Transcription
Who is Karen and what has happened to her and why is it indicative of rather bigger issues, Simon?
>> Well, James, she has been up until yesterday one of the most prominent figures uh on the Washington journalism scene. Uh the global opinions editor for the Washington Post. Uh she in fact founded the global opinions page uh under the tutilage of the late Fred Hyatt uh a highly respected journalist in Washington uh who headed the entire opinion section for the Washington Post. All of that, of course, was before Jeff Bezos uh and the CEO of the Washington Post, Sir Will Lewis, a Brit of course with a long and controversial track record on Fleet Street, uh decided essentially to bend the knee before Donald Trump. And so Karen Ataya was yesterday fired, summarily dismissed by the Washington Post. They say for a series of social media postings, many of which in which uh in many of which uh she contrasted the treatment of white Americans with black Americans in the United States. She herself uh is a black American. Uh and uh they now say that some of those historic social media messages uh breached uh the guidelines of the Washington Post. But they've also gone after her over some of her postings regarding uh the death of Charlie Kirk. She has become one of several uh standardbearers that are now essentially being cancelled by their employers who are coming under pressure from the Trump administration uh to brookke not just no celebration uh of Charlie Kirk's assassination uh but specifically any criticism of Charlie Kirk also is now leading to this this crowd uh sourced effort uh to oust employees uh from their uh places of work all over the country. And we're seeing uh thousands of people now uh falling victim to an effort by a political party that in the past has always insisted that cancel culture is a terrible thing, but now they're absolutely embracing it with a blunderb. Um, so cancel culture is real, but it is essentially being undertaken on an extraordinary scale by people who well either exaggerated or or or completely lied about its real um purpose and introduction by people they perceive as the political enemy. How mild a criticism might jeopardize your job? How mild a criticism of the late Charlie Kirk might jeopardize your job in Donald Trump's America?
>> Well, the difficulty with all of this is it depends on your definitions, right? It depends depends on your definition of mild. It depends on your definition of celebrate. It depends on your definition of civility. Let's start by taking a listen to what Vice President JD Vance had to say yesterday. He was hosting the Charlie Kirk show from the White House, a special uh edition of the uh webcast that the late conservative activist used to host on a daily basis. and he absolutely encouraged Charlie Kirk's admirers, followers, and Republicans all over the country to engage in acts of cancel culture. Take a listen. There is no unity with people who scream at children over their parents' politics. There is no unity with someone who lies about what Charlie Kirk said in order to excuse his murder. Now, we can obviously interrogate the argument that JD Vance advances that the Trump administration believes in civility because there are numerous examples available to us to demonstrate that in fact that is not the case. But let's look at concrete examples of people that have been uh that are coming under enormous pressure. Uh Elizabeth Spears is a writer for The Nation magazine. Members of Congress are now threatening uh to strip the Ford Foundation, which funds The Nation magazine in part, of all of its federal funding. Uh because Miss Spears uh authored an article headlined Charlie Kirk's legacy deserves no mourning. Note the careful use of the wording there. And she actually she Exactly. And she actually argues in the uh in the article that there is no requirement to take part in the whitewashing campaign of Charlie Kirk's legacy and refusing to join in doesn't make anyone a bad person. Uh we have seen other figures that have been uh facing termination of their employment. Uh the Mayo Clinic, the revered Mayo Clinic, one of the world's leading medical uh institutions and of course research facilities, is uh being threatened with cuts in all federal funding by members of Congress uh because one employee of this vast health care system on social media responded to the appearance over the weekend by Charlie Kirk's uh widow uh when she uh first marked uh the death of her husband, I think on uh Thursday, it was of last week, >> uh by putting a message on X describing her appearance as uh receiving the Academy Award nomination for best actress in a faux Christian role. Now, you may completely disagree with that. You may argue that it was deeply insensitive. uh but the notion that that rises to the level of necessarily celebrating Charlie Kirk's assassination and even by the way there is no evidence to produce that to show that celebrating Charlie Kirk's assassination appalling though that obviously would be when it occurs that may still be protected by America's first amendment the constitutional protection of free speech in this country and many of these cases where people are being fired or being threatened with their jobs are going to end up in the courts. And you've got top corporations here and institutions caving to this sort of political pressure that is on them being led from the White House knowing that at the end of the day they may end up paying out hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages to the people that are being fired. But they would sooner do that than incur the wroth of the Trump administration.
