All Episodes
Previous Next
July 2, 2025 - Stay Free - Russel Brand
01:07:49
Abandoning the Democrats – Lindy Li on the Collapse of Trust - SF607
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
Ladies and gentlemen, Russell Brown trying to bring real journalism to the American people.
Hello there, you Awakening Wonders.
Welcome to Stay Free with Russell Brown.
We've got a very special interview today with Lindy Lee, formerly Democrat, fundraiser and advocate and media personality.
It's a brilliant conversation to have with someone who was so devoted to the left and now is an apostate.
She has turned away from the left and she knows where the bodies are buried.
It's a brilliant conversation.
If you're joining us from Timcast, welcome.
Get on over here.
If you're from Mug Club, get on over here.
We love you.
Remember, we stream Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.
Tomorrow's our watch along.
We're looking at Tommy Robinson's documentary and Tommy will be coming on as a guest in the next few weeks.
I'm not wearing a watch.
I'm just looking at Jesus.
Join us for that.
This is a brilliant conversation.
Let me tell you a little bit about Lindy Lee for those of you that don't know.
Lindy Lee is an American political commentator, campaign advisor and former Democratic Party leader who now identifies, oh yeah, as conservative.
She previously served as the women's co-chair and mid-Atlantic regional chair of the Democratic National Committee and worked on Asian American outreach for the Biden 2020 campaign.
Once a vocal defender of the Biden administration, she became a fierce critic of the Democratic Party following the 2024 election.
She's worked with NBC, MSNBC and Fox and she's run for Congress.
This is a brilliant conversation.
You are going to love it.
If you're watching this on X or YouTube, make your way over to Rumble.
And if you don't have Rumble Premium yet, get Rumble Premium.
You get additional content, not just from me, but from Tim Paul and from Stephen Crowder and from Glenn Greenwald and all of the other Rumble free speech advocates.
Without further ado, here's my conversation with Lindy Lee.
It goes in some surprising places.
There's some good chemistry.
There's Christian music at the end.
Stay with it.
See you in a minute.
Lindy, thank you so much for joining me for Stay Free with Russell Brand.
Russell, it's such an honor to join you.
Thank you for having me.
Is that Philadelphia in the background?
It is.
That's a William Penn statue.
I am in the clouds above Philadelphia.
It's really cool.
I've been here practically all my life.
Actually, I'm from Sheffield, England.
I wanted to tell you that.
I'm from the United Kingdom.
You're a Yorkshire woman.
But I left when I was four or five.
But I spent my first years of my life there.
Yeah.
I'm trying to detect a Yorkshire accent and I couldn't hear it.
I love that place.
I love Sheffield.
Most people, if they are familiar with Sheffield at all, it'll be because of maybe the actor Sean Bean or the film The Fall Monty or Sheffield's famous football teams United and Wednesday.
Do you ever go back to Sheffield?
Unfortunately, no, but I'm such an Anglophile.
Everything British, I absolutely love.
You guys are the best.
I think you're the best people on earth.
Well, thank you.
I heard recently a brilliant theory that the British could be one of the lost tribes of Israel, that there are prophecies that point towards it.
Certainly politically, though, our country, the United Kingdom, is going through some transformations and some transitions that are, of course, comparable to what's happening in the United States, even though there is a distinct trajectory.
Lindy, what I mean by that is that Britain is having a kind of moment of nationalism, that Britain is having a moment of, I would say, a kind of crisis of confidence in the institutions of governance.
I would say that when it comes to a renewed cynicism about institutions of media, that's by virtue of the fact that independent media is a global phenomenon, the subsequent cynicism about centralized legacy media is similarly global.
One of the reasons I was most excited to speak with you is because you were such a vocal supporter and significant supporter as well as advocate and indeed potentially even Congress member for the Democrat Party.
And now you actually disavow them.
And I wonder where you stand politically now, particularly even with recent conversations in the space that both you and I now occupy, where the fracture that's appeared between Donald Trump and Elon Musk,
the conversations around Thomas Massey, the emergence of Mamdani, the continuing controversy around AOC suggests that something new is being born, even beyond MAGA, Maha, and the resurgence of right-wing politics.
What do you think about these?
Thank you.
What do you think about these new categories that are emerging?
And let's sketch out an outline of what you think is coming in the next few years politically in your country.
Russell, I think your analysis is spot on.
I think there's a lot of discontent, especially in the last couple of weeks when President Trump decided to go into Iran.
A lot of people are upset.
A lot of people voted for him because they didn't want more wars.
They didn't want forever wars, regime change wars.
And I actually wasn't really keen on getting into Iran.
But now that we're there, I think it was the best that could have been hoped for the way that it was handled.
This is the best case scenario because when Iran retaliated, it was very symbolic.
They did the least possible damage.
They literally telegraphed to us the day before what they were going to do.
So the damage is actually quite minimal.
So who knows?
If Trump can pull this off and if he can establish peace between Israel and the Palestinians, he deserves a Nobel Peace Prize.
But it's a huge if.
We'll see what happens.
But you're totally right that there's a lot of discontent because if we had escalated this war in something and if this had deteriorated, this would have been a third war in the Middle East in the past 20 some years, which would have signified Americans learned nothing from our catastrophic mistakes in the last couple of decades.
But fingers crossed and we'll never get there.
I don't know.
We'll see What happens in the next couple of days?
I think it's going to be really critical.
What for a minute seemed like a very sort of cohesive political movement around MAGA, I mean, given these prominent figures around which the movement coalesced, Elon Musk, Vivek, Ramaswamy, Tulsi Gabbard, Bobby Kennedy, J.D. Vance, but most notably, and obviously Trump himself, the sort of epitome and figurehead of rising populism, a movement that's really changing politics everywhere, not just in your country.
