CNN Host Chris Cuomo Just SNAPPED, Slams CNN As Hyperpartisan And Ridiculous, Media Trust COLLAPSED
CNN Host Chris Cuomo Just SNAPPED, Slams CNN As Hyperpartisan And Ridiculous, Media Trust COLLAPSED. Speaking on his radio show Chris Cuomo slammed CNN for being hyperpartisan and being ridiculous. While it may be fair to argue he is talking about other networks like Fox And MSNBC much of his sentiment is aimed at his own job where he says "I don't like what I do professionally"Cuomo complains that Democrats and Republicans often come on his show and say things they don't mean. He mentions that its not worth the millions of dollars being a celebrity and he has already saved enough money.I wish Cuomo had this crisis of principal before taking a hyperpartisan cable job at a network with people like Jim Acosta. Perhaps then people could have prevented the downward decline of media.But CNN in their desperate attempt to stay afloat just rags on Trump and Republicans. Cuomo seems to have had enough much like many other staffers we heard from in the project veritas videos.
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It was not that long ago that Project Veritas unveiled undercover footage of CNN employees complaining about their jobs.
Many people were lamenting the fact that they don't do real journalism anymore.
One producer said, they used to go on the ground.
Now it's just panel after panel attacking Donald Trump.
That's all they do.
While CNN certainly is the worst, that's really what they've become.
And this sentiment from the employees, which you've seen on video, has now reached the highest level.
Chris Cuomo, who consistently brings in some of the highest ratings for CNN, recently came out on his radio show saying, quote, I don't like what I do professionally, saying change had to come.
He wasn't entirely sure what that meant, but that the hyper-partisan nature of how these networks operate is something he does not value.
Very similar sentiment.
CNN does not do journalism.
Right now, their media reporters are probably complaining about Fox News, which is odd because Fox is just one network out of dozens.
Look, I understand when anti-establishment personalities, populists, or conservatives will rag on the mainstream media.
We're talking about dozens of networks, companies, major VC-funded programs.
But it's strange to me when CNN just comes out and rags on Fox News all day.
I get it.
It's a cable channel.
You don't like it.
Many of us can talk about things other than CNN.
But for now, because of Chris Cuomo, CNN is what we're going to focus on.
A story came out from the New York Times written by Ben Smith, the former editor-in-chief of BuzzFeed News, talking about this trust people have in the Cuomo brothers, Governor Andrew Cuomo as well as CNN host Chris Cuomo.
And he brings up an interesting point.
CNN is trying to be some kind of more authentic network.
They're trying to chase after what makes YouTube work for people like me.
That I'm just sitting here talking to you for as long as I need to about what I need to, stutters and stammering all just in the mix, if it's what happens.
CNN is chasing after that.
They end up becoming this weird, angry network that just talks about hyper-partisan nonsense.
I think they're trying to pressure Chris Cuomo to be like Sean Hennedy or Rachel Maddow.
And I don't think he wants to do it.
If someone isn't passionate about political issues, you can't force them to be.
Now, that's just my speculation.
But sure enough, it reaches a point where the ratings aren't good enough, and Chris Cuomo actually says, I will never beat them.
Referring to Hennedy and Maddow, perhaps signifying that he may either change his show, quit, who knows?
But the sentiment is real.
CNN is trash.
Beyond this, I'm going to show you a bunch of stories showing that it's very difficult to trust media right now for a variety of reasons.
Now, I get it.
I'm media too.
But this is the changing landscape.
If you want to choose to trust me, you're allowed to.
You can choose to trust CNN.
But many of these major networks are playing politics, and because of the amount of money involved, they owe favors, and they use those favors, but they're also no longer interested in telling you the truth.
They don't want to give you the core facts.
They want to spin a tale to get clicks.
Let's break this down and we'll start with a story about Chris Cuomo, which in my opinion, it's rather shocking actually.
I wonder what they're going to say to him because this story is getting a lot of play.
The Daily Mail reports, quote, I don't like what I do professionally.
Chris Cuomo has extraordinary meltdown on radio show as he blasts his own CNN job as trafficking in things that I think are ridiculous.
I certainly agree with you, Chris.
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They say.
The CNN anchor, who has been in quarantine while suffering with coronavirus, launched an attack on the hyper-partisanship of network television and added that I don't like what I do professionally.
Cuomo said on his SiriusXM show on Monday that his battle with the disease has made him rethink his values and question his position as a public figure.
On his primetime CNN show, the host said he no longer wants to be trafficking in things that I believe are ridiculous.
In particular, Cuomo said he found both Democrats and Republicans who went on his show said things they do not actually believe.
And I think he's right.
He said he disliked talking to Democrats about things I don't really believe they mean, and talking to Republicans about them parroting things they feel they have to say.
Cuomo also said he wishes to stop constantly analyzing the president, who we all know is full of s by design.
Well, there is some of the similar sentiment we've seen from the Project Veritas videos.
People at the network are tired of only ever talking about Donald Trump.
Do me a favor.
Go to Instagram.com slash Timcast after this video, of course, and you can see a couple videos from me.
I've mentioned this in other videos, but what I do is I will turn on Fox News during a major breaking story like protests in Iran or Hong Kong, and then I will flip to CNN, and lo and behold.
They're talking about Donald Trump.
I did the same thing during a major weather event.
Fox News says we've got adverse weather affecting the country.
Switch to CNN.
Donald Trump.
I'd imagine at a certain point someone would lose their mind and say, I don't want to do this anymore.
I didn't sign up for this.
These people thought they were going to do journalism.
Sorry, that's not the name of the game anymore.
According to the New York Times, they're trying to go for the more authentic approach.
But I'll tell you what.
I, as an individual, Tim Pool, I have opinions.
There's things that I think and things I want to say and I turn the camera on and I say them.
It's what I choose to say.
It's how I feel.
It wouldn't work in a major network when you're going to a bunch of different people with many different opinions and telling them this is the narrative you have to say.
Eventually, you'll find people like Chris Cuomo saying, I don't agree.
I don't want to talk about this.
If you know what you need to do then, CNN, find someone who does.
That's why it works for Hannity.
That's why it works for Maddow.
But it's not going to work at CNN unless you get new staff.
The 49-year-old told his listeners, I don't want to spend my time trafficking in things I think are ridiculous.
I don't like what I do professionally.
I don't think it's worth my time.
On March 31st, Cuomo announced that he had tested positive for coronavirus and has since been on lockdown at his Long Island home.
Cuomo went on to say he no longer wants to have to tolerate other people's opinions about him due to his public profile.
He added, I don't think it's worth it to me because I don't think I mean enough.
I don't think I matter enough.
I don't think I can really change anything.
So then what am I really doing?
I agree.
He said, I'm basically being perceived as successful in a system that I don't value.
I'm seen as being good at being on TV and advocating for different positions.
But I don't know if I value those things.
Certainly not as much as I value being able to live my life on my own terms.
You know what he's saying to you right there?
He is just saying what they want him to say.
And probably, this is why I think, they really want to pressure him to go the route of like Rachel Maddow to get those ratings up.
And I think he finally snapped and said, I'm not gonna do it.
I sympathize.
I empathize.
Now, that's my opinion.
I don't know what actually happened with Chris.
Maybe at the office, he's just sick and tired of the job and he wants to go fishing.
But I've worked for major media companies who told me to side with the audience.
I'll tell you the difference between me and Chris.
I said, no.
I was like, I'm not gonna do it.
Sorry.
If you want me to side with the audience, never gonna happen.
But that's basically the same thing they're saying, you know, that he's kind of... It's how I feel.
Like, it's what I think he's trying to insinuate at.
That they want him to advocate for positions that he does not value.
Yeah, that's one way of putting it.
Cuomo then told a story about being approached by a biker who confronted him on Easter Sunday while he was out with his family near the home in Southampton.
Now, this I find completely inappropriate.
Come on, man.
Leave people alone.
Don't approach them with their family.
That's weird.
He added that he wants to be able to act like any other member of the public, and that he told the biker to go to hell.
The host said, I don't want some loser, fat tire biker being able to pull over and get in my space and talk BS to me.
I don't want to hear it.
That matters to me more than making millions of dollars a year because I've saved my money and I don't need it anymore.
I want to be able to tell you to go to hell, to shut your mouth.
I don't get that doing what I do for a living.
And that's really easy to say, Chris, that you were put in this position.
You make some estimates, some websites.
I don't know if it's correct information, but they've said he makes $4 million a year.
It's really easy to take all that money and then just say what they want you to say until you have enough and then say, well now I don't have to do it.
It's much harder to reject the money on principle.
So look, I'm not trying to drag the guy.
I appreciate he's coming out and slamming CNN for what they're essentially making him do or what the network produces.
I just wish people like him and everyone else would stand up and say, no amount of money is worth selling my principles out.
He said me being able to tell you to shut your mouth or I will do you the way you guys do each other.
What does that mean?
Here I am in an almost powerless position against this because I'm a celebrity and he's allowed to say whatever he wants to me.
Clearly, Chris Cuomo is upset about the Fredo incident where someone got, you know, came up to him and started yelling at him and called him Fredo.
He got mad.
He clearly goes on to say, you know, as I mentioned earlier, he doesn't want to talk about Donald Trump.
I think there's a lot going on with what he's upset about, but it has to do with being a general public figure.
But I want to show you this story from the New York Times, and I want to walk you through the complete collapse of CNN.
Well, my opinion on the collapse of CNN.
This is a story from the New York Times from Ben Smith.
The brothers Cuomo, Andrew and Chris, they ask, In this rather long story, Americans don't trust the media anymore.
So why do they trust the Cuomos?
Well, without getting into too much, because it talks about their life and what they're doing, I want to show you this passage.
The New York Times writes, The old model for authority in public affairs, of course, is a man in a suit and a tie behind a desk.
It was appropriated with particular success by Donald Trump on The Apprentice, another Zucker creation.
Jeff Zucker being the president, I believe, of CNN.
Today.
Daily White House news briefings often feel like a clumsily produced episode of reality television, a kind of parody of old-fashioned TV seriousness.
Meanwhile...
Mr. Zucker's CNN is taking TV news in the other direction, toward reality television and Instagram, winning trust through the projection of a rough-cut realness.
The Cuomos aren't just feeling your pain, you're feeling theirs.
He says news organizations invest heavily to build belief in their brands.
That's why CNN calls itself the most trusted name in news.
But at a moment when celebrities and social media figures seem to be connecting with Americans better than faceless brands, Two brothers who share corny jokes about coronavirus fears are turning the Cuomo name into its own source of trust.
You get trust from authenticity and relatability and vulnerability, Mr. Zucker told me.
That's what the brothers Cuomo are giving us right now.
And that's what CNN wants to produce.
You see, on YouTube, you saw the inadvertent rise of authentic content.
People who are individuals.
People you trust.
Podcasts where you see someone just hanging out and talking for a couple hours.
The content is as long as it needs to be.
CNN knows this is the future, so they're trying to appropriate it.
But it is inappropriate to do this.
To purport to be the most trusted name in news, yet to flood the airwaves with opinion trash.
Take a look at this segment.
I'm sorry, these tweets.
Here's what CNN wrote in their chyron.
It's the banner on the bottom of the screen.
Trump melts down in angry response to reports he ignored warning.
We can see other posts.
Trump used task force briefing to try and rewrite history on coronavirus response.
Now, in another segment, I basically said, someone is really emotional and angry because Donald Trump, he targets them personally as journalists.
So they get all flustered and mad and say, oh, I'm going to come for you.
I'll get back at you, Donald Trump.
Completely inappropriate for news organizations to do.
