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March 20, 2025 - On Brand

01:37:47

Infighting With Icke w/Annie Kelly

I'm joined by researcher and co-host of the QAA podcast, Annie Kelly, to cover Russell's spat with conspiracy theorist David Icke.Listen to QAA: https://pod.link/1428209307Follow Annie on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/annieknk.bsky.socialSupport Al on Patreon: https://patreon.com/OnBrand

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Time	Text
	This is propaganda live.
	I only suggest how to think and how to vote.
	Extraordinary cultural moment.
	Already iconic.
	Already iconic.
	We love you.
	You're welcome here.
	I almost sound like a conspiracy theorist, but it's a bit lame now.
	They don't want to have a conversation 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.
	God is propaganda.
	Did you get it?
	I feel that Christ may have had a better vision.
	Did you get it?
	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's show with a guest.
	And this week...
	I am thrilled to be joined by researcher, academic, and UK correspondent for the QAA podcast, Annie Kelly.
	We end up discussing the fallout and infighting between Russell and David Icke, as well as the attempted extradition of Mahmoud Khalil, with no shortage of Russell's usual nonsense in between.
	But before we get into that, allow me to thank a couple of new Awakening Wonders here.
	So, Dan Todd, you are now an Awakening Wonder.
	You are indeed an Awakening Wonder.
	Thank you very much, Dan.
	And hey, Natalie, thank you so much for upping your donation and becoming a part of The Invisible Hand.
	Let me tell you that we love you.
	There is a sort of an invisible hand guiding these events.
	You are fundamentally beautiful.
	Not others.
	You.
	I believe you are fundamentally beautiful.
	I'm right wing.
	Now get me some shitfuck ice cream, you pig dick!
	You big...
	Sexy despot baby.
	I'm right-wing.
	I only suggest how to think and how to vote.
	Another big subject over here with us right-wing fascists.
	How do you feel about past you at this point?
	I don't even recognize that idiot anymore.
	I'm right-wing.
	Oh God, I just got a poo and a bit of my bum fill out.
	God, it's propaganda.
	Did you guess it?
	Did you guess it?
	I'm right-wing.
	Gain.
	Thank you, Natalie.
	I need to do a new one of these, to be fair.
	But I'll work on that another time separately.
	We can have an updated Invisible Hand drop.
	But thank you very much.
	Thank you.
	And if anyone wants to support the show financially by becoming an Awakening Wander, joining the Invisible Hand, or donating on an elevated tier, head to patreon.com slash onbrand and sign up.
	You will have my eternal gratitude.
	And you will be able to access additional content and a completely ad-free version of the show as well.
	Speaking of additional content, this past Sunday the on-brand book club began with me reading excerpts from Russell's first autobiography, My Booky Wook.
	Thank you so much to everyone who came along.
	I had a great time.
	We all got through the first five chapters of Russell's book and good lord, most of that should never have been published.
	I cannot stress enough that it was a revealing insight into Russell's mind as well as his various childhood traumas.
	It really should have been given to a therapist first.
	Nonetheless, the first part of that is up on the Patreon and part two will be covered next month.
	In the meantime, let's get into an excellent chat with Annie Kelly.
	Annie Kelly, thank you so much for joining me today.
	Thank you so much for having me on.
	It's an absolute pleasure.
	All right, before we get into Russell, let's spend a minute getting to know you.
	Let's start with an easy question.
	My pronouns are they, them.
	What are yours?
	My pronouns are she, hers.
	Hey, nice and easy.
	We did it.
	So you are a researcher and academic.
	How long have you been a researcher and what type of things have you been researching?
	So I'm currently the UK correspondent for the QAA podcast and we started out looking at QAnon but have branched out to other conspiracy theories, fringe communities,
	cursed media.
	Basically, if it's weird and online, we've probably covered it at one point.
	But before that, I did a postdoctorate at King's College looking at how the internet has affected conspiracy theories.
	Before that, I did my PhD at University of East Anglia, which looked at what was kind of then called the manosphere.
	Now that's sort of quite a quaint term.
	People don't use that so much, probably because it's gone so mainstream that now it's just this sphere.
	Andrew Tate, that type of situation.
	Yeah, and people like Aidan Ross interviewing Trump and J.D. Vance talking about Childless Cat Lady.
	You know, we're just ruled by the manosphere now, actually.
	Yeah, we live in the best timeline.
	But that was what my PhD was about.
	So yeah, I suppose, yeah, reactionary communities, conspiracy theories, online, fever swamps seem to be my research specialty.
	So you've spent a long time just looking into the darkest corners of society, basically, and now that's just become life around us.
	That's exactly it.
	Yeah, I think it was my co-host, Travis, who, yeah, at one point just abandoned the idea of doing QAnon news on the podcast because QAnon news is just the news now.
	It's just news.
	Yeah, yeah.
	It's...
	Yeah, I'm trying not to have an existential crisis mid-record.
	Sorry, that was too early for that.
	No, no, it's the world we live in and we need to confront that.
	So yeah, you were a part of the Everything is Connected project, right?
	Which was researching how and why the internet changed conspiracy theories.
	Tell me a little bit about that because I am kind of interested in the direction that research took.
	Yeah, I mean, it was a widespread project and me and my colleagues looked at all sorts of different things.
	My focus...
	I guess I wanted to ask this question from the perspective of conspiracy theorists themselves.
	So I just started reaching out as much as I could to people who had been involved in some way in conspiracy culture.
	Some form of alternative knowledge community.
	So I guess I was also hitting up people who worked in the field of UFO research and things like that.
	Basically, just to get their view.
	Do you know?
	Because it sort of feels like it's something that academics talk a lot about, you know, well, social media did this and, you know, this happened with the internet.
	But I was really curious to see, yeah, you know, if the same...
	Viewpoint was shared from the inside.
	I spoke to a lot of really interesting people, people who had been in this field a long time.
	We've seen it go mainstream, which is a funny thing to talk about with conspiracy theories.
	Because, you know, they kind of for so long viewed themselves as this kind of fringe alternative knowledge, marginalized community.
	You know, so people who were really big in the sphere were now kind of having to reckon with the fact that the President of the United States was referencing conspiracy theories that they believe were real.
	But did not particularly share his politics and didn't really trust his motives for bringing them up.
	And I think, yeah, I think it was quite an affecting project, actually.
	I think, you know, you have to be careful because Pretty much everybody's tendency, the older you get, is to say, yes, it was so much better in my day and things were so much kinder and gentler.
	And in fairness, lots of people I spoke to were even kind of reflective of that.
	They were like, I know I just sound like someone who's in a favorite band got big.
	But I think there genuinely was a difference in how conspiracy theory production circulation was carried out.
	The era before the internet and when it was on zines and radio shows and things of this nature before it was on social media and podcasts.
	In that it was, I think, for one thing it was episodic.
	It had a kind of beginning, middle and end.
	You were looking to explain an event that had happened in the past, even in the very recent past.
	JFK's body wasn't really cold before people were kind of coming up with ideas and speculation about what had happened and who had done it.
	But 9 /11, another really good example.
	But I think the change with social media was that people began to start explaining events as they happened.
	And even more than that, kind of have this slightly predictive quality to them, which is how a lot of people read things like the Q drops in QAnon.
	Not only can it tell you, explain what's happening right now, it can actually predict what's happening in the future, who's about to be arrested, who's about to be sent to Guantanamo Bay.
	On the internet and social media, they became much more collaborative as well.
	No one's actually in charge.
	The truth is no one can actually stop QAnon now.
	It's just there forever, just kind of continuing.
	And yeah, I think that has, you know, people will kind of say, well, the conspiratorial mode was always a problem for those of us who kind of wanted to build trust in society.
	And I think...
	I think that's true to a certain extent, but I also don't really think it's going to go away.
	I think we're very naturally conspiratorial creatures.
	We want to understand.
	We're curious.
	We come up with stories for why two facts don't seem to match up.
	I don't think it's going away.
	But I definitely think that social media has turned it into a bit of a phenomenon, essentially, which I don't think was present in pre-internet conspiracy culture.
	Yeah, yeah, there's mass conspiracy theories now, you know, and yeah, we are pattern-finding creatures, so we are drawn towards these, especially if it's forbidden knowledge and everything else.
	Yeah, there's a real risk there, especially when people like Russell, funnily enough, saying, this is what they don't want you to know, and you're like, oh, okay.
	You know, you can see the appeal, you can see the appeal.
	Definitely, and I think you know.
	Sorry, just to interrupt before you go to the next question.
	I want to be clear.
	I don't think it's actually really a problem itself being a conspiracy theorist.
	I think the opposite of being a conspiracy theorist isn't just being a kind of critical, balanced mind.
	It's actually just kind of accepting everything you're told, which I don't think we want to encourage people either.
	We're all slightly conspiracy theorists when it comes to certain issues.
	You know, there's certain...
	I think it's a very valid mode of thought to, you know, when you get told something to be like, I bet that's not true.
	I bet.
	Particularly if it's by a figure of authority.
	You know, so I think, yeah, I guess I want to be clear.
	Sometimes I think people think that...
	Academics who specialise in conspiracy theories are sort of going, you know, here's this problem that must be stopped.
	You know, how do we stop it?
	And I certainly think modern-day conspiracy culture has lots of nasty consequences, particularly for very vulnerable people.
	But it doesn't mean that I think...
