00:00:41.000Before we get into it, remember my book, How to Become Christian in Seven Days, is out now.
00:00:45.000You can click the link in the description and acquire it.
00:00:47.000If you want it for nothing, you can get the audio book for free.
00:00:52.000Remember, too, that if you don't have Rumble Premium yet, get Rumble Premium now.
00:00:56.000You get additional content from me and other Rumble content creators.
00:01:00.000But for now, though, let's get into the G7 Summit.
00:01:03.000The G7 Summit is ostensibly a gathering of the world's most powerful leaders to ensure some concord between Governments across the world.
00:01:14.000Seems though that the real problem is there's almost too much alliance between global governments and certainly whatever ulterior powers appear to direct them.
00:01:24.000I'm talking, of course, of global corporations, but also those kind of bureaucratic think tank entities, such as WHO, IMF, WEF, that have considerable power.
00:01:39.000Wherever you fall politically these days, on the left or on the right, whether you Sort of feel like a kind of political vagrant, like that no one represents what you believe or what you want, or this sort of inkling, a kind of sense that you're being contained within a false argument that doesn't even give you access to truth, that somewhere just beyond your reach is possibility, that things could really change, that your life could be an expression of true meaning.
00:02:05.000We likely can't even pay focused attention to something like the G7 summit, but they still have those kind of.
00:02:14.000Protests, those fire and brimstone protests all around them.
00:03:00.000You can see Keir Starmer almost shoulder to shoulder with Donald Trump, actually.
00:03:04.000I know that's GB News, and they're not a particularly pro Keir Starmer network in the UK, but they seem sort of excited that Keir Starmer is shoulder to shoulder with Trump.
00:03:15.000GB News wouldn't be particularly condemnatory of Donald Trump, but one gets a sense that the British media, in the broadest sense, don't like Trump.0.82
00:03:24.000Though, where the discussion heads with this clip is the recent banning of 16 year olds from social media, which on the surface is a good idea, isn't it?0.97
00:03:34.000If that were the intention to stop 16 year olds being on social media, it's generally speaking a pretty good idea.
00:03:40.000But the problem is, of course, that the true intention is to tie everyone's.
00:03:45.000An anonymous online identity to a specific piece of ID so that your IP address and your actual identity can be observed and monitored so everyone knows what you're doing online all the time and you can't do it anonymously.
00:04:00.000Not because they want to protect you or they want to protect children, but because they want to be able to control the population as part of a movement towards centralized global governance.
00:04:08.000So it's interesting, of course, that entities like the G7 continue to exist.
00:04:14.000Once it was assumed that whether it was the EU or the UN or the G7, that the intention was the assurance of global peace.
00:04:22.000But actually, now it's to ensure a level of harmony for elite powers and total control for everyone else.
00:04:30.000Actually, could be some tense conversations, though, in the next.
00:04:47.000A lot of people have noticed that Keir Starmer, when he's in a context with other world leaders, struggles to make his presence felt.
00:04:57.000He does look like a peripheral figure.
00:04:59.000I think, though, as I experience a deepening spiritual encounter with truth, I can't take the light anymore.
00:05:07.000Even in the embarrassment of people that, in the broadest sense, I regard as enemies.
00:05:12.000And that would probably be all of those people there, whether it's dear Mark Carney, former Bank of England chief, now leader of Canada, Keir Starmer, former head of the Crown Prosecution Service in the UK, now Prime Minister, Donald Trump, oligarchal billionaire, now populist leader of the United States.
00:05:30.000In the end, if what you're interested in is truth and reality and freedom and maximum peace and personal sovereignty for the maximum number of people, People, which maybe isn't the goal or even purview of human beings anymore.
00:05:43.000Perhaps we should just confine ourselves to living in truth and peace and harmony and preparing for a truly better world.
00:05:48.000And if that is your intention, if that's what you're aligned with, then something like the G7 and the whole set of interests represented there are ultimately antithetical to your freedom and your peace.
00:06:01.000Let me know what you think in the comments in the chat.
00:06:04.000Donald Trump continues, though, to really exhibit that kind of personal amiability, affability, and I reckon.
00:06:11.000The comedian's instinct for addressing a apparent but often not explicit reality when he comes in and says, I'm the boss.
00:06:21.000Sort of pretty kind of funny in that context.
00:06:26.000He continues to be kind of funny, even if you're disappointed with the ice and with the wars and with the UFC on the lawn and the sense that maybe things aren't going to really change.
00:06:36.000When it comes to personal affability and charisma and a level of interactive finesse, Kind of ability to seem like an actual person rather than an android.
00:06:47.000Whether it's Macron or Carney or Keir Starmer there, when you see them, for me at least, and I don't know if this is personal, they have that kind of, they make me bristle a little.
00:06:56.000They make me prickle with that sense that you're watching someone who isn't really there, a kind of an inert phantom.
00:07:02.000Now, I know like there's no one that's as divisive as Trump, maybe in history, but certainly not in contemporary world culture.
00:07:09.000You can see Jimmy Kimmel most nights sort of.
00:07:13.000Full of furious ire and the pursuit of ratings in his condemnation of Trump or John Oliver or other like good, I'm talking about, you know, good comedians and good entertainers.
00:07:22.000But I feel now that really we should be making an effort to reconcile.
00:07:29.000So if you feel that your constituency hates Donald Trump, you should be saying, look, come on, he's pretty funny, isn't he?
00:07:36.000And if you feel that your constituency loves Donald Trump, you should be saying, look, guys, these wars.
00:07:42.000And if you think that your audience is looking for something, Deeper and more profound, then maybe you don't need to play any games.
00:07:51.000At this point, you're no longer contained.
00:07:55.000But you've reached a point where you're no longer contained in one of two ways, either of which suits them virulently pro one tribe or set of identities, or virulently opposed to it.
00:08:12.000I recently had a conversation with a Democrat fella.
00:08:17.000Like in this conversation I had with this guy, Mike, it'll be the interview later on in the show in a minute.
00:08:21.000He was a fundraiser for Kamala and Kamala Harris, you know, when she ran for.
00:08:26.000President of your country, and there are millions of different things that you could say about the failings of maybe Kamala Harris as a political figure and the Democrat Party more broadly.
00:08:34.000But isn't it clear to you, as it is to me now, that existing political institutions, no matter what they claim, are participating in a system that both sides want to maintain?
00:08:49.000And that is not beneficial for you anymore, or for me, really.
00:09:25.000Well, I also think that when there is going to be a war or some significant change, they're not doing it in these little rooms with, you know, with.
00:10:18.000It's a TV show, really, and Donald Trump knows how to do TV shows.
00:10:22.000Do you think that maybe in the first instance, Trump never had any intention of becoming president, that the whole thing was just a kind of ruse, a kind of pranking of the establishment that went too well.
00:10:44.000Not saying that all manner of things don't happen behind closed doors when it comes to, I don't know, some oligarchical takeover of American infrastructure and the kind of corruption that we would.
00:10:56.000Recognize from either party when it comes to possibly providing opportunity financially via insider knowledge.
00:11:04.000And I think these things are kind of just institutionally true of government.
00:11:09.000And perhaps you tell me in the comments and chat, Trump hasn't delivered on the spirit of his campaigning cleaning the swamp, empowering people, America first, no more wars.
00:11:21.000Tell me what you think and what you feel.
00:11:24.000But if politics is going to just be a kind of an illusion and An illusion, a veil, part of Maya, then if that's what it's going to be and that's what it has been for a very long time, then why not just have people in it that are amusing to look at?
