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Feb. 21, 2025 - On Brand

01:52:46

Porn Stars & Politics w/Joe Kassabian

I'm joined by Joe Kassabian of the Lions Led By Donkeys podcast to cover Russell's conversation with porn star Lily Phillips, and his response to Trump's proposed takeover of Gaza.Lions Led By Donkeys: https://pod.link/1393845532LLBD Patreon: https://.patreon.com/lionsledbydonkeysJoe's Books: https://.amazon.co.uk/stores/author/B095J4Z237Support On Brand on Patreon: https://patreon.com/OnBrand

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Time	Text
	This is propaganda live.
	I only suggest how to think and how to vote.
	An extraordinary cultural moment, already iconic, already iconic.
	We love you, you're welcome here.
	I don't want to sound like a conspiracy theorist, but it's a bit late now.
	They don't want to have a conversation in the debate, but they're lying.
	And this is a matter now of fact and record.
	Trump is like Hitler.
	Let me count the ways.
	I'm a Nazi, actually.
	I'm an arse, actually, and I've kept it now until now, but this is my chance.
	God is propaganda.
	Did you guess it?
	Did you guess it?
	I feel that Christ may have had a better vision.
	Bastards, aren't they?
	I mean, you can't watch too much of this without realising they're absolute bastards.
	Let's go full screen on Russell.
	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 Show with a guest.
	This week I'm thrilled to be joined by author, researcher, historian, and host of the Lions Led by Donkeys podcast, Joe Kasabian.
	But before that, a little bit of housekeeping.
	Firstly, I want to thank everyone for their frankly overwhelming support through this last week.
	It's meant the world to me, and you are all wonderful wonders.
	Speaking of which, there has been a slew of new Awakening Wonders, which I'm going to try and space out gradually so as not to bombard you all with them.
	So, Taru Tikanen, I hope I'm pronouncing that correctly.
	You are now an Awakening Wonder.
	You are indeed an Awakening Wonder.
	Thank you so much.
	And Blitz Blitz, you are now an Awakening Wonder.
	You are indeed an Awakening Wonder.
	Thank you so, so much.
	And thank you for the lovely messages, also.
	And, of course, if anyone wants to support the show financially by becoming an Awakening Wonder or a member of the Invisible Hand, head to patreon.com slash onbrand and you will have my eternal gratitude.
	Another thing I want to mention is that I have attended my first round of Creator Accountability Network training, which I'm very excited about, and I will tell you more about it once I'm done with Part 2. But I'm looking forward to getting fully accredited, at which point I will have some verbiage to read out and whatnot.
	But it's all good stuff from good people with the aim of keeping...
	All of us, safer and happier.
	And you hopefully have all noticed that the show has some terrific new artwork, courtesy of Daniel Birchall, a.k.a.
	Virtual Reality.
	Please go and find them at Birchall, that's B-I-R-C-H-U-A-L underscore reality, on Instagram and wherever else, and get in touch with them for any digital design needs.
	They are great.
	And you know what?
	That's enough gilding of the lily for one day.
	Let's get down to business with Joe Kasabian.
	Not to defeat the Huns, that's a different thing.
	We're getting down to business with Joe Kasabian.
	That's what we're doing.
	Alright, Joe, thank you so much for coming on and joining me today.
	How are you doing?
	I'm good.
	I'm good.
	You know, I was able to cycle into the studio today without getting rained on too badly.
	And in this time of the year, that's all you can ask for sometimes.
	It's a blessing in the Netherlands.
	Yeah, it shares some weather similarities with Wales, funnily enough.
	I have a number of Dutch friends, and we do often talk about the weather.
	That does seem to come up frequently.
	Yeah, which is funny.
	My Dutch neighbors and I, we talk about the weather all the time.
	And at a certain point, I do it because they do it.
	But I'm like, why do we keep talking about the weather?
	It's always the same.
	It's always the same.
	It's moderately cold and it's raining.
	Like, just move on.
	But then it'll do something different and everyone will freak the fuck out.
	Like, oh, sunshine!
	Good God!
	You know, or snow!
	Snow, everyone freaks out at that.
	Alright, so we'll get into Russell in just a little bit, but first let's learn a bit more about you, and we'll start with an easy question first.
	My pronouns are they, them, what are yours, Joe?
	Mine are he, his.
	Hey, terrific.
	So you've been co-host of the Lions Led by Donkeys podcast for, like, what, six years now?
	Is that right?
	Almost seven.
	Almost seven.
	Yeah.
	It's crazy to think about.
	Quite the commitment.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	How would you describe the show and what it is you guys do?
	I am a historian by trade and education, and one of the things that people always told me...
	I used to be a public school teacher for the state of Hawaii for a little while.
	And people always said that they were really interested by history.
	But when they're in school, it was boring.
	It was boring as hell.
	And I had to look at them in the eye and be like, I fucking know.
	And the reason is because we're not allowed to do anything fun, really.
	So once upon a time, a friend of mine...
	And I decided to start a podcast where we talk about military history and related history and try to make it as engaging as possible, where we insult and offend the beacons on the hill, the great men of history, because generally speaking, it's all built on a pile of bullshit.
	And we talk about how those things all intersect and how military history is just another part of people's history and the changing of the times.
	Right, right.
	What made you decide to start a podcast covering historic military incompetence specifically?
	I used to be in the army, so I got to witness a lot of it and how much it sucked to be at the bottom of it because I was a 17-year-old idiot from Detroit, Michigan when I enlisted, so I was at the bottom of the bottom.
	And by the time things got all the way down to us, everything is always so stupid.
	It makes no sense.
	And we'd all look at one another like, why the fuck are we doing this?
	And of course, your sergeant or lieutenant would be like, well, those are the orders.
	Well, the orders are fucking dumb.
	And then I got out of the army.
	I used my benefits to get a college education.
	I focused in history and genocide studies, not even military history, honestly.
	I think one of the reasons I kind of glommed onto military history is my connection from my time in the army, but also because military history falls into like two camps, and that is absolute right-wing psychopaths.
	And people who are interested in it, but are kind of not really open about it due to all the right-wing psychopaths.
	Especially the podcast space, the YouTube space.
	I don't really fuck with YouTube, but whenever you look up something to do with military history, it's...
	The worst person ever saying it.
	Like, you know, Rhodesia bro, you know, 1988 talking about how, you know, Rhodesia was cool, actually.
	Or, you know, Hitler could have won World War II if he just did this one thing.
	And, you know, my time in grad school about genocide studies had a lot to do with how histories can be kind of co-opted, taken over.
	And turned into propaganda, for lack of a better term, through seemingly innocuous means to do immense damage.
	And one of the ways that you do that is by ceding territory, so to speak.
	You don't fight them on their ground.
	You just kind of let them have it because they just control it.
	And it really bothered me a lot to see them do that with military history because military history, whether you be centrist, liberal, or leftist, You have a lot to learn from it and how it impacts the incredibly fucked up world we currently live in.
	Sure, yeah.
	It's an interesting area.
	Tell me more about the...
	Holocaust and genocide denial research, because that's something that's been an ongoing feature for you, if I'm correct.
	Due to my ethnicity, since I was born, technically.
	I am Armenian, but I grew up in a non-Armenian household raised by my mother.
	And I thought it was very, very interesting to me how something as important as the Armenian genocide could be.
	Completely unknown.
	I know I grew up in the United States, so why would you know about it, necessarily?
	But there's millions of Armenians living in the United States.
	And I first learned about it by going to a Holocaust museum in West Bloomfield, Michigan, when I was very, very young.
	And they took me aside and showed me the...
	When I say Armenian Genocide Corner, it sounds kind of weird.
	But it was like this, yeah, and we have this exhibit here for you specifically, Joe, because you're the only Armenian that lives in the neighborhood.
	Okay.
	That's nice.
	Tailor-made, you know?
	Yeah.
	And, you know, I was kind of over the years, I wanted to learn more about how, of course, such a thing was possible.
	How such a thing was possible to do with average, everyday, ordinary people.
	And how, most importantly, how you get there.
	Not necessarily the killing, but what roads you take to get there.
	Because growing up, I saw a lot of changes in the US, many of them good, many of them bad.
	And then as I get older, as I'm now almost 37, we're seeing significantly worse ones.
	And I graduated quite a few years ago now, but I learned...
	One of the things I was very curious about is how you prime a population to do something they would originally find so unconscionable.
	And a lot of people like to call it brainwashing or propaganda and this, that, the other thing, when in reality, it's very depressing to learn that.
	It doesn't have to be that much, and I think we're kind of seeing that now in both of our countries.
	Yeah, it doesn't have to be that overt, actually.
	You know, it can be much more insidious.
	Yeah, much more under the radar.
	Yeah, a lot of my kind of knowledge of Armenian history has been learned from, like, the activism of System of a Down, and, you know, like Sershtankin in particular.
	But beyond that and looking into that stuff, I am somewhat clueless.
	I noticed that one of the things available on the Lions Led by Donkeys Patreon is a series on the history of Armenia.
	Like, how far back are you going with that, and what are the kind of main points that you're covering?
	It started as something that it is no longer.
	But I wanted to do...
	Of course, I was inspired to start history podcasting by very good historical podcasters like Mike Duncan, Dr. Patrick Wyman, people like that, and The History of Rome, one of the best history podcasts ever made.
	And it covers something that we all kind of tangentially know about a little bit, which is Rome.
	And I was like, nobody's doing that for something like Armenia.
	And also, I was like, well, why would they?
	And I decided I was going to do that.
	And then I quickly realized that I am not Mike Duncan.
	I wanted to do something a little different.
	So I kind of spun it away from that.
	And now I tell the history of Armenia through weird Armenian...
	Whether it be people, events.
	We've talked about...
	We have an episode about Arminicum coming up, which is this absolute snake oil ass HIV cure that the government funded.
	Oh, good.
	That sounds good.
	It's just iodine.
	We've talked about the Armenian mob.
	We've talked about Armenian genocide reparations and how they all mysteriously vanished.
	Allegedly, due to theft, due to a group of lawyers in Glendale, California.
	We'll talk about the legendary earthquake in the 80s.
	Things like that.
	I wanted to teach people about this history of a very, very old people, very old country through...
	How absolutely insane we tend to be because that kind of brings us on par with everyone else in the world.
	People remember Nero and Trajan and all these things because they did weird shit, right?
	Caligula, you know?
	Yeah.
	Why not learn about Armenian history through the first man to accidentally kill himself using nuclear weapons during the Los Alamos project?
	Or the Armenian mafia guy who teamed up with the Mormons to grift half a billion dollars from the US government?
	I see you're doing the work of making Armenian history relatable, particularly to American history.
	I think there's an important corollary there.
	Oh, that's the fun part is when you're a group of such an old people who have a massive diaspora for very obvious reasons, we're a part of everybody's history.
	There's Armenian-British history.
	There's Armenian-Dutch history.
	There's plenty of Armenian-French history.
	Thanks to the Ottomans, we're at everybody's backyard.
	We're being weird everywhere.
	Yeah, yeah, I mean, it's nice that we can thank the Ottoman Empire for something.
	That is good.
	Always looking for a bright side, you know?
