Alex Updates Us on Berenson v. Twitter, Moderna’s Push to Vax Kids

BUCK: We got our friend Alex Berenson joining us now, author of the fantastic book Pandemia. Buy it! It will upset the Amazon libs. Buy it. And also, subscribe to his Substack, Unreported Truths. Alex, thanks for joining us, man. We got a couple things to talk to you about today.

BERENSON: Yes, yes. Good to talk to you, Buck.

BUCK: And you’re not calling us from inside of a Chinook helicopter with three screaming children in the background, which I also very much appreciate.

BERENSON: (laughing)

BUCK: So, thank you for that. Tell me this, man. Do you want to start with Twitter stuff for a second here because we talk a lot about covid? Let’s talk about Twitter. You have a lawsuit against Twitter. You are one of the people who famously was booted for a tweet that now in particular was correct.

I mean, it was correct then but now everybody knows it was correct, so you’d think that you’d be one of the first ones to be brought back on. But you’re actually suing them. So, bring us up to speed with Berenson v. Twitter, but also what you think of you Elon’s purchase here.

BERENSON: Sure. So, Berenson v. Twitter is my effort to say that, you know, I’ve been damaged by the — you know, banned from the platform. I should be back on the platform and, you know, I have other damages too. Typically, these lawsuits have not gone very far because there’s this provision in federal law called Section 230 that gives the companies a lot of power about their decisions, about, you know, who they can allow on the platform.

You know, and my case I believe is considerably stronger than most other cases for a couple reasons. One is that I — and this is all in the lawsuit. One is that a Twitter executive repeatedly, you know, contacted me, and I was in contact with him and he discussed what I was doing. You know, and so I was operating and tweeting, you know, with the knowledge of Twitter.

And they never really objected to anything that I did until — really until July of 2021 when they came under tremendous pressure from the federal government, and, you know, and the rest of the media about my tweets and about some, you know, comments I’d made about the vaccines.

Which, as you say, have mostly been borne out, if not entirely. So that’s one reason, and another reason… So, I have facts that other people don’t have. And I also have a really good lawyer who has pointed to some provisions in California law and the California Constitution — and California, of course, is where Twitter is based.

The California Constitution is very free speech protective, and California law has a number of decisions — and, you know, what people on the left love to say is, “Twitter is a private company, and private companies can do whatever they want on speech!” When it comes to, you know, censoring speech, suddenly the left loves the fact, you know, that private companies, it’s private property and they should be allowed to treat it however they like.

Which is fascinating, right? There should be no government regulation when it comes to this issue. But, actually, the California Constitution and California law say explicitly — and there’s a number of California court decisions on this — that large, private companies can be viewed as quasi-public and can be subject to, you know, essentially allowing people to speak, even if it’s in ways that the owners might not like.

And, again, California. Twitter’s in California. So Twitter can say, “Well, because of Section 230 this California law shouldn’t apply to us,” and that creates a whole, you know, very interesting set of questions around the First Amendment and around, you know, federal versus state law. So we have legal questions that have not been answered before.

You know, we have novel legal arguments. But we at the core also have this argument about what Twitter promised me and whether or not those promises rise to the level of a contractual obligation, and whether when they struck me, they had any… You know, they were following their own rules, their own explicit rules. And I am happy to tell you that yesterday at the hearing in California…

So this is being heard in a federal lawsuit in California in the Northern District of California, which is San Francisco, before judge named William Alsup, and he heard the case for the first time yesterday and I’m happy to tell you he seemed… You know, he seemed to at least ask all the right questions about this. Now, I don’t know how he’s gonna rule.

He’ll rule how he rules and hopefully we’ll find that out soon. But he didn’t throw it out from the bench, which I think a lot of people — you know, certainly Twitter would have hoped that he would do that, that he would just say, “Hey, this case is dismissed’ it can’t go forward,” and he asked Twitter’s lawyers a lot of pointed questions. And this is not just me saying this.

There’s an article that Politico wrote — and Politico, you know, is a fairly liberal media outlet — where they pointed out that he had actually said to Twitter yesterday, “Hey, let’s get some discovery on this, let’s get some depositions,” meaning, “Your executives maybe should be questioned under oath about how it is that you decided to throw this guy off.

“And maybe we should see whether there’s any communications between you and the federal government, you and, you know, other social media companies, you and pharma companies. Let’s get into what’s going on here.” Now, again, he hasn’t ruled yet, and he could still throw this out in a ruling. But that didn’t feel like the tenor of the hearing to me yesterday.

BUCK: Speaking to Alex Berenson, author of Pandemia, check out his Substack, Unreported Truths. Alex, you worked at the New York Times years ago, and so you understand that world and the alleged ethos that journalists are supposed to go operating under in a variety of contexts. What’s it like for you to see pretty much the most hallowed liberal newspaper and cable news channels — for whatever that’s worth — effectively say, “Yeah, we don’t agree with free speech?”

