Bongino Report Early Edition w/ Evita: Rachel Maddow Says Lord Of The Rings Is 'Far Right' Favorite (Ep. 04)

This episode delves into media portrayal of politics, focusing on Rachel Maddow's comments about 'Lord of the Rings' and broader media bias.

1. Time magazine altered its Trump cover, sparking debates about media influence and bias.
2. Rachel Maddow criticized 'Lord of the Rings' for being a far-right favorite, which Evita disputes by sharing personal anecdotes.
3. The episode discusses broader themes of media corruption, misinformation, and the impact on political narratives.
4. It critiques the demonization of masculinity and leadership in the context of political figures.
5. The episode also addresses issues around freedom of speech and the politicization of public institutions like schools.

1: Introduction

Evita introduces the episode's themes and outlines the topics to be discussed, including media portrayal and political narratives.
Evita: "Good morning and welcome to the Bongino Report Early Edition."

2: Time Magazine's Trump Cover

Discussion on the alteration of Time magazine's Trump cover and its implications.
Evita: "Why did Time change the cover? Because it made Trump look good."

3: Media Bias and Misinformation

Analyzing media strategies and accusations of misinformation concerning the portrayal of Trump and Republicans.
Evita: "They hate things that are harmful to their own political aims."

4: 'Lord of the Rings' Controversy

Evita responds to Rachel Maddow's claim that 'Lord of the Rings' is a far-right favorite.
Rachel Maddow: "Lord of the Rings is a favorite cosmos for naming things for a lot of far right figures."

5: Masculinity and Leadership

Discussion on the importance of physical and moral courage in leadership, highlighted by Trump's actions during a shooting incident.
Tucker Carlson: "Leadership requires courage... he wins because of that."

6: Political Commentary and Closure

Closing thoughts on the political climate, media influence, and the importance of standing up against ideological impositions.
Evita: "If we don't do anything, if we stand aside and allow these people to treat us this way, you will lose the country."

• Verify sources to counteract potential media bias.
• Engage critically with media narratives to form independent opinions.
• Recognize and challenge misrepresentations in media.
• Support and advocate for freedom of speech in all forums.
• Understand the impact of media on public perception and act accordingly.

In this episode of Bongino Report Early Edition, Evita covers MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Claiming the beloved Lord of the Rings trilogy is a favorite of the so-called “far right.”

People

Evita, Rachel Maddow, Tucker Carlson, Joe Biden

Books

Lord of the Rings

Content Warnings:

None

Evita
Good morning and welcome to Bungina Report Early Edition. I am your host, Evita, and we are here at the RNC in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Just so you know, everything that I cover here you can find on bunginareport.com if you want to read and learn some more. Time magazine has changed its August cover of the iconic Trump photo to please Democrats. That's going to be topic one. NBC is deeply disturbed by Republicans calling for mass deportations. Rachel Maddow claims Lord of the Rings is a favorite of the far right, forgets secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin's name. Joy Reid is making an utter fool out of herself this entire conference. We're gonna cover a few times. She looks like an absolute idiot. And lastly, a seven year old got punished by her school for saying all lives matter. All of this on bungee in a report, Early Edition.

Okay, so Time magazine changed its iconic Trump cover photo for its August issue. And people are speculating why. Let's pull up this side by side so you can see what it was before and after.

Do we have that? Okay, so you see there's Trump with his fist in the air, there's blood on his face. You have the american flag in the background. Then they changed it to this really somber black and white photo. No Trump. What unites us, I think it says. And people are speculating. End of wokeness. Speculating. Why did time change the COVID And it's pretty simple, because it made Trump look good. And Democrats know that. And as Dan always says, campaigns are snapshots and soundbites. And this is a great snapshot of Trump. And they don't want regular Americans to be seeing it because they know that it is harmful to Democrats and their electoral chances in November. Now, it's not just Time magazine. This is from Fox News. They say an Axios media trend assessment on Tuesday argued that the, quote, overuse of the iconic image can pose risks, citing unnamed photographers who reportedly told the outlet that promoting the viral photos could be a form of photo ganda because the Trump campaign will use them to, quote, further its agenda. So is this, I mean, this is just silliness, right? And the irony of it should be so apparent. They're saying they don't want to promote Trump propaganda, but by censoring the Trump photo and refusing to show it in their reporting, they are acting as propagandists for the Democrats. So completely be clowning themselves in this statement. And so just be sure to save the Trump photo. Who knows if it'll get banned by the left wing media eventually, right?

