As Joe Biden celebrates free speech at a White House dinner, we’ll unpack the hypocrisy when he said “journalism is not a crime”. Helping us make sense of it all is Ryan Grim from The Intercept and Counter Points, who's one time attending the event ended in a brawl! Follow Ryan on Twitter: @ryangrim and check out his Substack: badnews.substack.comWatch the FULL INTERVIEW only on RUMBLE: https://bit.ly/3nwpU37For a bit more from us join our Stay Free Community here:https://russellbrand.locals.com/Come to my festival COMMUNITY - https://www.russellbrand.com/community-2023/NEW MERCH! https://stuff.russellbrand.com/
Over the course of the show, there will be great vicissitudes and undulations in energy.
At some points, I'm going to seem incredibly calm and focused and mature.
At others, erratic, fast, fizzing, effervescent.
I'm starting off quite mature, gal.
No, this is a nice, relaxed tone.
Very in control, I would say.
Thank you very much.
But calm.
Very easy entry into the week's news.
We're going to look at some hypocrisy, in particular the hypocrisy of the Democrat Party when it comes to claims around rigged elections.
If you're watching this on YouTube now, by the way...
After about 10-15 minutes, we will disappear into the annals, I said annals, of Rumble, where we can speak more freely.
We're not there to discuss conspiracy theories, well, a little bit, and we're certainly not there to do anything other than bring people together and to speak freely against the establishment.
We've got such an exciting week this week.
We're going to be learning more about Robert F. Kennedy and why the mainstream media en masse are attacking him as an anti-vaxxer.
You're going to love it.
We've got a great guest on, Ryan Grim.
He's going to be telling us about Well, we're going to be talking a little bit about the White House Correspondents Dinner, which Ryan Grimm, who has the nerve to call himself a journalist, was chucked out of last year for brawling.
And I think one man said the back of his hand was scratched.
Another fellow said he received, and this is a direct quote, a Chinese burn.
And I'm not even sure that you can say that anymore.
I don't think so.
It's probably not the sort of thing that people should say.
We're going to start though by looking at the White House Correspondents Dinner.
Why I like the White House Correspondents Dinner is because it's a living embodiment of the corruption and collusion that exists between the state and the mainstream media.
Joe Biden, your president, had the out-and-out nerve to quote Jefferson and Jefferson's views on the media.
This is absolutely fantastic.
Watch this.
If you are not watching us on Locals, by the way, join us on Locals because we do extra content on here and we can see your questions.
Blessed El Bird, for example, saying rug burn or American burn.
Yeah, that's right.
Like, you know, suggestions, script alts actually is what's coming through there now.
But let's look at Joe Biden.
Do you think Joe Biden's even got the right to cite Jefferson, one of the founding fathers?
We interact with our audience, Ross.
There you go.
Don't get that out of the White House Correspondents Dinner.
White House Correspondents, what they do is they just bleach out your consciousness.
We're listening to you.
What do you think, guys?
We care about you.
We love you.
Not like old Fox News.
You express an opinion, you're out the door.
Not like MSNBC, where they're just trying to turn you into a drone and not an NPC without a view to see, not a chance to be free.
Have a look at this, where Joe Biden has the audacity to cite Jefferson.
Look at it.
On a serious note, Jill, Kamala, Doug and I and members of our administration are here to send a message to the country and quite frankly to the world.
I'm not pausing, I'm just showing you that this don't work no more.
The free press is a pillar, maybe the pillar of a free society, not the enemy.
Thomas Jefferson wrote Of course they're cheering that, because they are the press.
You know, they've just had like four years of Trump saying, you know, fake news, fake news.
They're essentially applauding themselves.
I put it to you, whether you're watching this on YouTube or Rumble, where we'll do the whole show unexpurgated, that this is a sort of an onanistic circle jerk, a media masturbatory circle of self-congratulation, where everyone is drenched, not in news, but in...
Ugly sputum.
Nice, I'm glad you said that.
I wondered why you were going there.
I was always, as I often am, heading towards sputum.
Just the word sputum.
The word sputum is never far from my lips.
Look, I said the word sputum.
It's simply a linguistic sign.
You can't say that, but this isn't even the best bit of the clip.
This isn't even the best bit.
By the way, other things we could be talking about in the news this week.
We could be talking about US corporations cashing in on Ukraine's oil and gas.
What a surprise.
Who would have imagined that?
US corporations cashing in on... But don't worry about the free press that's holding power to account to complete Jefferson's quote before dear old Doddery Joe does.
Let's see the rest of Joe.
You all know this quote.
Thomas Jefferson wrote, we're left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government.
I should not hesitate to prefer the latter.
Right, so he's saying that a free media is more important than the government.
How many of you agree with that?
But how many do you think that we have a free media?
Right now there are stories that we can't discuss on YouTube which is a media platform that's regulated in a variety of ways.
