in a nutshell.
This is politics.
Did I do anything wrong?
Was I wrong to say, serious question though?
If they say the same about you, then who are we supposed to trust?
They're both certified by NewsGuard.
Hey, a simple response could have been, well, look.
Federalist is a commentary outlet, and they made a mistake.
ProPublica is an investigative journalism outlet with a storied history.
And I'd say, I agree.
I understand.
But the average person might not be familiar through outlets.
And then they would come up with a response.
Hey, calm conversation, right?
Look, I understand it's a challenge determining who to trust.
That's why I posed the question.
Trump supporters don't trust you.
Case in point, the response to my tweet was from this person saying she is fake news.
How do you help this person understand why someone is better or more trustworthy than the other outlet?
You can't.
Especially when this is your response.
She responded with, No, I'm calling you out on assuming people are stupid.
I'm not being mean.
And yes, I don't know who you are, so.
I didn't say some random guy because I expected to know who I was.
I said some random guy because it was a dig for no reason.
We're all random people.
I don't know who you are either.
Why are you being hostile and mean to me when I'm trying to answer a simple question of determining trust in the news industry?
Why do people call them fake news?
Because when I ask a simple question, this is what you get.
Why should I ever believe ProPublica when instead of saying, their images are incorrect and let me explain why, they say, you're a random guy and you're an elitist who thinks people are stupid.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, calm down, man.
Calm down.
I never called anybody stupid.
I'm talking about someone's job here.
I said, I don't even know what's going on.
When did I say anyone was stupid?
Are you trying to start a Twitter spat?
Dude, you said average people can't tell the difference between ProPublica and The Federalist.
If you are too full of yourself to understand that you're saying people are stupid, I can't help you.
You commented on my tweet, so run off and be offended, I guess.
Chill.
I don't even know you.
I learned my lesson.
I won't bother engaging with ProPublica.
If this is what happens, have a good day.
LMAOK, I don't think anybody at ProPublica would mind at all.
I'll make sure that's reflected when I'm at the next journalism conference and talking about why we should be contributing to certain outlets or not.
Now, I don't know where ProPublica gets their money.
It may be individually funded or they might have a development department, but I know they're non-profit, okay?
But you know what?
Maybe nobody should be worrying about what ProPublica is doing because the people who work there are just generally not good people.
We are all trying to figure out how all of this functions.
We are all trying to figure out what's true and what isn't.
And instead of being nice and honest to a serious question, this is what I get.
And then in response I said, I'll spread the word, I guess.
And then she quote tweets someone, Taking one of my videos out of context, insulting me with K. And I responded with, what is wrong with people?
My god, this site is a hellhole.
Why are you all so mean to people?
Thank you for your good work, being a nasty individual, when all I wanted to do was understand why you thought this.
You are a bad person, you are bad people, and I don't trust your organization now, and this is exactly why.
Who should I trust?
The Federalist or ProPublica?
Well, at least no one from the Federalist started insulting me and attacking me and linking to out-of-context quotes when I asked a simple question of, why should we trust you over this other outlet?
It was simple.
You could have just responded with, it's a commentary website.
We're a news outlet.
And I would have said, is there information you can link me to?
It's that simple.
No.
You're just as bad as everybody else.
You're all playing the same game of I'm right and that justifies everything I do.
So you know what?
Good for you!
I'll make sure I don't use ProPublica as a source because I don't trust you.
Because when asked for simple information of, hey, you want to refute them, provide context, you just insult and attack me.
You call me elitist.
You say I'm too stupid.
Fine.
Whatever.
Okay.
In the end, I end up doing a long rant video about how journalists are just awful people.
And this is why I don't want to work in New York media.
It's why I left that city.
These are nasty people.
Not all of them.
Not all of them.
I know some pretty great journalists.
There are some great people who have tweeted about this.
Some journalist, Yasir Ali, for instance, has tweeted pushing back on the Federalist.
He's a good dude.
I respect him a lot.
He engages in good faith.
I happen to see this tweet that I believe he retweeted, even.
And so I ask a simple question.
We are posed with this conundrum.
Every day, Fox says one thing, MSNBC says another.
People choose who to trust.
They say, you know what, I don't care, I'm gonna trust Mano.
You know, when it comes to Russiagate, Fox was right.
It was all nonsense.
MSNBC was wrong.
Okay?
When it comes to this story, it seems like the Federalists may be misinterpreting what they were reading.
They may have a good argument.
I don't know.
I'd like some journalists to actually come out and explain to me.
Explain to me why.
I don't cover every single story.
I cover stories that I can break down and truly understand.
I ignored the story from the Federalist because after I read it, I didn't quite understand.
I didn't.
And what am I supposed to do?
Here's a half an hour long video of me saying I don't understand this and can't make a definitive statement one way or the other?
That's pointless.
But here we are.
And that's the issue.
The Daily Beast published an op-ed.
It claimed one thing.
The Federalist published an op-ed.
It claimed another.
You pick who you think is right.
I don't know.
