00:01:53.720But just if I could just summarize it, you begin life in America, Miami, you wind up in New York as a playwright, very much a figure of the left, I think, culturally and politically.
00:02:06.540Then you wind up in Berlin, almost 25 years ago, you've lived in Europe, really since the Iraq War.
00:02:13.200and but on the left and then COVID happens and then the next thing you know we're reading about
00:02:19.040you getting arrested by the German anti-racist authorities for something even though you're not
00:02:24.840a racist and like so what happened what happened what how did you what was the pivot point that
00:02:31.060got you from your previous life to wherever you are now um I think it's COVID um yeah that's that's
00:02:39.660the one. Yeah, I mean, I was, you know, my life was just going along as it had been until
00:02:46.880the COVID measures got rolled out. And this is March and April of 2020.
00:02:57.920Yeah. And I had been writing my satirical columns. I had been at that for about four years,
00:03:06.000you know, covering the whole, you know, first Trump administration and the establishment's
00:03:11.340reaction to that. And when the COVID stuff started, I, at first, I didn't take it very
00:03:19.220seriously. I started, I wrote a few humorous columns. I just thought it was a massive overreaction
00:03:26.500and that it would pass. And then it started getting really serious. One of the first things
00:03:33.300that I did, I think I was still in shock at the time. I compiled a 257 tweet thread on Twitter.
00:03:44.620It was still Twitter then. Just collecting the mainstream media news stories and headlines that
00:03:52.860were being pumped out. This is when they rolled out the new normal is what I call it. People may
00:03:59.380remember that a lot of people think i made that phrase up and i didn't that it was put out by the
00:04:04.600establishment um that thread still exists people can look at it um i think a lot of people have
00:04:11.340forgotten how uh authoritarian it was how how immediately authoritarian it was yes um by the
00:04:22.640end of uh april uh i was just i was quite alarmed by what was happening
00:04:30.180you were alarmed but for some reason the people you'd been living and working with and
00:04:40.320thought you shared you know a common worldview with a lot of them were not alarmed
00:04:44.760was that weird well they were alarmed but they were alarmed differently they were alarmed about
00:04:50.180They were alarmed about what they were being told was, you know, an apocalyptic plague, basically.0.93
00:04:58.980Again, you know, people forget in the early days, I think it was the World Health Organization actually came out and said, you know, this virus has a 3.4% death rate, which was complete bullshit, of course.0.91
00:05:31.940Well, because I was actually looking at the data and the numbers that were coming out and paying attention to, I was also paying attention to the propaganda.
00:05:44.500And when this messaging started, I couldn't help but look at it and say, okay, does it line up with what we're learning about this supposedly novel virus?
00:07:05.120This is an example of something that was happening on a much broader level in society.
00:07:11.680At the same time that the official propaganda was being rolled out, what was also being rolled out as part of the narrative was that anyone who is questioning the official propaganda is some kind of far-right extremist.
00:07:28.180Right. There's no valid reason to do this. You know, this is back at the time the early, there were those two doctors, I forget where they were in the States and Jay Bhattacharya was coming out and, you know, respectable people, people with credentials were coming out and challenging and questioning the official propaganda and they were being delegitimized and demonized and in some cases already censored.
00:07:58.180So, was it, I mean, what was the experience, if you spent a lot of your life as a playwright in Brooklyn, what's it like to be called a far-right extremist?
00:08:07.580It was, it was kind, I don't know how to describe it.
00:08:14.120Really, one of the first pieces that got a lot of attention that I wrote, it's in the book, it's called The Covidian Cult.
00:08:22.980And my experience of it, it really felt like I and those of us who were criticizing or asking questions, it really felt like we were suddenly in a cult.
00:08:41.460surrounded by cult members who were pressuring us to conform to the official narrative of
00:08:53.020the cult which obviously blatantly didn't make any sense um so i don't know if you've ever
00:09:01.480spent any time around people who are in a cult or yes or what have you i um i remember back
00:09:08.500In Florida, before I left Florida, I went to a big gathering.
00:09:13.960My girlfriend's mother at the time was hooked up with some Maharishi or something.
