On this episode of Stay Free With Russell Brand, host Russell Brand is joined by journalist Robert Sherman to discuss the unfolding events at Donald Trump's trial in the wake of his plea deal with the Justice Department. Plus, we take a look at how mainstream media are covering the whole thing, including Fox News, CNN and the New York Times, and the Washington Post. Stay free with Russell Brand wherever you get your news, and don't forget to SUBSCRIBE to stay up to date on all things Stay Free! To find a list of our sponsors and show-related promo codes, go to gimlet.fm/OurAdvertisers and use the promo code: "ELISSA" to receive 10% off your entire purchase when you enter the coupon code: STriveUPdates. This offer expires on December 31st, 2020, and must be redeemable within 30 days of the date of purchase of the product. If you don't have a credit card yet, please contact us at sws@whatiwatchedtonight.co.uk and we'll get you a $10 credit and an ad-free version of the show on our new website. We'll be looking at your favourite streaming platform so you can watch the show live on all major news and social medias including Vimeo and other major podcasting platforms. Thanks for listening and sharing the show! Stay free, you're listening to Stay Free with me! Timestamps: 1:00: 0:00 - What's the point of this episode? 6:30 - The law is not sacred? 8:15 - What is it about? 9: Is it about the law designed to protect you en masse? 11:00 | Is it a tool of the powerful? 15:00 16:15 | What does it protect you? 17:30 | What s the law a tool? 18:40 - How can we have a pandemic? 19:10 - What s it really matter? 21:30 22:00 + 22:50 - Why is it's not about that? 25:00 // 22:15 27: What does the law protect me? 26: What is the law? 35:40 | Does it have to be protected? 36:40 33:00 Or doesn't it have a diagnosis of the global problem?
00:00:28.000Every single day, we're going to take another mainstream figure and corrupt them into our radical anti-establishment ways.
00:00:35.000And today it's going to be Robert Sherman, who's one of those four to one media folk that outnumber the anticipated members of the public at the scene.
00:00:46.000I've got had to do with some personal stuff, but I'm dealing with that now.
00:00:49.000So I'm here to talk about what's really important.
00:00:52.000You haven't been advising Trump, have you?
00:00:54.000I've been giving him a little bit of advice and now I can focus on my real priority, ensuring that we are distracted from the corruption that establishment power enshrines continually and making sure that no meaningful change can ever be implemented by people coming together.
00:01:28.000But let's have a look now at how Fox News are reporting the Trump situation.
00:01:33.000Plus, we're going to be going live looking at mainstream media.
00:01:35.000If you're watching this on YouTube, You can watch this bit on YouTube for about 15 minutes.
00:01:39.000Then we click over to being exclusively on Rumble simply so that we can attack the establishment more elaborately, more specifically, more particularly without fear of censorship or strikes or any of that stuff.
00:01:51.000So if you're watching us on YouTube, there's a link in the description.
00:02:37.000All the while we're watching this, we think on Stay Free Media, What we think is significant are the stories that are not being told while this one is being told.
00:02:46.000It's definitely a fascinating story because it's, I suppose, a political trial dressed up as a legal one.
00:02:53.000I think even if you loathe Trump, you would accept that this isn't a case about, he did what with campaign funds?
00:02:59.000That's one of our proudest traditions.
00:03:01.000How are we supposed to build administrations that successively drone children in foreign lands and call it rational when people are misappropriating campaign funds?
00:03:10.000How are we to find ways of having endless war to keep the military-industrial complex going with people misspending campaign funds?
00:03:18.000How is it possible that when there's a financial crash the richest interests in the world somehow seem to benefit and ordinary people lose their homes when Donald Trump is misusing campaign funds?
00:03:28.000How can we have a pandemic that whatever else it does didn't do made sure the pharmaceutical industry who spent a
00:03:33.000considerable amount of money on lobbying became richer than ever before if
00:03:38.000Donald Trump keeps misusing his campaign fund. Stormzy Daniels, fury be at
00:03:44.000It's whatever it is about is not about that is it?
00:03:48.000It's not about, hey, the law, the precious law, the law designed to enshrine corruption, the law designed to protect elites, the very laws that enable people to rob you en masse.
00:04:06.000Whether Donald Trump goes to prison like sweet Lord Jesus before him or not, because that's a reference to the Marjorie Taylor Greene interview in a minute.
