Speaker 1: Brian Karen, my good friend. Great to have you here
Speaker 1: on when you know, you know, unleash the podcast, the
Speaker 1: continuation of the show, when you know you know. So Look,
Speaker 1: one of the questions that I asked you at the
Speaker 1: very end is when you have this weaponization fund and
Speaker 1: you have the fighting that's going on as it is
Speaker 1: right now, when you see somebody like Todd Blanche getting
Speaker 1: grilled by Democrats and some established Republicans, folks like the
Speaker 1: John Cornings of the Tillises who are desperate to put
Speaker 1: a fork in this fund, the question I want to
Speaker 1: ask you is there panic really about the one point
Speaker 1: eight billion or you think that they're terrified of the
Speaker 1: precedent that it's going to set. And I said to
Speaker 1: you in the ending of my show, when you know,
Speaker 1: you know, if the deal, this is my thought, If
Speaker 1: the Department of Justice institutionalizes away for citizens to get
Speaker 1: paid when the government overset steps like what they did
Speaker 1: to me, doesn't that strip Congress in the Deep State
Speaker 1: of their ultimate weapon of intimidation? Isn't in the bipartisan
Speaker 1: backlash just just the swamp protecting its own power to
Speaker 1: target people.
Speaker 2: Well, I've been targeted my whole life. And I don't
Speaker 2: know what to tell you there. I don't know. I
Speaker 2: have to know what the definition of deep state is.
Speaker 2: And I also don't think that their objection to Todd
Speaker 2: Blanche is based entirely on this. I think it's a sidebar.
Speaker 2: If you're asking if the swamp of Washington, d C
Speaker 2: protects itself, of course it does. It always, it always
Speaker 2: christ Yeah, I mean that's not I mean, it bothers
Speaker 2: me that you have a Congress that adjourned at Christmas
Speaker 2: time without taking up affordable health care for the rest
Speaker 2: of us while they get free health care for life.
Speaker 2: It bothers me that members of Congress, members of the
Speaker 2: executive branch, members of the judicial branch all have paid
Speaker 2: maternity leave when millions of Americans can't get it. Those
Speaker 2: things do bother me. The thing that DC does best
Speaker 2: is protect itself, that is Congress, that is the executive branch,
Speaker 2: that is the judicial branch. Do they and if you
Speaker 2: mean by deep state, those actors who are in office, well, yeah,
Speaker 2: they protect themselves. Todd Blanche has far bigger problems than
Speaker 2: this particular fund. This particular fund is a function of
Speaker 2: of d C doing what d C does to your point.
Speaker 2: But Todd Blanche doing what he did. I mean, I
Speaker 2: wouldn't want Todd Blanche as my attorney. I'll just say that,
Speaker 2: if if you were still, if you hadn't been disbarred,
Speaker 2: i'd hire you.
Speaker 1: But don't you worry, I'll give that license back. You bothers,
Speaker 1: you know. But here's what bothers me a lot too.
Speaker 2: So how about this.
Speaker 1: How much money has members of Congress used from some
Speaker 1: slush fund that's out there to payoff NDAs for people
Speaker 1: who file sexual allegations against It's amazing. I was reading
Speaker 1: it back the.
Speaker 2: Day, bills for that for the love of God, back
Speaker 2: in the seventies, the cover up for the Wilbern Mills
Speaker 2: problem and controversy. And I would say, ask Mitch McConnell,
Speaker 2: but he's you know, he's on his back babbling like
Speaker 2: a drunken cicada right now, so we can't ask him.
Speaker 2: But he he's one of the guys who set up
Speaker 2: a lot of this stuff. He and by the way,
Speaker 2: Tip O'Neill helped set up some of this stuff. By
Speaker 2: the way, every congressman has participated in this right left, middle,
Speaker 2: down the line. They participate in it to protect their
Speaker 2: own ass. Once they get in office, they protect themselves
Speaker 2: versus serving their public. And I wish now we do
Speaker 2: have something called I know everybody wants to have you know,
Speaker 2: uh limits, you know, they want to enableations. Well, we
Speaker 2: have them every two, four and six years. They're called elections.
Speaker 2: Get your ass off the you know, off your seat
Speaker 2: of your pants and go vote. But the problem is
Speaker 2: in this country, we consider fifty sixty percent of voter turnout.
