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Sept. 7, 2023 - On Brand

01:09:27

OB #17 - Obama Drama - Part 1

How does Russell feel about Barack Obama? How does it compare to his feelings on Trump? Let's find out. Support us on Patreon! - patreon.com/OnBrand

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	Hello everyone, this is just a quick note to say that this episode, due to scheduling and just general adult life things being a bastard, This here episode is being split into two parts.
	So this first part here should be out regularly scheduled Thursday episode and I'm hoping to be able to have the second part of it out the Friday.
	It'll be Saturday at a push but I'm gonna shoot for Friday.
	Yeah, these things happen.
	We work around it.
	But I'm glad that we can at least give you something of our regularly scheduled content.
	And yeah, don't worry, there still should be a good couple of hours total.
	And hey, I hear some people like it being broken up into chunks anyway.
	So there we go.
	So we appreciate your patience.
	We love you very much.
	And well, here's the episode.
	This is On Brand, a podcast where we discuss the ideas and antics of one Russell Brand.
	I'm Al Worth, and each week I go through an episode of Brand's Show with my co-host, Lauren B. Hi, I'm Lauren B., and I have no idea what we are all about to get into today.
	Mm-hmm, and it's going to be good.
	But first, Lauren, what is your good thing before the bad thing this week?
	I could even just make it that, coming up with that little phrase that's a little more specific.
	I do like it.
	The website has been an entire debacle, but what is cool is that it's still there.
	Made by Laurenb.com is extant and I've gotten to put stuff up for like art up for sale that I was really concerned about because the pieces that I am like carving, carving like these guys, these like art plaque things.
	And And I was really worried because the process I was using was taking forever to dry.
	But we have a new process.
	Looks just as good.
	Takes a fraction of the time.
	So I can unclench my butt about that.
	And I'm fucking literally thrilled.
	Yeah, no, that's terrific.
	Professional, and they look awesome.
	This little bird.
	Yeah, see, I'm touching the surface to this, and it's not wiping off in my hand.
	Yeah, no, that's good.
	That's what you want.
	Professional good things are a real kind of like, because that affects your whole kind of, you know, 40 hours of your week at least, you know, so that's awesome.
	That's really, really good.
	Well, it's something that I don't know enough about the chemistry of these inks yet to diagnose.
	And I got some advice from my gal, Jessie Hardesty.
	She's amazing.
	And also, I was like, well, I don't have this, but I have that.
	So is that going to work?
	And it did!
	It's such a fucking relief!
	You had a proper... I know those moments.
	I know those moments intimately where you're like, oh my god, it works!
	It's a revelation, really.
	It really is.
	And it's like, it is a little bit of a motherfucker that like...
	Technical, you know, like having all of these technical problems that I just can't do anything about, it does just- I'm not familiar with that at all.
	Yeah, right?
	Yeah, like all these technical, you know, like digital problems, but knowing that I can, like I'm not stupid and I'm not an asshole, like I can still figure out how to do Like, oh, I can fix the hell out of a problem in real life, so I'm not a completely useless NPC bumping into things in my life.
	I'm only being gaslit by some technology, but in real life, oh, I can fix the shit out of some shit!
	Yeah, exactly.
	Things that exist you can deal with.
	That's great.
	Like, like nobody's business.
	So that makes me feel good.
	And I like that.
	And, you know, and also just like reaching out to somebody and them just like giving you the help and then it works.
	What the fuck is that?
	Magic.
	Absolute magic.
	It's almost like people, people know things.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	Right.
	Expertise.
	Oh, right.
	Wonderful thing.
	And it's not even monetized or an algorithm or anything.
	I just, my friend made these things and could do me a solid.
	Anyway.
	So what's your good thing before the bad thing we're going to get into?
	So, my good thing before the bad thing this week is my daughter April turned three at the end of last week, and she had a great birthday weekend where she was able and allowed to do pretty much anything that she wanted.
	She was spoiled rotten, got a ton of presents, one of which was one of those cool Tony Boxx things, I don't know if you've seen those?
	So it feels like a very 90s toy to be honest with you because it's like a box, like a cube, and there are these figurines with like a magnetic button to them and then you put them on the box and then they start either singing songs or telling you a story.
	Yeah!
	I have seen these things!
	They're amazing!
	Amazing!
	Super cool.
	I don't remember if somebody... Drag queens I enjoy had to interact with toys for some Netflix content or something.
	That could go in a very different direction than the sentence you just said.
	I know.
	Gotta keep you on your toes!
	There was a toy that I was like, I want that toy.
	Yeah, the Tony box!
	It's cool, and all of the figures, they're all licensed.
	You know, you've got Disney ones.
	April's super into Cocomelon, so she's got a Cocomelon one, and Paw Patrol, she's got a Paw Patrol one, and a Jungle Book one.
	Haven't managed to get that far into that one.
	I think she finds the opening music a little bit creepy.
	But still, there's some really cool stuff.
	Like the Jungle Book?
	Like the regular?
	Yeah, yeah, yeah, the movie.
	The original.
	Fair Necessities?
	The original, yeah, yeah, yeah.
	I get it.
	We accepted some pretty strange bullshit for entertainment.
	I understand.
	I'm really pleased with that particular gift, because it keeps her entertained without having to get screens involved, and oh my god that's a blessing, it really is.
	And you can get cool language ones as well, like if I get a French one she might just appear talking French at some point, you know, things like that.
	It's cool, it's very cool.
	It gives me Teddy Ruxpin, like very much Teddy Ruxpin, which like, I live.
	That was the toy.
	I did not have one.
	My best friend had one.
	And it was a moment.
	I'm very pleased.
	And the only thing about these is that they are quite, like, the initial cost is fairly expensive, but thankfully it was a gift, so I didn't need to worry about that, and then extra figurines are like, you can get them second hand for less than ten bucks here, so I'm like, that's great.
	Yeah, and it's like an hour of content on each one.
	Oh, really?
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	I mean, they vary a little bit, but yeah, you can get like, with some of them, like the Frozen one or the Coco one.
	I really want to get that one because I love that movie and the music in it, but they do the storytelling and the music.
	I'm like, oh, that's great.
	That's perfect.
	That's rad.
	It seems like such a fun thing.
	And it is very, like, Teddy Ruxpin or, like, you know, storybooks that used to have little buttons that would talk.
