The Federal Election Commission voted to block the New York Post from covering a story about the Hunter Biden laptop. They said it was a business decision, not a campaign finance violation. Trey Traynor, a commissioner on the FEC, says otherwise.
00:00:00.000Got a great podcast for you. It's Thursday. We cover everything from cowboys to Congress,
00:00:07.420to the generals, to what's really going on on the ground in Afghanistan, all on today's podcast.
00:00:20.940You're listening to the best of the Glenn Beck program.
00:00:25.040I want to have a an adult conversation here, which means I want you to think of things in a different way.
00:00:39.580I've been looking into this this Twitter and the Hunter Biden laptop and how Twitter was was found OK with what they did with the laptop.
00:00:55.040And banning everybody from talking about the laptop. They say it was a business decision and it was cleared by the FEC, the Federal Elections Commission.
00:01:03.580And and my first knee jerk was, of course, they get away with it.
00:01:12.160But as I look into it and I listen to people who who were actually there and help make the decision,
00:01:21.840I think the SEC may have done the right thing because we are a system of rules.
00:01:29.820And I do not want mission drift from any government agency, especially the FEC.
00:01:39.500I want to talk to and introduce you to Trey Traynor.
00:01:43.400He is a commissioner of the Federal Election Commission.
00:01:46.620He was appointed by President Donald Trump.
00:01:50.120He if I'm not mistaken, he voted to say, you know, Twitter did no wrong.
00:01:56.660But I want you to listen to why, because this these are the moments of courage.
00:02:03.460If you agree with what I believe he did, these are the moments of courage that we must have.
00:02:10.040And we must be careful not to condemn people because they didn't take a shortcut, no shortcuts.
00:02:18.640They will only get us into more trouble.
00:02:49.680They the Twitter and Jack blocked a New York Post story about the Hunter Biden laptop.
00:02:57.200They said they were acting for business reasons.
00:03:00.520My knee jerk reaction is they weren't acting for business reasons.
00:03:04.300They were censoring this to make sure that they weren't affecting the election in a negative way because they thought they got Donald Trump elected by covering all the stuff Donald Trump said.
00:03:17.440How did you view it and why did you guys come up with, yeah, Twitter did no wrong here?
00:03:24.040Well, Glenn, I always start with the fact that the Federal Election Commission is an agency that is explicitly designed by our government to limit our First Amendment rights.
00:03:35.200And as such, it really is the wrong vehicle to go after social media companies because there's really a greater harm to our First Amendment free speech rights if we were to expand the jurisdiction of the commission.
00:03:50.080And our court system has said that the sole purpose of the Federal Election Commission is to regulate constitutionally protected speech.
00:03:58.120So we have a very limited jurisdiction and we need to be very protective of what we claim to be violations of campaign finance law.
00:04:08.800And so if you would have is I understand this and I haven't heard your opinion on this.
00:04:16.140But if I understand this, if you guys would have gone after Twitter because you're looking at Twitter and you're not determining whether or not they're a publisher or an editor, you're you don't have that authority.
00:04:30.300You're looking at them or you can look at them and say this is an editorial decision, whether that's right or wrong.
00:04:36.920That's for another agency. But if we for an editorial decision, if we get them, then you can come after me on talk radio.
00:04:46.040You can come after anybody who is doing things like this that claim to be an editor.
00:04:51.500Is that correct? That is exactly correct.
00:04:54.560You know, it is if we were to say that the decision to throttle the Hunter Biden story was a violation of campaign finance, then we would have a flood of complaints where we would have to find the same thing, whether it be you, you know, God rest his soul.
00:05:13.460It would have been every time Rush went on the radio explaining anything, it would have been all of everybody on the right would have gotten a complaint filed against them immediately if we would have found that Twitter had violated campaign finance rule.
00:05:30.300So, you know, and I can understand why people think that it's a campaign finance violation, because, you know, people of goodwill, believing in the virtue of their cause, are going to reach for whatever tool they seem to see available.
00:05:43.920And they think of the Federal Election Commission as that entity that's the easiest to go after.
00:05:51.620But, you know, when you look at it, the Federal Election Campaign Act was last amended in 2002, and so it really predates anything that we have to do in our modern world.
00:06:04.820I mean, at that time, AOL was the biggest thing on the Internet, and we were still using modems and desktops.
00:06:11.880So, you know, they're trying to apply a statute that deals with technologies that are no longer existent and apply them to technologies where, you know, today people get all of their news, you know, in a handheld device.
00:06:31.980You know, I mean, 15% of adult Americans get their news from Twitter, according to a few recent people in 2021.
00:06:39.560So, we're talking about 39 million Americans getting their news from that entity.
00:06:45.460And if you're going to allow a federal agency to start to regulate what an entity of news that goes to 39 million Americans can and can't say, then we're on a very slippery slope to the government regulating what any news site can say.
