＂It Went Completely Viral＂ Brett Cooper Talks Internet Drama & The Pendragon With Michael Knowles
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Summary
Ben Shapiro's replacement at The Daily Wire, Brett Cooper, joins the show to talk about the new show, "Pendragon," and a story from the New York Times on pot use. Plus, a story about drugs and psychosis.
Transcript
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You know, ever since Brett Cooper left the Daily Wire, I have been forced to look
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at Ben Shapiro. There was only a male Ben Shapiro left. The lady Ben Shapiro has been gone,
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and which is very sad, obviously, for all of us. But I am joined now to talk not just about
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the hit Daily Wire show, Pendragon Cycle, but also about Brett's viral tweet and a story that
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I'm actually shocked to see come out of the New York Times regarding Haitian oregano,
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jazz cigarettes, and spinach talking about pot. I'm joined by Brett Cooper. Brett, good to see you.
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Hi, Michael. I'm happy to be here. It's nice to see the replacement Ben,
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the Ben upgrade. This is excellent to see you in frame. So I actually, we have been seeing you
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around here because Pendragon has come out. This show was 100,000 years in the making.
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In a way, it actually was kind of thousands of years in the making because it's this medieval
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epic. So the show's out now. I want to talk about it. I want to hear about how the show's
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going on its release and the making of the show and the crazy accents and the horses and the bulls
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and whatever. I want to hear about all of that. First, though, I want to talk about drugs because
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you had this viral tweet that, you know, I knew a little bit about this from a while ago,
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but it kind of broke through one of the biggest lies that the left has been promoting for my entire
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life. And I'm at least five times older than you. And the lie was that pot is not bad for you.
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And actually, it's really good for you. And there are no downsides and you can't be addicted to it.
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And nothing bad happens. And, you know, you know, everything that we do on pot could bring
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us world peace. And you tweet out this story from Politico reacting to the New York Times editorial
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board, New York Times, which says it's time for America to admit that it has a marijuana problem
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in which the New York Times admits they got pot wrong. And you said, my mom and I have been told
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that my brother's psychosis, now full-blown diagnosed schizophrenia, is most likely drug-induced
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from his years of smoking weed. This drug isn't harmless, no matter what our culture and screaming
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people in comment sections tried to tell us. First of all, this admission from a doctor,
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even that is kind of novel. You don't really hear about that. So what happened?
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Yes. So I actually just put out an episode two hours ago talking about this tweet and talking about
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this story. And it's interesting that this blew up yesterday. And I tweeted about that after the fact,
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because you never really know what things are going to take off on X. And I'm very much like,
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I post and then I turn off my phone. Like, I have my name muted on X. I do not like listen to what is
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happening. And then suddenly I started getting all of these texts and seeing all of these replies and
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comments and going, oh my gosh, this is really, you know, striking a chord with people. And it's funny
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because this is something that I have shared before. I did a, you know, four hour, something like
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that long interview with Sean Ryan early last year and talked at length about my brother's
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situation, touched on drug use. So this is something that I've been very open about, but
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obviously as the New York times is finally walking back their, you know, decades long assurance that
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pot is harmless, that it's great that we should legalize it, that it will have no ramifications
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on society. Obviously everybody is talking about this. So yes, my brother Reed, who I just adore,
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he's 12 years older than me. Um, he, um, is like I said, diagnosed schizophrenic. He is not able to
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function in society without medication. Um, and I say function, meaning he's completely unstable
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without medication. And this has been going on for over a decade. Um, and one thing that I talk
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about in my episode is that there are this connection between cannabis and psychosis is now
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very well established going back to 2008, Michael, like before, you know, this drug was legalized in
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many States, the NIH was saying, Hey, there is a risk here. There's a connection between cannabis and
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psychosis. We knew that in 2008 and they basically shoved all of that down and said, Oh my gosh,
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it's harmless. You can't get addicted to it. You can't get enough of it. You can drive, you do all
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of this stuff. It's great. It's going to chill you out. It's going to be wonderful. And we basically
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indoctrinated and lied to an entire society about this. So, um, again, we've known about this,
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um, but there are many different ways that this psychosis can be triggered. And so that's what I talked
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about in my episode is that, you know, this did come out of nowhere for my brother. He showed no
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signs of mental illness prior to his psychosis. Um, this is not something that my family is
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predisposed for. We have had problems with addiction in my family, which I've also talked about,
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but serious, severe mental illness has not been a thing in our family. Um, and the other caveat that
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I offered, and this is also something that is connected with cannabis is that, as you know,
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I have a brother who died when I was very young and that brother is my brother Reed's identical twin
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and Reed watched his identical twin pass away in front of him at 17 years old.
