One America News host Dan Ball explains why Democrats in Congress are trying to shut his network down.

of them has been massaged or influenced or censored by a corporate gatekeeper.

We've made a lot of these.

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Here's today's episode.

If the first amendment means anything, and it has to if this is going to remain America,

it means that the U.S. government cannot censor the news.

It can't make laws to stop journalists from saying what they think is true.

So that's not an arcane legal question.

It's in the text.

It's the first amendment to our Bill of Rights, the whole point of America.

And yet, out there in the open, Democrats are working to shut down news organizations

all over the country.

We've reported on this for a couple of years, but in no case are they doing it more openly

than their attempt to shut down a conservative news channel called One America News, OAN.

So why are they doing this?

Well, they say the channel pushes something called disinformation.

Now, disinformation, you should know, does not mean that something is dishonest or factually

incorrect.

It can be entirely true.

It just means that the people in charge don't want to hear it and they don't want you to

hear it.

So it's therefore disinformation.

It's a term stolen from the intel agencies, which are part of the apparatus in the federal

government that Democrats are using to shut down the news.

So here's California Governor Gavin Newsom going after OAN for daring to say that the

vaccine might not be safe and effective.

Well, the platforms are of concern, of course, and platforms have to do a better job across

the spectrum.

But there are also those that are propaganda machines that are out there as well.

Let's be candid.

One American News, you're familiar with them down here, perhaps one of the great disinformation

networks in America.

OAN is one of the great disinformation networks in America.

There's a guy who lies every day for a living, and it's not a guess, it can be proven.

There's a guy who locked down the entire state and then went to the French Laundry in Napa

for dinner without a mask on.

That guy is accusing other people of disinformation.

So what you have here is the oldest story ever told.

The people in power don't want to be criticized, and in a so-called democratic system, they

don't want voters to know that they're liars and incompetent.

So they shut down anyone who tells the truth about them or who spreads a message they don't

care for.

It's just abuse of power.

It never changes.

It's been going on since Nebuchadnezzar, and he learned it from his grandfather because

it's never not existed.

But this country officially disallowed it, made it illegal with the Bill of Rights, which

is just now being ignored.

So House Democrats are putting pressure on cable providers to cut ties with OAN because

that's not unconstitutional somehow.

So we're watching all of this, it's getting no attention, and we thought, why not speak

to someone at the center of it, Dan Ball.

He's a host of Real America on One America News on OAN, and he joins us now in the studio

to explain what's happening to him and his employer.

Dan, thanks very much for coming on.

Tucker, can I say thank you?

Oh my gosh, thank you.

Are you kidding?

For inviting me, OAN, some of our managements here in ownership as well.

We truly appreciate it.

Oh, of course.

I mean, you have been a voice of reason, common sense for the people, for the Constitution,

for freedom of press, freedom of speech.

So thank you.

Well, that's all that matters.

I mean, I've got nothing to do with OAN.

I don't even own a TV, as you know.

But I think it is, I hate the word, but it's existential, it is a question of life or death

for the country, whether or not the First Amendment stands.

And the idea that Democrats in power are trying to shut down a news organization for saying

things they don't like, which by the way, happen to be true things, is really a threat

to life as we know it.

So thank you.

So tell us, just I'll ask you simple questions and get out of the way.

How are government officials trying to shut down your news organization?

So go back to 2020.

Let's start with the reporting on the Hunter Biden laptop.

Yes.

OAN was the first one to break that?

Yes.

To say it was legit.

We had Rudy Giuliani come on with our Chanel Rion and discuss it.

We even went over to Ukraine and interviewed some folks.

And in August, we broke that story before the election.

We were then called by every single mainstream media outlet and Democrats, purveyors of disinformation,

Russian propagandists.

There was people online saying that we were owned by Russia, that we favored Putin, that

Mr. Haring was bought and paid for by Russia or Trump.

I can guarantee you, it's a sweet 82-year-old hardworking man and his two sons that own

us.

Not Putin, not Trump.

I can assure you.

I've been there almost four years.

