The Young Turks - Shameless Smears

Episode Date: May 3, 2024

Hundreds were arrested after police move in to clear UCLA pro-Palestinian encampment. Ken Klippenstein shares why he left The Intercept. ""I do not say that lightly"": CNN’s Dana Bash warns rising anti-Semitism is ""hearkening back to the 1930s in Europe.""" HOST: Ana Kasparian (@anakasparian), Cenk Uygur (@cenkuygur) SUBSCRIBE on YOUTUBE: ☞ https://www.youtube.com/user/theyoungturks FACEBOOK: ☞ https://www.facebook.com/theyoungturks TWITTER: ☞ https://www.twitter.com/theyoungturks INSTAGRAM: ☞ https://www.instagram.com/theyoungturks TIKTOK: ☞ https://www.tiktok.com/@theyoungturks 👕 Merch: https://shoptyt.com ❤ Donate: http://www.tyt.com/go 🔗 Website: https://www.tyt.com 📱App: http://www.tyt.com/app 📬 Newsletters: https://www.tyt.com/newsletters/ If you want to watch more videos from TYT, consider subscribing to other channels in our network: The Watchlist https://www.youtube.com/watchlisttyt Indisputable with Dr. Rashad Richey https://www.youtube.com/indisputabletyt The Damage Report ▶ https://www.youtube.com/thedamagereport TYT Sports ▶ https://www.youtube.com/tytsports The Conversation ▶ https://www.youtube.com/tytconversation Rebel HQ ▶ https://www.youtube.com/rebelhq TYT Investigates ▶ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwNJt9PYyN1uyw2XhNIQMMA Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to The Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome. Thank you. Sleep, sleep, sleep. That's what I do. Begha! Live from the Polymarker Studio in LA, it's the Young Turks, Jane Cougar, Anna Conspirant with you guys, and of course all of our members that bring you this show as well.

All right, lots of crazy stuff on the show, you know, of course, campus chaos, of course, of course. But high jinx from Rudy Giuliani and Michael Cohen later in the program. And then- I hate to admit, sorry to interrupt you, the Rudy Giuliani story is the story that I feel like we all need. We all need a break. And that story is it? Okay. 100%. And then later in the program, maybe in the bonus episode for the members, we're going to do a story about how Silicon Valley executives are considering doing a fascist takeover over the country. Oh, great, because things weren't messed up enough. So the details are actually kind of both amusing and horrifying. They literally use the phrase ethnic cleansing.

It's in a favorable way. It's unbelievable, unbelievable. All right, so that's later in the program, Casper. Well, we begin with campus chaos. Of course, we're referring to the ongoing protests on college campuses across the nation. Let's give you some updates on that. Violent protest is not protected. Peaceful protest is.

It's against the law when violence occurs. Destroying property is not a peaceful protest. It's against the law. Vandalism, trespassing, breaking windows, shutting down campuses, forcing the cancellation of classes and graduations. None of this is a peaceful protest. Threatening people, intimidating people, instilling fearing people is not peaceful protest. Bha, get off my lawn, that was President Joe Biden, breaking his silence in regard to the ongoing pro-Palestinian protests that have been taking place on college campuses across the nation.

Now, unfortunately, there have been two different ways in handling the protests by school administrations, the bad way and the good way. The negative way has been to call the police and essentially crack the skulls of the protesters who have the, built encampments, tent encampments on those campuses, minding their business, but obviously making their demands for the university to divest from Israeli companies known. In the other example, you have schools like Brown University that actually decided to interact and engage with the students and they came up with a solution and these students peacefully dismantled their tent encampment and they went on with their day. Now what you heard there from President Joe Biden was fascinating framing because he would have you believe that

these protests have been violent and dangerous. There have been some instances of some vandalism, but to say that these protests are violent in nature is insane. In fact, the only instance that you can see very clear and dangerous violence was on the campus of UCLA. And the reason why things got violent is because pro-Israeli counter protesters showed up and started throwing fire, you know, firecrackers and things like that at the protesters. And beating people with sticks. Correct, we'll show you evidence of that in just a moment. So I got a lot of thoughts on the UCLA thing because my God,

did they arrest the wrong people? And the propaganda myth-making factory, mainstream media is unblue. It's a perfect details in this story. Just quick note on Biden though. He said breaking windows, well, no, actually a window. Okay, that's the only window that was broken was one little pain in the Columbia Hamilton Hall. I'm not saying that, hey, it was definitely right to go into Hamilton Hall.

That's a good and interesting debate, right? But let's be clear about the situation here. He says, oh, they're forcing the colleges to cancel graduation ceremonies. Are they? Did they demand that any graduations be canceled? No, it's the universities that are canceling the graduations. The universities that are asking the cops to arrest everyone. Almost everything that he put on the peace protesters is what his side actually did.

