Using my freedom of speech
"Without debate, without criticism, no administration and no country can succeed—and no republic can survive."
— John F. Kennedy
If you haven’t figured this out yet, this Substack is more than about retirement itself. It’s about the type of stuff that people like me have time to think about after they’ve retired.
Without the distractions present when I was younger, I am growing to understand how democracies can die. Life can get super busy with work and family. We can choose not to engage with those that don’t agree and retreat to our own bubbles. It’s easier.
It’s also how we get divided. Today, I will write about freedom of press. It’s not a Democrat or Republican issue. Both sides generally agree on the concept, but we can all differ on the specifics. For this, I’ll do my best to try to aggregate both sides.
The current news relates to this past Sunday’s airing of 60 Minutes of episodes covering both Ukraine and Greenland. After they aired, Trump posted on social media a call for the FCC to revoke CBS’s broadcast license.
While the FCC hasn’t acted on this particular episode (yet), the FCC does have an open inquiry for “news distortion” related to a 60 Minutes Kamala Harris interview, reopening Trump’s previously dismissed complaint after Trump took office. This move has been criticized openly by the former FCC commissioners.
“As former Commissioners, we are deeply concerned about these departures from the Commission’s historical practice, particularly when they are viewed in context. This Administration has made no secret of its desire to revoke the licenses of broadcasters that cover it in ways the President considers unfavorable. And the Administration has also decreed that the Commission and other historically independent agencies will now operate directly under the President’s “supervision and control.”
By reopening this complaint, the Commission is signaling to broadcasters that it will indeed act at the behest of the White House by closely scrutinizing the content of news coverage and threatening the regulatory licenses of broadcasters whose news outlets produce coverage that does not pass muster in the President’s view. We recommend the Commission reverse course, closing this proceeding without further action and reaffirming its long-held commitment to acting as an independent agency rather than the White House’s personal censor.”
— Comments of former commissioners Rachelle B. Chong, Ervin S. Duggan, Alfred C. Sies, Gloria Tristani, and Tom Wheeler filed with the FCC
This bogus inquiry remains open. Apparently, CBS parent Paramount Global and Trump have picked a mediator to settle the case. Complicating this issue is an impending acquisition of CBS parent Paramount Global by Skydance Media, founded by David Ellison, who was recently seen at a UFC event with Trump. David Ellison is son of billionaire Larry Ellison, a well known Trump supporter. Shari Redstone, the current chairperson of Paramount Global seeks to gain approximately $350M from a successful acquisition and has greenlighted the mediation with Trump to expedite it.
As such, this business of harassing the press is also profitable for a set of billionaires and reeks of authoritarianism. Still, to not sound like a conspiracy theorist, I wanted to also view the pieces in question firsthand.
On the Kamala Harris interview
Disputing the underlying Trump complaint about the Kamala Harris interview doesn’t happen to be a Democrat versus Republican issue along traditional party lines. Advocacy groups on both sides generally promote free speech and have come together to take the side of CBS.
In this moment of fierce political division, few issues have the power to unite Americans and institutions from the left, right and center. One of them appears to be CBS and the pressure it is facing from the Federal Communications Commission over the “60 Minutes” interview broadcast last fall with Vice President Kamala Harris.
The ACLU, the United Church of Christ, TechFreedom, People Power United, Common Cause and the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression have all lined up against the commission’s politically motivated probe of editorial decisions made by “60 Minutes.”
— Variety
All that said, I did watch the edited 60 Minutes interview of Kamala Harris here (20 minutes long, with segments also featuring Liz Cheney and Tim Walz):
And I watched the unedited version (57 minutes long with just the Kamala Harris segment):
I agree with the basic analysis by the former FCC chiefs that 60 Minutes did a fair job of editing this material for time. I’ve been the subject of editing myself in podcasts and video interviews to get rid of filler words, tangents, and uninteresting segments. I am familiar with this process.
Overall, I think interviewer Bill Whitaker did a good job of interviewing Kamala Harris, and the editing captured the salient points. The questions were in general fair and should have been ones that Kamala Harris should have been prepared for. I believe that his interview highlighted the lack of clear answers from Kamala Harris on the questions about her plans to lower consumer prices, how to fund the budget increases, and why the administration didn’t act sooner on immigration.
While she did provide answers to other questions, Kamala Harris could have used a bit more polish on others. One example was a question about why her positions changed over time. She did explain that these policy positions shifted because of her desire to build consensus among a larger constituency as she transitioned from the role representing a single state to the entire country, as well as her voting record as a supporting tie-breaker in the Senate on contentious issues she previously opposed. Still, the answer wasn’t that crisp.
She also could have used some better polish to respond to why Trump has the support of minorities, even with all of his racist rhetoric. This same criticism regarding the lack of a cogent answer to this question could be made of the Democratic party in general.
At the same time, I also understood the comments from Trump supporters that the level of editing used in this interview did change much of what the average person would see in a candidate. Whether we like it or not, we judge our Presidential candidates based on their ability to speak extemporaneously. There’s a performance aspect to the modern presidency. A YouGov poll found that 93% percent of Americans think public speaking ability is at least somewhat important as Presidential quality (54% as “Very important” and 39% as “Somewhat important.”)
The impact of public speaking ability is more pronounced among minorities. Where only 51% of Whites view public speaking ability as “Very Important,” Black respondents poll at 65% and Hispanic respondents poll at 61%.
