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June 1, 2023 - On Brand

02:40:11

OB #2 - Hijackers or Hijinx? - Part 2

In this episode Al and Lauren get into the meat of Brand's interview with Max Blumenthal, analyse some bizarre cover for Tucker Carlson, and observe Brand's audience talking a surprising amount about testicles. Support us on Patreon! - patreon.com/onbrand

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	Hello and welcome back viewers and listeners we had to take a little break there due to technical issues partly and also because you know that there's so much of this shitheads content that it's taken us a long while to get through it so this is this is gonna be some long-form content but but yeah we're back on a different day recording more Same shirt for continuity.
	I should have thought of that, though I've got a window and it's a different time of day here so it's difficult to get the sun to follow my lead.
	I'll try it again a different time.
	Anyway, we are going to get into the meat of Max Blumenthal's argument and why he's here with Russell Brand in the first place.
	Well, I mean, see what you think.
	You know, this is widely suspected that they had been possibly recruited by the CIA.
	And it was confirmed by FBI agents interviewed by Don Conestraro in this bombshell filing, which was, and of course it was completely buried, just like a few blogs had picked it up.
	And so Kit went ahead and put all of the details together for us going back through Operation Encore and, you know, taking us to the beginning of the cover-up of the 9-11 plot, the cover-up by the CIA.
	So, when I first saw this, I thought, ha, that's interesting.
	Only a few random blogs have picked up this landmark filing.
	How weird.
	And then I read it.
	So, as Mag said, it was written by Don Canestraro, who is currently an investigator at the Military Commission's Defense Organization, whose job it was to defend the 9-11 conspirators before their military tribunals at Guantanamo Bay.
	Basically make sure that, you know, there was nothing nefarious going on legally with their cases.
	How effective that is, different question.
	But he seems legit.
	He's a retired DEA agent with 25 years investigative experience and was part of a lobbying effort to pass legislation which outlaws torture and interrogations by US military.
	He's also trained law enforcement in the Middle East.
	His investigation of the 9-11 CIA involvement is a surprisingly short report, about 14 pages, based on interviews conducted with dozens of FBI agents who were supposedly involved.
	I say supposedly because here's the fatal flaw of this report, every single person interviewed did so on the condition of anonymity.
	We have no idea who these people are, at all.
	Worse still, the actual allegation which this entire report hinges on stems from just one of the interviewees, known as CS23, And the real nail in the coffin is that the actual report, even from this anonymous source, does not state that the two bombers were CIA recruits.
	And I'll quote from the report directly.
	CS-23 told me that al-Bayoumi was an intelligence officer in employ of the Saudi government.
	CS-23 stated that Omar al-Bayoumi was directed to attempt to recruit Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Midha as intelligence sources while they were in San Diego.
	CS23 told me that the attempt to recruit al-Hazmi and al-Midha was an operation directed by the Central Intelligence Agency.
	At best from this information, we can assert that there was possibly an attempt to recruit these two to the CIA, according to this one anonymous source, and there is absolutely zero evidence that this supposed attempt was successful.
	They were not CIA recruits, informants, sources, or otherwise.
	The entire thing is a lie.
	And we know, we know, I know, from living post 9-11 America, in post 9-11 America, and then learning about all the varied attempts that the government, you know, alphabet agencies, I guess mostly CIA, tried to recruit And essentially maybe entrap?
	I know they've lost lawsuits proving that they entrapped quote-unquote recruits.
	So yeah, I'd say this is thin.
	Yeah, this is about as thin as it gets.
	And yet Max here is presenting this as a landmark filing.
	But as it stands, Russell would like his opinion on something else.
	That's not the same of course as saying that 9-11 was an inside job and it certainly doesn't verify some of the ideas that have circulated, although of course it's not the only inconsistency or troubling piece of reporting that's taken place around that.
	event and of course it's well established that the CIA as you said participated in the establishment of Al Qaeda
	funded Al Qaeda, so it's not implausible that there were recruits from Al Qaeda
	operating in with the US. It's sort of all it's kind of sort of likely
	Does that open the door though to conjecture around the events of 9/11 more broadly and sometimes like you know?
	Forgive me if this is like a kind of question an idiot would ask it
	Possibly is derived from the fact that to some degree I am one. Is it like true that like?
	Building 7.
	There was a building in New York that kind of went down and then it just sort of stopped talking about it.
	My memories are hazy of that event and it's difficult to deliberately and responsibly put together narrative points that are proven.
	Yeah, responsibly is the key word there.
	I love this clip.
	Excuse me, Mr. Writer slash semi-journalist, what do you think about engineering?
	What's your engineering degree?
	And just before we get into it, a side point.
	The CIA has never funded al-Qaeda directly.
	They funded the government who funded the Mujahideen in an effort to oust Russia from the Middle East.
	Their big mistake, however, was arming thousands of angry people and then leaving.
	I literally had, like, the end of Rambo, like, the Mujahideen, you know, the Thanksgiving Mujahideen, like, in my head, I'm like, I think you're wrong!
	You're wrong. - Number three, I think.
	Something like that, yeah.
	It's, yeah, like, I'm like, well, that's, I can see how motivated reasoning could get you there,
	but I don't, I mean, here's the thing, we're all, you know, I'm pulling from my memory as well,
	which is also imperfect, but I'm certainly not making those leaps
	and then applying them, like.
	Yeah, yeah. - And asking my motivated reasoning to a journalist, that's a little much.
	Yeah, what we will see from Russell and from Max, actually, is the CIA is one of the big boogeymen.
	You know, that's one of their big things.
	Which, unfortunately, FAIR!
	There's a degree, yeah, there's a degree of yes, the CIA are fucked up, but just not in the ways that you're saying.
	We take issue with the things that are actually happening in reality, not the things that you're pretending are happening.
	But in case you're curious, here is Max's response to what happened to Building 7.
	Building 7's weird.
	I mean, I'm a 9-11 conservative.
	I get a lot of heat from people who think it was an inside job.
	Weird.
	Building 7's just weird.
	I mean, I remember on the day of 9-11 just hearing that Building 7 had gone down because of the impact to the other buildings, and it just sounded weird to me.
	The footage looks unusual.
	But I prefer to stick to the facts that I really Know the most about, and this case is something that, you know, I've followed for years.
	The case of Khaled Al-Midhar and Nawaf Al-Hazmi.
	I mean, you've followed it for years, but you still massively fucked it up.
	Yeah, what?
	There's almost some restraint in there.
	Almost, almost some restraint.
	Just saying weird.
	Just saying.
	Exactly, exactly.
	He's just settling on... It's a bit weird, isn't it?
	Just to clarify for anyone wondering, because it does still keep coming up on YouTube and stuff.
	The 9-11 Building 7 conspiracy relates partially to the whole thing about fire not being hot enough to melt steel beams.
	And Building 7 was never struck by a hijacked plane.
	It's been debunked for a long, long time.
	But to be clear, there were fires which spread from debris which fell from the North Tower.
	And there was enough heat in that building to reduce the beams in question to a dough-like consistency, which is not strong enough to hold up several tons of building.
	Hence, it collapsed pretty much in on itself and went straight down.
	Like, that's it.
	How do we forget, collectively as a people, that our entire cities burnt down every five years for, like, a long time in this country?
	Buildings affect each other's, you know, integrity.
	It's just a thing.
	It happens.
	I don't know, there's this weird perspective that nothing could ever damage a steel, you know, something with a steel frame, and it's like, well, you know, have you ever seen Forged in Fire?
	You know, I fucking like that show.
	Same!
	They spend a lot of time melting steel.
	They get it hot, and then they shape it, because that's what you can do when steel gets hot.
	It's a pretty ludicrous perspective, but it's persisted for years.
	On a lighter note, you guys get to hear Al and I become friends in real time, including a forge and fire.
	Bond over blade making, yeah.
	I mean, we may not, my partner and I may not, may or may not trade memes about the goofy hat that Will wore for a couple episodes.
	And it's stick with us ever since.
	That very bad hat.
	But yeah, that's what should have been burned.
	Like, listen, he didn't, his friends shouldn't let him wear that.
	But like, that's, it's really, I mean, it's, it's, it's all so explainable.
	and like really make sense? Have you seen, I mean, yeah demolitions are controlled. Have you seen
	them? Like, yeah, exactly. They're a bit violent. They don't look like that. And the problem is
	you've then got fuckheads coming in and saying, well, it looked like a controlled demolition to me.
	It's like, well, yeah, but fuck off.
	You know, I just could.
	Yeah.
	Anyway.
	How many ways can buildings fall down?
	Seriously?
	Many.
	All right.
	We're digressing.
	We're digressing.
	Many.
	Thoroughly.
	Thoroughly debunked that one.
	Front, back, sideways.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	And I think Max makes a bit of a bit of a big swing at the end of this based on Canestraro's report.
	It's very clear they were recruited by the CIA, so within the theories, those who hold theories around 9-11, there's kind of three schools of thought.
	Did the CIA do this because they simply wanted to infiltrate al-Qaeda and gain sources, and they protected these sources from the FBI?
	If the FBI had been alerted about the presence, and I'll tell you the whole story of al-Hazmi and al-Midhar, In a second, but if they had not protected these sources from the FBI, the 9-11 plot would have been easily broken up.
	Big swing at the end there.
	The notion that the entire 9-11 plot wouldn't have gone down had these two been apprehended is nonsensical when looked at in reality.
	It is true that the CIA knew that these two bombers were in the country and did not notify the FBI, most likely because they wanted to observe them and try to infiltrate Al-Qaeda.
	This, of course, turned out to be a mistake of pretty unimaginable proportions, but suggesting that had the CIA done so, the entire terrorist plot of 9-11, with 12 other individuals involved, wouldn't have gone down is complete bollocks.
	That we know of.
	Yeah, that we know of.
	Exactly.
	And I think the reality is, you know, if two go down, two more can pop up, because that's the way fucking terrorist cells work.
	Well, we also found them.
	Like, there are other people that were... I mean, listen, every play you've ever seen... Just waiting.
	Just waiting in the wings.
	Every play you've ever seen has an understudy.
	Yeah, right?
	And a major terrorist action.
	I'd imagine they tried to keep... they tried to hedge their bets.
	That's a little absurd.
	Yeah, yeah.
	Say what you want about Bin Laden, but he was effective, right?
	He knew how to make his shit go to plan.
	Oh, he also tried a lot.
	Yeah, exactly.
	He put in his 10,000 hours, you know, and he got his results.
	Yeah, he did a lot of practice runs.
	He put in his 10,000 hours, you know, and he got his results.
	In this a lot of practice runs.
	Yeah, exactly.
	In this clip, we we get into the conspiracy theory proper here.
	Thank you.
	So, was it just because they wanted to gain access to Al-Qaeda, or did they allow the 9-11 attacks to happen in order to produce what Paul Wolfowitz called, in the weeks before 9-11, the catastrophic and catalyzing event that would allow the US to wage a massive military intervention in the Middle East and carry out its and Israel's goals.
	And then there's the third school of thought, which is that the US government or US intelligence was directly involved in the plotting of the attack in order to carry out those geopolitical and imperial objectives.
	And in the first camp, as I said, I'm a 9-11 conservative, but these new revelations raise a lot of questions about motives.
	Okay, so he's here basically saying, yeah, the CIA did 9-11, that's, yeah, so he couches himself as being a 9-11 conservative, whatever the fuck that's supposed to mean.
	I say I am, I say we are!
	Yeah, exactly, and then it's probably one of the only areas where I'm conservative, and then finishes with, you know, but there are lots of questions, you know, there are lots of questions.
	Those were massive leaps!
	And he's just like, yeah, and then this thing, and yeah, then that thing, and this thing, and that thing.
	And it's like, those are massive leaps in logic.
	That, I have a feeling, I will observe and make me mad so often.
	Boy oh boy.
	Alright, okay.
	Yeah, Max is doing good for the big swings so far, I've gotta say.
	He's really hitting on them.
	Amazing journalist, as Russell likes to call him.
	I think it's generally obviously sensible to remain conservative particularly when dealing with such sensitive matters and even on our channel where we fuse entertainment and conjecture we are careful to ensure that we only use reliable information that's already been published frequently from Greyzone as a matter of fact.
	There's a contradiction in terms.
	He started out so well!
	He started out so well of like, yeah, you know what, we do need to be careful, and then fell flat on his face at the final hurdle.
	Oh, only stuff that's been published at Greyzone.
	Let's be careful by not being careful at all.
	Let's be careful by citing these tweets that I found.
	Yep.
	Yeah, it's, it's, oh, it's astonishing.
	Oh boy.
	Oh boy.
	Okay.
	All right.
	I'm here.
	I'm dealing.
	I don't have a plan.
	I don't have a paper bag yet.
	I might.
	We'll see.
	Yeah.
	It doesn't get better.
	I have to say.
	Cool.
	I think yeah, next up we got some more bullshit from Max.
	Shock.
	And the FBI never learns that these two figures were in the country after attending the super summit of Al Qaeda on their way to carry out an attack that George W. Bush was warned about in Crawford, Texas, a month before it took place in a presidential daily briefing.
	Bin Laden determined to strike inside the U.S.
	This was at a time when the system was blinking red, according to former U.S.
	intelligence officials.
	Sir, this has been covered elsewhere quite a bit, but it's well documented that threats of hijacking were, at that stage, a weekly occurrence for the White House, more of something to keep an eye on in their intelligence briefings, and threats of Osama bin Laden wanting to attack the US on US soil was nothing new either.
	He had already attacked the World Trade Center and had been vocal about wanting to attack it again.
	There was no specific warning that President Bush received, just more of the same.
	And that apparently is enough to lay at his feet.
	I don't like Bush.
	I think he's a piece of crap and I think there's many things that he did very badly.
	But this was not on him.
	I mean, yeah, we know some of the things that went wrong.
	I think also in hindsight, people forget how different communication was.
	Like, how different collating data was.
	It's changed in a very short time.
	It's gotten a lot better, but still, that's not even a needle in a haystack.
	Yeah, it's needle in a haystack stuff.
	Yeah, I mean, it's a needle in a pile of needles.
	It's like, well, yeah, we get fucking dozens of these threats.
	That's just what happens, you know.
	And yeah, one of them possibly turned out to be accurate.
	We don't even know if this actual attack was raised with the intelligence briefings at all.
	It might have been something completely different.
	We don't actually know that at all.
	And there are flaws in the way that the FBI communicated, but it's all documented.
