The Eric Metaxas Show - #206 - Megan Basham

Episode Date: September 23, 2026

Today On The Eric Metaxas Show, Megan Basham joins Eric to discuss the growing battle over artificial intelligence, regulation, and the money being spent to influence the debate.Megan explains why she is skeptical when major AI companies ask the federal government to regulate them and discusses reporting that she says revealed funding flowing to journalists and Christian organizations, including The Gospel Coalition, for AI-related content. She argues that the central issue is not simply who received funding, but whether audiences were clearly told about it.Eric and Megan also discuss China, AI alarmism, the potential benefits of new technology, and the growing fight over Paramount, Warner Bros. Discovery, CNN, and whether one of Hollywood’s biggest studios could leave California.⭐ ORDER NOW:Revolution: The Birth of the Greatest Nation in the History of the World📕: https://a.co/d/0ir3NlapTODAY'S SPONSORS:🪙 Grace Precious Metals: https://www.metaxasmetals.com/🛏️ MyPillow — Save BIG with code ERIC: https://www.mypillow.com/☀️ Honest, fast, and free Medicare plan guidance: https://askchapter.com/metaxas/0:00 Megan Basham Joins0:55 The Fight Over AI Regulation3:13 Why Big AI Companies Want Regulation4:26 Who Is Funding AI Alarmism?5:08 The Gospel Coalition Funding Question7:16 How Journalists Are Being Funded9:42 Eric Asks About The Gospel Coalition12:49 China And The AI Race17:16 The Case Against AI Catastrophism23:54 Could AI Actually Help Humanity?25:57 The Paramount And Warner Bros. Fight30:10 Why CNN Matters33:18 The Fight Over CNN’s “Independence”34:23 Could Paramount Leave California?39:55 Could AI Break Hollywood’s Gatekeepers?- -LIKE AND SUBSCRIBE:    / @ericmetaxas  #EricMetaxas #TheEricMetaxasShow #News #PoliticsChapter and its affiliates are not connected with or endorsed by any government entity or the federal Medicare program. Chapter Advisory, LLC represents Medicare Advantage HMO, PPO, and PFFS organizations and stand alone prescription drug plans that have a Medicare contract. Enrollment depends on the plan’s contract renewal. While we have a database of every Medicare plan nationwide and can help you to search among all plans, we have contracts with many but not all plans. As a result, we do not offer every plan available in your area. Currently we represent 50 organizations which offer 18,160 products nationwide. We search and recommend all plans, even those we don’t directly offer. You can contact a licensed Chapter agent to find out the number of products available in your specific area. Please contact Medicare.gov, 1-800-Medicare, or your local State Health Insurance Program (SHIP) to get information on all of your options.

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You can tell by my glasses that I'm on the West Coast. You know, I'm doing deals. I'm a mogul out here. And I'm like some Italian filmmaker from the 60s. At least I want to be. But listen, we all got to play these roles temporarily. But now I have to downshift because doing this program, I get to talk to people like Megan Basham, who is my guest right now.

Megan, I never know where to start with you because I read your stuff. on X and elsewhere. You're with the daily wiring all kinds of stuff so beautifully. First of all, thanks for coming on. Yeah, absolutely. I'm mouthy, you know, so I'm kind of a dilettante.

I comment on a lot of subjects. Yeah, you're mouthing off all the time. I know. Well, I guess there are a few things we could talk about, I know, but let's talk about most people are like me in that they are somewhat confused by the discussions of AI and whether it should be regulated and how it should be regulated.

Steve Bannon has been talking about the problem with the Chinese, which to me seems substantive. If we're going to worry about AI and not just say, hey, whatever, the free market will cover it, if there's any worrying to be done, it seems to me that the involvement of the, I don't know, what's the term, valueless, value-free, cynical,

