Episode 4 - The Privatization of Foreign Policy

Good afternoon. It's Friday, March 6th. Welcome to True Journalism. We're 6 days into the invasion of Iran, and the imagery being fed to the public is a masterpiece of curation. You see the smart bombs and the high-definition maps, but you don't see the 6 American service members who we've already lost. The administration calls this Operation Epic Fury. But the one thing, the only epic thing about it really is the effort to keep the human cost off the front page. Tom?

Yesterday we saw Press Secretary Caroline Levitt openly berate CNN's Kaitlan Collins in the White House Press Office for simply asking why the White House is suppressing coverage of our fallen troops. When the government tells the press that reporting on casualties makes the president look bad, They aren't protecting the mission. They're protecting a brand. Today we look at how the secretaries of war have replaced secretaries of defense. I'm Tom Martin, and this is True Journalism.

All right. Welcome, everyone. So, yeah, an interesting kind of spin. And we— our background, of course, is harkening back to the 1970s and '80s when true journalism was investigative reporting. Investigative reporters, particularly when they're reporting on a war. And we all know, those of us who are old and toothed remember the Vietnam War in our living rooms every day. Lots of pictures and lots of actual depictions, because pictures don't lie, as they say. But we're seeing obviously decades and decades later how the way this war is playing out, that the press has a much different role. And the way that the government, I think, is trying to control the narrative isn't probably new, right? I think LBJ, Lyndon Baines Johnson, was trying to control the narrative.

Well, I was just thinking back, Richard, I was just thinking back, I've mentioned this longtime friend of my family before, but Van Gordon Sauter, who was president of CBS News in the early 1980s when Dan Rather took over from Walter Cronkite, a big milestone that was, I remember one day his Picture was on the front page of the New York Times where he was arriving at the Supreme Court because General Westmoreland had charged him of damaging his reputation because General Westmoreland really wanted the news media to report the facts as we give them to you. It was a controversial thing back in those days in the early 1970s, I guess it was. And that went all the way to the Supreme Court. And now a number of defense reporters and producers and correspondents who I know, one who just resigned from CBS News a couple of days ago because she didn't want to be told what agenda to push. I'm sure you, I'm sure you noticed a couple of months ago when they said, those of you, those journalists there in the Pentagon, you're not going to have full access the way you used to. We're going to, we're going to tell you what to report unless you're pro-MAGA, and then you'll have more latitude.

And we've seen journalists obviously been excluded from the White House and the And even the access to ask questions has been restricted by Carolyn Levitt and others. And the way they characterize reporting on deaths of American servicemen as disingenuous and anti-American spin, I just think is horrible. In the past, we know that in the '60s and '70s, the press was pretty much there for the purposes of forwarding the administration's message. But we all know that coming out of the '70s and Nixon Watergate, that kind of turned the press into now more of an ombudsman role, that they weren't just there to report what the administration or whatever administration was serving up. And we've seen— we're obviously— and again, this is not unique to the current administration. It's just, I think, more pronounced because they're not only trying to control the narrative, They're doing it by browbeating reporters. You mentioned Secretary— Press Secretary Levitt, her exchange with Kaitlan Collins has been persistently just combustible, to say the least, and accusing CNN across the board of furthering an anti-Trump message. But further to her original comment, the reporting makes the president look bad, which to a journalist is, we don't make the president look bad. We report the facts. If the facts make the president look bad, too bad. He should modify his behavior and his actions. If he, all he's worried about is looking bad.

And I've heard a number of former generals interviewed and they are in recent days on the situation in Iran. And they're always very forthright. Let me take a moment to pay my respects to the families of the military who was killed in, in defending our country, serving our nation. And it's not, it's, I don't find that disrespectful or damaging to the president. It's inappropriate.

His, right. And we know that his responses to those losses are similar to what Charlie Kirk would say about the protection of the Second Amendment, that Unfortunately, school shootings are collateral damage, and that's the position that President Trump has taken in this whole process. And I don't think he recognizes that these are the people in the military give their lives to service, to protect America, to protect our way of life. That's just, that just really doesn't represent, I think, what is a reaction that they should be receiving. But to continue on this whole spin, Secretary Hegseth says the Pentagon is the most transparent in history on one hand, while restricting access on the other hand. He's effectively evicted a lot of independent military reporters, replacing them with handpicked loyalists and escort-only rules that criminalize routine news gathering.