	I mean, we've all established what a little weird nerd I was from the jump, so... Ooh, learning melts my...
	ALICE Yeah, I'm very pleased about that.
	Yeah, she just had a great time, and had cake for breakfast, y'know, a couple of days running, and we went to a farmyard place, y'know, where she got to feed goats and all that good stuff, and she went on a little tractor ride kind of thing.
	It was good, it was a really good time.
	Really nice and like, yeah, family hanging out and kind of, my dad came up and crashed for a few days.
	That was cool.
	That was good.
	It was good.
	It was good.
	I bet.
	I bet that.
	I'm so glad you guys got to do that.
	That's awesome.
	The few pictures on Instagram, like, yet again, I was like, oh my god, that's so cute!
	And I saw that Mike had already liked him and saw them.
	Bastard!
	He scoops me every time.
	Every time!
	Remind me, I'll text you some exclusive videos from today that only you can see.
	Unless you deign to show them to Mike.
	I wouldn't!
	That's your decision.
	Like, ah, the cuteness is for me!
	I mean, if there's some goats involved, I'm here for it.
	I'm 100% here for it.
	I feel like you described it, and it was like one of my favorite memories as a child was like, and I think that this was universal among anyone in the, like, St.
	Louis area, was bush gardens, or it was like Anheuser-Busch gardens, before like the big bush gardens with Roller coasters and stuff.
	We just had a garden where, like, the Clydesdales would be.
	Right.
	Because St.
	Louis is, like, an Anheuser-Busch brewery.
	It's a whole thing.
	And yeah, watching, like, your grandparents, like, grandpa's pants get tugged on by a goat is, like, our universal experience of total joy.
	Delightful.
	No, she was very pleased we got two bags of feed for them, because I was like, yeah, she's gonna want to feed them.
	Of course.
	Very happy.
	Very, very happy child.
	How wholesome.
	How lovely and wholesome.
	Yeah, yeah, and you know, it's nice to just be able to be like, okay, you know, all of this time, the only thing I need to worry about is making sure that she's happy.
	Like, that's pretty much it.
	And, you know, clean, safe, all of that kind of shit, but mostly just make sure she's happy, and all the attention, and yeah, very, very pleased.
	Very pleased.
	It's like an isolation tank.
	Yeah yeah no because as a parent you honestly don't get it because there's always fucking some shit you've got to do and it's like ah I just want to be able to just hang out with my kid.
	Well you also deserve that break that's awesome.
	Oh thank you that was good that was really really good.
	Now we have a show to get to but first we should thank some of our new patrons.
	We actually We actually have just the one who gets to be an isolated Awakening Wander this week.
	So, you know, congrats to you.
	Paul Doak II, you are now an Awakening Wander.
	You are indeed an Awakening Wander.
	Thank you, Paul.
	Thank you!
	Very much appreciated.
	If anyone wants to support us on what we do, become an Awakening Wanderer, join the Invisible Hand, or donate on an elevated tier, head to patreon.com slash onbrand, and you will have our eternal gratitude.
	As a patron, you will also get a shout-out on the show and access to our patron-only show Offbrand, where we talk about pretty much anything but Russell Brand.
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	Okay, so I was debating what to cover this week, because Russell has been posting shit about aliens, the COVID resurgence, censorship, Tucker Carlson, Trump, and there was also, in the back of my mind, we've got Primer Part 2 as well.
	I'm like, okay, where do I land?
	But as his is a weekday show, it means that his Rumble page generally isn't updated over the weekend.
	So I was staring at it, and I'd watched everything, but I was just staring at his Rumble page, and right at the top, this one thumbnail just kept jumping out at me, and I was like, Alright, we're gonna tackle this.
	And it was an editorial.
	Oh no.
	As always, I'm gonna let Brand tell us what it's all about.
	Barack Obama has pledged to get Biden back in office in 2024.
	But what have we learned about Barack Obama since he left office himself?
	Is he the best president America had?
	Or one of the worst?
	Ah, so we did Trump cover a couple of weeks ago, which was also in an editorial fashion, and so I thought it would be interesting to have sort of a side-by-side comparison of how Russell feels about Barack Obama.
	You know, also in an editorial, you know?
	Especially as Russell regularly says he doesn't care about whether anyone's left or right wing, and he often asserts how it's crazy that anyone calls him right wing.
	Barack Obama, I would say, is probably the best Democratic president in living memory, I would say.
	That statement in of itself is not something I'm pleased about, but suffice to say, did a good job, right?
	Well, I gotta count FDR as living memory.
	Do you?
	I think... How many people are still alive?
	Like, I don't know.
	I don't know.
	I'm so old.
	I need you to know that, like, if you're as old as you feel, the New Deal is a spring chicken to me.
	I feel like what sucks to say is I can I can think any number of nice things but I also believe that like every president we've had in my lifetime should like be tried in the Hague for war crimes so It's hard to defend any of them.
	There is an element of that.
	I would say Obama less so on that scale, in terms of actual war crimes, doing the criming, and that is what counts.
	Well, drone strikes are bad.
	Like, do you try so bad? - No, no, no, 100%, but when you're...
	yeah, there are... I think it gets complicated when you're delving into the legalities of it, I think. You know, but...
	Bush and Tony Blair?
	Absolutely.
	War crimes.
	Trump?
	What were Trump's war crimes?
	Did he have any?
	There were more drone strikes.
	I know that.
	I've heard recently, because most People on the left, even just with a toe into the left, aren't trying to defend anybody.
	No, not usually, no.
	That's not our thing.
	We're about reality, and reality is ugly and bad.
	and I do very much appreciate your approach of legality 100% Morality is a very different question.
	Well, as far as targets of drone strikes, they're not as specific or targeted as we were, I say we, as was sold to us, to the American people, if we were even aware at the time.
	We find out later.
	You know, it's not a targeted strike, it's a school bus or a wedding or whatever, but I did hear recently it was like, Obama, drone strikes, bad.
	Trump, way more drone strikes happened and we didn't talk about it because covfefe or whatever.
	Yeah, I think there's always something to be talked about.
	Yeah, and Biden has actually reduced Drone strike amounts the most, so they're under Obama level from what I understand and what I recall.
	I know that there's been a reduction, but Biden has been really bad about advertising any good thing.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	In an election time, that's the whole gig, isn't it?