00:11:41.000That's all both sides want or can claim.
00:11:43.000Well, I prefer it when it's someone like Barack Obama.
00:11:45.000I prefer it when it's someone like Donald Trump.
00:11:47.000Well, I'd prefer it if it wasn't a veil or an illusion or two.0.99
00:12:37.000Now, because of the way media is, we're aware of people's personal failings and foibles.
00:12:43.000None of us can put aside the moment where we saw Brigitte Macron smack Emmanuel Macron around the face and he walked around with a black eye for a little while.
00:12:50.000We know all of them have rumors surrounding them.
00:12:52.000And even if the rumors are salacious and actually untrue, what we know on a deeper level yet is they're just human beings.
00:12:58.000And a model of centralization, a kind of round table, look at it, model where they sit around the table and determine the.
00:13:07.000The trajectory of billions of lives is ridiculous and implausible.
00:13:12.000Of course, I don't believe that what they're talking about there will ultimately impact billions of lives, or when it comes to it, they have the power to direct billions of lives.
00:13:21.000I believe that the real momentum and true power is, if you want to imagine it sort of metaphorically, a kind of visual metaphor, that the power surrounds that table, is beneath it like a tide, like a portent power.
00:14:33.000I mean, the JCPOA, done by Obama, he handed them a billion seven in cash, gave them hundreds of millions of dollars, hundreds of, gave them billions and billions of dollars, but he gave them $1.7 billion in cash, green cash from banks, into a Boeing 757 and flew it into Iran.
00:15:18.000You can see too that he continues to be able to utilize the level of rhetoric.0.78
00:15:21.000He continues to be able to utilize a type of rhetoric that is absent elsewhere in the marionette Mandarin speak of those apparitic politicians elsewhere.0.94
00:15:36.000They don't say things that are kind of incendiary, like drop bombs on the middle of their heads, which is astonishing language, dear, but it's not as bad as actually the reality that bombs are going to get dropped on people's heads and all of them.
00:15:48.000Participants in that international G7 summit, one way or another, are the agents of destruction and murder, generally dressing it up rationally as somehow natural or necessary.
00:16:00.000Trump merely reveals what was previously concealed, merely amplifies and exaggerates what all of them do more tediously.
00:16:15.0001.7 billion and hundreds of millions of dollars.
00:16:18.000They tried to bribe their way out of it.0.99
00:16:21.000And you know what the Iranians did?1.00
00:16:24.000They laughed at Obama and they said he's a stupid son of a bitch.1.00
00:16:28.000Contrast the controlled and sanitary conversation, the Huxley esque Steve Jobs style white table, the round one and the vaginal one that they sat around with the scenes outside.1.00
00:16:42.000It's a perfect visual metaphor for the reality that we all occupy.
00:16:48.000On the surface, this slick managerial, natural, rational power with some interesting characters while Trump's in office.
00:16:55.000And outside, the sort of chaos and death and burning and carnage.
00:17:01.000And, you know, most of us participate in to one degree or another, sort of certain that there must be a better way.1.00
00:17:11.000No men playing in women's sports, so we want no transgender mutilization of our children.1.00
00:17:29.000Important it is in a country that's so recently seemed to have very, very different issues.
00:17:35.000It's only just got its independence really from the United Kingdom.
00:17:39.000I wonder how important it is to them, like gender roles and gender issues and trans issues, or whether that's kind of localized to the types of culture that we all live in.
00:17:47.000And if that proves to be the case, that it's not a big deal in India.
00:17:49.000And certainly looking at Modi there, it doesn't look like he's sort of wracked with concern about those kind of cultural and identity issues.
00:17:56.000I wonder what that tells us about our culture versus these newly industrialized and commercialized nations.
00:18:08.000Bureaucratic encounter that reveals to you a great many things in a way that politicians are performers, some of them brilliant and adept, whether you see them as a pantomime villain or a glorifying hero.
00:18:22.000Others now more representative of the decline, even in spirit, of countries like France or the anglophonic proto countries of the UK, Canada, Australia, that seem to exist, if you ask me now, solely so globalist dictums can be piloted.
00:18:40.000Prior to being globally instantiated, whether it's what do you do about trucker protests during COVID in COVID?
00:19:15.000And when that happens, all of these measures and models piloted in countries like Canada, Australia, and the UK will be brought to the United States.
00:20:04.000Protect your money, get a Rumble wallet right now.
00:20:07.000If you've got a Rumble wallet, you can trade, you can interact, you can support protests that the British government, for example, and the Canadian government would ban you from participating in.
00:20:16.000Trudeau, I've seen the photos, you're Fidel Castro.
00:20:20.000And what are you doing with my ex wife?
00:20:22.000Something that I deeply, deeply regret.
00:20:28.000Get yourself a Rumble wallet, cancel all debt.
00:20:30.000Let's have a debt jubilee, ban usury, break down any systems of corruption and control.
00:21:11.000Mike Nellis is a democratic strategist, entrepreneur, and commentator who has spent nearly two decades working at the intersection of politics, media, and technology.
00:21:21.000A former advisor to Kamala Harris and Founder of the digital agency Authentic, he has helped shape campaigns, raised more than a billion dollars in grassroots funding, and become one of the most prominent voices in democratic politics.
00:21:34.000Today, through his platform, Endless Urgency, he offers candid commentary on American politics, culture, and the challenges facing the Democratic Party.
00:21:43.000Mike, why I'm interested in our conversation is because, as I understand, you're a Democratic strategist.
00:21:50.000You've been involved in fundraising, in particular for the Kamala Harris campaign.
00:21:54.000He actually describes you here as a progressive Democrat.
00:21:57.000The platform I'm on, primarily at least, Rumble, certainly it would be fair to say, skews towards the right.
00:22:05.000In your country at the moment, there's a sort of sense of fragmentation.
00:22:09.000Excuse me, and tension when it comes to left versus right, liberal versus traditional values.
00:22:16.000And I'm having now sort of followed politics in your country as best as I can without being an academic or an expert of any kind.
00:22:23.000It seems like we might be at a unique point of political despair, not least because it's been preceded by one somewhat comparable relatively immediately.
00:22:38.000I think that a lot of people, while Biden was president, and the campaign transition between Biden and Kamala took place.
00:22:45.000I felt that the, and certainly my own personal background, like there's been points where I would have called myself a communist were it not for my sort of sense that God is real.
00:22:54.000I've always been inclined towards social democracy, welfare, ensuring that people protect the most vulnerable groups in society.
00:23:05.000That's sort of generally how I saw things.
00:23:07.000And now, as a follower of Christ, I still, obviously, more urgently and more deliberately than ever, feel that we have a great.
00:23:15.000Obligation to take care of one another and exist as one family in him.
00:23:22.000So, though I reckon, you know, this being like the week after the UFC, or, you know, depending on when we stream this, after the UFC fight at the White House, the Iranian war, kind of an election campaign, and two or three election cycles that were marred by kind of discontent and ugliness, and both sides accusing the other of stealing the election.
00:23:48.000The kind of bad blood that's existed between the Democrat Party and the Republican Party generally, the left and the right broadly.
00:23:54.000And in particular, the sort of deep hatred of Donald Trump.
00:23:59.000It seems to me to be a really interesting time to have a conversation with anyone that's sort of like affiliated with the Democratic liberal establishment or institution or however you see it.
00:24:10.000I'm sure you'll tell me in your answer.
00:24:12.000But before you begin, I'll just add this.
