Fake news is now a civic issue in Westminster.

City officials spent part of the March 9 city council meeting debating a resolution from Councilman Tai Do condemning Vietnamese-language “fake news.” One outlet, Do said, has spread what he termed inflammatory lies that put his colleagues Kimberly Ho and Carlos Manzo in danger. The resolution passed 3-2, with Mayor Tri Ta and Councilman Charlie Nguyen opposed.

The resolution points to Trust Media Network as “the primary source of fake news” in local Vietnamese-language media. Founded by video blogger Nam Quan Nguyen, the YouTube channel counts more than 200,000 subscribers in Little Saigon and beyond.

Nguyen, who has defended his journalism, said Friday that he was unsurprised by the vote.

“Everything the gang of three does is just to get revenge on Mayor Ta and Councilman Charlie Nguyen,” he said. “They are so childish.”

Backers of the resolution used Trust Media stories to make their argument. During the meeting, Do displayed his cellphone on Zoom, playing a half dozen Trust Media excerpts while a professional interpreter translated them into English.

In the videos, Nam Quan Nguyen, his co-host Ky Ngo and their guests repeatedly make inaccurate and unproven claims. They said, without evidence, that Manzo is racist toward Vietnamese Americans and that Ho wants to destroy a Buddhist temple.

A former Westminster traffic commissioner, appointed by Ta, Nguyen ran an unsuccessful 2020 campaign against Manzo for a seat on the Westminster City Council. He also has been been on the forefront of a recall effort against Ho and Manzo.

On the show, Nguyen and Ngo say that Ho and Manzo want to shutter Westminster’s Dieu Ngu Temple and imprison its abbot and Mayor Ta. In fact, Ho asked staff to explain numerous historic sales of public property, including one to the temple, but never proposed taking action against Dieu Ngu.

Emphasizing that Ho is not Buddhist, the commentators banter about what they describe as Ho’s “scheme to destroy Buddhism to get points with white voters.”

“She wants to seize the land to build a Mormon temple or a brothel,” Ngo said.

Describing Ho as “evil,” the two men imply that she and her Chinese American husband support Communist China. Therefore, Nguyen and Ngo say, Ho plans to remove a Freedom Park memorial honoring a 1974 South Vietnamese naval battle against Chinese forces.

Occasionally referred to by Nguyen and Ngo as “the Mexican,” Manzo is a target of similar accusations.

Some are fantastical. For instance, they claim that Manzo is so “jealous and racist” that he scratched out Ta’s title of “mayor” from a statue of Vietnamese hero General Tran Hung Dao.

“He doesn’t speak Vietnamese. He looks down on Vietnamese history,” says guest pundit Kim Trang Nguyen, a political activist.

Suggesting that only Vietnamese Americans should serve as mayor or vice mayor, she said, “We want our children to feel safe.”

The Tran Hung Dao statue, located on private property along Bolsa Avenue, was the site of a recent Trust Media broadcast shared with a fellow YouTube blogger from Washington State.

In the broadcast, the man expresses distress over the rumor that Manzo and Ho plan to uproot the statue, promising he would “make whatever sacrifices necessary” to save it.

“Whether I live or die, as long as it is the right cause, I will pay the debt,” he says. “If I die, my death has value.”

At that juncture in the council meeting, Do paused the video to interject, “That is scary.”

After listening to the translations Wednesday, Manzo noted that he can’t keep up with the charges against him because he doesn’t understand Vietnamese.

“Should I be looking over my shoulder when I go to Little Saigon?” Manzo said. He urged Ta and Charlie Nguyen to “tell your supporters to stop saying those things – they’re dangerous.”

But Ta scolded Do for “using city resources to criticize members of the public.”

“They have the right to speak their minds,” Ta said. “We need to honor the First Amendment.”

In a public statement, Trust Media’s Nguyen defended his work, denouncing the resolution as “a desperate attempt to gag political opponents for speaking the truth and for exposing the misdeeds of Ho, Do, and Manzo.”

“Our information is solid and we are proud of the tremendous support and feedback from the viewing public,” Nguyen said. He added that the resolution is “insulting,” portraying the Vietnamese community as “unsophisticated and naive.”

Ho, however, described Trust Media broadcasts as “hate speech” that “might cause people to react violently.”

Manzo wondered if the resolution could elicit legal action against Westminster by the people named in it, and asked for City Attorney Christian Bettenhausen’s input.

“People can always bring suits,” Bettenhausen noted. Still, he added, plaintiffs would have to show that their assertions were maliciously misrepresented.

“Truth is a defense to a defamation claim,” Bettenhausen said.

With that assurance, Manzo joined the majority in approving the resolution.

Do said he just wanted to get the false allegations on record.

“Until we fix this,” Do said, “Vice Mayor Carlos Manzo will probably be the last non-Vietnamese American elected to this council.”