	I'm not coming onto the radio or the podcast, rather, to tell everyone, you know, you have to stop that now and just listen to what you're told.
	Yeah, yeah, because the problem is some conspiracies are real, have been a thing, and have, you know, been inflicted upon the public.
	So, you know, you need a healthy kind of middle ground somewhere, you know, a burden of proof, a standard of evidence, you know, to be able to be like, okay, his...
	Here's this thing.
	Here is my standard.
	Here is why I'm happy to kind of believe that this one might be true, you know?
	Yeah.
	Yeah, because governments be doing stuff, everybody.
	That's consistent.
	So, yeah, you've been at this for some time, and, you know, you've obviously taken time to research how conspiracy theories have changed since pre-internet times.
	I am kind of curious, how would you say conspiracy theories have changed since you first began kind of going down this road?
	Like, while you've been covering it, obviously, you know, they've become more mainstream.
	Is there anything else?
	So, yeah, that's a really good question.
	I think...
	When I first started doing this research, it was much more these kind of spaces were concentrated much more on blogs and on social media.
	And people will often harken back to the blogosphere, the good old days.
	It's worth remembering that, you know, maybe this content was a little bit more long form.
	It was a little bit more nuanced and thoughtful, but it had much of the same issues.
	It was still very much the angry and extreme stuff rose to the top, you know.
	So I want to caution against total nostalgia for the good old blogosphere.
	But I think, crucially, no one was getting rich off this.
	The only person I can think of who was getting rich off this was Alex Jones, who I think is a really interesting bridge between the old conspiracy world that I was discussing before and the modern-day social media conspiracy world.
	This was not really somewhere that you would target if your goal was to make money.
	So for better or worse, most of the people involved in it were real true believers.
	And Alex Jones, I think, really was a true believer, but also just had this kind of incredible entrepreneurial spirit, which a lot of the other ones of them lacked.
	And he, I think, very much through...
	He started off on public access television in Austin, but because you were allowed the copyright from the shows that you recorded, he started selling tapes.
	And from there, he started doing the same with his radio show.
	From there, he launched a lifestyle brand from Infowars.
	He had a stable of sites which targeted different modes of trutherism and preppers and things like that.
	He just had this real ability, I think, that really...
	Yeah, set the tone, I think, for what would then become what my old supervisor, Claire Birchall, has called conspiracy entrepreneurs.
	And, you know, I think he's the original conspiracy entrepreneur.
	But he kind of set a blueprint, essentially, for lots and lots of other wannabe Alex Joneses to follow.
	And this, I think, once you're trying to sell something alongside your conspiracy theory, I think that changes the content of the conspiracy theory.
	I would say like old Alex Jones feels a lot more of a true believer than current day Alex Jones, who feels much more cynical.
	Yes, definitely.
	Because, you know, it sort of makes sense, essentially, if you have another motive going alongside simply getting the truth out there, then even if you do believe what you're saying, the way that you say it is going to be different,
	right?
	And so I think this is where a lot of the conspiracy theory stuff starts to get very personal.
	It starts to...
	Involve people telling their audiences that they are being targeted, their bodies are being targeted, their children are being targeted.
	And yeah, so I think you start making stuff much more personal because it gets people backed up, it frightens them, they become much more alarmed, they become much more safety conscious.
	And then you say...
	And what do you know?
	I've got the supplement that, you know, counteracts the fluoride in your water or, you know, whatever chemicals they're pumping into your children's bloodstream and all the rest of it.
	Whatever crap it is that you're selling.
	Sea moss.
	Yeah.
	So I think that is probably the biggest difference since when I started out this research was the people I was writing about initially were not.
	We're not trying.
	They didn't have any illusions that they would get wealthy.
	Maybe the best of them would make a living, a decent living, but they weren't shooting for kind of millionaire status.
	And I think that has really changed the tenor of everything.
	Yeah, yeah, I would say so.
	Russell is making a fortune off of this.
	Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.
	By my calculations, he's earning at least half a million a year just from his local channel of subscribers.
	That's how much he was getting.
	It's untold how much he's getting from the Rumble deal specifically because he has a deal with them and like things are being folded into Rumble Premium.
	And obviously he's got all these affiliate kind of deals and like sponsors and that kind of stuff.
	stuff as well.
	And who knows what other income sources might be available to him as well.
	So yeah, he's raking it in quite happily over there.
	So yeah, I feel like we've just been talking about him, basically, without saying anything.
	So yeah, like he also...
	Has at least sometimes claimed to do journalism.
	And he's a big fan of doing your own research as well, that old Russell Brand.
	A couple of things you might have in common.
	There we go.
	So what was your first experience of Russell Brand?
	When did you become first aware of his existence?
	Pretty early on, I think, because I'm a British millennial.
	So I think we were...
	Ground Zero.
	He was, you know, on all of the funny panel shows that we were watching.
	Was it Mock the Week?
	I don't know.
	Yeah, stuff like that.
	Never mind the Buzzcocks.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	Yeah, I remember watching one of his early stand-up shows.
	I can't remember.
	It was him responding to little news snips and things like that.
	I remember tuning in for it.
	I thought he was really funny.
	Truth be told, I kind of...
	I sort of, he was very kind of of his time.
	I don't know.
	He's still got a little element of this, I think.
	Very kind of of his time.
	It was all about this kind of slightly quirky, random humour where he would kind of, you know, he was sort of coming up with these bizarre kind of idiosyncratic kind of way of phrasing things, you know.
	He would sort of, yeah, kind of pull out a kind of word that's not really...
	Used much anymore apart from the 19th century literature and kind of just like throw that in there along with a sex joke and yeah, stuff like that.
	I then remember him getting quite political around the time of the Cameron government.
	And as a young lefty myself, yeah, quite liked him.
	Do you know, I really liked that interview he did with Jeremy Clarkson.
	Not Jeremy Clarkson.
	Paxman.
	Paxman.
	Where, yeah, you know, it's one of those things where people at the time were like, he's talking rubbish.
	He doesn't really, you know, he's kind of pulling stuff out of there.
	And I think we could, that was very true.
	But it was still very gratifying, I think, for someone on the left to see him rolling rings around this kind of establishment figure who was clearly trying to kind of...
	Humiliate him and talk down to him.
	I don't think they particularly thought through the optics of Russell Brand having this working class background and Paxman was very posh and sneery and saying,
	"What do you mean this system doesn't work for people?"
	and things like that.
	I thought it looked bad.
	Fair assessment, I would say.
	Yeah.
	You know, I think Russell said a lot of things because I did cover it way, but I think it was like the seventh episode of this show.
	Just because it's a fascinating look back at the Russell that was.
	You know, and it was interesting being like, oh, he's saying a lot of things that I would agree with other than don't vote.
	I disagree with that.
	But like the angle he's coming at it from, I'm like, yeah, he's raising a lot of good points in this interview.
	Definitely, yeah.
	I do remember there being rumbles of discontent in the feminist community, I think specifically, at the way he was being elevated in certain circles of the left as this new working-class hero,
	messiah kind of figure.
	Lots of, I think, yeah, women were sort of going, you know, he's made these kind of, you know, really nasty misogynist jokes.
	He's kind of had this whole debacle where he kind of humiliated this young woman on air by, you know, yelling that he'd shagged her at her granddad or somebody like that.
	It was, yeah, you know, like people were sort of...
	Sex game.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	Yeah, women, you know, there were lots of women, I think, in the movement who were...
	Uncomfortable with the way he was being lionized.
	And I think those complaints, which were pretty roundly mocked, particularly by people who were not sympathetic to left-wing politics at all, you know, who kind of loved an opportunity to say, haha, look at the left eating itself over silly identity stuff.
	I think they've largely been vindicated, do you know?
	Oh, yeah.
	Even at the time, as a feminist myself, I remember thinking, you know, are we just, you know, making a bit of a fuss over some boring laddishness?
	Like, you know, does it really matter all that much?
	And I mean, I don't think I was, like, saying that, but I certainly remember, you know, kind of wondering if it was the right play.
	And no, I think, you know, I think the truth is that even though people were saying, you know, why are you being so uptight?
	It's just jokes, etc.
	That was being made was essentially that it doesn't always just stop at jokes.
	And sometimes, you know, when a man is kind of repeatedly derogatory towards women as a joke, as a laugh, that reflects an attitude that doesn't make him safe to be around in other areas of life.
	Yeah, sometimes just jokes are not just jokes.
	Yeah, so sometimes now I'm just airing all of my piece.
	My list of grievances.
	Yes, my list of grievances.
	Thank you so much for having me on your podcast.
	But I think, yeah, I think, you know, later on when the stuff came out about Brand and the various accusations that have been made about him and an alleged pattern of behavior towards women, including sexual abuse and harassment.
	I certainly noticed a few people who, yeah, consider themselves kind of moderates and centrists and like sort of, you know, saying like, oh, well, I...
	I never bought all of his political stuff.
	I always thought he was a blowhard who didn't know what he was talking about.
	And I found that a bit annoying because I was a bit like, well, obviously, you know, you didn't like him when he was left wing because you're not left wing.
	But also I distinctly remember quite a lot of them finding it very funny that there were women on the left who didn't like him either because of his comments about women and general kind of attitude of misogyny.
	So I found it a bit rich then kind of.
	Yeah, taking the opportunity to do a victory lap.
	But yeah, all of this is to say, I think, you know, I was broadly sympathetic, I think, when he first started his forays into politics.
