The Daily Signal - Mollie Hemingway: Corporate Media Supports 'Corrupt Regimes'

Episode Date: March 2, 2022

How did corporate media become so biased and corrupt, and why isn't it being held accountable?  Corporate media exists “to support corrupt regimes,” Mollie Hemingway, editor-in-chief of The Federalist, says. She is optimistic because “a lot of people have lost trust in corporate media in recent years, [and] that's a good thing," Hemingway says. "It's bad if people believe the propaganda.”  Hemingway joins “The Daily Signal Podcast” to discuss the state of the media today and to share her reaction to President Joe Biden's nomination of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson to the Supreme Court.  Also on today’s show, Rep. Mark Green, R-Tenn., explains what he saw in Ukraine a week before Russia invaded.  We also cover President Joe Biden's first State of the Union address.  Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Daily Signal podcast for Wednesday, March 2nd. I'm Doug Blair. And I'm Virginia Allen. Today, we are sharing two interviews from the conservative political action conference in Orlando, Florida. First, Mary Margaret Olahan talks with editor-in-chief of the Federalist, Molly Hemingway. They discuss how corporate media became so biased and corrupt. Plus, Doug Blair talks with Congressman Mark Green about what he saw in Ukraine a week before Russia invaded. But before we get to those conversations, let's hit our top news stories of the day.

On Tuesday night, President Joe Biden delivered his first State of the Union address. The speech was just over one hour long. The president began his speech by discussing Russia's invasion of Ukraine and applauding the courage of the Ukrainian people. Six days ago, Russia's Vladimir Putin sought to shake the very foundations of the free world, thinking he could make it bend to his menacing ways. but he badly miscalculated. He thought he could roll into Ukraine and the world would roll over. Instead, he met with a wall of strength he never anticipated or imagined.

He met the Ukrainian people. Zulinski, to every Ukrainian, their fearlessness, their courage, the determination, literally inspires the world. In addition to praising the bravery and courage currently on display by the Ukrainian people as they continue to hold back against invading Russian forces, President Biden announced a new set of restrictions towards Russia. And tonight, I'm announcing

that we will join our allies and closing off American airspace to all Russian flights, further isolating Russia, and adding additional squeeze on their economy. What's coming. The ruble has already lost

30% of its value. The Russian stock market has lost 40% of its value and trading, remain suspended. The Russian economy is reeling, and Putin alone is the one to blame. Almost two years after the COVID-19 pandemic sent America into lockdown, Biden announced during his speech that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have listed mass mandates across the country. Just a few days ago, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention

issued a new mask guidelines. Under the new guidelines, most of the main guidelines, most of the Americans and most of the country can now go mask-free. And based on projections, more of the country will reach a point across that point across the next couple of weeks. And thanks to the progress we've made in the past year, COVID-19 no longer need control our lives. I know some are talking about living with COVID-19, but tonight I say that we never will just accept living with COVID-19.

The president then spoke about how it was necessary to fund the police. Democrats have come under fire as some of their members have vocally supported defunding or outright abolishing police departments across the nation. We should all agree. The answer is not to defund the police. It's to fund the police. Fund them. With resources and training. Resources and training they need to protect our communities.

Biden also appealed to Congress to pampherson. gun control measures. The president said new gun control laws would not violate the Second Amendment, but would save lives. I asked Congress to pass proven measures to reduce gun violence. Pass universal background checks. Why should anyone on the terrorist list be able to purchase a weapon? Why? Why? And folks, ban assault weapons with high-capacity magazines hold up a hundred rounds. You think the deer are wearing Kevlar vests? Look, repeal the liability shield. It makes gun manufacturers the only industry in America that can't be sued. The only one. Imagine had we done that with the tobacco manufacturers. These laws don't infringe on the Second Amendment.

