Sep 16, 2024
Right-Wingers Backpedal Embarrassing 'ABC Whistleblower' Conspiracy
Notable right-wingers, including elected lawmakers have fallen for a dubious document posted on Twitter/X.
- 13 minutes
Fortunately, we now have a whistleblower.
And I'm going
to tell you something, Maria.
We're going to we're going to do
what we can to bring ABC in
and have them answer some questions and as
well as have this whistleblower
and see what's going on as they're trying
[00:00:15]
to tear down the First Amendment.
I'm glad you mentioned this,
because Fox News is reaching out to ABC
for response to that affidavit.
This affidavit and this whistleblower
story is gaining traction.
[00:00:31]
Yes, absolutely.
And as it should, we need
to have find out what the truth is.
And the thing is this we all saw it.
We actually don't need a hearing
to know what we saw.
You just heard from Republican
Representative Dan Meuser speaking
to Maria Bartiromo on Fox Business,
[00:00:47]
and they're specifically talking about
how they want to investigate a sketchy
and unverified affidavit that conveniently
alleges that ABC news
rigged the presidential debate
between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris
to give Harris the upper hand.
[00:01:04]
Now he is unfortunately far from the only
conservative pushing this flimsy story.
But first, we'll discuss the affidavit
itself, and then we'll get
to all the different right wingers
who have been pushing this,
some of whom have had to backpedal.
[00:01:20]
So the author of the anonymous affidavit
claims to have worked for ABC
news for ten years in various technical
and administrative positions.
The affidavit is dated
September 9th, 2024, which was one day
[00:01:35]
before the debate itself.
Now, according to that affidavit,
ABC leadership agreed that Trump would
be fact checked, while Kamala Harris
would not face comparable scrutiny.
Gave the Harris campaign, but not
the Trump campaign, sample questions in
[00:01:51]
advance, and promised the Harris campaign
that she would not be questioned on
a number of, you know, provocative topics.
I guess, including what Kamala Harris knew
about Biden's cognitive decline before it
became public and common knowledge.
[00:02:10]
Now, the affidavit was released
by a random X user.
So we should totally believe it.
Named Black Insurrectionist.
And they have a history of some
pretty extreme pro MAGA comments,
including the following.
On August or 1st August, post describes
Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota
[00:02:29]
Governor Tim Walz, her running mate,
as disgusting creatures
and their supporters as the delightful
cesspool of humanity we are fighting
here today who may be just plain,
flat out disgusting pedophiles.
Okay, so.
Before we get to the heart
of the discussion, I just want
[00:02:45]
to make a comment about that quote.
If that's true, that he's an ABC
whistleblower and he's at ABC right now,
he sounds like the most biased guy
in the building.
I mean, I mean, you want to talk about
bias against Republicans or Democrats.
That guy seems like you can't be more
biased against Democrats than that guy.
[00:03:01]
He's part of the news operation.
I double down
on finding the whistleblower.
There is no whistleblower.
He's not an ABC.
This is the most obvious
horse crap there was.
And if he was at ABC, he'd be the problem.
You literally have elected lawmakers
running around with
[00:03:19]
this so-called whistleblowers affidavit.
There is, with no verification,
no concern about what the truth is.
You have Maria Bartiromo like, oh,
we we we reached out to ABC news
to see and think about think about how
this actually makes Donald Trump
and the Republican Party look like just
[00:03:35]
really just take a second to take that in.
No one's even thinking
about the debate already.
Like, I get it.
It sucks when your preferred candidate
didn't perform well.
Okay.
But this sweeping that they're doing
for Trump, this like intense cope
[00:03:51]
that they're engaging in, it makes
you guys look so sad and pathetic.
Like just stop talking about the debate.
You got to move on,
move on, move on, move on.
People are already focusing
on other things.
Don't make it worse than it already is,
but they can't help themselves.
Okay.
So again, the affidavit was released
by that random user.
[00:04:10]
And it is not only riddled
with all sorts of typos, which should have
also been a red flag for the Republicans
talking about it and spreading it,
but it also contains some interesting
inconsistencies like this one.
So, as Oliver Alexander writes,
a real high quality leaked
[00:04:26]
whistleblower affidavit
he worked for ABC news for ten years,
has observed significant transformations
in the nature of news reporting at ABC
news since 1996, which was 28 years ago.
Impressive to have observed this
18 years prior to working there.
