Mark Zuckerberg Just DEFENDED Donald Trump?! Says Facebook Will Uphold FREE SPEECH, Ok Prove it Mark
Mark Zuckerberg Just DEFENDED Donald Trump?! Says Facebook Will Uphold FREE SPEECH, Ok Prove it Mark. Democrat Kamala Harris has made repeated demands that Trump be banned form twitter. Elizabeth Warren has slammed Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook for allowing ads they believe are false.Both of these demands are anti free speech and quite authoritarian. To call on unelected tech billionaires to police and censor speech is terrifying. But the most unlikely of defenders emerged, Mark Zuckerberg himself.While it was a harder defense of free speech and a refusal to intervene in politics I think this is the result of a combination of bad news cycles facebook is facing. With accusations they allowed interference in the 2016 presidential election it seems mark is reticent to intervene in any political capacity at this point. Not only that but Mark was recently under fire from the far left over his meeting with some conservatives, something that is totally normal for almost every business.It still stands to be see if Mark will unban those he previously removed and until then I will hold total judgement. But so long as Mark is at least making a statement I will give him the respect he deserves in this moment.Lets see actions Mark, until then I won't believe youre taking a genuine stand against social media censorship.
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In the last presidential debate and on Twitter, Kamala Harris has called for the permanent removal of Donald Trump for Twitter.
She's actually doubling down and making this like a core talking point and trying to goad Elizabeth Warren into defending it, which Warren resoundingly just said no and then carried on.
But here's where I'm conflicted.
Because the person who came to Trump's defense, the most prominent individual when asked, is Mark Zuckerberg.
And now I have to state, Mark Zuckerberg gave a speech about free speech and the policing of political speech and content on Facebook, and he said he's going to err on the side of free speech.
Now, at face value, I've got to say, I actually agree with Mark Zuckerberg, and I'm actually impressed that he defended Donald Trump's social media account.
Here's the thing.
Facebook recently banned the likes of Laura Loomer, Milo Yiannopoulos, and Paul Joseph Watson, and many people viewed that as overtly partisan because those individuals are not dangerous, as Facebook tried to claim.
They're just hyperbolic, I guess?
Well, so what?
They have opinions, they're allowed to have their opinions, and they shouldn't have been banned over it.
No matter what you think, no matter how bombastic they may be, they didn't break the law.
And they're carrying on with their lives.
So I will say, Mark Zuckerberg, at face value, I agree.
But I must admit, I don't trust you.
I don't trust you or what you've done.
But I gotta say this.
Whenever someone does something good, I will always praise it.
So in this regard, Mark Zuckerberg absolutely deserves us to err on the side of respect and positivity.
If Mark continues down this course of defending the rights of individuals and people to speak freely, Well, then things are going to get better.
Keeping in mind, Facebook is still dangerous for many, many other reasons that Mark needs to address.
But I will always give someone respect if they do something that I believe is good.
And that goes for Elizabeth Warren, when she called out big tech specifically.
And it goes for Ocasio-Cortez, who also called out mass surveillance from these companies as well.
Absolutely, you do right.
You have my respect.
But let's get started.
So let's do this.
I want to give you a bit of the context.
Kamala Harris doubles down after Twitter dismisses her calls to Nix Trump's account.
So I'll be clear.
I mean, you know, Twitter, to an extent, is even defending Donald Trump, much to the anger of many on the left.
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Let's read a little bit here from the Daily Caller.
They say Democratic California Senator Kamala Harris doubled down on calls for Twitter to nix President Donald Trump's account ahead of the election after the Silicon Valley company explained why such a move is not in the public's interest.
Harris is trying to make nixing Trump's account a cause celebre in the Democratic presidential race.
Elizabeth Warren, for one, dismissed the idea during Tuesday night's Democratic debate, saying,
I don't want to push Trump just off Twitter. I want to push him out of the White House.
Twitter is not holding Donald Trump accountable for abusing their platform to threaten people
and incite and inspire violent behavior, the California senator told CNN on Wednesday,
after Twitter noted in a letter that the president has not yet violated the platform's policies.
You could argue Laura Loomer broke Twitter's rules because she made comments about her Uber driver.
But I still think erring on the side of punishing people for their opinions is a bad move that will just make things worse.
You didn't get rid of any of these people, okay?
They're still active.
Now, a lot of people have pointed to Milo, and they try to act like Milo Yiannopoulos' deplatforming worked.
No, it didn't.
Paul Joseph Watson is still very prominent.
He still is very active.
I get it.
He was only banned from Facebook and Instagram.
Milo's a different story.
Okay, Milo has a YouTube channel.
He's not producing for it.
So, they want to act like deplatforming worked.
It did not.
In fact, we know that you create dark corners of the internet when you push people.
The argument, essentially, taking someone who got arrested for weed and putting them in prison with the most violent criminals possible.
It's not what we want to be doing.
And it's also just a violation of general principle, which now brings me to Mark Zuckerberg.
Being right!
Bravo, Mark Zuckerberg!
I am absolutely astounded and grateful for the comments he made.
It was intelligent, it was thoughtful.
You don't gotta trust the guy.
I'm still skeptical of whether or not he's going to enact these policies, because the first thing he should do is unban those he did ban.
But at face value, I'm gonna say, I'll say this.
You know, when Trump crossed over the DMZ with Kim Jong-un, it was symbolic.
It wasn't like any great changes were necessarily coming, but Trump took a huge risk, entering enemy territory without protection.
That, to me, spoke—that said a lot.
And I respect that.
It doesn't mean the guy's perfect.
It means, you know, I can criticize what's happening in Saudi Arabia, but that one thing deserves praise.
Whether it, you know, it comes, it brings about positive changes yet to be seen, but it was an act that was important.
The same is true for Zuckerberg.
He has a long way to go to prove that he means this, but coming out and giving a speech about the importance of free speech and why he shouldn't be policing politics or banning Trump is extremely important and symbolic.
Let's see your actions come next, but I will give you absolute respect, Mark Wonderful.
Let me read a little bit from the story from The Sun.
Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has again declared the platform will not police political free speech, rejecting claims that President Trump's social media should not be shut down.
Zuckerberg stressed that he felt people need to see for themselves what politicians are saying.
Excuse me.
A message that came as part of a university speech followed by a subsequent television interview.
But I will stress one point.
If all they're doing is defending politicians, well, that's actually nightmarish and that's dangerous.
Mark, you need to unban many of the people who have been banned for stated political reasons.
Otherwise, this is actually worse.
Imagine a situation where you have two people running for office.
Laura Loomer, for instance, is running for Congress in Florida.
How will she have access to her constituents if they primarily are using social media for their news?
By only protecting existing politicians, You are essentially creating a protection for the incumbent and the establishment.
So we need to make sure we figure this one out, but you're going to have to start by unbanning people who broke no laws.
Now, I think Mark Zuckerberg doesn't go as far as to claim that.
He doesn't go into the First Amendment section because he says there are reasonable limits.
But he goes on to cite things that we all agree are beyond the limits, like incitement, threats, etc.
Yeah, that's already illegal.
You don't need to worry about that.
No one's advocating for that to be allowed on these platforms.
For the most part, I know some people do.
That's wrong.
In my opinion, at least.
But someone expressing their ideas, be it a detestable and disgusting idea, is still someone expressing their ideas.
And it's important that we can see it and challenge that and have it exposed to sunlight.
But more importantly, I do not want to enter a world where we see the left being smeared and slandered all the same.
I get it.
I get it.
I'm not trying to play favorites.
I'm saying when you have the left frequently come out and claim, you know, hey, you should be banning these kinds of speech.
Well, Mark Zuckerberg made an important point.
It is typically the poor and the marginalized who are impacted by this.
Exactly.
It protects the establishment.
So I'm willing to defend, you know, Trump's speech and Republican speech, even though they're the dominant political party right now, because I know what comes next.
The cliff erodes, and eventually you will find left-wing anti-war voices next in line.
And it's already happened.
You know, anti-media, for instance, was banned by Pinterest.
We saw that from Veritas's release.
That's why we have to be adamant about protecting speech.
Otherwise, it's our principles which go into the gutter.
So Mark Zuckerberg made a lot of these points and I will say straight up, it's respectable.
One of his quotes, I generally believe that as a principle, people should decide what is credible and what they want to believe who they want to vote for.
And I don't think that should be something that we want tech companies or any kind of company doing.
He's right!
I've been railing on this for a while saying we should not allow massive tech companies to decide what is true and what isn't.
And they went down that road for a while.
So I'd like to see some action following this.
That would be fantastic.
So, I've got a couple more stories.
We can check this out.
So, in the greater context, the New York Times refers to it as a defiant Zuckerberg, says Facebook won't police political speech.
Now, he's talking about more speech, but again, as I stressed, actions speak louder than words.
We'll see what comes next.
But this is in response to a couple very important stories in the Democratic race.
Now, first, the first problem we have here is CNBC is doing what Facebook refuses to do.
They're asserting truth.
Listen, it's one... They're asserting truth outside of the context of what the article is supposed to be.
News articles are supposed to tell you the truth, but framing is an important device.
Now, technically, this article is fine, okay?
Because the accusation is Trump's ad has false information, and Biden wants it removed, and Facebook says no.
However, They're making it sound like the ad itself was false.
No, the reason Facebook wouldn't reject it is because Facebook isn't asserting whether it's true or not, and that's right.
Because the problem is, you have different people believing different things because of different credible sources.
There are alternative sources.
As much as people want to rag, I think it was Kellyanne Conway's alternative facts, it's like, listen man, I understand the point she was trying to make.
And a lot of people try to use it against her, but listen, Trump in his video, the video I'm familiar with, if I believe is the correct one, is very vague.
It just says that Trump was trying to investigate corruption and Joe Biden got aid suspended after the prosecutor was potentially going to look into Burisma.
Well, that's all true.
And the other thing that's true is that this Shokin, the prosecutor, signed a sworn affidavit saying that Biden was interfering, and now we have a Ukrainian MP saying Biden was directly consulting and receiving a payment of $900,000 through Rose Monsenica, through his son.
You want to argue none of that's true, that's fine, but Facebook shouldn't be arguing that.
And therein lies the problem.
NBC, CNBC, all these other outlets and leftists want to say, no, it's a conspiracy theory, it's fake news.
Listen.
I know you're saying that, but you're asking me to believe one Ukrainian official over another, and I can't do that.
So I can't tell you what is true or not.
And I'm going to have to agree with Facebook.
Let the ad roll.
Well, here's the thing.
I'll tell you where the paradox comes in.
Elizabeth Warren warns Facebook may help re-elect Trump and profit off of it.
And this is Elizabeth Warren making a similar point.
If we can lie in Facebook ads and get away with it, we know that campaign finance laws are not equipped to address online political advertising.
My plan would modernize campaign finance law for the digital age.
If you are ready to regulate political ads on the internet, sign up.
Okay.
Okay, Elizabeth.
I believe we should regulate what you are saying, and if you are lying to get elected, we should remove you.
Is that what you're claiming?
That you would not be exempt from this?
Okay, good.
Delete the tweet.
Because according to PolitiFact, you were wrong.
Check this out.
You want to talk about paradox or irony or whatever?
I love the analogy of a fire truck on fire.
That's irony.
In this instance, Elizabeth Warren is trying to claim Trump is lying, and it turns out she was!
Or she was just wrong, okay?
I'm not trying to assign her intent.
She's wrong.
Okay, so now can I accuse her of lying and demand that her tweets be removed?
Delete Facebook was trending on Twitter because Mark Zuckerberg had a dinner with some conservatives.
And these leftists were freaking out.
Like, so what?
Zuckerberg has dinner with tons of people all the time.
But this one moment, it got reported by the news as a secret meeting with conservatives.
Oh, come on.
Secret meeting.
Zuckerberg responded by saying he has dinner with lots of different people who believe different things.
It's right.
But they don't want anyone interacting with anybody they view as conservative.
That's crazy.
And I think Zuckerberg maybe got a little wake-up call when he was realizing who was targeting him and why.
Well, here's the problem, Elizabeth.
In phony Facebook ad, Warren said most TV networks will refuse ads with a lie, but that's wrong.
That's wrong.
Senator Elizabeth Warren escalated her battle to break up Facebook by posting an ad that intentionally included a false account about Mark Zuckerberg backing President Donald Trump.
Warren's goal was to show that the social media giant allows misinformation by Trump.
Quote.
The ad then pivoted to a disclaimer.
Zuckerberg and Facebook just endorsed Donald Trump for re-election.
You're probably shocked and you might be thinking, how could this possibly be true?
The ad then pivoted to a disclaimer.
No, the Facebook CEO did not endorse Trump before attacking Facebook.
What Zuckerberg has done is given Donald Trump free reign to lie on his platform and then
to pay Facebook gobs of money to push out their lies to American voters.
If Trump tries to lie in a TV ad, most networks will refuse to air it.
But Facebook just cashes Trump's checks.
Okay, let me stop.
Elizabeth Warren has called on Twitter to ban Trump.
No!
That is authoritarian corporate... corporate... corporatism?
Whatever.
We should not be giving the private corporations the right over our public conversations.
Sorry, that's authoritarian.
Elizabeth Warren is looking to Zuckerberg to solve this problem.
No, he is free to do as he pleases as much as I think there should be regulation.
