← Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar
Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar
3/27/25: ICE Arrests Pro-Palestine Students, Gaza Protests Erupt, Debate On NPR And PBS Defunding
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- [00:00]
Adam
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Ryan
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- [00:37]
Krystal
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- [02:11]
Sagar
A Tufts University PhD student was picked up off the streets of Somerville, Massachusetts. We have a harrowing video of what basically looks like a kidnapping. Three masked men are picking up this student and putting her in an unmarked vehicle. The guy who's filming it seems disturbed by what he's seeing and keeps saying, can I see Your faces. How do I know that you are, how do I know that you are police officers? Like, what is, am I witnessing a kidnapping here? Because it very much does appear that he is witnessing kidnapping and frankly, he is. That is, like there's, there's, I guess you could call it an arrest. But there have been no charges filed and that's what we typically understand to be an arrest. Now, apparently last night, let's put up D3B. This is Magnad Bose is a Columbia Journalism Review journalist who also writes for Dropsite News. This is a student In Alabama, Alireza Da Rudy, who is a PhD student at Alabama, picked up off the street and as you can see there, if you try to figure out where he's being held now, it is currently undisclosed. No word of any charges. We don't even know what he said. Like, what, did he use the word genocide in a tweet? Like, we don'twe. Don't know exactly what he said to get him thrown out. This is coming after you put up D3. Yoon SEO Chung, who is a Korean American student at Columbia University, an undergrad who has a permanent legal resident who has been in the country since she was seven years old, was not a leader of the protests, was not arrested, I don't think, as far as I understand, during the protests, went to them a couple times, I guess tweeted some things and she has had her, according to her attorneys, she has had her permanent legal resident status revoked and they have been hunting her. They have been using significant federal assets to try to find her. She suspected that this may be happening and apparently has been moving around and they have been unable to pick her up. At this point. None of these people have been charged with a crime. All of them. Their only quote, unquote crime appears to be criticism of Israel's attack on Gaza and the US support for that assault, which, by the way, since March 2, Israel has not allowed any food, water or medicine to get into Gaza and it is creating famine like conditions and has slaughtered more than 300 children over the last several days protesting that is enough to get them thrown into the back of these cars or have to go on the land.
- [05:32]
Ryan
As you can see. You know, the first person, Ms. Austurk is apparently her name, she's a Turkish citizen. So apparently her crime is that she is, quote, one of several students who, one of several authors of an opinion essay published last March in Tufts University student newspaper. The essay criticized university leaders for their response to demands and Tufts, quote, acknowledged the Palestinian genocide and divest itself with companies to Israel. Mr. Durati, who you mentioned, Ali Raza Durati. There's not even actually any record of anything that the guy has done. And like you said, the other one just attended a protest. This was. Again, I need to talk philosophically here. Do you see the number of agents who are involved in arresting this lady? We don't have better things to do here. I mean, look, I know you disagree. I know you disagree, Ryan, but I wanna see those people applied to people who are in the country illegally. Cuz that's what, quote, mass deportation was supposed to be about, last time I checked, not facilitating the arrest of some stud PhD student. Look, fine. I mean, this is where you and I have a disagreement, probably. Like, I do think people who are here in the country on student visas and all that, you should be a little careful, okay? I'm not saying you don't have rights and all that, but, you know, listen philosophically. When I go to authoritarian countries or other countries, like, I don't mouth off about whatever, you know, whenever. When I'm in China, in Tiananmen Square, you know what I don't talk about? I don't talk about the Tiananmen Square massacre.
- [06:57]
Sagar
But think about that. But think about that. Are we an authoritarian country?
- [07:00]
Ryan
Well, I don't think that we're, quote, an authoritarian country, but I think common sense would dictate that whenever you're in another country or a guest in that person's country, you should generally try not to rock the boat.
- [07:11]
Sagar
I did a home exchange in France in 2023. We had a French family stay in our house, and we stayed in their house for several weeks. It was awesome.
- [07:21]
Ryan
France is an authoritarian country, but it's.
- [07:24]
Sagar
So at the time, there was some. I actually did several shows from there where I was critical of the French government for their handling of the situation. Inger. Like, should they have come in and rounded me up?
- [07:36]
Ryan
Well, they could have. No, that's the point.
- [07:38]
Sagar
We have a visa process that we have established for students and for tourists. And if you go through that process, we grant you a student visa. And as long as you follow the laws of our country and you're following the remit of the visa that we have given you, we have invited you into our country and you are spending money in our country. And if you don't violate that, for us to arrest you because Israel or some pro Israel organization has put you on a list of people that they think are mean to Israel, it breaks the contract that we made with these.
- [08:20]
Ryan
I totally agree with you. There's no reason for us to be doing this stupid. I'm more philosophically. People are like, they have a right to be here. I'm like, well, not really, but we.