What I am fascinated by is now there are, there's, I would say, whether it's on the subject of migration, as you've already touched upon, the subject of war, or the subject of the deficit, there are fissures and fractures emerging.
Now, Elon Musk, you know, this just sort of see this landscape changes so rapidly and radically, Lindy, even in 24 hours, what we're talking about now might have changed.
But Elon Musk is talking about supporting opponents of the big beautiful bill in primaries.
Trump is suggesting and threatening even candidates and sort of politicians such as Thomas Massey.
I wonder if you think that Elon Musk's talk of a third political party in America is just rhetoric or is it something that America should consider?
Is in fact the ending of these categories of left and right a precursor to the emergence of new political movements?
Yeah, I understand Elon's frustration.
I actually sympathize a lot with what he's saying because this bill does add $3 trillion to $33 trillion of debt.
It's completely unsustainable and my generation, our generation will be paying for that.
I just, it's completely untenable.
We spend a trillion dollars a year just paying off our interest alone.
So this is not a sustainable situation at all.
But I do want to say that the two parties are so deeply entrenched.
So I don't see the two party system, the two party system going away anytime soon, despite the moribund nature and the dilapidated nature of the Democratic Party.
It's just so incredibly hard to form a third party.
I mean, all you have to do is look at Andrew Yang.
Remember, he made a huge stink about starting the forward party, but where did that go?
Every day he slips into more irrelevance.
I don't mean any disrespect.
I'm just describing it objectively.
Like nobody's really listening to him, right?
So I understand where Elon is coming from, but I think a lot of his motivation, in addition to being financial, is also personal.
It's hard to leave the highest echelons of power.
I get it.
And I think he feels a little bit ostracized.
But it doesn't, no one can deny the immense frustration that the grassroots feel about additional wars in the Middle East, additional spending.
People like Thomas Massey, we can disagree with him on certain matters, but no one can deny that this is a man who sticks by his principles, I believe.
We're going to pause the interview for a quick word from one of our partners.
Here's a message from them now.
Why are you drinking stinking, jaded, lukewarm, dirty, filthy grey coffee beans when you could be having vibrant, revolutionary coffee like this one?
It's an elixir of pure innocence, it's a glorious and awakening drink.
Pea berries are the outliers, the lone wolves, the beans that grow solo on the branch.
No twins, no compromise, no hangers on, no hemorrhoids.
Just one dense, round, flavour-packed powerhouse that tastes like it's been preparing for this cup its entire life.
It's grown high in the Bolivian mountains where the air is thin, the vibes are thick and the beans basically whisper ancient truths to the winds.
No acidic afterburn, no synthetic weirdness.
This coffee doesn't leave you hung over in a feather boa or speaking fluent nonsense.
Just bold, smooth, consciousness activating coffee with clean energy and antioxidants so potent I drank it and remembered three of my past lives.
Go to 1775coffee.com, use the code brand and get 15% off.
T-Berry Wonder, Hallucinations, Glory, Psychedelic Wonder, all available here.
Use the link, get the discount, get the free shipping, benefit from an awakening beam.
You lunatic you.
Well, the emergence of Trump, you know, 10 years ago, or certainly the descent down the gold escalator and ascent into the public imagination and ultimately into an almost unique position of personal power, I feel like represented a new political epoch.
And many people might contest, Lindy, that the Republican Party was completely reformed in Trump's image.
And the party conference prior to his current tenure seemed to be a purge of old Republican figures, an end of the old guard, and a kind of, in a sense, an ascendancy of what began as the Tea Party movement in, I don't know, around 08 or whenever that was, into this new MAGA and somewhat MAHA movement.
So if Trump can completely reconfigure the Republican Party, even though we still have an entrenched two-party political system, the landscape of American politics has altered.
Do you think that it is a radical transformation, that Trump is a radically different political figure?
Or do you imagine that the same financial and institutional interests that have always run America can continue to exert monumental influence even with someone as individualistic and personally potent as Donald Trump?
That's such a good question.
It reminds me of the Silicon Valley mantra, move fast and break things.
And that's kind of what Donald Trump is doing right now.
If anyone can shake up Washington and completely rejigger, completely revolutionize politics, it's Donald Trump.
I've never seen anything like it.
I've also, I guess, admittedly, I haven't been on earth that long, but I just, it's just astounding how much he has revolutionized our institutions, our way of normally doing things, our presidential norms.
And I actually think it's a good thing.
What he did to USAID, for instance, was absolutely necessary.
Why are we funneling billions of dollars Around the world for countries that don't even treat us very well.
Why are we funding transgender operas overseas?
Why does it help?
Tell me, whose interests does that serve?
It goes into the pockets of liberal organizations here in America.
And it also speaks to the criticisms that I've been offering against the Democratic Party.
These deep-pocketed people who move from campaign to campaign, they make tens of millions of dollars.
They pocket our taxpayer funds.
They pocket the money of the hard-earned money of Americans around the country.
And that is why the core of the Democratic Party is so rotten.
And it goes back to your question.
We needed somebody like Trump to essentially turn over the tables in the temple and start over.
And I'm really happy to see that they're trying to implement some of the Doge cuts because it's absolutely unnecessary.
We should not be spending money like a drunken sailor.
Prior to your vocal condemnation of the Democrats, you were fundraising for the Democrats and supporting them vocally and publicly.
How long before you publicly denounced the Democrats and began your support of Trump and the Republicans in this current form and incarnation, were you having doubts about, for example, Kamala Harris's candidacy, Biden's cognitive decline and the party's motivation more generally?
What did you think about Hillary Clinton?
What did you think about Bernie Sanders?
What did you think about AAC?
What was the decline and what was your apostasy, should we call it?
When did it win?
My fall from grace, so to speak.
Actually, I've been warring against a leftist faction, against the woke faction of the Democratic Party for six years.
