The Chris Cuomo Project - Bridging Divides: Why I Chose to Talk with Tucker Carlson

Episode Date: March 28, 2024

Chris Cuomo elaborates on the importance of engaging in conversations with those holding differing opinions, amidst criticism for talking to controversial figures like Tucker Carlson and Jackson Hinkle. Chris argues that current divisions and siloed thinking have led to a dysfunctional status quo, stressing that conversation, not censorship, is key to finding common ground and addressing shared concerns. Join Chris Ad-Free On Substack: http://thechriscuomoproject.substack.com Follow and subscribe to The Chris Cuomo Project on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube for new episodes every Tuesday and Thursday: https://linktr.ee/cuomoproject Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Oh, this is a tough one. Why do you speak to people you don't agree with? Why do you speak to people that say things that you shouldn't like? Well, here's a very simple answer. What works? What is working for us right now? What isn't working for us right now?

Yeah, but Tucker Carlson, Bill O'Reilly, Jackson Hinkle, Trump supporters, there is a growing number of people who come after me for having conversations that they believe imply some kind of conversion. And really the opposite is true. It's not that I have sympathies for people on the far right. It's that I see that sympathies for people on the far right.

It's that I see that all of the rules and notions that have been applied to siloed thinking and picking your team and your tribe and the division and de-platforming and the censorship and the moderation of content, which is another way of saying censorship, has all led us to where we are right now and where we are sucks and nothing changes if nothing changes. Yeah, but if you want things to change for the better, should you be doing things that

are worse? Well, that's where you and I need to have a conversation because I believe that conversation is the cure. Now this is going to be a one-sided conversation because it's just me talking at you, but allow it to be food for thought. I will tell you why that I did conversation, that I do conversation, that I will continue to have conversation with a lot of people that you may not like or agree with. I am Chris Cuomo.

Welcome to The Chris Cuomo Project. Thank you for subscribing and following, and I'll tell you why. Because I don't like how things are. And it can't be that you get to a better place by continuing to dig in the wrong decision and the wrong direction. It can't be that you get to a better place by continuing to dig in the wrong direction.

And that's what we're doing. We're digging away from one another. And here's the easy pushback. Yeah, but you are talking to people who are liars, who have bad ideas that are filled with misleading things that just make other people susceptible to their stupidity. Ah, first of all, be careful not to become what you oppose. What does that mean?

Don't become close-minded to any idea but your own. Not everything that is said on the right is a lie, is designed to divide, is dangerous and dark. Do they have those aspects to their rhetoric? Absolutely. Do they have it more so than those on the left? Overall, yes, I agree that they do. But it doesn't really matter to me which pile of poop smells more putrid because it's the poop that I don't

like. A more gentle metaphor. I don't care which team is better than the other if I hate the game they're playing and I want it to change. And that's how I view party politics. So how do we get to a better place? I have a basic assumption, okay? Which is that a lot of the division is manufactured, that we have a magnification of the fringe going on, okay? That we have a minority that is super motivated and magnified by social media and by the media at large.

And it has gotten us to a place where their interests, their fringe extreme interests, have co-opted the majority's interests. We are led around by the nose by the least of us, not by the majority. And while America has always been about protecting minority interests as well or better than most nations, this has gone too far. And you now have the majority giving way to minority interests that don't suit what our country is. I believe a lot of the division is manufactured. We are in a place right now where you're really looking

at a government that's completely split. And that's not in any way a sense of balance because balance would suppose a kind of a leveling of energies, a leveling of pressure, a leveling of things that creates this equivalence, this equilibrium. That's not what we have. What we have is this.

