The Weakness of the Press Corps

This is a Global Player original podcast. There are convulsions going on at one of the main networks in America's CBS. Trump said recently, CNN would be better when know the new owners take overver That's a very dark moment for a country that's always celebrated the free press. He's threatening to pull the license from ABC because a comedian mocked him. I mean, this kind of thing you hear in a Tin pot dictatorship. You have a bunch of right wing billionaires controlling much of the mainstream media that people have relied on for years. That is a very scary prospect Newers cllosing you down, not yet CBS News projects Graham Platner has won Maine's Democratic primary for U. S. Senate Platner has been engulfed in a cascading series of controversies. But he beat Governor Janet Mills, who suspended her campaign in April yet remained on the ballot. Graham Platner is officially the Democrat's nominee for Maine If you haven't met him before, you're gonna to hear an awful lot about him now This remarkable rise of the unknown Oyster Man A working man from Maine Progressive politics in his head and a Nazi tattoo on his back What does it tell us about American politics today almost seems vital that you have a checkered backstory, that you're not squeaky clean. Is it that the Democrats are learning finally from the Republicans about how you have to win in today's America? Welcome to the newews agents USA The News agents USA with Emily Makliss and John Sopel It's John. It's Maitless. And the thing you've got to understand about this corner of America Maine is it's a very blue Democrat state. a lot of the voters are Democrat. And yet it has this unshiftable Republican senator, Susan Collins, who through an extraordinary career of threading a needle walking a tightrope so delicately she never quite pisses anyone off She has retained this Senate position for the Republicans And the Democrats are getting pissed I mean, as they would say, angry. They can't work out how to knock her off the top spot. And up until now, really, over the decades, they've always played a fairly safe pair of hands against Susan Collins. They've chosen people by the Democratic National Party, backed by Chuck Schumer, backed by the sort of traditional Democrats. and this time they've gone Hang on, let's rip up the rules. Let's go for somebody don't expect and they've landed upon this chap Braam Platner. who The left of the party loves. He talks about Gaza He talks about taxation He talks about the need for progressive policies on the left. But he has what we might call baggage. There have been voices from his past who' described his What would we say? Manhandling in the relationship. One woman says she was locked in a room by him, she was forced out of a cab by him. She has told her story to the New York Times. She is, we should say, a conservative voice, but there's been other stuff Okay about Nazi tattoo. the phrases that he used to use on Twitter The names he's called people. Por, rural, stupid. Police are bastards and so it goes on The list is quite long. I mean look, if he was going to an airport on a flight You'd have to pay excess baggage for all the baggage that he carries with him. I this guy is just in conventional political terms A conventional political manager would say he is in one man disaster zone. There is so much that is wrong with him that how can If viewer his bad you go, it'scontainable. Uncontable Oh my God. I think did quit after the tattoo episode became known. They were like, we can't handle this. We can't explain this. we can't do the messaging And yet last night in the primary results he want so comfortably against the Democrat opponent Um that he is now the candidate. and for better or worse, I think that come November, when the battle over control of the Senate will be raging, this is going to be ground zero now of the Democrats' campaign because if they lose Maine then their pathway to taking over control of the Senate looks like it has gone. And by God, the Democrats have now got themselves one hell of a risky candidate who is going to be a hard sell to the public. I don't know if Maine is ground zero or patient zero, whatever. I think what is happening now is in the midterms, the Dems are playing pick a mix. Yeah. One of my favorite games. But I think what they're doing is they're putting out very different candidates, partly depending on the state but also to see what works, right? They're figuring Not only do they have to try and take the Senate take back Congress, but they're also trying to work out the shape of their sort of presidential bid in two years time. So if you look at what's happening in Texas, they've got this squeaky clean pastor, James Talarico extraordinarily gifted orator who is up against a real kind of mGa crazy heavyweight And I think the party will be saying, well, is that the shape? Is that where we're going? Mam Dani is their sort of blueprint for a big city win, a progressive mayor in New York who frankly hasn't really put a foot wrong since he won last November You're then looking at somebody who's sort of complete rule brereaker like Graham Platner and say, well, should we be kind of going for whatever he looks like, a bit more, you know rough and ready, a bit more authentic, you know, is that the shape of the Democrat Party? I don't think they know yet. I mean, they would say, oh we're just we're playing the people according to you know, the places they're standing and that's normal and you don't have the same candida as a cut out in, you know, every state. But I do think something else is going on here, which