Episode #20: Fascism Unfiltered - The State of American State Media
In this episode of 'Propaganda Loves You,' host Kodie is joined by Arthur and Joe to discuss the cost of journalistic integrity and governmental control over media. The show, recorded after the 4th of July, features a light-hearted discussion on the holiday celebrations before diving into the main topic of the current administration's attempts to manipulate media. Discussions include the Paramount settlement with Trump, which raises concerns about the First Amendment, and how Trump’s administration leveraged other lawsuit settlements to control press behavior. The episode also delves into the VOA's shift under the Trump administration, potentially transforming it from an independent entity to a direct propaganda tool. The show wraps up with discussions around ongoing political strategies and their implications for democracy.
00:00 Introduction and Hosts
00:39 4th of July Reflections
02:09 Current Events and News Topics
03:43 Howard Zinn's Perspective on the Revolution
06:44 Discussion on Modern Fascism and Media Control
16:35 Trump Administration's Media Manipulation
30:02 Voice of America and Propaganda
41:03 Conclusion and Upcoming Episodes
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/voice-of-america-history-60-minutes/
https://www.politico.eu/article/america-pro-democracy-media-closures-donald-trump-radio-free-europe-radio-liberty-voice-of-america-radio-free-asia/
https://apnews.com/article/voice-of-america-trump-administration-kari-lake-15b585b58f5a510374344b50b1a131b5
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/06/28/voice-of-america-termination-00431342
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/07/02/paramount-settlement-press-freedom-00437677
https://apnews.com/article/trump-media-harris-minutes-paramount-6415042fe910ae60b432dd8c73ef61b2
https://apnews.com/article/trump-cbs-news-60-minutes-lawsuit-d43effebb7b3b76c31d38908bd31460e
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/06/03/most-people-across-24-surveyed-countries-have-negative-views-of-israel-and-netanyahu/
https://latenighter.com/features/john-oliver-tackles-trumps-war-on-the-press-and-that-hbo-max-rebrand/
Transcript
Welcome to Propkgana Loves yous, the show that asks and answers the question, how much does journalistic integrity cost?
Speaker A:I'm Cody, your host for this week and joined by Arthur and Joe.
Speaker B:Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.
Speaker B:We shall fight on the beaches.
Speaker B:Real fight on the landing grounds.
Speaker B:Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.
Speaker A:Hey, welcome back to Propaganda.
Speaker A:Loves you.
Speaker A:This week we are recording this the day after the Fourth of July.
Speaker A:So July 5th, Saturday.
Speaker A:Today, what we're going to talk about, we've got a couple things we want to hit on our main topic today, really focusing in on just two areas looking at how the current administration is trying to control media, both the media that we're projecting abroad as well as control the media at home.
Speaker A:So that's what we're going to talk about a bit for our main topic today.
Speaker A:But yeah, before we get into any of those.
Speaker A:Yeah, Fourth of July, how are you guys feeling?
Speaker A:You feel pretty, pretty good about yesterday?
Speaker A:Did you guys do anything fun or.
Speaker A:Yeah, just any updates for the week that we want to provide now we.
Speaker C:Kind of played pet sanctuary where, you know, all the pets just get anxious with all the noises.
Speaker C:So put on music and whatever.
Speaker C:Our dog likes how to train your dragon.
Speaker C:So that was on in the room.
Speaker A:That's weird.
Speaker A:Like, our dog also likes how to train your dragon.
Speaker A:I don't know why that is.
Speaker A:Like, is that a.
Speaker A:Is that a thing that you can find?
Speaker A:Yeah, it's just how to train your dragon speaks to dogs for some reason.
Speaker A:Yeah, same.
Speaker A:We didn't go to the fireworks.
Speaker A:Well, my wife, we've got some friends in town, so my wife and the kids went out to the fireworks while we stayed at the house with the other kids.
Speaker A:But yeah, that was my Fourth of July.
Speaker A:That and hanging out at the beach.
Speaker A:It felt a little strange.
Speaker A:I'll admit that.
Speaker A:I feel like I don't know exactly what the feeling was, but feels weird to kind of be celebrating the 4th of July these days.
Speaker A:But yeah, so much happening otherwise, too, in the news.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Like, we had a ton of topics that we could have picked for today when it comes to, like the bill that passed kind of the implications with that and the budget for ICE going up.
Speaker A:I think it's like, you know, for deportation programs is up to like $150 billion or something like that over the next few years, which is just an incredibly, like, that's a crazy jump for that organization of that size to have that much of a budget increase.
Speaker A:I thought.
Speaker A:I didn't verify this.
Speaker A:I saw that it was more than what the Marines budget is.
Speaker A:I believe it like $180 million.
Speaker A:Like more than the United States Marine budget of.
Speaker A:What's the force there?
