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March 7, 2023 - Stay Free - Russel Brand

01:05:07

Stay Free Meets Mug Club: Russell sits down with Steven Crowder

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	you you
	hello and welcome to stay free with russell brand live at rumbles headquarters for a very special announcement.
	As you by now know that Steven Crowder is joining us on Rumble.
	Steven, welcome.
	Thank you.
	I don't think they knew by now.
	I think they know just now.
	That was the announcement.
	Yeah.
	That was the announcement.
	That was the announcement.
	I'd like to announce something very special.
	Stephen Crowder is joining us on Rumble now.
	You just had a scoop and threw it away.
	Like my dad, he'll do that with like punchlines.
	He's, I don't know if you have someone like this in your family, who rather than just sitting on it, he just will say something, he'll toss them like, Dad, that's the meanest, funniest thing I've ever heard.
	He's like, no, who cares.
	It's nice to dispose of those things.
	Yeah, exactly.
	You don't want to fate it too much.
	We've got 45 minutes right now to discuss the reasons that you've joined Rumble.
	In particular, for you and I, there's obvious areas where we wouldn't agree explicitly, overtly, but what we both agree with is our right to have public conversations about our beliefs, both political and spiritual, and perhaps through dialogue and conversation, reach areas of common ground and certainly to conduct these conversations in a spirit of mutual respect.
	Most people have known that you've been in a period of transition because it's been a big online story in itself. It's been a saga, Stephen. So will you just talk
	us through how you come to be on Rumble right now and why in particular you're joining Rumble?
	Well I take exception with period of transition because we know how they're going to take
	that. So I'm still me. But I do understand. No, I will say this. We've been in this period
	of transition actually and there have been some issues that we can discuss that we can't
	discuss contractually but a lot of suitors who came forward and Rumble was really just
	the only place that gets it.
	They understand the idea of free speech.
	Now, I've heard people complain, say, oh, Rumble's too right-wing.
	I go, hold on a second, you think Russell Brand is right-wing?
	Now, of course, if you allow all free speech, you're naturally going to have the people who've been ostracized, the people who've been censored, migrate there first.
	Hopefully, long-term, Rumble will be, you know, an alternative to a place like YouTube where people can actually speak freely.
	But, you know, we've been working with Rumble for a long time as sort of a mirror channel to YouTube.
	Because we were the reason for, you know, the new borderline content guidelines on YouTube.
	Sorry about that.
	They called it the Crowder Rule, where they said, well, you didn't violate community guidelines.
	And so you're not advertiser friendly anyways.
	I was like, well, just demonetize us.
	They said, well, we need to hit you with some strikes.
	So now we'll create borderline content guidelines.
	And that's this sort of cabal of people who create these new rules that you can't know.
	There's no transparency.
	You don't know who sets them and you don't know how to not violate them.
	So Rumble became a safety at that point as they were kind of coming up.
	And we just always told people, look, if you don't see us on YouTube, go to Rumble.
	I mean, one thing people Don't necessarily know, like you can't find us in browse or in search on YouTube.
	So if you type in Stephen Crowder and the name, the title of the episode, you'll get something from PBS from nine years ago.
	Something about the burrowing owl or some shit.
	So we knew that we had to start building an alternative platform for ourselves.
	And more importantly is every single view that we get on YouTube is from people bookmarking and checking every day.
	Wow.
	That's where the traffic comes from.
	It's in the single digits as far as browse and search.
	And we never wanted to lose touch with everybody.
	We had Mug Club, and Mug Club is where people, you know, can sign up, and it's the premium service where you get a wonderful girthy hand-etched mug, but you also get additional content where we take chats.
	And that's what we're launching March 20th.
	I guess I should say this.
	I'm not the best salesman.
	March 20th, Mug Club comes back.
	It's $89.99 a year, so it's $10 less, and we actually, Gerald is here, we can announce that we've signed a new talent as well as doing a Friday show.
	We're going to be producing some stand-up specials.
	Brian Callum, Gerald will be doing a theology show with Brian Callum, questions about the Bible.
	Mr. Guns and Gear, and we're talking about two other comedians and hosts, will probably be there by March 20th.
	So you can go and sign up now at loudearthcracker.com slash Mug Club.
	We're not funded by a foreign caliphate, and unlike PBS who says viewers like you, and it's actually taxpayer dollars, we're funded by mug holders.
	That's all it is.
	And in sitting down, look, Rumble, when they say they're fighting big tech, you know this, they actually are.
	Not everyone's doing that, right?
	Sometimes it's an easy sort of sell to say, hey, fight with us and we'll go and take it to Big Tech and then they're there at the cocktail parties.
	The new CEO of YouTube, you know him, Mohan?
	I've not had the pleasure.
	He's awful.
	He's the worst.
	He's the pits.
	He's just unacceptable.
	He was one of the guys who was involved with us having to remove like 50 videos off of our channel after the Vox Apocalypse that weren't in violation.
	It was just, you know, if you took these down, we might be able to allow your channel to stay.
	So when we heard that Susan Wojcicki was stepping down, I thought, great, and then I heard it was that guy, and I said, shit!
	Here we are.
	So from March the 20th, what are you going to be doing on Rumble, mate?
	Is it like five days a week?
	So it's exactly what we used to do, which is four days a week, you know, at 10 a.m.
	Eastern, you get an hour, right, if you're on YouTube or if you're on Rumble, free.
	And then we always do, and we've been doing this for a long time, if you're a member of Mug Club, an additional hour of content every day for people who subscribe.
	And by the way, if you're just watching the free show, there is no free show if you don't join Mug Club, because we don't really do a bunch of live reads and sponsors, and we don't have any monetization from YouTube.
	So we're doing that, we're also adding a Friday show, and then adding other talent and creators, which was kind of a big undertaking.
	You know, as someone who just focuses on the creative, I don't want to run a business.
	But there really isn't much of an alternative, and Rumble has... We're betting on ourselves, that's the thing.
	Rumble allows us to bet on ourselves, while also kind of helping hedge that bet, because they do have our backs, which is the first time we've been in a position like that.
	Oh, and one thing I should say, too.
	I know a lot of you guys signed up for Mug Club before we left.
	You know, we were formally at The Blaze and we had no real way to reach you.
	Rumble has decided to pick up the tab and will be offering you, if you're on Mug Club Forever, the email list, a few months free to try and make up for what you guys lost.
	So they were willing to do that and foot that bill, which is really stand up for them to do.
	So people that are already on your mailing list, they're going to get the first couple of months of content?
	Yeah, I think three.
	Three extra free months.
	Because some of them sign, and you know, contracts end, and you're going, oh, people are signing up, but I can't tell them the contract's ending, and they sign up, let's say, in October, and they don't get the full year.
	We don't have any way to reach you, so we're giving you an extra, you know, three months free, $10 off and twice the content.
	That's as good as we can do right now, right?
	Who am I, Houdini?
	So I'm assuming that you were deliberating over where to take your content because it's been a story in itself since your circumstances changed.
	Right.
