The Duran Podcast - EU menacing letter to Musk ahead of Trump X Spaces

Episode Date: August 13, 2024

EU menacing letter to Musk ahead of Trump X Spaces

All right, Alexander, let's talk about the Musk-Trump Spaces conversation. And let's talk as well about the letter that Tieri Brenton, the European Commissioner, sent to Musk to X right before the conversation was going to air. And in this letter, which is published on X, it's interesting that he's using X. to get this letter out there, Mr. Brenton. He basically warns Musk to censor the conversation that he's about to have with Trump. He hasn't had the conversation yet. The space's conversation has not aired at the time when he sent this letter.

But in anticipation of the conversation, the EU warned Musk, you better censor. your conversation with the former president of the United States and the candidate of the Republican party for the current elections in the United States. Wow. What an action by the European Union. I think they've really they've really overdone it now. That's my impression of it. They really crossed over a red line. But anyway, what are your thoughts about it? Well, they're not crossed over a red line. They've charged across that red line, and they're charging further because it's one of the most menacing letters I have ever seen. I mean, I've been in situations where I've been advising all kinds of corporate entities and people who get letters from government institutions and governmental institutions.

I've never seen anything quite like this. I mean, it sort of drips with menace, if I have to say. And, I mean, it lumps together the meeting with Trump, which, as you correctly said, had not yet happened, with the riots in Britain. I mean, it sort of makes a sort of conflation of the two, hinting, by the way, in my opinion, at some connection to the events in January 2020. that took place in Washington. Sorry to be a little elliptical about that, but we have to be careful what we say. So, I mean, it makes it all look as if, you know,

Trump is dangerous. The riots are connected to X. X is facilitating all this protest and all this kind of thing. And it's basically hinting at legal action against X. And so it looks to me, and I have to say this, I mean, you know, speaking of somebody who has come from a litigation environment, it looks like what lawyers call, you know, a cease and desist letter in the United States, a pre-action letter is what we would call, say, in Britain, a letter before action. It looks to me like the EU Commission is preparing to take action against X. and, you know, it makes me think that steps that were taken against Russian media back in 2022, February 2020,

and is now going to stop being, you know, expanded to include certain media agencies, including X, possibly the United States as well. I mean, I'm not saying that, well, this is going to happen, but that is the impression that the letter actually gives. And of course, it doffs the hat and the principle of freedom of expression. There's the Article 10 principle that appears in the European Convention on Human Rights, that people are safeguarded, that the rights of free expression are safeguarded. But to make it clear, it is not Article 10 rights, a free speech in the EU, are not as strong as those provided in the United States by the First Amendment of the Constitution. The Article 10 rights are qualified, as lawyers say, by the fact that they have to be consistent

with what you would expect in a democracy. And what we're now seeing is that there's going to be a legal attack, or at least a legal attack, is being prepared. A regulatory attack is being prepared on the basis that things that are appearing on X are inconsistent with democratic values decided by the EU Commission, whose members, whose officials, as we know, are elected. They stand for elections. They're elected by the European people. They're not an appointed or rather self-appointed bureaucracy. And they are the best people, obviously, to decide what democracy is and how it needs to be protected. I am being sarcastic, of course. So what does X do?

Let's say it goes down this regulation. Are you talking about a fine? Are you talking about, is this the path? No, I said that what happened. Or a blocking? I think they did this to Russian media in February 2032. I think they're heading in the same direction towards X. I think there's been a massive campaign against X.

in the UK over the last few weeks. We discussed that in a video that we did a few short time ago when we discussed the events in Britain and I made very clear my own views about that and I said that it looked to me as if this was part of a program of suppression, of suppression of free speech and all of this. I think it's exactly what's going to. I think looking at a fine.

Maybe a fine will be the first step. but I think an outright ban is probably what some of the people in the EU Commission are thinking about and by the way, can I make it absolutely clear? I do not believe that the Commissioner who sent this letter, Thierry Breton, was acting alone.

I have absolutely no doubt whatsoever that what he was setting out in that letter was the full position of the entire Commission. I think that they're all in agreement with this and this is what's coming. Yeah, but if they don't have X, how are they going to spread their propaganda? Good question.