is they're trying to work out they are right now? It's so interesting, is it? Because if you go back a few years, you know, twenty years and looked at American politicians, American senators from the Republican Party and the Democratic Party and compared them to say British politicians The American politicians were better looking. They were square jawed, better jawed, chiseled, better teeth. It all looked like they were all kind of slightly not sexy, they were unthreateningly good looking. And that was the sort of template for an American politician. And now you've got John Fetterman, the Democrat senator from Pennsylvania, who really does look rough and ready and he's tattooed and he wears sweatshirts and hoodies and kind of that's his grungy sort of look. And you've now got Blam Graham Platner. And it's like the Democratic partarty is leaning into the idea that we've got to have people that are just a bit gritty, a bit authentic looking. like they haven't got the Harvard Yale backstory of some of these other people that we would have nominated in yesterere. Well, we're joined now by Meri Hassan, who is actually here with us now amazingly in the studio, launching Zata UK Meddie, I want to try and understand what is happening with the Democrats right now. This overnight experience for main voters has put a guy who we just call the oyster catcher, you know he's the main oyster catcher. He is this outrider for the Democratic Party. somebody Graem Platner Somebody who I guess the Dems couldn't have seen themselves choosing you know, five years ago And overnight, he won the primary astonishingly solid margin, think seventy two percent And he's made all these controversial remarks. He's had ex girlfriends, women coming forward saying pretty much he manhandled them. He's got the covered up now Nazi tattoo. He's not your typical he's got He's got some baggagageard. I think it's fair to say he's got some baggage. But he's your kind of guy? Politically, yeah, sure he's my kind of guy personally, maybe not. Politically he's on the left, he's progressive more than his left wingness, it's authenticity, right? Everything that matters American politics right now. comes back to authenticity. People are set up with the political machine, they're fed up with spin doctors, consultants, they're fed up with the political class, they' fed up with Washington, DC. That'd been for a while. The Republicans worked this out much before the Democrats. I don't understand the word authenticity. In fact, I actually recoil from it. because I don't know whether authenticity just means working class now, because I've listen to the interview with Graemam Planner when he said He denied stuff that his, you know former girlfriends had said. He tried to explain that he never knew what his Nazi tattoo had meant, even though one of the girlfriends said that he clearly did and he called it, you know by the Nazi name. I'm just saying. So let me just stit two things on aut Can you be a big fat liar and authentic? Well, I'm not sure how authentic that makes you then. A couple of things.umber, you mention a couple times the girfriend's pluror. It's one girlriend who' accused of manhandling him. She's also the same girlfriend who accused him of the Nazi knowing about the Nazi tattoo. She also happens to be a long time conservative activist, which doesn't help her cause. you don't believe her. It's not that I don't believe her. I don't know what happed between two. I'm not going to get into that, but I'm just saying, it doesn't help your argument in American politics when your main accuser turns out to be a longt time right wing activist who helped Brett Kanaugh get confirmed to the Supreme Court, a person who was incredibly accused of sexual assault. So that doesn't help the cause. He's denied all the things that she's accused him of That's between, you know, Well, the Nazi tattoo was unclear. He's denied knowing about it, my point is. by pod save Americ. he's denied knowing it was a Nazi tattoo. So if you're authentic, just wear your Nazi tattoo on your shoulders. No what he said what he said though he's talked about PDSD.s's talked about the period he went through when he posted some horrific stuff in the past on message boards. Clearly that's not the person he is today. Anyone who knows him today says otherwise I've interviewed He didn't come across and say No, I still believe what I said about poor rural people. I still think black people. No, that's not what authenticity. Authentistity is owning who you are and not hiding behind talking points. Graham Platner does not talk in talking points. Bernie Sanders does not talking talking points. Donald Trump does not talk in talking points. And by the way, authenticity does not mean working class. It means someone who is actually who you think they are. Now Donald Trump in my eyes is a fake, authentic person. But when he ran for president, he didn't pretend to be working class. In fact, he leaned into the fact that he was a billionaire, He called himself a blue collar billionaire That he was a billionaire on the side of the little guy. And I think that's what Democrats have lacked for a long time. They's not authentic. I mean I'm saying he's a fake authentic. I'm's fake. So okay, you can fake authenticity as well, which doesn't make it authentic. So now we're really now into real getting mess. That's a mess. So My my point being is the Democrats never understood the anti establishment anger. they kept runlling centrist establishment candidates who lost to Susan Collins who lost to Donald Trump And now they're trying feel different. fininally So are