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I didn't know they were twins. I actually, that part, I didn't know about it.
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Yeah. So they were identical twins and he watched him have a cardiac arrest in front of him. And that's
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an important caveat that I want to offer because Reed was already smoking pot around that time. He was,
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you know, I would guess a dealer in high school. I was very young, but that was a part of his high
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school experience. But in light of our brother's death and in light of his grief, he self-medicated
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and he began smoking more and more and more. And so I want to offer that caveat because it wasn't
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just like he was this happy, go lucky. Everything was great in his life. And he was smoking pot.
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He already was dealing with massive grief and trauma with self-medicating with weed. And then from
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there had psychosis. So that is a story that many people also have. There are also stories where it
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just comes out of nowhere, literally, and you do not have any trauma and your brain is not already
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broken by the grief of, you know, the death of your brother. And so there are many stories.
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And so really I shared that post not to try to shame anybody or attack anyone, but just to say,
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yeah, I have personal experience with this. This is something that my family has been dealing with
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for years. I mean, we were talking about his drug use. We were talking about drug-induced
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psychosis eight, 10 years ago when this first started with my brother. I was 12 years old,
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I think, when his first psychotic break took place. And the doctors were very quick to say,
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I think the first question was, what is his history with drug use? And so this is something
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that does not feel abnormal to me. And so I just wanted to share that. And then when I realized that
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it was going viral and I was looking at the comments, I was like, oh my gosh, people are so angry.
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Like Michael, they get so triggered. And it's because they've been so conditioned to believe
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that it is harmless. And I'm like, I'm not attacking you or your experience. I'm simply
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saying we should be able to have an honest conversation about the realities and the risks
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of this drug. It's not just something to be toyed with, it is a risk.
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You're not allowed to say that. I almost never get, and maybe I don't get more pushback on any other
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issue than when I point out that maybe the devil's lettuce isn't like the greatest thing in the world.
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There's a meme going around right now because of this story. And in part, I think because of your
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tweet, where, you know, if you talk to an alcoholic and you say, hey man, you're drinking too much.
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It's screwing up your life. It's affecting people around you. Sometimes the alcoholic is going to get
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angry and say, no, it's not. I got it under control. I can quit whenever I want. And sometimes the
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alcoholic is going to say, yeah, you're right. I got to go to rehab. This is bad. And you get,
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I don't know, maybe it's 50-50, somewhere in there. Not one regular marijuana user has ever
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in the history of vegetation admitted that maybe it could possibly be a problem. There's so much
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cope. There's so much denial. They say it's not an addiction. I saw even in the responses to your
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tweet, people saying, no, no, what you don't understand is it was an underlying condition,
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hereditary. It was genetics. The marijuana might've just brought it out a little bit,
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but you just said, no, you don't have a history of that kind of mental illness in your family.
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No, we do not. My brother is my half brother. And so there's a whole side of my family with my dad.
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But in terms of my mom and my brother's father, there is nothing. And again, I want to offer that
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caveat of we did have this traumatic event. And so that is part of my brother's story,
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but that is not the case for many other people who endure this psychosis and then, you know,
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end up having schizophrenia. There is a study that just came out in 2024 that says 41.3% of
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young men specifically, young men are the ones who are most at risk. Young men who have a psychotic
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episode due to their cannabis usage within three years, that turns into full-blown schizophrenia.
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41.3%. And I'm sorry, not all of them watched their brother die. Like again, there might be
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something that is, you know, predisposed. Again, it might be hereditary. I'm not ignoring any of
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that. I'm offering that as an addition, but we should talk about these vulnerable populations
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and acknowledge that there are risks before just plastering this drug everywhere, opening
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vape stores on every corner, handing out, you know, weed pins to young people. We should talk about
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those risks and be able to have an honest conversation. We do with alcohol. That's the point that I made in
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my episode today is that, you know, alcoholism, it's something that carries a lot of shame and
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it's very, I would say it's out in the open. It's very clear when somebody is an alcoholic. Again,
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like you said, you know, alcoholics and people who are drinking, they go, yeah, I know it's poison.