00:04:20.000That doesn't change the diagnosis of the global legal situation in One Iota.
00:04:25.000Let's have a look at Phil's camera work on Fox News and then I reckon get ready with the live stuff.
00:04:30.000I'm really fascinated to see the live stuff.
00:04:32.000You will see over there just this mob of reporters, local, international and national media looking to cover this story of global significance.
00:04:54.000Why don't we, if we both imagine it hard enough, maybe if it was a tiny camera and a mouse reporter, they could film the more seen aspects of this case.
00:05:02.000So let's have a look what's going on right now on the mainstream.
00:05:55.000What I love about Trump is the ad libs.
00:05:58.000His willingness to pursue tangential, ancillary and discursive thoughts.
00:06:03.000That is the kind of populist rhetoric that reaches people.
00:06:06.000It's his ability to communicate like that and to, from an anti-establishment platform, make points that cannot be addressed by mainstream systemic opposition.
00:06:16.000That is why I'm very excited To talk to presidential candidate, or at least she's standing for the presidency or the leadership of the Democratic Party, Marianne Williamson.
00:06:27.000Marianne and I have met several times.
00:06:38.000What I wanted to say is that last time around, I think where you were particularly effective was recognizing The Democrats were not addressing the kind of psychic charge and potency of Donald Trump because they essentially are tied to the same corporate interests that have undergirded mainstream politics for a long time.
00:06:58.000Why do you think that Trump is once more at the forefront of the news cycle?
00:07:01.000What does that tell us about the failings of the Democratic Party?
00:07:04.000And what does it tell us about the political landscape more broadly?
00:07:06.000That Trump continues to dominate, supported essentially by both sides, particularly from a media perspective because They are all he talks about and how are you going to penetrate that space and give people hope that there's an alternative to Donald Trump acknowledging that the reason that Donald Trump is so successful and effective is because of the centralized corruption that I'm sure that you would oppose also.
00:07:43.000So many of the darkest aspects of American consciousness that were harnessed by him for political purposes had already metastasized, and they have not gone away.
00:07:54.000But we have to go back to what made this country so vulnerable to him to begin with.
00:07:58.000And that has to do with the fact that, as Franklin Roosevelt said, we don't have to worry about a fascist takeover as long as democracy delivers on its blessings.
00:08:07.000This country should never have been so vulnerable to a man like Donald Trump.
00:08:11.000We were so vulnerable in large part because democracy had not.
00:08:15.000If democracy was delivering on its blessings, then the average American would have the same things that the average European And every other advanced European nation has, such as universal healthcare, such as a guaranteed livable wage, such as easy access to a higher education, such as free childcare, such as paternity and maternity leave.
00:08:35.000So, our immune system was so weakened because of this corruption—neoliberalism, trickle-down economics, whatever you want to call it—when you have 80 percent of people in a country Who are living—60 percent living paycheck to paycheck, 80 percent of Americans living with chronic economic struggle.
00:08:54.000Then that forms a kind of Petri dish, out of which all manner of personal and societal dysfunction is inevitable, whether it's Donald Trump or anyone else.
00:09:03.000Now, since this last election—and I'm very glad that he was defeated in 2020—but we have not provided the massive infusion of economic hope and opportunity to the American people.
00:09:15.000that will guarantee that we will not be vulnerable to him in 2024.
00:09:20.000And that's why an agenda that does not just present an alleviation of economic stress,
00:09:26.000but which actually proposes an economic U-turn in this country, actually proposes fundamental
00:09:30.000economic reform, is not only the way to beat him in 2024, but it's also the way to repair
00:09:48.000You know that Donald Trump's success was significantly built on blue-collar votes.
00:09:53.000That he experienced Great success in poor communities.
00:09:57.000A lot of people watching this right now, I know, will not want to hear Donald Trump attacked.
00:10:02.000What I try to offer here is the opportunity to address the conditions that are not being addressed by either side.
00:10:10.000That Biden promised to rein in Big Pharma, then offered a mealy-mouthed, compromised bill that will not meaningfully impact the pharmaceutical industry at all.
00:10:21.000That no one is talking about a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia and in fact it's apparent that that process was possibly interrupted.
00:10:30.000What I feel like, even as a person that lives in Europe, things ain't so great here either.
