Christopher Bedford | Trump and the Media

okay our next speaker is Christopher Bedford he serves as editor in chief of the Daily Caller news foundation he also serves on the boards of young Americans for freedom and the national journalism Center his top-notch writing has appeared in a number of publications including The Wall Street Journal the New York Post the Federalist and the American mind he is a frequent guest on the Fox News Channel Fox Business Network and the Catholic News Service and he's also the author of a book and I have to confess I really do like the title the art of the Donald lessons from America's philosopher in chief lastly I would be remiss if I did not mention that in October last year he married a Hillsdale College alumna the former Katharine freights so congratulations he'll be he'll be speaking today on the topic Trump in the media would you please welcome Christopher Bedford thank you and thank you to dr. Arnn Doug Jeffery Matt Bell Samantha Strayer for bringing me out here to this fantastic gathering is not too common in California these days I was lucky enough to marry a Hillsdale graduate Katie she was a cheerleader at Hillsdale she was a Kappa Kappa Gamma at Hillsdale she studies video games for a living now which is what she hide she hated when I first met her and she's absolutely into it but she also when she was at Hillsdale she studied finance and somehow despite that being her focus came out of college with more understanding of Austrian economics and Plato and Aristotle than people who went to my college who majored in those things and it's not because she had a specific interest it's because the education was so darn good and also I have Hillsdale to think forget building the foundation making it a little bit easier for me to bring her across the Tiber back to Rome in the Catholic faith and but she's not unique from a lot of the people I've met in Washington DC who went to Hillsdale I noticed as soon as I got I've lived in DC for 15 years and the swamp it feels like a hot tub now and the people I've met over the years from Hillsdale have always impressed me absolutely blown me away well-read well-rounded deep thinkers seriously civic minded very interested and Hillsdale of course receives no federal funding and I think I've made it a rule so discussing this with the wife that if my kids want any Chris Bedford funding they'll go to Hillsdale or something like it but they are they stand out so much in Washington DC because DC is a city of deeply deeply stupid people with there's no grasp of history at all people can't remember what it was like before President Donald Trump they can't remember what it was like before President Barack Obama they can't remember what it was like before net neutrality regulations they think it's the apocalypse and they're the worst kind of stupid because they're very arrogant and extremely smug and I would like to preface this that the gentleman i sat with today from the Orange County Register our or not who I'm talking about but every other member of the media is Who I am talking about and my reporters complain to me we have a lot of young folks I'm one of the old people in the office that's which we pay very little and work them very hard and my reporters complain about all their colleagues on the hill who they cover news with and people they meet at the Capitol in the White House how how shallow and self-absorbed and stupid they are and I unfortunately can't tell them that it gets any better the higher you rise in media those people come right with you you look around and it's annoying to see I mean you don't want to wish a LAN anyone you won't ever want to succeed but it's amazing how many terrible people succeed in Washington DC just compete continuously failing upward so speaking of the media getting everything wrong leading up to the campaign for president I had heard I think as anyone who was reading the news that President Donald Trump was a cold fish a kind of guy who could never do retail politics he wasn't a handshake or he was an ivory tower or not ivory tower but glass tower Manhattan businessmen he had nothing in common with the workers of America with the people you'd have to meet in the campaign trail this wasn't his style he was a germaphobe all these different things I'd also heard that Rubio was a nice guy and that Jeb Bush was unbeatable and I started to notice that something was amiss on the campaign trail actually meeting with these folks the first time I noticed something was very interesting about President Donald Trump and I was slower than a lot of a lot of maybe people in this room was in Iowa when we went out about an hour and a half everything in I was at least an hour and a half from anything else in Iowa and we went out to a gymnasium to hear the president's are the future presidents speak and I noticed that the entire crowd the the audience most of the men had jeans and boots a Vietnam War shirt leather jacket and a Vietnam War hat this was very much a crowd that I was told would have no interest in a guy who walks in there and a custom Brioni suit with a red trucker hat on and I noticed that and never lie on the campaign trail stops most of the most of the presidential candidates they would give the exact same speech but they would change what they were wearing so they would roll up their sleeves and take off their cufflinks in a working-class area they'd put on their suit in a middle-class area and they what oddly swap it out for a vest in a wealthy area president Trump didn't do any of that he never dressed up once and this group folks who were going there with their family their wives their children they didn't mind at all he seemed to connect with them and another myth he does run out of energy he actually sat down for this speech I've never seen it but the campaign trail was exhausting and I was talking to some of the makeup girls and they're an interesting folks to talk to you because they walk around go around in the campaign trail and they see all the people who are on TV the Talking Heads the politicians and they see them in a closed corridor where no one else can see them no cameras are on there's no fans there assist them so you kind of get an idea just like the same way you get an idea of somebody how they treat the bartender or the waiter and they told me that the meanest person on the campaign trail and I haven't personally experienced this was Marco Rubio he's mr. nice guy right he's always been kind of me and that the nicest person was Donald Trump and that