Comedian Russell Brand joins me in my house to talk about his new book, 'The Machine' and why it's important to have a good relationship with people you don't get on with. We talk about how important it is to have good relationships with other people, especially with people who don't share the same values as you do, and why that's important. We also talk about what it means to be a "useful idiot" in the modern culture, and how to deal with the idea that you can be a useful idiot. And we talk about why we should all start to wake up to the fact that we can no longer speak out against the machine, because by God forbid, if you do speak against it, heaven forbid, you should start to be punished for it. And if you're not convenient anymore, then maybe the machine will dispatch you as it dispenses those ideas it can't be bothered to communicate, because it will be brutalising people it can t communicate with, and as a result, it will dispense them as it will dispatch those who speak up to it. - Trigger Warning: This episode contains references to violence, sexual assault, racism, anti-Semitism, and anti-capitalism. This episode is not for the faint hearted, and I do not recommend it to anyone who is not well versed in these things. But it's a good listen, so you can at least try to get to grips with the ideas that are being communicated to you by the machine. in a way that you might be able to speak out loud about them. - it's not always easy, but it's possible to do so anyway. You can try to do it anyway, right? I hope you enjoy this episode, and if you like it, don't you agree with it? Thank you for listening to this one, and tweet me what you think of it! Timestamps: 4:00 - What do you think? 5:30 - How do you feel about this episode? 6:15 - What would you'd like to hear more of this? 7: Do you think it's better than that? 8:20 - What kind of thing? 9:00 11: What are you looking for? 12:30 13:00 | What's your favourite kind of person? 15:30 | Do you have a problem with the machine?
00:06:54.000I did not get invited into the shower, just for the record, but I was happy to let you use it.
00:07:00.000It's actually been a fun day, and for those of you who didn't see it, I did Russell's show earlier today.
00:07:07.000We sort of had a good time where, you know, I was the interviewee and you were the interviewer.
00:07:11.000Now we're sort of reversing those roles a bit.
00:07:13.000I think what we'll do is, just because of the timing and everything, we'll add that to the end of this.
00:07:17.000So I'll throw to this at the end of the show and you can see the different perspectives.
00:07:21.000But I think, you know, one of the things we sort of talked about was, you know, it probably wasn't all that long ago where, whether it's, you know, the powers that be or, You and I would have not been a likely conversation.
00:07:33.000We probably wouldn't have agreed on much, and yet, you know, we've spent all day together and sort of had a great conversation, even with differing views.
00:07:43.000I think, like, culturally, I would have felt, oh, I'm not allowed to talk to Donald Trump Jr.
00:07:49.000These are weird people that are from the other side of the culture.
00:07:53.000And we're not going to be able to get on, we'll have nothing in common, but over the course of the day it's become clear to me and hopefully that's sort of based on pretty integral... This is too far from my mouth.
00:08:03.000Hopefully it's based on sort of some shared values.
00:08:09.000I reckon that one of the things that's really important and significant is for people to, before assuming that they wouldn't be able to have easy camaraderie and collaborate with people, to get to know people first of all, because I think somehow... Right, right.
00:08:24.000If there's someone you think you won't get on with, go to their house, have a shower in their home.
00:08:29.000That might augur a brilliant friendship and the possibility for new alliance.
00:08:33.000So, you know, when you talk about that, I mean, talk about sort of that notion, I guess, there's sort of an element that, hey, if you were even open to that a few years ago, you'd have been derided, you'd have been, you know, there would have been attempted cancellation, but now that they've already tried to do that for all sorts of other reasons, simply for speaking out against the machine for you, there's an element that it's sort of freeing, actually, right?
00:09:02.000Having been inside the machine before, you recognize that it's got some pretty insidious values and makes some pretty serious demands of you.
00:09:09.000That there's a moment when you're being celebrated and sometimes you think that's because of something you're doing.
00:09:19.000And in retrospect, you start to realize that you're fulfilling a function for a particular aspect of the machine.
00:09:25.000You know, maybe for a minute it can utilize you as a Easy kind of symbol of decadence or hedonism or maybe just for a minute your face fits.
00:09:35.000You know people use that phrase useful idiot a lot.
00:09:39.000And then, after a while, maybe the machine no longer can use you, you're not convenient anymore, then it will dispatch you.
00:09:46.000By God, heaven forbid you should speak out against it, heaven forbid you should start recognising that this culture can be pretty punishing, that it seems to benefit from separating people, censoring people, surveilling people, controlling people, legitimising citizen management wherever it can.
00:10:00.000If you start to wake up to those ideas and communicate, The machine will be brutal.
00:10:30.000And it's actually to have that discourse, to have a dialogue, not necessarily with someone who's simply agreeing with you all the time, but someone who doesn't.
00:10:38.000I found I've learned so much more in life from that than simply, you know, regurgitating what academia has told me or what the mainstream media has told me and just, you know, it's interesting the left still thinks of themselves as counterculture but they're agreeing with corporate America and entertainment and all of that.
00:10:58.000Have you seen the sort of the irony of all of that?
00:11:02.000Yes, I think that it's an important point that if your ideals are corporatised ideals, if the ideals that you find yourself parroting are able to be utilised to legitimise authoritarianism or control, then you have to examine what they might really be about.
00:11:20.000For example, the idea of compassion, the idea of open-heartedness, the idea of letting people be who they want to be, to express themselves freely as long as they're not harming anyone else, all these kind of values that I used to associate with the left, you know, free speech, civil rights, the ability to be who you want to be, all of those kind of things, I still believe are pretty important ideas, but I've noted that these ideas that claim to be based on compassion Always end up in facilitating control.
00:11:49.000And I don't believe in the compassion anymore.
00:11:51.000And I think during COVID, Don, I felt like we were exposed to perhaps the true agenda.
00:11:57.000Because, you know, the whole point of lockdowns and taking experimental medications was meant to be, life is so sacred, we must lock ourselves in our homes, we must take these medications in order to protect the most vulnerable people in society.
00:12:12.000And protecting the most vulnerable people in society Seems like a pretty lovely aim.
00:12:16.000Who wouldn't want to look after their elders and the elderly?
00:12:19.000The people that can't look after themselves.
00:12:26.000Excuse me, that those weren't the motivating ideas at all.
00:12:29.000They just offered the opportunity for profit, for wealth transfer, to legitimize regulation, to restrict people's movements, to restrict people's freedom, to shame and condemn and criminalize people.
00:12:40.000So that for me was a big part of the awakening.
00:12:42.000Yeah, watching, you know, major corporate American chains be sort of exempted from any kind of lockdown because they're critical, but a gym, You know, physical fitness.
00:12:53.000The small coffee shop wasn't critical, but Starbucks was because they could pay a lobbyist $100,000 a month.
00:12:59.000It sort of felt like that was the big tell.
00:13:13.000And yet it was almost, that's what we were told was the case.
00:13:16.000Yeah and some of the things that have been maligned and condemned either as right-wing or far-right or racist or fascist or whatever do include stuff like health and fitness and bodily autonomy and personal awakening and like when you see someone like Joe Rogan being attacked in the way that he was who's someone that to me doesn't appear to be carrying a particular flag when it comes to political ideology just open-minded General speaking, individual sovereignty and freedom.
00:13:42.000That made me ask a lot of questions and you know I was chatting to, excuse me, is it John in there that you guys work with?
00:13:48.000And we were talking about the That how somehow there appears to be a war against human nature.
00:13:54.000That when you spend some time away from the culture, he was using the example actually of naked and afraid.
00:13:59.000Like after a couple of weeks of naked and afraid, people aren't sweating toxins so they're not getting bitten by mosquitoes.
00:14:05.000Suddenly people that are vegan are willing to hunt and eat meat.
00:14:08.000He suggests that there is a nature within us that we're being shut off from.
00:14:12.000Now, you can't follow your every impulse in this world because of course we have to be considerate of one another.
00:14:17.000But I feel that what we're living in is a kind of prison planet penitentiary that appears to have the inhibition of freedom almost as its driving ideal.
00:14:26.000It doesn't want people to be awake and confident and proud of who they are and truly proud of diversity.
00:14:34.000And like we were saying at lunch, it's like there's the promotion of superficial diversity but beneath it homogeneity, absolute homogenization of spirit and of thought.
00:14:44.000They want diversity of Color, of ethnicity, of sexual preference.
00:14:50.000The only thing that's verboten, the only thing totally off the table is diversity of thought.
00:14:55.000The second that happens, that's when they're not so into diversity anymore.
00:15:00.000You see that on college campuses, you see that elsewhere.
00:15:07.000You were married to one of the biggest people in pop culture and music with Katy Perry.
00:15:13.000You've sort of spoken out against the machine now, so you've perhaps seen a little bit more exposure to both sides.
00:15:20.000Which side, if you had to pick, is actually more tolerant?
00:15:25.000Because one side preaches tolerance, but it doesn't actually seem to espouse it.
00:15:29.000A few years ago, when I first started doing stuff on YouTube, I must have been super naive, but just from the background I'm from, a lot of people organically didn't trust politics, didn't trust politicians.
00:16:03.000I think they're all controlled by the same sets of powers.
00:16:05.000This is like, you know, in 2015 when I said this, OK?
00:16:09.000And when I said that, to your point about which side have you found to be more tolerant and which side is more vindictive, the attacks that came from liberal media, the condemnation, the criticism, the cruelty, how patronising they were, it made me realise, hold on a minute, These institutions hate ordinary, in my case, working British people.
00:16:31.000And I think the same thing became relevant during the campaigning era prior to the election of your father, that there is a sort of malignment and disdain for ordinary Americans.
00:16:44.000And I think that what we're experiencing now, Don, it seems to me anyway, is any opportunity to legitimize the hatred of ordinary Americans is taken.
00:16:54.000And it seems like there's a professional class that kind of have a vampiric, parasitic appetite to condemn and control.
00:17:02.000And for me, it, like, listen, people that are on the right, whether they're conservative socially, conservative economically, there might be ideas that I disagree with strongly, but I want to be able to talk to people that go, this is why I believe in free market capitalism, This is why I believe you should deregulate here.
00:17:16.000This is why I believe in Christianity.
00:17:17.000And I'm a Christian myself now, of course.
00:17:23.000The side that are claiming tolerance appear to be quite condemnatory exactly in the area where tolerance is required when dealing with people you don't agree with.
00:17:34.000If you don't have tolerance there, you don't have tolerance.
00:17:37.000You have the exploitation of certain ideas to legitimize control.
00:17:42.000Let's talk a little bit about Christianity.
00:17:47.000I said the left doesn't believe in a higher being necessarily, so they create their own along the way.
00:17:53.000Greta Thunberg for climate change, George Floyd for I'm not sure what.
00:17:58.000He was a deity for quite some time and seven funerals around the world.
00:18:01.000You had, you know, Zelensky today as the sort of high lord of Ukraine, which is apparently the most important issue in the world, even if most people don't agree with that.
00:18:12.000Obviously, during COVID, you had Anthony Fauci as the, you know, the high priestess of that.
00:18:18.000You know, what was that journey like for you?
00:18:20.000To, you know, at your age come to Christianity, be recently baptized?
00:18:26.000Well, I guess probably before, I might have had a more New Age approach to spirituality.
00:18:32.000I think that, tell me what you've believed on, but like addiction to substances is often an attempt, at least in the philosophy that's helped me get well, 12-step philosophy, is an attempt to address a spiritual malady, some loss, some absence, some yearning at the core of your being that you cannot live without God.
