The Tucker Carlson Show - Catherine Herridge： Being Fired From CBS, the Trump v. Biden Debate, and Hunter’s Laptop

00:00:00.000 welcome to the tucker carlson show we bring you stories that have not been showcased anywhere else

00:00:16.360 and they're not censored of course because we're not gatekeepers we are honest brokers

00:00:20.860 here to tell you what we think you need to know and do it honestly check out all of our content

00:00:26.300 at tucker carlson.com here's the episode i'm so glad you're back here i'm so glad to see you you

00:00:32.320 are not far away it's not too far away we work together we live near each other it's all in

00:00:37.720 many places um amazing how are you enjoying your new life pretty well it's uh good it's been an

00:00:45.120 adjustment i've had an energetic few months i knew you would i knew you would um okay so i just have

00:00:50.820 to ask you because you're i was in television a long time also but you were in the the news side

00:00:57.300 of television preparing interviews and packages and every day for decades and given your extensive

00:01:04.840 knowledge of that i'm just a little bit confused by how the media people in our business former

00:01:10.120 business could look at the last debate with biden and trump and say i just can't believe that there's

00:01:14.680 something wrong with him that he's neurologically compromised or ill or senile or whatever that he's

00:01:19.000 not operating the way that he used to how could this be news to people who've interviewed him

00:01:23.020 before well i think this is a real opportunity to gather more data and to take an investigative lens

00:01:29.280 and look at this issue of president biden and his decision to seek re-election we've got some data

00:01:35.660 points already we have the debate yeah that you've just referenced that people were so surprised

00:01:40.440 his demeanor and we now have this abc interview and the full transcript i think it's a moment where

00:01:46.720 other media organizations who've done interviews with the president over the last couple of years

00:01:52.040 could release the full transcripts from those interviews i think it makes sense because we'd have

00:01:58.620 broader data points to assess was this a one-off as the white house says or were there indications

00:02:05.000 of decline earlier on were they obvious and apparent or were they subtle and missed and and if they were

00:02:12.400 obvious why was it that they seemed to end up on the cutting room floor um i think that having this

00:02:19.280 broader data set for an independent review would really inform the public discussion about the

00:02:26.040 president's decision to stay in the race and there's a lot of data to look at i mean i've known biden

00:02:30.920 watch biden been around biden a lot for over 30 years and i remember my reaction in 2019 when he

00:02:38.420 decided to run um once again for president for the fourth time i think uh i thought that's not the

00:02:44.020 guy i know i mean he's just completely different and then his sister told a friend of mine actually

00:02:50.120 we're very upset because he's in cognitive decline he's got some neurological illness and we don't want

00:02:55.800 him to run for president so i immediately said that on fox news so you reported that at the time

00:02:59.940 absolutely yeah and then i showed the tape like look at this guy and was attacked of course and

00:03:05.700 ignored so that was five years ago um i wasn't shocked by his performance the debate especially

00:03:12.040 but then other journalists were they seem to be were they pretending or like what i don't understand

00:03:18.120 how someone who did an interview with him like two years ago wouldn't have been aware that there

00:03:23.360 was something wrong well i think it's an opportunity to provide this broader data set so there can be

00:03:28.420 this independent review by the public what would that data look like well let's look at what the

00:03:33.480 transcripts show do they show someone who is um you know very consistent very focused uh very deliberate

00:03:40.640 in their answering of questions or does it show someone who's maybe struggling to stay on track or is

00:03:46.180 lacking do we have focus um well media outlets who've conducted interviews with the president should

00:03:51.300 have those transcripts i mean it's it's not standard to release video outtakes from an interview but you

00:03:56.920 could release the transcript and i say that as someone who released a transcript of my interview with

00:04:02.700 president trump back in 2020 releasing a transcript i think is about transparency so you can have a

00:04:11.120 broad overview of the interview i think it makes sense because there are other headlines in the

00:04:17.500 interview that maybe you your news organization is not going to look at per se you know just sort of

00:04:23.440 separately i think you have a tremendous responsibility when you sit down with the president of the united

00:04:27.620 states probably the ultimate newsmaker to ask questions that are of interest to your news

00:04:32.360 organization but also to others right and then finally i think a transcript uh allows you to stand

00:04:38.300 behind the edit that you either post online or that you broadcast right because then the public can see

00:04:45.060 the sections of the interview that you you know condensed or you made edits for clarification right so i know

00:04:53.000 that in um i haven't thought about this enough but i know that in 2015 or 2016 the new york times

00:04:59.480 editorial board sat down with trump and they released a full apparently unedited transcript which was

00:05:05.680 chaotic his speaking style tends to be a little discursive um that's a great word discursive yeah it is

00:05:12.040 non-linear um but you know that's that's well known uh i think he's much better on camera than he is

00:05:19.100 you know in transcripts but but whatever you think of it that they put that out there

00:05:23.160 i don't remember in the last four years any news organization interviewed biden and there have been

00:05:28.340 some releasing a transcript of the interview do you i you know i i don't i can't recall but i don't really

00:05:35.020 i haven't gone back and looked at all of them but so like what would be the so i guess what bothers

00:05:39.640 me is that everyone acts like this is a shock it was not a shock to me i have no special

00:05:46.120 knowledge i'm quite some special knowledge but i which i revealed immediately but it was like

00:05:50.700 super obvious every time i saw him there's something wrong with that guy how could the

00:05:55.160 journalists be shocked well why don't they just release immediately well they could that's that's

00:06:00.320 what i think makes a lot of sense right now to do that that's ultimately up to them but i think it

00:06:05.860 just goes to transparency i think it goes to informing the public discussion right now about the

00:06:11.660 president's fitness for office and to seek re-election and i think it's also about standing

00:06:16.180 behind your work right like you decided to make edits in the process um for for clarity for time

00:06:23.920 you know whatever the issue is and so you can really you can really stand behind that i think

00:06:28.440 that's that's important but so again you were in this business for so long and me too and at a time

00:06:35.280 you know pre-internet pre-streaming where you have a very small chunk of time three five six

00:06:41.580 minutes for the long ones and then you just can't use the rest but now news organizations should just

00:06:48.260 put the whole thing i mean that's what we do i do this interview is not edited in any way

00:06:52.600 and if you know we'll just let viewers decide what they think of katherine harris or me or whatever

00:06:58.200 you know but so what would be the excuse that say nbc or cbs or abc or fox or anybody would have

00:07:07.620 to not put the full thing online now i mean i can't speak to what their rationale would be i just

00:07:13.240 don't in my case i felt it was important to to release a transcript to allow people to see the

00:07:17.820 work and to also i mean it's hard to look at your own transcript because you you look at it and you

00:07:23.080 say oh that question could have been more focused or i should have followed up more or i missed that

00:07:28.580 little piece of news i should have drilled down a little further or i interrupted there when i really

00:07:33.080 shouldn't have i mean it's really kind of warts and all process that you're looking at but it's

00:07:37.280 it's about sort of the raw integrity of the interview you know when you make edits in an

00:07:42.680 interview you do it for clarity sometimes you do it because you have to condense things because you

00:07:48.200 only have a certain amount of time on a broadcast but it's a real fine line and a balancing act and you

00:07:54.940 don't want you know seeking clarity and brevity or condensing it to cross the line into you know a

00:08:02.600 clean up on aisle seven well that's what it feels like though it does feel like

00:08:06.640 you know i don't want to be too judgy i was telling you at breakfast this morning i edited something out

00:08:11.780 of an interview once with somebody i can't remember ever doing that before since but and i would not

00:08:17.040 do that now but several years ago someone said something so bizarre in an interview that i didn't

00:08:21.380 want to follow up on it because i didn't want to i mean what the hell are you even talking about

00:08:24.920 and so i asked the editors to take that out just because i didn't think it was relevant to the

00:08:29.780 conversation it was weird um so whatever i did that i'll say that i did that but if you're

00:08:37.280 interviewing someone and he seems like bizarre through the whole interview and you find yourself

00:08:42.160 trying to cover that up then maybe you're a liar do you think well i think the i think the instinct

00:08:49.560 when you sit down with the president of the united states is this is your president you want them to

00:08:53.460 look their best i mean i understand i understand that but if there were indicators and i don't know

00:08:58.740 there were but if there were indicators that he was in decline or he was really struggling to answer

00:09:03.940 a series of questions i mean that's news right i mean that's a news headline well and the opposite

00:09:09.800 of news is of course you know censorship and deception so if you're hiding that then you're

00:09:16.160 committing well a moral crime but you're also committing an offense against the profession that you

00:09:19.900 chose whose purpose is to inform the public of what reality is right and you're hiding things rather

00:09:26.280 than exposing them and that i mean that that's pretty clear violation isn't it yeah i again i think

00:09:31.980 it's an opportunity to build the data set to better understand what's happened over the last couple of

00:09:37.340 years and you know really apply that investigative lens you know i find it so hard to take off my like

00:09:42.160 investigative reporter but that's that's sort of how i see it right now i'm curious i'm genuinely

00:09:47.240 curious to see what those transcripts may reflect well in 2016 um you know nbc went and back into its

00:09:57.860 archives and found an outtake of donald trump saying something vulgar to billy bush the host

00:10:03.940 about women and grabbing them and all this stuff and then they leaked it to david fahrenheit i think

00:10:10.140 i'm remembering this correctly i can't remember that exactly but it came out if i said if i've gotten

00:10:13.980 that wrong pardon me but they leaked it to washington post reporter who had been a college friend of

00:10:18.720 an nbc executive and then it became this huge thing that you know almost derailed trump's campaign

00:10:25.340 and that's why they did it of course so there's precedent for showing us the outtakes

00:10:31.040 do they have an excuse not to show it to the biden outtakes i mean i i can't really speak for them i'm

00:10:37.380 sorry to sort of be a little evasive about that i just i just would advocate for it i think that

00:10:41.260 it's an issue of such import to the country and it really informs the discussion and the discourse

