Monday, Fox News Channel’s Tucker Carlson evaluated the response to the bombshell New York Post report about recovered Hunter Biden emails allegedly tying Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, which has been portrayed by the Democrats and the media as a so-called “disinformation campaign.”
According to Carlson, the media effort to categorize the Post story as “disinformation” was another example of promoting Biden’s candidacy for the November election.
Transcript as follows:
CARLSON: Last week, The New York Post published one of the great scoops of the year. The paper’s editors got a copy of the hard drive from Hunter Biden’s personal laptop. On it were tens of thousands of emails, videos, texts, and photographs.
Much of the material on the laptop is of limited relevance to the public. Not everything a famous person does in the course of a day has news value. Some of the pictures in the laptop were sad and weird, of prurient interest only. We’re not going to show the bad ones on this show.
And by the way, if we’re being honest, some of the exchanges between Hunter Biden and his father, and they are on there, too, reveal that whatever you say about them, Joe Biden really loves his son, and they’re touching we want to be honest about that.
But there’s one very newsworthy series of emails and they stuck out. They showed that as Vice President of the United States, Joe Biden tailored American foreign policy, our foreign policy, which Joe Biden does not own, in order to help his son’s business interests.
Biden intervened aggressively in the internal affairs of another sovereign nation, Ukraine, and his son got paid for that.
By any measure, that is a real story. There’s no spinning it. That’s the story.
But then, very quickly, something bigger than that happened, something far more dangerous to our country than anything, The New York Post found on hunter Biden’s laptop. Here’s what happened.
The most powerful people in the world aligned to censor the news, to keep it from the population of the United States. Twitter prevented its users from sharing the story, so did Facebook.
When Americans search Google to read The New York Post story, many couldn’t find it. So within hours, the promise of a free press that the basis of American democracy and has been for 250 years, just disappeared.
One minute we were America; the next minute, we were China. Horrifying.
And perhaps most horrifying of all, our news media applauded it. The self- described guardians of the First Amendment cheered the destruction of the First Amendment. The New York Times actually ran an op-ed attacking the idea of free speech. Ideas that threaten the ruling class must be squelched, put down. That’s their position.
Every power center in America vehemently agreed with that, and most ominous of all, the U.S. Intelligence Community, the secretive Federal agencies that have nearly unlimited power joined in. Those agencies colluded with the news media to hide information from the American public weeks before a presidential election.
On Saturday, USA Today kicked off the effort by publishing one of the most dishonest newspaper stories ever to run in this country. Federal authorities are investigating, the paper declared, whether the story about Hunter Biden’s laptop was, quote, “Part of a smoke bomb of disinformation pushed by Russia.”
The Russians did it. That was the point of the piece. In fact, it was the only point of the piece.
The newspaper never bothered to assess whether the core story was true: are the facts right? And that used to be the very first and most important question in journalism. Is the allegation true? Everything else flows from that.
But USA Today didn’t even ask that question, nor did the newspaper explain how this Russian plot might have worked in practical terms.
The computer repair shop owner in Wilmington, for example, he must have been in on it. He had physical possession of the laptop. So, is this seemingly mild mannered Mac repairman yet another one of Vladimir Putin’s handpicked sleeper agents? Had he been lying in wait in a Delaware strip mall for decades preparing for just this moment?
USA Today didn’t tell us. They didn’t need to tell us because the rest of the media understood instantly what to do.
“FBI Probed if Purported Hunter Biden emails are a Russian Plot,” declared Bloomberg News. PBS, which you pay for, it is publicly funded, cited a quote, “senior former Intelligence official” whose salary you also pay declaim that Rudy Giuliani was likely channeling Russian disinformation.
So the former Mayor of New York is working for Vladimir Putin, too. That’s how vast this conspiracy was. Reporters in Washington and New York frantically called their many sources in the permanent National Security State for more details.
From his perch on Twitter, desiccated neo-con ghoul, David Frum cheered them on. Vast experience lying in the run up to the Iraq War, he put those talents to use.
In this frenzy to find this new batch of Russian spies, the media did miss a few — obviously — it’s for example, two people reporters forgot to call were Joe and Hunter Biden. Presumably the Bidens could have confirmed whether or not the famous laptop was real and that would have ended the speculation. It would have informed the rest of us. But somehow no one thought to do that.
