Join Russell Brand as he sits down with conservative icon Carrie Lake to discuss the 2016 Republican National Convention and her relationship with the mainstream media, and how she has managed to maintain a sense of humor in the face of so much vilification. Russell Brand is a comedian, bestselling author, and host of the radio show and is a regular contributor to conservative media outlets such as Fox News and the New York Times. He is married to the wife of former Vice President Joe Biden, Jill Biden, and they have two daughters. He has been married to his long-term partner, Jillian Manus, since 2004 and they live with their daughter and son-in-law in New York City. He and his wife have three adult children and a young daughter. He's a devout Christian and has served as the president of the Knights of the Round Table Pizza franchise in the past, and is currently serving as a senior adviser to President Donald Trump's campaign. He also writes for conservative publications such as The Weekly Standard, The Daily Caller, and has been featured on Fox News as a contributor to the Weekly Standard and The New York Post. He is a frequent guest on conservative radio and conservative talk shows such as SiriusXM Radio and NPR's Morning Mashup, and hosts a podcast called on the Morning Drive with John Rocha and Sarah Downey on his new show, . as well as his new podcast, , to discuss all things conservative politics and culture, including his new book, , and his new memoir, How To Be Courageous in the 21st . and in the new book which is out now in paperback and on the new paperback edition coming out in paperback! with a limited edition edition edition, The Courageous Manus and Lake, in paperback, and in hardcover for $99.99. on Amazon Prime and Blu-ray, available on the Kindle and on Vimeo, and also on the Apple App Store and Vimeo for $19.99 and Audible for $24.99, and $99, including Audible, too.99 for shipping only.99 as well-priced postage-only, including shipping only $24,99 for Prime memberships, and two Audible and VaynerSpeaker, and a lifetime membership for shipping and shipping only two months from the first month, shipping worldwide, starting from $99 a month.
00:02:32.000Thanks for joining me today for Stay Free with Russell Brand.
00:02:35.000We've got some very special interviews that I grabbed while I was at the RNC.
00:02:39.000They're pretty fascinating to watch because they are, I would say, members of that party that have been influential in a variety of ways.
00:02:47.000One's Carrie Lake, who's sort of like a superstar politician who became disenchanted with mainstream media.
00:02:53.000And ultimately ended up running for a variety of political positions, one in particular of course, but she still remains a significant voice within the Republican Party and also got the ire of the mainstream media as you might have seen in this viral clip.
00:03:07.000You are just a sad case of a human being and I'm so sorry for you.
00:03:11.000I'm sorry that you bought into the propaganda.
00:03:13.000I hope that you'll look in the mirror and see that you've been following propaganda and you don't understand what's happening.
00:03:20.000So I'm guessing if you don't win in November, you won't concede.
00:03:25.000That's the rule that you're playing by now, is it?
00:03:28.000You are... I actually think you need your head examined.
00:03:34.000Now, when I had a conversation with her, she was a lot more convivial, congenial, gentle, and downright reasonable.
00:03:40.000That's what's mad when you meet all of these fascists that the legacy media tell you you gotta hate, because they're perfectly reasonable people.
00:03:45.000Now, I recognize that duplicity and deception are of options available to people interpersonally, and I would say that that's the very charge that I would This is a brilliant conversation, I think, between me and Carrie Lake.
00:04:04.000Certainly a lot less antagonistic than some of the conversations like the one we've just seen over there.
00:04:09.000And the first part will be on YouTube, then we'll be exclusively on Rumble.
00:04:12.000Remember to like and subscribe, download the Rumble app if you get a minute, and enjoy this conversation with me and Carrie Lake.
00:04:19.000Barry, thanks for joining us today for Stay Free with Russell Brand.
00:04:26.000It's extraordinary to meet you and to experience just how gentle you are.
00:04:31.000You being yet another one of the people that I meet in over this extraordinary experience that I've seen vilified and demonized to an extraordinary degree.
00:04:41.000I've also experienced it myself, by the way.
00:04:43.000But I wonder what kind of impact that's had on your ability to remain faithful and gentle, having been subject to such coruscating judgment from the media within once you so safely and presumably for a while happily worked.
00:05:07.000My children know, those people close to me.
00:05:09.000And frankly, a lot of the people in the media, especially Arizona media that I used to work with, they know who I am and they know it's not the person that they are now broadcasting out there as.
00:05:20.000And I have to go and prove I don't have horns sometimes.
00:05:24.000But this is just the world we're living in.
00:05:25.000Do I wish it were a more gentle, Friendly world, yes, but we were born in this time, and I never questioned God.
00:05:32.000He put us here for this moment, and He never said it was going to be easy.