00:10:47.240 surrounding this this issue and it goes to accountability with the white house was it

00:10:52.240 really a bad night or was was there a broader trend that had been developing yeah i mean i'm i feel

00:10:59.360 totally qualified to pass judgment on that over to you well i knew the guy that's not biden like

00:11:07.160 that's not the guy i remember who and i mean this i always i never agreed with him but i'm a shallow

00:11:13.320 person so is he so i always kind of liked him because he's throw you know irish guy throw his

00:11:18.800 arm around you how you doing buddy you know rub your chest maybe sniff maybe sniffed me i don't care

00:11:24.020 i like sniffing um and that's just not the guy on tv at all like at all i mean if i was a conspiracy

00:11:32.480 not i would think he was a body double because it's that different so anyway all right in your

00:11:38.220 long and varied career working in a bunch of different big media the biggest media outlets

00:11:42.460 in the country um did you see people's political or social agendas shape news coverage a lot

00:11:49.900 i i the short answer is is is yes um i think it's difficult for people to step back and

00:11:58.160 do what i like to say i do is which is balls and strikes right people have their own personal

00:12:04.740 lens through which they see stories uh but i think you have to really park that at the front door

00:12:09.760 when you go to work because i think that's when you have the most transparent credible authentic

00:12:14.800 journalism i agree with that do you feel like the composition of newsrooms has changed from when you

00:12:20.800 started in the business it feels like there was a greater like actual diversity of life experience

00:12:26.620 back then 30 years ago hard to say i started my career at abc in london yeah and that was uh an

00:12:33.720 extremely rarefied atmosphere yes that's right these are very very experienced people a lot of the

00:12:38.720 correspondents came out of vietnam yes you know very very deep experience and i was very fortunate to

00:12:43.260 learn in that environment i haven't this is when jennings was still a force there jennings had just

00:12:48.600 left london by the time i had arrived and um i i wanted to be a foreign correspondent you know

00:12:56.280 when you're that young you have ideas like i just like it looks so exciting to me totally and some of

00:13:01.900 the correspondents in the office really took me under their wing and taught me how to write a story

00:13:06.500 by looking at the interviews the strongest elements of the interview the sound bites and then

00:13:11.700 they trained me to really sit down and look at the video and identify the strongest video and then

00:13:16.420 the natural sound which really can be such an important technique not sound that's right when you're

00:13:21.900 editing a piece together because it's really like this mosaic the strongest sound the best video

00:13:26.440 and the natural sound so this was a really rarefied environment have i been in a newsroom like that

00:13:32.640 since i don't think so what was the difference was smarter more serious i i just felt with with that

00:13:41.200 cohort of reporters they're just it was all about accountability journalism i mean to me if that's

00:13:47.320 part of my dna it's it's what does that mean accountability journalism is when you're you're

00:13:52.420 curious and you seek the facts and then you try and figure out where the buck stops right and it's

00:13:59.100 not a question of well it's this party or that party it's whatever entity is responsible right and

00:14:05.240 accountability journalism is you know like they say speaking truth to power on both sides of

00:14:10.080 of the aisle to power is the key though i mean accountability doesn't necessarily mean

00:14:14.700 you know hassling poor rural whites with diabetes you know the weakest most despised people in our

00:14:19.860 society it means like you know asking questions about black rock and the national security council

00:14:25.740 and the people who actually have all the power it it felt to me 30 years ago like that was

00:14:31.080 implied like everyone sort of thought that your job was to hold the powerful accountable not the

00:14:36.080 weakest i still feel that way i do too yeah we have that in common

00:14:40.760 um did you see that change um boy you know i i used to say to people that um you know technology

00:14:50.600 was supposed to really improve our ability to do journalism but i sometimes felt that the

00:14:55.540 technology has never been better but the reporting's never been worse and and i don't

00:15:00.100 know why that is except is there a connection i've never thought of i think sometimes what we're

00:15:04.440 missing is that boots on the ground person to person contact in reporting um years ago when i did a

00:15:12.560 journalism degree at columbia i had this professor dick blood that was his name dick blood and he was

00:15:19.100 sort of a legend in new york city newsrooms and he used to always say to me detail matters in good

00:15:24.380 reporting you know if you go to a crime scene you want to count how many bullet holes there are on the

00:15:28.760 windshield so i think there's that kind of on the ground sort of real traditional investigative

00:15:34.020 feel sometimes that's that's missing in that person-to-person contact yes well i agree with

00:15:39.920 that i remember going to a murder scene and looking down there was blood all over my shoes

00:15:44.380 i didn't put that in the story but i remember thinking wow you know that actually is shoe leather

00:15:49.380 reporting you get a real sense of things when you can smell them you know when you think back to

00:15:54.500 major events i i was in new york on 9 11 and um we were down near um the world trade center in the

00:16:03.940 days right afterwards and i i saw someone who was collecting um ash off the top of the cars and at

00:16:10.000 that point we'd realized that all of the abandoned cars in downtown manhattan belonged to people who

00:16:14.560 had been killed in the towers and i stopped this woman and i asked her what she was doing and she

00:16:19.380 said my sister was wasn't uh the the windows on the world at the top of the world trade center

00:16:25.440 she didn't survive and i want to have something to bury for my family so the ash is what i'm

00:16:31.600 collecting and that was the moment that i realized that so much of the ash that was spread around the

00:16:36.580 city was really people people and the buildings and that kind of tactile feel to the reporting

00:16:43.540 is the kind of reporting that really impacts people and stays and stays with them and i don't

00:16:49.280 know whether it's the technology or whether it's sort of the immediacy of all these deadlines but the

00:16:54.380 ability to do that um is much harder now than it used to be no i and i think that's really smart and

00:17:02.060 technology gives you the illusion that all the information is on google or a text away when actually

00:17:08.600 talking to people makes all the difference huh so one phenomenon that i noticed or that i actually

00:17:16.560 didn't notice until i was in middle age but came you're in middle age i mean well that's what they

00:17:22.140 claim okay actually way past middle age i'm not going to live to i'm not good at math 110 so i guess

00:17:29.040 i'm in late life now um but there are beat reporters people who've you know covering federal agencies

00:17:37.560 particularly in washington who become captive to those agencies to their sources you know not in

00:17:44.540 a literal sense are not held in the basement in chains but they're i mean they are sort of puppets

00:17:48.820 of the people they cover like i really noticed that i'm thinking of one specific person i'm not going

00:17:55.340 to name but i would just say a female national security reporter in washington who and i would watch

00:17:59.420 these you know stories come out i'd be like that well that that's a lie you know it's a lie and you're

00:18:05.100 doing it on behalf of the people who feed you these lies have you seen a lot of that i think that the

00:18:10.940 danger is that people become sort of so friendly with the the press offices that work in in these

00:18:17.260 big um agencies that they they find it hard over time to really challenge them that was never a

00:18:24.140 problem for you i noticed i should say we work together for people who don't know gather marriage

00:18:29.840 one thing i've always loved about you i don't even know who you vote for and i mean that

00:18:32.920 but i did notice that a lot of the flax didn't like you so i always thought that was a good sign

00:18:37.620 you want to you want to have the ability to really operate outside the ring i used i used to say that

00:18:42.620 um one of the advantages to doing reporting as long as i've done it is that you start to build a

00:18:48.380 network of contacts so that that's really where your your stories are coming from right and that

00:18:52.760 the public affairs office and a major government entity is really the last stop for you right that's

00:18:57.740 where you're trying to get some response and i really believe in in giving these offices ample

00:19:02.640 time to respond i did a story recently where we engaged with uh the department of the army and the

00:19:08.100 national guard for two weeks i mean we really gave them time because we wanted to understand

00:19:12.900 their position and what had happened in a particular case um but sometimes the danger is that people

00:19:18.380 become too close that's why i think it makes sense in in some cases to really rotate reporters

00:19:23.440 so that you don't spend so long on a certain beat that you start to lose your contacts of outside of

00:19:29.060 that circle that's exactly or you become a tool of of lies which some uh pentagon reporters have

00:19:36.880 become i would say one in particular but what's the mechanism for for pulling that person back and

00:19:42.300 putting that person on another beat or for fixing that i can i i listen i've never been a manager but

00:19:48.460 it just seems to me um when i worked overseas i saw this with some of the british news

00:19:52.700 organizations um that they would rotate people into the united states for a few years and then

00:19:58.800 they would take them back to britain so they would be there through an election cycle that say they'd be

00:20:03.360 there long enough to build contacts and then they would go back overseas and someone else would come

00:20:07.320 in so you'd have a fresh set of eyes and ears yes on and i think that that makes a lot of sense

00:20:12.200 it can be a little frustrating for a reporter because on some beats it takes you a decade or more to

00:20:17.060 really start to build the contacts and the reputation with individuals um but i do think

00:20:22.920 that you have to check yourself you have to ask yourself um am i really checking it out to the

00:20:29.120 degree um that i need to be as professor blood would say just because your mother says she loves you

00:20:34.060 doesn't mean you should not check it out that's right that's right i learned that firsthand yeah

00:20:38.700 that's a that's a different conversation i'm totally kidding that's so dark but it is funny

00:20:44.540 so if you're paying any attention at all to what's going on in the world you probably asked yourself

00:20:49.640 what would i do not just for myself but for the people who love me and i'm responsible for my family

00:20:54.040 what would i do if things really went south either for a short period or a longer period if there was

00:20:58.820 an emergency how would i respond of course you need food and water you need security some way to

00:21:03.780 protect yourself and your loved ones you probably have taken care of all of that

00:21:07.140 but one problem you may not have addressed is what do you do about medicine if there's a medical

00:21:11.920 problem when there's not readily available medical care what do you do for your family and that's a

00:21:16.760 tough question to answer actually but now there is an answer and it comes from jace medical it is a

00:21:22.760 personalized emergency supply of medicines you might need antibiotics other life-saving medicines to

00:21:29.820 treat a long list of problems you could have bacterial illnesses respiratory infections skin infections