	It's documented, and they know that, and they've learned.
	There's stuff where he's saying things that are real that, yeah, we know.
	And then postulating that he interjects is the problem.
	Yeah, it's the insinuation of conspiracy in there as well, or at least a level of incompetence that is, I would say, inaccurate in this case.
	I think they did what they could at the time, and yeah, it wasn't enough.
	Sometimes that's the way of it.
	Sometimes we get bested.
	As a Picard quote, isn't it?
	You can do everything right and still lose.
	That's the situation.
	I mean, that's also just true.
	A hundred fucking percent.
	Heartbreaking and true.
	A hundred percent.
	And in this case, there is no evidence to suggest that they fucked up.
	Just, yeah.
	Anyway, anyway.
	God, what do we have next?
	Oh yes, a more shameless lying from Max Blumenthal.
	There are so many more acts of cover-up that took place to prevent the FBI from learning about them as this plot progressed.
	They weren't even told that they were on the flight manifest of American Airlines Flight 77 until days after the attack.
	The FBI wasn't even told that they had been at a meeting in Malaysia with a planner, a known planner, of the attack on the USS Cole.
	So the CIA covered this up all the way to 9-11, and it's the same CIA that is responsible in so many ways for fueling the rise of al-Qaeda and keeping it alive to the present day.
	And in fact, yes, you're quite right that you can sort of chart the history of the CIA to the founding of the Mujahideen.
	As mentioned, the CIA funded Iran, which funded the Mujahideen, portions of which later morphed into Al-Qaeda through some enterprising shitheads.
	The dummies stumbled into it!
	Yeah, yeah, yeah, don't get me wrong, there were contributing factors for sure.
	The CIA have never, ever given money to Al-Qaeda, and the idea that there's some kind of financial support, or any kind of support to this day, is just shameless bullshit.
	Like, really, do better, Max.
	If you're gonna bullshit, bring your own game.
	Also, like, underground military operations, being able to steal things, I think is not the same as giving it to them, as even our country has a massive problem with finding their weaponry That they thought was secure popping up in a, you know, in a white supremacist cache somewhere.
	It's not perfect.
	Not a perfect system.
	No, it is not.
	No, it's, it's, it's, yeah, it's bullshit.
	Chicken feed for conspiracy theorists.
	If you're watching this on YouTube, you can probably see my dog in the corner of your thing.
	She's decided she wants some attention.
	This is Willow.
	Dog of the pod.
	Yeah, well, one of two, and there's a cat of the pod as well who's lurking around somewhere.
	But yeah, she wanted some love.
	God, right, yes.
	So, where are we?
	Cameo's welcome.
	Yes, yes, right.
	Unless y'all hate it!
	In which case, tell us.
	Yeah, I mean, if you hate dogs, you can tell me and I'll say you can go away.
	That's my opinion.
	It's not the dog's fault, you know.
	Um, okay.
	[laughter]
	Sorry, she's, uh, for the ones listening, she's kind of sat on my lap.
	Yeah, she is a very licky dog.
	Oh, she's so cute!
	Sorry listen people.
	Cute as hell.
	I read a thing that you're not supposed to turn away when a dog's trying to lick you, etc.
	Like they chase after it?
	No, I think it's just upsetting to them, I think, when you do that.
	Which, you know, I wouldn't want to upset you, Willow, no.
	Anyway, this next clip gets into something a little disappointing, and see if you can detect the pivot here.
	And also you can say that there are still people in power as you obviously just did that are participating presumably in comparable programs even now and I guess that's when we talk about the deep state we're talking about inaccessible institutions and bodies that are powerful that are able to act without mandate in ways that seem to be at odds with the interests of the American population and perhaps The world at large and the way that the kind of global narrative is managed and enacted right up to present day conflicts and potential forthcoming conflicts involves these agencies.
	So sometimes even when you're approaching it conservatively in the manner that you understandably are when it's such a potentially incendiary story, it's still difficult not to think I feel that the system of government and deep government in particular is concerning.
	Hey, let's get into some QAnon bullshit!
	I don't even know what to do with a lot of this.
	Do you know what I mean?
	Yeah, so I will say that run-on sentence right there, that endless fucking thing, it's a prime example of what makes him so dangerous as a propagandist, in that he's spinning insane narratives in such a way where he never stops talking in one long-ass stream of consciousness To the point where even I find it hard to follow what the fuck he's talking about.
	What I'm mostly left with at first glance is the sense that deep state happening today, bad.
	It's baffling his audience with bullshit while simultaneously creating a feeling, a mood, a vague sense of dread.
	Because feelings are much more profitable than facts.
	And that's what he's doing.
	That's where we're at.
	Yep.
	Okay.
	All right.
	And that's a very, it's an extremely common.
	Yeah.
	He's a Gish Gallop.
	He's a Gish Galloper.
	That's like that, but that's what makes his, him funny to me a million years ago.
	Cause I'm old now and things are different.
	People have changed.
	When used in a comedic context, it's, it's, it's brilliant.
	But, but yeah, when, when used for evil, that's, that's, that's what we get.
	That's what we get here.
	And it's, Oh, just a bit of a problem.
	So yeah, I think we can get the sense that we get the sense that the brand is into QAnon.
	I think I think that's, you know, that's tricky.
	It's tricky because we got some QAnon stuff is so common.
	Yes, it's so pervasive.
	It insinuates itself into a lot of the right-wing narratives.
	There are other things to suggest that he is more into QAnon than just this, but this is a little tip of the hat there.
	You know, the thing that there's no evidence of existing whatsoever.
	Or like it means something completely different.
	Yeah, well, the Deep State has always been just kind of an excellent scapegoat just to be able to hang problems on.
	It was the thing that was covering for Trump the entire time he was in power.
	Everyone's saying, oh yeah, the reason that Trump's not very good is because, oh, there are these factors in the deep state that are stopping him from doing it.
	You know, these hidden shady characters, you know, in the deep state who we couldn't possibly find out about because they're all hidden away doing nefarious things.
	And it's all just a bunch of bollocks.
	There is no evidence to suggest that there is any of that.
	So next we have something else that we can lay at the feet of the Deep State.
	Mate, do you suppose that when we talk about a story like the Nord Stream Pipeline, which increasingly appears to have been an operation conducted by forces of this nature, do you imagine that with the burgeoning conflict between the United States and China, Taiwan could be subject to a kind of a Nord Stream-like event within their semiconductor industry?
	So we'll get into Taiwan in a minute because that's a big topic of today's episode.
	But apparently the deep state blew up part of the Nord Stream pipeline.
	The deep state of exactly which country is unclear.
	But Max Blumenthal's... And why?
	Yeah, exactly.
	Max Blumenthal's site The Grey Zone is asserting that the USA deep state blew up part of Nord Stream.
	Officially speaking, there is no clear answer as to exactly what happened, which has left it as ripe territory for conspiracy theorists and propagandists alike.
	That is... Again, I'm like, I am having... Like, I know about...
	all like, I like to keep on top of, you know, the wacky conspiracy theories and my partner,
	you know, and I discussed a lot and I am hanging on by a thread. Like this is wild. I'm very,
	very surprised to hear these things.
	I did.
	I didn't see that coming either.
	That's the sum.
	I mean, but why?
	Why?
	We know what the government does about pipelines here.
	I don't know.
	Apparently the deep state took issue with it for some reason.
	I don't know.
	Yeah, pipelines cut corners!
	Pipelines cut corners and they lie about how environmentally safe they are and then they go wrong and they poison stuff.
	The USA loves doing that stuff!
	Why would the USA blow it up?
	That's a regular hobby.
	Yeah, exactly!
	They don't have to!
	It's a pastime!
	Yeah, I don't know.
	I don't know why, but they're just saying that's the way it is.
	I feel like it's just more mud to be able to sling at these ghosts in the Deep State.
	It's more things to be able to lay at the feet of the evil phantom that exists that's taunting them, clearly.
	So yeah, we're gonna get now into Taiwan, which I don't want to do, but fuck it, here we go.
	I have it right in front of me.
	It's Robert O'Brien, and he was a major figure in the Trump administration's kitchen cabinet of national security advisors, and he has called for the US to bomb Taiwan's semiconductor
	industry, which would be actually a much more serious attack on the global economy than Nord Stream. I
	mean, Taiwan produces the majority of semiconductors through its TSMC, Taiwan Semiconductor
	Manufacturing Company. It would mean just basically a collapse of the global economy in order to prevent the
	factory and the technology from falling into Chinese hands. So we're gonna get into some
	providing some cut, we've already had providing some cover from Russia, we're now about to do the
	same for China.
	Um...
	Which, I wasn't expecting when I went into this to be honest, but here we go.
	Anyway, if you're unaware, Taiwan produces 60% of the world's supply of semiconductors, which is an important component in manufacturing computers of any sort, and 90% of the world's supply of advanced semiconductors.
	So it's a point of contention, particularly between China and the US, as the Chinese government still considers Taiwan as Chinese territory, meaning they want control of that factory.
	However, Taiwan asserted its independence in 1949 and have had their own government ever since.
	And, you know, there's a whole big thing internationally as to whether you recognize Taiwanese independence, you know, and therefore are willing to piss off the Chinese.
	As to what Max was saying here, Senator O'Brien didn't just randomly advocate blowing up the semiconductor manufacturing plants.
	He was asked a question about what the U.S.
	would do in the event of the Chinese invading Taiwan and attempting to take control of the plants.
	His response, paraphrased, was "We'd never let them do that and much like Churchill blew up the
	French Navy in World War II to stop the Nazis from getting it, we would consider doing the
	same as a last resort." Which, you know, it's not an ideal situation but given you have a
	semi-hostile foreign power trying to take something over for undoubtedly nefarious
	purposes at that point, it's a reasonable position for him to take. It's a position.
	It's a position, I'd say.
	And but seriously, like, okay, so he's postulating that the motivation, he didn't say access to manufacturing, he said, protect the technology, the notion that in 2023, we are in a tech, like a, in a technology war that like, is I don't.
	I mean, I'm pretty sure that they've cornered the market on semiconductors through manufacturing and capitalism, not because they hold some Atlantis technology that the rest of us don't know about.
	That's a stretch.
	That's a stretch.
	No, no.
	It's pretty ridiculous.
	But you know, it makes a good excuse for them to both provide a little bit more cover for China.
	And this is not just Robert O'Brien calling for this.
	We have other US think tanks that have, you know, the Center for Fuck.
	other US think tanks, sorry, the US Army War College actually made a similar suggestion.
	So this is not necessarily a call for a false flag attack to trigger a war,
	but it shows that the US would willingly devastate Taiwan and Taiwan's economy to prevent this
	critical asset from falling into Chinese hands and it really highlights how the US sees its
	supposed allies who are really just proxies, and that includes Ukraine.
	The US is willing to see Ukraine's economy destroyed and its best men killed to extend
	a war against Russia, thrown into a slaughterhouse in order to bleed Russia.
	All right.
	What?
	What?
	Aren't they mad that we're giving support to Ukraine?
	Like the U.S.
	is... Okay, what are we pissed about?
	Right, so we have Max providing covering this one for both China and Russia, which I didn't think I'd see.
	I'm almost impressed.
	So from the top, there isn't anyone else calling for this.
	There isn't anyone calling for this.
	No one is calling to blow up the fucking semiconductors.
	Someone at the US Army War College wrote a paper asking, hey, why don't we just blow this thing up?
	Someone wrote that paper.
	And there were many, many responses to said paper from academics and military personnel explaining why it's a fucking stupid idea.
	Also, what's Ukraine's alternative to fighting a war with Russia?
	It would be surrendering Ukraine to rejoin Russia in some bizarre attempt to revive the USSR, and Ukraine, quite rightly, doesn't want to do that.
	But it seems to be what both Max Blumenthal and Russell Brand think should happen.
	I mean, also, truly, I'm sorry I'm stuck on this piece of reality, but the US has no interest whatsoever and is scrambling to figure out how to keep producing the parts that capitalism needs to function.
	Like, we're owned by corporations that want to make money.
	And guess what makes money?
	Superconductors.
	There's no way we would be willing, like, They're changing laws to get kids in factories legally in the States.
	Do you really think that they're going to hinder manufacturing in any way?
	That just doesn't make any sense!
	On its face!
	It would be completely nonsensical and it would bring Silicon Valley to a fucking halt for a start.
	Which, I mean, yeah, on the one hand, fine.
	But on the other hand, that's definitely not what the people with the money at the top want to happen.
	So yeah, it's all just complete bullshit.
	It really feels like he's not thinking about the words that he's saying.
	And yet, and yet, he's presenting them like a serious journalist.
	He's presenting them.
	It's appalling.
	As though he knows about it and as though he's done the research and he's... Dog.
	He comes off as someone who could be interviewed on the BBC.
	He has that kind of patter to him.
	He has that kind of vibe that he gives off, you know, where if you saw him come in you'd go, oh yeah, interesting points, yeah, okay, okay.
	If you didn't examine what the fuck he was saying, which I guarantee almost none of the people who are watching this in earnest are going to do.
	Where would you even find it?
	We have to have a background, even in understanding these world issues and where to find the corroborating evidence.
	It's impossible.
	If you're just watching this and accepting it and you're like, oh, well, yeah, I didn't like 9-11.
	That was really bad.
	And I know that Al-Qaeda is really bad, and Taiwan, I mean, most people listening probably have no concept of our history, but just, boy.
	It's really, it's this package.
	Because the thing is, I cannot fathom being in a room with this man and not just constantly being like, do what now?
	I'm sorry.
	and then that escalating into something slightly more aggressive.
	Because I feel like, don't insult my intelligence, like what you're saying doesn't make sense.
	Yeah, I think if you and I were in a room with this man, we'd probably spend the entire time
	screaming at him, because that's the kind of reaction he would provoke from anyone willing to
	examine the things that he's saying, and not just yes and in the name of making money,
	which is what Russell is busy doing.
	He's not going to push back on any of this at all.
	He's like, oh yeah, and what's your thoughts on this other thing?
	Yeah, it's all in the name of money and extracting that from his audience.
	Speaking of which, we have an important question from the locals chat.
	I'm glad you kept talking a moment ago because I was, to fill time, going to ask you a question that Firegirl2020 was asking in the chat.
	Did you enjoy the Met Gala?
	Did you ask Max if he watched the Met Ball?
	I feel that Max may not know that there was a Met Gala that took place.
