Russell Brand has been accused of rape, sexual assault, and abuse from 2006 to 2013 by a group of women who claim they were sexually assaulted by Russell Brand. Russell has denied all of the allegations, but the Sunday Times and Channel 4 in the UK have alleged that he was involved in the abuse and rape of dozens of women. In this episode, we discuss the timing of these allegations, and why the media should not be able to attack mainstream media narratives on this matter, especially in light of the fact that Russell has since remarried and is trying to make a better life for himself, and is now trying to live up to his reputation as one of the most charming, charming people you can ever meet in the entertainment industry. This episode is brought to you by Awaken, My Wonders, a production of Gimlet Media and edited by Alex Blumberg. If you like what you hear here, please HIT SUBSCRIBE and leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts! Subscribe, Like, and Subscribe to our new podcast "Awaken Your Wonders" Subscribe on iTunes Learn more about your ad choices. Become a supporter of the show: and help spread the word to your friends about "awaken Your Wonderings" wherever you get it. Thank you for listening to this podcast! if you leave a review and rating/subscribe in iTunes and review it on your favorite streaming platform, we'll hear about it on the next episode of AWaken Your Wondrous. Subscribe to Awakened's newest podcast, Awaken_News! Subscribe to AWakened? Subscribe on Podchaser. and Subscribe on Audible Subscribe on your favourite streaming platform Subscribe on the App Store or wherever you re listening to your favorite podcast platform? Subscribe on PODCAST! Subscribe on Itunes Subscribe on Spare Leave Us a Reviewed & Share it on iTunes Subscribe on Your Reviewed Podcasts & Shout Outlawed Out? We'll Be Reviewed On Itunes Learn more on this Podcasts and Shoutout to Our Podcasts Out There? on Italk Outtrops Out There on This Week's New Music Outtroves Outtro Outro Outtro Music on Soundcloud on SoundCloud Send Us Your Thoughts Outtro on This Podcast Outtro On This Podcast? Subscribe To Our Insta Story on This Is It's Good Music And Stories Outtro Song On This Episode
00:00:18.000Now, I didn't know Russell Brand at that time.
00:00:22.000My guess is if I had known Russell Brand, I wouldn't have liked Russell Brand very much at that time, considering that Russell Brand, by his own admission, in all of his writings and in all of his statements, has basically admitted to being a sect addict and incredibly promiscuous and a person who I would consider to have engaged in incredibly vile behavior during that entire period.
00:00:41.000And then, Russell Brand has remade himself.
00:00:43.000And in the period where I've known Russell, which is really the past three or four years, Russell has been a person who is searching for something meaningful.
00:01:18.000During the time that Russell Brand was pretty flagrantly and obviously not only promiscuous, but incredibly vile in the sorts of things that he said publicly about sex and about women and all the rest of this sort of stuff, the media were championing him.
00:01:31.000He was a hero of the left at this time when he was engaged in this sort of behavior.
00:01:35.000He was He was treated as some sort of person to emulate at this time.
00:01:41.000He was not only on BBC, he was on MTV, he was being treated as a public celebrity while he was engaging in this sort of behavior.
00:01:48.000He was the impish devil who was having sex with as many women as humanly possible and doing insane amounts of drugs.
00:01:55.000Now, 10 years later, when Russell Brand has fixed his life and is trying to make a better life for himself, now he gets hit with a full-scale Sunday Times expose about all of these women.
00:02:04.000Now, we're going to go through some of the allegations with which Russell has been hit here.
00:02:09.000Russell has denied all of the allegations.
00:02:11.000And again, in every situation, when you're talking about like a 10-year, 15, 20-year-ago situation, it is a he said, she said.
00:02:15.000There's just no way To verify one way or the other whether somebody is telling the truth or whether they are not absent some sort of DNA evidence and even DNA evidence isn't going to fully explain what exactly happened if a man and a woman are in a room together because consent or non-consent is a matter of behavior in the moment.
00:02:32.000It is not something can be evidenced by physical evidence typically.
00:02:36.000Unless you're talking about, God forbid, some sort of, like, full-on murderous rape or something.
00:02:42.000In this particular case, what you have is a bunch of stories where women suggest that, at the time, they weren't happy, or they weren't happy afterward.
00:02:49.000There's one allegation in particular that seems pretty serious that Russell has said that he is going to address.
00:02:54.000Before I get to the actual allegations, the timeline here is that Russell went on his Twitter and he put out a pretty lengthy statement talking about what he saw coming.
00:03:04.000Because apparently both the Sunday Times and Channel 4 were going around and finding dozens of women to talk to.
00:03:11.000And it was pretty clear to him that they were going to launch this story at him.
00:03:14.000Here is what Russell had to say just before the story launched.
00:03:19.000Now this isn't the usual type of video we make on this channel where we critique, attack and undermine the news in all its corruption, because in this story I am the news.
00:03:28.000I've received two extremely disturbing letters, or a letter and an email.
00:03:33.000One from a mainstream media TV company, one from a newspaper Listing a litany of extremely egregious and aggressive attacks, as well as some pretty stupid stuff like my community festival should be stopped, that I shouldn't be able to attack mainstream media narratives on this channel.
