3/16/26: Trump Threatens Media w/Treason, Tucker CIA Referral, David Sacks Warns Israel May Nuke Iran

0:00This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human. Peace to the planet. Charlamagne Tha God here. And listen, we are back. The Black Effect Podcast Festival is back in Atlanta on April 25th at Pullman Yard. Yeah. And the full lineup is nuts. We got the Grits and Eggs podcast. Deontay Kyle and Big Ice Cup Cat. We got Club 520 with Jeff Teague and the gang. Don't call me white, girl. Mona will be there. Keep it positive, sweetie, with Crystal Renee. We got Reality with the King with Carlos King. And yes, Drink Champ will be in the building. Plus, you know, we're going to have a lot of guests. So you need to join us.

0:37And we got the Black Effect Marketplace, the picture podcast and everything you expect from the Black Effect Podcast Festival. Tickets are on sale right now. Go get yours at blackeffect.com slash podcast festival. Don't play yourself, OK? Pull up.

0:54Then she says, have you seen a photo of my son? And I'm like, who is this person?

1:27We've come together to create something new. I love it. Where the world of TikTok meets your playlist. Three words that will change your life. iHeart TikTok Radio. The biggest hits across iHeart Radio. What's trending for you on TikTok? Tell me a sound that's better than this. iHeart TikTok Radio. Plus TikTok's most influential creators all in one place. Search for iHeart TikTok Radio, make it a preset, and stay connected all day. Hey guys, Sagar and Crystal here. Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election, and we are so excited about what that means for the future of this show.

2:03This is the only place where you can find honest perspectives from the left and the right that simply does not exist anywhere else. So if that is something that's important to you, please go to BreakingPoints.com, become a member today, and you'll get access to our full shows, unedited, ad-free, and all put together for you every morning in your inbox. We need your help to build the future of independent news media, and we hope to see you at BreakingPoints.com.

2:28So we've got a bunch of updates here on the home front about the censorship regime that the Trump administration is trying to put in place at this point, threatening broadcasters who dare accurately cover his disastrous war. These are some comments from Air Force One last night from Trump himself. Let's go ahead and take a listen. They put out 40-43, the kamikaze boats. The kamikaze boats don't exist. They're fake. And you can almost see that when you look at them. It looks great, yeah. Because if they did exist, we'd hit them just like we hit other boats all over the place. But they don't exist.

3:03In fact, some of the people say, where are the boats? Well, how come nobody's seen the boats? You know why? Because it's AI generated. It's fake. And I found, I didn't realize this before we started, but Iran is known for a lot of fake news. And they deal with our fake news. And I actually think it's pretty criminal because our media companies who have no credibility whatsoever are putting out information that they know is false. And it's a very dangerous thing for the country. I think it's I think they could be in serious jeopardy. So I know that's hard to hear, but he says there that the coverage is pretty criminal of these specific things.

3:44And let's go and put his true social up there. This is from this is D2, guys, just to emphasize how, you know, how hard he's going on these threats against journalists and the way that they cover the war. Here he is threatening to charge media outlets with treason if they report things in a way that he does not personally like. So he says Iran has long been known as a master of media manipulation and public relations. They are militarily ineffective and weak, but are really good at feeding the very appreciative fake news media false information. Now, AI has become another disinformation weapon that Iran uses quite well, considering they're being annihilated by the day.

4:23They showed phony kamikaze boats. This is what he was talking about in that clip. Shooting at various ships at sea, which looks wonderful, powerful, and vicious, but these boats don't exist. It's all false information to show how tough their already defeated military is. The five U.S. refueling planes that were supposedly struck down and badly damaged, according to Wall Street Journal's fake reporting, and others are all in service with exception of one, which will soon be flying the skies. Buildings and ships that are shown to be on fire are not. It's fake news generated by AI. For instance, Iran working in close coordination with the fake news media shows our great USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier, one of the largest and most prestigious ships in the world, burning uncontrollably in the ocean.

