0:00

A Columbia University graduate student

0:02

and green card holder was

0:04

picked up by ice and

0:06

threatened with deportation. The president

0:08

says this is just the

0:10

beginning. Trump wrote, we will

0:12

find, apprehend, and deport these

0:14

terrorist sympathizers from our country.

0:16

From WNYC in New York, this is on

0:18

the media. I'm Brooke Gladstone. And I'm

0:20

Michael Lohanger. The case calls to mind

0:22

a widespread crackdown on free speech back

0:25

in the 40s and 50s. The president

0:27

of Yale said referring to... There's not

0:29

going to be any witch hunts at

0:31

Yale because there aren't going to be

0:33

any witches at Yale. In other words,

0:36

you, the government, don't need to come

0:38

in. We'll take care of it

0:40

ourselves. Plus, when reporters investigate

0:42

the rich and powerful intimidation,

0:45

often comes next. We were on

0:47

the receiving end of threatening letters

0:49

from high-priced law firms warning us

0:51

that if we went down this

0:53

path, they intended to hold us

0:55

accountable in court. It's all coming

0:57

up after this. On

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vary on how you buy. This

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is on the media, I'm Michael Loeinger.

1:31

And I'm Brooke Gladstone. On

1:33

Thursday, agents from the Department

1:35

of Homeland Security searched two

1:37

residences on the Columbia University

1:39

campus. This, less than a

1:42

week after a Columbia University

1:44

graduate, was apprehended by ICE.

1:46

Momod Kalil, who helped lead

1:48

Columbia University student encampment protest

1:51

against the war in Gaza,

1:53

was taken into custody at

1:55

his university-owned apartment late Saturday.

1:57

day. According to his attorney.

1:59

One of the agents said

2:01

they were executing a state

2:03

department order to revoke Kale's

2:05

student visa. When the attorney

2:08

told them he had graduated

2:10

in December and was in

2:12

the US as a permanent

2:14

resident with a green card,

2:16

they said they were revoking

2:18

that too. Kaleel was separated

2:20

from his wife, a U.S.

2:22

citizen who's eight months pregnant,

2:24

and promptly transported to a

2:26

lockup in Louisiana, where he

2:28

remains as I read this

2:30

on Friday. According to the

2:32

online outlet Zuteo, Kaleel had

2:34

sent emails pleading with Colombia

2:37

for protection just the day

2:39

before he was detained. President

2:41

Trump said that his arrest was

2:44

just the beginning. They don't love our country,

2:46

we ought to get him to hell out.

2:48

I think that guy, we ought to go.

2:50

Thus far, the White House has provided no details

2:52

as to why he's been detained. Mahmoud Khalil

2:54

has not been charged or convicted with

2:57

any crime. So a White House official told

2:59

the free press that there's no allegation that

3:01

he broke any law. So again, I have

3:03

to ask what specifically constitute

3:05

terrorist activity that he was

3:07

supporting. On Thursday, NPR's Michelle Martin

3:10

Press, the Deputy Secretary of the

3:12

Department of Homeland Security Troy Edgar

3:14

for answers. What exactly do you

3:16

say he did? Well, like I said,

3:18

you know, when you apply for

3:20

a visa, you go to the

3:23

process to be able to say

3:25

that, you know, you're here on

3:27

a student visa, doesn't afford you

3:29

all the rights of coming in

3:31

and basically going through this process,

3:33

agitating and supporting Hamas. at this

3:35

point, you know, the Secretary of

3:37

State and the State Department maintains

3:39

the right to revoke the decent,

3:42

that's what they've done. So, so what,

3:44

how did he support Hamas? Exactly,

3:46

what did he do? Well, I think

3:48

you could see it on TV, right? It's,

3:50

this is somebody that, you know, we've invited

3:52

and allowed the student to come

3:55

into the country, and he's put

3:57

himself in the middle of the

3:59

process of basically. Palestinian activity and

4:01

at this point, like I

4:03

said, the Secretary of State, State

4:06

can review his visa process

4:08

at any point and revoke

4:10

it. He's a permanent resident. He's

4:12

not a visa holder. He's

4:14

a legal permanent resident. He has

4:17

the green card, at least he

4:19

did, until it's alleged that

4:21

it was revoked. So look, if

4:23

the allegation... Secretary of State, Marco

4:26

Rubio, has implied that Kaleel

4:28

is affiliated with Hamas, with no

4:30

evidence to back that claim, and

4:33

it's a claim that Kaleel's

4:35

lawyers deny. Meanwhile, a mere 14

4:37

House Democrats have signed a

4:39

letter... Homeland Security Secretary Christie

4:41

Noam asking her to release Kaleel.

4:44

In a statement, Senate Minority

4:46

Leader Chuck Schumer condemned, quote, anti-Semitic

4:48

actions at Columbia, while asking the

4:50

DHS to clarify the criminal

4:52

charges against the Columbia graduate. That

4:55

query alone was enough to set

4:57

off the president. Shumor is

4:59

a Palestinian as far as I'm

5:02

concerned. He's become a Palestinian. He

5:04

used to be Jewish, he's

5:06

not Jewish anymore, he's a Palestinian.

5:08

The problem with what the

5:10

government is trying to do

5:12

is that regardless of the truth

5:15

or falsity of what their

5:17

charges are on the facts, the

5:19

First Amendment protects Mr. Cale's right

5:22

and everyone in the United

5:24

States. Cecilia Wang, national legal director

5:26

of the ACLU. What the Trump

5:28

administration is doing is not

5:30

just attacking him and his family.

5:33

They're not just attacking immigrants. They

5:35

are attacking a fundamental American

5:37

right. In the pages of the

5:40

New York Times and letters

5:42

to the editors of the

5:44

Chicago Times News Day, the Boston

5:46

Globe, and on cable news,

5:48

the case of Mamu Killeel has

5:51

conjured dark memories of the red

5:53

scare in the 40s and

5:55

50s, when Senator Joe McCarthy, a

5:57

Wisconsin Republican, launched his campaign to

6:00

root out communists in the

6:02

US. But... Corey Robin, distinguished professor

6:04

of political science. at Brooklyn

6:06

College says that crackdown on

6:08

free speech went far beyond one

6:11

senator and one political party.

6:13

The Red Scare had gotten going

6:15

four years before anybody in the

6:17

country really had ever heard

6:19

the name Joseph McCarthy. 1946 is

6:22

really when the House Committee on

6:24

American Activities started investigating the

6:26

communist presence in labor unions. The

6:29

next year it was in Hollywood.

