Savage on Media Matters: "They have no place in America"

On the July 21 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, Michael Savage repeatedly attacked Media Matters for America, calling the group a "Stalinist," "anti-family," "illegitimate, dangerous fascist group[]," and asserted that Media Matters "ha[s] no place in America." His comments came after Media Matters documented, with transcript and audio, his July 16 remarks describing autism as "[a] fraud, a racket." Those comments have sparked protests and generated widespread media attention.

Throughout his three-hour broadcast, Savage asserted:

• "I'm very fatalistic at a certain point. I may have invested 15 years of my life in radio and 40 years of my life in defense of the helpless children of the world -- and I have -- but if the irony is that I am attacked by gay men who do not have children, in the group called Media Matters, and they win and the children lose, I said, 'Then, it's God's joke. And if that's what God wants, then that's the way it is.' "

• "[M]y comments were taken out of context by this radical, Stalinist, left-wing group, Media Matters that has done this before. They did it with the Muslims. They did it with the immigrants, and they do it of course each and every day as was done in the Stalinist Soviet Union. They have no place in America."

• "Unless you actually listen to a man, it's very easy to crucify him. Remember there's mob -- there's a mob mentality out there. We live in very dangerous times where people are taken out of context and crucified in the media. It's interesting to me that I've devoted my entire adult life to defending the defenseless, and here I am, being attacked by those who do not have children, who hate children, who are anti-family in Media Matters, who take a statement that I make out of context and send it to the poor parents of autistic children and have them believe I'm their enemy. It's very, very clever, the devil. The devil is very clever, indeed. Don't underestimate your enemy is all I can tell you."

• "[I]t's ironic that people who hate families and children -- a group called Media Matters, filled with anti-family individuals who do not marry; they're men who like men -- would take out of context comments that I made last week directed at the misdiagnosed, the falsely diagnosed, and the outright fakers in the autism field and try to make you, the parents of the truly autistic, attack me."

• "If you permit illegitimate, dangerous fascist groups like Media Matters to get away with this, you will be living in the ex-Soviet Union in your own lifetime."

• "[I]t's ironic that you would take the bait from an evil group like Media Matters, which is filled with men who hate families, men who hate children, and men who hate particularly conservatives who believe in borders, language, and culture. Those are the enemies of the truth. Those are the enemies of your children, not me."

• "I want to actually conclude right now by saying again, at 3 o'clock in the morning, I woke up, and I said, 'Oh my God, not again -- not those fascists again taking me out of context.' How do they get away with it? How can criminal fascists like those in Media Matters not be stopped by the government for doing this to people by twisting their words and taking them out of context? I said, 'Well, you're living in a quasi-proto-Soviet Union where people can be damned for half-truths.' "

Savage concluded his broadcast by referring to his late brother, stating:

SAVAGE: And I thought, "Well, I don't want to exploit his memory for my own salvation." But then another thought came to me, which is that maybe, by talking about it, the people who've made up their minds based upon this false information will understand that there's another side to Michael Savage they don't know anything about. And I said, "Then, maybe, this silent boy, Jerome, will have spoken very boldly and loudly a half a century later to save his older brother, someone he was never able to talk to in real life. And I said, "I can give life to someone who was silent, who never had a voice."

And so, I give life to you, Jerome. And let God in heaven himself curse those who have brought this upon me. Let a horrible plague fall upon their homes. Let a horrible illness fall upon them for the rest of their existence. May they suffer the way they wish for me to suffer. Jerome, if you're in heaven, talk to God about this. Let him strike those people who have brought this upon your brother. Let him strike them with every power he has. Let him afflict them with the poison they've tried to put into the mind of the American people.

And so, here I am, ladies and gentlemen, there's not much more I can say without getting even more emotional than I am right now.

On the July 16 broadcast of his show, Savage asserted: "Now, you want me to tell you my opinion on autism, since I'm not talking about autism? A fraud, a racket. ... You know what autism is? I'll tell you what autism is. In 99 percent of the cases, it's a brat who hasn't been told to cut the act out. That's what autism is." After Media Matters documented his comments, referring to the organization he called "the homosexual mafia group Media Matters," Savage said on July 18: "They're a fascist, homo-- goes out of their way to misquote me, take me out of context, and try to get me in trouble with people who love me. I stand by my words. Media Mat-- and that's it. And that's where I'm going to leave it."