	Yes, yeah, shiny side of that coin.
	It's important to find.
	Oh, dear.
	Some of my audience may accuse me of burying the lead somewhat by only covering this somewhat late in the interview stage, but you're also an award-winning and best-selling author of, like, what, 11, 12 books?
	Something like that?
	Ten, yeah.
	Ten, ten, okay.
	I'm working on another one, but yeah.
	Right, right.
	So what brought you to writing?
	Have you always been a writer?
	Is that always just been something you've done?
	I've always wanted to be a writer.
	As far back as I can remember, probably from middle school.
	And I remember my English teacher, at the time, I told her, you know...
	I want to be a novelist.
	I want to be a writer.
	I don't know what I wanted to write.
	I just know I wanted to be a writer.
	And she's like, so you're going to be unemployed?
	And I was like, well, shit.
	It's nothing quite like being absolutely roasted by a teacher when you're 13. Yeah.
	And I probably would have given up on it.
	But quite a few years later, I had another very good teacher named Mr. Raines from Michigan.
	I feel comfortable saying his name because I'm saying only good things about him.
	And he took me aside and gave me all of these books that a child of my age absolutely shouldn't be reading.
	He made me go get a permission slip signed by my mom.
	And he told me to read those things, develop an ethereal voice, and write whatever the fuck you want, really.
	And then, of course, I let go of it because I have bills to pay.
	I was from a very poor family.
	Ed writing isn't very good at paying your bills.
	I must stay still to this day.
	So I joined the army, got a college education, and I got out.
	And one of the things that I did when I was in the army and when I was in Afghanistan was kind of keep a humorous diary in a way.
	Kind of processing and spending time with my own head because there's nothing else to do outside of work.
	And then one of my friends stole it and sent it to his wife back in the States because he thought it was funny.
	And then she spread it to all the other soldiers' families and they all thought it was either A, very funny, or B, terribly offensive.
	Right.
	And when I got out, someone said that I needed to turn into a book because they told me I was the smart one, which is very depressing.
	That's just life in the army.
	And I shopped it around.
	It got rejected.
	I don't even know how many times.
	I legitimately lost count.
	It's not a book that publishers really want to talk about or touch back then because it was very, very critical of the army, of the war efforts, of the government.
	This is Hooligans of Kandahar, right?
	Yes.
	And eventually it was published and it did very, very, very well.
	And it's enabled me to move into writing science fiction, which is something of a trope for veteran authors deciding they don't want to write about real life anymore.
	Yeah, I was going to ask, like, I'm kind of, you know, much of your work is military-based kind of sci-fi stuff, so I am kind of curious how your own experiences have influenced the direction of your writing and, like, what kind of broader narrative points regarding that your work is trying to kind of cover.
	Oh, I mean...
	All of it, mostly.
	I went through a lot of therapy for PTSD when I got out.
	And one of the things I found that helped me the most was just simply writing.
	And there's only so much you can process while writing an actual true story.
	There's things that maybe you leave out subconsciously.
	Maybe your editor tells you, like, you're making the reader sad, Joe.
	Maybe you need to cut this part out, which did happen.
	Or you might get sued.
	So, you know, things fall by the wayside.
	And as you grow and, you know, because I got out, I was still in my early 20s.
	And now I'm in my late 30s.
	You process things differently as you age.
	Especially as, you know, mental health care and saying your feelings becomes more acceptable for a man.
	Because I did grow up in a deeply, deeply toxic hellscape, which most people still unfortunately do.
	Yeah.
	And I found a way to voice my intense displeasure, disillusionment, bitterness, how jaded I was, and my feelings through maybe not necessarily a better way, but a more digestible way by putting a thin veneer of it being, it's in space now!
	It's still the same.
	I'm still writing soldiers.
	I'm still writing the people I knew.
	I'm still writing myself.
	The conversations in my book are not much different than the conversations I've had in real life.
	And it's a way to show people as best as I can why war is bad and why...
	With a very infinitesimal good thing that could be done with military force, which hasn't happened in my life, and how it impacts people.
	Because unfortunately, when you write a biography, which is what Hooligans is, for lack of a better term, a memoir, you're not going to get the amount of readers that maybe would be most impacted by that.
	You need to make it entertaining.
	And I've been trying to do that both with my podcast and with my writing is make it digestible.
	Yes, you're entertained.
	Hopefully, maybe you'll laugh a little bit.
	But at the end, I want you to be sad.
	That's the aim.
	I want you to be as miserable as I was when I finished my contract.
	I've got to say, bitter and jaded, you are speaking my language, Joe.
	But yeah, that kind of degree of separation does make it just that little bit easier to digest reality, doesn't it?
	Just that little bit.
	I grew up reading a lot of Terry Pratchett books, so more on the fantasy side of things, but that was very much always what he was doing.
	Yeah.
	That's one of the reasons why, actually, I started reading more fantasy than anything else over the last two years, give or take.
	Just mainlining Pratchett and Epic Crombie.
	Thankfully not Gaiman.
	And, you know, I'm not going to say that I saw what was coming or anything, but I tried to read one of his books once.
	It wasn't for me, and I've never felt more vindicated before in my life.
	Yep, yep, yep.
	It's a nice feeling.
	I had American Gods sitting on my shelf for a very long time, and I realized it was still there a couple weeks ago, and I was like, oh, into the trash!
	I liked that one, goddammit.
	Yeah, that was one of the ones I read, and I was like, oh, this is good!
	And then, yeah, a couple of decades later or whatever, like, oh, fuck, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope.
	Never going back to that.
	Oh, boy.
	And the constant stream of the fantasy that I've been taking in over the last two years is one of the reasons why I'm working my first fantasy novel as we speak.
	I don't know when this is in a pitch because I have no idea what's coming on coming out.
	I don't have a contract for it.
	And I just finished the rough draft this morning, actually.
	But maybe in the next two years.
	Exciting.
	Okay.
	Something to look forward to.
	Something to look forward to.
	I'm in.
	Let me know when you get that thing, you know.
	All edited and all that stuff.
	Happy preliminary reader here.
	So, one of the fun parts of this show that I'm still navigating going forward is how to transition from the interview to covering Russell's bullshit.
	So, let me give it a shot here.
	Hey Joe, you know who else has written books?
	Russell Brand.
	I hate the fact that I didn't know that he wrote books before, but also now that I know this, I have a feeling he's written, like, a weird amount of them.
	Yeah, how many are we looking at?
	There's My Booky Wook, there's My Booky Wook 2, there was Revolution, there was a children's book he wrote, there was a football book that he wrote.
	You wrote a fucking children's book?
	He did.
	It was panned by critics.
	It was probably the most savaged children's book that I've ever seen, honestly.
	It was kind of a reinterpretation of the Pied Piper of Hamelin.
	That is worrying giving the accusations.
	Yeah, it fits.
	It fits the narrative.
	But yeah, just absolutely trashed, and that's why there was only one.
	It was supposed to be a whole series, you know, Russell Brand's trickster tales, and then, yeah, just...
	Absolutely demolished.
	He has two books named My BookieWook, which is like the most twee bullshit on Earth.
	It is, like, and that's the way it reads on the surface.
	What it's supposed to be is, um, the language that they, um, the kind of, the language that they speak in A Clockwork Orange, like, the kind of semi-made-up one, um, that it's supposed to be, like, my book, but in that language, apparently, which, obviously, no one knows.
	Nobody gives a shit.
	It just comes off as, like, a really stupid name.
	Like, you know, it's like, my bookie work?
	What are you...
	Of course, this is Clockwork Orange, British English, that famed movie from, what, the fucking 70s, was it?
	Yeah, of course I would somehow in my mind relate that to Russell Brand in 2007. Yes, of course.
	That's what's gonna happen.
	That's A to B right there.
	Yeah, yeah, exactly.
	Yeah, no, he's written quite a few books.
	And, of course, Recovery, about addiction and everything else, where he's basically just kind of revamping the 12 Steps, basically just repackaging them.
	And, yeah, I think he's still featured as part of AA programs worldwide to this day.
	Oh, that's depressing.
	Isn't it just?
	Yeah, so he's got a bunch of books.
	That did answer my question as to whether you'd read any.
	Oh god, no.
	I don't hate myself that much.
	I hate myself a fair amount, but not even I hate myself that much.
	I feel like actually becoming addicted to something would cause less...
	It's definitely possible, especially going back to 2007, Russell, when attitudes were already different anyway.
	And then with Russell being edgy for that time as well, his writing is harrowing, is the way I would put it.
	It's not an easy journey.
	I mean, 2007 Russell is about how I still conceptualize it.
	Like, I know vaguely some of the weird shit he's been up to, but I still think of him as the guy from, like, Get Him to the Greek.
	Right, right.
	So what was your kind of first experience of Russell like?
	Your first interaction with his existence?
	Forgetting Sarah Marshall, for sure.
	Right!
	Right, right.
	I didn't even know he was a stand-up comedian until after that.
	I guess he had been for quite some time.
	And then the Katy Perry thing, because you kind of can't escape the news cycle.
	And then get him to the Greek.
	And then he was in some movie where he was playing a man-child.
	I can't remember what it was called.
	And that was pretty much it.
	Yeah, that's right.
	Yeah, a remake of Arthur that essentially killed his movie career.
	Oh, so something good did come out of it then.
	That's nice.
	Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.
	People stopped watching him, which is kind of how we end up where we are today, to be honest.
	And how much of Russell's present-day existence as an alt-right propagandist are you familiar with?
	Very little.
	I only know of him when he kind of comes up as...
	I don't know if a main character still exists yet, because Twitter's turned into more of a Nazi factory than it's ever been.
	But I remember whenever his dumb clips would get normally shared around by people I was following, making fun of him, of course.
	And then...
	His grift conversion to Christianity, like following all these right-wingers who are just converting into weird psycho versions of religions to kind of glom onto another fan base, I assume.
	What were the weird sex criminals that are hiding out in Romania?
	The Tates, they've done it.
	Yeah, there's a big trend among that particular media sphere, for sure.
	Yeah, Russell was prodded into it by Bear Grylls, of all people.
	What the fuck?
	How does Bear Grylls get put in there?
	Are they drinking each other's pee to survive the baptism?
	Yeah, they're buds, and Bear Grylls has been on Russell's show a couple of times.
	Oh no!
	I had no idea.
	Yeah, he's a big Anglican guy, like, charismatic Anglican guy.
	I don't know anything about the Anglican Church other than one of the co-hosts of, well, both of my co-hosts live, or used to live in the United Kingdom, and they said that there's nothing weirder than a British person who's, like, really into Anglicanism.
	Yeah.
	There's been kind of a resurgence over the last couple of decades with something called the Alpha Course that has been very specifically focused on charismatic Anglican evangelism, basically.
	Anything with a name like that's gonna be full of the most insufferable pieces of shit imaginable.
	Yeah, yeah, Bear Grylls is a big Alpha Course guy.
	Russell has been to one or two of those, I believe, you know, and so you're like, okay, I can see the threads here.
	I can see where this is going.
	Yeah, it's less than great, is my personal take on it.
	Bear Grylls, like, in isolation, I don't think has done anything that offensive, other than, like, defend and support Russell Brand a lot.