They hate things that are harmful to their own political aims, and they will stop at nothing to assert themselves and to control what we see, what we hear, what we think, ultimately. Also note that the people who want this Trump photo scrubbed are the ones who have this idea that Republicans are propagandists and they need to be censored for their mis and disinformation online. These, of course, are the most pervasive mis and disinformationists in the entire country. Right. The legacy media.

So it's, and I'll just note that it's not just a legacy media that recognizes the power of this Trump photo. They've just had the worst reaction to it. This is a young Gen Z leftist talking about how he knows this photo is going to be received very positively by the american public, and he is really upset about it. Let's play that video. I'm so mad.

Unknown
Cause that picture of Trump getting shot eats.

Evita
No, it eats.

Unknown
Why does it eat?

I'm so mad.

And I just feel like if it was Biden, I feel like Biden wouldn't even have made it. Bitch. He wouldn't have made it. He would have froze bitch in place and went like this.

Evita
Okay. For the older viewers, saying that something eats it just means it's awesome. It means it's iconic. And at least this young leftist is honest about his Trump assessment. He says, yeah, to be great. People are going to love this photo, and it sucks for us as Democrats. The media is doing this weird word game where they're saying, oh, we're censoring it, not because we know it'll be really good for Trump. We just don't want to promote propaganda. They're just so silly. And Tucker Carlson pointed out the power of this photo as well. And I really like the way he articulates it. Let's play that video.

Tucker Carlson
Well, Trump won when that happened because he displayed physical courage.

And if you live in a society where people are literally dating by remote virtually and working virtually, you can kind of lose touch with the physical reality of life.

But the unchanging truth is that leadership requires courage. And not just abstract courage, moral courage, but physical courage.

Someone starts shooting a rifle, like, are you going to wet yourself and start crying and run away? Or are you going to stand up and look at your people and raise your fist and say, fight? And very few people are capable of doing that. And he is. And therefore he wins.

Evita
I think in a culture where masculinity is so demonized, we forget how much people are just instinctually attracted to brave, strong leaders.

And again, in a time period where we demonize masculinity, we call it toxic. There's this perception that only men are attracted to strength and bravery, and that's not the case at all. As a woman, I can tell you I don't feel safe knowing that my country is in the hands of Joe Biden, who apparently has cleared his schedule because he has Covid, which should be if you're a healthy individual, like the common flu or a cold. And to him, it's completely knocked him out because this is a very frail man. I don't blame him. He's very old. He's clearly in cognitive decline. I don't feel safe with him running the country. But you know what? I do feel safe with the guy who got shot and then put his fist in the air and started saying fight. That's who makes me say, okay, yeah, I feel comfortable with him leading the country. That's the masculine energy that I think people want to see from the leader of the free world. We're going to keep talking about media corruption. This story is wild. An NBC correspondent said that it was, quote, disturbing to see signs supporting mass deportation at the RNC. Let's play that video first.

Unknown
And most startling but not surprising is the fact that the campaign itself, the RNC, handed out signs to support the party platform saying mass deportations now. And there was something about being this, a photo I took last night. There was something about being in the audience and seeing thousands of people hold these signs.

That was, that was disturbing. That was troubling, quite frankly.