I can't even tell you what's true or not because even though the ICIG says they've collected other information, the Acting Director of National Intelligence said they have not investigated the veracity or truthfulness of this complaint.
Wouldn't that then imply they didn't dig in for any information?
I don't know what it means, man.
But thank you for being bad.
Thank you for being mean.
Thank you for being nasty.
I won't engage with you or your co-workers ever again.
And this is the problem.
You push people away.
You want to prove you're right?
Fine.
But instead, they are all just nasty people.
And this is why I leave companies like Vice.
Why I left.
Why I left Fusion.
I don't want to be there.
I don't want to be surrounded by these know-it-all elitists who think they're better than everyone else.
Well, I happen to know, so therefore you should too.
That's not how the world works.
People don't know.
Because the average person has a job.
Hey, the economy's doing really great.
More people are working than ever.
Which means time is spent not digging through websites and reading ICIG reports.
Time is spent listening to podcasts and reading news websites.
And if you were to read The Federalist and you didn't read The Daily Beast, you would think one thing is true.
So how about you tone things down?
I'm done.
It's a long rant.
Whatever.
Stick around.
Next segment will be coming up at 4 p.m.
YouTube.com slash TimCast.
Different channel.
I'll see you all there.
What Democrats could lose with their left turn.
A survey experiment shows that some independents are already being turned off.
Hey, you know how I know this is true?
I'm an independent who leans left, and I've been turned off by it for a while because I've been following it and paying attention.
Many people who aren't watching the news every day, who don't know the full details, aren't privy to the information I am.
Now, many of you who watch, who find yourselves as moderates, independents, centrists, etc., who watch me, you're in the know.
But I've had conversation with friends and family members, and the lies that they repeat, the fake news, it's sad.
And so I challenge it.
I call them out and say, hey, that's not true.
Prove it.
And then all of a sudden there's a ding, like, whoa, what?
I didn't know that.
I wasn't paying attention.
This story is probably confirmation bias time.
It's six o'clock.
They're repeating what I already believe.
Therefore, it's going to play perfectly into my cognitive dissonance.
Or is that the right way?
Whatever.
You get the joke I'm trying to make.
Check out this graph.
Negative reaction among independents.
After reading about the Democrats' leftward shift, independents in a survey were six percentage points less likely to say they would vote for a Democrat for president In 2020 compared with the control group.
Bravo!
Good job, Democrats.
I'm continually impressed with your inability to understand this.
Actually, no.
I'm going to throw some sympathy over at Nancy Pelosi, who very clearly gets it, but she can't.
She's lost control of the party.
She can't do anything.
You know, the Democrats are fractured.
Pelosi has tried and failed.
And here you go.
Look at that swing.
That is insane.
Six percentage points less likely to say they would vote for a Democrat.
That means, in the event the Democrats lose 6 percentage points, Trump may gain some of those percentage points, but at the very least, if Trump and the Democrats are 50-50, and the Democrats lose 6 points, Trump wins.
If Trump gains some of those points, well, then Trump really wins.
If Trump is, you know, 45 to 55, and the Democrats go down 6 to 49, And Trump goes up to 51.
He wins.
You see how this swing's gonna play out?
Let's read this story and all gloat in our confirmation bias.
You know, I'm half-kidding, by the way, but yeah, for real, like, I get it.
But I think it's correct.
Based on the research I've done, the stories I've read, I believe this is predictable.
It's what I've predicted.
And then, there it goes.
New York Times drops it.
We get it.
And the New York Times have been pretty bad lately.
They say, one defining feature of the Democratic primary so far has been the party's leftward turn.
In recent debates, candidates have supported policies like offering health insurance to undocumented immigrants.
Many of you are probably watching saying, what do you mean it is true?
No.
They said they would give government Health care to non-citizens.
Health insurance is a different question.
You want to give health insurance to undocumented immigrants, I got no problem with that.
That implies they're paying for it.
Right?
Okay, people should have health care.
No, they were talking about taxpayer-funded health care going to people who aren't citizens.
That's a step over the line.
That's actually so far past the line.
I don't even know the line is anymore.
We passed it miles ago.
And commentators have warned about the potential electoral penalty of repelling persuadable voters.
Case in point, me!
I've repeatedly said this.
Listen.
The middle could go to Trump, could go to the Democrats.
You want to abandon the middle for a new potential far-left voter base?
By all means, go and do it.
But you're sacrificing the moderates.
People don't realize Trump didn't reach into a bucket of far-right deplorables.
Trump reached out to uninitiated moderate voters in this country.
That's what he did.
The Democrats now, many of these progressives like the Young Turks, think they're going to do what Trump did and light up voters who've never voted and get those progressives on board, but you're not reaching for the middle.
Which means you can get the new left, fine, but the middle is going to abandon the Democrats or go Trump and you will lose.
Political science research suggests that moderates generally fare better in elections.
Who would have thought?
But much of our current understanding is speculative.
There has been little directly relevant data on how voters are reaching in the moment.
Are swing voters being put off?
Yes.
Are Democratic voters excited and more likely to stick with their party?
