The Daily Signal - Media Bias EXPOSED: The Stories They Won’t Tell You About Kamala Harris

Episode Date: October 24, 2024

Four years ago, news organizations and social media platforms deliberately suppressed or outright ignored the Hunter Biden laptop story—one of the biggest scandals of the 2020 election. This time around, those same media outlets are engaged in a different kind of censorship: hiding the radical policy ideas once advocated by Vice President Kamala Harris.  A new poll from Media Research Center confirms even Harris’ most ardent supporters don’t know her extreme positions on everything from defunding police and co-sponsoring the Green New Deal to legalizing drugs and supporting open borders. Brent Bozell, MRC's founder and president, spoke with The Daily Signal about the shocking findings. He also recounted the impact of burying the Biden laptop story. A postelection poll in 2020 found that if voters knew about the controversy, they would've backed then-President Donald Trump. "Trump would have won 317 electoral votes with ease. It would have been a massive landslide, but that's just the states we polled," Bozell said. "He would have won a landslide on the order of Ronald Reagan had they only known about the laptop." Bozell warned the media could have a similar impact on the 2024 presidential election by ignoring the most controversial aspects of Harris' policy positions. "The media delivered the victory to Joe Biden in 2020," Bozell said. "If she wins, it will be because they delivered the victory to her." Listen to the full interview with Bozell to learn more about the poll, his take on the presidential debates, and why Democrats are more likely to undermine the First Amendment. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Do you know that every president, Democrat, a candidate for president since 2000, has called for censorship? They don't believe in the First Amendment. They don't believe in it fundamentally. They believe in a European system where there is no First Amendment where the government decides what is good and what is right and what is proper and what is allowable. That's where the far left is today. It's scary. This is the Daily Signal podcast for Thursday, October 24th. I'm your host, Rob Blewey.

And those were the words of Brent Bozell, the founder and president of the Media Research Center. Brent brings us the latest on a new study that he's done, looking at the issues that are shaping the 2024 presidential campaign, and also his take on media bias and the presidential debates that have shaped the views of so many Americans. Before we get today's interview, I want to tell you about the Daily Signal's newest podcast. It's called The Signal Sitdown with Bradley Devlin. Each Thursday, Bradley pulls back the curtain to reveal how Washington really works. He interviews guests who have experience on the inside.

And on today's episode, he's bringing you a conversation with Vince Colonais, the host of WMAL. You won't want to miss an episode, so please subscribe to the signal sit down and stay informed on the fights that matter most in Washington, D.C. Now here's my interview with Brent Bozell. We are just days from the 2024 presidential election on November. November 5th and the news media is once again putting its thumb on the scale. And joining us today is Brent Bozell, the founder and president of the Media Research Center. Brent, it's good to see you again. Thank you for having me, Rob.

Brent, in the interest of full disclosure, my former boss when I was a reporter for CNS News, it was always a way back when. Way back when. A pleasure to work with you then and obviously keep tabs on all of the great things that the Media Research Center does. I want to begin by talking about the election and this incredible, incredible new poll that you've just conducted. The poll that you did four years ago revealed some startingly shocking information, I should say, about Hunter Biden's laptop and

the media's attempts to hide that story and the impact that it could have. What have you found in your latest survey? Well, let's go back to 2020 to set up 2024. Sure. We did a survey after the elections of Biden's voters in the seven swing states in Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan. And we asked a series of questions. Did you know about, boom, it might have to do with Biden or it might have to do with Trump? And then for those who said they didn't know, would you have voted for Biden had you known? And then we took that number and we put it across the seven states. Well, it was remarkable because in almost every single instance where we would ask a question,

like, for example, did you know that Trump had created 11 million jobs that year? Did you know that Trump had been recommended for three Nobel Peace Prizes? Did you know, and we asked a series of questions about Biden and his record? In every single instance, whether it was 40, 36% of Democrats didn't know, 43%, 49%, 50% of Democrats, by the way, who voted for Joe Biden, didn't know that America had become energy independent during this. And so when we asked, would you have voted for Biden had you known, well, you took that percentage, 3.5%, 4.3%, and you put it across the seven swing states.