When we come off we're going to be talking about an Epstein story that's going to, I'm not going to use my usual metaphor like knock your knickers down because it doesn't seem appropriate with regard to that particular story, but we're going to be talking about Epstein's calendar.
And it's not a calendar where Epstein's posing like February's a fireman with a kitten.
March, he's got a little apron on and he's whipping up a cake with a bit of batter up his face.
All batter spattered up his noggin.
You've done the fireman, have you?
Yeah, I started with fireman.
Now I'm going through the film Calendar Girls with my head.
And then maybe a football calendar is probably next in my mind.
I said, well, since I've had a calendar.
But apparently Epstein had meetings in with some people that are quite surprising.
We don't know if those meetings took place and we certainly can't discuss it on YouTube.
No.
We can't discuss Epstein's calendar on YouTube.
Can we?
You can barely say his name on YouTube, to be honest.
What if it was the one that's the Beatles manager?
Let's go with that one then.
Was it that one?
It's not that one.
He was a lovely man.
The way he got those boys to come together as a band, he took them to the top of most, the top of the pops, as they used to say amongst themselves in happier times.
So listen to this bit as well, back to Joe Biden's White House circle.
Have a look at this.
Have a look at this bit and look at the question in your mind.
Prepare right now for the question that this begs.
Journalism is not a crime.
Woah, woah, woah!
Journalism is not a crime?
Guess what this is the anniversary of?
Julian Assange, journalist, is still in Belmarsh.
Sentenced to 50 weeks by British court on May the 1st, 2019.
Wait a minute, what's the date now?
Is this 2023?
That's more than 50 weeks.
Yeah.
Right, I see what you mean.
Well, he's waiting potential extradition, isn't he, for trial in the US.
So he's done his 50 weeks, he's still banged up in there.
Forbidden.
Journalism is not a crime, says Biden.
Journalism is not a crime.
Listen to the end of it.
Immediately, along with every other American held hostage or wrongfully detained abroad.
I know that he's scrotum tightened during that bit.
I can tell from his face that he's sort of going, like that.
He's pushing the snout forward.
He's going up into the pallet.
Every journalist abroad.
Like, what about dear old Edward Snowden?
What about Julian Assange?
What about Chelsea Manning?
Now, I know Chelsea Manning Julian Assange isn't a journalist.
Edward Snowden's not a journalist.
They're both whistleblowers.
But Julian Assange is a journalist.
The hypocrisy is outlandish and outrageous.
Do we care about the Chi Chi thing?
You know about that by now, right?
You've all seen that.
Yeah, everyone's seen that.
You've seen that.
We don't need to see that.
Do you know what the White House dinner, the point of the White House dinner is?
Well, it's about freedom of speech, essentially.
It's about the relationship with government and the press, or so-called freedom of speech.
But on whose terms is this freedom of speech, Russ?
Because if that freedom of speech was the type to which Jefferson was referring, Assange That's what he's referring to.
He's talking about the type of journalists that want to challenge power, not the type of journalists that essentially promulgate and propagate the messages of the state, who themselves, in my view, are just the managerial class of a globalist corporate cartel.
Yeah.
That's not what Jefferson wanted, is it?
No.
So he said journalism is not a crime.
What about publishing?
But publishing is a crime then.
If you're Julian Assange, publishing is a crime.
You mustn't publish.
No.
And Jefferson was clear about that.
You can journal.
Journal?
That's fine.
What are you doing?
Journaling.
What are you going to do after that?
Nothing.
Don't you publish, you son of a gun.
We'll have you.
The White House correspondents didn't, because we wondered what it was.
I was confused.
It's an event held by the White House Correspondents Association to celebrate journalism and freedom of speech.
The event gathers journalists, politicians and celebrities to put their differences aside while raising money for journalism scholarship.
Why don't you just go to Bill Gates and get your journalism scholarship from him and do your reporting in alignment with his views?
You can't have real journalism, because real journalism, I feel like, is Barry Weiss, who's coming on the show later this week.
Matt Taibbi, been on the show, coming on the show again.
Schellenberger.
And might I even venture, little old us, Trying our best to keep you informed about stories that we believe matter, like the candidacy of Robert F. Kennedy, whom, indeed, if you notice, the two emergent smears of our time are your right wing, or your fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa-fa right wing,
Or, you're an anti-vaxxer.
Two terms that have almost had to be created to smear people.
Now, RFK, because he is running for the leadership of the Democrat Party, or the presidential candidacy for the Democrat Party, I don't think they can use far-right without making the whole Democrat Party sound bad, can they?
No, probably not.
They're going to have to go anti-vaxxer.
And by God, have they.
Good job they've got that though, isn't it?
Got anti-vaxxer though.
We've got something.
I raise you!
Hmm, we're not going to be able to do Far Right, but what about that?
What's your attitude towards vaccines?
Well, under certain conditions, I would take them.
Under certain other conditions, I would... Whoa there!
No, you don't on Alphabet!
No, you don't on Google!
No, you don't on U-Tube!
