During a recent appearance on Fine Point with OAN’s Chanel Rion, GAI Director of Research Seamus Bruner offered his analysis on the recent Tenet Media scandal — are the conservative media influencers the victims in this story?
“Do you think they’re really victims?” Rion asked Bruner. “On the one hand, is it possible that they have this messaging and they don’t really care where the money comes from, and they’re taking this money saying. ‘Well, as long as it’s anti-endless wars, let’s go with it.’ Or do you think that, there’s something else going on?”
“Well, look, I know that money was offered to other conservative commentators and they turned it down,” Bruner said. “And so, you’ve got to know who you’re doing business with. I think some people might have, thought, ‘Oh, this is just easy free money.’ But when you’re in such a position where you have millions of followers, you have to suspect that influence operations will target you and your audience.”
Bruner continued: “And so, I applaud the commentators who turned down the money. I, you know, it would be hard to turn down hundreds of thousands of dollars a month, but honestly, if it looks too good to be true, like hundreds of thousands of dollars per month, it probably is.”
Watch the clip above.
Conservative podcaster Tim Pool recently spoke with The Daily Wire about being mixed up in the Tenet Media mess; “I’m pissed,” Pool said, noting that Tenet Media owner Lauren Chen didn’t even have exclusive rights to his show.
“That’s the crazy thing, it’s not even an exclusive show, it’s not exclusive, we published it other places, we own all the rights for it,” Pool said. “And so now we get entrenched in whatever this is, and I’m just like, nah, I don’t have anything to do with this. I don’t know what it is Lauren Chen was doing. I’m quite perturbed by the allegations. I don’t know what will turn out to be true, but I’m pissed.”
Pool has criticized Ukraine in the past, but says he’s no fan of Russia or Vladimir Putin.
“Russia sucks. I’m not a fan of Russia,” Pool said. “I think Vladimir Putin is a dictator who’s used unethical and dictatorial means to maintain power for decades. And I’ve long said that.”
