While I was watching the Thom Hartmann show on Free Speech TV during his first hour, he had a guy call in just after the half hour mark (I don’t have a video clip). This person wanted to express outrage about the ‘Bernie spokesperson’ who called Hillary a corporate whore.
But while he was trying to make his case, there was a lot of confusion because he said he was in Illinois but Thom's call screen said he was in Texas, and he also said his name was Jerry, but Thom's screen said the name was Mike. Thom questioned him about it, and he said he was using a cell phone and didn’t know why the information was different.
Then about 20 minutes later, he brought up the call again, and I’ve copied down what he said. (Again, I don’t have a clip and I wouldn’t begin to know how to make one.)
I was talking about this yesterday, how I’ve seen this from Republicans before. And we saw it big time in 2004, in that election. It was really pretty remarkable — where Republicans would call up. I think it was a boiler room operation because it happened so frequently.
He went on to describe how these callers would say they’d just found his show and loved it, then talk about how they were going to vote for Kerry, but they were concerned about him ‘shooting himself in the foot in order to get a purple heart’, and being what Thom described as ‘unctuous with concern’.
He continues...
One of the ways we were able to identify them was because they were calling, in many cases, they were calling from the same number. Somebody named Jerry just called from the exact same number, and identified himself as from a different part of the country —. Our call screen software has a database on the back end, and people who call in regularly know, when our call screener answers the phone, if you’ve called in before, she will know your name before she answers the phone.
And so, there’s somebody else using the exact same phone number, saying that they were from a completely different place with a different name, had called in before — with the talking point of the day from the Hillary campaign.
I’m just fascinated by this. Like I said, I’ve seen this. Republicans did this in 2004, they did it in 2008 — to this program. I’ve never had Democrats do it before. It’s bizarre.
Was it a Hillary plant making a call in a concerted effort to push her campaign’s talking points on a prominent progressive national radio show? I’ll let you decide.
And if someone has access to the clip, give me the link in the comments and I’ll add it in.
Edit: The Thom Hartmann radio show, which is also broadcast live on Free Speech TV, is in the top 10 of national radio call-in shows. That’s not progressive radio shows, it’s out of all national call-in radio shows, political and otherwise.