6:31

It was a... multi-dimensional attempt

6:33

to first and foremost get rid

6:35

of the Communist Party from

6:37

the United States. But it

6:39

radiated out much further, suppressing a

6:42

whole range of not just

6:44

communist thinking but left-wing thinking and

6:46

liberal thinking. One of the instruments

6:49

that the people who sponsored

6:51

it used were those immigration proceedings,

6:53

both deportation. also denaturalization of people

6:56

who had become American citizens.

6:58

All told, something like 200 to

7:00

250 people were actually deported for

7:02

reasons of expressing and associating

7:04

with certain political beliefs and political

7:07

movements. The State Department is

7:09

using a McCarthy-era law as

7:11

the basis for holding and deporting

7:13

Kaleel. The story about that

7:15

bill is that for several years

7:18

before that a lot of liberal

7:20

and Jewish groups had been

7:22

pushing to reform America's immigration system

7:24

to make it more open Jewish

7:27

groups were so identified with

7:29

these efforts that their opponents on

7:31

the right called immigration reform the

7:34

Jewish problem. McCarran and Walter

7:36

were both fairly anti-Semitic. Walter said

7:38

he wanted to use this

7:40

bill to expose Jewish influence.

7:42

It really helped solidify an immigration

7:44

quota system that had already

7:46

been established, but it also solutions.

7:49

the use of expansive ideological and

7:51

political tests for admission and

7:53

deportation from the United States. And

7:56

over the years, this act was

7:58

used to deny visas to

8:00

Doris Lessing, who won the Nobel

8:02

Prize, to Iris Murdoch, Grand

8:05

Green. Just a whole range

8:07

of figures. I think the parallel

8:09

is that once again we

8:11

are seeing the systemic use of

8:13

the state and all of these

8:16

instruments to both suppress heterodox

8:18

belief and push the culture further

8:20

to the right. The red scare

8:23

involved many many more individuals

8:25

than Joseph McCarthy. You've said that

8:27

the American right has had a

8:29

program for restructuring the American

8:31

workplace since the 70s, starting with

8:34

crushing the labor movement. You

8:36

also say the right has

8:38

overwhelmingly succeeded in this in the

8:40

private sector, but hasn't succeeded

8:42

in the public sector. Is that

8:45

what we're seeing now with the

8:47

mass firing of all these

8:49

federal workers? Absolutely. there's been this

8:51

50-year program to really turn the

8:54

American workforce in the private

8:56

sector into much more docile obedient

8:58

workforce. But if you read the

9:01

American Right, organizations like Alec,

9:03

the quiet but very powerful American

9:05

legislative exchange council, Alec has

9:07

been very concerned about public

9:09

sector employment. Though you see a

9:11

declining union presence in the

9:14

private sector, you have seen an

9:16

increasing union presence in the public

9:18

sector. Public sector workers have

9:20

civil service protections. So the right

9:23

has long wanted to eliminate this

9:25

last bastion of freedom in

9:27

the workplace. What has been so

9:30

shocking is just how successful Trump

9:32

and Elon Musk have been

9:34

to get these summary firings. of

9:36

people that they can just

9:38

dismiss. And that word lists

9:40

also makes me think of McCarthyism.

9:43

And you say you hate

9:45

metaphors, but musks soar on like

9:47

access to information and data on

9:50

every single government worker is

9:52

terrifying. You can't plan for it.

9:54

You feel particularly at risk. Absolutely.

9:56

And it's really. why you

9:58

have the rule of law? Justice

10:01

Scalia famously said it's the

10:03

law of rules that tell

10:05

you under what conditions you can

10:07

be deprived of your life,

10:09

liberty, and property, when you don't

10:12

know on what basis you're going

10:14

to be in this case

10:16

fired, or in the case of

10:18

Mahmoud Khalil, not knowing what was

10:21

it that he actually did

10:23

that landed him in a federal

10:25

detention center in Louisiana? Any student

10:28

in the university system, if

10:30

they are not an American citizen

10:32

or if they are a

10:34

naturalized American citizen, is going

10:36

to have to ask themselves, can

10:39

I say this thing that's

10:41

critical, let's say, of the state

10:43

of Israel? Can I do that

10:45

or not? And that again

10:47

is actually reminiscent of McCarthyism, because

10:50

its effects are not just the

10:52

individuals who are the victims

10:54

of, let's say, a political persecution.

10:57

It's everybody else who is around

10:59

them, who then draws the

11:01

conclusion, I better keep my mouth

11:03

shut. That really does have

11:05

a very frightening parallel to

11:07

the McCarthy era. There was a

11:10

very famous quote from the

11:12

president of Yale. Charles Seymour, and

11:14

he said referring to communists, there's

11:17

not going to be any

11:19

witch hunts at Yale because there

11:21

aren't going to be any witches

11:23

at Yale. In other words,

11:25

you, the federal government, don't need

11:28

to come in and take

11:30

away our funding and investigate

11:32

us, we'll take care of it

11:34

ourselves. So there was fear

11:36

of funding being pulled back then

11:39

as well. You've observed the chilling

11:41

effect of pulling or... threatening

11:43

to pull funding is extreme, as

11:46

in the Trump White House pulling

11:48

$400 million in funding from

11:50

Colombia. The scale is really unprecedented,

11:52

but the range of issues that

11:55

are targeted under the guise

11:57

of a certain term, whether it's

11:59

DEA or what they call

12:01

anti-Semitism, As I said earlier,

12:03

it wasn't just communists who were

12:06

targeted in the McCarthy era.

12:08

It was really a broad set

12:10

of belief systems because they were

12:12

associated with communism. So for

12:14

instance, civil rights for black people.

12:17

The Communist Party was in the

12:19

forefront of that in the

12:21

late 40s, the 1950s. People who

12:24

were investigated for being communists were

12:26

asked questions like the following.

12:28

This was asked of a woman

12:30

named Dorothy Bailey, who was

12:32

an employee of the federal

12:34

government. And the question was, did

12:37

you ever write a letter

12:39

to the Red Cross about the

12:41

segregation of blood? What was your

12:44

personal position about that? The

12:46

blood supply was segregated? Oh, yes.

12:48

You don't have a one-drop rule

12:51

if you're mixing the blood

12:53

supply of the Red Cross. And

12:55

as far as the pulling of

12:57

federal funding goes, it isn't

12:59

just universities, it's state governments, too.