Actually, that's kind of my claim to fame in American politics.
I went to war with the Bernie Bros.
The Chinese communist regime murdered my great-grandfather in cold blood.
So I have an extreme allergy and aversion to anything to do with Marxist ideology.
And that's everything that Bernie Sanders represented for me.
So I went to war with the leftist faction about five, six years ago and got tarred and feathered for that.
And that was my first brush with the hyenas of the Democratic Party.
And ever since then, I think it's just been a matter of time.
But the Biden presidency was a whole nother beast because it was a complete lie.
And unfortunately, Russell, I got to be honest with you, I believed it for a number of years.
It took me a while to realize, oh my God, they're like, they're lying to us.
They lied to us about the Hunter Biden situation.
They told us it was a Russian conspiracy.
Unfortunately, I believed it because when you have NBC News and the American intelligence community telling you that something is true, I tended to believe them.
I now understand it's a mistake.
But as a 20-something, I believe them.
And it took me, I think it took one lie unraveling to make me think, oh, if they're lying about Hunter Biden's laptop, maybe they're lying about Biden's cognitive state, which I actually saw firsthand.
I didn't really need much to realize that they're lying about that, but other things as well.
Maybe they were lying about the billions that I helped to raise for Kamala Harris.
And so it's kind of like a domino effect.
They lost my credit.
They lost my trust on one thing, which made me question everything else.
And Russell, it's been about eight months since I first asked for accountability on the billions that I raised.
It's been total crickets.
No one has said anything.
No one has answered my questions about why we spent millions on Beyoncé, Cardi B, you know, what's her name?
The one who dances like a blank on stage.
Megan the stallion.
The stallion.
Yeah, that woman.
Why did we spend hard-earned money on that, on celebrity endorsements rather than on bread and butter issues, rather than on showing that we care about the American people?
But frankly, by that point, I'd already given up.
Russell, exactly a year ago, actually, exactly a year ago, I went to Fox News basically as a cry for help.
I reached out to somebody there trying to tell the truth.
And I remember getting a call from somebody in the Biden White House saying, you're the president's most loyal supporter.
We know you're going to stay loyal.
I didn't stay loyal, quote unquote.
I stayed loyal to the American people.
And I told the truth about the state of his cognitive fitness, which isn't very good.
But this is the type of people they are.
They imposed, they shoved a conspiracy, a lie, a deception down the throats of the American people, all in the service of Orange Man Bad.
Do you think, Lindy, that social democracies inclined towards a kind of tyranny over time and therefore amplify the woke cultural aspect of their doctrine over economic policy to mask the fact that really what's happening over time is that in order to increase authority, they're amplifying concern.
The clearest and best example of that for our audience would be the period of the COVID pandemic where under the auspices of the preservation and protection of human life, authority was increased, censorship increased, control, social control increased, mandating in some cases and near mandating of medications increased.
And during that period, we got to see that what was posing as a social democratic government, whether that was in the form of Trump, who was obviously in office at the beginning of the pandemic period, or the Biden administration during the majority of the pandemic period, there's a kind of tendency towards authoritarianism that gets masked with the kind of false choices that people are offered in bipartisan democracies.
Do you think, therefore, Lindy, that this amount of deception that you've observed in what sounds to me like you're describing as a personal political awakening where you began to see the Democrat Party really as a kind of type Of fear, a deceptive machine, a deceptive and manipulative machine.
Do you think, Lindy, that we might be hopefully moving towards a period where we have to acknowledge that social democracies themselves, as I said at the beginning of this rather long question, incline towards hegemony and tyranny?
And if that is the case, then perhaps what we're seeing now in this latest spate of controversies and conflict early in the Trump administration, whether it's with Thomas Massey or Elon Musk or some of the other, like, you know, the controversy around the Iran war we started off talking about,
is actually the kind of, what do I want to say, the kind of collapse of not only our faith in these systems, but the collapse of these systems themselves, artificially Viagraid for a few years by the priapism of Donald Trump, who's like a sort of a very mobile and potent individual.
But nevertheless, the problems of Western democracy and the collapse of Western democracy go beyond these kind of this left-right argument and sort of problems of deep decline.
Wow.
Wait, first of all, I could listen to you talk all day.
Thanks.
It's like kind of like music to my ears.
I could literally listen to your British accent all day long.
And he used my favorite word, hegemony.
I just want to pause and praise you for a sec for that.
Also, did you use Viagra as a verb?
Yeah.
If you did, that was amazing.
I've never done that before.
That was the first time I've ever done that.
Thank you.
Truly brilliant.
The brill, as you guys would say.
I have to give you credit for that.
You are spot on about the underlying sickness of our political system.
It's just, I don't, oh man, I just feel like the whole thing is just, we are living under, well, at least under a Democratic leadership, we were living under the tyranny of trans LGBTQI plus.
And every year there would be additional letter, if you noticed, every single year they would tack on some, some other color to their flag or some other letter to their acronym.
And it would just get more ridiculous.
And Russell, I don't know if you realize this, they didn't consider me American.
This party of diversity, they didn't think I was American.
Like for them, I was A-A-N-H-P-I.
That is how they labeled me when I was in the party.
And what does that stand for?
You have no idea, right?
Asian American Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander.
I'm from the freaking United Kingdom.
Tell me why they forced this down my throat.
They are so big on identity politics.
And I think that's almost the essence of their disease.
They celebrate diversity, but in so doing, they were actually sowing division in our republic.
And it's just so toxic.
And by the way, the people who are most racist towards me right now aren't the Republicans, the vast majority of whom have been incredibly warm and welcoming towards me.
The people who are now calling me a Chinese spy, by the way, the Chinese government, as I mentioned, killed my great-grandfather.
You think I'm going to be spying for them?