00:09:19.200And I went to one of their big gatherings and I had to run from the room because of the energy in the room.
00:10:57.060So I don't know how to describe it any better than that, but you can feel the energy of this alternate reality that's being created by belief.
00:14:39.140And that's why we're happy to partner with Joy & Blokes, a company that was built for people who are done guessing and ready to figure out what exactly is going on.
00:14:47.540And that starts with comprehensive lab work and a one-on-one consultation with a licensed clinician.
00:14:52.320An actual human being explains what's happening inside you and builds a personalized plan,
00:14:57.780which includes hormone optimization, peptide therapy, targeted supplements.
00:15:22.320It's just interesting to me, and you're not the first person I thought this of, it's like, why did you see that when others didn't? And I always ask that question of dissidents, people who pivot against the new, new thing, especially when the new, new thing is evil and obviously nonsensical. And COVID is not the only example of this. But whatever mass hysteria grips a group, there are always some small percentage who are like, wait, this is crazy. And I always wonder what they have in common, and I've never figured that out.
00:15:51.020I don't think there's a single, people have asked me that before, and I don't think that there is a single answer to it.
00:15:57.240I think that for some people, it's their personal histories.
00:16:04.960Some people, perhaps women who've been in abusive relationships have been manipulated by partners, people who have been in cults, people who have lived in authoritarian societies, totalitarian societies.
00:20:26.100The main protest was on the big street, the street of 17 July in Berlin that runs from the Brandenburger Tor back to the Victory Tower, right?
00:20:58.960This protest was permitted by the German authorities.
00:21:03.800They granted the permit to an ex-member of the NPD, which was the neo-Nazi party, the now banned neo-Nazi party.
00:21:11.560So they granted a protest permit to this ex-neo-Nazi.
00:21:16.180And there was a small gathering there outside of the Reichstag.
00:21:19.740And the German police, which normally guards the Reichstag pretty well, they all pulled back, you know, hundreds of yards behind the protest and left the Reichstag unguarded.0.87
00:21:33.380And so this group of wackos in front of the Reichstag said, oh, there's nobody guarding the Reichstag.0.98
00:21:46.540And the mainstream, of course, the mainstream German media happened to be right there at the Reichstag.
00:21:51.860And so when these people came running up the steps, and so the whole narrative, the entire news report was the crazy COVID deniers have attacked the Reichstag trying to overthrow the government.
00:22:07.340Well, since everything is World War II,
00:23:15.680And it transformed virtually overnight, overnight into this pathologized, fascistic society where, you know, literally everyone was wearing masks everywhere.
00:23:30.400They were robotically following all the social distancing directions.
00:23:35.860You know, there were police, you know, guarding the outdoor markets to make sure that no one was, you know, going to the outdoor market without a mask on.
00:23:44.760And I was pulled out of a grocery store pretty early over a mask protest because I thought it was ridiculous.
00:23:52.280You know, we already knew it was an airborne respiratory virus and everybody's going to get it, whatever it is.
00:31:32.200They were wearing the badges on their faces, right?
00:31:35.520Those of us, those of us without the badges, you know, we were shut out.
00:31:40.640You know, one of my favorite cafes right in the corner, and it wasn't alone, it was all of them.
00:31:46.020They had big signs out front, you know, that you have to show, you had to show either proof of vaccination or proof that you had recently had the virus and recovered from it within a given period of time.
00:33:05.960And I joked about this, but it's actually very serious.0.84
00:33:11.020Part of the reason I ended up in Berlin when I did is naively, you know, I feel like an idiot now, but naively I thought to myself, okay, given the Germans' history, right?0.95
00:33:23.320first with the nazis and then with the gdr um you know this is the last place on earth that is ever0.79
00:33:30.220going to flirt with any kind of fascism or totalitarianism or anything like that you know
00:33:37.300and and it really i'm sorry to laugh at you but the process of getting older is the process of1.00
00:33:41.580discovering you're an idiot i mean that really is aging yeah exactly felt like such an ass and they0.99
00:33:46.660went it they went totalitarian in a heartbeat in a heartbeat lots of people did but the germans1.00
00:33:56.460have a well-deserved reputation for efficiency um and just a systematic approach to everything0.82
00:34:01.640that they do which is great if you're building outis not so great if you're uh trying to destroy
00:34:08.420the lives of a hated minority yeah yeah so at what point did you just say out loud what was obvious0.53
00:39:01.480Yeah, that's the history of, you know, it's a history of Nazi Germany.
