Trump FCC Chairman Ajit Pai is a former top Verizon executive and now he’s about to hand Verizon billions of dollars in public subsidy by striking down net neutrality rules, which is a really funny coincidence!
Pai apparently agrees. He gave a presentation at the Federal Communications Bar Association (the “telecom prom”) which featured a funny, funny video which Pai described as a “leaked, 14-year-old video” in which he appears in Verizon’s DC office where another exec describes a “Manchurian candidate” plan to take over the FCC by “brainwashing and grooming a Verizon puppet to install as FCC chairman.”
Even funnier! The person who played the sinister Verizon executive was Kathy Grillo, a real-life sinister Verizon exec — the company’s current deputy general counsel and senior vice president.
The whole thing was backed by a hip-hop soundtrack built around 50 Cent’s “In Da Club” and was liberally sprinkled with corny, rich lawyers using hip-hop slang like “Hey, ‘G,’ what up?”
One of the more egregious of Pai’s jokes, which reflects the frequent accusations that he’s a corporate shill, comes at the 20:00 mark. “In collusion—I mean, in conclusion, sorry, my bad—many people are still shell-shocked that I’m up here tonight,” he says. “They ask themselves, how on earth did this happen?”
Pai then rolls what he describes as a “leaked, 14-year-old video,” saying he can “no longer hide from the truth.”
The video is a skit that opens to 50 Cent’s “In Da Club” and takes place at “Verizon’s DC Office” in 2003, where Pai worked as an attorney before joining the FCC a few years later. A random Verizon executive tells him: “As you know, the FCC is captured by the industry, but we think it’s not captured enough, so we have a plan.”
“What plan?” Pai asks.
“We want to brainwash and groom a Verizon puppet to install as FCC chairman,” the executive says. “Think ‘Manchurian Candidate.’”
“That sounds awesome,” Pai responds.
Leaked Video Shows FCC Chair Ajit Pai Roasting Himself With ‘Jokes’ About Being a Verizon Shill [Dell Cameron and Rhett Jones/Gizmodo]