Speaker A:I think it's like it's over 200,000 people.
Speaker A:So anyway, yeah, we could have talked about that today, but know we'll probably spend more time digging into, into what the actual results are of this before we bring that up for an episode.
Speaker A:But any, any initial thoughts?
Speaker A:Anything that you guys want to talk about, like, related to either that or the alligator Alcatraz topic?
Speaker A:And then the last one that I was thinking about was Laura Loomer and her influence over just in general government policy is.
Speaker A:Is kind of crazy to me.
Speaker B:Barely know who Laura Loomer is and I'd prefer to keep it that way.
Speaker B:But.
Speaker B:And we can talk about that, I guess.
Speaker B:You want.
Speaker B:No, I find that like, as you know, it has something to do with fascism too.
Speaker B:But maybe the older I get, the less I like fireworks in general.
Speaker B:I'm just kind of annoyed by all the noise and my dog is really old and anxious and scared all the time about it now, but now I just kind of relaxed and watched some Lord of the Rings and tried to just be a little hermit and not, not pretend like there was something to celebrate yesterday.
Speaker B:Just on the topic, I guess I have a little passage from Howard Zinn's People's History the United States, on his chapter about the original revolution, which maybe there's more in common we have with the past than we like to think so.
Speaker B:And I thought I could read the last two, two paragraphs of this chapter on, on the Revolution and see if we have any thoughts about that.
Speaker B:The name of the chapter is Tyranny is Tyranny.
Speaker B:And so it's sort of in the context of the colonial leaders launching this war of independence against the crown of England.
Speaker B:But it has to do with the way people in general in colonial times felt about the revolution as opposed to the propaganda we get about it retrospectively.
Speaker B:So last two paragraphs of this chapter here, Howard Zinn says, in America, too, the reality behind the words of the Declaration of Independence, issued in the same year as Adam Smith's capitalist manifesto, the wealth of nations, was that a rising class of important people needed to enlist on their side, enough Americans to defeat England, without disturbing too much the relations of wealth and power that had developed over 150 years of colonial history.
Speaker B:Indeed, 69% of the signers of the Declaration of Independence had held Colonial Office under England.
Speaker B:When the Declaration of Independence was read with all of its flaming radical language from the town hall balcony in Boston, it was read by Thomas Crafts, a member of the Loyal Nine group, conservatives who had opposed militant action against the British.
Speaker B:Four days after reading, the Boston Committee of Correspondence ordered the townspeople to show up on the common for a military draft.
Speaker B:The rich, it turned out, could avoid the draft by paying for substitutes the poor had to serve.
Speaker B:This led to rioting and shouting, quote, tyranny is tyranny.
Speaker B:Let it come from whom it may.
Speaker B:So that was the original revolution in Boston.
Speaker B:Happy fourth of July.
Speaker A:I'm just trying to think, like, what.
Speaker A:I don't know what I want to say to that.
Speaker A:I mean, I 100% like, with the.
Speaker A:Like, it doesn't matter where it's coming from, right?
Speaker A:Like, it doesn't matter where the oppression is coming from.
Speaker A:Like, if, if you're, you're being oppressed.
Speaker A:Like, I don't think it matters if that's from wealthy landowners or from king across the ocean.
Speaker A:Like, the, the end state really becomes the same thing for, for those people.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:It just makes me feel like we've been stuck in these same loops for such a long time.
Speaker B:The same narratives we're still trying to deconstruct and get our heads around.
Speaker B:It's hard to keep a historical perspective.
Speaker B:A lot of the evils we're facing today are new and have new contexts and new meanings and everything.
Speaker B:But the structure of the narratives that we're fighting against in some big ways are the same that we've been fighting with for a long time.
Speaker B:Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker B:That's what's hitting home for me.
Speaker A:And I guess the question is then, like, why, why now?
Speaker A:Right?
Speaker A:Like, the structure has been there.
Speaker A:Is it just like the power has become either so top heavy or like, people have forgotten that they can't just run over people and not have some sort of backlash?
Speaker A:Or, like, have we taken in so much of our own propaganda that we're just like, profit overall?
Speaker A:Like, screw everything else, like, at this point, or is it like, there's a thought that there's going to be some sort of global instability coming and now's the time to hoard up on everything you can, like, and there's going to be problems ahead.
Speaker A:So it's just like, hey, like, we see that, we know that, you know, a lot of the climate change and global instability is going to come to a head at some point.
Speaker A:So let's just get everything we can and try and buckle down.
Speaker A:Any thoughts as far as like, why it's more.
Speaker C:I think.
Speaker C:Yeah, I think you nailed it.
Speaker C:It's one of, it's one of those two.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:I mean, it's like tied back to that article you read about the technology guy and how he kind of got ambushed by those rich people who were wanting advice about how to hoard all their resources and keep their security staff on their side and all that.