You're also wrong too, but please stop reaching out to the billionaire multinational corporations to police speech.
Stop!
And you have Beto, who called on massive financial tech duopoly, MasterCard and Visa, to restrict the sale of private legal goods to American citizens.
This is an insane authoritarian push that I won't stand for, okay?
I've criticized Trump periodically, but listen.
The challenge now is what they're proposing, in my opinion, is remarkably worse than your criticisms of Trump.
That's just my opinion.
You don't have to agree.
I'm concerned about free expression and authoritarianism within this country, and I'm seeing it from these three people particularly.
Well, it turns out that Warren is wrong.
So, federal rules for television.
There are rules, however.
So, hold on.
You get the point.
I don't want to read through this whole PolitiFact breakdown.
The point is they rated it mostly false.
It's not true.
You can actually put up ads that may have misinformation or be wrong.
There's defamation suits.
They're very difficult for people to win, especially with the Times v. Sullivan precedent, where if you're a public figure, there's a greater standard.
In the end, like TV, social media, or otherwise, they are private businesses that can choose what to air and what not to, and they typically don't air on the side of deciding what is a fact and what isn't.
Now, CNN apparently has refused to air some ads, right, but that's CNN, they're the orange man bad network, and we know that because of the Veritas leaks.
There's a couple other things that need to be said, though.
As to why Warren is wrong, and Kamala Harris is wrong, and I appreciate Warren pushing back on big tech, I do.
But check this out.
In an op-ed from the New York Times, they say tech companies are destroying democracy and the free press.
Ad revenue that used to support journalism is now captured by Google and Facebook, and some of that money supports and spreads fake news.
That's true.
It does.
And let me tell you, there's a real conflict here.
Mark Zuckerberg is right.
Another point he made was that Facebook has done great things to democratize the ability to speak up.
He's correct.
And I think he's also correct in pointing out how we've missed that.
Facebook does this.
YouTube does this.
Twitter does this.
And it's often missed in the conversation about what we need to do to make the platforms better.
So I will acknowledge, yes, that is a very, very good thing.
In fact, the democratization of spreading information is what I'm doing right now.
I mean, you've got mainstream media outlets challenging me, trying to shut me down, smearing and lying.
Yeah?
Because they don't like the fact that we're competing.
And this story from the New York Times is not just about big tech companies.
It's about me.
It's about you guys watching.
In this story, they do make a good point that Google and Facebook, they've dominated the space and taken so much of that money, and it is hurting news.
I agree.
At the same time, though, what's your solution?
Shutting down these companies?
Taking my voice away?
Sorry.
Things have leveled out.
Yes, Google has retained, has gained way too much power, and so has Facebook, so you're half right.
We need to have an honest conversation about the right way forward.
Now, I will stress one more point moving forward.
Forgive me for saying I stress points too much.
I do that a lot, don't I?
Mark Zuckerberg may be reacting to pending litigation.
Here's what I think.
Mark Zuckerberg knows if Warren wins, uh-oh, she's gonna break you up.
He also knows that if Trump wins, uh-oh, conservatives are upset over your bias.
I think Mark Zuckerberg came out in trying to save his company.
I think he's now on the side of, look, I respect what he says, Mark, I respect what you've said here, but I do think it's a political act to protect your business.
And I get it.
I do.
I'd like to see some action following this.
But think about it.
If Trump wins and the Republicans are saying you're biased against us, well, they'll come after Mark.
If Mark before 2020 says free speech, He's betting Trump is gonna win.
And coincidentally, it's coming out right around the time that new analytics, historically accurate analytics, Moody's, shows Trump handily winning.
But it seems like Zuckerberg is betting on a Trump victory.
If anyone would know, I'd bet it would be Zuckerberg.
I'll tell you what's really scary.
And that if Mark, if Facebook can curate what you see, if they can ban Milo, Laura, and
Paul Joseph Watson, very prominent Trump supporters, well that's going to restrict the voice of
those who can push people to vote for Trump.
That to me is nightmarish.
I don't like it.
I'm not a fan of Trump.
I just don't want Zuckerberg to be in control of that.
I didn't vote for him.
I didn't vote for Trump either, but at least I know 63 million of my fellow Americans did, and I'm willing to respect that choice.
Zuckerberg just gained power through market incentives.
I can respect the hard work he's done and his dedication, but I will not respect him having power over the public sector.
So make the right choice and move on.
I want to highlight a couple more things.
How about this?
New York Times has previously published an op-ed which is outraged about the money they should be getting from Google, effectively saying it's our money, $4.7 billion, which they were wrong about.
This is why the New York Times has smeared YouTube on the front page.
This is why these digital news outlets have targeted us on YouTube.
We are not the problem.
We did not create this system, but they do view us as cogs in the machine that harm them.
Well, I'll tell you what, I have a right to speak, as do other people with nasty opinions.
But you know what?
The bigger problem, in my opinion, is these tech companies keep bending over backwards to the outrage from a dying media class.
These companies are obsolete, okay?
What we're doing with Subverse right now is building off of new social infrastructure on Minds.com, and I think it's amazing and revolutionary.
You should check it out, Subverse.net.
But these older companies, Excuse me, they're using this blog model from the 2000s and change has happened.
I fully recognize that time will come when what I do will not be economically viable either.
We need to have some regulation.
That's my opinion.
I don't know what it is, but I think Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, Beto are all wrong about their calls.
The media is just trying to shut us down because we're their competition.
They say Google is the problem.
Okay, Google has a lot of problems.
And they do have too much power.
I agree.
But no, the problem is you are becoming obsolete and you need to adapt your business model.
Why aren't you on YouTube?
Okay, I don't like the idea there's no competition in town, but Andrew Yang made a very, very great point.
He said, you know, he was basically talking about how just because they're a monopoly doesn't mean it's a bad thing.
How many people use Bing?
And everyone's like, right, we use the best service.
That presents a very serious challenge in that there's no competition between search engines.
You know, Facebook is very specific, so is YouTube.
And why would someone want to use a smaller social media network where no one is actually on?
That means we need regulation.
Because in this space, competition doesn't make as much sense.
Although I do think it's good.
So there's the big issue.
But I want to stress... I'm sorry, I said it again.
But there's two more things to point out.
In this article, Harris aide complained BuzzFeed reporter's critical tweet was a really horrible look and whiteness manifest.
We should not be letting politicians decide who should or should not be allowed to speak.
Okay?
Free speech First Amendment is a reason it's the first.
Nor should Mark Zuckerberg.
I can see you have an opinion about BuzzFeed.
I'm willing to respect that opinion.
But they're going after news organizations all the same.
So they want to claim you should only protect the truth, Mark Zuckerberg.
But what's the truth?
I don't agree with their version of what BuzzFeed did.
I think BuzzFeed did a fine job in that regard, but they did not.
It's very much similar to how they criticized Trump.
So this last example I'll give before signing off just shows you.
What we would get if we allow one political class to determine what is or isn't acceptable speech?
In the end, the First Amendment must stand.
Otherwise, you will have the left slamming the media, the same as the right, and that's probably why, in my opinion, I think it's fair to say Mark Zuckerberg ultimately landed on this point.
Because what can he really do?
He's looking at the left, criticizing them for meeting with conservatives, and he's like, that's crazy!
And he's looking at the crazier fringe elements of the right saying crazy things, and he's like, that's crazy too!
In the end though, err on the side of free speech.
That's about it.
Zuckerberg says that they're going to be focused on the authenticity of the individual.
I think that's fair and it makes sense.
But there is a challenge there in the right to anonymity.
You're allowed to go in public wearing a mask and speak so no one knows who you are.
Antifa does it all the time.
Mark Zuckerberg is kind of now entering more murky territory.
Should you have your name and face behind your speech?
That would do a lot to solve these problems, but then the right to be anonymous is also important because sometimes people don't want to say things that are unpopular because they're scared, but it needs to be said.
I'm not a genius.
I don't have all the answers.
I'm sorry I can't help you out.
But I will say, in the end, free speech is the right move.
It's the best thing we can do.
So I will give Mark the respect he deserves for saying this, but still, I don't trust him, and I'll still challenge him to see him do better.
Thanks for hanging out.
Stick around.
Next segment will be at 6 p.m.
YouTube.com slash Tim Castor News, and I will see you all there.
Just about a year ago, a report came out called the Alternative Influence Network, and in it, the researcher Rebecca Lewis tried to use this conspiracy crime web to link a bunch of YouTubers together, because apparently she doesn't understand how YouTube works, literally, for anybody.
People of varying political ideologies often debate each other, and that's normal politics.
So you can call it the Alternative Influence Network, fine.
This has to do with YouTube, so if you're a fan of independent podcasts, YouTubers, be it progressive or otherwise, this story's pretty important because these kinds of reports that come out are often cited by media outlets and used as evidence to get restrictions placed on our content, which has literally happened.
As of April, there was a major event, and the researcher Mark Ledwich tracked a bunch of recommendations and saw that from progressive to conservative, everybody got smacked down hard.
There were a few people who made it past this great YouTube recommendation firewall, and it includes my main channel, not this channel.
This channel got smacked down.
Not the worst, but my main channel actually got pushed up a little bit.
Now, something interesting happened following this, and I believe this specifically has to do with the Alternative Influence Report.
This report named certain individuals, but had a ripple effect on a bunch of other progressive channels.
What ended up happening is YouTube now has extreme scrutiny on my main channel, which for me is actually, for the most part, a good thing.
Almost, I would say, literally every video, literally every video, very, very quickly, is manually reviewed by YouTube staff, not some, you know, third-party agency, literal staff like in San Fran, at least that's what they tell me, to determine if it's monetizable.
In reality, I think they're hard-tracking political content.
So what happens is I'll make a video, and they will watch it within the hour, and then it'll say confirmed whether I asked them to or not.
For me, this has been pretty good.
It's resulted in almost no demonetization, because surprise, surprise, Tim Poole can best be described as a milquetoast fence-sitter.
I don't know who coined that.
It was a comment in the YouTube, so I'm sorry you're not getting credit for it, but now it's like the go-to thing.
Milk Toast Fence Sitter.
That's right.
I talk about news, I have tepid, conflicted opinions, and I'm not very strong one way or the other, unless it comes to issues of freedom and liberty and things of that nature, right?
Well, I'm getting scrutinized very heavily.
This channel's getting downranked very heavily.
And the person who wrote that report, which negatively impacted many channels, of which many have since been banned, has published a new report!
And I'm going to tell it like I see it.
Now first, let me say this.
I was initially planning on covering the bigger news about Mark Zuckerberg.
And I've got a plan for the day.
I do six segments, about an hour and a half of content.
And somebody sent me this.
And I'm reading through it.
And I was just a bit flabbergasted.
See, here's the thing.
This is a new report from the same researcher, Rebecca Lewis.
Quote, this is what the news won't show you.
YouTube creators and the reactionary politics of micro-celebrity.
Interestingly, in it, it's about me, Dave Rubin, and Blair White.
However, it could just be because I'm me and I'm arrogant or whatever, uh, egotistical.
It seems to be mostly about me.
But I'll say this.
In the report, Rebecca Lewis claims to have watched every video from these creators from the period of January 2017 till April 2018.
She then goes on to say that we use... I'm giving you my interpretation because I could be wrong, but it seems like what she's saying is basically me, Ruben, and Blair, among other reactionary YouTubes, which makes no sense, because she even acknowledges our political leanings, you know, don't, like, align.
She claims that we use a strategy of micro-celebrity, treating our viewers as fans, instead of acting like objective, authoritative sources.
So, here's the thing.
Blaire White.
Blaire White's a person.
And Blaire White makes vlogs.
I don't know what Blaire White's job was before YouTube, but Dave Rubin has always been a comedian and now political commentator and talk show host.
And I was a journalist.
So when you take a look at the abstract and the breakdown of what this new report is, I'm gonna have to say it, it's about me.
Like, Blair White was never a journalist.
Blair White never has gone through the issue of ethics or objectivity.
To claim that we as YouTubers specifically developed a strategy to act relatable and to be, you know, have transparency and access to our fans is some kind of strategy, I gotta admit, it's a bit of a weird conspiratorial worldview.
Like, we're all sitting behind the scenes going, how can we best attract viewers?
Let's pretend like we're friends with them!
Or, I literally turn the camera on, have no script, and just talk.
But this is important.
I'll say this.
I believe, to a slight degree, this latest report is actually pretty good.
Because it provides a bit of evidence to which many of us have been saying here on YouTube as it pertains to the mainstream media.
It shows that regardless of your political affiliation, we're all kind of seeing similar problems.
And it's also showing what happens when regular people get access to decentralization of information.
Let me read the abstract for you here, and then I want to show you some of the funny results.
This is from Rebecca Lewis.
It says, uh, abstract.
This article explores the implications of micro-celebrity practices employed by political and ideological influencers on YouTube.
I take a case study approach, performing a content analysis of the videos from three political YouTubers from January 1st, 2017 to April 1st, 2018.
My analysis reveals that for these influencers, micro-celebrity practices are not only a business strategy, No.
Sorry.
Answer is no.
But also a political stance that positions them as more credible than mainstream media.
All three conflate the mainstream media with social justice politics, claiming both are sensationalized and silence dissenting voices.