Opposites pushing against each other. Why? Because in a two-party system, the only way is in a battle to the bottom. That's what zero sum is about. I only win if you lose. So what's easier, me proving that I'm better or you me proving that you're worse? That's why we see more and more negativity,

more and more scaremongering, fear mongering. So I believe that it is an artificial representation of who and what we are. And I believe that when you take people out of the politically charged atmosphere and they're in their communities and their families, that there's more to agree about on the basis of common concern,

then there is energy that is needed in being against each other. We care about our kids and the options and the level of education that they have, how safe they are at school, how safe we are in our communities and what it is that makes us safe, what opportunities there are for our kids and for ourselves,

how the economy is being managed by our government, how government is conducting itself and whether or not the mechanisms of our democracy are working the way that they should. And there are very few of you who are gonna say, I don't give a shit about any of that. I care about filling the blood, global warming. You could make that a national security issue if you want.

But I'm just saying in terms of the majority interest, there are a lot of common concerns. And you see that even when the explanation for that concern and why it's a concern and who's to blame or who can benefit us in that concern and how to do that is not shared. When all of those things aren't shared, why it's a concern in terms of how did it become a problem?

What are the facts? How do you fix it? Who should fix it? You don't need to agree with me on any of that to have the common concern. And that's all we need. And we used to have it when people still talk to one another.

Now, why did they stop talking to one another? Oh, because it's better for the parties and the pundits. It's better for the media silos and for the political silos. It's so much easier to keep us away from each other. They hate when we talk to each other. Makes us so much harder to control. When they can't make you and somebody else natural enemies,

so you're only gonna listen to them, oh, it's so dangerous. It's so difficult for them. Division is so much easier. And everything that's going on right now is to the advantage of those playing the game. And that's why I had a conversation with Tucker Carlson. And that's why I had a conversation with Jackson Henkel. That's why I have Bill O'Reilly on my show.

And that's why I interviewed Mehdi Hassan. Why? Because I think that we have confused perception with perspective. Perception is what you come at through your own lights. Perspective is things outside yourself that inform your own perception. We are long on the first and short on the second.

And I believe in food for thought. Yeah, but Tucker Carlson, man, listen, first, let's analyze it through the lens of me. Okay, do you think I was in a hurry to talk to Tucker Carlson? The way that guy has treated me? How many times I have had thoughts that, you know, not me at my best, but of me literally changing

the way he looks because of the bullshit that he said about me that wasn't true and wasn't fair and wasn't nice. So if I'm sitting down with him, what does that tell you? That you've changed. No, is that I'm willing to do what I think will make a positive difference. How is that a positive difference?

Give it him an audience. Ah, that's another thing that you need to get past. The idea that by ignoring ideas or silencing ideas, they go away, the opposite is true. Tucker Carlson has more reach than News Nation. He's got more reach than any cable outlet, okay? Now, how much of it is real or for gazy, manipulated through Elon Musk's appetites for relevancy?

I don't know. And what he does with his algorithms, I don't know. But if it's a 10th of what it seems to be, he's got some of the biggest reach in the business. So you're not going to shut him up by ignoring him. So why wouldn't you have a conversation with him? Well, I don't want to dignify him. I don't want to legitimize him.

Too late, too late. There are millions of people who agree with what he says. So if your goal is advantage, I get why you'd shut them out. You just wanna beat them. But if your goal is in seeing if there's something for people who believe in him and what he's about and what he says, is there any commonality there?

Is there any shared ground, common ground, common concern? And the answer is yes. His understanding of what's happening in the Middle East is not the same as mine, but both of us think that America should be in the business of making it stop. The Southern border seems to be broken. Why he thinks it is and what the motivations are, I don't agree with, but we're both right about the concern.

And what that does when you have the shared concern is, all right, let's leave the other stuff to the election. We can debate it, that's fine. But let's leave it to the election and let's shift the onus from us hating each other for having a difference onto the people who are elected to bridge that. Remember, that's what they're supposed to do.

They're supposed to make deals. They're supposed to make deals. Now opposition is a legitimate position. They get reelected by just promising you that they'll do nothing. They literally said it out loud on the immigration bill in the Senate. We're gonna leave the problem

because the problem works better than us working to solve it. It's good for Biden if we try to solve it. So we're gonna leave it like this so Trump can run on the problem. They said it out loud. That's how much they believe that they've won you over with the division proposition.

