Stay Free - Russel Brand - Russell Brand meets Rumble CEO in Studio

Rumble s CEO Chris Pavlovsky joins me in Sarasota, Florida to talk about freedom of speech and why it is so important to him and the company. We talk about how important it is to have a free and open internet, and why we should all be fighting to keep it that way. And we talk about why the First Amendment is a necessity for the future of the internet and why the government should not be able to control it. This episode is sponsored by Rumble, a platform that allows users to access the entire world's largest free speech network through a single click. To find a list of Rumble's sponsors and show-related promo codes, go to Rumble.fm/OurAdvertisers and use the promo code AWAKeningWonders at checkout to receive 10% off your first month with discount code: AWAKENINGWORD at checkout. If you like what you hear, please HIT SUBSCRIBE and leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts! Subscribe to our new podcast You Wanna Help? Subscribe on iTunes Learn more about your ad choices? Become a supporter of the podcast: bit.ly/support-and-support-freebie/awakeningwonderings Subscribe & Review this podcast! Learn more at my new podcast, Awakening Wonders. The Best Podcast Episodes are now available in Kindle, iBook, Paperback, Hardcover, and Hardcover. Use the Reviewed Books, and Paperback Books, including the Hardcover edition of The Audible Audio Book of the Audible, and Audio Book, and so you can help spread the word about the podcast. All Audible Books of the Podcasts of The Awakened Wonders Podcasts and more! You can get a copy of the Awakenings Wonders Subscribe and Share the podcast on all of the best new episodes of Awakenmentions? You'll get a chance to receive 20% off the book recommendations and more by searching for the podcast, and more personalized versions of the book, The Awakening Wonders by The Awakening Wondervest Podcasts Podcasts and much more! Subscribe to my newsletter, I'm listening to my book, The AwakeningWonderings Podcasts, I'll be spreading the word of the AwakeningWays at my newsletter? and so much more. I hope you enjoy the podcasting experience, and I'm looking forward to hearing from you!

00:00:00.000 Hello there, you Awakening Wonders.

00:00:02.000 Thanks for joining me live on Rumble from Rumble.

00:00:07.000 I'm in Sarasota right now at Rumble's headquarters talking to the CEO of Rumble, a man to whom I have a lot to be grateful for, Chris Pavlovsky.

00:00:17.000 Chris, congratulations on your new premises.

00:00:19.000 Thank you, Russell.

00:00:20.000 Glad to have you here in Sarasota, Longboat Key.

00:00:24.000 And yes, I understand that it is a key, because it's a bridge between islands.

00:00:27.000 A lot of people don't appreciate the complexity of what constitutes a key, and given that Rumble is a platform that's determined by, defined by, and who has, as its raison d'etre, freedom of speech, how do you feel today?

00:00:40.000 This must be the sort of realisation, I suppose, of a long-held and long-cherished dream.

00:00:45.000 Do you feel present for it?

00:00:46.000 Are you enjoying it?

00:00:48.000 I am.

00:00:48.000 I actually really am.

00:00:50.000 It's been an interesting moment.

00:00:51.000 There was the NASDAQ moment last year and then there's this moment opening up the headquarters in Florida, specifically in Lombokie.

00:01:00.000 Freest state in the world.

00:01:02.000 Freest county in the world.

00:01:04.000 Freest country in the world.

00:01:05.000 It's all happening here.

00:01:06.000 So we'll be taking the internet from over here now.

00:01:11.000 It's pretty interesting, because you did that thing where it's the freest country, freest state, it's that we're at the beating heart of freedom.

00:01:20.000 We really are, though.

00:01:21.000 It really is.

00:01:22.000 This is where it's all happening.

00:01:26.000 And we're dropping the pole here and taking the battle from here now. 0.69

00:01:30.000 We were in Canada for quite some time, but now we're here.

00:01:33.000 Yeah, you have to ultimately cross the border, I think, in pursuit of freedom.

00:01:37.000 Hey, like a minute ago when we were looking at Rumble's mission statement, you pointed out that the final sentence, join us, we are on a mission to protect a free and open internet, that a little while ago that was presumed to be the natural, if you can use such a word for an obviously constructed entity, the natural state of the internet.

00:01:59.000 The rhetoric around freedom of speech has altered.

00:02:02.000 Rumble had some success last week in a legal case.

00:02:05.000 Can you tell us about that?

00:02:07.000 And can you tell us what you mean by freedom of speech?