00:21:34.120 etc etc etc etc things that could come up and happen when you can't just drive over to the doctor

00:21:40.060 this is preparation and for its cost probably well worth it but find out for yourself go to

00:21:46.940 jace medical.com to get emergency stock of common medicines for yourself and your family it'll all be

00:21:52.960 reviewed by a board certified physician and dispensed by a licensed pharmacy at a fraction of the regular

00:21:58.700 costs not crackpot stuff it's essential i have it you should too use the promo code tucker at checkout for

00:22:06.240 an extra discount but don't wait until you need it it's worth doing now jace medical.com hillsdale

00:22:13.080 college offers many great free online courses including a recent one on marxism socialism and communism

00:22:19.360 today marxism goes by different names to make itself seem less dangerous names like critical race theory

00:22:25.640 gender theory and decolonization no matter the names this online course shows it's the same marxism that

00:22:32.200 works to destroy private property and that will lead to famines show trials and gulags start learning

00:22:38.900 online for free at tucker for hillsdale.com that's tucker f-o-r hillsdale.com

00:22:48.340 tucker says it best the credit card companies are ripping americans off and enough is enough

00:23:05.180 this is senator roger marshall of kansas our legislation the credit card competition act

00:23:11.460 would help in the grip visa and mastercard have on us every time you use your credit card they charge

00:23:18.060 you a hidden fee called a swipe fee and they've been raising it without even telling you this hurts

00:23:23.660 consumers and every small business owner in fact american families are paying eleven hundred dollars

00:23:29.980 in hidden swipe fees each year the fees visa and mastercard charge americans are the highest in the

00:23:36.620 world double candidates and eight times more than europe's that's why i've taken action but i need your

00:23:42.860 help to help get this passed i'm asking you to call your senator today and demand they pass the credit

00:23:49.480 card competition act paid for by the merchants payments coalition not authorized by any candidate

00:23:54.620 or candidates committee www.merchantspaymentscoalition.com

00:23:58.700 i wonder since you spent you know you're at abc fox news cbs um you just left cbs pretty recently

00:24:09.160 the spring maybe february okay um like you spent your whole life and i have to at these huge news

00:24:16.900 organizations at and toward the end you know independent journalism digital journalism is on the

00:24:23.940 rise like what was the view of that from inside the big news organization well i think within uh big

00:24:29.840 corporate media uh there was still a sense that they were sort of the the final word on things

00:24:36.140 really yeah or you know sort of maybe it's not the best phrase gatekeepers um for information but

00:24:42.300 after i lost my job in february i took a couple of months to really educate myself about the marketplace

00:24:48.360 and i was surprised at how much the media landscape had really changed just crazy that you wouldn't know

00:24:54.140 that i didn't know it either i mean i'm not criticizing you i mean i but isn't it weird that

00:24:58.140 you can work i'm in the news business but you really don't know what the news business is i think

00:25:02.260 you're very focused on what you're doing day to day and you're not sort of looking at the bigger

00:25:06.020 picture but i took some time to to try and understand how the landscape had really shifted and i was

00:25:12.040 surprised at how much it had really evolved in the four and a half years that i was at cbs news

00:25:16.700 and i say this as someone who spent my entire career working with big corporations and i was and

00:25:24.860 i was grateful for those jobs i don't want to minimize that but what i see now is that those

00:25:30.920 entities are really shrinking and contracting and the audiences are getting older and the real explosive

00:25:38.220 growth is with smaller independent operations and smaller independent newsrooms

00:25:45.040 why do you think that is though i mean if you're someone like matt taibbi who also worked you know

00:25:52.560 for rolling stone you know big work for a big company but then went out completely on his own he

00:25:57.240 is a sub stack and then he creates his own news organization but it's just one guy and if you look at

00:26:03.960 his growth and revenue it's so much higher than like people with the backing of these huge corporations

00:26:11.860 like why how could matt taibbi get a bigger audience than nor o'donnell or whoever's hosting

00:26:18.900 these shows i don't even know who's hosting them anymore but like how did that happen i think i think

00:26:22.760 the public is really hungry for credible reliable information so i don't think it's more uh complicated

00:26:30.140 i agree with you than that and i'm not here to sort of take shots at my old employers but i i just that's

00:26:35.300 what i came away from but what's so interesting is like if you have like if you're you know general

00:26:41.540 motors and you have a sort of monopoly on your on your area and all of a sudden some guy starts

00:26:48.360 building cars in his garage and like they're more popular than you it's kind of an indictment of you

00:26:55.020 isn't it i think the speed at which things have have evolved has really surprised people i mean

00:27:02.280 when you start to look at the i think we're at an inflection point for sure you start to look at

00:27:06.820 um the numbers you know for example you did some interviews that related to the biden investigation

00:27:12.020 and these were you know 90 million views or you know sometimes higher but these are these are big

00:27:18.020 numbers and when you compare that to what an evening news broadcast is you know 4 million 7 million 6

00:27:24.640 million i mean you're just reaching a broader larger global audience yes and i would argue and i

00:27:32.180 don't have the benefit of all the data but it's also a younger audience and it may be an audience

00:27:36.980 that's really engaged in gathering information because if they're on these platforms they're

00:27:42.660 checking multiple times a day for for headlines for new video for new content so these are real

00:27:49.300 voracious consumers of information i think that's all absolutely true but it leaves that answer the

00:27:57.580 question how did this happen how did you know penniless upstarts beat you know the entrenched

00:28:03.020 monopolies and i just know in my own life the only moments of growth that have ever occurred for me

00:28:08.840 the pivot points of my life have all been those moments from like wow i really suck

00:28:12.920 like i really made bad no for real you know i drink too much or i got caught lying or i'm just kind

00:28:19.580 of a rotten person i have to change and i got fired once for basically i was just lazy and not

00:28:25.460 taking my job seriously i stopped being lazy i started taking my job you know it's like really

00:28:29.560 important to realize how much you suck well there's a forcing function yes that's what it is long-winded

00:28:36.080 question do you see that process playing out at in corporate media i can i can speak for myself

00:28:41.840 right now if uh you know i lost my job in february um you just lost it like you forgot where you put

00:28:48.340 it no i i didn't actually lose my job i i had a few drinks and lost my job along with my car keys

00:28:56.620 myself looking around for it um you know my job was terminated that was a very public thing

00:29:01.840 i'm not i was fired too um i lost my company health insurance that was a very big deal for us because we

00:29:09.900 have a son who's a transplant patient he's a chronic medical condition and then i had my record seized

00:29:15.400 by my employer which was a red line i thought should never have been crossed and then i was

00:29:21.400 held in contempt of court so february was a very very big month for me um but i made a decision once

00:29:27.900 i'd educated myself about the marketplace which i would never have done if there hadn't been that

00:29:32.140 forcing function that for now i was going to go independent i'd had some opportunities from

00:29:38.140 generous opportunities to sort of go back to a large corporate media outlet but i decided that i would

00:29:45.060 go independent and i would tell the stories that i couldn't tell before because i was at a point in

00:29:49.800 my career where i had built up a network of contacts and i felt now is the time if it's not now then then

00:29:58.960 when amen i couldn't agree more so since you um brought up and i'm and i'm sorry i didn't mean to

00:30:04.000 make fun i know it's it is traumatic to have your life turned upside down in a day um i just think

00:30:09.460 you're going to be so much happier uh but let's talk about that like so you get hired you were at

00:30:15.600 fox news where we work together and i really enjoyed that thank you i enjoyed it too i thought

00:30:21.120 you were really you're very well behaved honest i felt like i was a good moderating influence

00:30:26.400 when we sat down together i loved it but then you left and went um to cbs news which is a you know

00:30:33.780 a huge channel with a storied past in decline in decline this is my assessment because they

00:30:39.480 weren't doing what they're supposed to do which is like tell you interesting stuff that you didn't

00:30:42.920 know and be honest and brave you are honest and brave and you specialize in interesting stories

00:30:47.880 so i thought wow this is so this is great i mean cbs a little smarter than i thought they were

00:30:52.320 and you did break a bunch of stories and you were the most memorable person on their air the one doing

00:30:58.160 the fiercest journalism this is again my assessment and then they have cutbacks because their business

00:31:03.940 is failing and they fire you i'm like wait what did you see that coming uh i didn't see it coming

00:31:12.380 yeah i didn't um it wasn't a performance issue i i'm so proud of the work that we did there

00:31:19.020 especially the work with veterans i mean we really helped be a catalyst for legislation that impacted

00:31:25.520 a million veterans and civilians for for the better yes i mean i feel very proud of that um

00:31:31.760 but uh that's that's their choice uh whether i work there or not it's not my company of course but

00:31:38.060 the the seizing of the records was uh a terrible red line if you don't mind i know this has been

00:31:45.580 written about but i just want to get a record on video of what exactly happened so how how did this

00:31:50.840 unfold like what kind of warning did you have and what happened well i testified to

00:31:55.360 congress uh about this as well um i was uh laid off laid off on a zoom call i was told my job was

00:32:02.240 terminated and explain why uh no not beyond saying that they were they were making cuts and um i was

00:32:11.240 locked out of my email and locked out of the office and um a couple of days later a courier came to the

00:32:18.420 house with just a couple of boxes of clothing and um some books and you know a few awards and i said

00:32:25.620 where are all my investigative files and my research and my reporting notes and she said you're just going

00:32:31.320 to have to talk to human resources about that and i got the union involved sag after i'm not going to go

00:32:37.860 into all the details but there was a very vigorous back and forth about returning the records um what were

00:32:44.640 the records like interview notes um you know what i would say is that there were interview notes uh

00:32:50.100 research reporter notes contact information and um when i had left other major organizations abc and fox

00:32:58.400 um it was completely different um there was an understanding that you would go through your

00:33:03.160 materials you would take with you what was essentially your reporting materials and you would leave

00:33:07.660 what belonged to the company and i knew from people at cbs that that what was happening to me was not

