At the time, that's when Russo had, he was working and backed, he endorsed Ron Paul.

19 years old, I was in the ladies' lingerie business, and I designed the first ladies' bikini panties for everybody that's interested in that.

I opened a nightclub in Chicago and put on big-name rock and roll shows with Led Zeppelin, The Who, Grateful Dead...

...in the 60s, and Chicago and Detroit, and then I ran into Bette Midler, and I started managing Bette Midler, and I produced the movie called The Rose, and the movie Trading Places with Eddie Murphy and Danny Aykroyd, and I received six Academy Award nominations.

...in the 60s, and Chicago and Detroit, and then I ran into Bette Midler, and I started managing Bette Midler, and I produced the movie called The Rose, and the movie Trading Places with Eddie Murphy and Danny Aykroyd, and I received six Academy Award nominations.

I won an Emmy for a TV show I did with Dustin Hoffman.

So in 1968, Aaron Russo opened the Kinetic Playground here in Chicago, which is a fairly short-lived venue, but one that was a regular stop for the sort of bands that he's listing off. From my understanding of it, it would be a huge stretch to say that he was responsible for bringing a band like Led Zeppelin to the US.

So it is true that Aaron Russo ran for governor of Nevada in 1998, but he did not get almost 30% of the vote. He didn't even run in the general election because he lost the primary, which is what he's talking about. He got 25.8% of the vote in the GOP primary compared to the 58% that the winning candidate, Kenny Gwynn, received. Sure. He came in second, but it was by a very wide margin, and it was the primary.

Also, not for nothing, he didn't win a Tony. And the production he produced with Bette Midler didn't win one either. In 1974, he produced her show Clams on the Half Shell Review. I'm sorry? Yeah. And Bette won a special Tony Award for, quote, adding luster to the Broadway season. It's a special Tony.

But this, what he's saying is all great and stuff, but I think that what really happened, Is that Aaron Russo doesn't like taxes. Right. Is that why he moved to Tahiti? He owed a lot of taxes. And at this point, he has about $2 million in liens.

That's all great, but in the 2004 election, Russo didn't even win the Libertarian Party nomination.

I was able to find an interview between Bette Midler and Disney head Michael Eisner from 2006, where the two are making fun of Russo. I'm sorry? Yeah, they're talking about how Midler had excused Russo as her manager, and Eisner says, quote, he's got a documentary out about to come out about how you don't have to pay your taxes. Midler replies laughing, quote, that sounds right. Eisner says, quote, I've seen... To which Bette replies, quote, I've been in, I was in a lot of very exciting police chases with him. Then Eisner tells a story about the time that Russo jokingly threatened to kill him. Not sure anyone took Russo all that seriously at this point outside of these hard right-wing circles.

Not sure anyone took Russo all that seriously at this point outside of these hard right-wing circles.

Anyway, in later interviews, Russo would claim that he withdrew from the race because of health issues, but in reality he just lost.

Example of that, because you can't take away the fact that he was a rock band promoter, that he was Bette Midler's manager, that he did produce one of the producers on Trading Places. Those things are not in dispute. And so he has a really easy thing to be like, this showbiz guy, he knows everything about the inner workings of how the machine works, the establishment.

That is heavily predicated on the idea that Aaron Russo became friends with a guy who was part of the Rockefeller family and he told him all these secrets. And what Alex refuses to recognize is that the guy that Aaron Russo was friends with wasn't related to the Rockefellers. He's just a guy whose last name was Rockefeller and might have been pulling some shit on him or so.

In 1978, he won a Primetime Emmy for Outstanding Special, Comedy, Variety, or Music for his work on Bette Midler. Old Redhead is Back.

I'm going to read to you from the New York Times. The film was not on the program it can. However, not even for screenings made under the festival's aegis without being in the competition. Mr. Russo, the film's director, writer, and producer, just set up an inflatable screen on a beach. Photographs posted at one of Mr. Russo's websites depict an audience of fewer than 50 people spread out on a platform on the sand.

One thing that he never brings up in his documentary work, or in this interview with Alex Jones that we're about to listen to, is that in 2006, when he was making anti-tax documentaries and making sensational claims to market his brand... Boy, I feel like he has committed a crime of tax fraud or something like that. He has more than $2 million in tax liens filed against him by the IRS.

No, but don't you understand this elaborate fraud that is against libertarian ideas that Aaron Russo is perpetuating with the help, very complicit help of Alex Jones, is this idea that all of your income tax, it just goes to pay off the interest. on federal debts when that's not the case. This report, he's using it incorrectly.

And I think that might inform some of the claims he's making, because he has a $2 million tax lien, and he has been battling cancer for years. I think that that, not to say that... Boy, it sure seems like he would benefit from more government spending on healthcare instead of perhaps being unable to afford both healthcare and taxes. It would also appear that he would stand to benefit from creating a documentary It's poorly sourced, called America Freedom to Fascism, and then creating a niche market for himself by going on Alex Jones' show and saying that he knows a Rockefeller who told him all the secrets. It seems like that is a pretty good gamble to make. You're going to make a lot of money from that, and I believe he may have.

He's a con man for sure.

Almost immediately after that. Not immediately, but shortly after this interview.

Bladder cancer fucked him, really.

And he'd been diagnosed for years, so I think he knew that the stakes were lower for him to come on Alex's show and say crazy shit.