00:18:52.000If you don't have God, you will create God.
00:18:55.000At the level of the culture, that may be Anthony Fauci as a kind of deity of health and science.
00:19:02.000At an individual level, people need to have a God.
00:19:05.000People need a set of principles, a set of values.
00:19:07.000And there is something in our nature that yearns after a creator.
00:19:11.000Now when you get clean from drugs and alcohol, you know, I went to a place that was pretty, well, secular for sure.
00:19:19.000But they still have to instruct you that you are using drugs and alcohol As to give your life purpose and to cope with the lack of purpose.
00:19:28.000In the same way that there might be animal drives within us that are being denied, there are spiritual drives within us that are being denied by the culture.
00:19:38.000And so by getting clean, you know, you have to surrender to a higher power.
00:19:41.000You have to hand over your will and your life.
00:19:44.000And this process began, and I must be pretty dumb and a kind of slow learner, but over the 21 years that I've been clean and sober, I've obviously moved closer to a spiritual life.
00:19:54.000Meditation, recognizing that values like kindness and service and humility, while difficult to achieve, are certainly worth pursuing.
00:20:03.000Then, as the pressure increased recently after being publicly attacked and accused of the worst things, in my view, that a man can be accused of, and at the same time as dealing with some personal difficulties that have proven to be incredible blessings, actually, because, as I mentioned to you earlier, my son was born with some life-threatening conditions that required Surgery and pretty significant intervention.
00:20:27.000An absolute annihilation of the idea that I am any kind of sovereign in my own life.
00:20:32.000And a recognition of my total lack of power.
00:20:35.000The acknowledgement that even having been involved in entertainment and show business for as long as I'd been, that I still cared deeply about what other people thought of me and that I'd made an icon of myself.
00:20:47.000And when all that was destroyed, I found myself pretty raw.
00:20:53.000And in this place of rawness and fear, even though it brought out really kind and compassionate and brave and bold people, I want to mention at this point how strong Chris Pavlovsky in particular was at Rumble.
00:21:03.000He shut that shit down when people were saying, you've got to boot people off.
00:21:07.000Those attempts to censor, always using a crisis to assert control.
00:21:12.000What I found in this place of despair, really slowly and not through any will of my own, I've got to say, John, It's like, oh my God, Jesus Christ is always present.
00:21:24.000I've had this fascination with the figure of Christ but never before been willing to accept the idea of God come to earth in the figure of a human being to experience our suffering as a transaction, as a sacrifice for all of our sins.
00:21:38.000To recognize that I can't ever achieve the mercy and forgiveness that I need, but it has been freely given to me by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, our Lord.
00:21:47.000And this is something I'm like, it's not like, you know, I've only been a Christian for a month, so like I'm reading, I'm learning, I'm reading the Bible, I'm going to church, I'm learning about it.
00:21:56.000What it's given me access to is grace and compassion.
00:22:00.000And I think that these are the things that are lacking, not only in my life, but in the culture that, you know, you were like a member of on one half of, you know, half of the America loves you and loves your family, half of America vilifying, hating, condemning.
00:22:14.000You know, we joked about it earlier that still on your Wikipedia page, they're saying Russia scandal, Russia collusion.
00:22:41.000And I've gone from a position of not having access to those kind of things to having access to it.
00:22:45.000And what I see now is that where the real exploitation and control is, is taking place nefariously, invisibly, insidiously, behind politics somehow.
00:22:55.000That there are big choices that have to be made by your country and by mine if we are to prevent further authoritarianism, further autocracy.
00:23:03.000And for me, the kind of technological feudalism that we face under the auspices of compassionate neoliberalism
00:23:12.000is far more terrifying than even the worst projections of the detractors of Donald Trump,
00:23:18.000who say, oh, he'll stay in office forever.
00:23:21.000They've lost their touch with basic values, and they are pretending that compassion and care
00:23:26.000are at the heart of their ethos, when control is the only thing that you can track all the way through it.
00:23:33.000You know, when they recently sort of, they went after you, terrible accusations as, you know, no one's heard anything about it in nine months or whatever it was, but it doesn't stop the attack from happening.
00:23:43.000And the attack these days is though, it's the gospel, right?
00:23:48.000They did it to my father the same thing.
00:23:49.000You know, he apparently sexually assaulted someone 30 years ago, but, you know, it's like he was hiding for 30 years and they magically found him, right?
00:23:55.000You've been out there with one of the most famous people in the world, and one of the most popular people in pop culture, him sort of the same way.
00:24:02.000And yet, the second you took a stance that wasn't 100% in line with sort of the rest of that group, you know, they went after you, arguably in the most horrible way possible.
00:24:15.000There doesn't seem to be any evidence of this, but that doesn't seem to matter anymore.
00:24:21.000Because it doesn't feel like a good place.
00:24:23.000Media outlets collaboratively utilized anonymized sources and it seems to me there has been some considerable unusual collaboration and involvement of various agencies And departments.
00:24:38.000The whole time that I was famous, I was talking about, I'm a womanizer, I'm a womanizer, I love women.
00:24:47.000I feel grateful to say that women found me very attractive.
00:24:50.000And I have to be honest enough to say that the conduct that I engaged in was very promiscuous and very, very selfish.
00:24:57.000And when you're as selfish as that, of course, it has to be acknowledged.
00:25:03.000That that kind of selfishness is not in alignment with the kind of values, spiritual values, that I would like to live with now and I wish to God I'd lived with then.
00:25:12.000But to conflate that, and to amplify that, to confuse that, and to mendaciously fabricate that that is in alignment with crime and criminality, And as you say, this didn't occur while I was in Hollywood.
00:25:26.000Yeah, you were on the cover of every magazine in the world.
00:25:29.000It's not like, oh, that's the guy that did it.
00:25:34.000You weren't in a monastery for 25 years and then magically you came out and they recognized that guy.
00:25:41.000The culture's telling you that you're supposed to be promiscuous.
00:25:43.000The culture's telling you you're supposed to be hedonistic.
00:25:47.000Like, if you're a single man and you're fortunate enough to have women find you attractive, this is meant to be the greatest thing that you can be.
00:25:57.000And over time, like all forms of, I would say, addiction-driven behavior, One, I come to recognise, no, this is not the way to live.
00:26:07.000And like, I've got a family, and I live differently, and I, you know, listen, to tell you the truth, Don, I don't look at pornography in my life.
00:26:16.000I have my attitude to, like, I try to find the sacred in everything now, including sexuality.
00:26:22.000We are supposed to be living sacred lives.
00:26:25.000We are supposed to be living sacred lives.
00:26:27.000And my God, my life was not perfect, but it was never criminal, always consensual.
00:26:33.000And the culture, curiously, that tries to suggest that we should be living this decadent, hedonistic lifestyle, when it suits it, it metastasizes whatever it wants to into whatever it needs.
00:26:49.000That's sort of the great irony, I guess, right?
00:26:51.000The same culture that is literally out there promoting that, sexualizing it, oftentimes sexualizing our children, you see, on a daily basis, is the same culture that then attacked you for what they were essentially encouraging for decades.
00:27:05.000They would have actually lauded you for similar just promiscuity, maybe not the other what I believe to be totally just false accusations, as evidenced by the fact that it seems to be going nowhere.
00:27:16.000You still have to deal with the bullshit, but you know, if it was real, you'd still hear about it.
00:27:22.000We all know what it is to understand when people are interested, and thankfully, as I've said to you, I was in a position of Outrageous access, and I was pretty foolish to think that you can just live like this.
00:27:35.000It's not a way that I would encourage sons or daughters of mine to live, but I recognize that a lot of people live that way.
00:27:42.000Promiscuity and that kind of licentiousness, let's call it, is kind of celebrated throughout the culture.
00:27:50.000Sexuality is amplified throughout the culture, used to objectify and commodify almost everything.
00:27:57.000So, you know, in that, you know, there was sort of the natural, I guess, collusion between the media, a lot of the tech platforms automatically, you know, they take sort of an anonymous accusation and it became the gospel, right?
00:28:10.000I mean, YouTube wanted to throw you out, the UK government wanted you immediately demonetized from many of the platforms that you were out there on.
00:28:35.000What was it like being in that moment from those same people who, again, Even months earlier would have had you on the cover of their magazines and would have been promoting you at all costs.
00:28:46.000You'd have been boosted in the algorithm instead of smothered entirely.
00:28:51.000I suppose as it says in the Bible, by their fruits shall ye know them, that if the result is Demonetization, shutting down de-amplification, shadow banning, shutting down of the voice, then you get to understand potentially what the motives are.
00:29:05.000What it's like on a personal level, as you must know, is pretty terrifying.
00:29:08.000It's pretty terrifying to see the ability to coordinate, to control, to metastasize, to fabricate.
00:29:13.000All of those things are pretty frightening, but as I mentioned to you privately, it was happening at the exact same time that my Infant son was undergoing life-intervening cardiological surgery.
00:29:26.000He was born with a condition called Tetralogy of Fallot.
00:29:28.000And when you're dealing with that, when you're in a children's hospital, when you're walking through an oncology ward to avoid paparazzi, a children's oncology ward, seeing children who are presumably not all of whom are going to make it, I had the blessing of recognising however important this might seem to me, however unfair this might seem to be to me right now, it is insignificant in the overall scheme of things.
00:29:51.000I felt very blessed to have that kind of insight and incredibly blessed that You know, the surgeons and medical workers that treated my son had the expertise and the experience and the genius to save his life.
00:30:04.000So, I had a... You know, sometimes God, always God, does for you what you cannot do for yourself.
00:30:11.000I was not about to awaken to the fact that I needed to radically change, that I needed to live a different life.
00:30:17.000And thankfully, even though that was not an experience that I would wish upon even my worst enemies, Yeah, every once in a while I think we all have those experiences where you realize the stuff that we actually worry about is really trite.
00:30:36.000I told you at lunch, a similar experience yesterday.
00:30:38.000The young man, I won't say his name, but Got to our system.
00:31:24.000Because in the grand scheme of things, the little things that sometimes ruin our days are bullshit compared to what some people are going through.
00:31:32.000And then you see them have that sort of spirit and that joy despite that, and you're like, perspective.
00:31:37.000Christianity, they say, does not mean that you are inoculated against suffering, but your suffering becomes purposeful and meaningful.
00:31:47.000And I've been able to recognize that my life is not about me and what I want, and I continually, like, the needle flips between self and God, and I have to work so hard to make it stay towards God.
00:32:00.000But when you have the opportunity or blessing to be around people that need you, to be engaged in purpose and meaning, then you experience the kind of relief and grace of that.
00:32:12.000I can't live in that selfishness no more, Don.
00:32:14.000Like, there's sort of like, you know, you have a little call with somebody.
00:32:16.000I remember speaking to someone telling me about how their son had died from a drug overdose, and I was on a movie set in the trailer, and like, I sort of felt like, oh my God, I don't know how, like, she started crying on the call.
00:32:25.000Her kid had, like, taken, like, ecstasy, I think was the drug, and had died, and she just said, like, you know, she was talking to me about that experience.
00:32:33.000I felt like, wow, in this moment, I've got to be qualified to handle what she's saying.
00:32:37.000I don't feel qualified, but I've got to be qualified.
00:32:40.000This was some years ago, and I think if you look back at your life, you'll find whoever you are, that there are moments where you're being guided towards meaning and purpose.