00:33:12.800 standard uh one person in particular said that uh when their office was cleaned out they put in

00:33:18.680 dirty coffee cups and post-it notes i mean everything came back to them yeah um i think if the union

00:33:24.640 hadn't gotten involved and there hadn't been a public outcry i would never have seen those records again

00:33:29.580 the union really stood up for journalism and i i testified that when the network of walter

00:33:35.480 cronkite seizes your reporting information and including confidential source information it's an attack

00:33:41.020 on investigative journalism and i heard from contacts that i've worked with over the years

00:33:46.760 um who helped me to expose government wrongdoing and corruption that they were very concerned that

00:33:53.040 they would be identified so you i mean again i i doubt you will agree with this i don't know what

00:33:59.940 you really think but from my perspective super obvious they're taking you out before the election

00:34:03.900 because you're reporting on hunter biden's laptop and that was that's my take on it i was shocked that

00:34:09.340 they fired you then when i reflected for a moment i was not shocked at all you know they took out the

00:34:15.120 drudge report before the 2020 election they you know whatever lots of people who are in the way

00:34:21.280 have been taken out before elections so um what you know do you think there were do you think your

00:34:27.560 notes were um did they go through your notes during the time they had them i really can't answer that

00:34:33.860 because you don't know or i just don't want to really answer that okay well i think that's okay

00:34:38.580 no of course i think yeah i think people can draw their own conclusions um tell us about the reporting

00:34:43.600 you did publicly they said they haven't but um anyway i'll leave it at that yeah we'll be kind of

00:34:50.060 tempting to go through your interview notes i'd like to i mean why would they seize your personal

00:34:56.520 report uh reporting product you know it was a very sad episode for me just professionally and

00:35:03.500 personally because i thought that we had done some really tremendous work um on not only uh the the

00:35:10.540 laptop um but also um the irs whistleblowers i mean this was a major story for cbs news i

00:35:17.840 did an interview along with one of my colleagues and i think that really changed the public discussion

00:35:22.620 of the hunter biden investigation and this question of whether there was a double standard applied in that

00:35:27.600 so for those of us who missed the cbs report tell us what the the tax investigation into hunter biden

00:35:35.240 so hunter biden in the end got convicted of a completely ridiculous gun this is my personal editorializing

00:35:42.140 but a ridiculous gun charge like who cares actually um but there are other potential crimes

00:35:48.860 tell us about the tax well you have to say i would think about the hunter biden case as having

00:35:53.320 two buckets the first was the gun charges and then the second is this tax case i've always felt the

00:35:58.540 tax case is a much more serious case and has the greatest legal jeopardy for himself and members of

00:36:04.460 his of his family um it i'd encourage people just to look at the indictment which is in california and

00:36:11.000 it's uh my memory is that it's on the first page or the second page they refer to him as a lobbyist

00:36:16.060 and that to me is an indicator that the special counsel is exploring whether there were violations of

00:36:21.920 pharaoh which is the foreign agents registration act and that in simple terms means that if you're

00:36:26.900 working on behalf of the interests of a foreign government you need to be clear with the u.s

00:36:31.460 government to register that's right um and seated throughout that document is information about

00:36:37.780 his businesses with ukraine with china with with others so to me it leaves the door open to a

00:36:45.320 superseding indictment i'm not saying that's going to happen but it certainly to me was an indicator

00:36:49.500 or a flag that that was possible so um but the tax charges specifically what what do they amount to

00:36:56.860 um these are felony tax charges um they're pretty significant and a tax case the challenge for any

00:37:03.580 defendant is that these are paper driven cases they're not really witness driven cases um what did

00:37:08.540 you attest to when you sign the forms um what did your accountant attest to and um i think one of the

00:37:15.960 important elements in the cases how much of this happened after he was sober right because there's

00:37:24.200 a whole window with the taxes where he's really a heavy user and drug addict but as he told the

00:37:30.420 delaware court last year when the plea deal fell apart there was a period of time where he became clean

00:37:35.960 so how many of these alleged bad acts happened during that period versus when he was an addict

00:37:40.600 and that's relevant because sober people have no excuse well it just goes to your state of mind

00:37:48.440 right i think i think a jury mistakes yeah i think i think any jury wants to understand someone who's

00:37:54.480 come through addiction um they they want to understand that they're they're sympathetic to

00:37:59.380 that because that's like a daily challenge for individuals and i think that knowing when they were

00:38:04.620 able to get themselves clean i think helps inform um their view on the evidence and what actions

00:38:10.440 i think that's i think that's right so what's the status of those charges uh uh last i haven't

00:38:15.960 been following it as closely um but in the fall i think that goes to trial it was just kind of

00:38:21.380 interesting i mean this is relevant now and i don't think it's often referred to in daily reporting on

00:38:26.420 what joe biden is going through right now so 10 days ago ish there was the debate people were shocked

00:38:33.240 democratic donors appear shocked some i talked to one of them who really was shocked didn't know

00:38:38.300 that biden was impaired and there was a push pretty sizable push for members of congress for biden to

00:38:43.980 step aside and he's now issued this letter which seems to me is written by his son hunter saying i'm

00:38:50.540 staying in and hunter it's been reported widely is in the white house he's his father's chief advisor

00:38:56.160 on this and you're sort of wondering like what is this and you're saying well hunter biden is facing

00:39:00.680 this trial yeah it's probably better to have your dad be president when you you know i i really can't

00:39:07.980 right no but i'm just saying you don't have to connect those dots um but that's not an irrelevant

00:39:14.040 fact that he's facing these charges no it's not it's not it's not an irrelevant fact and i i i guess

00:39:21.580 what has my attention is that over the last couple of years there has been such an effort by the white

00:39:26.660 house to distance the president from his son especially in terms of business affairs yes right

00:39:32.160 but now they're they're really sort of joined joined at the hip apparently i don't know that

00:39:36.160 independently but you know they're very they just um did their relationship really suddenly change in

00:39:41.600 that moment or not or maybe it's always been like that i don't know the answer to that most of us well

00:39:46.860 actually all of us go through our daily lives using all sorts of quote free technology without paying

00:39:52.920 attention to why it's quote free who's paying for this and how think about it from it think about

00:39:59.220 your free email account the free messenger system used to chat with your friends the free other

00:40:05.120 weather app or game app you open up and never think about it's all free but is it no it's not free

00:40:12.840 these companies aren't developing expensive products and just giving them to you because they

00:40:17.760 love you they're doing it because their programs take all your information they hoover up your data

00:40:23.860 private personal data and sell it to data brokers and the government and all of those people who are

00:40:31.420 not your friends are very interested in manipulating you and your personal political and financial

00:40:36.980 decisions it's scary as hell and it's happening out in the open without anybody saying anything about it

00:40:42.240 this is a huge problem and we've been talking about this problem to our friend eric prince for

00:40:47.860 years someone needs to fix this and he and his partners have and now we're partners with them

00:40:52.840 and their company is called unplugged it's not a software company it's a hardware company they

00:40:58.320 actually make a phone the phone is called unplugged and it's more than that the purpose of the phone

00:41:04.680 is to protect you from having your life stolen your data stolen it's designed from a privacy first

00:41:13.620 perspective it's got an operating system that they made it's called messenger and other apps that help

00:41:18.940 you take charge of your personal data and prevent it from getting passed around to data brokers and

00:41:24.220 government agencies that will use it to manipulate you unplugged skim is to its customers they will promise

00:41:30.520 you and they mean it that your data are not being sold or monetized or shared with anyone from

00:41:36.380 basics like its custom libertas operating system which they wrote which is designed from the very

00:41:41.640 first day to keep your personal data on your device it also has believe it or not a true on off switch

00:41:48.500 that shuts off the power it actually disconnects your battery and ensures that your microphone and

00:41:53.880 your camera are turned off completely when you want them to be so they're not spying on you and say

00:41:59.060 your bedroom which your iphone is that's a fact so it is a great way one of the few ways to actually

00:42:05.500 protect yourself from big tech and big government to reclaim your personal privacy without privacy

00:42:11.140 there is no freedom the unplugged phone you can get a 25 discount when you use the code tucker

00:42:16.620 at the checkout so go to unplugged.com slash tucker to get yours today highly recommended

00:42:29.060 the greeks invented philosophy so if you like philosophy you're greek if you've ever taken a

00:42:39.180 philosophy class you're greek if you've ever skipped a philosophy class then failed that philosophy class

00:42:44.920 know a guy named phil or even know a guy who knows a guy named phil that's good enough you're greek

00:42:50.440 so eat like it that means ordering delicious euros with tender potatoes from jimmy the greek you deserve

00:42:56.880 it you philosophical genius you you're greek eat like it with jimmy the greek hashtag gimme jimmy

00:43:04.080 well my impression knowing hunter biden pretty well as i did um i think he was always close to his dad

00:43:12.700 he revered his father i know there's a difference um to being close and then being in business with

00:43:17.300 somebody of course there is i revere my dad not in business with him um but i do think it's i know

00:43:22.480 for a fact that he was always close to his dad always loved his dad um it's one of the things i

00:43:27.840 liked about him actually uh but you know it's all these are very different circumstances from when i

00:43:34.340 knew him and so he's facing and you know these are charges that carry potentially jail time correct

00:43:39.860 yes the gun and the taxes the gun right um interesting so why do you think there's been

00:43:49.420 that seems like kind of a big deal it doesn't seem like there's been a you reported on it but there

00:43:53.260 hasn't been a ton of reporting on that um um i guess what i would say is that um i felt very proud

00:44:02.840 at cbs news of the of the of the investigative journalism that we did whether it was with the

00:44:07.700 whistleblowers or whether it was um with a laptop and i went to a lot of effort to get um data from

00:44:15.240 that laptop which had a very clean chain of custody yeah uh that um i learned through my reporting was

00:44:21.900 mirrored what was given to the fbi and i felt that was important to understand the integrity of of the

00:44:27.900 data um given that that laptop had been described by a bunch of retired intel officials as russian