They save lives. Be sure to visit DailySignal.com to catch all of our coverage, including our fact check of Biden's state of the union address. Stay tuned for our conversations with Molly Hemingway and Congressman Mark Green. As conservatives, sometimes it feels like we're constantly on defense against bad ideas. Bad philosophy, revisionist history, junk science, and divisive politics. But here's something I've come to understand. When faced with bad ideas, it's not enough to just defend. If we want to save this country, then it's time to go on offense.

Conservative principles are ideas that work. individual responsibility, strong local communities, and belief in the American dream. As a former college professor and current president of the Heritage Foundation, my life's mission is to learn, educate, and take action. My podcast, The Kevin Roberts Show, is my opportunity to share that journey with you. I'll be diving into the critical issues that plague our nation, having deep conversations with high-profile guests, some of whom may surprise you, and I want to ensure freedom for the next generation.

Find the Kevin Roberts Show wherever you get your podcast. My guest today is Molly Hemingway, the editor-in-chief at the Federalist. Molly, thank you so much for joining us today. It is great to be here with you. So, Molly, you have been one of the most prolific critics I have ever seen of the media's misrepresentation of the news. I'd love if you could share with us, what are some of the most egregious lies that you have seen spread by the media? Well, first off, I remember that this is something I've been interested in since I was literally a child. I remember reading, I lived in a town that had two newspapers.

as you could kind of compare how those two newspapers covered events. And I became aware at a very early age about the power the media have to shape narratives and to shape the way you think about things. And so this is a problem we've had for decades. And you think about how many Republican presidents have complained about media bias. It goes back to literally Eisenhower. But what we're in right now is something altogether much worse and much different. And just like overt propaganda environment where we have a quarter.

media that make up stories that use sources that they never should be using and who also hide stories that are harmful to their political goals. And so there are many stories in recent years that have been really bad. Obviously the Russia collusion hoax that they completely perpetrated for years and was made out of nothing using sources they never should have used all in an effort to destroy a political person they did not like and a political movement they didn't like. I would say the Kavanaugh smear, that was one of the most terrific things I've ever witnessed. And I wrote a book on it with Carrie Saperino about that confirmation. And they, again, went with a story that never should have been made public.

And they pushed narratives that were false, all to destroy a person, because really they just wanted to shape what the Supreme Court was like. So what about when someone like Hunter Biden actually has an insane scandal and the media just ignores it? or doesn't allow the story to be told. Right. I love how we lived through this Trump era where the children of the president were lamb-baseded all the time. And then you have an actual crack addict for the son of our current president who's been engaged in all sorts of financial dealings with corrupt oligarchs, Chinese communist government.

We have policies that clearly seem to have been shaped by some of these relationships, whether it's in Ukraine, China, Russia. And the media, suddenly, the corporate media, have no interest in covering this. Even though it's a dramatic story. I mean, it has all the elements that you would, you know that they would have just salivated over had it been an opposing party, the sex, the drugs, the just insanity. All of a sudden, now they're showing a great deal of restraint,

and I think it's, you know, declared it's for... Respect for his privacy. So why do they get away with that? How do they get away with that? Well, so I think there are many problems that go into this. One thing is that, you know, I call them corporate media in part because they are so well funded by corporations. They exist to sort of support corrupt regimes, and they do a great job doing it, and corporations pay them for that.

So the financing issue is huge. And if you believe in a free and fair press, which is actually really important for our system of government, you look at the founders, they talked at length about the need for a free and fair press to hold people accountable. We do not have that in the corporate press. But we do have other outlets that are doing a good job of reporting actual news based on facts instead of narrative pushing, and those need to be funded. That's an important issue. Also, one thing that I'm really optimistic about is a lot of people have lost trust in corporate media in recent years. That's a good thing. It's bad if people believe the propaganda that's coming.

You look at the numbers for corporate press and they are just off a cliff. It's like 9% of Republicans have any confidence at all whatsoever in the media. And the left isn't really that much believing them also. That needs to continue. And I think that in this regard, a lot of Republican politicians, do a lot to prop up this corrupt press, they treat them as if they're reasonable instead of as their primary political opponents.

