It's Cultural Appropriation Month, which means it's time for another episode of "Mug Club" and this week's episode features a special guest star of the show, George Stephanopoulos, talking about why he doesn't trust his own wife and why he thinks she's weak.
00:05:23.000We will be talking about Donald Trump's executive order in the last segment, and next Monday, Good Morning Mug Club is going to be my half-Asian lawyer, ins and outs of this executive order.
00:11:50.000I know we're going to be talking about Minneapolis and all this cruelty and all this division, so we figured that we would just sort of pave the way a little bit, throw you off the scent with Joe Biden farting.
00:12:30.000Okay, so it should be noted that he did though allegedly find some inspiration from a retro, and they're doing this a lot with films, a retroactively COVID-sensitive friendly re-edit of My Girl.
00:18:18.000Number four, and these ones, because now they've actually migrated from Asia, you know, you've heard about this, the Japanese killer hornets?
00:19:13.000Because he could have been more on the nose.
00:19:16.000But instead, he just directed people to one of the most notorious antisemites of our time in Wagner, who also happened to be musically very gifted.
00:19:37.000Most anti-Semitic animals throughout history, and this, you know, some of them they travel in, you have the Ku Klux Klan, they travel in packs.
00:22:21.000I don't want this to be on the next Vox Highlight Reel.
00:22:24.000Look, even his own sidekicks are calling him a piece of shit.
00:22:31.000Alright, let's move on here to the Black Lives Matter burning down all of Minneapolis here for people who, and it's still unfolding as this goes on today, so I want to be very clear, and we're going to get hopefully in the close to Donald Trump's executive order with social media.
00:23:56.000I don't want to do a Covington Kids thing.
00:23:58.000We don't have all of the facts, to be clear.
00:24:00.000Now, there very well may be a justifiable reason for the police officer to have handcuffed him and put him on the ground first.
00:24:07.000But that is irrelevant to what I think is totally unacceptable, in that when the guy passed out, he kept his knee on the guy's neck.
00:24:15.000That's probably something on which you're not going to change my mind if a police officer's job is to de-escalate and keep people safe.
00:24:22.000We don't have all the information, but what we do see, there's no acceptable justification for keeping your knee on someone's cervical spine After they're no longer moving, and they are handcuffed.
00:24:33.000It's like, if you watch the entire video that Ms.
00:24:36.000Fraser, the lady who took that video, who's now being harassed online, by the way, but, you know, the video itself goes on for more, I think it's a minute and a half, where he clearly passes out in the first 30 seconds of the video.
00:25:13.000There's no reason for, I mean, especially when somebody is handcuffed like that.
00:25:16.000And I know police officers hear all the time, oh I can't breathe, I have to use the restroom, the cuffs are too tight.
00:25:20.000Like I understand they hear that stuff all the time.
00:25:22.000That does not excuse what we just saw there.
00:25:25.000There was no threat to those officers.
00:25:27.000And I will say this, just like obviously you cannot, you can't tar all black people by the actions of these horrible people.
00:25:34.000Now granted that's more than one lone cop, you're talking about hundreds if not thousands and then tens of thousands of people on black Twitter, which is an interesting subculture right now.
00:25:43.000I hate to say it, unfortunately breeds more racists when they're encouraging looting.
00:25:46.000But again, we don't have all the facts.
00:25:48.000It could not be less relevant as to why people are upset.
00:25:52.000And I think that the cop is wrong in that.
00:27:54.000But how do you expect officers who aren't regularly engaging in combat and aren't entirely sure that they can control the situation, how do you expect them to not panic?
00:28:03.000Let's use a very specific example there.
00:28:47.000Or here, it's not even bothering to check the person you're kneeling on to figure out if it's necessary or not necessary.
00:28:54.000Because a whole minute goes by where the guy's passed out, and yet the officer's not checking.
00:28:58.000I don't personally think that it's a matter of whether you have a woman or a man as a cop, because there are weak men who will panic.
00:29:05.000Like in this example, you just gotta have proper training.
00:29:08.000Yeah, but that being said, I mean, if you look at the strongest women in the military right now, they still have to do a dead hang instead of pull-ups, because there's a difference in strength.
00:29:41.000This is what you do when you're trying to control a suspect.
00:29:44.000I don't know that there, and maybe cops out there that can, I don't know that you're in much danger when somebody is lying flat on their stomach with handcuffs on.
00:29:54.000Or three other officers, whatever the total was.
00:29:55.000Like it just seems like a, just a gross negligence.
00:29:59.000Can I just jump in real quick with a point?
00:30:00.000I did not realize this because I read many, many articles about it and then watched some of the videos this morning, is that actually one of the officers that was there is Asian.
00:33:30.000There are tens of thousands of people saying, this is what you get.
00:33:33.000This is- Actively calling for- And when they ask for white people to condemn shooters who happen to be white, who, by the way, aren't doing it in the name of whiteness, we love them, sure.
