Stay Free - Russel Brand - WAIT…Why Aren’t They Talking About THIS?! | Trump’s Third Arraignment - Stay Free #185

00:00:00.000 In this video, you're going to see the future.

00:00:29.000 Oh In this video, you're going to see the future.

00:00:39.000 Hello there, you awakening wonders.

00:00:40.000 Welcome to the limitless glory that you participate in through the miracle of your own consciousness, through which you can control your anatomy and indeed your life.

00:00:49.000 If liberty should ever return to a planet, there's increasingly interested in centralizing authority, surveilling us, controlling and censoring us.

00:00:57.000 Not here, though.

00:00:58.000 Well, for the first 15 minutes, we are on YouTube, so there will be a degree of censorship.

00:01:03.000 But after that, we're going to be on Rumble.

00:01:05.000 And of course, today we're talking about Trump's Third arraignment and we're talking about what this means for free speech, what this means for democracy.

00:01:12.000 In our item here's the news, no here's the effing news, we'll talk a little bit about Tucker's interview with Hunter Biden's former business partner and whether or not there are significant revelations in there that ultimately amount to the criminality of the Biden family.

00:01:28.000 Once we get to being exclusively on Rumble, our home, where we revel in free speech, where we bathe in the ambrosia of free speech, where we sup upon the sweet teat of free speech, we'll be talking to Glenn Greenwald, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, pioneer, investigator, friend and Co-conspirator over on Rumble.

00:01:50.000 But first, let's talk about your free speech, my free speech, everyone's free speech.

00:01:55.000 And if you want to enjoy a little bit of free speech right now, press that red button on your screen.

00:01:58.000 You can join our locals community where free speech is our watchword.

00:02:02.000 They're speaking in there so freely even now.

00:02:04.000 People are talking about the federal government.

00:02:06.000 Close-up pictures of dear Dianne Feinstein.

00:02:08.000 That's from USA Now.

00:02:10.000 People want to hear an interview, huh?

00:02:12.000 They want to hear an interview.

00:02:13.000 That's Deb Hart.

00:02:14.000 You want to hear an interview with Glenn Greenwald?

00:02:15.000 Yeah, but you're gonna hear one.

00:02:16.000 Ash Eller is there chatting to us.

00:02:18.000 Some people saying that they want to hear free speech.

00:02:21.000 Yeah, you'll be getting free speech.

00:02:23.000 That we can guarantee you.

00:02:24.000 Should we have a little... Well, let's have a look at this headline.

00:02:27.000 Biden's Department of Justice has just asked the court to limit what Trump can say, which is absurd, isn't it?

00:02:32.000 Because it's a free speech case and they want to not let him speak freely?

00:02:35.000 Is that...

00:02:36.000 A bit crazy, my on-screen assistant, associate, co-writer, partner, friend, Gareth Roy?

00:02:42.000 Yeah, it seems a little ironic, you could say.

00:02:44.000 Is that literal irony?

00:02:45.000 Ah, who knows?

00:02:46.000 Who knows anymore?

00:02:47.000 I mean, the fact that, you know, this is all about whether Donald Trump made knowingly false claims, whether he had the right to make those claims, if he honestly believed that the election results were wrong, and that that's what this whole thing is hanging on to.

00:03:02.000 It's extraordinary because it's a high court case where a former president is potentially being indicted that hinges upon epistemology and ontology.

00:03:11.000 What does he know?

00:03:13.000 What is happening in the private hermeneutics of Donald Trump's mind?

00:03:18.000 You knew that that election was fair and yet you're saying it's not.

00:03:22.000 That's led people to say that they must have some evidence as yet not revealed.

00:03:27.000 Do you think they've got evidence they've not revealed yet?

00:03:29.000 Let us know in the chat.

00:03:30.000 My favourite bit is when your man there, Smith, what's he called?

00:03:35.000 Jack Smith.

00:03:36.000 Jack Smith said that he was sowing doubt.

00:03:39.000 Where is that bit actually?

00:03:41.000 Yeah, so Smith's is just a little bit down that paragraph.

00:03:44.000 You'll just hear...

00:03:46.000 Smith's indictment cites Trump's speech on January 6th as a feature of his effort to sow doubt about the election and allegedly organise a conspiracy to overturn it.

00:03:54.000 Sow doubt?

00:03:56.000 Sowing doubt?

00:03:57.000 That's such an odd, almost phony Don't you dare!

00:04:03.000 Don't you ever so doubt in me!

00:04:06.000 Because that sort of suggests you can control the consciousness of other people,

00:04:10.000 that you're responsible for what other people think.

00:04:13.000 It's becoming a bit diffuse, a bit tangential, and a bit abstract.

00:04:17.000 One person who is never tangential, abstract, or in any way anything less than robust in his discourse

00:04:25.000 is Donald Trump. Let's have a look at him addressing these charges now.

00:04:29.000 Those indictments aren't worth the paper they're written on.

00:04:37.000 Former President Donald Trump keeps fighting back after being charged with conspiring to overturn the 2020 election.

00:04:43.000 This weekend, he ramped up his attacks, railing against the man who was leading the grand jury investigation, Special Counsel Jack Smith.

00:04:51.000 Deranged Jack Smith. 0.99

00:04:53.000 He's a deranged human being. 1.00

00:04:55.000 And on social media, Trump deranged. 0.99

00:04:57.000 That's good, isn't it? 0.99

00:04:59.000 He's a berserk. 0.99

00:04:59.000 That's what he is. 0.99

00:05:01.000 He's crazy. 1.00

00:05:02.000 He's a lunatic. 1.00

00:05:04.000 Posted, if you go after me, I'm coming after you, which prompted prosecutors to ask the judge to limit Trump's outbursts. 0.99

00:05:12.000 That means prohibit his free speech.

00:05:14.000 The problem is, I suppose, is that with the ongoing conversation, which we'll be covering later in the show, around the Biden family's business dealings and the degree to which Joe Biden knew about and was involved with Hunter Biden's business interests, in particular with Burisma in Ukraine, If corruption becomes part of the system, not a bug but a feature, how can a charge of corruption in any way harm Trump?

00:05:40.000 You'll be aware that since these allegations have amped up, since these prosecutions have increased in intensity, so has Donald Trump's Popularity is extraordinary to find ourselves in a time where our trust in the establishment is so low, our loathing of conventional politics so charged, so heady and high, that if an anti-establishment figure is significantly attacked, we like them more.

00:06:07.000 Not less.

00:06:08.000 This leads us to an important question, and I'd love you guys to answer it.

00:06:11.000 Do you think that the Democrat establishment are strategically attacking Trump, knowing this will increase his popularity, because they would prefer Biden to face Trump in 2024 than any other candidate?

00:06:26.000 Or do you think they're making a mistake?

00:06:28.000 Let us know now.

00:06:29.000 We had a poll a little bit earlier.

00:06:31.000 Let's have a look at the results of that poll and remind me of the question, would you guys?

00:06:36.000 Do you think the Democrats' pursuit of Trump is strategic because they want to face him?

00:06:40.000 A distraction from Biden family corruption.

00:06:43.000 You have resoundedly answered that at least 91% of you think that this is a distraction.

00:06:49.000 What about those of you on Locals right now?

00:06:51.000 Do you agree that it's a Distraction.

00:06:53.000 Certainly Tulsi Gabbard says that the Trump indictment is a political kit job.

00:06:58.000 Let's have a look at Tulsi Gabbard saying that now.

00:07:03.000 This is yet another example of how far President Joe Biden's politicized Department of Justice is willing to go to try to destroy his main political opponent I suppose that's what Trump himself and Trump supporters would say.

00:07:18.000 Is this what you guys would say?

00:07:20.000 of what the Biden administration is doing is really the thing that should be most concerning

00:07:24.000 to everyone.

00:07:25.000 I suppose that's what Trump himself and Trump supporters would say.

00:07:29.000 Is this what you guys would say?

00:07:31.000 If this was happening in Venezuela or Colombia, we'd say, hang on a minute, this is an attempt

00:07:36.000 to take out a political opponent, in fact, the most potent political opponent.

00:07:42.000 How do they address that?

00:07:43.000 They say that he's just a corrupt guy.

00:07:45.000 These are legit indictments.

00:07:46.000 He did incite an insurrection on January the 6th.

00:07:49.000 I guess the events of January 6th, I mean, hence why the media use that imagery so often, that, you know, the violence, whatever you want to want to call it, plays into, I mean, they use it all the time in that respect.

00:08:00.000 But obviously we know, you know, we know the reaction of Hillary Clinton to Trump winning and the whole Russiagate thing.

00:08:05.000 So this is something that there's precedent for.

00:08:08.000 We know that Democrats have denied election results, and if Stacey Abrams did it in Georgia.

00:08:12.000 This is not something, it's not you're not at this point taking something that has never happened before.

00:08:17.000 With politicians essentially maybe lying even.

00:08:21.000 It's kind of standard, isn't it, for politicians to deny the outcome of an election.

00:08:26.000 It happened in 2016 throughout, as you say, the whole Russiagate thing.

00:08:26.000 Standard.

00:08:29.000 And a further complication is most people's belief now, or at least a significant number of you believe, and hasn't it been proven that there were FBI operatives in the crowd on

00:08:39.000 January the 6th and it's possible that their actions contributed significantly to the escalation of

00:08:45.000 events. So it's by no means as plain as they claim and the degree of piety with which they attest to

00:08:53.000 this corruption is delegitimized by significant suspicion around Joe Biden's involvement with

00:09:00.000 Hunter Biden, keeping the Hunter Biden laptop story out of the press, the Russiagate stuff

00:09:04.000 and how that was handled, the fact that there are deep state operatives working on January the 6th,

00:09:09.000 the whole thing is very difficult to hold And one of the things we talk about continually when discussing the war, in particular say the Dianne Feinstein vote, her saying aye when plainly, visibly and televisually being coached to say aye, is not only is that sort of ridiculous and sad and to see yet another elderly, gosh forgive the word, cadaverous political figure being coaxed, coached and cajoled into obeying what?

00:09:34.000 A pair of cheeks? 0.64

00:09:35.000 Who is it that's guiding these votes?

00:09:35.000 Elites?

00:09:37.000 Because it certainly isn't you, the electorate.

00:09:40.000 More important even than that is the fact that what she was voting for is yet more military expenditure.

00:09:47.000 Record military expenditure.