- [08:28]
Sagar
Gave them the right to be there by creating a visa process that they went through. And also, people may not understand this. One of the main things that keeps our trade deficit lower than it would be otherwise is that millions of people come from overseas to the United States to study here and to do tourism here. If you look at the trade deficit that we have with Canada, it's cut, like, in half by Canadian tourists and students who come here and spend. And also, many of them pay, like, full freight to go to our state and private universities. And so they're subsidizing the American students, like American university. Like, it's like $85,000 a year or something for the full freight. Americans don't pay that. You know, who pays is like, the rich Egyptians, the rich Emiratis.
- [09:19]
Ryan
I don't disagree with the word you're saying. But that also raises a lot of questions as to then why is the student debt crisis so high and why exactly why?
- [09:26]
Sagar
Because it's so really expensive.
- [09:27]
Ryan
Right, Exactly. Now, you know, we could debate this foreign student thing all day long. I think what we can both agree on is the appropriation of immense federal resources to hunting some South Korean lady who. South Korean, been here since seven years. Been here since she was seven and attended the Columbia University protests is just, like, not very high on, I think, most people's list of what they thought of for mass deportation. And then when you go and you look at mass deportation figures of the actual criminal illegal aliens who are being deported, the numbers are exactly the same as they were under the Biden administration and. Or roughly the same now.
- [10:01]
Sagar
But I also don't think. I don't think she should have to watch her mouth. She's a legal permanent resident. And the difference between US And China and US And Russia is that you don't have to watch your mouth here. You say whatever you want as a citizen.
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Ryan
Yes. That's where I just disagree. Now, I'm not saying that again, we're talking about should and can.
- [10:22]
Sagar
Okay, but what if you're a citizen. Yeah, but you previously were. You're a naturalized citizen, so now you're a citizen. You've had a lot of Republicans say, or Trump administration officials say, well, okay, yes, they're a permanent resident, but if we would have known that once they became a permanent resident, that they would go and protest Israel, we would not have given them their permanent residency. Therefore, we're taking their green card, and then we're taking the visa they had before that. And we're going to jail them, we're going to send them to El Salvador, we're going to send them back to wherever they're, wherever they're from. Why would that not also apply to citizens? So case law, we gave you your citizenship, but we wouldn't have given it to you if we would have known that you were going to be critical of Israel.
- [11:06]
Ryan
The case law is very different on citizenship. Stripping United States citizens citizenship, as I understand this is a little harder. No, not a little harder. It's like significantly harder. I don't actually think you can strip United States citizenship.
- [11:15]
Sagar
No, you can. If. If they. If they. If you can.
- [11:17]
Ryan
Only if they violate. There's. It's like in your passport, if you open it.
- [11:20]
Sagar
Let's say if you, if you serve.
- [11:22]
Ryan
In a foreign military, except for the idf. If you, you know, say if you.
- [11:25]
Sagar
Lied to get your citizenship.
- [11:27]
Ryan
That's right.
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Sagar
If you lied, what they would say is, you told us you. You support and defend the United States, and here you are criticizing Israel. So how dare you. You lied.
- [11:35]
Ryan
I think the difference in particular on these student visas and these permanent residents is, for me, the appropriation, like I said, of federal resources purely based on speech grounds, with no criminal behavior, is one that I think most people will say, yeah, that's pretty messed up, right? And because if you look in the past for any of these, like, deporting based on support for foreign. It was like, pretty extreme stuff. You know, if we're going to the World War II era, you literally had to be a actual, like, pro Nazi, like on the radio, giving a speech. Be like, we need to support Hitler for the Roosevelt administration or others to prosecute you for treason. Actually, even on speech grounds. I was looking back, I was recently reading a book about this. Even then, a lot of those cases had immense difficulty getting a First Amendment back. That's with the citizens that we're talking about here. And that was even at a time of Korematsu when you had Japanese Americans literally enslaved in a camp, you know, illegally by their government. But in this particular case, the point is, is that they are using extraordinary measures of the United States. You know, what treaty exactly what is the State Department, The Secretary of State can designate any individual here and pulling their visa. And then using ice and like, I mean, do you know how much money it costs to like, arrest someone and fly Them to Louisiana, I don't know what. Tens of thousands of dollars just to support these type of operations. I think that's the big problem that we see right here. And most people can agree that it's obviously a stunt. And the worst is that it's on behalf of a foreign government. And these lists of all of these people, as you and I know, are coming from these, like, pro Israel groups who have sat there and scrubbed social media. It's sickening for me, you know, to even watch, because I have. There's, like, these accounts on Twitter. Stop anti Semitism or whatever, and I'll watch them just, like, blow up. Some girl who, like, rode on Strava that she was, like, really upset about, and she. No, not word. She was like, saw some annoying Zionists. It's like, okay, whatever. All right? People can post whatever they want on their social media. They're like, blowing up this lady's life or, you know, a flight attendant who has, like, a Palestine flag on their lapel. You know, by the way, I've been on flights before where I've seen the Israeli flag there. Whatever. Maybe she's Israeli. Okay?
- [13:58]
Sagar
Yeah.
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Ryan
I don't care what flag she got. Give me a drink. You know, it's like, what are we doing here?