surprised me Tucker took us out when around the campaign trail to a steak house in New Hampshire and we got there and I was pretty excited about that because he was paying and we're talking to the maitre d saying any candidates come in to the steak house and he said no way New Hampshire is right now and a mess there's massive drug problem there's a problem with poverty there's a problem with lack of education and anyone who's a candidate for a president here doesn't go to the nicest steak house in Manchester if they go to the diners they go to the burger stands they watching candidates eat is like still one of the grossest parts of the entire election and then I saw Secret Service coming in and I thought wow we got Hillary Clinton she can't get away from it's he's such an elitist we're gonna have a story out of this and then the entire Trump family walked in and there's no story there Donald Trump eat steak everyone knows us because he's himself he's not pretending to be out there and he walked right up to us because he recognized Tucker and he just lit up the table he started grabbing people by the shoulders shaking hands taking pictures with children he was just out of the debate and Trump I really doubt that he was too concerned about Rubio's health but he seems to be that day he's like I'm looking at him he's sweating he's sweaty are you okay are you okay Annie and then he grabbed one of our reporters by the shoulder and he goes this guy works he works nights he works weekends he never stops he never stops and we all knew that this guy was unreachable after jeopardy it was we used to make fun of him there was no shot but Trump made him feel like the biggest guy in the room even though everyone knew he was fibbing he made everyone he lit up the room and the next morning we went to a diner and this was the day of the New Hampshire primary I got in there early a little hungover as reporters do and when I walked in Jeb Bush was sitting alone at the counter looking like a sad American painting just not having a good day down-on-his-luck he gave a quick interview to Steve Doocy and Tucker for Fox & Friends and he left and then Chris Christie came in he came into the back door and he's supposed to be you know the man's man the brawler he'll fight you on the boardwalk if you make fun of him and he came in the back door gave a quick interview and was gone and then Secret Service came in and President Trump came in with his family or then businessman Trump came in with Cory Lewandowski sitting there in the corner on his cell phone his wife the whole entourage and by the time he sat down he knew everyone in the kitchen staffs names he yells in the middle of the camera he goes who are you voting for Susie and she yells back America and he says the terms of the camera goes of course I knew she was gonna say that otherwise he wouldn't a master and I got the whole crowd going and then an hour later I still had to go through Secret Service use the restroom because he hung out he got a big massive stack of pancakes gigantic and sat there just eating and talking with people like no other candidate had done I thought the press obviously does not understand this man bag and they deeply hate him completely hate him and the press likes to pretend we like to pretend that we liked the last president when they're gone nowadays you remember the Reagan funeral I mean it was just lauding it was everyone thought everyone was Reagan's best friend he was the last president he United us of course if you go just 70 miles north of here to the reagan ranch for the reagan center in santa barbara they have a great clip in the wall this is plane over and over again the things that the media said about Ronald Reagan when he was president that he was senile that he was stupid that he was evil that he was portraying America's interests that he was betraying America's principles they like to defend that now but reporters they don't remember yesterday it's unbelievable they think that right now is the worst time in American history I like to remind them of 1968 or maybe the 1860 is something we've been discussing here I think the country has been a little bit more divided they don't understand President Trump they don't understand a lot of what's going on here in Washington DC but the funny part is Trump actually deeply understands them he can get right to them he can turn them on he can turn them off you can pour water on their circuits and here's a story and it gets a little obscene because the president gets a little obscene sometimes but it was the week of McConnell's failure to repeal Obamacare Mitch Mitch McConnell had promised a vote by June 30th before the independence day break had been years and years in the coming and many campaign trail speeches on it and the press was Ben Washington practically salivating they were so excited for him to fail they were they were asking questions like oh why won't he just ask the democratic party to help him is that gonna be so hard and everyone and ever anywhere knew full well that the Democratic Party was not interested in helping the GOP repeal Obamacare there was not going to be a compromise on this issue the guys authors a political playbook which is a morning reading in Axios in Washington DC were absolutely electric for this failure but the morning of the failure to repeal Obamacare only three people definitely knew that the Republicans didn't have the votes now as John Cornyn the whip Mitch McConnell president Donald Trump probably vice president Mike Pence everyone was waiting for it and at 9:30 in the morning we get a tweet this was back when just at the beginning of him doing this fake news CNN is looking at big management changes now that they got caught falsely pushing their phony Russian stories ratings way down and then 17 minutes later so they caught fake news CNN cold but what about NBC CBS and ABC what about the failing New York Times The Washington Post they are all fake News and nine hours he went silent the press went absolutely wild how dare he attacked the press and now they're a little bit more used to it so he has to come up with new tricks but it's not too hard to trick them it's like coming up with new debt games for the cat here's here's a ball of tinfoil I was at the tune in that day which is a great watering hole if you're ever in Washington DC covered in taxidermy $3 beers and the news switched for about five minutes to cover a Mitch McConnell's press conference saying that they did not have the votes to repeal Obamacare and then they