Finally, last Friday night, one reporter, Bo Erickson of CBS blurted out the question to Joe Biden himself, and here’s what happened next.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BO ERICKSON, CBS NEWS REPORTER: Mr. Biden, what is your response to the New York Post story about your son, sir?
JOE BIDEN (D), DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: I know you you’d ask it. I have no response. It’s another smear campaign. It’s right up your alley. They are the questions you always ask.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: Oh, it’s a smear campaign right up your alley. I have no response, said Joe Biden. Biden, you didn’t deny the story because he knows that laptop from the Delaware repair shop did in fact belong to his son, Hunter, and we know it, too. We confirmed that conclusively last week.
Everything we have learned since then, and there has been a lot that we’ve learned since then, bolsters that conclusion. The laptop in question belonged to our Hunter Biden. Period. It is not a Russian fabrication.
So Bo Erickson of CBS asked a legitimate question. And for that very reason, within minutes, Democratic operatives, including many in the media landed on him.
The point of attacking, a man who appears to be a fairly liberal CBS reporter was to send a message to the rest of the press corps, shut up and obey the narrative, or else.
According to Greg Sargent of The Washington Post quote, “The real problem here is this is a useless question from a journalistic perspective. Large parts of the story are invented, unconfirmed, highly dubious. What is learned by placing the work of denying them on Biden?” End quote.
Notice, Greg Sargent doesn’t explain what parts are unconfirmed or false. No part of the story, no email has been shown to be false. They’re not even claiming it’s false. It doesn’t matter.
Another Democratic operative called John Favreau called The New York Post story, Russian disinformation and concluded rather Biden was too nice.
Michael McFaul, he now works at Stanford, he used to work in the Obama administration for five years, attacked Bo Ericsson for quote, “discussing disinformation.” You’re not even allowed to discuss it.
Then the actor of Alec Baldwin wrote this, quote, “Take the beat down. Learn from it and move on.”
What is this? It’s happening in concert all at one time. What you’re watching is the most powerful people in America aligning as one to hide legitimate information from the public. This is not the way our country used to operate. Are you terrified yet? You should be terrified. Because it worked. That’s why they do it because it works.
Here are the questions reporters are asking Joe Biden now.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BIDEN: All right. Happy milk shake.
QUESTION: Mr. Biden, what flavor did you get?
BIDEN: We got one vanilla, one chocolate, but I wanted to get what we call black and white, but we’re going to move it — we’re going to split it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: “What flavor did you get?” That was the question. This is a man who has relatively few opportunities to speak to the press, and when they get a chance, they ask, “What flavor did you get?”
And if you don’t want to end up like Bo Erickson of CBS, that’s the kind of question you’d better ask the Democratic nominee for President with fewer than two weeks to go until Election Day.
So after Joe Biden gave his answer, “one vanilla, one chocolate” in case you missed the answer, another reporter had a follow up. Listen to how that went.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
QUESTION: I have one more question, the FBI is …
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: So the second the words FBI emerged, Joe Biden walks away. And yet that’s not even the worst part of the clip you just saw. The worst part is the other journalists. They burst out laughing before they even hear the rest of the question.
Asking about the FBI was unapproved. You can’t talk about that, so the journalists laughed it down. That is state media protecting the powerful.
No one thought to ask Biden why if the laptop is a Russian invention, there’s a letter from Hunter Biden’s lawyer asking for the laptop back. Is he part of the conspiracy, too? We don’t know. And we’re not going to learn because Joe Biden has now gone into hiding until Thursday’s debate.
That means the media can continue to collude unimpeded with our spy agencies to lie to you. It’s the Russians because Russia, and repeat after us as we say this until you reflexively believe it, because Russia is the greatest threat we face.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We’ve got a person named Donald Trump, who has been warned that he is receiving and is now regurgitating, repeating and disseminating disinformation that he knows to be fabricated and supplied by a foreign intelligence service, and despite the warning, he is still doing it.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You have said this entire thing is so obviously a Russian plot. It is to me and I was never even an Ambassador to the Russian Federation. Tell me why it’s so obviously a Russian plot to you.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Rudy basically functioning as a Russian asset by pushing Russian disinformation.
