Verdict with Ted Cruz - April 26, 2024


What Dark Money is Funding the Anti-Israel College Protests, plus NPR's New Rabid Partisan CEO, who vocally OPPOSES the 1st Amendment


Episode Stats


Length

42 minutes

Words per minute

162.63382

Word count

6,887

Sentence count

481

Harmful content

Misogyny

8

sentences flagged

Toxicity

22

sentences flagged

Hate speech

11

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Ted Cruz and Ben Ferguson take a deep dive into the dark money behind the anti-Israel protest tents and sit-ins on college campuses across the country, and ask where is the money coming from? And who is paying for them?

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 This is an iHeart Podcast.
00:00:02.520 Guaranteed human.
00:00:05.180 Welcome. It is Verdict with Senator Ted Cruz, Ben Ferguson with you.
00:00:09.720 And Senator, I think it's time that we do a really nice job exposing the left
00:00:16.020 and the dark money that is funding all of these anti-Israel protests across the country.
00:00:22.800 Well, that's exactly right.
00:00:24.280 We're more than a week into these rabid anti-Israel pro-Hamas protests
00:00:28.140 that we're seeing at college campuses across the country.
00:00:30.940 And a question that keeps coming up is where is this money coming from?
00:00:34.540 More than a few people have noticed.
00:00:36.020 Gosh, these protesters all seem to have matching tents.
00:00:39.900 The tents are brand new.
00:00:41.640 Who's paying for them?
00:00:43.180 There's clearly real money behind that.
00:00:46.160 We're going to do a deep dive into that.
00:00:48.320 Yeah, you're not trying to hide it, by the way, when the tents match, right?
00:00:50.580 Yeah, there's no subtlety.
00:00:52.200 It's like wearing matching uniforms.
00:00:53.720 It's clear somebody paid for them.
00:00:56.120 That's happening.
00:00:56.920 On top of that, we're going to do a deep dive into NPR.
00:01:01.200 NPR has a new CEO.
00:01:02.920 NPR is supposed to be National Public Radio.
00:01:05.120 It is funded in significant part by your and my tax dollars.
00:01:08.940 And yet their new CEO is a hard left partisan activist.
00:01:15.040 She has no pretense of being impartial, of being unbiased.
00:01:19.720 She is a leftist, a proud, unabashed leftist.
00:01:22.820 We're going to go into her record as well.
00:01:24.420 I want to tell you real quick about a cool note I got from one of you guys, and it said,
00:01:28.560 Ben, I'd heard you talk about Patriot Mobile, and then I did some digging, and I found out
00:01:33.920 that you really weren't joking about how radical Big Mobile has gotten in supporting Democratic
00:01:39.100 causes and candidates.
00:01:41.180 But I didn't switch because I've switched before, and it took forever.
00:01:45.440 And then finally, I actually had enough with my cell phone carrier, and I switched, and
00:01:51.300 you were right.
00:01:52.120 It is now really easy with technology.
00:01:54.800 Yes, switching your cell phone provider is not hard like it used to be.
00:01:58.800 And if you are sick and tired of the left, then stop funding them.
00:02:02.880 Well, when you pay your bill to Big Mobile, there's a very good chance you're supporting
00:02:07.460 Democratic causes, candidates, organizations that include Planned Parenthood.
00:02:13.440 That's why I switched to Patriot Mobile, and it's why I want you to switch as well.
00:02:17.760 Because when you do, 5% of your bill every month, on average, without it costing you any
00:02:23.480 more money, actually goes back to support conservative causes, like those causes that support our First
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00:02:38.260 first responders, and those that have given the ultimate sacrifice protecting and defending
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00:02:44.040 That's another reason why I'm with Patriot Mobile.
00:02:46.420 I'm tired of my money being used against my family values.
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00:02:54.340 Call Patriot Mobile right now, 972-PATRIOT, that's 972-PATRIOT, or PatriotMobile.com slash
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00:03:10.220 Senator, when you look at all of these protests, and you mentioned the matching tents, it's kind
00:03:14.540 of hilarious.
00:03:15.120 They're not even trying to hide it.
00:03:16.780 This is exactly what we saw with Black Lives Matter as well.
00:03:19.720 It seems that any time we now have really well organized, whether it's shutting down
00:03:24.420 the Golden Gate Bridge, the Memphis Bridge, or the New York Bridge, it seems like it's
00:03:29.940 orchestrated.
00:03:31.000 And now we're seeing these sit-ins and these tent cities that are popping up.
00:03:35.180 It's almost like a Black Lives Matter 2.0 playbook here. 0.94
00:03:38.520 And it's coming from dark money groups that are funding bail.
00:03:42.280 They're funding the legal support for any and every anti-Israel agitator that's willing
00:03:47.960 to come out and do this.
00:03:50.300 Well, that's exactly right.
00:03:51.680 There's clearly significant money that are funding these.
00:03:54.380 As we noted a minute ago, they're tents match, they're tarps match.
00:03:57.600 They come in fully provisioned.
00:03:59.860 And we see them, you know, we're seeing at universities, it's not just students, it's not
00:04:04.300 just spontaneous.
00:04:05.280 They're outside agitators who are treating it as a job.
00:04:08.400 So what do we know?
00:04:10.220 Well, there was an article that came out this week in News Nation that says, begins with
