← Free Thinking Through the Fourth Turning with Sasha Stone
Free Thinking Through the Fourth Turning with Sasha Stone
How The Media's Elitism Cost Them Their Credibility
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- [00:01]
Sacha Stone
Hi, this is Free Thinking through the fourth Turning. My name is Sacha Stone. How the media's elitism costs them their credibility and it might be too late to turn things around. I listened with an open mind to this illuminating interview between Bari Weiss at the Free Press and Jim Vandehay and Mike Allen, two founders of Axios, about how the public lost trust in the media.
- [00:28]
Bari Weiss
You've put your finger on where trust meets the business model and why legacy media is so broken and why there's such an opening for new independent outlets like the dogged Free Press and the smart Brevity, the clinical, insightful coverage of Axios. And that is that people realize that what they were getting in the media, that they were used to trusting and giving the gift of lots of their attention to. They weren't seeing much of the country. They weren't seeing themselves. The reason that you were in the newsroom sobbing was partly because you were surprised, right? And the political media had one job, which was to understand America and explain it to our audience. And the media utterly failed at that. And so you got these sort of awkward. And you were present for some of these. These awkward efforts to fly someone from Brooklyn to a diner or airdrop someone in to a VFW hall to try to catch up. And so that's the trust part of it. The people said, oh, like, you don't get what's happening. You don't get me. You're not able to explain to me these tectonic shifts that are happening in America. And that's where it meets the business model, that people started giving their time and attention to other outlets, to newer outlets that were able to explain to them in a way that they trusted or in a way that resonated or a way that was efficient. The way that we say it at Axios is we don't waste your time and we don't insult your intelligence.
- [02:21]
Sacha Stone
As we watch them scramble to explain why they covered up Joe Biden's cognitive decline. What we see, instead of an apology, is an excuse. There has never been any real reckoning of what happened to them after Trump won in 2016, all through his first term, and especially in 2020, when they lost much of the public's trust for good, they took a side. But worse, they positioned themselves as superior to the other side, which meant not only weren't they chasing the story, but they weren't paying attention to those who were. The Biden Trump debate was Toto pulling back the curtain and exposing the wizard of Oz. There was not much they could do. After that, the jig was up. It didn't break news for anyone who got their news outside the bubble. However, there the media is endlessly mocked for its pandering, weakness and propaganda. Here is a video by Matt Orfala.
- [03:20]
Bari Weiss
This version of Biden, intellectually, analytically, is the best Biden ever.
- [03:28]
Jim VandeHei
He is sharp, intensely probing and detail oriented and focused.
- [03:34]
Mike Allen
For example, we have a thousand trillionaires in America.
- [03:37]
Sacha Stone
I mean billionaires in America.
- [03:39]
Bari Weiss
This is a man who is sharp, who is on top of his game, who knows what's going on.
- [03:43]
Jim VandeHei
He's smart, he's on his game.
- [03:44]
Sacha Stone
His mental acuity is great. This is a very sharp president. And the people that I've talked to say he's as sharp as attack. He's fired.
- [03:55]
Mike Allen
They say he's sharp, there's not a problem.
- [03:56]
Sacha Stone
He was sharp, he was sharper than anyone I've spoken to. The president is sharp and he is tireless. He is sharp, as sharp as ever and he's fine. All this right wing propaganda that his mental acuity is declined is wrong. His brain is good. He's still great. He is sharp in meetings. I believe the people who say that behind closed doors, Joe Biden remains sharp in meetings. Joe Biden is sharp.
- [04:20]
Bari Weiss
He's sharp, he's fit. There is nothing to these challenges, these suggestions that somehow he's not sharp. He's sharp as a tech.
