President Falwell on Todd Starnes Show responds to false media claims

Liberty University President Jerry Falwell went on Fox News Radio’s “The Todd Starnes Show” on Friday afternoon to address an inaccurate report published by The Daily Beast. (Listen to the full segment on right.)

The article mischaracterized a longstanding contract between Freedom Aviation (a subsidiary of Liberty University and a standalone business) and the Department of Defense.

Starnes called the article “a hit job and a smear piece.”

“I think that American mainstream media has lost all credibility in the last few years in this country, what little bit they had,” Falwell said. “No one’s going to believe them anymore. With the Mueller probe, their ratings dropped to next to nothing on CNN and NBC. I think people are seeing now that they’ve been lied to and nothing of it has worked.”

Falwell explained that the contract had been established between the DOD and Lynchburg’s airport for the past 20 years, long before Liberty fixed-base operator Freedom Aviation acquired Aviation Resources, Inc., in 2014. In fact, the Department of Defense received its highest volume of jet fuel during the Obama Administration.

In the segment, Falwell emphasized how the university responsibly handles non-university-related travel requests by outside organizations, including political campaigns. For example, when the Trump campaign asked Falwell to attend an event during the 2016 election cycle at a rally in Iowa: “I told my lawyers about it and they said, ‘No, the university can’t pay for you to go there,’” Falwell explained. “The campaign has to pay for it because we’re a 501 (c)(3). We can’t support or oppose candidates. We can’t use our resources to either help or hurt a candidate. I told the campaign they had to pay for it. They agreed.”

Due to Liberty’s profile, Falwell explained, many high-profile individuals come in and out of Lynchburg throughout the year.

“We do everything by the book,” he said. “I never used the plane for personal reasons unless I paid for it. I pay taxes on the income if it’s part of my compensation. We use the plane mainly for speakers. We bring in a lot of guest speakers. Dr. Jordan Peterson spoke this morning and did a fantastic job. He’s immensely popular with younger people. It (the jet) is the only way we can get top notch speakers into a little town like Lynchburg.”

Read the full statement released by Freedom Aviation.