00:24:14.000Recently, I watched a documentary called One to One about one of my great heroes and many.
00:24:19.000People's hero, John Lennon, and that brief period of time where he lived in Greenwich, they had some great footage of this concert that he did to raise money for the Brook, Willow Brook Children's Home.
00:24:30.000You know, it's like a sort of underfunded New York State Children's Home.
00:24:33.000And anyway, they added to it a lot of cultural footage, news footage, commercials from your country at that time.
00:24:40.000And you got the sense that the climate around the hippie movement and student activists like Jerry Rubin and Abby Hoffman.
00:24:56.000I was astonished actually to see how the tone, timbre, and conflict mapped almost perfectly onto what I thought was a kind of a unique time in history.
00:25:05.000Like the hatred of Trump, the loathing of the woke folk from the right, and the MAGA crowd from the left seemed to me that it was sort of almost identical.
00:25:17.000And then, and I have my own memories, but your own memories are much easier to rinse away.
00:25:22.000If you're being indoctrinated, at least.0.99
00:25:24.000I remember when George W. Bush was president, how much he was detested and hated, and he was called a cowboy and a dumbass.0.99
00:25:29.000In fact, I called him that at an award show I was hosting.0.88
00:25:32.000So, where are you right now, given this couple of minute long question that I've asked, on your own feelings about institutional politics, both parties, and the senseless cyclical nature, much of which it seems to me relates to the way that mainstream bipartisan politics is funded, which is the area that you're actually qualified to talk about, having raised a billion dollars, I think, for the Kamala campaign, or perhaps that's across several campaigns.
00:26:02.000It seems to me that the biggest problem is that both parties ultimately end up controlled by those interests and the sort of marginal changes that are instituted by every one of those parties aren't worth dying for, but real change would be.
00:26:15.000And I just want to hear what your insights are from you.
00:26:19.000Yeah, well, there's a ton to respond to there, Russell.
00:26:22.000And thank you for having me on your show.
00:26:24.000I'm making my Rumble debut and I'm grateful to be here with your audiences.
00:26:28.000You know, look, I think, and I'll probably just start here, is like our political and our economic system in the United States, if not globally, is just Totally and completely broken, and it works for a very small number of people.
00:26:38.000And there's no better representation of that than what's been going on with the Epstein files in the economy right now.
00:26:44.000There's a very small group of wealthy, well connected individuals who can get away with basically anything.
00:26:48.000They feel like they can abuse women, they can abuse little girls, they can abuse little boys, they can get their tax cuts from the Republican budget, they can go after anything.
00:26:55.000And I think you're right in the sense that there are a lot of people in my party who still serve that same master.
00:27:00.000These people treat partisan politics like it's a game.
00:27:02.000They want you and I to hate each other, they want your audience to hate me.
00:27:07.000In coming on Rumble, I'm going to get folks on my side who are going to be angry with me saying I'm making a wrong decision or I'm talking to the wrong type of person.
00:27:13.000And, you know, I'll probably get into some of that over the course of the show.
00:27:16.000But, you know, I also know that there's going to be a lot of people that are watching this right now that are like, well, you work for Kamala Harris.1.00
00:27:20.000You must be a dumbass and I hate you.1.00
00:27:22.000You can feel however you want about me.
00:27:24.000But I think we're all allowing ourselves to be played right now by this class of people who are profiteering off of the way that we hate each other.
00:27:32.000So every video that you react with, every tweet, every story, everything else, there's somebody else the other end of that who's making money.
00:27:38.000And right now, The biggest people in the country who are making money and profiteering off of that are in the White House right now.
00:27:43.000And as much as people like to talk about the imperfections of the Biden administration, and I'm the first person to tell you, I think there were a lot of things that Biden got right and there were a lot of things that Biden got wrong.
00:27:52.000I think the way they handled his age and health at the end were wrong.
00:27:55.000I think the way they tried to gaslight people into believing that the economy was strong.
00:27:58.000But this administration, in my view, is just totally out of control.
00:28:01.000I think their attacks on the First Amendment are awful.
00:28:03.000Their attacks on the Second Amendment, like I'm a gun owner, I have my concealed carry license.
00:28:06.000I thought the attacks they made on Alex Pretty after he was shot multiple times in the back, unarmed by an ICE agent, were disgusting.
00:28:13.000And defend gun rights owners on that front, which I just thought was gross and unprecedented here in the States.
00:28:19.000The levels of corruption that you're seeing in here, the cover up of the Epstein files, but also Donald Trump increasing his net worth by billions of dollars.
00:28:26.000Like people love to talk about Hunter Biden abusing his last name and selling access and stuff like that.
00:28:31.000But that type of corruption pales in comparison to the Trump administration.
00:28:35.000It's like a hot day in Arizona compared to the surface of the sun.
00:28:38.000So I think people are really frustrated right now.
00:28:40.000And I guess my question back to you is because one thing you and I will probably agree on, again, I'm sure we'll disagree on a lot of stuff, is.
00:28:46.000Institutionally, the systems are broken, the way we communicate are broken, we hate each other.
00:28:49.000But you know, you're someone who in the last couple of years kind of changed your alignment.
00:28:52.000You've gone from somebody who was certainly like more liberal, attacking George W. Bush.
00:28:56.000Like, I've known you, you know, generally, I've seen a couple of your movies, like Forgetting Sarah Marshall and stuff like that.
00:29:00.000But as somebody who's been like part of the Hollywood elite, now you've transitioned.
00:29:03.000I want to get into that at some point, but I want to know, like, what's your reaction to Trump's first year and a half in office?
00:29:08.000Like, what's your reaction to the economy now?
00:29:09.000Because you live here, I think, now, right in Florida.
00:29:12.000Um, and like, you tell me, like, I want to know where you're at on this because I have a hard time believing that anybody.
00:29:17.000Is really enjoying what's happening in Washington right now.
00:29:19.000It just feels like we're spiraling out of control.
00:29:22.000What I feel is that both political parties, or indeed you might even be able to apply this more universally than even across your very distinct and particular nation,
00:29:38.000the parties that represent social democracy and liberalism, I think, have a greater culpability than the overtly conservative traditionalist parties that have always aligned with free market politics and.
00:29:53.000Trade and always been explicit about that.
00:29:54.000And it was an argument that I was kind of aware of when I would, I recognize now incorrectly affiliated with what I would maybe now refer to as kind of cost free champagne socialism or the kind of elitist liberalism that doesn't sort of demand a tax of its participants.
00:30:14.000When I was involved in that, because I find activism interesting and I intuited or understood at least, I believe correctly, that establishment politics can't deliver anything other than.
00:30:29.000The ongoing sustenance of the system itself, and that the system can accommodate easily, effortlessly, and gratefully, what to it is a minor fluctuation between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump.
00:30:46.000That to where real power is designated and lies is as relevant as switching hats or ties or pins.
00:30:57.000And I sometimes feel that that's really all it amounts to.
00:31:01.000The reason that I started to find Trump appealing, like a lot of people I imagine, is because he was in particular, I would say, in the primaries in 2015 and in the 2016 election, diagnosing the problem, at least rhetorically correctly.
00:31:23.000An example would be I, to Hillary Clinton, I exploit the loopholes that your donors use.
00:31:30.000That kind of language sort of blew open establishment doors.
00:31:34.000And for someone like me who would previously have thought of Donald Trump just as a billionaire and a real estate guy and a celebrity, and they're sort of, you know, at that point, I wouldn't even have thought of him as a particularly skilled media operator necessarily.
00:31:49.000I hadn't paid much attention like most people.
