Vel Freedman
Appearances
The Megyn Kelly Show
New Trump Derangement Syndrome Examples, and How CNN Smeared a Navy Veteran, with Piers Morgan, Zachary Young, and Vel Freedman | Ep. 991
Sure. I mean, we're trying to track down exactly when the last time it happened was, but it seems that a national media organization like CNN has not been held liable for punitive damages in the past 50 or 60 years. So it's quite rare. And Megan, as you touched on in the beginning, it has to do with what needs to be proven to hold a media company to account like that.
The Megyn Kelly Show
New Trump Derangement Syndrome Examples, and How CNN Smeared a Navy Veteran, with Piers Morgan, Zachary Young, and Vel Freedman | Ep. 991
So they tried, but they failed. So he was not called a public figure. And so to get liability on the underlying count, meaning for the jury to say you have to pay him your compensatory damages, the $5 million, we only had to show negligence. But in order to get the punitive damages award, you have to show malice. It's the same standard.
The Megyn Kelly Show
New Trump Derangement Syndrome Examples, and How CNN Smeared a Navy Veteran, with Piers Morgan, Zachary Young, and Vel Freedman | Ep. 991
the jury when the jury eventually found that cnn should be liable for punitive damages they had to have found that cnn knew what they were publishing was not true or had at minimum substantial doubts as to whether it was true they published anyways despite knowing it was true or probably not true and that they did it with a primary intent to harm zachary and so the jury had to find both those things and did find both those things in order to hold cnn liable for punitive damages
The Megyn Kelly Show
New Trump Derangement Syndrome Examples, and How CNN Smeared a Navy Veteran, with Piers Morgan, Zachary Young, and Vel Freedman | Ep. 991
You know, they are tough. By the time we were forced to attend the court-ordered mediation, CNN asked the court to force Zach to come in from Vienna in person for that meeting. They said they wanted to take it seriously. I got to tell you, it wasn't really legal strategy. We gave Zach advice. We told him we thought he had a really strong case.
The Megyn Kelly Show
New Trump Derangement Syndrome Examples, and How CNN Smeared a Navy Veteran, with Piers Morgan, Zachary Young, and Vel Freedman | Ep. 991
The evidence here was overwhelming in our view that CNN had committed defamation, had it done so maliciously. But it was really Zach that wouldn't settle. He said he had to, you know, I think he told me there were two things he wanted to accomplish. One, he needed to clear his name. because they had slandered him internationally to millions of people.
The Megyn Kelly Show
New Trump Derangement Syndrome Examples, and How CNN Smeared a Navy Veteran, with Piers Morgan, Zachary Young, and Vel Freedman | Ep. 991
And the second is he thought this was a very rare opportunity to kind of expose wrongdoing and bad actors in the media and just kind of try to course-correct a little bit. And he's a patriot. He's always been a patriot. He was a Navy vet. He worked for, you know, the CIA for a long time. He's not supposed to talk about it, but it came out at trial.
The Megyn Kelly Show
New Trump Derangement Syndrome Examples, and How CNN Smeared a Navy Veteran, with Piers Morgan, Zachary Young, and Vel Freedman | Ep. 991
And this was just one more way he was serving his country.
The Megyn Kelly Show
New Trump Derangement Syndrome Examples, and How CNN Smeared a Navy Veteran, with Piers Morgan, Zachary Young, and Vel Freedman | Ep. 991
Do you recall the Pam Brown apology? Yes. And you testified about it yesterday. Do you recall that? I did. And I believe you said essentially that you did it to try to avoid a lawsuit, right?
The Megyn Kelly Show
New Trump Derangement Syndrome Examples, and How CNN Smeared a Navy Veteran, with Piers Morgan, Zachary Young, and Vel Freedman | Ep. 991
So CNN's not really sorry, right?
