The Daily Signal - Ties Apparent Between China and Project of Black Lives Matter Co-Founder

Episode Date: September 23, 2020

Veteran journalist Mike Gonzalez, a senior fellow in The Heritage Foundation's Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign Policy, recently did some investigative reporting. In an exclusive commentary last week for The Daily Signal, Gonzalez wrote that Alicia Garza, one of three founders of the Black Lives Matter organization, had partnered with a left-wing San Francisco group known to carry water for China: the Chinese Progressive Association. Gonzalez joins The Daily Signal Podcast to discuss the ramifications. We also cover these stories: President Trump says he will announce his third nominee for the Supreme Court on Saturday, and it looks like Senate Republicans have the votes necessary for confirmation.  The president asks the United Nations to hold China accountable for “unleashing” the new coronavirus.  The COVID-19 death toll in America hits 200,000, Johns Hopkins University reports. The total for U.S. cases is close to 7 million.  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, September 23rd. I'm Virginia Allen. And I'm Rachel Del Judas. A senior fellow for foreign policy at the Heritage Foundation recently uncovered evidence that there might be ties between a group started by a Black Lives Matter co-founder in China. Mike Gonzalez joins me today on the Daily Signal podcast to discuss. Don't forget. If you're enjoying this podcast, please be sure to leave a review or a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts and encourage others to subscribe. Now onto our top news. President Trump says he will announce his nominee for Supreme Court justice

on Saturday, and it looks like the Senate has the votes needed for the confirmation. Senator Mitt Romney, Republican of Utah, who voted with the Democrats to impeach President Trump, says he will vote for the president's SCOTUS nominee. I intend to follow the Constitution and precedent in considering the president's nominee. If the nominee reaches the Senate floor, I intend to vote based upon their qualifications, Romney said Tuesday. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says he plans to call the vote to the floor before November 3rd.

There are 53 Senate Republicans and 47 Democrats, making the nomination tight if a few Republicans choose to vote no, and all Democrats vote against the president's nomination. But in addition to Romney, Senators Lamar Alexander, Republican of Tennessee, and Senator Cory Gardner, Republican of Colorado, both thought to be potential swing votes on the nomination, have implied they will back the president's choice. Two Republican senators, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine, have raised concerns about the vote taking place before the election. But even if they and every Democrat vote know, the Republicans would still have enough votes to confirm the new Supreme Court justice.

President Trump is asking the United Nations to hold China accountable for unleashing the coronavirus. Here's what the president had to say Tuesday in a pre-recorded speech to the United Nations General Assembly via the White House. As we pursue this bright future, we must hold accountable the nation which unleashed this plague onto the world. China. In the earliest days of the virus, China locked down, travel domestically while allowing flights to leave China. China and infect the world. China condemned my travel ban on their country, even as they canceled domestic flights and locked citizens in their homes. The Chinese government and the World Health Organization, which is virtually controlled by China, falsely declared that there was no evidence of human-to-human transmission. Later, they falsely said people without symptoms would not spread

the disease. The United Nations. must hold China accountable for their actions. The COVID death toll in America has hit 200,000, according to Johns Hopkins University. Total cases across the U.S. are close to 7 million. Caitlin Rivers and epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security called the number an enormous and tragic loss of life per NPR. Rivers added that about 1,000 Americans pass away from COVID every day. day, and that has been the trend for several weeks now.

The University of California wrongfully admitted 64 well-to-do students in the past six years, according to a new state audit. The audit released Tuesday found that staff members from the University of California admitted 22 students whose parents were substantial donors out of the guise that they were student-athlet recruits. Fox News reported. It also found that the University of California at Berkeley campus admitted 42 students through its regular process based on connections to staff, leadership, and donors,

but those applicants were not as qualified as others who were not admitted, the audit found, Fox News reported. This comes after 50 people, including Felicity Huffman and Lori Lothlin, as well as her husband, Mossimo Giannulli, were caught up in a college admission scandal in an attempt to get their children into leading schools. In August, Lothlin was sentenced to two months in prison, and her husband was sentenced to five months. Now stay tuned for my conversation with Mike Gonzalez on evidence he uncovered showing that there might be ties between a group started by Black Lives Matter co-founder and China. Do you have an interest in public policy?

Do you want to hear some of the biggest names in American politics speak? Every day, the Heritage Foundation hosts webinars called Heritage Events Live. Webinar topics range from ethics during the COVID-19 pandemic to the CARES Act and the economy. These webinars are free and open to the public. To find the latest webinars and register, visit heritage.org slash events. I'm joined today on the Daily Signal podcast by Mike Gonzalez. He's a senior fellow in the Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign Policy at the Heritage Foundation. Mike, it's great to have you with us back on the Daily Signal podcast.