00:09:49.000 What we're being invited to accept is no scrutiny, appraisal or auditing of these military budgets.

00:09:55.000 What I reckon, guys, and what we discuss all the time here at Stay Free, is the significant fact that we're not participating in the discourse around our politics.

00:10:02.000 We're not participating in elections.

00:10:04.000 What's happening is our attention's being funneled into single issues.

00:10:08.000 Was Trump corrupt?

00:10:09.000 Is Trump corrupt? 0.80

00:10:10.000 Is this a Trump versus Biden thing?

00:10:12.000 And all the while we're caught up in this sort of cacophony of odd racket around these issues.

00:10:19.000 We're unable to gain sufficient perspective and view the fugue of corruption that pervades All of these institutions.

00:10:26.000 We can't get a moment to ask the significant questions, although we will be asking Glenn Greenwald some of those significant questions when he joins us on Rumble in just a few minutes.

00:10:34.000 If you're watching us on YouTube, there's a link in the description.

00:10:36.000 We're only going to be on YouTube for a few more minutes.

00:10:37.000 But I think, you know, as Tossi Gabbard says there about, you know, how this is being used, I think it's showing in the polls how this is being viewed.

00:10:45.000 People are I think growing tired of what's happening with Donald Trump.

00:10:52.000 And again, as we've just stated about Stacey Abrams or Russiagate or whatever it is, even with Trump and the last charge when it came to keeping those documents and war with Iran and things, people are starting to see there's another side to this story and that things are being used in ways that could definitely be called politicising them.

00:11:11.000 We see again and again in the conversation over here in locals, people saying, I didn't used to like Donald Trump.

00:11:17.000 I was cynical about Donald Trump, but the way he's being treated here is revealing.

00:11:22.000 Again, with the boxes of censored governmental material, It seems like a lot of political figures do comparable things and more significant than that was the fact that they pertain to a plan to attack Iran.

00:11:33.000 I've already forgotten that because I'm caught up in this latest arraignment.

00:11:37.000 Oh, did he know?

00:11:38.000 Was he deliberately sowing doubt?

00:11:40.000 Such bizarre, almost metaphysical questions.

00:11:43.000 You did know that that election was legitimate.

00:11:46.000 I know a lot of you guys still have questions around the legitimacy of that election.

00:11:52.000 Certainly not a claim that I'm able to make on YouTube.

00:11:55.000 No, you wouldn't.

00:11:55.000 But as we've said, the Democrats have done the same thing.

00:11:58.000 They've questioned elections themselves.

00:12:00.000 This isn't happening in a kind of vacuum.

00:12:02.000 This is happening as part of a corrupt political system as we know it.

00:12:06.000 This, I think, is one of the biggest points that we've found ourselves discussing and iterating again and again on our show, Stay Free.

00:12:13.000 There is no one that has the moral authority anymore to say, we'll handle this.

00:12:18.000 We'll determine whether or not Donald Trump is corrupt.

00:12:22.000 We'll determine whether or not you should be able to talk about the Hunter Biden laptop.

00:12:27.000 We'll offer you a mea culpa for the events of the last three years, the censorship, the shutting down of legitimate experts.

00:12:33.000 I think all of us are suffering from a kind of fatigue now, of recognising that our media

00:12:37.000 institutions and our governmental institutions and our corporate institutions are being dishonest,

00:12:41.000 that we don't have enough power in our own lives.

00:12:44.000 And that exhaustion, blessedly, is somehow metabolising into the kind of outrage that

00:12:49.000 hopefully we can use for a new independent media movement and new independent political

00:12:53.000 movements because I think we need them.

00:12:56.000 And figures like Tulsi there crossing the aisle, or Cornel West standing and making

00:13:01.000 some moves and making some racket, and friend of the show, Robert F. Kennedy, making a significant

00:13:07.000 impact in independent media, if not within the Democrat Party, which all of us know is

00:13:11.000 going to shut him down.

00:13:12.000 If they shut down Bernie, they're sure as hell going to shut down RFK.

00:13:15.000 At least it shows now that there are new emergent possibilities for communication.

00:13:19.000 And indeed, that's why we believe these censorship laws are being pushed for.

00:13:23.000 That's why protests are being shut down all over the world, even in places like Florida.

00:13:27.000 Ron DeSantis came on our show and it seems to me that a lot of you that are sort of right-leaning and interested in the Republican Party do not see DeSantis as a legitimate alternative for a very interesting reason.

00:13:38.000 We were discussing this earlier, let's have a look at the headline, because people don't see him as humorous Or human.

00:13:44.000 Trump's soaring away, as we all know.

00:13:44.000 There he is.

00:13:46.000 But let's have a look at the reason for that.

00:13:47.000 Many people think that Ron DeSantis lacks humour and is not an interesting political figure.

00:13:53.000 Let's look at that story right now.

00:13:57.000 Yeah.

00:13:58.000 Can we... Have we got the text on that somewhere?

00:14:00.000 So I can...

00:14:01.000 See it, guys.

00:14:02.000 Where is that?

00:14:03.000 Gareth, do you have that on you?

00:14:04.000 Yeah, I do have it.

00:14:05.000 So it's on your second page.

00:14:07.000 I can find it for you.

00:14:08.000 Yeah, you find that for me because I think it's interesting.

00:14:10.000 One of the things that we sort of talk about with Donald Trump is the fact that, in a sense, his appeal and his impact is predicated on his persona and his charisma.

00:14:20.000 Whenever you see him talk, it's what's most striking of all, is the fact that he doesn't sound like other politicians.

00:14:26.000 Now, when Ron DeSantis came on our show, I don't know about you, Gareth, but I was sort of struck by how statesmanly he was.

00:14:33.000 He did seem like an authoritative figure.

00:14:35.000 Even when coming on a show like ours, his set-up looked most presidential.

00:14:40.000 But I guess I'm coached into seeing political figures in a particular way.

00:14:46.000 And someone like Trump, who talks in that anachronistic, idiosyncratic, peculiarly humorous, blunt, occasionally rude way, is more appealing.

00:14:57.000 When you have someone saying, yeah, we just invade Venezuela and take their oil.

00:15:02.000 When you hear someone say, I know about these loopholes because I use them.

00:15:05.000 That has authenticity.

00:15:08.000 I think you can also see that without being a Trump supporter.

00:15:12.000 Right.

00:15:13.000 Although you're not allowed to discuss it, are you?

00:15:14.000 It's sort of somehow taboo in many media circles.

00:15:17.000 Absolutely.

00:15:17.000 Yeah, if you say, I can see why Donald Trump is popular, I can see why he appeals to people, even apart from the politics or the reactions of, for example, Obama's reign as president, even apart from all of that, just in the way that he conducts himself, if you say that, it's like you're, you know, I don't know, You're saying something that you shouldn't.

00:15:36.000 This is an odd passage from this New York Times piece.

00:15:39.000 It says, the share of Republicans who said Mr. Trump was more fun than DeSantis, that's 54 to 16 percent, and he doesn't come across with humor, many people said of DeSantis.

00:15:50.000 because these are very human characteristics, the kind of human characteristics that the Chrome orb,

00:15:50.000 That's odd, isn't it?

00:15:56.000 that world crypto will be looking to detect when it reads the information in your irises

00:16:02.000 as we drift towards dystopia, almost on every front.

00:16:06.000 Starved of humanity, starved of authenticity, we crave it in our political figures,

00:16:11.000 we crave it in our media spaces.

00:16:13.000 We demand it now more than ever, because we know that what you're getting from Joe Biden

00:16:18.000 is inauthentic for all of his R shucks, homespun corn pop yarns.

00:16:23.000 We know that what we're looking at there is an atrophying schooled political figure,

00:16:28.000 lifelong in Congress, lifelong in those kind of relationships and arrangements

00:16:33.000 that we know Washington DC runs on, granting access for money.

00:16:37.000 And indeed that is the subject of our.

00:16:39.000 Here's the news story a little later.

00:16:42.000 If you're watching this on YouTube, we're only going to be there for a few more minutes.

00:16:45.000 Glenn Greenwald is even now preparing to answer some pretty challenging questions on this Trump phenomena and the issue of free speech that it brings to the forefront.

00:16:56.000 If you want to stay for that conversation, you can have to click on the link in the description.

00:17:00.000 And if you're with us on Rumble already, why not just take that extra plunge?

00:17:03.000 Go from being, and I was going to use some terrible analogies around addiction there that will not be appropriate on YouTube, where people are That's a pretty good statement there from you, mate.

00:17:11.000 There's a lot of intelligence in this locals chat.

00:17:13.000 It's very important, I think, for you guys to continue to write in and to keep us attuned to what you're feeling.

00:17:17.000 Sanders tried to peel away populism from Trump but he's failing because big-money

00:17:20.000 republicanism and gratuitous fake smiling have possessed him. That's a

00:17:24.000 pretty good statement there from you mate. There's a lot of intelligence in this

00:17:29.000 locals chat. It's very important I think for you guys to continue to write in

00:17:33.000 and keep us attuned to what you're feeling. Hey listen, have you heard?

00:17:39.000 Zelensky says there will be no compromise with Moscow.

00:17:43.000 There certainly won't be, because Russia is a military machine that will stop at nothing.

00:17:49.000 And yet, most Americans who are in the main funding this war, do you know that you, the United States of America, have spent more on this war than Russia?

00:18:00.000 Americans have spent more... America, who are not in this war, because it's not a proxy war, have spent more money on it than Russia, and 55% of you are sick of that.

00:18:10.000 55% of Americans said US Congress should not authorize additional funding to support Ukraine, and 45% say that Congress should continue to.

00:18:19.000 That's what strikes me most of all as surprising, Gareth, is the significant number of people who are happy with it, but you said that's sort of an odd way that American demographics and politics Yeah, I mean, look at any election in the United States and how close that they all are.

00:18:31.000 I mean, this ultimately is starting to come down to lefty-right.

00:18:35.000 You know, there's certainly a large number of Republicans now that are at least trying to counter some of the actions in terms of the increased military spending that's going on with the Democrat Party.

00:18:45.000 We saw the way that Dianne Feinstein was kind of coached by her cohorts into No, no, that's not what we're saying today, Diane.

00:18:53.000 The world's changed a lot since the 1960s.