00:33:42.000These people right now, and these people, I mean the people who are burning things down and starting the hashtag AllLivesMatter slash Black Twitter, they are hijacking your entire race of people.
00:33:51.000We need to see condemnation from leaders in the black community.
00:33:54.000I've been watching CNN all day, and they're going, well, of course, we want it to be peaceful, but this is why.
00:34:57.000But my point is that I think that, you know, the intent of your statement, though, I think is very important, which is that we need to- Hold on!
00:35:18.000Just want to make sure that we're being productive.
00:35:22.000Go ahead, continue what you're arguing.
00:35:23.000So the point that you're making is, someone, who are we going to punish here, right?
00:35:27.000And we need to punish the people who are actually doing wrong.
00:35:30.000And to the extent that there was folks who were letting that happen, police officers.
00:35:32.000And it's true that there's probably a lot of people outside of the community that came in, because that happens all the time during riots.
00:35:37.000They'll come out, come into the place that Right.
00:35:39.000So ultimately the question is like, okay, so in the same way that we think reparations are wrong because you're punishing people who didn't actually commit the wrong, I do think punishing the rest of the city because, you know, let's say 5,000 people were participating in that riots, right?
00:36:45.000verdict came out, they were protesting the end result of justice not happening in their... Sorry, not O.J., but when Rodney King was beaten.
00:36:59.000Well, no, they're saying it's too late because someone was killed, and I understand that, but if we're talking about a system that is stacked against you, you do need to let the system work.
00:37:38.000You are perpetuating, you, meaning you, not all black people, in case you're gonna try and hang me on that, and I don't really give a rat's ass at this point, you people who are doing this and looting right now and burning down Target to a crisp, you are going to create more racists.
00:37:52.000You are perpetuating a negative stereotype that the people you hate might use to commit you, to treat you in a subhumane way, to commit acts of crime against you. Do you understand that? Black
00:38:04.000Twitter, when you go, this is what you get, you're breeding more racists. And you
00:38:07.000know what else you're breeding? You're breeding more division in your own
00:38:08.000community because you're burning down your own sh**. So black people who own that auto zone
00:38:13.000are people who live in your neighborhood. I saw that white lady stealing lamps.
00:38:52.000Yes, it's racist to say, hey, don't abuse black people when you're a police officer, don't kill black people, and black people don't burn down your own stuff.
00:38:59.000Please, black people in this community who are doing it, and white people don't burn down your own stuff.
00:40:21.000Let's go through the reasons why Governor Whitmer is the worst governor in the country, and I want everyone else to know, because she's obviously auditioning for VP right now.
00:40:28.000She doesn't want to politicize the issue, she's making her decisions based on science, and Joe Biden, pick me, pick me, pick me!
00:40:34.000Let's go through abortion first, again to go through the radical agenda that we see from Governor Gretchen Whitmer, my home state, which I don't even recognize anymore.
00:40:41.000She actually thinks that abortion is what makes America great.
00:40:44.000She has that hat right there, that abortion is what makes America great.
00:40:47.000And if this were a gaffe that were made by Donald Trump on the other side of the coin, she said that abortions actually had to continue under lockdown because they were, she said, life-sustaining.
00:40:58.000A woman's health care, her whole future, her ability to decide if and when she starts a family is not an election.
00:42:57.000They're not extracting it from a leaf of tobacco.
00:42:59.000They're just putting in old sock juice so that it tastes disgusting, and she doesn't want the gummy flavor to be out there because she knows people will enjoy it.
00:43:06.000I was in Michigan, and gas stations had these empty shelves.
00:43:17.000So one of the justices actually wrote one of the opinions that she was like, I have to write this.
00:43:22.000She was like, I have no idea how the judge has tried to link vaping to COVID, but she did.
00:43:28.000She did in her report saying, you know, she's trying to tie it to COVID-19, you know, preparedness and taking care of that long before COVID.
00:43:36.000It's like, wait, you were trying to study the mating patterns of the Ku Klux Klan and you got no grant.
00:43:42.000And they go, no, we're trying to study the Ku Klux Klan mating patterns in relation to COVID.
00:43:49.000The justice actually wrote, you see this with her, if you give her an inch, she is going to try and take a mile and try to push her policies no matter what she has to do to cover it.
00:43:58.000And I've read polls that try to say she has a 70-something percent approval rating.
00:44:03.000Almost no governors have a 70% approval rating.
00:44:06.000Just the smokers, the vapers alone, would bring your average down.
00:44:11.000Isn't this something where we can find common ground?
00:44:13.000Libertarians, people who don't even necessarily use nicotine products or vapes because you believe that people should be able to put in their own body whatever they want.
00:44:20.000And the left because you guys love your drugs.
00:44:23.000Shouldn't we all be able to find some kind of common ground here?