00:02:10.000 Because it seems increasingly these days that there's a connotation to freedom of speech where a lot of people are arguing, and I'm certainly not taking up this view, that freedom of speech is somehow equated with a particular type of politics, specifically right-wing politics.

00:02:25.000 Yeah, it's, you know, the Internet, when the Internet came alive and all these social platforms came alive, you had every major CEO out there preaching the free and open Internet.

00:02:38.000 We've got to keep it free.

00:02:39.000 We've got to keep it the Wild West.

00:02:40.000 Everything should be allowed.

00:02:42.000 Can't allow the governments to control the Internet.

00:02:44.000 Can't allow regulation to come.

00:02:47.000 And, you know, that's just been changing.

00:02:49.000 And it's changed really rapidly in the last, I would say, five years to a point where, like, I didn't think I was going to be here defending freedom of expression, free speech.

00:02:59.000 That just seemed like a natural thing.

00:03:00.000 As a Canadian, you grew up in the schoolyards, you know, yelling and saying all kinds of things and saying, it's a free country, you can say whatever you want.

00:03:08.000 I think that was probably the same in a lot of places in the world.

00:03:11.000 But that's changed, and I don't quite understand why.

00:03:14.000 It wasn't like the idea of Rumble that we would be defending the entire country for freedom of expression, but it's a necessity now.

00:03:24.000 It's actually imperative.

00:03:25.000 It's imperative for the future generations, as we were talking earlier.

00:03:33.000 History has always told us that the First Amendment is essentially the foundation for a better life, prosperity.

00:03:45.000 It's better for all future generations.

00:03:48.000 You can't solve problems without freedom of expression.

00:03:50.000 You can't even have an opinion.

00:03:52.000 Without freedom of expression.

00:03:53.000 You certainly can't.

00:03:54.000 In a sense, once that you suggest that freedom of expression has to be or can be curated, regulated or controlled, implicit within that, of course, is that there is some regulatory authority that's in a position to make those judgments.

00:04:07.000 As soon as you posit there's people that are able to regulate and control, you start to enter into a peculiarly equivocal space.

00:04:16.000 Who has that authority?

00:04:17.000 Who do you grant it to?

00:04:18.000 The corporate world?

00:04:19.000 The government?

00:04:20.000 The state?

00:04:21.000 Who is it that has this authority?

00:04:23.000 You immediately lean into a kind of technocracy which means a governance by a cadre of experts.

00:04:29.000 That means there's a certain set of people who know what should be said and what can be said and what has to be censored and in the end they determine what is free speech and what isn't free speech and what is truth.

00:04:41.000 Increasingly we're seeing sort of Kafka-esque and Orwellian terms enter the public discourse around controlling freedom of speech just to be ultimately I'm starting to think that I'm somewhere between a libertarian anarchist, is where I'm starting to find myself.

00:04:58.000 I believe in everybody's right to freely be who they are, to express themselves however they want to.

00:05:04.000 I find myself astonished at some of the alliances I'm forming politically, as a matter of fact, because I resolutely believe in individual and collective freedom.

00:05:13.000 Of course that means the freedom to identify however you want to, worship however you want to, to have a progressive identity.

00:05:19.000 And is everybody welcome on Rumble, even within that itinerary?

00:05:24.000 Everybody.

00:05:25.000 The entire world.

00:05:26.000 We welcome all points of view.

00:05:28.000 We don't discriminate against points of view.

00:05:30.000 In fact, we think it's better.

00:05:32.000 It's better for society.

00:05:33.000 It's better for progress.

00:05:35.000 It's better for humanity.

00:05:37.000 So, absolutely.

00:05:39.000 We welcome everybody.

00:05:40.000 And back to the New York's... Sure.

00:05:43.000 You were just talking about governments infringing on this right to free speech.

00:05:47.000 The New York Attorney General imposed a law in New York, which we ended up challenging and we successfully won an injunction against this law.

00:05:59.000 This law is now dead because of Rumble's position against this law in the state of New York.

00:06:06.000 And these are the type of infringements by governments that we just can't allow to happen.

00:06:10.000 And one of the things I've learned in the last couple of years is that that fight needs to be, it needs to be here.

00:06:17.000 It's happening here in America.

00:06:20.000 And we need to make sure that we're all fighting for it and that's our position.

00:06:25.000 We obviously are and we're not going to stop because it's so important for society and humanity as a whole.

00:06:31.000 We've got a lot of people watching this stream right now.

00:06:33.000 Some names that I recognize as a matter of fact Oh yeah, Primal Collin says, ask if the EU is still playing hardball.

00:06:42.000 Are the EU playing hardball?