Satan-worshipping communist Chinese party. Their involvement in this is troubling to me. But on the other hand, it seems like there are a lot of people who, I guess maybe you'll corroborate this, are, they seem to be paid to be advocating that it needs to be regulated, which is equally troubling

to whatever the Chinese have, are cooking up. So what do you think? Yeah, you know, it is a really complex topic. But when you start to listen to some of the rhetoric we're hearing, it's very similar to the debates that were had over nuclear alarmism and also over climate change alarmism. So you have a camp that is saying, this is an existential crisis. And therefore, we need the government to step in and to create sort of an oversight board that will regulate and oversee everything that's happening in this industry. And then you have other people like. President Trump, like the man that he's appointed to sort of be his point person on this, David Sachs. A lot of people are familiar with him from the all-in pod. He's a well-known venture capitalist in the tech world. And they are arguing that, yes, that there's a free market solution to this. And the way to do this is if you want to stem the concerns about this technology and there are real concerns, then the thing to do is to sort of democratize it, to have an open approach

where it's open source. People can see what you're doing. They can comment, they can use it. People like me, pesky journalists, can write stories about it. And then on the other side, you have Sam Altman, the Anthropic CEO, and those guys are saying, please come in and regulate us federal government. Now, you know, my take is anytime you have your tech overlords saying, please regulate us, you should stop for a minute and say, that is an unusual position for any honest.

entrepreneur to take and certainly for Silicon Valley Titans to take. So why do they want to be regulated? And when you look into this a little bit deeper, what you find is that they are looking for ways to sort of cut out the competition and to say we are already on top. We would like to keep ourselves already on top. And so if we bring in this government oversight, which by the way, what's really interesting is a lot of these actors, and it's something known as effective altruism is the, you know, the Orwellian name that they give it, we will be the effective altruism. We will be the effective altruists, we will be the arbiters of what you can do with this technology and what you can't, and we will regulate you. So, you know, these are the two camps. I fall on the President Trump side

that I think the solution to this is to be more open and to democratize the system. But as you just alluded to, the really interesting little piece of this is that we discovered last week, and I want to give credit to the journalist you broke this because I did not break this. A guy named Brian Chow, great young reporter who I spoke to a couple of days ago. broke this story. And what he found is that the same organizations, these effective altruism nonprofits who are, who were fear mongering on climate change, have now been fear mongering on AI. And to that end, they have been distributing money to a lot of journalists, to a lot of media organizations, and once again, to Christian organizations. So it came out that they had funneled

money to the gospel coalition. Oh. Yeah. Oh, what a surprise. The gospel coalition taken money to say stuff. That's never happened before. Please continue. Right.

And so, you know, so they gave, I think, about 200 grand to the gospel coalition to produce some anti-AI alarmist content. The gospel coalition officially used that money to produce a podcast. series on the subject. But here's the big thing. They are a media outlet. They do produce media content. And ethically, any journalist or a member of the media knows when you take money to produce something like that, you should disclose it. That's ethical. Well, TGC did not disclose it. So they didn't disclose it anywhere on their website. And they did not disclose it at any point during the podcast they produced with this money. Now, the other interesting thing is,

is at that point, and this was, you know, just a couple of weeks ago, their best known fellow. So they have their Center for Cultural Apologetics, Keller Center for Cultural Apologetics. And I would say probably their star apologist is Gavin Ortland. And so he started tweeting that, what are the odds that AI leads to human extinction? So, you know, I would say when you're talking about AI and, you know, there are real concerns, but when you're suggesting it's going to lead to human extinction, I think at that point you can say that that is a bit overinflated and a bit alarmist.

And I don't think comports with what we know in scripture about how humanity is going to go extinct and it's not through AI. So, you know, these were all of the pieces that were going on. And they gave money, this group also gave money to, you know, reporters with Time Magazine, with, I think it was NBC, with, some Out the Guardian and some other international outlets. So it's very much the same kind of thing we have seen with these other movements that are intended to restrict capital and to restrict these companies from growing because we do want

to compete with China. I have a few questions. First of all, on the surface of it, how is it possible that journalists or journalistic organizations can take money? They're supposed to be independent. What do you mean at NBC or what? How can they be taking money from people like this? In other words, I thought that they have to be independent.

Theoretically, they're independent. So what is, in what way are they able to receive money? So essentially, there's a middle group. So, you know, the effect of altruism groups that are connected to anthropic AI. So, you know, that's kind of the dirty little secret is that these groups that are saying we need to regulate AI are actually connected to these AI giants. And so they funnel money into a middle group. And that group then distributes money to these journalists. And the journalists are basically funded to work on a particular topic, which isn't that unusual.