Can I just say, because I've been obviously the subject of this as well.

Yes, you know.

I don't really care who owns your news network, anyone's news network.

If it turned out that you were owned by Vladimir Putin, which you're not, of course, but I

would still assess the product on its own terms.

Is what you're saying true or not?

I mean, that's all that matters.

And what did they tell us back then?

The laptop was Russian disinformation.

You had those, what, 50-some ex-intelligence community people say it was misinformation,

disinformation.

Liars.

Russian propaganda.

Yes, sir.

And we aired it.

So that's when it really started.

Okay.

They looked at us and went, oh my God, these guys are going to interfere with the election

because we're spitting truth to power.

We're telling you this laptop is real.

The big guy's Joe Biden.

He's taking 10%.

He's used his family and his influence to make millions, to enrich himself.

Well, they didn't like that very much.

No.

And then of course, COVID, we're in the middle of COVID.

We busted through the narrative of the masks aren't working.

When Joe took over and he told everybody to get the vaccine, he was talking about that

winter of death and everything.

We were talking about the irregularities, rather, you'd see with the vaccine when it

comes to side effects and deaths.

They didn't like that.

So it was kind of cascading downward from the Hunter Biden laptop story to COVID coverage.

And then we had the 2020 election.

Okay.

And we had people on, of course, discussing irregularities in the election.

They didn't like any of that.

So it started several ways.

YouTube demonetized us.

I mean, every time we'd put a story about COVID, masks, distancing, the laptop, boom,

take it down, 30 day suspension, 60 days, or just try to kill the whole account.

And then all of a sudden, letters came out, I think about 21 or 22.

And somebody can correct me if I'm wrong on the date, but you had a letter and I think

I gave them to your producers.

There was a letter from four Democrat senators and two California Congress folks, Democrats,

who sent letters to not only all of the satellite and cable carriers, but also to advertisers.

And they use that little thing from NewsGuard, which I've heard you talk about NewsGuard

and that ESG rating and pyramid system.

It's just a CIA operation to shut down the truth, of course.

They told them to get rid of, and your old network was named Fox Newsmax and OAN.

Now who's the smallest on that totem pole?

We are.

So they came after us.

And so they scared away advertisers.

They got us kicked off multiple carriers, Frontier, Verizon, DirecTV, everything, because

the Democrats sent these letters.

So sitting members of Congress tried to get a news channel kicked off the air and bankrupted.

But isn't that right?

I mean, call me naive.

In the country I grew up in, that was just absolutely not allowed.

You weren't allowed to do that.

We're not state-run TV, right?

We're not supposed to be.

I mean, when I got into this-

Well, it's against the law to do that.

Well, but does this regime care?

Look what the Biden regime's been doing to this country.

They don't care about the law.

Do you remember the names of the members who disgraced themselves by doing this?

I gave your producer the letters.

I don't have them in front of me.

No problem.

Eshoo was one of them from California.

Anna Eshoo, yeah.

And McInerney, McInerney, something like that, from California.

That's the two Congress folks.

Our House of Representatives.

And your company's based in Southern California.

Yeah, we're in San Diego.

You're in Stomping Grounds.

Four senators I don't recall, but they were Democrats.

I can tell you that.

And I don't have the names off the top of my head.

But again, so they used those letters.

And in those letters it said, we want you to look into these purveyors of disinformation,

the good old disinformation phrase.

And then what do you know?

Months later, we're kicked off platforms, okay?

We're demonetized on social media.

Our major accounts with millions of followers for OAN are shadow banned or censored or fact

checked every damn day, right?

This is what's been going on since 2020 to OAN.

Some people covered it and talked about it in 20 and 21 for us.

And then it kind of went by the wayside.

You know, we went away, according to the left, because they kicked us off everything.

But we've been fighting like hell ever since.

And so again, thank you for covering it.

Well, I mean, I'm sorry, I just have to pause to internalize all this.

I mean, first of all, I'm embarrassed.

It's taken me so long just to hear the story.