5:03Not only was it not burning, it was not even shot at. Iran knows better than to do that. Isn't that the one saga that supposedly there was a laundry fire? That was the alleged problem there. The story was knowingly fake. And in a certain way, you can say that those media outlets that generated it should be brought up on charges for treason for the dissemination of false information. The fact is Iran is being decimated. The only battles they win are those that they create through AI and are distributed by corrupt media outlets. The radical left-wing press knows this full well, but continues to go forward with false stories and lies.

5:34That's why their approval rating is so low. I can win a presidential election in a landslide, getting only 5 % positive press. They have no credibility. I'm so thrilled to see Brendan Carr, the chair of the Federal Communications Commission, looking at the licenses of some of these corrupt and highly unpatriotic news and scare quotes organizations. They get billions of dollars of free American airwaves and use it to perpetuate lies, book the news and almost all of their shows, including late night morons who get gigantic salaries for horrible ratings and never get, as I used to say in The Apprentice, fired.

6:06Thank you for your attention to this matter. So not only does he say, oh, maybe we should file charges of treason against companies, you know, media companies that report things that we don't like. But number two, I'm glad to see that Brendan Carr, chair of the FCC, is already moving in the direction of threatening media outlets and threatening their broadcast licenses for quote unquote unpatriotic news. Yes. Just so disturbing and Orwellian. Well, you can already see. Let's put Brendan Carr's tweet up there, guys. This is D1. He's the FCC chairman. He says, Broadcasters that are running hoaxes and news distortions, also known as fake news, have a chance now to correct course before their license renewals come up.

6:48The law is clear. Broadcasters must operate in the public interest. They will lose their license if they do not. And frankly, changing courses in their own business interest, blah, blah, blah. The point is that this would affect the direct networks, NBC, ABC, et cetera, that actually still require a broadcast license from the FCC. Yours truly. you know, we're all here on the internet and or cable news who wouldn't be as affected. But if you compare the two things together, CBS News, and obviously the Trump administration's support for CBS News, you can see how they're trying to control the narrative.

7:20What Trump said there is empirically bullshit. For example, do you remember that crowd that we showed, Crystal, for the morning of the Ayatollah for his funeral? He is saying that's AI generated. It literally came from a photographer working for the New York Times. It's not AI generated. And now there's a couple of things that are very scary about that. Do you want to know who claimed that it was AI generated? The Israelis. So how did Israel lobby BS talking points get into the brain and the mouth of the president of the United States? That's a very interesting question. So much so that he wants to file treason charges against the people who publish and or talk about such videos.

7:55Then you have combined the FCC and this so-called patriotic news. I saw this first during this press conference with Pete Hegseth. We have D3. Let's go and play this. This is from Friday, where he's lambasting the press for accurately giving a report of what's going on with Iran. Let's take a listen. Or more fake news from CNN. Reports that the Trump administration underestimated the Iran war's impact on the Strait of Hormuz. Patently ridiculous, of course. For decades, Iran has threatened shipping in the Strait of Hormuz. This is always what they do, You hold the straight hostage. CNN doesn't think we thought of that.

8:37It's a fundamentally unserious report. The sooner David Ellison takes over that network, the better. The sooner David Ellison takes over that network, the better. What do you think that exactly shows you in terms of their support for David Ellison, who was Lindsey Graham's guest for the State of the Union? Do you remember that one? Literally, Lindsey Graham's guest for the State of the Union is going to be owning CNN. So they're going to same similar, by the way, who's going to be affected by a broadcast license because of total oligarchic ownership of media and so-called patriotic press. And in the press conference, Pete Hegsteth out there is talking about how you shouldn't say things like, for example, he took issue with a headline where it was like Iran war widens.

9:19How could you be take issue with that? He said you should say Iran is defeated or Iran is not doing as well or something like that. I was like, Iran war widens is a statement of literal empirical fact. If you hit 10 countries in a single day, that's widening. That's what it's called. And I mean, look, this is nuts. And when we, I mean, compare it with what we're about to talk about with Tucker, this is the most dangerous thing. It is also entirely fitting with every time that this nation goes to war, Americans who live under it become less free. The censorship that happened, either self-censorship or state pressure that happened under Iraq, shaped the entire environment for pushing the country into war under false pretenses.

