More than a dozen attorneys general have signed on to a threatening letter against
journalists covering the war in Gaza.
Now, Fox News Digital says that the prosecutors signed on to a letter
that was sent to media outlets including The New York Times,
Reuters, CNN and AP news, and basically put them on notice that providing
material support to Hamas is illegal.
Now, none of these organizations have.
There's been no indication that any of these news organizations
have provided material support to Hamas.
What does that even mean?
But the letter was sent to these four organizations, and I'm going
to read you a few excerpts from it.
So this was sent to them on Monday afternoon, and it included
14 state attorneys general.
And they stated that, look, if your reporting appears to be providing any
support for a terrorist group like Hamas, well, you could face prosecution.
Think about it.
They write, quote, we will continue to follow your reporting to ensure
that your organizations do not violate any federal or state laws by giving
material support to terrorists abroad.
Now your organizations are on notice. Follow the law.
Wow.
So the AGS continue to define what material support would mean.
And that would include and include any property, tangible or intangible
or service, including currency or monetary instruments, expert advice or assistance,
communications equipment, facilities and transportation,
except medicine or religious materials.
So what if, let's say, the New York Times is trying to do reporting from Gaza?
They're not allowed to be on the ground in Gaza, but they want to interview,
I don't know, a Hamas militant because Hamas is part of this story.
Hamas is part of this ongoing war.
What if, in an effort to do, let's say, an on air interview,
they send them a camera?
Would they be prosecuted for doing that?
I mean, that would be communications equipment.
- No. Jake. - Yeah.
No, it's this law is crazy in so many different ways.
Not only equipment. They say if you get advice from someone,
we will later call Hamas or affiliated with Hamas, or even once took a picture
with someone who's in Hamas, then we're going to criminally prosecute you.
That's insane.
Advice. What does that even mean?
Like, that means basically don't talk to them.
But wait, that triggers a second problem.
Now they say you have to vet everyone that you're hiring meticulously.
They clarify that in the letter many times, and they say if they have any
connection to anyone associated with Hamas, we're going to put you in prison.
Okay.
So but how do you vet them without talking to them?
Because if you talk to them, they say, well, you just got his advice and counsel.
Okay. That's it.
Now you're under.
In other words, guys, there's look, there's three things here
that I want to draw your attention.
Number one, they're criminalizing freedom of the press.
And so it cancel culture anti freedom and going after the press.
If you dare criticize Israel we might put you in jail in America.
This is crazy. It really is because.
Because think about it.
The United States government can declare look, I believe that Hamas
is a terrorist organization, but it also happens to be the governing
body, unfortunately, in Gaza.
So that makes the situation a lot more complicated.
It isn't the same as, you know, talking about ISIS as a terrorist group.
ISIS never had any governance over any group of people.
You get what I'm saying.
But in this case, I mean, this is a story involving a literal war
in which Hamas is the governing body of one side of this war.
Yeah. So I'll give you a quick example of that.
I can make an argument that the government of Iran is a terrorist organization.
Certainly. Are.
Some of their military factions could be considered a terrorist organization.
So our reporters are not allowed to talk to anyone in the Iranian government.
Well, how are you going to get updates on negotiations we have with them
over uranium?
ET cetera.
Whether we're going to be part of a deal that we, the United States government,
made with Iran.
This standard is insane, and it's the most un-American thing you've ever heard.
So don't you dare criticize a foreign country, by the way,
let alone our country, a foreign country.
Otherwise, we're going to put you in prison.
But number two, they make it so onerous that if you even talk to anyone
who's Arab, they're going to say, well, I want to see all those pictures.
Did he ever take a picture with someone associated with Hamas?
Did he ever talk to anyone associated with Hamas?
Did he ever know anything ahead of time?
Well, a journalist's job is to try to figure things out
and sometimes ahead of time.
Right?
So they're basically making it so hard to hire any Arabs
so that their voice doesn't get out.
So then you have Israeli propaganda 24 over seven, but you have no reporters
on the ground to give you any other perspective, Muslim, Arab or otherwise.
Okay.
And there's a third giant problem, but go ahead.
And I'm also curious about what this would mean for ordinary Americans.
Right.
Let's say they're ordinary Americans who are on social media.
They come across certain content that they want to share,
but that content is, you know, labeled or considered propaganda from Hamas.
And disseminating it or sharing it would amount to providing support for Hamas.
Does that mean that ordinary citizens would get prosecuted or investigated?
I'm serious.
Like, I know that sounds hyperbolic and crazy, but this is such a vague law
and the fact that you have 14 attorneys general signing on to this,
and it's essentially a threat to journalists, I think says a lot
about how far they're willing to go.
And by the way, the letter was signed by Republican attorneys general
in Iowa, Alabama, Florida, Arkansas, Indiana, Kentucky, Texas, Louisiana,
Utah, Montana, Virginia, South Carolina, West Virginia, and Tennessee.
I should also note, by the way, that today Congress voted on a resolution
to say that being anti-Zionist is the same as being anti-Semitic, which is a lie.