00:06:43.000 Can you unpack that story a little bit for us, Chris?

00:06:45.000 So yeah, the EU, well particularly France, it hasn't been the EU per se, it's just been France.

00:06:54.000 France came to us, they sent us a letter, they said, we are going to turn you off at the telco level.

00:07:00.000 And obviously we have a cloud that we're building, the Rumble cloud.

00:07:04.000 We have partners on that cloud like Truth Social, like Tim Pool.

00:07:09.000 We had to make the decision like we can't be cut off at the telco level in France, otherwise there's going to be a lot of collateral damages with our partners.

00:07:16.000 So we made the decision to just turn off France entirely ourselves and make sure that our partners like Tim Pool are not affected by it.

00:07:25.000 And typically I'd just let them turn us off, but because of those partners, we made the decision to turn off France and tell them to go pound sand. 0.99

00:07:34.000 We're not going to get dictated by whether it's China or whether it's France or whether it's North Korea.

00:07:39.000 Yeah, put France in that category.

00:07:41.000 Imagine that.

00:07:42.000 And we're not going to get dictated by them telling us what can and can't be on Rumble if it doesn't violate our terms of service.

00:07:48.000 So that's our stance.

00:07:50.000 Am I right in thinking that the complexity or the conflagration at least began with your refusal to take down Russia Today content, which I understand has been censored on YouTube.

00:08:03.000 We speak pretty regularly to Chris Hedges, the Pulitzer Prize winning journalist who broadcasts a lot from Russia Today and reminded, when he came on our show, Stay Free, which of course is available exclusively on Rumble.

00:08:16.000 Remind us that that included interviews with such hard right fascist dissidents as Edward Snowden and Slavoj Žižek, the literal Marxist critic and philosopher.

00:08:31.000 So, you know, censorship of that degree is the beginning of a form of totalitarianism.

00:08:38.000 It seems to me, Chris, that as the information age gathers pace, it's irresistible for centralised... the centralised authority cannot resist the urge to impose more authority, more censorship, more control, because the means of communication is becoming so immediate, so immersive, that Without authority, without the ability to censor, to smear dissenters, you are going to get, by default, a kind of liberty, an open conversation that they don't seem to be willing to have.

00:09:12.000 No, you can't.

00:09:13.000 Look at the civil rights movement.

00:09:15.000 Look at the women's rights movements.

00:09:16.000 It requires freedom of expression.

00:09:19.000 It requires it in order to progress.

00:09:22.000 It's so important for humanity and society.

00:09:25.000 And it's appalling that this is even a debate.

00:09:28.000 How is this a debate?

00:09:30.000 I thought we learned this lesson many times.

00:09:32.000 I feel the same thing about the war in a sense.

00:09:34.000 I feel like there are so many markers of evident progress, technology, medicine, there are so many ways where you can see that there's been incredible progress, but the fact that there is a war in Europe, the fact that there are fundamental philosophical debates taking place, Suggest, in addition to the progress, a kind of atrophy, simultaneously, that there are some areas where there's clear progress, but others where there is decline.

00:09:58.000 And I feel that when you have this, you know, let's face it, it seems that because of the way that commerce has changed, the way that information has changed and technology has changed, there is a movement towards globalism.

00:10:07.000 I think many of us felt that 30, 40 years ago when high streets started to change, When favourable tax arrangements were made for international brands, we started to feel the erosion of community.

00:10:20.000 And now we've reached the point where centralised authority, through organisations like the WHO, can introduce regulation that will affect us democratically.

00:10:28.000 You'll look at the new pandemic treaty that they're proposing.

00:10:32.000 The IMF, through leveraging loans, are able to dictate the post-war policy of a country like Ukraine in the way that they did with various other countries that they've made loans to.

00:10:42.000 Globalization, in the form of these unelected organizations, is a threat to national democracy, is a threat to individual freedom.

00:10:49.000 So, however you might read about or learn about what Rumble is doing and what Rumble represents, you have to recognize that the people speaking against it have a very particular set of interests.

00:10:59.000 Does that seem right to you, Chris?

00:11:01.000 It's essentially a really nice thing that I just said about Rumble.

00:11:01.000 I mean, how can it not?

00:11:05.000 Absolutely.

00:11:07.000 Fully aligned with that.

00:11:08.000 I'd like to take you to task.

00:11:10.000 But I'm not an anarchist, earlier on.

00:11:12.000 No, yeah, yeah, I could see that.

00:11:14.000 You went and said anarchist, you didn't like that.

00:11:16.000 Why not?