	And I kind of was dimly aware that he was going down a slightly more conspiratorial path through his YouTube, largely, but I hadn't really followed it much until...
	And so I covered him in the wake of these allegations.
	Right, yeah, I was going to ask, you know, how much of Russell's present day existence as an alt-right propagandist are you familiar with?
	Because, yeah, you've had to cover Russell for QAA after the allegations and everything.
	Yeah, I mean, I guess this was, you know, I had a big gap in my experience of him where I think, so, you know, I remember that.
	I think then he was in Forgetting Sarah Marshall or something like that.
	He became a big Hollywood star.
	He dated Katy Perry.
	I forget what.
	Yeah, then Revolution Russell happened, and then he kind of, he started going down like a wellness kind of route, basically going very, very crunchy, very hippie kind of vibes, you know, grew a massive beard, you know, all of that sort of thing, and sort of disappeared off into his little YouTube hole while interviewing people like Candace Owens and Jordan Peterson in a slightly more combative kind of way,
	quote-unquote combative.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, I think...
	So it's one of those things where people had asked, you know, are you going to cover Russell Brown for a while?
	And I actually was quite apprehensive about the idea.
	I think because of my sympathies with him, do you know?
	Because I had...
	This kind of memory of him kind of entering into politics and not saying exactly like you said.
	You didn't agree with all of what he said.
	Some of it did feel a bit unsubstantiated, but you kind of had a bit of sympathy with a lot of what he was saying about the current system's legitimacy, its kind of substantive impact on the working class.
	I think all of this sort of stuff felt.
	I felt broadly sympathetic to.
	In the wake of these allegations and actually having heard a great talk by an academic that you should definitely have on here called Rob Topinka, who talked a little bit about Russell Brand's YouTube channel, I became a little bit more interested.
	And so this was 2022, I think.
	2023, actually.
	Yes.
	And I checked into his YouTube channel and I guess, yeah, I was actually really stunned by how right wing he was.
	I think because I still had this memory of him being on the left and people still largely talked about him as if he was on the left as well.
	This was, I think, before his real kind of heel turn.
	But a lot of the even more innocuous stuff that he was saying It's one of those things where it was not, it didn't read as obviously right wing because it didn't have all of the cultural aesthetics that I think we associate with the modern day right.
	So he wasn't banging on about, you know, he wasn't kind of like doing this sort of...
	Very like vicious sort of targeting of minorities.
	He wasn't kind of, you know, doing the big kind of masculinist sort of, you know, alpha male kind of thing.
	He was talking about being in touch with his feelings.
	He was talking in a very kind of empathetic way, do you know?
	Kind of very like, you know, really deeply empathizing with his audience, with You know, the subjects of his stories.
	And he wasn't doing this, I think, thing that has become very emblematic of the online right, which is kind of really taking joy and pleasure in the cruelty and the kind of viciousness of what they're saying, you know,
	the hard truths, this sort of thing.
	So it's one of those things where I was like, I can see why people are fooled because he's not doing any of that.
	He still has this kind of highly empathetic.
	He's clearly read books, which, you know, not to be rude, but lots of American right-wing influencers in this space, you can tell, have only ever read anything, nothing longer than a tweet in their entire lives.
	Yeah, you don't expect Dan Bongino to be a great reader, you know?
	Exactly.
	You can just tell.
	You can tell you've read something longer than the tweet.
	But all of the content, the substantive political content of what he was saying, this kind of idea of a highly over-civilized, slightly decadent kind of society that we live in today,
	valorizing this past, this tribal past where things were simpler and our lives were cleaner and purer.
	This discussion of our bodies being poisoned for ends that he never really goes into, but only speculates that maybe, why would they be doing this?
	Why would they be deliberately poisoning us?
	All of this kind of stuff.
	And of course, the emphasis over and over again on the need for religion.
	All of it, I was like, these are all right-wing talking points, but people haven't noticed.
	Packaged in a very lefty kind of packaging.
	Yeah, at least I hadn't noticed, not being the most observant person in the world in this regard, until I sat down and watched it.
	And I was like, oh yeah, he's just right-wing now, but people haven't noticed because he's got this reputation as a bit of a lefty and he still has much of the style.
	But he was, yeah, it was quite astonishing to me.
	Yeah, yeah, I think That's been one of the interesting changes that I've witnessed since starting doing this show.
	This started in mid-2023, and back then I was having to still make the case to people, hey, Russell Brand is right-wing, are you aware of that?
	Whereas now it's much more obvious, much more mask-off.
	He's living in Florida, he's eating steak, he's a Bible-thumping kind of guy.
	Fully hitched to the Trump wagon, you know, it's much more clean and clear.
	But for a long time, like, yeah, there was a feeling that I was, at that point, part of his target audience, basically, as someone on the left who is vaguely anti-establishment and everything, you know.
	And like you, I grew up, you know, sympathizing with a large portion of his views or, like, enjoyed some of his comedy and his charisma and whatever else, right?
	Because, you know...
	He is still an entertainer.
	When he switches it on, you notice.
	He can still pull that out.
	But yeah, since COVID in particular, that's been the real turn.
	And then this last year, post allegations, that's been some mask off kind of time is what we're looking at.
	Okay, so let's get to some of Russell's nonsense here and actually take a look.
	And the first clip we're going to look at is actually something I've cut together.
	The few moments that I've highlighted happened over a period of about five minutes.
	So I've cut out some waffle, but kept as much context as possible.
	And specifically, this clip is, well, Russell has a Jewish chap called Isaac working for him down there in Florida.
	And as a result, Russell likes to bring out a few anti-Semitic
	Oh, my God.
	Yeah, yeah, it's a great start.
	And for context as well, Russell's audience started taking the piss out of him in the chat, him constantly using his favourite words like augured and luciferian.
	So he's adding words to the list that he can't say for the duration of the episode, which he's calling Brand Bingo.
	Hello everyone in the Rumble chat.
	Isaac, for the holy name of the God of Abraham, will you make this chat bigger?
	On my screen.
	All good.
	I do like the word all good.
	I'm writing that down.
	I'm not going to say that either.
	I'm not going to say all good.
	I think it's better than initiated.
	Do you know what I'm going to start saying more?
	Just the one on the right.
	Yeah, thank you.
	I'm going to start saying jettisoned more.
	Watch out for that.
	I like that word.
	Yeah, that's much better.
	Thank you.
	Thank you very much.
	If you think that makes it okay, what you guys did to Jesus, it doesn't.
	All right?
	It doesn't.
	Although it's part of his destiny, it's necessary for this, you know, he had to do that, didn't he?
	Why are you laughing there?
	I can hear you guys in there.
	Yep. Yep.
	I'm laughing.
	Thank you.
	Thank you.
	Oh, right.
	Are you laughing at killing Jesus?
	That was pretty funny.
	Jake's listening to it a bit later.
	We've got a lot to do today.
	I don't know why I'm mucking around.
	The Romans killed Jesus, Russell.
	Yeah, kind of.
	I mean, they conducted the execution.
	But, I mean, look, Jesus had to die.
	I'm not arguing with Jesus' death.
	Jesus' death is the point of, in a way, Jesus.
	You can't achieve that covenant without his death.
	I mean, if you read the Bible, the Sanhedrin, the Pharisees.
	And the Sadducees were pretty significant in that execution.
	And I reckon Pilot probably wouldn't have gone through it.
	But, like, listen, we needed him to do it, so I'm not arguing.
	I'm not arguing with the Bible.
	I'm not arguing with the Bible.
	Here it is.
	I love that little...
	There you go.
	Thanks, Bible.
	Just gave the Bible a kiss.
	Yeah.
	Thanks, Bible.
	You know that meme from a while back, like, thanks, Obama.
	Like, I want to start a version of that, which is just, thanks, Bible.
	Like, God, I can't even work on a Sunday or else I'll be stoned to death.
	Thanks, Bible.
	So, yeah, but bleak insight into just the casual anti-Semitism being thrown around there.
	I know.
	I mean, when he kind of started off with, you know, he's like, Isaac, for the love of God of Abraham or something, I was like, in a way, I was a bit like, oh, this is actually kind of quite sweet.
	It's like a little bit of like, you know, inter...
	Inter-Christian Jewish, like, banter.
	Do you know?
	It's like, haha, we both worship the God of Abraham, right?
	Haha, long.
	And then, yeah, he went straight into the you killed Jesus stuff, which is way less defensible as banter, as workplace banter.
	From your boss.
	Yes, exactly.
	This isn't the first time that Russell's thrown anti-Semitic jokes at his Jewish employee on camera, but this is the first time that I have heard Russell double down and defend the anti-Semitism.
	He's very genuinely insistent that it was the Jews who killed Jesus arguing that the killing of Jesus wouldn't have happened if not for the Jews.
	That's a lie.
	It's actually bad when you're seeing a live stream.
	Is it the livestream comments where someone says it's the Romans that killed Jesus?
	Yeah.
	The livestream comments are actually trying to pull him back.
	That's how you know you're fucked up.
	If Rumble's trying to pull you back, pump the brakes.
	The Rumble live chat is like, oof.
	Oh, a bit rich for my blood, yeah.
	Yes, yeah, exactly.
	Oh, God.
	And fittingly, from here, we move from one anti-Semitic conspiracy theory to discussing a couple of the main modern-day peddlers of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories in a 10-minute editorial that Russell put out covering a bit of alt-right infighting.