By adopting micro-celebrity practices that stress relatability, authenticity, and accountability, they differentiate themselves from both the mainstream media and progressive politics as they perceive them.
Thus, the YouTubers in this study align micro-celebrity practices with a reactionary political standpoint.
That's just not true.
But sure, these findings complicate previous mythologies of internet celebrity and treat participatory culture as inherently progressive.
I actually agree.
And she actually goes on to say, I guess, when I read this, I don't know what she's thinking when she sees it.
I think it's pretty favorable towards me, actually.
Because, I mean, look, it's based on my own bias, and she's not lying about what I said, though she does get some things wrong.
She points out accurately that on October 19th, 2017, now two years ago, I went down to Gainesville, Florida, because there was this big speech by Richard Spencer, and there was a protest outside.
And I accurately pointed out that the media was surrounding one guy, and he was posing for the camera, and that everyone was trying to act like it was this major, major event, and it was going to be like Charlottesville, and then nothing really happened.
And the protesters were peaceful, and very few people showed up to the speech, and that was about it.
And that's what she says.
And that's literally what happened, because I live-streamed it, and I put up a vlog of it.
So, she says, One source of coverage that differed significantly from these sensational portrayals came from the citizen journalist Tim Poole.
On the day of the protests, Poole streamed the events live to YouTube.
Over the course of a nearly half-hour stream, Poole wandered around the protest and described the events directly to his audience, while other media outlets focused reporting largely on what action and confrontation they could find.
Poole instead reported on the fact that there was very little action that occurred at all.
In a video he later titled, The Media Overhyped Everything, Poole noted that the protests were relatively small in size and that the event largely remained peaceful.
For Poole, the main story instead was the fact the mainstream media had gathered there at all, seemingly looking for a large-scale conflict that never materialized.
At one point in his coverage, for example, he pointed his audience's attention both to the small protest turnout and also the large numbers of camera crew gathering.
And then, it's a quote for me, saying, literally nothing is happening.
But this is what's important to see.
See all these people with cameras and phones wearing fancy clothes, tripods?
Look at all those people with the fancy tripods and big expensive cameras.
This is the story.
These are the vultures.
They're literally scraping the bottom of the barrel of white nationalism to try and find the story.
That's true.
That's literally what happened.
And so if you were watching mainstream news, they would show you a singular view of one person doing something crazy.
And we've seen this all the time.
In fact, Fox News was criticized for this during Occupy Wall Street.
When they had a camera crew film the back end of a protest where people were straggling and there was only like 20 people and that's what went on TV.
The left criticized them saying, hey, whoa, wait a minute.
The protest was huge.
Guess what?
I pointed that out as well.
This is back in the day.
So what we end up seeing, and why this is interesting, and I'll admit, I'm mainly talking about it because it's about me for the most part, and, you know, with what happened following the previous report, and the negative impact to all the YouTubers, views dropping, you know, channels are being deleted, corporate channels are getting propped up, I think looking into these things is actually rather important.
But I want to stress something that I find very important.
She claims that she's watched every video from me, Dave Rubin, and Blair White.
However, I would imagine that this would mean she watched maybe 50 to 60 from Dave Rubin, and maybe, you know, a little bit less than that from Blair White, but I produce, in this time period, a video every single day, so we're talking about 400 plus videos she's watched.
In the end, what this actually ends up being, and what I find very weird, honestly, is that while she does talk a bit about Blair White, And Dave Rubin, it almost entirely shapes the worldview of YouTube around me personally.
I gotta admit, I find it really, really weird that somebody would produce this.
I also wanna state that it's very, first of all, channel subscribers is way off.
I guess this is the amount of subscribers I had September 14th, 2018.
I now have over 600, around 640,000 plus 540 or so on this channel.
have over 600 about 640,000 plus 540 or so on this channel so much much larger
growth and this was published just yesterday I believe When she talks about how YouTube functions, microcelebrity, and the mainstream media, these are not things that Dave Rubin necessarily talks about on his show for the most part.
He does talk about the regressive left and social justice, and Blaire White does sort of talk about these things, but in her analysis, it seems like she's literally just writing about me over and over again, and she's watched over 400 of my videos.
I do kind of find it weird that she's claiming, you know, she watched all these people, but I gotta tell you what, man, like, Tim Poole pops up over and over again.
And it's almost like every time she wants to make a point about how YouTubers function and how YouTubers are opening the door to radicalization or whatever like that, she's literally just saying, for example, Poole, for example, Poole.
Tim Poole, 2017.
Poole, 2017.
For Poole.
It's literally like she just watched all of my videos and then wrote a story about, like, what she thinks of who I am.
Now again, I'll stress, I was actually planning on doing a bigger story about something that was more relevant, and I really don't like getting into the drama, but this is an interesting kind of change or next step from the initial Alternative Influencers report.
The report she wrote back in October, which has long-standing repercussions on YouTube because it was carried by a bunch of news outlets, was factually incorrect.
In her web of connections, either by accident or through the stretching of the imagination, she connected me to people that I don't know.
One instance, for example, is that there was a party at VidCon.
VidCon is one of the biggest YouTube conventions.
So guess what?
There was like 100 or 200 people at this party.
It was an open party, and there were video game YouTubers and stuff.
It just so happens that somebody was filming, I think it was Sargon, and I walked over, I was like, yo, and then I left, and then somebody else walked over and said, yo, and she said, aha!
And she connected us.
It's like somebody I'd never met before, just because we were at a party for the biggest YouTube convention in the world.
It seems a bit of a stretch of the imagination to try and make that claim.
But then there were also some ridiculous connections like Chris Raygun, who does comedy and, you know, you probably know who Chris is.
And there was a direct line from him to Richard Spencer.
Now, in this regard, it seems that the visualization she used just had nodes overlapping these connections for some reason.
So apparently the explanation is the line's going through.
Dude, you have a node connecting Raygun to Spencer.
Those guys have never interacted.
In any way.
Like, that's the weirdest thing.
They probably don't even follow each other.
Don't even know who each other are.
Other than, like, Chris may have read a news report.
So now we end up with this.
Let me read a little bit more.
They go on to say, Sensationalism and attention-seeking.
First, the subjects of analysis unite the mainstream media and social justice movements through their perceived mutual reliance on sensationalism and attention-seeking.
Poole, Rubin, and White all discuss and critique what they see as sensationalist tendencies of the mainstream media.
Let me stop you right there.
I was the first and founding member of Vice News, which at the time did a remarkably great job of producing real, raw coverage on the ground.
It is, I believe, the fastest growing news organization in history thus far.
And it was a smash hit for, you know, it took off.
Here's the thing.
I was there for around a year and a half, and then I left.
And I left for obvious reasons.
And eventually other people started leaving too.
And former Vice News journalists have pointed out very similar things.
They're a shell of their former self.
They don't do the same kind of coverage.
Yeah, we left.
We all kind of saw different things happening.
Depending on who you ask.
The corporatization, the commodification, or the political injection.
I then went to go work for an ABC Univision joint venture, which I had a prominent role to an extent, and eventually ended up getting relegated to my own YouTube channel and my own space and getting what I considered to be golden handcuffs under contract, paid a lot of money, and I saw directly and spoke with the higher-ups saying that they were going to be pushing sensationalist progressive politics because they want to get clicks.
She does mention this.
She mentions one of my quotes where I specifically outline how they felt that because young people are progressive that they should go after a progressive narrative because it will help build them an audience.
The general idea is that over time We've seen it from generation to generation.
Next generations are always a bit more progressive in a certain sense.
And so the idea was that if we're a new company, and in five years we want to be the biggest media company, we have to be more progressive than millennials are.
So they go after the more fringy of the left-wing identitarian politics, you know, pronouns, hundred-plus genders, you know, white privilege, all that stuff, because they're bet.
Was that five years from now, that would be mainstream, and they were getting a leg up.
That was part of it.
The other issue was, that was who they wanted to target.
But the big play was, this is how we're going to make a billion dollars.
They were looking at Vice, 20 year old company at the time, and they were thinking, Okay.
How did Vice get to be where they are now?
Vice started in a specific space that was not particularly popular.
It was actually kind of punk rock and decently fringe.
But 20 years later, boom, Vice is huge.
So the mentality was, we can't just do what Vice is doing now.
And that was very smart.
It's true.
You can't just try and emulate Vice like so many people did.
However, What they ended up doing was also incorrect.
It actually turns out that Generation Z is slightly more conservative than Millennials, though they are more progressive than Gen Xers.
The problem there is, you now have this company pushing further left than the next generation actually is.
And surprise, surprise, all of these companies have done miserably.
I find it interesting, though.
You know, when you take a look at this perspective, and again, I'll stress, like, it's ultimately not really bad.
She just talks about my opinions all the time.
You know, just citing me non-stop, so I think that's fair.
But she does give a decent amount to Blair White.
I'm not gonna act like it's only me, for sure.
She references PragerU and things like that.
But what we're seeing now is, you know, CNN recently did a big buyout.
They sold.
We've seen leaks showing how CNN is literally driven by go-after-Trump non-stop.
You see employees saying things like, we used to go on the ground and do reporting, we don't anymore.
You take a look at Disney's recent statement that they have written down their investment in device to zero.
That's nearly half a billion dollars they put in a device they're saying is gone.
We can see the layoffs at all of these companies, the collapse of these companies, and we can see something exposed by Mike... I'm sorry, I believe it was the outline.
It was called MikeDrop.
I referenced it in the past.
In this they say that people at Mike, which was a progressive website, were being given a formula to write to generate traffic.
This is what's interesting.
When you look at this report and what it omits, not necessarily intentionally, it's clearly focused on me, Reuben, and Blair White, but what would be excellent to Add to this conversation is that we have seen major, highly valued media outlets, digital outlets, collapse and being exposed for driving and manipulating social justice narratives.
In fact, the outline story specifically says that they were manipulating social justice passion to generate traffic.
And I said this.
I said this is why I didn't want to work for these companies anymore.
And we can see it happening.
They specifically wrote about an expose and Mike.com fell apart.
You can then look at the Gizmodo media networks.
You can look at, you know, basically Fusion bought the old Gawker properties, Splinter.
They ended up collapsing.
Splinter News, formerly Fusion, where I worked, has officially and finally shuttered.
They changed the name.
They called it Splinter.
It was very progressive.
And guess what?
It did not work.
Because I think what Becca doesn't seem to realize Is that she is in this ivory tower bubble, I love saying ivory tower, you may have noticed, in big cities, I think New York, surrounded by people who are all yes-men playing a game of telephone with each other, ignoring the fact that these politics are not popular.
So I will stress this point.
In July, I believe it was, Subverse, my outlet, raised about $1.5 million.
We shattered a crowdfunding record.
In 22 hours, bringing in about $1.13 million.
It is the fastest We fund our campaign for crowd investment, period.
And now we actually have done on-the-ground reporting from Hong Kong.
I'm not going to give away the location for some of the next on-the-ground reporting, but we have some people working on stuff, we're expanding, we're getting an office, we're taking off!
And what Becca gets wrong in this is she claims that I eschew objectivity.
No, no, no.
That's actually the complete opposite of what I'm working on.
In fact, we are also planning a major fact-checking division.
It's extremely difficult.
I tweeted that before.
I tweeted out my plan and my methodology.
It'll have to be sussed out, but we've got major, major plans for literally doing journalism with fact-checkers, objectively.
So go to subverse.net, check it out.
Tell me how many stories you see about the Orange Man.
You'll be surprised, perhaps, that there's none.
There might be one or two because, you know, sometimes stories are particularly big or Trump gets just roped in in the periphery.
But you're going to find stories on the ground in Hong Kong.
You're going to find stories on the ground at protests.
The most I think we talk about Trump is like when we go down to a political rally and we interviewed, you know, both sides of the protest, the pro-Trump, the anti-Trump.
Yeah, because it's a big political moment, but we're not here to talk about The Orange Man like CNN does non-stop all day every day.
No, we're bringing back on-the-ground reporting.
If you take issue with what I do, well, congratulations!
You've found an opinion commentary news show, one of hundreds of thousands, and not even the most prominent, particularly not prominent, but prominent enough, I guess, that we're growing and expanding.
I don't think she realizes what's going on.
I think when you look at this, you can see that she's in a bubble, not really seeing outside of what's happening.
Although she does seem to be starting to put the pieces together.
Admittedly, I think she kind of really talks about me a lot.
I mean, like, my name is probably mentioned more than literally anybody else.
She even mentions, dare I say it, the nuance in my commentary, saying this, Poole recognizes the potential for radicalization among those who reject the mainstream media, although he blames the mainstream media and views the reason for turning away as valid, technically.
In one case, when discussing the Swedish media and criticizing their policy not to report on the race of those perpetuating crimes, he said, what does that do?
It drives people to alternative media websites, and it helps bolster the far-right-wing party because people feel they can't trust the establishment.
Tim Poole, 2017.
Despite the radicalizing potential of this content, this analysis reveals that political YouTubers present themselves as a necessary balance to the mainstream media.
Well, I don't know where you get that.
By building intimate trust with their viewers over time, partaking in long conversations and maintaining a level of transparency about their production process, all of which I think are important and good things, they claim to counter the mainstream media's perceived sensationalism and suppressive tactics.
At the same time, they align their own anti-progressive politics with the values of authenticity and transparency.
Let me stop you there.