I mean, like if you listen to NPR, for example, you will sometimes hear them cover a particular topic and say, this was sponsored by this organization. Now, in this case, the group that distributed this money to TGC and some other religious media outlets was called the Future of Life Institute. Now, I am not saying that F, I know, again, sometimes you get these sort of Orwellian terms, and I go, what do you mean the future of life? But I'm not saying that every group that, you know, took money from the Future of Life Institute is collaborating on some nefarious purpose. I think there are probably groups that don't really know the connections of the future of Life Institute. But, you know, to me, one, the concern is I, my concern is always when any ministry or Christian organization is taking money from outside secular sources for a purpose that isn't a clear biblical mandate. Like if you want to take money, you know, from some organization to spread the

gospel, to hand out Bibles, I have no problem with that. But if you are taking money to to advance a narrative that is very debatable biblically, and I certainly think we can say, you know, what should happen with AI is a very biblically debatable topic. And certainly when you do that, you have to disclose. So, you know, there was a number of religious organizations that took this funding. Overall, I don't think that's a wise idea. But I think you have a real ethical problem when you advance their preferred narrative and you do not disclose to your audience that that's what you're doing. And aren't these the same folks that took money to promote the vaccine and to say that it would be the Christ-like thing to get the vaccine? I mean, I guess when I hear names like Gavin Ortland, I feel like all of those folks fell in line. All the predictable lines into which they fell. And that already tells me I would not trust them out of the gate. Maybe they're right on something, but my instinct is no longer to trust them, the folks of the gospel coalition. They've been on the wrong side of, you know, nearly everything in the last, I don't know, six to ten years. It seems to me, which is a pity. So President Trump is pretty

strong about this idea. But again, I haven't followed this closely enough, but Steve Bannon is troubled by China. He says, I guess a lot of these companies that we, you know, if we say, okay, everybody, you know, do what you want to do, we're not going to regulate it. China being, by definition, communist, nefarious figures, they're going to wheedle their way into this, just, you know, as with the World Health Organization. And they do not have the same values that we do. So it's kind of like talking about the free market. You have limits to all this. I mean, if the free market is working with slave traders and slave labor and Nazis who are using Jewish slave labor, you have to say, well, that's the limit. That's the edge of the free market.

The free market doesn't extend to whatever. And when you're dealing with the communist Chinese, they don't believe in God. They don't believe in human rights. They don't believe we're sacred and made in the image of God. They couldn't care less, let's be clear, about right and wrong. they don't believe in the concept of right and wrong. They believe in their own power. So that, to me, seems a serious concern. I don't know how it enters into the conversation, but to the extent that I'm aware of it,

that would be something worth looking into. Yeah, so a couple of things on that. You know, one, I will say, yes, the gospel coalition has sort of consistently, whenever there's a question like this in a national debate, you can sort of count on them to take whatever the conventional establishment position is. And, you know, that's been true on things like COVID vaccines and mandates. Gavin Ortland sort of famously wrote this essay rebuking John MacArthur

for keeping his church open during lockdowns and for defying Governor Gavin Newsom. So, yes, I would say they have consistently sort of taken whatever the position of our dominant cultural power brokers has been, they have aligned with that. Though I will say, you know, I did see a lot of money flow in these issues. Up to this point, I had not really seen anything flowing to TGC. I wrote about TGC and I had my criticisms of the positions they had taken, but I had not seen any evidence that they were taking that kind of secular money that I documented with other groups, but now I can no longer say that. So, you know, now they have. So now they're there with these other Christian organizations that have done the same thing. But, you know, to go along with that when we talk about China, it's very similar to me.

And this is different. So, yes, AI has some concerns. You know, we have real reason to be concerned about the direction this technology takes and, you know, what kind of Pandora's box it may be opening. But it's very similar to something like the Paris Accords. Now, I don't think that climate change was ever a significant threat. I don't think it is a significant threat today. I think, you know, we may be impacting the climate a little bit, but in no way that is an existential crisis. And I think kind of the same thing with AI, except for I think there's a little bit more concern there.

You know, we don't know how it's going to develop, but I don't think it's going to lead to human extinction. I think that is just hyperbolic, irresponsible rhetoric. But, you know, when you talk about China, it's very similar to the Paris Accords in that they want to institute these regulations, right? We want an international body that is not beholden to the American electorate, and they're going to tell us how these American companies can operate, except just as with the Paris Accords, the onus is inevitably going to be heavier on America, which will respect those rules and regulations when they're established, than they are on China, which will entirely not respect them. And we saw that exact same thing of climate change. Again, this is this lie that has been pervasive in our lifetime that everybody's the same, which is to say that, you know, the Chinese and anyone else, we're all just people and we all just what's wants best for our kids, which is a lie, I have to say, from the pit of hell.