The Megyn Kelly Show
New Trump Derangement Syndrome Examples, and How CNN Smeared a Navy Veteran, with Piers Morgan, Zachary Young, and Vel Freedman | Ep. 991
That's right. I mean, I would say I think Tom Lumley and Megan Trimble were editors in digital. The triad is their three part review. It includes legal standards and the row, and they all approved it. Fuzz Hogan, one of the members of triad, is one of the ones that called Zach a shit. So, you know, you're right in that everyone would defend it.
The Megyn Kelly Show
New Trump Derangement Syndrome Examples, and How CNN Smeared a Navy Veteran, with Piers Morgan, Zachary Young, and Vel Freedman | Ep. 991
We made a point of asking every CNN witness on the stand. Are you sorry? Would you do it again? Each one of them said, we're not sorry. We would do it again. And that helped with our punitive damages argument, which was you heard we turned to the jury, said you heard they all said they'd do it again. They all said they're not sorry. Of course, they're going to do it again.
The Megyn Kelly Show
New Trump Derangement Syndrome Examples, and How CNN Smeared a Navy Veteran, with Piers Morgan, Zachary Young, and Vel Freedman | Ep. 991
I do want to say one thing. I have a lot of respect for Adam Levine, who was the corporate rep you just saw. His documents were super clean. He didn't participate in any of the name calling of Zack or anything like that.
The Megyn Kelly Show
New Trump Derangement Syndrome Examples, and How CNN Smeared a Navy Veteran, with Piers Morgan, Zachary Young, and Vel Freedman | Ep. 991
Then he became CNN's corporate representative and was asked to defend, which is an impossible position because CNN's lawyers took one look at the clip and immediately issued an apology to try to take advantage of the retraction statutes that give some protection to media if you offer a retraction.
The Megyn Kelly Show
New Trump Derangement Syndrome Examples, and How CNN Smeared a Navy Veteran, with Piers Morgan, Zachary Young, and Vel Freedman | Ep. 991
But then CNN decided, its legal team decided it wanted to defend the piece and claim it wasn't an error, it was tough but fair. Well, if it was tough but fair, why did you apologize? And so he was asked to defend this absolutely impossible position, which was, on the one hand, CNN issued an apology, but on the other hand, they're not sorry. But, you know, I thought he was honest.
The Megyn Kelly Show
New Trump Derangement Syndrome Examples, and How CNN Smeared a Navy Veteran, with Piers Morgan, Zachary Young, and Vel Freedman | Ep. 991
I thought he was forthcoming. And, you know, it's a tough position to be in. But, you know, some of the others... What did you think of...
The Megyn Kelly Show
New Trump Derangement Syndrome Examples, and How CNN Smeared a Navy Veteran, with Piers Morgan, Zachary Young, and Vel Freedman | Ep. 991
You know, in my opinion, he was not forthright. He speaks very well. You know, he's a star. He's a TV star. So he speaks very, very well.
The Megyn Kelly Show
New Trump Derangement Syndrome Examples, and How CNN Smeared a Navy Veteran, with Piers Morgan, Zachary Young, and Vel Freedman | Ep. 991
He's CNN's chief national security reporter, so... I thought he speaks well, but I thought under cross-examination, he kind of folded, and he had an inability to kind of own his own words. You showed that theater trip clip, Megan, where he, you know, declares the... his own reporting theater. And in Cross, I kept asking him, so you included theater and he wouldn't say it.
The Megyn Kelly Show
New Trump Derangement Syndrome Examples, and How CNN Smeared a Navy Veteran, with Piers Morgan, Zachary Young, and Vel Freedman | Ep. 991
No, it's B-roll, it's this, it's pickup shots. And I eventually got to the point where I said to him, you just can't own your own words, can you, right? You just can't stomach the fact that you called this theater. And he eventually came up with an excuse for it. He claimed that he was mimicking John Lovitz from SNL, who he claimed played this like master thespian who would say theater.