I'm actually decently progressive.
There's a difference between being progressive, okay, which is about progress, civil rights and civil liberties, and being an extremist, an authoritarian.
I absolutely have zero problem with narratives around white privilege, narratives around pronouns in the trans community.
In fact, I think they're important conversations, and I've actually praised many people for having appropriate conversations doing it properly.
What I've criticized is authoritarianism, and I've tried to make that clear, so if I haven't, let me make it clear now.
Like, I don't care if you're a communist, by all means, let's have a conversation and discuss the merits of communism.
If you're gonna go around with a communist flag beating people, we've got a serious problem.
Let's say you believe everyone should be forced to dress like a clown and juggle bananas.
Just don't advocate for people throwing bananas.
So, social justice, feminism, yeah, I have many friends who are anti-fascist and intersectional, and it's funny because they actually give me some flack over a lot of the content I've made.
That's fair.
But guess what?
We all agree on, don't get violent, it makes things worse.
Now I'll admit the problem.
I've asked them repeatedly to do videos, and guess what they say?
They can't.
Because of the authoritarianism.
Because they will be attacked, their careers will be destroyed.
Look, man, you want to act like cancel culture and woke outrage isn't real?
Go talk to Dave Chappelle, and go talk to Kevin Hart, and go talk to the New York Times, and every mainstream moment that has happened in the past several months about cancel culture and why everyone's upset about it.
Go talk to Bill Maher.
I'm not the one making this up.
But I'll tell you this.
Conclusion.
She says, overall, my findings continue to complicate conceptions of micro-celebrity, as it has been represented both within academic and corporate discourse.
While companies like YouTube have highlighted its democratic potential, scholars have pointed to its neoliberal and capitalist underpinnings, as well as its authoritarian potential.
This research adds to those critiques by showing how micro-celebrity tactics can be harnessed for the purposes of reactionary politics.
Let me just stop there.
Reactionary.
Anti-authoritarian.
Opposing those who tell you to conform.
I mean, that's the latest tweet that's gone viral.
Insisting people conform to changing language.
Specifically around a phrase they call blind spots.
They said it's ableist and therefore everyone must conform.
See, that's authoritarian.
I agree we can use more sensitive terms.
I agree that certain jokes are now taboo over time.
I agree that George Carlin was actually fairly progressive and made comments about trying to do better to not be offensive, while joking and criticizing the over-sensitivity.
So let me ask you, was George Carlin reactionary?
Because he and I have, I mean, he was a huge inspiration on my life, and still to this day, the work he did in the past is a major inspiration.
George Carlin did an interview that was shared by many progressives, where he was like, basically saying, you know, maybe we should realize that certain, you know, ways of speaking are, you know, divisive and offensive and we can do better.
Something to that effect.
But he also has a bit where he talks about the extremists That's the point.
Yeah, we can do a little better every time.
We can talk to people and try and figure out a better way to live.
But going around bashing people over the head and screeching at them because they used the wrong word is not progressive.
It's regressive.
It's authoritarian.
Perhaps Becca Lewis would do well.
To actually research that and understand it instead of just entering with the assumption that we're all reactionaries.
Instead of entering with the assumption that everything eschews objectivity.
No, quite the opposite.
I do what I do because I miss the objectivity.
Because when I was in these newsrooms, Vice News, believe it or not, at the initial launch was very objective.
Very, very objective.
Sources, multiple sources, legit research.
It did a tremendous and amazing job.
A lot of us left.
A lot of changes happened, be it political or business reasons, and a lot of people left, and they felt that it faltered.
Yeah, that's not my personal, that's not just me.
There are other Vice News staff who have called out the negative changes and how they abandoned what made them great.
We probably view it different ways, like some people think that they went major corporate mainstream and ignored the big news and stories, while others started to notice political trends or Fake political pressure that was more about generating revenue.
So we leave.
And I can tell you this from Fusion.
Yes, the objectivity is out the window.
And so what have I done?
Well, of course, if you come to this channel or my main channel, you're going to get political and cultural commentary.
I don't know what you're supposed to expect.
It's literally what it is.
It's a news show, no different than any other political pundit.
Admittedly, I'm much more moderate than many people.
She does point out that despite my labeling as a center-left libertarian, I typically focus on progressives and left-wing policy.
I would say that's technically correct, but requires some context.
And that context is a graph from the New York Times I don't have pulled up, which shows that the right has veered a little left and the left has gone off the rails.
So I, as someone who's moderately to the left, a left-leaning, you know, independent or Democrat, have great concerns with the fracturing and the far-left push.
I suppose if all you've ever done is sit inside that bubble, you wouldn't recognize that.
But let me say one thing to Becca Lewis.
I'm an expert when it comes to the formation of news media.
I was the first and founding member of Vice News, the fastest-growing news organization in history.
At least, that's my understanding.
I think I could be wrong, but generating a million-plus subscribers in only a couple months was huge.
And I helped launch a news division at an ABC Univision joint venture.
And I saw exactly what was going on.
And guess what?
Fusion collapsed.
They changed their name to Splinter and now they are defunct.
Disney has written off their investment in Vice News by half a million dollars.
And guess what?
While these companies are collapsing, my company has just brought in over a million bucks in a day and we're expanding and producing content almost every single day with reporters on the ground.
To bring back objectivity and fact-checking.
And yes, we're going to specifically have a fact-checking arm.
It may not be as subverse, so it may be a separate entity, but believe me when I say, what I'm gonna be doing here on these channels... Great, you're gonna get cultural and political commentary.
But you go to my news outlets, which is editorially independent from me, and I will not intervene in what they're covering, for better or for worse, and you're going to get news reporting.
You're going to get fact-based news reporting with sources and on-the-ground interviews.
And guess what?
Some of those journalists who are doing that work, surprise, surprise, are actual progressives.
Progressives who kind of don't, some of them don't like me.
But I'm not telling them what they can or can't cover.
I'm saying just be honest.
Show what's going on and guess what they have.
And that's the point.
And now I'll end with one last thing.
Longer than I expected it to be.
Mark Ledwich on Twitter, who did an analysis of a lot of what's going on with YouTube, I've got two tweet threads to show you, and the last one is the cherry on top.
He says, Rebecca Lewis, author of the Alternative Influence Report, just published, this is what the news won't show you.
YouTube creators and the reactionary politics of micro-celebrity.
She focuses on Tim Pool, Blair White, and Dave Rubin, and their tactics as reactionary micro-celebrities who stereotype MSM as social justice proponents.
That's a vague reductionist position of what I'm actually saying, because I've stressed over and over again, I use certified, third-party, verified news sources in mainstream media.
I'm just critical of their declining credibility.
Pitch themselves as superior sense-makers by appealing to relatability, authenticity, and accountability.
I don't pitch myself that way.
I'm literally never going, hey guys, have you noticed that I sound like a regular person?
I don't do that.
I don't.
I literally just talk about what I think in a normal way.
That's not a strategy.
It's literally just personality.
The tone is much more cool-headed and neutral description compared to the AIN report.
She gives quite a positive account of Tim Poole's livestream coverage of the media circus at Richard Spencer's uneventful U of Florida speech.
Poole's personal, immediate, and raw style of coverage is described as a tactic used by micro-celebrities to gain fans in a parasocial relationship.
I don't think it's as Machiavellian as that.
It's actually one of Poole's better videos and is kind of the content that is worthwhile on YouTube.
Compare yourself, uh, his video.
To the social justice MSM narratives at the time.
Any links to it?
A roadshow of hate supremacist rallies fueled by travelers from afar.
And it was a small handful of people.
She describes the historical context of YouTube being a techno-utopian dream of progressive grassroots truth-seeking, in reality turned out to be more reactionary.
I agree with Lewis in terms of the supply of content, but progressives still ended up with more views, absolutely.
And that's according to Mark's research, showing that the left is still very heavily favored, from centrist mainstream establishment left-wing voices like anti-Trump personalities and comedians, all the way to actual progressive networks like the Young Turks, they dominate YouTube.
He says, I won't go into more detail.
Assuming you are familiar with this content, she gives a pretty accurate description of it as far as I can tell.
The conclusion sounds exactly like the online reactionary's way of framing the situation, just with a different sentiment.
She says, this research adds to the critiques by showing how micro-celebrity tactics can be harnessed for the purpose of reactionary politics, which can in turn destabilize viewers' worldviews and serve as the entryway into other alternative information sources.
She's right.
Except for the reactionary part.
And I'll tell you why.
Listen.
Take a look at the Hidden Tribes report.
Of which, of course, the progressives on the far left are outraged by.
It shows that progressive politics make up 8% of this country.
So when I speak in disdain for the authoritarian tactics, I'm not even talking about the entirety of that 8%.
I'm talking about a small portion that has a foothold in politics, has a foothold at these companies, are driven by corporate interests, and are negatively impacting our country.
I have admitted fully that all of these groups, be it the far right or the far left, are relatively fringe.
And the main problem I try to focus on is that when someone on the left goes too far, nothing is done about it.
In fact, a defense is written about it, and they call what I say reactionary.
I supported Bernie Sanders in 2016 very heavily.
And so when the right encounters a problem, they're much more likely to bend over for the outrage.
You'll end up seeing Tucker Carlson lose sponsors.
Rachel Maddow didn't lose any sponsors when she went on with Russian nonsense about Russia trying to shut off power in Fargo.
It was insane.
Or when she had on that guy who claimed Trump may be an asset.
I'm sorry, this was Chris Hayes.
Had on a guy claiming that Trump may have been a Russian asset since the 1980s.
No loss in advertising revenue there.
But Tucker Carlson makes some disparaging comments about overpopulation from mass migration and he immediately loses 20 plus sponsors.
If you think Tucker Carlson was wrong to say it, You're fine.
Feel free to.
And you saw the repercussions.
He lost sponsors.
But wasn't it wrong for Rachel Maddow for years to push this insane conspiracy nonsense?
I mean, come on.
Talking about Russia shutting off the electricity in winter in Fargo and what could happen?
It's like, who cares what could happen?
That's insane.
Calm down.
I'm not the only one who called that out.
Mainstream personalities.
The point being missed by all of what Becca Lewis talks about is that there is an ever-increasing fringe element entering media with a political bent which has insane narratives.
You want to talk about banning Alex Jones?
Fine, we can talk about it.
I think it's a bad idea.
I think it'd be a bad idea to ban Rachel Maddow.
I'm talking specifically about the imbalance.
You can ban Alex Jones and say, we can't afford this nonsense, and then Rachel Maddow can come out and say insane things about Russia and get everyone all freaked out, and it actually affects our politics?
And you say nothing.
So yeah, I'll call it out.
Why?
Because I believe in true objective journalism.
I'll give my opinions, I'll give my commentary, but guess what?
I always have a source on screen.
And I only use certified, verified sources.
I avoid using sources that are considered contentious, and I try particularly to use actual left-leaning sources on purpose.
That all being said, this is longer than I thought it was going to be, I want to show you this.
Becca Lewis tweeted this.
She said, I can say two things about that.
that Rogan has given his massive platform to white supremacist Stephen Molyneux,
Proud Boys leader Gavin McInnes, professional harassers Sargon of Akkad, Andy Ngo, and
Steven Crowder, multiple members of the intellectual dark web,
and whatever Tim Pool is.
I can say two things about that. For one, I greatly respect and appreciate being referred to as
whatever I might be.
Because you don't know.
And the reality is, nobody does.
Good.
It means I'm doing a good job, doesn't it?
Vice News wrote a story about me calling me an online lefty, and then a couple weeks later called me right-wing.
Apparently they couldn't figure it out either.
And now Becca Lewis, after watching a year, about a year and a half, of my content, of videos, every single day, plus live streams, because she says she's watched them all.
So around 400 to 450 videos, she still can't figure out what I am.
Congratulations!
That's the point, isn't it?
But I'll tell you what.
Go take a look at subverse.net, look at what we're doing and what we're ramping up, and you will see that your report which you published yesterday is factually incorrect.
We are doing objective on-the-ground reporting.
I am hiring establishment mainstream journalists to do it, and we are going to be launching a probably independent fact-checking division.
I have to figure out how it's going to function.
I think, in terms of fact-checking, it should not be in the same space, necessarily, as those working directly with Subverse, and we intend to do a wider, broader news space fact-checking.
So, myself included will be fact-checked.
Admittedly, I only ever really read mainstream stories and give my opinion on it, so...
You know, to the extent that that could be done, sure.
A lot of people don't like my opinions, fine, but they're opinions.
You know, when I read the New York Times, take it up with them.
And that's an important point.
But absolutely, I will be scrutinized, as will Subverse Content.
And everyone else.
So, we're going to figure out how it's going to be done.
I tweeted out how it's going to work.
We're going to do a random sampling of articles, we're going to give ratings, and we're going to do regular fact-checking like news agencies used to.
But I'll tell you one more important thing before I go.
When I worked at Vice, they did not have fact checkers.
There was no one whose job was to specifically call and verify the information.
When I worked at Fusion, they did not have fact checkers.
They assumed the journalists would check the facts, and that was it, and it would go through legal for approval.
And guess what?
When I went to Politicon, I believe it was two years ago, maybe it was last year, I believe it was two years ago, can't remember, and I asked a panel of mostly progressives, What are we supposed to do about the lack of fact-checking?