Speaker 2: That's great, and that's not that's the problem. That the
Speaker 2: majority can't rule. The majority doesn't vote. What happens is
Speaker 2: the minority. The minority, the well shelled well a minority
Speaker 2: that will get out and vote left or right. Are
Speaker 2: the ones who determine the elections most of the time,
Speaker 2: the super minorities.
Speaker 1: And that's the people that I'm trying to reach here.
Speaker 1: And when you know, you know, unleashed, and when you know,
Speaker 1: you know, the show itself, I know a lot of
Speaker 1: merlin going on when you know I am no longer
Speaker 1: you know, you know, I'm no longer using for example,
Speaker 1: the line that Trump used when he called that series
Speaker 1: of that individuals the silent majority, I'm using term right
Speaker 1: well Trump used it. I'm talking about the tired majority.
Speaker 1: We're all tired of the bullshit that's going on every
Speaker 1: single day, them using slush funds, and all of a sudden, here,
Speaker 1: oh my god, this is the biggest problem. And I
Speaker 1: I'm very in tune with this concept because I fought
Speaker 1: all the way to the Supreme Court when I was
Speaker 1: unconstitutionally remanded back to prison because I refused to waive
Speaker 1: my First Amendment constitutional right. You did an incredible bang
Speaker 1: up job when you know, providing with the information for
Speaker 1: the book Revenge.
Speaker 2: But Brian, I've been that fight twice, Michael, tell my listeners,
Speaker 2: tell my listeners about it. Well, the first time I
Speaker 2: went to the Supreme Court was a fight over a
Speaker 2: unfidential source that I had in a murder case back
Speaker 2: in nineteen eighty nine. So in nineteen ninety I got
Speaker 2: out of I was in jail four times, the last
Speaker 2: time for more than a month as we went to
Speaker 2: the Supreme Court, and the last move by Justice Brennan,
Speaker 2: he put it before the Supreme Court whether or not
Speaker 2: I could get out while I pursued the challenge to
Speaker 2: the Supreme Court, and by a five to four vote,
Speaker 2: they said, screw you. Rot. So That was my first
Speaker 2: problem with the Supreme Court. The second one was when
Speaker 2: we fought Donald Trump for taking away my press pass,
Speaker 2: and that went to all the way. It was before
Speaker 2: the Supreme Court, but the superior court, the appeals court,
Speaker 2: a federal appeals court in DC, had ruled in my favor,
Speaker 2: and then Trump left office. So you know twice I've
Speaker 2: been before them over First Amendment issues, and what I
Speaker 2: find more than anything else is that that the First
Speaker 2: Amendment should protect everyone's free speech. I disagree with what
Speaker 2: you say, I will defend to death your right to
Speaker 2: say it. You can hate me, you cannot act on
Speaker 2: the hate. That's that is a crime. But if I say, hey, Michael,
Speaker 2: you're full of shit, and you can say, Brian, you're
Speaker 2: full of shit, and we can have an argument over that. Now,
Speaker 2: if you tell me to shut up, you're not violating
Speaker 2: my First Amendment rights. You're not the government. But when
Speaker 2: the government sends you back to prison, that is the
Speaker 2: government interfering. That's the First Amendment issue. When the government
Speaker 2: tells me I have to give up my sources. By
Speaker 2: the way, I sat in court the first time I
Speaker 2: had this fight with a confidential source, and and I'm
Speaker 2: the guy that I interviewed in prison is sitting next
Speaker 2: to his ACLU attorney, and there and the ACLU attorney
Speaker 2: and the prosecutor are telling me that doing my job,
Speaker 2: that I interrupted them and prevented them from prosecuting the case,
Speaker 2: and so I had to give up my source. So
Speaker 2: I'm in court and I look to the ACLU attorney.
Speaker 2: I said, I I got my information from your defendant,
Speaker 2: the guy you're defending. I said, don't you have greater
Speaker 2: access to the defendant than I do? Why don't you
Speaker 2: ask him? And he said, you don't get to ask
Speaker 2: the questions in court. And the judge said, normally i'd
Speaker 2: agree with your counselor, but that's a good question. Why
Speaker 2: don't you answer it? So, because, by the way, it
Speaker 2: is a great question.