	I've been taking a break and I'm in Mexico right now so I missed out on all that nihilistic dystopian hijinks.
	They were dressed up as cats and stuff.
	It was pretty good.
	Have you got that clip anywhere?
	Has anyone got that out the back or is it too...
	[INAUDIBLE]
	Okay, so his crew, what happened at the end there is his crew had lost a clip and
	he was scrambling to fill the time.
	But yeah, getting back to the important issues here.
	At least he didn't say mouses this time, but still.
	Okay.
	Okay.
	But this is my first blush, right?
	My first real interaction with Russell Brand.
	And here's the thing.
	You and I are doing our best.
	I'm brand new to the podcast.
	Well, not brand new, but mostly new to the podcast format.
	And I would say there's a lot of things I've been like, boy, there's going to be a learning curve.
	We're going to figure stuff out.
	And I was concerned about how difficult transitions would be.
	I have found that your transitions, our transitions are not even a cut above.
	Like this guy has a studio and a producer and he's a professional and his transitions are crazy.
	Like they're- - Yeah, no, he just, he's, he's-
	He's an advocate for hard cuts, is Russell.
	He's just like, bam, let's go on to a different thing.
	Fuck it.
	Very much.
	Hit you in the face with a wet fish.
	It's jarring!
	And I don't know if that's a tactic.
	I wonder if it is?
	Well, this is it.
	This is it.
	I think it might be quite effective just to keep the ball rolling, you know, to make sure that no one focuses on one thing for too long.
	You know, it's, it's, bam, look at this, bam, look at this, bam, look at this thing!
	You know, give me money!
	Yeah, it's very Zucru, which I'm still really surprised.
	It's going back to the comedic chops of Monty Python, you know, now for something completely different.
	That was actually funny, though.
	That was fucking brilliant.
	Yeah, Monty Python, we're an incredible crew.
	But him being British, there's no way that he wasn't influenced by that.
	So, you know, you never know.
	It's smoke and mirrors, really effective smoke and mirrors.
	Oh yeah, yeah, he's very good at that.
	In the meantime, while they were talking about the Met Gala, his crew did find the clip that he was looking for.
	If there were no semiconductor factories in Taiwan, would this all be going down now?
	Well, it is a major component, but it doesn't also explain U.S.
	aggression vis-a-vis Philippines toward China.
	I mean, this is about surrounding and encircling China, creating kind of a pressure cooker effect on China's leadership.
	And forcing China to spend more and more money on its military and less on its social programs and driving this program Xi Jinping has of building a middle class and redeveloping the country.
	It is also about competing with China, but I assume by now the U.S.
	would be eager to move those semiconductor plants to a place they would consider safer, because as Thomas Friedman wrote, Taiwan is to be the US porcupine against China.
	Sorry, I thought that was a different clip than it was, but nonetheless, yeah.
	It's a stupid fucking hypothetical, but as an Italian saying goes, if my grandma had wheels, she'd be a car.
	What if this thing?
	But it's interesting how Blumenthal uses it as a vehicle for a little bit of pro-China propaganda.
	Apparently China's social programs are suffering because of the USA now and it has absolutely nothing to do with the autocratic dictatorship running the government.
	I don't see Chinese government being pressured for a thing!
	That is crazy!
	And listen, this is also my personal view as an anti-capitalist one, so I obviously am coming from, not necessarily like I have the articles to back it up, or I don't have many studies, I try to pay attention and always temper my point of view, but Boy, no, like just what?
	What?
	No, what?
	I mean, that is actually the appropriate response to this kind of clip.
	Yeah, no, that's that's yeah.
	And yeah, we're we're we're getting into something and What he was saying with Taiwan being a porcupine there, we're going to lead that gently into some anti-Israel narratives in a second, and then we're going to weave in a little bit of pro-Russia, and then we're going to finish with a big swing on North Korea here.
	If you consider the concept of Israel, as explained by former Secretary of State Alexander Haig,
	where Israel is an unsinkable aircraft carrier, it's a colonial implant in the middle of the
	Middle East that's a Spartan state armed to the teeth with the most advanced weaponry,
	and the U.S. is going to use it to attack any country that takes an independent or adversarial
	position. And that's why Israel has invaded Lebanon, attacked Hezbollah, why it's constantly
	bombing Syria these days, and it says it's attacking Iranian targets, it just attacked
	deep in Syria in Homs. So that's also the role of Ukraine against Russia, a country that's controlled
	from the outside by the U.S. to antagonize Russia, to keep it in a constant state of war.
	Which is why, by the way, the U.S.
	its leadership paranoid and then Taiwan plays that role with China and to a certain extent
	South Korea, Japan and Philippines are intended to play the same role which is why by the way
	the US is so hostile to a peace arrangement between North and South Korea.
	Big swing just at the end there.
	Just throw in that in.
	I'm just gonna shove that in to the end.
	I don't know what kind of peace arrangement he thinks is on the table between North and South Korea.
	News to me!
	The North Korean government are fucking insane.
	I've not heard of anything.
	But apparently that's the US's fault as well.
	What a fuckhead, is all I can say about that.
	Okay, this sounds like a child who is playing with their G.I.
	Joe's and they learned a bunch of names of countries straight up and they're just saying
	shit. He thinks there's like, I mean, I, I mean, it's, but it's all, I'm shocked.
	I'm also shocked and it's easy for me to be distracted by the total lack of like analysis of like how capitalism plays into any of this.
	I it's really shocking to hear like how much in a vacuum It's interesting that there is no examination of that, given that Russell Brand is supposed to be such an anti-capitalist.
	Yeah!
	I can't. I just, I'm like, I stress my brain out.
	It's interesting, it's interesting that there is no examination of that given that Russell Brand is
	supposed to be such an anti-capitalist. Yeah. I mean, yeah, you're wrong. He wants your money,
	but he's an anti-capitalist. Yeah. Yeah. There's, there's no, no examination there
	whatsoever of anything in a wider context.
	Not that you could examine any of the things that he's saying, because it's all just fucking nonsense.
	It really is!
	It's words in a bag that he shakes up, country words that he's heard people say.
	Yeah, he's just making shit up!
	I think it's crazy!
	So this next clip made me blurt laugh when I first heard it.
	With so many unpalatable truths, so palpably and demonstrably factual, it's clear that you require powerful machinery to prevent people assessing reality in those blunt terms.
	You need ongoing deep state operations.
	You need a compliant media.
	Ah, yes.
	Factual.
	Okay.
	Okay, girl.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	It's fact.
	That's what it is.
	So many deep state things going on.
	You need a compliant media.
	And there's a little bit more of that coming up, actually.
	What do you think when you see something like that White House Correspondents' Dinner, like this sort of congratulatory circle jerk, where apparently the consensus between the media and the state is sort of reiterated and the framing for what's possible to discuss is reasserted?
	Yeah, I mean, what you see with the White House press correspondence dinner is the most hated group in America.
	Hated more than even Congress, and justifiably so.
	The regular American people hate the media because they know they're being lied to.
	And the media is there, the elite beltway media, giving itself awards for publishing fake stories.
	Look, these two media figures seem to not think that they're in the media.
	That is absolutely shocking.
	That's not, well, but it's also, I mean, yeah.
	The thing is, is like, he, so Russell went into it with a fair critique of the normalization
	of problematic politicians, certainly.
	Um.
	(groaning)
	moans Boy, I wish I feel myself.
	My brain is just is cordoning off sections.
	Nope.
	Nope.
	Yeah.
	What?
	There are things that you can say about the White House Correspondents Dinner and there are critiques that you can level about the way that media and government interact.
	A hundred percent.
	And those are justified.
	But this is this is, again, a classic propagandist tactic of taking something that is That is actually true, taking something where there are justifiable problems, and then just fucking exploding it into another avenue of bullshit.
	It's, again, selling truth with a lie, and that's... Well, selling lies with truth, actually, is more accurate.
	Yeah.
	Complete fucking nonsense.
	That's not what it's... Yup.
	but Max isn't done.
	Going back to the Steele dossier on Russiagate, they were celebrating themselves
	for publishing fake stories because the means justify the ends.
	And then the means was humiliating and destroying Donald Trump.
	In this case, it's about celebrating and circling the wagons around Joe Biden,
	a doddering figure who, I mean, he put on a pretty good performance there,
	but someone who is simply a representative of the establishment and the kind of subculture
	that exists inside the Beltway that the rest of Americans are hostile to
	for justifiable reasons.
	See I love...
	I love that, just like, oh yeah, he's a doddering old guy.
	I mean, he was pretty great there, gotta give it up to him, but man, he's just old and senile.
	I mean, his performance was brilliant, but you know, this guy.
	Well yeah, they keep falling into that trap.
	Listen, we don't like him.
	We're not excited about Joe Biden!
	They have to use some knowledge fight parlance, give it up to the Somalis.
	Somali pirates!
	That's exactly what I was thinking!
	In this case, it's like, oh, we hate this guy, but damn, you know, he put on a good performance.
	The lesson being, you don't have to give it up to the Somali pirates.
	No, you 100% don't!
	We don't!
	We don't. We don't. We let on the left. We don't. We're not thrilled. And it's just the thing is we have complaints and
	it's it's the differences. They're like the let's go Brandon like no we just say just
	Sheesh.
	Fuck you!
	We hate what you're doing!
	You lied!
	And we're upset!
	And we want you to fix it!
	It's so intellectually dishonest.
	It's incredible.
	Yeah, there's quite a bit of that in this show.
	Quite a bit.
	Like, it's just, it's so like intellectually dishonest.
	It's really, it's incredible.
	Yeah, there's quite a bit of that in this show.
	Quite a bit.
	I'm learning.
	So the, also the Steele dossier was proven to be pretty accurate not a year later when there were actual
	investigations into Trump's Russia connections.
	So it's just lying on top of that as well.
	So, you know, it's the Steele dossier was all fake.
	No, no, it wasn't.
	It's just, you know.
	It wasn't as proven as it later became.
	So, you know, it's... Yeah, and even, you know, and there have been plenty of debates, you know, happening here and even within these agencies that there was information that was not pertinent or was blown out of proportion and, like, potentially.
	But also when the investigations themselves are so fraught with this like political football witch hunt,
	it makes it harder to investigate, honestly.
	Yeah, 100%. - And so they know they're creating an environment for any investigation
	to be impossible.
	It's like that, you know, planning a stop the steal rally
	two months before the election is decided.
	You know what's coming.
	You're planning for it.
	Yeah, it's at the very least hedging your bets.
	But yeah, we have yet more terrible takes on what's happening in Ukraine coming up.
	And apparently, yeah, the US wants to go to war with China, apparently, according to Max.
	So do I. Let's find out.
	And this is the same press that's trying to lie us into a war with China over Taiwan, that's continuing to push this endless proxy war with Ukraine, that's basically a cheerleader for that war.
	And that was the main vessel for duping the public into supporting war with Iraq.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, so.
	So, firstly, no one wants a war with China because it's a terrible idea and literally no one wants to do it.
	And I hate to have to remind Max Blumenthal, but it wasn't the US backed Ukraine that started this war.
	Russia invaded them.
	Russia could end things today if they wanted to, and just remove all their troops and tanks and shit, but they don't want to do that because Russia are the aggressors.
	How fucking stupid.
	Like, oh yeah, they're just pushing this endless proxy war and Russia's the victim.
	It's like, no!
	This isn't complicated diplomacy.
	You can look on Google Maps who invaded who.
	It's not hard to figure out.
	I mean... But apparently Russia don't want this war, apparently.
	They just want Ukraine back.
	And we're gonna just ignore that part of it, apparently, according to Max.
	He's ignoring where all his stuff comes from!
	It's China!
	Like, there are a million reasons why things aren't made in America anymore.
	And it's, I feel like they were, like earlier he was kind of skirting around the idea, I don't know where else, where would the U.S.
	want to move manufacturing?
	Is there a place that's, I mean, look, we've got all the exploitable workers on lock.
	And we don't have to do it.
	Coming here would just be a big bag of problems.
	That'd be way more expensive.
	That'd be way more expensive.
	We don't want to have to do that.
	That's uh yeah wow fucking really it's just like so like empty-headed it's an empty-headed thing to
	say but I also understand that they're like a huge part of this conspiracy miasma that's floating
	around is war with China which like listen I don't know what's in China's heart.
	I don't know what they're up to, but we aren't gonna initiate it, like, on any possible level!
	No, it's a terrible idea.
	The US picks on countries much smaller than it.
	Yes, exactly.
	You're not going to pick someone who's actually going to put up a fight.
	That's a terrible idea.
	A formidable foe.
	No, not at all.
	Not at all.
	Not a chance.
	That's not our style.
	We are going to get a little bit more into this supposed war with China that's coming, but first we have some Alex Jones-esque kind of narratives about false flags.
	What they're going to do if there is conflict with China is sell the war the same way they did with Iran.
	It's a war for freedom and they'll cover up any false flag or any incident that drives us into that war.
	There we go.
	It's all about the false flags.
	False flags are coming.
	They're coming.
	They're gonna start a war.
	And then they're gonna cover it up.
	Yeah.
	And you don't have to... yeah, like, if you've already established that, like, well, I don't necessarily think the government did 9-11, but, like, I don't think they... like, it's a light sprinkling of they did.
	And you, like, put these things in the same conversation you were implying A great deal, without actually saying it, in a way that would get you in trouble.
	Or at least in potential hot water.
	Wow!
	Yeah, they've definitely set the stage for the government being bad in plenty of cases thus far.
	So yeah, he's all about the false flags coming.
	We've had a few big swings so far, but I will say this next clip escalates into the biggest swing of this episode for sure and just watches it as it develops.
	It astonished me.
	It astonished me.
	You know who knows better than the press is actually the rank and file of the U.S.
	military.
	They do not want to go to war with China because tens of thousands of enlisted soldiers will die in the name of U.S.
	empire and the so-called great power competition.
	That's not just according to me.
	That's according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, which is a Neoconservative oriented, very anti-China think tank in Washington, which ran 24 war games, pitting the US military against China, following a hypothetical Chinese invasion of Taiwan in 2026.
	And they found that the US lost dozens of ships Hundreds of aircraft and tens of thousands of service members and Taiwan's economy was devastated, which means you can assume there will be hundreds of thousands of dead Taiwanese people, maybe millions, maybe a nuclear exchange, maybe nuclear weapons reach China and Guam.
	Maybe they reached California.