- [04:29]
Sacha Stone
How it Started from Columbia Journalism Review. Don't blame the election on fake news. Blame it on the media. How it's going from Politico. Conservatives see a conspiracy around Joe Biden's stumbles. The collective post debate, gloating from conservatives is in full swing this week as Democrats reckon with the ongoing political fallout. But the immediate response on the right has focused less on the fact of Biden's potential mental decline than on alleging the Democrats in the mainstream press colluded to hide it. End quote. Yeah, that's the kinder, gentler explanation. The alternative is that they're so bad at their jobs, such terrible reporters, so in the tank for one political party that they couldn't see what was right in front of them for four years. Pick one. It's hard to sympathize when so many of us were left twisting in the wind dealing with major issues in American life, from COVID to the protests to lockdowns to the woke madness in our schools. We needed a legacy press that would tell us the truth, not do the bidding of one political party. True, they could have lost their jobs for it. That Happened everywhere. Reporters lost their jobs for a headline. Buildings matter too. Donald McNeil lost his job at the New York Times because some overly fragile brat tattled on him and accused him of being a racist. But so what? Someone had to stand up for objectivity in journalism, didn't they? What happened to me? The mania around race and racism was on a low simmer. After Trump won the first time, Cancel Culture was in full swing. We'd already gone through the first wave of a mass hysteria episode around the MeToo movement, but none of that could compare to to what happened to us when we were all locked down from COVID and the George Floyd video hit the Internet. It was seen by millions all over the world within minutes. Right after the video hit. A fake image of Derek Chauvin wearing a Make America White Again MAGA hat also made the rounds, driving up the rage meter just before the largest protest in American history erupted on the streets, breaking lockdown and forcing the left to to pivot from social distancing to masks. It would be days before the story of the fake photo was corrected. Probably even now, many still believe it was real. The tweet is still up for podcast listeners. A tweet from Bishop Talbert Swan. Here is Derek Chauvin, the racist cop who kept his knees on George Floyd's neck, cut off his air passage and murdered him wearing a Make Whites Great Again hat. A clear sign that this piece of excrement should have been taken off the streets long ago. JusticeForFloyd and a follow up tweet. It's astounding how many of you are more concerned with a picture that misidentifies a racist, violent, apathetic murderer, white supremacist pig who crushed the neck of a black man and lynched him in the streets of Minneapolis than the fact that he executed George Floyd. And then a follow up tweet by Fake News. I still had one foot in my old world then. The Blue check aristocracy ruled Twitter and I was still a loyal Joe Biden supporter. I had been in a panic about the violence that came like clockwork every night after the peaceful protests came to an end. The media wasn't covering it. No one would talk about it. I thought it was so bad that it would easily hand Trump a second win. The majority of the public favored military intervention if the protests could not be controlled to protect citizens and businesses. So Barry Weiss and James Bennett did what any responsible journalist would do. They reflected most Americans views by asking Senator Tom Cotton to write an op ed for the most trusted news outlet in the land. The podcast listeners A montage of headlines for Tom Cotton Send in the Troops. From the News Guild Our statement on the New York Times op ed Send in the troops. The News Guild of New York issues the following statement in response to a clear threat to health and safety of journalists we represent. New York Times employees will be sent a letter directly to Times management about their concerns. From cnn, Tom Cotton's Send in the troop op ed is just wrong. From msnbc Cotten Send the troops argument is as wrong as it is dangerous. From Axios, New York Times employees say running Tom Cotton op ed put blackstaff in danger. From Vox, the Tom Cotton op ed affair shows why the media must defend America's values. And from the Washington Post, don't send in the troops. And just like that, words as violence became our new normal. I remember how the lie that Jacob Blake was unarmed and there to break up a fight hit social media. Kenosha burned to the ground, people died and none of it was true. It took months for that narrative to be corrected. For so many of us, nothing would ever be the same after that summer. I can track my transformation using the Wayback Machine, though no single tweet from that summer was recorded. Only one from May of 2020 where I'm wearing a T shirt with Joe Biden buttons on