BUCK: This is pretty remarkable, because we were just talking to you — I mean minutes ago — about the biggest story on the New York Times, which was the New York Times website. And I know — but Clay and I, we peek behind enemy lines to see what the leftists are up to. We gotta know, right? I mean, New York Times, Washington Post, it’s like the opposition is laying out the battle plan for you to read.

You can see the propaganda being churned out in real time. But this was amazing. We were talking about the New York City mayoral race and the change in the last 24 hours, 135,000 votes counted that shouldn’t be. Now you got people saying, “Oh, there’s something wrong here. There’s an irregularity,” and the difference in the way this is being treated by the media.

And, suddenly, at the New York Times website, guess what ends up happening? The story changed. The main story right now is, “Days of Rage: An Investigation of How a Mob Stormed the Capitol.” It’s all about the January 6th insurrection. This is a fixation for the left and for Democrats now. It’s a news story on literally any day they can push it.

And it gives them so much of what they want because this is meant to create a perception that the right is — at any moment — a threat to this entire country, to our democracy, Clay. I even have here from ABC News — and this was just from this morning: “Perfect storm,” they call it, “a bulletin warns of extremist violence as pandemic restrictions lift, major story here on ABC News.” Clay, what extremist violence going into our Independence Day celebration are the biggest news organizations in the country worried about?

CLAY: This is, to me, a flagrant example of choosing narrative over truth, and there’s a difference out there. People who are listening, very often what our media does today — and this is what we pledged not to do for you, is we try to be as honest as we can about the news stories on any given day.

The threat as we head into the July 4th week — and Joe Biden’s gonna let you have all your barbecues again and you can gather with friends and family — is not violent, white extremism or white supremacy. It’s getting shot because the police aren’t able to protect you! And do you know who is doing the shootings and who is the victims of the shootings all over this country as our national crime wave is skyrocketing?

Inner city residents, Buck. Black lives are supposed to matter so much. The elites of the Democratic Party used Black Lives Matter to gin up outrage and turnout. As soon as the election is over, they vanish. The media is not covering this in the grand scheme of things. As the murder rate skyrockets all over this country, the threat over July 4th weekend is not the, quote, “insurrection” from January 6th. It’s all the bad guys with guns who aren’t being pursued by police now.

BUCK: And isn’t it fascinating? You see how this is being manufactured by the corporate — and I will say, I have some friends in conservative media that have convince me to stop… I don’t like this term “mainstream media” —

CLAY: Yeah.

BUCK: — because why give them that elevation. Mainstream? They’re left-wing propaganda organs. Yes, they’re corporate. A lot of them have legacy power and they’re institutions that sometimes, unfortunately, have a lot of funding and reporters they can deploy as little partisan propagandists. But the legacy, corporate media is in real time here as we’re going into the Independence Day weekend, trying to create a perception.

The number one story on the New York Times — which is, I think, the number one or two most read news site in the country overall. It’s usually in the top three, something like that. The number one story is the insurrection? I mean, it’s June of 2021, almost July, and they’re talking about this like it just happened yesterday. But this ABC News piece, Clay, the bulletin warning of extremist violence?

And at the bottom, it makes it quite explicit, that the problem is white supremacist violence. You see all these pieces coming together. I’m here to tell everybody, I used to write terrorism assessments and analysis for the government and at the highest level. I used to right for the PDB, for the president’s daily briefing, when I was in the CIA, and this is part of the job.

If you want to find threat reporting on any given day to talk about some white nationalist plot, yeah, you can find chatter somewhere on the internet. It’s all about what’s elevated, focused on, and exaggerated to create a certain perception of who’s the good political party in this country and who’s the bad political party.

CLAY: It’s all narrative based, and I think you raised a good point, ’cause you said, “Hey, we’re looking at the New York Times.” I think if you’re an intelligent consumer of media, I think you need to read everything. And I understand some people who say, “Oh, I want to sit in my silo, and I only want to read things that confirm what I already believe.”

I disagree with that. I think you need to read aggressively, because it allows you to see how agendas grow and how narratives are set — and I’m old school. People make fun of me about this. My wife makes fun of me about this. I still like to read, Buck, a tangible newspaper each morning. I get the New York Times. You’ve seen me. I bring it in.

BUCK: You and my dad, by the way.

CLAY: Yeah.