00:18:54.000 that as well, was it? Because she sort of momentarily, there's where she was like,

00:18:56.000 no, no, we've got to stop. We've got to build a better world, build on diplomacy

00:19:02.000 and communication. How can we ever end this war by continually funding it? And

00:19:07.000 how can we continue to claim to the American people that this is a humane

00:19:10.000 and humanitarian war, rather than a war driven by profit?

00:19:14.000 No, no, that's not what we're saying today, Diane. The world's changed a lot since

00:19:18.000 the 1960s. Now war is good. You're unpatriotic!

00:19:22.000 If you don't support war.

00:19:24.000 Oh, so what do you want me to say then?

00:19:26.000 I just say I and she duly did so.

00:19:31.000 Well a lot of people said I as well when it came to should we stop this audit from being formed into spending on Ukraine as well because that's been voted down also.

00:19:40.000 Isn't that astonishing?

00:19:41.000 All that is is do you mind telling us what you're doing with that money?

00:19:44.000 I mean if someone popped out at lunchtime to get me a sandwich or yoghurt and a tin of pop I wouldn't mind seeing the receipt.

00:19:50.000 Last time I saw you that was many years ago.

00:19:56.000 What I want is some macrobiotic thing.

00:19:59.000 A tube of protein. 0.99

00:20:00.000 Just put it directly into my anus! 0.95

00:20:03.000 Also, Biden has had to ask Congress to include military aid for Taiwan in the next Ukraine spending bill. 0.99

00:20:11.000 You can We can have a war with Ukraine and you get Taiwan for free. 0.94

00:20:14.000 This is an extraordinary culture.

00:20:17.000 This is an extraordinary time where wars are being bundled together.

00:20:21.000 A two-for-one war is never going to be a bargain, even if you're enjoying some of the footage of the Ukrainian attacks on Russian warships in the Black Sea, which I think is pretty strongly connected to and affiliated with Russia.

00:20:38.000 If you're watching us on YouTube, we're going to have a look at this bit of mainstream media reporting on Ukraine attacking a Russian warship, which again represents a sort of a pivot and change of direction in this conflict.

00:20:50.000 Ukraine now aggressively attacking Russian naval targets, that's no longer a defensive measure.

00:20:58.000 I'm sure you'd agree, let me know in the comments.

00:20:59.000 But more importantly than that, we're going to be speaking to Glenn Greenwald about free speech, the ongoing Trump trials, this ongoing bifurcation throughout our culture, the inability to openly communicate, the meaning of morality in a system that is as ethically moribund. 0.61

00:21:16.000 That's right, moribund!

00:21:19.000 This one currently is.

00:21:20.000 So if you're watching on YouTube, click the link in the description.

00:21:23.000 Join us over on Rumble right now with our Rumble cohort and compadre, Glenn Greenwald.

00:21:29.000 See you in a second.

00:21:30.000 If you're on Rumble, why not join us on Locals?

00:21:34.000 Should we talk to Glenn straight away?

00:21:36.000 Is Glenn available now?

00:21:37.000 Is Glenn with us?

00:21:38.000 Yes, he is.

00:21:39.000 Glenn Greenwald, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, Icon, leader, role model to us all, dog owner and man of great beauty.

00:21:48.000 Hello Glenn, thanks for joining us.

00:21:51.000 I think you're muted, either your end or our end.

00:21:54.000 Come on, Glenn.

00:21:55.000 I wanted to say that was a very insufficiently effusive introduction.

00:21:59.000 I'd like you to try that again.

00:22:01.000 I'll go again.

00:22:02.000 Why don't you re-mute?

00:22:03.000 I was like, Glenn Greenwald, a man who cannot operate a laptop, even in front of a beautiful mountain scene, live from a shack.

00:22:12.000 Much better.

00:22:13.000 Much better.

00:22:13.000 Thank you.

00:22:14.000 I appreciate that.

00:22:14.000 What do you think's on the line with the Trump arraignment, Glenn?

00:22:18.000 Do you feel that, given that this is a trial that's about free speech and free speech is being curtailed, where do we find ourselves now if the Dem establishment continues down this path?

00:22:34.000 I was just actually reading a very good and interesting article, and characteristically so, in the New York Times by the former Bush Justice Department, Harvard Law professor Jack Oldsmith, who seems to think Trump at least acted very poorly, if not criminally, but nonetheless is warning about the widespread perception that already exists that most of our institutions of authority are corrupted and politicized and can't be trusted, which is always dangerous in a democracy.

00:23:00.000 The only institution that polls well these days is the military, meaning the soldiers and the armed forces, not the people who run the Pentagon.

00:23:08.000 And that's never good for a democracy when the only thing people trust is the military.

00:23:12.000 And, you know, his argument is, is that no matter how you slice it, this actually is a case where the current government looks at polls, sees that there's only one person who's likely to be able to challenge Joe Biden and defeat him for reelection.

00:23:26.000 And that's the person whom his Justice Department happens to be prosecuting in multiple cases, two so far and counting, and not just cases that have been brought, but ones that rely upon highly dubious interpretations of law.

00:23:40.000 It's not like these are murder cases or rape cases or bribery cases, things people traditionally think about when they hear of criminal accusations.

00:23:47.000 They're very, you know, kind of distant and vague accusations that do depend a lot on free speech rights.

00:23:55.000 And it's just only going to worsen perceptions that the Justice Department and justice system generally can't be trusted.

00:24:03.000 It's often a sense that America is a somewhat solipsistic nation.

00:24:08.000 Do you imagine that if this were happening elsewhere, it would be regarded as the kind of corrupt antics of a banana republic, a takedown of a powerful political opponent?

00:24:22.000 How much have our institutions altered that we can incrementally move into this position without identifying that that's what's happened?

00:24:33.000 As you say, not egregious criminality, but somewhat diffuse and tangential.

00:24:40.000 Amoral, immoral conduct.

00:24:42.000 Do you think that this is something, if we were seeing it in Latin America or Central America, forgive the dismissiveness of that appraisal, we would regard it as crackpot, banana republic conduct?

00:24:54.000 Yeah, I mean it's interesting the reporting that I did in Brazil in 2019 and 2020 that ultimately led to my indictment but that nonetheless freed Rua da Silva from prison was based on exactly that argument that he was in prison, Rua was, at a time when he was leading all public opinion polls for his re-election in 2018.

00:25:13.000 He had a 15-20 point lead on everybody including Jair Bolsonaro.

00:25:18.000 And what was obviously a politically inclined prosecution and a politically inclined judge, namely inclined always to be against BT, ordered him arrested, convicted him quickly, and rendered him ineligible to run, which let Jair Bolsonaro run and win in 2018 without having to face the law.

00:25:36.000 Maybe he would have won, we'll never know.

00:25:38.000 And now they've turned around.

00:25:39.000 The establishment in Brazil hasn't done exactly the same thing to Bolsonaro, knowing that he's probably the only person who can So of course this is the sort of thing that happens in countries that don't trust democracy.

00:25:59.000 It's ironic, Russell, because when I first started writing about politics in 2005, the first book I wrote was an argument that the Bush and Cheney administrations and the top officials in it had committed obvious crimes, war crimes, through things like torture and rendition and warrantless spying on Americans.

00:26:15.000 And when Obama got into office after promising to let his attorney general prosecute the people who did that if it warrants, immediately he announced there will be no prosecutions.

00:26:24.000 He said we have to look forward, not backward.

00:26:27.000 And the entire DC class agreed with Obama saying only banana republics prosecute their political opposition.

00:26:34.000 And that was for real crimes like torture and kidnapping and You know, killing people and spying without warrants, not these kind of attenuated theories of criminality on which the Biden Justice Department is now relying to prosecute Trump, their primary political opposition.

00:26:50.000 And yet Obama arrived in office on waves of optimism, ushered in under a banner of change and hope.

00:26:59.000 It's pretty plain that the scepticism and cynicism that many people feel for their institutions is well earned.

00:27:07.000 And is experiential.

00:27:09.000 We did a poll earlier and most of our audience, like 90% of our audience, believe that the Trump prosecutions are a distraction from corruption and criminality within the Biden family.

00:27:20.000 And how effective can prosecuting an opponent be for corruption when most people think that the institutions themselves have lost all moral authority, and in the case of the current American government, that the Biden family in particular criminal. How much do you think, as Trump's lawyer, one of

00:27:38.000 Trump's lawyers, suggested this case is a retaliation to and response to

00:27:45.000 matters that pertain particularly to Hunter Biden and Joe Biden's relationship

00:27:49.000 around his business and Burisma in particular, Glenn?

00:27:52.000 Well I think that's the other key part of the context and that's one of the things that Professor Goldsmith

00:27:56.000 in that article I mentioned in the New York Times this morning highlighted

00:27:59.000 was that at exactly the same time the Biden administration is prosecuting

00:28:04.000 Donald Trump, they are also protecting and shielding Hunter Biden who is guilty of

00:28:09.000 far more blatant and obvious criminality, just blatant political corruption,

00:28:13.000 tax evasion, a refusal to pay taxes, hiding assets, misaccounting for

00:28:18.000 In a way that most people go to jail for many years and Hunter Biden gets this incredibly generous deal that was so shocking to the judge that it immediately crumbled upon the slightest bit of judicial scrutiny because she couldn't believe that the Justice Department was really offering him this full-scale immunity given how many other crimes are pending and given how he was allowed to plead guilty to misdemeanors for what she has seen many times in her short judicial career are treated as serious felonies.

00:28:18.000 things.

00:28:46.000 So when you set that aside, that kind of You know, sweetheart deal given to Hunter Biden, aside to this politicized prosecution, it becomes even worse.

00:28:53.000 And Russell, I think this is the key question that is central to everything that was embedded in the question that you asked, which is, I know, like me, you're often accused of having changed your political views or having moved from the left to the right, etc., etc., even though you haven't changed any of your political opinions at all.

00:29:07.000 As somebody who's listened to you for quite a while, I know that to be true.

00:29:10.000 The reason that's happened is because what is the relevant metric now is not so much left versus right, But it's anti-authoritarian versus pro-authoritarian or anti-establishment versus pro-establishment.

00:29:22.000 Namely, do you think the loss of trust that these institutions of authority have suffered is valid or not?

00:29:29.000 Do you think that they deserve the contempt in which they are held by a large portion of the population?

00:29:35.000 I believe it's absolutely justified to hold in contempt these political agencies, the U.S.

00:29:41.000 security state, the corporate media, big tech, for all kinds of reasons.

