TRIGGERnometry - October 21, 2022


Konstantin Kisin Defends Joe Rogan, TRIGGERnometry & Alt Media


Episode Stats

Length

1 hour and 13 minutes

Words per Minute

168.20242

Word Count

12,364

Sentence Count

646

Misogynist Sentences

3

Hate Speech Sentences

8


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.700 Broadway's smash hit, The Neil Diamond Musical, A Beautiful Noise, is coming to Toronto.
00:00:06.520 The true story of a kid from Brooklyn destined for something more, featuring all the songs you love,
00:00:11.780 including America, Forever in Blue Jeans, and Sweet Caroline.
00:00:15.780 Like Jersey Boys and Beautiful, the next musical mega hit is here, The Neil Diamond Musical, A Beautiful Noise.
00:00:22.660 April 28th through June 7th, 2026, The Princess of Wales Theatre.
00:00:27.120 Get tickets at Mirvish.com.
00:00:30.000 Okay, so today with us we have Konstantin Kissen from the Trigonometry podcast.
00:00:43.060 So podcast host and comedian, I guess Konstantin, is that an accurate description as of now?
00:00:50.820 I haven't done stand-up since the pandemic started.
00:00:55.540 So a comedian in retirement or on a break or whatever it is.
00:01:01.280 I still write a lot of satirical stuff, so I sort of think of myself more as a satirist.
00:01:06.000 But yeah, you're right about my background.
00:01:08.320 Podcast, a comedian, satirist, whatever you want.
00:01:11.180 Yes.
00:01:11.740 And I think you're a beast in England, right?
00:01:15.220 That sounds threatening in your accent.
00:01:19.400 But yes, I confess, guilty.
00:01:22.440 Yeah, I lived in London for, I guess, about 10 years.
00:01:27.080 So I'm familiar with that neck of the world.
00:01:29.920 But not based there now.
00:01:32.300 So Konstantin kindly agreed to come on because I think we talked a while back about potentially having a discussion about areas that we might agree or disagree on.
00:01:46.480 And then I listened to your recent appearance on Joe Rogan and some of the same issues that I thought would be useful to discuss came up and you kindly agreed to.
00:01:59.040 And broadly speaking, I would say, I don't know how familiar you are with our podcast, but we tend to focus on online gurus or secular gurus.
00:02:12.980 So this is people that fall into the Jordan Peterson, Nassim Taleb.
00:02:17.740 We've also done Ibram Kendi.
00:02:19.760 And who's that guy that we, the science writer, Matt, that we like.
00:02:27.400 Like, you're a hero.
00:02:29.080 Not, like I was going to say.
00:02:31.600 No, not Elrod.
00:02:33.260 I've got to say, you guys treat your guests with a lot of respect.
00:02:36.000 I love it.
00:02:38.120 Yeah, well, so just to highlight that we do try to range widely across the guru sphere as it exists.
00:02:48.040 But we do have a tendency to focus on the kind of IDW heterodox sphere, in part because that's where a lot of the most dramatic and bombastic style gurus are, the Weinsteins, for example.
00:03:03.440 But in any case, one of the things that we've come across quite often is that people within the heterodox sphere tend to see a much bigger concern emanating from the mainstream institutions and mainstream media sources.
00:03:20.940 And to have less of a concern about the kind of alternative ecospheres and guru figures that we talk about.
00:03:30.700 So I thought it might be good to talk about the relative problems in each of the spheres and where, you know, you might disagree with our emphasis and we might disagree with yours.
00:03:44.940 And so maybe it would be useful just to start if you kind of outlined where you're coming from or where you see your position being, you know, in the online discourse or commentary space or whatever you want to call it.
00:04:03.260 It's a very big and open question, I suppose.
00:04:06.380 So the way I self-identify is a kind of enlightened centrist.
00:04:12.140 I don't, I'm not interested in partisanship or party politics at all.
00:04:17.540 In fact, I can't really understand people who are party political.
00:04:20.860 It boggles my mind.
00:04:22.100 It's like how you could wed yourself permanently to one side of the political spectrum in hugely varying circumstances.
00:04:30.400 I find strange that people are willing to do that.
00:04:35.100 I'm certainly a fierce critic of a lot of the mainstream institutions and the direction they've taken.
00:04:41.240 I hope that that hasn't prevented me from being an equally fierce critic of where the old media is going wrong and the war in Ukraine and the way some of the supposedly heterodox people are covering that is something I've been calling out from the moment that it started.
00:04:57.060 Because that is an issue I understand pretty well being half Russian, half Ukrainian, having grown up in both countries, et cetera.
00:05:05.400 So when I see people going off the deep end on that issue, I haven't been shy about calling that out.
00:05:13.280 But yes, that's, I guess that's my position.
00:05:16.500 I see myself as being somewhere in the center, looking at both extremes and going, you're both crazy.
00:05:22.380 In terms of the mainstream and the old media, I mentioned, you know, some of the areas where I think the old media can go wrong.
00:05:30.480 I do think you have to be careful when you're comparing institutions or systems of communicating information.
00:05:37.120 I'm going to sound very woke here, but it's kind of like stupidity plus power.
00:05:41.560 Like if a guy on a YouTube channel with 30 followers is saying something really stupid, I'm less concerned about that than I am about a mainstream publication saying something equally stupid because the reach is bigger.
00:05:54.140 And so I do think the mainstream media, which for the moment still has a much bigger reach and therefore more influence, should be subject to more scrutiny.
00:06:02.360 But apart from that, I don't know if that gives you enough to start sticking pins in me.
00:06:07.640 Yeah, so I know, for example, that you had run-ins with James Lindsay over Ukraine before his ignoble exit from Twitter discourse.
00:06:23.580 And I think in general, you have been in the trenches over the Ukraine conflict.
00:06:29.880 Even actually on the Rogan appearance, I noted that, you know, he was more skeptical about the validity of sending arms to support Ukraine or American involvement.
00:06:40.780 And you push back, which I think is to your credit.
00:06:44.040 But so I guess from what you said, the value of like being able to criticize people on both sides of the political spectrum and including people that might agree with you is something that you would seem to regard as like an important value, right?
00:07:03.580 Well, Ukraine is just the latest example.
00:07:06.540 So I've been very clear, for example, that even though because of some of the people that I've interviewed, there are a lot of people that think I'm massively on the Trump trend.
00:07:17.300 And I have friends who are big Trump supporters.
00:07:19.720 I'm good friends with someone who used to work for Donald Trump at a high level.
00:07:22.740 But I'm very clear that what I was very clear on January the 7th, on the morning of January the 7th, when appearing on the Lotus Eaters podcast with Francis, that I thought what happened was a complete abomination and completely wrong to the, let's just say, dissatisfaction of many of the people in his audience.
00:07:43.380 So I'm not really ever hesitant to criticize either side when they're doing something wrong.
00:07:50.080 I just see that the threat from the, I don't like the word woke anymore because it was first it was co-opted and now it's been re-co-opted and I, you know, but the threat from the progressive left, particularly in the reaction it will trigger from the right, is to me a far bigger, far bigger concern than some of the other stuff.
00:08:11.800 So that's why I've, I've been a vocal critic of that because I think it's, it's very, very dangerous.
00:08:16.720 Yeah. So I, I guess one of the points that I would raise is that whenever I listen and we listen to a lot of content where people are being critical about the, you know, institutions or, or the, the kind of social justice left or progressive left or however you want to frame it.
00:08:38.700 And one thing that often seems to go unmentioned in those conversations is first of all, that there is a very large receptive audience for critiques of those mainstream positions and of social progressivism on the right.
00:08:59.260 And those tend to be not what you're talking about with like small YouTube channels, you have huge media entities, you have national newspapers and you have like channels dedicated to pumping out right wing takes.
00:09:13.440 And I, I often see that if it is recognized, like just kind of gestured out that there is right wing media, but the right wing media is like a huge ecosystem.
00:09:25.820 And in terms of disinformation or, you know, kind of pumping out partisan rhetoric, it seems equally, if not much more guilty than the left wing media ecosystems.
00:09:39.900 You know, if you're looking at Breitbart or the Epoch Times or the Fox News, there's, there's definitely a very strong tolerance there for partisan positions.
00:09:52.320 So I wonder in, in those terms, I rarely see that like on Joe Rogan, that's very rarely discussed, for example.
00:10:00.500 And do you think that is a case of there being just more of a focus on, on the issues of the left or why, why does the right wing ecosystem tend to get a pass in heterodox spaces?
00:10:16.900 I don't think that it gets a pass.
00:10:18.340 I just think to liberal people like me and Joe, the idea that Fox News is full of bullshit and his right wing propaganda is taken as given.
00:10:26.760 I don't, I've been on Fox News once, I think.
00:10:31.100 I don't consider it to be an objective source of information, just like I don't consider CNN to be an objective source of information.
00:10:37.460 However, when you talk about the ecosystems being equal, I wouldn't agree with that.
00:10:41.700 I mean, look at, so I went on Twitter this morning and I saw a tweet from Joe Biden talking about how he was basically criticizing the right.
00:10:51.680 But what he was saying is we have a situation where people either, if there's an election, either they win or they believe that the election was stolen.
00:11:02.240 And this is treated as a perfectly reasonable thing for Joe Biden to say, even though it's very clear that the mainstream media spent four years after the election of Donald Trump in 2016, lying endlessly about his election, the reasons for his election, claiming it was Russia collusion, Russia interference, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia, to the point where at the time, even I believed it.
00:11:26.980 And one of my reasons for being so disenchanted with the mainstream is how much they've been lying to us.
00:11:32.460 So, but nonetheless, Joe Biden can go out and say that, and no one is going to flag up his tweet for misinformation in the way that they would do with someone on the right if they tweeted something like this.
00:11:43.600 So I think the idea that there's an equal and opposite echo chamber is untrue.
00:11:48.500 I think the number of outlets and how seriously they're taken by the ordinary person is completely different.
00:11:53.960 If I was to give a normie friend of mine, quote unquote, an article from Fox News, the way they would treat that would be very different to an article from The Guardian, even though in my experience, they're both equally frequently, equally as inaccurate as each other.
00:12:12.700 And in some cases, The Guardian is more inaccurate and the bullshit that they're peddling is worse.
00:12:17.340 And so I think that to present these as equally significant is inaccurate, in my opinion.
00:12:22.460 So in that case, Constantine, like one thing I'd push back on, though, I listened to Rogan's podcast, and we've covered him in a couple of episodes.
00:12:34.720 And it's not accurate to kind of present Joe as having just a complete wide variety of perspectives in terms of political takes.
00:12:45.460 Generally speaking, generally speaking, he tends to be more in line in modern terms with the right wing positions, like the conservative right.
00:12:55.820 I mean, the politicians that he is in favor of are like DeSantis and Bernie Sanders.