Hey, Rachel. It's entirely my pleasure. How are you? I'm good. It's good to be with you. We want to talk about some recent investigative reporting that you. you did for the Daily Signal. And in an exclusive op-ed, you found that Alicia Garza, who's one of the three founders of the Black Lives Matter organization, had partnered with a left-wing San Francisco group that has been known to carry water for China, the Chinese Progressive Association, San Francisco. So before we get into all that, who is Alicia Garza? What are her ties to the Black Lives Matter? And what is her organization that you're looking at?

Alisha Garza is, it's best to think of her as somebody who sits atop an expansive global revolutionary network. She founded the main Black Lives Matter organization. In fact, she came up with the slogan. The other two women who co-founded Black Lives Matter are Patrice Culler's and O'Paltimetti. All three of them are committed Marxists, anti-capitalist, Alicia Garza. has said many times that she wants to smash capitalism, that one cannot reach liberation in capitalism. And one of the adventures that she has is the Black Futures Lab. The Black Futures Lab is a fiscally sponsored project

of the Chinese Progressive Association of San Francisco. That is an outfit that was created in 1972 at the height of the cultural revolution by a militant, actually paramilitary group called Iwer Quinn. Iwer Quinn was a Maoist outfit, created the Chinese Progressive Association in San Francisco. And from the start, the Chinese Progressive Association promoted the thoughts of Mao and the ideas of China's revolution and the cultural revolution. Let's talk a little bit about the Chinese Progressive Association. What do they do? How did they start?

And what are their ties to China? So Chinese Progressive Association, as I said from the beginning, promoted revolutionary thought in America. It kind of, it's gone too bad for China a couple of times recently. For example, this year, it partnered with other pro-China groups. in sending the Biden administration a letter saying that it supported Biden, and wanted Biden to be Trump, but it warned the Biden campaign not to engage in what it called, quote unquote, China bashing, saying, you know, criticism of China will cost you at the ballot box,

kind of a warning. Then about three years ago, it again partnered with other groups to, seek to deter the Justice Department from investigating spying in the United States by China, saying that it was a form of racial profiling. That is obviously nonsense. China is a country. In fact, it's a rival of the U.S. We must protect ourselves. Nothing new with racial profiling. The Chinese Communist Party suppresses the rights of 1.2 billion Chinese in China. So, you know, Those are the things that it does. It radicalizes young Chinese. Trevor Loden of the Epoch Times is a newspaper that is associated with the Falun Gong faith, which is harshly persecuted in China. He says what they do is push the Beijing line in Chinatown and try to convince young Chinese and bring young Chinese Americans into the Beijing orbit. Well, Mike, you've talked about this little bit, but let's delve in.

this a little bit more. What did you find out between the ties of the Black Futures Lab and the Chinese Progressive Association? Well, just that, if you click on the button of the Black Futures Lab, it tells you that the Black Futures Lab is a fiscally sponsored project of the CPA, San Francisco. A lot of the Black Glass Matter organizations do this. They're fiscally sponsored projects of other groups that affords the Black Lives Matter organization a great deal of flexibility in not having to disclose how they spend their money. That's at least what the critics say. But the connection between Garza and the people who run the CPA San Francisco are stronger

than that, Garza, for example, spoke at a left-routes' meeting in 2015. I think she's a member also of left roots. I have to have to double check that. And Pam Tauley, one of the founders of CPA, San Francisco, is also a member of left roots. Well, since the Black Futures Lab isn't Black Lives Matter, but a different organization, why do you think that they're both connected? Well, the Black Futures Lab does say on its website that it partners up with the Black Lives Matter. Everything under Alicia Garza is the same, as I said, they're ventures of the same empire.

And the Black Futures Lab, I believe, is kind of a lobbying arm of the whole entire thing. Black Last Matter, I'm talking about the organizations. Obviously, nobody disagrees with the sentiment. I'm talking about the Black Class Matter global network partners with the movement for black lives, partners with the black futures lab, they all crisscross and coordinate their moves. And the black futures lab says that on its website, that it helps the Black Last Matter organization. Well, in your report, Mike, you talk about how the threat of foreign interference in our

domestic affairs is really a serious matter. Do you think that's what's going on here? Well, one has to investigate. Let's put it the other way. Let's put another way. If the same thing were happening with Vladimir Putin's Russia, let's say that far-right zealots were destabilizing our country and our cities and calling for an ethno state, and you were to find that one of them was fiscally supported by a group in America that has supported Russia and that has, for example, one of the things that the CPA San Francisco has done, it creates this thing called the China Education and Exposure Program, which brings Americans and people, China, thought leaders in China together, to help Americans understand better the revolutionary thought of China. They meet there with people from the party, the CPP, the Chinese Communist Party,

but also with non-party people. If the same thing were happening with Russia and right-wing protesters, you can bet your life that would be on the front page of newspapers. Mike, what do you think China is looking to achieve in the U.S. in 2020, and even on a broader angle, how does China insert itself into American life currently? Well, we know for a fact that China gives moral support to the Black Lives Matter organizations.