00:04:16.340 the following, Columbia University is warning of potential outside agitators as students
00:04:20.780 hold continued protests calling for a ceasefire in Gaza and a divestment from Israel.
00:04:26.640 And it explains that the demand has its root in the BDS movement, the Boycott, Divestment,
00:04:31.680 and Sanctions movement, which has been going on for decades attacking Israel.
00:04:35.940 And if you look, there are several organizations who are funding this movement.
00:04:42.900 On Tuesday night, one group that was called Within Our Lifetime held a protest outside the
00:04:48.880 walls of Columbia, calling for resistance, quote, by any means necessary.
00:04:53.800 They were chanting, Columbia, you will see.
00:04:57.380 We are all SJP.
00:04:59.700 Columbia, you will learn.
00:05:02.000 Refugees will return. 1.00
00:05:03.580 And if you look at Within Our Lifetime is one of what News Nation describes as a, quote,
00:05:11.180 vast network of organizations that have coordinated protests, that have blocked highways, delayed
00:05:16.280 trains, and shut down parts of college campuses across the country for the past few months.
00:05:21.620 And it's led, but it's a New York City-based organization.
00:05:24.680 It's led by an individual named Nirdeen Kiswani, who's a 29-year-old who founded the group nearly
00:05:32.240 a decade ago.
00:05:33.880 And if you look at what Kiswani says, he says, quote, I just support the Palestinian people
00:05:39.600 as a whole, and I believe that we have a right to resist.
00:05:43.020 And if they're mad at it, they can talk to Biden, they can talk to the Secretary of State,
00:05:47.300 they can talk to elected officials who keep funding wars abroad, who keep funding death and
00:05:51.680 killing on our name with our tax dollars.
00:05:54.840 And the group claims to not be directly associated with the protests on college campuses.
00:06:01.820 They're intertwined with other organizations.
00:06:04.480 One of the organizations is Students for Justice in Palestine, that's SJP.
00:06:09.960 Jewish Voice for Peace, that's JVP.
00:06:12.700 The Palestinian Youth Movement, that's PYM.
00:06:16.940 And the American Muslims for Palestine, that's AMP.
00:06:21.080 And these are part of the whole network of anti-Israel, anti-Zionist, anti-Semitic groups
00:06:27.960 across the country.
00:06:29.040 And several of the pro-Palestinian organizations don't have public tax filings.
00:06:35.500 NBC did an investigation within our lifetime, does not have any public tax filings.
00:06:39.960 Instead, what they use is a group based in New York.
00:06:45.380 It's a nonprofit group called the Westchester People's Action Coalition Foundation, Westpac.
00:06:51.820 And it's their fiscal sponsor to collect and process online donations.
00:06:57.000 And TaxLaws allows to be a 503 status organization, and they can collect money.
00:07:05.920 We don't know for sure who's funding them.
00:07:08.740 It's dark money.
00:07:09.660 This is by design.
00:07:10.660 This is to hide it.
00:07:11.420 We do know one of the groups, if not now, has received $100,000 in the past five years
00:07:18.340 from the Rockefellers Brothers Fund.
00:07:21.080 We also, and that organization's stated goal is, quote, to end U.S. support for Israel's
00:07:27.840 apartheid system.
00:07:29.660 The fund is also awarded nearly a half million dollars to the Jewish Voice for Peace, another
00:07:35.420 Palestinian rights organization.
00:07:38.420 And what we're seeing is, well, here are the comments of Jonathan Shanzer.
00:07:45.480 He's a former Treasury Department official who says that the organizing parties are cultivated
00:07:51.020 by potentially dangerous groups.
00:07:52.660 Here's the quote.
00:07:53.700 Quote, they're extremely organized.
00:07:56.160 There are a lot of the Islamist-leaning groups that I think many of us have come to expect here.
00:08:01.740 They are not spontaneous.
00:08:04.260 They are not necessarily organic.
00:08:06.740 They are cultivated by groups that have an axe to grind.
00:08:11.460 And in particular, Shanzer called for more aggressive investigation of the ties between
00:08:16.640 the pro-Palestinian groups and terrorist organizations.
00:08:20.300 He called for this in testimony to Congress.
00:08:22.100 Here's what he said.
00:08:22.720 He said, quote, individuals who have previously worked for Hamas charities are now a driving
00:08:29.100 force behind the large pro-Hamas demonstrations taking place in major cities across America.
00:08:37.280 And in particular, he pointed to an individual named Hatam Bazian, who is a lecturer at the University
00:08:43.800 of California, Berkeley, as an example.
00:08:45.720 And Bazian founded the national branch of SJP to promote campus-based activism, and later he launched AMP.
00:08:55.660 And Shanzer claimed that Bazian and his organizations are a part of a network that, quote,
00:09:00.980 is providing training, talking points, materials, and financial support to students intimidating
00:09:08.860 and threatening Jewish and pro-Israel students on college campuses.
00:09:13.180 You put all that together and you see it, Senator, and it's like, this is pretty obvious.
00:09:19.280 This is something that I think should probably be at some point investigated.
00:09:23.800 In fact, Newsweek has a headline just now, and it says, police investigating people behind
00:09:29.440 the pro-Palestinian protests.
00:09:32.240 And that is something that I'm kind of shocked it took this long.
00:09:35.580 But officials, quote, with the New York Police Department said that their department is looking
00:09:40.080 to who may be behind the pro-Palestinian protests that have rocked two universities in Manhattan