00:31:53.000I began to see that what he was was the kind, it was conjured from the kind of collective imagination of your country, that your country had reached such a crisis with that.
00:32:05.000Cadaverous incumbent Joe Biden, that the deception had become so sort of unignorable, so awful.
00:32:13.000And also, when witnessed through the somewhat cosmic lens of Obama's couple of terms and the crash in 2008, and the rise of populism and the failure to bail out ordinary Americans in that financial crash, and the obvious fealty to the financial industry, what became plain is that American politics was kind of a performance.
00:32:36.000That it had become about casting, that Barack Obama is a sort of a beautiful orator and a brilliant person to place on the zoetrope, the screen, the lens of politics.
00:32:46.000But when it comes to delivery, what was delivered?
00:32:49.000And if we become, if we are willing to settle for and become satisfied with the thin gruel of superficial stimulation that can be offered even when apparently addressing something as important as the race issues that have.
00:33:05.000Defined your country from the Civil War onwards, if indeed that's what that was about, rather than mass industrialization and the building of a war machine.
00:33:13.000That if Barack Obama was a kind of meaningless distraction, if Bill Clinton was just sort of a Kennedy reboot, kind of razzmatazz piece of hypocrisy and corruption, if Hillary Clinton was an interesting figure, I think, because she somehow.
00:33:32.000Hey, Russell, before you go further down all the rabbit hole, I just want to kind of get clarity on this last year and a half because I understand what you're saying, which is the system feels rigged.
00:33:49.000But you talked about, I think you used the phrase like artificial stimulation or something like that, or some kind of performance.
00:33:54.000Like that feels like everything that is the MAGA movement today is that the people who are sticking with Trump are doing it and it's a full performance.
00:34:01.000So, like, what's your take just on this last year and a half?
00:34:03.000Let's assume for a minute, you know, you're right about Biden.
00:34:05.000Let's say I don't agree with everything on that.
00:34:07.000But like, what has the last year and a half looked like?
00:34:09.000Because that feels to me like where we're really spiraling out of control and we have the wrong type of person in who said everything that people wanted to hear about the system.
00:34:17.000And then it's literally doing the opposite, right?
00:34:29.000And I just, I want to know where you're at as somebody who's aligned himself with him after being somewhere else in the political spectrum for so long.
00:34:35.000Well, firstly, I probably would begin with rejecting the idea of alignment.
00:34:40.000And I don't expect people to watch my content.
00:34:55.000And I think that's a very valid critique of a lot of people in my party.
00:34:59.000But you realigned yourself, from my view, in this MAGA movement, also with the Christianity and the conversion stuff, which I want to talk about because I'm a practicing Catholic.
00:35:06.000I think we can have an interesting conversation about that.
00:35:09.000But I just really want to know because to me, it's like you do seem more aligned on the MAGA side of things.
00:35:13.000And correct me if I'm wrong, but I mean, I think you spoke very publicly in favor of Donald Trump in 2024.
00:35:32.000And I think that the fetishization and fixation on the livery and hue of the political party is actually, Mike, a significant part of the problem.
00:35:43.000And even the sort of micro analysis of this, what do you think though about this particular 18 months seems like a line of inquiry designed to create a sort of a pocket.
00:35:55.000Of condemnation, which is in alignment with your own.
00:35:58.000I'm not trying to create a pocket condemnation.
00:36:25.000So let's not talk over one another because it would just be tedious and frustrating.
00:36:30.000And I will ask long questions and I will give long answers, but I won't interrupt you because, you know, I've not really got anything to demonstrate or prove because my actual position, I'll tell you candidly and quickly.
00:36:59.000At the advent of the Iran war, I felt, and with the ongoing disclosures around the Epstein files, I think we reached a point of new fatigue as a previously enthusiastic,0.58
00:37:15.000let's say, and zealous political group or tribe began to appreciate and understand that, regardless of who's operating the levers of a very limited machine, not to suggest it's not a powerful and expansive machine, but it's limited in its intentions, it will.
00:37:33.000Ultimately, deliver results that are so similar to what would have happened under Kamala Harris that those of us that spend time quibbling and quarreling about outcomes are participants, in much the manner that you said that if you're participating in hateful rhetoric in the streams, you are part of the problem.
00:37:52.000So, what I believe is that we have to focus on decentralized systems of administration rather than government that focus on participatory democracy at the most local level possible.
00:38:08.000Diminishing and limiting the power of the state, forming alliances between independent communities wherever possible, these communities should be food and energy independent.
00:38:20.000And the kind of cultural conflict that we all spend a lot of time online discussing and poring over, and no one really making any meaningful contributions, if you ask me, whether that's in the mainstream of Jimmy Kimmel or more marginalized spaces like this one.
00:38:37.000To answer your question, Is what is happening with Trump in office kind of what I thought would happen?
00:39:40.000And any conversation that sort of steers me in that direction, the truth is, I feel bored.
00:39:44.000Bored by it because I know that the solution is the dismantling of these institutions and the instantiation of participatory democracy wherever possible initially using the very technology that you would use to set up to take advantage of Airbnb or Uber or vote on a talent show.
00:40:03.000That once you have an established budget in an area, a defined area, that participatory democracy should be deployed immediately.
00:40:10.000So whether or not, I don't think, like I said in 2015, I don't want to argue about the difference between Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump.
00:40:19.000And the difference is not significant enough.
00:40:22.000Now, obviously, things have happened in my own personal life and my own experience of, for example, censorship and challenges within the media and institutional challenges that meant, like, on an emotional level, and I've spoken about this before, that Donald Trump's sort of bullishness and pithiness and sort of wit and even his individualism and occasional megalomania have been at points of intriguing to me.
00:40:46.000But I'd sort of, You know, we're all on the Titanic.
00:40:50.000And I don't have any sort of passion for analysis or critiques of the various incumbents of Westminster or DC because I think that that is just the sustenance of the illusion itself.
00:41:07.000I'm not like, oh, I wish I'd never said this or that.
00:41:10.000I just think it's, and that's what I'd put to you is that if you're in any, like, you know, because I don't know what you're sort of doing now.
00:41:16.000I'm really interested in your personal spiritual changes and your experiences as a person that's raised money for the Democrat Party.
00:41:22.000But, If your general talos as a man is, and this is how I'm going to raise money for this member of the Democrat Party, that you're still in it.
00:41:35.000So there's, again, just a ton to unpack there.
00:41:39.000So you've kind of implied a couple of times that your viewpoint is that there's not a huge difference between electing Kamala Harris president or Donald Trump president.
00:41:48.000You said the same thing about Bernie Sanders.
00:41:49.000And I worked for Bernie in this 2016 campaign.
00:41:52.000I think there's a massive gulf between the two of them.
00:41:55.000And I can understand your POV from a participatory democracy standpoint.
00:41:58.000And I always tell people, like, go get involved in local office.
00:42:03.000I serve on the school council for a little school down the street here.
00:42:06.000My son doesn't go there, my son goes to another school.
00:42:07.000And, like, I'll tell people all the time the most gratifying thing I've done in the last year has not been anything at work where I raised money or, you know, getting a pat on the back from one of my candidates or, you know, getting a YouTube video that goes viral or any of that.
00:42:18.000It has literally been sourcing beanbag chairs for these kids that needed it in a sensory room because that was something I could actually do with my hands to get something done.
00:42:26.000And I wish people would spend more time on that.
00:42:28.000But I will say, I just, to me, I fundamentally reject the idea that there's no difference between the two political parties.