00:03:50.000But amidst this litany of astonishing, rather baroque attacks are some very serious allegations that I absolutely refute.
00:04:01.000These allegations pertain to the time when I was working in the mainstream, when I was in the newspapers all the time, when I was in the movies.
00:04:06.000And as I've written about extensively in my books, I was very, very promiscuous.
00:04:11.000Now, during that time of promiscuity, the relationships I had were absolutely always consensual.
00:04:16.000I was always transparent about that then, almost too transparent.
00:04:19.000And I'm being transparent about it now as well.
00:04:22.000And to see that transparency metastasized into something criminal that I absolutely deny makes me question Is there another agenda at play?
00:04:32.000Particularly when we've seen coordinated media attacks before like with Joe Rogan when he dared to take a medicine that the mainstream media didn't approve of and we saw a spate of headlines from media outlets across the world using the same language I'm aware that you guys have been saying in the comments for a while, watch out Russell, they're coming for you, you're getting too close to the truth, Russell Brand did not kill himself.
00:04:53.000I know that a year ago there was a spate of articles, Russell Brand's a conspiracy theorist, Russell Brand's right wing.
00:04:58.000I'm aware of news media making phone calls, sending letters to people I know for ages and ages.
00:05:03.000It's been clear to me, or at least it feels to me, like there's a serious and concerted agenda to control these kind of spaces and these kind of voices.
00:05:12.000And I mean my voice along with your voice.
00:05:15.000I don't mind them using my books and my stand-up to talk about my promiscuous, consensual conduct in the past.
00:05:21.000What I seriously refute are these very, very serious criminal allegations.
00:05:26.000Also, it's worth mentioning that there are witnesses whose evidence directly contradicts the narratives that these two mainstream media outlets are trying to construct, apparently in what seems to me to be a coordinated attack.
00:05:40.000Now, I don't want to get into this any further because of the serious nature of the allegations, but I feel like I'm being attacked and plainly they are working very closely together.
00:06:01.000And there is no statute of limitations on rape or sexual assault in the United Kingdom or pretty much anywhere else in the West.
00:06:07.000Which means that theoretically the police could still bring charges against him if in fact the allegations are true or if there's proof of the allegations.
00:06:15.000But the real question here that I have, again, and we'll get to the allegations themselves in just one second, the real question I have here is why the sudden interest by the media in all these stories now?
00:06:24.000Meaning all these stories have been floating around for 15, 10 years, over a decade, and only now do they see fit to actually track down all the women who slept with Russell Brand and try to find some who will make allegations Or who believe that they were victims of rape or sexual assault from Russell Brand.
00:06:41.000And all I can imagine here is that Russell Brand crossed a particular political line that if he'd still been on the right side of the line, the media definitely would not have been going after him.
00:06:48.000Because you have to learn about the motivations.
00:06:52.000In the same way that nothing changed about Joe Rogan from point A to point B, except his political viewpoint.
00:06:58.000In the same way that nothing changed really about Donald Trump between point A and point B, except his political viewpoint.
00:07:04.000In the same way that nothing has changed here about Russell Brand from point A to point B except his political viewpoint, you wonder about the timing, when he was engaged in all this behavior, when it would have been most plausible that he engaged in the sort of behavior alleged.
00:07:17.000The media were not only uninterested, they were paying him.
00:07:20.00010 years later when Russell has, he's by the way not a right-winger, when Russell has just decided that he is not in favor of a lot of sort of left-wing narratives ranging from COVID to to wokeness.
00:07:30.000When that happens, suddenly you have a coordinated attack, a coordinated investigation between the Sunday Times and the Channel 4 News in Britain.
00:07:39.000I find the timing at least somewhat suspicious.
00:07:41.000When I say somewhat, I mean a lot suspicious.
00:07:43.000We'll get to the allegations in just a moment, because some of them, again,
00:07:46.000are pretty questionable on their face.
00:07:47.000There's one allegation in particular that's very serious, and then there are some that are pretty questionable
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00:10:17.000So there are two sources that coordinated on the allegations against Bran.
00:10:20.000One is a show in the UK called Dispatches from Channel 4.
00:10:24.000And I have to admit, it's a little bit weird that one of the things that they do here is they say that none of the women were willing to come on camera to talk about the actual allegations.
00:10:33.000Instead, they have actresses playing the women, reading their texts, which is kind of strange, just from a media perspective, typically.
00:10:40.000If you want to have a reporter, you know, a talking head read the actual words, I get that.
00:10:44.000I don't understand having an actress play the woman and infusing the lines with emotion.
00:10:49.000I mean, that's a strange move just from a production standpoint to me.
00:10:53.000Anyway, here are some of the quotes from Dispatches.
00:10:56.000I phoned and somebody asked what it was regarding, and I said, it's regarding Russell Brand being a sex offender.
00:11:38.000And then it wasn't that fun when I couldn't move.
00:11:41.000I knew what he wanted from me at that point.
00:11:45.000Okay, so a lot of these allegations sound a lot like, for example, the Kobe Bryant allegations.
00:11:49.000Remember Kobe Bryant's allegations, like, 25 years ago?