	Let me know in the comments and chat how far you go with conspiracies these days.
	Where do you tap out?
	Do you go full frazzledrip?
	Epstein Mossad, how far into it do you go?
	It seems pretty clear now that folks like Alex Jones and David Icke were detecting and delineating true stories and rendering them well for a long while, whether it's Bohemian Grove.
	But will you follow Icke into the reptilian wilds?
	I know that David Icke, I wouldn't say trolls me, because as you know if you watch our show, I like David Icke.
	A lot.
	And even David Icke can't stop me liking him.
	I don't mind if David Icke goes, what do you think about that though, Russell?
	Peter Thiel owns Rumble or don't you know about this thing or that thing?
	I'm like, oh man, I'd love to talk about it.
	You're probably right.
	I think you're great.
	I think you're great.
	Okay.
	So the context for this here is that Russell fucking loves Alex Jones and David Icke.
	He said that he used to listen to both Jones and Icke back when he was doing drugs, and he's supposedly been sober since 2002.
	So he's been on that train for a while with these two.
	Nowadays he's buds with Alex Jones because fundamentally Alex will befriend anyone if he thinks it'll benefit him financially, whereas David Icke inexplicably seems to have at least a few values he likes to stick to.
	And accordingly, David Icke fucking hates Russell.
	And a few times a week, we'll tweet mean things about him.
	And I think it's getting to Russell a bit, which is why he put out a 10-minute editorial about the mean things that David Icke is saying.
	So that's what we're going to look at.
	This just captures something that I actually find really fascinating, which is when I was looking...
	Because of the nature of my work, I'm in a lot of conspiracy theory groups on various platforms and most of them are UK-based.
	And one thing I found really, really interesting was the difference between the US and the UK-based ones when the allegations came out about Russell Brand in that all of the US ones were doing the, he's innocent, this is the way the establishment tries to take him down.
	And I would not say that that was the overwhelming response from UK groups at all.
	Right.
	There were some people saying that, but there was in nearly all of them way more people being like, we don't just like, you know, let's not just jump to conclusions like that.
	It's not true.
	And loads of people were way more skeptical of his denial.
	And I found this interesting because I think it maybe spoke to...
	Bit of who the circles he's running in.
	A lot of these like UK conspiracy communities, I think were just like, he's not with us.
	You know, he wasn't there at the COVID marches.
	And, you know, there's this kind of network there that they very much don't really view him as part of.
	He's much more in the kind of Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens nexus.
	But also I just kind of wondered if it's like, it's a small country man.
	Do you know, I kind of wondered if there's just like an element of, we're a bit more used to him.
	We've known, you know, he wasn't just introduced to us when he was Katy Perry's boyfriend.
	We've known about him for a bit longer.
	We know about the kind of laddie behavior he's famous for.
	And he kind of just gets around, you know, like people hear stuff, people hear secondhand rumors and stuff like that.
	It's just something I noticed.
	And I wonder if David Icke, you know, as a Brit.
	Is maybe more in this nexus than the other.
	Yeah, whether there's been kind of...
	Because we've known him for so long, there's a bit of a shine taken off him compared to the US contingent who might be more willing to overlook things.
	Yeah, I mean, that's not...
	That's not the issue that David Icke is going to raise today, but it wouldn't shock me if he's in that camp.
	I did want to ask, Annie, obviously Alex Jones' conspiracy theories have traditionally veered closer to observable reality, like things around 9-11, chemicals in the water, whatever.
	Whereas David Icke has just straight up been like, I'm the son of God and there's a cabal of lizard people running the world.
	How much of an influence would you say David Icke has had on the development of...
	So I think you're right to identify that David Iken and Jones are working to two different conspiracy traditions.
	I very much view Jones as operating in the parapolitical sphere, even if some of his claims are kind of a bit more fantastical.
	Whereas I think...
	David Icke is very much in the New Age cosmic style conspiracy sphere.
	The beauty of QAnon is that it merges both.
	And I would argue that this is actually a little feature of...
	Social media conspiracy theories in general is that these two communities, which largely view themselves as quite separate, are much more intertwined.
	And even David Icke and Alex Jones buried the hatchet after having quite a long-running feud.
	So that maybe speaks to this a little.
	Yeah, I find David Icke a bizarre character in lots of ways.
	You hear the kind of, like, he says that there's these reptilians that are running the world and they are, you know, shapeshifters that can pretend to be humans.
	And you're like, he must be talking about you, surely.
	You kind of, like, look into it and he's, like, doing little kind of, like, fan fiction about all the different races of lizards and the planets that they come from and their different telepathic abilities and stuff like that.
	The Anunnaki and all of that stuff.
	Yeah, yeah.
	Yeah, and then you're a bit like...
	I actually can't map this onto any real world prejudice.
	This just feels like you're doing science fiction somehow.
	But obviously there's a lot of anti-Semites and stuff who believe themselves to be picking up what he's laying down.
	I don't know if I could speak confidently to the fact that he does secretly mean Jews at all.
	It's all one of those things where...
	Even though he kind of veers into that territory, it feels like it's all so hyper-detailed that you can say it's kind of like anti-Semitic in consequence.
	Whether he intends it or not, that's the result.
	Yeah, yeah.
	But the kind of sheer level of fantastical detail that goes into it, it often gets overlooked, I think, because people just paraphrase it and you're like, oh, obviously this is just a cover.
	But it is so much more kind of cosmic and going on into the different meditation levels of telepathy and all of this kind of stuff that I think very much speaks to a lot of that Starseed,
	New Age kind of community who are also really into conspiracy theories.
	In a very different style, I think.
	Space weirdos kind of situation, yeah.
	Yeah, the anti-Semitism thing, it's something that David Icke will strongly deny, and yet it's a critique of his work that has persisted for the last three decades, and he seems to have made little effort to take any of that stuff out at the same time.
	So I'm like, yeah, I don't know.
	You keep doing it, man.
	I don't know.
	I don't know what to say.
	Yeah, an awful lot of discussion of Rothschilds and Zionists and things like that for you to give them a clean bill of health.
	Yeah, exactly.
	Oh, and I should also make clear for the audience, Alex Jones, Russell referenced Bohemian Grove there.
	Alex didn't do shit at Bohemian Grove.
	John Ronson was there with him and refutes the claims that Alex makes about, you know, all this cultish behavior and everything.
	And I would recommend anyone go and listen to that Knowledge Fight episode if anyone's curious, because they have covered this.
	Okay, so...
	Now Russell begins reading some of the things that David Icke has been saying about him, and Russell takes issue with a particular metaphor that Icke used.
	When Russell Brand calls himself the independent media, the word should stick in his throat.
	I'm independent media.
	It doesn't stick in my throat.
	He is a fully dependent Trump Musk MAGA arse licker.
	Oh, that's a horrible image.
	Licking an arse?
	Licking an arse?
	I mean, I'd only want to do that with someone that...
	I really loved, or whose hygiene was beyond reproach, and I don't think either Donald Trump or Elon Musk would qualify in that area.
	I'd have to be on a...
	Oh, dear, I can't even imagine it.
	I did imagine it.
	I didn't like it.
	Oh, that's actually...
	I don't feel very good about that image at all.
	Maga Arsica.
	I'm actually not...
	That's actually not fair to say that, because what I actually believe is that...
	MAGA, if by that you mean sort of American nativism, conservatism, and this kind of new strand of libertarianism, particularly now that it has alloyed onto it, RFK, has become a political force that's far more anti-establishment than the neoliberal democrat establishment that preceded it.
	But I'm certainly very sympathetic and open to the idea that the institutions of power are now just being occupied by, David Icke would say, just a different set of elites.
	Well, I guess Russell doesn't eat ass.
	It's 2025, Grandpa.
	And of all people, I don't need to see Pearl clutching about sex acts from Russell Brand.
	I know, yeah.
	That felt very much playing to the new crowd to me.
	Yeah, right.
	I've seen you simulate a blowjob on stage and stuff like that.
	Don't do that.
	Yeah.
	Oh, imagine.
	Oh, disgusting.
	How could anyone possibly?
	Okay, okay, fine.
	Anyway, important to note here is that the first thing Russell immediately did there was to define MAGA as something very sanitized.
	American nativism, conservatism, new libertarianism, rather than the set of racist, xenophobic, and generally bigoted ideals that MAGA represents.
	He's extracted that from the conversation very intentionally there.
	And then on the one hand, supposedly RFK Jr. and Trump are more anti-establishment than Biden and his crew were, which, I mean, they're openly trying to destroy any part of the government that doesn't serve their aims.
	So I guess that is technically anti-establishment, like even while they're simultaneously erecting a dictatorship.
	But still, yeah, breaking the government is, I suppose, anti-establishment in its own way.
	um
	Like, dude, pick a lane, you know?
	Which is it?
	It's one of these things, you know?
	Yeah, I mean, this is the MAGA-influencer problem.
	You know, so many of them have set up themselves in this counter-cultural pose, but also you can't ever criticise.
	Trump and the Trump administration because then you lose your audience.
	So they kind of have to continue with this pose of I'm skeptical, I'm countercultural, I'm anti-authority while being like, but of course they support the president and the government and everything they do.
	And I think it's really interesting.
	I saw this.
	I saw this argument where they were saying, how can this government be fascist when Doge is slashing all of these government abilities?