	Hawaii has already run emergency operations where they were told that missiles were incoming.
	It was a lie, but the citizens there were terrorized into believing it in order to test the response systems.
	Fucking hell.
	What?
	Okay.
	Okay.
	What?
	No one wants to go to war with China, Max.
	No shit people will die.
	It's a terrible fucking idea.
	The body count?
	Stopping the military?
	Millions dead.
	A clue!
	Millions dead.
	Civilian and military body count is why we wouldn't go to war?
	Come on!
	And then there's gonna be fucking nuclear warfare in California!
	That's what's coming!
	That's what's coming!
	That's a lot.
	On a serious note, it's fucking insane.
	But what he's done here is connect the idea of California having nuclear warfare waged upon it to ensuring that the semiconductor plants stay in neutral hands.
	He's presenting the image that if we don't let China do whatever the fuck they want, California is going to get blown up.
	It's nonsensical bullshit, but again, within their audience, it's going to evoke that feeling of dread and anger at the US government for doing anything that isn't good for China.
	That's, I mean, well, but I'm glad that you pointed out that, yeah, the motivated, like, the motivation behind the fear is, like, nuclear war, because it kept us very afraid and off and, like, that was absolutely I mean, you know, certainly real concerns that we could get rid of if we didn't have nuclear weapons on the planet, but I would say I am not looking forward to them making nuclear warfare profitable.
	Really ignores a lot of the real problems that we're dealing with, including the potential volatility of having nuclear weapons on the planet.
	Real fear, but their fear is just completely...
	Baddie?
	That's really... okay.
	Alright.
	My spear is broken.
	What are we doing?
	They've broken me.
	What are we doing?
	Alright.
	The terrorist won.
	By terrorist I mean Max.
	Oh, we've got a little ways to go yet.
	I think Max will be fucking off fairly soon, so that's something.
	That's something.
	And then we have a different shithead to deal with, but Max will be leaving soon.
	But yeah, we do have some more bullshit.
	So whatever you think about China, I know there are many people watching this who don't like China's system because they saw what it did in response to COVID.
	This is about human life being devastated and if that war ever takes place it will produce an existential crisis inside the U.S.
	that will destroy whatever's left of the of the veneer of democracy and the press, those people cheering Biden like Sickophantic, loyal stenographers for the Empire.
	They will be responsible, and they will be least likely to die because they'll be furthest away from the fight.
	What?
	Oh, just, I fucking hate this guy.
	I really hate this guy.
	Oh, man.
	I mean, yeah, sure.
	Yeah, if the eventuality that's virtually impossible that you're presenting happens, yeah, that'd be devastating.
	What else would be devastating?
	If all of America's legs fell off all at once would also be devastating.
	It's about as likely, I've gotta say.
	Sure.
	We'll make a list.
	Let's make a list.
	I mean, Jeff, okay.
	Alright, yeah.
	I'm sure.
	Specifically, the devastation is like, why?
	My government is never going to do... I mean, listen, there may be things he peripherally bumps into that are correct, but the meat and potatoes of his argument are just rotten.
	Well, they're self-defeating.
	They're self-defeating.
	It's like, yes, this would destroy the fabric of America.
	It's like, yeah, that's why we're not going to fucking do it.
	That's exactly why.
	You're spelling it out.
	Thank you.
	But I'm sure someone within the deep state, by the way, is probably developing a weapon to remove everyone's legs as we speak.
	Larry said it.
	Yeah, exactly.
	It's going to come into existence now.
	Leg weapon.
	Sell your shoes.
	Sell your shoes now.
	And invest in gloves, because we're all going to need more of them.
	Offload your Nike Stack!
	Jesus, man.
	Oh, Jesus.
	Yeah, yeah.
	So, right, we're getting into the bit that I thought was coming earlier.
	So Bran's production crew lost a clip a second time.
	And in the meantime, Bran starts asking about Blumenthal's decor until they find the clip that is supposed to be a smoking gun for the US wanting to blow up the semiconductor plants.
	Max, you obviously dream big because I've seen the size of your dream catch.
	Oh, you've got the clip now?
	Okay, let's have a look.
	Are you sure?
	Because otherwise I can wrap this nicely.
	Let's have a little look at the clip.
	Make the basic case for why Americans not only should care about what happens in Taiwan, but should be willing to spill American blood and treasure to defend Taiwan.
	Nobody wants that.
	I think the deterrence is key here.
	We travel to Japan, South Korea.
	We are in Guam.
	We are meeting with our allies, our partners here, if you will.
	They don't have a NATO in the Pacific, but they do have partners.
	We want to make sure that they are ready and supportive of the United States and Taiwan.
	The case for Taiwan, that's a very good question.
	Yeah, yeah!
	About 50% of international trade goes through the international straits, but I think more importantly, yeah
	You know Chuck is that the TSMC?
	manufactures 90% of the advanced global supply of advanced semiconductor chips
	If if China invades and either owns or breaks this We're in a world of hurt
	You know go. Yeah. Yeah. There you go Yeah, yeah, but but according there you go
	That's the evidence according to Russell.
	What I would say is a very reasonable position from this guy.
	Just being like, yeah, no, we don't want that.
	We don't want any of that.
	This would be a problem.
	We're trying to make sure that a problem doesn't happen.
	That's where we're at.
	Yeah, I mean, you just threw your entire segment out the window with one clip.
	Right.
	It's amazing.
	And yet, he's presenting it as evidence, and so I would bet money that his audience will see it as evidence.
	It's shocking how much Opposite Day works.
	Like, that's the false flag.
	It's like, but it's Opposite Day.
	Like, that's all.
	Yeah, yeah.
	Did you forget it's Opposite Day?
	Here's this thing, but I'm going to tell you that it's a different thing and I'm going to do it so often and I'm going to hammer it so hard that I will gaslight you into believing what I'm saying.
	And that's 100% what he just did while presenting, yeah, what I would say is evidence to the contrary of their entire argument about Taiwan.
	It's astonishing.
	Yeah, like there's real things that you can learn to help you understand when the government is spinning a view or coloring or obfuscating information.
	People work really, really hard and sometimes, you know, like have lose their careers
	or their, you know, their livelihoods, whatever.
	This is not that.
	No.
	This is just, that guy was just, was abreast of reality.
	That was the most basic paycheck.
	I, most standard, I am a US diplomat trying to make sure shit doesn't go down.
	That's it.
	That was that guy.
	I am a guy.
	I exist.
	And it's obvious.
	Honestly, like, okay, what is even... I mean, okay, alright.
	Thank you, Meet the Press, for putting this on TV.
	But, like, it shouldn't even... This should be a given.
	Yes, it should.
	I actually can't remember what this next clip is, so let's find out.
	Let's dive in.
	All right, Max.
	Hey, thanks very much for joining us for that.
	We really appreciate your time.
	What room are you in there?
	Is that your house?
	And why is there such a big dreamcatcher there?
	I don't have any dreamcatchers in my house.
	That would be cultural appropriation.
	I'm somewhere in an undisclosed location at an Airbnb in Mexico.
	For the best of you, don't disclose it.
	Some of the ideas you come out with, conservative on the subject of 9-11 or otherwise.
	Thanks, Max.
	It's great to speak to you and great to learn from you.
	You can get more from Max by going to thegreyzone.com.
	You can read his book, The Management of Savagery, and, you know, just follow Max.
	Love and adore Max.
	Cheers, Max.
	Lovely speaking to you, mate.
	That was fantastic.
	No, it fucking was not.
	Okay, listeners, would you like to know?
	I bet you already put it together.
	There's like a two and a half foot tall Dreamcatcher on the wall in the shot.
	Yeah, yeah.
	So he's, yeah, well, he's, he's asserting that it's not his because he's at an Airbnb in an undisclosed location in New Mexico.
	That's so weird.
	I just how fucking pathetic is that?
	Just just, oh yeah, we're so we're so dangerous.
	I'm from an undisclosed location.
	Wow.
	Jog on.
	Um, yeah, just be aware of what's like, yeah.
	Oh, that's not mine.
	I'm in an Airbnb, but I do drink big sir.
	Thank you.
	Yeah, exactly.
	I mean, I get maybe it's a missing semantic thing, but it feels like he was just lying about the thing on the wall behind him, which is a little rich.
	It's a little rich.
	I mean, it would be par for the course, I think, with this guy.
	Yeah, I know!
	That also sucks!
	But thankfully, thankfully after this, Max fucks off and we don't have to deal with him any longer, or his insinuation that his ideas are so dangerous that he has to hide out in the desert.
	Right, what's... yeah.
	I'll tell you what, I'll let Russell introduce what's about to come.
	Am I already set?
	What are we going to look at now?
	Are we staying on the subject of war?
	On the general topic of war?
	Should we do that?
	Hey, you're going to love this.
	This is Tucker Carlson.
	You'll obviously have seen that he's given that video, like, put that video out.
	Hundreds of millions of people have probably watched that by now, I imagine.
	Listen to how the Pentagon and the Department of Defense attack Tucker Carlson.
	And whose interests, therefore, is Tucker Carlson speaking against?
	Here's the news.
	No, here's the effing news.
	news. Have a look.
	I am sorry that we have to do this.
	I didn't want to but it is necessary.
	This clip did confuse me a little bit, though, because he said, like, oh, should we stay on the subject of war and then let's talk about Tucker Carlson?
	Which made me think, well, what the fuck do those two things have to do with each other?
	Nothing.
	Nothing.
	We're about to find out in a choppily edited, overly bombastic piece of garbage.
	Yeah, here we go.
	Hucker Carlson has broken his silence and the Pentagon and Department of Defense are cheering his departure.
	Is it good that the mainstream media has cleansed itself of an anti-war voice?
	Where will opposition to mainstream objectives come from now?
	Ah, and that gives you a feel of where we're at.
	So here we go.
	We're about to listen to 10 minutes of providing cover for Tucker Carlson under the vague notion of him being anti-war.
	Wow, there are fart noises!
	There are fart noises!
	What planet do I live on?!
	Okay, and for those of you not watching, there's a bird.
	It looks like a crow.
	I don't associate... I know this is... I'm nitpicking, but it just... it really... it adds to my dissonant experience.
	I don't associate birds and farts.
	I just don't.
	No, no.
	Maybe that's why it's funny to him.
	I don't know.
	No, it's not funny.
	Well, no.
	No, it's not.
	But there is this, yeah, there is this presentation of, you know, you've got all this, you know, NATO's corrupt.
	WHO is evil.
	You know, pick a lane, man.
	Pick a lane.
	I mean, that's the thing.
	That's the thing.
	Decide what you're doing.
	If you would have told me Like, Family Feud style, if you would have been like, hey, what do you expect from Russell Brand's show?
	Toots would be on the bottom of the list.
	I just... it's really... didn't see that coming.
	I didn't see it coming either, I gotta say.
	I'm surprised.
	The big insinuation of this piece is that Tucker was let go from Fox News due to being anti-war, which is total bullshit.
	For the record, Tucker Carlson was let go because of the Dominion voting machine's lawsuit exposing all of his private text messages where he shits on Trump and says that his audience are morons, while confirming that he believes barely any of the shit that he was spewing on his TV show.
	He lost any and all credibility to his base, or any of those who were paying attention, and at least one head had to roll following the lawsuit, so off Tucker went, and good fucking riddance.
	Tucker is a white nationalist misogynist blowhard who can quite frankly hurl himself into the sea and stay there.
	Well, and we don't necessarily know for sure what the catalyst was for Tucker.
	Yeah, true, true.
	We don't know for sure, so it's a lot of speculation.
	Honestly, I can't, I mean, you know, two years from now when there's a lawsuit and we get to listen to that deposition, I'm getting my popcorn.
	I mean, I'm going to assume that this was, because even one Tucker, I think back in 2019, he said in an interview on a podcast about a dorm full of 14-year-old girls being like heaven to him.
	He said that.
	Really gross.
	Really gross.
	But, you know, they kept him on after that.
	That was fine.
	Yeah, yeah.
	I wonder if it was a tipping point.
	I don't know.
	Because Bill O'Reilly finally got booted and I feel like the chips are still falling and I'm interested.
	For Tucker, I mean, not for Bill O'Reilly.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	Bill O'Reilly was sexual harassment and shit, wasn't he?
	Yeah, that was his shtick.
	I don't think Tucker's been accused of any of that in relation to this.
	I don't think.
	I could be wrong.
	I could definitely be wrong.
	Happy to be proven wrong as well.
	Absolutely!
	But in this case, it seems like, yeah, he kind of fucked himself out of an audience by those text messages coming to the fore, and Fox News were like, well, no one's gonna believe shit that you're gonna say anymore, so there's no point in having you as our As our main guy.
	That's what I think happened.
	Well, but the thing is, is that's so rational.
	That's such a rational choice, and I've been existing on this planet, in this reality, I know better.
	I'm trying to focus on what makes them the money.
	Yeah, you're right, you're right.
	If he's not profitable to keep on anymore, then fuck him.
	Right yeah let's let's get into some of some of Brian's cover coverage of Tucker and oh boy it's not good and I will say just to preempt all of this the way that this video is edited I've never seen anything like it.
	It is edited specifically so that When the footage of one clip ends, the audio of the next clip has already started playing.
	So it's just a constant run-on of words, no matter fucking what, with barely a millisecond break.
	It's astonishing.
	Like even more intense than like PJ Dubs, like Paul Joseph.
	Worse, worse, because what they normally do is just a hard cut of the footage and the audio, and then it'll go right into the next bit.
	This has actually layered the audio so that it starts at the end of the footage of the previous clip.
	So it's like they're taking that already very manic intensity up a notch.
	Yeah, they're making it so much worse.
	It's horrendous and it made it a real bastard to edit, I'm not going to lie.
	But anyway, here we go.
	We're going to be having a look at Tucker Carlson's video response to the events around Fox News and his departure, focusing in particular on the anti-war rhetoric that Tucker Carlson regularly deployed.
	Now, of course, a lot of people on the left, centre left, I'd call them the neoliberal establishment, are attacking Tucker Carlson.
	But where What else are anti-war voices going to come from?
	Why did Fox News get rid of Tucker Carlson?
	Where will Tucker Carlson go to next?
	And where does radical opposition to the establishment agenda come from if anybody who speaks out against the agenda is one way or another cleansed from the system?
	So my first question is, when did the left become the neoliberal establishment?
	Do we have an establishment now?
	I would have thought that comes with a lot more power and influence than we seem to have.