00:11:52.000There were allegations that he was at a hotel in Colorado, and a woman came up to his room at, like, 3 a.m., and then, as it turns out, most likely she had consensual sex with him, but then she claimed she was raped.
00:12:01.000In some of these cases where it's, like, women going to men's rooms at 2 a.m., that doesn't mean that the man gets to participate in rape.
00:12:07.000It does mean that you have to take into account all the circumstances when you hear a he-said-she-said story.
00:12:11.000The sort of believe all women meme has always been ridiculous.
00:12:14.000It's no different than saying believe all men.
00:12:16.000It's especially ridiculous when you can't even define the words women or men.
00:12:19.000But when you look at these sorts of stories, this is the problem inherently with not going forward with, say, a criminal prosecution at the time an allegation is made.
00:12:26.000When you come forward 10 years later, of course the story is going to get analyzed.
00:12:30.000And that's not being mean to the woman or cruel to the woman.
00:12:33.000That's if we're trying to get at the truth of a thing that either happened or didn't happen, you have to look at the circumstances surrounding the actual allegations.
00:12:40.000We're going to get some more on these allegations in just one moment first.
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00:13:43.000Okay, so now to the actual allegations.
00:13:45.000Very long story from, as I say, the Sunday Times in the UK.
00:13:50.000And they say, four women have alleged sexual assaults between 2006 and 2013 when he was a presenter for BBC Radio 2 and Channel 4 and then an actor in Hollywood films.
00:13:58.000Others have made a range of accusations about Brand's controlling, abusive, and predatory behavior.
00:14:02.000Brand denied the allegations and said all of his relationships have been consensual.
00:14:06.000And so we're going to go through some of these allegations because, again, there is this weird tendency when allegations like this come out.
00:14:13.000And you see them also about people like, for example, Armie Hammer, right?
00:14:17.000All these allegations will come out of the woodwork accusing Armie Hammer of having engaged in rape or sexual assault.
00:14:23.000And it turns out the person's been in, like, a longstanding sexual relationship with the person, where they had sex with the person both before and after, but were supposed to somehow believe that in the middle was the rape.
00:14:36.000But it goes to credibility if you stayed with the guy, if you were with the guy before and you stayed with the guy after.
00:14:41.000There are a couple of situations that are like this.
00:14:43.000And then there are certain situations where they're not against the law.
00:14:46.000It's just that Brandon is supposed to be creepy, which he's admitted to being between like this entire period that he was a creep with women.
00:14:52.000So, for example, the first story here is quote, As her taxi approached Russell Brand's home, Alice remembers the driver begging her not to go inside.
00:15:00.000Recognizing the destination, he had started to ask questions.
00:15:02.000Alice admitted she was 16 and still in school.
00:15:04.000She says the driver replied his daughter was the same age and intruded.
00:15:07.000Alice, please, I'm asking you to not go in there.
00:15:09.000I would want someone to do this for her.
00:15:10.000He offered to take her home without charge, but Alice insisted she was fine.
00:15:13.000He had just a sad look in his eye, she recalled.
00:15:16.000Alice, whose name we have changed to protect her identity, now realizes she wasn't fine.
00:15:19.000During a relationship that lasted for about three months when Brand was a BBC radio presenter, she says he referred to her as the child and alleges he became increasingly controlling and then emotionally and sexually abusive.
00:15:28.000So at this time, Brand was 30 and she was apparently 16.
00:15:32.000Okay, now, in the United States, crime.
00:15:48.000If you're, again, in the UK, and the age of consent changes from states, I would prefer the age of consent be 18.
00:15:54.000But, if you're not going to have that, then that's what it is.
00:15:58.000According to the Times, Brand made his name in comedy in the early 2000s and also achieved the status of London's most lascivious Lothario.
00:16:04.000After he gave up drugs in 2002, Brand filled that void with sex.
00:16:07.000In 2005, he received treatment for sex addiction at a clinic in the U.S.
00:16:11.000He once said he could sleep with 80 women in a month.
00:16:13.000Some crowned Shagger of the Year by The Sun three times, have relationships with some of the world's most beautiful women, including Kate Moss, and married pop star Katy Perry in 2010.
00:16:21.000Now, again, this goes back to what I was saying before.
00:16:23.000When he was engaged in this incredibly promiscuous behavior, the media were championing him and talking about what a wonderful guy he was.
00:16:30.000And they were talking about how he was just this, again, sort of elvish, impish figure on the world stage, screwing as many women as humanly possible.
00:16:37.000Now, this would have been like an amazing time to check into whether any of those women were happy with the situation.
00:16:42.000Or whether all of them were, or whether some of them weren't.
00:16:46.000No, because he was busy getting paid by all these same people.
00:16:48.000Only 10 years later, when he has flipped in terms of his personal life and in terms of the values he espouses, now, now it's worthwhile for them to come after him.
00:16:57.000And the media motivation here is part of the story, and it's impossible to do without it.
00:17:02.000And then they go on about Alice and it gets very graphic and talks about how she was a version and how he was turned on by this again.
00:17:09.000Is anything here actually an accusation of criminality?
00:17:13.000No, it's apparently an accusation of grossness.
00:17:17.000Toward the end of the relationship, Alice says that Bran sexually assaulted her.
00:17:20.000Now this is an accusation of criminality, right?