00:44:26.000Oh, a governor shouldn't be able to ban vaping.
00:44:28.000And by the way, there is a relation to nicotine and COVID.
00:44:30.000They're conducting a clinical trial because it seems to actually drastically reduce your chances of having severe COVID.
00:44:54.000We could have to ask our resident Okinawan.
00:44:57.000So they noticed that it's like something like 30-40% of Chinese people smoke, but it was like a very small number of COVID patients who smoked.
00:46:22.000She had, obviously, to start with, the most strict lockdown orders in the entire nation, banning the selling of furniture, paint, garden plants.
00:46:28.000Big box stores will also have to close areas of the store that are dedicated to things like carpet or flooring, furniture, garden centers, plant nurseries, or paint.
00:46:40.000Now, Trippie, some think that she has an axe to grind because Ren-A-Center was after her lucky charms!
00:46:45.000And apparently she only has Guess Who characters from the board game signed by her.
00:47:58.000Everyone's a hypocrite, but this is a different level, where she banned, obviously, travel to second residences.
00:48:04.000And to keep in mind context for people who don't understand Michigan, you have people who don't make a lot of money, people who make middle class, upper middle class income, sometimes less, because they have basically shacks, cottages, that have been passed down for generations in their family.
00:48:17.000And people don't believe it because it's like the Mediterranean being on Lake Michigan in summer.
00:48:37.000So, her husband, though, traveled to their vacation home, 150 miles away, to support... And here's the... She said to rake leaves, and he actually used his... He said, do you know who I am?
00:48:48.000When he was trying to get his boat taken off the dock over there in, I believe, Elk Rapids.
00:48:52.000And he said, well, we can't take your boat off the dock because of the governor's orders there, and, you know, it's Memorial Day.
00:48:57.000He was like, I'm the governor's husband.
00:48:59.000Like, oh, well then, you're a big, fat p***y, and of course I'm not taking your boat out.
00:49:04.000The guy actually said something, I think on Facebook or something like that.
00:49:07.000He said, actually, that puts you to the back of the line.
00:49:09.000Yeah, puts you to the back of the queue.
00:49:11.000I'm sorry, your Boston Whaler seems to have a hole in it!
00:49:23.000She said, and she actually did say, she said, my husband did go up, and it was after the order had been lifted, but people were still strongly discouraged from traveling.
00:49:31.000She said, my husband did go up just to rake leaves.
00:49:38.000So you were going to send your husband by himself, even though, and I can't confirm this, there were multiple cars that were there at the house, at the cottage.
00:49:46.000He went up there by himself to rake, for an entire weekend, to rake leaves?
00:49:53.000First off, I'm willing to assume that you have help who rakes your leaves.
00:49:56.000Second, maybe I would buy the excuse that your husband just was trying to get away from you.
00:52:18.000And then, well, crap, now I want to go up to my house.
00:52:20.000And it affects, when you couldn't go out on a boat with a motor, it affects people in fishing towns who are hundreds of miles away from her where they don't have a single active K.
00:52:27.000Right, and this is exactly why we push back on stuff like this, because government tends to screw things up when they do things like this.
00:52:33.000Don't interfere in people's lives as much as possible.
00:54:41.000In New York, we were taking old people who left the old folks home, went to a hospital, were sick, and sending them back in like a buzzsaw, which is terrible.
00:54:49.000But in this case, you're taking new people who aren't old, who have no business being in an old folks home to begin with, a nursing home, and sending them in just using the nursing homes as a quarantine.
00:55:00.000It's worse than New York, and there's no way to actually find the numbers right now on deaths in nursing homes.
00:57:18.000It doesn't seem like lockdowns have that much of an effect.
00:57:20.000Why are certain states doing better than others?
00:57:22.000And it doesn't seem like urban areas are the only factor here, because Texas has a lot of big cities.
00:57:26.000Here's what I think we're going to find out.
00:57:28.000Now that we see what's happened with Cuomo, and once we get the accurate, and there should be an investigation, by the way, into these death rates and these death numbers in Michigan with old folks' homes.
00:57:36.000I think what you're going to see is go, oh, history.
00:57:38.000We'll look back on this and go, that's because of horrible actions from individual governors.
00:57:43.000I think the delineating factor here is that one state said you have to take sick patients into the old folks' home.
00:57:50.000Another state said you have to take not even old folks who are sick into the old folks' home.
00:58:03.000that no one is talking about this because we should be trying to find solutions at this point.
00:58:07.000We should be trying to look at the data and the people who accuse us of being the party of anti-science, well, Governor Whitmer, if you're science, why don't you release the data?
00:58:12.000Why don't you give us the numbers so we can make an educated decision?
00:58:15.000Ooh, I understand you're too busy helping your husband rake leaves and breaking out the paddle, demanding that he say, thank you, ma'am, can I have another?
