This is the Media Show with Jack outing, Hello and welcome to the Media Show. Tonight, we bring you an extraordinary investigation into the ABC's diversity push, where journalists not only are being told to book talent based on their race or disability status, but they are also told to take that incredibly personal and private data and share it with their teams and talk about it, talk about your
race and what it means to their coverage. And in a second we will go through the sorts of questions that ABC journalists ask each other about your race and whether you are the right race or gender for their news coverage. But before we do that, there's a little
bit more. This investigation by the digital team here at Sky News used freedom of information laws to force the ABC to hand over these documents, and when the ABC did, they also turned up a letter from Justin Stevens back in twenty twenty two, powerful news boss there, where he seems to accuse his own staff of being racists themselves.
He says, six months ago, I emailed you about issues around diversity and inclusion in ABC News and talked about the experiences of some of our colleagues with discriminatory, non inclusive and at times racist behavior, he wrote back in December twenty twenty two. Well, that was also written six months after Stevens apologized for supposedly a racist culture at the National Broadcaster, and if he is right, it really
makes you wonder why we are funding a racist institution. Well, we have a big show tonight and joining us to discuss his contributor Angela Mollart and our very own James bolt brand New afternoon editor at skynews dot com dot AU, thank you. Very interesting letter by Justin Stevens. Very strange
admission to make. So, first of all, you kind of got this self identified problem of racism at the National Broadcaster, but then you, as the news boss, as the news director, you are through an email essentially alleging that your own staff are racist or have acted in a racist way.
Yeah, I think we really It opens up a lot of questions that I think we need answers from because we as taxpayers are funding the salary of all ABC employees, which means that if Justin Stevens is right and there was racism being there, we are paying for the salaries
of people free to commit racism in the workplace. So I think we all need to know what happened next, what steps did Justin Stevens take, because I really hope it was more than just what seems to be a staff white email that just says, reminder, no racism, police.
And reminder, we're all kind of racists. And Angel would love to bring you in. Welcome to the show, by the way, great to have you here. It's a very strange thing when you say there has been racist behavior, and this is now several years ago when this email was sent. I don't recall any emails going out saying
that they've found the perpetrators, there's been punishment. Isn't this sore of mentality that if we kind of we say, oh, yes, we have seenned, therefore we can stop there and we can move on.
Well, if I was journalists working for that organization, producers or whatever, I would want the facts on that. So I would be going back to Justin Stevens and asking what it was that prompted him to write that email. There has to be evidence if you're going to make that claim staff wide. If it was made staff wide, then you need to know on what basis he's made it.
And now you know, I'd love you to investigation to go further and to try to find out the basis of that, because there has to be reason, because you're actually accusing your workforce. And as you said, James, we need to look at it as a taxpayer funded entity if indeed that is the case. As to the other points around the investigation, my goodness, what an extraordinary I hope we're going to get into that.
We will, we.
Will, we will well and right now actually so starting on this story, the ABC's own internal policy documents state that it is pursuing a talent target of fifty percent women. Seems fair enough, but fifteen percent cultural and linguistically diverse. People will get into what that means. Three point four percent indigenous and eight percent of their talent should be disabled. Now, the gender representation is easy enough, but how do you define what is culturally diverse? And how do you know
what someone's race is? And this is where it gets truly nutty, the little bit disturbing. ABC journalists are told to use personal cues, including and I cannot believe that this is a direct quote from their policy document, but here we are. They said how they look and how they sound. So when you do an interview, with the ABC. Just know that they are jotting down how you look and how you sound to try and fit you in
some racial box. And I have no idea how they think that you are consenting to your racial data being used like this. To me, it seems morally reprehensible and there are legitimate legal questions to raise about this. Because it doesn't stop there. That data is being used to trigger open discussions about your race in the newsroom. ABC journalists are told to share this data with the broader team and have a chat about it in daily meetings. They even built an app and drafted some very helpful
questions helped stimulate good discussions. Some of those questions include, in your regular daily or weekly editorial meetings, use your data to prompt a discussion about the diversity of your stories, including how are we representing diversity in our stories? What could we do better differently next time? What are the key challenges we have? Where can we get support to overcome these challenges? And my favorite, what has been our biggest win this week slash month? A new talent, a
great representative, or a really impactful story. How gross is that people who talk to the ABC being reduced to their racial identity and then trotted out for victory laps at team meetings. Imagine being described as the biggest win because the ab journalist is just stoked that you got involved with their story and you have the right skin color. So James obviously a lot to unpack there. It was a ten page policy document that they have authored, But
it's the use of data. It's the subjective way in which you assess it. It's the way that they're sitting there while taxpayers are funding that they're supposed to basically just be putting the news together and investigating.