00:39:04.840And so my brilliant cover artist, Anthony Freda, and I, what we said is, okay, let's steal Shira's cover, right?
00:39:12.000And what we'll do is we'll just stretch a COVID mask over the top of the swastika so that you have to look at it and say, oh, there's a COVID mask.
00:40:48.300But what had happened was an element of the whole German censorship network had found the tweets, they had contacted Twitter, they had contacted Amazon, had the book banned and had the tweets censored.
00:41:05.420They had also contacted Germany's Federal Domestic Intelligence Agency about this, and the Federal Domestic Intelligence Agency passed the case on to the Berlin district prosecutor, and the Berlin prosecutor launched a criminal investigation of me, which eventually they notified me of it.
00:41:33.220I think it was about eight months later,
00:41:34.660and said, you're under criminal investigation
00:44:06.340You know, you talk about people being deniers in Germany, and of course, it's evoking Holocaust denial, all right, which is the worst thing you can be in Germany.
00:44:14.840We go to trial. The judge can't stand me, but I am acquitted because she follows the law, right?
00:44:23.180And the law, she says very clearly, look, Mr. Hopkins, you're an asshole for doing this, but what you did is not illegal because you were protesting what you saw as anti-constitutional activity on the part of the German authorities, and that is allowed.0.96
00:44:43.240And so I'm acquitted of the charges.0.97
00:44:45.920And I think, fantastic, you know, the system works.
00:44:48.380In Germany, I still live in a democratic country under the rule of law.
00:48:22.180Matt Taibbi was one of the first ones to write about the case way back in the beginning.
00:48:26.420um uh james uh jamie kerchick uh wrote a piece that was in the atlantic of all places
00:48:33.800um but it was a good piece um about the case um uh fire you know the foundation for independent
00:48:41.860a virtuous group absolutely uh love them yeah me too and they did a couple of features on it
00:48:47.820um and uh other people in the states it's mostly americans who covered it for the longest time
00:48:55.500I was just, I was stunned at the German presses, the German media's just utter refusal to even address it at all.
00:49:10.280Finally, at my second trial, when my acquittal was overturned, a bunch of German press came and they wrote it up.
00:49:16.600And unfortunately, most of it was, you know, yes, good, you know, the order is, you know, has been restored and, you know, swastikas remain illegal.
00:49:27.040And this, you know, this COVID denying American author who lives here, you know, has been sentenced for his crime.0.60
00:49:34.380One of the exceptions, I have to mention, a journalist called Eva Sudholt wrote a big piece for Die Zeit, which is a big, you know, mainstream paper.
00:49:44.620um which was an absolutely fair piece um so that was an exception and a lot of the independent
00:49:52.480german press covered it so you're um what used to be called an intellectual like you make your
00:49:57.960living writing sure thinking creating art and so presumably you live in a world of people with
00:50:04.420similar jobs how did they your friends in germany in the u.s like how did they respond i lost them
00:50:12.460all yeah I had actually yeah I had a I had a a very small group of close German friends who had
00:50:22.660been my dear friends for whatever it was 16 years for many many years in Germany and we I think we
00:50:32.040corresponded once or twice at the very beginning and I said what are you doing what's going on
00:50:39.720what's happening and uh um and they wrote back and said what are you doing you know why are you
00:50:45.860questioning and making trouble and what have you and then nothing radio silence and i assume if
00:50:51.480they were your friends they were on the more free thinking edge of berlin society right well it
00:50:57.400depends on what you mean by free thinking well apparently they weren't but i mean yeah we're
00:51:01.840these are you know this is you know this is the problem this is the dilemma of people who are you
00:51:08.400I hate to use the term, you know, on the left, liberals, whatever you want to call it on that side of the spectrum, the side that I come from, they, for the most part, they fell in line and started marching in lockstep right from the very beginning.