Speaker B:We were talking about the budget skyrocket for immigration and how they're not even trying to hide it anymore.
Speaker B:And I'm thinking back to like I think I said before that the fascists are really going for it right now.
Speaker B:Like they're not trying to pretend or couch it in these liberal Democratic terms.
Speaker B:They're just like straight up doing fascism and racism unashamed.
Speaker B:And yeah, I think it's this inevitability of fascism when people realize what's going on.
Speaker B:They can't get around it through manipulating education anymore because they screwed up and gave us the Internet.
Speaker B:And now everybody, despite their best efforts to keep us under propaganda and confused, like people are wise enough to figure out what's going on.
Speaker B: atistician was analyzing like: Speaker B:And now that is like 53% in favor of Palestine with the same voter base.
Speaker B:A 70 point jump on this one topic in eight years indicates that the narrative is completely out of their hands.
Speaker B:Like no matter what they try to do to control people's perception of modern colonialism and fascism and all this, the younger generations were not getting duped nearly as much as we were even a decade or two ago.
Speaker B: q war propaganda in the early: Speaker B:And you just can't see the same public opinion supporting what they're trying to do today.
Speaker B:Like it's just not going to happen.
Speaker B:And so to your point yet, I think the shrewd fascists realize that and they're trying to clamp down on all the power and resources they can while they can do it.
Speaker A:The last, last ditch effort, put everything on the field.
Speaker A:Yeah, I saw another infographic that was similar, Joe, but it was Looking at just like countries views on Israel over time.
Speaker A:It's like most recently, and I don't think there was a country, there was like maybe two or three in that entire infographic and I'll try and find that and get the sourcing for it.
Speaker A:But there's like two or three that were positive on Israel right now compared to, you know, like you said 20 years ago, where it was a much more positive view and, and doing that to themselves, I would say.
Speaker A:I think that's pretty, pretty clear on the, the Laura Loomer thing.
Speaker A:The reason that I brought that up, I just want to mention this really quick.
Speaker A: I don't know, probably since: Speaker A:I don't know when she came on the scene or whatnot, but she has gotten to the point where like she was taking meetings directly with Trump and she was the one that was pushing to have the NSA director fired, basically stating that they have either connections to China or that they're not loyal to the Trump administration.
Speaker A:So I think she came in and that was directly after that when she went to talk to Trump.
Speaker A:That was when they fired the director of the National Security Agency.
Speaker A:The reason I brought it up was just crazy to me that we've got essentially a right wing influencer that now is directing policy and positions of where people can go in our government.
Speaker A:Obviously no one elected Laura Loomer to any position in government, but that's where we're at at this point.
Speaker A:And that's the type of media that they have in their like the press rooms now.
Speaker A:It's like right wing influencers that are now on the press corps, like lobbing softball questions to Carolyn Levitt so they can just get their talking points out.
Speaker A:It's no longer about actually having anyone challenged.
Speaker A:Same thing we talked about months ago with like the AP getting kicked out.
Speaker C:Yeah, the press pool has just become like a farce.
Speaker C:And it started off at the very beginning, like where anybody who had any actual question or a criticism would just get like heckled and it's just been reduced and they added Tim Pools, like, it's just crazy.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And watching some of those, whenever they get asked a question from like one of their planted or one of the those like, it's always like framed as like, oh, you know with all these illegals or like, you know, it's just the language that they're even like tossing up is just super inflammatory to begin with.
Speaker A:Yeah, it's like, oh, thank you so much for asking that question.
Speaker A:Like, these are the types of questions we should be talking about.
Speaker C:There's a socialist about to take over New York.
Speaker C:Will Trump arrest this socialist mayor?
Speaker A:Like, yeah.
Speaker A:Yep, I pretty sure, like, is.
Speaker A:How are you going to stop this?
Speaker A:I think they said communist and yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:Back was like, yeah, yeah.
Speaker A:How can you even pretend that you're being in any way independent journalistic standards when you're throwing up communities?
Speaker A:I mean, Zoron has come out and said multiple times, yeah, democratic socialists or socialists have these things, have criticism capitalism.
Speaker A:Pretty sure he said specifically, I'm not a communist, like in multiple interviews.
Speaker A:But that's still what they're pushing up every time they talk about him.
Speaker A:It's crazy.
Speaker B:Yeah, I think it's reckless and crazy and I think the right wing people in the press pool and the administration and everything don't.
Speaker B:Maybe they do, but I don't think they necessarily realize how they're shooting themselves in the foot with this freewheeling, loose use of language and terms like communism and socialists and stuff.
Speaker B:Because, I mean, it's the same.
Speaker B:You could see the same thing happen on the Internet when the October 7 Hamas attack happened and Israel and, and their media put out this whole blitz about this terrorist attack and you know, all these horrible atrocities were happening and people online were like, but why?
