00:00What should it tell us about what will happen to CNN if the same management takes
00:06over that institution? Senator, I mean, as I stated in my remarks, and just this
00:13morning, the staff at CBS News received a note from Barry Weiss and the president
00:19of CBS News informing them of this massive round of layoffs, which is going
00:23to really cripple that news organization, that same news division I worked for many
00:28years ago, the same news division of Walter Cronkite and Dan Rather and Edward R.
00:33Murrow, and it is now under the ownership of a family that is very closely aligned
00:41with Donald Trump, and so there are a couple of things that I think will
00:43happen. One is, if this same family is allowed to own CNN, they will combine those
00:49two news organizations, and we'll see another round of massive layoffs that
00:54will put journalists out of work, and not just the folks who are on the air.
00:58The photographers like the ones that we see here, producers who work behind the
01:03scenes, technical crews who put these shows on the air, bureaus that are located
01:09around the world. Look what Jeff Bezos has done with the Washington Post, closing
01:14bureaus and offices in places around the world that are now very important to the
01:19news that we're getting today. And the other, I think, more disturbing aspect of
01:25this is that you basically have partisan hacks running CBS News, and they, as I said
01:32earlier in my comments, show a piece on 60 Minutes about the notorious CECON
01:39prison. And we all remember those images of Secretary Kristi Noem standing in front of
01:44those cages filled with human beings. Some of them were migrants who were wrongfully
01:49detained by this administration and treated like animals. And 60 Minutes, I know that some
01:57of the people who put that piece together, they were told that they couldn't air that
02:02story because they had to find administration officials to comment. Those
02:07administration officials are available to comment at any given moment. And they
02:11eventually put that piece on the air. But imagine those kinds of editorial decisions moving over
02:17to CNN, the nation's 24-hour news network. I mean, those kinds of editorial decisions will
02:24send a chilling effect throughout that news organization. And Senator, I don't have to explain
02:28to you what the effect of that might be. We'll get into the business of having journalists self-editing,
02:35self-censoring programs saying, well, we better pull our punches here. We don't want to get in
02:40trouble with the bosses. We don't want to lose our jobs. And that affects the news and information
02:45that everybody receives today. And so, you know, there's a lot of talk of busting up big tech. I think
02:52we're going to have to start having a conversation about busting up big media because this is not
02:58America, what we're witnessing right now. This is very close to what is going on in Russia and Hungary and
03:05other authoritarian countries where they have successfully consolidated their news media.
03:10And it's the kind of news that the government wants you to hear and see. I tell the story all
03:16the time about, you know, my dad is a Cuban refugee. He came over to this country three weeks before
03:21the
03:22Cuban Missile Crisis. And just a few years ago, we were able to go back and visit Cuba. He always
03:29wanted to go back.
03:30And it was around the time of the death of Fidel Castro. And at that time, the death of Fidel
03:36Castro
03:37was being reported by the Cuban state media as the physical disappearance of Fidel Castro. Not the
03:43death of Fidel, the physical disappearance. Do we want that kind of news in America? My dad didn't
03:48come to come to this country. So this country could become like Cuba.
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