	I don't think it's fun for anyone involved, to be honest.
	I don't think they like having to fucking scrounge around for shit, either.
	Well, I mean, but even there's stuff that was actually really great and a really big deal.
	And, uh, yeah, like, I mean, and I think rightfully in the moment Biden got raked over the coals, um, for the, for ending the, uh, railroad strike, but what no one, I know that you listened to Cognizant too.
	So, and I know that Tom on Cognizant, Went out of his way to mention that, like, recently that Biden actually, like, got the things that the railroad strike was, like, seeking.
	They were like, hey, go back to work.
	And then we all heard about the go back to work part and we... Yeah.
	I did not hear that Biden got the things that they were striking for.
	We'll fix this problem for you, just please trust us and go back to work.
	And then that happened.
	To some degree.
	To some degree, that actually happened, and I would not have known if someone didn't have like a bug up their ass to talk about it because it was not getting publicized at all.
	That's a bummer.
	It's a real bummer.
	More than happens in this country.
	In this country, the government is actively fighting the NHS on every single little pay rise that they want, despite the fact, in real terms, having had their pay cut by, I can't remember how many fucking percent it was, something ridiculous over the last decade.
	Yeah, so hey, you gotta give credit where credit's due, right?
	So with Obama, you know, as we've just discussed, there were absolutely issues with his presidency, but all in all, personally, I'd probably give him like a B+.
	On my personal grading system, Bush Jr.
	gets a D-, and Trump gets an F, for reference.
	Biden's probably around a C+.
	He's creeping up there.
	The more he's getting done, you know.
	Well, what's tough is that the president is not a dictator.
	We don't live in an authoritarian regime.
	Even the differences between our two countries are staggering in that regard.
	The amount that a government over here can get done is way more than can get done in the US.
	The pace of things in the United States is just absurdly slow because of the way the system is designed.
	It doesn't have to be that way.
	It can be changed, it can be reformed, even small reforms.
	On every level has been exploited to the furthest possible degree, and this is where we're standing.
	So I remember very vividly this dark realization that we all had.
	Because Mitch McConnell said, the only mission I have is to make Obama a one-term president.
	Yeah.
	Oh, yeah.
	That was that person's job.
	Glitch McConnell is getting a taste of what he deserves by having his episodes on television.
	It's the barest minimum of justice.
	What he deserves is far greater.
	Far worse.
	When you actually look into the guy and the shit that he's pulled over the years.
	His entire political career is an unmitigated disaster for all of the American people.
	And so but like the resistance that was agreed to and announced publicly as soon as Obama was elected.
	It is difficult to wrap your head around how much better it could have been.
	Oh god, yeah.
	Unbelievable.
	It's called Obamacare, and it's the shit that was written by Republicans.
	Our healthcare policies that were supposed to be Obamacare is not anywhere near what we wanted, what the president tried to accomplish, Like, unmitigated disasters, left and right, I can't even quantify, obviously I can't.
	So it's really hard for me to judge, I don't know, even going into this, the thing that Russell has said is already stupid and crazy.
	He's the worst president ever.
	Strap the fuck in, I guess.
	The worst president was Reagan.
	That I know.
	Well, we get some differing opinions in this.
	Firstly, let's see what Brown has to say about Obama.
	Now I was one of those people that was very excited by the election of Barack Obama, seeing it as an advancement of American civilization.
	It was beautiful to see his family stand triumphantly before a newly united America under the banner of hope and change.
	We now know that Barack Obama, during his administration, Bowed out the banks in the way that any other president would have done.
	But what has Barack Obama been doing since he left office?
	Is he the best asset the Biden administration could have, offering a third term of Barack Obama, as was famously said and touted?
	Or is he, as has been demonstrated since leaving office, just exactly the kind of career politician we should fear?
	One who ultimately used the office to benefit financially, Use the office to benefit financially.
	Big swing just to start there.
	Let's see if he can back it up.
	I'm already out.
	But also, can you think of any presidents that have used the office to benefit financially?
	Perhaps by making sure foreign diplomats stayed in his hotels for a start?
	I mean, just take one kid.
	One kid.
	How much did one kid make?
	And also, like, Obama isn't president anymore.
	Hillary never was.
	Get their names out.
	Why do you care?
	Yeah, he doesn't bring up Hillary.
	Care for a number of reasons, sure.
	I'm also, like, bummed... well, I'm sure we're gonna talk about a lot of stuff.
	I don't want to get ahead of us.
	Okay.
	Yeah, yeah, don't worry.
	Don't worry.
	Also, can I please just say that the way Russell pronounces Barack Obama as Obama really drives me fucking nuts.
	My feeling is that however someone says their name, that's how you should say that name.
	If I suddenly started calling Russell, like, Roussel Briond, I think he'd have reason to be upset about that.
	It's not hard, and not doing so makes you an arsehole.
	As an aside, this absolutely includes names which are pronounced in a way that is foreign to you.
	Take a second to learn how to say someone's name.
	Seriously.
	Yeah, it's like, really not hard.
	Really, really not hard.
	It's really not hard at all.
	Anyway, the other point here is that the third term of Obama claim he's making, saying that It's something that was famously said and touted.
	I mean, it was, but the only places saying it were right-wing rags like The Telegraph, The Spectator, Boris Johnson's old paper, and The Wall Street Journal.
	You might want to check your sources there, Russell, or possibly your media diet, though I've little doubt he never read any of these articles and was almost certainly something brought to the fore by Gareth Roy.
	Yeah, people also wanted Oprah to run for president.
	People say all kinds of shit.
	That was never a thing.
	What did Biden have to say about this idea?
	I quote, this is not a third Obama term.
	We face a totally different world than we faced in the Obama-Biden administration.
	Unquote.
	Seems pretty straightforward to me.
	Oh, and one final thing about bailing out the banks.
	I'm personally not a fan of it, and we should have absolutely let some, if not most, or all of the banks just take a shit and die.
	Yeah, I agree.
	That sucks to hear because you're like, well, Yeah, no, but the overriding fear at that time was of course complete chaos and the economy coming to a halt, and inheriting that decision thanks to the actions of your predecessors, I can't imagine the pressure that Obama was under just for that alone.
	And poor, poor Gordon Brown over here was in a similar situation.
	The guy looked at all times like he'd just been slapped in the face by a wet fish.
	That's true.