	Yeah, that's pretty bad.
	Yeah, it's not great.
	It's not great.
	But yeah, Anglicanism in general is kind of, it's almost like a version of Catholicism, but not.
	It's kind of an offshoot situation, and that's the official Church of England.
	That's the one that's actually ingrained into our legal system over here, which is fun.
	And yet, as a country, we are far less religious than the United States.
	That's a low bar at this point, honestly.
	Yeah, but the United States is supposed to have separation of church and state, whereas we don't, and we're less religious.
	Go figure.
	You'll find our constitution is quite fungible these days.
	Why do you think I live in the EU? It's a flexible document now.
	That's where we're at.
	Alright, let's get into some of Russell's nonsense here.
	And I apologize, Joe, but I'm going to be truly dropping you in at the deep end this week.
	Outstanding.
	The first thing I want to cover is that Russell has had a little bit of an obsession lately with an OnlyFans porn actor called Lily Phillips.
	She'd been in the headlines lately for wanting to sleep with a thousand men in a day, and then Russell continued- We all need goals.
	They're important.
	Russell continued talking about her long after she was out of headlines again.
	You know, just carried on with this little obsession.
	Got a bit weird.
	And then his wish came true, and she did in fact appear on Stay Free with Russell Brand.
	It's a weird conversation, is what I'm going to say.
	There's been a growing sense, at least to me, that Russell wasn't quite sure what he wanted to achieve from the conversation, but knew that he really wanted to talk to her.
	Usually couching that in some kind of potential conversion to Christianity vibes.
	Like, hey, I'm only wanting to talk to this person out of concern for their mortal soul, right?
	That's the position he's saying he's coming from.
	I feel like he's probably concerned about something else.
	There might be other things on his mind.
	There might be other things on his mind.
	I've only cut a few clips from this because the entire 45-minute conversation is, frankly, all kinds of weird.
	And we're going to leap into Russell wrestling with why he's talking to Lily Phillips in the first place.
	And honestly, I think also this clip pretty well captures the tone for the interview at large.
	It's difficult for me.
	I feel like a...
	Since I want to reach out to you a little bit, because I suppose in the past, when I was younger and before I was married and before I had children, I suppose if I'd heard of you, I would have been happy to see you as an object and not to investigate that any further.
	But as an adult man and as a man of God, how I see you is a fellow child of God.
	And part of me feels like...
	I wonder if there is any way I can offer you some protection or service or counsel.
	And it's very interesting because I deal with drug addicts all the time, and I know if someone ain't asking for help, that means they don't want help.
	If someone's taking a bunch of drugs and they're having a wild old time, then they don't want you.
	They want you to just mind your own business.
	I felt like...
	Mate, I put on X and you were walking around in public with sperm on your face.
	And I felt like, I'm not completely divorced from the part of myself that sees something like that.
	Skincare is important, Russell.
	The antenna goes up to use an image of, wow, that's an energy that I know would change my consciousness.
	That energy would change my state.
	Another part of me feels like, Where are we going, Lily?
	Where are we going?
	Where do we go from here?
	Talk me through why you did that, how that felt, and whether or not that's given you cause for reflection.
	Lily, you want to tell me how it was like to have a cub on your face?
	To be honest, I was just finished filming a threesome with two guys, and they both finished on my face.
	And so I thought it might be fun to see if I can go out in public with this on and anyone will say anything or anything like that.
	But, you know, everyone in England is very polite and no one said a thing.
	But, yeah, that was kind of the reason and not much thought went into it.
	No, crazy, I suppose, if you thought about it a little.
	Because that's a mad thing to do, mate.
	It's a mad thing to do, I feel.
	Uh-huh.
	Uh-huh.
	Yeah, no, her answer makes complete sense.
	Yes!
	Yeah, like, the whole, okay, like, I don't understand where he's coming from, other than if anybody, game should recognize game here, right?
	Like, I support sex workers with 100%, and what she's doing is marketing.
	Yes!
	Oh no, that's 100% why she's there.
	That's absolutely why she's there.
	And that's why she walked around with a whole bunch of cum on her face.
	And shot it for...
	It's not like she just walked around into Tesco or whatever without recording it.
	She did it for social media.
	So people are like, yo, look at this, and check out her content.
	If anybody should understand about posting dumb shit on the internet for attention, it's fucking Russell Brand.
	Yes, yes, he should.
	Yes, he should get it.
	We're veering pretty heavily from like, oh, 20 years ago I'd have been happy to see you as an object, to now I see you as a fellow child of God.
	Can I offer you service, protection, or counsel?
	And then right back to, hey, I'll admit my antenna goes up when I see someone walking around with jizz on their face and I think, wow, that's an energy that'll change my consciousness.
	Why do you do it?
	I mean, Russell, it sounds like you really want to experiment.
	I mean, I am in favor of it.
	Find your true happiness.
	Maybe if you found out something more about yourself, you wouldn't be...
	Such a dickhead.
	Well, in one of Russell's earlier TV shows, I think the earliest one that he was a star of, he did jack off a guy in a bathroom stall on television.
	That was a thing he did.
	To test whether he was gay or not was the premise.
	I gotta say, TV in the UK is fucking wild.
	Early 2000s especially, yeah.
	Things got real fucked real quick.
	Yeah, that was on Channel 4. He went and did that and determined that he was not in fact gay was the salute.
	Then my suggestion is officially rescinded.
	It is weird that he said that it felt like it could be transcendent in some way.
	I mean, maybe it is, but like the duality of the energies here of I see you as a child of God, but also really fucking horny.
	Right!
	It's clashing so hard!
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	Like, one of the things to note here is that, like, yeah, Lily Phillips' response is fairly matter-of-fact.
	And that's how she comes off in the interview as a whole.
	Like, pretty much like, yep, I like fucking.
	I have a staff that works for me.
	I make a lot of money.
	No, Russell, I won't be seeking monogamous Christian romance in the near future, because that was a question that came up.
	Whereas Russell is just utterly fascinated by her and can't seem to bring himself to admit why.
	There has to be some kind of disconnect of many things in his head, right?
	Obviously, I'm assuming Russell Brand does not have high opinions of sex workers, and he probably would not be having this same conversation with a man who said, a male sex worker who had sex with...
	Hundreds of women, right?
	Unlikely, unlikely.
	It is worth noting that Russell lost his virginity to a sex worker while in Southeast Asia on a trip with his dad.
	While in the same room as his dad, as a matter of fact.
	What?
	Yeah, that's a whole thing.
	That's a whole thing.
	Yeah, they got a twin room and his dad purchased three prostitutes for the evening.
	Two for him and one for Russell.
	And, yeah.
	A lot is making more sense now.
	I mean, who am I to judge British culture, but that sounds fucking vile.
	That is not British culture, I can assure you that.
	That is, yeah, that is...
	Fucked up to anyone who's heard it so far, in my experience.
	Yeah, yeah.
	On a related note, yeah, Russell also does appear to be, like, he's finding the whole Christianity thing, like, a little bit miserable lately.
	He seems to kind of, you know, be begrudging all of the abstinence and everything.
	And he's also insisted on Donald Trump Jr.'s podcast that Russell no longer watches any porn and no longer masturbates either, because we all needed to know that.
	Sure, I was dying to know.
	I don't believe him, but I was dying to know.
	I'm sure he watched a lot of her work for research.
	Yes, exactly.
	Okay, so next up, Russell felt like he needed to spend a chunk of the conversation assuring Lily that she is special.
	You're a very interesting...
	What's creation, Lily?
	And, like, who are any of us to predict what might happen?
	And I know some of the arguments that will be made or some of the statements that will get said.
	Like, what about when you're older?
	But people could say the same thing about getting a tattoo when you're young.
	What do you think about that?
	But the thing that most interests me is not like...
	Damning and judgment, because I think a lot of that damning and judgment comes from prurience.
	Prurience means that they're kind of excited about it and don't want to own their own excitement.
	That's you, Russell.
	I can feel that on the edge of my own mind.
	On the edge of my own mind, I can feel the part of me that's like, oh my god, this woman is so, like, this is fascinating and compelling that a woman would do this.
	And I know that if I was younger and if I was in the game, as it were, in inverted commas, I would...
	Be fascinated and I'd want to be involved.
	That's how I would be.
	But as a man who believes above all else in the sacred, that there is something glorious and special about human beings, that there is something that you are a child of God, that you are a child of God.
	That's what I want to say to you.
	That you are special and that you are beautiful and that you are sacred.
	And you deserve to be cherished and treasured in every aspect of your life.
	And that any choices you make, they are your choices to make.
	But there is somewhere for you to go where you will be loved, embraced, and accepted, and cleansed.
	And I want you to know that that's real, Lily.
	Beyond all of this.
	When I look at now myself and what my sexual...
	What my adventures and my sexual excitement did for me and where it led.
	I wish that someone, me or God or someone, could reach through time.
	Just you or God.
	Those are the two options.
	You are special.
	You are special.
	And you deserve to be looked after and loved.
	Be careful with yourselves.
	Be careful with one another.
	I didn't receive that.
	The culture didn't give that to me.
	Do you know that about yourself, that you are special?
	I guess I don't think of myself as special, just another girl.
	And I'm not religious or anything like that, so I don't really read into it.
	That's good.
	One day you will.
	One day you will read into it.
	Point for point.
	One day you will, because one day we all have to.
	We all have to look inside ourselves.
	Okay.
	Straight up, this feels like grooming.
	Like, watching this conversation felt like watching a 50-year-old try and groom a 23-year-old in real time, because that's the age gap here, by the way.
	That's what we're looking at.
	Yeah, you actually are, I think you're nailing it.
	Like, this sounds like, like, I don't know, a wish.com cult.
	Attempted programming of some kind.
	Like, no, I just want to tell you you're special.
	You're a child of God.
	You're special.
	You're a very interesting creation.
	You deserve to be cherished and treasured.
	Do you know you're special?
	Jesus Christ.
	This comes from two kinds of guys.
	Russell Brand, who's very clearly trying to start some new age, hymn-centric medium of belief.
	Or the weird guy who is in his early 20s and hangs outside of high school and always has an acoustic guitar.
	Yeah, right.
	Yeah, or like...
	Andrew Tate.
	Equally.
	And his school of thought.
	Because literally all of that language, especially when put together in a string of sentences, it's grooming shit.
	Very simply.
	My favorite thing about this, again, is Lily Phillips' response, because it seems like she's been on the receiving end of this before.
	Oh, I can only imagine.
	That would be my guess.
	And she's like, nah, I'm just another girl.
	Not special.
	Also, I'm not religious, so I don't read into it.
	Just immediately shut that shit down.
	And then also, like, you get to the patronizing dick portion of this, because, like, between the compliments of the grooming, he's also doing, like...
	Christian negging.
	Like, well, one day you will read into it, Lily Phillips, because we all have to look inside ourselves.
	Do you know there's a place you can go to be cleansed?
	Implication being, you're unclean.
	Right, right.
	It's a classic, very specific combination of things.
	But don't worry, he's not being prurient.
	He can't be, because he specifically said that he wasn't being that.
	So that negates it.
	Yeah, this thing where it's coming from a place of intense want and interest, but they're repressing it.