>> Well, we've got reports here of a of a teacher in Staffordshire being under investigation as well. Although I I'll look a little deeper into that when I finish talking to you. And when I do talk to you, Simon, it increasingly occurs to me that every conversation we have needs to be contextualized by the last 10 conversations that we've had because a lot of what Donald Trump and his allies are undertaking is only possible because of the erosion of of norms and the erosion of um you know traditional protections and checks and balances. You wouldn't be able to essentially um spout the sort of nonsense that JD Van spouted during Donald Trump's first term. Even after the assassination of a of an ally of of somebody like Charlie Kirk, it is a fear among your profession. The New York Times now being sued for 15 billion dollars, which as we would both know is designed to frighten them when they are minded to tell the truth. There's no prospect of any liel settlement going the president's way. But the the the bit I don't get and never get and need context for is is how they get away with it. So, I find myself thinking of Alex Jones, uh, a man who responded famously, infamously to a school massacre, um, by claiming that it wasn't true by by accusing the survivors and the parents of dead children of being liars. And he remains very much persona grata among Donald Trump's closest allies. So the the the blatancy, let alone the transparency of the hypocrisy, the lies, and the double standards in play here are so huge that I don't quite understand how people can not see them.
>> Well, it's also worth underscoring that long after Alex Jones started spouting those falsehoods uh about that elementary school massacre in Connecticut, Donald Trump was still a regular uh guest on Alex Jones So Nigel Farrell, so was Nigel Farard, actually.
>> So So this sudden found uh discovery that civility in public life is something that zealously needs to be protected. Uh I I mean, if the Trump administration is truly serious about that, that will represent to some extent a 180 degree reversal of where Donald Trump has been throughout the course of his presidency. If you think back to his first term uh addressing a rally uh in which he mocked openly a disabled reporter uh with the New York Times, of course, the newspaper that he is now suddenly this morning suing for defamation. But they're taking this to a new uh extent. The transportation secretary Shan Duffy uh announced over the weekend that American Airlines and Delta Airlines had fired some employees for what he claimed was celebrating Charlie Kirk's killing. And he then said any company responsible for the safety of the traveling public cannot tolerate that behavior. So there is suddenly now a bar in place for airline pilots and uh flight attendants and other airline employees that are actively involved in conveying the public on on aircraft. Uh there's there's basically a question in place that links their ability to perform their jobs to their behavior on social media and what they may or may not have said about Charlie Kirk. What they're trying to do at the White House is use this to uh absolutely encourage their supporters to get outraged over things that are taking place in the days since Charlie Kirk's murder. Uh using it, by the way, to fund raise and hoping that this is going to create a tidal wave of fury and therefore support for the Republicans that will boost their opportunities in the midterm elections in November of next year. JD Vance has been absolutely open about this and has said one of the ways in which you can honor Charlie's legacy is to make sure that this fuels the Republican party's victory uh in November 2026 at a time when on that Charlie Kirk show again that he was hosting yesterday, the vice president allowed the White House deputy chief of staff Steven Miller uh again to give voice to his threat to send people who have breached these very opaque unclear guidelines uh rather than laws that the Trump administration is trying to enforce on social media. He's talking about sending them into exile, American citizens, exiling them from the United States. uh this is now an outofcontrol series of conversations that are taking place here.
>> and and at the heart of it of course remains the simple fact that you would not be honoring his legacy by telling people what he said and stood for that that is now that is an offense now.
>> that is exactly the point and people are being chased uh as a result of this crowdsourced effort to shame uh critics of Charlie Kirk. Their employers are being chased to get rid of them in many cases simply for quoting what Charlie Kirk had to say. There's an army colonel uh who uh has been fired by the Pentagon, man by the name of Scott Stevens for taking to social media and writing this. The death of Charlie Kirk in Utah was tragic. However, we can take comfort in the fact that Charlie was doing what he loved best, spreading hate, racism, homophobia, misogyny, and transphobia on college campuses. For that, this colonel in the American army was fired. Uh there are other people in various positions of employment who are being gone after because they have directly quoted from Charlie Kirk and and the program you did last week in which you simply read Charlie Kirk's own words.
>> No, I played them out. I didn't I didn't even read them. I played them out. I can forgive you for not listening. You'd have still been in bed, but I used actual tapes rather than rather than my voice. It was his voice. People have had quite enough of my voice.
>> but that has caused a bit of a rumpus online as well, apparently. Um I
>> well that would have caused a huge rumpus here.
>> I've got the phrase criminalizing criticism forming in my mind. They are trying to criminalize criticism.
>> Yes.
>> this is really
>> I think that's exactly what they are trying to do and that is what they are threatening to do and they're not even necessarily threatening to take legislative action to uh put new laws into place because they never have any interest particularly in passing laws in Congress. All of this is going to be promulgated by executive order, including, by the way, an executive order that preceded Charlie Kirk's assassination. The president of the United States a couple of weeks ago uh announced that burning the American flag was henceforward to be considered criminal behavior and prosecuted to the full extent of the law which is very problematic because the Supreme Court has already previously ruled that burning the American flag is an example of protected free speech in the United States. So they're simply trying to ride roughshod even over Supreme Court.