After having watched the unedited 60 Minutes footage, it seems likely to me that Kamala Harris likely wouldn’t have done that well in an open interview format on independent media podcasts or YouTube. I believe that her lack of participation in those forums likely reinforces that assumption, and I don’t think it was necessary for CBS News to subject viewers to an hour-long video to convey that.
I can sympathize with some dissatisfaction by Trump voters about the editing that might have made Kamala Harris seem more articulate. Still, I don’t believe that the CBS coverage violated any laws or even the spirit of news coverage in any way. I believe it allowed her to express her positions as a candidate, while still exposing weaknesses.
On the Ukraine Episode
There have been no legal arguments made by Trump on the 60 Minutes coverage of Ukraine this week. I believe the objections from Trump are also stylistic in nature, rather than in fact or in law. The episode centered around an interview with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky.
The interview was at the site of an April 4th attack by Russia and detailed the ongoing attacks by Russia on Ukrainian civilians during supposed partial cease-fire agreements. Zelensky made a plea to Trump to see the devastation in-person to understand that Russia couldn’t be trusted in the current dealings.
Zelensky made the following statement:
“You can't look for something in the middle. There is an aggressor and there is a victim. The Russians are the aggressor, and we are the victim.”
— Volodymyr Zelensky in 60 Minutes interview
The piece did cover some of Trump's (incorrect) positions. For example, Trump blamed Zelensky for starting the war. He has also called Zelensky a “dictator without elections.” Zelensky didn’t respond to these arguments and merely asserted that Trump has adopted Russian narratives and that Zelensky didn’t want to “engage in the altered reality that is being presented to me.”
One criticism that could be made about the 60 Minutes piece is that it didn’t do everything to arm its viewers to combat the Trump and Russian narratives on this. Outside the 60 Minutes piece, BBC did a good job reinforcing the narrative with fact-checking in a piece titled “Fact-checking Trump Claims about war in Ukraine.”
The net here is:
It is true that Zelensky’s Presidential term should have expired, but observers generally agree that Zelensky is widely accepted as the leader, and holding elections in the middle of the war would not be practical.
It is well documented that Russia invaded Ukraine. It’s hard to see where Trump and JD Vance are coming from here in trying to indicate that Ukraine started the war.
Overall, I do not see a problem with the coverage of the 60 Minutes piece. While there is a legitimate debate not covered in the piece about how much aid the US should be providing other countries to protect their sovereignty, there is not an issue with a news station reporting on the suffering in another country and to interview its leader.
On the Greenland episode
Again, Trump did not compose a legal or even factual argument against the 60 Minutes piece on Greenland. I watched this one, too.
For background, Trump has suggested in the past possible use of military force to gain control of Greenland. The 60 Minutes piece featured interviews and images of the people of Greenland who opposed Trump’s positions.
A recent poll showed that only 6% of the Greenland population favors US control.
To address the US interest in Greenland, there were basically two counterpoints:
Regarding military importance, the US already has bases on Greenland, and there is no evidence of any potential objection should the US choose to expand this presence. Giving up sovereignty wouldn’t be necessary, as both Denmark and the United States are allies.
Regarding resource availability, the point was made that the resources may not be economically viable to extract right now anyway.
Again, I did not see a problem with this piece other than it disagreed with Trump.
Overall, Trump’s reaction was simply an attempt to harass the media. We should not accept this harassment of the media in our society that values freedom of press.
Part of a larger program to instill a “fake Democracy”
Last Thursday, Senator Chris Murphy gave a good speech on the Senate floor summing up our need for collective action against Trump’s programmatic dismantling of our nation’s institutions — the press, the universities, our lawyers, and the rest of our private sector.
In many ways, he sounds more like a history teacher than a politician. I would encourage all citizens (both Democrats and Republicans) to watch this summary. It puts into context the news items we are being bombarded with into a coherent view, starting with the attack on the press.
If you prefer to read, the full transcript is on his website.
If you have 20 minutes, I encourage you to watch this video.
Thank you for reading and for allowing me to exercise my own right to free speech! I want to emphasize that my aim here isn’t to be either Democrat or Republican here, but to represent values common to all Americans.
How did I do?
Thanks for reading this particular piece on politics. As mentioned earlier, I’m going to be reducing the frequency of my posts as I regroup on what this Substack is about. I’m also considering replacing or augmenting some of the pieces with a podcast, too. Marsha and I will be going on vacation for a week, and I’ll post more when I return!
"If you haven’t figured this out yet, this Substack is more than about retirement itself. It’s about the type of stuff that people like me have time to think about after they’ve retired." - This is so true about retirement. I love having the time to think about things I would not have had time to think about while working, as I would have been too busy thinking about things related to work. At the moment, I am thinking about what constitutes "biological sex" and "biological woman". The reason? Yesterday, the UK Supreme Court ruled that 'the term "woman" is used in the Equality Act it means a biological woman, and "sex" means biological sex.' As a retired biomedical scientist, I am struggling to define what "biological woman" and "biological sex" mean. Some argue that if you are born with two XX chromosomes, you are a woman, and a XY, a man. But, what about people who are XXY (Klinefelter syndrome, present as a male)? The person has two X chromosomes and also an XY. Or XYY (Jacobs syndrome), again male but without two Xs. Or XXX. Plus, you can get situations where some cells in the body are XX (female) and some male (XY). It happens. And, some cells lose their Y chromosome and end up with just an X. Moving away from chromosomes, some people with XY (male) appear as female (Swyer syndrome). Some people born XX, present as male and not female. These issues are typically due to faulty signals in development. It's all very confusing. Anyway, sorry Stephen for clogging your comments with this....