That's why you have to join us on Rumble, when we'll be talking not only about issues like that, but also Epstein.
Epstein's calendar girls.
Not necessarily calendar girls.
There's a variety of genders.
There was.
Mainly very important men.
Oh!
What the hell is drawing all these important men?
Taiwan now has real-time intelligence sharing links with Five Eyes.
So that means Five Eyes, which are the anglophonic countries and their various secret service agencies that I believe were part of the exposures of Snowden, actually.
We learned about the extent of like... Because America ain't meant to spy on Americans.
Britain ain't meant to spy on British.
Australia ain't meant to spy on Australians.
Yeah, but what if we spy on yours?
Yeah, keep talking.
And we were to spy on yours?
Oh, I like your stuff.
That's fantastic.
So, it's like, I would call it deep state wife swap.
It's deep state wife swap.
You do mine, I do yours.
Isn't it?
Isn't it though?
That's why Epstein's always involved.
Because there's always saucy swinging.
Saucy swinging in the deep state, baby.
I spy with my little eye, says the unicorn plug, and I'm not even going to ask what that name's supposed to mean.
I didn't.
You mustn't.
Not on YouTube.
Go on, girl, I can see you're tromping at the winkle to make a point.
Obviously, like, we're talking about the hypocrisies of that, you know, White House correspondence.
It is hypocritical.
So obviously all the things we've spoken about loads of times, but when they're talking about freedom of speech, freedom of the press, we've had the Twitterphile revelations recently.
We know about that.
Even when the press do get it right, as with Hunter Biden laptop story, that was when that was actually censored by the government.
So that's even when the press are doing their jobs and reporting something that's true, that then gets censored.
You've got the warrantless surveillance that we're talking about, which Five Eyes actually fits into.
Protest laws which are on the rise massively in the United States.
So when it's all talking about freedom of speech, it's whose freedom of speech is this?
It's certainly not the public's freedom of speech when they want to protest against things.
They're going to get shot down in that respect.
Police violence is on the rise.
You sound like this is actually all starting to get on your nerves.
It is a little bit, Russ.
They've actually gotten to the point where they're getting on Gareth's nerves.
And that's something that I don't like to hear.
This is what I did get on my nerves, actually.
So in the coverage of the Correspondents' Dinner, no mainstream production made any mention of Assange or the contradiction between Biden's declaration fidelity to the First Amendment and the continued drive of his administration to extradite and jail Assange.
That's what the collusion, I suppose, is about.
A kind of consensus to double down and reiterate the framing.
These are the stories we talk about.
These are the ideas that we support.
We don't talk about Assange.
We don't question surveillance.
We don't talk about how the mainstream media, in particular TV networks, They generate the majority of their revenue by bundling together your data and selling it to other companies even more than porn sites do.
Isn't that astonishing?
They don't talk about surveillance.
So, in a way, it's a bit like the WEF.
How the WEF operates is by PRing for globalist interests and making sure that the agenda stays within an acceptable framework that will never challenge the interests of the powerful.
We've got to do something about the environment, but we're never going to meaningfully change what powerful organisations do.
We've got to do something about pandemics, but we're never going to say, for example, start exercising all the time or eat healthy.
That's not the kind of thing that's going to be on the agenda.
The White House press correspondence dinner is essentially a coming together, as many circular, onanistic ceremonies are, Yeah, thank you.
To establish what's discussed and what's not discussed and actually that recent story about Biden's cheat notes shows that, shows that they are given the, they discuss the questions in advance.
You know, at least Donald Trump wouldn't go to it because there's bad blood between him and the media.
Would you not prefer a degree of animosity between the state and those that are supposed to hold them to account?
Wouldn't that be necessary?
Particularly when you know, you know for a fact, whoever you are and whatever you believe in politically, that prior That means it's just rhetoric.
Who do they work for?
Is it you?
So let us know in the chat what your concerns are and let us know why you think these stories are continually repressed.
What would it cost to have a free media?
Because the possibility for a free media plainly exists.
The journalists are out there now.
The Twitter files shows that.
The outbreak of new organisations such as Rumble, I have to say, and even YouTube at its best, with organisations like Breaking Point and Jimmy Dore, and obviously the kind of stuff that Joe Rogan talks about, and even organisations that are left of centre, like, what are we like?
We like Redacted, and even people that don't like me, like, what's that one called?
Minority Report, Majority Report.
They're all out there being independent voices.
But what I would say is, if you find yourself parroting the views of the establishment, that's a problem.
They seem to think it's a greater problem if you find yourself attacking the establishment alongside people that they define as right-wing.
But I don't think that's as big of a problem.
Take the Tucker Carlson story.
You know, you can see that Tucker Carlson does have concerns about demographics, and me, that's not what I'm about.
I'm about, like, that ordinary people from all cultures, all backgrounds, all identities should find new alliances and ways of loving one another in order that we may confront establishment power.
Put aside your differences.
