SPLC Fraud Indictment: Inside the Manufactured Hate Machine │ Tina Descovich

[00:00:14] Welcome to The Jenny Beth Show. A federal grand jury has indicted the Southern Poverty Law Center on fraud and money laundering charges, and now Congress wants answers. According to prosecutors, the SPLC allegedly funneled millions to the KKK and neo-Nazi groups while labeling Moms for Liberty a hate group. Joining me today is Tina Descovich, CEO and co-founder of Moms for Liberty. I'm Jenny Beth Martin. This is The Jenny Beth Show.

[00:00:42] Tina, thanks for joining me today. It is my pleasure to be with you, Jenny Beth. So I wanted to have you on because I saw part of your press conference last week that you had before the congressional hearing about the Southern Poverty Law Center. And I wanted to know why if you needed to do a press conference and what you submitted exactly to Congress. Because the SPLC has you and Moms for Liberty in their sights, don't they? They absolutely do.

[00:01:11] who, you know, we've been on their hate map since June of 2023. And honestly, Jenny Beth, it's just been part of who we are and what we've been dealing with for so many years that we don't even think about it or talk about it much at Moms for Liberty. We just put our heads down and keep doing the work and the hits just keep getting thrown at us. And we're just, we just move it out of the way and keep going. But when the announcement came out a couple of weeks ago about the 11 indictments, it made me pause and I knew I was going to have to do some

[00:01:39] media hits on it. So I went back to kind of collect my thoughts and recreate a timeline on all that the SPLC has put Moms for Liberty through. And I was stunned. It was kind of a surreal experience. I was a little bit shocked. I shed a few tears. I started collecting the stories from our parents that have been really impacted by it. And it led us to building out a timeline. So you can go to

[00:02:06] moms for liberty.org forward slash SPLC and you can actually see a timeline of events of the things that have happened to our organization. And so long story short, Moms for Liberty was placed on their hate map in June of 2023. We make up 20% of their hate map right next to the KKK and the neo-Nazis and of their category of anti-government extremists. We make up 40% and parents groups plus us make up

[00:02:33] over half of their anti-government extremists group. Yeah, it's when you first become active and you first hear about SPLC and their hate map, it is a bit disconcerting to be to be listed on it and to be on their website. And then after a while, you do what you just said. You just put your head down and keep on just keep on working because they just attack and they attack and they attack and they attack

[00:03:03] baseless claims. But what we're seeing now is a little bit different. What we're seeing now is a little bit different because it's not just attacking. They've been paying people to infiltrate actual, actually the KKK. They're paying to be part of the KKK and then attacking the very thing that they've paid to be a part of. It's very despicable behavior.

[00:03:30] It really is. You know, the the Judiciary Committee is calling it manufactured hate, which is absolutely what it is to to be lighting the fire. You're the arsonist out lighting the fires and then get paid to raise money on all these fires that are being lit. And then you get paid more to put out the fire. You know, it's it's just remarkable what they've been able to get away with.

[00:03:56] As far as what they've done to our organization, if you would let me, I would love to share a couple stories that we've been able to gather recently that are just heartbreaking if you're interested in those. Yes, please go ahead. Yeah. So we put out the all call. We only had about two days before the hearing last week to to gather letters to submit into the congressional letter of harm that has happened to our members. And so if I had a couple of weeks, I probably could gather thousands of letters. But

[00:04:25] with the 48 hours, I was able to pull together one hundred and twenty five pages of harms. And Jenny Beth, you would not even believe what's in there. A mom in Maryland sent in copies of her court filings from her custody hearing over her son. And they use the SPLC label that she has been labeled a leader in a hate group and that because of that, she shouldn't have the education custodial

[00:04:51] custody. So basically saying she was unfit because she let on moms for the Rudy chapter because of what the SPLC labeled her. There's instances of our moms being doxxed because they are a part of a hate group being swatted by their local law enforcement because they are part of an SPL. I mean, explain what swatted is in docs. We use those terms, but there are probably people in the audience who who need to understand exactly what that means. Yeah, the swatted is especially dangerous.