That's why I talk to Tucker Carlson, to show that it can be done and that there are common concerns and that talking to each other is better than talking about each other. And that's why I had on Jackson Hinkle. He's got a significant following. Yeah, but he's an anti-Semite.

He says he isn't. Yeah, but he says things about Israel that are terrible. He doesn't believe it should exist as a state. Well, that's the same as saying that Jews shouldn't exist. No, it isn't. And he says he doesn't believe that. Oh, he's lying. Look, in my experience, people who hate others

are proud to tell you about it and tell you why. Okay? I haven't met a lot of subtle antisemites. Now, can antisemitism or can bigotry or bias be sneaky, surreptitious? Yes, but this kid does not strike me as subtle. Oh yeah, but he's not relevant. He is relevant.

And I think there's something very eccentric about him and his ideas. But what benefit does it do me to just shut him out and not try to pursue why he has such a following at such a young age? See, I believe in that. I believe in more ideas, not fewer, because look at where your way has gotten us.

Everything that happens in society is put through this meat grinder of advantage. I'm one side winning and one side losing. Christopher Wray, the head of the FBI, the director of the FBI, just said it the other day. That everybody looks at every case and every investigation through the lens of whether or not they're side one or lost. This isn't working for us. So if it's not working, why wouldn't I try something different? Especially when it appeals to some of the most basic common principles of humanity.

That it's better to talk to people than about them. That you're better off trying to find out what each other is about and what common cause there can be than just demonizing the other. That's why I do it. Because I think it could help us get to a better place. Because that's my goal. I don't want to just cash in on the division by picking a side and running with it. It'd be a hell of a lot easier.

But not on my sense of purpose. Not on why I think it's worth dealing with all this bullshit in the first place. So that's why I do it. dealing with all this bullshit in the first place. So that's why I do it. Support for the Chris Cuomo project comes from Delete Me. Boy, am I the right person to pitch this product. Delete Me is for those of us who are tired of the online harassment.

What does it do? Delete Me finds and removes your personal information that you don't want online. It's a subscription service. And when you sign up, it goes and it searches all the big databases and find information on you that could lead to ID theft, doxing, phishing scams. Sign up and provide Delete Me

with exactly what information you want deleted and their experts take it from there. It's not a one-time service. It's always working for you and it has to be that way. It requires constant monitoring and removing of personal information that you don't want on the internet. So take control of your data, keep your private life private, sign up for Delete Me. Now, you can get a special discount for listeners and viewers. Today, 20% off, go to joindeleteeme.com slash Cuomo, use the promo code Cuomo at checkout.

The only way to get 20% off is to go to joindeleteeme.com slash Cuomo. Join deleteme.com slash Cuomo and enter the code Cuomo at checkout. Let me spell it. J-O-I-N-D-E-L-E-T-E-M-E.com. This NBA season, make every three-pointer alley-oop and buzzer-beater even more exciting with FanDuel. Download the app today to see why we're North America's number one sportsbook.

19-plus and physically located in Ontario. Gamling Tom, call 1-866-531-2600 or visit connectsontario.ca. Crypto is like finance, but different. It doesn't care when you invest, trade or save. Do it on weekends, or at 5 a.m. Do it on weekends or at 5 a.m. or on Christmas day. At 5 a.m. crypto is financed for everyone, everywhere, all the time. Kraken, see what crypto can be.

Not investment advice, crypto trading involves risk of loss. Kraken's registration details at kraken.com slash legal slash ca dash pru dash disclaimer. Now, there have been very strong reactions to my doing it, and I will address them as well. And for that, I will enlist Brother Ron, who has been very happily, of course, monitoring all of the madness. He is, what do they call the guy? Is it the griot?

The guy who's at the head of the parade with the big scepter? Bam, bam, the marching band, the guy, the griot. Anyway. I wasn't in the marching band. I'm sorry. I'm sorry to disappoint you. That is surprising to me. Yeah, I'm not in the marching band.