The answer to that is yes, as well.
In a recent survey experiment I conducted, the evidence pointed to both these possibilities, but with one pattern, much more pronounced than the other.
The embrace of progressivism solidifies support among Democratic survey respondents when thinking about the 2020 general election.
But it repels independence with a negative effect that is stronger and clearer than the signs of enthusiasm generated among Democrats.
It may be early, but the proposals from primary candidates can already have an effect, as the survey experiment showed.
It was administered to 3,973 Americans on the online panel of the Democratic data firm, Civis Analytics, over the course of a week in mid-August, after the first two Democratic debates.
The experiment's procedure was simple.
A random half of participants read a news snippet illustrating the leftward shift, while the other half read about unrelated topics, such as the schedule of election dates.
The news item was a few sentences that included policies discussed by the candidates, decriminalizing unauthorized border crossings, expanding undocumented immigrants' access to government services, replacing private health insurance with a government-run system, and establishing free public college for all children from working-class families.
The content was drawn directly from real news coverage.
Both sets of respondents, when indicated how they planned to vote in 2020, whether for Trump or the eventual nominee for the Democrat side, how strongly they were considering voting Democratic, and how motivated they felt to turn out and vote for or against the Democratic nominee.
Because of the random assignment, with some reading about the policy positions and others reading innocuous, unrelated information, the difference in responses between the groups can be attributed to the effect of reading about the leftward shift.
The more you cover this, the more the effect takes hold.
So, I can understand why there are a lot of people who like what I do.
The more I inform people that the Democrats are shooting to the far left, the more the people in the middle wake up to the problem that is the Democrats' leftward lurch.
We all want sane, rational policy.
We all disagree in some capacity.
But we can talk about it, move forward, and begrudgingly accept compromise.
The far left can't.
They demand impeachment.
They demand an end to fossil fuels.
They want free college, free jobs, guaranteed jobs.
Not free jobs, but guaranteed government jobs.
So, here's the chart.
We can see that the independents have the biggest swing, and it's a six percentage point.
Swing Republicans seem to be the least amount to—it's a weird graph to read, I gotta be honest.
I'm not quite sure what they're trying to get with this.
They say, when deciding between Mr. Trump and the Democratic nominee, voters in the middle—the independents who could ultimately tilt things in Trump's favor—became 6 percentage points less likely to vote Democratic after reading about the leftward turn compared with the independents who had read about the innocuous content.
Small boost among Democrats.
When Democrats who read about the leftward shift were asked how strongly they would consider voting for the eventual nominee, their support increased modestly by three points on a strength-of-consideration scale.
Now, here's the important point.
Democrats gonna vote Democrat!
It doesn't matter if they're more likely to or not.
They're Democrats.
They identify as Democrats, and they want to vote for Democrats.
Independents aren't sure.
And guess what?
Lo and behold, when the uninitiated, moderates, or independents are now privy to the left-wing swing, they immediately switch and say, whoa!
Not all of them.
Six percentage points.
Democrats and Republicans were much more settled in their vote preferences than the independents in the survey.
But when Democrats who read the news snippet were asked how strongly they would consider voting for their eventual nominee, they moved more emphatically in support of.
A slight gain for people who are already going to vote for you.
Democrats, you need to win the moderates.
Trump is going to take the right and the middle.
We all know it.
I can make a million videos talking to you about it saying, you know, this is what's gonna happen.
I'll stress for the millionth time.
I'm not gonna vote Republican because I don't like the Democrats.
I'm not gonna vote for the Democrats because I don't like the Republicans.
That's not how I play.
If you can line up with specific policy positions that I agree with and am passionate about, you will attract my vote.
That's how I play the game, okay?
I'm not gonna be one of these people who's like, certainly you must vote for Trump now because the Democrats are so bad.
No.
But don't worry, Republicans.
Don't worry about calling me someone who refused to be red-pilled or whatever.
Don't worry about it.
Because trust, I'm not gonna vote for Biden or Warren or Bernie or any of these people.
Tulsi!
She'll get my vote.
So complain about that.
But if you're in the middle, I'm willing to bet there's a lot of you who agree that, man, who do we vote for, right?
I do like Tulsi.
She really let me down with that impeachment flip-flop.
I'm really, really not okay with that.
I do not like that.
That is not how you win.
That is not how you make this country better.
That is not how you improve relations between the left and the right.
It is how you make it worse, and that's why I supported her, and that's frustrating to me.
And for those of you on the left that are sane, okay, I understand there are insane people everywhere.
So I'm specifically talking about the fringe Twitterati nonsense.
I know most of the left is actually sane.
I'm not trying to be a dick.
If you're wondering how we can get more Democrats on board with Bernie or Warren or whoever, This data needs to be taken seriously.
You can get Bernie the win.
You can.
Moderates would vote for him.
But you've got to address the more insane... Listen, when Bernie says things like, we're going to make sure you have affordable healthcare, it may increase your taxes.
Okay, you're going to hear moderate groans.