it. My tweet Amazing how fast Twitter turned away from the Tara Reid as a fraud story to the Biden is a racist story. Kind of amazing. What chance do you think that gives us to actually defeat Trump? I'll give you one guess with 98 likes and one from late September of 2020. You don't have to agree with someone to feel sympathy for them. It just means the basic threads of your humanity are still intact. Nothing should be able to take that away from you. Not a president you hate, not a social media platform with 12 likes and finally from November. And by the way, Trump was not an authoritarian, nor was he a fascist. As of now, the left is edging much more closely to that with only seven likes. The legacy media abandoned us that summer. We all know why their desire to take down Trump was more important than telling us the truth. Even now, members in the mainstream press are defiant and defensive when called out for being overt activists for the Democrats. Chris Cilliza, for instance, is one of the few reporters who did talk about Biden's age, like the Axios reporter, so much so that his readers complained about it. This story of his, but her emails answers whether he covered Biden's age more than Hillary Clinton's email server from one year ago. A link to Chris Cilliza's but her email story he wrote that said a few thoughts. Number one, Biden's age is an issue and not in a good way for a majority of Americans. This is true across a number of polls and a number of months. It is also true that he is the oldest person ever to be president and would be 86 at the end of his second term. I do think those facts mean that Biden's age merits coverage in this space and the broader media. That Joe Biden is old is not an issue on par with the fact that the guy he is likely to run against tried to overturn a free and fair election in 2020, incited a riot to prevent the counting of Electoral college votes in 2021, and is promising an authoritarian adjacent second term if elected in 2024. End quote. He comes out and admits that their objective was to stop Trump. They believed that was their job after they were blamed in 2016 for helping Trump win. Recently, Cillizza was on Twitter defending himself. A tweet from Chris Cilliza after Emma Jo Morris says media effort to conceal Biden being demented was not heard mentality, although that's its own unforgivable sin. It was intentional activism. And Soliza responds, I don't agree. While I absolutely believe that the media, myself very much included, didn't work hard enough to get around the smokescreen the Biden people were putting up around him, I do not think that was intentional activism. Well, that might be something we could all accept were it not for all of the mistakes or outright lies from 2020 and during Trump's term. The only reason they're even talking about this is because the debate exposed them. Had Kamala Harris prevailed, none of them would be talking about this. George Clooney would be taking a victory lap. The Washington Post, the New York Times, the NBC, abc, CBS News would never feel pressured to explain what they knew and when they knew it. The truth is that the right was all over this story. No one should be giving credit to the small number of journalists who tiptoed around it. It's like that scene in Quiz show in Congress when every senator praises Charles Van Doren for admitting he cheated except one who lets him have it in no uncertain terms.
- [14:01]
Chris Cillizza
I lied about what I knew and then I lied about what I did not know. In a sense, I was like a child who refuses to admit a fact in the hope that it'll go away. Of course it did not go away. I was scared, scared to death. I had no solid position or basis to stand on for myself. There was one way out and that was simply to tell the truth. It may sound trite to you, but I've found myself again after a number of years. I've been acting a role, maybe all my life, of thinking I've done more, accomplished more, produced more than I have. I've had all the breaks. I have stood on the shoulders of life and I've never gotten down into the dirt to build, to erect a foundation of my own. I've flown too high on borrowed wings. Everything came too easy. That is why I am here today. Mr. Van Doren, I want to compliment.
- [15:48]
Sacha Stone
You for that statement.
- [15:53]
Chris Cillizza
Thank you, sir.
- [15:54]
Sacha Stone
Mr. Van Doren, I would like to join the Chairman in commending you for.
- [15:58]
Chris Cillizza
The soul searching fortitude displayed in your statement. Thank you, sir. Thank you very much.
- [16:05]
Sacha Stone
Mr. Van Dorn, I just want to add my kudos.
- [16:09]
Chris Cillizza
I have listened to many witnesses in.
- [16:12]
Sacha Stone
Both civil and criminal matters and yours.
- [16:15]
Chris Cillizza
Is the most soul searching confession I.
- [16:18]
Mike Allen
Think I've heard a long time.
- [16:20]
Chris Cillizza
Thank you, sir. Mr. Van Doren, I'm also from New York, a different part of New York.