[00:05:21] And that was one of our moms in New Jersey. She has two small children. What happens is someone makes a call to local law enforcement. And in this case, they report different bogus things. But in this case, it said that there were young children running around in the yard with guns and so and that they had access and they were in the house with it. Sometimes they say that somebody suicidal in the

[00:05:45] house, they manufacture a very serious risk, usually with a gun or a weapon that's that's eminent. And so SWAT teams, you know, come in sirens a blazing to put to get rid of the threat. And what you find always is just normal stuff going on around the house. But if you think someone's in the house being held hostage or about to commit suicide or something of that nature, you now have

[00:06:11] law enforcement with their guns drawn breaking down doors and it gets very dangerous in this particular situation. Luckily, the mom and her children were not home, but the husband was home. And when she pulled up with her children from getting ice cream after school, her house was surrounded with police and the SWAT team. And so she was able to pull up and be like, no, everything's fine. But you can see how those situations could be very dangerous. Yeah, it's it is very alarming. So you had the mom who had it in

[00:06:41] her custody hearing and then the SWAT team. Were there other examples? Oh, there's so many examples. And so we have a mom in Massachusetts who wrote in because the entire municipal police force in the state of Massachusetts is over 20,000 police officers have sat through trainings where they are taught on who the threats are in the state, who are the hate groups. And a Moms for Liberty has a whole page.

[00:07:06] We're placed right after neo-Nazis and the KKK. You have Moms for Liberty members. And so our chapter chairs there have a target on their back from law enforcement that have been trained that they are a threat to their state and to their communities. And the list just goes on and on and on about the harms. One mom, you know, has had things and water bottles, eggs thrown at her car with her children in the car, you know, middle fingers thrown up, cussing and screaming that she's part of a hate group.

[00:07:33] The things that our members have endured because the SPLC put a label on us that is not true, is inaccurate. And it's just it's really astonishing. It really is. And it leads to more dangerous situations. When we did our bus tour last year for only citizens voting. It's the first time that we've done events around the country where there were protesters at almost every single

[00:08:01] event that we went to. And there were organizations on the left, obviously, who were tracking us and they made sure they had protesters at our events. And these were grassroots events. We didn't have, I was a speaker, but it's not like we had big, huge, massive A-list speakers coming to speak. I mean, I'm glad people came to see me, but they were there for the purpose and to advocate for what we were

[00:08:28] pushing, which was at the time the SAVE Act. It's not the SAVE America Act. We wound up on the front page of the SPLC website. My photo was on the front page for over a month. And that was during the time when my photo was on the front page of their website as Charlie Kirk's assassination was

[00:08:52] happening. And he had just been recently been listed as a hate group. There are pages and pages of search results when you search our name on their website. Some of it may not be exactly our organization. Probably some of what they say about Moms for Liberty may not even necessarily be something that's coming from you at the national level. But it is just the, they have so much money

[00:09:19] and they can put out all sorts of information, whether it's true or not, it doesn't matter. They just put things on their website and then leftist groups use that information and add networks that pay people to do ads online, use that information to determine whether you're worthy of receiving money for ads,

[00:09:41] whether you should have a bank or not. They've used it to debank people. They've used it in the case of Family Research Center. Someone went on their website, saw that Family Research Center was listed as a hate group, I think had a printout from the SPLC website, went into their offices and shot their security

[00:10:04] guard. You have these moms whose children could be truly in harm's way because of what this organization did. And they seem to think it's okay to pay, to manufacture hate as well. They are the hate machine they claim to try to protect the country against. They're actually the hate machine. They are. They are manufacturing hate. You know, when 20% of your hate map is just moms,