Speaker B:And then they started googling and doing some research about the context of everything and they're like, wait a minute, what have you been doing to them?
Speaker B:And so like the same thing is going to happen if they keep insisting on this red scare language using terms like communist and socialist.
Speaker B:People are going to start reading Marx.
Speaker B:People are going to start looking into these terms.
Speaker B:They're going to be like, wake up.
Speaker B:He did have some points to make about capitalism.
Speaker B:What is all this stuff about?
Speaker B:And these scary boogeyman words are going to lose their teeth and people are going to be like, actually this sounds better than the system we've got for now.
Speaker B:Maybe we should give these ideas a chance.
Speaker B:And I think it's going to unravel on a public level in a way that they might not be anticipating.
Speaker C:That would be wonderful because with Sauron being a socialist or communist, Fox is coming out as anti socialist or whatever.
Speaker C:And it's like, you know, mump.
Speaker C:Donnie's socialist agenda.
Speaker C:And it's like $30 minimum.
Speaker A:Wage.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker C:Health care for all.
Speaker C:Somebody's gonna be reading that.
Speaker A:Like, so free, free buses, like for, for transportation and then grocery, like state, city run grocery stores.
Speaker A:Like, like, we're kind of like the big ones, I think that they kept showing on Fox and it's like, probably sounds good to a lot of people, honestly.
Speaker C:It actually is.
Speaker C:Right here it says Zoran Mandani's socialist promises.
Speaker C:Then it says no cost child care, baby baskets to newborns.
Speaker C:$30 minimum wage.
Speaker C:Scary.
Speaker B:Amazing.
Speaker B:Great policy.
Speaker A:So when do we, when do we vote?
Speaker A:Like, do we have to move to New York City?
Speaker A:Is that, or is that.
Speaker A:I don't know how that works.
Speaker A:Please stay tuned for a word from our sponsors.
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Speaker A:So for our main topics today, two things we really want to talk about.
Speaker A:Let's start talking about how the Trump administration is really trying to control the media internal to the United States and some of the things that they've done there.
Speaker A:And so I've got these two articles.
Speaker A:The first one I'm going to read from is from Politico.
Speaker A:This is from July 2nd, but I think we talked about this a little bit previously where Trump had a lawsuit against 60 Minutes.
Speaker A: ew that they did prior to the: Speaker A:So the, the title for this is First Amendment Advocates Decry Settlement in 60 Minutes Lawsuit.
Speaker A:Again, this is from Politico.
Speaker A:So press freedom groups and First Amendment advocates slammed Paramount $16 million settlement with President Donald Trump, saying the decision emboldened Trump's attacks against an already battered news industry.
Speaker A:This is a quote, the lawsuit is just as frivolous today as it was yesterday.
Speaker A:There's zero substance to it, said Bob Korn, Revere chief counsel for the foundation for Individual Rights and Expression.
Speaker A:All this really shows is that sometimes a bully can get his way.
Speaker A: t and Trump's opponent in the: Speaker A:Originally, Paramount's legal team wrote that the suit was an affront to the First Amendment and is without basis in law or fact.
Speaker A:But in settling, Paramount, the parent company of cbs, has drawn the ire of media groups pledged to protect freedom of the press.
Speaker A:Clayton Whitmire's executive director of Reporters Without Borders, wrote in a statement that the decision was shameful and accused Paramount executives of rewarding Trump for his petty legal assault.
Speaker A:Some of the critics charged that in settling a lawsuit, Paramount executives, including Paramount Global chair Sherry Redstone, engaged in quid pro quo with the Trump administration so that it would approve its merger to Skydance.
Speaker A:Paramount did not respond for request to comment on the settlement or the lawsuit.
Speaker A:Several Democratic senators have also decried the move, pledging to probe the then rumored settlement in May, indicating Paramount may be engaging in potentially illegal conduct.
Speaker A:One of the senators, Rod Wyden, from.
Speaker A:Oh, this is your.
Speaker A:One of your senators.
Speaker A:Democrat from Oregon.
Speaker A:Yeah, Arthur.
Speaker C:Ron is our, is our stronghold.
Speaker C:He always has great opinions and he's always like one of the first to stand up.
Speaker A:Nice.
Speaker C:He was one of the first to endorse Bernie, actually openly in Senate, too.
Speaker A:Fantastic.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:So, yeah, don't primary Ron is what we're told.
Speaker C:Don't primary him.
Speaker C:But he's, he's not the youngest guy.
Speaker A:Ah, gotcha.
Speaker A:So, yeah.
Speaker A:One of the senators, Ron Wyden from Oregon, posted on X Wednesday indicating that he'd be first in line calling for federal charges.
Speaker A:We are not privy to anything that went on behind closed doors, but it appears to be extortion in plain sight.