00:32:48.000You're being shown that life isn't what you're being sold.
00:32:51.000It is not about the avoidance of fear and the fulfillment of desire.
00:34:51.000But, you know, you add in the bad stuff and it can go wrong really fast.
00:34:55.000The people that came up with the 12 steps upon which I based the book I wrote that your friend was kind enough to compliment, They realized that there is a yearning, even the phenomena of craving, the desire for a drink or for a drug, a kind of magnetic pulling towards, what is this longing?
00:35:14.000And what does the wanting want really?
00:35:16.000After I'd been clean and sober for about 10 years, I began to recognize what was plainly written in the great texts, which themselves were derived much from Christianity.
00:35:25.000In particular, there was a group called the Oxford Group, which were a first century Christian movement that believed in principles like restitution, and service, and confession, basic spiritual principles, in addition to the ideas and philosophy of Carl Jung.
00:35:40.000I, through reading it, recognize, like you, like everyone, we are looking for something.
00:35:46.000We are looking for purpose and meaning, and we find it in a variety of ways.
00:35:50.000Those of us that have a propensity towards addiction are unable to curtail something, even when it becomes destructive.
00:35:57.000Even when the drinking of the alcohol or the taking of the drugs becomes destructive, because it's filling an unfillable hole, unfillable without a spiritual solution, it gets right out of control.
00:36:07.000And when I saw other people that had got clean and sober using the 12-step method, when I heard them and when I read the literature, I recognized this is exactly what I have.
00:36:16.000I'm trying to fulfill a void using material methods.
00:36:21.000You can't fill a spiritual hole Using material means.
00:36:25.000So, like, even the pursuit of fame, the pursuit of money, the pursuit of all of these things is driven by a longing for something.
00:36:31.000And that's why even latterly, being specific and surrendering to, in particular, Jesus Christ, has made an impact.
00:36:39.000Because that is what's woven throughout the 12-step process.
00:36:53.000You think that what you want and what you're afraid of is the be-all and end-all.
00:36:56.000And that's why it takes sometimes a profound experience like you described, speaking to that young man who you said might not survive that operation, that wakes you up, oh my God, I've been living in an illusion.
00:37:05.000Now, the sustenance of this awakened state I don't find very easy.
00:37:09.000That means I have to regularly spend time with other people that have issues with addiction.
00:37:13.000I have to remind myself You know, every day you pray and you meditate and you get in the cold plunge and you read for me now the Bible and I stay in touch with other people that have addiction issues and I remember that kindness and service is the way that I'm supposed to be living and then I get distracted again.
00:37:28.000There's something, Don, inherently Sisyphean about it.
00:37:31.000That you wake up and you've forgotten and you have to push the boulder all the way up the hill again.
00:37:36.000But there is something so beautifully simple in you are not what the world revolves around.
00:37:42.000You better find some purpose and meaning in your life.
00:37:44.000And I think that that particular spiritual solution is available to anyone whether you're an alcoholic or a
00:38:16.000I know them, you know, actually, but the image that they're putting forth,
00:38:19.000how much of that is sort of a social construct, a creation, because we feel like we have to show that to people.
00:38:26.000I know people that they're miserable in their own lives that would otherwise be happy
00:38:30.000because they're watching other people who they think are happy,
00:38:33.000who are actually miserable, and they're not, they don't have the illusion.
00:38:37.000They're not living the illusion that's created instead of the...
00:38:40.000The culture certainly seems to be encouraging us, oddly, to not be ourselves.
00:38:45.000And even over the course of this day, I go from... We've met before and we've chatted a little bit before, but, like, because I've come here to your home, In good faith.
00:38:55.000And because I've been welcomed with such kindness and good grace, over the course of the day, you start to realize and you see what people really are.
00:39:03.000You see warmth and kindness and gentleness and sweetness.
00:39:27.000The phrase, champagne glory hole, is not going to... I mean, this is a Rumble audience, so they're used to free speech, but at the Rumble offices opening in Sarasota a few months ago, maybe even a year ago, I guess, a year ago now, there was an interesting, what has to now be described as champagne glory hole, where it was kind of like a hedge, And through the hedge were human arms holding champagne glasses.
00:39:51.000Now, neither you or I drink, so we took the opportunity to comment on those arms coming through a hedge clutching champagne glasses and what might be on the other side.
00:40:34.000Most of my friends were probably pretty left-leaning.
00:40:37.000You know, I was always probably pretty right-leaning, but there were certain things that I didn't get involved with because of the business we were in.
00:40:44.000We sold high-end real estate to people in major cities.
00:40:47.000You know, we had hotels, so we sold to everyone around the world.
00:40:50.000It was very difficult to sort of have to...
00:40:54.000Live in a world where you had to pick a side.
00:40:58.000And I realized as a business guy, I went from, hey, you got to cater to everyone to, no, I can actually do fairly well being loved by half a country, then being agnostic to the entire nation.
00:42:24.000I was starting to awaken from the idea that there was something in this worth having.
00:42:30.000Sometimes I feel for the people that are still in that world, that it's a beguiling and alluring world, but it is a cannibalistic and parasitic world.
00:43:17.000What it's about actually is like recognizing that some of these categories are put there in order to keep people apart from one another and then when you start having conversations with people that you're told that you're not going to get on with, you recognize, hold on a minute, what they're trying to do is polarize everybody so that there's not a possibility for consensus and radical change, a deep institutional change, change to some of the structures that, it seems to me, need radical change.
00:43:44.000I'm only speaking about my country, but it seems like it might be true in yours as well.
00:44:46.000Because ultimately these are corporatized spaces and you can see from the success of great comedians like Ricky Gervais and the ongoing success of Dave Chappelle as well as the emergence of a brilliant comic like Shane Gillis that ultimately if people are funny it's gonna have a kind of currency And, in the end, the same way that Spotify stuck with Joe Rogan because it must have made market sense, and the same way that Netflix having got edgy about Chappelle ultimately decided to keep that relationship, that, in a way, the ideas around comedy and maybe freedom of speech, you could say tangentially, are winning out.
00:45:26.000And also, I think, Don, there are several cultures now It's okay to have a culture that is kind of homogenized and neutralized and sanitized, as long as there is another culture where people can say what they want in good faith.
00:45:38.000And I think the idea has always been in comedy, the intention.
00:45:40.000I think people can diagnose when there is hatred in something.
00:45:47.000They might use rage even, but not hatred.
00:45:50.000And I don't think that, you know, some of the comedians that we're listing, these are very skillful, brilliant people that sort of are motivated on some level by love and by ideals that are worth revering.
00:46:01.000Well, guys, we're going to break for two seconds.
00:46:03.000We're going to go to ads, and we'll be right back with Russell Brand.
00:46:07.000Also, guys, for all the headlines that we spotlight on the show, check out my news app, MXM News, where you can get the mainstream news without the mainstream media bias.
00:49:26.000pay a penny out of pocket, educate yourself. So to learn more text really simple text Don Jr.
00:49:32.000D O N J R to the number 98 98 98 D O N J R Don Jr. to the number 98 98 98 and learn more so
00:49:42.000Okay guys we're back with Russell Brand.
00:49:46.000We've actually been having a sort of a great conversation all day.
00:49:49.000It's interesting, even, Russell, in doing this now, it's like, did I cover that already?
00:49:53.000But I figured, you know, while we covered the part about alcohol and staying away from that, I think we still can have a cigar, one of perhaps the last vices.
00:50:17.000So, you know, we were sort of talking about comedy and it's interesting now, you mentioned there is, there does seem to be a resurgence.
00:50:23.000I thought the actual, the great one, were you in the room by the way when that happened with Ricky Gervais when he called out Hollywood at the...
00:50:35.000I sometimes watch that as for a kind of catharsis, as a kind of release, to sort of see someone do that, to see someone confront people to their faces so boldly and so brazenly.
00:51:13.000Well, I guess we were talking a little bit about that earlier, right?
00:51:17.000We just sort of, you've been in there, you've met some of these stars, people always ask me, you know, which is your favorite Hollywood person that you've met?
00:51:24.000And the answer is like, honestly, like, Many are sort of simply vacuous.
00:51:28.000They may be a talented actor, but it doesn't mean there's a lot beyond that, right?
00:51:32.000You may like the character that they play, but in real life...
00:51:37.000Oftentimes not all that impressive as individuals.
00:51:41.000I mean, you seem, in talking to you, you're well-read.
00:51:45.000You're not like the CliffsNotes version of a book that someone, they read one book one time.
00:51:50.000I always joke, sort of like the LeBron James picture where he's holding a book upside down to make it seem like he's reading, but not realizing it's upside down.
00:52:00.000Well, you know, because it took me a long time to come up, I was like 30 before I made any money out of show business.
00:52:08.000And what I recognized is that a lot of people that I've been living in bedsits with, you know, like small single room apartments, a lot of people that were like signing on, like living off benefits, trying to pursue a career in comedy or acting, these people were also kind of brilliant and great.
00:52:23.000And sometimes that, and then the people that I met, I met some people that were, I mean,
00:52:27.000I have met amazing people in Hollywood that are kind or funny or brilliantly gifted.
00:52:32.000I wouldn't say it's as sort of simple as, oh, no one's got, you know, because some of
00:52:37.000But like what I did notice is there seems to be a good deal of good fortune and luck
00:52:41.000that the luck, you know, that the right place, right time.
00:52:44.000Kind of, because a lot of people are just scratching out and eking out a living like when I was doing stand-up comedy in front of five or ten people.
00:52:52.000They were brilliant, and just the right thing don't happen, or maybe there's not, I don't know, the lucky breaks, or maybe enough persistence.
00:53:02.000But what I kind of agree with is that it's I don't want to say there was a kind of don't meet your heroes type of disappointment because I did meet some really really lovely and kind people.
00:53:26.000Meeting a guy that sort of tasted food from Nelson Mandela, that tells that story so beautifully, that speaks so patriotically, that rendered the story in a way you couldn't understand.
00:53:36.000South African man, he works here where we live, he's become a very good friend of ours.
00:53:41.000He was literally a food taster for Nelson Mandela for years.
00:53:44.000And, you know, he's an immigrant and now an American citizen, and he's more patriotic than the vast majority of, like, naturalized-born Americans that I know, and it's sort of an amazing thing, and his story's incredible.
00:53:57.000But yeah, you see a lot of that, and that conversation to me is often more interesting than the conversations I've had with, you know, sort of the celebrities that everyone else is curious about.
00:54:05.000Yes, this is what I find as well, and also patriotism is changing.
00:54:09.000You know what's happened is I've spent more time in your country talking to people like in the military, people that are like, you know, some people that have pretty high rank in the military, talking like that they now sound like rebels and radicals, like they are not with the government of your country, you know.
00:54:24.000There was a time where, as a British person, if I was critical of America, I would assume that, even though I was never criticising American people, that patriotic people reject that.
00:54:34.000Now, patriotic people are very, very angry about the way that their country is being governed, even when it comes to things like war.
00:54:41.000And therefore, support the troops used to be a way of bypassing sensible conversation about war.
00:54:48.000If that person checked the box and they were a veteran, they're beyond reproach.
00:54:52.000And it is interesting, actually, because we're having this conversation on the 80th anniversary of D-Day.
00:54:58.000I was actually supposed to be over there.
00:54:59.000A bunch of my friends who were former veterans, I was going to jump into Normandy.
00:55:02.000They did this, like, they're reenacting sort of the Normandy landing.