	Until the general election where he seemed overwhelmingly cheery, probably because he knew he'd lose and wouldn't have to do the job anymore.
	Yeah, I also remember quite well watching Republicans push this country to the brink of destruction just in time for a Democrat to get into office.
	And I watched it happen over and over.
	And they set systems, institutions, the whole country, individual people up to fail.
	And then when they even falter, They can't shut up about it for a second.
	Oh, things are worse under the Democrats.
	Look, look, all of this stuff is broken.
	Yeah, you broke it, you fucking pricks.
	And they'll be like, it's been a month looking at how bad everything's going.
	Who do you think did that?
	How long do you think it takes to fix a problem that you've made?
	And the thing is, they've been able to make messes that are bigger and more terrible.
	Every single time because that's how this country has been ruined is just.
	Digging at these holes and making them worse because you fix one problem once and it's never gonna get fixed again.
	That's what happened with the banks, that's what happened with the tax code.
	Oh my god.
	Okay.
	In so many ways it was such a blessing that Trump was a one-term president and I sincerely hope will remain so.
	Because imagine, you know, eight successive years of him fucking up the country.
	Can you imagine?
	Well, we're also sitting in the quagmire and we're sitting in the shitty diaper that he left because of the courts, because of the Supreme Court.
	And there is jack-nor-shit that anyone can really do about it!
	No, about the judiciary, no, you're fucked.
	You're just like, good luck.
	So these are problems that have been... The amount of times I have heard... For anyone wondering what we're talking about, Trump appointed orders of magnitude more judges than any president before.
	I think it was like four times as many.
	It was something stupid.
	It was like, what, 800?
	Of the judiciary, something like that.
	I thought it was 900.
	Maybe, maybe, yeah.
	And it has caused...
	Epic proportions of problems on every level, but even just the Supreme Court.
	What the Supreme Court has been able to do, get away with, is unprecedented in my lifetime.
	And they already did some really fucked up shit in my lifetime.
	The density of cases that are, and precedent that is being overturned, they're taking a backhoe to it.
	Well, Roe v. Wade, you know.
	Well, there's a lot of issues that people are not as aware of and that are also very scary.
	Yeah, that's the shiny example.
	Taking rights away from prisoners that are found to be innocent.
	There are so many aspects of our lives that are being eroded.
	As long as the Supreme Court is in session, every week we are being permanently injured.
	I cannot think about how many times I heard when I was like younger versus now like oh we have this issue this is gonna set us back 30 years and now and it was like that was what Frontline was about that week and that's what PBS told me about and it would take a little bit of time for another generational problem to occur and now we're getting those on a weekly basis
	It is so disheartening.
	Yeah, all because of the one institution.
	It's remarkable that such a thing can happen in a supposedly developed democracy.
	Kleptocracy.
	Well, no, it's a democracy, and people keep saying that word.
	I don't want to turn into a fucking parrot of what Russell Brand is saying in that kind of way, but yeah, people claim it's a democracy.
	The thing is, and I do want to address this, he knows what to say.
	Yeah.
	Listen, I think we've all met a fair amount of men that know what to say in the moment in our lives.
	And women, people, right?
	He just says it for completely different reasons.
	Right.
	And I think that when I was growing up, and I've been thinking about this a lot lately, is when I was growing up, when I was younger, There was an attitude that even I ascribed to because I was always the canary in the coal mine with my bee in my bonnet and everyone told me to calm down and now it turns out I was right.
	And I just, and I feel bad and I was right.
	Is that any path up the mountain, as long as you get there, like that was an attitude that I think was very common because like, well, at least you're getting there.
	But now we are learning the ramifications of what an alternative path up the mountain, like how much damage Yeah, you start to see the cost of that, the actual cost.
	And it's actually quite dire, especially when it's packaged in a way that sounds almost exactly like our values.
	Your values are my values.
	What we would agree is a good idea, or is a good thing to say.
	Paying lip service to that, but then being able to shroud and couch and obfuscate In a way that's unprecedented as far as communication technology goes, that's why Russell is so dangerous.
	Mm-hmm.
	100%.
	Nicely fine, thanks.
	I don't.
	I don't.
	So the next clip, Russell makes a sizable claim about something Obama is supposedly responsible for.
	And even if he is someone that's easy to talk to, easy to listen to, easy to look at, cool in interviews and seemingly good fun to be around, is he an emblem of the kind of institutional corruption that needs to be changed?
	Is he the reason that people are losing faith not only in the Democrat Party, but democracy more broadly?
	Barack Obama could be the reason people are losing faith in democracy.
	One might argue that the years of a guy who lost an election saying it was stolen from him would be a bigger reason some people are losing faith in democracy.
	But that doesn't seem to register on Brand's radar, and most certainly doesn't come up in his Trump coverage.
	Because it's glaringly obvious in this example, I do just want to point out the problem with the just-asking-questions types of people, of which Russell is one of the worst.
	Here the example is, is Barack Obama the reason people are losing faith not just in the Democratic Party, but in democracy more broadly?
	From a legal standpoint, asking a question is very different to making a statement, and so as long as an assertion is phrased that way, it means he can't be sued for defamation.
	I'll give you an example of how it works.
	So, for instance, I can ask, is Russell Brand a child molester?
	And regardless of what I say next, or whether any evidence is provided, the question is legally allowed to hang there while, as an audience, you begin to associate those two things, until the concept of Russell Brand and child molester become deeply intertwined, especially if I then keep repeating the question, is Russell Brand a child molester?
	Now, for the record, as we don't want to engage in the same bullshit as the grifters, con artists and blowhards of this world, I have absolutely zero evidence that Russell Brand is a child molester, nor do I have a reason to suspect it might be the case.
	But some of you, if not all of you, will now forevermore struggle not to make that connection in your minds simply because I've asked the question and repeated it.
	On a lighter note, I do love the start of that clip.
	Oh well, even if Obama is someone who's easy to talk to, easy to listen to, easy to look at, cool in interviews, seemingly good fun to be around, he's got a great dick, the way he looks at me makes my heart melt.
	It's got a real sort of "what have the Romans ever done for us" kind of vibe.
	Well, of course the aqueduct.
	I do think that I have noticed a problem in the world that people have forgotten how to like stuff, and they don't know when they're miserable, and they're miserable and they hate things.
	So maybe you just like him.