13:02

You say that they may

13:04

ask... Do I sacrifice this

13:06

one person? That's what Colombia is

13:08

asking itself right now about

13:10

Mahmoud Khalil, you say. Or, you

13:13

know, do we risk the whole

13:15

thing? Every institution in the

13:17

United States today has to ask

13:19

itself, if we do not comply

13:22

with what the White House

13:24

is telling us, we can have

13:26

a major part of our

13:28

funding pulled. And so when

13:30

you have somebody like the governor

13:33

of Maine, who several weeks

13:35

ago stood right up to Trump

13:37

over the issue of discriminating against

13:39

trans people. Is the main

13:41

here the governor of Maine? Are

13:44

you not going to comply with

13:46

it? I'm complying with the

13:48

state and federal law. Well we

13:51

are the federal law. You better

13:53

do it. You better do

13:55

it because you're not going to

13:58

get any federal funding at

14:00

all. Within two days, the

14:02

White House announced that they were

14:04

pulling a bunch of funding

14:06

from Maine, and now the University

14:08

of Maine is also being targeted.

14:11

Now, if you're the governor

14:13

of Maine, you have to ask

14:15

yourself, is this really something I'm

14:18

going to not risk my

14:20

own career, forget about that, that

14:22

I'm going to risk the health,

14:24

safety, and welfare of all

14:26

of my citizens over this one

14:29

issue? This is the situation

14:31

that regimes of fear put

14:33

people in, where they force you

14:35

to choose. Dealmaking is a

14:37

part of democracy, but when it's

14:40

done like this, and that the

14:42

terms of the deal are

14:44

whether or not your state is

14:46

going to get some vital funding

14:49

for just basic protection, we're

14:51

in a very different order of

14:53

things. And you suggest that the

14:56

quiet compliance eats at the

14:58

fabric of everyday society. You see

15:00

that. There was an article

15:02

in the New York Times

15:04

saying that a person who runs

15:07

a research institute at Yale

15:09

was very quietly let go sometime

15:11

over the last few days because

15:13

an artificial intelligence-driven website claimed

15:15

that she was a supporter of

15:18

terrorism. I think she's Iranian-born. This

15:20

is the kind of thing

15:22

that eats at the fabric of

15:25

the soul. There's nobody speaking

15:27

up on her behalf right

15:29

now from this institution. The leaders

15:31

of these institutions, the people

15:33

who work at these institutions, they

15:35

have to make that calculation. Do

15:38

we speak up and incur

15:40

the further wrath? of the government

15:42

or do we quietly cooperate, keep

15:45

our heads down and hopefully

15:47

will come out okay? The problem

15:49

and this is what happened during

15:51

the McCarthy era is you

15:53

start doing that day in, day

15:56

out. And before you know

15:58

it, the very reason you

16:00

were making the sacrifice. to protect

16:02

the institution. You've already betrayed

16:04

that goal. When we read about

16:07

people who lived under communist regimes

16:09

in the 1970s, the 1980s,

16:11

that's what they were talking about,

16:14

the daily cooperation with lies, not

16:16

lies that, you know, Fox

16:18

News is trumpeting, not lies that

16:20

are easy to identify, but a

16:23

lie of the life. A

16:25

lie of the life. What do

16:27

you mean? If you're at

16:29

a university, the reason that

16:31

you work there is not to

16:34

make a lot of money,

16:36

it's because you believe in research,

16:38

in teaching, you believe in knowledge,

16:40

all of these things, if

16:42

then you yourself are part of

16:45

an enterprise where you're firing people

16:47

and you don't fight it

16:49

vigorously, you start living a life

16:52

of lies, but betrayal, and that

16:54

is, I think, a lie

16:56

of life. Coming

16:58

up, Corey Robin on the

17:01

role of Hollywood during the

17:03

Red Scare and how Humphrey

17:05

Bogart betrayed the ideals of

17:07

his most famous role. This

17:09

is on the media. And

17:11

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18:07

The big take from Bloomberg

18:09

podcast brings you inside what's

18:11

shaping the world's economies. In just

18:14

15 minutes every day, we go

18:16

beyond the headlines and dive deep

18:19

into stories that will move markets.

18:21

A lot of this meme stock

18:23

stuff is I think embarrassing to

18:25

the SEC, but there's nothing wrong

18:27

with it. It's just like. People

18:30

like to buy stocks that they

18:32

think will go up. I'm like,

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that's not really subject to regulation.

18:36

Follow the Big Take podcast on

18:38

the I heart radio app, Apple

18:40

podcast, Spotify, or wherever you

18:43

listen. This is on the media. I'm

18:45

Michael Oenger. And I'm Brooke

18:47

Gladstone. Now the rest of

18:49

my conversation with Corey Robin.

18:51

Brooklyn College Professor and author

18:53

of Fear. The history of

18:56

a political idea. about the

18:58

echoes of the red scare

19:00

reverberating now in Washington and

19:02

beyond. He says that by

19:04

understanding how it happened then

19:06

can inform much of what

19:08

we're seeing now and maybe

19:11

even offer a different perspective

19:13

on President Trump's role in

19:15

the proceedings. Since he first

19:17

ascended to the presidency in

19:19

2017, there's been a view

19:22

eloquently expressed by Adam Serwer,

19:24

that in confronting Trump's policies,

19:27

we should consider that, quote,

19:29

the cruelty is the point.

19:31

Corey Robin offers a different

19:34

take. Yeah, it wasn't just Adam

19:36

Serwer, this really became a

19:38

very influential slogan among liberals.

19:41

The idea is that the

19:43

people who are doing these

19:45

terrible things enjoy humiliating, enjoy

19:48

degrading other people. Now I

19:50

would certainly not deny that

19:52

to some degree describes what

19:54

Donald Trump is doing. Well

19:57

just look at Marco Rubio

19:59

alone. Yes, but that's not

20:01

why the funding is being

20:03

pulled from all of these universities.

20:05

Why funding is being pulled

20:07

from every state, why employees all

20:10

across the federal government are being

20:12

fired. So let's take the

20:14

case of support for Israel. The

20:17

Trump administration has no interest

20:19

in being cruel about that issue.

20:21

They're trying to produce a

20:23

certain kind of belief system by

20:25

silencing those who would disagree

20:27

with them. This was very true

20:30

during the McCarthy era. McCarthy did

20:32

seem like a cruel individual, but

20:35

that's not why the federal government,

20:37

the state's governments, the whole

20:39

society sought to eliminate all of

20:41

these different beliefs about civil

20:44

rights, democracy, and so forth. They

20:46

wanted to produce a country

20:48

that was much, much more conservative

20:50

and didn't subscribe to those

20:52

beliefs. Cruelty is not the point.