There's another possibility.
That CNN is trying to be a movie.
Fiction.
Reality TV.
They want you to get excited watching Trump.
They remember how Trump pulled in the ratings at NBC.
Jeff Zucker was working there.
The Apprentice was a creation of his.
He knows what he's doing.
He knows how to drive ratings.
Their ratings have been doing... I don't want to say their ratings are doing very, very well, but I think they're doing better.
It's a complicated way to explain this, because overall ratings for every network have been going down.
But one thing we've heard is that the Trump bump has driven ratings a bit.
So CNN is trying to milk it for all it's worth.
They're doing these lower third chyrons to make CNN not a news program.
But 24-hour reality television.
And the New York Times just told us that much.
That's the game plan.
That's why you see the Cuomo brothers talk about mom and who's the favorite son.
It's not news.
It's supposed to be authentic.
But it's really weird when you have this partisan nonsense.
And there's another, there's more to the CNN story.
You see, I wonder if Cuomo is getting tired of Jim Acosta.
I wonder if he's willing to call him out or if he doesn't even care at all.
But the fact is, Jim Acosta is the perfect example of CNN's complete collapse.
What Jim Acosta represents.
I am not surprised to see Chris Cuomo coming out and saying he's sick of it.
Take a look at this story.
The Atlantic, August 7th, 2018.
Jim Acosta's dangerous brand of performance journalism.
The CNN reporter is speaking truth to power, but he's also amplifying the president's anti-press campaign.
This is sentiment we've heard from many journalists.
Jim Acosta of CNN is a spectacle of reality television.
He is not giving us new information.
Why would anyone want to work for that?
It's not real news.
I guess if you want to be a part of a reality TV show, hey, go for it.
But I certainly imagine there are a lot of old school journalists, young people who went to school for journalism, thinking they were going to do real reporting, and now all of a sudden they're surrounded by reality TV hosts.
They claim they're better than Trump, but they're the exact same thing.
A media spectacle meant to spark outrage, to generate revenue.
It's all they do.
We can even see it from ex-CNN producers.
An ex-CNN producer says Jim Acosta's Trump skirmishes make all in the press look bad.
This guy's basically saying if I didn't know better, I'd say Jim Acosta was working for Trump's re-election because he's a caricature of exactly what Trump says about the press.
A guy who grandstands.
He gets up, asks questions, talks for several minutes, and everyone rolls their eyes.
You see, it's not just people like me who can call it Jim Acosta.
There are people at these networks who won't do it.
And there's a reason why I started my own thing, and they still work for these big companies.
Because when I had the boss come to me and say, here's how we want you to frame things, I said, I'm not gonna do it.
And ain't nothing gonna make me do it.
But these people know if they step out of line, they could lose their jobs.
Aw.
You're gonna lose your job.
That's too bad.
I'm glad you found a number that you're willing to sell your principles for.
Take a look at this from the DC Examiner.
Even the president of White House Correspondents Association thinks Jim Acosta is a bit much.
Yeah, we all know it.
I know many journalists who, behind the scenes, have said bad things about him, but they don't want to call him out because they know that it'll be bad for their future opportunities.
Well, I guess when you're set on working for someone else's enterprise, you shouldn't be surprised when you don't get to be a journalist and you just make reality television.
But if that's what you want to do, then by all means do it.
And if you don't like it and you have scruples, perhaps the money isn't worth it.
CNN now is being accused of just parroting press releases from the Chinese military.
I mean, are we even going to assume that CNN at this point is real news?
I don't think it's fair to say so.
I mean, when you look at the things posted by their media reporters, all they do is rag on Fox News.
Who cares?
Why are you telling me what's on Fox News?
I can turn on Fox News.
I can see for myself.
Why would anyone report this?
Imagine if I came on to talk about issues.
You came to my channel and all I ever did was talk about someone else's YouTube channel or me.
Now look, I get it.
You might say, Tim, that's a paradox!
Or it's ironic, considering you're talking about CNN and ragging on the media enterprise.
Well, this is more about what's supposed to be the most trusted name in news, an organization that hosts presidential debates.
I certainly don't do that.
They have a massive amount of power, and I think it's important I highlight the problems with what they're doing, and why they're doing it, and the damage it will cause.
There are certainly people in media who are substantially more trustworthy.
I'm not a big fan of Sean Hannity.
I'm not a big fan of Rachel Maddow.
I think Tucker Carlson does a pretty good job, and I think Joe Rogan has some of the most authentic conversations in media, and there's a reason why he's number one.
Now, they try to replicate that with CNN.
It's not gonna fly, and it's not the game they should be playing.
CNN probably would do better to just switch to pre-programmed television like they had been doing before.
But it's not just CNN.
I want to talk to you about trust in media in general.
NPR reported this.
Bloomberg News says it won't cover Oner's presidential campaign or his rivals' back in November.
Many of you know, Michael Bloomberg ran for president, and he basically isolated himself, saying, my news organization will not cover me.
People were outraged, saying that's surprising.
Your news organization should be independent.
Nope.
He said no dice.
We now know.
Bloomberg News kills investigation, fire reporter, then sought to silence the reporter's wife.
This is a story that just came out on the 14th.
I'm not going to get into all the details.
I just want to highlight the problems we're facing in media.
The partisanship?
The politicking?
The activism?
I'm sorry, man.
You can rag on Trump.
You can criticize him.
I got no problem with that.
But when Trump talks about the media, he's right.
Look at how the media smeared Tulsi Gabbard and Bernie Sanders.
The Bernie Sanders supporters know it.
Maybe you should have been calling this out a long time ago.
Certainly, many of them were.
But maybe more of you should have the entire time.
I want to show you this tweet here from James Todaro, an MD.
A tale of two drugs by the Washington Post.
Both articles refer to studies without randomized control groups.
I wonder how the Washington Post decides which drugs are hopeful and which are false hope.
In this tweet, James Todaro.
I'm not super familiar with who he is.
It says MD, so perhaps he's a doctor.
Just because it's on the internet doesn't mean it's true.
We see two screenshots.
The Washington Post said how false hope spread about hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19 and the consequence that follows.
The next article says Gilead's experimental drug remdesivir shows hopeful signs in small group of coronavirus patients.
Now why would the Washington Post claim that a what I believe is a patented drug from a major pharmaceutical is hopeful and that a generic This drug, which is being used by numerous countries, is false hope.
Perhaps, as they insinuate, it's because one is a major company that's got sweet loot, that can pay for advertising with their patent-controlled medication, and the other is generic.
I'm not gonna go that far.
I think it's much more simple than that.
Donald Trump says hydroxychloroquine, so they say, no, you are always wrong.
Because they're not trying to tell you the truth.
They're trying to create reality television.
They are going to withhold information if it benefits their position.
And their position is money.
I know a lot of these people, their position is, I guess, partisanship.
There's a lot of activists working in media.
But I don't think Jim Acosta, for instance, is going after President Trump because he wants Biden to get elected.
I think he's doing it because he wants to be famous.
His Twitter banner, I guess, is him on Jimmy Kimmel.
And he's been called out by other people for performative journalism.
And then after he did all his grandstanding, he sold a book.
That's what you're getting from mainstream press.
I do not believe I'm perfect.
I think I have a bias.
I'm focused on certain issues.
I don't want to tell you other than make sure you get as much information from other sources as you can.
I have no interest in misleading you to sell a book.
I don't want to do it.
I just want to go on my YouTube channel and complain about my feelings.
Maybe that makes me better.
Maybe that makes me worse.
I honestly don't know.
But I do think authenticity matters.
And I think right now it's getting very, very difficult to navigate what's true and what isn't.
And there are still too many people who blindly believe all of these companies, even though we can clearly see they are manipulating you to generate traffic.
You can argue the same about me, clickbait, headlines, whatever, I'm just one person.
I understand, I have a growing channel, I have influence, the same is true for any other podcaster.
The difference I see it, the way I see it is, for CNN to use the weight of their hundreds of millions or whatever, however much money they have access to, to hire people and then say, here's what we're doing, is very different from me, one person, Seeing a story and being like, I think that's a bad thing, I'm gonna talk about it.
Individuals with opinions exist.
If that's the case for Hannity and Maddow, then you know what?
So what?
There you go.
They have their opinion shows.
I'll criticize them for their opinions, I think are bad.
In fact, Tucker Carlson said he wouldn't do that to Maddow because she's allowed to have her opinions.
He just disagrees with her, and that's a fair point.
But when a news organization is supposed to be giving you facts, but instead they purposefully mislead you, Don't be surprised when you get this from Gallup approval for the news media during the coronavirus pandemic at 44% where Donald Trump is at 60%.
That's right.
The bombastic crude and crass president who just went on, you know, his press briefing and railed on the press has a higher approval rating than the media does.
There's a lot of reasons for this.
Some say it's because the left thinks the media isn't going hard enough on Trump.
Some think it's because, you know, on the right say it's because the media is lying, so the media is in a bad position anyway.
I disagree.
I think if you're honest in media, you will do just fine.
If you don't insult the intelligence of your audience, you will do just fine.
We recently saw the New York Times run defense for Joe Biden, removing Uh, information, because there have been allegations against Joe Biden.
They removed it from the story after the fact, and we found out later it's because they said, here's what they said, they said the campaign thought it was confusing or something like that, or it confused the issue.
Why does it matter what the campaign thinks?
Oh, because the media isn't here to just tell you the truth.
They're here to pony up to special interests, be it advertisers, be it politicians, and they want to make that money.
Is it possible that Joe Biden says, I won't advertise with you if you make me look bad?
Maybe.
You know Donald Trump plays similar games.
The point is, when we hear it from Chris Cuomo, who's basically on top at CNN, that he doesn't value this, there's a breakdown coming.
The media cannot sustain this absurd hyper-partisan culture war.
Not the way the people on the internet can.
But I'll tell you one thing.
These social media companies that have been banning conservatives, and they have been, well, they made a serious mistake.
I was wondering why it is that so many conservatives, moderates, and moderates agree, both, you know, Democratic and Republican moderates, and I think it's because the more fringy elements of the right have been purged completely, and then you look at the left, they've gone insane, and the media just lets them run rampant with their weird lies.
Recently, Mike Certovich's documentary, Hoaxed, was removed from Amazon Prime Instant, you know, the instant, whatever you call it.
When you go on Amazon, you can find the hard copy DVD to buy, but they removed it so you can't view it on your, you know, over-the-top devices in your house, your smart TV.
Why would they do that?
Why is it that there is an allowed media apparatus and there is a disallowed media?
Why is it that certain voices on YouTube will be banned outright, on Twitter banned outright, but many people on the left are ignored?
I can't tell you other than it's bias, but I'll tell you what the result is.
The result is people like Chris Cuomo being pressured to go increasingly insane.
Rachel Maddow claiming the Russians are going to turn off your electricity in the winter.
Oh!
She actually did that!
I love bringing that up, by the way.
Chris Cuomo can't compete with that, because he knows it's insane.
And so eventually he just snaps and says, I don't want to do this!
And I don't blame him.
I wouldn't want to do it either.
A lot of people accuse me of being, you know, on the right, or of pandering or whatever.
Dude, let me tell you something.
I know how the game is played.
I know that if I came out and gave stupid, extreme opinions, and reinforced certain people no matter what they did, I know.
That I would get substantially more views.
I can see the other channels, I can see the views they get, and I'm surprised at how high they rank on Apple Podcasts and how well they do.
And you know what?
I don't care.
If you don't like what I have to say, ain't nothing I can do about it.
I'm not gonna pretend I don't care.
If all of this came crashing down around me, I'm not gonna lie, cheat, or steal to try and get more views.