00:11:17.000 That's just not me.

00:11:18.000 Well, we had an anarcho-primitivist on the show the other day.

00:11:20.000 That sounded very complicated.

00:11:22.000 We're going to have to give up our phones.

00:11:24.000 If we'd have listened to our own guest, we'd have literally had to have shut down the show that we were making there and then, which I thought was counterproductive, ultimately.

00:11:32.000 But what we're trying to use our show for is a living demonstration that all of these views can harmonise together.

00:11:39.000 If you're willing to respect other people's individual freedom, collective freedom, right to run their own communities, then you ought yourself be afforded that right.

00:11:48.000 I just have noticed the change in morality and public discourse lately where people's spirituality appears to be about not their own conduct and their own standards that they're going to hold themselves to, but what they want other people to do, how they want other people to live.

00:12:01.000 How did that happen?

00:12:02.000 Like, I don't get that.

00:12:02.000 Yeah.

00:12:03.000 Like, we should be focusing on ourselves before we're focusing on other people.

00:12:07.000 I've got enough work to do on myself, do you know what I mean, Chris, before I start thinking of you lot.

00:12:11.000 Same here.

00:12:11.000 While people, you know, we've all got our connection to the divine, there's a saying, God has no grandchildren, that all of us have our own connection to the limitless, and all of us have enough spiritual work to do for ourselves, and that's one of the things.

00:12:23.000 Does this interest you, you know, like on Stay Free?

00:12:25.000 I don't know if you're concentrating when you're watching it, Chris, but we're trying very much to seed spiritual ideas, because I believe that that's a way that people can connect with one another.

00:12:35.000 When I'm talking to someone like Ben Shapiro or Tucker Carlson, people who I assume I'm at odds with in a lot of ways politically, I know that I probably share spiritual faith with them, so I use that as a way of connecting, recognising that in the end we've got a set of values, in the end we're governed or guided by love.

00:12:54.000 What are your personal views on spirituality and the significance of spirituality in the political space?

00:13:03.000 No, I never really thought about it too deeply.

00:13:05.000 Not like you have.

00:13:06.000 That's right.

00:13:07.000 If I were to put an opinion on that, I don't think I haven't thought of it that well.

00:13:11.000 That's because you're trying to build this business, isn't it?

00:13:14.000 I do think that everyone means well.

00:13:18.000 Everywhere.

00:13:19.000 And I feel like everyone's trying to get to the right solution.

00:13:22.000 But I feel like people have forgotten to read their history books.

00:13:26.000 Yeah.

00:13:27.000 We all want the right thing.

00:13:28.000 Everyone wants good things about everybody.

00:13:30.000 Everybody wants everyone to have great things.

00:13:33.000 You know, we haven't read history books, it feels like.

00:13:35.000 It feels like we've forgotten what history has told us.

00:13:37.000 And, you know, I just, it saddens me to see that, and see that disconnect, because you can't really teach them the history.

00:13:44.000 They don't want to listen, a lot of people, for that matter.

00:13:47.000 And it goes to freedom of expression.

00:13:49.000 Like, that's so fundamental in the last couple hundred years.

00:13:53.000 Like, what has America brought to the world?

00:13:55.000 Well, in my opinion, there's less poverty that we've ever seen in our lives.

00:13:59.000 because of capitalism in America and what it's brought to the world.

00:14:03.000 You know, nothing's perfect, but we've made a lot of progress

00:14:06.000 in the last couple hundred years.

00:14:07.000 And I feel like we've, you know, there's been a lot of places

00:14:10.000 there was a lot less progress and they've tried a lot of different things

00:14:14.000 and they didn't work so well.

00:14:15.000 And those are things we can learn from.

00:14:17.000 But in terms of like the spiritual and spirituality, like, you know, I have my own personal beliefs about things.

00:14:24.000 And I do think we all connect in one way.

00:14:27.000 And love is a great way to describe it, the way you described it.

00:14:31.000 I guess I definitely agree with that.

00:14:33.000 You know, we're all, we all, we are all looking for the most positive thing for us and for our families and for the world and we can all connect on that, on that wavelength, that's for sure.

00:14:43.000 Thanks, mate.

00:14:43.000 In order to spread awareness of our joint endeavor here, I'm doing a little tour.

00:14:49.000 Did you know that?

00:14:49.000 I'm doing a tour.

00:14:50.000 I'm going to be going on Joe Rogan on the 1st of March.

00:14:53.000 I'm going on Bill Maher on the 3rd of March.

