The Highwire with Del Bigtree - HOW THE MEDIA TRIED TO SHAPE THE 2024 ELECTION

Episode Date: November 13, 2024

In the wake of the divisive 2024 Presidential election, Del reflects on the deceitful tactics systematically used by mainstream media for over almost a decade now to grossly misrepresent one candidate and their words. Was this historical election also a battle between legacy media and new media, and if so who was the true winner in the end? Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-highwire-with-del-bigtree--3620606/support.

I don't think there's ever been a time on this show where we don't at least run through very quickly the ideas that we're going. This is an unscripted show, but I know what sort of news pieces and things we're going to talk about. We do that, you know, on Wednesday night. This is actually the first show where we just didn't get that to happen last night. It was really, really busy all day, couldn't squeeze it, couldn't get on a Zoom call. And then to miss the flight, man, we couldn't really do it this morning. So we were about, as, as one said, we're doing it live. We're going to do it live today.

And not just any show, maybe one of the more dangerous and precarious shows I'm ever going to do because I actually want to step into a space that we have avoided for over 18 months. A conversation about where I've been when some of you were asking, why am I seeing Dell on stage with Bobby Kennedy or, oh my God, he's on stage with Donald Trump, what's happening there? I'm going to get into some of those details. And in order to do that, I want to start out with a caveat right here, just to be very clear. and I'll probably say this several times because this is what makes it so precarious. The high wire is actually an educational program that is put on by our nonprofit

the informed consent action network. There are very strict rules around a nonprofit. The ability for us to give you tax deductions when you donate, also to remain anonymous, make it so that we're not really allowed or supposed to talk about things that might affect an election. We get you to elect a specific candidate.

We can't endorse a specific candidate. can't really talk about them. And so thus, we've really avoided any conversations like that. And it was difficult. I'm going to get in the details of that difficulty. But today, because the election is over, we believe we have a window right here to reflect on some of what's happened, what is going on. And so we're going to dance a precarious line. Some of what I'm going to say today, just putting it forward is my opinion, Del Begetree, my involvement. And what I'm doing is Del Beechree as a person versus what our nonprofit does in the high wire. I'll try to make this all make sense.

And since it's totally unscripted, it'll be reckless and wild. And hopefully, and I'm going to add in one other feature. You know what, why do we just do a call-in show today? Technology almost have never worked with. Let's just wing that in there, too. So if you want to get on the phone lines later on in the show, this is the number, 878-378-Wire or 9473. Go ahead and get online.

And I'm going to take as many questions later on that you may have of things that you've been watching happen or whatever it is, something we, a lot of you have requested, we're going to try and do it today. Because why not? I mean, just hop off a plane, hump in the car, planes, trains, automobiles, and let's throw in a call-in show. So to get the show off the ground, first of all, roll the world of disclaimer. I can in this program, the Hire is a 501c3 organization, therefore cannot and does not endorse political parties or candidates. Del is speaking as individual capacity about the recent election. There you have it. So let's talk about the recent election. It happened just very, very early in the morning yesterday.

Something that I think, no matter what side of the fence you were on, a level of anticipation that maybe, you know, we've never seen before. Division, rage, anger, all sorts of accusations. But in the end, this is what it turned out like. Election Day finally upon us. We are in the final stretch of election season. It is Election Day in America. Two candidates, Vice President Kamala Harris and President.

Former President Donald Trump, both vying for the nation's vote today. I will strengthen our military. I will restore peace in the world. And I will rescue the American grief. We are optimistic and we are excited about what we can do together. Democracy playing out in real time as America anxiously awaits a decision years in the making. More than 78 million Americans have already cast their ballots during early voting. We're now looking at what's, seems to be a pretty high turnout situation, people surging to the polls, long lines in a lot of

battleground states. This is a record-breaking election here in the state of Georgia. Line around the block this morning before doors opened the Chicago super site. I've talked to you about this being obviously Kamala Harris's quickest path to 270 right through the Rust Belt. She holds the narrowest of margins in the early vote. She will still need a major turnout on election day. If Kamala Harris wins Pennsylvania, she is likely to be the next president of the United States.

If Donald Trump wins Pennsylvania, he's likely to be the next president of the United States. We're going to be talking about Pennsylvania here all night long and probably beyond tonight. Donald Trump has won the state of North Carolina tonight. The state of Georgia will go to former president Donald Trump. CNN projects that Donald Trump will win the Great Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. This is a huge, huge achievement for Donald Trump and a huge bucket of electoral votes. NBC News can now project that Donald Trump has won the same. state of Wisconsin, which means he is the winner of this race and will return to the White

Houses. This country is 47th president. Donald Trump will be the 47th president of the United States, winning what had been expected, of course, to be a razor tight and historic race. The Associated Press calling the race here for President Donald Trump. Well, I want to thank you all very much. This is great. We're going to make our country better than it ever has been. Many people have told me that God spared my life for a reason. And that reason was to save our country and to restore America to greatness. And now we are going to fulfill that mission together.