The Megyn Kelly Show
New Trump Derangement Syndrome Examples, and How CNN Smeared a Navy Veteran, with Piers Morgan, Zachary Young, and Vel Freedman | Ep. 991
And then during his direct, we were able to look up basically every SNL episode where the master thespian appeared and see that the line wasn't theater, it was acting. And so we were able to come back and expose that as a lie as well. And it just, I mean, his just veneer just shattered.
The Megyn Kelly Show
New Trump Derangement Syndrome Examples, and How CNN Smeared a Navy Veteran, with Piers Morgan, Zachary Young, and Vel Freedman | Ep. 991
And so I think he came across as not credible, as arrogant, as not a truth teller, and the jury held him to account.
The Megyn Kelly Show
New Trump Derangement Syndrome Examples, and How CNN Smeared a Navy Veteran, with Piers Morgan, Zachary Young, and Vel Freedman | Ep. 991
You said you were proud of this one, did you not? Yes. You still proud, Mr. Markhart?
The Megyn Kelly Show
New Trump Derangement Syndrome Examples, and How CNN Smeared a Navy Veteran, with Piers Morgan, Zachary Young, and Vel Freedman | Ep. 991
Would you do another piece like this, Mr. Markhart?
The Megyn Kelly Show
New Trump Derangement Syndrome Examples, and How CNN Smeared a Navy Veteran, with Piers Morgan, Zachary Young, and Vel Freedman | Ep. 991
Would you like to apologize to Mr. Young, Mr. Markhart?
The Megyn Kelly Show
New Trump Derangement Syndrome Examples, and How CNN Smeared a Navy Veteran, with Piers Morgan, Zachary Young, and Vel Freedman | Ep. 991
Because he deserved to be nailed?
The Megyn Kelly Show
New Trump Derangement Syndrome Examples, and How CNN Smeared a Navy Veteran, with Piers Morgan, Zachary Young, and Vel Freedman | Ep. 991
Because he was a mother effer?
The Megyn Kelly Show
New Trump Derangement Syndrome Examples, and How CNN Smeared a Navy Veteran, with Piers Morgan, Zachary Young, and Vel Freedman | Ep. 991
Because he was an S-bag?
The Megyn Kelly Show
New Trump Derangement Syndrome Examples, and How CNN Smeared a Navy Veteran, with Piers Morgan, Zachary Young, and Vel Freedman | Ep. 991
Yes, sir.
The Megyn Kelly Show
New Trump Derangement Syndrome Examples, and How CNN Smeared a Navy Veteran, with Piers Morgan, Zachary Young, and Vel Freedman | Ep. 991
You don't want to apologize to him because you thought he was a S-H-I-T bag, correct?
The Megyn Kelly Show
New Trump Derangement Syndrome Examples, and How CNN Smeared a Navy Veteran, with Piers Morgan, Zachary Young, and Vel Freedman | Ep. 991
Correct or not?
The Megyn Kelly Show
New Trump Derangement Syndrome Examples, and How CNN Smeared a Navy Veteran, with Piers Morgan, Zachary Young, and Vel Freedman | Ep. 991
Because he is an a-hole?
The Megyn Kelly Show
New Trump Derangement Syndrome Examples, and How CNN Smeared a Navy Veteran, with Piers Morgan, Zachary Young, and Vel Freedman | Ep. 991
Because he has a punchable face?
The Megyn Kelly Show
New Trump Derangement Syndrome Examples, and How CNN Smeared a Navy Veteran, with Piers Morgan, Zachary Young, and Vel Freedman | Ep. 991
He's a parasite that needs to be exterminated, sir.
The Megyn Kelly Show
New Trump Derangement Syndrome Examples, and How CNN Smeared a Navy Veteran, with Piers Morgan, Zachary Young, and Vel Freedman | Ep. 991
Your Honor, we have no further questions.
The Megyn Kelly Show
New Trump Derangement Syndrome Examples, and How CNN Smeared a Navy Veteran, with Piers Morgan, Zachary Young, and Vel Freedman | Ep. 991
actually something like that. He said, yeah, he wrote for F sakes, effing young, just texted when you finally responded, you know, you're a news reporter and you're supposed to be trying to get information from your source, your source, the subject of your story writes back to you.