I'm gonna get, you know, get in my van, go off to the woods, and hang out and smell the flowers.
But there are some people who absolutely would lie, cheat, and steal.
I'm glad to see that there is a red line for Chris Cuomo, but you can still see many people in media who don't have one.
They have no scruples.
They just want to make money.
They will say whatever needs to be said.
They will lie whenever they need to, if it benefits them.
We've seen it in leaked emails from journalists ponying up political campaigns, and we've seen it, or we've heard it, from undercover videos from groups like Project Veritas.
They know the company is bad.
They'll work there anyway.
I get it, man.
I'm not gonna rag on the lower-level staff at these companies.
People need jobs.
But I'll tell you what, maybe start looking for a new one if you think you are violating your principles.
Perhaps it's time to stop.
That's about it, I guess.
We'll see how this plays out with CNN and the rest of the media.
I'll leave it there.
Next segment's coming up at 6 p.m.
YouTube.com slash TimCastNews.
It is a different channel.
Thanks for hanging out.
I'll see you then.
Yesterday at Donald Trump's press briefing, he used his time to tear into the mainstream media much more harshly than he's ever done.
He even brought a video where it shows his administration's response early on, the good things he was doing, and it shows the mainstream media downplaying the coronavirus, pushing back on the narrative they put out.
And for this, the media has gotten triggered.
And they are having a complete ego narcissistic meltdown.
I love how they criticize Trump for all the same things they do.
But listen.
Donald Trump is an individual.
He's the president, so what he says is very important, and I think it should be scrutinized much more so than the average person.
But he's still just one person with an opinion.
Obama had opinions, Bush had opinions, Clinton had opinions.
They're people who say things, and if the journalists want clarification, they can ask for it.
There's a lot of reasons to not like Trump.
Yes, he speaks, he's quite uncouth, and to say the least, he has character defects.
But why should I give the media a pass?
They're supposed to be the ones shining a light through the darkness.
They don't do that.
They do literally the exact same thing.
Here's- I'll tell you what, though.
When Donald Trump says something, I'll roll my eyes.
Whatever.
He's a dude.
When major multi-billion dollar institutions, or a major billion dollar industry, trillion dollar- I mean, how big is journalism?
Starts having temper tantrums and screeching that the orange man was mean to me!
Ooh!
What are you doing?
So you got a problem with Trump?
He's one guy.
So say you got a problem with him.
What are you going to do?
You're going to write article after article.
They all collectively screech into the wind like whiny children.
This is not your job.
The president always pushes back.
Obama slammed Fox News.
Welcome to the real world.
Your job is just to tell us what's going on.
The funny thing about all this Is media companies having a total temper tantrum?
Like, CNN has basically become the Fox News review channel.
I'm, like, looking at the CNN media reporters, and they're just tweeting about what Fox is saying, and it's not even that bad.
What are you doing, man?
Grow up and start reporting the news, because they actually... You got some people from CNN trying to, like, make Fox look bad.
When Fox was actually just showing Trump's quotes while CNN was having a temper tantrum, whiny baby meltdown.
Let me show you.
Let me show you what we got here.
Here's from The Guardian.
I got a couple of stories I pulled up.
Wounded by media scrutiny, Trump turned a briefing into a presidential tantrum.
Sure, maybe.
I don't care.
But, Guardian, this isn't an opinion piece.
This is an actual news article from your politics section.
Calling it a presidential tantrum is an opinion.
You can say Donald Trump used his time to give a scathing rebuke of the press.
You could say Donald Trump slams media.
You could say Donald Trump uses press briefing to criticize media.
Those are all statements of fact.
Saying that he had a presidential tantrum is an editorialization.
Why don't you label it such?
Oh, it's because you're having a whiny baby tantrum too.
Is that it?
Check this one out.
The Washington Post politics section.
The me president.
Trump uses pandemic briefing to focus on himself.
Come on.
Look, I don't know what they think they're supposed to be doing, but... Oh, we're providing this story for free?
Oh, thank you, Washington Post!
Please note, the Washington Post is providing this story for free so that all readers have access to this important information about the coronavirus.
You pathetic, whiny babies having a temper tantrum.
This is not an analysis or an editorial or an opinion piece.
It's an article for free because of the importance of the coronavirus in their politics section.
And once again, an editorialization.
Now there's more.
CNN almost gets close, saying, fact check, a list of the false claims from Trump's bitter coronavirus briefing.
That's the best I've seen so far.
I guess you could call it bitter, but that's still an editorialization.
Fine, I'll give CNN a pass on this one.
It's an adjective.
But wait till you see the tweets from what they did on TV.
And then, of course, we have this video from The Guardian.
The coronavirus propaganda video Trump played to the media.
If that video Trump played was propaganda, which sure, you could say it is, so are you.
All of you.
That's all you're doing right now.
The media is just total garbage in this country.
So you know what?
It's actually very emotionally satisfying to see Trump rip into the press as often as he does, because I'm sick and tired of them being such pathetic, whiny losers.
The president is one guy.
You can criticize him, you can say this thing's fine, but all the media does is twist and manipulate.
And then when Trump gets all angry and puts a video up, they do the exact same thing.
So if you think I'm supposed to be mad at Trump, fine.
That's great.
I'm mad at you more because you are all doing it.
So while Trump is one guy I can wag my finger at, I look at the media and I gotta wag my finger like 8,000 times.
So who gets it worse?
You're an industry, you're supposed to be professionals.
If somebody who doesn't like you says a mean word, you don't have a baby temper tantrum and start putting opinion pieces up as fact.
But that brings me to CNN's trash.
First.
Oliver Darcy of CNN tweets.
CNN chyron.
Angry Trump turns briefing into propaganda session.
That's not news, CNN!
That's your opinion!
Angry Trump turns briefing into propaganda session.
You could put something like, Trump session, uh, you know, Trump criticizes media during press briefing.
Here's his next tweet.
Once again, not statements of fact.
That's your opinion.
You don't know what Trump is trying to do.
force briefing to try and rewrite history on coronavirus response. Once again, not statements
of fact. That's your opinion. You don't know what Trump is trying to do. You can't read his mind.
This is what these journalists don't understand anymore.
They're not journalists, they're activists.
I mean, you look at Oliver Darcy and Brian Stelter, and they're basically the Fox News Review Channel.
You ever see, like, Mystery Science Theater 3000 or whatever?
Where, like, they're watching the movie, and they're sitting in front of it, and they're commenting on it?
That's basically what CNN's media team has become.
unidentified
They watch Fox News, and they're like, huh, did you see what they put in the chyron?
Oliver says, meanwhile on Fox, and it's a screenshot.
You know the chyron on Fox?
That's the lower banner thing.
It says Trump, quote, I think we're going to go boom.
Are you criticizing Fox for simply quoting what the president said in their chyron?
That I find absolutely hilarious.
Fox News doing what journalism is supposed to do, give you a basic statement of fact to give you context about what's happening, or to just show the quotes from the president.
But of course, CNN wants you to editorialize.
You must agree with our opinions!
Otherwise, we're gonna cry all day.
Aww, poor babies.
Here we go.
Here's what I tweeted about Stelter and Darcy.
Why are we getting a play-by-play of Fox's banners?
Trump did say... Let me show you an actual tweet before.
The tweet Brian Stelter tweeted out.
Fox banner, quote, Trump says he has authority to reopen states.
Fox guessed, Judge Napolitano, the governors have the authority, 10th Amendment, constitutional law, etc.
Fox adjusts the banner, who has authority to reopen the states?
Why are you tweeting this to me, Brian Stelter?
I know you're not tweeting it to me, but why are you tweeting it at all?
So let me get this straight.
Fox quotes Trump, or paraphrases what Trump said, which is the journalistic thing to do.
Trump says he has the authority to reopen the states.
A Fox guest, actually a contributor to the network, Judge Napolitano, says Trump is wrong.
Oh, thank you.
Thank you for the correction, Judge Napolitano.
I greatly respect your work.
So Fox adjusts the banner.
Who has the authority to reopen the states?
Once again, not asserting a fact because they can't because it's conflicted.
You mean to tell me... Now look, Brian Seltzer didn't say it was good or bad.
I just don't know why he's tweeting it.
But thank you for shining a positive light on Fox News.
This I really don't understand.
Now maybe it's just because Trump is a Republican, he's in office, so Fox is gonna, you know, this happens all the time.
They'll go after Obama when it's the Democrat.
They'll go after, you know, the mainstream media goes after Trump when it's the Republican.
But why are you tweeting this at all?
Why am I even following Brian Seltzer at this point if all he does is just give a play-by-play of Fox News?
Which, if I wanted to, I could be watching.
Thank you for your effort.
But then look what people say.
It's like, the responses to this are as though it's a negative thing.
Like, ugh, Fox News.
More like faux news.
He didn't even say any criticisms of them.
So here's what I responded with.
Trump did say that.
Napolitano challenged it.
Fox changed it.
What?
CNN is becoming the Fox News review channel.
Good work, guys.
That's what you're doing.
What am I supposed to think about this?
You've got CNN, The Guardian, The New York Times, all these outlets are taking everything from Trump so personally, they are dancing like puppets on strings.
Jon Stewart, the famous Jon Stewart, said in an interview that Trump attacks their narcissistic people.
And so when Trump targets them, they take it personally, and then they go after Trump personally.
You know why CNN did this?
Actually, did I pull these up already?
Oh, I didn't actually show you the banners from CNN.
I'm sorry.
Look at this.
Four banners on CNN over the last five minutes.
The first one.
Angry Trump turns briefing into propaganda session.
The next one.
Trump refuses to acknowledge any mistakes.
Trump uses task force briefing to try and rewrite history on coronavirus response.
Trump melts down in angry response to reports he ignored virus warnings.
You know why CNN's doing this?
These aren't statements of fact.
These are opinions.
Let me try and turn these chyrons into facts for the journalists who no longer are journalists.
The activists who think they are journalists.
Angry Trump.
First of all, get rid of angry.
I mean, you don't necessarily need it.
You say, Trump uses a briefing session to criticize press.
There you go.
You can say Trump is angry, I suppose.
It's difficult, though, because trying to figure out the right way to describe an emotion could be editorializing.
So, Donald Trump criticizes press in briefing.
There's the fact.
How about this one?
Trump refuses to acknowledge any mistakes is totally irrelevant.
What could you say?
Trump shows video of timeline, you know, of administration effort.
Other than that, it's editorialization.
Here for the next one.
There you go.
Same thing I already said.
And the last one.
Just get rid of that altogether!
Has nothing to do with anything.
You know why CNN's doing this?
Because there's someone at CNN who's going, You said a mean thing about me!
And they're getting all angry.
So their response to what Donald Trump says is to feel that they want to feel emotionally satisfied by putting these chyrons up.
CNN, I mean, I'll be honest, there's probably a business guy, you know, sitting back smoking a cigar being like, people are gonna love it because we're ragging on the orange man.
Orange man gives us ratings.
That's really what it's all about.
But there's people like Jeff Zucker, for instance.
He's the president of CNN or whatever.
I don't know what his position is.
We saw from Project Veritas in an undercover video that he has an emote, like he is personally upset over the election of Donald Trump because he chased after the Trump bump, giving Trump all of these ratings and propping him up and helped him get elected.
He really did.
There were points, apparently, where CNN would just air Trump rallies in full because the ratings were so good.
He loved it.
And now he's personally embarrassed by it.
So he's an angry, whiny, little crybaby who, instead of reporting the news now, has to feel good by going, look what I did.
I showed you Trump.
You said mean things about me.
