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Feb. 24, 2023 - Stay Free - Russel Brand
28:44
Russell Brand meets Rumble CEO in Studio
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Hello there, you Awakening Wonders.
Thanks for joining me live on Rumble from Rumble.
I'm in Sarasota right now at Rumble's headquarters talking to the CEO of Rumble, a man to whom I have a lot to be grateful for, Chris Pavlovsky.
Chris, congratulations on your new premises.
Thank you, Russell.
Glad to have you here in Sarasota, Longboat Key.
And yes, I understand that it is a key, because it's a bridge between islands.
A lot of people don't appreciate the complexity of what constitutes a key, and given that Rumble is a platform that's determined by, defined by, and who has, as its raison d'etre, freedom of speech, how do you feel today?
This must be the sort of realisation, I suppose, of a long-held and long-cherished dream.
Do you feel present for it?
Are you enjoying it?
I am.
I actually really am.
It's been an interesting moment.
There was the NASDAQ moment last year and then there's this moment opening up the headquarters in Florida, specifically in Lombokie.
Freest state in the world.
Freest county in the world.
Freest country in the world.
It's all happening here.
So we'll be taking the internet from over here now.
It's pretty interesting, because you did that thing where it's the freest country, freest state, it's that we're at the beating heart of freedom.
We really are, though.
It really is.
This is where it's all happening.
And we're dropping the pole here and taking the battle from here now.
We were in Canada for quite some time, but now we're here.
Yeah, you have to ultimately cross the border, I think, in pursuit of freedom.
Hey, like a minute ago when we were looking at Rumble's mission statement, you pointed out that the final sentence, join us, we are on a mission to protect a free and open internet, that a little while ago that was presumed to be the natural, if you can use such a word for an obviously constructed entity, the natural state of the internet.
The rhetoric around freedom of speech has altered.
Rumble had some success last week in a legal case.
Can you tell us about that?
And can you tell us what you mean by freedom of speech?
Because it seems increasingly these days that there's a connotation to freedom of speech where a lot of people are arguing, and I'm certainly not taking up this view, that freedom of speech is somehow equated with a particular type of politics, specifically right-wing politics.
Yeah, it's, you know, the Internet, when the Internet came alive and all these social platforms came alive, you had every major CEO out there preaching the free and open Internet.
We've got to keep it free.
We've got to keep it the Wild West.
Everything should be allowed.
Can't allow the governments to control the Internet.
Can't allow regulation to come.
And, you know, that's just been changing.
And it's changed really rapidly in the last, I would say, five years to a point where, like, I didn't think I was going to be here defending freedom of expression, free speech.
That just seemed like a natural thing.
As a Canadian, you grew up in the schoolyards, you know, yelling and saying all kinds of things and saying, it's a free country, you can say whatever you want.
I think that was probably the same in a lot of places in the world.
But that's changed, and I don't quite understand why.
It wasn't like the idea of Rumble that we would be defending the entire country for freedom of expression, but it's a necessity now.
It's actually imperative.
It's imperative for the future generations, as we were talking earlier.
History has always told us that the First Amendment is essentially the foundation for a better life, prosperity.
It's better for all future generations.
You can't solve problems without freedom of expression.
You can't even have an opinion.
Without freedom of expression.
You certainly can't.
In a sense, once that you suggest that freedom of expression has to be or can be curated, regulated or controlled, implicit within that, of course, is that there is some regulatory authority that's in a position to make those judgments.
As soon as you posit there's people that are able to regulate and control, you start to enter into a peculiarly equivocal space.
Who has that authority?
Who do you grant it to?
The corporate world?
The government?
The state?
Who is it that has this authority?
You immediately lean into a kind of technocracy which means a governance by a cadre of experts.
That means there's a certain set of people who know what should be said and what can be said and what has to be censored and in the end they determine what is free speech and what isn't free speech and what is truth.
Increasingly we're seeing sort of Kafka-esque and Orwellian terms enter the public discourse around controlling freedom of speech just to be ultimately I'm starting to think that I'm somewhere between a libertarian anarchist, is where I'm starting to find myself.
I believe in everybody's right to freely be who they are, to express themselves however they want to.
I find myself astonished at some of the alliances I'm forming politically, as a matter of fact, because I resolutely believe in individual and collective freedom.