[00:10:31] your hate map is a fraud and they need to be held accountable for what they're doing to America. They are causing hate. They are causing division. They are manufacturing racism. I'm not saying there's no racism in the country, but they are manufacturing it at a level that just does not exist. And we kind of instinctively have known that, Jenny Beth, you and I, and those that we work with, but to be able to point to it is remarkable. And as far as these other organizations, it's not just these other NGOs

[00:11:00] that are left-leaning or liberal. Our own government is using the SPLC as a point of reference to identify hate groups. That has to stop. You know, we sent a letter last summer to the White House asking President Trump to do an executive order to stop all the federal government from using the SPLC. That ultimately led to the FBI stopping to use it. But the other government entities are,

[00:11:26] to my knowledge, unless something has changed, are still using the SPLC as their point of reference for hate groups. And all the state governments are using it as their point of reference. And obviously banks, like you said, donation, you know, donor advised funds, all using the SPLC to identify groups that they should not be working with. Yeah, they absolutely should not be working with it.

[00:11:51] It almost seems to me, Tina, that we need to develop a call to action or your group or some group needs to be reaching out to law enforcement in every state level initially, in every state across the country, and say, you have to quit using this. And if you've listed Moms for Liberty as a hate group, you need to stop. You need to go back and retrain the people who you trained to remove this kind of

[00:12:18] bias from your organization, especially in light of the revelations and the indictments that have now come out related to SPLC. Yes, I 100% agree. I mean, and who knows how many, who else is being trained on it? Our Massachusetts chair did the FOIA request, which is why we know the Massachusetts municipal police have been trained. But we have no idea how many other entities, organizations or law

[00:12:45] enforcement are being trained on it. Yeah, it's just terrible. And when I'm looking at the timeline for what you did, it said that in Iowa, seven out of the 10 hate groups on their website were Moms for Liberty groups. It's and if you knew our Iowa moms, I mean, they are Iowa, you know, I don't know how many times you've been to Iowa, but there's Iowa nice is what they call it. And our Iowa moms are the nicest people. Our legislative chair there is a single mom who's been raising her biracial son all

[00:13:14] by herself, working three jobs half the time to pay her bills while volunteering to be poll watching. And it's just these women are the salt of the earth. It is. Terrific. Yeah. And it's. It's just these with this organization has done what SPLC has done to harm groups like yours,

[00:13:41] like Charlie Kirk's group, like Tea Party Patriots, Family Research Council and so many others to to be able to do this. It's it is almost impossible or it has been almost impossible to sue them. I think they have an endowment fund, which means they have money that is saved and put away that is at or above or very close to a billion dollars with a B. Tina, you what is your your budget is nowhere

[00:14:10] near. Oh, nowhere near that break like four million dollars. And so when people say, what do you want? Well, not only do I want government entities and businesses to stop using them as a point of reference. I mean, I'm not one to usually beg for restitution, but justice needs to be served. And they have raised hundreds of millions of dollars off the backs of our mothers. And donors have been sometimes a little bit shy about donating to us because we've been labeled

[00:14:38] a hate group, especially to our foundation, to the C3. And people have been afraid to join. And we have testimonies of folks that have laughed that were in leadership roles because they couldn't keep their day jobs if they stayed affiliated with us. And so the damage they have done is is real to Moms for Liberty. And I would welcome them having to give us a cut of their almost billion dollar budget that they have.

[00:15:04] It's just with that much money, it makes it very, very difficult for groups like yours, for groups like mine to have fought them. To fight them in a court of law, they would they would bleed us of every penny that that we earn. And they would still have tens, if not hundreds, they would have hundreds of millions of dollars left to keep going. So I'm very glad that the federal government is

[00:15:28] stepping up with the indictments, because it's going to take something that big to go after them. 100 percent. I mean, if you look at some of the groups that they are defaming and going after gays against groomers, they they put them in the category of anti LGBTQ. This is literally a group of gay individuals that have come together to protect children. And they put them in the anti LGBTQ.

