The editor for the Los Angeles Times editorials, has resigned from the paper after the paper's owner decided to block the editorial board from endorsing a presidential candidate in this race. So on October 11th, the L.A. [00:00:16] Times owner, his name is Patrick Soon-shiong, informed the paper's editorial board that the times would not be making an endorsement for president, which, honestly, I was shocked by because, think about it, Kamala Harris was a politician in the state of California. [00:00:32] The Los Angeles Times is a very liberal paper, so. And they've been endorsing candidates for other elected offices. So, I don't know what's going on. Semafor writes that while the paper noted in its first line that it is no [00:00:51] exaggeration to say this may be the most consequential election in a generation, that was the only mention of the presidential race in its endorsements. The paper did not give any explanation at this point, at least for their decision, only noting at the bottom of its online endorsement page that the editorial board [00:01:11] endorses selectively choosing the most consequential races in which to make recommendations. And, you know, the presidential race is pretty consequential. No. This is sort of an interesting move, seeing as the paper's board has been [00:01:27] allowed to endorse candidates in the past, they've endorsed Democratic candidates in every single race since Obama in 2008. Now Mariel Garza is the or was, I should say, the editorials editor. And she said that, you know, the board did intend to endorse Kamala Harris, [00:01:45] but the owner stopped them from doing so. She says, quote, I didn't think we were going to change our readers minds. Our readers, for the most part, are Harris supporters. We're a very liberal paper. I didn't think we were going to change the outcome of the election in California. [00:02:02] But two things concern me. This is a point in time when you speak your conscience, no matter what, and an endorsement was the logical next step. After a series of editorials we've been writing about how dangerous Trump is to democracy, about his unfitness to be president, [00:02:19] about his threats to jail his enemies. We have made the case in editorial after editorial that he shouldn't be reelected. Now, after news of the decision to avoid endorsing a presidential candidate in the paper became public knowledge, I guess all hell broke loose. [00:02:39] And this decision by the paper made her so upset that she decided to step down. She felt that it was immoral to continue working as the head of the editorial team. When the paper made this decision that she totally disagrees with, and I don't know [00:02:56] why the paper's owner made the decision. I'm actually shocked by it, and I don't think it was the right decision to make. I think the LA times editorial board should have been allowed to endorse the candidate that they wanted to endorse. Yeah. So first I'm gonna start on, this thing where she said it was a liberal paper, and you said it too. [00:03:12] But the word liberal has to be clarified. So LA times in my lifetime, since I've been in LA, is a very pro-establishment paper. Hates progressives, running for Congress, running for national office, advocating for Medicare for all, etc. [00:03:29] They hate it, hate it, hate it. They love establishment Democrats. They love Gavin Newsom. They run cover for him. Gavin Newsom and other establishment Democrats have been taking billions of dollars in for the homeless, etc., and they can't account for it. They can't do anything about it. Yeah, they stole from us. [00:03:46] Yeah. And PG and E is is the top donor and it causes all the fires, etc.. LA times never until recently, almost never reported on any of that. We would ask them why they can't account for billions of dollars in taxpayer money. You're the local newspaper. Yeah. [00:04:02] Isn't that, like, exactly what you should be pursuing? And they would never pursue it because they love the powerful. So let me. Jump in because there is something I've noticed with the LA times, and maybe the presidential endorsement is another sign of something that I've been noticing. [00:04:18] They have pivoted a little bit and they've pivoted away. Maybe it was because of the fact that the paper wasn't making any money, and they did mass layoffs fairly recently, but they seem to have pivoted to a fairer reporting style, and they've been a lot more critical of Gavin Newsom. [00:04:34] In fact, some of the regulations that he signed in California has led to the closure of, you know, the Phillips refinery in Los Angeles. 600 people are losing their jobs as a result. And it's also going to lead to higher gas prices in the state of California. [00:04:52] So they've been like critical about that in their reporting. - That's one. - Example. You know, I'm not sure I love that example, but there's many others where that's why I said until recently, recently they had a little bit of a turn. I don't know if this is part of that turn, but now look, here's here's the reality guys. [00:05:07] And so that's why I'm a little bit ambivalent about this story because he is the owner of the paper. So there's this funny thing in news where like you're like, even if you're the owner of the paper, it's useless. It's irrelevant. You have you should have no say in the paper. Then I genuinely want to ask the brother. Then why did you buy it? [00:05:25] Right? But this is him saying, no, I own the paper and I don't want to endorse Kamala Harris. Let's be clear. I don't know why he doesn't want to endorse Kamala Harris, but there's no question he's blocking the endorsement of Kamala Harris. That's wrong. Like it's wrong for the owner of the paper to do that. [00:05:40] I disagree with it entirely. That is censorship. You have an editorial board. You should allow them to do their jobs. And if they have decided that, by the way, I'm not a big fan of Kamala Harris. I think that's pretty clear on the show. I'm just saying, on principle alone, it is wrong for the owner of the paper to [00:05:56] veto the editorial board's decision here. So I run this company and as you know, Anna, I famously let everybody