00:29:45.000 And I think standard classic liberals, you know, by which I mean just Democrats, ordinary Democrats, even the part of the left that claimed they were launching a revolution under Bernie Sanders and AOC and the like, Have come to view these agencies as their allies and therefore legitimate and that more than anything is the relevant fundamental distinction that I think define defines our political spectrum much more so than old definitions of left versus right.

00:30:08.000 Yes, and the deserved contempt that you described appears to be accompanied with an unwillingness to enter into a good faith conversation and advocacy for censorship.

00:30:23.000 One of the defining issues of our current news cycle is this ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine and the manner in which it is funded, primarily of course by US taxpayer dollars, and yet it's not something that can be When did advocacy for war become a liberal standpoint?

00:30:44.000 When did an unwillingness to discuss the expenditure on American tax dollars become an ordinary policy?

00:30:51.000 Was it the same as this in the Bush-Cheney administration that you publicly criticized and referred to earlier?

00:31:00.000 Is it them that have shifted their position rather than people like you and I?

00:31:07.000 You know, I think the media, the corporate media, was notoriously pro-war on terror, pro-Iraq war, pro-Bush.

00:31:15.000 The New York Times had to apologize institutionally for the lies they spread to sell the invasion of Iraq to a liberal population.

00:31:22.000 A lot of the lies came not just from Fox News and the Republican Party at the time, but also, and more importantly even, from leading institutions in American liberalism like the Atlantic and the New Yorker.

00:31:33.000 And the New York Times, which were battering liberals every day to believe that the invasion of Iraq was necessary, that the excesses of the war on terror from the Patriot Act of torture and the like were all necessary.

00:31:42.000 And so there was really a kind of closed system that didn't really tolerate a lot of dissent.

00:31:48.000 That's actually the reason, the primary reason why I started writing about politics in 2005 was a reaction to this inability for dissent to be aired.

00:31:55.000 But I have to say, Compared to the war in Iraq and that whole era after 9-11, where at least we have the excuse that the U.S.

00:32:04.000 really had suffered a cataclysmic attack on its soil, there is so much less dissent and so much more homogeneity.

00:32:11.000 Now, on most questions, but certainly the war in Ukraine, in the EU, where you used to be, and now I think good for you are not, but still near it, the EU at the start of the war made it illegal For any social media platform to host Russian state media like RT and Sputnik.

00:32:31.000 That's the reason why this platform, Rumble, is not available in France because Rumble refused to remove RT at the orders of the French government.

00:32:39.000 The attempt is to just close the information system completely so that the Western population is completely propagandized.

00:32:46.000 All around the world, Russell, you know, especially in like these so-called BRICS countries and developing countries, Almost everybody is against the war in Ukraine, views it as something that NATO and the US provoked, assigns 50-50 blame to Moscow and the West, if not more to the West even, for having provoked it, refuses to join in with the sanctions regime.

00:33:05.000 And yet in the West, we're constantly told the entire world, the entire international community is united behind the United States in this noble effort.

00:33:13.000 And I think now, as that polling you referenced demonstrates, that shows that a majority of Americans 55 to 45 no longer want the U.S.

00:33:21.000 to continue to fund the war in Ukraine.

00:33:23.000 They've had enough.

00:33:24.000 They're starting to realize yet again that they were propagandized about a war, that they were convinced at the start they should support and are now coming to oppose.

00:33:31.000 And I should say, if we look at the ideological breakdown of that poll, overwhelmingly, by far, the group that most supports the U.S.

00:33:39.000 financing of the war in Ukraine are self-described liberal Democrats, 75% of them.

00:33:45.000 Support this CIA-NATO war in Europe.

00:33:47.000 If it weren't for that, the margin would be even much bigger.

00:33:51.000 It makes me wonder if people have any intuitive or essential morality at all.

00:33:57.000 Or are they rather just fielded, shepherded from opinion to opinion in accordance with the preferences of the centralist authority?

00:34:09.000 When we have the bizarre spectacle of yet another cadaverous statesperson being cajoled into compliance, this time in the form of Dianne Feinstein, do you feel that there's almost an archetypal truth emerging in the political space?

00:34:25.000 That our institutions and those denizens of it are beginning to visibly decay before our eyes?

00:34:34.000 That this will not be resolved in the typical cycles of A bipartisan electoral oscillation, but will require an institutional reckoning, significant change.

00:34:49.000 In fact, the kind of things that rhetorically great political orators have always referred to, hope, change, an America where communities and individuals are empowered, whether that's Trump saying that or Obama saying it, God knows they all say it.

00:35:02.000 Do you think that figures like Robert F. Kennedy could ever flourish within the Democrat Party?

00:35:07.000 And do you think that what's required is a kind of new political mechanic emerging from these new independent media spaces that we participate in?

00:35:17.000 Do you start to feel, and I know that this is a big part of your journey and you've been an activist and an advocate and much much more over the last 10, 15, 20 years, but you're starting to feel that independent media will become politicised as a Yeah, I mean, it's basically the only thing about which I'm optimistic.

00:35:36.000 You know, on my show last night, my Rumble show, we interviewed The director of this documentary that was released last year, I don't know if you saw it, but if you haven't, I really recommend it, called The Orders of War, which used FOIA requests to unearth all of these documents showing how producers and directors in Hollywood of the biggest mass-marketed films work in complete partnership with the Pentagon and the CIA to the point they give them script approval,

00:36:02.000 They can only get films made if the Pentagon and the CIA approve of these films for the most part, in part because Hollywood's a huge business and doesn't want to alienate the US government, but also because a lot of these films need access to things only the Pentagon can provide.

00:36:16.000 And the film really is about how potent propaganda is, how it kind of infiltrates every component of our, not just political eyes, but our cultural eyes, where it's even more insidious when our guards not up.

00:36:27.000 If you go to the film to see Godzilla, you don't know that the CIA and the Pentagon has helped shape the script.

00:36:32.000 And yet they have.

00:36:34.000 And so when I look at things like the history where every time the US has a new war to present, every time the ruling class of Washington has a new war to present, the population gets on board with the war at first and then turns against it, which is what happened in Ukraine.

00:36:47.000 I think it's because propaganda is very effective.

00:36:49.000 They know how to play on people's emotions, including positive emotions.

00:36:55.000 If you show somebody the victims of a war, the civilian victims of a war, the way they did constantly when it came to Ukraine, but never do for U.S.

00:37:02.000 wars.

00:37:03.000 Like, when do you ever see a victim of an American war in Iraq or Pakistan or, you know, Yemen or Afghanistan or Syria or Libya talking about, you know, the lives lost and the ambitions crushed?

00:37:14.000 Never.

00:37:15.000 You only see it when you hear from Ukrainians talking about Russian missiles that fell, and so people connect to this.

00:37:20.000 They're stimulated emotionally, and sometimes it's a good emotion, but they're being so manipulated by a propaganda science that has been developed over decades.

00:37:29.000 And then you combine that with this newfound fixation using the Internet to censor more than we've ever been censored.

00:37:37.000 This relentless campaign to take off the Internet, anything that raises questions or dissents

00:37:42.000 from the establishment narrative.

00:37:44.000 And you can see why it's an incredibly potent weapon. And I absolutely think that the only

00:37:49.000 thing that matters in my view, in terms of looking at myself, not as a journalist, but as a citizen,

00:37:54.000 is fortifying the parts of the Internet that still are devoted to permitting dissent and

00:38:01.000 protecting free speech and free discourse and free inquiry.

00:38:04.000 Because without that, we have nothing.

00:38:06.000 We're all humans. This is top-level propaganda. Even those who think of ourselves as resisting

00:38:10.000 it, you need alternative voices. And it's being rapidly removed from the Internet. And places

00:38:16.000 like Rumble and a few others are like it, this kind of independent media that has emerged.

00:38:22.000 That's why I say it's the only source of optimism for me.

00:38:24.000 And it's why I spend so much time protecting its prerogatives and freedoms that are

00:38:28.000 constantly under assault.

00:38:30.000 So, Sam.

00:38:31.000 And yet, as you've observed, Rumble is already not available in France and perhaps elsewhere in the EU because of Rumble's refusal to de-platform Russia today.

00:38:43.000 Seems to me that forces and legislature is being marshaled to prohibit and certainly inhibit the rise of independent media spaces and that we're kind of Sleepwalking into the normalization of censorship and even your cited figures on support for the Ukraine, ongoing financial support for Ukraine in their conflict with Russia, suggest that many people will just blindly and blithely support ventures such as this.

00:39:12.000 So whilst you say you're optimistic, I sometimes feel Like pretty scared that in the end they're going to just say you're not allowed to have rumble anymore.

00:39:23.000 They'll just shut it down. 0.95

00:39:24.000 And I feel like something is happening in Brazil with a significant podcast being censored.

00:39:29.000 And do you feel that there is a kind of consensus among the powerful, even though they may have conflict elsewhere, to manage emergent voices such as the ones that we're discussing in independent media spaces?

00:39:45.000 You know, what's happening in Brazil is very scary, and it's also very illuminating.

00:39:49.000 I mean, I've lived here for almost 20 years, so obviously I focus on it in part for that reason, but also because Brazil is a huge country.

00:39:55.000 It's the sixth largest country in the world, second largest in our hemisphere.

00:39:58.000 It has a lot of, you know, environmental resources like the Amazon and major oil resources.

00:40:05.000 It's a country of great geostrategic importance, and it has been part of the democratic world for, you know, since 1985 when it redemocratized.

00:40:12.000 It's been basically a democracy.

00:40:14.000 But what has happened over the last four years, first in the name of fighting Bolsonaro, just like everything in the US is done in the name of fighting Trump, like it used to be justified in the name of fighting the Soviet communism.

00:40:24.000 And after that, Muslim extremism, there's always some enemy that justifies authoritarianism to keep the population fearful. 0.99

00:40:30.000 But in the name of fighting Bolsonaro, they've essentially adopted a completely authoritarian mindset and implemented a system Uh, censorship so extreme that it's genuinely impossible for me to exaggerate or overstate it.

00:40:42.000 It's so extreme, in fact, that the New York Times, before the 2022 election between Lula and Bolsonaro, when they were obviously rooting for Lula to win, raised flags on two occasions about how extreme it was becoming.

00:40:55.000 They consolidated all the power to censor in the hands of a single member of the Supreme Court, who is very pro-PT and anti-Bolsonaro.

00:41:04.000 He has no opposition.

00:41:06.000 There's no trial.