And I think on inauguration day, what, 13, 14 months ago, every member of the new administration got a box set of George Orwell, the collected edition of George Orwell.

I was hoping it was that and not a copy of Mein Kampf, which I know, which has, from what I understand, and I won't go there, has made its, made its way around the White House as well. And here, keeping on the topic of this, the spin on, on, on the news from the current scenario. And again, we have much to compare. Historically, because Nixon attempted to do the same thing during the Watergate trials. I am not a crook. And so forth. The White House maintains that the strike on Iran was preemptive when there doesn't seem to be any evidence of that. Not too dissimilar of the kind of information that the Bush administration was acting on when it went into Iraq originally. The weapons of mass destruction which never materialized and the UK intelligence actually refuted. So, you know, it wouldn't be the first time an administration invaded a country on disingenuous terms, if you want to call it that. But yeah, we have reports from all over the world that say Iran has been waiting for this for 20 years.

So they were prepared because since obviously the Iranian hostage crisis, When I hear that the Ayatollah and the regime in Iran have been calling for death to America for 46 years, and other sources say that there are still some deposits of enriched plutonium there in Iran, how accessible they are and how long it might take to create a long-range missile, I don't know. So I don't know that we had to go in on that particular day. But if I take this all seriously, even many leading Democrats said, I'm not shedding a tear for the Ayatollah. I'm sorry.

And certainly regime change has benefits for the people. One of the stories I want to touch on in a moment is the transformation really happening in Venezuela, which the administration, at least based on the recent meetings with Venezuela, is very positive. But I know you had a couple of things that you want to comment on The resignation of Mary Walsh, I think, was something that's not a household name.

Probably not that many people would even recognize her name. But when I was getting, again, I'd mentioned that era way back when I was getting my start at CBS News and I was working there at the CBS News Washington Bureau and I worked for 2 or 3 producers and they were just fairly new themselves. But one of them was a wonderful lady by the name of Mary Walsh. And she went on, again, I was thinking of the figures in the newsroom. I was still Folks, if you ever saw that movie with Holly Hunter and William Hurt.

Yes, Bronx News, James L. Brooks, huge fan of his.

That's right, the newsroom looked exactly like that. My friend Susan Zirinsky, the short, dark-haired White House producer, definitely a model for Holly Hunter and so on. So in the newsroom there, in addition to, uh, Les Klay Stahl and Bill Plante covering the White House and, uh, a number of Fred Graham covering justice and various other people who might not even remember these names at this point, but one, uh, was David Martin, no relation, who was covering the Pentagon, and he was new then, but he has seen it through, again, speaking of 46 years, about that length of time, 46, 50 years. And Mary Walsh is an intrepid defense reporter or producer working side by side with David Martin and going to all the hotspots on the globe during all of those years. And she belonged to some of these CBS alumni groups on Facebook and whatnot. And so One of the people I know shared Mary's letter to the staff there at CBS and said, never in my career have I been told what focus my reports are supposed to take. As you just said, Richard, we report the truth. We uncover the truth. We have an obligation to tell the truth, even if it's uncomfortable. When some positive things come out about Donald Trump, I have friends who give him this— opening a whole nother box here, but I have friends who give him a lot of credit for obtaining the release of the 20 Israeli hostages. I mean, not like Donald Trump, but okay, we're going to give him credit. Mary chose to resign and just said, I can't do this kind of work if we're now being told what our agenda is. I've never looked at my work this way.

And even, and she gave a, even a CBS Sunday Morning gave a nice video tribute. They completely left out the friction. Between Barry Weiss, the new editor-in-chief, and her to—

oversight. Sorry about that.

Classic move by a class person. But yeah, no, you, you mentioned acknowledging the president and what's happening in Venezuela, whether or not there are American oil interests, which we know there are, whether or not the American oil interests in Venezuela was a precursor to invading Iran because we had to hedge our bet over the impact of invading Iran and what that would mean to OPEC and the price of oil and so on and so forth. But I think that the one aspect of what did happen in Venezuela was where the administration got the Rodriguez, I think the incumbent president of Venezuela, to sign an act, an amnesty act that are releasing hundreds of people from prison who were held as political hostages. I have to give credit where credit is due. A cynical person could say the Trump administration needs some wins, particularly as they're getting bashed in the press and really by all sides, by people like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Tucker Carlson.

Trump administration shows to drop some baggage, shall we say. Does the name Kristi Noem mean anything to you?

