All Episodes
Jan. 16, 2025 - Stay Free - Russel Brand
01:16:05
Hollywood Hypocrisy and Fighting Corruption: Rob Schneider Speaks Out! – SF521
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
Thank you.
Thanks for joining me today for Stay Free with Russell Brand.
And it's an extraordinarily special episode that we're bringing you because I've got a fantastic conversation coming up with Rob Schneider.
The first 20 minutes will be widely available.
Then we'll be exclusively streaming on Rumble.
And if you don't have Rumble Premium yet, get Rumble Premium.
For those of you that are watching us on Locals, we will continue to provide our content there.
But our main priority is Rumble Premium where you get ad-free content as well as additional content every single week.
Rob Schneider, you may know from SNL, from all of his Sandler movies, or from his puckish, playful spirit.
You may have seen him recently in alternative media.
You may have seen him talking increasingly about political issues.
What I know about Rob Schneider is he has this incredible sense of play about him.
In our conversation, we talk about Hollywood.
What it's like to feel embraced by the culture and celebrated and then rejected and purred.
It's an extraordinary experience and a brilliant conversation.
I think that Rob Schneider is a brilliant example of how modern media makes autodidacts of us all.
Suddenly we all are well-versed in subjects like how the food industry learned from the tobacco industry, how to addict us to its products.
And now all of us know how institutional politics and centralised media operates.
It's a brilliant conversation and I hope you will enjoy it.
Before you do see it though, remember that on Rumble Premium you can watch my conversations on Break Bread.
This week I spoke to Dallas Jenkins, creator of The Chosen.
It's a fantastic conversation, as you can see from that picture there.
It's available on Rumble Premium.
Go check it out now.
Okay, without further dillying, dallying, hullabaloo or nonsense, here's my conversation with Rob Schneider.
Rob, thanks for joining us.
Thank you for your leadership during all these crazy years.
All I want...
Thank you.
I only want to discuss daddy-daughter trip.
That's the only thing I want to discuss today.
It came up on...
I'm not interested in censorship.
I'm not interested in SNL. I'm not interested in making the movement from mainstream to the periphery.
I'm not interested in the concept of coolness.
You know?
I'll tell you when this came to my mind, Rob.
When I was at the RNC, I was there at that minute when Hulk Hogan tore off his top and went, MY PRESIDENT! And I thought, oh my god, what is this?
What am I part of now?
And then I thought, well, how is this really any different from George Clooney, you know, sort of like, or Taylor Swift or anyone?
You know, the idea of a celebrity endorsement, the idea of there being hierarchies and categories of cool.
Now, one of the people that you've...
It exposed what it really was.
It's all performance.
It all is.
It's all a theater.
What it did is, I think it's at least, for one thing, our side isn't being paid, unlike Oprah Winfrey.
I mean, I was talking to one of her friends recently, because when she lied and said, like, you may never get to vote again if you don't vote for Kamala.
And I was like, that is just such a blatant, bold-faced, ugly lie.
It's one thing to want to support somebody.
You know, and because you're a lifetime Democrat or whatever, but to somebody to just lie that blatantly, there's just got to be something behind it.
I want to know what the thinking was there.
So, you know, I thought when he, you know, politics has degraded so much, but forget about the degradation of it.
If you think about what the exposing for what it really is.
The ugliness of it.
And I think we've been able to really kind of see it now so clearly.
And maybe it's always been there.
So there was all this artifice.
It also reminds me of that thing in The Godfather where Michael Corleone is talking to Diane Keaton's character.
And she says, you know, but that's your father is doing these horrible, you know, that scene.
And he said...
How naive is that, that you don't know what your father is capable of doing?
And then he explains, Michael Corleone says, yes, but my father's not anything different than a senator or a president or a governor.
And she says, that's naive.
And she said, well...
Who's naive now?
You know, I think I'm butchering that scene completely.
She goes, she goes, congressmen and senators don't have people killed, Michael.
And he said, now who's being naive?
And I think, yeah, we're seeing that sort of, really, that's what's been exposed.
It's like, say if you watch the Democratic Convention.
Like my shitty version to or maybe couldn't remember it You missed all of the key details of it entire bit Rob I Now you've turned to an acai bowl for comfort.
Yeah, because I suppose, look, what I wanted to somewhat talk about is the branding of politics.
And when I watch the DNC versus the RNC, I recognise that what it is is the production.
It was slick.
It looked like the award shows that I used to participate in.
And as I've moved right out of that space, like out of Hollywood, out of making movies, out of some of those relationships and friendships, there are so many things packed into the cultural space that we now live in.
That it's inferior, that it's racist, that it's somehow contaminated.
And at points I felt like...
Oh, wow.
Let's say when the Golden Globes is on, Rob.
Do you feel, like, how, because I've noticed this when I hang out with you, it's really weird to be part of Hollywood and to be part of them institutions.
And I've seen that you, like, once when we did a thing with Tucker, I saw that we were doing, like, a signing, like, you know, when you meet and greet, kind of meet and greet afterwards.
And I think, like, a lot of people, that can be kind of hard to do that if you're not doing it in the right spirit, like, you know, sort of, you know, especially when it's someone else's event and you're just an appendage, really.
Like, you feel like, do I even need to be here for this?
I thought, look, Rob's able to go into a really numb, almost catatonic state to get through this experience.
And I wonder...
Hollywood is this elitist thing.
And first of all, before you're in, you're trying to get in.
And then when you're in, the whole time you're in, it's like, am I in?
Am I really in?
How in am I? Am I in deeply?
And then there's, it's like the most, I remember Peter Riegert, who was this wonderful actor from Local Hero and from Animal House.
He said to me, you do realize that you decided to make a living in the most elitist art form ever invented, show business.
It is, because you can, you know, I remember this one actress that I met, she was English, which is also, believe it or not, you guys can be very elitist as well.
No, no.
I've already worked with three.
Academy Award winning directors and actors and writers.
And it is.
And then once you're in, there's this level, and then there's this level, and this level.
And so, yeah, it's an odd thing.
But once you accept that you don't need it, or you don't feel like it offers anything to you, then they can't touch you anymore.
So that's an interesting thing.
So, like, when you feel like that necessity, I never felt in any way, you know, and I always felt like, you know, the comedies were more fun and more difficult.