switched right back to the president making fun of CNN how dare he I mean America's health care system is important but nothing in the mind of a DC journalist is more important than the DC journalist they are the heroes the well sung heroes and two days later though they had another chance all right they get their eye back on the ball wait a second we're supposed to be here to pound on the GOP Friday as they leave for the for the break that'll be the time to change the new subject so President Trump had to do something a little bit more than just make fun of CBS and he did you might remember this one I heard poorly rated morning Joe speaks badly of me don't watch anymore that how come low IQ crazy Mika along with psycho Joe came and then the dot-dot-dot and everyone in DC is just waiting waiting for what's coming next it's the greatest feeling tomorrow log our three nights in a row around New Year's Eve and insisted on joining me she was bleeding badly from a facelift I said no that got their attention you would be forgiven for thinking that Trump had just sacrificed a baby on the altar of Cthulhu instead of insulting one of the most powerful famous women in the world with access to the corridors of power and a very successful television show for cosmetic surgery they Joe and mica delayed their vacation I know that because the MSNBC Chiron had a countdown that said Joe and Myka canceled vacation to address president's comments in the morning she she released an entire column talking about how her mother had suggested a quote chin tweak my mom says some pretty mean things to me after I get off from television - she thinks I need Botox I'm not getting it yet so holding out but the Donald Trump show was on the air for 24 hours a day he commanded what the press was covering how they were covering it he dominated the conversation not granted it wasn't a great conversation for the president he was called uncouth he was called I mean not since Jefferson versus Adams ever seen such amazing insults hurled back and forth at each other but they were not talking about the failure of the Republican Party they were talking about President Donald Trump so I was having a drink that Friday evening and one of the Senate offices for the gentleman who was in charge of communication on the Obamacare front and he said we weren't getting anything from Senate leadership we had no idea about the lack of the votes but the press didn't come they didn't even care he was one of two things either Donald Trump's a PR genius or divine intervention and you can tell me which one you decide and you know we can figure that out later over over dinner maybe so the press has tried to grow wise to this they actually asked occasionally for a moment when we're talking about some scandal or some trip they'll say well what aren't we talking about right now because typically when the president does something that seems out of the blue it's to change the conversation but they think they don't have the attention they don't have the focus on it they can't help themselves he does things like the classic tricks of the State of the Union where you say something like we've freed women from sexual slavery on the border because you know that if the Democrats refused to stand up for that thing then they look really silly there was a couple times during the speech when congresswoman were whacking okgo Cortes and saying stand up he said referring people from sexual slavery this is okay we can be proud of this did you notice that the loudest applause line that the women in white gave themselves during the State of the Union was for themselves it was pretty amazing so help trick them he'll kill call ms-13 animals and then where's the press do the press spends the next 48 hours defending ms-13 it's it's unbelievable how quickly he tricks them but it's because because the press is thoroughly thoroughly corrupt except for the Orange County Register Lara Logan great war correspondent said in a podcast last week honestly she must be looking to get fired the 85% of journalists are registered Democrats all the coverage on Trump all the time is negative and she called that distortion and she's right but the press aren't even normal Democrats if you walk into the average newsroom in New York or Washington DC it might be a perfect representation of America 30 percent black 20 percent 30 percent Hispanic a perfect racial mix but if you say who here goes to church on Sunday you're not gonna get a lot of responses if you say who here voted for President Donald Trump forget about him president Romney or senator Romney who voted for President Bush maybe a few hands a smattering of hands but largely despite looking different despite you know 50% gay all the different things that they hit it was a cheap one they don't have any cultural connection to most Americans if you remember that very brief blip of time when the press was looking at themselves and saying what did we do wrong after Trump was elected even the Democrats were doing that saying well we obviously missed a huge voter bloc we obviously missed a train they later switched it to Russia and this Russia's fault in the Ku Klux Klan for a minute they even plan two tours of America I looked at it was either buzz for you to the huffington post at across America tour so they could understand what people outside of New York thought but the cities they went to you were like Columbus Ohio Austin Texas oh these are great cities I was just in Columbus and I love Austin but they're not the heartland you don't get a great idea of what the average Ohio voter or Texan voter feels like from going to a hipster bar in a college town but they didn't even know that they were very proud of themselves so the press has a role to play an important role that remind you of that all the time there they're at they're positively Knights of a free republic but more and more the American media is not simply not asking the questions which is what we're supposed to do they're deciding what questions can be asked they are making themselves arbiters of what is polite conversation what is an acceptable line of questioning what is deemed racist what is deemed irresponsible what is deemed an assault on the Constitution remember this all began pretty early when a president-elect Trump's sneaked away to a steak house in New York City they called that an assault on the First Amendment because they couldn't cover him look at what they did to the Covington kids those high schoolers now so we have elite journalists in New York City