you saying let's flip this the other way around? Are you saying it's positively advantageous that you've got this rough diamond who's got a terrible backstory, who's been a bit of an awkward life maybe and will that will do better with voters of Maine than it would be if you'd had some storied lawyer who had been a litigator, who had been in the Democratic Party, who' made a lot of money, went into private equity and is now standing That's the Senate. That's what some recent results seem to tell us. I'm not saying it's a good thing or a bad thing. I'm just saying that's where America is right now. I'm not a guy who's happy with the fact that Dond Trump is serving a second president But that happened because people clearly don't give a damn that he was a convicted felon, that he was found liable for sexual abuse, that he incited insurction. D didn't stop him from getting elected president of the Unitedates Sure, Med looked That's the country I'm in unfortunately. OkayK, but isn't it that Donald Trump? has this special carve out with the American public that no other person does. I mean, you know, Donald Trump running for president, five kids from three marriages. If that was Barack Obama, the narrative would have been slightly different. aggreed. And by the way, we don't know if Platin' is going to get away with this. He's won the primary. Let's see what happens in November. If he loses thenen you're one hundred percent right that only Trump has the carve out. If he wins, then maybe not. I would point out that there are other candidates running in this race who've got awful records, much worse than Ground pllat is in Texas. The Republicans have put up a candidate. Ken Paxton, attorney general. He's been dogged by corruption scandals, accusations, investigations for more than a decade. What's the? He was impeached by his own party and his wife is divorcing him on biblical grounds He's got one percent of the media coverage that Platina has, which tells you again that this is Democrats being being held to a standard. That's fact rubbish. We've spent a lot of time talking about Kempax and I'm not here to judge the news agents. I'm telling you, I'm in the United States of America in the last seven to fourteen days since both candidates either won their primary or pick lner has a hundred times do you think genuinely that the Democrats Democrats held to stand that Rublicans are not that's fact. Well, yes, but also, would the Democrats have to be saying about their own candidate? Oh lookook at Kem Paxton He's worse I mean, that's not a great Republicrs not saying I'm saying that someone who deserves. But go back to your inititionial point which you started the discussion on. you said Democrats wouldn't have picked a guy like this five years ago, I think you said when we started. They wouldn't have picked him five months ago. He wasn't the cabidate of the establishment. Chuck Schumer, the leader of the Democratic Senate, endorsed his opponent, the sitting governor, who was expected to be a shin. She was She was the only Democrat to won a statewide race. She was a popular governor. He destroyed her People don't want that. By the way, we haven't talked about any policies People in the democratic base don't want to support people who supported the genocide in Gaza. Grand Platina is very anti genocide and anti Israel. That matters. Pe in the base want universal healthcare now. They don't want any more compromise. Chuck Schumer has support. Exactly. They don't want Chuck Schumer support But again, can' you do better than that? I mean, sorry, but can't you do better than a guy like Maybe the po. about the ex girlfriend's comments because she's conservative or because there's only one of her I think I've never debated that. Right. it clearly being a dodgy guy. I think he's denied. E time I listen to the sort of main voices and the opinion polls, it's like we're going to have to hold our nose because the most important thing flipping the Senate. Well, we haven't said two words in this conversation, which are at the core of all of this. Susan Collins, the person he's running against is the sitting senator from Maine for thirty years. She has enabled everything that Donald Trump has done while pretending to be concerned about it. And Democrats are fed up there. indndependents are fed up. Trump is more unpopular than ever before. So that is a state that should be flippable in a midterm where the president's going to take easily flippable Without having to get somebody on about easily flippable. Mills right now, the woman he beat, is like four points up on her. Platinner's had a big leap, now he's down to two points up on her. Generic Democrat is ten points up on her, which is great, but I love these polls. whereere is this generic Democrat? There is always going to be real world people with real world issues. Okay, S you say the politics of Platner is what Democrats want Is it what America wants? Isn't that an activist view that America's sort of heart is where Bernie Saunders is or where AOC is or where the squad are. America's on monolith, you know,. very dived country. Sure when you say what America wants, but I think there are enough Americans to win with that message, yes, without shadow of doubt. I think the American public has shifted to the left on a lot of issues like taxing the wealthy, like universal healthcare. By the way, these issues transcend left right issues. You look every Republican under the age of fifty wants to oppose a majority of Republicans under the age of fifty want to oppose further aid to Israel healthcare is an issue that unites Americans across