Speaker 1: But since we're going to see, since we're talking about
Speaker 1: the First Amendment, I want to just talk a couple
Speaker 1: of days ago, when Trump made a speech to the country,
Speaker 1: made a speech to the country regarding China. He made
Speaker 1: it China, China. He made a speech in regard to
Speaker 1: our election integrity and what these bad actors China, Russia
Speaker 1: and North Korea, Iran, etc.
Speaker 2: Are doing.
Speaker 1: First Amendment issue, you had stations like AB, NBC, CBS
Speaker 1: not airing it, would you turn around and say that
Speaker 1: there's a problem with that, that they don't want that
Speaker 1: content out there instead, you know what they were doing.
Speaker 1: They had their people on their talking heads who were
Speaker 1: out there already bashing the president on something that they
Speaker 1: hadn't even heard yet. They didn't even wait for him
Speaker 1: to finish the speech before they were out there attacking
Speaker 1: every single thing that he said. Now, you don't have
Speaker 1: to agree with everything that the guy said, but I
Speaker 1: think we all acknowledge that these foreign actors are interfering
Speaker 1: in our system, and I think what Trump is doing
Speaker 1: is at least exposing what's going on there right now
Speaker 1: in order to come up with some solution in order
Speaker 1: just to make it better.
Speaker 2: Well, I don't know if I agree with all of that,
Speaker 2: And I'll start with they absolutely have the right to
Speaker 2: error not to air, and if they don't want to air,
Speaker 2: there's other places to hear it. There was other places
Speaker 2: to see it. It certainly wasn't unavailable. It's just they
Speaker 2: are a private enterprise and they get to determine how
Speaker 2: they are best going to make their money to interfere
Speaker 2: them with them and make them air it. That's the problem.
Speaker 2: That would be a problem. That would be overstrepperous, upstrepperous
Speaker 2: use of power by the government to make sure that
Speaker 2: their word gets out. Now, would I have aired it? Well?
Speaker 2: That that's irrelevant.
Speaker 1: I know it's No, it's not.
Speaker 2: I would be curious you would say it I did
Speaker 2: get Yeah, of course I probably would. But you know,
Speaker 2: I don't give a shit that. I'm the guy who
Speaker 2: you know, people say, well, he's a bad president. I
Speaker 2: may agree or disagree, but I still want to hear
Speaker 2: what the son of a bitch has to say. So
Speaker 2: I don't have a problem with that. If you do,
Speaker 2: that's fine, it's not a violation. And you can't force
Speaker 2: them to do it. That I don't have a problem with.
Speaker 2: I want to see, and I say, have yet to
Speaker 2: still see anything new that that came out of it.
Speaker 2: And I take and I take great exception to Donald
Speaker 2: Trump calling us. I think last night he he said
Speaker 2: those who've written the worst articles against him are are
Speaker 2: being paid by China. Now, he and I got into
Speaker 2: epic fights and have and I've written well, good, bad,
Speaker 2: and ugly about him. When he's done something well. I've
Speaker 2: written about that. When he's done something bad, I've written
Speaker 2: about that. But certainly no one has challenged him more
Speaker 2: than I have. I you know, I challenged him six
Speaker 2: weeks before he was before the twenty twenty election. Would
Speaker 2: he accept, you know, a peaceful transfer of power? So
Speaker 2: I don't I find that onerous to say that. I
Speaker 2: can state for the record Michael that out of all
Speaker 2: the faults I have, I have never accepted a dime
Speaker 2: from China so well.
Speaker 1: And I would like to acknowledge that you have many faults.
Speaker 2: But I had that I do, and so do you,
Speaker 2: my brother.
Speaker 1: No, No, I think I have one or two less
Speaker 1: than you. But he wasn't counting out.
Speaker 2: You. Try to spend too much time.
Speaker 1: With you when we were digging up all that information
Speaker 1: on those foy of files and everything on the weaponization.
Speaker 1: But he's neither. Yeah, that's for sure, Brian. He was not.
Speaker 2: Talking to you.
Speaker 1: You were not the journalist, believe it or not that
Speaker 1: you think Trump will wrestling one journalist.