You know what I mean? That is a very good question. They're more addicted to X than anybody. Yeah, and they use X to disseminate disinformation and propaganda more than anybody. I know. What are they going to do without X? Well, they'll try and set up an alternative. They've tried many times to set up alternatives.

None of them, none of them have succeeded. but I suspect, you know, they'll, you know, follow the principle, to try and try and try again and may be on, you know, the 137,000 time they might succeed. I mean, you're absolutely right. I mean, you know, the European Union's record, I'm talking not about the Commission. I'm talking about, you know, European Union states. Their record in successfully setting up social media companies has been awful. I mean, they've completely...

They've completely failed. And the present political economic structures in Europe are, you know, to a great extent, responsible for this. I mean, all the Malays that we've been talking about in Europe for a long, long time expresses itself, you know, one of the things that indicates is it is their complete failure to break through into this sphere. but, you know, presumably that is what they're going to try to do. I mean, I can't see whatever else they can do. It's important to say again that these people never think in advance. They failed to think in advance all the Russian sanctions and all the other things that they thought they were going to do.

They probably think that if they can knock out Twitter X, then they can step in and something else will take its place, which will be more amenable to them. the complacency and optimism and incompetence of these people is something that one should never underestimate. But it does look to me, as I said, that they're now coming after X in a very, very serious way. And notice that it's not, I mean, they bring up the question of the riots in the UK, and I've discussed that at great length. Can I make a point about those riots?

One of the interesting facts about the riots is that you will never find anywhere, any number given for the number of people who participated. Now, that might be because the number is enormous and the authorities don't want that fact known, or which is what I believe, it is because the number of people who participated is extremely small. And the authorities don't want people to know about that either. But anyway, I throw that up.

But anyway, you know, the... They bring up the topic of the riots in the UK, but there is no doubt at all that the single thing, the instigating event is Elon Musk's decision to have a conversation as he puts it, which is what I understand this was, with the person who was the former and perhaps future president of the United States. That is quite astonishing, actually, but that is what they are trying to do. So if they're prepared to do that, then we shouldn't assume that, you know, an outright ban is something that they would stop at. If the United States was really tough about it, like really decisive about everything that the EU is saying about, about X, about Elon Musk, about free speech. What this is is an attack by the EU against free speech in the United States.

It's, I would imagine this. is election interference, is it not? I mean, Trump is the Republican candidate for the elections. And I imagine the American people have a right to listen to the candidate of the Republican Party. And the EU basically telling a platform, a news platform, to censor Trump before he even spoke, before he even had this conversation. I mean, you could make a case that the EU is interfering in U.S. domestic affairs and in the U.S. domestic affairs and in the U. U.S. election process. I mean, if this was Zuckerberg having a conversation on Facebook with Kamala Harris, there would be no letter from the EU to Facebook. They would not send a letter to Zuckerberg. But if the United States really wanted to be decisive about it, well, then, you know, they would,

they would send a warning to the European Union, wouldn't they? I mean, the government, Congress, I don't know, senators in the U.S. would draft a letter. Like the letter they sent to the ICC. Remember the letter signed by 15 senators that they sent to the ICC, warning the ICC not to place sanctions on, not to petition arrest warrant against that in Yahoo. They would send a letter signed by 15, 20, 25 Republicans, says, whatever. And they would tell the EU, this is our warning. Do not meddle in our domestic affairs. I mean, I'm trying to be fair and objective about it. that that would be a correct response from the U.S. to this letter from an EU commissioner

threatening an American platform, an American company, and an American presidential candidate. I mean, I can't figure out another way to look at this. You're absolutely right. Am I see you wrong? No, no. I mean, on the face of you, you're absolutely right. This is meddling in the U.S. election. He's meddling in the ability of one of the candidates in that election to put it.

across his message on remember an American social media platform. I mean, X is an American social, or European one. The fact that many people in Europe go to it is a completely different matter. But, of course, you're talking about what the United States should do. What the United States will do is an entirely different thing. We've discussed in many programs on this channel. them with ourselves and with Robert Barnes, all the various obstacles that have been put in Trump's way, you know, the cases, all of that. This must be seen as just another step,

another part of that. In fact, I get to tell you straightforwardly, I believe, I don't have any knowledge about this. I don't know this for a fact, but I'm absolutely sure this is the case, that before that letter was sent, all sorts of telephone calls were made, which was Brussels and Washington, and that there was some input into this letter for some people in Washington. That's as a sort of pure guess, but I would be very surprised if it was otherwise. Yeah, because, I mean, the Democratic Party, the Biden White House, they're upset about the fact that Elon owns and controls X. Obviously, they would like to have a monopoly on social media. So that wouldn't surprise me either, but still, the Republicans in Congress.