00:05:38.000When you're living the truth in a difficult time like this, you're going to get castigated.
00:06:00.000Once you act courageously, then the next time around you know what to do.
00:06:04.000Okay, another courageous act and another courageous act.
00:06:07.000And along the way other people are seeing it and they're saying, hey, maybe I can be courageous too.
00:06:13.000And that's why you see an arena full of courageous patriots Here in Milwaukee, celebrating the America First movement, and there's tens of millions, hundreds of millions, I think, at home who feel the same way.
00:06:27.000Carrie, externally, this event, though, and movement, in fact, is vilified at large in much the manner that you have been, and I have been, individually.
00:06:39.000In fact, I would say one of the moments of my personal changes in sympathy and understanding came when I saw how readily and indeed enthusiastically A significant portion, maybe over half of the population, were breezily damned and condemned in a manner that felt very unappealing and in fact appalling to me.
00:07:03.000A similar thing happened in my country around Brexit, around of course you'll be aware at the same time that Donald Trump was elected initially, that I sensed in media and in institutional places this great disdain for working people and how easily it was interpreted into condemnation first and then legitimization for that contempt subsequently.
00:07:22.000These people are racist, these people are boring, these people are dirty.
00:07:26.000They can do that to entire populations or they can do it to individuals.
00:07:29.000I've witnessed both and of course experienced both.
00:07:33.000you have. What was your perspective when you worked within media when you were to
00:07:38.000a degree I presume a darling of it and herald it. How do you go from basking or
00:07:45.000indeed at least living, if not basking, I don't want to assume basking, you might
00:07:49.000have just been living. I love that word. You have a little bask. How do you go from, like, how do we,
00:07:55.000How did your perspective of it change?
00:07:57.000Because now, how do you regard the institutions within which you worked, and how will the reverse trick be done?
00:08:06.000Now, all of these people that loathe the movement of which you are a part, which will presumably come to government in November, this is my assumption, although I've heard that people don't want to be presumptuous, How will there be a true unifying process rather than one of vengeance and ongoing condemnation?
00:08:45.000You keep your opinion out of it because I'm old school.
00:08:47.000I'm a little bit older than the average person in TV.
00:08:50.000But then I saw how the older people were kind of being pushed out and young people were coming in who just fresh out of J school, journalism school.
00:08:59.000They were taught to be social justice warriors.
00:09:01.000So that's how the shift where you went from newsrooms being a little more ideologically balanced To being 90, 95, 98% left-leaning or downright leftist.
00:09:12.000And so it was uncomfortable place to be, to be kind of to the right.
00:09:15.000You know, when, when Donald Trump came down that escalator, I said, this man is speaking not only my language, but the language of the American people.
00:09:23.000And I immediately, I started really seeing it when Donald Trump came down the escalator and I saw how people just churned on him, calling him things like racist and just the worst names and people in the news business.
00:09:35.000And I'm thinking, what did he do that was racist?
00:09:37.000I saw this pile on and I was curious about it.
00:10:20.000My family didn't believe in child labor laws.
00:10:23.000I started babysitting at seven, back in the 70s when people would leave a baby with a seven-year-old.
00:10:28.000So I've been working my whole life and I finally, during COVID, with all of this insanity that made no sense, lifted my nose off the grindstone and I did not recognize my profession anymore.
00:12:08.000I said, give me some reassurance I'm not going to look back in six months and say, oh my gosh, you walked away from that kind of money.
00:12:14.000And at that moment, as I was praying, I grabbed my Bible.
00:12:17.000I opened it to a random page, dropped my finger down, 1 Timothy chapter 6 verse 7, you bring nothing into this world and it is for certain you take nothing out.
00:12:25.000And I took that as an answer I was seeking from God.
00:12:35.000But if I stay and collect a paycheck like so many people in the mainstream media, They're being paid by their corporate donors and managers, not donors, their corporate CEOs and their bosses to basically lie and divide our country.
00:12:54.000I never thought I'd be in politics, but the people of Arizona reached out and said, would you please run for office?
00:13:00.000We need somebody who's got courage, who's honest and understands the issues.
00:13:04.000And that's how I ended up in the world of politics.
00:13:06.000Yes, and again immediately became the recipient of great ire and a person that only consumes, shall we call it for simplicity's sake, the ordinarily available sloth and trough of vile slops that amounts to legacy media coverage.
00:13:27.000You would assume that you were kind of a villainous figure I was actually surprised, though, that they were so awful to me.
00:13:36.000At first, when I decided to jump into politics, I knew nothing.
00:13:39.000I didn't know how to get into politics.
00:13:48.000And citizens should know, because our founding fathers envisioned citizens stepping forward and running.