It is a lie. I just saw the film or I saw part of the film. I couldn't watch the whole thing, but the Hail Mary Project or whatever it is. Project Hail Mary, yeah. It's the same kind of concept like, oh, look, all the international people are going to get together. We got the, you know, we got the African woman and we got the this and this. Because we're all, you know, trying to solve the problems of humanity as if suddenly all of the gamesmanship, you know, that goes on between, you know, whether it was the Soviet Union and now it's China. That just goes away and we all just want to solve the Earth's problems and we're going to get together.

that's just complete nonsense. It's why the United Nations should be pushed into the East River. It's a joke to think that we're dealing on the same page, that we're on the same page. And that naivete is really, how can I put it? I mean, that is the existential crisis. Think of the irony, right? It's like we're all going to get together. We've got an existential crisis.

COVID. We're going to all get together and the Chinese are going to lead the way. and we're all going to figure it out together because it's existential. So everybody shut up. No one has anything to say. The experts are going to tell you what to do. So you know on every level, this is wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. But the fundamental lie beneath it all, the foundational lies, this idea that, you know,

when it comes to these big things, we're all the same. And we're all going to solve these problems together. And I'm just fascinated that there's so many people. It's usually, you know, the Uniparty, bureaucrats like Fauci and whatever or like our friend Francis Collins, they just seem to turn a blind eye to the evil of the Chinese Communist Party as if you can deal straight with the Chinese Communist Party. The Chinese Communist Party would be thrilled if five billion people died tomorrow and they could seize control of the remaining few billion. They would take that deal in a second. And the naivete of these elites, it's usually elites who lean left, whether it's Gavin Oortland or Tim Keller or Francis Collins.

They look at folks like us as though, oh, you know, we're backward for suspecting the Chinese Communist Party of evil. They're not like that anymore. You know, they have, we sprinkled little most favored nation status over them and everything's okay. I mean, to me, that's the existential crisis. that can lead to, you know, the big end time stuff is allowing China to control something like artificial intelligence or to effectively control it. Yeah, and what you're talking about is sort of this combination of utopian and catastrophic thinking that get merged here. So, you know, on the one hand, they think that this is going to be

the end of the world if we don't take some extreme measures, which, as you just said, doesn't that sound familiar to the climate change and the COVID debate that. You know, we have to give up some of our rights and some of our freedoms in order to prevent these particular dangers. But at the same time, it's utopian thinking because it suddenly assumes that, as you said, China is now going to have these altruistic motives if we establish this international governing board that, by the way, is connected to the same international governing board and individuals who wanted to regulate our speech. You know, these are the same people who said we need to establish an international disinformation board and misinformation. board and they were bringing in all this funding, same effective altruism players. Again, it's a mouthful. So whenever you hear the sort of mouthful terms, you always want to like look under the hood. But so it's the same idea that if we do that, you know, China is going to have absolutely pure

motives here and we're going to have pure motives. And Anthropic has pure motives. And again, I'm just going to say, you know, as a Christian who believes in the Calvinist doctrine personally, don't at me. We can all differ on this. But I do believe in the doctrine of total depravity. And so if you assume a fallen human nature, you should probably not assume that all of these people are doing this with the best of intentions. Again, most tech overlords don't ask, please come in and regulate us. We're so looking forward to slowing down our development, to losing some of our profits. That's not what you typically see from CEOs, particularly in Silicon Valley. And, you know, the other part of this is that we are beating China right now. So you can be very sure that some of this is connected to China because

they would like the opportunity. And that's what President Trump is talking about saying, hang on a minute. You know, there are concerns and there are ways that we can deal with those concerns. And, you know, he and David Sachs have argued that the best way to deal with those concerns is to keep the technology open, the source coding open, and to be transparent. That's the best way to do it. not to say, okay, you keep these things hidden. We don't know what's going on there, but we are going to place our faith and trust in these altruistic overlords who are going to ensure that everything's being done with our best intentions in mind. And I don't think that's an American approach. I don't think it's a Christian approach. And it's certainly not a free market approach. So, you know,