	Unlike me, guy who continues to talk about this for...
	You said this went on for quite a long time.
	Yes, yes.
	Oh, yeah.
	Oh, yeah.
	This was...
	What a weird fucking conversation, honestly.
	Okay, I've got one more.
	Let me ask.
	This is a podcast that has had like...
	You know, WrestleBrain's show has had, let's call them, quote-unquote, serious people on, right?
	Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
	That are in charge, effectively, of our modern discourse in many ways.
	Steve Bannon's been on, you know.
	Fucking wonderful.
	Yeah, that was a conversation.
	Jordan Peterson is a regular feature.
	Tucker Carlson, Candice Owens, all of that kind of ilk.
	Okay, and this is something that his audience has really...
	I'm really dying for.
	Meanwhile, you have Lily here, who doesn't really seem like she knows what she's there for, and either does Russell for that matter.
	It really seems like, at a certain point, hey, Russell, you might have to add this out, but why the fuck did you invite me here?
	Yeah, yeah, like, she's just quite merrily throughout the conversation just talking about her experiences and just being like, yeah, I really like fucking, everything's good, you know?
	Yeah.
	It's all been a great time.
	Like, it's very clearly, like, you know, promotion on her part, and she nails it.
	Like, she comes off as very intelligent and kind of just bossing it the whole way through the interview.
	Yeah.
	Whereas Russell is just, like, slobbering all over her throughout it, and you're like, ah, this feels weird.
	Yeah, this reminds me a lot of the moral panic of...
	When I was younger, in the 90s, early 2000s, I mean, Marilyn Manson, famed piece of shit these days, not defending Marilyn Manson, but he was blamed for the Columbine shooting.
	Right, yes.
	And someone sat him down for an interview, hoping to nail him, and he just made him look incredibly stupid.
	Because that was back when his brain still worked.
	Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.
	He, at the very least, was a very intelligent individual.
	Yeah, yeah, 100%.
	There is kind of a degree of moral panic surrounding this conversation.
	And I feel like with another...
	If it was a televangelist or someone sitting down with her, there could be more of a come-to-Christ conversation.
	But Russell is new at this and doesn't know how to land that plane, and also he's horny, so also doesn't know how to land that plane.
	So he's just real confused.
	Russell Brand is having his own internal...
	9-11 at this moment.
	He's not sure what to do.
	Oh no.
	Oh no.
	It's all coming down.
	It's all coming down.
	And it does so actually in the last clip that I've got here from the Lily Phillips interview is how Russell closes the conversation.
	I just want to leave you, Lily, with the invitation and possibility that one day you might want to have a conversation about how you feel.
	Moments of quietness and stillness where something comes to you and you feel like you need comfort or you feel lost or you feel a brokenness.
	That's not unique to you.
	That's what it is to be a human.
	And in that, I want you to know that there is a path for you and that you are special and that you are lovely and beloved.
	And that you don't have to do anything that you don't want to do.
	And I know you aren't doing anything you don't want to do.
	If ever you find yourself in that position, then know that there is a path and a life for you.
	What the fuck does it even mean?
	That's very kind.
	Thank you.
	Appreciate that.
	Well, nice one, Lily.
	I mean, I just, you know, it's so lovely to meet you as a married, grown-up man.
	I can't imagine what would have happened if the paths had crossed without the intervening decades.
	I really wish you all of the best.
	Praying for you, Lily.
	I'm praying for you, not because of judgment, but because I think you are a lovely young woman with a lot of energy and I recognize that you're looking for something because we all are.
	Bless you.
	Well, thank you so much for having me on.
	I really appreciate it.
	If you ever need me, Lily Phillips, remember that I said that.
	Nobody needs you.
	Take care, young lady.
	Ooh, I feel like I need a shower.
	Like, if you ever need me, Lily Phillips.
	Like, he's doing some fucked up pervy rendition of the end of Labyrinth, you know?
	If you ever need me.
	Like, oh, Jesus.
	I just noticed something that's driving me nuts about Russell Brand.
	How many millions of dollars do you think this man has?
	Um, so he's got a net worth of, like, 20 million, and he seems to be raking in at least a couple of mil a year.
	And he's running a podcast using fucking AirPods?
	Yes, yes he is.
	Yes, yes he is.
	Yeah, there's been a cutting of the budget on his end in recent times.
	Because, like, recently went back to, like, the first episode of Stay Free and the production value was fucking high.
	Like, they had, like, they had 21 members of staff working on the show.
	Like, they were, like...
	Yeah, there were the expensive monitors and cameras and lights and all the shit, basically.
	Whereas now it's, you know, a camera, a reasonable budget mic and AirPods.
	And a room that is not treated at all for audio.
	There's a wooden wall behind him.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	He's borrowing the studio of another podcast, actually, that does kind of, you know...
	Right-wing military stuff, funnily enough.
	Of course.
	He's a constant feature there, basically.
	And that's somewhere around Destin in Florida, northern Florida.
	Yeah.
	Also, like...
	I'm so confused by him.
	He's worth so many millions of dollars.
	I assume maybe fleeing, allegedly, from the UK to the Florida location and ditching all of his staff maybe had something to do with the quality of his show going down.
	Yeah, so there was kind of, there seemed to be an exodus of staff around when the allegations came out, and there seemed to be a kind of a refocusing as to what the show would be.
	Like, his producer and series editor, Gareth Roy, used to be kind of a main feature on screen, and then after the allegations, like, has not returned at all.
	It's not gonna protect you, bro!
	It's not gonna protect you!
	Yeah, well, yeah, because he's still the one prepping all the show and everything.
	Gareth is still the one behind the scenes actually pulling the strings and providing the information of a very specific lens.
	Russell isn't the one finding any of the shit that we're going to be covering on his own at all.
	It's all being fed from Gareth.
	But yeah, Gareth is now over in the UK as well, so he's trying to work that long distance because he doesn't want to move to Florida.
	Yeah, of course not.
	Fuck that.
	I'm going to stay here.
	Thank you very much.
	Oh, dear.
	Yeah.
	As far as having an interview with a noxious pervert like Russell and getting out scot-free, I feel like she did a great job.
	Oh, she nailed it!
	Honestly, honestly.
	She came off great throughout the conversation.
	I was like, no, you seem like a perfectly reasonable human being, you know?
	Like, you know, you enjoy your job, you take it seriously, you know?
	She seems to be paying attention to her mental health and whatnot.
	I'm like, yeah, okay, cool.
	You know?
	Yeah.
	More than he can say, that's for sure.
	Yeah, whereas Rustler's like, oh, I can't imagine what would have happened without the intervening decades.
	Like...
	Dude, like, just say you wanna fuck her and move on.
	Like, admit it to yourself, if nothing else, and move on.
	This man is down bad harder than, like...
	Most podcast hosts, which is truly saying something.
	Right?
	Because, like, here's the thing, like, in the broader sense, if you want to fuck someone, that's fine.
	You see an attractive person, it's okay to be like, oh, damn, they're hot.
	Yeah, in different circumstances, maybe.
	Or, in this case, maybe if they were 20 years older.
	But, like, don't give me a 45-minute song and dance of, I see you as a child of God.
	20 years ago, though, we'd have done some stuff.
	You know, just fucking come out and say it.
	It's like, you know, we have a character, a type of guy here in the United States, like your racist drunk uncle on Thanksgiving.
	Oh, yeah, yeah, the Uncle Frank.
	Yeah, and they say some shit like that, where it's like, you know, if I was a little bit younger.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	It's the bus driver from Billy Madison.
	Or sorry, it's the bus driver from Happy Gilmore.
	It's like, oh, you know, a friend of mine heard they got it.
	I'm like, no, they didn't.
	That didn't happen.
	You're right.
	But what if they did, though?
	Yeah, the whole, like, if I was 20 years younger thing never comes off well.
	That is not something a person should say out loud into a microphone.
	No.
	I say this as a straight, whitish male.
	If at any point those words leave your mouth, it's time to just go off into the forest and don't come back.
	Yeah, just pack it in.
	Pack it in.
	You're done.
	You're done.
	Oh, God.
	Okay, so now we move away from porn stars to politics.
	As Russell broadcasted a show later that same day that he spoke to Lily Phillips.
	So we'll be looking at the show that he streamed live afterwards.
	And the first thing we're going to look at is Russell covering a clip from AOC about how dumb Elon Musk is, with Russell eventually landing on why we shouldn't listen to AOC anyway.
	Let's look at a kind of political online spat.
	It's an online spat between AOC and Elon.
	You know one of the peculiar phenomena of the modern time is that we're asked to offer moral assessments of billionaires, aren't we?
	Like good billionaires, bad billionaires, billionaires that should have power, billionaires that shouldn't.
	AOC wants to introduce into the mix dumb billionaires.
	Don't be daft, stupid billionaire.
	She claims that Elon Musk is the dumbest billionaire she's ever met.
	This dude is probably one of the most unintelligent billionaires I have ever met or seen, or witnessed.
	You can probably even glean that from watching these people on TV. Anyways, all of that is to say is that they don't do their homework.
	Clearly, like, they're putting 19-year-olds in at the Treasury.
	This dude is not smart.
	And the danger in the lack of intelligence and the lack of expertise that Elon has.
	I mean, this guy is one of the most morally vacant, but also...
	Just least knowledgeable about these systems that we really know of.
	But the point is, is that what that means is that they're going to hit a button inevitably.
	They are going to hit a button and things can go sideways.
	You cannot indiscriminately hit buttons.
	Well, yeah, someone says, isn't she a bartender?
	One of the things I really like about AOC is that she comes from an ordinary blue-collar background and is now in Congress.
	But what I didn't know, and what Mike Benzer has pointed out, is that AOC, promoting USAID all over X today, actually, she herself came from a USAID program in college.
	Uh-huh.
	Right.
	Right.
	So, AOC says that Elon is the dumbest billionaire she's ever met, but don't listen to AOC because Elon Musk retweeted a claim from Mike Benz that AOC was the beneficiary of a USAID program in college.
	First question for you, Joe.
	It's perfectly reasonable not to, but do you know who Mike Benz is?
	I'm happy to report that I don't.
	God, that's the safer way of being.
	So Mike Benz, in 2020, worked at the State Department as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Internal Communications and Information Technology for less than a year, right?
	Deputy Assistant Secretary.
	Less than a year.
	Less than a year.
	Yeah, well, it was for the Trump administration and he got booted out as soon as Biden came in.
	So, like, a fairly junior position, which makes sense as well, given his prior experience was as a lawyer and a speechwriter.
	For Ben Carson, funnily enough.
	But he managed to parlay this junior role of his in IT into being the guy who knows all about the deep state and cyber and all of that stuff to the alt-right media sphere.
	He managed to talk his way into being that guy.
	I think he's still at Mike Ben's cyber.
	Based on that junior position that he held.
	You know, if he knew that much about communications and possibly the internet, he would know that his tagline could also mean something else.
	Yes, yes it could.
	He's been on Rogan a couple of times recently, and also Elon just loves to retweet this dude's nonsense.
	Usually, Mike Benz is just kind of vaguely gesturing at the CIA and making insinuations without evidence.
	That's usually what's going on.