Speaker A:That's corn.
Speaker A:Revere said in May.
Speaker A:The Freedom of Press foundation, which says it is a Paramount shareholder, pledged to file a lawsuit if the settlement went through.
Speaker A:It would allow shareholders to recoup damages from harm to Paramount that has been caused by misconduct of his officers and directors.
Speaker A:Seth Stern, director of advocacy for Freedom of the Press foundation, said an interview on Wednesday.
Speaker A:There is no reasonable explanation, or should I say no reasonable and lawful explanation for paying 16 million to settle a frivolous, ridiculously frivolous lawsuit, Stern said.
Speaker A:Though the organization has yet to file the derivative lawsuit, Stern said that they have already sent an information demand to Paramount and we'll send another Wednesday.
Speaker A:According to Stern, shareholders are entitled to some information about the corporation's affairs under law.
Speaker A:We're looking for information to which we are entitled on why this decision was made to pay a settlement to Trump that is far, far exponentially in excess of any value that anyone who knows anything about the first Amendment law believes that his claims have.
Speaker B:He said.
Speaker A:Stern said he would hope that the corporation would not object to transparency.
Speaker A:For an organization that owns a news outlet to hide the ball about why it made this extremely consequential move would just sort of add insult to the.
Speaker A:Insult to industry.
Speaker A:I'm wondering if that's.
Speaker A:Yeah, insult to injury, that's what they meant.
Speaker A:But insult to industry.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Anyway, anyway, so that's the article from Politico.
Speaker A:The reason I wanted to talk about this a little bit is really talking about one like, okay, so the Paramount settled this lawsuit like it's been pretty widely claimed that there's no legal grounds for actually the lawsuit that Trump and the team have filed.
Speaker A:And yet it was settled by Paramount because they want to make sure that this merger, well, the assumption is they want to make sure this, this merger goes through with Skydance.
Speaker A:So yeah, I wanted to get your thoughts open.
Speaker A:Just quid pro quo, you know, extortion of a media company in order to allow them to do a merger and make more money.
Speaker A:And also, you know, the bottom line essentially being the most important thing here, ver is actually defending press freedom or you know, their ability to retain autonomy.
Speaker A:So any thoughts on that one from you guys?
Speaker C:Yeah, unfortunately, it's just the way that the administration does business, I guess.
Speaker C:I mean like the FCC is supposed to be like for public interest and ensuring like anti monopoly laws.
Speaker C:And what I read about Skydance is that it's this.
Speaker C:It's billionaire David Ellison, who's Larry Ellison's son, who founded Oracle and like is deeply conservative and here they go, bribe them to have a merger to control a monopoly which the FCC is supposed to ensure doesn't happen.
Speaker C:So yeah, I guess it's like a joke.
Speaker C:I don't know, it just seems like a joke that these government agencies are like at all independent.
Speaker A:They're clearly not like pretty much just a line behind the administration at that point.
Speaker A:Yeah, whatever their goals are, it's independence doesn't seem to be a thing for most government agencies, I guess anymore.
Speaker A:Which we'll talk about a little bit with Voice of America too.
Speaker B:But yeah, I mean, we mentioned maybe it was in the last episode where we were talking about institutions and how they sort of take on a life of their own.
Speaker B:And they are more interested in reproducing themselves as institutions and growing than they are in serving any human based real need and as consumers of media.
Speaker B:This is why it's so important for us to understand where the financial incentives lie with the different organizations we Trust, which is why I like Democracy now, for example.
Speaker B:They're viewer supported.
Speaker B:They're, you know, they have elaborate fundraising efforts where they try to make sure that they can keep their basic news operation running, but you don't see them trying to, you know, own a building on fifth Avenue or something or what.
Speaker B:You know, they're not trying to like expand the empire in the way that a lot of these media conglomerates are.
Speaker B:They're not trying to merge with something really.
Speaker B:I mean, it puts the onus of research more on the reader, the viewer, the listener.
Speaker B:But understanding where your source's biases are, even with some of these things, like, I don't, I haven't dug into Politico as an institution, but I would be curious where their incentives lie.
Speaker B:I heard, I think it was Chris Hedges, who's a journalist, who was doing an interview with somebody and he was making this point about how you have basically in the national level, whether it's corporations or the government, now you have an oligarchic wing and you have a corporatist wing.
Speaker B:And the Republicans and the Trump side are like the openly oligarchic wing who are more blatantly doing these aggressive things.
Speaker B:And then on the Democratic side, they're more corporatists.
Speaker B:They want more reasonable deals made.
Speaker B:They want to protect their investments overseas.
Speaker B:They want to have a stable economy to protect their interests.
Speaker B:And in both of these things, you don't have anybody looking out for the average human being.