people on with media platforms making million dollars a year access to power great education talking about Catholic school kids from a town in Kentucky who they say are privileged and they're sneering they said look what they did with this smollett case in Chicago the idea that at 2:00 a.m. in one of the coldest nights in Chicago people wearing red Magga hats were wandering around with the noose and bleach saying this is maggot country will they kick people where they recognized from a show called Empire is so unbelievable it doesn't pass the sniff test and it's funny as Smollett wanted to be a script writer and I think he should find a new career because that's a terrible plot line but if you looked even during the election there was an article that got repeated and repeated and repeated that in Northern Virginia which is a very wealthy government subsidized area of Virginia a lot of traffic that the Ku Klux Klan was handing out joints to deter the black vote that's that's not happening that's deeply stupid if somebody wants weed they'll get their own weed and no one's gonna walk up to a voting booth and say oh the Klan just gave me a joint I guess I'll go home these kind of stories that are completely unbelievable the idea that a billion dollar or a lecture election was swayed by 1 million dollars in spending or less by Russia they must have the best campaign consultants in the entire planet the over and over again these completely farcical unbelievable narratives pushed and the reason why they're believed or because people in the press have no outside view they've never been challenged in college they haven't they haven't been challenged by their peers they're surrounded by people who think very much like them and they haven't even considered that they could be wrong or that if they repeat something to themselves and maybe it's it's completely false and they're all convinced of the absolute wickedness of our president and he's able to twist them like I said have you seen how him telling NATO to give more money to contribute to NATO's defense is playing into the hands of Putin that was an interesting one out magazine which is a gay magazine recently called his move to decriminalize homosexuality around the world American cultural imperialism that was very interesting and it's hard to keep track of all these different things how do they unite because they're not even traditionally liberal talking points they've been changing dramatically with time it's mostly just hash tag resist opposition to trump but the one thing that connects all of these things is that they guard the elite they guard the vested interests of the United States they the press is more than ever exposed itself as a praetorian guard for Silicon Valley they'll attack every now and then for for the Democratic establishment for the liberal colleges these are the things that cannot ever be touched in anyone especially President Trump who tries to will be attacked by them they're here to protect the wealthy from from the people and it's an unbelievable place to find a free press in but it connects them and basically everything they do we at the News Foundation are trying to counter that we have a non-profit news organization where we train journalists over two years in the classics not nearly as deeply as a Hillsdale education some of our best reporters are from Hillsdale but we read basic economics read about the founding of the country and also read about how for example calling your sources confirming a story before it goes live how one anonymous source does not make a story how the dishonesty of the press how if you've got three people who are former officials and one person who's a current official the new york times they'll mask that as according to a number of current and former officials that means they've got one current official and there's other people they may be former they have no idea what's going on in that room anymore we teach our reporters that that's bad and then we try to get them jobs at liberal it's because the center-right is phenomena good at opinion I've dominated talk-radio dominated the magazines as when they existed there starting unfortunately to leave us dominated the blogosphere dominated cable but they haven't dominated the news the New York Times Washington Post still have thousands of reporters who are working all the time did you see that the Washington Post launched an investigative unit when President Trump was elected they'd gotten rid of it under President Obama how unbelievable is that now they need to investigate Russia Russia Russia all the time so we've sent reporters to CBS CNN Newsweek the hill and some of them get co-opted nice to have their phone number so I call them and I tell them I think so the civil society that we have is worth defending the press is an institution worth defending but it needs to be held to account the arguments that you used to have maybe around the Thanksgiving table about whether the press is is liberal that people don't even have that argument anymore because it's even your family members some might disagree with you have disagreed if you now agree with you they just have to decide whether or not they think it's good that the press is part of the resistance but the First Amendment is one of the greatest gifts that we have one of the greatest rights that we have and it all it takes is responsible responsible journalism well trained to try and fix it it's sad to see what's happening to the press with the bankruptcies people going out of business but I've at the same time I've never seen a group of people who deserve it more than they do it's hard because it's my living but it's totally deserved it's it's practically a suicide at some points so we're working to take it back with some of the Hillsdale graduated folks that we've hired over the years pulling my wife or worked for me for a time live the American dream go to DC marry your boss it was tough going to work with her everyday we're working to take that back and provide an example for young folks who are dedicated to well by their beer because they won't be able to afford it everyone's parents were always upset with them and they come a journalist but it is the most fun and it is an important job and hopefully when all this is over we'll still have a free press I think we will and one that can stand strong with our Republic for the next 250 years thank you I can't threaten your dessert like dr. Arne did but I'd be happy to answer any questions right behind you sir okay thank you very