Those fucking douchebags?
Am I allowed to curse on here?
But you like, honestly, the Democrats are now saying we should deport her to China.
I'm an American citizen.
Thank you very much.
Where are you going to deport me to?
Philadelphia, my home?
So something's got to change because right now, guess what?
The Democratic Party is at a 19% approval rating.
And as you alluded to, there's also dissension within the ranks, within the MAGA ranks.
But I think, you know, once Trump gets the trade deals figured out, apparently there are a number of trade deals down the pipeline.
As soon as he irons out the Iran-Israel situation, the Israel-Gaza situation, as soon as interest rates come down, I think his momentum is going to be hard to stop going into the midterms.
I actually already committed to fundraise for him for free because it is so pivotal that we don't go back.
We cannot go back to the progressive tyranny that we saw under the Biden administration.
If you're watching this on YouTube, click the link in the description.
You're going to love the rest of this conversation between Lindy and I. We talk about communism, we talk about Christianity, and we talk about the necessity for new emergent political forces.
Click the link in the description.
Join us over there.
I reckon that probably there will be a transformation of the Democrat Party comparable to the transformation of the Republican Party under Trump.
It's pretty clear, it seemed at least, that the Republican Party was grooming and preparing Jeb Bush as their candidate before their sort of astonishing sequence of explosions.
Do you remember that moment where he's like, please clap?
Do you remember that?
I do.
I remember the sort of pure joy and entertainment of Trump's emergence.
But I was deeply, deeply sort of cynical and kind of aghast at the prospect of a Trump presidency and thought it was kind of ridiculous.
But in hindsight, what is really ridiculous is none of us saw it coming, that what was being created was a political environment where someone who's a master of public communications, who can be explicit, vernacular and open and natural on camera,
who understands, who has what we used to ascribe to Princess Diana, a kind of common touch and ability to talk to people in chicken shops and street corners or on construction sites, was going to, particularly in the kind of synthetic and hollow environment vacated by Barack Obama,
notably, and particularly after his failure to deal with the 2008 economic crisis in a transparent and ethical way, that the stage was set for someone who understood modern media, modern politics, modern communication.
And whilst he's obviously not a young man, he clearly has an understanding of contemporary communication that far surpasses anyone on the side of the Democrats.
And also he's not stymied by the sort of the manacles of hypocrisy that bind that party and its movement.
But I reckon what we'll likely see, I don't know what we'll see, who knows anything, but like one of the things that could happen is that the Democrat Party could reform itself around the character of a charismatic individual, the people that are sort of AOC, Newsome, I suppose would be the most likely people.
But something extraordinary could happen.
But what I'm really interested in, Lindy, is the kind of collapse of those parties themselves.
When you were raising all of that money for the Kamala campaign, how is it that you've gone from being enthusiastic and devoted and committed to feeling so disappointed in it?
What are the sort of pivotal moments that have taken you from being dedicated and significant, like personally raising a lot of money for the Democrats, it sounds like being kind of despairing of them?
Yeah, first of all, raising money, I can do that in my sleep.
It's just a talent that I have.
I have a lot of wealthy friends and family.
It's just something that I can do.
So I don't think it's so much as an emblem of Kamala's competence as my just natural fundraising ability that I can transfer from person to person, which is why I was able to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for Trump's inauguration in January 2025, which is just two months later after election day.
So I don't think it speaks so much to Kamala's strength as my own experience.
And by the way, I was never paid to do any of that.
I don't need to do this.
I did it because I cared.
I wanted to make a difference.
And raising money for campaigns is actually one of the most effective, as Elon demonstrated, is one of the most effective ways to shape policy and have a voice at the table.
But I have always, as I mentioned, five, six years ago, I was going to war with the leftist people.
It's still on my, they vandalize my Wikipedia page.
It's still an entire section on my war with the Bernie bros.
Everything that they represent is anathema to me.
Everything from open borders to free college, free this, free that.
It just completely completely undermines everything I believe in.
I'm a naturalized immigrant from the United Kingdom.
My family and I came here very poor.
Very, very poor.
But we brought high skills.
My dad was a doctor.
He ended up at Harvard Medical School.
We never took a handout.
We worked our asses off to get to where we are today.
And that is the kind of mentality that I want to bring, that I want people to bring to America.
I don't want people leeching off our system, exploiting our system.
We need, you know, to bring the vibrancy and the immigrant hustle to America.
We shouldn't have millions of people pouring across the border willy-nilly, people who can't assimilate into our culture, people who are burning cars in the American flag.
We don't want people like that.
We want people who love our country.
And I know this is something that England faces as well and countries in Europe.
Tons of people pouring in and completely usurping the culture that was there to begin with.
How do you feel about that?
Well, how I feel about the UK is that it's a country with an identity crisis that I suppose probably because we had a conservative and therefore right-wing government for the majority of the pandemic with a kind of populist, albeit somewhat unscrupulous leader in Boris Johnson.
And what I mean particularly by unscrupulous is a person that would change his political identity for expedience.
And I suppose a lot of politicians do that.
That's not particularly unique.
But like, had Boris Johnson not been Prime Minister then, he would almost certainly be Prime Minister now.
The Conservative Party has imploded and has led to the ascent of Keir Starmer and a kind of rebooted Blairist Labour Party.
What I mean by that is it's a Labour Party that's not in particular socialist except for empowering the state and a kind of doubling down on that concern as control motif that's described social democratic leftist parties for the last, you know, from Clinton onwards, let's say, where we've got the distinct impression that what's behind their care is an attempt to control.
Again, something that became evident and clear during the COVID pandemic, where evidently the sanctity and regard for the sanctity of life was so extreme that no measure of control was too intrusive or draconian.
But when you look at the way that the pandemic has played out in terms of the fatalities and the injuries incurred from vaccines, it seems unlikely that the motivation was ever care at all.