Let's not forget that, according to a person, paper that was released last week, the BLM organizations are related to 95% of the riots we have had this summer. So the link is very strong. China also has, as I said, Chinese government spokesmen, officials have given support to the goals of the BLM organizations. So the moral support we know is there for sure. It comes from Beijing. Well, Mike, the New York Times did call you out on your reporting, can you tell us about what they said and then what your response to New York Times was? Yeah, the New York Times basically said that I had conflated the Boston CPA, the Chinese Progressive Association of Boston with the San Francisco Chinese Progressive Association.

I should have been more clear in distinguishing between the two. They're registered separately and run separately, but they were both created by I-Work-Wan, by people from I-Wi-W-W-Kwen, they both have done pro-China work. I have just detailed what the Chinese Progressive Association of San Francisco has done. The Boston CPA has also been involved with the Chinese government. And they are, again, they're members of the same organizations. For example, left routes, one of the leaders of CPA Boston, at least one, but probably more. and the leaders of CPA San Francisco are members of left roots.

And in fact, one of them recently wrote, two of them, one from the Boston, the other one from San Francisco, co-wrote a paper strategizing on revolution. One Monday, former NFL player Herschel Walker tweeted that funding from China is going towards Black Lives Matter. So Mike, maybe he read your reporter, looked at it. did you happen to see his tweet and what did you think of it? I didn't see his tweet and I think it's best to think of the overlap as ideological unless we can establish that it has been funding from China to the organizations.

Look, these organizations are getting a lot of money from U.S. corporations, from U.S. foundations, like the Ford Foundation, and a lot of the Fortune 500, I think more worrisome to me is the ideological overlap that exists between an organization that from the start was very Maoist and the Black Last Matter movement. I mean, that is to me hugely important because the Black Last Matter organization does not want to be seen as Marxist and the U.S. media protects it. And in fact, over the weekend, they were scrubbing their website of Marxist language because of the criticism they have received.

The fact that there's an overlap with a group in San Francisco that was a one. we started from the beginning to promote the thoughts of the cultural revolution. And to this day, it goes too bad for China. It's for me much more worrisome. China is, after all, the world's largest communist state. Well, Mike, that was actually my very next question. I was going to ask you about how Black Lives Matter has been removing the Marxist language from their websites.

Can you expound on this a little bit more? Why do you think they're doing this all of a sudden? Well, it's a page right out of the Soviet Union. the Soviet Union airbrushed people that, you know, if somebody was purged and sent to the firing squad, and oops, there was a picture of him next to Stalin. What they would do is just airbrushed that person out of the picture. So Stalin is standing by the bridge with other people, not with somebody who had just been shot. The communists are, you know, have no compunction about changing the past.

Marxists as a rule do not. We can see this with a 1619 project, which, tries to change American history, the view of American history, and put slavery at the very center of it. Slavery is obviously an important part of American history, and nobody wants to airbrush that out. But one would imagine that the ideals of equality, even though they were not always followed, not always implemented, but always aspired to, when we imagine that idea of equality, the idea

that we have more liberty here than anywhere else. We have more prosperity than anywhere else. That would be, so that that is a good example of changing the past. It's completely coincidental, perhaps, that Nicole Hannah-Jones, the founder of the 1619 project, also burned her Twitter feed and perched it over the weekend. At the same time, the Black Glass Matter, was perching Marxist language from its past,

from his website. Well, I think the question that's on so many people's minds right now is where do we go from here? Mike, what should happen? Should lawmakers get involved? Should the administration get involved? What should have happened now? I think that Black Glass Matter should have been investigated a long time ago. I think if you have an organization that is involved with 95% of the riots and disturbances in this country,

one has to wonder why aren't they being questioned by Congress. I think the fact that they have this overlap with this pro PRC group in San Francisco is also a matter that should interest Congress. It should interest the media. The media has been really faltering here. Well, lastly, Mike, you've been doing a lot of research, a lot of writing, and everything that you've done in the past couple of days since all this has come out. What particular thing, if there's any one thing you could put your finger on about what was most surprising to you, what would that be? nothing really surprises me that didn't surprise me that the black futures lab is a fiscally sponsored project of a pro PRC group in san francisco um i am surprised that the media the new york times

did what it did was a bit surprised but not really you know i was a journalist for 20 years um i've never seen journalism like this i have never seen biases in reporting. Obviously, I write my opinion. I no longer report he said, she said. But those who should write, he said, and should be vetting what is happening in the country, should be working in the interest of the American people. Well, Mike, thank you so much for spending time with us and for talking about all this on the Daily Signal podcast. It's great to have you with us. Thank you, Rachel. And that'll do it for today's episode. Thanks for listening to the Daily Signal podcast. You can

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