	Well, I mean, I get what he's insinuating, as I feel, I think, as a US citizen, maybe more so, is the disparity between our elected officials, our little smattering of elected officials, And how literally the rest of us feel and like, you know, even to some degree, not everybody's got feelings that are and views that are as, you know, quote unquote, extreme as mine.
	Not everybody's as far left as I am individually, but we feel a huge disparity between our elected officials.
	I mean, even locally, statewide, you know, like and country.
	We do feel that disparity, but I'm not going to say they're, I mean like they're warmongers.
	Anyone's a warmonger because of profit.
	Yeah, government.
	I do feel like the left in general is pretty unified on thinking that Tucker Carlson is a piece of shit.
	And not stoked on war!
	No, not particularly.
	I mean, there are a few.
	Yeah, and we know who they are.
	That's the thing.
	We know who they are.
	And we don't agree, and we're like, I'm, I mean, yeah, and we've just been standing here, like, screaming and jumping around, like, please don't!
	War anymore!
	It's, like, a really bad idea!
	And we don't agree, but, like, all that stuff?
	Yeah, we're, like, that's all, that's what we're, that's what we're aiming at, that's what we're driving for, and so it's just, I get that he's referencing it, but not really Again, it's like the right thing for the wrong reason.
	Over and over.
	And apparently Tucker is radical and against the establishment now as well.
	He's anti-establishment.
	Apparently.
	But first, let's again get into the White House press dinner because that's very important.
	Did you see the White House press dinner?
	What a cozy little jamboree with Joe Biden joking about the free press and how the press and the establishment have to work together.
	The free press is a pillar, maybe the pillar of free society.
	Yeah, that was apparently supposed to be a joke.
	I mean, Russell, you know what a joke is.
	You're a comedian.
	You know, you're still doing comedy specials.
	This is just Joe Biden saying, hey, the free press is important.
	That's it.
	That's all that clip is.
	Yeah, I mean, and there is definitely steps that he could take to, you know, like any, any antitrust law.
	Ever being enforced in America sure would do a lot of good.
	But yeah, like Russell Brand's coming from a totally just like off the wall, like Joe Biden just said a true thing.
	Yeah, yeah.
	Yet again, he's playing a clip that debunks his own argument and presenting it as something that is supporting him.
	It's completely batshit.
	Yeah, well next week we get to learn a couple of the people that Tucker Carlson can be compared to.
	How can you have an establishment and press working together to keep ordinary people ignorant and bewildered and claim that it's anything like a free country with free comms?
	Voices that attack the establishment, that attack the deep state, that attack the corporatization of America and indeed the world are necessary at this time.
	That's why Julian Assange is in prison, that's why Edward Snowden's in Russia, and that's why Tucker Carlson's no longer on Fox News.
	Even though I disagree with Tucker Carlson about a bunch of stuff.
	Tucker Carlson is like Edward Snowden and Julian Assange.
	They're the same.
	They're the same.
	That's amazing.
	That's amazing.
	I'm just, I'm like, I'm not even mad, I'm impressed.
	He ate the whole wheel of cheese.
	That's just really, that's a lot.
	Like, I, okay, okay, okay, okay.
	It is so frustrating, and I'm going to keep bringing this up, that like, I know how I sound.
	I say things that I mean, that I learned about, and he and I, Russell and I do like, some things sound very similar.
	And that makes me furious because I am not coming from... I don't know.
	I'm not a grifter.
	I'm honestly overwhelmed at what... But also, it's just completely batty to... I don't know.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	I hope I made an exasperated gap to edit.
	I paused for too long.
	I'm actually, I'm going to keep that in.
	I'm going to keep that in because it shows just how much this fucking guy can wear on you.
	My God.
	It's really, yeah.
	I'm being beaten down as we speak.
	I'm just like, oh, okay.
	Yeah, yeah.
	I thought at the outset of this, like, OK, we're going to get some cover for Tucker here.
	But the extent he takes it to is astonishing.
	And I can assure you that we are nowhere near done with how far we're going to go here.
	In fact, I really love this next couple of clips.
	One of the things that surprises me is that people that oppose Tucker on cultural issues aren't willing to see that when it comes to things like the criticism of the war, their willingness to attack the establishment, the critiques of the military-industrial complex, the ongoing attacks of the deep state, that these are exactly the arguments of what was once known as the radical left just 20 years ago.
	So Tucker is an old school leftist now!
	There we go.
	Russell, it's not that we don't see when Tucker says something that isn't just hateful bile, it's that the anti-war messages or anything else he says that's sensible doesn't outweigh the hateful bile.
	And I'm quite content with throwing the baby out with the bathwater on this one.
	Out the fucking window with you, Tucker.
	Well, okay, that's even giving him too much credit because like, really, truly, because anything that he just manipulates is just manipulating for watching.
	And again, like Max Blumenthal before, it feels like Russell Brand Uh, has a little, like, action figure.
	Has a little Tucker action figure.
	And someone said, Tucker's anti-war.
	And go.
	And he's just playing at an idea that, like, Uh, well, if he says anti-war things, where is he coming from?
	Doesn't matter!
	Like, he's a child.
	He has, like, a child's notion of, like, politics and, you know, social conditions.
	They're just playing with little action figures.
	I don't know.
	In this case, I feel like it's more nefarious.
	I think he knows what he's doing.
	I think... Yeah, I don't disagree.
	I don't disagree.
	It's just... But, like, the stuff coming out of his mouth.
	He's like, I'm Tegger Girls and I'm anti-war!
	Yeah, it's definitely a childish presentation of the reality.
	But I think that is pretty much the only way you can provide cover for someone like that, is by not acknowledging how fucking harmful they actually are.
	Yeah, exactly.
	This next clip gets more into how Tucker is actually an old school leftist.
	Cast your mind back to the late 60s or the early 70s, the counter-cultural movement, the civil rights movement, Black Panthers, women's movement.
	You wouldn't find the radical left on the same side as the Department of Defence and the CIA going, we've got to get rid of that guy.
	For real, how much would you love to have seen a meeting between Tucker Carlson and the Black Panthers?
	How much would you love to see that?
	Oh, I would.
	Oh, I would pay money to see how quickly it took for him to be shot.
	Because it wouldn't take long.
	Well, but that's the thing, is the misunderstanding of the Black Panthers is so outrageous.
	Like, I mean, just, no, they probably, I'd like to watch the yelling portion, frankly.
	That's what I, I'd tune out for that one.
	That bit first, for sure.
	But I feel like white nationalists goes to have a chat with Black Panthers, probably not going to go well.
	I wouldn't even need a feed on anyone else.
	I just want to see Tucker, because we already know he's scared of Black people just existing.
	We already know that they're already scary.
	So just on his face, I just want to see I mean, I want any of these bigots to get screamed at by a black person, just to give them a taste of their own medicine.
	Come on!
	Yeah, in a world that was safer for black people to do that, I 100% agree.
	I think that is what should happen.
	Oh yeah, my situation is in a vacuum, absolutely.
	Yeah, but that's absolutely what should be happening.
	Um, yeah.
	Oh my gosh.
	No, no, no, it counts.
	Like even, I mean, I cannot imagine.
	Yeah, like Tucker wouldn't be in a room with Black Panthers.
	No, no, no, it doesn't.
	So that's, I feel like, I feel like a person that's having a more honest argument
	would realize that even just like, don't bring it up.
	You don't need this.
	It's so, like, absurd on its- again, it's, like, absurd on its face.
	They're like, why are you- why do you keep telling on yourself?
	Why do you keep- A hundred percent, but he doesn't want an honest argument, that's why.
	He's just gonna keep throwing out bullshit and we'll see what sticks.
	He doesn't want an honest argument, that's why.
	That's why.
	He's just going to keep throwing out bullshit and we'll see what sticks.
	Oh God.
	And here's a little more.
	But if we are far right for agreeing that the establishment needs to be took to task, then what have they become if they're on the same side as the Department of Defense or the Pentagon or the world's biggest corporations?
	What's happened to them?
	Yeah, that's not why we're saying that you're far right, or why Tucker is far right.
	It's not being anti-establishment, it's being anti-vax, pro-white, pro-Russia, pro-Trump and almost all the other bullshit that you support while intentionally detracting from anyone trying to do anything good in the world.
	And taking all the money.
	Also taking all the money.
	Yeah, yeah.
	Immensely capitalist.
	Yeah, yeah.
	And using it to propagandize.
	Yeah, yeah.
	And that as well.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	Are you just not examining where your money comes from?
	That's... boy.
	I'm like trying to quell the, like, fount within my soul of like...
	Believe me, I get it.
	I get it.
	I 100% get it.
	You fall on this sword for all the rest of us!
	I have to edit this fucking thing together.
	Oh my lord.
	Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy, oh boy, oh boy.
	Okay.
	All right.
	Okay.
	Yeah, yeah.
	But here we get into what you can do.
	And it's interesting to observe, isn't it, and let me know what you think in the chat and the comments, that if you go on the TV and attack the war machine, attack the deep state, attack the mainstream media, attack the two-party system, that in the end you will be excluded.
	It makes you wonder how much control Rupert Murdoch has over Fox and how much it is a reflection of his own ideology.
	I used to think, well, maybe they don't care what anyone says as long as it's generating views and revenue and money and power.
	Like having me on there, it's like, they don't care if I'm anti-establishment.
	They just think, who gives a shit?
	shit what that little limey's saying but now I'm starting to think oh wow there's the potential
	that voices like ours voices like yours can really make a difference
	you can really make a difference by giving me money Here, subscribe to my locals channel.
	You can make a difference.
	He almost had it.
	He was a gnat's wing.
	He brushed up against the truth and then just shot right past it.
	He keeps doing that.
	That was even personal.
	He's like, yeah, it doesn't matter that I'm on Fox News.
	They don't care.
	What I even say because they know that it's not going to do anything.
	They've hedged their bets and I can say whatever.
	Sorry, that was my fault.
	No, 100%.
	It's Charlie Brown on the football.
	Every time.
	Every time he just falls flat on his face and he keeps doing it.
	Almost had it.
	So close.
	Nah, nah, there we go.
	There we go.
	Unfortunately, as you probably just saw, in this next clip we have to listen to Tucker say something.
	And yet at the same time, and this is the amazing thing, the undeniably big topics, the ones that will define our future, get virtually no discussion at all.
	War.
	Civil liberties.
	Emerging science.
	Demographic change.
	I would say that those are very important subjects, perhaps the most important subjects.
	Demographic change is of course the subject that people say suggests that Tucker Carlson is talking about race and the balance between different races in America and stuff like that.
	Personally, I feel that alliances between cultural groups that are not operating in the top tiers of the establishment is an absolute priority.
	And I wouldn't participate in the promotion of any ideas that turn people of different cultures, colours, races, ideologies against one another.
	Me personally, that's not the way to go.
	Rich!
	That's rich!
	Yep.
	Russell, your entire mission is to turn people of different ideologies against each other and then profit off it.
	That's your entire gig right now.
	You just, okay, okay.
	That is so, I mean, here's, I was preparing myself to hear stuff like that, or at least trying to.
	And I am of the disposition that I still become epileptic.
	I don't, epileptic, I don't know why, I don't know.
	They can still get my going.
	I'm just like, wow, buddy.
	I mean, but that's truly like, and it, It's almost like he is taking on the Tucker speak, um, the, the Tucker tactics in this segment in particular, because Tucker says just the opposite.
	Yeah.
	It's like, it's just the opposite.
	I wonder if there's even a, uh, an amalgamating of like, you know, integrating of other grifter behaviors to hone his own grifter skills too.
	Cause he's gonna, he's like, he he's, He's an effective entertainer, he's gonna learn and grow in his skills, unfortunately.
	And so that, just because you say you are, just because you say it means nothing.
	Like, I just, I'm gonna be especially diligent about pointing any, especially racism.
	I mean, I feel like I want to.
	Yep, the racism and antisemitism are things that we're both pretty well versed in recognizing at this point.
	So what I want you to pay attention to in this clip that I've just played is the framing of the argument that Tucker's about to make.
	So he's here talking about... What was it?
	What's the word I'm looking for?
	Tucker said a little bit of everything.
	He did, didn't he?
	Yeah.
	Oh, my mind's gone completely blank.
	Demographic change, right.
	He's here talking about demographic change and a bunch of other bullshit, basically.
	He did mention war at the very start, but mostly the other stuff.
	He named a lot of other things after that.
	But just look at the way that Brand frames this next clip.
	But when it comes to the debate around war, when have you seen in the mainstream media a reasoned debate about trying to pursue a diplomatic solution?
	Debates like that are not permitted in American media.
	Both political parties and their donors have reached consensus on what benefits them, and they actively collude to shut down any conversation about it.
	So you see that there?
	So what Tucker was talking about was all the other shit.
	He was talking about demographic change and we're not allowed to talk about that.
	Russell then goes off on a completely different fucking thing about moderate discussions, about ending war diplomatically, and presents what Tucker's saying as being about that instead.
	It's deliberate and deceptive editing.
	It's just... it's... it's... okay.
	I'm dead.
	I've died.
	It's complete bollocks.
	Next up, we have, I think, what is probably my favourite comparison of Tucker Carlson, who he can be compared to.
	I really liked this one.
	Suddenly the United States looks very much like a one-party state.
	That's exactly what Noam Chomsky is saying as well.
	That there is more censorship in your country, America, than there is in Russia.
	Noam Chomsky, about as far left as it's possible to go without it becoming, I don't know, it's not an angle anymore.
	You'd go back round to the right, which is what a lot of people are saying obviously.
	Let me know in the chat and the comments if you think that Tucker and Chomsky are right.
	Tucker Carlson is Noam Chomsky.
	They're the same.
	They're the same.
	And the left wing are the right wing now.
	By which I'm assuming Brand means fascistic, which is just plainly not true.
	So there was an opinion stated by Noam Chomsky while being interviewed by Russell Brand, which we might get to at some point.
	that the US media is worse at censorship than Russia due to how hard it is to access Russian
	media since the war with Ukraine began. This is a laughably poor take from a 94 year old man who
	has quite honestly lost touch with reality. But I'm not going to hold it...
	Which is fair!
	It's completely fair!
	Like, I'm not going to hold it too much against him because the man is 94 years old!
	Of course he's not got his finger on the pulse of current events.
	Like, I don't think the human brain can cope with doing it for that long.