- [14:04]
Sagar
Let me get the whole can.
- [14:06]
Ryan
Yeah, that's right. Give me the can. I need the Diet Coke can. And pour it properly over. I'm joking. Okay. I don't ever say any of this stuff, but my point is just like, who cares with the lapel? And they blow these people's up. They, like, ruin their lives in inviting this, like, witch hunt. And those are the people who the government is taking these lists of people from who didn't commit any crime. All they did was speak out against a foreign government. So I don't know. I just think it's crazy.
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Sagar
And I would say to the people who are like, well, they should be good guests and screw them.
- [14:34]
Ryan
No, to be clear, I'm not saying screw them. I'm actually on their side. I don't think that they should.
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Sagar
Well, I mean, you. They're gonna be watching level.
- [14:42]
Ryan
What I get annoyed by is, like, this transnational American identity, as if citizenship itself doesn't mean anything. Just simply being present in the country does not mean you are a citizen who's entitled to all of the protections that we have and that the government cannot deport you for a reason. And it is just empirically true. If you want to argue America, the exceptional country and all of that, I think that's Fine. But it is empirically true that in almost every country in the world that going there and in participating in a protest specifically like in a foreign policy against the sitting government, they're not gonna let you stay. Even in Europe and many of these other places, they're not also kind and fuzzy to foreign zootoos, particularly if it's.
- [15:22]
Sagar
An anti Israel protest.
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Ryan
Yeah, yeah, Try going to Germany, okay? Liberal democracy Germany or God, I can't name any other country, like I said, even non authoritarian ones, ostensible democracies where if you do this type of stuff like you are going to get deported. You can argue that you shouldn't and I would say you certainly can.
- [15:40]
Sagar
And shutting off like you're going to hurt tourism and you're going to hurt the number of foreign students who come to the United States. And I think people are going to be like, well screw it, who cares?
- [15:51]
Ryan
I think we should have much less foreign students. I think it's completely perverted our financial system in these universities because what happens is they increase the costs for everybody now. They subsidize marginally the American students who are still loaded up with tens of thousands of dollars in student debt. But you also make it basically a visa farm for the richest people all over the world to be able to come here. Would they fake their course, but they're reducing course? No, but they're not. That's the thing. If that were true, Ryan, then you would not see the inflation in overall educational costs. I mean the more foreign students, the higher that the price actually goes. And then worse is the government comes in and backstops these student lo for fake lower. Oh, we gave you $10,000 in student aid. It's like, okay, but the thing is still $60,000. So they're going and they're getting some FAFSA loan, the government's doing that. It basically comes a foreign visa farm, the PhD programs and all of that. There's no particular evidence that it's all that great for the United States or that all of this money is flowing into the hands of the average American citizen. I don't see any evidence that, you know, all of this educational spending has done any or increase in education costs and subsequent dollars come in has been distributed at all to the overall population. It's mostly just a money laundering organization for the University of Michigan or the university whatever, you know, all these other places which use this dollars to just continue to prop up and justify even more overall expense. And I'm totally against the current way that it's Funded.
- [17:17]
Sagar
The explosion of the cost of university is I think, a separate issue from foreign students coming and spending money in universities. There's a correlation there, but I don't think foreign students are causing that.
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Ryan
No, I'm not blaming them per se. I'm saying it's all part of the incentives. As in the incentive for a university when they charge $60,000 or $70,000. What is it now? Harvard? I don't even know, 80,000 something. 85,000, let's say Sarah Lawrence is always famous because they have like in the middle of Rhode island they're charging like 90 grand a year. It's like, okay, well who's paying that? Well, foreign students. But also even for the student who's, let's say paying $45,000 per year, which is still an insane amount of money, that person is taking a government backed loan, Right. That literally can't be discharged. And you watch as those two things have basically made it so that these universities can offload all the risk of participating in their financial product. If you just look at like at a balance sheet, they offload the risk to the government and to the individual and they take those profits home. Again, we don't see much evidence that they are distributing that funding. If it were true that all this increased tuition was so great for workers, then professors would be getting paid more. Actually their salary is going down for the overall PhD, right. For the adjuncts. And the way that they run it, it's actually more restrictive than ever. Really what they're doing is they're enriching themselves and a bunch of fund managers on Wall street by these endowments. So anyway, that's my opinion.
- [18:42]
Sagar
I agree with that point. I think that cutting off the foreign students. Well, I guess we'll get to find out what it does.
- [18:49]
Ryan
Well, so yeah, I mean that is the question, I guess in terms of.
- [18:52]
Sagar
Because if you're a foreign student now willingness, I would assume that you're looking around at other countries.
- [18:58]
Ryan
You think so? I would be curious.
- [19:02]
Sagar
Or maybe you just don't criticize Israel, which is also like that, like America has become less America.
- [19:09]
Ryan
That's fair. I think that's probably the best point. I mean, I, I don't think that we're going to really see if anything, I'm not sure if you saw this. Law school applications went double this year, which is usually a bad sign. That means that there's a recession coming.