I'm a guitar guy, man. I wasn't a John Mayer. You are a natural for band camp. What the hell? Yeah, have you ever seen American Pie films? Those are excellent. Greg, by chance. Have you?

In the middle of this thoughtful conversation, I'm bringing up a Stiffler. I like it. Have you come across any reactions to my having these divergent conversations? I actually have, believe it or not. There's a website called Mediaite. Are you familiar with Mediaite?

Oh yes. It's for those of you who don't know, aren't Mediaite plus members. It's for those of you who don't, aren't Mediaite Plus members. It's like a media industry analysis website. They post news that pertains the industry that Chris works in. And I work in as an employee of his. They posted this March 4th,

after your interview with Jackson Hinkle. The headline reads, Chris Cuomo interviews anti-Israel conspiracy theorist, calls him at the head of the next generation of political thought with a thumbnail or a screenshot of you two smiling happily. They characterize your interview in many different ways, but they go on to say, notably Cuomo did not mention Hinkel's spread of disinformation about the war or conspiracy-mongering about Jews since the outbreak of the war.

Hinkel has ceaselessly spread blatant falsehoods about Israel, using footage from the Syrian civil war to suggest that it bombed the Gaza hospital and falsely citing harets in an effort to downplay the atrocities committed by Hamas on October 7th. I'll continue by pointing out that somebody else tweeted, this is embedded in the article, somebody tweeted a clip from you in your interview saying, "'Chris Cuomo, Jackson Hinkle, it's nice to talk to somebody

"'at the head of the next generation of political thought in the country. Jackson Hinkle was literally in Moscow yesterday, joyriding a Russian tank with the Kremlin's permission. And then Jake Tapper responded to that by screenshotting a link to a Bellingcat article about Jackson Hinkle that describes him as the far right US influencer, Jackson Hinkle, has quickly emerged as one of the most popular users on X

during the ongoing Israel Hamas war. Hinkle has quickly emerged as one of the most popular users on X during the ongoing Israel Hamas war Hinkle has a history of spreading conspiracy theories and misinformation. All right, so So then you shouldn't talk to him. Okay, is that going to make him go away? No, the opposite is happening. Oh, okay But if you're gonna talk to him, you should just call him an anti-Semite the whole time. Okay, because that will make people who listen to him now wanna listen to me, right? No, well, then you should do what Jake Tapper did. Look, it is easy, okay?

This is a pack animal, this business, all right? Most people who make it in the media, especially on television, go along to get along, okay? And it is not a place for people to have a renegade tendency or to do things that are controversial, all right? You play it safe, that's how you stay. And I don't begrudge that judgment, all right? But anyone who wants to give a take on what I'm doing,

well, they could also be looked at, all right? Whether it's Jake Tapper, whether it's the writer of that article for MediaEight, people carry a lot of water for different agendas. Do I agree with what Jackson Henkel says about the Middle East? Well, certainly when he gets things wrong, right? Like using video and other things

that he has explanations for them. People for good, bad, and no reason often repeat information that they find online that is erroneous. And he says that when he makes a mistake like that, he tries to do something about it. He is a communist. So he does not see communism in Russia as a bad thing.

So that is his choice. How he is MAGA and a communist, I don't understand because MAGA people don't like communism, or at least they're not supposed to. But I thought that that was interesting because as they admit in the article, he's become one of the most popular users on the right on Twitter. So don't you want to understand the enemy if you want to define him that way? I don't see him as posing any really significant threat, but I think some of his ideas could if they were manifested in the right kind of leadership, but that's not what he is. He's in his 20s.

And there are a lot of people with grievance who have populated around him and his ideas and his platform. Why wouldn't you want to probe it? And the idea that, oh, well, if you are going to probe it, you should just check him the whole time. Does that move the needle? I mean, look, you can say what you want about me and the nature of my work.