00:13:54.000It shouldn't be such a complicated process, but I had to call and ask, and I jumped into the race as a fed-up mom and a former journalist, and I had no idea what to do.
00:14:04.000I didn't know the first thing about it, and I just started.
00:14:07.000I announced I was going to run for governor at the time, and I said to my team, I'm not going to do any interviews.
00:15:21.000And that's when I realized that I had the ability to turn the tables on the media.
00:15:25.000So we put that out and we started showing both sides of the media the nasty questions they ask.
00:15:31.000Because when they edit the piece they take their nastiness out and they just put your response.
00:15:35.000So we started turning the tables on them, putting the video camera on them.
00:15:39.000And that kind of became a little bit of our campaign.
00:15:42.000We were going to expose the fake news.
00:15:44.000I think it's one of the most dangerous entities right now in America because they've been lying and committing character assassination against President Trump and his supporters for eight years.
00:16:00.000When I see somebody who doesn't like President Trump, I'm not mad at them.
00:16:03.000I actually feel bad that they've been the victim of the largest smear campaign we've ever seen inflicted on one individual or one political movement.
00:16:32.000But one thing, when you describe the process of turning the cameras on the media, it seems like you've individually experienced and participated in one of the transitions that's taking place, i.e.
00:16:42.000the kind of loss of that centralized power.
00:16:44.000And it's And how it is becoming disseminated and diffuse, that they've lost the ability to absolutely control the way that information is presented, the way that information is categorized.
00:18:54.000I want you to stay healthy and age beautifully.
00:18:58.000I think it's analogous though to other institutions, Carrie.
00:19:01.000I feel like all centralized authority will be under great threat and the lurch towards authoritarianism seems to me to be a plausible and even understandable response to that.
00:19:12.000These institutions can no longer legitimately exercise the type of control to which they've become accustomed when it is no longer necessary because of what we're afforded through the miracle of immediate communication, for example.
00:19:26.000Famous Breitbart phrase, you know, that politics is downstream of culture.
00:19:30.000Well, culture is downstream of technology.
00:19:32.000And what we are, I think, ultimately experiencing is how this technology facilitates systems of government that are more, as you were, I think, alluding to, more open, more immediate, more accessible, more citizen-led.
00:19:46.000Yeah, you explicitly said more citizen-led.
00:21:10.000When our founders signed their death sentence, signing the Declaration of Independence, and we fought the Revolutionary War, and we won, and our founding fathers crafted the United States Constitution, one of the greatest documents ever written.
00:21:23.000And by the hand of God, the hand of God was on them.
00:21:27.000There's no way that that brilliance and that document could have just come from man alone.
00:21:31.000But one day, Benjamin Franklin came out, one of our founding fathers, and a woman stopped him, you know, this saying and said, Sir, what kind of a government have you given us?
00:21:39.000And he turned and said, a republic, if you can keep it.
00:21:43.000We are sadly, but also I'm glad because we're seeing some big things happening.
00:21:48.000We're in the if you can keep it part, and we're seeing a beautiful thing.
00:21:51.000Citizens rising back up and saying, oh, hell no, we're not letting this country go.
00:21:56.000There's nowhere to go if America falters right now, if America goes down.
00:22:00.000Ronald Reagan said, if we lose this country, we will plunge into a thousand years of darkness.
00:22:06.000We are at a cross in the road right now.
00:22:08.000Are we going to save this beautiful country and in effect, I believe, save the world?
00:22:13.000Or are we going into a thousand years of darkness?
00:22:15.000People realize that's how serious the moment is, and they're jumping in.
00:22:19.000I see it every day on the campaign trail.
00:22:43.000The media wants us to think we're divided.
00:22:45.000If we think we're 50-50 divided, then we're looking at people who are citizens with disdain and they're our enemy.
00:22:54.000And the fact of the matter is I think we're way more united, maybe 80% united, not 50-50, but the media has to keep this this lie going that we're 50-50 so that we'll stick in
00:23:06.000front of the TV set and be angry at fellow citizens. The only people we should be angry with is
00:23:10.000the media for lying to us and trying to further divide us. Is it true that at points
00:23:16.000in the last couple of decades you have been affiliated with and connected with any Democrat party
00:23:22.000figures and movements? Is it true that you vote for Obama and Kerry and stuff like that?
00:23:33.000I had one baby on one hip and the other baby on the other hip.
00:23:37.000And the Iraq war had started when my first born was born.
00:23:41.000I was actually Really pregnant in the hospital when it was delivering Ruby when it was starting and I recognize at the time this we rushed into this war weapons of mass destruction turns out we were lied to.