00:42:34.000And I've always really hated that argument.
00:42:36.000And I fought it with every person I've ever met who said that before, because it feels to me like a rejection of reality.
00:42:42.000Because, yes, you're right, in a perfect world, the institutions would not work the way that they do.
00:42:51.000And people ask me all the time, especially when I do shows like this, where I'm talking to somebody who, Don't have the same POV that I do, doesn't have the same perspective on politics.
00:43:02.000I'm probably more of an independent if I'm being honest with you, but I've always chose to be a member of the Democratic Party because I recognize that there's really two viable choices in American government today.
00:43:10.000You have the Republican Party, you have the Democratic Party.
00:43:12.000None of these third parties are ever going to win.
00:43:50.000I'm going to help you buy a house, all that.
00:43:52.000And I'm not going to send you off to die in another forever war.
00:43:54.000And he's broken those promises to them.
00:43:55.000That's why no other group in this country, based on the polling and focus group data, has turned on Donald Trump more.
00:44:00.000Than young men in this country, white, black, brown, everybody in between.
00:44:02.000And it is a huge problem for the Republican Party because they built a good chunk of their base.
00:44:06.000The only reason Trump got elected was because he did so well with young men in the 2024 election.
00:44:11.000By breaking those promises, I think he's put himself in a very difficult position.
00:44:15.000I just, to me though, and I'll add one more thought here and I'll hand the mic back to you, Russell, is just it seems to me, and again, I understand a little bit where you're coming from, but there is like a giant ecosystem of people who are part of this MAGA media machine, is what I've called it before.
00:44:33.000And maybe you don't identify as part of that, but I think to a lot of people on the outside, you are a part of that.
00:44:39.000I don't know the Rumble ecosystem, but I mostly associate it with guys like Nick Fuentes and stuff like that.
00:44:45.000And it seems to me like you are a part of that and you are sort of carrying the water for that.
00:44:49.000Now you're doing it under the guise of I'm questioning authority and I'm questioning the institutions, but you're then leading a lot of people to go to Donald Trump to vote for him.
00:44:57.000You want to tell me that I'm wrong about that?
00:44:58.000I'm open to hearing that I'm wrong about that because, frankly, just like you, I am really bored with the way we talk about politics and I am really bored with the way that we hate each other.
00:45:07.000When my staff brought me this opportunity, when your team reached out to mine, I was skeptical to do it, but I sat down and I thought about it.
00:45:13.000It'll be an interesting conversation, it'll be different than anything I've done before.
00:45:28.000I don't know how familiar you are with Riley, if you've ever met her.0.98
00:45:31.000But in this last week, she's been embroiled in this controversy because she was like her team leaked a video of her doing an ad read where the advertiser had to tell her specifically what her values were.0.88
00:46:15.000I think that actually fakes and phonies is.
00:46:19.000Is a part of the problem because it's, as you've observed, it's an economy with economic incentives.
00:46:28.000Whether that's scale, think of Oprah Winfrey hosting Kamala and like a bunch of traditional Hollywood movie stars, or Joe Rogan having Trump on.
00:46:42.000It's a sort of a political landscape where the incentives can be complex and we're reliant on the authenticity and integrity of the.
00:46:51.000Participants in the media space, but we also would be wise to pay attention to their likely fallibility.
00:46:59.000Now, like, I'm not claiming that I'm a person that doesn't have biases or prejudices and that I haven't been carried by various tides and fluctuations and tumults in my own life.
00:47:11.000There's no question that that kind of thing happens.
00:47:13.000And where they've led me, this was a really instructional moment for me, actually, Mike.
00:47:21.000Just on YouTube years ago, saw Bannon addressing the Oxford Union.
00:47:27.000And it was while Corbyn, who's Jeremy Corbyn, the former leader of the UK Labour Party, sort of a socialist, a supporter of Palestine, and I would say a politician of great integrity, was sort of enjoying some popularity in the UK, which was creating a lot of optimism among young people and young voters.
00:47:48.000And Bannon said, still sort of spattered from the rain and kind of looking.
00:47:53.000Every inch, what you would want from this sort of anachronistic and peculiar political figure, this Machiavel.
00:48:01.000He said, sort of boldly, confidently, knowing that he was addressing a cynical, maybe even antithetical or vituperative, I don't know, like an audience that did not like him.
00:48:18.000And he said to them, You're never going to own houses.
00:48:38.000I watched it with kind of chills and intrigue because I sort of myself, like, the reason I like someone like Jeremy Corbyn is I believe in him.
00:48:45.000And I believe that Jeremy Corbyn is motivated by a sort of righteousness.
00:48:55.000But I believe that he believes what he's saying.
00:48:59.000Now, there's two things here where, like, you know, gosh, accusations of hypocrisy are scarcely going to register with me these days, some of the things that I've been accused of.
00:49:10.000My point is this I've lived in a lot of worlds now, Mike.
00:49:25.000And more than ever, I've recognized my naivety, my fallibility, my flaws, my foolishness.
00:49:33.000All of these things are very vivid and very real to me.
00:49:36.000I don't claim any authority over anything or anybody other than the people I'm responsible for, you know, literally my children, my wife, you know.
00:49:46.000But what I feel like is that when you say something like, you know, like I don't want to say blithe, but like when you say we have what we have, it breaks my heart.
00:49:56.000It breaks my heart because you're accepting the premise, the very premise that prevents us proceeding.
00:50:04.000Because if good men that are willing to participate in the acquisition of beanbags for some school think this is all we got, with all of this.
00:50:14.000Technology, with this ability for instantaneous communication, with the pervasive political despair, with the ongoing genocides and war and corruption, with the great heroes of the military's lives being squandered like loose change, not just in your country, but yours, is the one that matters most.0.88
00:50:35.000It's the pole that, along with China, that's going to determine the trajectory of the globe.
00:50:40.000If if if, you were like, well, this is what we got and this is the way it is.
00:50:43.000I don't think that's what our lord was saying.
00:50:46.000I think our lord's saying, revolution is coming, The first will be last.
00:50:51.000And like the way that my new and still raw love of Christ cannot be collapsed into and therefore, you know, like I've spoken at Turning Point and stuff, mate.
00:51:02.000I mean, I'm like just working it out and looking around.
00:51:05.000And as I said at Turning Point, my love of Jesus Christ cannot be collapsed into and therefore vote Republican.
00:51:13.000In fact, it's much more like what I said in 2015 in my country, which was probably the beginning of me having a pretty difficult relationship with the UK media and maybe those institutions in general.
00:51:25.000And don't let anyone tell you that that is like, oh, the suffragettes died because of corruption, because of bullshit, because of injudicious attitudes, because of lies.0.98
00:51:36.000And believe me, this system, this satanic system, for we fight not against flesh and blood, but against dark forces in the heavenly realm, they're more than adept enough to accommodate for whether or not it's Gavin Newsom rebooted or AOC dressed up.0.98
00:52:00.000These institutions, if you ask me, are Luciferian.
00:52:03.000And I mean that literally false light, self contained circuit, belief in sovereignty outside of his divine appointed authority.
00:52:13.000So I feel that what we're going to do, like what our conversation could be and should be and ought be, and I want it to be, and I'm encouraged by your faith, is an opportunity to say, all right, okay, so, you know, it's not going to happen overnight.
00:52:26.000We're not going to immediately overnight unless.
00:52:28.000There is an armed revolution, demand decentralization, and that every borough, principality, state, down to the smallest manageable unit, is controlled by the people that live there.