- [16:30]
Sacha Stone
I'm happy that you made the statement, but I cannot agree with most of my colleagues. See, I don't think an adult of your intelligence ought to be commended for simply at long last telling the truth. Had the legacy media given journalists the credit they deserve on the right, they would not be in this mess now. Hit pieces as public show trials in communist countries, public displays of punishment were used to keep people in line. Hit pieces against those suspected of being far right function much the same way. They are both a warning to stay away and a threat of what might happen if you dare associate with them. In 2020, the New York Times ran a hit piece on Real Clear Politics, a popular political site made a sharp right turn. What steered it? Real Clear Politics has been catering to campaign obsessives since 2000. It pitches itself as a trusted go to source for unbiased polling. The Trump era changed its tone and funding sources. This was funny considering what happened to the public perception of the New York Times polling after the 2016 election. Podcast listeners a video tracking 80% win for Clinton all the way over to Trump. In a late October 2024 story, the New York Times once again tries to hit at and discredit realclear PO Politics. Quote why the right thinks Trump is running away with the race. Skewed polls and anonymous betting markets are Building up Republicans expectations. Donald Trump could use that to challenge the result. John Nolte of Breitbart came in with a broom and a dustpan and cleaned up the mess. From John Nolte, quote, far left New York Times owes Real Clear Politics apology. After FiveThirtyEight shutdown, Nolte writes, quote, as we now know, Trump did run away with the 2024 race. He won the Electoral College, he won the popular vote. He swept all seven swing states. He moved vast swathes of the country into the Republican column. His gains with minority voters were nothing short of incredible. But less than a week before the election, the Times simply wasn't ready to face the fact that Trump might win reelection and with that re election repudiate the regime media in a way that would prove they no longer matter. What to do, what to do. So tell me, how does any reasonable person come out of that not reading John Nolte because he writes for Breitbart, but trusting the New York Times, which was clearly trying to tilt the race for the Democrats while still pretending objectivity? What to do? What to do? It is their sneering of the right that costs them their credibility. Because in their world, people like John Nolte are scorched earth. That's why they run hit pieces. Because they have power to destroy anyone's reputation overnight. Or should I say had power. When you see that Bari Weiss, Matt Taibi, Walter Kern and Michael Shellenberger all had hit pieces written about them too, by high minded, self important so called journalists, you realize that it can now be seen as a badge of honor. Podcast listeners, a story about Walter Kern, the blindness of elites, Walter Kern and the empty politics of defiance. And one on Matt Taibbi from the Intelligencer New York magazine. What happened to Matt Taibbi? The former darling of liberal media is now one of its loudest critics. He says he hasn't changed. And one from the New York Times on Bari Weiss. Bari Weiss knows exactly what she's doing. The founder of the Free Press has built a new media empire by persuading audiences that she is a teller of dangerous truths. Substack has a Nazi problem. It wasn't just that they went to war on Trump. It was that they helped perpetuate the false narrative that Trump's rise was driven by white supremacy and that he was a racist. Therefore everyone who voted for him was a racist and anyone who associated with them was also a racist. And once they internalized that story and began pushing it as the official story, they like almost everything else on the left destroyed their own brand from a story in City Journal, an obit for journalism. Here are how things are looking at the Times 2 IMAGES 1 Number of new York Times articles mentioning racism spiking way up after 2016 of color spiking up after 2016 whiteness spiking all the way up to the top and white privilege almost up to the top Losing the public's trust. When I look back on 2020, I see one lie after another sold to us, the unsuspecting public who deserved better. The 51 experts on the Hunter Biden laptop Russiagate the generals Covid leaked from a lab was racist. Attempting to close the border from China was racist. The photo op story that was debunked Jacob Blake was unarmed. And on and on it went. Podcast listeners A montage of headlines Fiery but mostly peaceful protests after shooting generals denounced Trump's protest crackdown plan Hunter Biden stories Russian disinformation at Pentagon fears grow that Trump will pull military into election unrest Trump on the China virus label it's not racist at all President Trump uses term China virus to describe coronavirus, prompting a backlash. Suddenly, public health officials say social justice matters than social distance. Protesters cleared by tear gas and rubber bullets for Trump photo op Bunker boys photo op War As a Christian and a human being, I was appalled by Trump's church photo op. Do they think we're that stupid? Do they think we would not notice? Two of my best friends in the world died during COVID One overdosed on heroin, the other had a sudden heart attack in his 50s. I was not allowed to talk about the reasons why they died. I had to go along with the official story that lockdowns were not causing suicide and the vaccine wasn't causing heart attacks. My nephew came all the way from Thailand after having survived Covid. But because he wasn't vaccinated, members of my family lost their minds and told him he could not visit. When I told them getting Covid was better than the vaccine, they countered by sending me links to msnbc, ABC and CBS News. Long after Covid ended, they would all find out for themselves that the media was not telling them the truth. What happened to me and so many other people is that we were all crawling through a desert looking for an oasis of truth. Anyone who would tell us what was happening. After years of being lied to and micromanaged by the Democrats and their propaganda press, I found that just not inside the bubble of the left. I had to crawl out of it. Here are some reporters and voices who covered Very big stories. The legacy press mostly ignored. Julio Rojas on the ground covering the 2020 protests. Fiery but mostly peaceful. The 2020 riots and the gaslighting of America. Molly Hemingway's astonishing book about the 2020 election Rigged how the media, big tech and the Democrats seized our elections. The medical scandal of the century. The trailer for Matt Walsh's what is a woman?