But when you come out and say, we're also going to decriminalize border crossings and give government-funded healthcare to non-citizens, they immediately walk out the door.
So you can get You can get some of your policies in, but you've got to compromise.
So, Democrats, pay attention.
Okay?
And that's why, you know, look, Joe Biden's not the guy.
I'm sorry.
Joe Biden's not the guy.
And that's why I don't think the Democrats have anybody.
They're going to say, at the same time, playing to the Democratic base seemed to have its limits, with no evidence suggestive of mobilization potential.
Democrats who read about the leftward positions did not indicate they were more motivated to vote and campaign for the eventual nominee.
Exactly!
You already got them!
Congratulations!
You've convinced the choir, okay?
You've preached to the choir, you've convinced them, and now they're going to show up for mass.
Congratulations!
Now the people outside, who say, I don't know what this church has to offer, I know it was a good counter to that point.
I'm not going to say it, though, because I'll get in trouble.
The research suggests a double-edged sword, but with one clearly sharper side.
The potential of producing Republican gains among a key swing group.
Wow, it's almost like I predicted this every day for the past eight months, nonstop, repeating myself almost in every video multiple times per day.
In today's episode of Tim repeats himself for the 800 millionth time, but this time with a new story backing up his predictions, you are pushing people to Donald Trump and the data proves it.
The data shows.
You are creating the potential for Republican gains among key swing voters.
I hope you're happy.
You know, my joke conspiracy theory is that Democrats are purposefully trying to get Trump re-elected.
Like, why else would they keep doing this?
Trump raised $15 million in a couple days when they announced impeachment.
Now the media will have you claim it's so bad for Trump.
Oh, please, dude.
You are not going to change the minds of diehard Trump supporters.
And as we can see, the far-left lurch is pushing independence away.
You know what?
Actually, hold on, let me stop.
I think it all makes sense now.
The reason the Democrats are focused on impeachment is because they're aware they have no policies, and if people actually find out what their policies are, uh-oh, they're gonna vote for Trump.
So there it is.
They have to make sure they're talking about Trump because their policies are garbage.
There you go.
I really do think that's what it is.
Anyway, I got a couple more segments coming up in a few minutes.
Stick around.
A Democrat was just knee-toed again, accused of impropriety.
Yeah, stick around.
I'll see you in a few minutes.
While normally I'd like to call this a you-reap-what-you-sow moment for the left and the Democrats, I won't do that because I'm actually happy these things are getting called out.
I appreciate when actual disgusting, abusive men are called out by the women who have been abused, and it's troubling they had to deal with it in the first place.
It should not be tolerated.
It's gross.
Let's all be professionals and respect each other in the workplace, Al Franken.
You see, former Senate aide says Al Franken groped her buttocks.
So you know what?
Part of me wants to say, haha, this is what you've created.
You get what you deserve.
And I'm kind of like, I'm kind of glad they created it to an extent.
I don't like the false accusations.
I don't like the innocent people who have been smeared.
I don't like Aziz Ansari's bad date hurting his career and now he's like, you know, it negatively impacted him.
That's wrong.
But Me Too, the general concept, is great.
And if it comes after, you know, Harvey, what's-his-face, if it comes after Kevin Spacey, and if it comes after Al Franken, I don't care.
You're bad dudes.
You did bad things.
And I'm glad it is being called out.
I like the idea of justice.
I don't care who the justice is for.
Or I should say, I don't care what your identity is.
I care that justice is had.
That you have a right to bodily autonomy.
You have a right to equality of access and opportunity.
And if Al Franken wants to preach around that he's on their side and that he gropes a woman's buttocks, he needs to be called out and condemned for it.
Now, of course, The partisans will come out and say, take one for the team.
They'll ignore Joe Biden.
Joe Biden.
The media did it.
Look, I gotta admit, that guy, sniff fest, man.
Isn't it funny how we're not talking about Joe Biden sniffing little girls anymore because the scandal with Ukraine happened?
Pseudo-joking conspiracy theory time.
Trump purposefully set this up to save Joe Biden.
You see?
They say that Trump is trying to dig up dirt on Biden.
No, no.
He was trying to shift the media away from Biden because they were accusing him of being a kiddie sniffer.
Because Joe Biden sniffs kids.
What a weird dude.
But now we have the story.
Former Senate aide says Al Franken groped her buttocks.
The Daily Y reports, A former Senate aide is alleging that former Minnesota Senator Al Franken, who resigned in disgrace in January 2018, grabbed her buttocks without her consent in 2006.
I was just out of college in my first job working for US Senator Patty Murray, the unnamed woman told New York Magazine.
They write.
The woman worked the photo line.
And when it was her turn to be photographed with Franken, he said, she said, he puts his hand on my butt.
I'm trying to avoid swearing, even though it's not really a swear.
He's telling the photographer, take another one.
I think I blinked.
Take another one.
And I'm just frozen.
It's so violating.
And then he gives me a little squeeze on my buttock.
And I'm bright red.
I don't say anything at the time, but I felt deeply, deeply uncomfortable.
