Influencers with Andy Serwer: Haim Saban
Thu, January 14, 2021, 6:00 AM
ANDY SERWER: Do you agree that he should leave office before January 20, impeached by Congress or resign, perhaps?
HAIM SABAN: What I really believe is that after what he did and after the way he treated the very loyal lieutenant, I really think that Pence should call for the 25th Amendment. That's what I believe. It would make sense for him to go play golf in Florida and leave us alone. That's what I believe. But apparently, Pence is not ready to do that. So there is no reason-- no rhyme or reason-- to have somebody who committed a crime-- to let that person off the hook. I don't see the reason.
ANDY SERWER: Do you think that Donald Trump is going to continue to play a dominant role in the Republican Party after this, Haim?
HAIM SABAN: It depends on the media. If the media gives him the platform they gave him before the election, worth billions of dollars of exposure, and if they caught him off, like all the online entities cut him off-- Facebook and Twitter-- if-- outside of Fox News-- Fox News is a special animal within itself. But if all the other media-- television media-- simply don't give him a platform-- you give him a platform, he's going to continue with his shenanigans, from birther all the way to inciting this group of Meshuganas to go up on the Hill. You know, so he's going to continue. And if he's cut off from the media, you know, he won't be able to have the same impact.
ANDY SERWER: Meshuganas is Yiddish for crazy people?
HAIM SABAN: That's-- I thought that everybody knows what meshugana is, including in Georgia and Mississippi. Maybe I'm wrong. I don't know.
ANDY SERWER: Probably the case. Let me ask you about President-elect Biden because I know you've been a supporter of his, Haim. And he's talking about unifying the country. Is that still possible when a significant portion of the opposition party questions the legitimacy of the Democratic system?
HAIM SABAN: Well, it questions the legitimacy because they believe Trump. If Trump stood up and said, OK, we had a fair election, it is a legitimate election, he is the next president, we wouldn't see any of that. They are just following Trump. Yes, the 74 million people who voted for him, yes, 70% of those 74 million people believe the election was stolen because he says so-- because he says so.
So if he has no platform to continue spewing all these lies, then, you know, we're not going to have this kind of-- and there will always be division. There's always have been divisions but not at that level and not divisions that manifest itself-- a division that manifests itself with violence, the way we saw last Wednesday. So if Trump is cut off from the media, we're going to see that division, you know, really calm down, and there will be no one to fan those flames.