00:17:22.000She says that effectively he forced her into oral sex and she had to punch him to get him off of her and all of this.
00:17:30.000There's only one problem, which is his quote, the relationship ended when Bran invited her over one day
00:17:33.000and she arrived to find another woman in his bed.
00:18:02.000You'll notice that these are not criminal charges.
00:18:05.000The police apparently are now soliciting the women to see if they want to come forward and do criminal charges.
00:18:08.000So far, none have responded, as far as I'm aware.
00:18:11.000Then there's talk about how when Brand was a Channel 4 presenter, there were basically people who were sent into the crowd to pimp for him, to go pick up women and bring them backstage so that he would have sex with them.
00:18:22.000Now, let me just point out that this is common practice in Hollywood.
00:18:58.000It would have been relevant then, but the problem is they're on the side of those values.
00:19:01.000They're on the side of those values, which is why they protected it then.
00:19:04.000If it was bad then, if it's bad now, it was bad then, apparently.
00:19:09.000But according to them, it wasn't bad then.
00:19:11.000So this is why they're trying to come up with new allegations, the new allegations being an actual rape or sexual assault.
00:19:16.000And Russell is denying all these allegations, and we have yet to see the proof.
00:19:19.000But part of the problem with a situation in which you have unnamed women making allegations, and these unnamed women are not making them criminally, is that there is no way to adjudicate the truth or falsity of the statements.
00:19:33.000Now the burden is supposed to be on Russell Brown to disprove that this thing happened, which is typically not the way that it works.
00:19:37.000Typically, you have to have a burden of proof that shows that the thing did happen.
00:19:41.000And we've seen too many situations in the past few years of accusations that turn out to be either exaggerated or not true.
00:19:50.000Brett Kavanaugh being the most obvious example that comes to mind.
00:19:52.000In my opinion, the Eugene Carroll story is not credible, right?
00:19:54.000There are just plenty of these allegations that are out there about famous men who've crossed a particular line, and I mean politically there, and the allegations end up being either false or exaggerated.
00:20:07.000Get to more on this in just one second.
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00:21:12.000Okay, so this Sunday Times article includes other allegations.
00:21:16.000It includes an allegation that this Nadia person who's quoted in that Channel 4 clip by an actress, which again, I keep coming back to that because it's so bizarre.
00:21:26.000Like, why not just read the allegations the way I'm reading the allegations out loud right now, unless you want to infuse it with an extra level of emotion as played by an actress, which is strange.
00:21:33.000Okay, so he met Nadia, a businesswoman, who was then in her 30s.
00:23:23.000Okay, so this is, again, this is the most telling allegation and the most credible allegation, right?
00:23:28.000Nadia had told a friend what happened.
00:23:29.000She apparently went to the rape treatment center at UCLA Santa Monica Medical Center that same day and she shared a copy of her treatment records.
00:23:36.000Apparently she provided her underwear and other samples as evidence, which were frozen at the time.
00:23:40.000An officer from LAPD was alerted by the center, according to the notes.
00:23:44.000She chose not to make a police report.
00:23:46.000She said she didn't think my words would mean anything up against his.
00:23:49.000Which, again, is a strange allegation in the year 2012.
00:23:53.000The notes say if she was worried that if her assailant's name is somehow released, her name will be dragged through the mud.
00:23:58.000She had therapy at the clinic for the following five months.
00:24:01.000During her therapy sessions, records show Nadia was contemplating criminal or civil proceedings before ultimately deciding against it.
00:24:06.000She wrote Brandon a letter hoping to regain some sense of power in the process, and she sent it to her house, and she said, Okay, so that is by far the most serious allegation.
00:24:13.000you scared the bleep out of me on July 1st. I thought in any situation I'd be strong enough
00:24:16.000to fight someone off. You completely broke me down." Okay, so that is by far the most
00:24:20.000serious allegation. All the other allegations that are levered here are pure, he said,
00:24:25.000she said, with no real supporting evidence other than the allegation itself. And again,
00:24:31.000many of the allegations here include further sexual entanglements that go on after the
00:24:39.000Now, are we going to find out what happened here?
00:24:41.000Well, presumably there's actual hard evidence, certainly that she had consensual sex with him, right?
00:24:45.000I mean, that's presumably what the frozen samples would show.
00:24:47.000But if she made contemporaneous police reports, like all of this could be made not only public with her name, but also she could file criminal charges.
00:24:56.000If those criminal charges are filed, presumably it will be adjudicated.
00:24:59.000We just... I'm gonna say I don't know because I don't know and you don't know and no one knows.
00:25:03.000Again, I can say what I think of Russell Brand today.
00:25:06.000I can't say what I think of Russell Brand in 2012.
00:25:07.000And I don't know that Russell Brand would say what he thinks of Russell Brand in 2012.
00:25:12.000The thing that I find non-credible about the entire situation is not that allegation, which frankly sounds like she has supporting evidence and we'll see what comes up.
00:25:21.000The thing that I find puzzling and bewildering is the media's decision to go whole hog on this story after spending years propping him up while he was engaged in the behavior and apparently everyone in town knew about it.