00:23:56.000And we went into that war based on lies, and nobody ever, ever, ever did jail time for lying to the American people.
00:24:03.000So as a young mother looking at these two precious babies, I said, who's going to get us out of this war?
00:24:15.000And we had John McCain, who I'd covered, and I know he, you know, being a kind of a war hawk and very much into that, I decided to take a chance on Barack Obama.
00:24:25.000I was a Republican from the time I was a child at 18 because Ronald Reagan was the president of my youth, the great Ronald Reagan.
00:24:33.000We were born an hour apart, a few decades apart.
00:24:36.000And so he was just the great, great president.
00:24:39.000And so at 18, I registered as a Republican.
00:24:42.000And then when I voted for Obama, I became a Democrat for four years and then I became an independent.
00:24:59.000And I want everybody to know that, you know, we call it the America first Republican party.
00:25:04.000I don't care if you voted for, you know, I don't care if you voted for Obama, if you voted for John Kerry, if you voted for Hillary Clinton, if you voted for George Bush, whoever you voted for in the past, if you are waking up and realizing that this is not working, what's happening right now is not working.
00:25:55.000I feel that I ended up in this Kind of by accident that people asked me to jump, and I thought, okay, I'll jump into politics.
00:26:02.000And I look back at all the gifts God gave me in my life, from being in a big family where you have to learn you don't always get your way.
00:26:09.000When you have nine kids, you rarely get your way, but you have to learn to work with people.
00:26:13.000Growing up in Iowa, which is one of the most friendly states in the whole country, and you learn to befriend and talk to people and not be afraid of people, but want to learn more about them.
00:26:23.000Going into journalism, which is about digging into issues.
00:26:27.000And learning, and then putting a story together to explain what you've learned.
00:26:33.000Being in Arizona for 27 years, getting to know the people, the issues that are important, all of that I've been able to use in politics.
00:26:41.000We need some good communicators in Washington, D.C.
00:26:44.000to communicate what is so amazing about the America First movement.
00:26:48.000We have something to tell the people, and we have the solutions, and we just need some good messengers to tell them.
00:26:54.000Ronald Reagan called himself the great communicator.
00:26:57.000And boy did we need him when he came on the scene, because Carter had left us in an ash heap.
00:27:02.000And through his gentle optimism, beautiful faith, great spirit, and patriotism, he said, we're going to get through this.
00:27:12.000America's gotten through tough days before, and let's come together.
00:27:17.000Trump tried to do that in his first term, and I believe the deep state and the media prevented him from doing that by demonizing his supporters, scaring people from publicly supporting President Trump.
00:27:29.000Because they knew if he brings this country together, it's game over for the corrupt swamp.
00:27:38.000We're starting to come together and their agenda is falling by the wayside.
00:27:42.000You know, it seems really clear to me that there is significant opposition against the military-industrial complex and against big pharma, some pretty powerful forces.
00:27:52.000There are points, of course, where I'm Listening to you, Carrie, magnetized as I am, where I have to deploy my discernment when it comes to, for example, the presidency of Reagan, when I think about Iran, Contra, and the various institutional problems that come, I believe, with government, even though, of course, one of his many mantras was the reduction of the size of government.
00:28:10.000I feel that the insidiousness of power, in a broader sense, is to do with something spiritual and profound.
00:28:17.000And I'm watching this, I feel fascinated to be inside this convention, to be able to have these extraordinary The thing that I, not cling to, but move towards most is my growing yet new faith in Jesus and the sense that if we are able to locate something of that, not only in the discourse, but the implementation of these ideas, some incredible changes might take place.
00:28:52.000Even though it's about peace, and it's a beautiful religion, and Jesus Christ was our Savior, but you will be criticized.
00:29:01.000And I think people are afraid to truly live as Christians, and we have to look to our Savior, Jesus Christ, and we saw what happened to him.
00:29:08.000And living our faith is going to be difficult, but it's important.
00:29:12.000I think this is how we actually help to save our country and bring more people to salvation.
00:29:18.000God never said it was going to be easy.
00:29:19.000I don't think anywhere in the Bible does it say things are going to go easy for you if you are a believer.
00:29:24.000It doesn't say that, and so we have to be strong in our faith.
00:29:27.000I just came from a great event, the Faith and Freedom event, Ralph Reed's event, and listening to the great Mark Robinson speak, boy is he powerful, North Carolina, Mark Robinson, and saying what we can't lose is love.
00:29:41.000We get so caught up in this battle right now, and we think we're battling the Democrats, we're battling the people who don't agree with us, And he said, no, we're actually not.
00:29:54.000We're trying to win people over and show them that we're about love.
