Russia paid millions to influence influencers (09-05-2024--Hour3)

[00:00:04] [SPEAKER_04]: What's going on?

[00:00:05] [SPEAKER_04]: Thank you so much for listening to this podcast.

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[00:00:29] [SPEAKER_04]: So last hour, I was going over the op-ed that I wrote for The Blaze, got published yesterday.

[00:00:35] [SPEAKER_04]: And it was, I titled it, To Punish the Media, I Will Now Vote for Trump.

[00:00:42] [SPEAKER_04]: Because I know of no other way to hold them accountable for the corruption that I think

[00:00:47] [SPEAKER_04]: is pretty obvious.

[00:00:49] [SPEAKER_04]: And to me, that's a really big deal.

[00:00:51] [SPEAKER_04]: It's why I got into journalism in the first place.

[00:00:54] [SPEAKER_04]: I was a reporter for, you know, a decade.

[00:00:59] [SPEAKER_04]: That matters to me.

[00:01:01] [SPEAKER_04]: It is the thing that matters the most about media slash the press.

[00:01:06] [SPEAKER_04]: Hold government accountable, inform the citizens.

[00:01:09] [SPEAKER_04]: And when you are playing favorites en masse as like this, this, you know, large institution

[00:01:18] [SPEAKER_04]: of, quote, the media, and you get to dictate narratives and tell people what is and is

[00:01:24] [SPEAKER_04]: not misinformation and all that.

[00:01:26] [SPEAKER_04]: And then you are obviously helping to cover up certain things, helping to advance smears.

[00:01:33] [SPEAKER_04]: When you play this game, I have no other way.

[00:01:37] [SPEAKER_04]: And I'm not, look, I am not naive.

[00:01:39] [SPEAKER_04]: I am aware of the whole era of yellow journalism.

[00:01:42] [SPEAKER_04]: I don't actually believe that it ever ceased.

[00:01:44] [SPEAKER_04]: I've never been a believer that, oh, the objective media.

[00:01:47] [SPEAKER_04]: They used to just call balls and strikes back in the day.

[00:01:49] [SPEAKER_04]: No, they didn't.

[00:01:50] [SPEAKER_04]: They were always they've always been people with biases.

[00:01:54] [SPEAKER_04]: Right.

[00:01:54] [SPEAKER_04]: They select certain stories to advance.

[00:01:57] [SPEAKER_04]: People just didn't know the other sides of the arguments because there wasn't any other

[00:02:02] [SPEAKER_04]: media available to them.

[00:02:04] [SPEAKER_04]: So in order to try to course correct them, maybe I doubt it.

[00:02:12] [SPEAKER_04]: But no, actually to weaponize them in their constitutional role.

[00:02:20] [SPEAKER_04]: They're supposed to be holding government accountable.

[00:02:22] [SPEAKER_04]: The only person they seem to be able to do that against that's running for president

[00:02:27] [SPEAKER_04]: it.

[00:02:28] [SPEAKER_04]: Well, that's not true because they did it to Bobby Kennedy, too.

[00:02:30] [SPEAKER_04]: But or R.J. Jr. is Donald Trump.

[00:02:33] [SPEAKER_04]: They're not doing the same thing to Harris as they are doing to Trump.

[00:02:38] [SPEAKER_04]: I can guarantee that because the past performance indicates future performance for me.

[00:02:44] [SPEAKER_04]: So there's that.

[00:02:47] [SPEAKER_04]: Then there's Russia, Russia, Russia.

[00:02:50] [SPEAKER_04]: Right.

[00:02:51] [SPEAKER_04]: Russia, Russia, Russia.

[00:02:52] [SPEAKER_04]: Once again, Russiagate.

[00:02:54] [SPEAKER_04]: What are we in?

[00:02:54] [SPEAKER_04]: Three point oh at this point.

[00:02:57] [SPEAKER_04]: President Joe Biden's administration launched new accusations of election interference at

[00:03:03] [SPEAKER_04]: Russia just nine weeks before the election.

[00:03:05] [SPEAKER_04]: The Department of Justice alleged yesterday that Russian president, President Vladimir

[00:03:10] [SPEAKER_04]: Putin, who, by the way, yesterday on TV endorsed Kamala Harris.

[00:03:15] [SPEAKER_04]: Did you know that he said he would prefer Kamala Harris be the president?

[00:03:19] [SPEAKER_04]: He likes her laugh.

[00:03:21] [SPEAKER_04]: Not kidding.

[00:03:21] [SPEAKER_04]: It's what he said.

[00:03:22] [SPEAKER_04]: Here's the thing.

[00:03:23] [SPEAKER_04]: And I've said this for years ever since the Steele dossier and all the Russiagate garbage.

[00:03:30] [SPEAKER_04]: All of that, I have said Russia simply seeks to sow discord.

[00:03:37] [SPEAKER_04]: They want us to tear ourselves apart.

[00:03:41] [SPEAKER_04]: That's what they're trying to do.

[00:03:43] [SPEAKER_04]: They don't care really who's president.

[00:03:47] [SPEAKER_04]: It doesn't matter to them.

[00:03:49] [SPEAKER_04]: It just changes the propaganda that they're going to inject into our society.