The Megyn Kelly Show
New Trump Derangement Syndrome Examples, and How CNN Smeared a Navy Veteran, with Piers Morgan, Zachary Young, and Vel Freedman | Ep. 991
And his immediate response to one of his colleagues is FFS, which he testified men for F sake effing young, just texted. I mean, he, he laid it, but he didn't use the euphemism. He used the straight up, you know, the curse words. He was not happy that Zach had reached back out to him.
The Megyn Kelly Show
New Trump Derangement Syndrome Examples, and How CNN Smeared a Navy Veteran, with Piers Morgan, Zachary Young, and Vel Freedman | Ep. 991
That was an interesting thing that came out of trial. The reporters sort of exhibited this disgust for Zach because he had profited off of this situation in Afghanistan. Mind you, he was charging corporations and NGOs who were happy to pay for this service and had no qualms about it. Everyone was happy. The corporation was happy. Zach was happy. The people rescued from Afghanistan were happy.
The Megyn Kelly Show
New Trump Derangement Syndrome Examples, and How CNN Smeared a Navy Veteran, with Piers Morgan, Zachary Young, and Vel Freedman | Ep. 991
But CNN decided that their reporters, that this was disgusting, and this was horrible, and Zach deserved punishment for it. And at trial, we kind of brought out this hypocrisy, which is some of you all, including Mark Hart, are war correspondents, right? You go into war, you're paid to report on war. CNN advertises its own advertisements and sells advertisements while it's reporting on war.
The Megyn Kelly Show
New Trump Derangement Syndrome Examples, and How CNN Smeared a Navy Veteran, with Piers Morgan, Zachary Young, and Vel Freedman | Ep. 991
Both CNN's reporters and Zachary Young were paid by corporations to operate in war zones.
The Megyn Kelly Show
New Trump Derangement Syndrome Examples, and How CNN Smeared a Navy Veteran, with Piers Morgan, Zachary Young, and Vel Freedman | Ep. 991
no one's saying that what cnn is doing is inappropriate to report on war and no one should be saying that servicing corporations to evacuate people from war zones is a problem either and yet cnn turned it was just so hypocritical just turned this like uh hatred on zach as as as a result of what he was doing and i think that really appealed to the jury this idea that you know they were hating him they were going after him
The Megyn Kelly Show
New Trump Derangement Syndrome Examples, and How CNN Smeared a Navy Veteran, with Piers Morgan, Zachary Young, and Vel Freedman | Ep. 991
They were maliciously targeting him, and this was one of the reasons why, and it was completely hypocritical.
The Megyn Kelly Show
New Trump Derangement Syndrome Examples, and How CNN Smeared a Navy Veteran, with Piers Morgan, Zachary Young, and Vel Freedman | Ep. 991
Sure. So a couple of days earlier, CNN had asked Zach a question and sprang a surprise document on us. That's as you know, Megan, that's not supposed to happen in litigation. Both sides. It's not trial by ambush. We're supposed to disclose things to the other side and you have a due process right to prepare. They obtained this document. We didn't know that they had it.
The Megyn Kelly Show
New Trump Derangement Syndrome Examples, and How CNN Smeared a Navy Veteran, with Piers Morgan, Zachary Young, and Vel Freedman | Ep. 991
And it purported to be this consulting agreement between Zach and another company. And they were using it as this bombshell evidence that Zach lied. And he did have people that gave him work after the segment aired. And we immediately objected, so I've never seen this document before.
The Megyn Kelly Show
New Trump Derangement Syndrome Examples, and How CNN Smeared a Navy Veteran, with Piers Morgan, Zachary Young, and Vel Freedman | Ep. 991
And we went to sidebar with the judge and Mr. Axrod told the judge that this had, I don't remember his exact words, but something along the lines of this, like by sheer luck, we obtained this document and some, you know, just kind of landed in our lap. And, you know, it's so crucial to the case, we have to be able to use it.