And doing journalism.
They're putting people in boxes, calculating data points and then forcing staff to kind of have these discussions about what race someone is to treat. It's bizarre to me.
It's bizarre. There's this weird overlap. I don't know if you guys know that the handshake meme. We've got two people from different walks of life shaking hands over this one united thing. But we have this situation where it's like the modern left on this side and nineteenth cent free phrenologists and New Genesis on the other, united on the fact that we need to start tracking racial data
in the workplace. It's just when you find yourself asking in a meeting is this person sounding indigenous or is this person sounding from a different background?
You got to think to yourself, what am I doing here?
Like?
What is that question in the twenty first century world. But the other point is when you brought up the biggest diversity wins they have of the week. Again sounding like a broken record here, but we have to remember we are taxpayers funding the ABC. The only thing that should be coming out of these meetings when the ABC have them is did we deliver the best products that we just build the taxpayers for that, not any of
these other things. It was was the best product delivered because that is what we deserve when we pay the salary.
Yeah, I mean look the other thing as well, it's consent, right. You know, the ABC comes to me for comment all the time, you know, trying to stitch me up over this all that am I sitting there in this app with my racial data? Because one way of looking at it, you can only figure out that four percent of your guests are indigenous if you know who's not indigenous? So you have to be then storing the data of well that person that's a white woman. That's a man from Ireland.
So no, that's not diverse enough for us. You have to be putting that at every single juncture otherwise the data is meaningless. And I don't know if Australians who talk to ABC journalists know that this is the practice.
Well, this could be the practice right from who you interview at a fire to who you employ. So let's just say that you've got the ABC journalist has gone to a fire, They've got a quote from an Indigenous or a Lebanese person, and then they've got a quote from a Caucasian person. The Caucasian person's quote on what's happened in that fire is better, but they use the indigenous person's quote. Now, that is highly problematic and that
is appalling. And I think that's what we're talking about here on an issue of news reporting, when we're talking about recruiting. Surely this is a massive hr because, as you say, it's a breach of a person's privacy. If I were to ask both of you, what do you think my nationality is? What assumptions would you make about my nationality?
How we go?
I wouldn't go first.
I would try very much to not do that, okay, because I feel like that's a line that for me. I mean, you know, I'm quite obviously a conservative person, and I think your identity markers don't matter compared to the substance of the person or the quality conversation.
I don't care, you don't care.
Assumptions are naturally made.
So people assumed that I am English. I'm not. I was actually born in New Zealand.
So if I was sitting in front of you, and that's interesting panel and you know, I know it's not the same as race or ethnicity, but to me, that's massively problematic because it goes back to that Martha Martin Luther King quote and he said in his I have a Dream speech, I do not want my children to be judged on the color of their skin, but on the content of their character.
Now, that speech was groundbreaking at the time.
The ABC is deliberately contravening that by gathering this Now I know it's problematic.
It's almost infantalizing as well, absolutely these communities and treating it with kid gloves, and.
I know it's nuanced and textured. I was in Tasmania recently.
I was at an.
Indigenous food tour and the woman. The young woman was the granddaughter of the activist Michael Mansell. She was what we would call in the business incredible talent. She was brilliant speaker. She was the sort of person I would love to quote on Indigenous issues.
But I got to see her in action. I got to measure her talent.