Of course that means the freedom to identify however you want to, worship however you want to, to have a progressive identity.
And is everybody welcome on Rumble, even within that itinerary?
Everybody.
The entire world.
We welcome all points of view.
We don't discriminate against points of view.
In fact, we think it's better.
It's better for society.
It's better for progress.
It's better for humanity.
So, absolutely.
We welcome everybody.
And back to the New York's... Sure.
You were just talking about governments infringing on this right to free speech.
The New York Attorney General imposed a law in New York, which we ended up challenging and we successfully won an injunction against this law.
This law is now dead because of Rumble's position against this law in the state of New York.
And these are the type of infringements by governments that we just can't allow to happen.
And one of the things I've learned in the last couple of years is that that fight needs to be, it needs to be here.
It's happening here in America.
And we need to make sure that we're all fighting for it and that's our position.
We obviously are and we're not going to stop because it's so important for society and humanity as a whole.
We've got a lot of people watching this stream right now.
Some names that I recognize as a matter of fact Oh yeah, Primal Collin says, ask if the EU is still playing hardball.
Are the EU playing hardball?
Can you unpack that story a little bit for us, Chris?
So yeah, the EU, well particularly France, it hasn't been the EU per se, it's just been France.
France came to us, they sent us a letter, they said, we are going to turn you off at the telco level.
And obviously we have a cloud that we're building, the Rumble cloud.
We have partners on that cloud like Truth Social, like Tim Pool.
We had to make the decision like we can't be cut off at the telco level in France, otherwise there's going to be a lot of collateral damages with our partners.
So we made the decision to just turn off France entirely ourselves and make sure that our partners like Tim Pool are not affected by it.
And typically I'd just let them turn us off, but because of those partners, we made the decision to turn off France and tell them to go pound sand.
We're not going to get dictated by whether it's China or whether it's France or whether it's North Korea.
Yeah, put France in that category.
Imagine that.
And we're not going to get dictated by them telling us what can and can't be on Rumble if it doesn't violate our terms of service.
So that's our stance.
Am I right in thinking that the complexity or the conflagration at least began with your refusal to take down Russia Today content, which I understand has been censored on YouTube.
We speak pretty regularly to Chris Hedges, the Pulitzer Prize winning journalist who broadcasts a lot from Russia Today and reminded, when he came on our show, Stay Free, which of course is available exclusively on Rumble.
Remind us that that included interviews with such hard right fascist dissidents as Edward Snowden and Slavoj Žižek, the literal Marxist critic and philosopher.
So, you know, censorship of that degree is the beginning of a form of totalitarianism.
It seems to me, Chris, that as the information age gathers pace, it's irresistible for centralised... the centralised authority cannot resist the urge to impose more authority, more censorship, more control, because the means of communication is becoming so immediate, so immersive, that Without authority, without the ability to censor, to smear dissenters, you are going to get, by default, a kind of liberty, an open conversation that they don't seem to be willing to have.
No, you can't.
Look at the civil rights movement.
Look at the women's rights movements.
It requires freedom of expression.
It requires it in order to progress.
It's so important for humanity and society.
And it's appalling that this is even a debate.
How is this a debate?
I thought we learned this lesson many times.
I feel the same thing about the war in a sense.
I feel like there are so many markers of evident progress, technology, medicine, there are so many ways where you can see that there's been incredible progress, but the fact that there is a war in Europe, the fact that there are fundamental philosophical debates taking place, Suggest, in addition to the progress, a kind of atrophy, simultaneously, that there are some areas where there's clear progress, but others where there is decline.
And I feel that when you have this, you know, let's face it, it seems that because of the way that commerce has changed, the way that information has changed and technology has changed, there is a movement towards globalism.
I think many of us felt that 30, 40 years ago when high streets started to change, When favourable tax arrangements were made for international brands, we started to feel the erosion of community.
And now we've reached the point where centralised authority, through organisations like the WHO, can introduce regulation that will affect us democratically.
You'll look at the new pandemic treaty that they're proposing.
The IMF, through leveraging loans, are able to dictate the post-war policy of a country like Ukraine in the way that they did with various other countries that they've made loans to.