much for that presentation clear hi thinking is always indispensable I'd like to ask you a fundamental question namely what is essentially the problem of the press and by way of suggesting an answer but Thomas Jefferson once was written to by a fella Wanda started a newspaper and Jefferson was in the White House at the time and he was asked what are the ingredients of a good newspaper which could be said about the media as a whole and in that reply in which he said many things he said this is particularly important true facts and sound principles and so much of conservative thought is because is focused on the true facts which is understandable because so many of them are not reported or suppressed but those sound principles as you indicated your last few remarks are indispensable in other words the the media need to be factual they need to be accurate they need to be fair but they also need to be committed to the American Republic and the principles that underlay the fact of the whole foundations of the system because without that they're without any kind of guidance what is your opinion on that thank you Charles Marie talked about special classes of people in America and there's a very interesting book coming apart and the press was one a specific example he gave of not people who are not super well educated extremely wealthy or extremely powerful who hang out with people who are all the time and it's that's a rare thing in most societies to have a lower middle class to middle class group of people who have access to the lunch tables the dinner tables the bar rooms and salons of the ruling elite of the country the press has that for sure it causes a lot of envy Porter's love free lunches and open bars the because of that I think a lot of our press have started to consider themselves in the similar fashion to what our elite do which is as global citizens as people who don't that the Pledge of Allegiance would be tacky to say a prayer before dinner would be imperialism to think of this country as one given to us the fought for by American patriots to them it's more of a thing about slave owners in the past about the darkness of American history the Howard Zinn guide to history and there's not a strong allegiance amongst lots of the large part of the press to the actual well-being of the United States I mean if you've read in the last few just in the last week the press has had a sob story about the false asylum seekers who are no longer seeking asylum because President Trump it seems too hard for them now they're fighting very very hard for the citizens of Honduras and Guatemala much harder than they are for the average worker in America and I were people who they you think they would have more to do with I don't know if you caught the sob stories of government workers who didn't get a paycheck for three weeks but those networks won't even let angel moms on they have no sympathy at all for the Americans who've lost children brothers sisters parents to crimes committed by illegal immigrants they consider themselves citizens of the world and America has a bad actor who they're here to police and without that without understanding the foundations of a free society how we got here they're just like spoiled children in the Playhouse breaking things criticizing things and attacking things and that's one of the reasons why after in our second we call them semesters but really they're just pizza dinners with speakers and beer I gotta incentivize our guys to come in after we do the basics of reporting we focus on the foundations of a free society at the Daily Caller News Foundation so we can push how we got here what made this country free what made this country great men like Churchill who in it saved Western civilization and why Western civilization is actually something worth saving which a lot of folks don't believe it's amazing also but by and large a lot of them are just stupid and lazy we are the laziest class of people it's unbelievable not me of course or the ERC register yes sir and very little prescriptive so I'd like to hear perhaps some of your prescriptions on how to cure it now with all the wealth that we have as Republicans you look at Forbes 400 list why haven't they taken over bought out CNN why haven't they endowed decent journalism school not Columbia where I went but that's impossible and taking an aggressive approach a direct attack as a prescription rather than always complaining about how they are there's nothing to cure it within the description you have to have a direct attack unfortunately you're in a room that breaks that mold the folks who are here supporting the work the Hillsdale does a lot of the GOP donors class as well won the GOP donor classes largely disconnected from the GOP base and that's been a problem for a while that's why you had a donor class that seriously thought that Jeb Bush was going to win the presidential nomination and were so surprised to see that change and that realignment is going on currently it sounds painful it's not easy to have a spine that's like this try to get split back to that but by and large conservatives have neglected the fight on college campuses and have ceded the ground to liberals the gentleman I was sitting next to at lunch today was talking about endowing a chair at one of his colleges that he supports for free enterprise and was told the free enterprise was a pejorative he decided to stop giving money to that College as I understand however most people don't Bill Buckley wrote about this right after he got out of Yale got a man at Yale he said the people who fund our universities have the power to stop this a lot of them are conservative all of them are successful in business a lot of them a lot of people who are conservative generally are successful in business but they don't they don't hold the universities to account like they should and groups like Hillsdale and organizations like the Daily Caller News foundation that and there are a couple other colleges out there as well don't worry I want to advertise them dr. Arnn who were producing who are who are teaching the classics who are pushing back against this and who are creating a group that can hopefully change the trajectory that's what we're doing at the News Foundation there's very few other places that are doing original news reporting on the center right but as a Catholic conservative I think we're all doomed and that's okay so I'm not necessarily the optimist to go to go with on this but I am seen I have seen some good moves on the right the