00:58:51.000How about you look out for the freedoms and liberties that are That are constitutionally insured to your citizens in the state of Michigan.
00:58:58.000And I haven't said this about many people.
01:01:27.000BlackRifle Coffee, better known and operated.
01:01:30.000But the fact is, they make better coffee than other companies out there.
01:01:32.000So if you want to know that your money is going to a company who cares, and I'm not going to name names like Starbucks, Dunkin', but Buy coffee anyway.
01:01:42.000Buy better coffee that also doesn't fly in the face of everything you believe.
01:04:08.000Always a controversial... I don't want to say always a controversial figure, actually, because I used to read his books when I was younger.
01:04:14.000My family, particularly my wife's Parents made her read the books.
01:04:19.000They made her read all conservative books.
01:05:33.000I wanted to talk with you about something specific, Dinesh, because obviously, you know, you had your house arrest ankle bracelet situation.
01:05:39.000We're very glad that you were pardoned.
01:05:41.000But now with Mike Flynn and everything going on, I think some Americans may be in the dark a little bit as to how these wings of, whether it's the FBI, DOJ can be politicized and used as a tool, you know, political weapon.
01:05:57.000And do you think that it plays into it all?
01:05:59.000You know, Mike Flynn, it was, it's where you sort of a shot across the bow being the first major name that I remember being pardoned by Donald Trump.
01:06:06.000Well, I'll just give you an idea of how it went down in my own case.
01:06:10.000I was literally in Central Park reading a book when a friend of mine called and said that they had been contacted by the FBI and that the FBI was I didn't have a criminal attorney.
01:06:59.000I'll bring on my partner, who's the former district attorney for Los Angeles.
01:07:04.000And so that guy comes on, and he reads me the riot act.
01:07:07.000He says, basically, put down your book.
01:07:10.000Go to your apartment, take all valuable papers that you have in your apartment, all your financial papers, anything to do with your work, your computer, any books that you think are important, and move them into storage immediately and hide the key.
01:07:25.000Because if you are subject to an FBI raid, they will clean out your apartment.
01:08:03.000By the way, book is euphemism for crack.
01:08:05.000We need to be very clear with the audience here, just so we... so I'm not investigated.
01:08:10.000You know, I gotta tell you that I think that phrase, United States of America versus Dinesh D'Souza, is more chilling when you're an immigrant, because you don't feel like you have roots in this country, you don't have family here.
01:08:23.000So this idea that you have the full force of the United States government arrayed against you is kind of terrifying.
01:08:30.000As it turned out, there were at least a half dozen FBI agents assigned to my case.
01:08:34.000Literally, one guy was going through all my bank statements.
01:08:37.000Another guy was going through all my tax returns.
01:08:42.000That's the guy I feel really sorry for, but the idea was...
01:08:47.000They were trying to see if I had basically made some cavalier statements about campaign finance reform so they could then say to the judge, this guy violated the law because he doesn't even have any respect for the law.
01:08:58.000So, you know, the whole idea that you've got this little army of paid stooges being directed by someone, and that's really what worried me from the beginning.
01:09:11.000Well, that's my question to you, based on, you know, sort of Flynn, and I want to get your thoughts on quote-unquote Obamagate, and if you think that this could in any way be related to that, or if we're going to see anything maybe in some sort of discovery here that they could be connected, because it does seem like political opposition to Barack Obama were targeted systematically, and now seeing what happened with Flynn, I think it's a good time for Americans to pay attention, because it could happen to anyone, including Oh, sure.
01:09:39.000I mean, my case, looking back on it, was a kind of a miniature preview of what was to come on a much bigger scale.
01:09:46.000And in fact, when I had a meeting last November, my family did with Trump, he literally said, he goes, Dinesh, what they did to you, they're trying to do now to me.
01:09:56.000So he saw it as an enlarged replica of a sort of deep state political hit.
01:10:03.000So, in my case, the frontman was this Indian guy.
01:10:06.000I kind of refer to him on Twitter as Indian Headwaiter, Preet Bharara, the former head of the Southern District of New York.
01:10:15.000He's basically angling for Eric Holder's job.
01:10:18.000And he was taking direction from the Holder Justice Department.
01:10:22.000Holder, of course, being Obama's self-confessed wingman.
01:10:26.000So, you know, it's kind of funny because I speak on campus these days and people go, well, Dinesh, you know, you keep saying that Obama was mad because you made a stupid movie.
01:10:35.000What makes you think the President of the United States even saw your dumb movie?
01:10:38.000And I'm like, well, the reason I think that is that right after the movie came out, it was being vilified every single day on a website that happened to be called barackobama.com.
01:10:49.000And that's where I got the weird idea that maybe when Barack Obama wasn't entirely happy with the movie.
01:10:57.000Yeah, and this is scary because I think a lot of people don't necessarily look at this as, you know, holistically, and that this is sort of the endgame and byproduct of socialism.