00:41:07.000 He just issues decrees and orders saying this person shall hereby be removed from the internet.

00:41:07.000 There's no process.

00:41:12.000 This person shall be denied access to be able to speak.

00:41:15.000 He imposes massive fines if this isn't immediately obeyed.

00:41:18.000 There's that person that you referenced.

00:41:21.000 He was once called the Joe Rogan of Brazil because he's in his mid-20s.

00:41:25.000 He built this enormous audience, was the most influential podcaster in Brazil.

00:41:29.000 Millions and millions of views every show, every day on YouTube.

00:41:32.000 He got banned off YouTube, booted off YouTube.

00:41:36.000 He went to Rumble, where Rumble signed him, and now the judge has ordered Rumble to de-platform his show and has, because Monarch found a way, his name is Monarch, found a way to kind of circumvent it, he opened a criminal investigation, this judge did, fined him $300,000, which is the equivalent of $75,000, all without an accusation or a formal trial or anything else like that.

00:41:59.000 He's banned from speaking.

00:42:01.000 He can't speak in his own defense.

00:42:02.000 He can't speak about politics, even though he's been convicted of no crime.

00:42:05.000 And all the people who defend this stuff, like the influencers and the academics and the government officials, constantly are flying to Paris and Berlin and London and Amsterdam, where they have these conferences that they're studying Brazil as a test case for how far the EU and then the US can go.

00:42:21.000 The difference with the US is that there is a First Amendment that Brazil doesn't really have. 0.80

00:42:25.000 It's kind of been whittled away.

00:42:26.000 But that's what's coming.

00:42:28.000 That's what they want to do.

00:42:30.000 In general, if establishments, by definition, see something that threatens their hegemonic hold on power and on people's brains, they will Feeling to attack it.

00:42:39.000 It's what they did to the Internet broadly.

00:42:41.000 The Internet was supposed to be this revolutionary tool of liberation and innovation.

00:42:45.000 They looked at that and they said, we can't allow that.

00:42:48.000 They centralized everything in the hands of four corporations that are easily manipulated and controlled by the US government, the corporate media.

00:42:55.000 And now they are trying to implement formal laws.

00:42:59.000 That is the thing that I do worry about.

00:43:00.000 on the internet, if that really takes hold, what hope is there? That is the thing that I do worry

00:43:05.000 about. As you said, I do think there's reason to be concerned as well. Oh, that's pretty cool.

00:43:09.000 Plus you explained something really important to us there that I'd not properly understood before.

00:43:14.000 That by corporatizing and commercializing a formerly truly free space, you create a meaningful and manageable ally, even whilst creating the tension between what is regarded as old media And these new emergent titanic spaces.

00:43:32.000 But that is a much easier tension to manage than the potentially disastrous and cataclysmic scenario where there are all manner of free diffuse oppositional voices existing online with sufficient power and ability to accumulate and grow to attack and even bring down a government.

00:43:51.000 I suppose after they saw it in corporate spaces like, you know, with Napster and political spaces, perhaps, you know, with Brexit, Trump, Even Podemos and Sarita, possibly these kind of online spaces, contributed to those successes.

00:44:04.000 They had to, as you've just said, generate a large corporatist entity that could become enmeshed with and that they could have true complicity with in order to have the kind of corporate power that in the last century would have been rightly regarded as literally fascism.

00:44:23.000 Absolutely.

00:44:24.000 They cannot tolerate anything that they don't control.

00:44:26.000 And I think one of the things that's interesting to remember, especially for people who are old enough, unfortunately, that includes you and me, to remember what the internet was like in that kind of advent in the early stages when it was all euphoric.

00:44:39.000 is that it was completely decentralized and anonymous.

00:44:42.000 You could do anything on the internet and you wouldn't be tracked, you wouldn't be connected to your name.

00:44:46.000 There was a great freedom that came from it.

00:44:48.000 And the idea of the internet was supposed to be that it would be a way to empower individuals to speak with one another, to exchange information and ideas, to organize without having everything mediated by centralized corporate and state authority.

00:45:02.000 That was the vision of the internet.

00:45:04.000 A lot of the people who run these big tech companies were the pioneers of that kind of era, and they do still have this thing in them that resists this control.

00:45:13.000 But when you have a public company worth hundreds of billions of dollars, when your personal wealth is a billionaire, and your acceptance in good liberal society is dependent upon social acceptance, which all human beings are kind of constructed to crave, it's in our DNA because we're tribal animals, There's so many different weapons to control, even people who seem very wealthy and powerful, you know, like Mark Zuckerberg or the head of Google or, you know, in the previous regime, Jack Dorsey.

00:45:41.000 Where if you threaten them with enough legal and regulatory reprisals, or you print enough New York Times articles accusing them of having blood on their hands for their refusal to censor, eventually they will start to capitulate because they are, no matter how wealthy they are, susceptible to being controlled and co-opted by other institutions that are more powerful than they are.

00:46:01.000 And as you said, as long as you keep it in the hands of a tiny number of corporations, it becomes very manageable.

00:46:06.000 Monopolies, duopolies, and this kind of centralized authority, even if it's under the auspices of private enterprise, can be controlled in the way that you described.

00:46:15.000 That's pretty fascinating.

00:46:16.000 What struck me is that there are sort of historical precedents in social spaces.

00:46:22.000 Two examples that come to mind is in Orwell's accounts of Barcelona in homage to Catalonia, in the first flushes of revolution, there's this genuine sense that there's syndicated, localised or consensus-derived authority that eventually coalesces into more overtly communist organisations and eventually into Franco's right-wing dictatorship.

00:46:47.000 And then in the immediate aftermath of the French Revolution, there are these accounts of this rather blissful Paris, where people are giddy on sort of utopian revolutionary sensation, which ultimately becomes militarized, centralized, colonialist.

00:47:03.000 In a sense, that template is, it seems to be one that has an almost archetypal power.

00:47:09.000 And the way that you describe the seduction of even these oligarchical, or certainly potent The figures in the tech world, Zuckerberg et al, is in a sense just a large-scale version of what we're all experiencing when we're propagandized.

00:47:23.000 When we're like, oh yeah, I suppose you do have to have a war against Russia. 0.80

00:47:26.000 Oh, I guess I probably should censor people on social media.

00:47:31.000 In the end, we are all susceptible to quite primal forces and quite deep psychological stimuli.

00:47:41.000 George Orwell has this preface that was supposed to be, I think, the preface to his book about the Catalan movement.

00:47:49.000 Maybe it was Animal Farm.

00:47:50.000 I don't recall exactly which book it was supposed to be part of because it never got published.

00:47:54.000 It was right after the war, the World War II, and it was just simply deemed too offensive to publish where he talked about Soviet communism under Stalin and all of the obviously repressive weapons they used to control the population and crush dissent.

00:48:11.000 But he then said we in the West are really in no position to boast about how we're so free because oftentimes The way more effective means of controlling human minds is not the overt means of putting prisoners into camps or into prison, or dissenters rather, into prison or camps, or sending people in black uniforms with guns to kill people who criticize the government.

00:48:36.000 The much more effective way is through these subtle and insidious means of controlling the means of communication, which is through mass media.

00:48:43.000 And putting the prison, not putting people in prison, but putting the prison in their mind so that they're just never exposed to dissent.

00:48:50.000 They believe they're free.

00:48:51.000 You know, the socialist activist Rosa Luxemburg once said, he who does not move does not notice their chains.

00:48:58.000 Where, you know, you can think you're free, but it's only because you're so conformist and so compliant that nobody considers you threatening.

00:49:05.000 Nobody considers you enough of a danger to try and do anything against you.

00:49:09.000 And so you say, look, I'm saying everything I want and nobody bothers me.

00:49:12.000 But that's because everything you're saying serves establishment interests and establishment orthodoxies.

00:49:16.000 I think that's very much the world in which we live.

00:49:19.000 And bizarrely and paradoxically, the Internet is making it worse.

00:49:22.000 The Internet is, you know, when I was doing this reporting, the Internet in my view, became the single greatest weapon of coercion and monitoring ever created in human history.

00:49:34.000 It is also now becoming the single greatest weapon of propaganda and thought control, even though it was supposed to be the opposite, because they've been so successful in commandeering control of it, centralizing how it runs in the hands of a tiny number of people, and then controlling them.

00:49:49.000 That's the reason why so many people, these people hate Elon Musk with such a passion, because even though he's been far from perfect in it, He's at least saying that he won't comply with these dictates and threatening their control over the flow of information.

00:50:03.000 And that's why they feel like he has to be destroyed.

00:50:05.000 And I think that shows you how much this control is of the most vital importance to them.

00:50:10.000 Indeed, in the documentary Citizen Four that covers your investigation and the revelations that Edward Snowden made, the way that I observed him was as if he were patient zero in a real-life Bentham Panepticon.

00:50:28.000 He is the first prisoner that recognizes that he is indeed being observed thought by thought, action by action, data point by data point, that this insidious form of control can now be enacted through the omniscience of a kind of cyber panepticon where we are all observable from every conceivable angle through recourse and observation and correlation of our actions.

00:50:57.000 Yeah, you know, just quickly, it's funny when Snowden first contacted me at the end of 2012, he was very worried about disclosing to me any information about him or saying much of anything.

00:51:09.000 And he kept saying, essentially, I can't because we're constantly being watched and it's too dangerous.

00:51:15.000 And of course, even though I was a critic of the NSA at the time, a harsh critic of the U.S.

00:51:18.000 security state, I was thinking to myself, this guy seems kind of crazy, like very paranoid.

00:51:23.000 And of course, as it turns out, he was right because he had in his hands the documents proving it.

00:51:28.000 He had seen it all firsthand. 0.69

00:51:30.000 And even though I thought I was kind of immune from the propaganda, I immediately started thinking, oh, this guy's kind of paranoid and crazy.

00:51:36.000 Of course, that's not true to that extent.

00:51:38.000 And only once I saw the documents was I able to really see the full extent of it.

00:51:42.000 It just shows you How again, even those who think we're kind of resistant to propaganda are really susceptible to it because it's not just a superficial field of discipline.

00:51:52.000 It's something developed over, you know, many decades involving the study of psychology and sociology and all kinds of other fields of discipline.

00:51:59.000 It really works propaganda does.

00:52:01.000 Yeah, even your most cliched crackpot, your aluminum foil hat-wearing nutjob, now looks eerily prescient.