I remember I was with, I think, our mutual friend John Cleese, and I was saying, tell me about your friend Adam Sandler.
And I said, what is he doing?
I said, he's doing, you know, these dramas.
And I said, it's because, and he said, I think the word you're looking for is easier.
It, dramas, I mean, comedies are more difficult.
They just really are.
And, but because it seems so frivolous and silly, even though it's, you know, the people in it and doing it realize how the difficulty of it, it is.
But what I guess I'm getting back to is this.
That kind of elitist feeling of, you know, are you in?
Are you not in?
Are you not really in?
Are you not that level or this category?
And it's all a game.
And it's all, you know, I think in the same thing with this political thing where they feel that you have to fit into that.
And if you can't be outside that group, and that group is that liberal intelligentsia, it's that Democrat group.
And if you're out of it, you're out.
And there's no, as you know, there is no way of forgiveness, and there is no, it's a vindictive set of people, and once you're out, you're out.
I mean, once I made a joke about, like, you know, Hillary Clinton when she lost, I said, I haven't seen the Democrats this pissed off since we freed the slaves.
That was kind of it.
Yeah, there's no way back.
There's no way back.
Rob, what have you got your laptop resting on?
Like an aquarium, some jello, springs?
Like every time you gesticulate, it's like the whole system is vibrating.
Yeah.
What have you got?
Let's get the mystery out of the way.
Look at that.
Monopoly?
Right.
Ah!
Wicked-branded monopoly.
While you claim to decry the system of Hollywood, you yourself are resting upon a literal monopoly, Rob.
A literal monopoly.
I remember feeling when I was part of that Hollywood scene.
By the way, we've been in one film together.
I bet you don't know what that film is.
I bet you can't remember.
When I was part of that system...
Bedtime stories.
Yes, yes.
When I was part of it, I really felt like...
You know, you're right.
Like, there is a feeling of, am I in enough?
Am I in enough?
And, like, being around, like, Sandler, I always thought of him as a pretty unique individual, even then.
Here were the things I thought, this guy's probably Republican, and at that time you couldn't even talk about it.
You sort of, it was like, wow.
Yeah, that would have made you a pariah, like it was something that couldn't be discussed at that time, I remember that.
I also remember thinking that he had...
He anchored himself somehow in normalness in a way that seemed somewhat unique in that world.
Like he appeared to have authentic friendships and relationships and a kind of a decency that seemed really unusual and really came to the forefront when he got that Mark Twain, or at least it was visible, when he got that Mark Twain award.
And I see you and Spade and all of your crew sort of honouring him.
They didn't want me to be there, by the way, CNN. They didn't want anything to do with me there.
They wanted this.
Does Rob have to tell jokes?
I remember because one of the segment producers, a friend of mine, said, does Rob really want to?
I mean, can we get him?
Do we need him?
And it's like, well, it would be very odd and very obvious for your show how jaded it is.
And I actually ran in at the airport for one of the Mark Twain I guess she's one of the directors on the board of directors of that award show.
And I said, can you please think about, you know, like maybe a Gutfeld or something like that, somebody that you, you know, that somebody who's Republican, who's outwardly Republican, honoring.
And after I thanked her for also honoring Adam Sandler, and she said, and I said, why don't you, you know, go for somebody Republican.
And she said, outwardly.
And she said to me, wouldn't that be divisive?
So only divisive within their own liberal group.
They don't want to be divisive within Democrats.
So that's kind of where they're at.
And I think that that's why they're so...
Inside their bubble, that they couldn't understand how the American, they're so far left that they left the Americans behind, the American people.
And they couldn't see it, and they don't want to see it.
And that's why they're still so confused as to why that form of elitism, which is Hollywood, which is leftism, which is, you know, the current form of it.
The liberal intelligentsia, they just don't like Americans.
They don't.
I mean, they shit on them so much, Russell.
That's what's so frustrating to me.
These people in the cities in Los Angeles and New York, they don't understand it.
They crap on it like, how dare these people vote Republican?
These are the people.
These are farmers.
These are people growing their food, providing their families with a way to survive.
These are the people.
And it's not just the people outside of California.
It's people in California that are growing the food in California that are only about two hours away from them.
And these are the people they despise.
You know, Americans are good people.
And to be trying to convince them that they're racist and that they're awful and that they're not generous and that they're inherently white supremacists.
I mean, it's all nonsense and garbage.
And it's divisive.
And that hatefulness was finally rejected.
For the rest of this conversation, click the link in the description where it will be exclusively streamed on Rumble.
It's interesting because when they were talking about...
When Kamala was running and they asked her, you know, what would you do differently than Joe Biden?
She said, I can't, nothing comes to mind.
And neither, you know, when Oprah was talking or when, you know, whether it was Bruce Springsteen, these are people who were giants in the industry and they couldn't articulate.
Anything that the democratic policy stood for.
Because democratic policies have been failures.
And these super rich people can afford to continue the democratic failures because they live in gated communities.
They live in a community that's gated within a gated community.
But the average American person was susceptible to the failures of these democratic policies.
And that's why they lost so badly.
We can't bring you this content without the support of our sponsors.
Here's a message from one now.
You need bioactive, complete multivitamin for men.
Look at you.
You're tired.
You're exhausted.
I'm a woman.
Mind your own business.
This is a fantastic new product.
Bioactive Complete Multivitamin for Men.
I chose it because, like most people, I wasn't confident I was getting all the vitamins and minerals I need from my diet.
Since I've started taking them, I've noticed I've got more energy throughout the day.
Look at me now.
I'm energetic.
Do you know it's actually midnight?
My overall health feels much more balanced.
It's been a game-changer for me.
Live Good believe that everyone deserves access to high-quality supplements with These markups are insane!
I can't have it!
They offer premium products formulated by an industry-leading team of natural health experts and they cut out the middleman to sell them at the lowest prices anywhere.
They also have organic super greens, yum, multivitamins, fantastic, collagen weight loss products, protein powder, Creatine, detox, hormone products and skincare products.
All highest quality products at prices that people can actually afford.
Are you sick and tired of paying over the odds to shuffle around like a Neanderthal looking sick, pal, wan and hopeless?
Me too!
That's why we need LiveGood and their range of fantastic products.
No wonder they're the fastest growing supplement brand on the planet with over 1.5 million customers and counting.