00:09:44.580 in recent days.
00:09:46.120 Several dozen demonstrators were arrested by police Monday night after students set up
00:09:49.720 a pro-Palestinian encampment on New York University's campus.
00:09:53.200 The demonstration, which started around 50 individuals near the Stern School of Business,
00:09:57.140 grew to hundreds of protesters before arrests were made.
00:10:00.720 Spokesman from the university said that it believed many of the individuals who joined the rally,
00:10:04.780 including some who breached barriers established by campus safety officers, were not affiliated with NYU.
00:10:12.700 Therefore, they're now saying they are going to investigate it.
00:10:15.820 I mean, this to me is a Captain Obvious no-brainer.
00:10:19.640 Of course you should be investigating this.
00:10:21.980 Of course you are.
00:10:22.860 And I have zero confidence the Biden Department of Justice will investigate.
00:10:26.580 I have zero confidence the Biden FBI will investigate.
00:10:29.520 Why?
00:10:30.180 Because as we've discussed at great length, the Biden DOJ and FBI have been thoroughly politicized
00:10:35.700 and weaponized.
00:10:36.660 And the people funding these anti-Semitic protests are leftists.
00:10:40.080 They are leftists who right now more and more are the base of the Democrat Party.
00:10:44.940 They're funding the Democrat Party in significant respects.
00:10:48.140 They are the radicals.
00:10:49.160 They are the AOCs. 0.88
00:10:50.360 They are the people who are chanting in Dearborn, Michigan, death to America and death to Israel.
00:10:56.180 And so the Biden DOJ doesn't want to know.
00:10:58.340 They want to plunge their head into the sand like an ostrich and say, do not tell us.
00:11:02.700 We do not care who's funding it.
00:11:04.120 It is not our concern.
00:11:05.840 And let me point out, A, there are a bunch of leftists.
00:11:08.300 There are a bunch of Marxists.
00:11:09.320 There are a bunch of communists who hate America who are funding this, I believe, because they
00:11:13.320 hate America, because they hate Israel. 0.57
00:11:15.120 And I will point out, those who hate Israel hate America.
00:11:19.380 There is an overlap.
00:11:20.520 One of the many reasons it is in America's national security interest to support Israel is 0.98
00:11:25.680 the enemies of Israel are the enemies of America.
00:11:28.200 There's a reason the Ayatollah chants, death to America and death to Israel. 1.00
00:11:32.520 The two are interconnected.
00:11:34.360 But there's also a very real risk, and I just noted the congressional testimony laying
00:11:39.160 this out, that these anti-American, anti-Israel protests are literally being funded by our
00:11:44.840 enemies, are being funded by Hamas, are being funded by Hezbollah, or being funded by Iran
00:11:50.620 or the financial sponsors of Hamas and Hezbollah.
00:11:52.980 And again, we see zero interest on the part of the Department of Justice to investigate
00:11:58.680 whether those who support actual terrorists are funding the protests in support of the
00:12:05.280 actual terrorists.
00:12:06.180 And mind you, we play...
00:12:07.300 So let me ask you this.
00:12:08.140 What does the law then say?
00:12:09.720 Because this is the frustrating part.
00:12:11.600 You look at...
00:12:12.920 This was on Good Day New York on Tuesday.
00:12:15.700 The New York Police Deputy Commissioner of Operations suggested that law enforcement
00:12:20.220 was looking into both incidents for signs that the same individuals may be instigating
00:12:25.420 the protests, adding that he believes some could be funding this, quote unquote.
00:12:30.080 In his words, he said, look at the tents, what you said earlier.
00:12:32.840 They all were the same color.
00:12:34.280 They were all the same type of tents, the same ones that we saw at NYU, the same ones that
00:12:38.180 we see in Columbia.
00:12:39.640 To me, I think somebody's funding this.
00:12:41.440 He added that professional agitators have also joined the student-led protests who are
00:12:46.540 just looking for something to be, and I think he was trying to use calm words, agitated.
00:12:51.420 Somebody's behind this, and we're going to find out who it is.
00:12:54.060 But if you're writing this check, Senator, whether it's a Soros group, whether it's coming
00:12:58.600 in from corporations, whether it's coming in from overseas, it seems like they're operating
00:13:03.400 under the idea that, hey, we've got a one degree of separation here.
00:13:07.700 We're just giving the money, and whatever it's used for, that's not us.
00:13:10.580 Yeah, look, I mean, that's right.
00:13:13.580 I mean, I've talked about before that for three months, I've had every Saturday morning
00:13:18.460 at 7 a.m., anti-Israel, pro-Hamas protesters show up at my house, and it's the same 15 people.
00:13:24.620 Ironically, now, I don't know exactly what they look like, because they all wear masks,
00:13:27.680 because as we've seen on campuses, these anti-Israel and anti-American zealots are also 0.95
00:13:32.880 cowards, and they want to hide their face. 0.92
00:13:34.580 They're not actually willing to show who they are. 0.98
00:13:36.680 But from the appearances, the people at my house, if there are any Palestinians among
00:13:40.840 them, I'd be surprised.
00:13:42.320 They look like a bunch of Hispanic and white liberals who are showing up.
00:13:47.500 But what's interesting is they show up every Saturday at 7 a.m.
00:13:50.680 They leave about 8 a.m.
00:13:52.460 They show up.
00:13:53.100 They have the same cowbells.
00:13:54.280 They have the same whistles.