difficulty with places like CNN is the culture is so strong there and if you if your colleagues think you are bigoted or they think that you're a quote on the wrong side of the history which is one of the creepiest accusations you can launch it somebody won it says that you're on the right side of history and it immediately calls in mind Nazism or Ku Klux Klan ISM or some other ISM if your colleagues are doing that it makes a lot of good people be quiet for their jobs and even conservative outlets like Fox News they still recruit from a talent pool in New York City and Washington DC they still even then with more conservative leaning organizations you have to battle that it's a hard-fought battle there's no easy solutions but a group like this sitting here focusing on education and what's amazing is a group like this a lot of the people here don't even actually haven't even sent children through Hillsdale they just know it's doing an important job that's one of the most positive things I've ever seen for I think changing the youth and change in the future hi thanks for your pithy comments I'm from Orange County unfortunately we don't even have a Republican congressman anymore which is hard to believe but I'm curious three news stories that hit light within the last week or two what you and your peers actually really say about number one the standing ovation applause in the New York legislature when post term abortion was approved and number two the ridiculous idea of building a train from the East Coast to Europe and then most importantly giving people a job a high paying job for people that are unable but more importantly unwilling to work and if that I'm just blown away that that know that those are even they even made the news that that and what what does your what does your peer group say when things like that pop up in the news some of my friends have just been thoroughly broken by this whole thing I had a friend who was reporter for CNN who Trump scrambled his brain and now he travels the world and a van he outfitted with his wife camping and posted on Instagram he was smart a lot of other people whose brains are fried by President Trump didn't leave and his brain wasn't Friday just decided he was done with it this Virginia stuff has been very interesting now we have somebody who a doctor a pediatrician who said that children should be made comfortable and allowed to die on a table after they're born after discussion with the family and he's taken down for wearing blackface in college that's a pretty twisted line of what we deem an offense worthy of impeachment and what we deem just politics is normal then the entire group it looks like is going down either for accusations of sexual assault or blackface and what's interesting is I've never seen karma hit a group so quickly as the Democratic Democrats of Virginia when hashtag me to became a thing and there was no longer a jury or a trial when they tried to destroy judge Cavanaugh based on accusations of sexual assault thank goodness meet you didn't exist during to kill a mockingbird the and they also accused Ralph Northam of being or not Ralph Northam they accused the Republican governor editorial candidate of being a racist and now it comes out that they've got awkward pictures in their past and the press largely has ignored the biggest scandal of all of this which is letting children died on the table I mean actively illegal thing and immoral do you know and Washington DC during the government shutdown because DC funds a lot of city services in Washington you couldn't get a marriage license but you could get a divorce that was deemed essential I guess some folks might agree with that at certain times in their relationships but I thought that was a sad comment on where we were green dude the green new deal that was something that gets me really excited I'm looking forward to this I'm looking forward to spring and I'm looking forward to Democratic primaries Kamala Harris and Cory Booker endorsing it and a representative or casual critic as his office having to withdraw her frequently asked questions and say that the plan was accidentally released after they claimed it was doctored well Congress from and you already had two presidential candidates at least endorsed it and it turns out who was a mistake we found a phenomenon with congressman a casual Cortes and I assume the press has found this as well outside of just my office that Sheehan clicks she increases the clicks on an article by about three fold people are interested in her she's photogenic she says any things she is basically leading the Democratic Party in certain levels and if you're a Republican I should probably make you happy because I don't think she's leaving them in a way that's very well thought out she's a classic example of of what college is outside of Hillsdale produce and people it's like she's never been cross-examined she's never had to rethink any of her ideas he's never been seriously challenged on this she compared global warming to world war two and said we'd all be dead in 12 years she will not be held accountable for that by the way will not in 12 years time no one will hold her accountable for that and I think that Winston Churchill would disagree with her on the severity of the issue of a cow flatulence versus Hitler's Germany the press has been careful with her though it's easy old tack so last out she'll say you're sexist for attacking her but she's largely doing herself a discredit well becoming very effective popular and I look forward to covering her and I think most of my colleagues look forward to covering her over the years to come should be interesting thank you I really enjoyed your talk and on that AOC question a quick thought before my question so I like it her to that last scene in Feldon Louie's driving off the cliff I hope it comes true because I do think they're following her as they head for the cliff but my question is really more about a missing ingredient perhaps in your talk and maybe you said it I missed it but there it seems to be an enormous assumption by the media in Washington and New York of about the stupidity of the American public that we accept this and I and I call back to my Great Awakening as an army vet Benghazi the fact that this the people killed on that roof that night were number two and three mortar shells launched onto the roof and yet we watched the president and the Secretary of State try to just brush it off as an unorganized guys people maybe going to the movies trying to break in and carry out