00:07:01.300Right. I mean, I know our Blaze Glenn Beck world footprint is about 50 million Americans a month.
00:07:09.560That's a lot of people, and we would be, in this regulation, we would be massive, massive targets.
00:07:18.180So, let me ask you this, and you can comment on this or not, but as I see this, you could be saying, or others could be saying, look, I think this is an in-kind contribution to the extent that they knew what they were doing.
00:07:38.860They knew they were swinging the election, but that because they're an editor, even though they claim they're not, because they have editorial license and content, I can't call it an in-kind contribution because it's technically not.
00:08:01.040But that's kind of the way it feels, but that's kind of the way it feels to me.
00:08:23.540Does it, does the business, what was their business reason for doing this?
00:08:28.500Well, they have, you know, they have specific algorithms that are proprietary to, to Twitter.
00:08:35.540They had concerns that material on the laptop itself had been hacked.
00:08:40.720They have, they actually have written business policies that they produced to the commission that show that they will not, you know, reproduce hacked materials.
00:08:51.260And they had concerns about criminal investigations that were ongoing.
00:08:55.360And so, you know, they, they have specific business purposes that they produced to the commission that, you know, they, they're not going to allow law enforcement material to be applied.
00:09:07.540So they, they had, you know, complex business reasons that exist, pre-existed the, the story related to Hunter Biden as part of their policy.
00:09:19.420And so it was legitimate business activity on their part that reflected a commercial consideration that they have.
00:09:25.440And, you know, the fact of the matter is, is even if that commercial activity would have had an explicit partisan bias because it was in fact commercial activity, it was something that cannot be regulated by the federal government.
00:09:47.220We don't want to be in the business of regulating how businesses are run and what editorial decisions they make, uh, when they're moderating those.
00:09:57.240All right. So wait, so wait, so let me ask you, um, one question here that is a change in me.
00:10:02.120I've always been free market. I still am. I am a, I am a free market constitutionalist.
00:10:09.480I don't think we have a free market anymore and we haven't looked at the constitution. Uh, I mean, God knows what the national archives are going to say about it next.
00:10:20.020Um, with that being said, um, I'm to the point now where I think conservatives need to wake up and I, this may be different than your official role as the federal election, uh, commission officer.
00:10:35.180Um, we have got to stop saying, well, it's private business. They can do what they want.
00:10:41.180These businesses are colluding with each other and with the United States governor, uh, government and a, a political party.
00:10:50.180So it's not just a private thing anymore. This is a public private partnership.
00:10:56.500And there's a difference between a free enterprise, uh, and a, and a corporation that is not getting all kinds of favors and everything else.
00:11:07.720Uh, and one that is. So when you say we can't get into this realm, do you mean as conservatives and as, uh, all aspects of the government or just the role of the sec?
00:11:26.500Well, I think first and foremost, I'm talking about the role of the federal election commission, but I think if you get back to first principles in talking about what we as conservatives need to do in order to, uh, get back to our constitutional roots, we have to look towards what did the founders mean when they said that there is freedom of the press.
00:11:47.700Um, and they did not mean that we have to protect the modern journalistic class from some sort of, uh, regulation.
00:11:55.600What they meant by that rather was that we need to protect the printing press, um, and it's modern analogies, the apparatus for being able to speak, uh, to the public.
00:12:07.400And we have to protect the right of anyone to be able to disseminate their opinions, whatever those opinions may be, um, you know, left, right, or center.
00:12:18.560Uh, and that includes, we have to protect the rights of Twitter to be able to disseminate, uh, their, um, ideas, uh, whether even if they, even if they're partisan and, and, and even if they, um, at the end have an effect on, uh, what people believe from the news.
00:12:39.820I mean, this is the, this is the real problem with the, the, the, the fake news is that we still have to protect that right to put out fake news.
00:12:48.320Our founders were very, very clear on that.
00:14:29.140He's getting some heat because, uh, he's coming on this program.
00:14:32.500He tweeted, I'm going to be on the Glenn Beck radio program talking about blood on my hands and the current situation on the ground in Afghanistan.
00:14:39.120And, um, he got a lot of heat from some of his fans.
00:14:42.080If you had any shred of dignity, you wouldn't go on these shows that continue to lie about the election and vaccines.
00:14:47.180I don't know what those lies are, but, um, as somebody else, I'm surprised to see, uh, he's one of the people hurting us.
00:14:53.180I'm so sad to see, uh, his choice to join with liars and demagogues.
00:14:57.640That's a good name of her show instead of, you know, Glenn and Stu, liars and demagogues, maybe.
00:15:02.740Um, we welcome now to the program, uh, John Andrasik.
00:15:10.100Demagogue is a good name for a rock band.
