Joe Kassabian joins me once more to tackle Russell's conversation with rep. Dan Crenshaw, who discusses his beef with Tucker Carlson, the Ukraine conflict, and the pandemic.Lions Led By Donkeys: https://pod.link/1393845532See LLBD Live in London: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/o/lions-led-by-donkeys-podcast-82279944923LLBD Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/lionsledbydonkeysJoe's Books: https://www.amazon.co.uk/stores/author/B095J4Z237Support Al on Patreon! - https://patreon.com/OnBrand
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 a Nazi, actually, and I've kept it now until now, but this is my chance.
Oh, it's 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 am excited to once more be joined by Joe Kasabian of the Lions Led by Donkeys podcast.
You guys went pretty nuts for him the first time around, so hey, I just had to get him back.
We get into discussing Russell's conversation with Representative Dan Crenshaw.
And through that, we get to Tucker Carlson, the Ukraine conflict, the pandemic, and some cartel talk as well.
But before we get into that, allow me to thank a couple of new Awakening Wonders here.
So, Kimmerfest, you are now on Awakening Wonder.
Thank you very much.
You are indeed an Awakening Wonder.
Thank you.
And Faith, you are now on Awakening Wonder.
You are indeed an Awakening Wonder.
Thank you so very much, Faith.
And if anyone wants to support the show financially by becoming an Awakening Wonder, joining the Invisible Hand, or donating on an elevated tier, head to patreon.com slash onbrand and sign up, and you will have my eternal gratitude, and you will be able to access additional content and a completely ad-free version of the show.
And here's a reminder that the On Brand Book Club livestream is happening this Sunday, March 16th at 8pm GMT on the YouTube and on Twitch as well, because On Brand has a Twitch account that I kind of forgot about, so...
It'll be there, too.
I will be going through and reading excerpts from Russell's first autobiography, My Booky Wook.
It's going to be equal parts harrowing and hopefully a lot of fun.
As always, everyone will be able to join in on the live stream, so come along, and then the recording will be available after the fact for patrons.
And patrons, if you check the Patreon, there is a post where you can ask any questions you might have for after the book club portion of the stream.
You can do a little Q&A at the end.
Oh, and I must talk about my being provisionally credentialed as a member of the Creator Accountability Network.
Now, I don't want to beat you all around the head with it as to why it's important, but content creators online don't tend to have many mechanisms of accountability for their behavior, and because of that, just through, like, my own experience of other shows, I've known of creators engaging in inappropriate behavior with audience members, weird power dynamics, weird pay dynamics, where some creators have paid their guests of color less than their white guests.
And basically, like, a whole bunch of shady behavior with zero accountability for it.
And that's without even getting into, like, the potential to say awful things into a microphone as well.
So I think it's pretty important to have a mechanism to be held accountable through an impartial third party, and that's exactly what the Creator Accountability Network does.
And also, like, real talk, I have epilepsy, right?
Say I have a seizure tomorrow, hit my head, and next week I suddenly start saying bigoted shit into this microphone, like, and you feel like you couldn't come to me about it, you could make a report through CAN. Like, they're good people doing good stuff.
So, yeah, it's a good thing.
And as part of my signing up with them, I do have a piece of verbiage to read out, so bear with me.
I'm excited to announce that I've joined the Creator Accountability Network.
CAN is a non-profit dedicated to reducing harassment and abuse through ethical education and a system of restorative accountability.
I joined because I care about the safety and well-being of my community members.
If you feel my behavior or content has harmed someone, please report it to CAN, either via the reporting form on their website, creatoraccountabilitynetwork.org, or via their hotline at 617-249-4255.
They'll help me make it right and avoid repeating that mistake in the future.
Can also needs volunteers from our communities to help with their work, so if you have skills you think would be helpful or time and a desire to help, please visit their website to find out how you can volunteer.
Most importantly, get the word out to other creators who you think would be interested in getting credentialed.
Help us build safer communities together.
Like I said, good stuff from good people.
Anyway, with all that, let's finally get into this week's show with Joe Kasabian.
Back by popular demand, Joe Kasabian.
Welcome, and thank you so much for returning.
Oh, thanks for having me.
I wasn't aware.
I was a popular person, so thanks.
Yeah, yeah!
The audience loved you, and I'm like, well, I don't disagree, so I had to have you back.
Obviously, we've done an interview section last month, so pretty recently, so that would possibly feel a little bit redundant at this point, but I'm not averse to a little catch-up before we get into things.
As a reminder, my pronouns are they, them, and yours are he, him, if I recall correctly?
That is correct.
Good stuff.
So, how have you been?
How's life in the Netherlands at the moment?
It's good.
It's good.
I've been working a lot.
I'm working on a new book.
My show has a series of live shows coming up, so we're preparing for those as well.
You're coming to London, right?
Yeah, on April 11th.
So, yeah.
Rich mix in London.
So, it should be fun.
It's the biggest venue we've ever had.
I am entering that terminal stress spiral of, oh, fuck, what if we don't sell all the tickets?
Which is a very real fear I suddenly have.
Like, oh, I really don't want to be the dipshit that booked, like, a 200-seat venue and we sell 100 of them.
I am sure you will do just fine.
I am sure you will do just fine.
And I will make sure.
UK listeners, if you're available, go and see Lions Led by Donkeys on their tour.
It should be fun.
I love coming to London.
We did our first ever live show in London last year, and it was a lot of fun.
It's a lovely town.
I've only ever been there to four live shows for various reasons.
But I have a lot of fun.
That's actually the only reason I've ever been to any part of the UK so far.
Northern Ireland.
But I always have fun whenever I go.
London's an interesting place.
It's kind of its own little kind of separate city-state, basically, within the UK, essentially.
You know, I lived there for a few years, and it can be a wild experience.
Like, if you know where to go and what to do, then you can have a wonderful time.
And, like, generally, like, Londoners get the reputation for being, like, really rude and shitty.
But that was never my experience at all.
I always found them, like, really nice, usually.
Like, I don't know how you found it.
like, you know, coming to it from abroad and everything.
I've always found British people in general to be really nice everywhere I've been so far, and Irish people as well.
I've never had any issues, especially my first time in the UK, I was coming for a live show, and I was coming from the Republic of Georgia in Tbilisi at the time.
And in comparison, it was a breath of fresh air, because I wouldn't say Georgians are rude.
It's the same kind of politeness that Armenians have, which is just like, A hundred, which is just like in your face all the time.
As a Caucasus person, I love my fellow Caucasian people, but we can be a lot.
And I found British people to be very nice, very welcoming, kind of left me alone when I wasn't actively involved with something to do with them, which was delightful.
I mean, it was like when I was in Northern Ireland, everybody was very, very nice.
I found people in Belfast to be much nicer than people in Dublin.
Interesting.
Okay.
Okay.
Yeah.
See, I've not been to Belfast, so I can't comment, but I found the people of Dublin to be lovely.
I don't mean that as a bad thing.
I'm not saying they were rude.
I'm just saying in comparison, to add to that, people in Belfast are much nicer than people in London.
Yeah, I think it's generally accepted that people in the Celtic countries, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, and people of the northern UK will generally be nicer than in the big cities and everything, especially down south.
There's a much more approachable, jovial kind of vibe, I think, from the generally downtrodden masses, is what it is.
And it also helps I'm neither Protestant nor Republican, and I don't have an English accent.
This is true.
This is true.
And you're white as well, and that does help.
Yes, I'm sure that helps a lot.
I'm also sure that helps in my experience in the UK in general.
Yes, yes, it definitely does.
It certainly helps in the Netherlands.
I found Dutch people to be pretty nice, even though their stereotype is to be quite rude.
But also I understand that I am a...
White-looking man, so my experience is going to be very different than others.
Yeah, this is it.
I've always had great experiences in the Netherlands, but again, you know, I'm pretty masculine presenting and everything, and lily white, so, you know, it's going to be a different situation.
Like, I don't know, people have strange expectations around the Netherlands of it being like a very kind of...
In my experience, the expectation's been like, oh, it's very friendly, everyone's great there, everyone's lovely, and there's been this kind of thing of surprise of alt-right fascism taking over over there, and I've been like, you do know about the East India Company, right?
How first are you in the history of the Dutch in general?
You ever wonder why we have so many Indonesian restaurants?
Right, exactly.
The Netherlands is interesting, where there is that string of far-right-ism, especially in the government currently.
But even in comparison to where I'm from in the US, it's not as vicious.
And I don't mean to...
Whitewash it in any way.
It's just, it almost, like, from an outsider's perspective, it seems friendlier.
And it's absolutely not.
It's fucking not!
It presents as friendlier, you know?
It looks nicer.
There's a veneer on the top of it, and then you look under it and you're like, oh, this is incredibly sinister all the way through.
Okay, cool.
Yeah, like, there's multiple members of the cabinet who were Stormfront posters.
Yeah.
I believe one of them is the Minister of Health.
That's good.
Everybody's like, oh, the Netherlands is like this pinnacle of progressive politics.
And it's just like, I'm begging you, hit the translation button on any comment section from Dutch into English.
Yeah, yeah.
Things are getting pretty wild over there.
Yeah, it's not good.
It's certainly not good for an immigrant on a visa, I should point out.
It is hostile!
Yeah!
Yeah, I don't envy you, it's gotta be said.
Good lord.
Alright, so let's get to some of Russell's nonsense.
And I am glad you're here, Joe, because Russell has a guest on, and we're going to be covering that guest, and you actually have something in common with this guest, because he is a veteran of the US military.
Oh no.
Yeah, I suspect that's where the similarities end.
Why the fuck is he dressed that way?
Yeah, so he's got a hat, a cardigan, and his low-slung vest thing, and a crucifix on, and then I'll let him explain what's going on with his head, and let's let him introduce the guest.
Congressman Dan Crenshaw, thank you so much for joining us on Stay Free Today.
Thanks for having me.
It's awesome to be here in a conversation with you, Russell.
I feel that I should mention that I've got an Ash Wednesday cross on my head, and I'd also like to mention that when you arrived, you were wearing glasses over your patch, which I thought was a pretty good look, actually.
Yeah, there's a lot going on on the face.
Can't have too much stuff.
On the normal day, I'd be able to wear a fucking monocle.
I've got this stuff on, I've got the hat on.
There's a lot going on in my face.
Yeah, monocles fell out of fashion a while ago.
I expected you to be dressed as an 18th century robber baron.
At the same time, if Dan Crenshaw came on wearing a monocle, I would respect the fuck out of that.
I would have to give him a little bit more respect than I have ever given him, which is none.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So yeah, as Russell said, there is a lot going on on Russell's face, as he is currently adorned with a cross drawn in ash on his forehead.
Because, yeah, this was recorded on Ash Wednesday.
Clearly.
Is he one of the New Wave Catholic converts now?