00:13:55.300 They're screaming.
00:13:56.120 They're waking children up.
00:13:57.260 They're disturbing the neighbors.
00:13:58.260 But they show up like a job, that there is a regularity to it, that I'm convinced somebody
00:14:04.700 is paying them to do this, that it's not spontaneous.
00:14:08.200 It's not driven by external events.
00:14:10.080 It is our job to show up and chant.
00:14:13.940 And by the way, look, A, there is a risk that it is foreign actors who hate America and hate 0.71
00:14:19.460 Israel, but B, there is also the very real likelihood that it is local players, anti-American
00:14:28.300 zealots.
00:14:29.680 And the obvious one in particular is George Soros.
00:14:32.360 And I want to point you to an article that Fox News published on April 16th called Left-Wing
00:14:39.400 Dark Money Group Funds Bail, Legal Support for Anti-Israel Agitators Blocking Traffic.
00:14:44.200 And what Fox News reported was, quote, a left-wing dark money group funded by billionaire George
00:14:50.860 Soros will provide bail and legal support for anti-Israel activists arrested after blocking
00:14:57.800 major roads and highways nationwide this week, according to an online fundraiser.
00:15:02.440 And the demonstrations were largely organized by A15 Action, a recently created group that
00:15:10.600 said it would, quote, create, coordinate a multi-city economic blockade on April 15th in solidarity
00:15:17.560 with Palestine.
00:15:18.820 And under the group's, quote, resources section on its website, there is a, quote, bail and legal
00:15:27.220 defense fund hosted by ActBlue.
00:15:30.300 Now understand, ActBlue is the leading fundraising platform for Democrat candidates nationwide.
00:15:35.180 It raises billions of dollars for Democrat candidates running across the country.
00:15:40.160 ActBlue is essentially an extension of the Democrat Party.
00:15:44.480 And it is ActBlue that is raising money for the Bail and Legal Defense Fund to bail out anti-Israel
00:15:51.320 pro-Hamas protesters who have been arrested.
00:15:54.180 And the threshold to being arrested is pretty high, particularly in blue jurisdictions.
00:15:59.460 And according to the website, the contributions, quote, will benefit Community Justice Exchange,
00:16:05.380 which is a project of the Tide Center that is funded by George Soros.
00:16:10.640 And the fundraising page continues, quote, donate here to support community members who are
00:16:16.500 criminalized in the U.S. for their solidarity with Palestine.
00:16:19.900 And it goes on to say, quote, should the actions of the state result in the need for it, these funds
00:16:25.580 will be used for bail, legal defense, and support for defendants.
00:16:29.380 And the Community Justice Exchange describes its mission as to provide, quote, money bail,
00:16:36.720 court fees and fines to community-based organizations across the country that are experimenting with
00:16:42.320 bottoms-up interventions that contest the current operation and function of the criminal,
00:16:49.100 legal, and immigration detention system.
00:16:50.840 So bottoms-up interventions.
00:16:52.340 That's a euphemism for riots, for angry, disruptive protests.
00:16:58.140 And to give you a sense of the volume, in November, it was revealed that the Soros-backed
00:17:05.900 Open Society Policy Center had given $13.7 million through the Tide Center to groups that have
00:17:17.740 expressed support for Hamas or have justified attacks on Israel, with over $15 million donated
00:17:25.420 since 2016.
00:17:27.440 That's incredible.
00:17:28.700 And yet, they're basically aiding and betting and advocating for people to break the law
00:17:33.680 and advocating for them to get arrested.
00:17:36.640 And this is all apparently still legal.
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00:19:06.780 One other question, Senator, I want to ask, and this goes back to the people that are running
00:19:11.000 these universities that are allowing this anti-Semitism to continue to grow.
00:19:16.260 One of your friends in the House, Speaker Johnson, he went to Columbia and actually called for
00:19:22.440 the Columbia president to resign.
00:19:25.140 Here is what he had to say.
00:19:26.600 Let me say this very simply.
00:19:27.860 Secondly, no American of any color or creed should ever have to live under those kinds
00:19:33.180 of threats.
00:19:33.820 That is not who we are in this country.
00:19:36.600 Sadly, Columbia's administrators have chosen to let the threats, the fear, and the intimidation
00:19:43.200 of the mob rule to overtake American principles like free speech and the free exchange of
00:19:49.260 ideas and the free exercise of religion.
00:19:52.040 They have co-opted First Amendment arguments to protect genocide and to elevate the voices
00:19:59.180 of anti-Semitism.
00:20:00.420 They have proven themselves to be incapable of achieving their basic responsibility, which
00:20:05.940 is keeping students safe.
00:20:08.380 We just can't allow this kind of hatred and anti-Semitism to flourish on our campuses, and
00:20:13.780 it must be stopped in its tracks.
00:20:15.840 Those who are perpetrating this violence should be arrested.
00:20:18.380 And I'm here today, I'm here today joining my colleagues and calling on President Shafiq to resign if
00:20:26.740 she cannot immediately bring order to this chaos.
00:20:31.800 As Speaker of the House, I am committing today that the Congress will not be silent as Jewish
00:20:37.400 students are expected to run for their lives and stay home from their classes hiding in fear.
00:20:42.940 In the House of Representatives, we've already acted to address anti-Semitism on campuses.