I'm not known for soft interviews, okay? It's not like I'm not known for knowing how to interrogate or how to get into an argument or how to debate, certainly more so than Jake Tapper or a lot of these other people who are criticizing me talking to him. And by the way, I think that the level of work with Tapper is very high.

I think he deserves his accolades, but I don't feel that he does something as an interviewing animal that I don't. But it's about what moves the needle, what matters, what helps change people's perspective, not just their perception of how they feel in a moment. I think we have to try different things. Now, will everything land? Will everything be satisfying?

No, but what's the alternative? To keep doing things the same way and adding to the division just to make a buck, just to have a show, just to have a platform and not even one that puts you in the middle of the arena, like in prime time, I'd rather try different things in the effort of trying to make it better. And if you don't like it, okay,

maybe that one missed the mark for you. But I still think it's worth the effort. Well, in this, maybe we won't use this, but like in this same article, there's a bunch of comments from people who have read this and somebody called Gotham says, there will always be cockroaches like Hinkle, but to give him airtime only reinforces

how desperate Chris Cuomo is for ratings, any ratings. But it didn't rate. I mean, that's true, the numbers weren't important. It didn't rate. A lot of this stuff is not that popular. It's for people who wanna look deeper. And look, I have lots of problems with our current dynamic, even though I'll see justifications for the things

that I don't like, for instance, I don't like that the commenter gets to hide behind the pseudonym or avatar Gotham. Their avatar is actually of Tankman, the photo of Tankman. Whatever. The point is- They're not Batman.

They're not owning it with their real name. Now people will say that's because if I use my real name, I'm gonna be fired for my ideas. And I don't like that either. So I accept that that's why we allow anonymity. I'm mixed on it though, because I believe that while it is a device of self protection,

sometimes what you're protecting yourself from are really ugly ideas that you would never dare evidence in other places where you fear accountability. And is that a good standard to reinforce? To encourage you to be your worst? Now, that said, I don't think that this is a particularly bad in any way comment, it's true. You're giving him attention,

but you're assuming he's not getting more attention than I could give him already. And he is. You choose to ignore it. I say that what you ignore, you have empowered. And one of the reasons that we are as divided and as beset by fringe thinking as we are right now

is because of people like you who have bought into division being better, and I disagree. So along those lines, you might, we're gonna switch to Tucker Carlson now, and I wanna talk about something that happened when we released this video. I got a text from you or an email like eight in the morning right after this comes out,

because we had characterized this in the title for SEO optimization as we usually do to get, to drive attention to our YouTube channel. We try very hard. Something, something along the lines of like Chris Cuomo and Tucker Carlson head to head or one-on-one. And you were not happy with how that was portrayed because you wanted to be very clear

like you did on News Nation. This is a conversation. And again, we weren't trying to paint this as this yelling match. It was more like, oh, you kind of talk. No, we were kind of- You kind of were, but that's the hype that would be normal. But we were just trying to,

it's the two of you speaking directly about hard topics. So that's kind of what we were leaning into, but I understand why you wanted to change that. I wanted you, can you first speak to like, why that's important to you to like make sure that was framed on your own show? Because the headlines, because the headlines are deceptive

and the headlines have always been deceptive. They've always been about hype. And that was what bothered me about the media piece and a lot of pieces was that the headline rarely matches the body of the piece because most of you don't read the whole piece, right? That's why the defense to a proposition in a piece usually comes like five to seven graphs down into it. Why?

Because you're likely not reading it. Now that's ascribing a cynical motive to people doing the writing, which is sometimes true, sometimes isn't, but it's the headline. And this was not a head to head where I'm beating him down. That's not what it was by design. It was a conversation by design,

because while it would be easy and there'd be something sporting about me slicing him like cheese on every proposition that he comes that is based on a false premise or a bad fact, I think that there was more value in showing people you don't have to hate who you disagree with. Well, isn't that saying that you're making people like Tucker Carlson?

Look, that's your choice about anything and anyone that you're exposed to in the media. I don't think it's helpful to our democracy to have you convince that people you don't agree with are bad. And I think that there's a lot of energy pushing you in that direction. And I am trying to offset that energy.