	And, you know, he had his good moments and now just, yeah, take a nap.
	Fucking go to bed.
	Go to bed, Chomsky.
	Go to bed.
	Well, yeah, like, he had excellent, like, yeah, there's an academic career.
	There's like a whole...
	I mean, I also can't imagine that if you laid out all of your stances, your pursuits, in a way that Noam Chomsky could examine all in one basket.
	I don't know that he'd be on your team, Russ.
	I really don't think so.
	I think he might even, you know, at a ripe old age, point out, like, well, I think you're picking and choosing.
	I feel like they're replacing, I've heard this a lot in the periphery of, as far as far right pundits
	are kind of replacing their Martin Luther King out of context manipulations of what MLK said
	and I'm hearing it with some Noam Chomsky in as well.
	Yeah, there is a little bit more of that.
	I feel like we'll hear more of this, which is even more difficult
	because Noam Chomsky put out a lot of information in his career.
	So it's the same challenge with like having a gigantic pile of information,
	which like if you were into the left and like leftist pursuits when you were young,
	I've had a long time to take in the Chomsky things, the Chomskyisms over the years.
	Yeah.
	People now, like, that's a lot of information to compress when you have to finally understand it, and so it's easy to manipulate the information because there's so much of it.
	Yeah, and also, you know, I've not really kept that much of a track on what Chomsky's been doing over the last decade.
	I think the last interview that I saw with Chomsky was about 10 years ago.
	That's true.
	So I'm not 100% sure whether he's Producing more epically bad takes like that one.
	Whether that's happening or not, I don't know.
	It's possibly something to look into.
	We might have to take a little look at that interview with Brand here just to see how that goes.
	I get the distinct feeling it's just going to make me feel sad, but we'll see.
	I'll give it a look and we'll see if it's worth covering.
	Still not in a hurry.
	I'm not in a hurry to be bummed about that.
	No, exactly.
	I'll get to it.
	Just because, like, that also doesn't invalidate any of the good points that he's made.
	No, no, 100% not.
	You know, like, you haven't changed the whole, like, the drive of Noam Chomsky's life, you know, like, work, by recontextualizing a couple things at the end.
	What would happen is that they would say, oh, this guy's left wing, and even he says this stuff, you know, because Chomsky is such a, you know, such a icon, you know, in that in that sense.
	But that, that, fuck him.
	Right, yeah, we're getting into, we're now going to pivot a little bit into the culture war.
	Tucker Carlson is right.
	The orthodoxies are dead and brain dead, bereft of ideas.
	All they are is the advocates and managerial classes stewarding the agenda of the corporate elites.
	There's no original ideas coming from there.
	That's why they have to agitate us into a state of constant friction around cultural issues, just so that there is some febrility, just so there's some energy around it.
	New ideas will come from new alliances.
	New ideas will come from new conversations.
	The old orthodoxies are indeed dead.
	By old orthodoxies, what he means is the mainstream media here.
	And it's fascinating to me that he's saying, oh, they engage in culture wars to distract us, when it's his darling Tucker Carlson who's been the one pushing them the hardest for years.
	And even at the moment, we have all the bullshit about drag performers going on, right?
	Like, bills being fucking passed in Florida, etc, etc.
	Like, culture wars have been almost exclusively pushed by the right wing over the last century, to the level and degree where if the media didn't discuss it, they'd then be accused of censorship.
	So it's like, well, you're fucked either way at that stage.
	Yeah, your team is buying Bud Light to shoot on their property!
	What else could that possibly say except, I wish I could shoot the trans person that made me mad at the Bud Light, but I can't, so I'm gonna shoot cans of Bud Light instead.
	And I'm mad at the trans person because deep down they made me want to fuck them and I'm not sure how I feel about that.
	I don't want to entertain the notion that I could find a assigned male at birth and now a female human being.
	Heaven forfend.
	I mean, it's really gross.
	And at the end of the day, the quote-unquote culture war stuff, there are things that conservatives or the conservative pundit will just throw out of left field.
	And then there's stuff that they're just telling on themselves.
	They're like, no, you do that.
	You do that.
	You do that.
	You're doing it right now.
	You do that.
	And you make money off of it.
	Yeah, and there was also the porn search results from the most heavily Republican states.
	Did you see those?
	Yeah, where it's all like, ah, there's a lot of trans porn for you guys!
	It's funny that!
	It's funny how you're so against it and he thinks the lady doth protest too much.
	Yeah, I think that you want to be able to control it and still have access and keep them in the minority, in a dangerous minority, so you can do whatever you want to a section of people that should be allowed to just exist.
	It's, I mean, yeah, the Pornhub, I mean, listen, there's a lot of problems with Pornhub, there's a lot of problems with any major company, but that is a political act they don't have to take to release the state searches every year, and they do it.
	And that's boss level.
	It's phenomenal.
	There are a lot of things that Pornhub do correctly, and that is absolutely one of them.
	Right, so we're about to get into a bit more of Tucker and talking about truth.
	Truth.
	When honest people say what's true calmly and without embarrassment, they become powerful.
	At the same time, the liars who've been trying to silence them shrink and they become weaker.
	What?
	That's the iron law of the universe. True things prevail.
	Where can you still find Americans saying true things?
	There aren't many places left, but there are some and that's enough. As long as you can
	hear the words, there is hope. See you soon.
	Take a wild guess as to where he probably thinks there are Americans saying true things.
	I'm gonna go with Stormfront, maybe?
	And Breitbart.
	Yeah, maybe some Breitbart in there.
	Info Wars, yes.
	Tomorrow's News Today.
	Yeah, man.
	Okay.
	Anything that's pushing the Great Replacement narrative that he so adores.
	Yeah!
	That's also the undercurrent.
	Okay, what really blows my mind is if you just look at the words he says, they are so vague.
	He is so vague as to not be saying anything.
	He's like the back of a shampoo bottle.
	Yeah, you could have a spiel about truth on the back of shampoo.
	Yeah, absolutely.
	What's the difference?
	I mean, listen, really, truly, and not even a Dr. Bronner's.
	We're not going that far into specifics.
	He's the back of a Pantene bottle telling you about how Pro-V is going to make your coat shiny or whatever.
	Truly, it's not even that specific.
	I can't think of an example.
	I mean, when you read artist statements.
	We need to make art for a living, or if you're around it a lot.
	That's a good amount of vagary.
	But it's so vague to be meaningless, and then he relies on the prevailing narratives that you can't say out loud to just fill in the gaps.
	And your brain can fill anything in!
	Yeah, there's a lot.
	There's a lot that's just being insinuated.
	We're talking about there aren't many people telling the truth anymore.
	It's like, okay, that means that I can discount anything that mainstream media are saying, and anything that therefore most people are saying.
	So where can I find some minority voices?
	And what are they saying?
	Oh, we're all being replaced by brown people.
	Oh, I don't like that.
	And there we go.
	There's Tucker in a fucking nutshell.
	Yeah, I guess it's shocking to actually, like, because even just, I mean, I'm a little resentful that I have to look at his terrible moon face.
	Sorry.
	Yeah.
	It's fine.
	It's fine, guys.
	I'm here.
	I'm in it.
	I'm doing it.
	To just listen to the actual sentences that he says.
	I'm trying to just take it at face value.
	And even I have a background understanding, because I live in the world, of the things he's insinuating, and my brain will fill in the gaps.
	And I was trying at that last clip just to listen to the sentences that he was saying.
	And it was barely Barely not gibberish, like corporate speak gibberish.
	And so and it seems very like it's not like he goes off script.
	He's very like crafted.
	It's just it's it feels like a like a like a corporate speak legalese kind of like very Yeah, it's very plain, very bland, very white, and yet he still gets to say so much with it.
	Yeah, I mean, give it up to those Somalis.
	He knows what he's doing.
	Next we have what I would say, what I would frame as a perfectly reasonable reaction from the Pentagon, etc.
	Russell disagrees with me.
	One thing to note is that the Department of Defence and the Pentagon are very pleased about Tucker Carlson's departure.
	At the upper levels of the Department of Defence, news of Carlson's firing from Fox News Monday was met with delight and outright glee in some corners.
	We're a better country without him bagging on our military every night in front of hundreds of thousands of people, said one senior DoD official.
	To me, that sounds perfectly reasonable.
	This guy was always a dick about us.
	I'm glad he's gone.
	Seems fair, right?
	But watch where Russell takes it.
	I would say that a bigger problem for the military are the fact that 50% of their budget goes directly to private military contractors like Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, etc.
	And members of the military are significantly likely to end up homeless, are unlikely to be able to afford their own shelter, and in significant numbers are using food stamps.
	These things are all true.
	Much easier to blame Tucker Carlson for bagging on the military, rather than acknowledging that the military are always used as heroes when convenient, but are discarded whenever necessary.
	What people are suggesting is that the fact that 50% of military budgets end up in the hands of the Pentagon, that $1,000 a year from average Americans is ending up in the hands of the MIC, check those figures, I'm afraid it's true, is not the best way to direct the finances of a country in crisis.
	So there we go.
	Right.
	Yeah!
	Except it's fucker crap!
	Yeah!
	Exactly.
	This is the thing.
	It's a traditional fucking straw man here setting up one argument and then making a completely fucking unrelated one.
	And asserting that that's the issue all the time.
	The Pentagon and the Department of Defense applauding Tucker Carlson leaving has nothing to do with what he's saying at all.
	And yet he's presenting them as being Linked in some way that, oh no, you shouldn't be shitting on Tucker Carlson, you should be sorting out all these other problems that have fucking nothing to do with it.
	So yeah, the things Brand says here are largely accurate, as you've said, and I'm in agreement with him that the military-industrial complex is a big problem that the US has.
	Both figuratively and literally.
	However, his bombshell that the average taxpayer sends $1,000 a year to the military is no great shock when you consider how massive the budget for the military is every year.
	Like, of course some of that comes from taxes.
	It's maths, Russell.
	It's fucking maths.
	That's it.
	Like, of course that is true.
	I'm mad about it literally all the time.
	Every time I have to do my taxes, like as a neurodivergent human being, it's already not great to start the process every year.
	The tax system sucks, I have to say.
	But like, I think about it the entire time I'm doing it, and I'm furious.
	The numbers I've heard are 40 cents of every dollar.
	And that makes me, like, it makes me so, like, I could combust at any moment, I'm so mad.
	But it's been built in so, it's been woven so tightly into our society that dismantling it is not like we can't dismantle it with what Russell Brand,
	like, I'm sorry, was Tucker Carlson saying one thing about the American people being
	like bought and sold to Lockheed Martin Raytheon? Like, no, no.
	That's never, like, he's making all these valid arguments that, listen, I don't, I didn't watch Tucker every day, I don't know a lot, I can't honestly do that.
	Nor should you.
	Tucker.
	Right.
	But from my understanding is, uh, Tucker, at least at some point, expressed that he wanted our military might to be used on migrants and people that, like, It's not that he's anti-war.
	He just wants the aggression to be directed where he wants it to be.
	Yeah, yeah, it's anti-brown people and the whole issue with what's happening in the Ukraine and Russia at the moment is that there's lots of white people dying and he doesn't like that.
	That's detracting from his numbers.
	Again, we're getting replaced by the brown people, dammit!
	So next up we have a clip illustrating how Tucker abandoned his values to support Trump and Brand is reading from an editorial from the American Prospect.
	Though Carlson spent years as a staunch libertarian, he made a populist turn around the time of Trump's election, rejecting many of the free market doctrines he'd previously espoused.
	Republican leaders will have to acknowledge that market capitalism is not a religion.
	Market capitalism is a tool, like a staple gun or a toaster.
	You'd have to be a fool to worship it, Tucker said in a typical segment.
	Our system was created by human beings for the benefit of human beings.
	We do not exist to serve markets, just the opposite.
	What even that critique reveals is that Tucker Carlson is aware that free market ideology is beyond just economic utility and is being used to advance a particular agenda that benefits a particular strata of society and that is deleterious to the values of the majority of people.
	And that we need new principles and new values or perhaps traditional old ones to be at the core of our belief systems.
	Without that we have apathy and inertia in one portion of the culture and a very insidious invisible ideology making sharp incisions throughout the body of the rest of the state.
	Did you catch that?
	Did you catch that?
	We need traditional values in order to save us from capitalism, apparently.
	It's fascinating that he seems to believe Tucker is aware of capitalism only benefiting a few white rich men at the top, when Tucker is one of those rich white men.
	And Russell, while less rich than Tucker Carlson, so are you!
	Yeah!
	Are either of you doing anything with your money to Make capitalism less in control?
	I think they're doing things to make more money.
	Yeah, how much of that Swanson fortune is going to, like, you don't want, like, you like, like, you like if you benefit how, how society's been stratified.
	How are you not seeing this?
	That's nuts!
	Like, Tucker, Tucker is the least of what, like, the apple cart was upset For him, by being fired.
	Like, that's already probably way more than he ever bargained for.
	Y'all don't want to upset the Applecart at all.
	You don't want any wealth redistribution.
	What?
	What?
	Okay.
	All right.
	Yep.
	Taking a breath.
	Yeah, we have to get a little bit more into Ukraine now, unfortunately.
	Let's do it.
	In the past year, Carlton also broke with the Washington political establishment to express scepticism about the US sending tens of billions of dollars in weapons and security assistance to Ukraine.
	He has questioned the prevailing insistence that the war is not a proxy battle between superpowers and that the United States is not at war with Russia.
	The television host censured the Biden administration after comments made by the president that indicated the goal of US involvement in Ukraine was regime change, which White House spokespeople then had to walk back.
	Biden wasn't insinuating that the goal of the war in Ukraine is regime change.
	Just a reminder, it's a defensive war where Russia are trying to take over Ukraine.
	What Biden expressed was outrage that someone like Putin is allowed to stay in power and that Putin should either step down or be removed by Russia.
	Interestingly, it was considered a gaffe at the time, and some people thought, oh, maybe Biden misspoke, but he actually doubled down on his sentiments.
	He was like, no, that fucker shouldn't be in power, and I'm standing by it.
	I'm like, you know what?
	You're right.
	He said a couple things that are, again, to use an antique term, based.
	Like, yeah, yeah.
	I was like, you know what?
	You are bang on, my friend.
	Dark Brandon has been cool a few times.
	And again, we don't like admitting it from the left, or we wish that was all the time.
	Like, put your money where your mouth is.
	Like, oh man, those are some great ideas.