these are the debates that are happening. But for me, anytime you hear catastrophic thinking, I think it's time to put the brakes on. So, you know, when you hear, someone say, this could cause human extinction. Consider that maybe your emotions and fears are being played upon. And, you know, I'm no tech expert, but I can look at this and go, certain reasonable things like AI doesn't have hands. You know, AI doesn't have bodies. It's going to be a long time before AI would be able to deliberately sort of become the Terminator picture that we imagine, where it's going to be attacking humankind. So there's just been a lot of inflated rhetoric,

and that's the kind of thing I want to put the brakes on, but at the same time, we also need to realize that the inflated rhetoric, once again, it's being bankrolled to convince you to embrace someone regulating you. Hey there, folks. Suzanne and I want to invite you to join us for something extraordinary. It is a Socrates in the city cruise on the Mediterranean,

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That's Socratesin the city.com slash cruise. Come sail the Mediterranean with us. I have to say, again, I mean, you're saying it, but just to underscore how we've seen this over and over again, it's kind of like we've had batting practice with this. You know, I mean, I'm old enough to remember in the 70s, the doom and gloom about by the year 2000, we will run out of food. And by the year, it was always this kind of doom and gloom predictions. and they never circle back. Time Magazine or Newsweek never correct themselves. Over and over again, they threaten us. And this gets to, I just interviewed somebody for Socrates, he's in the city called Martin Gurry. And he really, he talks about how basically the internet has busted open these information monopolies. And suddenly everybody can look into everything. And we don't have to listen to what Newsweek puts on its cover or Time magazine. or whatever. And it's made it difficult, but they've continued to try. It's a fascinating thing. They've continued to try to pull this off. And for various reasons, it works well enough that we have to

fight back. So I just want to say thank you for being one of the voices fighting back. And it's funny too, Megan, because let's say we're not even talking about the communist Chinese. We're just talking about the AI folk. They do not typically have a biblical worldview either. They have a secular worldview, which tips toward atheistic communism, if anything. I mean, even if they're not able to acknowledge it, that's where it goes. They don't have the same values that we do. So why would we ever trust them? You know, again, I think that they're afraid of freedom.

They're afraid of folks like you and me weighing into this. So if we have to err, I think I'd rather err on the side of liberty as far as this goes. Amen. Well, any final thoughts on that? Then I want to talk to you about the Paramount deal. Yeah, maybe just one final thought. You know, we're talking about the potential dangers of AI, but we're not talking enough, I think, about the potential benefits of AI

because all of these technologies as they progress also offer humanity a lot of great progress that we don't talk about. I mean, you know, yes, the Internet has come with incredible pitfalls. But we can also talk about the way, you know, created a booming economy, jobs, an entirely new sector of the market for people to feed their families, to be employed, to pursue new creative projects. I mean, I go on and on. I'm just kind of giving an umbrella here. But when I look at AI, I think of the same thing. I go, as somebody, for example, who has fought cancer and, you know, hopefully this week I'll find out that I'm not still fighting

cancer because I've got to scan this week. But I look at this and go, Lord, use this technology to bless, you know, the people who love you, to bless those who serve you and those who are suffering. So I'm looking at this going, you know, maybe we make advances in cancer because of this technology and the way it allows us to progress so much more quickly in some of these fields. So, you know, I think when we talk about this,

yeah, we need to talk about the concerns, but let's not forget, you know, some of the potential benefits as well. And yeah, that's exactly right. And so you always need to, discernment. You need biblical wisdom for discernment. And so there's no substitute for real discernment on all this stuff. But I think people who are clamoring for regulation or whatever, we've learned enough now to be deeply suspicious of them. Even if they're right, let's first be suspicious.