Not because I want you to agree with what you hate, but that hate is really strong. And demonizing people as bad because they have bad ideas is very powerful and very dangerous. And I don't think it's helping us. It's helping some of us. It's helping some of us

who play into the division and profit from it. But I don't think it's helping all of us. In a way, I'm doing these things because I know it's gonna be upsetting. But I really do think we got to start being uncomfortable again. We seek way too much comfort when it comes to our ideas and our politics. We literally want to censor ideas. All this noise about Elon and Don, what bothered me about that conversation was the meat of

the matter that was completely ignored. Oh no, people talk about censorship on Twitter all the time. Only as an article of convenience. But the big conversation about what the hell are we doing with our online lives when it comes to information? I don't like the idea of moderating content. I don't like it when it comes to our politics and our marketplace of ideas.

I think you should be in the business of moderating content, not anybody else for you, unless there's a bright line legal standard, kiddie porn. Okay. Well, but what about community standards and guidelines? Fine. I guess a little bit of it is about the marketplace and how the marketplace decides to police itself. But I just thought it was so weird to hear a journalist talking to the guy operating a platform and saying, you should be moderating more content, shouldn't you? And then you wouldn't be asked these questions. It was basically saying, if you don't want us to fuck with you, then do what we want you to do, which is to limit these ideas that we

don't like. And I think that's really, really fucking dangerous. And I'm really against it. Not because I agree with the replacement theory, but that, look, I believe that you want the best idea to win. And I believe the more ideas that are out there, the better chance that the best idea is gonna win. I'll tell you why. Because there's a more natural gradient of competition. I want the replacement theory out there as a rationale for why the Democrats border policy

is what it is. I'll beat that 10 times out of 10. Now, do you wanna have a broader conversation about how we are creating equity in society and what's being done and are there corrections needed? Has it been over-corrected? Is it harder for white people in certain economic strata to attain rights of passage or opportunities or jobs or whatever than it used to be?

Yes or no? Where? Why? if so, so what are those real conversations have? Yeah, is DEI a cure all? I believe very strongly that America's greatest asset is her diversity. I think that's why nobody's ever really been able to match us is that, you know, you get Ott from where he comes from,

his Pilgrim Dutch, Swedish stock, you know, and you get Amrish, you know, from his East Asian roots, Indian roots, mine, mostly Italian. Really? You can't beat the combination. What Amrish brings to the table with his ethnic upbringing and his understanding of faith and philosophy and what he's learned in life lessons of that culture

with art understands from his ancestors and what they've taught him about. And then me, you put all our creative juices together. How do you decide to beat us if you only have one of them? You know, you got a problem. That's how America has thrived. So I believe in diversity. Now, could it be true that there's been an overcorrection

and that you now have white people who are buying in to Trump and other fringe thinkers because they do believe that they have been targeted and that they're bad people for being worried about whether their kid is allowed to make decisions about their own gender as a minor. Yes, and I believe more ideas is better. Let them be out there

because I'll beat the replacement theory. I'll beat the malignant ideas. I'll beat the bad ideas. And it's easier than me competing against myself, which is what people are really asking for here by reducing the number of ideas that are allowed to be out there. You don't fix a fight if you're looking for a fair fight.

And so I believe in more, even if it's upsetting. Now you can judge how I do the interview. That's fair. And I'm certainly not smacking the shit out. Look, even Bill O'Reilly, the idea that he said to me once on my show that I demonize him, I couldn't, I actually had to call,

talk to him about it afterwards. I was like, I give you more time than anybody else every week when I agree with almost nothing that you say, because I know it's valuable to the audience for them to be able to compare ideas and have food for thought. And I demonize you? I mean, that was crazy.

But whatever, that's his choice to feel that way. I think that's demonstrably false. Most of you kick my ass for having them on at all, but I believe in the value. I believe in the value of exchange and contact and talking to one another. I believe in it. It works everywhere else in the human dynamic.