[00:03:54] [SPEAKER_04]: That's it.

[00:03:56] [SPEAKER_04]: By the way, they're not the only ones.

[00:03:58] [SPEAKER_04]: They're not the only ones.

[00:04:00] [SPEAKER_04]: And also, they've been doing it for quite a long time.

[00:04:03] [SPEAKER_04]: Not just since Trump.

[00:04:05] [SPEAKER_04]: They've been doing it through green organizations.

[00:04:09] [SPEAKER_03]: Mm hmm.

[00:04:10] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[00:04:12] [SPEAKER_04]: They're not the only ones.

[00:04:14] [SPEAKER_04]: China, they're big in this space.

[00:04:16] [SPEAKER_04]: Are you aware of how much money China spends to infiltrate and propagandize to Americans?

[00:04:22] [SPEAKER_04]: It's mind boggling.

[00:04:24] [SPEAKER_04]: In fact, I don't know if you heard this.

[00:04:26] [SPEAKER_04]: Did you know that they just busted a deputy chief of staff at the New York governor's

[00:04:30] [SPEAKER_04]: mansion on Tuesday?

[00:04:32] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah.

[00:04:33] [SPEAKER_04]: You may not have heard about it because all the Russia, Russia, Russia.

[00:04:37] [SPEAKER_04]: You actually had a commie asset in the governor's mansion in New York that was helping to craft

[00:04:45] [SPEAKER_04]: policy and propaganda for the New York governor's office.

[00:04:51] [SPEAKER_04]: This should not surprise anybody.

[00:04:53] [SPEAKER_04]: We all need to be aware of this stuff.

[00:04:55] [SPEAKER_04]: By the way, when I see these arguments, oh, you know, Winston Churchill really wasn't

[00:04:59] [SPEAKER_04]: such a great guy.

[00:05:00] [SPEAKER_04]: He wasn't really a hero.

[00:05:02] [SPEAKER_04]: World War II and all this.

[00:05:03] [SPEAKER_04]: You should treat that with suspicion.

[00:05:07] [SPEAKER_04]: You absolutely should treat that with suspicion.

[00:05:10] [SPEAKER_04]: You believe whatever you want to believe about World War II.

[00:05:12] [SPEAKER_04]: I have not caught the, apparently it happens at some point in your, I think in your 50s

[00:05:16] [SPEAKER_04]: where you become like really, really interested in World War II.

[00:05:19] [SPEAKER_04]: So I haven't gotten there yet.

[00:05:20] [SPEAKER_04]: So I don't, it hasn't happened for me where I'm like sitting around watching all of the

[00:05:24] [SPEAKER_04]: documentaries on World War II.

[00:05:25] [SPEAKER_04]: But I know it happens to like every guy at some point, I think.

[00:05:32] [SPEAKER_04]: Or Civil War probably, but whatever.

[00:05:35] [SPEAKER_04]: I'm not here to debate the legacy of Winston Churchill.

[00:05:39] [SPEAKER_04]: But if you find yourself saying, well, actually Hitler wasn't so bad when compared to Winston

[00:05:46] [SPEAKER_04]: Churchill.

[00:05:46] [SPEAKER_04]: Like if you find yourself saying that line, you really should reassess how you've come

[00:05:53] [SPEAKER_04]: to your opinions.

[00:05:54] [SPEAKER_04]: And you should probably do a health check on the sources that you are reading and the

[00:06:02] [SPEAKER_04]: YouTubers that you're watching, right?

[00:06:05] [SPEAKER_04]: If that's the kind of stuff that that's informing your newfound opinions that maybe Hitler wasn't

[00:06:11] [SPEAKER_04]: so bad, like, yeah, that's a red flag.

[00:06:16] [SPEAKER_04]: All right.

[00:06:17] [SPEAKER_04]: Let me go over here and talk to Ralph.

[00:06:19] [SPEAKER_04]: Hello, Ralph.

[00:06:20] [SPEAKER_04]: Welcome to the show.

[00:06:22] [SPEAKER_05]: Hey, Pete.

[00:06:23] [SPEAKER_05]: Hey.

[00:06:23] [SPEAKER_05]: Well, I mean, you know, well, the corruption in the government, it takes somebody like

[00:06:29] [SPEAKER_05]: Trump.

[00:06:30] [SPEAKER_05]: And I know his personality, his character and everything.

[00:06:36] [SPEAKER_05]: But when you got to get down in the mud and fight for something, and I honestly do believe

[00:06:44] [SPEAKER_05]: he loves his country.

[00:06:46] [SPEAKER_05]: And I know he owns businesses and he wants to make a profit.

[00:06:52] [SPEAKER_05]: But we've never had anybody to get under the Democrat's skin enough to try to destroy a

[00:07:01] [SPEAKER_05]: person.

[00:07:02] [SPEAKER_05]: And that's what they're doing.

[00:07:04] [SPEAKER_05]: And, you know, I'm glad and I wish you would on your proclamation, you know, in your editorial

[00:07:11] [SPEAKER_05]: piece, I wish you could reach out to a lot of the independents and libertarians and say,

[00:07:18] [SPEAKER_05]: listen, this is what we have at stake.

[00:07:21] [SPEAKER_05]: I mean, we've always been.

