The President of Brazil was at the United Nations last week to tell world leaders to let Julian Assange go free, arguing that it is essential to freedom of the press around the globe. Mike Papantonio & Farron Cousins discuss more.
Transcript:
*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.
Mike Papantonio: The president of Brazil was at the United Nations last week to tell world leaders to let Julian Assange go free, arguing that it’s essential to freedom of the press around the globe. We’ve been saying they need to let this guy go for a long time, haven’t we?
Farron Cousins: We really have. It’s such a disturbing story too, especially with everything that they’ve tried against Assange, the oh, we think you’ve sexually assaulted somebody. We’re gonna look.
Mike Papantonio: It was a lie.
Farron Cousins: Yeah. It was a complete fabrication. And at that time, I was like, okay, let’s see where the investigation goes. These are serious allegations. And it turns out it was a total farce. And at this point, he’s basically been in prison for the last 13 years, unable to go anywhere. Unable to travel. And what was the crime that he committed here? Oh, well, he exposed a ton of war crimes from the United States government. I mean, we cannot lock a man up for that. I don’t care what your personal opinions are of this guy. What he exposed through those WikiLeaks cables was criminal activity by the US government.
Mike Papantonio: Why is it that progressives hate this guy so much? I mean, let’s think about what he did. He exposed the fact that corporate, international corporate is in charge of policy around the world, influence in the United States. He talked about the fact that we were torturing prisoners illegally. He talked about the fact that the government is spying on us. He talked about the fact that the folks at top of government typically are not running government. That’s what all this showed. And all he did was released it. And then how about the people who printed it? How about the New York Times? How about The Guardian? They printed it. They’re the ones that put it out there. Why aren’t they in prison too? So what you.
Farron Cousins: I mean, out there winning Pulitzers
Mike Papantonio: They’re winning on his work.
Farron Cousins: Yeah.
Mike Papantonio: They’re winning. This guy is being targeted as a criminal and they’re making, they’re actually getting, as you point out, Pulitzers on his work. And so, as you look at this, you can’t help but think, what if we had had such a regressive government and what if we had had such a regressive press? Now part of it is the press too. When we had the Pentagon Papers, Daniel Ellsberg, when he uncovered the Pentagon Papers, that led to a lot of things, including Watergate. We got rid of Richard Nixon. We found out an ugly, ugly backstory that was going on at the very top of government. But we didn’t put him in prison. And the press didn’t treat him like a criminal. What has changed about progressives? Maybe you could, I mean, you are always defending progressives. What is it that’s changed?
Farron Cousins: With the Assange story, everything changed. Because the progressives, the liberals, Democrats, they loved Assange prior to the 2016 presidential election. When they released the DNC emails, at that point, it flipped. Okay. Now Democrats hate Assange because he exposed all this crap within the DNC and the Republicans loved him, but the.
Mike Papantonio: It was DNC. That’s the point. That’s the point you’re making. Okay. Now, I don’t care if it’s DNC or GOP, I, as you know, I am indifferent. I am as about as neutral on those party issues as I can get. But I do look at this story and go, what the hell? What are progressives thinking, thinking that Assange is some kind of criminal? You realize nobody has disputed a word he said, do you realize that? Nobody has said none of this is true. Not one word saying none of this is true. It is that you put it out there, we didn’t like it and the military, the Pentagon’s mad. World leaders are mad about you. And so now, fortunately, Australia, Prime Minister in Australia and Brazil, they’re coming to his aid. Because they think this is the most asinine thing we’ve ever seen. But still, when we do this story, you will have some jerk waters say, oh, I hate Assange. I don’t understand it. Can you help me with it? I mean, seriously. Can you help me understand that?
Farron Cousins: It all just goes back to that, the hack of the DNC. But at the same time, like I said, it doesn’t matter what your personal opinions are of Assange, you may not like it. This guy through Chelsea Manning, who leaked the information to him, showed how we were killing civilians, killing reporters, American reporters.
Mike Papantonio: Right. Trying to kill Seymour Hersh, they tried to kill Seymour Hersh all the way we found that out in the Frank Church hearings. And now Seymour Hersh was a target again.
Farron Cousins: Yeah. And so all of these things that he exposed were criminal in nature by the US government. If you’re gonna be angry about some, at somebody about this story, it needs to be directed at the government, not at him.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah. Because, and it’s all, and you think it’s all because he disclosed some things that hurt the DNC?
Farron Cousins: That is when the flip happened. He was a hero. He was on Free Speech TV all the time prior to that.
Mike Papantonio: God oh mighty. Yeah. Well, of course he was. And I mean, he was, he told the truth for God’s sakes. But you got that snowflake mentality out there. It’s, I call it the headline mentality. It’s a Democratic, Republicans do the same thing. What’s the headline of the day? That’s all I’m gonna think about. That’s all I’m gonna talk about. What is the headline of the day? Well, the GOP says I ought to talk about this. So that’s what I’m gonna talk about. The DNC says I ought to talk about this. So that’s what I’m. And it just lulls people into just sheer stupidity. And this is an example in the Assange case right here.