Why wouldn't it work in our media and political culture? Getting back to what you were saying about the Don Lemon interview with content moderation and what I was saying a minute ago about the way we were like titling the YouTube video from before. I wonder if you can speak to the idea of like freedom of speech versus freedom of reach.

Because I do think that with what you're saying about you want more ideas out there, the marketplace of ideas, you'll beat a bad idea, you know, nine times out of 10. With regard to the way a lot of tech companies do this, like with YouTube, for example, it's like, oh, you can ignore this video. You can say, you don't wanna get these recommendations anymore. Okay, cool, you don't wanna get these recommendations anymore.

Okay, cool. Chris Cuomo's on mute indefinitely. But what if it, what if, please don't do that for my sake and his, more so his. But the idea of that, like, yes, you're putting these ideas out there. Yes, somebody like Jackson Hinkle has a platform. X is Twitter, you know, tons of people still go on there.

But the way a lot of these algorithms work when they're looked into is like, they're just gonna be surfacing content that people might not know they want to hear. Or, you know, on YouTube, it's like, you go down these rabbit holes that radicalize people from one extreme or from, you know, maybe one degree from the center all the way to one.

Do they radicalize people or do people radicalize themselves by making choices to expose themselves to certain information? And is the answer to that, because the answer is yes, it's choice, is the answer to that, okay, but you can't manipulate choice by making it more likely that they go down these rabbit holes.

Okay, but are they making it more likely that you go down the rabbit hole but are they making it more likely that you go down the rabbit hole or are they making it more likely for there to be rabbit holes of all different kinds? I do this with fishing, okay? I go really deep with fishing and knots and different bait presentations and all these things. Should the platform treat that rabbit hole different

than ideas about extreme Islamism? I say, no, they can, they can, not a government entity. Another side thought, why do we have a different rule for the government entity than for a private entity? Well, you let the market decide, but okay, but think about it one more step. It's important enough that we don't let the government create rules to limit speech.

It's right in the First Amendment, not that they thought about it first, but it is placed first, okay? That's how important it is. Not that it's first. Again, the order is random. But as a signature freedom, we are free from government constraint of speech.

Why? When there's so many bad fucking ideas and dangerous, weird witchcraft, you know, kooky, religious, philosophical, ideological stuff that has always existed. They lit people on fire thinking they were witches because they believed in science. Why? Because the founding fathers understood the danger and the limitation of thought. Now, man, is that hard to swallow. It is hard to have an open marketplace of ideas. It is hard to have a democracy.

Was really the true context between Franklin saying after the signing of the constitution that you now you have a democracy, let's see if you can keep it. Why so hard? It's so much easier to compel action than have it be a function of free choice. It's one of the real mysteries

and the agonizing mysteries of faith is the role of free will. And why doesn't God control our outcomes more? If you're one of the people believes that he doesn't like a Catholic or most Protestants, why free will? Oh, that's tough. Why, why can't he just heal the babies and stop the war and get rid of cancer.

Why? Why not? We promise we won't eat the apple again. We got it. Bring back the fig leaf. Let's get back to the garden. Why? Because it's more important that people have the right to choose.

It's more important. Even from the right to choose. It's more important. Even from bad choices, yes. Why? Because that is essential in freedom. Freedom of speech versus freedom of reach. Shadow banning. You will see posts now where people write things and they have asterisks in the words

because they're afraid that the words will trigger an algorithm. Well, that's on them. I have triggered algorithms. I have been censored for things that I said on live television. So it was good enough for News Nation, but not for YouTube or for Instagram or whoever was a flag me. There's a lawsuit right now that is deciding a very interesting issue about whether or not certain platforms can be sued for creating an environment

where extremism, radicalization can happen. The pushback is section 230 of the Decency Act, which clears all platforms from litigation related to the nature of the content. Now there is a soft good faith effort requirement guideline that has been read into that rule in certain case law that followed it where they litigated what the rule would mean in terms of how it applies.