00:25:34.000Elon Musk, for his part, He put out a tweet after Russell Brand put out his
00:25:39.000statement saying, of course, they don't like the competition, meaning this is
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00:27:35.000I should point out here that those of us who have always advocated for traditional sexual mores have been scoffed at and laughed at by the media for literally decades.
00:27:43.000And it turns out the greatest protection for both women and men is those sexual mores.
00:27:47.000And only when Russell Brand has re-embraced those are the media coming after him.
00:27:51.000When he was engaged in transgression of those sexual mores, he was a hero to the world.
00:28:03.000The thing that they consider to be a crime in many cases, they don't actually consider to be a crime.
00:28:07.000So much of the behavior they discuss here, they're totally fine with.
00:28:11.000It is when the person advocates a different standard of morality, even now, you know, 10 years later, that they say, well, he's a hypocrite.
00:28:18.000Hypocrisy, you should recognize, is not actually an attack on the behavior.
00:28:22.000Hypocrisy is an attack on the standard.
00:28:24.000Which presumably is why they're going after Russell Brand now, as opposed to when he was actually engaged in the behavior.
00:28:29.000Okay, meanwhile, United Auto Workers are striking against the Detroit Three, that'd be GM, Ford, and Stellantis.
00:28:36.000They were set to resume talks starting on Sunday, following the start of the most ambitious U.S.
00:28:52.000One, the automakers are getting squeezed.
00:28:54.000They're getting squeezed because Joe Biden's new mandate that everybody shift over to electric vehicles is creating massive profitability problems at companies that are largely invested in gas-powered engines.
00:29:05.000All these companies have built up their entire brand on making affordable and powerful gas-powered engines.
00:29:12.000And now the Biden administration comes in and they're trying to force all the automakers to completely shift their business model.
00:29:24.000When I say he's a union man, I don't mean he has sympathy for the unions.
00:29:26.000I mean he is bought and paid for by the unions and has been since 1970.
00:29:30.000Joe Biden has always been a politician in the pocket of the unions.
00:29:32.000And so what they figure is they will get Joe Biden to cram down a settlement on the big three automakers who are simultaneously unable to accept any of the deals that are being proposed, not only because the demands are extraordinary, but also because their profitability is being destroyed by the same Biden administration now siding with the unions.
00:29:49.000As the Wall Street Journal editorial board points out, Sean Fein narrowly won election as UAW president in March on a platform of new militancy against U.S.
00:29:57.000He now has the strike he appears to have wanted, as the union simultaneously struck GM, Ford, and Solantis on Friday for the first time in history.
00:30:03.000Fein said, The UAW is calling walkouts at select plans to minimize how much it has to pay workers from its $825 million strike fund while still causing pain for automakers.
00:30:22.000Fain wants a larger share of automaker profits, but Detroit's big three say his demands would make them less competitive against carmakers like Tesla and lead to losses.
00:30:29.000He wants a 36% pay increase over four years.
00:30:51.000I come from a world where a 40 hour workweek was the norm, you know, an 8 hour a day, 5 days a week.
00:30:56.00032-hour work with overtime for additional hours, the restoration of retiree health benefits, which bankrupts all of these auto companies, because again, those health benefits were benefits-defined, not contribution-defined, and defined benefit pensions, rather than 401ks, and they want cost-of-living adjustments.
00:31:12.000So in other words, they want all the things.
00:31:14.000The three automakers have raised their initial wage offers to increases between 17.5% and 20%, plus large one-time payments and improved fringe benefits, including time off.
00:31:23.000But a 32-hour workweek and restoration of retirement benefits for newer workers are non-starters.
00:31:28.000In many ways, as the Wall Street Journal points out, the strike is made in Washington because of the Biden administration's policy mandating rapid transition to electric vehicles.
00:31:35.000The UAW knows EVs require fewer workers to make and will jeopardize union jobs making gas-powered cars.
00:31:40.000But the companies already lose money on EVs, and they worry about making too many concessions to the UAW that will cause them to lose even more.
00:31:46.000It's hard to overstate the cost of this coerced EV transition.
00:31:49.000The Biden administration, with California as co-enforcer, is mandating that EVs make up an increasing share of automaker sales two-thirds by 2032.
00:31:57.000California and other progressive states plan to ban all new gas-powered cars by 2035, which, by the way, is not that far in the future.
00:32:05.000Last year, EVs made up 3% of Detroit automaker sales.
00:32:10.000I mean, it's amazing to think that Joe Biden has basically forced the automakers into this position.
00:32:14.000And because, again, he is such a bought-and-paid-for union shill, the unions feel like they can force these sorts of insane concessions down on the car companies.
00:32:23.000Hakeem Jeffries, again, another Democrat-based union shill, he says that the UAW is fighting for basic freedom, which is weird, because I didn't think basic freedom was a 32-hour workweek and defined benefit pension plans.
00:32:34.000I'll be heading to Detroit a little later on today, looking forward to standing in solidarity with the United Auto Workers who are fighting
00:32:41.000for the fundamental American dream, which is quite simple. If you work hard and play by the
00:32:48.000rules, you should be able to provide a comfortable living for yourself, for your family, educate
00:32:54.000your children, purchase a home, and one day retire with grace and dignity. Oh, that's it. That is
00:33:11.000It turns out that as the union ratchets up pressure on the Biden administration, they're sending their emissaries there to try and cram some sort of deal down on the automakers.