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Like if I go out and I have a margarita, I'm like, yeah, this is really bad for me. And we talk about it
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as we're drinking the margaritas, we know that it is poison. But why is it when we just try to have
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that same conversation and lay that foundation with cannabis that we all just get screamed at
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from the laid back, you know, vegged out community? It's like they should be so chill. They're jumping
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down my throat. Just on the point of the addiction, these are people who will wake and bake in some
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cases. I mean, like every day, if you look, I think it's in the Times story. All day.
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They'll do it all day, you know, because they have the vape pens, which have much higher THC than,
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you know, your mom or grandma did in the 60s. And they'll do this every day. The number of
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Americans who use pot 21 or more days per month, so effectively every day, has quadrupled, I think,
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in the last 23 years. And they'll say, no, it's not an addiction. You cannot describe a habit that you
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feel a compulsion to do every single day as anything other than an addiction. So anyway,
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the Times says here, they say, look, yeah, we kind of got this wrong. We long supported marijuana
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legalization. Much of what we wrote then holds up. It doesn't. But not all of it does. And then
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they go on and they say, we predicted it would bring a few downsides, but it actually does. And
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it's driving people crazy. And they're using it all the time. And it's led to addiction problems
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and paranoia and psychosis and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then, of course, paragraph four,
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they say, but America should not go back to prohibition to fix these problems. So basically,
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they say, we were totally wrong. We called for legalization. We were completely wrong.
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And we should learn nothing from that fact. And we should do absolutely nothing to correct
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the errors. It's so, I'm really, I'm just really pleased that you're highlighting this
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because it's so bad. As someone who, you know, I like a little Coca-Cola every now and again,
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you know, a nice little scotch on the rocks maybe. I obviously love delicious Mayflower cigars.
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I don't chain smoke 20 of them a day. You know, I have an evening cigar or, you know,
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but nevertheless, we say, yeah, all these behaviors carry some risks. Here's the good
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stuff they do. And I've never seen anyone benefit from habitual marijuana use. Maybe in some very rare
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circumstances, people try it out in a kind of experimental trial for something like PTSD
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and then get off it. And even there, like jury's still out, but like, okay, maybe. But for 99.9%
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of people, the fact that you even mentioned your brother self-medicating because of this trauma,
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that of course tells you, you know, your brother would have been much better for him had he had
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talk therapy or had he been able to speak to a priest or something like that. Or, you know,
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obviously it's not helpful to dull your pain and grief with some drug that just tries to push it
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aside. Anyway, totally right. I could talk about this for like hours. I've just, I feel so, I'm
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very sorry about the story with your brother. I feel so vindicated on the issue, which is such an
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unpopular issue. You thank you. I feel. And it's, well, it's vindicating for my family as well. So I
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had, you know, people commenting and saying, oh, I'm so sorry that you're, you know, going through this
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and that you're sharing it. I'm like, I'm happy to share it because at least people are listening and
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could learn from it. Like me putting this out there again, not attacking people who want to take
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their gummies, whatever, not my cup of tea. I think it's, you know, ruining your brain.
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But if you want to do that, that's fine. But I do, again, it's about having an honest
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conversation and assessing the risks and making sure we're not lying to young people.
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Like don't, please don't, pardon the kind of vulgar image, but it's like, don't urinate on
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my leg and tell me it's raining. Like if you want to do drugs, just be open about it and we can talk
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K-N-A-W-L-E-S, preborn.com slash Knowles. You know what you should do if you're feeling stressed out
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and if you want to relax a little bit. A much healthier thing you can do than induce psychosis
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in yourself is watch Brett Cooper in the Pendragon cycle. Do we have, we have a trailer, right,
00:14:43.100
of Brett in Pendragon? All right, let's see it.
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I am Kustenin, king of Gotha and Kelithon. You've met my daughter, Ganyeda.
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Ganyeda. My father likes you, wolf boy. You're welcome here.