00:52:39.000A kind of sets of omishness where people just live how they want to live, and people's sexuality and people's religious and political affiliations become irrelevant unless you're directly affected by them and outside of the obvious mosaic and deuteronomic guidance that we all understand.
00:52:57.000We all know murder's wrong, we all know it's wrong to touch.
00:53:12.000But my point is that we should focus our shared resources, even if our resources are just our ability to talk now, on why we wouldn't fight for meaningful change.
00:53:22.000And the reason we're independent is because anything else is a pretense.
00:53:27.000Well, so I think I would start here is that I think about my faith in the context of works.
00:53:33.000Like, you know, faith without works is nothing.
00:53:35.000And I think that there are a lot of people who profess Christianity.
00:53:39.000And I'm coming into this conversation, I think it's pretty clear at this point, with a healthy dose of skepticism here for anybody that's sort of in my mind, MAGA, Jason, you again will refute that, which is fine.
00:53:48.000You just talked about, you know, speaking of Turning Point USA, you can understand how that would give me a certain amount of trepidation here.
00:53:53.000But, you know, I'm just going to share with you, because I pulled it up here on my laptop, is my favorite religious thing I've ever read, which was Pope Francis's homily.
00:54:04.000In Easter of 2017, because I often tell people, like, this is my politics.
00:54:07.000Like, this is like, forget the partisanship or the Democratic Party, Republican Party, or anything.
00:54:15.000He talks about the two Marys who were going to look at Jesus' tomb on the third day, and they eventually find that he's not there.
00:54:21.000And he talks about how they're grieving.
00:54:23.000And you can see the look in their face of the deep sadness that they feel.
00:54:27.000And here's what he says He goes, If we try to imagine this scene, we see in the faces of these women any number of other faces, the faces of mothers and grandmothers.
00:54:35.000Of children and young people who bear the grievous burden of injustice and brutality.
00:54:39.000In their faces, we see reflected all those who, walking the streets of our cities, feel the pain of dire poverty, the sorrow born of exploitation and human trafficking.
00:54:47.000We can see the faces of those who are greeted with contempt because they are immigrants, deprived of country, house, and family.
00:54:52.000We see faces whose eyes bespoke loneliness and abandonment because their hands are creased with wrinkles.
00:54:57.000Their faces mirror the faces of women, mothers who weep as they see the lives of their children crushed by massive corruption that strips them of their rights and shatters their dreams.
00:55:05.000By daily acts of selfishness that crucify and then bury people's hopes.
00:55:08.000By paralyzing and barren bureaucracies that stand in the way of change.
00:55:12.000In their grief, these two women reflect the faces of all those who, walking the streets of our city, behold human dignity crucified.
00:55:21.000I think about that line every single day because really what that's about is hopelessness.
00:55:25.000It's the way that the system makes you feel.
00:55:28.000And what's upsetting to me in this moment in time is like, I agree with you.
00:55:32.000In a perfect world, we would tear everything down.
00:55:33.000But barring an armed revolution, which I think would be even more dangerous than the situation we find ourselves in in this country, we have to use the system to fix the system.
00:55:41.000And so we need people to engage in that and recognize that.
00:55:43.000That's why I choose to be a member of the Democratic Party, even though they make me want to pull my hair out a lot of the time.
00:55:48.000Democratic Party drives me absolutely crazy.
00:55:50.000But again, my belief is when we lose elections, people die because that's how far off I think the Republican Party is.
00:55:56.000I mean, look at the situation right now under this administration.
00:55:58.000They are targeting and terrorizing immigrant communities.
00:56:01.000You have people who are dying on our streets, who are being disappeared, who are ending up in basically internment camps.
00:56:30.000Hell, he literally sold out a bunch of elderly people in this country.
00:56:34.000He took basically a bribe for his PAC, MAGA Inc.
00:56:36.000Donald Trump took a bribe to have them overturn a Biden era rule that required a certain number of staff to work at nursing homes all across the country to make sure they had the care that they needed.
00:56:44.000They donated like $500,000 or something like that, and he overturned that rule for them.
00:56:48.000The corruption in this administration, and listen, Washington's always been corrupt, guys.
00:56:52.000I'm not going to sit here and tell you the Democratic Party doesn't have tons of corruption.
00:56:54.000Okay, go look at Nancy Pelosi's stock portfolio.
00:56:56.000I'm not going to pretend that it's not an issue in my party.
00:57:01.000And again, to come back to sort of the way that at least I've been trying to frame this, is like, I am a skeptic of yours, Russell.
00:57:07.000Again, I appreciate you having me on the show.
00:57:09.000But like your conversion to Christianity, your conversion to sort of this MAGA adjacent questioning institution stuff feels a little convenient to me at times.
00:57:40.000I'm not going to pretend like I do, but it feels to me performative.
00:57:44.000And you see that all throughout this MAGA ecosystem where there's all of this death, destruction, corruption, thievery, chaos that's just tearing this country down, not in an effort to solve anything that's going to actually improve people's lives.
00:57:56.000And you see that like Nicki Minaj is another one, right?
00:57:58.000Like the MAGA movement and Donald Trump were so happy to trot out Nicki Minaj and be like, look at this cool, famous person that we have.
00:58:04.000We're pulling her out to these events.
00:58:06.000TPUSA has her at a thing, blah, blah, blah.
00:58:24.000It doesn't feel like a lot of people in this space have deeply held beliefs.
00:58:26.000They're going to do whatever they're paid to do.
00:58:28.000I worry that people are paid or they're doing it to take advantage of others.
00:58:31.000That's what scares the hell out of me in this moment is that because our institutions and the systems are so broken, people are looking to alternative voices to make sense of the world.
00:58:38.000And then they're turning to people who are going to act as contrarians and go, the system's broken.
00:58:44.000And, like, to a certain degree, they're right.
00:58:46.000But then they lead them down a path that is really not about their salvation, that is really not about improving this country.
00:58:51.000It's about getting them angry and riled up so they don't notice the real problem, which, again, is not even really partisan.
00:58:57.000It's that there's a small group of people who are profiteering off of our hatred of one another, either because they're stealing from the federal government or they're making money through social media platforms or some other form of corruption that's out there.
01:00:30.000And I, in a sense, in a way, Mike, I'm at a point where sort of abstract pontification and kind of grandstanding and listing stuff, and also what appears to me to be a sort of an inclination towards.
01:00:58.000The kind of like I've come to know this audience somewhat well since participating in it, and I've come to know these people quite well.
01:01:07.000I feel that what they've experienced talk about the say, like, you know, I live in the panhandle, and I think that what like what southern men and working class men and men that feel connected to the land and to their firearms and to their fishing have it seems to me have experienced is that they've been kind of loosely.
01:01:28.000Characterized as rednecks and hicks and baskets of deplorables by intellectuals and participants in systems that require the ongoing sluicing of revenue to the tune of billions to prop up whether it's a slick operator in the Democratic Party or a more tumbling and fumbling iteration,0.57
01:01:58.000as with the last couple of candidates that the Democrats put out.0.53
01:02:03.000And I feel like that the skepticism and cynicism, if it's applied to individuals, and you've certainly applied it to me, then you should look to your own Christianity and to the teachings of Christ, the teachings of St. Paul.
01:02:20.000He has a lot to say about hypocrisy, he has a lot to say about followers of Christ.
01:02:26.000And that even if people are casting out demons in his name and they're insincere, Still, the work's getting done.