I know he did the whole conversion into Christianity, but I was unaware of which denomination it was, and I assumed he was unaware of it as well.
Yeah, he still hasn't claimed one, is why.
He still counts himself as inter-denominational, which is funny.
Ah, so he's a coward.
Exactly, exactly.
He's given himself blanket Christianity, though I have reason to believe that the priest...
Who actually baptized him was Anglican.
So one would think he would be from that, but I don't know.
I'm going to let the Christians fight that one out as to what denomination he is.
The apostolics do not claim him.
Exactly, yeah.
I have no horse in that race, particularly.
But it is a funny point of contention among the Christian right, especially.
They get real mad about it.
That he hasn't claimed any direction, because he will swing wildly between them.
Well, he can't pick one if he wants hardcore evangelicals like Dan Crenshaw to come on the show, because they fucking hate Catholics.
They're not even sure what an Anglican is, but I'm sure they hate that too.
Yeah, yeah, it was almost like an offshoot of Catholicism.
It's the kind of main English...
Right, it's the Church of England, right?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
I'm willing to bet that Dan Crenshaw isn't sure what that is, but he probably hates it.
Probably, yeah, most likely.
I mean, it's not the thing that he is.
So, you know, there we go.
It's a problem.
Yeah, yeah.
Candace Owens was on a while ago trying to convince Russell to go full Catholic.
You know, so there's a bit of a tug of war going on over him.
Candace Owens is so confused.
Like, she's pretty much a neo-Nazi and a Catholic.
Famously something that the neo-Nazis hate.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean...
She's making a lot of money.
I'll say that.
She's definitely making a lot of money.
It's this concept of like, well, they're not coming for me yet, so I'm going to carry on just making the money and propping them up.
But yeah, the whole leaving the cross on his forehead to broadcast, like, it's clearly a thing that these people do as literal virtue signaling.
Because, like, Sean Spicer was for some reason on British television this last week on Ash Wednesday.
And he had the same Ash cross on his forehead.
And my dad was watching it and texted me a picture going like, what the fuck is this?
He looks ridiculous.
I was like, yep, yep.
It is mad.
I was...
I was raised Catholic.
I was baptized Catholic.
My mom said the family is Catholic.
They were not strong Catholics.
They went on Easter, Ash Wednesday, and then Christmas.
That was pretty much it.
And they would get the Ash...
Put on their heads.
And then they would just wash it off.
It's just not something you walk around wearing.
What low-rent-ass British TV channel was still interviewing Sean Spicer?
It was one of the news channels.
I think it was something to do with Trump.
With him being former press secretary and everything else.
Yeah, sure, why not?
Get Sean Spicer on with his podcast logo in the background.
Why not?
Say what you will about Sean Spicer, but he is available.
Very true.
Very true.
That might explain why Rudy Giuliani was on Russell's show a while back as well.
Yeah, he's very available.
He's not even a lawyer anymore.
Time is the one thing the man has.
In one way, not the other, but yeah.
Yeah, right.
So, yeah, the person we're going to be dealing with today is, in fact, U.S. Representative Dan Crenshaw.
Joe, how familiar are you with Dan Crenshaw?
Too familiar.
I fucking hate Dan Crenshaw.
I... Myself and Nate, one of the producers and co-hosts for my show, got into a big Twitter beef back in the day when Dan Crenshaw was still actively posting on there.
It was so long ago where representatives would still be posting at people.
Now just the vice president does it.
And we would just make fun of him because I remember correctly, one of his re-election campaign commercials was him.
Like, parachuting into a war zone, but the war zone was his own constituency?
The guy is fucking nuts.
He's openly admitted to war crimes.
He's a bigot.
He's a real piece of shit.
Yeah, that's about right, I would say.
That is fun.
Like, if you don't want to be made fun of, don't do things like that.
Don't get airdropped into your own constituency.
Yeah, so he's, you know, mostly known for being, you know, that Republican congressman with the eyepatch.
And, like, in general, I would say there's nothing overly special or remarkable about him.
Like, he was a Navy SEAL, which is how he lost his eye in Afghanistan four years later.
That's pretty much his whole brand, his eye and a Navy SEAL. Basically, yeah, yeah.
And then like four years after that, he was a legislative assistant to Representative Pete Sessions.
And then he himself was elected into government in 2018, primarily after being endorsed by Senator Tom Cotton.
Another veteran, may I point out?
Yes, yeah, yeah.
That was the one that pushed him over the top, was the Tom Cotton endorsement.
I'm like, ooh, ooh, okay.
At which point Dan Crenshaw became the congressional representative for Texas' second district, which is like the outskirts of Houston.
Yeah, it's a very, very, very gerrymandered district, if you look at it.
It seems that way, yeah, yeah.
It's consistently read no matter what, and it's very, like, yeah, very particular in the way it's drawn.
It is one of the most ridiculous body politics in Texas.
I lived in Texas for a long time, and there's a lot of gerrymandering around the cities, because the cities...
Normally vote blue.
And then you get these weird districts off to the side that are like 98% white that look really strange, but his by far looks the weirdest.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's just this very, like, boomerang-shaped, like, strip going around.
Like, alright.
This seems very deliberate, but okay.
Other than that, he's a big Trump guy.
He has had his moments of disagreeing with Trump, but very few.
And otherwise holds a set of the usual bigoted beliefs, including being vehemently anti-trans, against reproductive rights for women, he fucking hates migrants, you know, all the good stuff, all the boilerplate.
Standard shit.
Oh, and fun little tidbit.
Back in 2020, Dan Crenshaw and Senator Tom Cotton introduced a bill that would allow civil suits against foreign states in incidents related to injury or death.
And this, of course, came in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and calls for the Chinese government to be held accountable for, quote, allowing this virus to spread.
So they wanted to sue China, is what they were trying to do.
Outstanding.
Good.
Good.
This is what we elect you to do.
Yeah.
Sue China.
Let's do that.
Ah, dear.
Anyway.
I haven't heard from this guy in so long.
Right!
Yeah, yeah, he's been popping up recently.
He's been making himself known again.
And a reasonable question to ask is, why the fuck is Russell talking to him at all?
It seems kind of out of nowhere.
And the answer is, well, Dan Crenshaw has a long-standing feud with Tucker Carlson.
Primarily...
Oh, fuck, really?
That's awesome.
I had no idea.
Yeah, they've been at each other for a couple of years now, which is fun.
And it's primarily over the issue that Dan Crenshaw has been previously vocally supportive of providing funding to Ukraine, which then led to a lot of bitching and backbiting between the two.
You know, a bit of a Twitter feud.
Tucker would talk shit about him on air, stuff like that.
And then a few weeks ago, Dan Crenshaw was caught in a hot mic moment with GB News, saying that Tucker Carlson is the worst person.
That they'd never met in real life and quote, if I ever meet him, I'll fucking kill him.
Unquote.
Why do you have to make me laugh with Dan Crenshaw?
I know.
Honestly, this was tough for me because I did spend like...
Maybe half of the interview agreeing with a lot of the things that Dan Granger was saying.
It's a strange world that we live in where I'm forced to agree with this man.
This is really a let-them-fight moment.
The Onion meme of the worst person you know makes a good point.
Yeah, yeah, 100%.
100%.
So that's why Russell has Dan Crenshaw on, right?
It's internal, alt-right drama, and Russell wants to capitalize on the moment.
He's like, oh, fuck yeah, let's come and air some grievances on my show, let's do that.
So with that, let's take a look at the first clip here.
And it's Dan Crenshaw talking about this issue with Tucker.
Oh, and I should provide some context as well.
Back in 2015 on SNL, Pete Davidson said that Dan Crenshaw looked like a hitman from a porno film and was later forced to apologize live on air for that and then shake Crenshaw's hand.
So any reference to like...
Yeah, it was a whole thing.
I forgot about that.
Yeah, yeah.
So any reference to Pete Davidson here is in reference to that moment.
And Dan Crenshaw opens this clip by describing that moment as a misstep.
And there's a huge difference between a misstep and, I think, an open hostility.
And with somebody like Tucker, you know, what's the backstory behind this crazy hot bike story, which I obviously think is...
Kind of the lamest story ever, as far as supposed death threats go.
Of course, I'm not going to actually kill Tucker.
Shame.
The thing is, you've got to go two years back.
I mean, Tucker has been taking ill-intentioned swipes at me since about 2022. Going far worse than Pete Davidson ever did.
I mean, this really started in the...
I can't remember what the...
Well, the issue, I think, was probably Ukraine funding.
And him coming after me...
Completely unprovoked.
I never mentioned Tucker's name ever before that.
And I actually continue never to mention his name publicly for maybe a year or two after that.
But he comes after me supposedly on a policy issue, but making it very personal, right?
Calling me, using my eye patch again as a way to insult me.
So using my war wounds to insult me, which is funny because Tucker was, of course, one of those people feigning outrage when Pete Davidson did what he did.
But of course, he's allowed to do it and actually go much further, call me a traitor.
He's called me Sinister.
He's called me all sorts of slanderous names over the years.
I don't see the issue.
It's hard to see space for reconciliation in this kind of environment where there's just a complete lack of mutual respect.
Yeah, you need mutual respect, I suppose, in any discourse.
Yeah, that's helpful.
This is important here.
So whenever Tucker Carlson has ever been brought up on Russell's show, it is in a positive context.
Russell is friends with Tucker, fucking loves the guy, has had him on multiple times, he's been on Tucker's show, did live shows with Tucker, it's a whole thing.
Oh, okay.
Yeah, and all the people he ever has on will discuss Tucker in a positive light as well.
Very much like, oh, isn't Tucker great?
Oh, isn't he fantastic?
So Dan Crenshaw coming on and being like, oh yeah, Tucker Carson's a piece of shit who just makes things up is actually quite jarring for Russell's show.
Russell's bending with it, though.
He's not sticking up for his buddy, which does not surprise me.
Right-wing people eat their own very, very quickly, which I love to see.
I love to see it.
Well, I think he was kind of taken aback because, like, the other thing to bear in mind is that Russell doesn't actually know the history between Crenshaw and Tucker.
He doesn't know what happened.
He just knows there's beef between the two of them.
And he makes that quite clear throughout the show.
And it would appear that Russell hadn't realized there are legitimate grievances on Crenshaw's end, leading to him saying there is no space for reconciliation, right?
So Russell is just coming into this like, oh, I didn't expect this.
You know?
Like, oh.
Couldn't possibly Google search this before inviting on the congressperson.
Honestly, it would have taken...
Reading one article is all it would have taken, but Russell famously just does fuck all prep and lets his series editor, Gareth Roy, do all the work and all of the everything else, and so, like, he will just be going off of vibes.
He'll just be like, yeah, it's fine, there's a beef, cool, yeah, let's chat about that.