00:30:37.000The only people who prosper in peace are we the people.
00:30:40.000And so the military-industrial complex is truly a problem, and we need to try to get that money out of politics.
00:30:47.000So many politicians They need the money to run, they need the money to win, and they're willing to take it from literally anybody, even if they have to sell out their country.
00:30:57.000Thank you, Carrie, for illustrating that so plainly and clearly.
00:31:00.000It's wonderful to have these conversations about the abstraction of finances and corrupt finance, obviously in particular from these institutions.
00:31:07.000I'm being told I have to hurry up, I think because Peter Navarro is Oh my gosh.
00:31:24.000I don't think I've always been unafraid.
00:31:26.000I mean, I think it's natural, but what I've learned about fear is when you approach something you're afraid of and you work through it, then you're not afraid of it anymore.
00:32:32.000What I like about Jim Jordan is he sat as chair of many of the hearings regarding the pandemic period and in particular ones that regarded Fauci.
00:32:40.000So even though of course he's a career politician, he seemed to me to have a good degree of valor, integrity, authenticity.
00:32:47.000He also, and I didn't know this till I spoke to him, was a decent standard wrestler.
00:32:53.000And we talk about the analogies and comparisons, I suppose the parallels I suppose is the right word, between wrestling physically and wrestling politically.
00:33:02.000Hope you enjoy this conversation with Jim Jordan.
00:33:07.000I'm live at the Republican National Convention today.
00:33:37.000Because that's a complicated job title, Chair of the House Judiciary Committee.
00:33:41.000But what that is to the layman is seeing you taking on any foul-cheated task and being confrontational.
00:33:49.000I wonder about people that have that combative component to their nature, whether there is a correlative to your early ability or practice as a grappler and grappling more verbally.
00:34:02.000Um, I, I tell people when you're an old guy like me, the closest thing you can get to a wrestling match is a, is a hearing.
00:34:08.000And in particularly when you have someone like Fauci, who I think wasn't square with we, the people, uh, when he did all the things he did and said all the things he said, um, as an example, I just, I went after him, uh, because I, I, I asked him the simple question, when does it end?
00:34:24.000This is a particular hearing a couple of years ago.
00:34:26.000So, um, When I was a kid, I wanted to play middle linebacker.
00:34:30.000You know, when you grow up in Midwest and you love football, you love sports, but as you can see... Middle linebacker requires... Yeah, a little more size than I have.
00:35:02.000And sometimes, to your point, sometimes a hearing, it becomes, particularly cross-examination, where you got a hostile witness, I don't mean hostile, but you know what I mean, like in a cross-examination kind of hearing, it becomes kind of like a wrestler match.
00:36:01.000People use their bodies really, really brilliantly in wrestling.
00:36:04.000Sorry, I've got sort of sidetracked into, I've got sidetracked into the particularities of the sport.
00:36:08.000A lot of UFC guys, uh, many of them, Uh, the, their base, their base, you know, the base skill set is they start in wrestling and then they move to the jujitsu or the Brazilian jujitsu or to, um, or to judo.
00:36:22.000Uh, and then of course the striking and the boxing, but it seems like a lot of them start with that base, base techniques, base skill set of, of, of being a wrestler.
00:36:30.000Can I ask, in your role, I wonder when you went from thinking that what we knew about the pandemic did not warrant inquiry, that we should continue to follow the science, accept the narrative, Except the findings of the various regulatory bodies whom are sort of epitomised really in the figure of Antony Fauci and perhaps the whole idea of government bureaucracy and bureaucratic power has come to be epitomised in the figure of Antony Fauci.
00:37:02.000At what point did you think, oh this is not an honest actor upon whose expertise we can rely, but potentially the kind of face of the very kind of corruption the Republicans are notably interested in reducing?
00:37:15.000I don't know if there's one exact point, but I would think it was probably when they were downplaying natural immunity.
00:37:23.000Like, suddenly we've got the first virus in history where there's no natural immunity.
00:37:43.000I said, Dr. Birx, when the Biden administration told us that the vaccinated couldn't get the virus, were they guessing or lying?
00:37:49.000Because it's got to be, you know, where you did, did you not know you're kind of guessing or were you actually lying to us, which is even worse?
00:37:57.000Because the truth is what they told us turned out not to be true.
00:38:00.000And you can go down and I know you've, you've, you've covered all this before, but almost everything they told us turned out not to be true.
00:38:43.000When you describe it like that, Jim, it sounds like almost like a coup took place, because how would power migrate away from the autonomy and sovereignty of individuals to these institutions that are unelected and yet publicly funded?
00:38:54.000Having the power to make those type of decisions.