I'll say mean things about you.
The media is supposed to be professional.
Donald Trump can have a tantrum if he wants to have a tantrum.
He can pout and complain about the press all day and night, all he wants.
And the press should be professional.
Instead, this is what we get.
But you know what?
Donald Trump doesn't get off the hook on this one either.
He's getting some pretty heavy criticism from Robbie Suave of Reason.com, who said, I am far from a knee-jerk critic of Trump, but this press briefing has to be one of the most embarrassing moments of his presidency.
Just an utterly unhinged childish temper tantrum.
Trump should be confidently reassuring the American people, and he actually has some good news to deliver.
Instead, he's essentially screaming, you are a lie at the reporters.
Well, I'm not as critical of Trump for doing this for the reasons I've stated.
If he wants to complain about the press, fine, there is some satisfaction in seeing fake news get slammed.
Because I'll tell you what, when Trump comes out and says, this is what these people do, and then like clockwork, they go and do it, I'm sorry.
You know, part of me, I am angry at the press too.
So, so listen.
Trump's job as president isn't necessarily going to be to give you 100% honesty all the time.
Shocking, I know.
I can already see the journalists saying, Tim Pool says Trump must lie.
No.
But there's something called confidential Top secret, you know, things the president can't talk about.
It's also a fact that politicians try to do damage control.
The point is, I don't like the fact that politicians lie and withhold information.
I understand that some information can't be released for national security reasons.
Fine, I'm willing to accept that.
And I also recognize this is what politicians do.
You see, as an adult, someone who is 34 and who has lived a life watching politicians lie, Who has been told his entire life politicians lie.
I see Donald Trump and I see him lie.
Now I will tell you what, often he's wrong and they'll call it a lie and then sometimes he lies and it seems absurd like he lies about stupid things and then blurts out things that he probably should lie about.
The most famous one was when he came out at the helicopter and he was like, we're gonna sell all these weapons to Saudi Arabia, they're gonna pay great, it's awesome.
The anti-war left just collectively dropped their jaws like, he's saying the loud part quiet and the quiet part loud.
The Intercept called him the most honest president we've ever had, simultaneously the most dishonest.
So the point is, look man, All presidents do this.
I see nothing special.
When the media comes out and says Trump is lying again, I'm like, I don't care.
Like, I get it, man.
It's a journalist's job to not sit there and complain about the orange, man, but to fact check what he is doing and saying.
Instead of doing that, what do they say?
They use their actual newspaper, not the opinion section, to write angry, pouty, baby temper tantrums.
So yes, Robbie, I can agree that Trump shouldn't be doing these things, but my end thought is, so what?
It's Trump.
We know who Trump is.
We know what he does.
There are many things he's done he should not have done.
And I'm surprised he's done them.
Of which, yes, having this knee-jerk, or whatever you want to call it, anti-press session, he shouldn't have done that.
But you know what?
He's probably frustrated because the press keeps lying.
This is not how you solve the problem.
It's what I refer to as the Chinese finger trap problem, right?
Trump thinks I know, I'll put on a video showing that I was right the whole time.
Why?
Who's going to show it to the American people?
No, it's fair to say Trump tweeted it out.
So he's working to bypass them.
I can respect that.
This, eh, he could've done better.
I'm not.
But ultimately, ultimately I just don't care.
You know, I know who Trump is as a person.
I know the things he does.
I know the things he says.
He is crude and he is crass.
Whatever.
I'll get over it.
But how are we supposed to function if the news industry is the exact same way?
Then we're not getting real information.
We're getting whiny temper tantrums.
You know, I have so much more to go through on this, but I think it's probably better if I save the next bits for another segment.
But I'll just tell you what.
You may have seen the New York Times the other day defending Joe Biden.
This is why I actually like, within reason, Donald Trump slamming the press.
Because the New York times just protected the Biden campaign and not just protected it.
They were apparently look, look what it says.
New York times executive editor appears to admit edit on Biden.
Sexual assault allegation came after pressure from the Biden campaign.
There it is.
There's a lot of stories having to do with the media right now.
Chris Cuomo, I believe it was, went on a rant about how he hates his job and finds no value in what he does.
Hey man, that's exactly what I'm talking about.
The New York Times took 19 days to report on an accusation.
No one's covering these accusations from Tara Reid, but they went nuts with Brett Kavanaugh.
The media is a propaganda manipulation machine, and they're crying right now because Trump has called them out.
That's really what it's all about, isn't it?
I get it.
You know what it is?
They see a mirror in Donald Trump and they don't like it.
Everything that Trump is and is doing, he's a media guy just like they are.
And they're angry because he's controlling the narrative better than they are.
They see themselves and it disgusts them.
They looked into a mirror and they saw it was on the other side.
Their own twisted, disfigured, propagandistic faces.
They do the exact same thing, man.
The New York Times is not working to inform you.
The New York Times writes articles to protect a credibly accused man, Joe Biden.
But how many articles do they write about Brett Kavanaugh?
In this breakdown, and my props, my respect to Ben Smith, formerly of BuzzFeed, I mean it, he actually asked a bunch of questions of Dean Beckett of the New York Times, and pointing out that when Julie Swetnick accused Brett Kavanaugh the same day the New York Times wrote a story about it.
The same day.
Where was the New York Times with Tara Reade?
Nowhere to be found.
Why?
Because they are slimebag propaganda outlets.
So while I can appreciate Ben Smith challenging Dean Beckett, the executive editor of the New York Times, I have to wonder why he would want to work for such an organization.
Now, I get it.
It's probably a good thing he's there if he's going to call them out like this.
And now we get to see, you know, the mask slip a little bit.
But ultimately, I question why anyone would want to work for any of these companies when they lie like this.
I didn't want to.
It's why I didn't go back.
I worked for Fusion, which is ABC News Univision.
I thought that they were twisted people.
They wanted me to side with the audience.
Afterwards, I started going around to a bunch of these other digital, you know, journalism companies.
I had worked for Vice previously.
Everybody wanted to hire me.
And I saw the exact same thing at every single outlet.
They are petulant, whiny children, and they only ever want to just push their feelings.
Their feelings.
Instead of just telling you what's really going on.
I understand the irony of me complaining and whining about the media about how the media whines.
But I'll make one thing clear for you.
Yes, Tim Pool is a commentary channel.
There is some journalistic work that comes with what I do.
I fact check many of the stories I comment on.
I call it the media for lying often, so I'm essentially, you know, for the most part, a media critic and political commentator.
But there is journalism in there.
In that I try and find out what the source of their claims are and do general fact-checking.
But I would consider myself, for the most part, political commentary.
And that means, like any other person with a political opinion or a cultural opinion, it's more cultural when I criticize the media, There's a difference between what the press is supposed to be doing and what an opinion columnist is doing.
If these newspapers wrote op-eds that were like, we don't like what Trump did, I'd say, well, it's an opinion piece.
What do you want to do?
And often many outlets have opinion pieces from varying, you know, political opinions.
It happens.
So I've even read op-eds from, you know, CNN and said, you know, there it is.
CNN criticizing or CNN said op-eds praising the president periodically.
But what I don't like is when they use news and claim it's fact to manipulate and to whine like little babies.
That's what they're doing right now.
Those articles weren't op-eds.
It didn't say analysis.
It said politics.
They're supposed to be reporting, but they're injecting their opinions because Trump hurt their feelings and it makes them angry.
So to satisfy their emotional drive, they do the same thing right back.
They deserve each other.
I'll tell you what though, again, Trump is a person.
Trump has emotions.
I'm not a big fan of his behavior, but I'm not going to cry that a president is, you know, I don't know, erratic or, or might lie or whatever.
I don't care.
The press isn't supposed to be doing that, but I'll tell you what, we don't have a press anymore.
They are, they are the same mirror image of everything they think they're criticizing.
They, they, I'll leave it there.
Next segment's coming up at 1 PM on this channel, and I will see you all then.
We're in the midst of a major pandemic.
People are losing their lives.
It's getting pretty scary.
We're also facing a major economic crisis, which is also getting scary.
And all of this is happening in an election year, which is freaky and weird.
Which brings me to the subject of this segment.
Joe Rogan discussing on his podcast, Joe Biden versus Donald Trump.
And he likened it to Mike Tyson versus a three-year-old.
And yes, we all know who the Mike Tyson is in that Analogy, Donald Trump is going to mop the floor with Joe Biden.
His guest said it's like it's going to be like a comedy central roast.
Yeah, Joe's completely right.
When asked by his guest about whether or not he would have more political guests on because, you know, Joe Rogan had on Bernie, people really liked it.
Joe basically says no, because when he goes through this, the media, the establishment try to smear him and make him seem like a right-wing dude.
This is where things get interesting.
I definitely want to read you through this story about what he said about Biden and Mike Tyson.
But I want to show you something fascinating.
You see, Joe Rogan recently said he'd rather vote for Donald Trump over Joe Biden.
The important factor there is over Joe Biden, not for Trump.
What he's basically saying, and he clarified, he'd vote for Whoopi Goldberg over Joe Biden.
He'd vote for Mike Tyson over Joe Biden.
The Mike Tyson analogy is coming out strong in the past week, huh?
He's basically saying, and I'll read you the quote, that Joe Biden, he says this, suffering or dealing with early stage dementia, you can't have that guy be in the most stressful position in the world.
Joe Rogan says something truly fascinating.
Check this out.
Dan Crenshaw is a politician.
Let me read you this.
They say over the weekend, Rogan went viral with an excerpt from his podcast with guest Eric Weinstein.
The clip in question found the podcast host affirming he'd vote for Donald Trump over Joe Biden, which of course sparked a healthy amount of debate and backlash.
In Rogan's latest podcast episode, 1454 with Dan Crenshaw, Rogan dives back into the political talk and clarifies his remarks from the last episode.
Crenshaw is a politician himself and former United States Navy SEAL and spoke to Rogan about the government's approach to COVID-19 as well as the presidential race among other things.
Quote, I'm on the left, but I find myself more and more getting confused, Joe Rogan tells Crenshaw, who himself leans more to the right.
I know what you're feeling, man.
I totally agree.
Let me show you a story from Vox, July 2019.
Then I want to go to his comments about Mike Tyson.
We'll have a little bit of fun with it and we'll make fun of the system.
But check out this story.
Democrats are learning the wrong lesson from Donald Trump.
He ran as a moderate and it worked.
I'll tell you why people like Joe are probably getting confused.
I don't want to speak for him.
I don't know what he's thinking.
But when I hear people like Joe say, I'm on the left, but I'm confused, you know, I'm getting more and more confused.
I'll tell you what, man, I have tons of friends who lifelong progressive lefties.
And then as soon as you start talking to them about what's going on, they start sounding conservative because Trump as a moderate is called far right by much of the press and the activist base.
Look, Trump did run as a moderate on many, many things.
He was more nationalistic, and I don't want to say far-right because it doesn't really make a whole lot of sense, but there were a few things he went completely overboard on, in my opinion.
But for the most part, when you even look at the New York Times, they say that Donald Trump pulled the Republican Party a teeny bit to the left.
And Vox is even saying it right now.
So when you hear all day and night from the activists in media, and I'm not talking about all the journalists, I'm talking about the weird high profile ones who tend to dominate political discourse, that Trump is far right.
We just had someone, Kyle Kalinske, progressive, I think he's a good dude, said that he's not going to support Biden.
And if you want to blame him, by all means, go ahead and blame him.
And then you can think about how you need to get his support in the future to win.
Excellent point.
To which another high-profile political activist said something like Trump was a white nationalist.
It's absolutely insane when even Vox's Matthew Iglesias will say Trump is a moderate.