Okay?
Being anti-Zionist does not mean you're anti-Semitic, but that is another effort
to basically attempt to silence anyone who is critical of Zionism.
Yeah.
So, look, we can get into a long debate about Zionism.
And I have on many occasions over the last 40 years, and sometimes people online
use Zionists as a code word for Jewish.
And I hate the way that it sounds, I agree.
Yeah. Yes.
So oh, the damn Zionist or something. No, no, don't do that.
That's if you make it about race. Religion.
ET cetera.
That's we're never going to win that battle and that's the wrong battle.
And besides which, as progressives, the most important point overall is we
never make it about race or religion.
If you're if you're trying to discriminate against our Jewish brothers and sisters,
you got no business here.
We're not interested in it at all.
Okay? And that defeats the whole point.
But Zionism is a political movement. So what?
You're not allowed to criticize a political movement?
That's insane. Our Congress has lost its mind.
Our Congress is totally and utterly corrupt, so that everyone who signed on
to that bill is a total disaster.
Well, a lot of people did.
The House voted in favor of the resolution and it passed 311, 214.
Only 14 members of Congress voted against all 311 people.
Those are corrupt. They are.
That's an outrageous, ridiculous, un-American,
unconstitutional bill to pass.
By the way, the Supreme Court should strike that down.
So now you're not allowed to criticize political movements,
because, by the way, you can criticize any political movement you like in America,
but you're not allowed to criticize a political movement in another country.
It's insane, guys.
And by the way, this helps the cause of anti-Semitism because then it allows
people to go, well, I guess they control the United States Congress.
I guess they control all of the media and they control all the attorneys general.
It's actually not true. It's not true.
But this doesn't help. This doesn't help.
And AIPAC and Democratic majority for Israel going around threatening everybody.
We'll spend millions of dollars in your primaries
unless you listen to us in Israel.
That doesn't help the cause of fighting anti-Semitism.
That makes it 10,000 times worse.
Stop hurting our Jewish brothers and sisters by doing that.
But no, they're so corrupt that they can't see straight.
The those lobbyists and those particular politicians.
Okay, but back to this insane law that these Republicans
want to push forward, guys.
Okay. So their standard is okay.
If any reporter knew about a Hamas attack ahead of time, okay.
That triggers all of these things and you should be put to prison
if you worked with that reporter.
But wait a minute.
Benjamin Netanyahu and the entire Israeli government knew
a year ahead of time about October 7th.
So does anybody who gets a quote from Netanyahu, should they be arrested?
Because Netanyahu knew, he knew way more than that.
One allegation of one reporter who, who who.
Was allegedly embedded with Hamas. Yeah, that was embedded.
And the reporter I read the story, they're like.
Gaza Strip is minuscule. It's tiny.
It's smaller than Las Vegas.
So when something's about to happen, you hear it instantly.
And I followed to see where the news story was going.
And then it happened instantly. Right.
It's not like I had days or weeks or anything like that.
So this is already a made up thing.
But that guy knew for about a couple of minutes before it happened.
Netanyahu knew for a year before it happened.
Are we prosecuting? Are we prosecuting?
Oh no no no no no. Israel can do anything they like.
They can know ahead of time that that attack is going to happen against their
own people, do nothing about it.
They could work with reporters, they could give stories to reporters nonstop.
But if you dare work with an Arab or a muslim and they're actually a
good reporter, or they ever took a picture or said the wrong thing
about anyone at any time, we're going to put you in an American prison.
These are if they ever do this, they will be obviously,
these people will be political prisoners.
And guys, they're super dark. Times are ahead.
Trump reposted an article claiming he's going to be dictator positively.
- He shared it like, yeah. - It was an op ed that warned about Trump
dismantling our democracy and serving as a dictator in the United States.
It was an op ed written by him, not by him, about him.
- And he posted that he posted. - It like, yeah, like bragged about it.
- Yeah, yeah. - It's not like I didn't tell you.
Here's an article about me being a dictator.
And I'm telling you, that's what I'm going to do.
And today, Steve Bannon and Kash Patel, who worked in the Trump administration,
did a show together where they said, oh, yeah,
we're going to start arresting everybody.
Joe Scarborough should be on notice.
People in politics and media, they didn't know specific charges,
just political prisoners.
And they're telling you, we're definitely going to do it.
Steve Bannon was talking about Kash Patel was an absolute deranged lunatic.
He's like, well, you're going to be the head of the CIA.
Is that true?
Are they planning to put Kash Patel as the head of the CIA?
Oh my God, guys, the dictatorship is coming
and they're announcing it ahead of time.
And so will they start locking up people for disagreeing with Trump or Israel.
They just told you they're going to.
So this is the sorry state that America finds itself in.
Thanks for watching the video guys.
We also love it if you hit the join button below because that makes you a member
and members allow us to be independent, honest.
We could be as progressive as we want.
No corporate media influence. And that's all because of you guys.
We love doing the show with our members. Hit the join button.
Become one of the Young Turks.