00:51:51.140were on the side of the man against the machine,
00:51:54.400the individual against the group the working class against the overlords or whatever you
00:51:59.200know however you want to frame it but we're for the weak in opposition to the strong all of them
00:52:05.300joined you know join the machine and i don't i don't get that at all what is that well i and
00:52:15.160one way to answer it is is very complicated um there's a there's uh another simpler aspect of
00:52:24.200But again, when the initial propaganda was rolled out, one key component of that initial propaganda was the demonization of anyone who was questioning or challenging the official narrative.
00:52:43.080And people forget this, but from the very beginning, this was part of the messaging that was rolled out.
00:52:49.440It was that if someone is questioning, you know, our official narrative, that person is a far-right extremist, conspiracy theorist, you know, basically a dangerous person that you don't want to associate with.
00:53:05.660Okay, but these are the same people who spent 70 years warning us about the lessons that we should have learned from McCarthyism.
01:00:59.040That's, you know, I said I lost my friends.
01:01:01.720I lost, you know, the people in the theater community, for God's sakes.
01:01:04.820You know, they shut me off just immediately when I started in.
01:01:08.680And I had a colleague, a British guy in the UK, and he put some social media post up where he was like, I was on the bus today and I saw someone who wasn't wearing a mask.
01:01:23.360And I called him, you know, people were going online and kind of validating their credentials as, you know, party members.
01:01:55.920So what I'm saying is all of this analysis about, you know, how it happened and everything, this came later.
01:02:02.680During the COVID years, I was fighting.
01:02:04.940I felt like I was at war for, you know, two and a half years and I was in people's faces, you know, calling them out and telling them you are, that was the whole point of the book was, you know, you're behaving like Nazis.
01:02:20.560Yeah, well, I can see why you offended people.
01:02:22.360On the other hand, they gave you cause, to put it mildly.
01:02:30.180but what's very revealing is that they have not abided by an armistice and they're still going
01:02:37.540after you they are grudge holders the german authorities are yeah correct yeah and so you're
01:02:45.020still in you're still being hassled well the the the status of it i you know just to make it clear
01:02:54.560you know the reason that this new second edition of the book is coming out that you wrote the
01:02:59.240forward for is because I had to pull my first edition, which I self-published, I had to pull
01:03:05.500this book out of worldwide distribution. Now, this is a book that did extremely well. You know,
01:03:11.840it was a Barnes & Noble bestseller, bestseller on various, you know, Amazon things in the beginning.
01:03:19.240Very successful book. I had to pull it. And the reason that I had to pull it is I had to back up,
01:03:26.620Right. We talked about the tweets. I told you about the tweets and that that was one prosecution. The appeals court, the superior court overturned my acquittal. And so now I have to go back to district court where I was originally acquitted to be sentenced for this crime that I didn't commit. That's one case.
01:03:49.920last year in november 2025 i get home from this extensive road trip that i took in the u.s for
01:03:59.700another book project i fly back home to berlin i've just started recovering from seven weeks
01:04:05.660on the road in a convertible and i'm starting to feel human again and bang bang bang the police
01:04:12.000show up, dawn raid, you know, at the door of my apartment with a search warrant. And they come in,
01:04:20.200terrorize my wife and our cats, confiscate my computer. And this house raid is in conjunction
01:04:28.420with a new investigation, a new criminal investigation, which has since led to a new
01:04:34.800indictment. And this time, I'm not indicted for the tweets. That's the first case. This time,
01:04:41.480the indictment is I'm being charged with writing, publishing, and distributing the book itself.
01:04:50.560Okay, now this book is a book that has been banned in Germany since 2022, right? So now I'm being
01:04:59.260indicted for publishing and distributing this book, and the second charge in the indictment
01:05:05.540is that I reported on my trial in the Superior Court
01:05:55.560And I lack the self-awareness to know that I'm boring people when I talk about my dogs.
01:05:59.420but even i trying to be charitable like i have never seen a lack of self-awareness this profound
01:06:06.320ever i mean ever in history it isn't you know i i've come to believe it's really not a um
01:06:14.560a lack of self-awareness it's they on the one hand they don't care well there's that you know
01:06:21.560on the one hand they don't care i mean germany has become i don't know if laughing stock is the
01:06:28.040right word, but it's common knowledge. I mean, they arrest people for insulting politicians.