- [24:48]
Chris Cillizza
I'm a husband.
- [24:48]
Sacha Stone
I'm a father for I host a talk show. I give speeches, I write books.
- [24:53]
Chris Cillizza
I like to make sense of things. A woman is not anything in particular.
- [24:56]
Sacha Stone
There is not one particular thing. It could be many things to many people. Some women have penises. Right. Some men have vaginas. I like scented candles.
- [25:04]
Chris Cillizza
I've watched Sex and the City.
- [25:05]
Sacha Stone
Yeah.
- [25:06]
Chris Cillizza
How do I know if I'm a woman?
- [25:07]
Sacha Stone
That's a great question.
- [25:08]
Chris Cillizza
You're not a scientist.
- [25:09]
Sacha Stone
You're not a gender studies major.
- [25:11]
Chris Cillizza
No.
- [25:11]
Sacha Stone
How do you know that you're a man? I guess because I got a D. The Twitter files I think the most.
- [25:16]
Matt Taibbi
Alarming thing that we saw was the regular stream organized stream of communication between the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security and the largest tech companies in the country. They had an organized system for flagging content not occasionally but in enormous numbers involving spreadsheets of accounts that ran to the hundreds and thousands. And this was shocking to us and to the congressman's point, this isn't crazy conspiracy theory. We've already had four federal judges rule that they believe this violate this activity violates the first amendment. This is quite serious. We didn't know whether it was against the law but we certainly thought it was shocking enough to be in the public interest. And that for me was the most serious thing.
- [26:09]
Chris Cillizza
For me it was seeing the so called former FBI officials within Twitter and working with and other groups including this Aspen Institute participating in an effort to so called pre bunk the Hunter Biden laptop before it was ever published in the New York Post and then to get it censored by Twitter in violation of Twitter's own terms of service whose internal staff had concluded that the New York Post tweet had not violated their terms of service and they censored it anyway.
- [26:38]
Sacha Stone
This isn't just a matter of what data was given to these so called journalist before us. Now there are many legitimate questions about where Musk got the financing to buy Twitter.
- [26:49]
Matt Taibbi
Ranking member Plaskett I'm not a so called journalist. I've won the national magazine award, the I have Stone award for independent journalism and I've written 10 books including four New York Times, New York Times bestsellers. I'm now the editor of the online magazine Racket on the independent platform Substack. I'm here today because of a series of events that began late last year when I received a note from a source online. It read, are you interested in doing a deep dive into what censorship and manipulation was going on at Twitter? Now you're trying to get me to say that he is the source. Well, it can't answer your question.
- [27:25]
Sacha Stone
Well, he is or he isn't. If you're telling me you can't answer because it's your source, well, then that the only logical conclusion is that he is in fact your source.
- [27:34]
Matt Taibbi
Well, you're free to conclude that.
- [27:36]
Sacha Stone
Well, sir, I just don't understand. You can't have it both ways. But let's move on because. Well, no, he can. He's a journalist. He can't because either Musk is the source and he can't talk about it or Musk is not the source. And if Musk is not the source.
- [27:48]
Jim VandeHei
Then he can discuss. No one has yielded.
- [27:50]
Sacha Stone
The gentlelady's out of order. You don't get to speak out of. Regardless, you're not recognized. He has not said that. But he has said is he's not going to reveal his source. And the fact that Democrats are pressuring him to do so is such a. We're asking him about his conversation. Gentleady has not yielded you time. You don't give me. I am not yielding time to anybody. I want to reclaim my time. From Miranda Devine, a New York Post story. Big Tech is in the tank for Biden Democrats. Cheryl Atkinson has been reporting on media mistakes all through the Trump era.
- [28:22]
Cheryl Atkinson
As wrong as so many were about Trump's chances of becoming president, I continue.
- [28:27]
Mike Allen
To believe Mr. Trump, Trump will not be president.
- [28:30]
Cheryl Atkinson
Many seemed equally convinced that when Trump did win, it was because he'd colluded with Russia. It is as if there are no.
- [28:38]
Sacha Stone
Shoes on the Trump human centipede that are not about Russia. Russia, Russia, Russia. Treason. We now have to discuss treason. No one can control Donald Trump with.