1.5 million and 1, 1.5 million and 2. See?
Go to livegood.com forward slash Russell and get 10% off your first order if you use my special code.
Wait for it.
Here it is.
Russell!
And you'll get 10% off your first order.
Take the steps to getting healthy.
Join the 1.5 million and 9 people that are 10 that are members of this incredible movement.
Live good!
I started to feel like...
Yes, Rob, I forgot what the question was some hours ago.
I'm still thinking about the Monopoly board.
I feel like that lack of integral belief is right at the heart of what we're experiencing.
that that kind of what poses as liberalism, which is really kind of neoliberalism, which is really just superficial nods to certain cultural ideas, somehow with the extraction of basic virtues like compassion and kindness, has been what's somehow with the extraction of basic virtues like compassion and kindness, has been what's masking centralist politics
From Bill Clinton and Tony Blair onwards, once the democratic policies were no longer really economically supportive of ordinary people, who I agree with you, I reckon they actually dislike, strongly dislike, they don't like ordinary American strongly dislike, they don't like ordinary American people or ordinary British people, the elitism...
...is rampant, raw and religious, and that might be the only religion that you'd find in their midst as well, a kind of self-serving individualism, which became sort of normalised from the 80s onwards, the idea that all you really are supposed to be doing is ornament in yourself, fulfilling yourself, the fetishisation of our basic nature, the turning of our basic nature into a culture and then a religion.
And since coming to Christ, I don't want to jump into that too deeply yet.
But it explains pretty clearly what false idolatry is really about.
Now, like, you know, what me and you, as occupants, former occupants of that world, where, I don't know, it didn't seem so contentious for me.
Like, you know, you came up in that sort of the most magnificent and fated of ways to be an SNL cast regularly, one of the great casts on SNL, working with some of the best SNL performers that there have ever been, and a deserved member of that group.
I... Feel like it's very easy to believe when you find yourself in those situations.
This must be sort of warranted.
And deserved, even if you still have self-doubt, even if you don't feel entirely fulfilled.
And then, over time, you start to recognise, oh, you're just a sort of a kind of an object in a sort of a...
You're just an object that can be used and deployed and discarded.
It's so extraordinary for me, and so clear, that for a minute, my hedonism and the way that I was sort of presented culturally, and presented myself as well, I'm not saying I'm some sort of innocent, I didn't see how really what was unexpressed but present was you are an avatar for a
kind of...
Empty, hollow, shallow, selfish individualism that we kind of revere because it prevents people being connected to things that really matter.
Community, family, God.
It's an oddly nihilistic world.
And when he was saying a minute ago about how...
You know, people can't point to that party's policies.
I suppose there isn't really anything really there.
I don't think they actually really care about the vulnerable, in inverted commas, minority groups that they claim to care about.
I feel that really all that they're doing is finding ways to mask the interests of powerful elites behind different ideas that slow down, prevent and limit...
Conversation.
And it's just so odd that people like you and me, who are just like, you know, really entertainers like you, mate, are proper funny.
Funny bones, they would call that in Britain.
Someone that can do impressions, that can do voices, that can do a variety of characters, that the way you move, the way you look is funny.
Old school funny has somehow found yourself, along with me, in some sort of weird cultural space.
I find the culture must have changed a lot.
We could have played the game and continued playing the game.
I just found it to be...
I couldn't.
There must have been something in me that, you know, that's why Jesus only lets you stray so far.
I feel like I was wrapped up in the game.
I was completely into it, and I wanted to be part of it all.
And I never was completely accepted that I felt.
And that saved me.
I mean, it really did.
Well, Jesus saved me.
There is a godlessness in Hollywood, which is so obvious.
And their idolatry really is on what they say you have achieved and what you are.
And they'll give you a statuette that says, look.
You have played the game.
And I'm not taking away from the wonderful people in our business who have achieved things.
It's just that it ends up being, it's an emptiness that I've found.
And then, you know, when you finally do come to, now we're jumping into Christianity here, but the idea that, like, I don't care what people think about me.
I'm not going to worry about what the world thinks about me.
And then...
The grade test would be, oh yeah, you don't care what people say about you?
Yeah, I think I'm over that.
I think I can get over that.
And I realize what's happening, that there is a darkness that is coming, whether it happened 100 years ago, 1923, 1924, and it's happening again, and it ushered in through this one world kind of evil, neo.
Neoliberalism, which is truthfully, and the Republicans under Bush was just the same thing.
It's not just one party, and it's not just one party in England or anywhere.
So when you kind of wake up to this and you realize that there seems to be a wave of evil, whether it's coming now or what have you, and you say, okay, I'm not going to worry about what the world thinks about me.
I'm going to let go of that.
I'm only going to worry about God in my family and country.
And they said, yeah, what about somebody says something in your own family?
Can you let that go too?
Or are you going to have your ego still attached to that?
So that's a real test.
And the test is really of faith.
You really have to let go.
And you really have to cling to it.
And you really have to go, I'm going to go through this fire.
And when you realize, you know, I've been working on this story about the burial cloth of Jesus Christ for the Shroud of Turin for many years.
And you're realizing that the price that was paid, it's like, my goodness.
He was beaten to a pulp.
And I think if Christ was, you would see that it would happen again, because there is a goodness that does threaten people, because it makes you...
Makes you question yourself, too.
To rise.
Can you...
I mean, as the Bible says, you know, it's easy to love your brother.
I mean, that's not special.
To love your enemy.
To love someone who's trying to destroy you.
I mean, it really does call you to a higher...
To be truly a better human being.
And I think that's a beautiful thing.
And so for people who are, you know, at this time...
Looking for something.
I mean, I think that example of Christ's example is so powerful that it just, it does, it makes me realize how far, how far I have to go and how far I've fallen and how far and what that gift for us is.
And now what do we do with it?
And as I say, like, Russell, like...
For you and me and for this, as we're moving forward, what do we do with this now?
Where do we go forward and how can we...
What is it?
And I just, you know, through prayer and through my faith and my family, I want to see where this goes.
And it's not going to be up to me.
It's like where I feel like when I followed, when I listened to you, I feel like there's a calling that you've been...
You've been given.
And I do think it comes from people who come from a very silly beginning and a place of just trying to get as much out of it as we could, which is what Hollywood is.