00:13:02.060 But if Bernie Sanders, Joe said that he would possibly vote for him in the primary.
00:13:09.080 And then when it was presented as an endorsement, he himself clarified he wasn't endorsing, just saying he liked Bernie.
00:13:16.500 But he had Bernie Sanders on the show, and he had Cornel West on the show, who's a radical leftist professor.
00:13:23.060 I'm not, by the way, I wouldn't claim that Joe's show is entirely politically balanced.
00:13:26.980 No show can be.
00:13:28.500 And I am not pretending that Joe is a left winger.
00:13:32.060 I think by the current conception, in the current climate, I think he would be sent to right on most of his politics.
00:13:38.540 Although, I actually, I think I pissed him off a lot by saying that open borders is a really stupid idea.
00:13:44.580 I heard him later talking about how maybe it's a good idea.
00:13:47.160 So I don't know what his take is on that.
00:13:49.000 But I don't think presenting him as conservative is at all the correct way of presenting his views.
00:13:53.800 Yeah, I think that probably Matt and I have a slightly different perspective, although we'd agree with you.
00:14:00.300 There are various issues where, you know, like people are complex.
00:14:03.280 They have, you know, different takes.
00:14:04.900 And Joe has a famous clip where he took the urban to task about the need for regulation, right?
00:14:11.000 And Candace Owens on the green stuff and others.
00:14:14.200 Joe is someone who seeks the truth, and he's willing to challenge people when he disagrees.
00:14:18.100 So, granted, you know, no person, there are exceptions, but like not an outright polemicist.
00:14:26.880 But I think if you take a look at Joe's content over time, and especially during the COVID period,
00:14:33.540 it heavily leans towards the right-wing narrative.
00:14:38.040 And not lightly so, because we covered his episodes with Robert McCulloch and Peter, sorry, Peter McCulloch and Robert Malone.
00:14:48.320 And the level of kind of endorsement of conspiracism around COVID, it wasn't the light asking questions.
00:14:56.920 It was not too far from Majid Nawaz.
00:14:59.880 And those figures were introducing that the pandemic had been planned by the authorities,
00:15:08.160 that the amount of deaths were being covered up, that people with bullet wounds to the head were being counted so doctors could profit,
00:15:16.020 that no doctors were interested in curing the disease and so on.
00:15:19.780 And these were quite extreme positions.
00:15:22.080 And then Joe made it clear on that that he saw it as his duty to kind of promote these people that were being silenced.
00:15:29.300 And that, to me, is not taking, you know, I'm just going to see both sides and ask,
00:15:35.140 because when Joe had on figures that were pro-vaccine, and there was much less of them,
00:15:40.220 but when he did have them on, it was a grilling of, you know, taking them to task.
00:15:46.100 And that is not what happened with the people who were anti-vaccine.
00:15:50.700 So I know that's a specific example.
00:15:52.740 But I think that Joe and other figures in the heterodox spheres have a tendency to retreat to,
00:16:00.940 we're just asking questions and having a debate when the reality is more advancing a specific narrative.
00:16:08.960 And often that narrative is on the right.
00:16:11.880 And it's, I actually think it's perfectly fine for that to be the case,
00:16:15.940 but just it feels like it should be acknowledged more than it is.
00:16:22.980 So I agree with you on a lot of what you said, and I disagree on some of what you said.
00:16:28.060 So what I agree with you is, I do think when we had the peak of lockdown and vaccine enforcement
00:16:36.960 and talk about mandates and all of this stuff, I do think during that period,
00:16:41.800 the people that Joe had on and the way that he talked to them,
00:16:45.340 you accurately describe in that it was more to one side than the other.
00:16:49.440 And the way that guests from one side were treated was different to the guests from the other side.
00:16:53.140 Where I don't agree with you is, first of all, I don't see those issues as being right versus left at all.
00:16:57.600 There were plenty of people on the left who were leaning more in the direction of people like Robert Malone and Peter McCullough.
00:17:05.480 And many, many apolitical people too.
00:17:08.800 So I wouldn't see that issue as right and left, even though I agree with the premise of what you say.
00:17:13.160 And I said at the time, by the way, that I don't agree with Robert Malone and whatever,
00:17:17.360 but I'm glad Joe had them on and I'll tell you why.
00:17:19.860 I don't know, I didn't discuss this with Joe, so I don't know why he made the choices that he made.
00:17:25.240 But from my perspective, the biggest issue that was happening at the time was the idea that government must censor people
00:17:32.380 for having these discussions, that we must prevent people from having these conversations.
00:17:37.940 And to me, that's a very dangerous idea.
00:17:39.940 I don't agree with this at all.
00:17:41.940 And I was relieved that the most powerful podcaster in the world was forcing the government
00:17:48.380 to essentially take note of the fact that they don't have that option if that is what they're trying to pursue.
00:17:55.160 So while I disagreed with some of his guest choices and I disagreed with the balance,
00:18:00.840 you know, I actually, when he said, I'd like to have people from the other side on,
00:18:05.820 I suggested a couple of people to him that I thought would put the balance view.
00:18:13.980 And, you know, it wasn't like he sort of like cut me out and never talked to me again.
00:18:19.780 Do you know what I mean?
00:18:20.240 Like he's open to hearing people's ideas.
00:18:23.280 So the main points of disagreement with you is I don't think it's right versus left.
00:18:27.340 And number two, I don't necessarily see the job of the old media is as always being balanced.
00:18:33.840 The job of the old media is to provide balance.
00:18:36.760 These are very different things.
00:18:38.380 So if the mainstream media refuses to do something, then Joe Rogan or Trigonometer, whoever, may do that thing.
00:18:46.180 And then they both look unbalanced.
00:18:48.060 But what we are trying to do is say, look, there's this other point of view that's not being represented.
00:18:52.860 And I think it's important.
00:18:54.260 And in the case of the pandemic, my big issue was we mustn't force people to take a vaccine.
00:18:59.840 And we mustn't censor people who have even wacky, crazy ideas about COVID, the pandemic or whatever.
00:19:07.540 Because at the end of the day, if we want to live in a reliable society, we've got to be able to have these conversations openly.
00:19:13.260 And so I was simultaneously not happy that certain people were being promoted and also happy that they were not being censored.
00:19:22.160 I know that's a complex position and it sounds quite difficult, but that's the way that I was coming at it from.
00:19:28.480 So and I think that that will happen on a lot of issues.
00:19:32.200 If you look at the people we had on trigonometry during the pandemic, I think we were a lot more sensible about it.
00:19:38.100 We had one guy on who was Dr. Sucharif Bhakti, who I think people would consider very problematic.
00:19:45.880 And really, it's not like we were endorsing his point of view.
00:19:52.020 We just we wanted to hear what he had to say for himself.
00:19:55.220 YouTube then banned that video and gave us a strike for that.
00:20:00.380 Based on the rules, the way they updated them at the time, our interview did break the rules of YouTube.
00:20:06.300 And we therefore didn't appeal it because we felt it was a fair thing for them to take down.
00:20:10.920 And after that, you know, our own views on that issue evolved when we had covered, we put an episode out talking about how bad it was for both me and Francis discussing, you know, our updated views and all of this stuff.
00:20:23.240 So, you know, we tried to I certainly always tried to approach it from a position of honest inquiry.
00:20:29.000 And my concern with all of this stuff is the mainstream media were not doing honest inquiry.
00:20:33.700 They were they became a propaganda wing of the governments, governments, which, as we now know,
00:20:39.640 were were prioritizing public health over truth.
00:20:43.220 And I don't believe that a government should ever do that.
00:20:46.340 Broadway's smash hit the Neil Diamond musical.
00:20:49.120 A beautiful noise is coming to Toronto.
00:20:51.980 The true story of a kid from Brooklyn destined for something more featuring all the songs you love, including America, Forever in Blue Jeans and Sweet Caroline.
00:21:00.880 Like Jersey Boys and Beautiful, the next musical mega hit is here.
00:21:05.340 The Neil Diamond musical.
00:21:06.920 A beautiful noise.
00:21:08.020 April 28th through June 7th, 2026.
00:21:11.140 The Princess of Wales Theatre.
00:21:12.980 Get tickets at Mirvish.com.
00:21:16.540 So there's a there's a bunch of points that you made there, Constantine.
00:21:20.440 I know I will say that I saw your episode where you discussed with David Fuller, you know, and he was critical about some of the ways that you covered COVID.
00:21:28.480 And it was to your credit that you had that discussion with him and he pushed back quite forcefully, I think.
00:21:35.820 And also the subsequent discussion that you had with Brett Weinstein on his podcast.
00:21:41.660 That just personally speaking, it was very nice to hear someone saying that I don't have the expertise.
00:21:47.000 I don't think I should be commenting on this.
00:21:50.860 And, you know, not everybody needs to issue their takes on everything.
00:21:55.600 People are not experts on every topic.
00:21:57.560 So I acknowledge that, you know, you have had I'm not saying that your position on this has been entirely, you know, like just endorsing right wing partisanship or that kind of thing.
00:22:08.020 But some of the bits I'd push back on are when it comes to figures like Malone and McCulloch and the the kind of anti-vaccine movement, although traditionally there's been opposition on the left and right, particularly the kind of health and wellness left side of things.
00:22:25.480 And the anti-vaccine movement has traditionally had a lot of support from kind of mothers who link it to autism because of Andrew Wakefield and that kind of thing.
00:22:36.880 Right. So but but I would definitely say in COVID era, there is a strong right skew to anti-vaccine sentiment and that you can see this by the fact that most of the figures who you're talking about not getting a hearing in mainstream media are regular contributors now to right wing media.
00:22:58.300 Fox News are in most cases of the people that appear in Joe Rogan show InfoWars as well, which is like.
00:23:05.820 May I may I pause you just for one second? I don't mean to derail you at all.
00:23:09.820 I would agree with you in terms of the media that have these discussions, but that's not who's in my experience who's watching that.
00:23:18.500 I know loads of people in my life who who would come up to me and go, thank you so much for talking about, you know, the vaccine mandates and all of this.
00:23:28.120 And when I speak to them, my sense is they're not political at all and they're certainly not right or left wing.
00:23:33.880 So I agree with you that the right wing media grabbed that as an issue and promoted it because it aligns with some of their beliefs.
00:23:42.860 I don't think that's who the audience are.
00:23:45.580 Obviously, I don't have the empirical data to be able to prove this to you, but I'm just going based on my own experience.
00:23:50.180 Sorry to interrupt.
00:23:50.740 No, that's fine.
00:23:52.340 And I would take the point that there are plenty of people who think there are valid debates to be had about school openings or the length of lockdowns and so on.
00:24:02.100 But I tend to think that, you know, I'm not saying there are no missteps or that there aren't cases where there's a skew towards the government's position on like mainstream media or that kind of thing.