00:14:56.000 I'm going to be seeing Ben Shapiro in Miami, I think, on the 8th.

00:15:00.000 On the 6th, I'm going on Tucker Carlson.

00:15:03.000 7th, I'm going on Tucker Carlson and Greg Gutfeld on the 9th.

00:15:06.000 Also, I think I'm going to hook up with Andrew Schultz while I'm up here on his show.

00:15:09.000 I didn't mean that in a sort of a semi-erotic way.

00:15:11.000 Although, who knows?

00:15:12.000 We're going to be in New York.

00:15:13.000 Why wouldn't we express ourselves?

00:15:14.000 Freedom of expression seems to be one of the key themes today.

00:15:18.000 Also, I'm doing a live stand-up show.

00:15:20.000 If you want to come and see me on the 2nd in Los Angeles, I'll be at the Vermont Theatre and I'll be here in Florida, in Tampa specifically, on the 6th.

00:15:28.000 There should be a link in the chat now, so you can click on that and get tickets if you want to come.

00:15:34.000 Are you going to come and see me?

00:15:35.000 But where are you going to be on the 6th?

00:15:36.000 Are you going to be in Florida?

00:15:38.000 March 6th?

00:15:39.000 Yeah, I'm expecting to see a little rumble crew, perhaps still dressed in green, taking up a little row in that Clearwater Theatre that I'm performing at.

00:15:50.000 I might be around.

00:15:51.000 We don't want to make an on-camera commitment to that, Chris.

00:15:53.000 It's easier to lie.

00:15:55.000 That is the integrity that we're witnessing with Chris.

00:15:57.000 It would be much easier to say, of course, I'll absolutely be there, then deal with the problem later.

00:16:00.000 You could just send a text, I'm not able to do that, found out I'm busy.

00:16:03.000 But Chris believes in free speech, integrity and authenticity so much that he would rather have an awkward moment where he appears to, on air, refuse a polite invitation from a visiting Englishman who's made a long, arduous trip to Florida.

00:16:17.000 Difficult, challenging times, but, you know, I respect your integrity.

00:16:21.000 I'll try to be there.

00:16:22.000 That's good.

00:16:23.000 That's the sort of compromise that built America.

00:16:26.000 And also robbed the United Kingdom of one of our proudest colonies, which, on the sly, I'm trying to get back.

00:16:32.000 Hey, mate, I lost this thing.

00:16:34.000 I want to read out some more comments before we, in a minute, we're going to the rumble, what are we calling it, the launch party for this building?

00:16:41.000 Yeah, it's the launch of our headquarters in Longboat Key in Sarasota and Florida in America.

00:16:50.000 The shovel's been, I guess this place is done now.

00:16:53.000 Yeah, it looks beautiful.

00:16:54.000 We're moving in and we're cutting the ribbon and we're now taking the battle from here.

00:16:54.000 The office is fantastic.

00:16:58.000 If you're a member of our locals community, like I mean my one, we're going to stream straight after this conversation with Chris.

00:17:04.000 I'm going to walk around, show you little things that are going on at the party, show you some of the people I've met here.

00:17:09.000 Michael, the lawyer, there's all sorts of interesting characters who I'm dying to get in their face and ask them some pretty probing questions about their religious lives.

00:17:17.000 Stuff like that.

00:17:19.000 There's feelings about sex and stuff, you know, people feel like they have to answer you if you're like,

00:17:24.000 Come on, freedom of speech!

00:17:25.000 Well, that's actually not your business, Russell, that's a private matter between me and Mrs Ellis.

00:17:29.000 Come on! Come on! Tell us what you're into!

00:17:32.000 That sort of stuff.

00:17:33.000 I'm going to read you this, uh, uh, man of... Michael will be watching this somewhere, will he?

00:17:37.000 He won't be just smooching about in a burgundy jacket, he better not be.

00:17:41.000 Uh, this is the mission statement for Rumble that I'm going to read to you just in case you don't know.

00:17:45.000 Do people know the mission statement?

00:17:47.000 Probably, yeah.

00:17:48.000 It's a few people.

00:17:49.000 You posted it?

00:17:50.000 Yeah, it's right there beside me.

00:17:51.000 Who wrote it?

00:17:53.000 It was a combination of a bunch of people, but Tyler was really behind it, you know, putting it all together.

00:18:01.000 I think we've had it now for quite some time.

00:18:04.000 It's hard to write a mission statement, isn't it?

00:18:06.000 I bet you've done one for your company.

00:18:07.000 You've sort of said, oh, we believe in this and given credit.