I'm not suggesting that these are sort of conscious efforts that take place.
It's just a tendency of authority and a tendency of authoritarianism.
States need to regulate, legislate, control and preserve the system itself.
Me now, just so you know, Lindy, whilst there is a sort of a, it seems at least by the assessment of current residents of the United Kingdom, a crisis around migration and a lot of social division around,
in particular, it would seem, is Muslim immigration and perhaps epitomized by the rape gang crisis, the initial refusal to conduct an inquiry into the rape gang until Tommy Robinson made a documentary and Elon Musk reposted it.
I think the crisis goes a lot deeper.
I don't think British people know what it is to be British anymore.
I don't think we have any political party that people have faith in.
There's a sort of a lot of, gosh, I would say almost default enthusiasm around Nigel Farage or interest or maybe just the kind of people at least hoping that Nigel Farage and reform can make some kind of difference.
I don't know what will happen there.
Likely that reform and the Conservative Party will at some point blend together and Nigel Farage will be the leader of the Conservative Party.
He's the closest thing to a Donald Trump or a MAGA movement that we have in the UK.
I think the crisis in the United Kingdom has been sort of somewhat heightened by border issues and migration issues.
Certainly it seems to be something that British people are concerned about, but I think it's a lot deeper than that.
I think there's a lot of deep systemic institutional corruption.
I think the British people have been betrayed around Brexit and the kind of pledges that were made that Brexit's been somewhat undone and reversed.
Mostly, I think it's a culture that's being deliberately sort of collapsed from within, that there's been a process of capitulation to non-national bodies, whether that was the EU when we were members of it.
But now it seems that there are still ways of transferring power and wealth out of the hands of British people in institutions that somehow transcend our democracy and even our nation.
I won't pretend to understand it, but what I do feel like the solution might be, it is suggested by the way that technology has changed.
The current technology enables decentralization, it facilitates local organization.
It could easily be used to expedite decentralized states of referenda.
Communities of, I would say, of the smallest size conceivable, could be in charge of their own resources, could be in charge of their own expenditure, their own municipal resources.
And I think that I don't know how to facilitate this, but I sense that if you can revolutionize the hotel industry through Airbnb and you can revolutionize taxi cabs through Uber, there is the same potential for decentralized or at least mass communicative models, even though I recognize that both Airbnb and Uber are centralized and that probably both of those organizations pay their taxes in some sort of favorable locale.
And it could be argued, certainly in the case of Uber, that they exploit their drivers and sort of eviscerate local taxicab economies.
I know that's how taxi drivers in London feel.
I feel that this technology, if there were an appetite for it, could be used to create local economies, local organization.
And what we have the opportunity for, Lindy, my belief is, is a return to traditional methods of agriculture and advanced methods of technology when it comes to communication and ongoing scientific advancement.
But the principle that I would most like to advocate for is decentralization, centralized authority only where necessary.
And obviously that would mean in defense.
But what I would most like to see is communities in control of their own resources, determining how their own communities are run by open discourse and through transparent digital, localized democracy.
I think this is possible now.
And I think that that's what's being resisted.
I think with the advent of online communication, independent media and social media particularly, there has been an attempt to resist the natural flow towards decentralized power.
Everyone has a voice now.
Everyone can communicate.
You can have niche interests in peculiar subjects.
You can, as one person with a phone, can become an internet phenomenon and a revelatory journalist.
What I feel that we're living through is the attempts of old institutions to maintain power and authority that they can no longer legitimately yield.
I don't think there's a requirement anymore to have 400 representatives traveling to some centralized state to govern for populations of like 70 million in the case of UK or over 300 million in the case of US.
At least the American Constitution was built to decentralize power through the various states.
And I think that a return to local government, state government, maximum democracy should be the guiding principle.
And I think what we're experiencing now through, whether it's through Palantir in your country, the US, and their attempts to assert and exert sort of mass surveillance methods.
Yeah.
Or through the EU in Europe is an attempt to thwart the natural inclination of technology of the type we have now to decentralize power.
Old institutions.
Yeah, well, that's how I see it, mate.
So I reckon what I'm interested in supporting, I don't think there's any point in us being caught up in culture wars or left versus right wars anymore.
I think we should be thinking about how is it possible to decentralize power, for people to grow, for communities to be in control of their own resources, especially and in particular food, and for us to look at what baggage we carry from 100 years of faltering and decaying democratic institutions and how we could truly revolutionize them with the tools that we have now.
Yeah, I think you bring up a really good point.
And just to add to what you said, the decentralization of AI is what we need, I think, because right now in the big beautiful bill, I don't know if you noticed, there's a provision that says all control AI regulation is under the jurisdiction of the federal government rather than state governments.
There's been a lot of opposition to that, including from Republicans who see that as a frightening omen.
You know, AI, it's already a scary prospect for many people.
The last thing we need is to have one entity controlling everything when AI is something that should be readily available to everybody.
Imagine the power that one person can have by controlling AI at the national level rather than, as you say, on a regional basis or a state basis.
What are your thoughts on AI in particular within the national level?
Well, Lindy, I'm interested that there is that provision for, isn't it for a decade there can be no state intervention?
I heard about that as well, yeah.
Yeah, I did, mate.
And it's for me, yeah, you're right, that it indicates a tendency or an inclination towards controlling that extraordinary new power.
And AI, like anything, if it were in the hands of individuals, if it were decentralized, there's no reason why it couldn't be used to create more freedom, greater glory, advance in almost every conceivable field.
But if, like most technology, it ends up being controlled by elites and elite institutions, it could be terrifying.
Reality, I see the world in pretty simple terms, that the agricultural revolution was our species' mastery of nature.
The industrial revolution was our species' mastery over matter.