00:20:47.460 We have passed a number of statutes to address this matter, and we call upon the U.S. Senate
00:20:52.460 to act upon our legislation.
00:20:54.480 He obviously came in with a game plan, and it's sad that the President of the United States
00:20:58.700 of America isn't saying exactly what Speaker Johnson said.
00:21:02.240 Immediately, the media attacked him and other people that went to Columbia saying, oh, this
00:21:06.220 was just a PR stunt, a publicity stunt.
00:21:08.780 They don't really care about what's happening on campuses.
00:21:11.180 They saw an opportunity here.
00:21:12.940 I couldn't disagree with that more.
00:21:14.820 But I'm glad that we have conservatives that are saying enough is enough.
00:21:20.220 Yeah, no, it was exactly the right thing to do.
00:21:22.780 Joe Biden lacks the courage or conviction to do the same thing.
00:21:26.160 And in fact, he's terrified to confront these radicals because more and more they're the
00:21:30.540 base of the Democrat Party.
00:21:31.720 I'll tell you, yesterday, AOC, in response to the Speaker of the House and several House
00:21:38.200 Republicans going to Columbia, she tweeted out, let me quote her tweet, quote, several
00:21:43.180 here, like Representatives Lawler and De Esposito, are vulnerable New York Republicans
00:21:48.140 in tight seats.
00:21:49.680 They have played a key role drumming up pressure to crack down on students and asymmetrically
00:21:56.820 police, Palestinian, human rights speech.
00:22:00.100 Those campus hearings, GOP led.
00:22:03.320 They need to lose.
00:22:04.480 And so I tweeted out in response.
00:22:07.180 I retweeted her and I said, understand, AOC explicitly supports the anti-Semitic mobs
00:22:12.300 threatening Jewish students at Columbia, Yale and NYU.
00:22:16.120 But it's not just her.
00:22:18.200 Joe Biden stood next to her as she praised their hateful conduct.
00:22:23.320 The entire Democrat Party is terrified of their radical anti-Israel base.
00:22:29.960 And I'll tell you, AOC actually sent out another tweet.
00:22:34.220 And here's what she said.
00:22:35.860 She said, quote, not only did Columbia make the horrific decision to mobilize NYPD on their
00:22:41.840 own students, but the units called in have some of the most violent reputations on the
00:22:47.140 force.
00:22:48.280 NYPD had promised the city they wouldn't deploy SRG to protests.
00:22:52.200 So why are these counterterrorism units here?
00:22:55.860 And again, I responded to that and said, between law enforcement and pro-Hamas protesters who
00:23:03.100 threaten Jewish students, tragically, Democrats side with the anti-Semites.
00:23:09.420 That is the reality.
00:23:10.660 But it's not just AOC.
00:23:12.180 It's not just the squad.
00:23:13.540 It is where Joe Biden is.
00:23:15.440 It is where Chuck Schumer is.
00:23:17.900 It is where Nancy Pelosi is.
00:23:19.740 It is where the leadership of the Democrat Party is today.
00:23:23.260 Canadian women are looking for more, more out of themselves, their businesses, their 1.00
00:23:28.160 elected leaders, and the world around them.
00:23:30.240 And that's why we're thrilled to introduce the Honest Talk podcast.
00:23:33.960 I'm Jennifer Stewart.
00:23:35.140 And I'm Catherine Clark.
00:23:36.360 And in this podcast, we interview Canada's most inspiring women.
00:23:40.120 Entrepreneurs, artists, athletes, politicians, and newsmakers, all at different stages of
00:23:45.020 their journey.
00:23:45.860 So if you're looking to connect, then we hope you'll join us.
00:23:48.840 Listen to the Honest Talk podcast on iHeartRadio or wherever you listen to your podcasts.
00:23:54.680 We talked about the media giving them cover.
00:23:57.460 I expect some in the media to be liberal hacks, right?
00:24:01.140 But this brings up a big issue that we need to talk about with NPR.
00:24:05.820 The new CEO of NPR is someone that is paid by U.S. taxpayers and someone who has described
00:24:14.120 the First Amendment as the number one challenge she faces. 0.93
00:24:20.240 Our tax dollars are going to a CEO who's running NPR, National Public Radio, saying the First
00:24:27.360 Amendment really seems to get in her way. 1.00
00:24:29.860 Really?
00:24:30.440 That's where our money is going?
00:24:32.060 Well, unfortunately, NPR has been profoundly corrupted.
00:24:35.420 And it's been made worse by hiring a CEO who is a brazen, blatant, unapologetic, radical
00:24:42.820 leftist.
00:24:43.460 And she doesn't pretend to be unbiased at all.
00:24:46.860 Now, we discussed in a previous podcast a couple of weeks ago the bombshell report from
00:24:53.400 Uri Berliner.
00:24:54.420 Uri Berliner was a 25-year NPR employee and was the former business editor of NPR.
00:25:01.580 And he wrote an April 9th essay in the Free Press, which resulted in NPR suspending him
00:25:07.520 for publishing.
00:25:08.220 How's that for free speech?
00:25:09.460 If you criticize us, you're out of here.
00:25:12.100 Yeah, you're gone.
00:25:13.420 And ultimately led to his resignation.
00:25:14.980 So he's gone.
00:25:16.140 This essay cost him his job.
00:25:18.760 But he laid out the incredible bias in NPR and the shift in NPR.
00:25:24.060 So, for example, he laid out, in 2011, which was not that long ago, NPR's audience was
00:25:30.260 26% conservative, 23% middle of the road, and 37% liberal.
00:25:36.320 So it leaned left, but not dramatically so.
00:25:39.160 By 2023, those numbers had shifted dramatically.
00:25:43.040 It was now, instead of 37% liberal, it was 67% liberal.
00:25:48.440 And instead of 26% conservative, it was only 11% conservative.