Allow people to express themselves freely, whether that's traditionally or progressively.
These are just simple terms that I use to try to avoid getting mired in this stuff.
What I don't think we should be doing is finding ourselves on the same side as the Defence Department and the Pentagon and massive corporations.
If you're doing their dirty work for them, you ain't on the right side.
You can't be.
When did being anti-war become right-wing?
How does freedom of speech and supporting Assange become right-wing?
It doesn't make sense.
Stay free with Russell Brand.
See it first on Rumble.
That's real you, whereas that's shopping channel version of you.
I'm good at that, am I?
I tell you what, you're getting better every week.
Look at it, that bit where you got all the pills in your hand and then dropped them to the table.
That's the best bit.
That was excellent.
Could I encourage you, my good man, to take some M&Ms?
I'll have them right now.
We ain't got none for you, my friend!
They're expensive!
What about that bit where you talk about getting old and like it's a really bad thing and then just show a picture of an old man?
That's my favourite bit.
I felt sad for him.
Is he going to be alright, that old guy?
No, probably not.
He's sad, it's like episode 3 of Succession.
I can't take it no more, baby!
I can't take it no more!
Okay, so voting is neck and neck.
The voting is so tight in the which one of the graphic sequences do you want for our item this week in history, old news, whatever.
Old news, whatever?
This is the item.
It's this week in history.
I mean, it literally says it there.
I see.
All right, mate.
Okay, okay.
You need to take some of them nemnems because you've gone all funny.
I think I took too many.
I think you've had so many nemnems that you've actually gone unusual.
Yeah, that's it.
Yeah.
I had a Tom Jones look-alike appear at my mother's birthday.
Wow.
What a collection of words that is.
He was good.
When you say appeared at, like, he was meant to be there.
He didn't just turn up.
Yeah, that would be an amazing story.
I'd be telling that on a Gaia channel if it was that.
Tom Jones came back to life while he was still alive as another him at my mum's birthday.
That would be a much better, one weirder story.
We paid for it to spice up my mum's birthday.
So I went there, but I sent a Tom Jones lookalike, the next best thing.
Of course, yeah.
It's what every mother wants.
Tom Jones lookalike named Ian Stott, he's been sending me, he writes a lot of quite radical literature about revolution and global conspiracies and religion and it's a bit of an unusual combination of things to do, like to write books about anti-establishmentism and appear as Tom Jones at my mum's birthday.
We've all got to have a day job, haven't we?
You've got to do what you've got to do to survive.
It's not unusual to do that, is it?
What's new?
No.
How far will we go?
OK, so look, wait a sec.
No, Tom Jones is alive.
That's what I'm saying.
Tom Jones is alive.
I said he can't come back from the death whilst he's still being here.
Look, people are saying...
Erzmummy.
We are not a democracy.
Barry John M. Fox.
I'm still convinced 2020 was stolen.
Oh, Barry John.
That's going to cost you $758 million, believe it or not.
Peace, love, light.
It's fascinating where they put their energy.
It shows their vulnerabilities.
Erzmummy.
Again, I'm going to vote for my dog because I'm in Massachusetts and my vote don't count.
Oh, Unicorn Plug.
Again, politics is a horse and pony show.
All this kind of stuff.
Anyway, we're going to go with whoever says one of them next.
You know, one of the, you can either have A, which was like a Back to the Future sounding one, or B, which is er... Cher.
Right, which one do you want?
A was first.
Alright, so we're going... I wanted Cher, actually!
Well, I mean, you are in charge.
Yeah, but you've got democracy, you've got to respect it.
Oh, I see.
And A's winning, hands down.
Loads of people are saying A. Alright, bloody democracy.
Are we doing this before or after Ryan Grimbo Grimmie?
I think we are.
We're going to have to do it only in locals, guys.
You're going to have to join us in locals.
Bring on Ryan Grimmo Grimmie!
Ryan, Grimo, Grimmy, we've got to bring you out.
Ryan, we invited you to a Perfectly Good White House Correspondents Dinner and you disgraced us by brawling!
I believe you were filming someone called Jesse Waters from some other news channel.
Fox.
Foxy, from Foxy Lady.
Then I heard, and this is a direct quote, that you kicked him in the dick.
Now is that true, Ryan?
The tip of the dick?
No.
This was a while ago.
There were a lot of feet and fists flying, so anything's possible.
You could have caught the tip of anything that day, couldn't you?
Thank you so much for joining us.
What do you think about Biden having the balls, the wrinkled gonads to declare that journalism isn't a crime?
What do you think about that with Assange banged up?
I don't think that that took balls at all because I think he knew that nobody would push back in that room against him.
So it didn't even take any courage.
I bet he didn't even...
Register the hypocrisy as it came out of his lips.
And I doubt many people in that room even did.
That's how far apart they are from the rest of the public on this question.
Ryan, your analysis chimes with ours in that what they do at events like that is they reiterate what the status quo is.
