Here we go. Here we go. There we are, look at that. Look at that. Somebody should have told me about my collar. I'm firing somebody. I don't know who it is. Happy Thursday, everyone. I'm super excited.
I'm welcoming Russell Brand to the show. Yes! I've been a fan of Brand for decades, ever since his talk show Big Brothers's Big Mouth. It's a show that was so outrageous, legal wouldn't even let us show it, which sucks. But even at the start of his career, he was a brilliant brain in search of food at a time when the shelves were bare. But now Brand has made the most abrupt change in his career, in any career since O.J. Simpson. Brand was a great comedian, successful actor, bigger than most rock stars. It helped that he looked like Rasputin had sex with Janis Joplin. They even had him play rock stars in movies because he was better at it than they were. And before he got sober, he proved no amount of drugs could take him down. So he's a comedian, TV star, movie star, married to pop star's hyper-articulate, dresses like a shabby hypnotist, tall and handsome, the hippest guy in Shangri-La. I mean, he inspired me to get hair plugs on my chest.
COMEDIAN RUSSELL BRAND: ‘FASCIST,’ ‘NAZI’ JUST CONVENIENT TERMS FOR ‘PEOPLE YOU DON’T AGREE WITH'
And what does he do? He walks away from it. He walks away from it like Hunter Biden strolling away from a stripper's baby. Literally, he lets it go, and for what? To do a podcast, because you know, we don't have enough of them. But he wasn't pushed. He wasn't a victim of cancel culture. No, it's the opposite. They didn't cancel him. He canceled them and no one does that ever. He dumped stardom. So who was the side piece he couldn't resist? Something called truth. Here's a taste.
RUSSEL BRAND MARCH 3, 2023: I've been on that MSNBC mate. It was propagandist. It's nut crackery.
HOST MARCH 3, 2023: Just give me, give me a specific example.
RUSSEL BRAND MARCH 3, 2023: Here are examples: The ludicrous, outrageous criticisms of Joe Rogan around ivermectin were deliberately referring to as a horse medicine, when they know it's an effective medicine here. What about Rachel Maddow turning on the TV saying, "If you take this vaccine, you're not going to get it," when it hadn't been clinical trialed... You're participating in the same game.
I feel so bad for him. It's like he wore that Joy Division shirt for nothing. But it's not like Brand was knocking just MSNBC. He was knocking us as well, but I can take it I'm a big boy, even though I buy my shoes at Baby Gap, because I know that I am biased. Just like I know that I'm short or strikingly handsome. That's the difference. I don't pretend you'd mistake me for Edward R. Murrow, mainly because he's dead and still gets better ratings than Don Lemon.
So what could drive a movie star to leave it all behind to join an uncertain future, one that may in fact offer a way out? Well, today we're watching a narrative pumped up by algorithms and media corporations that incite conflict because it makes money, and it preserves the power of such algorithms and corporate bosses. It directs our behavior by spiking our anger with every headline and missing fact and as long as we as a nation fight amongst ourselves, we can't fight them. It's genius, really. If only someone had said this three years ago.
GREG GUTFELD SEPTEMBER 26, 2020: We're watching a narrative pumped up by algorithms and media corporations inciting conflict because it makes money, and it preserves the power of such algorithms and corporate bosses. It directs our behavior by spiking our anger with every headline and missing fact and as long as we as a nation fight amongst ourselves, we can't fight them. It's genius, really.
Wow. It's almost like age backward. Five years from now, I'll be doing this show in a diaper. So that's how I feel about Russell. How does he feel about me? I bet Greg Gutfeld vibrates as a human being in hatred.
RUSSELL BRAND AUGUST 27, 2014: Greg Gutfeld vibrates as a human being in hatred... Greg's a bit of a swine and a bit of a snipe.... You're a silly sausage. You're stealing oxygen, and you're wasting time... Your name, your weird facial orifice looks like a caving in anus and most importantly, your views, your espousing of hatred, your emptiness, you're, the echoing tub of your mind.
Very good. F.Y.I., after describing my face as an anus, he received thousands of complaint letters, but from anuses. By the way, I consider that a compliment. The anus is very important. I can crack a stock of celery in half. So did I burn all my posters of him at a bonfire? No, because I remember that I had it coming.
GREG GUTFELD AUGUST 26, 2014: You know, it's bad when a left wing commie scum named Russell Brand actually weighs in... While Russell Brand is lecturing the United States on bigotry, the deadliest form of bigotry radical Islam is spewing from his homeland, but he's too much of a coward to actually focus on that.... He should talk about what's going on in his home and not in ours.
So there you go. I'm bad, if not worse, which is why I'm grateful Brand came here because he didn't have to. He doesn't need me, that's for sure. Meanwhile, as Brand visits us, and Bill Maher, and Joe Rogan and Tucker, we see how corporate media and the government it protects go after all four. We know how CNN accused Rogan of advocating taking horse pills. It was a lie so bold, even horses said, "nay." But it was a direct attack on someone threatening their power. And now here's a headline from The New Statesman about Russell Brand: We Have Lost Russell Brand. And why?
You know, I didn't read the article because it was behind a paywall and if I want to give money to progressives, I'll tip a barista. But the reason? He's no longer saying what they want him to say, just using the word "lost" implies they owned him in the first place. But now he's what Elizabeth Warren would call off the reservation. And of course, there's Tucker, who adds more and not less information to a story that the media claims is bigger than 9/11 and yet when they get all this new stuff, they go after him instead. And why? Because he undermined their corrupt narrative. And there's this an actual senator.
SENATE MAJORITY LEADER CHUCK SCHUMER: Last night, millions of Americans tuned in to one of the most shameful hours we have ever seen on cable television... And he's going to come back tonight with another segment. Fox News should tell him not to. I urge Fox News to order Carlson to cease propagating the big lie on his network and to level with their viewers about the truth.
That's one of our oldest senators, you can smell him before he enters the room. It's a combo of Bengay and ----. He's calling a private company to censor an employee. I think it's good to hear that out in the open because, you know, they always say the First Amendment only applies to the public sphere. But when the government puts its thumb on a private company, that's censorship, too. And now the FTC is asking Elon Musk to identify all journalists who had access to Twitter Files. Any word from any media reporters? Nope. I haven't seen a media this speechless since The View discovered an old donut in Joy Behar's armpit. And today, this is from today, watch how these Democrats treat Matt Taibbi.
REP. SYLVIA GARCIA: When was the first time that Mr. Musk approached you about writing the Twitter Files?
MATT TAIBBI: You're asking a journalist to reveal his source?
REP. SYLVIA GARCIA: So, then you consider Mr. Musk to be the direct source of all of this?
MATT TAIBBI: No. Now you're, you're trying to get me to say that he is the source.
REP. SYLVIA GARCIA: If you're telling me you can't answer because he's your source, well, then the only logical conclusion is that he is, in fact, your source.
MATT TAIBBI: Well, you're free to conclude that.
REP. SYLVIA GARCIA: Well, sir, I just don't understand. You can't have it both ways.
REP. JIM JORDAN: No, he can. He's a journalist.
REP. SYLVIA GARCIA: No he can't.
I guess if democracy dies in darkness, they're the ones turning off the lights. So it's an implosion of a two party system, but not in government, it's the media. We've been stuck in the prison of two ideas for so long. You have two choices, left or right, but now it's falling apart.
People like Brand, Tucker, Rogan, Glenn Greenwald, Matt Taibbi, they're voices that identify with no one, and yet millions identify with them. If that's how the future looks, we should all be happy. And it's thanks in no small part to the epic journey of Mr. Russell Brand, may continue says this flapping anus.
