The following is a transcript from the Pro America Report.
Welcome, welcome. Welcome, Ed Martin here on the Pro America Report and we will catch up with John Zadrozny in just a few moments over at America First Legal. He has a perspective on what’s happening in the world, especially as it relates to our border. If you heard me yesterday speaking about this subject, you’ll want to check out what John is saying. We we, he and I were talking offline. And you know, one of the things that. We’re wondering is. What could. What Could be the policy or the yeah, policy actions that could happen from the state level. You know from the and and someone like Attorney General Ken Paxton or a governor. I know that we’ve seen the governors, De Santis and and we’ve seen Governor. The Texas governor go ahead and, Abbott, stand up and do some things, but is there some creative way to get something done national security wise now in terms of an action just to try to get something moving to seal the border. We’ll see and we’ll see. Zadrozny’s thinking about it and we’ll talk to him in a few moments.
Alright, here’s my cautionary tale regarding the atrocities we’ve seen and the terrible, horrendous suffering, and I just want to pause and say this. Don’t believe your lyin’ eyes and my point here is there’s a lot of video that is being mischaracterized and misused. And let me start by doing it this way. I saw that Hamas and supporters of Hamas put out a video of someone being killed. I think it was in a bombing or something the Israelis did overnight, and it turns out it was fake. It was not from that period. It was a different period. So, and I think similar things have happened necessarily with the coverage on on all sides of this. I mean, be careful what you are viewing that you don’t come to a conclusion based on What you’re seeing until you can confirm where you’re seeing it from, right, who’s got it, how it was edited, what you’re seeing going forward. There’s plenty of sadness and violence and death. I’m not saying you’re gonna be any of us are gonna be hidden from that. We’re going to see that, and it’s going to become clear and it’s going to be terrible. But this is a good this may be the. This may be the ultimate opportunity to to to to learn how easily it would be to mislead people.
Now I think that the Israelis turned off the electricity and the water and everything into the Hamas occupied Areas I think they did that already, which is Supposedly going to change what is covered and how you’ll see it, but I just, my point is simply don’t believe anything you see until you get it confirmed. Don’t believe anything that you’re told is definitive until you can get it confirmed, and that’s the motto I again, I was having a discussion earlier with a colleague of mine. Distrust but verify. Distrust. You know, used to be trust and verify if you saw a video in 1985 and then somebody, you know, put a video on the News because it wouldn’t have been on the Internet. You would have said well that that that looks right. I mean that looks like what what that looks like a video that’s made by somebody who’s shooting, rolling the camera, you know, turned it on, not someone who edited it and that that would have been, you know, kind of likely, almost certainly you’d have the ability to distinguish, not today, not today.
Whatever they show you, wherever they show it, you have to start out from the standpoint and say. It’s by the way. It’s terribly exhausting. Let me be clear.
It’s exhausting to live in a world where you have to distrust but verify. But that’s the reality. That that, that’s simply the reality. If you trust what you’re seeing, the chances of being misled are very, very. High, very high. I. Almost to the point where I wouldn’t believe I, I would think you’d be misled once. Once they know. Meaning the powers that be, know that they can manipulate people. It’s going to become more common, not less, and I’ve told you over and over again and we’re finally going to come to a head on some of this stuff that the the gallows I’ve told you about the gallows and the gallows stuff. Who built the gallows on January 6th? The image was so powerful, the video and still images. Of a gallows with a noose framing the capital was so perfect and so useful for the framing of that day that it struck me. It always did as a little too much. And I wanted to get to the bottom of it. And I wanted to see what we could find out. And I have and that’s going to be coming out in the next couple of days. I’ve at least found out when it was built, who built it, I don’t know who the people are. There’ll be a need for some people to help find that. But it is extraordinary to see we’ve used the video that’s been made available by the House Republicans. And it’s pretty striking, pretty striking. It’s going to be something to see. So, but back to my point.