	Most of the time, he's like, yeah, Operation Paperclip!
	And that's pretty much the limit of things he actually has to say.
	Here we can see that according to Elon, AOC is a stooge of USAID, because Mike Benz said, yeah, AOC promoting USAID all over X today actually came from a USAID program in college to jumpstart her miracle political career.
	Now, does he provide evidence for this claim?
	Well, it depends whether you consider selectively cropped and highlighted Wikipedia articles to be evidence.
	Fuck yeah!
	I do wish I was kidding.
	It's all on his Twitter.
	The Wikipedia articles themselves are about a coup d'etat in Niger in 2010. So in Africa, right?
	Where the previous year AOC had studied abroad for a semester, right?
	AOC spent a semester abroad in Niger.
	Right?
	Oh, man.
	Her grad program looked a lot different than mine.
	That's fucking wild!
	Right.
	So, this was at the University of Boston.
	And what's fun is that Benz is also putting these alongside a random tweet which says the following, quote, Her trip to Niger was through the Niame International Development Program, which is funded by USAID, a known CIA front.
	And what do you know?
	Shortly after she left Niger, there was a Western-backed coup that overthrew Niger's government.
	Unquote.
	Of course.
	That was all AOC's doing.
	It was AOC. And in Mike Benz's own words, quote, AOC was spawned out of USAID 2?
	Important question mark there.
	He's not claiming it.
	He's questioning.
	In college, in late 2009, she airdropped into Niger in the middle of a giant civil war just months before what appears to be a US-backed military coup in early 2010 launched against the sitting government the West had condemned and was cutting aid to.
	Unquote.
	I love two things.
	Okay, the concept of AOC being some kind of CIA paratrooper.
	Airdropped in, yeah.
	Just by herself.
	Like, as if she is some kind of Jason Bourne.
	Yeah, exactly.
	Well, also, at the same time, whenever you bring up AOC, like, oh, she was nothing but a bartender.
	Like, duh!
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	This is this incredible duality.
	Is she apparently the strongest commando the US military has ever seen?
	Or simply a bartender?
	Yeah, right.
	So, like, the conspiracy theory is that AOC was funded by USAID, and therefore the CIA, to go to Niger in 2009 and play some kind of role in orchestrating a coup that would happen when she left.
	She was, like, 20 or something.
	She was 21!
	Yeah, exactly.
	Okay.
	So, obviously, this is some really dumb shit with zero evidence to back it up.
	And what's more fun is that I managed to find a budget sheet from Boston University from 2011 detailing the expenses of this semester abroad, which comes in at an estimate of $30,604 for the 16 weeks per student.
	Yeah, why not?
	Yeah, that sounds about right.
	So either that USAID funding doesn't seem to go very far, or, well, maybe the thing was never funded by USAID in the first fucking place.
	No, no, you don't understand.
	It costs about as much as a brand new Toyota Prius to airdrop AOC into a country and overthrow a country, you know?
	Yeah, you're right, that does make more sense.
	So let's get Mike Benz back on.
	Okay, so we're going to move to another piece of important recent news, and that is Trump's intended takeover of Gaza.
	Principally, Russell has been very much against colonialism and imperialism and all these other things in the past, so theoretically, he should be very much against this.
	Not this one, though, I bet.
	Well, let's find out.
	He starts talking about it and playing a Sky News clip before then getting distracted by how terrible X is for everyone's mental health.
	Somehow or another, we're going to have to find a way of holding Israel-Palestine in our minds, acknowledging the scriptural heritage and claims that are made by the Jewish people, and the horror of any war, and in particular the duty of the powerful in situations of conflict.
	Let's see if Trump's advancing this argument.
	Let's see if Trump is a catalyst for significant change, and maybe yet something beautiful could be born of this abominable.
	Well done, Russell.
	The reaction from the gathered audience reflected the enormity of what he'd just said.
	The US will take over the Gazas.
	One lady's actually yawning in the press conference.
	Did you see that?
	Well, we tried to comprehend the enormity of what he said.
	That's what I think was difficult with 24-hour media.
	It's difficult to somehow comprehend.
	That's the important part, Russell.
	That's the important part of the situation.
	In all of our lives, simultaneously.
	You run your hand down your X feed like you might be doing right now.
	And pornography.
	People wandering the streets covered in sperm.
	Someone's dog performing a trick.
	That came back up again.
	Kanye's naked girlfriend at the Grammys.
	Someone getting their head cut off, children dying in a war, rubble, chaos.
	This is not a way to receive and understand reality.
	This perpetual present made technological rather than spiritual is unbearable for all of us.
	I mean, he's not wrong.
	No, he nailed that part.
	The problem is not that the perpetual present is being made technological instead of spiritual.
	The problem is that X is an absolute dumpster fire of a platform since Elon took it over and has allowed for basically anything to be up on there and pushed to people's main feeds.
	Like, that's the fucking problem.
	Yeah, almost like that thing that he is saying is connected to the thing that AOC said that he disregarded, perhaps.
	Yes!
	Almost!
	Almost!
	And like, for reference, like, OnBrand has an X account, which I exclusively use to keep track of these chuckleheads.
	And despite only following the few reasonable people that were left on X, every time I log in, I'm confronted with either porn or some kind of racist meme.
	And I'm like, yeah, this is terrible.
	But that's not a lack of spirituality, it's a lack of rules and regulations courtesy of God King Elon Musk, you know?
	Yeah, I'm pretty sure a lot of the people posting those racist memes, the porn, and even a few of the other things that I don't even feel comfortable talking about, would also describe themselves as fairly spiritual.
	The same guy as Russell Brand is.
	Yeah, yeah, there's the irony.
	Oh, and as for Gaza, Russell said, perhaps something beautiful can be born from the situation, supposedly, in terms of Trump taking it over.
	Like, ha, okay, that's a perspective.
	I like that he went through all of that and did not once mention anything about Palestinians other than war bad.
	Yeah, he's weirdly quiet on the subject of Palestinians in general.
	It's something that his audience tend to, like, he tries to kind of walk a line of not taking a position quite a lot, because his audience are somewhat...
	Which in itself is taking a position.
	Yes, right, exactly.
	His audience is somewhat divided on the issue, but a lot of them are very pro-Palestine, which is interesting to watch in the Rumble chat.
	On Rumble?
	Yes!
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	On Rumble.
	You see the Rumble chat being like...
	Russell had a conversation on Inauguration Day of all times about Israel-Palestine and it had a very Zionist bent and people were calling that out in the Rumble chat.
	And I was like, oh, that's interesting.
	I'm curious what angle they're coming from.
	Some are probably old hangers-on of when Russell pretended to be somewhat of a leftist.
	Yeah, there's a degree of that.
	There's a degree of also coming from the direction of anti-Semitism as well.
	And you've got people like Candace Owens and David Icke saying what sound like the right things, but for very much the wrong reasons.
	And so there's kind of a capture of that.
	The audience themselves are aware that that's the case is a different question.
	A broken-ass clock is right a few times a day, you know?
	Exactly.
	It doesn't mean you have to...
	I'm never going to reach across the aisle of Candace Owens and shake hands like, oh, so you're for a Palestinian state too?
	No.
	Fuck off.
	You're not welcome here.
	No.
	Very much not.
	Very much not.
	Incredibly malicious human being.
	Yeah.
	So, when it comes to Gaza, a journalist asks a pretty important question in the press conference that Trump was holding.
	And in the next clip, Russell elects to willfully misinterpret that question.
	The US will take over the Gaza Strip, and we will do a job with it too.
	He had just announced the takeover of Gaza.
	Owning it, occupying it, it wasn't clear, and it certainly wasn't expected.
	You are talking tonight about the United States taking over a sovereign territory.
	What authority would allow you to do that?
	Are you talking about a permanent occupation there?
	Redevelopment?
	I do see a long-term...
	When that journalist asks what authority, what authority could there be?
	What authority could there be when it comes, in fact, to all government?
	That is a good point, Russell!
	What authority...
	Could grant you the right to take over land.
	Is it going to be human authority backed by the threat of military violence, right?
	That's one option, isn't it?
	Or God?
	There is no other kind of authority.
	Is there bureaucratic authority?
	Is there administrative, legalistic authority?
	Where is that authority derived from?
	Isn't that the fundamental problem that we're facing in the world now?
	Is we all disagree about where moral authority comes from.
	Does it come from power?
	My authority comes from the ability to impose my will on you.
	Is that what authority means?
	Or is it a divine right?
	And if there is such a thing as a divine, isn't baked into that concept the idea of compassion, kindness, service, unity, glory, love, duty, doesn't it, in a sense, if you believe in divinity, if you believe in God, isn't that commensurate with beliefs in love?
	What?
	Very simply, no.
	He didn't say anything!
	So basically, if you're religious, isn't that a belief in love?
	And like, yeah, there are plenty of hateful zealots out there proving this point right now.
	There are plenty of, you know...
	I don't know how you listen to this man so frequently.
	I've never heard someone take so long to say nothing.
	He's saying the right thing.
	What authority could be given to do that?
	You're right, Russell.
	None.
	No authority should give you the right to do that.
	But instead of sticking in the landing, he's cartwheeling through space.
	Not willing to come down on the side of Trump doing something illegal, immoral, and unethical.
	Yeah, yeah, exactly that.
	It is exactly that.
	And, yeah, in terms of listening to Russell, yeah, he wears you down enough where you just get used to it.
	It's kind of like a white noise.
	So, like, what I did find troubling about this, you know, is when someone asks, you know, what authority do you have to take over Gaza?
	It took Russell all of 30 seconds to get to discussing the concept of divine right, as though Trump was somehow potentially appointed by God.
	Yeah, he immediately went to, like, Divine Rite of Kings.
	Like, ooh, that doesn't feel good.
	That doesn't feel good.
	Anyway, Russell came so very close to asking the good question there before very intentionally making the question larger than it needs to be.
	So the question isn't what moral authority does the US have to take over Gaza, but more what legal authority does the US have to take over Gaza?
	That was the point the journalist was trying to raise.
	Like, how are you going to pull that off?
	And the answer is none.
	There is no legal authority for the US to just...
	Take over a sovereign nation.
	In fact, there's plenty of legality from a...
	A place not too far from where I'm currently sitting that states that it's always illegal all the time.
	All the time!
	All the time!
	And Russell knows this.
	Despite appearances, he isn't that stupid.
	And so he has to zoom out to the extent of, well, does anyone have the right to do anything?
	What even are morals in order to provide cover for Trump's actions?
	It's a very transparent straw man that he's presenting, basically, to distract from the question.
	Dear, oh dear.
	It was such an easy one for him to stick to, but again, that's where I feel like his rumble chat is probably the most deeply cursed thing on Earth, because they do hate the state of Israel for very different reasons than say, I do.
	But at the same time, he can't possibly say that this cannot be occupied, that this area cannot be occupied, because it would require him to come out.
	And say the most milquetoast, bland critique of Trump imaginable.
	Can't even say that.
	Yeah, yeah, no, exactly.
	He can't even be like, yeah, maybe you shouldn't take over a sovereign country.
	And there's...
	Complications around that as well, because he's very pro-Russia in the Ukraine situation, so he has to be.