It's like, it's just for me, what can I get?
What is it going to take to this and that?
And then to have that taken away from you or to realize that there is a, when you try to do something, a higher calling.
And when you kind of see, like, for me, it was seeing the rise of evil and how quickly the world can turn.
And then you can't just ignore it anymore.
You can't just go along with it and just be a part of the system.
You're going to have to acknowledge that there are some things that are happening.
And once you acknowledge it, you can't unknow it.
And once you see the harm that's happening, whether it's children in our society, and that's why, you know, our friend, you know, Robert Kennedy is really outrageous that the fact that we have someone who's about to be in a position of power who can actually help things.
That was amazing.
I had a comedian, you know, we're all very jaded comedians.
This comedian, really funny comedian, he called me and said, I can't believe he actually has a chance to get in.
Because if he gets in, if Bobby Kennedy gets in, he might have a chance to actually do something good.
I just remember him being at a place where he didn't see that coming.
And so I think that there is a goodness that is coming.
And I think that Jesus and Christ compels those people to come forward now.
And I think that God picked strange people.
He picked a stuttering shepherd to lead people out of Egypt.
So there are strange people that are picked.
And I sat with these priests here in Phoenix, and they were talking about Donald Trump's presidency.
And like, my goodness, there's a real chance here to...
To do some good things and people that you would have never expected.
And I do think the United States is an important...
And this election was important for the world.
I mean, I felt a sigh of relief.
I mean, people called me from several, you know, from different countries all over the world saying, thank you.
And I said, I had nothing to do with it.
But I said, but thank you for America.
You know, because...
We feel that there's a sense of hope now.
We feel like this totalitarian grip that was happening on the world.
I mean, just think about this week and seeing, you know, the dictator to the north, Justin Trudeau, who called his own freedom-fighting truckers terrorists.
And froze their bank accounts and put them in prison and called them terrorists.
I mean, I can't, and for him stepping down now, you see, well, the leader in Italy, hopefully she will, you know, come around to what she was, how she was elected in the first place was to oppose this, I mean, really the Sovietization of Europe.
So there's a chance to really...
To be a buttress against this kind of one world order that we're seeing.
And that's what, you know, when the new world order was trying to close down the world the last few years, the one thing they didn't see coming was people.
On podcasts, standing up and being able to communicate and talk.
Because they knew where they were able to control the tech companies.
They had those.
For sure, they had the newspapers.
For sure, they had Google search engine.
They were able to really squelch things through the mainstream media.
But they were not able to realize that in their big power grab, that there was a Joe Rogan.
That there was a Tucker Carlson.
That there was a Russell Brand.
You know, so that was what was the shining light for people.
Excuse me, Rob.
We can't bring you this content without the support of our partners and sponsors.
Here's a message from one now.
Have you ever lied to a priest in a church on Christmas Day?
I have.
I need to be atoned and redeemed by the Lord.
And how am I going to do that when I'm at home?
Hello!
In a time when so many things are uncertain across the world, it's important to solidify the things that get us through uncertainty.
For me, it's my faith, and Hallow, the number one prayer app in the world, is an amazing resource for me.
They offer thousands of guided prayers and meditations, even music, audiobooks, and a lot more.
This app is super easy to use, and there's great features for building a routine, praying with others...
I haven't used that before.
I'm going to go on Hello and pray with others.
And really tailoring the app to your spiritual needs.
Hello has 10,000 plus audio guided prayers and meditations included, such as daily prayers like daily gospel reflections, daily miracle reflections, morning psalms with Bishop Barron, and daily spiritual writing.
It's also got contributions from Mike Schmitz.
Who don't want to do a Bible in a year with Father Mike Schmitz?
I love Father Mike Schmitz!
Bishop Barron, brilliant mind, brilliant brain, brilliant Bishop Barron!
And Jonathan Rumi, come on!
Jesus is my body double!
Mark Wahlberg and Jim Caviezel.
Not just one Jesus, but two Jesuses.
Jesus, I, what's the plural of Jesus?
There is no plural on Jesus.
They just released a terrific daily devotional series for men, women, young adults, those in grief, and people new to Christianity.
So go to hallowed.com forward slash Brad to get three months free today.
Praise the Lord.
It was a significant moment and it changed the world and it changed a lot of people.
And that's as good a appraisal of it, Rob, that...
As I've heard before, that they knew they had the control of the media, they knew their control of social media through big tech, but they didn't recognise that with...
In it, there would be individual voices that were representatives of or conduits for larger communities and concerns that had been maligned, neglected, rejected to a ridiculous degree, to the point where people kind of forgot that those communities were there.
And it somewhat dovetails with what we were talking about with Hollywood earlier.
Of course, America, in the old taxonomies or categories that are largely now being redefined, has always been roughly 50-50 split.
Generally speaking, elections in your country are kind of pretty close between those two parties.
So the idea that Hollywood has no representation of one side of that divide is pretty implausible and kind of ridiculous.
But it got more and more extreme over time until it entirely incinerated the idea of sort of plain old fashioned Christianity.
You touched on a lot in your ideas.
Answer there, Rob, and I felt like that One of the things that I discuss a lot and think about frequently is that how many of our cultural institutions bring out the satanic, and so that don't sound hyperbolic, I'll explain a bit what I mean.
I see the figure of Satan somehow as the representative of selfishness.
So when I talk about that, I don't mean just plain satanic evil, although I'll be interested in inquiring more deeply as to what your thoughts are on that literal evil component, because you talked about children going missing and those kind of things.
And let's face it, we've both been inside Hollywood, so maybe we'll talk about what appears to be going on within those institutions of power and those parties.
But when I talk about satanic in a more What I mean is one of the qualities, perhaps, I don't know, you tell me, I ain't been Christian very long, the defining qualities of Lucifer is wanting to set up a false light, his own glory, apart from God and apart from Christ.
And I feel that when we were talking about the kind of coolness and cool kids component of the culture earlier in our conversation, what we're sort of saying is there's a false idolatry and reverence for things human that...
Often finds its fulfilment in the arts.
Oh, this is a really cool band.
This is a cool movie.
These are cool fashion labels and fragrances and colognes and foods.
Everything lacquered with this kind of odd individualistic, branding, market-led.
PR-spun idea that coolness could ever belong down here among human beings.