	What do you think is unique about Rumble?
	Why do you think it is unique?
	in this space and why do you think it's important that it becomes a platform that houses numerous
	voices? One of the things I admire about you is your willingness to openly debate people
	who explicitly and overtly disagree with you. Is that something that you genuinely...
	Thank you.
	Yeah, I think it's really impressive. Do you think that...
	do you hope that Rumble will genuinely become a place where there are diverse opposing
	voices?
	Is part of your, I heard you describe yourself as a traditional conservative.
	Basic bitch, pumpkin spice conservative, yeah.
	Cool, so is that something that you genuinely encourage and welcome and think that Rumble will deliver?
	Well, you know what, here's what I would ask you this, and I already know the answer so forgive me, but has Rumble ever come to you and tried to tell you what you have to do with your content?
	Wait a minute, let me scan.
	These guys have been pretty terrific to old Russ.
	Here I am, essentially an immigrant, over here, and I've been welcomed with open arms.
	They've shown me around.
	If I have any complaint about Rumble, it's when they name rooms after some of their content creators.
	Have you seen the room they've named after me?
	It's basically a toilet in there would be an improvement.
	Other than that, it's been a fantastic place.
	I'll post a photograph later of the Russell Brand suite if it had a mop in there.
	That can't be an accident.
	You're too big of a name for that to just slip through the cracks.
	It's a deliberate insult.
	So, no, you're quite right that, you know, they're absolutely on the subject of free speech.
	It's a conversation that's been vibrant in this space because of Elon Musk and the Twitter files and the sort of transition that's taken place with his stewardship of the platform Twitter.
	And you think that Rumble is going to be at the vanguard of this?
	Well, they never, to go back to that, they've never asked us to shift our content ever.
	Even before we had a business relationship as we do now, where basically we're
	just airing our stuff on Rumble for free.
	And when I would get really excited is when YouTube, you know, we'd see, let's say,
	a hundred something thousand live viewers on YouTube. And then we would say, oh, okay,
	now it's down to 80, but we have 20 on Rumble. Now it's down to, and at one point it went down
	to 40 on YouTube and over 50 on Rumble where it tipped.
	Keep in mind, I've been on YouTube since 2006, but doing political content since 2009, and there
	really was no viable alternative.
	Now, of course, it doesn't have the user base that YouTube does now.
	But the beauty with Rumble is they've never come in and tried to dictate content, and they've never said, you have to do 50 live reads, you have to do the show this way, you have to soften your edges.
	They understand what it is that I do.
	They're on board with what it is that people like you do, people like I, and we do very different things, but they want it to be a home for all of those voices.
	And look, as far as, will it be as big as YouTube?
	I don't know, but here's the thing, as long as you can speak truth, let the cards fall where they may.
	Like, here's the issue with YouTube.
	I saw a recent episode of yours where you were talking about The vaccine.
	And I know now we're multi-streaming to YouTube, so I'll be careful, but you're saying, can I talk about this or we have to wait until we're only on Rumble, right?
	Things that are now confirmed, by the way, from the CDC, things that are now confirmed by the NIH, we were suspended because Gerald on YouTube used a CDC resource Talking about flu deaths versus, which you can do now, but back then they said, well, it didn't violate our policies, but it's that people might not take COVID as seriously if you say that children are more likely to die from the flu.
	Now, if we're following a science, this is the issue, right?
	I understand working within systems to change the system.
	I get that.
	In other words, it's a YouTube sandbox, you play in it.
	Not when you reach the point where you're precluded from speaking the truth.
	In other words, who are you reaching if it's not the truth?
	And Rumble is willing to gamble and let the cards fall where they may and allowing the truth to stand on its own.
	And you're going to have right-wing people, more conservative people, migrate there first because they've sort of been exiled from big tech platforms.
	My God, it's nice to see some people actually try.
	When they say they're fighting big tech, they're fighting big tech, and I've been running up against that, you know, for years.
	It is a pride-swallowing siege that I'll never fully tell you about.
	I think it's very kind of you to reward Gerald with his own theology program after he's put your channel in jeopardy with these outrageous, Never saw it coming.
	If you were to tell me that he was the one who was gonna, he would be the reason we had two strikes, I wouldn't believe you.
	I would have thought something that I did for Cultural Appropriation Month, maybe Carrie Lake as a guest.
	Him, quoting the CDC, I think he knew exactly what he was doing.
	He shook me down afterwards, became CEO.
	So you have created a pretty powerful community there with your Mug Club.
	Yeah.
	And some of the shows of yours that I've thought have really given me pause for thought, even though as we've already mentioned and will be clear to anybody that's familiar with our work, there are points of Disagreement, but as the cultural landscape continues to shift, as censorship continues to, broadly speaking, become exacerbated, it's clear that new forms of alliance and conviviality are going to be necessary.
	And I feel like the areas where we agree is generally personal, autonomy, the ability to run your own community.
	obviously and evidently we should make clear on this platform the right to speak freely
	and disagree.
	One of the things I've always enjoyed is the sense of community that you bring to Mug Club
	and do you feel like even in some of your targets comedically that there's a sort of
	a sense of warmth and engagement?
	How much anger do you feel there is in the stuff you do?
	If you were to hear the left they would say that we're bullies because they'd say you
	should only punch up.
	But what I say is, well, when you silence people, for example, if we can't speak out against children transitioning, wherever someone lines up children on puberty blockers, and so we do jokes about that.
	You know, one of the episodes we got suspended was there was a sexual assault that took place in a prison, an all-female prison.
	And it was a formerly male, I would argue currently male prisoner who did the assaulting.
	So we did a sketch where Alex Jones visited this woman as the angel Gabriel.
	And he said, you know, you shall, she said, I'll be, I'll have a son.
	What was, I don't remember what it was.
	We were suspended.
	And he said, no, your cellmate's going to rape you.
	Repeatedly.
	And that was a joke, dressed up as an angel.
	They suspended us for that, even though it was a true case, right?
	But what happens is I don't see that as punching down, I see that as punching at the powers that be.
	There are certain topics, third rails, that you can't discuss.
	I don't see it as punching down if you talk about the European Union, you talk about the atrocities that they've committed against their own people, when we're dealing with COVID, right?
	The violations of human rights in my homeland of Canada.
	That is something that I think, not I think, I know.
	When we do these shows, At live shows, and I'll do stand-up, and we'll have these big theaters.
	People show up with their mug.
	And they say, you know what?
	I felt like there was nothing out there for me.
	I was at Fox News for four and a half years.
	And loved a lot of people there.
	But it just clearly wasn't a fit where they'd be like, hey, could you soften your edges?
	Hey, could you put on a jacket and tie?
	Hey, could you maybe change the way you frame this?
	And I remember pitching changed my mind.
	Pitching it as a book and pitching it as a segment.
	And they said, that'll never work.
	On cable news, we want you to do it short.
	We want you to be in a quadrant view so it looks more international.
	I said, well, I think it would work.
	I said, conservators don't really like comedy like that.