00:33:20.000UAW President Fain, he says that they're refraining from openly endorsing Biden in the next presidential race because they're trying to pressure Biden.
00:33:27.000Here he was saying, we expect actions, not words from Joe Biden.
00:33:31.000President Biden says he's most pro-union president in American history, but you haven't endorsed him.
00:33:35.000What is it going to take for you to do that?
00:33:40.000Our endorsements are going to be earned.
00:33:41.000We've been very clear about that, no matter what politician it is.
00:33:48.000And, you know, this fight we're in right now, I mean, obviously, you know, people are talking about them trying to interject themselves into our negotiations.
00:33:58.000You know, This negotiating, our negotiators are fighting hard, our leadership's fighting hard.
00:34:03.000It's going to be one at the negotiating table with our negotiating teams, with our members manning the picket lines and our allies out there.
00:34:10.000Who the president is now, who the former president was or the presidents before them isn't going to win this fight.
00:34:17.000Okay, so that is, again, him basically pressuring Biden.
00:34:21.000Now, Biden is naming White House advisor Jean Sperling and acting Labor Secretary Julie Hsu to go to Detroit to help reach a deal to end that walkout, which began early on Friday.
00:34:30.000The official with the White House, unnamed official, said both Sperling and acting Secretary Hsu are engaging with the parties by phone, as they have for weeks, with the intention of being there early in the week.
00:34:37.000They're pleased that the parties are continuing to meet as they had been before the contract expired.
00:34:41.000They're not going to serve as mediators or intervene, but to help support the negotiations in any way the parties feel is constructed.
00:34:47.000And Biden says he understands workers' frustrations that as automobile companies registered record profits, they haven't been fairly shared, in my view, with those workers.
00:34:55.000Let's be clear, no one wants a strike, but I respect workers' right to use their options.
00:34:59.000And the unions know they have their man.
00:35:01.000And Joe Biden really needs the unions.
00:35:04.000There's a new poll out from CBS News and it finds that 72% of Americans believe that Joe Biden is not actually healthy enough to serve as president of the United States.
00:35:12.000Again, a new poll from CBS News YouGov has Donald Trump over Joe Biden, 50 to 49 at this point, showing again that Donald Trump remains an incredibly tough candidate against Joe Biden.
00:35:22.000More importantly, showing that He's not running away from Biden.
00:37:26.000Okay, meanwhile, you imagine the Democrats are running into some pretty strong headwinds here.
00:37:31.000They've got the Joe Biden impeachment, Kevin McCarthy, By the way, is saying that he is going to call Hunter Biden in any sort of impeachment action here.
00:38:13.000Hunter Biden will get subpoenaed, but when's the appropriate time?
00:38:17.000Do you do it because television wants it, or do you do it around the facts and the timing?
00:38:21.000When Comer, I think we should have the bank statements to actually know where did the money go so you would know the questions to ask Hunter Biden.
00:38:32.000By the way, Hunter Biden, for his part, he's responding to all of this, including the new gun charges against him, by suing the IRS over IRS whistleblowers who criticized the DOJ probe and blew up his sweetheart deal.
00:38:43.000I don't know where he's getting all this money.
00:38:49.000All this would be very bad for the Democrats.
00:38:51.000The good news is, for the Democrats, that the Republicans, again, we are locked in a clash of stupid.
00:38:55.000We are locked in a closet with a couple of morons just going at each other.
00:38:59.000That's the Democrat Party and the Republican Party.
00:39:02.000So, the Republicans are stupid for a couple reasons.
00:39:04.000There are two things that make Republicans inherently unpopular.
00:39:07.000A feeling of chaos, and also, whenever Democrats can charge Republicans with any sort of sexual hypocrisy, it is like their favorite thing to do.
00:39:13.000So, we have not one, but two stories along those lines for Republicans.
00:39:17.000First, of course, we have the Christy Noem story.
00:39:19.000So, Christy Noem, who's the governor of South Dakota, Apparently had an absurdly blatant and public affair with handsy Trump aide Corey Lewandowski.
00:39:27.000That is according to the New York Post.
00:39:28.000I have sources of my own who say that Noam and Lewandowski are basically making the rounds being all cozy like months and months and months ago publicly.
00:39:34.000Like they're just walking into interviews together and such.
00:39:37.000According to the New York Post, married Republican South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem has engaged in a years-long affair with longtime Donald Trump advisor Corey Lewandowski, who seems to be, um, a bit of a, um, he seems to be, uh, let's just say he gets around.
00:39:50.000The dude was apparently having an affair with Hope Hicks while he was married with four kids, and now he's having an affair with Kristi Noem, who also is married with kids.
00:39:59.000Apparently, the pair have been less than discreet about their relationship, with one source recalling them making out at a hotel bar at 2021 CPAC.
00:40:10.000It wasn't like we caught them in a dive bar miles away.
00:40:11.000It's a lobby bar where everyone's staying.
00:40:13.000There's a bajillion political operatives and journalists and electeds around.
00:40:15.000I remember I saw it with my own eyes and a couple other people saw it and the blatantness was absolutely absurd.