01:06:36.340You know, Germans, you know, somebody puts on social media, this person is a dummkopf,0.94
01:06:43.180right? And they come and arrest, they arrest people for insulting politicians. Now,0.89
01:06:49.580okay, this is how far that it's gone. And my case is one of many, Tucker, this is not an exception.
01:06:55.640Yeah, this is one of many. There's an artist that is somewhere in the South, and he created some artworks, COVID artworks like this, and they prosecuted him as well.
01:07:14.220No, I'm not. And this is what I've been trying to get across to people is this, you know, I've referred to it, I titled a couple of my essays, you know, the criminalization of dissent.
01:07:28.960That is what is happening. That is what is happening. And it is so over the top in Germany that I have to believe, you know, okay, yes, they're a bit dense. But part of it is this is the message that they are sending out.
01:08:16.960It's not a defense of the Russian system to say the British system is more authoritarian than the Russian system.
01:08:21.620That's just a fact based on those numbers.
01:08:23.200And what I've been trying to direct people's attention to is that this is a part of the evolution of the system that we're living in in the West.
01:08:35.760You know, people talk about that reaction to the populist uprising that started back in 2015, 2016.
01:08:41.680you know a lot of the reaction to that is the system going authoritarian on us yes and sending
01:08:53.360this message out very clearly and letting us know oh no you still use you can still have those
01:08:58.700democratic rights and everything as long as you don't cross this line and if you cross this line0.78
01:09:05.180democracy shit's over right we're going to arrest you for a communications offense so this is i0.68
01:09:12.520think the the deep value in your story and your analysis of it is this perspective it's not just0.97
01:09:18.120one man and if i can just throw you a compliment which is deserved you're not making this all
01:09:23.040about you a lot of people under attack as you are make it about themselves but you see this as part
01:09:28.960of like a change in a mode of government change in society change in the expectations relationship
01:09:35.480between the governed and the people in charge and i think they're exactly right to see that
01:09:40.800so what are those lines the the new relationship you're talking yeah so there are lines you said
01:09:49.280that when you you know you can have like democracy we're all about democracy the lines you don't
01:09:53.620cross yeah but how how do we know what we can't do since no one will spell it out a we don't right
01:10:03.320to begin with because this is really the most effective message that they send out it's you
01:10:11.000know in my case in germany for example uh you know so i tweeted something with a swastika on it
01:10:16.260right so has Karl Lauterbach right so have you know they're you know prominent the health
01:10:24.060minister yeah yeah so you know prominent german you know celebrity figures what have you you know
01:10:29.440they've compared the russians to the nazis and put out tweets with swastikas on them and all of this
01:10:35.740now obviously that's fine because that's in line with the official narrative of the authorities
01:10:42.040right but when i do it no because you don't compare the authorities to the nazis you know
01:10:48.760you compare the official enemies too um but other people have also you know put things out you know
01:10:55.660aimed at the authorities and they don't get prosecuted and why and you don't know and that's
01:11:03.700the effectiveness of the tactic is maybe exactly maybe you're okay but at any moment and you never
01:11:11.440know when they could come down on you it's like uh you know it's it's maybe it's like
01:11:18.440living with an alcoholic father exactly right right and you never know or a husband who beats
01:11:23.740you up or a husband who beats you you never know which husband is coming home tonight exactly
01:11:27.340because sometimes it's caring and nurturing and kind and other moments it's explosive and but
01:11:33.160it's arbitrary and that's exactly and you never know what you're gonna get so the point is be
01:11:39.080afraid. Yes, exactly. They inculcate fear as a way to control. So here are the lines that I
01:11:45.540personally have noticed. I was thinking about this this morning in the sauna, actually.
01:11:49.300So Israel is the topic that people are mad about in the United States right now. I've
01:11:53.120done a million shows on Israel. My views are pretty conventional, really, about Israel.