They let them moderate debates, which is insane. It's like you're debating your opponent of the other political party, and then you're also debating someone far crazier than your opponent in the political party who's setting the questions, deciding how to frame them, and that needs to stop. And so I would say that any conservative politician who does not believe that his job or her,

job to go to war with these people who are destroying the country does not deserve to be in office. Well, I would love to talk more about your book on the Kavanaugh hearings because this is something that actually caused me to go into journalism. I was so radicalized by this whole experience. We have another Supreme Court confirmation coming up. Do you have any insights on how this will all play out? What kind of confirmation process we might see? So this is another disparity you see between parties. So Carrie Severino and I wrote Justice on Trial, and we go through the history, not just of the Kavanaugh confirmation, but all the recent nominations, really, it's sort of like a lot of history from the 70s on. And so what you see in confirmation battles is that they've gotten

incredibly fraught when a Republican is nominating someone to the court. And particularly, usually, this wasn't the case with Amy Coney-Barrant, but when a Republican is nominating someone to the court to replace a seat held by someone that the left views as one of their own. And so you do not see these types of harsh battles on the right, in part because the right doesn't seem to fight as well as the left does, or they aren't willing to blatantly accuse someone, brazenly accused someone of a crime they didn't commit, like serial gang rape. So in this case, I think the good thing to remember, and that all Americans should remember, is who controls the Senate really dictates what happens.

with these nominations. I think Clarence Thomas was the last nominee to get confirmed by a Senate controlled by a different party than the party that was nominating. And so it's a bad show up cards here. We've got a 50 Democrats, but they control the Senate. And then you have a ton of weak Republicans who will probably go along with it,

lest they be accused of being meanies. Even though now that we have the nominee, we know which we kind of knew no matter who the nominee was, that she's incredibly radical partisan, that she has engaged in pretty extreme rulings from the bench, and she is a hardcore activist. So if you care about the country, and if you care about the court having legitimacy,

and if you care about justices actually viewing their job as interpreting the Constitution faithfully and fairly and accurately, you should be putting up a fight against this person. Right. Well, final question for you, this one's a little bit off topic, but it's about Ukraine. I have seen a lot of media and Democrats suggesting that all these Republicans and commentators

are siding with Putin. Have you seen anything about that? Oh my gosh. It's infuriating to me. The first job of anyone in foreign policy should be to understand the positions of the key players. Understanding the position of a player does not in any way mean you're endorsing that person.

And in fact, particularly if you oppose Putin, you need to understand where he's coming from. What I think is actually happening when people displace, they say, oh, by articulation. the complexity of the situation or by articulating how our foreign policy helped contribute to it, you're siding with Putin. What they're trying to do is avoid responsibility

for what they did. The fact is, I mean, you look at what Putin has done across the last four presidents. He made incursions when George W. Bush was weak with his distraction in the Iraq war, when Obama and Biden were in office the first time, and now again with Biden in office. The one exception is the Trump presidency.

And that was because we, that was the one time we, we had a different foreign policy where we believe that strengthening this country, having energy independence, focusing on China instead of being distracted with never-ending wars in other places, and really encouraging the NATO alliance to be strong against Russia, meaning the countries within NATO needed to step up and handle their defense far more, particularly with what's going on with China. So these people just don't want to deal with the reality that their foreign policy helped

contribute to this absolute disaster situation. and that doesn't mean that you support the problem just because you accurately identify what the problem is. Super interesting. Well, Molly, thank you so much for joining us. We're so grateful for your insights. Thank you very much. Great seeing you. Hi, I'm Virginia Allen. I want to tell you all about an awesome Heritage Foundation resource called the Index of Economic Freedom. The Heritage Foundation Index of Economic Freedom ranks nearly every nation in the world according to its level of economic freedom. Whether for personal, professional use, or for school research, the index is a wealth of information. You can learn why it's easier to start a business in Switzerland than it is in France and where America falls on the ranking.