This leaves many center-left and moderate-type people being like, I don't get it anymore because I thought I was on the left.
I don't know why they're doing it, but these leftists are sabotaging themselves by accusing Trump of being far to the right.
Because then you'll end up with people like Joe Rogan saying, I was on the left, but you know, I'm getting more and more confused.
I want to make sure I read you the full context of what Joe is saying.
He's basically saying he'd vote for anyone over Biden.
I try to be fair.
But let's check out this because the lead story is actually a bit funny.
Joe Rogan on Trump-Biden matchup like Mike Tyson versus a three-year-old.
Podcast host Joe Rogan and comedian Brendan Schaub, who used to be an MMA fighter, went off on Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden late last week, saying that President Donald Trump is going to steamroll Biden in the election.
Quote, It shows you how crazy the system is, that they wanted him, Rogan said, that they wanted Biden to be their guy, that they don't, they can't admit he's in cognitive decline.
I mean, it's very strange.
He said, look, if someone wants to ask me questions about things that I understand, like MMA or like comedy, like if you want to ask me questions about things that I think about and talk about all the time, I could talk to you and really clearly, I could talk to you and really clearly about those things and make a lot of sense, Rogan continued.
Biden can't do that about politics, and he's been a politician forever.
He's a guy who's suffering.
Schaub says, there's no way he beats Trump.
He doesn't beat Trump, Rogan responded.
No, those two face off.
Trump's going to light them up like a Comedy Central roast, Schaub said.
That was, I love that comment.
That made me laugh the most.
It is.
Trump is going to go nuts on Biden.
Biden's going to, man, I almost don't want to see it.
It's kind of sad.
I think Trump might actually— I think we know Trump could light him up like a Comedy Central roast.
I honestly think Trump is going to be shaking his head, being like, this is not okay, man.
You know, because Biden's going to be sitting there shaking and muttering and mumbling, and Trump's going to be like, this is not acceptable.
Like, why are you putting on the stage like this?
What are you doing to this man, you know?
He said, quote, Trump's already dismissing Biden, Rogan said.
He's going to destroy him.
He's going to kill him, man.
I mean, it's such an easy target.
It's like Mike Tyson versus a three-year-old.
Here's the best part, though.
It's the beginning.
Check this out.
Joe Rogan said, it's a weird time because it's right before the election.
You know, election comes in November.
Imagine if this S was going on right now and the election was next week.
Brendan says, your boy Bernie dropped out.
Rogan replies, yep, it's a wrap.
There it is.
Look, I don't think Bernie could have beat Trump, but come on man, Joe Biden?
I can say it 50 million times.
Schaub said Biden ain't beating Trump.
Nope.
That's your best.
That's your guy.
Rogan says it shows you how crazy the system is.
That's the part we read.
Now check this out.
You want to talk about how absolutely insane it is.
Joe Rogan is a guy who typically finds himself on the left.
He thought he, or you know, he says he is, he thinks he is.
There are a lot of things he's actually on the right about.
I think Joe's actually just kind of a slightly center-left moderate kind of guy.
Interestingly, very, very pro-Bernie for a lot of reasons.
And Joe actually, as far as I know, the last time I heard him talk about it.
I'm pretty sure he's fairly pro universal basic income.
So he's a pretty lefty guy on a lot of issues.
He's a little bit more conservative on some issues.
I think he's rather pro 2A.
But here's what's fascinating.
Check this out.
Breaking news.
I didn't want to do a breaking news segment, but check it out.
This is breaking news.
Obama set to endorse Biden's White House bid.
The forthcoming endorsement was confirmed by the former president's aides and Biden campaign officials.
Are these people nuts?
I get it, man.
What else can you do?
Barack Obama waited until there was nothing else to be done and then endorsed Joe Biden.
Now, there are some rumors that when Bernie started doing really well, Barack Obama intervened and basically went to these other Democrats like Buttigieg and Klobuchar and said, drop out, endorse Biden, we can't have this.
And there were rumors before that Obama said he would absolutely intervene if it looked like Bernie was doing well.
They really, really don't want Bernie.
But that shows you it's not about what the American people want.
It's supposed to be.
It's not.
It's about what the establishment wants.
And the establishment wants to lose more than they want Bernie to win.
Or maybe there's a better way to put it.
They would rather lose.
It's preferable to them than to see a Bernie Sanders victory.
They don't want that guy.
I mean, there's some reasons that it's fair to point out.
Bernie Sanders isn't a Democrat.
He's always been an Independent.
And he's a Socialist.
And the far left is encroaching on the Democratic Party.
But ultimately, it shouldn't matter.
I don't like the idea that private organizations, the parties, dominate our presidential system, our political system, for whatever reason.
That's how it is.
And it's a problem.
So if the people say they want Bernie Sanders, then so be it.
Now I do think it's fair to point out, Bernie lost, so the people didn't want him.
But to see them endorse Joe Biden and everyone get behind a guy who everyone knows is not all there.
Fascinating.
Isn't it truly fascinating?
But let's jump back over to Joe Rogan's comments.
Now, I do have to make one more point.
I do find it silly when I do videos about Joe, because he does something... I'm not trying to compare what we do in any sense, like, Joe's got the biggest podcast in the world.
Cool dude, comedian, world famous, but he is one of the most influential people speaking about culture and politics.
Whether he likes it or not.
So when he does a show and reaches all of these people, it's significantly influential.
I understand there are similar things, you know, based on how many people I reach.
I certainly don't reach nearly as many people as he does, but I get it.
When I look at Joe making these comments, I see something similar to how I view the world.
I like listening to his podcast because I'm like, dude, I agree.
You know what I mean?
When he says Biden's in cognitive decline, it just sounds like something we all know.
And then when he says, you know, I'll read the quote again.
I'm on the left, but I find myself more and more getting confused," Rogan tells Crenshaw, who himself leans more to the right.
Dude, I felt that way a couple years ago.
It's the exact same way so many of my friends felt.
I look at the policies the Democrats were pushing, you know, what, eight years ago.
And I'm like, I thought that all made sense.
Now we're at a point where they're not even arguing for these policies anymore.
I'll tell you what the weirdest thing is to me about all of this.
Is there even a policy discussion happening at this point?
What does it mean to be left or right?
It used to be like pro-life, pro-choice, progressive tax, flat tax, more tax, low tax, small government, big government, government expansion.
Those arguments don't even exist anymore.
So, some people have argued there's a new left and a new right, and that it's just tribal, and policy has nothing to do with it.
And if that's the case, then people like me and Rogan would technically be on the right, even though Rogan supports Bernie Sanders.
I mean, you look at the Bernie supporters, they're being accused of propping up Donald Trump by refusing to support Biden.
You look at some of the policies that, you know, Trump has pushed recently, and you've actually had some progressives laughing and supporting Trump.
Trump entertained the possibility, I want to be very careful here, Of expanding Medicare to uninsured people, and all of a sudden all these Bernie people on Twitter were like, do it Trump, do it!
Like, it would be hilarious!
Because the establishment Democrats didn't want to do it.
Trump ran as a moderate, even Vox says so.
So how do you, how does someone reconcile that when they're being told that Trump is far-right, and you're like, Trump's not that bad, I agree with some of the things he's done.
All of a sudden now, you must also be right-wing or far-right.
But back to the main point.
When was the last time there was a sit-down between like a Democrat and a Republican and they argued over a flat tax or small government?
It doesn't happen anymore.
We've been so entrenched in cultural issues and personality issues that really the left and the right today almost has nothing to do with policy.
I mean, take a look at me for instance.
I rag on the Democrats all the time.
It's like basically what I rag on.
Granted, we're in the midst of this major election cycle and I'm no fan of them.
And I was a big fan of Andrew Yang.
So was Joe Rogan.
Yet, they call him right-wing when he interviews Bernie Sanders or says he likes Bernie Sanders.
They call him all these really awful names.
They do similar things to me.
Where are any of us supposed to sit?
Like, I don't even understand how the system functions anymore.
There is no left.
There is no right.
Nothing makes sense.
But I guess we can all agree that Donald Trump will mop the floor with Joe Biden.
But let me read you this quote from Joe, because he wanted to clarify his point about Trump.
He said it's more of a mystery now because I said I wouldn't vote for Biden.
I said I would vote for Trump over Biden.
All these people went crazy.
But let me be clear.
I'd vote for Whoopi Goldberg over Joe Biden.
I'd vote for Mike Tyson over Joe Biden.
I just don't think it's a good idea to take someone who's struggling with dementia and put him in one of the most stressful positions the world has ever known.
That's what I'm saying.
It's not an endorsement of Trump as it is me saying you shouldn't have a man who is clearly, clearly in the throes of dementia.
I mean, I'm not a doctor, but when you can't form sentences in public and you forgot what you're talking about and you wander off in these conversations, if you're not smoking pot, if you're not high, if you're not on pills, what's going on?
There's cognitive decline.
He's an older man that has mental issues.
Not to be cruel to him, he's suffering medically.
It's a real issue.
And the Democrats want to sweep that under the rug, and Trump is already chewing him apart.
He's already dismissing him.
I completely agree.
Many people have kept asking me, at what point would I support Donald Trump?
They were like, what would it take for you to vote for Trump?
A few months ago I said something like, if you appointed Tulsi Gabbard to a national security position of some sort, maybe an advisor, had Andrew Yang as an economic or policy advisor, and then withdrew troops from the Middle East, I'd probably walk right in with a smile on my face and slam that vote down for Trump.
Because those are the things I truly care about.
Andrew Yang has a bunch of really amazing policy ideas.
goes hand in hand with Tulsi Gabbard as an advisor because I think she'd do great.
Many conservatives have said something similar, which is also weird.
It's like, hey, we agree.
She's a progressive.
Andrew Yang has a bunch of really amazing policy ideas.
Now I am, I am not happy that both of them have endorsed Joe Biden.
I don't get it.
I would... You know what, man?
Look, I can respect that they both said they would support the nominee, you know?
I'm sorry.
I would never say that, and I would never do that.
If I came out and said, look, here are my policy plans, and they would be very similar to Andrew Yang, minus the UBI stuff, probably.
I like what he's thinking.
I'd want to play around with some of those ideas he's had.
But he's got a ton of really amazing policy positions on everything else.
Very comprehensive, very well thought out mission statement.
Tulsi Gabbard, of course, the anti-war position for the most part.
But if it were me, and someone asked me, would you endorse the nominee?
I'd be like, nope, because if it's Joe Biden, sorry, it ain't gonna happen.
And voters feel that way.
When they did the polling, they found even Andrew Yang's supporters, around half of them said they would not vote for the nominee unless it was Yang.
I agree with that.
I think most people in this country don't expect you to just throw your weight behind somebody who clearly can't be the president.
It's absolutely baffling to me.
So for me, right now, people have asked, again, what would it take for me to vote for Donald Trump?
Well, the bar's been lowered substantially.
I don't have TDS.
I am no crazy person.
I am a regular American, sort of.
But I'm fairly moderate politically.
You know, my interests, my focus lies more on global affairs, foreign policy.
Domestic policy is beyond my area of expertise in many ways.
Now, of course, I'm very critical of left-wing You know, fiscal policy in many different respects, but I'm rather pro-social justice in the non-authoritarian respects.
So I look to Donald Trump and I look at his candor, his demeanor.
I don't like it.
To me, that's not disqualifying within reason.
I would prefer a president who didn't speak the way that Donald Trump did, but when it comes to policy issues, when it comes to bringing our factories back from China, what can I say?
He was right when it comes to border security.
He's holding a position that Democrats have held for decades and all of a sudden just abandoned.