In every instance, Trump would have won Nevada, Arizona, North Carolina, Georgia, Pennsylvania, and I believe it was Wisconsin. Six out of the seven states, he would have won with every single question. But then came the big one. Did you know about the Hunter Biden laptop? Now, every conservative knew this. We all assumed, well, everybody knows this because everybody's talking about this. And yet, when we polled Biden supporters,

49.1 percent of Biden's voters had never heard of the laptop. When we asked them, would you have voted for Biden? Had you known when they learned 9.4% would not have voted for him. That means Biden that Trump would have taken Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Wisconsin, and Michigan, every state we pulled with ease. He would have won 317 electoral votes with ease. It would have been a massive landslide. But that's just the states we pulled. At 9.4%, he would have taken blue states as well.

So he would have won a landslide on the order of Ronald Reagan had they only known about the laptop. Okay. That's 2020. So the question is, is the past an indication of the future? Right now it is. It absolutely is. We did another survey, just recently.

and we asked Kamala Harris's supporters a series of questions. Now, these are issues that we have two things in common with. They all have two things in common with. One, you and I know about these issues, and your audience knows about this issue, these issues. The second one is they've not been reported in the national media. We assume they have been. You go look in the files of NBC, ABC, CBS,

you look at the New York Times, whatnot. You'll find nary a mention of any of these. Here are just some of the numbers to let you know where we're headed. We asked, did they know that Kamala Harris had supported cutting funding for the police. This is a question. This is something all conservatives know. 71% of her own supporters didn't know this and don't know this because it's never been covered. There's never been a single story in the next.

national networks this year about that subject. We asked, did they know that she had co-sponsored the Green New Deal? Now, the Green New Deal calls for an end to fracking. It calls for an end to all fossil fuels. That's the Green New Deal. She was a co-sponsor of it. So when she says that she's for fracking, somebody should have had, Trump should have asked her this question. Which one is it? Is it the Green New Deal or is it fracking? You can't take both. You got to. You You got to pick one or the other. Which ones is it going to be? Well, 73% of her own supporters don't know that she supported the green.

She co-sponsored it. We asked private health care. She has come out in favor of banning all private health insurance, making it all run by the federal government. 81% of her own supporters don't know that. We asked, what about reparations to a tone for slavery? 71% of her own supporters don't know that she's taking that position. We asked, this was, had she, this was before three weeks ago, had she, did they know that she'd never been to a conflict zone on the border, as borders are? 72% of her own supporters didn't know that.

We asked, did they know that she was the most liberal senator in America in 2019, 75% to have? had no idea about that. We asked if they knew that she has taken the position. And by the way, this has not been established by the Trump campaign, that she has taken the position that it ought not to be a crime to cross the border illegally. That's the position she's taken, meaning open borders. Seventy-four percent of her own supporters. Imagine what they would think if they knew. With all of these questions, just imagine, would they be supporting her? if they knew these answers. We asked if she had been set up, didn't know that she had set up a fund to bail out the BLM protesters.

That's a fair. We know the answer. We know this. Everybody in the movement knows this. 78% of her own supporters don't know this. We asked if they, if they knew that she supported giving voting rights to death row inmates. 86%, almost 9 out of 10, of her own. own supporters don't know that. Now, what we didn't ask, which came out subsequent to this,

was the things like the ACLU survey, where she came out and she proactively presented this in her survey that she favors legalizing all drugs, whether it's fentanyl, heroin, LSD, you name it, all should be legal. That's been her stated position. What would happen if her supporters knew this? So the question is, will this have an impact? If her voters went to the polls, knowing these questions, Donald Trump would be up 30 points right now if they knew. This is why the media aren't covering this, Rob, because they know it's a death knell to her.