20:55

The goal is to silence anybody

20:57

who has a different thought. That's

21:00

the point. And back in the

21:02

40s and the 50s, what

21:04

was being suppressed was anti-fascist ideas,

21:06

anti-Nazi, pro-civil rights, pro-democracy, pro-worker's

21:08

rights, pro-free speech. And then there

21:11

was the film Casablanca. It's

21:13

an iconic film, but it comes

21:15

out of an effort to

21:17

make left-wing ideas, if we stop

21:20

finding our enemies, the world will

21:22

die, or whatever. It'll be

21:24

out of its misery. You know

21:26

how you sound miss your

21:28

brain? Like a man who's trying

21:31

to convince himself of something,

21:33

he doesn't believe in his heart.

21:35

It's an iconic film, but

21:37

it comes out of an effort

21:40

to make left-wing ideas seem like

21:42

common sense American ideas. There was

21:44

a film called Tender Comrade that

21:47

was written by Dalton Trembo,

21:49

who was a member of the

21:51

Communist Party, and in it,

21:53

Ginger Rock... says share and share

21:56

alike. That's democracy. We could

21:58

run the joint like a democracy

22:00

and if anything comes up

22:02

we'll just call a meeting. That'd

22:04

be wonderful. Oh we could just

22:07

do lots of things. And

22:09

Casablanca really comes out of that

22:11

firmament. It was really an

22:13

effort to make the cause of

22:16

fighting fascism not just a

22:18

political cause. But in the form

22:20

of Humphrey Bogart, a human

22:22

cause. You know, what is Humphrey

22:25

Bogart in Casablanca? What is his

22:27

struggle? It's a guy who was

22:29

betrayed by a girl who, because

22:32

of that, has become cynical

22:34

about everything. And then in the

22:36

course of finding her again

22:38

and falling in love with her

22:41

again, he discovers that he's

22:43

going to fight fascism. And it

22:45

was a great film. And

22:47

the reason why it's so important

22:49

is... In the late 1940s, when

22:52

the House Committee on Unamerican Activities

22:54

went after Hollywood, they hauled up

22:57

a group of screenwriters, directors

22:59

and so forth who were called

23:01

the Hollywood Ten. And all

23:03

of liberal Hollywood rallied behind the

23:05

Hollywood Ten. They formed something

23:07

called the Committee on the First

23:10

Amendment. and it included all

23:12

your favorite stars, Gene Kelly, Catherine

23:14

Hepburn, Frank Sinatra, Groucho Marx. It

23:17

also included Humphrey Bogart. And

23:19

Lauren Buchall? Yes, and there's a

23:21

great photograph of the two

23:23

of them marching in Washington. I

23:25

think it was October 26,

23:27

1947, for the First Amendment. A

23:30

group of actors even launched

23:32

a radio show called Hollywood Fights

23:34

Back. This is Humphrey Bogart. We

23:37

said to ourselves, it can happen

23:39

here. We saw American citizens

23:41

denied the right to speak

23:43

by elected representatives of the

23:45

people. We saw police take

23:47

citizens from the stand like

23:49

criminals after they'd been refused

23:52

the right to defend themselves.

23:54

The Hollywood studios get very

23:56

very nervous and Bogart makes

23:58

a turn and in March

24:00

of the following year he

24:02

writes an art... called I'm

24:04

No Communist, it was in

24:06

photo play magazine. He says,

24:08

I went to Washington, it

24:10

was an ill-advised, foolish trip,

24:12

I'm ready to admit. I

24:14

was a dope, and maybe

24:16

somebody like FDR, he says,

24:18

could handle those babies in

24:21

Washington, but they're too smart

24:23

for guys like me. On

24:25

the one hand, it's sort

24:27

of funny the way he

24:29

talks about this, but there's

24:31

a real sadness to me.

24:33

Humphrey Bogart made this iconic

24:35

film as somebody who found

24:37

himself by fighting, not just

24:39

against fascism, but regimes of

24:41

fear. My daughter knows who

24:43

Humphrey Bogart is at the

24:45

age of 16 today because

24:48

of that film. And then

24:50

in real life, to engage

24:52

in a complete reversal. This

24:54

is what I meant before

24:56

when I said, this is

24:58

the lie of life. It's

25:00

such an utter betrayal of

25:02

all the reasons why we

25:04

love Humphrey Bogart. And with

25:06

regard to the long-term consequences

25:08

of this red scare, it

25:10

was a profoundly effective silencing

25:12

campaign, but McCarthy did get

25:14

his comeuppance in the army

25:17

McCarthy hearings when a lawyer

25:19

said... Have you no sense

25:21

of decency, sir? At long

25:23

last. Have you left no

25:25

sense of decency? It certainly

25:27

brought down Joseph McCarthy. It

25:29

didn't bring down McCarthy-Izzam, where

25:31

the Red Scare. He was

25:33

brought down, not just because

25:35

he went after the Republican

25:37

Party and the military, but

25:39

that he had already performed

25:41

his service. to the Republican

25:44

Party. He was so helpful

25:46

to winning elections in 1950,

25:48

1952, and 1954. And having

25:50

completed that service, he could

25:52

be dispensed with. But the

25:54

ISM persisted. Immigration deportations continued.

25:56

Suppression of heterodoxy and labor

25:58

unions. continued and one of

26:00

the long-term repercussions could even

26:02

be felt in American foreign

26:04

policy. One of the targets

26:06

of the second red scare

26:08

were less leaning people in

26:10

the State Department, oftentimes called

26:13

the China hands, people who

26:15

really knew China and East

26:17

Asia, and they were purged

26:19

from the State Department. And

26:21

many people, including David Halberstom

26:23

in the best and the

26:25

brightest, claim that in losing

26:27

those people who were experts

26:29

on China and on Asia,

26:31

the country set itself up.

26:33

for what became the Vietnam

26:35

War, that destroyed so many

26:37

millions of lives in Vietnam

26:40

and so many lives in

26:42

the United States as well.

26:44

That's a particularly dramatic consequence

26:46

of political repression, of political

26:48

fear. But in the long

26:50

term, that's the kind of

26:52

thing we have to be

26:54

thinking about, particularly in an

26:56

age of climate change, where

26:58

we are facing large complications.