00:24:17.080 But I do think there was a lot of debate about those topics in the media and like that the media is now such a fractured ecosystem that it was not difficult at all to hear.
00:24:30.140 In fact, if anything, it's more like it was very easy to hear the contrarian takes on things and that when it comes to like stuff like vaccines, you know, there always has been a vocal minority anti-vaccine movement with Andrew Wakefield, RFK Jr., these figures, right?
00:24:53.460 And typically, they're not given mainstream media coverage because their position is not equally well supported.
00:25:01.060 And those figures are now like, for example, Brett Weinstein headlined an event with RFK Jr.
00:25:10.080 and Dale Bigtree and a whole cadre of anti-vaccine figures in the UK.
00:25:15.740 So the linkages between the like modern kind of critical of COVID vaccines is very tied into the anti-vaccine movement.
00:25:26.540 And, you know, in the same way that we don't say we need to give equal hearing to the climate skeptics as the climate scientists,
00:25:35.740 it does feel that you can create a false equivalence by seeking out, you know, the kind of meme is in Joe Rogan's forum, for example, that nine out of 10 dentists recommend this.
00:25:46.160 Let's get that one dentist and see what he says, right?
00:25:49.480 So what about that?
00:25:51.780 Yeah, I hear you.
00:25:53.140 So first of all, I don't think the equivalency you're making between vaccines that have been tried and tested for 30 years and the current conversation about COVID,
00:26:04.380 well, not the current conversation, the conversation from around a year ago, are in any way comparable.
00:26:10.320 I don't think they're the same issue at all.
00:26:12.200 There's a big difference between a set of vaccines that's been around for decades and a new vaccine whose long-term consequences we do not by definition know.
00:26:23.600 So that's the first point I'd make.
00:26:24.900 The second point is I don't think it's true that the contrarian view was represented in the mainstream media at all for the first year or so of the pandemic.
00:26:33.580 I mean, I remember the press conferences Boris Johnson was having where never a single journalist ever questioned him about,
00:26:43.600 have you done some analysis on how many people lockdowns will kill, right?
00:26:48.400 And that is a fundamental input data set that is necessary to make a decision.
00:26:53.920 If you're making a decision between two choices, to go left or to go right, you need to know what are going to be the outcomes of the left one
00:27:00.720 and what are going to be the outcomes of the right one, estimates at least.
00:27:04.000 Otherwise, you cannot make that decision being fully informed.
00:27:07.480 So I don't agree with you that it was well represented in the mainstream media.
00:27:11.960 In terms of Brett and all of this stuff, the only issue I have with the way we're having this conversation,
00:27:18.720 and I'm really enjoying it, is you're kind of getting me to defend other people a lot,
00:27:23.780 whereas I prefer that you just attack me and I can speak for myself.
00:27:27.360 Because Brett, I can tell you what I think about Brett.
00:27:32.700 I disagree with Brett's approach to COVID.
00:27:36.560 I also am not qualified to agree or disagree with Brett's approach to COVID,
00:27:40.400 but I instinctively do not agree with the way that he's approached it.
00:27:44.140 At the same time, Brett is a very good friend of mine.
00:27:46.780 He is a man I respect tremendously.
00:27:49.580 Him and Heather are two of the finest human beings that I've ever encountered in my life,
00:27:54.740 and fortunate to have encountered quite a few very high-quality human beings.
00:27:58.580 So I believe in being able to disagree with people about important issues
00:28:01.620 and still appreciate the good qualities.
00:28:04.520 But yeah, if you want to have a go at me personally,
00:28:08.220 I'd probably find that a lot more interesting and easier to have that conversation.
00:28:13.500 So there's some interesting points, Constantine,
00:28:19.540 and I think the point that you raise at the end about the personal relationships
00:28:26.240 between people is a good point to switch to from the COVID issue.
00:28:30.720 But I just want to respond to one or two of the things that you said,
00:28:34.400 because Matt and I have spent quite a bit of time looking at anti-vaccine rhetoric,
00:28:40.160 and this has been an interest long before COVID.
00:28:43.520 There's papers from 2012 and stuff talking about the kind of tropes
00:28:48.220 that you see in anti-vaccine communities.
00:28:50.800 And I can say with complete confidence that most of the rhetoric
00:28:55.640 that is in the COVID debate is exactly the same as the anti-vaccine rhetoric
00:29:01.600 that you would see 20 or 30 years ago,
00:29:03.960 with the same arguments about it's not all vaccines, it's these vaccines,
00:29:08.460 it's long-term consequences of triple-dose MMR vaccines, and so on and so forth.
00:29:14.960 And you are right that we cannot know with 100% confidence
00:29:19.620 the long-term consequences of these specific vaccines yet.
00:29:23.000 But billions of people are being dosed.
00:29:26.840 And if there was a genuine danger and the technology was very risky,
00:29:33.200 there is debate about those kind of things.
00:29:35.860 The doctors are not villains wanting to mass murder people.
00:29:40.020 So this would be the greatest controversy ever, right,
00:29:43.800 if that in 20 years hundreds of thousands of people are dying early and so on.
00:29:49.360 So the clinical trials that were conducted were extensive,
00:29:52.540 and they're misrepresented by the anti-vaccine people.
00:29:55.540 But I know, I'm not asking you to get into those.
00:29:58.800 Sorry, but that is an argument I'm making with all respect.
00:30:02.400 I was talking about lockdown, if you remember.
00:30:05.540 So in terms of the anti-vaccine stuff,
00:30:07.340 I'm not saying I thought Andrew Wakefield was going to be pro the COVID vaccine.
00:30:11.540 Of course he wasn't.
00:30:12.300 And of course, all the people who are anti-vaxxers before
00:30:15.440 are going to be against this particular vaccine.
00:30:17.600 I'm not disputing that at all.
00:30:19.100 What I'm saying is that there were a lot of people like me
00:30:22.180 who were simply saying, is the lockdown the solution to this problem?
00:30:28.880 And is having a second and a third one the solution to this problem?
00:30:32.900 I never got an answer to that.
00:30:34.820 Nobody ever, ever, and I speak to people in government,
00:30:37.860 I speak to ministers in the British government occasionally,
00:30:40.620 none of them can answer this question.
00:30:42.680 How many people did you estimate that lockdowns would kill?
00:30:46.620 And if you can't answer that question,
00:30:48.700 how on earth could you have made the decision to lockdown in the first place?
00:30:52.120 And how on earth could you have made that decision to lockdown further?
00:30:54.980 And when I'm talking, by the way, about kill,
00:30:57.240 I'm not talking about the vaccines going around killing people.
00:31:00.200 I'm talking about we do have a record in excess deaths at the moment.
00:31:05.020 It's not just suicides.
00:31:06.100 It's cancer treatments that end up being cancelled.
00:31:08.640 It's whatever it is.
00:31:09.440 And it's going to run for decades, the consequences of these decisions.
00:31:12.960 And all I wanted, number one, was to have a transparent conversation about that.
00:31:18.580 Number one.
00:31:19.500 Number two, I thought that in the desire to achieve their public health objectives,
00:31:25.200 which is to get everyone vaccinated, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,
00:31:28.140 the government attempted in this country,
00:31:30.940 I mean, don't even get me started on Canada and Australia and Germany and Austria,
00:31:35.460 but even in Britain, the government went way too far
00:31:39.280 in attempting to deny people their basic civil liberties and their rights
00:31:43.020 and attempting to force people to take a vaccine against their will.
00:31:47.300 I mean, I made this point on Joe Rogan.
00:31:49.040 I'll make it again.
00:31:50.060 Does it make any sense to anyone that you've got a health minister like Sajid Javid,
00:31:54.220 who is not a medical expert, forcing doctors
00:31:57.540 to have an injection that they don't want to have?
00:32:02.080 Yes.
00:32:02.360 Does that make any sense?
00:32:03.960 It makes sense to you?
00:32:04.960 It does.
00:32:05.480 Okay.
00:32:05.820 Explain to me why that makes sense.
00:32:07.100 Because the public health procedures are not just decided willy-nilly.
00:32:13.920 And I've heard you in other contexts talk about how people with utopian worldviews
00:32:21.080 about how, you know, the world can be perfected
00:32:24.120 and if we just get the right political system,
00:32:25.880 that one, that's inaccurate representation of human nature
00:32:30.000 and it can lead to very bad places, right?
00:32:32.560 Utopian worldviews.
00:32:33.940 So you have to price in constantly when you're dealing with government
00:32:37.140 or if you're dealing with public health,
00:32:38.660 that there will be miscommunication, there will be inefficiencies,
00:32:42.900 there will be like miscommunications, right?
00:32:46.140 And so when you price that in,
00:32:50.680 and my experience of the pandemic,
00:32:54.060 it does sound very different to yours
00:32:56.260 because I did see not only in mainstream media,
00:33:00.940 like politicians being questioned about policies,
00:33:03.620 but also in podcasts with virologists who are very strongly pro-vaccine,
00:33:10.020 debates about what public health measures are appropriate
00:33:14.960 and robust discussions about it.
00:33:18.480 And it was presented as if that was never allowed,
00:33:22.960 but I heard it all over the place
00:33:24.980 and I heard heterodox people endlessly complaining,
00:33:28.060 Joe Rogan complaining every week about it.
00:33:31.080 And the reality is that you weren't forced to get vaccines, right?
00:33:36.880 Unless you were working in health services or education or government.
00:33:42.320 Or care, yeah.
00:33:43.780 Right, right.
00:33:44.980 But the reason for that is to avoid vulnerable populations being impacted.
00:33:51.720 So there is a public health rationale for it.
00:33:54.140 And individual doctors saying,
00:33:55.860 well, I don't want to do that.
00:33:57.720 That is their right to do so.
00:34:00.000 But you can't say that if you have a regulation where like,
00:34:04.480 if a doctor says, you know,
00:34:05.380 I don't believe that I need to clean my hands
00:34:08.320 in order to stop viruses spreading.
00:34:11.300 And he's medically trained.
00:34:12.700 And you don't say, well, you know,
00:34:14.680 he's got reasons for thinking that.
00:34:16.360 How many doctors are doing that though?
00:34:18.180 Well, yeah, but I think-
00:34:20.100 No, no, no, no.
00:34:20.880 But this is the point.
00:34:22.240 This is exactly the point.
00:34:23.960 Because it wasn't 0.001% of doctors saying,
00:34:30.300 I don't want to have this vaccine.
00:34:31.640 It was quite a lot of them.
00:34:33.160 And we were going to lose a lot of medical staff.
00:34:36.060 When my son was born four and a half months ago,
00:34:38.200 several of the nurses who,
00:34:40.520 or the midwives rather,
00:34:41.940 who helped to deliver him in private told me
00:34:45.620 that they were not vaccinated
00:34:46.880 and that they were going to leave the National Health Service
00:34:49.700 if they were forced to do it.
00:34:51.200 So I'm not just talking based on just,
00:34:53.280 you know, something I invented in my head.
00:34:54.860 I'm telling you,
00:34:55.860 there were lots and lots of people
00:34:57.300 who were medically qualified,
00:34:58.940 who did not want anything to do with this vaccine.
00:35:02.840 Now, why they did or didn't is a different issue.
00:35:05.760 My point to you is that in a situation
00:35:08.540 where a significant minority of doctors
00:35:10.640 and medical experts don't want to have a vaccine,
00:35:13.520 I don't think it makes any sense
00:35:16.300 for that to be enforced upon them,
00:35:18.820 particularly when we don't have any evidence
00:35:21.840 that the vaccine was hugely effective