	I was influenced by Letterman and by Stossel and said, I actually saw you perform at the
	Just for Laughs when I was just a little boy.
	I was a seat filler.
	I got to do it every summer.
	I said, that doesn't really work at this point in time.
	I said, Change My Mind as a book wouldn't work.
	I said, we want to sell kind of doomsday books like the Obama Apocalypse books.
	I said, well, I don't know.
	These are things that I want.
	So I had to step out in faith and create it.
	And we talked about this actually yesterday with Patrick Bet-David.
	People say that it's more niche.
	Like, there are a lot of comedians who do shows online.
	We do a comedy—it is a comedy show, first and foremost.
	The show is designed to be a comedy show, but we have to be right.
	We have to provide all of our references.
	And that's something that I think also really builds community, is people say, hey, I see you talk about it.
	And then you have a bibliography every single show with 40, 50 links.
	We make them all publicly available so you can learn as much as... What's your guy Gareth doing?
	What's he doing?
	He's off to no good.
	People don't see what's going on here.
	There's this whole buzzing and activity.
	Behind the cameras, Rumble staff and our personal teams and handlers are watching right now to ensure that the content that is brought to you is 100% accurate and that the questions and lines of inquiries are sanctified not by some tech techno overlord but by people that are ensuring that you
	get to see the show behind the show so that you get authentic content.
	I'm sure that this is a matter of...
	I'm not comfortable being around a Gareth without an obscenely large codpiece.
	Well, you are...
	I can assure you, you're perfectly safe.
	Assuming that there is some sort of technical challenge.
	So we do have... Are we good?
	Do you have streams going?
	Did the stream stop or something?
	No?
	Are we good?
	All right.
	I never know.
	You never know.
	This happens.
	Gerald knows all the time.
	Gerald's like, and we're banned.
	You're like, ah, crap.
	What did I say?
	And then it's usually you.
	Um, but, uh, we get people who show up to shows, they'll bring their mug.
	And they'll say, well, you know, I don't really tune into Fox News.
	I don't really listen to AM radio.
	You know, our average viewer is a 30-year-old male or a 28-year-old.
	We have a huge portion of female viewers.
	And really, it's more so conservatives on the East and West Coast as opposed to Middle America who often feel like they don't have a home.
	They're misfits.
	And I think often people talk about, you know, being othered.
	And yeah, it's a horrible feeling, but I think people need to take into consideration that young Americans who are, let's say, in an Ivy League school or people who are in the entertainment industry and lean right, they're about as othered as you can get.
	I mean, you know from some of the backlash that you've seen in very reasonable positions, I'm sure you've had some conversations that are uncomfortable.
	I just had those, you know, when I was 13 because I didn't know how to keep my mouth shut.
	I suppose that where my focus is, Stephen, tends to be on the movements of power and finance and how the neoliberal establishment has been co-opted by the same financial interests that 30 or 40 years ago would have been presumed to be affiliated with the conventional right.
	I'm talking about Wall Street, military-industrial complex, big pharma.
	Over the period of the pandemic it became sort of plain to me that what we were being offered was a lens to how power was operating and the fact that there was no meaningful opposition from anywhere other than spaces that are typically now labeled as the alternative right.
	This is where we saw sort of criticisms emerging, even where people were willing to have the
	conversation.
	So...
	You know what, I would say one thing.
	This is where there was a real missed opportunity at one point in time.
	I would disagree somewhat with just the presupposition that people on the right, for example, you'd
	mention like banks.
	I don't know if you remember, but the Tea Party, when it came about, everyone was accusing
	them of being racist.
	Rick Santelli's rant was against the bailouts.
	It was the right-wing who said, we shouldn't be bailing out big banks.
	You know, the West Indian Trading Company, I believe, was like a fifth of population Earth, right, at one point.
	No company is too big to fail.
	So the right-wing view, the conservative view, has always been no bailouts for anybody.
	But then Occupy Wall Street came out, and they had the same problems.
	But they believe that the Tea Party folks were racist, because that's how the media labeled them.
	But both of them were against bailing out big banks.
	And by the way, you see this identity politics on the right.
	Have you ever heard that song?
	It's like, well, they're living it up on Wall Street.
	They're shutting Detroit down.
	That's just identity politics for some guy with a truck.
	They should shut Wall Street down and shut Detroit down.
	You don't deserve a bailout if you're, you know, Goldman Sachs, any more than you create a shitty car that nobody wants to buy.
	I don't care.
	I'm not the party of big business or small business.
	We all need to be, as Americans, the party of good business.
	When you remove government from the equation, picking winners and losers, when they're picking winners in banks, when they're picking winners in auto manufacturing, picking winners in insurance companies, picking winners in universities, airlines, you lose.
	These are industries that are the most heavily regulated in the country, and now big tech, right?
	Big tech.
	It's really a tripopoly.
	Three companies that largely run it.
	You guys satisfied with the customer service at airlines?
	You think American cars have been better lately?
	You try and get a car with a chip set on the lot?
	How about insurance companies?
	Did Obamacare work out?
	How about banks?
	Are they being honest by you?
	What kind of interest are you getting on your CD?
	These are all the most regulated industries that exist.
	And they're the ones that people hate the most and they think the solution is more regulation.
	If the media hadn't done the tarring and feathering and labeled all conservatives and the Tea Partiers, who are largely good people, the people who probably not only support me now but probably by and large tune into your show, good hard-working American people, if they hadn't been labeled racist and they could effectively do that back then because there wasn't really the alternative podcast sphere or alternative media, you would have had a much Much stronger coalition of them and the Occupy Wall Street people.
	The problem is the endgame, because the Occupy Wall Street people, a lot of them wanted to nationalize the banks.
	And of course, that's where I get off the train.
	But they both had a problem with bailouts.
	And so it's never been a right wing position to bail out big banks.
	Yes.
	And of course, famously, this bailout took place under a neoliberal establishment administration.
	And that's notable, evident and obvious.
	Both Bush and Obama.
	They were very similar in a lot of ways.
	They weren't all that different.
	I feel like that what we can agree upon is that centralized establishment politics is ultimately going to move to the tune and rhythm of secondary interests that remain unimpeded by administrative fluctuation.
	That sort of like seems pretty clear at this point.
	And another thing where I think we broadly agree is I don't like the tone of condescension that exists in many media spaces when addressing American people or British people or any people.
	The assumption that it's an authoritative relationship that takes place between the state or media spaces and the recipients.
	I enjoy a sense of conviviality and inclusion.
	I enjoy the idea And the acceptance of the principle that we're allowed to create our own communities, that the price for allowing people to have a traditional set of principles is allowing elsewhere people to have a progressive set of principles.
	I don't think that these need to be... No, no, these are the conversations I've been having all day long and I'm finding that people are broadly speaking sympathetic to those ideas and increasingly, Stephen, I'm beginning to think that the conflict is being exacerbated precisely to prevent A sense of alliance forming between people that, aside from a few cultural and value-oriented ideas, have the same interest in bringing down centralized establishment authority in numerous spheres.