00:10:35.000We similarly toil under centralised government that appear to operate on behalf of corporate interests rather than the people that put them into power.
00:10:43.000sure we might have some comparative compromises and some little pieces of welfare here or
00:10:49.000there that you might think were a reflection of a more enlightened governmental perspective.
00:10:54.000But it's the same deal basically. Corporate interest set the deal. We basically think
00:10:59.000politicians are corrupt. They got second jobs. They own shares in this or that. They're connected
00:11:04.000And Marianne, what I think is required is a kind of radicalism in the political conversation,
00:11:10.000a kind of boldness of vision that now we have seen that we can certainly assess what Trump
00:11:17.000did in office and the failings and where he plainly administered on behalf of economic
00:11:22.000elites. But we have to accept That since then, Biden said to his donors, as you are obviously aware, you've got nothing to worry about with me in office.
00:11:32.000You know that he's funded by Big Tech, Wall Street, Big Pharma, or at least the Democrat Party largely are.
00:11:37.000So how, from within this system, do you ever make significant changes?
00:11:42.000What is your agenda that would appeal to people that would happily vote for Donald Trump because of his anti-establishment stance?
00:11:48.000Well, in 2016, Donald Trump said to the American people, your rage is legitimate.
00:12:33.000It's—in my country, it would be considered a radical Americanism, that it would be a government of the people, by the people and for the people.
00:12:39.000Rather than a government of the corporations, by the corporations and for the corporations.
00:12:44.000Now, I'm concerned, as you are, that the Democratic Party is trying to have it both ways.
00:12:49.000The Democratic Party sees people—and I don't want to say the Democratic Party—the Democratic establishment elite sees the pain and wants to address it on the periphery, but they, no more than the Republicans sometimes, are willing to challenge the underlying corporate forces that make the return of that pain always inevitable.
00:13:06.000To that extent, I am the candidate who is saying much of what you're saying, and it's also why the Democratic corporate elite does not want it.
00:13:16.000When you ask, how are you going to break through, history has never been made by people who say that it can't be done.
00:13:23.000You know, I look at it a lot like the Berlin Wall.
00:13:26.000If you ask, well, what made the Berlin Wall fall?
00:13:28.000Well, if you look at it on the outside, somebody made a phone call to somebody else, and it was misunderstood, and then they called the gate, and then they opened the gate.
00:13:36.000But that's not what really made the Berlin Wall fall.
00:13:38.000What really made is just the thousands and thousands and thousands of efforts made.
00:13:45.000You know, I saw somebody on television the other day talking about how we're going to bring down an unjust system, the economic and political system that you're talking about.
00:13:55.000And he said somebody is going to break through.
00:13:58.000We don't have time to think about, well, would this person do it?
00:14:03.000Every conversation, every podcast, every labor effort, every election of a progressive, you just keep pushing, you just keep pushing.
00:14:10.000To me, if we go into cynicism, if we go into no, it can't be done, that's acquiescing to the system.
00:14:18.000And I think we just need to keep pushing and I believe with all my heart somebody is going to push a breakthrough and what point of breakthrough it's going to be is not what's as relevant as the fact that all of us just need to keep pushing and whatever we can way we can and supporting other people who are doing it too.
00:14:32.000I agree with you, and I'm excited by you as a candidate, as you know, because of your spiritual beliefs and credentials and your optimism and your credentials as a teacher, Marianne.
00:14:43.000We spoke to Brianna Joy Gray yesterday, who was prominent in Bernie's campaigning.
00:14:49.000And you know, you know, and I know that Bernie fell fail of where he was stiffed by rigged systems within the Democrat Party, the elite that you described.
00:14:59.000And Bernie, of course, was a longstanding independent candidate before aligning with the Democrats.
00:15:04.000Do you not think that the sort of popular support being garnered by people Like whether it's the Tea Party, Libertarian Right, perhaps in the great form of Donald Trump, or figures like Bernie with his kind of populist support.
00:15:16.000These are ultimately independent style candidates that are sort of operating within the party system.
00:15:22.000Do you not think that there might be a future for a sort of a confederacy or alliance at least, if that's an incendiary word, of independent of independent candidates challenging systemic corruption that can incorporate both tradition, the traditional values typically enshrined by their republican right and progressive values, shall we call them, that are seen within the social justice movement.