One of the weird byproducts of the Trump victory has been a kind of collapse of some of the political players and even movements that somehow fostered and contained all of that.
You mentioned...
Trudeau, the dictator from the north, that lacquered boy band Mussolini, or perhaps Fidel Castro, disappearing into the periphery.
And also we've seen Facebook kind of all just overnight.
Reorder and reorganise itself.
Oh, the fact-checkers were to blame.
The filters were to blame.
We weren't really censoring you.
And ultimately, plain old economics has led to them having to massively reconfigure their business model, invite Dana White to sit on their board.
A man who has just been...
To a fault, absolutely loyal to Trump prior to Trump even being involved in politics.
He just decided Trump was his mate and supported him absolutely, which are the kind of virtues that mean something.
Even if you disagree with someone politically, you can tell that loyalty and faithfulness are great values and virtues.
You also touched upon the figure of Bobby Kennedy, and when he emerged into the political space, I would say, I want to say...
To the left, but I know that in your country, the word left even is contaminated.
But what I mean by that is Bobby Kennedy was an anti-corporate politician.
He's anti-corruption.
A hero, yeah.
Liberals and Democrats.
Right, he's like...
Of the Democratic Party, for sure.
There's no other name that means more to the Democrats, are used to, than Kennedy.
And when he was dispatched and maligned and undermined and attacked by the same media that would attack Trump for being a racist or a rapist or whatever word they could throw at him, it became clear that, oh no, this is not about a particular objection to Trump.
It's an objection to anyone who poses a threat.
To their technological feudalism, to their sanitised and corporatised dictatorship, to their systems of elitism that they have to dress up in the garb and language of care and compassion.
And again, we peculiarly found ourselves in the midst of this, because when the first time we met one another was at a Bobby Kennedy fundraiser in Nashville, when Bobby was still running as an independent.
When Bobby emerged in the political space by running for president, that was one of the moments where I began to see more clearly what...
The real threat was, and you've used the term new world order, and it's as good a term as any, that there's a new form of globalism, sets of institutions, both corporate and governmental, but supported by media, which of course fall within the media component of what I just mentioned, the nature of that partnership, which had total control over information, total control over power.
And it's absurd to me that what ultimately is opposed to that is this new form of populism and nationalism, but it's not the same type of nationalism.
We saw a century ago, because it has different kind of edicts and different components.
But what's perhaps most interesting about what you just said, Rob, was that you have, in the mad and giddy midst of all this, been found by Christ, which again is another similarity and another thing that we share.
We've both been recently saved.
What I feel personally is...
Without realising it, I still worshipped the culture.
I still worshipped the false idol of success and fame.
And when, as we touched upon, when we were exchanging messages about this prior to having this chat, like, when I was actually cancelled, and you've just been sort of, I don't know, you've just seemed to have edged your way out of that situation.
Me, I was cancelled in a very hostile and aggressive and very definite way.
You were maligned, and it was after you had attacked some of the powers, the power structure, and you were able to really, when you were on Bill Maher, you were also very keenly aware of time,
and you were able to succinctly, you realized you had about 35 seconds to completely destroy and undermine this whole fascistic You know, attack on human beings and on the world and individual liberties and freedoms.
And you were able to describe and break down the structure of it.
And there's no accident right after that is when they attacked you.
And they didn't just attack you by...
By bringing up something with particular evidence, they wouldn't name people.
And then they also, your accusers, they didn't speak for themselves.
They had to have actors playing them.
That was really unique, which goes to show that there was a threat that you...
That you possessed to the very structures of what was happening and where they could not let it continue.
They had to do it.
And very much the same way with Bobby Kennedy was that his goal is to stop the poisoning of children and to really say, let's look at evidence.
And so what these people want to get rid of is evidence.
They want to get rid of facts.
They don't want to give any ounce of credence to something that could break the system and make it collapse.
Because it is, and it was, and it has collapsed.
And what they're trying to regroup and do, whatever, I don't know if it's bird flu or whatever, is to get control again.
And anyone who is going to question it, they will wipe you out.
And it's going to be direct attacks.
If you somehow survive because you were a particularly brilliant person, and also people know that you really do care deeply about people, and the same with Bobby Kennedy, there's a humanity which seems to rise.
From you, where you care about other human beings, and that comes from a place that is not corruptible, then that is a threat to it.
And after they try to go after you, and every article that they do with Bobby Kennedy, and then when they were done, when they couldn't destroy him, and he was still having literally 35% between 18-year-olds to 34-year-olds at one point.
He had 35% approval rating for that.
Then they do this death by ignorance, which they just black out.
They're not going to do anything.
They're not going to even do hit pieces because they're just not going to talk about you at all.
And that worked.
I mean, it did work.
However, and I think, you know, to Bobby's credit, was he realized, like, if he was going to do something...
And he reached out to Kamala Harris' campaign.
He told me this personally.
And they didn't even return his phone call because they don't want to change anything.
They have to have power wrestled from them.
And literally, and so, but when he reached out to the Trump campaign, 30 minutes later, he was on the phone with Trump himself, with President Trump.
And then two hours later, he was at a rally with him.
And you had a cheering crowd in my town where I live now, Phoenix, of a presidential nominee and a former president for the first time saying, we need to make America healthy again.
We need to get healthy food.
We need to get...
We need to talk about the capture of our regulatory agencies by industry.
I mean, that's outrageous that we would have, you know, we're only allowed to have two parties, which is one more than we have in China, by the way, because we're, you know, a democratic, we're a republic, a democratic republic.
So that was outrageous.
But it's only because people have woken up and it's only because...
People have been pushed to the brink, where 10,000 restaurants in the United States were wiped out during the pandemic, during the scandemic.
You had people's small businesses were closed, but you were allowed to Walmart was open and then you had Target was open.
And so it really was when they say the gigantic transfer of wealth, $7 trillion, it really was.
And it was just literally to try to wipe out and take away any chance for.
So you would have to just be dependent on the goodwill of those elitists and people in charge.
And, you know, so for the Hollywood celebrities who supported Kamala Harris, they're in that group, and there's nothing that's going to stop them from being in that group.
So I will say that this defeat really was...
For the world, an important event, because it was a rejection of this elitism, this totalitarianism, and whether it was...
A complete totalitarianism.