Evita
That guy just looks like a beta. I mean, this is such a schmuck just sitting there. I just. Ugh. They put the worst people on air on MSNBC. Okay, but you know what I find disturbing? The millions of people who are flooding over our border, and we have no idea who they are. Reports that military aged chinese males are coming over the border again, no idea who they are. That the taxpayers are funding the food, water, and shelter of these illegal immigrants who came over our border, broke our laws, and are invading our country. That's disturbing to me. The fact that you have real citizens who want to have their voices heard in the ballot box and their voices are being diluted because in November, we know tons and tons of legals are going to vote in the election because Biden refuses to sign into law the Save act, which says you have to prove you're a citizen if you want to actually vote. That's disturbing to me. It's disturbing to me that our leaders think it's okay to have the working class struggle as they are because they're importing all of this cheap labor just to please major corporations. That's disturbing to me. It's disturbing to me that NBC thinks that it's normal to have mass illegal immigration. These are disturbing things that this guy thinks it's disturbing for regular Americans who care about putting our country and its citizens first is disturbing. I just. I can't with they have lost all credibility. They really have this story from, again from MSNBC make in my view, makes them lose even more credibility than the last story.

Rachel Maddow claimed that the Lord of the Rings is a quote, favorite of the far right during her RNC coverage, and she was specifically talking about JD Vance and his love for Lord of the Rings.

Rachel Maddow
Let's play that like Mister Thiel, who has named his companies after things in the Lord of the Rings series of J. R. R. Tolkien books. Lord of the Rings is a sort of favorite cosmos for naming things and cultural references for a lot of far right and alt right figures, both in Europe and the United States. Peter Thiel names all these things after Tolkien figures and places like his company Palantir, for example.

Like his mentor, like Peter Thiel, who had given him all his jobs in the world. Mister Vance also, when he founded his own venture capital firm with help from Peter Thiel, named it after a Lord of the Rings thing. He called it naraya n a r y a, which you can remember because it's aryan, but you move the end to the front.

Apparently that word has something to do with elves and rings from the Lord of the Rings series. I don't know.

Evita
She's such a weirdo. Who says that Lord of the Rings is a bad thing because it's associated somehow with the far right?

Yes, my husband says he's a far right extremist because he loves Lord of the Rings. I like Lord of the Rings too. I first read the books when I was in college because I wanted to take a class on them by one of my favorite professors, Rachel Fulton Brown. She also streams if you ever want to look into her, but I was just encapsulated by them. I thought they were amazing. I had never read anything like the Hobbit or the Lord of the Rings trilogy. They were truly beautiful creative works, and it feels like the left hates everything good and beautiful in the world. Why else would you have a vendetta against Lord of the Rings, which is one of the most beautiful, one of the most impactful stories on western civ in modern history. So bizarre. From Rachel Maddow. I think part of it probably has to do with the fact that it's rooted in Christianity.

J. R. R. Tolkien was a devout Catholic. This was a uniquely christian work. And it seems like the left just hates anything that is uniquely christian. They hate anything that is good in our culture, and instead they tend to uplift things that are ugly and frankly, evil.

We're going to take a quick break, and when we come back, we're going to talk about one of the worst Joe Biden gaffes I have seen all weekend, which is saying something because he's been making a lot of mistakes all week. So stay tuned. We'll be right back. You asked in MyPillow. Listen, they're finally bringing you the most requested offer ever. Get the queen size premium mypillow now only $19.98. MyPillow is made with patented adjustable fill. It adjusts to your exact individual needs regardless of your sleep position, helps you keep your neck aligned, and holds its shape all night long. So you get the best sleep of your life. But that's not all. Get their six piece kitchen or bath towel sets for only $25. The brand new mattress topper as low as $69.98. Get their famous mypillow bed sheet for as low as $25 and so much more. So go to mypillow.com or call 800-637-4982 use promo code Dan to get huge discounts on all mypillow products, including the premium queen size mypillow. Only $19.98. That's the lowest price ever. Don't delay. Order today.

Shout out to our sponsors for keeping this show free. We love you guys. During this interview with the Black Entertainment television network, Biden could not remember the name of Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. And it is painful to watch. Let's play it.