So go ahead and visit heritage.org slash index to explore the newly released 2021 Index of Economic Freedom, which features interactive maps, country rankings, graphs of data, and much, much more. My guest today is Congressman Mark Green, who represents Tennessee's seventh, congressional district. Congressman 6.7. Welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. Well, it's a pleasure to have you on. And I think this is just fascinating. I was speaking with some of your staff. And you were in Ukraine prior to the Russian invasion. Yeah, about a week or so before. So what was that like? What was the atmosphere or the mood? You know, I think when I was there, the mood was very positive and energetic. They felt like they would, you know, they were going to fight. I mean, these people love their country. They love freedom. Even the Russian speakers, you know, contrary to what, Vladimir Putin is putting out there are saying, we're going to fight. And so, you know, that energy. And then, of course, we see the heroism in these stories, the 13 on Snake Island. And I have a friend who's in Ukraine.

And, you know, he basically told his buddy goodbye. And they went off to basically, you know, fight to the end. And so it's sad and it's, you know, now. But, I mean, then the attitude was very positive. I mean, you've mentioned these stories of heroism from Ukrainians that we've seen who are fighting for their country. What does that indicate to you about how this war is going to go against the Russians? Well, honestly, I've been really surprised with how poorly the Russians have done. And you can credit that to the hard fighting spirit of the Ukrainian people,

but at the same time, the Russians have not impressed. and, you know, the overmatch is so great. We would have expected it to have gone better, but good. That's good. You know, we are very, you know, I'm just so angry about Vladimir Putin and a murderous, villainous activity, the things he's doing. So when we see success, you know, you don't want to see anybody die, but when we see the Ukrainians having success, it's almost like you're cheering them on.

And it's tragedy. Yeah, absolutely. Now, one of the things that I think is so fascinating about your story as well is that you were, you've been in the army before. So you've seen war. You've seen what this is like. So what can the Ukrainian people expect from this? Well, you know, a lot of pain and suffering, you know, and moments of sheer terror complemented by moments of belly laughter. You know, war is a very interesting thing, and you become so close with the people you're doing it with.

You know, you fire that rocket, and it hits your target, and you have a high five, and then return it, fire comes in, and you're scared to death. And, I mean, the emotional roller coaster that you're on is just, it's really hard to describe to anyone who's never done it. But they're dealing with all of that now. Now, the Ukrainian people, famously Ukrainian President Zelensky has said he doesn't want an evacuation. He wants arms and weapons to fight back against the Russians. They said that to us, you know, we were like, well, we don't believe we're going to commit American troops. And they said, we don't want American troops. We'll fight.

Give us the weapons and we'll fight them. So they're asking to be given the resources to protect themselves. Of course. And that was the atmosphere and the sentiment before Russia invaded. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that's been their sentiment for decades, you know, but unfortunately. when Biden was vice president, they did nothing but send blankets. And even Democrat congressmen are now saying the real weakness toward Ukraine began under the Obama administration. Trump came in and started lethal aid. And that lethal aid has been fantastic. I mean, the javelins, you've seen the video clips that are coming back. Those javelins are working. The stingers, which we now are giving, they're working. They're shooting down, you know, Russian.

aircraft and high-performance aircraft. And so, yeah, so Trump started that ball. It ended a little bit when the transition happened. Fortunately, Biden started it back up again for more javelins and more, and recently stingers. But that's what they want. That's what they need. They need weapon systems. And the ones, basically those two. You've got to kill tanks and you've got to kill aircraft. And we should be providing that to the Ukraine. Yeah, of course, absolutely. So let's look at what President Biden has done so far in terms of this campaign in Ukraine. Has what he's done been an acceptable response to Russia's aggression?