I'm sort of aware of it, but it's shocking to me, because it is so illegal and obviously

illegal.

It's as illegal as anything you could do in America for members of Congress to shut down

a news organization because they don't like what it says.

That is not allowed in the United States.

That's like any other crime, including murder or rape.

It's not allowed.

And they're doing it anyway.

And no one's saying anything about it.

Were there news stories about this?

A couple, but not really mainstream.

I mean, Breitbart, Gateway Pundit, places like that would cover it and say OAN's under

fire.

But when you have 98%, as you know, of the mainstream media that leans heavily left.

And every other day we had an article from Mediate, Media Matters, Daily Beast, Rolling

Stone, even ripping OAN.

There's dozens of them online.

Myself, too, calling me out, calling me a purveyor of disinformation, a liar, a propagandist.

Because you were saying that COVID vax didn't work very well.

We said that the masks weren't working, that the social distancing isn't working.

And by the way, all those reports in the last few months have come out and said that.

It's all true.

Yeah.

But we were saying it three years ago.

How many people do you know who died of COVID?

How many people do you know who were injured or killed by the vax?

I've asked that question of 100 people.

Not one person knows more people who died from COVID than were killed or injured by

the vax.

Not one.

Maybe the numbers are different.

I'm just telling you my experience.

So that's not a crazy thing to ask.

Oh, well, let me tell you, when I was out there talking about ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine,

which worked, by the way, because I did them when I was sick with COVID and I felt better

in 36 hours, I would get death threats and messages going, you're killing people by saying

that.

Why are you telling them to take chlorine and a horse tranquilizer?

Morons.

Hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin have been around for decades.

But it's this constellation of intel agency cutouts, mediaite, Rolling Stone, Daily Beast.

But it's the same group, neoliberal, effectively state media organizations that don't represent

a huge percentage of American voters or any meaningful representative percentage of American

voters.

But they're just like, they're all working in concert against you.

They're a mouthpiece for the left and Democrats, period.

I mean, that's what they are.

Look, I got into this just like you.

You're a few years older than me, but I've been doing this for, gosh, I'm 50 this year

and I started at 18 in the military.

Yes.

And for the armed force radio television service.

So 32 years I've been doing this.

Yes.

And I started doing it to tell stories, to help the people.

My brother was a firefighter.

We lost him years ago to cancer.

But him and I got into a debate one time about my job versus his and first responders and

people that help the community goes, Dan, your job's important.

What journalists do is like a public servant.

You're out there trying to help protect the people, tell them the truth of what's going

on, speak truth to power of government.

And so don't, don't discount yourself.

Don't discredit yourself.

And so that stuck with me back in 08, my brother told me that before he passed.

And I come to this network in 2020 and I think, oh my gosh, here's a place where I can tell

the truth.

Mr. Herring and his sons, they don't come down and dictate and say, you will have these

hosts.

You are guests.

You won't have these guests.

You must use these talking points.

They're like, Dan, you have 30 years of experience.

We've been on the air 10 years, you know, more than us go.

And they let me be to tell the truth.

And so I really embrace that.

And I got to say it, I fell in love with the network and the family and they've treated

me like family and to watch them go through this and the 125 hardworking employees, it

pisses me off to no end, Tucker.

I bet it does.

That they can do this to us when we have that first article that talks about free speech

and freedom of the press.

I've dedicated my adult life to it.

So have you.

And now we're dealing with this bullshit where they can just try and shut down an entire

family owned mom and pop network.

It's disgusting.

It's so un-American.

It's like what's happening with the border.

The people in charge don't want to be criticized.

Of course.

Right.

But in this country, they're not allowed to do anything about it.

But suddenly they are.

Exactly.

So tell me about the carriers and for those who aren't in this business, explain if you

would how that works.

What do you mean carrier?

So from satellite and cable and online services.

So in the year of 2022, from May, August and November, if I got those three months correct

and it went in this order, I believe, DirecTV, Verizon, Fios and Frontier all dropped us.

So that means.

About 20 million households.

You produced the product, the programming, the shows.