00:44:36.540 proper as fake right and we went to a lot of effort to um have it um forensically analyzed

00:44:43.920 by a very reputable group and a group that was um with sort of no political attachments that was

00:44:50.900 outside the beltway a group out um out west and really a stand-up group great group they did a

00:44:58.140 terrific forensic scrub of it and and they concluded that there nothing had been altered or changed on the

00:45:04.440 of the copy of the data that we had um other journalists uh got their data through third

00:45:10.480 parties and i think that that probably contaminated the data in some way but i felt extremely confident

00:45:16.140 um about our data i um i guess what i would we did that story in uh late 2022 and you know my

00:45:25.460 reputation is for moving quickly and efficiently through complex investigations um the idea that

00:45:32.660 it took me two years to authenticate that data is just not believable what does that mean uh i i think

00:45:41.800 that um and i i want to be respectful of my former employer i think that there was an opportunity to lead

00:45:48.960 earlier on that story i guess i would leave it at that well i authenticated it day one because there

00:45:53.920 was emails from me on there and no one knew i knew hunter biden so i knew it was real because no one

00:45:59.420 would ever do you know no one would ever fake all your typos also like i i had lived near hunter

00:46:05.380 biden that's how i knew him and so um just live in washington as you did so it's not that weird if

00:46:12.560 you live in washington it's like a small city everyone knows everybody else but i knew that nobody

00:46:16.240 knew that i knew hunter biden so like if you're assembling a fake laptop you wouldn't put emails from

00:46:20.160 like the fox news host on there because that's too weird so i instantly knew it was real and um

00:46:25.800 i'm just a little bit surprised

00:46:29.360 that it took you that long so you're saying it didn't actually take you that long there were

00:46:35.980 roadblocks i just think my reputation is for moving quickly and officially through complex

00:46:40.460 investigation um yeah did so but it took two two years for that story to make air and i'm glad it did

00:46:48.600 yeah because i think it really changed the conversation for sure um interesting did you feel

00:46:57.060 could you feel it at the company that like people didn't want you to do this

00:47:01.140 you know i i've always tried to be respectful of my former employers and i testified to congress that

00:47:08.840 i mean there was tension over uh the biden reporting

00:47:12.820 especially when i sort of turned my lens on to president biden oh i didn't like that huh

00:47:18.900 i'm sorry that's it's i'll say it you don't need to i'm not even speaking of cbs

00:47:26.200 specifically it's so corrupt i mean it's just absolutely ridiculous because it's not a reporter's

00:47:31.100 job to cover for a politician right i'm just checking well i you know i i like to think that i call

00:47:37.060 balls and strikes people like to talk about the hunter biden reporting at cbs but i was also the

00:47:42.860 reporter who obtained the audio tape of president trump apparently bragging about these iran documents

00:47:48.220 at mar-a-lago right but they don't talk about that well you should i mean you should but i'm just saying

00:47:53.580 you know i'm kind of equal opportunity when it comes to the accountability were there any well i know

00:47:59.020 that which is i'm what i'm saying is that your supervisors whoever they were and you're being very

00:48:04.360 polite i would say um but they should have the same fair-minded attitude and you know allow

00:48:11.300 reporters to tell the truth period no matter who it's about i think don't you i think that's what

00:48:17.000 the public's looking for and because they're not delivering that matt taibbi is more influential in

00:48:22.280 cbs news that's all i'm saying like it finds its own level people need credible information they need

00:48:27.720 to there's such a hunger for it yes that's that's uh we just uh did our first investigation

00:48:33.540 on x and we looked at uh the defense department specifically the army and the national guards

00:48:39.940 failure to look after a soldier who had a debilitating heart condition that they blamed

00:48:45.840 on the covid vaccine this was someone who had no heart issues before they entered the military and

00:48:51.440 we did an independent review of their medical records and the symptoms appeared almost immediately after

00:48:57.380 um being vaccinated and they're really amplified after they had that that second dose and um can you

00:49:04.960 fill out some of the details like how old is this she's 24 years old her name is carolina stancic

00:49:10.840 she was um a soldier in the army national guard and she was on active duty orders when she was diagnosed

00:49:19.040 with this debilitating heart condition called pots which is postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome

00:49:24.520 and what it means is that there's kind of a disconnect between the way your heart is working

00:49:28.760 and your blood pressure people can have blackouts puts a lot of stress on your heart and she's had

00:49:34.740 multiple heart attacks she's had a mini stroke at 24 and we sat down with her i just days before she

00:49:41.620 got a pacemaker at 24 and this story um appealed to me for months because she had paperwork um we learned

00:49:52.460 from the army um or rather there was army paperwork that um showed that they conceded over time that

00:50:00.580 um her heart condition was in the line of duty and it was especially important and uh when we launched

00:50:07.120 that investigation i felt along with the team that x was probably the only platform that we could have

00:50:13.040 such an authentic and candid and open conversation about the failure of the u.s military to take care of

00:50:19.700 its people but i just find that crazy i mean i have a 24 year old daughter so it makes me emotional

00:50:24.220 thinking about it but a 25 year old child this girl has a peacemaker because she followed orders

00:50:30.260 so or it seems that's what she says and that's certainly a credible claim given that's happened to

00:50:35.080 a lot of people and everyone knows that so why would x which is not was not designed as really a news

00:50:41.580 platform like why are they the last outlet that would run something like that i just i i didn't really

00:50:47.740 fully appreciate this until i started working independently but we felt that x was the platform

00:50:54.060 where we could really have an open candid conversation and we could put out the records so people could

00:51:00.400 analyze them in fact check them for themselves to understand the issue and make up their own minds

00:51:05.980 as to whether the army and the national guard had really let this soldier down right we just put it

00:51:11.860 all out there for scrutiny and i say this um because what i heard anecdotally from from colleagues is

00:51:20.080 that other platforms um that story even though it was a story about a failure to take care of uh of

00:51:26.520 soldiers um could be de-amplified on other platforms or or or labeled something that but why is nbc news

00:51:34.800 leading with that i mean i thought i can't i can't really answer for those outlets but we both know they

00:51:39.700 would never run that i don't know if they would never run it but i i just felt that it was a

00:51:44.260 completely legitimate story of course it was um it was a story about accountability a failure of the

00:51:51.060 government to look out for its own people um and then in her particular case it took her 19 months

00:51:58.380 to get the acknowledgement that this heart condition was in the line of duty and what that means is that

00:52:03.340 she's eligible for different benefits and and medical care but because there was such a delay

00:52:09.360 to get medical care because there was such a delay to get mental health care she told us at one point

00:52:15.580 she considered suicide 24 and um anyway i we heard from other people who believe that they have similar

00:52:25.900 circumstances and i and i say this with some humility that's what good journalism does

00:52:31.200 well obviously there's no other point to it like what's the point i mean either you're

00:52:36.440 carrying water for people who are paying you to do that which is just the definition of dishonesty

00:52:41.680 or you're doing what you're supposed to do the reason we have first man protections in the first

00:52:45.860 place which is tell the public what their government is doing what the powerful people who

00:52:48.940 control their lives are doing i mean i don't and and to the credit of the army and the national

00:52:54.520 guard we engaged with them over two weeks i felt it was very important to give them a lot of time

00:53:00.100 to respond to the charges because they were such serious charges and they engaged with us um which

00:53:07.040 i thought was a very positive thing because i'm now working independently right i'm not working for a

00:53:12.440 big corporation and it it said to me that they understood sort of the power and the impact of what

00:53:18.360 we were doing you know three million people watch that video or touch that video it's a lot of people

00:53:23.800 and you know global and young people and probably a lot of service members as well so i i want to give

00:53:30.040 them credit for that they they engage they try to answer our questions folks who are watching this can

00:53:35.920 decide whether their answers you know pass the sniff test but that's that's part of what you've got a

00:53:42.580 very generous spirit and you're trying to give people credit where it's due i will say i've always

00:53:47.320 thought just watching you from a distance that one of your main kind of advantages over everybody else

00:53:53.720 is you cared less about you know what the prevailing view of the group was and it didn't bother you to

00:54:03.040 go in a direction that you felt was the right direction or to tell the truth even when it was

00:54:08.100 unpopular why it does it feel to you like a lot of journalists are you know it's a big deal to them

00:54:14.980 what their colleagues think back in the newsroom do you know what i'm saying i guess it it doesn't

00:54:21.320 matter to me as much i can tell i i i don't really have any other sort of um explanation for it i i would

00:54:31.660 say without getting sort of too personal because i'd like to keep the conversation professional

00:54:36.320 well it's just interesting it's like why you i just i just uh if there's anything i hate more it's

00:54:42.660 injustice i hate injustice right when i see it and um i just think throughout my career i've taken on

00:54:49.360 a lot of stories which are about the little guy well they should be fighting the big bureaucracy

00:54:54.440 or the person who says wait a minute it's not you know it's not adding up and um so it's that's

00:55:02.420 really what drives me in the end is that sense of there's injustice and there's an opportunity in

00:55:06.820 the case of this 24 year old i think that we've seen some incremental uh improvements to her

00:55:14.400 situation i hope that her records issue with the military is resolved quickly because at 24 she's

00:55:22.100 really given up everything i mean she's she's given up her health to serve this she and a lot of other

00:55:27.080 people i mean i know somebody died from the facts dead um but it's not the story was the story was not

00:55:34.000 a moratorium on the vaccine right or the mandate the story was always about the alleged failure

00:55:40.440 of the military to take care of its people because that's that's the sacred pledge that you leave no

00:55:46.260 one behind well i agree but i would say that pledge applies to the entire country the government exists

00:55:51.000 only to serve us that's its only it's its only job we pay for it we own it this is a democracy and um

00:55:58.420 so if they're hurting people and don't care and that's the the gravest crime they could commit

00:56:04.080 that's my personal opinion i thought that was everybody's opinion apparently it's not apparently

00:56:08.340 not yeah apparently not right i'm not in the military and i'm never going to be in the military