Savage also falsely recast his original remarks on the July 21 broadcast of his program, asserting that his July 16 comments distinguished between "the truly autistic" and those he described on July 21 as "the misdiagnosed, the falsely diagnosed, and the outright fakers in the autism field."

From the July 21 edition of Talk Radio Network's The Savage Nation:

SAVAGE: I'm very fatalistic at a certain point. I may have invested 15 years of my life in radio and 40 years of my life in defense of the helpless children of the world -- and I have -- but if the irony is that I am attacked by gay men who do not have children, in the group called Media Matters, and they win and the children lose, I said, "Then, it's God's joke. And if that's what God wants, then that's the way it is."

And then I thought about something else, and this is far more important. I thought about my poor deceased brother who lived without having spoken a word his entire life. He lived into his 20s. He was given away when he was very young -- five or six -- tore the family to pieces. He was sent to a snake pit on Staten Island where he suffered for 20 years, and he died in that hospital never having spoken a word. And I said: "Should I bring up the memory of my brother on the show today?" I said, "Is that cruel? I mean to do this? Should I use him to defend me?" And then, you know what? It came to me. I said, "Yeah, I'm going to tell the story of Jerome." I said, "Maybe then this little boy who never spoke a word can speak boldly in defense of his brother 50 years later. And maybe then the power of the silent brother will be heard." I'll be right back.

[...]

SAVAGE: Autism itself, when it's real, is tragically -- it's tragic. It's heartbreaking -- when it's real. But according to [Vanderbilt University] Professor [Stephen] Camarata, who has worked in the field for 30 years, 50 to 60 percent of children put into this category are not autistic. And my comments were taken out of context by this radical, Stalinist, left-wing group, Media Matters that has done this before. They did it with the Muslims. They did it with the immigrants, and they do it of course each and every day as was done in the Stalinist Soviet Union. They have no place in America.

But let me go a step further here. Would you want to put a child into a disease category if he simply stacked up or lined objects? Stacking up or lining up objects may indicate autism. Did you hear this? Just stacking up or lining up objects. Well, as a little boy, I lined up my shoes under the bed. Over and over again, I would count the tiles in the bathroom as I sat there. I would go around and around, back and forth, to meditate on the number of tiles and my eyes would count them, line them up in my head.

The fact is that I'm a genius. The fact is, I know I'm a genius by my creativity, by my achievements, by my IQ tests. I mean, you say I'm boasting; it doesn't matter what you say. There are geniuses in the world. There are ordinary people, and then there are people who are morons, imbeciles, and idiots. And there's a scale of intelligence.

[...]

SAVAGE: The first test is a screening test by an un-medical professional, and who in world would rely upon that as a test for an illness? It's the same with ADD or ADHD. If a child acted up in any way -- I remember when my kids were in school. If Tom Sawyer were alive, I wrote, even then, he would be declared ADD and put on a mental strait-jacket, chemical strait-jacket called Ritalin to control the child. It's a form of social control. It's also an easy way of getting rid of a troublesome child -- put them on drugs and dummy 'em up.

Now, we're talking about something entirely different here but, in context, it's not entirely different. We have a medical establishment that is very quick to diagnose illnesses that may or may not exist. I stick by those words, and again, I want to say: What in the world would I gain by attacking defenseless children who are sick when I myself have dedicated 50 years of my life to defend the defenseless? What in the world would I do that for when I've never done it?

I didn't do it. I wouldn't do it. It's the enemies of children. It's the enemies of family who took my words out of context and put it on the Internet and sent it around to parents who are struggling and crying to turn me into the enemy. It's they who are the enemy. That's who they should be looking at Kyle. Kyle, you know, before you go -- I don't know what I can do but I would like my people to stay in touch with you. I have a feeling I'm going to want to know you and stay in touch with you. Let's send Kyle a copy of Healing Children Naturally. If he doesn't have one, he's going to have one now. Stay on the line, Kyle -- school psychologist who says I have a point.