- [19:20]
Sagar
Right.
- [19:20]
Ryan
Because people don't get a job. So that means that they're going to law school.
- [19:23]
Sagar
Yeah, usually a Bad financial decision, especially with.
- [19:26]
Ryan
Not that you take advice from me, but, you know, just saying, loading yourself up with 200 grand in debt and the hopes that it might pay off in the future, usually a bad idea, but a lot of people seem to think that it's good. We saw the same thing in 09 for law school applications. But the problem, I think is what you just said is that the government is enforcing policy to chill speech on an issue of a foreign government. That is genuinely crazy.
- [19:50]
Sagar
It's crazy, it's crazy.
- [19:51]
Ryan
I mean, every other time in the past we talked to Jefferson Morley. At least our government should be psyopping our population to support a war that we are in. You know, it's like, is that too much to ask cointelpro for, you know, for Vietnam, don't support it. But I get it right on the Nixon administration. This is too much.
- [20:09]
Sagar
Why are we. Repress us on your own.
- [20:11]
Ryan
Yeah, repress us for your own benefit, not for the benefit of some people in Tel Aviv, you know, who aren't even. Although I guess some of them are US citizens.
- [20:19]
Sagar
But we forget though, like, yes, they're very. Israel has powerful, et cetera. They are our client and they benefit us. There is a reason that we're not just doing it for them like we're doing it for us. It is like they are a fundamental part of our foreign policy in the Mideast. So in that sense, we are suppressing criticism of ourselves.
- [20:45]
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- [21:39]
Adam
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- [22:16]
Krystal
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- [22:45]
Sagar
Greenlight.Com iheart several days of protests have broken out in Gaza. Israel is already working to exploit them. Can roll this statement put out by Defense Minister Israel Katz. He's speaking Hebrew, but he says the IDF will soon operate with full force in additional areas of Gaza and you will be asked to evacuate from combat zones for your own safety. The plans are already prepared and approved. Hamas is putting your lives at risk, causing you to lose your homes and more and more territory that will be integrated into Israel's defense formation. The first sinwar destroyed Gaza and the second sinwar is ready to burn half of Gaza with his own hands just to try and maintain his corrupt rule alongside his fellow Hamas murderers and rapists. They sit safely with their families in tunnels and luxury hotels with billions in foreign bank accounts while using you as hostages. Learn from the residents of Beit Lahiya just as they did. Demand the removal of Hamas from Gaza and the immediate release of all Israeli hostages. This is the only way to stop the war. This came several days after Israel Katz had put out a separate statement. Residents of Gaza, this is your final warning. Evacuation of the population from combat zones will soon resume. If all Israeli hostages are not released and Hamas is not kicked out of Gaza, Israel will act with force you have not known before. Take the advice of the US President, return the hostages and kick out Hamas and new options will open up for you, including relocation to other parts of the world. For those who choose, the alternative is destruction and devastation. After These remarks starting this week, you started to see organic protests, in other words, not organized by Fatah or the Palestinian Authority, which are kind of rivals of Hamas. After the, into the second day, the size and kind of the ferocity of the protests expanded significantly. We'll see how that develops on today, which would be the third day. What has been remarkable about these protests is that they have included significant anti Hamas sentiment being expressed. And so let's talk about the politics here and the material conditions in which these are unfolding. So to be clear, you know, Hamas took power in 2005 in this election. And then afterwards there was, you know, Fatah tried to take power and there was. Hamas pulled a kind of counter coup and there haven't been elections since. They have been in power now for almost 20 years. And for obviously among Palestinians in Gaza, there is a range of opinions. They are by no means monolithic, but there are many, many people in Gaza who have serious objections to Hamas as a governing authority. Right. They have largely, kind of primarily been an armed resistance organization and a national liberation move. That is their identity. That's what they see themselves as. Governing has never been the thing that kind of animated them. And at the same time, they've been operating under a, a 20 year siege. They've been a repressive government as well. And so from talking to people in Gaza yesterday, they were adding like, yes, people are frustrated with Hamas and people want an end to this war. They want a lifting of the siege. People are literally starving and they think that if they go out and express opposition to Hamas that that can lead to an end to this war.
- [26:43]
Ryan
One of the dumbest arguments I always hear is they voted for Hamas, so they support it. Okay, well, the median age in Gaza is 18 years old, right? So that means that the median Gazan was not alive whenever there was an election. And by the way, even if there was an election like let's say 10 years ago or whatever, as you know, I know this is trite almost at this point, but that's the logic Osama bin Laden used to attack the United States on 911 is they support their Zionist government under George W. Bush, so they deserve it. Right? That's why we should attack and kill the average American because they are complicit in the crimes of their own government. It's like, okay, well by that standard then there is no such thing as a civilian. Now that's basically the argument that that has been put in place. What's also ironic about those elections is that they were pushed by Us?
- [27:35]
Sagar
Yes.