Joe Biden
And so it's all about, it's all about treating people with dignity, and it's about making sure that, look, I mean, for example, look at the heat I'm getting because I named the secretary of defense the black man. I named Ketanji Brown because of the.

Evita
People I've named the black man. Literally, that was his little insert there. And it's so embarrassing for the Biden admin. It's probably more embarrassing for the media because of the double standard. Of course, if this was a Republican who couldn't remember someone's name and they said, oh, it's the black man, they'd call this person racist. Incessantly. But it's Joe Biden, so they're not gonna say that. But I don't think it's racist. What it is is he's in cognitive decline. This is a man who is losing it on a national stage. And again, I have to say, why doesn't he just retire in Delaware in his mansion, paid for by ukrainian and chinese cash. It's perfect, right? I don't understand why he is putting himself through this. I don't understand why Jill Biden is putting her husband through this. I have one more Joe Biden video. This one is also tough to watch. Just, I think, can we do it as a vo, Michael? Yeah, let's do that.

Okay, so he's walking down the stairs, and he is moving so slow and he has to, right? Because he's fallen so many times up and down the stairs.

He's tripped over his own feet, actually, and there's no stairs involved.

Okay. So he's slowly making his way down, and then at one point, he just pauses and he looks like he doesn't know where he's going, what he's doing, whole thing.

And it's like, you know that you see there's nothing. There's nothing coming.

He's not consuming anything that they're saying. Right. It's just a blank stare.

Someone needs to just let this man retire. He just needs to retire. He appears more and more fragile every time we see him. This is another video. This one is bad. Joy Reid and Jen Psaki are claiming that Biden having Covid and recovering from it. He hasn't recovered yet. But if and when he does recover is the same thing as Trump literally surviving a gun shot to the face. Let's. Let's play that one.

Unknown
These two men are both elderly. Donald Trump is an elderly man who, for whatever reason, was given 9 seconds to take a iconic photo op during an active shooter situation. Weird situation. We'll figure that out one day. But his survival of that and bouncing right back and going right to his convention is being conveyed in the media world as a sign of strength. This current president of the United States is 81 years old and has Covid. Should he be fine in a couple of days? Doesn't that convey exactly the same thing? That he's strong enough, older than Trump to have gotten something that used to really be fatal to people his age? So if he does fine out of it and comes back and is able to do rallies, isn't that exactly the same?

Evita
It's true.

Unknown
I mean, it's not exactly the same. It's not the same incident, but it's an elderly man coming through out of an illness.

Evita
What?

Okay, I'm sorry. Getting shot looking like a badass with your fist in the air and blood on your face is the same thing as recovering from COVID Is that the same thing, Michael?

No, it's not. It's silliness. It's propaganda. Like the first story we did where they're taking away the Trump photo and getting rid of it because they know it'll help republicans. Such absolute brain rot. Speaking of brain rot. Brain rot. It gets worse. From Joy Reid. She has now gone straight into full Trump getting shot trutherism, and the whole thing is crazy and full of conspiracies. Let's play this video of Joy Reid.

She would not be able to say this on MSNBC because MSNBC has been trying to reel in their hosts from the insanity. And Joy Reid is now doing her own little videos, pushing the craziness because her own network is saying, whoa, we have to tone it back. You guys have to bring the crazy in just a little bit. Let's play that.

Unknown
Yet. They allowed him to stand up in the middle of that, you know, crisis and pose for a photo, and fist pumped the air so he could get the iconic photo, and then they allowed him to stand up again outside of the suv instead of just shoving him into the suv. That seems really unusual. What is the actual injury to Donald Trump's ear that's under that bandage?

Shouldn't we know that by now? It's weird. And there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of curiosity about it, you know, in the sort of media world, you know, my profession. It's weird, right? Where are the FOIAS? Why isn't the New York Times, like, aggressively pursuing his medical records?