	Maybe, like, support some policy or get your own house in order a little bit to actually combat that?
	No?
	Okay.
	Great.
	Fine.
	If anything, go harder, please.
	Yeah.
	I mean, also, so even those quotes were weird from the article, like, Yeah, so the American Prospect, I did a little bit of digging.
	It's a fairly old kind of thing.
	It seems to get a lot into the minutiae of economic policy a lot of the time.
	There are a few poorly written, much like this one, op-eds that tend to lean a little bit closer to the right.
	Generally, if I had to describe them from what I've seen of the American Prospect, I would say they're a kind of center-right sort of narrative.
	Nothing particularly batshit in either case, but yeah, not enjoying this op-ed thus far, gotta be said.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	Kind of rhino territory is where they would be placed, you think?
	Yeah, I would say so.
	In the, in capital T, capital T, the discourse?
	Capital T, the discourse?
	Like, okay, alright, okay.
	Yeah, yeah.
	Next up we have something that is incredibly infuriating.
	Carlson repeatedly invited on independent journalists and commentators critical of American military adventurism.
	Political commentator Jimmy Dore told Fox News viewers, your enemy is not China, your enemy is not Russia, your enemy is the military-industrial complex.
	And it's amazing to see those kind of voices on Fox News.
	You're unlikely to see those kind of voices on Fox News after the departure of Tucker.
	So who benefits from that?
	Did you see Tucker Carlson asking outright, what is the intention in this war?
	When would it end?
	When do we know that the objectives have been met?
	Is there a limit to the amount of expenditure?
	And I would add to that, is there a democratic process?
	Could we vote for how much aid to spend?
	Could we simultaneously be pursuing a diplomatic solution?
	Those things didn't used to be called right-wing talking points.
	And the fact that they suddenly are suggests that there's something bigger happening in
	the culture than just, I don't know, Tucker Carlson is a terrible guy.
	Oh, God.
	Mate.
	Yeah, I find that clip so very hard to watch.
	So yeah, the reason it's right-wing talking points is because you seem just perfectly happy with Russia just taking over Ukraine.
	That's partly why.
	Yeah, it's imperial solidarity is the issue.
	And Fox News will inevitably continue to spout pro-Russian propaganda because it serves their interest to do so with or without Tucker Carlson.
	That's a complete bullshit argument.
	Just okay.
	I'm sorry.
	Also, like, the Jimmy Dore of it all?
	I almost slipped a table and walked out of the room.
	Like, oh yeah, diverse points of view like Jimmy Dore?
	Get.
	Out.
	Of.
	Here.
	Ma'am.
	Pick up your purse and go home.
	That's crazy.
	Okay, alright.
	We're starting to get an idea of what these people consider to be diverse.
	I'll say that.
	Yeah, like, they're a small group of friends who agree with them.
	Other white men, like, there's a couple smattering.
	Like, it's just really, because also, like, you've got this article that is an excellent tool, excellent tool for Russell Brand to use.
	And even, I just, like, I don't think they've talked about one thing that One point Tucker has put effort into making.
	It just doesn't...
	No.
	Not at all.
	This is an exercise in obfuscation.
	That's all it is.
	It's very interesting to examine the motives as to why Russell is doing this.
	Why is he so ardently defending Tucker Carlson?
	You know, it's not a good look.
	Well, yeah, right.
	He sees himself in Tucker Carlson and won't say it.
	And like, yeah, I mean, it's a solidarity move again.
	I mean, it's just it's the thing is, is if I take a step back and also make some assumptions about someone's inner life, I guess, or just but it feels a little more obvious to examine the financial motivation.
	is he's trying to, like, 'cause we don't know the ramifications of Tucker, you know, like,
	Mm-hmm.
	being fired in the long term, but it seems like there could be a lot of free, radical audience
	to grab. I feel like that was something that's been happening.
	I mean, it's hungry, hungry hippos as soon as Tucker was no longer at, you know, being top dog.
	I don't know if he'll be able to get back there.
	I'm going to hoover up some profitable shitheads now.
	Let's go for it.
	It's like, well, if I can trap them, it makes sense to flatter Tucker to get people to come on board.
	Oh, man.
	Yeah, this is ten minutes of trying to charm Tucker's audience, that's what this is.
	This is, hey, come and join us on Locals!
	Right, what comes next?
	Oh yeah, more bullshit.
	In one recent instance, Carlton aimed his signature incredulity at Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's comment that the most important thing going on in the world right now is the war in Ukraine.
	No, the most important thing going on in the world right now is the state of your country, the one you're supposed to run, the people you're supposed to represent, whose lives you're supposed to care about, the ones who can't buy food or gas, the people overdosing on fentanyl, he said.
	The fact that that voice is reaching a large audience for me is encouraging and shows that there are people that care about issues that are ultimately about the failing social fabric of America.
	If the mainstream media as represented by CNN and MSNBC are not willing to carry those messages So the neoliberal left is the mainstream media now?
	That's us?
	on the issues just listed in that one statement, then I think it's not only likely, but beneficial
	that voices from elsewhere take up that cause.
	That ain't the fault of the populist right.
	That is the failure of the neoliberal left.
	So the neoliberal left is the mainstream media now?
	That's us, apparently.
	(Katya sighs)
	Okay, I mean, the thing is, is like, the argument, like, there's the thing is like,
	there's touches of arguments that could be made.
	A smash ring.
	But you're like that one that particular clip was like.
	I mean, I'm assuming that that was a quote.
	There was a big chunk of that that was a quote from Tucker Carlson directly as delineated on the screen from a quote.
	Yes.
	Yeah.
	That first portion, yeah, was Tucker saying, oh no, it's not about the war in Ukraine.
	It's about this country.
	That's the most important issue.
	Sure.
	Sure.
	Which like, sure, sure, sure.
	I mean, like the thing is on its face.
	Like that, watching Tucker actually speak, you know, a little while back, I was struck by how much
	even my brain was filling in the gaps between the vague things he was saying.
	Yeah, yeah.
	So picking anything he says out of context, you can just make it mean whatever you want, or it can sound good because you don't know what he says before or after.
	Well, there's that.
	But I would also say, even on its face, that argument can fuck off.
	It's the same thing that people say about... No, no, no.
	It's the same thing that people say about foreign aid.
	I can't remember whether it's 2% or 4%.
	I think, I can't remember whether it's 2% or 4%, I think it's 2% of our GDP in the UK
	goes towards foreign aid or whatever, you know, just helping other people.
	And an argument that's frequently spouted on the right wing over here is, oh, why don't we put that towards our own country first?
	It's like, well, there are people out there worse off than us.
	That's just reality.
	In fact, a lot of the times, the people that we're helping are in places that we have bombed.
	So maybe let's take that into consideration.
	But also, the outrage that you're trying to present is not the fact that we're helping other people, it's that we're actually not doing enough for ourselves.
	And that we can fucking agree on.
	We can say, OK, we can fix those issues.
	But it doesn't mean we need to stop helping other people.
	It means we need to, I don't know, maybe tax some billionaires a bit more.
	Maybe some changes in social policy in the US.
	Maybe think about how to completely reform health care for a fucking start.
	There are so many other things, and the problem is not us sending money to other countries.
	The problem is the people in these countries not giving a shit.
	The people with all the money at the top, who it doesn't affect.
	Yeah.
	Well, and to even let a politician get that whole thought out.
	of like, well, we should be like, oh, the money that like that we're worried about the money
	that we're sending out like, well, now you all do have the rest of it in your budget right now.
	I'd like to see a little more attention given again. Yeah.
	That's something that I hear, you know, I'm slightly more libertarian.
	I try to keep abreast of all the different facets of left in my own, like what I try to listen to, and even the more libertarian voices.
	I try to pay attention to her, like, the government already has your money.
	They already have it.
	So let's figure out what to do with it to benefit society, like, you know, like, they already have it.
	Quit saying you're not going to get it because I can guarantee you not one politician is going to say we need less of your money.
	Like, they can say they want to cut taxes to appease rich people, but they're not going to say, like, well, we'll take less money.
	They're going to secure their bag, no matter what.
	What they actually mean when they say we're going to cut taxes, and this is exactly what Trump did, is we're going to cut taxes for the rich people, and the poor people are actually going to pay a little bit more, because that's what we want.
	That's what they mean when they say, I'm going to cut taxes.
	Yeah, they're going to redistribute wealth the wrong way.
	They're going to distribute that wealth up.
	Yeah.
	100%.
	Next up we have a stupid and reductive comparison.
	Shocking, I know, from this show already.
	Finally!
	Little media outlets like The Guardian scolded Carlson for his coverage of the Ukraine conflict, demanding to know who the host was really rooting for.
	Which just sounds like old school, you're not a patriot type stuff that during the Iraq conflict would have been right or left, surely.
	Those wars are not the same, you reductive shitbag.
	Not the fucking same at all.
	There we go.
	Done.
	That's the whole of that.
	Yeah.
	That is the whole thing.
	But yeah.
	Oh my god.
	And that's my point of Tucker Carlson being so vague.
	You can always wonder what side he's rooting for.
	He engineers it that way!
	I feel like Russell Brand is doing an even better job of that.
	The text is in the subtext.
	Subtext. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And we get to some more of that here. You remember
	how I how I told you that the Russell likes to call his audience awakening wonders. You
	know he yeah which which I find aggressively patronizing.
	and...
	And as I said, I think it would make a good kind of Patreon tier, I think, you know, to be an awakening wonder.
	But yeah, he gets into how the media are talking down to their audience.
	A chorus of op-eds on Monday cheered his ouster and the move to rescue his very impressionable audience from dangerous rhetoric.
	Baked into that statement, of course, is the ongoing assumption that you are stupid, that you can't make decisions for yourself, that you need didactic pedagogy instead of informed news giving you as balanced an opinion as possible.
	And of course, Tucker Carlson opined, and of course he had a perspective.
	But often, frequently, it was at odds with the establishment.
	People don't want to be spoken down to like children anymore.
	I believe people want to be given the information, given the chance to have a conversation, and potentially form new alliances that might be surprising.
	The assumption is not that Tucker's audience are stupid, even though a great many of them may be.
	It's definitely possible.
	It's that they've been drawn in by propaganda that inevitably leads to right-wing extremism and events like the January 6th insurrection.
	Thankfully, that brings us to the end of our Tucker analysis.
	And I'm fucking grateful because I feel like I need a shower.
	Yeah.
	However, for now let's get into why we need huge systemic change to move away from capitalism.
	Hello there you awakening wonders.
	Today's show is brought to you by Manscaped, who are the best in men's below the waist and below the snout and within the ear grooming.
	Their products are precision engineered tools like our analysis for your family jewelry.
	Sorry, that's my bad.
	I thought we were getting into moving away from capitalism.
	No, it's an advert.
	Sorry, that's my bad.
	So Brand is sponsored by Manscaped.
	Now, that's an issue.
	What I will say is that I do listen to a lot of, like, drag content, and that's my personal, you know, I enjoy it.
	And I do feel good-ish about companies that are unabashedly sponsoring gay content.
	Manscaped is one of them.
	I feel it's it's like, on one hand, I appreciate that, that they're not going to back down, like say how the LA Dodgers just did, you know, something like that, like, they, they backpedaled, and it was really embarrassing and crappy.
	So, um, I think that capitalism is I don't disagree.
	is accidentally stumbling into being on the right side of history.
	So that's my one caveat.
	I don't feel completely gross about it.
	It gets cancelled out by supporting people like this though.
	That's the problem.
	I don't disagree.
	I think what Manscaped are doing is a very sensible business decision,
	which is just, are these people popular?
	OK, let's advertise there, because I guarantee at least some of them will have hair that needs removing.
	Or maybe they're particularly fastidious as a group about removing hair.
	Maybe.
	You know, that's the thing is, is, uh, um, I feel like things could change if
	pressure was put on Manscaped to stop support.
	That's the thing.
	The steps that have to go into making these really minor changes, it feels insurmountable.
	But if enough people that subscribe to Manscaped say, hey, you're supporting hateful content, they'll react.
	Kind of more quickly than our government will, and that's a bummer, but it's true.
	Exactly, and that's partly why we do this, because it's possible that Manscaped have no fucking idea how much of a shithead Russell Brand is, because a lot of people don't seem to have an idea of how much of a shithead Russell Brand is.
	Anyway, off the back of this ad, we have some more important questions from Russell's Locals channel.
	It's really actually quite satisfying because you can hear it.
	You can hear that?
	That's the sound of youth returning.
	He's nose trimming.
	Firegirl2020, what's wrong with hairy balls though?
	She says.
	Well, she's got a point.
	But then RogueNation, you like hairy balls in your mouth?
	What's going on?
	Oh, just the chat.
	That's why it's worth joining the chat.
	Oh, it's the chat, right.
	These are not my views.
	I always wonder.
	They are meant to be hairy, says Lady Girl 3-1-12.
	Then they've gone into something about race there.
	This is the chat.
	It depends how hairy.
	Fire Girl 2020.
	Went into something about race there.
	We'll just glide past that.
	Oopsie poopsie!
	Russell, you weren't supposed to say that bit on the air!
	Shocking!
	That discussion of race pops up in your chat, and you can only read, what, three sentences before it starts getting racist?
	Yeah, yeah, we start talking about balls, and then, oh, went into something about race there.
	Oopsie!
	Oh, good lord.
	And he's also, like, using this moment, just like, oh, that's why you need to get in the chat.
	You know what?
	I don't think I do.
	Yeah, no, you know what?
	I'm good.
	Thus far, you have advertised it as conspiracy theories, chat about the Met Gala and balls.
	And you know what?
	I'm pretty OK without any of those things.
	Yeah.
	I mean, I feel like there's a place on the Internet if you want to know about ball hair and you want to talk about it.
	More power to you.
	Yeah.
	I don't know that this is the place.
	No, no, no, no.
	I almost prefer the Manscaped ad to him plugging his own thing.
	I almost, I'm like, I feel more okay with that for some reason.
	I think because it's more honest.
	It's, here is this thing, I want to sell you this thing.
	You buy a thing!
	Yeah, buy a thing!
	Buy a thing!
	And you know what?
	This thing in of itself is not inherently harmful.
	It is used to trim your various bodily hairs.
	You know, there's only so much harm that can be done with that as an item really
	Whereas russell's entire thing is definitely harmful and and signing up to the locals chat
	I I guarantee will be harmful at the very least to your mental health
	It doesn't seem like a good place to be Let's put it that way
	Um, okay. So listen, right we're gonna in a minute we're talking to Barry Weiss, one of the Twitter firewall
	journalists.