00:18:09.000 But this is a good mission statement.

00:18:11.000 I like it.

00:18:11.000 We are Rumble.

00:18:12.000 We're for the people with something to say and something to share, who believe in authentic expression and want to control the value of their own creations.

00:18:20.000 We create technologies that are immune to cancel culture.

00:18:23.000 Because everyone benefits when we have access to more ideas, diverse opinions.

00:18:29.000 And dialogue.

00:18:30.000 Join us.

00:18:31.000 We're on a mission to protect a free and open internet.

00:18:34.000 That seems to be a mission statement that we can all get behind.

00:18:39.000 Certainly I can.

00:18:40.000 I'm very excited to speak to people from a variety of political and religious backgrounds and to have this conversation.

00:18:47.000 Do you know why?

00:18:48.000 Because I'm optimistic about human beings.

00:18:50.000 I'm not a misanthrope.

00:18:51.000 I don't think people are bad.

00:18:53.000 I think people are okay.

00:18:54.000 Like you were just saying then, rather sweetly, when I pressured you to start telling us all your private business about religion, that you fundamentally believe that people are good.

00:19:02.000 And if you have that belief, like, people are good, that means we'll get somewhere.

00:19:06.000 I had a great conversation once with Brene Brown.

00:19:08.000 You can see it, hopefully you can see that chat on Rumble.

00:19:11.000 Like, you know, the sort of Brené Brown, she talks a lot about sort of emotional health, I guess, mental well-being.

00:19:17.000 And she said sometimes she questioned whether or not people are, like, good.

00:19:21.000 She worked in, like, as a social worker and in various conditions where she saw sort of suffering, I guess.

00:19:27.000 And that it's hard sometimes, particularly in situations of conflict, to recognize that Well, people are beautiful.

00:19:33.000 Everyone's trying their best.

00:19:34.000 People are trying their best.

00:19:35.000 And certainly when I find myself in alignment with that, I feel better.

00:19:37.000 And if you believe in that, if you believe in humans, then you've got to believe in the right for other people to say stuff you disagree with.

00:19:43.000 You have to.

00:19:44.000 You have to allow that conversation to take place, don't you?

00:19:46.000 Yeah, you do.

00:19:47.000 It's not easy sometimes, like as you can see with other platforms, they can't handle it.

00:19:54.000 You know, it's something that's changed a lot in the last five years and, you know, there's tons of stuff I disagree with on Rumble.

00:20:02.000 Tons of stuff I agree with and, like, it's funny because, like, you get the... we were just talking about how, like, the Washington Post would write an article about Rumble and say it's full of misinformation.

00:20:13.000 There's creators on Rumble that are saying the COVID vaccine is not durable.

00:20:18.000 And then you have to take two, three, four, five.

00:20:21.000 Yeah.

00:20:21.000 So is that still misinformation?

00:20:23.000 Yeah.

00:20:23.000 What does that mean now?

00:20:24.000 There are some platforms that haven't taken down their early proclamations that these medications would stop transmission.

00:20:32.000 And we now know that they never tested.

00:20:33.000 Imagine you didn't have people like questioning things.

00:20:36.000 You would never figure it out.

00:20:37.000 Like, are we just to believe everything someone says?

00:20:40.000 And there's one single authority, like you said, there can't be.

00:20:44.000 Society can't progress like that.

00:20:46.000 They absolutely can't.

00:20:47.000 That's a homogenising and banalising influence.

00:20:51.000 I don't think that anyone believes that a more empowered and authoritative state, or if particularly not a corporatised state, like, you know, if I may say, as a visitor in your country, the United States, appears to be reaching its zenith and its pinnacle in American corporatist politics, where it's a kind of front for a globalist and financially led agenda.

00:21:16.000 No longer represents the right for ordinary people to be free and have a variety of beliefs and faith.

00:21:21.000 You know, the thing that's made this country, and I'm speaking about America, great has been the diversity, all of the various communities that have come together from around the world.

00:21:31.000 Significantly, one country stands out, though, as the best one that's contributed.

00:21:35.000 You know the language we're speaking right now?

00:21:37.000 Do you know what it's called?

00:21:38.000 It's called English.

00:21:39.000 There's a reason for that.

00:21:40.000 So like, you know, there's like, you know, that's what Makes America great.

00:21:43.000 The ability for various communities and ethnicities to come together to create a kind of a beautiful culture.

00:21:49.000 But freedom has to be fundamental to that.

00:21:51.000 Freedom of expression, freedom to democratically or otherwise run your own community.