[00:04:42]
Media mediaite's Jamie Fravel
and Sarah Rumpf did an excellent job,
also explaining why you should take this
affidavit with a massive grain of salt
or the tiniest grain of salt.
To be clear, what we have is a document
that could be created with any computer,
[00:04:59]
at least newer
than Pearl Jam's debut album,
which says it was created the day before
the debate but offers nothing to prove
that makes claims that seize
upon the fevered social media posts
of MAGA conspiracy theorists,
[00:05:15]
and provides zero details that would allow
anyone to verify this person even exists,
much less works for ABC news
in a capacity to have knowledge
of the debate, negotiations and planning.
But anyway, it didn't stop the right wing.
Go ahead Jake.
[00:05:31]
So, I'm going to get back to the debate
in a second and how all this plays out.
But this is a trick as old as time
for the right wing.
So you remember Rush Limbaugh
used to go on his radio show,
and he would ruffle a piece of paper next
to the microphone and go, I have a fox.
[00:05:50]
Ladies and gentlemen, I have a fax.
This fax just came in and it says
Bill Clinton is part of an illegal,
blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Anybody can send you a fax.
Your brother could send you a fax.
The fact that you have a fax
doesn't mean anything.
And these idiots are going around going,
there's a fax online.
[00:06:08]
There's is there. There is a statement.
People wrote sentences online,
so it must be true.
You saw a post on X from an unverified guy
and you thought it must be true.
- To Ted Cruz.
- Deeply embarrassing if you mean it.
Ted Cruz was spreading it,
saying at first with three fire emojis
[00:06:27]
like any credible senator would do if this
is accurate and I do not know that it is,
it would constitute one of the gravest
violations of journalist ethics
in presidential debate history.
I'm sure Ted Cruz is very concerned
about journalistic ethics.
If true, multiple senior people
at ABC should be fired.
[00:06:45]
Who should be fired if it's false
because you're spreading it right now?
Point. That is a good point.
Billionaire Bill Ackman has also
posted about the affidavit too many times
for us to show you all of them.
So we'll stick to this one.
So here he's claiming that David Muir
is probably guilty
[00:07:02]
of the affidavits claims because he
hasn't publicly acknowledged it.
Why has David Muir not responded to the
accusations leveled by the whistleblower.
One has to draw a negative inference.
Do they? They don't have to draw any.
Yeah. You know, for my all my life.
[00:07:19]
Mainstream media has been telling me,
oh, these titans of industry,
the people on Wall Street are so smart.
And the people who run companies
are the greatest people
in these political leaders are amazing.
No, the people at the top
are the guy behind the green curtain.
All frauds like Bill Ackman
can't put two thoughts together.
[00:07:37]
It's amazing.
I'm sure he's smart in other regards.
But when it comes to politics,
it's amazing how often
he sounds like an utter moron.
Like you didn't think.
Is that how you do investments?
Like, oh, I don't need to verify anything.
Oh, here's a statement on Twitter.
It must be true.
[00:07:52]
Let me go make public statements about it.
Hey, why haven't you apologized for it
or talked about it?
David Muir I don't know, because you're
dingbat friend made it up a minute ago.
Elon Musk reposted it,
but my favorite was Marjorie Greene.
Okay, so Marjorie Greene also tweeted
about it, writing that the ABC
[00:08:09]
was the ABC whistleblower who claimed
Kamala Harris was given debate.
Questions ahead of the debate has died
in a car crash, according to news reports.
Not only do they not exist,
they did not die in a car crash
and there is no such news report.
[00:08:25]
There was a community note
attached to that tweet, which made it
abundantly clear that this is not true.
But to her credit,
she later walked back the statements.
Wow.
Okay, that this story appears to be false
and I'm glad to hear it.
[00:08:41]
We need a serious investigation
into the whistleblower.
No, it's.
- That part's false, too, you knucklehead.
- Jesus Christ, I have a fax.
Okay, so, guys, let me break this down.
Because this is important.
Because this happens over and over again.
First of all, who has the most
credibility on this story?
[00:08:57]
We do. Literally, let me explain.
You know, the one time you guys all
remember the one time they actually did
pass questions and a news organization did
bust the people passing the questions.
That was Donna Brazile passing questions
to Hillary Clinton's team.
You know, who broke that story?
We did okay, even though she's a Democrat.
[00:09:14]
We broke that story.
Originally it was in Wikileaks.
So Wikileaks gets credit.
Major credit.