	He's being consistently on the side of the larger aggressor in these situations.
	I'm glad someone's sticking up for the big guy, you know?
	Yes!
	Yeah, Putin needs the support.
	Too many people have solidarity with the little guys being taken over by military force.
	Nobody's like...
	I love imperialism.
	Exactly.
	Fuck the underdog, right?
	That's where we're at.
	It's 2025. We've moved past that.
	Bold coming from a man who wrote a book called Revolution.
	Oh, don't even get me started.
	Oh, God.
	What I would give to go back in time to 2014 and show this show to Russell.
	Oh, what I would give.
	Anyway.
	So, from here, because Russell is courting this guy and trying to get him on the show, he starts covering David Icke's take on the Gaza Takeover.
	The lizard guy?
	The lizard guy, yeah, yeah.
	Russell really wants him to come on the show, and I think it's going to happen, actually.
	I do think it's going to occur at some point.
	That's so funny, because Icke is notoriously anti-Elon Musk.
	Yeah, Icke fucking hates Russell, too.
	He is dragging Russell on his ex-account at least once a day, is what is happening.
	And Russell is not ready for that smoke, man.
	Russell's not ready for it.
	He's not going to be able to handle David Icke.
	Not a fucking chance.
	Which is why I'm ready with the popcorn for that conversation.
	So let's get into the coverage of David Icke's take on the Gaza takeover situation.
	So let's see what David Icke says on this issue.
	Now, of course, many people claim that David Icke is an anti-Semite.
	That's certainly not something that I've ever thought of David Icke.
	Listen to this.
	So predictable.
	The plan all along.
	Now, bear in mind that David Icke kind of lives with this frustration of like, I've been saying this for ages.
	Allow Hamas to breach the security fence on October the 7th with no response.
	Now, that's it.
	No response, eh?
	Okay, that's a big claim.
	Use this as an excuse to mass murder tens of thousands and to create Trump's building site.
	Now, it's difficult to look at what's happened in Gaza since October the 7th and not be...
	Appalled by the degree of violence, even if you're sympathetic to...
	Violence to who, Russell?
	Violence to who?
	So no one can live there now, and Palestinians must be moved to other countries, ethnically cleanse the land.
	Israel annexes the occupied Palestinian West Bank, secured by Miriam Adelson's $100 million support for Trump.
	Is that someone that's one of those Israeli lobbyist groups?
	I don't know.
	You can tell me.
	Work that out.
	Let me know.
	move on to secure greater Israel and replace the Alaska Mosque in Jerusalem with a rebuild Solomon's, rebuilt, I suppose he means Solomon's Temple.
	Job done, David Icke.
	Anyone with open eyes and desire for the truth could have predicted this outcome long, long ago.
	And I suppose that's David Icke's frustration that he feels like he's been saying these things for ages.
	And it's pretty extraordinary that even in the peripheral...
	Analysis of a peripheral figure like David Icke, the replacement of the religious sites appears to be at the forefront.
	Don't you feel increasingly these days that a secular and materialistic analysis for what's happening politically is insufficient?
	That it feels like such a sort of tectonically and epocally significant time of change and fracture that just going, this is about oil.
	Doesn't seem like enough.
	These people are trying to get their mitts on the shale gas.
	Like, it doesn't seem enough anymore.
	I don't think anybody's saying that about how powerful forces are at work.
	And I can't even describe them accurately using simply the language of human politics, which ultimately would boil down to urges, wouldn't they?
	If you didn't believe in God or the divine or the occult or the supernatural, use whatever term you want.
	If you just believed that we are essentially atoms and molecules that at some point became conscious, then the most powerful forces are drives, like the drive for power or the drive for sex.
	And then they fundamentally become a kind of pantheon, wouldn't you agree?
	Like they become Mars.
	Two things does not make a pantheon, you fucking idiot!
	I reject your premise, sir!
	Yeah, yeah, so he said at the end, you know, it's like Mars, the god of war, and Venus, the god of love.
	And yes, I as an atheist am frequently driven by the god of love and the god of war.
	To be fair, the god of war games are pretty great, so maybe there's a little bit of truth to that one.
	Yeah, fair enough.
	So this sounds nuts, and it is, but Russell regularly asserts the belief that without God or religion, then everyone is amoral and a slave to their base instincts because they have no moral center to guide them.
	If you were to accuse Russell of telling on himself, I think he'd probably be right.
	I believe you.
	Yeah, but because David Icke brought up religious sites around the subject of Gaza, well, there's the proof that secular viewpoints aren't enough to assess global politics anymore.
	Not that it would just be a relevant point to bring up on the subject in general.
	Not that there's any history there or anything like that.
	No, no, it's all about oil.
	I love that, like, say what you will about David Icke.
	Namely, he's a fucking madman.
	Even he is somehow closer to being on target regarding vaguely describing what's happening in NASA than Russell Brand does.
	As to the actual points, it's sort of reality through a kaleidoscope lens of conspiracy theories, like in asserting that this was all pre-planned down to the last detail and all of that.
	It's reality if you got hit in the head of the brick.
	We're kicked in the head by a really angry horse.
	Yes.
	With bricks for hooves.
	So, like, what got me was number four in his list.
	Israel annexes the occupied Palestinian West Bank, secured by Miriam Adelson's $100 million support for Trump.
	Now, Israel annexing Gaza, sure, and Trump being in on it, yes, completely makes sense.
	But the $100 million from Miriam Adelson is so very not required for Trump to be willing to ethnically cleanse Gaza.
	Like, from the moment I heard him talking about Gaza having beautiful beaches, I was like...
	Ah, fuck, I see where this is going.
	Okay, this is gonna be a problem.
	Like, he didn't need that hundred million to make that decision, you know?
	No, he would have done that for free.
	Also, I love the idea that Russell Brand is supposed to be such a high-minded thinker, a speaker of all of these things.
	He doesn't know who the Adelson's are.
	Yes!
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	How the fuck do you miss out on that?
	Well, especially when you're covering American politics specifically.
	For the record, David Icke is an anti-Semite and isn't averse to dragging Jewish names into things for the fun of it.
	But yeah, Miriam Adelson is not undeserving of critique.
	Here's the first line of her Wikipedia page.
	Miriam Adelson is an Israeli-American physician, businesswoman, and political donor.
	Yeah, if political donor is listed as your occupation, I'm afraid you've lost me.
	Just immediately off the top.
	Her husband, I believe it was, was even more well-known than she is.
	He was a big casino guy.
	Yeah, they're a known thing.
	Yes, yeah, yeah.
	You couldn't find many conservative things that didn't have Edelstein money running through them.
	Right, right.
	Yeah, exactly.
	Like, she's a nightmare human being and a mega-donor to Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.
	So, yeah.
	Deserving of critique.
	Whether she needed to be dragged into this particular lens is a different question, but Ike's gonna Ike.
	Ike found exactly what he was looking for.
	Yes, yeah, exactly.
	So, this whole piece of coverage was going kind of badly for Russell.
	Having to try and provide cover for an ethnic...
	Not a great look.
	And so he needed a way to redirect all of this back to being the left's fault somehow.
	So enter Max Blumenthal and the Grey Zone.
	Without some kind of divine covenant, we're on a serious precipice now.
	Now, people that have always provided good political analysis of ongoing and unfolding events, particularly when it comes to wars, are Max Blumenthal and the folks over at Grayzone, brilliant journalists.
	Always, never been wrong.
	I think now it's very appropriate to reiterate that the Democrat leadership enthusiastically joined with Republicans to authorize the shipping of over 85,000 tons of bombs to Israel to drop on the besieged Gaza Strip.
	And of course Blumenthal's response is to a rather It's not just that we think he's a misogynist and a racist and a rapist.
	It's that he's going to do crazy political things like say I'm going to occupy Gaza.
	Well, it is pretty crazy, isn't it?
	But isn't the ongoing necessity for perpetual war that appears to be defining our time part of a craziness that goes beyond the phenomena of Donald Trump?
	The Ukraine-Russia conflict is being perpetuated.
	That's insane.
	This ongoing conflict in the Middle East is insane, but has tendrils so far back in time that it's difficult to be blunt or pithy about it.
	What? - What? - So, Hey, Trump is gonna do crazy things, but isn't the world crazy?
	Isn't war crazy?
	Huh?
	Like, this is like me throwing a glass of water in your face and saying like, well, aren't we all made up of water anyway?
	Like, sure, but that doesn't make this specific action okay.
	You know, the war in Afghanistan, the war in Iraq, the war in Gaza, the war in Ukraine is bad.
	But you know what else is really bad?
	The very concept of war.
	And until we defeat that at the battleground of ideas, we can't possibly have a feast of fire.
	There's no movement.
	Yeah, there's nothing we can do.
	Hands are tied.
	I want to jump at a time machine.
	Find my great-grandparents somewhere in Anatolia and be like, I know this death march is really fucking bad, but hey, at least you're not Native American.
	Yeah, I'm sure they'll be thrilled.
	I'm sure they'll be thrilled.
	Scoreboard, Grandpa!
	You're winning!
	Accept it!
	Yeah, anyway, as for the tweets, Simone D. Sanders said in response to the Gaza Takeover plan, I think now it's very appropriate to reiterate that elections have consequences, which...
	Not helpful, but sure.
	And Max Blumenthal of the Grey Zone responded with, I think now it's very appropriate to reiterate that the Democrat leadership enthusiastically joined with Republicans to authorize the shipping of over 85,000 tons of bombs to Israel to drop on the besieged Gaza Strip.
	Yes, that is true.
	Notice the framing there that the Democrat leadership are the ones to take most of the blame in that sentence?
	Well, they enthusiastically joined with it, right?
	And that's, yeah, for anyone kind of unclear, it's because the gray zone is a sort of left of left outfit, but not in the true kind of leftist sense, more that they will find any way they can to attack the Democrats on every leftward front while being suspiciously silent about any problems the Republicans might be causing.
	It's this weird trend.
	It's almost like if they were socialists, but also nationalists.
	National socialists, you'd call them.
	No, that's got a ring to it.
	I feel like there's a shorter way.
	There's a shorter version of that, yeah, that I think could be catchier.
	Yeah, they're a problem.
	Fuck those guys.
	I fucking hate the Grey's End.
	The very first piece of coverage of Russell's show that I ever did was covering Max Blumenthal, trafficking in the idea that the CIA were behind 9-11, supposedly with new bombshell evidence.
	So that's how serious it is.
	Yeah, Max just hasn't been able to recover since his bro Assad lost his job.
	It's like, shit, what do I do now?
	And, like, as to, like, addressing the actual point, like, sure, Gaza under a Harris administration wouldn't be looking much better, to be frank.
	Like, that was abundantly clear and may have lost to the election.
	But I'm quite sure what we wouldn't be looking at is, hey, we're gonna openly take over Gaza, ethnically cleanse the place, and turn it into a beach resort.
	I don't think that's what we'd be looking at.
	So there is a difference, you know?
	I think that's a fair assessment, yeah.
	I mean, like, everyone says elections have consequences.
	Like, that is...
	True, that is correct.
	One of those consequences wouldn't have been if Harris would have won the genocide in Gaza ending.
	That would not have happened.