[00:07:23] [SPEAKER_05]: That's not why.

[00:07:25] [SPEAKER_04]: But Ralph, I did that.

[00:07:27] [SPEAKER_04]: I just didn't I just didn't make the argument you wanted me to make.

[00:07:31] [SPEAKER_04]: I made the argument about what's at stake, because, again, like what you're describing

[00:07:35] [SPEAKER_04]: is downstream of what I pinpointed as what's at stake, which was the media's ability and

[00:07:44] [SPEAKER_04]: their desire to hold government accountable.

[00:07:47] [SPEAKER_04]: And they are not doing that with Kamala Harris or Joe Biden.

[00:07:52] [SPEAKER_04]: Right.

[00:07:52] [SPEAKER_04]: They're not doing that.

[00:07:53] [SPEAKER_04]: The Steele dossier is a good example of it.

[00:07:55] [SPEAKER_04]: I mentioned it.

[00:07:56] [SPEAKER_04]: I talked about they got people got awards for their coverage of that stuff.

[00:07:59] [SPEAKER_04]: They never returned the awards.

[00:08:00] [SPEAKER_04]: Right.

[00:08:01] [SPEAKER_04]: The institution of the media is corrupted.

[00:08:03] [SPEAKER_04]: And so that's part of that.

[00:08:06] [SPEAKER_04]: But that's all downstream of what you described is downstream of what I am and pointing out.

[00:08:12] [SPEAKER_04]: That's the first principle for me, is that this whole system doesn't work unless we have

[00:08:16] [SPEAKER_04]: people in the press that are going to hold government accountable.

[00:08:21] [SPEAKER_04]: And what you're describing is the symptom of that.

[00:08:27] [SPEAKER_04]: Does that make sense?

[00:08:29] [SPEAKER_05]: Yes.

[00:08:29] [SPEAKER_05]: And, you know, couldn't it be the media is doing some interference in the election to

[00:08:38] [SPEAKER_05]: sway people to censor and sway people to vote for the Democratic Party?

[00:08:46] [SPEAKER_05]: That that's what really infuriates me.

[00:08:49] [SPEAKER_05]: And basically what Rush Limbaugh says before.

[00:08:53] [SPEAKER_05]: I mean, I've listened to him, you know, for a long time.

[00:08:58] [SPEAKER_05]: And you've got to defeat their ideology.

[00:09:01] [SPEAKER_05]: I mean, they're so entrenched in their beliefs.

[00:09:06] [SPEAKER_05]: We you can't persuade them.

[00:09:07] [SPEAKER_05]: You can't be convinced and you can't meet a man and have what you have to defeat their

[00:09:12] [SPEAKER_05]: ideology.

[00:09:13] [SPEAKER_05]: And I think this is one way to do it.

[00:09:15] [SPEAKER_05]: If we can put Trump back in there and destroy what credibility the media has and everything,

[00:09:24] [SPEAKER_05]: maybe they'll change.

[00:09:25] [SPEAKER_05]: But I doubt it.

[00:09:26] [SPEAKER_05]: I seriously doubt it.

[00:09:27] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I hear you, Ralph.

[00:09:28] [SPEAKER_04]: I appreciate the call.

[00:09:29] [SPEAKER_04]: Thanks.

[00:09:32] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I think that the media is in their in their their treatment of the candidates.

[00:09:38] [SPEAKER_04]: And I've gone over this before.

[00:09:39] [SPEAKER_04]: They are obviously biased.

[00:09:41] [SPEAKER_04]: We brought forward the Media Research Center data, I think last week maybe or the week

[00:09:47] [SPEAKER_04]: prior.

[00:09:49] [SPEAKER_04]: The overwhelming amount of negative coverage against Donald Trump and J.D. Vance in the

[00:09:54] [SPEAKER_04]: Republican National Convention versus the overwhelming positive coverage of Kamala

[00:09:59] [SPEAKER_04]: Harris, Tim Walz and the Democrat Convention.

[00:10:02] [SPEAKER_04]: So it's not even close.

[00:10:06] [SPEAKER_04]: So when you're when we recognize this is where we are, then I need to use the media

[00:10:14] [SPEAKER_04]: how I think the country would be best served.

[00:10:18] [SPEAKER_04]: And the country's not going to be best served by having the media give tongue baths to an

[00:10:22] [SPEAKER_04]: administration.

[00:10:24] [SPEAKER_04]: All right.

[00:10:24] [SPEAKER_04]: Hey, real quick, if you would like to get your product or service in front of about 10,000

[00:10:28] [SPEAKER_04]: people multiple times a day, send me an email at Pete at the Pete calendar show dot com

[00:10:34] [SPEAKER_04]: and ask me about advertising.

[00:10:35] [SPEAKER_04]: It's super affordable.

[00:10:37] [SPEAKER_04]: It's baked into this podcast forever.

[00:10:39] [SPEAKER_04]: And podcasts have a higher conversion rate than other social media platforms, making

[00:10:43] [SPEAKER_04]: it the best bang for your buck.

[00:10:45] [SPEAKER_04]: Send me a message, Pete, at the Pete calendar show dot com.

[00:10:48] [SPEAKER_04]: And I can show you how it works.