00:35:23.380 at preventing transmission from one person to another.
00:35:26.260 Yeah, but the vaccine has proved extremely,
00:35:29.580 like when we're talking about the impacts of COVID, right?
00:35:33.300 You know, the death statistics and stuff
00:35:34.980 make it very clear that this did lead to excess deaths
00:35:39.420 across the world,
00:35:40.540 a large impact on public health services
00:35:43.820 and medical facilities.
00:35:45.800 And transmission, the way that it's often presented
00:35:49.120 and I find in the heterodox sphere
00:35:51.540 is as if the vaccines are, you know,
00:35:53.900 practically useless and do nothing.
00:35:55.920 But when you look at the literature-
00:35:56.660 I don't think that at all.
00:35:58.580 Yeah, I'm not saying you specifically, Constantine,
00:36:01.980 but I mean that transmission relatively less effective
00:36:06.420 with later strains, right?
00:36:08.500 With the earlier vaccines.
00:36:10.900 But in most cases, not on the par,
00:36:13.940 just less effective.
00:36:16.020 And when it comes to stopping the spread
00:36:19.180 amongst the population of the virus,
00:36:22.340 public health has to take something
00:36:25.040 of a one-size-fits-all approach.
00:36:28.060 I mean, I'm sure you think that,
00:36:30.260 but I disagree with this completely.
00:36:32.040 I mean, this argument can be used
00:36:34.180 to push all sorts of tyranny onto the population
00:36:37.120 because if the interest-
00:36:38.880 Hold on a second.
00:36:39.580 Let me answer your point.
00:36:40.720 If the interests of the nation
00:36:43.040 require some sort of health measure,
00:36:46.560 I mean, you know,
00:36:47.800 we've got to protect the NHS.
00:36:49.020 Why don't we just shoot obese people?
00:36:50.880 They are the real epidemic.
00:36:52.360 They're the ones that are doing it.
00:36:53.620 How far do you take restrictions
00:36:55.380 of people's civil liberties
00:36:56.580 and forcing people to inject stuff in their body?
00:36:59.580 Why don't we invent a vaccine for obesity
00:37:01.820 and force fat people to take it?
00:37:04.580 Almost everybody in our society
00:37:06.420 would completely agree
00:37:07.560 that that would be unethical.
00:37:09.340 Forcing people to have an injection
00:37:11.000 that they don't want to have
00:37:12.900 would be considered unethical
00:37:14.360 in any other circumstance
00:37:15.960 other than when everyone
00:37:17.780 shits the bed over COVID.
00:37:19.220 So how about childhood vaccination
00:37:21.320 for things like polio and tuberculosis,
00:37:24.260 which are not optional?
00:37:26.420 I'm in favor of it
00:37:27.280 and I want my son to have it.
00:37:28.440 Why?
00:37:29.460 Why?
00:37:30.140 But why-
00:37:30.580 Because I think those vaccines
00:37:31.840 would be advantageous to him.
00:37:33.800 But if they are not mandated,
00:37:36.620 like childhood vaccination,
00:37:38.880 and you choose not to have it for your kid
00:37:41.360 and the polio virus comes back,
00:37:44.100 or your child gets polio
00:37:46.640 and is badly injured,
00:37:48.760 so your preference would be
00:37:50.760 that we don't mandate
00:37:51.980 any vaccinations
00:37:53.800 for any diseases
00:37:55.540 and allow them to return,
00:37:58.900 or is it specifically COVID?
00:38:00.320 I think it's slightly different
00:38:01.460 with children
00:38:02.020 because children are incapable
00:38:03.660 of making that decision
00:38:04.720 for themselves.
00:38:05.360 We're talking about adults.
00:38:06.480 So if we're talking about adults
00:38:07.600 in the context of COVID,
00:38:08.860 I don't think COVID vaccines
00:38:10.560 should ever be mandated, no.
00:38:12.380 But just COVID vaccines,
00:38:14.700 so you do think
00:38:15.520 there are circumstances
00:38:16.320 where if the disease
00:38:18.320 is infectious enough
00:38:19.760 or debilitating enough
00:38:21.280 that it could be right
00:38:22.600 to mandate it
00:38:23.560 in order to keep immunity
00:38:25.380 and to protect children.
00:38:26.160 I think for me,
00:38:26.600 the issue is less about the disease,
00:38:28.700 although obviously that's a factor.
00:38:30.100 I don't think it'd be stupid
00:38:31.020 to pretend otherwise.
00:38:31.820 If Ebola had the levels
00:38:34.000 of spread of COVID,
00:38:35.360 we'd be having
00:38:35.960 a different conversation.
00:38:37.060 Although I don't think
00:38:38.020 you'd need to force
00:38:38.680 a lot of people to take it
00:38:39.740 because they'd be taking it themselves.
00:38:41.500 But for me,
00:38:42.420 the issue is children.
00:38:43.340 Children, you know,
00:38:44.720 they have to have adults
00:38:45.520 make decisions for them
00:38:46.640 and that's a bit different.
00:38:48.180 So that would be
00:38:49.160 the difference for me.
00:38:50.020 But my point is something else,
00:38:52.080 which is the taking away
00:38:55.720 of people all sorts of rights
00:38:57.600 that people normally have
00:38:58.900 during COVID.
00:38:59.540 That was the thing
00:39:00.600 that annoyed me
00:39:01.840 and those were the principles
00:39:03.740 that I thought were being violated
00:39:05.540 that I thought were important
00:39:06.820 to stand up for,
00:39:07.580 which is why, again,
00:39:08.940 I encourage you to ask me
00:39:10.020 about my views
00:39:11.000 as opposed to defending people
00:39:12.440 who think the vaccine is,
00:39:13.900 you know,
00:39:14.480 a 5G plot
00:39:15.440 or whatever the hell that is.
00:39:17.440 Sure.
00:39:18.000 So that leads,
00:39:19.080 maybe we can leave,
00:39:20.120 you know,
00:39:20.440 the vaccines behind.
00:39:21.720 I know it's a topic
00:39:23.360 that endlessly
00:39:24.420 becomes a sinkhole
00:39:25.700 for conversation
00:39:26.460 and I appreciate you
00:39:29.580 responding about it
00:39:30.340 as you have.
00:39:31.000 But the point that you raised
00:39:32.180 before that,
00:39:32.900 Konstantin,
00:39:33.440 was, you know,
00:39:34.140 that like,
00:39:34.820 for example,
00:39:35.280 with Brett,
00:39:35.720 you might disagree
00:39:36.260 with his views about COVID
00:39:37.360 and you're not responsible
00:39:38.880 for his particular views
00:39:41.160 and that you find him
00:39:43.200 to be a very,
00:39:44.340 you know,
00:39:44.600 nice person,
00:39:45.800 principled person
00:39:46.620 and his wife,
00:39:47.680 Heller,
00:39:48.300 as well.
00:39:49.100 And that raises to me
00:39:50.880 something which I hear
00:39:52.140 a lot of in,
00:39:54.580 again,
00:39:55.100 I'm going to use the term
00:39:56.320 like the heterodox space
00:39:57.700 or whatever,
00:39:58.480 but there seems to be
00:39:59.980 an over-reliance
00:40:01.300 on this heuristic.
00:40:02.880 if somebody is
00:40:03.900 interpersonally
00:40:05.020 nice to you,
00:40:06.800 that this is somehow
00:40:08.320 indicative
00:40:09.400 that they can't actually
00:40:11.380 be promoting
00:40:13.000 misinformation
00:40:13.640 or actually be...
00:40:15.540 Hold on,
00:40:16.060 hold on,
00:40:16.460 hold on a second.
00:40:18.100 The very first thing
00:40:19.380 I said
00:40:19.960 is that I don't agree
00:40:21.660 with Brett
00:40:22.120 about COVID.
00:40:23.480 Okay,
00:40:23.920 so let me finish
00:40:25.220 the point I want to make there
00:40:27.180 because I'm not saying
00:40:28.600 that this is the case.
00:40:30.160 I mean more in line
00:40:33.460 with like
00:40:34.580 in most occasions,
00:40:35.700 I don't find it hard
00:40:36.880 to imagine
00:40:37.780 that people are able
00:40:38.960 to have
00:40:39.640 positive interactions
00:40:41.180 with someone.
00:40:41.740 So recently
00:40:42.200 with your appearance
00:40:42.980 with Rogan,
00:40:43.600 you talked about
00:40:44.260 meeting Sebastian Gorka
00:40:45.700 and him being
00:40:46.860 a fun guy
00:40:47.620 to hang out with
00:40:48.340 to go to a shooting range
00:40:49.480 to eat steak
00:40:50.600 or whatever the case might be.
00:40:52.580 And I find that
00:40:54.880 to be like
00:40:56.180 when it's presented
00:40:57.900 as a novel insight
00:41:00.040 or something
00:41:00.980 that we need
00:41:01.780 to bear in mind,
00:41:03.400 it strikes me
00:41:04.080 as potentially
00:41:04.980 rather than insightful
00:41:06.460 and interesting
00:41:07.280 to be obfuscating
00:41:08.940 of the reason
00:41:09.880 that that person's criticized
00:41:11.240 because usually
00:41:12.440 the reason is not
00:41:13.340 that, you know,
00:41:14.560 they are a fun person
00:41:16.360 to have dinner with.
00:41:17.580 It's because
00:41:18.560 of the particular
00:41:19.640 ideology
00:41:20.700 or information
00:41:22.400 that they're promoting
00:41:23.420 that they get
00:41:24.060 the criticism.
00:41:25.200 And I see
00:41:26.100 constant kind of refrain
00:41:27.820 to personal
00:41:29.200 relationships
00:41:30.340 and the importance
00:41:31.500 of them
00:41:32.700 as if that
00:41:33.860 is something
00:41:34.580 that we
00:41:35.100 aren't considering
00:41:36.840 enough
00:41:37.480 and that if,
00:41:38.520 I mean,
00:41:39.220 if you could sit down,
00:41:40.400 I know this is going to,
00:41:41.680 I'm just,
00:41:42.160 I'm using an extreme example.
00:41:43.480 I'm not saying
00:41:43.860 Sebastian Gorka is this,
00:41:45.020 but I mean,
00:41:45.800 if you could sit down
00:41:46.800 and have a nice
00:41:47.700 dinner
00:41:48.340 with Victor Orban
00:41:50.080 and,
00:41:51.160 you know,
00:41:51.440 he can have a nice chat
00:41:52.480 with you
00:41:52.880 about the problems
00:41:53.660 of woke culture,
00:41:55.280 it doesn't mean
00:41:56.120 there's any less
00:41:57.120 repression
00:41:57.720 of the media
00:41:58.960 or authoritarian
00:41:59.940 steps to control
00:42:01.860 opposition parties
00:42:02.860 in Hungary.
00:42:03.780 And yet you have
00:42:04.440 lots of people
00:42:05.600 who are reeling
00:42:07.040 against authoritarianism
00:42:08.420 and the woke
00:42:08.960 and going to Hungary,
00:42:10.980 right?
00:42:11.180 Have I done that?
00:42:12.080 Again,
00:42:12.560 you're talking to me
00:42:14.080 about other people.
00:42:14.940 I am not a fan
00:42:15.700 of Victor Orban,
00:42:16.480 have never defended him,
00:42:17.620 have never commented
00:42:18.340 about him,
00:42:18.780 not least because
00:42:19.620 I don't know anything
00:42:20.220 about Hungarian politics.
00:42:21.640 But let me come back
00:42:22.440 to your point
00:42:22.880 about what I said
00:42:23.540 about Seb Gorka.
00:42:25.280 You're doing a disservice
00:42:26.580 to what I said
00:42:27.300 because I didn't make
00:42:28.820 the point
00:42:29.280 that Seb Gorka
00:42:30.260 is a good guy
00:42:31.940 and I went for steak
00:42:33.800 and shooting guns
00:42:34.800 with him
00:42:35.120 and therefore
00:42:35.800 blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
00:42:37.500 What I said is
00:42:38.600 not only that,
00:42:40.040 we had dinner
00:42:40.740 with him
00:42:41.240 and some of his
00:42:41.940 conservative friends
00:42:43.180 and what I said was
00:42:44.300 these are people
00:42:45.060 who love this country,
00:42:46.040 they care about this country,
00:42:47.640 they're actually
00:42:48.100 well-intentioned
00:42:49.000 even if you may disagree
00:42:49.980 with the way
00:42:50.520 that they behave,
00:42:51.560 right?
00:42:51.800 And that is my point.
00:42:53.680 My point is twofold.
00:42:54.880 First of all,
00:42:55.840 we have to get back
00:42:56.860 to the idea
00:42:57.460 that we can disagree
00:42:58.300 with people
00:42:58.860 without hating them
00:42:59.800 and I do think
00:43:01.320 that is something
00:43:01.880 that we've lost a lot
00:43:02.920 with the emergence
00:43:03.520 of social media.
00:43:04.360 Would anyone disagree
00:43:05.060 with that?
00:43:05.960 Number one.
00:43:06.880 Number two,
00:43:07.620 when you talk to people
00:43:09.140 whose behavior
00:43:10.160 you sometimes
00:43:10.880 don't approve of
00:43:11.700 or don't like,
00:43:12.340 you may often find out
00:43:13.400 things about them.
00:43:14.140 So for example,
00:43:15.740 Seb gave me
00:43:16.300 a copy of his book
00:43:17.160 and I read the first
00:43:18.060 few pages on the plane
00:43:19.460 as he gave them to me
00:43:20.440 and he talks about
00:43:21.920 how both his daughter
00:43:22.960 and his son
00:43:23.800 were being,
