Speaker 1: So Fox News propagandist Tucker Carlson, who has spent over a year minimizing
the January 6th Trump riots, said yesterday on his program that he can think of no group, no
more brazen attack on our democracy. Then when the Biden campaign asked Twitter to
take down nude pictures of Hunter Biden, which are against the law in most states, and violated
Twitter's own policies on revenge porn. That's what Tucker Carlson is pointing to as the most
brazen attack on our democracy. You have to see this and then we'll discuss it. At 28 election,
Twitter did this with the help of the FBI committing censorship on behalf of one candidate.
Speaker 2: While working. Speaker 1: To hurt the other candidate. Now,
sorry. I'm sorry to interrupt. Already pay very close attention to the language he uses.
And I'm going to back it up just a few seconds, because this is critical to understanding the
propagandistic value of this by committing censorship on behalf of one candidate, but.
Speaker 2: Working. Speaker 1: To hurt the other candidate.
It is hard to imagine a more brazen attack. Speaker 2: On our democracy than this,
huh? This is not how our system is supposed to work. In fact, it's illegal. What Twitter
did is a violation of the First Amendment as well as of established campaign finance law.
They never declared those contributions to the Biden campaign. That's a crime.
Speaker 1: Okay. I think there are five lies in there. It's only a 28/2 clip of which we
listen to 26 seconds. And I think there are five lies in there. Think about the number of things
that he gets wrong and then we'll talk about the absurdity. Bigger picture of this. There's I can
think of no more brazen attack on our democracy. Well, I can think of one. It's January six,
which he minimized. And, of course, many other attempts by the Trump administration over the
four years he was president to suppress speech, to control the media, kick out Jim Acosta, all these
different things. I can think of many greater attacks on our democracy than when the Biden
campaign said to Twitter, hey, this is revenge porn. These are nude pictures of an individual who
did not release them. Please remove them. That's not really an attack on our democracy. Number two,
he says it's illegal. It's not illegal there. I mean, at this point, it's been,
what, 70 to 96 hours since the Twitter files was released. And look at look at serious legal
commentaries. I don't see anyone even arguing that there was a crime here. Number three, this
was a violation of the First Amendment. No. We're talking about a private company, Twitter. It's not
about the First Amendment. The argument I think Tucker and others are making is that indirectly
because the government told Twitter to remove the posts, it is a violation of the First Amendment.
Of course, it was the Biden campaign, not the government at the time. So for about two or even
three different reasons and layers, it is not a violation of the First Amendment. Then he says,
it violates campaign finance laws. Now this one has to be explained to be understood.
His argument. I'm being as charitable as possible. This is the best possible argument that you can
make. His argument is removing the posts of Hunter Biden naked was financially valuable to the Biden
campaign. Like a campaign contribution, it would be called an in-kind contribution.
And so it was supposed to have been reported, but it wasn't. Now you have to prove that in court.
It's very shaky. And I can't imagine you could prove in court that arguing for the removal of
revenge porn by Twitter is a contribution of value to a particular campaign. Hunter wasn't running
for anything, and it was against Twitter's own policies and a crime in just about every state.
Now, let's take a zoom out a little bit. The problem isn't really Tucker Carlson specifically,
is it? And what I mean by that is we have a system that allows, on the one hand, Tucker Carlson,
to speak to a large audience on a set that, you know, it looks like this is news. When you look
at this, it looks like a news show say things that are completely baseless and meritless and
without evidence in many cases. And then if it ever leads to a lawsuit and it goes to court,
FOX News lawyers show up and they say, this is entertainment. This is not news. And
what he uses hyperbole and exaggeration as a tool to do an entertaining show. And it should not be
taken literally as though he is reporting facts. Oh, okay. Well, but because Fox News is really
going very much out of their way to frame all of this as being actual news, as the word suggests.
That's really the bigger problem here. And this is not me calling for censorship. I'm
not saying Tucker should be off the air. But the problem is the having it both ways, all the time,
presenting as news. And listen, I'll be honest, much of the problem is media literacy. The
people who watch Fox, not from a media criticism standpoint the way we do, but the people who watch
Fox to learn things and to get news. They don't realize that it's not news. They are the perfect
marks for such a deception. And it's an endless circle. I mean, at this point, how many times are
we talking about it? The circle simply continues. And the latest now is this is the greatest assault
on our democracy. What about January 6th? Never mind. Dozens of other things that happened under
the Trump administration. Nope. It's when the Biden campaign said, hey, this is illegal revenge
porn and it violates your own policies, please remove it. Whoa. The biggest scan I'm trying is
could this be potentially bigger than Obama gate? Which, by the way, I still don't know what that
is. It seems those are really the big scandals and Hillary's emails. This is the alternative world.
Alternative universe better set in which the modern right wing currently lives.