- [27:35]
Ryan
We're the people who basically forced them. The Israelis didn't even wanna have because they knew what was gonna happen. The reason that we pushed it was cause of Bush's brain dead freedom agenda. And it's so funny, even in retrospect. They have the election, the election doesn't go the way they want. And they're like, okay, now we gotta sanction and blockade this entire thing because they elected the wrong people. So what happened to the whole freedom agenda thing?
- [27:56]
Sagar
Right? Freedom as long as you pick our guys.
- [27:58]
Ryan
Freedom as long as you pick our guys. Kind of like Iraq, Afghanistan. Interesting, isn't it?
- [28:02]
Sagar
You remember Hillary Clinton's famous quote after that election? What did she say? It's so good you guys can Google up and find the exact quote. But she was like, how on earth did the Bush administration hold an election where they couldn't determine the outcome of it? She's like, what kind of incompetence is that? Which just says absolutely everything about everything.
- [28:24]
Ryan
That's one of my favorite things in reading history is at the Potsdam conference when Churchill lost the election, Stalin was like, I don't understand what is going on here? He's like, why didn't you just rig it? And he's like, that's not what we. He was mystified. He's like, what do you mean that you're just leaving? He's like, you can't leave. We're.
- [28:44]
Sagar
And he was so annoyed. He's like, now I have to deal with.
- [28:46]
Ryan
Yeah. He's like, no. He's like, who's this new guy, Atlee? He's like, who the fuck are you? You know, I don't want to deal with you.
- [28:51]
Sagar
And so if we put up D8 on the screen, Israel's dropping flyers over Gaza urging Palestinians to go out and protest against Hamas. This has kicked off obviously what you would expect, which is then a rallying around of Hamas. Like, because on the one hand, people are deeply frustrated with the situation and they're deeply frustrated with a lot of elements of the way Hamas is operationally handling this situation. People are suffering. On the other hand, they don't want to be seen as aligning themselves with Israel. So as a result of this, as a result of Israel trying to exploit the protests, you've had a lot of clans and kind of senior elder officials, like up and down Gaza put out statements saying that the people have a right to protest, people have a right to protest Hamas. But we stand steadfast and firm with the national liberation and with the resistance. Against Israel. Trying to make that clear. At the same time, you're going to have political jockeying for what may be a post Hamas environment. After Gaza, Israel tried very hard and they put their plans publicly out there that they wanted to empower clans against Hamas to distribute aid. They armed some of these clans. They would bomb Hamas, they would bomb police that were connected with Hamas to try to empower these basically gangs, because then it's a classic divide and rule situation. And so some of those gangs have obvious political motivations to try to fuel these. And so what is relying on genuine organic sentiment very quickly is getting pulled in many different directions.
- [30:53]
Ryan
That's what I really wanted to get at. I was like, what do we really make of these protests? Because everyone's like, oh, it's against Hamas. I was like, well, maybe it seems a little convenient.
- [31:01]
Sagar
It. It's like there's. And it should definitely be acknowledged that there is significant anti Hamas sentiment being expressed at these protests.
- [31:11]
Ryan
What do your job site colleagues say about the participants and others?
- [31:15]
Sagar
Yeah, that this is. That these are. That there are significant, you know, anti Hamas elements to these protests, of course, but it's. There's also anti siege, anti occupation, like, anti, like, end this war. Like, we want to live. Is one of the, one of the main lines, main battle cries of these protests is we want to live. And there is some frustration that the ceasefire didn't last and it's frustration at everybody involved. Like, they just want the. But they also know who is blockading Gaza right now, and they know they can in many cases. You can see the trucks on the other side. Abu Bakr Abed, one of our correspondents there, put on Twitter the other day that or yesterday that children that he's seen are drawing food in the sand. The depth of the hunger is at just intolerable levels. And so part of this, I think, is just a flipping the table. Like, something's got to give here. And it's being received in a very complicated way in Israel because on the one hand, the Israeli public likes to say that, look, even the Palestinians are protesting against Hamas. We told you, Hamas is terrible. But that also then undercuts their argument that everybody is Hamas. And why are you killing them all? Like, they're begging you to not kill them. They're saying they want to live. And there is a very clear path that Hamas has outlined that they will leave the government, make a deal, let a new government come in with some amount of sovereignty, and open up the passes so that the trucks can get back in and they'll disarm and move on, like. And so for a lot of the Israeli right, one of their biggest fears has always been being told, yes, peace and coexistence is possible. We want peace because Israel does not want. The Israeli right does not want which. And the Israeli right is now almost all of Israel. They don't want peace and coexistence with Palestinians in Gaza. They want the Palestinians in Gaza to no longer be there.
- [33:48]
Ryan
Right.
- [33:48]
Sagar
They're setting up an entire ministry to move them to Egypt and Jordan. They want to ethnically cleanse the entire area. So peace and coexistence is a threat to that vision. So that's why it's being received in this kind of complicated fashion. And you're seeing a lot of Israeli commentators say, we don't care if they're protesting, kill them anyway.
- [34:10]
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Yes.