01:02:35.000Now, with both these institutions that we're sort of circling in a way, the church, whether that's the Roman Catholic Church or the various iterations of Protestantism that you'll encounter in the United States or the Church of England in my own country, all these political institutions, what we sort of have is, I would say, a kind of misdirected faith that favors the submission of the individual not to God.
01:03:04.000But to these systems, these human systems, whether their declarations are explicitly religious or explicitly political, that the individual is an interface with the divine, that we are present with him literally now, that it's not something that you can sort of refer to a statistic about or make some binary comparison between, well, it would have been better or it would have been worse, or like, you know,
01:03:31.000it's puffed up hypotheses about what would have happened if it was Kamala and people die when the Democrats don't get.
01:03:40.000You see, like what's happened to me, mate, in this radical and it is so, in a sense, is a radical transformation because the acceptance of the man Christ and the God Christ is radical precisely because of the way that it orients you when it comes to self, that yourself is relevant only in so much as you are an expressor of his will and the recipient of his grace.
01:04:05.000Other than that, we're all just a little.
01:04:09.000Line of chorus dancers marching briefly through eternity, like the infatuation with self, whether it's sort of celebrities that are pro Democrat and Lord alone knows there's enough of them, or celebrities that are pro Trump and there's less of them.
01:04:23.000And watching all these little cultures emerge is fascinating.
01:04:26.000How do they do celebrity with the limitations they experience at Mar-a-Lago, or how do they do celebrity with their access to the Hollywood machine?
01:04:34.000But all of this, mate, I'd say it's like what the tragedy for me is what's Accessible to you and I in scripture is a profound truth of a revolution that's kind of already taken place that requires, as he says so many times, only faith, only a mustard seed of faith, only a mustard seed of faith is all that's required of us to be participants in his kingdom.
01:05:00.000What does that mean and what does that not mean?
01:05:02.000Well, the fact that he uses continually allegory and parable means that it's something that's difficult for us to get our heads around, but it seems to me a couple of years in and many, many LSD trips and many, many.
01:05:14.000Ashram sojourns that led to the Lord prior to Him, prior to the collapse into the simplicity of the cross, the visceral and involuntary cross.
01:05:23.000I'd been encountering the supernatural for a long, long time in a variety of ways.
01:05:29.000What's different about Christ is the fact that it can be so simple if what you require of it is that it's simple, that it can be so profound if that's what you require of it.
01:05:39.000And, you know, mate, you're, you know, my assumption is that you're coming on here because you'll think, like, oh, at least people.
01:05:48.000Like you can, like, righteously claim I'm reaching an audience that I wouldn't otherwise reach.
01:05:53.000And maybe to grant you a glimpse at my own skepticism, it seems when I see you refer to notes that you're looking at your own clips and you're looking at your own.
01:06:04.000I've taken notes about the things that you say, Russell.
01:06:55.000You've got some stuff you like saying, some stuff you like doing, some tricks that have worked for you up to now, a few pounds lost, a few dollars gained.
01:07:04.000And if we're not participating in the kingdom, my friend, we're participating in the empire.
01:07:09.000If, like, the sum total of this for you is a few Instagram followers and a few dollars more for Kamala Harris, I'd say that we've both significantly been robbed and shortchanged.
01:07:21.000So, How do I feel about your skepticism?
01:07:36.000If part of that process is I listen to you for a minute before I go to my next interview, I do that.
01:07:43.000If part of it is I attend a trial because of, you know, stuff that I'm, you know, if I may sort of politely direct you in the right direction.
01:07:54.000Towards the right territory is something I can't really talk about because I've been instructed that there would be consequences.
01:07:59.000So, you know, but like, you know, you're a father, I'm a father, you're a Christian, I'm a Christian.
01:08:07.000You believe the Democrat Party and the Republican Party aren't fit for purpose.
01:08:12.000So, what my intention is, is to speak to people in good faith with an open heart, recognizing that, yeah, you're a broken person.
01:08:24.000I don't know what you do at 3 a.m. to get your kicks and to get you through the day and through the night.
01:09:06.000Sometimes when I'm not in self will, I'm with him.
01:09:09.000And when I'm with him, his grace will be expressed.
01:09:12.000And his ingenuity will go way beyond what can be prescribed bureaucratically or autocratically by any of the denizens and incumbents of DC or Westminster, what they can dream up.
01:09:24.000And whilst the version of it that you describe is a little more inoculated, it's still very ugly.
01:09:34.000And this is what I feel about despotism and centralized imperialism in this coming age.
01:09:40.000Is it will not be under the jack boot but under the gentle caress of the caring that new imperialism will owe as much to Aldous Huxley's soma as it will to Orwell's boot stomping on the face?
01:09:55.000And as a Christian, I'll remind you that that face that's being stamped on is the signature of our Lord, and I'd yours and mine equally, no different to him, no different to him.
01:10:14.000With respect, with compassion, with consideration, with an open heart, completely interested, in good faith, with the assumption that if you like, you know, when the Titanic starts to go down, we are fathers who are going to want to protect our children and protect our families and hopefully have enough grace to see that your children and my children are ultimately our children.
01:10:35.000You know, like, mate, I'm not dumb, huh?
01:10:36.000So when I'm reading this stuff for the first time, making my way through the Bible, I'm noticing no marriage in heaven, no man and woman in heaven.
01:10:45.000It crushes me that it's so close, that we are somehow uniquely signed by him, uniquely purposed for him.
01:10:50.000But when we make our identity our gods, we collapse and fall.
01:10:54.000That the compassion of the left, if tethered to the tradition, fortitude of the right, if we can learn to find some like respect and good grace for one another, and that I think will be, we'll know that by its fruits, my brother, because it won't sound like, I got a healthy skepticism.
01:11:17.000I've earned a lot of money in my life for performing, a lot of money.
01:11:21.000And what I know now is the authenticity is the only currency we have.
01:11:26.000So if you talk to people and they're very honest about their brokenness, their flaws, their addiction, the mistakes they've made, they're probably telling the truth.
01:11:33.000They're not going to be perfect in the same way you're not perfect.
01:11:36.000But when anybody sort of seems sort of slick or polished, for me, even prepared slightly appalls me because of his spontaneity.
01:11:44.000I may not yet have the maturity I need.
01:11:47.000But I have the spontaneity that he's modeled for me.
01:11:50.000And I'm telling you, mate, I ain't joking when I say that any of us that are willing to sort of garnish and garner the good intent, assume the good intentions of the side we're affiliated with and condemn as malfeasance the failings of our opponents, we are not loving our enemy.
01:12:44.000You know, you brought up St. Paul earlier and it dredged up a lot of stuff for me about, you know, like, like I always gravitated towards, you know, Jesuits.
01:12:51.000Teachings and Augustinian teachings, which is very exciting for me in this day and age because we got Pope Francis followed by Pope Leo, which is awesome for me in this moment where I get to hear that.
01:12:59.000Now I get to hear it in my own tongue with Pope Leo from Chicago with a Chicago accent.
01:13:35.000I basically spent 20 years trying to kill myself with food, had to lose 300 pounds.
01:13:39.000And I wish I talked about this earlier because you're right.
01:13:41.000The world is a more interesting place when people talk about their demons.
01:13:44.000Like that's why I wish I'd established that a little bit earlier.
01:13:46.000But like I was able to get out of that for a lot of reasons the support of my wife, my son giving me courage and purpose, my career giving me courage and purpose, my community too, moving here to Chicago.
01:13:55.000But also because I returned back to the Catholic Church.