10:05Under Vietnam, very similarly, the crazy amounts of censorship, state pressure that was here at home, it empowered the state. Remember the Patriot Act, of course, also after 9-11. During World War II, we had literal government censorship where they're deciding what or what not. You know, different reporters can report out from the battlefield. And then the origins of wartime censorship of a lot of the power of the state is the American Civil War and the First World War, where you had the exact same situation play out here at home. State power locking people up for reporting things badly, using an expansion of surveillance and censorship, all under the guise of patriotism and supporting the war effort.

10:42This is why it is so dangerous, actually, for us here at the home front. And in those cases, many of those wars were much more popular, Crystal, than this one is today. If you launch a war with 60 % disapproval, I mean, just imagine the way that you're going to have to censor your way out of that one. So you actually could see an even bigger crackdown that comes from, at that time, at least people were buying the BS. This time, not so sure. Not this time. Yeah. And Trump is, you know, I mean, he's deeply authoritarian to begin with. And even before launching this incredibly unpopular illegal war of choice was aggressively going after the media.

11:16And so, I mean, I think there's a few things to note here. First of all, there is, this is also a sign of weakness because they're clearly crashing out. I mean, Trump himself is like lashing out at reporters who ask questions he doesn't like issuing these long, true social posts. He put another one out defending the good honor of Mark Levin, blah, blah, blah, who, you know, Megyn Kelly said he had a micro penis and now Trump's got to come and ride to the rescue and make sure everybody knows that Mark Levin is a great American patriot, et cetera, et cetera. In any case, he's clearly crashing out.

11:48And Hegseth is not saying this stuff on his own. Brendan Carr is not saying this stuff on his own. He was at Mar-a-Lago right before he issues this statement, etc. This is all coming directly from Trump. Because if there's one thing he knows, it is TV news coverage. And he is watching this and he knows, even in spite of the fact that so much of the coverage is pro-war propaganda to an absurd degree, he is watching this and going, this doesn't look good. This doesn't look good. What can I do? And so he reaches for all of his tools of bullying and threats and coercion. You know, even prior to this, we had all the lawsuits against media organizations to get them to bend to his will.

12:28You have major media organizations being sold off to the Ellisons, as Pete Hegseth reminds here. You know, you said, OK, the threats against the the the primetime broadcasters like those don't apply to cable news. They don't apply to where we are on YouTube, et cetera. But hey, TikTok was sold off to the Ellisons. So they have other means of trying to coerce and trying to stifle dissent. And the TikTok thing was 100 % over. They didn't like the way that the Gaza war was being accurately portrayed. The Gaza genocide was being accurately portrayed there. They didn't like that. So he got a crony, a pro-Zionist, pro-Trump crony to go in and strike that deal.

13:08You know, all these media companies, they are giant conglomerates. They don't care about the news. They don't care about the truth. What they care about is their bottom line. So if YouTube has a deal in front of them, if any of these companies has a deal in front of them, they want it to go through, they're going to be listening closely to these words about unpatriotic content and how you've got to be towing the Go USA line. And some of that stuff has real power. You also have the other effect here is to try to gin up a lot of public fervor and outrage at media outlets that cover things accurately.

13:43So if we could put up D6, ABC News, they had a headline that I think, again, is just accurate reflection of what is going on. Even as Iran has been pummeled by Israeli and American airstrikes with its military capabilities greatly diminished, which is actually the Trump administration's framing, Tehran continues to demonstrate resolve, both in adapting and expanding its military tactics, observers told ABC News. that is just reality i mean we you know you guys saw that the drone strike video you we you saw the the missiles that were landing in tel aviv you see the you know the strait of hormos continue to be held you see the oil refineries you know struck in the gcc countries like that is just accurate and yet if you go and look at the comments below this post you have all these people and can put some of these up on the screen who are furious how dare you this is iranian propaganda um you You know, observers told ABC News, the observers being their news, RT and Jackson Hinkle, Iran is defending their own country.

14:43The U.S. is not. Well, that one is sort of accurate. ABC News wants us to know that our enemies are very strong and brave. So tons of outrage here in the comments of people who want to be lied to. That is what's going on here. And sadly, and, you know, we saw this in the Iraq war. There was a large contingent of Americans who were desperate to be lied to about that war as well and were furious at anyone who tried to puncture that bubble. You know, the other peace saga that I think is really important to talk about here is Trump is right that AI has destabilized reality. And you do see that. I mean, when we're trying to figure out what is real, what's true, what's false, et cetera, it is very difficult, very, very difficult.