Kristi Noem was fired not because she, there was questions about competency of her job. And if you really want to See the litany of those offenses, you just have to see the recent hearing, the congressional hearing where there was one congressman who for 5 minutes just lionized the litany of abuses that she was guilty of. She was fired because she was an embarrassment to the president. Because again, this administration takes actions, as you said at the top, based on branding, not based on accomplishments or whatnot. And soon Pam Bondi will probably reach that same threshold as well. And although I don't think Pam Bondi's actions are not as egregious as Kristi Noem's were, spending millions and hundreds of millions on planes, having an extramarital affair with a contractor who was essentially running her department, just things that the American taxpayers really need to have reported on, uh, Jamie Raskin is really took her apart in the recent congressional. And I listened to his 6-minute rant on that. And I know it was all fact-based because I'd heard it all before. And it was just, wow, how egregious can we get? But again, concluding the point on Venezuela, just personally so happy for where that seems to be headed. Obviously, the talks recently were characterized by our ambassador as extremely beneficial. And there is this, the remaining regime there, which had obviously cartel ties, is now singing a different tune. Maybe, maybe there were some accoutrements to them that you can still do economically without having to have cartel ties. I'm sure that was part of the equation there was to placate them. And now they're again, the Nobel Peace Prize winning Machado is returning next week, as soon as next week to begin what appears to be a process towards democratic elections. So a happy note for the administration, and it seems like they have the right people in place to pull it off. So you think she'll ask for her medal back? She'll get it back one way or the other, as we know. But, and again, it's, you can't transfer the medal. But ironically, if all goes according to plan and according to, to script as the way things are laid out, Perhaps Trump should get the Nobel Peace Prize in 2026 if he's able to deliver in Venezuela, which is a true democratic conversion. And kudos to him if he's able to pull it off regardless of what the rationale and things are.

Um, impressive about Venezuela. I understand the people that the FIFA Global Peace Initiative were a little pissed that about the Iran thing. It's like after they gave him the peace award, but that's okay.

We all know the reporting. The major issue that all of the formerly pro-MAGA or people that are, that have traditionally been pro-MAGA are continue to, I think, bombast the president on is that the many clippings of him not going to war. Trump persistently criticized Barack Obama 10, 12 years ago for inevitably invading Iran. That's been all over the news waves. And Trump probably doesn't always remember what he's actually said and constantly contradicts himself. And obviously there's a, there's a fact-checking element that shows his persistent lies. But no, he was the one that invaded Iran. But this time around, the press is also saying that America is just basically executing Netanyahu's agenda. There's 106 $200 million campaign contribution by a wealthy Israeli donor that was made and a promise to pay him an additional $200 million if he runs for a third term. So you could say there's some quid pro quo in there and that's just how business is done. It's just really, we invaded Iran as to accommodate the Israeli or Netanyahu's agenda. It's not really Israel's agenda necessarily. And as a quid pro quo for a campaign contribution, potentially. That's terrible. That kind of is rather questionable. This is the way things are. I know you had another, another item that you wanted to talk about as well, in addition to Mary Walsh. It's, it's interesting that this authoritarian friction really continues throughout the press corps. And it's only getting worse, obviously, as some of the conduct of the cabinet members and people like Kristi Noem and Pam Bondi, Kash Patel, and others are really being reported.

I'm embarrassed to admit that I can't remember if he's a senator or a congressman, but Senator Kennedy from Louisiana grilled Kristi Noem and said, did Donald Trump really, did the president really authorize this $200 million advertising campaign? That shows you on horseback in like a Hollywood film. And she said, oh yes, she did. Oh yes, she did. And it turns out that Senator Kennedy— and I like him, he's a little, little quirky, I kind of like him— uh, he spoke with the president before the hearings and said, I'm going to be bringing this up. And as soon as Kristi Noem vehemently and repeatedly said, oh yes, she authorized that, Trump— I think that might have been like the last straw Yeah.

Yeah. And again, consistent with if you embarrass the president, you're gone.

And yeah, I guess what that showed me was echoing on your point a little bit is that maybe some hardline right-wing senators and congresspeople are getting a little tired of some of these belligerent hearings, whether it's Pam Bondi or Kristi Noem. And it was like, excuse me, you have no right to ask that question. It's like, what? Excuse me? This is not how democracy works.