01:13:57.000And it was meaningful to me, particularly when Pope Leo ascended, because that was so meaningful to me to see somebody who speaks and talks like me and has been to a ball game at Guaranteed Rate Park for the White Sox.
01:14:18.000And maybe I'll go back and reflect on my cynicism.
01:14:20.000And obviously, the processes and the things that you're engaged in are going to go play out on their own.
01:14:25.000And ultimately, You know, we're all going to be facing the same music with, you know, at the pearly gates at some point.
01:14:30.000And that's going to be the real ultimate arbitrator of it, no matter what happens in the legal process or the court of public appeals or anything like that.
01:14:36.000But I'll leave you with one final thought because something I spent a lot of time thinking about it, because you brought up imperialism and executive power quite a bit.
01:14:44.000And I think here in the United States, the face of imperialism and the face of executive power and the face of this like creeping fascism that I think is approaching in America today, that I think is frankly in control of large parts of our federal government right now and is only seeking to gain more control.0.84
01:14:59.000Is trying to project itself as a Christian nationalist version of the future of this country that is going to twist and abuse the faith.0.78
01:15:06.000And I do think that Donald Trump himself is a false prophet who erects tall, golden monuments to himself, who puts people in positions of power like Pete Hegseth, who used the Bible.
01:15:15.000And by the way, can't even get the Bible quotes right, accidentally quotes Paul Fiction.
01:15:18.000And you can, you sort of implied a couple of times that I'm coming in here with like prepared talking points.
01:15:22.000I didn't know what the topics were other than I think at one point I was told we were talking about media literacy, stuff like that.
01:15:27.000But like it, to me, I worry that there's a manipulation of a faith that I hold dear.
01:15:33.000And that if you speak out about that in this country, you get attacked.
01:15:36.000And that's why, like, Donald Trump went after Pope Leo so hard because Pope Leo shows a different version of Christianity to people in this country.
01:15:43.000And I would note the fastest growing religion in the United States today is Catholicism.
01:15:46.000I'm grateful for that because I think it is, and while it is also an imperfect institution, it's let a lot of people down.
01:15:50.000It is one of the few, you know, last great opportunities for people to see how Christianity can be used and Catholicism can be used in practice because the Catholic Church cares a great deal about helping improve people's lives.
01:16:01.000And that's where I'll end it, Russell.
01:16:02.000And I appreciate you giving me the time on your show.
01:16:05.000What is he's a very significant figure, Trump?
01:16:13.000But in my country, in the UK, we do have a social democratic.
01:16:19.000Leader and majority party, the Labour Party, the Labour Party that has decoupled itself from its trade union roots.
01:16:28.000And it said of my country that British socialism owes as much to Methodism as to Marx, meaning that it never suffered from that aspect of communism and socialism that posited the state as the new supreme authority, which again, I feel is a counterfeit move.
01:16:50.000It's the move of installing and instilling a false authority.
01:16:55.000Now, I'm aware of Romans 13 and I'm aware of Peter's writing when it comes to government and submission.
01:17:01.000But there is contingency in Romans 13 for our yielding to state and governmental authority, is when we consider ourselves to be in that margin where the government and leaders are at odds with our teachings as followers of Christ.
01:17:18.000I think we live in that margin right now, or I think that's where we live.
01:17:22.000I have a different take on the rise of Christian rhetoric in political spaces, and I see it as wholly positive.
01:17:29.000Sectarianism aside, and that's, gosh, of course, an enormous topic and one that requires vigorous investigation before proceeding.
01:17:38.000But I feel this is what excites me, Mike.
01:17:43.000If people are, as they are, claiming that we live in a democracy or a sort of a democratic republic in the case of your country, and if people are claiming.
01:17:53.000To be followers of Christ, that they accept Jesus Christ as the Son of God and that He died for my sins and that He rose again.
01:18:03.000If people are saying that's what they are, then we can have some pretty progressive conversations, and I mean that, I don't mean that in a colloquial way, I mean in the literal way.
01:18:12.000We can have some pretty progressive conversations because if one leader is saying they follow Christ or another political figure is saying they follow Christ and you're saying you do and I do, we have, you know, of course, there have been disputes throughout history between various people.
01:18:51.000If you've had a personality or have a personality that's been in ways rewarding according to the fruits of this culture.
01:18:58.000The fallen simulacrum, the false fruits, the golden calf offerings of this fallen culture.
01:19:05.000If you've succeeded in that world, or been rewarded at least, succeeded isn't the right word, but if you've been falsely gloried, there's a thing that you've got to let go of.
01:19:15.000And I don't know too many people that have undergone that experience, but I'm sure that, you know, there are.
01:19:19.000I'm not claiming it's a unique experience by any means, but I'm deeply encouraged.
01:19:24.000Christian nationalism, yeah, that's an interesting idea because there is only one nation under him, there is only one king to.0.72
01:19:32.000Portion off America or any other man made idol, any other false flag, any other construct, we're once again in the territory of the fallen one.0.97
01:20:00.000I mean, but do you see the tension in the argument that you just made, at least as far as I see it, which is like, you know, Christian nationalism is an interesting idea, but you want decentralization of power.
01:20:10.000Like, Christian nationalism exists to create a centralized authority under one vision of Christianity when there are massively different versions of it.
01:20:17.000And I'll be honest with you, A Catholic, a lifelong Catholic like me, is not going to be welcome in the tent of Christian nationalism unless I accept the views of Christ the way that a certain type of person in this country sees it.
01:20:28.000Well, I mean, I wouldn't be welcome in the Catholic Church unless I was willing to accept the version of Christ that they embrace.
01:20:34.000The Catholic Church doesn't run my government.
01:20:40.000When I say Christian nationalism, I say you cannot have Christian nationalism as well as the United States of America or as well as the United Kingdom because the nation is.0.96
01:20:50.000Is the nation of the Christian family now?
01:20:53.000NT Wright, when he talks about this, says that it wouldn't be an explicit demand.
01:21:01.000I mean, he doesn't, our Lord, with the woman at the well.
01:21:24.000Could have been redeemed if he hadn't returned to the Pharisaic class, that false authority that gave him that money and tried to return it according to their moral law, but had returned to our King and our Savior.
01:21:36.000He is real and he understands all of this and he's more than capable of dealing with the malappropriations of Kamala Harris and the belligerence of Donald Trump and the patriotism of the MAGA movement and the well intentioned compassion of the woke left.
01:21:52.000He is here, he is real, this is happening.
01:21:55.000As you said, the Catholic Church is growing and God be praised.
01:21:59.000The more people that follow him, the more people that love him, the more people that are willing to diminish themselves and be completely transparent and authentic, the better it is.
01:22:16.000You know, like fortunately, and particularly if we're able to investigate and explore the versions of reality that I believe is his will and our duty for the whole of creation is groaning for these children to be born.
01:22:29.000We're not here just to sort of fold our arms and go, well, Looks like the government's got it under control.0.99
01:22:33.000Hopefully, we can have a brown one or a hermaphrodite or a dolphin in one of these countries leading us one day or another, and that might tick a box.1.00
01:24:33.000People are dying because they treat politics like it's a game, because they treat it like it's baseball cards, because a guy like Donald Trump can manipulate the system like that.
01:24:40.000And again, Kamala Harris, not perfect, all right?
01:27:51.000We will be back on Monday, not with more of the same, but with more of the different.
01:27:55.000Let me know if you enjoyed seeing me have a guest where there was a little bit of tension and conflict, and we'll do more stuff like that if you enjoy it.
01:28:02.000And more importantly than any of that, if you can, please stay free.