Again, I don't want to lose the forest for the trees. Autism is not fake. I didn't say it was. But there are fakers within the field of autism and there are children who are being told to fake autism for the benefits -- that's my point. How hard is that to understand? Well, I guess it's very hard to understand.

[...]

SAVAGE: Unless you actually listen to a man, it's very easy to crucify him. Remember there's mob -- there's a mob mentality out there. We live in very dangerous times where people are taken out of context and crucified in the media. It's interesting to me that I've devoted my entire adult life to defending the defenseless, and here I am, being attacked by those who do not have children, who hate children, who are anti-family in Media Matters, who take a statement that I make out of context and send it to the poor parents of autistic children and have them believe I'm their enemy. It's very, very clever, the devil. The devil is very clever, indeed. Don't underestimate your enemy is all I can tell you.

But, again, I will caution you to not rush to judgment, because the truly autistic child needs as much help as he or she can get. The truly autistic child needs the funding that should be provided. It is the falsely diagnosed, the misdiagnosed, and the outright fakers who want the benefits, who must be found out, and must be turned out, so that the money can go to the truly needy in this particular field.

That was the essence of my conversation last week. Why would I have chosen to attack defenseless children when I've never done so in my entire life? Think about that. What would I have gained by doing it? Nothing. So, I didn't do it. The fact of the matter is the enemies of the truth did it by using you, the parents of the injured child, to turn on me, the defender of the child. Very clever, the enemy, but those are the times that we live in.

Let me say again. All of us have seen the faker with the disability placard on his car pull up in the blue zone somewhere in America, whether it's to a drive-in restaurant or a handicapped spot. And we've seen them get out of their car and look perfectly healthy and the minute you look at them, they grab a cane, or they grab their back and they hobble. We find that to be reprehensible, don't we? Because those blue spots were put there for a reason. They're put there for the convenience of those who are not as able as we are to get around, and we don't want the phony -- phony disabled to use them.

[...]

SAVAGE: It is The Savage Nation. The autism controversy is very important because true autism is extremely heartbreaking. I have devoted my entire life, even as a child, to defending the helpless, mainly the helpless children because of a tragedy in my own family, and it's ironic that people who hate families and children -- a group called Media Matters, filled with anti-family individuals who do not marry; they're men who like men -- would take out of context comments that I made last week directed at the misdiagnosed, the falsely diagnosed, and the outright fakers in the autism field and try to make you, the parents of the truly autistic, attack me.

[...]

SAVAGE: I have always been ahead of my time. I've always taken flak for being so, for flying at the head of the formation. It's unfortunate, though, that we live in a time that a discredited group created by Hillary Clinton and George Soros, namely Media Matters, would be allowed to get away with this without being immediately arrested for distorting the factual record of what goes on in the media. It's astounding that we have a government that does not control outright fascist groups like this, who have tried and tried and tried to distort the record. When I made my comments a while ago about illegal aliens, illegal immigrants, this very same group made it sound as though I were attacking Hispanics. When I made my comments about Osama bin Laden and [Iranian President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad, who has said all Jews could be killed in Israel and it would be worth it to him to kill all the Jews in Israel -- and it would be worth it to him to kill all the Jews in Israel so long as half the Iranians died, he wouldn't care. I repeated it over and over again. They took it out of context and said I was attacking all Muslims.

Let me explain to you. If you permit illegitimate, dangerous fascist groups like Media Matters to get away with this, you will be living in the ex-Soviet Union in your own lifetime.

[...]

SAVAGE: There is no definitive medical diagnosis for autism. There are no biomedical markers for autism. The tests for autism are all subjective. Are there real cases of autism? Absolutely. Are they tragic? Terribly so. Should the children get the care that they need? Yes.