So let's give you some updates on what the, latest updates have been on these college campuses. So last night, for instance, authorities gave protesters in the UCLA encampment an ultimatum. Either you leave or you face arrest. Hundreds of individuals did choose to stay by morning. About 200 of them had been arrested and here is some footage showing you what the scene look like. What you are hearing there are flashbangs or stun grenades that that police are deploying and you're hearing some of the students who are in that encampment

yelling as police in a mass move are trying to what is called kettling, trying to get around this protest to try to make the smaller and smaller and smaller so they are pushed into an area where they can then bring them out, detain them using the zip ties that we've been seeing them use throughout the morning. Yeah, fascinating. So who had the zip ties, who had the zip ties, who had the, you know, grenades, flash grenades, who had the rubber bullets. It was the cops. And from what I saw, the cops were the ones who were being super aggressive and violent with the students who in every video that I've seen prior to the cops being called did not engage in violence. They tried to defend themselves on multiple occasions when counter

protesters showed up and tried to beat them, tried to take down the encampments walls in order to get to them, but I mean, it's funny how little the lives, like it didn't matter what the protesters did. That's what this all says to me. The protesters can be as nonviolent as humanly possible. They can be engaging in this protest for the most righteous reason, which is to stop the bombing in Gaza, which has already killed so far more civilians than Hamas militants. And that's something that the IDF has acknowledged and conceded to. Yeah. But it doesn't matter, Jank, you can't be perfect enough if you are protesting what Israel is

carrying out in Gaza. The government, the school administration, the corporate media, they're all going to come down hard on you and smear you as if you're the one engaging in violence. It's insane. Okay, guys, part of what we do here is break the gaslighting so you don't feel alone and crazy when everyone is lying to you. So look at this perfect example here at UCLA. So the one biggest case of violence in any of these protests, as Anna pointed out,

was when the pro-Israel extremists, because they're not, they don't represent everybody who's pro-Israel, right? And pro-Israel is a wrong word anyway. But okay, we simplify that way. Those guys, the extremists, attacked the UCLA students. They beat them with sticks. They, you know, yell at an old lady. They do all these horrible, horrible things.

None of them are arrested. And then they say, we demand that the victims be arrested. And the cops say, well, of course. worse and they arrest the victims and none of the perpetrator. And then the cops say, when people ask, hey, why did you do that? They say, well, because we wanted to prevent violence. That's why we arrested the victims of the violence. I have to show you another example of the violence because we mentioned the

firecrackers being thrown at the encampment by the counter protesters. Here's the example that I'm referring to. Go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go. You get a kid! You get a . Go! Go! There you go, here by your soul.

Watch behind them. No! Free balance! Free balance! Let's do it! Free balance! Oh! Oh!

God! Oh my God! Oh my God! So again, that was the campus of UCLA. You have the counter protesters throwing fireworks into the encampment of the pro-Palestinian protesters. Maybe they thought it was Israel and they could just bomb people with impunity. And it turns out, they could, okay? So those, for those of you that are only listening to this show, the firecrackers are significant and they land inside the encampment and then blow up, okay?

But to me, that pales in comparison to F you old lady as they were manhandling an older woman in the encampment, and then just bum rushing the protesters hitting them. And then of course there's the videos where they clobber them with sticks over their heads. But can we be honest about why there was no arrests when obviously the counter protesters were massively violent because if you arrested pro-Israel protesters, you'd be in a lot of trouble. So I was watching local news last night because they were streaming everything that was happening on the UCLA campus.

And first of all, let me just say the local media's commentary, particularly K-Cal 5, was so egregious and disgusting. They were, they were so thirsty for violence. But for violence to be carried out against the pro-Palestinian protesters, the reporter on the scene, I'm sorry, I forgot his name, one of the most disgusting on the ground reporters I've heard in a long time, he went on to suggest that, oh, the protesters look well supplied. These protesters are probably, you know, who's funding them? Who's behind this?

Almost as if, almost as if these are like paid actors and they don't genuinely feel any type of commitment to the cause that they're protesting about. The other thing that he was talking about was, well, you know, these protesters have these wood sheets, like sheets of wood, right? I forget what it's called, even though I work with wood. Anyway, but they're doing that to protect themselves from the counter protesters. He doesn't mention that they're doing that to protect themselves from the counter protesters at all.

He just mentions how they have built this fence for what? inviting people to attack it. You see how it's the victim's fault? So Fox News out did them, their so-called analysts came on and said, the counter protesters taking a brave stand by attacking the protesters. Oh, that's what I was gonna say. What is that's a brave stand to assault people? This is what the reporter said in regard to the police not stepping in to

protect those in the encampment. He said, well, you know, these are probably the same protesters who wanted to defund the police. So now they're asking for police to protect them. He literally said that. Yeah, no, don't worry the cops came, though, to arrest the victims. All right, so last couple of things here on this UCLA part. Number one, so how do we know what really happened?

It's not just the videos that we're seeing online. It's all the print reporters on the scene, including the L.A. Times, thank you for being there. Thank you for doing great journalism. They clearly say there is absolutely no question at all that it was the pro-Israel extremist that attacked first and throughout, okay? And they were stunned that cops just would not, and security, would not step in to protect the protesters. So what happened is crystal clear.

Now if you watch cable news, did you get the sense that the most violent attack was against peace protesters, not by peace protesters? So when I say you'll be in a lot of trouble, what do I mean by that? There's nothing like nefarious, like, oh, there's a group that makes decisions in the hands about, no, no, no, no. So like, but there is some level of group things, certainly in the media. So that's why you see us pointing out consistently what reality is. Because if you watch cable news, they will take these same videos, Fox News literally did it, and blame the victims.

And they'll say, can you see how these protesters were sitting around waiting to get assaulted? And God bless the counter protesters for assaulting them. They said it was a brave stand to do it, right? So we're breaking the gas lighting in that sense. And then, but if they, because of that, if they actually arrested the counter protesters, the media would have rained down hell on UCLA, the president of UCLA, the dean of UCLA, etc, Congress might have called them in for investigations. And then you've got the alumni, like in the Columbia's case, Robert Kraft,

who are, you know, multi-millionaire. I don't know if he's a billionaire yet, owner of the New England Patriots, saying I'm going to cut off all your funding. I mean, there is a significant price, it's not coordinated, but there is a significant price to pay if you don't support the Israel side. Listen, I get, I totally get why you have to keep giving the caveat about how it's not coordinated. And to be clear, there is no indication that there's something coordinated going on. But does it even matter?