Speaker B:You have people with more conservative corporate goals and then people with more aggressive corporate goals.
Speaker B:When it comes to media, it's really important to understand where the incentives lie with the media you consume.
Speaker B:What's their funding like, who's paying them?
Speaker B:How do they raise their money?
Speaker B:I know you said that Voice of America was supposed to be set up as some independent kind of journalist thing, but is that just propaganda?
Speaker B:What's the actual funding structure and everything look like for that?
Speaker B:I'm sure we'll get into it with the next topic, but just a thread to follow if we want as your.
Speaker A:Point there about like the, the more corporatist side trying to ensure that they're, they've got like a stable.
Speaker A:It's almost like what's the, the bare minimum that we need to do to take care of people in order to ensure that we don't have kind of like a, some sort of uprising or like people going against the government.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Versus like the oligarch side.
Speaker A:This is how I'm interpreting it.
Speaker A:Let me know if I'm Interpreting it.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:But, and then the, the Trump more fascist side of it is like, what, what, what do we need to put in place in order to maintain control instead of like, what do we need to do quality of life wise at a minimum, to keep people.
Speaker A:It's like no carrot in this scenario.
Speaker A:Just stick.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Okay, so I'll close out this portion of the topic.
Speaker A:I'm just going to read a little bit from the Associated Press on, on this similar topic.
Speaker A:I'm not going to read the whole article, but this is about the same thing that Paramount's going to pay 16 million in the settlement to Trump over the 60 Minutes interview.
Speaker A:Halfway through the article, it's talking about some, some reactions to this.
Speaker A:So this is a quote from Senator Elizabeth Warren that the deal could be bribery in plain sight as she called for investigations to that.
Speaker A:So essentially, yeah, just like give me money and then I'll let you merge right.
Speaker A:With this other institute.
Speaker A:And then I'm going to read from this last paragraph.
Speaker A:So as part of the deal, paramount said that 60 minutes will in the future promptly release full transcripts of interviews with presidential candidates.
Speaker A:It's a significant change in the broadcast practices.
Speaker A:It has traditionally kept its editing decisions to itself and did not release a transcript of the Harris interview until well after the election.
Speaker A:Indeed, the settlement is a blow to a program widely considered one of the best in broadcast journalism for decades following Owens departure.
Speaker A:Yeah, Bill Owens quit.
Speaker A:So anyway, the, the part that I wanted to read here was in December, ABC News settled a defamation lawsuit by Trump over statements made by anchor George Stephanopoulos agreeing to pay 15 million towards Trump Presidential Library rather than engage in a public fight.
Speaker A:So, Arthur, that was what you were talking about, like the previous lawsuit that they had already settled.
Speaker A: ,: Speaker A:And so left uncertain is whether these settlements will encourage further Trump lawsuits.
Speaker A:The President last week threatened CNN and the New York Times with lawsuits stemming from the reporting of a preliminary assessment of damage from the US Bombing of Iran's nuclear program.
Speaker A:The reason I wanted to read that right is it's just a continued pattern of just like sue and hope that they settle and use that as a way to extort more money.
Speaker A:And it seems to be working.
Speaker A:John Oliver did a good readout on all of this, actually, from, from like just a Trump's attack on, on the media standpoint.
Speaker A:So I would I'll find the, the episode that.
Speaker A:But if you want to get into it more, I'd recommend watching that from, from John Oliver if you have the time.
Speaker B:I'm just thinking about the legal system, court system in general, and tying it back to the Supreme Court decision we mentioned last week about Medicaid recipients now not having the right to sue their state in federal court if the state violates their federal rights.
Speaker B:And this idea I've heard before, I don't know whose original idea it is, but it's out there in the intellectual world of thoughts about the courts but that the court system exists as a way for the ruling class to peacefully settle disagreements amongst themselves.
Speaker B:And it doesn't necessarily exist in order for the average person to use to their benefit.
Speaker B:It's more for the oligarchs and the ruling class to avoid actually going to war with each other.
Speaker B:And they use the court system to settle these disputes more or less peacefully.
Speaker B:And if you look at Trump's career and I'm sure the John Oliver episode you mentioned points us out, but Trump has been just constantly abusing the legal system in this way his whole life.
Speaker B:To his benefit.
Speaker A:Absolutely.
Speaker A:And now he can just do that from the seat of the US Government.
Speaker A:So it's like with all the the backing of that.
Speaker A:Right man.
Speaker A:Good stuff.
Speaker A:Good stuff.
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Speaker A:All right, so moving on kind of from like the what we're doing or what's occurring locally to kind of control the media and what the media is allowed to to put out.
Speaker A:I do want to talk about Voice of America for a bit.
Speaker A:So there's a couple articles that we'll link to in our show notes related to the Voice of America.
Speaker A:Kind of like where it came from.