Globalization, in the form of these unelected organizations, is a threat to national democracy, is a threat to individual freedom.
So, however you might read about or learn about what Rumble is doing and what Rumble represents, you have to recognize that the people speaking against it have a very particular set of interests.
Does that seem right to you, Chris?
I mean, how can it not?
It's essentially a really nice thing that I just said about Rumble.
Absolutely.
Fully aligned with that.
I'd like to take you to task.
But I'm not an anarchist, earlier on.
No, yeah, yeah, I could see that.
You went and said anarchist, you didn't like that.
Why not?
That's just not me.
Well, we had an anarcho-primitivist on the show the other day.
That sounded very complicated.
We're going to have to give up our phones.
If we'd have listened to our own guest, we'd have literally had to have shut down the show that we were making there and then, which I thought was counterproductive, ultimately.
But what we're trying to use our show for is a living demonstration that all of these views can harmonise together.
If you're willing to respect other people's individual freedom, collective freedom, right to run their own communities, then you ought yourself be afforded that right.
I just have noticed the change in morality and public discourse lately where people's spirituality appears to be about not their own conduct and their own standards that they're going to hold themselves to, but what they want other people to do, how they want other people to live.
How did that happen?
Yeah.
Like, I don't get that.
Like, we should be focusing on ourselves before we're focusing on other people.
I've got enough work to do on myself, do you know what I mean, Chris, before I start thinking of you lot.
Same here.
While people, you know, we've all got our connection to the divine, there's a saying, God has no grandchildren, that all of us have our own connection to the limitless, and all of us have enough spiritual work to do for ourselves, and that's one of the things.
Does this interest you, you know, like on Stay Free?
I don't know if you're concentrating when you're watching it, Chris, but we're trying very much to seed spiritual ideas, because I believe that that's a way that people can connect with one another.
When I'm talking to someone like Ben Shapiro or Tucker Carlson, people who I assume I'm at odds with in a lot of ways politically, I know that I probably share spiritual faith with them, so I use that as a way of connecting, recognising that in the end we've got a set of values, in the end we're governed or guided by love.
What are your personal views on spirituality and the significance of spirituality in the political space?
No, I never really thought about it too deeply.
Not like you have.
That's right.
If I were to put an opinion on that, I don't think I haven't thought of it that well.
That's because you're trying to build this business, isn't it?
I do think that everyone means well.
Everywhere.
And I feel like everyone's trying to get to the right solution.
But I feel like people have forgotten to read their history books.
Yeah.
We all want the right thing.
Everyone wants good things about everybody.
Everybody wants everyone to have great things.
You know, we haven't read history books, it feels like.
It feels like we've forgotten what history has told us.
And, you know, I just, it saddens me to see that, and see that disconnect, because you can't really teach them the history.
They don't want to listen, a lot of people, for that matter.
And it goes to freedom of expression.
Like, that's so fundamental in the last couple hundred years.
Like, what has America brought to the world?
Well, in my opinion, there's less poverty that we've ever seen in our lives.
because of capitalism in America and what it's brought to the world.
You know, nothing's perfect, but we've made a lot of progress
in the last couple hundred years.
And I feel like we've, you know, there's been a lot of places
there was a lot less progress and they've tried a lot of different things
and they didn't work so well.
And those are things we can learn from.
But in terms of like the spiritual and spirituality, like, you know, I have my own personal beliefs about things.
And I do think we all connect in one way.
And love is a great way to describe it, the way you described it.
I guess I definitely agree with that.
You know, we're all, we all, we are all looking for the most positive thing for us and for our families and for the world and we can all connect on that, on that wavelength, that's for sure.
Thanks, mate.
In order to spread awareness of our joint endeavor here, I'm doing a little tour.
Did you know that?
I'm doing a tour.
I'm going to be going on Joe Rogan on the 1st of March.
I'm going on Bill Maher on the 3rd of March.
I'm going to be seeing Ben Shapiro in Miami, I think, on the 8th.
On the 6th, I'm going on Tucker Carlson.
7th, I'm going on Tucker Carlson and Greg Gutfeld on the 9th.
Also, I think I'm going to hook up with Andrew Schultz while I'm up here on his show.
I didn't mean that in a sort of a semi-erotic way.
Although, who knows?
We're going to be in New York.
