Pete Buttigieg Interview (Full)

Hey guys,

I made the decision to pull and then re-upload the Pete Buttigieg interview today after a few very small modifications. I will try to be as transparent as possible as to why this happened. As many of you know, my style as a journalist has generally been to be an empathetic, active listener and provide people with a comfortable platform to express themselves in a way that would be impossible to do on most mainstream news outlets. However, interviewing politicians and people in active positions of power is quite a different story. It is necessary, in many situations, to hold their feet to the fire a bit more and there was ONE particular instance in my interview with Pete Buttigieg where I truly felt that I should have immediately pushed back on a false claim that he made but unfortunately, I did not. That instance came at minute 23:29, when Pete reinforced the widely debunked claim that Hamas militants “put babies in ovens” during Oct. 7. These claims were initially published by the U.S. and Israeli government the immediate aftermath of the attacks but were later retracted by the White House after an investigation found the claims to be false. Still CNN and other outlets continue to push the false beheading story to this day, only taking the extra step of attaching a Hamas denial to the end of their reports. As you'll see, in this new draft, I have added what is, essentially, a 'fact check' frame to that establishes the factual inaccuracy of Pete's claim, which will also be featured in the soon-to-be-released YouTube cut. Obviously - if you guys saw the Jubilee jawn that dropped yesterday - I let people speak their minds freely for a living so I don't want to get into the habit of bombing C5 interviews with pretentious 'fact check' slides every time someone makes a false claim, but I just felt that this particular piece of outrageous misinformation needed to be met with some kind of disclaimer, since I didn't think fast enough to offer a solid rebuttal in real time. Additionally, my recent trip to Ireland and some of the connections that I made out there have strengthened my connection to the Palestinian liberation cause and I am currently planning an upcoming trip to the West Bank. For me, making the decision to pull down the original Pete Buttigieg interview wasn't so much a case of 'audience capture' or mob pressure as it was suggested on Reddit, but rather, came from a desire to correct a piece of genuine disinformation before publishing this interview on the main channels to millions of subscribers.

Overall, I am really proud of this piece. I enjoyed talking to Pete and believe that a respectful, sit-down interview with an establishment politician like this will bless C5 with the ability to speak with major players down the line, especially with the midterms coming up. I'll do my part to sharpen the sword in the meantime to ensure that I've got decent rebuttal chops for next round.

Hope you guys enjoy,

AC