[00:10:49] [SPEAKER_04]: Run the numbers with you again.

[00:10:50] [SPEAKER_04]: That's Pete at the Pete calendar show dot com.

[00:10:54] [SPEAKER_04]: Here's a tweet from Timoteo, who says I was completely over Donald Trump and I was looking

[00:10:59] [SPEAKER_04]: forward to DeSantis.

[00:11:01] [SPEAKER_04]: And then the lawfare started.

[00:11:02] [SPEAKER_04]: I found myself compelled to support Trump again, if for no other reason than to defeat

[00:11:06] [SPEAKER_04]: lawfare.

[00:11:07] [SPEAKER_04]: Trump will be gone in a few years and the country will survive him.

[00:11:11] [SPEAKER_04]: But our country will not survive the lawfare.

[00:11:17] [SPEAKER_04]: I don't know what I'm getting tweets from somebody named Thunderpants.

[00:11:22] [SPEAKER_04]: So I don't know what that's about.

[00:11:24] [SPEAKER_04]: Let me go over here to Chris.

[00:11:25] [SPEAKER_04]: Hello, Chris.

[00:11:26] [SPEAKER_04]: Welcome to the show.

[00:11:28] [SPEAKER_06]: I'll tell you what, from yesterday, I think with the Mark Robinson, you really need national

[00:11:35] [SPEAKER_06]: attention on that.

[00:11:35] [SPEAKER_06]: I think you probably get it.

[00:11:37] [SPEAKER_06]: I mean, it's just a brilliant that goes off of B.

[00:11:40] [SPEAKER_06]: I recently read the book How to Read a Book.

[00:11:43] [SPEAKER_06]: I remember the author and it had to do with really reading and understanding.

[00:11:47] [SPEAKER_06]: And one of the terms in this book is about coming to terms where the term coming to

[00:11:53] [SPEAKER_06]: terms comes from.

[00:11:54] [SPEAKER_06]: It has to do with you write this book or you're saying anything.

[00:11:59] [SPEAKER_06]: And in order for us to have a good conversation, I've got to come to your terms of what you

[00:12:03] [SPEAKER_06]: mean by these words.

[00:12:05] [SPEAKER_06]: And it kills me so much more with the left having commandeered terms that even in one

[00:12:12] [SPEAKER_06]: sentence, maybe with the leftist saying something.

[00:12:15] [SPEAKER_06]: Well, in order to come to terms, let's say that's a conversation with them.

[00:12:19] [SPEAKER_06]: You've got to go on for 30 minutes to understand what they're coming from, right?

[00:12:22] [SPEAKER_06]: To come to terms.

[00:12:24] [SPEAKER_06]: Right.

[00:12:24] [SPEAKER_06]: Then you can kind of disagree or not.

[00:12:25] [SPEAKER_04]: Or another way to say it is we have to define our terms that we're using in the debate.

[00:12:31] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, especially because we're not using the words like they're supposed to be.

[00:12:35] [SPEAKER_06]: So when I talk about Jordan...

[00:12:40] [SPEAKER_06]: A woman.

[00:12:40] [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, if you talk about a woman and you say a woman, like, okay, well, what if we have

[00:12:44] [SPEAKER_04]: different definitions of that word?

[00:12:48] [SPEAKER_06]: So I talk about Jordan Peterson.

[00:12:52] [SPEAKER_06]: He's a stickler for using the exact words and he gets in trouble for that.

[00:12:56] [SPEAKER_06]: So I try to work on that.

[00:12:59] [SPEAKER_06]: But I'm kind of thinking on you in relation to you and I and how there's...

[00:13:04] [SPEAKER_06]: I'm trying to start looking for where we disagree.

[00:13:08] [SPEAKER_06]: And I need that, you need that, and I need you to always push back at me when we talk.

[00:13:12] [SPEAKER_06]: And I look for disagreements, but I don't really find them except maybe...

[00:13:17] [SPEAKER_06]: So number one, the Blaze article is correct, right?

[00:13:20] [SPEAKER_06]: You are now in MAGA country, correct?

[00:13:23] [SPEAKER_04]: I don't know.

[00:13:24] [SPEAKER_04]: I don't even...

[00:13:25] [SPEAKER_04]: Okay, what does that term mean?

[00:13:26] [SPEAKER_04]: I'm not...

[00:13:28] [SPEAKER_04]: I don't know what that term means.

[00:13:32] [SPEAKER_06]: You're still in the article.

[00:13:33] [SPEAKER_06]: You said you're going to vote for Trump.

[00:13:34] [SPEAKER_04]: Correct.

[00:13:35] [SPEAKER_04]: Well, I said I'm voting against the corrupt media.

[00:13:39] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, yeah, I get it.

[00:13:40] [SPEAKER_06]: Okay, okay.

[00:13:41] [SPEAKER_06]: So in a sense, it's going to be funny if I welcome you to MAGA country.

[00:13:45] [SPEAKER_04]: I got you.

[00:13:45] [SPEAKER_04]: Right.

[00:13:46] [SPEAKER_04]: Is this where I get assaulted with a Subway sandwich in Chicago?

[00:13:50] [SPEAKER_04]: No, no, no, no.