	What wouldn't have happened is, I assume, some kind of Miami Beach resort being built on its ashes.
	It's the only difference.
	We would have...
	Our government in the United States would have gleefully gave the Israelis every bullet and bomb necessary to kill every man, woman, and child in Gaza.
	That would not have changed.
	The only difference would be is they would probably pinkwash it somehow.
	I have no idea.
	Yeah, yeah, it would have been like, hey, but it's a little bit less genocide.
	You're like, oh, okay, okay, cool.
	It's not genocide, it's only ethnic cleansing.
	Those are different.
	We only use the G word if Trump gets elected.
	I'll take my cues from you, Joe.
	You're the expert in this field.
	It's fucking aggravating.
	It's like, hashtag resist Gaza strong.
	Shut the fuck up!
	But hey, anyway, apparently without a divine covenant of some kind, we're on a serious precipice, according to Russell.
	Get with God and it'll all be fine.
	That's how we deal with that.
	Famously the slice of land in history that you want to use those terms for.
	Yes!
	Yeah, exactly!
	So, Russell moves on from discussing Gaza and gets to covering some of Bill Gates appearing on The View.
	He plays some...
	What a ridiculous sentence.
	I know.
	He's real mad about it for basically no reason.
	And he plays some clips from The View and whatnot, which I'm not going to engage with.
	But here's his takeaway from the situation.
	What we're discussing is who gets to be powerful?
	Who do you want to be in charge?
	And I would say with solely an individualistic and materialistic, you know, maybe even rationalistic worldview, you're not ever going to be able to negotiate or navigate your way through these problems because who has absolute moral authority?
	Who has it?
	Who has supreme authority?
	You've just seen Bill Gates on The View saying you can't trust Elon Musk.
	He may make a lovely Tesla, but don't let him into your doge.
	Let him into your electric box, but not down to your doge hole.
	Well, why, Bill?
	Why would you grant Elon Musk authority?
	Yeah, that's certainly that's a good question.
	Why would you grant Bill Gates authority?
	Why would you grant Trump authority, Biden authority, Keir Starmer authority?
	Why would you grant anybody authority?
	Those are all good points, Russell.
	Unless you thought they were somehow conduit of or vessel for some kind of certain reliable moral power.
	And if you don't believe there is a certain reliable moral power, then I don't know how you even structure government or society or civilization or on what basis there would be a point in doing that other than the relentless pursuit of pleasure.
	And he always goes back to getting his dick sucked or something, doesn't he?
	Doesn't he?
	Again, we're back to if you're secular, then you must be entirely focused around pleasure, which again is Russell telling on himself that if left to his own devices, he gets into trouble real quick.
	He was a sex addict, if I remember correctly, right?
	Yes, yeah, yeah.
	He attended a rehab for that, which didn't take, it seems.
	Didn't take.
	Yeah, that was back in 2005, I think he did that.
	He should go back.
	One could argue.
	I'm sure he's fine doing it through God and all of that.
	Right, yeah, sure.
	But he actually takes this whole concept, like, a little step further here.
	Like, according to him, the question of who gets to be powerful can't actually be answered by a materialist, rational, secular worldview.
	And if you don't believe in a certain moral power, then, like, how do you even structure society, let alone choose who should have power?
	Now, like, this is all fucked up stuff to say about secular individuals, for sure, but the part I find most troubling...
	Is the line like, why would you grant Musk, Trump or Gates authority unless you thought them a conduit for certain moral power?
	And...
	Maybe I'm reading too much into this, but with the conversation around divine rights and all of that coming up before and Russell's vehement support for both Donald Trump and Elon Musk, I am forced to ask, does Russell literally think that Trump and Musk are on a mission from God?
	Like, is this just a really shit oligarch dictator version of the Blues Brothers?
	Is that what I'm actually looking at play out?
	You know?
	I say no, but only because the Blues Brothers ran away from Nazis.
	Yeah, it's opposite day in Blues Brothers land.
	It has to be some kind of divine duopoly for him.
	It's the only thing that makes sense.
	Also, he seems to believe that Elon Musk is some kind of automotive engineer that personally builds.
	Every single Tesla that comes off the line.
	Which does make sense, because on my way to the studio, which is only about eight kilometers from where I live, I cycled past two broken Teslas.
	So maybe he is building them.
	That's why they're all fucked.
	That makes complete sense.
	I mean, another good example is, yes, there's a fundamental difference between a man who can hypothetically run a car company, which he can't, obviously, and be...
	Be in government.
	There's a reason why the idea of Henry Ford being the Secretary of State was a form of dystopian fiction.
	Yeah.
	In the show, a plot to destroy America.
	Yeah.
	They made the car guy, famed anti-Semite and Nazi sympathizer, Secretary of State because it would be beyond the pale.
	I mean, it's kind of fucked up that, to borrow a phrase from Alex Jones, that turned out to be predictive programming.
	Yeah, that came true.
	Same bigotries and all, with maybe a few added on.
	Yeah, I mean, you know, Henry Ford bought the Dearborn Independent to push the protocols of the Elders of Zion.
	Elon Musk!
	Bought Tesla.
	I'm sorry, bought Twitter.
	Bought Twitter, yeah.
	I think it was Time or the New York Times or something said, Elon Musk, this generation's Henry Ford, but they meant it in a positive way.
	It's like, yes!
	Yes, he is!
	It's like, again, you're saying the right thing, but coming from the wrong direction.
	Yep.
	Miracle background to being true again.
	Yes, yeah.
	So, yeah, everything in Russell's lens comes down to this duality.
	He regularly describes kind of leftism and progressivism as being satanic.
	He did so in this very show, as a matter of fact.
	Satanic forces.
	He's been hopping on some of the satanic panic kind of lingo lately.
	Been playing around in those waters.
	But moving on from this, Russell gets to telling us all what is wrong with...
	General structures of society and, crucially, what to do about it.
	If you accept that there is a God, then you have to sort of simultaneously accept the sovereignty of all individuals and their sanctity.
	The sanctity of life itself.
	And then you would have to probably make an absolute priority the principle of decentralization.
	Wherever mankind tries to aggregate power, they are defying God, whether that's corporately or bureaucratically.
	Therefore, you could sort of dismiss almost with one almighty sweep both of the great and dreadful ideologies of the last century, communism, state-based power, fascism, a kind of individualistic...
	What?
	Is that what you think fascism is?
	And then you get rid of the sanitized versions of those ideals that emerge subsequently.
	Social democracy, a kind of sanitized version of communism and free market capitalism, a kind of economized form of fascism, particularly in its form where massive companies receive subsidies, tax exemption, and are acting beyond any kind of boundary tax exemption, and are acting beyond any kind of boundary when it comes to geography and often ethics themselves.
	What's required clearly is a radical review of the way that we consent to be governed.
	Appears to be coming to the forefront, whether you listen to Bill Gates or Donald Trump, whether you're looking at the new Gaza policy, let's call it, or you're looking at who has the right as a billionaire to pontificate on behalf of humanity.
	But that's just what I think.
	Let me know what you think in the comments.
	So all of those things is fascism and soulless capitalism, and then he makes sure to bounce it off of Bill Gates.
	I feel like he's leaving someone else.
	Yeah, he's really leaving someone out of that conversation that happens to be folded into a government that he lives in.
	Yeah, yeah, like, that's the thing, like, his terrible description of what fascism is, like, in my mind makes a degree of sense, because I'm like, well, that explains why you don't recognize that you're supporting a fascist dictatorship.
	Like, yeah, that would make sense, that would track.
	Very few fascists are gonna look you in the eye and be like, yeah, I'm a fascist.
	Yeah, right, exactly.
	That's an important thing to remember.
	Nor will they even understand, but, like, if you ask...
	Most MAGA people, including this dipshit, and go through all these bullet points of things they believe, they'll go right down the line of saying they're a fascist, but like, are you a fascist?
	Like, no.
	Fascism to them is bad.
	Yes, yeah, they hate the word, but agree with everything else that comes with it.
	So, like, according to Russell, fascism is bad, communism is bad, social democracy is bad, free market capitalism is bad, and what's required is a radical review of how we consent to be governed somehow, he says, while propping up a fascist dictatorship.
	I'm confused of where he falls.
	I mean, we do know he's a far-right pro-fascist guy, but, like, in his speech, he's like, anything that takes away, like, dominion from God is...
	Bad.
	So are you some kind of Anglican anarchist?
	He used to claim to be an anarcho-syndicalist, is what he used to claim.
	Oh, so he's an insufferable prick.
	Yes, absolutely.
	Has been for a long while.
	The project he's been working on since I've been covering him is essentially a mission of tiny ethnostates.
	Between, like, he made a gesture at, like, roughly 120 people because that's the amount that, I think it was Gibbons, I think it was, would congregate in, like, that was the largest amount of them before they then split into two separate groups.
	That was his justifying of that.
	And those should be, like, the largest kind of sizes of communities that we were in, then all self-governing, basically.
	But he's also got this idea that, like, well, maybe all the blacks can go over there, all the gays can go over there, you know?
	Ah, okay.
	We're like, oh, alright.
	This, um, yeah, that doesn't sound like it's gonna go well to me.
	And according to him, like, that is also a way that will somehow end conflict in general.
	Just kind of tribalism is gonna fix it.
	I really love the idea that he's coming up with a really red-pilled MAGA version of, like, the Ottoman villiette system.
	Okay, I don't know much about it.
	It was effectively how the Ottoman Empire was run, where every minority had their own quote-unquote self-government administrative zone, when in reality it wasn't, and it was just used to make everybody a second, third, fourth class citizen, and so on and so forth.
	Right, right, right.
	To, of course, destroy them.
	Hence why I was born in Michigan.
	Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
	Okay, okay.
	Yeah, yeah, pretty much.
	Yeah, hasn't gone well previously, and, like, segregation in most forms has not gone well in the past in general at all.
	Well, it went well for people who looked like him.
	Yeah, maybe a little bit of that kind of side of things helps.
	If you're rich and white, it's a bit of a different conversation to be having.
	Yeah.
	But yeah, in that clip, he essentially decries all forms of government and societal structure, coming back to God and decentralization and the sanctity of individuals.
	But yeah, it all rings just a little bit fucking hollow while he's also basically saying, and that's why Elon Musk is great and Donald Trump taking over Gaza is fine, everybody!
	Yeah.
	How can he believe in that 120 number?
	Like you said, we need all of this decentralization of power.
	Everything else is this spitting in God's eye or whatever.
	But also the weird loser techno king from the internet and his strange orange best friend being dictators of America.
	That's perfect.
	Yeah, that's perfectly fine.
	So, like, yeah, anyone accruing power is a problem, but also Trump and Elon are great.
	Okay, I can feel the cognitive dissonance from here.
	It's the same way people say all these DEI initiatives, which amounted to very little in the grand scheme of things, were authoritarian when this is what they vote for, right?
	Right, right, yeah, yeah.
	Exactly.
	Okay, so it's been a minute since I've covered one of Russell's advertisers, and so we're going to look at a new one here, and, well, surprise, surprise, it's a little bit dumb.
	You're being tracked!
	I'm being tracked!
	We're sick of being tracked!
	Your phone is tracking you, even when it's off, and the only way to get off the map is a Faraday sleeve.
