00:35:58.980NBC News either wittingly or unwittingly is
00:36:01.580teaching election deniers that what they
00:36:04.720can do stretches well beyond appearing on
00:36:07.480our air and interviews to peddle lies about
00:36:09.860the sanctity and integrity of our elections
00:36:12.460but that they can do that as one of us as
00:36:15.160badge carrying employees of NBC News there
00:36:18.660there is an easy way to avoid the controversy NBC News has stumbled into
00:36:27.160don't hire anyone close to the crimes she literally backed an illegal scheme to steal an election in the state of Michigan that is the type of experience that Ronna McDaniel brings to the table and that experience does not get us to a deeper understanding of anything in the public debate I want to associate myself with all my colleagues both at MSNBC and at NBC News who have voiced loud and principled objections to our company putting on
00:36:57.160payroll someone who has a payroll to our payroll someone who hasn't just attacked us as journalists but someone who is part of an ongoing project to get rid of our system of government
00:37:05.660Senator that was clearly orchestrated by the talent they were not going to work with her and they were going to ruin her career before it even started
00:37:14.660well look NBC News sadly is a joke MSNBC News it would be a joke if anyone watched it but it's just sort of a left wing
00:37:24.660primal scream and and and and the utter hypocrisy
00:37:31.660of everyone so so so much of this was started by Chuck Todd and Chuck Todd had this whole screed
00:37:38.840this self-righteous holier-than-thou screed that he did on meet the press
00:37:42.700now here's an interesting bit you may not not know do you know how Chuck Todd got his start
00:37:48.500how was that as a staffer in 1992 for the presidential campaign of Senator Tom Harkin a
00:37:55.100Democrat so Chuck Todd was a Democrat staffer on a presidential campaign mind you're not just in
00:38:01.460passing but let's go back to Chuck Todd's predecessor Tim Russert Tim Russert the gold standard of meet the
00:38:09.320press the gold standard of NBC News did you know what Tim Russert did before he went to NBC I'm going to
00:38:15.480go out on a limb and say a Democratic staffer he worked for U.S. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan a
00:38:20.840Democrat from New York he served as special counsel to Daniel Patrick Moynihan he served as chief of
00:38:27.060staff to Daniel Patrick Moynihan and then in 1983 he became a top aide to New York Governor Mario Cuomo
00:38:34.080also a Democrat so he he was a senior Democrat staffer over and over again for multiple Democrats
00:38:41.300and then he went to NBC News let's fast forward George Stephanopoulos where did George Stephanopoulos
00:38:47.360make his name as a senior press hack for the Clinton White House he was a political staffer his entire
00:38:53.580life by the way he's the premier political commentator at ABC now and and and let's not forget Jen Psaki
00:39:00.660happily ensconced at MSNBC she was of course Joe Biden's White House press secretary she stood up there
00:39:08.440and spin baby spin baby spin and she got hired basically straight from the White House where she
00:39:13.840continues to do the same job she is still as far as I'm concerned the White House press secretary she's
00:39:18.920actually a much better press secretary than Corrine Jean-Pierre why because Corrine Jean-Pierre
00:39:24.580is not very good at her job all she does is lie to Psaki's credit she actually rarely directly lied
00:39:31.700she just pivoted she circled back she spun but she rarely made flat out demonstrably provable
00:39:39.080falsehoods whereas Corrine Jean-Pierre seems to do so on an almost daily basis but the entirety of
00:39:46.220that understand the position of NBC is essentially we cannot tolerate an actual Republican who works for
00:39:57.880us and by the way there were a few folks who got online and they said no no that's not true that's
00:40:03.280not true that's not true because Nicole Wallace is on MSNBC and she was a Republican staffer and Joe
00:40:08.940Scarborough he was a Republican congressman well that's true they were in a prior life Republicans
00:40:16.940but both Nicole Wallace and Joe Scarborough voted for Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden so the position of NBC
00:40:26.720news is we cannot actually hire anybody who voted for Donald Trump as long as you vote for Democrats
00:40:32.900you can have been a Republican long in your distant life but you must have abandoned half of the country
00:40:38.840and decided their evil deplorables those are the only people we are willing to hire welcome to MSNBC
00:40:45.520and NBC news as you described it and and again I I'm not a big person advocating or supporting like oh
00:40:51.760sue somebody but I hope she gets a big payday the way they treat her and apparently she found out she
00:40:58.460was fired through media reports not even from a phone call from NBC news I I hope that she gets a huge
00:41:05.840payout from this she deserves every dime after watching her colleagues run her name through the
00:41:10.920mud the way they did and treat her the way they did so and let me make an important point on this so
00:41:15.900MSNBC has a niche as a hard left network that's why they have so few viewers but they're hard left
00:41:23.100now let me ask you something why does NBC I mean and what NBC pretends to actually be a real
00:41:30.860journalistic outfit why do they have a subsidiary that is just a hard left uh platform by the way they
00:41:39.000all decry Fox News but MSNBC is hard left unapologetically so and by the way you know
00:41:46.060what the MS stands for Microsoft what why exactly is Microsoft funding hard left propaganda why is NBC
00:41:54.040why are they okay with a network that has an explicit ideological agenda and one of the points to
00:42:01.540understand it was NBC news that that hired Ronna McDaniel and and and I'm going to make the case
00:42:10.120to you there is no difference between MSNBC and NBC they are one in the same NBC no longer pretends
00:42:18.560to be journalists they are advocates they are in MSNBC they are the left wing of the Democrat party
00:42:24.700there's a reason by the way in in the last presidential cycle they were thrown out of moderating because
00:42:29.500they're so hardcore and partisan now I guess somebody in their corporate leadership decided