The Megyn Kelly Show
New Trump Derangement Syndrome Examples, and How CNN Smeared a Navy Veteran, with Piers Morgan, Zachary Young, and Vel Freedman | Ep. 991
the judge allowed them to use it notwithstanding that it wasn't disclosed and didn't allow us to consult with zach before it was used and when he was confronted with zach was confronted with it he explained it perfectly and he said listen this is not a commercial agreement this is simply an agreement to hold my security clearance i've never done any work for this company you have seven years of my bank records you've got all of my tax returns you see no income has come
The Megyn Kelly Show
New Trump Derangement Syndrome Examples, and How CNN Smeared a Navy Veteran, with Piers Morgan, Zachary Young, and Vel Freedman | Ep. 991
This is just an arrangement to hold a security clearance because that's the way it works. When you leave the government, a corporation has to hold your clearance. A couple days later, the CEO of that company wrote to us. He told us that essentially Siena had lied to us and that it didn't fortuitously or by luck come into their hands, but they had issued a subpoena to that company.
The Megyn Kelly Show
New Trump Derangement Syndrome Examples, and How CNN Smeared a Navy Veteran, with Piers Morgan, Zachary Young, and Vel Freedman | Ep. 991
They had not told anyone they had issued a subpoena. They had obtained the documents. They had made a partial production of them using only one of the documents. Turns out in that correspondence, this company informed CNN that Zach no longer had a security clearance as of 2022, something we didn't even know anymore.
The Megyn Kelly Show
New Trump Derangement Syndrome Examples, and How CNN Smeared a Navy Veteran, with Piers Morgan, Zachary Young, and Vel Freedman | Ep. 991
Then CNN, knowing that, put an expert on the stand to testify that because he had a security clearance, he could still get more work. It wasn't a problem. They knew he didn't have one. We didn't. What? Yeah.
The Megyn Kelly Show
New Trump Derangement Syndrome Examples, and How CNN Smeared a Navy Veteran, with Piers Morgan, Zachary Young, and Vel Freedman | Ep. 991
When we found all this information out, we filed a motion with the judge and we said, look, we've been massively prejudiced here and we were very careful not to ask for any kind of sanctions or anything like that. We asked for one thing. We said, can we get the CEO to testify? Because technically we didn't notify him, but they got this document surreptitiously. They didn't tell us they got it.
The Megyn Kelly Show
New Trump Derangement Syndrome Examples, and How CNN Smeared a Navy Veteran, with Piers Morgan, Zachary Young, and Vel Freedman | Ep. 991
They told you yesterday that it fell in their lap based on basically luck that wasn't true. And, you know, when a judge believes that a lawyer, which we call like an officer of the court, you have duties of candor and ethical obligations not to lie. People like saying lawyers are liars, but we're not. You're not supposed to. You have to be very honest in court. Yeah.
The Megyn Kelly Show
New Trump Derangement Syndrome Examples, and How CNN Smeared a Navy Veteran, with Piers Morgan, Zachary Young, and Vel Freedman | Ep. 991
And, you know, when a judge believes that he's been lied to, that's the reaction you get. And, you know, I think Judge Henry very reasonably believed we believed it, too, that he had been lied to. And he flew off the handle saying, you know, you just lied to you. You misrepresented to me where this document came from, how you got it. You know, you accused Mr. Young of lying.
The Megyn Kelly Show
New Trump Derangement Syndrome Examples, and How CNN Smeared a Navy Veteran, with Piers Morgan, Zachary Young, and Vel Freedman | Ep. 991
in his deposition, he didn't. You accused him of lying, committing a fraud in the court, he didn't. He answered every question honestly, including when you surprised him. He says, did you sign this document with this and this company? Zach said, yeah, I did. Then he went to impeach him, which Megan, you know this, but I'm not sure the audience is. Be proper.