The agreement, for the most part, was, oh, who needs them?
The journalists will fact-check.
It's already done.
Okay.
You want to talk about who is eschewing objectivity?
It's not me.
Okay?
I try to use only verified sources, and I try to fact-check them.
That's literally what I do.
And I'm going to be dedicating resources into hiring independent fact-checkers who will not, there will be no control that Subverse will have over what the fact-checkers say.
And the fact-checkers will have the final word on checking the facts.
So let's talk about what's really going on and we'll talk about, in the end, whatever Tim Pool is.
I'll leave it there.
Stick around.
Next segment's coming up at 1 p.m.
and I will see you all there.
I don't believe fairness matters in politics as much as I would like it to, and media as well, because everybody's just trying to gain political power.
And that's the story we're seeing right now.
Hillary Clinton suggests Putin has compromise on Trump, Russia will back Tulsi Gabbard third party bid, and she also goes on to say overtly That Jill Stein is a Russian asset.
And I'll tell you why I brought up the fairness in politics and media.
It's because they like to claim a story from Politico about Ukraine interference is a conspiracy theory.
That's right.
I've referenced it many times because it is the best example of the problems going on right now in politics.
According to Politico, Ukraine was seeking to help Hillary Clinton and hurt Donald Trump.
I'm not making that up.
It was reported in Politico.
And the reporter who wrote the story works for the New York Times.
So why then?
Is there no media criticism over Hillary Clinton's insane conspiracy theories which have already been debunked?
The Steele dossier is fake news!
And she's still claiming Putin has compromised on Trump?
Or that Russia will back a Tulsi Gabbard third party bid?
Tulsi has repeatedly said she will not run third party.
You want to assume she's lying?
Fine.
But then you're getting into Russia's gonna back her up?
These are insane conspiracy theories.
They are almost entirely debunked.
Let's talk about fairness, though.
Because they will say everything I'm saying is also a conspiracy theory.
Well, you know what?
I guess that's fair then, right?
The only problem is, I'm actually citing Politico.
They're trying to argue that the Russia investigation, which was bunk, which was debunked by Mueller himself, still real.
We know the Steele dossier's BS.
She's still trying to claim Putin has compromat?
Tulsi said she won't run.
Don't trust her?
Fine.
But why would Russia back her?
All of this is not in alignment with what's actually happening in reality.
Let's read the story from the Washington Post.
They say, At Tuesday night's Democratic presidential debate, Rep Tulsi Gabbard hit back at critics who charged she's too close to Russia.
Quote, This morning a CNN commentator said on national television that I'm an asset of Russia.
Completely despicable.
Gabbard won't be happy to hear Hillary Clinton's latest interview, nor will President Trump or another of Clinton's 2016 opponents, whom Clinton has now lodged similar accusations about.
Are they not naming Jill Stein?
Okay, they do.
I was gonna say, like, are they really, you know?
A lot of people think Jill Stein spoiled Hillary's chance of winning, and I'm gonna have to tell you that you're wrong.
I will mention that later tonight, I had a discussion with Sam Seder, it was actually really good, and I'll talk about that later, but I bring this up because his particular view is, vote for the lesser of two evils to minimize harm, and mine is more deontological in avoid unethical acts, period.
So in the end, I look at Hillary or Trump and I think, I'm not going to vote for either of them.
I get it.
You might be saying, but Tim, Hillary's clearly worse.
Hey, I don't necessarily disagree.
I agree in a lot of ways.
Trump is kind of bad in a lot of ways too.
I get it.
You don't have to share my opinion.
The point is, I'm not going to vote for somebody who I think will do bad things.
So no, Jill Stein is not a spoiler.
If somebody supports what she stands for, it is a principled decision to defend and support that with which you agree.
Anyway, the point is, if you like Jill Stein, vote for her.
Don't let anyone tell you not to vote.
Or to vote for Hillary because she's just a little worse.
Listen.
You want to talk about wasting a vote?
Voting for someone you know is bad simply because you're scared of something worse is what perpetuates a broken system where people are just scared of bad things.
Sorry, if things get so bad because people with no principle are willing to keep supporting bad politicians, well then that's what will happen.
You need to stand up and say, this is who I support and this is why.
Not somebody who's like, well, they're really bad.
I'm gonna vote for them anyway.
No, then you're giving support to them and you should be responsible.
So in the end, no, Jill Stein didn't spoil anything.
Principled individuals who believe in what Jill Stein says, whether she's right or wrong, chose her because she represented their views.
Sorry, Hillary, you lost because you didn't campaign in places that Trump did that were really concerned about trade agreements that you support.
In a conversation on former Obama campaign manager David Plouffe's podcast, Clinton suggested the Russians are leveraging a number of top US politicians.
She suggested Russia had compromat on Trump.
She accused 2016 Green Party nominee Jill Stein of being a Russian asset.
And she suggested Russia might back Gabbard as a third party candidate.
Okay, I'll stress it again.
Gabbard said she's not going to run.
Now you want to talk about the Russian asset argument.
I think it's fair to say we can get into the semantics and say whether or not you actually support them, they can use you to their benefit.
But this implies that Russian interference in 2016 was worse than it actually was.
Because in reality, we learned that what Russia did while they did interfere had very little impact.
And I could be wrong, but I believe the actual assessment was it did not impact the results of the 2016 election.
We learned that they had, what, like 100,000 views or impressions, or like some ridiculously small amount.
I get 42 million impressions per month!
Okay?
I'm an American citizen, though.
I get it.
Let's read a little bit more.
Quote.
They're also going to do third party again, Clinton said.
I'm not making any predictions, but I think they've got their eye on someone who's currently in the Democratic primary and are grooming her to be the third party candidate.
She's the favorite of the Russians.
They have a bunch of sights and bots and other ways of supporting her so far.
Oh, every time the establishment says something like that.
Now, I could be wrong, because it's been since February since I covered this, but I'm pretty sure they're citing an organization that was banned, where the CEO was banned from Facebook for running fake accounts to smear someone.
I can't remember what the exact group was, but there was an organization that was labeled DNC operatives, and they created a bunch of fake Russian accounts to follow that guy in Alabama, was it?
I can't remember his name.
And make it look like Russia was supporting him, and then everyone was like, oh look, Russian accounts are following him.
It's like, how daft do you have to be to believe?
Well, the guy got banned from Facebook for it.
Facebook said, you can't manipulate our platform this way.
Him and many others got banned.
So, I'm not gonna take their word for it.
Okay?
But I will tell you this.
Every time I see this, Hillary Clinton, you are not a likable candidate at large.
Okay?
I mean this with all due respect.
You're free to do as you do, but most Americans have Disdain for you.
It's one of the reasons you didn't win.
It's why progressives aren't backing you.
It's especially why conservatives aren't backing you.
And again, I mean it with all due respect, right?
Clinton has a storied career, whether you like it or not.
The point is, people just don't like her.
Okay?
So, so listen.
When you come out and say over and over again that Tulsi is a Russian asset or you push these conspiracy theories, I'll tell you what, come voting day, you know, 2020, regardless, come primary day, I am going to just jam that button for Tulsi Gabbard and it is gonna be like this massive explosion of joy where I just laugh.
I laugh because I like Tulsi Gabbard.
I support her for the most part.
Nobody's perfect.
I get it.
Criticism is welcome.
I've criticized her as well, but I think Tulsi has a lot going that the other candidates do not have.
And while I also respect Pete Buttigieg for being a serviceman who served overseas, I think it's very, very important for our Commander-in-Chief.
I think he had his answers on the Middle East and why we're there and things like that were sophomoric.
Like, I get it, man, you were there, I'll defer to you for sure, but given the choice between Tulsi and saying, we shouldn't be there, this is a mistake, you know, there's no good guys in this picture, and you saying we should have a presence, and we did a bunch of really bad things, I'm gonna be like, maybe, don't know, I'm gonna vote for Tulsi, okay?
And it's surprising, too, because Tulsi's a bit more progressive on a lot of issues, but I will stress, Ending private prisons and the war on drugs, those are huge issues for me.
And I'll explain the private prisons thing.
I've heard arguments in favor of it, saying they can often do a better job than the government.
But that doesn't mean what they're doing is good, and I won't settle for the current system.
We have seen juvenile detention centers actually pay off judges, and we've seen the corruption.
I can't blame a business model for corruption, but I can stress that when it comes to the function of rehabilitation, not retribution, we need to figure out what works And the private system doesn't care for that.
So I'm not saying necessarily, maybe the problem isn't private, but maybe there should be regulations on how the prisons operate, and certain thresholds they need to reach, like low recidivism rates and things like that.
Now don't get me wrong, I think the government screws a lot of things up, because they have no competition.
So there's gotta be a solution, but I will admit, there are problems when it comes to prison, and I lean towards private prisons create an incentive model that I disagree with.
So in that regard, Tulsi speaks very much to me.
I'm not going to vote for you or Biden or anybody else.
I'm only going to vote for somebody who I agree with.
So I tell you this, Democrats, when you come out and you say these things, sorry, all it does is make me that much more likely to press that button for Tulsi Gabbard and laugh while I do it.
You cannot tell me what I believe in, what to believe in, and I will not bend to fear.
They tell me.
But what happens then when Trump wins again?
Yes, so what?
I've lived through Republican presidents.
I mean, I gotta admit, okay, that letter Trump sent to Erdogan was like, oh man.
And this is exactly what I'm talking about when I criticize Trump about his behavior.
The criticism for you, Hillary, was that you were the worst representative of our government and Trump is the worst representative of our culture.
But when given the choice between a bad politician and a boorish celebrity who makes crass and lewd comments, people are going to go for like, maybe this guy will be a little better, I guess.
I'm not surprised that letter he sent really seemed, I'll say it again, sophomoric.
Um, you know, Trump speaks that way.
And I've said this, Obama spoke much more fiercely, articulately, and strongly.
But listen, that's not what people are concerned about.
And I can respect and understand that, which means if we want to win, okay, and defeat Trump, which I really don't think will happen in 2020, well, we need to have a smart, respectable, charismatic individual who can be relatable, who can talk about core issues that are important, and not sling insane conspiracy theories about Trump And Tulsi Gabbard!
When you come out and rant about Compromat, and we've been through this for three years, it's like, dude, you know what?
I'm out.
I don't want this.
Thank you to Yang for saying, when we talk about Trump, we lose.
You're right.
Let's talk about the issues.
Instead, they're spinning in circles.
There was an interview, a series of interviews with Trump supporters at the Dallas rally on Fox News, and a lot of them were saying they just won't stop talking about impeachment and Trump and scandal.
And people are like, so what do you think is more important?
The economy?
Healthcare?
Immigration?
Jobs?
Duh.
I tell you what, man.
Twitter is not real life.
YouTube is not real life.
Regular people aren't paying attention 24-7 to politics, and they don't know about any of this nonsense.
All they're thinking about is, how are things going for my family, and who's offering me something that's actually going to be good for my life?
It's not even necessarily about the country.
While you'll see some people say things like, we need a strong armed forces, it really comes down to what they experience in their day-to-day lives.
And I tell you this, Russia is not one of them.
So you know what?
This is one of the biggest issues I take with the Democrats.
Why I think Trump is going to win, admit it.
When Hillary Clinton, who is one of the last, you know, strong voices the Democrats had, have, I mean she's not, she might run, who knows, but she is a prominent figure more so than any of the other B-list candidates.
And I'm not trying to be mean, you know, Yang is rising very quickly, but there's a big gap between him and where Hillary Clinton is at in terms of prominence and celebrity, and the same is true for Tulsi and everybody else.
But when she comes out and says this, you lose all credibility.
There's nothing left on that side.
And so I'm sitting here thinking, like, all I can do is vote on principle.
And while I understand the challenges facing Tulsi and Yang, those are my... I put Tulsi a little bit higher than Yang because of her service record.
Because she literally just did a couple weeks with the National Guard, because she's a major.
And I think the president really, really, it's one of the, like, if I'm looking at your resume as to why you should be commander-in-chief of the armed forces, and you served, and you're like a major, and even Buttigieg, yes, absolutely, I'm like, that's like the first, that's like 10 points.
And then you talk about your policies, and I'm like, those are each an individual point.
Seriously, understanding the system that is the military, and conflict, and overseas, and defense, that's huge to me.
That's huge.
Trump's not that guy.
Trump's a businessman.
And that's a positive thing, too.
We're talking about trade and the economy.
So it's no surprise the economy is doing well.
Trump's a businessman.
But it's also true to say that Trump's got a bad attitude.
So I look for somebody who, you know, who's going to be that more of a charismatic leader, especially for the Commander-in-Chief.
And so, look, it comes down to this.
I respect and disagree with the Trump supporters.
I agree with them on a lot of core issues about the media and manipulation.
Tulsi knows this, I'd imagine, and I know this, that I can sit next to a Trump supporter and we can just say, I disagree.
And then we can have a beer and eat a slice of pizza.
And we'll vote and we'll take it to the voting booth and say, I hope more people agree with me than you, but at the end of the day, man, let's have a beer and a slice of pizza.
And that's the America I love.
We're constantly struggling over what's the right way to go.
But when you get the Democrats pushing, you know, just policies that regular people don't agree with, divisiveness, accusations of Russian assets, it's like, dude, you are so far off kilter that me here, who wants to support the Democrats, can't!