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- [36:15]
Ryan
Let'S get over to NPR and to PBS. Last piece here but Ryan and I we were like we need to debate something more foreign students is too much. That's not spicy enough. So what about NPR and pbs? So there have been these congressional hearings for purposes we still have yet to be explained. But anyway they are there and Republicans and Democrats sparring over whether the hearings are a joke for defunding npr. NPR not doing itself any favors with their CEO hasn't particularly come across well with some of her own past tweets. So we compiled some clips from what went down yesterday to give you the best and the brightest. Let's take a listen.
- [36:55]
NPR Representative
Former senior business editor for NPR how.
- [36:57]
Congressman
Long do you work at NPR?
- [36:58]
NPR Representative
I believe he was there just over 25 years.
- [37:01]
Congressman
25 years award winning journalist. Did he win any awards?
- [37:05]
NPR Representative
Our time to Peabody Award.
- [37:07]
Congressman
That's pretty important, isn't it? That is a pretty distinguished journalist, right?
- [37:10]
NPR Representative
Certainly.
- [37:11]
Congressman
And he wrote a long story about what you do at npr. Is NPR biased?
- [37:17]
NPR Representative
Congressman? I have never seen any instance of never of political bias determining editorial decisions. No.
- [37:24]
Congressman
Well Mr. Berliner in his story a couple last year wrote I've in the D.C. area editorial positions at NPR. He said he found 87 registered Democrats, zero Republicans. Is that accurate?
- [37:43]
NPR Representative
We do not track the numbers or the voter registration. But I find that was award winning.
- [37:47]
Congressman
Journalist who worked 25 years at NPR. Mr. Berliner, was he lying when he wrote that?
- [37:52]
NPR Representative
I am not presuming such. I just don't have. We don't track that information about our.
- [37:57]
Congressman
Journalists 87 to 0. And you're not biased.
- [38:00]
Ryan
Do you believe that America believes in black plunder and white democracy?
- [38:04]
NPR Representative
I don't believe that, sir.
- [38:07]
Ryan
You tweeted that in reference to a book you were reading at the time, apparently the case for Reparations.
- [38:13]
NPR Representative
I don't think I've ever read that book, sir.
- [38:15]
Ryan
You tweeted about it. You said you took a day off to fully read the Case for Reparations. You put that on Twitter in January of 2020.
- [38:24]
NPR Representative
First of all, I do want to say that NPR acknowledges that we were mistaken in failing to cover the Hunter Biden laptop story more aggressively and sooner. Our current editorial leadership and Wuhan, we recognize that we were reporting at the time, but we acknowledge that the new CIA evidence is worthy of coverage and have covered it.
- [38:41]
Ryan
So, yeah, didn't go so well for Katherine there. I mean, she's been a real target for quite some time now. I don't in terms of whether this is a good idea or not. Before we get to the debate, though, let's also take a listen to the Democrats. E3, please. Let's take a listen.
- [38:58]
Adam
Free speech is not about whatever it is that y'all want somebody to say. And the idea that you want to shut down everybody that is not Fox News is bullshit. We need to stop playing because that's what y'all are doing in here. You don't want to hear the opinions of anybody else. And the Constitution says Congress shall make no law respecting or establishing of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging.
- [39:25]
Ryan
The gentlewoman's time has expired. The gentlewoman's time has expired.
- [39:30]
Democratic Representative
Here's what I think we should be having a hearing about. After Trump and Musk took over the government, reporters noticed the State Department was trying to funnel 400 million taxpayer dollars to Tesla. The State Department said, it's an old contract, no news here. But because of a brave whistleblower and an NPR reporter, they exposed the corruption and the lies. Madam Chairwoman, if we want to look into waste, fraud and abuse, why not look into that? Elon Musk, who's running cabinet meetings, who's running the White House, was trying to funnel money to himself. So let's stop investigating Cookie Monster and start investigating how the Trump administration lied about this and was trying to funnel money to their biggest political supporter.
- [40:16]
Another Congressman
Now, I will admit, though, the extreme liberal agenda that you're all pushing, I think doesn't stop there. This, of course, is Bert and Ernie. Now, these two guys actually live together. They're friends. They're supportive of each other. Now, that might be triggering to our chairwoman and some on this committee, and perhaps that's also why we're here today. Ms. Kirger, an important question. Are Bert and Ernie part of an extreme homosexual agenda?
- [40:42]
Ryan
No.
- [40:43]
Another Congressman
Thank you, Ms. Kerger, and thank you for being a good sport. Now, I'm obviously using some humor here, but the fact that we're sitting here today talking about defunding public television is actually not funny at a time where we can't agree on basic Facts. And while the free press is under attack, we need public media like PBS and NPR more than ever.
- [41:04]
Ryan
So I had no idea Bert and Ernie were possibly gay.
- [41:06]
Sagar
Well, that's a whole thing that. There was a panic on the right for a while that was like, what's up with these guys?
- [41:12]
Ryan
Is this all. Is this a long standing thing? Is this a more recent development? What's up with that?