I'll let them tell me about it.
Let's go in unprepared.
Let's see how that rolls out.
What is even his intention here?
Like, he invites him on because, obviously, he is aware there's some conflict.
Otherwise, why would you have Den Crenshaw on?
But is he trying to be some kind of peace mediator without realizing what the beef is?
Basically.
Oh, that's stupid!
It's incredibly dumb!
And what we have up next is quite a long clip where I'll let Dan Crenshaw finish a point that he was making and then Russell is going to spend a good few minutes describing how great Tucker is and that Tucker and Dan Crenshaw should reconcile.
People will actually ask me, why does Tucker hate you?
And I'll be like, well, the fact that you have to even ask that question tells you everything you need to know.
The fact that he doesn't actually have an explanation from a policy perspective, because this is supposedly a policy debate, and he just smears me personally, accuses me of crimes, accuses me of being sinister, accuses me of being liberal, despite my voting record and everything I do being completely the opposite.
Dan Crenshaw, famous liberal.
It's just slanderous in its ill-intention, and that's why the reconciliation just won't happen.
You won't talk about Ukraine, but the thing is, Tucker has never really made the arguments against my stances.
He just calls me a horrible person.
It's childish.
That surprises me, because when I first met Tucker, I went on Fox News, and I'd been schooled that you are not going to like Tucker Carlson, he's a racist, he's a Nazi, he's the worst person in the world.
Then I met him, and he was...
Those are all reasons that you would like him, Russell.
I've got to know him well, and I think he understands American politics really well.
And I think sort of out of the independent media, of course, there's really few people that can compare to Joe Rogan.
But Joe Rogan, if you were going to compare him to anyone in the culture, he's like Oprah Winfrey, I figure, like sort of congenerate other stars.
He's like a galaxy-generating media figure.
You don't get Theo Vaughn or maybe Huberman.
Maybe even in my new incarnation, my career has been him.
position of Rogan.
Also true.
Now, where I figure that Tucker is distinct is he comes out of legacy media.
He's obviously Republican.
He's Christian now.
He's conservative.
And when I've done like live things with him, what I recognize is that Tucker somehow understands and speaks for and to American people in a way that I can appreciate.
Like, I feel like he loves America.
I feel like he loves your country.
I feel like he loves veterans.
I feel like he was really sort of respectful of pretty old school conservative American values And part of my personal change, like as a person that would have been, you know, I hosted SNL only one time.
It was only once.
I just did SNL once.
Like as if it's a drug.
I just did it once.
So I'll never do it again.
I can handle it.
I won't get caught up in doing it five times.
But like I come from that culture.
His comedy career is going great.
Liberalism.
All that kind of thing.
And like I started to recognize it was disingenuous and hollow and empty.
Never meant.
It didn't mean people couldn't back up the virtues they espoused with sacrifice and action.
That's why my particular position when it comes to veterans is one of, as I've said, reverence because of that.
That doesn't mean I wouldn't make jokes.
If I knew you...
And I felt that there was good faith and that you'd be able to discern that my jokes were coming from a position of love.
I would do some jokes, but I don't feel I've earned that.
And because I'm trying to talk about things that are somewhat delicate and complex, I wouldn't go there.
Please, sir, let me throw myself at your feet before I throw you a bird.
I'm guessing that Tucker must think that there's some sort of financial connection to military industrial complex companies that are at odds.
With what you represent in the culture.
Because I feel like in that SNL moment with Dan Crenshaw, what Dan Crenshaw represents is decency of congressmen and veterans.
And in a way, let's say something like Hegseth might now represent, oh, like even if the left hates this dude, Hegseth, and makes allegations against him or claims there are allegations against him sexually, and Lord alone knows I know what that's like.
He's an ordinary vet.
We invented the claims.
When I met with them guys recently in DC, they all love him.
the left and we're like well into him so i i know and i feel like if you're if we're in a moment congress radical internal inspections at fox news indefatigable sort of victory Can't we get reconciliation between people that are actually part of, broadly speaking, the same political movement and even moment?
Well, it'd be nice.
Unfortunately, the...
Dan Crenshaw stopped paying attention to that shit five minutes ago.
...are geared that way.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It was like, ah, oh, you asked me a question.
Yeah, no, that'd be nice, but no, no, no, reconciliation doesn't seem to be on the table.
And we'll get into the incentive structures that Crenshaw was referring to in just a moment.
Now, that clip, there was a lot there.
That went all over the place.
You know how Joe Rogan got sucked in?
And what's honestly really impressive to me is when Crenshaw said, like, our main debate was on Ukraine.
Russell quickly does not mention Ukraine because he cannot be in favor of arming Ukraine because of his political stances.
Yeah, yeah.
He's saying.
He's kind of bringing it up without bringing it up, basically.
Firstly, I would say that that clip was very revealing in a specific way, in that Russell believes that if someone is nice to him and he likes them, then they can't possibly be bad.
This has also been his position on RFK Jr., on Jordan Peterson, on Candace Owens, like all the worst people you can imagine who Russell considers to be his friends.
That makes sense as to why he brought up Joe Rogan, because that's effectively Joe Rogan's stance on anybody.
Like, are they nice to me?
Are they deferential to the things that come out of my mouth?
Therefore, they're cool.
Yes, exactly.
Exactly that.
And so Russell is coming at this from a perspective of not knowing any of the beef between Dan Crenshaw and Tucker, hence guessing at possible financial impropriety to do with the military-industrial complex.
Literally just guessed that in the moment.
Was like, I assume it's probably this.
And it's a crazy thing to say out loud to someone in front of you.
And someone who is a Navy SEAL who has made his entire career on repeating the words, I am a Navy SEAL. Yeah, yeah.
Not going to win a lot of smiles with that one there, Russell.
No, no.
And it's especially just showing like, hey, I've done no preparation whatsoever.
I have no idea.
I'm just going to guess at what the problem is and then pretend it's that.
And also being like, hey, Tucker is a lovely, sweet, charming man who echoes the patriotism of all America.
You guys should be friends.
Because very clearly, Russell has also never looked into what Tucker's show is or does.
He just goes like, well, he's nice to me, so that's enough.
There we go.
Done.
Yeah, I don't see Russell Brand sitting down, popping in some earbuds and listening to Tucker Carlson's show, unless he's on it.
Yeah, no, no, 100% not.
100% not.
He's entirely unwilling to engage with anything unless it crops up on social media.
So he'll see, like, little clips and whatever else.
Like, he'll scroll through his X-Feed and be like, oh, Tucker's talking to Cat Turd today.
Great.
Let's, you know, let's look at that conversation.
But he's not going to sit down and engage with an hour.
Not a chance.
I don't think he has the attention span for it either.
So he's like the same...
Media died as Alex Jones these days.
Yeah, pretty much.
Pretty much.
You know, Russell brought up Alex Jones last week, actually, and was like, God, you ever on X? I'm like, Alex Jones is just always live streaming on X. He's just always streaming.
And I'm like...
Yeah, but you're also clearly always checking in on X. That's the only way you can know that.
You're also always checking in on Alex Jones' live streams.
Yes, yeah, 100%.
100%.
In other news, you're a veteran, Joe.
Are you a big fan of the new Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth?
Because that seems to be the contention.
All veterans love Pete Hegseth.
How much time you got?
Long story short.
My legal and defendable answer, according to my lawyer, is no.
Succinct, I appreciate that.
That's safer.
Yeah, if you'll forgive the pun, perhaps veterans aren't the uniform voting bloc that the right-wing like to think they are.
Yeah, it's complicated.
Obviously, people who consume...
Things that I am on, or I've guested on, are normally, obviously, liberal or left-leaning.
And the veterans I also engage with publicly are liberal, but mostly left-leaning as well.
We are by far a minority.
The American military is, at its foundation, quite conservative.
There is a fair amount of liberal voters in it, but I also got out a long time ago before all this Trump shit.
I'm willing to bet that number is much, much lower.
Especially when it comes to leadership, especially people who get out and then make a career of that being their personality.
They're more to glom on to the most extreme aspects of what people expect a quote-unquote troop to be like, which Hegseth is an alcoholic.
He has been accused of multiple sex-related crimes.
And it's just an all-around disgusting piece of shit.
And I have no reason to doubt any of that.
Yeah, no, it seems about right to me.
I'm like, yep, that completely tracks with everything else.
And of course, also in that was Trump's second term in office is all about bringing reconciliation across the nation of the United States, according to Russell.
Famously, that's what Trump's second term is all about.
It's reconciliation.
If I remember, Hegseth wrote an entire book that came out before his confirmation as Secretary of Defense about how we needed to do a civil war because the leftists are going to destroy America.
You know, all of those American leftists.
Yeah.
All of that political power us American left-wing people have, you know?
Yes, yes, exactly, exactly.
We need to kill all the leftists or they're going to...
Do something.
Yeah, yeah.
The other thing I should mention there as well is Russell describing the liberalist culture as being disingenuous and hollow and not backed up by sacrifice and action.
And this is because in Russell's mind, sacrifice and action are both tied to military service and religiosity, particularly Christian religiosity.
And from his view of things, the left don't have any Christians or anyone who's served in the military.
And if it sounds reductive to a childlike degree, that's because it is.
Russell's conception of politics has about the same amount of nuance as that of an eight-year-old.
And that's where we're at.
I mean, if anybody would know anything about...
You know, saying bullshit for performative reasons and not knowing anything about sacrifice, it's Russell Brand.
Yeah, he's been at it for a long time.
He's been at it for a long, long time.
Speaking as a left-wing veteran, he knows a lot more about it than I do.
This is true.
He's a veteran of that particular game, is what he is, you know.
He's a veteran of the grifting wars.
Yeah, yeah, he was just doing it in a very leftward direction back in, like, 2013-14, you know, whereas now it's pointing the other direction.
Yeah, that's the part that surprised me about Russell Brand, right?
Because, like, the whole thing about him was he was supposed to be counterculture.
From my understanding.
Anti-establishment.
Yeah, but, you know, right-wing evangelical Christianity, republicanism, and conservatism is just mainstream now.
It is the power.
It is the culture.
It holds all the levers of the world's strength.
It's like, no, republicanism is the new punk rock, bro.
It's honestly, it's one of the things I'm having the most fun with.
is, you know, Russell has spent the last decade of his career being the anti-establishment guy speaking truth to power, and now he has to spend all of his days kissing the arse of power and, you know, just cozying up to the establishment, being like, God, isn't Elon Musk great?
Like, oh, okay.
It's like the same shit that Joe Rogan and, to a lesser extent, Alex Jones, because Alex Jones has never really been coherent, of their whole thing is supposed to be anti-authoritarianism, but now they are just the authority.
They kind of are mainstream media now.
Yeah!
Yeah, like, they're not taken to it well.