Does it matter if it's coordinated or not? I mean, you have wall-to-wall negative coverage toward these protesters, regardless of how peaceful they are, regardless of how much others try to provoke them into violence. And they, you know, do not take the bait. The media is against them. Our politicians are against them. I mean, you have Congress, the House of Representatives in a story we're going to cover later, passing an unconstitutional bill to essentially censor protesters from criticizing a foreign government, Israel.

Yeah, so we're going to talk about that later in the show. We're also going to talk about Dana Bash's CNN segment that was so egregious later on the show. But part of that segment I wanted to point out here, because she showed a video of a Jewish student being blocked from somewhere, you know, being able to go to class. Allegedly. No, no, they do, but she left out the most critical thing of all, which is, and I know this from UCLA students and people on the ground. They were blocking, and reporters, they were blocking everyone. Like it was a matter, they weren't like, oh, Jewish student, block him, but hey, you Christian

or Muslim go through. No, they were blocking him, and you could be mad at them for blocking everyone. But the media makes it look like they're terrible anti-Semites who are only blocking the Jewish students. And then Jewish Americans justifiably are freaked out by that. They're like, what the hell is this? If that's what I thought reality was, I'd be livid about it too. In fact, that was the first video we ever showed you on this at Columbia when they were blocking a student because they called them Zionists and they were doing a human chain. I said, that's terrible, right? But that's not what happened at UCLA. But if you do the right thing, the media will smear you.

There's no question about it. Jay, and that's why this story has been, all right, like full disclosure. This story has been difficult to cover because there's so much misinformation and half truths floating around all over the place. And so look, the video that Dana Bass showed, you don't see a full context. So I don't know if he was trying to walk into the encampment and the students felt threatened by it, right? You don't know the full context of that video. But aside from that, you see these instances of violence occurring, right?

And if you don't know the full context of what happened at UCLA, you don't know, you don't know the full context of what happened at UCLA, you might be fooled into thinking that the violence was carried out against the pro-Israel protesters. Yeah, I mean, because it's a looking glass. It's just, it goes through the lens of mainstream media before it arrives to you. And in that lens, they distorted so that it's totally unrecognizable from the truth. It's not just mainstream media, Jank. It's also online, okay?

People who have political agendas online, who have biases online, they'll share videos and they'll do so in a dishonest way, or they'll narrate the video in a dishonest way, which is why it's been difficult to cover. And to be honest with you, the same thing happened during, you know, the summer of 2020 with the BLM protests. And you should never take anything you see online at face value. See if there's fuller context into it. And if there isn't, just wait for the story to develop more. But one thing that's been clear to me, and I've noticed this as a trend when it comes to the news coverage overall of the pro-Palestinian protesters, they've been considered the bad guys since day one. So regardless of what their conduct was, the coverage

was going to be negative. And I want to give you a few other examples of other campuses and how those campuses responded to the protesters. Police did clear the Portland State University Library this morning, which was occupied by protesters. Yesterday, the NYPD also arrested 15 students at Fordham University. And late last night, 90 protesters were arrested at Dartmouth University. But some students are actually making some impressive gain. So I want to end on that, right? Because the universities that have actually decided to engage with the students in good faith. And also another thing that stood out, the students who had very specific demands actually saw some success. So Brown and Northwestern

are considering divesting from companies tied to Israel. Now, Brown specifically was willing to engage with the students because they asked for 11 companies specifically for the university to divest from. And so they are now considering doing that. And then today we heard news that there is yet another university that is considering the demands, at least some of the demands from the protesters. So the encampments that were put up by protesters at the University of Minnesota today are being dismantled. And that's because the university, the university, has agreed to hear them out. So here are the concessions that the school is willing to make.

And, you know, it's not limited to this, but here's what they are willing to do so far, giving students the opportunity to address the Board of Regents on the matter of divesting from weapons manufacturers and companies linked to the Israeli military. So it's not just simply Israeli companies, it's military-related companies that they have an issue with. Also, the school has agreed to disclosing additional information about the University these holdings in public companies, which I think makes a lot of sense. I mean, the endowment is funded, at least partially, by tuition. The students should know where that money is invested in.

Yep, and I have a last couple points here. First from the members, because they made some great points here. Sudo Dragon Rodin, they were fireworks, not firecrackers. It's a big and much more explosive difference. Thank you for pointing out that difference, so I appreciate it. Look at the members doing the show with us. Hit the join button below, become one of those members. Just Jim wrote in.

I was at Ohio State during the Vietnam War protests. Everything was fine and peaceful until outside non-student forces arrived, just saying. So yes, this happens almost every peace protest, every civil rights protest, some people come in, and it's mainly the cops who do the attacking and cause the violence and then blame it on the peace protesters. It's not to say that everybody in every peace protest in history has been an angel, et cetera, but it's so easy to pick out a couple of needles from that haystack and to try to make It seemed like, oh, it's all of them. The peaceful ones are the violent ones because George Orwell was right about everything.

And then finally, look, in terms of the outsiders, I saw all mainstream media emphasizing this. And I thought, that's curious. I wonder where they're going to go with this talking point. Because I could, like, I can understand students saying, hey, listen, we didn't do anything wrong. Maybe a couple of agitators from the outside came in and said some terrible things or whatever. But why is mainstream media talking about outside agitators, right? Well, part one was they understood, oh, the student, attacking the students doesn't look great.