00:21:56.000 And I feel like this is going to be increasingly pivotal in the ongoing conversation, Chris.

00:22:01.000 Platforms like this that are resolutely absolutist when it comes to the subject of freedom of expression.

00:22:07.000 No, absolutely.

00:22:10.000 We'll stand ground.

00:22:11.000 We'll fight.

00:22:14.000 I think it was a little harder a couple years ago.

00:22:16.000 It's getting a little easier now.

00:22:17.000 We've got a lot more friends.

00:22:19.000 People are starting to wake up.

00:22:20.000 You're starting to see that I think we're in the majority now, whereas like maybe a couple years ago we were probably, I think we're always in the majority, but they just kind of made the perception a little bit different.

00:22:32.000 But now you're seeing people wake up to everything and you're seeing platforms like Rumble really start to succeed and really attract like, you know, it's not just politics anymore.

00:22:42.000 You got people from All different verticals coming onto the platform.

00:22:46.000 Sports leagues, like an indoor soccer league just recently joined.

00:22:49.000 We had a fight league join recently.

00:22:52.000 It's really starting to happen.

00:22:55.000 And when you look at these other platforms, these incumbent platforms, one of the things in the mission statement is authenticity.

00:23:03.000 When there's censorship, there's no authenticity.

00:23:05.000 You're fake. 0.99

00:23:06.000 You're completely fake. 1.00

00:23:08.000 At Rumble, you can be authentic. 0.84

00:23:11.000 You're you.

00:23:12.000 You can be whoever you want to be.

00:23:14.000 That's your decision.

00:23:15.000 But on these other platforms, you can't.

00:23:18.000 You're inauthentic.

00:23:19.000 You're right about that.

00:23:20.000 Censorship means that you're going to conform to a predetermined set of ideals.

00:23:24.000 I think when people talk about virtue signaling, that's perhaps what is meant, that these are not beliefs that you deeply hold.

00:23:31.000 They're beliefs that you recognize have to be conveyed.

00:23:34.000 So that means everybody on YouTube is programmed to say one specific thing about any specific topic that they dictate about?

00:23:41.000 What I've noticed is that in this with this corporatist agenda you find a lot of things that I believe in freedom of expression for the right to be who you are these are the kind of things that they actually advocate for ironically while simultaneously advocating for more censorship and I recognize that in times of great fear people are willing to yield to authority more so I hope that this is a time where there's less fear more confidence and a more awakening now Chris do you want to take this opportunity to say some nice things about me before we wrap this interview up some nice things maybe about the channel the work we've done Well, I don't know if you've noticed, I've definitely noticed, but your videos are really starting to, I think for the last week, at least two or three of your shows have been ranking number one on Rumble.

00:24:24.000 Our community is growing!

00:24:26.000 Really, really fast.

00:24:28.000 Especially in the last 30 to 60 days, which has been phenomenal.

00:24:32.000 And you have this huge tour coming up.

00:24:34.000 Meeting people like Joe Rogan.

00:24:36.000 What's that going to be like?

00:24:37.000 What are you going to ask Joe?

00:24:39.000 What are you going to ask you is the question.

00:24:42.000 You can't know.

00:24:43.000 You can never know.

00:24:44.000 You go in there, Joe Rogan, and you're ready to be as passive or as expressive as Joe Rogan dictates.

00:24:51.000 You go in there, you feel out Joe Rogan.

00:24:53.000 I've been on there a couple of times.

00:24:54.000 These are things that will get discussed.

00:24:56.000 We're going to be talking about Rumble, obviously.

00:24:57.000 We're going to be talking about a lot of these ideas.

00:24:59.000 When I've been on previously, sometimes I've had something to promote, like, you know, maybe a book on recovery or, I don't know, maybe the first time it might even have been a movie or something.

00:25:07.000 And it's hard to get those conversations to the forefront and you always feel like there's someone that's sort of paid for you to go there and sent you, you know, like if you're promoting a book or whatever.

00:25:15.000 And I think, oh no, I can't get the conversation around in a book.

00:25:17.000 But I feel like, you know, I've heard him talk about me being on Rumble a couple of times just in conversation.

00:25:22.000 I've heard him talk about our channel.

00:25:24.000 A few times and like I think I see him once playing a clip when I did a Brian Stelter CNN thing once he played it out on the show.

00:25:30.000 So I think we're going to be talking about our content.

00:25:32.000 We're going to be talking about the necessity for ongoing communication.

00:25:34.000 We're also going to be talking about the like, you know, like I'm still bloody vegan.