No, they massively benefited from being oppositional.
Like, that was the whole point, is to be the opposition.
Whereas, like, then they won, and they're like, ah, fuck.
Alright, what do we do now?
How do we deal with this?
Do I just celebrate every day?
Is that what my show's gonna be?
That's what it seems like.
It makes me really think they all really wish Trump lost.
Yeah, it would have been better for business.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Exactly.
100%.
Anyway, let's move on to Dan Crenshaw explaining those incentive structures that he mentioned and why he can't reconcile with Tucker.
And this clip comes off the back of him talking about the initial show in which Tucker began talking shit about him.
He also claimed in that particular interview that aliens are living underwater and we have all the evidence and they won't show you.
I mean, it's just stuff like that that you're like, what are we talking about?
Is this entertainment?
Or are we trying to give people news and interesting insights?
Or is it just entertainment for the sake of the click?
So this is what I mean by incentive structures that have unfortunately percolated in a massive way.
And it's largely because of social media.
And you're not putting that cap back in the bag.
So it is what it is.
But it has created a different set of incentives around politics where you gain power by engagement.
And you gain engagement by outrage porn.
That's what gains engagement.
I give people this test all the time.
I hate he's making a good point.
Because of the way we're sort of wired, we tend to be skeptical, but skepticism can turn into paranoia, can turn into conspiratorialism pretty quickly.
But you're skeptical of government.
You're skeptical of authority.
You've nailed the guys who vote for you.
You're skeptical of adding more regulations to something.
You don't think it'll...
Do what it's supposed to do.
That's a typical conservative way of looking at things.
But that can devolve if you don't have a good mental framework with which to assess problems in front of you.
That can devolve quickly into paranoia.
And one of the things conservatives do, almost like a sport, is trying to find the enemies in their own midst.
Democrats don't go dino hunting, right?
But Republicans love to go rhino hunting.
There's nothing more satisfying than finding out that somebody who loved and respected is actually part of the deep state.
Now, the person claiming that, like, say, Tucker, can offer zero evidence for it.
Zero evidence.
But we've created this culture where it's like...
Crenshaw's critiquing his whole career.
It's like a gravitational pull to believe something.
That's how he got into office.
That you formerly respected.
And it just gets you engagement.
Yeah, yeah, like, I've gotta say, like, I mostly agree with this assessment of things, like, among the alt-right media sphere.
Like, conservatives are wired a particular way towards paranoia and conspiratorialism and moral outrage, of course.
And so there is a gravitational pull towards the bullshit, even if it's based in nothing.
Like, yeah, completely.
That is accurate.
That is a problem.
Yes, yeah.
And if anybody knows about it, it's Crenshaw, because that's how you're fucking elected.
Also, I'm just realizing how really messed up the curtains are behind his desk.
Are you seeing this?
That's obviously his office, because you can see the medals, you can see the challenge coins he has up there.
That is his office.
That is how this man leaves the curtains in his office.
So why should we trust him with government?
Exactly.
This man can't even manage curtains.
So, Dan Crenshaw might want to take care whose show he's appearing on, if he does care about all of these things, because here are some recent video titles from Russell's Rumble account.
Rumble and X attacked.
What next?
They've just made their next move.
Dot, dot, dot.
Tulsi Gabbard just exposed the truth, all caps, about Zelensky.
Okay.
World War III alert British troops to Ukraine frontline?
And, of course, the traditionally vague Russell one, this changes everything, dot dot dot.
He loves his ellipses.
He does.
It's either that or, like, it's happening!
Like, that's one of the common ones.
Yeah.
I'm curious how many times he's openly worried about World War III, because that's something that this kind of guy is always screaming about.
This, the other thing is going to cause a nuclear war, World War III. But you say that so many times.
It's like listening to someone on TikTok call someone a narcissist.
Everything is going to cause World War III. Shut the fuck up.
Yeah, exactly.
All roads lead back to this eventually, because this is the most extreme thing I can think of, and this is how I'm going to make engagement and everything else.
He does bring it up fairly often, especially in reference to Russia.
Like, well, they're a nuclear power!
You can't go up against them!
Like, oh, shut the fuck up, Russell.
The main point of contention I do have with Dan Crenshaw's assessment in that clip is the idea that Democrats don't go dino hunting, but it's because there's a fundamental difference between the way the left and right wings work.
On the right wing, there's usually a monolith, but with a purity test to extract those who aren't extreme enough from that monolith.
And so that purity test involves rhino hunting and getting rid of Republicans in name only.
Whereas the left is already made up of Yeah.
And it's because I think Republicans like to see Democrats as the mirror images of themselves, whereas they're very ideologically driven.
They're very extreme, all these other things.
So if we're doing that, they must be doing that.
They must have the same ideas.
When in reality, the Democrat Party is more center-right and the left wing.
If it exists at all, it's such a minority that it's never going to achieve any power because the Democratic Party simply won't let it.
In the Republican Party, the extreme is allowed into the power circle so the Republicans can continue to become more and more powerful.
Dan Crenshaw should know this because it's how he got elected.
Yeah, he is among the same voting bloc as Lauren Boebert, up until recently Marjorie Taylor Greene, Jim Jordan, all these people.
That's who he votes with.
I think he was part of the same caucus.
I'm not sure if he is currently.
But yeah.
Yeah, 100%.
So Dan Crenshaw presents his test of incentive structures in this next clip, and Russell has a little bit of a bleak response.
And the test I gave, I said I was going to give a test.
So I'll tell voters, like, look, what are you more likely to click on?
Okay, like headline number one, Biden can't speak again out of the podium.
Okay.
Headline number two, Democrats wasteful spending, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Headline number three, five reasons why Dan Crenshaw is a globalist that you need to know.
Which one are you going to click on?
You're going to click on the third one.
You're going to click on this guy you respected, you thought was your guy.
Actually, here's five reasons why he's a globalist, whatever the hell that means.
Everything and nothing.
It's something I deal with.
It's something we have to deal with as politicians.
It's fine.
It is what it is.
But I also want people to be clear-eyed on who's telling you this.
It's difficult to argue with the idea that those of us that occupy a space in the independent media world over time become kind of acclimatized and schooled in what you could refer to and fairly so as well as clickbait because I know that when you title a video or you thumbnail a video or you have to consider a way of presenting it.
- The whole brand, Russell. - Probably when we pull a video from this conversation, we'll use the idea that we're talking about Tucker Carlson and you haven't, rather than saying, we talked about the deep state in a general way, because yeah, for exactly the reasons you've described. - Yup, it's difficult to argue with your assessment there, Dan Crenshaw. it's difficult to argue with your assessment there, Dan Crenshaw.
I'm creating clickbait right now!
I'm gonna do that with this conversation!
I'm gonna do the exact same thing you just talked about.
It just goes to show how unprepared Russell is, because if you watch Dan Crenshaw go up against any...
Hard interviewer, which he almost never does anymore.
He's a dumbass.
Navy SEALs are not fucking brain surgeons.
And whenever he's forced to engage in things deeply, he simply can't.
So it just shows you how wildly unprepared for anything Russell Brand is that Dan Crenshaw can go on his show and make it look like he's losing to a dog playing basketball.
It's pretty incredible, very genuinely.
The only reason Dan Crenshaw comes off as good and reasonable so far is because Russell is just that terrible at this.
Yeah.
He's just that bad.
And I think that might be one of the reasons why he's kind of bubbling up to the surface, a lot of media is pointing cameras at him again, is because a couple years ago he was one of the crazy people.
In the Republican Party?
He still is.
But in comparison to all these, like, you know, your Boebert's, your Marjorie Taylor Greene's, your Doge's, and all of the weird psychopathic broccoli-haired teens it's employing, Den Crenshaw at surface level seems normal.
Yeah, that's true.
That's how far we've come.
He seems like the reasonable option out of all of these people.
Yep, and if you just, like, scratch him a little bit and look into it, I mean, he is an outright bloodthirsty fascist, but because he isn't screaming about, like, kids being held in basements or whatever, he comes off as being reasonable.
Yeah, yeah, it's remarkable how low the bar has fallen.
Yeah, it's in the fucking ground!
Yeah.
Yeah, and in terms of clickbait, I will say at the time of recording, this conversation with Dan Crenshaw is only available on Russell's Locals channel, Behind the Paywall.
So I'm yet to see what title he's going to give it on Rumble, because Behind the Paywall he usually gives less clickbaity titles, because, you know, he's already got the audience to pay the money.
Like, why fucking bother?
So yeah, I'm yet to see exactly how Russell intends to exploit Dan Crenshaw's interview for clickbait, but he's already confirmed that's what's going to happen.
So like...
He just said it.
Yeah, he just said it out loud like, yeah, yeah, I agree with your assessment.
I'm gonna do that with this very thing, yeah, with this problem you're complaining about.
Oh, fuck me.
To his face.
Okay, I just need to cut in here because Russell is publishing his interview with Dan Crenshaw today and...
The title of it is, Whoa!
Dan Crenshaw really hates, all caps, Tucker Carlson.
Dan explains why.
And then the thumbnail is fucking insane.
It's Dan Crenshaw, like, in the middle of his section.
You've got Russell, like, making a face in one half.
You've got Dan Crenshaw in the middle of another section.
And then around him, you've got someone holding the Ukraine flag.
You've got a picture of, like, the White House with tendrils coming down, supposedly to represent the deep state.
You've got Tucker Carlson in black and white.
And then there's just flames all around otherwise.
Well, he wasn't lying.
He was always going to clickbait it from the start.
So there we go.
I almost give this much respect.
This much.
Almost.
Because anyone other than Russell Brand could realize what he just said is funny.
Yeah.
But Russell Brand is trying to explain it like, no, it's not a bad thing.
I do it all the time.
It would be really funny if he said it as a joke.
Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Exactly, yeah.
And yet he's somehow oblivious to that point.
It's like, okay.
So next, Russell has an important clarification to make.
There's been a little bit of speculation about whether he's been receiving money from the Russian government in any way.
And he wants to set the record straight.
But what my feeling is when it comes to, more broadly, the argument about mistrust of...
The state, and in particular the deep state, is I say with the CIA in particular, I know that there are, I don't know, I heard and believe that there are CIA carve-outs that funded Ukrainian media outlets that claimed that I was a Russian asset.
And I know that I'm not a Russian asset.
I know that I've never had a conversation with or money from.
And I know that I don't think that Putin's a great guy.
guy.
I just sort of query the origins of that conflict and NATO's involvement and the nature of the 2014 Maidan coup and the Azov Battalion and all those arguments that come out of the kind of skeptical position.
I don't voice Russian propaganda as I voice point for point Russian propaganda.
My sort of general position is it's terrible that people keep dying in this war and there seems to be some complexity in its origins, particularly when you listen to people like Mearsheimer, Sachs, or even recently a brilliant argument from Matlock, the dude Matlock that worked for Reagan.