We couldn't possibly know it
without Wikileaks.
But our reporter rifled through all
the Wikileaks
when there was a one of those releases,
and he found this and he publicized it.
[00:09:31]
And when he when we started highlighting
it and saying, oh my God, Donna
Brazile gave questions to Hillary Clinton.
Mainstream media treated us
like we were kooks, like, oh, yeah.
Right. I bet that happened.
Sure.
But we're like, no, no, no, guys, this
isn't some random guy on Twitter or fax.
[00:09:47]
This is indisputable. This is a fact.
And we had receipts because
because of Wikileaks.
And we showed them the receipts
and they denied it for so long.
Not just CNN, but all of mainstream media
that is beloved Donna Brazile
[00:10:03]
and beloved Hillary Clinton.
How dare you.
And you guys must be
supporting Trump at the time.
We're doing Loser Donald segments, right?
But we actually care
about what's true or not true.
So we broke that story
of someone doing this exact thing.
The difference was evidence there.
There was clear evidence here.
[00:10:22]
There's no evidence. Truth matters.
Look, the one thing that I do miss
about the boomer cons, which the modern
day Republicans have seemed to reject,
is the notion of personal responsibility.
Right.
And honestly, Donald Trump performed
poorly because he didn't prepare.
[00:10:41]
There were a lot of opportunities where he
could have taken jabs at Kamala Harris.
He could have hit back,
but he failed to do so.
And so personal responsibility,
you know, lashing out at everyone else
isn't going to make the situation better
and in fact, makes Trump look worse.
[00:10:56]
- It makes him look pathetic.
- Yeah.
And I've got
to say last two things on that.
So at the debate,
she's so easily manipulated.
And we're sitting here watching it
before we went on air
and we could see her, you know, reeling
him in from a mile away, trolling his ass.
[00:11:14]
Yeah.
The minute she started talking
about the rallies,
we were like, here it comes again.
She's trolling him and is he going to go?
Is he going to bite?
And he bites every time.
So you could try to pretend
that the moderators were on her side
and oh my god, boohoo.
They did a fact check.
I can't believe that they bothered.
[00:11:31]
They care about facts.
People should know whatever,
whatever your thing is.
Oh, they should have done more
on Kamala Harris.
By the way, you want to see fact checks
on Kamala Harris and everyone else
right here on The Young Turks,
because when it's real facts, we check
her, we check Biden, we check Trump, etc.
But your guy couldn't see
the easiest traps in the world in a debate
[00:11:52]
like the minute she said rally,
I would know if I'm Trump.
Oh, she's trying to bait me, but he's
so dumb he didn't see it coming at all.
And you know this MAGA.
You know, he walked into every single one
of those traps like, look do do do do.
[00:12:08]
Jesus Christ, what a dumb ass. All right.
But the last thing
is about this phenomenon.
And you'll see it going forward
to Republicans will start a rumor and then
say, well, people are talking about it.
I'm talking about because
because people are talking about it.
[00:12:23]
But, brother, you're the one
who started it in the first place, right?
J.D.
Vance is doing that exact thing about
the eating pet stuff right now, right?
Start a rumor and go.
People are talking about it, and then
you go, well, we got to address it.
We don't we don't have a choice.
We have to address it.
Right.
[00:12:39]
So since people are talking about it
and we have to address it, we have to say
that somebody at ABC should get fired.
But all along the way, you forgot there
was no evidence that you made it up.
And look, you can get super
frustrated at MAGA guys.
[00:12:55]
And I do too, okay?
Because they believe
this stuff so readily.
The minute anyone on the right says it,
they believe it in a second, right?
And I want to snap them out of it.
And sometimes I want to snap some
of the Democrats out of their wrong way
of thinking, oh, Biden's not too old, etc.
[00:13:11]
We've been through this, right?
But guys, the number one culprit is
the guys who are taking advantage of them
and going, we know the MAGA guys trust us.
We can give them any lie we want
and they'll just go for it.
We'll tell them that the immigrants
are eating cats and dogs.
[00:13:28]
We'll tell them we won the last election.
We'll tell them that, oh, ABC's moderators
were unfair to poor Donald Trump.
They were in cahoots. We have a fax.
We have a tweet. We have a tweet.
So if you're MAGA, stop falling for it.
Actually ask for evidence.
[00:13:47]
And but the main problem
is the Republican politicians
who do this again and again and again.
Thanks for watching The Young Turks
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Thank you.
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