I can't.
And then the Trump supporters are just laughing, like, I'm sorry, buddy.
And that's literally what they say.
They laugh and they're like, and they're desperately trying to get me to support Republicans.
It's not going to happen.
You know, look, there's a certain point, I suppose, where the Democrats go totally off the rails, and I have no choice, but I just don't see it.
Because in the end, even if Tulsi is the nominee, I know where my principles stand.
And that means I would vote third party, okay?
Trump sending troops to Saudi Arabia.
Dude, never gonna happen.
Like I said, I'm not gonna support somebody who does something that is completely at odds with my ethics.
And when it comes to Tulsi's, you know, wider purview of a lot of her issues, I'm like begrudgingly fenced sitting on many of them.
However, on big core issues, which she frequently talks about, they really do speak with me.
So, for Trump, he takes an overt action in Syria, like, we'll pull the troops out, I'm like, I lean toward that being a good thing, I understand the complications, but then bolsters troops in Saudi Arabia, and that is a hard, hard negative.
Sorry!
Okay?
Right?
I'm not saying you're wrong for your opinion, I'm just saying I disagree.
And so, what I would like to see is Uh, kind of more of like a national rivalry, as it were, where it's like, you know, the Democrats and Republicans know that there's a fierce battle ahead.
We've got to rally our troops to go get that vote out and we can win.
And then when we lose, we accept it.
Okay?
George Bush won.
I remember that.
Everyone was furious at the Supreme Court.
I grew up during that, and I was like, And I protested.
I was angry over the war in Iraq and a lot of what was going on.
And then Obama won, and I'm like, hey, you know what now?
And then Obama won again, and I'm like, well, I didn't vote for him the second time, but this is how it works, okay?
It's like we're in this battle of ideas, and you don't always win.
This, to me, is being a sore loser.
They won't stop.
And it's frustrating to me because we need a clean win.
We need a clean victory.
We need a responsible, charismatic individual to lead us.
And we're not going to get that if we look like sore losers.
And this is why I'm politically homeless.
Because Hillary Clinton is now talking about Compromat Jill Stein being a Russian asset and smearing Tulsi Gabbard.
And that is being a sore loser.
Look, I get it.
You can point to Trump being a sore winner.
You won't shut up about Hillary Clinton.
But it's fine.
They're going to do their thing.
They're going to do their thing.
It's going to speak to their people.
If we want to win, we can't play these games.
So you know what?
I don't even consider myself, you know, like I used to really consider myself like on the Democrat side, especially with Bernie Sanders coming in.
But admittedly, Bernie was independent.
So that was like a big resurgence that I think pulled people to the Democrats.
Now I'm just kind of like, I'm independent, non-affiliated.
I lean kind of left on policy, but You've got a president who won and who is championing those victories, who is being praised by his supporters, and there is a Democrat versus Republican view of the world where they're fighting over what is true and what isn't.
And I'm sitting here being like, You want to stop talking about Trump?
Look at what his supporters are saying.
And then they say things like this.
Oh, we'll never win over his diehard supporters.
They'll never give up.
Okay, then what are you doing?
Just stop.
Just give up then, right?
No, they really do think that they're going to get the vote out by creating this nightmare reality where Trump is an evil Russian trying to destroy the world.
And it's like, dude...
Trump's another guy with ideas, with personality, and I'm not saying good or bad, I'm saying he's got his own personality, he's got his own ideas, he has his own mission, his own agenda, his own passions, and it speaks to some people and not to others.
And you can't just, you know, I'll end by saying this.
What they don't understand, the Democrats, is that people in different parts of the country have a different worldview.
You have to ask, can I come inside your worldview and have a conversation with you and figure out where we come together so that we can live in harmony.
But what ends up happening is you have one person who says, I read the New York Times at X. Well, I read, you know, the Washington Examiner who said Y. And then instead of saying, like, let's actually assess this and break this down and come together, you end up with the left screaming and saying no.
And here I am, trying to be like, let me, let me, let me come inside your bubble and have a conversation.
So on that end, I'll end there, but I will say later tonight, I'll do some more promos for it.
I did have a long conversation with Sam Seder.
Check it out.
It'll be up at some point, maybe like 7 p.m.
I don't know, it's like two hours long.
It was really good.
It was really good.
I don't think I know everything.
I don't think Sam knows everything.
I think Sam knew a lot of things I didn't.
I hope, I believe, that there were some things I knew that he didn't.
He said I didn't know that about, like, some of the things.
And I think in the end, it's just two different people who see things kind of differently trying to figure out where those views come together.
So I'll leave it there.
Much respect to Sam.
It was really awesome.
I really respect it.
And stick around.
Next segment will be 4 p.m.
on the main channel, youtube.com slash TimCast, and I will see you all there.
Donald Trump often talks about suing people who wrong him, but rarely ever does.
Well, apparently now, according to the Washington Examiner, they're saying that Trump campaigned to sue CNN over pro-impeachment bias and demands a substantial payment.
Why, this is the result of Project Veritas's work.
So you know what I love?
The left and the right, I get it.
Ideological political battle.
There are many journalists, who I won't name, who are ideologically on the left and don't like the right, and so naturally try to smear everything.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I get it.
Some writers have said, oh it's a big nothing burger, oh Veritas has found nothing, I disagree.
I think we're finding, one, that morale is shattered among at least some CNN employees.
And you have to imagine that there are more than just the people you see on these videos.
But we can operate just in the facts, okay?
So, fine.
Veritas found a handful of employees who are... their morale is down.
CNN is a shell of its former self.
One guy, a 25-year veteran, saying the 9am calls with Zucker, it's all BS.
Saying that there used to be presidents who would never even call and intervene in this way.
But we also heard from Mark Zucker On the phone call.
His own voice.
He believes fake news.
He believes that factual reporting is conspiracy.
And he wanted to run with the fake news of Trump wanting to build a 2,000 mile long moat with alligators in it.
Dude, I think Trump is a little out there.
But come on, man.
That is not based in reality.
And Trump denied it, but it's a fact.
That was huge.
That was huge.
In response to this, they've specifically cited Trump's administration, his campaign, specifically citing Veritas' video and comments made in those videos as they threatened to sue.
So yeah, this was pretty significant on Veritas' part.
Look, I get it.
If you want to criticize James O'Keefe, if you think he's biased, it's all fine.
You call him whatever you want.
In the end, this had a real impact, okay?
You can say, yeah, but Trump believes fake news, so what?
Let the courts decide.
That's what's going to happen.
If he actually sues, we'll see.
I don't know what you're going to sue CNN for.
They're allowed to have their opinion about the president.
They're not ethical.
But a lot of people are thinking that if a suit does go through and they reach discovery...
I mean, that could be really, really bad.
Discovery is when you actually can request access to computers and messages and, you know, emails showing do they actually try to hide the truth.
So, in the end, I'd be surprised if a suit actually carries on.
We'll see.
I'm not a lawyer.
But imagine if they get to that point where there's discovery and you find an email where you've got one person saying, hey, that thing about Trump isn't true, and they say something like, who cares, run it anyway, that's what they'd be looking for.
So we'll see.
Let's read the story from the Washington Examiner.
How are you going to quantify that?
pro-impeachment bias. Outraged by secretly taped anti-Trump comments attributed to CNN president
Jeff Zucker and others at the cable network, President Trump's campaign is vowing to sue
the company for a substantial payment of damages. How are you going to quantify that? Seriously.
In a four-page letter to CNN, Zucker and executive vice president David Vigilante,
is that really? Wow. Trump attorneys Charles J. Harder cited years of anti-Trump bias to the
network and claimed the cable giant has broken its promise of excellence in journalism.
Listing several examples from the just-released Project Veritas videotapes of CNN insiders describing Zucker's demand for impeachment above all else, Harder wrote that they are merely the tip of the iceberg of the evidence my clients have accumulated over recent years.
He added, never in the history of this country has a president been the subject of such a sustained barrage of unfair, unfounded, unethical, and unlawful attacks by so-called mainstream news as the current situation.
Well, I'll stop here.
Listen.
For one, I think scrutiny of the president is absolutely paramount for journalists.
I also think it's fair to point out that CNN has gone well beyond whatever that would be.
You know, if Trump does something, running a story on it and then bringing on someone to talk about it makes sense.
But doing all Trump all the time, panels, having whole shows dedicated to it, doing cnn.com slash impeachment.
Yes, they're commodifying a political issue to get ratings and make money.
And they ignore bigger stories.
Why, in fact, I don't know.
Has CNN been on the ground in Hong Kong or Barcelona?
Why, there's huge news in Hong Kong and Barcelona.
Did you not hear?
Unfortunately, you probably didn't.
Well, Hong Kong you did, but Barcelona?
See, news happens.
CNN used to cover it.
They don't anymore, because they've gone well beyond actually just trying to challenge the president, and now they're just obsessed.
And it's the same mistake they made in 2015, 2016.
Well, I'll tell you what.
We over at Subverse have had people on the ground in Hong Kong, and now in other places as well.
And if you go to our site, subverse.net, you should definitely check out.
It's new.
We've got a lot of work to do.
It's difficult and takes time.
You're not going to find a story about Donald Trump.
You're not going to see a picture of the orange man.
Because we do real news.
Now, look, I get it.
You do these channels, of course.
It's my opinion and political commentary.
And because the big, you know, big, big story in this country is dominated by Trump, I definitely talk about it.
I'm not going to act like I'm perfect by no means.
But I will make sure that any extra resources we gain can fund real, honest journalism.
Editorially independent from what I produce, with real people on the ground, and when we do go to, like, we went to the Trump rally, we had a reporter on the ground at the Trump rally in Minnesota, interviewed Trump supporters as well as anti-Trump protesters to get a real view to the best of our abilities.
Where's CNN at?
Are they on the ground at these places?
They used to be.
At least a lot more.
Now not so much.
Were they on the ground in Hong Kong?
I don't know.
Were they?
I haven't seen anything from them.
It's kind of crazy, right?
When you think about what CNN's doing, it's just all Trump all the time.
They said that Harder represents both Trump and the campaign.
The letter was provided exclusively to Secrets, and is shown in full below.
CNN spokesman Matt Dornick said, this is nothing more than a desperate PR stunt and doesn't
merit a response.
While media is typically protected by the First Amendment, Harder said the bias he cited at CNN was a violation of the Lanham Act, by constituting misrepresentations to the public, to your advertisers, and to others, to distribute truly fair and balanced news.
Now that is a court challenge I do not think will fly.
Come on, let's be real.
CNN's gonna say, we're not biased, it's true.
And a judge is gonna say, I can't tell you what's true or not.
So, but we'll see, we'll see.
If they have evidence where they're like, we know it's not true, yeah, then that's serious.
Accordingly, my clients intend to file legal action against you to seek compensatory damages, treble damages, punitive damages, injunctive relief, reimbursement of legal costs, and all other available legal and equitable remedies, to the maximum extent permitted by law.
What's more, he suggested that even if the campaign and CNN come to an agreement, he would seek money as part of that deal.
Please contact the undersigned to discuss an appropriate resolution of this matter, which would include a substantial payment of damages, as well as all other appropriate measures that are necessary to fully address the magnitude of the situation.
wrote harder in the letter sent by overnight mail and email on Wednesday.
Trump has long been at war with CNN and other media outlets he dubs fake news.
CNN's White House reporter Jim Acosta and Trump have tussled publicly,
and Acosta wrote a book sharply critical of the president titled The Enemy of the People.
You know what's really funny about these like anti-Kavanaugh and like anti-Trump books?
They tend not to sell very well.
You know what was a bestseller, though?
12 Rules for Life?
Hey, that's Jordan Peterson, and it wasn't overtly political.
That's the point, okay?
And actually, I'll say this.
Molly Hemingway's book on Kavanaugh sold remarkably better than the New York Times, you know, anti-Kavanaugh piece.
So, you know, the Acosta thing, in my opinion, was all just to drum up PR and make money.
These people have no shame.
Now look, man, I'll tell you this.
This is silly.
Okay, is Trump gonna sue CNN?
It's silly.
I don't think he can win.
Come on.
We know CNN is biased, but you know what?
They're allowed to be.
It's the First Amendment.
Now, they want to cite the Lanham Act.
I'm not a lawyer.
I can't tell you.
I'll defer to them.
But I really do see this as... I wouldn't call it a PR stunt.
I don't know what I would call it.
I don't think Trump needs PR.
Let's be real, dude.
Donald Trump does not need PR.
At all.
He has a Twitter account.
We know what happens when Donald Trump tweets a misspelled word.
He could put a period and tweet it out, and every news outlet would write a story.
I kid you not.
Trump could put out a tweet that was an image of a blank white space, and you will have articles popping up claiming Trump is racist for showing a white Blank space.
You know.
You agree.
Of course you know.
Everybody knows it.
And anybody who claims it's not true is wrong.
Trump does not need to get a PR.
At all.
I mean, maybe it's an effort to put scrutiny on CNN and make videos like this appear, but let's be real, dude, Trump could tweet, CNN, you're blah blah blah, and everyone's gonna talk about it, you know?
So in the end, I'm surprised Trump doesn't use other social media platforms, why he still uses Twitter and Facebook, you know, whatever.
He could easily create competition for these platforms by just using another one and all of his supporters would go there, you know, whatever.