00:55:06.000A bunch of my friends who are veterans and the guys from Black Rifle Coffee, and I was supposed to go.
00:55:09.000And then I literally hurt my knee three weeks ago and I had to get surgery.
00:55:14.000Uh, and you know, needless to say, my doctor's like, yeah, you can't jump out of a plane for a little while, which really sucks because I was going to jump out of a plane with them.
00:55:21.000And that just feels like an amazing experience.
00:55:23.000But, but I think of, I think of, you know, the guys that did that, you know, stormed the beaches at Normandy or jumped into, you know, behind the lines at Normandy.
00:56:31.000But to not acknowledge that there is an archetype in our kind called the warrior, that certain demands need to be made of people that they Put themselves in that kind of position.
00:56:53.000I've jumped off things with parachutes.
00:56:55.000You can jump out of things with a parachute.
00:56:58.000I'm not static line certified, but I have We talk about propensity.
00:57:04.000Mine is I have an incredibly underdeveloped sense of self-preservation, so everything I do is usually designed to... I'm waiting for medical technology to get ahead of my early-onset arthritis, because I've broken every major bone in my body doing everything stupid.
00:57:31.000You know, everything I do, I sort of take it to, you know, I'm a scuba diver, but I went all the way to Trimix, where I'm just going down to, you know, three, four hundred feet deep.
00:57:38.000And, you know, again, I don't do well with just enough.
00:57:41.000By the way, it probably comes to the conversation of addiction, which is, you know, you know, Going out and having two or three drinks, for me, wasn't enough.
00:57:50.000You know, if I went out and had two or three, that became six or eight, or ten to twelve, or, you know, whatever it may be.
00:57:57.000The off switch, where it says, okay, now we've had enough, that doesn't necessarily exist with me.
00:58:01.000Right, that can be a great gift, but also an incredible curse.
00:58:04.000So, right, yeah, another hundred feet, another gin and tonic, let's go another hundred feet lower, jump out of another plane.
00:58:30.000And this was during the peak, you know, toxic masculinity.
00:58:32.000And if you're alpha male, it's terrible.
00:58:34.000You know, everyone hates alpha males until shit goes down and you need some alpha male shit, right?
00:58:39.000And so this is the guy that was, he was driving by his British SAS and, you know, he literally threw on a mask and got his AK-47, you know, and ran into this, you know, hotel complex, took out a bunch of these terrorists, saved a bunch of people, and all of a sudden, you know, the British government's out there denouncing him, and he can't write a book about it, he can't, I'm like...
00:59:07.000You're going to wait 45 minutes for them to massacre a bunch of people and to do it by the book, and yet you're watching the UK, maybe one of the greatest militaries in the world, and all of a sudden, just a few years later, a few decades later, denouncing Exactly what we're supposed to train our warriors to do.
00:59:31.000And it's interesting to see that mindset.
00:59:34.000I don't know what the future is of that civilization.
00:59:36.000Are we at the tail end of a civilization if we're denouncing that kind of behavior?
00:59:43.000But we've got to make sure we're recognizing the 4,376 genders, which no one can articulate or name, And yet it's treated as though it's the gospel.
00:59:52.000Joseph Campbell, you're a brilliant academic and author.
00:59:56.000He said that when someone has got the apparel of a warrior, when you've invited someone to take a vow or an oath, put them into service, put them into uniform, ask them to risk their lives, you can't suddenly apply a different kind of mentality.
01:00:10.000You know, I was chatting to your mate John out there about, you know, that 21, 22 veterans a day commit suicide.
01:00:17.000The astonishing statistics of the number of vets that are homeless, even people in active service having to use food banks.
01:00:26.000And it makes me realize that something is falling apart, the core of these institutions.
01:00:32.000Now, you know where I stand on all this.
01:00:33.000I really think that people like celebrate absolute diversity
01:00:37.000of course, but also recognize the significance of tradition.
01:00:40.000And in a country where you have full autonomy, where you have actual electoral democracy,
01:00:46.000where you have maximum decentralization, where you have maximum ability for people to be free,
01:00:51.000then I think, you know, like surely for maybe hundreds or thousands of years, there would have been,
01:00:56.000we would have lived in tribes across the world where we would not have expected homogeneity
01:01:01.000that you'd have had glorious gods and different creations and different ways of hunting
01:01:08.000And there would have been a true understanding of the difference of cuisine,
01:01:11.000rather than as we've touched on before, Don, Superficial diversity underscored by homogeneity, as you said earlier, of thought.
01:01:18.000The role of the warrior, the role of the hero, like for me, I mean, unless there's something you're missing out that story, someone who pulls on a mask and takes out an AK in the sweet name of freedom, it's difficult not to admire.
01:01:31.000But there does seem to be an affront on masculinity in general.
01:01:36.000You know, Allowing men to play in women's sports.
01:01:40.000You know, everything's toxic masculine that would have been otherwise just normal gender roles.
01:01:46.000I mean, I think, you know, we've seen that as it plays out in sports.
01:01:49.000We see, you know, high school and college male athletes that are journeymen in their respective sports.
01:01:55.000They, you know, they start competing against the females and they're winning national championships or they're taking away scholarships from actual biological women.
01:02:08.000I mean, that seems like it started, it certainly stemmed from sort of a Hollywood mentality, and yet, I've been sort of speaking out against this for years when I was like, this is fucking bullshit, and I put it out on Twitter, years ago even, and that was when Twitter was 95-5, you know, sort of liberal to conservative, and even there, Even there... Man, I hate Don Jr.
01:02:52.000Yes, I do wonder what ideologies drive it.
01:02:55.000And remember, as I've said to you before, I completely believe in people's individual freedom.
01:02:59.000But it seems that sport is an area where there are metrics that are designed to generate fair competition, for example.
01:03:06.000Age groups, you know, like seems to be where it's accepted that there are categories that are worth observing.
01:03:14.000I heard before that perhaps it is this replacement of God at the centre of our universe with the individual at the centre of our universe that means that everything, nature, biology, Ideals.
01:03:29.000Everything can be regarded as a kind of relative value.
01:03:36.000For me this potentially creates a kind of chaos.
01:03:40.000Now I would yield to anyone who knows more about sport than I do but it seems that there might be a reason That elite sports appear to be categorised around gender and have been historically, that you don't generally have men against women in football or boxing or MMA or whatever.
01:03:58.000It seems that experts have arrived at that being a good system.
01:04:02.000When it comes to the ideals behind why there is the promotion of people's right to free expression, I agree with free expression, but that should It should mean the right to freely be Christian, the right to freely be super traditional, the right to be as progressive as you want.
01:04:17.000In a society where people have their maximum amount of freedom and control over their own lives, but no right at all to intervene and control other people's lives, other than in the obvious areas for which there are already laws, I feel that that is a way of diffusing this ongoing cultural war.
01:04:33.000Because I do worry, actually, Dom, that after this election, In which, you know, the detractors of your father and the movement around him say that he will take office and remain in office forever.
01:04:47.000When we saw, when your father was elected president, just an entire term filled with subsequently proven to be untrue claims that there was Russian collusion.
01:04:56.000continue to this day, that it seems that the vision appears to be kind of seared in.
01:05:01.000But if there are different types of America emerging, maybe the ideas behind federalism should be doubled down on,
01:05:08.000because my understanding as a visitor in your country
01:05:11.000is that the point was having the maximum amount of freedom and democracy in
01:05:15.000each state, in each region, so that people could determine for themselves.
01:05:18.000And if people vote to live in a certain way for electoral democracy, then maybe they should
01:05:39.000I mean, if CNN is willing to admit that, that shows, if they acknowledge it, and let's just
01:05:44.000say, you know, the Communist News Network doesn't usually acknowledge something like that.
01:05:48.000That's sort of been interesting and telling.
01:05:51.000That's the point of justice being blind.
01:05:52.000The statues are always depicted as being blindfolded and carrying a scale because it's not meant to happen.
01:05:58.000But you're not meant to evaluate it on the personality.
01:06:01.000You're meant to evaluate it based on the principle.
01:06:04.000And if this country or this culture is determined to toxically tear itself apart, Then perhaps ideas like secession, perhaps ideas like maximum amount of representation electorally become more significant.
01:06:20.000If people in certain regions want to live a certain way, then I don't think you should even ask what it is, other than the obvious laws that we already have in place.
01:06:28.000I mean, for me, that is what liberty and freedom means.
01:06:32.000Because I meet people with all manner Of backgrounds and all manner of expressions of self and I think they're entitled to them and that's like, I think you yourself said, you don't really care.
01:06:43.000People are like, if you leave me alone, I'll leave you alone.
01:06:45.000Are we going to cooperate and get along?
01:06:50.000Do we think that the people who claim that they care about immigration aren't using it in some shady way?
01:06:55.000Do we think that the people that are talking about climate change aren't exploiting it?
01:06:59.000If always the result is more control, more opportunity for citizen management, more opportunity to censor, more opportunity to shut down dissent, then I think that that's what it was always about.
01:07:14.000I like that you brought up sort of the notion of federalism, because you've been in Florida for a few hours and you've already ripped off the sleeves of your shirt, so you've fully adapted the Florida man personality.
01:07:42.000But I've got to say, like, you know, it seems that this is a pretty appealing place to live.
01:07:48.000Pretty appealing place when you've got rumble here, when you've got a free speech movement, when you have a lot of people that are interested in preserving the kind of values that I care deeply about, yeah.
01:07:58.000And also, you've been so hospitable, you know, not many people let me just turn up in their, you know, and use their shower and their bathroom and stuff like that.
01:08:04.000Next time we'll run over to the Bahamas and we'll go, you know, have some fun and But, so talk about, you know, the UK, right?
01:08:11.000I looked at, I think COVID was a big awakener for everyone.
01:08:14.000I used to think, you know, hey, it was the US and, you know, Canada and the UK and Ireland and New Zealand and Australia.
01:08:21.000These were bastions of freedom and democracy.
01:08:57.000We don't have a constitution, so it makes things a little more amorphous.
01:09:00.000During the time that I was attacked, an online safety bill was passed which, guess what, granted people the ability to censor and control online information.
01:09:08.000Like in your country, agencies that were previously deployed in Middle Eastern nations to track
01:09:13.000terror and control it online are being deployed against domestic populations.
01:09:19.000There seem to be patterns taking place in our country that are taking place in yours
01:09:23.000and it always seems to be about leveraging control and the, you know, whether it's the
01:09:28.000EU or UN or NATO creating new bureaucratic opportunity to legitimise profitable wars.
01:09:37.000Even if we just track our shared interest of Rumble, you can see that Rumble were kicked out of France because they wouldn't take Russia today off of their platform, our platform.
01:09:47.000Then Russia shuts Rumble down in Russia.
01:09:50.000Well, the best was the article saying, Rumble's an apologist for Russia, and then Russia bans Rumble as well because they didn't take down the other stuff.
01:09:58.000Actually being true free speech, probably the only platform like that, certainly in the video side of things, even remotely true.
01:10:05.000I mean, even other big platforms that talk a lot about free speech, it's like, well, we're, you know, we don't want to get thrown off in Turkey or in France, so we'll give a little bit.
01:10:13.000We don't want to get thrown off in Brazil, so, you know, we'll accommodate, you know, the regime because, you know, we feel having a little bit of a voice is better than none.
01:10:22.000And it's like, wait a second, but if the little bit of the voice is essentially propaganda, What's the purpose?