And that the AI revolution could be mastery over attention or consciousness itself, that reality itself could become control.
That was actually brilliant.
Thanks.
I've been thinking about it for a little while.
I did come up with it.
Yeah, I did come up with it.
Thanks, Lindy Lee.
This is a very good interview for my ego.
You're asking me questions.
I'm writing a lot of questions.
This is the most edifying.
Russell, I got to say, I've done a lot of interviews.
This is the most edifying interview I've ever done.
Usually it's me like, you know, going forth and pouring out information.
I am like a sponge right now, just absorbing all information.
Well, what I'm sort of really struck by and interested in is your good faith and optimism.
And in particular, your ability to generate revenue.
You seem like a person that would be an excellent ally.
It's a problem now because I have a lot of wolfers around me trying to get a piece.
You know, just like an hour before, I just had to re-up my lawyer again to send some cease and desist because people are trying to get a part of my money.
It's just what do you mean, Lindy?
Who's after your money?
What's going on?
Oh, you don't have to tell me anything.
Somebody that I thought I could trust.
What'd you say?
Don't tell me anything that's compromising, obviously.
Well, I don't want to, I just, in very broad terms, I'm just going to someone that I thought I could trust is now out for my money.
So it's a very unfortunate situation, but the lawyers are going to handle it.
It's just, it's also, it's like a, I'm being, I'm a victim of my own success.
You know, when people see that you can make money, they try to take it away from you.
And the same thing happened.
My youngest woman run for Congress.
I raised close to a million dollars and I had consultants trying to scam me.
They charge me hundreds of thousands of dollars for sham services.
And it's just, it's a recurring motif in my life that people try to take advantage of me.
But I'm not here to.
Yeah, it's just a way of life, you know?
We can't make this content without the support of our partners.
Here's a message from one now.
Free speech is under attack, Jack, but Rumble refuses to take it lying down.
Rumble is farting out the fierce cock of authoritarianism and clamping shut the butt cheeks of free speech, baby.
When major advertisers conspired to pull their dollary dues, even brands like Dunking Donuts turned their back, claiming Rumble had a right-wing culture.
But we're not here to fit a mold.
We're here to defend free expression.
Content from creators like Russell Brand.
Yo, I'm that dude.
Doctor Disrespect.
Timcast and the Muck Club with Crowder.
It's more than a subscription.
It's a stand for free speech.
Your voice matters.
For a limited time, you can get $10 off an annual plan using the Rumble code brand.
Visit rumble.com forward slash premium forward slash brand and claim your discount today.
Together we can turn the tide whether you join Rumble Premium or simply keep watching.
Your support helps keep free speech alive and with free speech we can be free together.
Subscribe to RumbleNow.
Well it sounds like a really brilliant skill set that you've got there.
Now given that you're responding so positively to these broad strokes that I'm drawing, it seemed to me that whilst Trump's initial success in 2016 was right significant, it was contemporaneous to a lot of other interesting changes across the world that are perhaps less notable.
Obviously Brexit is a comparison that people will continually draw in my part of the world.
But what people will less likely mention is the rise of Podemos, a Spanish left-wing popular party, and Saritsa, a popular party in Greece that actually got into government after the 2008 crash, which I consider to be sort of perhaps as significant as 9-11 in transforming the complexion of the world global economies and contemporary politics.
Do you see that as like the Kyrony in the gold mine?
The bird, the Karen.
Did you see that as like the omen for everything that came afterwards?
What in particular?
Spain, Greece, Great Britain, do you see that as an evolution of progression towards Donald Trump?
Did everything that come before kind of signify that Trump was coming?
Did you see this coming?
No, I didn't.
I was really, I didn't think Trump could ever win.
I thought it was ridiculous.
No, I was the opposite of insightful when it came to the ascent of Trump.
But in retrospect, I've got a 2020 vision.
And what I feel is that the collapse of the record industry through Napster, the Arab Spring, and the Occupy movement were all early indicators that politics were going to change.
Now, the reason that I believe the categories of misinformation and disinformation have had to be created is because people in positions of institutional power recognized that we were at an important inflection point, that independent media would inevitably blend with independent political movements.
And these movements had to be stymied, strangled in the cradle, as it were.
Now, that's why I think that during the sort of post-pandemic era and during the pandemic itself, we saw the smearing and attacks of prominent media voices.
And I certainly believe that I'm the recipient of such attacks, the utilization of lawfare, the term that's sort of the neologism that's emerged to describe the use of legal attacks to drain people's resources and attack their reputations.
I think I'm subject to just such attacks with media working together, potentially with law enforcement, certainly with online.
You just, through surrendering to God, Lindy, is how and recognizing that none of us are super important, but there is, well, we're all very, very important to God, but there's something important is happening.
Something important is happening now.
The canary, to your earlier inquiry, what was the canary In the mind.
The Canary, I believe, could have been Napstar, it could have been the Arab Spring, or it could have been the Occupy Movement.
In any event, the Canary is long since deceased and at the bottom of the cage.
And now, where we are is potentially in a pivotal political moment where we could see the alliance of people from across the political spectrum advocating not just for a new political party, but for new political and institutional movements.
And I think the principle that we should be looking to is maximal sovereignty for the individual, maximal sovereignty for the community, and a willingness to overcome cultural and ideological disagreements as long as that's concomitant with regional independence.
So what I mean to say is that, say, if you have, let's take a pretty obvious contemporary example, like the, you know, the sort of this flavor of the month Mandami figure in New York, who will likely be, well, is going to be the Democrat candidate and presumably will therefore become the next mayor of New York.
If, you know, it's becoming clear that rural communities and urban communities have different political requirements.
If a democratic process brings Mam Damani into office, then that's the result of democracy.
If that's who people vote for, then that's who people should get.