They reiterate what the framing for debate is.
That when the press that are supposed to hold power to account enter into a consensus that Julian Assange don't even register in your mind when talking about the criminalisation of journalists, that this is precisely the problem we have.
The zeitgeist is being determined by banalised institutions that are not interested in democracy, that are not interested in transparency, that are not interested in free speech.
That event is pure theatre.
No wonder you got your gander up and started kicking people on the tip of the dick.
What sort of journalists get invited to White House Correspondents Dinner and why?
Who gets invited, who don't get invited, Ryan?
I mean, so DC is, you know, probably more than most cities in the United States, very status obsessed because it's all about power and politics.
And so, you know, getting invited to it is a status symbol.
But then on top of that, you needed to then have the best celebrity.
This started around kind of the Obama years.
That whichever news organization could get Scarlett Johansson or whatever, like to be at their table, then they would be one-upping the other ones, and then they would also invite their ad sales folks, and also then invite their big clients, like Dove Soap would be there, or like the guy from GM, or the guy from Cadillac would be there.
And so you've got these news organizations that are attracting celebrities with Yeah, it feels like that.
It feels saccharine and theatrical and appalling and ridiculous.
And I feel like it cannot go on for much longer.
And it's just a gigantic kind of money-making operation.
Yeah, it feels like that. It feels saccharine and theatrical and appalling and ridiculous.
And I feel like it cannot go on for much longer.
What do you think about the candidacy of RFK and the early search there?
We're going to have him on our show, Ryan.
How do you feel?
In fact, don't answer that, mate, because we are going to wrap here and head over to Locals.
There's a link.
You can join us over on Locals right now where we conduct this conversation.
Plus, we'll carry out that game as well.
You know, the old news game.
Ryan, perhaps you'll join us for a little bit of that game where we're going to look at old news and we'll marvel at the way that the news media has altered.
Click the red button, you can join us.
Remember, I do a festival every year from July the 14th to July the 17th, Community.
There's a link in the chat for that as well.
People like Vandana Shiva, Wim Hof, Satish Kumar will come, plus Cali Means, who talked about all that food corruption stuff.
Tomorrow we've got Max Blumenthal on the show.
What are we going to be talking to Max about?
There's a really sort of relevant new story that Max was being incredibly vocal about.
I remember us being excited.
Yeah, we were going to talk about potentially 9-11 and the new revelations.
Stay free with Russell Brand.
See it first on Rumble.
I said, there's no way you're ever going to wash that off there.
Right.
Because something, once you get an aroma like that on a pen, it'll be there forever.
If you didn't want it to stink, you shouldn't have put it there.
Hello.
Welcome back.
You know full well that I'm with Ryan Grimm.
Grimmy, grimmy, grim, grim.
He is known as the monster of the White House Correspondents Dinner.
They won't be asking him back after what he did to the genitalia of a Fox News reporter.
All in the spirit of fun.
We're discussing the obvious and evident corruption and collaboration and even conspiracy perhaps that exists between the establishment and the press, but a bit of gossip.
Is it true, Ryan, that you saw Don Lemon at a party over the course of the week?
If so, did you kick him on the tip of the dick or was there too many barriers?
I was nowhere near him, but I did look over and say, that is Don Levin.
This was Friday evening.
And the people around, everybody around me was kind of shocked because they didn't expect that he would kind of show his face in Washington or kind of in public after getting fired.
But this was thrown, this was a party that was kind of thrown by his talent agency, UTA.
And so maybe it was in his contract that he had to come and he didn't have a choice.
But yeah, there he was.
He was looking boisterous in his prime.
Giddy.
Not at all like, you know, he didn't want to give off any impression.
I don't think anything was wrong.
He wasn't cowed.
He was not cowed.
His chest was pumped, puffed out and I see Tucker Carlson on a golf buggy the day after and it seems like as these mainstream media heads topple, they are not losing their dignity nor their gravitas.
What do you think can be drawn from their deposition of these figures?
Or capitation, I don't know what the right word is.
Decapitation.
I'm going to say it with decapitation.
Decapitation of these figures.
And also, mate, what do you think about the sudden rise of RFK even without any mainstream media support and with this sort of coordinated onslaught for anti-vaccination stuff?
Yeah, there's a huge opening for somebody to challenge Biden and actually beat him, is I think what this shows.
I don't think that RFK Jr.
can get all the way because of the nature of the kind of Democratic primary electorate, and also the media that he'll be up against.
If you think back to 2016 and 2020, you know, Bernie Sanders very nearly beat Hillary Clinton and very nearly beat Biden in 2020, but was up against a Deeply hostile media, the entire time, as well as a an electorate, a significant portion of which is hostile to right the kind of MSNBC viewing electorate a good 80% of them just don't like somebody like a Bernie Sanders.
And they also have a lot more trust in media than Republican voters do, and I think that's the big difference.
I think that's why the right was able to take over the Republican Party, but the left has not been able to take over the Democratic Party, is that Democratic voters trust their media institutions.