00:43:26.380 I think one of the newspapers
00:43:27.980 called his son,
00:43:29.120 his 17-year-old son
00:43:30.380 a traitor
00:43:31.040 in a national newspaper headline
00:43:33.280 and his daughter
00:43:34.480 was nearly kicked out
00:43:35.580 of her university
00:43:36.440 for quote-unquote
00:43:37.700 being racist
00:43:38.720 for being his daughter
00:43:40.480 and for being his son.
00:43:42.200 Now,
00:43:42.400 do you think it's possible
00:43:43.480 that the version
00:43:44.460 of Seb Gorka
00:43:45.200 you see on CNN
00:43:46.140 defending President Trump
00:43:47.500 after he's constantly
00:43:48.900 lied about for four years
00:43:50.300 and his children
00:43:51.340 are being attacked,
00:43:52.320 do you think it's possible
00:43:53.240 that the angry version
00:43:54.560 of him that you see
00:43:55.380 on TV
00:43:55.860 has something to do
00:43:57.420 with those things
00:43:58.380 as opposed to to do
00:43:59.820 with what kind of person
00:44:00.820 he is?
00:44:01.460 Because my four and a half
00:44:03.080 a month son
00:44:03.920 is next door
00:44:04.640 and I can tell you
00:44:05.900 if someone was going
00:44:06.980 after him
00:44:07.520 in a national newspaper
00:44:08.440 because he's my son,
00:44:10.100 I would go fucking ballistic.
00:44:12.540 Right?
00:44:13.040 So in some ways,
00:44:14.680 the way that Seb
00:44:15.320 behaves sometimes
00:44:16.120 is quite restrained
00:44:17.280 given the experiences
00:44:18.540 he's been through
00:44:19.200 and I'm not saying
00:44:20.500 that justifies his behavior.
00:44:22.440 I'm not saying
00:44:23.060 I agree with everything
00:44:24.100 he says.
00:44:24.780 I don't support
00:44:25.860 Donald Trump
00:44:26.420 in the way that he does.
00:44:27.760 However,
00:44:28.140 I do think
00:44:28.740 that is an important context
00:44:29.980 that gets lost
00:44:30.960 when we have these debates
00:44:32.580 in this clip,
00:44:33.620 clip,
00:44:33.900 clip,
00:44:34.220 this is the worst
00:44:35.160 of the Seb Gorka
00:44:36.280 ever kind of way
00:44:37.600 and that was the point
00:44:38.560 that I was making.
00:44:39.280 It wasn't that the fact
00:44:40.200 that I had stake with him
00:44:41.080 means that he's a good guy.
00:44:42.780 I think I'd push back
00:44:44.500 that I sincerely doubt
00:44:46.000 one,
00:44:46.640 I would not automatically
00:44:48.240 accept the way
00:44:49.440 that Gorka
00:44:50.500 would present
00:44:51.640 how he's been treated
00:44:53.000 or
00:44:53.540 it may be the case
00:44:55.840 that he's had
00:44:56.540 harsh media coverage
00:44:58.080 and his family
00:44:58.660 have been targeted
00:44:59.700 but I doubt
00:45:01.220 that before
00:45:02.240 those events
00:45:03.420 that he was
00:45:04.160 a very mild-mannered
00:45:05.200 soul
00:45:05.700 who was not a polemicist.
00:45:07.540 I think that there's
00:45:08.400 a culture of victimhood
00:45:10.680 on the right.
00:45:12.200 Of course there is.
00:45:12.740 Which is quite ironic
00:45:14.240 because there's
00:45:15.080 a constant complaining
00:45:15.940 about it on the left.
00:45:17.760 You yourself,
00:45:18.660 Konstantin,
00:45:19.120 have mentioned
00:45:19.700 in lots of discussions
00:45:20.860 that you've had
00:45:21.600 with people
00:45:22.600 that we shouldn't
00:45:24.180 spend so much time
00:45:25.180 feeling sorry for ourselves
00:45:26.420 because things are
00:45:27.100 pretty good for us.
00:45:27.880 We've got big audiences
00:45:28.880 and people listen to us
00:45:30.320 and we have nice
00:45:31.000 conversations, right?
00:45:32.320 And I completely agree
00:45:34.180 with that position
00:45:35.640 but I guess
00:45:37.420 the point,
00:45:38.380 one of the things
00:45:39.080 that you emphasized
00:45:40.100 at the start
00:45:40.660 of the conversation
00:45:41.280 was the importance
00:45:42.120 of being able
00:45:43.100 to criticize
00:45:43.680 both sides
00:45:44.520 and people on
00:45:45.240 that you broadly
00:45:46.940 agree with.
00:45:47.500 In some ways
00:45:48.000 that's often
00:45:49.160 more important
00:45:49.920 than being able
00:45:51.000 to attack the people
00:45:51.840 on the other side
00:45:53.020 of the political aisle
00:45:53.920 and that's part
00:45:55.660 of why I am
00:45:57.020 raising these examples
00:45:58.100 like people
00:45:59.160 traveling in Hungary
00:46:01.040 to Orban
00:46:02.240 or the,
00:46:03.640 you know,
00:46:04.120 the anti-vaccine
00:46:05.280 stances
00:46:06.000 because what I see
00:46:08.000 for example
00:46:08.660 is that when
00:46:10.100 people in the
00:46:11.520 heterodox sphere
00:46:12.080 get together
00:46:13.000 they're often
00:46:14.040 fine to talk
00:46:15.740 about their
00:46:17.140 collective enemies
00:46:18.280 the progressives
00:46:19.620 and the woke
00:46:20.020 and what they're
00:46:20.440 doing wrong
00:46:20.780 and they avoid
00:46:21.780 those topics
00:46:23.180 which might be
00:46:24.460 What have I avoided?
00:46:25.800 This is a problem
00:46:27.200 when you talk about
00:46:28.080 Hungary
00:46:28.560 what am I avoiding?
00:46:31.040 So for example,
00:46:32.260 Constantine,
00:46:33.000 would you,
00:46:34.020 if you had
00:46:34.820 Peter Bogossian on,
00:46:35.920 are you likely
00:46:36.840 to hold his feet
00:46:38.220 to the fire
00:46:38.780 about why
00:46:39.600 he's in Hungary
00:46:41.520 doing tours
00:46:42.380 for Orban's government?
00:46:43.480 When you've spoke
00:46:44.020 with Douglas Murray
00:46:44.800 have you ever
00:46:45.960 raised the issue
00:46:46.820 of his defenses
00:46:47.900 of right-wing
00:46:49.840 populist leaders
00:46:51.160 across the world?
00:46:53.000 Because I,
00:46:53.720 I don't think
00:46:54.420 his support
00:46:54.920 for right-wing
00:46:55.740 populist leaders
00:46:56.560 around the world
00:46:57.140 needs defending.
00:46:58.400 I don't know
00:46:59.140 anything about
00:46:59.820 Peter Bogossian's tours.
00:47:01.580 Like I said,
00:47:02.200 I don't know anything
00:47:02.620 about Hungarian politics.
00:47:03.760 If I did,
00:47:04.640 I wouldn't hesitate
00:47:05.360 to ask him
00:47:05.980 about it at all.
00:47:07.360 No.
00:47:07.820 But isn't there
00:47:08.920 something where
00:47:09.720 you can basically
00:47:10.620 take that stance
00:47:12.500 because,
00:47:12.920 you know,
00:47:13.400 you can prepare
00:47:14.020 for interviews,
00:47:14.860 right?
00:47:15.100 And you can check
00:47:15.840 what stances
00:47:16.780 people have taken
00:47:17.520 on things.
00:47:18.040 And if you
00:47:18.600 choose to go
00:47:20.020 with,
00:47:20.500 like let's say
00:47:21.260 you had James Lindsay
00:47:22.180 on,
00:47:22.860 right?
00:47:23.160 And you,
00:47:24.400 and many people
00:47:24.980 have,
00:47:25.680 and discuss with him
00:47:27.020 the issues
00:47:27.900 of the social justice
00:47:28.820 left,
00:47:29.260 his kind of main focus,
00:47:30.620 but they astutely
00:47:32.300 do not discuss
00:47:33.620 his conspiracy.
00:47:35.220 Again,
00:47:35.420 you're talking
00:47:35.840 about other people.
00:47:37.080 I had James Lindsay
00:47:38.360 on my show
00:47:39.060 with Peter
00:47:39.680 three years ago,
00:47:41.640 at which point
00:47:42.700 we talked about
00:47:43.340 the things
00:47:43.740 that were interesting
00:47:44.340 to us at the time.
00:47:45.720 We haven't had
00:47:46.880 James Lindsay
00:47:47.560 on the show since.
00:47:48.980 And one of the reasons
00:47:49.700 is his Twitter behavior
00:47:50.860 to me makes him
00:47:52.920 a completely
00:47:53.740 discredited person.
00:47:55.520 And so,
00:47:56.460 if we wanted
00:47:57.380 to have him on
00:47:58.060 and talk about
00:47:58.560 his Twitter behavior,
00:47:59.400 we'd happily do that.
00:48:00.300 The problem is
00:48:00.880 a bunch of people
00:48:01.780 have already done that
00:48:02.560 with him.
00:48:02.920 He has his
00:48:03.920 bullshit excuse,
00:48:05.260 which is Twitter
00:48:05.800 doesn't matter.
00:48:07.900 You know,
00:48:08.920 what do you want me
00:48:09.500 to do with that?
00:48:09.980 Get him on for an hour
00:48:10.800 and talk about that?
00:48:12.440 There's no benefit
00:48:13.220 to that.
00:48:13.720 I said what I said
00:48:14.780 about James,
00:48:15.840 both publicly
00:48:16.580 and privately.
00:48:17.260 I think I chose
00:48:18.140 my words
00:48:18.680 very carefully
00:48:20.180 and described
00:48:21.520 what I think
00:48:22.180 he's become.
00:48:23.000 So,
00:48:23.500 my problem
00:48:24.500 with this conversation,
00:48:25.440 I'm really keen
00:48:26.240 for us to have
00:48:27.160 the robust discussion,
00:48:28.560 is you keep
00:48:29.300 presenting
00:48:30.200 other people
00:48:31.300 as being somehow
00:48:32.280 contaminating of me
00:48:34.180 when I'm not connected.
00:48:35.880 I'm not doing
00:48:36.380 those things.
00:48:37.720 It's not about
00:48:38.940 contamination.
00:48:40.260 It's about
00:48:40.540 willingness to challenge
00:48:41.740 and more
00:48:42.480 if people are going to...
00:48:43.340 So, tell me,
00:48:43.700 where am I not
00:48:44.820 challenging people
00:48:45.580 that I should be?
00:48:46.860 Okay, so an example.
00:48:48.300 You interviewed
00:48:49.060 Brett and Heller
00:48:49.980 about their book,
00:48:51.900 The Hunter Galler's Guide
00:48:53.160 to the 21st Century.
00:48:54.820 This was at the height
00:48:56.160 of their promotion
00:48:57.220 of anti-vaccine rhetoric.
00:49:00.100 You didn't raise it
00:49:01.420 at all.
00:49:02.280 And other people
00:49:02.860 have noted
00:49:03.760 that when they were
00:49:05.080 arranging interviews
00:49:06.060 with them,
00:49:06.920 their publicist
00:49:07.540 asked them
00:49:08.060 not to address
00:49:09.500 that controversy.
00:49:10.980 You got a lot
00:49:11.600 of criticism
00:49:12.160 from your audience
00:49:13.560 that I saw
00:49:14.420 at the time
00:49:15.200 for not raising
00:49:16.380 that issue.
00:49:17.220 Michael Shermer
00:49:17.880 did the same thing.
00:49:19.180 So, that's a case
00:49:20.440 where it looked
00:49:21.700 a lot like
00:49:22.900 you were avoiding
00:49:23.660 a controversial issue
00:49:25.160 to talk with someone
00:49:26.700 about a position
00:49:27.640 that you agreed.
00:49:28.320 That specific issue,
00:49:28.900 that's not accurate
00:49:29.920 because what happened
00:49:30.800 is we had Brett on
00:49:32.080 like a couple
00:49:33.300 of months prior
00:49:34.060 and so to talk
00:49:35.400 about the COVID stuff
00:49:36.340 again would have
00:49:36.940 been completely pointless.
00:49:38.320 I think that publicists
00:49:39.540 did say they wanted
00:49:40.720 to talk about the book.
00:49:42.240 I was much more
00:49:43.060 interested in the book
00:49:43.860 than talking about COVID.
00:49:45.020 That's why we didn't
00:49:45.660 talk about COVID.
00:49:47.040 So, but I don't see
00:49:48.080 that as shying away
00:49:49.540 from challenging people
00:49:51.360 on difficult things.
00:49:52.340 It's just we wanted
00:49:53.160 to have a conversation
00:49:54.160 about a different issue
00:49:55.720 at the time.
00:49:56.780 And as you saw
00:49:57.700 in my conversation
00:49:58.560 on Brett's podcast,
00:49:59.840 I had absolutely
00:50:00.720 no problem
00:50:01.580 saying what my opinion
00:50:04.000 was about the issue
00:50:05.380 of COVID
00:50:05.740 and what my disagreements
00:50:06.820 are with him.
00:50:07.620 So, it's not
00:50:08.120 an unwillingness
00:50:09.040 to challenge.
00:50:09.540 It was just
00:50:09.880 an individual instance
00:50:10.880 in which that was
00:50:11.680 how it was.
00:50:12.440 Again, if you've got
00:50:13.540 other issues
00:50:14.140 where you think
00:50:14.640 I'm not challenging
00:50:15.340 someone,
00:50:15.760 I'm open to hear it.
00:50:17.300 Okay.
00:50:17.700 So, another example
00:50:19.160 that is specific
00:50:21.060 to the podcast.
00:50:23.340 So, when you talk
00:50:24.780 about enlightened
00:50:25.440 centrism
00:50:26.220 and an approach
00:50:27.600 which is apolitical,
00:50:29.380 the advertisements
00:50:30.420 on your podcast,
00:50:31.580 for example,
00:50:32.440 are for Nigel Farage's
00:50:34.500 cryptocurrency.
00:50:36.520 No, no, no.
00:50:37.460 It's not cryptocurrency.
00:50:39.560 Sorry, no.
00:50:40.320 It's for an investment
00:50:41.400 company that he founded
00:50:42.680 30 years ago
00:50:43.760 that gives people