- [28:51]
Mike Allen
The exception of Vladimir Putin.
- [28:53]
Cheryl Atkinson
The accusations hounded him, insisted incessantly. From a heckler throwing Russian flags.
- [29:02]
Sacha Stone
To.
- [29:03]
Cheryl Atkinson
Celebrity indictments, he is wholly in the pocket of Putin.
- [29:07]
Jim VandeHei
Republican patriots, where are you? That's an excellent point. That's an ex.
- [29:13]
Cheryl Atkinson
To the former head of the CIA.
- [29:16]
Sacha Stone
I called his behavior treasonous, which is to betray one's trust and to aid and abet the enemy. And I still stand very much by.
- [29:22]
Cheryl Atkinson
That claim to attacks by Democrats.
- [29:25]
Sacha Stone
I have for months been trying to tell the American public and everybody else.
- [29:31]
Unknown
That this president is dangerous, that he's.
- [29:34]
Cheryl Atkinson
In bed with Putin, and attacks by some Republicans, shameful.
- [29:39]
Bari Weiss
And we don't even know what happened in those two hours when President Trump and President Putin were alone.
- [29:44]
Sacha Stone
Don't we need to know what happened in that conversation?
- [29:47]
Mike Allen
Yes, we do. That was a big mistake to meet alone.
- [29:51]
Cheryl Atkinson
But special counsel Robert Mueller's nearly two year long probe concluded that the Russia conspiracy theory wasn't rooted in reality.
- [30:00]
Sacha Stone
And this Tucker Carlson video covering the protests in 2020 has 8 million views.
- [30:09]
Jim VandeHei
America went insane over the weekend. That's barely an overstatement. People in their 80s who have lived in the US all their lives said they'd never seen anything like it. Ask an 80 year old. This was without precedent in the modern era. A small group of highly aggressive, emotionally charged activists took over our culture. They forced the entire country to obey their will. It all happened so fast and with such ferocity that virtually no one resisted it. People seemed bewildered, even stunned by what was happening. Statements of fact and opinion that were entirely within the bounds of reasonable conversation just last Sunday, suddenly, a week later, were enough to get you fired from your job. And a number of people were fired. An awful lot happened this weekend. For the next hour, we want to assess the aftermath of it all, suggest what it may mean and where this country is likely to go from here. But first, we want to give you a sense of what happened. We're going to begin tonight in Minneapolis. That's where the Black Lives Matter riots first began almost two weeks ago. As the violence there raged, some Democratic leaders in Minneapolis came to a conclusion that didn't, on the surface anyway, make intuitive sense. What their city really needs, they decided, is less law enforcement. In fact, no law enforcement. So they began to demand that Minneapolis, quote, defund the police. Now, the first thing you notice about this idea is how unpopular with the public it is. Almost nobody in the country supports it. But the activists, undeterred, kept pushing the idea. And within days, pressure mounted on the mayor of Minneapolis, Jacob Fry, to get rid of his city's police department. This was a problem for Fry. Fry has greater political aspirations and this was the last conversation he wanted to have.
- [31:53]
Sacha Stone
At least on the right, they do not pretend not to have bias. And even there, they are not afraid to push back against the status quo. Here is Megyn Kelly and The guys from RealClearPolitics, Carl Cannon and Tom Bevin, who are not afraid to discuss their opinions without allegiance to the right, something you never see on the left.
- [32:12]
Cheryl Atkinson
The one guy who got deported who wasn't supposed to be deported was totally fine to deport, just not to El Salvador. That's what all the expenditure of energy is on that one guy this week who they found. And it was like, so he had a non removal order to El Salvador because that was the country that he sneaked in from. And we, he had a deportation order issued against him. Carl. They said, you're being deported, sir. Get out. And like within two weeks of having to leave, only then did he try to claim asylum. Actually, it was too late for him to claim it, so he just claimed, please, you can't remove me. Please don't send me back home to El Salvador because there's this gang that's trying to kill me and my family. And the immigration court had mercy on him and said, all right, we'll give you a non removal order to El Salvador. And he's been here ever since. This is just a few years ago, but by the way, you could still remove him to El Salvador if the conditions there that required him to have a non removal order had changed favorably in a way that would be safer for him. And they have the gang that was totally devoted to getting this guy and his family allegedly has been eradicated by Maduro, so. Or whoever it was in El Salvador. And so he, like this, even this guy, like their poster boy, was definitely deportable. ICE is not making massive mistakes at it. Like they want you to believe that these are Keystone Cops and they're not.