01:10:28.000Don, they've admitted that the whole category of malinformation means information that's true that they don't like.
01:11:42.000And they're beginning to realise that they have to assert some sort of centralised authority.
01:11:47.000And they're having to create categories to do it.
01:11:49.000They're having to shut down dissent to do it.
01:11:51.000They're having to criminalise political opponents to do it.
01:11:53.000They're using what institutions they have and calling that democracy, instead of what it appears to actually be, a new And I think that tyranny is sort of evolving.
01:12:10.000People like me caught on to what was happening on the censorship because I had a big social sort of following prior to getting into politics, right?
01:12:18.000So when you were, you know, A reality show, The Apprentice, or whatever it may be.
01:12:22.000When I was pushing that, oh, it's agnostic, it's entertainment, I could see what was happening.
01:12:27.000But because I do my own social, when I hit that button, I know what it's going to do.
01:12:30.000I know when a tweet or whatever it may be, a post, ah, this is a good one, ah, that's going to go hot, it's going to go big.
01:12:36.000But then I'd watch, and I'd be like, oh, it's going big, and then boom.
01:12:40.000I mean, you get 1,000 retweets in the first hour and seven more over the next 24, and you're saying, wait, what just happened?
01:12:47.000So, you know, I called this out and I'm like, I'm being censored.
01:14:08.000And again, it's something that we were aware was happening, because when they threatened to break up those monopolies, a pact was plainly made.
01:14:17.000To act as a censorship unit in the same way that Legacy Media seemed to have been doing for quite some time.
01:14:25.000You know, like I had a brilliant conversation with Mike Benz, who told me that a CIA cutout funded even the PhD research of Larry Page and Serge Brin, the eventual creators of Google, even at the point while they were at Stanford, I believe, University, they had relationships with a CIA carve-out.
01:14:44.000He then went on to tell me That, of course, when Google Maps got launched, you know, if you just look at these things superficially, you think, oh yeah, what ingenuity, these entrepreneurs came up with Google Maps.
01:14:53.000But satellite technology is not something you can access willy-nilly or easily.
01:15:00.000Some kind of group or agency granted them access to satellite technology in exchange, according to Mike Benz, for back-channel access to the use of Google.
01:15:12.000Now we're beginning to understand that these platforms exist in order to surveil and control.
01:15:17.000Anyone who saw Edward Snowden on that documentary Citizenfall saw someone like Awakening, like they can track you here, they can track you there.
01:15:24.000We get so quickly used to the idea that the control of information, the control of citizens is absolutely paramount.
01:15:30.000You can't have a population of intercommunicated, awakening civilians that are brave and bold and willing to sacrifice themselves and willing to form new alliances.
01:15:39.000You have to, in a sense I suppose, somehow castrate us in as many ways as possible and control information as steadfastly as possible.
01:15:49.000To prevent the natural flow of what's happening in spaces of power.
01:17:22.000Julian Assange has been incarcerated in various ways for nearly 10 years now.
01:17:26.000He's still likely to be extradited to your country, even though, blessedly, he's been granted the right to appeal.
01:17:32.000And you gave an example of what a hero is earlier.
01:17:35.000In a military context, the hero is over.
01:17:37.000A person that is brave enough to run towards danger, willing to sacrifice themselves for a higher good.
01:17:43.000In the context of journalism, a hero is a person that's willing to convey true information to the people and knowing that there might be risk involved.
01:17:52.000I don't know that Julian Assange knew that he would be put in Belmarsh, a maximum security, A category prison, for five years now without trial, waiting extradition under the Espionage Act, as yet unpardoned.
01:18:04.000And I feel like, you know, earlier when we were chatting, For me, the two things, and I know that you are not your father, but you bear his name and of course you work closely with him.
01:18:12.000The two issues that, for me, I'm curious about are the pardoning of Assange, whether Assange will be pardoned if there was another Trump presidency.
01:18:23.000And the acknowledgement that what went on in the pandemic, what went on with Big Pharma's power, what went on with Big Pharma's profits, what went on with their legal indemnity and their ability to mask and redact files and information, that for me is an area where I think a lot of people would like to see some sort of change.
01:18:42.000And so what I mean Well, we'll air our interview that we did earlier at the end of this, so we'll flip to that, and I discuss sort of my thoughts on that.
01:18:50.000I'd love to get you in front of him to talk about his, but yeah, I think so many people's views on all of that have changed.
01:18:56.000I mean, again, when they raided Mar-a-Lago using the FBI's hostage rescue team, we found out ten days ago, they were, you know, Allowed to go live fire if, like, what, my father's gonna, you know, like he stole the beefs to drive down to January 6th, right?
01:19:10.000He knocked out two Secret Service agents.
01:19:12.000That was congressional testimony under oath as though that happened, even though, of course, that didn't happen.
01:19:17.000Now, if my father was able to disarm two 30-year-old heavily armed and well-trained armed agents and steal a car and do, I'd be like, I'm probably more likely to vote for him now than I would have been otherwise.
01:19:28.000But you see, again, that manipulation snowed in.
01:19:33.000I don't know what the counterargument is.
01:19:55.000So wait, he's guilty of doing this under his documents that he's able to declassify, that he's able to have under lock and key, guarded by Secret Service.
01:20:04.000The FBI comes and raids and all of a sudden there's photos of these on the front page of the Washington Post within 20 minutes?
01:20:12.000Who's exposing classified documents to the world?
01:20:14.000It doesn't seem like us, it seems like them, and yet there's no accountability for that.
01:20:32.000What appeared to be a lot of financial mismanagement, at least, and total corruption, at worst, that created a crisis that still impacts us culturally and socially to this day.
01:20:45.000Nobody, except for I feel like one person, was ever found culpable for that disaster.
01:20:49.000That was an opportunity for the change and hope that Barack Obama was elected under to be made manifest.
01:20:56.000This was when the Occupy movement grew.
01:20:58.000This is when populism of a variety of hues emerged.
01:21:02.000Now it seems to me that when something happens like the legitimization of lethal force for that raid, the extraordinary collaboration and corroboration of the media, it seems, unless that's standard, unless Always when they do those raids, they legitimize legal force.
01:21:16.000Then for me, that's some shady shit right there.
01:21:18.000And the other thing is, how many times have the New York Times apparently been involved?
01:21:22.000Like with the arrest of that Jack Tashera, that whistleblower, they were involved in the arrest.
01:21:27.000I mean, you have someone that releases essentially information.
01:21:30.000We are boots on the ground in Ukraine, and we're fighting a proxy war, but that's pretty clear against Russia, the world's largest nuclear superpower, by volume of missiles or warheads.
01:22:26.000All of these ideas that were like, you know, you are crazy, this is a conspiracy theory.
01:22:30.000By the time we get that information verified, all of the people that are conveying it have been smeared and attacked and condemned as dissenters.
01:22:38.000People are getting jail sentences left and right.
01:22:40.000It's an extraordinary machine and I'm starting to feel that it is quaking and quivering and falling apart.
01:22:47.000That even though it sometimes feels terrifying, we might be on the precipice of the kind of revelations and the kind of uprising that could lead to meaningful change.
01:22:58.000When you have a legacy media that is clearly working in conjunction with the deep state, amplifying the state's messaging, de-amplifying the messages of dissidents, creating continually disruption and cultural conflict, it's pretty plain to me that these are maybe the death threats.
01:23:13.000froze of a dying system, that something new has to emerge.
01:23:18.000And whether it's in alignment and faith to the constitutional edicts of the forefathers
01:23:23.000of your country, I'm not in a position to say.
01:23:26.000But what I do believe in is that there are fundamental things, like individual freedom,
01:23:29.000collective freedom, electoral representative democracies, that are being lost at a radical and terrifying pace.
01:23:37.000So as an outsider, but someone who's also spent plenty of time here, what do
01:23:44.000Well, I'm like, to be honest, I'm sort of, after the pandemic period, and after sort of seeing, like, for example, some of the pledges that have been offered around the escalation of hostility between Ukraine and Russia.
01:23:56.000There will never be boots on the ground.
01:23:57.000Oh, they kind of are boots on the ground.
01:23:58.000We'll never use American munitions in Russian territory.
01:24:42.000You know, again, I feel, obviously, I'm so jaded on that my whole ethos right now is, you know, being at sort of that counterculture, trying to, you see that other argument.
01:24:50.000But, you know, regular people who are working hard to get by.
01:24:52.000You know, world's not easy, no matter what.
01:24:58.000I think, for example, look, some time ago people started talking about, oh we might have to prepare for a Trump presidency, you might have to have some... It was so rough.
01:25:07.000Prosperous economy, no wars, peace deals in the Middle East, I mean it's terrible.
01:25:12.000Yeah, never any acknowledgement of the culpability, never acknowledgement of the hypocrisy, never any acknowledgement of the corruption, only condemnation of the extraordinary number of people that are incredibly passionate about the movement of which you are part.
01:25:27.000I have serious doubts about the institutions that are now being called democratic, that are being called democracy.
01:25:36.000Again, we used to believe that democracy meant that the will of the people through the ballot box would be enacted by systems of service.
01:25:46.000Now, what it seems like is there are some institutions that are controlling and will not give up control.
01:25:51.000And it seems that more and more, That the things that the opponents are accused of are the things that are being practiced in a literal Orwellian flip.
01:25:59.000From the outside, it seems to me that, I don't know, I can't envisage anything.
01:26:02.000And it seems weird with something that's sort of coming up on us so soon that it's, you know, what's going to happen?
01:26:09.000Is the election going to be cancelled?
01:26:11.000Is there going to be some sort of crisis where it's like, oh, we're not holding elections anymore.
01:26:14.000Everyone get in your houses for some reason.
01:26:16.000Yeah, it's interesting watching at least the mainstream television.
01:26:22.000We've got to prevent the guy that's arguably leading the presidential election in all of the polls, but certainly the leader of the Republican side, one of the party systems.
01:26:31.000We've got to save democracy by making sure he's not on the ballot.
01:26:38.000I'm waiting for, like, you know, Ashton Kutcher to jump out of a cake and be like, you're being punked.
01:26:42.000Like, you're going to preserve democracy by not letting people vote for who they want to vote for?
01:27:01.000Yeah, I wanted to ask you before, like, you know, we've been talking all day long.
01:27:05.000You mentioned just briefly that there was a point where you were in a pretty agnostic political space.
01:27:10.000You're a reality TV star and you're the famous son of Donald Trump, a billionaire.
01:27:20.000When it was announced that you were going to be entering into new territory, political territory, did you imagine that it would be as terrifying and as toxic and that it would entail what it has done?
01:27:32.000Not as much, meaning it's much more vicious.
01:27:35.000We knew it would happen a little bit, right?
01:27:36.000I tell the story when my father announced it was June 16, 2015.
01:27:40.000And that was sort of the infamous escalator ride as depicted in The Simpsons.
01:27:45.000But he did that, and I remember the elevator ride before that when we were all there as a family.
01:27:50.000And my father, I always tell the story, it was in my first book, Triggered, ironically, like this show.
01:27:55.000And I told the story where he looked me in the eyes and he goes, And now we find out who our real friends are.
01:28:00.000And that was a... Like, wait a minute.
01:28:05.000Maybe not to the level, but he understood.
01:28:07.000He was friends with a lot of those people in Hollywood, then all of a sudden he was the devil.
01:28:11.000And I'm like, the people who said we were the most terrible people in the world, I was like, well, you know, we had dinner like three weeks ago.