So let's pretend it's agitators and they're the real problems. Okay, but that was nothing compared to the main course. So I got on Chris Cuomo's show on News Nation last night and he says, what if it's another country that's funding these protests and sending in these outside forces and maybe a Middle Eastern country. What if it's the Muslim Brotherhood that's doing it? Like what kind of insane conjecture is this? And I told I've never disagreed with you more.

And then I was like, oh, that's what they're gonna go with. And then this morning, Morning Joe says, look, I gotta say it. It could be Qatar. What do you think you gotta say? Do you have evidence to that? They're just making it up that Qatar and the Muslim Brotherhood were somehow causing the violence. From the peace protest, it's just, it's like, look, if Alex Jones said it, you would say it's a lunatic conspiracy theory.

No, but, Jenk, I mean, to be fair, it would be absolutely devastating for our country if a foreign country had that kind of power over our people, over maybe our power centers, you know what I'm saying? Outreach, well, and of course, that's part of the projection here, because since they're so overly, enormously influenced by Israel, let's just spit it out. Let's say, of course, APEG spending all that money, at least in the case of the politicians makes, gee, I, one of a hundred million dollars has a, it makes a difference of politicians, right? But everybody in Washington will say, that's an outrageous and offensive thing to say. Okay, so bottom line is they're like dirty Arabs, they did all the violence and no evidence at all. This is just a giant smear machine against, like 99% of the peace protesters that, again, I talked to somebody to Columbia, they're wondering, peace protesters are so careful about

their fan 99% of the time for 99% of them. And when the arrest first happened, they were shell shocked in Colombia, because there was nothing going on. There was a couple of videos outside of campus, and all of a sudden they're like, this perfectly peaceful protest, 100 people arrested. Last thing, finally, we got to find out about the outside agitators from Qatar that came into the Columbia protest, the New York Police Department released the number of people. What was the percentage and the raw number that were outsiders in those protests of Colombia?

One. Really? Yes, one of the people arrested. I had not seen that. I was wondering about that because there was a lot going on about the individuals who occupied Hamilton Hall and renamed it Hins Hall. Some people were claiming that they were outside agitators. I believe Mayor Eric Adams was one of them. Oh yeah, Eric Adams is lying about almost everything. So, like, and New York Post just brazenly with no information at all, say, ah, probably about half of the agitators or outsiders, etc. And they're all making it seem like that there was a takeover by nefarious, dark Muslim

forces, taking these poor students and making them violent and attacking the Jewish students. And again, if you're Jewish, I get it. If you thought that's real, if that's what you're I'm not be curious. Yeah, absolutely. If that is what you're hearing 24-7 from the media, I could totally understand why you'd be terrified. But it sucks because they're instilling fear in people that don't need to feel that level of fear.

And at the same time, they're smearing peaceful protesters and not doing their jobs as journalists. We gotta take a break when we come back. We're gonna have a fascinating interview with a former colleague of ours, Ken Clippenstein, who has chosen to step down from the intercept and strike out on his own as an independent journalist. independent journalist. We'll talk about why when we come back.

Ken Schistler, Christine M, Gypsy, and- Roma, please. Okay, that is actually their handle, I didn't choose it. And then look at all these beautiful people that gifted five young tourist memberships, Titan, The Cynic Box, Jesse, and Lady Fukinty gifted 10. You guys are the best, I love it. Hit the join button below like them, Anna. All right, well, a former colleague of ours, Ken Clippenstein,

has officially resigned from the Intercept and did so through a public post on Substack titled, Why I'm Resigning from the Intercept and starting something new. Now in the piece, Clippenstein explains that the Intercept nearly killed one of his stories, a well-read piece that he and one of his colleagues wrote over some funding related concerns. Now the piece, which was finally published in The Intercept, was Bezos cuts $50 million check to celebrity admiral as Washington Post flounders. The post needs $100 million. Its owner gave that amount to retired Admiral William McRaven and Eva Longoria to direct to charity.

So luckily to talk to us about this and to talk about his decision to do this is Ken Klippenstein himself. Ken, thank you so much for joining us and talking to us a little bit about what you experienced. Hey guys, it's good to be home. So good to have you. So let me ask the first question here because you know, you, I thought that the substack piece you wrote was an important one because you talk about the business model at the Intercept changing and you specifically complain about the suits. And I want to know more about that. So explain to our audience what you meant.

Yeah, so there was a new CEO appointed, I think about a year and a half ago and several months ago, she laid off the editor and chief subsequent to that the deputy editor resigned in addition to that they laid off the social media editor managing editor you know various other senior editors so huge loss to the newsroom now you know in some sense the intercept had you know financial problems so it's understandable that something had to be done but what was done subsequent to that is what was particularly egregious which was hiring up all of these other business and administrative roles to the point that you know And in the substack posting, which I encourage people to go and read so they can see the evidence and decide for themselves, it shows that about half the company at this point is business side. There's like a one-to-one ratio of people in the newsroom to these administrative roles and positions. And so what that says to me is what is the priority here? Journalism or something else? So you actually included a chart of what that looks like. And so can we put that chart up, guys? So this is the company's chart picture that kind of gives you a sense of this top heavy situation. On the left hand side of the screen is where you see those in administrative business roles.