If the Washington Post, New York Times, and MSNBC are telling them something, a majority of Democratic voters Believe that.
If they hear it on NPR, they believe that it's accurate and it's true.
And those media institutions were deeply hostile to Sanders in 2020, and I think they'll be way, way more hostile to RFK Jr.
if they feel like they need to.
Their approach is going to be to mock and belittle and ignore, but if it gets to a place where he can't be ignored anymore, when they turn their guns on him, Because it'll be very difficult to overcome that kind of trust in media institutions that so many kind of center-left Democratic voters still have.
What do you think?
Yeah, I think it's a concern.
Team Stay Free, someone just posted campaign expenditure in the chat.
Could you cut and paste that for us and bring it in here and tell me who it was that did it?
It's about 10 comments back on the locals' conversation.
We were looking at RFK's campaign film today and we were also looking at the already seemingly coordinated smear campaign against him.
And it's the same as when there's an emergent figure like Trump.
It feels like the dialectic space exists for them to say, we will end corruption in Washington.
We will end the cultural conflagration between people from different communities.
We will get money out of politics.
So many things.
I mean, who were we talking to the other day?
Saga from, you know, from your lot, like about how, like there's a, like there are so, there are about five, ten off the top of your head policies that 90% of Americans from a broad base would be in favor of, for example, around pharmaceutical, capping pharmaceutical prices meaningfully, you know, drug prices meaningfully.
Well, no one even, sorry to jump in, no one even ever mentions in his history of being an environmental lawyer.
I mean, that's the main thing about him.
It's not mentioned.
That's incredible, isn't it?
Because that's such a buzzword for the Democrat Party, like climate change and the environment.
And he's won significant cases, hasn't he, RFK, against corporations that exploit the environment.
I prefer to call him crazy than mention his work with environmental law.
There's massive cases that you're talking about.
Is that an indication of a complete lack of principles, Ryan?
How are they going to countenance that when those kind of things, you know, with new independent media, those kind of stories can be told now?
It depends on whether or not the independent media can penetrate the Democratic electorate enough because the two parties, that is the thing that is opening up possibilities that didn't exist before.
But the two-party system over the years has been so effective at controlling the narrative because what it does is it includes people in each party that kind of agree with each other and they split along kind of either cultural or narrow distinctions.
If you are somebody who, say, wanted a working-class party in, say, the late 19th century, you had half the politicians who were supportive of you in the Democratic Party, you had half over in the Republican Party, which perfectly makes it so there's also then, therefore, nobody that you can vote for.
So, we're going to have to figure out how people who agree across the political spectrum are going to be able to find a mechanism to get their policies into Washington, get somebody represented that actually agrees with them, because you wind up in this partisan fight where you'll have people who might love everything about RFK Jr., but they're like, well, I'm not a Democrat, I'm not voting in the Democratic primary.
You might have people who like a lot of the things they hear from some Republican candidates, but don't want to support them, and then you wind up with nobody.
We've got Jack29er in our chat so you guys can see it in the chat if you want to.
We don't even need to put it on screen because I guess you guys were all watching this on Locals.
He pointed out that in 2004, George W. Bush spent $62 million campaigning against Kerry.
He spent $59 million.
There was an increase that the next election cycle or like the next yeah the next one Barack Obama versus McCain 69 million versus 59 million once again the person that spent the most money won Obama spent more than Romney in the next election at this time for a total of 126 million according to these figures Trump spent less than Clinton but it was still a total of 128 million spent on campaigning and And in the last cycle, $155 million was spent.
Biden spending $81 million to Trump's $74 million.
Thank you for these figures.
I feel that even the same thing is evident in sport, that expenditure represents and demonstrates success.
But with something as significant and as important as politics, which is in danger of becoming as reductive and tribalized as sport, that there needs to be controls and caps on this type of expenditure.
When you say about a new, emergent, potentially independent political force that's able to instantiate policies that are representative of a broad working class base, surely the priority above all else would be to revise, reform and radically alter the way that both political or all political parties are funded, end of donations.
End lobbying and end this practice of people in Congress and the Senate owning stocks and shares in the companies they regulate.
If we can start to even popularize these ideas do you think there's a possibility of a movement coalescing around it Ryan or do you just think it's too out there?
No, I think that's where you'd have to start.
Also, the numbers that you mentioned there didn't include super PACs, which started to come in to being after the 2011 Citizens United decision.
And so even though you might look at that and say, well, the Clinton and Trump or the Biden and Trump elections only spent, say, two or three times as much as back in the 2000 or 2004 election, if you include outside spending from mostly corporate or billionaire class donors, Then you're getting into the billion-dollar range.
Biden is likely to spend a billion dollars, which I can't do the math, but that's what, 20 times more than Democrats were spending in 2004 in just a short amount of time.
Prices have gone up.