I think it was on the verge of becoming that way.
I think the censorship that was proven, this was stunning to me, from a lifelong Democrat, as a lifelong Democrat, who was pushed out because, you know, as Reagan said, which I didn't understand it, and as Bobby Kennedy says, like, hey, look, I didn't leave the Democratic Party.
The Democratic Party left me.
So when there was Matt Taibbi and Michael Schellenberger getting the documents, From Elon Musk.
And thank God bless Elon Musk.
So when they were confronted, when the Democrats were confronted with this, and they had the congressional hearings because the Senate was still controlled by the Democrats.
They were able to have the congressional hearings where they were able to expose this, that they were exposed, that the Democrats, the Biden administration, had worked with Zuckerberg, had worked with Backdoor and asking and demanding that they silence these people and censor Americans and doctors, the first responders, nurses, scientists.
You had Boudicaria, Dr. Boudicaria, and these people were silenced when this was exposed and said, this is happening.
Instead of the Democrats saying, okay, this is wrong, we've got to re-correct this, they just doubled down and they attacked Matt Taibbi and Michael Schellenberg and Elon Musk.
So they had no intention of changing or doing anything.
They were just going to hold on to power until it was ripped away from them.
And that was really a chance for the Democratic Party to regroup.
And the only way that they were ever going to do it is if they got the shit beat out of them.
And like what just happened in this election, to realize that like, hey, listen, we're not going to put up with this crap anymore.
And it really was frustrating to watch, to see the Democratic Party completely become this totalitarian.
And so, how do we get out of it?
I mean, the only way to do it was to, I mean, I really feel like this election, truthfully, was a gigantic, important thing.
And you really do feel a sense of relief all over the world, the fact that there was this opposition that was really, you have a reversal now.
Because the Democratic Party, when I grew up, was always this...
It seemed like it was the party of the people and that they looked like America because it had, you know, it had black people, it had gay people, it had this.
And so, but it had turned into this, you know, 70% of the wealth in America is now owned by the Democrats.
It is.
So the party of the people now is the Republican Party.
But what, as I said earlier, what are we going to do with it?
What are we going to do with this change?
Are we going to use it for good or are we just going to become a different form of the machine?
And so how are we going to do it?
And I think we have to.
To ask ourselves, what are we going to do with this new power?
And it seems to be we've been given this gift by the American public, like a trust.
And I mean the conservative party now.
What are we going to do with it?
How are we going to improve people's lives?
And, you know, Donald Trump has to come through.
He has to really, this administration has to come through and stop the poisoning of our children, stop the poisoning of our people.
It is an unbelievable crime how they can, the former cigarette companies can buy up Nabisco and General Mills and Kraft and the same cigarette scientists who made cigarettes more Getting more addictive, so we keep smoking, and they put it into the processed food, and yet that food can't be sold to Canada or Europe.
I mean, this has to be changed.
And for the Democrats to oppose this, and for any Democrats in the Senate to oppose Bobby Kennedy, look out, because you are opposing America getting well and stopping the poisoning of our own children.
I mean, how...
I mean, how much more evil can that be if you're against, if you don't want Americans to be...
Not poisoned anymore.
So that's where we're at.
So what are we going to do with it?
Where are we going to lead this?
I mean, first of all, the Ukraine war has to end.
We have to get that.
That's one thing that, you know, I know that Donald Trump feels strongly about.
Bobby Kennedy does.
That slaughter needs to end.
And it's not like in any divorce.
It's not going to be perfect.
Ukraine's not going to get everything they want.
You know, like my ex-wife didn't get everything she wanted.
I didn't get everything I wanted.
But you have to have some sort of settlement.
The slaughter has to stop.
And for people in the United States that have I have problems with people in Europe who question, like, well, you know, my grocery prices are going up or this is happening or this conflict or politically, you know, I've been canceled.
Well, in Ukraine, these people, they're going to be traumatized for 30, 40 years to recover from this.
The people, you know, the slaughter that's happened on both sides and the high-tech slaughter with drones, just, you know, it's the most...
This despicable form of military now, where it seems like not just killing somebody with a gun, it looks like abject torture, what's happened to these soldiers.
These are human beings, too.
This slaughter has to stop.
And for the fact that they have American senators and congresspeople who are allowed to invest in the military-industrial complex and profit off it is disgusting, and that needs to stop.
We should not allow any politicians...
To benefit and to know ahead of time if we're going to have fund a conflict like in Ukraine and then somehow benefit financially from it.
If that isn't corrupt, then we need to change the word corrupt to something else.
We can't bring you this content without the support of our sponsors.
Here's a message from one now.
You're not in control of your digital assets, are you?
They're all over the place.
They're loose.
They're uncontrolled.
That's why you need ledger that's easy to use.
So easy, in fact, that even I can use it.
In today's world, it's more important than ever to take control of your digital security and financial freedom.
That's where Ledger comes in.
Ledger's new devices, Ledger Stacks and Ledger Flex, make it incredibly easy and secure to take control of your digital assets.
Ledger's intuitive interface.
I'm just going to use my intuition here.
I'm like Neo running that thing.
Ledger's intuitive interface makes it easy for anyone to take control of their crypto, regardless of their experience level.
But more than being just easy to use, Ledger allows you to take control of your financial future, aligning with the principles of individual freedom and self-reliance that we value.
Did you know that Ledger is trusted by 7 million users and secures more than 20% of the world's digital assets?
Did you?
What have you been doing?
Take control of your digital future and start your journey towards financial freedom.
Ah, financial freedom, here it comes.
Buy your Ledger device now.
At shop.ledger.com forward slash brand.
It's changing really, really fast, Rob.
A few things that occurred to me while we were talking was like Hannah Arendt's phrase, the banality of evil, because the evil that we've come to take as...
The evil that has dominated our culture has been normalized to the point of invisibility.
When you talked about Bobby a little bit earlier, I was thinking about when Stephen Colbert just did long bits, attacking, criticizing, condemning, ridiculing Bobby Kennedy.
And I thought, wow, this is a man who's a...
Catholic, attacking another man who's a Catholic, and there's no acknowledgement that what Bobby Kennedy is really is a thorn in the side of some pretty powerful interests, and as you have acknowledged, he's unlikely to be perfect who among us is, but that it can be normal and acceptable to be dismissive of an...