I would too if a guy with that mug came up and grabbed my butt.
And I'm not a small woman, you know what I mean?
Like, I could punch... Alright.
I could defend myself if this guy tried... But look, come on.
Of all the people to grab your butt.
No, it doesn't matter who grabs your butt.
Don't touch people in these ways without their consent.
And so it's a good thing Al Franken's being called out again.
A military veteran who is now a senior staffer at a major progressive organization.
She is the ninth woman to accuse Franken of inappropriate conduct and the fourth to say Franken grabbed her butt.
Okay.
This one's on you, dude.
New York also spoke to three individuals in whom she had confided after the first Franken accusation emerged.
She says that she did not tell anyone about the incident after it happened out of embarrassment.
Now, let's stop for a second.
I don't know who this woman is, and I would like evidence beyond a reasonable doubt.
An accusation was made.
If Franken actually did this, I'd be concerned about it.
Now, there's political motive.
When they go after Brett Kavanaugh for a 30-year-old thing, I question it.
When they go after Al Franken for something from 13 years ago, I gotta admit, I question that, too.
I don't think it's fair to drag a guy who's already resigned in disgrace without proof because unnamed women who didn't report it make an accusation.
So, here's the thing, though.
The big difference.
When Brett Kavanaugh was trying to, you know, become a Supreme Court Justice, the attacks emerged.
That, to me, seems overtly partisan.
But I'll question it nonetheless.
This is different.
Al Franken's out.
You know, he's out.
And we've seen a photo of him putting his hands just about to, like he's light, like, some people argued he wasn't really touching the woman's chest, his fingertips were, whatever.
The point is, there's a photo of him with his hands over her chest.
That's a lot different from the accusation, 30-year-old accusations from Brett Kavanaugh.
Now, I will also stress this.
The friend of Blasey Ford said she doesn't believe the story was true.
Okay.
I mean, you know, look, we don't really have much here.
In this instance, the friends of this woman said it was true.
I don't think either of them is proof beyond a reasonable doubt.
And I think it's unfair to drag these up if the guy's already out.
If it happened, it happened.
Feel free to tell your story.
The same is true for Kavanaugh or anybody else.
I'm just not interested in playing political games over accusations that can't be proven because they're a decade plus old.
Come on, man, it was 13 years ago.
If he did this, then he's a monster.
But what should we do?
It's tough.
It really is.
I guess you can come out and say it, and people will doubt you and deny it, and I really don't know what you're supposed to do.
If Al Franken's done this to numerous women, and he's got nine accusers, and their friends back it up, well, look, at a certain point.
So it's not so much cut and dry that we can say Brett Kavanaugh, you know, is innocent and Al Franken is guilty, but there are grains of sand making a heap.
And for everybody, they're a bit different.
You know, a lot of people look at Brett Kavanaugh and say that evidence was enough.
I don't.
I look at Al Franken and I say, this evidence, also, is not enough, but there's more of it than there was for Kavanaugh.
I can appreciate, though, that he is still getting called out if it's true he did it, but I gotta admit, man, it's a dangerous world we're building where 13 years later someone can just claim it and everyone believes it's true.
If Al Franken did it, man, how do you know for sure?
Just take their word, I guess.
The woman said she cried when she first heard of other allegations against Franken.
I really considered adding my voice, she told the magazine, but said a bad experience with another boss kept her from coming forward.
She also worried she'd never get another job.
I know that anything can be used as a flag to say, not this person.
The idea that I would not get a job and would always wonder, was it the article where I was the one who was raising my hand against a powerful man, she said.
And I gotta admit, that's a fact.
It is absolutely a fact.
So, there have been instances I have been privy to throughout my life, and these are just some anecdotes, where there have been individuals that I did not directly work with who passively, you know, I've overheard people in work settings talking about how They don't like hiring women, especially women who have made accusations.
And it's not an issue of gender or anything like that.
It's an issue of insurance.
They talk about the liability of bringing on someone who's filed a claim before and perhaps won or settled.
And so they say it's a personality issue.
Whether or not they're telling the truth, they don't know.
And therein lies the problem.
If this woman comes out and she's telling the truth, then she should be protected and definitely not hurt because of it.
But in the end, they look at money.
And the monetary decision is going to be, I don't know if what you're saying is true and I don't care because it will cost me money.
And that's a negative impact and that just sucks.
That's just not cool, okay?
They say, After allegations initially emerged, Franken at first denied that he'd done what the alleged victim said he'd done.
Some of the allegations against me are simply not true, he said, others I remember very differently.
The way I've explained it before, one of the big errors, I shouldn't say errors, but quandaries, conundrums.
This is the best example.
If I look at a guy wearing a new three-piece suit, or let's say four-piece.
He's got a vest underneath it.
Is that a three-piece suit?
Whatever.
Four-piece.
Got the nice vest under it, like Tony Stark in Civil War.
And I look at him, I say, whoa, damn, dude, that is a killer outfit.
Also, what the heck, man?
You've been hitting up the gym?