	Wouldn't they want more government overreach?
	And it's just a bit like, well, actually, no, that's not.
	Yeah, purging the government of anyone that you deem as sufficiently disloyal to you or even at potential of being disloyal to you is actually perfectly in line with authoritarian aims.
	They do understand that.
	They're perfectly capable of understanding it when it's left-wing governments in Latin America doing something similar.
	It's just a kind of pose, I think.
	Yeah, wanting to keep those anti-establishment credentials.
	But it's a problem for a lot of them.
	Yeah, yeah, it's a very difficult line to walk, especially for Russell, you know, who has this claim of being anti-establishment for the last 10 years or whatever, and now he is kissing the ass of the establishment.
	It's like, well, you know, how are you going to put that one together?
	You know, how are you going to make that work?
	That's a tough needle to thread.
	So, Russell continues reading here, and we get to the subject of Russell's supposed anti-globalism.
	Well, let's see what he says.
	Here he quotes Alex Karp, co-founder of Palantir, the intelligence and military surveillance tech supplier in support of his masters, and says Karp is dropping truth bombs.
	This is the Karp who bragged that Palantir kills people.
	Clearly, Mr. Brand has no shame.
	Well, that's not true.
	I experience a lot of shame a great deal of the time.
	Karp is on the steering committee of the Globalist Bilderberg Group, along with fellow Palantir founder Peter Thiel, the funder of J.D. Vance's political career, an orchestrator of the AI dystopia via Trump with his friends like Elon Musk.
	Brand claims to be anti-globalist.
	Just like Vance.
	Well, I actually am anti-globalist.
	What I mean as well by globalist is that, as I've said to you loads of times, is there are sets of interests that are bureaucratic and commercial that form various nexuses, and that's a word you a lot should be banning me from in brand bingo, of power.
	And what I would contest is that nativism, whether it's in France or the UK or the USA, has served as an obstacle to that advancing imperialism.
	I believe in individual sovereignty, community sovereignty, and national sovereignty in the sort of broadest possible sense.
	Two things here.
	One, cast your mind back ten years to revolution Russell, and isn't it wild to see Russell Brand today being like, hey, I love nativism and believe in national sovereignty.
	What happened?
	What happened?
	I would give so much money to go back to 2013 and be able to show Russell his modern day show and be like, look at this, buddy.
	Look at what's about to happen.
	Oh, dear.
	And two, he definitely doesn't believe in national sovereignty, because he's firmly pro-Putin when it comes to the Ukraine conflict, and has also been suggesting that Trump taking over Gaza to build resorts there would somehow be bringing about peace.
	He cares about the national sovereignty of the US and the UK and France, apparently, but Ukraine and Palestine can go fly a kite.
	Seems to have some double standards in place.
	Also, yeah, Russell was saying that Alex Karp, the CEO of Palantir, was dropping truth bombs because he's bigly supportive of Elon Musk, and he's also an anti-woke crusader.
	Which, yeah, does seem to fly in the face of anti-globalism just a little bit, as does the concept of the USA taking over the Gaza Strip, you know?
	It's like, if you're anti-globalist, you should...
	I don't know.
	There seem to be some values we're not sticking to here.
	I mean, it's kind of amazing to be in a one-sided exchange with David Icke, and David Icke still to be coming across as the more lucid one.
	Yeah, yeah, it's worrying when you're shadowboxing and still losing that fight, you know?
	Yeah, yeah, and again, like, ugh.
	It's a trend recently where, like, because David Icke is accurately shitting on Russell, like, and I'm having, I'm forced into a world where I am agreeing a lot with things that David Icke says, and I'm like, this is right.
	Yeah, you're just, like, thinking to yourself, like, David Icke is correct.
	Yes.
	I dislike that a lot.
	Oh, dear.
	So from here we move to the subject of Russell's recent trip to Mar-a-Lago.
	Brand says, in effect, that the Democrats can't criticise billionaire Musk taking over government when George Soros supported them, thus perpetuated the diversionary left-right puppet show when it's a one-party state.
	Neither unelected billionaire should have the power over government that they do.
	Try that for size, Mr Brand.
	I actually do agree with that.
	Ah, but if you spoke the truth and exposed the puppet show, you would not be able to arse kiss Trump and Musk, remember I didn't like that image, which gets you invites to Mar-a-Lago.
	Oh, and oh, so much for sight.
	I have been to Mar-a-Lago and it is amazing.
	I mean, it's amazing.
	It's like sort of Disney World.
	On one hand, it's just a normal hotel and a golf club, but on the other hand, you might meet Donald Trump at any moment.
	I've got extraordinary tales from there, that's true.
	But not so much more.
	I didn't get anything.
	I mean, he did get something more.
	Specifically, he received the Global Defender of Freedom Award from Donald Trump.
	Like, Russell, Mike Tyson, Ted Nugent.
	It was a real murderous row of people getting that award.
	Like, yeah, yeah.
	Maybe we're not in the speaking truth to power kind of camp here.
	No, definitely not when you have to be like...
	A Mar-a-Lago is the closest thing I've ever seen to paradise on earth.
	I straight up just don't believe you, Russell Brand.
	I straight up don't believe that you were really amazed by it.
	He even has to do the thing like, on the one hand, it is just a hotel.
	It's like, you've stayed in fancy hotels before.
	I know you're not impressed by it.
	But there's the potential to meet Donald Trump at any moment.
	It's too exciting!
	This feels so cynical.
	It's actually making me sadder than I thought.
	I feel like I'm watching a man in a golden cage to some degree.
	Yeah, there are portions of this that are genuinely very sad to look at.
	Especially as he very clearly wants validation from David Icke because he clearly looks up to him.
	And Icke is like, nah.
	Fuck you.
	The thing I loved about that was, like, saying, like, hey, true journalists don't go to Mar-a-Lago and then brag about it, and Russell's immediate instinct is like, Mar-a-Lago's great, though.
	Yeah, that's it.
	You can't even do a little bit of criticism, a little bit of self-deprecation.
	I don't know.
	Even just to be like, oh yeah, maybe it was a bit cheeky, but hey, I wanted to see the place.
	You can't even do that.
	Maybe that was a fair point.
	Okay, he's not even willing to go that far.
	So, next, David Icke takes issue with Russell having worn the Ash Wednesday cross through his broadcast the other week, and then Russell, again, misses the point entirely.
	Not only are you not the independent media, Mr. Brand, with a virtue-signalling fly on your forehead...
	What does that mean?
	Does he mean the Ash Wednesday?
	Look, if I don't mention Ash Wednesday, you're gonna...
	Have serious questions about what's on my forehead.
	That was just because they were doing Ash Wednesday out there.
	This is where you get...
	What I feel like is...
	You know because I've been super famous for ages and stuff.
	You then get around and it ruins conspiracy theories for you.
	See that, the virtue signaling fly in my forehead.
	That's because I'm a follower of Jesus Christ.
	And when I come here to where I make the content, they were doing a Bible study and someone, they were doing Ash.
	And I was like, yes, please, I'll take it.
	So that's why that's there.
	And I love the Lord.
	I love Jesus Christ.
	Mm-hmm.
	Again, Russell doesn't seem to realise that leaving the Ash Wednesday cross on his forehead to broadcast is literal virtue signalling.
	Like, he doesn't get it or why maybe it's a bad thing and looks very performative.
	He's just like, hey, it's because I love Jesus!
	Yeah, I mean, I will put on my Catholic hat here and say that there are...
	I've actually never been totally sure which is the right thing to do with the Ash Wednesday cross, because...
	I think definitely when I was in school, it was definitely thought that you should keep it on your foreheads.
	But then, yeah, it's like one of those things where I guess, yeah, I remember then asking, yeah, asking a priest and he was just like, oh, we don't care.
	But then like kind of more recently, I have heard a thing of like, you should wash it off afterwards because they do literally do a reading right before about not broadcasting your faith.
	And, you know, it's obviously a Bible text.
	So it's talking about not praying on the corners, which...
	Fewer people are doing these days, but you're like, is that keeping the cross on?
	All of this to say that, yeah, I've never actually been able to find a concrete answer on this.
	It seems like one of those things, as with so much in religion, everyone is still fighting about it to this day.
	But yes, you could argue it is very literally virtue signaling and that interpretation does very much exist.
	Yeah, and I think the standard is different to someone just wandering about in the world compared to someone broadcasting to hundreds of thousands of people.
	It's a different kind of situation.
	Certainly, I am a conspiracy theorist.
	I don't know if you saw Marco Rubio's one.
	I was like, no way a priest put that one on you, man.
	No, I didn't know.
	That you did that yourself.
	It was bloody huge.
	I've never seen across that big in my life, ever.
	And it was really thick and black as well.
	I was like, you just did that.
	You were worried that your one wasn't big enough.
	It wasn't obvious enough.
	Yeah, yeah.
	Yeah, so you know, I was saying we're all conspiracy theorists.
	That's my one.
	Marco Rubio did it.
	You did it yourself.
	Give me the video evidence that you didn't.
	Yeah, yeah.
	But that's the problem.
	It's impossible to prove a negative, right?
	This is the issue.
	I have noticed he's never denied it.
	Yeah, well, there we go!
	That's enough proof for me.
	There we go.
	Yeah, no, I did see Sean Spicer's one, because he was on British Telly that week.
	My dad sent me a picture being like, what the fuck is this?