[00:13:50] [SPEAKER_04]: Oh, okay.

[00:13:51] [SPEAKER_06]: So related to your history, it was kind of like you've talked about how in a national election you've never voted for a national politician.

[00:14:01] [SPEAKER_06]: That never meant...

[00:14:03] [SPEAKER_06]: I don't know that you've ever said that you still voted for someone in those national elections though, right?

[00:14:07] [SPEAKER_04]: Well, yeah, I've either voted in the presidential races.

[00:14:11] [SPEAKER_04]: I have voted for Libertarians.

[00:14:15] [SPEAKER_06]: So you're...

[00:14:16] [SPEAKER_06]: I'm assuming you're...

[00:14:19] [SPEAKER_06]: The reason you vote for who you do is strictly on whoever it is you vote for, whoever lines up with your morality and your principles the most, correct?

[00:14:32] [SPEAKER_06]: Always?

[00:14:33] [SPEAKER_04]: Well, I mean, I generally...

[00:14:34] [SPEAKER_04]: I don't know.

[00:14:34] [SPEAKER_04]: Well, no.

[00:14:35] [SPEAKER_04]: When it comes to the Libertarian candidates in the office of the president, I wanted somebody...

[00:14:43] [SPEAKER_04]: I have always wanted somebody in there that will restrain the executive branch.

[00:14:48] [SPEAKER_04]: Somebody that's going to reduce the power of the executive branch, and Libertarians were the only ones that ever offered anything approximating that.

[00:14:55] [SPEAKER_06]: Okay, but yeah, I mean, I'm just trying to figure this out.

[00:14:58] [SPEAKER_06]: So your vote is always...

[00:15:03] [SPEAKER_06]: Regardless of whether they win or not, you're going to line up with those values and vote that way, correct?

[00:15:09] [SPEAKER_04]: For the presidential race, yes.

[00:15:11] [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, okay.

[00:15:13] [SPEAKER_06]: Okay, so here's the nuance between you and I, a little bit different.

[00:15:16] [SPEAKER_06]: So I'm kind of...

[00:15:17] [SPEAKER_06]: And again, I always want pushback.

[00:15:19] [SPEAKER_06]: My thinking is, if this other candidate doesn't have a chance of winning, I want the candidate that's closer to what I believe...

[00:15:30] [SPEAKER_04]: I understand that argument.

[00:15:31] [SPEAKER_06]: In the hopes that it moves us closer to what we believe.

[00:15:34] [SPEAKER_06]: So that's just a tactical issue on who you vote for.

[00:15:39] [SPEAKER_06]: Sure.

[00:15:39] [SPEAKER_06]: I'm not bashing you on that argument.

[00:15:41] [SPEAKER_04]: No, I understand.

[00:15:41] [SPEAKER_04]: Look, I've had that argument or that discussion with people for years, and I completely understand it.

[00:15:48] [SPEAKER_04]: I don't denigrate people for holding it and for voting in that kind of tactical way.

[00:15:53] [SPEAKER_04]: But we have a different definition of what winning is, because for libertarians, winning is growing the percentage of the vote.

[00:16:03] [SPEAKER_04]: Because eventually they become large enough where they have to be taken into consideration by the other parties.

[00:16:11] [SPEAKER_04]: It used to be the Republican Party, there was this thought, well, you know, libertarians get to be big enough.

[00:16:15] [SPEAKER_04]: And the Republicans will start adopting some of the things to peel away those votes.

[00:16:20] [SPEAKER_04]: So that was a win for libertarians.

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[00:17:15] [SPEAKER_04]: Wired.com.

[00:17:16] [SPEAKER_04]: Here's their report on the Tenet Media situation.

[00:17:21] [SPEAKER_04]: So yesterday there were indictments issued against the founders of Tenet Media, a Tennessee based media network that produces shows for high profile right wing influencers like Benny Johnson and Tim Poole was largely funded by Russian state backed news network RT or Russia Today.

[00:17:40] [SPEAKER_04]: According to a federal indictment against two RT employees that the US Department of Justice unsealed yesterday, the DOJ claims that the company identified as Tenet Media, although not identified in the indictment.

[00:17:55] [SPEAKER_04]: Nobody's names were used except the Russian agents.

[00:17:59] [SPEAKER_04]: But people have pieced this all together that they posted hundreds of videos on social media that pushed Kremlin approved talking points.

[00:18:09] [SPEAKER_04]: Tenet Media's network includes online creators known for their right wing politics, including Johnson with Benny Johnson, Tim Poole, who's not really a right wingers.

[00:18:20] [SPEAKER_04]: I'm not really sure about that.

[00:18:20] [SPEAKER_04]: See, this is the problem with the labels.

[00:18:22] [SPEAKER_04]: Right. Definitions matter.

[00:18:24] [SPEAKER_04]: Dave Rubin.

[00:18:26] [SPEAKER_04]: Again, not really a right winger guy was a liberal.

[00:18:30] [SPEAKER_04]: Lauren Southern.

[00:18:32] [SPEAKER_04]: And then two other guys I've never heard of.

[00:18:34] [SPEAKER_04]: But they had like six people in their stable at Tenet Media.