[00:15:56] They have no paid staff. They are all volunteers. How are they supposed to ever take them to court to clear their name? They can't. They have they have no funds to do that. And so it's like the big Goliath is is the bully against all of these organizations that have small budgets or no budgets. And we have no recourse. Yeah, it's it's quite horrible. So you gave this 126 page

[00:16:21] document and submitted it into the congressional record. What have you seen happening from from the House side? And what it's a judiciary committee. And what are they what are they doing? And how can you and your network and Tea Pretty Patriots Actions Network be able to help with that? So great question. So they had the first hearing last week. I was able to be there for the hearing,

[00:16:46] as you said. They had three people testify. Tyler O'Neill, who wrote the book, Making Hate Pay, all exposing the SPLC. And that's like 10 years ago he wrote the book. He's been he's had their number for a long time. And then the head of Family Research Council who runs, you know, Tony Perkins, who who had the security guard that was shot. And just to add on to that,

[00:17:10] the gentleman that came in and shot the security guard, he was headed in with plenty of bullets to shoot everybody. His intent was to kill every employee of Family Research Council. And he said undersworn testimony that it was because they were on the SPLC hate map. What's even more grotesque is Tony shared that day in his testimony that that gentleman came with a whole bag full of Chick-fil-A sandwiches because he and he testified that he planned to shove them in the mouths of all of the dead

[00:17:39] bodies after he shot them. And so these are individuals that are filled with hate. They are inspired by the SPLC. And yet one more reason they need to be held accountable. And the third witness at the first hearing was Dr. Carol Swain, who is black, and they have called her an anti-inclusion something or another. You know, they give you these titles which go, oh, maybe she's a white supremacist. That's what it was. She was she's a white supremacist sympathizer. You know,

[00:18:06] just absurd what they do and they get away with it. And so that was the first hearing. I hear that on July 9th or 10th, they now have called a second hearing and the head of the SPLC will appear to testify. So I'm working on trying to get my plane ticket now so I can be front and center for that. Yeah, you need to be there for that. And it should be very interesting to see what they actually what they actually say under oath or if they pull a Lois Lerner and they just give

[00:18:35] an opening testimony, but they don't answer any other questions. I would actually be shocked if they answer very many questions at all because they may need to be concerned about indicting themselves. I just think that they are such a problem organization. I'd be shocked if they actually come through and testify. I agree with you. And now that you're saying that, I'm like,

[00:19:03] should I really fly up there for their five minute testimony and then just watch them for two hours, say, you know, I take the fifth or one sentence answer that they just keep giving. No, you absolutely should. And they, you know, that person from the Family Research Council from that shooting, they got Chick-fil-A. I'm sure that they had read somewhere that Chick-fil-A

[00:19:30] was a bad organization because they hire Christians. And yet the Chick-fil-A Foundation donated to the SPLC in 2017, five years after the shooting at Family Research Council. It's just, I don't even understand why Chick-fil-A felt the need to donate to them. It's just crazy,

[00:19:55] crazy craziness. But there is so much pressure in the corporate world and in the Fortune 500 world to not donate and not allow the corporations to donate if an organization is listed on their hate map, and then to pressure all those organizations into donating to the leftist organization. Let me rephrase that. All those businesses, those Fortune 500 businesses to donate

[00:20:22] to the organizations that the left deems worthy. It's really, really twisted. It is. And I don't know about you, Jenny Beth and the Tea Party Patriots, but at Moms for Liberty, we just, we know what's important. We know what we stand for. We are fighting for our kids and the future of our country. And the odds against us are insurmountable. We have billions. I mean,

[00:20:49] that's just one organization that has a billion. There are more NGOs on the left side. Those are non-government organizations that are conservative by a hundredfold. We are up against all of them. When the SPLC put us on their hate map, we were cyber attacked globally by the group called Anonymous. Somebody put millions of dollars to take down our server and access our databases that we had to fight against. At that time, we didn't even have a million dollar budget. It took everything we