01:11:05.000And we sort of see it, and this transitions into, you know, the coronavirus, COVID-19, where it's the same idea, right?
01:11:11.000Targeting voices of dissent, in your case, finding something that you can pin on them, or with Mike Flynn, Getting them to lie, putting pressure on them by threatening their family.
01:11:21.000We have the same thing now with people being intimidated into silence with executive orders, intense lockdown measures.
01:11:51.000Now, remember, for Marx, he didn't think socialism needed a panic.
01:11:54.000He didn't think it needed even tactics.
01:11:58.000Marx didn't even try to organize the working class because he thought that the socialist revolution would come automatically, that the working class would become so impoverished and immiserated, to use his term, that it would revolt.
01:12:10.000Now, that's never happened from Marx's time to now anywhere in the world.
01:12:16.000Well, it kind of did, in that the middle working class in America did revolt and elect Trump, so went the other direction, but yes.
01:12:33.000And so I think this is part of the reason why our socialism today is a marriage of socialism and identity politics, because there is genuine racial grievance.
01:12:42.000So you try to get a racial proletariat, and then you try to get the women, you try to get the gays and transgenders, you try to get the illegals.
01:12:50.000So the Democrats here are trying to cobble together a kind of multifarious coalition of presumed victim groups to produce their democratic majority.
01:13:02.000That's why socialism has taken on a kind of new face in the United States.
01:13:05.000I also think that's why you can't just refute it by saying it didn't work before, so it won't work now.
01:13:10.000Because we're dealing with, in some ways, a new type of socialism.
01:13:19.000Then they point to Denmark, who, by the way, they tell Bernie Sanders stuff, saying, for socialists, if you are not socialist, but they point to any sort of, you know, Scandinavian socialist countries.
01:13:28.000And we've talked about that quite a bit.
01:13:29.000I think the laziest argument and I appreciate you pointing that out, would just be to
01:13:53.000So they're trying to incorporate a little bit of a new brand.
01:13:55.000How would you define the current brand of socialism?
01:13:59.000And I know, listen, we're staying on socialism because that's obviously your book, United States of Socialism, but how would you say it differs today versus how people might define it in their mind?
01:14:08.000Well, I think that the left is trying to point to the successful model of Scandinavia, but their actual model is far closer to Venezuela.
01:14:20.000To take a single example, Venezuela has identity socialism the same way that we do.
01:15:34.000Only one Scandinavian country tried Universal Basic Income Finland and they got rid of it.
01:15:40.000The Scandinavians do not impose the financial transaction fees that Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders have talked about imposing on Wall Street.
01:15:48.000So the truth of it is that the left, and they know this deep down, they don't actually want to use the Scandinavian model.
01:15:54.000Their model is actually the Caracas model.
01:15:57.000I think that's a very good point, one that we've talked about in the show quite a bit, and something that really surprised me in researching the Scandinavian models is when you take Swedes and you take them out of Sweden, so Swedish-Americans or Danish-Americans, they actually have a life quality when you include, you know, average income, their quality of life regarding health and longevity, it's 50-something percent higher.
01:16:17.000I don't know the number, I believe it was 54 percent.
01:16:19.000of a higher quality of life on the index scale for Swedish-Americans than Swedes in Sweden,
01:16:23.000or Danish-Americans than those in Denmark. So that was surprising to me and also brings in
01:16:28.000this important facet of, like you said, if people come in with a culture of hard work,
01:16:34.000with a culture of, you know, industriousness, and then they apply it in the United States,
01:16:38.000then it's an exponential, you know, growth factor.
01:16:42.000Okay, listen, hey, the book is, we're gonna go to a web extended here because he's just a foul-mouthed sailor, Dinesh D'Souza, when we're not on the YouTube and they're gonna ban us any second.
01:16:50.000At Dinesh D'Souza, the book is available, right, Dinesh?
01:16:52.000United States of Socialism, June 2nd, where can people find that?
01:16:56.000Yeah, I mean, an easy way, if you go to my website, just DineshD'Souza.com, it links to all kinds of sites where you can get it from Walmart to Amazon to Barnes & Noble, where you can just get it the normal way through however you buy books.
01:19:03.000Is that a reed where it's like a hollow grass?
01:19:06.000I don't think we can do the Drowning Dance anymore.
01:19:08.000Honestly, I think, and you guys can let me know, the thing with the Drowning Dance, and Dinesh D'Souza, there's like a 20 minute web extended, of course, for people who aren't subscribed to Mug Club.
01:19:16.000The thing with the Drowning Dance, it feels like it's past its prime.
01:19:21.000It's a liability physically because often someone gets hurt.
01:19:40.000I had another closed plan for you today, but like I said, some of this is pre-taped because I do have a missus in the emergency room, and hopefully fine.