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Stay. The Pendragon cycle, Rise of the Merlin, premieres January 22nd, only on Daily Wire Plus.
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It actually already premiered, by the way, but the rest of that trailer was terrific.
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I am angry about one thing in Pendragon, which is that I visited Hungary twice, I think,
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during the pre-production and the production of it. Just oddly enough, I had speeches and
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engagements and things there, and all I wanted was to be disemboweled in some battle scene. I
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just wanted one seven-second cameo where I'm beheaded or something, and they never gave it to
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me. I'm very upset about that, but I'll tell you. Well, Matt did too. Matt Walsh did too. I remember
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being in the break room with you guys prior to even leaving Hungary, and Matt was like,
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how do I get an audition? How do I be a soldier or whatever?
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And Matt was really cultivating his... I sort of got cured of the acting bug. Matt is just
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catching the acting bug. Ever since he took on the character in Am I Racist, he really... I know,
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poor Matt hardest hit. When I saw the first cut of this, I didn't know what to expect,
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because conservatives don't make content like this, and it's just absurdly ambitious,
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and it's just insane, right? And I was very pleased that they picked this kind of a property,
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because I was afraid they were going to do Atlas Shrugged or something, which all the conservatives
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from the past 30 years, they love that. Ayn Rand is awful, and that story is awful.
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That book should be burned. I'm totally in favor of book burning for that book.
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And so then they picked this great, epic, medieval, Christian, Arthurian kind of tale.
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Very, very cool, but I thought, can they pull it off? And I think it landed. You're seeing reviews
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of Pendragon, even from people who don't like Daily Wire, even from people who don't like
00:16:46.980
conservatives or Donald Trump or whatever, and they're saying, it's good. So what's your take
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on... You were actually there slogging through the marshes of Estregom or wherever you were.
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What was it like making it? It was fun. And I will say, you made a great point about it
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reaching so many people. I was just watching a clip of Rogan talking about it. Anyway,
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so it's reaching new heights, and yeah, and they were having a whole conversation about how
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you can find TV anywhere now, and it's not just the big studios making it, and you're not just
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finding it on cable, and there are so many different creative ways to make content now.
00:17:23.240
And they were saying, and we have to acknowledge the people on the right who are doing this
00:17:28.220
because it is good, and it has great substance. So yeah, it was a wonderful experience. I grew up
00:17:36.260
acting, as you know, and had not really dipped my toe back into it. And they were like, Brett,
00:17:42.760
you're going to go do this. And I was like, all right. And it was tons of fun, and it reminded
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me why I love storytelling and why I love filmmaking. And so it was invigorating just for
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myself personally, because that was something that I had walked away from because I just knew that
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I did not want that to be my actual career. I did not want to have to rely on Hollywood to provide
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for a family ever. And so it was nice to be able to go back to that purely just out of the love for it
00:18:10.560
and to enjoy it and to support good people in a project that I believed in. And yeah, it was
00:18:16.380
wonderful. The cast, Michael, is incredible because it is almost all people who are relatively unknown
00:18:22.440
who this was, you know, their first big project. And because of that, when you have a cast that is
00:18:28.960
relatively new, and I don't mean new that they've like never acted before, but this is like, you know,
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their first big meaty role, or they're carrying a show for the first time like Tom Sharp was,
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they care so much. And it's not just like any other project, but it's like, no, this is
00:18:42.680
it. Yeah. And I'm going to put blood, sweat, and tears into this. We know we have to make it good.
00:18:47.420
And so being in that environment was really special because everybody truly was just 100% committed.