The Megyn Kelly Show
New Trump Derangement Syndrome Examples, and How CNN Smeared a Navy Veteran, with Piers Morgan, Zachary Young, and Vel Freedman | Ep. 991
Yeah, you can't impeach a witness if they tell you the truth. There's nothing to impeach with. So it was, you know, Judge Henry flew off the handle at CNN's lawyer, basically feeling that he had lied to him. And that's why he said to him, look, your credibility with me is about zero.
The Megyn Kelly Show
New Trump Derangement Syndrome Examples, and How CNN Smeared a Navy Veteran, with Piers Morgan, Zachary Young, and Vel Freedman | Ep. 991
Yeah, well, you can sue anywhere the defamation is published into, any county it's been published into. So CNN has been published into Florida. Also, CNN has affiliates in Bay County, which allow for venue in Bay County as well. And Zach's business, which was an original plaintiff, was incorporated in Florida. So we had a few nexus to Florida, and that's why we brought it there.
The Megyn Kelly Show
New Trump Derangement Syndrome Examples, and How CNN Smeared a Navy Veteran, with Piers Morgan, Zachary Young, and Vel Freedman | Ep. 991
By the way, I wanted to comment on one thing. If I remember correctly, and I think I do, the jury was 50-50. It was 50% Republican and 50% Democrat. So this wasn't like, yeah, it didn't pull. Judge Henry was very liberal, in my opinion, of granting strikes for cause to CNN for anyone that kind of expressed skepticism over CNN or media. They ended up with a very fair jury. Big news.
The Megyn Kelly Show
New Trump Derangement Syndrome Examples, and How CNN Smeared a Navy Veteran, with Piers Morgan, Zachary Young, and Vel Freedman | Ep. 991
you should have seen the hands that came up, Megan, when they said, when, you know, CNN's lawyers asked that who here thinks CNN's fake news. And I mean, Oh my God, so many hands.
The Megyn Kelly Show
New Trump Derangement Syndrome Examples, and How CNN Smeared a Navy Veteran, with Piers Morgan, Zachary Young, and Vel Freedman | Ep. 991
That's right. So in Florida, it's this unique process where you break the trial into two phases. CNN has a right to do this and they exercise it. It's called bifurcation. And so in phase one of the trial, the jury determines, are you liable for defamation per se? And by implication, they said yes.
The Megyn Kelly Show
New Trump Derangement Syndrome Examples, and How CNN Smeared a Navy Veteran, with Piers Morgan, Zachary Young, and Vel Freedman | Ep. 991
how much money do you owe because of that and they said 5 million and then are you entitled to punitive damages does cnn need to be punished and they answered that question yes so that that's phase one they said liable for defamation pay him five million dollars and we're gonna punish you which then means we roll into a phase two where it then becomes, well, what is a proper punishment for CNN?
The Megyn Kelly Show
New Trump Derangement Syndrome Examples, and How CNN Smeared a Navy Veteran, with Piers Morgan, Zachary Young, and Vel Freedman | Ep. 991
And to do that, you need to understand how much CNN is worth, right? Because if you give Bill Gates a $10 speeding ticket, he's not going to learn his lesson. He'll just speed through the rest of town, right? And you need to impose an actual punishment. And one of the phrases we were looking for was, you know, like, in order to make a difference, you got to make a dent.
The Megyn Kelly Show
New Trump Derangement Syndrome Examples, and How CNN Smeared a Navy Veteran, with Piers Morgan, Zachary Young, and Vel Freedman | Ep. 991
And this is a behemoth company. I mean, like as phase two progressed, the evidence came out that CNN makes $2 billion in revenue a year, right? I mean, this company is worth a lot of money, brings in a lot of money. It is on a decline, but it's still bringing in a lot of money. And how do you punish someone who's worth a billion dollars or is bringing in $2 billion worth of revenue per year?