	I'm like, oh, yeah, yeah.
	Yeah, I saw loads of British people really confused by it.
	I think, because, yeah, I guess maybe it was just one of those things where, yeah, we were getting a lot of American news that week, but I saw loads of British people really confused, and I saw even a few people like, what's this new thing that people are doing?
	And I was a bit like...
	Okay, guys, way to admit you don't know any Catholics.
	It's a very old thing.
	Yeah.
	So, from here, Russell take things in a little bit of a dark direction in trying to explain and rationalize, I think, to himself why David Icke is coming after him in the first place.
	Not only are you not the independent media, but you're an insult to those who are, which is him, really.
	And that's where I think David Icke is injured.
	If you take this guy seriously as a truth teller, you've really lost the plot.
	You don't have to take me seriously as anything.
	I'm a comedian.
	But what I would say is that I am telling the truth.
	And what I would say is, I'd like to echo some of the comments that I read underneath it, but people say that David Icke has been right about a lot of things for a long time.
	But he does seem very bruised and hurt.
	And I'm not surprised because he endured a lot coming out.
	He was one of the first people that talked about anti-establishment stuff in mainstream media.
	He was very bold and very brave in doing so.
	But he sounds like the love in him sounds injured and wounded.
	And I would say, David, a lot of people really love you.
	And sometimes underneath these messages, you can detect a kind of woundedness and brokenness.
	And I'm not surprised because I know you've...
	Undergone tragic events in your family, and I pray for the soul in particular of your daughter.
	May she rest in peace.
	Ooh, okay.
	That's a little rough.
	So David Icke's daughter, who was 48, passed away after a long illness in December 2023, and Russell is essentially trying to insinuate, well, hey, David Icke is in a lot of pain, so that's why he's attacking me.
	He's lashing out, is the argument, which...
	Gross, and also a way to completely invalidate everything, you know, that David Icke is saying.
	It's like, no, no, you're just saying this out of pain.
	You can't mean any of the things you're saying.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, it's not even like David Icke is, you know, actually going quite, he's not really going, like, personal with it, do you know?
	Like, he's kind of just, like, referencing stuff and kind of this very emotive sort of social media stuff, referencing stuff that Brand has actually done.
	He's not just...
	I don't know.
	It doesn't seem to me like someone actually lashing out in pain where they're just like, I don't like you and here's the things I don't like about you.
	He's actually kind of critiquing Bran's actions as someone that he, yeah, so kind of saying you're compromised, you know, which, yeah, is, you know, something that conspiracy theorists actually love to call each other.
	Yeah, yeah.
	Everybody's paid opposition, you know.
	Yeah, yeah.
	Also, you don't have to take Russell seriously because he's a comedian.
	And yet, according to him, the SA allegations against him were a concerted effort from the UK government, the legacy media, MI5, and the CIA because he was speaking too much truth to power.
	Like, which is it?
	Either you're a comedian or you're this big, important guy that everyone tried to take down.
	It's...
	I also just loved the beginning line where he introduced David Icke as the first person in the mainstream media to be anti-establishment.
	David Icke literally invented critiquing the establishment.
	It's cruel.
	It's a bit off the cuff.
	I'm sure he wouldn't word it that way if he had to write it down, but it was a funny image.
	Yeah, yeah, I mean, it's pretty absurd, as though we don't have a legacy of that in this country.
	You know, us downtrodden masses perhaps taking an issue with our system of government and class warfare and everything else.
	No, no, David Icke was the first.
	What, Tyler?
	Who was he?
	Anyway, so now we get to the subject of institutional evil, and Russell takes issue with the notion that he is a Zionist.
	I also feel that wherever you exist in the independent media space, don't we, this is a question to all of you, have to find ways that we can align with one another and form alliances with one another?
	Because evil is real.
	There is a dark, evil, organized intelligence expressing itself through human institutions.
	And the number one thing it wants us to do is quarrel with one another about minor and ultimately insignificant differences.
	Whether that's on the old political left or right, or sub-fractions within independent media, or whether that's like Crowder versus, you know, like when you hear, like, Tucker don't like Shapiro or vice versa or whatever it is.
	I can't remember all of the different details.
	But when you hear different people that I would say are largely outside the establishment, I know some people go, Ben Shapiro?
	That Zionist pro-Israel?
	Tucker?
	That, and then they'll have a reason for that.
	You know, like, what I'm saying is, is in pathetic Zionist, predator, blackmailed into it.
	Oh, my God.
	Like, so, like, see that person there that says, Jizrael, like, that sort of says that I'm Zionist.
	How will you maintain that perspective when in a minute we're doing this federal judge blocks deportation of Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil?
	So the broad perspective is like, look, we all need to come together and form alliances because there is dark evil manifesting itself in human institutions and they want us to fight amongst ourselves.
	But, you know, first let me complain about how wokeness and DEI are bad and generally engage in some culture war shit because that'll get me some clicks.
	You know?
	It's like, ah!
	Again, again, it's this very performative kind of thing of like, we all need to come together except for the people that we're supposed to hate.
	Except for those.
	It's true.
	I will say, I mean, this cracks me up every time I hear it on the right.
	It just makes me laugh so much.
	And of all people he should know better, actually, because he has genuinely spent some time in leftist activist circles.
	But this is something I hear hanging out in the right-winged spaces and observing them so often, where they're like...
	You know, stop it, all of you, with your petty infighting, your petty differences over, you know, which influences said what and who did this and who supports Israel and who supports Palestine and all that.
	Because you know who's not?
	You know who's not fighting over stupid differences?
	The left.
	They're organized.
	They know how to bond together and get transgender people reading stories in schools and make Disney woke.
	Yeah, I don't know.
	All athletes will be transgender from now on.
	All athletes will be transgender.
	Yeah.
	Peter Pan is going to be played by a girl.
	I don't know.
	Yeah, all of this stuff.
	The left are organised and you need to shape up.
	And it just cracks me up every time because it's just like...
	If you knew how untrue that was.
	Oh yeah.
	We are constantly fighting.
	That is the main problem with the left as a whole is just constant infighting and being unable to move forward in any way.
	But the left do it too sometimes.
	We're like, you know, we need to stop fighting over all of this stupid bullshit because you know who's not doing that?
	The right.
	And, you know, it's in a world where there's not much common ground.
	I enjoy the fact that the common ground is that every side thinks their side is uniquely petty and infighting and the other side is uniquely cohesive and on message.
	It's sweet.
	Whereas here we are looking at Russell Brand and David Icke having a little spat.
	Having it out, yeah.
	So, in terms of the Zionism thing, there are many moments where Russell has been accused of being a Zionist so far.
	Though, when it comes to Gaza, he has done his best to sit on the fence as much as possible, but it's impossible for him to square that with the fact that the administration that he loves and supports with Trump and Musk are vehemently Zionist in nature.
	A recent example of this is obviously his support for Trump taking over Gaza, but even before that, on Inauguration Day, Russell hosted a conversation between Adam Bola, the special presidential envoy for hostage affairs, who is himself extremely Zionist, and dangerously underqualified for his job,
	by the way.
	And then on the Palestinian side, there was Bashar Masri, one of the richest people in Palestine, who is seemingly sympathetic to doing whatever the Israeli government wants, as long as it's positioning him to potentially be the next leader of Palestine.
	Like, even the rumble chat was like, hey, is this paid for by Israel?
	And again, if the Rumble chat is saying to pump the brakes, then that's when you need to stop.
	Okay, so...
	Russell is suggesting here that his coverage of the attempted extradition of pro-Palestine activist Mahmoud Khalil, which, by the way, was not included in the editorial, refutes the notion that he's a Zionist.
	Naturally, I've gone and found the show and cut the relevant clips covering his conclusions, so let's take a look.
	It's worth bearing in mind as well that Russell is furiously lazy and made it very clear that he has not looked into this story at all before broadcasting.
	So what we're going to get are his reactions live.
	The law isn't the law if the law is a tool.
	It becomes lawfare.
	The law has to be entirely objective.
	Remember the last few days how frequently I've tried to illustrate...
	Through analogy, the notion that you ought be able to determine what you believe about an issue without knowing who the protagonists and antagonists in the issue are.
	If you need a symbol or a flag, that means that it's a bias or a prejudice or, at best, expedience rather than a principle that undergirds your perspective.
	So you should be able to go J6 protesters or pro-Palestine protesters and believe the same thing.
	That's what I think.
	Let me know what you think in the comments and chat, or do you think there are some issues that
	are worthy of a different moral paradigm.
	I don't think you can have a moral paradigm or even call it that if it shifts depending on expediency and the participants.
	Can you?
	So, like, you can't have a moral paradigm if it shifts depending on expediency and who the participants are.
	All right, then.
	Again, I'd love to hear more about national sovereignty in terms of Ukraine and Gaza, but okay.
	But, like, broadly, when it comes to the argument of free speech, Russell is making the right noises here.
	Like, hey, if you think J6 was free speech, you should be all right with the pro-Palestine protester.
	Like, okay, fair enough.
	But this is, again, I think, illuminating that he has read, he can read.
	Yes!
	Yeah, it seems like it is a low bar, but still one that very, very few MAGA influencers managed to clear.
	No, it's true.
	It's true.
	It is rare and helpful.
	And I'm like, okay, okay, we'll see.
	We'll see if he sticks to this.
	And I will say, just on that little bit about if law is a tool, it becomes lawfare.