00:56:12.460 but an american citizen and if my government hurts me i think it's just obvious that they should apologize

00:56:19.980 and try to make it better but um but they don't so you're saying well we've had such a similar

00:56:28.620 experience you like you're in this little world which you think is a much bigger world than it

00:56:32.260 actually is i'll speak for myself and then you get ejected from that world and you're like shocked

00:56:37.920 but then you thank god for it because wow there's fresh air and sunlight and then you look around and you

00:56:42.880 realize that all these smaller organizations or individuals are having like a huge effect and you

00:56:49.100 didn't even know that it's amazing but one and i just love the whole thing but one of the problems is

00:56:55.420 it's pretty easy it's pretty hard to take down like a big news organization because they have like a

00:57:01.640 well-staffed legal department pretty easy to take down an individual with lawfare

00:57:06.200 i mean right this is a concern yeah one of the things i i'd like to talk about is this the press act

00:57:15.860 the press act is a piece of legislation uh that's in the senate right now it passed unanimously

00:57:21.140 um in the house and the press act is a federal shield law for reporters it would allow them to

00:57:28.700 protect confidential sources um and there are just very few exceptions what i would call common sense

00:57:35.720 exceptions for imminent violence or threats to critical infrastructure and i've said that i think the

00:57:44.680 protection of confidential sources is the hill to die on because if if you don't have that ability

00:57:50.740 a credible assurance that you're going to protect your source uh as an investigative reporter your

00:57:56.680 toolbox is empty i mean you really have nothing to offer and you know and others i can't say a lot

00:58:03.540 about it but i'm in the middle of a major case where i was asked to disclose confidential source

00:58:08.800 information i refused to disclose who asked you to disclose it um it was it's part of a privacy act

00:58:15.380 lawsuit um i'm a witness in the case and um so this is a private entity there's a plaintiff uh they're

00:58:23.840 suing uh government agencies including the fbi and they want to understand uh the source of sources

00:58:29.940 for my reporting a series of stories national security stories in 2017 and this is all public so just

00:58:38.020 remind me who's suing um a chinese american uh scientist and she's suing the fbi the justice

00:58:43.660 department defense department i believe homeland security is as well they're like four or five

00:58:47.540 different agencies and um the the plaintiff wants to understand how i got information uh about her and

00:58:55.020 her so you're not being sued no i'm not i'm just a witness it's just the same thing happened to me

00:59:00.080 they grabbed all my text messages uh i was not named in the suit but a judge said i had to divulge

00:59:06.820 so they're trying to violate among other things your privacy but also the they're trying to violate

00:59:13.160 the the protection that we all assumed was real um that confidential sources had

00:59:19.180 look i don't want to let i want to be very careful because i don't want to litigate uh you know the

00:59:25.340 case the case here um but the issue is uh the the forced disclosure of confidential source

00:59:31.860 information and so that means you as a reporter talk to people they tell you stuff on the condition

00:59:38.100 of anonymity i'm not going to tell anybody that we spoke but tell me the truth about what you know

00:59:42.740 correct right and this is something that journalists deal with constantly if you don't have that

00:59:49.960 credible pledge of confidentiality as an investigative journalist you really have very

00:59:54.080 little to offer yeah i've done it like three times today already wow no but that's just that's

00:59:58.880 your life you know you're talking to people constantly about stuff and but everyone knows

01:00:04.060 you're not going to rat them out right the question it's in the appellate court right now in washington

01:00:10.400 and uh the question is when when the need for that information overrides the first amendment

01:00:15.640 and um the reporter's uh privilege um i haven't lost a night's sleep over my decision to protect

01:00:24.860 confidential sources but that doesn't mean i don't feel a tremendous burden and responsibility with

01:00:31.220 this case tell us about the burden well it's it's so much bigger than just my individual case it's it's

01:00:36.880 not just about me it's not about just a single series of stories it's not about one media outlet

01:00:42.120 whatever the courts decide and and i have respect for the legal process and what's unfolding whatever

01:00:48.580 they decide is going to impact every working journalist in the united states and the public

01:00:53.240 yeah and the public and for the next generation and that's why you know the press act is an opportunity

01:00:59.880 to really strengthen press freedom and press protections at a time as as you mentioned that

01:01:07.340 there's this explosion of smaller and independent outlets and they can't you know they can't withstand

01:01:13.080 the legal and financial pressure tell us about the financial pressures like what does that well right

01:01:19.500 well right now um i'm uh facing fines of eight hundred dollars a day for refusing to disclose that has

01:01:26.240 been uh put on hold and i'm grateful for that pending the appeal um in in the court in washington

01:01:33.300 um but then there's the cost of litigating a case like this um this is not an inexpensive thing to do

01:01:39.860 i've been fortunate to have uh fox news which has mounted a very vigorous defense an excellent legal team

01:01:47.060 because you worked at fox at the time that's correct i worked at fox at the time um but not every

01:01:52.760 outlet can afford to do that and so having the press act would prevent them from sort of being sort of

01:02:00.460 legally strangled in the future and and losing that pledge of confidentiality and if you believe

01:02:06.140 as i do that an informed electorate and an engaged um reporting core is fundamental to democracy

01:02:14.000 you're going to want to see this opportunity seized and and really realized if you think the public has

01:02:20.320 a right to know what its government is doing which is kind of the bottom line as far as i'm concerned

01:02:25.000 and i think the public does the public has no idea what the government's doing i can say that factually

01:02:29.160 no clue they should know and um then you need to make sure the mechanisms exist for them to get

01:02:36.380 that information correct i mean yeah it's i i testified to congress about this earlier in the year and

01:02:42.140 um i just feel like we're at an inflection point there's just this incredible shift in the media

01:02:50.360 landscape there's this sort of exciting diverse group of new voices doing some really tremendous

01:02:56.980 journalism so this is the moment to me where you want to offer these kinds of protections

01:03:01.840 for confidential source protection at the federal level so that it's consistent with what existed in

01:03:07.840 almost every state in this country and i think it's an acknowledgement of the role that journalism

01:03:13.820 should play and can play in the democratic process yeah it can't you know if you make it too expensive to

01:03:19.820 tell the truth nobody will and that's kind of a rear i mean you can take people out with lawsuits if

01:03:26.800 you're some well-funded political group particularly on the left they've been doing this at scale you just

01:03:35.000 you shut people up by bankrupting them well one of our kids uh as we were really um wrestling with

01:03:42.900 the subpoena and how that was all going to unfold and there's a certain amount of um you know you

01:03:49.080 can't keep your kids off their phones right so they're seeing sort of some of this play out and

01:03:53.380 one of our sons asked me um mom are you going to go to jail are we going to lose the house are we

01:04:00.680 going to lose everything that you've worked for and i wanted to tell him that in this country where we

01:04:06.460 say we value i could get a little choked up when i think about it but you know in this country where

01:04:10.520 we say we value democracy and we value a vigorous press that it was impossible but i couldn't

01:04:15.800 offer him that assurance and um the best part of the story is how he ended it he said mom

01:04:22.620 do what it takes i've got your back and i thought if a teenager understands the importance of this pledge

01:04:31.040 of confidentiality and understands the importance that journalism plays in a democracy then certainly

01:04:37.920 congress can get this legislation passed right now it's in the senate um chuck schumer has said he

01:04:44.760 would like to get it to the president's desk um this year and i hope there'll be movement before

01:04:50.460 the august recess social media are great they're important they're the main way we communicate with

01:04:55.520 each other they're where politics happen in this country but one of the problems with social media is

01:05:00.360 that the rules change the people in charge don't want you to say something they don't tell you that

01:05:04.880 and the next thing you know you're without a platform well now you have an option parlor it's

01:05:11.540 back the original free speech app taken off the internet by the censors has come back in full force

01:05:19.300 parlor was the first big app to be pulled off because it was the first big app to make free speech a top

01:05:26.500 priority now other platforms may be relaxing their policies and they change a lot but parlor will not

01:05:33.700 change its distinct approach is here to stay by paving the way for other apps protect users free

01:05:39.600 speech parlor has set the standard in the industry it is now launched on a hyperscale private cloud

01:05:46.500 called parlor cloud and that means your data are secure your words cannot be controlled by third

01:05:52.360 party companies it's uncancellable again parlor has been canceled they don't plan to be canceled again

01:05:59.020 and they've taken extensive and very expensive steps to make sure it's not going to happen parlor is

01:06:04.760 not at the mercy of other companies that don't believe in free speech and here's the best part

01:06:09.480 it's ad free you are not the product on parlor parlor is committed to providing a space where you can share

01:06:15.360 and engage without interference of ads or invasive targeting so it's more than just a platform it is

01:06:21.640 effectively a movement and its goal is to keep the free flow of information open globally where everybody can

01:06:28.220 talk without fear of suppression so it's upholding the values this country was founded on free expression

01:06:33.780 open dialogue also innovation by the way we're on parlor at tucker carlson and you can go there and find us

01:06:42.060 and stay informed about what's happening in the world so join a place that embraces your right to say what

01:06:49.020 you actually think and that fosters connections between people without free speech you can't connect with other

01:06:54.940 people we're all just lying to each other but parlor offers you that a seamless social media experience

01:07:00.720 tailored to your needs you can get parlor from the app store google play or visit parlor.com

01:07:05.860 at parlor you are valued you can say what you think and you're awarded for doing so

01:07:11.000 who's against it

01:07:25.920 well you know um i think there are some republican members who have hesitations uh about it um what

01:07:35.140 i would say is that well because they hate the media i i can't speak to the their well i hate the

01:07:40.760 media because they're liars so you want to protect the truth tellers i guess that would be my view of

01:07:45.380 it i mean i think the important thing to understand is that this is legislation that would do so much to

01:07:52.020 protect these smaller independent outlets where you have this diversity of voices period on both sides

01:07:58.040 of the aisle left and on the right and it's a moment when we can codify those protections and it's a

01:08:04.140 moment when we can say you know we talk about the importance of the first amendment we talk about the