The Megyn Kelly Show
New Trump Derangement Syndrome Examples, and How CNN Smeared a Navy Veteran, with Piers Morgan, Zachary Young, and Vel Freedman | Ep. 991
And so phase two began us presenting evidence of how much CNN is worth and how much they could afford to pay without bankrupting them, but punishing them. And I think our expert ended up saying they bring in about $5 million in revenue a day. A proper mode of punishment is to kind of put somebody in timeout where they no longer, you know, you dock their pay, so to speak.
The Megyn Kelly Show
New Trump Derangement Syndrome Examples, and How CNN Smeared a Navy Veteran, with Piers Morgan, Zachary Young, and Vel Freedman | Ep. 991
And I think the question from us that happened shortly before settlement was reached was, you know, could they afford a month timeout? You know, about 30 days of revenue at $5 million a day, which is about $150 million. And the expert said, Yeah, no problem. And so I think that was the phase that was going on.
The Megyn Kelly Show
New Trump Derangement Syndrome Examples, and How CNN Smeared a Navy Veteran, with Piers Morgan, Zachary Young, and Vel Freedman | Ep. 991
And then had it continued, we would have eventually gotten in front of the jury and said, this is how much we think you need to pay to punish, to make CNN be punished for their conduct and to deter anyone else from doing something similar. Never got there.
The Megyn Kelly Show
New Trump Derangement Syndrome Examples, and How CNN Smeared a Navy Veteran, with Piers Morgan, Zachary Young, and Vel Freedman | Ep. 991
Yeah, I think it was like 400 million downs in the last couple of years or something like that. It was our punitive damages expert who was tracking their revenue from 2020. I think it was 2021, 22 and 23 and showed a drop in income. He did explain though that even though they are steadily losing money, they still can afford to pay a significant amount of money.
The Megyn Kelly Show
New Trump Derangement Syndrome Examples, and How CNN Smeared a Navy Veteran, with Piers Morgan, Zachary Young, and Vel Freedman | Ep. 991
You didn't show that clip, but Jim Acosta aired the segment at issue in the case and talked about black markets before. There were these teaser trailers. One of the issues in the case was
The Megyn Kelly Show
New Trump Derangement Syndrome Examples, and How CNN Smeared a Navy Veteran, with Piers Morgan, Zachary Young, and Vel Freedman | Ep. 991
what are the gist like forget about what the actual words are like when you watch the whole thing what do you walk what's the impression you walk away from and one of the things we used to prove the gist were these teasers that they would play before the video aired and it was said stuff like you know how desperate afghans are being preyed upon you know being demanded do they pay big time to get out and we said
The Megyn Kelly Show
New Trump Derangement Syndrome Examples, and How CNN Smeared a Navy Veteran, with Piers Morgan, Zachary Young, and Vel Freedman | Ep. 991
what's better to summarize what this is about than their own teaser trailers? And Jim Acosta gave one of those teasers and then played the segment. So he was featured in our case.
The Megyn Kelly Show
New Trump Derangement Syndrome Examples, and How CNN Smeared a Navy Veteran, with Piers Morgan, Zachary Young, and Vel Freedman | Ep. 991
It's worse. That promotion happened shortly after we filed our motion for leave to add punitive damages. But I agree with you, meaning we did not depose Jake Tapper until the punitive damages section of the case that talked about how much revenue the Jake Tapper show brought in and things like that.
The Megyn Kelly Show
New Trump Derangement Syndrome Examples, and How CNN Smeared a Navy Veteran, with Piers Morgan, Zachary Young, and Vel Freedman | Ep. 991
Because for the same reason you just laid out, we don't really think Jake Tapper had anything to do with the defamation. He He was tagged in a lot of the media coverage, but really this was an Alex Marquardt and others story. Tapper was the anchor. He was handed a script. He read his script that he thought was vetted properly. And so he ended up making some of the most damning statements.
The Megyn Kelly Show
New Trump Derangement Syndrome Examples, and How CNN Smeared a Navy Veteran, with Piers Morgan, Zachary Young, and Vel Freedman | Ep. 991
But I think Zach agrees with me that we don't blame Jake Tapper for what occurred. But for Marquardt, his contract negotiations came up and we actually CNN moved what we call a motion in limine to keep this out of the case. And they were successful over our objection.