[00:18:36] [SPEAKER_04]: In addition to the followings of the network's individual creators, which collectively number in the millions, Tenet Media itself boasts more than three hundred fifteen thousand followers on YouTube and thousands more across Facebook, Instagram X and Tick Tock.

[00:18:51] [SPEAKER_04]: So.

[00:18:52] [SPEAKER_04]: These creators, especially the big ones like Benny Johnson, Tim Poole and Dave Rubin, they were all doing their own shows.

[00:18:59] [SPEAKER_04]: And what they what Tenet Media did was it came in and said, let's do a licensing deal where you still do your thing.

[00:19:08] [SPEAKER_04]: But then we distribute basically, I think, is how this this works.

[00:19:13] [SPEAKER_04]: And so we have the rights to promote it, which look, if you're Russia and you got all these bot farms, right, and you always people that are pushing out and liking content, responding and creating fake engagement.

[00:19:27] [SPEAKER_04]: You need content with which to engage, which makes sense.

[00:19:32] [SPEAKER_04]: Right.

[00:19:32] [SPEAKER_04]: You got like 10 people and they're running like a million devices between them and they're typing out stuff in order to trick the algorithms and boost posts and stuff like that.

[00:19:45] [SPEAKER_04]: Hang on a second, I've got let me let me go to a couple of these clips here from, for example, Molly Hemingway.

[00:19:52] [SPEAKER_04]: She is over at the Federalist.

[00:19:56] [SPEAKER_04]: And.

[00:19:58] [SPEAKER_04]: Here she is.

[00:20:00] [SPEAKER_01]: It is striking and all of it is disconcerting that foreign governments would try to meddle in our U.S. elections.

[00:20:05] [SPEAKER_01]: What's particularly problematic, though, is our Department of Justice and FBI are the least credible people to talk about this.

[00:20:12] [SPEAKER_01]: Given the information operations they ran against the American people with their Russia collusion hoax, with their cover up of the Hunter Biden laptop in which they lied about the situation and claimed that it was Russian disinformation and used that to censor American speech.

[00:20:26] [SPEAKER_01]: Even the first impeachment, the Department of Justice and FBI, there are consequences for those information ops they ran against the American people.

[00:20:33] [SPEAKER_01]: And we do need protection from some of these foreign governments meddling in our elections.

[00:20:37] [SPEAKER_01]: We also need protection from our Department of Justice, FBI and other intelligence agencies.

[00:20:40] [SPEAKER_01]: We're doing the same.

[00:20:42] [SPEAKER_04]: Exactly.

[00:20:43] [SPEAKER_04]: That's the problem.

[00:20:44] [SPEAKER_04]: And you've got people now that are denying what the DOJ has outlined because the DOJ.

[00:20:51] [SPEAKER_04]: Has destroyed their own credibility because of their Trump derangement syndrome.

[00:20:57] [SPEAKER_04]: The very things I noted in the op ed, there was another clip I thought I had here of.

[00:21:07] [SPEAKER_04]: Here it is. This is Ashley St. Clair.

[00:21:12] [SPEAKER_04]: And she was on a podcast with the guys that do the podcast called Trigger Nometry.

[00:21:18] [SPEAKER_04]: One of them is Constantine Kissin and the other guy is Francis Foster.

[00:21:26] [SPEAKER_04]: You're going to hear Francis Foster's voice first.

[00:21:31] [SPEAKER_04]: And Ashley St. Clair, this was from months ago.

[00:21:36] [SPEAKER_04]: And she says that she has at the time she called it a she said, let's a conspiracy theory of mine.

[00:21:42] [SPEAKER_04]: But she wasn't buying.

[00:21:45] [SPEAKER_04]: The engagement levels and the rhetoric that was coming out of some of these podcasters.

[00:21:52] [SPEAKER_04]: One of them is this woman named Lauren Chen.

[00:21:55] [SPEAKER_04]: Lauren Chen was the founder of one of the founder along with her husband, Liam Donovan, founder of Tenet Media.

[00:22:02] [SPEAKER_04]: Lauren Chen also used to work for Russia Today.

[00:22:07] [SPEAKER_04]: Which is why I suspect she probably wasn't the one pushing the Russian propaganda.

[00:22:15] [SPEAKER_04]: So obviously, right, she wasn't taking the money because it would be too obvious to connect those dots.

[00:22:20] [SPEAKER_04]: So the money comes from Russia.

[00:22:22] [SPEAKER_04]: She washes it through Tenet Media and then lies to the commentators about who's funding the operation.

[00:22:29] [SPEAKER_04]: They literally created a fake profile to show Dave Rubin when apparently Dave Rubin asked, where is this?

[00:22:37] [SPEAKER_04]: Who's the who's funding this operation?

[00:22:39] [SPEAKER_04]: Who's the financial backer?

[00:22:41] [SPEAKER_04]: They made up a guy and made up a profile and then gave it to him.

[00:22:48] [SPEAKER_04]: To trick him into not knowing where the money is coming from.

[00:22:52] [SPEAKER_04]: Now he along with Tim Pool and Benny Johnson all say they didn't they never used any information that came from Tenet Media.

[00:23:00] [SPEAKER_04]: They didn't they were not paid to do any kind of propaganda.

[00:23:03] [SPEAKER_04]: But they got a lot of money.