01:28:37.000For me, it was an interesting thing, because I think, you know, the reality, you know, I told you earlier in the interview, I grew up on sort of construction job sites.
01:28:53.000The reality is, like, growing up, even in New York City my whole life, That was probably more pretend.
01:28:58.000I could do it and, you know, throw on a tux or a suit with, you know, every other, you know, monkey and dance and whatever it is and do that just fine.
01:29:06.000But I was actually probably faking that much more than I was actually what this world was, you know, sort of defending, you know, at least the rights, the freedoms, you know, that hardworking American, the forgotten man and woman, as we sort of refer to it, right?
01:29:20.000And so, as brutal as all of this process has been, and it's much worse than we envisioned, For me, it was actually kind of freeing, because I actually got to be who I probably am in real life for the first time in what was then essentially 40 years.
01:29:36.000I was always conservative-leaning, I was always very pro-2A, but I also built buildings in New York, and that wasn't a popular position, so I could feel that way, I could do that on the weekends in my free time, but I couldn't do it very publicly, because there was a cost.
01:29:52.000Once we sort of went all in, I was like, great, I get to be who I am.
01:30:20.000I mean, I find, you know, when we talk about Earlier, talking about purpose in life, I'm like, no, now I got mine.
01:30:25.000I turned out, hey, I was decent at building stuff, I'm probably better at this, and I'm willing to do that, I'm willing to have that conversation and that dialogue, and I can articulate it, and I have a big platform that I'm willing to utilize, not just to...
01:30:39.000You know, well, I can't offend anyone, so I'm going to try to grow.
01:30:42.000I don't have to be, you know, someone from Hollywood where they can just be friends.
01:30:46.000Like, I've picked a side, and that's fine.
01:30:48.000And, you know, the things I'm fighting for are actually to create the things I thought actually existed in America that had, frankly, been missing for quite some time.
01:30:57.000You know, bring back actual freedom, not sort of, you know, a bastardized notion.
01:31:04.000So, you know, I'm fighting for an ideal that I believe Up until I sort of got exposed to it, I believe existed, but probably didn't actually exist.
01:31:14.000Do you feel that there are, on the cultural left, ideas that are interesting to you or that have changed you for the positive?
01:31:26.000Some of us, I think, have a willingness to really analyse what we take for granted and to look at, oh yeah, those traditions or perhaps those institutions maybe are punitive to some groups and beneficial to other groups.
01:31:42.000Right, so there's ideas that you are open to.
01:31:44.000I think without question, but you see all sorts of these things.
01:31:51.000I'm not ever pretending that we've lived in a perfect society on this, but I do think the cure for some of these things gets a little bit ridiculous.
01:32:35.000You know, when we talk about, you know, people always write, well, you want to make America great again because you want to bring back slavery.
01:32:43.000But we do want to bring back sort of the values where we all were actually equal, where there can be an actual meritocracy, not where, you know, I joke with my boys, right?
01:32:55.000They're white men with the last name Trump.
01:34:41.000You see that with the air traffic control stuff that's been come out recently.
01:34:43.000It's like, well, if you perform well in science and you were competent, you know, you're actually at a disadvantage to someone who was a terrible student to become an air traffic controller.
01:35:00.000So, there's definitely things I've changed my mind on.
01:35:03.000I think there's plenty of issues on the conservative side that I don't agree with.
01:35:07.000I don't agree with any dogma completely.
01:35:09.000I think if you buy into it, I think you're probably a fool.
01:35:13.000But I can say, hey, for the most part, I agree with X, Y, Z, or this, and there's always exceptions, and things change, and I think things evolve.
01:35:20.000But they've evolved sort of regressively, in my opinion, these days.
01:35:24.000Yeah, and while you were talking then, Don, I was thinking that, God, it sounds so complex that in the end, I suppose that we have to look at things that I was talking about with Kim earlier, like forgiveness, redemption, salvation, compassion, love, good faith, ideas that you don't find in a materialistic set of values, but that you do find enshrined in spiritual value systems.
01:35:48.000And those are the kind of things that are starting to slowly transform my life, and where I sense that there might be some hope and opportunity, because one way or another, this country is going to have to be healed or torn apart, and I don't see people talking about that.
01:36:41.000I mean, it didn't look much like a summer of love.
01:36:43.000And yet, you know, it was a mostly peaceful protest where buildings were burned in the background.
01:36:47.000And, you know, we looted, you know, a Gucci store because I guess, you know, a pair of Gucci shoes and a purse is, in the name of social justice, makes it okay and it's acceptable.
01:36:57.000You know, that's not a society that I'm, you know, that I think is going to be too long for the world, unfortunately, and yet we've normalized that.
01:37:04.000So I think we have a lot of work to do.
01:37:42.000It could be asphyxiation, suffocation and nicotine.
01:37:46.000But now I feel like, man, whatever we may disagree on, it is plain that the real threat to freedom is globalist, corporatist, authoritarianism, always looking for opportunity to Assert civilian management to control currency, to control free speech, to centralize authority, to limit the ability to communicate.
01:38:37.000Thank you for For being that voice, for taking that leap, for stepping out of that world and fighting for these things.
01:38:45.000Because I think it matters and we need more people to articulate those thoughts, to have that conversation.
01:38:50.000When more people become unafraid to actually have that conversation, when they sort of disregard the social consequence of that, I think we can actually make real progress.
01:39:00.000Whether it's champagne glory holes or cigars or Kim's Well, I don't threat that there are cameras in your shower.
01:39:08.000It seems that we are creating new opportunities for revelation.
01:39:10.000If we want to go viral, I may or may not have the video, so we'll see what happens.
01:39:31.000Listen, I think I was the second The second verified user on Rumble after Bongino.
01:39:38.000Bongino was verified, then you were verified.
01:39:40.000Yeah, well, it was right when all of that stuff happened with, you know, Twitter 1.0, where all of a sudden they cancelled the President of the United States, and I had a large following there, and I said, wait a second, this could disappear in two seconds.
01:39:51.000You could see what was going on, and, you know, reached out with Dan, started talking with Chris Pawlowski, the CEO, and I was on there and have been there ever since.
01:40:00.000It's, you know, arguably the only You know, true free speech video platform.
01:40:05.000You've experienced what YouTube will do and the manipulation there.
01:40:09.000And so I thought it was such an important thing to do and to support.
01:40:12.000That's why I'm here and that's my home.
01:40:15.000Also resident in this home, in this house and on Rumble is Kim Guilfoyle, who will be joining us in a minute.
01:40:22.000Also, although not simultaneously, for numerous reasons, mostly technical, but also social, we feel like we'll have conversations successively.
01:40:33.000Yeah, we could have an interview of just everyone talking simultaneously and no one will be able to hear anything So what I like about this conversation, so if you're watching us on YouTube There'll be a link up in about 15 minutes And you'll have to click the link and follow us over to rumble and hopefully if you permit me Don We'll be staying live on local so become an awakened wonder and join us there where we will be smoking cigars freely together yes and Discussing subjects as varied and vast as masculinity, liberty, freedom and what revolution and indeed insurrection means in the modern world.
01:41:05.000Don, thank you very much for having a conversation that just a few short years ago would have seemed impossible.
01:41:10.000We've only met once before at the Rumble launch.
01:41:14.000in Sarasota. And I remember then thinking, wow, I'm moving into a different environment now. I'm
01:41:19.000having conversations with people from the Trump family, people from a different world, in your
01:41:24.000case an outdoor hunting fishing person. According to your Wikipedia page, as of today you were still
01:41:31.000involved in a Russia gay hoax. In a way, this conversation couldn't have happened five years
01:41:36.000ago because I occupied an entirely different world.
01:41:39.000It's a miracle that it can even still happen today, to some degree, because we live in such heavily censored and controlled spaces.
01:41:45.000What do you think it means when people from different cultural pockets find themselves allying on the basis that now there is so much freedom, so much impediment to freedom, so much censorship, so much control, and so much to be afraid of when it comes to establishment authority, that new alliances simply have to be formed?
01:42:06.000You know, I think a lot of the forces that you're talking about in censorship and suppression, I think a lot of that's been going on probably for decades.
01:42:15.000It was the extreme nature of the last few years, maybe the last eight years, that I think woke up a lot of people to exactly what was going on.
01:42:23.000When we started speaking, I said, there's probably not a lot we would have agreed on politically or otherwise eight, ten years ago, and yet We're sort of in this same fight against these external forces that, at this point, honestly, to me, scream just pure evil.
01:42:43.000And as we talked this week, you said, on my Wikipedia page, I don't check it because I think Wikipedia is literally the The basis that everyone else uses to spread misinformation and create censorship in an artificial means.
01:42:56.000But yeah, I'm still an agent of Russia, even though that's been totally disproven, and even though a Hillary Clinton campaign pushed these lies, and our three-letter agencies blindly bought into that, and they leak the information to establishment media, in that case the New York Times, which writes an article that they use as the basis for an investigation to try to destroy a presidency, which is As far as I'm concerned, an affront on democracy, but according to them, that's actually saving democracy somehow.
01:43:24.000We don't know how, but they will tell us that ad nauseum.
01:43:27.000It's difficult to wrench your head out of the domestic environment that all of us inhabit.
01:43:35.000And for a moment, consider that if we heard of a foreign country where a political opponent While simultaneously having their previous policies plagiarized, policies which whilst in office, Donald Trump was significantly condemned.
01:43:55.000I'm talking about the travel ban and various attempts to curtail or otherwise control immigration.
01:44:03.000While Donald Trump was in office, He was attacked by the same media now that are attempting to significantly amplify and support Biden's recent executive order when it comes to the border.
01:44:16.000Now, you seem to be saying, Don, that that is both an inept policy rather than pure patriotism.
01:44:50.000Did we think there was any good to come from, I don't know, human trafficking?
01:44:55.000The child sex trafficking, the fentanyl crisis that, you know, has killed, you know, kills, let's call it a hundred thousand Americans a year.
01:45:02.000A hundred thousand, just so we understand what that is.
01:45:23.000We've got Vietnams everywhere we look.
01:45:25.000Ed Dowd, reporting on excess deaths in your country, says that in the two-year period immediately post the pandemic, if we can even say post-pandemic at this point, there was a Vietnam worth of excess deaths.
01:45:38.000We're living at a time, it seems to me, where centralised authority and the potential for a kind of technological feudalism is using as its biggest weapon the threat of a ...second Trump presidency to augur and allow them to create authoritarianism that's much more akin to versions of tyranny that we've seen in literature, yes to a degree in George Orwell, but notably in Aldous Huxley, and the kind of terror and dread that I get from reading Franz Kafka in books like The Trial, where there's this new
01:46:13.000This invisible, cruel bureaucracy that tells you that it's helping you, tells you that it cares about you, won't give you details or facts about where power actually lies, uses really kind language, all the while inhibiting your freedom, turning people against one another.
01:46:32.000I recognise now that's a much bigger threat to freedom than even the worst portrayal of the MAGA movement and Donald Trump.
01:46:43.000I mean, listen, we've been hearing people screaming about fascism for eight years, nine years, and yet look at the actions of those people.
01:46:52.000They are the ones literally trying to jail their political opponents.
01:46:56.000They are the ones who, you know, gave a total pass to, you know, the very peaceful protesters of the 2020 Summer of Love who happened to burn down major cities in America, billions in damage, people actually murdered.