27:00

When all those scientists and

27:02

researchers are purged in silent,

27:04

where will we be with

27:06

the fire next time or

27:09

the flood next time? During

27:11

the first Trump administration, you

27:13

came on the show and

27:15

argued against those who were

27:17

invoking the word fascism. You

27:19

know, douse your hair, doesn't

27:21

need to be on fire.

27:23

I was afraid you were

27:25

going to ask me about

27:27

this. I was skeptical in

27:29

the first Trump administration. that

27:31

they had the kind of

27:33

power and the kind of

27:36

authority that many of their

27:38

critics feared that they had.

27:40

Which they didn't have in

27:42

the first administration. Right. And

27:44

I was skeptical coming into

27:46

this second administration that they

27:48

would be able to wield

27:50

the kind of power that

27:52

people feared they would wield.

27:54

And I have since turned

27:56

out to be wrong. They

27:58

have set off multiple conflicts.

28:00

and I have been shaken

28:02

out of my skepticism. You

28:05

don't think the courts will

28:07

save us? I never thought

28:09

the courts would save us.

28:11

In fact, the McCarthy era,

28:13

I think, is a good

28:15

example of this when the

28:17

courts finally started intervening and

28:19

striking down a lot of

28:21

the instruments of the Second

28:23

Red Scare. It was after

28:25

the Red Scare had succeeded.

28:27

I always feel like the

28:29

courts come late. We have

28:32

to save ourselves. Thank you.

28:34

Corey Robin is the author

28:36

of Fear, the history of

28:38

a political idea. Coming up,

28:40

a civil rights-era Supreme Court

28:42

ruling that enshrines a vital

28:44

press freedom is on the

28:46

chopping block. This is on

28:48

the media. In just 15

28:50

minutes every day, we go

28:52

beyond the headlines and dive

28:54

deep into stories that will

28:56

move markets. A lot of

28:58

this meme stock stuff is

29:01

I think embarrassing to the

29:03

SEC, but there's nothing wrong

29:05

with it. It's just like

29:07

people like to buy stocks

29:09

that they think will go

29:11

up. And like that's not

29:13

really subject to regulation. Follow

29:15

the Big Take podcast on

29:17

the iHeart Radio app, Apple

29:19

podcast, Spotify, or wherever you

29:21

listen. This

29:26

is on the media. I'm Brooke

29:29

Gladstone. And I'm Michael O'enjur. Next

29:31

month, Sarah Palin, former Alaska governor

29:33

and erstwhile would be running mate

29:36

to John McCain, will get another

29:38

chance to make her case against

29:40

the New York Times. This started

29:43

with a Times editorial from 2017

29:45

titled, America's Lethal Politics. The editorial

29:47

said, quote, the link to political

29:50

incitement was clear, and then it

29:52

came after Palin's political action committee

29:55

circulated a map putting Democrats including

29:57

Giffords under stylized crosshairs. Now that

29:59

version was corrected the next day.

30:02

And the Times correction noted that

30:04

in fact no such link was

30:06

established. Phelan claims the newspaper

30:08

damaged her reputation. The former

30:10

editorial page editor for the

30:12

Times, James Bennet, also testified,

30:14

saying it was a terrible

30:16

mistake and he meant no harm. Three

30:19

years ago a jury found the New

30:21

York Times not liable. But Phelan and

30:23

her team won an appeal on technical

30:25

issues and in April they'll get a

30:27

retrial. And Palin isn't the only

30:30

one feeling litigious. According to

30:32

journalists across the country, defamation

30:34

suits are on the rise. I

30:36

run a small team of investigative

30:38

reporters at the New York Times.

30:40

David Enrich is the business investigations

30:42

editor for the New York Times,

30:45

an author of the new book,

30:47

Murder the Truth. Fear, the First

30:49

Amendment, and a secret campaign to

30:51

protect the powerful. He started writing

30:53

the book after he and his

30:55

team noticed a pattern emerging. Just

30:58

about every time we were starting

31:00

to look into the affairs of

31:02

someone or something that was rich

31:04

and powerful, whether that was a

31:07

wealthy individual or like a big

31:09

hospital system, for example. We were

31:11

on the receiving end of threatening

31:13

letters from high-priced law firms that

31:15

were warning us that if we

31:18

went down this path, and certainly

31:20

if we got any facts wrong,

31:22

that they intended to hold us

31:24

accountable in court. You essentially discovered

31:26

that there was a network of

31:29

lawyers and political groups invested

31:31

in not just scaring journalists

31:33

around the country with potential

31:36

libel lawsuits. But with the

31:38

intention of undermining the framework

31:40

that was set by the

31:43

landmark Supreme Court decision, New

31:45

York Times v. Sullivan in

31:47

1964, this was the case

31:49

that basically helped birth the

31:51

modern investigative journalism movement. This

31:53

case originated with a full-page ad that

31:55

ran in the New York Times in

31:58

1960. The ad was paid for. by

32:00

supporters of Martin Luther King. And

32:02

the text was kind of a

32:04

description of all of the ways

32:06

unnamed southern officials were violating the

32:08

Constitution as they sought to suppress

32:10

the civil rights movement. The gist

32:13

of the ad was completely correct.

32:15

But some of the details were

32:17

either wrong or exaggerated. For example,

32:19

you write. It falsely stated that

32:21

students protesting at an Alabama State

32:23

College had been padlocked inside a

32:25

dining hall, quote, in an attempt

32:28

to starve them into submission. So

32:30

yes, they were being brutalized. No,

32:32

they hadn't been locked inside of

32:34

a dining hall specifically in an

32:36

attempt to starve them. Exactly. The

32:38

ad caught the attention of a

32:40

guy named L.B. Sullivan, who was

32:43

one of the three city commissioners

32:45

in Montgomery, Alabama at the time,

32:47

and he happened to have responsibility

32:49

for the city's police force, which,

32:51

as the ad correctly said, was

32:53

a leading force behind violence and

32:55

allowing other people, like the plan,

32:58

to commit violence at protests and

33:00

things like that. He took great

33:02

umbridge at this ad, but he

33:04

also took great umbridge at the

33:06

fact that Northern news outlets like

33:08

the New York Times, but also

33:10

like the big broadcasters of the

33:13

day, were covering the civil rights

33:15

movement. And by covering and bringing

33:17

attention to what was happening in

33:19

the South, that made it easier

33:21

for people like Martin Luther King

33:23

to raise money and build support

33:25

and kind of help their cause

33:28

gain momentum. And so Sullivan filed

33:30

a lawsuit against the times of

33:32

having defamed him in this ad

33:34

by basically impugning the Montgomery Police

33:36

Department. after Sullivan sued the times,

33:38

the paper basically pulled its reporters

33:40

out of Alabama. They not only

33:43

pulled their reporters out of Alabama,

33:45

the times as lawyers discouraged reporters

33:47

from writing about institutional racism in

33:49

places across the South. So, L.B.