We're going to fulfill that mission. God bless you and God bless America. Thank you very much. It was quite an incredible night. I actually was in the room getting to see that final acceptance speech, something I've never had the opportunity to do before to actually be there when a president is accepting accepting the nomination.

And so I recognize that politics can be very divisive. I don't really want to be divisive. In fact, I think this really is a time for healing. It's why I really appreciated how Robert Kennedy Jr. ran his campaign. I'm going to get into some details about that. But right now, I want to just talk about this from the perspective of the high wire and why this election really mattered a lot to this show and the work that we do.

I believe that maybe even more than a contest between, you know, President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, this was really a battle between legacy mainstream media and new media, social media. And this is what I mean by that. If you watch the legacy media, like no other time, if you've been in this world as long as I have, we used to have something called the Fairness Doctrine. That meant that legacy media, the mainstream media, had to tell both sides of the story. But the polling showed that nearly 90% of the discussions about Donald Trump were negative,

and about 88% I think it was, roughly, for Kamala Harris, were positive, which meant that all of the networks, but one, chose a candidate, which is not really what their job is supposed to be. They're supposed to be giving you, you know, honest facts and evidence, and we should debate, you know, the things that they care about. Instead, it's become identity, politics, and attacks on personality and all these different things. But the legacy media truly chose a side, and that was Kamala Harris. And on the other side, you saw Robert Kennedy Jr. and Donald Trump using social media.

Basically, the only place that would give them a fair conversation at all. So, you know, the Joe Rogan podcast, the Tucker Carlson's, all of that. And I will say that this election now and this result proves that. legacy media is now dead. It is dead in the water. Where we used to go to understand our politics is no longer able to drive an outcome, even when it wants to, and it clearly wanted to hear. Instead, all of those free voices, all of those uncensored voices, all of really those unfunded voices that don't take on, you know, Exxon and Farmer, the way I do, the way that we have to go to the people, so we speak for the people. That is what one here. And it really is, it is a

devastating, terrifying moment for all mainstream media, NBC, ABC, CBS, they're terrified. They've lost control. And behind all of that, and what really in this election was sort of where I started choosing sides was because Kamala Harris and Tim Walts were very clear that they didn't believe that the First Amendment and free speech was an absolute, that there should be caveats to free speech, that there was things like misinformation that the government should be involved in shutting down and stopping. has lost his privileges and it should be taken down.

And the bottom line is that you can't say that you have one rule for Facebook and you have a different rule for Twitter. The same rule has to apply, which is that there has to be a responsibility that is placed on these social media sites to understand their power. They are directly speaking to millions and millions of people without any level of oversight or regulation. And that has to stop. Now that's problematic.

when the very people telling you that there's misinformation are the ones you keep catching distributing misinformation. If you've watched this show clearly masks don't work, you know it, but they won't say it. Social distancing was not scientific. They know it, but they will not say it. Tony Fauci finally admitted in front of the Congress, but that didn't play on NBC, CBS, ABC, or anywhere. The fact that it just kind of appeared, we just kind of made up the six-foot distancing rule,

which meant if that rule didn't exist, there would have been no lockdowns because it wouldn't have made sense. We've been no separating ourselves. Wouldn't be blocking ourselves from our hospital so we couldn't see our elderly die. All of that lie were lies. And now those people that lied to us were suddenly supposed to hand them our First Amendment right

and free speech and say, you decide what's true and what's not true. I want to go through this. But to make this point, really, and help me make this point, is arguably maybe the most powerful entity in the world of communication. And that's Joe Rogan.

This is just a clip from his interview with President Trump. You just assume because people love you on The Apprentice, they were going to love you as a president? Well, I think it would be so easy. You know, it's very interesting. Well, it probably would have been if the media didn't attack you the way they did. If they didn't conflate you with Hitler, I mean, even today, like Kamala was talking about you and Hitler. They're going to take what you said about Robert E. Lee. Oh, Donald Trump wishes the South one.