	Big tech, government, media spaces, finance, globalism, and the transcendence of non-elected authorities like WF, WHO, etc, etc.
	Or Fauci.
	That is the highest paid unelected position in this country, at least while he was there.
	And this is a guy who said you could get AIDS from a cereal box.
	People don't realize that.
	People, if you go back and read up on... I've had some pretty dodgy free gifts.
	Well, yeah, I know.
	Especially... Some of those dinosaurs are a bit sharp.
	Yeah.
	But... We have no idea what Toucan Sam was up to, but we can guess.
	No, Fauci actually was in Russia.
	He was in bathhouses.
	I say Russian bathhouses, but probably that too.
	He was in bathhouses and he said that AIDS could be communicable through droplets.
	And he said that so if a child could be in a house with a dad or a mom who has AIDS, he could get AIDS.
	He wrote this in a published paper.
	This is a guy who screwed up All of it, by the way.
	No one despised Fauci more than those in the gay community back in the 80s with the AIDS epidemic, because he just wasn't being honest about it.
	But I agree.
	I think big tech is the big one.
	And that's the big concern that I had, you know, on this hiatus.
	Some of it was contractually necessary, but Rumble is the one place that understands that.
	And the big thing I have, if you want to be with big tech, that's fine.
	If you don't have a problem, that's fine.
	My issue is Don't claim that you're fighting big tech and then do their bidding.
	And there are a lot of people who do that on the right as well because they still want to make sure that they're in their good graces.
	Look, I'm not looking to get banned from YouTube.
	And that's a big thing.
	Mug Club has grown.
	This is the biggest sort of murder that I really think has taken place sort of in the right-wing sphere because of how many subscribers we have on Mug Club.
	But the reason for that is because these people wanted a show to be truly independent and not beholden not only to YouTube advertising, But they didn't want to have five, six, seven live reads in a show.
	I mean, you know, how many, how many trimmers and bed sheets do you need, right?
	They wanted to be able to watch a show that they felt was for them, by them.
	If you're using them simultaneously, you need a lot of bed sheets.
	If you're trimming, like, all of your bodily stubble, there's going to be a lot of detritus on the sheets.
	Yeah.
	And I think you're going to just have to change all those nightly.
	No, I don't envy that housekeeper.
	Yeah, get them out of there.
	But, you know, it's like now we've sort of gone that way where media, if you go online now, it's become... Okay, back in the... You did a radio show, right?
	I don't know what it is necessarily in the UK, but you did it for years.
	I don't know... Is it the equivalent to the FCC?
	Actually, it wasn't commercial.
	It was like BBC.
	So there's, in a sense, no equivalent because it's sort of like they're the largest sort of reach radio stations and there are no ad reads, but that's the...
	But as far as, not ad reads, but as far as what you can and can't say on radio.
	There's a good deal of restriction, certainly by the time I finish with the media.
	Yes, I can imagine.
	A lot of contention.
	That we share in common.
	But here at least, like when I was on radio, right, you had the FCC.
	And they would say, you can't say, for example, you can say, I think that Harry Reid is a dick.
	You can't say, hey, Harry Reid has a small dick, right?
	That was what they said.
	They said, you can say, ah, crap.
	You can't say, I took a crap.
	These rules that were silly, but it was kind of a game of cat and mouse here with the FCC.
	Nothing scatological or the bodily, uh, you know, if we're talking about anatomy, but people kind of understood the rules.
	Okay.
	And so that's where you have the Howard Sterns and sort of the birth of the shock jock.
	The issue now is you're not being censored by the FCC.
	Everyone is the FCC.
	What happens is YouTube says, well, you won't be able to make a living, and more importantly, no one will be able to find your videos unless you are advertiser-friendly.
	And it's far more strict because it's not just naughty words.
	It's topics you can't cover.
	And so people are self-censoring.
	Go and listen to most of the podcasts out there right now.
	It is far more PG, vanilla, Disney-friendly than what you would hear on basic AM radio.
	And there's no FCC.
	And people didn't even see it coming.
	That's because they set the policies in the playground.
	And by the way, this is the issue with big tech that I think we can agree with.
	It really is like this tech oligarchy, right?
	They're benefiting from Section 230 where they don't have the liability, right?
	They're basically benefiting as being a public utility, but they are a platform if they're censoring content.
	So they want to have it both ways.
	And God, no one on the right is going in and really doing anything to fight that.
	Think about it.
	You'd think you are.
	I am.
	We talk about it.
	But what about the elected officials out there?
	What about a lot of these companies who have billionaire investors?
	Why aren't they doing anything about that?
	Why did it take me, who started with a blue bed sheet and a mug club, and doing some sketches out there where I have to take these bullets and people... You're gonna take some too, I'm warning you.
	You're gonna get a lot of those, unfortunately.
	You're gonna be butting up against Big Tech, this new Mohan, whatever the hell his name is.
	You don't see anyone else going out there fighting for you.
	This is where you and I agree.
	I sit there.
	I have traveled this country, right?
	When I do a show, it could be anywhere from 3,000 to 5,000 people.
	I'm really grateful now that we can do this and not have to be beholden to clubs.
	I've never met one fan of Lindsey Graham or Mitch McConnell.
	Not one.
	But these people are always elected?
	Where's the fan club?
	Right?
	I talk with these people.
	I know who they like.
	I know what they want.
	I know the kind of content they want.
	When they vote with their dollar, when you look at the consumer behavior, it's very clear.
	Not one.
	No one says, gee, you know what, I really like what that Paul Ryan's up to.
	But they always get the spots?
	That's where the right gets it wrong.
	It is a lot of exchanging.
	It's a lot of handshakes, and you know what you always owe in this industry, and the right or on the left, and Rumble doesn't.
	They're in a really good position.
	Not only that, here's what excites me about Rumble.
	You know, Rumble told France, the government, to basically go fornicate themselves with a wire brush when they said you have to take this content down.
	Rumble, yeah, people would be concerned they're a publicly traded company.
	Here's the thing, Rumble is only as valuable their protection of free speech. In other words, if Rumble
	does not continue to adhere to the principles of protecting free speech, why
	would anyone go to Rumble? So it's this self-protection mechanism where the
	company is only valuable if they actually do what they say they're going to
	do. And that's something that's exciting to me because it doesn't allow
	for doublespeak.
	Yeah, that's a good observation.
	Listening to you now, Stephen, it sounds sometimes like you're as disillusioned with what might be regarded as systemic, centralist, right-wing politics as perhaps some are with neoliberal establishment, referred to as left-wing politics.
	Is that Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
	Well, more so the business of conservatism, right?
	Like, again, like I said, everything that I've pitched, everything that we do was pitched to the powers that be, and they said, no, no, we want to change it.
	And so I stepped out and did something that I believed in, and I didn't know if there were enough people like me out there.
	There's probably a portion, there's probably some of that with you, and I know that you're not, you're not right-wing, but stepping out where your views have evolved a little bit, or for example, you're talking with people from Different political persuasions.