00:50:44.940 investment advice.
00:50:46.060 It's not a cryptocurrency.
00:50:47.500 Okay, so Nigel Farage's...
00:50:50.820 No, no.
00:50:51.120 It's not Nigel Farage's.
00:50:52.400 It's an investment
00:50:53.160 advice company
00:50:54.180 that happens
00:50:54.760 to have been founded
00:50:55.460 by Nigel Farage.
00:50:56.620 I'm not selling it
00:50:57.900 as,
00:50:58.580 you love Nigel Farage,
00:50:59.900 therefore buy this thing.
00:51:01.620 It's useful information
00:51:02.700 for people
00:51:03.120 who want to make
00:51:03.720 investment decisions.
00:51:05.360 Okay.
00:51:05.780 But would you not...
00:51:07.820 So, you've...
00:51:08.640 I think the branding
00:51:09.460 involving Nigel Farage
00:51:11.220 is incidental
00:51:12.220 to that product.
00:51:13.380 It's suggested
00:51:13.860 by the people
00:51:14.740 that's what they wanted.
00:51:16.460 Right?
00:51:16.640 Right.
00:51:16.760 We advertise
00:51:18.560 people who give us money.
00:51:21.000 So, but that would be
00:51:21.860 my question to you then.
00:51:23.400 So, the Epoch Times,
00:51:25.000 for example,
00:51:25.380 is a far-right publication
00:51:27.680 by most metrics
00:51:28.840 that has promoted
00:51:30.380 like anti-vaccine,
00:51:31.340 the big lie.
00:51:32.760 It's promoted
00:51:33.880 QAnon conspiracies
00:51:35.460 and it's associated
00:51:36.580 with the Falun Gong movement
00:51:38.880 and it is not hard
00:51:40.600 to locate critiques of it.
00:51:42.600 Now, when you have advertised for it,
00:51:45.640 it's quite a ringing endorsement
00:51:47.440 and the point
00:51:48.480 I want to make there is
00:51:49.660 if the majority
00:51:52.100 of advertisers
00:51:53.020 for you
00:51:53.660 are leaning
00:51:54.720 in that particular direction...
00:51:56.260 You have no evidence
00:51:57.060 to make that claim
00:51:58.020 whatsoever.
00:51:59.480 You've picked out
00:52:00.400 two examples
00:52:01.160 and called that
00:52:01.940 the majority.
00:52:02.680 We advertise
00:52:03.240 hundreds of different
00:52:04.100 businesses every year.
00:52:05.020 Would your contention
00:52:06.680 be that those
00:52:07.620 are unrepresented?
00:52:09.420 My contention
00:52:10.040 would be
00:52:10.600 that the overwhelming
00:52:12.300 percentage,
00:52:13.660 I'm talking 90 plus percent
00:52:15.360 of our advertisers
00:52:16.220 are apolitical
00:52:17.360 in any way,
00:52:18.260 shape or form.
00:52:19.600 So, in that case,
00:52:20.820 Konstantin,
00:52:21.520 if a far-left organization
00:52:24.220 wanted to promote
00:52:25.840 on your show,
00:52:27.040 would you also read
00:52:28.600 an endorsement?
00:52:29.940 It depends on what it was.
00:52:31.680 I'd have to say it.
00:52:32.340 I don't know what you mean
00:52:33.100 by far-left,
00:52:33.980 first of all.
00:52:34.540 We've had people
00:52:35.680 who I consider
00:52:36.500 to be, you know,
00:52:38.780 weird lefties
00:52:40.200 of the kind
00:52:40.700 that I massively disagree with
00:52:42.100 who are currently peddling
00:52:43.380 the Ukraine Nazis bullshit
00:52:45.420 and whatever.
00:52:46.020 People like Aaron Matty
00:52:47.180 and Jimmy Dore
00:52:47.940 and whatever.
00:52:49.020 And if Jimmy Dore
00:52:50.080 wanted to advertise
00:52:51.060 his YouTube channel
00:52:51.920 on our channel,
00:52:52.700 I'd say, you know,
00:52:54.660 we'd have to have
00:52:55.280 an internal conversation
00:52:56.260 about that.
00:52:58.020 So, but also,
00:53:00.240 I don't know
00:53:01.520 that your characterization
00:53:02.980 of Epoch Times
00:53:04.520 as far-right
00:53:05.160 is accurate.
00:53:06.120 That's certainly not
00:53:06.800 been my impression
00:53:07.700 when I've read it.
00:53:08.640 So, I don't accept that either.
00:53:09.980 I don't think Nigel Farage
00:53:11.080 is far-right
00:53:11.700 by any stretch
00:53:12.660 of the imagination.
00:53:14.440 So, again...
00:53:14.940 He came out of UKIP for...
00:53:17.480 Yeah, UKIP were not far-right.
00:53:19.480 Nigel Farage
00:53:20.500 is a Thatcherite
00:53:21.920 economically
00:53:22.580 and he was pro-Brexit.
00:53:25.200 Where's far-right in that?
00:53:26.880 What's far-right about that?
00:53:27.500 Well, for example,
00:53:28.540 like,
00:53:29.260 during the Brexit campaign,
00:53:30.700 the poster
00:53:31.380 that they produced
00:53:32.240 with the large
00:53:33.740 crowds of people,
00:53:35.980 colored people,
00:53:37.320 anti-immigration sentiment,
00:53:39.140 or...
00:53:39.660 I don't think
00:53:40.320 wanting to restrict immigration
00:53:41.740 makes you far-right.
00:53:42.620 How about the implication
00:53:44.860 that Turkey
00:53:45.520 was on the precipice
00:53:46.860 of joining the EU
00:53:48.260 and there would be
00:53:49.060 millions of Muslims
00:53:50.320 entering the UK
00:53:52.320 with visas
00:53:53.200 because
00:53:54.000 that was likely
00:53:55.780 to happen?
00:53:56.460 Politicians lie
00:53:57.500 to embellish their case
00:53:58.840 all the time.
00:53:59.980 I didn't think
00:54:01.540 that was a good look,
00:54:02.720 but I don't think
00:54:03.400 it makes them far-right.
00:54:05.820 Is there...
00:54:06.340 So, what is far-right?
00:54:07.720 It's kind of
00:54:08.260 neo-Nazi...
00:54:08.780 A neo-Nazi, yeah.
00:54:10.340 Yeah, or someone
00:54:11.440 who's openly fascist.
00:54:12.620 That's what far-right
00:54:13.380 actually means,
00:54:14.500 remember?
00:54:15.100 These words have meanings.
00:54:17.100 They have meanings.
00:54:18.700 So, you would say,
00:54:19.840 for example,
00:54:20.460 Stephen Miller...
00:54:20.780 So, the fact that
00:54:21.240 the left-wing media
00:54:22.240 has been spreading
00:54:23.100 all this stuff
00:54:24.200 calling these people
00:54:25.120 far-right
00:54:25.520 doesn't make them
00:54:26.200 far-right.
00:54:27.040 These words have meanings.
00:54:28.340 My ancestors
00:54:29.340 were killed
00:54:30.040 by far-right people,
00:54:31.780 right?
00:54:32.100 So, I'm kind of picky
00:54:33.040 about these things.
00:54:33.740 It's important.
00:54:35.180 Certainly.
00:54:35.680 So, like,
00:54:36.680 Stephen Miller,
00:54:37.480 for example,
00:54:38.080 in the Trump administration,
00:54:39.700 you would regard him
00:54:40.640 as moderate conservative.
00:54:42.620 I've never met him.
00:54:43.640 I have no idea
00:54:44.460 who he is.
00:54:46.040 I've never,
00:54:47.060 don't think,
00:54:47.400 interacted with him.
00:54:49.260 I think...
00:54:49.940 So, you suggested,
00:54:51.660 Konstantin,
00:54:52.200 that, like,
00:54:52.780 you know,
00:54:53.080 you wouldn't advertise
00:54:53.900 something without
00:54:54.520 an internal discussion.
00:54:55.960 And from your reading
00:54:57.020 of the Epoch Times,
00:54:58.360 it's not far-right.
00:54:59.360 It's, you know,
00:54:59.780 it's maybe conservative-tinged
00:55:01.100 or that,
00:55:01.520 but does that mean
00:55:02.400 in your political spectrum?
00:55:03.860 So, things like
00:55:05.420 the big lie
00:55:06.320 promoting that
00:55:07.300 is simply
00:55:08.600 a moderate position.
00:55:11.680 What's the big lie?
00:55:13.720 The big lie is
00:55:14.860 that the election
00:55:15.860 was stolen
00:55:17.080 by fraudulent
00:55:18.820 voting behavior.
00:55:20.240 No, to me,
00:55:21.180 that's an extreme position
00:55:22.280 that I disagree with
00:55:23.220 very strongly,
00:55:24.460 as I disagree with
00:55:26.040 the spreading
00:55:26.600 the big lie
00:55:27.280 about the 2016 election,
00:55:28.940 which the mainstream media
00:55:30.160 comfortably spread
00:55:31.240 for four years
00:55:31.920 with absolutely no criticism,
00:55:33.720 I imagine,
00:55:34.320 from people like you as well.
00:55:36.260 Well, so,
00:55:37.120 the distinction there
00:55:38.400 would be that
00:55:39.220 while there's plenty
00:55:40.320 that you can criticize
00:55:41.540 about, for example,
00:55:42.520 Rachel Maddow's position,
00:55:44.660 if people came in
00:55:45.620 that Russia
00:55:46.440 completely decided
00:55:47.760 the election for Trump,
00:55:48.740 I would agree
00:55:49.260 that's not true.
00:55:50.680 But equally,
00:55:52.080 the notion
00:55:52.620 that there was
00:55:54.020 no interference
00:55:55.380 from Russia
00:55:56.580 in leaking
00:55:58.060 the emails
00:55:59.160 from the Democratic Party
00:56:00.640 or
00:56:01.320 or arranging
00:56:02.760 various online campaigns
00:56:04.160 to support Trump,
00:56:05.240 those have been documented
00:56:06.320 quite extensively
00:56:07.520 to actually have occurred
00:56:09.240 and at every step
00:56:10.220 along the way,
00:56:11.380 denied, denied, denied
00:56:12.480 by the right wing.
00:56:13.380 Yeah, and to the people
00:56:13.980 who peddle the big lie
00:56:15.480 can give you
00:56:16.040 lots of little bids
00:56:18.240 that in their mind
00:56:19.540 add up to influencing
00:56:20.780 the election.
00:56:21.560 The definitive answer
00:56:22.800 on 2016 is
00:56:24.040 Russian involvement
00:56:25.340 did not decide
00:56:26.380 that election.
00:56:27.900 That's a fact.
00:56:28.440 So, right.
00:56:29.600 And that's the thing
00:56:30.580 to just hope.
00:56:32.740 Sorry.
00:56:33.100 But you see,
00:56:33.640 you're not being fair
00:56:35.140 to these two different sides.
00:56:36.720 I think they're both
00:56:37.740 completely wrong
00:56:38.660 and both deeply unfair
00:56:40.000 and both shouldn't
00:56:40.820 have been done.
00:56:41.820 What you are doing
00:56:42.560 is you're downplay
00:56:43.520 the behavior,
00:56:44.300 downplaying the behavior
00:56:45.280 of one side
00:56:46.020 and playing up
00:56:47.140 the behavior
00:56:47.620 of the other side
00:56:48.360 to make it look imbalanced.
00:56:49.700 To me,
00:56:50.460 there were two big lies
00:56:51.760 and one was peddled
00:56:53.260 by every major institution
00:56:54.660 in America
00:56:55.220 and around the world.
00:56:56.100 The other one
00:56:56.980 was condemned
00:56:57.640 by the very same institutions
00:56:59.080 that spent four years
00:57:00.080 peddling the first big lie.
00:57:01.900 Surely an important difference
00:57:03.240 is that the Democratic candidate
00:57:05.360 conceded on the night
00:57:07.120 and the party
00:57:07.940 acknowledged
00:57:08.840 the transfer of power.
00:57:10.880 And also to speak back
00:57:12.540 to your point
00:57:13.160 that I would
00:57:13.840 automatically defend
00:57:15.660 a claim
00:57:16.640 that the left wing
00:57:18.000 would make.
00:57:19.400 So,
00:57:19.780 in the Brexit campaign
00:57:21.040 when people claimed
00:57:21.880 that Cambridge Analytica
00:57:23.120 swayed the election
00:57:24.080 by targeted psychographics,
00:57:26.100 I wrote two articles
00:57:28.060 explaining why
00:57:29.100 that was very likely
00:57:30.140 not the case
00:57:30.780 and the Brexit vote
00:57:31.540 was just won by,
00:57:33.740 you know,
00:57:34.340 standard political campaigning
00:57:37.000 and I would say
00:57:38.480 playing up xenophobic sentiment.
00:57:40.400 But in any case,
00:57:41.640 you didn't need
00:57:42.540 the psychographic explanation.
00:57:44.980 It's just,
00:57:45.860 you know,
00:57:46.160 there was an
00:57:46.800 anti-institution sentiment
00:57:48.580 and dissatisfaction
00:57:49.900 with the EU,
00:57:50.660 so that's what you get.
00:57:51.600 But I think
00:57:52.400 that speaks counter
00:57:54.080 to the point
00:57:54.880 that I wouldn't be willing
00:57:56.080 to criticize that,
00:57:56.960 but I definitely
00:57:57.580 did not think
00:57:58.420 there's an equivalence
00:57:59.740 between
00:58:00.300 the Trump
00:58:01.960 and the Republican Party,
00:58:03.700 the mainstream
00:58:04.380 Republican Party stance
00:58:06.520 on the fraudulent nature
00:58:08.920 of the election
00:58:09.720 and how many
00:58:10.460 are willing
00:58:11.480 to now endorse
00:58:12.280 that stance
00:58:13.020 versus
00:58:13.820 the accusation
00:58:15.980 that
00:58:16.400 the Russians
00:58:17.920 were responsible
00:58:18.860 for the election.
00:58:19.720 because I don't think
00:58:20.500 that is the same
00:58:21.780 level of support.
00:58:23.040 So let me take back
00:58:24.100 the allegation
00:58:24.800 that you might be unfair
00:58:26.040 about it
00:58:26.640 because it's unfair,
00:58:27.980 I don't know.
00:58:28.800 We were talking
00:58:29.480 about media coverage.