00:52:10.000 It's like, they can read your thoughts!

00:52:12.000 They know everything that I've typed!

00:52:14.000 Your search history!

00:52:15.000 They've got access to that!

00:52:16.000 They can turn on the microphone whenever they want to, yo!

00:52:19.000 Okay well let's get you back to your ward now!

00:52:22.000 So we were like talking earlier about how like stuff that almost you get disoriented by extreme conspiratorial discourse like there are nanobots in these medications and you know the earth is flat and then when they say oh there's this chrome orb that's going to read your retina and we're giving that data directly to the government and we're piloting that now in Kenya you think well that's not as bad.

00:52:49.000 Carry on!

00:52:50.000 You know, you've been primed to accept things that would have just 10 years ago seemed extraordinarily dystopic.

00:52:57.000 Yeah, it's exactly how it's done. 0.95

00:52:59.000 I mean, the thing that amazes me Russell is if you go back and look at the weeks after the 9-11 attack, when obviously most Americans were traumatized, everybody was like, look, whatever you have to do to prevent this from happening again, go fucking do it.

00:53:13.000 You know, I'm for it. 0.80

00:53:14.000 Let's go.

00:53:15.000 The Patriot Act, when it was introduced, even in that climate, was still a bridge too far.

00:53:20.000 They knew it was an incredibly radical act.

00:53:23.000 The New York Times and Washington, bipartisan Washington ruling class, had to keep coming and saying, look, we know this is radical.

00:53:30.000 It's only temporary.

00:53:31.000 The law itself says it will expire in three years.

00:53:34.000 Congress has to renew it, so it's going to go away.

00:53:37.000 Here we are 22 years later, the Patriot Act just gets automatically renewed with no reforms.

00:53:43.000 Every time it pops up, it's a quick, not even a debate, it passes 92 to 6, and it just has

00:53:50.000 faded into the political woodwork.

00:53:51.000 It's now just part of our reality.

00:53:53.000 No one thinks about the Patriot Act anymore as being this grave threat because it's been normalized.

00:53:58.000 And every time we let one of those things go, we allow a little more censorship on the internet, we allow a little more dissent to happen, we allow the EU to make it a crime for social media companies to platform Russian media if they want to and close our information circle just a little more.

00:54:13.000 Every time somebody starts having a political awakening because of their age and they start paying attention, what they're connecting to, the reality and the normality of it, is totally different than it was even 10 years ago.

00:54:23.000 And the things they're conditioned to automatically accept and not even realize they're accepting becomes more and more extreme.

00:54:30.000 And you're so deluged with stimuli that there's a kind of much commented on cultural amnesia that you almost can't be bothered to recollect that three years ago these measures were introduced, this was why lockdown was conducted, this is the reason that we had this set of regulations.

00:54:51.000 It all seems like it passes so quickly.

00:54:53.000 We're in a sort of state of hyper-stimulation and we're so overwrought and fraught and there's so much information that to be steadfast and principled becomes so superhuman that I think one would have to be devout.

00:55:08.000 That the only way that you can have principles now is if you believe in If not God, something that's so like God that it may as well fall under that term, i.e.

00:55:19.000 some values and principles that are not swayed by what you are materially offered and what you are given as information, what you are offered as truth, that ever-changing carousel.

00:55:31.000 Thank you, Glenn, for being someone that operates on that plane, for having endured what you've endured in the I'm sorry.

00:55:37.000 It's not.

00:55:37.000 What can I do?

00:55:37.000 I apologize.

00:55:38.000 I didn't create Rio de Janeiro.

00:55:39.000 I just enjoy its beauty.

00:55:40.000 But Russell, it's always great to talk to you.

00:55:41.000 investigative journalism should look like, what good communication sounds like, and what a...

00:55:46.000 That better be a false backdrop for your standing in front of. That better be green screen, Glenn.

00:55:51.000 That better not be real.

00:55:52.000 I'm sorry, it's not. I apologize.

00:55:54.000 What can I do? I didn't create Rio de Janeiro. I just enjoy its beauty.

00:55:58.000 But Russell, it's always great to talk to you. Thank you for having me.

00:56:01.000 There is Glenn Greenwald, just come down from that mountain with a tablet with 10 edicts

00:56:06.000 that he will be sharing with us in just a moment.

00:56:08.000 You can, of course, catch Glenn on System Update live on Rumble 7 p.m.

00:56:13.000 That's about an hour from now, wherever you are in the world, always worth watching Glenn.

00:56:13.000 Eastern Time.

00:56:18.000 Still to come this week, we're going to be talking to Vivek Ramaswamy.

00:56:20.000 We've got so many fascinating questions for this renegade Republican presidential candidate.

00:56:25.000 My friend Nick Ortner will be on the show.

00:56:28.000 You're going to love Nick.

00:56:29.000 He's going to help you disrupt your inner systems of anxiety and despair with fantastic methods that I personally use.

00:56:37.000 Click the red button.

00:56:38.000 Join us on Locals to get early access to the great interviews we do.

00:56:41.000 For example, we had Jordan Peterson on just yesterday.

00:56:44.000 You could have been watching that live as old Leather Harlequin himself. 0.58

00:56:48.000 He was wearing like a weird leather patchwork suit.

00:56:50.000 And I kid you not, a wooden tie.

00:56:53.000 Wooden tie.

00:56:54.000 Wooden tie like to speak to Jordan Peterson.

00:56:54.000 Why not?

00:56:57.000 That's a pun, but a pun I won't get to make again.

00:56:59.000 So please, you know, join us on Locals.

00:57:02.000 It's really worth it.

00:57:02.000 We're a fantastic little community.

00:57:04.000 Look at them now.

00:57:05.000 Ellen, Sophia, Imagination, SensitiveHeart25.

00:57:08.000 All the greats, they're in there right now.

00:57:11.000 Now, as Glenn talked about there, one of the problems with the ongoing persecution of Donald Trump, whether his wrongdoings are real or imagined, is the fact that so many of you, 91% of you, according to a poll, believe that the indictments and arraignments are a distraction from the corrupt actions of the Biden administration.

00:57:30.000 Tucker's recent interview with Hunter's former business partner gives us a fascinating insight into that, and we contrast Hucker spoke to Devon Archer, Hunter Biden's business partner.

00:57:55.000 He said Joe Biden knew about Hunter's business deals and yet Joe Biden said he knew nothing.

00:58:00.000 Which president needs igniting?

00:58:02.000 Tell me baby!

00:58:04.000 Hey, did you see that Tucker spoke to Devon Archer, Hunter Biden's business partner, who claims that Joe Biden knew about Hunter Biden's private business dealings?

00:58:14.000 And you would think that maybe he would know.

00:58:16.000 I mean, let me know in the comments.

00:58:17.000 Do you think he knew?

00:58:17.000 Do you think he was valuable?

00:58:18.000 Do you think that Hunter Biden's text Saying, hey, the big guy's here.

00:58:22.000 He's sat in a chair.

00:58:22.000 He's furious about this.

00:58:23.000 Are legit text messages?

00:58:25.000 Do you think if you're Hunter Biden doing a deal with Ukrainian or Chinese businesses, you're going to mention and leverage your father's position as the VP to make those deals move more smoothly?

00:58:35.000 Let me know in the comments in the chat.

00:58:36.000 Let's have a look at the conversation between Tucker and Devon Archer and his crazy, made up, moralistic Dickensian name and see what we think together.

00:58:44.000 Washington's not a money town.

00:58:46.000 People aren't in business in Washington for the most part, and most people don't have business skills that I noticed in 30 years of living there.

00:58:54.000 So really, the business of Washington is selling access.

00:58:57.000 That's what it looked like to me.

00:58:58.000 Not just under Biden, but that's what people do.

00:59:01.000 I think that's one of the core misconceptions.

00:59:04.000 It seems like understanding a regulatory environment means selling access at the end of the day.

00:59:09.000 Selling access is the business of Washington.

00:59:12.000 This is a city built on lobbying, donations, finding loopholes, manipulation, knowing the law, manipulating the law, having a wife who regulates big tech companies, and investing in big tech companies.

00:59:26.000 Finding ways to do things legally that should be illegal.

00:59:31.000 That's how I interpret it, and I think that's how most people on Wall Street, whether they admit it or not, interpret it.

00:59:36.000 It's been reported, and you have said that there were occasions when Joe Biden would call in with clients present on a speakerphone.

00:59:44.000 Right.

00:59:45.000 How many times do you think that happened?

00:59:47.000 I mean, over a 10-year partnership, I would, you know, the number I'm going with is 20.

00:59:51.000 That's probably the amount that I kind of record.

00:59:55.000 So a lot.

00:59:55.000 Yeah, a lot, you could say.

00:59:56.000 So Joe Biden, who is very much a product of Washington, of course must have known that he was calling in to effectively a business meeting that his son was having.

01:00:05.000 I mean, he must have understood that that was kind of what his son was selling.

01:00:10.000 Well, that's, I mean, it's hard for me to speculate on that.

01:00:13.000 But like, I guess my question, just to keep it to the facts, Joe Biden, then the sitting vice president, knew that there were Hunter's business associates in the room.

01:00:23.000 Yeah, I think I can, I can definitively say at particular dinners or meetings, he knew there were business associates and he, you know, we, or if I was there, I was a business associate too.

01:00:33.000 While Donald Trump fights for his freedom at this time.

01:00:37.000 We're asked and invited to consider what the symbol of Washington represents.

01:00:42.000 We're told it represents democracy, integrity, transparency, and ethical clarity.

01:00:48.000 But if, as our man Devon there alleges, it's simply a town that grants access, a kind of knocking shop, a brothel for access, a place where you lube and grease the wheels of commerce, Well, what is Washington a symbol of, really?

01:01:04.000 And is what Donald Trump knew, or didn't know, or deliberately said, or didn't deliberately say, of less significance than the fact that the whole system is just a corrupt soft-sell for the interests of the powerful?

01:01:16.000 Now, the allegation is that Biden must have known.

01:01:19.000 This revelation contradicts past comments made by the President, who said in 2019 that he never spoke with his son about business dealings.

01:01:27.000 I suppose that is what you would say if you wanted to avoid controversy.

01:01:30.000 I've never spoken to my son about his overseas business dealings, Biden said in 2019 in Iowa.

01:01:35.000 You should be looking at Trump.

01:01:36.000 He's doing this because he knows I'll beat him like a drum.