What was attractive to her was to me was that she spoke so well on issues that some of us don't have a lens within. To me, that's a legitimate that's a person I will ring in the future. But that's because I saw her in action. I wasn't just observing her on a CV or on a quick interview. So I think there is nuance within it. But to do it the way they're doing it, and to pull that information and for them all to be discussing it, that's abhorrent.
Yeah, completely agree.
Moving on now, e Safety Commission on your even Grant is personally lobbying the Labor government to get kids banned from YouTube. So this week she stood up at the National Press Club and tried to make arguments as to why YouTube, which currently has an exemption carved out, should be banned if you are a fifteen year old person basically wanting to watch a podcast there.
Well, I don't make determinations or write recommendations to the minister based on whether I keep the public on side and I follow the evidence. And my main concern with these platforms is obviously that harm's happening. But I talked about the persuasive design features. I mean YouTube has mastered those that opaque algorithms driving users down rabbit holes that they are powerless to fight against.
Strange that she doesn't care whether her views on YouTube are out of step with the general public. There is a bit of an arrogance to that. And when she mentions evidence guides her decision making, she really means opinions, not evidence, because this isn't a maths equation. It isn't as simple as one plus one equals two. It is complex and highly subjective. And she slips up a few times at this point. Because the social media band was always sold to us as being about children being groomed,
children being bullied online, and real present dangers. Now all of a sudden, it is about rabbit holes. Julie Etman Grant, who is a left wing activist who has publicly attacked Donald Trump before, who obviously doesn't want teenagers to be able to go down what she thinks of the wrong rabbit holes.
And that would be fine.
If she wasn't lobbying our government to change the laws in incredibly restrictive ways. I could not care less what this person thinks about social issues or politics, or what she deems to be a dangerous rabbit hole. That is for parents to decide for their kids. The vast majority of teachers use YouTube, and YouTube is essentially just television, but Grant wants to ban it because they might see a Joe Rogan.
Clip which she disapproves of.
Now, YouTube is not about end to end user interactions. It doesn't have the same child bullying issues that are on Facebook. It is TV, and Grant also cannot even be honest about what this band really is. We found her on LinkedIn this week getting in arguments with people who think the YouTube ban is stupid, and she wrote, I am not sure if you saw the transcript of my National Press Club on how we plan to approach
what we are trimming the social media delay. It is not a strict prohibition that will totally cut off kids digital lifelines. Don't call it a ban. It is merely a delay. Talk about fluff and spin from someone who has no idea how these platforms work. Now, James keen to get your thoughts on this. I'm probably at odds with I think a lot of people at our own company and the social media ban its origins actually came
from news court publications. But I work very closely with YouTube, I know other platform works.
I think that there has.
Been a false equivalence that's kind of being drawn across there, and to me, it's just remarkable that we have people in such powerful positions making such broad claims about platforms that they seem to not understand from a technical perspective. Yeah, what I thought was really good in your words there was that you identified, from the first principle the ultimate arbiter of how much HILD should be online and what.
Social media platforms they should be engaging.
In is the parent. It's not unelected bureaucrats. So we need to start there and we can work our way back.
Now.
The data is in children that learn outside of school hours fair so much better through the rest of their lives, and the children who are only learning in school hours. And in twenty twenty five YouTube is a gold mine for learning and education, and if you're cutting kids off from that, you are cutting them off from developing their interest, developing their brain, developing all the things that they could be learning.
So you'rekening kids off from that.
So when she says, oh, we can also customize it, you can. Parents can make it whatever they.
Want exactly, And the parents should know what is my child watching on YouTube?
Is that helpful?
Or is that you know these weird rabbit holes that she's concerned about. That's the parents call. So when she changes the band to a delay, I would encourage her to take it one step further in this language manipulation and just say these are the amount of years I'm happy for kids to be held back from learning more like that's how she should approach Angela.
What are your thoughts, I mean, the ban in general across other apps. I can definitely see that there are some legitimate aspects to it. Where I'm struggling with the YouTube thing is it's basically a broadcasting that it doesn't have the end to end user.