00:25:54.900 And Mr. Berliner laid out details of how they would stifle stories that were inconvenient
00:26:00.980 to liberals.
00:26:01.780 They would amplify stories like the Russia collusion story, even if they were not supported by the
00:26:07.480 facts.
00:26:08.420 He outlined at great length how NPR had no interest in being impartial, being unbiased.
00:26:18.500 And then you take, in the wake of this, in the wake of what should be real concern of,
00:26:23.920 hey, we're national public radio.
00:26:25.980 We're supposed to be nonpartisan.
00:26:28.960 We're supposed to be down the middle.
00:26:30.240 Now, look, I, for one, have serious doubts why the taxpayers should fund any radio station.
00:26:36.580 I think there are plenty of for-profit radio stations.
00:26:38.760 I don't know why the government should coercively tax you to pay for yet another radio station.
00:26:44.240 But I'll tell you what, even if there's an argument they should do so for generic news
00:26:48.980 that somehow there's not a market demand for, there is no argument I know of that they should
00:26:54.160 do so only for left-wing propaganda.
00:26:56.440 And the newly appointed CEO, Catherine Marr, has been a hard partisan her whole life. 0.98
00:27:03.460 So, for example, in 2020, Marr referred to President Donald Trump as a, quote, deranged, 0.99
00:27:12.980 racist sociopath. 0.95
00:27:14.800 Well, then I'm confident her coverage of Donald Trump will be fair, 1.00
00:27:19.680 as long as she introduces him as a deranged, racist sociopath every time he's covered. 0.93
00:27:24.220 How do you even get that job? 0.99
00:27:25.720 And I'm being serious.
00:27:26.960 If you're national public radio, how does that automatically disqualify you from that position
00:27:33.820 as soon as they see that quote?
00:27:36.060 Yeah, and by the way, that's not an outlier.
00:27:38.280 In 2021, she celebrated Trump's banishment from social media, referring to him as a fascist.
00:27:45.380 So she loves censorship.
00:27:46.840 Okay, the former president of the United States, elected by the American people, I'm thrilled 0.76
00:27:52.600 that he's being silenced because I dislike his politics and I think he's a fascist.
00:27:57.020 In May of 2020, right in the middle of the George Floyd riots, Marr suggested that looting
00:28:04.580 represented a form of reparative justice for historic wrongs.
00:28:11.160 And she remarked how white silence is tantamount to complicity and violence.
00:28:18.220 She's also posted repeatedly in support of Democrat politicians, including Hillary Clinton,
00:28:25.820 Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, and Joe Biden.
00:28:29.760 Now, listen, as a private citizen, she has a right to be an angry left-wing radical and 1.00
00:28:36.940 a hard Democrat partisan.
00:28:39.520 But explain to me why on earth the American taxpayers should fund her partisan propaganda. 0.93
00:28:46.660 Yeah, and yet that's exactly why she probably got the job, because they're like, oh, perfect.
00:28:50.340 You're going to keep pushing this propaganda out there full speed ahead.
00:28:53.900 When I ask all of you listening right now to do me a favor real quick.
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00:30:37.600 Senator, if you are at NPR, can you imagine if you are a lefty, how much freedom I think
00:30:44.440 it would make you feel like you had to then go out there and continue to push propaganda
00:30:49.360 on the American people if this is your CEO?
00:30:51.820 I mean, it's a license to basically go all in on liberal propaganda at the taxpayer's expense.
00:31:00.200 No, that is exactly right.
00:31:03.720 And I've got to say, listen, as you know, I'm the ranking member on the Senate Committee
00:31:08.260 of Commerce, Science, and Transportation.
00:31:10.780 And part of my responsibility in that role, we've got jurisdiction over about 40% of the
00:31:16.060 U.S. economy.
00:31:17.480 And part of my responsibility is oversight.
00:31:20.040 And I can tell you that I am actively engaging in oversight right now, calling on NPR to explain,
00:31:26.460 to explain why they're willing to put in place a hard left-wing activist, not a neutral journalist,
00:31:33.440 but someone who is biased, who is an active supporter of censorship to violence, to silence
00:31:44.720 the views she disagrees with, why NPR believes that that is an appropriate leader for their
00:31:51.860 institution.
00:31:53.220 Yeah, that's a really great point.
00:31:54.380 And listen, don't necessarily take our words for it.
00:31:58.720 I want you to listen to Catherine Marr in her own words, because it's going to show just how
00:32:02.600 radical she is.
00:32:03.560 And I want to play a couple of clips.
00:32:05.220 Let's start with her explaining that, in her view, the number one challenge that she faces is the
00:32:10.280 First Amendment of the Constitution.
00:32:11.940 Let's play that clip.
00:32:13.520 The number one challenge here that we see is, of course, the First Amendment in the United States
00:32:18.720 is a fairly robust protection of rights.
00:32:23.640 And that is a protection of rights both for platforms, which I actually think is very important
00:32:27.780 that platforms have those rights to be able to regulate what kind of content they want on their
00:32:31.780 sites.
00:32:32.560 But it also means that it is a little bit tricky to really address some of the real challenges of
00:32:39.000 where does bad information come from and sort of the influence peddlers who have made a real
00:32:43.440 market economy around it.
00:32:44.660 I mean, it's amazing, Senator.
00:32:46.720 This is the woman running NPR.