Obvious opponent of powerful centralized interests and that the evil that the Democrat Party became the kind of avatar of was...
Became so sort of homogenised and ordinary and all singing and all dancing and all smiling.
And that we'd kind of come to accept that as an acceptable, as a placating and appealing veneer over, you know, just some of the things you've listed in your, and in fact, your last answer.
It points to how the world has changed, because I can see that you are well-versed in how tobacco companies took over big food and the addicting techniques that tobacco companies use are now deployed in the food industry.
And all of us now, if we want to be, are educated in such a vast array of subjects, not the kind of academic education that defined...
This course on old media, but this new, somewhat discursive, autodidactic awareness of like, hang on a minute, I know now that that's how that was funded.
Edward Bernays started the PR profession.
He used Freud's daylight.
All of us are sort of like, got all of this access to all of this information now.
That's what happened, Russell.
That's what happened with Jimmy Dore.
Who's a great man and a great comment.
When he said, when he commented, because what happens is there's a sort of brainwashing that happens by the CNN and by, you know, by Fox News and everything.
It's just, they start saying stuff and then you just becomes, you know, you keep saying it and saying it and saying it.
And then it takes really, what it was, was because the...
You know, truthfully, the academics were silenced because they were afraid of losing their tenure at university or getting fired.
And then you had the scientists and doctors.
You know, I had a scientist, a friend of mine, a professor of...
He's a professor of medicine.
He was at the NIH, and he didn't want anybody to quote him, and I couldn't quote him.
So the normal people in society who would question things were all silenced and kicked off social media and whatever, or kicked out of the debate.
So there was no more debate.
And so you had comedians like, you know, like yourself, like Rogan, Jimmy Dore.
And Jimmy Dore was the one who said, you know, they said, don't, you know, they were mocking you for doing your own research.
So don't do your own research.
And there's a meme of a girl sitting on the toilet doing research.
And Jimmy Dore's like, you don't want us to do our own research?
You mean read?
You don't want us to read?
They don't want us to think for ourselves.
They literally think of us as cattle.
They do.
At the highest level, wherever it's Rockefeller, all the way down, they think of us and treat us like we're cattle and that we're not capable of making.
I remember the great Englishman, not great, but the English statesman that said, he described it as the bewildered herd.
You can have somebody on your staff look that up who said that.
We cannot let the bewildered herd make their own decisions.
The bewildered herd, that's cattle.
And I don't even think of us, I think cattle would be a compliment to how they really see us.
I think they see us as like insects.
I think like Bill Gates looks at us like we're just a bunch of fleas.
I mean, I really don't, I think there's a, you know, so for the idea, through these podcasts and through these independent journalists, we had, and people who stepped away like Matt Taibbi.
Michael Schellenberg and dared question this thing and was able to, like, I mean, you could say this about the Democrats and say this about the liberals.
They knew what Elon Musk was going to do to Twitter.
They had an inkling that he was going to expose things.
They had an inkling that he was going to be conservative, that he had been talking and wanting free speech, and they knew it.
But they still are such whores.
Because at the end of the day, their real God is money.
And they took the $44 billion, which was overpaid, by the way.
But he didn't care because that was just 25% of his wealth at the time.
But he realized that there was something more important than wealth.
And that was to be what the potential of Twitter was and could be, which was a beacon for free speech in the world.
And that's, do you take America for better or for worse?
But that...
First Amendment to free speech is the beacon call for freedom to world order.
It is.
It is why people are swimming to get here and doing everything they can because that freedom of speech, they realized, our founding father said, a lot of things can happen.
However, the right to bear arms was the Second Amendment.
They could have made that first, but they realized, and George Washington realized and said that, the real...
The real thing we have against our protection against tyranny, more than guns, really, is our free speech.
That's what we need.
And so that has been the, and continues to be, our tool against tyranny.
And that really was able to...
What saved us, I think.
Even though they tried to, you know, Kamala Harris and Walsh described it as a privilege.
Because they would like to take, you can take a privilege away.
If you drink and drive, they can take your privilege away.
But you can drink and still talk.
Because see, that is your God-given constitutional protected right here in America.
And that is your right to free speech.
So you can be as drunk as you want and you can still talk.
And so for Stephen Cole...
To Stephen Colbert, never apologize for the dancing syringes.
And for a Jimmy Kimmel to never apologize for calling people like me who oppose the vaccine mandates wheezy and to let us die in the hospital corridor is shameful.
And it will always be a stain against them, not just as comedians, but as human beings, that they would cajole.
That they would ridicule and they would demonize their fellow citizens, their fellow human beings who decided that wanted to do something different and wanted to question this new gene-altering technology that was developed at warp speed.
And I really feel like that was a...
So far out there that the Americans wouldn't go.
And it was 80 million Americans that said no to this bullshit.
And if you just do the math, basically, at the height of the Revolutionary War, you had one-third of Americans, just one-third, were behind the Revolutionary War.
One-third were ambivalent, and one-third was still with the crown.
But that was enough.
The biggest, most powerful army in the world at that time, the British crown.
And we had roughly that during the pandemic.
And if you think about it, we don't need all of them because there's going to be still people wearing masks that are happening now, even though it's been proved that they mean nothing.
And the six feet of distance, all the stuff that was made up.
But we have enough people now.
And it's important that the people in cultural positions where you can't, like Bobby Kennedy, like yourself, like myself, that people can stand up.
For other people, even though it may cost you financially, it may cost you in our business, the fact that you can stand up and they can try to say whatever they want, that we're crazy or whatever, but it is a person standing up against authority.
And for somebody, for a person standing up against authority like Bobby Kennedy, it's now a person that is now in a position of authority.
That can actually do something.
And I had an interesting conversation with Bobby because I said, you know, you have a really good chance of getting in now.
This is going to be something.
And I reminded him like why my father loved his father, Bobby Kennedy.
And that's why I have such an affinity for him because my father loved his father.
Because Bobby Kennedy Sr. made a gigantic move towards being to humanity.
Because he was a guy who was the, you know, literally the hard-ass, you know, muscle, brain muscle behind Joe McCarthy during the communist, you know, blacklisting of the 1950s.
The Russia scare, the original Russia scare.
But then, by the time after his brother was assassinated...