the board. Corruption, people are set up of corruption in Washington DC. We have the most corrupt president in modern American history. So these are issues that unite, but this is maine. This is not I'm not saying every senator is going to run on Grand platformers. Even Mandani went in one in New York conceded, notot everyone's going to run a Mumani campaign. Platin is shown you can win in Maine. until these recent scandals, he was up he's sh he he's shown he can win the nomination. Well, he also shows he was no, he was also beating Susan Collins by double digits in the polls. H his message, I keep saying, comeome back to the policies.is message is very popular. Does he have baggage? Yes, I think all three of us agree with that. Could it cost the election? Sure, it may do. I would also make one last point to go back to the double standards James Talerico is running in Texas against Ken Paxton. He's got a squeaky clean record. He's a former seminarian compared to and they're still smearing him as a weirdo as someone who wants to abuse children. So the Republicans will always smear whichever Democrat you put up. Barack Obama was supposedly, you the most evil man in the world of secret Muslim communist abro. Let's go to the other side to California because overnight we also had the results from this gubernatorial primary race which has got a very sort of cut out and keep Democrats, Javia Vesera, rightight? wouldould you agree with that? sort of a Biden guy and a barmerary gu guy who even the Biden people don't like Okay, they will be slagg you. And in second place now is Steve Hilton. Rmucker from It' tell me about Steve Hilton living in the US. No one ever mentions his British political past. I find it odd. Really? Yeah, No never comes up in any piece, any profile they worked for David Cameron, that he was a British politician.. They just call him former Fox host Isn't that amazing Yeah., I've just buried his own entire We just don't just don't matter. Well, it's good for him. I' think people want him talking about, you know, doesn't reallyatter the modern Ruban by. He's got a British accent. Yeah, well, think you may have modified it. I don't know I haven't listed him recently. but I think he doesn't want people knowing about his touchy feely compassionate conservives days. I probably itreen or thereen st the green. I just find that fascinating. Tom Styer was the populist ch in that race. A billionaire. I interviewed him recently, the man spent one hundred and forty million dollars of his own money to lose again, sadly. And so does that mean that that race then is pretty much nailed on for the Democrats because Hilton is not going to win California. I agree. There was a time when Republicans could win statewide in California. this year it is not one of those times. I don't know if you're following the LA Mayor primary, which caed huge controversy because they took a long time to count and immediately became evident that this is another stolen election where this reality TV star called Spencer Pratt was the Republican candidate. Social media built him up, Elon Musk. The algorithm pushed him. But in real life, LA is a very blue city. He was never going to win. And now because he it took a long time to count his votes, Donald Trump is claiming this election was stolen. The entire MGa media has now decided it's another reg election So this is the country we live right now. More of Meddi in a moment, when we come back, what is happening in the American media space right now? The News agents USA Med there are convulsions going on at one of the main networks in America CBS, where sixty Minutes, the storied documentary making programe on US. television is in turmoil over a series of sackings made by the editor in chief Barry Weiss. Is she just trying to modernize American television or is it something darker? Much more sinister, much more You're far too kind in your introduction. Barry Weiss went from the New York Times to setting up her own substack called the Free press, which she turned into this kind of center right contrary place anti woke, anti DEI, very pro Israel. And then she got bought by David Ellison son of Larry Ellison, I think third richest man in the world, Big Trump supporter, B big Netanyahu supporter. They paid I think one hundred fifty million dollars for this blog that nobody thought was worth one hundred fifty million dollars and then rewarded her by basically letting her take over this entire TV empire under Paramount which Ellison owns. So now she runs CBS News, one of the big mainstream brands. She's got this curious title Eeditor in chief, which doesn't really transfer to TV, very often. She doesn't transfer to TV. s thereayss a couple things about Barry Weise that run in parallel One is Our politics are horrible, which you come to in a second. twowo is even if our politics were amazing She's completely out of her dept for TV. She's just messed it all up. She doesn't understand television. CBS has had multiple failures. They couldn't get their correspondent into China with Trump the other day because they didn't get the visa in time. That's basic stuff because she fired the person who used to run that bureau. The whole thing is chaos, separate to the politics of it, the firings then hiring people back, the internal politics, the griping, the inability to run an evening news channel that has any ratings. sixixty mininutes was doing really well. She's now taking a hatchet to some was well. took it up by about nine, ten percent I don't know the exact number of. The last editor apparently had it wasn't what you doing about sixty minutes? sixty