The Megyn Kelly Show
New Trump Derangement Syndrome Examples, and How CNN Smeared a Navy Veteran, with Piers Morgan, Zachary Young, and Vel Freedman | Ep. 991
So what happened is we filed our motion for leave to amend to add punitive damages, which is essentially a motion where we take all the bad evidence of the case, we put it in front of the court and we say, this is really, really, really bad conduct. You should allow us to seek punitive damages, punish CNN. And the court acts as a gatekeeper to say, yes, this is really bad.
The Megyn Kelly Show
New Trump Derangement Syndrome Examples, and How CNN Smeared a Navy Veteran, with Piers Morgan, Zachary Young, and Vel Freedman | Ep. 991
We'll let you see if you can get it from the jury or no, this isn't bad enough. You're not going to let the jury take it. And as soon as they got that motion, within a few weeks or a month, they paused Alex Marquardt's contract negotiations, conducted an investigation. Yeah, for about a month, and then ended that investigation by promoting him and giving him a raise.
The Megyn Kelly Show
New Trump Derangement Syndrome Examples, and How CNN Smeared a Navy Veteran, with Piers Morgan, Zachary Young, and Vel Freedman | Ep. 991
And we said, what is better proof that a company needs to be punished than the fact that they are rewarding these wrongdoers as opposed to, right? But the judge kept it out. He said, it's too prejudicial. I'm not going to lie.
The Megyn Kelly Show
New Trump Derangement Syndrome Examples, and How CNN Smeared a Navy Veteran, with Piers Morgan, Zachary Young, and Vel Freedman | Ep. 991
I agree. I agree. Yeah. I tell Zach it's the closest civilians like us, like me, will ever get to war because I don't have the guts to do what he did. And, you know, can't thank you enough for that service, Zach. But like, you know, that's the closest we get to these boardroom wars. But yeah, you're right. I mean, there's and it's not just the other guy. Right.
The Megyn Kelly Show
New Trump Derangement Syndrome Examples, and How CNN Smeared a Navy Veteran, with Piers Morgan, Zachary Young, and Vel Freedman | Ep. 991
There's a team of lawyers behind the scenes working to make you look like an idiot. And you've got your team working to make you not look like an idiot. And that's really what ends up, you know, coming forth. It's a battle of which. It was interesting to watch, but I wouldn't want to do it again.
The Megyn Kelly Show
New Trump Derangement Syndrome Examples, and How CNN Smeared a Navy Veteran, with Piers Morgan, Zachary Young, and Vel Freedman | Ep. 991
Yeah, it was odd to us too. I mean, there's some additional language about, oh, on TV, it was like silhouetted figures and it zips along. And they tried explaining in a trial saying, well, there's more space on digital, so it's got to have more content. But when you look at the actual red lines of what they created versus the TV script, it's really basically the same. In fact,
The Megyn Kelly Show
New Trump Derangement Syndrome Examples, and How CNN Smeared a Navy Veteran, with Piers Morgan, Zachary Young, and Vel Freedman | Ep. 991
Tom Lumley characterized it as a slight recast off of the digital segment. So my feelings are with yours, Megan. I don't understand how they think that there's a difference in standards, that they can kind of do something on TV that's substandard, but then when they put it in print, it's got to be better.
The Megyn Kelly Show
New Trump Derangement Syndrome Examples, and How CNN Smeared a Navy Veteran, with Piers Morgan, Zachary Young, and Vel Freedman | Ep. 991
And we use that extensively to show that the video segment itself and the digital article were both, you know, had more holes than Swiss cheese or 20% emotion, 80% emotion, 20% obscured fact. And we asked Thomas Lumley on the stand, I said to him, what is an obscured fact other than a lie? Right. And and his response was like, you know, he couldn't he couldn't respond. So yeah, I'm with you guys.