33:51

Sullivan's lawsuit went to trial in

33:53

Alabama in a courtroom overseen by

33:55

a white supremacist judge and the

33:58

all-white jury. of the jurors showed

34:00

up in the courthouse, dressed up

34:02

in Confederate costumes, in some cases,

34:04

toting pistols. And you will not

34:06

be surprised to hear that the

34:08

jury swiftly concluded that Sullivan had

34:10

been defamed and the times should

34:13

be forced to pay him half

34:15

a million dollars. It was a

34:17

lot of money at the time.

34:19

So this was a really big.

34:21

punishment. The Times appealed the verdict

34:23

to the state Supreme Court, which

34:25

quickly ruled, again, in Sullivan's favor,

34:28

upholding the jury's verdict, and that

34:30

left the Times one more chance

34:32

to appeal, and it was to

34:34

the U.S. Supreme Court. In 1964,

34:36

the Supreme Court heard oral arguments

34:38

and a few months after that

34:40

issued a ruling, it was unanimous.

34:43

The majority opinion said it is

34:45

a fundamental right and obligation of

34:47

Americans to debate and criticize and

34:49

scrutinize elected officials and other powerful

34:51

people. And in order to do

34:53

so, people need to have some

34:55

breathing room so that if they

34:58

get a factor too wrong accidentally

35:00

in the course of debating or

35:02

writing, they do not face the

35:04

prospect of being sued into oblivion.

35:06

And as part of this monumental

35:08

decision, the Supreme Court outlined what

35:10

we now call the actual malice

35:13

standard. What it means in the

35:15

legal context is that in order

35:17

for a public figure to win

35:19

a defamation lawsuit, they need to

35:21

prove not only that the underlying

35:23

facts of the statement at issue

35:25

were false and that they injured

35:28

the person's reputation, they also need

35:30

to prove that whoever spoke those

35:32

words or wrote those words did

35:34

so knowing that what they were

35:36

saying was false or acted with

35:38

reckless disregard as for the accuracy

35:40

of what they were saying. This

35:43

was a high bar. This is

35:45

a real important new is a

35:47

high bar. As you write in

35:49

the book, the Sullivan decision was

35:51

greeted with widespread and unanimous acclaim.

35:53

And at that time in the

35:55

1960s, this decision ushered in a

35:58

golden age of investigative journalism that

36:00

brought us stories like Watergate and

36:02

the Pentagon paper. But not everyone

36:04

was crazy about a more emboldened

36:06

press. In 1969, Richard Nixon's vice

36:08

president, Spiro Agnew, gave a speech

36:10

that's been called the quote unquote

36:13

Magna Carta of the liberal media

36:15

critique. He said, The American people

36:17

would rightly not tolerate this concentration

36:19

of power in government. Is it

36:21

not fair and relevant to question

36:23

its concentration in the hands of

36:25

a tiny and closed fraternity of

36:28

privileged men elected by no one,

36:30

and enjoying a monopoly sanctioned and

36:32

licensed by government? What was the

36:34

context for this speech? A few

36:36

weeks earlier, Nixon had given what

36:38

came to be known as the

36:40

silent majority speech, where he basically

36:43

spelled out the rationale for trying

36:45

to wind down the war in

36:47

Vietnam, but it was really a

36:49

rationale for continuing to be involved

36:51

in Vietnam. And the tradition with

36:53

TV broadcasters at the time, they

36:55

basically let the president speak to

36:58

the American people and didn't try

37:00

to get in the way of

37:02

that speech. But there was beginning

37:04

to be a cultural shift in

37:06

part because of Sullivan, which had

37:08

kind of emboldened journalists to call

37:10

them out when they were lying.

37:13

And in fact, Nixon was often

37:15

lying. So instead of just carrying

37:17

the president's remarks on TV and

37:19

letting it go at that, after

37:21

he finished speaking, the networks brought

37:23

in analysts and critics to push

37:25

back and in some cases refute

37:28

what he had said because it

37:30

wasn't true. Nixon viewed that. I

37:32

think, understandably, as a real challenge

37:34

to his powers as president. Then,

37:36

let's skip ahead to 2016, candidate

37:38

Donald Trump on the campaign trail

37:41

says this. I'm going to open

37:43

up our libel laws, so when

37:45

they write purposely negative and horrible

37:47

and false articles, we can sue

37:49

them and win lots of money.

37:51

It's important to note that he,

37:53

as a president, can't do that.

37:56

But he's not the only one

37:58

trying to chip away at that.

38:00

consensus around Sullivan that you were

38:02

describing. Tell me about Justice

38:04

Clarence Thomas. Well, Thomas initially was

38:06

one of the many conservatives who

38:08

embraced Sullivan, who endorsed it. And

38:10

in his confirmation hearings in 1991,

38:12

on the fifth and final day,

38:14

he was asked about the Sullivan

38:16

precedent. And he said about Sullivan

38:18

that, look, it is very unpleasant

38:21

for those in the public eye.

38:23

to be raked over the coals

38:25

and to have our lives kind

38:27

of turned inside out as journalists

38:29

dig into our professional and personal

38:31

pasts. As I was telling my

38:33

wife during this process, no matter how

38:35

badly it turned out as far as

38:37

the publicity, I think that the freedom

38:39

of the press is essential to a

38:42

free society. He essentially endorsed Sullivan, so

38:44

he saw no reason to change it.

38:46

It was not an extraordinary statement in

38:48

the moment, because no one at the

38:51

time was thinking otherwise, really, about Sullivan.

38:53

Now, a couple days after he

38:55

talked about being raked over the

38:57

coals by the press, he was

39:00

met with public allegations from a

39:02

woman that he used to manage

39:04

earlier in his career named Anita

39:06

Hill, who accused him of sexually

39:09

harassing her. Speaking about

39:11

the media coverage and

39:13

questions from congressional Democrats.

39:16

He famously said this later in

39:18

his confirmation hearings. This is

39:20

a circus. It's a national

39:22

disgrace. And from my standpoint,

39:24

as a black American, as

39:26

far as I'm concerned, it

39:28

is a high-tech lynching for

39:30

Uppity blacks who in any

39:32

way deigned to think for

39:34

themselves, to do for themselves,

39:36

to have different ideas. From

39:38

Thomas' perspective, he had just

39:40

been subjected to... absolutely vicious

39:42

terrible treatment, not just by

39:45

Democrats, not just by Anita Hill,

39:47

but also by the media. And he

39:49

started openly talking about how he doesn't

39:51

read newspapers and doesn't think anyone else

39:54

should either. By 2007, he was just

39:56

really spewing venom toward the media. And

39:58

then 12 years later in 20... 2019, we

40:00

see Justice Thomas' first big attack

40:03

on the Sullivan precedent. It had

40:05

to do with a case, McKee

40:07

v. Cosby. The Supreme Court actually

40:09

dismissed the case and decided not

40:12

to take it on, but Clarence

40:14

Thomas used the opportunity to write

40:16

this remarkable opinion alongside that decision.

40:18

Thomas could have left it at

40:20

that. He agreed with that conclusion,

40:23

but instead he took this as

40:25

an opportunity to declare it was

40:27

time to overturn solvent, and he

40:29

laid out a critique of it

40:32

from the standpoint of a kind

40:34

of constitutional originalist. The thing that's

40:36

interesting to me is that he

40:38

often has taken a much more

40:41

expansive view of the First Amendment

40:43

when it suits his political interests,

40:45

like in campaign finance cases where

40:47

he rules that billionaires spending unlimited

40:50

money is a protected former free

40:52

speech. But what he was doing

40:54

was kind of sending an open

40:56

signal that he wants more of

40:59

these defamation cases to reach the

41:01

Supreme Court that would provide a

41:03

way for them to reconsider Sullivan.

41:05

Yeah, and this leads to a

41:08

kind of interesting subplot concerning a

41:10

law professor named David Logan. He

41:12

ended up writing a law review

41:14

article just about a year after

41:16

the McKee opinion from Clarence Thomas

41:19

titled, rescuing our democracy by rethinking

41:21

New York Times v. Sullivan. He

41:23

claimed that because of the high

41:25

bar created by Sullivan, it had

41:28

become virtually impossible for... anyone to

41:30

sue the media and win on

41:32

defamation cases. And he had some

41:34

data that purportedly backed up the

41:37

claim that it was virtually impossible

41:39

to win these cases. He said

41:41

that it had created incentives essentially

41:43

for journalists to publish things without

41:46

having done any due diligence to

41:48

verify the truth. So the logic

41:50

is basically like, if I do

41:52

a really crappy job reporting this,

41:55

then you won't be able to

41:57

prove that I knew I was

41:59

wrong when I published it. Yeah,

42:01

that's a pretty good summation. I

42:03

mean, he pointed out rightly that

42:06

social media is. wash in lies

42:08

and disinformation, some of which is

42:10

very damaging to people's reputations. But

42:12

he went on to connect that

42:15

back to his thesis, which was

42:17

that the difficulty that public figures

42:19

face in bringing defamation cases against

42:21

the media is somehow responsible for

42:24

the garbage that online anonymous trolls

42:26

are spreading on social media networks.

42:28

And there is no attempt at

42:30

arguing how Sullivan... and its protections

42:33

for good faith public speech was

42:35

somehow impairing the ability of people

42:37

to collect damages when someone's lying

42:39

about them. Because it doesn't. Sullivan

42:42

does not protect you if you

42:44

are lying or acting with reckless

42:46

disregard for the truth. Liable lawsuits

42:48

are not a very good weapon

42:51

against anonymous online speech, but that's

42:53

not the fault of Sullivan. That's

42:55

the fault of the way these

42:57

social media companies are run and

42:59

arguably some of the legal protections

43:02

that they enjoy. bizarre error-filled article

43:04

from David Logan ended up making

43:06

an appearance in an opinion written

43:08

by Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsich

43:11

about a case that the Supreme

43:13

Court decided not to hear called

43:15

Berisha v. Lawson. How did this

43:17

anti-Sullivan argument make its way in

43:20

there? Gorsich's argument was based... almost

43:22

entirely on what David Logan had

43:24

written. And he quoted from it

43:26

repeatedly, and he leaned very heavily

43:29

on some of the data that

43:31

it appeared in Logan's article to

43:33

substantiate the argument that it was

43:35

nearly impossible for public figures and

43:38

public officials to win defamation cases

43:40

and to collect damages from the

43:42

media. And in fact, the data

43:44

underlying that had just been so

43:46

terribly presented by Logan and badly

43:49

misunderstood by Gorsuch's clerks. that the

43:51

facts were just wrong. So we

43:53

have these two Supreme Court justices,

43:55

Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, pretty clearly

43:58

signaling that their... to overturn Times

44:00

v. Sullivan. There's also an appetite

44:02

in the Republican Party, of course,

44:04

as we said by Donald Trump,

44:07

for making it easier to sue

44:09

the media. And there's also now

44:11

this kind of cottage legal industry

44:13

built around coming after the media

44:16

with defamation lawsuits. Tell me about

44:18

Libby Locke, a founding partner of

44:20

the Claire Locke firm leading this

44:22

charge. and personal partner. Tom Claire

44:25

left the giant corporate law from

44:27

Kirkland and Ellis in 2014 to

44:29

start their own law firm devoted

44:31

to suing the media, threatening the

44:34

media, basically acting as a battle

44:36

ram to be used against journalists

44:38

who were writing negative things primarily

44:40

about their very wealthy and powerful

44:42

clients. They had a rough start.

44:45

They kept running into the First

44:47

Amendment protections that make it hard

44:49

to sue journalists, but they eventually

44:51

hit pay dirt when they represented

44:54

a dean at the University of

44:56

Virginia who had been smeared by

44:58

a deep... flawed Rolling Stone magazine

45:00

article and just days before the

45:03

2016 presidential election a jury in

45:05

Virginia returned a multi-million dollar verdict

45:07

on behalf of their client and

45:09

that decision really thrust Claire Locke

45:12

and in particular Libby Locke into

45:14

a national spotlight. Let's listen to

45:16

her on Tucker Carlson's Fox News

45:18

Show in 2019 talking about the

45:21

case of Jesse Smollett who had

45:23

been accused of filing a false

45:25

police report. claiming that he had

45:27

been the victim of a hate

45:29

crime. Tucker asks, Why the media,

45:32

which is paid to be skeptical

45:34

and paid to chase down facts,

45:36

are the ones demanding that we

45:38

believe, I mean, why wouldn't, why

45:41

would reporters fall for this before

45:43

everyone else? To which Libby Locke

45:45

responds, that's a great question, Tucker.

45:47

It's exactly why Justice Thomas was

45:50

correct in... raising yesterday in the

45:52

Supreme Court why we need to

45:54

rethink that New York Times versus

45:56

Sullivan standard, the actual malice standard

45:59

that was applied in the Warren

46:01

Court back in the 1960s, which

46:03

has insulated the media from liability

46:05

in these cases. So it's pretty

46:08

clear that her goal is to

46:10

get Sullivan overturned. 100 percent. Her

46:12

law firm stands to make a

46:14

lot more money if it becomes

46:17

easier to win lawsuits against media

46:19

outlets. I think more than that

46:21

though, Libby Locke ideologically believes that

46:23

the media is out of control

46:25

and kind of an organ of

46:28

the Democratic Party and needs to

46:30

be reigned in. The irony of

46:32

this with Tucker Carlson having Libby

46:34

Locke on his show a bunch

46:37

of times, and Libby Locke, I

46:39

think each time, talks about her

46:41

desire to overturn Sullivan. Tucker Carlson

46:43

and Fox News have been and

46:46

would be, again, sued for spreading

46:48

disinformation and lying, and the defense

46:50

that they would use. is New

46:52

York Times versus Sullivan protects us

46:55

because we weren't lying. We thought

46:57

we were getting it right, but

46:59

we just innocently screwed up and

47:01

therefore Sullivan protects us. So there's

47:04

this rich irony of someone like

47:06

Tucker Carlson inviting someone like Libby

47:08

Locke on to spread this view.

47:10

And years later, it would be

47:12

Libby Locke's law firm that would

47:15

be one of the firms that

47:17

sues Fox News, Fox News and

47:19

Tucker Carlson for having defamed their

47:21

client dominion voting systems by spreading

47:24

lies about the 2020 election. I

47:26

have to ask you, David, you

47:28

were sort of writing about some

47:30

of the turmoil at Claire Locke,

47:33

hired by Dominion, as this case

47:35

was unfolding. What was your experience

47:37

as a reporter writing about a

47:39

law firm known for sending harassing

47:42

emails and the like to journalists,

47:44

right? I mean, it's like you

47:46

were literally poking the bear. Libby

47:48

Locke and her husband, Tom Claire,

47:51

sent a series of very upset

47:53

letters and emails to some combination

47:55

of me and the New York

47:57

Times is in-house lawyer David McCraw.

48:00

They were filled with a mixture of

48:02

complaints that I was getting certain facts

48:04

wrong to these unhinged and completely reckless

48:06

allegations, and then it kind of veered

48:09

just into the personal. I mean, Libby

48:11

started calling me a misogynist and a

48:13

snake. I really wasn't surprised until one

48:16

night, I remember I was walking home

48:18

from the train and I saw I'd

48:20

gotten another. threatening letter from Claire Locke.

48:22

And I opened it and was kind

48:25

of reading the PDF on my phone.

48:27

And I saw that the PDF included

48:29

screenshots of text messages and signal

48:32

messages I had had with some

48:34

of my sources. My heart just

48:36

stopped. I had no idea how

48:38

they'd gotten that information. I later

48:40

learned they had figured out some

48:42

of the people I was speaking

48:44

to and had then sent them

48:46

threatening letters warning that they were

48:48

going to sue. unless they handed

48:51

over all of their electronic communications

48:53

with me, which thankfully didn't amount

48:55

to much. I mean, it's mostly

48:57

me organizing meetings and scheduling phone

48:59

calls and things like that. And that's

49:01

why you speak to sources over the

49:03

phone. Yeah, that's a very good point.

49:06

You conclude your book with Phelan

49:08

versus New York Times. Do you

49:10

believe this might be the case

49:12

that Clarence Thomas and perhaps Neil

49:14

Gorsuch have been waiting for? I know that

49:16

that is what Sarah Palin's lures are

49:19

hoping for, and I also know that

49:21

Justices Thomas and Gorsuch seem to be

49:23

looking for a vehicle that they can

49:25

use to attack it, but in Palin's

49:27

case is out there as one candidate,

49:29

but there are a lot of others

49:32

to choose from. I mean, earlier this

49:34

year, the casino mogul, Steve Wynn, issued

49:36

an appeal to the Supreme Court on

49:38

a defamation case of his own in

49:40

which he was challenging Sullivan. Trump has

49:42

a case pending in lower courts where

49:44

he is seeking to overturn Sullivan himself

49:47

and there are a bunch of others

49:49

as well. Which I guess leads me to

49:51

this question. You've got

49:53

two potential votes in Gorsuch

49:55

and Clarence Thomas. Do you

49:58

think that in the next few... years,

50:00

they're going to be able to

50:02

convince their peers on the bench

50:04

that it's time to fundamentally rethink

50:06

the freedom of speech jurisprudence in

50:08

the United States? To be honest,

50:10

I think the more likely scenario

50:13

is not that Sullivan gets overturned

50:15

outright. I think a more likely

50:17

scenario, at least in the short

50:19

to medium term, is that the

50:21

court accepts a case for review

50:23

that's trying to chip away around

50:25

the edges of Sullivan. Sullivan applied

50:27

only to public officials, elected leaders,

50:30

government people, things like that. It

50:32

was a small handful of subsequent

50:34

cases that broadened that to public

50:36

figures like billionaires or university presidents

50:38

or celebrities. So I think it's

50:40

possible that one avenue of attack

50:42

against Sullivan that might be more

50:44

palatable to the court than just

50:47

overturning it outright would be to

50:49

narrow the group of people who

50:51

classifies public figures and therefore have

50:53

to prove that someone acted with

50:55

actual malice in order to win.

50:57

And what do you think chipping

50:59

away at or overturning altogether New

51:01

York Times v. Sullivan means for

51:04

journalism as we understand it? It

51:06

would really make it hard for

51:08

anyone, whether they're on the right,

51:10

on the left, somewhere in the

51:12

middle, whether they work at a

51:14

large national outlet or a smaller

51:16

institution, it would make it much

51:18

harder for them to investigate and

51:21

criticize or scrutinize people who hold

51:23

power in whatever community they exist

51:25

in. David Enrich is

51:27

the author of the new book

51:29

Murder the Truth, Fear, the First

51:31

Amendment, and a secret campaign to

51:34

protect the powerful. David, thank you

51:36

very much. Thank you for having

51:38

me. That's

51:55

it for this week's show.

51:57

On the media is produced

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