00:39:04.000Well, Jim, was it the exploitation of a crisis to legitimise authority that would have otherwise been immediately rejected by a discerning population?
00:39:20.000You're making the argument for basic conservatism.
00:39:21.000It's why you want a smaller government.
00:39:23.000the regulatory bodies and do you not think that they can never inspire the hearings that
00:39:26.000you've already conducted and as I said to you I love your style I like that you get
00:39:30.000into people wrestle of that you are but isn't the kind of reckoning that would truly be
00:39:35.000required doesn't that kind of amount to the disbanding of some of those agencies and maybe
00:39:41.000even the incrimination of some of those figures.
00:39:44.000You're making the argument for basic conservatism it's why you want a smaller government bigger
00:39:48.000of the government, the more potential for abuse.
00:39:52.000I think a lot of this is driven by just raw power at the end.
00:39:55.000I think Fauci sort of liked it all liked all the.
00:39:59.000Publicity, the prestige of it, the power of it.
00:40:04.000And I do think there were people in elected positions who tried to exploit it for political gain, particularly when it came to the election.
00:40:13.000But you're making the fundamental argument for why it's better to have smaller government, because smaller government typically means greater freedom for we, the people.
00:40:21.000Jim, I believe in non-interventionism and I believe in independence and I believe in freedom.
00:40:26.000What I also believe is that the regulatory bodies that we do have ought to be functionally fit for purpose and the kind of hypocrisy and exploitation that is afforded when the FDA is primarily, not primarily, but significantly funded by the organizations and corporations that it is supposed to be regulated.
00:40:45.000In a sense, isn't that Not just an over-preening and over-funded bureaucracy, but a far deeper problem.
00:40:53.000Corporatization and commerce embedded into state institutions, Jim.
00:41:40.000I'm not from your country and I'm not from Capitol Hill, as you can plainly observe.
00:41:46.000But the layman's perspective... You dress just like a congressman.
00:41:50.000The layman's perspective on political corruption is that the overlap between commerce and corporatism and state has become so immersive and embedded that it's ultimately operating as one corrupt sort of tumor, almost.
00:42:06.000Because it was big government, big media, big tech working together to censor people who spoke out against what was going on in the government.
00:42:18.000And it's like, that is a scary alliance.
00:42:20.000And we saw that largely with people speaking out against COVID.
00:42:24.000You said anything against the orthodoxy of the administration, you were censored.
00:42:30.000And the example I always point to is the third day of the Biden administration, Third day, January 23rd, 2021.
00:42:36.000There's an email from the executive office of the presidency of the White House to Twitter.
00:42:41.000And it says, take down this tweet ASAP.
00:43:03.000Take down a true statement, a true tweet, government pressuring big tech to do so, and the person they're trying to do this to is their opponent.
00:43:12.000RFK was getting ready to run for president.
00:43:14.000That is not supposed to happen in the United States of America, but it did, and that's the scary part.
00:43:20.000And we saw, whether it was COVID or whether it's related to the election or other issues, that big government, big media, big tech, and I always say there's a formula I attribute this to the left.
00:43:59.000The G is for gravity, the Defy is for life.
00:44:02.000These are the best choice for walking, running and standing if you want to defy gravity.
00:44:08.000If you're active right or spend a lot of time on your tootsies, these shoes is for you.
00:44:12.000I've been wearing them all week as part of this deal and I love them because when I'm out and about with Bear I don't I need to defy that gravity.
00:44:20.000If you're out there defying the system, standing up to the establishment, leaping high to reach the nectar of the Lord, you're going to have to defy gravity.
00:44:29.000Every shoe contains G-Defy's patented VersoShock technology, which aligns your body, absorbs harmful shock from the ground and provides energy return, giving you the boost to walk like a like a champion.
00:44:40.000G.Defy shoes come with two free orthotics and support your active lifestyle without discomfort.
00:44:45.000If you wanna get some of these, visit gdefy.com.
00:44:48.000Use the code Russell, two S's, two L's, for an exclusive $30 off orders of $130 or more.
00:45:28.000Of course, first of all, you need a principle, like free speech, but then is there the requirement for the regulation or enforcement of that principle, and does that not amount to a degree of regulatory authority?
00:46:11.000But what I will say is that technology and communication has entered into an area where there are now new possibilities for immediate communication and the emergence of new elites.
00:46:21.000And indeed, the creation of the categories of misinformation, malinformation, disinformation is a response to this new ability to create consensus, to deny narratives.
00:46:29.000I mean, if we could pivot using just this as our framework to recent events, the assassination attempt on Donald Trump, Were X still in the thrall of the Biden administration?
00:46:42.000Would there be widely circulated images of, that person moved funny in the background, why was there not a security detail here?