And when Kristi Noem was asked about whether or not she had sexual relations with her contractor boyfriend out of wedlock, she characterized that, and probably rightfully so, as tabloidal news. But she didn't make the connection as to why that was important, because we seem to have lost the aspect of the character and the credibility of our public servants. As being meaningful and also indicative of how well they do their job or what their values are, what their beliefs are, and how they should do their jobs. And I think reporting it from a factual standpoint, when you hear about what she did, spending hundreds of millions of dollars on planes and marketing campaigns, and then being very arrogant about how dare you question me. And then Kash Patel showing up in the locker room of the men's ice hockey team and clearly having liquor and doing things that you just shake your head. This is the FBI director who also, um, perjured himself in front of a congressional hearing. That, and those are all factual things. It's just, it's just, we're living in an era where you have news factions on both sides reporting this, but reporting it with such spin that satisfying the constituents on the left or the right, respectfully. Where is the fact that when these facts and these truths are recorded, you know, that they're properly measured? And I think that's the piece that's missing. I'm sure the left-wing press, that message is buried in their demagoguery and their persecutorial aspect of most of the MAGA leadership. Which doesn't help either.

Um, I find myself thinking about the Clintons, Hillary and Bill, and the recent testimony regarding the Jeffrey Epstein case. And should Hillary Clinton have been pulled in and quit? How do you feel about that, Hillary? And it's like, never met Jeffrey Epstein. Will we be subpoenaing Melania Trump next? And so on. But then again, in the case of Bill Clinton, I think some questions are reasonable to ask if, Yeah.

And I saw some of his testimony. He's quite a frail man, I guess now. So it was hard to hear him. And, yeah, he got a back rub. So what? From some young woman there. But I don't necessarily know what that means one way or the other. But Hillary Clinton's testimony was at times very combative. And she was going toe to toe with one of the congressional interviewers who persistently attacked her husband for his past misdeeds. And of course she's handled that and spoke about that as well. But yeah, these hearings are, are really about character assassination on, on either side. And that's not, and that's not journalism. The journalists are trying to report what those actions are, but it's, they're just doing what journalists today do and adding fuel to the fire rather than trying, I think, to focus on what's really going on here. What is the significance of this? I almost like to see— wonder how would Walter Cronkite be reporting those kinds of things? And I think you get more of a straight up—

well, that's another story. I can't resist throwing this. It's like many people listening to this may say, who really cares? However, for a number of years, I really enjoyed working as a producer for CBS Sunday Morning. That's produced by the CBS News division. And in the days when Charles Kuralt hosted that program. And this past Sunday, they, one of their 10 stories was featuring Dana White, the founder of the UFC Ultimate Fighting Championship sport, if you'd call it a sport. One aspect of the sport that has just started is people slapping the hell out of one another. Like, this is a sport. Jane Pauley, wonderful Jane Pauley. She is a friend of mine. I love her. And she said, well, the next story may not, you know, jibe with all younger— you may want to send younger viewers out of the room. Like, why is this on this show about nature and painting and classical music? Like, what the heck, man? And they did. And Dana White is a longtime friend of Donald Trump, and he spoke at the Republican National Convention. Okay, it's all fine. We all have friends and supporters. But again, it really seemed like a very clear intention to put a story that did not really fit the tone of that show. But it was a friend of Donald Trump catering to the Trump agenda. And again, I spend way too much time on Facebook. So I saw many people saying, I can't believe that Sunday Morning did that. And I even had to chime in and said, if Charles Krauthammer was still with us, I don't think he would have tolerated it.

He might be turning over in his grave. I know for sure. Same thing with David Brinkley and those folks on that, the, the show that was on ABC for years.

Yeah, I hate to sound like, oh, you sound like a real old-time disgruntled, grumpy old man. But, and I think I said on one of our discussions, I can see when Bari Weiss, the new head of CBS News, I'm not a fan, but I can see when she tells the staff, we need to chart a path into the future. Things are changing. People are getting our information digitally, much like people are listening to this conversation. Times change, things change., but there are certain values and commitments that we should not lose sight of. Yes, we are all heading into the future. You're an AI expert. I know you help attorneys with AI. There's no turning back, but let's not lose, like, our foundation. I don't know.