00:15:48.000Because I feel like, you know, I am optimistic, but I feel that new alliances, tolerance, open-heartedness are going to have to be embraced if we are going to confront the sort of entrenching systemic corporate interests that seem very difficult to Well, I think that what you're describing is possible, but it hasn't happened yet.
00:16:08.000So at this moment, we have to go with what is, and every person has to go with where they feel they can help the breakthrough happen in the circumstances that now exist.
00:16:18.000What about in the world of mental health, big pharma, It requires that 40 million Americans stay on antidepressants, 4 in 10 lobbying dollars go to healthcare or food interests, and it seems that there's some corollary between those two things.
00:16:31.000How can you disrupt a system with so much financial investment in it and with so much systemic support?
00:16:38.000Well, it shouldn't be a fringe or radical thing to point out that Americans appear to be overmedicated.
00:16:44.000And yet I know from my campaign last time, boy, you get anywhere near anything like that.
00:17:27.000They are holding the U.S. government hostage.
00:17:29.000And our government, therefore, is more of a system of legalized bribery.
00:17:33.000But you have to call them on it every day.
00:17:35.000Everywhere you can, including Big Pharma.
00:17:37.000And the ultimate answer, the ultimate victory is going to be when enough people wake up and realize how systemically disinformed we are.
00:17:48.000We are mentally trained to expect too little.
00:17:54.000We are mentally trained, and Big Pharma is a perfect example.
00:17:57.000Most people who are listening right now, if they live in the United States, know somebody, if they're not already somebody, rationing their insulin, going to Mexico or going to Canada to get their insulin.
00:18:10.000Stop thinking these people always have your best interests at heart.
00:18:14.000Obviously, there are things done by big pharmaceutical companies that all of us are grateful for, but they are predatory in too many cases, creating profit centers, as we know they did with the opioid crisis.
00:18:28.000And we should not be so naive as to think they're not doing with any other area.
00:18:34.000If you're watching us on YouTube right now, we're going to go exclusively live onto Rumble while I ask Marianne, if she has the grace to allow it, to answer one more question on war and whether or not now the Democrat Party are officially the party of war co-opted by military-industrial-complex interests.
00:18:51.000I'm not going to ask Marianne that on YouTube with all the incumbent risks.
00:18:55.000That's a question I can only ask in the In the free speech domain, that is Rumble.
00:19:00.000Click the link in the description and join us there.
00:19:02.000Marianne, what do you feel about the Democrat Party's stance on war?
00:19:05.000What do you think when Bernie Sanders votes with the party on funding ongoing wars?
00:20:16.000When we had Brianna Joy Gray on yesterday, she said that there's that one out of Georgia that's a bit more heavy, maybe, about sort of meddling with something or whatever, wasn't it?
00:20:39.000If you've not seen him on our show before, what he does is he bothers people until they give him documents and then reveals what's in them.
00:20:50.000He's going to tell us about that 180 grand cancer drug that Biden, all the while pretending to care about cancer and everything, literally there's administration or legislation in place, the Bayh-Dole Act, where he could just stop that and help people suffering from cancer to get their drugs at a reasonable price.
00:21:07.000Because he's a stooge of the system, you know that already.
00:21:10.000Guys, I hope you're enjoying this coverage.
00:21:12.000I wish you'd join us on Locals where you can be a deep down member of our community, joining this frivolity and fun like the people are right now.
00:21:20.000Let's just see what they're saying there before we leave you till tomorrow.
00:21:23.000Oh look at this, Killary Clinton, yeah, Ashella, I repel bad for Trumpster.
00:21:28.000Barry John Fox, it's great, keep going till the arraignment is over.
00:21:32.000This is history in real time, some people just don't want us to go.
00:21:35.000Just say no to voter fraud, says Velody.
00:21:37.000Deccanu, thank you so much guys, you're awesome, I think she's talking about us.
00:21:41.000So what do you want to do? I mean we can't just stay here forever, waiting for a man to be arraigned.
00:22:00.000Go and read some Baudrillard and unpack that.
00:22:04.000The spectacle is generating itself and as long as you're trapped within its prismic inauthenticity, You will not get the pure white light of truth.
00:22:13.000And I mean white transcendent of all other colours, holding all colours, holding all of us together.
00:22:18.000Sign up to Locals, you get a weekly meditation out of me.
00:22:21.000Also, you get access to live podcast recordings.