01:01:42.000 That's an awful way of describing beating someone.

01:01:44.000 Also, that's a weird analogy to use because you beat a drum almost in complicite. 0.95

01:01:49.000 That means rhythmically as his partner, possibly on his buttocks.

01:01:52.000 The drum isn't subjugated by that.

01:01:54.000 The drum kind of enjoys it.

01:01:57.000 He's getting a pretty good sound out of that guy.

01:01:59.000 And he's using an abuse of power and every element of the presidency to try and smear me.

01:02:03.000 Ask the right questions.

01:02:04.000 Don't you sometimes feel that the very things that they accuse others of doing they're doing themselves?

01:02:08.000 Let me know what you feel in the comments.

01:02:10.000 Do you kind of think that Hunter Biden probably was to some degree using his father's position as vice president and a long-term congressperson to get business deals that he might otherwise not have got?

01:02:19.000 I mean it's basically obvious isn't it?

01:02:22.000 So I think Or if, you know, any of the other colleagues from the D.C.

01:02:26.000 office or the New York office were there.

01:02:27.000 So, yeah, at times there were from the, you know, to be, you know, completely clear on the calls.

01:02:33.000 I don't know if it was an orchestrated call in or not.

01:02:36.000 It certainly was powerful, though, because, you know, if you're sitting with a foreign business person and you hear the vice president's voice, that's prize enough.

01:02:43.000 I mean, that's pretty impactful stuff for anyone in the world.

01:02:48.000 It's been reported, and I know that it is true, that the Hunter and his brother were very close to their dad.

01:02:54.000 Absolutely.

01:02:56.000 Which I think is great.

01:02:57.000 I've got a lot of kids.

01:02:58.000 I'm very close to them.

01:02:59.000 Talk to them every day.

01:03:00.000 Never called them on speaker during a business meeting.

01:03:03.000 That's weird.

01:03:05.000 You understand D.C., right?

01:03:07.000 So the power to have that access and that conversation, and it's not in a scheduled conference call, and it's a part of your family, that's like the pinnacle of power in D.C.

01:03:20.000 Yep.

01:03:21.000 In the rear view, it's an abuse of soft power, I'd say.

01:03:25.000 An abuse of soft power.

01:03:27.000 So that's ultimately what's being alleged here, an abuse of soft power.

01:03:32.000 While most of the media's ire and focus is on the Trump indictment, isn't it worth simultaneously considering the impact of these allegations, particularly when we know that the Hunter Biden laptop story was deliberately kept Out of the press and social media, to a degree, with the collaboration of the CIA.

01:03:51.000 As this story continues to unfurl, doesn't it look more and more likely that at its heart is real, legitimate, destabilising corruption?

01:03:59.000 Last week, Hunter Biden appeared in court for charges related to tax crimes, and prosecutors alleged that he received over $600,000 from a Chinese Communist Party-backed company.

01:04:09.000 I started a company in 2017 called Hudson West, Your Honour, and my partner was associated with a Chinese energy company called CFC, Hunter Biden said.

01:04:17.000 When asked by the judge if he received $664,000 from the Chinese company, Hunter Biden said, I believe so, yes, Your Honour.

01:04:24.000 However, during a presidential debate in 2020, Joe Biden said, my son has not made money in terms of this thing about what you are talking about, China.

01:04:32.000 My son has not made money.

01:04:38.000 Now, that was a confusing sentence, but I think, at its heart, was a denial of Hunter Biden making money from relationships with a Chinese commercial entity, which appears to have been the case.

01:04:49.000 During the 2020 debate, Trump made numerous comments about Biden's alleged connection to China, including one moment where he said, Hunter Biden makes millions of dollars from China.

01:04:57.000 China ate your lunch, Joe, and no wonder your son goes in and he takes out billions of dollars, takes out billions of dollars to manage, he makes millions of dollars. 0.91

01:05:07.000 The problem is with the ongoing condemnation and attacks on Donald Trump is that he regularly is able to point to examples of corruption made by his opponents.

01:05:15.000 The only way to ever oppose a figure like Donald Trump is by saying, look, we are not corrupt.

01:05:21.000 What Donald Trump does is corrupt.

01:05:22.000 What we do is by the book, is legit.

01:05:24.000 Is it even worse than that, though?

01:05:26.000 Is it even worse than the Biden administration being corrupt?

01:05:29.000 There is deep systemic corruption.

01:05:31.000 The very conditions that have allowed Trump to arise to this position of prominence continue to be committed, continue to be doubled down on.

01:05:38.000 This won't be sufficiently and significantly reported on.

01:05:41.000 You won't see Joe Biden saying, look, I was wrong.

01:05:43.000 I have been involved in Hunter Biden's business dealings.

01:05:45.000 I have made speaker phone calls during meetings.

01:05:48.000 I was aware of these dealings.

01:05:49.000 They'll just find a way of navigating and negotiating the cracks of this story.

01:05:53.000 Long enough for us to be deep into the election cycle and for another victory to be gleaned.

01:05:58.000 Without the kind of honesty that dealings of this nature appear to demand, the legitimacy of everyone involved is questioned.

01:06:04.000 All of this underscores Joe Biden's horrendous judgment in blending his son's business with his duties as Vice President.

01:06:10.000 Yeah, you can't blend those duties.

01:06:12.000 Better vice presidency, better supporting Hunter Biden.

01:06:15.000 Also, I'm a recovering drug addict myself.

01:06:17.000 It's very difficult to run an international energy business if you're smoking any crack at all, I would say.

01:06:23.000 So if this is true, he's doing bloody well and he deserves that money.

01:06:27.000 Mr Biden was the Obama administration's point man for Ukraine, which was fighting Russia's first invasion.

01:06:33.000 And he can't claim ignorance about his son's dealings.

01:06:36.000 Amos Hochstein, a senior energy official in the Obama administration, warned the Vice President in 2015 that Russia-backed media were using Hunter's presence on the Burisma board to undermine the US anti-corruption message.

01:06:48.000 The problem with all this corruption, go on, it undermines our anti-corruption message because it's corrupt.

01:06:53.000 No, that is a problem.

01:06:54.000 Just lie about it.

01:06:55.000 The following year, a top diplomat in Kiev, George Kent, was even more blunt in a message to state.

01:07:00.000 Ukrainians, Mr Kent said, heard one message from us and then saw another set of behaviour with the family association with a known corrupt figure whose company was known for not playing by the rules in the oil gas sector.

01:07:12.000 It's one thing to develop relationships in office that turn into business opportunities later, the way Jared Kushner, Donald Trump's son-in-law, did in the Middle East.

01:07:19.000 It's another to leverage the office while in office to promote the family business.

01:07:22.000 As Mr. Archer said, the advantage of the Biden brand is that legally people will be too intimidated to mess with them.

01:07:28.000 This is another example of how the condemnation of Trump and Trump affiliates starts to look ridiculous when there are comparable events within the Biden administration.

01:07:38.000 What there should be, it seems, is a thorough investigation, and perhaps Hunter Biden's trial is precisely that, into What exactly has gone on between the Biden family and all these energy companies?

01:07:47.000 This is no longer a salacious scandal about a man's behaviour while under the influence of addiction.

01:07:53.000 This is deep institutional financial corruption involving a vice president who claims that he is the new figurehead for a brave and bold new government.

01:08:01.000 But really, this is the kind of corruption that we're all used to, isn't it?

01:08:04.000 Whether or not Joe Biden took a dime from these dealings, this is a form of political corruption.

01:08:09.000 Covered up by the press in 2020, it will be an issue in 2024.

01:08:12.000 Democrats should worry that as more facts emerge about the Biden mix of politics and business, it could help Mr. Trump neutralize his many legal vulnerabilities.

01:08:20.000 That's precisely what is happening, is that the charges, allegations, and attempts to indict Trump seem less significant and legitimate in light of this information.

01:08:30.000 How many times do you think you met Joe Biden during the course of your relationship with Hunter?

01:08:33.000 Probably same thing, 20.

01:08:37.000 We found this letter.

01:08:38.000 Kind of amazing.

01:08:39.000 Dear Devin, I apologize for not getting a chance to talk to you at the luncheon yesterday.

01:08:44.000 I was having trouble getting away from hosting President Who.

01:08:48.000 I hope I get a chance to see you again soon with Hunter.

01:08:52.000 I hope you enjoyed lunch.

01:08:54.000 Thanks for coming.

01:08:55.000 Sincerely, Joseph R. Biden Jr.

01:08:58.000 Handwritten, happy you guys are together.

01:08:58.000 P.S.

01:09:02.000 This is not a criticism of you.

01:09:03.000 I would think as a business guy, you use every advantage.

01:09:07.000 These are not business guys.

01:09:08.000 This is the vice president of the United States.

01:09:10.000 He's not allowed to be working on businesses with foreign governments while he's vice president.

01:09:15.000 I don't think.

01:09:16.000 Not that I know of.

01:09:18.000 But here he is!

01:09:20.000 Right.

01:09:21.000 Amazing.

01:09:21.000 Joe Biden's official position is that he's had nothing at all to do with Hunter Biden's business dealings.

01:09:27.000 That Hunter Biden is like some sort of plucky street urchin who's made it in the wild world of Ukrainian mineral energies and gas and Chinese business just as a sort of coincidence.

01:09:39.000 Like, by God, I was just being vice president over here.

01:09:42.000 Meanwhile, over there, What's Hunter doing?

01:09:43.000 He's becoming an international business person!

01:09:46.000 So there's no connection between those two facts.

01:09:48.000 Here's Hunter Biden's business partner producing a letter from Joe Biden saying, oh sorry I couldn't get away from President Who because I'm the Vice President and I'm probably supposed to be engaged in protecting American national security rather than babbling in Hunter's business dealings.

01:10:03.000 Can you see that even if they can't demonstrate that Joe Biden financially benefited from the situation, it's pretty plain that he was involved.

01:10:11.000 It's pretty plain that at very least there's nepotism.

01:10:13.000 It's pretty plain that at least he was using his position as vice president to advantage Hunter Biden.

01:10:18.000 In a way, I can get myself into a state where I don't care about that, where I'm like, oh, well, this is the world, isn't it?

01:10:23.000 I mean, I do stuff for my kids.

01:10:25.000 I'd probably offer advantages to my children over some stranger's children.

01:10:28.000 But Guess what?