minutes ling Race over. Yeah He had actually been was up was And it was also up online. She was selling this whole thing. I'm going to modernize it for the internet. It was doing fine online. So that's one thing. numberumber one incompetence, but more sinister is the ideology She is there. What is happening in the U.S? I just need to make this clear in Hungary under all ban How did they take over the media? His billionaire friends bought the outlets. Erdogwan in Turkey. How did he take over the media? Not with tanks, his billionaire friends bought it. Modi in India, Billionaire friends bought all the channels. That is the playbook in the US. You have Ellison's buying CBS. He's about to buy CNN. Rupert Murdo owns Fox, Jeff Bezos owns the Washington Post You have a bunch of right wing billionaires controlling much of the mainstream media that people have relied on for years. That is a very scary prospect. when you have a president who makes it very clear that he expects loyalty, he expects people to fall into line. Trump said recently, CNN will be better when the new owners take overver That's a very dark moment for a country that's always celebrated the free press, the First Amendment So where is the First Amendment now You know any journalist in America always talks about the First Amendment rights, free speech, all the rest of it. The First Amendment is still there, but is it not being practiced? Trump treats the Constitution as an option. He follows it when he wants to, ignores it when he wants to. He's lost multiple court cases Other presidents have lost court cases, but other presidents didn't then just ignore the rulings in the way Trump does. He arrested Don Lemmon, the exX CNN journalist, He raided the home of a Washington Post reporter. He banned the AP from covering the White House and the Oval Office. He tried to defund NPR and PBS broadcasting in the United States. He's threatened multiple media stations with lawsuits, settled multim million dollar cases. He's threatening to pull the license from ABC because a comedian mocked him. I mean, this is kind of thing you hear in a Tin pot dictatorship. The comedian got pulled off the air of CBS, Stepven Colbert And then Jimmy Kimmel of ABC they suddenly said, o, we're going to do an early review of all ABC's local news licenses. So there is a lot of retribution going on here, a lot of targeting of the press that we see in authoritarian countries. It's a very worrying time for the media. and again Instead of the bosses of these companies standing up for journalistic principles and their staff, instead you have these billionaire owners either rolling over for Trump like Bezos, or enthusiastically backing him like Ellison. But I suppose someone listening to this will say, hang on, haven't you just introduce Medi Hassan as a guy who's got a media company in America, which is very outspoken. Yeah. no one's cllosing you down N yet But do you think that's seriously a possibility? yes You think that there would be action taken against you Isn't that paranoia? How could it be paranoia when the president is saying that this is what they want to do? When the FBI director says they have an enemies list, when they're investigating media companies all the time, when they're doing leak investigations all the time. when they're as I say, arresting journalists like Don Lemon. When Don Lemon got arrested, you don't think I said to my wife, Oh Don Lemon just got arrested and we had a moment of pause. Of course this is all about chilling any kind of dissent. and look, they haven't come after me. greatreat touchwood. I hope you ha't jins me John. But you know they've got a lot of other bigger fish to fry, but look what they've done to the major networks. as I say, CN and CBS now under the control or soon to be under the control of a guy whose father was part of the whole, you know election denial conspiracy, Larry Ellison back in twenty twenty. So when you've got your billionaire friends running these places firing journalists, Scott Pelly who was fired, we mentioned a moment ago, he's talked about the political interference that Barry Weiss brought to sixixty Mutes She denies it, but he talks about being told to make protesters look more violent in his videos. Multiple CBS producers have quitapolis This is in Minneapolis when he was covering the two Americans killed by IC and CBP. Multiple producers have quit or been fired on CNN have said We were being told that you have to be more pro Republican Trump. There was political bias being inserted here. So that is a very worrying climate for the American media. And at this point, you know, people who say to me, o, you've got TDS, you've got Trump derrangements, and're being paranoid? Well, I wrote piece in twenty nineteen, saying Donald Trump would not accept the twenty twenty result and would cause a riot People said to me then, uh, you're being crazy. We all know what happened on january sixth, twenty twenty one So what is in it then? I mean, I'm asking actually as a journalist, what is in it if you just keep cving in? because they've got tons of money, right? you know, these comp they're already sort of worth megab bucks.. So if your brand disappears because you don't believe in supporting Impartial journalism, what do you gain Or that? Are you talking about from the perspective of the owners? Because from that perspective, I find it interesting that people think that some people say that Barry Wse will be fired because the ratings are going down and the chaos. That misunderstands what is going on here. She's not there to make CBS win in the ratings. She's there to make CBS