BUCK: I can’t even handle them.

CLAY: That’s what my wife says!

BUCK: You two guys are like —

CLAY: To turn the pages, my wife gets frustrated.

BUCK: — your expertise was flipping all the pages around. If it’s not on a screen that I can click, I don’t even know how you can read it.

CLAY: Well, I bring in literally the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times ’cause I want to point out some of the editorials that are being used to drive narrative. And I think — and I’m a subscriber of the Washington Post, and I understand people get fired up and angry about the work that these places do. But to me, you can’t see the big picture unless you’re reading the entire scope of the media universe.

And it actually, to me, exposes the dishonesty even more so, Buck, because what it shows you is the selection of the way stories are conveyed. I’ll give you an example recently. You live in New York City where there have been a massive number — at least historically, precedent-wise — of Asian attacks, right? We all had the big discussion about Asian hate and people who were innocent Asian people walking on the streets that were attacked.

Almost uniformly, who were attacking the Asian people? Black guys. Almost 100% of the time. The way that the New York Times would cover those Asian attacks was to leave out the race of the alleged perpetrator. Every time that a white person is accused of anything that fits the narrative of the New York Times, the opening paragraph features the white person’s race.

One of the most virulent of those attacks, Buck, against an Asian woman, didn’t even include the suspect description. It said, “New York police are requesting help in identifying and locating the suspect,” and there was no description of who the suspect was or what his race was! This is a targeted attempt to make violent white supremacy seem like it is the biggest issue in America today because they want to tie that to the Republican Party and because they want to make everybody look like they are completely off the rails.

BUCK: It’s not new what we’re seeing, and what Clay describes here is what is happening with the media’s focus on certain things to create a certain narrative. Because one of the biggest editorial decisions you make is what to talk about, what to focus on, more so even than how you will portray it. But then additionally things like leaving out the descriptions of suspects. New York has a local TV channel that’s only New York local politics, and it’s basically Pravda on the Hudson.

CLAY: (chuckling)

BUCK: I mean, it’s crazy how left-wing it is. And it really is just, you know, radical Marxist, socialist claptrap on a daily basis. But whenever they will describe a suspect, for example, they will say, you know, “Five foot 10 male, 185 pounds,” but there will be a photo that you can see sometimes.

CLAY: Yeah, you can see the race.

BUCK: The NYPD will release it, but they will avoid any actual description of the suspect because they think that that plays into stereotypes or whatever it may be. But in recent years, there were some moments where we saw — and just to bring everybody back into exactly where we are here, the New York Times’ main story for you today across the country…

I know a lot of you don’t read the Times, but Clay and I have to. We have to dive deep into the commie nonsense. Their main stories on the January 6th “insurrection,” which was not an insurrection. It’s a lie to call it an insurrection. It was a riot. It was not an insurrection. But that’s their main story.

We had in recent years the total abandonment not only of objectivity, but also rationality by the media. And we’re talking about suspects here in the way that racial politics gets involved in all this. I knew a lot of mainstream journalists who believed — and thought to the very end — the Jesse Smollett story was true.

CLAY: Oh, yeah.

BUCK: And I actually had people —

CLAY: Kamala Harris —

BUCK: Of course.

CLAY: — immediately believed it.

BUCK: And I had people reach out to me who know me from the media world, you know, blue checks, fellow media people from the left who were saying, “You’re lighting your career on fire.” I mean, ’cause I did a podcast within 24 hours I think of the initial allegation that was “Jussie Smollett is lying.”

CLAY: Yes.

BUCK: You knew it, I knew it with. Anyone who looked at the details of that situation would understand it. But here’s where we are in this country at this point in time. To be a leftist in good standing, you have to adopt the expected orthodoxy on these issues – even it makes you look like a moron, even if it makes it look like you don’t have the critical faculties to think through these things. Doesn’t matter. That is the sacrifice you have to be willing to make. I mean, there are so many of these hoax situations, hoax hate crimes that come up.

CLAY: Because if you question it, Buck, you’re racist.

BUCK: Of course!

CLAY: Right? We saw this in sports all the time. Michael Bennett, Seattle lineman at the time, accused the Las Vegas Police Department of profiling him. Video comes out — there’s everything in a casino, they have 120 cameras everywhere — it’s not true. But when people actually covered that story, they don’t cover the follow-up. It’s an absolutely joke.