We've now learned that Alex Jones will have to pay $4.1 million
dollars in compensatory damages in the defamation case.
It's actually the first of three trials that he's facing in regard
to the parents of Sandy Hock shooting victims who have been harassed by him,
who have been defamed by him.
He was already found guilty of defamation in a summary judgment after
the judge with her unbelievable patients gave him
a lengthy period of time to cooperate with this lawsuit.
To cooperate with the discovery process of the lawsuit and hand over documents.
When he refused to comply, the judge had no choice but to issue what's
known as a summary judgment and he was found guilty of defamation.
So now the focus of the trial is, well,
how much will he have to pay in both compensatory damages and punitive damages?
So far, we have learned that he has been ordered to pay $4.1
million in compensatory damages and beginning next week the portion
of the trial that focuses on punitive damages will begin.
And remember, what we've learned through the trial so
far has been pretty damning for Alex Jones.
You've had various staffers and hosts take the stand and
they admitted under oath that they do very little fact checking before they air
certain conspiratorial garbage that they broadcast on their programming.
And we also learned that Alex Jones has no problem lying both on his programming and
also while he is sitting on the stand testifying under oath.
In fact, there was this wonderful moment during the trial just yesterday,
when the plaintiff's lawyer called him out on his lies about text messages.
He was supposed to turn over text messages that had anything to do with Sandy Hock.
He had claimed that no such text messages existed and
then Alex Jones' lawyers did something incredibly stupid and
this was the moment in the trial that had to do with this situation.
Let's take a quick look at that.
>> One left corner.
Is that your phone number?
>> Yes.
>> So you did get my text messages?
You didn't, nice trick.
>> Yes Mr. Jones, he did.
>> You didn't give this text message to you, you don't know where this came from.
Do you know where I got this?
>> No.
>> Mr Jones, did you know that 12 days ago, 12 days ago,
your attorneys messed up and sent me an entire digital copy of
your entire cell phone with every text message you sent for the past two years?
And when informed did not take any steps to identify it as privileged or
protected in any way.
And as of two days ago, it felt free and clear into my possession and that is how I
know you lied to me when you said you didn't have text message about saying,
did you know that?
>> I see, I told you the truth.
This is your Perry Mason moment.
I gave them my phone and- >> Mr Jones,
you need to answer the question.
>> No, [CROSSTALK].
What's happened?
>> That was such a great moment, Emma.
But also it just made it abundantly clear that this guy has no problem lying
under oath.
Even prior to this happening,
the judge called him out on lying under oath two separate times.
Again, this was before he was called out on the lies
regarding evidentiary portions of this case.
But I wanna hear what you think about this because there was some fear that since
his lawyers seem to be incredibly incompetent,
they might try to toss this trial out and start again.
But it looks like he will be paying 4.1 million in compensatory damages.
>> Yeah, I mean, I'll never get tired of watching that video,
I gotta be honest with you.
Because this man, as fun as it is to laugh at him and
his red sweaty face that's caused by whatever off brand supplements he's
making hundreds of thousands of dollars on a day.
He has caused untold damage to not just the victims of the Sandy Hook massacre and
their parents of course, but to just the discourse in general.
I mean, Sam likes to say if Alex jones didn't exist, the CIA would create him.
Because it's really helpful to have a guy out there talking like a crazy
person who is completely diverting attention and
heat from the actual conspiracies in this country.
And instead talking about lizard people and the frogs turning gay and
the Bilderberg group or whatever garbage he has on his program.
He is sapping.
I think the discourse of relevant attention on actually
powerful actors who are hurting people on a daily basis plus of
course what he has caused to the Sandy Hock parents.
So, I'm thrilled to see this even though the number is lower than I thought,
I'm happy that it happened and it seems like more is coming.
But I did love that moment where he's stunned there, it's like in the OJ trial,
if the glove doesn't fit, you must acquit, right?
It's like texting the prosecutors a picture of you wearing the glove and
then also holding the knife.
>> [LAUGH] >> Right,
I mean that's kind of what happened here except for the fact that you don't
need that smoking gun evidence to go after Alex Jones in this regard.
It's all over the internet.
>> And that moment really did demonstrate just how much of a professional
liar Alex Jones really is.
Because he got caught red handed in that moment, in real time during the trial and
his immediate reaction was, see I told the truth.
I handed over the text messages and
the plaintiff's attorney of course had to be like, did you know that your
attorneys had sent me the entire digital copy of your cell phone?
No, I didn't know.
Yeah, luckily the plaintiff's attorney is a good attorney to say the least.
He's not some sort of ambulance chaser who doesn't know what he's doing.
He is strong in his line of questioning.
Did a good job in dismantling any kind of ridiculous argument that Alex Jones or
any of his cronies might have to try to pretend as if they aren't guilty of any
wrongdoing here.
One thing that I noticed during the trial, which tended to occur over and
over again was this notion that the plaintiff's attorney was
purposely taking statements out of context, right?