You look like you lost weight.
You're looking great.
That's no problem.
That is no problem at all.
You could walk up to the guy and you could pat him on the back and be like, man, digging the new looks, man.
I'm glad your diet's working out.
Now imagine you walk up to a woman, look at her dress and go, woo, that is a killer outfit.
And by the way, did you lose weight?
Are you going to the gym?
You're looking great.
Yeah, now you're going to get in trouble.
You see what this means?
So listen.
He says he remembers things differently.
I understand what that might mean.
He might have walked up to a woman like Neil deGrasse Tyson did and just looked at her arm and not realizing it was violating a boundary.
Neil deGrasse Tyson was apparently looking for Pluto on a tattoo of the solar system.
The woman then said he grabbed her inappropriately.
Yeah, well, don't grab people, I guess.
So, look, the problem is two people, two interpretations.
Which one's the right one?
I honestly don't know what to tell you, man.
But I really do think the best way to explain it is how I did.
Walk up to a dude, pat him on the back, take a look at his suit and tell him he's looking fantastic and his diet must be working.
Just right off the bat, you understand why women would be offended by that.
Not all.
Not every.
Maybe not even most.
Not even that many.
But a small amount would be.
And you will find yourself sitting in an office with an HR director saying, We need to ask you about some inappropriate comments you made towards Karen.
And you're gonna say, I'm sorry?
Inappropriate comments?
And they're gonna say, Yeah, um, you told her that she was looking really, really good.
You made comments about her body.
We can't have you do that.
What was the movie?
There's a movie, um, where this, like, uh, like, middle-aged, like, portly white dude just starts going around killing people with this, uh, this young woman.
I can't remember what it's called.
It's called, like, God Bless America or something, and he gives, like, a flowers and a thank-you letter to a woman he works with, and it's not even, like, an overtly dating thing.
It was just, like, a thank-you letter for being nice, but he looked up her address or something, and so they said that was harassment.
They fired him.
This is a cultural idea.
I'm not saying it's evidence or proof of anything.
I'm just saying, entertain the idea.
If you... Well, look, don't look up people's addresses in the computer workplace.
I understand why that's wrong.
But his interpretation of what he was doing was innocent.
He didn't realize he crossed a boundary.
Should he be fired for it?
No.
Again, it's a movie.
I get it.
I'm just talking about a cultural reference.
It was an idea someone came up with.
The point is, things like this happen.
You don't know if someone will misinterpret what you say or do.
And it is a struggle in the world of dating for everybody.
You know, women often lament that simply being nice to a guy makes the guy think they're flirting.
Sometimes a woman just wants to be friends and be nice and be polite.
And that's great, and they should be, and so should guys.
But yeah, sometimes guys might get the wrong impression.
So then think about that context in the workplace.
You have this young attractive woman who comes up to you and says, do you want to go grab dinner later with me?
And you're thinking, is this a date?
Or does she want to talk shop?
I honestly don't know.
Perhaps you shouldn't date in the workplace.
But even outside of that context, what if you're a politician like Al Franken, and a woman comes up to you, or actually, yeah, say you're a politician like Al Franken, and you're talking to a woman, and she asks you to go out for dinner.
And you're thinking, like, wow, that's a date.
And she's thinking, this is going to be great, I'll pick the brain of this famous politician.
You just don't know.
And, you know, they say that, you know, you can just say it.
Like, you can just come out and be like, here's what I expect and here's what I want.
It doesn't work that way.
Like, walk up to a woman and say, I just want to let you know this is going to be a date and I fully intend to proceed with romantic intentions.
It's like, that's not very mysterious or attractive or, you know, it doesn't work that way.
I mean, I guess it could.
You know, telling people outright I'm strictly looking for a romantic endeavor.
It's really funny, though, because I've gotten hit, people have hit me up on OkCupid.
A dating website.
And then I'm like, OK, I understand the context with which you are reaching out to me.
And they hit me up for job inquiries and business.
It's like, are you nuts?
You're going on a dating site.
You see, this is the problem.
Why is it okay that, you know, in a work setting, why is it okay that on a dating website someone could reach out to me for a work opportunity through a dating website?
Is that not offensive?
Is that like business entrepreneurial harassment?
We'll call it that.
Yes, I get it.
You want a job and you want money.
Thank you for reaching out to me on my dating website when I'm looking for someone to go see Rambo with.
And talking to me about a job you're looking for.
You know, I probably would just ignore it.
That's a really, really dangerous circumstance.
Anyway, I do try to keep these short, so forgive me.
I'll wrap it up here.
You get the point, right?
Al Franken may have done a lot of things wrong, but as far as I'm concerned, Proof beyond a reasonable doubt, man.
You don't gotta be a fan of the guy, but we gotta hold standards.
We gotta hold our standards up.
I think there's more evidence against him and more accusations than say Kavanaugh, but still.
It remains to be said, I won't play any partisan games.
And the guy's already disgraced, anyway.
I got one more segment coming up for you in a few minutes.
Stick around, and I will see you all shortly.