I don't think it would actually come under the proposed legislation because it is not a two sided platform, as you've alluded to your in your editorial. There the things that come under it are things like snapchat, TikTok, things where there is interactions between people. And I know this because I've just done a deep dive into AI companions.
Now.
AI companions are again like YouTube, they are web based platform, so they too will not come under the proposed legislation.
So I'm not worried about that exactly.
And that's what I was about to say is that, yes, look, I am a fan of the social media ban. As a parent who struggled through my children's teenage years, I want that tribe.
I want that.
Legislation in place so I can say point to it and say no, other parents are letting you know, my fifteen year old, you can't have that because everyone else can't have it either. That is a help to parents, but it has to be targeted and it has to be precise about what it's going.
To capture within it. Where is the biggest time. It's with bullying, it's with suicide.
AI companions, as we know, are really really problematic, they don't fall under this. I'm really surprised that inmand Grant is not focusing on where she can create the best effect and drive through this policy in an effective way. We can't even get facial recognition right at the moment, so there's a long way to go. Let's be really clear and really informed about what this legislation might cover. I don't think YouTube falls under that.
I agree, Angela Molla, Thank you so much. James Bolt really waiting to take a quick break. But when we return, how the media repeatedly lied when covering around this week and welcome back to Stars and Gripes, where we expose activist journalists who distort the news for political gain. And it has been a big week of that.
So Donald Trump and all of his magaminions, many of his magaminions, I guess I should say, have been lying through the country for days.
They have lied to.
All of us over and over and over again.
Iran's key nuclear and Richmond facilities have been completely and totally obliterated.
Those pilot hit their targets and targets were obliterated.
We have obliterated the Iradian nuclear program.
We are confident, yes, that Iran's nuclear sites were completely and totally obliterated.
Iran's nuclear program has been completely and totally obliterated. I feel like maybe they had a note card that's obliterated on it and they gave it to all those people and made them say it. Who knows, but that was the message from the Trump administration.
Well that was MSNBC host Jen Saki complaining that the Iran strikes were not damaging enough. And I find this line truly extraordinary. These journalists spend days and days suggesting that Iran was not a threat. They were misquoting Tulsi Gabbett to suggest that Iran wasn't making yukes, even though it is an indisputable fact that they enriched hundreds and hundreds of kilos of uranium to sixty percent when all they need for energy is actually in the single digits.
The only possible functional purpose for that enrichment figure, which Iran, by the way, openly reports themselves, the only possible reason was to build a nuke. Now, anyone who says different is either stupid or lying right to your face. And if you watch this show regularly, you know that is a huge subsection of our media. So what was MSNBC
saying immediately after Trump hit these nuclear facilities? Are you aware sort of any new intelligence that may have pushed the White House into action right now.
No, I don't think there's any new intelligence. I think the President received an enormous amount of pressure from Prime Minister Netyahu in Israel, and also I think the President felt that Israel was winning and he wanted to get in on that, and he wanted to be part of this successful strategy. You remember when this started, President Trump, by all reports, had asked Israel not to launch the attack that they launched on Iran.
He didn't want to.
Go there, and then he wound up there.
It sounds to me like he got sort of dragged into this by what happens a lot of times. Yes, we have civilian control of the military, but the military will come and tell the civilian control if we just did this, we can win, This will work, there won't be any problems. And we've gotten in a lot of trouble taking that advice in a whole number of different places. And I'm pretty confident the President just got us in a lot of tr in Iran.
They pivoted from Trump had no reason to hit Iran to Trump didn't hit Iran hard enough in just a matter of hours. Well, joining me now is Adam B.
Coleman.
Commentator and author of a new book, The Children We Left Behind.
Adam, How are you.
I'm doing well, Thank you.
Well, Welcome to the show.
It's been extraordinary how the media has covered this, how they've just pivoted at every opportunity to find the line that is I think most critical in my opinion, to Donald Trump and his administration.
But what have you made of the media coverage?
Much is what they've been doing for years. They have no particular principle. The only thing that they care about is going and doing the opposite of what.