Speaker 2: He said, those journalists, that's what those journalists, And he
Speaker 2: wasn't referencing you. He doesn't have a problem with people
Speaker 2: criticizing him.
Speaker 1: And then writing and you tell.
Speaker 2: Him I would love to sit down and interview him.
Speaker 2: I'd be happy to do it anytime he wants.
Speaker 1: Well, after I get my first visit over there to
Speaker 1: the White House, I'm going to tell him, Brian karm
Speaker 1: wants to come and sit down to you.
Speaker 2: And you know what, JA wants to talk to you.
Speaker 2: He wants to comfort and sit down.
Speaker 1: I have no intention of ever speaking to that loser.
Speaker 2: He's a stone called loser, right, I tell him nothing trouble.
Speaker 2: I still go back to the day he winked at
Speaker 2: me and I asked him, I said, are we dating?
Speaker 1: Now?
Speaker 2: What the hell is he?
Speaker 1: He would sit down and he would engage you in
Speaker 1: com The difference between you and the people he was
Speaker 1: referencing is that no matter what he does, they will
Speaker 1: never give him credit for anything. You at the very
Speaker 1: beginning turn and said, listen, where I agree with him,
Speaker 1: I will give him praise. Where I disagree, I will.
Speaker 2: Criticize any politician, but I'll give him credit.
Speaker 1: Okay, you'll give him credit. And where you disagree, all right,
Speaker 1: you will. You will disagree and criticize. That's fair, that's fair.
Speaker 1: But what about the groups of individuals? Fair asshole. I
Speaker 1: appreciate that. No, just just an asshole. But I can
Speaker 1: live with that. It's amazing how you had, how you
Speaker 1: have such a good son so on, and you know,
Speaker 1: he's such a good kid. I really like he's such
Speaker 1: a nice you know, he and his wife suffice it.
Speaker 1: By the way, congratulations on the birth of the grandchild,
Speaker 1: third one, marvelous.
Speaker 2: So but I'm the pointing how did I come up
Speaker 2: with grandchildren? That's what I want to know. Go ahead,
Speaker 2: no clue.
Speaker 1: But the part that I'm trying to bring to the
Speaker 1: table here is criticism is fair. Criticism is good. I myself,
Speaker 1: whether it's on this show or any other show, I
Speaker 1: will never turn around and say I agree with somebody
Speaker 1: one hundred percent of the time. If you do, you
Speaker 1: are in a cult. I am not in a cult.
Speaker 1: I believe where he is doing right, he should be praised,
Speaker 1: it should be acknowledged.
Speaker 2: And better luck with that if he'd quit telling us
Speaker 2: that we were all fake media and we're the fault
Speaker 2: of and we're the problem his My biggest criticism of
Speaker 2: Donald Trump remains that he is bitter about certain things
Speaker 2: and brittle about criticism, and if he were to just
Speaker 2: you know even and I had I Look, I'm not
Speaker 2: saying this just of him. I've said this of and
Speaker 2: I will state for the record, I've covered every president
Speaker 2: since Ronald Reagan. I've managed to piss off every press
Speaker 2: secretary and every president I've ever covered. So I am
Speaker 2: when you pissed me off.
Speaker 1: When you pissed me off when I was trying to
Speaker 1: get the information.
Speaker 2: Sent people off. I don't know that's my superpower.
Speaker 1: It sure is, you off, But that's you should join
Speaker 1: the Avengers. All of these international all of these all
Speaker 1: of these intergalactic uh you know, nightmares and so on.
Speaker 2: Heres them off.
Speaker 1: Pissed me off. I'm going back to my galaxy.
Speaker 2: That's it. So I can piss them off. But the
Speaker 2: thing with the President of the United States is he
Speaker 2: needs to realize that. And he's not the first president
Speaker 2: I've had this criticism of. I think he's more streperous
Speaker 2: and louder about his criticism of the press than others.
Speaker 2: I've had this problem with other presidents. But this is
Speaker 2: how a democracy. Democracy is supposed to work. It is
Speaker 2: their job to put as I was taught by Sam
Speaker 2: Donaldson the very first there were two lessons I learned
Speaker 2: my first day in the White House. One was from
Speaker 2: Helen Thomas. And the reason why I call my podcast
Speaker 2: just asked the question is because she told me, Brian,
Speaker 2: your job in here is to just ask the question.