00:58:31.120 You started this conversation
00:58:32.520 by talking about
00:58:33.160 the Epoch Times.
00:58:34.200 I don't see
00:58:35.160 how it's any different
00:58:36.440 for the Epoch Times
00:58:37.500 to suggest
00:58:38.220 that the 2020 election
00:58:40.660 was stolen
00:58:41.240 after left-wing media
00:58:43.380 spent four years
00:58:44.940 suggesting
00:58:45.420 that the 2016 election
00:58:46.920 was stolen.
00:58:47.720 Now, the behavior
00:58:48.960 of Trump
00:58:49.600 and his supporters,
00:58:50.560 I've already told you
00:58:51.360 my position
00:58:51.860 on January the 6th,
00:58:52.980 but that's separate
00:58:54.000 to the issue
00:58:54.600 of media bias.
00:58:56.220 And so,
00:58:56.740 if the center-right
00:58:57.840 and the center-left
00:58:58.660 both want to lie
00:58:59.600 about elections,
00:59:00.520 I disagree with that
00:59:01.860 very strongly,
00:59:02.720 which is why
00:59:03.280 I immediately
00:59:04.400 said that this bullshit
00:59:06.380 about the election
00:59:07.160 being stolen,
00:59:07.940 you know,
00:59:08.340 shouldn't get
00:59:09.120 all this attention.
00:59:10.280 But I'm just not
00:59:11.580 comfortable with
00:59:12.280 all this pearl-clutching
00:59:13.400 about the Epoch Times
00:59:15.120 when CNN
00:59:15.980 are perfectly allowed
00:59:17.100 and have
00:59:17.880 and did for a long time
00:59:19.200 not only lied,
00:59:21.000 lied, lied, lied, lied, lied,
00:59:22.020 but also then
00:59:22.740 in 2020
00:59:23.640 participated
00:59:24.560 in what was effectively
00:59:25.960 an attempt
00:59:26.840 to steal the 2020 election
00:59:28.620 together with
00:59:29.360 the big tech companies
00:59:30.300 by suppressing information
00:59:31.620 about the Hunter Biden laptop,
00:59:33.380 right?
00:59:33.720 That was an attempt
00:59:35.320 to influence that election
00:59:36.700 and we know
00:59:37.600 from polling
00:59:38.720 afterwards
00:59:40.040 that Democratic voters,
00:59:41.740 the people who voted
00:59:42.540 for the Democrats,
00:59:43.680 some of them
00:59:44.300 would not have voted
00:59:45.300 for the Democrats,
00:59:46.340 for Joe Biden,
00:59:47.320 had they known about it,
00:59:48.580 right?
00:59:48.920 So all I'm saying is
00:59:50.460 I'm not comfortable
00:59:51.680 with all this pearl-clutching.
00:59:53.120 Yes, the Epoch Times
00:59:54.100 is right of center.
00:59:55.000 I don't think it's far right
00:59:56.060 by any stretch of the imagination,
00:59:57.400 at least in my opinion.
00:59:59.000 Do I agree with everything
01:00:00.240 the Epoch Times published?
01:00:01.400 God, no.
01:00:02.180 Do I agree with anything
01:00:03.460 any publication publishes?
01:00:04.900 God, no.
01:00:05.680 Do I agree with everything
01:00:06.860 guests say on trigonometry?
01:00:08.340 God, no.
01:00:08.940 But I do think
01:00:09.920 we need a media ecosystem
01:00:11.180 where people are allowed
01:00:12.040 to express their opinions.
01:00:14.140 Yeah, I'm fine.
01:00:15.820 I think I completely agree
01:00:17.040 that, you know,
01:00:17.780 there's a broad church
01:00:19.300 for different opinions
01:00:21.020 and political stripes
01:00:21.940 and I would actually argue
01:00:23.160 that there is a lot
01:00:24.620 of space
01:00:25.940 in the media ecosystem
01:00:26.880 for a whole range of views.
01:00:29.540 To me,
01:00:30.660 the Epoch Times
01:00:31.220 is quite clearly
01:00:32.260 farer right
01:00:33.160 than Breitbart,
01:00:34.320 which I think
01:00:35.600 that most people
01:00:36.280 would recognize
01:00:37.100 as being
01:00:38.000 on the farer right
01:00:39.300 of the spectrum.
01:00:40.480 Well, I have to look
01:00:41.200 more into it.
01:00:41.840 I haven't read everything
01:00:42.940 on the Epoch Times.
01:00:44.560 My main contact
01:00:45.480 with it is
01:00:46.180 a guy called
01:00:47.480 Yanni Kellek
01:00:48.140 who hosts a program
01:00:48.960 called American Thought Leaders,
01:00:50.340 which, you know,
01:00:52.380 again,
01:00:52.920 some people I agree with
01:00:54.060 that he has
01:00:54.460 and some people I don't,
01:00:55.400 but my experience
01:00:56.860 of him has been
01:00:57.460 that he's very honest
01:00:58.220 and very principled.
01:01:00.380 So I can look
01:01:01.300 into it more.
01:01:02.220 That certainly
01:01:02.740 hasn't been my impression
01:01:03.700 from a cursory look at it.
01:01:06.040 Yeah, and I will say,
01:01:06.980 Konstantin,
01:01:07.480 I'm using that example
01:01:08.980 purely because you asked
01:01:10.440 me to speak to...
01:01:11.560 No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
01:01:12.640 I'm, like I said,
01:01:13.620 I'm very, very happy
01:01:14.860 for you to challenge me.
01:01:17.360 So let's just come back
01:01:18.460 to the point though, right?
01:01:19.400 We started this conversation
01:01:20.560 with you saying
01:01:21.340 that the majority
01:01:22.420 of our advertisers
01:01:23.440 are right wing
01:01:24.680 or far right
01:01:25.280 or whatever.
01:01:26.120 I think we can agree
01:01:27.540 that the majority
01:01:28.720 of our advertisers
01:01:29.900 are not, right?
01:01:31.420 The majority
01:01:32.060 of our advertisers
01:01:32.900 are apolitical.
01:01:34.160 Nigel Farage's
01:01:35.060 investment company,
01:01:36.220 not Nigel Farage.
01:01:37.080 You've got to understand this, right?
01:01:38.060 We're not advertising
01:01:38.900 Nigel Farage, right?
01:01:40.860 Although we've had Nigel
01:01:42.300 on the show
01:01:42.700 a couple of times,
01:01:43.700 I have absolutely
01:01:44.540 no problem
01:01:45.200 with Nigel Farage.
01:01:46.860 I don't agree
01:01:47.340 with some of the things
01:01:48.180 he said.
01:01:48.620 And the last time
01:01:49.480 we had on,
01:01:50.220 I challenged him
01:01:51.020 very strongly,
01:01:52.140 not least on Ukraine
01:01:53.280 yet again, right?
01:01:54.400 So it's not like
01:01:55.300 I'm unwilling
01:01:56.200 to challenge him,
01:01:56.980 but we weren't
01:01:57.440 advertising him.
01:01:58.460 In terms of the Epoch Times,
01:02:00.460 you know,
01:02:01.000 we've talked about that.
01:02:02.140 That's one example.
01:02:03.020 I don't think it's fair
01:02:04.320 to deduce from one example
01:02:05.840 that our advertising strategy
01:02:08.360 is aimed at people
01:02:09.760 on the far right
01:02:10.860 or even on the right,
01:02:11.920 frankly.
01:02:12.980 I'll definitely concede
01:02:14.380 that I haven't done,
01:02:15.480 you know,
01:02:15.820 an inventory
01:02:16.340 of your advertisements.
01:02:17.860 This was just...
01:02:18.520 Take my word for it.
01:02:20.340 Yeah,
01:02:20.740 it was on the
01:02:21.880 Sam Harris episode.
01:02:23.240 Yeah.
01:02:23.420 Like, you know,
01:02:24.140 there was quite a jarring
01:02:25.100 shift from the conversation
01:02:27.480 with Sam
01:02:28.040 to the Epoch Times.
01:02:29.360 So that's what it was
01:02:30.320 that made it stick in my mind.
01:02:31.660 But in any case,
01:02:32.860 Konstantin,
01:02:33.420 I know that you had
01:02:34.820 a hard art
01:02:35.480 and you have a young infant.
01:02:36.820 I can do another...
01:02:37.680 No, no, I can do another...
01:02:39.080 I'm guessing another
01:02:40.120 five minutes if you want
01:02:41.420 and then I'm really
01:02:42.160 going to have to run
01:02:42.740 if you want.
01:02:44.000 Okay, yeah,
01:02:44.740 that's great.
01:02:45.740 I just didn't want to...
01:02:47.820 No, no, no.
01:02:48.240 I really appreciate
01:02:48.940 you being respectful,
01:02:49.800 but I'm enjoying
01:02:50.720 this conversation so much.
01:02:52.400 I'm going to move something
01:02:53.460 and we'll do another
01:02:55.320 five minutes.
01:02:55.800 Go for it.
01:02:56.980 Okay.
01:02:57.660 So now my brain was in.
01:03:00.220 You've been extremely quiet.
01:03:03.160 I feel bad
01:03:03.920 if I don't at least
01:03:04.880 give you the option
01:03:05.880 if you wanted to chime in.
01:03:07.480 No, by the way,
01:03:08.800 just being quiet
01:03:09.680 so you guys
01:03:10.180 would have room to talk
01:03:10.980 in the time that you had.
01:03:13.140 No, sorry.
01:03:13.980 My brain was heading
01:03:14.680 towards wrapping up as well.
01:03:16.060 So I wasn't preparing something.
01:03:18.520 Okay.
01:03:19.280 There was one last thing
01:03:20.720 I wanted to bring up
01:03:22.000 and I wanted to see
01:03:23.520 if this was your position
01:03:24.560 or I'm presenting it unfairly
01:03:26.440 and it's a bit different
01:03:27.220 from the things
01:03:27.720 that we've been talking about.
01:03:28.680 So I'll try to do it quickly.
01:03:29.780 So I listened to your conversation
01:03:32.620 with the ex-police officer
01:03:34.880 talking about the overreach,
01:03:37.280 you know,
01:03:37.440 the police visiting people's eyes over.
01:03:40.140 Yes, yes.
01:03:40.940 About tweets and Facebook posts
01:03:43.360 and that kind of thing.
01:03:44.680 Right.
01:03:44.960 And I actually would agree
01:03:46.380 with a lot of the points made
01:03:47.800 about potential overreach
01:03:49.360 from the police
01:03:51.140 in those kinds of circumstances
01:03:52.500 and how the balance
01:03:55.440 between freedom of speech
01:03:57.400 and the policing of offensive,
01:04:01.060 like hate speech, right?
01:04:02.280 There is clearly trade-offs there.
01:04:05.040 And the one thing
01:04:06.180 that did strike me
01:04:07.900 in that conversation
01:04:09.080 was though that
01:04:10.860 there was this concern
01:04:12.520 expressed about graduates
01:04:15.880 being preferred
01:04:17.280 for the police.
01:04:19.820 and there was,
01:04:20.580 there seemed to be a consensus
01:04:21.560 and I included you in this
01:04:24.000 and if I did it unfairly,
01:04:25.500 please correct me,
01:04:26.260 but that the view was
01:04:27.500 the police force
01:04:28.480 is hiring graduates
01:04:29.860 because they want people
01:04:32.020 who are kind of drenched
01:04:33.760 in woke ideology
01:04:35.380 that will make it
01:04:36.740 so that they can promote
01:04:37.900 a progressive agenda.
01:04:40.380 Did I say that?
01:04:41.420 That was,
01:04:42.200 I mean,
01:04:42.800 so I think Harry,
01:04:44.900 was it the name
01:04:45.980 of the guy that said it?
01:04:46.960 Harry.
01:04:47.200 He talked about this primarily,
01:04:50.800 but yourself and Francis
01:04:52.260 seemed to agree
01:04:53.900 with this assessment
01:04:54.820 that like the emphasis
01:04:56.560 on hiring graduates
01:04:58.060 was likely to be
01:05:00.600 because they wanted to instill
01:05:02.180 a particular ideology
01:05:03.060 and I got the impression
01:05:03.980 that in general
01:05:04.880 you viewed it as
01:05:06.620 graduates being sought
01:05:09.400 was an indication
01:05:11.020 that an institution
01:05:12.300 was likely to be captured.
01:05:13.640 So is that not
01:05:14.400 a fair representation?
01:05:16.120 I'd have to go back
01:05:17.640 and see what I said.
01:05:18.840 I certainly,
01:05:19.560 I'm not conspiratorially minded
01:05:21.220 so I don't think
01:05:22.500 that they're getting
01:05:24.000 in graduates
01:05:24.940 because graduates are woke
01:05:26.300 and they want to
01:05:26.860 wokeify the police.
01:05:28.360 That's not really
01:05:29.800 my opinion.
01:05:31.120 No.
01:05:31.440 Okay, that's good.
01:05:32.200 That's good.
01:05:32.840 That was part of
01:05:33.600 what I wanted to check
01:05:35.040 because,
01:05:35.460 and I guess that would be
01:05:36.640 the kind of thing
01:05:37.680 where I would say
01:05:38.760 in my case
01:05:39.780 and obviously
01:05:40.460 I'm argumentative
01:05:41.820 and have my little bugbears,
01:05:43.620 but I would tend
01:05:45.700 to want to push back
01:05:48.000 when somebody
01:05:48.700 like a Majid Nawaz
01:05:50.620 or a James Lizzie
01:05:51.840 introduces this notion
01:05:53.340 of like a grand conspiracy
01:05:55.600 to, you know,
01:05:56.760 wokeify the world
01:05:57.460 in order to introduce
01:05:58.500 Chinese-style communism.
01:05:59.720 And I know
01:06:00.380 that you are concerned
01:06:01.560 about the far left
01:06:02.840 and its blasé nature
01:06:04.540 to the threats
01:06:06.060 of the far left,
01:06:07.820 but I wasn't sure
01:06:10.180 if you found
01:06:11.420 those conspiracies
01:06:12.700 like the focus
01:06:13.900 on the WEF
01:06:14.980 and Klaus Schraub