Donald Trump wants.
Hunter, contradicting what he says, trying to disprove everything that he claims, and going on the long side of every issue.
For the most part, the American public.
Understands the danger of Iran, and then when they're trying to spend this as one they don't have any nukes and why would they ever want nukes to Well.
They just didn't destroy it.
It's just this constant You use the word pivot, and I was going to say that as well, this constant pivot to try to discredit the president, and Pete Hechseth mentioned that before as well.
Yeah, definitely, I feel like it really leaves the media so vulnerable at him because he forces them to go into positions it's probably not very natural. But look, moving on, as you mentioned, staying on the conflict in the Middle East, I wasn't the only one realizing just how insane the media reporting had become.
Because you, and I mean specifically you the press, because you cheer against Trump so hard. It's like in your DNA and in your blood, cheer against Trump because you want him not to be successful so bad you have to cheer against the efficacy of these strikes.
Adam.
He was saying everything that I've been thinking this entire week of the coverage. There are a lot of journalists there that did look a bit awkward. Gee, they get offended when somebody calls them out, don't they?
Yeah, Because for the most part, these people live in their own bubble. They're not used to hearing a counteractive point are They're not used to hearing someone actually challenge their ideas, and they're especially not used to being called out. And these are very elitist, egotistical people, and so the last thing they want to hear is someone actually call them on their stuff.
And he is absolutely right. They're not trying to be unbiased. They're overtly biased.
They're only looking to find some sort of point that shows that either Trump the Trump administration is incompetent.
They're wrong, they're lying. You know, one will do. But their only a goal.
Is to go against Trump about advocating for the United States, the prosperity of the Middle East.
It's not about any of that stuff.
And that's where the American public sees that our media has only one interest and it's not about the American citizen.
Yeah, and I look at it. I feel like you must have contempt for your own audience. And people aren't stupid. And now we've got access to all sorts of different media, so we know what's happening.
But moving on.
It was awkward for CNN's Jake Tappa when he did a lengthy monologue this week claiming that Trump had failed to do any long lasting damage to a run's nuclear program, only to have his own guests live on air present evidence to the contrary. Now, let's start with Tappa's editorial.
An initial intelligence assessment that said that the US strikes did not destroy the core components of the country's nuclear program and likely only set it back by months. It is of course possible that at some point, after more intelligence assessments are completed, the president's claims of total obliteration of the entire program could bear out to be true. But so much right now remains unknown. We still do not know what is underneath all the rubble at these
bombed out sites. Has everything been completely destroyed?
Now?
CNN was first report that one early DIA or Defense Intelligence Agency assessment suggested that the US military strikes on Iran this weekend did not completely destroy the core components of Iran's nuclear program.
Okay, first of all, I have to point out that these people did not even think that Iran had a nuclear weapons program a few days ago. Now they think that the nuclear program was so widespread in advanced that Iran has managed to hide uranium and can now get a nuke out the door in months. It is truly crazy stuff, But it gets better. This is how tappa's own on air expert responded.
What are you hearing from your Israeli source is about the assessment of the damage.
Four days after.
I've to tell you, a scenior Israeli intelligence official told me today that overall, other than the fact that he's using the word obliterated. Overall, the Israeli intelligence assessment shows that the reality is much closer to where Trump says it is than to where the initial DIA report said it was. And obviously a few days passed since that THEIA report and more information, we have more information about
what exactly happened. But one of the interesting things that the Israeli intelligence learned over the last twenty four hours is that in Fordaho, the damages are also inside the
compound underground. There there is intelligence that shows that there has been internal collapse, underground collapse inside the facility, which is something that shows us that it was badly damaged, because if you have centrifuges in this facility and there was a penetration of a bomb inside and there was collapse inside, then those centrifuges are gone.
In other words, CNN's exclusive was actually a dud. It wasn't true, and they haven't even attempted to correct the record. They just say, oh, the intelligence has now shifted. It is no wonder other people are losing trust in CNN. Adam, let's bring.
You in here.