Speaker 2: It doesn't matter what the answer is, it doesn't matter
Speaker 2: if they answer it. Your job is to ask that
Speaker 2: question and put that concern on the record. Now, a
Speaker 2: lot of the best press secretaries in the best administrations
Speaker 2: understand that the questions that we bring to them can
Speaker 2: help them, can help better their administration. And it was
Speaker 2: Mike McCurry said, Brian, we changed policies based on some
Speaker 2: of the questions you brought in. The second person I
Speaker 2: met with Sam Donaldson, he said, listen, their job is
Speaker 2: to put their best foot forward. Our job is to
Speaker 2: hold them accountable. I remained dedicated to that. It was
Speaker 2: beIN Bag Dickie and who said, your job when you
Speaker 2: walk in to cover the White House is not to
Speaker 2: appease the president. It's not to appease your editors, it's
Speaker 2: not to appease your friends, it's not to better your career.
Speaker 2: Your responsibility is to the public. And so I've tried
Speaker 2: to remain steady with that. My entire career because I
Speaker 2: believe in those ideals. I know that most Barack Obama
Speaker 2: tried to ban Fox News and guess what, we all
Speaker 2: banned together in the White House at that time and said, no,
Speaker 2: they have a right to be there, and they backed off.
Speaker 2: The problem with this administration is that they don't respect that,
Speaker 2: and that they go after us individually and company wide
Speaker 2: for the very same things that we've done with every
Speaker 2: other president. And as I told his first press secretary,
Speaker 2: she said she accused us of fake news. I said, listen, man,
Speaker 2: they can turn the channel over, they can turn us off,
Speaker 2: they can put down the newspaper, but we've got you
Speaker 2: for forty years, so you need to answer our questions. That,
Speaker 2: to me, is is where I draw the line. I
Speaker 2: don't give a ship what you have to say. Just
Speaker 2: don't tell me I'm full of shit and rude for
Speaker 2: asking you the question, and we'll get along just famously.
Speaker 2: After after work we can go have a drink together
Speaker 2: if you want, you can cuss me out and call me,
Speaker 2: you know, just call me anything. Just don't call me
Speaker 2: late for dinner. But understand that I've got to be
Speaker 2: there to do the job. That's the job, and it's
Speaker 2: the for the betterment of our democracy that we do it. Now,
Speaker 2: do some reporters take it personally? Yes? Are some reporters
Speaker 2: ignorant without a doubt. That's we have problems in the
Speaker 2: in the fourth of State, huge problems, and that's because
Speaker 2: too few companies own the means of publication and they
Speaker 2: don't give a shit about the ideals. They care about
Speaker 2: making money. That's all they care about.
Speaker 1: And by making money, what they do is they decide
Speaker 1: that they're going to go and to play to only
Speaker 1: one side of them. So every time that's a specific,
Speaker 1: a specific right in there on the bucko chamber and right, people.
Speaker 2: Don't think critically, and they get and they they hear
Speaker 2: what they want to hear, and it's their reverbs in
Speaker 2: that echo chamber and they go see MSB Right, I
Speaker 2: heard it there, I heard it there, I heard it there,
Speaker 2: So yeah, you're right there, you know.
Speaker 1: Like for example, just even take like what took place
Speaker 1: in Iran during the bombing where that girls school was hit.
Speaker 1: There's one specific reporter I forget his name. Every single
Speaker 1: time he gets called it's the same thing. Did you
Speaker 1: intentionally strike a building killing over one hundred young females,
Speaker 1: young girls who are attending school, and so there comes
Speaker 1: a point in time where you're not providing a benefit,
Speaker 1: you're not providing a service, you're not providing truth.
Speaker 2: That's a great issue to break down the problems on
Speaker 2: both sides. First of all, that's this wrong question to ask.
Speaker 2: To ask it is the question to ask that I
Speaker 2: would ask. Is the Pentagon our sources and the Pentagon
Speaker 2: independent h You know, investigators have said, look, this was
Speaker 2: obviously a mistake. It was a targeting error brought about
Speaker 2: by aging, by an aging computer who had old target
Speaker 2: data and that used to be a legitimate target. Why so,
Speaker 2: that's how you should ask that question. We understand has it?