A five-piece McNuggets is basically the same as the price it was 20 years ago, but a 20-fold increase in what people are spending in politics Yes, it's going to be used in all sorts of ways to tamp down the type of frustration you're talking about.
So yeah, I think that has to happen.
Some type of independent public matching funds for candidates so that they don't have to rely on wealthy donors and corporations is the only thing that gives you a shot.
Gareth, what was that stat you got there?
It was like federal and state spending 2022 elections set to top 16.7 billion.
Yeah, so as Ryan says, we're moving well into the billions for elections now.
Think of the weapons we could send to Ukraine with that money, 70% of which wouldn't even reach the Ukrainians, but 50% of that money would end up with the MIC, while people in the military could still be dirt poor.
What a waste!
What a waste!
It's actually the same thing, because most of the money that we're sending to Ukraine doesn't actually leave the Washington area, and most of the money spent in politics doesn't leave the Washington area either, so it's kind of a wash.
Oh, that's brilliant.
They're just sloshing it around amongst themselves.
You know, that makes me so angry.
It makes me want to go to a media event, Gareth, that I've been invited to with my colleagues.
Yeah, a bit angry with you.
Bit angry.
I would probably have a bit too much to drink and see someone I'm a bit irked by and I see what's that through their trousers.
That's the tip of their privates.
I will boot that.
I will boot that like I'm Ryan Grimm at a work event.
You know Jesse Waters as well.
He's probably the new Tucker Carlson.
No way!
Jesse Wall is the new Tucker.
You've got your revenge in first there, ain't you, mate?
You've given him a kick up the dick hole.
Jesse Wall is, yeah, a correspondent.
That's right.
Yeah, he very well might take over for Tucker.
That's right.
I reckon you should get in there and finish the damn job, Ryan.
That's what I say, mate.
Thanks, Ryan.
Yeah.
He started as an ambush guy.
That was his... I don't know if you remember his early history.
He would go around and knock on people's doors.
You know, film them as they're opening up in their pajamas.
How do you respond to this thing?
So that's what I did to him at that event.
You ambushed it, right?
I get it.
It was satire.
It was satire.
I understand, Ryan.
I'm not attacking you.
I love you.
Listen, Ryan, we've got to wrap up now.
It's fantastic to talk to you.
Thanks for joining us again.
You can always see Ryan on Substack.
You can follow him there.
He's got a Substack page called Bad news.
You can follow him on Twitter at Ryan Grimm and look out for his new book, For What Purpose?
AOC, The Squad, The Final Act of a Political Revolution.
We'll post all that and we better post about it beyond this chat as well because we've done the promo on locals here.
Thanks very much for joining us, Ryan.
It's lovely to see you.
Good to see you too.
Thanks, man.
Sorry for teasing you.
I think I've got mental problems.
It was with love.
It was with love.
Not at all.
Love it.
I love it.
See ya.
Thank you, Ryan.
Cheers, mate.
Lots of love to you.
Alright, well we could do a little bit of history.
Why don't we play, look, the people have spoken.
We can do this whenever we want.
This is our new item in our new entertainment-oriented show where we still attack the establishment, but this time with a smile on our face.
It's time for This Week in History.
Or is it the news of, it's the old days, or is this just Rochester?
Is this drugs?
Drugs, oh you're going to love this.
Drug testing.
Look at that, in the news, it's only about, like try and guess what year this was, right?
It's mental, it's like it's a million years ago, it's only 19, well try and guess, I'm not going to tell you.
Try and guess what year this was, have a look.
You're watching WROC 8 in Rochester, New York.
Now, Jerry Fiore, Virginia Butler.
Look at that, look at the pretend chat.
Well good, isn't it?
Lovely pretend chat.
Me and you, why don't me and you do some, Gareth?
Okay.
Yes, I know, yes.
I kicked him on the tip of the dick.
I know you did, it was very good indeed.
I kicked him right on the tip till his dick sealed up.
That's fantastic work.
Sealed it with kicks.
Excellent.
Oh, hello.
It's time for the news now.
Sorry about that, mate.
Meteorologist Kevin Williams and Jay-Z to last with sports.
The team to watch.
This is Eyewitness News.
And a very pleasant good evening.
Thank you very much for joining us tonight.
Leading our news, some startling news, cocaine... No, it's leading our news, some startling... Oh, shit, I've already said news!
And then look at cocaine addiction.
It's rife.
...is being used by two times more people than originally thought.
That sounds like baby's news.
Two times as many people as originally thought.
Why is it twice as many?
Yeah, also, than originally thought.
Like, what does that mean?
I originally thought it was going to be this many.
What do you mean you had an original thought about it?
Don't think, use science!
Surely it's like, then was reported 12 months ago or something.
It's just, it's so, such a generic way of talking about it.
There's twice as much cocaine as what I used to reckon.
That's not how you do the news.
Get some facts!
The court says 2 million Americans use cocaine.
Now those findings are creating new debate over President Bush's strategy in fighting the drug war.