This is why you've got 95, 99, 100% positive coverage because they're not covering these stories, which they know will destroy your candidacy. So the media delivered the victory to Joe Biden in 2020. If she wins, it will be because they delivered the victory to her again. Long win and answer to your question. The American people, I think by large, perhaps carving out that conservative subset that is aware of all these things because obviously they read outlets like yours and they see the coverage on newsbusters.

They see the coverage on the Daily Signal. So what does that tell us about how Kamala Harris supporters are receiving their news? Where are they getting this information from? And who are the culprits that aren't telling the truth? It's the networks. It's the legacy media, however people want to label. It's the old media. It's the same media that deliberately censored the Hunter Biden story.

It's the same media, such as CBS. You know, there's this ruckets going on right now about CBS changing the answer that the Kamala gave because the first answer that they promoted her as giving was so panned by the public after their promotional ad that when the interviewer came on, they had a different clip from her. This is the same 60 minutes that where Leslie Stahl in 2020 just savaged. on Donald Trump over the Biden laptop, where they didn't show that in the interview, she was repeatedly dismissing it as being a hoax. But they didn't air that part, but Donald Trump taped the interview and showed where her

perspective was. Well, it took 60 minutes, only 769 days to acknowledge that it was true. Some two years after the election, they acknowledged it. Same thing for the New York Times. It took them a year and a half after the election to say, well, I guess we should have the cover day. Same thing for the Washington Post. Same thing for Facebook. Mark Zuckerberg came out and he said, I'll give him the credit for this one.

He said, A, they censored it. And B, it's because the Justice Department told them it was Russian collusion, Russian disinformation. That's why they did it. We know because of Elon Musk that Twitter also censored that story. So these are the people that you go to. Facebook has now changed your algorithms. So conservatives talk to conservatives. Liberals talk to liberals.

Conservatives can't talk to liberals. They used to be that we could do it. And we were making great inroads about 10 years ago. And they saw those algorithms and they changed them. So the Hunter Biden story couldn't get out to liberals. That's been done deliberately. So if you are a liberal, you go to NBC News. You watch NBC News.

You go to CNN, you go to MSNBC, you go to the New York Times. And there is a cabosh on news. This is not that, Rob, this is not a happenstance. This is deliberate. They are deliberately. All those things I just told you are important. They're newsworthy. They're worth consideration.

They're all worth doing stories on it. But they don't even get mentions in stories. Instead, it's just attack Donald Trump, attack Donald Trump, attack Donald Trump, attack Donald Trump. So the media put their thumb on the scale, unlike ever before, partially because they want the Obama of 3.0 administration to win, but also because they hate Donald Trump. Oh, yeah. With a passion.

Yes, yes. Bias by omission, as you have long said. Brent, it's, as you shared a few things, I remember sitting in the room with you when we went out to California with Mark Zuckerberg. I think it was 2016. Yeah, yeah, we were together. And he was trying to appeal to conservatives and try to convince us that Facebook wasn't this bad actor. And then we've seen just what's happened in the preceding eight years.

But even going farther back, it was 20 years ago that CBS made news for all of us. 60 minutes. Yes, 60 minutes again, Dan Rather. And the question I'll ask is in regard to, I mean, that was a case where, again, I was a reporter at CNS News at the time. Your team at the media research center, I remember that morning crystal clear in my memory, had looked at the footage that Dan Rather delivered on that was CBS was on Wednesday night, the 60 Minutes 2 was on Wednesday night, and handed it to me and said, look, they posted these documents on its website.

Very much the same case. This is a self-inflicted error on their part. They showed the answer in the promos, and then they showed a different answer in the show. Do you think they will relent and show us the transcript? Okay, before answering that question, am I on this camera here? Because I want everyone to know that Rob omitted something. Rob Louis was responsible for the very first published report about the Dan Rathergate and that transcript, that fake, that phony transcript, where they tried to undermine the campaign. you were the very first person to break that story.