In order for them to get the care they need, there must be funding. There's a limited amount of funding, particularly in this economy. We cannot permit the false, the fake, and the outright drifters to steal any of this money. Do you understand what I'm saying to you? Moreover, thousands of people have gone to experts years later and said, "My child was misdiagnosed. It has stigmatized my child for life for us telling him that he had autism, for the people in the school system to treat him as though he had something wrong with him." I am telling you we need to have a frank, national discussion about autism, and we cannot simply sit here and say, "I don't know what it is. I don't want to talk about it. Savage is a monster." It's the people who have taken me out of context who you should be emailing and who you should be attacking, not me.

I have fought on behalf of the helpless children all of my life, and it's ironic that you would take the bait from an evil group like Media Matters, which is filled with men who hate families, men who hate children, and men who hate particularly conservatives who believe in borders, language, and culture. Those are the enemies of the truth. Those are the enemies of your children, not me. I'll be right back.

[...]

SAVAGE: So, before you attack, a) find out who published these statements, what I was referring to, and what I actually believe. And I want to ask you something, those of you who made up your mind. What would I have gained? What was I -- what would I have gained by attacking autistic children? Tell me. Tell me what I would have gained by it, particularly since you know, if you've listened to this show, I have talked for 15 straight years about many topics. One of the recurring themes on my show are children and children how they're exploited in our society, and I've talked about my own personal situation, which I will not going to repeat again. And I've written the book, Healing Children Naturally, which I highly recommend that you buy and read. Go to MichaelSavage.com. I don't think we're going to have enough copies left after today.

I have been involved in trying to help the helpless for my entire life, going back to childhood, because of my poor brother. And I want to actually conclude right now by saying again, at 3 o'clock in the morning, I woke up, and I said, "Oh my God, not again -- not those fascists again taking me out of context." How do they get away with it? How can criminal fascists like those in Media Matters not be stopped by the government for doing this to people by twisting their words and taking them out of context? I said, "Well, you're living in a quasi-proto-Soviet Union where people can be damned for half-truths."

And then I thought, "I can't control the outcome of this. I cannot control the outcome of a hurricane anymore than I can control the outcome of this." All I can do as a boater by the way -- and I've been boating all my life -- is steer through the storm. I can't do anything else. I couldn't stop and scream and go, "Oh, I can't do it." No, I can just steer and hold on to the wheel. I knew this would be a rough day, nor do I think the storm is over. I don't think that I'm out of the storm; I think I'm in the eye of the hurricane, and I think tomorrow, I will see the other side of this storm. And I said, "You know what? It's in God's hands. It's not in my hands. And if God wants me off the radio, that -- so be it. If God wants me to continue to work on behalf of the things I believe in and believe to be true, so be it." I'm willing to take it either way.

But then another thought and another set of ideas came to me in the middle of the night and the still quietness of the evening, and that was my poor brother -- my poor, poor brother who never spoke a word. He was silent until the day he died. And I said, "Should I raise this issue of my brother who was born" -- I don't know. Should I just say brain-damaged? I don't know how -- what words to use. Couldn't talk, was blind, couldn't walk, and the parents gave him away to a home when he was five. It tore our hearts out. Everyone -- everyone's heart was ripped to pieces. He lived another 20 years in that snake pit on Staten Island 'til he died a horrible death from the mistreatment of that snake pit.

And I thought, "Well, I don't want to exploit his memory for my own salvation." But then another thought came to me, which is that maybe, by talking about it, the people who've made up their minds based upon this false information will understand that there's another side to Michael Savage they don't know anything about. And I said, "Then, maybe, this silent boy, Jerome, will have spoken very boldly and loudly a half a century later to save his older brother, someone he was never able to talk to in real life. And I said, "I can give life to someone who was silent, who never had a voice."

And so, I give life to you, Jerome. And let God in heaven himself curse those who have brought this upon me. Let a horrible plague fall upon their homes. Let a horrible illness fall upon them for the rest of their existence. May they suffer the way they wish for me to suffer. Jerome, if you're in heaven, talk to God about this. Let him strike those people who have brought this upon your brother. Let him strike them with every power he has. Let him afflict them with the poison they've tried to put into the mind of the American people.

And so, here I am, ladies and gentlemen, there's not much more I can say without getting even more emotional than I am right now.