00:40:21.000The liaison emerged one week after Noem, a 51-year-old mom of three, formally endorsed Donald Trump, 77, for the 2024 presidential nomination.
00:40:28.000Trump, for his part, by the way, said even this weekend that he would consider Kristi Noem for the vice presidential slot.
00:40:34.000This is shortly after she endorsed him for the presidency, obviously.
00:41:40.000In January 2020, Aspen Gay Ski Weekend hosted an evening of cocktails, appetizers, and laughs at Hooch, which is the bar owned by Quinn Gallagher, who is the person who is canoodling with Bulbert.
00:42:23.000And then, when she was- when the ushers came, and they came to boot her, there was a pregnant woman behind her who complained about the vaping.
00:42:31.000She refused to stop, and at that point, the ushers came and got her, and she said, quote, And then she apologized for her uncouth behavior, chalking it up to a recent split from Jason, her husband of 18 years.
00:42:46.000She says, there's no perfect blueprint for going through a public and difficult divorce, which over the past few months has made, for me, a difficult, challenging, personal time in my entire family.
00:42:53.000I've tried to handle it with strength and grace.
00:42:55.000I simply fell short of my values on Sunday.
00:43:01.000There may not be a perfect blueprint for going through a public and difficult divorce.
00:43:04.000I'm pretty sure that first on the list of things you don't do on the blueprint is, you know, give people hand jobs in the aisles at Beetlejuice while they grab your breast and you vape.
00:43:15.000Now the reason I say this is not because I deeply care about Lauren Boebert's sex life, I really don't.
00:43:19.000But the point is, that as another one of these Republicans who is supposedly standing up for family values, I just don't un- Why don't Republicans seem to understand that when they present candidates who engage in this sort of behavior, it undercuts their position with the American public?
00:43:33.000And I don't like the hypocrisy charge.
00:43:34.000I think the hypocrisy charge is stupid.
00:43:36.000I think you can hold values that you yourself failed to meet.
00:43:39.000I think it happens pretty much all the time.
00:43:41.000However, running candidates and championing candidates who consistently do this in swing districts, Boebert won her last race by like 200 votes.
00:43:48.000I don't know that that's a recipe for success.
00:43:50.000This is why I say the Republican Party They are the stupid party, there is no question.
00:43:54.000And that stupidity is extending over into this government shutdown talk.
00:43:58.000Meanwhile, the Republicans are having an internal fight now over a spending cut that would theoretically avert a government shutdown.
00:44:05.000So according to Bloomberg, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy over the weekend proposed a deal to temporarily avert a U.S.
00:44:09.000government shutdown with demands, including an 8% spending cut for domestic agencies and
00:44:13.000resumption of border wall construction.
00:44:15.000He presented that plan to Republican lawmakers in a conference call on Sunday evening after
00:44:18.000negotiators representing key factions within the House of GOP settled on those demands.
00:44:23.000But it seems like there are a bunch of Republicans who aren't who aren't going to go along with
00:44:39.000Joe Biden eventually comes to the table, he makes like a 3% cut, he refuses on the border, and then we yell at him about how he doesn't care about the border, which is fairly decent politics.
00:44:48.000Instead, and Politico, right, has an entire article about how this isn't going to avert a government shutdown because Biden won't give them anything.
00:44:54.000Okay, well, if Biden doesn't give them anything and McCarthy's able to pass something, then the onus moves to Biden and the Democratic Senate to do something.
00:45:02.000GOP leaders told their members on a private call Sunday night they hoped to bring that plan to the floor on Thursday, according to multiple people listening.
00:45:08.000The bill, which would punt the next funding deadline to October 31st, was drafted in the last few days by a coalition of hardliners in the House Freedom Caucus and more centrist members in the Main Street Caucus.
00:45:17.000The deal includes those across the board's cuts to domestic spending, exempting defense and veteran spending, as well as disaster aid, and would pave the way for Republicans to pass a standalone full-year defense spending bill.
00:45:28.000That vote would now happen on Wednesday.
00:45:32.000But a bunch of Republicans have now said that they're not going to go along with it.
00:45:34.000Because, again, you have a collective action problem inside the Republican Party.
00:45:37.000If you're the person who shows the crowd that you are the purest, this apparently means that you win points.
00:45:41.000This is one of the problems with weakening parties.
00:45:44.000So, the problem with a strong party is that the party can cram down moderate policy on people who don't want it.
00:45:49.000The problem with a weak party is that it has no capacity to hold together its members sufficient to prevent humiliations like walking directly into walls.
00:45:57.000So apparently, the Freedom Caucus and the Main Street Caucus worked this thing out.
00:46:00.000And then, apparently, a bunch of people come out and say no.
00:46:03.000That, of course, includes Matt Gaetz, whose entire agenda in life, apparently, is to bring down Kevin McCarthy's speakership.
00:46:10.000Matt Rosendale of Montana is opposing, so is Marjorie Taylor Greene.
00:46:15.000There are objections from a bunch of others.
00:46:17.000Presumably, some of these people will have some goodies negotiated for them.