The bigger issue right now is, look man, I don't know.
All I know is Trump's a potty mouth, and to me, I don't care if he is.
Alright, there's some issues with that.
I don't care if people laugh at us.
I don't care if other countries in the world are making fun of the United States.
I really don't care about their opinions.
I don't care!
Is Donald Trump an effective president?
I'll tell you what, I can say definitively yes in certain areas.
And you know what the problem is?
Instead of the Democrats coming out and having a policy argument They've just tried pushing scandals and insults.
So here I can— I'll tell you what I know.
I know that Donald Trump is nasty.
I know that he's orange.
I know that he says mean things.
I don't care about any of that.
I know that he said China had our manufacturing and that was bad, and he said it for a decade or longer, and now something's being done about it, and he was right considering what's going on with the pandemic.
I know that he was right about border security because even Bernie Sanders has repeated it, so what am I supposed to conclude?
I'll tell you what, man.
I am a moderate voter looking for someone, and you've got to make a good argument to me.
Right now, the Democrats have made no such argument other than the president is a bad person.
Yeah, I don't care.
Barack Obama killed a kid.
You think, listen, you want me to vote for somebody, and you just had a guy who had a drone to go blow up a 16-year-old American, and you think I'm gonna be complaining about Trump's potty mouth?
I mean, I'll complain about both of these things, one substantially worse.
So you're trying to convince me who to vote for.
Man, I don't know.
Make a policy argument.
They didn't.
They did not.
So right now, I'll tell you what's happening.
You got Donald Trump with a few victories under his belt that I can recognize, and Joe Biden who says, mumble for Bridgel-Gerdigel-Schmidt.
I have no idea what that means.
When Biden goes, you know, you come out and the policies and we got shortages with the oatmeal and the cars.
But I'm sitting here, man, and look, you got a guy like Trump, and the way he talks and the way he acts, I don't like it.
I really don't.
I would prefer not to vote for the guy.
But if you put him up against Joe Biden, and I'm staring down the barrel of a guy who can't think at all, Who's clearly in cognitive decline.
You're freaking me out now, man.
I might much rather prefer a potty mouth dude over someone who's going to accidentally press the button.
You know, the nukes.
It's funny that they said, you know, over and over again about Donald Trump.
You can't give him access to the nuclear arsenal.
He's sporadic.
He's irrational.
Blah, blah, blah.
And I agree.
I'm like, Trump very much, you know, shoots from the hip.
He acts on a whim.
He's impulsive.
Not a big fan.
He's been right about a few things that he's really, really hammered on about for a long time, and I totally respect that.
So here I am, and that balances out.
Puts me at right now like, eh, the foreign policy stuff I don't like.
You know, he did that missile strike in Syria.
He's selling weapons overseas.
Things I just really am not a fan of.
American imperialism style stuff.
There's been no argument made by the Democrats about why I should oppose any of that.
And so I'm sitting here like, well, I know I don't like it.
But I know if I vote for Biden, he's a remnant of the Obama era where they were going up and blowing up kids and stuff.
So why would I support that?
I'm not gonna do it.
So this is where it leaves me.
Rather confused.
Who should I vote for?
I don't know, man, I'll tell you what.
If you want to yell at people like Kyle Kalinske because you say he's supporting Trump, and he says in a tweet, fine, go ahead and blame me, then you can try and figure out how to win my support over next time, I love that sentiment.
I'll say the same thing.
If you're wondering why I'm sitting here saying Trump is a better option than Biden, then you are blind.
And I'll tell you what.
I'm willing to be convinced.
I want to hear it.
But you, you and the Democrats have presented me with nothing other than incessant scandals.
The president is doing the best he can for better or for worse.
And I don't think he's done the best job in the world, but I think he's doing a fairly good one.
He had this big press event where he railed on the press.
I thought it was silly.
I roll my eyes, but ultimately, it's whatever, man.
I have nothing else to compare it to, except for Obama and his extrajudicial assassinations.
Sure, the guy had a tan suit.
That was his scandal.
Come on, he had a bunch of other scandals.
So right now, that's what I see.
And instead of coming to me and saying, Tim, take a look at these things.
Here's our plan.
Here's our mission.
What do they do?
When the moderates got elected, they just went for impeachment.
That, to me, was the most annoying thing ever.
I thought they were going to do kitchen table issues.
I said it over and over again.
I'm like, hey man, the Democrats, if they came out.
Now we got this woman, Michelle Caruso Cabrera, who's running against AOC.
This might be a light at the end of the tunnel.
Because she is a moderate, rational Democrat, challenging AOC up in her district.
I really hope she wins.
I do.
Because you read what Michelle Caruso-Cabrera talks about.
You should check her out if you haven't.
It's New York 14.
And it sounds like she's making sense, talking about small business, protecting this stuff.
And it's from what used to be a sane, slightly left-wing, you know, center-left position.
And I'm like, that's what we need to get back to.
If we can get back Democrats who, instead of focusing on Orange Man Bad, instead of focusing on like, hey, we need to lower costs.
Hey, we need to boost the economy.
Let's work with the Republicans to get the job done.
And then we can argue about cultural issues, Supreme Court picks, and all that stuff.
I'm totally down!
That's not what's happening.
The Republicans are pushing through judge after judge after judge, and the Democrats say nothing about it.
So I don't know what you expect of me, someone like Joe, or anyone else.
Joe Rogan.
But Biden is not viable, and he freaks me out.
Bloomberg was also freaky.
But at this point with Biden, I'm looking at a guy who can't talk.
You wanna put that guy in front of Vladimir Putin?
You are insane.
Look, Donald Trump, they say all this weird stuff about him and Putin.
Donald Trump is, you see how he treats the press, you see how his attitude is, and I'm not a fan, but I'll tell you what, you put Donald Trump's imposing visage and angry face in front of other countries, and they know that the dude's sporadic, impulsive, and arrogant, it's gonna be a tough position to negotiate with that guy.
You put Joe Biden, he's gonna be sitting there confused, and they're gonna be like, just sign here, Joe, and he's gonna go, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, I signed here, and then he's gonna sign away.
He's not even gonna know what he's signing.
So tell me why that makes sense.
I'm listening, but I don't think you're gonna.
I'll leave it there.
Next segment's coming up at 4 p.m.
at youtube.com slash timcast, my main channel, and I will see you then.
In my main channel segment today, I mentioned an NPR story where they shut down an investigation, silenced the reporters involved, and even went after one of the guy's wives.
Now, I want to do an actual deep dive into this and point out a few things.
It's an example of why we have to be very skeptical when dealing with the press, and it's unfortunate.
Because if you have doubt in their reporting, well then, who are you supposed to believe?
But I also want to do point out, NPR broke the story uncovering that Bloomberg News was doing this, so at the same time, we're still kind of a, you know, plus one, minus one position.
I respect NPR for breaking this news, calling out Bloomberg for their lack of ethics, but at the same time, you got to be careful who you trust.
At this point, I guess all we can really say is, don't trust Bloomberg.
I think that's fairly easy to understand, and NPR, while not perfect, does a fairly good job.
Let's read the story from the Daily Caller.
They say, Bloomberg editor-in-chief reportedly killed a story to appease Chinese Communist Party, quote, Nazis.
That's who they are.
We should have no illusions, they say in quotes.
The story says, Bloomberg News allegedly killed a story about the wealth of Communist Party elites in China six years ago to appease the country, and then sought to silence both the reporter and his wife.
The publication not only successfully censored the story at the time, but also was able to silence all reporters involved in the story, according to NPR who broke the news.
Bloomberg News reportedly tried to keep one of the reporter's wife's silent in an attempt to kill the news.
Here's a quote.
It has to be done with a strategic framework and a tactical method that is smart enough to allow us to continue and not run afoul of the Nazis.
That's China.
Who are in front of us and behind us everywhere.
Bloomberg's founding editor-in-chief Matthew Winkler said in a 2013 phone call about whether to run the story according to audio verified by NPR.
that's who they are and we should have no illusions about it. Former Bloomberg Beijing
correspondent Mike Forsyth was among a team of journalists that reported an award-winning
investigation in 2012 on China's ruling classes and specifically about how they acquired their
wealth. Bloomberg News published the story despite warnings from the Chinese ambassador
according to NPR. Forsyth and his wife journalist Leta Hong Fincher moved to Hong Kong after the
the 2012 investigation came out and receiving what they viewed as death threats.
There, Forsyth and the team tried to further their 2012 investigation, this time focusing on Chinese leaders' ties to Wang Jianlin, the nation's wealthiest man.
Included in this new investigation was Chinese President Xi Jinping's family, NPR reported.
The story never saw the light of day under Bloomberg News.
Surprise, surprise.
Mike and some of the other reporters and editors who had been working on this story were just asking for answers about why was this story killed, Fincher said.
Winkler got involved in October 2013 after radio silence from Bloomberg News headquarters in New York City.
Senior news executives and the China-based investigative team were on the private conference call NPR reported.
Winkler admitted in the phone call that fear of backlash from China made the story not worth running, referring to the country as Nazis.
You know, let me tell you something.
Yeah, sure, I agree with that sentiment.
And nothing will ever be done unless you report on it.
Many journalists have fearlessly reported on what China has been doing, notably to like the Uyghurs and other very horrifying things.
And others are spineless and would back away because they're scared.
Quote.
It is for sure going to, you know, invite the Communist Party to, you know, completely shut us down and kick us out of the country, Winkler said.
So I just don't see that as a story that is justified.
The interference is going to be interpreted by the government there as we are judging them, and they will probably kick us out of the country.
They will probably shut us down, is my guess.
When the story got shut down, two Bloomberg editors and Winkler said it needed more reporting, according to NPR.
The auto recordings show that Bloomberg News was likely just worried about losing business in China, NPR reported.
Isn't that what it always is?
Special interests.
These news organizations aren't here to tell you the truth.
They're here to wield their influence to the benefit of their clients.
You are the product.
Don't forget it.
You see, many people, you know, you need to understand this.
When you get something for free, it's because you're the product.
That's what they say, right?
When you can read a news website for free, they are selling you to an advertiser.
The same is true for any other organization that needs influence.
If you can read the story for free, somebody else paid for it.
Or, you know, they're... Right, that's the point.
You've got political parties, you've got special interest groups trying to buy you.
NPR described how China made life difficult for the publication after its 2012 story was published.
Chinese authorities reportedly delayed visas for reporters amid attempts to affect former New York City Mike Bloomberg's main product after the first investigative project ran in 2012.
The Chinese authorities had searched Bloomberg News' bureaus, delayed visas for reporters, and ordered state-owned companies not to sign new leases for Bloomberg's primary product, its terminals, according to NPR.
So what?
So you leave.
Grow a spine, perhaps.
If Bloomberg makes its money on terminals, it gains prestige and greater name recognition from its news division.
Many of its stories, predominantly on business and finance, appear first on the terminal.
At the time the story was being pursued, China was seen as a growing market and a strategic priority, according to three former Bloomberg executives.
Even Bloomberg, who was the mayor of New York City at the time, denied the report had been squashed.
Bloomberg had officially stepped back from the publication at the time, but was actually in frequent contact and shared his aspirations for growth in China, NPR reported.
Quote, nobody thinks we are wusses and not willing to stand up and write stories that are of interest to the public and that are factually correct, Bloomberg first said about the story, according to NPR.
Bloomberg officially returned to the company two months later.
His run as New York City Mayor over.
He appeared to change his original comments during a January 2014 town hall for the newsroom.
Audio of Bloomberg's comments were obtained by NPR.
Quote, If a country gives you the license to do something with certain restrictions, you have two choices, Bloomberg said.