And then on the right hand of the screen, you have people who are specifically working in the content side of things, what you're likely to read about when you log on to The Intercept and read their articles. And so what I thought was really fascinating was the number of attorneys that were hired. Can you talk about that a little bit? Yeah, so they have not just a general counsel who, according to the most recent 990, because it's a nonprofit, you can look up some of the senior executive salaries, makes over $300,000 a year. In addition to that, there's another full-time attorney. And there's a third attorney, or it's called a, it's like a legal fellow.

And so it's like, again, you know, everywhere I've worked when I work with you guys, they had these guys on retainer. They didn't have a staff person. And here they have multiple staff people. And it just doesn't comport at all with the experience that I had at other similar sized news organizations. Yeah. So Ken, as I was reading your piece, I have an interesting viewpoint on this because I'm not only on air, but as you know, I run TYT. So I looked at some of that. And I get what you're saying about way. The editors are fine. but then you've got a bunch of management people. But if the intercept is having trouble raising enough money to be sustainable, which I think everybody acknowledges that it is, then it would make sense to hire more people on the business and to try to lift that number up.

Because an executive editor as incredibly important as they are, is not going to necessarily be able to figure out the business model for how to make a subscription business, sustainable, et cetera. So is there a chance that you're being too tough on them in a really tough situation where they've got to bring in some experts to get to get those numbers up and stay in business? Yeah, so those layoffs actually happened a number of months ago, and I didn't say anything about it. There were a number of people that criticized it. I kept an open mind about it exactly for the reason that you raise. And what I found over the weeks and months that followed was that this financial situation was not

improving subsequent to those hires. And fundraising was not significantly improving to the point that, you know, they're very likely going to be more layoffs because of that lack of improvement. So again, you know, I said at the beginning of this interview that I get, you know, I understand that something had to be done. So I'm not necessarily saying, you know, it's, it's, you know, out beyond the pale that they would restructure your organization, but to restructure it and then not have the financial situation improved, it's kind of the worst of both worlds because you've lost staff in the newsroom and it's not writing the ship economically. Right, especially if it's having an impact on your coverage or your reporting,

which we're gonna get to in just a moment, I promise. But there's one other thing I wanted to say, and it's more a comment than a question, I'm sorry, I'm self-indulgent, but the sense that I got from reading your piece was that the intercept had just grown accustomed to receiving money from a billionaire benefactor and didn't think to diversify their business model and find other streams of revenue so they wouldn't be so reliant on this one person. And then all of a sudden you have that benefactor reconsidering how much money he's going to provide for the intercept. And then they scramble, they panic, they fire a bunch of people on the journalist's side and hire a bunch of administrative people who, based on what you're saying, have not proven, you know, successful

in raising money for the company. understanding was initially $250 million. Okay. And bless his heart, by the way, fantastic. Terrific that he put that money in. Now he's going to stop financing it. But in one of the stories that you cited, they were concerned about Amidiyar's point of view. Is he still financing it? Is he not financing it anymore? I just, I literally don't understand. Oh, he definitely is. And although the general counsel should not have intervened in that fashion, he's not wrong. to be concerned about that, but the problem is when you go into journalism, you can't be thinking about those sorts of things. That's something you hang at the door when you decide to be

your reporter. And sometimes that means, as I'm sure you guys have experienced, sometimes that means you lose money. And that's just how it goes. And in this case, yes, there were similarities. He's not wrong about that, but that can't cut into the editorial and newsroom judgment that takes place. Yeah. Yeah. So to Anna's earlier point to, look, I'm more sympathetic to their business struggles. And even though, let's be honest, I mean, for literally 10% of the money, we have found a way to make it, you know, close to sustainable with our members. We need a little bit more, but we're almost there, right? Whereas the intercept's nowhere near it because they never got used to actually running a sustainable business. So I don't think they're going to make it,

to be honest. I think they're going to crash. And honestly, it's such a shame because the intercept has been so wonderful in covering stories that corporate media never covers, right? Stories that actually do hold our State Department responsible, you know, real muckraking journalism that the profession of journalism was founded on. And so it really breaks my heart to know that, you know, an organization where I've enjoyed your reporting, Jeremy Scahill's reporting, Ryan Grimm's reporting is struggling financially, but to your point about the journalists, the journalism being impacted by some of these structural changes. I wanted to talk about the piece that nearly got killed, the piece

that you wrote with your colleague Bogus Law. Can you tell us a little more about what the piece is and then get into why the general counsel, David Brawleau, had a problem with it. Yeah, so the piece is pretty straightforward. And I thought classic intercept fair, because it concerned the former chief of the Joint Special Operations Command, Admiral William McRaven, who, about whom our founder, Jeremy Scaill, or the Intercepts founder, wrote an entire book and an Academy Award-nominated documentary of the same name. So I thought, wow, this is right up R. Haley. And so the crux of the story is that Jeff Bezos, the billionaire founder of Amazon, gave a $100 million

charity grant, money to be spent on charities of their choosing, split halfway between an actress Evolongoria and Admiral McRaven. And what struck me about that was the $100 million is exactly

the sum of money that the Washington Post posted as a loss. I think the year prior to that, resulting in devastating cuts to their newsroom. And obviously, Bezos is free to do whatever he wants with the money. But here's the problem.