	Where you're going, okay, this isn't necessarily something I've done a whole lot, and I'm hoping that people go along with me.
	There's always a step out in faith if you're doing something new.
	And I was told that it would never work.
	So that is disenchanting.
	And then to find out that it does.
	To find out that there are hundreds of thousands of people who are willing to invest in our program, which is silly to a large degree, to fight for them.
	And to have seen the powers that be say, that'll never work.
	That'll never work.
	Because Frank Luntz with his toupee and terrible sneakers ran a focus group?
	You're shitting me.
	I've had to deal with this for a very- and then on the flip side, right, in the entertainment industry, gosh, I was getting banned from most colleges in Montreal.
	I mean, we've been sued by the Bob Ross Estate, ABC Disney, Viacom, NBC Universal, uh, who else?
	The Burrowing Owls Society, yeah, because people started kicking them when we were just doing a gag.
	It's a flightless bird.
	I mean, for crying out loud, I think you're no longer a bird.
	You're extinct.
	This has happened- I have to pay millions for a lawyer on retainer.
	I'm going, no one else.
	Tell us, mate, a little bit about your trajectory as a stand-up comedian and former Fox contributor to the place that you find yourself in now.
	How you see the division between yourself as an entertainer and a voice in the political space?
	Is it an ideologue?
	Tell me a little bit how you situate yourself.
	So how I started actually was voice work.
	There was this kid's show, Arthur.
	Arthur the Aardvark on PBS.
	Yeah, I know that show.
	Yeah.
	So I did the voice of, he's an aardvark, he has a pet dog and his best friend's a bunny, and I did the voice of the brain, another friend, the black bear.
	A lot of drugs involved in the creation of this program.
	And so I started doing that when I was 12 years old.
	I had done some extra work before that and I was acting.
	I was often tutored on set as an actor.
	And I actually got to see every single major comedian.
	My mom was the wardrobe stylist for the gals at the Just for Laughs.
	So I would get to see, like in one night, I'd get to see Damon, Bill Burr, I remember Dane Cook when I saw him there when I was really young, I remember seeing Jeff Dunham, then seeing Jerry Seinfeld, seeing, I remember the British Invasion, Noel Fielding, Danny Boy, Reister, all in one night.
	And I remember I always wanted to do stand-up.
	I was primarily an actor at this point, but I remember the joke that made me want to do stand-up.
	And I've talked about it on air when Norm Macdonald died.
	And you did his show, so I'll forever be seething with low-grade jealousy for you.
	It's like an irritability.
	He was our white whale.
	He was supposed to be on the show, and we didn't know that he was sick at the time.
	And, you know, he's my favorite comedian ever.
	But he went up, and he did a joke at the Just for Laughs gala.
	And everyone's going up there, set up punchline, right?
	Because you have five minutes.
	you gotta keep it tight. I remember him going up and he said, you know, there's this guy
	who he killed his whole family there, you know, in this news story. He chopped them
	up and he put them in a duffel bag because the devil told him to. I said, what if the
	devil took off his mask and said, hey, it's me, Bob. I got my family here in a duffel
	bag.
	That's one for you, Bob.
	That's one for you.
	And as a kid, I was crying, laughing, saying, what is this?
	It's not a setup punchline.
	What is?
	And anything I could consume from Norm Macdonald.
	So then in my mid-teens, started doing stand-up, and that took me full circle to some pilots with that MTV money, as we know.
	Did some pilots there, which were, of course, ill-fated.
	Couldn't keep my mouth shut.
	And then was just on the road for a long time and was an early adopter of YouTube and started doing political videos.
	2008, 2009, Andrew Breitbart came and he liked some of it.
	I called him up when I heard him on the Dennis Miller Show and he posted a video, a set of mine from the improv and then said, hey, people liked it.
	Could you start writing for us?
	Could you start contributing?
	And then that took me to this other company, PJTV, in 2010, Fox News.
	And I was always working alongside other people, and they always knew exactly what it was that the average American wanted.
	They thought I was like Lindsey Graham, right?
	And then at a certain point, I said, you know what?
	I don't think you know, because I spend time with these people.
	I think I have a pretty good idea.
	So all I had ever done was acting in stand-up and always got in trouble.
	I didn't even know I was a conservative.
	I didn't know I was conservative when I was 16, 17, certainly 18 when I did the Just for Laughs.
	I had no idea until they pulled me back and go, you know, you really can't tell that joke about, like, Muhammad.
	I was like, but I just told one about Jesus Christ and that was pretty, you know, tasteless.
	Like, yeah, but you can do that, but you can't do this joke, so we're not going to allow you to get on stage if you do it.
	And I just was mad.
	I was a contrarian.
	Or once someone says you can't do it, I felt the need to do it.
	And back then, YouTube was the Wild West.
	I don't know if you remember back then YouTube like most viewed, most commented, most... It was actually the most viewed and most commented.
	It wasn't someone in the back office saying, yeah, let me put this in someone's feed.
	And so early on generated a lot of views and people would comment because they would be arguing but having discussions.
	And then here we are. At a certain point we realized, you know, we saw the writing on the wall
	and created Mug Club in 2016 and it just exploded more than we realized. And I'm eternally grateful.
	I'm so grateful to owe you than owing a non-profit, than owing some politician, than owing an oil baron.
	I do owe someone.
	I owe the audience who pays for the show because that is what keeps the lights on.
	That's what keeps 25 plus employees gainfully employed and pays for their insurance and pays for us to go on location and do Change My Minds.
	All of it is funded by, I used to think PBS was funded by viewers like us, but it's not, right?
	It's a shakedown from the government.
	We are really funded by people who paid to watch at a time where no one was paying for
	anything on the internet outside of hardcore depraved pornography.
	Yes, I was doing my best to contribute.
	What about the comedic culture of the show?
	The inclusion, the unwise it seems in retrospect, inclusion of Gerald and his tendency to strikes.
	How did you come up with that kind of thing?
	And were you just using sort of the visual grammar of late night and the sort of gang show sort of mentality of like stern and stuff like that?
	So when people would say, uh, how would you describe it?
	I would say early Letterman.
	And again, he was just, you know, contrarian.
	He just had a problem with authority.
	Um, so like late, late show, uh, early on before he kind of went to CBS and, you know, I don't want to say started kind of towing the company line, but he changed.
	Early Letterman, my dad used to film it for me when I was a kid.
	So I'd watch that.
	And then John Stossel used to come on after TGIF on Fridays, uh, here in the States.
	It would be like Sabrina the Teenage Witch.
	And he did this segment, Give Me a Break.
	And I loved it.
	He would sit there.
	I remember one thing that had me laughing as a kid, I talked about this yesterday, was he was doing a segment on Native American reservations.
	And it was this guy who we later found out was kind of a charlatan, you know, who would just show up whenever there was a camera.
	He said, you know, we need back our land and the white man or whatever, talking about how the white man had abused him.
	That may or may not be true.
	But John Stossel looked at him and said, yeah, but you're wearing jeans.
	Well, that's because a white man forces me to live this way.
	But you're driving a Tacoma!