01:19:49.000We don't know yet, so some of the elements today are more pre-taped than usual.
01:19:54.000Because I am a husband, but this is the current draft of the executive order.
01:20:01.000That we have from Donald Trump on social media right now.
01:20:05.000And it could change, though I should say that this isn't necessarily the one that's available publicly right now in the afternoon, right before the press conference when I'm taping this close.
01:20:16.000We also have some information that is a little bit behind the scenes, so I trust it.
01:20:42.000So for people who don't know about... And I want to be really...
01:20:46.000You know, I'm not one for, even though we do a comedy show and it's entertainment, I don't really think I'm necessarily one for hyperbole, like people are like, our country's gone, Barack Obama.
01:20:56.000No, but I do think that today in 2020, when you look at all of the issues that we run into, whether it's COVID, whether it's the impeachment, whether it's Russia, whether it's, we just talked about today, Twitter and the mob or how they present AOC, it really does come down to the ability of the American public to procure information.
01:21:17.000And I think we were all really excited when new media, it's not really that new right now,
01:21:24.000when new media came out, and I know Joe Rogan talked about this and we've talked about this,
01:21:27.000where the gatekeepers were gone. But now there are new gatekeepers and more gatekeepers than ever.
01:21:34.000Because the gatekeepers aren't just people in a network, but the gatekeepers now can be the town square.
01:21:39.000The gatekeepers have moved to the sidewalk where they're telling you what you can and can't say because a lot of these companies, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, they benefit from the safe harbor protection, basically treated as a public utility.
01:21:50.000It's a little more complicated than that.
01:21:52.000It's like the difference between a website or a magazine or New York Times versus AT&T or Verizon.
01:21:58.000They can't edit what you say on their phone lines, right?
01:22:02.000Because they're a public utility versus a publisher.
01:22:03.000New York Times can tell what you can't write for our paper, so I want to be really clear about that.
01:22:09.000But all the problems that we've talked about, they come back to this.
01:22:12.000They come back to the public being able to get accurate information and there being an even playing field for people regardless of political persuasion.
01:22:23.000And I think we're at a point now where you have not only three companies or four companies, but one company, Alphabet, Google, YouTube, is more powerful as it relates to information than any national government or world governing body.
01:22:35.000You add up, Alphabet, Google, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, far more than any government agency you can ever imagine.
01:22:46.000And this isn't the same kind of argument that liberals have tried to make about guns, and conservatives have said, well, the First Amendment doesn't just apply to the printing press, it applies to your iPhone.
01:22:55.000Because again, these are companies that are benefiting from protections of being politically neutral, as though they are a digital town square.
01:23:03.000And there's been one foot in and one foot out, and we need to settle the guidelines.
01:23:09.000And that's what we've been talking about in this show for a very long time.
01:23:23.000If you don't want to, obviously you don't have to, but we don't make any money off of YouTube and we're not able to reach some of you now in new ways that we didn't know about before.
01:23:35.000I think this is pretty good from the president.
01:23:37.000I was worried that it could be some kind of an executive order that, you know, would say something along the lines of, you're gonna let me tweet!
01:23:47.000But, instead, I love how you mute your mics in the close, so you chuckle into the darkness.
01:23:54.000Instead, it's something that actually is trying to create a fair and even playing field, and if read The way that it is written right now, and I'm going to read some highlights for you, would apply to both the right and the left.
01:24:04.000Which is what we've always wanted, by the way.
01:24:27.000Executive Order CDA 230 is kind of the working title.
01:24:29.000Again, at this point, it's possible that it changes.
01:24:35.000So let me read you some highlights that I see here.
01:24:37.000Well, I guess I should read the first line, which is, by the authority, by the authority vested in me, and I'm not going to do this the whole time, because then it'll lose its impact.
01:25:03.000By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution of the Laws of the United States of America, including the Federal Property and Administrative Services Act of 1949, as amended, 40 U.S.C.
01:25:19.000101 and 12... That's a lot of numbers, folks.
01:25:23.000It is hereby ordered as follows, and there's a lot of information here regarding free speech being the bedrock of American democracy.
01:26:03.000Online platforms, however, are engaging in selective censorship that is hurting our national discourse.
01:26:07.000Tens of thousands of Americans have reported, among other troubling behaviors, online platforms flagging content as inappropriate even though it does not violate any stated terms of service.
01:26:20.000And that's so concerning, right, because we've experienced this personally.
01:26:24.000YouTube came out and said we did not violate any rules.
01:26:26.000The media interpreted that as though we had.
01:26:29.000And so then YouTube felt like they had their balls in a vice, and they had to change and create new rules that we may violate, and that's what happened with the Vox Apocalypse.
01:26:39.000When people look back through history, Vox Apocalypse, people maybe forget, it was entirely because of me dressed as a woman in some videos and making fun of a guy who called himself a lispy queer using his own words.