That's W. Bush, by the way, who is no stranger to sticking a bit of boogle up the ooter himself, was he?
That's English slang for putting cocaine up the nose.
He loved cocaine, didn't he?
George W. Bush.
Yeah.
Now, pastel coloured like paintings that are quite good and being mates with Ellen.
In a way, he's deteriorated.
Yeah.
Like, who do you want to hang out with?
Someone who's up for it, banging some gack up the snout.
Wow.
Or someone who's like, I'm going to do a watercolour painting.
I'm going to say the watercolour painting.
It's gonna be boring!
Yeah, but there's a cut-off, isn't there, with the other one?
Alright, Gal.
I'm gonna demonstrate both types of people.
First couple of hours, maybe.
Right, go on then.
Firstly, this is just a regular visit.
OK.
I thought this was you gradually turning into George Bush.
Hello, Gareth.
Thanks for coming.
Hello.
Just, I like to sketch.
This is my sketch of just an event that took place at the White House Correspondents' Dinner a little while ago.
That's Ryan.
That's Ryan Grimm.
Oh, I see.
That's Ryan Grimm's foot.
OK, and is that the tip of his... Jesse Walter's dick, as you can see.
That's very good.
Very good indeed.
Right, that's one.
Here's the other thing.
Come on, yeah!
No.
Actually, that one's better, isn't it?
No, you're right.
You're right.
You're obviously right.
But look at the news from the good old days, right?
Like, this is the report, right?
This is big news.
This is Hitler, the, like, world's worst ever person, the real-life Darth Vader, had died.
Look at how they did the news in them days, right?
Particularly, you look at the news now, all that hysteria.
Look at the 90s adverts for how to do drugs.
Look at, like, this is earth-shattering news, Hitler's dead.
Look at how low-key they are.
This is London calling.
Here is a news flash.
The German radio has just announced that Hitler is dead.
I repeat that, the German radio has just announced That Hitler is dead.
And that's the end of that.
Yeah.
No fuss, no nonsense.
No.
Hitler is dead.
Like nowadays, they'd be jazzing that up.
Oh my God.
They'd be outside Hitler's house trying to get a little look up his coffin.
I mean, look at what Donald Trump's playing recently when he was off to do his little court case appearance.
Hitler's coffin is being manufactured now.
We're going to speak to the man that's making it.
Well, you know, even though he's not a great guy, we're trying our best, you know, to make the perfect coffin.
I'm just a humble coffin maker.
What do you feel about Herr Hitler?
Well, I would like the coffin in alignment with his wishes.
Eva Brown, obviously, we're going to do a double coffin for her as well.
You know, let's try and jazz it up.
Them days, Hitler Hitler is dead.
I repeat, one more time, and I hope you're listening because we're going to move on to something else that's rather childish.
Hitler is dead.
And obviously people in the chat are going, is that when he really died or when he escaped to South America?
Yeah, that's right, y'all!
That's right, locals!
Nice stuff.
OK.
Hey, listen, let's wrap up the show.
Did you like our new item, Back to the Future Old News?
Is that what it's called again?
That's it.
That was the week that wasn't.
You've nailed it.
Russell is sexy, even with his German voice.
And that's just something I'm saying to myself, to cheer myself up.
Shall we go then?
What's on the show tomorrow?
I mean, your leader will tell you.
Oh, I've got to do all the work, have I?
Imagine this was news like that, and he was the lady.
I'll be the lady!
I'll be the lady!
I'll be the lady, I like to.
I'll wear that outfit, I don't give a shit.
I don't wanna be that stuffed shirt, that man, that swarthy man.
So that'd be me, would it?
You be swarthy man, I'll be the lady.
Okay, uh, Rachel or Lisa, whoever you are, what's, uh... Are you the lady?
Oh, sorry.
Sorry, I couldn't... Okay, Buck.
Thanks.
Buck!
So Buck, what's going on on the new show on the News Tomorrow's News?
Uh, well, we're joined by Max Blumenthal.
Well, I don't think we'll be listening to any of his radical views on the Syrian conflict or talking to him about how politics is funny.
You know, that's how we would do it.
We would do it basically like that.
Yeah.
Like that.
Should we keep doing our item?
Did you like it?
Where's the fucking news, says Pavicky.
We've done news!
You've had all sorts of news.
You've had more news than you can handle.
You've had so much news, we've had to do old news.
We've done all of today's news, done.
Finished it, we had to go back.
What happened to RFK Jr?
I don't know.
Oh yeah, he's coming on later.
What happened to him?
He's fine.
He's alright?
And he was, because of the voice, I suppose.
Oh, I see right, yeah.
No, I don't think that's what they meant.
Oh yeah, do some paper shuffling, I'll do it.
I'll do it.
Well, thank you very much for joining us.
Tomorrow on Rumble, we'll be talking to Max Blumenthal, founder and editor of the Grey Zone, and join us on Rumble tomorrow, not for more of the same, but for more of the different.