	Yeah, maybe you just like him.
	And that's fine.
	Maybe you were just stoked on it.
	Maybe disappointed that it didn't turn out how you wanted.
	And do you know what?
	Even if you disagree with him politically, you're still perfectly allowed to like him as a person.
	That's perfectly fine.
	We've all had to begrudgingly admit that Trump is awful, but he's funny.
	Charismatic.
	As a sideshow freak, he's hilarious.
	He's got a weird kind of magnetism.
	Him dancing, I'm glued to that clip.
	That's immediately funny to me.
	Especially when he goes out to ABBA.
	That's hilarious to me.
	I can't help it.
	I can't help it.
	Even just using Russell to compare with himself.
	The way he talks about eating meat when he was plugging one of his sponsors.
	Yeah, the junk food thing.
	It sounds like you just want to eat meat and junk food, and that you hate being a vegan.
	But it's part of your personality, so you have to do it.
	And maybe you just hate some of the stuff that you feel like you are forced to do, and then you take it on everybody else.
	Maybe.
	Maybe he wants to be in a position where he can be like Barack Obama's the best.
	Maybe he does want that.
	I don't know because this is what he's doing now.
	There is a tendency among people analysing Russell Brandon, who he is and what he stands for and what he actually believes, to kind of guess that, oh, you know, I don't think he actually believes any of the things he's saying or kind of wants any of this.
	To which I say, you don't know that.
	You absolutely don't know that.
	You are not psychic.
	You are guessing what he believes.
	Yeah.
	Try not to make that assumption, because it is an assumption.
	It's based on things he's said in the past, but people fucking change, especially when there's money involved.
	And don't forget, he is one of the richest people on the planet.
	He is a multi-multi-millionaire.
	And I'm not saying he's in the top five people or whatever, but he is in the top 0.001% or whatever the fuck it was.
	So, yeah, people, especially with that amount of money, tend to start leaning towards the right.
	Yeah, money cooks your brain.
	Well, and I think, Russell, especially, like, people do change and we speculate.
	But I think the comparison can be made for someone that's like, oh, he doesn't believe that.
	That's like a definitive statement.
	And that's kind of like letting him off the hook.
	I've seen people do that.
	Yeah.
	Oh, I'm sure.
	I'm engaging that as a real comment.
	I've seen critics of Russell Brand say that, that, you know, he doesn't believe any of what he says.
	Well, then I question their message because you can't know.
	You cannot know what is in someone's mind.
	It is a grand assumption.
	entertain the possibilities as a research tool.
	It's a tool for inquiry.
	It's like, well, he could be coming from this angle or this angle, but ultimately we don't know.
	What we do know are facts that we can look up and be like, nah, that's a lie.
	That's wrong.
	That's tangible.
	Do you know what I do know is the things that are coming out of his mouth.
	Exactly.
	Exactly that.
	And that should be somewhat sufficient to a degree.
	So next we hear from the mainstream media a little bit.
	Let's see how the mainstream media reports on this.
	Welcome back.
	Former President Barack Obama is gearing up for a bruising election season and he says he's committing to help in any way he can to secure President Biden another term in office.
	Given the obvious deficiencies of President Joe Biden, his communication skills, increasingly the business dealings of his family, his unwillingness to debate other presidential candidates, Barack Obama could be seen as a tremendous asset.
	I know lots of people that are spiritually Democrat, shall we say, that see Barack Obama as the apotheosis of that party's achievements.
	I know people that are spiritually Democrat.
	What a fucking weird way of saying, I have left-wing friends.
	Fuck knows who they are at this point, and what their opinion of Russell is, but Christ alive, he's so scared of alienating his audience, he can't even say, I have friends who are lefties, when citing said friend's opinion of Obama in an editorial about Obama.
	Like, ugh.
	Just a couple of points.
	So yeah, no, it's ridiculous.
	So firstly, Biden doesn't have an unwillingness to debate other presidential candidates.
	He has an unwillingness to debate other Democrat presidential candidates because he's already the fucking president and no incumbent in modern history has lost renomination.
	There's also the fact that he'd be debating RFK Jr., and that's just a lose-lose scenario for Biden.
	It would be a huge win for RFK Jr.
	Shout out to regular listeners, I bet you heard that too, because I sure did.
	Yeah, right.
	Yeah, yeah.
	And so all that would happen in that event is like, even if he's made to look like the
	moron that he is on television, like plenty of anti-vaxxers and COVID deniers would leap
	to his side of the bullshit.
	So I wouldn't do that if I were Biden, like fuck no.
	I'm the president, fuck off would be my response.
	Well, that's just the correct choice to not platform RFPs, because also, that guy's not a Democrat.
	Like, even as a basic characteristic, it's like, that's just not a Democrat.
	So don't sign off on this guy and his claims by entertaining it.
	The only debate I want to see is between RFK Jr.
	and the chair that Clint Eastwood shouted out for a while back at that Republican- Oh my god.
	Yeah, yeah.
	I'd be fine with that.
	RFK Jr.
	talking to a chair.
	Everyone is so embarrassing.
	Yeah, right?
	Being a human sucks.
	Watching other people be human sucks.
	Also, this does seem like an obvious point to make, and it's likely one I'm going to have to keep hammering on, but please take a moment to consider the communication skills of Donald Trump, and do so in a manner that is bigly.
	It's funny because he's bad at it.
	That's why it's funny.
	Isn't it?
	And then consider the business dealings of Donald Trump's family, all of which are mired in scandals, nepotism and shady bullshit.
	No mention of those in Russell's Trump coverage.
	But Biden, on the other hand, because he's got a bit of a speech impediment, and let's be honest, is very fucking old.
	Trump is only three years younger, by the way.
	They're all a million.
	Biden gets shat on by the right-wing media for the exact same things.
	And as for business dealings, it mostly comes down to Hunter Biden being a bit of a fucking scoundrel, and the right-wing wagons have been circling him for literal years about things that have zero bearing on Joe Biden himself.
	Finally, I didn't quite see the point in playing that clip there from MSNBC.
	I'm not sure why he played that bit because of course Obama is going to endorse and help Joe Biden with his campaign.
	And of course MSNBC is the one that's going to give a shit to say something about it.
	Yeah, right.
	But he was Obama's VP for eight years, for fuck's sake, and they're friends, and he's the presumptive Democrat nominee for president.