01:06:15.800 to be equally concerning
01:06:17.560 or if you agreed
01:06:19.540 with them.
01:06:20.180 I just wasn't clear
01:06:21.480 and what you stood on that.
01:06:23.080 I don't agree with them.
01:06:24.620 As you can probably tell
01:06:26.220 from the conversations
01:06:28.140 we've had on trigonometry,
01:06:29.640 have you ever heard
01:06:30.240 anyone invited on
01:06:32.420 to talk endlessly
01:06:33.180 about the WEF?
01:06:34.460 I think one guest
01:06:35.400 mentioned it
01:06:36.180 in the last question
01:06:38.240 we always ask,
01:06:38.960 which is a complete free hit.
01:06:40.760 And generally,
01:06:41.360 we don't tend to debate that one.
01:06:43.020 It's just sort of left
01:06:44.120 as a free hit for them.
01:06:46.380 With what Harry said,
01:06:47.640 you know,
01:06:48.200 I have to go back
01:06:49.400 and see what I said
01:06:50.380 or didn't say,
01:06:51.060 but it's not my view
01:06:52.300 that there's a conspiracy
01:06:53.360 to infiltrate the police
01:06:54.880 with graduates.
01:06:56.940 That does not mean
01:06:57.980 that I don't think
01:06:58.720 that the College of Policing,
01:06:59.880 for example,
01:07:00.760 wouldn't quite like
01:07:01.860 to have as many graduates
01:07:03.000 as possible
01:07:03.540 because it makes
01:07:04.360 their job easier,
01:07:05.200 which is enforcing
01:07:06.000 their particular views,
01:07:07.340 right?
01:07:07.700 I mean,
01:07:08.080 the way that conversation
01:07:09.060 might be is we've got
01:07:09.880 to get the right people
01:07:10.920 in, quote-unquote,
01:07:11.880 right?
01:07:12.060 And that is people
01:07:12.700 with the right mindset
01:07:13.620 who are able to take
01:07:15.120 the police
01:07:15.980 into the 21st century.
01:07:17.960 That may be the way
01:07:18.860 that that conversation
01:07:19.640 is being had,
01:07:20.220 and it doesn't seem
01:07:20.860 to me conspiratorial
01:07:22.560 to think that
01:07:23.540 that might be possible.
01:07:25.920 But no,
01:07:26.620 I'm not really on board
01:07:27.760 with most of that stuff.
01:07:29.300 I don't find it
01:07:29.900 particularly persuasive,
01:07:31.580 and I just,
01:07:33.420 the more I learn
01:07:34.420 about the world
01:07:35.120 and the more I interact
01:07:36.080 with people
01:07:36.420 who are actually
01:07:37.040 in government
01:07:37.540 or actually at the head
01:07:38.560 of the police
01:07:38.960 or actually doing stuff
01:07:40.000 or whatever,
01:07:40.720 the more I realize
01:07:41.600 how bloody difficult
01:07:42.760 it is to get anything done.
01:07:44.840 And so the idea
01:07:45.680 that a few people
01:07:46.660 in the room
01:07:47.160 are going to get together
01:07:48.080 and have this sort
01:07:49.060 of conspiracy
01:07:49.640 seems to me just,
01:07:51.540 you know,
01:07:52.660 impractical,
01:07:53.760 factually inaccurate.
01:07:55.300 I mean,
01:07:55.640 I look at trigonometry.
01:07:56.980 We have,
01:07:57.800 in addition to the three
01:07:58.800 of us,
01:07:59.680 Francis,
01:08:00.100 myself,
01:08:00.460 and our producer,
01:08:01.660 we have seven staff.
01:08:03.900 Like,
01:08:04.080 we can't get an episode
01:08:05.420 to go out on time
01:08:06.340 the way I want.
01:08:07.020 Like,
01:08:07.200 the idea that there's,
01:08:08.480 you know,
01:08:08.720 people,
01:08:09.040 maybe they're that much
01:08:10.120 better at conspiring
01:08:11.260 than we are.
01:08:12.280 But yeah,
01:08:13.200 I'm not,
01:08:13.820 I enjoy a good,
01:08:15.320 like,
01:08:15.520 I'll happily go
01:08:16.280 and listen to David Icke
01:08:17.380 for entertainment,
01:08:18.760 but I don't believe it.
01:08:20.440 No.
01:08:21.640 Yeah.
01:08:22.120 So that,
01:08:23.020 maybe that's an interesting
01:08:24.700 point to round off on.
01:08:26.000 I find that there is a,
01:08:29.800 there's a spectrum
01:08:30.580 of concern,
01:08:31.980 right?
01:08:32.280 And,
01:08:32.580 and there is sometimes
01:08:33.800 the presentation
01:08:34.840 of all our institutions
01:08:37.240 are captured,
01:08:38.300 science is no longer
01:08:39.640 trustworthy,
01:08:40.980 governments are just
01:08:42.080 purely getting ready
01:08:43.200 to make everybody
01:08:43.920 eat bugs
01:08:44.720 and live in pods,
01:08:46.060 right?
01:08:46.420 And,
01:08:46.700 and to me,
01:08:47.900 that veers distinctly
01:08:49.440 towards hyperbole
01:08:50.900 and,
01:08:51.220 and kind of catastrophizing
01:08:52.560 in the way that
01:08:53.220 Jonathan Haidt would.
01:08:54.440 And I kind of see,
01:08:56.540 I,
01:08:56.880 again,
01:08:57.140 I know you're not
01:08:58.060 going to like me
01:08:58.460 doing this constantly,
01:08:59.280 but I,
01:08:59.700 I tend to see amongst
01:09:00.800 the heterodox,
01:09:01.580 I'm not necessarily
01:09:02.340 saying you're a,
01:09:03.700 a greater concern
01:09:05.200 about the hyperbole
01:09:06.280 and catastrophizing
01:09:07.180 of the world.
01:09:07.920 I agree.
01:09:08.340 Left.
01:09:08.720 I agree completely.
01:09:09.580 And I,
01:09:09.900 I,
01:09:10.200 I guess I,
01:09:11.760 I have noticed
01:09:13.060 in your content
01:09:14.480 a note of optimism
01:09:16.260 that you,
01:09:17.360 you think there is
01:09:18.440 a greater tolerance
01:09:19.760 for different opinions
01:09:21.060 emerging and there is
01:09:22.400 a kind of push back
01:09:23.600 for different perspectives.
01:09:25.060 So I might be giving you
01:09:26.760 an undue note of optimism,
01:09:28.280 but I've noticed
01:09:29.280 when people are saying
01:09:30.700 everything is going to shit
01:09:31.700 that you do on occasion
01:09:33.500 push back and say,
01:09:35.020 well,
01:09:35.840 you know,
01:09:36.060 we are having this conversation
01:09:37.220 and that kind of thing.
01:09:38.120 So yeah,
01:09:38.980 I,
01:09:39.260 I don't know.
01:09:39.860 I'm going to do a lot more
01:09:40.540 of that going forward too.
01:09:42.140 I'm going to do a lot more
01:09:43.160 of that going forward
01:09:43.780 because I think it's important.
01:09:44.980 We are,
01:09:45.220 we are shaping the culture
01:09:46.280 by the conversations
01:09:47.220 that,
01:09:47.680 that we have,
01:09:48.900 uh,
01:09:49.720 influencing it.
01:09:50.580 And I think the doomsday scenarios
01:09:53.040 from both left and right
01:09:54.280 are completely unhelpful
01:09:56.180 and actually very arrogant
01:09:57.380 in some ways.
01:09:58.200 There's this sort of hubris
01:10:00.140 to this idea
01:10:00.960 that we are the first generation
01:10:02.680 of people
01:10:03.140 who can't solve
01:10:03.960 their own problems.
01:10:04.780 Actually,
01:10:05.160 I think we can.
01:10:05.800 that's a,
01:10:08.340 that's a positive note
01:10:09.760 to end on.
01:10:10.640 And we often criticize
01:10:12.720 the people that we listen to
01:10:14.520 for undue
01:10:15.940 and lengthy back padding
01:10:17.600 about the conversations
01:10:18.860 that they've had
01:10:19.500 and how great it is
01:10:20.380 that they're able
01:10:20.920 to do these things.
01:10:21.920 But I,
01:10:22.460 I genuinely do appreciate
01:10:24.180 you coming on
01:10:25.740 and,
01:10:26.140 and having the discussion
01:10:27.880 robust as,
01:10:29.140 as it was.
01:10:29.760 And,
01:10:30.160 uh,
01:10:30.640 yeah.
01:10:31.020 So if you want to
01:10:32.860 tell people where they can
01:10:34.240 find you,
01:10:34.780 if they want to hear more
01:10:36.200 of that kind of thing,
01:10:37.480 please do.
01:10:38.400 I'm not very good
01:10:39.300 at doing the wrap up.
01:10:40.620 No,
01:10:40.880 no,
01:10:41.000 I really appreciate it.
01:10:42.480 First of all,
01:10:43.160 I really enjoyed this.
01:10:44.360 It was a lot of fun.
01:10:45.220 I'm glad we had it.
01:10:46.320 I can be very passionate,
01:10:47.700 particularly when I'm
01:10:48.540 defending things
01:10:49.620 that I believe in
01:10:50.440 or defending myself
01:10:51.440 or whatever,
01:10:51.880 but I hope no one
01:10:53.460 confuses my passion
01:10:54.580 with a lack of respect
01:10:55.760 or a lack of enjoyment.
01:10:56.900 This is exactly
01:10:57.600 the sort of stuff
01:10:58.240 that I love doing.
01:10:59.060 So first of all,
01:10:59.900 thank you.
01:11:00.660 People can buy my book.
01:11:01.760 It's called
01:11:02.140 An Immigrant's Love Letter
01:11:03.080 to the West.
01:11:03.720 It's a Sunday Times
01:11:04.520 bestseller.
01:11:05.520 Uh,
01:11:05.800 they can find my podcast,
01:11:07.180 which is Trigonometry
01:11:08.180 on YouTube
01:11:08.960 and on all the podcast apps.
01:11:10.980 And I'm on Twitter
01:11:12.280 and Substack,
01:11:13.860 which is where I put
01:11:14.700 a lot of more substantive
01:11:15.920 pieces out at the moment.
01:11:17.620 Uh,
01:11:17.880 people can find me there as well.
01:11:19.100 My name is Constantine
01:11:19.840 Kishin
01:11:20.220 and thanks for having me.
01:11:22.260 Cheers,
01:11:22.800 Constantine.
01:11:23.380 And that was very
01:11:24.060 professionally done.
01:11:25.360 It was.
01:11:26.100 That's how,
01:11:26.500 that's how you do it
01:11:27.400 when you're good
01:11:27.960 at this kind of thing.
01:11:28.720 So cheers for,
01:11:30.540 for coming on
01:11:31.400 and yeah.
01:11:33.660 Well,
01:11:35.300 that was that.
01:11:36.940 That's,
01:11:37.840 that was that interview.
01:11:39.920 How was that?
01:11:41.260 Uh,
01:11:41.600 it was good.
01:11:42.220 Um,
01:11:42.540 I'm now casting my mind
01:11:44.140 back to the ghost
01:11:45.540 of Christmas past.
01:11:46.900 Um,
01:11:47.220 remembering how the power
01:11:48.380 went out.
01:11:49.040 I listened to almost
01:11:50.320 all of it,
01:11:51.260 enjoyed it.
01:11:51.700 I thought you both
01:11:52.400 argued your corner
01:11:53.440 pretty well.
01:11:54.700 And then what did
01:11:55.860 I do afterwards?
01:11:56.580 I probably,
01:11:57.540 probably had a drink.
01:11:58.720 had a drink.
01:11:59.800 Well,
01:11:59.980 I'll definitely say
01:12:01.440 one thing to
01:12:02.340 Constantine's credit
01:12:03.820 is that,
01:12:04.920 you know,
01:12:05.460 you can take
01:12:06.220 whatever position
01:12:06.940 you like about
01:12:07.880 the arguments
01:12:08.760 that myself
01:12:09.720 and he made
01:12:11.120 in the preceding
01:12:12.280 interview,
01:12:12.660 but he did
01:12:14.200 listen
01:12:15.260 to
01:12:16.400 the argument
01:12:18.000 that I made
01:12:18.960 and then
01:12:19.760 allow me time
01:12:21.100 to respond
01:12:22.680 in full,
01:12:23.980 which
01:12:24.300 I'm just saying
01:12:25.520 that was nice.
01:12:26.660 That's nice
01:12:27.560 to deal with.
01:12:28.240 If that's what
01:12:28.660 you want.
01:12:29.440 He was
01:12:30.100 responsive to points
01:12:31.220 and he did
01:12:32.080 engage in turn
01:12:33.060 taking.
01:12:33.660 So full marks
01:12:34.800 to Constantine
01:12:35.820 as a podcast
01:12:37.200 guest for that.
01:12:38.340 And Andy,
01:12:38.800 Andy also,
01:12:39.760 you know,
01:12:40.520 robust exchange.
01:12:42.180 He wasn't
01:12:42.760 walking away
01:12:43.300 in a strop
01:12:43.720 at the end
01:12:44.320 and that kind
01:12:44.800 of thing.
01:12:45.160 So yeah,
01:12:45.760 that's,
01:12:46.020 that's also
01:12:46.500 to his credit.
01:12:47.580 That's right.
01:12:48.000 10 out of 10
01:12:48.600 for interlocutory
01:12:50.340 skills.
01:12:51.440 You too.
01:12:51.820 You did well
01:12:52.200 as well.
01:12:52.780 You both
01:12:53.420 have to
01:12:53.600 friends.
01:12:53.900 Thank you,
01:12:54.060 man.
01:12:54.940 Thank you.
01:12:55.560 Broadway's smash
01:13:02.720 hit,
01:13:03.200 the Neil Diamond
01:13:03.840 musical,
01:13:04.640 A Beautiful Noise
01:13:05.740 is coming to
01:13:06.820 Toronto.
01:13:07.480 The true story
01:13:08.260 of a kid from
01:13:08.960 Brooklyn destined
01:13:09.840 for something more
01:13:10.860 featuring all the
01:13:11.740 songs you love,
01:13:12.760 including America,
01:13:14.060 Forever in Blue
01:13:14.720 Jeans,
01:13:15.300 and Sweet Caroline.
01:13:16.760 Like Jersey Boys
01:13:17.720 and Beautiful,
01:13:18.560 the next musical
01:13:19.520 mega hit is here,
01:13:20.860 the Neil Diamond
01:13:21.600 musical,
01:13:22.420 A Beautiful Noise,
01:13:23.480 April 28th through
01:13:24.700 June 7th,
01:13:25.560 2026,
01:13:26.660 the Princess of
01:13:27.400 Wales Theatre.
01:13:28.500 Get tickets at
01:13:29.280 Mirvish.com.