01:26:59.000Even though it does not violate any stated terms of service, making unannounced and unexplained changes to policies that have the effect of disfavoring certain viewpoints and deleting content and entire accounts with no warning, no rationale, and no recourse.
01:27:11.000So this is again, this sort of would talk to the motive of Stopping political bias.
01:27:16.000Later on down here it says, several online platforms are profiting from and promoting the aggression and disinformation spread by foreign governments like China.
01:27:24.000Google for example, which is how you know he was very involved in this, because it's vague.
01:27:29.000Several online platforms, well I don't know, who do you think it is?
01:27:45.000Which blacklisted searches for human rights, hid data unfavorable to the Chinese Communist Party, and tracked users determined appropriate for surveillance.
01:27:55.000Again, this is... we're talking about the rationale behind this bill.
01:27:58.000Stopping a foreign agent From promoting propaganda and American companies that are more powerful than the American government, mind you, being complicit in that.
01:28:08.000That's necessary, in my opinion, legally.
01:28:11.000If we're going to talk about Russia, you've got to be just as concerned about algorithms on YouTube auto-deleting comments that aren't racist.
01:28:19.000These aren't comments that called someone a z*****.
01:28:22.000These were comments that were specifically targeting the Communist Party of China that were automatically deleted.
01:28:40.000It's about the most powerful entities in the history of mankind being complicit with one of the most evil governments throughout the history of mankind.
01:30:00.000But subsection 230c, number two, qualifies that principle when the provider edits the content provided by others, subparagraph c2, specifically addresses protections from civil liability and clarifies that a provider is protected from liability when it acts in, quote, good faith to restrict access to content that are considered to be obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, outrageous.
01:30:22.000Excessively violent, harassing, or otherwise objectionable.
01:30:25.000The provision does not extend to deceptive or pretextual actions restricting online content or actions inconsistent with an online platform's terms of service.
01:30:33.000When an interactive computer service provider removes or restricts access to content and its actions do not meet the criteria of that paragraph, it is engaged in editorial conduct.
01:30:41.000By making itself an editor of content outside of the protections of this subparagraph, we're talking about, again, Safe Harbor, we want to be clear, such a provider forfeits Any protection from being deemed a publisher or speaker which properly applies only to a provider that merely provides a platform for content supplied by others.
01:30:59.000It is the policy of the United States that all departments and agencies should apply Section 230C according to the interpretation set out in this section.
01:31:24.000I know you've got a couple series now, YouTube, like Scare PewDiePie, which you had to get rid of because he had an offensive Twitchy stream, which we'll get into in a second, it didn't even happen on the platform.
01:31:35.000You didn't build your sites up by creating content.
01:32:13.000And again, that's really, it's clarifying the taking down in good faith and how it's an inconsistent application of the terms of service.
01:32:19.000National Telecommunications and Information Administration, NTIA, shall file a petition for rulemaking with the Federal Communications Commission.
01:32:25.000Communications Commission, that's, I didn't use the plural.
01:32:29.000I was getting into character too much with looting the target.
01:32:48.000So file a petition for rulemaking within the Federal Communications Commission requesting that the FCC expeditiously... Can we get half-Asian bills done?
01:32:58.000Propose regulations to clarify the conditions under which an action restricting access to or availability of material is not taken in good faith.
01:33:06.000Deceptive, pretextual, inconsistent with the provider's terms of service.
01:33:16.000In other words, let's say there's a hypothetical scenario where someone puts out a highlight reel of everything offensive that maybe you said, which I'm so glad that they used up all their powder.
01:33:28.000To try and get rid of you, and it's not a violation.
01:33:32.000But then, without properly notifying you, there are changes made to your channel algorithmically.
01:33:37.000Or, for some reason, maybe, let's say Twitter isn't showing your tweets to people in the timeline who've chosen to follow you, despite the fact that that always used to be the case, and they haven't sent you proper notification.
01:33:47.000In other words, if anyone out there is being treated differently on any of these platforms, and it can be verified, and you've not been notified, again, that's a problem.
01:34:08.000The head of each executive department and agency shall review its agency's federal spending and advertising and marketing paid to online platforms.
01:35:18.000Section 5, State Review of Unfair and Deceptive Practices.
01:35:20.000The Attorney General shall establish a working group regarding the potential enforcement of state statutes that prohibit online platforms from engaging in unfair and deceptive acts and practices.
01:35:32.000I feel like that one's pretty self-explanatory.
01:35:35.000Then this one right here says, uh, monitoring, talking about some issues, uh, item, line items, monitoring or creating watch lists.
01:35:43.000This is something that stuck out to me of users based on their interactions with contents or users and monitoring based on their activity off of the platform.
01:35:53.000But I feel like this is in here, because everything is in here very purposefully, which I'm actually really happy with, because sometimes Donald Trump—I almost said Barack Obama—he shoots from the hip, Donald Trump, and obviously this is something that's been drafted up not just by Donald Trump, but this seems pretty methodical.