00:46:23.000With that said, You know, the fact that whenever chaos is projected, and it may end well, it may end fine, whenever chaos is projected to no apparent end because the Democrats run the Senate and Joe Biden is the president, and so they have a bit of a say in what exactly ends up becoming law here, Republicans, how about this?
00:46:40.000Be concerted in the issues that you attack.
00:47:00.000The most newsworthy thing that he said in this interview was he made a comment suggesting
00:47:06.000that heartbeat bills, like to protect the lives of the unborn in states, are terrible.
00:47:10.000Which is not only not pro-life, it's an awful thing to say.
00:47:13.000It's one thing to say, that tactically speaking, as President of the United States, I'm going to try to reach as much consensus as possible and gradually move the line back on abortion to accustom the American people to protecting life.
00:47:23.000Because if we move too far too fast, then the snapback is going to be dramatic, as we saw in Kansas.
00:47:27.000That's a pragmatic question, and it's a case you can make.
00:48:43.000What's he going to do in his next term?
00:48:45.000And this should provide, you know, some fodder for the DeSantis team to work with when it comes to, for example, states like Iowa, which are very, very pro-life.
00:48:53.000I mean, the question is whether Republicans really care about policy at this point or whether they just kind of trust Trump to do whatever he's going to do.
00:48:58.000That's really the running question of this campaign.
00:49:02.000Now, meanwhile, Donald Trump was asked about his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election by Kristen Welker.
00:49:10.000One of the questions I keep asking people is if they think that this race is run on this, is Trump going to win that race?
00:49:31.000The most senior lawyers in your own administration and on your campaign told you that after you'd lost more than 60 legal challenges that it was over.
00:49:39.000Why did you ignore them and decide to listen to a new outside group of lawyers?
00:49:46.000Sure, but that doesn't mean, you know, you hire them, you never met these people, you get a recommendation, they turn out to be rhinos or they turn out to be not so good.
00:49:56.000There are numerous books that were written on how the election was Just to be clear, were you listening to your lawyer's advice, or were you listening to your own instincts?
00:50:02.000I was listening to different people, and when I added it all up, the election was rigged.
00:50:09.000There are books that are written... Were you calling the shots, though?
00:50:11.000In fact, Molly Hemingway wrote a great book called Rigged.
00:50:13.000But were you calling the shots, ultimately?
00:52:12.000Apparently, according to the Daily Wire's Amanda Prestigiacomo, it seems that Stephen Avery himself from behind bars may now be directing supporters to tank the Rotten Tomatoes audience review score of Daily Wire host Candace Owens' docuseries, Convicting a Murderer.
00:52:25.000Avery and his nephew, Brendan Dassey, were convicted of murdering photographer Teresa Halbach back in 2007.
00:52:29.000And of course, they are featured in the brand new series from Candace, Convicting a Murderer, which rebuts making a murderer.
00:52:37.000Well, apparently, a post on the Facebook group called Steven Avery is Innocent says, important, Steven is asking for all of his supporters to flood Rotten Tomatoes and give Convicting a Murderer a bad review.
00:52:48.000We need our community to step up and let Candace Owens know that Steven Avery is innocent.
00:52:53.000The Facebook post issued by the group's administrator on Friday night and then links to the Rotten Tomatoes review page of Convicting a Murderer and tags everybody in the group, which is like 36,000 people.
00:53:01.000Before the post, Convicting a Murderer was boasting an average review score in the 90s.
00:53:05.000It has now dropped all the way down to, at last check, in the 60s.
00:53:10.000So, yeah, this is how things are going right now.
00:53:13.000Because it shows that Stephen Avery, if there's something that Stephen Avery doesn't like, it's pretty obvious what it is here, and that is that Candace's documentary really puts the lie to all of the allegations that he is wrongfully convicted.
00:53:28.000Her documentary really blows the lid off that particular story and the fact that Stephen Avery appears to be directing from behind bars an effort to take down the film tells you what you need to know about the value of the film.
00:53:38.000Okay, time for a quick thing that I hate.
00:53:44.000So apparently our F-35 stealth fighter is so stealth that it's now missing.
00:53:51.000fighter jet's stealth abilities appear to be working too well, with authorities forced to ask the public for help, finding an F-35 that went missing somewhere over South Carolina when the pilot ejected because of a mishap.
00:54:02.000Joint Base Charleston and Air Base North Charleston said it was working with the Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort to locate an F-35 that was involved in a mishap.
00:54:09.000Sunday afternoon, the pilot was able to safely eject from the aircraft an F-35B Lightning II jet and was taken to a local medical center in stable condition.
00:54:16.000The jet was left in autopilot mode when the pilot ejected from the aircraft, so it might still be airborne.
00:54:22.000However, searchers were focusing their attention north of the airbase around Lake Moultrie and Lake Marion based on the jet's last known position.
00:54:30.000Nancy Mace, Republican of South Carolina, said, How the hell did you lose an F-35?
00:55:06.000He was asked over the weekend about the military going woke, meaning like, why are you guys flying LGBTQ plus minus divided by signed flags?
00:55:13.000Why is it that you guys are, for example, putting out ads talking about The value of individualism in the military, as though that's what the military is all about.
00:55:34.000So, you know, I'm not even sure what that word truly means, but I would tell you that the military I see is a military that's exceptionally strong.