Meaning that you're supposed to be trying to keep the ugliest shit off your platform. I don't understand that idea. Either you insulate them from litigation, which means that anything goes, that's why I'm insulating you, right? Well, why else would you do it? Well, they could never control all the, okay.

But so there are a lot of businesses that have to worry about how their shit is used in ways. Look, it was very close to gun makers being sued every time your weapon is used to kill somebody in a wrongful way. That litigation, they had to remove that from gun makers by legislation. So, you know, there are a lot of vagaries

of where the law can be. If we gave you legal installation, why doesn't everything go? Why doesn't everything go? Because we're scared of it, because it's dangerous. So now they are doing content moderation. What pisses me off about it is, because, well, no shirt, no shoes,

no service, just go to another restaurant if you don't like it. The problem here is that Twitter is not just any other restaurant, okay? There's hundreds of millions of people on it. It's a really big deal, okay? It's not a good analogy to say, just go to another restaurant. The rules in that place matter to the extent that they should have any. What I don't like is this. Whatever content moderation they're doing about these kinds of issues, they're sure as fuck figuring it out so that they put their advertising next to the stuff

that gets the most clickbait. And a lot of that stuff are ugly ideas. So at the same time that you're kind of censoring stuff to please some ideological concern, you may be banking on it for SEO, for search engine optimization, so that you can put your ads there because more people are clicking by it.

And I think they're having it both ways, which bothers me, because I think that the only way is that unless there's a legal standard involved, kiddie porn, let the ideas be out there and let the best idea win. Yeah, but there's gonna be all this false information out there. There's always been that.

There's just magnification of it now. We've always had this struggle with ideas. You know the expression how old it is that a lie makes it halfway around the world before the truth gets its pants on? That sounds like it was designed for today, but it wasn't. It was generations ago. So the fact that you have a problem doesn't mean that you know what the solution is.

And I don't believe the solution is ever less exchange, less thought. You can argue and reject it on the basis of how I do it, But what I'm doing, I know serves the highest good. What I was trying to get at was, with this interview you did, with Tiger Carlson, with the way we framed it and everything, however that worked out, many of the people who watched this interview were actually very pleased with the fact that,

oh, it was actually a civil conversation between two people. I would say the vast majority of the comments we've gotten are positive and it has a pretty good- Surprisingly, not on my part, on their part, they were surprised. And not that they now all believe what Tucker Carlson thinks. It's much more nuanced than that.

And it matters. They're sick of the division. It is an unnatural condition. Americans don't want to be siloed and fearful and hating the other. This place was created in opposition to those phobias. That's all we share here is our common connection to the rights and privileges of this place. It's all about the effort to get along. That's what the whole melting pot idea, how do you melt if everybody stays

in their own ingredient set, right? That's called a crudite. It's not called a melting pot. You didn't know I speak French, did you? Well, isn't that just like the vegetables, like cold vegetables? They're all isolated. They're all kept to themselves.

You see what I'm saying? See what I'm saying? So to me, people are sick of it. So even if they don't like Tucker Carlson, even if they don't like me, they like that it's not just this gratuitous demonization and tearing down of every different thing that happens. It's exhausting.

We're exhausted by it. And I believe we can get to a better place by talking to each other, not about each other. ["Spring Day"] by talking to each other, not about each other. I hope this helps you understand why I'm doing it. Look, I know it serves the highest good. How I do it and who I do it with, you may object to. And I'm okay with that, okay?

I'm not here to be popular and followed and have fans. I'm here to be helpful. And hopefully have fans. I'm here to be helpful. And hopefully what we're doing is. Thank you for subscribing and following the Chris Cuomo project. Thank you for checking out News Nation, 8P, 11P, every weekday night. Thank you very much for checking out the Substack to get the Chris Cuomo project ad free and to be part of the long COVID community that we're building there. And you get to watch my own journey to deal with what I believe are long COVID symptoms. All right? The problems are obvious. Effort. Together,

we get to a better place. Let's get after it.