Speaker A:But the short version is that the Voice of America was started as it's like it's state media for the United States.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:It's the United States funds the Voice of America and then other radio programs that basically started after World War II as a way to promote democracy and I guess depropagandize I don't know how you want to, want to claim it or call it, but like Germany after World War II and then the Greater Europe and then this kind of like, expanded in, in the future into like rated free Europe and Radio Liberty, like the other branch off from Voice of America into other parts of the world.
Speaker A:I've listened to Voice of America when I'm overseas.
Speaker A:I guess, like, I would describe it for anyone that hasn't listened to Voice of America as kind of like an NPR ish style.
Speaker A:It's pretty, like dry, I would say.
Speaker A:It's not like crazy, like pretty tries to be mainly factual and just report on news similar in a way to NPR does.
Speaker A:It's funded by the federal government, but by law it has editorial independence from the government.
Speaker A:It was the, the International Broadcasting act, that's the law that helped basically state that it had to focus on like fact, independent reporting without oversight from like specific government officials directing like what it is that they had to report on.
Speaker A:But the reason I wanted to talk about this today was just because the Trump administration kind of took over.
Speaker A:They appointed Carrie Lake.
Speaker A:If you remember her, she was the Arizona.
Speaker A:She kept running for senator in Arizona and kept claiming that the election was stolen from her every time, that she lost continually.
Speaker A:She was very far right and too far right for Arizona to elect her.
Speaker A:And so now she's been put in charge of Voice of America.
Speaker A:Ed has been pretty open about that.
Speaker A:Voice of America needs to align to the administration's beliefs, right?
Speaker A:Like what the administration says and, and what the administration is posting.
Speaker A:They should be talking more about how great America is and promoting American values, which, I mean, whose values?
Speaker A:I'm assuming the administration values and their how they look at America.
Speaker A:But anyway, just wanted to talk a little bit about Voice of America and it's kind of shutting down and taking that editorial oversight and really trying to make it be more of a direct propaganda arm for the, the current administration vice independent editorial organization that I think that the way that it was said to have stood up was to promote democracy.
Speaker A:You know, we could talk a lot about what does that mean?
Speaker A:And you know, what does democracy mean after World War II versus what does democracy mean promoting that today?
Speaker A:So any thoughts on what I've said so far?
Speaker A:Anything that we think is interesting to talk about here related to that.
Speaker C:It's like another gutting of credibility, like US Credibility abroad, unfortunately.
Speaker C:And I read another article that the Voice of America usually highlights activists and defectors and opposition leaders.
Speaker C:And now of course not.
Speaker C:And so it's Also kind of like silencing any other voice as well.
Speaker C:And then also, Kerry Lake tried to.
Speaker C:I don't know how to articulate this well, but the.
Speaker C:They redirected it to, like, the oan.
Speaker C:The, like, far right.
Speaker C:I forget what that stands for.
Speaker C:I just read oan.
Speaker C:It's like, One America News or something.
Speaker A:One America News.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Private organization.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker C:It's just like, all this and like, the.
Speaker A:Yeah, it.
Speaker C:It just seems like a horrible thing and how you said, like, it's set up for, you know, kind of like.
Speaker C:I think it said, like, their charter was that they have to kind of, like, align with US Foreign policy, but to not be political and, like, promoting democracy.
Speaker C:So it's.
Speaker C:It's very strange.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker C:I don't know a lot of nuances to it.
Speaker A:And that's essentially what they're trying to claw back at this point.
Speaker A:So essentially they can control and direct, you know, what it is that they're supposed to be reporting on or how they're reporting.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:I don't know a whole lot about the history of Voice of America or anything.
Speaker B:I posted a link in our chat just now because I know there's a person I follow on TikTok, Madeline Pendleton, and she has a podcast about propaganda and everything.
Speaker B:She's done a lot of deep dives on Radio Free Asia and Radio Free Europe and sort of U.S. propaganda abroad.
Speaker B:And so if that's something we want to look more into, maybe her podcast would be a good reference for us to think about.
Speaker B:Just in the context of global history, I'm very suspicious of any imperial power, like the US or any other imperial power that wants to have a global media operation aligned with their foreign policy.
Speaker B:Like, there may be some good news that gets produced within that, but the overall context of the mission seems very much like, I don't know, a country that maintains a Jim Crow South.
Speaker B:Publishing stuff about democracy around the world feels pretty hypocritical to me, you know, and that's sort of the context in which this arose.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Just seems very messy.
Speaker B:And, yeah, I'm not saying that, like, it's not worth doing anything about or worrying about or whatever, but I don't know.
Speaker B:Suspicious of the history and also suspicious of how the Trump administration is using it now, and just suspicious all around.
Speaker A:And I think that's fair.
Speaker A:Like, I also think, like, it's.
Speaker A:If you're.