Very awkward to have your own guest completely dismantle your argument.
What are your thoughts?
Yeah, my thoughts are you know, Jake Tapper and CNN committed a media sin running to the very first news source that comes out.
Just like any sort of.
Major event, there's a lot of information that is coming out. Some of it is wrong, some of it is loose and not one percent accurate. And I've actually taken that personal step. I don't react right way to most things. I wait two or three days before I get some sort of reaction because likely the initial story is not correct. So Jake Tapper, in just like much of the mainstream media, wants to find some sort of report that shows that
Trump was somehow bad or Trump was incompetent. So they ran with the first thing, which he'll even say it was early, but should have been his indicator that maybe we should have some sort of hesitancy using this as gospel. They ran to it, and they only did it for one reason, and it wasn't to inform the public.
It was to set a.
Narrative that Trump, even though he went ahead and did this, he did it in an incompetent way and we should all mock him because it actually didn't achieve.
But he said it was going to achieve.
Well said, and he really exposes him, doesn't he, Adam, thank you so much. A quick break, but when we return, all things media bias with Jared Henderson welcome back, joining me now as he does each and every week. Sky News Australia's media watchdog columnists Jared Henderson, Jared, thank you for joining us.
Now.
What a week it's been for me.
Antoinette Latouf is a terrible day for the ABC. I think you've got a grab for us to react to.
I was punished for my political opinion. I won't be taking any questions. I'll have more to say in due time. Thank you.
Well.
I think we discussed this before.
I've always held the view that being a political activist, she shouldn't have been employed. She was employed as a casual for five days and they dismissed her after three. I never thought she should have been dismissed. They could have waited two days and the way it was done was very unprofessional and I completely agree with the judges verdict on this. But what's going to be considered here is how the ABC runs things. They've got a legal
department of about thirty people. That's very large. They get up, they get into these legal battles, they lose many of them. And what happened in a tube case before she was the smith Suddenly on that Wednesday morning, having started on the Monday in a morning program, she went through six levels of management, so six people were involved in the decision making, from the chair to the managing director, to the content editor and others, which an extraordinary bureaucracy.
Now one of the whole thing's bungled.
So then they had a panic. Why you'd have a panic when you're three days into a five day contract with someone you don't want to engage further. It can't be understood.
It's so incompetent.
Anyone who's managed people, or dealt with controversies, or dealt with staffing matters knows that that was the complete wrong way. And the judge, I agree, was completely right to point it out. None of them are with the ABC anymore because they're all incompetent, each more incompetent than the last.
Further up the chain you go.
But you're right, I think there's this huge I think there is a huge, untold story here with what was the last case that the ABC challenged in court or defended it. Didn't want to settle that they actually won because we're on the hook now, not just the seventy thousand dollars, which, by the way, that's thirty five thousand dollars a shift that we the tax payer, have paid because the managers are stupid, right, that's the only reason. Never should have been hired, Never should have been said.
I'll probably go high when they.
It'll be millions of dollars. I've heard reports up to two million dollars.
I think that's quite likely when you add in all the legal costs and the other cost.
It's just contemptuous for the taxpayer.
And the other point I think with the ABC is that they tend to go for people like miss latoof I mean people who make mistakes like Laura Tingo, Luise Milligan, John Lyons and others. They don't go near him, and often they get promoted upstairs. But someone who's not well known they have a panic about.
Really, maybe there's a bit of a problem with that diversity program that they've got going on there. Look, let's move on ABC Radio National Breakfast. We've got to grab from Melissa Clark.
I did find it interesting that he said that you know where he does have these concerns about the legality,
that it's something that he would relay in private. It kind of put off a little bing inside my head because it's only in the last couple of hours that we've seen Donald Trump publish a text message from Mark Russer, the Secretary General of NATO, and Mark ruther had sent it a very I think it's fair to describe it as a pretty obsequious text message, and Donald Trump just posts it on truth Social So even if Winston Peters and others do want to raise their concerns in private
with Donald Trump, sometimes you just never know where you communications might end up.
Yeah.