	It's a criticism that, firstly, Russell is entirely unwilling to level at the Trump administration.
	He may, however, have some particular perspectives on what the law is and should be right now, because not only are the Crown Prosecution Service determining charges against him in the UK, but he's just been deposed in the New York SA lawsuit against him, and there is a new civil...
	in the UK against him about essay allegations, and he's being sued by his now former publisher for not writing two books that he was contractually obliged to write.
	I'm just saying, someone with significant pending criminal and civil proceedings might have a unique perspective as to what the law is and should be, you know?
	It's a very particular perspective.
	So, next, in a slightly longer clip, we get more of Russell wrestling with this Mahmoud Khalil issue, and we'll begin with the Rumble chat chiming in with their take, before eventually Russell remembers that he has an out when it comes to difficult conversations like this, and that out is God.
	Some people in the chat saying free speech is one thing, violence is...
	Another.
	It's interesting.
	It's interesting, isn't it?
	It's interesting to be exposed to contradiction.
	Look, if we didn't have competing interests, if people didn't have different perspectives, this entire conversation...
	Would dissipate into nothingness.
	It's claimed that the people that are pro-Palestine are not pretending to be pro-Palestine.
	Some of them might be.
	I suppose that's what's meant by virtue signaling.
	But people that are directly affected, they're not pretending.
	And the people that are pretending to be pro-Israel, the people that are pro-Israel are not pretending to be pro-Israel unless they are.
	Isn't it that you really...
	Can find common ground with anyone who sincerely believes in their issue, even if that directly leads to opposition vis-a-vis the issue in question?
	Surely you can.
	Oh, you ardently believe, do you, that Russia were provoked into invading Ukraine?
	Do you ardently believe that Israel has a right to defend itself?
	You ardently believe that those territories have been unduly settled?
	I mean, at least you have to respect people.
	I really believe it.
	The problem comes when people, for their own reasons, as David Icke accuses me of doing, I suppose, align themselves with a particular perspective when they actually are sort of dubious about it.
	Yeah, I know, man.
	This is why I've surrendered to God, because my own judgment and my own ability to navigate a subject like...
	This, or even being a parent, it's just so complex.
	I need God to get through the day, to be honest with you.
	And what I mean by that, so it doesn't sound platitudinous, is how can any of us be certain in our conduct?
	How can any of us be certain that we're not being guided solely by primal urges, trauma, bad conditioning?
	I don't know that we can.
	In fact, there's no such thing as bad, unless there are.
	By definition, certain universal principles into which we can lean and upon which we can rely.
	So with something like this, you shouldn't need to know whether it's J6 or Palestine.
	You just need to know what your perspective is on, for example, free speech.
	Okay, okay.
	We got there eventually.
	Jesus wept.
	I love how he's just like, well, you can't deny people feel very strongly about this issue.
	And they are not pretending, apart from the ones that are pretending.
	Just like, thank you.
	Thank you.
	Really glad I tuned in for this.
	Yeah, there is a distinct feeling of filling time of like, you know, if people didn't have different perspectives, there wouldn't be an argument happening.
	Like, thanks, Russell.
	Thank you.
	That's very helpful.
	It's kind of a meta-conversation that people can have with themselves where they're just not wanting to step on a landmine of sorts.
	I never really watched Dave Rubin anymore.
	I don't know if he's still around or what he's up to.
	Yeah, he's still around.
	He used to do this all the time and it drove me absolutely crazy.
	He would never actually have a conversation.
	He would just spend the entire time talking about how great it was that they could have the conversation they were about to have.
	It's kind of like meta discourse.
	It's really tedious.
	Yes, incredibly, incredibly.
	Him and Russell have sat down in conversation before, and that is just endless circles of this, basically.
	I don't bet that was a real endurance challenge.
	Oh, it's incredible.
	So again, he did come back to you shouldn't need to know whether it's Jan 6 or Palestine.
	You should just need to know your perspective on free speech.
	Again, making the correct sounding noises.
	Um, but refusing to take it any step further, and refusing to level this idea as a critique of, like, Trump, um, and all the alt-right shitheads that have been making baseless claims that Mahmoud Khalil is a Hamas-supporting violent agitator.
	Like, this is an issue that should make Russell's skin crawl if he were consistent.
	You know, as someone who claims to be all about free speech and anti-establishment views, and he resolutely will not criticize Trump, the god king, for infringing upon his supposed values.
	Because, yeah, he can't.
	He can't.
	He's stuck.
	In that position of like, well, you can all make the judgment for yourself.
	How do you feel about free speech?
	There we go.
	Okay, that's enough.
	I'm going to hide away now.
	But don't forget, this is why Russell surrendered to God.
	Hey, how can any of us be certain about anything?
	There's no such thing as bad unless there are certain universal principles upon which we can rely.
	And this is him once again claiming that only religion, particularly Christianity, has any moral basis and anyone operating secularly is just a slave to their primal urges and has no moral compass.
	He's been on this tip for a little while now, arguing that secularism and atheism are the downfall of society.
	And he does seem to believe that, which is alarming.
	He really has got so much more right wing since I last checked in with him.
	It really is quite amazing to watch.
	Yeah.
	He was much more of a kumbaya Christian, you know, when I was last checking in.
	Yes, yeah, yeah.
	The kind of, the red flag started to raise for me when he was talking to Richard Dawkins, you know, long before all the allegations and everything.
	And Dawkins was arguing from the perspective of, you know, secularism, obviously.
	And Russell was arguing for God.
	And I was like...
	Wait, what's happened?
	What's going on?
	And Russell was very much saying, like, yeah, the, you know, the enlightenment and all of that kind of period was where everything started to go wrong.
	And you're like, oh, no.
	Oh, no.
	This is worrying.
	Anyway, the point he raised there was that the problem comes when people align themselves with a perspective when they're actually dubious about it, you know, theoretically out of self-interest.
	And that's exactly what David Icke is accusing him of, and exactly what he's doing here.
	Like, Russell is aligning with Trump out of blatant self-interest because his audience are big pro-Trump people, despite his being obviously uncomfortable in this instance where a person is potentially being deported for exercising their free speech.
	Russell is doing that...
	The very thing here that David Icke is accusing him of, and he's either being blissfully ignorant or is doing his best to obfuscate it.
	And it's impossible to know the level of cynicism going on in Russell's mind, but it is fascinating to watch and just work himself in circles over this.
	Oh, dear.
	So, from here, Russell suggests that maybe David Icke is right about everything.
	I'm not saying that I don't have biases, because there would be no I without biases.
	The I is the biases.
	Without that, it's just the limitless relational power of the triune God, the relational transcendent God.
	Of course I have biases.
	Everyone has biases.
	You couldn't use language or maths or music without selection, discernment or biases.
	But...
	All of us are trying to plot some way, some Tao, some path through the chaos, through the super state of potentialities by making choices, choices for words, electing principles.
	So whether you're David Icke watching this or someone in the chat, remember, we have to find new ways of allying and making alliances.
	We have to.
	We have to, because perhaps you're right.
	Perhaps globalists are plastic enough to...
	Maybe it doesn't make any difference, even when figures as apparently radical in terms of their predecessors, certainly, as Trump and Musk ascend to power.
	Maybe the same forces are manoeuvring.
	Maybe.
	Why don't we remain open-minded to all of those possibilities?
	Okay.
	Well then, what the fuck is the point of anything?
	Like, what is the point of any of this discussion?
	You know, if you're gonna spend all your time supporting Trump and Musk and then at the end be like, hey, maybe they are evil globalists, who knows?
	Let's remain open-minded, everybody.
	Like, I don't know.
	I'm gonna have to take the things that you say 99% of the time more seriously than the little caveats that you try and calm out for yourself, you know?
	But he will and says, well, maybe.
	Who knows?
	Who knows?
	I'm not going to tell you what to think, except all the things that I say.
	Ah, dear.
	It is, yeah.
	Yeah, this is something I think that is still quite unique to him.
	That makes him like a bit of a unique feature of the kind of magosphere.
	And I don't really think any of the others of them are doing that.
	Do you know, I don't think they're kind of speaking in this, even in this kind of like highly sort of, yeah, kind of relational, empathetic, you know, way.
	I think there's a lot more certainty in the Magosphere.
	It's like, no, these people are evil.
	They are demons.
	Sometimes literally weird, you know, like it's so much more.
	And it's kind of interesting that the space he occupies, I guess, where, you know, that stuff travels really well on social media.
	People love certainty.
	But I can see where there's an appetite for this, do you know, from people who maybe think of themselves as pro-Trump but maybe consider themselves slightly more thoughtful, slightly more reflective.
	They maybe don't like the kind of brashness of some of it, the kind of vulgarity.
	I can see where this appeals to them, do you know?
	Yeah, yeah, there's much more of a just asking questions kind of vibe to it.
	Kind of a, well, we'll think critically about this and everything, you know, and it comes from kind of more of the crunchy kind of sphere as well, like the Maha movement, you know, and RFK Jr. and all of that as well.
	That's very much his kind of niche that he's carved out.
	Yeah, people who weren't necessarily that on board with Trump until aligning with RFK Jr.
	And then it was like, okay, now we're on board with all of the other fascism too.
	Cool, let's go.
	We're getting our stuff done.
	Okay, in the final clip of today's show, Russell suggests that he perhaps has a divine job on his hands.