Putting it and seeing what happened to Americans, the black Americans, and the abject poverty, and the cruelty, and the fact that the disparity in our society, in the freest country in the world, that moved him.
When he saw the poverty in Mississippi in 1968-67, he was moved by that and became this incredible...
I mean, it was really Robert Kennedy was the one that stopped the burning of the cities after Martin Luther King was assassinated.
He was the guy that the African Americans looked to and said, we still have Bobby.
And you have that with Robert Kennedy.
And for all, none of us are perfect.
And Robert certainly would admit that.
And certainly when you lose your father at 14 years old, you witness your own uncle getting...
Getting murdered.
And your father, it's going to, you know, the fact that he survived that from all, whether he did drugs to, you know, and who could deny him?
The fact that this man now has, with all flaws and whatever, his heart and through 19 years of prayer, let me do something.
The times that I've spent with him, it is how can we make this better?
How can we really improve the lives of the average American?
How can we help children who are now over 54% and it's truthfully, it's closer to 60% suffer from chronic illnesses to stuff that's unheard of.
The fact that even questioning this can get us Kicked out of...
Am I still with you?
Yeah.
The fact that even questioning it can get us kicked out of decent society tells us something that our decent society is no longer decent.
Oh, man.
Rob, the reason I was laughing is I was thinking, when I was younger, growing up, watching Juice Bigelow, male gigolo one and two I did not imagine This would be the conversation that we would one day have.
I let that film influence me too much, by the way.
That gigolo game has a high price tag on it, let me tell you.
Rob, thanks, man.
That's why I think you and I have a special position, whereas people should question our motives.
They should always.
They should question all of us.
But we're coming from such a place of inequity, such a place of just selfishness.
An elitist, you know, art form that I think to give that up says something about us, but also they should continue to question our motives always.
And I would just say to those people, it's like, you know, to just continue.
I wouldn't do as I do.
I would say, I'd say I am the worst example of stuff.
I am doing everything I can to...
You know, to try to be a light now, to reflect God's light.
And I think that that's something that I'm going to have to work to strive to for what, you know, the hedonistic life that I'd led.
But I think that, you know, there is something that we can offer.
And I would say for us to have turned our backs against it.
For all the wonderful things that Hollywood can provide in show business.
I mean, when they lift you up and all of a sudden, you know, you're at a restaurant getting a table before other people.
That's a nice thing.
You don't want to give that up, Russell.
You want to keep that, you know?
So there is a calling that I think has been, you know, I want to believe that.
That I have been called for some reason.
And I don't know what it is exactly, but I think that if there's anything that I could offer people, and I think it's simply to just question these things or to open your mind to people who are also questioning and who have the potential to really change and do something good in the world.
That is, you cannot...
You cannot undermine the potential for what it would mean to make people who are sick, to have them be well.
You know, there are people, there is unnecessary suffering that happens in this country.
And one of the things that, in every country, but in our culture.
And for, I met these parents who said their kids were absolutely fine.
And then they were giving these vaccines, and then all of a sudden, they had regressed, and they couldn't speak anymore.
And some of them had, in the 90s, when there was still a lot more mercury in these shots, they literally, some of them had to wear helmets, and they never recovered from it.
And these parents who met with me, I believe them, and I still believe them.
What is their motivation?
Their motivation is simply to prevent other suffering for other families to not have to deal with that.
And I was so moved by that.
And I said, well, I'll speak on your behalf because I had a bigger voice at that time.
And so I went to Sacramento and California and spoke before the...
The State Senate hearings.
And for that, I was attacked, you know, as this crazy anti-vaxxer.
And what I really am is a crazy person who believes parents and who wants the same thing.
I mean, because what those parents gave me was knowledge, and they didn't want that suffering.
So my kids are fine.
And I'm grateful to them because what they really did was, out of the love of their own hearts, to want to minimize the suffering of others, they minimized the potential sufferings for families like mine.
And it's like, once you, and then I sit with Bobby Kennedy with these people, these wonderful parents, you know, and it just...
There's nothing in my life that I could come close to anything that I could ever do to that beautiful grace that these people have and their children.
And I feel like, you know, whatever I do, whatever I could stand up and try to do in my own ignorant, uneducated way is just, you know, they say like the, you know, it's whatever good works is rags in the face of the Lord.
And it made me realize that like, How much more, if my good works are rags in the face of the Lord, how much more my pride, my ego, my vanity.
And so it became a real moving thing.
I realized that to lose everything is nothing because it was nothing.
And I needed to go through that.
I needed to have that removed from me so that I could, it's for my own humanity and for my own...
To kind of come to a place where a higher self.
And it is a beautiful thing for people who were looking to rebel and to be different and edgy, like some of the movies that you try to make and try to be as outrageous as you can.
I mean, these days, everyone is doing that.
It's as edgy, whatever.
If you really want to be a rebel now, come to Christ.
He's the original rebel.
I mean, that's how rebellious is that.
And how about the faith of those when he said, take this, this is my body, take this in memory of me.
I mean, how about the people, like some people, that was too much for them, and they couldn't take it, and they left.
And I'm sure that there was like, that was a lot for the apostles to go with.
And it's just a, so it comes back to that for me.
It's a humbling.
And when you realize what was given for us, anything that we could offer to give up is nothing compared to what Christ did.
Rob, thank you so much for sharing that with us.
I'm sorry we've not had more time to get into Christianity, the spirit of play.
I feel like next time we have a conversation, we'll have to do it live with an audience.
I'd love to organize that because I feel like we could really revel in some chaos together.
But thank you for our conversation today, Rob.
It's been an amazing, wild and unpredictable journey with you.
And I'm really grateful for your time today.
Thanks, Rob.
Thank you, Russell.
It's been a pleasure.
Let's do this again.
Thank you, Rob Schneider, for joining us for that fantastic conversation.
Let me know in the comments in chat if you'd like to see a live performance from Rob and I. I'm thinking about doing something in front of a small audience with him.
Wouldn't that be fun and crazy?
Thank you very much for joining us today.
We will see you on Monday.
Not for more of the same, but for more of the different.
Until then, if you can, stay free.
Switch
on, switch on. Switch on, switch off.
Main switching, switch on, switch on.
Main switching, switch on, switch on Main switching, switch on, switch on Main switching, switch on,
Export Selection