That's right. He loves Robert Ely. They love to take things out of context and distort. things. It's so crooked. The press is so crooked. It's crooked, but it's also, they're diminishing themselves. They're, they are, they're killing all their credibility. And it's opening up the credibility to new media. It's open up the credibility to independent media. It's because the internet's giving people information that they're not getting from anywhere else. And they like the very fine people hoax, the Russia gate hoax, all these different things that they've done, they tried to

pin on you. That's like, it's a clear distortion of what you actually said. And I believe that that is what happened to the Democratic Party. It got involved in lies and distortion. Somehow, maybe the same corporate interests that control that party, also control the televisions, made their choice, but it's the lies and distortion that's destroyed the confidence that citizens have in the United States of America, in the government, in the regulatory agencies, and most importantly, in news itself. But I want to go through just a couple of examples. We won't go through the, you know, the laptop story, which we now know the CIA and FBI lied to the world when they said that it was a ruksha hoax. The hoax was being put on by the CIA and FBI, clearly for the interests of the

Biden family. We won't get into many of the others. I want to get to the more modern ones, the one that keeps getting brought up probably the most, that Donald Trump is a racist. I've heard this from my own friends and family that are liberals. Donald Trump's a racist. He never spoke out against the white supremacist. In fact, said there's good people inside of it. This is the line we saw all the time in the news. But you also had people that were Very fine people on both sides. All right, well, that was the line. You heard it.

It would be clipped exactly like that. And this is how they would use it to spread the fury and the rage against President Trump. Take a look. President Trump's once again defending comments he made about the white supremacists and neo-Nazis who gathered in Charlottesville two years ago. At a basic level, he is an indecent human being. And the comments that he made at Charlottesville bring that home, I think more powerfully and more pointedly than anything else he has said.

He did not trip and accidentally praise white supremacists and neo-Nazis and pro-Confederate demonstrators who actually killed somebody this weekend. This was not a screw-up. What he is building back up is something that was a long-standing force for political power and terror in this country for generations, and he is now doing what he can to help them come back. It is insulting. The president is ignorant of history. He does not know context.

He should be ashamed of himself. He should go back to school and get an elementary education on how this country started and about protest groups and how this country works and who he represents and who he should represent. I mean, you know, how do you defend that? You can't say that there's good people on both sides and on one of the sides as white supremacists. How are those good people? A really good argument that half this country keeps making. But the problem is, is they use a much of the problem. They use a manipulation that you can actually clip something and choose the part you want and take it completely out of context.

Now, for those of you that are watching other forms of news, you've probably seen this. If you were strictly watching CNN, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, you never saw this. So for those of you that are still with us right now, let's for the first time show you what the entire statement sounded like and the part that they like to cut out. This is what President Trump actually said. You had some very bad people in that group, but you also had people that were very fine people on both sides. And I'm not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists because they should be condemned totally.

But you had many people in that group other than neo-Nazis and white nationalists, okay? And the press has treated them absolutely unfairly. I mean, there you have it. You never got that part of the clip. They say he'd never condemned that. What do you talk about? condemned them in the very same statement, in the same room, on the same stage. You never got to see that part. I happen to be, I've even had a call because I was in Washington, D.C. on January 6th.

I spoke on a side stage about medical freedom, and my experience of that event was mother's children, grandparents, people, you know, sharing sandwiches, sharing blankets, all gathered together. It was really beautiful. We never hear about those good people. All we see is the storming the gates and all of the craziness because that's all they want you to know that happened. And in this case, it's the exact same thing. President Trump is saying there was good people on all sides and then there was this group that absolutely should be condemned and he did condemn them. You never heard that.

But the big one happened for me because of the work that I've been doing, I've actually been speaking on stages where Donald Trump was also speaking and I got to actually see him live for the first time, which was far more entertaining, by the way, than I had ever realized. I invited a couple of family members. So you really got to see this guy speak because these events are joy, love-filled. My wife even said the first one we went to just a couple of weeks ago.

She says, oh, my God, there's so much joy in this room is packed like 20,000 people. They're singing and they're praying together and just, it's a love fest and celebrating the future and a dream of the future. And then you go home and watch mainstream news calling the event I was just at with my family, something I would easily bring my kids to

calling them, you know, white supremacists, Nazi rallies, filled with hate speech. And I can't tell you what it's like to be like living in one world. And then knowing when watching the news, paint a totally different world for some people that are stuck in some bubble, unfortunately. And I'm not accusing them to my family members and friends that may be watching this that bought into it. I get it. If you were coming home, if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, it wouldn't believe it.

But here is the line just last week that is an absolute lie about what was said. This is what they ripped into Donald Trump was saying, and I was in the room when I saw this statement made. She's a radical war hawk. Let's put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrel shooting at her, okay? Let's see how she feels about it. You know, when the guns are trained on her face. Well, that was the line. It certainly sounds terrifying and horrifying.