Now, I recognize that you have a sort of personal, familial, and historic problem with communism or certainly Chinese communism.
Mamdani doesn't say that he's, I think he says he's not a communist, although he does believe in state empowerment.
I don't really believe that, though.
Really?
Tell me.
He claims to want to seize the means of production.
Oh, yeah, that's yeah, that's.
It sounds like communism to me.
Yeah, it does.
But like, but the thing that makes me optimistic about it is that people obviously have an appetite for real political change.
People have an appetite for real political change.
And I think that's a positive thing.
That is totally a positive thing.
But communism, I think, is not the answer.
No, I believe in God.
I believe in God too.
I'm actually, I wear it.
I can't believe I'm showing this to you, but I wear this around my neck everywhere I go.
You love our Lord and Savior, Jesus.
Wait, should I whip out my Bible too?
Get it out.
This instant.
Are you a follower of Jesus?
I am, actually.
I didn't expect to do that.
I didn't expect to ring props or interview.
I'm sorry.
There we go.
You mentioned earlier, I asked you how you weather adversity and you said just to surrender to God.
And it's something that I repeat to myself.
Let go and let God.
You and I, you've been through so much.
I've followed your life for a decade now, and you've weathered so many storms, especially in the public eye.
It takes my breath away to witness your strength and fortitude.
It's not easy.
It's not easy to have your entire life sprawled out for an entire world to see, right?
It's very hard.
But I'm with you.
I support you.
And I know millions of people do.
Thank you.
That's really kind of you to say.
I appreciate that, Lindy.
Thank you.
That's lovely.
I'm grateful to you because, yeah, I've been accused of some pretty appalling things.
It isn't true.
I'm innocent.
And when I go to trial, I'll be, by God's grace, acquitted.
It's been difficult for me and for my wife and for, not for my children, because we protect them as best as we can from that.
But the truth is, yeah, I understand how my own behavior contributed to the conditions that have subsequently been exploited and reframed.
And I take responsibility for my own conduct.
And I recognize that to live as I lived for a long while was likely to have consequences.
It was a very selfish way to live.
And evidently, people were harmed and hurt by it.
Certainly not in the manner that's been claimed because I've never engaged in any non-consensual activity, nor would I. But what I have to take responsibility for is the fact that if you sleep around with lots of people and if there is an imbalance in power, that's something that can subsequently be looked at differently.
But I really appreciate you saying that, Lindy.
I really do.
And in terms of, you know, being sort of publicly attacked or publicly judged, in a way, it's only really an amplification or exaggeration of what was previously happening.
People get an upgrade now.
People that don't like me used to just be able to say, oh, I don't like him for this reason.
And now they can use deeply pejorative terms to express their dislike of me.
And I'm in no position to deny them the right to say whatever they want.
And I'm glad we live in a culture generally where people can say what they want.
Certainly I would advocate for free speech, even when I don't benefit from that free speech.
That's what having principles is all about.
But really also, I'm grateful that it's due to the nature of the crisis, meant I've turned and been turned over to Jesus in the most explicit way imaginable, in the deepest way imaginable, inso much as my personal resources have failed me.
And before that, I think I've always kind of been a devotee of materialism and what we would have to refer to as a kind of paganism, Lindy, the idea that, you know, through our own humors and our own resources, the own sort of pantheon of inner deities, our own personal Mars and Venus, that we can achieve greatness or if not greatness, fulfillment, that we can achieve fulfillment.
And now I don't believe in any of that.
I don't believe in any of that.
I repent.
I turn away from my former life.
I turn towards Christ.
I am the happy recipient of his grace.
I recognize that I'm Saved not through my own merit or my own endeavor, but through his benevolence.
Yes, and I pray for an increase in faith so that I can turn to him more.
Do you remember what Hebrews chapter 11, verse 1 is?
I'm looking at Hebrews chapter 11 right now and the heroes of faith, but I don't know the verse off by heart.
Faith is the belief in things that we do not see.
And I feel like that's something that both you and I now faith is confidence, what we hope for, and assurance about what we do not see.
And I think that encapsulates a lot of what you are telling me.
You have, it's like that, it's like that verse, you have found your strength in your weakness.
Yes, that's Saint Paul.
I boast all the more greatly of my weakness because it's through my weakness that he is strong in me.
And yeah, who among us is not at some point going to be confronted at death, if not before, with our own fallibility and vulnerability?
Yes, what does it say here?
It says, now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.
For by it the people of old received their commendation.
By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.
That's cool.
That's great that you brought that verse.
Of course, my favorites is also everyone's favorite.
1 Corinthians chapter 13.
Love is patient.
Love is kind.
It does not envy.
It does not boast.
I heard on those verses, Lindy, that you should replace the word love with your own name and see how you can stand to that.
Russell doesn't judge.
Russell is mind-blowing.
My son is mind-blown.
Yeah, it's good.
It wasn't mine.
It was told to me by a British minister.
It's a good idea, isn't it?
To see if you can leave it.
That is a very good idea.
I think you all fall short a little bit.
Yes, indeed.
And also the fruits of the spirit that I have to recognize, man, I need that forbearance.
I need patience.
I want more joy.
I want to be kind.
I want to be of benefit to the people that are around me.
But sometimes it's difficult if you feel, Lindy, that your life is a kind of battle.
And I get the sense that you have felt that in your own every day still.
Yeah.
Why is that?
Well, I mean, I just told you an hour ago, somebody realizes that I can make money and he's trying to take it away from me.
And it's just very sad that the moment that people have dollar signs in their eyes, nothing else matters.
Like, it just doesn't matter.
For a lot of people, their self-interest is everything.
So I feel constantly under siege.
Oh, Lindy.
Well, then let us accept that politics and the realm of politics can never fulfill us, that we might only find fulfillment in dependency on him, the only person that can take our dependency and our clinging at the foot of the cross, who by his blood has saved us and by his resurrection granted us eternal life.