	And he was kind of going through this like, hey, you're going out there and making these claims, but really this was a guy who didn't live on a Native American reservation.
	You know, you see these hucksters everywhere.
	But as a kid, I would watch it and I would stay up for John Stossel's Give Me a Break, because rather than being just a consumer reporter, he started reporting on the corruption of government.
	And if you read his biography, It's fascinating.
	He became persona non grata there at ABC.
	They would ignore him in the halls.
	So the influence would have been Letterman, probably Early Otts, Stern, and John Stossel.
	And when we started doing the show, you know, it was at night.
	It was really the only sort of late night show that leaned right.
	Then when Mug Club quarantine happened during the pandemic, everyone else kind of started Quitting or broadcasting from home and we said look I know and this is one that was just starting right people had no idea what's gonna happen There was a two-week lockdown.
	We said instead of instead of pulling back.
	We're gonna do two a days And so then we did the late-night show and we did something called Good Morning Mug Club But what we realized is not only were more people tuning in in the morning But more people were watching the late-night show in the morning a lot of people don't know this people consume late-night television the next day now And I'm actually not really a late night guy.
	Like, I get up early because I would have to.
	It was like, gun in my mouth, have to write, you know, 20 jokes every single show, all of these references, 4.30 in the morning.
	I said, well, if we can take this live in the morning and kind of hybridize it, that's kind of what you see now.
	It was a late night show with more traditional monologue, sketches, Photoshop jokes, characters, and then kind of a more laid back feel of a podcast.
	We kind of merged those together and that's kind of the amalgamate that people see today.
	So it was just, just an accident.
	When you do these live shows, that sense of community, that's enjoyable.
	Because one of the things I think about, I suppose, when discussing the media space that we're both in now, which I suppose is alternative media and establishment media, using the analysis of Martin Goury, a former CIA, not operative, a data analyst.
	He says in his book, The Revolt of the Public, that the terms left and right are becoming almost defunct.
	What you have now is centralised authority and peripheral figures.
	He says that centralized authority can come from either side of the aisle and the peripheral figures are often in some cases nullified by the lack of an alternative ideology.
	Yeah.
	I found him like a pretty interesting figure to listen to and his diagnosis around like the terms of left and right and how they're in a sense becoming Less and less relevant.
	Pretty interesting.
	Particularly as I have more conversations like this with people where there are areas of evident disagreement, but also a general good faith sense that what we're talking about, we believe in.
	And when we disagree, it's a genuine disagreement, but there's an acceptance that we're both entitled to have the opinions that we have.
	There's actually an example with you that I ran into this.
	This is back, I was, and I don't say this at all for it to be a sore spot, but you made a joke at some MTV awards about George Bush, and there were a bunch of people in the right-wing sphere who were upset.
	You said something about, like, the joke I think was, you know, you let that retarded cowboy habit go or someone for four years let Obama be president.
	You said in England he wouldn't even be trusted with a pair of scissors.
	That's right.
	And you know what?
	I was asked on these shows, like, well, don't you think it's disrespectful?
	I said, I thought it was funny.
	So I thought it was funny.
	Now, I added, I had the addendum, I said, now look, I do think being in clubs is sort
	of a comedic witch hunt, like making fun of George W. Bush is obviously safe territory,
	he's at MTV.
	I said, but the joke is funny.
	I said, and I remember saying this to a host, and I won't name him because it was a local
	host and I still like the guy, but I said, do we want to be the left?
	Do we want to be offended by this?
	That is an app, I said, what, what, because you use the word retarded, which now I know
	we're not allowed to say because look, George Bush doesn't come across as particularly eloquent.
	It was a funny joke that he wouldn't be trusted with a pair of scissors.
	That's a funny gag.
	You're not going to get me to say this guy shouldn't have said that.
	And faint outrage.
	I don't care.
	I thought it was funny enough.
	That was my first brush with the phenomena of the death threat.
	They came thick and they came fast.
	And what I would say, where for me the line has been pretty consistent, is anti-authoritarianism, anti-establishment.
	However that authoritarianism is undergirded, if it's a kind of we're doing this for your own good or we know best, I can't take it.
	I can't take authoritarianism.
	I believe in our right to make our own mistakes and to forge our own path and our ongoing right to disagree with one another.
	Yeah.
	And it was a funny joke.
	Thanks very much, I appreciate it.
	One day I did all of that Jonas Brothers stuff, I think I got more death threats for saying
	that the Jonas Brothers should wear their virginity rings on an appendage in their anatomy.
	I'm still thinking we're on YouTube, so can you see me self-censoring right now?
	Oh, who gives a rat's ass?
	We're coming off of YouTube, that's what it says!
	What, are you going to let the Jonas Brothers fans throw their purses at you?
	Who cares?
	You can handle it.
	You're a purple belt.
	Right, I can probably find some way through framing to get those... Grab them by the sideburns, drag them to the ground, you're good.
	That was an easy way to dispose of that potential threat.
	What I feel, Stephen, what about spiritually?
	I understand, are you a Christian, mate?
	Yeah.
	From the perspective of a comedian, I guess we require targets.
	And I, by the way, don't accept the sort of the who gets to determine the punching down stuff.
	What I feel like is, with me, generally speaking, and you have to make mistakes as a comedian, how do you know where the line is unless you cross it?
	Broadly speaking, where I'm coming from, though, is a sense that I believe that I'm optimistic about human beings.
	That part of my determination to not yield to centralised authority, be it corporate or state, is a sense that people will be alright.
	We will look after one another.
	People will find ways of organizing for their personal and mutual benefit.
	For me, that requires a certain openness.
	Is there anything in what you say that you disagree with?
	We've hit the fundamental disagreement, but it's not what you think it is.
	I believe that human beings are inherently sinful.
	Um, you know, I have twins they're 17 months and uh, I probably shouldn't say this because people think i'm a horrible dad But I don't know that i've ever laughed harder than this.
	So one's a boy one's a girl and uh, what happened is He she was stealing his pacifier, right?
	She would steal his pacifier all the time And so then he went back up to up to her about 14 months and he took her pacifier out of her mouth as revenge And she started crying and she looked at us and so then my son Went like this to put the pacifier back in her mouth, so she opened it, and he backhanded her.
	And I just said, like, that is the most vindictive—I mean, he kept his pin pan strong, and of course we had to punish him and say, you can't do that.
	No, you know, it's really hard to punish kids because they're so dumb, they don't understand anything.
	But I realize human beings are—as Christians, we believe human beings are inherently sinful, and that's the reason that Kind of you said you believe that we'll be okay.
	I believe that if you centralize power to any individuals, right, you give that up, human beings are sinful.
	And I don't think there's anything more corrosive to the human soul than success and power, except for unearned success and unearned power.
	And so when I believe that human beings are inherently sinful, and as a Christian, I believe we can all be redeemed through Christ, right?
	Otherwise, there would be no reason for him.
	I believe that you want to mitigate that centralized power, right?
	The role of the government, I've always said this, this is the Canadian in me, is like a hockey referee.