When he purchased the post, he pledged that he's doing this not as a, you know, money-making venture like a lot of his other investments. And if he had said that, then, you know, he's making investments and that's, you know, for better or worse, how the system works. But he said he's doing it because he cares about the media and he wants the media to thrive. And so for him to take that exact same sum of money and give it to a reality, or what was it, a reality show star, I think. And then this guy who, by the way, McRaven's own wife sits on the board of the nonprofit link to Bezos. I mean, this just struck me as, you know, ridiculous and contrary to the values that he purported to have when he,

when he purchased the post. Yeah, Eva Longoria, not a reality star, how dare you besmirch the good name of Desperate Housewives? But point taken, point taken. Yeah. So I was going to go in the same direction. Ken, like to what degree was you leaving having to do with, hey, the organizational priorities are wrong, right? They're focusing on the wrong side of the business, which, They should be focusing on the journalism, et cetera. And to what degree is it, look, they're just killing stories that the intercept shouldn't be killing. And that's what I can't abide by.

It's a mix of them. I mean, it was no one thing. I probably should have left sooner if I'm honest with you guys and with myself. But I'd been there for three years. I remain friends with, you know, basically everyone in the newsroom, still have affection for them, happy to share their articles. I retweeted a intercept article just today. You know, there's no hard feelings in that regard.

But, you know, when you're in a situation like that, you don't want to let go of the thing that you've become familiar with and have affection for. And so I kind of told myself, okay, so, you know, we're obviously, I mean, I could sense that there were problems with the general counsel and legal overview, you know, in the months prior to that. But, you know, there was, you know, to be real with you guys, there was some degree of, you know, self-deception thinking, okay, well, if I can just make it through this. hopefully it'll get better. And, you know, really the Bezos case was kind of was the precipitating factor, but it was the straw that brought the camel's back. At that point, it was just kind of like, okay, it's clear that I've been lying to myself, but that things are going to improve. They're not. Yeah, Ken, one more thing for me about the specific stories, because I thought this one was the most interesting, egregious, et cetera. The one that we actually did on the show,

where you guys reported on how the Biden administration was being duplicitous about a vote for Palestinian statehood in the UN, how they were, you know, trying to get, I think, was it Costa Rica, it was a Latin American country. Ecuador. Ecuador, yes, sorry, Ecuador. They were pressuring them to make sure that they blocked the Palestinians so that Biden could pretend to be pro-Palestinian while secretly ruining their diplomatic efforts. So the question, that was a great, great piece and really important.

And that's why we covered it here. So that's the one I cared most about. Did you get a sense that they were really concerned about protecting the sources, and that's why they were hesitant with that story? Or did you get a sense that that story was upsetting someone higher up? And that's why they didn't want to run it. I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt on that and think that it was just their own bureaucratic malaise that almost prevented that story from coming out before the UN vote.

Because if you report it after the UN vote, it loses a lot of its public salience. to inform debate about how it's how the voter is going to turn out and potentially inform protests and opposition to it. So just like you're saying, you know, I realized the significance of it. And I thought, okay, this is bigger than me. I have to really white knuckle this and get it through. And so I made a big stink about it because as you were saying, someone on the, I'm not sure if he's considered in the newsroom on the business side, a security official at the intercept said, send me a list of, I'm not going to exaggerate. it must have been like two pages long of questions, which would be warranted in situations where the information is classified and that could lead to criminal indictments of the sort

that, you know, has happened to other intercept sources. I'm sad to say, but this particular document was unclassified, meaning it's perfectly legal to leak. There's not going to be any sort of investigation or recourse to try to, you know, nail the leaker. And so I, I, and unfortunately, they don't differentiate between those two things. I think after the reality winner fiasco, So there's a lot of, you know, embarrassment and concern about preventing something like that from happening again. And so unfortunately, it feels like the solution they've settled on is preventing stories from happening. And that felt like that was going to happen there. And that had happened with other stories that a colleague of mine and I had done.

But in this case, it just felt so important. It was like, I have to push this through. So I made a big deal about it. And fortunately, through not everyone on the business side is bad. I want to be very clear about that. A sympathetic individual on the business side was able to saw how important. It was helped me and we ran it through. We were able to get it through just the day before the UN vote.

Nice, okay. Ken, thank you so much for joining us. Everyone please check out and subscribe to Ken Clippenstein substack, especially because there are very few journalists out there in America who want to cover the types of stories that Ken is covering. Ken, it's really good to see you and speak to you again. Please come back soon. Good to see you guys again.

Take care. And I'll double down on what Ken said earlier too. That doesn't mean the intercept isn't doing great. stories still from time to time. So check them out. Ryan Grimm and the others are still doing great work there despite all this. So thanks for joining us again. Appreciate it. Thanks, guys. All right, back on TYT, Jankana with you guys. Also Bijon 24 who joined through TYT.com slash team. Thank you for doing that and Bone Cop 50 who made a donation.

We appreciate you. And by the way, look, I'm not supposed to officially say this yet, but I'm definitely gonna do it. So for everyone who gives over $100 through t.y.t.com slash team, I'm gonna give you guys a call just to thank you. Okay, we appreciate all you guys and Chris Huggins. Thank you for being a new member on YouTube and Mantis Dragon for gifting 10 memberships, Stephen Sayers for Gifting Five. You guys are all the best. I love this community.

I will give a phone call to anyone who donates $10,000. Okay, that's fair. I'm being honest, I will. I will call you and thank you. Okay, so a little bit higher bar for Anna. Way higher, yes. Okay, but nevertheless, we'll take it either way. TY.T.com slash team, as you saw with the intercept story,

we got to stay in business. This industry is devastated. Let's go to Dana Bash's insane commentary about the college protesters. Many of these protests started peacefully with legitimate questions about the war. But in many cases, they lost the plot. The fear among Jews in this country is palpable right now. CNN's Dana Bash aired one of the honestly most outrageous commentary smearing unarmed anti-genocide protests on college campuses. That is what she did. She essentially labels them as Nazis. Here's more.