01:10:29.000 I'm not the Vice President of the United States, and I'm not denying that that happened, and we're not in the middle of a great and glorious fiasco where Donald Trump is supposed to be indicted, one, because of his relationship with Stormy Daniels, two, because of some financial corruption issues, taking those boxes, three, because of inciting an insurrection inside his mind.

01:10:48.000 We can prove he did it inside his mind.

01:10:50.000 What I'm saying is that no one has a fortress of moral authority or a pulpit from which to address us as people who say, listen, this guy's corrupt.

01:10:58.000 We're not corrupt.

01:10:59.000 I would never do anything like that.

01:11:00.000 Because plainly, that is the business of Washington.

01:11:03.000 That's the way it operates.

01:11:05.000 It's only bad when your opponents do it.

01:11:08.000 It's normal, ordinary, and to be accepted if it's within the Pelosi family or within the Biden family.

01:11:13.000 Presumably within the Clinton and Obama families.

01:11:16.000 What we're offering you is an alternative vision, a different line of questioning.

01:11:20.000 It's the behaviors themselves that are a problem.

01:11:22.000 It's the principles themselves that have gone awry.

01:11:24.000 Forget your relationship with either party or either side and ask yourself, what do you believe in?

01:11:29.000 How should America be run?

01:11:31.000 Is this the kind of president you want?

01:11:32.000 Is he meaningfully better than an alternative candidate that you are supposed to despise?

01:11:37.000 Or is he, in fact, much worse?

01:11:39.000 Do you acknowledge that Hunter spoke to his dad about Burisma?

01:11:43.000 Do I have knowledge?

01:11:44.000 Yes.

01:11:44.000 Do you know that Hunter spoke to his dad about Burisma?

01:11:46.000 Did you ever see them talk about it, hear them talk about it?

01:11:51.000 No, I don't have knowledge of that, though I'd assume it.

01:11:53.000 So if you think that that guy's lying there, Devon, he could easily have lied then, couldn't he?

01:11:56.000 Yeah, I saw him.

01:11:57.000 I went like, hey, I'm going to help you with Burisma, kid. 0.81

01:12:00.000 Hey, that's not tobacco!

01:12:01.000 But like he's saying, I didn't see that.

01:12:03.000 Personally, when I see stuff like that, let me know in the comments if you agree.

01:12:05.000 I think, all right, well, he's probably telling the truth because, you know, you could say, oh, maybe that letter's not real or maybe this guy's making it up.

01:12:11.000 He's got his own reasons.

01:12:12.000 I wonder how the Biden family and like a Kareem Jean-Pierre will address this.

01:12:17.000 They'll just brush it off, won't they?

01:12:18.000 They'll ignore it.

01:12:19.000 Oh, it's Trump.

01:12:19.000 Trump's saying this because he knows I'll beat him like a drum or I'll play him like a pan pipe or some other extraordinary musical analogy.

01:12:26.000 But the fact is, Something that we're all beginning to understand, I think, is that the Biden administration was never going to be the answer.

01:12:32.000 It's simply doubling down on a problem.

01:12:34.000 So it's enough to be sitting at a meal at Lake Como with your new Ukrainian friends, and while your dad happens to call, let's put them on speaker.

01:12:43.000 That would be, I think that's enough.

01:12:47.000 That's the second most powerful man in the world.

01:12:49.000 It's possible that Joe Biden thought he was calling someone else.

01:12:52.000 Hello?

01:12:53.000 Hello?

01:12:53.000 Where's my pizza?

01:12:54.000 This is Burisma.

01:12:55.000 Okay, but just add pepperoni!

01:12:57.000 It's just how the world works.

01:13:00.000 It was very clear that the Burisma guys were hoping to leverage Hunter's relationship with the Vice President and his father.

01:13:08.000 Yes.

01:13:09.000 At one point, They told Hunter to, quote, call his dad?

01:13:14.000 Yeah, I mean, I think referencing the email that you put earlier, there was constant pressure to send signals, to leverage all of his, you know, his dad included, but the Biden brand, all of the, you know, the D.C.

01:13:33.000 insider and relationships to help Burisma survive.

01:13:37.000 I think that's the You know, at the end of the day what we're talking about.

01:13:41.000 That's what he brought!

01:13:43.000 It was that ability to help on the geopolitical stage, keep them out of trouble, keep them out of investigations, unfreeze assets.

01:13:55.000 If that litany of advantages that come with Hunter Biden's name are to be believed, then it's not an appointment that's based on Hunter Biden's business, prowess, instincts and insights.

01:14:08.000 It's a very real set of advantages that come with having Hunter Biden involved in Burisma there in Ukraine.

01:14:16.000 It's not like we're bringing Hunter Biden onto the board and did you know that Joe Biden's actually his dad?

01:14:21.000 It's like we're getting this guy because Joe Biden's his dad so that we can unfreeze assets, so that we can avoid investigation.

01:14:27.000 What else do you imagine they're paying dear Hunter Biden 664 grand for?

01:14:31.000 What's it for?

01:14:32.000 Insights?

01:14:33.000 Places to get laptops fixed?

01:14:35.000 A good place to hook up for a little bit of wacky tobacco?

01:14:38.000 This is not an appointment where his relationship to Joe Biden is inadvertent.

01:14:41.000 His relationship to Joe Biden is essential.

01:14:43.000 That means the $664,000 is payment for that relationship.

01:14:47.000 That means the whole system's corrupt, right?

01:14:50.000 They were not consulting him on, like, pipeline construction or wellhead design.

01:14:53.000 No, no, no, no.

01:14:54.000 We need to construct some pipeline.

01:14:56.000 Well, I've constructed this one.

01:14:57.000 It's pretty good.

01:14:59.000 Okay, no, maybe we can use that.

01:15:01.000 Good work, Hunter.

01:15:02.000 But also, could you get your dad on the phone?

01:15:04.000 He's already on the phone.

01:15:05.000 Hunter!

01:15:05.000 Why are you not speaking?

01:15:07.000 I'm busy.

01:15:08.000 It was hiring lobbyists and law firms and various NGOs to help clear the path from regulatory roadblocks at the end of the day.

01:15:23.000 This is what we all believe, isn't it?

01:15:24.000 With the Melinda Gates Foundation, with the Clinton Foundation.

01:15:27.000 But all of this stuff that's dressed up as philanthropy is either tax evasion and avoidance, or it's ways of legitimising connections or exerting influence that will later play out financially.

01:15:36.000 Oh, we think that you guys should use these medications!

01:15:38.000 Buy up a load of stocks in those medications.

01:15:40.000 You don't need to use those anymore.

01:15:42.000 We've seen this again and again and again.

01:15:44.000 The problem comes when a political figure claims that they're different.

01:15:47.000 The problem comes when there's actual criminality, tax evasion, tax fraud, payments that are being made plainly for influence rather than expertise.

01:15:55.000 But the idea was by having that relationship and by saying, I met with the vice president in Washington, that gives him the swat.

01:16:03.000 Yeah, I think at the end of the day, that's the...

01:16:05.000 You know, the prize or the, you know, being able to have, whether it's on speakerphone or in person, the prize is that contact and that access to power.

01:16:17.000 The reaction to what you've said in public, to what you said to the committee on the Hill in Dallas, to what you've been telling us in this interview, is that like, There's no corruption here at all.

01:16:30.000 This is totally normal.

01:16:31.000 Joe Biden had no role whatsoever in his son's business or knowledge of it.

01:16:38.000 Right.

01:16:39.000 I mean, that seems false.

01:16:40.000 Yeah, I think that's categorically false.

01:16:47.000 He was aware of Hunter's business.

01:16:49.000 He met with Hunter's business partners.

01:16:52.000 I mean, you found a letter that illustrates that he knew me.

01:16:56.000 And he's thanking you!

01:16:57.000 He's thanking you for his efforts!

01:16:59.000 For your efforts.

01:17:01.000 Yeah, I think that's not factually right.

01:17:07.000 Whether or not Joe Biden took a dime from these dealings, this is a form of political corruption.

01:17:11.000 Covered up by the press in 2020, it will be an issue in 2024.

01:17:15.000 Democrats should worry that as much more facts emerge about the Biden mix of politics and business, it could help Mr Trump neutralise his many legal vulnerabilities.

01:17:23.000 Whether or not Devon Archer's claims lead to a kind of legal indictment or proof of corruption, in my view, they're not nothing, are they?

01:17:31.000 When you consider that so far what Biden's spokespeople have offered is, oh, this is just a bunch of kerfuffle and claptrap and balderdash coughed up by the Republican Party as a distraction, nitpicking, just an attempt to bring down a good and honest man of integrity, that plainly isn't the case.

01:17:48.000 Sooner or later, Biden's going to have to give a speech, isn't he, where he goes, look, Look, I know I said I had no dealings at all, but I did come on speakerphone.

01:17:55.000 I did have direct dealings with Devon Archer.

01:17:57.000 I did create at least the impression that I was an ally and supporter of my son that enabled him to get jobs with companies he wouldn't otherwise have got, with the assumption that he could leverage his relationship with me to ensure that meaningful advantages could be leveraged by Burisma when it comes to things like unfreezing assets and avoiding investigation.

01:18:15.000 Seems to me these are pretty significant claims and significant charges.

01:18:20.000 Added to which Ukraine finds itself the center of a geopolitical disaster that's costing the

01:18:27.000 American people billions by the day.

01:18:29.000 It seems that what's needed is a reckoning, an investigation and a conversation.

01:18:33.000 Quite possibly this hypocrisy and corruption is worse than anything that's being leveled

01:18:39.000 Let me know what you think in the chat.

01:18:41.000 of democracy are being attacked.

01:18:43.000 That's where Hunter Biden gets all of his deals done.

01:18:45.000 That's where Nancy Pelosi and Paul Pelosi never talk to each other about what stocks

01:18:50.000 and chairs to trade.

01:18:51.000 When the system is as corrupt as it is, how can you bring down a political opponent

01:18:55.000 on the basis of their own corruption?

01:18:57.000 They haven't got a leg to stand on, have they?

01:19:00.000 But that's just what I think.

01:19:01.000 Let me know what you think in the chat.

01:19:02.000 Until next time, stay free.

01:19:04.000 Thank you for choosing Fox News.

01:19:06.000 The news. 1.00

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Stay Free - Russel Brand - August 08, 2023

WAIT…Why Aren’t They Talking About THIS?! | Trump’s Third Arraignment - Stay Free #185

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