Join us, Lindy, in our campaign to bring about new glory through the service of his name, that none of us are perfect, that all of us are fallible, that except to him, all of us are disposable, that it's only in him that we find our value and our worth.
Let's be more explicit in our love of Christ and let's not worship any more false idols.
Let's recognize that whether it's Kamala Harris or Joe Biden or Donald Trump or J.D. Vance or Elon Musk or Peter Till or Keir Starmer or Urshela von der Leyen, these people are just human beings like us.
We're all on our knees shoulder to shoulder kneeling at the foot of the cross, saved only by his supreme sacrifice, not by our merit.
And that let's glory his name and bring his name to as many people as possible together.
Then you'll know that when I inevitably let you down because I'm a human being and I'm selfish and self-absorbed and concupiscent and hopeless, that you never believed in me anyway, that you only believed in Jesus Christ, that he is your Savior as much as mine, that he loves us both uniquely and he would die for us if we were the only people that had ever lived.
And why don't you dedicate your incredible power to raising money, to his eternal and perpetual service and his grace and preparation for his coming return?
I have.
I actually, my entire life has been animated by my faith.
It has.
My life has defied our odds.
We don't have all day today, but like I've survived so much.
You wouldn't even believe it.
You would be stunned if you knew all the things that I've survived.
It's just, but you're absolutely right.
By the way, do you listen to Christian music?
Not really.
Why?
Remember what Nietzsche said?
Without music, life would be a mistake?
I'm very much in alignment with that.
I'm a classical pianist.
Oh, of course.
Well, I am.
And so music and Christian music in particular, I've been through a lot of pain and it's incredibly healing.
I don't know if you're ever looking for solace, but I highly recommend Christian music.
There's nothing like it.
Well, I'm looking for solace.
What Christian music?
It's a broad genre.
I mean, that could mean Bob Dylan.
It could mean Brandon Lake.
What do you mean?
There's a song in particular, Tis So Sweet.
Have you heard of it?
No.
It's just...
No, I wanted to give you the full title of the song.
It's Tis So Sweet to Trust in Jesus.
Have you heard of it?
It's very good.
I highly recommend it.
It's life transforming.
I remember hearing this particular version.
And I just stopped.
I stopped in my tracks.
I was tired.
What's going to play now?
Do you want me to?
By the way, this interview is one of the most unique I've ever had in the interview.
This is what I do every night.
I listen to Christian music, and it kind of just washes away all of my pain.
I know that sounds so weird.
Not really.
Chef, go ahead.
Jesus, Jesus, how I trust you how I true, I will surrender, Jesus, Jesus.
Christine,
I don't know It's so
sweet To trust in Jesus Just to take Him at His word Just to rest upon His
promise Just to know the same thought It's so sweet To trust in Jesus Just
from sin and self to cease Just from Jesus Simply taking Life and rest And joy and peace And joy and
peace Jesus Jesus Jesus How I trust Him How I'm bruised and mourning Amen Jesus Jesus Jesus Precious
Jesus Oh So Praise To trust in Him Oh Oh How sweet To trust in Jesus Just to trust in Jesus
Just to trust in Jesus Just to trust in Jesus Just to trust in Jesus Just to trust in Jesus And in Jesus And in Jesus He's been to Jesus To trust in Jesus To trust in Jesus To trust in Jesus To trust in Jesus To trust in Jesus Lead the
healing, cleansing, pain Oh
Jesus, Jesus Our cross Now I pray for Him More and more
Jesus, Jesus Precious Jesus All those are raised To trust Him Always To trust Him
I'm so glad I learned to trust Him Precious Jesus Save
you, friend And I know That Thou art here To live in peace
with me till Sorry,
I didn't mean for the song to be so long.
That's amazing, Lindy.
Thank you.
So glad you liked it.
It was really beautiful.
Send me some more recommendations.
That's really great.
I reckon me and you will do some more things together.
I love that.
I listen to Christian songs.
It's my superpower, actually.
If someone were to ask me, it's my superpower.
That was good.
That was good to hear that today.
Is there anything else you want to talk about, Lindy Lee?
This is the most extraordinary and beautifully unusual interview I've ever had.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thanks for letting me talk a lot and answer questions.
I was first in the interviewers when I was a teenager and now I'm unfortunately in my 30s.
How old am I?
I can't have 25, right?
You're 25.
I must be.
I'm sure I'm 20.
I remain 25.
I can't have gotten older than that.
That can't have happened.
That's what I thought.
But what I mean is, if you had told me a decade ago that I would be speaking with you, I would not have believed them.
So today was incredibly special for me.
Well, it's been special for me as well.
You're so kind and you're so lovely and you're so bright and you're so brilliant.
I hope we can do good things for the kingdom together, Lindy Lee.
That would be an honor and a privilege.
Well, I hope you enjoyed that conversation.
Tomorrow, we will be back with our watch along.
We're looking at Tommy Robinson's documentary.
You might want to watch part one, first of all.
Tommy Robinson made a documentary about a British media scandal where a couple of schoolboys, one a Syrian refugee and one a British kid, had a fight and it blew up into a media incident.
Tommy Robinson uses that as a kind of fulcrum to analyze British media and British political institutions.
He's a divisive figure in the UK, but then, hey, baby, so am I. Is the brilliant watcher along?
Let us know if you want to see Tommy Robinson on the show and if you believe like I do that new alliances between people from across the political spectrum, what we would have once regarded as the political spectrum, people from the right, from the left, Christians, atheists, materialists, Jews and Muslims might yet come together to subvert this anti-Christ, draconian, globalist, elitist state establishment.
See you tomorrow, not for more of the same, but for more of the different.
▲
Export Selection