Protesting the way the Israeli government, the Israeli prime minister is prosecuting the retaliatory war against Hamas is one thing. Making Jewish students feel unsafe at their own schools is unacceptable, and it is happening way too much right now. I'm a UCLA student. I deserve to go here. We pay tuition. This is our school, and they're not letting me walk in. My classes over there. I want to use that entrance. Well, I can't take it. Will you let me go in? This can be over in a second, just let me and my friends go in. Again, what you just saw is 2024 in Los Angeles, harkening back to the 1930s in Europe. And I do not say that lightly. Now blocking Jewish students is a terrible and inappropriate, immoral thing to do.

However, there's some context missing. Yeah, it's almost a brazen lie by Dana Bash. And she should correct that if she's a real journalist. letting anyone through. It wasn't just targeting Jewish students. If it was just targeting Jewish students, it is a very, very different situation. When they block everyone from going from that particular entrance, you could still be mad, but they're not targeting Jews because they're Nazis. Right. And what was also missing from the context that was missing from her entire segment was the violence directed toward the pro-Palestinian protesters by the counter-protesters.

And no case made that clearer than what happened on the campus of UCLA. In fact, take a look at this. Mel Boer is a staff reporter for the Real News Network. She was at the Gaza Solidarity encampment Tuesday night when counter protesters violently attacked it for several hours. At UCLA in Los Angeles, a pro-Palestinian encampment came under attack overnight from counter protesters using fireworks leading to hours of fighting between the two groups. The encampment in response. The encampment in response raised their barricades. We know as well that the counter protest has knocked over the metal barricades that the university is set up here.

Shant Kodi Alam Nanganadi is a senior staff writer for the Daily Bruin, the UCLA student newspaper. They are one of the four reporters who were attacked. We had all spent hours being out there on the field, reporting, sending messages to our editors, really scared about the scenes that we were seeing on campus towards the protesters in the encampment, the level of violence and vitriol that was in the air. I personally witnessed a counter protester slam a wooden slab on two. an individual who had her hands on the barricade of the encampment and smashing her fingers and listening to her scream.

A large number of counter protesters showed up to campus at around 1050, the big and throwing fireworks at the encampment. They were throwing bird scooters as well at the encampment. Other projectiles, we know that there was tear gas used by counter protesters as well against the encampment, which for the most part has been peaceful since Thursday morning. So you can take issue with occupying a building, you can take issue with the encampments, blocking students from being able to do their regular studying or access the library. Those are fine critiques and criticisms, but to completely omit the violence that was directed

toward those pro-Palestinian protesters by counter protesters, I don't know if it was intentional, I don't want to assume it was, but it makes her segment just wholly inaccurate. Yeah. So again, it's worse than inaccurate because it's kind of flipping the truth on its head because she never condemned the violent attackers, which were on the pro-Israel side in this case. I think they're extremists, but they were on that side. Not only did she not condemn it, she didn't even mention them. she made it appear that there was violence against the pro-Israel side when the exact opposite happened. And Jewish students overall. Yeah, and not only that, it's not Jewish students

over there were actually Jewish students within the pro-Palestine encampment. Right. But it doesn't matter. None of the facts matter. It's just overwhelming, not just propaganda, but demagoguery and fear-mongering. She called the peace protesters the equivalent of Nazis. So the violence, people wonderful or don't even exist, the peace protesters, Nazis. It's beyond the pale. And so by the way, we're gonna tell you in a little bit about a law that the House has already passed where it was going to be illegal to call anything related to Israel Nazis. But if you protest Israel, you could be called Nazis all day long on national television

without any evidence by CNN, there's no correction, no nothing, it's just going to stand. I do want to go to one other portion of her segment where she talks about something that she feels has been completely ignored or neglected by the demonstrators. Many of these protests started peacefully with legitimate questions about the war, but in many cases, they lost the plot. They're calling for a ceasefire. Well, Well, there was a ceasefire on October 6th, the day before Hamas terrorists brutally murdered more than a thousand people inside Israel and took hundreds more as hostages. This hour, I'll speak to an American Israeli family whose son is still held captive

by Hamas since that horrifying day that brought us to this moment. You don't hear the pro-Palestinian protesters talking about that. We will. You know what else I don't hear? I don't hear you on CNN. I don't hear Dana Bash on CNN talking about how the aerial bombardments and the siege of the Gaza Strip is not only impacting the Palestinian civilians, which clearly who cares, they don't matter, right? But the precious hostages that they keep pretending they care so deeply about, if you genuinely are concerned about the hostages, you would maybe, I don't know, be a little more vociferous in your opposition to the IDF's aerial bombardment of that region or the fact that they continue. to block essential humanitarian aid.

You think it only impacts the Palestinians? But could it be possible that it's also impacting the hostages? We don't even know how many of them are alive. The IDF, it's been confirmed, has killed three of them, three of them as they were shirtless begging for help after escaping their captors. I mean, the thing is what's happening to those hostages and what happened to those hostages is awful. But it's just so strange to me that they don't seem to put like connect The dots, if you're worried about the hostages, you would want the bombing to stop.

And guess what the pro-Palestinian protesters want? They want the bombing to stop. That is what they want, okay? They are literally on these campuses asking, demanding for the war to end. And they're using whatever leverage they think they have through divestment in, you know, military contractors, Israeli defense companies, things like that. We're using that as a way of trying to end this war. Yeah, so CNN pretends to be objective, but did you just hear what she said?