01:11:58.500We shouldn't be controlled by Israel. That's it. But there's actually a pretty robust debate about0.94
01:12:03.060that in the United States. That's supposedly a red line, but you go on Twitter, people are saying
01:13:23.300When the pro-Palestinian protests started, the police, I mean, the goon squads came down on them as heavy, if not heavier, than they came down on the COVID dissidents.
01:13:38.160You know, they've just been absolutely brutal and banning, you know.
01:13:46.100Yeah. The Germany-Israel connection, I mean, this is part of Germany's remembrance culture. It's, you know, just unqualified support of Israel. It's the Staatsräson, you know, it's the...
01:14:04.700So the idea is that we killed innocents, which the Nazis definitely did. Therefore, we have to defend the murder of innocents in a foreign country or something?0.65
01:14:13.680Well, we have to defend Israel, you know, no matter what.0.62
01:14:18.140Even if they're doing the things that we hate ourselves for doing?
01:14:25.040So, I think maybe my perspective is a little different, but where the lines are, I mean, what I would say is where the lines are, are wherever someone is actually posing a potential problem.
01:14:55.040And whiteness. Race war. They love race war.0.82
01:14:59.940Well, that's a whole separate thing, and we can get into that because that's interesting.0.50
01:15:04.440But there's a lot of dissent that doesn't really pose a problem.
01:15:11.860But then there are other areas of dissent that really do.
01:15:15.460The COVID thing is something that I don't see any shift whatsoever.
01:15:23.360It's basically you either subscribe to the official narrative, the official, you know, COVID pandemic narrative, or you are a far right COVID denying conspiracy theorist extremist.
01:15:37.700I mean, those COVID dissidents have to continue to be delegitimized and demonized.
01:15:49.300And I think that is so essential because the event itself was so dramatic and so severe and so significant.
01:19:43.220Australian government went along with it.
01:19:44.800he was held in britain for seven years in the embassy and in maximum security prison and never
01:19:51.040charged he's never charged with anything no that was uh that was really shocking to me and
01:19:58.320radicalizing to me to watch that and to know him and to know that he's one of the most decent one
01:20:03.840of the smartest people i've ever i mean top three smartest people i've ever known um but yeah his
01:20:09.920crime was just telling the truth and you know i've been i i've been trying to get this across um it's
01:20:19.360this message is it's a part of the evolution of the system that we all live under um it in a sense
01:20:33.200If you go back and look at Russiagate and all of the mass hysteria during Trump's first term, again, you know, the message was, okay, you populists are actually presenting a problem for us.0.99
01:20:49.040You know, you crazy idiots left the European Union, you know, in Brexit.1.00
01:20:54.660You elected Donald Trump president.1.00
01:22:50.220It doesn't really have anything else to do except evolve in a more totalitarian direction.
01:23:01.460There's a military term called clear and hold.
01:23:05.380When you occupy a territory, when you have conquered whatever territory it is and you occupy that territory, what you have left to do at that point is clear and hold.
01:23:16.540And so what you're trying to do is consolidate your new ideology in the territory and wipe out little pockets of internal resistance, right?
01:23:29.900The system that we all live under and that all nations are a part of to one degree or another, including Russia, including China.
01:23:38.400Now, I mean, of course, there's still competition between nation states, just like there's competition between corporations, but none of them are trying to change the system, right?
01:23:48.940With the collapse of the Soviet Union and Marxism and all of this, it's one ideology world, you know, one system.
01:23:56.860And that system doesn't have any outside adversaries.
01:24:01.420So, the only thing that it really has left to do is to try to strengthen and consolidate its ideology and wipe out these little pockets of internal resistance.
01:24:14.940Now, this is, if you want me to go on about this, I will.
01:24:18.060It's where it gets a bit theoretical and philosophical, and people should really understand that, you know, I'm not a communist.
01:24:27.780I'm not trying to overthrow capitalism.
01:24:31.420I'd like to have some more private property if someone wants to give me some.
01:24:34.720But what I'm talking about is what this global capitalist system has done and is doing is trying to basically create one big global marketplace, right?
01:24:52.860And the way that works is you go into territories that are still dominated by traditional, or if I can use the word, despotic values, religious values, traditional values, family values, values that you mentioned before, that a lot of the working classes still maintain.