You either accept the license and do it that way, or you don't do business there.
Or you use other methods and you hire locals and you find a way to get the free press to function.
If they say you can't operate here, hire somebody else.
Okay.
If they say you can't operate here because they're doing things they don't want exposed, what value is your company anyway?
Oh, I think this is it.
I think they're just basically admitting it to us.
What do we see?
We see this company saying our interest is not reporting factual news that would be bad for those in power.
Our business is in wielding influence.
That's it.
So when the government comes out and says, not this story, and they say, you got it, what are they really doing?
Are they trying to make sure you, the reader, know what's happening in the world?
No, they're not.
They're trying to just manipulate you in whatever way possible to get ad revenue and sell products to their clients.
Including, in this case, Bloomberg Terminals.
They don't want to risk their business.
This is the problem we're facing with journalism, man.
This describes so much of what is going on.
Forsythe was suspended from Bloomberg News at the end of 2013 after being accused of spreading the internal conflicts around to other media outlets.
Bloomberg News then fired Forsythe, and he was eventually hired by the New York Times.
Both Forsythe and his wife Fincher were pressured into signing a non-disclosure agreement.
Forsythe signed, as did other journalists who were on the team.
Bloomberg News also threatened lawsuits against Forsythe and Fincher, according to NPR.
There was no reason why I should have to sign a non-disclosure agreement because I didn't possess any damaging material about the company, according to Fincher, who never signed the agreement.
Still...
Bloomberg LP tried to pressure Fincher into signing the agreement and even promise that she would never criticize the company.
Forsyth was also accused of stealing intellectual property and sharing it with his wife.
The company finally dropped their alleged harassment and attempts to censor after Fincher hired the Hong Kong lawyers who had represented journalist Edward Snowden.
The New York Times published Forsythe's report that had been killed by Bloomberg News over a year later in 2015.
As much as I have a lot to drag the New York Times for.
Lo and behold, Bloomberg is untrustworthy.
They are, as far as I can tell, corrupt.
But guess what?
The New York Times just ran defense for Joe Biden.
So what do you do, man?
I honestly don't know.
Did the New York Times ever come out and tell us this story about what had really happened?
As far as I can tell, they didn't.
It was NPR that broke the story, so I can respect NPR for doing that.
It's hard to know who to trust.
Everybody has limits.
Even I've said there are certain things I can't talk about on certain channels because YouTube would ban me outright.
But I assure you, I have stated over and over again, there is a line.
If there was ever something that was extremely important for the public to know, nothing would stand in my way to actually report on that.
When I talk about things I don't do on YouTube, I talk about basically like, I don't swear, or I don't say the name of a certain CIA official because they'll just outright ban the video, and then I get no information to you.
So it would basically, you know, sacrifice everything to say a single word.
If it comes down to a legit story, like the coronavirus pandemic, I took the hit on that across the board.
Revenue dropped substantially because YouTube kept saying, we will demonetize you if you talk about this, and I said, I gotta talk about it.
Finally, they relented.
But yeah, I'm absolutely willing to report news.
I don't care what China or anyone else thinks.
And because of my opinions on China, I've had a bunch of people coming after me and smearing me on social media.
So I'll tell you what.
Nobody's perfect.
Everybody has limits.
And there really are, you know, important conversations to be had about where you can draw the line.
For me, I completely disagree with them.
If China's gonna kick you out, make it a spectacle.
If you got a story and they say, if you report this, we'll ban you from the country, I say, bring it on.
We'll make that the story next.
Otherwise, you can accept the criticism.
It's not the end of the world.
It'll be a bad story.
You'll get over it.
But if you kick me out, I'll make sure that's the biggest story that everyone will know you did.
And then, that will make the story even bigger.
It's called the Streisand effect.
But they don't want to do it.
Why?
Because they want to sell terminal.
That's what it's really about.
They want to make money.
Is what you can expect from the press.
I'll leave it there.
I got a couple more segments for you coming up in a few minutes, and I will see you all shortly.
Digital progressive media outlet Vox.com is now set to furlough around 100 employees this week in an attempt to stave off layoffs.
Everybody is taking a hit.
Everybody in media.
We've seen many media companies start doing layoffs.
I mean, they were already doing layoffs.
Things were already bad.
Now they're going from bad to worse.
Digital media outlets are particularly susceptible to this because ad rates are collapsing.
Vox has tried now, I'm pretty sure it's Vox doing this, trying to get people to donate to their work.
BuzzFeed's been doing it for a long time.
Let's read about what's going on with this furlough.
People who are temporarily losing their jobs.
But I also want to point out, many people have criticized Vox for asking for user contributions, and they've slammed the website.
No, no, I disagree.
I don't like Vox.
I'll use them for some things.
But I think it's fine if anybody wants to ask, and I'll explain this.
I'm actually gonna defend them, but let's read the story first.
CNBC reports, Vox Media, the digital media company that owns SB Nation, New York Media, The Verge, and other brands, is preparing to announce a furlough of about 100 employees later this week, according to people familiar with the matter.
Vox executives are negotiating details with the Writers Guild of America East, which represents about 350 people at Vox, said the people, who asked not to be named because the discussions are private.
The number of people furloughed could rise or fall depending on those negotiations.
Which are confidential, said the people.
Said the people?
Just say, said a source or whatever.
Our sources.
A announcement, wow, copy editor, guys, will be made by the end of the week, the people said.
This is really poorly written.
Vox is discussing three-month furloughs for employees and is focusing on employees whose coverage areas have diminished during coronavirus quarantines.
Temporary three-month employee pay cuts aimed at the company's highest earners are also being discussed.
The people said.
This is a terrible article.
What is this?
Vox also wants... You gotta furlough somebody at CNBC, man.
Get a copy editor on this.
Vox also wants to ensure healthcare is covered.
For furloughed employees, one of the people said.
How many times are you going to say the people said?
The people said.
Seriously.
A Vox spokesperson declined to comment.
Vox is trying to avoid laughs altogether, as executives estimate future advertising revenue, which is set to decline significantly this year, as the world economy has been ravaged by the coronavirus and subsequent quarantines.
Vox was profitable in 2019, according to a person familiar with the matter, as CEO Jim Bancroft has billed out businesses that don't rely as heavily on digital advertising.
such as events and podcasts. Still, in an email to employees last week obtained by CNBC,
Bankoff said the company's goal of becoming cash flow positive for 2020 was no longer realistic.
I'll state the obvious that the advertising market is experiencing a downturn unlike ever before.
While at this point I can't put an exact number on our own decline, I know that, just like nearly all other companies and publishers, we have already seen a significant impact in March, and our business will continue to be deeply affected this quarter, next quarter, and likely for the remainder of 2020.
It's important to emphasize that we expect our ad business to rebound eventually, but since the timing cannot be predicted, we need to plan with extra caution.
While the Writers Guild Association East covers only about 350 of the company's 1,200 employees, Vox doesn't want to make one agreement for those workers and another for its other employees, said one of the people.
Vox agreed to acquire New York Media, which owns New York Magazine last year.
New York Media employees are unionized through News Guild, which hasn't yet agreed to a contract with Vox since the acquisition completion.
Vox is also asking for reader contributions during quarantines, noting that while donations don't qualify as charitable deductions, they will enable Vox to continue bringing you essential information for free at the pace and scale the coronavirus crisis demands.
Let me stop you right there and break down that for free.
You're asking them to give money to you.
It's not for free.
They're paying for it.
Okay, let's make that clear.
But we'll finish this article and then I want to explain to you why I actually support their decision to do this.
Bankoff noted in his email, the company is curtailing travel expenses including off sites and events, pausing some IT and facilities expenditures, limiting or ending relationships with freelancers and vendors, and scaling back on all in-office perks like snacks and happy hours for the remainder of 2020, Regardless of when we are back on site.
Bankoff's email did contain some good news, including record growth for NYMAG digital subscriptions.
The week of March 23rd was the greatest week for a new subscription since New York launched its digital subscription product in 2018.
Vox's decision to cut costs trails other digital media companies such as Group 9 Media and BuzzFeed.
Group 9 announced last week it was going to lay off 77% of its employees and furlough a smaller number.
BuzzFeed said in March, employees' pay would be cut on a sliding scale, depending on salary.
Now the first thing I'm going to do, look, this problem is hitting everybody.
It's hitting me, and I'll break that down.
I got another article for you.
But I want to point out, a lot of people are ragging on Vox for soliciting user donations.
It's the weirdest thing to me.
The New York Times charges you to read their content, period.
You get a handful of free ones, and they say, you can't read this unless you pony up the bucks.
If Vox comes out and says, we're always going to let this information be free, pay what you will, I see no issue with that.
Like, we saw Radiohead do it, what, two decades ago or whatever?
They were like, music is free, just pay us what you will.
What's the problem with that?
You look at these other outlets like the Washington Post and the Atlantic where you have to pay for things.
Why should I complain that BuzzFeed, Vox, Dave Rubin, or me offer you the opportunity to pay what you will to support us?
I could very easily just lock down all my content and be like, it costs 10 bucks a month to watch.
I'd probably make way more money, I gotta be honest.
I've seen some of these podcasts, when they wall off their content, it's nuts how much money they make.
I'm jealous.
I don't do that.
If you want to support me, you can.
But I'll just keep doing my thing.
Look, business is hurting really, really bad right now for me and every other media company.
For me, because I'm an individual with, you know, and my company has a smaller amount of employees, I'm not as worried.
And I think I'm substantially more responsible than many of these companies.
I've set aside enough to operate for a decent amount of time.
And my overhead's really low, so maybe that's a bit unfair.
But take a look at this story.
This is from a search engine journal.
I'm not familiar with who they are.
But Matt Southern writes, YouTube viewership is up, but YouTubers are earning less money.
The reason I'm highlighting this is because it's easy to point the finger and laugh at Vox and say, haha, you gotta lay people off, you gotta furlough people.
It's easy to do, but it's also fair to say, yeah, we're all in the same boat.
A lot of YouTubers are taking it really, really, like it's really harsh.
Revenues are dropping upwards of even like 50 to 70%.
I'll be completely honest.
My revenue is down.
I'm projecting to be down around like more than half, like more than 50, maybe even 60%.
You'll notice that I started doing sponsor spots more so than I've ever done.
Notably, it's like one thing I've been doing, that food promo stuff.
And there's other companies I haven't yet promoted I might do, but I'm just not a big fan of doing the personal shoutouts.
Look, I know YouTube runs ads on my content, how I make money, so it does feel kind of silly that I would run those ads, which are worth very little, compared to actual sponsor spots on my own content.
But you've seen me doing it, because I'm trying to pick up and make sure things don't drop dramatically.
So, I'll tell you this, I'll be completely honest.
I think I'm, while YouTube revenue is seriously collapsing, I think the sponsor spots are making it up.
So, you know, to everybody who's watched, I appreciate your understanding and why I've started doing some of these.
Take a look at this story from SEJ.
YouTube traffic's on the rise.
They say the New York Times reported last week their traffic is up 15%.
However, YouTube channels are reportedly earning less money amidst the surge in viewership.
The same reason why viewership is up is the same reason it's down, and it's the pandemic.
More people are going to YouTube to look for information.
Unfortunately, YouTube is propping up the mainstream media.
This is the most frustrating and annoying thing, and I'll tell you why.
My business is dedicated to this platform.
I don't go other places.
You know, you can find me on iTunes and Spotify and other podcast platforms, but I upload to YouTube.
CNN, Fox News, other outlets, they do their news channel, and then this is an afterthought.