a safe place for Trump and MAGA And that is the ideological project. So it doesn't matter if it loses money. The Washington Post fired a bunch of people. They fired their video team. Now they put out a podcast on YouTube that has like two thousand views on a good day, a thousand views. No one watches it, but guess what? One person watches it, Jeff Bezos and reports back to Donald Trump So this is all about keeping Trump and Mag. do you think the a business proposition? Do you still read the Washington Post? I read some of the great reporting from some of the great reporters, yes. So I wouldn't read any of the editorials op bs they're a j. But it is but these places can still They can still good j because there are still great journist fighting a good fight, but fewer of them. sixty minutes stillill has Leslie Style who hasn't quit, stillill has some other folks, but they're going to be in a much more difficult position in the next season of sixty minutes. I can Do you think Anderson Cooper should have quit? or do you think he should have stayed and said, you know what? I'm going I don't know each to their own. I mean, I couldn't work in a place like that, but each to their own. I Med, O of the paradoxes of this is that earlier on in the week on our UK edition on you know the news agents, we had we interviewed Ed Luz, the FT great journist, great guy. Wh is one of the people that Donald Trump regularly picks the fl I find that hilarious. But you know here is Ed Luz Ringing Trump up, getting his views of what's happening in the Iran War, writing the most scathing editorials, and Donald Trump comes back for more. Now that suggests that he's not quite as chippy and as of vindictive. What day did you interviewed Yeah.ay Monday Monday just after the weekend. You saw what happened on Sunday. Yeah, on Meet the press. This is Kristen Welker, friendly journalist. He's interviewed. Many times, he went nuts. I mean, people, you know that's not Sane watch this. The man was ranting and raving and screaming. He was more orange than normal And he said, called a crooked, called every media organization, crooked, corrupt, and then walked out at the interview saying, thank you, darling. This is not a man who tolerates criticism. When female reporters in particular ask him questions he cannot handle it, he said to one reporter on a plane, Be quiet, piggy. This is stuff that no other politician let alone president would get away with to go back to your earlier point about the carveout for Trump No, no, he's a deeply thin skinned individual. People hide behind this idea. Oh he picks up the phone and he does press ggggles at the oval offffice. he chats on the runway. Of course he does. He doesn't sit down for any kind of sustained interview that you or I would call. Do you think it's funny that there isn't more of a kind of concerted pushback by the lobby't I did an event with the guardian, Teror Guardian did live on Monday and I made exactly this point. I don't think it's funny I think it's actually shameless. It's one of my biggest critiques of the White House press Cps is that they do not stand up for each other. Imagine you're standing there and your colleague, the president says, be quiet, piggy And you don't speak out against that. L what is the point? Just hand in your badge, quit, donon't look your children in the eye. What is wrong with you? If only from the first term of the White House, twenty sixteen onwards, if White House correspondents when he said, shut up and went to the next person, the next person, Well well I'm just to ask a question to the previous person Imagine if we'd had that solidarity,be maybe we might be able to expose Trump a little earlier. Do you thinkould' have it here? I mean, I'd like to think we would have it here. I think we would. I don't. Is just we don' stand up when a prime Mister I often make that point to Americans that that is a very weird deferential culture that American media has towards the people in P power especially president People ask me that all the time, How come you do tough interviews and people don't? I said, mayaybe it's my British background. It's no coincidence that the toughest interview Donald Trump faced during his entire presidency in the first timeerm was conducted by Jonathan Swan of Axos, who was Australian. it is a problem, I think, for Americans that they're just not tough enough in their questioning And the press as a whole is very weak And then you get Trump bullying them and then you get them rolling over. att least in the first time you know in the first time Bezos and Zuckerberg tried to fight some rear guuard action. Now they're just sycophans praising him at meetings in the Oval Office. So it's a very dark time if you're looking around for people who are going to stand up to Trump. Can you swar on this show Yeah, lot. So the point I often make, it's a very common cliche, what is the point of having fuck you money if you never say fuck you? If Jeff Bzel a billionaire, second richest man in the history of the world, is running scared of Donald Trump, then what examples does that set for everyone else because these people cannot be rich enough and they think they're going to get even richer. Probably. Medi Hasan, thank you so much. Thanks, Madi. Thank you The News agents USA Well just to say, if you want to hear more from Meddi Hassan, particularly on Elon Musk and how the billionaires of the world are now getting involved on the streets of Belfast, you can join us on the News agents's Daily podcast Otherwise, we will see you next week. Bye bye. byye for now. This has been a Global Pler original production