	She's brilliant.
	Spoke to her before.
	On Locals.
	Yeah, so if you're a member of Locals, right, so you're watching this on Rumble now, join Locals, you can, oh dear, that's rude, you can join this rude conversation And also you can watch us live chat to Barry Weiss.
	We always do stuff like when Jordan Peterson came on, we chatted to him live on there.
	When Eckhart Tolle came on, we chatted to him live on there.
	When Vandana Shiva came on, we chatted to her live on there.
	Now Barry Weiss is going to chat to her live on there.
	So join Locals, right?
	Click over there.
	And I think you've got to press that red button.
	Listen to that list of guests.
	So I've not looked into Barry Weiss as we're not going to be covering this conversation because it's behind the locals paywall.
	But she seems to self-describe as a left-wing centrist who hates stifling free speech, whatever that's supposed to mean.
	I think there might be some code in there.
	And she was also named the world's seventh most influential Jew by the Jerusalem Post.
	And again, self-describes as a rabid Zionist.
	I'm gonna say probably not great.
	Yeah, that's my take.
	And I don't think I need to watch the interview to get into that, really.
	She'll come up.
	We'll get there.
	She probably will, as far as I'm aware.
	I pretty hate it.
	But we'll get there.
	Yes, I think what he tends to do with a lot of these kind of locals exclusives is that he'll then kind of release like little clips of them later on, sometimes occasionally the full interviews so you know.
	If we give enough of a shit, we can go into it.
	I think it's the conversation about AI, and we've already gone into Google Man, as Russell calls him, and I don't think it warrants too much more discussion, to be honest.
	I don't think Russell Brand's going to have any particularly hot takes on AI that I'm interested in hearing.
	Or coherent, frankly.
	Or coherent, or in any way knowledgeable whatsoever.
	But you know what?
	The balls chat isn't quite done.
	Yeah, Frenchie Buffs, new to locals, she's just saying, she or he or him or her or they, I don't care.
	And they're getting right in there with a balls chat, a hairy balls chat, nice.
	Regular item, maybe?
	Regular item?
	In future, we could.
	How do you like them?
	Right.
	Like, I mean, if you can make King Charles' head out of chocolate and medals out of bounty bars and stuff, and that is something that's happened, and we'll be talking about that later in the week, then why can't people just chat about nutbags?
	No, they can.
	They can, can't they?
	Yes they can, and I would find your show much more palatable if that's all it was.
	I'd be okay with, instead of Stay Free with Russell Brand, On Balls with Russell Brand.
	That would be fine.
	I'd be okay with it.
	It'd be much less work for me, that's for sure.
	Having said that, I'm willing to bet his chat would find a way to make it interesting for me.
	Oh sure, but that's the other thing.
	There's an angle I'm realizing is that Uh, their chat, like that, that the locals chat, they can even argue about nut hair.
	So there is potentially, obviously I'm making an assumption, but I feel like it's a fairly well-informed one that they can even argue about ball hair.
	Can you imagine the things that they can make an argument out of that is I mean, your preference is your preference.
	I'd say beyond warning people of poor technique, there isn't that much discussion beyond preference.
	Now, uh... I mean, they've made it about race, so I don't know.
	They got there right away!
	That's amazing!
	That's incredible.
	Yeah, but that gives you, like, the audience he's courting and putting in this, like, hive They could even argue about the commercial.
	So, the possibilities are endless.
	That's incredible.
	Gotta make you wonder what they're saying during the main segment.
	I mean, I know Russell said, you know, they're talking about conspiracy theories.
	So, I don't know.
	I don't know.
	Again, we will probably never know because I'm unwilling to give this man any of my money.
	Please don't.
	Please don't.
	Can I draw the line there?
	Yes, we will draw the line there, now and forevermore.
	Right, yes, and I think we have the last little chunk here of this show.
	I'm gonna sneeze.
	Nope, that's the out of context drop.
	See that sneeze technique?
	That's my technique, that's the one I use.
	Still funny.
	Here is the last little jug of the show.
	If you're on Locals, you can stay with us and see us chat to Barry Weiss.
	And I'm going to be watching... I'm personally with a change and I have respect for Barry because she's a brilliant journalist.
	I'm not going to be here feeding dog treats to a German shepherd and chatting to you lot about airy nutbags.
	That's not the way to win a culture war.
	That's not the way to get people to come together against establishment power.
	To throw off the shackles of a media that wants you dumb.
	Okay, hey, see you tomorrow, unless you're on Locals, when I'll see you in a few seconds.
	Click the red button, join us there.
	Not for more of the same.
	We wouldn't dream of insulting you in such a way, but for more of the different, baby.
	Till then, stay free.
	Oh dear.
	And that's how he closes out his show with more run-on bullshit, really.
	He does have a cute dog, I will say that.
	If anyone's watching this, he's got a cute German Shepherd that he's sat there feeding treats to.
	And that was a charming sign-off, truly.
	Yes, yeah, no.
	He's charming as hell.
	Yeah, absolutely.
	Absolutely.
	And therein lies the power of the man.
	I do actually have one more clip that is just the end credits here.
	And it's to illustrate the size of the production Stay Free with Russell Brand is and how large a crew they have.
	[music]
	Okay.
	Yeah.
	Alright, so for those listening, I've stopped. So there's, it's a scrolling amount of people that I stopped counting.
	It's including Russell and Gareth, it's 21 people.
	So that's 19 other crew that are there working on this.
	19 behind-the-scenes workers.
	It's not a small production, nor is it a cheap one, because this is happening in the UK as well, and people get properly fucking paid over here for that kind of thing.
	To be able to...
	It's just my little take there in the middle.
	But to be able to afford the studio, cameras, lighting, and everything else that comes with it, as well as the salaries for 19 crew, and enough money for Russell and Gareth to then make a profit off the top, you have to wonder how much money they're pumping into this thing, and indeed, how much money they're making from it.
	Because it's gotta be a fucking fortune.
	I can say, I do listen to quite a few podcasts, and I follow some YouTubes, mostly Drag Queens, but some other ones too, that have a chat, a Discord you can join, and have a little bit of production, and have the same sponsors.
	And I can tell you, they aren't paying 20 people They are not.
	They could not.
	It's not that they won't.
	They can't.
	It is not anywhere close to possible.
	I can say from the outset, you know, 19 people, I mean, even if you're paying them shit, we're talking about half a million pounds a year, so that'd be like $700,000.
	you know, per year just off the top straight away. So where do we go from there?
	Yeah, and there's maybe other people that are doing social media, whatever. Yeah, there's a lot.
	And yeah, you don't make you don't make that.
	I also don't see him selling supplements, like stuff that's like kind of, you know, like dropshippy, quick money things.
	No, he's not got his own products.
	That's shocking to also find out because that seems like...
	Because also, listen, the Manscaped thing, he's not making a ton of money.
	That's not millions of dollars.
	They're not buying Super Bowl ads.
	Maybe they are.
	No, I mean, it'll be based on how many listeners he has.
	So, you know, the way a lot of the ads work is pay per thousand listens of etc.
	And I mean, Yeah, he's got six and a half million people on YouTube.
	He's got 1.15, I think, million on Rumble.
	So, you know, he's earning.
	Those are subs, right?
	Those are subscribers.
	I'm not sure what his audio numbers are, because obviously this is available through just the audio as well.
	But I imagine add that all together and it's going to be pretty significant, I would say.
	Oh, man.
	But still!
	20 people?
	20 people.
	That's a lot.
	Not to be conspiratorial, but I'm a little curious.
	I'm very curious.
	When you take into consideration the amount of effort that he's putting into covering for Russia and things as well, you really do have to wonder.
	I think it would be very interesting if he happens to land himself in the position of getting sued in the next several years to dissect some of his finances if the opportunity ever becomes available.
	I would be very curious.
	But obviously we will keep We will keep tabs on what he's doing, and, you know, this media empire that he's running out of his pub in Piss Hill.
	It's, yeah, it's a little bit bizarre.
	Also, pubs, you're not like... I mean, drinks and food, like, still, the profit we can see is not adding up.
	Yeah, exactly.
	So is this a money laundering scheme?
	I don't know.
	I don't know.
	Well, I mean, it can be a vanity project and wondering where it doesn't necessarily need to be laundered.
	So I think somebody or a couple of somebodies are getting their money's worth.
	It's what it seems like to me.
	What do I know?
	It's interesting.
	He's also got his own charity as well that's to do with getting clean.
	I hope there's nothing nefarious to do with that.
	I fucking hope not.
	You know, given the amount of shitheadery that's come in other areas of his existence, I wouldn't put it past him.
	But, you know, hopefully he at least has some kind of values in there somewhere.
	And this is part of the discussion about Russell Brand in general, is to how much of his own bullshit he actually believes.
	How much has he been taken in by the same kind of thing?
	How much of the Kool-Aid has he had, so to speak?
	Because I don't think he believes what he's saying about Tucker Carlson, for instance.
	But there are other subjects where he seems quite genuine.
	You know, talking of anti-vax stuff, for instance, he seems to believe his own nonsense, which I can't wait to get into that at some point because it comes up pretty often.
	Well, I think that even bringing up the Tucker thing is is.
	Is I think that he can see himself as a media figure like he doesn't want to be in the same crosshairs Tucker does he wants to be able to operate with impunity so that's his and also even just like class wise like that's who he's going to identify with and defend and it doesn't have to do it doesn't have to be about Tucker at all it's an entirely it can be A completely selfish motivation, because he's like, well, I don't want to see that.
	I don't want to see Tucker, like, anybody come in for Tucker, because they can make the same argument about me.
	And that is, that's, I mean, rich white men have been using that to maintain the status quo for quite some time.
	This is not a new playbook.
	No, man, I just... It was a lot.
	It was a lot.
	I just...
	Ah, okay.
	Alright.
	This is what we're doing!
	We're in it!
	We're doing it now!
	Okay.
	Oh, what's going on here?
	Hang on.
	I think we've lost each other.
	Hello.
	Are you back?
	Yep.
	Okay.
	I don't know what's going on.
	I don't know if it's because I changed the camera perspective or something.
	I don't know.
	Maybe.
	I'm good now.
	I had a little hiccup real quick.
	Okay.
	Yeah, he's got a lot of content.
	He just fucking says things and he says things and he says things.
	There's a lot to dissect and I'm hoping I'm hoping in the future we can try and have some shorter episodes than this.
	Might have to delve into some of his 20 minute pieces, though again, they are choppily edited, much like the Tucker ones, so we'll see.
	But yeah, this has been a lot.
	How are you feeling about the first episode of On Brand?
	Like someone dropped a boulder on me, I think?
	But still hopeful.
	Okay, okay.
	I'll take that.
	I'm holding out hope.
	If I have to cheat my own leg off from under the boulder, I feel like I still have the motivation to do that.
	I didn't necessarily... I knew what to expect from, you know, being a fan of Knowledge Fight and, you know, Being, you know, people like roasting Ben Shapiro at his books or even like, you know, doing segments on Jordan Peterson.
	Like, I know what those things are.
	I am so, I'm still really surprised by some of it and I'm super interested to see where it goes.
	And I'm also wildly intimidated by the task we kind of have set before us.
	So not to sound pathetic, but any amount of help and support is going to go a long way and we're going to try our damnedest to honor every single shred of support that we get.
	A hundred percent, and a lot of the Knowledge Fight subreddit have said that they are already preemptively willing to donate to a Patreon that we have set up.
	If you want to donate to the show, if you like what we're doing, please go to patreon.com slash onbrand and you will find us and several different tiers with which you can donate to the show.
	Generally speaking, I don't want to put anything behind a paywall, to be honest.
	So it won't be that, it will just be pretty much supporting the show.
	The only exception is the very top tier at like $50 a month, because it's a lot of money.
	And, you know, to kind of show our gratitude, I think it'd be cool if you could, like, find a particular subject or day or, like, a topic for us to kind of find an episode and cover.
	I think that would be cool.
	Just a little thank you.
	It wouldn't, you know, it wouldn't really affect our output and our content that hugely, but it'd be cool to, you know, if you've got a request to go down that road.
	Yeah, and I think supporting both of us, because we both do our own work.
	Like, I, you know, I make art and...
	Neither of us have legions of money, I think that's fair to say.
	But, you know, we...
	I think the reality is we'll be doing this anyway.
	Because it's important.
	This guy is on his way up.
	This is not the peak of Russell Brand.
	This is the climb of Russell Brand and there is something to be fucking concerned about in there.
	We don't have any social media set up yet.
	We'll probably get to that at some point in the future.
	I'm on it.
	I'll work on that.
	That's not a problem.
	Yeah, if you're watching the YouTube or the video version, you can hopefully see Lauren's handle there.
	It's appmade.by.lauren.b on Instagram.
	And mine is at alworthofficial.
	And you can find us both that way.
	Yeah.
	And even just supporting us individually, you know, in our endeavors.
	And I would like, since I do, you know, art making is the day job I also have.
	I'm excited for bringing that to the subject matter and having some fun with anyone that, you know, like anyone that's out there listening.
	My partner and I make a lot of really fun stuff.
	And so some inside jokery, some ideas are coming down the pike for just ways to bring Bring the pot into the real world, because that's what we do on the daily, is make a silly t-shirt.
	Yeah, and do cool merch and stuff, like the artwork for the podcast that you can see, that was done by Lauren, and it's fucking cool.
	Thank you, I hated it!
	Yeah, right?
	Yeah, did it all like traditional and shit.
	But yeah, I can vouch that the rest of Lauren's work is super cool as well.
	So absolutely go and check that out.
	Oh, and I think that brings us to a close.
	I think, I think.
	Let me out of here.
	Jane, stop this crazy thing.
	And we will be back.
	We will be back.
	But in the meantime.
	Yes.
	Hello, dog.
	In the meantime.
	Yeah.
	Take a look at our Patreon.
	Let us know what you think.
	Subscribe.
	Rate.
	All that good stuff.
	And, you know, if you like it, spread the word.
	That'll be awesome.
	Thank you so much.
	Thank you for listening.
	Yeah.
	This has been a long one.
	Yeah, even parts!
	Like, thank you so much for hearing us out.
	I'm massively grateful for the opportunity to do this.
	A thousand percent, okay.
	Thank you very much, and goodbye!
	Goodbye!

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