Speaker A:I guess it comes to the.
Speaker A:What are the forms of propaganda?
Speaker A:Like, going back to, like, what are those forms of propaganda that we've talked about, like, if it's the deceptive, like trying to break down democratic norms or whatnot, or using that against the institution's original intent and trying to do that versus propaganda that's trying to prop up and promote democratic norms.
Speaker A:Hypocritical, for sure.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:With the context of the United States to be promoting democracy and not necessarily having that for all of its citizens back at home immediately after World War II, but at the same time is promoting democracy.
Speaker A:If you're actually promoting, like, a democratic state, not like the United States, but the concept of democracy.
Speaker A:If you're actually promoting the concept of democracy and not like capitalism tied to democracy, can you still get good out of that?
Speaker A:I think so.
Speaker A:Like, I, I guess you.
Speaker A:It would have to be a lot of deep dive into what is actually being broadcast from Voice of America in the different areas to really get a good view of that.
Speaker B:But yeah, that's my main question, I guess, is when we say that it's promoting democracy, what are they saying about, like, are they defining democracy, explaining how to set up a free and fair election?
Speaker B:Are they, you know, promoting these actual democratic processes?
Speaker B:Or.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:Are they, you know, paving the way for US Corporations to come in and take over things?
Speaker B:I don't know, because it's also.
Speaker B:Is just historically taking place at the same time after.
Speaker B:There's a really good clip of Noam Chomsky given an interview back in the day where somebody was like, somebody had asked him.
Speaker B:The interviewer's like, you once said that every US president after World War II would get charged under the Nuremberg Laws for war crimes.
Speaker B:Can you defend that?
Speaker B:Can we just go through the list of all the US presidents since World War II, and Noam Chomsky goes through every single president since World War II and lists all the war crimes they've committed, all the democracies they've overthrown, all the, you know, all the atrocities they've supported or manufactured abroad.
Speaker B:And it just makes it really hard to trust anything that the government that, that government would also, you know, if that government is promoting narratives about democracy and at the same time overthrowing democracies with financing or directly supporting coups in this or that country.
Speaker B:Like, what are they actually saying on the radio about democracy?
Speaker B:That would, that would be where we would need to go.
Speaker B:That's.
Speaker B:That's a lot of deep dive to actually get into those radio programs, what they've said.
Speaker A:Yeah, it was interesting.
Speaker A:Like, where my head started going with that is like, it's difficult when you've got, like, this thing that most Americans probably have no idea, like, about Voice of America or what it does, or even, like, have never listened to it.
Speaker A:And yet, you know, we're spending money to push this overseas.
Speaker A:It's almost like two different things I'm thinking about.
Speaker A:Or like, you could make the argument around Voice of America in general.
Speaker A:Like, should we have a state sponsored media apparatus globally?
Speaker A:But then the other argument that I'm thinking of is more just like taking that from a supposedly independent organization and turning it into a deliberate propaganda arm.
Speaker A:Like, that's like, I don't know.
Speaker A:You said mask off earlier.
Speaker A:The same thing.
Speaker A:Like, I guess it's like.
Speaker A:It's just not even like, trying to, like, hide anything anymore.
Speaker A:There's no subterfuge here.
Speaker A:It's like, this is Voice of America and we need to align it to the administration's goals.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Like, is kind of where my head's going with that, if that makes sense.
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Speaker A:Anything else we want to talk about today?
Speaker A:As far as this stuff goes?
Speaker A:No.
Speaker C:That guy who fell as.
Speaker C:Who claims to have fallen asleep for this vote.
Speaker A:Someone claimed to fallen asleep for the vote?
Speaker C:Yeah, yeah, he, like, missed, like, is some Republican House guy and like, oh, I fell asleep for the first vote and I missed.
Speaker C:You know, it's just like such.
Speaker B:You got one job just to vote on shit.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker C:Only two Republicans sided with Democrats, you know, and voted no.
Speaker A:Went from, what was it, like 24 down to down to 2.
Speaker A:Something like that.
Speaker A:Okay, well, that will close it out for the week.
Speaker A:Coming up on Thursday, we will have our part four of our disinformation deep dive series to close that out.
Speaker A:So we'll finally get that to you and.
Speaker A:Yeah, I think that's it.
Speaker A:That's it for this week's episode.
Speaker A:Thanks so much for listening and hanging out with us.
Speaker C:If you enjoy the show, help us spread the word.
Speaker C:Leave a rating or review and share it with your friends, family, or anyone you think would get something out of these conversations.
Speaker B:Your ratings, reviews and shares help this show grow.
Speaker B:And the more people listening, the harder it is for Propaganda to win.
Speaker C:So until next time, stay aware, stay.
Speaker B:Safe, and remember, Propaganda loves you.
Speaker A:Sam.