So when YouTube decides to give them the bonus views by putting them on the front page, you know what happens?
Everybody else is either stagnant, seeing a little bit of an increase, but the money is dropping dramatically.
When you give CNN a major viewer boost, that will help make up in the ad revenue they're losing.
Why would you prop them up?
So sure, I can sit here and laugh.
I'm not really laughing.
But I can point out that these digital media companies are collapsing.
And then I also must recognize that YouTube's gonna do everything in their power to make sure they make more money.
It's really annoying, man.
YouTube says I can't talk about certain things that even the Washington Post is talking about.
Why?
Because the people who work at YouTube are two weeks behind the news cycle.
But they keep bending over backwards to these media companies who don't like them.
So let me just break it down for you.
You go on YouTube.com, there's the coronavirus, and there's all of CBS, CNN, Fox, whatever.
They put them front and center to guarantee the views, displacing what you would normally see, content like mine or others.
So some people have seen their viewership go down.
Combine a decrease in viewership with a decrease in revenue, and YouTube is actively destroying their own homegrown content creators.
And not just that, Even VC-funded companies that are being displaced by this.
YouTube doesn't understand what they're doing, or they just don't care.
I don't see why CNN should get propped up when they're the blockbuster video of media production.
You know, I'm sure Blockbuster would have loved to have survived.
They could have bought Netflix at some point.
They didn't do it.
But could you imagine if, you know, right before Blockbuster collapsed, all the cities came in and shut Netflix down and then propped up Blockbuster Video?
You'd be like, why?
I don't want them.
I want the streaming service.
That's what YouTube is doing.
So look, everyone's gonna get hit by this.
If things don't clear up soon, it'll get bad for everybody.
I don't think I'm first in line because, again, my overhead is relatively low compared to Vox.
But I'll tell you what, the hit is serious.
It's definitely damaging.
I think we'll be okay for now.
If not, we'll see how things play out.
I'll leave that there.
I got one more segment coming up for you in a few minutes, and I will see you all shortly.
Welcome to the authoritarian lockdown, notably those of you in Michigan, because things seem to be getting really, really bad.
Governor Gretchen Whitmer has been getting slammed so much so that even NBC News had to admit it.
Michigan Governor Whitmer faces fierce backlash over strict stay-at-home order.
Quote, we're responsible adults and can be trusted to go out in public, said one critic.
Apparently, this is the harshest lockdown we have seen yet.
Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer signed one of the most restrictive stay-at-home orders in the country late last week in hopes of containing the coronavirus outbreak in her state, one of the hardest hit.
The backlash has been immense.
Michiganders, many from more conservative areas of the state, Believe Whitmer's latest order went too far.
They accused her of stripping them of their constitutional rights.
Online, they pledged to protest, signed petitions calling for her recall, and joined Facebook groups dedicated to having the order curtailed.
Whitmer's executive action extended her prior stay-at-home order through the end of April and toughened it up.
For at least until then, Michiganders won't be allowed to travel to in-state vacation residences.
They are not permitted to use a motorboat.
Business restrictions have been tightened, including that large stores must close areas dedicated to carpeting, flooring, furniture, garden centers, plant nurseries, or paint, among other measures.
Violators could be fined or charged with a misdemeanor, though the practicality of strict enforcement was unclear.
Yes, they have banned the sale of seeds.
And it's not just Michigan, apparently other states have done this.
You want to talk about authoritarian psychotic behavior.
Welcome to Michigan.
That's a dying state.
I don't know what, how they're doing as of now, but the last, you know, the last time I went there and I looked, I met with some nonprofits and talked about what's going on in Michigan.
Things weren't faring too well.
People are fleeing the state.
I can only imagine this is another really great reason to leave, but I will tell you.
Michigan is a very, very important battleground state for 2020.
I have to wonder if this is going to have a dramatic impact on how people perceive the Democratic Party.
Let's read a little bit more.
They say, Whitmer spent much of her Monday news conference responding to the pushback on the new measures.
Prominent conservatives circulated a petition to have her recalled, one that generated more than 200,000 signatures, while more than 300,000 Facebook users joined a group titled Michiganders Against Excessive Quarantine in Recent Days.
The reason we started this group wasn't that we were against the quarantine.
We're not.
The group's founder, Garrett Soldano, a chiropractor and former Western Michigan University football player, said in a Facebook Live on Monday, we were against our very constitutional rights taken away from us.
Whitmer said her actions are centered on flattening Michigan's curve of infections.
The new restrictions are aimed at curbing foot traffic in stores and preventing the outbreak, now focused around Detroit, from spreading quickly through the northern and more rural parts of the state, where the health system is not well-equipped for a major outbreak.
The Democratic governor said she understood how difficult the measures could make things for business owners and those who are struggling with shutting down much of their livelihood.
There's nobody who'd rather be able to push a button and just return to normal life, Whitmer said.
There's nobody who'd rather?
But no button exists in this environment.
Multiple protests against the governor are scheduled, including one where critics plan to descend on the state capitol in Lansing and cause a ruckus from their cars.
Now I'll tell you what.
There's a lot to the story, but I want to show you something else real quick.
This is a tweet from Ryan Strzok of CNN.
He says, a new study from Harvard research published today in the journal Science
finds that prolonged or intermittent social distancing may be necessary into 2022.
Let me just say, yikes, man. They just banned the use of the purchase of seeds in Michigan.
We've already seen a fringe insane authoritarian lockdown.
I don't know what to expect or how long it's going to go on.
He says Harvard researchers quote, under current critical care capacities, however, the overall duration of the SARS-CoV-2 epidemic could last into 2022, requiring social distancing measures to be in place between 25 and 75% of that time.
We might get into this.
I want to go back to the story and see what's going on with Michigan, but I do want to mention one thing, and I don't normally do this, but I have to do it right now.
Check out this website, safeandreadymeals.com.
This is a sponsored spot.
This company provides emergency food.
Right now, they have a four-week food supply.
The two-week supply is sold out.
I don't normally like doing sponsored spots, but I'm going to tell you a couple things.
Ad revenue for everybody is collapsing, and that's one of the main reasons I am doing this, one of, that I need your support.
By going here, by going to safeandreadymeals.com, and clicking the link in the description below, you will, you can purchase this food.
I personally have emergency food, I think it's important to have, especially when they're talking about extended periods of lockdown.
For now, I'm not entirely convinced you're going to need it, and that's a good thing.
I honestly don't know if I'll ever need it.
I've had no problem getting food, although there have been fears of shortages.
I am concerned the supply chain could be disrupted, and there are other issues to consider.
But the main reason I'm doing this is because I really do believe it's a smart thing to have.
I've talked about first aid kits, so at a time when everyone's kind of freaking out because their businesses are collapsing, this is not just a sponsored spot.
It's also me legitimately saying I think it's good advice to have this stuff.
I apologize to everybody who doesn't like the sponsored spots, but I do think this is important.
That's why you don't see me doing other things like survival kits or, you know, utility tools.
This is the one that I think really does matter.
So I appreciate your patience and listening.
I really do think SafeAndReadyMeals.com has an excellent product and check it out if you're interested.
Let's read, go back to what Michigan is doing.
They say, the event, the protest from their cars, hosted by the Michigan Conservative Coalition and the Michigan Freedom Fund, a DeVos family-linked conservative group, is set for Wednesday.
More than 3,000 Facebook users have pledged to attend.
Organizers want people to create a traffic jam, honk horns, and flash signs.
People always say conservatives never protest because they are too busy working.
The event page says, well, guess what?
You're not working, so it's time to protest.
That's a good point.
Matthew Seeley, a spokesman for the Michigan Conservative Coalition, said the event is intended to be nonpartisan.
We are asking people to become united on this one issue.
All Michiganders to say, we've gone too far.
We're responsible adults and can be trusted to go out in public.
Whitmer said it's okay to be frustrated and angry.
I've got thick skin, she said, and I'm always going to defend your right to free speech.
So I just ask that those who are protesting these orders do so in a safe manner so you don't get sick and you don't subject our first responders to risk either.
The governor later criticized one of the protest hosts over its link to the DeVos family, the most powerful in the state's conservative politics.
Quote, this group is funded in large part by the DeVos family, she said, calling on them to
disavow the event. I think it's really inappropriate for a sitting member of the United States
president's cabinet to be waging political attacks on any governor. Nick Wassmiller, a DeVos family
spokesperson, said the family hasn't spent a dime on this protest, nor has it offered prior support
to the organizing entity, but understands the frustration of fellow Michiganders as elements
of the governor's top-down approach appear to go beyond public safety.
With a national debate raging over how quickly portions of the economy can be reopened in the coming weeks or months, Michigan is emerging as a possible battleground.
Yeah, right now, you got Bill Barr pushing back on the authoritarian lockdowns.
And you have many progressives and leftists on social media praising the lockdowns and slamming the protesters.
I'm sorry, man.
You're going to lose a lot of people, even people on the left.
You can't just pretend to be this naive, can you?
Regular Americans, Democrat or otherwise, don't like the idea of being locked in their house forever.
While we recognize what's going on with the pandemic, there are people, like, there are young people who have already killed themselves.
I'm not exaggerating.
And I'm not gonna highlight these stories because people, in my opinion, deserve their privacy and it's very tragic, but yes, there have been suicides.
At a certain point, you gotta recognize, everyone gets cabin fever.
Don't make it apart as an issue, man.
Whitmer herself has risen in national stature as the pandemic developed, an up-and-coming Democratic leader of a swing state who suddenly has to lead Michigan through a once-in-a-lifetime crisis.
Joe Biden was mentioning her as a possible running mate in the fall.
Trump clashed with her.
You know what, man?
If Joe Biden picks her, what will already have been a terrible campaign will become a substantially worse campaign.
People do not like what she's doing, whether it's conservative or otherwise.
Telling people you can't buy seeds is downright nightmarishly dystopian and insane.
It makes no sense.
It shows you that the government has no idea what they're doing.
She has no idea what she's doing.
She could have very easily said something like restrict store hours or whatever.
Instead, she banned certain products?
How does it even make sense?
And why would these stores comply?
That's what's crazy to me.
Somebody walked in and said, I want some seeds.
What's the harm in saying, you can have some seeds?
Now, some people need other projects.
You know what's crazy to me?
She said that she wants to shut down the, like, the home construction stuff, flooring, whatever.
What if somebody's got a hole in their floor?
What if in someone's house, a hole burst in their floor and they need flooring materials?
It's not safe.
These are essential products.
I was thinking about this the other day.
If you gotta go buy wood or something, how could you deny that to someone by saying it's non-essential?
What if there's a hole in their wall?
What if it rains and their window breaks and they gotta board it up?
You don't know what people need, and it's very difficult for you to decide what is or isn't essential.
Some people need things.
Like, what if someone had to go buy a refrigerator from Best Buy right now?
You know why?
People who are diabetic need to refrigerate their insulin.
What if the refrigerator broke, and they said, our only option is go to a store?
Uh-oh, they're all closed because they're not essential.
This is what's the problem with the authoritarian lockdowns.
You don't know what is essential to every person.
We cannot rely on single individuals to just decide, I don't understand why anybody would need to garden or plant seeds.
Maybe because people want food?
Maybe because people are concerned they will need to fend for themselves.
They don't get it though.
They think they're smarter than you, but they're not.
They're morons.
That's why we can't have authoritarianism.
Because everyone is a moron.
Sorry, everyone's stupid.
About certain things.
We can't rely on one person to know everything.
Not Donald Trump.
Not Governor Whitmer.
So say no to authoritarianism.
I'm not gonna tell you to protest or not.
I'm just gonna say these people have lost their minds.