[00:23:05] [SPEAKER_04]: The three of them between the three of them.

[00:23:07] [SPEAKER_04]: They I think they they account for like eight million of the 10 million.

[00:23:12] [SPEAKER_04]: Here's what Ashley St. Clair said months ago.

[00:23:15] [SPEAKER_03]: Exit was misogynist because he said there's two genders.

[00:23:18] [SPEAKER_03]: Right. But what I see on the right is actual genuine misogyny.

[00:23:23] [SPEAKER_07]: I don't know that that's organic.

[00:23:24] [SPEAKER_07]: And I may be stepping into my own conspiracies here, but I don't think it's coincidental that right before the election,

[00:23:33] [SPEAKER_07]: the right becomes the exact caricature of what the left had said the right was for years.

[00:23:38] [SPEAKER_07]: And it wasn't, you know, many of us on the right knew that the right was not, you know, this anti-Semitic,

[00:23:44] [SPEAKER_07]: a misogynistic group of folks.

[00:23:45] [SPEAKER_07]: And now all of a sudden we're seeing this rise in misogynistic rhetoric and people who fundamentally believe that women shouldn't vote.

[00:23:53] [SPEAKER_02]: You out there who will just say, well, this is Lauren Chen to repeal the 19th.

[00:23:57] [SPEAKER_02]: And trust me, I am no fan of the 19th Amendment myself.

[00:24:00] [SPEAKER_02]: So it turns out that some portions of the Internet are just now finding out that I don't actually support democracy.

[00:24:08] [SPEAKER_02]: And and they're very upset about it.

[00:24:10] [SPEAKER_07]: And people who fundamentally are signing with the people taking over our universities right now, I think that's I don't think that's organic.

[00:24:17] [SPEAKER_07]: I think there's a lot more foreign platforms and outside influences boosting these people in the retardo sphere than we've been.

[00:24:25] [SPEAKER_07]: We have any idea about right now.

[00:24:26] [SPEAKER_07]: I think it's fundamentally really damaging.

[00:24:30] [SPEAKER_07]: Allow this rhetoric to go on this misogynistic.

[00:24:33] [SPEAKER_00]: I'm just trying to delve deeper into the conspiracy.

[00:24:36] [SPEAKER_00]: Are you saying this is kind of deliberate to get Republicans to look dumb and offensive so that they lose the election?

[00:24:43] [SPEAKER_07]: I, I believe so.

[00:24:44] [SPEAKER_07]: I really believe that this is boosted by things that are inorganic, because when you look at the when you look at the engagement on some of these accounts, it is bananas.

[00:24:54] [SPEAKER_07]: I really at least I don't want to believe that that many people truly hold those sentiments.

[00:25:00] [SPEAKER_04]: And maybe I'm just so that's it.

[00:25:02] [SPEAKER_04]: And she's maybe I'm just naive, but she sniffed this out.

[00:25:05] [SPEAKER_04]: Other people have been saying this, too, in the right wing social media content creator world as well.

[00:25:12] [SPEAKER_04]: And it would not surprise me one bit.

[00:25:15] [SPEAKER_04]: Right.

[00:25:16] [SPEAKER_04]: This is how you would like all of a sudden, like I mentioned earlier, all of a sudden you're getting people on the right saying, actually, Winston Churchill.

[00:25:24] [SPEAKER_04]: Wasn't so great.

[00:25:25] [SPEAKER_04]: Hitler might have been better and all this.

[00:25:26] [SPEAKER_04]: He didn't really want to kill all the Jews.

[00:25:28] [SPEAKER_04]: That wasn't his intention.

[00:25:29] [SPEAKER_04]: He just needed to make room in the jails.

[00:25:31] [SPEAKER_04]: But really, I never heard this until like a minute ago.

[00:25:37] [SPEAKER_04]: Is it possible that this kind of stuff is being promoted in order to sow discord, which is what Russia and China would very much and Iran would very much like to have happen?

[00:25:49] [SPEAKER_04]: You just heard Ashley St. Claire.

[00:25:52] [SPEAKER_04]: She tweeted out about the commentators.

[00:25:56] [SPEAKER_04]: So you got to understand, like you got Russia, you got tenant media and those two owners.

[00:26:01] [SPEAKER_04]: And then you've got the commentators.

[00:26:05] [SPEAKER_04]: And there were six of them that did these licensing deals through tenant media.

[00:26:09] [SPEAKER_04]: And and the commentators got paid through tenant media.

[00:26:13] [SPEAKER_04]: But the money was coming from Russia, from these two people that work for RT Russia today.

[00:26:20] [SPEAKER_04]: And if I recall correctly, RT got kicked off all of the cable networks after the invasion in Ukraine.

[00:26:27] [SPEAKER_04]: And so the two people that worked in Russia for RT, they adopted fake names and they would act as these sort of like satellite copy editors or something like that, producers or something.

[00:26:42] [SPEAKER_04]: And they would send along copy points and topic ideas and stuff and and they would send it to tenant.

[00:26:49] [SPEAKER_04]: And then tenant would send it down to the commentators as sort of here's some help for your show prep.

[00:26:55] [SPEAKER_04]: They never directed them.