	Do you know?
	Whenever I feel like I need sweet freedom, like night time, bedtime, or like when I'm driving around, contemplating the Lord and how to bring down the government, I'm talking about the EU, what I do is I pop the old phone in the Faraday sleeve and know that I am untraceable, untrackable, like a phantom.
	I'm moving between the raindrops, baby.
	These are made in America.
	It's the only Faraday sleeve with a sound-blocking wall.
	What the Faraday sleeve can do is not only protect your ability to relax, for example, at bedtime or quiet time, Giving you a break from endless tracking, spying and radiation.
	You've got your phone when you want it, and you can throw it into the old ghost sleeve, don't be disgusting, when you don't want it.
	That's the problem solved.
	You get your phone when you want it, but none of it's tracking and spying when you don't.
	This Faraday sleeve by Refuge is a prophylactic against spying.
	And who among us don't need that?
	I've been tracked.
	You've been tracked.
	Try tracking me with the old prophylactic.
	It's impossible now.
	Support American-made products.
	To get 10% off, go to refugeprivacy.com and use the code RUSS. That's the way to do it.
	Get a leather condom for your phone.
	Get a leather condom for your phone.
	Get a leather condom for your phone and protect yourself from spies.
	Well, I don't know about you, but I'm sold.
	What is this editing job, first of all?
	He wants to fuck that phone sleeve.
	Right?
	Yeah, he regularly devolves into some kind of sexual innuendo in his ads.
	I don't know how thrilled the advertisers are about it, but I don't know.
	I feel like the people that are selling a leather Faraday cage for cell phones don't have high standards.
	Yeah, yeah, it seems that way.
	I mean, it is made of American buffalo leather, so, you know, that's...
	Something.
	And I don't think that's how Faraday cages work.
	Don't they have to be made out of metal?
	Yeah, they've got, like, a lining inside them as well.
	So, one thing to note about these leather Faraday cage phone sleeves is they're huge.
	And, according to reviews, also very stiff because of the American buffalo leather.
	Of course.
	My point is, like...
	...
	around comfortably.
	It's not gonna be like something in day-to-day use in your pocket type of thing, 'cause it's too fucking big.
	And of course, like, you couldn't actually put your phone on charge while in the Faraday cage, because then it wouldn't be closed.
	And most people, like, charge their phones at night while sleeping, so I can't imagine you'd be using this thing at night either.
	Which begs the question of when exactly this thing is supposed to be used, other than for potentially committing crimes.
	There's also the fact that literally every human being with a smartphone checks it multiple times a day.
	Unfortunately, yeah.
	So, like, the whole radiation blocking and protection from spies thing falls a little bit flat when considering how obviously impractical this is as a solution.
	And, of course, also, like, who the shit wants to spy on the average chucklehead who buys one of these things?
	You know?
	I'm like, really?
	Who's spying on you, Debra?
	Like, why is this so important?
	You know?
	Like, Steve, do you consider yourself a viable target for the NSA? Is that what's going on?
	I've always found that people that buy survival stuff are the last people who are gonna need it.
	Like, whatever psycho is buying their water filters from Alex Jones is definitely not the person in the world who needs a water filter.
	You know what I mean?
	Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.
	Either they're completely fine, or they're, you know, sovereign citizen and a genuine risk.
	There's always that 1%.
	Their main political complaint is about the age of consent.
	You probably don't need a fair decade.
	Speaking of buying one of these things, how much do you think these leather pouches cost?
	Ooh.
	I mean, this is genuine American bison leather.
	I'm going to say $100.
	Ooh, not far.
	Not far.
	$90.
	$90.
	Oh, I was close.
	Do I win one?
	I need to hide myself from the perfidious EU. I have to send refuge a message.
	Yeah, so about $90, 87 euros, or 72 pounds.
	Yeah.
	For the standard model.
	The larger one.
	That was my favorite part about the whole commercial was like, I'm plotting to take down the European Union.
	It's like, well, you're British.
	You just voted to leave.
	And you left.
	You won, Russell.
	And now you live in America.
	You didn't have to take down anything.
	Yeah, well, because he wants to be like, oh, I'm planning to overthrow the government.
	And like...
	Under the Biden administration, he could have made that ad, whereas now he has to kind of, like, pivot and be like, I mean, well, not under Trump, obviously, I mean the EU government, yeah.
	That's who I have a problem with now.
	That government that I have no part in whatsoever, no matter where I move.
	Yes.
	All the places I'm allowed to live are not there.
	That's who I'm trying to overthrow.
	Okay, so...
	Everybody knows the EU is like this evil empire because the British voted to leave and then left and then the EU let them.
	Like, that is true tyranny.
	Yes, exactly.
	That is tyranny at work.
	That is an anti-democratic organization is what that is.
	Right.
	So we've got one more clip here and it's when Russell comes off YouTube and goes exclusively to Rumble and Locals.
	He does just like a little bit extra, right?
	And this was filmed before RFK Jr. was officially confirmed as Secretary of HHS, RIP USA. And so Russell is spending a little bit of time trying to take down Elizabeth Warren in this clip.
	Good.
	Thank you very much.
	Nice.
	There I am.
	Don't put that picture on that or distract me.
	Don't post porn in the chat, you lunatics.
	All right.
	So the confirmation of RFK continues to unfold.
	Let me know in the comments in chat what you think.
	If we don't get Bobby Kennedy as the head of the HHS, that...
	Represents the end and death of the Maha movement.
	We would be stuck with old-school Democrat politicians like Elizabeth Warren.
	Here she is saying that she doesn't accept PAC money or donations from Big Pharma, which I find a little difficult to believe.
	Do you believe me?
	Let me know in the comments and chat.
	You can just look that up, Russell.
	Yeah.
	You don't want RK Jr. suing big pharma?
	You know, check your website.
	I don't take contributions from big pharma executives.
	I don't take any corporate PAC money.
	And you and your allies already know that.
	Yeah, I'm a great person doing a great Good job!
	So, here, you won't, for example, find out that I've, in fact, oh, SuperPak launches to support, put them cans back on Isaac, I'm getting a terrible bleed.
	SuperPak launches to support Elizabeth Warren, who has decided, who has decried the role of SuperPaks.
	Mystery Warren SuperPak funder revealed.
	Top 20 member recipients of money from Pharmaceuticals and Health.
	Number one, Bernie Sanders.
	Who's going to be number two?
	Should we get some sort of drum roll on this?
	It's obviously Elizabeth Warren, completely lacking in principles.
	Yeah, famously lacking in principles is that Liz Warren.
	And Bernie Sanders.
	Bernie Sanders also, lacking in principles, famously.
	Okay.
	So, firstly, the image on the right that puts Liz Warren in second in this list, Russell's got up, is edited.
	All being well, Liz Warren would actually be fifth in the list of top 20 member recipients of money from pharmaceuticals slash health products 2019 to 2020 from Open Secrets.
	All of this appears to point to Liz Warren and Bernie Sanders lying about taking money from Big Pharma.
	Like, and Big Pharma PACs in particular.
	But there's a problem.
	And I'm going to relay the Stat News coverage of the issue.
	They're a healthcare coverage site.
	Quote...
	One post from Cali Means, a major influencer in the Make America Healthy Again movement, posted Friday on X that Sanders is the single largest recipient of pharmaceutical money in the Senate.
	He doubled down over the weekend, calling the claim demonstrably true.
	Means' claim used accurate data from a reputable source, the popular money and politics website Open Secrets.
	And while his claim is four years out of date, it has some truth to it.
	Sanders received $1,417,633 from pharmaceutical/health products sources during the 2020 campaign cycle, according to the website, more than any other senator.
	Warren, at $822,573, ranks fifth.
	Means' claim, while an accurate representation of open secrets data, is highly misleading.
	Sanders, in fact, received no contributions at all from political action committees affiliated with drug companies or from top pharmaceutical executives.
	But because of a quirk in the site's methodology, donations from individual low-ranking employees are counted the same as official contributions from corporate PACs.
	Yeah, it's a problem.
	Typically in Washington, corporation support for political candidates is measured by donations from its PAC and to an extent from its top executives.
	Open Secrets, by contrast, measures corporate giving by combining PAC spending with any contribution of $200 or more from any company employee.
	In other words, if an entry-level human resources officer at a pharmaceutical company wrote Sanders or Warren even a modest check, the website would count that sum towards the company's This methodology appears to have misled users.
	Both Sanders and Warren ran for president in 2020 and raised millions of dollars from supporters across the country.
	Many of them were rank-and-file employees at drug companies whose voting preferences may not always align with their company's interests.
	Yeah.
	It seems like a really bad way to keep statistics, I must say.
	It is, yes.
	It's Open Secrets having a less than ideal way of presenting this information.
	Incidentally, Open Secrets have referred to this kind of coverage that Russell is doing as willful disinformation, which I agree with.
	Yeah, I have no reason to debate that.
	Yeah, exactly.
	And all of the purpose of this is to distract from the fact that Liz Warren was calling out RFK Jr. for raking in millions from getting other people to sue vaccine manufacturers.
	And he refused to say he wouldn't continue to do so while HHS secretary.
	And from my understanding has continued...
	No, he recently did something about looking into the childhood vaccine quote-unquote schedule, despite saying that he wouldn't.
	Yeah, no, he claimed in the thing that he wouldn't.
	But he seems so trustworthy, this guy who sells steak oil and caused a measles outbreak in Samoa.
	Allegedly.
	He's already sued someone over that, so allegedly.
	Allegedly, yes.
	Exactly, exactly.
	Yeah, he's carrying on with his bullshit, because of course he is.
	That's the thing he's always done and will always continue to do, despite essentially lying in a Senate hearing in his confirmation hearing.
	So, yeah.
	Oh, boy.
	Yep, yep.
	So that was that.
	How are we feeling about Stay Free with Russell Brand, Joe?
	Look, I went into this not liking Russell Brand already.
	I now really fucking hate Russell Brand.
	So, I hope all the bad things in the world happen to him and only him.
	I mean, fingers crossed.
	Fingers crossed.
	You know, if the extradition fight, if he ends up losing that, should it ever come to pass, then maybe.
	But, yeah.
	Don't put me on the side of a fence where I'm cheering for a deportation.
	Don't do that to me!
	Yeah, yeah, I will say this show has a way of messing with your head, you know, agreeing with David Icke on something, you know, like...
	It's a low fucking bar when you're listening to Russell Brand.
	Yeah, absolutely correct.
	Oh, dear.
	Okay, well, thank you so much for coming on, Joe.
	It's been an absolute pleasure to have you here.
	It's been great.
	I had a lot of fun is a way to put it.
	I was very entertained.
	Good, good.
	Okay, then I've done at least part of my job.
	And that is the show, everybody.
	I hope you all had as much fun as I did.
	Please go and listen to the Lions Led by Donkeys podcast.
	It's a lot of fun and support them on Patreon for some excellent additional content.
	I will be putting links to the podcast, the Patreon, and for Joe's books as well, which you should definitely all check out.
	I will see you next week for some more fun with a different guest, but in the meantime, please take care of yourselves and each other.
	Thank you very much.
	I love you.
	Bye!

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