00:46:50.000You know, by the way, there are of course conspiracy theories on the left, there are conspiracy theories on the right.
00:46:54.000People on the left, because I still read their stuff, and I mean the establishment left, because the real left is who knows where they would be, but like They are saying, no, this must have been done by the, you know, even sort of credible commentators, as much as anyone's credible online, you know, saying, well, maybe the Trump administration did this, you know, that kind of false flag stuff, the kind of things that you would be familiar with if you operate in those spaces.
00:47:17.000So I wonder, are we not in a sense being confronted with the kind of changes that amount to the advent of industrialization and how that created different political movements?
00:47:27.000Isn't there a requirement for political movements that are adept at handling the new Yeah, great question, great points.
00:47:35.000I still think the best way to sort it all out is the Constitution, is the First Amendment.
00:47:42.000The First Amendment is our right to speak and not be harassed and intimidated for doing so by your government.
00:47:49.000And I would argue during COVID, During COVID, every right we enjoy as Americans was assaulted under the First Amendment.
00:48:20.000They said, I always point out, I spoke to, two years ago, I spoke to the New Mexico Republican Party in Amarillo, Texas, because they had to go to Texas to get the freedom to assemble, because their crazy Democrat governor wouldn't let them do it in their own state where they pay taxes.
00:48:49.000People should have forced their way in, I think, Jim.
00:48:51.000They should have just gone in there, pick a day, and just burst through the doors.
00:48:57.000Free Press, Jen Psaki, stood at the podium a couple years ago and during a press conference and said that, uh, these sentences, and I'm paraphrasing, but she basically said, most Americans get their news from social media platforms.
00:49:08.000We, the Biden administration, are working with them to limit the misinformation that Americans see.
00:49:12.000And I'm like, did the press person just say in the press room she's for limiting the press?
00:49:18.000But the most important right you have is what we're doing right now.
00:49:21.000Most important liberty we have is our right to talk.
00:49:24.000Because if you can't speak, you can't practice your faith, you can't share your faith, you can't petition your government, and you don't have a free press, that is the most important right.
00:49:34.000And that's the one they're coming after trying to censor and working with big tech and working God bless Elon Musk for buying Twitter and open it back up to where it's truly a First Amendment free speech platform.
00:49:44.000But this is, I think, this is at the heart of this election too, because if the left continues to win elections, they will further restrict speech rights, further restrict your First Amendment liberties.
00:49:54.000I think that's the way to combat this is to just Make sure the First Amendment stays as robust as it always had in America.
00:50:03.000Because actually, Jim, we can create new consensus through communication and conversation.
00:50:11.000And the reason that I think the peculiar paradox that you described of the press secretary describing to the press a prohibition of press freedom is because it's tacitly understood that the press Is an institution that to a degree is in alliance certainly with factions of government, and I'm sure that varies and vacillates depending on which party is in government.
00:50:30.000And what we have is a novel phenomena emerging, the potential for new voices, independent media, a new consensus, evolving consensus.
00:50:39.000And I think that that might create a kind of devolution of power, a kind of new diaspora that's not actually very well suited to the centralized coagulation of power that the old institutions benefited from.
00:50:52.000Yeah, no, I think that's accurate too.
00:50:55.000And we had a witness, she was a powerful journalist who covered, she's from Canada, she testified in front of our committee, and she was one of the journalists who covered the whole trucking issue up there, if you remember, during COVID.
00:51:30.000Because if you can't settle differences and you can't come to some kind of decision and reach some kind of consensus via debate, via voting, The alternatives are scary and we never want to go there so that is why we have the first amendment so that you the way you combat bad speech is with more speeches with good speech and you have that debate that's how our system works and right now you have so many in the left to say no no no no no the cancel culture mob will come after you if you say something wrong.
00:52:02.000Because she said something, this is a little different because it gets to this cancer, but I just happen to think about it.
00:52:07.000I remember when Dianne Feinstein, liberal iconic senator from California, there used to be an elementary school named after Dianne Feinstein.
00:52:15.000But someone found something she said 30 years ago and the Dianne Feinstein Elementary School is no longer named after her because of something she said 30 years ago.
00:52:24.000And we certainly don't want this limit on what people can see and post and say, which seems to me where the left wants to take us.
00:52:31.000I've noticed myself that it seems that The very threat that appears to be amplified and conveyed with regard to the discourse around Trump and the MAGA movement, i.e.
00:52:44.000this is a return to tyranny and dictatorship that belongs to the 20th century, is in fact being augured and implemented through anodyne bureaucracy.