15:28And we are, I think, extremely conservative about the images that we bring you. We only put up things that are absolutely verified. You know, even then it continues to be dicey, et cetera. But there's no doubt that it's become much more difficult to separate truth from fiction because of the quality of these AI deep fakes. Now, you know, the is BB alive or dead question is a good example of that. And so not only do you have things that are fake, that are being disseminated, that are, you know, have the appearance of truth, but also what Trump is doing is he's taking things that actually did happen and trying to undermine your confidence in them by saying, no, no, no, that's AI.

16:09So like you said, the marches and protests in favor of the government and Iran, which is the thing that really has happened, not just once, but multiple times. He wants to say, no, no, no, that's AI. And we saw this playbook in Gaza as well, where they would say, you know, oh, these horrific images that you're seeing. These are AI. These are fake. This is Pali wood. Trump is using that same playbook. And because AI has destabilized reality, unchecked AI has destabilized reality. And there are no limits put on this. There's no ability to tell truth from truth from fiction. It gives him an angle to be able to push these bullshit Israeli talking points.

16:47And to tell you the truth, I think he believes it. I think he believes that those protests were fake. I think he's buying whatever his, you know, the Israeli handlers are telling him at this point. That is so crazy. Yeah. And I think I think we should all be extremely, extremely on guard because this can move fast. It can move quick. The power of the state. We're about to talk about this with Tucker Carlson. And this what they will do usually this actually. Yeah, let's just move over to Tucker. You want better internet? Cox Internet of 300 megabytes has the speed and confident speed that you want.

17:24Perfect for streaming and gaming and working from home. Everything for just$45 a month when you add Cox Mobile. Include a Wi-Fi and a guarantee of two years in your plan. No wait. Cámbiate today to Cox. Requiere Cox Mobile Gig Unlimited. Guaranteed price. No include impuestos and charges. Velocity of data mobile. Se reduce after 20 gigas a month. I went and sat on the little ottoman in front of him. I said, hi, dad. And just when I said that, my mom comes out of the kitchen and she says, I have some cookies and milk. This is a badass convict. Right. Just finished five years. I'm going to have cookies and milk at mom.

18:08On the Senior Show podcast, each episode invites you into a raw, unfiltered conversations about recovery, resilience and redemption. On a recent episode, I sit down with actor, cultural icon Danny Trail to talk about addiction, transformation, and the power of second chances. The entire season two is now available to binge, featuring powerful conversations with guests like Tiffany Addish, Johnny Knoxville, and more. I'm an alcoholic. And without this trouble, I'm going to die. Open your free iHeartRadio app, search The Cino Show, and listen now.

19:14Come check this. all day. We just talked a lot about the FCC, about government censorship. Usually what happens in these cases is they pick a figurehead. They go after him or her, try and make an example, send a chilling message across all of media. Now, one of the most prominent anti-Iran war voices on the right, Tucker Carlson, is saying that the CIA has been spying on him, his communications, and may be preparing a criminal referral as a result of some discussions that he's had with the Iranian regime. Let's take a listen. So the other day I found out that the CIA is preparing some kind of criminal referral against me, a crime report to the Department of Justice on the basis of a supposed crime I committed.

20:00What's that crime? Well, talking to people in Iran before the war. They read my texts. So the crime under consideration apparently would be the Foreign Agent Act or something like that, acting as an agent of a And I don't expect this to go anywhere. I'm not too worried about an actual criminal case against me for a bunch of reasons. One, I'm not an agent of a foreign power. Unlike a lot of people commenting on U.S. politics and global affairs, I have only one loyalty, and that's the United States, and have never acted against it. Its interests are the only interests I care about because I'm from here and I have a lot of kids.