Sarah Jong is out at the New York Times editorial board, and this news is breaking just in the past couple days.
For those that aren't familiar with the context, Sarah Jong was hired by the New York Times to be on the, I believe it was Technology Editorial Opinion Board, and she has a history of racist tweets.
Very racist, very offensive, and she's also just a mean person, right?
Like, I've routinely engaged with some of these people on Twitter, and boy, are they nasty.
I'm not saying it's only them, please calm down.
I'm just saying they are nasty.
Now, here's the thing.
A lot of people are trying to play this up like she was fired.
We don't know if that's true, and it's likely not true.
The reason is she's still on as a contractor writing for the outlet, which means she probably wasn't fired.
If she was fired, they'd sever all ties.
She probably just moved on.
It's not a big deal.
People move on.
And you know what?
Fine.
Good.
The New York Times shouldn't have fired her in the first place.
She shouldn't be fired over her being a bad person.
We should all calm down.
You know, and let bygones be bygones.
Now, I think it's a bad sign when the New York Times hires more people like her who are overt racists.
Fine.
But something interesting happened.
There was a call to boycott the New York Times.
And Sarah Jong kind of defended it.
Not really.
And everybody immediately thought she got fired because of it.
But the truth is, what actually happened is that she was out as of August.
So let's calm the rumors down.
However, I do want to talk about the swamp.
The swamp that is media.
See, the other day I made a video talking about how BuzzFeed defended Aaron Calvin.
This is the guy who tried to cancel Carson King.
Another story I'll give you the quick context of.
Carson King has raised a million bucks for a children's hospital.
It was an accident, but he made the best of it.
He's a good dude, and he's donating all this money.
So this guy Aaron Calvin dug through his Twitter history eight years ago and found an offensive joke that he sent to his friend.
Excuse me.
It was a reference to Tosh.0.
It was very offensive.
I get it.
Well, when Aaron Calvin turned out to also have very offensive tweets, he got fired.
What did BuzzFeed do?
BuzzFeed wrote a story that I would say is the epitome of technically the truth.
You see, what BuzzFeed does when it comes to, say, someone like Carl Benjamin, Sargon of Akkad, is they strip the context out.
When it comes to someone like Count Dankula, they will strip the context out and say, you know, in the instance of Sargon, They said that he talked about assaulting a woman instead of saying he made a joke about media pressure that referenced the past.
The point I'm making is, by all means, criticize Sargon for making the joke, for sure.
But let people know what actually happened.
When it comes to this guy, oh, they make sure you know what happened.
Now, here's the point.
Think about the world that Sarah Jong lives in.
For years, she was posting racist commentary.
And when she gets hired by the New York Times and there's outrage over it, what does the New York Times do?
Well, they defended her.
I think it might actually be in this story, when they say that they reference all of the things she said that were offensive.
Oh man, it's kind of sick, I get joy out of being cruel to white men, stuff like this.
They gonna say.
The Times said in a statement at the time that it stood by its decision to hire Zhang and had reviewed the writer's social media accounts prior to her hiring, while calling the content of the tweets unacceptable.
Quote, we hired Sarah Zhang because of the exceptional work she has done covering the internet and technology at a range of respected publications.
All right, let's talk about Grandstand in a heap.
Do I think everyone in media is holding hands and working in a secret cabal behind the scenes?
Of course not.
But many of them know each other, they defend each other as an industry, you know, courtesy, and many of them do hang out at bars, I know because I've hung out at the bars with them numerous occasions.
Now, it's really funny because some of the pushback I got is, you seem to think there are patterns where there are none.
No, there's clearly a pattern of behavior.
Sarah Jung for years puts out extremely offensive racist tweets, and the New York Times has no problem with it.
This journalist tries to destroy someone's life because of two jokes he made eight years ago, and BuzzFeed runs a Technically the Truth piece, which is a defense of him.
And this guy worked for BuzzFeed, okay?
So let me ask you about these standards.
Why is it that when Sarah Jong has all these offensive tweets, they defend it.
It's fine.
And when this guy calls someone else out for offensive tweets, they defend him!
Let me explain what I mean by defend him, for those that missed the other video.
This story is all technically the truth.
They mention things that are technically true, like they say that it was right-wing ideologues.
Let me pull this up.
They say, soon, influential right-wing media figures also began circulating screenshots of Calvin's own past offensive tweets that had been uncovered.
Sure, they make it seem like it was all about the right coming after him, that he's being harassed and doxxed and death threats.
But the initial outrage this man was met with was from local Iowans who were outraged that he was targeting this small-town hero who raised a million dollars for a children's hospital.
So again, Sarah Jong, defended by the New York Times.
Aaron Calvin, criticized a guy for his tweets, had his own tweets uncovered, defended.
Okay, let me stress.
This story?
Technically the truth.
You see, what you'll hear from these journalists is, all we did was get his side of the story.
Okay, I agree with that.
That's fantastic.
I'm glad you did.
Why was it when you talk about, say, Dankula and Sargon, you don't get their side of the story?
