Foreign Leaders Call For Ending The Assault On Free Press

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.

Check out our merch by visiting our store

Subscribe to our podcast

Become a member today!

Support us by becoming a monthly patron on Patreon, and help keep progressive media alive!

Spread the word! LIKE and SHARE this video or leave a comment to help direct attention to the stories that matter. And SUBSCRIBE to stay connected with Ring of Fire's video content!

Support Ring of Fire by subscribing to our YouTube channel

Be sociable! Follow us on:

*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

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?

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.

It was a lie.

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.

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.

I mean, out there winning Pulitzers

They're winning on his work.

Yeah.

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?

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.

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.