And boy, they sure made it sound like that. In the news, this is what you saw on all those other channels. Trump calls for Cheney execution. Donald Trump is escalating his violent rhetoric. This is not acceptable. This is so dangerous. A former president of the United States suggesting that guns should be trained at the face of a woman who simply just disagrees with him politically.

It's a direct threat. Not nine barrels pointed at her. nine barrel shooting at her. This is just, yeah. Well, I. Let's see how she feels when the guns are trained on her face. Let's sit with that for a moment. He is a sick man.

He is a deranged man. He has certain well-defined personality disorders. This is how dictators destroy free nations. They threaten those who speak against them with death, adding, we cannot entrust our country and our freedom to a petty, vindictive, cruel, unstable man who wants to be a tyrant. Nine rifles aimed at Liz Cheney's face to shoot at her face. This is how Donald Trump is ending his campaign for president.

Anyone who wants to be president of the United States who uses that kind of violent rhetoric is clearly unqualified to be president. Now, for those on the Trump side, imagine if you live in a world where that's all you heard, all day, 24 hours a day. Sick, psychophant, liar, killer, calls for the assassination of Liz Cheney. I mean, honestly, that should be disqualifying if you start calling for the assassination of previous senators or Congress, really frankly, any American. I would have agreed with that if it happened to be true. But here's the problem.

Either every one of those people are absolute morons, which I doubt they are, or they are liars. Because all you had to do was go about five more words down the sentence to recognize that is not at all the context or what was being said. So shall we do this again? Why don't we play the statement that I saw with my own eyes and had to go home and watch my family members and friends have to sit through that lie? but here's what was actually sad. She's a radical war hawk. Let's put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrel shooting at her, okay?

Let's see how she feels about it. You know, when the guns are trained on her face. You know, they're all war hawks when they're sitting in Washington in a nice building saying, oh, gee, Will. Let's send 10,000 troops right into the mouth of the enemy. But she's a stupid person, and I used to have meetings

with a lot of people, and she always wanted to go to war with people. Actually, it's a statement that even Bill Maher said on his own show. He said, we lied. I don't know why we're lying. I woke up today to the headline that Trump had called for a firing squad for Liz Cheney. And this is what I really don't like about the media. No, he didn't. You don't have to move me to not like Donald Trump. He's criticizing him for being a war hawk.

I mean, she has Dick Cheney's daughter. This was a statement that is exactly like what every piece Nick has ever said. My own hippie parents always said that they just took these politicians, the Nixon's and those that put our children at war, you know, tricky-dicky, stick him on the front lines and then see if he's so keen to send everybody to war. When you make that statement, you're passionate about it. Why are you rushing thousands and thousands of our young children and people into harm's way for stupid wars that only sell oil pipes for your family?

or gas companies or this and that. That statement is made by Democrats forever, liberals, hippies. That was the statement. Was these politicians, they should have to sit on the front line some time and then see if they want to send our kids to war at every single issue that may be little conflict that's out there so that we can continue to make money for the CIA. All stuff, by the way, which is about to change.

It is true. Donald Trump had less war than any president in my lifetime. He's the only one that backed out of war. Yes, he is against war if it's not necessary. The least, I mean, it should be the last absolute resort. But look at what they did. Those are criminals to me. That is not journalism.

Every one of those people that hold the same title that I do with journalists, I do not believe they deserve to be called that. Because you are lying to the people. You are knowingly taking something out of context and making it mean something completely different than what was. stated. And by the way, when people are speaking live all the time and stepping in front of every camera, yeah, they're not going to say it perfectly. I hope they're not. They're not robots. I don't want like post-it notes floating through that they can perfectly memorize. I like people that speak freely and put their ideas together. And if you're going to take every little word out of context because they didn't say the sentence structure exactly right, you know what you're

doing. You know what they meant. What are we going to get back to? what people mean. And I will say this. We're going to talk more about these issues further down the show. I have had the opportunity to be around Donald Trump a little bit. I've gotten to see him speak a lot. And I've gotten to watch him interact with people I really care about. And I've watched him interact with his own family and kids. And I will say this, he's a beautiful guy. He loves his family. He loves this country. And throughout this process, because I got to get close enough, I fell in love with Donald Trump too. That may be shocking to many of my family

and to other friends out there, but that was my personal experience. It's not what the high wire represents, not what our nonprofit represents. I'm sharing with you my experience is what I plan to do today. This show is going to be partly about that.