	And it's very different from other sports. I don't know how much you follow hockey,
	but hockey for the longest time was the only sport where they'll let two guys fight, you know.
	It's part of the rules.
	Yeah, yeah.
	That's the bit that people don't follow hockey like.
	Well, here's the thing.
	It's actually a form of self-governance, right?
	When you're doing it in baseball, everyone jumps up on the pitcher's mound and they start slap fighting each other.
	In hockey, what happens is you have these guys on the bench, at least you used to, they've changed the sport quite a bit, and they're known as enforcers.
	And these guys only sit on the bench to make sure that you don't cheap shot their player.
	So this guy doesn't score a goal all season, but if you cheap shot, let's say, Paul Correa or Steve Izerman, you're going to have a Stu Grimson, you're going to have a Bob Probert come out, and all he's going to do is drop the gloves and beat your ass, and the ref lets it go.
	The ref lets it go because of a system of self-accountability.
	Now here's the thing, a hockey referee, unlike in other sports, he keeps the pace of the game.
	meaning the rules, right, that affect everybody, make sure that people are playing by the rules,
	and make sure that no one is hurt, make sure the players are safe, meaning protect us from inside
	and outside threats, be that domestically or, of course, we need some kind of a national defense,
	because we do live on a globe with other countries, some of whom want to cause us harm.
	In hockey, unless there's a direct penalty that involves the puck in play, or someone's being
	hurt, he keeps his whistle in his pocket, including when two guys fight.
	You let them fight it out over here if it's mutually agreed upon combat.
	That's the role of the government.
	That's what I want to see the government do.
	I think human beings are inherently sinful if left to their own devices, which is why I don't want them to centralize that power.
	And by the way, it's why I don't want to see it on the right-wing media sphere either, right?
	You don't want two companies.
	Same thing with big tech.
	You don't want three people controlling 95% of the information.
	That's the problem, right?
	We're talking about big tech.
	How does this happen?
	Talk about like a late night thing.
	I remember sitting there and at one point in time it was, gosh, I'm trying to remember.
	You had Samantha Bee, Trevor Noah, and I'm going through this list.
	You had Conan O'Brien, Jimmy Kimmel, okay, all of them.
	Larry Wilmore was on at that point.
	And I said, hold on a second.
	Every single late night host, every single one and all their correspondents, All endorsed Hillary Clinton?
	How is that happenstance at a certain point?
	How is there no organic fracturing of different points of view?
	It's by design in the entertainment industry.
	And you say the same, you go, wait, hold on a second.
	99% of political donations from Google, from YouTube, from Alphabet, from Facebook went to Democrats, went to leftists.
	And by the way, by and large, with big banks and big insurance companies as well, you go, How is there just no natural, organic divergence in points of view?
	And then you realize it's by design.
	And so I don't want a design that centralizes power to people who can just give in to their own sinful desires of the flesh, whether it be more money or, you know, Harvey Weinstein jerking off into a ficus plant.
	I feel that those examples of the allocation of resources, I'm not talking about the plant there, I'm talking about the... It's a fake plant, so it's hardly a resource.
	You can't actually nourish a fake plant.
	It's a principle.
	That regardless of where those resources end up, ultimately the kind of systems that will be delivered will not empower or meaningfully improve the lives of ordinary Americans and the lack of diversity among the opinions of those Late night talk show host does show where the tendency to the ordinary centralist politics is sort of flowing and that's where that particular bias is heading in.
	With your point there, mate, about sin, I was thinking like outside of the, if only we had a theologian on.
	Outside of the scriptural rhetoric, if you were to look at that from a biological perspective, I suppose it would mean that our appetites and primal drives will ultimately be geared towards survival and procreation, and those drives unchecked without a system of ethics, morality, and I suppose a tribal identity, kind of a mutual support, compassion, love, kindness.
	will lead to a kind of what could be described as sin or selfishness or missing the mark or
	however you want to regard and describe sin. I suppose what I feel is another area where we agree
	is I don't like the idea of grant in that authority either to a government official
	or to the sort of more inert motivations of corporate momentum, the kind of lack of choice
	that comes when you have monopolies or...
	And that's the thing too, I think that's been sort of misconstrued, is conservatives are not for crony capitalism or corporatism.
	And that's also a big reason that I've gone with Rumble, you know, people know if they followed.
	I have problems with the way that a lot of people on the right run businesses and people say, well, you know what, this is the way of doing things.
	And it's one thing to say, hey, there are multiple ways of doing things.
	With Mug Club and bringing on new talent, and some of whom I'm really excited about,
	we can't officially announce all of them, but by March 20th you'll see who they are,
	is I don't want to tell them how to do their show.
	I don't want, and I certainly don't want to keep their subscribers.
	Anyone who signs up with Mug Club, who will also, you know, be going through Rumble, if
	they leave, they take their subscribers with them.
	Why would you want to keep someone who doesn't want to be there?
	The problem is when you have other people in this space, just like you have in the left space, that's really kind of the entertainment media industrial complex, but in the right wing sphere saying there's only one way.
	I'm saying there are many different ways.
	I'm saying you can let your freak flag fly.
	You can have conversations like you have on spirituality and do transcendental meditation, which by the way, I was never able to do because I got one on Spotify.
	And she was telling me to picture myself at the bottom of a staircase, but my staircase banister didn't work.
	It was, like, wobbly, so that's all I could picture.
	It didn't work for me.
	But you can do that, and then we can do a show where we do Cultural Appropriation Month, or, you know, God, do you have any idea how hard it is to make Schindler's List funny in a parody?
	But, my God, we give it the college try.
	And then if you want to do talking points, and you want to do five live reads, or 20, or you want to hit sort of more Republican talk—that's fine.
	All of that is welcome.
	In a war for information, to use that sort of Allegorically.
	You need all different kinds of people and different kinds of skill sets.
	The problem is, you do have people in positions of power who say, no, no, there's one way to do it.
	There's one way to do it.
	And I don't think that what we do is niche.
	That's the thing.
	Like, people talk about Fox News.
	And I know you were just on Tucker Carlson's show, and I've only spent a very small amount of time, but I have nothing but good things to say about him.
	Okay.
	But here's the thing.
	People say, man, it's the number one show out there in the conservative sphere.
	It's two point something million, maybe three point something million on a really good night.
	Media and viewership is in the seventies, right?
	Okay.
	Breaking bad.
	The season finale had about 12 or 14 million people who tuned in.
	Here's the thing.
	They ran some focus groups and I don't know if I could even still find this.
	It was a huge majority.
	I want to say 80%.
	Let's say it was 60%.
	We're registered Republicans.
	So all of those people are out there, and they're tuning into Breaking Bad, or they feel like they have to go against their principles and subscribe to Disney+, even though they're supporting an agenda that they don't want to be on board with.
	And those people, not even a fourth of them, are tuning into the largest conservative network?
	How badly have we failed them?
	And you know what?
	Maybe some of those people, like what Tucker Carlson has to say, that show is not their flavor.