00:42:35.920they wanted to at least have a nod of have somebody on the staff who had voted with half of the country
00:42:43.800but but let me ask you Ben so so you actually have been a a paid conservative at a left-wing network at
00:42:51.960CNN you were paid for a number of years what was that like then and and give us your perspectives from
00:42:57.540having been in Ronna's shoes although at a different time it's funny that you asked this because I was
00:43:03.740doing outnumbered hosting outnumbered on I think it was Wednesday when this story broke and they came to
00:43:08.660me like look you've got an interesting perspective I said yeah I was hired the the for or my my contract
00:43:15.320was extended when I was at CNN I was there a total of seven years but the last year was just and this is
00:43:22.700how much it even changed at CNN they used to want when they when when Jeff Zucker took over a grand
00:43:28.400debate they wanted conservatives to have people that would they thought were well representing them
00:43:32.800so that conservatives wouldn't you know basically immediately skip over the channel once Donald Trump
00:43:38.560won in 16 the wheels came off at CNN they hated him they hated and they yelled and screamed and try to
00:43:46.400turn you into bigot racist homophobe xenophobe everything they could uh and try to ruin your career
00:43:51.400when you were on because they couldn't yell at Trump but they could yell at you and you were
00:43:54.260supporting Trump or defending Trump but in the last year that I was there they hired me just to have
00:44:00.540my name on a piece of paper as they get out of free jail card when someone said you guys have no
00:44:05.080conservatives and they would say no no no no no look over here we have Ben Ferguson in my last year
00:44:10.500I did two appearances on CNN now that's absurd from a financial standpoint if you were a financial person
00:44:19.080why would you hire a guy give him a salary and only have him come to work two days out of 365 days in a year
00:44:23.900one of those two appearances was after the Hollywood reporter did a story about me being benched
00:44:31.680and then they put me on the next day on a Saturday for four minutes just to say no see he's not benched
00:44:38.420we just used him today and then never used me again and and with Rana McDowell I have to say with her
00:44:45.120I I think that's part of what they wanted they wanted to go into this election cycle saying no no
00:44:50.840we've got a token concern this lady just ran the the RNC we see we're not biased we've got her on
00:44:57.860the air by the way and I'll tell you Jen Psaki so as verdict listeners know my latest book Unwoke How to
00:45:06.360Defeat Cultural Marxism in America when it came out I did a ton of radio interviews we actually called an
00:45:11.680offer to go on Jen Psaki's show she said no no we don't want you we we don't that they're and by
00:45:17.720the way the view also turned me down so the last two books I did previously I went on the view for
00:45:22.260both of them and and uh look I and by the way the ratings were huge when the ratings were massive and
00:45:29.440and and I don't think it is an overstatement to say it did not go well for the host because they
00:45:35.360didn't know what they were talking about and I pointed out they didn't know what they were talking
00:45:38.480about um look with with Whoopi Goldberg when I went on um for my book Justice Corrupted how the
00:45:47.960how the left has weaponized the legal system I went on and and all the hosts of the view begin screaming
00:45:52.980at me and they're like you know you Republicans are all election deniers election deniers and and
00:45:59.540they're used to everyone who agrees with them so they think that that's just like a kill shot
00:46:03.120and I said oh you you you mean like when when Hillary Clinton insisted that she won and that
00:46:08.720Donald Trump's election was illegitimate she said she didn't say that so I had the quote and I read
00:46:12.760it out loud or I said do you mean when when Al Gore said that George W Bush was illegitimately elected
00:46:18.960and the election was stolen from him or do you mean like when Stacey Abrams said that she was the
00:46:24.240governor of Georgia and that it was illegitimate or do you mean like when Joe Biden said George W Bush
00:46:30.680was illegitimate elected I just read quote after quote after quote they'd never heard any of them
00:46:34.540by the way a week later they had Chelsea Clinton on to say my mother never said that quote that she's
00:46:39.180on tv saying um and that I read verbatim but then the next exchange with Whoopi was really interesting
00:46:45.280because after saying election denier which is their sort of first response then she said and you guys
00:46:50.940are all a bunch of angry rioting criminals and to which I laughed and said oh really you you mean
00:46:59.560what about the entire year of Black Lives Matter and Antifa riots that burned American cities across
00:47:07.200this country for a year and Whoopi looks at me completely confused and she says I don't know
00:47:14.940what an Antifa riot is I have no idea what that is and and and it was they're in such an echo chamber
00:47:21.960they will only talk to people who agree to them and sadly there are a couple of million mostly women
00:47:29.080watching The View who are just listening to partisan propaganda and in their world there are no Antifa
00:47:36.500riots that doesn't exist and and by the way for the last book Unwoke The View said nope we don't want
00:47:42.760you on that didn't go well for us at all and Jen Psaki who I've never been on her show you would think
00:47:48.060she might be interested and by the way I'm perfectly happy to her to come attack me and scream and be a
00:47:52.440crazy nut if she wanted to I mean I was not expecting a love fest but their view was sorry no we don't
00:47:58.980want you on it all we have one view and we will never ever ever have anything to the contrary that
00:48:04.800is MSNBC and apparently that's NBC too yeah great point don't forget we do this show Monday Wednesday
00:48:11.400Friday and a week in review on Saturdays hit that subscribe or follow or auto download button and
00:48:18.900on those in-between days grab my podcast the Ben Ferguson podcast I'll keep you up to date on the
00:48:24.220latest breaking news on those in-between days and then Senator and I will see you back here Wednesday
00:48:28.660morning this is an iHeart podcast guaranteed human