Yeah, no, absolutely. And our foundation, certainly around this podcast, is the pursuit of the facts and the truth. There might be multiple truths, and truths are based on our beliefs and our value systems. For sure. And I don't think it's a bad thing for people to have opinions or to have obviously values and beliefs, but it's just, yeah, we, it's just the ability to represent both sides of the story today in an objective way. First of all, it doesn't suit the audience, right? The audience and all the news agencies are owned by large multinational corporations who now apparently have political leanings, right? Larry Ellison owns two, owns the parent, or his son owns the parent companies of both CBS News and CNN. Although recently Larry Ellison's son, who is running those, and who knows, may actually have a legitimate passion for running news organizations. He said though that, CNN will not be changing its editorial posture in spite of the acquisition. So I thought that was, that, that was very good to hear. Right. As we'll see if that holds up. I think the changes that we're seeing both with CBS and CNN, they won't be wholesale changes. They'll be very subtle ones here and there. Like we know that obviously the CBS suppressed that interview. That we talked about a week or so back with the talk show host Stephen Colbert and the gentleman who actually went on to win the Democratic primary, Tierra Cotto, I think is Tierra Cotto, or I may be mispronouncing his name, in Texas. They eventually did it on YouTube and still got 6 million views. Those are the cautionary tales that come out of a state-run press. I don't think we're quite there yet. It's not like we're Russia. We're, Or China, where there is no free First Amendment, there is no freedom of the press, and they suppress certain U.S. social media platforms and websites and so on and so forth. But protecting those First Amendment rights on news agencies is essential because what's good for the Gander is good for the Dove, right? If we're going to take that away from CBS and CNN, maybe we Why wouldn't we do the same with Fox News?

Yeah.

Yeah.

But of course, I realize not every, I realize not everyone is going to tune in and watch the press conference. Not even Trump speaking. It's Caroline Levitt, the press secretary, where she berates Kaitlan Collins. And so that anyone who saw that may, may, light bulb may go on and say, we need to pay closer attention to what agenda is the Trump administration trying to push. And is there anything wrong with appreciating our fallen heroes like this?

Exactly. And most reporters on both sides of the aisle, of course, I don't really watch Fox News much, but again, a number of their reporters are questioning our, our intervention in Iran. So we're seeing more and more reporting even on the Fox News side. That's questioning it because the president and administration hasn't really told us. They've given us news that Iran was about to strike, which doesn't seem substantiated. And there have been others that have debated that. But the constant thread seems to be, why are we fighting a foreign war on behalf of a partner, Israel? And that's so contrary to the American public's interests that we saw recently that 59% of Americans are against the intervention in Iran and Trump's ratings. Normally a president goes to war to prop up ratings. I think if that was Trump's intent, then he may have miscalculated in this case because he's taken hits on both sides of the aisle. And given that, A, he never consulted Congress or anyone for that matter, and B, still hasn't truly identified, A, why we went in there other than A, the talking point about they were going to strike first, which has been debated, and B, what is the endgame? What do we expect to do there? Because the Venezuela blueprint doesn't apply here. You know, that's a country of what, 40, 50 million people in poverty. Iran is 92 million people with military aid from both China and Russia. And China and Russia have been very quiet. Have you noticed that, Tom? They've been very quiet about what they've said publicly about this invasion. But what they did, what they are doing is still supporting Iran with military information, intelligence. And so it's, and then we don't really know how long this intervention is or what even the endgame is, as I said. And again, I don't think that's unique to this administration. I think LBJ. Richard Schreiber also purposefully did the same thing and lied to the American people persistently during the Vietnam intervention. And the press attempted to hold him accountable. And obviously, eventually, I think the Pentagon Papers was his undoing because he, that was in black and white and the government couldn't suppress that. And so that's where we are. I want to give you the last couple of minutes to, as we wrap up this week's podcast and, true journalism. And again, our commitment is to report the facts and journalism the way we both remember it to be, not to be one way or the other. So thank you all for coming.

Tom?

Yeah, exactly.

No, I appreciate the commitment to truth that we are underscoring here with this podcast series. And when I, again, I've confessed my Facebook habits, but when I come across something very damaging or derogatory towards the president, for example, I will look it up. Was this reported elsewhere? I'm not just gonna, I want to break out of that polarization, that knee-jerk responsiveness. And I think that by encouraging our audience to do the same, to really dig a little bit deeper, don't— we can all benefit from that. And the stakes, the stakes are higher than ever right now. I appreciate that we have an opportunity to share and we want to hear from our listeners as well. So if there are points that you'd like to make, please let us know.

Please leave comments and maybe we can start reviewing those comments online in future episodes as they come in. Anyway, thanks. Thank you and God bless, and we'll see you next time, next week.

Very good.

Thank you.