01:08:08.980 importance of press freedom and now we can actually really do something concrete to protect it yeah

01:08:14.980 i think you're right and i i do think the one thing that we can do is just not obey i mean i was told to

01:08:21.900 give up my text messages i never should have done that i knew i shouldn't have done it i should have

01:08:25.840 just still they're gonna throw you one jail go ahead now come to my house try it and i never should

01:08:30.400 have done that and in a weak moment i did it i i mean clearly you're facing this right now i caved

01:08:36.600 you haven't you haven't bless you but i mean what are you going to do if they if they command you to

01:08:42.720 do it i mean i just have to cross that bridge when when we get to that um in in the meantime um

01:08:50.340 i've been so encouraged by how many media outlets have really filed briefs in support of of our position

01:08:58.380 that they understand that it's a case that's going to impact everyone who's working today

01:09:03.280 and um that's encouraging does it ever strike you how small our world has become i mean so you

01:09:10.760 you work for 30 years or whatever more to become it is more i'm not i i actually know how long it is

01:09:16.680 but i i'm not gonna a long time and you become you know the most arguably famous investigative

01:09:22.980 journalist in the united states i don't know about that well i i would say that's true or certainly

01:09:27.100 your top two or three i mean well you are okay but you it's like you you'd think that every news

01:09:35.820 organization be like oh my gosh katherine harwich is free let's hire her but you're independent on x like

01:09:40.780 what does that say about the landscape it's just it's amazing well it was a personal choice i know that

01:09:46.060 yeah yeah but but really i mean nbc in a normal world would be like hey we don't pay you three million

01:09:52.760 dollars a year to do what you do but they didn't so like is that a little strange i think it's an

01:10:00.580 indicator of how the marketplace has really shifted yeah i i think it's i think that's the biggest

01:10:04.980 indicator to me i didn't really understand how much sort of the earth had moved moved beneath me

01:10:09.560 in the last four and a half years and when you start to look at the numbers you see that um these

01:10:15.680 big corporate out outlets are not uh essentially the the gatekeepers on the information anymore yeah that

01:10:21.640 it's that it's much larger on these on these platforms and i i really believe in my heart

01:10:27.940 that there is a place for investigative journalism on platforms like x and and other platforms people

01:10:33.840 are just hungry for it and that's the investigation we did um it's like as i said about three million

01:10:40.960 people i mean that's a that's a good healthy number do you you don't seem angry though no i don't i

01:10:48.160 don't i don't feel angry really there's not a smoldering ball of rage inside toward your old

01:10:53.980 employers no i i um look if they don't want me to work there they don't want me to work there i know

01:10:59.880 the work was it was not a performance issue i heard from many of my colleagues who were very very sad

01:11:05.640 that i know i heard from them too yeah um but that's but that's not my call uh in the end but the

01:11:12.680 seizing of the records was a completely different thing that was something that i was going to go

01:11:16.360 to the mat because i felt so strongly uh about explain why they stole your stuff well in a letter

01:11:23.460 to congress they argued that they had not seized the materials i think the language they used was that

01:11:29.080 they had tried to secure and protect them um which i left me a little uh speechless um because it was

01:11:39.480 diminishing reporter materials to work product and to say that what had happened was an effort to seize

01:11:47.220 or protect my materials was i mean it just showed that some executives had a very difficult relationship

01:11:54.640 with the facts that's kind of a problem for news executives though right i don't think it's a good

01:12:00.040 place to be to be sitting that's a very restrained way to put it i am restrained but if you have liars

01:12:08.600 in charge of it you know the truth-telling business that's a problem well i'm not saying i'm not saying

01:12:13.680 that i'm just saying that oh i am saying that okay all right i'm saying that i mean that's just a you

01:12:17.740 know i don't know there's certain businesses you sort of expect that you know timeshare sales or

01:12:23.420 whatever use cars but like if your job is to tell the truth and the people in charge are just like

01:12:28.260 live for fun it was fair i said this before it was very sad very very disappointing um to see that

01:12:34.660 see that happen and i heard from people i used to work with and they were really saddened by it as

01:12:39.620 well did any of them say i gotta get the hell out of here i can't work for these people anymore

01:12:42.740 i don't want to go into the conversations but do you feel like people who remain at in corporate

01:12:47.960 media jobs are desperate to get out is that your sense in general i think there's a lot of anxiety

01:12:53.400 yeah i i think people are starting to feel the sort of the earth move beneath them you just have

01:12:59.020 to look at the the ratings and the numbers to understand sort of the the for lack of a better

01:13:05.500 term the old order has has kind of disappeared that's for sure how long can they keep going do

01:13:10.760 you think i don't know actually i think this election cycle will be um pivotal if these town

01:13:16.940 halls go ahead on x i think it's the partnership with news nation i think that the the numbers on

01:13:23.180 those town halls are going to be just mind-blowing in in the true sense of of the word and it's going

01:13:29.140 to be global and uh i forget i think elon musk or uh linda yakarino posted on x what the numbers were

01:13:37.940 with the presidential debate and i mean when you looked at how many people watched it on you know

01:13:43.300 traditional outlets versus the kind of um volume and engagement on on that platform is i mean it

01:13:49.320 was many multiple times larger well the entire political conversation the united states plays out

01:13:55.000 on x period i mean i i can't speak for you know sports entertainment culture i mean there are many

01:14:00.800 different verticals in any civilization but the political conversation takes place on x period

01:14:05.600 does not take place on any tv channel or in any newspaper you think that's fair i do i think it's and i

01:14:11.640 think it's exciting too actually to to see it um a little bit unleashed it's not always pleasant it's

01:14:20.060 not always easy but it's um it's sort of unleashed and evolving and engaging and it's bringing in

01:14:29.140 different points of view and i think that's what civil discourse uh is about did you read it before

01:14:34.840 i did but i i when i was uh when i worked at fox i was i was not on what was uh twitter at that time

01:14:43.060 um and then when i went to cbs i i joined because i thought it would be a good way for people to find

01:14:48.160 me um what role do you think x is playing in the media landscape right now oh wow you're asking me

01:14:57.940 that's a big uh a big question yeah i don't know that i know the answer by the way i from my own

01:15:03.240 experience um when i had an investigation that i thought was a sensitive topic i felt very confident

01:15:10.120 that i could put it on x and there could be a really engaging candid authentic discussion about it

01:15:16.880 and i thought that was important because it seemed to be an undercover issue this is the the soldier

01:15:22.000 story yeah and um i was really grateful for that and i i would commend elon musk in in that way i i

01:15:29.040 kind of understood it and then when i actually went to do it i had a different and sort of larger

01:15:34.240 appreciation for it that people could have that conversation and the the comments that we received

01:15:41.500 were you know this happened to me or can you look into this and i mean it was a very organic

01:15:45.680 thing and i think that you can't look into every case you can't follow up on everything

01:15:50.620 that's for sure um but i think there's something very positive about people sharing their experiences

01:15:56.220 and not feeling so isolated on a subject that's so sensitive and i i think that's a really commendable

01:16:03.300 well yeah and there's no someone who thinks she's sincerely believes she's been injured

01:16:10.320 because she followed an order has nothing to be ashamed of and she does have a right to tell her

01:16:17.980 story in public i i mean the whole thing is so nuts did anyone to prevent a 24 year old girl who

01:16:23.500 thinks she's been injured by following an order from talking in public is just like you're not on

01:16:28.100 the right side if you're preventing that don't you think i think it was the right thing to do i i i first

01:16:34.360 heard about her story last october and it's always been in the back of my mind as a story that should

01:16:39.800 be done and so when i decided to launch the first investigation it just seemed like a natural to me

01:16:46.040 so when i i'm thinking back when i got into this business when i left college in 1991

01:16:53.000 um you've been in it for i think a couple years maybe before no not long but yeah no 87 87 87

01:17:00.620 um so in 1987 you work for abc news in london in the very the starter job of all starter jobs that's

01:17:09.540 crazy yeah it's hard to convey now to younger people the prestige that attached to that job

01:17:13.980 um and you had you know all the all the credentials necessary to get that and he went to harvard and

01:17:21.540 columbia well the joke with my father was did you really go to harvard to make coffee and fax documents

01:17:28.540 and photocopy i said absolutely yeah and i make i i make the i do the best job photocopying and

01:17:35.140 faxing of anyone i know but it's about pride in your work of course but it was such a different

01:17:41.500 world like that was a really rich company then i mean they had like catering and you know executives

01:17:48.480 who first class you go wherever you wanted and i mean do you ever look back on that and think boy

01:17:53.540 that was just such a different time it was i was um uh in touch recently with there was sort of a

01:17:58.920 little core group of us that were starting out at that time between the news desk and um what they

01:18:03.640 called the production control room and there were maybe 12 of us between maybe 22 23 and 27 and um

01:18:13.380 we look back on that period as kind of like a like a golden window in television news the the quality

01:18:20.640 of the correspondence many had come out of vietnam or had come out of washington and then got a foreign

01:18:27.260 assignment the crews were incredibly experienced yeah you know if you had a cameraman take your stand up

01:18:33.080 you know he probably had been in beirut during the barracks bombing and the editors were so

01:18:39.540 experienced i mean you learn so much from from all of them oh i i grew up around that stuff yeah those

01:18:44.140 guys were impressive i mean this was an incredible opportunity for me and very formative yeah and now

01:18:51.980 yeah it's just it's i remember filling out my tax return in 1991 my first job i worked at a gas

01:18:57.960 station on a factory but i never like had a real job and i remember you know occupation journalist i was

01:19:03.900 like i'm a journalist now it's like uh i mean i don't even know what i would put on there if you

01:19:11.720 know i don't know armed robber would be less embarrassing but it was you know it seemed like

01:19:18.880 a pretty honorable profession i guess that's what i'm saying i i you know i i hear what you're saying

01:19:23.500 and you're going to accuse me of being so sort of deferential but i just have always tried to stay