00:32:48.260 And I guess this is almost like the best thing you can put on your resume, right?
00:32:51.120 You're like, hey, I think the First Amendment's a real problem.
00:32:53.220 It's like, perfect.
00:32:54.020 We'd love to hire you at NPR.
00:32:55.960 Yeah.
00:32:56.140 And she actually says, well, the First Amendment is really important for platforms.
00:33:00.740 But then what she describes as their First Amendment right is for their ability to censor and
00:33:05.280 silence things they disagree with.
00:33:06.660 So to her mind, what she cares about is the ability, if there's a view that is right of center,
00:33:12.600 as far as she's concerned, the First Amendment is all about silencing those views.
00:33:16.860 There can be no dissent.
00:33:18.460 All right.
00:33:18.640 I want you to listen to another clip.
00:33:20.340 This is a TED Talk where she's discussing truth when she was at Wikipedia.
00:33:25.220 And somehow she has a different view of truth than I think you and I might have.
00:33:29.340 Give a listen.
00:33:29.760 But the hard things, the places where we are prone to disagreement, say politics and religion.
00:33:36.460 Well, as it turns out, not only does Wikipedia's model work there, it actually works really
00:33:42.160 well.
00:33:42.860 Because in our normal lives, these contentious conversations tend to erupt over disagreement
00:33:49.040 about what the truth actually is.
00:33:52.260 But the people who write these articles, they're not focused on the truth.
00:33:57.140 They're focused on something else, which is the best of what we can know right now.
00:34:03.500 And after seven years of working with these brilliant folks, I've come to believe that
00:34:09.320 they are on to something that perhaps for our most tricky disagreements, seeking the truth
00:34:16.040 and seeking to convince others of the truth might not be the right place to start.
00:34:22.460 In fact, our reverence for the truth might be a distraction that's getting in the way of
00:34:31.100 finding common ground and getting things done.
00:34:34.620 Now, that is not to say that the truth doesn't exist, nor is it to say that the truth isn't
00:34:42.160 important.
00:34:43.380 Clearly, the search for the truth has led us to do great things, to learn great things.
00:34:50.320 But I think if I were to really ask you to think about this, one of the things that we
00:34:58.300 could all acknowledge is that part of the reason we have such glorious chronicles to
00:35:03.660 the human experience and all forms of culture is because we acknowledge there are many different
00:35:08.980 truths.
00:35:10.560 And so in the spirit of that, I'm certain that the truth exists for you and probably for the
00:35:16.820 person sitting next to you.
00:35:18.700 But this may not be the same truth.
00:35:21.720 This is because the truth of the matter is very often for many people what happens when
00:35:28.540 we merge facts about the world with our beliefs about the world.
00:35:32.900 So we all have different truths.
00:35:34.900 They're based on things like where we come from, how we were raised, and how other people
00:35:40.120 perceive us. 0.73
00:35:40.960 What I mean, what utter garbage, like every word of that, you want an indictment of the 1.00
00:35:47.320 modern left, you want an indictment of the idiocy of media, you want an indictment of the 1.00
00:35:51.460 academic world, you want an indictment of big tech, good God, what utter garbage, truth 1.00
00:35:56.200 doesn't exist. 0.93
00:35:57.060 George Orwell is spinning in his grave and laughing at the same time.
00:36:01.480 Two plus two doesn't equal four, it equals five, because we say it is.
00:36:04.680 There is no truth.
00:36:05.780 Listen to that quote.
00:36:06.520 Quote, our reverence for the truth might be a distraction that's getting in the way
00:36:10.900 of finding common ground and getting things done.
00:36:12.920 But don't worry, this is only for things that don't matter, the contentious issues.
00:36:16.660 What does she identify?
00:36:18.040 Politics and religion.
00:36:19.260 When it comes to politics and religion, look, Jesus Christ said, I am the way, the truth,
00:36:23.660 and the life.
00:36:24.100 But no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, don't have reverence for truth.
00:36:26.860 We're not interested in that.
00:36:28.320 We are interested in set aside a truth that can be your truth, my truth, everyone has a truth.
00:36:33.680 Maybe for you, two plus two is five. 0.99
00:36:36.980 What utter garbage. 0.99
00:36:39.160 You know what a journalist is supposed to be interested in? 1.00
00:36:41.080 The truth.
00:36:41.840 Now, do you have perfect truth?
00:36:43.120 No.
00:36:43.340 Do you have perfect knowledge?
00:36:44.500 No.
00:36:44.860 But you should get damn close to it.
00:36:47.080 You should be trying to get to the truth.
00:36:49.100 Remember what journalists used to learn?
00:36:50.700 Who, what, when, where, how, why?
00:36:52.180 Like, what happened?
00:36:53.200 What are the facts?
00:36:54.020 Well, no, no, no, not according to her.
00:36:56.040 According to her, there are no facts.
00:36:57.960 There is no truth.
00:36:58.840 It's your truth.
00:36:59.540 It's my truth.
00:37:00.120 And my truth, from Catherine Marr's perspective, is, is a left-wing partisan, whatever the orthodoxy is, and we will silence views that disagree.
00:37:10.000 And the First Amendment is a pesky, pesky barrier.
00:37:13.860 All right, I want to play one more clip.
00:37:15.620 Yeah.
00:37:16.300 One more clip where she's describing what she did at Wikipedia.
00:37:21.160 Listen to this third clip.