- [41:16]
Sagar
I only remember it from the. The kind of gay panic, 2000s era.
- [41:20]
Ryan
Oh, really?
- [41:21]
Sagar
But I wasn't.
- [41:22]
Ryan
So these are like the people who wouldn't let their kids, like, read Harry Potter.
- [41:24]
Sagar
Yeah.
- [41:24]
Ryan
Okay. All right.
- [41:25]
Sagar
Yeah. But Maybe back in the 60s, 70s, there was some.
- [41:29]
Ryan
Okay, so, Ryan, let's talk about it. What is your case for NPR and for pbs, and why don't we split them apart? Because NPR is a news organization, so NPR News specifically. But also NPR has a lot of different programming, public interest programming. I listened to tons of NPR when I was growing up. They had great book shows, et cetera. But I don't think you can deny that it's effectively taken pretty liberal in the last decade or so. So why shouldn't public dollars be funding something like that?
- [41:57]
Sagar
So I would preface this by saying that my concern for this country is, like, rapidly evaporating as we become more like China and Russia.
- [42:08]
Ryan
But you like China.
- [42:09]
Sagar
We're giving up. Right, Exactly.
- [42:11]
Ryan
But you like it.
- [42:12]
Sagar
So let's just be China then.
- [42:13]
Ryan
Okay.
- [42:13]
Sagar
And China. You're gonna get publicly funded media. Yeah. And you're gonna get much better public benefits. You also have then no freedom of thought and association or whatever. I mean, that's an exaggeration. I shouldn't say that about my good Chairman Xi. But you don't have the same level of freedom that you have here as we're eroding our freedom here. Then it's like, well, then what are we. What do we even have to offer?
- [42:38]
Ryan
But it's kind of like the food stamp thing that we talked about yesterday. So if it's a taxpayer dollar, don't you have a taxpayer interest in. Yes. And the democratically elected government should have some say over the way that it's gonna operate.
- [42:52]
Sagar
I agree, and I'm fine with that. I think there should be a correction in the kind of political bias of npr. And I think they're doing it. I think they've been chastened by the election.
- [43:06]
Ryan
How did it get so out of control?
- [43:08]
Sagar
Right.
- [43:08]
Ryan
Cause even during the Trump administration, that was the insanity.
- [43:11]
Sagar
I think the way it got out of control is the realignment of our politics in throughout the 20th century, you had, you know, the kind of suburban class that is going to dominate. Well, a newsrooms were more working class throughout the 20th century, especially in the early 20th century.
- [43:33]
Ryan
Yeah.
- [43:33]
Sagar
As they became more professional class in the 80s and 90s, the professional class had a lot of Reagan supporters in it and a lot of Republicans and suburbs were leaned Republicans. And so. And you also had this more of an American identity where journalism was not seen as partisan, it was seen as it was like because you had npr, NBC, pbs, cbs, abc. That was basically it. And they saw themselves as kind of above politics. As you move into the realignment period of the 2000s and 2010s, everybody with a college education becomes kind of a liberal. And whether they're registered or a specific.
- [44:16]
Ryan
Type of liberal or not.
- [44:18]
Sagar
Yes. And they're pro choice and they're secular and a lot of them are kind of pro free trade like that, kind of a liberal. And everybody in journalism starts to have a college degree. So the combination of those two things just meant that everybody just that worked at npr, even though they still had and I know these people like they still have, they still consider themselves journalists first, but they were just kind of personally liberals. Then Trump gets elected and they see him as this kind of assault on their sensibilities and on the American Constitution. Glenn Greenwald and I have talked about this from the 2000s up through 2016. We had always been saying journalists need to stop pretending that they're objective and allow the public to know what their opinion is.
- [45:14]
Ryan
I totally agree. I totally agree.
- [45:16]
Sagar
And then after 2016, we're like, oh, maybe not like that. Like that. Wow. Okay, maybe we were a little off on that. Well, no, you went a little like they went so anti Trump.