Congress, you know, let's see what they do. Are they going to do anything about it? We're going to wait and see. So they should. I mean, this would be the correct response. If you're, if you're a sovereign, if you are a sovereign country, this would be the correct response. Well, the United States that I remember, you know, not, you know, the United States maybe of today, but the United States of 20, 30 years ago, if this had happened, they, they. would have been absolutely incandescent. They would have come along and at the very least they would have demanded that Thierry Breton step down. I mean, you know, that he should write a letter like this to an American social media platform demanding that kind of action is something which, as I said, given how completely it violates American political and legal traditions. And as you said interferes in the election, they would have been in Conduct, there would have been a titanic row. But of course there isn't going to be one for the very reasons that, you know,

we've just talked about. Because bear in mind that if you're talking about the Democratic Party's election campaign going forward into the November election, it is an entire media, entirely immediate operation now. The candidate herself is not giving speeches or interviews. or anything. So it is entirely a media operation. And as many people have pointed out, not perhaps on them being mainstream media or even to, well, to certain extent, on social media. In order to make a campaign like that fully proof, you need to secure the media space to the fullest degree that you can. And that's, I think, partly what explains this latter. Yeah, I wonder if, you're probably right, the Biden White House, I could see them coordinating this letter with the EU.

Well, they've tried everything. They've tried everything else. Why not this? I mean, you know, they can't do it because they can't do it because the First Amendment stands in their way. So, you know, why not get their friends in Brussels to do it instead? Just saying. I mean, I want to stress, I'm speculating. I don't know this for a fact.

Yeah. But, you know, just a thought. Yeah, so the EU is terrified of Musk, but they're terrified of Trump. And Elon actually brought this letter up during the X conversation. And Trump basically said, I'm paraphrasing what Trump said, but he basically said that the EU is a bunch of freeloaders. That's basically what Trump said. And you can tell that Trump does not like the European Union. I mean, he does like the people in the European Union.

That's obvious. That's crystal clear that he does not get along with them. He doesn't like them. He doesn't want to deal with them. and he considers them freeloaders to the U.S. It's clear listening to Trump that that's his impression of the EU.

He doesn't have any respect for them. So obviously the EU is terrified of a Trump presidency. Why doesn't the EU just cut Twitter then? I mean, why send these letters? Just cut the taxes. I mean, you know, you cut flights, you cut flights from Russia. You cut media from Russia.

You didn't consult with, you didn't warn Russia. You didn't say Russia. knock it off or else. You just cut the flights. One day, all of Europe woke up and there were no flights and there was no Russian media. Why not just cut off Twitter? Well, as I've said, as I've said already, we may very well be heading in that direction. But I think the reason they've done it in this fashion is, again, because they've obviously sought legal advice. This letter refers to all kinds of laws and regulations. So clearly, lawyers have played a role in this. And before taking an action,

action of that kind, they need to, you know, cover their legal basis. Because, of course, if they do take the kind of step that you're saying, as night follows day, X will bring a claim to the European Court of Justice under Article 10, not the European, well, it might be the European Court of Justice, actually. And they want to show that there's a pattern of warnings given to X before the final reluctant decision to make the ban was implemented. So I mean, that's the explanation for it. I mean, it's not a difficult one to understand. It's basically, as I said, ticking the boxes before you take the step that you're already working towards. Of course, they might not do it. I mean, you know, there's the EU, halves and puffs and threatens to do all kinds of things. And in the end, it backs off. It makes off.

be because, you know, this is pretty extreme that lawyers will tell them that they have no case, or alternatively, it could be that their own technology people tell them we need, we need X, we can't replace it, so let's stick with X and not give up on it. I mean, that might be what will happen, in which case this whole thing might blow over. But frankly, I'm not, I don't think so. All right, we will end the video there. The duran.com. We are on Rumble Odyssey, picture, telegram, rockfit, and Twitter X, and go to the Duran shop, pick up some merch. Take care.