01:36:09.000This seems pretty thought out, and I was concerned because we just saw the tweet yesterday, I believe.
01:36:13.000People thought this was being drafted up out of nowhere.
01:37:20.000Then it can become President Whitmer, and she can decide what can and can't be said.
01:37:25.000But I do think it's within the role of government to ensure that people are being honest, that they are not engaging in deceptive business practices, and that they are not benefiting from legal protections that they have no right from which to benefit.
01:37:40.000So Ben Shapiro, let me tell you where I think that it's a disagreement, and I think that he's wrong, but I understand the concern and I appreciate it.
01:37:45.000He tweeted out that here's the inevitable effect of destroying 230 of the CDA.
01:37:49.000All comment sections will be taken down.
01:37:51.000No website has the resources to actively edit all comments in order to shield themselves from liability, and no website is willing to leave comments entirely standards-free.
01:38:00.000Then he tweeted, the invitation to redefine unfair business practices to include comment policing based lawsuits will likely not end well for conservatives.
01:38:08.000I see the appeal, but I'm wondering just why conservatives are suddenly so unconcerned about political bias among regulators.
01:38:14.000Because this isn't putting the power in the hands of regulators.
01:38:20.000This is where I think that Ben Shapiro, respectfully, and I know I'm not a lawyer, And I'll be told that, and I want everyone to be respectful.
01:38:28.000And it's not—Ben is just saying this.
01:38:29.000A lot of conservatives are saying this, and I understand the argument because I once felt that way.
01:38:32.000We're not giving undue power into the hands of regulators.
01:39:07.000And even more, what I actually find really inspiring here is this, this reads the same for conservatives as it does for liberals.
01:39:16.000Anyone out there who supports freedom of speech, anyone out there who doesn't think that people should be shadowbanned, who doesn't think that offensive speech should be removed just because someone in Silicon Valley, be it Jack Dorsey or Mark Zuckerberg or Susan Wojcicki, deeming it offensive, this is a good thing for you.
01:39:29.000I'm more concerned about them having unfettered power, which is what they have right now.
01:39:34.000And the government has this current power.
01:39:36.000It's about exercising it correctly and defining the parameters that have kind of been skirted.
01:39:41.000And how can you argue that they shouldn't?
01:39:44.000When especially recently, let's get rid of ourselves and the Vox Apocalypse and conservatives, they've automatically edited comments critical of the Communist Chinese Party.
01:39:55.000And here's something else where I think it's wrong.
01:39:58.000This is not going to be affecting conservative websites for the same reason that it won't be affecting the New York Times or the Washington Post.
01:40:05.000I want conservatives to be very clear on this, because YouTube, Facebook, Twitter—I'm just reading the tweets again here—them policing comments themselves is very different than, say, the New York Times or the Washington Post.
01:40:22.000Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube deleting comments that they deem offensive is very different than a user on that platform deleting comments on their own channel.
01:40:31.000In other words, Karen can delete your COVID data.
01:40:36.000That she doesn't like on her Facebook post.
01:40:42.000Facebook doesn't, if they're a public form, if they benefit from Safe Harbor, does not have the right to preempt Karen, as bitchy as she may be, does not have the right to preempt her decision to remove something from her personal profile.
01:41:00.000Washington Post can edit the comment section.
01:41:02.000LoudHouseCredit.com can edit the comment section.
01:41:05.000The Blaze can edit the comment section.
01:41:06.000YouTube, provided that it's not violating actual law that we have, active threats of violence, laws that have already been outlined in this piece of legislation for a while, they don't have the authority to do that.
01:41:55.000So I just think, a platform, particularly one that benefits from the safe harbor, right, they necessarily, they need to be precluded.
01:42:02.000I will say this, this is the main, and then I do have to get going, and Monday we're going to do an entire, I guess, deep dive is the term now into this executive order.
01:42:13.000YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, take your pick, whoever, Instagram, if there have been any of these companies that are benefiting from safe harbor protections, they need to be precluded from making editorial decisions. You have to pick one. It's
01:42:30.000that simple. I've said this for a long time. You have to pick one or the other. Pick your rules.
01:42:44.000If you are looking to reach folks who've been championing this cause for a very long time, the largest show ever in the history of YouTube as far as a conservative program would.
01:43:08.000I'm excited about this because this puts into legalese what we have been trying to communicate for a very long time and a very real fight that we've had to have here at this show.
01:43:18.000Every, I would say, quarter, we have to entirely reinvent our business model, how we title, how we thumbnail, who we talk to at these platforms to make sure that we're not running afoul, and it just gets to be exhausting.
01:43:30.000Because the rules keep changing, and they're benefiting from a statute that specifically says companies like them cannot keep changing the rules.