- [45:30]
Ryan
Yeah, it's like, no, but that was good. That was revealing. That actually made it. It's like, no, your impartiality is actually bullshit. I'll tell you where my jump point came for NPR News in particular, put this one up there on the screen. I'll never forget this. From the day that the Hunter Biden story came out, why haven't you seen any stories from NPR about New York Post Hunter Biden, quote, we don't want to waste our time on stories that are not really stories. We don't want to waste the listeners and readers time on stories that are just pure distractions. Now, listen, am I telling you that NPR or that Hunter Biden's story was the biggest story in the world? No. Do I think it should have merited coverage in the same way that any story should have merited coverage in that 2020 election. Yes. And in particular they didn't just not cover the Hunter Biden story. They also didn't even cover the censorship of that story by Twitter and others that were involved at the time. So to me, that was when it became an overtly political, taxpayer funded organization. And I said, I just don't think that can stand. You shouldn't be doing that. I will stand for. And this is where I disagree with the libertarians and others. Actually, public programming which is educational is great. I cannot tell you how much NPR I listened to when I was growing up. Bookstore, you know, book, they had all these books, shows, you know, the money one. I'm forgetting exactly what the name is. I mean in the mid-2000s and all that, a lot of people, you know, turned NPR on may have been whatever was even available. And it had just general public interest programming of like highlighting stories. And you know, just thinking back to kind of the explosion, the pre podcast era, that was very, very useful for a lot of people. And I wouldn't even really call it political, especially in its, you know, non news programming. But that's where you said the educational problem starts to come in. Because now even that cultural programming around books. We're like reviewing Ibrahim X Kendi. Right. As part of our. You're like, okay, well you know, it doesn't take a genius to see which way all this is start trending now. Am I saying you can't review that? No. But are you also gonna have a critical author on? I don't think so. That becomes the issue and you start to really see the organization from 2014 onwards become just like overtly liberal. I think PBS is the same story where it's sad because it's not just about Sesame street and others. I mean, PBS helped a lot of kids to learn about science and how to read. If you think about your and my childhood, probably in our public schools, what did we watch? We watched a lot of PBS programming about how to read and cartoons. I genuinely think that stuff is really very impactful, especially in a country where you can't leave it to these privatized education companies. They certainly don't have our damn interests at heart. So I guess it's more about coming back to principles. But a lot of the libertarians and the conservatives, they don't even believe it's possible. And so they just want to blow the entire thing up. So that's really where I differ with them.
- [48:16]
Sagar
Right. So it sounds like, we agree on the sense that in principle, public media is a good thing. And then the public coming together and deciding that they're going to use public resources to fund media and education is a good thing because the market doesn't do everything. And when it comes to, like NPR, for instance, apparently about 3% of their funding is tax dollars. That's the national NPR. That's the one they hate, the one that all these liberals on North Capitol Street. When it comes to NPR stations around the country, it's at least 10% of the funding is tax dollars. And without that funding, the NPR station that exists wherever you live, if you're outside of D.C. or New York or Los Angeles, would probably go under. And those NPR stations, they're important to national NPR because cool, how npr, when there's a story in Alaska, they've got somebody in Alaska. When there's a story in Montana, they've got. They didn't fly somebody to Montana. They've got somebody that lives right there, knows the local scene, reports every day for the local npr. But then when there's a national story, they report for national npr. And I think that these rural areas in particular are significantly worse off without, without those publicly funded NPR stations. And they just, just from a commercial capitalist perspective, there's not going to be the audience there for them to survive. So the public should step in and provide a thing that the market can't, that we consider to be valuable. And if we feel like it's going off the rails politically, ideologically, I think it's fine for the public to step in and be like, look, come on, get it together.
- [50:01]
Ryan
Good. That's what we're doing here. Then we totally agree. All right, guys.
- [50:04]
Sagar
Except the Republicans don't agree. They're gonna try to cut off funding.
- [50:07]
Ryan
Yeah, yeah, fair.
- [50:08]
Sagar
We'll see.
- [50:08]
Ryan
I doubt it will. I mean, like you said, though, what is it, 3% of their funding? And it's not like they also solicit. That's the way. The only thing that's annoying me about NPR is how much they shake you down for money.
- [50:17]
Sagar
But if Republicans. Every time you listen, if Republicans do cut the funding, it will not be national NPR that will go under. It would be the local NPRs.
- [50:24]
Ryan
That's true. That's fair. PBS. The only reason the real thing for PBS is I love their historical programming. For anybody out there. I mean, I think it's on Amazon. It's only like 3.99amonth, and you can get access to the whole PBS category. I love those American experience, ones about the American presidents, obviously. The Ken Burns documentaries are just incredible. That's a genuine public service in my opinion, because that stuff is used in schools to like. I mean, it's definitely gonna be better than any history teacher that you're ever gonna see to actually see this, like, highly produced, all these interviews. That's still a war documentary, actually. It's funny. Shane Gillis was joking about it, but I feel like he's speaking directly to someone like me when he's joking about Shelby or whatever. Shelby Foote. Have you ever read his books? After I watched it, I actually tried to read Shelby Foote's books. They are impossible to read for me. They are written in that the way he talks is the way that he writes. It's lyrical. So he'll be like, Mr. Lincoln coming up on a broad hill. Jefferson Davis, known for the scar on his face. I'm like, dude, I can't read this.
- [51:28]
Sagar
He didn't write with troops such as these, did he? The Stonewall Jackson biography?
- [51:32]
Ryan
No, I don't think he did. He wrote a trilogy which was. I forget exactly what they were called. Yeah, the Civil War. A narrative. And to be fair, he even would tell you that he was not trying to write that. He's making this up. He was writing it in like historical and like he was writing it specifically in the way that I found annoying. I just personally cannot stomach that whenever I'm reading. So there you go. Book discussion from Sager and Ryan. Ryan, it's been fun, man. Thank you for stepping in this week. We appreciate you. Back to regular programming next week and we will see you all later.
- [52:13]
Another Congressman
Foreign.
- [52:20]
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- [53:20]
Ryan
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