And then those shows come into the homes of your viewers through wires owned by and services

provided by the companies you just listed.

And there's contracts worked out and whatnot.

And I can't go too deep into all that because there's pending lawsuits.

Of course.

But that's another way they've tried to silence us is through lawsuits.

Are you satisfied, is management of the company satisfied, do you sincerely believe, no BS,

that you were dropped from those providers because of pressure from the Congress?

110%.

Of course.

Listen, right before they started dropping us, ComScore, which is a rating service I'm

sure you're familiar with.

Yeah, of course.

Neilson, not the old school books and stuff.

But ComScore had us in the top 10, 15 networks of all the cable channels, 200 and some channels

you get on like Direct and Dish.

We were actually scoring close to some of the Fox business shows.

We were beating Newsmax.

We were climbing.

My show personally was climbing big time.

And then all of a sudden, we're killed because they saw us growing.

They saw the audience tuning in to want to hear some truth because they're not...

Come on, can you trust MSNBC and CNN?

You used to work there.

And to a degree, some of the folks on Fox, a lot of the mainstream media, I think Americans

are wising up.

You can't trust anymore because everybody's figuring out you have to spew a narrative

depending on which network you work for.

So that doesn't happen at OAN.

Well that is factually true, I can say.

I can tell you.

Yeah, no, I know that to be true.

We do all of that every single day right here on America on Trial with Josh Hammer.

Subscribe and download your episodes wherever you get your podcasts.

It's America on Trial with Josh Hammer.

So what happens then?

They just, they stop.

We're not going to carry your signal into people's homes anymore?

Again, I can't go into particulars.

All I can tell you is that Mr. Herring and his sons tried like hell to keep us on those

carriers and we were dropped.

And that's as far as I can tell.

So what do you do?

No, I get it.

I don't want any more lawsuits against myself, Mr. Herring, and our wonderful network.

And the employees don't deserve that either.

So that's why for the first time in 30 some years, I'm nervous doing this interview.

No, no, no.

Because I don't want to get a company who's struggling to stay afloat because of what

the Democrats have been doing because I misspoke.

But this story's got to be told and you have a massive audience and you can help.

Well I've certainly very often been in the position you are now in.

You're working for a company you think is doing a good thing and they're kind to you

and you don't want to inadvertently cause them more problems by talking too much.

Yeah.

So I'm very, very familiar with that position.

But the story needs to be shared because like you said at the beginning, we're talking about

the first amendment.

So what happened to, and right, and the first amendment doesn't mean anything if no one

can hear you.

Right?

You may have a right to speak, but if they lock you in a room and no one can hear your

words and it's, it's a, it's immaterial, it's not a real right.

What happened to your viewership after?

We had to not rebuild because we still were on, I think a hundred and some small cable

affiliates around the country in different states where, you know, you might have a town

of 50,000 and their local cable is a co-op.

They chose to keep it.

So you got taken off all the big ones?

All the big ones.

All the big ones?

All the big ones.

So then-

Wait, and just to be clear without getting into the details, but just so our audience

can make their own judgments about what happened and why, these companies are not connected

to each other.

They're independent companies.

Yeah.

Right.

So they all-

But they all got the letters.

They all received those letters.

You know for a fact they received the letters and they all dropped you within a short time.

If you read the letters, it literally says we sent to cable and they call the cable and

satellite carriers out.

So yes, I would assume it went to every single major cable and satellite carrier from these

four Democrat senators and two members of the house, all Democrats.

So and shortly thereafter, you were dropped by all the big cable carriers.

In the same year.

Yes.

And then-

So I think a fair, without knowing any other information, and maybe you guys committed

some heinous crime that I'm not aware of, I haven't heard that.

But just on the basis of what you said, which I think is checkable, a fair person would

conclude they did that in response.

Well I think I would conclude on the basis of that information.

You're a pretty smart guy, Tucker.

I don't know about that, but like I can-

I can note the obvious.

I think any American out there with common sense can look at the timeline and say two

and two is four, because math isn't racist.

Right.

No, math is not racist.