Thank you. So you've all, every time you know I've talked about it, you keep on not mentioning it. I will keep on telling your audience that you were the ones who did it. And at least we had things like the Drudge Report back. I mean, this was pre-Facebook days. So, I mean, you relied on aggregators like Drudge to get the message out. And it was really, you know, there was not nearly the number of conservative media outlets in that day. And so it did take a number of days for that story.

story to really penetrate. I remember tuning in to the evening news with Dan Rather, and he would ignore it, I think, on Thursday. And I forget when exactly he finally addressed the allegations, Brent. But today, I mean, you must be very proud of the fact that there are so many more outlets that can hold these legacy organizations accountable. And yet, in the case of 60 minutes, they're still refusing to give us the transfer. Just right. And it's a very simple thing. I mean, their response, two weeks after this was, of course, Donald Trump. Donald Trump. And they blame Donald Trump because they said it wasn't true.

Well, if it's not true, then why aren't you releasing the transcript and video? There are three things that CBS needs to do to show that they're innocent. Number one, release the transcript. Remember, they also interviewed Mike Johnson. And Speaker Johnson said the same thing happened to him. They twisted his thing. But he taped them, and he had the video. They released the video because they had to.

So they can release a video if they want to. Release the video, release a transcript. But here's the important thing, I think. State any communication that anybody at 60 minutes had with the Kamala Harris campaign. After when they saw the promo on Face the Nation, where they saw that word salad mess, were they contacted by the Harris campaign saying address that because then we know she said something else? Every bone in my body says they were. Fine.

If I'm wrong, say so. And say, you know, Brent's a liar. Okay. Call me a liar. I mean, I'm not a guy. I'm not saying I know something, but I'm saying that it stinks to high heaven. Day after day after day after day is going by. And all they have to do is release that video and prove their innocence.

Yeah. I am not necessarily holding my breath, but I think it's important for conservatives to keep the pressure on. We have to. One of the things that I so value for. from the Media Research Center, particularly as we prepared for the debates, were the reports that you put out in advance, basically predicting what ultimately played out on the stage. And we'll take ABC News, for instance. I mean, you warned in advance of that that David Muir and Lindsay Davis were likely to take

a position where they were attacking Donald Trump and showing favoritism to Vice President Harris. I'm just wondering, as we go forward, based on what the experience was in 2024, do you see any reason for the candidates to appear on these networks or should they have to rip up the playbook and come up with a whole different plan when it comes to presidential debates in the future? You know, Rob, we we started the MRC in 1987. In every single election, 1988, 1998, 1992, 1996, 2004, 2008, 2008, 2012, 2016, 2008, 2012, 2016, 2012. In every single election, after a debate, Republicans have bitched about the moderators. There comes a point where you say to Republicans, what the hell is wrong with you?

That you keep on going with these moderators that are going to do this. They could have seen the same thing. They could have done their research. They would have known what hostility David Muir has towards conservatives, how much they hate talent. Why did they need? The ABC News needs Donald Trump during a debate much more than a Donald Trump. Why doesn't Donald Trump do a debate sponsored by Daily Sickle and let ABC have a feed off of it? Just like everybody was able to feed off of ABC for this debate. Why not do it that way?

Why not? I've suggested, why not have a debate? Wouldn't this be interesting? Do you remember the old Hannity and Combs TV? Yes. You know, Hannity would interview the conservative with a softball. When he would finish, then Combs would come in with a spitball, and you had to defend yourself.