01:47:09.000You juxtapose that to, you know, January 6th, You know, which, as far as they're concerned, was, you know, the greatest insurrection in the history of insurrections also happened to be the first unarmed insurrection in the history of the world, and yet they utilize that narrative over and over again, right?
01:47:26.000They create a narrative, you see the sound bites, you see every aspect in mainstream media picking up on every talking point.
01:47:49.000Disregarding all of the corruption of his family, all of the corruption and the illegalities that his son has done.
01:47:56.000I mean, you know, you compare me online, you know, to Hunter Biden, and I am the devil, and he is, you know, someone who simply suffers from addiction, not is just a total piece of garbage, has sold out our country.
01:48:09.000I am not the upstanding citizen that he is, according to CNN, but the reality is that doesn't jive if people get below the surface.
01:48:18.000Just the narrative that they're spoon-fed.
01:48:19.000Yeah, what I'm starting to think is that when you can see powerful institutions leveraged and utilized in a particular direction, you can observe likely where the power lies and where power And what its agenda is, and where it's projected towards.
01:48:36.000It must be very difficult, I suppose, for anyone that's living in your country right now, but in particular for someone in your family, to try to contemplate what's happening on a larger scale.
01:48:47.000Because when an election is approaching, there is a kind of generalised hysteria.
01:48:52.000And both sides, to a degree I suppose, are amplifying the enmity between the two camps.
01:48:58.000I feel that something's happening at a global level, and perhaps it's easier for me to see that as a person that's not from your country, but it seems that when you're looking at EU policy and UN policy and Canadian policy, Australian, Irish, particularly say for example, just take the subject of censorship, it appears that something is being coordinated on perhaps even a global scale to generate conditions where if in response there's just a jet ski going by, there's just a jet ski going by, that's where you live, Don Jr.
01:49:29.000riding the Stars and Stripes in a jet ski.
01:49:33.000It's the most American thing I've ever seen.
01:49:46.000Yeah, it seems that something's happening on a global level that's primarily designed to prevent people communicating freely.
01:49:51.000So the next time crises are exploited to introduce more authority, the same way that it was in the pandemic, the same way it appears to be around wars, and might yet be in a more generalised way, perhaps connected to climate change, when people's individual freedoms are restricted, The ability to, in real time, communicate about it and say, hold on, this doesn't seem to be true.
01:50:13.000You know, but it seems, for example, Don, that the WHO treaty was designed to prevent what happened in the last pandemic happening.
01:50:21.000It was essentially a treaty to be able to lock Joe Rogan in a box, stop people communicating freely, demand that people take medications, be very vague about what constitutes a pandemic.
01:50:34.000It could be a whole variety of things.
01:50:36.000Do you see The true power of America being transcendent of even your most obvious enemies, the Democrat Party, and involving forces like the three-letter agencies.
01:50:47.000But do you see it as being transcendent of not only America's interests, but America even as a nation?
01:51:01.000We, you know, we talked about, you know, still being an active collusionist with Russia, uh, and me and, uh, you know, at the time when that was going on.
01:51:08.000And I'd say it's safe to say I was the number two target after my father of Russia, Russia, Russia, of the hoax.
01:51:15.000But at the time, I'm saying, well, I mean, the FBI said this, Rob.
01:51:51.000I mean, I remember as someone who is not a virologist saying, like, of course, Of course the Wuhan virus started in the lab that studies the exact virus in question at the place that was ground zero.
01:53:09.000You know, when he was talking to doctors, it did not jive with what he was telling the American public each and every day when he was living his 15 minutes as a, you know, celebutant, you know, rock star on television because he never met a camera he didn't love.
01:53:22.000And that's the problem with our system.
01:53:25.000We encourage and allow the best bureaucrats to succeed.
01:53:30.000The people who are the most vicious in the PR game.
01:53:48.000They don't believe in actual god, so they create their own, right?
01:53:52.000They had Greta Thunberg as the high priestess of climate change.
01:53:57.000They go to Fauci as the lord of COVID.
01:54:03.000George Floyd for a shorter period of time, but that was a temporary deity of the left for a while, and today that's dominated by Vladimir Zelensky.
01:54:12.000You know, leading one of the most corrupt nations in the world, who we will blindly send trillions of dollars to for an end result that has not yet actually been articulated to me, and I do this kind of, at this point, for a living.
01:54:25.000They just blindly follow these things, and we must believe the gospel, and we must believe everything is above board.
01:54:31.000But I think they've overplayed their hand in each and every one of these instances so much that rational people, people with an IQ above like seven, They're actually questioning these things now, and I think that's the biggest thing for us.
01:54:43.000We have to question all of these things.
01:54:47.000I'm so glad that you've brought up the new erected, forgive the word, pantheon of gods that are casually strung and slung before us in the absence of real faith and in the absence of real love.
01:54:58.000That's something I want to discuss more, because when you do have just a material and rational purview, it is very easy For the state to replace God, for a set of ideals to replace God that are tethered to, it seems to me, some pretty corrupt values.
01:55:14.000And I'd love to talk to you in a minute about how we might see a resurgence of religious and spiritual faith.
01:55:20.000I'd like to talk to you about the complexity of being born the son of your father, the obligations that's placed upon you and the times when that must have been challenging for you because we casually spoke about what it's like to disagree with a family member in any family, let alone in your family.
01:55:36.000You've already tagged the idea of Hunter Biden and the way that the failings of a particular son can be forgiven and elsewhere utilised and maybe both sides are guilty of that in their own way.
01:55:49.000We're going to leave you on YouTube right now, so click the link in the description.
01:55:53.000Join us on Rumble for the rest of this conversation.
01:56:19.000Don, this collapse of religious faith, and this erection of new deities, I think is pretty fascinating, because perhaps, like, you know, right at the beginning of this, the reason that I became sympathetic, first of all, to Donald Trump, when I was a person that was on the other side of that argument, when I was elected, you know, just to be playing with you, sir, like, at the beginning, I was like, you can't have Donald Trump as President of the United States, that's crazy.
01:56:45.000But then I saw the way that when the MAGA movement started to grow, and I saw the way that the media class was condemnatory of Americans that were supportive of Trump, I became very suspicious and cynical about their motives.
01:56:59.000I also noticed a similar thing happened in my country during Brexit.
01:57:01.000That there's a kind of appetite to condemn ordinary people.
01:57:04.000Now you're obviously a very affluent man, and you're obviously from a very wealthy family,
01:57:09.000and yet emotionally and socially and culturally, there seems to be some kind of resonance
01:57:14.000between the MAGA message and ordinary Americans.
01:57:18.000And I'd really like to talk to you a little about that, but I've just been told that I've got to do an ad.
01:57:23.000So we're going to just throw to one of our partners now, and then I want to talk about what is the connection between Trump and ordinary Americans, and why do the current establishment in the form of the Democrat Party loathe ordinary Americans so deeply, and how are they able to continually use compassion?
01:57:39.000Let's have a look at this message from our sponsors.
01:59:35.000If you're going to build a building, you better know how to dig a foundation.
01:59:38.000You know, watching someone do it and actually spending a summer doing these things yourself are two very different things.
01:59:44.000And I think to sort of where we left before the break, you know, that's perhaps how Trump had an understanding of sort of real people in America, right?
01:59:52.000It wasn't just a guy that sat in a, you know, in a gilded office.
01:59:57.000But, you know, he got down on the ground being a builder, not just a tech guy where you're sitting at a computer all day, you know, spending time on job sites, spending time with construction workers.
02:00:07.000Uh, you know, I think, while very unlikely on paper, he had a very, very good understanding of where those people were for, you know, a 30 or 40 year career before he ever got into politics.
02:00:19.000And I think that's what was unique about him.
02:00:21.000He understood those people better than, you know, the elite snobs at the New York Times who couldn't understand, who are these people voting for Trump?
02:00:27.000We don't know a single person who would vote for Trump in our, you know, little cocoon in Washington, D.C.
02:00:32.000It's, it's absolutely shocking, and yet, You know, he resonated so well with real people because it wasn't the first time he actually spoke to real people, unlike so many of our political class.
02:00:42.000Yeah, because people always try to score points with that I-was-talking-to-my-plumber type of rhetoric.
02:00:48.000It's the way that politicians in your country and in mine automatically operate, pretending that they're down with ordinary people.
02:00:56.000And I've questioned from the outside, how has this person, in the case of your father Donald Trump, been able to achieve this affinity With ordinary people and you say socially and historically because it's just been part of he was he ran things different So like just did that.
02:01:13.000He's always sort of still, you know the boy from Queens Well, like again, he was he was blessed and privileged and you know, we get that we don't we don't discount that we we don't You know pretend we don't understand that But you know, that's sort of his where you break it down, right?
02:01:28.000He did the sort of outstanding lavish things, but you know at heart He wants to have a cheeseburger and watch a baseball game, right?
02:01:46.000They actually criticized me greatly for apparently not understanding something, but it turns out they were the ones that just didn't understand, you know, let's call it, you know, 300-something million people in America.
02:01:56.000The reason I know something strange is happening is because my country, which is of course heavily influenced by American politics and American economics and American geopolitical objectives, does still yet have its own culture, and in particular around the time of Brexit, We saw and I was uneasy about what I saw as a kind of blanket condemnation of ordinary people, a kind of a willingness to sort of say that people that voted for Brexit were racist and like people in the north of the country or let's say blue-collar or working-class regions
02:02:28.000were idiots. And like during the cycles of these elections it's become pretty clear that
02:02:34.000there is a kind of contempt for American values, for the values of ordinary people of numerous
02:02:41.000cultures. So this kind of, whether it's a charismatic ability or just an organic connection
02:02:48.000to ordinary people, is a surprising phenomena.
02:03:26.000You know, I choose to spend my time there because that's where I'm actually more comfortable.
02:03:30.000So ironically, getting into sort of politics was actually far more natural for me because those are the people I was spending time with anyway.
02:03:37.000You know, throwing on, you know, going to a rubber chicken dinner.
02:03:42.000You know, I was actually faking that, whereas for politics I'm not actually faking it.
02:05:10.000Name a metric, a single metric, where we are better off today than we were four years ago.
02:05:15.000You know, the adults were back in charge, but they took back in charge and they withdrew from Afghanistan, and Americans are killed for the first time in 18 months in a conflict zone, and rather than taking accountability or acknowledging stupidity or whatever, we have our Secretary of State, the adults who are back in charge, gets on a world stage before Congress and says, he's shocked and dismayed.
02:05:36.000And I quote, you know, that the Taliban did not install a more diverse and inclusive government.
02:05:40.000I'm saying, I don't know guys, like, if you want to be dismayed, fine.
02:05:45.000You're shocked that the Taliban didn't have a, you know, a trans contingent, Russell.
02:05:49.000They didn't take those things into consideration.
02:05:53.000And we are shocked that that didn't happen.
02:05:54.000I'm like, They threw people off buildings for being homosexuals, you know, like, for the last 20 years.
02:06:14.000And yet those are people who are making literally trillion dollar decisions, not just for Americans, but for people around the globe.
02:06:22.000Don, one of the things that we can use to draw points of distinction because it spanned both administrations is, of course, the pandemic.
02:06:32.000Now, I recognize that at the beginning of the pandemic period, we were in a different environment.
02:06:37.000And Donald Trump's enthusiasm for Operation Warp Speed, as well as some of the things that he said that in retrospect were pretty interesting around hydrochloric... I can never say that word.