She used the Israeli talking point about there was a ceasefire on October 6th. Now wait a minute, October 7th was terrible and you want to blame Hamas for starting this particular round of conflict, no problem. And is that under the umbrella of objective? I would say it is, and I've done the same thing. I blame Hamas for what happened on October 7th, and it's terrible. But how is that connected to this? We're six months in now.

So Hamas killed around 1,200 people, about 860 civilians or so. Now Israel has killed 34,000 people at a bare, bare minimum, and 25,000 women in children. So if they had killed, let's say, 250,000 women in children, you could still say, well, there was a ceasefire on October 6, since Hamas didn't listen to the ceasefire on October 6, Well, that's the people of Gaza had it coming, but wait, the people of Gaza aren't Hamas. Who cares, 25,000 dead, 250,000 dead, two and a half million dead. Doesn't matter, there was a ceasefire in October 6. Okay, so that's a, you can see why that's wrong and has nothing to do with, yes,

but should we stop bombing today, right? After 34,000 are dead and a millionaire's sovereign. But secondly, was there a ceasefire? Because 57 years of occupation. So I think what Amos did was outrageous. But they make it appear like Israel was just sitting there and all of a sudden Norway attacked. Yeah, like it's a total one-sided war. But look, one final thing I'll say is she's at CNN.

Her own colleague, Jeremy Diamond, who actually has done some fantastic reports. I was just about to go there. Yeah, recently reported a story, this was about two weeks ago. He reported on a story regarding a deadly strike in Gaza that killed multiple. civilians, including at the time, eight children, well, that number of children who have died has gone up to 10 with the 11th in critical condition. The IDF at the time refused to take responsibility for that attack, despite CNN providing the IDF with the coordinates and time of the attack saying that they carried out a strike at a different time than described, and that the

Collateral damage as described is not known to the IDF. So there was further investigation into it and that further investigation confirmed that the IDF did in fact carry out the airstrike. And so does she have anything to say about that? Because while it is true, you should be concerned about the hostages. I wish the Israeli government was a little more concerned about the hostages. I mean, you want to talk about a ceasefire. In the beginning of the week, there's a story about how they're working on a ceasefire in

In Cairo, they're really hoping that Hamas accepts the ceasefire. They're really hoping, right? At the same time, you have Benjamin Netanyahu saying, whether we come to a ceasefire agreement or not, I'm invading Rafa, the border town in Gaza that more than a million displaced Palestinians are currently sheltering in. So who exactly is acting in bad faith here in regard to a ceasefire? Because if you come to an agreement on a ceasefire, and then Netanyahu proceeds to do a ground invasion into Rafa, well, that breaks a ceasefire.

That shows that he doesn't actually care about a ceasefire. He doesn't plan on following a ceasefire. Was that reported by CNN? Is Dan Abash concerned about that? Yeah, guys, look, we're fair. I think Jeremy Diamond and Clarissa Ward have done some terrific pieces for CNN. Kristian Amampur, another one. Yeah.

And by the way, at times, Danabash herself and Jake Tapper have held Israeli officials to account in a way that I thought was really pretty good journalism. That's why this piece was so unsettling in how ridiculous and biased and over the top it was. I mean, she comes in with all of the information in my opinion, not my opinion. We just explained it to you with stone cold facts. It was definitely wrong, not giving the context that they were blocking all the students, not the Jewish students, et cetera, et cetera, which is outrageous, right? And then she had the audacity to say that the fear is palpable among Jewish Americans.

Yes, because Dana, you created it. You created this fear mongering about how they're targeting the Jews. Oh my God, they're about to do X, Y, and Z, et cetera. When that's not the case at all. And I mean, look at, think about it this way. Could she have done that same exact segment saying the pro-Israel protesters are targeting Muslims and friends of Muslims and peace protesters, and look at these outreach, and they're beating people with sticks, etc.

She could have done a giant story about how awful that violent attack from the pro-Israel side was, and then ask, does this look like 1930s in Germany? Now, I would have said, hey, don't do that. That's too much. They don't represent everybody on the pro-Israel side, and no calling them Nazis is not a good idea. But instead, you called the peaceful UCLA students Nazis. And that's perfectly acceptable on CNN. I got two hours of sleep last night because I sat watching the live stream, the local news live stream of UCLA.

It is shocking how hard those students work to avoid taking the bait by the counter protesters to get violent. Yeah. And things got violent once the cop showed up and started dismantling the encampment. Yeah, I know that from Colombia, that the protesters were so careful not to do anything violent. because what they didn't want was to feed into the mainstream media fear mongering about how Palestinians are violent. Exactly. And so they made, they went through extra pains to not do that.

Yes, again, people not associated with Colombia yelled terrible things outside of Colombia, okay? But the students themselves are aware of the situation. Not only do they not want to do that to their fellow Jewish students, remember a lot of the protesters are Jewish themselves, right? But on top of that, they don't want to help mainstream. media smear Palestinians. Right. But facts are irrelevant. Mainstream media is going to smear them.

Even if you do the, even if you're the victims of the crime, you're going to get called a Nazi. Yeah. And KTLA 5, do better, find a better on the ground reporter because that guy is so deeply biased and thirsty for violence against those protesters. We got to take a break when we come back. We've got the story we've been talking about and teasing throughout the show. We're going to talk about the House of Representatives passing a censorious bill that had more Democrats vote in favor of it than Republicans, and the loudest voices against it happen to be conservatives.

It is shocking. So that and more coming up, don't miss it.