00:15:11.900The demagogues, um, you are in the news this week because you wrote a song and I don't know when, uh, rock and roll became, you know, obey the man and don't, don't question authority.
00:15:29.200Um, but you wrote a song and I want to play a little bit of it, blood on my hands.
00:15:33.420Uh, and it was, you're not allowed to promote it on Facebook.
00:15:38.420This, I think, is something that everybody is feeling right now.
00:16:06.840I don't understand what's happening and I just want to ask some questions, uh, and you are, you are asking some pretty profound questions and some questions that every American should be asking.
00:16:20.180Tell me, uh, Willie, uh, Millie, when did you decide this will defend your sacred motto now means nevermind?
00:16:29.840Um, why can't Blinken, why can't you look us in the eye?
00:16:33.960I mean, those are important things to question.
00:16:36.340Tell me where the song came from and the reaction to it.
00:16:39.720Well, you know, Glenn, I think like everybody, when, uh, the first images that are coming out of Afghanistan, uh, you know, the people falling off planes and mothers throwing their babies over walls and, you know, people getting crushed at checkpoints.
00:16:54.740It kind of, in a way, it kind of, in a way reminded me of 9-11 and just the horrific images and that kind of stunned what is happening.
00:17:02.920And, uh, but it really didn't, really didn't start forming as a song till the day our 13 soldiers were killed and the 100 Afghans were killed by the suicide bomber.
00:17:10.840Or, like, uh, like musicians and, and probably you, you probably have a punching bag or something you do or go for a walk or a run when you get mad.
00:17:21.520And I went up there and, uh, still had no intention of writing a song.
00:17:25.840And, um, but then a few days later when I was driving my family to Mammoth for a nice weekend, I got a call from a friend and I pulled over and she said to me,
00:17:37.420Hey, I need some help. Can you give me a certain contact to some, some folks I know?
00:17:57.260And I'm like, wait a minute, you're telling me that private citizens are risk, risk, risking their lives to go rescue our people that our government left behind.
00:18:06.420And this is a tough, toughie, this, this, this woman.
00:18:10.040And she started crying and, and I'm like, what is happening?
00:18:14.900So, um, a couple of verses were written that day.
00:18:17.960And then finally, finally, when president Biden came out and gave his extraordinary success speech, um, obviously like all of us, I was kind of stunned.
00:18:28.000And, and, and I was hopeful because I've always, as you know, I've been a big supporter of the military and I was hopeful that General Milley and, and General Austin would, will come out and put some perspective on that.
00:18:37.940Because I've always felt, look, politicians are who they are, but our generals are the adults in the room.
00:18:42.560And if things get really sketchy, they'll, uh, they'll make, you know, at least make the right decisions or be honest with us.
00:18:48.260But when they started parodying the, oh, extraordinary success, look at this amazing evac, everything went according to plan.
00:19:06.780So, the last few verses about Milley and Austin and Blinken basically wrote themselves.
00:19:14.260And, uh, and then, you know, I waited till 9-11, uh, was over, um, because certainly you don't want to put a song like this out over that weekend.
00:19:23.180And, uh, I think a lot of people agree with the message.
00:19:26.880Um, unfortunately, we're such a tribal country that there's many folks who, uh, are not interested in, uh, letting, letting me hear it.
00:19:34.580Um, and I'm not accusing Facebook of that because I think this was more of an algorithm thing.
00:19:38.440But the problem is, you know, that we've seen so many examples of censorship from big tech that when something like this happens, it's hard to give them the benefit of the doubt.
00:20:02.620And deep down, we all know what happened with a calamity.
00:20:07.840I'll tell you, John, I, I've never, I mean, I've been embarrassed by my country historically.
00:20:14.620Um, you know, there were times, uh, that I've seen some of our presidents say things, do things, and I'm like, oh, geez, that's going to leave a mark.
00:20:22.960Um, and there were times even under Donald Trump that I thought, I'm embarrassed.
00:20:43.600I've, I know we've done it in the past, but in real time, this is the first time I have been shocked, horrified, scared, uh, at the lack of honor.
00:20:57.400And I think people, no matter what walk of life, I think we all felt this is dishonorable, really dishonorable.
00:21:23.140And, um, just to echo what you said, if Donald Trump were president and we were in this situation, I would write the same song and the names would change.
00:21:31.720It would be the same song because it is a moral issue.
00:21:34.100And believe me, I'm no huge Trump fan and I've been embarrassed by him before, but as this is, I think, a generational catastrophe because our word, the American word matters.
00:21:59.220She goes radio silent, you know, for a couple of days.
00:22:01.620And then I start to worry, but literally when you guys called, I hung up with her.
00:22:06.440She would tell me about a music school that was burned down by the Taliban and the children are in hiding and they're trying to get them out.
00:22:14.580But they're having struggling with the state department because there's this thing called a lily pad transfer.