Oh, did he work for Reagan now?
Yes, yeah, yeah.
The person we should be listening to on Ukraine is a 95-year-old man who worked for Reagan in going toe-to-toe with the Soviet Union.
That's who we should be taking our cues from.
A guy who was 39 at the time of the first moon landing.
Yeah, a guy who still calls it the Ukraine.
Yes, right, exactly.
Notably, Jack Matlock, who Russell is referring to, fucking hates NATO and might be coming at this from a...
He did not name a single person that anybody should listen to about anything.
No, no, both Sachs and Mearsheimer are parroting Russian propaganda about NATO expansionism, with Mearsheimer possibly being a source of inspiration for several pieces of Russian propaganda, according to academics in the field.
And if I remember correctly, it was not that many months ago where a lot of Russell Brand's peers...
Did get found to be part of a Russian propaganda network, whether they knew about it or not.
This is it, right?
Because Russell has never taken any money from Russia, and he isn't a Russian asset, supposedly.
But personally, I am leaving room for the possibility that Russell is too stupid to realize he's been bought off.
Like Dave Rubin and Tim Pool are trying to claim.
Like, oh, I just didn't know.
My problem is I believe them.
They're so stupid.
That's the problem.
They are incredibly dumb, so it is believable.
Like, this is the issue.
Of course someone would want to pay me $10,000 per podcast episode.
I'm a fucking star!
Yeah, exactly.
And I'm like, yeah, Russell would definitely fall for that.
For sure.
The guy's a dumbass.
Yes, yeah, this is the problem.
But I do also leave room for the possibility that he's just doing all of this Russian propagandizing for free, which in a way is even dumber.
Yeah, I mean, the fact that he's even bringing it up is suspicious enough.
Like, you know, it's all things like this shirt that says that I am not a Russian asset is bringing up more questions than it's answering.
Yes.
I was never going to accuse Russell Brand of being, like, a paid agent of the fucking GRU or whatever, or the FSB, whatever it might be.
But, like, the fact that he brought it up is certainly piquing my interest.
Like, why would you need to save this?
Yeah, yeah.
I should also make it clear that Russell's claim that CIA carve-outs funding Ukrainian media, who then claim that Russell is a Russian asset, is a...
Far stretch away from the truth of the situation.
So, this comes back to a non-profit organization called Coda Media, who are based across Eurasia and the US, and depend on large foundation grants for the majority of their revenue.
They run the website CodaStory.
One of their previous funders was the US National Endowment for Democracy, or the NET, who shitheads among the alt-right like to claim as a CIA carve-out doing CIA stuff.
The George Soros funded!
Exactly right.
CodaStory, back in 2022, reported twice on the fact that Russell was parroting Russian propaganda about Ukrainian bio labs and whatever else, right?
And not in any particular great detail either.
It was almost as an aside, like, oh look, this shithead's joining the fray as well.
Funnily enough, I spoke to CodaStory about this a while ago and received a detailed statement from then-managing editor Larry Biddle, and the relevant portion is this quote.
The only connection we have to the US government is that we, at one time, were grantees of the National Endowment for Democracy, which is funded by the US Congress.
We no longer receive money from the NED, but this is beside the point.
NED had no editorial influence on our reporting whatsoever.
Carlson also casually referred to us as being connected to the CIA. We have absolutely no...
No connection to the CIA whatsoever.
Unquote.
Yeah, because Tucker Carlson was throwing shit, because of course he was.
So yeah, it's a crock of shit from top to bottom, but this is the narrative that Russell has spun, that he's being attacked by, well, the way Tucker presented it was having the CIA and MI5 coming after Russell.
That's the way it was presented.
Like, how does it feel to be targeted by two of the, you know, main intelligence agencies, you know?
And you happen to be hiding in one of the countries that that agency is from and a citizen of the other, yet you remain untouched.
Yeah, yeah, weird that.
Real weird.
Yeah, yeah.
So...
From all this, we get to the subject of the military-industrial complex potentially buying off lawmakers and influencing policy decisions.
Essentially encouraging the U.S. to go to war in the name of profit, right?
And here's what Dan Crenshaw has to say on the matter.
Now, do companies like Raytheon and Locke, is a common question, a common belief.
Did these companies somehow influence policymaker decisions to get into whatever conflict?
And the answer is I just see zero evidence of it.
Yes.
Zero evidence of it.
These companies are going to survive just fine.
whether there's a conflict or not a conflict.
You know, again, it's single variable analysis.
Just because there's a profit to be made, does it therefore mean that the profit incentive is the sole cause of the policy decision?
Or is it possible that there's actually a whole lot of other reasons why policymakers might make the decisions they make?
And I'll just give you a quick synopsis on campaign finance.
Two things can be true at the same time, Dan.
There is no way for you to be bought off by a defense contractor.
There's just no way to do it because of our campaign finance limitations.
We don't have campaign finance limitations!
I could be wrong, but I've never seen it, never heard of it.
How is Dan Crenshaw going to sit there with a straight fucking face and act like Citizens United doesn't exist?
In theory, they could do that.
But they still have to report where that money is coming from.
They could never do that, except this way where they do it.
Theoretically.
People have a lot of heartburn over it.
They call it dark money.
They call it this.
It's not really dark money.
You still have to report who's supporting what.
And in the end, it's never going to change because of our First Amendment.
You have a right to spend money and whoever you are and make your voice heard.
But I've never even seen a case where the defense contractors are actually doing an open advocation for...
This war in particular, or any war for that matter.
No shit, you haven't seen that happen.
We just don't see it.
That's not how anything works!
There's zero pressure.
Zero.
For your policy stance to match whatever we perceive their desires to be.
So yeah, you've caught a couple of the problems with this argument.
Yeah, we're not talking about things being openly done, Dan Crenshaw.
That's not the problem here.
That's not the issue.
I've never seen Raytheon openly say we should invade Iran.
Well, no shit, but I bet they donate a lot of money to politicians who say we should.
Yeah, exactly.
I'm like...
This is how lobbying works.
Do I need to describe this to you, Dan Crenshaw, as to how all of this works and the other various ways in which lawmakers can theoretically be bought off or encouraged to vote in a particular way?
No one is claiming that funding is the sole reason that the US could be dragged into wars, but it certainly helps.
It doesn't hurt, especially when a lot of those people end up Say, going from the government to munitions boards or from weapons manufacturing bodies into government.
Right, right.
And you've got, you know, members of Congress trading stocks and shares in the military-industrial complex and all of this.
Like, they're a...
Very weirdly timed days, you know?
Yes, exactly.
Like, there are legitimate questions to be asked here, and it's one of those things where, like...
Russell will bring this up on a regular basis, and I'm like, yeah, there's something of a point there.
Usually he's coming at it with absolute bullshit and no evidence is the problem.
He's just coming at it with vague gestures that someone said on Twitter.
And that's why this bit is kind of interesting to me, because on Russell's show specifically, we do regularly get claims of the military-industrial complex incentivizing corrupt politicians to go to war, especially when it comes to Ukraine.
That's the reason.
With literally no evidence presented on Russell's part, just vague gestures and rhetorical questions.
And it's been very interesting to hear Russell just kind of sit there silently while Dan Crenshaw is just like, Nope!
None of this ever happens!
Fuck you!
Never once.
Yeah, I love that they're coming at this from like two different places and both of them are very stupid.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's very much...
Like, idiotically dancing around the subject is what's happening.
And Russell offers no pushback on this whatsoever.
He just moves along.
That's probably wise.
He doesn't have the bandwidth for that.
Also, he almost certainly wasn't paying attention.
Almost definitely.
Almost definitely.
There are long stretches of Dan Crenshaw talking, and Russell struggles with that if he is not the one saying the words.
So, you know, that's a problem.
Okay.
So, so far, mostly Dan Crenshaw has come off as somewhat reasonable in this interview.
Like, fairly measured, saying some mostly sensible things, even if they're coming from a probably flawed direction.
The next clip...
Things take a turn.
As Russell changed subjects to talking about the pandemic, and Dan Crenshaw had this to say.
And so I think the blame, this is where I would at least share blame, is, look, when we were doing polls, I mean, I was out on a limb, because I never wavered.
I was out on a limb, unpopular limb, with saying lockdowns are bad.
Vaccine mandates are bad.
And I'm not even sure that this obsession with testing is going to get you where you want to be.
I'm sure as a representative from Texas, you face a lot of pushback from that.
It's just everything they said I had a problem with.
You can't take the hydroxychloroquine or whatever.
What's the one Joe Rogan got famous for taking?
Ivermectin.
I can't take it.
It's like, okay, maybe it won't work.
Maybe they're right that it really doesn't have a good effect, but it also doesn't have a bad effect.
It does.
It absolutely does.
Everybody's biology is a little different.
Some people respond to medications just differently than others.
Who knows?
The doctors know.
The immunologists know.
That's who knows.
That is why they exist.
There are people who know the stuff, Dan Crenshaw.
That is why the field of medicine exists.
Dan Crenshaw is coming at the concept of modern medicine with the brain of a peasant.
Oh, Christ.
Oh, we're all different.
I sang a dance to the stars, and I was cured.
But my wife, you know, she died.
So, you know, who's to say?
Yeah, who knows?
Really, it's all up to God, I guess.
This went very wrong very quickly.
Supposedly, testing is no good because, well, you're already infected.
So what's the point?
Don't need it.
It couldn't possibly be so that you don't give COVID to anyone else and potentially unintentionally cause them to be seriously ill or die.
That couldn't possibly be the reason that you need testing.
No, no, no.
I love the idea that he faced some kind of political backlash as the representative of suburban Houston for saying that lockdowns are bad.
I didn't live in Texas.
I had actually moved out of Texas a few years before the pandemic started.
But I know enough about Texas to know that I'm willing to bet he gave those speeches to raucous crowds, all of whom had COVID. Yeah, none of which were wearing masks, you know?
No.
It's remarkable.
But no, he was out on this unpopular limb, is what he was doing.
And yeah, as for hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin, like, yes, on their own, they're kind of fine.
Like, even if they're being incentivized by alt-right shitheads or selling their own brands of the stuff in a gross display of predatory capitalism.
Like, the bigger problem that came with those things was the idea...
That they were an alternative to getting vaccinated against COVID. Which people like Jay Logan and Russell Brand still like to claim today.
Like, that is the problem.
Despite the fact they're definitely vaccinated.
For sure.
Right.
They claim otherwise, of course.
Like, if someone wants to get vaccinated and take ivermectin, like, fucking go for it.
Fine.
Knock yourself out.
You won't have any parasites, at least.
I'll say that.
It got rid of all my horse parasites.
Yeah.
I was lousy with him.
It works on humans as well.