And then he would give the softball to the liberal, and Hannity would come in with a spitball to the liberal. And you did that thing. So what that allowed for the guest to do is put forward his position and then have to defend his position. It was a really good setup. Wouldn't it be interesting if you had something like that? in a debate where each candidate could pick his moderator,

let Donald Trump could pick Mark Levin, and she could pick David Muir, and have Mark Levin do a softball to Trump and then a spitball to her, and then David Muir do the same thing. The audience, A, would get so much more out of it. Oh, sure they would, yes. But B, unfortunately, the media wouldn't get out of it

what they wanted to get out of it. That's why they won't ever do it. But no, the answer is Republicans should stop doing this. I believe that no Republicans should go on 60 minutes again until this is resolved for once and for all. Why? Why do you have to go on 60 minutes just to be savaged every time? You don't need to do it. Right. Well, and you have so many different creators out there who have their own platforms, whether it's Megan Kelly or Tucker Carlson. I mean, they've proven that they can build a massive audience and you don't need those old And they're bigger than CBS. I mean, they just are.

They've got much bigger audiences. Now, the issue, though, is Tucker doesn't go beyond Tucker's audience, those people who subscribe to his worldview. The challenge that we have is to get outside of our base and to get and to take our message. Look, I believe firmly. I know you believe firmly. And Kevin Roberts, the president of Heritage, and I were just talking about this. Ideas matter. Ideas win.

And if our story got out, we would win election after election after. I have no question about that, no doubt in my mind. So the question is, how do we get our story beyond our base? That's a real challenge when they're censoring you at every turn. This is a left, and pay attention to what Kamala Harris is saying, to what Joe Biden is saying. Do you know that every president, Democrat, a candidate for president since 2000, has called for censorship? They don't believe in the First Amendment, Rob. They don't believe in it fundamentally.

They believe in a European system where there is no First Amendment where the government decides what is good and what is right and what is proper and what is allowable. That's where the far left is today. It's scary. Brent, I say that one of the most uncovered and ignored stories in Washington last year was when Joe Biden removed 440 reporters from the White House credentials, including the Daily Signals, Fred. Lucas. He took their credentials away. The Washington Press Corps, with very few exceptions, just ignored entirely. And this is, again, to your point, they don't believe in the First Amendment. And so this is, you know, one of the reasons why we are so aggressive in terms of demanding the access. But, you know, I want to ask you because we're just talking about these creators

who've created their own show. And obviously, you have your own show. You're going to talk to, you have John McLaughlin on talking about the poll. Share with our listeners how they can follow your work and subscribe to your show. Well, thank you for that. We have the Brent Beaux-El podcast, however one finds podcast these days. But we have Free Speech America, which is focused on just that, free speech. And it's a coalition with the Free Speech Alliance Heritage, gratefully, is part of this coalition. Because I do believe that it's a top-shelf concern. So Free Speech America is One Avenue, Newsbusters, where we do all the media exposés that we do. They all come out in newsbusters. So come to newsbusters or become a member of the army that we have.

We have millions of followers on Facebook. I think it's 13 million now. So it's a growing army, but that's what's needed. But I would say that that and you didn't ask me to say this, but Daily Signal supporters support Daily Signal. Give the financial wherewithal that you need for something like this because I do believe that communications is. everything and storytelling is everything and what what you folks are drawn with Daily Signal you really are trailblazers in this I mean good Lord put me to shame you're trailblazers and people need to follow your lead but those who are supporting you there it's a hell of an investment that they've made and and I put that on the record well thank you for those those of us who have nonprofit

organizations we certainly rely on on their financial contributions and support and we're grateful because we couldn't do the work we do without that. Brent Beal, thank you for spending time with the Daily Signal. Thank you for having me. We will be sure to provide a link to your show in the notes and our story and encourage our listeners to subscribe to follow you. Thank you, Robin.

Thank you. And that'll do it for today's episode. Thank you for listening to The Daily Signal podcast. Be sure to check out our evening feed right here in this podcast feed. We help you cut through the clutter and bring you the top news at 5 p.m. each day. Also, please subscribe to the Daily Signal, wherever you prefer to listen to podcasts and help us reach more listeners

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