[00:21:18] had to stand against these people. Three weeks after we were added to the hate map, we held our event in Philadelphia. The entire Philly PD had to be on staff all weekend for our national summit. They had their riot gear police shoulder to shoulder protecting us. The protesters came in by the thousands. They smashed in the window of the American Museum of the Revolution where we were having our kickoff. They spray painted over Washington crossing the Delaware. We had to have police escorts to and from

[00:21:46] the building for all of our moms and their small children. This is not a joke. What the SPLC has done to America and to our moms is criminal behavior, and I pray they are held accountable. Well, I pray that they are held accountable as well. And what you're describing happened to you at your first conference. That was hate. If they need to understand what hate is, they need to go look at

[00:22:10] the videos and the photos from that day. Moms speaking at school board meetings, that's not hateful. That is exercising your First Amendment right to free speech and to hold your government accountable for a redress of grievances, to petition the government. Attacking a nonprofit organization, breaking things, that is hatred. Intimidating children, moms and their children together at the

[00:22:36] same time, that's hateful. And that's where the SPLC is. But you're right, Tina. It doesn't matter how heat-filled they are, nor does it matter how much money they have. And it doesn't matter how much all these other NGOs have across the entire spectrum of the left. I'm not going to quit doing what I do, and I know you're not going to quit doing what you do. And I'm so thankful for the donors we both have

[00:23:03] who make it possible for us to keep standing up for the values we hold dear, even when we have been subject to these kind of attacks from SPLC and others on the left. And we have to just keep standing up and fighting for it because we're fighting for America's future. And we're doing everything that we can to continue to pass liberty down from our generation to our children and our grandchildren.

[00:23:29] Yeah, just a shout out to our donors, 100% yours and mine, and any donors that are willing to still give to organizations that are doing good work but have been labeled because they are also a target. And, you know, even though if it's under a C4 or a C3, you know, sometimes they can fly a little bit under the radar. But people are pulling our donor list. They're trying to figure out who's donating to us. And I'm sure it's the same with you. And even in their social groups, if they say they're donating

[00:23:55] to us, you know, they might get a little bit of a stink eye. And so it's courageous for them also to give of their treasure to help us move forward. Okay, let's shift gears for just a minute. And let me just say this, donate to Moms for Liberty and help Moms for Liberty because you're doing such good work. And we have to stand up to these bullies on the left and make sure they know that no matter how much bullying they want to do to us, we're not backing down. And we will continue to stand up for

[00:24:23] Liberty. Tina, you speaking of standing up for Liberty, you've got a great event coming up in just just over a week out in San Diego. You already had one event in New York. Tell our supporters and our listeners all about that. Yes, Jenny Beth, I'll be there. You'll be there. Glenn Beck will be there. Sage Steel will be there. Sage Steel Father, Colonel Steel will be there. David Barton, Marissa Street from PragerU. So we've got a pretty great lineup for the evening. We're going to be

[00:24:53] honoring America's heroes. Celebrating the 250th signing of the Declaration of Independence will be on the USS Midway in San Diego. Mary Milbin will be singing. We're going to salute all the branches of the military. Natasha Owens will be kicking us off with the national anthem. We'll have fireworks off the bow. It's ultimately a fundraiser to help support Moms for Liberty. And we invite everyone that's listening right now to join us on June 6th, the 82nd anniversary

[00:25:20] of D-Day for this celebration. Very good. Well, Tina, thank you so much for joining me today. And thank you for not backing down and for having a steel spine. Oh, it is my pleasure and honor, Jenny Beth. Thank you. If you enjoyed today's conversation, go ahead and hit like and subscribe. It really helps us reach more people who care about liberty and the Constitution. You can find this and other episodes at JennyBethShow.com, as well as Facebook, YouTube, Rumble, Instagram,

[00:25:50] X, and your favorite podcast platform. The Jenny Beth Show is hosted by Jenny Beth Martin. The Jenny Beth Show is a production of Tea Party Patriots Action. For more information, visit TeaPartyPatriots.org.