Maybe the only thing immune from racism.

So let's destroy it.

Yeah.

So where does that leave the company?

So here's what we did.

We had to scramble.

We had seen what happened to, I believe it was Parler.

Remember when Parler got shut down because the third party servers shut them down.

We didn't want to-

And not just the servers.

Like I think if I'm remembering correctly, it was everybody.

It was the entire, what they call the stack.

It was all the service providers between the content creator and the consumer, all, I think

their lawyers dropped them.

I mean, it was-

And since we were worried about the same thing, right?

Just like when Trump started truth, you've got to go build everything on your own from

scratch.

If you hire one of these third party vendors, they're going to listen to the powers that

be.

So we don't want to trust them.

So we had to build our own app, build up the servers, everything.

And then we launched OANN app.

So you can go to our website, you download it, it's like four or five bucks a month.

And then you get live streaming on demand, everything.

So we're going streaming like everybody is anyway, because let's be real.

In 20 years, what's local news and cable and satellite going to be?

Everything's streaming.

Like it's moving that way.

So that took us a while to ramp back up.

And a ton of money too.

And a ton of money.

But Mr. Herring, who has an amazing story of perseverance and coming from nothing, Louisiana

to creating millions of dollars for himself in multiple industries over the decades, and

then getting into TV news about 10, 12 years ago, he's been kicking cash in and saying,

we're going to fight this if we have to, all the way to Supreme Court.

We're not backing down.

We have a right to broadcast and they cannot shut us up.

Are they trying to bankrupt us and put us out of business?

Or they legitimately have a concern that we're purveyors of disinformation?

Because I can name probably about nine of the major stories over the last three or four

years I've covered.

And we were right.

And we were right first.

Oh, I'm aware.

Because we had the guts to say it.

Because we didn't have corporate lackeys telling us we couldn't like the other big networks.

So yeah, I mean, I've been accused of being a tool for Putin, of Putin, of Russia, for,

you know, which is, I would say, material effect in my life.

I've never sued anyone over that, you know, and I never will.

So I've never sued anybody.

I never will sue anybody because I don't believe in lawsuits.

But anyway, leaving that aside, it's just interesting that coming out of, this is whining,

but I can't resist, you know, eight years of like nonstop lying by the Daily Beast and

Rolling Stone and NBC News and CNN and MSNBC and all the rest about really big things like

life and death things, insurrections and potential nuclear wars.

The Russian collusion hoax.

Exactly.

I mean, if somebody's purveying our misinformation, Tucker, why aren't those other networks getting

letters sent about that?

Well, that is sort of the question.

Right?

Why aren't they getting kicked off for misinformation?

Thank you.

That's my first question.

If we said something y'all said was misinformation, then I can point to, as you just said, probably

10 or a dozen major stories that CNN, MSNBC and others have lied or falsely reported about

over the last, well, since 2015, 16, since Trump came on the scene.

Are they kicked off carriers?

Are they being sued?

Draw your own conclusion.

Well, our economy's on the verge of collapse.

Our country's being invaded and we are literally on the cusp of nuclear war, actually, all

because of lies told by NBC News, CNN, I mean, told by their masters in Washington, but repeated

by them.

And people died because of the COVID lies.

I mean, let's all remember, again, as I said earlier, you had the winter of death and you

had hosts out there like Rachel Maddow saying, if you get the vax, you will not spread it.

You will not die.

Go get it.

Remember all those people?

Yeah.

And the celebrities coming together, railing around Joe saying, you must take it.

And the people that don't are going to kill people.

We just told people, uh, it's your body.

No one can force you to take it.

And by the way, here's the VAERS reporting website.

Have you looked at VAERS?

Because there's millions of side effects and thousands of deaths.

Those were facts.

Yet, we would get fact-checked.

We would get shadow banned for saying factual stuff.

You wonder about, I always want to, I don't have any abortion ladies in my life, thank

you, Kevin.

But, um, when I see the abortion ladies on TV, I always want to say, whatever happened

to my body, my choice.

You know?

Right.