00:18:52.620
And it's just a special experience doing any kind of, I would say, creative production. And you know
00:18:59.520
this too, like when you're working on a play or a musical or a film or a TV show, you're kind of
00:19:04.480
insulated in this bubble with your cast and you become a family and you get to know each other
00:19:08.680
really well, especially if you all really care about the project. And so I got to know so many
00:19:12.780
great people. I met one of my best friends while working on the show, Rose Reed, who actually wrote
00:19:18.120
my big episode, which is 106, which I think is coming out next week or this week. Next week,
00:19:23.260
because they're on 105 now. And so she wrote my episode and she is a brilliant writer and was an
00:19:30.000
amazing person to collaborate with. And we became very good friends. So yeah, it was a wonderful
00:19:33.000
experience and a great way to spend a few months in Hungary. Yeah. I remember on that point of just
00:19:38.340
like this pressure cooker, kind of magical land where you're totally insulated. I remember years
00:19:43.940
and years ago, I was a student, I was doing a play and I ran into Brad Dourif and who's a great actor,
00:19:50.460
has had an amazing career, you know, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and, you know, everything since
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then. And we were talking about it because to do a project like that is so all-consuming. You know,
00:20:01.720
it's, it really, it kind of puts you in this other universe. And we were complaining about it,
00:20:07.060
another actor and I, and Dourif, who's, you know, been around forever, he said, ah, to me,
00:20:12.880
it's just like summer camp. You know, I just like, you could tell he just still so loved it. So then,
00:20:16.920
but this leads to my next question, which is now your circumstances have totally changed. You know,
00:20:21.440
you have a child, you have goats, I'm told you have, you know, like these animals that have to be
00:20:26.920
milked or I don't, I don't really know what one does to an animal other than eat them. But you
00:20:31.280
know, your, your life circumstances are so different from this kind of like magical la-la
00:20:35.760
land that you have if you're in a movie or a play or something. So you say it was great to be in this
00:20:40.300
creative endeavor again for love of it. You know, that's what amateur means. It's like to do something
00:20:43.800
for the love of it, not just for commercial gain. Are you still afflicted by the acting bug? Will
00:20:51.180
there be some other role that you're pursuing? Or do you say, no, I'm cured. I'm done. We did this
00:20:55.900
epic, huge show. It's awesome. And I'm done. I don't know. You know, I don't know if I will ever
00:21:01.880
be cured of it. It's so funny. Do you know Cody Johnson, the singer? He actually, he's the one
00:21:07.420
that Kid Rock covered at the halftime show. He did an amazing documentary a few years ago. And I
00:21:13.580
actually, it's called, um, deer rodeo. And his whole story is that he, um, was a cowboy in his past
00:21:21.060
life. And then everyone else around him, you know, they leaned into that, that became their careers.
00:21:26.840
They became these huge rodeo stars and he was still kind of like slogging along, but he also
00:21:31.620
knew that he loved music. And so he was doing both. And he finally decided just to lean fully into
00:21:35.300
music. He was broke for many years when he and his wife had just gotten married. And then finally his
00:21:40.660
career takes off. And so this documentary is taking you through his career and his story. And he's now this
00:21:47.120
huge, huge country musician. One of my very, very favorites writes incredible music is an amazing
00:21:52.280
storyteller. You would think, you know, Oh, you have all of the things that you want in the world.
00:21:56.580
You should be so happy. And he has this song called deer rodeo. And he's talking about, even with all of
00:22:01.500
this, I still think back to my first love. And it's like, there's always going to be that itch there.
00:22:06.300
And it's like, I just wish that I could do that. Or there's still, you know, part of me that loves it.
00:22:11.140
And so I remember watching that documentary years ago, and it didn't come out years and years ago,
00:22:16.900
but like two or three years ago and thinking, you know, that that's very much how I feel. I grew up
00:22:23.040
acting. I dedicated my entire childhood and young adult life to acting. I love it. There's very little
00:22:31.080
that I love more than storytelling. And that would be having a family and having control over my life.