00:52:55.000Through these sort of banal and sterile models of like, we're going to protect you, we're going to help you, it's for your convenience.
00:53:02.000Models of citizen management have been slowly introduced, often using crisis in order to facilitate further centralised authority, as in the obvious example that you've been describing so articulately over the course of our conversation.
00:53:15.000And my concern is that that will continue.
00:53:18.000That because there is a lack of agility to deal with the new dynamics that have emerged out of these communication models, which would seem to me to facilitate further decentralization, further federalization, greater ability for electoral representation, which I won't call democracy in this context because people will shout, It seems to me that because there is a resistance, a refusal to yield that, this tendency towards decentralization, authoritarianism is appearing in an odd new form.
00:53:52.000It is not the authoritarianism of Pol Pot or Mussolini or Hitler.
00:53:56.000It's the authoritarianism of Huxley and of Kafka and of course of Orwell.
00:54:01.000Bureaucratic Well, we've exposed some of it.
00:54:04.000trauma-induced, screen-staring, switched-off citizenship, and it sort of is happening while
00:54:10.000you're being told, you're being defended from it, and it seems to me that that's something
00:54:14.000that you are trying to oppose. Do you imagine it's something you can successfully confront?
00:54:19.000We've exposed some of it. I mean, easy example, maybe the best example is the Department of
00:54:26.000Homeland Security, what, a year and a half ago, tried to form the Disinformation Governance
00:54:30.000sport. This Nina Jankowicz was going to head this.
00:54:34.000And it was as if some bureaucrats, to your point, some group of bureaucrats can tell you what you're allowed to say, what you're not allowed to say, what's disinformation, what's misinformation.
00:54:43.000The last thing you want is a bunch of government bureaucrats defining all this.
00:54:47.000And then you have all these agencies, CISA, Cyber Intelligence Security, I mean, and you have FIDF, the Foreign Influence Task Force, where the FBI meets with the CIA, meets with others, and it's all to combat disinformation, misinformation.
00:55:03.000It's the same group, by the way, that knew the laptop was real and allowed the whole, you know, narrative to be that no no no this was a this was a russian information operation baloney so you're right that that's the last thing we want is bureaucrats in the governor in the government defining what we're what we're allowed to see what we're not allowed to see what we're allowed to say what we're not allowed to say that is a scary place to go it's why we it's why we've had the hearings we've had it's and in and try to bring to light this and look for legislative ways to uh to remedy it
00:55:35.000People think that those hearings don't ever lead to real justice, that they become sort of a cathartic exercise, just an opportunity to sort of vent and spritz the issue, rather than go, that's criminal!
00:55:57.000We're the legislative branch of government.
00:55:59.000But I will tell you that there's no longer a Disinformation Governance Board because we made a big issue of it and folks like you talked about it and how ridiculous this was.
00:56:07.000The IRS made an announcement probably two years ago that they will no longer make unannounced visits to American citizens' homes.
00:56:15.000The Commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service says we're doing this for the safety of our agents.
00:56:22.000They're doing it because we caught them.
00:56:23.000They were knocking on Matt Taibbi's door literally the day he was testifying about the Twitter files and the censorship industrial complex, as he and Michael Schellenberger, two great journalists, former Democrats frankly, who said this is wrong, this is an assault on the First Amendment.
00:56:41.000We've probably had more Democrats testify in front of our committee than any Republican chairman ever.
00:56:51.000We've had them all come in because they all believe in the First Amendment.
00:56:55.000And to me, this is so central to who we are as a country because if you can't have honest, robust debate, Again, as the journalist from Canada pointed out, the alternative to settling disputes is a dangerous place, and we never want to get there.
00:57:09.000So let's focus on that great document, the Constitution, and the most important amendment to it, the first one, to focus on that.
00:57:15.000Jim, you seem like a very kind and decent man, just based on our intuitive human interaction.
00:57:29.000I wonder if you feel that this is a moment of light in American politics or a moment of darkness and if recent events might be an opportunity for positive change or do you sense something that are kind of a heaviness?
00:57:43.000How do you feel as someone that's been involved for a long time?
00:57:53.000And, um, I do feel, and I think president Trump said this, I think Sunday that it's, it's time for a more unifying country and, you know, in light of what he's been through and his amazing reaction to the tragedy of, of what happened on, on Saturday.
00:58:09.000I mean, I think that's an American reaction.
00:58:11.000I really do where, where, where it shows the character of president Trump and, and just Who he is, but it also is sort of American that, that, that just, it's just like, that's the American spirit.
00:58:42.000That's his story is the American story.
00:58:45.000Come from the humblest of homes to, you know, success, amazing bestselling book to now, I think going to be the next vice president of the United States of America.