01:19:30.520 focused on my own work like i have to answer to myself that's not deferential that's the opposite

01:19:35.560 of deferential and ask kissy that's like that's integrity i just i just am like is this the story

01:19:40.900 i you know there's stories in front of me which is the one that i should really be doing where can i

01:19:44.640 make the most impact what's the story that hasn't been told that i can actually so that's that's it

01:19:50.100 right there that i agree with you 100 it's like it's not that hard to tell the truth i don't think

01:19:55.620 it's pretty easy actually it's easier than lying what's hard is figuring out what you should be

01:20:00.920 focused on and i think you're really good at that what are the stories that should be told that

01:20:07.340 aren't being covered our our next project is going to look at um the issue of uh immigration and and

01:20:14.360 borders and i don't want to give it all away but um we've got a lot of good data about how uh

01:20:20.940 homeland security is in violation of federal law and regulations on a on a daily basis and creating

01:20:27.520 i think a significant security risk for many american citizens um and i think that that really

01:20:34.260 deserves a deep dive yeah um and it's a story that i can really tell now that might have been hard

01:20:42.040 to tell before so i can't even get um and i have tried like a clear number on how many people

01:20:49.160 have come into this country illegally over the last four years i mean it ranges from 5 million to 30

01:20:54.220 million and i can't and those are all kind of credible estimates and i have no idea which one is

01:20:59.940 correct but why can't we get even a real number on that i i i think the the simple answer may be and i

01:21:06.900 don't know but my my assessment would be that it's just the volume that that we're talking about i

01:21:12.880 think it's the volume so but there's not but to your point i don't think there's great transparency

01:21:19.500 on this issue i hope to bring a little bit more transparency to it um so in your judgment that's a

01:21:28.340 big deal story oh 100 i yeah i and it's not just i'm looking at what the the polling shows about the

01:21:38.280 top issues for american you know american voters in this election cycle i'm asking myself i have

01:21:45.220 information i think they're violations of federal law and federal regulations every day uh at the

01:21:51.160 border i need to find out if that's really if that's really true and if it is true why is it true

01:21:56.140 and who is really losing in that equation is is is the country less safe as a result or or not i don't

01:22:02.980 know the answer to all of that yet but that's that's a very legitimate story to pursue and also how does

01:22:07.480 a bankrupt country which ours is pay for all these services i don't yeah there are many questions i

01:22:12.940 totally agree but so you're focused on the question is the federal government violating its own laws

01:22:18.380 federal employees yes and to the extent that you've reported it out are you closer to

01:22:26.080 an answer uh i i i think based on our reporting so far that it's it really uh tips that way it does

01:22:34.720 appear that way and so my question is where's you know who's been disciplined who's been suspended

01:22:41.020 who's been fired who's been demoted and i'm not sure the answer is really anyone except the people who

01:22:50.440 blew the whistle on it really don't make me give the story away i don't i want to stop you right now

01:22:57.700 like i'm like so shocked i mean you know but i think but that's the kind of uh to me that's the

01:23:02.920 kind of story you want to be doing right i i just think it's um the thing that has always encouraged me

01:23:10.200 about um the the consumers of news in this in this country is that they really understand this idea

01:23:16.700 of accountability they they they want to see it they expect it they demand it and and when you do

01:23:24.000 it i think it can be very gratifying to you know to kind of shine a light it sounds like so old

01:23:30.760 fashioned but to shine a light on an issue that really is worthy of that and is sort of screaming

01:23:35.960 out for coverage how do you i've had many people ask me this over the years but you know one channel

01:23:42.980 will do a story or one newspaper will do a story and then every other outlet will do exactly the

01:23:47.480 same story and sometimes it's like a really boutique story you know it's a story of limited

01:23:53.460 obvious importance but everyone does the same story how do these like who decides that where how does

01:23:58.820 you know where does that come from i mean i mean this comes from the executives or the show producers

01:24:04.500 but have you noticed that you know i don't know how many news organizations are in the united states

01:24:08.940 in a country of 350 million people there they're a lot they all do you know in a given week they do

01:24:15.220 a suite of maybe 20 stories themes you know variations on the right perhaps but but i i mean

01:24:23.440 why you'd think that i really i i wish i could answer that question but you've noticed this right

01:24:28.260 i mean when you look at the rundowns let's say for an evening news broadcast you'll see a lot of

01:24:32.420 the same stories now that may be a function of the fact that they have such limited time

01:24:35.980 to tell the story was it 18 or 19 minutes or 20 for sure or 20 minutes but it's the the topics are

01:24:41.420 the same it's just interesting i'm not suggesting coordination um but i i do think it's a i don't

01:24:48.700 know what it is it's i think it's a conspiracy of like-minded temperament they all are kind of the

01:24:52.800 same people i i just i don't know huh but you'll concede there are a lot of stories that they could

01:24:59.140 be doing that they're not yeah i i think so that's that's the appeal of being independent

01:25:05.160 is that you can tell some of the stories that maybe you couldn't tell before is it weird not

01:25:09.520 to have a boss uh yeah it's a big change after nearly four decades of working um for major media

01:25:18.540 outlets it's a it's a huge change i've had a lot of change in the last four months five months

01:25:23.260 a lot do you miss being scolded um i miss the structure i'm very used to the structure

01:25:33.480 um and uh you know structure that you know has resources that you didn't realize that you needed

01:25:40.540 until you went to do it yourself i'm sure you understand that in there yeah you've been there

01:25:45.200 right um but i i really like working with a small team and as a group deciding what is it that we're

01:25:54.760 going to pursue next and how can we structure this story that it has an impact and what kind of

01:26:00.800 reporting do we need to be doing and at what point do we engage with government agencies and how do we

01:26:08.360 keep moving the story forward after after we do it i i just find that just kind of exhilarating

01:26:15.100 and refreshing all at all at the same time and in a marketplace that's really just exploding where

01:26:23.980 you're setting your own boundaries and your own rules right you're saying okay i've got almost four

01:26:31.120 decades of experience this is what i believe journalism is this is how i'm going to execute it

01:26:36.240 these are my standards these are my expectations and i'm going to be true to those i'm i'm going to

01:26:42.240 follow it through that's the exciting part of it and then having a public that responds to it which

01:26:48.460 i'm you know so grateful for people like honesty in a world full of lies i think do you feel that

01:26:55.720 people are looking for credible reliable information in a way that i never may be seen in my lifetime

01:27:03.520 working as a journalist oh so maybe what you're saying is that as a business journalism is like

01:27:10.980 more discredited than it's ever been and more disliked but individual journalists who decided

01:27:15.260 to tell the truth are i don't know i don't know if i i don't know if i would go that far i'm not sure

01:27:20.420 how comfortable i am really commenting on the whole you know profession that way how's that um

01:27:27.160 i i just sort of come back to my you know i come back to my own you know my my own work i i wrote

01:27:33.440 something recently for the free press which is really an amazing operation it's barry weiss has really

01:27:39.700 built it into this sort of you know engaging driving thing you know it's like it's like a

01:27:47.220 great source for information i wrote something on on the press act and you know that it's the protection

01:27:53.500 of sources is the hill to die on and it was such a great experience to work with them and to see the

01:28:00.720 reach of that story and to take an issue that i felt needed to kind of you know poke up through

01:28:06.520 the noise and get some attention because all of our our futures our careers rest on that basic

01:28:14.660 principle so to me that's an example of you know an independent media outlet which is really has a lot

01:28:20.060 of impact and made a difference how of the people that you worked with 30 years ago were any still

01:28:25.800 around in the business oh i'm trying to think um a lot of them are retired now i went to a reunion

01:28:33.840 an abc london reunion i want to say it was maybe seven years ago seven six or seven it was before i

01:28:41.020 just before i went to cbs and a lot of people were retired a lot of people had um passed a lot of them

01:28:48.440 were already gone is that weird yeah it's sad but um i learned so much from them and i think that

01:28:55.600 not to sound um too sentimental but i think you carry that on i think one of the greatest things

01:29:02.820 you can do at a certain point in your career is to share your experience and to share the skill set

01:29:09.080 that you that you have and i really enjoy doing that especially with younger journalists how are you

01:29:15.340 going to do it oh you know we i talk about this with our kids how long am i going to do this and

01:29:22.900 when will i retire and you know they all have the same verdict which is like oh mom like you need to

01:29:28.400 keep working as long as you can work because you're like if we had you loosen the house all the time it

01:29:33.940 would just be crazy and you love i mean i just love it i feel fortunate to have found something i feel

01:29:39.980 so passionate about maybe you feel oh of course maybe you feel this the the same way of course and

01:29:45.720 i i can't sort of i'm surprised even by the evolution of where i am um today and i'm surprised

01:29:55.200 that i'm fighting in the courts to be protecting confidential sources but if if there's something

01:30:02.860 that folks who are listening and watching this can take away is that you know i came out of february

01:30:09.720 so it was a tough time there's no question about it but i had a lot of clarity and sometimes crisis

01:30:17.340 gives you clarity oh yeah and the idea of a free press and free speech these really became my north

01:30:25.000 star they really became the driving force of what i'm going to do in this next chapter

01:30:30.200 yeah i couldn't agree more and it's weird to wake up and see things you took for granted under threat

01:30:37.220 did you ever think that free speech in the united states would be open to question no i i wouldn't

01:30:44.600 have anticipated the situation that i'm in now that's that's for sure well we're rooting for you

01:30:50.320 fervently thank you katherine harich thank you very much it's so good to see you thanks great to see you

01:30:55.080 thanks for listening to tucker carlson show if you enjoyed it you can go to tucker carlson.com

01:31:01.340 to see everything that we have made the complete library tucker carlson.com

The Tucker Carlson Show - July 11, 2024

Catherine Herridge： Being Fired From CBS, the Trump v. Biden Debate, and Hunter’s Laptop

Episode Stats

Length

Words per Minute

Word Count

Sentence Count

Misogynist Sentences

Hate Speech Sentences

Summary

Transcript