So, like, sure, if you feel like you've got a parasite problem, take as much ivermectin as you want.
But, like, the moment someone starts taking it as an alternative to vaccines is where shit starts to get real dangerous real quick.
Yeah, that's the problem that comes with that shit.
It's not that this shit is ineffective.
It's that people take it and they are confident in that they are going to be fine and they do not protect themselves and therefore protect others from constant reinfection.
Like that is the issue.
It's not that they're taking meaningless medication.
It's, you know, very similar to other illnesses that have bunk ass cures that people fall for and they go around acting like they're bulletproof and they spread it.
Like this is a huge problem with like, for instance, HIV in some parts of the world.
Right.
Where like, Ed, there's one specific thing that you should be taking most of the time.
And when you don't and don't take safe precautions.
Precautions!
Things spread because you have fake confidence.
Yeah, yeah, 100%.
And funnily enough, in that situation, testing, real important!
Really important!
Really useful, really helpful.
Speaking of testing, Dan Crenshaw should probably get tested for a traumatic brain injury.
I think he needs testing for a lot of things, I'm going to be honest.
So from here, Crenshaw wants to provide a bit of cover for Trump in undertaking Operation Warp Speed before we then veer into much darker territory.
The only good thing Trump ever did were massive amounts of public opinion that were like, do something now, we want something done now.
Trump was under a lot of pressure to do something all the time.
How dare they put the President of the United States under pressure to do something in the middle of a pandemic?
Governor Abbott, I was like, we didn't lock down a whole lot.
I remember we closed down gyms and bars, and I would get on the phone with him and be like, you need to reopen.
You need to reopen.
This has no effect.
The people going to gyms are not the ones who are going to die from COVID. And our hospitals are not at the capacity.
Like, I would be putting out constant messaging on, like, what's our actual hospital capacity?
Because that's a factor.
For some countries, I understand why they lock down a little harder.
Because they simply don't have the hospital capacity.
But, man, this is like bringing back 2020 vibes.
We haven't talked about this stuff in forever.
So, you know, a public opinion had a lot to do with that.
And people need to be less fearful and more critical thinkers.
Less emotion in your brain.
You fucking idiot.
Okay.
What a piece of shit.
People need to be critical thinkers and less emotional, like Donald Trump, that famously measured and reasonable guy who is in no way a representation of fragile masculinity.
No, no, no.
Not the monument to it.
I love that Trump did one good thing with Operation Warp Speed, and he didn't even do it all the way good, but he did one decent thing, and his supporters will never let him live it down.
No, no, they're just like, no, you did it bad, it was bad, you did it wrong, and he's there like...
But I felt good about it.
He did the one thing they should all fucking hate.
An unforgivable sin in their brain palace that they've built in their politics.
And he is the only one that could do no wrongs.
Yeah, sure, he did this thing that we have been saying for years should be the harbinger of the end times.
But, you know...
He was influenced by the globalists or whatever.
I don't fucking know.
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
And like, well, Trump was just under a lot of pressure to do Operation Warp Speed, so we can rationalize that as being okay.
He was just like, yeah, he was dumb and misled, but, you know, he's our idiot, so that's okay.
That's fine.
Let's put him in charge again.
- Yeah, he's the most powerful big boy man on earth that can uproot this deep state we've told everyone to be afraid of, but also he is but a small boss baby, and he has been influenced by the dark forces of Anthony Fauci, I guess? - Yeah, he's a genius, but also he is easily misled.
So we need to be careful.
Yeah, he saw a pair of jingling keys and wandered off.
Yes, yeah, 100%.
So the dark moment there for me was like, oh, we should reopen Texas because our hospitals are not at capacity yet.
And I'm just like, oh, he just said that out loud, huh?
Like, we can afford to hospitalize a whole bunch more people, so we should do that.
And some of them might die.
Like, it was literally Lord Farquaad.
Like, some of you may die, but it's a risk I'm willing to take, you know?
Doing the Matthew McConaughey pump-up scene, he's like...
Those are fucking rookie numbers.
You gotta pump those numbers up.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Fucking incredible.
Yeah, our hospitals are even close to full.
Pack those motherfuckers to the brim.
Yes, get them up there.
And you know what?
People going to gyms won't die from COVID, so let's at least reopen those.
Because no one over 50 goes to a gym anyway, and no one with underlying health conditions goes to a gym.
And I'm sure no one with underlying health conditions they're unaware of ever goes to a gym either.
Or lives with someone who doesn't.
Exactly.
Or exists in the same general space as like, I don't know, some dickhead gym bro who goes coughing on the fruit at the grocery store.
Oh, it's utterly incredible baby brain thinking.
And of course, like, as we've seen play out in the last few years, many young people with underlying health conditions have found themselves at the mercy of, like, long COVID, or just suffering from the fact that getting COVID, like, made their heart condition much worse, or, like, affected them in other ways, you know, lung problems, all kinds of things.
Like, this whole thing is fucking ghoulish.
Dear, oh dear.
So, naturally, the capstone to the pandemic portion of this conversation relates to how Dan Crenshaw thinks Anthony Fauci messed up.
This is where, like, somebody like Anthony Fauci really screwed us.
He treated people too stupidly, and that was a real problem, and that created massive distrust because you just can't, like, we're not that dumb.
Like, we know that, look, you can tell me ivermectin might not work, and I'll believe you, because I don't see any studies that show it does.
However, you can't tell me it's dangerous either because I know the studies say it's not.
Maybe a banana will work or maybe it won't, but it's not going to hurt me.
It's a fucking banana.
How is he possibly this stupid?
There's more reports of him actually saying that.
We have to scare the public to get them to do what we want.
That's what you do, Dan!
You really screwed what is a necessary institution, which is public health.
Public health should be trusted.
And if you can't trust it, it could have massively bad consequences for whatever the next pandemic is.
I don't want to talk about that anymore.
Public health must be trusted.
Therefore, the Institute of Public Health should be allowed to tell you to take things I also believe do not work because I've never seen a study that works.
But since it's not dangerous, you should be able to take it.
But it should also be trusted.
You should be able to trust the things that come out of their mouth.
You should be able to trust public health institutions.
And he's talking to Russell Brand, who has spent the last five years of his career undermining public health in every country in the world.
What are you doing?
What are you doing?
And you are coming from a position of having intentionally undermined public health for however many fucking years.
But yes, public health should be trusted, and this is why we now have RFK Jr. running Health and Human Services, to restore that trust in public health by getting rid of vaccines.
Cool stuff.
Cool stuff.
It should be trusted, which means that we should also understand that whatever they...
Say that we should or should not take will also not impact us, so let's not listen to them and therefore not trust them.
Yeah, right, exactly.
Like, Fauci's main issue while serving his country was not just that people were too stupid to follow directions, but that shitheads like Russell and Rogan were the ones telling those people specifically not to follow directions, usually accompanied with vague gestures at conspiracy theories and a whole bunch of quackery and fake science, along with a large degree of clickbait.
And, wait, hang on, I thought that all this unsubstantiated bullshit was supposed to be something Dan Crenshaw was against, huh?
Huh?
Funny how that argument disappeared real quick.
But yeah, he's a critical thinker.
He wouldn't fall for any of that nonsense.
Yeah, he's built different.
So, from here we move to the subject of Ukraine.
And Dan Crenshaw has some explaining to do, because he has been very vocally supportive of funding Ukraine in the past, but is now on board with Trump cutting all aid.
Sure.
Yeah, exactly.
So he's kind of got a mealy mouth his way around that one.
Or rather, he would be doing that, but he gets distracted by just how good Russell is at being Christian.
I think it was necessary to beat our chest and stop Putin in his tracks initially.
Why is that necessary?
Because wars of conquest are bad.
Wars of conquest are indicative of a return to history, as I would call it.
So a return to what history?
The pre-World War II history.
That was human existence.
Prior World War II. Wow, you're missing a lot of events over the years there.
I think the birth of Jesus being the primary one.
I know you're going to like that one.
By the way, I really enjoyed watching you.
You're very articulate on matters of faith and religion.
He's not articulate about anything.
Your awakening to that has been really interesting to watch.
He does.
But enough with the kind words.
Let's move on to business here.
Finally, something to agree with Dan about.
Jesus Christ's birth is a major one for Western civilization for a lot of reasons.
I mean, I think the primary of which is it is what created true equality.
It is what created true individual empowerment.
Because before that, the power of access to God, whatever God you worshipped, was not through you.
But through the priest class, or an elder system, something like that.
Jesus turned all that on its head.
Oh, did he now?
Did he?
The basic tenets of Western civilization.
And then what happened?
Tell me about the church, Dan!
So, apparently, right, the birth of Jesus created true equality and individual empowerment.
To that end, I would love to see what the Bible has to say about women and slavery, and oh dear, that's not good, is it?
That's not looking good.
But yeah, true equality came from the birth of Jesus.
So yeah, the equality thing maybe doesn't hold up.
Okay, but...
Before Jesus was born, access to God was through the priest class or the elder system, and Jesus turned that on its head.
I think literally any examination of literacy rates over the centuries completely debunks that notion.
And more to the point, like, how does he think churches gain so much power and wealth?
Like, it's because for the longest time, particularly before the invention of the printing press, the church, they were the gatekeepers of the word of God.
Like, that was the whole thing.
It's like he believes that Jesus Christ was born.
The church, any church, for that matter, of any faith never existed.
And he just is, I don't know, floating through some kind of faith.
River with no guidance?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
It all comes from within, because of Jesus.
And I'm sure everyone was given their own personal Bible the moment that Jesus was born.
And the ability to read said Bible, crucially.
Yeah, they were just born that way.
Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Okay, so maybe that one doesn't hold up.
But, but Jesus gave birth to the tenets of Western civilization.
I mean, he did so from the Middle East, but nonetheless.
This one, I would love more specifics on, honestly.
Like, I would love to ask him, like, hey, Dan, what are the tenets of a Western civilization as you would define them to see what he comes back with?
Because at this point, his batting average is not looking great.
It's got to be said.
I would like to know more about the wars of conquest that haven't happened after World War I. Well, good news, because Jesus being born was number one in terms of important days in history, and Dan Crenshaw is going to tell us about the other important day in history, and you might get some of your answer there.
There's only two important days in history.
Another major day.
There might be a lot more that I'm missing, but let me skip over like a thousand years or two of history and go to D-Day.
D-Day, when America decided that we were going to stop a tyrannical psychopath in Europe from just destroying Europe and aligning with Japan, eventually destroying us, and making The Man in High Castle, that series on Netflix, the reality.
We decided, after 80% of people decided...
It was on Amazon, and it was a book.
We eventually did.
It was not on Netflix.
Huge sacrifice that in hindsight could have been less sacrifice had we acted earlier.
That's only known in hindsight.