Evita
So Trump was not actually shot, and it was all for a photo op? Apparently, according to Joy Reid, it was all a setup. Weird. She's just weird. And just a reminder that this is a woman who thinks you and I should be censored because we're the ones who espouse misinformation. She and the rest of the legacy media believe that they have a monopoly on truth. If your name is not Jesus Christ, you don't have a monopoly on the truth. Nobody can be telling you what is and isn't true. Joy Reid, unlike myself, thinks that she has the right to tell us what media we're allowed to consume, what we're allowed to hear, what we're allowed to see, what we're allowed to think because she is a lunatic, and I'm okay with her saying crazy things. I'm okay. Go ahead, say as much crazy crap as you want. That's fine with me. What's not fine with me is when you say, yeah, I'm the arbiter of truth. You have to shut up and be quiet because I don't like what you're saying. And I'm going to smear you as a disinformationist because what you're saying is inconvenient to me. I don't like it. It's the same reason we have groups like Garm and Newsguard who will go to advertisers and say, you don't want to work with Dan Bongino. You don't want to work with the federalist. You don't want to work with the Daily Wire. These people are dangerous.

You can't collaborate with them. And then they destroy our ability to make money. So I'm fine with joy being dumb. What I'm not fine with is her destroying the ability for alternative media, which, frankly, is truthful media most of the time, compared to them destroying their ability to make money, destroying their careers. That's what I have a problem with.

This last story is so sad to me. It makes me think about the state of our country just being in disarray, our legal system really in disarray. In 2021, a seven year old girl wrote any life over a Black Lives Matter drawing, essentially trying to make the point that all lives matter. And the school principal told this child that her drawing was inappropriate and racist. A seven year old. She said this about a seven year old's little addition to a Black lives Matter poster.

And the principal made her publicly apologize and banned her from recess and drawing pictures for two weeks. A seven year old. Now, the girl's family filed a lawsuit against the school district, said that they violated their daughter's first amendment rights. And a California judge ruled against the parents. And they said the teachers had the right to punish this seven year old. And this is what the judge said when he made this decision. He said, students have the right to be free from speech. That denigrates the race while at school.

Only in California.

Blatant violation of this girl's first amendment rights.

California doesn't care. We have a video of this girl's mother that I think is important to watch. Let's play that.

Unknown
I knew it was wrong. Fundamentally, I knew something was wrong, like my rights, my daughter's rights were taken away, and I just had to reach out and started reaching out and asking people what the name of it was. I didn't even know what compelled speech was until I started talking to attorneys.

Unknown
Let's keep that picture up on the screen. Take a look at it. It says, black lives Matter and any life written on the bottom. And then there's some cute little drawings there. I mean, basically, they're equating this with the Klan. It seems.

Evita
My heart really goes out to this mother. I think that she did something really brave. Even though California is set up to destroy freedom at every opportunity that it gets, I think it's a reminder that you probably don't want to send your kids to public school, but if you do, it's important to be brave. And so many parents like this mother don't know what to do when they're faced with a situation like this, when they realize, oh, this public school is radically politicized and is set up to indoctrinate my child. And they say oftentimes they just do nothing. Right. I mean, that's the obvious choice when you don't know where to turn. And this mother took action. And that is a very powerful thing that I hope a lot of other people do in their own lives. If they're faced with something similar.

We are fighting people that do not believe in truth, that will turn their vitriol and their hatred not just on Donald Trump, not just on, you know, Peter Navarro or Steve Bannon. They turn their rage and their hatred on a seven year old who opposes them. Right. Ideologically.

Anything that stands in the way of their own progress or of their own narratives, they will destroy. They will try to shame publicly, even if it's a seven year old girl. That is what we are facing right now. That is the stakes.

And if you, again, if we don't do anything, if we stand aside and allow these people to treat us and our children this way, you will lose the country. So be like this mom. I like her a lot. I think that she did something really great here.

And that's all I have for today. Make sure you download the rumble app and hit the like and follow button. If you are listening, you can head to Rumble.com BunginaReport to access this video and many others in its video version. See you all next time.