Let's make sure that we know what it is. They're really talking about. And anyway, well, just thank you for all of that. That's so valuable. I want to talk to you about the Paramount deal. Most of us are unaware of any of that. So give us the basics before we begin. Yeah, this is such a fun, fascinating story. I've really enjoyed covering it because, you know, things are happening, which maybe five years ago we could never have imagined. So Paramount and its CEO, David Ellison, made a deal to buy Warner Brothers Discovery, which I think would be a great thing because, you I wouldn't call David Ellison necessarily a staunch conservative, but he is certainly somebody who is more sympathetic to conservative views,

and he's more open-minded. I think we can see this in the development of what they've done at CBS since he hired Barry Weiss and gave her the reins of that news operation. So I've been really interested in seeing how David Ellison has been looking to sort of change the culture of Hollywood, and not on purpose, but just because he's a businessman. And he's like, there are unserved audiences here. And so he made a deal to buy Warner Brothers Discovery, I think, you know, for about $110 billion. So big deal, Trump and the Trump administration approved this deal back in July. And immediately after they did that, a 12 blue state attorneys

general led by Rom Bonta of California said, no, no, no, even though the federal government have said yes to this, we are going to sue in court to try to block this merger. So they've been trying to block this merger. And in the back and forth wrangling over this deal, David Ellison's point of leverage has been, okay, that's fine. If you won't let us operate in California, if you won't let this deal go through in California, we're going to leave California. And we're going to move our headquarters and we're going to leave the studio lot that we have been on for 100 years. And we're going to look at Tennessee or Georgia or Texas. So, you know, this is a very fascinating debate, and it would be devastating to California if Paramount leaves. You know, this is a state

that is already suffering major job loss, major negative impact from the entertainment industry, basically going as woke as what could possibly be. They've lost audiences. People aren't interested in a lot of their content. So, you know, it would be a really bad thing for California if Paramount leaves. So, you know, this right now is what's going on, this wrangling over if Rob Bonta and these Blue state attorneys general block this deal, Paramount says, we're out. Well, it's kind of like when AOC made silly faces about Amazon wanting to bring tons of jobs to New York and succeeded in driving Amazon elsewhere, which succeeded in hurting New York and all the people she's supposed to represent. What a jughead. But what we're talking about

here, let's just so I understand it, Paramount. Now, Keith Ellison, is the son of David Ellison is the son and his father's first name. Yeah. Right. Of Keith Ellison is it? I believe that's right.

I'm sorry. I get all confused. But these are not people, as you said, known for being conservative MAGA people. But the shock is that they are elites who don't have the typical leftist pro-D-E-I, worldview, they actually believe in making money and profit. They actually believe in that.

And if you really do believe in that, if you're not sold out to impressing, you know, your woke buddies in Hollywood or whatever it is, you're going to be at this point going swimming against the stream because the zeitgeist is all, you know, whatever. Trump is evil. The free market is evil. DEI is good. All that stuff. So that to me is the shock that you have.

somebody like this, you know, pledging northward of $100 billion to buy, I mean, my goodness, when you talk about Paramount. So you said Paramount at this point owns Warner Brothers? Well, they have made a deal to buy Warner Brothers. So this pending deal has been sitting on the table since July when the Trump administration approved it. And by the way, as you were talking, I just looked it up really quick. David Ellison's father is Larry Ellison. So that's his name was escaping me. I'm sorry. Exactly. Larry Henson, right. So he's the founder of Oracle, of course.

So that is, you know, pretty big money in Oracle. So, yes, so they are trying to buy Warner Brothers. And I'll tell you what the big fear is here. I think part of the reason this happened is because Warner Brothers also happens to own CNN. Okay, I was just going to bring that up. That's, that's so, and I'm sorry to confuse my audience. So, so Ellison already owns Paramount, or he's one of the principal owners of Paramount. They want to buy Warner Brothers, which owns CNN.

And I've been hearing about this for months. And we can only imagine how this makes the left in America shudder with horror. The idea that CNN could, like CBS, go the way of, oh, I don't know, mainstream or not leftist lunatic. Because, you know, it's not like CBS, you know, has turned into, you know, I don't know, Steve Bannon or anybody on the Christian right, but they are daring to try to be fair and all the stuff that CNN has claimed to be. So in some ways, this is at the heart of it, isn't it? I mean, the fact that we're really, I mean, you know, we all hear Warner Brothers and that's

interesting, but CNN, everywhere you go is blaring vicious anti-Trump narratives. they can't help themselves, whatever hour of the day it is, they can be counted on to be attacking the administration, so much so that President Trump, of course, you know, has kicked them out of the White House press briefing room or whatever, and they're pretending that that's, you know, goes against free speech. So that, to me, is the most interesting part of this.