But it happened nevertheless in the 80 years since then have been a very, very different history.
One that humankind has never really had and certainly doesn't seem to appreciate very much right now and is now only recently being threatened.
State-on-state wars of conquest have not happened since World War II. And people might be like, wow, you invaded Iraq, invaded Afghanistan.
Yeah, but we immediately, and maybe almost too soon, tried to hold elections and hand over power back to them.
We kick ourselves out because they vote on it.
I mean, I'm not sure if that's conquest.
Immediately!
It's a pretty crappy conquest.
And when you allow history to go back to that...
Think of a few more, you're missing there, Dan.
I mean, you get world wars, you get tens of millions of dead, you get disruptions to a global economy that we all benefit from massively.
For me, this has never been about Ukraine specifically.
It's about Russia and Russian actions.
Well, I will say that for him.
At least he's saying it out loud.
Like, hey, I never gave a single fuck about the Ukrainian people.
Like, credit's due, I guess.
Yeah, you're something of a monster, but cool, buddy.
Cool stuff.
So yeah, my favorite thing about that clip is, of course, Dan Crenshaw immediately debunking himself.
Like, hey, state-on-state wars of conquest haven't happened since World War II! Well, except that one that we did over there.
But we did it badly, so it doesn't count.
Except for that one that I was in.
Right.
But that was different, because we sucked at it.
Also, he's skipping over all the other ones, not to mention all of the wars and the existence of a country he's a huge fan of in the Middle East.
Sorry, did the Gulf Wars not happen?
What was the situation in Vietnam?
And that's just the US. If you look globally...
We now go live to Tel Aviv.
Right, in the last 80 years, I'm like, oh, there's a lot of room there.
Oh, dear.
What I find most interesting about this is Dan Crenshaw essentially advocating for the international rules-based order that has, like, dominated most of the last century after World War II, right?
When his main guy, Donald Trump, is very intentionally...
Flouting that very same rules-based order.
And, like, Steve Bannon was on Russell's show a while back and was explicitly advocating for the abolition of the international rules-based order in favor of a system of Westphalian sovereignty where state sovereignty reigns supreme above all else, much like in China and Russia.
Like, those are the two big advocates for that.
And I suspect that Dan Crenshaw doesn't actually realize that he's at odds with the main thrust of his own government.
Probably not.
Like, I think he's got no clue, but like, yeah, they want to fucking get rid of that dude.
Yeah, he's not, uh, he is not exactly a deep thinker when it comes to political ideology.
He still thinks it's like 2015. Yeah, yeah, things don't seem to have, like, moved along internally for this guy very much, you know?
No, the Republican Party has passed him by, which is why he's not, like, one of their stars anymore, so to speak.
It's why you don't see him platform so often.
He has just become another elected member.
He isn't one that they point cameras at anymore.
They have other people.
Yeah, I have a suspicion that he's angling towards something specific that we'll get to in a little bit.
Though, in a relevant clip here, actually, in discussing Ukraine and the military-industrial complex, Dan Crenshaw does have some specific thoughts on how actually the military-industrial complex has been in massive decline because the US has been just too focused on counter-terrorism instead.
Contrary to what popular belief about our military-industrial complex, the reality is it's been largely disseminated over the last two decades because our primary focus has been counterterrorism, not big power competition.
And so we haven't been making things.
We haven't been making the exquisite weaponry that would be required to deter China from invading Taiwan.
And when you don't make things on a production line...
Do you not realize how much money we spent over the last two decades on weapons?
...that creates the little wicket that goes into that particular missile?
Well, they start to go out of business and the people start to retire because they're not getting orders anymore.
So there's been this atrophy, actually, in the military industrial complex that the Ukraine war has helped awaken.
It's also given a lot more insight into how we might fight wars in the future, specifically with cheaper drones.
And so it's really given...
Giving us amazing insight into how we might protect Taiwan, ideally deter Taiwan, because I don't think anybody wants to go to war over Taiwan.
Certainly not me.
Well, thanks for putting that out there.
But that doesn't mean that you just keep doing that forever either.
And Trump's election was the perfect timing for this because Biden had escalated, probably too late in my opinion, but he had escalated at least to allow American weapons to be used inside Russia.
He's tightened a little bit of screws on sanctions, although there's a lot further we could go against Russia on that if we want to...
If, for instance, they want to embarrass Trump and not come to the table, which is still a possibility, there's still a lot more we can do.
But it certainly is the time, as President Trump has dictated, it's the time to just start talking and see what happens.
And so I think we...
It's certainly concerning that the words that the president has dictated came out of his mouth.
And I want him to be successful.
So, you know, he's cutting off Ukraine aid.
Well, it's only temporary.
It's a way to get Zelensky to the table.
You know what it did?
It immediately got him back.
He should be here on Tuesday to sign that Minerals deal.
Oh, well, there we go.
That's all right, Ben.
Okay, so you blackmailed him.
Yes!
Strong-arming Zelensky in order to forcibly take a bunch of his country's wealth is totally fine.
Like, okay.
I think, obviously, that statement is just baffling, that he believes that diplomacy with an ally is just blackmail in the open and on live TV. But I think one of the funniest parts about this entire clip is that it's pretty clear that Dan Crenshaw does not understand what the military-industrial complex actually is.
Is or does, yeah, which is funny from a former Navy SEAL, you know?
Well, like I said, nobody ever claimed that they were smart.
I mean, I was also just a combat soldier, but I think the main difference was I didn't like it.
I didn't make it my personality.
And I went on to read more about exactly what was going on.
Dan Crenshaw seems to believe that the military-industrial complex is only a thing when it's inventing new weapons, not when it's cranking out.
An endless supply of shit that was already designed?
Does he not realize that Raytheon, Halliburton, all of these contractors, Dyncore, General Dynamics, whatever their names are, made cash hand over fist for decades?
Because of the wars that he and I were in?
And not to mention, if anybody knows this, it should be a Navy SEAL, but they were constantly inventing new things.
New body armor, new vehicles, new optics, new everything, all the time!
Yeah, yeah, 100%.
100%.
Like, when it comes to his claims about the military-industrial complex declining because of counter-terrorism, like, citation fucking needed right there, sir.
Counter-terrorism is great for it because it goes on forever!
Exactly!
Like, please provide me one example of this decline actually taking place.
Like, given that defense spending in the U.S. has only ever gone upwards and quite drastically since 2001.
Like, yeah.
The argument that the U.S.A. is ill-equipped to potentially take on China over Taiwan is fucking nonsensical.
Whether the U.S. is tactically and strategically equipped with people who would actually be able to win battles in that situation is a different story.
And that's more your area, Joe.
But like I wouldn't be concerned.
In terms of equipment, you know?
Do we need it?
Because that's the thing.
We need to be prepared to deter and confront China over Taiwan.
Not that we should do that.
Yes.
Okay, so then we don't need to do that.
We could just save the money and not do that.
Yeah, one would think.
One would fucking think.
Oh, dear.
But yeah, also within that clip, we did see Dan Crenshaw providing himself an out there when it comes to his flip-flopping on Ukraine, where he can be like, well, supporting Ukraine was right a couple of years ago, but now it isn't, because Trump is there now, and that makes the situation different somehow.
Dad said no.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, right.
Gross and weird.
Okay, so now we come to what's required of the deal with Russia to ensure peace in Ukraine.
I think the way Trump is doing this is everything with him is a little outside the box.
But he's right in that you're not going to get Putin to the table.
If you continue the chest-thumping, right?
You got to be nice.
You got to do flattery.
Now, the way this would work best is if Europeans were actually scary for once and were on the back end kind of playing bad cop.
Now, the English and the French are at least thinking about that.
Only the English in the UK, though, not the rest of the UK. European forces actually securing those because you can never trust Putin.
You're just never going to trust him.
But you don't need to if you have a good deal, right?
You have a deal that just works.
And ultimately, that's what Trump wants.
And ultimately, even if you get a deal that Ukrainians don't like, well, you know what?
Russians aren't going to like it either because you know what Russians wanted?
They wanted the whole country and eventually more.
And if we can stop that in its tracks, then American strategic interests are actually met.
So we can stop that whole thing, you know, that he wants these things he wants more, by simply giving it to him.
Yeah, by just giving him a little bit.
Again, like, Crenshaw is just saying it out loud here, like, well, yeah, Ukrainians are going to lose a chunk of their country to a foreign aggressor, but you know what?
Our strategic needs will still be met, so that's kind of fine.
And, like, trying to rationalize it with, well, the Russians wanted the whole country, so they won't be happy either, is, like, absolute fucking insanity.
Like, I would love to ask Dan Crenshaw, like...
Like, okay, say Mexico invades, which part of Texas are you willing to give up?
Hopefully his.
Yeah, right.
I advocate the reformation of the Mexican Empire solely to take over his Houstonian suburb.
Oh, please, please.
I would love it.
Yeah, like, let Mexico take the south, let Canada take the north.
Let's just deal with it that way.
I think it'll be much better for everyone.
I'm fine with this.
As a man from Michigan, I am in favor.
Yeah, yeah, right.
Like, you can be Canadian.
Hey.
Also, it is very funny to me to hear Dan Crenshaw advocating for British and European peacekeeping forces going into Ukraine when Russell has spent the last month whining about the idea and calling Keir Starmer a warmonger.
Yep.
And not to mention, I mean, like, I'm not a Dutch citizen.
I'm not a Dutch citizen, but I do live in the Netherlands, and the idea of the Dutch military, because they've also talked about it, or the British military, or French, German, whatever, deploying peacekeepers to Ukraine, all members of NATO. What happens then, Dan, and one of them gets shot?
Yes.
Yeah, it's true.
What do you do then, Dan?
Things get very tense very quickly, is what happens.
So from here, Dan Crenshaw does want to address that little spat that Zelensky, Trump, and J.D. Vance had in the White House in front of a bunch of cameras.
God, that was so pitiful.
What's our strategic interest here?
Deterrence for the long term.
That's our strategic interest.
That's why I say it's never been about Ukraine specifically or our love for Ukraine or whatever.
I'm not going to defend Zelensky.
Zelensky...
Made me mad at that White House meeting because I think he just did not read the room correctly.
He upset daddy.
He told him no.
Past injustices of diplomacy by Putin.
It's like, dude, you might be totally right.
It doesn't matter.
This isn't the time.
This isn't the time.
You're here to have lunch and sign some papers and save your country.
That's what you're here to do.
So let's do that.
Let's not litigate.
Now, I think that's a mismatch culturally because you're from Europe.
You probably understand this by the most.
Eastern Europeans have a way of talking.
They want you to see their points.
They don't see it as argumentative.
To them, it's just talking.
To us, it's kind of offensive.
And especially at that moment, in that setting.
And so even I was blasting Zelensky for that.
I've supported them.
But I was appalled by what I thought.