20:39So that's not a concern. I've also never taken money from anybody. Don't need it. Don't want it. And that's provable. And moreover, it's my job to talk to everybody all the time and try and figure out what's happening around the world. That's literally what I do for a living. And I'm not going to stop doing that, nor should I, I don't think. I'm also an American. I can talk to anybody. I have no secrets to divulge. So legally, I think the case is ludicrous, and I doubt it will even become a case. I'm bringing this up for a couple of reasons, though, and they're pretty obvious. One is that countries tend to become more authoritarian in wartime.

21:18It's just the nature of war. People are dying. The stakes are high. People's emotions have risen to a very high point, to a crescendo. And so there's much less tolerance for any kind of dissent in the homeland. The irony, of course, is the United States fights wars on behalf of freedom, but there's always less of it here in our country during war. So that's a widely recognized phenomenon, and it's likely to happen now too. Another point to make that is worth knowing is that the USIC, the intelligence agency, spy on Americans. Now, you probably knew that, and it's been revealed a lot, including by Julian Assange and Ed Snowden, both of whom are threatened with death for revealing it, but everyone knows.

22:03But it's probably a little more widespread than most people understand. And it's likely that things like that will begin to happen at greater scale now. So you should just know that going forward. Thanks. I think that that is incredibly, obviously, not only newsworthy, but indicative, combined with the FCC warning that we just gave to everybody about what this enhanced sort of wartime censorship is going to look like, Crystal. So for example, and let's actually zoom out, because what are the Zionists claiming? They're saying, oh, well, he committed treason by talking to the Iranians. Well, if that's treason, then you're going to have to lock up basically every reporter who's ever spoken to the Iranians, including CBS News, which had the Iranian foreign minister, NBC News, which just had the Iranian foreign minister.

22:51Part of a natural reportage is actually reaching out to people who, yes, many times are America's enemies or people who you are at war with. Why do we do it and why is it actually incumbent upon us to do so? The reason why is to give the American people a full picture of what we're actually doing. Otherwise, you only have to rely on Pete Hegseth and General Cain and Donald Trump to tell us what's actually happening. And as you can all see in front of you, in the information age, the biggest threat to their narrative is the truth and alternate perspectives, and especially in an already unpopular war.

23:30So no, per Tucker, he may not be getting criminally charged. But the fact is, by the way, this has not been denied by the CIA. The administration has not denied any of this. They've had more than 24 hours now at this point to do so. If it was BS, I think they would say so. And I think this is really dangerous. And it also highlights, especially for people like us, we're reaching out to foreign officials all the time. Iran, if you're listening, I'll talk to you anytime. But it does demonstrate that we are under not only surveillance from our own government, but possible criminal and legal liability in this case, specifically for just trying to inform the American people.

24:05They try to do this under WikiLeaks. Remember, this is a bipartisan thing that we've seen in the past. And this is why it's so dangerous to get into these types of wars in the first place. Yeah. And this is why, you know, we've always been against these conversations about like, oh, you platform this person or you platform that person, because this is where it ends up. Like, oh, how dare you speak to these adversarial countries? And it's meant to make such reporting scandalous and in the Trump administration's case, make it outright apparently illegal. Let's put E2 up on the screen because there was some elaborate, you know, trying to concoct after the fact 4D chess that Trump was engaged in here allegedly.

24:45So this person says, and this got, by the way, tons of retweets and views and everyone like really bought into this. This person says this photo of Tucker in the Oval Office with Trump is hilarious in hindsight. Trump knew Tucker was talking to Iran, so he invites him to the Oval Office before the strike, knowing Tucker will run straight back and relay it. Iran sees this photo, thinks Tucker has Trump's ear, thinks Trump is bluffing. Meanwhile, Trump's sitting there smiling because he wanted them to believe it. Tucker's ego sells the deception. Kamini buys it. And just like that, Tucker unknowingly helps take out the Supreme Leader.

25:20And now America's biggest traitor, meaning Tucker Carlson, may be heading to prison perfectly played. Now, let me just ask you a question. Has anything about this war made you think that Trump is playing some sort of 8D chess and elaborately planning out these intricate, brilliant moves, etc. No, it has maybe been the dumbest war in all of human history. This man launched a war in the Middle East and did not think through what it would do for oil prices or the Strait of Hormuz. It is literally the most basic thing of all time. And yet, do you think this was all some elaborate, brilliant, chess master style plot?