[00:26:57] [SPEAKER_04]: You had to say this thing, but they would say, hey, here's an interesting take.

[00:27:00] [SPEAKER_04]: Here's an angle.

[00:27:02] [SPEAKER_04]: You know, it's sort of like a brainstorming meeting among producers.

[00:27:06] [SPEAKER_04]: So the commentators that I'm aware of, like Dave Rubin, Benny Johnson, Tim Pool, they don't appear to have been aware of the Russia angle.

[00:27:17] [SPEAKER_04]: They have put out statements saying they did not.

[00:27:20] [SPEAKER_04]: Like Dave Rubin said, the allegations clearly show that I and other commentators were the victims in this scheme.

[00:27:26] [SPEAKER_04]: I knew absolutely nothing about any of this fraudulent activity, period.

[00:27:33] [SPEAKER_04]: Who was it?

[00:27:34] [SPEAKER_04]: Here it is.

[00:27:35] [SPEAKER_04]: Benny Johnson said a year ago, a media startup pitched my company to provide content as an independent contractor.

[00:27:43] [SPEAKER_04]: Our lawyers negotiated a standard arm's length deal, which was later terminated.

[00:27:47] [SPEAKER_04]: We are disturbed by the allegations in today's indictment, which make clear that myself and other influencers were victims in this alleged scheme.

[00:27:56] [SPEAKER_04]: My lawyers will handle anyone who states or suggests otherwise.

[00:28:01] [SPEAKER_04]: And then Tim Pool said, should these allegations prove true?

[00:28:05] [SPEAKER_04]: I, as well as the other personalities and commentators were deceived and are victims.

[00:28:09] [SPEAKER_04]: I cannot speak for anyone else at the company as to what they do or to what they are instructed.

[00:28:14] [SPEAKER_04]: So they are all claiming they had no idea.

[00:28:18] [SPEAKER_04]: Ashley Sinclair or St.

[00:28:19] [SPEAKER_04]: Claire rather says these are not MAGA Republicans and the creators by by the DOJ's own indictment.

[00:28:28] [SPEAKER_04]: The creators are the victims.

[00:28:31] [SPEAKER_04]: The ringleader of the scheme who took directives and the money from Russia has been encouraging her followers to withhold their votes from Donald Trump.

[00:28:41] [SPEAKER_04]: She's been doing that for weeks.

[00:28:43] [SPEAKER_04]: Lauren Chen, she's been doing that.

[00:28:46] [SPEAKER_04]: And again, I point out, Putin just told a TV station that he's he's wanting Kamala Harris to win.

[00:28:53] [SPEAKER_04]: So what does that mean that everybody who does anything negative against Trump is in the tank for Putin?

[00:28:59] [SPEAKER_04]: See, this is why you got to stop viewing everything through the prism of Donald Trump.

[00:29:05] [SPEAKER_04]: Right.

[00:29:05] [SPEAKER_04]: Some like sometimes Russia behaving badly to sow discord is just them behaving badly to sow discord.

[00:29:11] [SPEAKER_04]: That's all that is.

[00:29:13] [SPEAKER_04]: They were trying to get because here's the problem they ran into in the indictment.

[00:29:17] [SPEAKER_04]: It lays this out that they couldn't find politicians and they couldn't find media people that would.

[00:29:25] [SPEAKER_04]: Promote their side of the story, their propaganda, so they couldn't do it overtly.

[00:29:30] [SPEAKER_04]: So they had to find a way to try to work this stuff in because if they had somebody who was like, you know, Russia's awesome, they're totally right.

[00:29:38] [SPEAKER_04]: And all this, they would have just gone to that person, but they couldn't find anybody.

[00:29:42] [SPEAKER_04]: So they had to kind of do it surreptitiously.

[00:29:45] [SPEAKER_04]: And by the way, Russia has been doing this, a.k.a. or not a.k.a., but funding propaganda and activism and politics.

[00:29:57] [SPEAKER_04]: They've been doing this for decades and they've been doing it in the environmentalist movement.

[00:30:01] [SPEAKER_04]: This is well documented by Congress.

[00:30:04] [SPEAKER_04]: They have known this for years, tens of millions of dollars flowing to the Sierra Club, the Nature Conservancy, League of Conservation Voters.

[00:30:16] [SPEAKER_04]: They've been getting tens of millions of dollars for years.

[00:30:21] [SPEAKER_04]: Does that mean that they are all tools of Putin?

[00:30:25] [SPEAKER_04]: And what makes it all the more hilarious is that now you've got people that are like, I've got a guy attacking me today because, oh, you published this op-ed at The Blaze and Lauren Chen just got fired because she was the head of Tenet Media.

[00:30:36] [SPEAKER_04]: She was the linchpin in all this.

[00:30:38] [SPEAKER_04]: She is alleged to be the leader.

[00:30:40] [SPEAKER_04]: And so The Blaze today fired her.

[00:30:43] [SPEAKER_04]: And so now because I publish an op-ed, I'm somehow a Putin tool too.

[00:30:47] [SPEAKER_04]: This is the level of thinking behind the discourse that is modern American politics.

[00:30:52] [SPEAKER_04]: It's just stupid.

[00:30:53] [SPEAKER_04]: We live in very stupid times.