I'm glad it's coming to a resolution.
I think Trump has been the bigger man on this.
What?
Look, the guy wants to make a deal.
This is his thing.
If there's one thing you can say about Trump, he will make good on his campaign promises.
Oh yeah, you can say that about him.
That's why I'm really happy that Mexico paid for that wall, you fucking idiot.
Hey, US-based listeners, sound off in the comments.
How's the price of eggs looking over there?
I was told that would be going down on day one of Trump's presidency, and I get the feeling that's not what's been happening.
Anyway.
This kind of, like, just weak bullshit is just so funny to me because conservatives, especially people like Crenshaw, like, make their whole brand as, like, I'm a big, tough, strong boy.
And now their entire brand is, we must do everything daddy tells us to do.
Yeah, it's very pathetic.
It's so fucking funny.
It's like, oh, you know, Trump's gonna yell at me, you know what I'm gonna do?
I'm gonna curl up into a ball, I'm gonna cry in my piss a little.
Yep, yep, yep.
I'm gonna pee on myself and see if that solves the problem.
I will show submission by laying on my back and peeing all over myself like a poodle puppy.
Absolutely.
Anyway, some casual xenophobia showing with the Eastern Europeans all being rude.
They just think they're talking, whereas we find it offensive.
I find it very offensive that Zelensky dared to tell him, Daddy America, no.
Yes, yeah, exactly.
And Trump was the bigger man in that little spat with Zelensky.
He definitely didn't just get all pissy and offended, shout about it several times on Truth Social, and then cut all funding to Ukraine.
That's definitely not what happened.
There's never been more of a mewling coward move on Earth than both Trump and J.D. Vance trying to shout down Zelensky, who they have constantly tried to frame as this effeminate...
Act like comedian who isn't a real president, which like, yeah, he was a comedian.
He did do some very funny bits.
And, you know, then he immediately makes them both look like school children for like a better term.
Yeah, just like little kids.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
They got completely outshown by a guy who, by all accounts, is probably living on more caffeine than I am currently.
Yeah, yeah, and it was visible in the thing that J.D. Vance and Trump both felt emasculated and had to lash out in order to make up for it.
It's like, oh, this is just sad.
This is just sad.
And look, I'm not someone that fucking works for...
Whatever mainstream media company that's going to say Zelensky is some kind of infallible hero or whatever, there's plenty of criticisms you could say about him.
And I know a lot of Ukrainian friends that do have plenty of criticisms to say about him, about his governance even before the war started.
But it is very funny that nothing he was saying was objectionable or even untrue or even particularly rude.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
He was simply saying that, like, no, we have done that.
It's like, you know, like J.D. Vance constantly saying, well, you haven't said thank you.
You haven't thanked us in the last five minutes, you bastard.
And even if he hasn't, which he has thanked the United States multiple times, and his European allies, the only thing he didn't do was like, Prostrate himself on the ground and grovel before them.
And also, he didn't wear a suit, because God forbid.
How dare he?
How dare he?
Oh, fuck me.
Oh, dear.
Yeah, anyway, some very obvious and patented bootlicking from Dan Crenshaw right here to keep the God King happy.
Gotta keep that going.
And we've got one more clip here, and it's about all this cartel business that Trump keeps harping on about.
Because Dan Crenshaw has been on this train for a little while and even led a task force in the last Congress to combat the cartels, and now he seems to want a seat at the table in the Trump administration doing the same thing.
That's what I think he's angling for here.
Anyway, here's what he has to say.
The reasoning behind Trump's tariffs...
I think people thought those were going away because Mexico was threatened with tariffs, right?
25% tariffs.
And Trump said, look, we want the border done.
And in Mexico, they put 10,000 troops on the border.
They were like, whatever you want.
Those were already there.
It wasn't enough.
Trump is now saying, and I've asked them to say this, so maybe this is my fault.
I don't know.
I'll take credit.
Screw it.
Trump's new letter to them was, you're not doing enough on the cartels.
Now, we need to give them exact instructions on what we want them to do, and I can give them those instructions.
I want, in writing, a security cooperation agreement that looks like Plan Colombia.
You can't call it Plan Mexico because that's already a thing.
You know what I'm saying?
We need to be fighting a counterinsurgency, because that's what the cartels are.
They're a terrorist insurgency that is dominating Mexico at all levels of society.
That's definable, what an insurgency is, and it makes it very difficult to fight.
That's not what it is.
Because people who don't know anything about this issue, they're like, well, you know, we'll just bomb them.
Oh, yeah?
Bomb who?
Where?
Congratulations, you're running into problems that the Vicente Fox administration ran into in Mexico for a decade.
It's not like they have bases and uniforms.
You fucking idiot.
Some do.
They take pictures of them.
But it's mostly for show.
They're integrated very deeply into the society.
And it's going to take a massive whole-of-government approach and Mexican willingness to deal with it.
They tried that.
It was a whole thing.
Yeah.
Yeah, they're acting like Mexico's just been, like, completely fine with the situation the whole time.
You know, which is very much the right-wing narrative on this.
And, like, on the one hand, supposedly, the war on terror is what's decimated the military-industrial complex in the US. And yet, also, Dan Crenshaw is claiming he wants to take on the cartels in Mexico, who he considers to be a terrorist insurgency.
I'm like, which thing is it?
Like, either the counterterrorism is a problem or it's not.
Like, you need to pick a lane here.
I love the idea that crime, no matter how bad the crime is, because cartels are criminal organizations, they do not have a political aspiration, is an insurgency.
Yes.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Like, you might know more about this than I do, but, like, as a brief aside, like, my ex wrote her master's dissertation on the distinction between terrorists and insurgents, using the Tamil Tigers as an example.
And, like, they are fundamentally two different things, with, like, one wanting to, you know, cause terror and fear for whatever reason, and the other usually trying to regain control of their own country from either a dictatorship or a foreign aggressor or whatever else, right?
Like, from my understanding...
There is no way you could consider cartels to be an insurgency because they're not like a military force trying to take over the Mexican state.
And you can't describe them as terrorists unless you're willing to expand that definition to such broad levels where the mafia are also terrorists and literally anyone in organized crime syndicates are also terrorists.
Pretty much.
It's like, no, definitionally, you're completely wrong.
Yeah, I mean, the cartels are incredibly powerful, and they do have paramilitaries, but they are not attempting to become president of Mexico.
No!
No, exactly.
They're a criminal enterprise.
They're not trying to advance political ideologies.
They're trying to make a shitload of money, is what they're doing.
But yeah, he's among one of the loudest people trying to turn this into a new war on terror, because...
We clearly didn't learn enough lessons the first time around, and secondly, we just get to call anyone we don't like terrorists against, so that's nice.
He does have one more eye.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, him and Tom Cotton have been beating the shrimp for a long time.
And Republicans themselves, it's not as popular.
As I think it will become.
They're calling Biden a warmonger for supplying Ukraine with weapons to defend themselves from an illegal invasion while simultaneously saying that we need to invade Mexico.
They've been doing it for years.
I remember Crenshaw and Cotton being the two guys that were really on that shit.
They were smoking on that insane pack way before everybody else.
And it's really troubling that it's becoming more and more mainstream.
And that shit with Mexico where they said, oh, you have to deploy the Mexican military to the border.
The Mexican military was already deployed to the border.
The president of Mexico, Claudia Scheinbaum, did not do anything that she wasn't already doing.
They're just trying to...
They're shadowboxing.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's just like, okay, how can we appease this fucking idiot without actually having to do all this ridiculous stuff?
We're already fucking doing it.
Let's just send him a letter saying, hey, yeah, we did it!
Despite the fact we were already doing it.
And that's sufficient.
This whole cartel business is getting to sad levels on Dan Crenshaw's part, because he, just a couple of days ago, was claiming that he received a signed postcard from a...
From, like, five or six different cartels, like, all, like, signed their name to this postcard and sent him a picture, apparently.
I love the idea that the cartels all got together, because they're all such good friends.
They're good buds, yeah.
To troll Dan Crenshaw with snail mail.
Yeah, that's how you do it.
That's how, famously, how the cartels roll.
That's what makes them so fearsome, is they will send you postcards.
Yeah.
I really like that maybe he did get a postcard like that, and it's someone that's just playing the dumbest joke ever on him.
Someone who is just fucking with him, absolutely.
Like, yeah, because, I mean, I would be tempted to do that for fun, you know?
It's pretty fun.
It sounds pretty fun.
It's pretty good.
Oh, how fucking absurd.
Oh, dear.
Anyway.
So, has any of this changed your opinion about Dan Crenshaw at all?
No, if anything, I actually hate him more.
Not because any of his politics have changed, only because now I know he associates with Russell Brand.
Yeah, it's not gonna help.
It's not gonna help.
Oh, dear, dear.
Yeah, and I don't think Russell has done himself any favors in this conversation either, to be fair.
He can't hang.
He can't hang with someone as weak-minded and deferential as Dan Crenshaw, because he's just incapable of Googling someone?
Yeah, yeah, it's incredible.
Like, the lack of preparation rendered him basically voiceless throughout most of this conversation, because he just could not engage with any of the things that Dan Crenshaw was saying, because he just does not know enough about any of the things.
And it was weird hearing Russell not talk all that much.
Yeah!
Because, I mean, nobody knows better than you how long-winded he is and says absolutely nothing most of the time.
Yeah, that first big clip of him rattling on about bullshit, you know, that's pretty standard.
But yeah, when he's faced with a guest where he has to do any amount of prep, he's like, no, I'm just gonna let you take it.
And the other factor as well is that he's lazy, and this way he doesn't have to do any work.
He just lets Dan Crenshaw.
We'll do all of it for him.
Yeah, and, you know, how hard is it to prep for such a hard interview character as a publicly known person and elected member of government?
Yes, yeah, yeah.
It's really tough to interview this guy who also sucks up to Trump and everything else.
Like, oh, fuck me.
Just the bare minimum would have been nice.
But all right, I will take quiet Russell for a little bit.
That's fine.
You know, that's a minor victory in of itself.
Yeah, I'm feeling you won't be getting that one again for a while.
Nope, nope, doubt it.
Doubt it.
Oh, dear.
Well, thank you, Joe, so much for coming on yet again and subjecting yourself to this nonsense.
Oh, it's been great.
Thanks for having me.
And that's the show, everybody.
Please go and check out Joe's show, Lions Led by Donkeys, and check out some of his books, too.
I will, of course, be putting links in the description and links to the Lions Led by Donkeys live shows.
Also, go and get your tickets.
And don't forget, the On Brand Book Club will be live streaming this Sunday, March 16th on YouTube and Twitch at 8pm GMT, so please come along and join!
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For those who can't make it, On Brand will be back next Thursday, but in the meantime, Meantime, take care of yourselves and each other.