Speaker 2: My question is have you upgraded the software since then
Speaker 2: so that doesn't happen?
Speaker 1: Well, by the way, that's not necessarily on accurity from then,
Speaker 1: I understand. But that's but the one thing that we
Speaker 1: also know, Brian, is that the IRGC they placed themselves
Speaker 1: in locations in order to prevent these type of attacks
Speaker 1: by putting themselves right next to hospitals, right next to
Speaker 1: schools in case.
Speaker 2: But I don't think that was the problem in this case.
Speaker 2: This case, it was a legitimate it was just look, man,
Speaker 2: it's a sad situation. Yes, it is bad situation, and
Speaker 2: innocent people died. But here's the thing that no politician
Speaker 2: ever seems to under stand. And this goes back to Nixon.
Speaker 2: What if Nixon had just said, when they invade, you know,
Speaker 2: when they rated water, he goes, yeah, we fucked up.
Speaker 2: That shouldn't have happened. Then then I it was the
Speaker 2: cover up that caused the problem in this case. If
Speaker 2: they had just said, we you know, you might be right,
Speaker 2: it could be a targeting error. And so we're gonna here,
Speaker 2: We're gonna look at it and make sure it doesn't
Speaker 2: happen again.
Speaker 1: You may be right, you.
Speaker 2: May be crazy. It just may be a lunatic you're
Speaker 2: looking for. But but that's that's these things get the
Speaker 2: way they get because backs are up on both sides.
Speaker 2: Now I'm not I'm not a diplomat, No.
Speaker 1: Diplomat.
Speaker 2: I'm hardly a diplomat.
Speaker 1: What has two thumbs? What has two thumbs? And is
Speaker 1: not a diplomat? This guy, now.
Speaker 2: You're what was the Dick van Dyke episode. Never lose
Speaker 2: your sense of humor or your thumbs. So so I
Speaker 2: this is a problem. But The greater problem for the
Speaker 2: public is when politicians won't admit that they could in
Speaker 2: any way be responsible for the bad things. So my
Speaker 2: advice to and this is, look, man, I'm running into
Speaker 2: this because there are younger people working on campaign staffs
Speaker 2: and are running. One of the biggest things that politicians
Speaker 2: do that's wrong, that works against their best interest is
Speaker 2: hiring people on the press staff who have absolutely no experience.
Speaker 2: The senior members of your cabinet, the senior members of
Speaker 2: your and this is for a president, for a VP,
Speaker 2: for a congressman. I could talk to you about a
Speaker 2: center race in Texas where I've seen this. You're some
Speaker 2: of your senior people that help you out should be
Speaker 2: people who have experience in the press, because those people
Speaker 2: can advise you better how to communicate. Communication is usually
Speaker 2: the last thing they worry about. They're worrying about getting
Speaker 2: the money, they're worried about getting someone who can give
Speaker 2: them advice on how to address issues policy, but they
Speaker 2: always leave communication last. And that, to me, Michael, is
Speaker 2: the biggest problem in politics. Get some people who know
Speaker 2: what the fuck they're doing to talk to other people
Speaker 2: so they can sit there and talk to their to
Speaker 2: the president, or to the Vice president, or to the congressman,
Speaker 2: or to the city council and say, look, this is
Speaker 2: how it's going to play. You need to grow up,
Speaker 2: put your big boy pants on and go out there.
Speaker 2: Do you realize how people are sore and aching for
Speaker 2: it on both sides of the aisle for people to
Speaker 2: just say, look, I'm a politician, fucked up. I mean,
Speaker 2: go back to what was an animal house. Hey, you
Speaker 2: fucked up. You trusted us, but maybe we can make
Speaker 2: it better.
Speaker 1: Brian Karen white House correspond to Bryant. Appreciate you join
Speaker 1: me on when you know you know unleashed. Appreciate my
Speaker 1: I will have you back, especially onto the show. Appreciate
Speaker 1: you again, and I'll see you very very soon.
Speaker 2: Hey Michael, it's always a pleasure, even if I don't
Speaker 2: even if I disagree with you, you know I love
Speaker 2: you
Speaker 1: So game men to that vice versa, I'll see you soon, pal,