BRIAN STELTER, CNN CHIEF MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: CNN reported on Friday, the U.S. authorities are seeing if those emails we just talked about are connected to an ongoing Russian disinformation effort.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: You know, at some point you’ve got to be honest and say, who cares what’s on Hunter Biden’s laptop. What you just saw is the real threat, the powerful — the most powerful in our country colluding to dismiss legitimate questions using a fake threat of Russian disinformation. That’s scary.
Rest assured, though, unnamed U.S. authorities are on the case getting to the bottom of this Russian plot. There’s no evidence of wrongdoing, of course, but they’re still on the case.
Who are these authorities exactly? And who are they working for?
Well, on Saturday, Senator Chris Murphy, a sitting senator from Connecticut let us know. Murphy is a Democrat. He sits on the Foreign Intelligence Committee. Here’s what he wrote, quote, “Joe Biden and all of us should be furious that media outlets are spreading what is very likely Russian propaganda. I’ve seen the Intel. The mainstreaming of misinformation is Russia’s 2020 goal.” End quote.
That’s worse than anything Joe McCarthy of Wisconsin ever said and dumber. “I’ve seen the Intel.” Notice that Senator Murphy of Connecticut didn’t tell us what the so-called Intel said, much less show it to the rest of us so we could evaluate it for ourselves.
Powerful people have seen the Intel, you haven’t. You must take their word for it. Otherwise, maybe you’re working for Vladimir Putin. Maybe you’re a Russian spy. You want to get accused of that? Of treason? I don’t think so. So just take it on faith, pal.
Adam Schiff is working that line for years now. This week, he was back at it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. ADAM SCHIFF (D-CA): Well, we know that this whole smear on Joe Biden comes from the Kremlin.
But clearly the origins of this whole smear are from the Kremlin, and the President is only too happy to have Kremlin help in trying to amplify it.
I think we know who the driving force behind this smear has been all along. And it’s been the President and the Kremlin. He has been the gift that doesn’t stop giving for the Kremlin.
And this particular smear, though, has also been acknowledged to come from the Kremlin, and there it is, in the Oval Office, another wonderful propaganda coup for Vladimir Putin, seeing the President of the United States holding up a newspaper, promoting Kremlin propaganda.
It’s really incredible.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: “It’s really incredible,” says Adam Schiff. Hard to believe he is still on television. Well, it is incredible. In fact, it’s so incredible, it’s not even true.
This morning, the person who was in charge of gathering Intelligence in this country, in charge of all the Intel agencies conceded that in fact, this hysteria is an utter crock. There is no evidence the Russians are putting stories in The New York Post. That is insane.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN RATCLIFFE, DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE: Let me be clear, the Intelligence Community doesn’t believe that, because there’s no Intelligence that supports that, and we have shared no Intelligence with Chairman Schiff or any other Member of Congress that Hunter Biden’s laptop is part of some Russian disinformation campaign. It’s simply not true.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: There’s no Intelligence that supports that. Yes. OK. We’re not in the Intelligence Community, so we can’t verify that. We can’t tell you there’s no evidence that supports it. And evidence, actual evidence is what the rest of us make decisions based on and there’s no evidence.
And by the way, once again, no one in Joe Biden’s campaign has said these emails or text messages are false, and if so, which ones are false? And how are they false? They’re not even claiming that.
So these claims are coming from anonymous sources and media hacks, and that’s it.
On Sunday, a Biden campaign surrogate called Jenna Arnold acknowledged that on this channel, watch this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LELAND VITTERT, FOX NEWS CHANNEL NEWS PRESENTER: Can anyone say that these emails are inauthentic? And so far, I haven’t heard anybody say that.
JENNA ARNOLD, BIDEN CAMPAIGN SURROGATE: Yes, I think that’s fair. I don’t think anybody’s saying. I don’t think anybody is saying they are inauthentic.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: “I don’t think anybody is saying they are inauthentic.” Well, OK, then why don’t you respond to them? But in fact, many are saying they are inauthentic.
False claims of Russian interference in our democracy are now a well-established fact of American political life. Like fears about climate change and white supremacy, they are very useful to the people in charge, because those fears can be leveraged to strip you instantly of your constitutional rights and that’s exactly what’s going on now.
Now you know why they’re doing it, for the next two weeks, the point is to defeat Donald Trump, and they may succeed in doing that.
But for the rest of us who plan to stay in this country, the real worry is what happens after that.
Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor