Hard to Find a Fact. Lara Logan talks to Armstrong & Getty

She's the former chief foreign correspondent for CBS News, one of the great foreign correspondents of all time, Laura Logan. Here's some headlines. U'm just gonna grab him around him here from Fox News from yesterday. Gut Field on Laura Logan's blunt truth on media bias from Deadline. Media Matters punches back at Laura Logan's podcast. Interview from The Washington Post Irony Alert, Laura Logan bashes liberal media from Variety. Laura Logan and CBS News have parted ways. Okay, that's

in the news. We'll be talking about that. Um one more I wanted to get to that I really like, Uh, Laura, This is from the Washington Times. Laura Logan of CBS fame, a hero to truth that's from today about that. What a privilege to be able to interview somebody in the middle of their career suicide. Ladies and gentlemen, it's our old friend Laura Logan. Hello, Laura, are you are you preparing the eulogy? Hey? So listen? Uh, no shock coming from us. Fabulous job, um talking to uh the gent

you did on the podcast that's getting so much attention. Um. Uh, it's God to those of us who who understand this, it's just glass. It's just a fabulous thing to hear somebody say it out loud. It's shocking that anybody's shocked by what you've said to us. But well, I don't know if people are shocked. I'm not really sure that, you know. I mean, I can't test what everyone thinks. But if you see a lot of if you real a lot of the reporting and listen to what people

are saying, nobody's really shocked. I think what's just captured people's attention is that it's coming from me. And I've been you know, and I've been a firm fixture of that of the media establishment for all you know, a long time now, and I but it should be no shot to hear that coming from me, because it's not like it's the first time. I mean, I went on David Letterman and they asked me if I watched the Iraq coverage, and I said, no, why would I do that?

It sucks. You know, that was during the war, a long time ago, so um, so it's not you know, this kind of talk for me is very consistent with who I am as a person. I just tell it like it is well, as I so often do. I've i've I've leapt ahead because I know what I know, and I forget that not everybody knows what I know. Why don't we talk about, you know, some of the things you're discussing with Mike Ritland about the state of

media and how you feel about it. Well, you know, it's interesting because a lot of people reported on my comments and they characterized my comments, but many of the articles left out one simple fact, and which is that d five percent of journalists in America are registered Democrats. Now maybe that number has changed, maybe it's off by a few percentage points in either direction. I'm sure someone will come out with a statistic to prove that I'm wrong.

But the bottom line is that the vast majority of journalists are registered Democrats, which means that ideologically, naturally they're predisposed, they lean left, and they're thinking now. Contrary to what many people assume, there is actually a professional process that we go through as journalists in order for us to not set those biases and and opinions aside. You can't divorce yourself from who you are as a person. It's the biggest lie of our profession that we pretend we're objective.

That's what I say over and over again to people. Were not objective. We make subjective judgments with every word we choose and everything we say, and who we interview and how we where we structure them in the piece, and how the story is written, and which stories are covered exactly, and which stories are covered, which stories are not covered. But the the thing is, you can't not be human, you can't not have those opinions and biases. But what you can do is be professional about your

job and when you're doing it. Well, you know the old rule of journalism, I didn't invent it, to sources to direct sources. So if you use that rule, if your sources can't be indirect, the conscience, be second hand or third hand, you actually have to independently verify what people say. Well, okay, then let's look at some of that stuff that's out there. One person after another after another is allowed to offer their opinion and and reputable

publications print it without ever verifying it. That's how you have a big story right now about you know some guy who was an actor who faked an attack on himself. Will Everyone just rushed to put that story out there without verifying any of it, right because it's it reaffirmed their beliefs and their biases. Whereas if they had used the old rule of working to verify it and independently corroborate it, then perhaps the coverage would have been different.

I can't say I didn't work that story. I don't. It's not even the best example for me. There are much bigger examples than that one. But at the end of the day, what we know is when we abandon our journalistic standards and slide into the abyss, everybody knows they don't really know what's gone wrong. They don't really know exactly how to highlight it, or you know where to look for the for the deception or the errors on the mistakes. They just know it leaves a bad

taste in their mouth and a bad feeling in their guts. Well, Jill Abramson, who's you know, making the rounds with her books and when she was running the New York Times, she says that a lot of the young people in the newsroom, particularly around the issue of Trump, I feel like things are so crazy now that that we have to abandon these old rules because things are this is important. We've got to bring this guy down. Is that some

of what's going on or what's driving this? Well, I have to say I've never been in the New York Time newsroom, right, so I mean I can only you know, I don't really know. I haven't seen that firsthand. I haven't experienced at firsthand. But this is what I do know. And you know this too, because you're an old dog like me. Right, when you've been around the block a couple of times, you're much more skeptical and cynical about what people say. For young people today, it's their first rodeo,

probably the first job they've had out of college. They believe everything everybody tells them, and the only people they disbelieve in question all the ones they don't like and don't agree with. Well, I had the you know that, you know what beaten out of me by a bunch of old cynical journalists when I was working on a newspaper in South Africa. I'd come, you know, bounding off the telephone. This is what the police told me. And I get, you know, crapped on by everybody in the newsroom. Oh,

for God's say, you didn't believe that. Oh, well, don't let them tell you that. You know this? All that right? And I learned the hard way. Just because someone's in a position of power authority doesn't mean they're telling you the truth. We use power and authority today in the media world, and maybe we always have I don't know, but we use that as credibility. This person held this job.

My ass is covered, therefore I'm printing it. That's what I mean when I say one anonymous former administration source after another, one anonymous FBI, soul software now or whoever it happens to be. It doesn't matter. We just substitute. You can substitute any of those agencies. Well, that's good enough, right, because it came from an agency. And if it's wrong, I can say, well, that's what the White House said, that's what the FBI said, that's what d o J said,

So it doesn't matter whether it's true or not. Well, that's not journalism. I mean, I don't know if anyone's standing going out there saying that's journalism. That's just blatant, blatantly false. And young kids today they don't know that they're coming out of journalism school. I never even went to journalism school. I don't even know anyone who went

to journalism school. Everybody I knew, you know, was doing this as because they were just nosy and they knew how to not take no for an answer, and somehow we all kind of ended up in this you know, this place we call journalist people, people willing to stick their nose in other people's business. But at least where I grew up, when I was, you know, my soul was forged in the fires of journalism. It was in the health fires of a part date South Africa, and

we believed in what we were doing. And even there the lines were blurred. Even there, the coverage was about evil whites and you know, and virtuous blacks fighting for justice and equality and freedom and all of that was true. I was on that side, but there were many not evil white people, and there were many black people in that struggle who lost their way and did terrible things.

And you know what Nelson Mandela and the leaders of the A and C like so remiposed at that time, they would have been the first to tell you that. And that's what separates journalists from being activists and political activists and political propagandists. My old boss at sixty Minutes said it to me once when I was doing a story about al Qaeda's returned to Afghanistan, and he said, how's it going? And I told him, and he's like, Logan, don't try too hard. Don't try too hard. You're not

in a court of law. You're not a lawyer trying to prove a case. Your journalist follow the facts to where they take you. And I said, but I know this, and I know this, and I know this. And he said, then fine, if it's true, you'll find what you need and if you don't get it now, we'll do it when you get it. But we're not forcing it because

that's not our job. I just want interesting. Wow. I just wonder whether whether young journalists or you know whomever aren't even aspiring to what you're talking about, though, whether it's desperation for eyes and ears and revenue, or that's our fault because the old dogs have to teach the new dogs how it's supposed to be done. They come out of institutions where they're only Let's face it, how many universities in America, how many colleges today are on

the right? I think it's Prague University stands like a pretty lonely It's got a lonely spot all the way over there on the right hand side of the political spectrum, right past. Majority of colleges and professors and academia today in this country and in other parts of the world there on the left. And so you and what you are seeing as conservative movements, as student movements that are rising up today in protest against this. Well, when I grew up in college, I mean they were running battles

and tear gas and orotests with the police. It was it was a place where every idea was tested and you learned who you were and what you were made of and what you believed in, and that was part of your journey into life. And now they seem to be factories for one political ideology, which I don't even have a problem with the ideology itself. In fact, if anything, I'm a product of that ideology, right I mean in South Africa, I didn't grow up as a conservative right winger,

you know what I mean. It's like it's crazy to me. Although although a liberal nineteen four liberal is a reactionary in two thousand, nineteen hell nine liberal is an arch conservative these days, so you know you have to be careful comparing ideologies across time. I just want to say

one thing. If I say anything loudly and clearly, clearly, louder than anything else, I want to say, if there is any person out there or any group that is trying to paint me as some kind of right winger or some kind of conservative, I reject every fiber of my being and my soul. I reject that with everything in me. I am not a politician and I am not going to be labeled by any of them. I do my job the same way no matter who's in power.

No matter who's in power, I do it the same way at sixty minutes as I did at a newspaper in South Africa when I was filing for radio stations. Okay, if you're a journalist, you and your person who lives to the same principles, you're consistent, and I am consistent. And you know people who have people have come after me. A few people have come after me now saying, oh, you know, the failures of my being Ghazi story, for example,

were journalistic not political. Oh really, I love I love when people who are not even real journalists themselves, who have not done a day or even five seconds of real journalism in their life, come out pointing their finger at you. And you know, I didn't talk about it for a long time because I wanted the apology to stand because it wasn't about me. It was about something much bigger than me, and it was about other people, and it was about standing up and doing the right thing.

And I stood up and did the right thing, and I took it on the chin. But not all the facts are out on the table. And I'm just gonna say the most, the most. The greatest impediment to my producer, Max mcclearden and I being able to do what was journalistic gay required on parts of that story were a non disclosure agreement, a legal agreement written by CBS's lawyers that we signed with the people who wrote that book, and we did everything else journalistically that we could outside

of that. We even went to the State Department and had them they cleared this person. Don't forget. They went through the state departments clearing, you know, Clarence process right, and was given a job that is supposed to be highly, highly secretive and at a high level of classification. So you've got people who are cleared. We confirmed everything that we could, but we never violated the terms of that legal agreement, and that's been portrayed as sloppy journalism because

it was left out. Nobody knew that we signed that why because it was left out, left out of all the reporting, was led left out of all the reports. And you're talking about the guy who not on the chin, you're talking about the guy who misled you about certain aspects of the Benghazi attack. Well, that guy disappeared. So

I don't know what happened to him. I don't know what he told, the truth about him, what he didn't, because he's gone, and other people were left to, you know, say things to other reporters secretly, you know, and and no one including the FBI ever went on the record, So I don't know what the truth is. Did he lie? He probably lied. I don't know how much he liked about There were only two parts of his story that we're called into question. But what's interesting here is that

the whole story disappeared. Yeah, I guess I'm just confused about how the nondisclosure agreement enters into it. But you'd probably have to disclose something. Yes, I will explain that better. So this guy was one of three main characters in

our Sorry, I'll say that again. This guy was one of three characters in our story, the guy who's two parts of his account were called into question and we had an He wrote a book, and as many many many people do when they write books, they have none just they publishers have nondisclosure agreements so that you can't scoop them on their own book, and you can't go out there and tell people what their book is about before their book comes out, except the night before it's time,

so that it's on sixty minutes on the Sunday night, and the book comes out Sunday or Monday, and so it's time to come out together, and you don't scoop them on their own book. Well, in this case, it was particularly sensitive and there were a lot of you know, um of concerns about it getting out. So this is a standard nondisclosure agreement that CBS IS lawyers wrote and

had us sign. And afterwards, you know, I was criticized by media reporters, you know, for um because I didn't, you know, do my job and we didn't do basic journalism. Well they don't even know. They don't even know because they didn't do basic journalism. They all wrote about a story that half of them didn't even watch. I've been watching sixty minutes since as a little kid, and it might be the most important u TV news show in the world. Um, certainly in America. You're with it for

a very long time. Is it as good now as it used to be? Is there a slide going on there? How do you see it? I don't know, you know, that's that kind of uh. Your question is is worse professional suicide than my interview? Come on, I'm not gonna you know, I don't want to speculate on whether it's

better or worse. I would say the environment now is worse because you have politically motivated and funded propaganda organizations who use their allies spread across the media to target journalists and journalistic organizations, and everyone is terrified to say anything. You say one thing wrong, you do one thing, and suddenly there's an outcry and everyone's baying for blood. We don't live in an environment that's conducive to honest reporting

because independent voices are being stifled. You know, no corporation is going to back you if it's controversial. They're dropping you like heartcakes. So um, you know, it's a different environment today. I think it's almost an unfair question, not just to ask of me, but it's an unfair question

to ask in lots of ways. I mean, when you're the only dog in town, you're the only show on a Sunday night, and you're the only news magazine program and there are no cable channels and no twenty four hour and yous, it's easy to be the most important people, right, I mean, because there's nowhere else for anyone to go, now, I know. I mean, I believe in the show. I

believe in the work um that they do. Sometimes sometimes I like the stories and love them and they reinspire me and motivate me, and sometimes I hate them and I and I know I could have done a better job, but that's not really my you know, I don't I don't look back. Well, one of the reasons. One of the reasons I asked, and I don't know how much you know or cross paths with Cheryl Atkinson who was with CBS. We like her and we've talked to her

a lot, and she's written books. But she definitely felt like the CBS Evening News, which she was a part of for a long time, slid over the years as they got they do. They'd come up with she'd come up with the story, there'd be pushed back, there'd be lobbying against the story, um by by powerful groups, and they would dump story. And she felt they got they had less guts there towards the end than they did

earlier on. Or they would run with the weather in the Midwest just to avoid having to cover hard with another weather story. Well, you know, that's that's very interesting, um that Cheryl says that, Look, that's her experience. And I have the greatest respect for Cheryl. She's actually speaking from things that she lived through. She's not making it up and she's not speculating, so I don't doubt what

she's saying for a second. I somehow sidestepped all of that because when I was in the battlefield, you know, in all these places, they were usually so stunned that I made it there and I was still alive that nobody messed with me. And because I was out there and far away most of the time, I dodged a lot of the bullets that she was, you know, having to face every day. And I was not prepared for

politics in America, if anything. You know, one of the greatest lessons that I learned was that when you do something of significance, it's not the significant parts you have to worry about, you know, it's the parts that are irrelevant.

That's where they're going to hit you. Because the significant parts, the really solid parts that you've poured your heart and soul and every bit of energy you have into confirming and reconfirming and you know what true, and they go against a conventional wisdom and everything else, but you can stand by them till the day you die because you've you have you know that that's the truth. Right, Those are the pots they go after because they can't go

after the truth. They can't take those pots down. They go after the meaningless pots that are irrelevant, and they just use perception and they use the tools of information wolf fit today, you know, all across social media and cable news and everything else. They use these propaganda organizations and they target you and they pour money into it, and they have armies of people who can do this from morning tonight, and corporations fold individuals fold people like me.

You know, I'll tell you one of the people in boltingness that across me and in the midst of you know, my roma after a big gagy story and said to me, I can't believe you haven't quit. And that's when I realized, oh my god, they want me to quit. They want me to lie down and die. They want me to fade off into obscurity, they want me to slip into

the dock. And that's not who I am. Well, yeah, and we get that just because we get bitched at from a hundred different directions every single day, and we understand that if you're not the sort of person who's gonna you know, grimace or grin at that and plunge on, you're not in this line of work. To begin with.

But I wish the world would get a little more hip, and I think maybe maybe corporations will that this sort of you know, I hate the term masterturf because it's become a cliche, but that's sort of momentary, internet driven feigned outrage thing. Just take a deep breath, hold your breath for as long as you can. By the time you blow it out, it'll they'll be on to something else. And I just it's like my kids. My kids arrange

in age from nine six and then are well. My son introduced me to the term dad hate is gonna hate. He's like, who cares, that's it. He is gonna hate. And I'm hoping uh media gets a little more hip to that dynamic. And then oh, another one of these, another one of these. You raped my eyes with your story. You're the worst people ever, You're you're a tool of Trump here or whatever just at the place. Oh, I've heard that a thousand times. I'm hoping there will be

an evolution. Do you remember the journalist Gary Webb. He was the journalist who broke the whole story about the cia UM and bringing cocaine into the streets of America and anything I had to fund the war. Um and Webb. You know, he's the one that supposedly committed suicide. They made a movie out of what happened to him in his life too. I think it was to Kill the Messenger.

And I was so moved when I watched that movie, because I couldn't believe that with everything that Gary Webb did, that his name wasn't as familiar to me as Walter Cronkite and every Down Morrow and all of the greats. Right. I was, oh my wow, how come I've never heard

of this guy? So I looked him up and I did a little research, and I saw something that he wrote, and it rarely struck a chorde with me and Um, and it was when he was looking back at what happened to him he wrote, Um prior to doc Alliance, that was the name of his story. He said, I was winning awards, getting raises, lecturing college classes, appearing on

TV shows, and judging journalism contests. And then I wrote some stories that made me realize how sadly misplaced my bliss had been the reason I'd enjoyed, enjoyed such smooth sailing for so long, hadn't been as i'd assumed because I was careful and diligent and good at my job. Where wrote the truth was that in all those years I hadn't written anything important enough to suppress. Wow. Wow,

that's that's pretty good. So all of us journalous we go around and we're patting ourselves on the back, and we go to the awards shows, and you know, we go to war and we're all, you know, all feeling pretty good about the work that we're doing and it means something, and we change people's lives and we're warriors for the truth and all this stuff, right, and all we haven't done is we hadn't written anything important enough to suppress. Like, because you can be as careful as

you want. You can be uh, you can be professional, and you can work to those standards, and you cannot let your standards go right. You cannot just put an anonymous source on because you want the headline and you want the story. You can actually say no, I'm not going to do this until I can verify it. You can do all of that, and you can still you can still get wrong. You know, I get now why you're so strenuous, strenuously denying that you're motivated by conservatism

or whatever. You know, I've always said I hate labels. Um, they're they're almost always used to discredit people and to end conversations, and almost want to do They want to discredit me and end the conversation. They want me not to have a voice, they want me not to ever work as a journalist, and in they never want to hear from Laura Logan again. And and you know, there's an even simpler reason why I don't want that label.

It's not true. It's not true. And by the way, my driver the other night, I just gotta say I love this man forever because I was after the State of the Union and I asked him what he thought. He's scared to tell me. Why was he scared to tell me because because he kind of likes Trump, And he was scared to admit that. How do we live in a country in the world today where someone has to be scared to say that it doesn't matter whether what I think or feel, whether I support him or not.

That's irrelevance. Just the fact that my driver, and by the way, I talked to all my drivers, and he's one of many who's been scared to admit that to me. Okay. And some of them were black, and some of them will Muslim, and some of them will Korean, and some of them were white. I mean, it's it's just this fallacy that only racist white people support this president. That's just not true. And and he said to me, you know what, I'm independent, and I thought, holy guacamole. He

just that's what I am. I'm in attended. He said, I want the best man or woman for the job. And I was like, good Lord, above me too. You know you mentioned at the beginning of this conversation, you made the distinction between um uh, people having bias, which everybody does, as you stated, or allowing that bias to be so gleefully put into your news stories. And I remember he mentioned Walter Cronkite. So Bernie Goldberg, who was a producer for Walter Croncott all those years. And we've

interviewed Bernie. I don't know if you know him, and he wrote a book about bias bias about CBS News and he said, in all those years of working with Walter Cronkite, he never saw Walter Cronkites bias slip into his news. Well, so, Walter Cronkite when he gets older and retires and he was finally free to speak his mind and gets out there. He's like a whack job politically. I mean, he's way out there, on the edge of all kinds of different things. He questions the moon landing.

I mean, just he's way out there. But he didn't let that seep into his news coverage, which disciplined man, Which is it was pretty interesting and nobody's even trying to do that anymore. Well, I would think that probably the more honest kind of assessment is is that it always seeps in. I mean, I just think we've got to be honest about that. Bernie probably didn't notice it because he probably shared some of it, because that's what

I learned. You know, I don't know how many years I spent on the battlefield trying to convince soldiers that the media isn't liberally biased and that their perception of it was wrong. And it took me many years to figure out, Wow, I'm the one who's wrong because I agree with with most of my colleagues about on all of these subjects. So I didn't really notice that there was that intrinsic kind of implicit bias. And why do we think that what do they call it. They have

a term for now, unconscious bias. It only exists on the right. It doesn't exist on the left. I mean, if unconscious bias is a real thing, why is it only afflict one side of the political spectrum. I mean, that's what I'm saying about real life. If what you're being told and seeing on television is a distortion of the way you know things happen in real life, then it's probably not true. It's a distortion right in one

form or another. So, Mike, when I realized when I confronted this bias, actually it was I was coming out of on Capitol Hill, coming out of a building, and there was a big um pro life protest, and for lack of a better word, it was people who are against abortion. Pro life called them whatever you like. I told this story once and I was accused of bias just in the words I chose, So I'm not choosing

any particular words. These people were on that side of the protest right, and um, I got trapped in one of the security things with a whole bunch of people and they started this conversation with me which got quite heated about you never represent our views on television. You're biased against us, and I am, of course, you know, flying the flag and saying, of course this isn't true. And then but it bothered me, and their words kind of stayed with me, and I started to watch and

I thought about it. I ruminated over this for years, okay, until I finally admitted to myself, Okay, the only peat time we put people on television who are you know, anti abortion and pro life, whatever you want to call them, is when they're bombing clinics or looking ridiculous, or it's somehow put in a context where this person is very conservative in inverted commas, right, which is I don't know a code word for something terrible. So actually they're right.

They were right. We do because I don't know anyone that I ever worked with who wasn't in favor of I don't know. I'm not going to say I mean against life, because that was, you know, the counter argument presented to me. Who was in favor of a woman's right to choose what she wants to do with her body. I don't know any people like that that I ever worked with. And I've been a journalist since I was

seventeen years old. That's thirty years now. That's pretty interesting. Yeah, well, that's an example we throw out a lot on the show. Is is the abortion issue and that there's such an enormous divorce between the perception you would get from the media about what Americans attitudes are toward abortion and the actual reality, which has been pulled over and over again. And you know, I don't I'm not particularly strong on

either end, and neither are most Americans. It's very very um, well, it's practically uniform that people think first trimester abortions are unfortunate, but you really can't interfere with a woman running your life. Those numbers drop in half or second trimester abortions, and they're practically nobody using who's in favor of late term abortions, and you just never get that idea from the media. This is not an argument in favor of one abortion policy or not. This is just an example of the

incredible divorce between you know, your media perception and reality. Well, you know, it's funny you talk about media perception and reality because is it media perception or is that being driven? And you know, I tend to think these things don't get created by jealous, you know, I mean most of us are pretty damn lazy. Let's just be honest, okay. I mean half of the news room will do a story where they're taking calls and they're writing it rather than have to get off their butts and get out

and go sore and do some real reporting. And that's why half of these people rely on one source only because they can't they can get away with it. Well, you know, what you actually what you actually look at

is journalists are not creating these things. Someone else is creating it because it serves their purpose, and typically journalists are going along with it unless they're part of some kind of ideological machine or even ten generally part of these propaganda networks that function throughout right, that tried to influence throughout I mean, just look what people tweet out, just what they put on their social media feeds. You can pretty much map those propaganda networks when you look

at that. So what what ends up happening is someone somewhat take, for example, today, the idea that we're divided country, Well, explain to me how I can go from the length and breadth of this country, from one coast to another, whether I'm in California, in a small town or a city or New York City, or I'm in Tulsa, Oklahoma, or Pittsburgh, or now suddenly I'm in Portland, Oregon, or

I'm in somewhere in Texas. How come everywhere I go people are interested in hearing about the truth and in talking to me and engaging with me on these on these things. If we're so divided, how come everywhere I go, in all these different places, people come out and want to have these conversations. I don't find people so divided. I find that we live in a country where we're told every four and a half seconds that we're divided.

But if you look at the polls, if you I mean, if you look at the elections, they're not landslides for one side or another. There fought in the middle. What does everyone talk about the swing states. It's about the fact that the electorate is in the middle. Most people in this country are moderate. That's what most people are. And if most of us are moderate, then we're not really that divided. No one's winning these elections on the

extreme left and on the extreme rights, are they? I mean, I don't know a whole bunch about politics but I do know a little bit about bullshit, right, and that's max of bullshit to me, right. But it's it's it's just not terribly useful to point out what unites us in us. It's for a field good speech occasionally. What you know, It's funny study came out a couple of years ago that it was one of those things that rang so true. It's like, oh, how how did we

just realize this? People? People bond more quickly and deeply over what they don't like than over what they do like. It's just a stronger motivator, and that's I think. You know, the political pros have gotten better and better at their jobs through the decades and centuries, and I just think they're really really good now at whipping people's animal passions up. And the fact that it's just corrosive and poisonous to

us as as a people is well, it's not their problem. Yeah, I'm sure you've met enough high level political hacks to know they're a little short in the conscious department. You know, my opinion, the political hacks wouldn't be so powerful and influential if they weren't walking hand in hand with the media. That's you know, those are those the media itself isn't powerful on its own right because Johnah isn't coming up

with these myths. Is they're they're almost like sheep. They're they're being used, and some of them are choosing it. Some of them are are more you know, politically minded than others. But a lot of the time it's cheap pull. I mean, look, it takes an extraordinary you know, and basically it takes someone who's you know, borderline suicidal to

stand up against the flow, right. I mean, if you're gonna stand up today and criticize the president, you're gonna have the vast majority of the media cheering you and elevating you. They'll be giving you awards, They'll be talking about your heroic journalism. You're gonna be on all kinds of chat shows. You're gonna be on the front cover of a magazine. Someone who's gonna be asking what suits you wear or what dress? Who made your dress? Right?

I mean, there's no courage in standing up against that, and there's no point in standing up against it if you don't believe it. But if you're going to stand up and do I don't know, I mean a friend of mine works has a job at the State Department these days. And I mean, this administration passed a resolution making crimes against women and women an act of war or well, I've never heard anyone talk about that. What if I wanted to do that story on sixty minutes?

How popular would I be? Then? I mean, am I then an agent of an evil man and his evil, dangerous administration? And therefore I bear responsibility for everything he says and does? And you know, I mean, and if something terrible happens, now it's that blood is on my hands. I mean, that's the world that we kind of live in today. And um, and how does anyone survive that? You don't survive it with a corporation behind you, because no company is going to stand by you. I just

saw a tweet. Out Magazine has an article prominently featured the Current Issue where they're saying the Trump administration's policy against the killing of gaze in Iran is actually a colonialist and racist and a bad thing. And it's like, and I read it. I you know, I was a polypsyga in college, so I got what the guy was driving at. But I was like, dude, so he's finding everything he can criticize under the sun, including the execution of gays. How about you let that one ride? Well,

how about this, I have one better for you. ISIS has a stated position on the elimination and eradication of all gay people from the face of the earth. Okay, the Security Council has convened once. The United Nations Security Council has only convened once in their entire history to address a gay issue. A gay issue, right, It's never happened before. But because of the blatant and terrible targeting and slaughter of gay people by Isis, the Security Council

actually convened to take on this issue. I can show you video off the video of the video of gay people being handcuffed or their hands tied and tossed off buildings in Mosal and all across you know, the so called ISIS Caliphate when they had it at the time. And then you have mar Matine going to a nightclub, okay and kill all people in a gay nightclub that he targeted. If you read al Kade his manual, if you read the propaganda, it tells you to target gay people.

It's one of the legitimate targets. It's one of the reasons the Security Council had the special meaning. And then you've got everybody coming out the blurring of the facts because suddenly it's leaked that Oma Matine had a gay lover and he was seen at the nightclub, and he was on Tinder and all this stuff. Weeks later, the FBI investigates, in fact that they tell him, you know, even dragged out some guy who said he was Oma Matine's jilted lover. Right, none of that was true. None

of that was true. But if you tell people today that the Orlando massacre was about terrorism and and gay people were deliberately targeted as a terrorist tactic, they'll tell you, oh, no,

it had nothing to do with terrorism. They'll fight you on it because so successfully was where the wards moneyed, and these issues obscured because I don't know, it didn't suit the political masters of the time time to admit to the fact that this was a real threat and an ongoing issue because why Because I don't know, gay people are an issue of the left, and apparently if you're gay, you're not allowed to be conservative. Well what

if you are? What if you are? I mean, I have a friend who lives in Texas whose son is gay and his misery in his life doesn't come from the fact that he's gay and his you know, his Republican family in Texas kind accepted comes from the fact that being Christian and being conservative in his gay world, he feels is a like a noose around his neck. That doesn't you know. I'm not speaking for against anyone me. I don't care. It makes no difference to me. I I'm a live and let live kind of person and

I am a bleeding heart. Okay, you know I have. I have a big heart, and I don't want anyone to suffer, and I don't want anyone to struggle. And I thought all my life against racism and prejudice. That's not who I am. I don't like prejudice in any form. But I also I learned the heart. You know what I learned from Nelson Mandela that tolerance means true tolerance. It doesn't mean you create a new type of acceptance, and anyone outside of that is now not acceptable. Yeah.

We work around a couple of newsrooms over our careers, and um, they are overwhelmingly left leaning among the reporters, and I can think of one reporter who had the courage to be outspoken as a conservative, as one of the reporters, and he's still talked about by what a freaky one. He was a Christian, and he's he's now a pretty successful guy and he's on your big conservative cable news channel. He could probably guess what it is.

But anyway, at the time he's he stood out and he didn't get to go to the afterwork stuff and the parties and all that. It's just a lot less fun, I'll tell you that to be to to be out with your views. Uh, And it's probably worth pointing out he was not a strident man. He was actually very kind and gentle. Yeah. But so, but just from it you're talking about it's human nature to be lazy and

go to the easy stories. It's also somewhat human nature to like just want to fit in with the fun crowd and be able to date the girl over there or the guy over there, because you're not running against the crowd. Well, you know, I want to I want

to mention something here. So I mentioned you that a friend of mine was working at the State Department now right, And this is the only way I found out of this by accident and I just want to say, you know, as a woman who was gang raped, this is important to me, and as a woman who not just that because of that, but because when I was a young reporter in Kosovo, you know, I was the first person to get the story that women were being raped by the Serbs as an act of war, right as an

act of ethnic cleansing. And it happened in Rwanda, and it happened on many other stories that I've been passionate about, and so this rarely resonated with me. And what it was is that a year you know, this is on October two thousand eighteen, so a year ago in two

thousand seventeen. October two thousand seventeen, Trump signed the Women Peace and Security Act of two thousand seventeen, legislation that made the United States the first government in the world with a comprehensive law recognizing women's essential contributions to efforts that promote peace, maintain security, and prevent conflict, recognizing that women off a post ways the economic prosperity and global

security objectives right. And so the legislation has sparked a whole new thinking in the State Department and other programs and everything else, and my friend is an ambassador for this program. And so how come we don't know about this? How come in the age of me too movements and women rising up? How come that's not a story. I don't think I've ever heard that either. Well, you should do a story on it. Well, Pete on your show. He's awesome. We'd be delighted to do that. Yeah, that

I get you, Pete Morocco, Okay, yeah, fantastic. Well let's you know. It's I was saying. I get asked in real life a lot about media bias. Um as a not left winger in the media, whatever I am, I'm a weirdo, is the old libertarian saying goes, I believe a gay couple should be able to defend their platform with legal firearms. Um, so what does that make me? I don't even know. Um, but I'm independent, just as my driver. Yeah, yeah, I'm I'm I'm a very complicated man.

Get to know. But it has to do. I tell people with enthusiasm, it's not a plot. It's it's there's not a cabal that meets by moonlight under the lone oak tree. It's a question of enthusiasm for particular stories or particular angles of stories, and and it's individual decisions being made on what story will I cover or how much energy will I put into a story? And so you know, it's it's tough for us to have this discussion because we are, by some measure editorialists, by some humorists,

and arguably journalists sometimes. Um so there are plenty of times I'm trying to make a point not get it facts. But if you're claiming to to be primarily motivated to get it facts, the time to be most careful is when you're the most enthusiastic. I think, Yes, what you're saying is when you like people and you agree with them, you should be you should be careful because we're predisposed

to believe those we agree with. And in fact, you're saying you should be more careful that you're skeptical of naturally and instinct. Sure. I mean, for instance, I want very badly for Trey Goudy to be right everything he says,

because I really like his views on government. And there would be a danger if I were a reporter sitting there with Tray Goudy, that I would just sit there with stars in my eyes and love in my heart and and some some might suggest Scott Pelly was like that a little bit with old Andre stricken by the same illness. And I'm not taking a position. I'm just messing with you. But I don't feel that way about any politician, right, good sister. All journalists should go into

the interview like that. Yeah, that that'd be fantastic. Um. You know, the interviews I ever did well with the generals. I really liked stand it because, you know, because I had to put that aside. It was brutal. They tore me apart those interviews, and actually one of them, I know it had the same impact on him because he kept stopping to drink water every four seconds that interview. And I know it's because he didn't want to bullshit me because we was friends. But I know they he

also is professional, so I had to be professional. You know. I gave him a hard time, but I was as fair with him as I am with everyone. Yeah. But the choosing of stories, the enthusiasm for stories is such a big thing, and I wish there for the case. But if you have you know, four soldiers blown up in Afghanistan today, Fox News will cover it and the other two cable news channels will hardly at all, if at all, and that's just a choice. I'm sorry, Wait, I just got to say I do not accept that.

That is not acceptable. That is, that is absolutely exactly what we're talking about. That is more than Uh. Look, when I say that we all have biases, I didn't say that the I'm not saying just give in to your your bias, right, I'm not saying just give in to those things. I'm saying that let's just be honest about the fact that they exist. But when you when we make up all let me give you an example of how we would do it at sixty minutes, right, I mean, we would be exhaustive about trying to find

out what the facts are. We would question every line and every word of the story over and over again, and we would you know, push back on each other. But sometimes when we did that, we would have to say, Okay, so it's all true. This line is true, it's accurate. We can defend it, we can stand by it. But is it misleading? Does it? You know? The reality is when people hear that, they're gonna think this and we know that's not true. Now that's a subjective judgment, but

it's based in fact. Okay, So it's not just people putting out their opinions anyone today, any news organization that is ignoring what's happening in Afghanistan, If Fox are the only people covering it, there's something wrong with that, Just like I had a problem with the fact that when I was living in Baghdad and we were rushed of our feet every night covering the violence, the party across the streets the Fox bureau was that we had an

open invitation to go there. We only made it on Fridays after you know, we've done the evening, used five nights in a row, and we used to tease our colleagues about that. So I'm an equal opportunity offender. Okay. Nobody owns that's the thing. The left doesn't own me, the right doesn't own me. No party owns me. I'm not even a member of any party. I'm not even

a member of a club. I don't think they have me. So, you know, I just don't want to be in any of those boxes because sooner or later, sooner or later, the truth is going to take you to a place it doesn't fit. All right, let me, let me do a devil's advocate argument. Throw it at you. Um. And I want to go back to the law you're talking about, that the Trump administration pass that declared crimes against woman to be acts of war, etcetera. And I can't wait

to get more into that. I am a young, idealistic, all right progressive journalist, and I'm going to say to you, listen, Laura, we are in an emergency right now. We have an insane What is what is a progressive journalist? What does that even mean? You're either a journalist or you're not. I don't person who isn't cowardly progressive, who is employed? Is a journalist? Is not political movement that is hijacked the Democratic Party and the left, or appears to have

done so. I don't know, you know, I don't know what that's about. That offends me. Just like when people say to me. Some young girls says to me, I want to be a human rights journalist. I said to her, what is that? I know what a sports journalist is. Okay, we'll cover sports, but you're still a journalist. You're no different to me. You do your job the same way I do my job. We're journalist, you cover sports, I

cover news. I get that, but don't tell me I'm a progressive journalist, because that's that's the kind of political nonsense that that is now propaganda. You're now an activist or a propagandist. You're no longer a journalist if that's in your title. So I was really intrigued by the notion of a fact. You're talking about the way you you carefully combed over a sixty minute stories, the fact that is misleading that journalist who happens to be a

progressive person. Don't yell at me again, who says Laura Laura? If we were to emphasize that story, that would mislead people into thinking the new Hitler Trump is a good guy, and that would lessen the existence. I appreciate the law, but I'm not going to publish the story that that is a lie, because the truth is he's evil, and he's a misogynist and a racist and a homophobe in the rest of it. Okay, So I can I can answer your question for you. This is what I'm gonna say.

I'm as tired of the breathless headlines as anybody else. I meet people every single day who say this to me. People just can't stand it anymore. Okay, when when Hitler was marching across Europe, I'm sure that people then said there was no greater time in history that was more important. When Nixon was in the White House, I'm so sure there were people who went out there and said there's never been a more critical time. When we were heading

into Vietnam. I mean, there's to to assume that this is the most dangerous time in history, or this is the only time in history that we've ever faced. Anything like this is hubris in a scale that says everything about you. It reminds me of the end of the world's blind it that reminds me of the religious end of the worlders who think my time is the time the the world will end because we're the people. There's an enormous humerist to it. Like you said, yes there is.

But I want to make an important point here that is distinct from fact. Okay, because what I was talking about is you when somebody says to me, you know, Trump is is dangerous, as Hitler, I start to ask questions. That's my instants, right, So I'm not going to take a position on this. It doesn't matter what my position is, How the hell should I know? Right? I gotta figure this out. You this person has made have made this claim, and that's all it is until I can verify it.

It's a claim or it's your opinion, right, So I'm not gonna put it as fact. That's not a fact. So I'm gonna look, Okay, how many people have been burned alive in gas chambers, how many people have been put on trains? How many people are being what loads are being passed that's that are taking us down that past? And what are the answers to those? Those questions lead me to the facts, and those lead me to understand whether something is an opinion or is it an analysis.

Is it an opinion that's based in emotion or is it in your that's based in fact? What is the evidence supporting this this claim? Right? And that's my process as a journalist, and I have to look at that in every respect. I mean, I don't want to use a controversial you know example that's gonna have everybody jumping up and down, but you know, it's it's sort of it's sort of interesting. Cheryl Atkinson, who you mentioned, she has a thing like substitute switch things around. Substitute you know,

Obama for Trump, Trump, substitute you know somebody else. Put left where the right is and put right where the left is, and see if the treatment is the same, and that those are the things that I look at. Is the treatment the same? Do we hold everyone to the same standard? Because I'm I'm consistent, right, I mean, I don't yell at my kids about one thing one day and then say, oh, next day, I don't care about that. No, I'm consistent. I tell my kids kindness

and respect. And you don't get a break from that. You don't get to be a jackass today and then go back to being kind tomorrow, No, because then you're still a jackass. So if we have to be to me, we have to be consistent in how we apply this process. And when you're not consistent in applying that, usually something is motivating it. And that's and that's where the problems come in. So what you're talking about is not like

when we do a story. I mean, if someone wants to make an executive decision at an executive level and say sixty minutes isn't covering this Because we're going to be helping an administration that's a political decision. You've now made a political decision. And then let's be honest about the fact that we're not just making journalistic decisions. We're no longer moderate. We've taken a political position, and let's

be who we are. Let's own it. That's if that's what we're willing to do, and we think it is, then let's own it. But what we have today is journalists want it both ways. They want to take a political position and then claim that they're still occupying the middle ground and they're still and they're fair and they're even to both sides. And then should they succeed in getting what apparently it seems like everybody wants getting this president removed from office, even though he was elected the

same way every other president was elected. You know, Um, if they succeed in that, then they can go back to being moderate and impartial and everybody's supposed to believe it. You know what I love is I was attacked once for making one, um, one comment about something that I then went on to do a story and people are like,

oh my god, this journalists is giving opinions. Well, if you give an opinion they like and they agree with nobody cares the fact that you're in You're not on the air, and you're in a you know, a private situation where people public sitch room, for example, where people have come to a lunch and they're asking your opinion. You're not allowed to give your opinion in that space.

From all these self righteous journalists who going up they saying, good God, Well, I can't find a fact in the New York Times half the time today, or in political reporting today. I mean, there are some people who are better than others. I don't want everyone out there is a political reporter to hate me. You know, there's lots of good political reporters out there, but sometimes it's very hard to actually find a fact because so much of it is one anonymous official or person source after another

giving their union. I mean, the Neil Times actually printed people sitting supposedly sitting in meetings, you know, with Mike Flynn when he was National Security Advisors saying that he didn't know how the National god was supposed to be called up, and that he didn't apparently didn't know that weapons sales have to be approved by Congress. Well, I don't know if I've ever heard of anything more ridiculous

in my life. What idiots thought that it was okay to print that, Because, first of all, he was the head of the Defense Intelligence Agency and that's their job. He ran it, So how the hell would he not know that weapons sales have to be approved by Congress. His entire agency that was under his command for I don't know how many years. That's one of their sole missions is being responsible for the weapons the United States producers from beginning to end, So that that idea in

itself is ludicrous. What it says to me is that the journalist knew nothing about how weapons sales are approved, knew nothing about the Defense Intelligence Agency, and apparently knew nothing about Mike Flynn. Neither did any of the editors at the New York Times who printed that stupid story. Oh and then, by the way, we reproduce something not dissimilar to it at some place where I may have

been working at the time. Even though I put out a thing internally to correct those misconceptions, it was ignored because someone chose what they wanted to be true. Oh, this guy's an IDIOTY should never have had that job, That's what they were trying to say, right and by the way National God soldiers fall under Title thirty two. Find me a reporter who can tell you the difference between Title tan, Title fifty and Title thirty two and whose authorities those governed and what you know the legal

uh or what are the laws under those authorities. I mean, like, that's my frustration with the with the coverage. It's not that one is on the left or on the right. It's the fact. It's the ineptitude of this that we're putting this spin out as fact, and we're making political decisions and we're trying to pretend they're not political decisions.

Just call it what it is, okay, and please do the most basic journalism, figure out, you know, whether some what someone is telling you is actually true or not, or even as credible or believable, and not just more propaganda to advance, you know, someone's political position in the destruction of someone. I need to jump in reprise my Tony Award Willing role as a New York Times editor Laura Darling. We got a hundred and eighty five thousand clicks on that story. All right, enough, blah blah blah.

They just have different goals. I think we're doomed are we doom? You know, I don't know. I know some great reporters at the New York Times. I know great reporters all across the field. I mean Dexter Filkin's, Rich Apple, Colada Goal, Charyl Atkinson, Sarah Carter. I mean, these are great reporters, and there are many more that I'm just not thinking of right now. I worked with many great

reporters all my life, Richard, Max McClellan. You know, some of the greatest journalists that I've ever known, and I learned from great journalists. And I don't want to come off sounding like, oh, I'm a great person. I'm not, you know, I really am not. In fact, probably the biggest misconception about me of anything is that like people look at me and think, oh, I'm the TV girl

because of the way I look and whatever else. No, I only became a TV girl because I couldn't get a job in print, because you know, the newspapers looked at me like, we don't need a little white girl in South Africa. We need a black guy that can go in and out of the townships and that can you know, uh, plug us into the real story here, the one we care about. The one that matters. So I only got into television because they need more bodies and because the cameraman running the bureau that I got

a job. I didn't know how to type or right. He hated it, and I watched him one type and with two fingers and said, can I do that for you? I didn't even he didn't even know my name. I was waiting to meet him. You know. That's that's how I got a job in television. But my job in television is to be alike for other people. If I have any light, if people want to hear what I have to say, it's it's because I'm a great vehicle for what this person has to offer that maybe maybe

sometimes you wouldn't otherwise have paid attention to. You know, sometimes sixty minutes was that platform. Sometimes it was a CBS Evening News. I'm not alone. It's not me. I didn't get here on my own, and I don't stay here on my own, and I don't stand alone. I can't do anything on my own. Actually I can't even survive because, believe me, if you they think I declared war in you know, my Mike interview, imagine how they're going to react to this one. There's already people trying

to tweet stuff and associate me with conspiracy theories. And I know it's the beginning of painting me as if I'm some right wing nutter. Again, I'm not. I am not. There's nothing about me that belongs to any one side or one ideology. You know, nobody can figure out my politics because I haven't figured out my politics. I don't give a shit about politics. I am who I am, and I know how to be a good journalist and I learned that from other journalists. And I know how

to be a good person. And to me, those two things don't get separated. They walk together and they're considered stint. You have to try to be a good person every day of your life, every day of your life, and sometimes I fall short. But you know what, when I fall short, I own it. As I tell my kids, hey, or if my husband says to me, you never apologize. I'm always the one apologizing. I say, Okay, I want to use the word I usually use, but let's just say,

I say, dude, I apologize on national television. Okay, I own apology in this house. Tell me I don't know, I apologize, Hey, are you You have to be somewhat worried that you're never gonna work again at the prestigious outfits. You're sixty, You're you're the Atlantic, those kind of things. Are you concerned about that? Not one bit. I'm done. I'm never I don't know if anyone is ever going to hire me at any of those places again. But this is what I said to you. I'm a journalist.

I'm going to do my job the same way I've always done it, to the best of my ability, with the most honest heart and open mind. That's how I'm going to do it. I bring that you get all of me. When I sit down in front of you, You've got all of me, you know, every little bit of me, and most important of all, you have my willingness to try and understand who you are, why you believe what you believe, how you got here right. I

don't bring barriers to understanding that. That's what I want to tell journalists to tell me I'm a progressive journalists, or I'm a human rights journalist, or I'm you know,

I'm a women's rights journalist. No like, how are you going to have an open mind and hear someone properly and understand and properly if you're bringing those barriers, like you go to Egypt to cover I don't know, the General Sissy and the terrible things he did to the poor Muslim brotherhood, and then you find out, oh my god, the Muslim brother did a whole lot of terrible things as well. As a human rights journalist, are you now going to only report on one side of that? Are

you going to pick a side? Are you going to bury what you know about the side that you came there, you know, convinced we're the victim, and now you found out the victim maybe isn't so much a victim. Maybe sometimes they're a victim and other times they would just as at maybe even worse. You know, how do you make those decisions? You can't make clear decisions if ideology is guiding you as a journalist. When ideology guides you, then you become an activist. And if you're going to

be an activist, just call it what it is. But people don't want that, right, I mean, because propaganda organizations, they have people all throughout the media organizations acting you know who who walk in step with them, and they don't want to be out it. I mean, some of them admit who they are. I mean, you know, one of those organizations even gloated it and prode about taking me down, and the New York Times exalted them for it and approaded them and did a big article on

on isn't this so wonderful? What did you think, New York Times? Did you think about what it means? Did you think about what if that propaganda machine was turned against you and your journalists? Did you ever think about what it looks like from the other side. I do that every story that I go into, every day of