BERENSON: It’s so disheartening, Buck! (laughing) It is so upsetting to me. You know, they basically, you know, over the last couple years, you know, have run away from free speech — and I’m pretty much a free speech absolutist. Okay? I believe the answer to bad speech is more speech. The answer to good speech is more speech. We…

Speech and the right to debate is a fundamental precept of democracy. And, you know, people say, “Oh, it’s so complicated to regulate speech online.” I think that’s nonsense, okay? I think it’s actually quite simple. Look, free speech doesn’t extend to infinity. If you and I, you know, have a conspiracy to commit murder, we can’t say, “Oh, well, we were just talking. That doesn’t mean anything!”

If I… You know, if I have, you know, child pornography in my — you know, that I’m getting through the mail, like, that’s illegal. Okay, there are — and, by the way, even something as simple as like, you know, you’re in a public park, I can’t stand in your face screaming for four hours straight. Right? At some point I’m harassing you.

It rises to the level of harassment. So these decisions… Like very, very broad limits on free speech don’t mean no limits on free speech. But we are able to make this distinction offline, and we can very easily make it online. And this notion of Twitter is gonna be a cesspool of porn and people yelling at each other —

BUCK: It already is!

BERENSON: Exactly. Exactly right. The left uses this as an excuse to ban people like me.

BUCK: Yeah, I was gonna say, their censorship-ish, if you will, is about covid restrictions, election stuff, transgender issues, diversity and inclusion, and policing, and race, and that’s where they actually have a problem. That’s where they want to shut everybody down. (chuckles) It’s not on these other things.

BERENSON: That’s right. They don’t care that there’s porn on Twitter. You know, and by the way, you know, to go back to Berenson v. Twitter, the reason radio — this is so important — and the judge actually asked yesterday. He said to Twitter, “Look…” He said, “You know, you’re gonna have a new owner, and he may feel differently about this lawsuit. Why should I continue to hear it?”

And Twitter said — and I think in this case they’re correct. They said, “Look. We may have a new owner. That deal may go through, but it hasn’t gone through yet and, for the time being, this is our position.” And, you know, from my point of view, Twitter… I’m not allowed on Twitter right now. Whatever Elon may or may not do in a few months, I’m not allowed on there now.

So, this lawsuit should continue. That is the probably the only thing Twitter and I agree on about this. But whether or not Elon takes over, my right to speak on this incredibly powerful platform that, you know, that has hundreds of millions of people on it, that is my most — you know, my best outlet to petition the government — it really is as a journalist, Twitter is — should not be dependent on the whims of Elon Musk, okay, ’cause let me tell you:

If Elon owns this thing and I get back on there, the first thing I’m gonna start doing — maybe not the first, but maybe the first — is writing, you know, negative stuff about China, okay? Just to try to prove to Elon Musk that I want to see that you’re serious about this, okay? And because China has a lot to answer for, let’s be honest.

BUCK: Yep.

BERENSON: But, like, we shouldn’t be dependent on Elon Musk. These are rights that, you know, that are in the California Constitution — they’re in the U.S. Constitution — about free speech. And that’s where our rights should come from. It shouldn’t come from the whims of a billionaire, even if those whims I agree with.

BUCK: Alex we’ve only got a minute or two here, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t ask you. Clay and I discussed this a little bit yesterday, Moderna wanting an emergency authorization for under…? What is it, 5 and under vaccination?

BERENSON: Yeah.

BUCK: And this comes at a time when you’ve probably seen on social media there are some of these people purporting to be parents — I can’t verify this — who essentially say they haven’t let their children out of the house to see other kids and do anything in two years.

BERENSON: Right. Well, I mean, you know, those parents now need to be, you know, beaten about the face and neck. What can I…? It’s not a joke anymore. Like, this is now child abuse and should be treated that way. You know, as for Moderna, there’s that famous old cartoon: “How about never? Does never work for you?” You know, that’s how I feel about, you know, these vaccines for kids. The risk-benefit, it is insane. Anybody who’s had a child who’s gotten Omicron knows. I mean, again, there is this tiny, tiny, tiny fraction of kids who, you know, have severe comorbidities going in and could get really sick.

BUCK: Do we have one example, Alex, that is confirmed of a healthy child in that age range without a severe immune-compromised situation which means they’re susceptibility to approximate a whole lot of other viruses too, who has died from Omicron? Do we know of a single one?

BERENSON: The short answer to that question is no. I mean, I believe in Britain they said they had a handful, but they don’t disclose obesity status. So, I mean, even these kids who aren’t — you know, are not like, again, either immunocompromised or late-stage cancer. You know, a lot of the kids who’ve gotten really sick are… You know, they are off the charts on BMI. Again, for healthy kids, look even if they can find a case, like one case, the fact is for healthy kids, this is barely even a cold. They should not be vaccinated against covid with these mRNA vaccines because —

BUCK: Hopefully you’ll be able to say that on Twitter soon and not just here on the show, although a lot of people listen to this show, Alex. Thank you very much for joining us. Check out, Pandemia, Unreported Truths. You got another book coming out soon too?

BERENSON: Well, first things first. But, Buck, have a great weekend, man.

BUCK: All right. Have a great weekend, Alex. Thank you.