Why wouldn't we express ourselves?
Freedom of expression seems to be one of the key themes today.
Also, I'm doing a live stand-up show.
If you want to come and see me on the 2nd in Los Angeles, I'll be at the Vermont Theatre and I'll be here in Florida, in Tampa specifically, on the 6th.
There should be a link in the chat now, so you can click on that and get tickets if you want to come.
Are you going to come and see me?
But where are you going to be on the 6th?
Are you going to be in Florida?
March 6th?
Yeah, I'm expecting to see a little rumble crew, perhaps still dressed in green, taking up a little row in that Clearwater Theatre that I'm performing at.
I might be around.
We don't want to make an on-camera commitment to that, Chris.
It's easier to lie.
That is the integrity that we're witnessing with Chris.
It would be much easier to say, of course, I'll absolutely be there, then deal with the problem later.
You could just send a text, I'm not able to do that, found out I'm busy.
But Chris believes in free speech, integrity and authenticity so much that he would rather have an awkward moment where he appears to, on air, refuse a polite invitation from a visiting Englishman who's made a long, arduous trip to Florida.
Difficult, challenging times, but, you know, I respect your integrity.
I'll try to be there.
That's good.
That's the sort of compromise that built America.
And also robbed the United Kingdom of one of our proudest colonies, which, on the sly, I'm trying to get back.
Hey, mate, I lost this thing.
I want to read out some more comments before we, in a minute, we're going to the rumble, what are we calling it, the launch party for this building?
Yeah, it's the launch of our headquarters in Longboat Key in Sarasota and Florida in America.
The shovel's been, I guess this place is done now.
Yeah, it looks beautiful.
The office is fantastic.
We're moving in and we're cutting the ribbon and we're now taking the battle from here.
If you're a member of our locals community, like I mean my one, we're going to stream straight after this conversation with Chris.
I'm going to walk around, show you little things that are going on at the party, show you some of the people I've met here.
Michael, the lawyer, there's all sorts of interesting characters who I'm dying to get in their face and ask them some pretty probing questions about their religious lives.
Stuff like that.
There's feelings about sex and stuff, you know, people feel like they have to answer you if you're like,
Come on, freedom of speech!
Well, that's actually not your business, Russell, that's a private matter between me and Mrs Ellis.
Come on! Come on! Tell us what you're into!
That sort of stuff.
I'm going to read you this, uh, uh, man of... Michael will be watching this somewhere, will he?
He won't be just smooching about in a burgundy jacket, he better not be.
Uh, this is the mission statement for Rumble that I'm going to read to you just in case you don't know.
Do people know the mission statement?
Probably, yeah.
It's a few people.
You posted it?
Yeah, it's right there beside me.
Who wrote it?
It was a combination of a bunch of people, but Tyler was really behind it, you know, putting it all together.
I think we've had it now for quite some time.
It's hard to write a mission statement, isn't it?
I bet you've done one for your company.
You've sort of said, oh, we believe in this and given credit.
But this is a good mission statement.
I like it.
We are Rumble.
We're for the people with something to say and something to share, who believe in authentic expression and want to control the value of their own creations.
We create technologies that are immune to cancel culture.
Because everyone benefits when we have access to more ideas, diverse opinions.
And dialogue.
Join us.
We're on a mission to protect a free and open internet.
That seems to be a mission statement that we can all get behind.
Certainly I can.
I'm very excited to speak to people from a variety of political and religious backgrounds and to have this conversation.
Do you know why?
Because I'm optimistic about human beings.
I'm not a misanthrope.
I don't think people are bad.
I think people are okay.
Like you were just saying then, rather sweetly, when I pressured you to start telling us all your private business about religion, that you fundamentally believe that people are good.
And if you have that belief, like, people are good, that means we'll get somewhere.
I had a great conversation once with Brene Brown.
You can see it, hopefully you can see that chat on Rumble.
Like, you know, the sort of Brené Brown, she talks a lot about sort of emotional health, I guess, mental well-being.
And she said sometimes she questioned whether or not people are, like, good.
She worked in, like, as a social worker and in various conditions where she saw sort of suffering, I guess.
And that it's hard sometimes, particularly in situations of conflict, to recognize that Well, people are beautiful.
Everyone's trying their best.
