The Former Presidency of Donald J. Trump, Volume XII: Nevertheless, NFTs!

I heard the theory was they don’t want to subpoena him because he will hide behind his label as a “journalist” to refuse cooperation. He won’t cooperate voluntarily either, but they wanted his statements to come out on the record. I don’t know whether he opens himself up to problems if he makes any public comments about the texts attributed to him.

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IANAL so I don’t know exactly how this works, but hasn’t Tucker Carlson argued in court that his show is “entertainment” and not “news” so he uses that to dodge liabilities for what he spews? I wasn’t sure if Hannity has done similar. Anyway a court will probably figure it out in 24-36 months.

Yes. I believe I heard Hannity has said in the past that he was not a “journalist”, so the term would be used very loosely at best, but he could still use it I assume. And no real “journalist” would be this chummy with the White House to the degree that he appears to be an advisor to the Trump White House.

this is great. you know trmp can’t stick to a script if his life depended on it. he might break up with sean if more texts come out. remember he dumped bibi for viktor. would be amazing show-running.

The GOP’s full embrace of Orban, especially Tucker Carlson’s fawning interview with him, is beyond a disgrace and hardly gets covered. Orban is exactly the type of leader Tucker wants in the US, because Tucker is a white supremacist and craven nationalist.

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Shameful, but these days I feel like I just made that word up

Let’s just give the professional AM radio bullshitter a hot mic for an hour, I see no way that’s going to blow up in Congress’s face.

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no rational person would believe what is being stated is factual “cannot be unstood to have been stating facts”. i believe was the claim that hannity, tucker, and let’s not forget maddow, have made to avoid liability.

but that certainly wouldn’t preclude them from claiming journalist when it suits them.

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Not necessarily anything nefarious about it, like that describes hyperbole, sarcasm, and satire, which are obviously rhetorical devices that any of those sorts of shows should be allowed to engage in without the threat of a defamation judgement.

the nefarious part comes from all of them attempting to look as if they are actual news while fearmongering to generate revenue.

i feel your statement is akin to saying there is nothing nefarious about fake hyperlinks containing computer viruses because they are just engaging in being similar to the real links in order to generate revenue.

I know this genre is played out, but this is really good.

https://twitter.com/thedailyshow/status/1478729246034038786?s=21

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I’m just saying that that defense could and would be used if the speech actually was meant at the time to be hyperbolic or satirical or whatever. I’m not familiar with the actual cases and haven’t seen the segments in question or read the briefs and I suspect that a vanishingly small fraction of the people referring to “Carlson/Maddow/Hannity ADMITTING to being FAKE NEWS” have either.

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Entertainers aren’t magically immune from liability. I mostly don’t think any of these guys say things that would rise to the level of exposing them to a lawsuit. Or if they do they have enough money to pay their way out of trouble.

See also:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/thehill.com/homenews/media/516419-sean-hannity-and-lou-dobbs-to-be-deposed-in-seth-rich-lawsuit-report%3Famp

When I yelled “Fire!” in that crowded movie theater, I was clearly being hyperbolic.

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If someone took you seriously well that’s their fault.

Yes, brilliant idea.

https://twitter.com/houseinsession/status/1478515409670348804?s=21

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That’s…not going to go how they think it will.

This is how you know it’s a bad idea

https://mobile.twitter.com/JRubinBlogger/status/1478558773732122625

https://mobile.twitter.com/PreetBharara/status/1478558159367249922

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