an exercise and there's thousands of vets that know that that attack took at least five people with radio communications and spotters to pull off and pre-practice positioning and yet the country is filled with people that understand what we were told by their two hybrid leaders was an absolutely lie and the press went along with it never did anybody question how could that possibly be true we have the facts in front of us and yet we were supposed to as a nation accept this absurd explanation from the president and the media not one person the media ever tried to call him on the audience is actually far more trained and critical than the media seemed to be the that was one of the specific examples I'm Irish so I hold grudges forever and I haven't read The Economist once since their initial Benghazi coverage and I know that everyone seems to like them because I've got a British accent and that's it's nice we don't have a ruling class accent of our own so we like that accent the they said that there was a number of former special operations forces who were just hanging out in Benghazi this this nice town you know it's a nice place to visit who were killed by an al-qaeda affiliate and that never went in the basket er was there there's nothing to see here why ever would former special operations forces be hanging out outside of Libya outside of outside of the capital in Benghazi in a place where they could be attacked by mortars where they could be raided where roads could be blocked off they they didn't even seem to simply ask that they take the government's line over and over again the FBI said they didn't do it they didn't do it there's no more questions here it's amazing we had a story of the day where the Inspector General was upset that Hillary Clinton's server had likely been hacked at some point by a foreign government the FBI refused to investigate we reported that the FBI released a statement that said we didn't find anything in an investigation and the press took that as an answer and said that we were wrong it was a double answer there was a non-answer the whole story was that you didn't investigate the Federal Bureau of Investigations we know you didn't find anything in that investigation but the press went along because they're deeply stupid but a lot of Washington DC screwed up the Benghazi story in my opinion I was discussing this with some of our editors covered it for business insider and the Marine Corps times are with us now even the GOP messed up they made it so much about this video on this lie that the president told and the Secretary of State told that our consulate was attacked and our ambassador was killed because somebody from Egypt living in America had made fun of Mohammed it's just another one of those very difficult to believe stories but President Obama was busy running guns to unvetted rebels in Syria that's what they were doing out there that's what the ambassador was there for us what he was meeting with the Turks for Fox News actually tracked them down to the the freighter where they said they were bringing them to gather them together to destroy them they were giving weapons that could take down a passenger airliner to unvetted terrorist affiliates to fight Assad that's the real insanity of Benghazi and no one was able to get to the bottom of it they were called conspiracy theorists by the victorian guard and the press the democrats said it was racist to question President Barack Obama and the Republicans got hung up on the easy fish of what the president clearly lied about this video we know it wasn't the video everyone missed the real story and also a lot of people missed how our NATO ally and I try to get to this but I couldn't get I couldn't get more than one source and I'm like the New York Times I wasn't gonna claim me was more than one source that the Turkish ambassador had left the consulate at a time when locals had reported that the al Qaeda affiliate had already set up roadblocks that were marked with Al Qaeda's signage flag which means the Turks drove through leaving an American consulate on Al qaeda-affiliated blockade and didn't call back there's not a single record that they came and they warned the Americans that they were surrounded by al Qaeda sounds like we were betrayed by a NATO ally but I guess the president Trump ever tried to get to the bottom of that he'd be helping Putin and they do think the American people are stupid it is unbelievable and worse than that they think that they're very smart they're very self-satisfied can you tell I don't like reporters except for the u.s. you register Chris one of my favorite lines in all-time favorite lines and is in movies is Colonel jessep saying you can't handle the truth I wonder what those of us in this room those of us who are conservative and still read or listen to the media what we can do to hold George will and Bill Kristol and people like them accountable my wife and I have not watched national television for over a year I turned it on when I came to this conference and I could only stand it for five minutes even even Fox as has moved left and I look at things like one American news and other outlets and say what what are we going to do to convince the Wills and crystals of this world to to handle the truth I don't think you will I think Bill Kristol is a thoroughly broken man he's somebody who had so much promise and everyone assumed was gonna be good and interest and he put together a magazine that was good and interesting for a period of time and then he took to Twitter and it's rotten it's rotted his brain he's ended he was Tucker Carlson one of my good friends and my bosses first bosses in Washington DC Tucker looked up to him cared what he thought disagreed with him on a lot of different things but considered him a friend and Bill Kristol called him an anti-semite in a tweet he didn't even call him didn't even text him didn't say hey buddy let's talk I think your shows going down the wrong path he's now living in some kind of strange Fantasyland remember when he recruited a Republican whose name I can't even remember to run against President Trump as a third party candidate and then he spent that weekend going to a carnival with his grandchildren which I know cuz he tweeted it that's not how you run an opposition campaign to win president of the United States that takes a lot of work but he's more interested in a lot of his friends are very interested in simply attacking on television and going on to the next dinner party how about the fact that he's a frequent