People are trying their best.
And certainly when I find myself in alignment with that, I feel better.
And if you believe in that, if you believe in humans, then you've got to believe in the right for other people to say stuff you disagree with.
You have to.
You have to allow that conversation to take place, don't you?
Yeah, you do.
It's not easy sometimes, like as you can see with other platforms, they can't handle it.
You know, it's something that's changed a lot in the last five years and, you know, there's tons of stuff I disagree with on Rumble.
Tons of stuff I agree with and, like, it's funny because, like, you get the... we were just talking about how, like, the Washington Post would write an article about Rumble and say it's full of misinformation.
There's creators on Rumble that are saying the COVID vaccine is not durable.
And then you have to take two, three, four, five.
Yeah.
So is that still misinformation?
Yeah.
What does that mean now?
There are some platforms that haven't taken down their early proclamations that these medications would stop transmission.
And we now know that they never tested.
Imagine you didn't have people like questioning things.
You would never figure it out.
Like, are we just to believe everything someone says?
And there's one single authority, like you said, there can't be.
Society can't progress like that.
They absolutely can't.
That's a homogenising and banalising influence.
I don't think that anyone believes that a more empowered and authoritative state, or if particularly not a corporatised state, like, you know, if I may say, as a visitor in your country, the United States, appears to be reaching its zenith and its pinnacle in American corporatist politics, where it's a kind of front for a globalist and financially led agenda.
No longer represents the right for ordinary people to be free and have a variety of beliefs and faith.
You know, the thing that's made this country, and I'm speaking about America, great has been the diversity, all of the various communities that have come together from around the world.
Significantly, one country stands out, though, as the best one that's contributed.
You know the language we're speaking right now?
Do you know what it's called?
It's called English.
There's a reason for that.
So like, you know, there's like, you know, that's what Makes America great.
The ability for various communities and ethnicities to come together to create a kind of a beautiful culture.
But freedom has to be fundamental to that.
Freedom of expression, freedom to democratically or otherwise run your own community.
And I feel like this is going to be increasingly pivotal in the ongoing conversation, Chris.
Platforms like this that are resolutely absolutist when it comes to the subject of freedom of expression.
No, absolutely.
We'll stand ground.
We'll fight.
I think it was a little harder a couple years ago.
It's getting a little easier now.
We've got a lot more friends.
People are starting to wake up.
You're starting to see that I think we're in the majority now, whereas like maybe a couple years ago we were probably, I think we're always in the majority, but they just kind of made the perception a little bit different.
But now you're seeing people wake up to everything and you're seeing platforms like Rumble really start to succeed and really attract like, you know, it's not just politics anymore.
You got people from All different verticals coming onto the platform.
Sports leagues, like an indoor soccer league just recently joined.
We had a fight league join recently.
It's really starting to happen.
And when you look at these other platforms, these incumbent platforms, one of the things in the mission statement is authenticity.
When there's censorship, there's no authenticity.
You're fake.
You're completely fake.
At Rumble, you can be authentic.
You're you.
You can be whoever you want to be.
That's your decision.
But on these other platforms, you can't.
You're inauthentic.
You're right about that.
Censorship means that you're going to conform to a predetermined set of ideals.
I think when people talk about virtue signaling, that's perhaps what is meant, that these are not beliefs that you deeply hold.
They're beliefs that you recognize have to be conveyed.
So that means everybody on YouTube is programmed to say one specific thing about any specific topic that they dictate about?
What I've noticed is that in this with this corporatist agenda you find a lot of things that I believe in freedom of expression for the right to be who you are these are the kind of things that they actually advocate for ironically while simultaneously advocating for more censorship and I recognize that in times of great fear people are willing to yield to authority more so I hope that this is a time where there's less fear more confidence and a more awakening now Chris do you want to take this opportunity to say some nice things about me before we wrap this interview up some nice things maybe about the channel the work we've done Well, I don't know if you've noticed, I've definitely noticed, but your videos are really starting to, I think for the last week, at least two or three of your shows have been ranking number one on Rumble.
Our community is growing!
Really, really fast.
Especially in the last 30 to 60 days, which has been phenomenal.
And you have this huge tour coming up.
Meeting people like Joe Rogan.
What's that going to be like?