00:25:39.000 Like, you know, he hunts and shoots and all that kind of stuff.

00:25:41.000 And I feel like you've got to be able to be convivial and congenial with people that you Yeah, so I just want to say, Russell, thank you.

00:25:48.000 How are we ever going to get anywhere as a species, as a planet?

00:25:51.000 Like, you know, so I reckon we'll probably go into them areas.

00:25:54.000 Also Brazilian jujitsu.

00:25:56.000 And I'm just see if I can drag him off into some like sort of weird and unusual

00:26:00.000 territories where he's not comfortable.

00:26:01.000 Maybe I'll ask you about his religious beliefs as well.

00:26:03.000 I can't talk about that.

00:26:05.000 If I can get him on the back foot a bit, that's what I'm going to do there.

00:26:08.000 Yeah.

00:26:09.000 So I just want to say, Russell, thank you for, you were actually, you came onto this

00:26:13.000 platform and we didn't even know at rumble back in 2021, you signed up all on your

00:26:18.000 own without anybody soliciting rumble.

00:26:22.000 You came just literally for the, the principle of freedom of expression, seeing

00:26:27.000 that other people were able to express themselves authentically.

00:26:30.000 And, uh, there's a huge thank you for doing that a couple of years ago.

00:26:34.000 I remember it was two weeks after you signed up when we figured it out, that it 0.84

00:26:37.000 was real and we're like, holy shit, Russell Brand is on rumble.

00:26:41.000 It's not like, you know, that was the beginning of the expansion outside of just like a single idea of politics and more ideas and just thank you for taking the risk and coming and then eventually, you know, doing your show daily on Rumble. 0.59

00:26:55.000 Five days a week.

00:26:56.000 One hour shows, live streamed, fantastic.

00:26:59.000 At noon.

00:27:00.000 And now being one of the top shows on the platform, it's been a huge success and super excited to see where that goes in the next few years.

00:27:10.000 I came on...

00:27:12.000 Because of my love of freedom of expression.

00:27:13.000 And then my integrity was rewarded financially with a fantastic deal here at Rumble to build this to the most significant platform in the world.

00:27:22.000 So there's a lesson for us all.

00:27:24.000 Have authenticity, be integral, remain true to your beliefs, have a little bit of fun, be willing to accept other people's views, be willing to get into complex conversations with people.

00:27:32.000 What else are we going to do while we're here?

00:27:34.000 Chris, thank you so much for joining me for this conversation.

00:27:37.000 It's been pretty good, isn't it?

00:27:38.000 It's been amazing.

00:27:39.000 No, we're going to go and have a little party.

00:27:40.000 I'm not very good at parties, actually.

00:27:41.000 I don't think you're going to be that good either.

00:27:43.000 I'm going to be watching you.

00:27:44.000 I don't think you're going to be very good at socialising.

00:27:46.000 Like, we're going to stand around, just be looking at your phone.

00:27:49.000 Oh, I've got to do a work call.

00:27:50.000 Oh, hello there, Donald Trump.

00:27:52.000 There's no one on that phone!

00:27:56.000 You should see me socialising.

00:27:57.000 I'm a wreck.

00:27:57.000 I go and find people that are working at the party.

00:27:59.000 I talk to them.

00:28:00.000 That's my way, you know.

00:28:02.000 Oh, you're working here, are you?

00:28:03.000 Yeah, good. 0.64

00:28:03.000 Those fat cats. 0.64

00:28:04.000 That's what I do.

00:28:05.000 Cozy up to the blue-collar people.

00:28:07.000 It's always been my way.

00:28:09.000 So I'll be watching Chris Pavlosky and his social skills over the next hour.

00:28:12.000 And if you're watching this on my local's channel, you can see a little walkthrough.

00:28:16.000 We're going to do that, aren't we?

00:28:18.000 Thanks to everyone at Rumble.

00:28:19.000 Thanks to all of you that are watching this.

00:28:21.000 It's been a great joy to be on this journey with you so far, and we're excited to bring you loads more content, loads more conversation.

00:28:28.000 Be willing to open your mind and your heart.

00:28:30.000 Be willing to fight for your personal freedom, but be willing to yield to form new connections, because that's going to be absolutely necessary to take on elite establishment institutions, organizations, whether they be state or corporate.

00:28:41.000 This we can do together.

00:28:42.000 Thanks again, Chris Pavlovsky.

00:28:44.000 Thank you, Russell.

Stay Free - Russel Brand - February 24, 2023

Russell Brand meets Rumble CEO in Studio

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