- [33:36]
Mike Allen
Well, his name was Garcia. It is Garcia, actually, and that's not the reason. No, but your analogies are. Look, he lived in this case. Let's talk about the politics of it for a second and we'll get back to the legal of it. He's. He's a dad of three, lives in Silver, not Silver Spring in Prince George's county. In a house. You can look it up, you know, with Zillow you can find out where he lives, his wife works. He's got three children. The youngest is five years old and is non verbal autistic child. He's apparently working. It doesn't sound like he was really in any gang. And he was. And I'm not sure I, I'm also, I'm skeptical as you are that his life was threatened. I'm also skeptical he was an MS.13, which the government keeps saying without any evidence whatsoever.
- [34:28]
Cheryl Atkinson
Well, wait, but did you. Are you aware of the fact that a lower, a lower court Judge, an immigration judge and an appellate judge both found evidence to support his gang affiliation.
- [34:39]
Mike Allen
This was in 2019. What they. They.
- [34:42]
Bari Weiss
Well, there was, There was a.
- [34:44]
Mike Allen
One person alleged. He denied it. It wasn't kind of. It wasn't a hearing. As you point out, these immigration courts don't have. They're not set up, you know, guilt or innocence beyond a reasonable doubt. Right, but, but, but Amer, look, I'm, I'm talking about the politics of it, though. Here's a guy taking care of his kid, he's picked up, he's got. This Biden administration did nothing for four years. Now, maybe he should have paid closer attention to the election, the campaign as it was unfolding, but he's there running an errand, and suddenly he's in a. El Salvador in prison. And yes, they can deport him to El Salvador, but he's never even been charged with a crime. And whatever the government wants to say and that, you know, the Justice Department lawyers have been a little bit. They're not quite known what to say. And one of them was removed for not being a passionate advocate. They first said it was an administrative error. Then they said they couldn't do anything about it. His. His lawyer says, well, they couldn't do anything about it, but they didn't try to do anything about it. The idea that he's in a, that because of the United States law enforcement, he's in a prison. A person in prison who's never even been charged with a crime, I think it makes Americans very uncomfortable. It makes me uncomfortable. And could he have been deported? Yeah, but he wasn't just deported. He was sent to prison, you know, straight from the streets of Maryland to a maximum security prison in El Salvador. It seems Kafkaesque.
- [36:08]
Sacha Stone
The message to the media is not complicated. Stop seeing yourselves as better than the right or those in the independent lane. You're not better. You're not better people. You're not more honest. You are not smarter. You are not better reporters. Or in simpler terms, get over yourselves. If the collapse of traditional media in the Trump era proves anything, it's that the world has changed and no one has a monopoly on truth or information. May the most reliable voices win. Thank you for listening to my podcast. You can find more@sashastone.substack.com and remember to thine own self be true.
- [37:18]
Unknown
Now be. Because you wear all those fancy clothes.
- [37:22]
Sacha Stone
Oh, yeah.
- [37:23]
Unknown
And have a big fine car. Oh, yes, you do now do you think I can afford to give you my love? You think you're higher than Every star above Mr. Big Stuff who do you think you are? Mr. Big Star? You're never gonna get my love Now I know all the girls I've seen you with I know you broke their hearts for half another night Bit by bit you made em cry Many poor girls cry when they tried to keep you happy they just tried to keep you satisfied the big stuff Tell me, tell me who do you think you are? You're never gonna get my love I'd rather give my love to a guy that has a love that's more yeah Than to be fool and get hurt by you Cause when I give my love I want love in return I know this is a lesson Mr. Fix stuff you haven't learned the big stuff tell me who do you think you are. This stuff big stuff. You're never gonna get my love this stuff big stuff. You're never gonna break my heart Mr. Big Stuff, you're never gonna make me cry Mr. Big Stuff tell me just who do you think you are? Mr. Fixed up, you're never gonna get my love this stuff fixed up you're never gonna break my heart Mr. Fixed up, you're never gonna make me cry Mr. Fixed up tell you think you are you never gonna get my love.