What are you going to ask Joe?
What are you going to ask you is the question.
You can't know.
You can never know.
You go in there, Joe Rogan, and you're ready to be as passive or as expressive as Joe Rogan dictates.
You go in there, you feel out Joe Rogan.
I've been on there a couple of times.
These are things that will get discussed.
We're going to be talking about Rumble, obviously.
We're going to be talking about a lot of these ideas.
When I've been on previously, sometimes I've had something to promote, like, you know, maybe a book on recovery or, I don't know, maybe the first time it might even have been a movie or something.
And it's hard to get those conversations to the forefront and you always feel like there's someone that's sort of paid for you to go there and sent you, you know, like if you're promoting a book or whatever.
And I think, oh no, I can't get the conversation around in a book.
But I feel like, you know, I've heard him talk about me being on Rumble a couple of times just in conversation.
I've heard him talk about our channel.
A few times and like I think I see him once playing a clip when I did a Brian Stelter CNN thing once he played it out on the show.
So I think we're going to be talking about our content.
We're going to be talking about the necessity for ongoing communication.
We're also going to be talking about the like, you know, like I'm still bloody vegan.
Like, you know, he hunts and shoots and all that kind of stuff.
And I feel like you've got to be able to be convivial and congenial with people that you Yeah, so I just want to say, Russell, thank you.
How are we ever going to get anywhere as a species, as a planet?
Like, you know, so I reckon we'll probably go into them areas.
Also Brazilian jujitsu.
And I'm just see if I can drag him off into some like sort of weird and unusual
territories where he's not comfortable.
Maybe I'll ask you about his religious beliefs as well.
I can't talk about that.
If I can get him on the back foot a bit, that's what I'm going to do there.
Yeah.
So I just want to say, Russell, thank you for, you were actually, you came onto this
platform and we didn't even know at rumble back in 2021, you signed up all on your
own without anybody soliciting rumble.
You came just literally for the, the principle of freedom of expression, seeing
that other people were able to express themselves authentically.
And, uh, there's a huge thank you for doing that a couple of years ago.
I remember it was two weeks after you signed up when we figured it out, that it
was real and we're like, holy shit, Russell Brand is on rumble.
It's not like, you know, that was the beginning of the expansion outside of just like a single idea of politics and more ideas and just thank you for taking the risk and coming and then eventually, you know, doing your show daily on Rumble.
Five days a week.
One hour shows, live streamed, fantastic.
At noon.
And now being one of the top shows on the platform, it's been a huge success and super excited to see where that goes in the next few years.
I came on...
Because of my love of freedom of expression.
And then my integrity was rewarded financially with a fantastic deal here at Rumble to build this to the most significant platform in the world.
So there's a lesson for us all.
Have authenticity, be integral, remain true to your beliefs, have a little bit of fun, be willing to accept other people's views, be willing to get into complex conversations with people.
What else are we going to do while we're here?
Chris, thank you so much for joining me for this conversation.
It's been pretty good, isn't it?
It's been amazing.
No, we're going to go and have a little party.
I'm not very good at parties, actually.
I don't think you're going to be that good either.
I'm going to be watching you.
I don't think you're going to be very good at socialising.
Like, we're going to stand around, just be looking at your phone.
Oh, I've got to do a work call.
Oh, hello there, Donald Trump.
There's no one on that phone!
You should see me socialising.
I'm a wreck.
I go and find people that are working at the party.
I talk to them.
That's my way, you know.
Oh, you're working here, are you?
Yeah, good.
Those fat cats.
That's what I do.
Cozy up to the blue-collar people.
It's always been my way.
So I'll be watching Chris Pavlosky and his social skills over the next hour.
And if you're watching this on my local's channel, you can see a little walkthrough.
We're going to do that, aren't we?
Thanks to everyone at Rumble.
Thanks to all of you that are watching this.
It's been a great joy to be on this journey with you so far, and we're excited to bring you loads more content, loads more conversation.
Be willing to open your mind and your heart.
Be willing to fight for your personal freedom, but be willing to yield to form new connections, because that's going to be absolutely necessary to take on elite establishment institutions, organizations, whether they be state or corporate.
This we can do together.
Thanks again, Chris Pavlovsky.
Thank you, Russell.
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