00:22:37.240
Um, yeah, exactly. Being able to dictate my own career and drive the ship and not be,
00:22:46.200
you know, whipped around like you are in Hollywood. So I will always love it. And I
00:22:51.440
want, you know, art to continue to grow and get better. So I love seeing projects like
00:22:57.180
Pendragon come and take the world by storm, um, and be created. I want to see Hollywood produce
00:23:01.800
great things that are not atrocious, like the new Wuthering Heights. I want to see great stories
00:23:06.040
being told. Um, and if I can play a part in that, then great. But I also am able to scratch my itch
00:23:12.740
by doing my show because I feel like I get to sit in front of a camera. I get to connect with an
00:23:16.540
audience, which is one of the reasons why I loved acting. Um, and I get to tell stories. I get to
00:23:20.720
weave stories and tell those in a creative way every single day. So I get to scratch the itch, but
00:23:24.460
I think I'll always love it. So I don't know. I think it would have to be unique situations where,
00:23:30.360
um, where it's the right project and the right timing, because it is hard. You know, you have
00:23:35.500
responsibilities, you have a family, you have child now, and you can't just, I don't want to
00:23:40.200
be one of those people that just leaves it all and walks away. Cause that's really what turned me
00:23:44.920
off about this industry so many years ago is I was a young person and I was watching these adults that
00:23:50.160
were, you know, coworkers of mine that I considered mentors and friends. And I would watch them leave
00:23:55.340
their families for three or four months at a time. Um, and their kids would go off to boarding school
00:23:59.540
cause they were shooting, you know, the huge hit TV show. They were shooting like, I had a good
00:24:02.980
friend on breaking bad. And so her entire family had to move to New Mexico, New Mexico, but then
00:24:07.160
her kids would go back to school in LA. And it was just, that just wasn't the life that I saw for
00:24:11.440
myself. And so I'm very grateful that I've carved out something that is on my own terms that I'm
00:24:16.000
getting to dictate. And so if I get to do projects like this, I'll be so happy and I will revel in it.
00:24:21.420
But, um, yeah, it's kind of a dear rodeo Cody, uh, Cody Johnson situation. I would say.
00:24:26.680
I totally get it because even very successful actors, I mean, Academy Award nominees and
00:24:33.060
winners, even like top of the profession, a lot of them have very tough lives, you know,
00:24:39.400
and it's not that industry, especially after the collapse of the studio system where no one
00:24:43.720
has a normal job anymore. It, it is not conducive to happiness. And you know, it's funny. I say that
00:24:50.300
I'm the only guy in the history of the theater going back to ancient Greece who ever got cured of
00:24:54.840
the acting bug. I'm like totally, I really, but, but I did enjoy that. I mean, I was, when I was a
00:25:00.080
student, I loved directing opera. I liked translating plays. I liked acting. I liked music, still love all
00:25:06.300
that. And I love it. But I remember I was talking to a professor of mine who was a Dante scholar and
00:25:12.280
I was trying to decide, I knew I enjoyed theater and arts and things. I knew ultimately I wanted to
00:25:18.300
be in politics. That was kind of always the end goal. But I, for the intermediate, I really liked
00:25:23.520
all of those endeavors. And I asked it to him and he was a very, very serious scholar. And he said,
00:25:28.240
ah, Megaluzzo, you know, when I was a boy, I wanted to be an actor. And I said, really? Oh,
00:25:33.940
did you ever pursue that? He goes, I told my mother and she pointed to the door. She said,
00:25:38.340
there's the door. If you're going to be an actor, ecco la porta. And I said, oh, that's kind of,
00:25:42.760
it's very Italian. It's from this very tiny town in the South. And I said, do you ever regret that?
00:25:47.540
Do you ever regret not having made that your career? And he said, hey, Megaluzzo, I used to
00:25:53.800
be an actor. Now I am the real thing. And I thought it was such a beautiful, which you're
00:25:58.820
describing, you know, having a family, having goats, whatever, you know, doing your show where
00:26:02.520
you can speak about these real issues. In a way you're, you're kind of the real thing and you get
00:26:05.980
to scratch that itch, you know, on the side. And I think of it every day. I wouldn't have any other
00:26:10.800
job right now than the job I have, but I was born to play ukulele. You know, if only I might,
00:26:16.840
that's my itch. That's my, I got to scratch that itch on my, but you do the show, you do the day
00:26:20.960
job anyway. Well, look, it's obviously been a huge success, Pendragon. And anyone who has not seen it
00:26:28.080
yet, anyone who is not going to see Brett in Pendragon, you go right now, you download the app
00:26:33.800
on your phone, on your television, on your radio, on your gramophone, on whatever device you have.
00:26:40.980
Download the Daily Wire app, subscribe, follow me, follow Michael. And the next thing you do
00:26:46.480
is go, obviously, forget about the other guys, and then go watch Pendragon. Go join the many,
00:26:52.460
many people have joined Pendragon to see Brett and all of the other excellent performers in it.
00:26:57.120
Brett, excellent to see you, both in Pendragon and here.
00:27:01.220
Yes, great to see you too. I'm happy to be reunited.