Not that the Warner Brothers acquisition itself isn't interesting, but my goodness, did we ever dream, I think you let off, with this even five years ago, that something like this would be possible. Yeah. And, you know, when you talk about CNN, I think you do have to look at what CBS has done and how that is concerning them because, you know, like I said, it's hardly right wing now. But it did do something like, for example, just interview the husband of Lindsay Clancy. Now, you have a left that had established a narrative that, you know, this woman is a victim. And under the auspices of feminism, women's psychological health has a woman.

been prioritized, which is in itself a lunatic thing to say because few things have been more prioritized than women's psychological health in our culture. And so they created a narrative. And typically the entire legacy media would have gone along with that. But now we see a break, right? We see CBS saying, well, hang on a minute. Let's interview this father. And let's get the point of view from one, really the only victim who is still alive from that horrible, horrible crime. So I think that's what concerns them. And what gives the game away here, Eric, is that one of the things that these 12 Blue State Attorneys General are demanding is a quote-unquote independent oversight board for CNN. So they're saying, you know, okay, the only way we're going to let

this deal go through is if you give us a concession that there will be an outside board that will oversee what's happening at CNN allegedly to protect their editorial independence. But, I mean, I think any of us who are veterans of the media wars know what that's. term really means, and it means we understand that for many, many years, we have had a monopoly on the information that the public sees and hears. And, you know, once again, technology created an opening so that that monopoly has been broken, and we are concerned that we're going to lose even another piece of it with CNN. Because look, there's only like four major cable channels, right? If CNN suddenly becomes more fair, they're not to be very happy about that because that is one of their

you know, prime megaphone. So, you know, I think that's really interesting that they're saying, okay, fine, we'll let you potentially do this, but only if we get to say who oversees CNN. So, you know, that's a really big tell when you look at what they're negotiating for here. And, you know, the other interesting part of this is that they talked a really tough game. Rob Bonta and California talked a really tough game until they started to realize the economic impact that Paramount leaving is going to have. And Paramount has now said, hey, we've already put down deposits on the moving trucks.

So they literally said that. So either you make this deal or we're out of here. And then, you know, at that point, L.A. mayor, Karen Bass and Governor Gavin Newsom, you know, no conservatives, no friends to conservatives started going, oh gosh, you know, maybe we ought to slow down here on the negative things we're saying about Paramount. Maybe you ought to consider making a deal with them because we're, We are going to lose billions of dollars of economic activity and tax revenue if they leave. But, you know, the states that are not as impacted by that, like New York, like Letitia James,

she is now leading the charge to, you know, continue to drag this lawsuit out. And she's being goaded by the excreble anti-Semitic Mark Ruffalo, who plays the Hulk and the Avengers. So, you know, it's a very juicy story. But at the end of the day, I think if Leticia James forces Paramount's hand on this, I think California is going to be very, very sorry. How sweet it is, to quote Jackie Gleason, how sweet it is. I got to tell you, there's so much here. And it's so interesting, too, how, I mean, really, when you talk about where we are in the culture,

things have gone so far left that we see it as a victory, you know, that Barry Weiss, who is an open lesbian, has taken control. of CBS News. Now, I love her. I think she's terrific and fair. She's hired Ross Douthit. I've known Ross most of his life. I love Ross. I disagree with him on President Trump. But, you know, he is the New York Times version of conservative, you know. So you have, it's not like you have whatever, rightist lunatics taking over. But the people that have had a good thing going, really, with the, you know, pushing Marxism for decades, they're troubled by Barry Weiss and Ross Douthit

and just a modicum of fairness. They're deeply threatened by this, you know, and I think it's extraordinary, too, that President Trump, I mean, this is why so many of us love President Trump because how hard he pushes back. He doesn't say, oh, I can't kick CNN and Politico out of the White House briefing room because people will say that I'm against free speech.

It's complete nonsense. He's not against free speech, and most people know he's not against free speech, and most people know that political and CNN and MSN now, whatever. They are radical leftists who are, in fact, the definition of what he has termed fake news. They're not interested in telling the truth slanted. They're interested in simply pushing back against anything that is a pro-Trump narrative, even if it accords with reality. They don't care about reality. So it's just interesting to see what a new day we're. living in. And again, it's not like you said that, like Mr. Ellison is going to impose, I don't know, John Birch Society values on CNN, but even tacking slightly to the center completely freaks them out so that they have to get 12 attorneys general involved. I mean, this is, this is very hopeful. Do you have a sense of where it might go? I think at the end of the day, they're probably going to, to make a deal, which I'm going to be honest, kind of bums me out a little bit. I would love to see the disruption of Paramount leaving California. And to your previous point, you know, yes, we have a freedom of the press, but that does not include a right to a seat in the White House briefing room.