have their opinion, right? - That's exactly right. - That's true. So I live by that creed. I believe in that creed. And I get into debates, fights, etc. [00:06:11] With other hosts in this network all the time. You guys see with your own eyes, right? But a part of what I'm saying is, who are we kidding about? Everyone else, right? Yeah, that is true. Like Rupert Murdoch was Fox News, his agenda and Wall Street Journal and their editorial board of the Wall Street Journal is massively right wing. [00:06:30] Jeff Bezos owns the Washington Post editorial board is massively corporate, right? And on and on and on. And so like everybody's always like pretending that these all have like some sort of journalistic integrity when I've never seen it. [00:06:45] Every organization I've ever seen that's in news is not really in news. They're in marketing for either their owner or the rich and the powerful who are their advertisers, their board members, etc.. So this is just a more public view into that, where he blocks the editorial, [00:07:03] but in who they hire, they already make these decisions normally ahead of time. That is true. Yes. I you know, oftentimes the people who get hired have a philosophy, political philosophy or ideology that is in line with the owners [00:07:20] of the publication or the outlet. And look, the thing that I think bothers Gaza the most is the fact that since there isn't an endorsement for Kamala Harris, a state where she was a politician in, [00:07:36] you know, Donald Trump has kind of used this to his advantage, and she hates it. And I can understand why she would hate it. So he's putting out his own campaign messaging about this, saying in Kamala's own home state, the Los Angeles Times, the state's largest newspaper, [00:07:53] has declined to endorse the Harris Wallace ticket despite endorsing the Democrat nominee in every election for decades. Even her fellow Californians know she's not up for the job. The times previously endorsed Kamala in her 2010 and 2014 races for California attorney general, as well as her 2016 race for U.S. [00:08:11] Senate. But not this time. And so that those attacks, and the idea that the lack of endorsement is helping Donald Trump is something that really bothers Garza. - And I can understand where she's coming. - Those were Trump team quotes, though. [00:08:26] Yeah, those were Trump teams. Yeah, exactly. So he they put out those quotes. And that's when Garza is like I can't I can't do this. Like this is wrong. It really bothered her because the lack of endorsement is something that Trump used to his advantage. I see. Yeah. So that prompted her to resign. [00:08:42] And she wrote in her resignation letter the following. I have been struggling with my feelings about the implications of our silence, but the reality hit me like cold water Tuesday, when the news rippled out about the decision not to endorse [00:08:57] without so much as a comment from the Los Angeles Times management and Donald Trump turned it into an anti Anti-hair rip. It makes us look craven and hypocritical, maybe even a bit sexist and racist. - No, I totally disagree with that. - I don't even know what that means. [00:09:14] How could we spend eight years railing against Trump and the danger his leadership poses to the country, and then fail to endorse the perfectly decent Democrat challenger who we previously endorsed for the US Senate. I don't know, man. I disagree with both sides. [00:09:31] So the reason I said that about sexist and racist is because I think Donald Trump is those things. I don't think it's necessarily helpful to keep saying that before an election, because it hasn't worked in the past. But I'm not fighting that. But not endorsing Kamala Harris doesn't mean you're being sexist or racist. [00:09:47] That's crazy talk. There's a million other reasons not to endorse. - I agree with you on that. - Right. So the reason why I'm saying that I don't agree with her is because. So she's saying that the paper has an obligation to back one of the candidates. No it doesn't. [00:10:02] It has an obligation to the news and to reality and to the truth. So she's like, we've been doing propaganda for Kamala Harris this entire time. Why aren't we continuing to do propaganda for Kamala Harris? It's not a compelling argument to me. It just isn't interesting. And look, and guys, I don't want you to think that this is why those are [00:10:19] all opinions I would have had anyway. But remember, I did have kind of a an interesting interaction with the LA times editorial board when I ran for Congress, and they wrote an editorial where they said, even though we agree with your stance on almost all the issues, including money [00:10:36] and politics, we find him too pugilistic and we prefer civility in Congress. So we'll be backing the other Democrat, the establishment Democrat. Well, I hope her civility keeps her warm at night now that she's unemployed. Yeah. And so my point there is not oh, boo hoo. They didn't like me. [00:10:53] No. What they have been saying at the LA times forever is we like corporate Democrats. We don't want progressives. We don't want Republicans. So nobody had a problem with that. But now that they're not endorsing Kamala Harris, all of a sudden everyone has a problem. [00:11:09] So I, I, I'm against Trump. I want Kamala Harris to win. But I, I want people to note the irony of demanding that they be on her side and then pretending that that's the ethical journalistic position. [00:11:24] Oh, James, you come from an interesting perspective on this, and you've you've swung me. You have like, look, in principle, I am against the owner of the publication coming in and doing what he did. But I do also agree that the editorial board isn't completely innocent [00:11:42] in the way that they have handled their responsibilities. That's totally true. Yeah, it's kind of like saying, I can't believe the owner is biased in favor of Trump. We should be biased in favor of Kamala, not a compelling argument. Interesting. All right. [00:11:57] Thanks for watching. If you become a member, you get to watch all this ad free. Except for, of course, this ad still hit the join button below.