00:37:22.180 I started by talking about the idea of free and open as some of our founding principles, sort of free and open source, coming from the idea of the open source community.
00:37:31.980 Well, I have come to the opinion and the perspective that free and open was a way of looking at the world that was inherently limited relative to what we were trying to achieve.
00:37:42.200 Free and open has the best of intentionality.
00:37:44.260 But in the end, what free and open often ended up doing, particularly in the case of Wikipedia, was really recapitulating many of the same power structures and dynamics that exist offline prior to the advent of the Internet.
00:37:57.180 And so what we ended up seeing was Wikipedia really rebuilt this idea of knowledge as a whole around what the Western canon.
00:38:04.940 You see the exclusion of communities, of languages, because of the ways in which Wikipedia is based on reliable sources.
00:38:12.900 The idea of a written tradition is something that is particular to many.
00:38:18.720 I mean, no, sorry, the idea of a written tradition, which is particular to some cultures and not to others.
00:38:23.160 The ways in which we ascribe notability often really comes from sort of this white male Westernized construct around who matters in societies and who is elevated and whose voices.
00:38:36.080 And so some of these ideas of sort of this radical openness really did not end up with the intention, really did not end up living into the intentionality of what openness can be.
00:38:47.100 I mean, that that just is brilliant right there.
00:38:50.780 God bless.
00:38:51.500 So, look, she's explaining at Wikipedia they deliberately abandoned a, quote, free and open approach.
00:38:58.560 By the way, she's telling you what she's going to do at NPR.
00:39:01.120 NPR is not going to be free and open, according to her, because she doesn't believe in free and open.
00:39:05.880 Why?
00:39:07.060 Because free and open, number one, she says, well, that advantages cultures that believe in the written word.
00:39:14.500 Because, you know, what good has book learning ever done anyone?
00:39:18.020 Well, heck, you're forgetting those cultures that don't believe in that fancy learning stuff. 0.97
00:39:23.940 Like, what utter garbage. 0.98
00:39:25.860 I'm sorry. 0.97
00:39:26.560 I thought actually a journalistic outfit should actually reflect, celebrate the best of education, of learning, of what we know.
00:39:37.820 But she says, no, no, no, no, no.
00:39:39.980 If it's actually free and open, it will recapitulate a white male westernized construct. 0.62
00:39:48.240 Let me ask you something, Ben.
00:39:49.300 What the hell does that mean?
00:39:50.840 Seriously.
00:39:51.240 Those are the words Marxists use, and typically the more syllables they use when they get polysyllabic, the less they're making any sense.
00:40:01.360 So explain to me the phrase, recapitulate a white male westernized construct that does not end up living into the intentionality of what openness can mean.
00:40:13.660 Those words have no content other than I want the power to silence things I don't like.
00:40:19.560 Am I wrong?
00:40:20.000 No, you're right.
00:40:21.160 And my question goes back to this for you.
00:40:23.700 It used to be at NPR and others, they would at least fake it, like they're biased.
00:40:29.420 Now it's just flat out open, and they're doing it with our tax dollars.
00:40:33.300 Is there ever going to be a day of reckoning where NPR finds out, hey, good luck, do your own thing, because we're not going to pay for this propaganda anymore?
00:40:42.780 Look, if NPR cares at all about journalistic integrity, if they care at all about continuing to receive taxpayer funds, they should terminate Catherine Maher immediately.
00:40:52.200 Her job should be done.
00:40:53.320 They should not have a rabid left-wing partisan who hates the First Amendment, who views it as an inconvenience, who wants to censor conservatives, who is actively, explicitly, and unabashedly opposed to free and open communication, who doesn't believe in truth, who believes truth is an impediment to what she's doing.
00:41:09.620 That is not a journalist in any way.
00:41:11.740 She ought to go and join Emily's List.
00:41:13.420 She ought to go and join the DNC.
00:41:15.000 She ought to go run for Congress and become a henchman to Nancy Pelosi. 1.00
00:41:19.020 She should not actually be running a news organization, especially not a news organization funded by the taxpayers.
00:41:26.080 And if we have, to be honest, if you had a Democrat who had a shred of integrity, they would say, of course, this is not appropriate for her to run NPR.
00:41:35.340 The chances of that happening are zero, but I can tell you I'm going to be pushing for accountability, and I'm going to be pushing for oversight of NPR because it is brazenly shameless for them to put someone so wildly unqualified in that position.
00:41:50.280 Yeah, no doubt about it.
00:41:51.460 Don't forget, we do this show Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.
00:41:54.240 Make sure you hit that subscribe auto download button as well so you do not miss an episode.
00:42:00.460 We also do our week in review.
00:42:02.380 If you miss something during the week, we do that on Saturdays and on those in-between days.
00:42:06.500 Make sure you grab my podcast.
00:42:07.980 I'll keep you updated on the latest breaking news, the Ben Ferguson podcast, so download that as well.
00:42:12.940 And the senator and I will see you back here in a couple of days.
00:42:17.140 This is an iHeart podcast.
00:42:20.040 Guaranteed human.
00:42:20.660 Guaranteed human.