	Here's a possibility that I'd like to put before you.
	In order for us to manifest true and great power, we will all of us have to undergo an individual reckoning and recognize how we ourselves can connect to the sublime and divine, and that that can only come through sacrifice, not because of the suffering,
	but because through sacrifice you acknowledge there is a primary but subtler reality that all of us are occasionally aware of, and it is the function and job of some of us to To bring to the forefront.
	So in order to manifest true and great power, we must have an individual reckoning.
	Ask how we ourselves can connect to the divine and sublime, but only through sacrifice.
	There is a primary but subtler reality through sacrifice, and it is the job and function of some of us to bring it to the forefront.
	There is no small part of me questioning whether Russell thinks he's a literal prophet.
	Yeah, that was literally where my mind was going as well.
	I'm like, that's worrying.
	From a guy who had a stand-up special called Messiah Complex, I'm like, yeah, that's disconcerting.
	Yeah, I mean, I think it's something I remember watching an old interview of his where he's actually kind of laughing.
	He's laughing at his own ability to do this, his own, like, yeah, his own what he thinks is a literal messiah complex.
	And it's very funny.
	He's kind of self-depriving, sort of saying, like, he has to watch himself.
	This is, I think, you know, before, like, yeah, before he's, like, really into whatever strand of religion he is now.
	But he's clearly, he's always been, I think, religion, spirituality curious.
	Do you know?
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	I saw him back in 2012.
	I saw him as compare to the Dalai Lama.
	I was at an event that the Dalai Lama did in Manchester and Russell Brand because he was doing it on the Buddhism thing at that time.
	And so he was doing that.
	Whereas these days, he's still interdenominational.
	He still hasn't picked a lane because that will lead to a whole new...
	road of infighting among which specific kind of Christian he is.
	He does reference his own narcissism and messiah complex and make fun of it, and then he says stuff like this.
	To Candace Owens, for instance, Candace Owens was trying to convince him that he should become Catholic, and he was like, well, I don't know if I could, because I'd want to be the Pope, even though I know I never could.
	And you're like, yeah, haha, very funny.
	And then here he's like, well, it's the job of some of us to bring this to the forefront.
	Oh, no.
	So yeah, he is self-aware, but it doesn't seem to be stopping him.
	He's just going to carry on anyway.
	And my guess is that by siloing himself on Rumble, you know, and this is something that Rob Topinka's research looking at, he sort of studied the YouTube comments under Brown's YouTube channel before and after he basically kind of did a...
	The anti-vaccine stuff.
	Right.
	And how the content of those comments changed.
	And he said that they became, post him starting doing COVID-vaxx stuff, they became much more personally celebratory of Brand himself.
	And also way more comments in general, way more views in general.
	All of those positive feedback loops basically were happening.
	But I can only imagine it's even more so in Rumble.
	You're not going to get skeptics to that extent.
	Most people who are on there are on there because they're broadly sympathetic to a reactionary worldview.
	So it feels like he is siloing himself into a Platform where there will be less and less checks on...
	Yeah, and less and less kind of criticism.
	Apart from when he's anti-Semitic to his poor Jewish co-worker who apparently the Rumble audience then has to rein him back in and say, read your Bible, it was the Romans.
	Yeah, again, that is the worrying point when the Rumble chat has to pull you back in, Russell.
	Yeah, when David Icke and the Rumble chat are the voice of reason.
	It's an alarming time.
	Now, I do have a little bonus for today's episode, because obviously with David Icke being David Icke, he saw this and responded to Russell talking about him with a couple of mean tweets.
	So here's the first one.
	There was a clip of Russell saying, like, oh, you either love or hate Israel these days.
	Can we transcend these divides and find unity, blah, blah, blah.
	And David Icke says, quote, what a serious dose of sitting on the fence.
	It is not about Israel, this or that.
	It's about basic humanity.
	I don't believe in the Old Testament as an historical document, and I don't believe in Islam.
	What I do believe in is basic humanity, and on that basis, what the Israeli government and military have done to Palestinians since before 1948, right up to now, is pure evil.
	That does not mean that all Jewish people are pure evil.
	I mean the actions of the government and military, plus any Israelis that support what has happened, need a serious look in the mirror.
	What was done to the Jewish people on October 7th, with the government's clear complicity...
	Apparently.
	It was also pure evil, and we should make our judgments with basic humanity, not on the belief system of those involved.
	A Jewish baby or a Muslim baby getting killed or blown apart is one too many, whoever they are.
	So, again, this is a situation where, again, I'm like, I mean, other than the clear complicity part, not sure about that, but, you know, broadly, I'm like, yeah, some good points being raised again.
	More voice of reason.
	But, you know, broadly on the issues, whereas the second one is more personally addressing, because Russell replied to this reply from David Icke, and now Icke is replying to Russell's response.
	So...
	So Russell's saying, please, please come on the show.
	I know you keep saying I'm a globalist and a MAGA plant, but nothing you say can keep me from loving you.
	Oh dear.
	And David Icke says, I don't say you're a plant.
	I don't know that.
	I say you have a fraction of the story and it suits you not to have more.
	And what you say suits those you support.
	Proper journalists don't take private jets to Mar-a-Lago and brag about it.
	They hold all power to account no matter who they are.
	I'll come on when I decide to.
	Lots more to happen yet.
	Strap in.
	Which I'm like, oh god, okay.
	This is not the end of this little feud, clearly.
	Oh boy.
	But you'll love to see it.
	You'll love to see it.
	That unified right wing, you know?
	No issues going on there at all.
	I am struck, especially with the please, please come on the show tweet from Russell.
	I'm like, oh, mate, this is just, it is a little bit sad to look at, you know?
	He's just desperate for the validation to come through, and he's just not getting it.
	Oh, dear.
	Well, well, how are you feeling about Russell Brand after this little jaunt?
	I mean, yeah, it is actually quite...
	I didn't really follow him up with him after I covered him post the allegations.
	And back then he was still, I think, still on YouTube, might have just moved over to Rumble.
	I forget exactly what the story was there.
	But he was nowhere near this far gone.
	And it's really interesting to see, I guess, how quickly capture happens.
	And yeah, it's kind of funny.
	When, yeah, David Icke, famed conspiracy theorist David Icke, is kind of outlining, I guess, my theory of often how actual media conspiracies work, which is that nobody necessarily needs to be paid off.
	There doesn't really need to be any kind of outright corruption so much as he says something like, you only have half the story and it suits you only to know it.
	Yeah.
	Do you know?
	Yeah, it's sort of like you're a bit like, yeah, that is actually...
	Probably my critique of a lot of media and just in general, do you know that, yeah, quite often people are satisfied with a sort of baseline or people in the media are satisfied with only asking questions so far,
	only kind of pushing kind of for explanations so far from figures of authority, you know, because it's...
	Boring or it then gets a bit tricky with your boss, with your audience, with the people that you rely on for sources to ask anymore.
	So it's kind of funny to see such a lucid account of, I guess, how media capture works from the place you would least expect it.
	And yeah, about Russell Brand.
	But it's definitely...
	Really interesting to see what the post-deplatforming conspiracist right is up to.
	Because, yeah, you sort of really see what an effect, what platform you're on has.
	On YouTube, he still has to kind of play to a broader crowd.
	But here it feels like the need for that is so far gone.
	Oh yeah, for sure, for sure.
	There have been kind of...
	A while ago, he was doing, like, Twitter polls and that kind of thing, like, while the election was still going on, you know, to kind of assess where people were at.
	And it felt like, you know, with every kind of new poll or whatever else, he would start to target his content more specifically and be like, oh, we're 85% Trump supporters in my audience.
	Okay, then.
	Let's make sure we go, like, full fucking MAGA, which is exactly what happened.
	And yeah, it has been really interesting to watch.
	Just how quickly, I mean, just in the last year and a half or more than that, nearly getting on to two years now of covering him, just how rapid the descent has become.
	And he's no longer vegan.
	He's eaten steak at Mar-a-Lago and all these other things.
	Yeah, it is interesting to watch someone shed their value so quickly.
	It's like that picture of, did you see that picture of RFK on the Trump plane?
	With the McDonald's.
	With the McDonald's?
	Like, oh my god.
	Like, yeah, you just know every, you know every bite broke him, like broke something inside him.
	It feels a little bit similar where like, yeah, you may not really like them or agree with their politics, but you can't help but just feel a little bit sad to watch someone so kind of, so totally captured, so totally, yeah.
	Yeah, it's true.
	A little bit of, like, human sympathy.
	It'll be like, ah, that sucks, doesn't it?
	I know that killed you, yeah.
	Yeah, I mean, the RFK thing with the McDonald's, like, that was the modern-day equivalent of Trump being like, bend the knee.
	Like, that's what that was.
	You will eat the chicken nuggets.
	That's what you will do.
	Oh, dear.
	Well, Annie Kelly, it's been an absolute pleasure.
	Thank you so much for joining me today.
	Yeah, I've really, really enjoyed this in spite of it all.
	In spite of who we've had to deal with.
	Thank you so much for having me on.
	And that's the show, everybody.
	Please go and check out the QAA podcast and take a moment to follow Annie on Blue Sky as well.
	I will, of course, be putting links in the description, so please go and check those out.
	Otherwise, On Brand will be back next Thursday.
	But in the meantime, take care of yourselves and each other.
	Thank you very much.
	I love you.
	Bye!

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