02:06:51.000Like, you know, he did have an interesting approach.
02:06:53.000But do you feel that if Donald Trump outright said these vaccines weren't what they claimed to be, and some people won't even use the term vaccines now, gene therapies, weren't what we thought they were, Excess deaths needs to be looked at, adverse events needs to be looked at, and the big pharma companies need to be examined in the same way you would around the opioid crisis.
02:07:17.000Do you think that many of the people in his base, in addition to, I'm assuming, other people, would find that appealing?
02:08:50.000Well, because the only thing we saw, the only thing that was made available to the public was this image of like, hey man, that could look like an insurrection.
02:08:57.000Then you see, you know, now we see videos of grandmothers taking selfies, like within the velvet ropes, those people were questioned by the FBI and thrown in jail for years.
02:09:06.000You know, now we know that, but at the time, What did we actually know?
02:09:12.000I mean, it took two years to get even the basic information out.
02:09:15.000It took years to get the videos out of, you know, again, the insurrectionists conveniently being escorted and toured through by armed officers.
02:09:24.000We have Christopher Wray a couple months ago saying, well, we can't release the videos because we had too many agents undercover.
02:09:31.000Well, you had agents undercover that were armed in there, and yet you did nothing?
02:09:37.000They just, they allowed literally an insurrection?
02:09:47.000You know, it's insane, but again, that's the point is, these narratives are created, they're weaponized at the time.
02:09:53.000I guess this week we saw the Hunter Biden laptop be entered into evidence in his, you know, what should be one of many, but you know, I'm sure he'll get off because that's the way the system is designed right now, but it was entered into evidence in his trial.
02:10:08.000I mean, I was told by 52 high-ranking intelligence officers in the CIA that that was Russian disinformation.
02:10:31.000I'd be in Gitmo right now, and that would have been right.
02:10:35.000Of course it was accurate, and of course those 52 intelligence officers had no way of knowing, but it didn't stop them from weaponizing that.
02:10:41.000You know, months later, when it started leaking and these things, you know, 17% of the American populace said that would have changed their vote away from Joe Biden had they known that that was accurate, that we were that corrupted.
02:10:52.000As we're, you know, honestly, as we're possibly on the brink of World War III, with the world's largest nuclear superpower by volume of intercontinental ballistic missiles and warheads, Russia Are we making policy decisions?
02:11:08.000That are simply influenced because one of our other enemies has more information about a kid that was corrupted and broken and taking all sorts of money for God knows what, for things he had no business actually making.
02:11:19.000Like, our media is not even asking that question, Russell.
02:11:22.000Like, are we possibly getting ourselves into World War III because this administration is acting to further cover up other things?
02:11:29.000Like, maybe they are, maybe they're not.
02:11:31.000But the fact that we're not even asking, like, is it a possibility?
02:11:35.000Like, I look at all of the America last decisions that we see from the Biden, whether it's energy, whether it's this, whether it's the dealings from China, you know, bringing down our strategic petroleum reserves and cutting off American energy.
02:11:46.000I'm like, not one of these things is good for America.
02:11:50.000Could they be done because there's undue influence?
02:11:52.000And given all of the information that's out there, given all of the shade, you know, if that was my laptop, it would be a problem.
02:11:59.000It wouldn't just be someone struggling with addiction.
02:12:07.000I know that because I saw what happened in Russia, Russia, Russia, and that was one thing.
02:12:11.000There are dozens of things and, you know, just absolute crickets.
02:12:14.000And, you know, I think that in and of itself is, you know, sort of enough to make everyone question, like, what's the, you know, whatever level of disdain you have for sort of mainstream media, it is not enough.
02:12:26.000It's extraordinary actually that both you and Hunter Biden are in the public eye at the same time as it offers us an additional barometer to see how the different stories are covered in different sections of the media.
02:12:38.000I'm well aware of what happened immediately prior to the revelation of that story, the lengths to which deep state agencies went to ensure that it was handled correctly and not handled at all and the level of censorship that was enacted and that it's one of the events
02:12:50.000that enables us to see that not only has legacy media long being controlled by
02:12:54.000deep state forces, but there are obviously significant attempts and successes in controlling social media
02:13:03.000One of the things I query sometimes having had a Donald Trump term is
02:13:08.000that when Donald Trump campaigned very successfully on and I would say in a way
02:13:14.000that reached a lot of people emotionally that you know this is one of the times
02:13:17.000where I was watching I was thinking yeah this is what needs to happen you do need to
02:13:20.000drain the swamp you do need to control the institutions that prevent there
02:13:23.000being democracy I agree with Mike Benz's analysis that when people say democracy
02:13:28.000now for example talking about Ukraine they don't mean the electoral process by
02:13:32.000which a population... The suspended elections in Ukraine.
02:13:34.000They banned religious institutions. Gonzalo Lira dies in that prison.
02:13:40.000I think it's such a deep tragedy that Gonzalo Lira died in prison and that the Ukrainian people are dying in such considerable numbers when it appears that there could be a diplomatic solution simply by withdrawing their support.
02:13:53.000But there's no money in peace, Russell.
02:13:56.000If my father was in there, he gets people at the table.
02:13:58.000The way to get people at the table is threaten that withdrawal of the money.
02:14:00.000As long as the generals and the people who are actually not at risk at all on the front lines in Ukraine are making millions, they're pilfering the money.
02:14:08.000We donated money to a city, but it disappeared magically, right?
02:14:11.000Every time the Ukrainians shoot down a Russian jeep, Right?
02:14:15.000It's an incredible victory for Ukraine.
02:14:17.000If they lose a quadrant of a country to Russia, it was a strategic withdrawal.
02:14:22.000We see what's happening in real time, and what's really scary is it literally feels like a sanctioned genocide of, frankly, both Ukrainians and Russians.
02:14:31.000We're just going to send a bunch of Eastern Europeans to die as cannon fodder, and as long as the guys in charge get rich and aren't really at risk, it's going to go in perpetuity.
02:14:42.000It's been two years and we have not been told, like, what does victory look like?
02:14:46.000Is it, like, just the entire genocide of the Russian population?
02:14:54.000No one's even said that yet, and yet we'll fund it, you know, as though it's, you know, the greatest cause in the world, and it doesn't resonate with the people.
02:15:02.000I go around, I speak in front of a lot of Republicans around the world, certainly the country, and I think I've done an in-person live survey in front of thousands of people at a time, probably about 60,000, 65,000 people in total over the last two years.
02:15:26.000One was a guy that's tied to the sort of military-industrial complex, so of course he was getting rich off of it.
02:15:30.000And another misunderstood the question.
02:15:32.000He thought it was a double negative, and it was not important.
02:15:35.000But, so, two people out of 65,000 people thought it was a top ten issue.
02:15:41.000And yet, you know, Washington DC, it's a number one issue for both sides and they're going to fund it ad nauseam because they're all getting rich.
02:15:46.000And do you think that that is the type of, is that, because if there is so much deep state power and global power and power being deployed By global agencies, you know, if this is a really a war that is governed by or at the behest of military industrial complex interests and NATO policy, then is it something that, you know, when Donald Trump said we could just leave NATO or we can stop funding NATO, do you think that that is the case?
02:16:14.000And in recent interviews, Donald Trump said, like, you know, I'll release the 9-11 files.
02:16:21.000When in office, are those things able to happen?
02:16:24.000Or are the various institutional interests too restrictive to prevent that kind of thing?
02:16:28.000Well, I think they're going to go all out to prevent it, right?
02:16:30.000You just have to, you know, the reality is you need someone with the resolve to do that.
02:16:33.000I don't, you know, if we had a bench of people that I thought could actually do that, that would be wonderful.
02:16:37.000It'd be much easier than getting back into this.
02:16:39.000I think right now my father's the only guy that can actually stand up to that and I think Perhaps why the level of attack now is so much more aggressive, so much more ridiculous, frankly, but is that coming in as an outsider, it's sort of hard to figure that out, right?
02:16:53.000The plum book, which is the book of 4,000 jobs essentially appointed by the president, like, you come in as an outsider, 4,000 jobs, like, you can find five maybe of people that you like, and then 4,000 that, well, I think, I guess he's, you know, I guess he's on our team.
02:17:07.000You know, currency, it's not like business.
02:17:09.000You sort of understand in business what everyone's motivation is.
02:17:11.000Whether it's money or success or what, you get that.
02:17:14.000In DC, you know, someone could be on board with everything that you're doing, but they'll snake you to get a favor from a reporter who he's working on some sort of other.
02:17:25.000And so, you know, I think the fear of Trump is that now that he's got four years, now that he understands those workings, now that he understands who can be trusted and who can't, Uh, that notion scares them much more because I think he can be much more effective in a second term than he ever could have in a first, especially when you consider the sort of, you know, the first two years were occupied by Russia, Russia, Russia, maybe first three years.
02:17:47.000And then the last year occupied by COVID.
02:17:49.000I mean, they threw everything at him and yet our economy flourished.
02:17:53.000You know, job numbers were going up, lowest income earners were getting real wage growth.
02:17:57.000I mean, success after success after success, and that's before you get to peace in the Middle East, yada, yada, yada.
02:18:04.000I mean, he had a pretty amazing track record when you consider that he was up against arguably insurmountable forces that, you know, that no other president, right or left, has ever faced to do, you know, the basic duties of the duly elected president of the United States.
02:18:19.000Hey, Don, Robert De Niro's fear, as well as the fear of the legacy media, is that if Trump gets another term, he will never leave office.
02:18:27.000He will declare himself dictator for life.
02:18:44.000You know, this time, he's going to do it this way.
02:18:46.000He didn't do it last time, but he's going to... It's so ridiculous.
02:18:50.000And there's powers that would never happen anyway, right?
02:18:52.000I think we've seen very clearly that the powers of the presidency can be limited, and are, and can frankly be manipulated.
02:19:00.000They took what was the most powerful man in the world on paper at the time, and they threw him off of social media, and effectively cancelled him, and lied about him, and have tried to jail him, and find him You know, half a billion dollars for paying back banks on time, because he was actually a businessman, you know, prior to getting into that world.
02:19:16.000I mean, it's so asinine, not because it's just asinine in general, but because we actually have evidence, similar to we have evidence of four years under this regime, and then four years under my father, and you can compare those things.
02:19:30.000We know what's happened when his time was up in his first term.
02:20:01.000Don, thank you so much because it's been a very sort of a lucid appraisal about some of the bigger picture issues that pertain to the power that I fear most, which is a kind of global corporatist Power.
02:20:13.000And my own slow thawing around this issue has been based on if institutional power, both judicial and media, detests this man so deeply while people appear to adore him, at least 50% of the population of your country, then something unusual is happening.
02:20:32.000Because I don't trust institutional power.
02:20:35.000I don't trust technocrats and bureaucrats and technological feudalists.
02:20:41.000So, for me, it's like an opportunity to look at, well, where are the points of alliance and what does freedom and democracy look like in 2024?
02:21:43.000Something extraordinary is happening that creates alliances like this.
02:21:47.000And there are also ulterior powers in this household, and I'm talking about the great force that is Kim Guilfoyle, who will be joining us after this at Don Trump Jr.
02:21:59.000We're going to be talking later on my show, so we get to keep going, we get to reverse the We're going to be on local smoking cigars, but after this message from the beautiful Charlize, run by Charlene Bollinger, entrepreneur, outspoken woman, great patriot and Christian, have a look at this advert for these fantastic products.