You just take the jokes out of context, smear them, refer to them as the worst possible thing imaginable, and then try and frame this guy as under attack by right-wing ideologues.
I'm sorry.
It's about a pattern of behavior.
Now I understand.
The reporter who did this story, it's Julia Reinstein, is not the same person who has smeared Carl Benjamin.
And that's... I understand that.
And so this is not a dig at the individual.
In no way am I trying to criticize the individual who wrote this.
The individual who wrote about Sargon and all that, yeah, I get it.
And the individual at the New York Times who hired Sarah Zhang and defended her, yeah, that's critical.
I'm critical of that too.
Okay, I get it.
You got his perspective, you framed it from his point of view, and it makes him look like a victim.
The problem is what BuzzFeed News as a whole chooses to cover and how they choose to cover it.
When you talk about people on the right having bad tweets as having talked about assaulting a politician, And then you talk about a guy with also bad tweets saying it's blown out of proportion, and it was right-wing ideologues surfacing them, and that he's being a victim of harassment and doxxing.
You see the point I'm trying to make?
The media industry is a swamp, okay?
That's why Sarah John was able to stay at the New York Times for as long as she did, and that's why she wasn't fired!
You know, people are saying that she was fired.
There's speculation.
This tweet, actually, that I saw was Sarah Jong out at New York Times after tweeting defense of boycott or something like that.
And people were saying, like, well, if you tweet racist things, they won't fire you, but if you threaten the bottom line, they will.
They did not fire her.
Okay, let's read a little bit.
They say Sarah Jeong is no longer part of the New York Times editorial board, an editor with the newspaper told CNN on Friday, with the writer maintaining that a tweet she sent this week was not a call for people to unsubscribe from the paper.
Sarah decided to leave the editorial board in August, deputy editorial page editor Kate Kingsbury told CNN on Friday.
Now, you don't got to believe them.
I'm just saying that's what they report.
But we're glad to still have her journalism and insights around technology in our pages through her work as a contributor.
That is the point.
She will still contribute.
She was not fired.
And that is the point.
The media industry is a swamp.
It is a swamp of people who cycle around getting hired company after company.
Now there are some people I really like who are routinely slammed and smeared by people on the right.
And I roll my eyes and sometimes I do push back and defend some of these journalists.
They're not all bad.
But I stress, it would be very easy to find people who worked for, you know, the New York Times, and then went to Vox, and then, you know, went to Fusion, and then back to, and then to the Atlantic, and then to the New York Times, then Washington Post.
They bounce around all of these jobs so long as the opening exists.
They operate not like competitive industries, but like partners working together.
They are not operating in the same capacity a free market operates.
Why is it that the Washington Post, for the most part, won't call out other outlets?
Now, they have.
The Washington Post, the New York Times, they've called out other outlets.
They've called out CNN and such.
But let me tell you a story.
When I worked at Fusion, I came across a very interesting bit of journalistic malpractice.
A writer for the New York Times had completely altered a fact-based news story into an op-ed analysis.
That is an egregious violation of journalistic ethics and internet norms.
And what ended up happening is that I was told to drop the story.
I was told to drop the story because, quote, we do it too.
Okay, a paraphrase, not a real quote.
But I was told, you know, people will call us out if we're doing the same thing.
And I said, wait a minute, you mean that we do the same thing?
You mean to say that we will change a story after the fact and alter it without notifying our audience?
Yep.
Now, this individual who told me to drop the story went over to Refusion.
He got a new job afterwards.
See, he told me not to call up the guy from the New York Times, so, uh, well, I didn't.
And it wasn't necessarily because I was, you know, scared or they put pressure on me.
It was that I didn't know if the story was big enough to actually do anything with anyway.
I mean, I put a tweet, right?
And I have.
But are we gonna write something up saying the New York Times did this?
I mean, honestly, I just didn't know.
And without their support, I said, okay, fine.
I guess we'll ignore it.
So he told me not to call up the New York Times.
Can you, uh, can you guess what company hired him?
Did you guess the New York Times?
Yeah.
The media industry is a swamp.
And the swamp needs to be drained, but it can't be.
It's a private sector industry, and they circle around all these people, they hire their buddies.
Sarah Jong worked for The Verge, which is a Vox property, then goes to work for the New York Times.
We get it.
I'm—what's she gonna go work?
Is she gonna go work for BuzzFeed next?
I wouldn't be surprised.
Anyway, she put out a tweet saying that the New York Times does pay attention to subscriber cancellations.
It's one of the metrics for outrage they take to distinguish between real outrage and superficial outrage.
What subscribers say can back up dissenting views inside the paper about what it should and should be.
She was out at the company a long time ago.
I'm pretty sure she's blocked me anyway.
I don't think she's a good person.
I think she's a snide, elitist, mean individual.
I think she's racist.
Fine.
But she wasn't fired.
And people need to accept that she wasn't fired, and realize the media industry is a disgusting, bubbling swamp full of swamp monsters that won't hold each other accountable.
They'll only do it when their bottom line is threatened.