As you’re watching anything – who was there? There was someone who had a deep fake. It was I. I think, Mr. beast. Mr. Beast, the the very famous YouTuber had a deep fake that was made about him. It was it looked like him. It sounded like him. It was it. It was in the consistency. It was in the sort of framing that he does. He does these giveaways and challenges. To his followers. And it was really convincing. And he immediately came out and said that’s not me. That’s a deep fake. So you’re gonna have deep fakes, which are actual people. Look and sound like you or me or sound like more. More likely. Someone famous that’s, you know, being played out there or or or individuals in a setting that you can’t tell whether it’s true or not. You’re also gonna just have plain old carefully edited videos that you’re not going to be able to, you know, tell the rest of the story. You’re Just going to see one piece of it. And that’s gonna be enough to be to be, you know, very, very. Controversial and energizing for one side or the other. That’s what you’re going to see.
So distrust but verify is not just a principle for use of big, When you think of big government, when big government tells you something, distrust but verify. When big media tells you something, distrust but verify. When big tech. Tells you something. Distrust but verify.
And the best way to verify is time. And social media. You see what I’m saying? You get that the thing that you need is if somebody comes along and says, hey, look at this. We’ve got a noose and a gallows at January 6th. Here’s a photograph from the AP. Here’s a picture from the Congress. Here’s a description from a a a social media person who is present. All that stuff, right. You say wait a second. I distrust that. But I’m going to verify it, so I distrust, but verify it.
The most clarifying thing is time. A little bit of time will usually get you more truth and certainly closer to the truth.
That’s one of the reasons why what’s happened with the January 6 video footage is so telling, because by keeping it from the public. You stopped the verification process. You were just told. Trust us, we’ll tell you what January 6 was – insurrection.
Armed insurrection. Trust us.
You say, Wait a second. My principle here is distrust. But verify. Don’t just distrust. You have to verify. You have to try. In fact you. You cannot do one without the other.
So they’re telling us, oh, trust, but trust trust. You have to trust us and and you’re not allowed to look. And we’re saying, wait distrust but verify means I need some time and I need access to the to materials so that people can help me see what the holes are and help me see if there’s a problem. For example, Mr. Beast, the Mr. Beast. The Mr. Beast deep fake. They put it out. People believed it. But there was a little bit of time and Mr. Beast saw it and he said no, that’s not me. That’s not me. And so he broke It up. Time plus people, time plus intelligence applied will get you closer to the truth you might still be faked out. You might still be deep faked.
You might still be At the mercy of of a a concerted effort, this is what Mike Benz and others have talked about about the idea of having all sorts of different organizations built up in a place. That is built up by intelligence community assets that you get yourself in the in the point to point where you know you have a a newspaper saying one thing that’s backed up by an NGO that’s backed up by the government, you have this rapidly kind of reinforcing. And that’s, that part of it. Is difficult to know if you can fight through.
But time. And access, time and access. Usually leads you closer to the truth almost always. And usually leads you to the truth in many, many cases and that’s why you’re going to see Blackout, like what happened after January 6, where they blacked out, didn’t give access to the media, didn’t give access to the video to lots of people, most people 99.9% of America couldn’t get to see any of it.
That’s sort of sort of similar to shutting down all the Internet in a place like where Hamas is occupied. All the different pockets of it, and that’s what they’re doing because you gotta control it. You cannot let too much time and that way you can control what is said and what is known and what becomes the narrative. It’s it’s full on battle. I mean, I’m not saying, you know what you need to know is this is a complicated situation, but distrust.
Distrust but verify applies, especially in the fog of war and especially to media in the war time, and to what the media is showing and seeing. And you’re seeing it yourself. You can see with your own eyes, but you still gotta distrust but verify that’s the the necessity of this modern moment, and no matter what it is, no matter what it is not. It’s not just the war, it’s other things. It could be sales. It could be somebody like Mr. Beast trying to that someone’s trying to deceive you into believing something. Or doubting something or wondering about something. So there you have it. That’s what you need to know.
And we will take a break and be Right back. It’s Ed Martin here on the Pro America Report.