Joe Biden's response, President Biden's response, has been abysmal. Now, I will tell you that it started out, and I thought, well, maybe he's learned his lesson. You know, the withdrawal from Afghanistan was horrific. It was terrible. That withdrawal produced the sense of a weak point. president that got us where we are today. But when this crisis began, you know, weeks before, as it was building up, the president's rhetoric was good. He said, we're going to crush their economy. We're going to do this and that. We'll put troops in NATO. And I thought, okay, maybe, maybe like

John F. Kennedy learned from the Bay of Pigs invasion and then executed those lessons learned in the Cuban Missile Crisis. Maybe Joe Biden has learned from his failure in Afghanistan and is now going to have a Cuban missile crisis-like moment with Putin and Ukraine. That did not happen. He stair stepped his sanctions, and he still hasn't executed crippling sanctions, as he talked about. And that stairstep method has emboldened Putin. It's actually emboldened Putin. And I think facilitated the way the invasion started. So I think it's an utter failure again from this president. And do you think that there is any motivation for him to improve? Is Congress going to maybe inspire the president to do something that he's not doing right now?

I'm not sure anyone can inspire this president because I know Democrats are whispering in their ear, hey man, what the heck? Those leaks that are coming out of the State Department to the New York Times are because they're so upset they don't know what to do. I mean, these are his own administration, right, or leaking stuff because they're so pissed off. It is pissed poor performance here. So, yeah, I don't. not sure Joe Biden will listen to anyone. Remember in Afghanistan, the military guys went to him and said, we need 3,500 troops, we need to hold Bogum, and then we'll Exfiel. And Biden said, no, 600. And Mark Milley said, we need, you know, 3,500. And if you don't do that, we can't hold Bogum.

He said 600. And he insisted against the experts on how to exfills troops from combat. I mean, I don't get it. It's mind boggling. And then he has to have the Europeans pressure him to sanction Putin. I mean, the guy who started all this. So, yeah, look, Joe Biden is the happiest man in America right now is Jimmy Carter. He's no longer the worst president in American history. I mean, this guy's terrible. Whether it's the southern border, which, by the way, if Putin wanted to send some people across, he'd have no problem doing right now.

The drug crisis, the crime in our streets, the foreign stuff, the inflation, the supply chain crisis, the woke cancel culture, the, I mean, all of this mess, it's just terrible. It's abysmal. One final question for you, Congressman, because this isn't just about Ukraine. The rest of the world, and specifically our enemies, are watching this unfold. China, Iran, North Korea. All the despots. They're all, yes, all the despots are watching us how we respond to this crisis. Yeah. What are they seeing? So, again, weakness is provocative. So Xi Jinping flies a few fighter jets into Taiwanese airspace. So you're going to continue.

to see that stuff. If we don't really put the big stick down soon, I fear for the Taiwanese. I actually said on Fox News the other day, the president needed to send two destroyers, some Navy ships to the Taiwan Strait right now. Just put them in the straight. And, you know, but I'm not sure Joe Biden's listening to anyone,

especially me. But, yeah, they're watching, Maduro's watching, the Ayatollah's watching. of course Kim Jong-un. I mean, it's just all the despots are going to take advantage. And interestingly, we talk a lot about the despots, but then there are the sort of in-between nations like India. You know, you take a country like India that we really could use a good relationship with

as we balance against China. I think one of their politicians said yesterday that you can't align with America because you can't trust them. They'll abandon their allies. So, man, this is just hurting us all the way around. And it's Joe Biden. You can't even blame this on his secretary of state, although there are failures at state. But, yeah, Joe Biden.

Joe Biden. That was Congressman Mark Green, who represents Tennessee's seventh congressional district. Congressman, always a pleasure to have people on that. And that'll do it for today's episode. Thanks so much for listening to the Daily Signal podcast. You can find the Daily Signal podcast on Google Play, Apple Podcast, Spotify, and Iheartedly. radio. Please be sure to leave us a review and a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts and encourage others to subscribe. Thanks again for listening and we're back with you all tomorrow.

The Daily Signal podcast is brought to you by more than half a million members of the Heritage Foundation. It is executive produced by Virginia Allen and Kate Trinko, sound designed by Lauren Evans, Mark Geinney, and John Pop. For more information, please visit DailySignal.com.