	Like, it doesn't really come as a great shock, you know?
	You don't need to play a clip.
	Honestly, it'd be more newsworthy if he said he's not gonna endorse Biden.
	That would be shocking!
	Can you imagine?
	That'd be bananas!
	That would be nuts!
	He's like, yeah!
	I'm gonna, even if he just didn't endorse anyone, it'd be like, ooh, okay.
	Yeah, that'd be crazy.
	He was like, nah, I'm gonna endorse Marianne Williamson.
	Yeah, and if you hate Obama so much, why do you care what he thinks about it?
	Why?
	Why do you care why he's endorsing a ham sandwich?
	Why?
	He's already wrong and bad.
	Why do you give credence to his opinion?
	Because in the end, it's his opinion.
	So we can tell you how wrong and bad it is on a sliding scale.
	Okay, the thing that I need to say about that last clip, very specifically, and even the one before that, the way that the build-up of Russell saying all the things he obviously, genuinely likes about Barack Obama, Straight up.
	It was like, oh, those are just like things you recognize that are nice, that you like.
	Yeah.
	And you're about to lie.
	And then, our politicians are not mascots.
	All of our politics have turned into this popularity contest.
	It's such a massive problem I can't even wrap my puny human brain around it.
	It's not a sport.
	It's not a popularity contest.
	This is not Homecoming King and Queen.
	Acting like Obama embodies any one thing of anything.
	You're already wrong.
	Yeah, it should have been a great step forward for the endemic racism in this country to finally elect a black president.
	Gee, I wish that would have borne out to be true.
	Didn't go that way.
	So like, embodying any one of anything, because one person?
	Even though that's how we teach history, like a pack of idiots.
	One person does not make history.
	One person does not embody, like is not a mascot.
	If you are building up a hero and putting someone on a pedestal, they are doomed to fail.
	And because they're not, they're not going to live up to any of these requirements.
	I don't think Barack Obama was particularly thrilled about like any complaint that you could make against his presidency.
	I think if you were just having a beer with the guy, he'd be pretty pissed about most of it too.
	Yeah, no, absolutely.
	Absolutely.
	I think there's a lot more that he could say if you were sat across on a couch with the guy or something.
	And it would be a very, very different conversation.
	And I would argue the same...
	It's not how we should do politics.
	I would argue the same for most presidents, probably.
	Other than Trump, I would argue the same for most presidents.
	Trump just does it out loud.
	Anyway, he doesn't give a shit.
	I don't think any of us are in the dark about how that man feels about anything.
	No, no.
	I feel like he has a set number of feelings, and he shares them all regularly.
	Yup, yup.
	Hungry!
	Okay, Trump.
	Okay.
	Have some KFC again.
	Your wife's ugly!
	Like, okay!
	That's what he thinks!
	Get your greasy chicken fingers back on and watch some more Fox and Friends, you'll be fine.
	Good lord.
	He just says it!
	But like, this hero worship, like, even like...
	I just want to throw my headphones and walk away because if someone starts with this like crazy hero worship rhetoric, you've already lost the war with me and there's no value in what you have to say and the whole reason to listen to him is because he has a big platform where people still buy this shit and I resent it!
	Yeah, I think, yeah, for someone who's like really against, you know, establishments of any kind and is against supposedly like dictatorships and that sort of thing, he really likes the idea of, you know, a single person being a figurehead Of anything.
	He likes, I don't know, deep down, I think he likes the idea of despotism, basically.
	Enlightened despotism, specifically.
	Maybe he glommed on to... No, but the concept, however... Yeah, the fairy tale of enlightened despotism.
	Yeah.
	Peter the Great and all that.
	So he's like a monarchist?
	All that good shit.
	Well, there's a question!
	And we'll touch on that a little bit later.
	But in the next clip, we get into a source of brands which most of this editorial is lazily based on.
	We've spoken many times about the deficiencies of Obama while in office, but what exactly is Barack Obama doing since leaving office that means that we should perhaps be a little more discerning about his achievements and his role and whether or not he is an asset to Joe Biden's 2024 campaign?
	In 2021, millions of Americans worried about being evicted from their homes, catching the Delta variant or whether a COVID resurgence might keep schools closed in the fall.
	Former President Barack Obama was apparently loftily unbothered by any of these plebeian concerns.
	The distinguished memoirist was too busy planning a ginormous 60th birthday party for himself on his vast and vulgar Martha's Vineyard estate, a sprawling 6,892 foot tumour on a beautifully spare coastal landscape.
	Which the Obamas bought in 2019 for $11.75 million.
	The 475 guests were to include George Clooney and Oprah Winfrey.
	Even people close to him argued for weeks that as the White House was urging caution given the recent COVID resurgence, the optics of this shindig were not good.
	The former president's birthday bash showed, at a minimum, a cavalier insensitivity to the fears and needs of his neighbours, as well as a general indifference to the political fortunes of his fellow Democrats and the sufferings of Americans.
	But the kerfuffle shouldn't surprise close observers of Obama's ex-presidency, which has been strikingly bereft of public spiritedness.
	Okay, there was a lot there.
	That was outrageous.
	I'm glad that sent you reeling, because I have been quietly raging to myself for days because of the way this has been written.
	So first up, this piece that Brand is referencing here is called Barack Obama Has Been One of the Worst Ex-Presidents Ever by Liza Featherstone, and it was published in Jacobin.
	To start, great headline, really kept me guessing which side she'd fall down on.
	So the headline is Barack Obama has been one of the worst ex-presidents ever.
	This sounds like an old-timey, like this sounds like a This sounds like a news article from the distant past.
	I'm not gonna lie.
	It's so unhinged.
	It's pretty absurd.
	Honestly.
	And the word count achievement is like... We have not even scratched the surface.
	So having looked into Featherstone's background and writings, I can safely say that she's one of the causes of the left constantly trying to eat itself.
	The only people left wing enough for her are Bernie Sanders and, inexplicably, Marianne Williamson.
	Oh, I'm out.
	I'm out again.
	Bye.
	And the world must know about it because, God forbid, we ever stand unified on literally fucking anything.
	Bye, Liza.
	Bye, Liza.
	Bye.
	Anyway, on to Russell's coverage of this opinion piece, because that's what it fucking is.
	So they've chopped this article up and presented different parts at different stages of the editorial, which is both very annoying and difficult for me to track.