guest on networks that think he is a war criminal the people who were applauding him right now cuz he says the right things about the president are people who said that he's responsible for millions of dead in Iraq and thousands of dead Americans because of his foreign policy blunders but he says the right things about the president he helps guard the elite so now he's being welcomed in the best thing you can do with George will and Bill Kristol is to turn them off I get to write mean things about them every now and then but I don't have any guarantee they read it maybe I can mail it to them I did have a one this is a really difficult moral ethical quandary whether or not I should make fun of David Brooks in a column because he lives near me and he's got a pool and there very few pools in Capitol Hill and it gets very hot on Capitol Hill but I decided that it was probably likely he wouldn't see it so I wrote it anyways those are the ethical challenges right these these groups of the week the standard they've made it the business model to run themselves at a business and there were some good people over there Matt Leigh bash was phenomenal Andy Ferguson was phenomenal but I do admit that as an organization at the News Foundation and before that the for-profit Daily Caller we had a deeply important mantra to never operate in the red after the first 18 months of existence always operate in the black always at least if you're not making a lot of money don't be losing money and I have a little bit of scorn for members of the media Washington Post the Weekly Standard rest in peace who never had to pay attention to that who just took dad's credit card and went running with it until dad got bored and cut it off the I think the media SH that's an example of irresponsibility using your platform to simply attack your readership to attack people who support Trump to call them the what did what did Hillary Clinton call the deplorable z' she's a nasty nasty woman as President Trump once said that was an interesting debate too he had the fervor of an evangelist someone who I feel like likeliness the president Trump has had some kind of nearness to abortion in his life is very high but I feel like like a lot of people in the media he'd never even considered it never thought deeply about it until he ran for president United States and he came out in Las Vegas it's like someone had just told him what abortion was and it blew him what you could tell when he attacks Hillary Clinton when Hillary Clinton said it's Rho V Rho V Wade is a woman's right you're attacking a woman's right most Republicans would say well it's settled law of the land my Christian beliefs that lead me to think otherwise and he went out eyes wide and said you know what they do they take the baby and they kill she's a nasty nasty woman like someone had just told him do you what abortion is I'd never seen such a forceful defense of life ever on the national stage and it came from Manhattanite Donald Trump it's been very interesting and he personally attacked I think it was Senator Chris Coons maybe messing that up a northeast senator a Democrat for the party's switch on abortion in a place where there were no cameras it got leaks to the press they confronted him at a dinner and said how could you do this how could you possibly do this so it's an interesting champion we have there we have time for one more question is it effective calling fake news think news I love it and I shouldn't admit that the my favorite thing about the fake news thing that Donald Trump is used in weaponized right now if you hear President Trump call something fake news they say that's an assault on the First Amendment and undermines democracy it undermines America the first time you might have heard the term fake news was actually from the media when they're attacking conservative news after Hillary Clinton lost there was a serious push to cut off conservative media's legs they called it fake news who said it was Russia funded there was a really strange and surreal press conference under the Obama White House were over and over again the press secretary had to remind the press that because of the First Amendment they couldn't crack down on media outlets at the White House disagreed with the press was begging them to it was unbelievable and they were asking they were requesting the help of Silicon Valley our overlords at Facebook and Twitter to decide what was fake and what was real and it may start with something that's on its face false one New York reporter pointed out to me as an article that made a difference in fake news that the Pope endorses Donald Trump was gonna swing votes and I had to point out to him that anyone who listens to the Pope wasn't voting for a third term abortionists so it was very unlikely that switched a lot of votes but the fake news thing came from the media and it was deeply insidious trying to get places shut down you know the just access to the halls of Congress is controlled by a committee of reporters who vote on this al Jazeera has been elected to this committee in the past an outlet for a slave state unbelievable turn and they have worked hard to deny places that are center-right access to Congress and I call that an assault on media they've asked for censorship from Silicon Valley they've asked for censorship from government and while it may start with a fake news story like Pope endorses Donald Trump by tomorrow it's gonna be anyone who's skeptical of global warming being caused by man or anyone who says that there was evidence of voter fraud in Philadelphia how dare we or anyone who questions the video narrative and a bunch of contractors hanging out in Benghazi narrative that would be called fake news and shut down so for President Trump to turn it around and weaponize it it's one of the most deeply just things I absolutely love it and you know if you ever in Washington DC when you go to the Smithsonian and you see the portrait of souls burger oh yeah owner of the New York Times the one who turned it around years ago it the description says he took over the failing New York Times because at the time it was failing and it's one of the best exhibits in the Smithsonian Donald Trump lives forever in there thanks everyone this has been wonderful you

Channel: Hillsdale College

Views: 28,373

Keywords: hillsdale, college, christopher bedford, daily caller, new, news, trump, media, nls, national leadership seminar

Id: rjyAQp-AHwA

Length: 58min 17sec (3497 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 03 2019