Whether or not a lawsuit will work, man, I just don't think so.
But, hey, I'm not a lawyer, and Trump's got money, and if he does, he can hire good lawyers who know the attack vector for at least getting beyond the calls to dismiss, whatever it's called, that stage.
So if they make it past that and they can get into discovery, make some demands, that
might be interesting.
I'd be willing to bet they got a lot of emails and I'm willing to bet a lot of their employees
are overtly anti-Trump.
And take into consider this, if there are any people at CNN who are far left and the
far left believes in by any means necessary, which includes lying and they've lied, it
takes one person at CNN to lie and know they lied for CNN as a whole to take some hits.
So that'd be interesting.
It goes on to just basically cite, I think, Project Veritas and some of the articles, so I don't think that's necessarily important.
In three new secretly taped videos, Project Veritas said they show CNN insiders detailing Zucker's anti-Trump views.
Well, that's their opinion as employees.
I think it's important because who knows better than those who listen to Zucker talk all day every day?
But think about Zucker pushing the moat story with alligators, and think about him pushing the claim that Ron Johnson was pushing a conspiracy theory for referencing Uh, for specifically referencing Politico.
And then you can see that they're wrong.
Now, Mark, uh, um, not Mark, um, Jeff Zucker is wrong, but was it on purpose?
That's something that'll have to be proven.
Anyway, stick around.
I got a couple more videos coming up today.
They're actually special videos.
The next video I'm going to do is going to be a political compass test followed by a two hour conversation between me and Sam Seder.
It's really great.
Uh, stick around and I will see you all in a few minutes.
I will admit, I already know for the most part what my political leaning is, hence the hyperbolic, facetious title of this video.
No, I'm not literally a communist, but based on how I've taken the political compensation before and where I fall, center, left, libertarian on the spectrum, Social liberal or libertarian socialist.
So let me just quickly explain what that means before we get into it.
I'm going to take the test.
I'm going to answer the questions and explain my answers.
And I'll try and do it quickly.
This will be a very long video.
But if you want to understand my political views, you'll get it by me doing the political compass test.
Now, I believe that libertarian communism can only really exist in very, very small scales.
A tribe.
Think about 12 hippies living on a farm.
That's libertarian communism.
No one can tell you what to do, but typically people will be like, hey, I made dinner, who wants some?
And there's no exchange.
Communists like to believe in this big utopian version of a world, but you can't do it that way because I don't know you, and we can't control for what each other is doing.
If it's me and, you know, ten other buddies, and, you know, Jim has just created a new water filtration system, and he's like, feel free to use it.
Cool.
There's no need.
Because he knows that when I'm out planting corn, I'll hook him up too.
That's simple.
And that's why, at core, I'm very anarchic, you know, philosophically.
I grew up, I was an anarchist, and I kind of moved away because of political reality.
Let's take this test and let me break down for you how I feel and why.
I'll try and go quickly.
If economic globalization is inevitable, it should primarily serve humanity rather than the interests of transnational corporations.
Well, that's an obvious yes.
If globalization has to occur, like if it's going to happen no matter what, it absolutely should be supporting humanity.
So, it should primarily serve humanity.
Strongly agree.
The private interests of corporations, I do not believe, should be first and front, you know, front and center.
I understand the general idea that corporations can provide benefits because you bring all these people together who have different ideas, and we're talking about development of science, tech, and infrastructure.
I get it.
But no, it should be to serve humanity, not the interests of some elite billionaire who's going about things without regulation.
Next question.
I'd always support my country whether it was right or wrong.
No.
I will only support what is right or wrong, regardless of my country.
I strongly disagree with that.
I will support my country to a great deal, but when the US does things overseas I disagree with, I will not support that.
Hence why I won't vote for Donald Trump, regardless of if he does some good things or not.
It's about a bigger picture here.
I'd always support my country.
It has to be right.
No one chooses his or her country of birth, so it's foolish to be proud of it.
I disagree with that.
I think we have a shared cultural heritage with our country.
I don't strongly disagree.
But for the most part, I think, look, man, I was born here.
This is my world.
This is my country.
I believe in it.
I believe they've done things that are bad, and I will call them out when they do so.
But for the most part, I think America is a very great place, even for all its faults.
It's done amazing things.
And if you're born in a country, then to an extent, you can be proud of your tribe.
You know, right?
Our race has many superior qualities compared with other races.
I completely disagree with that.
There are so many factors involved in whether or not someone is going to be superior to someone else, and that to me is absurd.
I will make a point, though.
I strongly disagree with this, because I understand the greater implications, but the way you interpret the questions are important.
Let me stress.
I've been to Thailand, okay?
I was taller than most people.
The question is whether or not being taller is superior.
To a certain extent, it's not.
And that's the point.
While I recognize there are some differences, you know, between different races or ethnicities, I ultimately do not believe we can quantify superiority.
So no, I completely disagree.
The enemy of my enemy is my friend?
No way.
The enemy of my enemy is not my friend.
I will not support a bad candidate who does terrible things simply because they're slightly better than somebody else.
No, I believe in principle.
Military action that defies international law is sometimes justified.
I disagree with that.
Not strongly, because I disagree because I recognize the nuance.
So I would say disagree typically errs on the side of, for the most part, yeah, we can't violate international law.
We have these laws for a reason, and we shouldn't be using, you know, committing war crimes.
Absolutely not.
I will recognize in a more of a Captain America approach, citing the Civil War movie, that sometimes when you see something heading south, you've got to act.
So I recognize that's true in some capacities, but for the most part, I generally disagree and think we'd be better off making sure we're working together in international conflict.
There is now a worrying fusion of information and entertainment.
Oh, you better believe I agree with that.
Next page.
We got a couple more, so this will be a long video.
People are ultimately divided more by class than by nationality.
100% true.
A wealthy person from India has no problem, for the most part, coming to the United States.
And that's something we should recognize.
If you're poor in the US, you're not going to Australia.
If you're poor in India, you're not coming here.
But rich people can move about however they see fit.
In fact, there are stories of rich people that can enter countries without passports.
So I do believe class is substantially more important.
Think about this.
There could be an extremely impoverished nation, but the royalty or political elites are still rich, wealthier than most Americans.
Yes, because even small poor nations have resources that can be exploited.
Controlling inflation is more important than controlling unemployment.
I disagree.
I think employment is more than just what you make to eat with.
I think it's purpose.
And purpose is important for human life.
Because corporations cannot be trusted to voluntarily protect the environment, they require regulation 100%.
And this is true.
I mean, you had a river burst into flames in Ohio.
At least that's the story.
I don't have the facts pulled up.
But yes, I strongly believe in regulation.
I think we need to make sure we put a check on government for sure.
But I think when it comes to these big companies, they're going to act not necessarily intentionally in bad directions, though many do.
We find them.
We go after them when they do bad things.
But there are some instances where people just veer off the path.
They find success, they move in that direction, and it creates problems for the environment.
So it's important then that... I'll put it this way.
When that river, you know, was polluted so it started on fire, it was because everybody was only putting a little bit of pollution in it, and no one felt that they were the big problem.
The snowflake doesn't blame itself for the avalanche.
So how about we all come together, we have an agreement on the limits of what we should do, and we agree to abide by them.
To me, that makes sense.
From each according to his ability to each according to his need is a fundamentally good idea.
Absolutely not.
And that's the joke.
Right?
I may be very, you know, left libertarian, but I am not a communist.
I think that is a terrible idea.
Because you can't quantify what someone's needs or wants are.
For the most part, mathematically, it's a bit nebulous.
And also, we need people to be passionate and incentivized in their own right to create a You know, a wealth-driving society or planet.
We want everyone to improve themselves and that means individuals can choose better than a command economy.
You can't have one person dictating who is or isn't in need or what they should be allowed to have.
I'm sorry.
I think people can build what they want and that's much, much, much more better.
So while I do lean left for sure, I ultimately do not like this concept.
It's a sad reflection on our society that something as basic as drinking water is now a bottled, branded consumer product.
I definitely agree with that.
I'm not saying they shouldn't be allowed to do it, by no means, but I do think it is a sad reflection, the commodification and branding of Water.
I also really don't like what Nestle does when they go into these communities and they take water.
You know, yeah, I'm not a fan.
I'm not a fan.
Okay, I get it.
There should be limits in my opinion, restrictions, regulations.
But for the most part, you can bottle the water fine.
I get it.
I'm not a fan.
I do think it's a sad reflection.
Land shouldn't be a commodity to be bought and sold.
I disagree with that.
Now, there's an extent there I won't strongly disagree, but, you know, you need to be able to have a place to call your own.
I'm sorry, that's just the way it is.
It is regrettable that many personal fortunes are made by people who simply manipulate money and contribute nothing to their society.
I do not believe you should be able to get resources from the hard-working people of this world, I don't care where you're from, simply because you can push things around.
I'm not talking about people who make investments.
I'm talking about literally people who just do fast trades and extract value.
Now you've got people who have millions of dollars who have literally contributed nothing?
Not a fan.
I get it though.
This is a byproduct of the system.
So I think there can be regulations, but for the most part, disagree.
Protectionism is sometimes necessary in trade.
I agree with that to an extent.
You know, if you look at Trump and the trade war and all that stuff, we have to make sure we're keeping tabs and not allowing everything to just run amok and then fall apart.
I think there's certain things to be said, but for the most part, I'll just leave that as it is.
The only social responsibility of a company should be to deliver a profit to its shareholders.
Completely disagree.
Companies should exist for the betterment of everybody.
Of everyone.
A company that makes ice cream sandwiches is making a product people like.
They shouldn't be able to make inferior garbage products that hurt everybody to make an extra buck.
I believe they should be doing something good.
Now, if you choose to eat 500 ice cream sandwiches, that's your fault.
But overall, producing a dessert is a good thing for society.
So their only social responsibility should not be to drive profits.
It should be that profits are earned because they've done something valuable for society.
The rich are too highly taxed?
I strongly disagree with that.
I believe that our tax structure can be, we can tax the rich more, 100%.
I just think that typically what you see from the left in this country is not planned out properly.
Elizabeth Warren's wealth tax, well as Andrew Yang pointed out, Europe's gotten away from it, okay?
So yes, we can tax capital gains and other means of income.
But here's the thing.
While I do believe that they're not too highly taxed, and there is a limit to how much money someone really needs, I get all that.
I also believe in freedom.
I believe, you know, just because I disagree doesn't mean you aren't allowed to make money.
And I also think we're not taking into consideration National boundaries, technology, and international law when it comes to taxation.
So while I do think the rich could be giving more towards charity and communal programs, I recognize we may not have anything we can do to solve that problem.
Right?
What can we do?
They can move their money overseas into cryptocurrencies, whatever, so... Don't know how you solve it, but I certainly think, in my personal opinion, I do not like the idea of oligarchs.
Sorry, I don't.
Excuse me.
Those with the ability to pay should have access to higher standards of medical care.
Completely agree.
That one's simple.
If you make a bunch of money, I agree you should.
Keep in mind, okay, I don't like the idea of people getting money for nothing just by pushing things around.
But I certainly believe that in the truest sense of what capitalism is supposed to be, a beneficial corporation that helps people around the world in some capacity that isn't exploiting people, then you make extra money.
Yes, you should get that rare and harder to receive treatment.
Not everyone can be cured of every disease, and some treatments are rare and expensive.
But if you have the money, I do believe you should be able to have access to it.
Government should penalize businesses that mislead the public.
Absolutely.
Strongly agree.
And they do, okay?
We have regulations for this.
You can't lie, cheat, and steal.
A genuine free market requires restrictions on the ability of predator multinationals to create monopolies. 100%.
You know, I understand people would argue.
I think it's fair to point out that a genuine free market, in the truest sense, is like, you know, let the market decide.
But in my opinion, you will have predatory companies that lie, cheat, and steal without regulation.
So there has to be some kind of restriction, otherwise they'll create monopolies like Google and Facebook, shut down private speech, and then you will live in a dystopian nightmare.
So I am very much in favor of regulation.
The freer the market, the freer the people.
I agree with... This is a tough one, because it's about the interpretation of the question.
I'm going to put, I disagree.
Because I'm going to interpret this question based on the idea of a true free market.
And in that regard, I disagree for one reason.
In an absolute free market, you will see the consolidation... Look, here's the problem.
It's interpretation.
I've heard people say that consolidation of power by ever-growing companies is not a real free market.
Fine, I respect that.
My interpretation of this is that a true free market eventually, you know, central power coalesces around bigger and bigger corporations, in which case, no.
There has to be barriers to allow free market competition, but some restriction to stop the consolidation of power.
So I'm going to put disagree.
I may be interpreting this in a way you don't agree with, but that's the best I can do.
Okay, we got page 3 of 6 and we're already at 13 minutes.
Abortion, when the woman's life is not threatened, should always be illegal.
Sorry.
I strongly disagree with that.
Because it's an authoritarian versus libertarian position.
I'm not going to intervene in what the absolute reasons are.
I don't believe the woman's life not being threatened is an absolute issue.
I believe it's also about the health of the baby.
It's complicated.
But I'm gonna err on the side of the government not being involved, even though I personally disagree with how many people use abortion as contraception.
I very much oppose that.
But in the end, I'm more so concerned about centralization of authority.