	The problem is when you have a movement that says everyone has to be the same in cookie cutter.
	And that's what, look, here's the truth.
	If it worked, people wouldn't be so excited about you.
	People are excited about you because you're someone who has made a cultural impact, right?
	You've been in the entertainment industry, so you have street cred, and you have more influence than people who came up hitting the right wing talking points because there's a pretty low ceiling.
	And this is why you'll see people on the right clamor for celebrities, right?
	Because they don't have a whole lot of them.
	Like, you know, they have like G. Gordon Liddy or like you're on like, you know, Fox News,
	like I'm Bill Devane, whatever it is.
	If you were to be selling self-lubricating pocket catheters, they wouldn't be able to
	keep them in stock.
	So people are excited because they realize there's a cultural influence from someone
	like you, who even though you don't agree on everything, your eyes have been open to
	some issues they've been espousing for a long time, which tells me they don't believe it's
	the only way.
	Also, I would disagree that this is for like a kind of a personal epiphany, that anti-establishmentism
	is something that's very much inborn in me just because of the circumstances of my background,
	the fact that I'm a recovering addict, I'm a comedian, I believe in free speech.
	And when I was like making jokes about George Bush, like he was the president now.
	Now that was in an MTV space and by your analysis, and it's not an analysis I would dispute, that's broadly speaking a democratic liberal space.
	But at that point for me, that was the joke to make.
	I feel that what people want now, Stephen, this is my guess, I'm not from your country, I'm not from this country, excuse me.
	What I believe people want is the opportunity for open dialogue, not to be spoken down to, not to be judged and condemned, and to look at new ways of organising their lives with dignity, and to recognise that we can't cut ourselves off from one another because there are some areas where we disagree with each other.
	That doesn't seem to me like a sensible way forward, as power is coalescing Quite significantly around some very, very deep, potent interests.
	If there aren't new forms of alliance, and certainly if there aren't new kinds of conversation, it's very difficult to imagine how we can move forward together.
	So I feel like the principles of democracy, and open-heartedness, and open-mindedness, and broadly speaking, good faith conversations with people.
	There are areas where we disagree, but I believe that you love your children, I believe that you're a man of principle, that you care about what you're saying, that you're on your journey.
	I don't think that I know enough about the world to foreclose on your right to say stuff.
	What I'm saying is you wouldn't be able to be you if, for example, you were coming up in more so the right-wing echo chamber, which is something I fight against a lot.
	People would say, hey, you know what?
	Let's say you were conservative in a parallel universe, is what I'm saying.
	Like me, 13, getting on stage at 16, 17 years old.
	People say, you can't say that.
	What would happen is you would have been morphed into something that you weren't in order to fit the mold that conservatism ink that Big Con says you have to be.
	But here's the thing, you would be of no value.
	You'd be another talking head.
	The reason that people are so excited about you just saying, hey, people should be able to speak freely, right?
	Just that.
	Is music to the ears of conservatives.
	Why?
	Because it's someone different who doesn't fit the mold.
	But that mold is by design.
	What I'm saying is my goal is to build a bench.
	My goal is to have another Steven Crowder, another Latter Earth Crowder.
	It can't happen.
	It can't happen unless you have some people at the top who are willing to back them up and let their freak flag fly and say, hey, you know what?
	You be you and your audience will find you.
	The left is very good at that.
	Jordan Peterson talks about this because they're often more open minded and less sort of conscientious are the terms that he would use.
	Well, Rumble allows for that.
	And that's what we're doing.
	And one thing, too, that's also really convenient with Mug Club being on Rumble is people don't have to go to three different places.
	You either watch on YouTube or you watch it on Rumble, and then you just keep watching on Rumble.
	You don't have to go anywhere else, and you'll be watching the paid portion of the show.
	So that's a lot more convenient.
	People don't have to jump around, use apps that didn't quite work.
	But that's the issue, is the mold that you see on the right that I have a problem with.
	And it does stem largely from corporatism.
	It does stem largely from people at the top telling you what you want, rather than coming from the bottom up.
	And those people are the people who go to the shows, those are the people who join Mug Club, and those are the people who are excited about Rumble.
	Those are the people who are excited about alternatives.
	How long have people been clamoring for some kind of an alternative?
	And maybe it will be!
	Maybe it won't.
	You know, the capital that YouTube has is their user base, is their eyeballs and their ears.
	But that only remains if people think that YouTube is what they came to see.
	It used to be content generators, right, who were adding the value to YouTube.
	Now they want to be CNN Lite.
	Now they want to favor the big channels.
	And it's not the reason that people went to YouTube.
	So they're making some mistakes.
	And I think places like Rumble are picking it up, and they're not forcing me any more than they're forcing you to fit into a box.
	They're just saying, hey, here's a playground, and let us have your back, and at least be a wind to your sails.
	This is the first time that I've signed a contract, I will say this.
	I'm really excited.
	Really excited, because every single conversation that we had, With Rumble was how to make it better for the user how to make it better for the viewer and that for me is true north is Not how do I better serve the sponsor though?
	You need to do that Well, not how do I better serve the overlords not how do I make sure that I play ball with big tech is okay?
	Got millions of people who tune in every day hundreds of thousands who are willing to part with their hard-earned dollar and How do I best serve them?
	And that's not how most media companies operate, and it is how we operate, and Rumble's willing to back us up.
	I can't say how excited I am.
	Chris is cute as a button, too.
	Yeah, isn't he cute?
	He really is.
	I think we can certainly agree on that point as well, that Chris Pavlovsky, the CEO of Rumble, is as cute as a button.
	Stephen, thank you so much for this conversation.
	I've really enjoyed talking with you.
	If I had access to amphetamines now, I'd carry on for a little longer, but I've got a... You've had a long day right there.
	It's been intense, man.
	Across the state, you flew in.
	Yeah, isn't it just, people don't realise sometimes, it must be nice to just talk for a living.
	It's like, oh, if you only knew how much crap goes on behind the scenes that sucks.
	Stuff that we're dragging out of ourselves.
	Stephen, thank you mate.
	I wish you every success with this endeavour.
	I'm glad to hear you're so enthusiastic and see you looking so well.
	Thanks all of you for watching the show and I'm sure you'll be joining Stephen for his show and continuing to join us on Stay Free and obviously we're going to have opportunities to continue this conversation, maybe get into the DL, maybe turn up on a campus.
	Maybe get you in a sketch or a parody if you... Change each other's minds!
	We can try that.
	I don't think you'll be changing my mind but I'll be willing to.
	Challenge people.
	Can we get you in a sketch?
	Can I get you to commit to be in a sketch?
	I didn't realize you love contracts.
	This guy lives for contracts.
	No, no, I'll do it for shits and giggles.
	Let's do a live change of mind.
	We'll do it for lupus.
	We'll do it for charity.
	I don't know why you don't care about people with lupus.
	I care about people.
	I care about all conceivable conditions.
	That's what makes me a damn decent... What about moderate to severe plexoriasis?
	All of it.
	All of it.
	And owls.
	I would never No.

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