	So that first segment was... Inattentionally obfuscating.
	Yeah, quite probably.
	That first segment was from somewhere in the middle of the piece, for instance.
	I would also like to point out that this article was written in September 2021.
	Real breaking news coming here, Russ.
	Thank you for that.
	Oh, and I would like to say that for some reason they've chosen to include the part where Eliza Featherstone is admonishing Obama for being seemingly unconcerned about COVID in 2021.
	There are reasons that criticism is bullshit, which I'll get into in a minute, but of all people, Russell fucking Brand does not have the right to make that same critique.
	That same year, he was giving people instructions on how to avoid COVID restrictions so they could come to his stand-up shows.
	Like, you can't say to me, oh, COVID is just an excuse for lockdowns and it's not that bad, and then be like, hey, these people aren't concerned about COVID!
	Fucking nonsense.
	As for the Obama's, quote, vast and vulgar Martha's Vineyard Estate, lovingly described as a 6,892 foot tumor by this fucking idiot, it's fine.
	They have money, which they earned, so they bought a big house in a pretty place for about 12 million dollars.
	30 acres in all, about 28 of which is largely undisturbed trees and foliage.
	Yep.
	This birthday party that Obama wanted to have was supposed to be enormous, including a set from Pearl Jam and 475 to 600 attendees.
	However, what happened was COVID got worse in the area and Obama had to disinvite a bunch of people from it, including Rahm Emanuel, Larry David and Oprah Winfrey.
	Oh, a responsible choice that I'm sure wasn't even mentioned in this article?
	Well, they cut the guest list down to 200.
	The guests that did make the cut were the likes of George Clooney, Bradley Cooper, Tom Hanks, Beyonce, Jay-Z, Bruce Springsteen, Alicia Keys, John Legend, Spike Lee, Steven Spielberg, and Erykah Badu.
	Are their houses tumors also?
	Probably.
	Just a weird and wealthy club of people, it must be said.
	Sure.
	He was fucking president!
	Yeah, no, I don't take issue with him having a big birthday party that's perfectly fine.
	Do what you want.
	Despite the scaling back, by the way, of the guest list, this article still accused it of being, quote, some kind of head fake.
	Whatever the fuck that's supposed to mean.
	I don't know, she never explains it, she just calls it that and then fucks off.
	As for COVID precautions, the party was held outside under a marquee, bespoke masks were given to every attendee, there was a dedicated COVID coordinator on site, the Obamas were asking guests to ensure they were vaccinated, and there was mandatory COVID testing in the days just before the event, as well as fever testing on the night itself.
	It's fair to say they went above and beyond what was legally required of them, or even morally required.
	Despite that, it apparently showed indifference to the sufferings of Americans and a cavalier insensitivity to the fears and needs of his neighbor, according to Liza Featherstone.
	You know, I think the parties that happened in the UK were actually probably pretty bad.
	They were a lot worse.
	For the record as well, the only supposed neighbor I could find complaining about this, meaning the only other person on the island I could find complaining about this, was Alan Dershowitz, who really shouldn't be saying anything to anyone about anything.
	Fuck me.
	Except for confessing to all the rapes, allegedly.
	Stark hair!
	Yeah, right.
	This article...
	Makes me like how am I on fire?
	Am I on fire?
	Have I exploded?
	Am I dead?
	Yeah, yeah.
	No, I'm so angry at the amount of vitriol and bullshit from this woman.
	It has upset me so much.
	It's also like, you folks loved being secret racist.
	Like, you loved being able to obfuscate your fucking blatant racism.
	Oh my god, it got your little Dick's heart is a fucking towel rack to just hate on a successful black person and a successful black wife and their lovely black kids.
	Man, y'all fucking love the shit out of it and that's why you can't let it go.
	And the same thing with fucking Hillary.
	You hate women so much you still have to talk about her and you still gotta talk about Barack Obama.
	Guess what?
	He's busy not being still assassinated is what he's busy doing post-election.
	He's busy not giving a fuck about you people.
	Yeah.
	Jesus fucking Christ.
	Unbelievable, these people.
	So, it gets better.
	Next, Obama.
	Obama is the reason that Bernie Sanders didn't win the 2020 nomination.
	Obama was instrumental in shutting down Bernie Sanders' bid for the presidency.
	When Sanders was leading in the primaries, Obama worked to organize the other rival candidates to drop out and back Biden, making it impossible for Sanders to win.
	He then persuaded the Democratic Socialist Senator to drop out of the race.
	To retain optimism around Barack Obama at this point requires Significant will.
	Since leaving office he's behaved in a way that's almost entirely predictable and he's proven himself to be an establishment figure at a time when what the American public plainly yearns for is anti-establishment radicalism.
	Again, Obama supporting his former VP.
	Not exactly surprising.
	Not only are they friends, but they're quite obviously politically aligned, and Obama has never leaned as far left as Bernie Sanders at any point.
	Also, it's not like Obama was solely responsible for somehow talking Bernie down off the podium.
	Like, the way it's written, Featherstone is acting like all it took was a phone call and a Come on!
	From Obama and Bernie just went, oh, OK, and like dropped out.
	Whereas the reality of the situation was that after poor results in election contests from Super Tuesday and beyond, Sanders announced the suspension of his 2020 presidential campaign after failing to expand his base past his 2016 campaign that was against Hillary Clinton for the 2016 Democratic nomination, which he lost.
	Basically, he knew he'd lose.
	And so he dropped out, which is fair enough.
	The way that it went down... I'm sorry, go ahead, finish your thought and then I'll chime in.
	No, I was about to change the subject slightly, so it's fine.
	What do you got?
	I will say, all right, so yeah.
	It's difficult to listen to this because the primary was a bad week for me personally.
	It was hard to watch happen.
	But I think that the way that this is framed is wildly unfair, incendiary, and divisive in a way that shows the author's cards as A bad actor making a larger point out of something that is being misconstrued conveniently.
	Yeah, yeah, no, it's being spun, one might say.
	Spun and twisted to fit a specific narrative.
	Which, okay, you want to be a piece of shit and play that game, fine, let's fucking play that game.
	Also, the idea that the American public wants anti-establishment radicalism is pretty hilarious to me.
	Like, I'm an anti-establishment radical, so vote for me to be a part of the establishment?