Yeah, Well when I heard that, a little bing in my head and I thought, you're deally with the New Zealand Foreign Minister. Winston Peters, a very experienced politician. And what happens now is that when anyone's interviewed, Melissa Clark's invited on to comment on it. So you can't go
on and have an interview and there's no debate. So Selly Sarah does the interview, the interview takes place, Melissa Clark makes a comment on it, and she comments things are obsequious, or bing went off in her head, or she didn't think it was a proper answer, but mister Peter's had no right of comeback. So what you've got is, I mean, now you've got John Lyons interpreting the Trump administration for us. You've got Laura Tingle about to go overseas to tell the rest of the world about us.
And you've got Melissa.
Clark on Radio National Breakfast telling us how to listen to Winston Peters. Winstons vid has been around for about four decades. He's a very experienced politician. People who follow politics in New Zealand know exactly what he's on about. The interview did was quite fine, and you get these editorial comments. So I mean, no problem Melissa Clark talking on television, but she doesn't have to interpret everything for us. We're not that thick.
Radio National Breakfast Sally Sara one of our regulars on here, We've got to grab let's let's have a listen.
Finally, the opposition leader Susan Lee gave her first major speech at the Press Club yesterday after the federal election and is talking about having a fresh approach and doing things differently. Have you noticed a shift in the opposition's approach since the election. Well, time will tell, I guess, and I think we'll just have to wait and see whether you know, what the rhetoric is actually is matched by action.
Well, there's some inconsistencies with how the.
Well certainly comes on first, and she gets a reasonably tough interview, but that's fair enough. She had a will and it was a good interview.
But there comes Gallagh.
Then Senator Gallahad comes on and she gets to comment on Susan Lee at the end of the interview, and she's sort of as gentle, but she puts her down and indicates that she's not ready going very far with this, and she's entitled to say that. But then by then Susan Lee is out the door in Camberrall wherever it was done, and there's no right of reply to what Senator gallah has said. So once again there's just a lack of balance in it and professionalism in it. You
don't need to ask that final question. You could always ask something from which the senator is actually responsible for.
Yeah, definitely a good idea.
One more grab ABC radio host Carl Ellis she's weighing into that controversial Tucker Carlson and yeah, let's her listen.
We're in a bad place if someone like that, who I don't actually regard as a good faith actor in the American media landscape, if he's the only one saying to a proponent of war, do you actually understand the country you seek to Topple.
Got to say on that clip between that went viral between Tucker Carlson and Ted Cruz, what alarmed me is that I definitely could answer more of the questions than Ted Cruz.
Wasn't that alarming?
Though in some ways it come as a lawmaker, because I would always expect you to answer more questions.
No, but he's a law Oh, carl Vellis is a Carlson fan, Tucker Carlson.
Tucker Carlson fan, and she gives this sort of opportunity to say what she wants to say. But what's missing there was this reference that I should have mentioned earlier, this reference or there's flattery, and then followed by this reference to the American South. Now ref Epstein's comment, there is very snobbish. What's basically saying that any senator from the American South, presumably democratic or Republican like Ted Cruise's a Republican doesn't know anything. Ted Cruise is a highly
skilled politician, he's a well qualified lawyer. He knows a lot. And you've got ref epscene having a go at him for no particular reason except he doesn't like his views. And Patricia Kelli Cavella says she knows more than he does. Well, the issue was whether Iran had ten million or ninety million people. Now there's ninety million and Ted cures win for ten that's not the issue issue he didn't know.
He didn't know.
But the issue was did they have a nuclear capacity? That's the issue, not not how many people live there. I mean, it could be a real problem if with five million people it had nuclear capacity. So but once again you've got this combination of sort of being dismissive of people, and I agree.
I also I think Tucker Carlson wouldn't have known the answer to that until.
He googled it. Oh, he would have to look it up. No one knows every single do That's ridiculous.
But Jared Henderson, thank you so much for your insights as always, really appreciate it. That's all the time we have for tonight. We're back the same time next week though, but up next is Newsnight.