my life, I think about it from the other side. Well, who We've talked about this many times, and it makes me crazy, especially with a couple of kids just through college and one in college, looking at everything through the lens of the victim and the oppressor and picking them in advance and analyzing everything from that basis. And he

gave a great example talking about the Muslim brotherhood. The idea that you you put a black hat and a white hat on each side before you even begin asking questions and go from there is incredibly dangerous because we're all just flawed human beings running around trying to find happiness somehow, and don't use words like dangerous. Don't do that, because everything is dangerous these days. You know what it's it's blinded, it's it's um my opic, and it's prejudiced

in itself. Quote out what it is. We don't know if it's dangerous, right, it might be, but that's your like, you know, you see that as dangerous and maybe it is, maybe it isn't, But what you're really talking about, Let's quote what it is first and then let people decide how they feel about it, and then you can say I see that as dangerous for these reasons. But uh, but really that's what we hear all the time, this man, this administration, this time. We've never been a more dangerous times.

And this is used to justify us abandoning our principles. And I'm I don't know. Nelson Mandela never abandoned his principles. He never did. He never sold out. He spent twenty seven years behind bars for something that he believed in because he wasn't prepared to sell himself out or to sell anyone out. And he's my guide. It's people like him, and you know what, some of them you don't even know their names, but they're black people whose names are

not known anywhere outside of their family. And the people like me who knew them on the street in South Africa, who lived those principles every day of their life, and who showed me the way, They showed me how to do that. And I meet those people everywhere sometimes, you know what, I meet them in rural Tennessee. Doesn't have to have to be in some dusty, miserable village in Afghanistan. Where you meet them. You don't only find courage and nobility.

There doesn't only exist in liberal cities. You put guess what you even find it in small conservative towns, and you find it in small liberal towns and families. It's not owned by politics. These are human qualities that live and breathe in all of us. And all I was born to do was tell it like it is. That's that's who I am. So I don't really care who

I do it for. It was the greatest honor of my life to work at sixty Minutes and to work with Mike Wallace and a Brady and to know these people and to live up to the legacy of that show. And I don't want to do anything to sally that legacy because I believe in it. I believe when sixty minutes is great, I believe in the greatness of that. I'm so proud of the work I did there, and I have so much respect for the people I worked with there. But does that mean I agree with everything?

Absolutely not. Does that mean sometimes I'm not throwing things at the television, you know, um and want to vomit sometimes that some of the things that are put out there. Of course it's supposed to be like that. I've got to be learning and I've got to be challenged. And when did we go from learning and being challenged to safe spaces? I don't know how the how that happened, And maybe I'm a little old school like that, but I can tell you I'm tired of living in fear.

I've been living in fear. The girl everyone says is fearless, right, I'm not fearless. I've been living in fear of these propaganda organizations. I've been living in fear of the fact that I'm not going to be, you know, employable to these these organizations and publications that I look up to and that have have been such a guiding light for me in my work as a journals and inspired me. Right, I've been living in fear of all of that, and I'm done. I'm done. I don't care. It's never been

important to me. It's not that I don't care about that. It's that I'm not gonna be um like a hunted animal. Right. It's liberating, it's liberating, liberating, and it's not very lucrative, but it's very liberating. Well, we're prepared to make you a five figure offer, Laura, if you'd like to come work for the arms Strong and get these show like four hundred and ninety two. Oh no, no, left side of the decimal. We're not cheaper around here, So listen.

It doesn't sound like you need a great deal of encouraging, but UM people usually react to the most strongly if you're a completely nuts or be really close to the truth, and it makes them uncomfortable. So keep making people uncomfortable. Well, you know, I really mean it when I say I can't do it alone. I used to be that journalist that wanted to be first, right, and that wanted to be exclusive, and of course it's a little bit of that in all of us. But now I'm that journalist.

Where any good journalists I know, by the way, Adam Housley one of the best journalists I know. I gotta mention Adam. I'll do anything for any journalist I know who I respect. I give them my context, my relationships, I find out stuff for them, I tell them whatever you need. It doesn't matter who they work for, because those of us who are standing up for the truth,

we can't survive alone. Adam had at one point he was working at Fox News, he had, like I don't know, he had more than a dozen intelligence sources who were willing, some of them active, who had already gone and told him how the last administration was spying on people like Bernie Sanders and Mike McColl and Lindsey Graham and many others during the last election. And Fox News wouldn't run

that story. They said he had to have someone on camera. Well, if that's the standard of journalism today, you gotta have people on camera, Well then how come you know, how come there's all these anonymous sources all over the Washington Post and New York Times and everywhere else right who are bringing people down in the administration. It's good enough for them, But suddenly if that's not good enough at

Fox News, you know. So that's why I laughed when people said, to your old folks were so far right? Really are they? I don't know. I don't really answer that. In some respects they are. But here you had a story which at the time, if Adam had broken that story would have been huge. Now now you say to people, oh, they were spying on people, the answer is, oh, well that's isn't that what they always do? No, they broke the law. It's not what they always do. It actually

is a crime. But apparently if you don't enforce the law, it doesn't matter. Then it's not a crime. No, you're still committed a crime. You just got away with it. You've got away with it because the media and which is supposed to be about accountability, they let you get away with it because it didn't serve a political narrative. And when you're so blindly following one narrative, maybe you're missing something, some things that are really important to all

of us. Because now they work for you, Now they walk with you. But what happens when they don't. That's the purpose of a democracy, right Because of the place you're talking about, where there's only one opinion, and where there isn't any difference between your propaganda senial media, and people aren't free and people aren't held accountable. Well, that place looks a lot like dictatorship. Wow. Wow, Laura Logan, listen, We're not going to steal all your time. We hope

that we can do this again soon. And uh, well, obviously, I mean, if you actually care about this, and you obviously care about this, this is a long term battle. I just I do have one thing to say. It's the first interview I've done since you know, all that happened with Mike Ritland. And I only did that interview with Mike Brlin because he's one of the best guys I know, and he's a friend, and he wanted to do it and he needed it for his podcast. I

didn't expect anything that came after it. But when I had all these requests for interviews, the one I did. The reason I'm talking to you, guys is because you've always been there. You've been there, You've you've been interested in what's happening on the ground in Afghanistan. You've been interested in the work, and I respect you for that, and I respect your the way you've treated me and and so I this is no accident, this interview. I came to you on purpose. Well that's kind of you

to say, and we appreciate it. You know, we try, we're we're just we're a couple of dopes who are too stubborn to do anything but just described the world the way we see it. And I've always loved your reporting for so many years. We really appreciate you coming on today. Yeah. Thanks. You never invited me to be a guest on your TV show, That Boy. Yeah, we're a little unconventional for the networks. That's my excuse.