The government determining what you can or can't do when it involves your own body is a complicated system.
It's a complicated process.
And then I understand the body of the baby is relevant too, but we have two life forms in one circumstance, and for me, I look at that and say, I honestly can't come to an ethical conclusion on what we should do, so I bow out.
And I know many of you disagree with me, I'm sorry.
All authority should be questioned.
Always.
Always.
It doesn't mean disposed of.
It just means checks and balances.
And that's what our founding fathers understood, and I have tremendous respect for that.
All authority should be questioned.
It doesn't mean you always ignore it.
It just means that when someone comes out and makes a demand, we say, why is it that you who makes a demand?
In the United States, we have elected representatives.
We respect that to an extent.
Not every action is respectable, though.
An eye for an eye, a tooth for the tooth?
No way.
That leaves the whole world blind.
Taxpayers should not be expected to prop up any theaters or museums that cannot survive on a commercial basis.
I strongly disagree.
Taxpayers, you may... Here's the thing, man.
Culture, museums, are very, very important.
Without us choosing that some things matter to us in terms of heritage and culture, we end up just with video games and action flicks and porn.
You know, I believe in a true, absolute free market.
What's going to survive in the long run is not going to be the arts.
So I strongly believe we must, as a society, protect cultural heritage, arts, etc.
When someone is developing a new dance or music and taxpayers fund that, that's cultural development.
That's important for us.
And when you have a museum or a theater that shows things relevant to our culture, it is preserving and sustaining the ideals which make us strong.
Otherwise, you'll end up with, in a complete free market, people who just don't care about what we believe and why.
And I believe, for instance, America has a very, very beautiful and amazing culture.
We've overcome great hardships, and we've maintained our knowledge through museums and taxpayer-funded programs.
I think it's important.
It's a challenge.
I don't generally like the idea of forcing people into doing things, which is why I'm much more on the libertarian spectrum, and I'll admit it's the hardest position to be in.
I don't like the idea of the government forcing you to support, you know, history, culture, and arts.
But in the end, though, I do think, look, if people are going to vote for it and support it, it's very important for us.
Schools should not make classroom attendance compulsory.
I agree with that.
I can't stand schools and how it's mandatory.
Not at all.
Choose yourself.
All people have their rights, but it is better for all of us that different sorts of people should keep to their own kind.
No way, man!
We would have too many blind spots.
Diversity is a strength.
Disagree with me all you want, but there's a difference between what the left is calling diversity and true diversity.
The real idea of diversity was supposed to be that someone from a different part of the world with a different perspective could enrich our perspectives, and that's a fact.
It's true.
It doesn't mean all cultures.
It just means that, well, like, there's absolutely some cultures which will be negative, but in the end, What I view as diversity being a strength is when someone comes here with a technology, a science, or a philosophy we didn't hear before.
Too much, though, today, is just race.
It's like, oh, you're a different color, therefore that's diversity.
No, I'm sorry, it's not.
If you're born in America and you're raised in a Western culture, you have the same worldview as anybody based on race.
But if you grew up in, say, Japan, you'll view things very differently, and you absolutely can help fill in the blind spots, and we can come together with different technologies and ideas and philosophies, and that's important.
So no, people should be talking to each other and sharing ideas.
Good parents sometimes spank their children.
Yes.
Well, let's be clear.
I'm not talking about beating your kids.
I'm talking about, you know, giving them, you know, a whop on the butt with like 10% of your force, so it doesn't actually hurt them in any way, but asserts authority as the parent, and also gives a clear indicator, don't do this again.
Okay?
I don't think spanking is that big of a deal, although I've seen some studies that say it's really, really bad.
I don't think you should beat your kids relentlessly.
I'm talking about, you know, when the kid does something, you know, you bop them on the butt.
Or something like that.
I think that's absolutely fine.
It's natural for children to keep some secrets from their parents.
Yeah, of course, that's fine.
Possessing marijuana for personal use should not be a criminal offense.
Of course it should not.
People should be allowed to imbibe what they choose.
The prime function of schooling should be to equip the future generation to find jobs.
No way!
It's to make them functioning, competent adults.
Unfortunately, that's not happening either.
People with serious, inheritable disabilities should not be allowed to reproduce.
You should be allowed to live your life, and no one should be able to take away from you your inalienable rights.
I don't care what the circumstances of your birth were.
I don't care if you're disabled.
It is your life, it is your choice, and no one else should be able to impose that law to take away from you natural biological function.
The most important thing for children to learn is to accept discipline.
I disagree with that.
I don't think it's the most important thing.
I do think discipline is important.
There are no savage and civilized people.
There are only different cultures.
I lightly agree with this.
And I mean this because, once again, we're falling back on the interpretation of the questions.
There are certain civilizations that have been accused of being savage, but probably had certain understandings of medicine.
So look, I get it.
I'm very much biased in favor of my own culture, but I also think understanding alternative perspectives is important.
I am not defending cannibalistic or oppressive cultures.
I'm saying that they're all different, and they all believe something very specific.
They're going to claim we're savage and we're going to claim they're savage.
In which case, while I personally think there are bad cultures, I think to quantify them in these ways is biased based on our world view.
Recognizing that is a strength because it allows us to better understand the strengths and weaknesses and why we should be opposed to certain ideas but accept good ideas that will help us.
Those who are able to work and refuse the opportunity should not expect society's support.
I agree with that.
Not strongly, but I agree with it enough.
There's maybe some circumstances where someone refuses to work and for some reason we're going to support them, because I do that personally, but for the most part, if you're not going to work, man, don't expect any favors from me.
When you are troubled, it's better not to think about it, but to keep it busy with more cheerful things.
No, think about it.
Solve your problems and overcome them, okay?
First-generation immigrants can never fully be integrated within their country.
No way, that's not true.
Because the assumption there is that you're thinking about like a 40-year-old person who immigrates.
What about a first-generation immigrant who's young?
You absolutely can integrate.
It is absolutely possible.
And I think too many people are going to hear that and make an assumption about what that immigrant is.
So no.
I strongly disagree.
What's good for the most successful corporation is always ultimately good for all of us.
No.
Look at the banking industry and the housing market and the mortgage-backed securities.
So, no.
And we're talking about short-term versus long-term gain.
No broadcasting institution, however independent its content, should receive public funding.
Strongly disagree.
I think there is an absolute benefit to competition between publicly funded programs and private enterprise.
There can be public news, funded by taxpayers, as well as private.
And that's an important balance.
I do believe so.
Next page.
Our civil liberties are being excessively curbed in the name of counter-terrorism.
Oh, come on.
Easy answer.
Yes, of course.
A significant advantage of a one-party state is that it avoids all the arguments that delay progress in a democratic political system.
That's true.
That's not even an opinion.
That's a fact.
It just means it leads to eventual destruction.
So there are things that delay progress in a democratic political system, but it is true to an extent that It is faster for a more totalitarian system.
Doesn't mean I agree it's a good thing.
Although the electronic age makes official surveillance easier, only wrongdoers need to be worried.
No way.
Nope.
Nah, man.
Absolutely not.
You absolutely do need to be worried about abuse of power or someone spying on you.
We've heard stories of people spying on ex-girlfriends.
Not gonna happen.
The death penalty should be an option for the most serious of crimes.
I'm going to put disagree not strongly.
I'm very much against the death penalty, but not strongly enough to where I would protest it.
So I'm not going to put strongly.
And I'm also willing to recognize the will of the people.
And it's tough, it's tough, because this is a very thick moral conundrum for me.
But if most people are on the side of we're going to support the system, I don't feel strongly enough to adamantly oppose it, but I will voice my opposition.
So I'll just put regular disagree.
In a civilized society, one must always have people above to be obeyed and people below to be commanded.
Nah.
America is a country where you can be from the gutter and tell the president to go shove off.
And that's what makes this country great and successful.
Abstract art that doesn't represent anything shouldn't be considered art at all.
No way!
Art is in the eye of the beholder, man.
We're talking about pictures.
You don't know what something means to somebody or inspires.
In criminal justice, punishment should be more important than rehabilitation.
No.
We want a functioning and effective society and progress.
We want to do better, be stronger and faster, and that means we must figure out how to solve these problems, not just feel good by hurting somebody.
It is a waste of time to try and rehabilitate some criminals.
I absolutely disagree.
Absolutely disagree.
We should absolutely try to rehabilitate everyone we can.
We have to try.
We have to.
The business person and the manufacturer are more important than the writer and the artist.
I disagree.
And I'm not saying the artist and the writer are more important than the businessman.
I'm saying what makes a culture great is our success in terms of technological development and advancement, but also the writer and the artist help advance philosophical understandings.
They help us explore and find hidden truths and meaning, and to claim the writer and the artist.
Also, I need you to consider religion, which I think is very important.
Philosophy and religion fall in the writer-artist portion of that.
Mothers may have careers, but their first duty is to be homemakers.
No, I think their first duty is to be individual human beings who can choose for themselves what they want to do.
If that's to be a homemaker, fine.
If it's to have a career, fine.
It's their choice.
Multinational companies are unethically exploiting the plant genetic resources of developing nations.
I somewhat agree with this.
This has to do with Monsanto.
It has to do with, you know, manipulating genes, and then... I'm going to avoid getting into a legal battle with Monsanto, but you can look it up.
They're big companies that have done things for political gain, and it is problematic.
Making peace with the establishment is an important aspect of maturity.
I strongly disagree with that.
Absolutely not.
I'm pretty anti-authoritarian.
Page 5.
Astrology accurately explains many things.
No, it doesn't!
You cannot be moral without being religious.
I completely disagree.
You absolutely can be moral without being religious.
Charity is better than social security as a means of helping the genuinely disadvantaged.
I disagree.
I do believe charity has done much better things than social security and things that can't be addressed by government, but I don't want to say it's better.
It's not about one being better than the other, okay?
Some people are naturally unlucky.
I disagree with that.
I disagree with it because the way I'm viewing it is this argument that it's not my fault I failed.
No, you can't... I mean, I might not strongly disagree because I understand opportunity and the cards were dealt matter, but...
You gotta make your own luck, man.
It is important that my child's school instills religious values.
I strongly disagree with that.
It may be important to you, not to me, and that's fine.
The private schools exist.
I went to Catholic school for a little while.
If that's what you choose, it's important, but for me, not really.
Next page and the final page.
Lovemaking outside of marriage is usually immoral.
Disagree.
Individual liberty, man.
You do you.
A same-sex couple in a stable, loving relationship should not be excluded from the possibility of child adoption.
Completely agree with that.
There are so many kids who need families, and I'm not gonna judge.
If you can give a child a good family, if you have a loving, stable relationship that is powerful and important, and it's better than kids growing up in foster care and falling in the gutter, I will tell you that.
Pornography depicting consenting adults should be legal for the adult population.
General agree because of the potential for some of it to go nuts, but no, yeah, do what you want.
What goes on in a private bedroom between consenting adults is no business of the state.
Absolutely.
I understand what they're saying with this question, okay?
They're talking about two people who choose to go and do an act in private that's presumably between them and safe to a certain extent.
Lovemaking.
Hey man, you do you.
I got no beef.
Take it in your bedroom.
That's what you're all about.
No one can feel naturally homosexual.
I strongly disagree with that, because I know people who have told me that's not the case, and I believe them.
It's about all I can do.
And I would also argue this based on the fact that I don't, and I strongly feel heterosexual, and I can imagine the same feeling I have towards women someone might have towards a same-sex couple, in which case I entirely believe that's a possibility.
These days, openness about sex has gone too far.
I disagree with that.
I don't think it's that big of a deal.
I think in some capacities it has, that's why I'm not strongly disagreeing, but in general culture, in general television, I'm not talking about the fringe weirdos on the internet, I think for the most part it's fine.
I'm further left and libertarian than Bernie Sanders.
And I believe I've explained all of my positions, right?
Did you agree with how I broke everything down?
I think it makes sense.
I feel like it's, you know.
So there it is, look.
See, I got allergies.
Social libertarian.
Yes.
I much prefer to live on a farm with a bunch of hippie buddies.
It is what I do.
I mean, I have a bunch of friends who work with me.
I am very, very economically flat when it comes to how I run business.
Pardon the allergies.
I am in no way A hardcore top-down capitalist who tries to extract value.
I overpay people.
I give people, you know, responsibility and authority over their projects.
And when I look at this, I'm actually surprised as a left and libertarian as it is, but yeah, that's just how I feel.
Take a look at everything I've said.
I've explained my feelings, right?
This is where I've ended up.
I think the way I've explained it makes sense, is consistent, and there you go.
Now let me explain.
Exactly why you'll probably see my politics where they are when it comes to YouTube videos.
For one, intersectionality is not on the left-right spectrum.
It is an ideology.
It is typically an authoritarian ideology, and I strongly oppose authoritarianism.
Many Trump supporters also oppose that authoritarianism as well, but I'm critical of Trump for some of his more authoritarian actions and more right-wing approaches.
I think it's fair to say, for the time being, those that believe in liberty, regardless of the left or the right, we're going to be friends.
And those that believe in authority, we're not going to be friends.
And that's the easiest way to explain it.
So there you go!
My political compass test.
This is a long video.
Stick around.
The next one that's coming up is going to be a conversation with Sam Seder, and we're going to talk about a lot of these positions.