And that's a typical right wing talking point that we see quite often and
it's like you have hours and hours of content calling the Sandy Hock
massacre along with other mass shootings by the way.
Along with the Boston bombing by the way, referring to them as false flags.
Meant to rile up Americans into thinking that these are government executed
tragedies that are done specifically to take guns away from law abiding Americans.
It's complete horse crap.
I agree with you, I think the $4.1 million in compensatory damages is not enough.
We'll see what he'll have to pay in punitive damages in this first trial.
Remember, there's gonna be three trials to determine what he owes the parents of
the Sandy Hock massacres.
This trial has to do with Neil Wilson, Heslin, I'm sorry Neil Heslin and
Scarlett Lewis who lost their six year old boy Jesse Lewis.
So overall, who knows how much he's gonna have to pay in damages?
But I'll say this, he does make hundreds of millions of dollars off selling these
garbage supplements over a very short period of time and
I would like to see more punishment.
He claims that a $2 million dollar settlement or ruling by this judge would,
or by the jury I should say, would lead to financial ruin for him.
No one's buying that.
>> When you bring up the conspiracy theories about other shootings,
people should understand that this is reflected not just in right wing discourse
on the fringes, but in the very halls of Congress.
Marjorie Taylor Greene repeated conspiracy theories
about massacres being essentially false flags.
She talked about how,
why would the Las Vegas shooting happened at the country music concert?
Well, that's because there are a lot of Republicans there and
that's trying to get them, get you to be scared to give away your guns.
I mean, dozens of people died, died in that shooting and
she rode that conspiracy theory mongering all the way to Congress.
And so, that is a reality, right?
Like this kind of stuff influences people and
it influences politicians who now hold power.
Now, luckily she's been stripped of her committee assignments, but
I would not be shocked if Paul ghosts or Lauren Boebert,
all these other lunatics hold very similar views to him.
He's been an influential figure, rubbing elbows,
rubbing shoulders [LAUGH] with Roger Stone who has direct line to Donald Trump.
This is not somebody on the fringes, this is somebody who needs to be sued out
of existence, you think he might say, I wanna cancel him?
Yes, I want you canceled.
>> Yeah, yeah. >> I want you off air,
I want you bankrupt, I want you gone.
And I would love to watch that happen, I'd love to watch him go down in flames and
I would enjoy every second of it.
>> Yeah, I agree with you, 100% on that.
There were some who purport to be on the left,
individuals like Jimmy Dore per say, right?
They love to just provide cover for Alex Jones by saying things like, well, we
might not like him, but we don't want him to get banned from platforms like Twitter.
And I actually have a pretty strict line, I'm not one of these people who
wants everyone or anyone who says anything offensive to be blocked from
social media platforms, but for me, Alex jones crossed that line.
And the reason why I say that is because his speech went far beyond just
being offensive.
I mean, he's the king of offensive speech.
I never called for him to get banned from anything just for being offensive.
The issue is when you start engaging in defamatory speech that specifically
targets individuals and direct violence and hatred toward them.
And he along with his staff, along with his co host had absolutely
no problem further victimizing parents, further putting parents
in danger after they lost their children in a school shooting.
That is who Alex Jones is, he causes actual harm,
including possible physical harm to people who have already been victimized and
he had no problem doing it, he had no issue with it.
It wasn't until he was forced to admit that he believes that Sandy Hock happened,
that it wasn't some conspiracy.
It took the stand like he had to be in trial on the stand to finally admit that
and to say it openly and clearly.
But without this lawsuit, he would have continued.
I mean, it was a huge cash cow for him and
what's really depressing about all of it is when you take a step back and
you look at the bigger picture, the problem is much deeper than Alex Jones.
Because the trust in our institutions has completely eroded and
people are willing to believe what some lunatic like Alex Jones has to say.
Regardless of how far fetched and insane his conspiracy theories might be,
they're more likely to believe that guy,
Alex Jones rather than believe our Mainstream Media.
And that's not to criticize the individuals who trust in Alex Jones,
that's to criticize the fact that we do have institutions,
we do have this media culture that sows distrust among people, right?
And so, that needs to be dealt with and I don't know if it ever will because there
is a corporate structure in our press as well.
And when you have that financial motive, when you have a profit motive,
I think inevitably some of the reporting is going to skew in a direction that
shows the very distrust that I'm talking about.
>> Yeah, and I'll just add this one thing to in addition to the press,
not being helpful in this regard, are actual institutions,
there's conspiracy abound there, right?
I mean, who the deep state actually targets are civil rights activists,
indigenous activists.
I mean, go back and read your history,
look up some of the assassinations in this country of civil rights leaders.
And I'm not just talking about Fred Hampton,
there's some sketchy stuff when it comes to Malcolm X, Martin Luther King.
These institutions were set up to attack the left,
among other things, but surveil and attack the left.
And part of what Alex Jones does is he diverts attention away from that and
obscures and muddies that water where it's not as clear, but that's the reality.