So, you know, we need to separate these things. I mean, they have the right to cover what they want. They don't have a right to that seat in the White House press briefing room. But, you know, I actually disagree with President Trump a little bit in that I think he's being too altruistic to Hollywood. You know, he, they look at how they have attacked him, what they say about him, what they say about us as Christians. And he's actually out there, and it's insane that you see them attacking him the way that they are, because he's out there saying, I am trying to create a deal to create tax incentives to revive Hollywood and save Hollywood. And, you know, I think that's a really kind position to take, given how they've treated him, because, you know, my position

is kind of, let him suffer. You know, let them. Well, I mean, let it burn. Sleep in the bed they made. It's like saying we need to save the Ivy League. No, we need to let it burn to the ground because at some point, you know, I really don't understand what is that you're trying to save. What are you trying to prop up? Hollywood, first of all, no longer means Hollywood. Hollywood, anything, we can be producing films anywhere in America. So Hollywood just becomes a metaphor for the entertainment world.

So let the old Hollywood burn. let it sleep in the bed that it made, as you said, and let a thousand new flowers bloom anywhere they can bloom. I don't know why President Trump would do that. It's almost like it seems old-fashioned of him somehow that he wants to save Hollywood. I mean, if you can bring Hollywood to what it once was quite some time ago, but it seems like we're far beyond that.

I don't know. Yeah, and to be honest with you, I think the only way that you're going to sort of restore the golden age of American entertainment is going to be to sort of disrupt that lock of Los Angeles wokeness because if you're drawing from the same pool of writers and directors and staffers, then I think you're going to get the same outcomes. But going back to our previous discussion, that's one more reason. I'm a little bit optimistic about some aspects of AI because I think it has broken open the possibility for producing film and entertainment

at much lower prices and expense, and it has in the past, and that's going to allow competition with Big Hollywood. And so, you know, I'm kind of excited about the fact that AI may overcome these gatekeepers who have been there for years saying if there's even something remotely conservative or Christian seeming about the script you wrote or the series you want to produce, and we're going to reject it. And not only that, if you say anything that sounds remotely Christian and conservative, we're going to drum you out of this industry.

So I think there's great potential for AI to change the leverage here that conservative and Christian creators have. And so I'm excited to see where that goes. Well, I mean, it's kind of like what happened with Twitter a few years ago. President Trump was given a platform to talk from. The legacy media never would have given him that platform. But X and the Internet, it just broke everything open. You can all the way go all the way back to the Reformation. The printing press made it possible for Lueblood.

to argue with the public and to make his case to the public, you know, Jan Hus was not able to do that a hundred years earlier. He was crushed like a beetle by the mainstream media of the time and by the power brokers of the time. So it's a fascinating thing that when a new technology emerges and enables people who don't have a voice, suddenly to have a voice, usually it leads to good things. I mean, we all know it can lead to the French Revolution, which is bad, but it can also lead to the American Revolution, which is good. So it is kind of interesting to me that AI is now doing that, and you can see people trembling. I mean, I can not imagine where Hollywood is going to be, even in five years, I have to say, that with what we're able to do and create right now. We've been doing a lot of crazy stuff with the TV series version of my book, is atheism dead.

And I'm astonished at what we're able to create right now. And I know that lots of other people are doing that. I think we'll have to leave it there, Megan Basham. Final thoughts on any of this before we go? Yeah, just maybe if Paramount does move, pray for whatever state they move to that, you know, they don't bring all their blue state thinking and voting patterns with them. But if you'd like to know more, I just published piece at The Daily Wire, kind of summarizing and giving all the background on this paramount fight,

and I'm working on the piece on the AI, so that's to come. But you can always find me a Daily Wire and on Morning Wire. Daily Wire and Morning Wire. Megan Basham, thanks for all you do and all you say and all you write. We'll have you back as soon as possible. Thank you so much. You too, brother. Thank you for having me.

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