	I feel like there's a middle part of this missing that Russell hasn't quite grasped as of yet.
	To assume that any American knows what they want from the government is really giving too much credit.
	It's just not what's up.
	No, no, exactly.
	So in the next clip, we learn how, well, whether Biden's campaign is going to be a success.
	If Obama's popularity is being leveraged in order to support Joe Biden as Trump continues to remain in ascendancy, it's likely to fail.
	Even figures like Ron DeSantis are unable to gain traction in spite of their stance during Covid in Florida, for example, because they're seen as being too much like statesmen, too much like ordinary identifiable Recognisable politicians at a time when what people seem to have an appetite for are anti-establishment figures, whether that's RFK or Donald Trump or Cornel West or Marianne Williamson or Vivek Ramaswamy.
	Doubling down on institutional establishment figures that bail out banks and drone Syria seems like a surprising way to try to galvanise support.
	So Bran's hot take is that Biden's campaign is likely to fail.
	I'm not quite sure I agree with that for a number of reasons, but Bran's reasoning is that Biden is clearly establishment with a capital E, and the Democratic Party should instead be leaning into anti-establishment candidates like RFK Jr.
	You know, that wealthy lawyer guy with the famous political lineage behind him who Brand described as American royalty?
	That one?
	Pseudo-monarchies are apparently not the establishment.
	Also, did you notice- Oh, that prince you mean?
	Prince of the realm?
	Did you notice that the only people he named there other than Trump are the ones who came on his show?
	Did Vivek get on his show too?
	Vivek has been on the show.
	I have not covered it because I've not wanted to, but he's been on.
	Yeah, that guy.
	Man, oh man.
	Fuck it.
	He's too far down the rung for me to give a shit, to be honest.
	And it's a similar deal with Williamson as well, though there are definitely things I could say.
	As for Trump, if Trump is anti-establishment, which I honestly don't think is an accurate way of describing him or his time as president, his lunacy unified the left and middles of the country enough to get behind a Joe Biden presidency.
	The country wanted a return to sanity so badly that it opted for the graham cracker president, right?
	And I'm happy to explain that title if you need me to explain what the fuck I mean, but Jesus Christ, the graham cracker president, that's it.
	I feel like it's obvious.
	It's got layers.
	It's got layers, that little joke.
	Also, don't remind me about Ron DeSantis and his COVID measures right after he complained about this Obama birthday party.
	Don't tell me.
	That is bananas.
	Don't tell me.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
	How did his pants not spontaneously burst into flames for being such a liar?
	Yeah.
	That's wild!
	Yeah, no, it's completely nuts.
	And like the reason that Ron DeSantis, you know, Ron DeSantis, not even Ron DeSantis can overtake Trump.
	It's like, well, no, because he's a shithead and he's nowhere near as charismatic as Donald Trump.
	That's why.
	He's a charisma black hole.
	No, absolutely.
	And he's also responsible for, you know, Many, many thousands of deaths because of that thing you just mentioned, buddy, and a good chunk of the country won't have forgotten that.
	Like, me?
	Yeah, how fucking dare you?
	Like, that is so insane!
	Like, honestly, I think even the gal that wrote the article would be like, don't mention DeSantis in Florida!
	Nope, nope, nope.
	Let's not compare those in the same thought.
	Yeah, no, even Liza Featherstone isn't that fucking stupid.
	Next up, Russell has an insane reframing of what conservative values means before giving us an idea of what the establishment is.
	Except, of course, if what the Democrat Party now truly represents are establishment and conservative values.
	What I mean by conservative is not what's traditionally meant, but the idea that you can preserve a base.
	Perhaps what the Democrat Party are interested in doing is galvanising their existing base to the degree that Trump is able to continue to maintain the interest and support of his base in spite of ongoing indictments.
	That's because, I suppose, Trump's base are about anti-establishment and Obama's base and Biden's base are about preserving the establishment, maintaining a metropolitan lifestyle and professional jobs in media or medicine or whatever.
	It seems now that the Democrat Party have accepted that what they are about is continuing to corral institutional and establishment interest in the face of rising populism.
	Sorry, I just saw your face.
	I'm having a hard time today.
	I saw your face as he said that and that cracked me up.
	I'm having a rough one.
	You got me.
	This sucks on toast.
	This useless smug idiot.
	He's so smug in these editorials.
	I just want to give him a swirly.
	I want to fight him!
	That's not good!
	The establishment is maintaining a metropolitan lifestyle and professional jobs in media or medicine or whatever, apparently.
	And conservative, like everyone who works in media or medicine, in a professional job, in a metropolitan lifestyle.
	Through a medical, like, okay, I see, girl.
	Oh my god.
	Okay, okay.
	Conservative values is the idea of maintaining a voter base now apparently.
	Two very different and profoundly stupid things to say.
	So as to the first one, I would be I'm deeply curious to see Bran's audience stats, to see how many of his audience are rural, because it really wouldn't shock me if he was bringing on some classic urban vs countryside arguments, which are historically rooted pretty deeply in racism.
	Okay, but also?
	Every American is a temporarily embarrassed millionaire, and also every single one of them is a country legend who is from the sticks, and they live in Aurora.
	No, no, no.
	I grew up with these people, left, right, and center, and they wore their shit-kicking boots, and they were 15 minutes from a major metropolitan area with traffic.
	But no, the establishment is those dang city slickers going around town with the blacks and the yellows.
	That's what that is.
	As for conservative values being about being conservative, conserving a voter base, it's just too fucking stupid, isn't it?
	You did find a way to say urban.
	Right?
	It's literally like taking one thing that is already established as a thing and giving it another meaning.
	It would be like me saying, oh, I play the bassoon, and by bassoon, I mean mandolin, but I'm going to call it the bassoon because I like the word.
	There is hidden potential for him to use this reframing of the phrase conservative values to provide future cover for either him or his guests, but we'll see if that ever occurs.
	Yeah!
	Oh, they weren't being racist.
	Redefining words in a totally off-the-wall way, like how cults do.
	Yeah, they weren't being racist or xenophobic, they just meant retaining a voter base.
	We shall see.
	We shall fucking see.
	That's just a different, that's just a whole separate thought.
	It's just, I've never in my life, and I have heard some Conservative apologism out the wazoo.
	Every holiday I ever spend with my family.
	And I'm sorry, it's never been that fat shit.

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